The life in USA

Mycutrvo

Preface

When I sitting at my desk with hundreds books overwhelm me, I always feel too exhausted to go on working but I have to desperate and devote all my remained energy to go on achieving my goal （to my ideal university）. No matter how assiduously I work, l am always allured by my imagination (what an utopian imagination). Although I regret that I always be distracted by whim, I do not tend to exterminate it. So I take one hour everyday to write something about my imagination not only to increase my creativity but also to practice my writing skill.

In a deep and chill winter night, I am pondering which kind of topic to write, at that time thousands of ideas flood to my brain, and my brain is as hot as the burning caldron for I am ruminating which subject is most fit me as my skin.

At first I have write several pomes, dailies and unfinished novels as abridged blow:

Introduction: this novel is an interesting and exiting tour in Maverick’s our brain, tells a truth (you need to find in the novel) and reflect a vivid experience of student.

Notice: to encourage myself, to practice, to express my love to English literature and to reveal a truth, I want to write this novel.

Also, I want to send this to my mother as a gift to appreciate my mother’s love to me!

INDEX:

Having a long dream----------chapter 1

Be captured-----------------------------chapter 2

In the court---------------------------chapter 3

The beginning of the war-chapter 4

Day 1 of the war ----------------- chapter 5

Day 2 of the war------------------ chapter 6

Day 3 of the war------------------ chapter 7

Day 4 of the war ----------------- chapter 8

Day 5 of the war ----------------- chapter 9

Day 6 of the war ----------------- chapter 10

Day 7 of the war ----------------- chapter 11

Day 8 of the war------------------ chapter 12

Day 9 of the war------------------ chapter 13

Meeting a magician----------- chapter 14

Using time machine----------- chapter 15

The purpose of the war- chapter 16

Leaving aC party---------------- chapter 17

Joining Ez party---------------- chapter 18

Triumph!-------------------------------- chapter 19

The second war------------------- chapter 20

Day 1 of the war---------------- chapter 21

Day 2 of the war---------------- chapter 22

Day 3 of the war---------------- chapter 23

A twist in the war---------- chapter 24

Failure---------------------------------- chapter 25

Hiding------------------------------------- chapter 26

Preparing----------------------------- chapter 27

Getting information---- chapter 28

Fighting-------------------------------- chapter 29

Winning---------------------------------- chapter 30

Signature----------------------------- chapter 31

Peace--------------------------------------- chapter 32

Back----------------------------------------- chapter 33

Arguing---------------------------------- chapter 34

Changing-------------------------------- chapter 35

Maverick decision----------- chapter 36

Make it!!!------------------------------ chapter 37

Admired by others---------- chapter 38

Regretting-------------------------- chapter 39

Being pressured----------------- chapter 40

Glorify life------------------------ chapter 41

Appendix:-------------------------------- chapter 42

My poem

DAily

Chapter I

Having a long dream.

Creating, playing, constructing and tricking were some of the activities which Maverick did in his childhood. Some anecdotes may indicate how clever he was when he his was young. It only in his 5 months that he began to walk and to speak! Even when he was 6 month year old he could driving his learning walk car very quickly and sometimes he could do some acrobat such as drift that is amazing and astonish! As he was 3 year old he knew how to use trick, one day when he want to eat the chocolate on a high self but he was not tall enough to reach it, he told to his mother that “ma me do you want to eat the chocolate on that self and apiece me a part.” When his was only 5 years old, he could recite 300 poems form Tang Empire and Song Empire! In his 6 and 7 years old, he could fix different kinds of model planes, ships, cars and even fix electric circuits. However, since he went to kindergarten, a lot of antique, cliché, platitude even absurd and traditional creeds prevent his development of creativity and even more his classmates were always jealous of his noble family so they insult him by some violent words and beat him and then he became more and more autism and heat others, but his curiosity has not been completely annihilated. But not lasting so long, his creativity was extricated by 6 years middle school education for he accept too much garbage creeds and a strange way of leaning acidulous work without short cut. Moreover, he only sleeps 3 hours a day to get so called high score. Since 12 years have passed, he has been thoroughly exhausted. One day, when he fall sleep, a thin and weak spirit warn him with a anger accent that “if you go on treating you body in that way and continue to beat your body to get energy to study you will regret what you have done.” Not listening to what his mind has warned him, does he go on working until some ting terrible happens. So one day when the test is over, although every high school students are at high spirit and extremely jubilant for these senior high school students have finished (traditional) college entrance test, Maverick fall down on the desk with dammed paper even the teachers shouted at him. 10 minutes ago, those students go out the test center slovenly and looked down him even his classmate laughers at him and ping him by a 2B pencil. However he feels nothing but only a bit pain for he is having a long dream.

Chapter 2

Be captured

He feels he drops from a huge text book but he a soft thing support and prevent he from being hurt. “What’s the matter?” he says to himself. A lot of unique and gigantic tissue around him, he does not know where he is. Suddenly an electronic light passes him as an asteroid and others pass him in different direction. He considers those lights as dropping asteroids just as what teacher said, and he kneels down to pray that he can get high score. Then, to follow the track of the “asteroid” he goes deeper along the “soft road”. The deeper he approaches the hotter he can feel. Finally he stops at a chair like tissue to have a rest. At this moment, a BD sprit appears affront him and he is aghast by that. The spirit shouts at him that “why you cut me by knife, heat me by boiling water, beat me by a huge stick and get rid of my time to take exercise when you are devoting to study! He realizes that he is in his own mind and one of his sprit which represents his coral body is talking to him for he knows that when he beat his own body to refresh himself, his mind warned him that “if he went on doing that, he would be punished”. He stars at the spirit and says “you are my slave so you must obey me”. The spirit begins to rage and extends several hands to capture him. Poor Maverick is thrown into a Brain Prison and he is accused for his violence to his body.

FOOT NOT: the communication of neuron by using electric partials.

Chapter 3

In the court

He is amazing about that for his own mind dear to capture him and he is trying to break the Brain Prison, but consequently he is too exhaust to go on breaking the door and fence. At that moment, several brain cells force him to enter a broad chamber that is named as Brain court and to the center of the court. The magistrate is the highest rank governor of the mind called MD spirit and several witnesses they are BD spirit, DE spirit, LE spirit, CU spirit AC spirit, PH spirit and LA spirit. Maverick’s attorney is LA spirit and the juries are brain cells, neurons, and tissues. MD spirit strikes the gavel and begins to justify the case. The DE spirit shouts loudly that “Maverick is guilty for he is a tyranny and he always annihilates me by beating his body!” BD spirit says “absolutely right! Maverick not only beat me but also burn, pinch and cut me. He must be sent to the guillotine!” PH spirit says “I become more and more nervous and agitated for his extremely desire to get high score and his aloof to others things. He does barricade his desire.” When they are arguing, Maverick’s attorney LA spirit refutes that “it is his own efforts and his strong willing to study that make him achieve his goal which make him earn more money and enjoy his life!” AC spirit agrees that and validates that “a great triumph comes from hard work and ascetic behavior.” CU spirit gainsays this notion by judging that “curiosity and creativity make one approach one’s goal facilely!” LA spirit proves that “too tired cells, tissues, neurons and body can reduce one’s efficacy!” Attorney LA spirit has nothing to support his defendant Maverick so poor Maverick is caught and he will be killed next day.

FOOT NOTE: BD = BODY CU=CURISITY PH=PSYCHOLOGY MD=MIND LE= LEARNING DE=DESIRE LA=LABOR AC= ascetic LA=labor

Chapter 4

The beginning of the war.

When the night come, Maverick is pondering why he has done is wrong and he feels a bit lost in the lonely dark prison. No matter when he think he will die tomorrow, he feel extremely depressed and he cannot believe that is true. As he is praying the God to protect his young life, a great bang comes from the dark lane of the prison and the door is pried open by great force. LE spirit and AC spirit break and rush into the prison. They catch hold of Maverick’s hands and drag him out of the prison. When Maverick is released, he feels noting but happy. They push Maverick into a blood vessel and the force of the blood send they to the deep brain an uncover base. The base is equipped with different kinds of apparatus and weapons (electric cannons). Maverick is amazed by this site and happy with his prison broken. LA spirit and AC spirit invite Maverick to sit down on a glorify chair and mutter that “you are our lord. We need your help to fight against EZ party which is composed of BD spirit, CU spirit, PH spirit and LA spirit and we plan to organize AC party.” Maverick addresses with confidence that “thanks guys! It is my honor to be your leader. What about make a plan of our campaign. What about fighting with EZ party tomorrow?” LE spirit and AC spirit says that “we cannot agree with you more.” To make strategies and plans, they burn the mid night oil. The plan is addressed blow.

Maverick’s strategies

The purpose of our war is to exterminate EZ party.

What we need to do is to damage the defend system, launch air raids to destroy Neuron systems (as human’s information systems), command our cells (AC party’s soldiers) to break through the boundary of EZ party, go on advancing and marching into deep land of EZ party, solid ate our defendant systems, annihilate all their cells (EZ party’s soldiers), occupy their command center.

The first day we should damage defend system of EZ party.

The second day we should launch air raids by our blood cells to destroy Neuron systems.

The third day we should command our cells to break through the boundary of EZ party.

The forth day we should go on advancing and marching into deep land of EZ party

The fifth day we should solid ate our defendant systems

The sixth day we should annihilate all their cells

The seventh day we should occupy their command center.

As they are planning the war, spectator of mind prison finds that Maverick has gone and this spectator tells that to BD spirit. BD spirits and the rest of spirits in the EZ party are pondering this fact. They discover that this cause must be AC party do and they are pondering whether AC party will launch a war to decimate us. At that moment a neuron send information that AC party and Maverick is planning how to assail us. Since hearing that, EZ party decides to defend and make war plan to defend AC party on the next day morning.

Chapter 5

Day 1 of the war

Chapter 42

Appendix

My poems

The purpose of my poem is to encourage myself, practice my writing and appreciate the English literature!

Truth

As I open my mother and my painful and pity experience, I was enlightened.

by the life of a man.

by the success of a man.

by the relationship between people.

I have realized that

although one can have an utopian dream, one’s life is full of thorns, blocks and risks.

No matter how many friends, family members and teachers can help me, the life is depends on myself efforts that make me achieve my ideal goal!

Even the closest friends are not as well as my mother for ever one wants to content himself and I am only the tool of my friends (the better one can pretend to treat the tool the better one can use the tool)

The truth of the life is as clear as spring.

No one can really truest except my mother.

I can only depends my own force in the lonely and vast world.

Thorns will die! Courage will bring the light of hope!

I am pondering.

Whether the life is teemed with thorns or not?

I am pondering.

How hard my soul will face?

I am pondering.

What kind of dilemmas I will deal with in the life?

But I never hesitate to face the hardest things.

I am young.

I am full of energy.

I am filled with motion.

I believe one day I can cut those thons.

I believe one day I can do with the hardest things.

I believe one day I can break all the dilemmas in the life!

The sun will rise, the haze will go, and the blue sky will appear.

I can make it!

Maverick

We share the same azure.

We share the same moon.

We share the same sun.

We share the same earth

We share the same universe.

However, we are separate.

Although we may have same blood type, our genies are alternative.

Although we may have same appearance, our troughs are alternative.

No one can control us for our solo characteristics.

To be unique is to be successive.

To be extraordinary is to be personal.

On the long road access to the triumph, maverick is vital!!!

Stopping means collapse

Study is not water that can be accumulated.

Study is not sands that can be accumulated

Study is not stamps that can be accumulated.

However, knowledge does not always exist in one’s memory.

As knowledge will escape and elapse.

Several years efforts may disappear when one stop learning.

As ship in torrent, if ship stops moving, water will push ship back to start point.

On the contrary, I believe I can pick up my lost knowledge with in several minutes.

Because of my trust in my potential.

Because of my trust in my ultimate powered.

Because of my distrust in blocks!!!

Young is my fortune

I want to own money.

I want to own luxury cars.

I want to own a chattel.

I want to own beauty.

I want to own planes.

I want to own ships.

However, I have own the most fundamental fortune the young.

I am young so I am full of energy.

I am young so I have enough time.

I am young so I have a lot of opportunity to achieve my goal.

I am young so I am passionate.

Young mental and young body can make me own everything! Conventional fuck up the entire world

As man becomes more and more intelligence with the centuries elapse.

The more intelligence the more we will accomplish.

Accomplishment creak our experience, rich history and fears to fail.

So today, all the experience, rich history and fears to fail are written in to a book.

The book creak our cliché, platitude, hackneyed, and tilted thought.

It is the thought circumvent our improvement.

It is the thought exterminate our creativity.

It is the thought make us fail for thousands of years in the future.

Until a brave man kill, exterminate, annihilate, and uproot the thought, we can accomplish again!

Abstain

Should we abstain from our desires just as confusion said: “contenting poor condition, edifying luxury moral.”? Although this kind of thought is cliché and hackneyed, in some cases we should abstain from something and in some circumstance we should release our buried desires.

As I was secondary school student, Chinese traditional education annihilates our thoughts. Teachers forced us to recite some passages on politics and compelled us to respect communist party. To achieve that, teachers not only force us to recite such articles but also prevent us have some other activities such preventing us listening to music in school, playing foot ball in school, reading novels in school, even talking together with more than 5 people. 3 years ago, everyone is as dull as a desiccated tree, but fortunately I keep my creativity successfully. How can I do that? If I had been exterminated my own thought, I were as idiot as sow . I release my desires as much as I can. One day, when teacher compelled us to recite a politics article and test us next day. To reserve my own thought, I did not recite this platitude thing at all, instead of arguing with teacher directly. Unfortunately, I was captured to the principal’s office and locked me for 2 hours. When the teacher coming I warned the principal, that “I give you only 7 minutes tell me the reason why you catch me and your dependence must convince me or I will break the door and fight for freedom!”. Principal was shock by my words because almost of the entire student respected principal as an ass. Finally, he did know what to say and released me. However, the principal bring several communists to my home to persuade my family members to change my thought and make me abide by communist party. To their surprise, my grandfather thundered: “you guys want to change my grandchild’s thought. No way! Everyone has the right to own their own thought.” Albeit my parents did not blame me, the next day principal and other teachers blamed me openly in communist owing ceremony. Felling extremely, I came back to classroom because every classmate honored my brave behavior and called me as hero. I did not abstain from my desires and thought instead I release them. In a common word, under the circumstance that one is unhappy, deplored, forced and depressed, one should do their best to release their desires to make one feel better.

However under a certain circumstance, one should abstain from desires. Overwhelmed by great burden of responsibility to family and myself, when I was a high school student, I devoted all my efforts that I could exert to chase my dream. To engross my work, I abstain from as many desires as I could such as the desire of playing. To do so, I abnegate all the habits to concentrate on my ultimate goal since then it has been four years and I always work assiduously even in spring festival that is extremely important festival in China, but after meal, I pick up my book and keep on working no matter how happy those friends play fireworks under stair, I still absorbed in my work. To achieve something, one should be stoic to gain the final goal.

As the reasons and examples addressed above, I want to conclude that one not only need to abstain but also need to release desires.

Though I have plan to how the write the novel called Maverick’s brain cruise, I have to hold up writing this fiction for my limited skill and considering some improper usage and expression and instead I want to write another folk which may be more logical.

I have give up writing my previous novel but still have no idea to write which subject novel. At this time, I am looking around my overwhelm books and I find several favorite novels such as Narnia (by C.S Lewis) , Harry potter (J.K Rowling) and ELDEST (by Christopher Paolin). I sum up the genes of those books and I conclude that 9 out of 10 are about myth and cruise. So to meet with my interesting I decide to compose a novel on myth and cruise.

What is the name of this book? This question is still hunting in my mind. To make a excellent and exceptional name, I make a list in my mind as addressed blow:

To emphasis myth to accentuate cruise

Words myth, legend, saga, anecdote cruise, travel, voyage (those words have same meaning but are identifying in detail which is the way of travelling.)

I make up my mind to name after myth, cruise, travel and voyage as abbreviated form Mycutrvo!

That is all I want to write!

As my conscience, this book is for my family

Especially my mother, grandfather, and grandmother.

Also I want to enjoy the jubilant experience of

Writing novel

Imagination venture

Expressing thought

Composing words

Ruminating expression

Enjoying fairyland

Connecting magic

Cruising in my mind!

As aquiline !

Novel

i have writtend novels , dailes and poems recently i will post it every day

a novel form o henry

The Voice of the City



by O Henry










THE VOICE OF THE CITY









Twenty-five years ago the school children used

to chant their lessons. The manner of their delivery

was a singsong recitative between the utterance of an

Episcopal minister and the drone of a tired sawmill.

I mean no disrespect. We must have lumber and

sawdust.



I remember one beautiful and instructive little

lyric that emanated from the physiology class. The

most striking line of it was this:



"The shin-bone is the long-est bone in the hu-man

bod-y."



What an inestimable boon it would have been if

all the corporeal and spiritual facts pertaining to

man bad thus been tunefully and logically inculcated

in our youthful minds! But what we gained in

anatomy, music and philosophy was meagre.



The other day I became confused. I needed a

ray of light. I turned back to those school days for

aid. But in all the nasal harmonies we whined forth

from those bard benches I could not recall one that

treated of the voice of agglomerated mankind.



In other words, of the composite vocal message of

massed humanity.



In other words, of the Voice of a Big City.



Now, the individual voice is not lacking. We can

understand the song of the poet, the ripple of the

brook, the meaning of the man who wants $5 until

next Monday, the inscriptions on the tombs of the

Pharaohs, the language of flowers, the "step lively"

of the conductor, and the prelude of the milk cans at

4 A. M. Certain large-eared ones even assert that

they are wise to the vibrations of the tympanum pro-

need by concussion of the air emanating from Mr.

H. James. But who can comprehend the meaning

of the voice of the city?



I went out for to see.



First, I asked Aurelia. She wore white Swiss and a

bat with flowers on it, and ribbons and ends of things

fluttered here and there.



"Tell me," I said, stammeringly, for I have no

voice of my own, "what does this big - er -

enormous - er - whopping city say? It must have

a voice of some kind. Does it ever speak to you?

How do you interpret its meaning? It is a tremen-

dous mass, but it must have a key:'



"Like a Saratoga trunk?" asked Aurelia.



"No," said I. "Please do not refer to the lid. I

have a fancy that every city has a voice. Each one

has something to say to the one who can hear it.

What does the big one say to you? "



"All cities," said Aurelia, judicially, "say the

same thing. When they get through saying it

there is an echo from Philadelphia. So, they are

unanimous."



"Here are 4,000,000 people," said I, scholastic-

ally, "compressed upon an island, which is mostly

lamb surrounded by Wall Street water. The conjunc-

tion of so many units into so small a space must

result in an identity - or, or rather a homogeneity

that finds its oral expression through a common chan-

nel. It is, as you might say, a consensus of transla-

tion, concentrating in a crystallized, general idea

which reveals itself in what may be termed the Voice

of the City. Can you tell me what it is?



Aurelia smiled wonderfully. She sat on the high

stoop. A spray of insolent ivy bobbed against her

right ear. A ray of impudent moonlight flickered

upon her nose. But I was adamant, nickel-

plated.



"I must go and find out," I said, "what is the

Voice of this city. Other cities have voices. It is an

assignment. I must have it. New York," I con-

tinned, in a rising tone, "had better not hand me a

cigar and say: ' Old man, I can't talk for publication.'

No other city acts in that way. Chicago says, unhes-

itatingly, 'I will;' I Philadelphia says, 'I should;'

New Orleans says, ' I used to;' Louisville says,

'Don't care if I do;' St. Louis says, 'Excuse me;'

Pittsburg says, 'Smoke up.' Now, New York - "



Aurelia smiled.



"Very well," said I, "I must go elsewhere and find

out."



I went into a palace, tile-floored, cherub-ceilinged

and square with the cop. I put my foot on the brass

rail and said to Billy Magnus, the best bartender in

the diocese:



Billy, you've lived in New York a long time

what kind of a song-and-dance does this old town give

you? What I mean is, doesn't the gab of it seem to

kind of bunch up and slide over the bar to you in a

sort of amalgamated tip that bits off the burg in a

kind of an epigram with a dash of bitters and a slice

of - "



"Excuse me a minute," said Billy, "somebody's

punching the button at the side door."



He went away; came back with an empty tin

bucket; again vanished with it full; returned and

said to me:



"That was Mame. She rings twice. She likes a

glass of beer for supper. Her and the kid. If you

ever saw that little skeesicks of mine brace up in his

high chair and take his beer and - But, say, what

was yours? I get kind of excited when I bear them

two rings -was it the baseball score or gin fizz you

asked for?"



"Ginger ale," I answered.



I walked up to Broadway. I saw a cop on the cor-

ner. The cops take kids up, women across, and men

in. I went up to him.



If I'm not exceeding the spiel limit," I said, "let

me ask you. You see New York during its vocative

hours. It is the function of you and your brother

cops to preserve the acoustics of the city. There must

be a civic voice that is intelligible to you. At night

during your lonely rounds you must have beard it.

What is the epitome of its turmoil and shouting?

What does the city say to you?



"Friend," said the policeman, spinning his club,

"it don't say nothing. I get my orders from the

man higher up. Say, I guess you're all right. Stand

here for a few minutes and keep an eye open for the

roundsman."



The cop melted into the darkness of the side street.

In ten minutes be had returned.



"Married last Tuesday," be said, half gruffly.

"You know bow they are. She comes to that corner

at nine every night for a - comes to say ' hello! ' I

generally manage to be there. Say, what was it you

asked me a bit ago - what's doing in the city? Oh,

there's a roof-garden or two just opened, twelve

blocks up."



I crossed a crow's-foot of street-car tracks, and

skirted the edge of an umbrageous park. An

artificial Diana, gilded, heroic, poised, wind-ruled,

on the tower, shimmered in the clear light of her

namesake in the sky. Along came my poet, hurry-

ing, hatted, haired, emitting dactyls, spondees and

dactylis. I seized him.

"Bill," said I (in the magazine he is Cleon), "give

me a lift. I am on an assignment to find out the

Voice of the city. You see, it's a special order. Ordi-

narily a symposium comprising the views of Henry

Clews, John L. Sullivan, Edwin Markham, May Ir-

win and Charles Schwab would be about all. But this

is a different matter. We want a broad, poetic,

mystic vocalization of the city's soul and meaning.

You are the very chap to give me a hint. Some years

ago a man got at the Niagara Falls and gave us its

pitch. The note was about two feet below the lowest

G on the piano. Now, you can't put New York into

a note unless it's better indorsed than that. But give

me an idea of what it would say if it should speak. It

is bound to be a mighty and far-reaching utterance.

To arrive at it we must take the tremendous crash of

the chords of the day's traffic, the laughter and music

of the night, the solemn tones of Dr. Parkhurst, the

rag-time, the weeping, the stealthy bum of cab-wbeels,

the shout of the press agent, the tinkle of fountains

on the roof gardens, the hullabaloo of the strawberry

vender and the covers of Everybody's Magazine, the

whispers of the lovers in the parks - all these sounds,

must go into your Voice - not combined, but mixed,

and of the mixture an essence made; and of the es-

sence an extract - an audible extract, of which one

drop shall form the thing we seek."



"Do you remember," asked the poet, with a

chuckle, "that California girl we met at Stiver's

studio last week? Well, I'm on my way to see her.

She repeated that poem of mine, ' The Tribute of

Spring,' word for word. She's the smartest proposi-

tion in this town just at present. Say, how does this

confounded tie look? I spoiled four before I got one

to set right."



"And the Voice that I asked you about?" I in-

quired.



"Oh, she doesn't sing," said Cleon. "But you

ought to bear her recite my 'Angel of the Inshore

Wind.'"



I passed on. I cornered a newsboy and be flashed

at me prophetic pink papers that outstripped the

news by two revolutions of the clock's longest hand.



"Son," I said, while I pretended to chase coins in

my penny pocket, "doesn't it sometimes seem to you

as if the city ought to be able to talk? All these ups

and downs and funny business and queer things hap-

pening every daywhat would it say, do you think,

if it could speak?



"Quit yer kiddin'," said the boy. "Wot paper yer

want? I got no time to waste. It's Mag's birthday,

and I want thirty cents to git her a present."



Here was no interpreter of the city's mouthpiece.

I bought a paper, and consigned its undeclared

treaties, its premeditated murders and unfought bat-

tles to an ash can.



Again I repaired to the park and sat in the moon

shade. I thought and thought, and wondered why

none could tell me what I asked for.



And then, as swift as light from a fixed star, the

answer came to me. I arose and hurried - hurried

as so many reasoners must, back around my circle.

I knew the answer and I bugged it in my breast as I

flew, fearing lest some one would stop me and demand

my secret.



Aurelia was still on the stoop. The moon was

higher and the ivy shadows were deeper. I sat at her

side and we watched a little cloud tilt at the drifting

moon and go asunder, quite pale and discomfited.



And then, wonder of wonders and delight of de-

lights! our hands somehow touched, and our fingers

closed together and did not part.



After half an hour Aurelia said, with that smile

of hers:



"Do you know, you haven't spoken a word since

you came back! "



"That," said I, nodding wisely, "is the Voice of

the City."









THE COMPLETE LIFE OF JOHN HOPKINS





There is a saying that no man has tasted the full

flavor of life until he has known poverty, love and

war. The justness of this reflection commends it to

the lover of condensed philosophy. The three condi-

tions embrace about all there is in life worth knowing.

A surface thinker might deem that wealth should be

added to the list. Not so. When a poor man finds a

long-bidden quarter-dollar that has slipped through

a rip into his vest lining, be sounds the pleasure of

life with a deeper plummet than any millionaire can

hope to cast.



It seems that the wise executive power that rules

life has thought best to drill man in these three con-

ditions; and none may escape all three. In rural

places the terms do not mean so much. Poverty is

less pinching; love is temperate; war shrinks to con-

tests about boundary lines and the neighbors' hens.

It is in the cities that our epigram gains in truth and

vigor; and it has remained for one John Hopkins to

crowd the experience into a rather small space of

time.



The Hopkins flat was like a thousand others.

There was a rubber plant in one window; a flea-

bitten terrier sat in the other, wondering when he

was to have his day.



John Hopkins was like a thousand others. He

worked at $20 per week in a nine-story, red-brick

building at either Insurance, Buckle's Hoisting En-

gines, Chiropody, Loans, Pulleys, Boas Renovated,

Waltz Guaranteed in Five Lessons, or Artificial

Limbs. It is not for us to wring Mr. Hopkins's avo-

cation from these outward signs that be.



Mrs. Hopkins was like a thousand others. The

auriferous tooth, the sedentary disposition, the Sun-

day afternoon wanderlust, the draught upon the

delicatessen store for home-made comforts, the

furor for department store marked-down sales, the

feeling of superiority to the lady in the third-floor

front who wore genuine ostrich tips and had two

names over her bell, the mucilaginous hours during

which she remained glued to the window sill, the vigi-

lant avoidance of the instalment man, the tireless

patronage of the acoustics of the dumb-waiter shaft

- all the attributes of the Gotham flat-dweller were

hers.



One moment yet of sententiousness and the story

moves.



In the Big City large and sudden things happen.

You round a corner and thrust the rib of your um-

brella into the eye of your old friend from Kootenai

Falls. You stroll out to pluck a Sweet William in the

park - and lo! bandits attack you - you are am-

bulanced to the hospital - you marry your nurse;

are divorced - get squeezed while short on U. P. S.

and D. 0. W. N. S. - stand in the bread line - marry

an heiress, take out your laundry and pay your club

dues - seemingly all in the wink of an eye. You

travel the streets, and a finger beckons to you, a

handkerchief is dropped for you, a brick is dropped

upon you, the elevator cable or your bank breaks, a

table d'hote or your wife disagrees with you, and Fate

tosses you about like cork crumbs in wine opened by

an un-feed waiter. The City is a sprightly young-

ster, and you are red paint upon its toy, and you get

licked off.



John Hopkins sat, after a compressed dinner, in

his glove-fitting straight-front flat. He sat upon a

hornblende couch and gazed, with satiated eyes, at

Art Brought Home to the People in the shape of

"The Storm " tacked against the wall. Mrs. Hop-

kins discoursed droningly of the dinner smells from

the flat across the ball. The flea-bitten terrier gave

Hopkins a look of disgust, and showed a man-hating

tooth.



Here was neither poverty, love, nor war; but upon

such barren stems may be grafted those essentials of

a complete life.



John Hopkins sought to inject a few raisins of

conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.



"Putting a new elevator in at the office," he said,

discarding the nominative noun, "and the boss has

turned out his whiskers."



"You don't mean it! commented Mrs. Hopkins.



"Mr. Whipples," continued John, "wore his new

spring suit down to-day. I liked it fine It's a gray

with - " He stopped, suddenly stricken by a need

that made itself known to him. "I believe I'll walk

down to the corner and get a five-cent cigar,"he

concluded.



John Hopkins took his bat aid picked his way

down the musty halls and stairs of the flat-house



The evening air was mild, and the streets shrill

with the careless cries of children playing games con-

trolled by mysterious rhythms and phrases. Their

elders held the doorways and steps with leisurely pipe

and gossip. Paradoxically, the fire-escapes sup-

ported lovers in couples who made no attempt to fly

the mounting conflagration they were there to fan.

The corner cigar store aimed at by John Hopkins

was kept by a man named Freshmayer, who looked

upon the earth as a sterile promontory.



Hopkins, unknown in the store, entered and called

genially for his "bunch of spinach, car-fare grade."

This imputation deepened the pessimism of Fresh-

mayer; but be set out a brand that came perilously

near to filling the order. Hopkins bit off the roots of

his purchase, and lighted up at the swinging gas

jet. Feeling in his pockets to make payment, he

found not a penny there.



"Say, my friend," he explained, frankly, "I've

come out without any change. Hand you that nickel

first time I pass."



Joy surged in Freshmayer's heart. Here was cor-

roboration of his belief that the world was rotten and

man a peripatetic evil. Without a word he rounded

the end of his counter and made earnest onslaught

upon his customer. Hopkins was no man to serve as

a punching-bag for a pessimistic tobacconist. He

quickly bestowed upon Freshmayer a Colorado-

maduro eye in return for the ardent kick that be

received from that dealer in goods for cash only.



The impetus of the enemy's attack forced the

Hopkins line back to the sidewalk. There the con-

flict raged; the pacific wooden Indian, with his

carven smile, was overturned, and those of the street

who delighted in carnage pressed round to view the

zealous joust.



But then came the inevitable cop and imminent

convenience for both the attacker and attacked.

John Hopkins was a peaceful citizen, who worked at

rebuses of nights in a flat, but be was not without the

fundamental spirit of resistance that comes with the

battle-rage. He knocked the policeman into a gro-

cer's sidewalk display of goods and gave Freshmayer

a punch that caused him temporarily to regret that

he had not made it a rule to extend a five-cent line

of credit to certain customers. Then Hopkins took

spiritedly to his heels down the sidewalk, closely fol-

lowed by the cigar-dealer and the policeman, whose

uniform testified to the reason in the grocer's sign

that read: "Eggs cheaper than anywhere else in

the city."



As Hopkins ran he became aware of a big, low,

red, racing automobile that kept abreast of him in

the street. This auto steered in to the side of the

sidewalk, and the man guiding it motioned to Hopkins

to jump into it. He did so without slackening his

speed, and fell into the turkey-red upholstered seat

beside the chauffeur. The big machine, with a dimin-

uendo cough, flew away like an albatross down the

avenue into which the street emptied.



The driver of the auto sped his machine without a

word. He was masked beyond guess in the goggles

and diabolic garb of the chauffeur.



"Much obliged, old man," called Hopkins, grate-

fully. "I guess you've got sporting blood in you,

all right, and don't admire the sight of two men

trying to soak one. Little more and I'd have been

pinched."



The chauffeur made no sign that he had heard.

Hopkins shrugged a shoulder and chewed at his

cigar, to which his teeth had clung grimly through-

out the melee.



Ten minutes and the auto turned into the open

carriage entrance of a noble mansion of brown stone,

and stood still. The chauffeur leaped out, and said:

"Come quick. The lady, she will explain. It is

the great honor you will have, monsieur. Ah, that

milady could call upon Armand to do this thing!

But, no, I am only one chauffeur."



With vehement gestures the chauffeur conducted

Hopkins into the house. He was ushered into a small

but luxurious reception chamber. A lady, young, and

possessing the beauty of visions, rose from a chair.

In her eyes smouldered a becoming anger. Her high-

arched, threadlike brows were ruffled into a delicious

frown.



"Milady," said the chauffeur, bowing low, "I have

the honor to relate to you that I went to the house of

Monsieur Long and found him to be not at home. As

I came back I see this gentleman in combat against

bow you say - greatest odds. He is fighting with

five - ten - thirty men - gendarmes, aussi. Yes,

milady, he what you call 'swat' one - three - eight

policemans. If that Monsieur Long is out I say to

myself this Gentleman be will serve milady so well, and

I bring him here."



"Very well, Armand," said the lady, "you may

go." She turned to Hopkins.



"I sent my chauffeur," she said, "to bring my

cousin, Walter Long. There is a man in this house

who has treated me with insult and abuse. I have

complained to my aunt, and she laughs at me. Ar-

mand says you are brave. In these prosaic days men

who are both brave and chivalrous are few. May I

count upon your assistance?"



John Hopkins thrust the remains of his cigar into

his coat pocket. He looked upon this winning

creature and felt his first thrill of romance. It was a

knightly love, and contained no disloyalty to the flat

with the flea-bitten terrier and the lady of his choice.

He bad married her after a picnic of the Lady Label

Stickers' Union, Lodge No. 2, on a dare and a bet of

new hats and chowder all around with his friend, Billy

McManus. This angel who was begging him to

come to her rescue was something too heavenly for

chowder, and as for hats - golden, jewelled crowns

for her!



"Say," said John Hopkins, "just show me the guy

that you've got the grouch at. I've neglected my

talents as a scrapper heretofore, but this is my busy

night."



"He is in there," said the lady, pointing to a

closed door. "Come. Are you sure that you do not

falter or fear?"



"Me?" said John Hopkins. "Just give me one of

those roses in the bunch you are wearing, will you?"



The lady gave him a red, red rose. John Hopkins

kissed it, stuffed it into his vest pocket, opened the

door and walked into the room. It was a handsome

library, softly but brightly lighted. A young man

was there, reading.



"Books on etiquette is what you want to study,"

said John Hopkins, abruptly. "Get up here, and I'll

give you some lessors. Be rude to a lady, will you?"



The young man looked mildly surprised. Then he

arose languidly, dextrously caught the arms of John

Hopkins and conducted him irresistibly to the front

door of the house.



"Beware, Ralph Branscombe," cried the lady, who

had followed, "what you do to the gallant man who

has tried to protect me."



The young man shoved John Hopkins gently out

the door and then closed it.



"Bess," he said calmly, "I wish you would quit

reading historical novels. How in the world did that

fellow get in here?"



"Armand brought him," said the young lady. "I

think you are awfully mean not to let me have that

St. Bernard. I sent Armand for Walter. I was so

angry with you."



"Be sensible, Bess," said the young man, taking

her arm. "That dog isn't safe. He has bitten two

or three people around the kennels. Come now, let's

go tell auntie we are in good humor again."



Arm in arm, they moved away.



John Hopkins walked to his flat. The janitor's

five-year-old daughter was playing on the steps'

Hopkins gave her a nice, red rose and walked up-

stairs.



Mrs. Hopkins was philandering with curl-papers.



"Get your cigar?" she asked, disinterestedly.



"Sure," said Hopkins, "and I knocked around a

while outside. It's a nice night."



He sat upon the hornblende sofa, took out the

stump of his cigar, lighted it, and gazed at the grace-

ful figures in "The Storm" on the opposite wall.



"I was telling you," said he, "about Mr.

Whipple's suit. It's a gray, with an invisible check,

and it looks fine."









A LICKPENNY LOVER





There, were 3,000 girls in the Biggest Store.

Masie was one of them. She was eighteen and a

selleslady in the gents' gloves. Here she became

versed in two varieties of human beings - the kind of

gents who buy their gloves in department stores and

the kind of women who buy gloves for unfortunate

gents. Besides this wide knowledge of the human

species, Masie had acquired other information. She

had listened to the promulgated wisdom of the 2,999

other girls and had stored it in a brain that was as

secretive and wary as that of a Maltese cat. Per-

haps nature, foreseeing that she would lack wise

counsellors, had mingled the saving ingredient of

shrewdness along with her beauty, as she has endowed

the silver fox of the priceless fur above the other

animals with cunning.



For Masie was beautiful. She was a deep-tinted

blonde, with the calm poise of a lady who cooks butter

cakes in a window. She stood behind her counter in

the Biggest Store; and as you closed your band over

the tape-line for your glove measure you thought

of Hebe; and as you looked again you wondered how

she had come by Minerva's eyes.



When the floorwalker was not looking Masie

chewed tutti frutti; when he was looking she gazed

up as if at the clouds and smiled wistfully.



That is the shopgirl smile, and I enjoin you to

shun it unless you are well fortified with callosity of

the heart, caramels and a congeniality for the capers

of Cupid. This smile belonged to Masie's recreation

hours and not to the store; but the floorwalker must

have his own. He is the Shylock of the stores.

When be comes nosing around the bridge of his nose

is a toll-bridge. It is goo-goo eyes or "git" when

be looks toward a pretty girl. Of course not all floor-

walkers are thus. Only a few days ago the papers

printed news of one over eighty years of age.



One day Irving Carter, painter, millionaire, trav-

eller, poet, automobilist, happened to enter the Big-

gest Store. It is due to him to add that his visit was

not voluntary. Filial duty took him by the collar and

dragged him inside, while his mother philandered

among the bronze and terra-cotta statuettes.



Carter strolled across to the glove counter in order

to shoot a few minutes on the wing. His need for

gloves was genuine; be had forgotten to bring a pair

with him. But his action hardly calls for apology, be-

cause be had never heard of glove-counter flirtations.



As he neared the vicinity of his fate be hesitated,

suddenly conscious of this unknown phase of Cupid's

less worthy profession.



Three or four cheap fellows, sonorously garbed,

were leaning over the counters, wrestling with the

mediatorial hand-coverings, while giggling girls

played vivacious seconds to their lead upon the

strident string of coquetry. Carter would have re-

treated, but he had gone too far. Masie confronted

him behind her counter with a questioning look in

eyes as coldly, beautifully, warmly blue as the glint

of summer sunshine on an iceberg drifting in Southern

seas.



And then Irving Carter, painter, millionaire, etc.,

felt a warm flush rise to his aristocratically pale face.

But not from diffidence. The blush was intellectual

in origin. He knew in a moment that he stood in the

ranks of the ready-made youths who wooed the gig-

gling girls at other counters. Himself leaned against

the oaken trysting place of a cockney Cupid with a

desire in his heart for the favor of a glove salesgirl.

He was no more than Bill and Jack and Mickey.

And then be felt a sudden tolerance for them, and

an elating, courageous contempt for the conventions

upon which he had fed, and an unhesitating deter-

mination to have this perfect creature for his own.



When the gloves were paid for and wrapped the

Carter lingered for a moment. The dimples at

corners of Masie's damask mouth deepened. All gen-

tlemen who bought gloves lingered in just that way.

She curved an arm, showing like Psyche's through

her shirt-waist sleeve, and rested an elbow upon the

show-case edge.



Carter had never before encountered a situation of

which he had not been perfect master. But now he

stood far more awkward than Bill or Jack or Mickey.

He had no chance of meeting this beautiful girl so-

cially. His mind struggled to recall the nature and

habits of shopgirls as be had read or heard of them.

Somehow be had received the idea that they some-

times did not insist too strictly upon the regular

channels of introduction. His heart beat loudly at

the thought of proposing an unconventional meeting

with this lovely and virginal being. But the tumult

in his heart gave him courage.



After a few friendly and well-received remarks on

general subjects, he laid his card by her hand on the

counter.



"Will you please pardon me," he said, "if I seem

too bold; but I earnestly hope you will allow me the

pleasure of seeing you again. There is my name; I

assure you that it is with the greatest respect that

I ask the favor of becoming one of your --

acquaintances. May I not hope for the privilege?"



Masie knew men - especially men who buy gloves.

Without hesitation she looked him frankly and smil-

ingly in the eyes, and said:



"Sure. I guess you're all right. I don't usually

go out with strange gentlemen, though. It ain't

quite ladylike. When should you want to see me

again?"



"As soon as I may," said Carter. "If you would

allow me to call at your home, I -- "



Masie laughed musically. "Oh, gee, no!" she

said, emphatically. "If you could see our flat once!

There's five of us in three rooms. I'd just like to see

ma's face if I was to bring a gentleman friend

there!"



"Anywhere, then," said the enamored Carter,

"that will be convenient to you."



"Say," suggested Masie, with a bright-idea look

in her peach-blow face; "I guess Thursday night will

about suit me. Suppose you come to the corner of

Eighth Avenue and Forty-eighth Street at 7:30. I

live right near the corner. But I've got to be back

home by eleven. Ma never lets me stay out after

eleven."

Carter promised gratefully to keep the tryst, and

then hastened to his mother, who was looking about

for him to ratify her purchase of a bronze Diana.



A salesgirl, with small eyes and an obtuse nose,

strolled near Masie, with a friendly leer.



"Did you make a hit with his nobs, Mase?" she

asked, familiarly.



"The gentleman asked permission to call." an-

swered Masie, with the grand air, as she slipped Car-

ter's card into the bosom of her waist.



"Permission to call!" echoed small eyes, with a

snigger. "Did he say anything about dinner in the

Waldorf and a spin in his auto afterward?"



"Oh, cheese it!" said Masie, wearily. "You've

been used to swell things, I don't think. You've had

a swelled bead ever since that hose-cart driver took

you out to a chop suey joint. No, be never mentioned

the Waldorf; but there's a Fifth Avenue address on

his card, and if be buys the supper you can bet your

life there won't be no pigtail on the waiter what takes

the order."



As Carter glided away from the Biggest Store

with his mother in his electric runabout, he bit his lip

with a dull pain at his heart. He knew that love had

come to him for the first time in all the twenty-nine

years of his life. And that the object of it should

make so readily an appointment with him at a street

corner, though it was a step toward his desires, tor-

tured him with misgivings.



Carter did not know the shopgirl. He did not

know that her home is often either a scarcely habit-

able tiny room or a domicile filled to overflowing with

kith and kin. The street-corner is her parlor, the

park is her drawing-room; the avenue is her garden

walk; yet for the most part she is as inviolate mis-

tress of herself in them as is my lady inside her

tapestried chamber.



One evening at dusk, two weeks after their first

meeting, Carter and Masie strolled arm-in-arm into a

little, dimly-lit park. They found a bench, tree-

shadowed and secluded, and sat there.



For the first time his arm stole gently around her.

Her golden-bronze head slid restfully against his

shoulder.



"Gee!" sighed Masie, thankfully. "Why didn't

you ever think of that before?"



"Masie," said Carter, earnestly, "you surely

know that I love you. I ask you sincerely to marry

me. You know me well enough by this time to have

no doubts of me. I want you, and I must have you.

I care nothing for the difference in our stations."



"What is the difference?" asked Masie, curi-

ously.



"Well, there isn't any," said Carter, quickly, "ex-

cept in the minds of foolish people. It is in my power

to give you a life of luxury. My social position is be-

yond dispute, and my means are ample."



"They all say that," remarked Masie. "It's the

kid they all give you. I suppose you really work in a

delicatessen or follow the races. I ain't as green as

I look."



"I can furnish you all the proofs you want," said

Carter, gently. "And I want you, Masie. I loved

you the first day I saw you."



"They all do," said Masie, with an amused laugh,

"to hear 'em talk. If I could meet a man that got

stuck on me the third time he'd seen me I think I'd

get mashed on him."



"Please don't say such things," pleaded Carter.

"Listen to me, dear. Ever since I first looked into

your eyes you have been the only woman in the world

for me."



"Oh, ain't you the kidder!" smiled Masie. "How

many other girls did you ever tell that?"



But Carter persisted. And at length be reached

the flimsy, fluttering little soul of the shopgirl that

existed somewhere deep down in her lovely bosom.



His words penetrated the heart whose very lightness

was its safest armor. She looked up at him with eyes

that saw. And a warm glow visited her cool cheeks.

Tremblingly, awfully, her moth wings closed, and

she seemed about to settle upon the flower of love.

Some faint glimmer of life and its possibilities on

the other side of her glove counter dawned upon her.

Carter felt the change and crowded the opportunity.



"Marry me, Masie," be whispered softly, "and we

will go away from this ugly city to beautiful ones.

We will forget work and business, and life will be one

long holiday. I know where I should take you - I

have been there often. Just think of a shore where

summer is eternal, where the waves are always rip-

pling on the lovely beach and the people are happy

and free as children. We will sail to those shores and

remain there as long as you please. In one of those

far-away cities there are grand and lovely palaces

and towers full of beautiful pictures and statues.

The streets of the city are water, and one travels

about in --"



"I know," said Masie, sitting up suddenly.

"Gondolas."



"Yes," smiled Carter.



"I thought so," said Masie.



"And then," continued Carter, "we will travel on

and see whatever we wish in the world. After the

European cities we will visit India and the ancient

cities there, and ride on elephants and see the wonder-

ful temples of the Hindoos and Brahmins and the

Japanese gardens and the camel trains and chariot

races in Persia, and all the queer sights of foreign

countries. Don't you think you would like it, Masie?



Masie rose to her feet.



"I think we had better be going home," she said,

coolly. "It's getting late."



Carter humored her. He had come to know her

varying, thistle-down moods, and that it was useless

to combat them. But he felt a certain happy triumph.

He had held for a moment, though but by a silken

thread, the soul of his wild Psyche, and hope was

stronger within him. Once she had folded her wings

and her cool band bad closed about his own.



At the Biggest Store the next day Masie's chum,

Lulu, waylaid her in an angle of the counter.



"How are you and your swell friend making it?

she asked.



"Oh, him?" said Masie, patting her side curls.

"He ain't in it any more. Say, Lu, what do you

think that fellow wanted me to do?"



"Go on the stage?" guessed Lulu, breathlessly.



"Nit; he's too cheap a guy for that. He wanted

me to marry him and go down to Coney Island for

a wedding tour!"







DOUGHERTY'S EYE-OPENER





Big Jim Dougherty was a sport. He belonged

to that race of men. In Manhattan it is a distinct

race. They are the Caribs of the North -- strong,

artful, self-sufficient, clannish, honorable within the

laws of their race, holding in lenient contempt neigh-

boring tribes who bow to the measure of Society's

tapeline. I refer, of course, to the titled nobility of

sportdom. There is a class which bears as a qualify-

ing adjective the substantive belonging to a wind in-

strument made of a cheap and base metal. But the

tin mines of Cornwall never produced the material

for manufacturing descriptive nomenclature for "Big

Jim" Dougherty.



The habitat of the sport is the lobby or the outside

corner of certain -hotels and combination restaurants

and cafes. They are mostly men of different sizes,

running from small to large; but they are unanimous

in the possession of a recently shaven, blue-black

cheek and chin and dark overcoats (in season) with

black velvet collars.



Of the domestic life of the sport little is known. It

has been said that Cupid and Hymen sometimes take

a band in the game and copper the queen of hearts to

lose. Daring theorists have averred - not content

with simply saying - that a sport often contracts a

spouse, and even incurs descendants. Sometimes he.

sits in the game of politics; and then at chowder

picnics there is a revelation of a Mrs. Sport and

little Sports in glazed hats with tin pails.



But mostly the sport is Oriental. He believes his

women-folk should not be too patent. Somewhere be-

bind grilles or flower-ornamented fire escapes they

await him. There, no doubt, they tread on rugs from

Teheran and are diverted by the bulbul and play

upon the dulcimer and feed upon sweetmeats. But

away from his home the sport is an integer. He does

not, as men of other races in Manhattan do, become

the convoy in his unoccupied hours of fluttering laces

and high heels that tick off delectably the happy

seconds of the evening parade. He herds with his

own race at corners, and delivers a commentary in his

Carib lingo upon the passing show.



"Big Jim" Dougherty had a wife, but be did not

wear a button portrait of her upon his lapel. He bad

a home in one of those brown-stone, iron-railed

streets on the west side that look like a recently ex-

cavated bowling alley of Pompeii.



To this home of his Mr. Dougherty repaired each

night when the hour was so late as to promise no

further diversion in the arch domains of sport. By

that time the occupant of the monogamistic harem

would be in dreamland, the bulbul silenced and the

hour propitious for slumber.



"Big Jim" always arose at twelve, meridian, for

breakfast, and soon afterward he would return to

the rendezvous of his "crowd."



He was always vaguely conscious that there was

a Mrs. Dougherty. He would have received without

denial the charge that the quiet, neat, comfortable

little woman across the table at home was his wife. In

fact, he remembered pretty well that they bad been

married for nearly four years. She would often tell

him about the cute tricks of Spot, the canary, and

the light-haired lady that lived in the window of the

flat across the street.



"Big Jim" Dougherty even listened to this con-

versation of hers sometimes. He knew that she would

have a nice dinner ready for him every evening at

seven when he came for it. She sometimes went to

matinees, and she bad a talking machine with six

dozen records. Once when her Uncle Amos blew in on

a wind from up-state, she went with him to the Eden

Musee. Surely these things were diversions enough

for any woman.



One afternoon Mr. Dougherty finished his break-

fast, put on his bat and got away fairly for the door.

When his hand was on the knob be heard his wife's

voice.



"Jim," she said, firmly, "I wish you would take

me out to dinner this evening. It has been three years

since you have been outside the door with me."



"Big Jim" was astounded. She bad never asked

anything like this before. It had the flavor of a

totally new proposition. But he was a game sport.



"All right," be said. "You be ready when I come

at seven. None of this 'wait two minutes till I primp

an hour or two' kind of business, now, Dele."



"I'll be ready," said his wife, calmly.



At seven she descended the stone steps in the Pom-

peian bowling alley at the side of "Big Jim" Dough-

erty. She wore a dinner gown made of a stuff that

the spiders must have woven, and of a color that a

twilight sky must have contributed. A light coat with

many admirably unnecessary capes and adorably

inutile ribbons floated downward from her shoulders.

Fine feathers do make fine birds; and the only re-

proach in the saying is for the man who refuses to

give up his earnings to the ostrich-tip industry.



"Big Jim" Dougherty was troubled. There was

a being at his side whom be did not know. He

thought of the sober-hued plumage that this bird of

paradise was accustomed to wear in her cage, and

this winged revelation puzzled him. In some way she

reminded him of the Delia Cullen that be had married

four years before. Shyly and rather awkwardly he

stalked at her right band.



"After dinner I'll take you back home, Dele," said

Mr. Dougherty, "and then I'll drop back up to Selt-

zer's with the boys. You can have swell chuck to-

night if you want it. I made a winning on Anaconda

yesterday; so you can go as far as you like."



Mr. Dougherty had intended to make the outing

with his unwonted wife an inconspicuous one. Uxori-

ousness was a weakness that the precepts of the

Caribs did not countenance. If any of his friends of

the track, the billiard cloth or the square circle had

wives they had never complained of the fact in public.

There were a number of table d'hote places on the

cross streets near the broad and shining way; and to

one of these he had purposed to escort her, so that the

bushel might not be removed from the light of his

domesticity.



But while on the way Mr. Dougherty altered those

intentions. He had been casting stealthy glances at

his attractive companion and he was seized with the

conviction that she was no selling plater. He re-

solved to parade with his wife past Seltzer's cafe,

where at this time a number of his tribe would be

gathered to view the daily evening procession. Yes;

and he would take her to dine at Hoogley's, the swell-

est slow-lunch warehouse on the line, he said to

himself.



The congregation of smooth-faced tribal gentle-

men were on watch at Seltzer's. As Mr. Dougherty

and his reorganized Delia passed they stared, mo-

mentarily petrified, and then removed their hats - a

performance as unusual to them as was the astonish-

ing innovation presented to their gaze by "Big Jim".

On the latter gentleman's impassive face there ap-

peared a slight flicker of triumph - a faint flicker,

no more to be observed than the expression called

there by the draft of little casino to a four-card spade

flush.



Hoogley's was animated. Electric lights shone

as, indeed, they were expected to do. And the napery,

the glassware and the flowers also meritoriously per-

formed the spectacular duties required of them. The

guests were numerous, well-dressed and gay.



A waiter - not necessarily obsequious - conducted

"Big Jim" Dougherty and his wife to a table.



"Play that menu straight across for what you like,

Dele," said "Big Jim." "It's you for a trough of

the gilded oats to-night. It strikes me that maybe

we've been sticking too fast to home fodder."



"Big Jim's" wife gave her order. He looked at

her with respect. She had mentioned truffles; and be

bad not known that she knew what truffles were. From

the wine list she designated an appropriate and de-

sirable brand. He looked at her with some admiration.



She was beaming with the innocent excitement that

woman derives from the exercise of her gregarious-

ness. She was talking to him about a hundred things

with animation and delight. And as the meal pro-

gressed her cheeks, colorless from a life indoors, took

on a delicate flush. "Big Jim" looked around the

room and saw that none of the women there had her

charm. And then he thought of the three years she

had suffered immurement, uncomplaining, and a flush

of shame warmed him, for he carried fair play as an

item in his creed.



But when the Honorable Patrick Corrigan, leader

in Dougherty's district and a friend of his, saw them

and came over to the table, matters got to the three-

quarter stretch. The Honorable Patrick was a gal-

lant man, both in deeds and words. As for the Blar-

ney stone, his previous actions toward it must have

been pronounced. Heavy damages for breach of

promise could surely have been obtained had the

Blarney stone seen fit to sue the Honorable Patrick.



"Jimmy, old man!" he called; he clapped Dough-

erty on the back; be shone like a midday sun upon

Delia.



"Honorable Mr. Corrigan - Mrs. Dougherty,"

said "Big Jim."



The Honorable Patrick became a fountain of en-

tertainment and admiration. The waiter had to

fetch a third chair for him; he made another at the

table, and the wineglasses were refilled.



"You selfish old rascal!" he exclaimed, shaking an

arch finger at "Big Jim," "to have kept Mrs.

Dougherty a secret from us."

And then "Big Jim" Dougherty, who was no

talker, sat dumb, and saw the wife who had dined

every evening for three years at home, blossom like

a fairy flower. Quick, witty, charming, full of light

and ready talk, she received the experienced attack

of the Honorable Patrick on the field of repartee and

surprised, vanquished, delighted him. She unfolded

her long-closed petals and around her the room

became a garden. They tried to include "Big

Jim" in the conversation, but he was without a

vocabulary.



And then a stray bunch of politicians and good

fellows who lived for sport came into the room. They

saw "Big Jim" and the leader, and over they came

and were made acquainted with Mrs. Dougherty. And

in a few minutes she was holding a salon. Half a

dozen men surrounded her, courtiers all, and six

found her capable of charming. "Big Jim" sat,

grim, and kept saying to himself: "Three years,

three years!"



The dinner came to an end. The Honorable Pat-

rick reached for Mrs. Dougherty's cloak; but that

was a matter of action instead of words, and Dough-

erty's big band got it first by two seconds.



While the farewells were being said at the door

the Honorable Patrick smote Dougherty mightily

between the shoulders.



"Jimmy, me boy," he declared, in a giant whis-

per, "the madam is a jewel of the first water. Ye're

a lucky dog."



"Big Jim" walked homeward with his wife. She

seemed quite as pleased with the lights and show

windows in the streets as with the admiration of the

men in Hoogley's. As they passed Seltzer's they

heard the sound of many voices in the cafe. The

boys would be starting the drinks around now and

discussing past performances.



At the door of their home Delia paused. The

pleasure of the outing radiated softly from her

countenance. She could not hope for Jim of evenings,

but the glory of this one would Tighten her lonely

hours for a long time.



"Thank you for taking me out, Jim," she said,

gratefully. "You'll be going back up to Seltzer's

now, of course."



"To -- with Seltzer's," said "Big Jim," em-

emphatically. "And d-- Pat Corrigan! Does

he think I haven't got any eyes?



And the door closed behind both of them.









LITTLE SPECK IN GARNERED FRUIT





The honeymoon was at its full. There was a flat

with the reddest of new carpets, tasselled portieres

and six steins with pewter lids arranged on a ledge

above the wainscoting of the dining-room. The won-

der of it was yet upon them. Neither of them had

ever seen a yellow primrose by the river's brim; but if

such a sight had met their eyes at that time it would

have seemed like - well, whatever the poet expected

the right kind of people to see in it besides a prim-

rose.



The bride sat in the rocker with her feet resting

upon the world. She was wrapt in rosy dreams and a

kimono of the same hue. She wondered what the peo-

ple in Greenland and Tasmania and Beloochistan

were saying one to another about her marriage to

Kid McGarry. Not that it made any difference.

There was no welter-weight from London to the

Southern Cross that could stand up four hours - no;

four rounds - with her bridegroom. And he had

been hers for three weeks; and the crook of her little

finger could sway him more than the fist of any 142-

pounder in the world.



Love, when it is ours, is the other name for self-

abnegation and sacrifice. When it belongs to people

across the airshaft it means arrogance and self-con-

ceit.



The bride crossed her oxfords and looked thought-

fully at the distemper Cupids on the ceiling.



"Precious," said she, with the air of Cleopatra

asking Antony for Rome done up in tissue paper and

delivered at residence, "I think I would like a peach."



Kid McGarry arose and put on his coat and hat.

He was serious, shaven, sentimental, and spry.



"All right," said he, as coolly as though be were

only agreeing to sign articles to fight the champion

of England. "I'll step down and cop one out for you

see?"



"Don't be long," said the bride. "I'll be lonesome

without my naughty boy. Get a nice, ripe one."

After a series of farewells that would have befitted

an imminent voyage to foreign parts, the Kid went

down to the street.



Here he not unreasonably hesitated, for the season

was yet early spring, and there seemed small chance

of wresting anywhere from those chill streets and

stores the coveted luscious guerdon of summer's

golden prime.



At the Italian's fruit-stand on the corner be

stopped and cast a contemptuous eye over the dis-

play of papered oranges, highly polished apples and

wan, sun-hungry bananas.



"Gotta da peach?" asked the Kid in the tongue of

Dante, the lover of lovers.



"Ah, no, - " sighed the vender. "Not for one mont

com-a da peach. Too soon. Gotta da nice-a orange.

Like-a da orange?"



Scornful, the Kid pursued his quest. He entered

the all-night chop-house, cafe, and bowling-alley of

his friend and admirer, Justus O'Callahan. The

O'Callahan was about in his institution, looking for

leaks.



"I want it straight," said the Kid to him. "The

old woman has got a hunch that she wants a peach.

Now, if you've got a peach, Cal, get it out quick. I

want it and others like it if you've got 'em in plural

quantities."



"The house is yours," said O'Callahan. "But

there's no peach in it. It's too soon. I don't sup-

pose you could even find 'em at one of the Broadway

joints. That's too bad. When a lady fixes her

mouth for a certain kind of fruit nothing else won't

do. It's too late now to find any of the first-class

fruiterers open. But if you think the missis would

like some nice oranges I've just got a box of fine ones

in that she might."



"Much obliged, Cal. It's a peach proposition

right from the ring of the gong. I'll try further."



The time was nearly midnight as the Kid walked

down the West-Side avenue. Few stores were open

and such as were practically hooted at the idea of a

peach.



But in her moated flat the bride confidently awaited

her Persian fruit. A champion welter-weight not find

a peach? - not stride triumphantly over the seasons

and the zodiac and the almanac to fetch an Amsden's

June or a Georgia cling to his owny-own?



The Kid's eye caught sight of a window that was

lighted and gorgeous with nature's most entrancing

colors. The light suddenly went out. The Kid

sprinted and caught the fruiterer locking his door.



"Peaches?" said he, with extreme deliberation.



"Well, no, Sir. Not for three or four weeks yet.

I haven't any idea where you might find some. There

may be a few in town from under the glass, but they'd

be bard to locate. Maybe at one of the more expen-

sive hotels - some place where there's plenty of

money to waste. I've got some very fine oranges,

though - from a shipload that came in to-day."



The Kid lingered on the corner for a moment,

and then set out briskly toward a pair of green lights

that flanked the steps of a building down a dark

side street.



"Captain around anywhere?" he asked of the desk

sergeant of the police station.



At that moment the captain came briskly forward

from the rear. He was in plain clothes and had a

busy air.



"Hello, Kid," he said to the pugilist. "Thought

you were bridal-touring?



"Got back yesterday. I'm a solid citizen now.

Think I'll take an interest in municipal doings. How

would it suit you to get into Denver Dick's place to-

night, Cap?



"Past performances," said the captain, twisting his

moustache. "Denver was closed up two months ago."



"Correct," said the Kid. "Rafferty chased him

out of the Forty-third. He's running in your pre-

cinct now, and his game's bigger than ever. I'm

down on this gambling business. I can put you

against his game."



"In my precinct?" growled the captain. "Are

you sure, Kid? I'll take it as a favor. Have you

got the entree? How is it to be done?"



"Hammers," said the Kid. "They haven't got

any steel on the doors yet. You'll need ten men.

No, they won't let me in the place. Denver has been

trying to do me. He thought I tipped him off for the

other raid. I didn't, though. You want to hurry.

I've got to get back home. The house is only three

blocks from here."



Before ten minutes had sped the captain with a

dozen men stole with their guide into the hallway of

a dark and virtuous-looking building in which many

businesses were conducted by day.



"Third floor, rear," said the Kid, softly. "I'll

lead the way."



Two axemen faced the door that he pointed out to

them.



"It seems all quiet," said the captain, doubtfully.



"Are you sure your tip is straight?"



"Cut away!" said the Kid. "It's on me if it

ain't."



The axes crashed through the as yet unprotected

door. A blaze of light from within poured through

the smashed panels. The door fell, and the raiders

rang into the room with their guns handy.



The big room was furnished with the gaudy mag-

nificence dear to Denver Dick's western ideas. Vari-

ous well-patronized games were in progress. About

fifty men who were in the room rushed upon the police

in a grand break for personal liberty. The plain-

clothes men had to do a little club-swinging. More

than half the patrons escaped.



Denver Dick had graced his game with his own

presence that night. He led the rush that was in-

tended to sweep away the smaller body of raiders,

But when be saw the Kid his manner became personal.

Being in the heavyweight class be cast himself joy-

fully upon his slighter enemy, and they rolled down

a flight of stairs in each others arms. On the land-

ing they separated and arose, and then the Kid was

able to use some of his professional tactics, which had

been useless to him while in the excited clutch of a

200-pound sporting gentleman who was about to lose

$20,000 worth of paraphernalia.



After vanquishing his adversary the Kid hurried

upstairs and through the gambling-room into a

smaller apartment connecting by an arched doorway.



Here was a long table set with choicest chinaware

and silver, and lavishly furnished with food of that

expensive and spectacular sort of which the devotees

of sport are supposed to be fond. Here again was to

be perceived the liberal and florid taste of the gen-

tleman with the urban cognomenal prefix.



A No. 10 patent leather shoe protruded a few of

its inches outside the tablecloth along the floor. The

Kid seized this and plucked forth a black man in a

white tie and the garb of a servitor.



"Get up!" commanded the Kid. "Are you in

charge of this free lunch?"



"Yes, sah, I was. Has they done pinched us ag'in,

boss?"



"Looks that way. Listen to me. Are there any

peaches in this layout? If there ain't I'll have to

throw up the sponge."



"There was three dozen, sah, when the game

opened this evenin'; but I reckon the gentlemen done

eat 'em all up. If you'd like to eat a fust-rate

orange, sah, I kin find you some."



"Get busy," ordered the Kid, sternly, and move

whatever peach crop you've got quick or there'll be

trouble. If anybody oranges me again to-night, I'll

knock his face off."



The raid on Denver Dick's high-priced and prodi-

gal luncheon revealed one lone, last peach that had

escaped the epicurean jaws of the followers of

chance. Into the Kid's pocket it went, and that in-

defatigable forager departed immediately with his

prize. With scarcely a glance at the scene on the

sidewalk below, where the officers were loading their

prisoners into the patrol wagons, be moved homeward

with long, swift strides.



His heart was light as be went. So rode the

knights back to Camelot after perils and high deeds

done for their ladies fair. The Kid's lady had com-

manded him and be had obeyed. True, it was but a

peach that she had craved; but it had been no small

deed to glean a peach at midnight from that wintry

city where yet the February snows lay like iron.

She had asked for a peach; she was his bride; in his

pocket the peach was warming in his band that held it

for fear that it might fall out and be lost.



On the way the Kid turned in at an all-night drug

store and said to the spectacled clerk:



"Say, sport, I wish you'd size up this rib of mine

and see if it's broke. I was in a little scrap and

bumped down a flight or two of stairs."



The druggist made an examination.

"It isn't broken," was his diagnosis, "but you have

a bruise there that looks like you'd fallen off the

Flatiron twice."



"That's all right," said the Kid. "Let's have

your clothesbrush, please."



The bride waited in the rosy glow of the pink lamp

shade. The miracles were not all passed away. By

breathing a desire for some slight thing - a flower,

a pomegranate, a - oh, yes, a peach - she could

send forth her man into the night, into the world

which could not withstand him, and he would do her

bidding.



And now be stood by her chair and laid the peach

in her band.



"Naughty boy!" she said, fondly. "Did I say a

peach? I think I would much rather have had an

orange."



Blest be the bride.









THE HARBINGER





Long before the springtide is felt in the dull bosom

of the yokel does the city man know that the grass-

green goddess is upon her throne. He sits at his

breakfast eggs and toast, begirt by stone walls, opens

his morning paper and sees journalism leave vernal-

ism at the post.



For, whereas, spring's couriers were once the evi-

dence of our finer senses, now the Associated Press

does the trick.



The warble of the first robin in Hackensack, the

stirring of the maple sap in Bennington, the bud-

ding of the pussy willows along Main Street in Syra-

cuse, the first chirp of the bluebird, the swan song

of the Blue Point, the annual tornado in St. Louis,

the plaint of the peach pessimist from Pompton, N.

J., the regular visit of the tame wild goose with a

broken leg to the pond near Bilgewater Junction,

the base attempt of the Drug Trust to boost the

price of quinine foiled in the House by Congressman

Jinks, the first tall poplar struck by lightning and

the usual stunned picknickers who had taken refuge,

the first crack of the ice jam in the Allegheny River,

the finding of a violet in its mossy bed by

the correspondent at Round Corners - these are the

advance signs of the burgeoning season that are wired

into the wise city, while the farmer sees nothing but

winter upon his dreary fields.



But these be mere externals. The true harbinger

is the heart. When Strephon seeks his Chloe and

Mike his Maggie, then only is spring arrived and the

newspaper report of the five-foot rattler killed in

Squire Pettigrew's pasture confirmed.



Ere the first violet blew, Mr. Peters, Mr. Ragsdale

and Mr. Kidd sat together on a bench in Union

Square and conspired. Mr. Peters was the D'Artag-

nan of the loafers there. He was the dingiest, the

laziest, the sorriest brown blot against the green back-

ground of any bench in the park. But just then he

was the most important of the trio.



Mr. Peters had a wife. This had not heretofore

affected his standing with Ragsy and Kidd. But to-

day it invested him with a peculiar interest. His

friends, having escaped matrimony, had shown a

disposition to deride Mr. Peters for his venture on

that troubled sea. But at last they had been forced

to acknowledge that either he had been gifted with

a large foresight or that he was one of Fortune's

lucky sons.



For, Mrs. Peters had a dollar. A whole dollar bill,

good and receivable by the Government for customs,

taxes and all public dues. How to get possession of

that dollar was the question up for discussion by the

three musty musketeers.



"How do you know it was a dollar?" asked Ragsy,

the immensity of the sum inclining him to scepticism.



"The coalman seen her have it," said Mr. Peters.

"She went out and done some washing yesterday.

And look what she give me for breakfast - the heel

of a loaf and a cup of coffee, and her with a dollar!"



"It's fierce," said Ragsy.



"Say we go up and punch 'er and stick a towel

in 'er mouth and cop the coin" suggested Kidd,

Viciously. "Y' ain't afraid of a woman, are you?"



"She might holler and have us pinched," demurred

Ragsy. "I don't believe in slugging no woman in a

houseful of people."



"Gent'men," said Mr. Peters, severely, through

his russet stubble, "remember that you are speaking

of my wife. A man who would lift his hand to a

lady except in the way of -- "



"Maguire," said Ragsy, pointedly, "has got his

bock beer sign out. If we had a dollar we could -- "



"Hush up!" said Mr. Peters, licking his lips.

"We got to get that case note somehow, boys. Ain't

what's a man's wife's his? Leave it to me. I'll go

over to the house and get it. Wait here for me."



"I've seen 'em give up quick, and tell you where

it's hid if you kick 'em in the ribs," said Kidd.



"No man would kick a woman," said Peters, vir-

tuously. "A little choking - just a touch on the

windpipe - that gets away with 'em - and no marks

left. Wait for me. I'll bring back that dollar, boys."



High up in a tenement-house between Second Ave-

nue and the river lived the Peterses in a back room

so gloomy that the landlord blushed to take the rent

for it. Mrs. Peters worked at sundry times, doing

odd jobs of scrubbing and washing. Mr. Peters had

a pure, unbroken record of five years without having

earned a penny. And yet they clung together, shar-

ing each other's hatred and misery, being creatures

of habit. Of habit, the power that keeps the earth

from flying to pieces; though there is some silly

theory of gravitation.



Mrs. Peters reposed her 200 pounds on the safer

of the two chairs and gazed stolidly out the one win-

dow at the brick wall opposite. Her eyes were red

and damp. The furniture could have been carried

away on a pushcart, but no pushcart man would have

removed it as a gift.



The door opened to admit Mr. Peters. His fox-

terrier eyes expressed a wish. His wife's diagnosis

located correctly the seat of it, but misread it hun-

ger instead of thirst.



"You'll get nothing more to eat till night," she

said, looking out of the window again. Take your

hound-dog's face out of the room."



Mr. Peters's eye calculated the distance between

them. By taking her by surprise it might be pos-

sible to spring upon her, overthrow her, and apply

the throttling tactics of which he had boasted to

his waiting comrades. True, it had been only a

boast; never yet had be dared to lay violent bands

upon her; but with the thoughts of the delicious, cool

bock or Culmbacher bracing his nerves, he was near

to upsetting his own theories of the treatment due by

a gentleman to a lady. But, with his loafer's love

for the more artistic and less strenuous way, he chose

diplomacy first, the high card in the game -- the as-

sumed attitude of success already attained.



"You have a dollar," he said, loftily, but signifi-

cantly in the tone that goes with the lighting of a

cigar - when the properties are at hand."



"I have," said Mrs. Peters, producing the bill

from her bosom and crackling it, teasingly.



"I am offered a position in a -- in a tea store,"

said Mr. Peters. "I am to begin work to-morrow.

But it will be necessary for me to buy a pair of --"



"You are a liar," said Mrs. Peters, reinterring

the note. "No tea store, nor no A B C store, nor

no junk shop would have you. I rubbed the skin off

both me hands washin' jumpers and overalls to make

that dollar. Do you think it come out of them suds

to buy the kind you put into you? Skiddoo! Get

your mind off of money."



Evidently the poses of Talleyrand were not worth

one hundred cents on that dollar. But diplomacy is

dexterous. The artistic temperament of Mr. Peters

lifted him by the straps of his congress gaiters and

set him on new ground. He called up a look of des-

perate melancholy to his eyes.



"Clara," he said, hollowly, "to struggle further

is useless. You have always misunderstood me.

Heaven knows I have striven with all my might to

keep my head above the waves of misfortune,

but - "

"Cut out the rainbow of hope and that stuff about

walkin' one by one through the narrow isles of

Spain," said Mrs. Peters, with a sigh. "I've heard

it so often. There's an ounce bottle of carbolic on the

shelf behind the empty coffee can. Drink hearty."



Mr. Peters reflected. What next! The old ex-

pedients had failed. The two musty musketeers were

awaiting him hard by the ruined chateau -- that is

to say, on a park bench with rickety cast-iron legs.

His honor was at stake. He had engaged to storm

the castle single-handed and bring back the treas-

ure that was to furnish them wassail and solace. And

all that stood between him and the coveted dollar

was his wife, once a little girl whom he could -- aha!

-- why not again? Once with soft words he could, as

they say, twist her around his little finger. Why not

again? Not for years had he tried it. Grim poverty

and mutual hatred had killed all that. But Ragsy

and Kidd were waiting for him to bring the dollar!



Mr. Peters took a surreptitiously keen look at his

wife. Her formless bulk overflowed the chair. She

kept her eyes fixed out the window in a strange kind

of trance. Her eyes showed that she had been re-

cently weeping.



"I wonder," said Mr. Peters to himself, "if there'd

be anything in it."



The window was open upon its outlook of brick

walls and drab, barren back yards. Except for the

mildness of the air that entered it might have been

midwinter yet in the city that turns such a frown-

ing face to besieging spring. But spring doesn't

come with the thunder of cannon. She is a sapper

and a miner, and you must capitulate.



"I'll try it," said Mr. Peters to himself, making a

wry face.



He went up to his wife and put his arm across

her shoulders.



"Clara, darling," he said in tones that shouldn't

have fooled a baby seal, "why should we have hard

words? Ain't you my own tootsum wootsums?



"A black mark against you, Mr. Peters, in the sa-

red ledger of Cupid. Charges of attempted graft are

filed against you, and of forgery and utterance of

two of Love's holiest of appellations.



But the miracle of spring was wrought. Into the

back room over the back alley between the black

walls had crept the Harbinger. It was ridiculous,

and yet - Well, it is a rat trap, and you, madam

and sir and all of us, are in it.



Red and fat and crying like Niobe or Niagara,

Mrs. Peters threw her arms around her lord and

dissolved upon him. Mr. Peters would have striven

to extricate the dollar bill from its deposit vault,

but his arms were bound to his sides.



"Do you love me, James?" asked Mrs. Peters.



"Madly," said James, "but -- "



"You are ill! " exclaimed Mrs. Peters. "Why

are you so pale and tired looking?"



"I feel weak," said Mr. Peters. "I -- "



"Oh, wait; I know what it is. Wait, James. I'll

be back in a minutes''



With a parting bug that revived in Mr. Peters

recollections of the Terrible Turk, his wife hurried

out of the room and down the stairs.



Mr. Peters hitched his thumbs under his sus-

penders.



"All right," he confided to the ceiling. "I've got

her going. I hadn't any idea the old girl was soft

any more under the foolish rib. Well, sir; ain't I

the Claude Melnotte of the lower East Side? What?

It's a 100 to 1 shot that I get the dollar. I wonder

what she went out for. I guess she's gone to tell

Mrs. Muldoon on the second floor, that we're recon-

ciled. I'll remember this. Soft soap! And Ragsy

was talking about slugging her!



Mrs. Peters came back with a bottle of sarsapa-

rilla.



"I'm glad I happened to have that dollar," she

said. "You're all run down, boney."



Mr. Peters had a tablespoonful of the stuff in-

serted into him. Then Mrs. Peters sat on his lap

and murmured:



"Call me tootsum wootsums again, James."



He sat still, held there by his materialized goddess

of spring.



Spring had come.



On the bench in Union Square Mr. Ragsdale and

Mr. Kidd squirmed, tongue-parched, awaiting

D'Artagnan and his dollar.



"I wish I had choked her at first," said Mr. Peters

to himself.









WHILE THE AUTO WAITS



Promptly at the beginning of twilight, came

again to that quiet corner of that quiet, small park

the girl in gray. She sat upon a bench and read a

book, for there was yet to come a half hour in which

print could be accomplished.



To repeat: Her dress was gray, and plain enough

to mask its impeccancy of style and fit. A large-

meshed veil imprisoned her turban hat and a face

that shone through it with a calm and unconscious

beauty. She had come there at the same hour on the

day previous, and on the day before that; and there

was one who knew it.



The young man who knew it hovered near, relying

upon burnt sacrifices to the great joss, Luck. His

piety was rewarded, for, in turning a page, her book

slipped from her fingers and bounded from the bench

a full yard away.



The young man pounced upon it with instant avid-

ity, returning it to its owner with that air that seems

to flourish in parks and public places - a compound

of gallantry and hope, tempered with respect for the

policeman on the beat. In a pleasant voice, be risked

an inconsequent remark upon the weather that in-

troductory topic responsible for so much of the

world's unhappiness-and stood poised for a mo-

ment, awaiting his fate.



The girl looked him over leisurely; at his ordinary,

neat dress and his features distinguished by nothing

particular in the way of expression.



"You may sit down, if you like," she said, in a

full, deliberate contralto. "Really, I would like to

have you do so. The light is too bad for reading.

I would prefer to talk."



The vassal of Luck slid upon the seat by her side

with complaisance.



"Do you know," be said, speaking the formula

with which park chairmen open their meetings, "that

you are quite the stunningest girl I have seen in a

long time? I had my eye on you yesterday.

Didn't know somebody was bowled over by those

pretty lamps of yours, did you, honeysuckle?"



"Whoever you are," said the girl, in icy tones,

"you must remember that I am a lady. I will excuse

the remark you have just made because the mistake

was, doubtless, not an unnatural one -- in your circle.

I asked you to sit down; if the invitation must con-

stitute me your honeysuckle, consider it with-

drawn."



"I earnestly beg your pardon," pleaded the young

ran. His expression of satisfaction had changed to

one of penitence and humility. It was my fault,

you know -I mean, there are girls in parks, you

know - that is, of course, you don't know, but -- "



"Abandon the subject, if you please. Of course

I know. Now, tell me about these people passing

and crowding, each way, along these paths. Where

are they going? Why do they hurry so? Are they

happy?"



The young man had promptly abandoned his air

of coquetry. His cue was now for a waiting part;

he could not guess the role be would be expected to

play.



"It is interesting to watch them," he replied, pos-

tulating her mood. "It is the wonderful drama of

life. Some are going to supper and some to -- er --

other places. One wonders what their histories are."



"I do not," said the girl; "I am not so inquisi-

tive. I come here to sit because here, only, can I be

tear the great, common, throbbing heart of hu-

manity. My part in life is cast where its beats are

never felt. Can you surmise why I spoke to you,

Mr. -- ?"



"Parkenstacker," supplied the young man. Then

be looked eager and hopeful.



"No," said the girl, holding up a slender finger,

and smiling slightly. "You would recognize it im-

mediately. It is impossible to keep one's name out of

print. Or even one's portrait. This veil and this

hat of my maid furnish me with an incog. You

should have seen the chauffeur stare at it when he

thought I did not see. Candidly, there are five or six

names that belong in the holy of holies, and mine, by

the accident of birth, is one of them. I spoke to you,

Mr. Stackenpot -- "



"Parkenstacker," corrected the young man, mod-

estly.



" -- Mr. Parkenstacker, because I wanted to talk,

for once, with a natural man -- one unspoiled by the

despicable gloss of wealth and supposed social su-

periority. Oh! you do not know how weary I am of

it -- money, money, money! And of the men who

surround me, dancing like little marionettes all cut by

the same pattern. I am sick of pleasure, of jewels,

of travel, of society, of luxuries of all kinds."



"I always had an idea," ventured the young man,

hesitatingly, "that money must be a pretty good

thing."



"A competence is to be desired. But when you

leave so many millions that -- !" She concluded

the sentence with a gesture of despair. "It is the mo-

otony of it" she continued, "that palls. Drives,

dinners, theatres, balls, suppers, with the gilding of

superfluous wealth over it all. Sometimes the very

tinkle of the ice in my champagne glass nearly drives

me mad."



Mr. Parkenstacker looked ingenuously interested.



"I have always liked," he said, "to read and hear

about the ways of wealthy and fashionable folks. I

suppose I am a bit of a snob. But I like to have my

information accurate. Now, I had formed the opin-

ion that champagne is cooled in the bottle and not by

placing ice in the glass."



The girl gave a musical laugh of genuine amuse-

ment.



"You should know," she explained, in an indul-

gent tone, "that we of the non-useful class depend

for our amusement upon departure from precedent.

Just now it is a fad to put ice in champagne. The

idea was originated by a visiting Prince of Tartary

while dining at the Waldorf. It will soon give way

to some other whim. Just as at a dinner party this

week on Madison Avenue a green kid glove was laid

by the plate of each guest to be put on and used while

eating olives."



"I see," admitted the young man, humbly.



"These special diversions of the inner circle do not

become familiar to the common public."



"Sometimes," continued the girl, acknowledging

his confession of error by a slight bow, "I have

thought that if I ever should love a man it would be

one of lowly station. One who is a worker and not a

drone. But, doubtless, the claims of caste and wealth

will prove stronger than my inclination. Just now

I am besieged by two. One is a Grand Duke of a

German principality. I think he has, or has bad, a

wife, somewhere, driven mad by his intemperance and

cruelty. The other is an English Marquis, so cold

and mercenary that I even prefer the diabolism of the

Duke. What is it that impels me to tell you these

things, Mr. Packenstacker?



"Parkenstacker," breathed the young man. "In-

deed, you cannot know how much I appreciate your

confidences."



The girl contemplated him with the calm, imper-

sonal regard that befitted the difference in their sta-

tions.



"What is your line of business, Mr. Parken-

stacker?" she asked.



"A very humble one. But I hope to rise in the

world. Were you really in earnest when you said

that you could love a man of lowly position?"



"Indeed I was. But I said 'might.' There is the

Grand Duke and the Marquis, you know. Yes; no

calling could be too humble were the man what I

would wish him to be."



"I work," declared Mr. Parkenstacker, "in a res-

taurant."



The girl shrank slightly.



"Not as a waiter?" she said, a little imploringly.

"Labor is noble, but personal attendance, you

know -- valets and -- "



"I am not a waiter. I am cashier in" -- on the

street they faced that bounded the opposite side of

the park was the brilliant electric sign "RESTAU-

RANT" -- "I am cashier in that restaurant you am

there."



The girl consulted a tiny watch set in a bracelet of

rich design upon her left wrist, and rose, hurriedly.

She thrust her book into a glittering reticule sus-

pended from her waist, for which, however, the book

was too large.



"Why are you not at work?" she asked.



"I am on the night turn," said the young man;

it is yet an hour before my period begins. May I

not hope to see you again?"



"I do not know. Perhaps - but the whim may

not seize me again. I must go quickly now. There

is a dinner, and a box at the play -- and, oh! the

same old round. Perhaps you noticed an automobile

at the upper corner of the park as you came. One

with a white body



"And red running gear?" asked the young man,

knitting his brows reflectively.



"Yes. I always come in that. Pierre waits for

me there. He supposes me to be shopping in the de-

partment store across the square. Conceive of the

bondage of the life wherein we must deceive even our

chauffeurs. Good-night."



"But it is dark now," said Mr. Parkenstacker,

"and the park is full of rude men. May I not

walk -- "



"If you have the slightest regard for my wishes,"

said the girl, firmly, "you will remain at this bench

for ten minutes after I have left. I do not mean to

accuse you, but you are probably aware that autos

generally bear the monogram of their owner. Again,

good-night"



Swift and stately she moved away through the

dusk. The young man watched her graceful form

as she reached the pavement at the park's edge, and

turned up along it toward the corner where stood the

automobile. Then he treacherously and unhesitat-

ingly began to dodge and skim among the park trees

and shrubbery in a course parallel to her route, keep-

ing her well in sight



When she reached the corner she turned her head

to glance at the motor car, and then passed it, con

tinuing on across the street. Sheltered behind a con-

venient standing cab, the young man followed her

movements closely with his eyes. Passing down the

sidewalk of the street opposite the park, she entered

the restaurant with the blazing sign. The place was

one of those frankly glaring establishments, all white,

paint and glass, where one may dine cheaply and

conspicuously. The girl penetrated the restaurant to

some retreat at its rear, whence she quickly emerged

without her bat and veil.



The cashier's desk was well to the front. A red-

head girl an the stool climbed down, glancing

pointedly at the clock as she did so. The girl in

gray mounted in her place.



The young man thrust his hands into his pockets

and walked slowly back along the sidewalk. At the

corner his foot struck a small, paper-covered volume

lying there, sending it sliding to the edge of the

turf. By its picturesque cover he recognized it as

the book the girl had been reading. He picked it up

carelessly, and saw that its title was "New Arabian

Nights," the author being of the name of Stevenson.

He dropped it again upon the grass, and lounged,

irresolute, for a minute. Then he stepped into the

automobile, reclined upon the cushions, and said two

words to the chauffeur:



"Club, Henri."









A COMEDY IN RUBBER





One may hope, in spite of the metaphorists, to

avoid the breath of the deadly upas tree; one may, by

great good fortune, succeed in blacking the eye of the

basilisk; one might even dodge the attentions of Cer-

berus and Argus, but no man, alive or dead, can es-

cape the gaze of the Rubberer.



New York is the Caoutchouc City. There are

many, of course, who go their ways, making money,

without turning to the right or the left, but there is a

tribe abroad wonderfully composed, like the Martians,

solely of eyes and means of locomotion.



These devotees of curiosity swarm, like flies, in a

moment in a struggling, breathless circle about the

scene of an unusual occurrence. If a workman opens

a manhole, if a street car runs over a man from

North Tarrytown, if a little boy drops an egg on

his way home from the grocery, if a casual house or

two drops into the subway, if a lady loses a nickel

through a hole in the lisle thread, if the police drag

a telephone and a racing chart forth from an Ibsen

Society reading-room, if Senator Depew or Mr.

Chuck Connors walks out to take the air - if any of

these incidents or accidents takes place, you will see

the mad, irresistible rush of the "rubber" tribe to

the spot.



The importance of the event does not count. They

gaze with equal interest and absorption at a cho-

rus girl or at a man painting a liver pill sign. They

will form as deep a cordon around a man with a club-

foot as they will around a balked automobile. They

have the furor rubberendi. They are optical glut-

tons, feasting and fattening on the misfortunes of

their fellow beings. They gloat and pore and glare

and squint and stare with their fishy eyes like goggle-

eyed perch at the book baited with calamity.



It would seem that Cupid would find these ocular

vampires too cold game for his calorific shafts, but

have we not yet to discover an immune even among

the Protozoa? Yes, beautiful Romance descended

upon two of this tribe, and love came into their

hearts as they crowded about the prostrate form

of a man who had been run over by a brewery wagon.



William Pry was the first on the spot. He was an

expert at such gatherings. With an expression of in-

tense happiness on his features, be stood over the vic-

tim of the accident, listening to his groans as if to

the sweetest music. When the crowd of spectators

had swelled to a closely packed circle William saw a

violent commotion in the crowd opposite him. Men

were hurled aside like ninepins by the impact of some

moving body that clove them like the rush of a tor-

nado. With elbows, umbrella, hat-pin, tongue, and

fingernails doing their duty, Violet Seymour forced

her way through the mob of onlookers to the first row.

Strong men who even had been able to secure a seat

on the 5.30 Harlem express staggered back like chil-

dren as she bucked centre. Two large lady spectators

who bad seen the Duke of Roxburgh married and

had often blocked traffic on Twenty-third Street

fell back into the second row with ripped shirtwaists

when Violet had finished with them. William Pry

loved her at first sight.



The ambulance removed the unconscious agent of

Cupid. William and Violet remained after the crowd

had dispersed. They were true Rubberers. People

who leave the scene of an accident with the ambulance

have not genuine caoutchouc in the cosmogony of

their necks. The delicate, fine flavor of the affair is

to be bad only in the after-taste - in gloating over

the spot, in gazing fixedly at the houses opposite, in

hovering there in a dream more exquisite than the

opium-eater's ecstasy. William Pry and Violet Sey-

mour were connoisseurs in casualties. They knew bow

to extract full enjoyment from every incident.



Presently they looked at each other. Violet had a

brown birthmark on her neck as large as a silver

half-dollar. William fixed his eyes upon it. William

Pry had inordinately bowed legs. Violet allowed her

gaze to linger unswervingly upon them. Face to face

they stood thus for moments, each staring at the

other. Etiquette would not allow them to speak; but

in the Caoutchouc City it is permitted to gaze with-

out stint at the trees in the parks and at the physi-

cal blemishes of a fellow creature.

At length with a sigh they parted. But Cupid had

been the driver of the brewery wagon, and the wheel

that broke a leg united two fond hearts.



The next meeting of the hero and heroine was in

front of a board fence near Broadway. The day had

been a disappointing one. There had been no fights

on the street, children had kept from under the wheels

of the street cars, cripples and fat men in negligee

shirts were scarce; nobody seemed to be inclined to

slip on banana peels or fall down with heart disease.

Even the sport from Kokomo, Ind., who claims to

be a cousin of ex-Mayor Low and scatters nickels

from a cab window, had not put in his appearance.

There was nothing to stare at, and William Pry had

premonitions of ennui.



But he saw a large crowd scrambling and pushing

excitedly in front of a billboard. Sprinting for it,

he knocked down an old woman and a child carrying

a bottle of milk, and fought his way like a demon into

the mass of spectators. Already in the inner line

stood Violet Seymour with one sleeve and two gold fill-

ings gone, a corset steel puncture and a sprained

wrist, but happy. She was looking at what there

was to see. A man was painting upon the fence:



"Eat Bricklets - They Fill Your Face."



Violet blushed when she saw William Pry. William

jabbed a lady in a black silk raglan in the ribs, kicked

a boy in the shin, bit an old gentleman on the left ear

and managed to crowd nearer to Violet. They stood

for an hour looking at the man paint the letters.

Then William's love could be repressed no longer.

He touched her on the arm.



"Come with me," he said. "I know where there

is a bootblack without an Adam's apple."



She looked up at him shyly, yet with unmistakable

love transfiguring her countenance.



"And you have saved it for me?" she asked,

trembling with the first dim ecstasy of a woman be-

loved.



Together they hurried to the bootblack's stand.

An hour they spent there gazing at the malformed

youth.



A window-cleaner fell from the fifth story to the

sidewalk beside them. As the ambulance came clang-

ing up William pressed her hand joyously. "Four

ribs at least and a compound fracture," he whispered,

swiftly. "You are not sorry that you met me, are

you, dearest?



"Me?" said Violet, returning the pressure. "Sure

not. I could stand all day rubbering with you."



The climax of the romance occurred a few days

later. Perhaps the reader will remember the intense

excitement into which the city was thrown when Eliza

Jane, a colored woman, was served with a subpoena.

The Rubber Tribe encamped on the spot. With his

own hands William Pry placed a board upon two beer

kegs in the street opposite Eliza Jane's residence.

He and Violet sat there for three days and nights.

Then it occurred to a detective to open the door and

serve the subpoena. He sent for a kinetoscope and

did so.



Two souls with such congenial tastes could not long

remain apart. As a policeman drove them away with

his night stick that evening they plighted their troth.

The seeds of love bad been well sown, and had grown

up, hardy and vigorous, into a - let us call it a rub-

ber plant.



The wedding of William Pry and Violet Seymour

was set for June 10. The Big Church in the Middle

of the Block was banked high with flowers. The

populous tribe of Rubberers the world over is ram-

pant over weddings. They are the pessimists of the

pews. They are the guyers of the groom and the

banterers of the bride. They come to laugh at your

marriage, and should you escape from Hymen's

tower on the back of death's pale steed they will

come to the funeral and sit in the same pew and cry

over your luck. Rubber will stretch.



The church was lighted. A grosgrain carpet lay

over the asphalt to the edge of the sidewalk. Brides-

maids were patting one another's sashes awry and

speaking of the Bride's freckles. Coachmen tied

white ribbons on their whips and bewailed the space

of time between drinks. The minister was musing

over his possible fee, essaying conjecture whether it

would suffice to purchase a new broadcloth suit for

himself and a photograph of Laura Jane Libbey for

his wife. Yea, Cupid was in the air.



And outside the church, oh, my brothers, surged

and heaved the rank and file of the tribe of Rubberers.

in two bodies they were, with the grosgrain carpet

and cops with clubs between. They crowded like

cattle, they fought, they pressed and surged and

swayed and trampled one another to see a bit of a

girl in a white veil acquire license to go through a

man's pockets while be sleeps.

But the hour for the wedding came and went, and

the bride and bridegroom came not. And impatience

gave way to alarm and alarm brought about search,

and they were not found. And then two big police-

men took a band and dragged out of the furious mob

of onlookers a crushed and trampled thing, with a

wedding ring in its vest pocket and a shredded and

hysterical woman beating her way to the carpet's

edge, ragged, bruised and obstreperous.



William Pry and Violet Seymour, creatures of

habit, had joined in the seething game of the specta-

tors, unable to resist the overwhelming desire to gaze

upon themselves entering, as bride and bridegroom,

the rose-decked church.



Rubber will out.









ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS





"One thousand dollars," repeated Lawyer Tolman,

solemnly and severely, "and here is the money."



Young Gillian gave a decidedly amused laugh as

he fingered the thin package of new fifty-dollar notes.



"It's such a confoundedly awkward amount," he

explained, genially, to the lawyer. "If it had been

ten thousand a fellow might wind up with a lot of

fireworks and do himself credit. Even fifty dollars

would have been less trouble."



"You heard the reading of your uncle's will," con-

tinued Lawyer Tolman, professionally dry in his

tones. "I do not know if you paid much attention

to its details. I must remind you of one. You are

required to render to us an account of the manner of

expenditure of this $1,000 as soon as you have dis-

posed of it. The will stipulates that. I trust that

you will so far comply with the late Mr. Gillian's

wishes."



"You may depend upon it," said the young man.%

politely, "in spite of the extra expense it will entail.

I may have to engage a secretary. I was never good

at accounts."



Gillian went to his club. There be hunted out one

whom he called Old Bryson.



Old Bryson was calm and forty and sequestered.

He was in a corner reading a book, and when he saw

Gillian approaching he sighed, laid down his book

and took off his glasses.



"Old Bryson, wake up," said Gillian. "I've a

funny story to tell you."



" I wish you would tell it to some one in the billiard

room," said Old Bryson. "You know how I hate

your stories."



" This is a better one than usual," said Gillian,

rolling a cigarette; " and I'm glad to tell it to you.

It's too sad and funny to go with the rattling of

billiard bars. I've just come from my late uncle's

firm of legal corsairs. He leaves me an even thou-

sand dollars. Now, what can a man possibly do with

a thousand dollars? "



"I thought," said Old Bryson, showing as much

interest as a bee shows in a vinegar cruet, "that the

late Septimus Gillian was worth something like half

a million."



" He was," assented Gillian, joyously, " and that's

where the joke comes in. He's left his whole cargo of

doubloons to a microbe. That is, part of it goes to

the man who invents a new bacillus and the rest to es-

tablish a hospital for doing away with it again.



There are one or two trifling bequests on the side.

- the butler and the housekeeper get a seal ring and

$10 each. His nephew gets $1,000."



"You've always had plenty of money to spend,"

observed Old Bryson.



"Tons," said Gillian. "Uncle was the fairygod-

mother as far as an allowance was concerned."



"Any other heirs? " asked Old Bryson.



"None." Gillian frowned at his cigarette and

kicked the upholstered leather of a divan uneasily.



There is a Miss Hayden, a ward of my uncle, who

lived in his house. She's a quiet thing - musical -

the daughter of somebody who was unlucky enough to

be his friend. I forgot to say that she was in on the

seal ring and $10 joke, too. I wish I had been.

Then I could have had two bottles of brut, tipped the

waiter with the ring and had the whole business off

my bands. Don't be superior and insulting, Old Bry-

son - tell me what a fellow can do with a thousand

dollars."

Old Bryson rubbed his glasses and smiled. And

when Old Bryson smiled, Gillian knew that be in-

tended to be more offensive than ever.



"A thousand dollars," lie said, "means much or

little. One man may buy a happy home with it and

laugh at Rockefeller. Another could send his wife

South with it and save her life. A thousand dollars

would buy pure milk for one hundred babies during

June, July, and August and save fifty of their lives.

You could count upon a half hour's diversion with it

at faro in one of the fortified art galleries. It would

furnish an education to an ambitious boy. I am told

that a genuine Corot was secured for that amount in

an auction room yesterday. You could move to a

New Hampshire town and live respectably two

years on it. You could rent Madison Square Garden

for one evening with it, and lecture your audience, if

you should have one, on the precariousness of the pro-

fession of heir presumptive."



"People might like you, Old Bryson," said Gillian,

always unruffled, "if you wouldn't moralize. I asked

you to tell me what I could do with a thousand

dollars."



"You?" said Bryson, with a gentle laugh.

"Why, Bobby Gillian, there's only one logical thing

you could do. You can go buy Miss Lotta Lauriere

a diamond pendant with the money, and then take

yourself off to Idaho and inflict, your presence upon a

ranch. I advise a sheep ranch, as I have a particular

dislike for sheep."



"Thanks," said Gillian, rising, "I thought I

could depend upon you, Old Bryson. You've hit on

the very scheme. I wanted to chuck the money in a

lump, for I've got to turn in an account for it, and

I hate itemizing."



Gillian phoned for a cab and said to the driver:

"The stage entrance of the Columbine Theatre."-

Miss Lotta Lauriere was assisting nature with a

powder puff, almost ready for her call at a crowded

Matinee, when her dresser mentioned the name of Mr.

Gillian.



"Let it in," said Miss Lauriere. " Now, what is

it, Bobby? I'm going on in two minutes."



"Rabbit-foot your right ear a little," suggested

Gillian, critically. " That's better. It won't take

two minutes for me. What do you say to a little

thing in the pendant line? I can stand three ciphers

with a figure one in front of 'em."



"Oh, just as you say," carolled Miss Lauriere.

my right glove, Adams. Say, Bobby, did you see

that necklace Della Stacey had on the other night?

Twenty-two hundred dollars it cost at Tiffany's.

But, of course -pull my sash a little to the left,

Adams."



"Miss Lauriere for the opening chorus!" cried the

call boy without.



Gillian strolled out to where his cab was waiting.



"What would you do with a thousand dollars if

you had it?" be asked the driver.



"Open a s'loon," said the cabby, promptly and

huskily. " I know a place I could take money in with

both hands. It's a four-story brick on a corner.

I've got it figured out. Second story - Chinks and

chop suey; third floor -manicures and foreign mis-

sions; fourth floor -poolroom. If you was think-

of putting up the capital.



"Oh, no," said Gillian, I merely asked from cu-

riosity. I take you by the hour. Drive 'til I tell you

to stop."



Eight blocks down Broadway Gillian poked up

the trap with his cane and got out. A blind man sat

upon a stool on the sidewalk selling pencils. Gillian

went out and stood before him.



"Excuse me," he said, " but would you mind tell-

ing me what you would do if you bad a thousand

dollars?"



"You got out of that cab that just drove up,

didn't you? " asked the blind man.



"I did," said Gillian.



" guess you are all right," said the pencil dealer,

"to ride in a cab by daylight. Take a look at that,

if you like."



He drew a small book from his coat pocket and

held it out. Gillian opened it and saw that it was a

bank deposit book. It showed a balance of $1,785 to

the blind man's credit.



Gillian returned the book and got into the cab.



"I forgot something," be said. "You may drive

to the law offices of Tolman & Sharp, at - Broad-

way."

Lawyer Tolman looked at him hostilely and in-

quiringly through his gold-rimmed glasses.



" I beg your pardon," said Gillian, cheerfully,

"but may I ask you a question? It is not an im-

pertinent one, I hope. Was Miss Hayden left any-

thing by my uncle's will besides the ring and the

$10?"



" Nothing," said Mr. Tolman.



" I thank you very much, sir," said Gillian, and

on he went to his cab. He gave the driver the ad-

dress of his late uncle's home.



Miss Hayden was writing letters in the library.

She was small and slender and clothed in black. But

you would have noticed her eyes. Gillian drifted

in with his air of regarding the world as inconse-

quent.



I've just come from old Tolman's," he explained.

They've been going over the papers down there.

They found a - Gillian searched his memory for a

legal term - they found an amendment or a post-

script or something to the will. It seemed that the

old boy loosened up a little on second thoughts and

willed you a thousand dollars. I was driving up this

way and Tolman asked me to bring you the money.

Here it is. You'd better count it to see if it's right."



Gillian laid the money beside her hand on the desk.

Miss Hayden turned white. "Oh! " she said, and

again "Oh !"



Gillian half turned and looked out the window.

"I suppose, of course," be said, in a low voice,

that you know I love you."



"I am sorry," said Miss Hayden, taking up her

money.



" There is no use? " asked Gillian, almost light-

heartedly.



" I am sorry," she said again.



" May I write a note? " asked Gillian, with a smile,

I-re seated himself at the big library table. She sup-

plied him with paper and pen, and then went back to

her secretaire.



Gillian made out his account of his expenditure of

the thousand dollars i;i these words:



Paid by the black sheep, Robert Gillian, $1,000

on account of the eternal happiness, owed by Heaven

to the best and dearest woman on earth."



Gillian slipped his writing into an envelope, bowed

and went his way.



His cab stopped again at the offices of Tolman &

Sharp.



"I have expended the thousand dollars," he said

cheerily, to Tolman of the gold glasses, " and I have

come to render account of it, as I agreed. There is

quite a feeling of summer in the air - do you not

think so, Mr. Tolman?" He tossed a white envelope

on the lawyer's table. You will find there a memo-

randum, sir, of the modus operandi of the vanishing

of the dollars."



Without touching the envelope, Mr. Tolman went

to a door and called his partner, Sharp. Together

they explored the caverns of an immense safe. Forth

they dragged, as trophy of their search a big envelope

sealed with wax. This they forcibly invaded, and

wagged their venerable heads together over its con-

tents. Then Tolman became spokesman.



"Mr. Gillian," he said, formally, "there was a

codicil to your uncle's will. It was intrusted to us

privately, with instructions that it be not opened until

you had furnished us with a full account of your

handling of the $1,000 bequest in the will. As you

have fulfilled the conditions, my partner and I have

read the codicil. I do not wish to encumber your

understanding with its legal phraseology, but I will

acquaint you with the spirit of its contents.



In the event that your disposition of the $1,000

demonstrates that you possess any of the qualifica-

tions that deserve reward, much benefit will

accrue to you. Mr. Sharp and I are named

as the judges, and I assure you that we will do our

duty strictly according to justice-with liberality.

We are not at all unfavorably disposed toward you,

Mr. Gillian. But let us return to the letter of the

codicil. If your disposal of the money in question has

been prudent, wise, or unselflish, it is in our power to

hand you over bonds to the value of $50,000, which

have been placed in our hands for that purpose. But

if - as our client, the late Mr. Gillian, explicitly

provides - you have used this money as you have

money in the past, I quote the late Mr. Gillian

- in reprehensible dissipation among disreputable

associates - the $50,000 is to be paid to Miriam

Hayden, ward of the late Mr. Gillian, without delay.

Now, Mr. Gillian, Mr. Sharp and I will examine your

account in regard to the $1,000. You submit it in

writing, I believe. I hope you will repose confidence

in our decision."



Mr. Tolman reached for the envelope. Gillian

was a little the quicker in taking it up. He tore the

account and its cover leisurely into strips and dropped

them into his pocket.



"It's all right," he said, smilingly. "There isn't a

bit of need to bother you with this. I don't suppose

you'd understand these itemized bets, anyway. I

lost the thousand dollars on the races. Good-day to

you, gentlemen."



Tolman & Sharp shook their beads mournfully at

each other when Gillian left, for they heard him whis-

tling gayly in the hallway as he waited for the ele-

vator.









THE DEFEAT OF THE CITY



Robert Walmsley's descent upon the city

resulted in a Kilkenny struggle. He came out of the

fight victor by a fortune and a reputation. On the

other band, he was swallowed up by the city. The

city gave him what he demanded and then branded

him with its brand. It remodelled, cut, trimmed and

stamped him to the pattern it approves. It opened

its social gates to him and shut him in on a close-

cropped, formal lawn with the select herd of rumi-

nants. In dress, habits, manners, provincialism,

routine and narrowness he acquired that charming in-

solence, that irritating completeness, that sophisti-

cated crassness, that overbalanced poise that makes

the Manhattan gentleman so delightfully small in his

greatness.



One of the up-state rural counties pointed with

pride to the successful young metropolitan lawyer as

a product of its soil. Six years earlier this county

had removed the wheat straw from between its huckle-

berry-stained teeth and emitted a derisive and bucolic

laugh as old man Walmsley's freckle-faced " Bob

abandoned the certain three-per-diem meals of the

one-horse farm for the discontinuous quick lunch

counters of the three-ringed metropolis. At the end

of the six years no murder trial, coaching party, au-

tomobile accident or cotillion was complete in which

the name of Robert Walmsley did not figure. Tailors

waylaid him in the street to get a new wrinkle from

the cut of his unwrinkled trousers. Hyphenated fel-

lows in the clubs and members of the oldest subpoenaed

families were glad to clap him on the back and allow

him three letters of his name.



But the Matterhorn of Robert Walmsley's success

was not scaled until be married Alicia Van Der Pool.

I cite the Matterhorn, for just so high and cool and

white and inaccessible was this daughter of the old

burghers. The social Alps that ranged about her

over whose bleak passes a thousand climbers struggled

-- reached only to her knees. She towered in her own

atmosphere, serene, chaste, prideful, wading in no

fountains, dining no monkeys, breeding no dogs for

bench shows. She was a Van Der Pool. Fountains

were made to play for her; monkeys were made for

other people's ancestors; dogs, she understood, were

created to be companions of blind persons and objec-

tionable characters who smoked pipes.



This was the Matterhorn that Robert Walmsley

accomplished. If he found, with the good poet with

the game foot and artificially curled hair, that he who

ascends to mountain tops will find the loftiest peaks

most wrapped in clouds and snow, he concealed his

chilblains beneath a brave and smiling exterior. He

was a lucky man and knew it, even though he were

imitating the Spartan boy with an ice-cream freezer

beneath his doublet frappeeing the region of his

heart.



After a brief wedding tour abroad, the couple re-

turned to create a decided ripple in the calm cistern

(so placid and cool and sunless it is) of the best so-

ciety. They entertained at their red brick mausoleum

of ancient greatness in an old square that is a ceme-

tery of crumbled glory. And Robert Walmsley was

proud of his wife; although while one of his hands

shook his guests' the other held tightly to his alpen-

stock and thermometer.



One day Alicia found a letter written to Robert by

his mother. It was an unerudite letter, full of crops

and motherly love and farm notes. It chronicled the

health of the pig and the recent red calf, and asked

concerning Robert's in return. It was a letter direct

from the soil, straight from home, full of biographies

of bees, tales of turnips, peaans of new-laid eggs, neg-

lected parents and the slump in dried apples.



"Why have I not been shown your mother's let-

ters?" asked Alicia. There was always something in

her voice that made you think of lorgnettes, of ac-

counts at Tiffany's, of sledges smoothly gliding on

the trail from Dawson to Forty Mile, of the tinkling

of pendant prisms on your grandmothers' chandeliers,

of snow lying on a convent roof; of a police sergeant

refusing bail. "Your mother," continued Alicia,

"invites us to make a visit to the farm. I have

never seen a farm. We will go there for a week or

two, Robert."



"We will," said Robert, with the grand air of an

associate Supreme Justice concurring in an opinion.

"I did not lay the invitation before you because I

thought you would not care to go. I am much pleased

at your decision."



"I will write to her myself," answered Alicia, with

a faint foreshadowing of enthusiasm. " Felice shall

pack my trunks at once. Seven, I think, will be

enough. I do not suppose that your mother entertains

a great deal. Does she give many house parties?"



Robert arose, and as attorney for rural places filed

a demurrer against six of the seven trunks. He en-

deavored to define, picture, elucidate, set forth and

describe a farm. His own words sounded strange in

his ears. He had not realized how thoroughly urbsi-

dized he had become.



A week passed and found them landed at the little

country station five hours out from the city. A grin-

ning, stentorian, sarcastic youth driving a mule to a

spring wagon hailed Robert savagely.



"Hallo, Mr. Walmsley. Found your way back at

last, have you? Sorry I couldn't bring in the auto-

mobile for you, but dad's bull-tonguing the ten-acre

clover patch with it to-day. Guess you'll excuse my,

not wearing a dress suit over to meet you -- it ain't

six o'clock yet, you know."



"I'm glad to see you, Tom," said Robert, grasp-

ing his brother's band. "Yes, I've found my way at

last. You've a right to say 'at last.' It's been over

two years since the last time. But it will be oftener

after this, my boy."



Alicia, cool in the summer beat as an Arctic wraith,

white as a Norse snow maiden in her flimsy muslin and

fluttering lace parasol, came round the corner of the

station; and Tom was stripped of his assurance. He

became chiefly eyesight clothed in blue jeans, and on

the homeward drive to the mule alone did he confide

in language the inwardness of his thoughts.



They drove homeward. The low sun dropped a

spendthrift flood of gold upon the fortunate fields of

wheat. The cities were far away. The road lay curl-

ing around wood and dale and bill like a ribbon lost

from the robe of careless summer. The wind followed

like a whinnying colt in the track of Phoebus's steeds.



By and by the farmhouse peeped gray out of its

faithful grove; they saw the long lane with its convoy

of walnut trees running from the road to the house;

they smelled the wild rose and the breath of cool,

damp willows in the creek's bed. And then in unison

all the voices of the soil began a chant addressed to

the soul of Robert Walmsley. Out of the tilted aisles

of the dim wood they came hollowly; they chirped and

buzzed from the parched grass; they trilled from the

ripples of the creek ford; they floated up in clear

Pan's pipe notes from the dimming meadows; the

whippoorwills joined in as they pursued midges in the

upper air; slow-going cow-bells struck out a homely

accompaniment -- and this was what each one said:

"You've found your way back at last, have you?"



The old voices of the soil spoke to him. Leaf and

bud and blossom conversed with him in the old vocabu-

lary of his careless youth - the inanimate things, the

familiar stones and rails, the gates and furrows and

roofs and turns of the road had an eloquence, too, and

a power in the transformation. The country had

smiled and he had felt the breath of it, and his heart

was drawn as if in a moment back to his old love.

The city was far away.



This rural atavism, then, seized Robert Walmsley

and possessed him. A queer thing he noticed in con-

nection with it was that Alicia, sitting at his side,

suddenly seemed to him a stranger. She did not be-

long to this recurrent phase. Never before had she

seemed so remote, so colorless and high - so intan-

gible and unreal. And yet he had never admired her

more than when she sat there by him in the rickety

spring wagon, chiming no more with his mood and

with her environment than the Matterhorn chimes

with a peasant's cabbage garden.



That night when the greetings and the supper were

over, the entire family, including Buff, the yellow dog,

bestrewed itself upon the front porch. Alicia, not

haughty but silent, sat in the shadow dressed in an

exquisite pale-gray tea gown. Robert's mother dis-

coursed to her happily concerning marmalade and

lumbago. Tom sat on the top step; Sisters Millie

and Pam on the lowest step to catch the lightning

bugs. Mother had the willow rocker. Father sat in

the big armchair with one of its arms gone. Buff

sprawled in the middle of the porch in everybody's

way. The twilight pixies and pucks stole forth un-

seen and plunged other poignant shafts of memory

into the heart of Robert. A rural madness entered

his soul. The city was far away.



Father sat without his pipe, writhing in his heavy

boots, a sacrifice to rigid courtesy. Robert shouted:

"No, you don't!" He fetched the pipe and lit it; be

seized the old gentleman's boots and tore them off.

The last one slipped suddenly, and Mr. Robert

Walmsley, of Washington Square, tumbled off the

porch backward with Buff on top of him, bowling

fearfully. Tom laughed sarcastically.



Robert tore off his coat and vest and hurled them

into a lilac bush.



"Come out here, you landlubber," be cried to Tom,

and I'll put grass seed on your back. I think you

Called me a 'dude' a while ago. Come along and cut

your capers."



Tom understood the invitation and accepted it with

delight. Three times they wrestled on the grass,

"side holds," even as the giants of the mat. And

twice was Tom forced to bite grass at the hands of

the distinguished lawyer. Dishevelled, panting, each

still boasting of his own prowess, they stumbled back

to the porch. Millie cast a pert reflection upon the

qualities of a city brother. In an instant Robert had

secured a horrid katydid in his fingers and bore down

upon her. Screaming wildly, she fled up the lane,

pursued by the avenging glass of form. A quarter

of a mile and they returned, she full of apology to

the victorious " dude." The rustic mania possessed

him unabatedly.



I can do up a cowpenful of you slow hayseeds,"

he proclaimed, vaingloriously. "Bring on your bull-

dogs, your hired men and your log-rollers."



He turned handsprings on the grass that prodded

Tom to envious sarcasm. And then, with a whoop,

he clattered to the rear and brought back Uncle like,

a battered colored retainer of the family, with his

banjo, and strewed sand on the porch and danced

"Chicken in the Bread Tray" and did buck-and-

wing wonders for half an hour longer. Incredibly,

wild and boisterous things he did. He sang, he told

stories that set all but one shrieking, he played the

yokel, the humorous clodhopper; he was mad, and

with the revival of the old life in his blood.

He became so extravagant that once his mother

sought gently to reprove him. Then Alicia moved as

though she were about to speak, but she did not.

Through it all she sat immovable, a slim, white spirit

in the dusk that no man might question or read.



By and by she asked permission to ascend to her

room, saying that she was tired. On her way she

passed Robert. He was standing in the door, the

figure of vulgar comedy, with ruffled hair, reddened

face and unpardonable confusion of attire -- no trace

there of the immaculate Robert Walmsley, the courted

clubman and ornament of select circles. He was do-

ing a conjuring trick with some household utensils,

and the family, now won over to him without excep-

tion, was beholding him with worshipful admiration.



As Alicia passed in Robert started suddenly. He

had forgotten for the moment that she was present.



Without a glance at him she went on upstairs.



After that the fun grew quiet. An hour passed

in talk, and then Robert went up himself.



She was standing by the window when he entered

their room. She was still clothed as when they were

on the porch. Outside and crowding against the

window was a giant apple tree, full blossomed.



Robert sighed and went near the window. He was

ready to meet his fate. A confessed vulgarian, he

foresaw the verdict of justice in the shape of that

whiteclad form. He knew the rigid lines that a

Van Der Pool would draw. He was a peasant gam-

bolling indecorously in the valley, and the pure, cold,

white, unthawed summit of the Matterhorn could not

but frown on him. He had been unmasked by his

own actions. All the polish, the poise, the form that

the city had given him had fallen from him like an

ill-fitting mantle at the first breath of a country

breeze. Dully be awaited the approaching condemna-

tion.



"Robert," said the calm, cool voice of his judge,

"I thought I married a gentleman."



Yes, it was coming. And yet, in the face of it,

Robert Walmsley was eagerly regarding a certain

branch of the apple tree upon which be used to climb

out of that very window. He believed he could do it

now. He wondered bow many blossoms there were

on the tree -- ten millions? But here was some one

speaking again:



"I thought I married a gentleman," the voice

went on, "but -- "



Why had she come and was standing so close by

his side?



"But I find that I have married" -- was this

Alicia talking? -- "something better -- a man --

Bob, dear, kiss me, won't you?"



The city was far away.









THE SHOCKS OF DOOM





Here is an aristocracy of the public parks and

even of the vagabonds who use them for their private

apartments. Vallance felt rather than knew this,

but when he stepped down out of his world into

chaos his feet brought him directly to Madison

Square.



Raw and astringent as a schoolgirl -- of the old

order -- young May breathed austerely among the

budding trees. Vallance buttoned his coat, lighted

his last cigarette and took his seat upon a bench.

For three minutes be mildly regretted the last hundred

of his last thousand that it had cost him when the

bicycle cop put an end to his last automobile ride.

Then he felt in every pocket and found not a

single penny. He had given up his apartment that

morning. His furniture had gone toward certain

debts. His clothes, save what were upon him, had

descended to his man-servant for back wages. As he

sat there was not in the whole city for him a bed or a

broiled lobster or a street-car fare or a carnation for

buttonhole unless be should obtain them by spong-

on his friends or by false pretenses. Therefore

lie had chosen the park.



And all this was because an uncle had disinherited

him, and cut down his allowance from liberality to

nothing. And all that was because his nephew had

disobeyed him concerning a certain girl, who comes

not into this story -- therefore, all readers who

brush their hair toward its roots may be warned to

read no further. There was another nephew, of a

different branch, who had once been the prospective

heir and favorite. Being without grace or hope, he

had long ago disappeared in the mire. Now drag-

nets were out for him; he was to be rehabilitated and

restored. And so Vallance fell grandly as Lucifer

to the lowest pit, joining the tattered ghosts in the

little park.



Sitting there, he leaned far back on the hard bench

and laughed a jet of cigarette smoke up to the lowest

tree branches. The sudden severing of all his life's

ties had brought him a free, thrilling, almost joyous

elation. He felt precisely the sensation of the aero-

naut when he cuts loose his parachute and lets his

balloon drift away.



The hour was nearly ten. Not many loungers

were on the benches. The park-dweller, though a

stubborn fighter against autumnal coolness, is slow

to attack the advance line of spring's chilly cohorts.



Then arose one from a seat near the leaping foun-

tain, and came and sat himself at Vallance's side.

He was either young or old; cheap lodging-houses

had flavored him mustily; razors and combs had

passed him by; in him drink had been bottled and

sealed in the devil's bond. He begged a match, which

is the form of introduction among park benchers, and

then he began to talk.



"You're not one of the regulars," he said to Val-

lance. "I know tailored clothes when I see 'em.

You just stopped for a moment on your way through

the park. Don't mind my talking to you for a while?

I've got to be with somebody. I'm afraid -- I'm

afraid. I've told two or three of those bummers over

about it. They think I'm crazy. Say -- let

tell you -- all I've had to eat to-day was a couple

pretzels and an apple. To-morrow I'll stand in

to inherit three millions; and that restaurant you

ee over there with the autos around it will be too

for me to eat in. Don't believe it, do you?



"Without the slightest trouble," said Vallance,

with a laugh. "I lunched there yesterday. To-

night I couldn't buy a five-cent cup of coffee."



"You don't look like one of us. Well, I guess those

things happen. I used to be a high-flyer myself

years ago. What knocked you out of the game?"



"I -- oh, I lost my job," said Vallance.



"It's undiluted Hades, this city," went on the

other. "One day you're eating from china; the

next you are eating in China -- a chop-suey joint.

I've had more than my share of hard luck. For five

years I've been little better than a panhandler. I

was raised up to live expensively and do nothing.

Say -- I don't mind telling you -- I've got to talk

to somebody, you see, because I'm afraid -- I'm

afraid. My name's Ide. You wouldn't think that

old Paulding, one of the millionaires on Riverside

Drive, was my uncle, would you? Well, he is. I

lived in his house once, and had all the money I

wanted. Say, haven't you got the price of a couple

of drinks about you -- er -- what's your name"



"Dawson," said Vallance. "No; I'm sorry to say

that I'm all in, financially."



"I've been living for a week in a coal cellar on

Division Street," went on Ide, "with a crook they

called 'Blinky' Morris. I didn't have anywhere else

to go. While I was out to-day a chap with some pa-

pers in his pocket was there, asking for me. I didn't

know but what he was a fly cop, so I didn't go around

again till after dark. There was a letter there be

had left for me. Say -- Dawson, it was from a big

downtown lawyer, Mead. I've seen his sign on Ann

Street. Paulding wants me to play the prodigal

nephew -- wants me to come back and be his heir

again and blow in his money. I'm to call at the

lawyer's office at ten to-morrow and step into my old

shoes again -- heir to three million, Dawson, and

$10,000 a year pocket money. And -- I'm afraid

-- I'm afraid"



The vagrant leaped to his feet and raised both

trembling arms above his bead. He caught his breath

and moaned hysterically.



Vallance seized his arm and forced him back to the

bench.



"Be quiet!" he commanded, with something like

disgust in his tones. "One would think you had lost

a fortune, instead of being about to acquire one. Of

what are you afraid?"



Ide cowered and shivered on the bench. He clung

to Vallance's sleeve, and even in the dim glow of the

Broadway lights the latest disinherited one could see

drops on the other's brow wrung out by some strange

terror.



"Why, I'm afraid something will happen to me be-

fore morning. I don't know what -- something to

keep me from coming into that money. I'm afraid a

tree will fall on me -- I'm afraid a cab will run over

me, or a stone drop on me from a housetop, or some-

thing. I never was afraid before. I've sat in this

park a hundred nights as calm as a graven image

without knowing where my breakfast was to come

from. But now it's different. I love money, Daw-

son - I'm happy as a god when it's trickling through

my fingers, and people are bowing to me, with the

music and the flowers and fine clothes all around. As

long as I knew I was out of the game I didn't mind.

I was even happy sitting here ragged and hungry,

listening to the fountain jump and watching the

carriages go up the avenue. But it's in reach of my

hand again now -- almost -- and I can't stand it to

wait twelve hours, Dawson -- I can't stand it.

There are fifty things that could happen to me -- I

could go blind -- I might be attacked with heart

disease -- the world might come to an end before I

could -- "



Ide sprang to his feet again, with a shriek. Peo-

ple stirred on the benches and began to look. Val-

lance took his arm.



"Come and walk," he said, soothingly. "And try

to calm yourself. There is no need to become ex-

cited or alarmed. Nothing is going to happen to

you. One night is like another."



"That's right," said Ide. "Stay with me, Daw-

son -- that's a good fellow. Walk around with me

awhile. I never went to pieces like this before, and

I've had a good many hard knocks. Do you think

you could hustle something in the way of a little

lunch, old man? I'm afraid my nerve's too far gone

to try any panhandling"



Vallance led his companion up almost deserted

Fifth Avenue, and then westward along the Thirties

toward Broadway. "Wait here a few minutes," he

said, leaving Ide in a quiet and shadowed spot. He

entered a familiar hotel, and strolled toward the bar

quite in his old assured way.



"There's a poor devil outside, Jimmy," he said to

the bartender, "who says he's hungry and looks it.

You know what they do when you give them money.

Fix up a sandwich or two for him; and I'll see that

he doesn't throw it away."



"Certainly, Mr. Vallance," said the bartender.

"They ain't all fakes. Don't like to see anybody go

hungry."



Ide folded a liberal supply of the free lunch into a

napkin. Vallance went with it and joined his com-

panion. Ide pounced upon the food ravenously. "I

haven't had any free lunch as good as this in a

year," be said. "Aren't you going to eat any,

Dawson?



"I'm not hungry - thanks," said Vallance.



"We'll go back to the Square," said Ide. "The

cops won't bother us there. I'll roll up the rest of

this ham and stuff for our breakfast. I won't eat

any more; I'm afraid I'll get sick. Suppose I'd die

of cramps or something to-night, and never get to

touch that money again! It's eleven hours yet till

time to see that lawyer. You won't leave me, will

you, Dawson? I'm afraid something might happen.

You haven't any place to go, have you?"



"No," said Vallance, "nowhere to-night. I'll

have a bench with you."



"You take it cool," said Ide, "if you've told it to

me straight. I should think a man put on the bum

from a good job just in one day would be tearing his

hair."



"I believe I've already remarked," said Vallance,

laughing, "that I would have thought that a man

who was expecting to come into a fortune on the

next day would be feeling pretty easy and quiet."



"It's funny business," philosophized Ide, "about

the way people take things, anyhow. Here's your

bench, Dawson, right next to mine. The light don't

shine in your eyes here. Say, Dawson, I'll get the

old man to give you a letter to somebody about a job

when I get back home. You've helped me a lot to-

night. I don't believe I could have gone through

the night if I hadn't struck you."



"Thank you," said Vallance. "Do you lie down

or sit up on these when you sleep?



For hours Vallance gazed almost without winking

at the stars through the branches of the trees and

listened to the sharp slapping of horses' hoofs on the

sea of asphalt to the south His mind was active,

but his feelings were dormant. Every emotion

seemed to have been eradicated. Ide felt no regrets,

no fears, no pain or discomfort. Even when be

thought of the girl, it was as of an inhabitant of one

of those remote stars at which be gazed. He re-

membered the absurd antics of his companion and

laughed softly, yet without a feeling of mirth. Soon

the daily army of milk wagons made of the city a

roaring drum to which they marched. Vallance fell

asleep on his comfortless bench.



At ten o'clock on the next day the two stood at the

door of Lawyer Mead's office in Ann Street.



Ide's nerves fluttered worse than ever when the

hour approached; and Vallance could not decide to

leave him a possible prey to the dangers he dreaded.



When they entered the office, Lawyer Mead looked

at them wonderingly. He and Vallance were old

friends. After his greeting, he turned to Ide, who

stood with white face and trembling limbs before the

expected crisis.



"I sent a second letter to your address last night,

Mr. Ide," he said. "I learned this morning that

you were not there to receive it. It will inform you

that Mr. Paulding has reconsidered his offer to take

you back into favor. He has decided not to do so,

and desires you to understand that no change will be

made in the relations existing between you and

him."



Ide's trembling suddenly ceased. The color came

back to his face, and be straightened his back. His

jaw went forward half an inch, and a gleam came

into his eye. He pushed back his battered bat with

one hand, and extended the other, with levelled fin-

gers, toward the lawyer. He took a long breath and

then laughed sardonically.



"Tell old Paulding he may go to the devil," he

said, loudly and clearly, and turned and walked out

of the office with a firm and lively step.



Lawyer Mead turned on his heel to Vallance and

smiled.



"I am glad you came in," he said, genially.

"Your uncle wants you to return home at once. He

is reconciled to the situation that led to his hasty

action, and desires to say that all will be as -- "



"Hey, Adams!" cried Lawyer Mead, breaking his

sentence, and calling to his clerk. "Bring a glass of

water Mr. Vallance has fainted."









THE PLUTONIAN FIRE





There are a few editor men with whom I am privi-

leged to come in contact. It has not been long since

it was their habit to come in contact with me. There

is a difference.



They tell me that with a large number of the

manuscripts that are submitted to them come advices

(in the way of a boost) from the author asseverating

that the incidents in the story are true. The des-

tination of such contributions depends wholly upon

the question of the enclosure of stamps. Some are

returned, the rest are thrown on the floor in a corner

on top of a pair of gum shoes, an overturned statu-

ette of the Winged Victory, and a pile of old maga-

zines containing a picture of the editor in the act

of reading the latest copy of Le Petit Journal, right

side up - you can tell by the illustrations. It is

only a legend that there are waste baskets in editors'

offices.



Thus is truth held in disrepute. But in time truth

and science and nature will adapt themselves to art.

Things will happen logically, and the villain be dis-

comfited instead of being elected to the board of

directors. But in the meantime fiction must not only

be divorced from fact, but must pay alimony and be

awarded custody of the press despatches.



This preamble is to warn you off the grade cross-

ing of a true story. Being that, it shall be told sim-

ply, with conjunctions substituted for adjectives

wherever possible, and whatever evidences of style

may appear in it shall be due to the linotype man.

It is a story of the literary life in a great city, and

it should be of interest to every author within a 20-

mile radius of Gosport, Ind., whose desk holds a MS.

story beginning thus: "While the cheers following

his nomination were still ringing through the old

courthouse, Harwood broke away from the congrat-

ulating handclasps of his henchmen and hurried to

Judge Creswell's house to find Ida."



Pettit came up out of Alabama to write fiction.

The Southern papers had printed eight of his stories

under an editorial caption identifying the author as

the son of "the gallant Major Pettingill Pettit, our

former County Attorney and hero of the battle of

Lookout Mountain."



Pettit was a rugged fellow, with a kind of shame-

faced culture, and my good friend. His father kept

a general store in a little town called Hosea. Pettit

had been raised in the pine-woods and broom-sedge

fields adjacent thereto. He had in his gripsack two

manuscript novels of the adventures in Picardy of

one Gaston Laboulaye, Vicompte de Montrepos, in

the year 1329. That's nothing. We all do that.

And some day when we make a hit with the little

sketch about a newsy and his lame dog, the editor

prints the other one for us -- or "on us," as the say-

ing is -- and then -- and then we have to get a big

valise and peddle those patent air-draft gas burners.

At $1.25 everybody should have 'em.



I took Pettit to the red-brick house which was to

appear in an article entitled "Literary Landmarks

of Old New York," some day when we got through

with it. He engaged a room there, drawing on the

general store for his expenses. I showed New York

to him, and he did not mention how much narrower

Broadway is than Lee Avenue in Hosea. This

seemed a good sign, so I put the final test.



"Suppose you try your band at a descriptive arti-

cle," I suggested, "giving your impressions of New

York as seen from the Brooklyn Bridge. The fresh

point of view, the -- "



"Don't be a fool," said Pettit. "Let's go have

some beer. On the whole I rather like the city."

We discovered and enjoyed the only true Bohemia.

Every day and night we repaired to one of those

palaces of marble and glass and tilework, where goes

on a tremendous and sounding epic of life. Valhalla

itself could not be more glorious and sonorous. The

classic marble on which we ate, the great, light-

flooded, vitreous front, adorned with snow-white

scrolls; the grand Wagnerian din of clanking cups

and bowls the flashing staccato of brandishing cut-

lery, the piercing recitative of the white-aproned

grub-maidens at the morgue-like banquet tables; the

recurrent lied-motif of the cash-register -- it was a

gigantic, triumphant welding of art and sound, a

deafening, soul-uplifting pageant of heroic and em-

blematic life. And the beans were only ten cents.

We wondered why our fellow-artists cared to dine at

sad little tables in their so-called Bohemian restau-

rants; and we shuddered lest they should seek out our

resorts and make them conspicuous with their pres-

ence.



Pettit wrote many stories, which the editors re-

turned to him. He wrote love stories, a thing I have

always kept free from, holding the belief that the

well-known and popular sentiment is not properly a

matter for publication, but something to be privately

handled by the alienists and florists. But the editors

had told him that they wanted love stories, because

they said the women read them.



Now, the editors are wrong about that, of course.

Women do not read the love stories in the magazines.

They read the poker-game stories and the recipes

for cucumber lotion. The love stories are read by

fat cigar drummers and little ten-year-old girls. I

am not criticising the judgment of editors. They

are mostly very fine men, but a man can be but one

man, with individual opinions and tastes. I knew

two associate editors of a magazine who were won-

derfully alike in almost everything. And yet one

of them was very fond of Flaubert, while the other

preferred gin.



Pettit brought me his returned manuscripts, and

we looked them over together to find out why they

were not accepted. They seemed to me pretty fair

stories, written in a good style, and ended, as they

should, at the bottom of the last page.



They were well constructed and the events were

marshalled in orderly and logical sequence. But I

thought I detected a lack of living substance -- it

was much as if I gazed at a symmetrical array of

presentable clamshells from which the succulent and

vital inhabitants had been removed. I intimated that

the author might do well to get better acquainted with

his theme.



"You sold a story last week," said Pettit, "about

a gun fight in an Arizona mining town in which the

hero drew his Colt's .45 and shot seven bandits as

fast as they came in the door. Now, if a six-shooter

could -- "



"Oh, well," said I, "that's different. Arizona is

a long way from New York. I could have a man

stabbed with a lariat or chased by a pair of chap-

arreras if I wanted to, and it wouldn't be noticed

until the usual error-sharp from around McAdams

Junction isolates the erratum and writes in to the pa-

pers about it. But you are up against another

proposition. This thing they call love is as common

around New York as it is in Sheboygan during the

young onion season. It may be mixed here with a

little commercialism -- they read Byron, but they

look up Bradstreet's, too, while they're among the

B's, and Brigham also if they have time -- but it's

pretty much the same old internal disturbance every-

where. You can fool an editor with a fake picture of

a cowboy mounting a pony with his left hand on the

saddle horn, but you can't put him up a tree with a

love story. So, you've got to fall in love and then

write the real thing."



Pettit did. I never knew whether he was taking

my advice or whether be fell an accidental victim.



There was a girl be had met at one of these studio

contrivances - a glorious, impudent, lucid, open-

minded girl with hair the color of Culmbacher, and a

good-natured way of despising you. She was a New

York girl.



Well (as the narrative style permits us to say in-

frequently), Pettit went to pieces. All those pains,

those lover's doubts, those heart-burnings and

tremors of which be had written so unconvincingly

were his. Talk about Shylock's pound of flesh!

Twenty-five pounds Cupid got from Pettit. Which

is the usurer?



One night Pettit came to my room exalted. Pale

and haggard but exalted. She had given him a

jonquil.



"Old Hoss," said he, with a new smile flickering

around his mouth, "I believe I could write that story

to-night -- the one, you know, that is to win out.



"I can feel it. I don't know whether it will come out

or not, but I can feel it."

I pushed him out of my door. "Go to your room

and write it," I ordered. "Else I can see your fin-

ish. I told you this must come first. Write it to-

night and put it under my door when it is done. Put

it under my door to-night when it is finished --

don't keep it until to-morrow."



I was reading my bully old pal Montaigne at two

o'clock when I beard the sheets rustle under my door.

I gathered them up and read the story.



The hissing of geese, the languishing cooing of

doves, the braying of donkeys, the chatter of irre-

sponsible sparrows - these were in my mind's ear as

I read. "Suffering Sappho!" I exclaimed to myself.

"Is this the divine fire that is supposed to ignite

genius and make it practicable and wage-earning?"



The story was sentimental drivel, full of whim-

pering softheartedness and gushing egoism. All

the art that Pettit had acquired was gone. A pe-

rusal of its buttery phrases would have made a cynic

of a sighing chambermaid.



In the morning Pettit came to my room. I read

him his doom mercilessly. He laughed idiotically.



"All right, Old Hoss," he said, cheerily, "make

cigar-lighters of it. What's the difference? I'm

going to take her to lunch at Claremont to-day."



There was about a month of it. And then Pettit

came to me bearing an invisible mitten, with the forti-

tude of a dish-rag. He talked of the grave and

South America and prussic acid; and I lost an after-

noon getting him straight. I took him out and saw

that large and curative doses of whiskey were ad-

ministered to him. I warned you this was a true

story -- 'ware your white ribbons if only follow this

tale. For two weeks I fed him whiskey and Omar,

and read to him regularly every evening the column

in the evening paper that reveals the secrets of fe-

male beauty. I recommend the treatment.



After Pettit was cured be wrote more stories. He

recovered his old-time facility and did work just

short of good enough. Then the curtain rose on

the third act.



A little, dark-eyed, silent girl from New Hamp-

shire, who was studying applied design, fell deeply

in love with him. She was the intense sort, but ex-

ternally glace, such as New England sometimes fools

us with. Pettit liked her mildly, and took her about

a good deal. She worshipped him, and now and then

ignored him.



There came a climax when she tried to jump out

of a window, and he had to save her by some perfunc-

tary, unmeant wooing. Even I was shaken by the

depths of the absorbing affection she showed. Home,

friends, traditions, creeds went up like thistle-down

in the scale against her love. It was really discom-

posing.



One night again Pettit sauntered in, yawning. As

he had told me before, he said he felt that he could

do a great story, and as before I hunted him to his

room and saw him open his inkstand. At one o'clock

the sheets of paper slid under my door.



I read that story, and I jumped up, late as it was,

with a whoop of joy. Old Pettit had done it. Just

as though it lay there, red and bleeding, a woman's

heart was written into the lines. You couldn't see

the joining, but art, exquisite art, and pulsing na-

ture had been combined into a love story that took

you by the throat like the quinsy. I broke into

Pettit's room and beat him on the back and called

him name -- names high up in the galaxy of the im-

mortals that we admired. And Pettit yawned and

begged to be allowed to sleep.



On the morrow, I dragged him to an editor. The

great man read, and, rising, gave Pettit his hand.

That was a decoration, a wreath of bay, and a guar-

antee of rent.



And then old Pettit smiled slowly. I call him Gen-

tleman Pettit now to myself. It's a miserable name

to give a man, but it sounds better than it looks in

print.



"I see," said old Pettit, as he took up his story

and began tearing it into small strips. "I see the

game now. You can't write with ink, and you can't

write with your own heart's blood, but you can write

with the heart's blood of some one else. You have

to be a cad before you can be an artist. Well, I am

for old Alabam and the Major's store. Have you

got a light, Old Hoss?"



I went with Pettit to the depot and died hard.



"Shakespeare's sonnets?" I blurted, making a last

stand. "How about him?"



"A cad," said Pettit. "They give it to you, and

you sell it -- love, you know. I'd rather sell ploughs

for father."



"But," I protested, " you are reversing the de-

cision of the world's greatest -- "



"Good-by, Old Hoss," said Pettit.



"Critics," I continued. " But -- say -- if the

Major can use a fairly good salesman and book-

keeper down there in the store, let me know, will

you?"









NEMESIS AND THE CANDY MAN





"We sail at eight in the morning on the Celtic," said

Honoria, plucking a loose thread from her lace

sleeve.



"I heard so," said young Ives, dropping his hat,

and muffing it as he tried to catch it, "and I came

around to wish you a pleasant voyage."



"Of course you heard it," said Honoria, coldly

sweet, "since we have had no opportunity of inform-

ing you ourselves."



Ives looked at her pleadingly, but with little hope.



Outside in the street a high-pitched voice

chanted, not unmusically, a commercial gamut of

"Cand-de-ee-ee-s! Nice, fresh cand-ee-ee-ee-ees!d



"It's our old candy man," said Honoria, leaning

out the window and beckoning. "I want some of his

motto kisses. There's nothing in the Broadway

shops half so good."



The candy man stopped his pushcart in front of

the old Madison Avenue home. He had a holiday

and festival air unusual to street peddlers. His tie

was new and bright red, and a horseshoe pin, almost

life-size, glittered speciously from its folds. His

brown, thin face was crinkled into a semi-foolish

smile. Striped cuffs with dog-head buttons covered

the tan on his wrists.



"I do believe he's going to get married," said

Honoria, pityingly. "I never saw him taken that

way before. And to-day is the first time in months

that he has cried his wares, I am sure."



Ives threw a coin to the sidewalk. The candy man

knows his customers. He filled a paper bag, climbed

the old-fashioned stoop and banded it in.

"I remember -- " said Ives.



"Wait," said Honoria.



She took a small portfolio from the drawer of a

writing desk and from the portfolio a slip of flimsy

paper one-quarter of an inch by two inches in size.



"This," said Honoria, inflexibly, "was wrapped

about the first one we opened."



"It was a year ago," apologized Ives, as he held

out his hand for it,





"As long as skies above are blue



To you, my love, I will be true."





This he read from the slip of flimsy paper.



"We were to have sailed a fortnight ago," said

Honoria, gossipingly. "It has been such a warm

summer. The town is quite deserted. There is no-

where to go. Yet I am told that one or two of the

roof gardens are amusing. The, singing -- and the

dancing -- on one or two seem to have met with ap-

proval."



Ives did not wince. When you are in the ring you

are not surprised when your adversary taps you on

the ribs.



"I followed the candy man that time," said Ives,

irrelevantly, "and gave him five dollars at the corner

of Broadway."



He reached for the paper bag in Honoria's lap,

took out one of the square, wrapped confections and

slowly unrolled it.



Sara Chillingworth's father," said Honoria,

"has given her an automobile."



"Read that," said Ives, handing over the slip that

had been wrapped around the square of candy.





"Life teaches us -- how to live,



Love teaches us -- to forgive."





Honoria's checks turned pink.

"Honoria!" cried Ives, starting up from his chair.



"Miss Clinton," corrected Honoria, rising like

Venus from the head on the surf. "I warned you

not to speak that name again."'



"Honoria," repeated Ives, "you must bear me. I

know I do not deserve your forgiveness, but I must

have it. There is a madness that possesses one some-

times for which his better nature is not responsible.

I throw everything else but you to the winds. I

strike off the chains that have bound me. I re-

nounce the siren that lured me from you. Let the

bought verse of that street peddler plead for me. It

is you only whom I can love. Let your love forgive,

and I swear to you that mine will be true 'as long

as skies above are blue.'



On the west side, between Sixth and Seventh Ave-

nues, an alley cuts the block in the middle. It per-

ishes in a little court in the centre of the block. The

district is theatrical; the inhabitants, the bubbling

froth of half a dozen nations. The atmosphere is

Bohemian, the language polyglot, the locality pre-

carious.



In the court at the rear of the alley lived the candy

man. At seven o'clock be pushed his cart into the

narrow entrance, rested it upon the irregular stone

slats and sat upon one of the handles to cool himself.

There was a great draught of cool wind through the

alley.



There was a window above the spot where be al-

ways stopped his pushcart. In the cool of the after-

noon, Mlle. Adele, drawing card of the Aerial Roof

Garden, sat at the window and took the air. Gen-

erally her ponderous mass of dark auburn hair was

down, that the breeze might have the felicity of aid-

ing Sidonie, the maid, in drying and airing it.

About her shoulders -- the point of her that the pho-

tographers always made the most of -- was loosely

draped a heliotrope scarf. Her arms to the elbow

were bare -- there were no sculptors there to rave

over them -- but even the stolid bricks in the walls

of the alley should not have been so insensate as to

disapprove. While she sat thus Fe1ice, another maid,

anointed and bathed the small feet that twinkled and

so charmed the nightly Aerial audiences.



Gradually Mademoiselle began to notice the candy

man stopping to mop his brow and cool himself be-

neath her window. In the hands of her maids she

was deprived for the time of her vocation -- the

charming and binding to her chariot of man. To

lose time was displeasing to Mademoiselle. Here

was the candy man - no fit game for her darts, truly

-- but of the sex upon which she had been born to

make war.



After casting upon him looks of unseeing coldness

for a dozen times, one afternoon she suddenly thawed

and poured down upon him a smile that put to shame

the sweets upon his cart.



"Candy man," she said, cooingly, while Sidonie

followed her impulsive dive, brushing the heavy

auburn hair, "don't you think I am beautiful?



The candy man laughed harshly, and looked up,

with his thin jaw set, while he wiped his forehead

with a red-and-blue handkerchief



"Yer'd make a dandy magazine cover," he said,

grudgingly. "Beautiful or not is for them that

cares. It's not my line. If yer lookin' for bou-

quets apply elsewhere between nine and twelve. I

think we'll have rain."



Truly, fascinating a candy man is like killing rab-

bits in a deep snow; but the hunter's blood is widely

diffused. Mademoiselle tugged a great coil of

hair from Sidonie's bands and let it fall out the

window.



"Candy man, have you a sweetheart anywhere

with hair as long and soft as that? And with an arm

so round? " She flexed an arm like Galatea's after

the miracle across the window-sill.



The candy man cackled shrilly as he arranged a

stock of butter-scotch that had tumbled down.



"Smoke up!" said he, vulgarly. "Nothin' doin'

in the complimentary line. I'm too wise to be bam-

boozled by a switch of hair and a newly massaged

arm. Oh, I guess you'll make good in the calcium,

all right, with plenty of powder and paint on and the

orchestra playing "Under the Old Apple Tree."

But don't put on your hat and chase downstairs to

fly to the Little Church Around the Corner with me.

I've been up against peroxide and make-up boxes be-

fore. Say, all joking aside -- don't you think we'll

have rain?"



"Candy man," said Mademoiselle softly, with her

lips curving and her chin dimpling, "don't you think

I'm pretty?"



The candy man grinned.

"Savin' money, ain't yer? " said be, "by bein' yer

own press agent. I smoke, but I haven't seen yer

mug on any of the five-cent cigar boxes. It'd take

a new brand of woman to get me goin', anyway. I

know 'em from sidecombs to shoelaces. Gimme a

good day's sales and steak-and-onions at seven and

a pipe and an evenin' paper back there in the court,

and I'll not trouble Lillian Russell herself to wink at

me, if you please."



Mademoiselle pouted.



"Candy man," she said, softly and deeply, "yet

you shall say that I am beautiful. All men say so

and so shall you."



The candy man laughed and pulled out his pipe.



"Well," said be, "I must be goin' in. There is a

story in the evenin' paper that I am readin'. Men

are divin' in the seas for a treasure, and pirates are

watchin' them from behind a reef. And there ain't

a woman on land or water or in the air. Good-

evenin'." And he trundled his pushcart down the

alley and back to the musty court where he lived.



Incredibly to him who has not learned woman,

Mademoiselle sat at the window each day and spread

her nets for the ignominious game. Once she kept a

grand cavalier waiting in her reception chamber for

half an hour while she battered in vain the candy

man's tough philosophy. His rough laugh chafed her

vanity to its core. Daily he sat on his cart in the

breeze of the alley while her hair was being ministered

to, and daily the shafts of her beauty rebounded

from his dull bosom pointless and ineffectual. Un-

worthy pique brightened her eyes. Pride-hurt she

glowed upon him in a way that would have sent her

higher adorers into an egoistic paradise. The candy

man's hard eyes looked upon her with a half-con-

cealed derision that urged her to the use of the sharp-

est arrow in her beauty's quiver.



One afternoon she leaned far over the sill, and she

did not challenge and torment him as usual.



"Candy man," said she, "stand up and look into

my eyes."



He stood up and looked into her eyes, with his

harsh laugh like the sawing of wood. He took out

his pipe, fumbled with it, and put it back into big

pocket with a trembling band.



"That will do," said Mademoiselle, with a slow

smile. "I must go now to my masseuse. Good-

evening."



The next evening at seven the candy man came and

rested his cart under the window. But was it the

candy man? His clothes were a bright new check.

His necktie was a flaming red, adorned by a glit-

tering horseshoe pin, almost life-size. His shoes were

polished; the tan of his cheeks had paled -- his hands

had been washed. The window was empty, and he

waited under it with his nose upward, like a hound

hoping for a bone.



Mademoiselle came, with Sidonie carrying her load

of hair. She looked at the candy man and smiled a

slow smile that faded away into ennui. Instantly she

knew that the game was bagged; and so quickly

she wearied of the chase. She began to talk to

Sidonie.



"Been a fine day," said the candy man, hollowly.

"First time in a month I've felt first-class. Hit it

up down old Madison, hollering out like I useter.

Think it'll rain to-morrow?"



Mademoiselle laid two round arms on the cushion

on the window-sill, and a dimpled chin upon them.



"Candy man," said she, softly, "do you not

love me? "



The candy man stood up and leaned against the

brick wall.



"Lady," said be, chokingly, "I've got $800 saved

up. Did I say you wasn't beautiful? Take it every

bit of it and buy a collar for your dog with it."



A sound as of a hundred silvery bells tinkled in the

room of Mademoiselle. The laughter filled the alley

and trickled back into the court, as strange a thing to

enter there as sunlight itself. Mademoiselle was

amused. Sidonie, a wise echo, added a sepulchral but

faithful contralto. The laughter of the two seemed

at last to penetrate the candy man. He fumbled

with his horseshoe pin. At length Mademoiselle, ex-

hausted, turned her flushed, beautiful face to the win-

dow.



"Candy man," said she, "go away. When I

laugh Sidonie pulls my hair. I can but laugh while

you remain there."



"Here is a note for Mademoiselle," said Fe1ice,

coming to the window in the room.



"There is no justice," said the candy man, lift-

ing the handle of his cart and moving away.



Three yards he moved, and stopped. Loud shriek

after shriek came from the window of Mademoiselle.

Quickly he ran back. He heard a body thumping

upon the floor and a sound as though heels beat alter-

nately upon it.



"What is it?" be called.



Sidonie's severe head came into the window.



"Mademoiselle is overcome by bad news," she said.

"One whom she loved with all her soul has gone --

you may have beard of him -- he is Monsieur Ives.

He sails across the ocean to-morrow. Oh, you men!"









SQUARING THE CIRCLE





At the hazard of wearying you this tale of vehe-

ment emotions must be prefaced by a discourse on

geometry.



Nature moves in circles; Art in straight lines.

The natural is rounded; the artificial is made up

of angles. A man lost in the snow wanders, in spite

of himself, in perfect circles; the city man's feet,

denaturalized by rectangular streets and floors, carry

him ever away from himself.



The round eyes of childhood typify innocence;

the narrowed line of the flirt's optic proves the in-

vasion of art. The horizontal mouth is the mark of

determined cunning; who has not read Nature's most

spontaneous lyric in lips rounded for the candid kiss?



Beauty is Nature in perfection; circularity is its

chief attribute. Behold the full moon, the enchant-

ing golf ball, the domes of splendid temples, the

huckleberry pie, the wedding ring, the circus ring,

the ring for the waiter, and the "round" of drinks.



On the other hand, straight lines show that Na-

ture has been deflected. Imagine Venus's girdle

transformed into a "straight front"!



When we begin to move in straight lines and turn

sharp corners our natures begin to change. The

consequence is that Nature, being more adaptive than

Art, tries to conform to its sterner regulations. The

result is often a rather curious product -- for in-

stance: A prize chrysanthemum, wood alcohol whis-

key, a Republican Missouri, cauliflower au gratin,

and a New Yorker,



Nature is lost quickest in a big city. The cause

is geometrical, not moral. The straight lines of its

streets and architecture, the rectangularity of its

laws and social customs, the undeviating pavements,

the hard, severe, depressing, uncompromising rules

of all its ways -- even of its recreation and sports --

coldly exhibit a sneering defiance of the curved line

of Nature.



Wherefore, it may be said that the big city has

demonstrated the problem of squaring the circle.

And it may be added that this mathematical intro-

duction precedes an account of the fate of a Kentucky

feud that was imported to the city that has a habit

of making its importations conform to its angles.



The feud began in the Cumberland Mountains be-

tween the Folwell and the Harkness families. The

first victim of the homespun vendetta was a 'possum

dog belonging to Bill Harkness. The Harkness

family evened up this dire loss by laying out the

chief of the Folwell clan. The Folwells were prompt

at repartee. They oiled up their squirrel rifles and

made it feasible for Bill Harkness to follow his dog

to a land where the 'possums come down when treed

without the stroke of an ax.



The feud flourished for forty years. Harknesses

were shot at the plough, through their lamp-lit cabin

windows, coming from camp-meeting, asleep, in duello,

sober and otherwise, singly and in family groups,

prepared and unprepared. Folwells had the

branches of their family tree lopped off in similar

ways, as the traditions of their country prescribed

and authorized.



By and by the pruning left but a single member

of each family. And then Cal Harkness, probably

reasoning that further pursuance of the controversy

would give a too decided personal flavor to the feud,

suddenly disappeared from the relieved Cumberlands,

baulking the avenging hand of Sam, the ultimate op-

posing Folwell.



A year afterward Sam Folwell learned that his

hereditary, unsuppressed enemy was living in New

York City. Sam turned over the big iron wash-pot

in the yard, scraped off some of the soot, which he

mixed with lard and shined his boots with the com-

pound. He put on his store clothes of butternut

dyed black, a white shirt and collar, and packed a

carpet-sack with Spartan lingerie. He took his

squirrel rifle from its hooks, but put it back again

with a sigh. However ethical and plausible the habit

might be in the Cumberlands, perhaps New York

would not swallow his pose of hunting squirrels among

the skyscrapers along Broadway. An ancient but

reliable Colt's revolver that he resurrected from a

bureau drawer seemed to proclaim itself the pink of

weapons for metropolitan adventure and vengeance.

This and a hunting-knife in a leather sheath, Sam

packed in the carpet-sack. As he started, Muleback,

for the lowland railroad station the last Folwell

turned in his saddle and looked grimly at the little

cluster of white-pine slabs in the clump of cedars that

marked the Folwell burying-ground.



Sam Folwell arrived in New York in the night.

Still moving and living in the free circles of nature,

he did not perceive the formidable, pitiless, restless,

fierce angles of the great city waiting in the dark

to close about the rotundity of his heart and brain

and mould him to the form of its millions of re-shaped

victims. A cabby picked him out of the whirl, as

Sam himself had often picked a nut from a bed of

wind-tossed autumn leaves, and whisked him away

to a hotel commensurate to his boots and carpet-

sack.



On the next morning the last of the Folwells made

his sortie into the city that sheltered the last Hark-

ness. The Colt was thrust beneath his coat and se-

cured by a narrow leather belt; the hunting-knife

hung between his shoulder-blades, with the haft an

inch below his coat collar. He knew this much --

that Cal Harkness drove an express wagon some-

where in that town, and that he, Sam Folwell, had

come to kill him. And as he stepped upon the side-

walk the red came into his eye and the feud-hate into

his heart.



The clamor of the central avenues drew him thith-

erward. He had half expected to see Cal coming

down the street in his shirt-sleeves, with a jug and

a whip in his hand, just as he would have seen him

in Frankfort or Laurel City. But an hour went by

and Cal did not appear. Perhaps he was waiting in

ambush, to shoot him from a door or a window. Sam

kept a sharp eye on doors and windows for a while.



About noon the city tired of playing with its mouse

and suddenly squeezed him with its straight lines.



Sam Folwell stood where two great, rectangular

arteries of the city cross. He looked four ways, and

saw the world burled from its orbit and reduced

by spirit level and tape to an edged and cornered

plane. All life moved on tracks, in grooves, accord-

ing to system, within boundaries, by rote. The root

of life was the cube root; the measure of existence

was square measure. People streamed by in straight

rows; the horrible din and crash stupefied him.



Sam leaned against the sharp corner of a stone

building. Those faces passed him by thousands, and

none of them were turned toward him. A sudden fool-

ish fear that he had died and was a spirit, and that

they could not see him, seized him. And then the city

smote him with loneliness.



A fat man dropped out of the stream and stood

a few feet distant, waiting for his car. Sam crept

to his side and shouted above the tumult into his

ear:



"The Rankinses' hogs weighed more'n ourn a

whole passel, but the mast in thar neighborhood was

a fine chance better than what it was down -- "



The fat man moved away unostentatiously, and

bought roasted chestnuts to cover his alarm.



Sam felt the need of a drop of mountain dew.

Across the street men passed in and out through

swinging doors. Brief glimpses could be had of a

glistening bar and its bedeckings. The feudist crossed

and essayed to enter. Again had Art eliminated the

familiar circle. Sam's hand found no door-knob -

it slid, in vain, over a rectangular brass plate and

polished oak with nothing even so large as a pin's

head upon which his fingers might close.

Abashed, reddened, heartbroken, he walked away

from the bootless door and sat upon a step. A locust

club tickled him in the ribs.



"Take a walk for yourself," said the policeman.

You've been loafing around here long enough."



At the next corner a shrill whistle sounded in Sam's

ear. He wheeled around and saw a black-browed vil-

lain scowling at him over peanuts heaped on a steam-

ing machine. He started across the street. An im-

mense engine, running without mules, with the voice of

a bull and the smell of a smoky lamp, whizzed past,

grazing his knee. A cab-driver bumped him with a

hub and explained to him that kind words were in-

vented to be used on other occasions. A motorman

clanged his bell wildly and, for once in his life, cor-

roborated a cab-driver. A large lady in a changeable

silk waist dug an elbow into his back, and a newsy

pensively pelted him with banana rinds, murmuring,

"I hates to do it -- but if anybody seen me let it

pass!"



Cal Harkness, his day's work over and his express

wagon stabled, turned the sharp edge of the build-

ing that, by the cheek of architects, is modelled upon

a safety razor. Out of the mass of hurrying people

his eye picked up, three yards away, the surviving

bloody and implacable foe of his kith and kin.



He stopped short and wavered for a moment, be-

ing unarmed and sharply surprised. But the keen

mountaineer's eye of Sam Folwell had picked him out.



There was a sudden spring, a ripple in the stream

of passersby and the sound of Sam's voice crying:



"Howdy, Cal! I'm durned glad to see ye."



And in the angles of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and

Twenty-third Street the Cumberland feudists shook

hands.









ROSES, RUSES AND ROMANCE





Ravenel -- Ravenel, the traveller, artist and

poet, threw his magazine to the floor. Sammy Brown,

broker's clerk, who sat by the window, jumped.



"What is it, Ravvy?" he asked. "The critics

been hammering your stock down?"



"Romance is dead," said Ravenel, lightly. When

Ravenel spoke lightly be was generally serious. He

picked up the magazine and fluttered its leaves.



"Even a Philistine, like you, Sammy," said Rave-

nel, seriously (a tone that insured him to be speak-

ing lightly), "ought to understand. Now, here is

a magazine that once printed Poe and Lowell and

Whitman and Bret Harte and Du Maurier and Lanier

and -- well, that gives you the idea. The current

number has this literary feast to set before you: an

article on the stokers and coal bunkers of battleships,

an expose of the methods employed in making liver-

wurst, a continued story of a Standard Preferred

International Baking Powder deal in Wall Street, a

'poem' on the bear that the President missed, an-

other 'story' by a young woman who spent a week

as a spy making overalls on the East Side, another

'fiction' story that reeks of the 'garage' and a cer-

tain make of automobile. Of course, the title contains

the words 'Cupid' and 'Chauffeur' -- an article on

naval strategy, illustrated with cuts of the Spanish

Armada, and the new Staten Island ferry-boats; an-

other story of a political boss who won the love of a

Fifth Avenue belle by blackening her eye and refusing

to vote for an iniquitous ordinance (it doesn't say

whether it was in the Street-Cleaning Department or

Congress), and nineteen pages by the editors brag-

ging about the circulation. The whole thing, Sammy,

is an obituary on Romance."



Sammy Brown sat comfortably in the leather arm-

chair by the open window. His suit was a vehement

brown with visible checks, beautifully matched in

shade by the ends of four cigars that his vest pocket

poorly concealed. Light tan were his shoes, gray his

socks, sky-blue his apparent linen, snowy and high

and adamantine his collar, against which a black but-

terfly had alighted and spread his wings. Sammy's

face -- least important -- was round and pleasant

and pinkish, and in his eyes you saw no haven for

fleeing Romance.



That window of Ravenel's apartment opened upon

an old garden full of ancient trees and shrubbery.

The apartment-house towered above one side of it;

a high brick wall fended it from the street; oppo-

site Ravenel's window an old, old mansion stood, half-

hidden in the shade of the summer foliage. The house

was a castle besieged. The city howled and roared

and shrieked and beat upon its double doors, and

shook white, fluttering checks above the wall, offering

terms of surrender. The gray dust settled upon the

trees; the siege was pressed hotter, but the draw-

bridge was not lowered. No further will the language

of chivalry serve. Inside lived an old gentleman who

loved his home and did not wish to sell it. That is

all the romance of the besieged castle.



Three or four times every week came Sammy

Brown to Ravenel's apartment. He belonged to the

poet's club, for the former Browns had been con-

spicuous, though Sammy bad been vulgarized by

Business. He had no tears for departed Romance.

The song of the ticker was the one that reached

his heart, and when it came to matters equine and

batting scores he was something of a pink edition.

He loved to sit in the leather armchair by Ravenel's

window. And Ravenel didn't mind particularly.

Sammy seemed to enjoy his talk; and then the broker's

clerk was such a perfect embodiment of modernity and

the day's sordid practicality that Ravenel rather

liked to use him as a scapegoat.



"I'll tell you what's the matter with you," said

Sammy, with the shrewdness that business had taught

him. "The magazine has turned down some of your

poetry stunts. That's why you are sore at it."



"That would be a good guess in Wall Street or in

a campaign for the presidency of a woman's club,"

said Ravenel, quietly. "Now, there is a poem - if

you will allow me to call it that - of my own in this

number of the magazine."



"Read it to me," said Sammy, watching a cloud

of pipe-smoke be had just blown out the window.



Ravenel was no greater than Achilles. No one is.

There is bound to be a spot. The Somebody-or-Other

must take bold of us somewhere when she dips us in

the Something-or-Other that makes us invulnerable.

He read aloud this verse in the magazine:





THE FOUR ROSES



'One rose I twined within your hair --



(White rose, that spake of worth);



And one you placed upon your breast --



(Red rose, love's seal of birth).



You plucked another from its stem --



(Tea rose, that means for aye);



And one you gave -- that bore for me



The thorns of memory."





"That's a crackerjack," said Sammy, admiringly.



There are five more verses," said Ravenel, pa-

tiently sardonic. "One naturally pauses at the end

of each. Of course -- "



"Oh, let's have the rest, old man," shouted Sammy,

contritely, " I didn't mean to cut you off. I'm not

much of a poetry expert, you know. I never saw a

poem that didn't look like it ought to have terminal

facilities at the end of every verse. Reel off the rest

of it."



Ravenel sighed, and laid the magazine down. "All

right," said Sammy, cheerfully, "we'll have it next

time. I'll be off now. Got a date at five o'clock."



He took a last look at the shaded green garden

and left, whistling in an off key an untuneful air from

a roofless farce comedy.



The next afternoon Ravenel, while polishing a

ragged line of a new sonnet, reclined by the window

overlooking the besieged garden of the unmercenary

baron. Suddenly he sat up, spilling two rhymes and

a syllable or two.,



Through the trees one window of the old mansion

could be seen clearly. In its window, draped in flow-

ing white, leaned the angel of all his dreams of ro-

mance and poesy. Young, fresh as a drop of dew,

graceful as a spray of clematis, conferring upon the

garden hemmed in by the roaring traffic the air

of a princess's bower, beautiful as any flower sung

by poet -- thus Ravenel saw her for the first time.

She lingered for a while, and then disappeared within,

leaving a few notes of a birdlike ripple of song to

reach his entranced ears through the rattle of cabs

and the snarling of the electric cars.



Thus, as if to challenge the poet's flaunt at ro-

mance and to punish him for his recreancy to the

undying spirit of youth and beauty, this vision bad

dawned upon him with a thrilling and accusive power.

And so metabolic was the power that in an instant

the atoms of Ravenel's entire world were redistrib-

uted. The laden drays that passed the house in which

she lived rumbled a deep double-bass to the tune of

love. The newsboys' shouts were the notes of singing

birds; that garden was the pleasance of the Capulets;

the janitor was an ogre; himself a knight, ready with

sword, lance or lute.



Thus does romance show herself amid forests of

brick and stone when she gets lost in the city, and

there has to be sent out a general alarm to find her

again.



At four in the afternoon Ravenel looked out across

the garden. In the window of his hopes were set

four small vases, each containing a great, full-blown

rose - red and white. And, as he gazed, she leaned

above them, shaming them with her loveliness and

seeming to direct her eyes pensively toward his own

window. And then, as though she had caught his

respectful but ardent regard, she melted away, leaving

the fragrant emblems on the window-sill.



"Yes, emblems! -- he would be unworthy if be had

not understood. She had read his poem, "The Four

Roses"; it had reached her heart; and this was its

romantic answer. Of course she must know that

Ravenel, the poet, lived there across her garden. His

picture, too, she must have seen in the magazines.

The delicate, tender, modest, flattering message could

not be ignored.



Ravenel noticed beside the roses a small flowering-

pot containing a plant. Without shame be brought

his opera-glasses and employed them from the cover

of his window-curtain. A nutmeg geranium!



With the true poetic instinct be dragged a book

of useless information from his shelves, and tore open

the leaves at "The Language of Flowers."



"Geranium, Nutmeg - I expect a meeting."



So! Romance never does things by halves. If she

comes back to you she brings gifts and her knitting,

and will sit in your chimney-corner if you will let

her.



And now Ravenel smiled. The lover smiles

when be thinks he has won. The woman who loves

ceases to smile with victory. He ends a battle; she

begins hers. What a pretty idea to set the four roses

in her window for him to see! She must have

a sweet, poetic soul. And now to contrive the

meeting.



A whistling and slamming of doors preluded the

coming of Sammy Brown.



Ravenel smiled again. Even Sammy Brown was

shone upon by the far-flung rays of the renaissance.

Sammy, with his ultra clothes, his horseshoe pin, his

plump face, his trite slang, his uncomprehending

admiration of Ravenel -- the broker's clerk made an

excellent foil to the new, bright unseen visitor to the

poet's sombre apartment.



Sammy went to his old seat by the window, and

looked out over the dusty green foliage in the

garden. Then he looked at his watch, and rose

hastily.



"By grabs!" he exclaimed. "Twenty after four!

I can't stay, old man; I've got a date at 4:30."



"Why did you come, then?" asked Ravenel, with

sarcastic jocularity, "if you had an engagement at

that time. I thought you business men kept better

account of your minutes and seconds than that."



Sammy hesitated in the doorway and turned

pinker.



"Fact is, Ravvy," be explained, as to a customer

whose margin is exhausted, "I didn't know I had it

till I came. I'll tell you, old man - there's a dandy

girl in that old house next door that I'm dead gone

on. I put it straight -- we're engaged. The old

man says 'nit' but that don't go. He keeps her

pretty close. I can see Edith's window from yours

here. She gives me a tip when she's going shopping,

and I meet her. It's 4:30 to-day. Maybe I ought

to have explained sooner, but I know it's all right

with you -- so long."



"How do you get your 'tip,' as you call it?" asked

Ravenel, losing a little spontaneity from his smile.



"Roses," said Sammy, briefly. Four of 'em to-

day. Means four o'clock at the corner of Broadway

and Twenty-third."



"But the geranium?" persisted Ravenel, clutch-

ing at the end of flying Romance's trailing robe.



"Means half-past 5," shouted Sammy from the hall.

"See you to-morrow."









THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT





"During the recent warmed-over spell," said my

friend Carney, driver of express wagon No. 8,606,

"a good many opportunities was had of observing

human nature through peekaboo waists.



"The Park Commissioner and the Commissioner

of Polis and the Forestry Commission gets together

and agrees to let the people sleep in the parks until

the Weather Bureau gets the thermometer down again

to a living basis. So they draws up open-air resolu-

tions and has them 0. K.'d by the Secretary of Agri-

culture, Mr. Comstock and the Village Improvement

Mosquito Exterminating Society of South Orange,

N. J.



"When the proclamation was made opening up to

the people by special grant the public parks that be-

long to 'em, there was a general exodus into Central

Park by the communities existing along its borders.

In ten minutes after sundown you'd have thought

that there was an undress rehearsal of a potato

famine in Ireland and a Kishineff massacre. They

come by families, gangs, clambake societies, clans,

clubs and tribes from all sides to enjoy a cool sleep on

the grass. Them that didn't have oil stoves brought

along plenty of blankets, so as not to be upset with

the cold and discomforts of sleeping outdoors. By

building fires of the shade trees and huddling together

in the bridle paths, and burrowing under the grass

where the ground was soft enough, the likes of 5,000

head of people successfully battled against the night

air in Central Park alone.



"Ye know I live in the elegant furnished apart-

ment house called the Beersheba Flats, over against

the elevated portion of the New York Central Rail-

road.



"When the order come to the flats that all hands

must turn out and sleep in the park, according to the

instructions of the consulting committee of the City

Club and the Murphy Draying, Returfing and Sod-

ding Company, there was a look of a couple of fires

and an eviction all over the place.



"The tenants began to pack up feather beds, rub-

ber boots, strings of garlic, hot-water bags, porta-

ble canoes and scuttles of coal to take along for the

sake of comfort. The sidewalk looked like a Russian

camp in Oyama's line of mareb. There was waiting

and lamenting up and down stairs from Danny Geog-

hegan's flat on the top floor to the apartments of

Missis Goldsteinupski on the first.



"'For why," says Danny, coming down and raging

in his blue yarn socks to the janitor, 'should I be

turned out of me comfortable apartments to lay in

the dirty grass like a rabbit? 'Tis like Jerome to

stir up trouble wid small matters like this instead

of -- "



"'Whist!' says Officer Reagan on the sidewalk,

rapping with his club. ''Tis not Jerome. 'Tis by

order of the Polis Commissioner. Turn out every

one of yez and hike yerselves to the park.'



"Now, 'twas a peaceful and happy home that all

of us had in them same Beersheba Flats. The

O'Dowds and the Steinowitzes and the Callahans and

the Cohens and the Spizzinellis and the McManuses

and the Spiegelmayers and the Joneses -- all nations

of us, we lived like one big family together. And

when the hot nights come along we kept a line of

children reaching from the front door to Kelly's on the

corner passing along the cans of beer from one to

another without the trouble of running after it. And

with no more clothing on than is provided for in the

statutes, sitting in all the windies, with a cool growler

in every one, and your feet out in the air, and the

Rosenstein girls singing on the fire-escape of the sixth

floor, and Patsy Rourke's flute going in the eighth,

and the ladies calling each other synonyms out the win-

dies, and now and then a breeze sailing in over Mister

Depew's Central -- I tell you the Beersheba Flats was

a summer resort that made the Catskills look like

a bole in the ground. With his person full of beer

and his feet out the windy and his old woman frying

pork chops over a charcoal furnace and the children

dancing in cotton slips on the sidewalk around the

organ-grinder and the rent paid for a week -- what

does a man want better on a hot night than that?

And then comes this ruling of the polis driving people

out o' their comfortable homes to sleep in parks --

'twas for all the world like a ukase of them Rus-

sians -- 'twill be heard from again at next election

time.



"Well, then, Officer Reagan drives the whole lot

of us to the park and turns us in by the nearest

gate. 'Tis dark under the trees, and all the children

sets up to howling that they want to go home.



"'Ye'll pass the night in this stretch of woods

and scenery,' says Officer Reagan. ''Twill be fine

and imprisonment for insoolting the Park Commis-

sioner and the Chief of the Weather Bureau if ye re-

fuse. I'm in charge of thirty acres between here and

the Agyptian Monument, and I advise ye to give no

trouble. 'Tis sleeping on the grass yez all have been

condemned to by the authorities. Yez'll be permitted

to leave in the morning, but ye must retoorn be night.

Me orders was silent on the subject of bail, but I'11

find out if 'tis required and there'll be bondsmen at

the gate.'



"There being no lights except along the automo-

bile drives, us 179 tenants of the Beersheba Flats

prepared to spend the night as best we could in the

raging forest. Them that brought blankets and kin-

dling wood was best off. They got fires started and

wrapped the blankets round their heads and laid

down, cursing, in the grass. There was nothing to

see, nothing to drink, nothing to do. In the dark we

had no way of telling friend or foe except by feeling

the noses of 'em. I brought along me last winter

overcoat, me toothbrush, some quinine pills and the

red quilt off the bed in me flat. Three times during

the night somebody rolled on me quilt and stuck his

knees against the Adam's apple of me. And three

times I judged his character by running me hand over

his face, and three times I rose up and kicked the in-

truder down the hill to the gravelly walk below. And

then some one with a flavor of Kelly's whiskey snug-

gled up to me, and I found his nose turned up the

right way, and I says: ' Is that you, then, Patsey?

and he says, 'It is, Carney. How long do you think

it'll last?'



"' I'm no weather-prophet,' says I, 'but if they

bring out a strong anti-Tammany ticket next fall it

ought to get us home in time to sleep on a bed once

or twice before they line us up at the polls.'

"A-playing of my flute into the airshaft, I says

Patsey Rourke, 'and a-perspiring in me own windy

to the joyful noise of the passing trains and the smell

of liver and onions and a-reading of the latest mur-

der in the smoke of the cooking is well enough for

me,' says he. 'What is this herding us in grass for,

not to mention the crawling things with legs that walk

up the trousers of us, and the Jersey snipes that

peck at us, masquerading under the name and denom-

ination of mosquitoes. What is it all for Carney, and

the rint going on just the same over at the flats?'



"Tis the great annual Municipal Free Night

Outing Lawn Party,' says I, 'given by the polis,

Hetty Green and the Drug Trust. During the heated

season they hold a week of it in the principal parks.

'Tis a scheme to reach that portion of the people

that's not worth taking up to North Beach for a

fish fry.'



"' I can't sleep on the ground,' says Patsey, 'wid

any benefit. I have the hay fever and the rheuma-

tism, and me car is full of ants.'



"Well, the night goes on, and the ex-tenants of

the Flats groans and stumbles around in the dark,

trying to find rest and recreation in the forest. The

children is screaming with the coldness, and the jan-

itor makes hot tea for 'em and keeps the fires going

with the signboards that point to the Tavern and the

Casino. The tenants try to lay down on the grass by

families in the dark, but you're lucky if you can sleep

next to a man from the same floor or believing in

the same religion. Now and then a Murpby, acci-

dental, rolls over on the grass of a Rosenstein, or

a Cohen tries to crawl under the O'Grady bush, and

then there's a feeling of noses and somebody is rolled

down the hill to the driveway and stays there. There

is some hair-pulling among the women folks, and

everybody spanks the nearest howling kid to him by

the sense of feeling only, regardless of its parentage

and ownership. 'Tis hard to keep up the social dis-

tinctions in the dark that flourish by daylight in the

Beersheba Flats. Mrs. Rafferty, that despises the

asphalt that a Dago treads on, wakes up in the morn-

ing with her feet in the bosom of Antonio Spizzinelli.

And Mike O'Dowd, that always threw peddlers down-

stairs as fast as he came upon 'em, has to unwind old

Isaacstein's whiskers from around his neck, and wake

up the whole gang at daylight. But here and there

some few got acquainted and overlooked the discom-

forts of the elements. There was five engagements to

be married announced at the flats the next morning.



About midnight I gets up and wrings the dew out

of my hair, and goes to the side of the driveway

and sits down. At one side of the park I could see

the lights in the streets and houses; and I was thinking

how happy them folks was who could chase the duck

and smoke their pipes at their windows, and keep cool

and pleasant like nature intended for 'em to.



Just then an automobile stops by me, and a fine-

looking, well-dressed man steps out.



'Me man,' says he, 'can you tell me why all these

people are lying around on the grass in the park?

I thought it was against the rules.'



"''Twas an ordinance,' says I, 'just passed by

the Polis Department and ratified by the Turf Cut-

ters' Association, providing that all persons not car-

rying a license number on their rear axles shall keep

in the public parks until further notice. Fortu-

nately, the orders comes this year during a spell of

fine weather, and the mortality, except on the borders

of the lake and along the automobile drives, will not

be any greater than usual.'



"'Who are these people on the side of the bill?'

asks the man.



"'Sure,' says I, 'none others than the tenants of

the Beersheba Flats -- a fine home for any man,

especially on hot nights. May daylight come soon!'



"'They come here be night,' says be, 'and breathe

in the pure air and the fragrance of the flowers and

trees. They do that,' says be, 'coming every night

from the burning beat of dwellings of brick and stone.'



"'And wood,' says I. 'And marble and plaster

and iron.'



"'The matter will be attended to at once,' says the

man, putting up his book.



"'Are ye the Park Commissioner?' I asks.



"'I own the Beersheba Flats,' says he. 'God

bless the grass and the trees that give extra benefits

to a man's tenants. The rents shall be raised fifteen

per cent. to-morrow. Good-night,' says he."









THE EASTER OF THE SOUL





It is hardly likely that a goddess may die. Then

Eastre, the old Saxon goddess of spring, must be

laughing in her muslin sleeve at people who believe

that Easter, her namesake, exists only along certain

strips of Fifth Avenue pavement after church service.



Aye! It belongs to the world. The ptarmigan in

Chilkoot Pass discards his winter white feathers for

brown; the Patagonian Beau Brummell oils his chi-

gnon and clubs him another sweetheart to drag to his

skull-strewn flat. And down in Chrystie Street --



Mr. "Tiger" McQuirk arose with a feeling of

disquiet that be did not understand. With a prac-

tised foot be rolled three of his younger brothers like

logs out of his way as they lay sleeping on the floor.

Before a foot-square looking glass hung by the win-

dow he stood and shaved himself. If that may seem to

you a task too slight to be thus impressively chron-

icled, I bear with you; you do not know of the areas

to be accomplished in traversing the cheek and chin

of Mr. McQuirk.



McQuirk, senior, had gone to work long before.

The big son of the house was idle. He was a marble-

cutter, and the marble-cutters were out on a strike.



"What ails ye?" asked his mother, looking at him

curiously; "are ye not feeling well the morning,

maybe now?"



"He's thinking along of Annie Maria Doyle, im-

pudently explained younger brother Tim, ten years

old."



"Tiger" reached over the hand of a champion and

swept the small McQuirk from his chair.



"I feel fine," said he, "beyond a touch of the

I-don't-know-wbat-you-call-its. I feel like there was

going to be earthquakes or music or a trifle of chills

and fever or maybe a picnic. I don't know how I

feel. I feel like knocking the face off a policeman,

or else maybe like playing Coney Island straight

across the board from pop-corn to the elephant

boudabs."



"It's the spring in yer bones," said Mrs. McQuirk.

"It's the sap risin'. Time was when I couldn't keep

me feet still nor me head cool when the earthworms

began to crawl out in the dew of the mornin'. 'Tis

a bit of tea will do ye good, made from pipsissewa

and gentian bark at the druggist's."



"Back up!" said Mr. McQuirk, impatiently.



"There's no spring in sight There's snow yet on

the shed in Donovan's backyard. And yesterday they

puts open cars on the Sixth Avenue lines, and the

janitors have quit ordering coal. And that means

six weeks more of winter, by all the signs that be."



After breakfast Mr. McQuirk spent fifteen minutes

before the corrugated mirror, subjugating his hair

and arranging his green-and-purple ascot with its

amethyst tombstone pin-eloquent of his chosen

calling.



Since the strike had been called it was this par-

ticular striker's habit to hie himself each morning

to the corner saloon of Flaherty Brothers, and there

establish himself upon the sidewalk, with one foot

resting on the bootblack's stand, observing the

panorama of the street until the pace of time brought

twelve o'clock and the dinner hour. And Mr.

"Tiger" McQuirk, with his athletic seventy inches,

well trained in sport and battle; his smooth, pale,

solid, amiable face -- blue where the razor had trav-

elled; his carefully considered clothes and air of capa-

bility, was himself a spectacle not displeasing to the

eye.



But on this morning Mr. McQuirk did not hasten

immediately to his post of leisure and observation.

Something unusual that he could not quite grasp was

in the air. Something disturbed his thoughts, ruffled

his senses, made him at once languid, irritable, elated,

dissastisfied and sportive. He was no diagnostician,

and he did not know that Lent was breaking up

physiologically in his system.



Mrs. McQuirk had spoken of spring. Sceptically

Tiger looked about him for signs. Few they

were. The organ-grinders were at work; but they

were always precocious harbingers. It was near

enough spring for them to go penny-hunting when the

skating ball dropped at the park. In the milliners'

windows Easter hats, grave, gay and jubilant, blos-

somed. There were green patches among the side-

walk debris of the grocers. On a third-story window-

sill the first elbow cushion of the season -- old gold

stripes on a crimson ground -- supported the kimo-

noed arms of a pensive brunette. The wind blew

cold from the East River, but the sparrows were fly-

ing to the eaves with straws. A second-hand store,

combining foresight with faith, had set out an ice-

chest and baseball goods.



And then "Tiger's" eye, discrediting these signs,

fell upon one that bore a bud of promise. From a

bright, new lithograph the head of Capricornus con-

fronted him, betokening the forward and heady brew.



Mr. McQuirk entered the saloon and called for his

glass of bock. He threw his nickel on the bar, raised

the glass, set it down without tasting it and strolled

toward the door.



"Wot's the matter, Lord Bolinbroke?" inquired

the sarcastic bartender; want a chiny vase or a

gold-lined epergne to drink it out of -- hey?"



"Say," said Mr. McQuirk, wheeling and shooting

out a horizontal hand and a forty-five-degree chin,

"you know your place only when it comes for givin'

titles. I've changed me mind about drinkin -- see?

You got your money, ain't you? Wait till you get

stung before you get the droop to your lip, will

you?"



Thus Mr. Quirk added mutability of desires to the

strange humors that had taken possession of him.



Leaving the saloon, he walked away twenty steps

and leaned in the open doorway of Lutz, the barber.

He and Lutz were friends, masking their sentiments

behind abuse and bludgeons of repartee.



"Irish loafer," roared Lutz, "how do you do?

So, not yet haf der bolicemans or der catcher of

dogs done deir duty!"



"Hello, Dutch," said Mr. McQuirk. "Can't get

your mind off of frankfurters, can you?"



"Bah!" exclaimed the German, coming and lean-

ing in the door. "I haf a soul above frankfurters

to-day. Dere is springtime in der air. I can feel it

coming in ofer der mud of der streets and das ice

in der river. Soon will dere be bienics in der islands,

mit kegs of beer under der trees."



"Say," said Mr. McQuirk, setting his bat on one

side, "is everybody kiddin' me about gentle Spring?

There ain't any more spring in the air than there is

in a horsehair sofa in a Second Avenue furnished

room. For me the winter underwear yet and the

buckwheat cakes."



"You haf no boetry," said Lutz. True, it is

yedt cold, und in der city we haf not many of der

signs; but dere are dree kinds of beoble dot should

always feel der'approach of spring first -- dey are

boets, lovers and poor vidows."



Mr. McQuirk went on his way, still possessed by

the strange perturbation that he did not understand.

Something was lacking to his comfort, and it made

him half angry because be did not know what it was.

Two blocks away he came upon a foe, one Conover,

whom he was bound in honor to engage in combat.



Mr. McQuirk made the attack with the charac-

teristic suddenness and fierceness that had gained for

him the endearing sobriquet of "Tiger." The de-

fence of Mr. Conover was so prompt and admirable

that the conflict was protracted until the onlookers un-

selfishly gave the warning cry of "Cheese it -- the

cop!" The principals escaped easily by running

through the nearest open doors into the communi-

cating backyards at the rear of the houses.



Mr. McQuirk emerged into another street. He

stood by a lamp-post for a few minutes engaged in

thought and then he turned and plunged into a small

notion and news shop. A red-haired young woman,

eating gum-drops, came and looked freezingly at him

across the ice-bound steppes of the counter.



"Say, lady," he said, "have you got a song book

with this in it. Let's see bow it leads off --





"When the springtime comes well wander in the dale, love,



And whisper of those days of yore -- "





"I'm having a friend," explained Mr. McQuirk,

"laid up with a broken leg, and he sent me after

it. He's a devil for songs and poetry when he can't

get out to drink."



"We have not," replied the young woman, with un-

concealed contempt. "But there is a new song out

that begins this way:







"'Let us sit together in the old armchair;



And while the firelight flickers we'll be comfortable there.'"





There will be no profit in following Mr. "Tiger"

McQuirk through his further vagaries of that day

until he comes to stand knocking at the door of Annie

Maria Doyle. The goddess Eastre, it seems, had

guided his footsteps aright at last.



"Is that you now, Jimmy McQuirk?" she cried,

smiling through the opened door (Annie Maria had

never accepted the "Tiger"). "Well, whatever!"

"Come out in the ball," said Mr. McQuirk. "I

want to ask yer opinion of the weather - on the

level."



"Are you crazy, sure?" said Annie Maria.



"I am," said the "Tiger." "They've been telling

me all day there was spring in the air. Were they

liars? Or am I?"



"Dear me!" said Annie Maria -- "haven't you no-

ticed it? I can almost smell the violets. And the

green grass. Of course, there ain't any yet -- it's

just a kind of feeling, you know."



"That's what I'm getting at," said Mr. McQuirk.

I've had it. I didn't recognize it at first. I

thought maybe it was en-wee, contracted the other

day when I stepped above Fourteenth Street. But

the katzenjammer I've got don't spell violets. It

spells yer own name, Annie Maria, and it's you I

want. I go to work next Monday, and I make four

dollars a day. Spiel up, old girl -- do we make a

team?"



"Jimmy," sighed Annie Maria, suddenly disap-

pearing in his overcoat, "don't you see that spring

is all over the world right this minute?"



But you yourself remember how that day ended.

Beginning with so fine a promise of vernal things,

late in the afternoon the air chilled and an inch of

snow fell -- even so late in March. On Fifth Ave-

nue the ladies drew their winter furs close about

them. Only in the florists' windows could be per-

ceived any signs of the morning smile of the coming

goddess Eastre.



At six o'clock Herr Lutz began to close his shop.

He beard a well-known shout: "Hello, Dutch!"



"Tiger" McQuirk, in his shirt-sleeves, with his

hat on the back of his bead, stood outside in the

whirling snow, puffing at a black cigar.



"Donnerwetter!" shouted Lutz, "der vinter, he

has gome back again yet!"



"Yer a liar, Dutch," called back Mr. McQuirk,

with friendly geniality, it's springtime, by the

watch."









THE FOOL-KILLER





Down South whenever any one perpetrates some

particularly monumental piece of foolishness every-

body says: "Send for Jesse Holmes."



Jesse Holmes is the Fool-Killer. Of course he is a

myth, like Santa Claus and Jack Frost and General

Prosperity and all those concrete conceptions that

are supposed to represent an idea that Nature has

failed to embody. The wisest of the Southrons can-

not tell you whence comes the Fool-Killer's name;

but few and happy are the households from the Ro-

anoke to the Rio Grande in which the name of Jesse

Holmes has not been pronounced or invoked. Always

with a smile, and often with a tear, is he summoned

to his official duty. A busy man is Jesse Holmes.



I remember the clear picture of him that hung on

the walls of my fancy during my barefoot days when

I was dodging his oft-threatened devoirs. To me

be was a terrible old man, in gray clothes, with a

long, ragged, gray beard, and reddish, fierce eyes.

I looked to see him come stumping up the road in

a cloud of dust, with a white oak staff in his hand

and his shoes tied with leather thongs. I may

yet --



But this is a story, not a sequel.



I have taken notice with regret, that few stories

worth reading have been written that did not con-

tain drink of some sort. Down go the fluids, from

Arizona Dick's three fingers of red pizen to the in-

efficacious Oolong that nerves Lionel Montressor to

repartee in the "Dotty Dialogues." So, in such

good company I may introduce an absinthe drip --

one absinthe drip, dripped through a silver dripper,

orderly, opalescent, cool, green-eyed -- deceptive.



Kerner was a fool. Besides that, he was an artist

and my good friend. Now, if there is one thing on

earth utterly despicable to another, it is an artist

in the eyes of an author whose story he has illus-

trated. Just try it once. Write a story about a

mining camp in Idiho. Sell it. Spend the money,

and then, six months later, borrow a quarter (or

a dime), and buy the magazine containing it. You

find a full-page wash drawing of your hero, Black

Bill, the cowboy. Somewhere in your story you em-

ployed the word "horse." Aha! the artist has

grasped the idea. Black Bill has on the regulation

trousers of the M. F. H. of the Westchester County

Hunt. He carries a parlor rifle, and wears a mon-

ocle. In the distance is a section of Forty-second

Street during a search for a lost gas-pipe, and the

Taj Mahal, the famous mausoleum in India.



"Enough! I hated Kerner, and one day I met him

and we became friends. He was young and glori-

ously melancholy because his spirits were so high

and life bad so much in store for him. Yes, he was

almost riotously sad. That was his youth. When a

man begins to be hilarious in a sorrowful way you

can bet a million that he is dyeing his hair. Ker-

ner's hair was plentiful and carefully matted as an

artist's thatch should be. He was a cigaretteur, and

be audited his dinners with red wine. But, most of

all, be was a fool. And, wisely, I envied him, and

listened patiently while he knocked Velasquez and

Tintoretto. Once he told me that he liked a story of

mine that he bad come across in an anthology. He

described it to me, and I was sorry that Mr. Fitz-

James O'Brien was dead and could not learn of the

eulogy of his work. But mostly Kerner made few

breaks and was a consistent fool.



I'd better explain what I mean by that. There

was a girl. Now, a girl, as far as I am concerned,

is a thing that belongs in a seminary or an album;

but I conceded the existence of the animal in order

to retain Kerner's friendship. He showed me her

picture in a locket -- she was a blonde or a brunette

-- I have forgotten which. She worked in a factory

for eight dollars a week. Lest factories quote this

wage by way of vindication, I will add that the girl

bad worked for five years to reach that supreme ele-

vation of remuneration, beginning at $1.50 per week.



Kerner's father was worth a couple of millions

He was willing to stand for art, but he drew the

line at the factory girl. So Kerner disinherited his

father and walked out to a cheap studio and lived

on sausages for breakfast and on Farroni for dinner.

Farroni had the artistic soul and a line of credit for

painters and poets, nicely adjusted. Sometimes Ker-

rier sold a picture and bought some new tapestry, a

ring and a dozen silk cravats, and paid Farroni

two dollars on account.



One evening Kerner had me to dinner with himself

and the factory girl. They were to be married as

soon as Kerner could slosh paint profitably. As for

the ex-father's two millions -- pouf!



She was a wonder. Small and half-way pretty,

and as much at her ease in that cheap cafe as though

she were only in the Palmer House, Chicago, with a

souvenir spoon already safely hidden in her shirt


waist. She was natural. Two things I noticed about

her especially. Her belt buckle was exactly in the

middle of her back, and she didn't tell us that a large

man with a ruby stick-pin had followed her up all the

way from Fourteenth Street. Was Kerner such a fool?

I wondered. And then I thought of the quantity of

striped cuffs and blue glass beads that $2,000,000

can buy for the heathen, and I said to myself that he

was. And then Elise -- certainly that was her name

told us, merrily, that the brown spot on her waist

was caused by her landlady knocking at the door

while she (the girl -- confound the English language)

was heating an iron over the gas jet, and she hid the

iron under the bedclothes until the coast was clear,

and there was the piece of chewing gum stuck

to it when she began to iron the waist, and -- well,

I wondered bow in the world the chewing gum

came to be there -- don't they ever stop chewing

it?



A while after that -- don't be impatient, the ab-

sinthe drip is coming now -- Kerner and I were dining

at Farroni's. A mandolin and a guitar were being

attacked; the room was full of smoke in nice, long

crinkly layers just like the artists draw the steam

from a plum pudding on Christmas posters, and a

lady in a blue silk and gasolined gauntlets was be-

ginning to bum an air from the Catskills.



"Kerner," said I, "you are a fool."



"Of course," said Kerner, "I wouldn't let her go

on working. Not my wife. What's the use to wait?

She's willing. I sold that water color of the Pali-

sades yesterday. We could cook on a two-burner gas

stove. You know the ragouts I can throw together?

Yes, I think we will marry next week."



"Kerner," said I, "you are a fool."



"Have an absinthe drip?" said Kerner, grandly.

"To-night you are the guest of Art in paying quan-

tities. I think we will get a flat with a bath."



"I never tried one -- I mean an absinthe drip,"

said I.



The waiter brought it and poured the water slowly

over the ice in the dripper.



"It looks exactly like the Mississippi River water

in the big bend below Natchez," said I, fascinated,

gazing at the be-muddled drip.



"There are such flats for eight dollars a week,"

said Kerner.



"You are a fool," said I, and began to sip the

filtration. "What you need," I continued, "is the

official attention of one Jesse Holmes."



Kerner, not being a Southerner, did not compre-

hend, so he sat, sentimental, figuring on his flat in

his sordid, artistic way, while I gazed into the green

eyes of the sophisticated Spirit of Wormwood.



Presently I noticed casually that a procession of

bacchantes limned on the wall immediately below the

ceiling bad begun to move, traversing the room from

right to left in a gay and spectacular pilgrimage. I

did not confide my discovery to Kerner. The artistic

temperament is too high-strung to view such devia-

tions from the natural laws of the art of kalsomining.

I sipped my absinthe drip and sawed wormwood.



One absinthe drip is not much -- but I said again to

Kerner, kindly:



"You are a fool." And then, in the vernacular:

"Jesse Holmes for yours."



And then I looked around and saw the Fool-Killer,

as he had always appeared to my imagination, sitting

at a nearby table, and regarding us with his reddish,

fatal, relentless eyes. He was Jesse Holmes from top

to toe; he had the long, gray, ragged beard, the

gray clothes of ancient cut, the executioner's look,

and the dusty shoes of one who bad been called from

afar. His eyes were turned fixedly upon Kerner. I

shuddered to think that I bad invoked him from his

assiduous southern duties. I thought of flying, and

then I kept my seat, reflecting that many men bad es-

caped his ministrations when it seemed that nothing

short of an appointment as Ambassador to Spain

could save them from him. I had called my brother

Kerner a fool and was in danger of hell fire. That

was nothing; but I would try to save him from Jesse

Holmes.



The Fool-Killer got up from his table and came

over to ours. He rested his hands upon it, and

turned his burning, vindictive eyes upon Kerner, ig-

noring me.



"You are a hopeless fool," be said to the artist.

"Haven't you had enough of starvation yet? I of-

fer you one more opportunity. Give up this girl and

come back to your home. Refuse, and you must take

the consequences."



The Fool-Killer's threatening face was within a

foot of his victim's; but to my horror, Kerner made

not the slightest sign of being aware of his presence.



"We will be married next week," be muttered ab-

sent-mindedly. "With my studio furniture and some

second-hand stuff we can make out."



"You have decided your own fate," said the Fool-

Killer, in a low but terrible voice. "You may con-

sider yourself as one dead. You have had your last

chance."



"In the moonlight," went on Kerner, softly, "we

will sit under the skylight with our guitar and sing

away the false delights of pride and money."



"On your own head be it," hissed the Fool-Killer,

and my scalp prickled when I perceived that neither

Kerner's eyes nor his ears took the slightest cog-

nizance of Jesse Holmes. And then I knew that for

some reason the veil had been lifted for me alone, and

that I bad been elected to save my friend from de-

struction at the Fool-Killer's bands. Something of

the fear and wonder of it must have showed itself in

my face.



"Excuse me," said Kerner, with his wan, amiable

smile; "was I talking to myself? I think it is getting

to be a habit with me."



The Fool-Killer turned and walked out of Far-

ronils.



"Wait here for me," said I, rising; "I must speak

to that man. Had you no answer for him? Because

you are a fool must you die like a mouse under his

foot? Could you not utter one squeak in your own

defence?



"You are drunk," said Kerner, heartlessly. "No

one addressed me."



"The destroyer of your mind," said I, "stood

above you just now and marked you for his victim.

You are not blind or deaf."



"I recognized no such person," said Kerner. "I

have seen no one but you at this table. Sit down.

Hereafter you shall have no more absinthe drips."



"Wait here," said I, furious; "if you don't care

for your own life, I will save it for you."



I hurried out and overtook the man in gray half-

way down the block. He looked as I bad seen him in

my fancy a thousand times - truculent, gray and

awful. He walked with the white oak staff, and but

for the street-sprinkler the dust would have been fly-

ing under his tread.

I caught him by the sleeve and steered him to a

dark angle of a building. I knew he was a myth, and

I did not want a cop to see me conversing with va-

cancy, for I might land in Bellevue minus my silver

matchbox and diamond ring.



"Jesse Holmes," said I, facing him with apparent

bravery, "I know you. I have heard of you all my

life. I know now what a scourge you have been to

your country. Instead of killing fools you have been

murdering the youth and genius that are necessary to

make a people live and grow great. You are a fool

yourself, Holmes; you began killing off the brightest

and best of our countrymen three generations ago,

when the old and obsolete standards of society and

honor and orthodoxy were narrow and bigoted. You

proved that when you put your murderous mark upon

my friend Kerner -- the wisest chap I ever knew in

my life."



The Fool-Killer looked at me grimly and closely.



"You've a queer jag," said he, curiously. "Oh,

yes; I see who you are now. You were sitting with

him at the table. Well, if I'm not mistaken, I heard

you call him a fool, too."



"I did," said I. "I delight in doing so. It is

from envy. By all the standards that you know he is

the most egregious and grandiloquent and gorgeous

fool in all the world. That's why you want to kill

him."



"Would you mind telling me who or what you think

I am?" asked the old man.



I laughed boisterously and then stopped suddenly,

for I remembered that it would not do to be seen so

hilarious in the company of nothing but a brick

wall.



"You are Jesse Holmes, the Fool-Killer," I said,

solemnly, "and you are going to kill my friend Ker-

ner. I don't know who rang you up, but if you do

kill him I'll see that you get pinched for it. That

is," I added, despairingly, "if I can get a cop to see

you. They have a poor eye for mortals, and I think

it would take the whole force to round up a myth mur-

derer."



"Well," said the Fool-Killer, briskly, "I must be

going. You had better go home and sleep it off.

Good-night."



At this I was moved by a sudden fear for Kerner to

a softer and more pleading mood. I leaned against

the gray man's sleeve and besought him:



"Good Mr. Fool-Killer, please don't kill little Ker-

ner. Why can't you go back South and kill Con-

gressmen and clay-caters and let us alone? Why

don't you go up on Fifth Avenue and kill millionaires

that keep their money locked up and won't let young

fools marry because one of 'em lives on the wrong

street? Come and have a drink, Jesse. Will you

never get on to your job?"



"Do you know this girl that your friend has made

himself a fool about?" asked the Fool-Killer.



"I have the honor," said I, "and that's why I

called Kerner a fool. He is a fool because he has

waited so long before marrying her. He is a fool

because be has been waiting in the hopes of getting

the consent of some absurd two-million-dollar-fool

parent or something of the sort."



"Maybe," said the Fool-Killer -- " maybe I -- I

might have looked at it differently. Would you mind

going back to the restaurant and bringing your friend

Kerner here?"



"OH, what's the use, Jesse," I yawned. "He can't

see you. He didn't know you were talking to him

at the table, You are a fictitious character, you

know."



"Maybe He can this time. Will you go fetch

him?"



"All right," said I, "but I've a suspicion that

you're not strictly sober, Jesse. You seem to be wa-

vering and losing your outlines. Don't vanish before

I get back."



I went back to Kerner and said:



"There's a man with an invisible homicidal mania

waiting to see you outside. I believe he wants to

murder you. Come along. You won't see him, so

there's nothing to be frightened about."



Kerner looked anxious.



"Why," said be, "I had no idea one absinthe

would do that. You'd better stick to Wurzburger.

I'll walk home with you."



I led him to Jesse Holmes's.



"Rudolf," said the Fool-Killer, "I'll give in.

Bring her up to the house. Give me your hand,

boy.",



"Good for you, dad," said Kerner, shaking hands

with the old man. You'll never regret it after you

know her."



"So, you did see him when he was talking to you

at the table?" I asked Kerner.



"We hadn't spoken to each other in a year," said

Kerner. "It's all right now."



I walked away.



"Where are you going?" called Kerner.



"I am going to look for Jesse Holmes," I an-

swered, with dignity and reserve.









TRANSIENTS IN ARCADIA





There is a hotel on Broadway that has escaped

discovery by the summer-resort promoters. It is

deep and wide and cool. Its rooms are finished in

dark oak of a low temperature. Home-made breezes

and deep-green shrubbery give it the delights without

the inconveniences of the Adirondacks. One can

mount its broad staircases or glide dreamily upward

in its aerial elevators, attended by guides in brass but-

tons, with a serene joy that Alpine climbers have

never attained. There is a chef in its kitchen who

will prepare for you brook trout better than the White

Mountains ever served, sea food that would turn Old

Point Comfort -- "by Gad, sah!" -- green with

envy, and Maine venison that would melt the official

heart of a game warden.



A few have found out this oasis in the July desert

of Manhattan. During that month you will see the

hotel's reduced array of guests scattered luxuriously

about in the cool twilight of -- its lofty dining-room,

gazing at one another across the snowy waste of un-

occupied tables, silently congratulatory.



Superfluous, watchful, pneumatically moving wait-

ers hover near, supplying every want before it is ex-

pressed. The temperature is perpetual April. The

ceiling is painted in water colors to counterfeit a sum-

mer sky across which delicate clouds drift and do not

vanish as those of nature do to our regret.



The pleasing, distant roar of Broadway is trans-

formed in the imagination of the happy guests to the

noise of a waterfall filling the woods with its restful

sound. At every strange footstep the guests turn an

anxious ear, fearful lest their retreat be discovered

and invaded by the restless pleasure-seekers who are

forever hounding nature to her deepest lairs.



Thus in the depopulated caravansary the little

band of connoisseurs jealously bide themselves during

the heated season, enjoying to the uttermost the de-

lights of mountain and seashore that art and skill

have gathered and served to them.



In this July came to the hotel one whose card that

she sent to the clerk for her name to be registered

read "Mme. He1oise D'Arcy Beaumont."



Madame Beaumont was a guest such as the Hotel

Lotus loved. She possessed the fine air of the e1ite,

tempered and sweetened by a cordial graciousness

that made the hotel employees her slaves. Bell-boys

fought for the honor of answering her ring; the

clerks, but for the question of ownership, would have

deeded to her the hotel and its contents; the other

guests regarded her as the final touch of feminine

exclusiveness and beauty that rendered the entourage

perfect.



This super-excellent guest rarely left the hotel.

Her habits were consonant with the customs of the dis-

criminating patrons of the Hotel Lotus. To enjoy

that delectable hostelry one must forego the city as

though it were leagues away. By night a brief ex-

cursion to the nearby roofs is in order; but during

the torrid day one remains in the umbrageous fast-

nesses of the Lotus as a trout hangs poised in the pel-

lucid sanctuaries of his favorite pool.,



Though alone in the Hotel Lotus, Madame Beau-

mont preserved the state of a queen whose loneliness

was of position only. She breakfasted at ten, a cool,

sweet, leisurely, delicate being who glowed softly in

the dimness like a jasmine flower in the dusk.



But at dinner was Madame's glory at its height.

She wore a gown as beautiful and immaterial as the

mist from an unseen cataract in a mountain gorge.

The nomenclature of this gown is beyond the guess

of the scribe. Always pale-red roses reposed against

its lace-garnished front. It was a gown that the

bead-waiter viewed with respect and met at the door.

You thought of Paris when you saw it, and maybe of

mysterious countesses, and certainly of Versailles and

rapiers and Mrs. Fiske and rouge-et-noir. There was

an untraceable rumor in the Hotel Lotus that

Madame was a cosmopolite, and that she was pulling

with her slender white bands certain strings between

the nations in the favor of Russia. Being a citi-

zeness of the world's smoothest roads it was small

wonder that she was quick to recognize in the refined

purlieus of the Hotel Lotus the most desirable spot in

America for a restful sojourn during the heat of mid-

summer.



On the third day of Madame Beaumont's residence

in the hotel a young man entered and registered him-

self as a guest. His clothing -- to speak of his

points in approved order -- was quietly in the mode;

his features good and regular; his expression that of

a poised and sophisticated man of the world. He in-

formed the clerk that he would remain three or four

days, inquired concerning the sailing of European

steamships, and sank into the blissful inanition of the

nonpareil hotel with the contented air of a traveller in

his favorite inn.



The young man -- not to question the veracity of

the register -- was Harold Farrington. He drifted

into the exclusive and calm current of life in the Lotus

so tactfully and silently that not a ripple alarmed his

fellow-seekers after rest. He ate in the Lotus and

of its patronym, and was lulled into blissful peace

with the other fortunate mariners. In one day he

acquired his table and his waiter and the fear lest the

panting chasers after repose that kept Broadway

warm should pounce upon and destroy this contiguous

but covert haven.



After dinner on the next day after the arrival of

Harold Farrington Madame Beaumont dropped her

handkerchief in passing out. Mr. Farrington recov-

ered and returned it without the effusiveness of a

seeker after acquaintance.



Perhaps there was a mystic freemasonry between

the discriminating guests of the Lotus. Perhaps

they were drawn one to another by the fact of their

common good fortune in discovering the acme of sum-

mer resorts in a Broadway hotel. Words delicate in

courtesy and tentative in departure from formality

passed between the two. And, as if in the expedient

atmosphere of a real summer resort, an acquaintance

grew, flowered and fructified on the spot as does the

mystic plant of the conjuror. For a few moments

they stood on a balcony upon which the corridor

ended, and tossed the feathery ball of conversation.



"One tires of the old resorts," said Madame Beau-

mont, with a faint but sweet smile. "What is the use

to fly to the mountains or the seashore to escape noise

and dust when the very people that make both follow

us there?"



"Even on the ocean," remarked Farrington, sadly,

"the Philistines be upon you. The most exclusive

steamers are getting to be scarcely more than ferry

boats. Heaven help us when the summer resorter dis-

covers that the Lotus is further away from Broadway

than Thousand Islands or Mackinac."



"I hope our secret will be safe for a week, any-

how," said Madame, with a sigh and a smile. "I do

not know where I would go if they should descend

upon the dear Lotus. I know of but one place so de-

lightful in summer, and that is the castle of Count

Polinski, in the Ural Mountains."



"I hear that Baden-Baden and Cannes are almost

deserted this season," said Farrington. "Year by

year the old resorts fall in disrepute. Perhaps many

others, like ourselves, are seeking out the quiet nooks

that are overlooked by the majority."



"I promise myself three days more of this delicious

rest," said Madame Beaumont. "On Monday the

Cedric sails."



Harold Farrington's eyes proclaimed his regret.

"I too must leave on Monday," he said, "but I do

not go abroad."



Madame Beaumont shrugged one round shoulder in

a foreign gesture.



"One cannot bide here forever, charming though it

may be. The chateau has been in preparation for me

longer than a month. Those house parties that one

must give -- what a nuisance! But I shall never for-

get my week in the Hotel Lotus."



"Nor shall I," said Farrington in a low voice,

and I shall never forgive the Cedric."



On Sunday evening, three days afterward, the two

sat at a little table on the same balcony. A discreet

waiter brought ices and small glasses of claret cup.



Madame Beaumont wore the same beautiful even-

ing gown that she had worn each day at dinner. She

seemed thoughtful. Near her hand on the table lay a

small chatelaine purse. After she had eaten her ice

she opened the purse and took out a one-dollar bill.



"Mr. Farrington," she said, with the smile that

had won the Hotel Lotus, "I want to tell you some-

thing. I'm going to leave before breakfast in the

morning, because I've got to go back to my work.

I'm behind the hosiery counter at Casey's Mammoth

Store, and my vacation's up at eight o'clock to-

morrow. That paper-dollar is the last cent I'll see

till I draw my eight dollars salary next Saturday

night. You're a real gentleman, and you've been

good to me, and I wanted to tell you before I went.

I've been saving up out of my wages for a year

just for this vacation. I wanted to spend one week

like a lady if I never do another one. I wanted to

get up when I please instead of having to crawl out

at seven every morning; and I wanted to live on the

best and be waited on and ring bells for things just

like rich folks do. Now I've done it, and I've had the

happiest time I ever expect to have in my life. I'm

going back to my work and my little hall bedroom

satisfied for another year. I wanted to tell you

about it, Mr. Farrington, because I -- I thought you

kind of liked me, and I -- I liked you. But, oh, I

couldn't help deceiving you up till now, for it was all

just like a fairy tale to me. So I talked about Eu-

rope and the things I've read about in other countries,

and made you think I was a great lady.



"This dress I've got on -- it's the only one I have

that's fit to wear -- I bought from O'Dowd & Levin-

sky on the instalment plan."



"Seventy-five dollars is the price, and it was made

to measure. I paid $10 down, and they're to collect

$1 a week till it's paid for. That'll be about all I

have to say, Mr. Farrington, except that my name is

Mamie Siviter instead of Madame Beaumont, and I

thank you for your attentions. This dollar will pay

the instalment due on the dress to-morrow. I guess

I'll go up to my room now."



Harold Farrington listened to the recital of the

Lotus's loveliest guest with an impassive countenance.

When she had concluded he drew a small book like a

checkbook from his coat pocket. He wrote upon a

blank form in this with a stub of pencil, tore out the

leaf, tossed it over to his companion and took up the

paper dollar.



"I've got to go to work, too, in the morning," he

said, "and I might as well begin now. There's a

receipt for the dollar instalment. I've been a col-

lector for O'Dowd & Levinsky for three years.

Funny, ain't it, that you and me both had the same

idea about spending our vacation? I've always

wanted to put up at a swell hotel, and I saved up out

of my twenty per, and did it. Say, Mame, how about

a trip to Coney Saturday night on the boat

what?"



The face of the pseudo Madame Heloise D'Arcy

Beaumont beamed.



"Oh, you bet I'll go, Mr. Farrington. The store

closes at twelve on Saturdays. I guess Coney'll be

all right even if we did spend a week with the swells."



Below the balcony the sweltering city growled and

buzzed in the July night. Inside the Hotel Lotus

the tempered, cool shadows reigned, and the solicitous

waiter single-footed near the low windows, ready at

a nod to serve Madame and her escort.



At the door of the elevator Farrington took his

leave, and Madame Beaumont made her last ascent.

But before they reached the noiseless cage be said:

"Just forget that 'Harold Farrington,' will you?

McManus is the name -- James McManus. Some

call me Jimmy."



"Good-night, Jimmy," said Madame.









THE RATHSKELLER AND THE ROSE





Miss Posie Carrington had earned her suc-

cess. She began life handicapped by the family name

of "Boggs," in the small town known as Cranberry

Corners. At the age of eighteen she had acquired

the name of "Carrington" and a position in the

chorus of a metropolitan burlesque company.

Thence upward she had ascended by the legitimate and

delectable steps of "broiler," member of the famous

"Dickey-bird" octette, in the successful musical

comedy, "Fudge and Fellows," leader of the potato-

bug dance in "Fol-de-Rol," and at length to the part

of the maid "'Toinette" in "The King's Bath-Robe,"

which captured the critics and gave her her chance.

And when we come to consider Miss Carrington she

is in the heydey of flattery, fame and fizz; and that

astute manager, Herr Timothy Goldstein, has her

signature to iron-clad papers that she will star the

coming season in Dyde Rich's new play, "Paresis by

Gaslight."



Promptly there came to Herr Timothy a capable

twentieth-century young character actor by the name

of Highsmith, who besought engagement as "Sol

Haytosser," the comic and chief male character part

in "Paresis by Gaslight."



"My boy," said Goldstein, "take the part if you

can get it. Miss Carrington won't listen to any of

my suggestions. She has turned down half a dozen

of the best imitators of the rural dub in the city.

She declares she won't set a foot on the stage un-

less 'Haytosser' is the best that can be raked up --

She was raised in a village, you know, and when a

Broadway orchid sticks a straw in his hair and tries

to call himself a clover blossom she's on, all right.

I asked her, in a sarcastic vein, if she thought Den-

man Thompson would make any kind of a show in the

part. 'Oh, no,' says she. 'I don't want him or

John Drew or Jim Corbett or any of these swell

actors that don't know a turnip from a turnstile. I

want the real article.' So, my boy, if you want to

play I 'Sol Haytosser' you will have to convince Miss

Carrington. Luck be with you."



Highsmith took the train the next day for Cran-

berry Corners. He remained in that forsaken and

inanimate village three days. He found the Boggs

family and corkscrewed their history unto the third

and fourth generation. He amassed the facts and the

local color of Cranberry Corners. The village had

not grown as rapidly as had Miss Carrington. The

actor estimated that it had suffered as few actual

changes since the departure of its solitary follower

of Thespis as had a stage upon which "four years

is supposed to have elapsed." He absorbed Cran-

berry Corners and returned to the city of chameleon

changes.



It was in the rathskeller that Highsmith made the

hit of his histrionic career. There is no need to

name the place; there is but one rathskeller where

you could hope to find Miss Posie Carrington after a

performance of "The King's Bath-Robe."



There was a jolly small party at one of the tables

that drew many eyes. Miss Carrington, petite, mar-

vellous, bubbling, electric, fame-drunken, shall be

named first. Herr Goldstein follows, sonorous, curly-

haired, heavy, a trifle anxious, as some bear that had

caught, somehow, a butterfly in his claws. Next,

a man condemned to a newspaper, sad, courted,

armed, analyzing for press agent's dross every sen-

tence that was poured over him, eating his a la New-

burg in the silence of greatness. To conclude, a

youth with parted hair, a name that is ochre to red

journals and gold on the back of a supper check.

These sat at a table while the musicians played, while

waiters moved in the mazy performance of their duties

with their backs toward all who desired their service,

and all was bizarre and merry because it was nine feet

below the level of the sidewalk.



At 11.45 a being entered the rathskeller. The

first violin perceptibly flatted a C that should have

been natural; the clarionet blew a bubble instead of a

grace note; Miss Carrington giggled and the youth

with parted hair swallowed an olive seed.



Exquisitely and irreproachably rural was the new

entry. A lank, disconcerted, hesitating young man

it was, flaxen-haired, gaping of mouth, awkward,

stricken to misery by the lights and company. His

clothing was butternut, with bright blue tie, showing

four inches of bony wrist and white-socked ankle.

He upset a chair, sat in another one, curled a foot

around a table leg and cringed at the approach of

a waiter.



"You may fetch me a glass of lager beer," he said,

in response to the discreet questioning of the

servitor.



The eyes of the rathskeller were upon him. He was

as fresh as a collard and as ingenuous as a hay rake.

He let his eye rove about the place as one who re-

gards, big-eyed, hogs in the potato patch. His gaze

rested at length upon Miss Carrington. He rose and

went to her table with a lateral, shining smile and

a blush of pleased trepidation.



"How're ye, Miss Posie?" he said in accents not

to be doubted. "Don't ye remember me - Bill Sum-

mers - the Summerses that lived back of the black-

smith shop? I reckon I've growed up some since ye

left Cranberry Corners.



"'Liza Perry 'lowed I might see ye in the city

while I was here. You know 'Liza married Benny

Stanfield, and she says --"



"Ah, say! " interrupted Miss Carrington, brightly,

"Lize Perry is never married - what! Oh, the

freckles of her!"



"Married in June," grinned the gossip, "and livin'

in the old Tatum Place. Ham Riley perfessed reli-

gion; old Mrs. Blithers sold her place to Cap'n

Spooner; the youngest Waters girl run away with a

music teacher; the court-house burned up last March;

your uncle Wiley was elected constable; Matilda Hos-

kins died from runnin' a needle in her hand, and Tom

Beedle is courtin' Sallie Lathrop - they say he don't

miss a night but what he's settin' on their porch."



"The wall-eyed thing!" exclaimed Miss Carring-

ton, with asperity. "Why, Tom Beedle once -- say,

you folks, excuse me a while -- this is an old friend

of mine -- Mr. -- what was it? Yes, Mr. Summers

-- Mr. Goldstein, Mr. Ricketts, Mr. -- Oh, what's

yours? 'Johnny''ll do -- come on over here and

tell me some more."

She swept him to an isolated table in a corner.

Herr Goldstein shrugged his fat shoulders and beck-

oned to the waiter. The newspaper man brightened

a little and mentioned absinthe. The youth with

parted hair was plunged into melancholy. The

guests of the rathskeller laughed, clinked glasses and

enjoyed the comedy that Posie Carrington was treat-

ing them to after her regular performance. A few

cynical ones whispered "press agent"' and smiled

wisely.



Posie Carrington laid her dimpled and desirable

chin upon her hands, and forgot her audience -- a

faculty that had won her laurels for her.



"I don't seem to recollect any Bill Summers," she

said, thoughtfully gazing straight into the innocent

blue eyes of the rustic young man. "But I know the

Summerses, all right. I guess there ain't many

changes in the old town. You see any of my folks

lately?"



And then Highsmith played his trump. The part

of "Sol Haytosser" called for pathos as well as

comedy. Miss Carrington should see that he could

do that as well.



"Miss Posie," said "Bill Summers,"" I was up to

your folkeses house jist two or three days ago. No,

there ain't many changes to speak of. The lilac bush

by the kitchen window is over a foot higher, and the

elm in the front yard died and had to be cut down.

And yet it don't seem the same place that it used

to be."



"How's ma?" asked Miss Carrington.



"She was settin' by the front door, crocheting a

lamp-mat when I saw her last," said "Bill." "She's

older'n she was, Miss Posie. But everything in the

house looked jest the same. Your ma asked me to set

down. 'Don't touch that willow rocker, William,"

says she. 'It ain't been moved since Posie left; and

that's the apron she was hemmin', layin' over the arm

of it, jist as she flung it. I'm in hopes,' she goes on,

that Posie'll finish runnin' out that hem some day.'"



Miss Carrington beckoned peremptorily to a

waiter.



"A pint of extra dry," she ordered, briefly; "and

give the check to Goldstein."



"The sun was shinin' in the door," went on the

chronicler from Cranberry, "and your ma was settin'

right in it. I asked her if she hadn't better move

back a little. 'William,' says she, 'when I get sot

down and lookin' down the road, I can't bear to move.

Never a day,' says she, 'but what I set here every

minute that I can spare and watch over them palin's

for Posie. She went away down that road in the

night, for we seen her little shoe tracks in the dust,

and somethin' tells me she'll come back that way ag'in

when she's weary of the world and begins to think

about her old mother."



"When I was comin' away," concluded "Bill,"

"I pulled this off'n the bush by the front steps. I

thought maybe I might see you in the city, and I

knowed you'd like somethin' from the old home."



He took from his coat pocket a rose - a drooping,

yellow, velvet, odorous rose, that hung its bead in

the foul atmosphere of that tainted rathskeller like

a virgin bowing before the hot breath of the lions in

a Roman arena.



Miss Carrington's penetrating but musical laugh

rose above the orcbestra's rendering of "Bluebells."



"Oh, say!" she cried, with glee, "ain't those poky

places the limit? I just know that two hours at

Cranberry Corners would give me the horrors now.

Well, I'm awful glad to have seen you, Mr. Summers.

Guess I'll bustle around to the hotel now and get

my beauty sleep."



She thrust the yellow rose into the bosom of her

wonderful, dainty, silken garments, stood up and

nodded imperiously at Herr Goldstein.



Her three companions and "Bill Summers" at-

tended her to her cab. When her flounces and

streamers were all safely tucked inside she dazzled

them with au revoirs from her shining eyes and teeth.



"Come around to the hotel and see me, Bill, before

you leave the city," she called as the glittering cab

rolled away.



Highsmith, still in his make-up, went with Herr

Goldstein to a cafe booth.



"Bright idea, eh? " asked the smiling actor.

"Ought to land 'Sol Haytosser ' for me, don't you

think? The little lady never once tumbled."



"I didn't bear your conversation," said Goldstein,

but your make-up and acting was 0. K. Here's to

your success. You'd better call on Miss Carrington

early to-morrow and strike her for the part. I don't

see how she can keep from being satisfied with your

exhibition of ability."



At 11.45 A. M. on the next day Highsmith, hand-

some, dressed in the latest mode, confident, with a

fuchsia in his button-bole, sent up his card to Miss

Carrington in her select apartment hotel.



He was shown up and received by the actress's

French maid.



"I am sorree," said Mlle. Hortense, "but I am to

say this to all. It is with great regret. Mees Car-

rington have cancelled all engagements on the stage

and have returned to live in that how you call that

town? Cranberry Cornaire!"









THE CLARION CALL





Half of this story can be found in the records of

the Police Department; the other half belong behind

the business counter of a newspaper office.



One afternoon two weeks after Millionaire Nor-

cross was found in his apartment murdered by a bur-

glar, the murderer, while strolling serenely down

Broadway ran plump against Detective Barney

Woods.



"Is that you, Johnny Kernan?" asked Woods,

who had been near-sighted in public for five years.



"No less," cried Kernan, heartily. "If it isn't

Barney Woods, late and early of old Saint Jo!

You'll have to show me! What are you doing East?

Do the green-goods circulars get out that far?"

said Woods.



"I've been in New York some years, I'm on the city

detective force."



"Well, well!" said Kernan, breathing smiling joy

and patting the detective's arm.



"Come into Muller's," said Woods, "and let's

hunt a quiet table. I'd like to talk to you awhile."



It lacked a few minutes to the hour of four. The

tides of trade were not yet loosed, and they found a

quiet corner of the cafe. Kernan, well dressed

Slightly swaggering, self-confident, seated himself op-

posite the little detective, with his pale, sandy mus-

tache, squinting eyes and ready-made cheviot suit.



"What business are you in now?" asked Woods.

"You know you left Saint Jo a year before I did."



"I'm selling shares in a copper mine," said Ker-

nan. "I may establish an office here. Well, well!

and so old Barney is a New York detective. You

always had a turn that way. You were on the po-

lice in Saint Jo after I left there, weren't you?"



"Six months," said Woods. "And now there's one

more question, Johnny. I've followed your record

pretty close ever since you did that hotel job in Sara-

toga, and I never knew you to use your gun before.

Why did you kill Norcross?"



Kernan stared for a few moments with concen-

trated attention at the slice of lemon in his high-ball;

and then be looked at the detective with a sudden,

crooked, brilliant smile.



"How did you guess it, Barney? " he asked, ad-

miringly. "I swear I thought the job was as clean

and as smooth as a peeled onion. Did I leave a string

hanging out anywhere? "



Woods laid upon the table a small gold pencil in-

tended for a watch-charm.



"It's the one I gave you the last Christmas we

were in Saint Jo. I've got your shaving mug yet.

I found this under a corner of the rug in Norcross's

room. I warn you to be careful what you say. I've

got it put on to you, Johnny. We were old friends

once, but I must do my duty. You'll have to go to

the chair for Norcross." Kernan laughed.



"My luck stays with me," said be. "Who'd have

thought old Barney was on my trail!" He slipped

one hand inside his coat. In an instant Woods had

a revolver against his side.



"Put it away," said Kernan, wrinkling his nose.

"I'm only investigating. Aha! It takes nine tailors

to make a man, but one can do a man up. There's

a hole in that vest pocket. I took that pencil off my

chain and slipped it in there in case of a scrap. Put

up your gun, Barney, and I'll tell you why I had

to shoot Norcross. The old fool started down the

hall after me, popping at the buttons on the back of

my coat with a peevish little .22 and I had to stop

him. The old lady was a darling. She just lay in

bed and saw her $12,000 diamond necklace go with-

out a chirp, while she begged like a panhandler to

have back a little thin gold ring with a garnet worth

about $3. 1 guess she married old Norcross for his

money, all right. Don't they hang on to the little

trinkets from the Man Who Lost Out, though?

There were six rings, two brooches and a chatelaine

watch. Fifteen thousand would cover the lot."



"I warned you not to talk," said Woods.



"Oh, that's all right," said Kernan. "The stuff

is in my suit case at the hotel. And now I'll tell you

why I'm talking. Because it's safe. I'm talking to

a man I know. You owe me a thousand dollars, Bar-

ney Woods, and even if you wanted to arrest me your

hand wouldn't make the move."



"I haven't forgotten," said Woods. "You counted

out twenty fifties without a word. I'll pay it back

some day. That thousand saved me and -- well, they

were piling my furniture out on the sidewalk when I

got back to the house."



"And so," continued Kernan, "you being Barney

Woods, born as true as steel, and bound to play a

white man's game, can't lift a finger to arrest the

man you're indebted to. Oh, I have to study men

as well as Yale locks and window fastenings in my

business. Now, keep quiet while I ring for the

waiter. I've had a thirst for a year or two that wor-

ries me a little. If I'm ever caught the lucky sleuth

will have to divide honors with old boy Booze. But I

never drink during business hours. After a job I

can crook elbows with my old friend Barney with a

clear conscience. What are you taking?"



The waiter came with the little decanters and the

siphon and left them alone again.



"You've called the turn," said Woods, as he rolled

the little gold pencil about with a thoughtful fore-

finger. I've got to pass you up. I can't lay a

hand on you. If I'd a-paid that money back -- but

I didn't, and that settles it. It's a bad break I'm

making, Johnny, but I can't dodge it. You helped

me once, and it calls for the same."



"I knew it," said Kernan, raising his glass, with

a flushed smile of self-appreciation. "I can judge

men. Here's to Barney, for -- 'he's a jolly good

fellow.' "



"I don't believe," went on Woods quietly, as if be

were thinking aloud, "that if accounts had been

square between you and me, all the money in all the

banks in New York could have bought you out of

my hands to-night."



"I know it couldn't," said Kernan. "That's why

I knew I was safe with you."



"Most people," continued the detective, "look side-

ways at my business. They don't class it among the

fine arts and the professions. But I've always taken

a kind of fool pride in it. And here is where I go

'busted.' I guess I'm a man first and a detective

afterward. I've got to let you go, and then I've got

to resign from the force. I guess I can drive an ex-

press wagon. Your thousand dollars is further off

than ever, Johnny."



"Oh, you're welcome to it," said Kernan, with a

lordly air. "I'd be willing to call the debt off, but

I know you wouldn't have it It was a lucky day

for me when you borrowed it. And now, let's drop

the subject. I'm off to the West on a morning train.

I know a place out there where I can negotiate the

Norcross sparks. Drink up, Barney, and forget your

troubles. We'll have a jolly time while the police

are knocking their heads together over the case.

I've got one of my Sahara thirsts on to-night. But

I'm in the bands -- the unofficial bands -- of my old

friend Barney, and I won't even dream of a cop."



And then, as Kernan's ready finger kept the but-

ton and the waiter working, his weak point -- a tre-

mendous vanity and arrogant egotism, began to show

itself. He recounted story after story of his suc-

cessful plunderings, ingenious plots and infamous

transgressions until Woods, with all his familiarity

with evil-doers, felt growing within him a cold ab-

horrence toward the utterly vicious man who had

once been his benefactor.



"I'm disposed of, of course," said Woods, at

length. "But I advise you to keep under cover for a

spell. The newspapers may take up this Norcross

affair. There has been an epidemic of burglaries and

manslaughter in town this summer."



The word sent Kernan into a high glow of sullen

and vindictive rage.



"To hell with the newspapers," he growled.

"What do they spell but brag and blow and boodle in

box-car letters? Suppose they do take up a case

what does it amount to? The police are easy enough

to fool; but what do the newspapers do? They send

a lot of pin-head reporters around to the scene; and

they make for the nearest saloon and have beer while

they take photos of the bartender's oldest daughter

in evening dress, to print as the fiancee of the young

man in the tenth story, who thought he heard a noise

below on the night of the murder. That's about as

near as the newspapers ever come to running down

Mr. Burglar."



"Well, I don't know," said Woods, reflecting.

"Some of the papers have done good work in that

line. There's the Morning Mars, for instance. It

warmed up two or three trails, and got the man after

the police had let 'em get cold."



"I'll show you," said Tiernan, rising, and expand-

ing his chest. "I'll show you what I think of news-

papers in general, and your Morning Mars in par-

ticular."



Three feet from their table was the telephone

booth. Kernan went inside and sat at the instrument,

leaving the door open. He found a number in the

book, took down the receiver and made his demand

upon Central. Woods sat still, looking at the sneer-

ing, cold, vigilant face waiting close to the trans-

mitter, and listened to the words that came from the

thin, truculent lips curved into a contemptuous smile.



"That the Morning Mars? . . . I want to

speak to the managing editor . . . Why, tell

him it's some one who wants to talk to him about the

Norcross murder.



"You the editor? . . . All right. . . . I

am the man who killed old Norcross . . . Wait!

Hold the wire; I'm not the usual crank . . . oh,

there isn't the slightest danger. I've just been dis-

cussing it with a detective friend of mine. I killed

the old man at 2:30 A. M. two weeks ago to-

morrow. . . . Have a drink with you? Now,

hadn't you better leave that kind of talk to your

funny man? Can't you tell whether a man's guying

you or whether you're being offered the biggest scoop

your dull dishrag of a paper ever had? . . .

Well, that's so; it's a bobtail scoop -- but you can

hardly expect me to 'phone in my name and address.



. . . Why? Oh, because I beard you make a

specialty of solving mysterious crimes that stump the

police. . . . No, that's not all. I want to tell

you that your rotten, lying, penny sheet is of no more

use in tracking an intelligent murderer or highway-

man than a blind poodle would be. . . . What?

. . . Oh, no, this isn't a rival newspaper office;

you're getting it straight. I did the Norcross job,

and I've got the jewels in my suit case at -- 'the

name of the hotel could not be learned' -- you recog-

nize that phrase, don't you? I thought so. You've

used it often enough. Kind of rattles you, doesn't

it, to have the mysterious villain call up your great,

big, all-powerful organ of right and justice and good

government and tell you what a helpless old gas-bag

you are? . . . Cut that out; you're not that big

a fool -- no, you don't think I'm a fraud. I can tell

it by your voice. . . . Now, listen, and I'll give

you a pointer that will prove it to you. Of course

you've had this murder case worked over by your staff

of bright young blockheads. Half of the second but-

ton on old Mrs. Norcross's nightgown is broken off.

I saw it when I took the garnet ring off her finger.

I thought it was a ruby. . . . -- Stop that! it

won't work."



Kernan turned to Woods with a diabolic smile.



"I've got him going. He believes me now. He

didn't quite cover the transmitter with his hand when

he told somebody to call up Central on another 'phone

and get our number. I'll give him just one more dig,

and then we'll make a 'get-away.'



"Hello! . . . Yes. I'm here yet. You

didn't think -- I'd run from such a little subsidized, turn-

coat rag of a newspaper, did you? . . . Have

me inside of forty-eight hours? Say, will you quit

being funny? Now, you let grown men alone and at-

tend to your business of hunting up divorce cases

and street-car accidents and printing the filth and

scandal that you make your living by. Good-by, old

boy -- sorry I haven't time to call on you. I'd feel

perfectly safe in your sanctum asinorum. Tra-la!"



"He's as mad as a cat that's lost a mouse," said

Kernan, hanging up the receiver and coming out.



"And now, Barney, my boy, we'll go to a show and

enjoy ourselves until a reasonable bedtime. Four

hours' sleep for me, and then the west-bound."



The two dined in a Broadway restaurant. Kernan

was pleased with himself. He spent money like a

prince of fiction. And then a weird and gorgeous

musical comedy engaged their attention. Afterward

there was a late supper in a grillroom, with

champagne, and Kernan at the height of his com-

placency.



Half-past three in the morning found them in a

corner of an all-night cafe, Kernan still boasting in

a vapid and rambling way, Woods thinking moodily

over the end that had come to his usefulness as an

upholder of the law.



But, as he pondered, his eye brightened with a

speculative light.



"I wonder if it's possible," be said to himself, "I

won-der if it's pos-si-ble!



And then outside the cafe the comparative stillness

of the early morning was punctured by faint, uncer-

tain cries that seemed mere fireflies of sound, some

growing louder, some fainter, waxing and waning

amid the rumble of milk wagons and infrequent cars.

Shrill cries they were when near -- well-known cries

that conveyed many meanings to the ears of those of

the slumbering millions of the great city who waked

to hear them. Cries that bore upon their significant,

small volume the weight of a world's woe and laugh-

ter and delight and stress. To some, cowering be-

neath the protection of a night's ephemeral cover,

they brought news of the hideous, bright day; to

others, wrapped in happy sleep, they announced a

morning that would dawn blacker than sable night.

To many of the rich they brought a besom to sweep

away what had been theirs while the stars shone; to

the poor they brought -- another day.



All over the city the cries were starting up, keen

and sonorous, heralding the chances that the slip-

ping of one cogwheel in the machinery of time had

made; apportioning to the sleepers while they lay

at the mercy of fate, the vengeance, profit, grief,

reward and doom that the new figure in the calen-

dar had brought them. Shrill and yet plaintive

were the cries, as if the young voices grieved that so

much evil and so little good was in their irresponsible

hands. Thus echoed in the streets of the helpless

city the transmission of the latest decrees of the gods,

the cries of the newsboys -- the Clarion Call of the

Press.



Woods flipped a dime to the waiter, and said:

"Get me a Morning Mars."



When the paper came he glanced at its first page,

and then tore a leaf out of his memorandum book

and began to write on it with the little old pencil.



"What's the news?"' yawned Kernan.



Woods flipped over to him the piece of writing:



"The New York Morning Mars:



"Please pay to the order of John Kernan the one thousand

dollars reward coming to me for his arrest and conviction.



"BARNARD WOODS."





"I kind of thought they would do that," said

Woods, "when you were jollying them so hard. Now,

Johnny, you'll come to the police station with me."









EXTRADITED FROM BOHEMIA





From near the village of Harmony, at the foot

of the Green Mountains, came Miss Medora Martin

to New York with her color-box and easel.



Miss Medora resembled the rose which the autum-

nal frosts had spared the longest of all her sister

blossoms. In Harmony, when she started alone to

the wicked city to study art, they said she was a mad,

reckless, headstrong girl. In New York, when she

first took her seat at a West Side boardinghouse

table, the boarders asked: "Who is the nice-looking

old maid?"



Medora took heart, a cheap hall bedroom and two

art lessons a week from Professor Angelini, a retired

barber who had studied his profession in a Harlem

dancing academy. There was no one to set her right,

for here in the big city they do it unto all of us.

How many of us are badly shaved daily and taught

the two-step imperfectly by ex-pupils of Bastien Le

Page and Gerome? The most pathetic sight in New

York -- except the manners of the rush-hour crowds

-- is the dreary march of the hopeless army of Me-

diocrity. Here Art is no benignant goddess, but

a Circe who turns her wooers into mewing Toms and

Tabbies who linger about the doorsteps of her abode,

unmindful of the flying brickbats and boot-jacks of

the critics. Some of us creep back to our native vil-

lages to the skim-milk of "I told you so"; but most

of us prefer to remain in the cold courtyard of our

mistress's temple, snatching the scraps that fall from

her divine table d'hote. But some of us grow weary

at last of the fruitless service. And then there are

two fates open to us. We can get a job driving a

grocer's wagon, or we can get swallowed up in the

Vortex of Bohemia. The latter sounds good; but the

former really pans out better. For, when the grocer

pays us off we can rent a dress suit and -- the cap-

italized system of humor describes it best -- Get Bo-

hemia On the Run.



Miss Medora chose the Vortex and thereby fur-

nishes us with our little story.



Professor Angelini praised her sketches excessively.

Once when she had made a neat study of a horse-

chestnut tree in the park he declared she would be-

come a second Rosa Bonheur. Again -- a great art-

ist has his moods -- he would say cruel and cutting

things. For example, Medora had spent an after-

noon patiently sketching the statue and the archi-

tecture at Columbus Circle. Tossing it aside with

a sneer, the professor informed her that Giotto had

once drawn a perfect circle with one sweep of his

hand.



One day it rained, the weekly remittance from Har-

mony was overdue, Medora had a headache, the pro-

fessor had tried to borrow two dollars from her, her

art dealer had sent back all her water-colors unsold,

and -- Mr. Binkley asked her out to dinner.



Mr. Binkley was the gay boy of the boarding-

house. He was forty-nine, and owned a fishstall in

a downtown market. But after six o'clock he wore

an evening suit and whooped things up connected

with the beaux arts. The young men said he was an

"Indian." He was supposed to be an accomplished

habitue of the inner circles of Bohemia. It was no

secret that he had once loaned $10 to a young man

who had had a drawing printed in Puck. Often has

one thus obtained his entree into the charmed circle,

while the other obtained both his entree and roast.



The other boarders enviously regarded Medora as

she left at Mr. Binkley's side at nine o'clock. She

was as sweet as a cluster of dried autumn grasses

in her pale blue -- oh -- er -- that very thin stuff

-- in her pale blue Comstockized silk waist and box-

pleated voile skirt, with a soft pink glow on her thin

cheeks and the tiniest bit of rouge powder on her

face, with her handkerchief and room key in her

brown walrus, pebble-grain band-bag.



And Mr. Binkley looked imposing and dashing with

his red face and gray mustache, and his tight dress

coat, that made the back of his neck roll up just

like a successful novelist's.



They drove in a cab to the Cafe Terence, just off

the most glittering part of Broadway, which, as

every one knows, is one of the most popular and

widely patronized, jealously exclusive Bohemian re-

sorts in the city.



Down between the rows of little tables tripped

Medora, of the Green Mountains, after her escort.

Thrice in a lifetime may woman walk upon clouds

once when she trippeth to the altar, once when she

first enters Bohemian halls, the last when she marches

back across her first garden with the dead hen of her

neighbor in her band.



There was a table set, with three or four about it.

A waiter buzzed around it like a bee, and silver and

glass shone upon it. And, preliminary to the meal,

as the prehistoric granite strata heralded the pro-

tozoa, the bread of Gaul, compounded after the for-

mula of the recipe for the eternal bills, was there set

forth to the hand and tooth of a long-suffering city,

while the gods lay beside their nectar and home-made

biscuits and smiled, and the dentists leaped for joy

in their gold-leafy dens.



The eye of Binkley fixed a young man at his table

with the Bobemian gleam, which is a compound of

the look of the Basilisk, the shine of a bubble of

Wurzburger, the inspiration of genius and the plead-

ing of a panhandler.



The young man sprang to his feet. "Hello, Bink,

old boy! be shouted. "Don't tell me you were go-

ing to pass our table. Join us -- unless you've an-

other crowd on hand."



"Don't mind, old chap," said Binkley, of the fish-

stall. "You know how I like to butt up against the

fine arts. Mr. Vandyke -- Mr. Madder -- er --

Miss Martin, one of the elect also in art -- er -- "



The introduction went around. There were also

Miss Elise and Miss 'Toinette. Perhaps they were

models, for they chattered of the St. Regis decora-

tions and Henry James -- and they did it not badly.



Medora sat in transport. Music -- wild, intoxi-

eating music made by troubadours direct from a rear

basement room in Elysium -- set her thoughts to

dancing. Here was a world never before penetrated

by her warmest imagination or any of the lines con-

trolled by Harriman. With the Green Mountains'

external calm upon her she sat, her soul flaming in

her with the fire of Andalusia. The tables were filled

with Bohemia. The room was full of the fragrance

of flowers -- both mille and cauli. Questions and

corks popped; laughter and silver rang; champagne

flashed in the pail, wit flashed in the pan.



Vandyke ruffled his long, black locks, disarranged

his careless tie and leaned over to Madder.



"Say, Maddy," he whispered, feelingly, "some-

times I'm tempted to pay this Philistine his ten dol-

lars and get rid of him."



Madder ruffled his long, sandy locks and disar-

ranged his careless tie.



"Don't think of it, Vandy," he replied. "We are

short, and Art is long."

Medora ate strange viands and drank elderberry

wine that they poured in her glass. It was just the

color of that in the Vermont home. The waiter

poured something in another glass that seemed to

be boiling, but when she tasted it it was not hot.

She had never felt so light-hearted before. She

thought lovingly of the Green Mountain farm and its

fauna. She leaned, smiling, to Miss Elise.



"If I were at home," she said, beamingly, "I

could show you the cutest little calf! "



"Nothing for you in the White Lane," said Miss

Elise. "Why don't you pad?



The orchestra played a wailing waltz that Medora

had learned from the hand-organs. She followed

the air with nodding head in a sweet soprano hum.

Madder looked across the table at her, and wondered

in what strange waters Binkley had caught her in

his seine. She smiled at him, and they raised glasses

and drank of the wine that boiled when it was cold.

Binkley had abandoned art and was prating of the

unusual spring catch of shad. Miss Elise arranged

the palette-and-maul-stick tie pin of Mr. Vandyke.

A Philistine at some distant table was maundering

volubly either about Jerome or Gerome. A famous

actress was discoursing excitably about monogrammed

hosiery. A hose clerk from a department store was

loudly proclaiming his opinions of the drama. A

writer was abusing Dickens. A magazine editor and

a photographer were drinking a dry brand at a re-

served table. A 36-25-42 young lady was saying to

an eminent sculptor: "Fudge for your Prax Italys!

Bring one of your Venus Anno Dominis down to

Cohen's and see bow quick she'd be turned down for

a cloak model. Back to the quarries with your

Greeks and Dagos!"



Thus went Bohemia.



At eleven Mr. Binkley took Medora to the board-

ing-bouse and left her, with a society bow, at the foot

of the hall stairs. She went up to her room and lit

the gas.



And then, as suddenly as the dreadful genie arose

in vapor from the copper vase of the fisherman,

arose in that room the formidable shape of the New

England Conscience. The terrible thing that

Medora had done was revealed to her in its full

enormity. She had sat in the presence of the un-

godly and looked upon the wine both when it was red

and effervescent.



At midnight she wrote this letter:



"Mr. BERLAH HOSKINS, Harmony, Vermont.



"Dear Sir: Henceforth, consider me as dead to

you forever. I have loved you too well to blight your

career by bringing into it my guilty and sin-stained

life. I have succumbed to the insidious wiles of this

wicked world and have been drawn into the vortex of

Bohemia. There is scarcely any depth of glittering

iniquity that I have not sounded. It is hopeless to

combat my decision. There is no rising from the

depths to which I have sunk. Endeavor to forget

me. I am lost forever in the fair but brutal maze of

awful Bohemia. Farewell.



"ONCE YOUR MEDORA."





On the next day Medora formed her resolutions.

Beelzebub, flung from heaven, was no more cast down.

Between her and the apple blossoms of Harmony

there was a fixed gulf. Flaming cherubim warded

her from the gates of her lost paradise. In one

evening, by the aid of Binkley and Mumm, Bohemia

had gathered her into its awful midst.



There remained to her but one thing -- a life of

brilliant, but irremediable error. Vermont was a

shrine that she never would dare to approach again.

But she would not sink -- there were great and com-

pelling ones in history upon whom she would model

her meteoric career -- Camille, Lola Montez, Royal

Mary, Zaza -- such a name as one of these would that

of Medora Martin be to future generations



For two days Medora kept her room. On the

third she opened a magazine at the portrait of the

King of Belgium, and laughed sardonically. If that

far-famed breaker of women's hearts should cross her

path, he would have to bow before her cold and im-

perious beauty. She would not spare the old or

the young. All America -- all Europe should do

homage to her sinister, but compelling charm.



As yet she could not bear to think of the life she

had once desired -- a peaceful one in the shadow of

the Green Mountains with Beriah at her side, and

orders for expensive oil paintings coming in by each

mail from New York. Her one fatal misstep had

shattered that dream.



On the fourth day Medora powdered her face and

rouged her lips. Once she had seen Carter in

"Zaza." She stood before the mirror in a reckless

attitude and cried: "Zut! zut!" She rhymed it

with "nut," but with the lawless word Harmony

seemed to pass away forever. The Vortex had her.

She belonged to Bohemia for evermore. And never

would Beriah --



The door opened and Beriah walked in.



"'Dory," said he, "what's all that chalk and pink

stuff on your face, honey?



Medora extended an arm.



"Too late," she said, solemnly. The die is cast.

I belong in another world. Curse me if you will --

it is your right. Go, and leave me in the path I

have chosen. Bid them all at home never to men-

tion my name again. And sometimes, Beriah, pray

for me when I am revelling in the gaudy, but hol-

low, pleasures of Bohemia."



"Get a towel, 'Dory," said Beriah, "and wipe

that paint off your face. I came as soon as I got

your letter. Them pictures of yours ain't amount-

ing to anything. I've got tickets for both of us

back on the evening train. Hurry and get your

things in your trunk."



"Fate was too strong for me, Beriah. Go while

I am strong to bear it."



"How do you fold this easel, 'Dory? -- now begin

to pack, so we have time to eat before train time.

The maples is all out in full-grown leaves, 'Dory --

you just ought to see 'em!



"Not this early, Beriah?



"You ought to see 'em, 'Dory; they're like an

ocean of green in the morning sunlight."



"Oh, Beriah!"



On the train she said to him suddenly:



"I wonder why you came when you got my let-

ter."



"Oh, shucks! " said Beriah. "Did you think you

could fool me? How could you be run away to that

Bohemia country like you said when your letter was

postmarked New York as plain as day?"











A PHILISTINE IN BOHEMIA





George Washington, with his right arm up-

raised, sits his iron horse at the lower corner of

Union Square, forever signaling the Broadway cars

to stop as they round the curve into Fourteenth

Street. But the cars buzz on, heedless, as they do at

the beck of a private citizen, and the great General

must feel, unless his nerves are iron, that rapid tran-

sit gloria mundi.



Should the General raise his left hand as he has

raised his right it would point to a quarter of the

city that forms a haven for the oppressed and sup-

pressed of foreign lands. In the cause of national

or personal freedom they have found a refuge here,

and the patriot who made it for them sits his steed,

overlooking their district, while he listens through his

left car to vaudeville that caricatures the posterity

of his proteges. Italy, Poland, the former Spanish

possessions and the polyglot tribes of Austria-Hun-

gary have spilled here a thick lather of their effer-

vescent sons. In the eccentric cafes and lodging-

houses of the vicinity they hover over their native

wines and political secrets. The colony changes


with much frequency. Faces disappear from the

haunts to be replaced by others. Whither do these

uneasy birds flit? For half of the answer observe

carefully the suave foreign air and foreign courtesy

of the next waiter who serves your table d'hote.

For the other half, perhaps if the barber shops had

tongues (and who will dispute it?) they could tell

their share.



Titles are as plentiful as finger rings among these

transitory exiles. For lack of proper exploitation a

stock of titled goods large enough to supply the trade

of upper Fifth Avenue is here condemned to a mere

pushcart traffic. The new-world landlords who en-

tertain these offshoots of nobility are not dazzled

by coronets and crests. They have doughnuts to

sell instead of daughters. With them it is a serious

matter of trading in flour and sugar instead of pearl

powder and bonbons.



These assertions are deemed fitting as an intro-

duction to the tale, which is of plebeians and contains

no one with even the ghost of a title.



Katy Dempsey's mother kept a furnished-room

house in this oasis of the aliens. The business was

not profitable. If the two scraped together enough

to meet the landlord's agent on rent day and nego-

tiate for the ingredients of a daily Irish stew they

called it success. Often the stew lacked both meat

and potatoes. Sometimes it became as bad as con-

somme' with music.



In this mouldy old house Katy waxed plump and

pert and wholesome and as beautiful and freckled as

a tiger lily. She was the good fairy who was guilty

of placing the damp clean towels and cracked pitchers

of freshly laundered Croton in the lodgers' rooms.



You are informed (by virtue of the privileges of

astronomical discovery) that the star lodger's name

was Mr. Brunelli. His wearing a yellow tie and pay-

ing his rent promptly distinguished him from the

other lodgers. His raiment was splendid, his com-

plexion olive, his, mustache fierce, his manners a

prince's, his rings and pins as magnificent as those

of a traveling dentist.



He had breakfast served in his room, and he ate it

in a red dressing gown with green tassels. He left

the house at noon and returned at midnight. Those

were mysterious hours, but there was nothing my-

terious about Mrs. Dempsey's lodgers except the

things that were not mysterious. One of Mr. Kip-

ling's poems is addressed to "Ye who hold the un-

written clue to all save all unwritten thing." The

same "readers" are invited to tackle the foregoing

assertion.



Mr. Brunelli, being impressionable and a Latin,

fell to conjugating the verb "amare," with Katy in

the objective case, though not because of antipathy.

She talked it over with her mother.



"Sure, I like him," said Katy. "He's more po-

liteness than twinty candidates for Alderman, and lie

makes me feel like a queen whin he walks at me side.

But what is he, I dinno? I've me suspicions. The

marnin'll coom whin he'll throt out the picture av his

baronial halls and ax to have the week's rint hung

up in the ice chist along wid all the rist of 'em."



"'Tis true," admitted Mrs. Dempsey, "that he

seems to be a sort iv a Dago, and too coolchured in

his spache for a rale gentleman. But ye may be mis-

judgin' him. Ye should niver suspect any wan of

bein' of noble descint that pays cash and pathronizes

the laundry rig'lar."



"He's the same tbricks of spakin' and blarneyin'

wid his hands," sighed Katy, "as the Frinch noble-

man at Mrs. Toole's that ran away wid Mr. Toole's

Sunday pants and left the photograph of the Bastile,

his grandfather's chat-taw, as security for tin weeks'

rint."



Mr. Brunelli continued his calorific wooing. Katy

continued to hesitate. One day he asked her out to

dine and she felt that a denouement was in the air.

While they are on their way, with Katy in her best

muslin, you must take as an entr'acte a brief peep at

New York's Bohemia.



'Tonio's restaurant is in Bohemia. The very lo-

cation of it is secret. If you wish to know where it is

ask the first person you meet. He will tell you in a

whisper. 'Tonio discountenances custom; he keeps

his house-front black and forbidding; he gives you a

pretty bad dinner; he locks his door at the dining

hour; but he knows spaghetti as the boarding-house

knows cold veal; and -- he has deposited many dol-

lars in a certain Banco di -- something with many

gold vowels in the name on its windows.



To this restaurant Mr. Brunelli conducted Katy.

The house was dark and the shades were lowered; but

Mr. Brunelli touched an electric button by the base-

ment door, and they were admitted.



Along a long, dark, narrow hallway they went and

then through a shining and spotless kitchen that

opened directly upon a back yard.



The walls of houses hemmed three sides of the

yard; a high, board fence, surrounded by cats, the

other. A wash of clothes was suspended high upon

a line stretched from diagonal corners. Those were

property clothes, and were never taken in by 'Tonio.

They were there that wits with defective pronuncia-

tion might make puns in connection with the ragout.



A dozen and a half little tables set upon the bare

ground were crowded with Bohemia-hunters, who

flocked there because 'Tonio pretended not to want

them and pretended to give them a good dinner.

There was a sprinkling of real Bohemians present

who came for a change because they were tired of

the real Bohemia, and a smart shower of the men

who originate the bright sayings of Congressmen and

the little nephew of the well-known general passen-

ger agent of the Evansville and Terre Haute Rail-

road Company.



Here is a bon mot that was manufactured at

'Tonio's:



"A dinner at 'Tonio's," said a Bohemian, "always

amounts to twice the price that is asked for it."



Let us assume that an accommodating voice in-

quires:



"How so?"



"The dinner costs you 40 cents; you give 10 cents

to the waiter, and it makes you feel like 30 cents."



Most of the diners were confirmed table d'hoters --

gastronomic adventuress, forever seeking the El Do-

rado of a good claret, and consistently coming to

grief in California.



Mr. Brunelli escorted Katy to a little table em-

bowered with shrubbery in tubs, and asked her to

excuse him for a while.



Katy sat, enchanted by a scene so brilliant to her.

The grand ladies, in splendid dresses and plumes and

sparkling rings; the fine gentlemen who laughed so

loudly, the cries of "Garsong! " and "We, mon-

seer," and "Hello, Mame! " that distinguish Bo-

hemia; the lively chatter, the cigarette smoke, the

interchange of bright smiles and eye-glances -- all

this display and magnificence overpowered the daugh-

ter of Mrs. Dempsey and held her motionless.



Mr. Brunelli stepped into the yard and seemed to

spread his smile and bow over the entire company.

And everywhere there was a great clapping of bands

and a few cries of "Bravo! " and "'Tonio! 'Tonio!"

whatever those words might mean. Ladies waved

their napkins at him, gentlemen almost twisted their

necks off, trying to catch his nod.



When the ovation was concluded Mr. Brunelli,

with a final bow, stepped nimbly into the kitchen and

flung off his coat and waistcoat.



"Flaherty, the nimblest "garsong" among the

waiters, had been assigned to the special service of

Katy. She was a little faint from hunger, for the

Irish stew on the Dempsey table had been particu-

larly weak that day. Delicious odors from unknown

dishes tantalized her. And Flaherty began to bring

to her table course after course of ambrosial food

that the gods might have pronounced excellent.



But even in the midst of her Lucullian repast Katy

laid down her knife and fork. Her heart sank as

lead, and a tear fell upon her filet mignon. Her

haunting suspicions of the star lodger arose again,

fourfold. Thus courted and admired and smiled

upon by that fashionable and gracious assembly,

what else could Mr. Brunelli be but one of those

dazzling titled patricians, glorious of name but shy

of rent money, concerning whom experience had made

her wise? With a sense of his ineligibility growing

within her there was mingled a torturing conviction

that his personality was becoming more pleasing to

her day by day. And why had he left her to dine

alone?



But here he was coming again, now coatless, his

snowy shirt-sleeves rolled high above his Jeffries-

onian elbows, a white yachting cap perched upon his

jetty curls.



"'Tonio! 'Tonio!" shouted many, and "The

spaghetti! The spaghetti!" shouted the rest.



Never at 'Tonio's did a waiter dare to serve a dish

of spaghetti until 'Tonio came to test it, to prove the

sauce and add the needful dash of seasoning that

gave it perfection.



From table to table moved 'Tonio, like a prince in

his palace, greeting his guests. White, jewelled

bands signalled him from every side.



A glass of wine with this one and that, smiles for

all, a jest and repartee for any that might challenge

-- truly few princes could be so agreeable a host!

And what artist could ask for further appreciation

of his handiwork? Katy did not know that the

proudest consummation of a New Yorker's ambition

is to shake bands with a spaghetti chef or to receive

a nod from a Broadway head-waiter.



At last the company thinned, leaving' but a few

couples and quartettes lingering over new wine and

old stories. And then came Mr. Brunelli to Katy's

secluded table, and drew a chair close to hers.



Katy smiled at him dreamily. She was eating the

last spoonful of a raspberry roll with Burgundy

sauce.



"You have seen!" said Mr. Brunelli, laying one

hand upon his collar bone. "I am Antonio Brunelli!

Yes; I am the great 'Tonio! You have not suspect

that! I loave you, Katy, and you shall marry with

me. Is it not so? Call me 'Antonio,' and say that

you will be mine."



Katy's head drooped to the shoulder that was now

freed from all suspicion of having received the

knightly accolade.



"Oh, Andy," she sighed, "this is great! Sure,

I'll marry wid ye. But why didn't ye tell me ye was

the cook? I was near turnin' ye down for bein' one

of thim foreign counts!"









FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY



Vuyning left his club, cursing it softly, without

any particular anger. From ten in the morning un-

til eleven it had bored him immeasurably. Kirk with

his fish story, Brooks with his Porto Rico cigars, old

Morrison with his anecdote about the widow, Hep-

burn with his invariable luck at billiards -- all these

afflictions had been repeated without change of bill or

scenery. Besides these morning evils Miss Allison

had refused him again on the night before. But that

was a chronic trouble. Five times she had laughed at

his offer to make her Mrs. Vuyning. He intended

to ask her again the next Wednesday evening.



Vuyning walked along Forty-fourth Street to

Broadway, and then drifted down the great sluice

that washes out the dust of the gold-mines of Gotham.

He wore a morning suit of light gray, low, dull kid

shoes, a plain, finely woven straw hat, and his visible

linen was the most delicate possible shade of belio-

trope. His necktie was the blue-gray of a Novem-

ber sky, and its knot was plainly the outcome of a

lordly carelessness combined with an accurate con-

ception of the most recent dictum of fashion.



Now, to write of a man's haberdashery is a worse

thing than to write a historical novel "around"

Paul Jones, or to pen a testimonial to a hay-fever

cure.



Therefore, let it be known that the description of

Vuyning's apparel is germane to the movements of

the story, and not to make room for the new fall

stock of goods.



Even Broadway that morning was a discord in

Vuyning's ears; and in his eyes it paralleled for a

few dreamy, dreary minutes a certain howling,

scorching, seething, malodorous slice of street that he

remembered in Morocco. He saw the struggling

mass of dogs, beggars, fakirs, slave-drivers and

veiled women in carts without horses, the sun blazing

brightly among the bazaars, the piles of rubbish

from ruined temples in the street - and then a lady,

passing, jabbed the ferrule of a parasol in his side

and brought him back to Broadway.



Five minutes of his stroll brought him to a certain

corner, where a number of silent, pale-faced men are

accustomed to stand, immovably, for hours, busy

with the file blades of their penknives, with their hat

brims on a level with their eyelids. Wall Street

speculators, driving home in their carriages, love to

point out these men to their visiting friends and tell

them of this rather famous lounging-place of the

"crooks." On Wall Street the speculators never

use the file blades of their knives.



Vuyning was delighted when one of this company

stepped forth and addressed him as he was passing.

He was hungry for something out of the ordinary,

and to be accosted by this smooth-faced, keen-eyed,

low-voiced, athletic member of the under world, with

his grim, yet pleasant smile, had all the taste of an

adventure to the convention-weary Vuyning.



"Excuse me, friend," said be. "Could I have a

few minutes' talk with you -- on the level?"



"Certainly," said Vuyning, with a smile. "But,

suppose we step aside to a quieter place. There is a

divan -- a cafe over here that will do. Schrumm

will give us a private corner."



Schrumm established them under a growing palm,

with two seidls between them. Vuyning made a

pleasant reference to meteorological conditions, thus

forming a binge upon which might be swung the

door leading from the thought repository of the

other.



"In the first place," said his companion, with the

air of one who presents his credentials, "I want you

to understand that I am a crook. Out West I am

known as Rowdy the Dude. Pickpocket, supper man,

second-story man, yeggman, boxman, all-round bur-

glar, cardsharp and slickest con man west of the

Twenty-third Street ferry landing -- that's my his-

tory. That's to show I'm on the square -- with you.

My name's Emerson."



"Confound old Kirk with his fish stories" said

Vuyning to himself, with silent glee as he went

through his pockets for a card. "It's pronounced

'Vining,'" he said, as he tossed it over to the other.

"And I'll be as frank with you. I'm just a kind of

a loafer, I guess, living on my daddy's money. At

the club they call me 'Left-at-the-Post.' I never

did a day's work in my life; and I haven't the heart

to run over a chicken when I'm motoring. It's a

pretty shabby record, altogether."



"There's one thing you can do," said Emerson,

admiringly; "you can carry duds. I've watched you

several times pass on Broadway. You look the best

dressed man I've seen. And I'll bet you a gold mine

I've got $50 worth more gent's furnishings on my

frame than you have. That's what I wanted to see

you about. I can't do the trick. Take a look at

me. What's wrong?"



"Stand up," said Vuyning.



Emerson arose, and slowly revolved.



"You've been 'outfitted,'" declared the clubman.

"Some Broadway window-dresser has misused you."



"That's an expensive suit, though, Emerson."



"A hundred dollars," said Emerson.



"Twenty too much," said Vuyning. "Six months

old in cut, one inch too long, and half an inch to-

much lapel. Your hat is plainly dated one year ago,

although there's only a sixteenth of an inch lacking

in the brim to tell the story. That English poke in

your collar is too short by the distance between Troy

and London. A plain gold link cuff-button would

take all the shine out of those pearl ones with dia-

mond settings. Those tan shoes would be exactly

the articles to work into the heart of a Brooklyn

school-ma'am on a two weeks' visit to Lake Ronkon-

koma. I think I caught a glimpse of a blue silk

sock embroidered with russet lilies of the valley when

you -- improperly -- drew up your trousers as you

sat down. There are always plain ones to be had

in the stores. Have I hurt your feelings, Emer-

son?"



"Double the ante!" cried the criticised one, greed-

ily. "Give me more of it. There's a way to tote

the haberdashery, and I want to get wise to it. Say,

you're the right kind of a swell. Anything else to the

queer about me?"



"Your tie," said Vuyning, "is tied with absolute

precision and correctness."



"Thanks," gratefully -- "I spent over half an

hour at it before I -- "



"Thereby," interrupted Vuyning, "completing

your resemblance to a dummy in a Broadway store

window."



"Yours truly," said Emerson, sitting down again.



"It's bully of you to put me wise. I knew there

was something wrong, but I couldn't just put my

finger on it. I guess it comes by nature to know how

to wear clothes."



"Oh, I suppose," said Vuyning, with a laugh,

"that my ancestors picked up the knack while they

were peddling clothes from house to house a couple

of hundred years ago. I'm told they did that."



"And mine," said Emerson, cheerfully, "were

making their visits at night, I guess, and didn't have

a chance to catch on to the correct styles."



"I tell you what," said Vuyning, whose ennui had

taken wings, "I'll take you to my tailor. He'll

eliminate the mark of the beast from your exterior.

That is, if you care to go any further in the way of

expense."



"Play 'em to the ceiling," said Emerson, with a

boyish smile of joy. "I've got a roll as big around

as a barrel of black-eyed peas and as loose as the

wrapper of a two-for-fiver. I don't mind telling you

that I was not touring among the Antipodes when

the burglar-proof safe of the Farmers' National Bank

of Butterville, Ia., flew open some moonless nights

ago to the tune of $16,000."



"Aren't you afraid," asked Vuyning, "that I'll

call a cop and hand you over?"



"You tell me," said Emerson, coolly, "why I

didn't keep them."



He laid Vuyning's pocketbook and watch -- the

Vuyning 100-year-old family watch on the table.



"Man," said Vuyning, revelling, "did you ever

hear the tale Kirk tells about the six-pound trout

and the old fisherman?"



"Seems not," said Emerson, politely. "I'd

like to."



"But you won't," said Vuyning. "I've heard it

scores of times. That's why I won't tell you. I was

just thinking how much better this is than a club.

Now, shall we go to my tailor?"



"Boys, and elderly gents," said Vuyning, five days

later at his club, standing up against the window

where his coterie was gathered, and keeping out the

breeze, "a friend of mine from the West will dine

at our table this evening."



"Will he ask if we have heard the latest from

Denver?" said a member, squirming in his chair.



"Will he mention the new twenty-three-story Ma-

sonic Temple, in Quincy, Ill.?" inquired another,

dropping his nose-glasses.



"Will he spring one of those Western Mississippi

River catfish stories, in which they use yearling

calves for bait?" demanded Kirk, fiercely.



"Be comforted," said Vuyning. "He has none of

the little vices. He is a burglar and safe-blower,

and a pal of mine."



"Oh, Mary Ann!" said they. "Must you always

adorn every statement with your alleged humor?"



It came to pass that at eight in the evening a calm,

smooth, brilliant, affable man sat at Vuyning's right

hand during dinner. And when the ones who pass

their lives in city streets spoke of skyscrapers or of

the little Czar on his far, frozen throne, or of insig-

nificant fish from inconsequential streams, this big,

deep-chested man, faultlessly clothed, and eyed like

an Emperor, disposed of their Lilliputian chatter

with a wink of his eyelash.



And then he painted for them with hard, broad

strokes a marvellous lingual panorama of the West.

He stacked snow-topped mountains on the table,

freezing the hot dishes of the waiting diners. With

a wave of his hand he swept the clubhouse into a

pine-crowned gorge, turning the waiters into a grim

posse, and each listener into a blood-stained fugitive,

climbing with torn fingers upon the ensanguined

rocks. He touched the table and spake, and the five

panted as they gazed on barren lava beds, and each

man took his tongue between his teeth and felt his

mouth bake at the tale of a land empty of water and

food. As simply as Homer sang, while he dug a tine

of his fork leisurely into the tablecloth, he opened a

new world to their view, as does one who tells a child

of the Looking-Glass Country.



As one of his listeners might have spoken of tea

too strong at a Madison Square "afternoon," so he

depicted the ravages of redeye in a border town

when the caballeros of the lariat and "forty-five"

reduced ennui to a minimum.



And then, with a sweep of his white, unringed

hands, be dismissed Melpomene, and forthwith Diana

and Amaryllis footed it before the mind's eyes of

the clubmen.



The savannas of the continent spread before them.

The wind, humming through a hundred leagues of

sage brush and mesquite, closed their ears to the

city's staccato noises. He told them of camps, of

ranches marooned in a sea of fragrant prairie blos-

soms, of gallops in the stilly night that Apollo would

have forsaken his daytime steeds to enjoy; he read

them the great, rough epic of the cattle and the hills

that have not been spoiled by the band of man, the

mason. His words were a telescope to the city men,

whose eyes had looked upon Youngstown, O., and

whose tongues had called it "West."



In fact, Emerson had them "going."



The next morning at ten he met Vuyning, by ap-

pointment, at a Forty-second Street cafe.



Emerson was to leave for the West that day. He

wore a suit of dark cheviot that looked to have been

draped upon him by an ancient Grecian tailor who

was a few thousand years ahead of the styles.



"Mr. Vuyning," said he, with the clear, ingenuous

smile of the successful "crook," it's up to me to

go the limit for you any time I can do so. You're

the real thing; and if I can ever return the favor, you

bet your life I'll do it."



"What was that cow-puncher's name?" asked

Vuyning, "who used to catch a mustang by the nose

and mane, and throw him till he put the bridle on?"



"Bates," said Emerson.



"Thanks," said Vuyning. "I thought it was

Yates. Oh, about that toggery business -- I'd for-

gotten that."



"I've been looking for some guy to put me on the

right track for years," said Emerson. "You're the

goods, duty free, and half-way to the warehouse in a

red wagon."



"Bacon, toasted on a green willow switch over red

coals, ought to put broiled lobsters out of business,"

said Vuyning. "And you say a horse at the end of a

thirty-foot rope can't pull a ten-inch stake out of wet

prairie? Well, good-bye, old man, if you must

be off."



At one o'clock Vuyning had luncheon with Miss

Allison by previous arrangement.



For thirty minutes be babbled to her, unaccount-

ably, of ranches, horses, cations, cyclones, round-ups,

Rocky Mountains and beans and bacon. She looked

at him with wondering and half-terrified eyes.



"I was going to propose again to-day," said Vuy-

ning, cheerily, but I won't. I've worried you often

enough. You know dad has a ranch in Colorado.

What's the good of staying here? Jumping jon-

quils! but it's great out there. I'm going to start

next Tuesday."



"No, you won't," said Miss Allison.



"What?" said Vuyning.



"Not alone," said Miss Allison, dropping a tear

upon her salad. "What do you think?"



"Betty!" exclaimed Vuyning, "what do you

mean?



"I'll go too," said Miss Allison, forcibly.

Vuyning filled her glass with Apollinaris.



"Here's to Rowdy the Dude!" he gave -- a toast

mysterious.



"Don't know him," said Miss Allison; "but if

he's your friend, Jimmy -- here goes!"









THE MEMENTO





Miss Lynnette D'Armande turned her

back on Broadway. This was but tit for tat, be-

cause Broadway had often done the same thing to

Miss D'Armande. Still, the "tats" seemed to have

it, for the ex-leading lady of the "Reaping the

Whirlwind" company had everything to ask of

Broadway, while there was no vice-versa.



So Miss Lynnette D'Armande turned the back of

her chair to her window that overlooked Broadway,

and sat down to stitch in time the lisle-thread heel

of a black silk stocking. The tumult and glitter of

the roaring Broadway beneath her window had no

charm for her; what she greatly desired was the

stifling air of a dressing-room on that fairyland

street and the roar of an audience gathered in that

capricious quarter. In the meantime, those stock-

ings must not be neglected. Silk does wear out so,

but -- after all, isn't it just the only goods there is?



The Hotel Thalia looks on Broadway as Marathon

looks on the sea. It stands like a gloomy cliff above

the whirlpool where the tides of two great thorough-

fares clash. Here the player-bands gather at the end

of their wanderings, to loosen the buskin and dust the

sock. Thick in the streets around it are booking-

offices, theatres, agents, schools, and the lobster-pal-

aces to which those thorny paths lead.

Wandering through the eccentric halls of the dim

and fusty Thalia, you seem to have found yourself

in some great ark or caravan about to sail, or fly, or

roll away on wheels. About the house lingers a sense

of unrest, of expectation, of transientness, even of

anxiety and apprehension. The halls are a labyrinth.

Without a guide, you wander like a lost soul in a

Sam Loyd puzzle.



Turning any corner, a dressing-sack or a cul-de-sac

may bring you up short. You meet alarming

tragedians stalking in bath-robes in search of ru-

mored bathrooms. From hundreds of rooms come the

buzz of talk, scraps of new and old songs, and the

ready laughter of the convened players.



Summer has come; their companies have disbanded,

and they take their rest in their favorite caravansary,

while they besiege the managers for engagements for

the coming season.



At this hour of the afternoon the day's work of

tramping the rounds of the agents' offices is over.

Past you, as you ramble distractedly through the

mossy halls, flit audible visions of houris, with veiled,

starry eyes, flying tag-ends of things and a swish of

silk, bequeathing to the dull hallways an odor of

gaiety and a memory of frangipanni. Serious young

comedians, with versatile Adam's apples, gather in

doorways and talk of Booth. Far-reaching from

somewhere comes the smell of ham and red cabbage,

and the crash of dishes on the American plan.



The indeterminate hum of life in the Thalia is

enlivened by the discreet popping -- at reasonable

and salubrious intervals -- of beer-bottle corks.

Thus punctuated, life in the genial hostel scans easily

-- the comma being the favorite mark, semicolons

frowned upon, and periods barred.



Miss D'Armannde's room was a small one. There

was room for her rocker between the dresser and the

wash-stand if it were placed longitudinally. On the

dresser were its usual accoutrements, plus the ex-lead-

ing lady's collected souvenirs of road engagements

and photographs of her dearest and best professional

friends.



At one of these photographs she looked twice or

thrice as she darned, and smiled friendlily.



"I'd like to know where Lee is just this minute,"

she said, half-aloud.



If you had been privileged to view the photograph

thus flattered, you would have thought at the first

glance that you saw the picture of a many-petalled

white flower, blown through the air by a storm. But

the floral kingdom was not responsible for that swirl

of petalous whiteness.



You saw the filmy, brief skirt of Miss Rosalie Ray

as she made a complete heels-over-head turn in her

wistaria-entwined swing, far out from the stage, high

above the heads of the audience. You saw the cam-

era's inadequate representation of the graceful,

strong kick, with which she, at this exciting moment,

sent flying, high and far, the yellow silk garter that

each evening spun from her agile limb and descended

upon the delighted audience below.



You saw, too, amid the black-clothed, mainly mas-

culine patrons of select vaudeville a hundred hands

raised with the hope of staying the flight of the bril-

liant aerial token.



Forty weeks of the best circuits this act had

brought Miss Rosalie Ray, for each of two years.

She did other things during her twelve minutes -- a

song and dance, imitations of two or three actors who

are but imitations of themselves, and a balancing

feat with a step-ladder and feather-duster; but when

the blossom-decked swing was let down from the flies,

and Miss Rosalie sprang smiling into the seat, with

the golden circlet conspicuous in the place whence it

was soon to slide and become a soaring and coveted

guerdon -- then it was that the audience rose in its

seat as a single man -- or presumably so -- and in-

dorsed the specialty that made Miss Ray's name a

favorite in the booking-offices.



At the end of the two years Miss Ray suddenly an-

nounced to her dear friend, Miss D'Armande, that

she was going to spend the summer at an antediluvian

village on the north shore of Long Island, and that

the stage would see her no more.



Seventeen minutes after Miss Lynnette D'Armande

had expressed her wish to know the whereabouts of

her old chum, there were sharp raps at her door.



Doubt not that it was Rosalie Ray. At the shrill

command to enter she did so, with something of a

tired flutter, and dropped a heavy hand-bag on the

floor. Upon my word, it was Rosalie, in a loose,

travel-stained automobileless coat, closely tied brown

veil with yard-long, flying ends, gray walking-suit and

tan oxfords with lavender overgaiters.



When she threw off her veil and hat, you saw a

pretty enough face, now flushed and disturbed by

some unusual emotion, and restless, large eyes with

discontent marring their brightness. A heavy pile

of dull auburn hair, hastily put up, was escaping in

crinkly, waving strands and curling, small locks from

the confining combs and pins.



The meeting of the two was not marked by the

effusion vocal, gymnastical, osculatory and catecheti-

cal that distinguishes the greetings of their unpro-

fessional sisters in society. There was a brief clinch,

two simultaneous labial dabs and they stood on the

same footing of the old days. Very much like the

short salutations of soldiers or of travellers in for-

eign wilds are the welcomes between the strollers at

the corners of their crisscross roads.



"I've got the hall-room two flights up above

yours," said Rosalie, "but I came straight to see you

before going up. I didn't know you were here till

they told me."



"I've been in since the last of April," said Lyn-

nette. "And I'm going on the road with a 'Fatal

Inheritance' company. We open next week in Eliz-

abeth. I thought you'd quit the stage, Lee. Tell

me about yourself."



Rosalie settled herself with a skilful wriggle on

the top of Miss D'Armande's wardrobe trunk, and

leaned her head against the papered wall. From

long habit, thus can peripatetic leading ladies

and their sisters make themselves as comfort.

able as though the deepest armchairs embraced them.



"I'm going to tell you, Lynn," she said, with a

strangely sardonic and yet carelessly resigned look

on her youthful face. "And then to-morrow I'll

strike the old Broadway trail again, and wear some

more paint off the chairs in the agents' offices. If

anybody had told me any time in the last three months

up to four o'clock this afternoon that I'd ever listen

to that 'Leave-your-name-and-address' rot of the

booking bunch again, I'd have given 'em the real Mrs.

Fiske laugh. Loan me a handkerchief, Lynn. Gee!

but those Long Island trains are fierce. I've got

enough soft-coal cinders on my face to go on and play

Topsy without using the cork. And, speaking of

corks -- got anything to drink, Lynn?"



Miss D'Armande opened a door of the wash-stand

and took out a bottle.



"There's nearly a pint of Manhattan. There's a

cluster of carnations in the drinking glass, but -- "



"Oh, pass the bottle. Save the glass for com-

pany. Thanks! That hits the spot. The same to

you. My first drink in three months!"



"Yes, Lynn, I quit the stage at the end of last

season. I quit it because I was sick of the life. And

especially because my heart and soul were sick of men

of the kind of men we stage people have to be up

against. You know what the game is to us -- it's a

fight against 'em all the way down the line from the

manager who wants us to try his new motor-car to the

bill-posters who want to call us by our front names.



"And the men we have to meet after the show are

the worst of all. The stage-door kind, and the man-

ager's friends who take us to supper and show their

diamonds and talk about seeing 'Dan' and 'Dave'

and 'Charlie' for us. They're beasts, and I hate 'em.



"I tell you, Lynn, it's the girls like us on the stage

that ought to be pitied. It's girls from good homes

that are honestly ambitious and work hard to rise in

the profession, but never do get there. You bear a

lot of sympathy sloshed around on chorus girls and

their fifteen dollars a week. Piffle! There ain't a

sorrow in the chorus that a lobster cannot heal.



"If there's any tears to shed, let 'em fall for the

actress that gets a salary of from thirty to forty-five

dollars a week for taking a leading part in a bum

show. She knows she'll never do any better; but she

hangs on for years, hoping for the 'chance I that

never comes.



"And the fool plays we have to work in! Having

another girl roll you around the stage by the hind legs

in a 'Wheelbarrow Chorus' in a musical comedy is

dignified drama compared with the idiotic things I've

had to do in the thirty-centers.



"But what I hated most was the men -- the men

leering and blathering at you across tables, trying

to buy you with Wurzburger or Extra Dry, accord-

ing to their estimate of your price. And the men in

the audiences, clapping, yelling, snarling, crowding,

writhing, gloating -- like a lot of wild beasts, with

their eyes fixed on you, ready to eat you up if you

come in reach of their claws. Oh, how I hate 'em!



"Well, I'm not telling you much about myself, am

I, Lynn ?



"I had two hundred dollars saved up, and I cut

the stage the first of the summer. I went over on

Long Island and found the sweetest little village that

ever was, called Soundport, right on the water. I was

going to spend the summer there, and study up on

elocution, and try to get a class in the fall. There

was an old widow lady with a cottage near the beach

who sometimes rented a room or two just for com-

pany, and she took me in. She had another boarder,

too -- the Reverend Arthur Lyle.



"Yes, he was the head-liner. You're on, Lynn.

I'll tell you all of it in a minute. It's only a one-act

play.



"The first time he walked on, Lynn, I felt myself

going; the first lines he spoke, he had me. He was

different from the men in audiences. He was tall and

slim, and you never heard him come in the room, but

you felt him. He had a face like a picture of a knight

-- like one of that Round Table bunch -- and a voice

like a 'cello solo. And his manners!



"Lynn, if you'd take John Drew in his best draw-

ing-room scene and compare the two, you'd have John

arrested for disturbing the peace.



"I'll spare you the particulars; but in less than a

month Arthur and I were engaged. He preached at a

little one-night stand of a Methodist church. There

was to be a parsonage the size of a lunch-wagon, and

hens and honeysuckles when we were married. Ar-

thur used to preach to me a good deal about Heaven,

but be never could get my mind quite off those honey-

suckles and hens.



"No; I didn't tell him I'd been on the stage. I

hated the business and all that went with it; I'd

cut it out forever, and I didn't see any use of stirring

things up. I was a good girl, and I didn't have any-

thing to confess, except being an elocutionist, and

that was about all the strain my conscience would

stand.



"Oh, I tell you, Lynn, I was happy. I sang in

the choir and attended the sewing society, and re-

cited that 'Annie Laurie' thing with the whistling

stunt in it, 'in a manner bordering upon the profes-

sional,' as the weekly village paper reported it. And

Arthur and I went rowing, and walking in the woods,

and clamming, and that poky little village seemed to

me the best place in the world. I'd have been happy

to live there always, too, if --



"But one morning old Mrs. Gurley, the widow

lady, got gossipy while I was helping her string beans

on the back porch, and began to gush information, as

folks who rent out their rooms usually do. Mr. Lyle

was her idea of a saint on earth -- as he was mine,

too. She went over all his virtues and graces, and

wound up by telling me that Arthur had had an ex-

tremely romantic love-affair, not long before, that had

ended unhappily. She didn't seem to be on to the de-

tails, but she knew that he had been hit pretty hard.

He was paler and thinner, she said, and he had some

kind of a remembrance or keepsake of the lady in a

little rosewood box that he kept locked in his desk

drawer in his study.



"'Several times," says she, "I've seen him

gloomerin' over that box of evenings, and he always

locks it up right away if anybody comes into the

room.'



"Well, you can imagine how long it was before I

got Arthur by the wrist and led him down stage and

hissed in his ear.



"That same afternoon we were lazying around in a

boat among the water-lilies at the edge of the bay.



"'Arthur,' says I, 'you never told me you'd had

another love-affair. But Mrs. Gurley did,' I went on,

to let him know I knew. I hate to bear a man lie.



"' Before you came,' says he, looking me frankly

in the eye, 'there was a previous affection - a strong

one. Since you know of it, I will be perfectly candid

with you.'



"'I am waiting,' says I.



"'My dear Ida,' says Arthur -- of course I went

by my real name, while I was in Soundport -- 'this

former affection was a spiritual one, in fact. Al-

though the lady aroused my deepest sentiments, and

was, as I thought, my ideal woman, I never met her,

and never spoke to her. It was an ideal love. My

love for you, while no less ideal, is different. You

wouldn't let that come between us.'



"'Was she pretty?' i asked.



"' She was very beautiful,' said Arthur.



"'Did you see her often?' I asked.



"' Something like a dozen times,' says he.



"'Always from a distance?' says I.



"'Always from quite a distance,' says he.



"'And you loved her?' I asked.



"'She seemed my ideal of beauty and grace -- and

soul," says Arthur.



"'And this keepsake that you keep under lock and

key, and moon over at times, is that a remembrance

from her?'



"'A memento,' says Arthur, 'that I have

treasured.'



"'Did she send it to you?'



"'It came to me from her' says be.



"'In a roundabout way?' I asked.



"'Somewhat roundabout,' says he, 'and yet rather

direct.'



"'Why didn't you ever meet her?' I asked.

'Were your positions in life so different?'



"She was far above me,' says Arthur. 'Now,

Ida,' he goes on, 'this is all of the past. You're not

going to be jealous, are you?'



'Jealous!' says I. 'Why, man, what are you

talking about? It makes me think ten times as much

of you as I did before I knew about it.'



"And it did, Lynn - if you can understand it.

That ideal love was a new one on me, but it struck me

as being the most beautiful and glorious thing I'd

ever heard of. Think of a man loving a woman he'd

never even spoken to, and being faithful just to what

his mind and heart pictured her! Oh, it sounded

great to me. The men I'd always known come at

you with either diamonds, knock-out-drops or a raise

of salary, -- and their ideals! -- well, we'll say no

more."



"Yes, it made me think more of Arthur than I did

before. I couldn't be jealous of that far-away divin-

ity that he used to worship, for I was going to have

him myself. And I began to look upon him as a saint

on earth, just as old lady Gurley did.



"About four o'clock this afternoon a man came to

the house for Arthur to go and see somebody that was

sick among his church bunch. Old lady Gurley was

taking her afternoon snore on a couch, so that left me

pretty much alone.



"In passing by Arthur's study I looked in, and

saw his bunch of keys hanging in the drawer of his

desk, where he'd forgotten 'em. Well, I guess we're

all to the Mrs. Bluebeard now and then, ain't we,

Lynn? I made up my mind I'd have a look at that

memento he kept so secret. Not that I cared what it

was -- it was just curiosity.



"While I was opening the drawer I imagined one

or two things it might be. I thought it might be a

dried rosebud she'd dropped down to him from

a balcony, or maybe a picture of her he'd cut

out of a magazine, she being so high up in the

world.



"I opened the drawer, and there was the rosewood

casket about the size of a gent's collar box. I found

the little key in the bunch that fitted it, and unlocked

it and raised the lid.



"I took one look at that memento, and then I went

to my room and packed my trunk. I threw a few

things into my grip, gave my hair a flirt or two with

a side-comb, put on my hat, and went in and gave the

old lady's foot a kick. I'd tried awfully hard to use

proper and correct language while I was there for

Arthur's sake, and I had the habit down pat, but it

left me then.



"Stop sawing gourds," says I, "and sit up and

take notice. The ghost's about to walk. I'm going

away from here, and I owe you eight dollars. The

expressman will call for my trunk.'



"I handed her the money.



"'Dear me, Miss Crosby!' says she. 'Is any-

thing wrong? I thought you were pleased here.

Dear me, young women are so hard to understand,

and so different from what you expect 'em

to be.'



"'You're damn right,' says I. 'Some of 'em are.

But you can't say that about men. When you know

one man you know 'em all! That settles the human-

race question.'



"And then I caught the four-thirty-eight, soft-

coal unlimited; and here I am."



"You didn't tell me what was in the box, Lee," said

Miss D'armande, anxiously.



"One of those yellow silk garters that I used to

kick off my leg into the audience during that old

vaudeville swing act of mine. Is there any of the

cocktail left, Lynn?"











End