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<p>“Hit it out for home, Dutch,” said Hondo Bill’s voice commandingly. “You’ve given us lots of trouble and we’re pleased to see the back of your neck. Spiel! Zwei bier! Vamoose!”</p>
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<p>Hondo reached out and gave Blitzen a smart cut with his quirt.</p>
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<p>The little mules sprang ahead, glad to be moving again. Fritz urged them along, himself dizzy and muddled over his fearful adventure.</p>
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<p>According to schedule time, he should have reached Fredericksburg at daylight. As it was, he drove down the long street of the town at eleven o’clock <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> He had to pass Peter Hildesmuller’s house on his way to the post-office. He stopped his team at the gate and called. But Frau Hildesmuller was watching for him. Out rushed the whole family of Hildesmullers.</p>
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<p>According to schedule time, he should have reached Fredericksburg at daylight. As it was, he drove down the long street of the town at eleven o’clock <abbr>a.m.</abbr> He had to pass Peter Hildesmuller’s house on his way to the post-office. He stopped his team at the gate and called. But Frau Hildesmuller was watching for him. Out rushed the whole family of Hildesmullers.</p>
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<p>Frau Hildesmuller, fat and flushed, inquired if he had a letter from Lena, and then Fritz raised his voice and told the tale of his adventure. He told the contents of that letter that the robber had made him read, and then Frau Hildesmuller broke into wild weeping. Her little Lena drown herself! Why had they sent her from home? What could be done? Perhaps it would be too late by the time they could send for her now. Peter Hildesmuller dropped his meerschaum on the walk and it shivered into pieces.</p>
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<p>“Woman!” he roared at his wife, “why did you let that child go away? It is your fault if she comes home to us no more.”</p>
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<p>Everyone knew that it was Peter Hildesmuller’s fault, so they paid no attention to his words.</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p><b>Nashville</b>—A city, port of delivery, and the capital of the State of Tennessee, is on the Cumberland River and on the <abbr>N. C. & <abbr>St.</abbr> L.</abbr> and the <abbr>L. & N.</abbr> railroads. This city is regarded as the most important educational centre in the South.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>I stepped off the train at 8 <abbr class="time eoc">a.m.</abbr> Having searched the thesaurus in vain for adjectives, I must, as a substitution, hie me to comparison in the form of a recipe.</p>
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<p>I stepped off the train at 8 <abbr class="eoc">a.m.</abbr> Having searched the thesaurus in vain for adjectives, I must, as a substitution, hie me to comparison in the form of a recipe.</p>
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<p>Take a London fog 30 parts; malaria 10 parts; gas leaks 20 parts; dewdrops gathered in a brick yard at sunrise, 25 parts; odor of honeysuckle 15 parts. Mix.</p>
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<p>The mixture will give you an approximate conception of a Nashville drizzle. It is not so fragrant as a mothball nor as thick as pea-soup; but ’tis enough—’twill serve.</p>
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<p>I went to a hotel in a tumbril. It required strong self-suppression for me to keep from climbing to the top of it and giving an imitation of Sidney Carton. The vehicle was drawn by beasts of a bygone era and driven by something dark and emancipated.</p>
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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
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<article id="a-newspaper-story" epub:type="se:short-story">
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<h2 epub:type="title">A Newspaper Story</h2>
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<p>At 8 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> it lay on Giuseppi’s newsstand, still damp from the presses. Giuseppi, with the cunning of his ilk, philandered on the opposite corner, leaving his patrons to help themselves, no doubt on a theory related to the hypothesis of the watched pot.</p>
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<p>At 8 <abbr>a.m.</abbr> it lay on Giuseppi’s newsstand, still damp from the presses. Giuseppi, with the cunning of his ilk, philandered on the opposite corner, leaving his patrons to help themselves, no doubt on a theory related to the hypothesis of the watched pot.</p>
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<p>This particular newspaper was, according to its custom and design, an educator, a guide, a monitor, a champion and a household counsellor and <span xml:lang="la">vade mecum</span>.</p>
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<p>From its many excellencies might be selected three editorials. One was in simple and chaste but illuminating language directed to parents and teachers, deprecating corporal punishment for children.</p>
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<p>Another was an accusive and significant warning addressed to a notorious labour leader who was on the point of instigating his clients to a troublesome strike.</p>
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<p>Thomas pulled his cap down straight on his head for the first time since we have known him.</p>
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<p>“I suppose then,” said he, “I suppose then you’ll not be marrying me next week. But you <em>can</em> whistle.”</p>
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<p>“No,” said Celia, “I’ll not be marrying you next week. My father would never let me marry a grocer’s clerk. But I’ll marry you tonight, Tommy, if you say so.”</p>
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<p>Old Jacob Spraggins came home at 9:30 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr>, in his motor car. The make of it you will have to surmise sorrowfully; I am giving you unsubsidized fiction; had it been a street car I could have told you its voltage and the number of wheels it had. Jacob called for his daughter; he had bought a ruby necklace for her, and wanted to hear her say what a kind, thoughtful, dear old dad he was.</p>
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<p>Old Jacob Spraggins came home at 9:30 <abbr>a.m.</abbr>, in his motor car. The make of it you will have to surmise sorrowfully; I am giving you unsubsidized fiction; had it been a street car I could have told you its voltage and the number of wheels it had. Jacob called for his daughter; he had bought a ruby necklace for her, and wanted to hear her say what a kind, thoughtful, dear old dad he was.</p>
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<p>There was a brief search in the house for her, and then came Annette, glowing with the pure flame of truth and loyalty well mixed with envy and histrionics.</p>
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<p>“Oh, sir,” said she, wondering if she should kneel, “Miss Celia’s just this minute running away out of the side gate with a young man to be married. I couldn’t stop her, sir. They went in a cab.”</p>
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<p>“What young man?” roared old Jacob.</p>
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<p>Flat-dwellers shall endorse my dictum that theirs is the only true happiness. If a home is happy it cannot fit too close—let the dresser collapse and become a billiard table; let the mantel turn to a rowing machine, the escritoire to a spare bedchamber, the washstand to an upright piano; let the four walls come together, if they will, so you and your Delia are between. But if home be the other kind, let it be wide and long—enter you at the Golden Gate, hang your hat on Hatteras, your cape on Cape Horn and go out by the Labrador.</p>
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<p>Joe was painting in the class of the great Magister—you know his fame. His fees are high; his lessons are light—his highlights have brought him renown. Delia was studying under Rosenstock—you know his repute as a disturber of the piano keys.</p>
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<p>They were mighty happy as long as their money lasted. So is every—but I will not be cynical. Their aims were very clear and defined. Joe was to become capable very soon of turning out pictures that old gentlemen with thin side-whiskers and thick pocketbooks would sandbag one another in his studio for the privilege of buying. Delia was to become familiar and then contemptuous with Music, so that when she saw the orchestra seats and boxes unsold she could have sore throat and lobster in a private dining-room and refuse to go on the stage.</p>
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<p>But the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat—the ardent, voluble chats after the day’s study; the cozy dinners and fresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions—ambitions interwoven each with the other’s or else inconsiderable—the mutual help and inspiration; and—overlook my artlessness—stuffed olives and cheese sandwiches at 11 <abbr class="time eoc">p.m.</abbr></p>
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<p>But the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat—the ardent, voluble chats after the day’s study; the cozy dinners and fresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions—ambitions interwoven each with the other’s or else inconsiderable—the mutual help and inspiration; and—overlook my artlessness—stuffed olives and cheese sandwiches at 11 <abbr class="eoc">p.m.</abbr></p>
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<p>But after a while Art flagged. It sometimes does, even if some switchman doesn’t flag it. Everything going out and nothing coming in, as the vulgarians say. Money was lacking to pay <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Magister and Herr Rosenstock their prices. When one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard. So, Delia said she must give music lessons to keep the chafing dish bubbling.</p>
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<p>For two or three days she went out canvassing for pupils. One evening she came home elated.</p>
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<p>“Joe, dear,” she said, gleefully, “I’ve a pupil. And, oh, the loveliest people! General—General <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">A. B.</abbr> Pinkney’s daughter—on Seventy-first Street. Such a splendid house, Joe—you ought to see the front door! Byzantine I think you would call it. And inside! Oh, Joe, I never saw anything like it before.</p>
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<p>Christmas came that year on Thursday, and snow came with it.</p>
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<p>Stickney (Harry Clarence Fowler Stickney to whomsoever his full baptismal cognominal burdens may be of interest) reached his address at six-thirty Wednesday afternoon. “Address” is New Yorkese for “home.” Stickney roomed at 45 West ’Teenth Street, third floor rear hall room. He was twenty years and four months old, and he worked in a cameras-of-all-kinds, photographic supplies and films-developed store. I don’t know what kind of work he did in the store; but you must have seen him. He is the young man who always comes behind the counter to wait on you and lets you talk for five minutes, telling him what you want. When you are done, he calls the proprietor at the top of his voice to wait on you, and walks away whistling between his teeth.</p>
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<p>I don’t want to bother about describing to you his appearance; but, if you are a man reader, I will say that Stickncy looked precisely like the young chap that you always find sitting in your chair smoking a cigarette after you have missed a shot while playing pool—not billiards but pool—when you want to sit down yourself.</p>
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<p>There are some to whom Christmas gives no Christmassy essence. Of course, prosperous people and comfortable people who have homes or flats or rooms with meals, and even people who live in apartment houses with hotel service get something of the Christmas flavor. They give one another presents with the cost mark scratched off with a penknife; and they hang holly wreaths in the front windows and when they are asked whether they prefer light or dark meat from the turkey they say: “Both, please,” and giggle and have lots of fun. And the very poorest people have the best time of it. The Army gives ’em a dinner, and the 10 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> issue of the Night Final edition of the newspaper with the largest circulation in the city leaves a basket at their door full of an apple, a Lake Ronkonkoma squab, a scrambled eggplant and a bunch of Kalamazoo bleached parsley. The poorer you are the more Christmas does for you.</p>
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<p>There are some to whom Christmas gives no Christmassy essence. Of course, prosperous people and comfortable people who have homes or flats or rooms with meals, and even people who live in apartment houses with hotel service get something of the Christmas flavor. They give one another presents with the cost mark scratched off with a penknife; and they hang holly wreaths in the front windows and when they are asked whether they prefer light or dark meat from the turkey they say: “Both, please,” and giggle and have lots of fun. And the very poorest people have the best time of it. The Army gives ’em a dinner, and the 10 <abbr>a.m.</abbr> issue of the Night Final edition of the newspaper with the largest circulation in the city leaves a basket at their door full of an apple, a Lake Ronkonkoma squab, a scrambled eggplant and a bunch of Kalamazoo bleached parsley. The poorer you are the more Christmas does for you.</p>
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<p>But, I’ll tell you to what kind of a mortal Christmas seems to be only the day before the twenty-sixth day of December. It’s the chap in the big city earning sixteen dollars a week, with no friends and few acquaintances, who finds himself with only fifty cents in his pocket on Christmas eve. He can’t accept charity; he can’t borrow; he knows no one who would invite him to dinner. I have a fancy that when the shepherds left their flocks to follow the star of Bethlehem there was a bandy-legged young fellow among them who was just learning the sheep business. So they said to him, “Bobby, we’re going to investigate this star route and see what’s in it. If it should turn out to be the first Christmas day we don’t want to miss it. And, as you are not a wise man, and as you couldn’t possibly purchase a present to take along, suppose you stay behind and mind the sheep.”</p>
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<p>So as we may say, Harry Stickney was a direct descendant of the shepherd who was left behind to take care of the flocks.</p>
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<p>Getting back to facts, Stickney rang the doorbell of 45. He had a habit of forgetting his latchkey.</p>
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typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by<br/>
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<a href="https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com">The League of Moveable Type</a>.</p>
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<p>The first edition of this ebook was released on<br/>
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<b>March 23, 2020, 11:34 <abbr class="time eoc">p.m.</abbr></b><br/>
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<b>March 23, 2020, 11:34 <abbr class="eoc">p.m.</abbr></b><br/>
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You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at<br/>
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||||
<a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/o-henry/short-fiction">standardebooks.org/ebooks/o-henry/short-fiction</a>.</p>
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||||
<p>The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at <a href="https://standardebooks.org">standardebooks.org</a>.</p>
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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
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<article id="friends-in-san-rosario" epub:type="se:short-story">
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<h2 epub:type="title">Friends in San Rosario</h2>
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<p>The westbound train stopped at San Rosario on time at 8:20 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> A man with a thick black-leather wallet under his arm left the train and walked rapidly up the main street of the town. There were other passengers who also got off at San Rosario, but they either slouched limberly over to the railroad eating-house or the Silver Dollar saloon, or joined the groups of idlers about the station.</p>
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<p>The westbound train stopped at San Rosario on time at 8:20 <abbr>a.m.</abbr> A man with a thick black-leather wallet under his arm left the train and walked rapidly up the main street of the town. There were other passengers who also got off at San Rosario, but they either slouched limberly over to the railroad eating-house or the Silver Dollar saloon, or joined the groups of idlers about the station.</p>
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<p>Indecision had no part in the movements of the man with the wallet. He was short in stature, but strongly built, with very light, closely-trimmed hair, smooth, determined face, and aggressive, gold-rimmed nose glasses. He was well dressed in the prevailing Eastern style. His air denoted a quiet but conscious reserve force, if not actual authority.</p>
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<p>After walking a distance of three squares he came to the centre of the town’s business area. Here another street of importance crossed the main one, forming the hub of San Rosario’s life and commerce. Upon one corner stood the post-office. Upon another Rubensky’s Clothing Emporium. The other two diagonally opposing corners were occupied by the town’s two banks, the First National and the Stockmen’s National. Into the First National Bank of San Rosario the newcomer walked, never slowing his brisk step until he stood at the cashier’s window. The bank opened for business at nine, and the working force was already assembled, each member preparing his department for the day’s business. The cashier was examining the mail when he noticed the stranger standing at his window.</p>
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<p>“Bank doesn’t open ’til nine,” he remarked curtly, but without feeling. He had had to make that statement so often to early birds since San Rosario adopted city banking hours.</p>
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<p>A few days after that, a gang of the La Junta boomers came to the ranch and wanted us to go back with them. Naturally, we declined. We had the house on them, and before we were done refusing, that old ’dobe was plumb full of lead. When dark came we fagged ’em a batch of bullets and shoved out the back door for the rocks. They sure smoked us as we went. We had to drift, which we did, and rounded up down in Oklahoma.</p>
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<p>Well, there wasn’t anything we could get there, and, being mighty hard up, we decided to transact a little business with the railroads. Jim and I joined forces with Tom and Ike Moore—two brothers who had plenty of sand they were willing to convert into dust. I can call their names, for both of them are dead. Tom was shot while robbing a bank in Arkansas; Ike was killed during the more dangerous pastime of attending a dance in the Creek Nation.</p>
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<p>We selected a place on the Santa Fe where there was a bridge across a deep creek surrounded by heavy timber. All passenger trains took water at the tank close to one end of the bridge. It was a quiet place, the nearest house being five miles away. The day before it happened, we rested our horses and “made medicine” as to how we should get about it. Our plans were not at all elaborate, as none of us had ever engaged in a holdup before.</p>
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<p>The Santa Fe flyer was due at the tank at 11:15 <abbr class="time">p.m.</abbr> At eleven, Tom and I lay down on one side of the track, and Jim and Ike took the other. As the train rolled up, the headlight flashing far down the track and the steam hissing from the engine, I turned weak all over. I would have worked a whole year on the ranch for nothing to have been out of that affair right then. Some of the nerviest men in the business have told me that they felt the same way the first time.</p>
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<p>The Santa Fe flyer was due at the tank at 11:15 <abbr>p.m.</abbr> At eleven, Tom and I lay down on one side of the track, and Jim and Ike took the other. As the train rolled up, the headlight flashing far down the track and the steam hissing from the engine, I turned weak all over. I would have worked a whole year on the ranch for nothing to have been out of that affair right then. Some of the nerviest men in the business have told me that they felt the same way the first time.</p>
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<p>The engine had hardly stopped when I jumped on the running-board on one side, while Jim mounted the other. As soon as the engineer and fireman saw our guns they threw up their hands without being told, and begged us not to shoot, saying they would do anything we wanted them to.</p>
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<p>“Hit the ground,” I ordered, and they both jumped off. We drove them before us down the side of the train. While this was happening, Tom and Ike had been blazing away, one on each side of the train, yelling like Apaches, so as to keep the passengers herded in the cars. Some fellow stuck a little twenty-two calibre out one of the coach windows and fired it straight up in the air. I let drive and smashed the glass just over his head. That settled everything like resistance from that direction.</p>
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<p>By this time all my nervousness was gone. I felt a kind of pleasant excitement as if I were at a dance or a frolic of some sort. The lights were all out in the coaches, and, as Tom and Ike gradually quit firing and yelling, it got to be almost as still as a graveyard. I remember hearing a little bird chirping in a bush at the side of the track, as if it were complaining at being waked up.</p>
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<p>He did not go to see Kathleen that night—he was feeling too badly. He was wandering about in an agony of thirst, when he saw a piece of ice as large as a coconut fall from an ice wagon. He seized it in both hands, and hiding himself behind a pile of lumber sucked the ice greedily, with bloodshot eyes and trembling hands.</p>
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<p>After that he kept a jug of water in the store behind some barrels under the counter, and when no one was looking he would stoop down, and holding up the jug, let the cursed stuff that was driving the light from Kathleen’s dark eyes trickle down his burning throat.</p>
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<hr/>
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<p>It was Kathleen’s wedding night. The parlor of the little cottage was brilliantly lit, and roses and evergreens were draped upon the walls. Cape jessamines filled the house with their delicious perfume and wreaths of white lilies were hung upon picture frames and the backs of chairs. The ceremony was to take place at 9 <abbr class="time">p.m.</abbr>, and by 7 o’clock the guests had begun to assemble, for the smell of the good things <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> O’Malley was cooking pervaded the whole neighborhood.</p>
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<p>It was Kathleen’s wedding night. The parlor of the little cottage was brilliantly lit, and roses and evergreens were draped upon the walls. Cape jessamines filled the house with their delicious perfume and wreaths of white lilies were hung upon picture frames and the backs of chairs. The ceremony was to take place at 9 <abbr>p.m.</abbr>, and by 7 o’clock the guests had begun to assemble, for the smell of the good things <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> O’Malley was cooking pervaded the whole neighborhood.</p>
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<p>In the parlor, standing on a trestle decorated with violets and evergreens, stood a keg of whiskey as cold as ice, and on the center table were several beautifully decorated imported glasses, with quite a wedding-like polish upon their shining sides.</p>
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<p>Kathleen’s heart grew lighter as the hour approached. “When Fergus is mine,” she said to herself, “I will be so loving and sweet to him that this strange melancholy will leave him. If it doesn’t, I will pull his hair out.”</p>
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<p>The minutes crept by, and at half past eight, Kathleen, blushing and timid-eyed, and looking like the Lorelei that charmed men’s souls from their bodies on the purple heights of the Rhine, took her stand by the keg, and shyly drew for her father’s guests glass after glass of the ruby liquid, scarcely less red than the glow upon her own fair cheek.</p>
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<p>“I’ve a good mind to discharge you.”</p>
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<p>“Can’t do it,” said Teddy, with a grin.</p>
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<p>“Why not?” demanded Octavia, with argumentative heat.</p>
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<p>“Under contract. Terms of sale respect all unexpired contracts. Mine runs until 12 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr>, December thirty-first. You might get up at midnight on that date and fire me. If you try it sooner I’ll be in a position to bring legal proceedings.”</p>
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<p>“Under contract. Terms of sale respect all unexpired contracts. Mine runs until 12 <abbr>a.m.</abbr>, December thirty-first. You might get up at midnight on that date and fire me. If you try it sooner I’ll be in a position to bring legal proceedings.”</p>
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<p>Octavia seemed to be considering the prospects of litigation.</p>
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<p>“But,” continued Teddy cheerfully, “I’ve been thinking of resigning anyway.”</p>
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<p>Octavia’s rocking-chair ceased its motion. There were centipedes in this country, she felt sure; and Indians, and vast, lonely, desolate, empty wastes; all within strong barbed-wire fence. There was a Van Dresser pride, but there was also a Van Dresser heart. She must know for certain whether or not he had forgotten.</p>
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<p>Before long the two machinators abandoned the rigour of the bare studio for a snug corner of a café. There they sat far into the night, with old envelopes and Keogh’s stub of blue pencil between them.</p>
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<p>At twelve o’clock White doubled up in his chair, with his chin on his fist, and shut his eyes at the unbeautiful wallpaper.</p>
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<p>“I’ll go you, Billy,” he said, in the quiet tones of decision. “I’ve got two or three hundred saved up for sausages and rent; and I’ll take the chance with you. Five thousand! It will give me two years in Paris and one in Italy. I’ll begin to pack tomorrow.”</p>
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<p>“You’ll begin in ten minutes,” said Keogh. “It’s tomorrow now. The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Karlsefin</i> starts back at four <abbr class="time eoc">p.m.</abbr> Come on to your painting shop, and I’ll help you.”</p>
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<p>“You’ll begin in ten minutes,” said Keogh. “It’s tomorrow now. The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Karlsefin</i> starts back at four <abbr class="eoc">p.m.</abbr> Come on to your painting shop, and I’ll help you.”</p>
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<p>For five months in the year Coralio is the Newport of Anchuria. Then only does the town possess life. From November to March it is practically the seat of government. The president with his official family sojourns there; and society follows him. The pleasure-loving people make the season one long holiday of amusement and rejoicing. Fiestas, balls, games, sea bathing, processions and small theatres contribute to their enjoyment. The famous Swiss band from the capital plays in the little plaza every evening, while the fourteen carriages and vehicles in the town circle in funereal but complacent procession. Indians from the interior mountains, looking like prehistoric stone idols, come down to peddle their handiwork in the streets. The people throng the narrow ways, a chattering, happy, careless stream of buoyant humanity. Preposterous children rigged out with the shortest of ballet skirts and gilt wings, howl, underfoot, among the effervescent crowds. Especially is the arrival of the presidential party, at the opening of the season, attended with pomp, show and patriotic demonstrations of enthusiasm and delight.</p>
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<p>When Keogh and White reached their destination, on the return trip of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Karlsefin</i>, the gay winter season was well begun. As they stepped upon the beach they could hear the band playing in the plaza. The village maidens, with fireflies already fixed in their dark locks, were gliding, barefoot and coy-eyed, along the paths. Dandies in white linen, swinging their canes, were beginning their seductive strolls. The air was full of human essence, of artificial enticement, of coquetry, indolence, pleasure—the man-made sense of existence.</p>
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<p>The first two or three days after their arrival were spent in preliminaries. Keogh escorted the artist about town, introducing him to the little circle of English-speaking residents and pulling whatever wires he could to effect the spreading of White’s fame as a painter. And then Keogh planned a more spectacular demonstration of the idea he wished to keep before the public.</p>
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|
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<p>I became placated. The proposition showed that Tripp appreciated past favors, although he did not return them. If he had been wise enough to strike me for a quarter then he would have got it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What is the story?” I asked, poising my pencil with a finely calculated editorial air.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ll tell you,” said Tripp. “It’s a girl. A beauty. One of the howlingest Amsden’s Junes you ever saw. Rosebuds covered with dew—violets in their mossy bed—and truck like that. She’s lived on Long Island twenty years and never saw New York City before. I ran against her on Thirty-fourth Street. She’d just got in on the East River ferry. I tell you, she’s a beauty that would take the hydrogen out of all the peroxides in the world. She stopped me on the street and asked me where she could find George Brown. Asked me where she could find ‘George Brown in New York City!’ What do you think of that?</p>
|
||||
<p>“I talked to her, and found that she was going to marry a young farmer named Dodd—Hiram Dodd—next week. But it seems that George Brown still holds the championship in her youthful fancy. George had greased his cowhide boots some years ago, and came to the city to make his fortune. But he forgot to remember to show up again at Greenburg, and Hiram got in as second-best choice. But when it comes to the scratch Ada—her name’s Ada Lowery—saddles a nag and rides eight miles to the railroad station and catches the 6:45 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> train for the city. Looking for George, you know—you understand about women—George wasn’t there, so she wanted him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I talked to her, and found that she was going to marry a young farmer named Dodd—Hiram Dodd—next week. But it seems that George Brown still holds the championship in her youthful fancy. George had greased his cowhide boots some years ago, and came to the city to make his fortune. But he forgot to remember to show up again at Greenburg, and Hiram got in as second-best choice. But when it comes to the scratch Ada—her name’s Ada Lowery—saddles a nag and rides eight miles to the railroad station and catches the 6:45 <abbr>a.m.</abbr> train for the city. Looking for George, you know—you understand about women—George wasn’t there, so she wanted him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, you know, I couldn’t leave her loose in Wolftown-on-the-Hudson. I suppose she thought the first person she inquired of would say: ‘George Brown?—why, yes—lemme see—he’s a short man with light-blue eyes, ain’t he? Oh yes—you’ll find George on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, right next to the grocery. He’s bill-clerk in a saddle-and-harness store.’ That’s about how innocent and beautiful she is. You know those little Long Island waterfront villages like Greenburg—a couple of duck-farms for sport, and clams and about nine summer visitors for industries. That’s the kind of a place she comes from. But, say—you ought to see her!</p>
|
||||
<p>“What could I do? I don’t know what money looks like in the morning. And she’d paid her last cent of pocket-money for her railroad ticket except a quarter, which she had squandered on gumdrops. She was eating them out of a paper bag. I took her to a boardinghouse on Thirty-second Street where I used to live, and hocked her. She’s in soak for a dollar. That’s old Mother McGinnis’ price per day. I’ll show you the house.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What words are these, Tripp?” said I. “I thought you said you had a story. Every ferryboat that crosses the East River brings or takes away girls from Long Island.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘In a gray suit,’ says he, ‘on the southwest corner of Wabash Avenue and Lake Street. He drops the paper, and I ask how the water is. Oh, my, my, my!’ And then he laughs all over for five minutes.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sometimes Murkison was serious and tried to talk himself out of his cogitations, whatever they was.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Boys,’ says he, ‘I wouldn’t have this to get out in Grassdale for ten times a thousand dollars. It would ruin me there. But I know you all are all right. I think it’s the duty of every citizen,’ says he, ‘to try to do up these robbers that prey upon the public. I’ll show ’em whether the water’s fine. Five dollars for one—that’s what <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">J.</abbr> Smith offers, and he’ll have to keep his contract if he does business with Bill Murkison.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“We got into Chicago about 7 <abbr class="time">p.m.</abbr> Murkison was to meet the gray man at half past 9. We had dinner at a hotel and then went up to Murkison’s room to wait for the time to come.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We got into Chicago about 7 <abbr>p.m.</abbr> Murkison was to meet the gray man at half past 9. We had dinner at a hotel and then went up to Murkison’s room to wait for the time to come.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Now, boys,’ says Murkison, ‘let’s get our gumption together and inoculate a plan for defeating the enemy. Suppose while I’m exchanging airy bandage with the gray capper you gents come along, by accident, you know, and holler: “Hello, Murk!” and shake hands with symptoms of surprise and familiarity. Then I take the capper aside and tell him you all are Jenkins and Brown of Grassdale, groceries and feed, good men and maybe willing to take a chance while away from home.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘ “Bring ’em along,” he’ll say, of course, “if they care to invest.” Now, how does that scheme strike you?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘What do you say, Jeff?’ says Andy, looking at me.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Simmon’s Saturday Night</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="subtitle">How a Guileless Cattle Man Saw the Sights in Houston</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>One fine Saturday afternoon a young man got off the 9:10 <abbr class="time">p.m.</abbr> Katy train at the Houston depot, and looked about him in rather a bewildered way. He was deliriously pastoral in his appearance, and presented an aspect almost as rural as that of the young countryman upon the stage as depicted by our leading comedians. He wore a very long black coat of the cut that has perpetuated the name of the late Prince Albert, such as is seen on Sundays at country churches, a pair of pantaloons too short for his somewhat lengthy limbs, and a wondrously tied scarf of deep crimson spotted with green. His face was smoothly shaven, and wore a look of deep wonder, if not apprehension, and his blue eyes were stretched to their widest as he viewed the sights about him. In his hand he carried a long carpet bag of the old style, made of some shiny substance resembling black oil cloth.</p>
|
||||
<p>One fine Saturday afternoon a young man got off the 9:10 <abbr>p.m.</abbr> Katy train at the Houston depot, and looked about him in rather a bewildered way. He was deliriously pastoral in his appearance, and presented an aspect almost as rural as that of the young countryman upon the stage as depicted by our leading comedians. He wore a very long black coat of the cut that has perpetuated the name of the late Prince Albert, such as is seen on Sundays at country churches, a pair of pantaloons too short for his somewhat lengthy limbs, and a wondrously tied scarf of deep crimson spotted with green. His face was smoothly shaven, and wore a look of deep wonder, if not apprehension, and his blue eyes were stretched to their widest as he viewed the sights about him. In his hand he carried a long carpet bag of the old style, made of some shiny substance resembling black oil cloth.</p>
|
||||
<p>This young gentleman climbed nervously upon an electric car that was pointed out to him as going into the center of the city, and held his carpet bag upon his knees, clasping it with both hands, as if he distrusted the other people upon the car.</p>
|
||||
<p>As the car started again with a loud hum and scattering of sparks, he grasped the arm of the seat in such a startled way that the conductor could not repress a smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>When the young man was approached for his fare, he opened the carpet bag, pulling out a lot of socks and handkerchiefs, and after searching for some time drew forth an old-fashioned beaded purse from which he drew a nickel and handed it to the conductor.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -43,7 +43,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Poplar Avenue,’ says I, sarcastic. ‘Poplar Avenue! That’s a street to live on! It only runs two blocks and then falls off a bluff. You can throw a keg of nails the whole length of it. Don’t talk to me about Poplar Avenue.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘It’s—it’s miles long,’ says the kid. ‘Our number’s 862 and there’s lots of houses after that. What’s the matter with—aw, you make me tired, Jeff.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Well, well, now,’ says I. ‘I guess that man made a mistake. Maybe it was some other boy he was talking about. If I catch him I’ll teach him to go around slandering people.’ And after supper I goes up town and telegraphs to <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Conyers, 862 Poplar Avenue, Quincy, Ill., that the kid is safe and sassy with us, and will be held for further orders. In two hours an answer comes to hold him tight, and she’ll start for him by next train.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The next train was due at 6 <abbr class="time">p.m.</abbr> the next day, and me and John Tom was at the depot with the kid. You might scour the plains in vain for the big Chief Wish-Heap-Dough. In his place is <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Little Bear in the human habiliments of the Anglo-Saxon sect; and the leather of his shoes is patented and the loop of his necktie is copyrighted. For these things John Tom had grafted on him at college along with metaphysics and the knockout guard for the low tackle. But for his complexion, which is some yellowish, and the black mop of his straight hair, you might have thought here was an ordinary man out of the city directory that subscribes for magazines and pushes the lawn-mower in his shirtsleeves of evenings.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The next train was due at 6 <abbr>p.m.</abbr> the next day, and me and John Tom was at the depot with the kid. You might scour the plains in vain for the big Chief Wish-Heap-Dough. In his place is <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Little Bear in the human habiliments of the Anglo-Saxon sect; and the leather of his shoes is patented and the loop of his necktie is copyrighted. For these things John Tom had grafted on him at college along with metaphysics and the knockout guard for the low tackle. But for his complexion, which is some yellowish, and the black mop of his straight hair, you might have thought here was an ordinary man out of the city directory that subscribes for magazines and pushes the lawn-mower in his shirtsleeves of evenings.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Then the train rolled in, and a little woman in a gray dress, with sort of illuminating hair, slides off and looks around quick. And the Boy Avenger sees her, and yells ‘Mamma,’ and she cries ‘O!’ and they meet in a clinch, and now the pesky redskins can come forth from their caves on the plains without fear any more of the rifle of Roy, the Red Wolf. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Conyers comes up and thanks me an’ John Tom without the usual extremities you always look for in a woman. She says just enough, in a way to convince, and there is no incidental music by the orchestra. I made a few illiterate requisitions upon the art of conversation, at which the lady smiles friendly, as if she had known me a week. And then <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Little Bear adorns the atmosphere with the various idioms into which education can fracture the wind of speech. I could see the kid’s mother didn’t quite place John Tom; but it seemed she was apprised in his dialects, and she played up to his lead in the science of making three words do the work of one.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That kid introduced us, with some footnotes and explanations that made things plainer than a week of rhetoric. He danced around, and punched us in the back, and tried to climb John Tom’s leg. ‘This is John Tom, mamma,’ says he. ‘He’s a Indian. He sells medicine in a red wagon. I shot him, but he wasn’t wild. The other one’s Jeff. He’s a fakir, too. Come on and see the camp where we live, won’t you, mamma?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“It is plain to see that the life of the woman is in that boy. She has got him again where her arms can gather him, and that’s enough. She’s ready to do anything to please him. She hesitates the eighth of a second and takes another look at these men. I imagine she says to herself about John Tom, ‘Seems to be a gentleman, if his hair don’t curl.’ And <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Peters she disposes of as follows: ‘No ladies’ man, but a man who knows a lady.’</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -45,7 +45,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“I’ll show you,” said Kernan, rising, and expanding his chest. “I’ll show you what I think of newspapers in general, and your <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Morning Mars</i> in particular.”</p>
|
||||
<p>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 sneering, cold, vigilant face waiting close to the transmitter, and listened to the words that came from the thin, truculent lips curved into a contemptuous smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Morning Mars</i>? … I want to speak to the managing editor … Why, tell him it’s someone who wants to talk to him about the Norcross murder.</p>
|
||||
<p>“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 discussing it with a detective friend of mine. I killed the old man at 2:30 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> two weeks ago tomorrow … 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 heard 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 highwayman 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 suitcase at—‘the name of the hotel could not be learned’—you recognize 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 gasbag 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 button on old <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> 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.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“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 discussing it with a detective friend of mine. I killed the old man at 2:30 <abbr>a.m.</abbr> two weeks ago tomorrow … 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 heard 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 highwayman 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 suitcase at—‘the name of the hotel could not be learned’—you recognize 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 gasbag 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 button on old <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> 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.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Kernan turned to Woods with a diabolic smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“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 ‘getaway.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello! … Yes. I’m here yet. You didn’t think I’d run from such a little subsidized, turncoat 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 attend to your business of hunting up divorce cases and streetcar accidents and printing the filth and scandal that you make your living by. Goodbye, old boy—sorry I haven’t time to call on you. I’d feel perfectly safe in your sanctum asinorum. Tra-la!”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Every Saturday night the Clover Leaf Social Club gave a hop in the hall of the Give and Take Athletic Association on the East Side. In order to attend one of these dances you must be a member of the Give and Take—or, if you belong to the division that starts off with the right foot in waltzing, you must work in Rhinegold’s paper-box factory. Still, any Clover Leaf was privileged to escort or be escorted by an outsider to a single dance. But mostly each Give and Take brought the paper-box girl that he affected; and few strangers could boast of having shaken a foot at the regular hops.</p>
|
||||
<p>Maggie Toole, on account of her dull eyes, broad mouth and left-handed style of footwork in the two-step, went to the dances with Anna McCarty and her “fellow.” Anna and Maggie worked side by side in the factory, and were the greatest chums ever. So Anna always made Jimmy Burns take her by Maggie’s house every Saturday night so that her friend could go to the dance with them.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Give and Take Athletic Association lived up to its name. The hall of the association in Orchard Street was fitted out with muscle-making inventions. With the fibres thus builded up the members were wont to engage the police and rival social and athletic organisations in joyous combat. Between these more serious occupations the Saturday night hop with the paper-box factory girls came as a refining influence and as an efficient screen. For sometimes the tip went ’round, and if you were among the elect that tiptoed up the dark back stairway you might see as neat and satisfying a little welterweight affair to a finish as ever happened inside the ropes.</p>
|
||||
<p>On Saturdays Rhinegold’s paper-box factory closed at 3 <abbr class="time eoc">p.m.</abbr> On one such afternoon Anna and Maggie walked homeward together. At Maggie’s door Anna said, as usual: “Be ready at seven, sharp, Mag; and Jimmy and me’ll come by for you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>On Saturdays Rhinegold’s paper-box factory closed at 3 <abbr class="eoc">p.m.</abbr> On one such afternoon Anna and Maggie walked homeward together. At Maggie’s door Anna said, as usual: “Be ready at seven, sharp, Mag; and Jimmy and me’ll come by for you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>But what was this? Instead of the customary humble and grateful thanks from the non-escorted one there was to be perceived a high-poised head, a prideful dimpling at the corners of a broad mouth, and almost a sparkle in a dull brown eye.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thanks, Anna,” said Maggie; “but you and Jimmy needn’t bother tonight. I’ve a gentleman friend that’s coming ’round to escort me to the hop.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The comely Anna pounced upon her friend, shook her, chided and beseeched her. Maggie Toole catch a fellow! Plain, dear, loyal, unattractive Maggie, so sweet as a chum, so unsought for a two-step or a moonlit bench in the little park. How was it? When did it happen? Who was it?</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“We boarded with a snuff-brown lady named Chica, who kept a rum-shop and a ladies’ and gents’ restaurant in a street called the <i xml:lang="es">calle de los</i> Forty-seven Inconsolable Saints. When our credit played out there, Liverpool, whose stomach overshadowed his sensations of <span xml:lang="fr">noblesse oblige</span>, married Chica. This kept us in rice and fried plantain for a month; and then Chica pounded Liverpool one morning sadly and earnestly for fifteen minutes with a casserole handed down from the stone age, and we knew that we had out-welcomed our liver. That night we signed an engagement with Don Jaime McSpinosa, a hybrid banana fancier of the place, to work on his fruit preserves nine miles out of town. We had to do it or be reduced to sea water and broken doses of feed and slumber.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Now, speaking of Liverpool Sam, I don’t malign or inexculpate him to you any more than I would to his face. But in my opinion, when an Englishman gets as low as he can he’s got to dodge so that the dregs of other nations don’t drop ballast on him out of their balloons. And if he’s a Liverpool Englishman, why, firedamp is what he’s got to look out for. Being a natural American, that’s my personal view. But Liverpool and me had much in common. We were without decorous clothes or ways and means of existence; and, as the saying goes, misery certainly does enjoy the society of accomplices.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Our job on old McSpinosa’s plantation was chopping down banana stalks and loading the bunches of fruit on the backs of horses. Then a native dressed up in an alligator hide belt, a machete, and a pair of <abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">A.A.</abbr> sheeting pajamas, drives ’em over to the coast and piles ’em up on the beach.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You ever been in a banana grove? It’s as solemn as a rathskeller at seven <abbr class="time eoc">a.m.</abbr> It’s like being lost behind the scenes at one of these mushroom musical shows. You can’t see the sky for the foliage above you; and the ground is knee deep in rotten leaves; and it’s so still that you can hear the stalks growing again after you chop ’em down.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You ever been in a banana grove? It’s as solemn as a rathskeller at seven <abbr class="eoc">a.m.</abbr> It’s like being lost behind the scenes at one of these mushroom musical shows. You can’t see the sky for the foliage above you; and the ground is knee deep in rotten leaves; and it’s so still that you can hear the stalks growing again after you chop ’em down.</p>
|
||||
<p>“At night me and Liverpool herded in a lot of grass huts on the edge of a lagoon with the red, yellow, and black employees of Don Jaime. There we lay fighting mosquitoes and listening to the monkeys squalling and the alligators grunting and splashing in the lagoon until daylight with only snatches of sleep between times.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We soon lost all idea of what time of the year it was. It’s just about eighty degrees there in December and June and on Fridays and at midnight and election day and any other old time. Sometimes it rains more than at others, and that’s all the difference you notice. A man is liable to live along there without noticing any fugiting of tempus until some day the undertaker calls in for him just when he’s beginning to think about cutting out the gang and saving up a little to invest in real estate.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I don’t know how long we worked for Don Jaime; but it was through two or three rainy spells, eight or ten hair cuts, and the life of three pairs of sailcloth trousers. All the money we earned went for rum and tobacco; but we ate, and that was something.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -91,7 +91,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Neither,’ says I. ‘I’ve got Beppo, the educated hog, in a sack in that wagon. I found him rooting up the flowers in my front yard this morning. I’ll take the five thousand dollars in large bills, if it’s handy.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“George <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">B.</abbr> hustles out of his tent, and asks me to follow. We went into one of the sideshows. In there was a jet black pig with a pink ribbon around his neck lying on some hay and eating carrots that a man was feeding to him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Hey, Mac,’ calls <abbr class="eoc" epub:type="z3998:personal-name">G. B.</abbr> ‘Nothing wrong with the worldwide this morning, is there?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Him? No,’ says the man. ‘He’s got an appetite like a chorus girl at 1 <abbr class="time eoc">a.m.</abbr>’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Him? No,’ says the man. ‘He’s got an appetite like a chorus girl at 1 <abbr class="eoc">a.m.</abbr>’</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘How’d you get this pipe?’ says Tapley to me. ‘Eating too many pork chops last night?’</p>
|
||||
<p>“I pulls out the paper and shows him the ad.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Fake,’ says he. ‘Don’t know anything about it. You’ve beheld with your own eyes the marvelous, worldwide porcine wonder of the four-footed kingdom eating with preternatural sagacity his matutinal meal, unstrayed and unstole. Good morning.’</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Is that Jimmy Dunn?” asked Kelley.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes,” came the answer.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’re a liar,” sang back Kelley, joyfully. “You’re the Secretary of War. Wait there till I come up. I’ve got the finest thing down here in the way of a fish you ever baited for. It’s a Colorado-maduro, with a gold band around it and free coupons enough to buy a red hall lamp and a statuette of Psyche rubbering in the brook. I’ll be up on the next car.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Jimmy Dunn was an <abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">A.M.</abbr> of Crookdom. He was an artist in the confidence line. He never saw a bludgeon in his life; and he scorned knockout drops. In fact, he would have set nothing before an intended victim but the purest of drinks, if it had been possible to procure such a thing in New York. It was the ambition of “Spider” Kelley to elevate himself into Jimmy’s class.</p>
|
||||
<p>Jimmy Dunn was an <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">A.M.</abbr> of Crookdom. He was an artist in the confidence line. He never saw a bludgeon in his life; and he scorned knockout drops. In fact, he would have set nothing before an intended victim but the purest of drinks, if it had been possible to procure such a thing in New York. It was the ambition of “Spider” Kelley to elevate himself into Jimmy’s class.</p>
|
||||
<p>These two gentlemen held a conference that night at McCrary’s. Kelley explained.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’s as easy as a gumshoe. He’s from the Island of Colombia, where there’s a strike, or a feud, or something going on, and they’ve sent him up here to buy 2,000 Winchesters to arbitrate the thing with. He showed me two drafts for $10,000 each, and one for $5,000 on a bank here. ’S truth, Jimmy, I felt real mad with him because he didn’t have it in thousand-dollar bills, and hand it to me on a silver waiter. Now, we’ve got to wait till he goes to the bank and gets the money for us.”</p>
|
||||
<p>They talked it over for two hours, and then Dunn said; “Bring him to No. ⸻ Broadway, at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“ ‘I hear talk in the kitchen of a fishball,’ says I.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Bully for you, Eighteen,’ says he. ‘You and I’ll get on. Show me the boss’s desk.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, the boss tries the Harveyized pajamas on him, and they fitted him like the scales on a baked redsnapper, and he gets the job. You’ve seen what it is—he stood straight up in the corner of the first landing with his halberd to his shoulder, looking right ahead and guarding the Portugals of the castle. The boss is nutty about having the true Old-World flavour to his joint. ‘Halberdiers goes with Rindsloshes,’ says he, ‘just as rats goes with rathskellers and white cotton stockings with Tyrolean villages.’ The boss is a kind of a antiologist, and is all posted up on data and such information.</p>
|
||||
<p>“From 8 <abbr class="time">p.m.</abbr> to two in the morning was the halberdier’s hours. He got two meals with us help and a dollar a night. I eat with him at the table. He liked me. He never told his name. He was travelling impromptu, like kings, I guess. The first time at supper I says to him: ‘Have some more of the spuds, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Frelinghuysen.’ ‘Oh, don’t be so formal and offish, Eighteen,’ says he. ‘Call me Hal—that’s short for halberdier.’ ‘Oh, don’t think I wanted to pry for names,’ says I. ‘I know all about the dizzy fall from wealth and greatness. We’ve got a count washing dishes in the kitchen; and the third bartender used to be a Pullman conductor. And they <em>work</em>, Sir Percival,’ says I, sarcastic.</p>
|
||||
<p>“From 8 <abbr>p.m.</abbr> to two in the morning was the halberdier’s hours. He got two meals with us help and a dollar a night. I eat with him at the table. He liked me. He never told his name. He was travelling impromptu, like kings, I guess. The first time at supper I says to him: ‘Have some more of the spuds, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Frelinghuysen.’ ‘Oh, don’t be so formal and offish, Eighteen,’ says he. ‘Call me Hal—that’s short for halberdier.’ ‘Oh, don’t think I wanted to pry for names,’ says I. ‘I know all about the dizzy fall from wealth and greatness. We’ve got a count washing dishes in the kitchen; and the third bartender used to be a Pullman conductor. And they <em>work</em>, Sir Percival,’ says I, sarcastic.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Eighteen,’ says he, ‘as a friendly devil in a cabbage-scented hell, would you mind cutting up this piece of steak for me? I don’t say that it’s got more muscle than I have, but—’ And then he shows me the insides of his hands. They was blistered and cut and corned and swelled up till they looked like a couple of flank steaks crisscrossed with a knife—the kind the butchers hide and take home, knowing what is the best.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Shoveling coal,’ says he, ‘and piling bricks and loading drays. But they gave out, and I had to resign. I was born for a halberdier, and I’ve been educated for twenty-four years to fill the position. Now, quit knocking my profession, and pass along a lot more of that ham. I’m holding the closing exercises,’ says he, ‘of a forty-eight-hour fast.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“The second night he was on the job he walks down from his corner to the cigar-case and calls for cigarettes. The customers at the tables all snicker out loud to show their acquaintance with history. The boss is on.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -87,7 +87,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“And both of us drank.</p>
|
||||
<p>“About two weeks later comes shearing-time. The sheep had to be driven up to the ranch, and a lot of frowzy-headed Mexicans would snip the fur off of them with back-action scissors. So the afternoon before the barbers were to come I hustled my underdone muttons over the hill, across the dell, down by the winding brook, and up to the ranch-house, where I penned ’em in a corral and bade ’em my nightly adieus.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I went from there to the ranch-house. I find <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">H.</abbr> Ogden, Esquire, lying asleep on his little cot bed. I guess he had been overcome by anti-insomnia or diswakefulness or some of the diseases peculiar to the sheep business. His mouth and vest were open, and he breathed like a secondhand bicycle pump. I looked at him and gave vent to just a few musings. ‘Imperial Caesar,’ says I, ‘asleep in such a way, might shut his mouth and keep the wind away.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“A man asleep is certainly a sight to make angels weep. What good is all his brain, muscle, backing, nerve, influence, and family connections? He’s at the mercy of his enemies, and more so of his friends. And he’s about as beautiful as a cab-horse leaning against the Metropolitan Opera House at 12:30 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> dreaming of the plains of Arabia. Now, a woman asleep you regard as different. No matter how she looks, you know it’s better for all hands for her to be that way.</p>
|
||||
<p>“A man asleep is certainly a sight to make angels weep. What good is all his brain, muscle, backing, nerve, influence, and family connections? He’s at the mercy of his enemies, and more so of his friends. And he’s about as beautiful as a cab-horse leaning against the Metropolitan Opera House at 12:30 <abbr>a.m.</abbr> dreaming of the plains of Arabia. Now, a woman asleep you regard as different. No matter how she looks, you know it’s better for all hands for her to be that way.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, I took a drink of Bourbon and one for Ogden, and started in to be comfortable while he was taking his nap. He had some books on his table on indigenous subjects, such as Japan and drainage and physical culture—and some tobacco, which seemed more to the point.</p>
|
||||
<p>“After I’d smoked a few, and listened to the sartorial breathing of <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">H. O.</abbr>, I happened to look out the window toward the shearing-pens, where there was a kind of a road coming up from a kind of a road across a kind of a creek farther away.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I saw five men riding up to the house. All of ’em carried guns across their saddles, and among ’em was the deputy that had talked to me at my camp.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -55,7 +55,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Bud acted “on the level,” agreeing to take a subordinate place in the gang until Black Eagle should have been given a trial as leader.</p>
|
||||
<p>After a great deal of consultation, studying of timetables, and discussion of the country’s topography, the time and place for carrying out their new enterprise was decided upon. At that time there was a feedstuff famine in Mexico and a cattle famine in certain parts of the United States, and there was a brisk international trade. Much money was being shipped along the railroads that connected the two republics. It was agreed that the most promising place for the contemplated robbery was at Espina, a little station on the <abbr>I. & G. N.</abbr>, about forty miles north of Laredo. The train stopped there one minute; the country around was wild and unsettled; the station consisted of but one house in which the agent lived.</p>
|
||||
<p>Black Eagle’s band set out, riding by night. Arriving in the vicinity of Espina they rested their horses all day in a thicket a few miles distant.</p>
|
||||
<p>The train was due at Espina at 10:30 <abbr class="time">p.m.</abbr> They could rob the train and be well over the Mexican border with their booty by daylight the next morning.</p>
|
||||
<p>The train was due at Espina at 10:30 <abbr>p.m.</abbr> They could rob the train and be well over the Mexican border with their booty by daylight the next morning.</p>
|
||||
<p>To do Black Eagle justice, he exhibited no signs of flinching from the responsible honours that had been conferred upon him.</p>
|
||||
<p>He assigned his men to their respective posts with discretion, and coached them carefully as to their duties. On each side of the track four of the band were to lie concealed in the chaparral. Gotch-Ear Rodgers was to stick up the station agent. Bronco Charlie was to remain with the horses, holding them in readiness. At a spot where it was calculated the engine would be when the train stopped, Bud King was to lie hidden on one side, and Black Eagle himself on the other. The two would get the drop on the engineer and fireman, force them to descend and proceed to the rear. Then the express car would be looted, and the escape made. No one was to move until Black Eagle gave the signal by firing his revolver. The plan was perfect.</p>
|
||||
<p>At ten minutes to train time every man was at his post, effectually concealed by the thick chaparral that grew almost to the rails. The night was dark and lowering, with a fine drizzle falling from the flying gulf clouds. Black Eagle crouched behind a bush within five yards of the track. Two six-shooters were belted around him. Occasionally he drew a large black bottle from his pocket and raised it to his mouth.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -43,7 +43,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Highsmith, still in his makeup, went with Herr Goldstein to a café booth.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Bright idea, eh?” asked the smiling actor. “Ought to land ‘Sol Haytosser’ for me, don’t you think? The little lady never once tumbled.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I didn’t hear your conversation,” said Goldstein, “but your makeup and acting was OK. Here’s to your success. You’d better call on Miss Carrington early tomorrow and strike her for the part. I don’t see how she can keep from being satisfied with your exhibition of ability.”</p>
|
||||
<p>At 11:45 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> on the next day Highsmith, handsome, dressed in the latest mode, confident, with a fuchsia in his buttonhole, sent up his card to Miss Carrington in her select apartment hotel.</p>
|
||||
<p>At 11:45 <abbr>a.m.</abbr> on the next day Highsmith, handsome, dressed in the latest mode, confident, with a fuchsia in his buttonhole, sent up his card to Miss Carrington in her select apartment hotel.</p>
|
||||
<p>He was shown up and received by the actress’s French maid.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am sorree,” said <abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Hortense, “but I am to say this to all. It is with great regret. Mees Carrington have cancelled all engagements on the stage and have returned to live in that—how you call that town? Cranberry Cornaire!”</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Let the exclamation point expound it, for I shall not. For particulars you might read up on “Romeo and Juliet,” and Abraham Lincoln’s thrilling sonnet about “You can fool some of the people,” <abbr>etc.</abbr>, and Darwin’s works.</p>
|
||||
<p>But one thing I must tell you about. Both of them were mad over Omar’s Rubaiyat. They knew every verse of the old bluffer by heart—not consecutively, but picking ’em out here and there as you fork the mushrooms in a fifty-cent steak à la Bordelaise. Sullivan County is full of rocks and trees; and Jessie used to sit on them, and—please be good—used to sit on the rocks; and Bob had a way of standing behind her with his hands over her shoulders holding her hands, and his face close to hers, and they would repeat over and over their favorite verses of the old tentmaker. They saw only the poetry and philosophy of the lines then—indeed, they agreed that the Wine was only an image, and that what was meant to be celebrated was some divinity, or maybe Love or Life. However, at that time neither of them had tasted the stuff that goes with a sixty-cent <span xml:lang="fr">table d’hôte</span>.</p>
|
||||
<p>Where was I? Oh, they married and came to New York. Bob showed his college diploma, and accepted a position filling inkstands in a lawyer’s office at $15 a week. At the end of two years he had worked up to $50, and gotten his first taste of Bohemia—the kind that won’t stand the borax and formaldehyde tests.</p>
|
||||
<p>They had two furnished rooms and a little kitchen. To Jess, accustomed to the mild but beautiful savor of a country town, the dreggy Bohemia was sugar and spice. She hung fish seines on the walls of her rooms, and bought a rakish-looking sideboard, and learned to play the banjo. Twice or thrice a week they dined at French or Italian tables d’hôte in a cloud of smoke, and brag and unshorn hair. Jess learned to drink a cocktail in order to get the cherry. At home she smoked a cigarette after dinner. She learned to pronounce Chianti, and leave her olive stones for the waiter to pick up. Once she essayed to say la, la, la! in a crowd but got only as far as the second one. They met one or two couples while dining out and became friendly with them. The sideboard was stocked with Scotch and rye and a liqueur. They had their new friends in to dinner and all were laughing at nothing by 1 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> Some plastering fell in the room below them, for which Bob had to pay $4.50. Thus they footed it merrily on the ragged frontiers of the country that has no boundary lines or government.</p>
|
||||
<p>They had two furnished rooms and a little kitchen. To Jess, accustomed to the mild but beautiful savor of a country town, the dreggy Bohemia was sugar and spice. She hung fish seines on the walls of her rooms, and bought a rakish-looking sideboard, and learned to play the banjo. Twice or thrice a week they dined at French or Italian tables d’hôte in a cloud of smoke, and brag and unshorn hair. Jess learned to drink a cocktail in order to get the cherry. At home she smoked a cigarette after dinner. She learned to pronounce Chianti, and leave her olive stones for the waiter to pick up. Once she essayed to say la, la, la! in a crowd but got only as far as the second one. They met one or two couples while dining out and became friendly with them. The sideboard was stocked with Scotch and rye and a liqueur. They had their new friends in to dinner and all were laughing at nothing by 1 <abbr>a.m.</abbr> Some plastering fell in the room below them, for which Bob had to pay $4.50. Thus they footed it merrily on the ragged frontiers of the country that has no boundary lines or government.</p>
|
||||
<p>And soon Bob fell in with his cronies and learned to keep his foot on the little rail six inches above the floor for an hour or so every afternoon before he went home. Drink always rubbed him the right way, and he would reach his rooms as jolly as a sandboy. Jessie would meet him at the door, and generally they would dance some insane kind of a rigadoon about the floor by way of greeting. Once when Bob’s feet became confused and he tumbled headlong over a footstool Jessie laughed so heartily and long that he had to throw all the couch pillows at her to make her hush.</p>
|
||||
<p>In such wise life was speeding for them on the day when Bob Babbitt first felt the power that the giftie gi’ed him.</p>
|
||||
<p>But let us get back to our lamb and mint sauce.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -44,7 +44,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Billy walked back to his seat. His shoulder was tingling from the accolade bestowed by royalty. A hundred eyes were now turned upon him in envy and new admiration. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> William Darragh McMahan trembled with ecstasy, so that her diamonds smote the eye almost with pain. And now it was apparent that at many tables there were those who suddenly remembered that they enjoyed <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McMahan’s acquaintance. He saw smiles and bows about him. He became enveloped in the aura of dizzy greatness. His campaign coolness deserted him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Wine for that gang!” he commanded the waiter, pointing with his finger. “Wine over there. Wine to those three gents by that green bush. Tell ’em it’s on me. D⸺n it! Wine for everybody!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The waiter ventured to whisper that it was perhaps inexpedient to carry out the order, in consideration of the dignity of the house and its custom.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” said Billy, “if it’s against the rules. I wonder if ’twould do to send my friend Van Duyckink a bottle? No? Well, it’ll flow all right at the caffy tonight, just the same. It’ll be rubber boots for anybody who comes in there any time up to 2 <abbr class="time eoc">a.m.</abbr>”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” said Billy, “if it’s against the rules. I wonder if ’twould do to send my friend Van Duyckink a bottle? No? Well, it’ll flow all right at the caffy tonight, just the same. It’ll be rubber boots for anybody who comes in there any time up to 2 <abbr class="eoc">a.m.</abbr>”</p>
|
||||
<p>Billy McMahan was happy.</p>
|
||||
<p>He had shaken the hand of Cortlandt Van Duyckink.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
|
||||
<p>I am the richer by the acquaintance of four newspaper men. Singly, they are my encyclopedias, friends, mentors, and sometimes bankers. But now and then it happens that all of them will pitch upon the same printworthy incident of the passing earthly panorama and will send in reportorial constructions thereof to their respective journals. It is then that, for me, it is to laugh. For it seems that to each of them, trained and skilled as he may be, the same occurrence presents a different facet of the cut diamond, life.</p>
|
||||
<p>One will have it (let us say) that <abbr>Mme.</abbr> André Macarté’s apartment was looted by six burglars, who descended via the fire-escape and bore away a ruby tiara valued at two thousand dollars and a five-hundred-dollar prize Spitz dog, which (in violation of the expectoration ordinance) was making free with the halls of the Wuttapesituckquesunoowetunquah Apartments.</p>
|
||||
<p>My second “chiel” will take notes to the effect that while a friendly game of pinochle was in progress in the tenement rooms of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Andy McCarty, a lady guest named Ruby O’Hara threw a burglar down six flights of stairs, where he was pinioned and held by a two-thousand-dollar English bulldog amid a crowd of five hundred excited spectators.</p>
|
||||
<p>My third chronicler and friend will gather the news threads of the happening in his own happy way; setting forth on the page for you to read that the house of Antonio Macartini was blown up at 6 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr>, by the Black Hand Society, on his refusing to leave two thousand dollars at a certain street corner, killing a pet five-hundred-dollar Pomeranian belonging to Alderman Rubitara’s little daughter (see photo and diagram opposite).</p>
|
||||
<p>My third chronicler and friend will gather the news threads of the happening in his own happy way; setting forth on the page for you to read that the house of Antonio Macartini was blown up at 6 <abbr>a.m.</abbr>, by the Black Hand Society, on his refusing to leave two thousand dollars at a certain street corner, killing a pet five-hundred-dollar Pomeranian belonging to Alderman Rubitara’s little daughter (see photo and diagram opposite).</p>
|
||||
<p>Number four of my history-makers will simply construe from the premises the story that while an audience of two thousand enthusiasts was listening to a Rubinstein concert on Sixth Street, a woman who said she was <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Andrew <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">M.</abbr> Carter threw a brick through a plate-glass window valued at five hundred dollars. The Carter woman claimed that someone in the building had stolen her dog.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now, the discrepancies in these registrations of the day’s doings need do no one hurt. Surely, one newspaper is enough for any man to prop against his morning water-bottle to fend off the smiling hatred of his wife’s glance. If he be foolish enough to read four he is no wiser than a Higher Critic.</p>
|
||||
<p>I remember (probably as well as you do) having read the parable of the talents. A prominent citizen, about to journey into a far country, first hands over to his servants his goods. To one he gives five talents; to another two; to another one—to every man according to his several ability, as the text has it. There are two versions of this parable, as you well know. There may be more—I do not know.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
|
||||
<p>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 hard benches I could not recall one that treated of the voice of agglomerated mankind.</p>
|
||||
<p>In other words, of the composite vocal message of massed humanity.</p>
|
||||
<p>In other words, of the Voice of a Big City.</p>
|
||||
<p>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 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> Certain large-eared ones even assert that they are wise to the vibrations of the tympanum produced by concussion of the air emanating from <abbr>Mr.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">H.</abbr> James. But who can comprehend the meaning of the voice of the city?</p>
|
||||
<p>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 <abbr>a.m.</abbr> Certain large-eared ones even assert that they are wise to the vibrations of the tympanum produced by concussion of the air emanating from <abbr>Mr.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">H.</abbr> James. But who can comprehend the meaning of the voice of the city?</p>
|
||||
<p>I went out for to see.</p>
|
||||
<p>First, I asked Aurelia. She wore white Swiss and a hat with flowers on it, and ribbons and ends of things fluttered here and there.</p>
|
||||
<p>“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 tremendous mass, but it must have a key.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<article id="tommys-burglar" epub:type="se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Tommy’s Burglar</h2>
|
||||
<p>At ten o’clock <abbr class="time">p.m.</abbr> Felicia, the maid, left by the basement door with the policeman to get a raspberry phosphate around the corner. She detested the policeman and objected earnestly to the arrangement. She pointed out, not unreasonably, that she might have been allowed to fall asleep over one of <abbr>St.</abbr> George Rathbone’s novels on the third floor, but she was overruled. Raspberries and cops were not created for nothing.</p>
|
||||
<p>At ten o’clock <abbr>p.m.</abbr> Felicia, the maid, left by the basement door with the policeman to get a raspberry phosphate around the corner. She detested the policeman and objected earnestly to the arrangement. She pointed out, not unreasonably, that she might have been allowed to fall asleep over one of <abbr>St.</abbr> George Rathbone’s novels on the third floor, but she was overruled. Raspberries and cops were not created for nothing.</p>
|
||||
<p>The burglar got into the house without much difficulty; because we must have action and not too much description in a 2,000-word story.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the dining room he opened the slide of his dark lantern. With a brace and centrebit he began to bore into the lock of the silver-closet.</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly a click was heard. The room was flooded with electric light. The dark velvet portières parted to admit a fair-haired boy of eight in pink pajamas, bearing a bottle of olive oil in his hand.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
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