Add language tags for words/phrases in M-W

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vr8ce 2020-03-21 13:19:13 -05:00
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<p>Fritz Bergmann was a man of three sentiments—or to be more accurate—four, the pair of mules deserving to be reckoned individually. Those mules were the chief interest and joy of his existence. Next came the Emperor of Germany and Lena Hildesmuller.</p>
<p>“Tell me,” said Fritz, when he was ready to start, “contains the sack a letter to Frau Hildesmuller from the little Lena at the quarries? One came in the last mail to say that she is a little sick, already. Her mamma is very anxious to hear again.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said old man Ballinger, “thars a letter for <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Helterskelter, or some sich name. Tommy Ryan brung it over when he come. Her little gal workin over thar, you say?”</p>
<p>“In the hotel,” shouted Fritz, as he gathered up the lines; “eleven years old and not bigger as a frankfurter. The close-fist of a Peter Hildesmuller!—some day I shall with a big club pound that mans dummkopf—all in and out the town. Perhaps in this letter Lena will say that she is yet feeling better. So, her mamma will be glad. Auf wiedersehen, Herr Ballinger—your feets will take cold out in the night air.”</p>
<p>“In the hotel,” shouted Fritz, as he gathered up the lines; “eleven years old and not bigger as a frankfurter. The close-fist of a Peter Hildesmuller!—some day I shall with a big club pound that mans <span xml:lang="de">dummkopf</span>—all in and out the town. Perhaps in this letter Lena will say that she is yet feeling better. So, her mamma will be glad. <span xml:lang="de">Auf wiedersehen</span>, Herr Ballinger—your feets will take cold out in the night air.”</p>
<p>“So long, Fritzy,” said old man Ballinger. “You got a nice cool night for your drive.”</p>
<p>Up the road went the little black mules at their steady trot, while Fritz thundered at them occasional words of endearment and cheer.</p>
<p>These fancies occupied the mind of the mail-carrier until he reached the big post oak forest, eight miles from Ballingers. Here his ruminations were scattered by the sudden flash and report of pistols and a whooping as if from a whole tribe of Indians. A band of galloping centaurs closed in around the mail wagon. One of them leaned over the front wheel, covered the driver with his revolver, and ordered him to stop. Others caught at the bridles of Donder and Blitzen.</p>

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<article id="a-christmas-pi" epub:type="se:short-story">
<h2 epub:type="title">A Christmas Pi</h2>
<p>I am not without claim to distinction. Although I still stick to suspenders—which, happily, reciprocate—I am negatively egregious. I have never, for instance, seen a professional baseball game, never said that George M. Cohan was “clever,” never started to keep a diary, never called Eugene Walter by his first name, never parodied “The Raven,” never written a Christmas story, never—but what denizen of Never-Never Land can boast so much? Or would, I overhear you think, if he could?</p>
<p>Always have I been on the lookout for the Impossible, always on the trail of the Unattainable. Someday, perhaps, I shall find a sleeping-car with a name that means something, an intelligent West Indian hallboy in a New York apartment building, a boardinghouse whose inmates occasionally smile, a man born in Manhattan, a 60-cent table dhôte that serves six oysters the portion instead of four, a Southerner who leaves you in doubt as to his birthplace longer than ten minutes after the introduction, and myself writing a Christmas story. But that will happen ten days after the millennium, and as the millennium is to be magazineless</p>
<p>Always have I been on the lookout for the Impossible, always on the trail of the Unattainable. Someday, perhaps, I shall find a sleeping-car with a name that means something, an intelligent West Indian hallboy in a New York apartment building, a boardinghouse whose inmates occasionally smile, a man born in Manhattan, a 60-cent <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span> that serves six oysters the portion instead of four, a Southerner who leaves you in doubt as to his birthplace longer than ten minutes after the introduction, and myself writing a Christmas story. But that will happen ten days after the millennium, and as the millennium is to be magazineless</p>
<p>Every June I am asked to write a Christmas story. Every August I promise, vow, insist, swear that it shall be ready in two weeks. And every November I protest that I am sorry, but I couldnt think of anything new and—well, next year, sure. It was so last year and the year before. It was so this year. And I said to myself that next year it would not be so. I would spend Christmas Eve looking about me. I would get copy from a cop, material from a mater, plot from a messenger boy. And behold! it was Christmas Eve.</p>
<p>It was Christmas Eve, to give a synopsis of preceding chapters. I will fine-toothcomb the town for an idea next summer, quoth I. And so I walked, rode and taxi-cabbed. I spoke to waiters, subway guards, chauffeurs and newsboys and tried to draw from them some bit of life, some experience that might make a story, a Christmas story, <abbr class="initialism">COD</abbr>, at twenty cents a word. But there was not a syllable in the silly bunch, not a comma in the comatose lot.</p>
<p>And then I wandered into Grand Street and I saw that which made me instinctively clutch my fountain pen. A man, unswept, unmoneyed and unstrung, was about to hurl a brick into a pawnbrokers window. His arm was raised and he was as deliberate as <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tri-Digital Brown of Chicago trying to lessen the average of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> John P. Hanswagner of Pittsburgh. (I always spell Pittsburgh with the final “h”; its a final h of a town.)</p>

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<h2 epub:type="title">A Cosmopolite in a Café</h2>
<p>At midnight the café was crowded. By some chance the little table at which I sat had escaped the eye of incomers, and two vacant chairs at it extended their arms with venal hospitality to the influx of patrons.</p>
<p>And then a cosmopolite sat in one of them, and I was glad, for I held a theory that since Adam no true citizen of the world has existed. We hear of them, and we see foreign labels on much luggage, but we find travellers instead of cosmopolites.</p>
<p>I invoke your consideration of the scene—the marble-topped tables, the range of leather-upholstered wall seats, the gay company, the ladies dressed in demi-state toilets, speaking in an exquisite visible chorus of taste, economy, opulence or art; the sedulous and largess-loving garçons, the music wisely catering to all with its raids upon the composers; the mélange of talk and laughter—and, if you will, the Würzburger in the tall glass cones that bend to your lips as a ripe cherry sways on its branch to the beak of a robber jay. I was told by a sculptor from Mauch Chunk that the scene was truly Parisian.</p>
<p>My cosmopolite was named <abbr class="name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan, and he will be heard from next summer at Coney Island. He is to establish a new “attraction” there, he informed me, offering kingly diversion. And then his conversation rang along parallels of latitude and longitude. He took the great, round world in his hand, so to speak, familiarly, contemptuously, and it seemed no larger than the seed of a Maraschino cherry in a table dhôte grape fruit. He spoke disrespectfully of the equator, he skipped from continent to continent, he derided the zones, he mopped up the high seas with his napkin. With a wave of his hand he would speak of a certain bazaar in Hyderabad. Whiff! He would have you on skis in Lapland. Zip! Now you rode the breakers with the Kanakas at Kealaikahiki. Presto! He dragged you through an Arkansas post-oak swamp, let you dry for a moment on the alkali plains of his Idaho ranch, then whirled you into the society of Viennese archdukes. Anon he would be telling you of a cold he acquired in a Chicago lake breeze and how old Escamila cured it in Buenos Aires with a hot infusion of the <i xml:lang="es">chuchula</i> weed. You would have addressed a letter to “<abbr class="name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan, <abbr>Esq.</abbr>, the Earth, Solar System, the Universe,” and have mailed it, feeling confident that it would be delivered to him.</p>
<p>I invoke your consideration of the scene—the marble-topped tables, the range of leather-upholstered wall seats, the gay company, the ladies dressed in demi-state toilets, speaking in an exquisite visible chorus of taste, economy, opulence or art; the sedulous and largess-loving <span xml:lang="fr">garçons</span>, the music wisely catering to all with its raids upon the composers; the mélange of talk and laughter—and, if you will, the Würzburger in the tall glass cones that bend to your lips as a ripe cherry sways on its branch to the beak of a robber jay. I was told by a sculptor from Mauch Chunk that the scene was truly Parisian.</p>
<p>My cosmopolite was named <abbr class="name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan, and he will be heard from next summer at Coney Island. He is to establish a new “attraction” there, he informed me, offering kingly diversion. And then his conversation rang along parallels of latitude and longitude. He took the great, round world in his hand, so to speak, familiarly, contemptuously, and it seemed no larger than the seed of a Maraschino cherry in a <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span> grape fruit. He spoke disrespectfully of the equator, he skipped from continent to continent, he derided the zones, he mopped up the high seas with his napkin. With a wave of his hand he would speak of a certain bazaar in Hyderabad. Whiff! He would have you on skis in Lapland. Zip! Now you rode the breakers with the Kanakas at Kealaikahiki. Presto! He dragged you through an Arkansas post-oak swamp, let you dry for a moment on the alkali plains of his Idaho ranch, then whirled you into the society of Viennese archdukes. Anon he would be telling you of a cold he acquired in a Chicago lake breeze and how old Escamila cured it in Buenos Aires with a hot infusion of the <i xml:lang="es">chuchula</i> weed. You would have addressed a letter to “<abbr class="name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan, <abbr>Esq.</abbr>, the Earth, Solar System, the Universe,” and have mailed it, feeling confident that it would be delivered to him.</p>
<p>I was sure that I had found at last the one true cosmopolite since Adam, and I listened to his worldwide discourse fearful lest I should discover in it the local note of the mere globetrotter. But his opinions never fluttered or drooped; he was as impartial to cities, countries and continents as the winds or gravitation.</p>
<p>And as <abbr class="name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan prattled of this little planet I thought with glee of a great almost-cosmopolite who wrote for the whole world and dedicated himself to Bombay. In a poem he has to say that there is pride and rivalry between the cities of the earth, and that “the men that breed from them, they traffic up and down, but cling to their cities hem as a child to the mothers gown.” And whenever they walk “by roaring streets unknown” they remember their native city “most faithful, foolish, fond; making her mere-breathed name their bond upon their bond.” And my glee was roused because I had caught <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kipling napping. Here I had found a man not made from dust; one who had no narrow boasts of birthplace or country, one who, if he bragged at all, would brag of his whole round globe against the Martians and the inhabitants of the Moon.</p>
<p>Expression on these subjects was precipitated from <abbr class="name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan by the third corner to our table. While Coglan was describing to me the topography along the Siberian Railway the orchestra glided into a medley. The concluding air was “Dixie,” and as the exhilarating notes tumbled forth they were almost overpowered by a great clapping of hands from almost every table.</p>
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<p>Not so <abbr class="name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan. With the whole world for his</p>
<p>My meditations were interrupted by a tremendous noise and conflict in another part of the café. I saw above the heads of the seated patrons <abbr class="name">E.</abbr> Rushmore Coglan and a stranger to me engaged in terrific battle. They fought between the tables like Titans, and glasses crashed, and men caught their hats up and were knocked down, and a brunette screamed, and a blonde began to sing “Teasing.”</p>
<p>My cosmopolite was sustaining the pride and reputation of the Earth when the waiters closed in on both combatants with their famous flying wedge formation and bore them outside, still resisting.</p>
<p>I called McCarthy, one of the French garçons, and asked him the cause of the conflict.</p>
<p>I called McCarthy, one of the French <span xml:lang="fr">garçons</span>, and asked him the cause of the conflict.</p>
<p>“The man with the red tie” (that was my cosmopolite), said he, “got hot on account of things said about the bum sidewalks and water supply of the place he come from by the other guy.”</p>
<p>“Why,” said I, bewildered, “that man is a citizen of the world—a cosmopolite. He—”</p>
<p>“Originally from Mattawamkeag, Maine, he said,” continued McCarthy, “and he wouldnt stand for no knockin the place.”</p>

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<p>“I thought so. Ive heard your dad say it often enough. Well, Amanda, heres your fathers best friend, the head of a big office in the state government, thats going to help you out of your troubles. And heres the old bushwhacker and cowpuncher that your father has helped out of scrapes time and time again wants to ask you a question. Amanda, have you got money enough to run you for the next two or three days?”</p>
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharps white face flushed the least bit.</p>
<p>“Plenty, sir—for a few days.”</p>
<p>“All right, then, maam. Now you go back where you are stopping here, and you come to the office again the day after tomorrow at four oclock in the afternoon. Very likely by that time there will be something definite to report to you.” The commissioner hesitated, and looked a trifle embarrassed. “You said your husband had insured his life for $5,000. Do you know whether the premiums have been kept paid upon it or not?”</p>
<p>“All right, then, maam. Now you go back where you are stopping here, and you come to the office again the day after tomorrow at four oclock in the afternoon. Very likely by that time there will be something definite to report to you.” The commissioner hesitated, and looked a trifle embarrassed. “You said your husband had insured his life for $5,000. Do you know whether the premiums have been kept paid upon it or not?”</p>~/src/books/o-henry_short-fiction/src/epub/text/law-and-order.xhtml:36: <p>Decree of ab-so-lute divorce with cus-to-dy of the child.</p>
<p>“He paid for a whole year in advance about five months ago,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp. “I have the policy and receipts in my trunk.”</p>
<p>“Oh, thats all right, then,” said Standifer. “Its best to look after things of that sort. Some day they may come in handy.”</p>
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sharp departed, and soon afterward Luke Standifer went down to the little hotel where he boarded and looked up the railroad timetable in the daily paper. Half an hour later he removed his coat and vest, and strapped a peculiarly constructed pistol holster across his shoulders, leaving the receptacle close under his left armpit. Into the holster he shoved a short-barrelled .44 calibre revolver. Putting on his clothes again, he strolled to the station and caught the five-twenty afternoon train for San Antonio.</p>

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<p>Still I must admit that Van Swellers conduct in the park that morning was almost without flaw. The courage, the dash, the modesty, the skill, and fidelity that he displayed atoned for everything.</p>
<p>This is the way the story runs. Van Sweller has been a gentleman member of the “Rugged Riders,” the company that made a war with a foreign country famous. Among his comrades was Lawrence ORoon, a man whom Van Sweller liked. A strange thing—and a hazardous one in fiction—was that Van Sweller and ORoon resembled each other mightily in face, form, and general appearance. After the war Van Sweller pulled wires, and ORoon was made a mounted policeman.</p>
<p>Now, one night in New York there are commemorations and libations by old comrades, and in the morning, Mounted Policeman ORoon, unused to potent liquids—another premise hazardous in fiction—finds the earth bucking and bounding like a bronco, with no stirrup into which he may insert foot and save his honor and his badge.</p>
<p>Noblesse oblige? Surely. So out along the driveways and bridle paths trots Hudson Van Sweller in the uniform of his incapacitated comrade, as like unto him as one French pea is unto a <i xml:lang="fr">petit pois</i>.</p>
<p><span xml:lang="fr">Noblesse oblige</span>? Surely. So out along the driveways and bridle paths trots Hudson Van Sweller in the uniform of his incapacitated comrade, as like unto him as one French pea is unto a <i xml:lang="fr">petit pois</i>.</p>
<p>It is, of course, jolly larks for Van Sweller, who has wealth and social position enough for him to masquerade safely even as a police commissioner doing his duty, if he wished to do so. But society, not given to scanning the countenances of mounted policemen, sees nothing unusual in the officer on the beat.</p>
<p>And then comes the runaway.</p>
<p>That is a fine scene—the swaying victoria, the impetuous, daft horses plunging through the line of scattering vehicles, the driver stupidly holding his broken reins, and the ivory-white face of Amy Ffolliott, as she clings desperately with each slender hand. Fear has come and gone: it has left her expression pensive and just a little pleading, for life is not so bitter.</p>

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<p>On the camino real along the beach the two saddle mules and the four pack mules of Don Señor Johnny Armstrong stood, patiently awaiting the crack of the whip of the arriero, Luis. That would be the signal for the start on another long journey into the mountains. The pack mules were loaded with a varied assortment of hardware and cutlery. These articles Don Johnny traded to the interior Indians for the gold dust that they washed from the Andean streams and stored in quills and bags against his coming. It was a profitable business, and Señor Armstrong expected soon to be able to purchase the coffee plantation that he coveted.</p>
<p>Armstrong stood on the narrow sidewalk, exchanging garbled Spanish with old Peralto, the rich native merchant who had just charged him four prices for half a gross of pot-metal hatchets, and abridged English with Rucker, the little German who was Consul for the United States.</p>
<p>“Take with you, señor,” said Peralto, “the blessings of the saints upon your journey.”</p>
<p>“Better try quinine,” growled Rucker through his pipe. “Take two grains every night. And dont make your trip too long, Johnny, because we haf needs of you. It is ein villainous game dot Melville play of whist, and dere is no oder substitute. Auf wiedersehen, und keep your eyes dot mules ears between when you on der edge of der brecipices ride.”</p>
<p>“Better try quinine,” growled Rucker through his pipe. “Take two grains every night. And dont make your trip too long, Johnny, because we haf needs of you. It is ein villainous game dot Melville play of whist, and dere is no oder substitute. <span xml:lang="de">Auf wiedersehen</span>, und keep your eyes dot mules ears between when you on der edge of der brecipices ride.”</p>
<p>The bells of Luiss mule jingled and the pack train filed after the warning note. Armstrong, waved a goodbye and took his place at the tail of the procession. Up the narrow street they turned, and passed the two-story wooden Hotel Ingles, where Ives and Dawson and Richards and the rest of the chaps were dawdling on the broad piazza, reading week-old newspapers. They crowded to the railing and shouted many friendly and wise and foolish farewells after him. Across the plaza they trotted slowly past the bronze statue of Guzman Blanco, within its fence of bayoneted rifles captured from revolutionists, and out of the town between the rows of thatched huts swarming with the unclothed youth of Macuto. They plunged into the damp coolness of banana groves at length to emerge upon a bright stream, where brown women in scant raiment laundered clothes destructively upon the rocks. Then the pack train, fording the stream, attacked the sudden ascent, and bade adieu to such civilization as the coast afforded.</p>
<p>For weeks Armstrong, guided by Luis, followed his regular route among the mountains. After he had collected an arroba of the precious metal, winning a profit of nearly $5,000, the heads of the lightened mules were turned down-trail again. Where the head of the Guarico River springs from a great gash in the mountainside, Luis halted the train.</p>
<p>“Half a days journey from here, Señor,” said he, “is the village of Tacuzama, which we have never visited. I think many ounces of gold may be procured there. It is worth the trial.”</p>
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<p>John Armstrong and <abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Giraud rode among the Andean peaks, enveloped in their greatness and sublimity. The mightiest cousins, furthest removed, in natures great family become conscious of the tie. Among those huge piles of primordial upheaval, amid those gigantic silences and elongated fields of distance the littlenesses of men are precipitated as one chemical throws down a sediment from another. They moved reverently, as in a temple. Their souls were uplifted in unison with the stately heights. They travelled in a zone of majesty and peace.</p>
<p>To Armstrong the woman seemed almost a holy thing. Yet bathed in the white, still dignity of her martyrdom that purified her earthly beauty and gave out, it seemed, an aura of transcendent loveliness, in those first hours of companionship she drew from him an adoration that was half human love, half the worship of a descended goddess.</p>
<p>Never yet since her rescue had she smiled. Over her dress she still wore the robe of leopard skins, for the mountain air was cold. She looked to be some splendid princess belonging to those wild and awesome altitudes. The spirit of the region chimed with hers. Her eyes were always turned upon the sombre cliffs, the blue gorges and the snow-clad turrets, looking a sublime melancholy equal to their own. At times on the journey she sang thrilling te deums and misereres that struck the true note of the hills, and made their route seem like a solemn march down a cathedral aisle. The rescued one spoke but seldom, her mood partaking of the hush of nature that surrounded them. Armstrong looked upon her as an angel. He could not bring himself to the sacrilege of attempting to woo her as other women may be wooed.</p>
<p>On the third day they had descended as far as the tierra templada, the zona of the table lands and foot hills. The mountains were receding in their rear, but still towered, exhibiting yet impressively their formidable heads. Here they met signs of man. They saw the white houses of coffee plantations gleam across the clearings. They struck into a road where they met travellers and pack-mules. Cattle were grazing on the slopes. They passed a little village where the round-eyed niños shrieked and called at sight of them.</p>
<p>On the third day they had descended as far as the <span xml:lang="es">tierra templada</span>, the zona of the table lands and foot hills. The mountains were receding in their rear, but still towered, exhibiting yet impressively their formidable heads. Here they met signs of man. They saw the white houses of coffee plantations gleam across the clearings. They struck into a road where they met travellers and pack-mules. Cattle were grazing on the slopes. They passed a little village where the round-eyed <i xml:lang="es">niños</i> shrieked and called at sight of them.</p>
<p><abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Giraud laid aside her leopard-skin robe. It seemed to be a trifle incongruous now. In the mountains it had appeared fitting and natural. And if Armstrong was not mistaken she laid aside with it something of the high dignity of her demeanour. As the country became more populous and significant of comfortable life he saw, with a feeling of joy, that the exalted princess and priestess of the Andean peaks was changing to a woman—an earth woman, but no less enticing. A little colour crept to the surface of her marble cheek. She arranged the conventional dress that the removal of the robe now disclosed with the solicitous touch of one who is conscious of the eyes of others. She smoothed the careless sweep of her hair. A mundane interest, long latent in the chilling atmosphere of the ascetic peaks, showed in her eyes.</p>
<p>This thaw in his divinity sent Armstrongs heart going faster. So might an Arctic explorer thrill at his first ken of green fields and liquescent waters. They were on a lower plane of earth and life and were succumbing to its peculiar, subtle influence. The austerity of the hills no longer thinned the air they breathed. About them was the breath of fruit and corn and builded homes, the comfortable smell of smoke and warm earth and the consolations man has placed between himself and the dust of his brother earth from which he sprung. While traversing those awful mountains, Mile. Giraud had seemed to be wrapped in their spirit of reverent reserve. Was this that same woman—now palpitating, warm, eager, throbbing with conscious life and charm, feminine to her fingertips? Pondering over this, Armstrong felt certain misgivings intrude upon his thoughts. He wished he could stop there with this changing creature, descending no farther. Here was the elevation and environment to which her nature seemed to respond with its best. He feared to go down upon the man-dominated levels. Would her spirit not yield still further in that artificial zone to which they were descending?</p>
<p>Now from a little plateau they saw the sea flash at the edge of the green lowlands. Mile. Giraud gave a little, catching sigh.</p>
<p>“Oh! look, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Armstrong, there is the sea! Isnt it lovely? Im so tired of mountains.” She heaved a pretty shoulder in a gesture of repugnance. “Those horrid Indians! Just think of what I suffered! Although I suppose I attained my ambition of becoming a stellar attraction, I wouldnt care to repeat the engagement. It was very nice of you to bring me away. Tell me, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Armstrong—honestly, now—do I look such an awful, awful fright? I havent looked into a mirror, you know, for months.”</p>
<p>Armstrong made answer according to his changed moods. Also he laid his hand upon hers as it rested upon the horn of her saddle. Luis was at the head of the pack train and could not see. She allowed it to remain there, and her eyes smiled frankly into his.</p>
<p>Then at sundown they dropped upon the coast level under the palms and lemons among the vivid greens and scarlets and ochres of the tierra caliente. They rode into Macuto, and saw the line of volatile bathers frolicking in the surf. The mountains were very far away.</p>
<p>Then at sundown they dropped upon the coast level under the palms and lemons among the vivid greens and scarlets and ochres of the <span xml:lang="es">tierra caliente</span>. They rode into Macuto, and saw the line of volatile bathers frolicking in the surf. The mountains were very far away.</p>
<p><abbr>Mlle.</abbr> Girauds eyes were shining with a joy that could not have existed under the chaperonage of the mountain-tops. There were other spirits calling to her—nymphs of the orange groves, pixies from the chattering surf, imps, born of the music, the perfumes, colours and the insinuating presence of humanity. She laughed aloud, musically, at a sudden thought.</p>
<p>“Wont there be a sensation?” she called to Armstrong. “Dont I wish I had an engagement just now, though! What a picnic the press agent would have! Held a prisoner by a band of savage Indians subdued by the spell of her wonderful voice—wouldnt that make great stuff? But I guess I quit the game winner, anyhow—there ought to be a couple of thousand dollars in that sack of gold dust I collected as encores, dont you think?”</p>
<p>He left her at the door of the little Hotel de Buen Descansar, where she had stopped before. Two hours later he returned to the hotel. He glanced in at the open door of the little combined reception room and café.</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 enoughtwill serve.</p>
<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>
<p>I was sleepy and tired, so when I got to the hotel I hurriedly paid it the fifty cents it demanded (with approximate lagniappe, I assure you). I knew its habits; and I did not want to hear it prate about its old “marster” or anything that happened “befo de wah.”</p>
<p>The hotel was one of the kind described as “renovated.” That means $20,000 worth of new marble pillars, tiling, electric lights and brass cuspidors in the lobby, and a new L. &amp; N. time table and a lithograph of Lookout Mountain in each one of the great rooms above. The management was without reproach, the attention full of exquisite Southern courtesy, the service as slow as the progress of a snail and as good-humored as Rip Van Winkle. The food was worth traveling a thousand miles for. There is no other hotel in the world where you can get such chicken livers en brochette.</p>
<p>The hotel was one of the kind described as “renovated.” That means $20,000 worth of new marble pillars, tiling, electric lights and brass cuspidors in the lobby, and a new L. &amp; N. time table and a lithograph of Lookout Mountain in each one of the great rooms above. The management was without reproach, the attention full of exquisite Southern courtesy, the service as slow as the progress of a snail and as good-humored as Rip Van Winkle. The food was worth traveling a thousand miles for. There is no other hotel in the world where you can get such chicken livers <span xml:lang="fr">en brochette</span>.</p>
<p>At dinner I asked a Negro waiter if there was anything doing in town. He pondered gravely for a minute, and then replied: “Well, boss, I dont really reckon theres anything at all doin after sundown.”</p>
<p>Sundown had been accomplished; it had been drowned in the drizzle long before. So that spectacle was denied me. But I went forth upon the streets in the drizzle to see what might be there.</p>
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</blockquote>
<p>I must tell you how I came to be in Nashville, and I assure you the digression brings as much tedium to me as it does to you. I was traveling elsewhere on my own business, but I had a commission from a Northern literary magazine to stop over there and establish a personal connection between the publication and one of its contributors, Azalea Adair.</p>
<p>Adair (there was no clue to the personality except the handwriting) had sent in some essays (lost art!) and poems that had made the editors swear approvingly over their one oclock luncheon. So they had commissioned me to round up said Adair and corner by contract his or her output at two cents a word before some other publisher offered her ten or twenty.</p>
<p>At nine oclock the next morning, after my chicken livers en brochette (try them if you can find that hotel), I strayed out into the drizzle, which was still on for an unlimited run. At the first corner I came upon Uncle Caesar. He was a stalwart Negro, older than the pyramids, with gray wool and a face that reminded me of Brutus, and a second afterwards of the late King Cettiwayo. He wore the most remarkable coat that I ever had seen or expect to see. It reached to his ankles and had once been a Confederate gray in colors. But rain and sun and age had so variegated it that Josephs coat, beside it, would have faded to a pale monochrome. I must linger with that coat, for it has to do with the story—the story that is so long in coming, because you can hardly expect anything to happen in Nashville.</p>
<p>At nine oclock the next morning, after my chicken livers <span xml:lang="fr">en brochette</span> (try them if you can find that hotel), I strayed out into the drizzle, which was still on for an unlimited run. At the first corner I came upon Uncle Caesar. He was a stalwart Negro, older than the pyramids, with gray wool and a face that reminded me of Brutus, and a second afterwards of the late King Cettiwayo. He wore the most remarkable coat that I ever had seen or expect to see. It reached to his ankles and had once been a Confederate gray in colors. But rain and sun and age had so variegated it that Josephs coat, beside it, would have faded to a pale monochrome. I must linger with that coat, for it has to do with the story—the story that is so long in coming, because you can hardly expect anything to happen in Nashville.</p>
<p>Once it must have been the military coat of an officer. The cape of it had vanished, but all adown its front it had been frogged and tasseled magnificently. But now the frogs and tassles were gone. In their stead had been patiently stitched (I surmised by some surviving “black mammy”) new frogs made of cunningly twisted common hempen twine. This twine was frayed and disheveled. It must have been added to the coat as a substitute for vanished splendors, with tasteless but painstaking devotion, for it followed faithfully the curves of the long-missing frogs. And, to complete the comedy and pathos of the garment, all its buttons were gone save one. The second button from the top alone remained. The coat was fastened by other twine strings tied through the buttonholes and other holes rudely pierced in the opposite side. There was never such a weird garment so fantastically bedecked and of so many mottled hues. The lone button was the size of a half-dollar, made of yellow horn and sewed on with coarse twine.</p>
<p>This Negro stood by a carriage so old that Ham himself might have started a hack line with it after he left the ark with the two animals hitched to it. As I approached he threw open the door, drew out a feather duster, waved it without using it, and said in deep, rumbling tones:</p>
<p>“Step right in, suh; aint a speck of dust in it—jus got back from a funeral, suh.”</p>

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<article id="a-newspaper-story" epub:type="se:short-story">
<h2 epub:type="title">A Newspaper Story</h2>
<p>At 8 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> it lay on Giuseppis 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>
<p>This particular newspaper was, according to its custom and design, an educator, a guide, a monitor, a champion and a household counsellor and vade mecum.</p>
<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>
<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>
<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>
<p>The third was an eloquent demand that the police force be sustained and aided in everything that tended to increase its efficiency as public guardians and servants.</p>

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<p>The faculty met and invited Jacob to come over and take his A B C degree. Before sending the invitation they smiled, cut out the <i epub:type="z3998:grapheme">C</i>, added the proper punctuation marks, and all was well.</p>
<p>While walking on the campus before being capped and gowned, Jacob saw two professors strolling nearby. Their voices, long adapted to indoor acoustics, undesignedly reached his ear.</p>
<p>“There goes the latest <i xml:lang="fr">chevalier dindustrie</i>,” said one of them, “to buy a sleeping powder from us. He gets his degree tomorrow.”</p>
<p>“In foro conscientiae,” said the other. “Lets eave arf a brick at im.”</p>
<p><span xml:lang="la">In foro conscientiae</span>,” said the other. “Lets eave arf a brick at im.”</p>
<p>Jacob ignored the Latin, but the brick pleasantry was not too hard for him. There was no mandragora in the honorary draught of learning that he had bought. That was before the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act.</p>
<p>Jacob wearied of philanthropy on a large scale.</p>
<p>“If I could see folks made happier,” he said to himself—“If I could see em myself and hear em express their gratitude for what I done for em it would make me feel better. This donatin funds to institutions and societies is about as satisfactory as dropping money into a broken slot machine.”</p>

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<article id="a-philistine-in-bohemia" epub:type="se:short-story">
<h2 epub:type="title">A Philistine in Bohemia</h2>
<p>George Washington, with his right arm upraised, 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 transit <span xml:lang="la">gloria mundi</span>.</p>
<p>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 suppressed 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 ear to vaudeville that caricatures the posterity of his protégés. Italy, Poland, the former Spanish possessions and the polyglot tribes of Austria-Hungary have spilled here a thick lather of their effervescent sons. In the eccentric cafés 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 dhôte. For the other half, perhaps if the barber shops had tongues (and who will dispute it?) they could tell their share.</p>
<p>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 suppressed 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 ear to vaudeville that caricatures the posterity of his protégés. Italy, Poland, the former Spanish possessions and the polyglot tribes of Austria-Hungary have spilled here a thick lather of their effervescent sons. In the eccentric cafés 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 <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span>. For the other half, perhaps if the barber shops had tongues (and who will dispute it?) they could tell their share.</p>
<p>Titles are as plentiful as finger rings among these transitory exiles. For lack of proper exploitation a stock of title goods large enough to supply the trade of upper Fifth Avenue is here condemned to a mere pushcart traffic. The new-world landlords who entertain 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.</p>
<p>These assertions are deemed fitting as an introduction to the tale, which is of plebeians and contains no one with even the ghost of a title.</p>
<p>Katy Dempseys 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 landlords agent on rent day and negotiate 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 consommé with music.</p>
@ -26,12 +26,12 @@
<p>Along a long, dark, narrow hallway they went and then through a shining and spotless kitchen that opened directly upon a back yard.</p>
<p>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 pronunciation might make puns in connection with the ragout.</p>
<p>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 passenger agent of the Evansville and Terre Haute Railroad Company.</p>
<p>Here is a bon mot that was manufactured at Tonios:</p>
<p>Here is a <span xml:lang="fr">bon mot</span> that was manufactured at Tonios:</p>
<p>“A dinner at Tonios,” said a Bohemian, “always amounts to twice the price that is asked for it.”</p>
<p>Let us assume that an accommodating voice inquires:</p>
<p>“How so?”</p>
<p>“The dinner costs you 40 cents; you give 10 cents to the waiter, and it makes you feel like 30 cents.”</p>
<p>Most of the diners were confirmed table dhôters—gastronomic adventurers, forever seeking the El Dorado of a good claret, and consistently coming to grief in California.</p>
<p>Most of the diners were confirmed <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôters</span>—gastronomic adventurers, forever seeking the El Dorado of a good claret, and consistently coming to grief in California.</p>
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Brunelli escorted Katy to a little table embowered with shrubbery in tubs, and asked her to excuse him for a while.</p>
<p>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, monseer,” and “Hello, Mame!” that distinguish Bohemia; the lively chatter, the cigarette smoke, the interchange of bright smiles and eye-glances—all this display and magnificence overpowered the daughter of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Dempsey and held her motionless.</p>
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> 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 hands 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.</p>

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<p>Barney, says I, Ive found a pond full of the finest kind of water. Its the grandest, sweetest, purest water in the world. Say the word and Ill go fetch you a bucket of it and you can throw this vile government stuff out the window. Ill do anything I can for a friend.</p>
<p>Has it come to this? says OConnor, raging up and down his cell. Am I to be starved to death and then shot? Ill make those traitors feel the weight of an OConnors hand when I get out of this. And then he comes to the bars and speaks softer. Has nothing been heard from Dona Isabel? he asks. Though everyone else in the world fail, says he, I trust those eyes of hers. She will find a way to effect my release. Do ye think ye could communicate with her? One word from her—even a rose would make me sorrow light. But dont let her know except with the utmost delicacy, Bowers. These high-bred Castilians are sensitive and proud.</p>
<p>Well said, Barney, says I. Youve given me an idea. Ill report later. Somethings got to be pulled off quick, or well both starve.</p>
<p>“I walked out and down to Hooligan Alley, and then on the other side of the street. As I went past the window of <span xml:lang="es"Dona Isabel Antonia Concha Regalia</span>, out flies the rose as usual and hits me on the ear.</p>
<p>“I walked out and down to Hooligan Alley, and then on the other side of the street. As I went past the window of <span xml:lang="es">Dona Isabel Antonia Concha Regalia</span>, out flies the rose as usual and hits me on the ear.</p>
<p>“The door was open, and I took off my hat and walked in. It wasnt very light; inside, but there she sat in a rocking-chair by the window smoking a black cheroot. And when I got closer I saw that she was about thirty-nine, and had never seen a straight front in her life. I sat down on the arm of her chair, and took the cheroot out of her mouth and stole a kiss.</p>
<p>Hullo, Izzy, I says. Excuse my unconventionality, but I feel like I have known you for a month. Whose Izzy is oo?</p>
<p>“The lady ducked her head under her mantilla, and drew in a long breath. I thought she was going to scream, but with all that intake of air she only came out with: Me likee Americanos.</p>
@ -163,7 +163,7 @@
<p>It was, says I. I saw the joke all along. Ill take another highball, if your Honor dont mind.</p>
<p>“The next evening just at dark a couple of soldiers brought OConnor down to the beach, where I was waiting under a coconut-tree.</p>
<p>Hist! says I in his ear: Dona Isabel has arranged our escape. Not a word!</p>
<p>“They rowed us in a boat out to a little steamer that smelled of table dhôte salad oil and bone phosphate.</p>
<p>“They rowed us in a boat out to a little steamer that smelled of <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span> salad oil and bone phosphate.</p>
<p>“The great, mellow, tropical moon was rising as we steamed away. OConnor leaned on the taffrail or rear balcony of the ship and gazed silently at Guaya—at Buncoville-on-the-Beach.</p>
<p>“He had the red rose in his hand.</p>
<p>She will wait, I heard him say. Eyes like hers never deceive. But I shall see her again. Traitors cannot keep an OConnor down forever.</p>

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<p>“Vamoose, quick,” she ordered peremptorily, “you <em>coon</em>!”</p>
<p>The red of insult burned through the Mexicans dark skin.</p>
<p><i xml:lang="es">Hidalgo, Yo!</i>” he shot between his fangs. “I am not neg-r-ro! <i xml:lang="es">Diabla bonita</i>, for that you shall pay me.”</p>
<p>He made two quick upward steps this time, but the stone, hurled by no weak arm, struck him square in the chest. He staggered back to the footway, swerved half around, and met another sight that drove all thoughts of the girl from his head. She turned her eyes to see what had diverted his interest. A man with red-brown, curling hair and a melancholy, sunburned, smooth-shaven face was coming up the path, twenty yards away. Around the Mexicans waist was buckled a pistol belt with two empty holsters. He had laid aside his sixes—possibly in the jacal of the fair Pancha—and had forgotten them when the passing of the fairer Alvarita had enticed him to her trail. His hands now flew instinctively to the holsters, but finding the weapons gone, he spread his fingers outward with the eloquent, abjuring, deprecating Latin gesture, and stood like a rock. Seeing his plight, the newcomer unbuckled his own belt containing two revolvers, threw it upon the ground, and continued to advance.</p>
<p>He made two quick upward steps this time, but the stone, hurled by no weak arm, struck him square in the chest. He staggered back to the footway, swerved half around, and met another sight that drove all thoughts of the girl from his head. She turned her eyes to see what had diverted his interest. A man with red-brown, curling hair and a melancholy, sunburned, smooth-shaven face was coming up the path, twenty yards away. Around the Mexicans waist was buckled a pistol belt with two empty holsters. He had laid aside his sixes—possibly in the <span xml:lang="es">jacal</span> of the fair Pancha—and had forgotten them when the passing of the fairer Alvarita had enticed him to her trail. His hands now flew instinctively to the holsters, but finding the weapons gone, he spread his fingers outward with the eloquent, abjuring, deprecating Latin gesture, and stood like a rock. Seeing his plight, the newcomer unbuckled his own belt containing two revolvers, threw it upon the ground, and continued to advance.</p>
<p>“Splendid!” murmured Alvarita, with flashing eyes.</p>
<hr/>
<p>As Bob Buckley, according to the mad code of bravery that his sensitive conscience imposed upon his cowardly nerves, abandoned his guns and closed in upon his enemy, the old, inevitable nausea of abject fear wrung him. His breath whistled through his constricted air passages. His feet seemed like lumps of lead. His mouth was dry as dust. His heart, congested with blood, hurt his ribs as it thumped against them. The hot June day turned to moist November. And still he advanced, spurred by a mandatory pride that strained its uttermost against his weakling flesh.</p>

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<p>But this irrelevant stuff is taking up space that the story should occupy.</p>
<p>Dulcie worked in a department store. She sold Hamburg edging, or stuffed peppers, or automobiles, or other little trinkets such as they keep in department stores. Of what she earned, Dulcie received six dollars per week. The remainder was credited to her and debited to somebody elses account in the ledger kept by G⸺ Oh, primal energy, you say, Reverend Doctor—Well then, in the Ledger of Primal Energy.</p>
<p>During her first year in the store, Dulcie was paid five dollars per week. It would be instructive to know how she lived on that amount. Dont care? Very well; probably you are interested in larger amounts. Six dollars is a larger amount. I will tell you how she lived on six dollars per week.</p>
<p>One afternoon at six, when Dulcie was sticking her hatpin within an eighth of an inch of her <i xml:lang="la">medulla oblongata</i>, she said to her chum, Sadie—the girl that waits on you with her left side:</p>
<p>One afternoon at six, when Dulcie was sticking her hatpin within an eighth of an inch of her <span xml:lang="la">medulla oblongata</span>, she said to her chum, Sadie—the girl that waits on you with her left side:</p>
<p>“Say, Sade, I made a date for dinner this evening with Piggy.”</p>
<p>“You never did!” exclaimed Sadie admiringly. “Well, aint you the lucky one? Piggys an awful swell; and he always takes a girl to swell places. He took Blanche up to the Hoffman House one evening, where they have swell music, and you see a lot of swells. Youll have a swell time, Dulce.”</p>
<p>Dulcie hurried homeward. Her eyes were shining, and her cheeks showed the delicate pink of lifes—real lifes—approaching dawn. It was Friday; and she had fifty cents left of her last weeks wages.</p>

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<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey arose heavily and went to the stove. There was something in her manner that warned <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey. When the corners of her mouth went down suddenly like a barometer it usually foretold a fall of crockery and tinware.</p>
<p>“Pigs face, is it?” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey, and hurled a stewpan full of bacon and turnips at her lord.</p>
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey was no novice at repartee. He knew what should follow the entrée. On the table was a roast sirloin of pork, garnished with shamrocks. He retorted with this, and drew the appropriate return of a bread pudding in an earthen dish. A hunk of Swiss cheese accurately thrown by her husband struck <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey below one eye. When she replied with a well-aimed coffeepot full of a hot, black, semi-fragrant liquid the battle, according to courses, should have ended.</p>
<p>But <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey was no 50-cent table dhôter. Let cheap Bohemians consider coffee the end, if they would. Let them make that faux pas. He was foxier still. Finger-bowls were not beyond the compass of his experience. They were not to be had in the Pension Murphy; but their equivalent was at hand. Triumphantly he sent the graniteware wash basin at the head of his matrimonial adversary. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey dodged in time. She reached for a flatiron, with which, as a sort of cordial, she hoped to bring the gastronomical duel to a close. But a loud, wailing scream downstairs caused both her and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey to pause in a sort of involuntary armistice.</p>
<p>But <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey was no 50-cent <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôter</span>. Let cheap Bohemians consider coffee the end, if they would. Let them make that <span xml:lang="fr">faux pas</span>. He was foxier still. Finger-bowls were not beyond the compass of his experience. They were not to be had in the Pension Murphy; but their equivalent was at hand. Triumphantly he sent the graniteware wash basin at the head of his matrimonial adversary. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McCaskey dodged in time. She reached for a flatiron, with which, as a sort of cordial, she hoped to bring the gastronomical duel to a close. But a loud, wailing scream downstairs caused both her and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McCaskey to pause in a sort of involuntary armistice.</p>
<p>On the sidewalk at the corner of the house Policeman Cleary was standing with one ear upturned, listening to the crash of household utensils.</p>
<p>Tis Jawn McCaskey and his missis at it again,” meditated the policeman. “I wonder shall I go up and stop the row. I will not. Married folks they are; and few pleasures they have. Twill not last long. Sure, theyll have to borrow more dishes to keep it up with.”</p>
<p>And just then came the loud scream below-stairs, betokening fear or dire extremity. “Tis probably the cat,” said Policeman Cleary, and walked hastily in the other direction.</p>

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<h2 epub:type="title">Blind Mans Holiday</h2>
<p>Alas for the man and for the artist with the shifting point of perspective! Life shall be a confusion of ways to the one; the landscape shall rise up and confound the other. Take the case of Lorison. At one time he appeared to himself to be the feeblest of fools; at another he conceived that he followed ideals so fine that the world was not yet ready to accept them. During one mood he cursed his folly; possessed by the other, he bore himself with a serene grandeur akin to greatness: in neither did he attain the perspective.</p>
<p>Generations before, the name had been “Larsen.” His race had bequeathed him its fine-strung, melancholy temperament, its saving balance of thrift and industry.</p>
<p>From his point of perspective he saw himself an outcast from society, forever to be a shady skulker along the ragged edge of respectability; a denizen <i xml:lang="fr">des trois-quartz de monde</i>, that pathetic spheroid lying between the haut and the demi, whose inhabitants envy each of their neighbours, and are scorned by both. He was self-condemned to this opinion, as he was self-exiled, through it, to this quaint Southern city a thousand miles from his former home. Here he had dwelt for longer than a year, knowing but few, keeping in a subjective world of shadows which was invaded at times by the perplexing bulks of jarring realities. Then he fell in love with a girl whom he met in a cheap restaurant, and his story begins.</p>
<p>From his point of perspective he saw himself an outcast from society, forever to be a shady skulker along the ragged edge of respectability; a denizen <i xml:lang="fr">des trois-quartz de monde</i>, that pathetic spheroid lying between the <span xml:lang="fr">haut</span> and the demi, whose inhabitants envy each of their neighbours, and are scorned by both. He was self-condemned to this opinion, as he was self-exiled, through it, to this quaint Southern city a thousand miles from his former home. Here he had dwelt for longer than a year, knowing but few, keeping in a subjective world of shadows which was invaded at times by the perplexing bulks of jarring realities. Then he fell in love with a girl whom he met in a cheap restaurant, and his story begins.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The Rue Chartres, in New Orleans, is a street of ghosts. It lies in the quarter where the Frenchman, in his prime, set up his translated pride and glory; where, also, the arrogant don had swaggered, and dreamed of gold and grants and ladies gloves. Every flagstone has its grooves worn by footsteps going royally to the wooing and the fighting. Every house has a princely heartbreak; each doorway its untold tale of gallant promise and slow decay.</p>
<p>By night the Rue Chartres is now but a murky fissure, from which the groping wayfarer sees, flung against the sky, the tangled filigree of Moorish iron balconies. The old houses of monsieur stand yet, indomitable against the century, but their essence is gone. The street is one of ghosts to whosoever can see them.</p>

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<p>He paused there as the flunky drew open the great mahogany portal for him to pass into the vestibule.</p>
<p>Beyond the wrought-iron gates in the dark highway Black Riley and his two pals casually strolled, fingering under their coats the inevitably fatal weapons that were to make the reward of the rag-doll theirs.</p>
<p>Fuzzy stopped at the Millionaires door and bethought himself. Like little sprigs of mistletoe on a dead tree, certain living green thoughts and memories began to decorate his confused mind. He was quite drunk, mind you, and the present was beginning to fade. Those wreaths and festoons of holly with their scarlet berries making the great hall gay—where had he seen such things before? Somewhere he had known polished floors and odors of fresh flowers in winter, and—and someone was singing a song in the house that he thought he had heard before. Someone singing and playing a harp. Of course, it was Christmas—Fuzzy though he must have been pretty drunk to have overlooked that.</p>
<p>And then he went out of the present, and there came back to him out of some impossible, vanished, and irrevocable past a little, pure-white, transient, forgotten ghost—the spirit of noblesse oblige. Upon a gentleman certain things devolve.</p>
<p>And then he went out of the present, and there came back to him out of some impossible, vanished, and irrevocable past a little, pure-white, transient, forgotten ghost—the spirit of <span xml:lang="fr">noblesse oblige</span>. Upon a gentleman certain things devolve.</p>
<p>James opened the outer door. A stream of light went down the graveled walk to the iron gate. Black Riley, McCarthy, and “One-ear” Mike saw, and carelessly drew their sinister cordon closer about the gate.</p>
<p>With a more imperious gesture than Jamess master had ever used or could ever use, Fuzzy compelled the menial to close the door. Upon a gentleman certain things devolve. Especially at the Christmas season.</p>
<p>“It is cust—customary,” he said to James, the flustered, “when a gentleman calls on Christmas Eve to pass the compliments of the season with the lady of the house. You undstand? I shall not move shtep till I pass complments season with lady the house. Undstand?”</p>

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<p>“I am a little tired,” I admitted. So we went to the woods.</p>
<p>But I soon got the swing of it. Within a month I was turning out copy as regular as shipments of hardware.</p>
<p>And I had success. My column in the weekly made some stir, and I was referred to in a gossipy way by the critics as something fresh in the line of humorists. I augmented my income considerably by contributing to other publications.</p>
<p>I picked up the tricks of the trade. I could take a funny idea and make a two-line joke of it, earning a dollar. With false whiskers on, it would serve up cold as a quatrain, doubling its producing value. By turning the skirt and adding a ruffle of rhyme you would hardly recognize it as vers de société with neatly shod feet and a fashion-plate illustration.</p>
<p>I picked up the tricks of the trade. I could take a funny idea and make a two-line joke of it, earning a dollar. With false whiskers on, it would serve up cold as a quatrain, doubling its producing value. By turning the skirt and adding a ruffle of rhyme you would hardly recognize it as <span xml:lang="fr">vers de société</span> with neatly shod feet and a fashion-plate illustration.</p>
<p>I began to save up money, and we had new carpets, and a parlor organ. My townspeople began to look upon me as a citizen of some consequence instead of the merry trifler I had been when I clerked in the hardware store.</p>
<p>After five or six months the spontaniety seemed to depart from my humor. Quips and droll sayings no longer fell carelessly from my lips. I was sometimes hard run for material. I found myself listening to catch available ideas from the conversation of my friends. Sometimes I chewed my pencil and gazed at the wall paper for hours trying to build up some gay little bubble of unstudied fun.</p>
<p>And then I became a harpy, a Moloch, a Jonah, a vampire, to my acquaintances. Anxious, haggard, greedy, I stood among them like a veritable killjoy. Let a bright saying, a witty comparison, a piquant phrase fall from their lips and I was after it like a hound springing upon a bone. I dared not trust my memory; but, turning aside guiltily and meanly, I would make a note of it in my ever-present memorandum book or upon my cuff for my own future use.</p>
@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
<p>Nearly everyone began to avoid me. I even forgot how to smile, not even paying that much for the sayings I appropriated.</p>
<p>No persons, places, times, or subjects were exempt from my plundering in search of material. Even in church my demoralized fancy went hunting among the solemn aisles and pillars for spoil.</p>
<p>Did the minister give out the long-meter doxology, at once I began: “Doxology—sockdology—sockdolager—meter—meet her.”</p>
<p>The sermon ran through my mental sieve, its precepts filtering unheeded, could I but glean a suggestion of a pun or a bon mot. The solemnest anthems of the choir were but an accompaniment to my thoughts as I conceived new changes to ring upon the ancient comicalities concerning the jealousies of soprano, tenor, and basso.</p>
<p>The sermon ran through my mental sieve, its precepts filtering unheeded, could I but glean a suggestion of a pun or a <span xml:lang="fr">bon mot</span>. The solemnest anthems of the choir were but an accompaniment to my thoughts as I conceived new changes to ring upon the ancient comicalities concerning the jealousies of soprano, tenor, and basso.</p>
<p>My own home became a hunting ground. My wife is a singularly feminine creature, candid, sympathetic, and impulsive. Once her conversation was my delight, and her ideas a source of unfailing pleasure. Now I worked her. She was a gold mine of those amusing but lovable inconsistencies that distinguish the female mind.</p>
<p>I began to market those pearls of unwisdom and humor that should have enriched only the sacred precincts of home. With devilish cunning I encouraged her to talk. Unsuspecting, she laid her heart bare. Upon the cold, conspicuous, common, printed page I offered it to the public gaze.</p>
<p>A literary Judas, I kissed her and betrayed her. For pieces of silver I dressed her sweet confidences in the pantalettes and frills of folly and made them dance in the market place.</p>

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<p>At seven she descended the stone steps in the Pompeian bowling alley at the side of “Big Jim” Dougherty. 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 reproach in the saying is for the man who refuses to give up his earnings to the ostrich-tip industry.</p>
<p>“Big Jim” Dougherty was troubled. There was a being at his side whom he 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 he had married four years before. Shyly and rather awkwardly he stalked at her right hand.</p>
<p>“After dinner Ill take you back home, Dele,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dougherty, “and then Ill drop back up to Seltzers with the boys. You can have swell chuck tonight if you want it. I made a winning on Anaconda yesterday; so you can go as far as you like.”</p>
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dougherty had intended to make the outing with his unwonted wife an inconspicuous one. Uxoriousness 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 dhôte 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.</p>
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dougherty had intended to make the outing with his unwonted wife an inconspicuous one. Uxoriousness 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 <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span> 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.</p>
<p>But while on the way <abbr>Mr.</abbr> 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 resolved to parade with his wife past Seltzers café, 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 Hoogleys, the swellest slow-lunch warehouse on the line, he said to himself.</p>
<p>The congregation of smooth-faced tribal gentlemen were on watch at Seltzers. As <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dougherty and his reorganized Delia passed they stared, momentarily petrified, and then removed their hats—a performance as unusual to them as was the astonishing innovation presented to their gaze by “Big Jim.” On the latter gentlemans impassive face there appeared 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.</p>
<p>Hoogleys was animated. Electric lights shone as, indeed, they were expected to do. And the napery, the glassware and the flowers also meritoriously performed the spectacular duties required of them. The guests were numerous, well-dressed and gay.</p>

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<h2 epub:type="title">Extradited from Bohemia</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Miss Medora resembled the rose which the autumnal 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?”</p>
<p>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 Gérôme? The most pathetic sight in New York—except the manners of the rush-hour crowds—is the dreary march of the hopeless army of Mediocrity. 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 bootjacks of the critics. Some of us creep back to our native villages to the skim-milk of “I told you so”; but most of us prefer to remain in the cold courtyard of our mistresss temple, snatching the scraps that fall from her divine table dhôte. 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 grocers 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 capitalized system of humor describes it best—Get Bohemia On the Run.</p>
<p>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 Gérôme? The most pathetic sight in New York—except the manners of the rush-hour crowds—is the dreary march of the hopeless army of Mediocrity. 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 bootjacks of the critics. Some of us creep back to our native villages to the skim-milk of “I told you so”; but most of us prefer to remain in the cold courtyard of our mistresss temple, snatching the scraps that fall from her divine <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span>. 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 grocers 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 capitalized system of humor describes it best—Get Bohemia On the Run.</p>
<p>Miss Medora chose the Vortex and thereby furnishes us with our little story.</p>
<p>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 become a second Rosa Bonheur. Again—a great artist has his moods—he would say cruel and cutting things. For example, Medora had spent an afternoon patiently sketching the statue and the architecture 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.</p>
<p>One day it rained, the weekly remittance from Harmony was overdue, Medora had a headache, the professor had tried to borrow two dollars from her, her art dealer had sent back all her watercolors unsold, and<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Binkley asked her out to dinner.</p>
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Binkley was the gay boy of the boardinghouse. He was forty-nine, and owned a fishstall in a downtown market. But after six oclock 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 habitué 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 <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Puck</i>. Often has one thus obtained his entrée into the charmed circle, while the other obtained both his entrée and roast.</p>
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Binkley was the gay boy of the boardinghouse. He was forty-nine, and owned a fishstall in a downtown market. But after six oclock 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 <span xml:lang="fr">habitué</span> 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 <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Puck</i>. Often has one thus obtained his entrée into the charmed circle, while the other obtained both his entrée and roast.</p>
<p>The other boarders enviously regarded Medora as she left at <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Binkleys side at nine oclock. 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 handbag.</p>
<p>And <abbr>Mr.</abbr> 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 novelists.</p>
<p>They drove in a cab to the Café Terence, just off the most glittering part of Broadway, which, as everyone knows, is one of the most popular and widely patronized, jealously exclusive Bohemian resorts in the city.</p>

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<header>
<h2 epub:type="title">Holding Up a Train</h2>
<blockquote epub:type="epigraph">
<p><b>Note.</b> The man who told me these things was for several years an outlaw in the Southwest and a follower of the pursuit he so frankly describes. His description of the modus operandi should prove interesting, his counsel of value to the potential passenger in some future “holdup,” while his estimate of the pleasures of train robbing will hardly induce anyone to adopt it as a profession. I give the story in almost exactly his own words.</p>
<p><b>Note.</b> The man who told me these things was for several years an outlaw in the Southwest and a follower of the pursuit he so frankly describes. His description of the <span xml:lang="la">modus operandi</span> should prove interesting, his counsel of value to the potential passenger in some future “holdup,” while his estimate of the pleasures of train robbing will hardly induce anyone to adopt it as a profession. I give the story in almost exactly his own words.</p>
<cite>
<span class="signature">
<abbr class="name eoc">O. H.</abbr>

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<section id="hostages-to-momus-1" epub:type="chapter">
<h3 epub:type="z3998:roman">I</h3>
<p>I never got inside of the legitimate line of graft but once. But, one time, as I say, I reversed the decision of the revised statutes and undertook a thing that Id have to apologize for even under the New Jersey trust laws.</p>
<p>Me and Caligula Polk, of Muskogee in the Creek Nation, was down in the Mexican State of Tamaulipas running a peripatetic lottery and monte game. Now, selling lottery tickets is a government graft in Mexico, just like selling forty-eight cents worth of postage-stamps for forty-nine cents is over here. So Uncle Porfirio he instructs the rurales to attend to our case.</p>
<p>Rurales? Theyre a sort of country police; but dont draw any mental crayon portraits of the worthy constables with a tin star and a gray goatee. The rurales—well, if wed mount our Supreme Court on broncos, arm em with Winchesters, and start em out after John Doe et al. wed have about the same thing.</p>
<p>When the rurales started for us we started for the States. They chased us as far as Matamoras. We hid in a brickyard; and that night we swum the Rio Grande, Caligula with a brick in each hand, absentminded, which he drops upon the soil of Texas, forgetting he had em.</p>
<p>Me and Caligula Polk, of Muskogee in the Creek Nation, was down in the Mexican State of Tamaulipas running a peripatetic lottery and monte game. Now, selling lottery tickets is a government graft in Mexico, just like selling forty-eight cents worth of postage-stamps for forty-nine cents is over here. So Uncle Porfirio he instructs the <span xml:lang="es">rurales</span> to attend to our case.</p>
<p><span xml:lang="es">Rurales</span>? Theyre a sort of country police; but dont draw any mental crayon portraits of the worthy constables with a tin star and a gray goatee. The <span xml:lang="es">rurales</span>—well, if wed mount our Supreme Court on broncos, arm em with Winchesters, and start em out after John Doe et al. wed have about the same thing.</p>
<p>When the <span xml:lang="es">rurales</span> started for us we started for the States. They chased us as far as Matamoras. We hid in a brickyard; and that night we swum the Rio Grande, Caligula with a brick in each hand, absentminded, which he drops upon the soil of Texas, forgetting he had em.</p>
<p>From there we emigrated to San Antone, and then over to New Orleans, where we took a rest. And in that town of cotton bales and other adjuncts to female beauty we made the acquaintance of drinks invented by the Creoles during the period of Louey Cans, in which they are still served at the side doors. The most I can remember of this town is that me and Caligula and a Frenchman named McCarty—wait a minute; Adolph McCarty—was trying to make the French Quarter pay up the back trading-stamps due on the Louisiana Purchase, when somebody hollers that the johndarms are coming. I have an insufficient recollection of buying two yellow tickets through a window; and I seemed to see a man swing a lantern and say “All aboard!” I remembered no more, except that the train butcher was covering me and Caligula up with Augusta <abbr class="name">J.</abbr> Evanss works and figs.</p>
<p>When we become revised, we find that we have collided up against the State of Georgia at a spot hitherto unaccounted for in time tables except by an asterisk, which means that trains stop every other Thursday on signal by tearing up a rail. We was waked up in a yellow pine hotel by the noise of flowers and the smell of birds. Yes, sir, for the wind was banging sunflowers as big as buggy wheels against the weatherboarding and the chicken coop was right under the window. Me and Caligula dressed and went downstairs. The landlord was shelling peas on the front porch. He was six feet of chills and fever, and Hongkong in complexion though in other respects he seemed amenable in the exercise of his sentiments and features.</p>
<p>Caligula, who is a spokesman by birth, and a small man, though red-haired and impatient of painfulness of any kind, speaks up.</p>
@ -72,7 +72,7 @@
<p>“All right,” says I; “and now its eleven oclock, and me and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Polk will proceed to inculcate the occasion with a few well-timed trivialities in the way of grub.”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” says the colonel; “I believe I could relish a slice of bacon and a plate of hominy.”</p>
<p>“But you wont,” says I emphatic. “Not in this camp. We soar in higher regions than them occupied by your celebrated but repulsive dish.”</p>
<p>While the colonel read his paper, me and Caligula took off our coats and went in for a little luncheon de luxe just to show him. Caligula was a fine cook of the Western brand. He could toast a buffalo or fricassee a couple of steers as easy as a woman could make a cup of tea. He was gifted in the way of knocking together edibles when haste and muscle and quantity was to be considered. He held the record west of the Arkansas River for frying pancakes with his left hand, broiling venison cutlets with his right, and skinning a rabbit with his teeth at the same time. But I could do things en casserole and <i xml:lang="fr">à la creole</i>, and handle the oil and tobasco as gently and nicely as a French chef.</p>
<p>While the colonel read his paper, me and Caligula took off our coats and went in for a little luncheon de luxe just to show him. Caligula was a fine cook of the Western brand. He could toast a buffalo or fricassee a couple of steers as easy as a woman could make a cup of tea. He was gifted in the way of knocking together edibles when haste and muscle and quantity was to be considered. He held the record west of the Arkansas River for frying pancakes with his left hand, broiling venison cutlets with his right, and skinning a rabbit with his teeth at the same time. But I could do things <span xml:lang="fr">en casserole</span> and <i xml:lang="fr">à la creole</i>, and handle the oil and tobasco as gently and nicely as a French chef.</p>
<p>So at twelve oclock we had a hot lunch ready that looked like a banquet on a Mississippi River steamboat. We spread it on the tops of two or three big boxes, opened two quarts of the red wine, set the olives and a canned oyster cocktail and a ready-made Martini by the colonels plate, and called him to grub.</p>
<p>Colonel Rockingham drew up his campstool, wiped off his specs, and looked at the things on the table. Then I thought he was swearing; and I felt mean because I hadnt taken more pains with the victuals. But he wasnt; he was asking a blessing; and me and Caligula hung our heads, and I saw a tear drop from the colonels eye into his cocktail.</p>
<p>I never saw a man eat with so much earnestness and application—not hastily, like a grammarian, or one of the canal, but slow and appreciative, like a anaconda, or a real <i xml:lang="fr">vive bonjour</i>.</p>
@ -116,7 +116,7 @@
<p>“Never mind just now, major,” says I. “Its all right, then. Wait till after dinner, and well settle the business. All of you gentlemen,” I continues to the crowd, “are invited to stay to dinner. We have mutually trusted one another, and the white flag is supposed to wave over the proceedings.”</p>
<p>“The correct idea,” says Caligula, who was standing by me. “Two baggage-masters and a ticket-agent dropped out of a tree while you was below the last time. Did the major man bring the money?”</p>
<p>“He says,” I answered, “that he succeeded in negotiating the loan.”</p>
<p>If any cooks ever earned ten thousand dollars in twelve hours, me and Caligula did that day. At six oclock we spread the top of the mountain with as fine a dinner as the personnel of any railroad ever engulfed. We opened all the wine, and we concocted entrées and <span xml:lang="fr">pièces de résistance</i>, and stirred up little savory chef de cuisines and organized a mass of grub such as has been seldom instigated out of canned and bottled goods. The railroad gathered around it, and the wassail and diversions was intense.</p>
<p>If any cooks ever earned ten thousand dollars in twelve hours, me and Caligula did that day. At six oclock we spread the top of the mountain with as fine a dinner as the personnel of any railroad ever engulfed. We opened all the wine, and we concocted entrées and <span xml:lang="fr">pièces de résistance</span>, and stirred up little savory <span xml:lang="fr">chef de cuisines</span> and organized a mass of grub such as has been seldom instigated out of canned and bottled goods. The railroad gathered around it, and the wassail and diversions was intense.</p>
<p>After the feast me and Caligula, in the line of business, takes Major Tucker to one side and talks ransom. The major pulls out an agglomeration of currency about the size of the price of a town lot in the suburbs of Rabbitville, Arizona, and makes this outcry.</p>
<p>“Gentlemen,” says he, “the stock of the Sunrise &amp; Edenville railroad has depreciated some. The best I could do with thirty thousand dollars worth of the bonds was to secure a loan of eighty-seven dollars and fifty cents. On the farming lands of Colonel Rockingham, Judge Pendergast was able to obtain, on a ninth mortgage, the sum of fifty dollars. You will find the amount, one hundred and thirty-seven fifty, correct.”</p>
<p>“A railroad president,” said I, looking this Tucker in the eye, “and the owner of a thousand acres of land; and yet—”</p>

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<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">II</h3>
<p>Jimmy Hayes became a favourite in the ranger camp. He had an endless store of good-nature, and a mild, perennial quality of humour that is well adapted to camp life. He was never without his horned frog. In the bosom of his shirt during rides, on his knee or shoulder in camp, under his blankets at night, the ugly little beast never left him.</p>
<p>Jimmy was a humourist of a type that prevails in the rural South and West. Unskilled in originating methods of amusing or in witty conceptions, he had hit upon a comical idea and clung to it reverently. It had seemed to Jimmy a very funny thing to have about his person, with which to amuse his friends, a tame horned frog with a red ribbon around its neck. As it was a happy idea, why not perpetuate it?</p>
<p>The sentiments existing between Jimmy and the frog cannot be exactly determined. The capability of the horned frog for lasting affection is a subject upon which we have had no symposiums. It is easier to guess Jimmys feelings. Muriel was his chef doeuvre of wit, and as such he cherished her. He caught flies for her, and shielded her from sudden northers. Yet his care was half selfish, and when the time came she repaid him a thousand fold. Other Muriels have thus overbalanced the light attentions of other Jimmies.</p>
<p>The sentiments existing between Jimmy and the frog cannot be exactly determined. The capability of the horned frog for lasting affection is a subject upon which we have had no symposiums. It is easier to guess Jimmys feelings. Muriel was his <span xml:lang="fr">chef doeuvre</span> of wit, and as such he cherished her. He caught flies for her, and shielded her from sudden northers. Yet his care was half selfish, and when the time came she repaid him a thousand fold. Other Muriels have thus overbalanced the light attentions of other Jimmies.</p>
<p>Not at once did Jimmy Hayes attain full brotherhood with his comrades. They loved him for his simplicity and drollness, but there hung above him a great sword of suspended judgment. To make merry in camp is not all of a rangers life. There are horse-thieves to trail, desperate criminals to run down, bravos to battle with, bandits to rout out of the chaparral, peace and order to be compelled at the muzzle of a six-shooter. Jimmy had been “most generally a cowpuncher,” he said; he was inexperienced in ranger methods of warfare. Therefore the rangers speculated apart and solemnly as to how he would stand fire. For, let it be known, the honour and pride of each ranger company is the individual bravery of its members.</p>
<p>For two months the border was quiet. The rangers lolled, listless, in camp. And then—bringing joy to the rusting guardians of the frontier—Sebastiano Saldar, an eminent Mexican desperado and cattle-thief, crossed the Rio Grande with his gang and began to lay waste the Texas side. There were indications that Jimmy Hayes would soon have the opportunity to show his mettle. The rangers patrolled with alacrity, but Saldars men were mounted like Lochinvar, and were hard to catch.</p>
<p>One evening, about sundown, the rangers halted for supper after a long ride. Their horses stood panting, with their saddles on. The men were frying bacon and boiling coffee. Suddenly, out of the brush, Sebastiano Saldar and his gang dashed upon them with blazing six-shooters and high-voiced yells. It was a neat surprise. The rangers swore in annoyed tones, and got their Winchesters busy; but the attack was only a spectacular dash of the purest Mexican type. After the florid demonstration the raiders galloped away, yelling, down the river. The rangers mounted and pursued; but in less than two miles the fagged ponies laboured so that Lieutenant Manning gave the word to abandon the chase and return to the camp.</p>

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<p>Bud, says he, in a pained style, that child is the one thing I have to live for. <em>She</em> may go; but the boy is mine!—think of it—I have cus-to-dy of the child.</p>
<p>All right, says I. If its the law, lets abide by it. But I think, says I, that Judge Simmons might have used exemplary clemency, or whatever is the legal term, in our case.</p>
<p>“You see, I wasnt inveigled much into the desirableness of having infants around a ranch, except the kind that feed themselves and sell for so much on the hoof when they grow up. But Luke was struck with that sort of parental foolishness that I never could understand. All the way riding from the station back to the ranch, he kept pulling that decree out of his pocket and laying his finger on the back of it and reading off to me the sum and substance of it. Cus-to-dy of the child, Bud, says he. Dont forget it—cus-to-dy of the child.</p>
<p>“But when we hits the ranch we finds our decree of court obviated, nolle prossed, and remanded for trial. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Summers and the kid was gone. They tell us that an hour after me and Luke had started for San Antone she had a team hitched and lit out for the nearest station with her trunks and the youngster.</p>
<p>“But when we hits the ranch we finds our decree of court obviated, <span xml:lang="la">nolle prossed</span>, and remanded for trial. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Summers and the kid was gone. They tell us that an hour after me and Luke had started for San Antone she had a team hitched and lit out for the nearest station with her trunks and the youngster.</p>
<p>“Luke takes out his decree once more and reads off its emoluments.</p>
<p>It aint possible, Bud, says he, for this to be. Its contrary to law and order. Its wrote as plain as day here—“Cus-to-dy of the child.” ’</p>
<p>There is what you might call a human leaning, says I, toward smashing em both—not to mention the child.</p>

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<p>“What you need,” he decided, “is sea air and companionship.”</p>
<p>“Would a mermaid—” I began; but he slipped on his professional manner.</p>
<p>“I myself,” he said, “will take you to the Hotel Bonair off the coast of Long Island and see that you get in good shape. It is a quiet, comfortable resort where you will soon recuperate.”</p>
<p>The Hotel Bonair proved to be a nine-hundred-room fashionable hostelry on an island off the main shore. Everybody who did not dress for dinner was shoved into a side dining-room and given only a terrapin and champagne table dhôte. The bay was a great stamping ground for wealthy yachtsmen. The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Corsair</i> anchored there the day we arrived. I saw <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan standing on deck eating a cheese sandwich and gazing longingly at the hotel. Still, it was a very inexpensive place. Nobody could afford to pay their prices. When you went away you simply left your baggage, stole a skiff, and beat it for the mainland in the night.</p>
<p>The Hotel Bonair proved to be a nine-hundred-room fashionable hostelry on an island off the main shore. Everybody who did not dress for dinner was shoved into a side dining-room and given only a terrapin and champagne <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span>. The bay was a great stamping ground for wealthy yachtsmen. The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Corsair</i> anchored there the day we arrived. I saw <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morgan standing on deck eating a cheese sandwich and gazing longingly at the hotel. Still, it was a very inexpensive place. Nobody could afford to pay their prices. When you went away you simply left your baggage, stole a skiff, and beat it for the mainland in the night.</p>
<p>When I had been there one day I got a pad of monogrammed telegraph blanks at the clerks desk and began to wire to all my friends for getaway money. My doctor and I played one game of croquet on the golf links and went to sleep on the lawn.</p>
<p>When we got back to town a thought seemed to occur to him suddenly. “By the way,” he asked, “how do you feel?”</p>
<p>“Relieved of very much,” I replied.</p>

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<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Towers Chandler was pressing his evening suit in his hall bedroom. One iron was heating on a small gas stove; the other was being pushed vigorously back and forth to make the desirable crease that would be seen later on extending in straight lines from <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Chandlers patent leather shoes to the edge of his low-cut vest. So much of the heros toilet may be entrusted to our confidence. The remainder may be guessed by those whom genteel poverty has driven to ignoble expedient. Our next view of him shall be as he descends the steps of his lodging-house immaculately and correctly clothed; calm, assured, handsome—in appearance the typical New York young clubman setting out, slightly bored, to inaugurate the pleasures of the evening.</p>
<p>Chandlers honorarium was $18 per week. He was employed in the office of an architect. He was twenty-two years old; he considered architecture to be truly an art; and he honestly believed—though he would not have dared to admit it in New York—that the Flatiron Building was inferior in design to the great cathedral in Milan.</p>
<p>Out of each weeks earnings Chandler set aside $1. At the end of each ten weeks with the extra capital thus accumulated, he purchased one gentlemans evening from the bargain counter of stingy old Father Time. He arrayed himself in the regalia of millionaires and presidents; he took himself to the quarter where life is brightest and showiest, and there dined with taste and luxury. With ten dollars a man may, for a few hours, play the wealthy idler to perfection. The sum is ample for a well-considered meal, a bottle bearing a respectable label, commensurate tips, a smoke, cab fare and the ordinary etceteras.</p>
<p>This one delectable evening culled from each dull seventy was to Chandler a source of renascent bliss. To the society bud comes but one debut; it stands alone sweet in her memory when her hair has whitened; but to Chandler each ten weeks brought a joy as keen, as thrilling, as new as the first had been. To sit among bon vivants under palms in the swirl of concealed music, to look upon the habitués of such a paradise and to be looked upon by them—what is a girls first dance and short-sleeved tulle compared with this?</p>
<p>Up Broadway Chandler moved with the vespertine dress parade. For this evening he was an exhibit as well as a gazer. For the next sixty-nine evenings he would be dining in cheviot and worsted at dubious table dhôtes, at whirlwind lunch counters, on sandwiches and beer in his hall-bedroom. He was willing to do that, for he was a true son of the great city of razzle-dazzle, and to him one evening in the limelight made up for many dark ones.</p>
<p>This one delectable evening culled from each dull seventy was to Chandler a source of renascent bliss. To the society bud comes but one debut; it stands alone sweet in her memory when her hair has whitened; but to Chandler each ten weeks brought a joy as keen, as thrilling, as new as the first had been. To sit among bon vivants under palms in the swirl of concealed music, to look upon the <span xml:lang="fr">habitués</span> of such a paradise and to be looked upon by them—what is a girls first dance and short-sleeved tulle compared with this?</p>
<p>Up Broadway Chandler moved with the vespertine dress parade. For this evening he was an exhibit as well as a gazer. For the next sixty-nine evenings he would be dining in cheviot and worsted at dubious <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôtes</span>, at whirlwind lunch counters, on sandwiches and beer in his hall-bedroom. He was willing to do that, for he was a true son of the great city of razzle-dazzle, and to him one evening in the limelight made up for many dark ones.</p>
<p>Chandler protracted his walk until the Forties began to intersect the great and glittering primrose way, for the evening was yet young, and when one is of the beau monde only one day in seventy, one loves to protract the pleasure. Eyes bright, sinister, curious, admiring, provocative, alluring were bent upon him, for his garb and air proclaimed him a devotee to the hour of solace and pleasure.</p>
<p>At a certain corner he came to a standstill, proposing to himself the question of turning back toward the showy and fashionable restaurant in which he usually dined on the evenings of his especial luxury. Just then a girl scuddled lightly around the corner, slipped on a patch of icy snow and fell plump upon the sidewalk.</p>
<p>Chandler assisted her to her feet with instant and solicitous courtesy. The girl hobbled to the wall of the building, leaned against it, and thanked him demurely.</p>

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<h2 epub:type="title">Memoirs of a Yellow Dog</h2>
<p>I dont suppose it will knock any of you people off your perch to read a contribution from an animal. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kipling and a good many others have demonstrated the fact that animals can express themselves in remunerative English, and no magazine goes to press nowadays without an animal story in it, except the old-style monthlies that are still running pictures of Bryan and the Mont Pélee horror.</p>
<p>But you neednt look for any stuck-up literature in my piece, such as Bearoo, the bear, and Snakoo, the snake, and Tammanoo, the tiger, talk in the jungle books. A yellow dog thats spent most of his life in a cheap New York flat, sleeping in a corner on an old sateen underskirt (the one she spilled port wine on at the Lady Longshoremens banquet), mustnt be expected to perform any tricks with the art of speech.</p>
<p>I was born a yellow pup; date, locality, pedigree and weight unknown. The first thing I can recollect, an old woman had me in a basket at Broadway and Twenty-third trying to sell me to a fat lady. Old Mother Hubbard was boosting me to beat the band as a genuine Pomeranian-Hambletonian-Red-Irish-Cochin-China-Stoke-Pogis fox terrier. The fat lady chased a <span epub:type="z3998:roman">V</span> around among the samples of gros grain flannelette in her shopping bag till she cornered it, and gave up. From that moment I was a pet—a mammas own wootsey squidlums. Say, gentle reader, did you ever have a 200-pound woman breathing a flavour of Camembert cheese and Peau dEspagne pick you up and wallop her nose all over you, remarking all the time in an Emma Eames tone of voice: “Oh, oos um oodlum, doodlum, woodlum, toodlum, bitsy-witsy skoodlums?”</p>
<p>I was born a yellow pup; date, locality, pedigree and weight unknown. The first thing I can recollect, an old woman had me in a basket at Broadway and Twenty-third trying to sell me to a fat lady. Old Mother Hubbard was boosting me to beat the band as a genuine Pomeranian-Hambletonian-Red-Irish-Cochin-China-Stoke-Pogis fox terrier. The fat lady chased a <span epub:type="z3998:roman">V</span> around among the samples of gros grain flannelette in her shopping bag till she cornered it, and gave up. From that moment I was a pet—a mammas own wootsey squidlums. Say, gentle reader, did you ever have a 200-pound woman breathing a flavour of <span xml:lang="fr">Camembert</span> cheese and <i xml:lang="fr">Peau dEspagne</i> pick you up and wallop her nose all over you, remarking all the time in an Emma Eames tone of voice: “Oh, oos um oodlum, doodlum, woodlum, toodlum, bitsy-witsy skoodlums?”</p>
<p>From a pedigreed yellow pup I grew up to be an anonymous yellow cur looking like a cross between an Angora cat and a box of lemons. But my mistress never tumbled. She thought that the two primeval pups that Noah chased into the ark were but a collateral branch of my ancestors. It took two policemen to keep her from entering me at the Madison Square Garden for the Siberian bloodhound prize.</p>
<p>Ill tell you about that flat. The house was the ordinary thing in New York, paved with Parian marble in the entrance hall and cobblestones above the first floor. Our flat was three—well, not flights—climbs up. My mistress rented it unfurnished, and put in the regular things—1903 antique unholstered parlour set, oil chromo of geishas in a Harlem tea house, rubber plant and husband.</p>
<p>By Sirius! there was a biped I felt sorry for. He was a little man with sandy hair and whiskers a good deal like mine. Henpecked?—well, toucans and flamingoes and pelicans all had their bills in him. He wiped the dishes and listened to my mistress tell about the cheap, ragged things the lady with the squirrel-skin coat on the second floor hung out on her line to dry. And every evening while she was getting supper she made him take me out on the end of a string for a walk.</p>

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<p>“I thought Fergus would die laughing.</p>
<p>Well, well, well, said he, you old doughface! Struck too, are you? Thats great! But youre too late. Francesca tells me that Anabela talks of nothing but me, day and night. Of course, Im awfully obliged to you for making that chin-music to her of evenings. But, do you know, Ive an idea that I could have done it as well myself.</p>
<p>“ ‘<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Judson Tate, says I. Dont forget the name. Youve had the use of my tongue to go with your good looks, my boy. You cant lend me your looks; but hereafter my tongue is my own. Keep your mind on the name thats to be on the visiting cards two inches by three and a half—“<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Judson Tate.” Thats all.</p>
<p>All right, says Fergus, laughing again. Ive talked with her father, the alcalde, and hes willing. Hes to give a baile tomorrow evening in his new warehouse. If you were a dancing man, Jud, Id expect you around to meet the future <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McMahan.</p>
<p>“But on the next evening, when the music was playing loudest at the Alcade Zamoras baile, into the room steps Judson Tate in new white linen clothes as if he were the biggest man in the whole nation, which he was.</p>
<p>All right, says Fergus, laughing again. Ive talked with her father, the alcalde, and hes willing. Hes to give a <span xml:lang="es">baile</span> tomorrow evening in his new warehouse. If you were a dancing man, Jud, Id expect you around to meet the future <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McMahan.</p>
<p>“But on the next evening, when the music was playing loudest at the Alcade Zamoras <span xml:lang="es">baile</span>, into the room steps Judson Tate in new white linen clothes as if he were the biggest man in the whole nation, which he was.</p>
<p>“Some of the musicians jumped off the key when they saw my face, and one or two of the timidest señoritas let out a screech or two. But up prances the alcalde and almost wipes the dust off my shoes with his forehead. No mere good looks could have won me that sensational entrance.</p>
<p>I hear much, Señor Zamora, says I, of the charm of your daughter. It would give me great pleasure to be presented to her.</p>
<p>“There were about six dozen willow rocking-chairs, with pink tidies tied on to them, arranged against the walls. In one of them sat Señorita Anabela in white Swiss and red slippers, with pearls and fireflies in her hair. Fergus was at the other end of the room trying to break away from two maroons and a claybank girl.</p>

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<p>“I guess Im a terrible hayseed,” she said between her little gulps and sighs, “but I cant help it. G—George Brown and I were sweethearts since he was eight and I was five. When he was nineteen—that was four years ago—he left Greenburg and went to the city. He said he was going to be a policeman or a railroad president or something. And then he was coming back for me. But I never heard from him any more. And I—I—liked him.”</p>
<p>Another flow of tears seemed imminent, but Tripp hurled himself into the crevasse and dammed it. Confound him, I could see his game. He was trying to make a story of it for his sordid ends and profit.</p>
<p>“Go on, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Chalmers,” said he, “and tell the lady whats the proper caper. Thats what I told her—youd hand it to her straight. Spiel up.”</p>
<p>I coughed, and tried to feel less wrathful toward Tripp. I saw my duty. Cunningly I had been inveigled, but I was securely trapped. Tripps first dictum to me had been just and correct. The young lady must be sent back to Greenburg that day. She must be argued with, convinced, assured, instructed, ticketed, and returned without delay. I hated Hiram and despised George; but duty must be done. Noblesse oblige and only five silver dollars are not strictly romantic compatibles, but sometimes they can be made to jibe. It was mine to be Sir Oracle, and then pay the freight. So I assumed an air that mingled Solomons with that of the general passenger agent of the Long Island Railroad.</p>
<p>I coughed, and tried to feel less wrathful toward Tripp. I saw my duty. Cunningly I had been inveigled, but I was securely trapped. Tripps first dictum to me had been just and correct. The young lady must be sent back to Greenburg that day. She must be argued with, convinced, assured, instructed, ticketed, and returned without delay. I hated Hiram and despised George; but duty must be done. <span xml:lang="fr">Noblesse oblige</span> and only five silver dollars are not strictly romantic compatibles, but sometimes they can be made to jibe. It was mine to be Sir Oracle, and then pay the freight. So I assumed an air that mingled Solomons with that of the general passenger agent of the Long Island Railroad.</p>
<p>“Miss Lowery,” said I, as impressively as I could, “life is rather a queer proposition, after all.” There was a familiar sound to these words after I had spoken them, and I hoped Miss Lowery had never heard <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Cohans song. “Those whom we first love we seldom wed. Our earlier romances, tinged with the magic radiance of youth, often fail to materialize.” The last three words sounded somewhat trite when they struck the air. “But those fondly cherished dreams,” I went on, “may cast a pleasant afterglow on our future lives, however impracticable and vague they may have been. But life is full of realities as well as visions and dreams. One cannot live on memories. May I ask, Miss Lowery, if you think you could pass a happy—that is, a contented and harmonious life with <abbr>Mr.</abbr>—er—Dodd—if in other ways than romantic recollections he seems to—er—fill the bill, as I might say?”</p>
<p>“Oh, His all right,” answered Miss Lowery. “Yes, I could get along with him fine. Hes promised me an automobile and a motorboat. But somehow, when it got so close to the time I was to marry him, I couldnt help wishing—well, just thinking about George. Something must have happened to him or hed have written. On the day he left, he and me got a hammer and a chisel and cut a dime into two pieces. I took one piece and he took the other, and we promised to be true to each other and always keep the pieces till we saw each other again. Ive got mine at home now in a ring-box in the top drawer of my dresser. I guess I was silly to come up here looking for him. I never realized what a big place it is.”</p>
<p>And then Tripp joined in with a little grating laugh that he had, still trying to drag in a little story or drama to earn the miserable dollar that he craved.</p>

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<p>Why dont General Rumptyro stay at home, says I, and manage his own canvass?</p>
<p>You dont understand South American politics, says Denver, getting out the cigars. Its this way. General Rompiro had the misfortune of becoming a popular idol. He distinguished himself by leading the army in pursuit of a couple of sailors who had stolen the plaza—or the carramba, or something belonging to the government. The people called him a hero and the government got jealous. The president sends for the chief of the Department of Public Edifices. “Find me a nice, clean adobe wall,” says he, “and send Señor Rompiro up against it. Then call out a file of soldiers and—then let him be up against it.” Something, goes on Denver, like the way theyve treated Hobson and Carrie Nation in our country. So the General had to flee. But he was thoughtful enough to bring along his roll. Hes got sinews of war enough to buy a battleship and float her off in the christening fluid.</p>
<p>What chance has he got to be president?</p>
<p>Wasnt I just giving you his rating? says Denver. His country is one of the few in South America where the presidents are elected by popular ballot. The General cant go there just now. It hurts to be shot against a wall. He needs a campaign manager to go down and whoop things up for him—to get the boys in line and the new two-dollar bills afloat and the babies kissed and the machine in running order. Sully, I dont want to brag, but you remember how I brought Coughlin under the wire for leader of the nineteenth? Ours was the banner district. Dont you suppose I know how to manage a little monkey-cage of a country like that? Why, with the dough the Generals willing to turn loose I could put two more coats of Japan varnish on him and have him elected Governor of Georgia. New York has got the finest lot of campaign managers in the world, Sully, and you give me a feeling of hauteur when you cast doubts on my ability to handle the political situation in a country so small that they have to print the names of the towns in the appendix and footnotes.</p>
<p>Wasnt I just giving you his rating? says Denver. His country is one of the few in South America where the presidents are elected by popular ballot. The General cant go there just now. It hurts to be shot against a wall. He needs a campaign manager to go down and whoop things up for him—to get the boys in line and the new two-dollar bills afloat and the babies kissed and the machine in running order. Sully, I dont want to brag, but you remember how I brought Coughlin under the wire for leader of the nineteenth? Ours was the banner district. Dont you suppose I know how to manage a little monkey-cage of a country like that? Why, with the dough the Generals willing to turn loose I could put two more coats of Japan varnish on him and have him elected Governor of Georgia. New York has got the finest lot of campaign managers in the world, Sully, and you give me a feeling of <span xml:lang="fr">hauteur</span> when you cast doubts on my ability to handle the political situation in a country so small that they have to print the names of the towns in the appendix and footnotes.</p>
<p>“I argued with Denver some. I told him that politics down in that tropical atmosphere was bound to be different from the nineteenth district; but I might just as well have been a Congressman from North Dakota trying to get an appropriation for a lighthouse and a coast survey. Denver Galloway had ambitions in the manager line, and what I said didnt amount to as much as a fig-leaf at the National Dressmakers Convention. Ill give you three days to cogitate about going, says Denver; and Ill introduce you to General Rompiro tomorrow, so you can get his ideas drawn right from the rose wood.</p>
<p>“I put on my best reception-to-Booker-Washington manner the next day and tapped the distinguished rubber-plant for what he knew.</p>
<p>“General Rompiro wasnt so gloomy inside as he appeared on the surface. He was polite enough; and he exuded a number of sounds that made a fair stagger at arranging themselves into language. It was English he aimed at, and when his system of syntax reached your mind it wasnt past you to understand it. If you took a college professors magazine essay and a Chinese laundrymans explanation of a lost shirt and jumbled em together, youd have about what the General handed you out for conversation. He told me all about his bleeding country, and what they were trying to do for it before the doctor came. But he mostly talked of Denver <abbr class="name">C.</abbr> Galloway.</p>

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<p>Littlefield went to the clerk of the court and looked over the records with him. They decided that the letter might have been sent by Mexico Sam, a half-breed border desperado who had been imprisoned for manslaughter four years before. Then official duties crowded the matter from his mind, and the rattle of the revengeful serpent was forgotten.</p>
<p>Court was in session at Brownsville. Most of the cases to be tried were charges of smuggling, counterfeiting, post-office robberies, and violations of Federal laws along the border. One case was that of a young Mexican, Rafael Ortiz, who had been rounded up by a clever deputy marshal in the act of passing a counterfeit silver dollar. He had been suspected of many such deviations from rectitude, but this was the first time that anything provable had been fixed upon him. Ortiz languished cozily in jail, smoking brown cigarettes and waiting for trial. Kilpatrick, the deputy, brought the counterfeit dollar and handed it to the district attorney in his office in the courthouse. The deputy and a reputable druggist were prepared to swear that Ortiz paid for a bottle of medicine with it. The coin was a poor counterfeit, soft, dull-looking, and made principally of lead. It was the day before the morning on which the docket would reach the case of Ortiz, and the district attorney was preparing himself for trial.</p>
<p>“Not much need of having in high-priced experts to prove the coins queer, is there, Kil?” smiled Littlefield, as he thumped the dollar down upon the table, where it fell with no more ring than would have come from a lump of putty.</p>
<p>“I guess the Greasers as good as behind the bars,” said the deputy, easing up his holsters. “Youve got him dead. If it had been just one time, these Mexicans cant tell good money from bad; but this little yaller rascal belongs to a gang of counterfeiters, I know. This is the first time Ive been able to catch him doing the trick. Hes got a girl down there in them Mexican jacals on the river bank. I seen her one day when I was watching him. Shes as pretty as a red heifer in a flower bed.”</p>
<p>“I guess the Greasers as good as behind the bars,” said the deputy, easing up his holsters. “Youve got him dead. If it had been just one time, these Mexicans cant tell good money from bad; but this little yaller rascal belongs to a gang of counterfeiters, I know. This is the first time Ive been able to catch him doing the trick. Hes got a girl down there in them Mexican <span xml:lang="es">jacals</span> on the river bank. I seen her one day when I was watching him. Shes as pretty as a red heifer in a flower bed.”</p>
<p>Littlefield shoved the counterfeit dollar into his pocket, and slipped his memoranda of the case into an envelope. Just then a bright, winsome face, as frank and jolly as a boys, appeared in the doorway, and in walked Nancy Derwent.</p>
<p>“Oh, Bob, didnt court adjourn at twelve today until tomorrow?” she asked of Littlefield.</p>
<p>“It did,” said the district attorney, “and Im very glad of it. Ive got a lot of rulings to look up, and—”</p>
@ -71,10 +71,10 @@
<p>The shotgun blazed with a heavy report. Mexico Sam sighed, turned limp all over, and slowly fell from his horse—a dead rattlesnake.</p>
<hr/>
<p>At ten oclock the next morning court opened, and the case of the United States versus Rafael Ortiz was called. The district attorney, with his arm in a sling, rose and addressed the court.</p>
<p>“May it please your honour,” he said, “I desire to enter a nolle pros in this case. Even though the defendant should be guilty, there is not sufficient evidence in the hands of the government to secure a conviction. The piece of counterfeit coin upon the identity of which the case was built is not now available as evidence. I ask, therefore, that the case be stricken off.”</p>
<p>“May it please your honour,” he said, “I desire to enter a <span xml:lang="la">nolle pros</span> in this case. Even though the defendant should be guilty, there is not sufficient evidence in the hands of the government to secure a conviction. The piece of counterfeit coin upon the identity of which the case was built is not now available as evidence. I ask, therefore, that the case be stricken off.”</p>
<p>At the noon recess Kilpatrick strolled into the district attorneys office.</p>
<p>“Ive just been down to take a squint at old Mexico Sam,” said the deputy. “Theyve got him laid out. Old Mexico was a tough outfit, I reckon. The boys was wonderin down there what you shot him with. Some said it must have been nails. I never see a gun carry anything to make holes like he had.”</p>
<p>“I shot him,” said the district attorney, “with Exhibit A of your counterfeiting case. Lucky thing for me—and somebody else—that it was as bad money as it was! It sliced up into slugs very nicely. Say, Kil, cant you go down to the jacals and find where that Mexican girl lives? Miss Derwent wants to know.”</p>
<p>“I shot him,” said the district attorney, “with Exhibit A of your counterfeiting case. Lucky thing for me—and somebody else—that it was as bad money as it was! It sliced up into slugs very nicely. Say, Kil, cant you go down to the <span xml:lang="es">jacals</span> and find where that Mexican girl lives? Miss Derwent wants to know.”</p>
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<p>“Youve always had plenty of money to spend,” observed Old Bryson.</p>
<p>“Tons,” said Gillian. “Uncle was the fairy godmother as far as an allowance was concerned.”</p>
<p>“Any other heirs?” asked Old Bryson.</p>
<p>“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. Shes 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 hands. Dont be superior and insulting, Old Bryson—tell me what a fellow can do with a thousand dollars.”</p>
<p>“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. Shes 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 <span xml:lang="fr">brut</span>, tipped the waiter with the ring and had the whole business off my hands. Dont be superior and insulting, Old Bryson—tell me what a fellow can do with a thousand dollars.”</p>
<p>Old Bryson rubbed his glasses and smiled. And when Old Bryson smiled, Gillian knew that he intended to be more offensive than ever.</p>
<p>“A thousand dollars,” he 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 hours 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 profession of heir presumptive.”</p>
<p>“People might like you, Old Bryson,” said Gillian, always unruffled, “if you wouldnt moralize. I asked you to tell me what I could do with a thousand dollars.”</p>
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<p>“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.”</p>
<p>Gillian slipped his writing into an envelope, bowed and went his way.</p>
<p>His cab stopped again at the offices of Tolman &amp; Sharp.</p>
<p>“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, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tolman?” He tossed a white envelope on the lawyers table. “You will find there a memorandum, sir, of the modus operandi of the vanishing of the dollars.”</p>
<p>“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, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tolman?” He tossed a white envelope on the lawyers table. “You will find there a memorandum, sir, of the <span xml:lang="la">modus operandi</span> of the vanishing of the dollars.”</p>
<p>Without touching the envelope, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> 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 contents. Then Tolman became spokesman.</p>
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gillian,” he said, formally, “there was a codicil to your uncles will. It was entrusted 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.</p>
<p>“In the event that your disposition of the $1,000 demonstrates that you possess any of the qualifications that deserve reward, much benefit will accrue to you. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> 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, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gillian. But let us return to the letter of the codicil. If your disposal of the money in question has been prudent, wise, or unselfish, 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 <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gillian, explicitly provides—you have used this money as you have money in the past, I quote the late <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gillian—in reprehensible dissipation among disreputable associates—the $50,000 is to be paid to Miriam Hayden, ward of the late <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gillian, without delay. Now, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gillian, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> 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.”</p>

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<p>“The rear, madame.”</p>
<p>The lady sighed, as if with relief.</p>
<p>“I will detain you no longer then, monsieur,” she said, employing the round and artless eye. “Take good care of my house. Alas! only the memories of it are mine now. Adieu, and accept my thanks for your courtesy.”</p>
<p>She was gone, leaving but a smile and a trace of sweet perfume. David climbed the stairs as one in slumber. But he awoke from it, and the smile and the perfume lingered with him and never afterward did either seem quite to leave him. This lady of whom he knew nothing drove him to lyrics of eyes, chansons of swiftly conceived love, odes to curling hair, and sonnets to slippers on slender feet.</p>
<p>She was gone, leaving but a smile and a trace of sweet perfume. David climbed the stairs as one in slumber. But he awoke from it, and the smile and the perfume lingered with him and never afterward did either seem quite to leave him. This lady of whom he knew nothing drove him to lyrics of eyes, <span xml:lang="fr">chansons</span> of swiftly conceived love, odes to curling hair, and sonnets to slippers on slender feet.</p>
<p>Poet he must have been, for Yvonne was forgotten; this fine, new loveliness held him with its freshness and grace. The subtle perfume about her filled him with strange emotions.</p>
<hr/>
<p>On a certain night three persons were gathered about a table in a room on the third floor of the same house. Three chairs and the table and a lighted candle upon it was all the furniture. One of the persons was a huge man, dressed in black. His expression was one of sneering pride. The ends of his upturned moustache reached nearly to his mocking eyes. Another was a lady, young and beautiful, with eyes that could be round and artless, as a childs, or long and cozening, like a gypsys, but were now keen and ambitious, like any other conspirators. The third was a man of action, a combatant, a bold and impatient executive, breathing fire and steel. He was addressed by the others as Captain Desrolles.</p>
@ -219,7 +219,7 @@
<p>The duke looked at him steadily. “I will put you to the proof,” he said, slowly. “Dressed as the king, you shall, yourself, attend mass in his carriage at midnight. Do you accept the test?”</p>
<p>David smiled. “I have looked into her eyes,” he said. “I had my proof there. Take yours how you will.”</p>
<p>Half an hour before twelve the Duke dAumale, with his own hands, set a red lamp in a southwest window of the palace. At ten minutes to the hour, David, leaning on his arm, dressed as the king, from top to toe, with his head bowed in his cloak, walked slowly from the royal apartments to the waiting carriage. The duke assisted him inside and closed the door. The carriage whirled away along its route to the cathedral.</p>
<p>On the qui vive in a house at the corner of the Rue Esplanade was Captain Tetreau with twenty men, ready to pounce upon the conspirators when they should appear.</p>
<p>On the <span xml:lang="fr">qui vive</span> in a house at the corner of the Rue Esplanade was Captain Tetreau with twenty men, ready to pounce upon the conspirators when they should appear.</p>
<p>But it seemed that, for some reason, the plotters had slightly altered their plans. When the royal carriage had reached the Rue Christopher, one square nearer than the Rue Esplanade, forth from it burst Captain Desrolles, with his band of would-be regicides, and assailed the equipage. The guards upon the carriage, though surprised at the premature attack, descended and fought valiantly. The noise of conflict attracted the force of Captain Tetreau, and they came pelting down the street to the rescue. But, in the meantime, the desperate Desrolles had torn open the door of the kings carriage, thrust his weapon against the body of the dark figure inside, and fired.</p>
<p>Now, with loyal reinforcements at hand, the street rang with cries and the rasp of steel, but the frightened horses had dashed away. Upon the cushions lay the dead body of the poor mock king and poet, slain by a ball from the pistol of Monseigneur, the Marquis de Beaupertuys.</p>
</section>

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<p>“The little man hustles away with a kind of Swiss movement toward a jewelry store. The heartbroken person stoops over and takes a telescopic view of my haberdashery.</p>
<p>Thems a mighty slick outfit of habiliments you have got on, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Man, says he. Ill bet a hoss you never acquired the right, title, and interest in and to them clothes in Atascosa City.</p>
<p>Why, no, says I, being ready enough to exchange personalities with this moneyed monument of melancholy. I had this suit tailored from a special line of coatericks, vestures, and pantings in <abbr>St.</abbr> Louis. Would you mind putting me sane, says I, on this watch-throwing contest? Ive been used to seeing timepieces treated with more politeness and esteem—except womens watches, of course, which by nature they abuse by cracking walnuts with em and having em taken showing in tintype pictures.</p>
<p>Me and George, he explains, are up from the ranch, having a spell of fun. Up to last month we owned four sections of watered grazing down on the San Miguel. But along comes one of these oil prospectors and begins to bore. He strikes a gusher that flows out twenty thousand—or maybe it was twenty million—barrels of oil a day. And me and George gets one hundred and fifty thousand dollars—seventy-five thousand dollars apiece—for the land. So now and then we saddles up and hits the breeze for Atascosa City for a few days of excitement and damage. Heres a little bunch of the dinero that I drawed out of the bank this morning, says he, and shows a roll of twenties and fifties as big around as a sleeping-car pillow. The yellowbacks glowed like a sunset on the gable end of John D.s barn. My knees got weak, and I sat down on the edge of the board sidewalk.</p>
<p>Me and George, he explains, are up from the ranch, having a spell of fun. Up to last month we owned four sections of watered grazing down on the San Miguel. But along comes one of these oil prospectors and begins to bore. He strikes a gusher that flows out twenty thousand—or maybe it was twenty million—barrels of oil a day. And me and George gets one hundred and fifty thousand dollars—seventy-five thousand dollars apiece—for the land. So now and then we saddles up and hits the breeze for Atascosa City for a few days of excitement and damage. Heres a little bunch of the <span xml:lang="es">dinero</span> that I drawed out of the bank this morning, says he, and shows a roll of twenties and fifties as big around as a sleeping-car pillow. The yellowbacks glowed like a sunset on the gable end of John D.s barn. My knees got weak, and I sat down on the edge of the board sidewalk.</p>
<p>You must have knocked around a right smart, goes on this oil Grease-us. I shouldnt be surprised if you have saw towns more livelier than what Atascosa City is. Sometimes it seems to me that there ought to be some more ways of having a good time than there is here, specially when youve got plenty of money and dont mind spending it.</p>
<p>“Then this Mother Carys chick of the desert sits down by me and we hold a conversationfest. It seems that he was money-poor. Hed lived in ranch camps all his life; and he confessed to me that his supreme idea of luxury was to ride into camp, tired out from a roundup, eat a peck of Mexican beans, hobble his brains with a pint of raw whisky, and go to sleep with his boots for a pillow. When this barge-load of unexpected money came to him and his pink but perky partner, George, and they hied themselves to this clump of outhouses called Atascosa City, you know what happened to them. They had money to buy anything they wanted; but they didnt know what to want. Their ideas of spendthriftiness were limited to three—whisky, saddles, and gold watches. If there was anything else in the world to throw away fortunes on, they had never heard about it. So, when they wanted to have a hot time, theyd ride into town and get a city directory and stand in front of the principal saloon and call up the population alphabetically for free drinks. Then they would order three or four new California saddles from the storekeeper, and play crack-loo on the sidewalk with twenty-dollar gold pieces. Betting who could throw his gold watch the farthest was an inspiration of Georges; but even that was getting to be monotonous.</p>
<p>“Was I on to the opportunity? Listen.</p>

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<p>Keogh reflected judicially.</p>
<p>“Lets see—theres you and me and—”</p>
<p>“Not me,” said Johnny, promptly and incorrectly, holding up a foot encased in a disreputable deerskin <i xml:lang="es">zapato</i>. “I havent been a victim to shoes in months.”</p>
<p>“But youve got em, though,” went on Keogh. “And theres Goodwin and Blanchard and Geddie and old Lutz and Doc Gregg and that Italian thats agent for the banana company, and theres old Delgado—no; he wears sandals. And, oh, yes; theres Madama Ortiz, what kapes the hotel—she had on a pair of red slippers at the baile the other night. And Miss Pasa, her daughter, that went to school in the States—she brought back some civilized notions in the way of footgear. And theres the comandantes sister that dresses up her feet on feast-days—and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Geddie, who wears a two with a Castilian instep—and thats about all the ladies. Lets see—dont some of the soldiers at the cuartel—no: thats so; theyre allowed shoes only when on the march. In barracks they turn their little toeses out to grass.”</p>
<p>“But youve got em, though,” went on Keogh. “And theres Goodwin and Blanchard and Geddie and old Lutz and Doc Gregg and that Italian thats agent for the banana company, and theres old Delgado—no; he wears sandals. And, oh, yes; theres Madama Ortiz, what kapes the hotel—she had on a pair of red slippers at the <span xml:lang="es">baile</span> the other night. And Miss Pasa, her daughter, that went to school in the States—she brought back some civilized notions in the way of footgear. And theres the comandantes sister that dresses up her feet on feast-days—and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Geddie, who wears a two with a Castilian instep—and thats about all the ladies. Lets see—dont some of the soldiers at the cuartel—no: thats so; theyre allowed shoes only when on the march. In barracks they turn their little toeses out to grass.”</p>
<p>Bout right,” agreed the consul. “Not over twenty out of the three thousand ever felt leather on their walking arrangements. Oh, yes; Coralio is just the town for an enterprising shoe store—that doesnt want to part with its goods. Wonder if old Patterson is trying to jolly me! He always was full of things he called jokes. Write him a letter, Billy. Ill dictate it. Well jolly him back a few.”</p>
<p>Keogh dipped his pen, and wrote at Johnnys dictation. With many pauses, filled in with smoke and sundry travellings of the bottle and glasses, the following reply to the Dalesburg communication was perpetrated:</p>
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
<p class="signature" epub:type="z3998:sender">Johnny</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“I throw in that postscript,” explained the consul, “so Uncle Obadiah wont take offence at the official tone of the letter! Now, Billy, you get that correspondence fixed up, and send Pancho to the post-office with it. The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Ariadne</i> takes the mail out tomorrow if they make up that load of fruit today.”</p>
<p>The night programme in Coralio never varied. The recreations of the people were soporific and flat. They wandered about, barefoot and aimless, speaking lowly and smoking cigar or cigarette. Looking down on the dimly lighted ways one seemed to see a threading maze of brunette ghosts tangled with a procession of insane fireflies. In some houses the thrumming of lugubrious guitars added to the depression of the triste night. Giant tree-frogs rattled in the foliage as loudly as the end mans “bones” in a minstrel troupe. By nine oclock the streets were almost deserted.</p>
<p>The night programme in Coralio never varied. The recreations of the people were soporific and flat. They wandered about, barefoot and aimless, speaking lowly and smoking cigar or cigarette. Looking down on the dimly lighted ways one seemed to see a threading maze of brunette ghosts tangled with a procession of insane fireflies. In some houses the thrumming of lugubrious guitars added to the depression of the <span xml:lang="fr">triste</span> night. Giant tree-frogs rattled in the foliage as loudly as the end mans “bones” in a minstrel troupe. By nine oclock the streets were almost deserted.</p>
<p>Nor at the consulate was there often a change of bill. Keogh would come there nightly, for Coralios one cool place was the little seaward porch of that official residence.</p>
<p>The brandy would be kept moving; and before midnight sentiment would begin to stir in the heart of the self-exiled consul. Then he would relate to Keogh the story of his ended romance. Each night Keogh would listen patiently to the tale, and be ready with untiring sympathy.</p>
<p>“But dont you think for a minute”—thus Johnny would always conclude his woeful narrative—“that Im grieving about that girl, Billy. Ive forgotten her. She never enters my mind. If she were to enter that door right now, my pulse wouldnt gain a beat. Thats all over long ago.”</p>

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<p>The town of Fishampton, on the south shore of Long Island, is noted for its clam fritters and the summer residence of the Van Plushvelts.</p>
<p>The Van Plushvelts have a hundred million dollars, and their name is a household word with tradesmen and photographers.</p>
<p>On the fifteenth of June the Van Plushvelts boarded up the front door of their city house, carefully deposited their cat on the sidewalk, instructed the caretaker not to allow it to eat any of the ivy on the walls, and whizzed away in a 40-horsepower to Fishampton to stray alone in the shade—Amaryllis not being in their class. If you are a subscriber to the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Toadies Magazine</i>, you have often—You say you are not? Well, you buy it at a newsstand, thinking that the newsdealer is not wise to you. But he knows about it all. <em>He</em> knows<b>He</b> knows! I say that you have often seen in the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Toadies Magazine</i> pictures of the Van Plushvelts summer home; so it will not be described here. Our business is with young Haywood Van Plushvelt, sixteen years old, heir to the century of millions, darling of the financial gods and great grandson of Peter Van Plushvelt, former owner of a particularly fine cabbage patch that has been ruined by an intrusive lot of downtown skyscrapers.</p>
<p>One afternoon young Haywood Van Plushvelt strolled out between the granite gate posts of “Dolce far Niente”—thats what they called the place; and it was an improvement on dolce Far Rockaway, I can tell you.</p>
<p>One afternoon young Haywood Van Plushvelt strolled out between the granite gate posts of “<span xml:lang="it">Dolce far Niente</span>—thats what they called the place; and it was an improvement on <span xml:lang="it">dolce</span> Far Rockaway, I can tell you.</p>
<p>Haywood walked down into the village. He was human, after all, and his prospective millions weighed upon him. Wealth had wreaked upon him its direfullest. He was the product of private tutors. Even under his first hobbyhorse had tan bark been strewn. He had been born with a gold spoon, lobster fork and fish-set in his mouth. For which I hope, later, to submit justification, I must ask your consideration of his haberdashery and tailoring.</p>
<p>Young Fortunatus was dressed in a neat suit of dark blue serge, a neat, white straw hat, neat low-cut tan shoes, of the well-known “immaculate” trade mark, a neat, narrow four-in-hand tie, and carried a slender, neat, bamboo cane.</p>
<p>Down Persimmon Street (theres never tree north of Hagerstown, <abbr class="postal">Md.</abbr>) came from the village “Smoky” Dodson, fifteen and a half, worst boy in Fishampton. “Smoky” was dressed in a ragged red sweater, wrecked and weatherworn golf cap, run-over shoes, and trousers of the “serviceable” brand. Dust, clinging to the moisture induced by free exercise, darkened wide areas of his face. “Smoky” carried a baseball bat, and a league ball that advertised itself in the rotundity of his trousers pocket. Haywood stopped and passed the time of day.</p>
@ -45,7 +45,7 @@
<p>“Wots trouncing?” asked “Smoky,” suspiciously. “I dont want your old clothes. Im no—oh, you mean to scrap! My, my! I wont do a thing to mammas pet. Criminy! Id hate to be a hand-laundered thing like you.</p>
<p>“Smoky” waited with some awkwardness for his adversary to prepare for battle. His own decks were always clear for action. When he should spit upon the palm of his terrible right it was equivalent to “You may fire now, Gridley.”</p>
<p>The hated patrician advanced, with his shirt sleeves neatly rolled up. “Smoky” waited, in an attitude of ease, expecting the affair to be conducted according to Fishamptons rules of war. These allowed combat to be prefaced by stigma, recrimination, epithet, abuse and insult gradually increasing in emphasis and degree. After a round of these “youre anothers” would come the chip knocked from the shoulder, or the advance across the “dare” line drawn with a toe on the ground. Next light taps given and taken, these also increasing in force until finally the blood was up and fists going at their best.</p>
<p>But Haywood did not know Fishamptons rules. Noblesse oblige kept a faint smile on his face as he walked slowly up to “Smoky” and said:</p>
<p>But Haywood did not know Fishamptons rules. <span xml:lang="fr">Noblesse oblige</span> kept a faint smile on his face as he walked slowly up to “Smoky” and said:</p>
<p>“Going to play ball?”</p>
<p>“Smoky” quickly understood this to be a putting of the previous question, giving him the chance to make practical apology by answering it with civility and relevance.</p>
<p>“Listen this time,” said he. “Im goin skatin on the river. Dont you see me automobile with Chinese lanterns on it standin and waitin for me?”</p>

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<p>To account for this you will be allowed to guess that the lobsters were all out, or that she had sworn ice-cream off during Lent, or that she had ordered onions, or that she had just come from a Hackett matinee. And then, all these theories being wrong, you will please let the story proceed.</p>
<p>The gentleman who announced that the world was an oyster which he with his sword would open made a larger hit than he deserved. It is not difficult to open an oyster with a sword. But did you ever notice anyone try to open the terrestrial bivalve with a typewriter? Like to wait for a dozen raw opened that way?</p>
<p>Sarah had managed to pry apart the shells with her unhandy weapon far enough to nibble a wee bit at the cold and clammy world within. She knew no more shorthand than if she had been a graduate in stenography just let slip upon the world by a business college. So, not being able to stenog, she could not enter that bright galaxy of office talent. She was a freelance typewriter and canvassed for odd jobs of copying.</p>
<p>The most brilliant and crowning feat of Sarahs battle with the world was the deal she made with Schulenbergs Home Restaurant. The restaurant was next door to the old red brick in which she hall-roomed. One evening after dining at Schulenbergs 40-cent, five-course table dhôte (served as fast as you throw the five baseballs at the coloured gentlemans head) Sarah took away with her the bill of fare. It was written in an almost unreadable script neither English nor German, and so arranged that if you were not careful you began with a toothpick and rice pudding and ended with soup and the day of the week.</p>
<p>The most brilliant and crowning feat of Sarahs battle with the world was the deal she made with Schulenbergs Home Restaurant. The restaurant was next door to the old red brick in which she hall-roomed. One evening after dining at Schulenbergs 40-cent, five-course <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span> (served as fast as you throw the five baseballs at the coloured gentlemans head) Sarah took away with her the bill of fare. It was written in an almost unreadable script neither English nor German, and so arranged that if you were not careful you began with a toothpick and rice pudding and ended with soup and the day of the week.</p>
<p>The next day Sarah showed Schulenberg a neat card on which the menu was beautifully typewritten with the viands temptingly marshalled under their right and proper heads from “hors doeuvre” to “not responsible for overcoats and umbrellas.”</p>
<p>Schulenberg became a naturalised citizen on the spot. Before Sarah left him she had him willingly committed to an agreement. She was to furnish typewritten bills of fare for the twenty-one tables in the restaurant—a new bill for each days dinner, and new ones for breakfast and lunch as often as changes occurred in the food or as neatness required.</p>
<p>In return for this Schulenberg was to send three meals per diem to Sarahs hall room by a waiter—an obsequious one if possible—and furnish her each afternoon with a pencil draft of what Fate had in store for Schulenbergs customers on the morrow.</p>
@ -35,7 +35,7 @@
<p>Sarahs fingers danced like midgets above a summer stream. Down through the courses she worked, giving each item its position according to its length with an accurate eye. Just above the desserts came the list of vegetables. Carrots and peas, asparagus on toast, the perennial tomatoes and corn and succotash, lima beans, cabbage—and then</p>
<p>Sarah was crying over her bill of fare. Tears from the depths of some divine despair rose in her heart and gathered to her eyes. Down went her head on the little typewriter stand; and the keyboard rattled a dry accompaniment to her moist sobs.</p>
<p>For she had received no letter from Walter in two weeks, and the next item on the bill of fare was dandelions—dandelions with some kind of egg—but bother the egg!—dandelions, with whose golden blooms Walter had crowned her his queen of love and future bride—dandelions, the harbingers of spring, her sorrows crown of sorrow—reminder of her happiest days.</p>
<p>Madam, I dare you to smile until you suffer this test: Let the Marechal Niel roses that Percy brought you on the night you gave him your heart be served as a salad with French dressing before your eyes at a Schulenberg table dhôte. Had Juliet so seen her love tokens dishonoured the sooner would she have sought the lethean herbs of the good apothecary.</p>
<p>Madam, I dare you to smile until you suffer this test: Let the Marechal Niel roses that Percy brought you on the night you gave him your heart be served as a salad with French dressing before your eyes at a Schulenberg <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span>. Had Juliet so seen her love tokens dishonoured the sooner would she have sought the lethean herbs of the good apothecary.</p>
<p>But what a witch is Spring! Into the great cold city of stone and iron a message had to be sent. There was none to convey it but the little hardy courier of the fields with his rough green coat and modest air. He is a true soldier of fortune, this <i xml:lang="fr">dent-de-lion</i>—this lions tooth, as the French chefs call him. Flowered, he will assist at lovemaking, wreathed in my ladys nut-brown hair; young and callow and unblossomed, he goes into the boiling pot and delivers the word of his sovereign mistress.</p>
<p>By and by Sarah forced back her tears. The cards must be written. But, still in a faint, golden glow from her dandeleonine dream, she fingered the typewriter keys absently for a little while, with her mind and heart in the meadow lane with her young farmer. But soon she came swiftly back to the rockbound lanes of Manhattan, and the typewriter began to rattle and jump like a strikebreakers motor car.</p>
<p>At 6 oclock the waiter brought her dinner and carried away the typewritten bill of fare. When Sarah ate she set aside, with a sigh, the dish of dandelions with its crowning ovarious accompaniment. As this dark mass had been transformed from a bright and love-endorsed flower to be an ignominious vegetable, so had her summer hopes wilted and perished. Love may, as Shakespeare said, feed on itself: but Sarah could not bring herself to eat the dandelions that had graced, as ornaments, the first spiritual banquet of her hearts true affection.</p>

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<p>The domestic life of the Turpins was a beautiful picture to see. But you couldnt gaze upon it as you could at an oleograph of “Dont Wake Grandma,” or “Brooklyn by Moonlight.”</p>
<p>You had to blink when you looked at it; and you heard a fizzing sound just like the machine with a “scope” at the end of it. Yes; there wasnt much repose about the picture of the Turpins domestic life. It was something like “Spearing Salmon in the Columbia River,” or “Japanese Artillery in Action.”</p>
<p>Every day was just like another; as the days are in New York. In the morning Turpin would take bromo-seltzer, his pocket change from under the clock, his hat, no breakfast and his departure for the office. At noon <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Turpin would get out of bed and humour, put on a kimono, airs, and the water to boil for coffee.</p>
<p>Turpin lunched downtown. He came home at 6 to dress for dinner. They always dined out. They strayed from the chophouse to chop-sueydom, from terrace to table dhôte, from rathskeller to roadhouse, from café to casino, from Marias to the Martha Washington. Such is domestic life in the great city. Your vine is the mistletoe; your fig tree bears dates. Your household gods are Mercury and John Howard Payne. For the wedding march you now hear only “Come with the Gypsy Bride.” You rarely dine at the same place twice in succession. You tire of the food; and, besides, you want to give them time for the question of that souvenir silver sugar bowl to blow over.</p>
<p>Turpin lunched downtown. He came home at 6 to dress for dinner. They always dined out. They strayed from the chophouse to chop-sueydom, from terrace to <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span>, from rathskeller to roadhouse, from café to casino, from Marias to the Martha Washington. Such is domestic life in the great city. Your vine is the mistletoe; your fig tree bears dates. Your household gods are Mercury and John Howard Payne. For the wedding march you now hear only “Come with the Gypsy Bride.” You rarely dine at the same place twice in succession. You tire of the food; and, besides, you want to give them time for the question of that souvenir silver sugar bowl to blow over.</p>
<p>The Turpins were therefore happy. They made many warm and delightful friends, some of whom they remembered the next day. Their home life was an ideal one, according to the rules and regulations of the Book of Bluff.</p>
<p>There came a time when it dawned upon Turpin that his wife was getting away with too much money. If you belong to the near-swell class in the Big City, and your income is $200 per month, and you find at the end of the month, after looking over the bills for current expenses, that you, yourself, have spent $150, you very naturally wonder what has become of the other $50. So you suspect your wife. And perhaps you give her a hint that something needs explanation.</p>
<p>“I say, Vivien,” said Turpin, one afternoon when they were enjoying in rapt silence the peace and quiet of their cozy apartment, “youve been creating a hiatus big enough for a dog to crawl through in this months honorarium. You havent been paying your dressmaker anything on account, have you?”</p>
@ -46,7 +46,7 @@
<p>But the captain pointed to the locked door and bade them break it down. In a few moments they demolished it with the axes they carried. Into the other room sprang Claude Turpin, with the captain at his heels.</p>
<p>The scene was one that lingered long in Turpins mind. Nearly a score of women—women expensively and fashionably clothed, many beautiful and of refined appearance—had been seated at little marble-topped tables. When the police burst open the door they shrieked and ran here and there like gayly plumed birds that had been disturbed in a tropical grove. Some became hysterical; one or two fainted; several knelt at the feet of the officers and besought them for mercy on account of their families and social position.</p>
<p>A man who had been seated behind a desk had seized a roll of currency as large as the ankle of a Paradise Roof Gardens chorus girl and jumped out of the window. Half a dozen attendants huddled at one end of the room, breathless from fear.</p>
<p>Upon the tables remained the damning and incontrovertible evidences of the guilt of the habituées of that sinister room—dish after dish heaped high with ice cream, and surrounded by stacks of empty ones, scraped to the last spoonful.</p>
<p>Upon the tables remained the damning and incontrovertible evidences of the guilt of the <span xml:lang="fr">habituées</span> of that sinister room—dish after dish heaped high with ice cream, and surrounded by stacks of empty ones, scraped to the last spoonful.</p>
<p>“Ladies,” said the captain to his weeping circle of prisoners, “Ill not hold any of yez. Some of yez I recognize as having fine houses and good standing in the community, with hardworking husbands and childer at home. But Ill read ye a bit of a lecture before ye go. In the next room theres a 20-to-1 shot just dropped in under the wire three lengths ahead of the field. Is this the way ye waste your husbands money instead of helping earn it? Home wid yez! The lids on the ice-cream freezer in this precinct.”</p>
<p>Claude Turpins wife was among the patrons of the raided room. He led her to their apartment in stern silence. There she wept so remorsefully and besought his forgiveness so pleadingly that he forgot his just anger, and soon he gathered his penitent golden-haired Vivien in his arms and forgave her.</p>
<p>“Darling,” she murmured, half sobbingly, as the moonlight drifted through the open window, glorifying her sweet, upturned face, “I know I done wrong. I will never touch ice cream again. I forgot you were not a millionaire. I used to go there every day. But today I felt some strange, sad presentiment of evil, and I was not myself. I ate only eleven saucers.”</p>

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<p>“I had a friend once, of the entitlement of Paisley Fish, that I imagined was sealed to me for an endless space of time. Side by side for seven years we had mined, ranched, sold patent churns, herded sheep, took photographs and other things, built wire fences, and picked prunes. Thinks I, neither homocide nor flattery nor riches nor sophistry nor drink can make trouble between me and Paisley Fish. We was friends an amount you could hardly guess at. We was friends in business, and we let our amicable qualities lap over and season our hours of recreation and folly. We certainly had days of Damon and nights of Pythias.</p>
<p>“One summer me and Paisley gallops down into these San Andres mountains for the purpose of a months surcease and levity, dressed in the natural store habiliments of man. We hit this town of Los Piños, which certainly was a roof-garden spot of the world, and flowing with condensed milk and honey. It had a street or two, and air, and hens, and a eating-house; and that was enough for us.</p>
<p>“We strikes the town after suppertime, and we concludes to sample whatever efficacy there is in this eating-house down by the railroad tracks. By the time we had set down and pried up our plates with a knife from the red oilcloth, along intrudes Widow Jessup with the hot biscuit and the fried liver.</p>
<p>“Now, there was a woman that would have tempted an anchovy to forget his vows. She was not so small as she was large; and a kind of welcome air seemed to mitigate her vicinity. The pink of her face was the in hoc signo of a culinary temper and a warm disposition, and her smile would have brought out the dogwood blossoms in December.</p>
<p>“Now, there was a woman that would have tempted an anchovy to forget his vows. She was not so small as she was large; and a kind of welcome air seemed to mitigate her vicinity. The pink of her face was the <span xml:lang="la">in hoc signo</span> of a culinary temper and a warm disposition, and her smile would have brought out the dogwood blossoms in December.</p>
<p>“Widow Jessup talks to us a lot of garrulousness about the climate and history and Tennyson and prunes and the scarcity of mutton, and finally wants to know where we came from.</p>
<p>Spring Valley, says I.</p>
<p>Big Spring Valley, chips in Paisley, out of a lot of potatoes and knuckle-bone of ham in his mouth.</p>

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<p>“Im stewed, Remsen,” said ORoon to his friend. “Why do they build hotels that go round and round like catherine wheels? Theyll take away my shield and break me. I can think and talk con-con-consec-sec-secutively, but I s-s-stammer with my feet. Ive got to go on duty in three hours. The jig is up, Remsen. The jig is up, I tell you.”</p>
<p>“Look at me,” said Remsen, who was his smiling self, pointing to his own face; “whom do you see here?”</p>
<p>“Goo fellow,” said ORoon, dizzily, “Goo old Remsen.”</p>
<p>“Not so,” said Remsen. “You see Mounted Policeman ORoon. Look at your face—no; you cant do that without a glass—but look at mine, and think of yours. How much alike are we? As two French table dhôte dinners. With your badge, on your horse, in your uniform, will I charm nursemaids and prevent the grass from growing under peoples feet in the Park this day. I will have your badge and your honor, besides having the jolliest lark Ive been blessed with since we licked Spain.”</p>
<p>“Not so,” said Remsen. “You see Mounted Policeman ORoon. Look at your face—no; you cant do that without a glass—but look at mine, and think of yours. How much alike are we? As two French <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span> dinners. With your badge, on your horse, in your uniform, will I charm nursemaids and prevent the grass from growing under peoples feet in the Park this day. I will have your badge and your honor, besides having the jolliest lark Ive been blessed with since we licked Spain.”</p>
<p>Promptly on time the counterfeit presentment of Mounted Policeman ORoon single-footed into the Park on his chestnut steed. In a uniform two men who are unlike will look alike; two who somewhat resemble each other in feature and figure will appear as twin brothers. So Remsen trotted down the bridle paths, enjoying himself hugely, so few real pleasures do ten-millionaires have.</p>
<p>Along the driveway in the early morning spun a victoria drawn by a pair of fiery bays. There was something foreign about the affair, for the Park is rarely used in the morning except by unimportant people who love to be healthy, poor and wise. In the vehicle sat an old gentleman with snowy side-whiskers and a Scotch plaid cap which could not be worn while driving except by a personage. At his side sat the lady of Remsens heart—the lady who looked like pomegranate blossoms and the gibbous moon.</p>
<p>Remsen met them coming. At the instant of their passing her eyes looked into his, and but for the ever cowards heart of a true lover he could have sworn that she flushed a faint pink. He trotted on for twenty yards, and then wheeled his horse at the sound of runaway hoofs. The bays had bolted.</p>
@ -36,9 +36,9 @@
<p>Who was he? Mounted Policeman ORoon. The badge and the honor of his comrade were in his hands. If Ellsworth Remsen, ten-millionaire and Knickerbocker, had just rescued pomegranate blossoms and Scotch cap from possible death, where was Policeman ORoon? Off his beat, exposed, disgraced, discharged. Love had come, but before that there had been something that demanded precedence—the fellowship of men on battlefields fighting an alien foe.</p>
<p>Remsen touched his cap, looked between the chestnuts ears, and took refuge in vernacularity.</p>
<p>“Dont mention it,” he said stolidly. “We policemen are paid to do these things. Its our duty.”</p>
<p>And he rode away—rode away cursing noblesse oblige, but knowing he could never have done anything else.</p>
<p>And he rode away—rode away cursing <span xml:lang="fr">noblesse oblige</span>, but knowing he could never have done anything else.</p>
<p>At the end of the day Remsen sent the chestnut to his stable and went to ORoons room. The policeman was again a well set up, affable, cool young man who sat by the window smoking cigars.</p>
<p>“I wish you and the rest of the police force and all badges, horses, brass buttons and men who cant drink two glasses of brut without getting upset were at the devil,” said Remsen feelingly.</p>
<p>“I wish you and the rest of the police force and all badges, horses, brass buttons and men who cant drink two glasses of <span xml:lang="fr">brut</span> without getting upset were at the devil,” said Remsen feelingly.</p>
<p>ORoon smiled with evident satisfaction.</p>
<p>“Good old Remsen,” he said, affably, “I know all about it. They trailed me down and cornered me here two hours ago. There was a little row at home, you know, and I cut sticks just to show them. I dont believe I told you that my Governor was the Earl of Ardsley. Funny you should bob against them in the Park. If you damaged that horse of mine Ill never forgive you. Im going to buy him and take him back with me. Oh, yes, and I think my sister—Lady Angela, you know—wants particularly for you to come up to the hotel with me this evening. Didnt lose my badge, did you, Remsen? Ive got to turn that in at Headquarters when I resign.”</p>
</article>

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<h2 epub:type="title">The Caballeros Way</h2>
<p>The Cisco Kid had killed six men in more or less fair scrimmages, had murdered twice as many (mostly Mexicans), and had winged a larger number whom he modestly forbore to count. Therefore a woman loved him.</p>
<p>The Kid was twenty-five, looked twenty; and a careful insurance company would have estimated the probable time of his demise at, say, twenty-six. His habitat was anywhere between the Frio and the Rio Grande. He killed for the love of it—because he was quick-tempered—to avoid arrest—for his own amusement—any reason that came to his mind would suffice. He had escaped capture because he could shoot five-sixths of a second sooner than any sheriff or ranger in the service, and because he rode a speckled roan horse that knew every cow-path in the mesquite and pear thickets from San Antonio to Matamoras.</p>
<p>Tonia Perez, the girl who loved the Cisco Kid, was half Carmen, half Madonna, and the rest—oh, yes, a woman who is half Carmen and half Madonna can always be something more—the rest, let us say, was hummingbird. She lived in a grass-roofed jacal near a little Mexican settlement at the Lone Wolf Crossing of the Frio. With her lived a father or grandfather, a lineal Aztec, somewhat less than a thousand years old, who herded a hundred goats and lived in a continuous drunken dream from drinking mescal. Back of the jacal a tremendous forest of bristling pear, twenty feet high at its worst, crowded almost to its door. It was along the bewildering maze of this spinous thicket that the speckled roan would bring the Kid to see his girl. And once, clinging like a lizard to the ridgepole, high up under the peaked grass roof, he had heard Tonia, with her Madonna face and Carmen beauty and hummingbird soul, parley with the sheriffs posse, denying knowledge of her man in her soft mélange of Spanish and English.</p>
<p>Tonia Perez, the girl who loved the Cisco Kid, was half Carmen, half Madonna, and the rest—oh, yes, a woman who is half Carmen and half Madonna can always be something more—the rest, let us say, was hummingbird. She lived in a grass-roofed <span xml:lang="es">jacal</span> near a little Mexican settlement at the Lone Wolf Crossing of the Frio. With her lived a father or grandfather, a lineal Aztec, somewhat less than a thousand years old, who herded a hundred goats and lived in a continuous drunken dream from drinking mescal. Back of the <span xml:lang="es">jacal</span> a tremendous forest of bristling pear, twenty feet high at its worst, crowded almost to its door. It was along the bewildering maze of this spinous thicket that the speckled roan would bring the Kid to see his girl. And once, clinging like a lizard to the ridgepole, high up under the peaked grass roof, he had heard Tonia, with her Madonna face and Carmen beauty and hummingbird soul, parley with the sheriffs posse, denying knowledge of her man in her soft mélange of Spanish and English.</p>
<p>One day the adjutant-general of the State, who is, ex officio, commander of the ranger forces, wrote some sarcastic lines to Captain Duval of Company <span epub:type="z3998:roman">X</span>, stationed at Laredo, relative to the serene and undisturbed existence led by murderers and desperadoes in the said captains territory.</p>
<p>The captain turned the colour of brick dust under his tan, and forwarded the letter, after adding a few comments, per ranger Private Bill Adamson, to ranger Lieutenant Sandridge, camped at a water hole on the Nueces with a squad of five men in preservation of law and order.</p>
<p>Lieutenant Sandridge turned a beautiful couleur de rose through his ordinary strawberry complexion, tucked the letter in his hip pocket, and chewed off the ends of his gamboge moustache.</p>
<p>Lieutenant Sandridge turned a beautiful <span xml:lang="fr">couleur de rose</span> through his ordinary strawberry complexion, tucked the letter in his hip pocket, and chewed off the ends of his gamboge moustache.</p>
<p>The next morning he saddled his horse and rode alone to the Mexican settlement at the Lone Wolf Crossing of the Frio, twenty miles away.</p>
<p>Six feet two, blond as a Viking, quiet as a deacon, dangerous as a machine gun, Sandridge moved among the Jacales, patiently seeking news of the Cisco Kid.</p>
<p>Far more than the law, the Mexicans dreaded the cold and certain vengeance of the lone rider that the ranger sought. It had been one of the Kids pastimes to shoot Mexicans “to see them kick”: if he demanded from them moribund Terpsichorean feats, simply that he might be entertained, what terrible and extreme penalties would be certain to follow should they anger him! One and all they lounged with upturned palms and shrugging shoulders, filling the air with “<i xml:lang="es">quien sabes</i>” and denials of the Kids acquaintance.</p>
<p>But there was a man named Fink who kept a store at the Crossing—a man of many nationalities, tongues, interests, and ways of thinking.</p>
<p>“No use to ask them Mexicans,” he said to Sandridge. “Theyre afraid to tell. This hombre they call the Kid—Goodall is his name, aint it?—hes been in my store once or twice. I have an idea you might run across him at—but I guess I dont keer to say, myself. Im two seconds later in pulling a gun than I used to be, and the difference is worth thinking about. But this Kids got a half-Mexican girl at the Crossing that he comes to see. She lives in that jacal a hundred yards down the arroyo at the edge of the pear. Maybe she—no, I dont suppose she would, but that jacal would be a good place to watch, anyway.”</p>
<p>Sandridge rode down to the jacal of Perez. The sun was low, and the broad shade of the great pear thicket already covered the grass-shatched hut. The goats were enclosed for the night in a brush corral nearby. A few kids walked the top of it, nibbling the chaparral leaves. The old Mexican lay upon a blanket on the grass, already in a stupor from his mescal, and dreaming, perhaps, of the nights when he and Pizarro touched glasses to their New World fortunes—so old his wrinkled face seemed to proclaim him to be. And in the door of the jacal stood Tonia. And Lieutenant Sandridge sat in his saddle staring at her like a gannet agape at a sailorman.</p>
<p>“No use to ask them Mexicans,” he said to Sandridge. “Theyre afraid to tell. This hombre they call the Kid—Goodall is his name, aint it?—hes been in my store once or twice. I have an idea you might run across him at—but I guess I dont keer to say, myself. Im two seconds later in pulling a gun than I used to be, and the difference is worth thinking about. But this Kids got a half-Mexican girl at the Crossing that he comes to see. She lives in that <span xml:lang="es">jacal</span> a hundred yards down the arroyo at the edge of the pear. Maybe she—no, I dont suppose she would, but that <span xml:lang="es">jacal</span> would be a good place to watch, anyway.”</p>
<p>Sandridge rode down to the <span xml:lang="es">jacal</span> of Perez. The sun was low, and the broad shade of the great pear thicket already covered the grass-shatched hut. The goats were enclosed for the night in a brush corral nearby. A few kids walked the top of it, nibbling the chaparral leaves. The old Mexican lay upon a blanket on the grass, already in a stupor from his mescal, and dreaming, perhaps, of the nights when he and Pizarro touched glasses to their New World fortunes—so old his wrinkled face seemed to proclaim him to be. And in the door of the <span xml:lang="es">jacal</span> stood Tonia. And Lieutenant Sandridge sat in his saddle staring at her like a gannet agape at a sailorman.</p>
<p>The Cisco Kid was a vain person, as all eminent and successful assassins are, and his bosom would have been ruffled had he known that at a simple exchange of glances two persons, in whose minds he had been looming large, suddenly abandoned (at least for the time) all thought of him.</p>
<p>Never before had Tonia seen such a man as this. He seemed to be made of sunshine and blood-red tissue and clear weather. He seemed to illuminate the shadow of the pear when he smiled, as though the sun were rising again. The men she had known had been small and dark. Even the Kid, in spite of his achievements, was a stripling no larger than herself, with black, straight hair and a cold, marble face that chilled the noonday.</p>
<p>As for Tonia, though she sends description to the poorhouse, let her make a millionaire of your fancy. Her blue-black hair, smoothly divided in the middle and bound close to her head, and her large eyes full of the Latin melancholy, gave her the Madonna touch. Her motions and air spoke of the concealed fire and the desire to charm that she had inherited from the gitanas of the Basque province. As for the hummingbird part of her, that dwelt in her heart; you could not perceive it unless her bright red skirt and dark blue blouse gave you a symbolic hint of the vagarious bird.</p>
@ -44,7 +44,7 @@
</blockquote>
<p>and so on. The roan was inured to it, and did not mind.</p>
<p>But even the poorest singer will, after a certain time, gain his own consent to refrain from contributing to the worlds noises. So the Kid, by the time he was within a mile or two of Tonias jacal, had reluctantly allowed his song to die away—not because his vocal performance had become less charming to his own ears, but because his laryngeal muscles were aweary.</p>
<p>As though he were in a circus ring the speckled roan wheeled and danced through the labyrinth of pear until at length his rider knew by certain landmarks that the Lone Wolf Crossing was close at hand. Then, where the pear was thinner, he caught sight of the grass roof of the jacal and the hackberry tree on the edge of the arroyo. A few yards farther the Kid stopped the roan and gazed intently through the prickly openings. Then he dismounted, dropped the roans reins, and proceeded on foot, stooping and silent, like an Indian. The roan, knowing his part, stood still, making no sound.</p>
<p>As though he were in a circus ring the speckled roan wheeled and danced through the labyrinth of pear until at length his rider knew by certain landmarks that the Lone Wolf Crossing was close at hand. Then, where the pear was thinner, he caught sight of the grass roof of the <span xml:lang="es">jacal</span> and the hackberry tree on the edge of the arroyo. A few yards farther the Kid stopped the roan and gazed intently through the prickly openings. Then he dismounted, dropped the roans reins, and proceeded on foot, stooping and silent, like an Indian. The roan, knowing his part, stood still, making no sound.</p>
<p>The Kid crept noiselessly to the very edge of the pear thicket and reconnoitred between the leaves of a clump of cactus.</p>
<p>Ten yards from his hiding-place, in the shade of the jacal, sat his Tonia calmly plaiting a rawhide lariat. So far she might surely escape condemnation; women have been known, from time to time, to engage in more mischievous occupations. But if all must be told, there is to be added that her head reposed against the broad and comfortable chest of a tall red-and-yellow man, and that his arm was about her, guiding her nimble fingers that required so many lessons at the intricate six-xtrand plait.</p>
<p>Sandridge glanced quickly at the dark mass of pear when he heard a slight squeaking sound that was not altogether unfamiliar. A gun-scabbard will make that sound when one grasps the handle of a six-xhooter suddenly. But the sound was not repeated; and Tonias fingers needed close attention.</p>
@ -89,7 +89,7 @@
<p>At midnight a horseman rode into the rangers camp, blazing his way by noisy “halloes” to indicate a pacific mission. Sandridge and one or two others turned out to investigate the row. The rider announced himself to be Domingo Sales, from the Lone Wolf Crossing. He bore a letter for Señor Sandridge. Old Luisa, the <i xml:lang="es">lavendera</i>, had persuaded him to bring it, he said, her son Gregorio being too ill of a fever to ride.</p>
<p>Sandridge lighted the camp lantern and read the letter. These were its words:</p>
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">Dear One:</span> He has come. Hardly had you ridden away when he came out of the pear. When he first talked he said he would stay three days or more. Then as it grew later he was like a wolf or a fox, and walked about without rest, looking and listening. Soon he said he must leave before daylight when it is dark and stillest. And then he seemed to suspect that I be not true to him. He looked at me so strange that I am frightened. I swear to him that I love him, his own Tonia. Last of all he said I must prove to him I am true. He thinks that even now men are waiting to kill him as he rides from my house. To escape he says he will dress in my clothes, my red skirt and the blue waist I wear and the brown mantilla over the head, and thus ride away. But before that he says that I must put on his clothes, his <i xml:lang="es">pantalones</i> and camisa and hat, and ride away on his horse from the jacal as far as the big road beyond the crossing and back again. This before he goes, so he can tell if I am true and if men are hidden to shoot him. It is a terrible thing. An hour before daybreak this is to be. Come, my dear one, and kill this man and take me for your Tonia. Do not try to take hold of him alive, but kill him quickly. Knowing all, you should do that. You must come long before the time and hide yourself in the little shed near the jacal where the wagon and saddles are kept. It is dark in there. He will wear my red skirt and blue waist and brown mantilla. I send you a hundred kisses. Come surely and shoot quickly and straight.</p>
<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">Dear One:</span> He has come. Hardly had you ridden away when he came out of the pear. When he first talked he said he would stay three days or more. Then as it grew later he was like a wolf or a fox, and walked about without rest, looking and listening. Soon he said he must leave before daylight when it is dark and stillest. And then he seemed to suspect that I be not true to him. He looked at me so strange that I am frightened. I swear to him that I love him, his own Tonia. Last of all he said I must prove to him I am true. He thinks that even now men are waiting to kill him as he rides from my house. To escape he says he will dress in my clothes, my red skirt and the blue waist I wear and the brown mantilla over the head, and thus ride away. But before that he says that I must put on his clothes, his <i xml:lang="es">pantalones</i> and camisa and hat, and ride away on his horse from the <span xml:lang="es">jacal</span> as far as the big road beyond the crossing and back again. This before he goes, so he can tell if I am true and if men are hidden to shoot him. It is a terrible thing. An hour before daybreak this is to be. Come, my dear one, and kill this man and take me for your Tonia. Do not try to take hold of him alive, but kill him quickly. Knowing all, you should do that. You must come long before the time and hide yourself in the little shed near the <span xml:lang="es">jacal</span> where the wagon and saddles are kept. It is dark in there. He will wear my red skirt and blue waist and brown mantilla. I send you a hundred kisses. Come surely and shoot quickly and straight.</p>
<footer>
<p><span epub:type="z3998:valediction">Thine Own</span> <span class="signature">Tonia</span>.</p>
</footer>
@ -97,7 +97,7 @@
<p>Sandridge quickly explained to his men the official part of the missive. The rangers protested against his going alone.</p>
<p>“Ill get him easy enough,” said the lieutenant. “The girls got him trapped. And dont even think hell get the drop on me.”</p>
<p>Sandridge saddled his horse and rode to the Lone Wolf Crossing. He tied his big dun in a clump of brush on the arroyo, took his Winchester from its scabbard, and carefully approached the Perez jacal. There was only the half of a high moon drifted over by ragged, milk-white gulf clouds.</p>
<p>The wagon-shed was an excellent place for ambush; and the ranger got inside it safely. In the black shadow of the brush shelter in front of the jacal he could see a horse tied and hear him impatiently pawing the hard-trodden earth.</p>
<p>The wagon-shed was an excellent place for ambush; and the ranger got inside it safely. In the black shadow of the brush shelter in front of the <span xml:lang="es">jacal</span> he could see a horse tied and hear him impatiently pawing the hard-trodden earth.</p>
<p>He waited almost an hour before two figures came out of the jacal. One, in mans clothes, quickly mounted the horse and galloped past the wagon-shed toward the crossing and village. And then the other figure, in skirt, waist, and mantilla over its head, stepped out into the faint moonlight, gazing after the rider. Sandridge thought he would take his chance then before Tonia rode back. He fancied she might not care to see it.</p>
<p>“Throw up your hands,” he ordered loudly, stepping out of the wagon-shed with his Winchester at his shoulder.</p>
<p>There was a quick turn of the figure, but no movement to obey, so the ranger pumped in the bullets—one—two—three—and then twice more; for you never could be too sure of bringing down the Cisco Kid. There was no danger of missing at ten paces, even in that half moonlight.</p>

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<p>“All right. I suppose you think Im spoiled by the city. Im as good a Westerner as you are, Greenbrier; but, somehow, I cant make up my mind to go back out there. New York is comfortable—comfortable. I make a good living, and I live it. No more wet blankets and riding herd in snowstorms, and bacon and cold coffee, and blowouts once in six months for me. I reckon Ill hang out here in the future. Well take in the theatre tonight, Greenbrier, and after that well dine at—”</p>
<p>“Ill tell you what you are, Merritt,” said Greenbrier, laying one elbow in his salad and the other in his butter. “You are a concentrated, effete, unconditional, short-sleeved, gotch-eared Miss Sally Walker. God made you perpendicular and suitable to ride straddle and use cuss words in the original. Wherefore you have suffered his handiwork to elapse by removing yourself to New York and putting on little shoes tied with strings, and making faces when you talk. Ive seen you rope and tie a steer in 42½. If you was to see one now youd write to the Police Commissioner about it. And these flapdoodle drinks that you inoculate your system with—these little essences of cowslip with acorns in em, and paregoric flip—they aint anyways in assent with the cordiality of manhood. I hate to see you this way.”</p>
<p>“Well, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Greenbrier,” said Merritt, with apology in his tone, “in a way you are right. Sometimes I do feel like I was being raised on the bottle. But, I tell you, New York is comfortable—comfortable. Theres something about it—the sights and the crowds, and the way it changes every day, and the very air of it that seems to tie a one-mile-long stake rope around a mans neck, with the other end fastened somewhere about Thirty-fourth Street. I dont know what it is.”</p>
<p>“God knows,” said Greenbrier sadly, “and I know. The East has gobbled you up. You was venison, and now youre veal. You put me in mind of a japonica in a window. Youve been signed, sealed and diskivered. Requiescat in hoc signo. You make me thirsty.”</p>
<p>“God knows,” said Greenbrier sadly, “and I know. The East has gobbled you up. You was venison, and now youre veal. You put me in mind of a japonica in a window. Youve been signed, sealed and diskivered. <i xml:lang="la">Requiescat in hoc signo.</i> You make me thirsty.”</p>
<p>“A green chartreuse here,” said Merritt to the waiter.</p>
<p>“Whiskey straight,” sighed Greenbrier, “and theyre on you, you renegade of the roundups.”</p>
<p>“Guilty, with an application for mercy,” said Merritt. “You dont know how it is, Greenbrier. Its so comfortable here that—”</p>

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<p>John Hopkins was like a thousand others. He worked at $20 per week in a nine-story, redbrick building at either Insurance, Buckles Hoisting Engines, Chiropody, Loans, Pulleys, Boas Renovated, Waltz Guaranteed in Five Lessons, or Artificial Limbs. It is not for us to wring <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Hopkinss avocation from these outward signs that be.</p>
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Hopkins was like a thousand others. The auriferous tooth, the sedentary disposition, the Sunday afternoon wanderlust, the draught upon the delicatessen store for homemade 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 vigilant avoidance of the instalment man, the tireless patronage of the acoustics of the dumbwaiter shaft—all the attributes of the Gotham flat-dweller were hers.</p>
<p>One moment yet of sententiousness and the story moves.</p>
<p>In the Big City large and sudden things happen. You round a corner and thrust the rib of your umbrella 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 ambulanced to the hospital—you marry your nurse; are divorced—get squeezed while short on <abbr class="initialism">UPS</abbr> and <abbr class="initialism">DOWNS</abbr>—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 dhôte 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 youngster, and you are red paint upon its toy, and you get licked off.</p>
<p>In the Big City large and sudden things happen. You round a corner and thrust the rib of your umbrella 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 ambulanced to the hospital—you marry your nurse; are divorced—get squeezed while short on <abbr class="initialism">UPS</abbr> and <abbr class="initialism">DOWNS</abbr>—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 <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span> 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 youngster, and you are red paint upon its toy, and you get licked off.</p>
<p>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. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Hopkins discoursed droningly of the dinner smells from the flat across the hall. The flea-bitten terrier gave Hopkins a look of disgust, and showed a man-hating tooth.</p>
<p>Here was neither poverty, love, nor war; but upon such barren stems may be grafted those essentials of a complete life.</p>
<p>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.”</p>

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<p>One evening when Andy Donovan went to dinner at his Second Avenue boardinghouse, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Scott introduced him to a new boarder, a young lady, Miss Conway. Miss Conway was small and unobtrusive. She wore a plain, snuffy-brown dress, and bestowed her interest, which seemed languid, upon her plate. She lifted her diffident eyelids and shot one perspicuous, judicial glance at <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Donovan, politely murmured his name, and returned to her mutton. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Donovan bowed with the grace and beaming smile that were rapidly winning for him social, business and political advancement, and erased the snuffy-brown one from the tablets of his consideration.</p>
<p>Two weeks later Andy was sitting on the front steps enjoying his cigar. There was a soft rustle behind and above him, and Andy turned his head—and had his head turned.</p>
<p>Just coming out the door was Miss Conway. She wore a night-black dress of crêpe de—crêpe de—oh, this thin black goods. Her hat was black, and from it drooped and fluttered an ebon veil, filmy as a spiders web. She stood on the top step and drew on black silk gloves. Not a speck of white or a spot of color about her dress anywhere. Her rich golden hair was drawn, with scarcely a ripple, into a shining, smooth knot low on her neck. Her face was plain rather than pretty, but it was now illuminated and made almost beautiful by her large gray eyes that gazed above the houses across the street into the sky with an expression of the most appealing sadness and melancholy.</p>
<p>Gather the idea, girls—all black, you know, with the preference for crêpe de—oh, crêpe de Chine—thats it. All black, and that sad, faraway look, and the hair shining under the black veil (you have to be a blonde, of course), and try to look as if, although your young life had been blighted just as it was about to give a hop-skip-and-a-jump over the threshold of life, a walk in the park might do you good, and be sure to happen out the door at the right moment, and—oh, itll fetch em every time. But its fierce, now, how cynical I am, aint it?—to talk about mourning costumes this way.</p>
<p>Gather the idea, girls—all black, you know, with the preference for crêpe de—oh, <span xml:lang="fr">crêpe de Chine</span>—thats it. All black, and that sad, faraway look, and the hair shining under the black veil (you have to be a blonde, of course), and try to look as if, although your young life had been blighted just as it was about to give a hop-skip-and-a-jump over the threshold of life, a walk in the park might do you good, and be sure to happen out the door at the right moment, and—oh, itll fetch em every time. But its fierce, now, how cynical I am, aint it?—to talk about mourning costumes this way.</p>
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Donovan suddenly reinscribed Miss Conway upon the tablets of his consideration. He threw away the remaining inch-and-a-quarter of his cigar, that would have been good for eight minutes yet, and quickly shifted his center of gravity to his low cut patent leathers.</p>
<p>“Its a fine, clear evening, Miss Conway,” he said; and if the Weather Bureau could have heard the confident emphasis of his tones it would have hoisted the square white signal, and nailed it to the mast.</p>
<p>“To them that has the heart to enjoy it, it is, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Donovan,” said Miss Conway, with a sigh.</p>
@ -30,7 +30,7 @@
<p>“Finally, papa came round, all right, and said we might be married next spring. Fernando showed him proofs of his title and wealth, and then went over to Italy to get the castle fixed up for us. Papas very proud, and when Fernando wanted to give me several thousand dollars for my trousseau he called him down something awful. He wouldnt even let me take a ring or any presents from him. And when Fernando sailed I came to the city and got a position as cashier in a candy store.”</p>
<p>“Three days ago I got a letter from Italy, forwarded from Pkipsee, saying that Fernando had been killed in a gondola accident.”</p>
<p>“That is why I am in mourning. My heart, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Donovan, will remain forever in his grave. I guess I am poor company, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Donovan, but I cannot take any interest in no one. I should not care to keep you from gayety and your friends who can smile and entertain you. Perhaps you would prefer to walk back to the house?”</p>
<p>Now, girls, if you want to observe a young man hustle out after a pick and shovel, just tell him that your heart is in some other fellows grave. Young men are grave-robbers by nature. Ask any widow. Something must be done to restore that missing organ to weeping angels in crêpe de Chine. Dead men certainly get the worst of it from all sides.</p>
<p>Now, girls, if you want to observe a young man hustle out after a pick and shovel, just tell him that your heart is in some other fellows grave. Young men are grave-robbers by nature. Ask any widow. Something must be done to restore that missing organ to weeping angels in <span xml:lang="fr">crêpe de Chine</span>. Dead men certainly get the worst of it from all sides.</p>
<p>“Im awfully sorry,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Donovan, gently. “No, we wont walk back to the house just yet. And dont say you havent no friends in this city, Miss Conway. Im awful sorry, and I want you to believe Im your friend, and that Im awful sorry.”</p>
<p>“Ive got his picture here in my locket,” said Miss Conway, after wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. “I never showed it to anybody; but I will to you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Donovan, because I believe you to be a true friend.”</p>
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Donovan gazed long and with much interest at the photograph in the locket that Miss Conway opened for him. The face of Count Mazzini was one to command interest. It was a smooth, intelligent, bright, almost a handsome face—the face of a strong, cheerful man who might well be a leader among his fellows.</p>
@ -55,7 +55,7 @@
<p>“Theres a reason why I cant,” said Andy, sadly. “Theres a reason why he mustnt be there. Dont ask me what it is, for I cant tell you.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I dont care,” said Maggie. “Its something about politics, of course. But its no reason why you cant smile at me.”</p>
<p>“Maggie,” said Andy, presently, “do you think as much of me as you did of your—as you did of the Count Mazzini?”</p>
<p>He waited a long time, but Maggie did not reply. And then, suddenly she leaned against his shoulder and began to cry—to cry and shake with sobs, holding his arm tightly, and wetting the crêpe de Chine with tears.</p>
<p>He waited a long time, but Maggie did not reply. And then, suddenly she leaned against his shoulder and began to cry—to cry and shake with sobs, holding his arm tightly, and wetting the <span xml:lang="fr">crêpe de Chine</span> with tears.</p>
<p>“There, there, there!” soothed Andy, putting aside his own trouble. “And what is it, now?”</p>
<p>“Andy,” sobbed Maggie. “Ive lied to you, and youll never marry me, or love me any more. But I feel that Ive got to tell. Andy, there never was so much as the little finger of a count. I never had a beau in my life. But all the other girls had; and they talked about em; and that seemed to make the fellows like em more. And, Andy, I look swell in black—you know I do. So I went out to a photograph store and bought that picture, and had a little one made for my locket, and made up all that story about the Count, and about his being killed, so I could wear black. And nobody can love a liar, and youll shake me, Andy, and Ill die for shame. Oh, there never was anybody I liked but you—and thats all.”</p>
<p>But instead of being pushed away, she found Andys arm folding her closer. She looked up and saw his face cleared and smiling.</p>

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<p>Grainger escaped the meringue. As he waited his spirits sank still lower. The atmosphere of the room was as vapid as a zephyr wandering over a Vesuvian lava-bed. Relics of some feast lay about the room, scattered in places where even a prowling cat would have been surprised to find them. A straggling cluster of deep red roses in a marmalade jar bowed their heads over tobacco ashes and unwashed goblets. A chafing-dish stood on the piano; a leaf of sheet music supported a stack of sandwiches in a chair.</p>
<p>Mary came in, dressed and radiant. Her gown was of that thin, black fabric whose name through the change of a single vowel seems to summon visions ranging between the extremes of mans experience. Spelled with an “ê” it belongs to Gallic witchery and diaphanous dreams; with an “a” it drapes lamentation and woe.</p>
<p>That evening they went to the Café André. And, as people would confide to you in a whisper that Andrés was the only truly Bohemian restaurant in town, it may be well to follow them.</p>
<p>André began his professional career as a waiter in a Bowery ten-cent eating-house. Had you seen him there you would have called him tough—to yourself. Not aloud, for he would have “soaked” you as quickly as he would have soaked his thumb in your coffee. He saved money and started a basement table dhôte in Eighth (or Ninth) Street. One afternoon André drank too much absinthe. He announced to his startled family that he was the Grand Llama of Tibet, therefore requiring an empty audience hall in which to be worshiped. He moved all the tables and chairs from the restaurant into the back yard, wrapped a red tablecloth around himself, and sat on a stepladder for a throne. When the diners began to arrive, madame, in a flurry of despair, laid cloths and ushered them, trembling, outside. Between the tables clotheslines were stretched, bearing the family wash. A party of Bohemia hunters greeted the artistic innovation with shrieks and acclamations of delight. That weeks washing was not taken in for two years. When André came to his senses he had the menu printed on stiffly starched cuffs, and served the ices in little wooden tubs. Next he took down his sign and darkened the front of the house. When you went there to dine you fumbled for an electric button and pressed it. A lookout slid open a panel in the door, looked at you suspiciously, and asked if you were acquainted with Senator Herodotus <abbr class="name">Q.</abbr> McMilligan, of the Chickasaw Nation. If you were, you were admitted and allowed to dine. If you were not, you were admitted and allowed to dine. There you have one of the abiding principles of Bohemia. When André had accumulated $20,000 he moved uptown, near Broadway, in the fierce light that beats upon the thrown-down. There we find him and leave him, with customers in pearls and automobile veils, striving to catch his excellently graduated nod of recognition.</p>
<p>André began his professional career as a waiter in a Bowery ten-cent eating-house. Had you seen him there you would have called him tough—to yourself. Not aloud, for he would have “soaked” you as quickly as he would have soaked his thumb in your coffee. He saved money and started a basement <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span> in Eighth (or Ninth) Street. One afternoon André drank too much absinthe. He announced to his startled family that he was the Grand Llama of Tibet, therefore requiring an empty audience hall in which to be worshiped. He moved all the tables and chairs from the restaurant into the back yard, wrapped a red tablecloth around himself, and sat on a stepladder for a throne. When the diners began to arrive, madame, in a flurry of despair, laid cloths and ushered them, trembling, outside. Between the tables clotheslines were stretched, bearing the family wash. A party of Bohemia hunters greeted the artistic innovation with shrieks and acclamations of delight. That weeks washing was not taken in for two years. When André came to his senses he had the menu printed on stiffly starched cuffs, and served the ices in little wooden tubs. Next he took down his sign and darkened the front of the house. When you went there to dine you fumbled for an electric button and pressed it. A lookout slid open a panel in the door, looked at you suspiciously, and asked if you were acquainted with Senator Herodotus <abbr class="name">Q.</abbr> McMilligan, of the Chickasaw Nation. If you were, you were admitted and allowed to dine. If you were not, you were admitted and allowed to dine. There you have one of the abiding principles of Bohemia. When André had accumulated $20,000 he moved uptown, near Broadway, in the fierce light that beats upon the thrown-down. There we find him and leave him, with customers in pearls and automobile veils, striving to catch his excellently graduated nod of recognition.</p>
<p>There is a large round table in the northeast corner of Andrés at which six can sit. To this table Grainger and Mary Adrian made their way. Kappelman and Reeves were already there. And Miss Tooker, who designed the May cover for the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.magazine">Ladies Notathome Magazine</i>. And <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Pothunter, who never drank anything but black and white highballs, being in mourning for her husband, who—oh, Ive forgotten what he did—died, like as not.</p>
<p>Spaghetti-weary reader, wouldst take one penny-in-the-slot peep into the fair land of Bohemia? Then look; and when you think you have seen it you have not. And it is neither thimbleriggery nor astigmatism.</p>
<p>The walls of the Café André were covered with original sketches by the artists who furnished much of the color and sound of the place. Fair woman furnished the theme for the bulk of the drawings. When you say “sirens and siphons” you come near to estimating the alliterative atmosphere of Andrés.</p>
@ -29,11 +29,11 @@
<p>Mary was one of the princesses of Bohemia. In the first place, it was a royal and a daring thing to have been named Mary. There are twenty Fifines and Heloises to one Mary in the Country of Elusion.</p>
<p>Now her gloves are tucked in. Miss Tooker has assumed a June poster pose; <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Pothunter has bitten her lips to make the red show; Reeves has several times felt his coat to make sure that his latest poem is in the pocket. (It had been neatly typewritten; but he has copied it on the backs of letters with a pencil.) Kappelman is underhandedly watching the clock. It is ten minutes to nine. When the hour comes it is to remind him of a story. Synopsis: A French girl says to her suitor: “Did you ask my father for my hand at nine oclock this morning, as you said you would?” “I did not,” he. replies. “At nine oclock I was fighting a duel with swords in the Bois de Boulogne.” “Coward!” she hisses.</p>
<p>The dinner was ordered. You know how the Bohemian feast of reason keeps up with the courses. Humor with the oysters; wit with the soup; repartee with the entrée; brag with the roast; knocks for Whistler and Kipling with the salad; songs with the coffee; the slapsticks with the cordials.</p>
<p>Between Miss Adrians eyebrows was the pucker that shows the intense strain it requires to be at ease in Bohemia. Pat must come each sally, mot, and epigram. Every second of deliberation upon a reply costs you a bay leaf. Fine as a hair, a line began to curve from her nostrils to her mouth. To hold her own not a chance must be missed. A sentence addressed to her must be as a piccolo, each word of it a stop, which she must be prepared to seize upon and play. And she must always be quicker than a Micmac Indian to paddle the light canoe of conversation away from the rocks in the rapids that flow from the Pierian spring. For, plodding reader, the handwriting on the wall in the banquet hall of Bohemia is “Laisser faire.” The gray ghost that sometimes peeps through the rings of smoke is that of slain old King Convention. Freedom is the tyrant that holds them in slavery.</p>
<p>Between Miss Adrians eyebrows was the pucker that shows the intense strain it requires to be at ease in Bohemia. Pat must come each sally, mot, and epigram. Every second of deliberation upon a reply costs you a bay leaf. Fine as a hair, a line began to curve from her nostrils to her mouth. To hold her own not a chance must be missed. A sentence addressed to her must be as a piccolo, each word of it a stop, which she must be prepared to seize upon and play. And she must always be quicker than a Micmac Indian to paddle the light canoe of conversation away from the rocks in the rapids that flow from the Pierian spring. For, plodding reader, the handwriting on the wall in the banquet hall of Bohemia is “<span xml:lang="fr">Laisser faire</span>.” The gray ghost that sometimes peeps through the rings of smoke is that of slain old King Convention. Freedom is the tyrant that holds them in slavery.</p>
<p>As the dinner waned, hands reached for the pepper cruet rather than for the shaker of Attic salt. Miss Tooker, with an elbow to business, leaned across the table toward Grainger, upsetting her glass of wine.</p>
<p>“Now while you are fed and in good humor,” she said, “I want to make a suggestion to you about a new cover.”</p>
<p>“A good idea,” said Grainger, mopping the tablecloth with his napkin. “Ill speak to the waiter about it.”</p>
<p>Kappelman, the painter, was the cut-up. As a piece of delicate Athenian wit he got up from his chair and waltzed down the room with a waiter. That dependent, no doubt an honest, pachydermatous, worthy, taxpaying, art-despising biped, released himself from the unequal encounter, carried his professional smile back to the dumbwaiter and dropped it down the shaft to eternal oblivion. Reeves began to make Keats turn in his grave. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Pothunter told the story of the man who met the widow on the train. Miss Adrian hummed what is still called a chanson in the cafés of Bridgeport. Grainger edited each individual effort with his assistant editors smile, which meant: “Great! but youll have to send them in through the regular channels. If I were the chief now—but you know how it is.”</p>
<p>Kappelman, the painter, was the cut-up. As a piece of delicate Athenian wit he got up from his chair and waltzed down the room with a waiter. That dependent, no doubt an honest, pachydermatous, worthy, taxpaying, art-despising biped, released himself from the unequal encounter, carried his professional smile back to the dumbwaiter and dropped it down the shaft to eternal oblivion. Reeves began to make Keats turn in his grave. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Pothunter told the story of the man who met the widow on the train. Miss Adrian hummed what is still called a <span xml:lang="fr">chanson</span> in the cafés of Bridgeport. Grainger edited each individual effort with his assistant editors smile, which meant: “Great! but youll have to send them in through the regular channels. If I were the chief now—but you know how it is.”</p>
<p>And soon the head waiter bowed before them, desolated to relate that the closing hour had already become chronologically historical; so out all trooped into the starry midnight, filling the street with gay laughter, to be barked at by hopeful cabmen and enviously eyed by the dull inhabitants of an uninspired world.</p>
<p>Grainger left Mary at the elevator in the trackless palm forest of the Idealia. After he had gone she came down again carrying a small handbag, phoned for a cab, drove to the Grand Central Station, boarded a 12:55 commuters train, rode four hours with her burnt-umber head bobbing against the red-plush back of the seat, and landed during a fresh, stinging, glorious sunrise at a deserted station, the size of a peach crate, called Crocusville.</p>
<p>She walked a mile and clicked the latch of a gate. A bare, brown cottage stood twenty yards back; an old man with a pearl-white, Calvinistic face and clothes dyed blacker than a raven in a coal-mine was washing his hands in a tin basin on the front porch.</p>
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<p>“Where have you been today?” asked <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Pothunter. “I phoned to you at twelve.”</p>
<p>“I have been away in Bohemia,” answered Mary, with a mystic smile.</p>
<p>There! Mary has given it away. She has spoiled my climax. For I was to have told you that Bohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citizenship in it, at once the court and retinue pack the royal archives and treasure and move away beyond the hills. It is a hillside that you turn your head to peer at from the windows of the Through Express.</p>
<p>At exactly half past eleven Kappelman, deceived by a new softness and slowness of riposte and parry in Mary Adrian, tried to kiss her. Instantly she slapped his face with such strength and cold fury that he shrank down, sobered, with the flaming red print of a hand across his leering features. And all sounds ceased, as when the shadows of great wings come upon a flock of chattering sparrows. One had broken the paramount law of sham-Bohemia—the law of “Laisser faire.” The shock came not from the blow delivered, but from the blow received. With the effect of a schoolmaster entering the playroom of his pupils was that blow administered. Women pulled down their sleeves and laid prim hands against their ruffled side locks. Men looked at their watches. There was nothing of the effect of a brawl about it; it was purely the still panic produced by the sound of the ax of the fly cop, Conscience hammering at the gambling-house doors of the Heart.</p>
<p>At exactly half past eleven Kappelman, deceived by a new softness and slowness of riposte and parry in Mary Adrian, tried to kiss her. Instantly she slapped his face with such strength and cold fury that he shrank down, sobered, with the flaming red print of a hand across his leering features. And all sounds ceased, as when the shadows of great wings come upon a flock of chattering sparrows. One had broken the paramount law of sham-Bohemia—the law of “<span xml:lang="fr">Laisser faire</span>.” The shock came not from the blow delivered, but from the blow received. With the effect of a schoolmaster entering the playroom of his pupils was that blow administered. Women pulled down their sleeves and laid prim hands against their ruffled side locks. Men looked at their watches. There was nothing of the effect of a brawl about it; it was purely the still panic produced by the sound of the ax of the fly cop, Conscience hammering at the gambling-house doors of the Heart.</p>
<p>With their punctilious putting on of cloaks, with their exaggerated pretense of not having seen or heard, with their stammering exchange of unaccustomed formalities, with their false show of a lighthearted exit I must take leave of my Bohemian party. Mary has robbed me of my climax; and she may go.</p>
<p>But I am not defeated. Somewhere there exists a great vault miles broad and miles long—more capacious than the champagne caves of France. In that vault are stored the anticlimaxes that should have been tagged to all the stories that have been told in the world. I shall cheat that vault of one deposit.</p>
<p>Minnie Brown, with her aunt, came from Crocusville down to the city to see the sights. And because she had escorted me to fishless trout streams and exhibited to me open-plumbed waterfalls and broken my camera while I Julyed in her village, I must escort her to the hives containing the synthetic clover honey of town.</p>

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<p>“This one,” said I, disregarding his homily on the subdivisions of time—“this one that seems all red, white, and blue—to what genus of beasts does he belong? He appeals at once to my patriotism and to my love of discord in colour schemes.”</p>
<p>“Thats a cockatoo from Ecuador,” said Bibb. “All he has been taught to say is Merry Christmas. A seasonable bird. Hes only seven dollars; and Ill bet many a human has stuck you for more money by making the same speech to you.”</p>
<p>And then Bibb laughed suddenly and loudly.</p>
<p>“That bird,” he explained, “reminds me. Hes got his dates mixed. He ought to be saying E pluribus unum, to match his feathers, instead of trying to work the Santa Claus graft. It reminds me of the time me and Liverpool Sam got our ideas of things tangled up on the coast of Costa Rica on account of the weather and other phenomena to be met with in the tropics.</p>
<p>“That bird,” he explained, “reminds me. Hes got his dates mixed. He ought to be saying <span xml:lang="la">E pluribus unum</span>, to match his feathers, instead of trying to work the Santa Claus graft. It reminds me of the time me and Liverpool Sam got our ideas of things tangled up on the coast of Costa Rica on account of the weather and other phenomena to be met with in the tropics.</p>
<p>“We were, as it were, stranded on that section of the Spanish main with no money to speak of and no friends that should be talked about either. We had stoked and second-cooked ourselves down there on a fruit steamer from New Orleans to try our luck, which was discharged, after we got there, for lack of evidence. There was no work suitable to our instincts; so me and Liverpool began to subsist on the red rum of the country and such fruit as we could reap where we had not sown. It was an alluvial town, called Soledad, where there was no harbour or future or recourse. Between steamers the town slept and drank rum. It only woke up when there were bananas to ship. It was like a man sleeping through dinner until the dessert.</p>
<p>“When me and Liverpool got so low down that the American consul wouldnt speak to us we knew wed struck bed rock.</p>
<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 noblesse oblige, 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>“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 dont 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 hes got to dodge so that the dregs of other nations dont drop ballast on him out of their balloons. And if hes a Liverpool Englishman, why, firedamp is what hes got to look out for. Being a natural American, thats 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 McSpinosas 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 AA sheeting pajamas, drives em over to the coast and piles em up on the beach.</p>
<p>“You ever been in a banana grove? Its as solemn as a rathskeller at seven <abbr class="time eoc">a.m.</abbr> Its like being lost behind the scenes at one of these mushroom musical shows. You cant see the sky for the foliage above you; and the ground is knee deep in rotten leaves; and its so still that you can hear the stalks growing again after you chop em down.</p>

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<p>Young Howard Pilkins, the millionaire, got his money ornithologically. He was a shrewd judge of storks, and got in on the ground floor at the residence of his immediate ancestors, the Pilkins Brewing Company. For his mother was a partner in the business. Finally old man Pilkins died from a torpid liver, and then <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Pilkins died from worry on account of torpid delivery-wagons—and there you have young Howard Pilkins with 4,000,000; and a good fellow at that. He was an agreeable, modestly arrogant young man, who implicitly believed that money could buy anything that the world had to offer. And Bagdad-on-the-Subway for a long time did everything possible to encourage his belief.</p>
<p>But the Rattrap caught him at last; he heard the spring snap, and found his heart in a wire cage regarding a piece of cheese whose other name was Alice von der Ruysling.</p>
<p>The Von der Ruyslings still live in that little square about which so much has been said, and in which so little has been done. Today you hear of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tildens underground passage, and you hear <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goulds elevated passage, and that about ends the noise in the world made by Gramercy Square. But once it was different. The Von der Ruyslings live there yet, and they received <em>the first key ever made to Gramercy Park</em>.</p>
<p>You shall have no description of Alice <abbr class="name eoc">v. d. R.</abbr> Just call up in your mind the picture of your own Maggie or Vera or Beatrice, straighten her nose, soften her voice, tone her down and then tone her up, make her beautiful and unattainable—and you have a faint dry-point etching of Alice. The family owned a crumbly brick house and a coachman named Joseph in a coat of many colours, and a horse so old that he claimed to belong to the order of the Perissodactyla, and had toes instead of hoofs. In the year 1898 the family had to buy a new set of harness for the Perissodactyl. Before using it they made Joseph smear it over with a mixture of ashes and soot. It was the Von der Ruysling family that bought the territory between the Bowery and East River and Rivington Street and the Statue of Liberty, in the year 1649, from an Indian chief for a quart of passementerie and a pair of Turkey-red portières designed for a Harlem flat. I have always admired that Indians perspicacity and good taste. All this is merely to convince you that the Von der Ruyslings were exactly the kind of poor aristocrats that turn down their noses at people who have money. Oh, well, I dont mean that; I mean people who have <em>just</em> money.</p>
<p>You shall have no description of Alice <abbr class="name eoc">v. d. R.</abbr> Just call up in your mind the picture of your own Maggie or Vera or Beatrice, straighten her nose, soften her voice, tone her down and then tone her up, make her beautiful and unattainable—and you have a faint dry-point etching of Alice. The family owned a crumbly brick house and a coachman named Joseph in a coat of many colours, and a horse so old that he claimed to belong to the order of the <i xml:lang="la">Perissodactyla</i>, and had toes instead of hoofs. In the year 1898 the family had to buy a new set of harness for the Perissodactyl. Before using it they made Joseph smear it over with a mixture of ashes and soot. It was the Von der Ruysling family that bought the territory between the Bowery and East River and Rivington Street and the Statue of Liberty, in the year 1649, from an Indian chief for a quart of passementerie and a pair of Turkey-red portières designed for a Harlem flat. I have always admired that Indians perspicacity and good taste. All this is merely to convince you that the Von der Ruyslings were exactly the kind of poor aristocrats that turn down their noses at people who have money. Oh, well, I dont mean that; I mean people who have <em>just</em> money.</p>
<p>One evening Pilkins went down to the red brick house in Gramercy Square, and made what he thought was a proposal to Alice <abbr class="name eoc">v. d. R.</abbr> Alice, with her nose turned down, and thinking of his money, considered it a proposition, and refused it and him. Pilkins, summoning all his resources as any good general would have done, made an indiscreet references to the advantages that his money would provide. That settled it. The lady turned so cold that Walter Wellman himself would have waited until spring to make a dash for her in a dogsled.</p>
<p>But Pilkins was something of a sport himself. You cant fool all the millionaires every time the ball drops on the Western Union Building.</p>
<p>“If, at any time,” he said to <abbr class="name">A. v. d. R.</abbr>, “you feel that you would like to reconsider your answer, send me a rose like that.”</p>

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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
<article id="the-ethics-of-pig" epub:type="se:short-story">
<h2 epub:type="title">The Ethics of Pig</h2>
<p>On an eastbound train I went into the smoker and found Jefferson Peters, the only man with a brain west of the Wabash River who can use his cerebrum, cerebellum, and medulla oblongata at the same time.</p>
<p>On an eastbound train I went into the smoker and found Jefferson Peters, the only man with a brain west of the Wabash River who can use his cerebrum, cerebellum, and <span xml:lang="la">medulla oblongata</span> at the same time.</p>
<p>Jeff is in the line of unillegal graft. He is not to be dreaded by widows and orphans; he is a reducer of surplusage. His favorite disguise is that of the target-bird at which the spendthrift or the reckless investor may shy a few inconsequential dollars. He is readily vocalized by tobacco; so, with the aid of two thick and easy-burning brevas, I got the story of his latest Autolycan adventure.</p>
<p>“In my line of business,” said Jeff, “the hardest thing is to find an upright, trustworthy, strictly honorable partner to work a graft with. Some of the best men I ever worked with in a swindle would resort to trickery at times.</p>
<p>“So, last summer, I thinks I will go over into this section of country where I hear the serpent has not yet entered, and see if I can find a partner naturally gifted with a talent for crime, but not yet contaminated by success.</p>

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<p>“When we made that noise things began to liven up. We heard a pattering up a side street, and here came General Mary Esperanza Dingo on a white horse with a couple of hundred brown boys following him in red undershirts and bare feet, dragging guns ten feet long. Jones and me had forgot all about General Mary and his promise to help us celebrate. We fired another salute and gave another yell, while the General shook hands with us and waved his sword.</p>
<p>Oh, General, shouts Jones, this is great. This will be a real pleasure to the eagle. Get down and have a drink.</p>
<p>Drink? says the general. No. There is no time to drink. <i xml:lang="es">Viva la Libertad!</i></p>
<p>Dont forget E Pluribus Unum! says Henry Barnes.</p>
<p>Dont forget <span xml:lang="la">E Pluribus Unum</span>! says Henry Barnes.</p>
<p>Viva it good and strong, says I. Likewise, viva George Washington. God save the Union, and, I says, bowing to Sterrett, dont discard the Queen.</p>
<p>Thanks, says Sterrett. The next rounds mine. All in to the bar. Army, too.</p>
<p>“But we were deprived of Sterretts treat by a lot of gunshots several squares sway, which General Dingo seemed to think he ought to look after. He spurred his old white plug up that way, and the soldiers scuttled along after him.</p>

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<p>“But Im telling you about Artemisia Blye. She was from Kansas and she suggested corn in all of its phases. Her hair was as yellow as the silk; her form was as tall and graceful as a stalk in the low grounds during a wet summer; her eyes were as big and startling as bunions, and green was her favorite color.</p>
<p>“On my last trip into the cool recesses of your sequestered city I met a human named Vaucross. He was worth—that is, he had a million. He told me he was in business on the street. A sidewalk merchant? says I, sarcastic. Exactly, says he, Senior partner of a paving concern.</p>
<p>“I kind of took to him. For this reason, I met him on Broadway one night when I was out of heart, luck, tobacco and place. He was all silk hat, diamonds and front. He was all front. If you had gone behind him you would have only looked yourself in the face. I looked like a cross between Count Tolstoy and a June lobster. I was out of luck. I had—but let me lay my eyes on that dealer again.</p>
<p>“Vaucross stopped and talked to me a few minutes and then he took me to a high-toned restaurant to eat dinner. There was music, and then some Beethoven, and Bordelaise sauce, and cussing in French, and frangipangi, and some hauteur and cigarettes. When I am flush I know them places.</p>
<p>“Vaucross stopped and talked to me a few minutes and then he took me to a high-toned restaurant to eat dinner. There was music, and then some Beethoven, and Bordelaise sauce, and cussing in French, and frangipangi, and some <span xml:lang="fr">hauteur</span> and cigarettes. When I am flush I know them places.</p>
<p>“I declare, I must have looked as bad as a magazine artist sitting there without any money and my hair all rumpled like I was booked to read a chapter from Elsies School Days at a Brooklyn Bohemian smoker. But Vaucross treated me like a bear hunters guide. He wasnt afraid of hurting the waiters feelings.</p>
<p>“ ‘<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pogue, he explains to me, I am using you.</p>
<p>Go on, says I; I hope you dont wake up.</p>
@ -31,7 +31,7 @@
<p>How am I supposed to push along your scramble for prominence? I inquires. Contrast?</p>
<p>Something of that sort tonight, says Vaucross. It grieves me; but I am forced to resort to eccentricity. And here he drops his napkin in his soup and rises up and bows to a gent who is devastating a potato under a palm across the room.</p>
<p>The Police Commissioner, says my climber, gratified. Friend, says I, in a hurry, have ambitions but dont kick a rung out of your ladder. When you use me as a stepping stone to salute the police you spoil my appetite on the grounds that I may be degraded and incriminated. Be thoughtful.</p>
<p>“At the Quaker City squab en casserole the idea about Artemisia Blye comes to me.</p>
<p>“At the Quaker City squab <span xml:lang="fr">en casserole</span> the idea about Artemisia Blye comes to me.</p>
<p>Suppose I can manage to get you in the papers, says Ia column or two every day in all of em and your picture in most of em for a week. How much would it be worth to you?</p>
<p>Ten thousand dollars, says Vaucross, warm in a minute. But no murder, says he; and I wont wear pink pants at a cotillon.</p>
<p>I wouldnt ask you to, says I. This is honorable, stylish and uneffeminate. Tell the waiter to bring a demi tasse and some other beans, and I will disclose to you the opus moderandi.</p>

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<p><b>Habit</b>—a tendency or aptitude acquired by custom or frequent repetition.</p>
</blockquote>
</header>
<p>The critics have assailed every source of inspiration save one. To that one we are driven for our moral theme. When we levied upon the masters of old they gleefully dug up the parallels to our columns. When we strove to set forth real life they reproached us for trying to imitate Henry George, George Washington, Washington Irving, and Irving Bacheller. We wrote of the West and the East, and they accused us of both Jesse and Henry James. We wrote from our heart—and they said something about a disordered liver. We took a text from Matthew or—er—yes, Deuteronomy, but the preachers were hammering away at the inspiration idea before we could get into type. So, driven to the wall, we go for our subject-matter to the reliable, old, moral, unassailable vade mecum—the unabridged dictionary.</p>
<p>The critics have assailed every source of inspiration save one. To that one we are driven for our moral theme. When we levied upon the masters of old they gleefully dug up the parallels to our columns. When we strove to set forth real life they reproached us for trying to imitate Henry George, George Washington, Washington Irving, and Irving Bacheller. We wrote of the West and the East, and they accused us of both Jesse and Henry James. We wrote from our heart—and they said something about a disordered liver. We took a text from Matthew or—er—yes, Deuteronomy, but the preachers were hammering away at the inspiration idea before we could get into type. So, driven to the wall, we go for our subject-matter to the reliable, old, moral, unassailable <span xml:lang="la">vade mecum</span>—the unabridged dictionary.</p>
<p>Miss Merriam was cashier at Hinkles. Hinkles is one of the big downtown restaurants. It is in what the papers call the “financial district.” Each day from 12 oclock to 2 Hinkles was full of hungry customers—messenger boys, stenographers, brokers, owners of mining stock, promoters, inventors with patents pending—and also people with money.</p>
<p>The cashiership at Hinkles was no sinecure. Hinkle egged and toasted and griddle-caked and coffeed a good many customers; and he lunched (as good a word as “dined”) many more. It might be said that Hinkles breakfast crowd was a contingent, but his luncheon patronage amounted to a horde.</p>
<p>Miss Merriam sat on a stool at a desk enclosed on three sides by a strong, high fencing of woven brass wire. Through an arched opening at the bottom you thrust your waiters check and the money, while your heart went pita-pat.</p>

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<p>Happy laughter rings out from ruby lips, handsome faces grow tender as they bend over white necks and drooping beads; timid eyes convey things that lips dare not speak, and beneath silken bodice and broadcloth, hearts beat time to the sweet notes of “Loves Young Dream.”</p>
<p>“And where have you been for some time past, you recreant cavalier?” says Miss <abbr>St.</abbr> Vitus to Harold <abbr>St.</abbr> Clair. “Have you been worshipping at another shrine? Are you recreant to your whilom friends? Speak, Sir Knight, and defend yourself.”</p>
<p>“Oh, come off,” says Harold, in his deep, musical baritone; “Ive been having a devil of a time fitting pants on a lot of bowlegged jays from the cotton-patch. Got knobs on their legs, some of em big as gourds, and all expect a fit. Did you every try to measure a bowlegged—I mean—cant you imagine what a jam-swizzled time I have getting pants to fit em? Business dull too, nobody wants em over three dollars.”</p>
<p>“You witty boy,” says Miss <abbr>St.</abbr> Vitus. “Just as full of bon mots and clever sayings as ever. What do you take now?”</p>
<p>“You witty boy,” says Miss <abbr>St.</abbr> Vitus. “Just as full of <span xml:lang="fr">bon mots</span> and clever sayings as ever. What do you take now?”</p>
<p>“Oh, beer.”</p>
<p>“Give me your arm and lets go into the drawing-room and draw a cork. Im chewing a little cotton myself.”</p>
<p>Arm in arm, the handsome couple pass across the room, the cynosure of all eyes. Luderic Hetherington, the rising and gifted night-watchman at the Lone Star slaughter house, and Mabel Grubb, the daughter of the millionaire owner of the Humped-backed Camel saloon, are standing under the oleanders as they go by.</p>

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<p>Half-adventurers—brave and splendid figures—have been numerous. From the Crusades to the Palisades they have enriched the arts of history and fiction and the trade of historical fiction. But each of them had a prize to win, a goal to kick, an axe to grind, a race to run, a new thrust in tierce to deliver, a name to carve, a crow to pick—so they were not followers of true adventure.</p>
<p>In the big city the twin spirits Romance and Adventure are always abroad seeking worthy wooers. As we roam the streets they slyly peep at us and challenge us in twenty different guises. Without knowing why, we look up suddenly to see in a window a face that seems to belong to our gallery of intimate portraits; in a sleeping thoroughfare we hear a cry of agony and fear coming from an empty and shuttered house; instead of at our familiar curb, a cabdriver deposits us before a strange door, which one, with a smile, opens for us and bids us enter; a slip of paper, written upon, flutters down to our feet from the high lattices of Chance; we exchange glances of instantaneous hate, affection and fear with hurrying strangers in the passing crowds; a sudden douse of rain—and our umbrella may be sheltering the daughter of the Full Moon and first cousin of the Sidereal System; at every corner handkerchiefs drop, fingers beckon, eyes besiege, and the lost, the lonely, the rapturous, the mysterious, the perilous, changing clues of adventure are slipped into our fingers. But few of us are willing to hold and follow them. We are grown stiff with the ramrod of convention down our backs. We pass on; and some day we come, at the end of a very dull life, to reflect that our romance has been a pallid thing of a marriage or two, a satin rosette kept in a safe-deposit drawer, and a lifelong feud with a steam radiator.</p>
<p>Rudolf Steiner was a true adventurer. Few were the evenings on which he did not go forth from his hall bedchamber in search of the unexpected and the egregious. The most interesting thing in life seemed to him to be what might lie just around the next corner. Sometimes his willingness to tempt fate led him into strange paths. Twice he had spent the night in a station-house; again and again he had found himself the dupe of ingenious and mercenary tricksters; his watch and money had been the price of one flattering allurement. But with undiminished ardour he picked up every glove cast before him into the merry lists of adventure.</p>
<p>One evening Rudolf was strolling along a crosstown street in the older central part of the city. Two streams of people filled the sidewalks—the home-hurrying, and that restless contingent that abandons home for the specious welcome of the thousand-candle-power table dhôte.</p>
<p>One evening Rudolf was strolling along a crosstown street in the older central part of the city. Two streams of people filled the sidewalks—the home-hurrying, and that restless contingent that abandons home for the specious welcome of the thousand-candle-power <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span>.</p>
<p>The young adventurer was of pleasing presence, and moved serenely and watchfully. By daylight he was a salesman in a piano store. He wore his tie drawn through a topaz ring instead of fastened with a stick pin; and once he had written to the editor of a magazine that <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Junies Love Test</i> by Miss Libbey, had been the book that had most influenced his life.</p>
<p>During his walk a violent chattering of teeth in a glass case on the sidewalk seemed at first to draw his attention (with a qualm), to a restaurant before which it was set; but a second glance revealed the electric letters of a dentists sign high above the next door. A giant negro, fantastically dressed in a red embroidered coat, yellow trousers and a military cap, discreetly distributed cards to those of the passing crowd who consented to take them.</p>
<p>This mode of dentistic advertising was a common sight to Rudolf. Usually he passed the dispenser of the dentists cards without reducing his store; but tonight the African slipped one into his hand so deftly that he retained it there smiling a little at the successful feat.</p>

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<p>“Oh, well, since we cant shake the growler, lets get it filled at the corner, and all have a drink on me.”</p>
<p>Besides that, it seems he was a Persian; and I never hear of Persia producing anything worth mentioning unless it was Turkish rugs and Maltese cats.</p>
<p>That spring me and Idaho struck pay ore. It was a habit of ours to sell out quick and keep moving. We unloaded our grubstaker for eight thousand dollars apiece; and then we drifted down to this little town of Rosa, on the Salmon river, to rest up, and get some human grub, and have our whiskers harvested.</p>
<p>Rosa was no mining-camp. It laid in the valley, and was as free of uproar and pestilence as one of them rural towns in the country. There was a three-mile trolley line champing its bit in the environs; and me and Idaho spent a week riding on one of the cars, dropping off at nights at the Sunset View Hotel. Being now well read as well as travelled, we was soon pro re nata with the best society in Rosa, and was invited out to the most dressed-up and high-toned entertainments. It was at a piano recital and quail-eating contest in the city hall, for the benefit of the fire company, that me and Idaho first met <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> De Ormond Sampson, the queen of Rosa society.</p>
<p>Rosa was no mining-camp. It laid in the valley, and was as free of uproar and pestilence as one of them rural towns in the country. There was a three-mile trolley line champing its bit in the environs; and me and Idaho spent a week riding on one of the cars, dropping off at nights at the Sunset View Hotel. Being now well read as well as travelled, we was soon <span xml:lang="la">pro re nata</span> with the best society in Rosa, and was invited out to the most dressed-up and high-toned entertainments. It was at a piano recital and quail-eating contest in the city hall, for the benefit of the fire company, that me and Idaho first met <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> De Ormond Sampson, the queen of Rosa society.</p>
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sampson was a widow, and owned the only two-story house in town. It was painted yellow, and whichever way you looked from you could see it as plain as egg on the chin of an OGrady on a Friday. Twenty-two men in Rosa besides me and Idaho was trying to stake a claim on that yellow house.</p>
<p>There was a dance after the song books and quail bones had been raked out of the Hall. Twenty-three of the bunch galloped over to <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sampson and asked for a dance. I sidestepped the two-step, and asked permission to escort her home. Thats where I made a hit.</p>
<p>On the way home says she:</p>

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<p>Six cowpunchers of the Cibolo Ranch were waiting around the door of the ranch store. Their ponies cropped grass nearby, tied in the Texas fashion—which is not tied at all. Their bridle reins had been dropped to the earth, which is a more effectual way of securing them (such is the power of habit and imagination) than you could devise out of a half-inch rope and a live-oak tree.</p>
<p>These guardians of the cow lounged about, each with a brown cigarette paper in his hand, and gently but unceasingly cursed Sam Revell, the storekeeper. Sam stood in the door, snapping the red elastic bands on his pink madras shirtsleeves and looking down affectionately at the only pair of tan shoes within a forty-mile radius. His offence had been serious, and he was divided between humble apology and admiration for the beauty of his raiment. He had allowed the ranch stock of “smoking” to become exhausted.</p>
<p>“I thought sure there was another case of it under the counter, boys,” he explained. “But it happened to be catterdges.”</p>
<p>“Youve sure got a case of happenedicitis,” said Poky Rodgers, fency rider of the Largo Verde potrero. “Somebody ought to happen to give you a knock on the head with the butt end of a quirt. Ive rode in nine miles for some tobacco; and it dont appear natural and seemly that you ought to be allowed to live.”</p>
<p>“Youve sure got a case of happenedicitis,” said Poky Rodgers, fency rider of the <span xml:lang="es">Largo Verde potrero</span>. “Somebody ought to happen to give you a knock on the head with the butt end of a quirt. Ive rode in nine miles for some tobacco; and it dont appear natural and seemly that you ought to be allowed to live.”</p>
<p>“The boys was smokin cut plug and dried mesquite leaves mixed when I left,” sighed Mustang Taylor, horse wrangler of the Three Elm camp. “Theyll be lookin for me back by nine. Theyll be settin up, with their papers ready to roll a whiff of the real thing before bedtime. And Ive got to tell em that this pink-eyed, sheep-headed, sulphur-rooted, shirt-waisted son of a calico broncho, Sam Revell, hasnt got no tobacco on hand.”</p>
<p>Gregorio Falcon, Mexican vaquero and best thrower of the rope on the Cibolo, pushed his heavy, silver-embroidered straw sombrero back upon his thicket of jet black curls, and scraped the bottoms of his pockets for a few crumbs of the precious weed.</p>
<p>“Ah, Don Samuel,” he said, reproachfully, but with his touch of Castilian manners, “escuse me. Dthey say dthe jackrabbeet and dthe sheep have dthe most leetle <em>sesos</em>—how you call dthem—brain-es? Ah dont believe dthat, Don Samuel—escuse me. Ah dthink people wat dont keep esmokin tobacco, dthey—bot you weel escuse me, Don Samuel.”</p>
<p>“Ah, Don Samuel,” he said, reproachfully, but with his touch of Castilian manners, “escuse me. Dthey say dthe jackrabbeet and dthe sheep have dthe most leetle <i xml:lang="es">sesos</i>—how you call dthem—brain-es? Ah dont believe dthat, Don Samuel—escuse me. Ah dthink people wat dont keep esmokin tobacco, dthey—bot you weel escuse me, Don Samuel.”</p>
<p>“Now, whats the use of chewin the rag, boys,” said the untroubled Sam, stooping over to rub the toes of his shoes with a red-and-yellow handkerchief. “Ranse took the order for some more smokin to San Antone with him Tuesday. Pancho rode Ranses hoss back yesterday; and Ranse is goin to drive the wagon back himself. There want much of a load—just some woolsacks and blankets and nails and canned peaches and a few things we was out of. I look for Ranse to roll in today sure. Hes an early starter and a hell-to-split driver, and he ought to be here not far from sundown.”</p>
<p>“What plugs is he drivin?” asked Mustang Taylor, with a smack of hope in his tones.</p>
<p>“The buckboard greys,” said Sam.</p>
<p>“Ill wait a spell, then,” said the wrangler. “Them plugs eat up a trail like a roadrunner swallowin a whip snake. And you may bust me open a can of greengage plums, Sam, while Im waitin for somethin better.”</p>
<p>“Open me some yellow clings,” ordered Poky Rodgers. “Ill wait, too.”</p>
<p>The tobaccoless punchers arranged themselves comfortably on the steps of the store. Inside Sam chopped open with a hatchet the tops of the cans of fruit.</p>
<p>The store, a big, white wooden building like a barn, stood fifty yards from the ranch-house. Beyond it were the horse corrals; and still farther the wool sheds and the brush-topped shearing pens—for the Rancho Cibolo raised both cattle and sheep. Behind the store, at a little distance, were the grass-thatched jacals of the Mexicans who bestowed their allegiance upon the Cibolo.</p>
<p>The store, a big, white wooden building like a barn, stood fifty yards from the ranch-house. Beyond it were the horse corrals; and still farther the wool sheds and the brush-topped shearing pens—for the Rancho Cibolo raised both cattle and sheep. Behind the store, at a little distance, were the grass-thatched <span xml:lang="es">jacals</span> of the Mexicans who bestowed their allegiance upon the Cibolo.</p>
<p>The ranch-house was composed of four large rooms, with plastered adobe walls, and a two-room wooden ell. A twenty-feet-wide “gallery” circumvented the structure. It was set in a grove of immense live-oaks and water-elms near a lake—a long, not very wide, and tremendously deep lake in which at nightfall, great gars leaped to the surface and plunged with the noise of hippopotamuses frolicking at their bath. From the trees hung garlands and massive pendants of the melancholy grey moss of the South. Indeed, the Cibolo ranch-house seemed more of the South than of the West. It looked as if old “Kiowa” Truesdell might have brought it with him from the lowlands of Mississippi when he came to Texas with his rifle in the hollow of his arm in 55.</p>
<p>But, though he did not bring the family mansion, Truesdell did bring something in the way of a family inheritance that was more lasting than brick or stone. He brought one end of the Truesdell-Curtis family feud. And when a Curtis bought the Rancho de los Olmos, sixteen miles from the Cibolo, there were lively times on the pear flats and in the chaparral thickets off the Southwest. In those days Truesdell cleaned the brush of many a wolf and tiger cat and Mexican lion; and one or two Curtises fell heirs to notches on his rifle stock. Also he buried a brother with a Curtis bullet in him on the bank of the lake at Cibolo. And then the Kiowa Indians made their last raid upon the ranches between the Frio and the Rio Grande, and Truesdell at the head of his rangers rid the earth of them to the last brave, earning his sobriquet. Then came prosperity in the form of waxing herds and broadening lands. And then old age and bitterness, when he sat, with his great mane of hair as white as the Spanish-dagger blossoms and his fierce, pale-blue eyes, on the shaded gallery at Cibolo, growling like the pumas that he had slain. He snapped his fingers at old age; the bitter taste to life did not come from that. The cup that stuck at his lips was that his only son Ransom wanted to marry a Curtis, the last youthful survivor of the other end of the feud.</p>
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<p>In ten minutes Taylor remarked: “I see the dust of a wagon risin right above the fur end of the flat.”</p>
<p>“You have verree good eyes, señor,” said Gregorio, smiling.</p>
<p>Two miles away they saw a faint cloud dimming the green ripples of the mesquites. In twenty minutes they heard the clatter of the horses hoofs: in five minutes more the grey plugs dashed out of the thicket, whickering for oats and drawing the light wagon behind them like a toy.</p>
<p>From the jacals came a cry of: “El Amo! El Amo!” Four Mexican youths raced to unharness the greys. The cowpunchers gave a yell of greeting and delight.</p>
<p>From the <span xml:lang="es">jacals</span> came a cry of: “El Amo! El Amo!” Four Mexican youths raced to unharness the greys. The cowpunchers gave a yell of greeting and delight.</p>
<p>Ranse Truesdell, driving, threw the reins to the ground and laughed.</p>
<p>“Its under the wagon sheet, boys,” he said. “I know what youre waiting for. If Sam lets it run out again well use those yellow shoes of his for a target. Theres two cases. Pull em out and light up. I know you all want a smoke.”</p>
<p>After striking dry country Ranse had removed the wagon sheet from the bows and thrown it over the goods in the wagon. Six pair of hasty hands dragged it off and grabbled beneath the sacks and blankets for the cases of tobacco.</p>

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<h2 epub:type="title">The Last Leaf</h2>
<p>In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called “places.” These “places” make strange angles and curves. One street crosses itself a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account!</p>
<p>So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a “colony.”</p>
<p>At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. “Johnsy” was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table dhôte of an Eighth Street “Delmonicos,” and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.</p>
<p>At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. “Johnsy” was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span> of an Eighth Street “Delmonicos,” and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.</p>
<p>That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown “places.”</p>
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch windowpanes at the blank side of the next brick house.</p>
<p>One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray eyebrow.</p>

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<p>After the delectable supper, Sam untied the green duck bag and took out his guitar. Not by way of payment, mind you—neither Sam Galloway nor any other of the true troubadours are lineal descendants of the late Tommy Tucker. You have read of Tommy Tucker in the works of the esteemed but often obscure Mother Goose. Tommy Tucker sang for his supper. No true troubadour would do that. He would have his supper, and then sing for Arts sake.</p>
<p>Sam Galloways repertoire comprised about fifty funny stories and between thirty and forty songs. He by no means stopped there. He could talk through twenty cigarettes on any topic that you brought up. And he never sat up when he could lie down; and never stood when he could sit. I am strongly disposed to linger with him, for I am drawing a portrait as well as a blunt pencil and a tattered thesaurus will allow.</p>
<p>I wish you could have seen him: he was small and tough and inactive beyond the power of imagination to conceive. He wore an ultramarine-blue woollen shirt laced down the front with a pearl-gray, exaggerated sort of shoestring, indestructible brown duck clothes, inevitable high-heeled boots with Mexican spurs, and a Mexican straw sombrero.</p>
<p>That evening Sam and old man Ellison dragged their chairs out under the hackberry trees. They lighted cigarettes; and the troubadour gaily touched his guitar. Many of the songs he sang were the weird, melancholy, minor-keyed canciones that he had learned from the Mexican sheep herders and vaqueros. One, in particular, charmed and soothed the soul of the lonely baron. It was a favourite song of the sheep herders, beginning: “<i xml:lang="es">Huile, huile, palomita</i>,” which being translated means, “Fly, fly, little dove.” Sam sang it for old man Ellison many times that evening.</p>
<p>That evening Sam and old man Ellison dragged their chairs out under the hackberry trees. They lighted cigarettes; and the troubadour gaily touched his guitar. Many of the songs he sang were the weird, melancholy, minor-keyed <span xml:lang="es">canciones</span> that he had learned from the Mexican sheep herders and vaqueros. One, in particular, charmed and soothed the soul of the lonely baron. It was a favourite song of the sheep herders, beginning: “<i xml:lang="es">Huile, huile, palomita</i>,” which being translated means, “Fly, fly, little dove.” Sam sang it for old man Ellison many times that evening.</p>
<p>The troubadour stayed on at the old mans ranch. There was peace and quiet and appreciation there, such as he had not found in the noisy camps of the cattle kings. No audience in the world could have crowned the work of poet, musician, or artist with more worshipful and unflagging approval than that bestowed upon his efforts by old man Ellison. No visit by a royal personage to a humble woodchopper or peasant could have been received with more flattering thankfulness and joy.</p>
<p>On a cool, canvas-covered cot in the shade of the hackberry trees Sam Galloway passed the greater part of his time. There he rolled his brown paper cigarettes, read such tedious literature as the ranch afforded, and added to his repertoire of improvisations that he played so expertly on his guitar. To him, as a slave ministering to a great lord, the Kiowa brought cool water from the red jar hanging under the brush shelter, and food when he called for it. The prairie zephyrs fanned him mildly; mockingbirds at morn and eve competed with but scarce equalled the sweet melodies of his lyre; a perfumed stillness seemed to fill all his world. While old man Ellison was pottering among his flocks of sheep on his mile-an-hour pony, and while the Kiowa took his siesta in the burning sunshine at the end of the kitchen, Sam would lie on his cot thinking what a happy world he lived in, and how kind it is to the ones whose mission in life it is to give entertainment and pleasure. Here he had food and lodging as good as he had ever longed for; absolute immunity from care or exertion or strife; an endless welcome, and a host whose delight at the sixteenth repetition of a song or a story was as keen as at its initial giving. Was there ever a troubadour of old who struck upon as royal a castle in his wanderings? While he lay thus, meditating upon his blessings, little brown cottontails would shyly frolic through the yard; a covey of white-topknotted blue quail would run past, in single file, twenty yards away; a paisano bird, out hunting for tarantulas, would hop upon the fence and salute him with sweeping flourishes of its long tail. In the eighty-acre horse pasture the pony with the Dantesque face grew fat and almost smiling. The troubadour was at the end of his wanderings.</p>
<p>Old man Ellison was his own <i xml:lang="es">vaciero</i>. That means that he supplied his sheep camps with wood, water, and rations by his own labours instead of hiring a <i xml:lang="es">vaciero</i>. On small ranches it is often done.</p>

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<p>Chicago seemed to swoop down upon him with a breezy suggestion of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Partington, plumes and patchouli, and to disturb his rest with a soaring and beautiful song of future promise. But Raggles would awake to a sense of shivering cold and a haunting impression of ideals lost in a depressing aura of potato salad and fish.</p>
<p>Thus Chicago affected him. Perhaps there is a vagueness and inaccuracy in the description; but that is Raggless fault. He should have recorded his sensations in magazine poems.</p>
<p>Pittsburg impressed him as the play of “Othello” performed in the Russian language in a railroad station by Dockstaders minstrels. A royal and generous lady this Pittsburg, though—homely, hearty, with flushed face, washing the dishes in a silk dress and white kid slippers, and bidding Raggles sit before the roaring fireplace and drink champagne with his pigs feet and fried potatoes.</p>
<p>New Orleans had simply gazed down upon him from a balcony. He could see her pensive, starry eyes and catch the flutter of her fan, and that was all. Only once he came face to face with her. It was at dawn, when she was flushing the red bricks of the banquette with a pail of water. She laughed and hummed a chansonette and filled Raggless shoes with ice-cold water. <i xml:lang="fr">Allons!</i></p>
<p>New Orleans had simply gazed down upon him from a balcony. He could see her pensive, starry eyes and catch the flutter of her fan, and that was all. Only once he came face to face with her. It was at dawn, when she was flushing the red bricks of the banquette with a pail of water. She laughed and hummed a <span xml:lang="fr">chansonette</span> and filled Raggless shoes with ice-cold water. <i xml:lang="fr">Allons!</i></p>
<p>Boston construed herself to the poetic Raggles in an erratic and singular way. It seemed to him that he had drunk cold tea and that the city was a white, cold cloth that had been bound tightly around his brow to spur him to some unknown but tremendous mental effort. And, after all, he came to shovel snow for a livelihood; and the cloth, becoming wet, tightened its knots and could not be removed.</p>
<p>Indefinite and unintelligible ideas, you will say; but your disapprobation should be tempered with gratitude, for these are poets fancies—and suppose you had come upon them in verse!</p>
<p>One day Raggles came and laid siege to the heart of the great city of Manhattan. She was the greatest of all; and he wanted to learn her note in the scale; to taste and appraise and classify and solve and label her and arrange her with the other cities that had given him up the secret of their individuality. And here we cease to be Raggless translator and become his chronicler.</p>

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<p>“You dont often hear as agreeable a noise as that on a sheep-ranch,” he remarked; “but I never see any reason for not playing up to the arts and graces just because we happen to live out in the brush. Its a lonesome life for a woman; and if a little music can make it any better, why not have it? Thats the way I look at it.”</p>
<p>“A wise and generous theory,” I assented. “And <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Kinney plays well. I am not learned in the science of music, but I should call her an uncommonly good performer. She has technique and more than ordinary power.”</p>
<p>The moon was very bright, you will understand, and I saw upon Kinneys face a sort of amused and pregnant expression, as though there were things behind it that might be expounded.</p>
<p>“You came up the trail from the Double-Elm Fork,” he said promisingly. “As you crossed it you must have seen an old deserted jacal to your left under a comma mott.”</p>
<p>“You came up the trail from the Double-Elm Fork,” he said promisingly. “As you crossed it you must have seen an old deserted <span xml:lang="es">jacal</span> to your left under a comma mott.”</p>
<p>“I did,” said I. “There was a drove of <i xml:lang="es">javalis</i> rooting around it. I could see by the broken corrals that no one lived there.”</p>
<p>“Thats where this music proposition started,” said Kinney. “I dont mind telling you about it while we smoke. Thats where old Cal Adams lived. He had about eight hundred graded merinos and a daughter that was solid silk and as handsome as a new stake-rope on a thirty-dollar pony. And I dont mind telling you that I was guilty in the second degree of hanging around old Cals ranch all the time I could spare away from lambing and shearing. Miss Marilla was her name; and I had figured it out by the rule of two that she was destined to become the chatelaine and lady superior of Rancho Lomito, belonging to <abbr class="name">R.</abbr> Kinney, <abbr>Esq.</abbr>, where you are now a welcome and honoured guest.</p>
<p>“I will say that old Cal wasnt distinguished as a sheepman. He was a little, old stoop-shouldered hombre about as big as a gun scabbard, with scraggy white whiskers, and condemned to the continuous use of language. Old Cal was so obscure in his chosen profession that he wasnt even hated by the cowmen. And when a sheepman dont get eminent enough to acquire the hostility of the cattlemen, he is mighty apt to die unwept and considerably unsung.</p>

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<p>Suddenly through the intense silence, he heard the whicker of a horse. The sound came from the side of the track toward the east, and Chicken began to explore timorously in that direction. He stepped high along the mat of curly mesquite grass, for he was afraid of everything there might be in this wilderness—snakes, rats, brigands, centipedes, mirages, cowboys, fandangoes, tarantulas, tamales—he had read of them in the story papers. Rounding a clump of prickly pear that reared high its fantastic and menacing array of rounded heads, he was struck to shivering terror by a snort and a thunderous plunge, as the horse, himself startled, bounded away some fifty yards, and then resumed his grazing. But here was the one thing in the desert that Chicken did not fear. He had been reared on a farm; he had handled horses, understood them, and could ride.</p>
<p>Approaching slowly and speaking soothingly, he followed the animal, which, after its first flight, seemed gentle enough, and secured the end of the twenty-foot lariat that dragged after him in the grass. It required him but a few moments to contrive the rope into an ingenious nose-bridle, after the style of the Mexican <i xml:lang="es">borsal</i>. In another he was upon the horses back and off at a splendid lope, giving the animal free choice of direction. “He will take me somewhere,” said Chicken to himself.</p>
<p>It would have been a thing of joy, that untrammelled gallop over the moonlit prairie, even to Chicken, who loathed exertion, but that his mood was not for it. His head ached; a growing thirst was upon him; the “somewhere” whither his lucky mount might convey him was full of dismal peradventure.</p>
<p>And now he noted that the horse moved to a definite goal. Where the prairie lay smooth he kept his course straight as an arrows toward the east. Deflected by hill or arroyo or impractical spinous brakes, he quickly flowed again into the current, charted by his unerring instinct. At last, upon the side of a gentle rise, he suddenly subsided to a complacent walk. A stones cast away stood a little mott of coma trees; beneath it a jacal such as the Mexicans erect—a one-room house of upright poles daubed with clay and roofed with grass or tule reeds. An experienced eye would have estimated the spot as the headquarters of a small sheep ranch. In the moonlight the ground in the nearby corral showed pulverized to a level smoothness by the hoofs of the sheep. Everywhere was carelessly distributed the paraphernalia of the place—ropes, bridles, saddles, sheep pelts, wool sacks, feed troughs, and camp litter. The barrel of drinking water stood in the end of the two-horse wagon near the door. The harness was piled, promiscuous, upon the wagon tongue, soaking up the dew.</p>
<p>And now he noted that the horse moved to a definite goal. Where the prairie lay smooth he kept his course straight as an arrows toward the east. Deflected by hill or arroyo or impractical spinous brakes, he quickly flowed again into the current, charted by his unerring instinct. At last, upon the side of a gentle rise, he suddenly subsided to a complacent walk. A stones cast away stood a little mott of coma trees; beneath it a <span xml:lang="es">jacal</span> such as the Mexicans erect—a one-room house of upright poles daubed with clay and roofed with grass or tule reeds. An experienced eye would have estimated the spot as the headquarters of a small sheep ranch. In the moonlight the ground in the nearby corral showed pulverized to a level smoothness by the hoofs of the sheep. Everywhere was carelessly distributed the paraphernalia of the place—ropes, bridles, saddles, sheep pelts, wool sacks, feed troughs, and camp litter. The barrel of drinking water stood in the end of the two-horse wagon near the door. The harness was piled, promiscuous, upon the wagon tongue, soaking up the dew.</p>
<p>Chicken slipped to earth, and tied the horse to a tree. He halloed again and again, but the house remained quiet. The door stood open, and he entered cautiously. The light was sufficient for him to see that no one was at home. The room was that of a bachelor ranchman who was content with the necessaries of life. Chicken rummaged intelligently until he found what he had hardly dared hope for—a small, brown jug that still contained something near a quart of his desire.</p>
<p>Half an hour later, Chicken—now a gamecock of hostile aspect—emerged from the house with unsteady steps. He had drawn upon the absent ranchmans equipment to replace his own ragged attire. He wore a suit of coarse brown ducking, the coat being a sort of rakish bolero, jaunty to a degree. Boots he had donned, and spurs that whirred with every lurching step. Buckled around him was a belt full of cartridges with a big six-shooter in each of its two holsters.</p>
<p>Prowling about, he found blankets, a saddle and bridle with which he caparisoned his steed. Again mounting, he rode swiftly away, singing a loud and tuneless song.</p>

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<p>“Then we got the consul full of red wine, and struck him for a horoscope. He was a thin, youngish kind of man, I should say past fifty, sort of French-Irish in his affections, and puffed up with disconsolation. Yes, he was a flattened kind of a man, in whom drink lay stagnant, inclined to corpulence and misery. Yes, I think he was a kind of Dutchman, being very sad and genial in his ways.</p>
<p>The marvelous invention, he says, entitled the phonograph, has never invaded these shores. The people have never heard it. They would not believe it if they should. Simple-hearted children of nature, progress has never condemned them to accept the work of a can-opener as an overture, and ragtime might incite them to a bloody revolution. But you can try the experiment. The best chance you have is that the populace may not wake up when you play. Theres two ways, says the consul, they may take it. They may become inebriated with attention, like an Atlanta colonel listening to “Marching Through Georgia,” or they will get excited and transpose the key of the music with an axe and yourselves into a dungeon. In the latter case, says the consul, Ill do my duty by cabling to the State Department, and Ill wrap the Stars and Stripes around you when you come to be shot, and threaten them with the vengeance of the greatest gold export and financial reserve nation on earth. The flag is full of bullet holes now, says the consul, made in that way. Twice before, says the consul, I have cabled our government for a couple of gunboats to protect American citizens. The first time the Department sent me a pair of gum boots. The other time was when a man named Peas was going to be executed here. They referred that appeal to the Secretary of Agriculture. Let us now disturb the señor behind the bar for a subsequence of the red wine.</p>
<p>“Thus soliloquized the consul of Solitas to me and Henry Horsecollar.</p>
<p>“But, notwithstanding, we hired a room that afternoon in the Calle de los Angeles, the main street that runs along the shore, and put our trunks there. Twas a good-sized room, dark and cheerful, but small. Twas on a various street, diversified by houses and conservatory plants. The peasantry of the city passed to and fro on the fine pasturage between the sidewalks. Twas, for the world, like an opera chorus when the Royal Kafoozlum is about to enter.</p>
<p>“But, notwithstanding, we hired a room that afternoon in the <span xml:lang="es">Calle de los Angeles</span>, the main street that runs along the shore, and put our trunks there. Twas a good-sized room, dark and cheerful, but small. Twas on a various street, diversified by houses and conservatory plants. The peasantry of the city passed to and fro on the fine pasturage between the sidewalks. Twas, for the world, like an opera chorus when the Royal Kafoozlum is about to enter.</p>
<p>“We were rubbing the dust off the machine and getting fixed to start business the next day, when a big, fine-looking white man in white clothes stopped at the door and looked in. We extended the invitations, and he walked inside and sized us up. He was chewing a long cigar, and wrinkling his eyes, meditative, like a girl trying to decide which dress to wear to the party.</p>
<p>New York? he says to me finally.</p>
<p>Originally, and from time to time, I says. Hasnt it rubbed off yet?</p>

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<p>Then up into the garden stumbled the man from Topaz City, Nevada. The gloom of the solitary sightseer enwrapped him. Bereft of joy through loneliness, he stalked with a widowers face through the halls of pleasure. Thirst for human companionship possessed him as he panted in the metropolitan draught. Straight to the New Yorkers table he steered.</p>
<p>The New Yorker, disarmed and made reckless by the lawless atmosphere of a roof garden, decided upon utter abandonment of his lifes traditions. He resolved to shatter with one rash, daredevil, impulsive, hair-brained act the conventions that had hitherto been woven into his existence. Carrying out this radical and precipitous inspiration he nodded slightly to the stranger as he drew nearer the table.</p>
<p>The next moment found the man from Topaz City in the list of the New Yorkers closest friends. He took a chair at the table, he gathered two others for his feet, he tossed his broad-brimmed hat upon a fourth, and told his lifes history to his newfound pard.</p>
<p>The New Yorker warmed a little, as an apartment-house furnace warms when the strawberry season begins. A waiter who came within hail in an unguarded moment was captured and paroled on an errand to the Doctor Wiley experimental station. The ballet was now in the midst of a musical vagary, and danced upon the stage programmed as Bolivian peasants, clothed in some portions of its anatomy as Norwegian fisher maidens, in others as ladies-in-waiting of Marie Antoinette, historically denuded in other portions so as to represent sea nymphs, and presenting the <i xml:lang="fr">tout ensemble</i> of a social club of Central Park West housemaids at a fish fry.</p>
<p>The New Yorker warmed a little, as an apartment-house furnace warms when the strawberry season begins. A waiter who came within hail in an unguarded moment was captured and paroled on an errand to the Doctor Wiley experimental station. The ballet was now in the midst of a musical vagary, and danced upon the stage programmed as Bolivian peasants, clothed in some portions of its anatomy as Norwegian fisher maidens, in others as ladies-in-waiting of Marie Antoinette, historically denuded in other portions so as to represent sea nymphs, and presenting the <span xml:lang="fr">tout ensemble</span> of a social club of Central Park West housemaids at a fish fry.</p>
<p>“Been in the city long?” inquired the New Yorker, getting ready the exact tip against the waiters coming with large change from the bill.</p>
<p>“Me?” said the man from Topaz City. “Four days. Never in Topaz City, was you?”</p>
<p>“I!” said the New Yorker. “I was never farther west than Eighth Avenue. I had a brother who died on Ninth, but I met the cortege at Eighth. There was a bunch of violets on the hearse, and the undertaker mentioned the incident to avoid mistake. I cannot say that I am familiar with the West.”</p>

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<h2 epub:type="title">The Princess and the Puma</h2>
<p>There had to be a king and queen, of course. The king was a terrible old man who wore six-shooters and spurs, and shouted in such a tremendous voice that the rattlers on the prairie would run into their holes under the prickly pear. Before there was a royal family they called the man “Whispering Ben.” When he came to own 50,000 acres of land and more cattle than he could count, they called him ODonnell “the Cattle King.”</p>
<p>The queen had been a Mexican girl from Laredo. She made a good, mild, Colorado-claro wife, and even succeeded in teaching Ben to modify his voice sufficiently while in the house to keep the dishes from being broken. When Ben got to be king she would sit on the gallery of Espinosa Ranch and weave rush mats. When wealth became so irresistible and oppressive that upholstered chairs and a centre table were brought down from San Antone in the wagons, she bowed her smooth, dark head, and shared the fate of the Danae.</p>
<p>To avoid lèse-majesté you have been presented first to the king and queen. They do not enter the story, which might be called “The Chronicle of the Princess, the Happy Thought, and the Lion that Bungled his Job.”</p>
<p>To avoid <span xml:lang="fr">lèse-majesté</span> you have been presented first to the king and queen. They do not enter the story, which might be called “The Chronicle of the Princess, the Happy Thought, and the Lion that Bungled his Job.”</p>
<p>Josefa ODonnell was the surviving daughter, the princess. From her mother she inherited warmth of nature and a dusky, semi-tropic beauty. From Ben ODonnell the royal she acquired a store of intrepidity, common sense, and the faculty of ruling. The combination was one worth going miles to see. Josefa while riding her pony at a gallop could put five out of six bullets through a tomato-can swinging at the end of a string. She could play for hours with a white kitten she owned, dressing it in all manner of absurd clothes. Scorning a pencil, she could tell you out of her head what 1,545 two-year-olds would bring on the hoof, at $8.50 per head. Roughly speaking, the Espinosa Ranch is forty miles long and thirty broad—but mostly leased land. Josefa, on her pony, had prospected over every mile of it. Every cowpuncher on the range knew her by sight and was a loyal vassal. Ripley Givens, foreman of one of the Espinosa outfits, saw her one day, and made up his mind to form a royal matrimonial alliance. Presumptuous? No. In those days in the Nueces country a man was a man. And, after all, the title of cattle king does not presuppose blood royalty. Often it only signifies that its owner wears the crown in token of his magnificent qualities in the art of cattle stealing.</p>
<p>One day Ripley Givens rode over to the Double Elm Ranch to inquire about a bunch of strayed yearlings. He was late in setting out on his return trip, and it was sundown when he struck the White Horse Crossing of the Nueces. From there to his own camp it was sixteen miles. To the Espinosa ranch it was twelve. Givens was tired. He decided to pass the night at the Crossing.</p>
<p>There was a fine water hole in the riverbed. The banks were thickly covered with great trees, undergrown with brush. Back from the water hole fifty yards was a stretch of curly mesquite grass—supper for his horse and bed for himself. Givens staked his horse, and spread out his saddle blankets to dry. He sat down with his back against a tree and rolled a cigarette. From somewhere in the dense timber along the river came a sudden, rageful, shivering wail. The pony danced at the end of his rope and blew a whistling snort of comprehending fear. Givens puffed at his cigarette, but he reached leisurely for his pistol-belt, which lay on the grass, and twirled the cylinder of his weapon tentatively. A great gar plunged with a loud splash into the water hole. A little brown rabbit skipped around a bunch of catclaw and sat twitching his whiskers and looking humorously at Givens. The pony went on eating grass.</p>

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<p>Grandemont was among them, the busiest there. To the safe conveyance of certain large hampers eloquent with printed cautions to delicate handling he gave his superintendence, for they contained the fragile china and glassware. The dropping of one of those hampers would have cost him more than he could have saved in a year.</p>
<p>The last article unloaded, the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">River Belle</i> backed off and continued her course down stream. In less than an hour everything had been conveyed to the house. And came then Absaloms task, directing the placing of the furniture and wares. There was plenty of help, for that day was always a holiday at Charleroi, and the Negroes did not suffer the old traditions to lapse. Almost the entire population of the quarters volunteered their aid. A score of piccaninnies were sweeping at the leaves in the yard. In the big kitchen at the rear André was lording it with his old-time magnificence over his numerous sub-cooks and scullions. Shutters were flung wide; dust spun in clouds; the house echoed to voices and the tread of busy feet. The prince had come again, and Charleroi woke from its long sleep.</p>
<p>The full moon, as she rose across the river that night and peeped above the levee saw a sight that had long been missing from her orbit. The old plantation house shed a soft and alluring radiance from every window. Of its two-score rooms only four had been refurnished—the larger reception chamber, the dining hall, and two smaller rooms for the convenience of the expected guests. But lighted wax candles were set in the windows of every room.</p>
<p>The dining-hall was the chef daevre. The long table, set with twenty-five covers, sparkled like a winter landscape with its snowy napery and china and the icy gleam of crystal. The chaste beauty of the room had required small adornment. The polished floor burned to a glowing ruby with the reflection of candle light. The rich wainscoting reached half way to the ceiling. Along and above this had been set the relieving lightness of a few watercolour sketches of fruit and flower.</p>
<p>The dining-hall was the <span xml:lang="fr">chef daevre</span>. The long table, set with twenty-five covers, sparkled like a winter landscape with its snowy napery and china and the icy gleam of crystal. The chaste beauty of the room had required small adornment. The polished floor burned to a glowing ruby with the reflection of candle light. The rich wainscoting reached half way to the ceiling. Along and above this had been set the relieving lightness of a few watercolour sketches of fruit and flower.</p>
<p>The reception chamber was fitted in a simple but elegant style. Its arrangement suggested nothing of the fact that on the morrow the room would again be cleared and abandoned to the dust and the spider. The entrance hall was imposing with palms and ferns and the light of an immense candelabrum.</p>
<p>At seven oclock Grandemont, in evening dress, with pearls—a family passion—in his spotless linen, emerged from somewhere. The invitations had specified eight as the dining hour. He drew an armchair upon the porch, and sat there, smoking cigarettes and half dreaming.</p>
<p>The moon was an hour high. Fifty years back from the gate stood the house, under its noble grove. The road ran in front, and then came the grass-grown levee and the insatiate river beyond. Just above the levee top a tiny red light was creeping down and a tiny green one was creeping up. Then the passing steamers saluted, and the hoarse din startled the drowsy silence of the melancholy lowlands. The stillness returned, save for the little voices of the night—the owls recitative, the capriccio of the crickets, the concerto of the frogs in the grass. The piccaninnies and the dawdlers from the quarters had been dismissed to their confines, and the melée of the day was reduced to an orderly and intelligent silence. The six coloured waiters, in their white jackets, paced, cat-footed, about the table, pretending to arrange where all was beyond betterment. Absalom, in black and shining pumps posed, superior, here and there where the lights set off his grandeur. And Grandemont rested in his chair, waiting for his guests.</p>

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<article id="the-robe-of-peace" epub:type="se:short-story">
<h2 epub:type="title">The Robe of Peace</h2>
<p>Mysteries follow one another so closely in a great city that the reading public and the friends of Johnny Bellchambers have ceased to marvel at his sudden and unexplained disappearance nearly a year ago. This particular mystery has now been cleared up, but the solution is so strange and incredible to the mind of the average man that only a select few who were in close touch with Bellchambers will give it full credence.</p>
<p>Johnny Bellchambers, as is well known, belonged to the intrinsically inner circle of the elite. Without any of the ostentation of the fashionable ones who endeavor to attract notice by eccentric display of wealth and show he still was au fait in everything that gave deserved lustre to his high position in the ranks of society.</p>
<p>Johnny Bellchambers, as is well known, belonged to the intrinsically inner circle of the elite. Without any of the ostentation of the fashionable ones who endeavor to attract notice by eccentric display of wealth and show he still was <span xml:lang="fr">au fait</span> in everything that gave deserved lustre to his high position in the ranks of society.</p>
<p>Especially did he shine in the matter of dress. In this he was the despair of imitators. Always correct, exquisitely groomed, and possessed of an unlimited wardrobe, he was conceded to be the best-dressed man in New York, and, therefore, in America. There was not a tailor in Gotham who would not have deemed it a precious boon to have been granted the privilege of making Bellchambers clothes without a cent of pay. As he wore them, they would have been a priceless advertisement. Trousers were his especial passion. Here nothing but perfection would he notice. He would have worn a patch as quickly as he would have overlooked a wrinkle. He kept a man in his apartments always busy pressing his ample supply. His friends said that three hours was the limit of time that he would wear these garments without exchanging.</p>
<p>Bellchambers disappeared very suddenly. For three days his absence brought no alarm to his friends, and then they began to operate the usual methods of inquiry. All of them failed. He had left absolutely no trace behind. Then the search for a motive was instituted, but none was found. He had no enemies, he had no debts, there was no woman. There were several thousand dollars in his bank to his credit. He had never showed any tendency toward mental eccentricity; in fact, he was of a particularly calm and well-balanced temperament. Every means of tracing the vanished man was made use of, but without avail. It was one of those cases—more numerous in late years—where men seem to have gone out like the flame of a candle, leaving not even a trail of smoke as a witness.</p>
<p>In May, Tom Eyres and Lancelot Gilliam, two of Bellchambers old friends, went for a little run on the other side. While pottering around in Italy and Switzerland, they happened, one day, to hear of a monastery in the Swiss Alps that promised something outside of the ordinary tourist-beguiling attractions. The monastery was almost inaccessible to the average sightseer, being on an extremely rugged and precipitous spur of the mountains. The attractions it possessed but did not advertise were, first, an exclusive and divine cordial made by the monks that was said to far surpass benedictine and chartreuse. Next a huge brass bell so purely and accurately cast that it had not ceased sounding since it was first rung three hundred years ago. Finally, it was asserted that no Englishman had ever set foot within its walls. Eyres and Gilliam decided that these three reports called for investigation.</p>

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<p>Thacker reached for his thick manila envelope and dumped a mass of typewritten manuscript on the editors desk.</p>
<p>“Heres some truck,” said he, “that I paid cash for, and brought along with me.”</p>
<p>One by one he folded back the manuscripts and showed their first pages to the colonel.</p>
<p>“Here are four short stories by four of the highest priced authors in the United States—three of em living in New York, and one commuting. Theres a special article on Vienna-bred society by Tom Vampson. Heres an Italian serial by Captain Jack—no—its the other Crawford. Here are three separate exposés of city governments by Sniffings, and heres a dandy entitled What Women Carry in Dress-Suitcases—a Chicago newspaper woman hired herself out for five years as a ladys maid to get that information. And heres a Synopsis of Preceding Chapters of Hall Caines new serial to appear next June. And heres a couple of pounds of vers de société that I got at a rate from the clever magazines. Thats the stuff that people everywhere want. And now heres a write-up with photographs at the ages of four, twelve, twenty-two, and thirty of George <abbr class="name">B.</abbr> McClellan. Its a prognostication. Hes bound to be elected Mayor of New York. Itll make a big hit all over the country. He—”</p>
<p>“Here are four short stories by four of the highest priced authors in the United States—three of em living in New York, and one commuting. Theres a special article on Vienna-bred society by Tom Vampson. Heres an Italian serial by Captain Jack—no—its the other Crawford. Here are three separate exposés of city governments by Sniffings, and heres a dandy entitled What Women Carry in Dress-Suitcases—a Chicago newspaper woman hired herself out for five years as a ladys maid to get that information. And heres a Synopsis of Preceding Chapters of Hall Caines new serial to appear next June. And heres a couple of pounds of <span xml:lang="fr">vers de société</span> that I got at a rate from the clever magazines. Thats the stuff that people everywhere want. And now heres a write-up with photographs at the ages of four, twelve, twenty-two, and thirty of George <abbr class="name">B.</abbr> McClellan. Its a prognostication. Hes bound to be elected Mayor of New York. Itll make a big hit all over the country. He—”</p>
<p>“I beg your pardon,” said Colonel Telfair, stiffening in his chair. “What was the name?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I see,” said Thacker, with half a grin. Yes, hes a son of the General. Well pass that manuscript up. But, if youll excuse me, Colonel, its a magazine were trying to make go off—not the first gun at Fort Sumter. Now, heres a thing thats bound to get next to you. Its an original poem by James Whitcomb Riley. <abbr class="name">J. W.</abbr> himself. You know what that means to a magazine. I wont tell you what I had to pay for that poem; but Ill tell you this—Riley can make more money writing with a fountain-pen than you or I can with one that lets the ink run. Ill read you the last two stanzas:</p>
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:poem">

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<p>It began away up in Sullivan County, where so many rivers and so much trouble begins—or begin; how would you say that? It was July, and Jessie was a summer boarder at the Mountain Squint Hotel, and Bob, who was just out of college, saw her one day—and they were married in September. Thats the tabloid novel—one swallow of water, and its gone.</p>
<p>But those July days!</p>
<p>Let the exclamation point expound it, for I shall not. For particulars you might read up on “Romeo and Juliet,” and Abraham Lincolns thrilling sonnet about “You can fool some of the people,” <abbr>etc.</abbr>, and Darwins works.</p>
<p>But one thing I must tell you about. Both of them were mad over Omars 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 table dhôte.</p>
<p>But one thing I must tell you about. Both of them were mad over Omars 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 dhôte</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 lawyers 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 wont 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 dhôte 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>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 Bobs 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>

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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
<article id="the-rubber-plants-story" epub:type="se:short-story">
<h2 epub:type="title">The Rubber Plants Story</h2>
<p>We rubber plants form the connecting link between the vegetable kingdom and the decorations of a Waldorf-Astoria scene in a Third Avenue theatre. I havent looked up our family tree, but I believe we were raised by grafting a gum overshoe on to a 30-cent table dhôte stalk of asparagus. You take a white bulldog with a Bourke Cockran air of independence about him and a rubber plant and there you have the fauna and flora of a flat. What the shamrock is to Ireland the rubber plant is to the dweller in flats and furnished rooms. We get moved from one place to another so quickly that the only way we can get our picture taken is with a kinetoscope. We are the vagrant vine and the flitting fig tree. You know the proverb: “Where the rubber plant sits in the window the moving van draws up to the door.”</p>
<p>We rubber plants form the connecting link between the vegetable kingdom and the decorations of a Waldorf-Astoria scene in a Third Avenue theatre. I havent looked up our family tree, but I believe we were raised by grafting a gum overshoe on to a 30-cent <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span> stalk of asparagus. You take a white bulldog with a Bourke Cockran air of independence about him and a rubber plant and there you have the fauna and flora of a flat. What the shamrock is to Ireland the rubber plant is to the dweller in flats and furnished rooms. We get moved from one place to another so quickly that the only way we can get our picture taken is with a kinetoscope. We are the vagrant vine and the flitting fig tree. You know the proverb: “Where the rubber plant sits in the window the moving van draws up to the door.”</p>
<p>We are the city equivalent to the woodbine and the honeysuckle. No other vegetable except the Pittsburg stogie can withstand as much handling as we can. When the family to which we belong moves into a flat they set us in the front window and we become lares and penates, flypaper and the peripatetic emblem of “Home Sweet Home.” We arent as green as we look. I guess we are about what you would call the soubrettes of the conservatory. You try sitting in the front window of a $40 flat in Manhattan and looking out into the street all day, and back into the flat at night, and see whether you get wise or not—hey? Talk about the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden—say! suppose there had been a rubber plant there when Eve—but I was going to tell you a story.</p>
<p>The first thing I can remember I had only three leaves and belonged to a member of the pony ballet. I was kept in a sunny window, and was generally watered with seltzer and lemon. I had plenty of fun in those days. I got cross-eyed trying to watch the numbers of the automobiles in the street and the dates on the labels inside at the same time.</p>
<p>Well, then the angel that was molting for the musical comedy lost his last feather and the company broke up. The ponies trotted away and I was left in the window ownerless. The janitor gave me to a refined comedy team on the eighth floor, and in six weeks I had been set in the window of five different flats I took on experience and put out two more leaves.</p>

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<p>At my “hello,” a ranch hand came from an outer building and received my thankful horse. In another minute, Ross and I sat by a stove in the dining-room of the four-room ranch house, while the big, simple welcome of the household lay at my disposal. Fanned by the whizzing norther, the fine, dry snow was sifted and bolted through the cracks and knotholes of the logs. The cook room, without a separating door, appended.</p>
<p>In there I could see a short, sturdy, leisurely and weather-beaten man moving with professional sureness about his red-hot stove. His face was stolid and unreadable—something like that of a great thinker, or of one who had no thoughts to conceal. I thought his eye seemed unwarrantably superior to the elements and to the man, but quickly attributed that to the characteristic self-importance of a petty chef. “Camp cook” was the niche that I gave him in the Hall of Types; and he fitted it as an apple fits a dumpling.</p>
<p>Cold it was in spite of the glowing stove; and Ross and I sat and talked, shuddering frequently, half from nerves and half from the freezing draughts. So he brought the bottle and the cook brought boiling water, and we made prodigious hot toddies against the attacks of Boreas. We clinked glasses often. They sounded like icicles dropping from the eaves, or like the tinkle of a thousand prisms on a Louis <span epub:type="z3998:roman">XIV</span> chandelier that I once heard at a boarders dance in the parlor of a ten-a-week boardinghouse in Gramercy Square. <span xml:lang="la">Sic transit</span>.</p>
<p>Silence in the terrible beauty of the snow and of the Sphinx and of the stars; but they who believe that all things, from a without-wine table dhôte to the crucifixion, may be interpreted through music, might have found a nocturne or a symphony to express the isolation of that blotted-out world. The clink of glass and bottle, the aeolian chorus of the wind in the house crannies, its deeper trombone through the canyon below, and the Wagnerian crash of the cooks pots and pans, united in a fit, discordant melody, I thought. No less welcome an accompaniment was the sizzling of broiling ham and venison cutlet endorsed by the solvent fumes of true java, bringing rich promises of comfort to our yearning souls.</p>
<p>Silence in the terrible beauty of the snow and of the Sphinx and of the stars; but they who believe that all things, from a without-wine <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span> to the crucifixion, may be interpreted through music, might have found a nocturne or a symphony to express the isolation of that blotted-out world. The clink of glass and bottle, the aeolian chorus of the wind in the house crannies, its deeper trombone through the canyon below, and the Wagnerian crash of the cooks pots and pans, united in a fit, discordant melody, I thought. No less welcome an accompaniment was the sizzling of broiling ham and venison cutlet endorsed by the solvent fumes of true java, bringing rich promises of comfort to our yearning souls.</p>
<p>The cook brought the smoking supper to the table. He nodded to me democratically as he cast the heavy plates around as though he were pitching quoits or hurling the discus. I looked at him with some appraisement and curiosity and much conciliation. There was no prophet to tell us when that drifting evil outside might cease to fall; and it is well, when snowbound, to stand somewhere within the radius of the cooks favorable consideration. But I could read neither favor nor disapproval in the face and manner of our pot-wrestler.</p>
<p>He was about five feet nine inches, and two hundred pounds of commonplace, bull-necked, pink-faced, callous calm. He wore brown duck trousers too tight and too short, and a blue flannel shirt with sleeves rolled above his elbows. There was a sort of grim, steady scowl on his features that looked to me as though he had fixed it there purposely as a protection against the weakness of an inherent amiability that, he fancied, were better concealed. And then I let supper usurp his brief occupancy of my thoughts.</p>
<p>“Draw up, George,” said Ross. “Lets all eat while the grubs hot.”</p>

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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
<article id="the-tale-of-a-tainted-tenner" epub:type="se:short-story">
<h2 epub:type="title">The Tale of a Tainted Tenner</h2>
<p>Money talks. But you may think that the conversation of a little old ten-dollar bill in New York would be nothing more than a whisper. Oh, very well! Pass up this sotto voce autobiography of an <span epub:type="z3998:roman">X</span> if you like. If you are one of the kind that prefers to listen to John Ds checkbook roar at you through a megaphone as it passes by, all right. But dont forget that small change can say a word to the point now and then. The next time you tip your grocers clerk a silver quarter to give you extra weight of his bosss goods read the four words above the ladys head. How are they for repartee?</p>
<p>Money talks. But you may think that the conversation of a little old ten-dollar bill in New York would be nothing more than a whisper. Oh, very well! Pass up this <span xml:lang="it">sotto voce</span> autobiography of an <span epub:type="z3998:roman">X</span> if you like. If you are one of the kind that prefers to listen to John Ds checkbook roar at you through a megaphone as it passes by, all right. But dont forget that small change can say a word to the point now and then. The next time you tip your grocers clerk a silver quarter to give you extra weight of his bosss goods read the four words above the ladys head. How are they for repartee?</p>
<p>I am a ten-dollar Treasury note, series of 1901. You may have seen one in a friends hand. On my face, in the centre, is a picture of the bison Americanus, miscalled a buffalo by fifty or sixty millions of Americans. The heads of <abbr>Capt.</abbr> Lewis and <abbr>Capt.</abbr> Clark adorn the ends. On my back is the graceful figure of Liberty or Ceres or Maxine Elliot standing in the centre of the stage on a conservatory plant. My references is—or are—Section 3,588, Revised Statutes. Ten cold, hard dollars—I dont say whether silver, gold, lead or iron—Uncle Sam will hand you over his counter if you want to cash me in.</p>
<p>I beg you will excuse any conversational breaks that I make—thanks, I knew you would—got that sneaking little respect and agreeable feeling toward even an <span epub:type="z3998:roman">X</span>, havent you? You see, a tainted bill doesnt have much chance to acquire a correct form of expression. I never knew a really cultured and educated person that could afford to hold a ten-spot any longer than it would take to do an Arthur Duffy to the nearest Thats All! sign or delicatessen store.</p>
<p>For a six-year-old, Ive had a lively and gorgeous circulation. I guess Ive paid as many debts as the man who dies. Ive been owned by a good many kinds of people. But a little old ragged, damp, dingy five-dollar silver certificate gave me a jar one day. I was next to it in the fat and bad-smelling purse of a butcher.</p>

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<p>One night twenty years ago there was a wedding in the rooms above the store. The Widow Mayo owned the house and store. Her daughter Helen was married to Frank Barry. John Delaney was best man. Helen was eighteen, and her picture had been printed in a morning paper next to the headlines of a “Wholesale Female Murderess” story from Butte, Mont. But after your eye and intelligence had rejected the connection, you seized your magnifying glass and read beneath the portrait her description as one of a series of Prominent Beauties and Belles of the lower west side.</p>
<p>Frank Barry and John Delaney were “prominent” young beaux of the same side, and bosom friends, whom you expected to turn upon each other every time the curtain went up. One who pays his money for orchestra seats and fiction expects this. That is the first funny idea that has turned up in the story yet. Both had made a great race for Helens hand. When Frank won, John shook his hand and congratulated him—honestly, he did.</p>
<p>After the ceremony Helen ran upstairs to put on her hat. She was getting married in a traveling dress. She and Frank were going to Old Point Comfort for a week. Downstairs the usual horde of gibbering cave-dwellers were waiting with their hands full of old Congress gaiters and paper bags of hominy.</p>
<p>Then there was a rattle of the fire-escape, and into her room jumps the mad and infatuated John Delaney, with a damp curl drooping upon his forehead, and made violent and reprehensible love to his lost one, entreating her to flee or fly with him to the Riviera, or the Bronx, or any old place where there are Italian skies and dolce far niente.</p>
<p>Then there was a rattle of the fire-escape, and into her room jumps the mad and infatuated John Delaney, with a damp curl drooping upon his forehead, and made violent and reprehensible love to his lost one, entreating her to flee or fly with him to the Riviera, or the Bronx, or any old place where there are Italian skies and <span xml:lang="it">dolce far niente</span>.</p>
<p>It would have carried Blaney off his feet to see Helen repulse him. With blazing and scornful eyes she fairly withered him by demanding whatever he meant by speaking to respectable people that way.</p>
<p>In a few moments she had him going. The manliness that had possessed him departed. He bowed low, and said something about “irresistible impulse” and “forever carry in his heart the memory of”—and she suggested that he catch the first fire-escape going down.</p>
<p>“I will away,” said John Delaney, “to the furthermost parts of the earth. I cannot remain near you and know that you are anothers. I will to Africa, and there amid other scenes strive to for—”</p>

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<p>The faithful squire took his place close to the curb; Lou next, a little peacocky in her bright and pretty clothes; Nancy on the inside, slender, and soberly clothed as the sparrow, but with the true Van Alstyne Fisher walk—thus they set out for their evenings moderate diversion.</p>
<p>I do not suppose that many look upon a great department store as an educational institution. But the one in which Nancy worked was something like that to her. She was surrounded by beautiful things that breathed of taste and refinement. If you live in an atmosphere of luxury, luxury is yours whether your money pays for it, or anothers.</p>
<p>The people she served were mostly women whose dress, manners, and position in the social world were quoted as criterions. From them Nancy began to take toll—the best from each according to her view.</p>
<p>From one she would copy and practice a gesture, from another an eloquent lifting of an eyebrow, from others, a manner of walking, of carrying a purse, of smiling, of greeting a friend, of addressing “inferiors in station.” From her best beloved model, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Van Alstyne Fisher, she made requisition for that excellent thing, a soft, low voice as clear as silver and as perfect in articulation as the notes of a thrush. Suffused in the aura of this high social refinement and good breeding, it was impossible for her to escape a deeper effect of it. As good habits are said to be better than good principles, so, perhaps, good manners are better than good habits. The teachings of your parents may not keep alive your New England conscience; but if you sit on a straight-back chair and repeat the words “prisms and pilgrims” forty times the devil will flee from you. And when Nancy spoke in the Van Alstyne Fisher tones she felt the thrill of noblesse oblige to her very bones.</p>
<p>From one she would copy and practice a gesture, from another an eloquent lifting of an eyebrow, from others, a manner of walking, of carrying a purse, of smiling, of greeting a friend, of addressing “inferiors in station.” From her best beloved model, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Van Alstyne Fisher, she made requisition for that excellent thing, a soft, low voice as clear as silver and as perfect in articulation as the notes of a thrush. Suffused in the aura of this high social refinement and good breeding, it was impossible for her to escape a deeper effect of it. As good habits are said to be better than good principles, so, perhaps, good manners are better than good habits. The teachings of your parents may not keep alive your New England conscience; but if you sit on a straight-back chair and repeat the words “prisms and pilgrims” forty times the devil will flee from you. And when Nancy spoke in the Van Alstyne Fisher tones she felt the thrill of <span xml:lang="fr">noblesse oblige</span> to her very bones.</p>
<p>There was another source of learning in the great departmental school. Whenever you see three or four shop-girls gather in a bunch and jingle their wire bracelets as an accompaniment to apparently frivolous conversation, do not think that they are there for the purpose of criticizing the way Ethel does her back hair. The meeting may lack the dignity of the deliberative bodies of man; but it has all the importance of the occasion on which Eve and her first daughter first put their heads together to make Adam understand his proper place in the household. It is Womans Conference for Common Defense and Exchange of Strategical Theories of Attack and Repulse upon and against the World, which is a Stage, and Man, its Audience who Persists in Throwing Bouquets Thereupon. Woman, the most helpless of the young of any animal—with the fawns grace but without its fleetness; with the birds beauty but without its power of flight; with the honeybees burden of sweetness but without its—Oh, lets drop that simile—some of us may have been stung.</p>
<p>During this council of war they pass weapons one to another, and exchange stratagems that each has devised and formulated out of the tactics of life.</p>
<p>“I says to im,” says Sadie, “aint you the fresh thing! Who do you suppose I am, to be addressing such a remark to me? And what do you think he says back to me?”</p>

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<p>And now closer draw the threads of parable, precept allegory, and narrative, leading nowhere if you will, or else weaving themselves into the little fiction story about Cliff McGowan and his one talent. There is but a definition to follow; and then the homely actors trip on.</p>
<p>Talent: A gift, endowment or faculty; some peculiar ability, power, or accomplishment, natural or acquired. (A metaphor borrowed from the parable in Matt. <span epub:type="z3998:roman">XXV</span> 1430.)</p>
<p>In New York City today there are (estimated) 125,000 living creatures training for the stage. This does not include seals, pigs, dogs, elephants, prizefighters, Carmens, mind-readers, or Japanese wrestlers. The bulk of them are in the ranks of the Four Million. Out of this number will survive a thousand.</p>
<p>Nine hundred of these will have attained their fullness of fame when they shall dubiously indicate with the point of a hatpin a blurred figure in a flashlight photograph of a stage tout ensemble with the proud commentary: “Thats me.”</p>
<p>Nine hundred of these will have attained their fullness of fame when they shall dubiously indicate with the point of a hatpin a blurred figure in a flashlight photograph of a stage <span xml:lang="fr">tout ensemble</span> with the proud commentary: “Thats me.”</p>
<p>Eighty, in the pinkest of (male) Louis <span epub:type="z3998:roman">XIV</span> court costumes, shall welcome the Queen of the (mythical) Pawpaw Isles in a few well-memorized words, turning a tip-tilted nose upon the nine hundred.</p>
<p>Ten, in tiny lace caps, shall dust Ibsen furniture for six minutes after the rising of the curtain.</p>
<p>Nine shall attain the circuits, besieging with muscle, skill, eye, hand, voice, wit, brain, heel and toe the ultimate high walls of stardom.</p>

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<p>“You havent dined, then?” asked Forster.</p>
<p>“I have not. But I would like to. Now, Ill make you a proposition. You look like a man who would take up one. Your clothes look neat and respectable. Excuse personalities. I think mine will pass the scrutiny of a head waiter, also. Suppose we go over to that hotel and dine together. We will choose from the menu like millionaires—or, if you prefer, like gentlemen in moderate circumstances dining extravagantly for once. When we have finished we will match with my two pennies to see which of us will stand the brunt of the houses displeasure and vengeance. My name is Ives. I think we have lived in the same station of life—before our money took wings.”</p>
<p>“Youre on,” said Forster, joyfully.</p>
<p>Here was a venture at least within the borders of the mysterious country of Chance—anyhow, it promised something better than the stale infestivity of a table dhôte.</p>
<p>Here was a venture at least within the borders of the mysterious country of Chance—anyhow, it promised something better than the stale infestivity of a <span xml:lang="fr">table dhôte</span>.</p>
<p>The two were soon seated at a corner table in the hotel dining room. Ives chucked one of his pennies across the table to Forster.</p>
<p>“Match for which of us gives the order,” he said.</p>
<p>Forster lost.</p>
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<p>“Oh,” said Ives, settling himself more comfortably, “I can do that later on. Get me a glass of water, waiter.”</p>
<p>“Want to be in at the death, do you?” asked Forster.</p>
<p>“I hope you dont object,” said Ives, pleadingly. “Never in my life have I seen a gentleman arrested in a public restaurant for swindling it out of a dinner.”</p>
<p>“All right,” said Forster, calmly. “You are entitled to see a Christian die in the arena as your pousse-café.”</p>
<p>“All right,” said Forster, calmly. “You are entitled to see a Christian die in the arena as your <span xml:lang="fr">pousse-café</span>.”</p>
<p>Victor came with the glass of water and remained, with the disengaged air of an inexorable collector.</p>
<p>Forster hesitated for fifteen seconds, and then took a pencil from his pocket and scribbled his name on the dinner check. The waiter bowed and took it away.</p>
<p>“The fact is,” said Forster, with a little embarrassed laugh, “I doubt whether Im what they call a game sport, which means the same as a soldier of Fortune. Ill have to make a confession. Ive been dining at this hotel two or three times a week for more than a year. I always sign my checks.” And then, with a note of appreciation in his voice: “It was first-rate of you to stay to see me through with it when you knew I had no money, and that you might be scooped in, too.”</p>

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<p>From Port Limon Merriam worked down the coast by schooner and sloop to Colon, thence across the isthmus to Panama, where he caught a tramp bound for Callao and such intermediate ports as might tempt the discursive skipper from his course.</p>
<p>It was at La Paz that Merriam decided to land—La Paz the Beautiful, a little harbourless town smothered in a living green ribbon that banded the foot of a cloud-piercing mountain. Here the little steamer stopped to tread water while the captains dory took him ashore that he might feel the pulse of the coconut market. Merriam went too, with his suitcase, and remained.</p>
<p>Kalb, the vice-consul, a Graeco-Armenian citizen of the United States, born in Hessen-Darmstadt, and educated in Cincinnati ward primaries, considered all Americans his brothers and bankers. He attached himself to Merriams elbow, introduced him to everyone in La Paz who wore shoes, borrowed ten dollars and went back to his hammock.</p>
<p>There was a little wooden hotel in the edge of a banana grove, facing the sea, that catered to the tastes of the few foreigners that had dropped out of the world into the triste Peruvian town. At Kalbs introductory: “Shake hands with ⸻,” he had obediently exchanged manual salutations with a German doctor, one French and two Italian merchants, and three or four Americans who were spoken of as gold men, rubber men, mahogany men—anything but men of living tissue.</p>
<p>There was a little wooden hotel in the edge of a banana grove, facing the sea, that catered to the tastes of the few foreigners that had dropped out of the world into the <span xml:lang="fr">triste</span> Peruvian town. At Kalbs introductory: “Shake hands with ⸻,” he had obediently exchanged manual salutations with a German doctor, one French and two Italian merchants, and three or four Americans who were spoken of as gold men, rubber men, mahogany men—anything but men of living tissue.</p>
<p>After dinner Merriam sat in a corner of the broad front <i xml:lang="es">galeria</i> with Bibb, a Vermonter interested in hydraulic mining, and smoked and drank Scotch “smoke.” The moonlit sea, spreading infinitely before him, seemed to separate him beyond all apprehension from his old life. The horrid tragedy in which he had played such a disastrous part now began, for the first time since he stole on board the fruiter, a wretched fugitive, to lose its sharper outlines. Distance lent assuagement to his view. Bibb had opened the floodgates of a stream of long-dammed discourse, overjoyed to have captured an audience that had not suffered under a hundred repetitions of his views and theories.</p>
<p>“One year more,” said Bibb, “and Ill go back to Gods country. Oh, I know its pretty here, and you get dolce far niente handed to you in chunks, but this country wasnt made for a white man to live in. Youve got to have to plug through snow now and then, and see a game of baseball and wear a stiff collar and have a policeman cuss you. Still, La Paz is a good sort of a pipe-dreamy old hole. And <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Conant is here. When any of us feels particularly like jumping into the sea we rush around to her house and propose. Its nicer to be rejected by <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Conant than it is to be drowned. And they say drowning is a delightful sensation.”</p>
<p>“One year more,” said Bibb, “and Ill go back to Gods country. Oh, I know its pretty here, and you get <span xml:lang="it">dolce far niente</span> handed to you in chunks, but this country wasnt made for a white man to live in. Youve got to have to plug through snow now and then, and see a game of baseball and wear a stiff collar and have a policeman cuss you. Still, La Paz is a good sort of a pipe-dreamy old hole. And <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Conant is here. When any of us feels particularly like jumping into the sea we rush around to her house and propose. Its nicer to be rejected by <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Conant than it is to be drowned. And they say drowning is a delightful sensation.”</p>
<p>“Many like her here?” asked Merriam.</p>
<p>“Not anywhere,” said Bibb, with a comfortable sigh. Shes the only white woman in La Paz. The rest range from a dappled dun to the colour of a b-flat piano key. Shes been here a year. Comes from—well, you know how a woman can talk—ask em to say string and theyll say crows foot or cats cradle. Sometimes youd think she was from Oshkosh, and again from Jacksonville, Florida, and the next day from Cape Cod.”</p>
<p>“Mystery?” ventured Merriam.</p>

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<p>Now you have the material allegations in the case. So, make way for Romance.</p>
<p>Evidently the hermit expected a visitor. He carefully combed his long hair and parted his apostolic beard. When the ninety-eight-cent alarm-clock on a stone shelf announced the hour of five he picked up his gunnysacking skirts, brushed them carefully, gathered an oaken staff, and strolled slowly into the thick woods that surrounded the hermitage.</p>
<p>He had not long to wait. Up the faint pathway, slippery with its carpet of pine-needles, toiled Beatrix, youngest and fairest of the famous Trenholme sisters. She was all in blue from hat to canvas pumps, varying in tint from the shade of the tinkle of a bluebell at daybreak on a spring Saturday to the deep hue of a Monday morning at nine when the washerwoman has failed to show up.</p>
<p>Beatrix dug her cerulean parasol deep into the pine-needles and sighed. The hermit, on the <abbr class="initialism">QT</abbr>, removed a grass burr from the ankle of one sandalled foot with the big toe of his other one. She blued—and almost starched and ironed him—with her cobalt eyes.</p>
<p>Beatrix dug her cerulean parasol deep into the pine-needles and sighed. The hermit, on the <abbr class="initialism">q.t.</abbr>, removed a grass burr from the ankle of one sandalled foot with the big toe of his other one. She blued—and almost starched and ironed him—with her cobalt eyes.</p>
<p>“It must be so nice,” she said in little, tremulous gasps, “to be a hermit, and have ladies climb mountains to talk to you.”</p>
<p>The hermit folded his arms and leaned against a tree. Beatrix, with a sigh, settled down upon the mat of pine-needles like a bluebird upon her nest. The hermit followed suit; drawing his feet rather awkwardly under his gunnysacking.</p>
<p>“It must be nice to be a mountain,” said he, with ponderous lightness, “and have angels in blue climb up you instead of flying over you.”</p>

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<p>A myriad of lamps that line the Champs Élysées and the Rouge et Noir, cast their reflection in the dark waters of the Seine as it flows gloomily past the Place Vendôme and the black walls of the Convent Notadam.</p>
<p>The great French capital is astir.</p>
<p>It is the hour when crime and vice and wickedness reign.</p>
<p>Hundreds of fiacres drive madly through the streets conveying women, flashing with jewels and as beautiful as dreams, from opera and concert, and the little bijou supper rooms of the Café Tout le Temps are filled with laughing groups, while bon mots, persiflage and repartee fly upon the air—the jewels of thought and conversation.</p>
<p>Hundreds of fiacres drive madly through the streets conveying women, flashing with jewels and as beautiful as dreams, from opera and concert, and the little bijou supper rooms of the Café Tout le Temps are filled with laughing groups, while <span xml:lang="fr">bon mots</span>, persiflage and repartee fly upon the air—the jewels of thought and conversation.</p>
<p>Luxury and poverty brush each other in the streets. The homeless gamin, begging a sou with which to purchase a bed, and the spendthrift roué, scattering golden louis dor, tread the same pavement.</p>
<p>When other cities sleep, Paris has just begun her wild revelry.</p>
<p>The first scene of our story is a cellar beneath the Rue de Peychaud.</p>
<p>The room is filled with smoke of pipes, and is stifling with the reeking breath of its inmates. A single flaring gas jet dimly lights the scene, which is one Rembrandt or Moreland and Keisel would have loved to paint.</p>
<p>A garçon is selling absinthe to such of the motley crowd as have a few sous, dealing it out in niggardly portions in broken teacups.</p>
<p>A <span xml:lang="fr">garçon</span> is selling absinthe to such of the motley crowd as have a few sous, dealing it out in niggardly portions in broken teacups.</p>
<p>Leaning against the bar is Carnaignole Cusheau—generally known as the Gray Wolf.</p>
<p>He is the worst man in Paris.</p>
<p>He is more than four feet ten in height, and his sharp, ferocious looking face and the mass of long, tangled gray hair that covers his face and head, have earned for him the name he bears.</p>

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<p>Just then a horse dashed up to the verandah—or gallery, as they call it in Texas—and someone dismounted and entered the room.</p>
<hr/>
<p>I shall never forget my first sight of Aubrey DeVere.</p>
<p>He was fully seven feet in height, and his face was perfect. It was the absolute image of Andrea del Sartos painting of the young Saint John. His eyes were immense, dark, and filled with a haunting sadness, and his pale, patrician features and air of <i>haut monde</i> stamped him at once as the descendant of a long line of aristocrats.</p>
<p>He was fully seven feet in height, and his face was perfect. It was the absolute image of Andrea del Sartos painting of the young Saint John. His eyes were immense, dark, and filled with a haunting sadness, and his pale, patrician features and air of <span xml:lang="fr">haut monde</span> stamped him at once as the descendant of a long line of aristocrats.</p>
<p>He wore a dress suit of the latest cut, but I noticed that he was barefooted, and down from each side of his mouth trickled a dark brown stream of tobacco juice.</p>
<p>On his head was an enormous Mexican sombrero. He wore no shirt, but his dress coat, thrown back from his broad chest, revealed an enormous scintillating diamond tied with a piece of twine strung into the meshes of his gauze undershirt.</p>
<p>“My son, Aubrey; Miss Cook,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> DeVere languidly.</p>

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<p>The front door bell jangled viciously. Somebody was coming in, making a great deal of noise.</p>
<p>Miss Martha hurried to the front. Two men were there. One was a young man smoking a pipe—a man she had never seen before. The other was her artist.</p>
<p>His face was very red, his hat was on the back of his head, his hair was wildly rumpled. He clinched his two fists and shook them ferociously at Miss Martha. <em>At Miss Martha.</em></p>
<p>“Dummkopf!” he shouted with extreme loudness; and then “<i xml:lang="de">Tausendonfer!</i>” or something like it in German.</p>
<p><span xml:lang="de">Dummkopf</span>!” he shouted with extreme loudness; and then “<i xml:lang="de">Tausendonfer!</i>” or something like it in German.</p>
<p>The young man tried to draw him away.</p>
<p>“I vill not go,” he said angrily, “else I shall told her.”</p>
<p>He made a bass drum of Miss Marthas counter.</p>