The cover for the Standard Ebooks edition of Rolling Stones, by O. Henry

This the twelfth and final volume of O. Henry's work gets its +title from an early newspaper venture of which he was the head and +front. On April 28, 1894, there appeared in Austin, Texas, volume +1, number 3, of The Rolling Stone, with a circulation greatly in +excess of that of the only two numbers that had gone before. +Apparently the business office was encouraged. The first two +issues of one thousand copies each had been bought up. Of the +third an edition of six thousand was published and distributed +free, so that the business men of Austin, Texas, might know what a +good medium was at hand for their advertising. The editor and +proprietor and illustrator of The Rolling Stone was Will Porter, +incidentally Paying and Receiving Teller in Major Brackenridge's +bank.

Perhaps the most characteristic feature of the paper was "The +Plunkville Patriot," a page each week—or at least with the +regularity of the somewhat uncertain paper itself—purporting to +be reprinted from a contemporary journal. The editor of the +Plunkville Patriot was Colonel Aristotle Jordan, unrelenting enemy +of his enemies. When the Colonel's application for the +postmastership in Plunkville is ignored, his columns carry a +bitter attack on the administration at Washington. With the public +weal at heart, the Patriot announces that "there is a dangerous +hole in the front steps of the Elite saloon." Here, too, appears +the delightful literary item that Mark Twain and Charles Egbert +Craddock are spending the summer together in their Adirondacks +camp. "Free," runs its advertising column, "a clergyman who cured +himself of fits will send one book containing 100 popular songs, +one repeating rifle, two decks easywinner cards and 1 liver pad +free of charge for $8. Address Sucker & Chump, Augusta, Me." The +office moves nearly every week, probably in accordance with the +time-honored principle involving the comparative ease of moving +and paying rent. When the Colonel publishes his own candidacy for +mayor, he further declares that the Patriot will accept no +announcements for municipal offices until after "our" (the +editor's) canvass. Adams & Co., grocers, order their $2.25 ad. +discontinued and find later in the Patriot this estimate of their +product: "No less than three children have been poisoned by eating +their canned vegetables, and J. O. Adams, the senior member of the +firm, was run out of Kansas City for adulterating codfish balls. +It pays to advertise." Here is the editorial in which the editor +first announces his campaign: "Our worthy mayor, Colonel Henry +Stutty, died this morning after an illness of about five minutes, +brought on by carrying a bouquet to Mrs. Eli Watts just as Eli got +in from a fishing trip. Ten minutes later we had dodgers out +announcing our candidacy for the office. We have lived in +Plunkville going on five years and have never been elected +anything yet. We understand the mayor business thoroughly and if +elected some people will wish wolves had stolen them from their +cradles…"

The page from the Patriot is presented with an array of perfectly +confused type, of artistic errors in setting up, and when an +occasional line gets shifted (intentionally, of course) the effect +is alarming. Anybody who knows the advertising of a small country +weekly can, as he reads, pick out, in the following, the +advertisement from the "personal."

All of this was a part of The Rolling Stone, which flourished, or +at least wavered, in Austin during the years 1894 and 1895. Years +before, Porter's strong instinct to write had been gratified in +letters. He wrote, in his twenties, long imaginative letters, +occasionally stuffed with execrable puns, but more than often +buoyant, truly humorous, keenly incisive into the unreal, +especially in fiction. I have included a number of these letters +to Doctor Beall of Greensboro, N. C., and to his early friend in +Texas, Mr. David Harrell.

In 1895-1896 Porter went to Houston, Texas, to work on the Houston +Post. There he "conducted" a column which he called "Postscripts." +Some of the contents of the pages that follow have been taken from +these old files in the fair hope that admirers of the matured O. +Henry will find in them pleasurable marks of the later genius.

Before the days of The Rolling Stone there are eleven years in +Texas over which, with the exception of the letters mentioned, +there are few "traces" of literary performance; but there are some +very interesting drawings, some of which are reproduced in this +volume. A story is back of them. They were the illustrations to a +book. "Joe" Dixon, prospector and inveterate fortune-seeker, came +to Austin from the Rockies in 1883, at the constant urging of his +old pal, Mr. John Maddox, "Joe," kept writing Mr. Maddox, "your +fortune's in your pen, not your pick. Come to Austin and write an +account of your adventures." It was hard to woo Dixon from the +gold that wasn't there, but finally Maddox wrote him he must come +and try the scheme. "There's a boy here from North Carolina," +wrote Maddox. "His name is Will Porter and he can make the +pictures. He's all right." Dixon came. The plan was that, after +Author and Artist had done their work, Patron would step in, carry +the manuscript to New York, bestow it on a deserving publisher and +then return to await, with the other two, the avalanche of +royalties. This version of the story comes from Mr. Maddox. There +were forty pictures in all and they were very true to the life of +the Rockies in the seventies. Of course, the young artist had no +"technique"—no anything except what was native. But wait! As the +months went by Dixon worked hard, but he began to have doubts. +Perhaps the book was no good. Perhaps John would only lose his +money. He was a miner, not a writer, and he ought not to let John +go to any expense. The result of this line of thought was the +Colorado River for the manuscript and the high road for the +author. The pictures, fortunately, were saved. Most of them Porter +gave later to Mrs. Hagelstein of San Angelo, Texas. Mr. Maddox, by +the way, finding a note from Joe that "explained all," hastened to +the river and recovered a few scraps of the great book that had +lodged against a sandbar. But there was no putting them together +again.

So much for the title. It is a real O. Henry title. Contents of +this last volume are drawn not only from letters, old newspaper +files, and The Rolling Stone, but from magazines and unpublished +manuscripts. Of the short stories, several were written at the +very height of his powers and popularity and were lost, +inexplicably, but lost. Of the poems, there are a few whose +authorship might have been in doubt if the compiler of this +collection had not secured external evidence that made them +certainly the work of O. Henry. Without this very strong evidence, +they might have been rejected because they were not entirely the +kind of poems the readers of O. Henry would expect from him. Most +of them however, were found in his own indubitable manuscript or +over his own signature.

There is extant a mass of O. Henry correspondence that has not +been included in this collection. During the better part of a +decade in New York City he wrote constantly to editors, and in +many instances intimately. This is very important material, and +permission has been secured to use nearly all of it in a +biographical volume that will be issued within the next two or +three years. The letters in this volume have been chosen as an +"exihibit," as early specimens of his writing and for their +particularly characteristic turns of thought and phrase. +The collection is not "complete" in any historical sense.

THE DREAM

Both psychology and science grope when they would explain to us +the strange adventures of our immaterial selves when wandering in +the realm of "Death's twin brother, Sleep." This story will not +attempt to be illuminative; it is no more than a record of +Murray's dream. One of the most puzzling phases of that strange +waking sleep is that dreams which seem to cover months or even +years may take place within a few seconds or minutes.

Murray was waiting in his cell in the ward of the condemned. An +electric arc light in the ceiling of the corridor shone brightly +upon his table. On a sheet of white paper an ant crawled wildly +here and there as Murray blocked its way with an envelope. The +electrocution was set for eight o'clock in the evening. Murray +smiled at the antics of the wisest of insects.

There were seven other condemned men in the chamber. Since he had +been there Murray had seen three taken out to their fate; one gone +mad and fighting like a wolf caught in a trap; one, no less mad, +offering up a sanctimonious lip-service to Heaven; the third, a +weakling, collapsed and strapped to a board. He wondered with what +credit to himself his own heart, foot, and face would meet his +punishment; for this was his evening. He thought it must be nearly +eight o'clock.

Opposite his own in the two rows of cells was the cage of +Bonifacio, the Sicilian slayer of his betrothed and of two +officers who came to arrest him. With him Murray had played +checkers many a long hour, each calling his move to his unseen +opponent across the corridor.

Bonifacio's great booming voice with its indestructible singing +quality called out:

"All right, Bonifacio," said Murray steadily, as he allowed the +ant to crawl upon the envelope and then dumped it gently on the +stone floor.

"Dat's good-a, Meestro Murray. Men like us, we must-a die like-a +men. My time come nex'-a week. All-a right. Remember, Meestro +Murray, I beat-a you dat las' game of de check. Maybe we play +again some-a time. I don'-a know. Maybe we have to call-a de move +damn-a loud to play de check where dey goin' send us."

Bonifacio's hardened philosophy, followed closely by his +deafening, musical peal of laughter, warmed rather than chilled +Murray's numbed heart. Yet, Bonifacio had until next week to live.

The cell-dwellers heard the familiar, loud click of the steel +bolts as the door at the end of the corridor was opened. Three men +came to Murray's cell and unlocked it. Two were prison guards; the +other was "Len"—no; that was in the old days; now the Reverend +Leonard Winston, a friend and neighbor from their barefoot days.

"I got them to let me take the prison chaplain's place," he said, +as he gave Murray's hand one short, strong grip. In his left hand +he held a small Bible, with his forefinger marking a page.

Murray smiled slightly and arranged two or three books and some +penholders orderly on his small table. He would have spoken, but +no appropriate words seemed to present themselves to his mind.

The prisoners had christened this cellhouse, eighty +feet long, twenty-eight feet wide, Limbo Lane. The regular guard +of Limbo Lane, an immense, rough, kindly man, drew a pint bottle +of whiskey from his pocket and offered it to Murray, saying:

"It's the regular thing, you know. All has it who feel like they +need a bracer. No danger of it becoming a habit with 'em, you +see."

"That's the boy!" said the guard. "Just a little nerve tonic, and +everything goes smooth as silk."

They stepped into the corridor, and each one of the doomed seven +knew. Limbo Lane is a world on the outside of the world; but it +had learned, when deprived of one or more of the five senses, to +make another sense supply the deficiency. Each one knew that it +was nearly eight, and that Murray was to go to the chair at eight. +There is also in the many Limbo Lanes an aristocracy of crime. The +man who kills in the open, who beats his enemy or pursuer down, +flushed by the primitive emotions and the ardor of combat, holds +in contempt the human rat, the spider, and the snake.

So, of the seven condemned only three called their farewells to +Murray as he marched down the corridor between the two +guards—Bonifacio, Marvin, who had killed a guard while trying to +escape from the prison, and Bassett, the train-robber, who was +driven to it because the express-messenger wouldn't raise his +hands when ordered to do so. The remaining four smoldered, silent, +in their cells, no doubt feeling their social ostracism in Limbo +Lane society more keenly than they did the memory of their less +picturesque offences against the law.

Murray wondered at his own calmness and nearly indifference. In +the execution room were about twenty men, a congregation made up +of prison officers, newspaper reporters, and lookers-on who had +succeeded

Here, in the very middle of a sentence, the hand of Death +interrupted the telling of O. Henry's last story. He had planned +to make this story different from his others, the beginning of a +new series in a style he had not previously attempted. "I want to +show the public," he said, "that I can write something new—new +for me, I mean—a story without slang, a straightforward dramatic +plot treated in a way that will come nearer my idea of real +story-writing." Before starting to write the present story, he +outlined briefly how he intended to develop it: Murray, the +criminal accused and convicted of the brutal murder of his +sweetheart—a murder prompted by jealous rage—at first faces the +death penalty, calm, and, to all outward appearances, indifferent +to his fate. As he nears the electric chair he is overcome by a +revulsion of feeling. He is left dazed, stupefied, stunned. The +entire scene in the death-chamber—the witnesses, the spectators, +the preparations for execution—become unreal to him. The thought +flashes through his brain that a terrible mistake is being made. +Why is he being strapped to the chair? What has he done? What +crime has he committed? In the few moments while the straps are +being adjusted a vision comes to him. He dreams a dream. He sees a +little country cottage, bright, sun-lit, nestling in a bower of +flowers. A woman is there, and a little child. He speaks with them +and finds that they are his wife, his child—and the cottage their +home. So, after all, it is a mistake. Some one has frightfully, +irretrievably blundered. The accusation, the trial, the +conviction, the sentence to death in the electric chair—all a +dream. He takes his wife in his arms and kisses the child. Yes, +here is happiness. It was a dream. Then—at a sign from the prison +warden the fatal current is turned on.

A RULER OF MEN

I walked the streets of the City of Insolence, thirsting for the +sight of a stranger face. For the City is a desert of familiar +types as thick and alike as the grains in a sand-storm; and you +grow to hate them as you do a friend who is always by you, or one +of your own kin.

And my desire was granted, for I saw near a corner of Broadway and +Twenty-ninth Street, a little flaxen-haired man with a face like a +scaly-bark hickory-nut, selling to a fast-gathering crowd a tool +that omnigeneously proclaimed itself a can-opener, a screw-driver, +a button-hook, a nail-file, a shoe-horn, a watch-guard, a +potato-peeler, and an ornament to any gentleman's key-ring.

And then a stall-fed cop shoved himself through the congregation +of customers. The vender, plainly used to having his seasons of +trade thus abruptly curtailed, closed his satchel and slipped like +a weasel through the opposite segment of the circle. The crowd +scurried aimlessly away like ants from a disturbed crumb. The cop, +suddenly becoming oblivious of the earth and its inhabitants, +stood still, swelling his bulk and putting his club through an +intricate drill of twirls. I hurried after Kansas Bill Bowers, and +caught him by an arm.

Without his looking at me or slowing his pace, I found a +five-dollar bill crumpled neatly into my hand.

"I wouldn't have thought, Kansas Bill," I said, "that you'd hold +an old friend that cheap."

"Give back the money," said he, "or I'll have the cop after you +for false pretenses. I thought you was the cop."

"I want to talk to you, Bill," I said. "When did you leave +Oklahoma? Where is Reddy McGill now? Why are you selling those +impossible contraptions on the street? How did your Big Horn +gold-mine pan out? How did you get so badly sunburned? What will +you drink?"

"A year ago," answered Kansas Bill systematically. "Putting up +windmills in Arizona. For pin money to buy etceteras with. Salted. +Been down in the tropics. Beer."

We foregathered in a propitious place and became Elijahs, while a +waiter of dark plumage played the raven to perfection. +Reminiscence needs must be had before I could steer Bill into his +epic mood.

"Yes," said he, "I mind the time Timoteo's rope broke on that +cow's horns while the calf was chasing you. You and that cow! I'd +never forget it."

"The tropics," said I, "are a broad territory. What part of Cancer +of Capricorn have you been honoring with a visit?"

"Down along China or Peru—or maybe the Argentine Confederacy," +said Kansas Bill. "Anyway 'twas among a great race of people, +off-colored but progressive. I was there three months."

"No doubt you are glad to be back among the truly great race," I +surmised. "Especially among New Yorkers, the most progressive and +independent citizens of any country in the world," I continued, +with the fatuity of the provincial who has eaten the Broadway +lotus.

"Not that the Americans aren't a great commercial nation," +conceded Bill. "But the fault laid with the people who wrote lies +for fiction."

"I see there is talk of further outbreaks among the Russian +peasants," I remarked.

Thus, because of our ancient prescience of each other's trail of +thought, we travelled ambiguously to the point where Kansas Bill's +story began:

"I met O'Connor in a boarding-house on the West Side. He invited +me to his hall-room to have a drink, and we became like a dog and +a cat that had been raised together. There he sat, a tall, fine, +handsome man, with his feet against one wall and his back against +the other, looking over a map. On the bed and sticking three feet +out of it was a beautiful gold sword with tassels on it and +rhinestones in the handle.

"'What's this?' says I (for by that time we were well acquainted). +'The annual parade in vilification of the ex-snakes of Ireland? +And what's the line of march? Up Broadway to Forty-second; thence +east to McCarty's café; thence—'

"'Sit down on the wash-stand,' says O'Connor, 'and listen. And +cast no perversions on the sword. 'Twas me father's in old +Munster. And this map, Bowers, is no diagram of a holiday +procession. If ye look again. ye'll see that it's the continent +known as South America, comprising fourteen green, blue, red, and +yellow countries, all crying out from time to time to be liberated +from the yoke of the oppressor.'

"'I know,' says I to O'Connor. 'The idea is a literary one. The +ten-cent magazine stole it from "Ridpath's History of the World +from the Sand-stone Period to the Equator." You'll find it in +every one of 'em. It's a continued story of a soldier of fortune, +generally named O'Keefe, who gets to be dictator while the +Spanish-American populace cries "Cospetto!" and other Italian +maledictions. I misdoubt if it's ever been done. You're not +thinking of trying that, are you, Barney?' I asks.

"'How can I deny it?' says I. 'Education runs in my family; and I +have acquired courage by a hard struggle with life.'

"'The O'Connors,' says he, 'are a warlike race. There is me +father's sword; and here is the map. A life of inaction is not for +me. The O'Connors were born to rule. 'Tis a ruler of men I must +be.'

"'Barney,' I says to him, 'why don't you get on the force and +settle down to a quiet life of carnage and corruption instead of +roaming off to foreign parts? In what better way can you indulge +your desire to subdue and maltreat the oppressed?'

"'Look again at the map,' says he, 'at the country I have the +point of me knife on. 'Tis that one I have selected to aid and +overthrow with me father's sword.'

"'I see,' says I. 'It's the green one; and that does credit to +your patriotism, and it's the smallest one; and that does credit +to your judgment.'

"'No man,' says I, 'who attacks and confiscates a country +single-handed could be called a coward. The worst you can be +charged with is plagiarism or imitation. If Anthony Hope and +Roosevelt let you get away with it, nobody else will have any +right to kick.'

"'I'm not joking,' says O'Connor. 'And I've got $1,500 cash to +work the scheme with. I've taken a liking to you. Do you want it, +or not?'

"'I'm not working,' I told him; 'but how is it to be? Do I eat +during the fomentation of the insurrection, or am I only to be +Secretary of War after the country is conquered? Is it to be a pay +envelope or only a portfolio?'

"I'll pay all expenses,' says O'Connor. 'I want a man I can trust. +If we succeed you may pick out any appointment you want in the +gift of the government.'

"'All right, then,' says I. 'You can get me a bunch of draying +contracts and then a quick-action consignment to a seat on the +Supreme Court bench so I won't be in line for the presidency. The +kind of cannon they chasten their presidents with in that country +hurt too much. You can consider me on the pay-roll.'

"Two weeks afterward O'Connor and me took a steamer for the small, +green, doomed country. We were three weeks on the trip. O'Connor +said he had his plans all figured out in advance; but being the +commanding general, it consorted with his dignity to keep the +details concealed from his army and cabinet, commonly known as +William T. Bowers. Three dollars a day was the price for which I +joined the cause of liberating an undiscovered country from the +ills that threatened or sustained it. Every Saturday night on the +steamer I stood in line at parade rest, and O'Connor handed ever +the twenty-one dollars.

"The town we landed at was named Guayaquerita, so they told me. +'Not for me,' says I. 'It'll be little old Hilldale or +Tompkinsville or Cherry Tree Corners when I speak of it. It's a +clear case where Spelling Reform ought to butt in and disenvowel +it.'

"But the town looked fine from the bay when we sailed in. It was +white, with green ruching, and lace ruffles on the skirt when the +surf slashed up on the sand. It looked as tropical and dolce far +ultra as the pictures of Lake Ronkonkoma in the brochure of the +passenger department of the Long Island Railroad.

"We went through the quarantine and custom-house indignities; and +then O'Connor leads me to a 'dobe house on a street called 'The +Avenue of the Dolorous Butterflies of the Individual and +Collective Saints.' Ten feet wide it was, and knee-deep in alfalfa +and cigar stumps.

"''Twill be our headquarters,' says O'Connor. 'My agent here, Don +Fernando Pacheco, secured it for us.'

"So in that house O'Connor and me established the revolutionary +centre. In the front room we had ostensible things such as fruit, +a guitar, and a table with a conch shell on it. In the back room +O'Connor had his desk and a large looking-glass and his sword hid +in a roll of straw matting. We slept on hammocks that we hung to +hooks in the wall; and took our meals at the Hotel Ingles, a +beanery run on the American plan by a German proprietor with +Chinese cooking served à la Kansas City lunch counter.

"It seems that O'Connor really did have some sort of system +planned out beforehand. He wrote plenty of letters; and every day +or two some native gent would stroll round to headquarters and be +shut up in the back room for half an hour with O'Connor and the +interpreter. I noticed that when they went in they were always +smoking eight-inch cigars and at peace with the world; but when +they came out they would be folding up a ten- or twenty-dollar +bill and cursing the government horribly.

"One evening after we had been in Guaya—in this town of +Smellville-by-the-Sea—about a month, and me and O'Connor were +sitting outside the door helping along old tempus fugit with rum +and ice and limes, I says to him:

"'If you'll excuse a patriot that don't exactly know what he's +patronizing, for the question—what is your scheme for subjugating +this country? Do you intend to plunge it into bloodshed, or do you +mean to buy its votes peacefully and honorably at the polls?'

"'Bowers,' says he, 'ye're a fine little man and I intend to make +great use of ye after the conflict. But ye do not understand +statecraft. Already by now we have a network of strategy clutching +with invisible fingers at the throat of the tyrant Calderas. We +have agents at work in every town in the republic. The Liberal +party is bound to win. On our secret lists we have the names of +enough sympathizers to crush the administration forces at a single +blow.'

"'Who has accomplished this?' goes on O'Connor. 'I have. I have +directed everything. The time was ripe when we came, so my agents +inform me. The people are groaning under burdens of taxes and +levies. Who will be their natural leader when they rise? Could it +be any one but meself? 'Twas only yesterday that Zaldas, our +representative in the province of Durasnas, tells me that the +people, in secret, already call me "El Library Door," which is the +Spanish manner of saying "The Liberator."'

"'Was Zaldas that maroon-colored old Aztec with a paper collar on +and unbleached domestic shoes?' I asked.

"'I saw him tucking a yellow-back into his vest pocket as he came +out,' says I. 'It may be,' says I, 'that they call you a library +door, but they treat you more like the side door of a bank. But +let us hope for the worst.'

"'It has cost money, of course,' says O'Connor; 'but we'll have +the country in our hands inside of a month.'

"In the evenings we walked about in the plaza and listened to the +band playing and mingled with the populace at its distressing and +obnoxious pleasures. There were thirteen vehicles belonging to the +upper classes, mostly rockaways and old-style barouches, such as +the mayor rides in at the unveiling of the new poorhouse at +Milledgeville, Alabama. Round and round the desiccated fountain in +the middle of the plaza they drove, and lifted their high silk +hats to their friends. The common people walked around in +barefooted bunches, puffing stogies that a Pittsburg millionaire +wouldn't have chewed for a dry smoke on Ladies' Day at his club. +And the grandest figure in the whole turnout was Barney O'Connor. +Six foot two he stood in his Fifth Avenue clothes, with his eagle +eye and his black moustache that tickled his ears. He was a born +dictator and czar and hero and harrier of the human race. It +looked to me that all eyes were turned upon O'Connor, and that +every woman there loved him, and every man feared him. Once or +twice I looked at him and thought of funnier things that had +happened than his winning out in his game; and I began to feel +like a Hidalgo de Officio de Grafto de South America myself. And +then I would come down again to solid bottom and let my +imagination gloat, as usual, upon the twenty-one American dollars +due me on Saturday night.

"'Take note,' says O'Connor to me as thus we walked, 'of the mass +of the people. Observe their oppressed and melancholy air. Can ye +not see that they are ripe for revolt? Do ye not perceive that +they are disaffected?'

"'I do not,' says I. 'Nor disinfected either. I'm beginning to +understand these people. When they look unhappy they're enjoying +themselves. When they feel unhappy they go to sleep. They're not +the kind of people to take an interest in revolutions.'

"'They'll flock to our standard,' says O'Connor. 'Three thousand +men in this town alone will spring to arms when the signal is +given. I am assured of that. But everything is in secret. There is +no chance for us to fail.'

"On Hooligan Alley, as I prefer to call the street our +headquarters was on, there was a row of flat 'dobe houses with red +tile roofs, some straw shacks full of Indians and dogs, and one +two-story wooden house with balconies a little farther down. That +was where General Tumbalo, the comandante and commander of the +military forces, lived. Right across the street was a private +residence built like a combination bake-oven and folding-bed. One +day, O'Connor and me were passing it, single file, on the flange +they called a sidewalk, when out of the window flies a big red +rose. O'Connor, who is ahead, picks it up, presses it to his fifth +rib, and bows to the ground. By Carrambos! that man certainly had +the Irish drama chaunceyized. I looked around expecting to see the +little boy and girl in white sateen ready to jump on his shoulder +while he jolted their spinal columns and ribs together through a +breakdown, and sang: 'Sleep, Little One, Sleep.'

"As I passed the window I glanced inside and caught a glimpse of a +white dress and a pair of big, flashing black eyes and gleaming +teeth under a dark lace mantilla.

"When we got back to our house O'Connor began to walk up and down +the floor and twist his moustaches.

"'I did,' says I, 'and I can see more than that. It's all coming +out according to the story-books. I knew there was something +missing. 'Twas the love interest. What is it that comes in Chapter +VII to cheer the gallant Irish adventurer? Why, Love, of +course—Love that makes the hat go around. At last we have the +eyes of midnight hue and the rose flung from the barred window. +Now, what comes next? The underground passage— the intercepted +letter—the traitor in camp—the hero thrown into a dungeon—the +mysterious message from the señorita—then the outburst—the +fighting on the plaza—the—'

"'Don't be a fool,' says O'Connor, interrupting. 'But that's the +only woman in the world for me, Bowers. The O'Connors are as quick +to love as they are to fight. I shall wear that rose over me heart +when I lead me men into action. For a good battle to be fought +there must be some woman to give it power.'

"'Every time,' I agreed, 'if you want to have a good lively scrap. +There's only one thing bothering me. In the novels the +light-haired friend of the hero always gets killed. Think 'em all +over that you've read, and you'll see that I'm right. I think I'll +step down to the Botica Española and lay in a bottle of walnut +stain before war is declared.'

"'Will ye never regard anything in life seriously?' says O'Connor, +looking down at me like a schoolmaster.

"For the first time since I'd known O'Connor, he laughed. He got +up and roared and clapped his knees, and leaned against the wall +till the tiles on the roof clattered to the noise of his lungs. He +went into the back room and looked at himself in the glass and +began and laughed all over from the beginning again. Then he +looked at me and repeated himself. That's why I asked you if you +thought an Irishman had any humor. He'd been doing farce comedy +from the day I saw him without knowing it; and the first time he +had an idea advanced to him with any intelligence in it he acted +like two twelfths of the sextet in a 'Floradora' road company.

"The next afternoon he comes in with a triumphant smile and begins +to pull something like ticker tape out of his pocket.

"'Great!' says I. 'This is something like home. How is Amalgamated +Copper to-day?'

"'I've got her name,' says O'Connor, and he reads off something +like this: 'Dona Isabel Antonia Inez Lolita Carreras y Buencaminos +y Monteleon. She lives with her mother,' explains O'Connor. 'Her +father was killed in the last revolution. She is sure to be in +sympathy with our cause.'

"And sure enough the next day she flung a little bunch of roses +clear across the street into our door. O'Connor dived for it and +found a piece of paper curled around a stem with a line in Spanish +on it. He dragged the interpreter out of his corner and got him +busy. The interpreter scratched his head, and gave us as a +translation three best bets: 'Fortune had got a face like the man +fighting'; 'Fortune looks like a brave man'; and 'Fortune favors +the brave.' We put our money on the last one.

"'Do ye see?' says O'Connor. 'She intends to encourage me sword to +save her country.'

"So every day this señorita sits behind the barred windows +and exhausts a conservatory or two, one posy at a time. And O'Connor +walks like a Dominecker rooster and swells his chest and swears to +me he will win her by feats of arms and big deeds on the gory +field of battle.

"By and by the revolution began to get ripe. One day O'Connor +takes me into the back room and tells me all.

"'Bowers,' says he, 'at twelve o'clock one week from to-day the +struggle will take place. It has pleased ye to find amusement and +diversion in this project because ye have not sense enough to +perceive that it is easily accomplished by a man of courage, +intelligence, and historical superiority, such as meself. The +whole world over,' says he, 'the O'Connors have ruled men, women, +and nations. To subdue a small and indifferent country like this +is a trifle. Ye see what little, barefooted manikins the men of it +are. I could lick four of 'em single-handed.'

"'No doubt,' says I. 'But could you lick six? And suppose they +hurled an army of seventeen against you?'

"'Listen,' says O'Connor, 'to what will occur. At noon next +Tuesday 25,000 patriots will rise up in the towns of the republic. +The government will be absolutely unprepared. The public buildings +will be taken, the regular army made prisoners, and the new +administration set up. In the capital it will not be so easy on +account of most of the army being stationed there. They will +occupy the president's palace and the strongly fortified +government buildings and stand a siege. But on the very day of the +outbreak a body of our troops will begin a march to the capital +from every town as soon as the local victory has been won. The +thing is so well planned that it is an impossibility for us to +fail. I meself will lead the troops from here. The new president +will be Señor Espadas, now Minister of Finance in the +present cabinet.'

"''Twill be strange,' said O'Connor smiling, 'if I don't have all +the jobs handed to me on a silver salver to pick what I choose. +I've been the brains of the scheme, and when the fighting opens I +guess I won't be in the rear rank. Who managed it so our troops +could get arms smuggled into this country? Didn't I arrange it +with a New York firm before I left there? Our financial agents +inform me that 20,000 stands of Winchester rifles have been +delivered a month ago at a secret place up coast and distributed +among the towns. I tell you, Bowers, the game is already won.'

"Well, that kind of talk kind of shook my disbelief in the +infallibility of the serious Irish gentleman soldier of fortune. +It certainly seemed that the patriotic grafters had gone about the +thing in a business way. I looked upon O'Connor with more respect, +and began to figure on what kind of uniform I might wear as +Secretary of War.

"Tuesday, the day set for the revolution, came around according to +schedule. O'Connor said that a signal had been agreed upon for the +uprising. There was an old cannon on the beach near the national +warehouse. That had been secretly loaded and promptly at twelve +o'clock was to be fired off. Immediately the revolutionists would +seize their concealed arms, attack the comandante's troops in the +cuartel, and capture the custom-house and all government property +and supplies.

"I was nervous all the morning. And about eleven o'clock O'Connor +became infused with the excitement and martial spirit of murder. +He geared his father's sword around him, and walked up and down in +the back room like a lion in the Zoo suffering from corns. I +smoked a couple of dozen cigars, and decided on yellow stripes +down the trouser legs of my uniform.

"At half-past eleven O'Connor asks me to take a short stroll +through the streets to see if I could notice any signs of the +uprising. I was back in fifteen minutes.

"'I did,' says I. 'At first I thought it was drums. But it wasn't; +it was snoring. Everybody in town's asleep.'

"'Fools!' says he. 'They've set the time right at the siesta hour +when everybody takes a nap. But the cannon will wake 'em up. +Everything will be all right, depend upon it.'

"Just at twelve o'clock we heard the sound of a +cannon—BOOM!—shaking the whole town.

"O'Connor loosens his sword in its scabbard and jumps for the +door. I went as far as the door and stood in it.

"People were sticking their heads out of doors and windows. But +there was one grand sight that made the landscape look tame.

"General Tumbalo, the comandante, was rolling down the steps of +his residential dugout, waving a five-foot sabre in his hand. He +wore his cocked and plumed hat and his dress-parade coat covered +with gold braid and buttons. Sky-blue pajamas, one rubber boot, +and one red-plush slipper completed his make-up.

"The general had heard the cannon, and he puffed down the sidewalk +toward the soldiers' barracks as fast as his rudely awakened two +hundred pounds could travel.

"O'Connor sees him and lets out a battle-cry and draws his +father's sword and rushes across the street and tackles the +enemy.

"Right there in the street he and the general gave an exhibition +of blacksmithing and butchery. Sparks flew from their blades, the +general roared, and O'Connor gave the slogan of his race and +proclivities.

"Then the general's sabre broke in two; and he took to his +ginger-colored heels crying out, 'Policios,' at every jump. +O'Connor chased him a block, imbued with the sentiment of +manslaughter, and slicing buttons off the general's coat tails +with the paternal weapon. At the corner five barefooted policemen +in cotton undershirts and straw fiats climbed over O'Connor and +subjugated him according to the municipal statutes.

"They brought him past the late revolutionary headquarters on the +way to jail. I stood in the door. A policeman had him by each hand +and foot, and they dragged him on his back through the grass like +a turtle. Twice they stopped, and the odd policeman took another's +place while he rolled a cigarette. The great soldier of fortune +turned his head and looked at me as they passed. I blushed, and +lit another cigar. The procession passed on, and at ten minutes +past twelve everybody had gone back to sleep again.

"In the afternoon the interpreter came around and smiled as he +laid his hand on the big red jar we usually kept ice-water in.

"'The ice-man didn't call to-day,' says I. 'What's the matter with +everything, Sancho?'

"'Ah, yes,' says the liver-colored linguist. 'They just tell me in +the town. Verree bad act that Señor O'Connor make fight with +General Tumbalo. Yes, general Tumbalo great soldier and big mans.'

"'I talk little while presently with the Juez de la Paz—what you +call Justice-with-the-peace,' says Sancho. 'He tell me it verree +bad crime that one Señor Americano try kill General Tumbalo. +He say they keep señor O'Connor in jail six months; then +have trial and shoot him with guns. Verree sorree.'

"'Oh,' says this Sancho, 'I think too hot weather for revolution. +Revolution better in winter-time. Maybe so next winter. Quien +sabe?'

"'That big sound?' says Sancho, grinning. 'The boiler in ice +factory he blow up—BOOM! Wake everybody up from siesta. Verree +sorree. No ice. Mucho hot day.'

"About sunset I went over to the jail, and they let me talk to +O'Connor through the bars.

"'What's the news, Bowers?' says he. 'Have we taken the town? I've +been expecting a rescue party all the afternoon. I haven't heard +any firing. Has any word been received from the capital?'

"'Take it easy, Barney,' says I. 'I think there's been a change of +plans. There's something more important to talk about. Have you +any money?'

"'I have not,' says O'Connor. 'The last dollar went to pay our +hotel bill yesterday. Did our troops capture the custom-house? +There ought be plenty of government money there.'

"'Segregate your mind from battles,' says I. 'I've been making +inquiries. You're to be shot six months from date for assault and +battery. I'm expecting to receive fifty years at hard labor for +vagrancy. All they furnish you while you're a prisoner is water. +You depend on your friends for food. I'll see what I can do.'

"I went away and found a silver Chile dollar in an old vest of +O'Connor's. I took him some fried fish and rice for his supper. In +the morning I went down to a lagoon and had a drink of water, and +then went back to the jail. O'Connor had a porterhouse steak look +in his eye.

"'Barney,' says I, 'I've found a pond full of the finest kind of +water. It's the grandest, sweetest, purest water in the world. Say +the word and I'll go fetch you a bucket of it and you can throw +this vile government stuff out the window. I'll do anything I can +for a friend.'

"'Has it come to this?' says O'Connor, raging up and down his +cell. 'Am I to be starved to death and then shot? I'll make those +traitors feel the weight of an O'Connor's 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 every one +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 don't let her know except with the utmost +delicacy, Bowers. These high-bred Castilians are sensitive and +proud.'

"'Well said, Barney,' says I. 'You've given me an idea. I'll +report later. Something's got to be pulled off quick, or we'll +both starve.'

"I walked out and down to Hooligan Alley, and then on the other +side of the street. As I went past the window of Dona Isabel +Antonia Concha Regalia, out flies the rose as usual and hits me on +the ear.

"The door was open, and I took off my hat and walked in. It wasn't +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.

"'Hullo, Izzy,' I says. 'Excuse my unconventionality, but I feel +like I have known you for a month. Whose Izzy is oo?'

"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.'

"As soon as she said that, I knew that O'Connor and me would be +doing things with a knife and fork before the day was over. I drew +a chair beside her, and inside of half an hour we were engaged. +Then I took my hat and said I must go out for a while.

"'Me go bring preacher,' says I. 'Come back twenty minutes. We +marry now. How you likee?'

"I went down on the beach to the United States consul's shack. He +was a grizzly man, eighty-two pounds, smoked glasses, five foot +eleven, pickled. He was playing chess with an india-rubber man in +white clothes.

"'Excuse me for interrupting,' says I, 'but can you tell me how a +man could get married quick?'

"'I believe I had a license to perform the ceremony myself, a +year or two ago,' he said. 'I'll look, and—'

"'Don't look it up,' says I. 'Marriage is a lottery anyway. +I'm willing to take the risk about the license if you are.'

"The consul went back to Hooligan Alley with me. Izzy called her +ma to come in, but the old lady was picking a chicken in the patio +and begged to be excused. So we stood up and the consul performed +the ceremony.

"That evening Mrs. Bowers cooked a great supper of stewed goat, +tamales, baked bananas, fricasseed red peppers and coffee. +Afterward I sat in the rocking-chair by the front window, and she +sat on the floor plunking at a guitar and happy, as she should be, +as Mrs. William T. B.

"All at once I sprang up in a hurry. I'd forgotten all about +O'Connor. I asked Izzy to fix up a lot of truck for him to eat.

"I pulled a rose out of a bunch in a jar, and took the grub-basket +around to the jail. O'Connor ate like a wolf. Then he wiped his +face with a banana peel and said: 'Have you heard nothing from +Dona Isabel yet?'

"'Hist!' says I, slipping the rose between the bars. 'She sends +you this. She bids you take courage. At nightfall two masked men +brought it to the ruined chateau in the orange grove. How did you +like that goat hash, Barney?'

"O'Connor pressed the rose to his lips. "'This is more to me than +all the food in the world,' says he. 'But the supper was fine. +Where did you raise it?'

"'I've negotiated a stand-off at a delicatessen hut downtown,' I +tells him. 'Rest easy. If there's anything to be done I'll do it.'

"So things went along that way for some weeks. Izzy was a great +cook; and if she had had a little more poise of character and +smoked a little better brand of tobacco we might have drifted into +some sense of responsibility for the honor I had conferred on her. +But as time went on I began to hunger for the sight of a real lady +standing before me in a street-car. All I was staying in that land +of bilk and money for was because I couldn't get away, and I +thought it no more than decent to stay and see O'Connor shot.

"One day our old interpreter drops around and after smoking an +hour says that the judge of the peace sent him to request me to +call on him. I went to his office in a lemon grove on a hill at +the edge of the town; and there I had a surprise. I expected to +see one of the usual cinnamon-colored natives in congress gaiters +and one of Pizzaro's cast-off hats. What I saw was an elegant +gentleman of a slightly claybank complexion sitting in an +upholstered leather chair, sipping a highball and reading Mrs. +Humphry Ward. I had smuggled into my brain a few words of Spanish +by the help of Izzy, and I began to remark in a rich Andalusian +brogue:

"'Oh, sit down, Mr. Bowers,' says he. 'I spent eight years in your +country in colleges and law schools. Let me mix you a highball. +Lemon peel, or not?'

"Thus we got along. In about half an hour I was beginning to tell +him about the scandal in our family when Aunt Elvira ran away with +a Cumberland Presbyterian preacher. Then he says to me:

"'I sent for you, Mr. Bowers, to let you know that you can have +your friend Mr. O'Connor now. Of course we had to make a show of +punishing him on account of his attack on General Tumbalo. It is +arranged that he shall be released to-morrow night. You and he +will be conveyed on board the fruit steamer Voyager, bound for New +York, which lies in the harbor. Your passage will be arranged +for.'

"'Why,' says he presently, 'that was all a little joke +fixed up by the boys around the court-room, and one or +two of our cut-ups, and a few clerks in the stores. +The town is bursting its sides with laughing. The boys +made themselves up to be conspirators, and they—what you call +it?—stick Señor O'Connor for his money. It is very funny.'

"'It was,' says I. 'I saw the joke all along. I'll take another +highball, if your Honor don't mind.'

"The next evening just at dark a couple of soldiers brought +O'Connor down to the beach, where I was waiting under a +cocoanut-tree.

"They rowed us in a boat out to a little steamer that smelled of +table d'hote salad oil and bone phosphate.

"The great, mellow, tropical moon was rising as we steamed away. +O'Connor leaned on the taffrail or rear balcony of the ship and +gazed silently at Guaya—at Buncoville-on-the-Beach.

"'She will wait,' I heard him say. 'Eyes like hers never deceive. +But I shall see her again. Traitors cannot keep an O'Connor down +forever.'

"'You talk like a sequel,' says I. 'But in Volume II please omit +the light-haired friend who totes the grub to the hero in his +dungeon cell.'

There was a little silence broken only by the familiar roar of the +streets after Kansas Bill Bowers ceased talking.

"He attained his heart's desire," said Bill. "Can you walk two +blocks? I'll show you."

He led me eastward and down a flight of stairs that was covered by +a curious-shaped glowing, pagoda-like structure. Signs and figures +on the tiled walls and supporting columns attested that we were in +the Grand Central station of the subway. Hundreds of people were +on the midway platform.

An uptown express dashed up and halted. It was crowded. There was +a rush for it by a still larger crowd.

Towering above every one there a magnificent, broad-shouldered, +athletic man leaped into the centre of the struggle. Men and women +he seized in either hand and hurled them like manikins toward the +open gates of the train.

Now and then some passenger with a shred of soul and self-respect +left to him turned to offer remonstrance; but the blue uniform on +the towering figure, the fierce and conquering glare of his eye +and the ready impact of his ham-like hands glued together the lips +that would have spoken complaint.

When the train was full, then he exhibited to all who might +observe and admire his irresistible genius as a ruler of men. With +his knees, with his elbows, with his shoulders, with his +resistless feet he shoved, crushed, slammed, heaved, kicked, +flung, pounded the overplus of passengers aboard. Then with the +sounds of its wheels drowned by the moans, shrieks, prayers, and +curses of its unfortunate crew, the express dashed away.

"That's him. Ain't he a wonder?" said Kansas Bill admiringly. +"That tropical country wasn't the place for him. I wish the +distinguished traveller, writer, war correspondent, and playright, +Richmond Hobson Davis, could see him now. O'Connor ought to be +dramatized."

THE ATAVISM OF JOHN TOM LITTLE BEAR

I saw a light in Jeff Peters's room over the Red Front Drug Store. +I hastened toward it, for I had not known that Jeff was in town. +He is a man of the Hadji breed, of a hundred occupations, with a +story to tell (when he will) of each one.

I found Jeff repacking his grip for a run down to Florida to look +at an orange grove for which he had traded, a month before, his +mining claim on the Yukon. He kicked me a chair, with the same old +humorous, profound smile on his seasoned countenance. It had been +eight months since we had met, but his greeting was such as men +pass from day to day. Time is Jeff's servant, and the continent is +a big lot across which he cuts to his many roads.

For a while we skirmished along the edges of unprofitable talk +which culminated in that unquiet problem of the Philippines.

"All them tropical races," said Jeff, "could be run out better +with their own jockeys up. The tropical man knows what he wants. +All he wants is a season ticket to the cock-fights and a pair of +Western Union climbers to go up the bread-fruit tree. The +Anglo-Saxon man wants him to learn to conjugate and wear +suspenders. He'll be happiest in his own way."

"Education, man," I said, "is the watchword. In time they will +rise to our standard of civilization. Look at what education has +done for the Indian."

"O-ho!" sang Jeff, lighting his pipe (which was a good sign). +"Yes, the Indian! I'm looking. I hasten to contemplate the redman +as a standard bearer of progress. He's the same as the other brown +boys. You can't make an Anglo-Saxon of him. Did I ever tell you +about the time my friend John Tom Little Bear bit off the right +ear of the arts of culture and education and spun the teetotum +back round to where it was when Columbus was a little boy? I did +not?

"John Tom Little Bear was an educated Cherokee Indian and an old +friend of mine when I was in the Territories. He was a graduate of +one of them Eastern football colleges that have been so successful +in teaching the Indian to use the gridiron instead of burning his +victims at the stake. As an Anglo-Saxon, John Tom was +copper-colored in spots. As an Indian, he was one of the whitest +men I ever knew. As a Cherokee, he was a gentleman on the first +ballot. As a ward of the nation, he was mighty hard to carry at +the primaries.

"John Tom and me got together and began to make medicine—how to +get up some lawful, genteel swindle which we might work in a quiet +way so as not to excite the stupidity of the police or the +cupidity of the larger corporations. We had close upon $500 +between us, and we pined to make it grow, as all respectable +capitalists do.

"So we figured out a proposition which seems to be as honorable as +a gold mine prospectus and as profitable as a church raffle. And +inside of thirty days you find us swarming into Kansas with a pair +of fluent horses and a red camping wagon on the European plan. +John Tom is Chief Wish-Heap-Dough, the famous Indian medicine man +and Samaritan Sachem of the Seven Tribes. Mr. Peters is business +manager and half owner. We needed a third man, so we looked around +and found J. Conyngham Binkly leaning against the want column of a +newspaper. This Binkly has a disease for Shakespearian rôles, +and an hallucination about a 200 nights' run on the New York stage. +But he confesses that he never could earn the butter to spread on +his William S. rôles, so he is willing to drop to the ordinary +baker's kind, and be satisfied with a 200-mile run behind the +medicine ponies. Besides Richard III, he could do twenty-seven +coon songs and banjo specialties, and was willing to cook, and +curry the horses. We carried a fine line of excuses for taking +money. One was a magic soap for removing grease spots and quarters +from clothes. One was a Sum-wah-tah, the great Indian Remedy made +from a prairie herb revealed by the Great Spirit in a dream to his +favorite medicine men, the great chiefs McGarrity and Siberstein, +bottlers, Chicago. And the other was a frivolous system of +pick-pocketing the Kansasters that had the department stores +reduced to a decimal fraction. Look ye! A pair of silk garters, a +dream book, one dozen clothespins, a gold tooth, and 'When +Knighthood Was in Flower' all wrapped up in a genuine Japanese +silkarina handkerchief and handed to the handsome lady by Mr. +Peters for the trivial sum of fifty cents, while Professor Binkly +entertains us in a three-minute round with the banjo.

"'Twas an eminent graft we had. We ravaged peacefully through the +State, determined to remove all doubt as to why 'twas called +bleeding Kansas. John Tom Little Bear, in full Indian chief's +costume, drew crowds away from the parchesi sociables and +government ownership conversaziones. While at the football college +in the East he had acquired quantities of rhetoric and the art of +calisthenics and sophistry in his classes, and when he stood up in +the red wagon and explained to the farmers, eloquent, about +chilblains and hyperæsthesia of the cranium, Jeff couldn't +hand out the Indian Remedy fast enough for 'em.

"One night we was camped on the edge of a little town out west of +Salina. We always camped near a stream, and put up a little tent. +Sometimes we sold out of the Remedy unexpected, and then Chief +Wish-Heap-Dough would have a dream in which the Manitou commanded +him to fill up a few bottles of Sum-wah-tah at the most convenient +place. 'Twas about ten o'clock, and we'd just got in from a street +performance. I was in the tent with the lantern, figuring up the +day's profits. John Tom hadn't taken off his Indian make-up, and +was sitting by the campfire minding a fine sirloin steak in the +pan for the Professor till he finished his hair-raising scene with +the trained horses.

"All at once out of dark bushes comes a pop like a firecracker, +and John Tom gives a grunt and digs out of his bosom a little +bullet that has dented itself against his collar-bone. John Tom +makes a dive in the direction of the fireworks, and comes back +dragging by the collar a kid about nine or ten years young, in a +velveteen suit, with a little nickel-mounted rifle in his hand +about as big as a fountain-pen.

"'Here, you pappoose,' says John Tom, 'what are you gunning for +with that howitzer? You might hit somebody in the eye. Come out, +Jeff, and mind the steak. Don't let it burn, while I investigate +this demon with the pea shooter.'

"'Cowardly redskin,' says the kid like he was quoting from a +favorite author. 'Dare to burn me at the stake and the paleface +will sweep you from the prairies like—like everything. Now, you +lemme go, or I'll tell mamma.'

"John Tom plants the kid on a camp-stool, and sits down by him. +'Now, tell the big chief,' he says, 'why you try to shoot pellets +into your Uncle John's system. Didn't you know it was loaded?'

"'Are you a Indian?' asks the kid, looking up cute as you please +at John Tom's buckskin and eagle feathers.

"'I am,' says John Tom. 'Well, then, that's why,' answers the boy, +swinging his feet. I nearly let the steak burn watching the nerve +of that youngster.

"'O-ho!' says John Tom, 'I see. You're the Boy Avenger. And +you've sworn to rid the continent of the savage redman. Is that +about the way of it, son?'

"The kid halfway nodded his head. And then he looked glum. 'Twas +indecent to wring his secret from his bosom before a single brave +had fallen before his parlor-rifle.

"'Now, tell us where your wigwam is, pappoose,' says John +Tom—'where you live? Your mamma will be worrying about you being +out so late. Tell me, and I'll take you home.'

"The kid grins. 'I guess not,' he says. 'I live thousands and +thousands of miles over there.' He gyrated his hand toward the +horizon. 'I come on the train,' he says, 'by myself. I got off +here because the conductor said my ticket had ex-pirated.' He +looks at John Tom with sudden suspicion 'I bet you ain't a +Indian,' he says. 'You don't talk like a Indian. You look like +one, but all a Indian can say is "heap good" and "paleface die." +Say, I bet you are one of them make-believe Indians that sell +medicine on the streets. I saw one once in Quincy.'

"'You never mind,' says John Tom, 'whether I'm a cigar-sign or a +Tammany cartoon. The question before the council is what's to be +done with you. You've run away from home. You've been reading +Howells. You've disgraced the profession of boy avengers by trying +to shoot a tame Indian, and never saying: "Die, dog of a redskin! +You have crossed the path of the Boy Avenger nineteen times too +often." What do you mean by it?'

"The kid thought for a minute. 'I guess I made a mistake,' he +says. 'I ought to have gone farther west. They find 'em wild out +there in the canyons.' He holds out his hand to John Tom, the +little rascal. 'Please excuse me, sir,' says he, 'for shooting at +you. I hope it didn't hurt you. But you ought to be more careful. +When a scout sees a Indian in his war-dress, his rifle must +speak.' Little Bear give a big laugh with a whoop at the end of +it, and swings the kid ten feet high and sets him on his shoulder, +and the runaway fingers the fringe and the eagle feathers and is +full of the joy the white man knows when he dangles his heels +against an inferior race. It is plain that Little Bear and that +kid are chums from that on. The little renegade has already smoked +the pipe of peace with the savage; and you can see in his eye that +he is figuring on a tomahawk and a pair of moccasins, children's +size.

"We have supper in the tent. The youngster looks upon me and the +Professor as ordinary braves, only intended as a background to the +camp scene. When he is seated on a box of Sum-wah-tah, with the +edge of the table sawing his neck, and his mouth full of +beefsteak, Little Bear calls for his name. 'Roy,' says the kid, +with a sirloiny sound to it. But when the rest of it and his +post-office address is referred to, he shakes his head. 'I guess +not,' he says. 'You'll send me back. I want to stay with you. I +like this camping out. At home, we fellows had a camp in our back +yard. They called me Roy, the Red Wolf! I guess that'll do for a +name. Gimme another piece of beefsteak, please.'

"We had to keep that kid. We knew there was a hullabaloo about him +somewheres, and that Mamma, and Uncle Harry, and Aunt Jane, and +the Chief of Police were hot after finding his trail, but not +another word would he tell us. In two days he was the mascot of +the Big Medicine outfit, and all of us had a sneaking hope that +his owners wouldn't turn up. When the red wagon was doing business +he was in it, and passed up the bottles to Mr. Peters as proud and +satisfied as a prince that's abjured a two-hundred-dollar crown +for a million-dollar parvenuess. Once John Tom asked him something +about his papa. 'I ain't got any papa,' he says. 'He runned away +and left us. He made my mamma cry. Aunt Lucy says he's a shape.' +'A what?' somebody asks him. 'A shape,' says the kid; 'some kind +of a shape—lemme see—oh, yes, a feendenuman shape. I don't know +what it means.' John Tom was for putting our brand on him, and +dressing him up like a little chief, with wampum and beads, but I +vetoes it. 'Somebody's lost that kid, is my view of it, and they +may want him. You let me try him with a few stratagems, and see if +I can't get a look at his visiting-card.'

"So that night I goes up to Mr. Roy Blank by the camp-fire, and +looks at him contemptuous and scornful. 'Snickenwitzel!' says I, +like the word made me sick; 'Snickenwitzel! Bah! Before I'd be +named Snickenwitzel!'

"'Snickenwitzel!' I repeats, and I spat, the word out. 'I saw a +man to-day from your town, and he told me your name. I'm not +surprised you was ashamed to tell it. Snickenwitzel! Whew!'

"'Ah, here, now,' says the boy, indignant and wriggling all over, +'what's the matter with you? That ain't my name. It's Conyers. +What's the matter with you?'

"'And that's not the worst of it,' I went on quick, keeping him +hot and not giving him time to think. 'We thought you was from a +nice, well-to-do family. Here's Mr. Little Bear, a chief of the +Cherokees, entitled to wear nine otter tails on his Sunday +blanket, and Professor Binkly, who plays Shakespeare and the +banjo, and me, that's got hundreds of dollars in that black tin +box in the wagon, and we've got to be careful about the company we +keep. That man tells me your folks live 'way down in little old +Hencoop Alley, where there are no sidewalks, and the goats eat off +the table with you.'

"That kid was almost crying now. ''Taint so,' he splutters. +'He—he don't know what he's talking about. We live on Poplar +Av'noo. I don't 'sociate with goats. What's the matter with you?'

"'Poplar Avenue,' says I, sarcastic. 'Poplar Avenue! That's a +street to live on! It only runs two blocks and then falls off a +bluff. You can throw a keg of nails the whole length of it. Don't +talk to me about Poplar Avenue.'

"'It's—it's miles long,' says the kid. 'Our number's 862 and +there's lots of houses after that. What's the matter with—aw, you +make me tired, Jeff.'

"'Well, well, now,' says I. 'I guess that man made a mistake. +Maybe it was some other boy he was talking about. If I catch him +I'll teach him to go around slandering people.' And after supper I +goes up town and telegraphs to Mrs. Conyers, 862 Poplar Avenue, +Quincy, Ill., that the kid is safe and sassy with us, and will be +held for further orders. In two hours an answer comes to hold him +tight, and she'll start for him by next train.

"The next train was due at 6 p.m. +the next day, and me and John +Tom was at the depot with the kid. You might scour the plains in +vain for the big Chief Wish-Heap-Dough. In his place is Mr. Little +Bear in the human habiliments of the Anglo-Saxon sect; and the +leather of his shoes is patented and the loop of his necktie is +copyrighted. For these things John Tom had grafted on him at +college along with metaphysics and the knockout guard for the low +tackle. But for his complexion, which is some yellowish, and the +black mop of his straight hair, you might have thought here was an +ordinary man out of the city directory that subscribes for +magazines and pushes the lawn-mower in his shirt-sleeves of +evenings.

"Then the train rolled in, and a little woman in a gray dress, +with sort of illuminating hair, slides off and looks around quick. +And the Boy Avenger sees her, and yells 'Mamma,' and she cries +'O!' and they meet in a clinch, and now the pesky redskins can +come forth from their caves on the plains without fear any more of +the rifle of Roy, the Red Wolf. Mrs. Conyers comes up and thanks +me an' John Tom without the usual extremities you always look for +in a woman. She says just enough, in a way to convince, and there +is no incidental music by the orchestra. I made a few illiterate +requisitions upon the art of conversation, at which the lady +smiles friendly, as if she had known me a week. And then Mr. +Little Bear adorns the atmosphere with the various idioms into +which education can fracture the wind of speech. I could see the +kid's mother didn't quite place John Tom; but it seemed she was +apprised in his dialects, and she played up to his lead in the +science of making three words do the work of one.

"That kid introduced us, with some footnotes and explanations that +made things plainer than a week of rhetoric. He danced around, and +punched us in the back, and tried to climb John Tom's leg. 'This +is John Tom, mamma,' says he. 'He's a Indian. He sells medicine in +a red wagon. I shot him, but he wasn't wild. The other one's Jeff. +He's a fakir, too. Come on and see the camp where we live, won't +you, mamma?'

"It is plain to see that the life of the woman is in that boy. She +has got him again where her arms can gather him, and that's +enough. She's ready to do anything to please him. She hesitates +the eighth of a second and takes another look at these men. I +imagine she says to herself about John Tom, 'Seems to be a +gentleman, if his hair don't curl.' And Mr. Peters she disposes of +as follows: 'No ladies' man, but a man who knows a lady.'

"So we all rambled down to the camp as neighborly as coming from a +wake. And there she inspects the wagon and pats the place with her +hand where the kid used to sleep, and dabs around her eyewinkers +with her handkerchief. And Professor Binkly gives us 'Trovatore' +on one string of the banjo, and is about to slide off into +Hamlet's monologue when one of the horses gets tangled in his rope +and he must go look after him, and says something about 'foiled +again.'

"When it got dark me and John Tom walked back up to the Corn +Exchange Hotel, and the four of us had supper there. I think the +trouble started at that supper, for then was when Mr. Little Bear +made an intellectual balloon ascension. I held on to the +tablecloth, and listened to him soar. That redman, if I could +judge, had the gift of information. He took language, and did with +it all a Roman can do with macaroni. His vocal remarks was all +embroidered over with the most scholarly verbs and prefixes. And +his syllables was smooth, and fitted nicely to the joints of his +idea. I thought I'd heard him talk before, but I hadn't. And it +wasn't the size of his words, but the way they come; and 'twasn't +his subjects, for he spoke of common things like cathedrals and +football and poems and catarrh and souls and freight rates and +sculpture. Mrs. Conyers understood his accents, and the elegant +sounds went back and forth between 'em. And now and then Jefferson +D. Peters would intervene a few shop-worn, senseless words to have +the butter passed or another leg of the chicken.

"Yes, John Tom Little Bear appeared to be inveigled some in his +bosom about that Mrs. Conyers. She was of the kind that pleases. +She had the good looks and more, I'll tell you. You take one of +these cloak models in a big store. They strike you as being on the +impersonal system. They are adapted for the eye. What they run to +is inches around and complexion, and the art of fanning the +delusion that the sealskin would look just as well on the lady +with the warts and the pocket-book. Now, if one of them models was +off duty, and you took it, and it would say 'Charlie' when you +pressed it, and sit up at the table, why, then you would have +something similar to Mrs. Conyers. I could see how John Tom could +resist any inclination to hate that white squaw.

"The lady and the kid stayed at the hotel. In the morning, they +say, they will start for home. Me and Little Bear left at eight +o'clock, and sold Indian Remedy on the courthouse square till +nine. He leaves me and the Professor to drive down to camp, while +he stays up town. I am not enamored with that plan, for it shows +John Tom is uneasy in his composures, and that leads to firewater, +and sometimes to the green corn dance and costs. Not often does +Chief Wish-Heap-Dough get busy with the firewater, but whenever he +does there is heap much doing in the lodges of the palefaces who +wear blue and carry the club.

"At half-past nine Professor Binkly is rolled in his quilt snoring +in blank verse, and I am sitting by the fire listening to the +frogs. Mr. Little Bear slides into camp and sits down against a +tree. There is no symptoms of firewater.

"'And he bagged one,' says John Tom, 'and 'twas not with a gun, +and he never had on a velveteen suit of clothes in his life.' And +then I began to catch his smoke.

"'I know it,' says I. 'And I'll bet you his pictures are on +valentines, and fool men are his game, red and white.'

"'You win on the red,' says John Tom, calm. 'Jeff, for how many +ponies do you think I could buy Mrs. Conyers?'

"'Scandalous talk!' I replies. ''Tis not a paleface custom.' John +Tom laughs loud and bites into a cigar. 'No,' he answers; ''tis +the savage equivalent for the dollars of the white man's marriage +settlement. Oh, I know. There's an eternal wall between the races. +If I could do it, Jeff, I'd put a torch to every white college +that a redman has ever set foot inside. Why don't you leave us +alone,' he says, 'to our own ghost-dances and dog-feasts, and our +dingy squaws to cook our grasshopper soup and darn our moccasins?'

"'Now, you sure don't mean disrespect to the perennial blossom +entitled education?' says I, scandalized, 'because I wear it in +the bosom of my own intellectual shirt-waist. I've had education,' +says I, 'and never took any harm from it.'

"'You lasso us,' goes on Little Bear, not noticing my prose +insertions, 'and teach us what is beautiful in literature and in +life, and how to appreciate what is fine in men and women. What +have you done to me?' says he. 'You've made me a Cherokee Moses. +You've taught me to hate the wigwams and love the white man's +ways. I can look over into the promised land and see Mrs. Conyers, +but my place is—on the reservation.'

"Little Bear stands up in his chief's dress, and laughs again. +'But, white man Jeff,' he goes on, 'the paleface provides a +recourse. 'Tis a temporary one, but it gives a respite and the +name of it is whiskey.' And straight off he walks up the path to +town again. 'Now,' says I in my mind, 'may the Manitou move him to +do only bailable things this night!' For I perceive that John Tom +is about to avail himself of the white man's solace.

"Maybe it was 10:30, as I sat smoking, when I hear pit-a-pats on +the path, and here comes Mrs. Conyers running, her hair twisted up +any way, and a look on her face that says burglars and mice and +the flour's-all-out rolled in one. 'Oh, Mr. Peters,' she calls +out, as they will, 'oh, oh!' I made a quick think, and I spoke the +gist of it out loud. 'Now,' says I, 'we've been brothers, me and +that Indian, but I'll make a good one of him in two minutes if—'

"'No, no,' she says, wild and cracking her knuckles, 'I haven't +seen Mr. Little Bear. 'Tis my—husband. He's stolen my boy. Oh,' +she says, 'just when I had him back in my arms again! That +heartless villain! Every bitterness life knows,' she says, 'he's +made me drink. My poor little lamb, that ought to be warm in his +bed, carried of by that fiend!'

"'I was fixing his bed,' she explains, 'and Roy was playing on the +hotel porch and he drives up to the steps. I heard Roy scream, and +ran out. My husband had him in the buggy then. I begged him for my +child. This is what he gave me.' She turns her face to the light. +There is a crimson streak running across her cheek and mouth. 'He +did that with his whip,' she says.

"On the way she tells me some of the wherefores. When he slashed +her with the whip he told her he found out she was coming for the +kid, and he was on the same train. Mrs. Conyers had been living +with her brother, and they'd watched the boy always, as her +husband had tried to steal him before. I judge that man was worse +than a street railway promoter. It seems he had spent her money +and slugged her and killed her canary bird, and told it around +that she had cold feet.

"At the hotel we found a mass meeting of five infuriated citizens +chewing tobacco and denouncing the outrage. Most of the town was +asleep by ten o'clock. I talks the lady some quiet, and tells her +I will take the one o'clock train for the next town, forty miles +east, for it is likely that the esteemed Mr. Conyers will drive +there to take the cars. 'I don't know,' I tells her, 'but what he +has legal rights; but if I find him I can give him an illegal left +in the eye, and tie him up for a day or two, anyhow, on a +disturbal of the peace proposition.'

"Mrs. Conyers goes inside and cries with the landlord's wife, who +is fixing some catnip tea that will make everything all right for +the poor dear. The landlord comes out on the porch, thumbing his +one suspender, and says to me:

"'Ain't had so much excitements in town since Bedford Steegall's +wife swallered a spring lizard. I seen him through the winder hit +her with the buggy whip, and everything. What's that suit of +clothes cost you you got on? 'Pears like we'd have some rain, +don't it? Say, doc, that Indian of yorn's on a kind of a whizz +to-night, ain't he? He comes along just before you did, and I told +him about this here occurrence. He gives a cur'us kind of a hoot, +and trotted off. I guess our constable 'll have him in the lock-up +'fore morning.'

"I thought I'd sit on the porch and wait for the one o'clock +train. I wasn't feeling saturated with mirth. Here was John Tom on +one of his sprees, and this kidnapping business losing sleep for +me. But then, I'm always having trouble with other people's +troubles. Every few minutes Mrs. Conyers would come out on the +porch and look down the road the way the buggy went, like she +expected to see that kid coming back on a white pony with a red +apple in his hand. Now, wasn't that like a woman? And that brings +up cats. 'I saw a mouse go in this hole,' says Mrs. Cat; 'you can +go prize up a plank over there if you like; I'll watch this hole.'

"About a quarter to one o'clock the lady comes out again, +restless, crying easy, as females do for their own amusement, and +she looks down that road again and listens. 'Now, ma'am,' says I, +'there's no use watching cold wheel-tracks. By this time they're +halfway to—' 'Hush,' she says, holding up her hand. And I do hear +something coming 'flip-flap' in the dark; and then there is the +awfulest war-whoop ever heard outside of Madison Square Garden at +a Buffalo Bill matinée. And up the steps and on to the +porch jumps the disrespectable Indian. +The lamp in the hall shines on him, and +I fail to recognize Mr. J. T. Little Bear, alumnus of the class of +'91. What I see is a Cherokee brave, and the warpath is what he +has been travelling. Firewater and other things have got him +going. His buckskin is hanging in strings, and his feathers are +mixed up like a frizzly hen's. The dust of miles is on his +moccasins, and the light in his eye is the kind the aborigines +wear. But in his arms he brings that kid, his eyes half closed, +with his little shoes dangling and one hand fast around the +Indian's collar.

"'Pappoose!' says John Tom, and I notice that the flowers of the +white man's syntax have left his tongue. He is the original +proposition in bear's claws and copper color. 'Me bring,' says he, +and he lays the kid in his mother's arms. 'Run fifteen mile,' says +John Tom—'Ugh! Catch white man. Bring pappoose.'

"The little woman is in extremities of gladness. She must wake up +that stir-up trouble youngster and hug him and make proclamation +that he is his mamma's own precious treasure. I was about to ask +questions, but I looked at Mr. Little Bear, and my eye caught the +sight of something in his belt. 'Now go to bed, ma'am,' says I, +'and this gadabout youngster likewise, for there's no more danger, +and the kidnapping business is not what it was earlier in the +night.'

"I inveigled John Tom down to camp quick, and when he tumbled over +asleep I got that thing out of his belt and disposed of it where +the eye of education can't see it. For even the football colleges +disapprove of the art of scalp-taking in their curriculums.

"It is ten o'clock next day when John Tom wakes up and looks +around. I am glad to see the nineteenth century in his eyes again.

"John Tom frowns, and thinks a little. 'Combined,' says he +directly, 'with the interesting little physiological shake-up +known as reversion to type. I remember now. Have they gone yet?'

"'Ugh!' says John Tom; 'better so. Paleface, bring big Chief +Wish-Heap-Dough a little bromo-seltzer, and then he'll take up the +redman's burden again.'"

HELPING THE OTHER FELLOW

This is the story that William Trotter told me on the beach at +Aguas Frescas while I waited for the gig of the captain of the +fruit steamer Andador which was to take me abroad. Reluctantly +I was leaving the Land of Always Afternoon. William was remaining, +and he favored me with a condensed oral autobiography as we sat on +the sands in the shade cast by the Bodega Nacional.

As usual, I became aware that the Man from Bombay had already +written the story; but as he had compressed it to an eight-word +sentence, I have become an expansionist, and have quoted his +phrase above, with apologies to him and best regards to +Terence.

"Don't you ever have a desire to go back to the land of derby hats +and starched collars?" I asked him. "You seem to be a handy man +and a man of action," I continued, "and I am sure I could find you +a comfortable job somewhere in the States."

Ragged, shiftless, barefooted, a confirmed eater of the lotos, +William Trotter had pleased me much, and I hated to see him +gobbled up by the tropics.

"I've no doubt you could," he said, idly splitting the bark from a +section of sugar-cane. "I've no doubt you could do much for me. If +every man could do as much for himself as he can for others, every +country in the world would be holding millenniums instead of +centennials."

I had a brother in Chicopee Falls who owned manufactories—cotton, +or sugar, or A. A. sheetings, or something in the commercial line. +He was vulgarly rich, and therefore reverenced art. The artistic +temperament of the family was monopolized at my birth. I knew that +Brother James would honor my slightest wish. I would demand from +him a position in cotton, sugar, or sheetings for William +Trotter—something, say, at two hundred a month or thereabouts. I +confided my beliefs and made my large propositions to William. He +had pleased me much, and he was ragged.

While we were talking, there was a sound of firing guns—four or +five, rattlingly, as if by a squad. The cheerful noise came from +the direction of the cuartel, which is a kind of makeshift +barracks for the soldiers of the republic.

"A year ago I landed on this coast with one solitary dollar. I +have the same sum in my pocket to-day. I was second cook on a +tramp fruiter; and they marooned me here early one morning, +without benefit of clergy, just because I poulticed the face of +the first mate with cheese omelette at dinner. The fellow had +kicked because I'd put horseradish in it instead of cheese.

"When they threw me out of the yawl into three feet of surf, I +waded ashore and sat down under a palm-tree. By and by a +fine-looking white man with a red face and white clothes, genteel +as possible, but somewhat under the influence, came and sat down +beside me.

"I had noticed there was a kind of a village back of the beach, +and enough scenery to outfit a dozen moving-picture shows. But I +thought, of course, it was a cannibal suburb, and I was wondering +whether I was to be served with carrots or mushrooms. And, as I +say, this dressed-up man sits beside me, and we become friends in +the space of a minute or two. For an hour we talked, and he told +me all about it.

"It seems that he was a man of parts, conscientiousness, and +plausibility, besides being educated and a wreck to his appetites. +He told me all about it. Colleges had turned him out, and +distilleries had taken him in. Did I tell you his name? It was +Clifford Wainwright. I didn't exactly catch the cause of his being +cast away on that particular stretch of South America; but I +reckon it was his own business. I asked him if he'd ever been +second cook on a tramp fruiter, and he said no; so that concluded +my line of surmises. But he talked like the encyclopedia from +'A–Berlin' to 'Trilo–Zyria.' And he carried a +watch—a silver arrangement with works, and up to date +within twenty-four hours, anyhow.

"'I'm pleased to have met you,' says Wainwright. 'I'm a devotee to +the great joss Booze; but my ruminating facilities are +unrepaired,' says he—or words to that effect. 'And I hate,' says +he, 'to see fools trying to run the world.'

"'I never touch a drop,' says I, 'and there are many kinds of +fools; and the world runs on its own apex, according to science, +with no meddling from me.'

"'I was referring,' says he, 'to the president of this republic. +His country is in a desperate condition. Its treasury is empty, +it's on the verge of war with Nicamala, and if it wasn't for the +hot weather the people would be starting revolutions in every +town. Here is a nation,' goes on Wainwright, 'on the brink of +destruction. A man of intelligence could rescue it from its +impending doom in one day by issuing the necessary edicts and +orders. President Gomez knows nothing of statesmanship or policy. +Do you know Adam Smith?'

"'Lemme see,' says I. 'There was a one-eared man named Smith in +Fort Worth, Texas, but I think his first name was—'

"So Wainwright boils some more with indignation at the +insensibility of people who are not corpulent to fill public +positions; and then he tells me he is going out to the president's +summer palace, which is four miles from Aguas Frescas, to instruct +him in the art of running steam-heated republics.

"'Come along with me, Trotter,' says he, 'and I'll show you what +brains can do.'

"'The satisfaction,' says he, 'of redeeming a country of two +hundred thousand population from ruin back to prosperity and +peace.'

"'Great,' says I. 'I'll go with you. I'd prefer to eat a live +broiled lobster just now; but give me liberty as second choice if +I can't be in at the death.'

"Wainwright and me permeates through the town, and he halts at a +rum-dispensary.

"'I have,' says I, fishing out my silver dollar. 'I always go +about with adequate sums of money.'

"'Not me,' says I. 'Not any demon rum or any of its ramifications +for mine. It's one of my non-weaknesses.'

"'Industry,' says I, promptly. 'I'm hard-working, diligent, +industrious, and energetic.'

"'My dear Mr. Trotter,' says he, 'surely I've known you long +enough to tell you you are a liar. Every man must have his own +particular weakness, and his own particular strength in other +things. Now, you will buy me a drink of rum, and we will call on +President Gomez.'"

III

"Well, sir," Trotter went on, "we walks the four miles out, +through a virgin conservatory of palms and ferns and other +roof-garden products, to the president's summer White House. It +was blue, and reminded you of what you see on the stage in the +third act, which they describe as 'same as the first' on the +programs.

"There was more than fifty people waiting outside the iron fence +that surrounded the house and grounds. There was generals and +agitators and épergnes in gold-laced uniforms, and citizens +in diamonds and Panama hats—all waiting to get an audience with +the Royal Five-Card Draw. And in a kind of a summer-house in front +of the mansion we could see a burnt-sienna man eating breakfast +out of gold dishes and taking his time. I judged that the crowd +outside had come out for their morning orders and requests, and +was afraid to intrude.

"But C. Wainwright wasn't. The gate was open, and he walked inside +and up to the president's table as confident as a man who knows +the head waiter in a fifteen-cent restaurant. And I went with him, +because I had only seventy-five cents, and there was nothing else +to do.

"The Gomez man rises from his chair, and looks, colored man as he +was, like he was about to call out for corporal of the guard, post +number one. But Wainwright says some phrases to him in a +peculiarly lubricating manner; and the first thing you know we was +all three of us seated at the table, with coffee and rolls and +iguana cutlets coming as fast as about ninety peons could rustle +'em.

"'You Yankees,' says he, polite, 'assuredly take the cake for +assurance, I assure you'—or words to that effect. He spoke +English better than you or me. 'You've had a long walk,' says he, +'but it's nicer in the cool morning to walk than to ride. May I +suggest some refreshments?' says he.

"Well, sir, the two talked an hour, keeping the generals and +equities all in their good uniforms waiting outside the fence. And +while I smoked, silent, I listened to Clifford Wainwright making a +solid republic out of the wreck of one. I didn't follow his +arguments with any special collocation of international +intelligibility; but he had Mr. Gomez's attention glued and +riveted. He takes out a pencil and marks the white linen +tablecloth all over with figures and estimates and deductions. He +speaks more or less disrespectfully of import and export duties +and custom-house receipts and taxes and treaties and budgets and +concessions and such truck that politics and government require; +and when he gets through the Gomez man hops up and shakes his hand +and says he's saved the country and the people.

"Well, sir, the president sent me and Wainwright back to the town +in a victoria hitched to two flea-bitten selling-platers—but the +best the country afforded.

"I found out afterward that Wainwright was a regular +beachcomber—the smartest man on the whole coast, but kept down by +rum. I liked him.

"One day I inveigled him into a walk out a couple of miles from +the village, where there was an old grass hut on the bank of a +little river. While he was sitting on the grass, talking beautiful +of the wisdom of the world that he had learned in books, I took +hold of him easy and tied his hands and feet together with leather +thongs that I had in my pocket.

"'Lie still,' says I, 'and meditate on the exigencies and +irregularities of life till I get back.'

"I went to a shack in Aguas Frescas where a mighty wise girl named +Timotea Carrizo lived with her mother. The girl was just about as +nice as you ever saw. In the States she would have been called a +brunette; but she was better than a brunette—I should say she was +what you might term an écru shade. I knew her pretty well. I +told her about my friend Wainwright. She gave me a double handful of +bark—calisaya, I think it was—and some more herbs that I was to +mix with it, and told me what to do. I was to make tea of it and +give it to him, and keep him from rum for a certain time. And for +two weeks I did it. You know, I liked Wainwright. Both of us was +broke; but Timotea sent us goat-meat and plantains and tortillas +every day; and at last I got the curse of drink lifted from +Clifford Wainwright. He lost his taste for it. And in the cool of +the evening him and me would sit on the roof of Timotea's mother's +hut, eating harmless truck like coffee and rice and stewed crabs, +and playing the accordion.

"About that time President Gomez found out that the advice of C. +Wainwright was the stuff he had been looking for. The country was +pulling out of debt, and the treasury had enough boodle in it for +him to amuse himself occasionally with the night-latch. The people +were beginning to take their two-hour siestas again every +day—which was the surest sign of prosperity.

"So down from the regular capital he sends for Clifford Wainwright +and makes him his private secretary at twenty thousand Peru +dollars a year. Yes, sir—so much. Wainwright was on the +water-wagon—thanks to me and Timotea—and he was soon in clover +with the government gang. Don't forget what done it—calisaya bark +with them other herbs mixed—make a tea of it, and give a cupful +every two hours. Try it yourself. It takes away the desire.

"As I said, a man can do a lot more for another party than he can +for himself. Wainwright, with his brains, got a whole country out +of trouble and on its feet; but what could he do for himself? And +without any special brains, but with some nerve and common sense, +I put him on his feet because I never had the weakness that he +did—nothing but a cigar for mine, thanks. And—"

Trotter paused. I looked at his tattered clothes and at his deeply +sunburnt, hard, thoughtful face.

"Wainwright," corrected Trotter. "Yes, he offered me some pretty +good jobs. But I'd have had to leave Aguas Frescas; so I didn't +take any of 'em up. Say, I didn't tell you much about that +girl—Timotea. We rather hit it off together. She was as good as +you find 'em anywhere—Spanish, mostly, with just a twist of +lemon-peel on top. What if they did live in a grass hut and went +bare-armed?

"You'd better come back to the States," I insisted. "I can promise +you positively that my brother will give you a position in cotton, +sugar, or sheetings—I am not certain which."

"I think she went back with her mother," said Trotter, "to the +village in the mountains that they come from. Tell me, what would +this job you speak of pay?"

"Why," said I, hesitating over commerce, "I should say fifty or a +hundred dollars a month—maybe two hundred."

"Ain't it funny," said Trotter, digging his toes in the sand, +"what a chump a man is when it comes to paddling his own canoe? I +don't know. Of course, I'm not making a living here. I'm on the +bum. But—well, I wish you could have seen that Timotea. Every man +has his own weak spot."

The gig from the Andador was coming ashore to take out +the captain, purser, and myself, the lone passenger.

"I'll guarantee," said I confidently, "that my brother will pay +you seventy-five dollars a month."

But a soft voice called across the blazing sands. A girl, faintly +lemon-tinted, stood in the Calle Real and called. She was +bare-armed—but what of that?

"It's her!" said William Trotter, looking. "She's come back! I'm +obliged; but I can't take the job. Thanks, just the same. Ain't it +funny how we can't do nothing for ourselves, but we can do wonders +for the other fellow? You was about to get me with your financial +proposition; but we've all got our weak points. Timotea's mine. +And, say!" Trotter had turned to leave, but he retraced the step +or two that he had taken. "I like to have left you without saying +good-bye," said he. "It kind of rattles you when they go away +unexpected for a month and come back the same way. Shake hands. So +long! Say, do you remember them gunshots we heard a while ago up +at the cuartel? Well, I knew what they was, but I didn't mention +it. It was Clifford Wainwright being shot by a squad of soldiers +against a stone wall for giving away secrets of state to that +Nicamala republic. Oh, yes, it was rum that did it. He backslided +and got his. I guess we all have our weak points, and can't do +much toward helping ourselves. Mine's waiting for me. I'd have +liked to have that job with your brother, but—we've all got our +weak points. So long!"

A big black Carib carried me on his back through the surf to the +ship's boat. On the way the purser handed me a letter that he had +brought for me at the last moment from the post-office in Aguas +Frescas. It was from my brother. He requested me to meet him at +the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans and accept a position with +his house—in either cotton, sugar, or sheetings, and with five +thousand dollars a year as my salary.

When I arrived at the Crescent City I hurried away—far away from +the St. Charles to a dim chambre garnie in Bienville Street. +And there, looking down from my attic window from time to time at +the old, yellow, absinthe house across the street, I wrote this +story to buy my bread and butter.

THE MARIONETTES

The policeman was standing at the corner of Twenty-fourth Street +and a prodigiously dark alley near where the elevated railroad +crosses the street. The time was two o'clock in the morning; the +outlook a stretch of cold, drizzling, unsociable blackness until +the dawn.

A man, wearing a long overcoat, with his hat tilted down in front, +and carrying something in one hand, walked softly but rapidly out +of the black alley. The policeman accosted him civilly, but with +the assured air that is linked with conscious authority. The hour, +the alley's musty reputation, the pedestrian's haste, the burden +he carried—these easily combined into the "suspicious +circumstances" that required illumination at the officer's hands.

The "suspect" halted readily and tilted back his hat, exposing, in +the flicker of the electric lights, an emotionless, smooth +countenance with a rather long nose and steady dark eyes. +Thrusting his gloved hand into a side pocket of his overcoat, he +drew out a card and handed it to the policeman. Holding it to +catch the uncertain light, the officer read the name "Charles +Spencer James, M. D." The street and number of the address were of +a neighborhood so solid and respectable as to subdue even +curiosity. The policeman's downward glance at the article carried +in the doctor's hand—a handsome medicine case of black leather, +with small silver mountings—further endorsed the guarantee of the +card.

"All right, doctor," said the officer, stepping aside, with an air +of bulky affability. "Orders are to be extra careful. Good many +burglars and hold-ups lately. Bad night to be out. Not so cold, +but—clammy."

With a formal inclination of his head, and a word or two +corroborative of the officer's estimate of the weather, Doctor +James continued his somewhat rapid progress. Three times that +night had a patrolman accepted his professional card and the sight +of his paragon of a medicine case as vouchers for his honesty of +person and purpose. Had any one of those officers seen fit, on the +morrow, to test the evidence of that card he would have found it +borne out by the doctor's name on a handsome doorplate, his +presence, calm and well dressed, in his well-equipped +office—provided it were not too early, Doctor James being a late +riser—and the testimony of the neighborhood to his good +citizenship, his devotion to his family, and his success as a +practitioner the two years he had lived among them.

Therefore, it would have much surprised any one of those zealous +guardians of the peace could they have taken a peep into that +immaculate medicine case. Upon opening it, the first article to be +seen would have been an elegant set of the latest conceived tools +used by the "box man," as the ingenious safe burglar now +denominates himself. Specially designed and constructed were the +implements—the short but powerful "jimmy," the collection of +curiously fashioned keys, the blued drills and punches of the +finest temper—capable of eating their way into chilled steel as a +mouse eats into a cheese, and the clamps that fasten like a leech +to the polished door of a safe and pull out the combination knob +as a dentist extracts a tooth. In a little pouch in the inner side +of the "medicine" case was a four-ounce vial of nitroglycerine, +now half empty. Underneath the tools was a mass of crumpled +banknotes and a few handfuls of gold coin, the money, altogether, +amounting to eight hundred and thirty dollars.

To a very limited circle of friends Doctor James was known as "The +Swell 'Greek.'" Half of the mysterious term was a tribute to his +cool and gentlemanlike manners; the other half denoted, in the +argot of the brotherhood, the leader, the planner, the one who, by +the power and prestige of his address and position, secured the +information upon which they based their plans and desperate +enterprises.

Of this elect circle the other members were Skitsie Morgan and Gum +Decker, expert "box men," and Leopold Pretzfelder, a jeweller +downtown, who manipulated the "sparklers" and other ornaments +collected by the working trio. All good and loyal men, as +loose-tongued as Memnon and as fickle as the North Star.

That night's work had not been considered by the firm to have +yielded more than a moderate repayal for their pains. An old-style +two-story side-bolt safe in the dingy office of a very wealthy +old-style dry-goods firm on a Saturday night should have excreted +more than twenty-five hundred dollars. But that was all they +found, and they had divided it, the three of them, into equal +shares upon the spot, as was their custom. Ten or twelve thousand +was what they expected. But one of the proprietors had proved to +be just a trifle too old-style. Just after dark he had carried +home in a shirt box most of the funds on hand.

Doctor James proceeded up Twenty-fourth Street, which was, to all +appearance, depopulated. Even the theatrical folk, who affect this +district as a place of residence, were long since abed. The +drizzle had accumulated upon the street; puddles of it among the +stones received the fire of the arc lights, and returned it, +shattered into a myriad liquid spangles. A captious wind, +shower-soaked and chilling, coughed from the laryngeal flues +between the houses.

As the practitioner's foot struck even with the corner of a tall +brick residence of more pretension than its fellows the front door +popped open, and a bawling negress clattered down the steps to the +pavement. Some medley of words came from her mouth, addressed, +like as not, to herself—the recourse of her race when alone and +beset by evil. She looked to be one of that old vassal class of +the South—voluble, familiar, loyal, irrepressible; her person +pictured it—fat, neat, aproned, kerchiefed.

This sudden apparition, spewed from the silent house, reached the +bottom of the steps as Doctor James came opposite. Her brain +transferring its energies from sound to sight, she ceased her +clamor and fixed her pop-eyes upon the case the doctor carried.

"Bress de Lawd!" was the benison the sight drew from her. "Is you +a doctor, suh?"

"Den fo' God's sake come and see Mister Chandler, suh. He done had +a fit or sump'n. He layin' jist like he wuz dead. Miss Amy sont me +to git a doctor. Lawd knows whar old Cindy'd a skeared one up +from, if you, suh, hadn't come along. Ef old Mars' knowed one +ten-hundredth part of dese doin's dey'd be shootin' gwine on, +suh—pistol shootin'—leb'm feet marked off on de ground, and +ev'ybody a-duellin'. And dat po' lamb, Miss Amy—"

"Lead the way," said Doctor James, setting his foot upon the step, +"if you want me as a doctor. As an auditor I'm not open to +engagements."

The negress preceded him into the house and up a flight of thickly +carpeted stairs. Twice they came to dimly lighted branching +hallways. At the second one the now panting conductress turned +down a hall, stopping at a door and opening it.

Doctor James entered the room, and bowed slightly to a young lady +standing by the side of a bed. He set his medicine case upon a +chair, removed his overcoat, throwing it over the case and the +back of the chair, and advanced with quiet self-possession to the +bedside.

There lay a man, sprawling as he had fallen—a man dressed richly +in the prevailing mode, with only his shoe removed; lying relaxed, +and as still as the dead.

There emanated from Doctor James an aura of calm force and reserve +strength that was as manna in the desert to the weak and desolate +among his patrons. Always had women, especially, been attracted by +something in his sick-room manner. It was not the indulgent +suavity of the fashionable healer, but a manner of poise, of +sureness, of ability to overcome fate, of deference and protection +and devotion. There was an exploring magnetism in his steadfast, +luminous brown eves; a latent authority in the impassive, even +priestly, tranquillity of his smooth countenance that outwardly +fitted him for the part of confidant and consoler. Sometimes, at +his first professional visit, women would tell him where they hid +their diamonds at night from the burglars.

With the ease of much practice, Doctor James's unroving eyes +estimated the order and quality of the room's furnishings. The +appointments were rich and costly. The same glance had secured +cognizance of the lady's appearance. She was small and scarcely +past twenty. Her face possessed the title to a winsome prettiness, +now obscured by (you would say) rather a fixed melancholy than the +more violent imprint of a sudden sorrow. Upon her forehead, above +one eyebrow, was a livid bruise, suffered, the physician's eye +told him, within the past six hours.

Doctor James's fingers went to the man's wrist. His almost vocal +eyes questioned the lady.

"I am Mrs. Chandler," she responded, speaking with the plaintive +Southern slur and intonation. "My husband was taken suddenly ill +about ten minutes before you came. He has had attacks of heart +trouble before—some of them were very bad." His clothed state and +the late hour seemed to prompt her to further explanation. "He had +been out late; to—a supper, I believe."

Doctor James now turned his attention to his patient. In whichever +of his "professions" he happened to be engaged he was wont to +honor the "case" or the "job" with his whole interest.

The sick man appeared to be about thirty. His countenance bore a +look of boldness and dissipation, but was not without a symmetry +of feature and the fine lines drawn by a taste and indulgence in +humor that gave the redeeming touch. There was an odor of spilled +wine about his clothes.

The physician laid back his outer garments, and then, with a +penknife, slit the shirt-front from collar to waist. The obstacles +cleared, he laid his ear to the heart and listened intently.

"Mitral regurgitation?" he said, softly, when he rose. The words +ended with the rising inflection of uncertainty. Again he listened +long; and this time he said, "Mitral insufficiency," with the +accent of an assured diagnosis.

"Madam," he began, in the reassuring tones that had so often +allayed anxiety, "there is a probability—" As he slowly turned +his head to face the lady, he saw her fall, white and swooning, +into the arms of the old negress.

"Po' lamb! po' lamb! Has dey done killed Aunt Cindy's own blessed +child? May de Lawd' stroy wid his wrath dem what stole her away; +what break dat angel heart; what left—"

"Lift her feet," said Doctor James, assisting to support the +drooping form. "Where is her room? She must be put to bed."

"In here, suh." The woman nodded her kerchiefed head toward a +door. "Dat's Miss Amy's room."

They carried her in there, and laid her on the bed. Her pulse was +faint, but regular. She passed from the swoon, without recovering +consciousness, into a profound slumber.

"She is quite exhausted," said the physician. "Sleep is a good +remedy. When she wakes, give her a toddy—with an egg in it, if +she can take it. How did she get that bruise upon her forehead?"

"She done got a lick there, suh. De po' lamb fell—No, suh"—the +old woman's racial mutability swept her into a sudden flare of +indignation—"old Cindy ain't gwineter lie for dat debble. He +done it, suh. May de Lawd wither de hand what—dar now! Cindy +promise her sweet lamb she ain't gwine tell. Miss Amy got hurt, +suh, on de head."

Doctor James stepped to a stand where a handsome lamp burned, and +turned the flame low.

"Stay here with your mistress," he ordered, "and keep quiet so she +will sleep. If she wakes, give her the toddy. If she grows any +weaker, let me know. There is something strange about it."

"Dar's mo' strange t'ings dan dat 'round here," began the negress, +but the physician hushed her in a seldom employed peremptory, +concentrated voice with which he had often allayed hysteria +itself. He returned to the other room, closing the door softly +behind him. The man on the bed had not moved, but his eyes were +open. His lips seemed to form words. Doctor James bent his head to +listen. "The money! the money!" was what they were whispering.

"Can you understand what I say?" asked the doctor, speaking low, +but distinctly.

"I am a physician, sent for by your wife. You are Mr. Chandler, I +am told. You are quite ill. You must not excite or distress +yourself at all."

The patient's eyes seemed to beckon to him. The doctor stooped to +catch the same faint words.

The eyes expressed a negative. "Tell her"—the whisper was growing +fainter—"the twenty thousand dollars—her money"—his eyes +wandered about the room.

"You have placed this money somewhere?"—Doctor James's voice was +toiling like a siren's to conjure the secret from the man's +failing intelligence—"Is it in this room?"

He thought he saw a fluttering assent in the dimming eyes. The +pulse under his fingers was as fine and small as a silk thread.

There arose in Doctor James's brain and heart the instincts of his +other profession. Promptly, as he acted in everything, he decided +to learn the whereabouts of this money, and at the calculated and +certain cost of a human life.

Drawing from his pocket a little pad of prescription blanks, he +scribbled upon one of them a formula suited, according to the best +practice, to the needs of the sufferer. Going to the door of the +inner room, he softly called the old woman, gave her the +prescription, and bade her take it to some drug store and fetch +the medicine.

When she had gone, muttering to herself, the doctor stepped to the +bedside of the lady. She still slept soundly; her pulse was a +little stronger; her forehead was cool, save where the +inflammation of the bruise extended, and a slight moisture covered +it. Unless disturbed, she would yet sleep for hours. He found the +key in the door, and locked it after him when he returned.

Doctor James looked at his watch. He could call half an hour his +own, since before that time the old woman could scarcely return +from her mission. Then he sought and found water in a pitcher and +a glass tumbler. Opening his medicine case he took out the vial +containing the nitroglycerine—"the oil," as his brethren of the +brace-and-bit term it.

One drop of the faint yellow, thickish liquid he let fall in the +tumbler. He took out his silver hypodermic syringe case, and +screwed the needle into its place, Carefully measuring each +modicum of water in the graduated glass barrel of the syringe, he +diluted the one drop with nearly half a tumbler of water.

Two hours earlier that night Doctor James had, with that syringe, +injected the undiluted liquid into a hole drilled in the lock of a +safe, and had destroyed, with one dull explosion, the machinery +that controlled the movement of the bolts. He now purposed, with +the same means, to shiver the prime machinery of a human being—to +rend its heart—and each shock was for the sake of the money to +follow.

The same means, but in a different guise. Whereas, that was the +giant in its rude, primary dynamic strength, this was the +courtier, whose no less deadly arms were concealed by velvet and +lace. For the liquid in the tumbler and in the syringe that the +physician carefully filled was now a solution of glonoin, the most +powerful heart stimulant known to medical science. Two ounces had +riven the solid door of the iron safe; with one fiftieth part of a +minim he was now about to still forever the intricate mechanism of +a human life.

But not immediately. It was not so intended. First there would be +a quick increase of vitality; a powerful impetus given to every +organ and faculty. The heart would respond bravely to the fatal +spur; the blood in the veins return more rapidly to its source.

But, as Doctor James well knew, over-stimulation in this form of +heart disease means death, as sure as by a rifle shot. When the +clogged arteries should suffer congestion from the increased flow +of blood pumped into them by the power of the burglar's "oil," +they would rapidly become "no thoroughfare," and the fountain of +life would cease to flow.

The physician bared the chest of the unconscious Chandler. Easily +and skilfully he injected, subcutaneously, the contents of the +syringe into the muscles of the region over the heart. True to his +neat habits in both professions, he next carefully dried his +needle and re-inserted the fine wire that threaded it when not in +use.

In three minutes Chandler opened his eyes, and spoke, in a voice +faint but audible, inquiring who attended upon him. Doctor James +again explained his presence there.

"She is asleep—from exhaustion and worry," said the doctor. "I +would not awaken her, unless—"

"It isn't—necessary." Chandler spoke with spaces between his +words caused by his short breath that some demon was driving too +fast. "She wouldn't—thank you to disturb her—on my—account."

"A few minutes ago," he began, in the grave, candid tones of his +other profession, "you were trying to tell me something regarding +some money. I do not seek your confidence, but it is my duty to +advise you that anxiety and worry will work against your recovery. +If you have any communication to make about this—to relieve your +mind about this—twenty thousand dollars, I think was the amount +you mentioned—you would better do so."

Chandler could not turn his head, but he rolled his eyes in the +direction of the speaker.

"No," answered the physician. "I only inferred, from your scarcely +intelligible words, that you felt a solicitude concerning its +safety. If it is in this room—"

Doctor James paused. Did he only seem to perceive a flicker of +understanding, a gleam of suspicion upon the ironical features of +his patient? Had he seemed too eager? Had he said too much? +Chandler's next words restored his confidence.

With his eyes he indicated a corner of the room, where now, for +the first time, the doctor perceived a small iron safe, +half-concealed by the trailing end of a window curtain.

Rising, he took the sick man's wrist. His pulse was beating in +great throbs, with ominous intervals between.

The physician stepped swiftly to the hall door, opened it, and +listened. All was still. Without further circumvention he went to +the safe, and examined it. Of a primitive make and simple design, +it afforded little more security than protection against +light-fingered servants. To his skill it was a mere toy, a thing +of straw and paste-board. The money was as good as in his hands. +With his clamps he could draw the knob, punch the tumblers and +open the door in two minutes. Perhaps, in another way, he might +open it in one.

Kneeling upon the floor, he laid his ear to the combination plate, +and slowly turned the knob. As he had surmised, it was locked at +only a "day com."—upon one number. His keen ear caught the faint +warning click as the tumbler was disturbed; he used the clue—the +handle turned. He swung the door wide open.

The interior of the safe was bare—not even a scrap of paper +rested within the hollow iron cube.

A thick dew had formed upon the dying man's brow, but there was a +mocking, grim smile on his lips and in his eyes.

"I never—saw it before," he said, painfully, "medicine +and—burglary wedded! Do you—make the—combination pay—dear +Doctor?"

Than that situation afforded, there was never a more rigorous test +of Doctor James's greatness. Trapped by the diabolic humor of his +victim into a position both ridiculous and unsafe, he maintained +his dignity as well as his presence of mind. Taking out his watch, +he waited for the man to die.

"You were—just a shade—too—anxious—about that money. But it +never was—in any danger—from you, dear Doctor. It's safe. +Perfectly safe. It's all—in the hands—of the bookmakers. +Twenty—thousand—Amy's money. I played it at the races—lost +every—cent of it. I've been a pretty bad boy, Burglar—excuse +me—Doctor, but I've been a square sport. I don't think—I ever +met—such an—eighteen-carat rascal as you are, Doctor—excuse +me—Burglar, in all my rounds. Is it contrary—to the ethics—of +your—gang, Burglar, to give a victim—excuse me—patient, a drink +of water?"

Doctor James brought him a drink. He could scarcely swallow it. +The reaction from the powerful drug was coming in regular, +intensifying waves. But his moribund fancy must have one more +grating fling.

The physician indulged himself to but one reply to the other's +caustic taunts. Bending low to catch Chandler's fast crystallizing +gaze, he pointed to the sleeping lady's door with a gesture so +stern and significant that the prostrate man half-lifted his head, +with his remaining strength, to see. He saw nothing; but he caught +the cold words of the doctor—the last sounds hie was to hear:

It were vain to attempt to con such men. There is no curriculum +that can reckon with them in its ken. They +are offshoots from the types whereof men say, "He will do this," +or "He will do that." We only know that they exist; and that we +can observe them, and tell one another of their bare performances, +as children watch and speak of the marionettes.

Yet it were a droll study in egoism to consider these two—one an +assassin and a robber, standing above his victim; the other baser +in his offences, if a lesser law-breaker, lying, abhorred, in the +house of the wife he had persecuted, spoiled, and smitten, one a +tiger, the other a dog-wolf—to consider each of them sickening at +the foulness of the other; and each flourishing out of the mire of +his manifest guilt his own immaculate standard—of conduct, if not +of honor.

The one retort of Doctor James must have struck home to the +other's remaining shreds of shame and manhood, for it proved the +coup de grâce. A deep blush suffused his face—an +ignominious rosa mortis; the respiration ceased, and, with +scarcely a tremor, Chandler expired.

Close following upon his last breath came the negress, bringing +the medicine. With a hand gently pressing upon the closed eyelids, +Doctor James told her of the end. Not grief, but a hereditary +rapprochement with death in the abstract, moved her to a dismal, +watery snuffling, accompanied by her usual jeremiad.

"Dar now! It's in de Lawd's hands. He am de jedge ob de +transgressor, and de suppo't of dem in distress. He gwine hab +suppo't us now. Cindy done paid out de last quarter fer dis bottle +of physic, and it nebber come to no use."

"Money, suh? You know what make Miss Amy fall down and so weak? +Stahvation, sub. Nothin' to eat in dis house but some crumbly +crackers in three days. Dat angel sell her finger rings and watch +mont's ago. Dis fine house, suh, wid de red cyarpets and shiny +bureaus, it's all hired; and de man talkin' scan'lous about de +rent. Dat debble—'scuse me, Lawd—he done in Yo' hands fer +jedgment, now—he made way wid everything."

The physician's silence encouraged her to continue. The history +that he gleaned from Cindy's disordered monologue was an old one, +of illusion, wilfulness, disaster, cruelty and pride. Standing out +from the blurred panorama of her gabble were little clear +pictures—an ideal home in the far South; a quickly repented +marriage; an unhappy season, full of wrongs and abuse, and, of +late, an inheritance of money that promised deliverance; its +seizure and waste by the dog-wolf during a two months' absence, +and his return in the midst of a scandalous carouse. Unobtruded, +but visible between every line, ran a pure white thread through +the smudged warp of the story—the simple, all-enduring, sublime +love of the old negress, following her mistress unswervingly +through everything to the end.

When at last she paused, the physician spoke, asking if the house +contained whiskey or liquor of any sort. There was, the old woman +informed him, half a bottle of brandy left in the sideboard by the +dog-wolf.

"Prepare a toddy as I told you," said Doctor James. "Wake your +mistress; have her drink it, and tell her what has happened."

Some ten minutes afterward, Mrs. Chandler entered, supported by +old Cindy's arm. She appeared to be a little stronger since her +sleep and the stimulant she had taken. Doctor James had covered, +with a sheet, the form upon the bed.

The lady turned her mournful eyes once, with a half-frightened +look, toward it, and pressed closer to her loyal protector. Her +eyes were dry and bright. Sorrow seemed to have done its utmost +with her. The fount of tears was dried; feeling itself paralyzed.

Doctor James was standing near the table, his overcoat donned, his +hat and medicine case in his hand. His face was calm and +impassive—practice had inured him to the sight of human +suffering. His lambent brown eyes alone expressed a discreet +professional sympathy.

He spoke kindly and briefly, stating that, as the hour was late, +and assistance, no doubt, difficult to procure, he would himself +send the proper persons to attend to the necessary finalities.

"One matter, in conclusion," said the doctor, pointing to the safe +with its still wide-open door. "Your husband, Mrs. Chandler, +toward the end, felt that he could not live; and directed me to +open that safe, giving me the number upon which the combination is +set. In case you may need to use it, you will remember that the +number is forty-one. Turn several times to the right; then to the +left once; stop at forty-one. He would not permit me to waken you, +though he knew the end was near.

"In that safe he said he had placed a sum of money—not large—but +enough to enable you to carry out his last request. That was that +you should return to your old home, and, in after days, when time +shall have made it easier, forgive his many sins against you."

He pointed to the table, where lay an orderly pile of banknotes, +surmounted by two stacks of gold coins.

"The money is there—as he described it—eight hundred and thirty +dollars. I beg to leave my card with you, in case I can be of any +service later on."

So, he had thought of her—and kindly—at the last! So late! And +yet the lie fanned into life one last spark of tenderness where +she had thought all was turned to ashes and dust. She cried aloud +"Rob! Rob!" She turned, and, upon the ready bosom of her true +servitor, diluted her grief in relieving tears. It is well to +think, also, that in the years to follow, the murderer's falsehood +shone like a little star above the grave of love, comforting her, +and gaining the forgiveness that is good in itself, whether asked +for or no.

Hushed and soothed upon the dark bosom, like a child, by a +crooning, babbling sympathy, at last she raised her head—but the +doctor was gone.

THE MARQUIS AND MISS SALLY

Without knowing it, Old Bill Bascom had the honor of being +overtaken by fate the same day with the Marquis of Borodale.

The Marquis lived in Regent Square, London. Old Bill lived on +Limping Doe Creek, Hardeman County, Texas. The cataclysm that +engulfed the Marquis took the form of a bursting bubble known as +the Central and South American Mahogany and Caoutchouc Monopoly. +Old Bill's Nemesis was in the no less perilous shape of a band of +civilized Indian cattle thieves from the Territory who ran off his +entire herd of four hundred head, and shot old Bill dead as he +trailed after them. To even up the consequences of the two +catastrophes, the Marquis, as soon as he found that all he +possessed would pay only fifteen shillings on the pound of his +indebtedness, shot himself.

Old Bill left a family of six motherless sons and daughters, who +found themselves without even a red steer left to eat, or a red +cent to buy one with.

The Marquis left one son, a young man, who had come to the States +and established a large and well-stocked ranch in the Panhandle of +Texas. When this young man learned the news he mounted his pony +and rode to town. There he placed everything he owned except his +horse, saddle, Winchester, and fifteen dollars in his pockets, in +the hands of his lawyers, with instructions to sell and forward +the proceeds to London to be applied upon the payment of his +father's debts. Then he mounted his pony and rode southward.

One day, arriving about the same time, but by different trails, +two young chaps rode up to the Diamond-Cross ranch, on the Little +Piedra, and asked for work. Both were dressed neatly and sprucely +in cowboy costume. One was a straight-set fellow, with delicate, +handsome features, short, brown hair, and smooth face, sunburned +to a golden brown. The other applicant was stouter and +broad-shouldered, with fresh, red complexion, somewhat freckled, +reddish, curling hair, and a rather plain face, made attractive by +laughing eyes and a pleasant mouth.

The superintendent of the Diamond-Cross was of the opinion that he +could give them work. In fact, word had reached him that morning +that the camp cook—a most important member of the outfit—had +straddled his broncho and departed, being unable to withstand the +fire of fun and practical jokes of which he was, ex officio, the +legitimate target.

"I can," said the reddish-haired fellow, promptly. "I've cooked in +camp quite a lot. I'm willing to take the job until you've got +something else to offer."

"Now, that's the way I like to hear a man talk," said the +superintendent, approvingly. "I'll give you a note to Saunders, +and he'll put you to work."

Thus the names of John Bascom and Charles Norwood were added to +the pay-roll of the Diamond-Cross. The two left for the round-up +camp immediately after dinner. Their directions were simple, but +sufficient: "Keep down the arroyo for fifteen miles till you get +there." Both being strangers from afar, young, spirited, and thus +thrown together by chance for a long ride, it is likely that the +comradeship that afterward existed so strongly between them began +that afternoon as they meandered along the little valley of the +Canada Verda.

They reached their destination just after sunset. The main camp of +the round-up was comfortably located on the bank of a long +water-hole, under a fine mott of timber. A number of small A tents +pitched upon grassy spots and the big wall tent for provisions +showed that the camp was intended to be occupied for a +considerable length of time.

The round-up had ridden in but a few moments before, hungry and +tired, to a supperless camp. The boys were engaged in an emulous +display of anathemas supposed to fit the case of the absconding +cook. While they were unsaddling and hobbling their ponies, the +newcomer rode in and inquired for Pink Saunders. The boss ol the +round-up came forth and was given the superintendent's note.

Pink Saunders, though a boss during working hours, was a humorist +in camp, where everybody, from cook to superintendent, is equal. +After reading the note he waved his hand toward the camp and +shouted, ceremoniously, at the top of his voice, "Gentlemen, allow +me to present to you the Marquis and Miss Sally."

At the words both the new arrivals betray confusion. The newly +employed cook started, with a surprised look on his face, but, +immediately recollecting that "Miss Sally" is the generic name for +the male cook in every west Texas cow camp, he recovered his +composure with a grin at his own expense.

His companion showed little less discomposure, even turning +angrily, with a bitten lip, and reaching for his saddle pommel, as +if to remount his pony; but "Miss Sally" touched his arm and said, +laughingly, "Come now. Marquis; that was quite a compliment from +Saunders. It's that distinguished air of yours and aristocratic +nose that made him call you that."

He began to unsaddle, and the Marquis, restored to equanimity, +followed his example. Rolling up his sleeves, Miss Sally sprang +for the grub wagon, shouting: "I'm the new cook b'thunder! Some of +you chaps rustle a little wood for a fire, and I'll guarantee you +a hot square meal inside of thirty minutes." Miss Sally's energy +and good-humor, as he ransacked the grub wagon for coffee, flour, +and bacon, won the good opinion of the camp instantly.

And also, in days following, the Marquis, after becoming better +acquainted, proved to be a cheerful, pleasant fellow, always a +little reserved, and taking no part in the rough camp frolics; but +the boys gradually came to respect this reserve—which fitted the +title Saunders had given him—and even to like him for it. +Saunders had assigned him to a place holding the herd during the +cuttings. He proved to be a skilful rider and as good with the +lariat or in the branding pen as most of them.

The Marquis and Miss Sally grew to be quite close comrades. After +supper was over, and everything cleaned up, you would generally +find them together, Miss Sally smoking his brier-root pipe, and +the Marquis plaiting a quirt or scraping rawhide for a new pair of +hobbles.

The superintendent did not forget his promise to keep an eye on +the cook. Several times, when visiting the camp, he held long +talks with him. He seemed to have taken a fancy to Miss Sally. One +afternoon he rode up, on his way back to the ranch from a tour of +the camps, and said to him:

"There'll be a man here in the morning to take your place. As soon +as he shows up you come to the ranch. I want you to take charge of +the ranch accounts and correspondence. I want somebody that I can +depend upon to keep things straight when I'm away. The wages'll be +all right. The Diamond-Cross'll hold its end up with a man who'll +look after its interests."

"All right," said Miss Sally, as quietly as if he had expected the +notice all along. "Any objections to my bringing my wife down to +the ranch?"

"You married?" said the superintendent, frowning a little. "You +didn't mention it when we were talking."

"Because I'm not," said the cook. "But I'd like to be. Thought I'd +wait till I got a job under roof. I couldn't ask her to live in a +cow camp."

"Right," agreed the superintendent. "A camp isn't quite the place +for a married man—but—well, there's plenty of room at the house, +and if you suit us as well as I think you will you can afford it. +You write to her to come on."

"All right," said Miss Sally again, "I'll ride in as soon as I am +relieved to-morrow."

It was a rather chilly night, and after supper the cow-punchers +were lounging about a big fire of dried mesquite chunks.

Their usual exchange of jokes and repartee had dwindled almost to +silence, but silence in a cow camp generally betokens the brewing +of mischief.

Miss Sally and the Marquis were seated upon a log, discussing the +relative merits of the lengthened or shortened stirrup in +long-distance riding. The Marquis arose presently and went to a +tree near by to examine some strips of rawhide he was seasoning +for making a lariat. Just as he left a little puff of wind blew +some scraps of tobacco from a cigarette that Dry-Creek Smithers +was rolling, into Miss Sally's eyes. While the cook was rubbing at +them, with tears flowing, "Phonograph" Davis—so called on account +of his strident voice—arose and began a speech.

"Fellers and citizens! I desire to perpound a interrogatory. What +is the most grievous spectacle what the human mind can +contemplate?"

"Shet up, you ignoramuses," said old Taller, the fat cow-puncher. +"Phony knows what it is. He's waitin' for to tell us."

"No, fellers and citizens," continued Phonograph. "Them spectacles +you've e-numerated air shore grievious, and way up yonder close to +the so-lution, but they ain't it. The most grievious spectacle air +that"—he pointed to Miss Sally, who was still rubbing his +streaming eyes—"a trustin' and a in-veegled female a-weepin' +tears on account of her heart bein' busted by a false deceiver. +Air we men or air we catamounts to gaze upon the blightin' of our +Miss Sally's affections by a a-risto-crat, which has come among us +with his superior beauty and his glitterin' title to give the +weeps to the lovely critter we air bound to pertect? Air we goin' +to act like men, or air we goin' to keep on eaten' soggy chuck +from her cryin' so plentiful over the bread-pan?"

"It's a gallopin' shame," said Dry-Creek, with a sniffle. "It +ain't human. I've noticed the varmint a-palaverin' round her +frequent. And him a Marquis! Ain't that a title, Phony?"

"It's somethin' like a king," the Brushy Creek Kid hastened to +explain, "only lower in the deck. Guess it comes in between the +Jack and the ten-spot."

"Don't miscontruct me," went on Phonograph, "as undervaluatin' the +a-ristocrats. Some of 'em air proper people and can travel right +along with the Watson boys. I've herded some with 'em myself. I've +viewed the elephant with the Mayor of Fort Worth, and I've +listened to the owl with the gen'ral passenger agent of the Katy, +and they can keep up with the percession from where you laid the +chunk. But when a Marquis monkeys with the innocent affections of +a cook-lady, may I inquire what the case seems to call for?"

Before the Marquis realized their intention, two of them seized +him by each arm and led him up to the log. Phonograph Davis, +self-appointed to carry out the sentence, stood ready, with a pair +of stout leather leggings in his hands.

It was the first time they had ever laid hands on the Marquis +during their somewhat rude sports.

"Go easy, Marquis," whispered Rube Fellows, one of the boys that +held him. "It's all in fun. Take it good-natured and they'll let +you off light. They're only goin' to stretch you over the log and +tan you eight or ten times with the leggin's. 'Twon't hurt much."

The Marquis, with an exclamation of anger, his white teeth +gleaming, suddenly exhibited a surprising strength. He wrenched +with his arms so violently that the four men were swayed and +dragged many yards from the log. A cry of anger escaped him, and +then Miss Sally, his eyes cleared of the tobacco, saw, and he +immediately mixed with the struggling group.

But at that moment a loud "Hallo!" rang in their ears, and a +buckboard drawn by a team of galloping mustangs spun into the +campfire's circle of light. Every man turned to look, and what +they saw drove from their minds all thoughts of carrying out +Phonograph Davis's rather time-worn contribution to the evening's +amusement. Bigger game than the Marquis was at hand, and his +captors released him and stood staring at the approaching victim.

The buckboard and team belonged to Sam Holly, a cattleman from the +Big Muddy. Sam was driving, and with him was a stout, smooth-faced +man, wearing a frock coat and a high silk hat. That was the county +judge, Mr. Dave Hackett, candidate for reëlection. Sam was +escorting him about the county, among the camps, to shake up the +sovereign voters.

Instantly every man in camp, except the Marquis, Miss Sally, and +Pink Saunders, who had to play host, uttered a frightful yell of +assumed terror and fled on all sides into the darkness.

"Heavens alive!" exclaimed Hackett, "are we as ugly as that? How +do you do, Mr. Saunders? Glad to see you again. What are you doing +to my hat, Holly?"

"I was afraid of this hat," said Sam Holly, meditatively. He had +taken the hat from Hackett's head and was holding it in his hand, +looking dubiously around at the shadows beyond the firelight where +now absolute stillness reigned. "What do you think, Saunders?"

"Better elevate it some," he said, in the tone of one giving +disinterested advice. "The light ain't none too good. I wouldn't +want it on my head."

Holly stepped upon the hub of a hind wheel of the grub wagon and +hung the hat upon a limb of a live-oak. Scarcely had his foot +touched the ground when the crash of a dozen six-shooters split +the air, and the hat fell to the ground riddled with bullets.

A hissing noise was heard as if from a score of rattlesnakes, and +now the cow-punchers emerged on all sides from the darkness, +stepping high, with ludicrously exaggerated caution, and +"hist"-ing to one another to observe the utmost prudence in +approaching. They formed a solemn, wide circle about the hat, +gazing at it in manifest alarm, and seized every few moments by +little stampedes of panicky flight.

"It's the varmint," said one in awed tones, "that flits up and +down in the low grounds at night, saying, 'Willie-wallo!'"

"It's the venomous Kypootum," proclaimed another. "It stings after +it's dead, and hollers after it's buried."

"It's the chief of the hairy tribe," said Phonograph Davis. "But +it's stone dead, now, boys."

"Don't you believe it," demurred Dry-Creek. "It's only +'possumin'.' It's the dreaded Highgollacum fantod from the forest. +There's only one way to destroy its life."

He led forward Old Taller, the 240-pound cow-puncher. Old Taller +placed the hat upright on the ground and solemnly sat upon it, +crushing it as flat as a pancake.

Hackett had viewed these proceedings with wide-open eyes. Sam +Holly saw that his anger was rising and said to him:

"Here's where you win or lose, Judge. There are sixty votes on the +Diamond Cross. The boys are trying your mettle. Take it as a joke, +and I don't think you'll regret it." And Hackett saw the point and +rose to the occasion.

Advancing to where the slayers of the wild beast were standing +above its remains and declaring it to be at last defunct, he said, +with deep earnestness:

"Boys, I must thank you for this gallant rescue. While driving +through the arroyo that cruel monster that you have so fearlessly +and repeatedly slaughtered sprang upon us from the tree tops. To +you I shall consider that I owe my life, and also, I hope, +reëlection to the office for which I am again a candidate. +Allow me to hand you my card."

The cow-punchers, always so sober-faced while engaged in their +monkey-shines, relaxed into a grin of approval.

But Phonograph Davis, his appetite for fun not yet appeased, had +something more up his sleeve.

"Pardner," he said, addressing Hackett with grave severity, "many +a camp would be down on you for turnin' loose a pernicious varmint +like that in it; but, bein' as we all escaped without loss of +life, we'll overlook it. You can play square with us if you'll do +it."

"You're authorized to perform the sacred rights and lefts of +mattermony, air you not?"

"Well, yes," replied Hackett. "A marriage ceremony conducted by me +would be legal."

"A wrong air to be righted in this here camp," said Phonography, +virtuously. "A a-ristocrat have slighted a 'umble but beautchoos +female wat's pinin' for his affections. It's the jooty of the camp +to drag forth the haughty descendant of a hundred—or maybe a +hundred and twenty-five—earls, even so at the p'int of a lariat, +and jine him to the weepin' lady. Fellows! roundup Miss Sally and +the Marquis; there's goin' to be a weddin'."

This whim of Phonograph's was received with whoops of +appreciation. The cow-punchers started to apprehend the principals +of the proposed ceremony.

"Kindly prompt me," said Hackett, wiping his forehead, though the +night was cool, "how far this thing is to be carried. And might I +expect any further portions of my raiment to be mistaken for wild +animals and killed?"

"The boys are livelier than usual to-night," said Saunders. "The +ones they are talking about marrying are two of the boys—a herd +rider and the cook. It's another joke. You and Sam will have to +sleep here to-night anyway; p'rhaps you'd better see 'em through +with it. Maybe they'll quiet down after that."

The matchmakers found Miss Sally seated on the tongue of the grub +wagon, calmly smoking his pipe. The Marquis was leaning idly +against one of the trees under which the supply tent was pitched.

Into this tent they were both hustled, and Phonograph, as master +of ceremonies, gave orders for the preparations.

"You, Dry-Creek and Jimmy, and Ben and Taller—hump yourselves to +the wildwood and rustle flowers for the blow-out—mesquite'll +do—and get that Spanish dagger blossom at the corner of the horse +corral for the bride to pack. You, Limpy, get out that red and +yaller blanket of your'n for Miss Sally's skyirt. Marquis, you'll +do 'thout fixin'; nobody don't ever look at the groom."

During their absurd preparation, the two principals were left +alone for a few moments in the tent. The Marquis suddenly showed +wild perturbation.

"This foolishness must not go on," he said, turning to Miss Sally +a face white in the light of the lantern, hanging to the +ridge-pole.

"Why not?" said the cook, with an amused smile. "It's fun for the +boys; and they've always let you off pretty light in their +frolics. I don't mind it."

"But you don't understand," persisted the Marquis, pleadingly. +"That man is county judge, and his acts are binding. I can't—oh, +you don't know—"

"Perfifious coyote!" said Phonograph, sternly, addressing the +Marquis. "Air you willing to patch up the damage you've did this +ere slab-sided but trustin' bunch o' calico by single-footin' easy +to the altar, or will we have to rope ye, and drag you thar?"

The Marquis pushed back his hat, and leaned jauntily against some +high-piled sacks of beans. His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes +were shining.

A little while after a procession approached the tree under which +Hackett, Holly, and Saunders were sitting smoking.

Limpy Walker was in the lead, extracting a doleful tune from his +concertina. Next came the bride and groom. The cook wore the +gorgeous Navajo blanket tied around his waist and carried in one +band the waxen-white Spanish dagger blossom as large as a +peck-measure and weighing fifteen pounds. His hat was ornamented +with mesquite branches and yellow ratama blooms. A resurrected +mosquito bar served as a veil. After them stumbled Phonograph +Davis, in the character of the bride's father, weeping into a +saddle blanket with sobs that could be heard a mile away. The +cow-punchers followed by twos, loudly commenting upon the bride's +appearance, in a supposed imitation of the audiences at +fashionable weddings.

Hackett rose as the procession halted before him, and after a +little lecture upon matrimony, asked:

Perhaps there never was a stranger wedding. For, wedding it was, +though only two of those present knew it. When the ceremony was +over, the cow-punchers gave one yell of congratulation and +immediately abandoned their foolery for the night. Blankets were +unrolled and sleep became the paramount question.

The cook (divested of his decorations) and the Marquis lingered +for a moment in the shadow of the grub wagon. The Marquis leaned +her head against his shoulder.

"I didn't know what else to do," she was saying. "Father was gone, +and we kids had to rustle. I had helped him so much with the +cattle that I thought I'd turn cowboy. There wasn't anything else +I could make a living at. I wasn't much stuck on it though, after +I got here, and I'd have left only—"

"Oh, it was as soon as we struck the camp, when Saunders bawled +out 'The Marquis and Miss Sally!' I saw how rattled you got at the +name, and I had my sus—"

"Cheeky!" whispered the Marquis. "And why should you think that I +thought he was calling me 'Miss Sally'?"

"Because," answered the cook, calmly, "I was the Marquis. My +father was the Marquis of Borodale. But you'll excuse that, won't +you, Sally? It really isn't my fault, you know."

A FOG IN SANTONE

The drug clerk looks sharply at the white face half concealed by +the high-turned overcoat collar.

"I would rather not supply you," he said doubtfully. "I sold you a +dozen morphine tablets less than an hour ago."

The customer smiles wanly. "The fault is in your crooked streets. +I didn't intend to call upon you twice, but I guess I got tangled +up. Excuse me."

He draws his collar higher, and moves out, slowly. He stops under +an electric light at the corner, and juggles absorbedly with three +or four little pasteboard boxes. "Thirty-six," he announces to +himself. "More than plenty." For a gray mist had swept upon +Santone that night, an opaque terror that laid a hand to the +throat of each of the city's guests. It was computed that three +thousand invalids were hibernating in the town. They had come from +far and wide, for here, among these contracted river-sliced +streets, the goddess Ozone has elected to linger.

Purest atmosphere, sir, on earth! You might think from the river +winding through our town that we are malarial, but, no, sir! +Repeated experiments made both by the Government and local experts +show that our air contains nothing deleterious—nothing but ozone, +sir, pure ozone. Litmus paper tests made all along the river +show—but you can read it all in the prospectuses; or the +Santonian will recite it for you, word by word.

We may achieve climate, but weather is thrust upon us. Santone, +then, cannot be blamed for this cold gray fog that came and kissed +the lips of the three thousand, and then delivered them to the +cross. That night the tubercles, whose ravages hope holds in +check, multiplied. The writhing fingers of the pale mist did not +go thence bloodless. Many of the wooers of ozone capitulated with +the enemy that night, turning their faces to the wall in that +dumb, isolated apathy that so terrifies their watchers. On the red +stream of Hemorrhagia a few souls drifted away, leaving behind +pathetic heaps, white and chill as the fog itself. Two or three +came to view this atmospheric wraith as the ghost of impossible +joys, sent to whisper to them of the egregious folly it is to +inhale breath into the lungs, only to exhale it again, and these +used whatever came handy to their relief, pistols, gas or the +beneficent muriate.

The purchaser of the morphia wanders into the fog, and at length, +finds himself upon a little iron bridge, one of the score or more +in the heart of the city, under which the small tortuous river +flows. He leans on the rail and gasps, for here the mist has +concentrated, lying like a foot-pad to garrote such of the Three +Thousand as creep that way. The iron bridge guys rattle to the +strain of his cough, a mocking phthisical rattle, seeming to say +to him: "Clickety-clack! just a little rusty cold, sir—but not +from our river. Litmus paper all along the banks and nothing but +ozone. Clacket-y-clack!"

The Memphis man at last recovers sufficiently to be aware of +another overcoated man ten feet away, leaning on the rail, and +just coming out of a paroxysm. There is a freemasonry among the +Three Thousand that does away with formalities and introductions. +A cough is your card; a hemorrhage a letter of credit. The Memphis +man, being nearer recovered, speaks first.

"Goodall. Memphis—pulmonary tuberculosis—guess last stages." The +Three Thousand economize on words. Words are breath and they need +breath to write checks for the doctors.

"Hurd," gasps the other. "Hurd; of T'leder. T'leder, Ah-hia. +Catarrhal bronkeetis. Name's Dennis, too—doctor says. Says I'll +live four weeks if I—take care of myself. Got your walking papers +yet?"

"My doctor," says Goodall of Memphis, a little boastingly, "gives +me three months."

"Oh," remarks the man from Toledo, filling up great gaps in his +conversation with wheezes, "damn the difference. What's months! +Expect to—cut mine down to one week—and die in a hack—a four +wheeler, not a cough. Be considerable moanin' of the bars when I +put out to sea. I've patronized 'em pretty freely since I struck +my—present gait. Say, Goodall of Memphis—if your doctor has set +your pegs so close—why don't you—get on a big spree and go—to +the devil quick and easy—like I'm doing?"

"A spree," says Goodall, as one who entertains a new idea, "I +never did such a thing. I was thinking of another way, but—"

"Come on," invites the Ohioan, "and have some drinks. I've been at +it—for two days, but the inf—ernal stuff won't bite like it used +to. Goodall of Memphis, what's your respiration?"

"You can do it in two days. It'll take me a—week. Tank up, friend +Goodall—have all the fun you can; then—off you go, in the middle +of a jag, and s-s-save trouble and expense. I'm a s-son of a gun +if this ain't a health resort—for your whiskers! A Lake Erie +fog'd get lost here in two minutes."

A few minutes later they line up at a glittering bar, and hang +upon the arm rest. The bartender, blond, heavy, well-groomed, sets +out their drinks, instantly perceiving that he serves two of the +Three Thousand. He observes that one is a middle-aged man, +well-dressed, with a lined and sunken face; the other a mere boy +who is chiefly eyes and overcoat. Disguising well the tedium +begotten by many repetitions, the server of drinks begins to chant +the sanitary saga of Santone. "Rather a moist night, gentlemen, +for our town. A little fog from our river, but nothing to hurt. +Repeated Tests."

"Damn your litmus papers," gasps Toledo—"without any—personal +offense intended."

"We've heard of 'em before. Let 'em turn red, white and blue. What +we want is a repeated test of that—whiskey. Come again. I paid +for the last round, Goodall of Memphis."

The bottle oscillates from one to the other, continues to do so, +and is not removed from the counter. The bartender sees two +emaciated invalids dispose of enough Kentucky Belle to floor a +dozen cowboys, without displaying any emotion save a sad and +contemplative interest in the peregrinations of the bottle. So he +is moved to manifest a solicitude as to the consequences.

"Not on your Uncle Mark Hanna," responds Toledo, "will we get +drunk. We've been—vaccinated with whiskey—and—cod liver oil. +What would send you to the police station—only gives us a thirst. +S-s-set out another bottle."

It is slow work trying to meet death by that route. Some quicker +way must be found. They leave the saloon and plunge again into the +mist. The sidewalks are mere flanges at the base of the houses; +the street a cold ravine, the fog filling it like a freshet. Not +far away is the Mexican quarter. Conducted as if by wires along +the heavy air comes a guitar's tinkle, and the demoralizing voice +of some señorita singing:

The words of it they do not understand—neither Toledo nor +Memphis, but words are the least important things in life. The +music tears the breasts of the seekers after Nepenthe, inciting +Toledo to remark:

"Those kids of mine—I wonder—by God, Mr. Goodall of Memphis, we +had too little of that whiskey! No slow music in mine, if you +please. It makes you disremember to forget."

Hurd of Toledo, here pulls out his watch, and says: "I'm a son of +a gun! Got an engagement for a hack ride out to San Pedro Springs +at eleven. Forgot it. A fellow from Noo York, and me, and the +Castillo sisters at Rhinegelder's Garden. That Noo York chap's a +lucky dog—got one whole lung—good for a year yet. Plenty of +money, too. He pays for everything. I can't afford—to miss the +jamboree. Sorry you ain't going along. Good-by, Goodall of +Memphis."

He rounds the corner and shuffles away, casting off thus easily +the ties of acquaintanceship as the moribund do, the season of +dissolution being man's supreme hour of egoism and selfishness. +But he turns and calls back through the fog to the other: "I say, +Goodall of Memphis! If you get there before I do, tell 'em Hurd's +a-comin' too. Hurd, of T'leder, Ah-hia."

Thus Goodall's tempter deserts him. That youth, uncomplaining and +uncaring, takes a spell at coughing, and, recovered, wanders +desultorily on down the street, the name of which he neither knows +nor recks. At a certain point he perceives swinging doors, and +hears, filtering between them a noise of wind and string +instruments. Two men enter from the street as he arrives, and he +follows them in. There is a kind of ante-chamber, plentifully set +with palms and cactuses and oleanders. At little marble-topped +tables some people sit, while soft-shod attendants bring the beer. +All is orderly, clean, melancholy, gay, of the German method of +pleasure. At his right is the foot of a stairway. A man there +holds out his hand. Goodall extends his, full of silver, the man +selects therefrom a coin. Goodall goes upstairs and sees there two +galleries extending along the sides of a concert hall which he now +perceives to lie below and beyond the anteroom he first entered. +These galleries are divided into boxes or stalls, which bestow +with the aid of hanging lace curtains, a certain privacy upon +their occupants.

Passing with aimless feet down the aisle contiguous to these saucy +and discreet compartments, he is half checked by the sight in one +of them of a young woman, alone and seated in an attitude of +reflection. This young woman becomes aware of his approach. A +smile from her brings him to a standstill, and her subsequent +invitation draws him, though hesitating, to the other chair in the +box, a little table between them.

Goodall is only nineteen. There are some whom, when the terrible +god Phthisis wishes to destroy he first makes beautiful; and the +boy is one of these. His face is wax, and an awful pulchritude is +born of the menacing flame in his cheeks. His eyes reflect an +unearthly vista engendered by the certainty of his doom. As it is +forbidden man to guess accurately concerning his fate, it is +inevitable that he shall tremble at the slightest lifting of the +veil.

The young woman is well-dressed, and exhibits a beauty of +distinctly feminine and tender sort; an Eve-like comeliness that +scarcely seems predestined to fade.

It is immaterial, the steps by which the two mount to a certain +plane of good understanding; they are short and few, as befits the +occasion.

A button against the wall of the partition is frequently disturbed +and a waiter comes and goes at signal.

Pensive beauty would nothing of wine; two thick plaits of her +blond hair hang almost to the floor; she is a lineal descendant of +the Lorelei. So the waiter brings the brew; effervescent, icy, +greenish golden. The orchestra on the stage is playing "Oh, +Rachel." The youngsters have exchanged a good bit of information. +She calls him, "Walter" and he calls her "Miss Rosa."

Goodall's tongue is loosened and he has told her everything about +himself, about his home in Tennessee, the old pillared mansion +under the oaks, the stables, the hunting; the friends he has; down +to the chickens, and the box bushes bordering the walks. About his +coming South for the climate, hoping to escape the hereditary foe +of his family. All about his three months on a ranch; the deer +hunts, the rattlers, and the rollicking in the cow camps. Then of +his advent to Santone, where he had indirectly learned, from a +great specialist, that his life's calendar probably contains but +two more leaves. And then of this death-white, choking night which +has come and strangled his fortitude and sent him out to seek a +port amid its depressing billows.

"My weekly letter from home failed to come," he told her, "and I +was pretty blue. I knew I had to go before long and I was tired of +waiting. I went out and bought morphine at every drug store where +they would sell me a few tablets. I got thirty-six quarter grains, +and was going back to my room and take them, but I met a queer +fellow on a bridge, who had a new idea."

Goodall fillips a little pasteboard box upon the table. "I put 'em +all together in there."

Miss Rosa, being a woman, must raise the lid, and gave a slight +shiver at the innocent looking triturates. "Horrid things! but +those little, white bits—they could never kill one!"

Indeed they could. Walter knew better. Nine grains of morphia! +Why, half the amount might.

Miss Rosa demands to know about Mr. Hurd, of Toledo, and is told. +She laughs like a delighted child. "What a funny fellow! But tell +me more about your home and your sisters, Walter. I know enough +about Texas and tarantulas and cowboys."

The theme is dear, just now, to his mood, and he lays before her +the simple details of a true home; the little ties and endearments +that so fill the exile's heart. Of his sisters, one, Alice, +furnishes him a theme he loves to dwell upon.

"She is like you, Miss Rosa," he says. "Maybe not quite so pretty, +but, just as nice, and good, and—"

But a shadow falls upon the wall outside, preceding a big, softly +treading man, finely dressed, who pauses a second before the +curtains and then passes on. Presently comes the waiter with a +message: "Mr. Rolfe says—"

"I don't know why it is," says Goodall, of Memphis, "but I don't +feel as bad as I did. An hour ago I wanted to die, but since I've +met you, Miss Rosa, I'd like so much to live."

The young woman whirls around the table, lays an arm behind his +neck and kisses him on the cheek.

"You must, dear boy," she says. "I know what was the matter. It +was the miserable foggy weather that has lowered your spirit and +mine too—a little. But look, now."

With a little spring she has drawn back the curtains. A window is +in the wall opposite, and lo! the mist is cleared away. The +indulgent moon is out again, revoyaging the plumbless sky. Roof +and parapet and spire are softly pearl enamelled. Twice, thrice +the retrieved river flashes back, between the houses, the light of +the firmament. A tonic day will dawn, sweet and prosperous.

"Talk of death when the world is so beautiful!" says Miss Rosa, +laying her hand on his shoulder. "Do something to please me, +Walter. Go home to your rest and say: 'I mean to get better,' and +do it."

The waiter brings full glasses. Did they ring? No; but it is well. +He may leave them. A farewell glass. Miss Rosa says: "To your +better health, Walter." He says: "To our next meeting."

His eyes look no longer into the void, but gaze upon the +antithesis of death. His foot is set in an undiscovered country +to-night. He is obedient, ready to go.

"You promised me to go home," she frowns, "and get well. Perhaps +we shall meet again soon. Good night."

He hesitates, his hat in hand. She smiles broadly and kisses him +once more upon the forehead. She watches him far down the aisle, +then sits again at the table.

The shadow falls once more against the wall. This time the big, +softly stepping man parts the curtains and looks in. Miss Rosa's +eyes meet his and for half a minute they remain thus, silent, +fighting a battle with that king of weapons. Presently the big man +drops the curtains and passes on.

The orchestra ceases playing suddenly, and an important voice can +be heard loudly talking in one of the boxes farther down the +aisle. No doubt some citizen entertains there some visitor to the +town, and Miss Rosa leans back in her chair and smiles at some of +the words she catches:

"Purest atmosphere—in the world—litmus paper all long—nothing +hurtful—our city—nothing but pure ozone."

The waiter returns for the tray and glasses. As he enters, the +girl crushes a little empty pasteboard box in her hand and throws +it in a corner. She is stirring something in her glass with her +hatpin.

"Why, Miss Rosa," says the waiter with the civil familiarity he +uses—"putting salt in your beer this early in the night!"

THE FRIENDLY CALL

When I used to sell hardware in the West, I often "made" a little +town called Saltillo, in Colorado. I was always certain of +securing a small or a large order from Simon Bell, who kept a +general store there. Bell was one of those six-foot, low-voiced +products, formed from a union of the West and the South. I liked +him. To look at him you would think he should be robbing stage +coaches or juggling gold mines with both hands; but he would sell +you a paper of tacks or a spool of thread, with ten times more +patience and courtesy than any saleslady in a city department +store.

I had a twofold object in my last visit to Saltillo. One was to +sell a bill of goods; the other to advise Bell of a chance that I +knew of by which I was certain he could make a small fortune.

In Mountain City, a town on the Union Pacific, five times larger +than Saltillo, a mercantile firm was about to go to the wall. It +had a lively and growing custom, but was on the edge of +dissolution and ruin. Mismanagement and the gambling habits of one +of the partners explained it. The condition of the firm was not +yet public property. I had my knowledge of it from a private +source. I knew that, if the ready cash were offered, the stock and +good will could be bought for about one fourth their value.

On arriving in Saltillo I went to Bell's store. He nodded to me, +smiled his broad, lingering smile, went on leisurely selling some +candy to a little girl, then came around the counter and shook +hands.

"Well," he said (his invariably preliminary jocosity at every +call I made), "I suppose you are out here making kodak pictures of +the mountains. It's the wrong time of the year to buy any +hardware, of course."

I told Bell about the bargain in Mountain City. If he wanted to +take advantage of it, I would rather have missed a sale than have +him overstocked in Saltillo.

"It sounds good," he said, with enthusiasm. "I'd like to branch +out and do a bigger business, and I'm obliged to you for +mentioning it. But—well, you come and stay at my house to-night +and I'll think about it."

It was then after sundown and time for the larger stores in +Saltillo to close. The clerks in Bell's put away their books, +whirled the combination of the safe, put on their coats and hats +and left for their homes. Bell padlocked the big, double wooden +front doors, and we stood, for a moment, breathing the keen, fresh +mountain air coming across the foothills.

A big man walked down the street and stopped in front of the high +porch of the store. His long, black moustache, black eyebrows, and +curly black hair contrasted queerly with his light, pink +complexion, which belonged, by rights, to a blonde. He was about +forty, and wore a white vest, a white hat, a watch chain made of +five-dollar gold pieces linked together, and a rather well-fitting +two-piece gray suit of the cut that college boys of eighteen are +wont to affect. He glanced at me distrustfully, and then at Bell +with coldness and, I thought, something of enmity in his +expression.

"Well," asked Bell, as if he were addressing a stranger, "did you +fix up that matter?"

"Did I!" the man answered, in a resentful tone. "What do you +suppose I've been here two weeks for? The business is to be +settled to-night. Does that suit you, or have you got something to +kick about?"

"Of course, you did," said the magnificent stranger. "Haven't I +done it before?"

"Rocky grub. But I ain't kicking. Say—can you give me any +pointers about managing that—affair? It's my first deal in that +line of business, you know."

"No, I can't," answered Bell, after some thought. "I've tried all +kinds of ways. You'll have to try some of your own."

Bill held out his right hand. Even in the deepening twilight, I +could see on the back of it a long, white scar that might have +been made by a claw or a knife or some sharp-edged tool.

He walked away without another word. When he had gone ten steps he +turned and called to Bell:

"You keep well out of the way when the goods are delivered, so +there won't be any hitch in the business."

This talk was scarcely clear in its meaning to me; but as it did +not concern me, I did not let it weigh upon my mind. But the +singularity of the other man's appearance lingered with me for a +while; and as we walked toward Bell's house I remarked to him:

"Your customer seems to be a surly kind of fellow—not one that +you'd like to be snowed in with in a camp on a hunting trip."

"He is that," assented Bell, heartily. "He reminds me of a +rattlesnake that's been poisoned by the bite of a tarantula."

"No," said Bell, "he lives in Sacramento. He's down here on a +little business trip. His name is George Ringo, and he's been my +best friend—in fact the only friend I ever had—for twenty +years."

Bell lived in a comfortable, plain, square, two-story white house +on the edge of the little town. I waited in the parlor—a room +depressingly genteel—furnished with red plush, straw matting, +looped-up lace curtains, and a glass case large enough to contain +a mummy, full of mineral specimens.

While I waited, I heard, upstairs, that unmistakable sound +instantly recognized the world over—a bickering woman's voice, +rising as her anger and fury grew. I could hear, between the +gusts, the temperate rumble of Bell's tones, striving to oil the +troubled waters.

The storm subsided soon; but not before I had heard the woman say, +in a lower, concentrated tone, rather more carrying than her +high-pitched railings: "This is the last time. I tell you—the +last time. Oh, you will understand."

The household seemed to consist of only Bell and his wife and a +servant or two. I was introduced to Mrs. Bell at supper.

At first sight she seemed to be a handsome woman, but I soon +perceived that her charm had been spoiled. An uncontrolled +petulance, I thought, and emotional egotism, an absence of poise +and a habitual dissatisfaction had marred her womanhood. During +the meal, she showed that false gayety, spurious kindliness and +reactionary softness that mark the woman addicted to tantrums. +Withal, she was a woman who might be attractive to many men.

After supper, Bell and I took our chairs outside, set them on the +grass in the moonlight and smoked. The full moon is a witch. In +her light, truthful men dig up for you nuggets of purer gold; +while liars squeeze out brighter colors from the tubes of their +invention. I saw Bell's broad, slow smile come out upon his face +and linger there.

"I reckon you think George and me are a funny kind of friends," he +said. "The fact is we never did take much interest in each other's +company. But his idea and mine, of what a friend should be, was +always synonymous and we lived up to it, strict, all these years. +Now, I'll give you an idea of what our idea is.

"A man don't need but one friend. The fellow who drinks your +liquor and hangs around you, slapping you on the back and taking +up your time, telling you how much he likes you, ain't a friend, +even if you did play marbles at school and fish in the same creek +with him. As long as you don't need a friend one of that kind may +answer. But a friend, to my mind, is one you can deal with on a +strict reciprocity basis like me and George have always done.

"A good many years ago, him and me was connected in a number of +ways. We put our capital together and run a line of freight wagons +in New Mexico, and we mined some and gambled a few. And then, we +got into trouble of one or two kinds; and I reckon that got us on +a better understandable basis than anything else did, unless it +was the fact that we never had much personal use for each other's +ways. George is the vainest man I ever see, and the biggest brag. +He could blow the biggest geyser in the Yosemite valley back into +its hole with one whisper. I am a quiet man, and fond of +studiousness and thought. The more we used to see each other, +personally, the less we seemed to like to be together. If he ever +had slapped me on the back and snivelled over me like I've seen +men do to what they called their friends, I know I'd have had a +rough-and-tumble with him on the spot. Same way with George. He +hated my ways as bad as I did his. When we were mining, we lived +in separate tents, so as not to intrude our obnoxiousness on each +other.

"But after a long time, we begun to know each of us could depend +on the other when we were in a pinch, up to his last dollar, word +of honor or perjury, bullet, or drop of blood we had in the world. +We never even spoke of it to each other, because that would have +spoiled it. But we tried it out, time after time, until we came to +know. I've grabbed my hat and jumped a freight and rode 200 miles +to identify him when he was about to be hung by mistake, in Idaho, +for a train robber. Once, I laid sick of typhoid in a tent in +Texas, without a dollar or a change of clothes, and sent for +George in Boise City. He came on the next train. The first thing +he did before speaking to me, was to hang up a little looking +glass on the side of the tent and curl his moustache and rub some +hair dye on his head. His hair is naturally a light reddish. Then +he gave me the most scientific cussing I ever had, and took off +his coat.

"'If you wasn't a Moses-meek little Mary's lamb, you wouldn't have +been took down this way,' says he. 'Haven't you got gumption +enough not to drink swamp water or fall down and scream whenever +you have a little colic or feel a mosquito bite you?' He made me a +little mad.

"'You've got the bedside manners of a Piute medicine man,' says I. +'And I wish you'd go away and let me die a natural death. I'm +sorry I sent for you.'

"'I've a mind to,' says George, 'for nobody cares whether you live +or die. But now I've been tricked into coming, I might as well +stay until this little attack of indigestion or nettle rash or +whatever it is, passes away.'

"Two weeks afterward, when I was beginning to get around again, +the doctor laughed and said he was sure that my friend's keeping +me mad all the time did more than his drugs to cure me.

"So that's the way George and me was friends. There wasn't any +sentiment about it—it was just give and take, and each of us knew +that the other was ready for the call at any time.

"I remember, once, I played a sort of joke on George, just to try +him. I felt a little mean about it afterward, because I never +ought to have doubted he'd do it.

"We was both living in a little town in the San Luis valley, +running some flocks of sheep and a few cattle. We were partners, +but, as usual, we didn't live together. I had an old aunt, out +from the East, visiting for the summer, so I rented a little +cottage. She soon had a couple of cows and some pigs and chickens +to make the place look like home. George lived alone in a little +cabin half a mile out of town.

"One day a calf that we had, died. That night I broke its bones, +dumped it into a coarse sack and tied it up with wire. I put on an +old shirt, tore a sleeve 'most out of it, and the collar half off, +tangled up my hair, put some red ink on my hands and spashed some +of it over my shirt and face. I must have looked like I'd been +having the fight of my life. I put the sack in a wagon and drove +out to George's cabin. When I halloed, he came out in a yellow +dressing-gown, a Turkish cap and patent leather shoes. George +always was a great dresser.

"Sh-sh!' says I, kind of wild in my way. 'Take that and bury it, +George, out somewhere behind your house—bury it just like it is. +And don—'

"'Don't get excited,' says George. 'And for the Lord's sake go and +wash your hands and face and put on a clean shirt.'

"And he lights his pipe, while I drive away at a gallop. The next +morning he drops around to our cottage, where my aunt was fiddling +with her flowers and truck in the front yard. He bends himself and +bows and makes compliments as he could do, when so disposed, and +begs a rose bush from her, saying he had turned up a little land +back of his cabin, and wanted to plant something on it by way of +usefulness and ornament. So my aunt, flattered, pulls up one of +her biggest by the roots and gives it to him. Afterward I see it +growing where he planted it, in a place where the grass had been +cleared off and the dirt levelled. But neither George nor me ever +spoke of it to each other again."

The moon rose higher, possibly drawing water from the sea, pixies +from their dells and certainly more confidences from Simms Bell, +the friend of a friend.

"There come a time, not long afterward," he went on, "when I was +able to do a good turn for George Ringo. George had made a little +pile of money in beeves and he was up in Denver, and he showed up +when I saw him, wearing deer-skin vests, yellow shoes, clothes +like the awnings in front of drug stores, and his hair dyed so +blue that it looked black in the dark. He wrote me to come up +there, quick—that he needed me, and to bring the best outfit of +clothes I had. I had 'em on when I got the letter, so I left on +the next train. George was—"

"I thought I heard a team coming down the road," +he explained. "George was at a summer resort on a lake +near Denver and was putting on as many airs as he knew +how. He had rented a little two-room cottage, and +had a Chihauhau dog and a hammock and eight different kinds of +walking sticks.

"'Simms,' he says to me, 'there's a widow woman here that's +pestering the soul out of me with her intentions. I can't get out +of her way. It ain't that she ain't handsome and agreeable, in a +sort of style, but her attentions is serious, and I ain't ready +for to marry nobody and settle down. I can't go to no festivity +nor sit on the hotel piazza or mix in any of the society +round-ups, but what she cuts me out of the herd and puts her daily +brand on me. I like this here place,' goes on George, 'and I'm +making a hit here in the most censorious circles, so I don't want +to have to run away from it. So I sent for you.'

"'Why,' says he, 'I want you to head her off. I want you to cut me +out. I want you to come to the rescue. Suppose you seen a wildcat +about for to eat me, what would you do?'

"'How am I to do it?' I asks. 'By force and awfulness or in some +gentler and less lurid manner?'

"'Court her,' George says, 'get her off my trail. Feed her. Take +her out in boats. Hang around her and stick to her. Get her mashed +on you if you can. Some women are pretty big fools. Who knows but +what she might take a fancy to you.'

"'Had you ever thought,' I asks, 'of repressing your fatal +fascinations in her presence; of squeezing a harsh note in the +melody of your siren voice, of veiling your beauty—in other +words, of giving her the bounce yourself?'

"George sees no essence of sarcasm in my remark. He twists his +moustache and looks at the points of his shoes.

"'Well, Simms,' he said, 'you know how I am about the ladies. I +can't hurt none of their feelings. I'm, by nature, polite and +esteemful of their intents and purposes. This Mrs. De Clinton +don't appear to be the suitable sort for me. Besides, I ain't a +marrying man by all means.'

"So I bought a new outfit of clothes and a book on etiquette and +made a dead set for Mrs. De Clinton. She was a fine-looking woman, +cheerful and gay. At first, I almost had to hobble her to keep her +from loping around at George's heels; but finally I got her so she +seemed glad to go riding with me and sailing on the lake; and she +seemed real hurt on the mornings when I forgot to send her a bunch +of flowers. Still, I didn't like the way she looked at George, +sometimes, out of the corner of her eye. George was having a fine +time now, going with the whole bunch just as he pleased. Yes'm," +continued Bell, "she certainly was a fine-looking woman at that +time. She's changed some since, as you might have noticed at the +supper table."

"I married Mrs. De Clinton," went on Bell. "One evening while we +were up at the lake. When I told George about it, he opened his +mouth and I thought he was going to break our traditions and say +something grateful, but he swallowed it back.

"'All right,' says he, playing with his dog. 'I hope you won't +have too much trouble. Myself, I'm not never going to marry.'

"That was three years ago," said Bell. "We came here to live. For +a year we got along medium fine. And then everything changed. For +two years I've been having something that rhymes first-class with +my name. You heard the row upstairs this evening? That was a merry +welcome compared to the usual average. She's tired of me and of +this little town life and she rages all day, like a panther in a +cage. I stood it until two weeks ago and then I had to send out +The Call. I located George in Sacramento. He started the day he +got my wire."

Mrs. Bell came out of the house swiftly toward us. Some strong +excitement or anxiety seemed to possess her, but she smiled a +faint hostess smile, and tried to keep her voice calm.

"The dew is falling," she said, "and it's growing rather late. +Wouldn't you gentlemen rather come into the house?"

Bell took some cigars from his pocket and answered: "It's most too +fine a night to turn in yet. I think Mr. Ames and I will walk out +along the road a mile or so and have another smoke. I want to talk +with him about some goods that I want to buy."

When we had gone a hundred yards and the house became concealed by +trees, Bell guided me into the thick grove that lined the road and +back through them toward the house again. We stopped within twenty +yards of the house, concealed by the dark shadows. I wondered at +this maneuver. And then I heard in the distance coming down the +road beyond the house, the regular hoofbeats of a team of horses. +Bell held his watch in a ray of moonlight.

The team slowed up as it drew near the house and stopped in a +patch of black shadows. We saw the figure of a woman carrying a +heavy valise move swiftly from the other side of the house, and +hurry to the waiting vehicle. Then it rolled away briskly in the +direction from which it had come.

"She's running away with George," said Bell, simply. "He's kept me +posted about the progress of the scheme all along. She'll get a +divorce in six months and then George will marry her. He never +helps anybody halfway. It's all arranged between them."

When we went into the house, Bell began to talk easily on other +subjects; and I took his cue. By and by the big chance to buy out +the business in Mountain City came back to my mind and I began to +urge it upon him. Now that he was free, it would be easier for him +to make the move; and he was sure of a splendid bargain.

Bell was silent for some minutes, but when I looked at him I +fancied that he was thinking of something else—that he was not +considering the project.

"Why, no, Mr. Ames," he said, after a while, "I can't make that +deal. I'm awful thankful to you, though, for telling me about it. +But I've got to stay here. I can't go to Mountain City."

"Missis Bell," he replied, "won't live in Mountain City, She hates +the place and wouldn't go there. I've got to keep right on here in +Saltillo."

"I ought to explain," said Bell. "I know George and I know Mrs. +Bell. He's impatient in his ways. He can't stand things that fret +him, long, like I can. Six months, I give them—six months of +married life, and there'll be another disunion. Mrs. Bell will +come back to me. There's no other place for her to go. I've got to +stay here and wait. At the end of six months, I'll have to grab a +satchel and catch the first train. For George will be sending out +The Call."

A DINNER AT –––– +[3]

All that day—in fact from the moment of his creation—Van Sweller +had conducted himself fairly well in my eyes. Of course I had had +to make many concessions; but in return he had been no less +considerate. Once or twice we had had sharp, brief contentions +over certain points of behavior; but, prevailingly, give and take +had been our rule.

His morning toilet provoked our first tilt. Van Sweller went about +it confidently.

"The usual thing, I suppose, old chap," he said, with a smile and +a yawn. "I ring for a b. and s., and then I have my tub. I splash +a good deal in the water, of course. You are aware that there are +two ways in which I can receive Tommy Carmichael when he looks in +to have a chat about polo. I can talk to him through the bathroom +door, or I can be picking at a grilled bone which my man has +brought in. Which would you prefer?"

"Neither," I said. "You will make your appearance on the scene +when a gentleman should—after you are fully dressed, which +indubitably private function shall take place behind closed doors. +And I will feel indebted to you if, after you do appear, your +deportment and manners are such that it will not be necessary to +inform the public, in order to appease its apprehension, that you +have taken a bath."

"Oh, very well," he said, a trifle piqued. "I +rather imagine it concerns you more than it +does me. Cut the 'tub' by all means, if you think best. But it has +been the usual thing, you know."

This was my victory; but after Van Sweller emerged from his +apartments in the "Beaujolie" I was vanquished in a dozen small +but well-contested skirmishes. I allowed him a cigar; but routed +him on the question of naming its brand. But he worsted me when I +objected to giving him a "coat unmistakably English in its cut." I +allowed him to "stroll down Broadway," and even permitted "passers +by" (God knows there's nowhere to pass but by) to "turn their +heads and gaze with evident admiration at his erect figure." I +demeaned myself, and, as a barber, gave him a "smooth, dark face +with its keen, frank eye, and firm jaw."

Later on he looked in at the club and saw Freddy Vavasour, polo +team captain, dawdling over grilled bone No. 1.

"Dear old boy," began Van Sweller; but in an instant I had seized +him by the collar and dragged him aside with the scantiest +courtesy.

"For heaven's sake talk like a man," I said, sternly. "Do you +think it is manly to use those mushy and inane forms of address? +That man is neither dear nor old nor a boy."

"I am glad to hear you say that," he said, heartily. "I used those +words because I have been forced to say them so often. They really +are contemptible. Thanks for correcting me, dear old boy."

Still I must admit that Van Sweller's 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.

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 O'Roon, a +man whom Van Sweller liked. A strange thing—and a hazardous one +in fiction—was that Van Sweller and O'Roon resembled each other +mightily in face, form, and general appearance. After the war Van +Sweller pulled wires, and O'Roon was made a mounted policeman.

Now, one night in New York there are commemorations and libations +by old comrades, and in the morning, Mounted Policeman O'Roon, +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.

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 petit +pois.

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.

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.

And then the clatter and swoop of Mounted Policeman Van Sweller! +Oh, it was—but the story has not yet been printed. When it is you +shall learn bow he sent his bay like a bullet after the imperilled +victoria. A Crichton, a Crœsus, and a Centaur in one, he hurls +the invincible combination into the chase.

When the story is printed you will admire the breathless scene +where Van Sweller checks the headlong team. And then he looks into +Amy Ffolliott's eyes and sees two things—the possibilities of a +happiness he has long sought, and a nascent promise of it. He is +unknown to her; but he stands in her sight illuminated by the +hero's potent glory, she his and he hers by all the golden, fond, +unreasonable laws of love and light literature.

Ay, that is a rich moment. And it will stir you to find Van +Sweller in that fruitful nick of time thinking of his comrade +O'Roon, who is cursing his gyrating bed and incapable legs in an +unsteady room in a West Side hotel while Van Sweller holds his +badge and his honor.

Van Sweller hears Miss Ffolliott's voice thrillingly asking the +name of her preserver. If Hudson Van Sweller, in policeman's +uniform, has saved the life of palpitating beauty in the +park—where is Mounted Policeman O'Roon, in whose territory the +deed is done? How quickly by a word can the hero reveal himself, +thus discarding his masquerade of ineligibility and doubling the +romance! But there is his friend!

Van Sweller touches his cap. "It's nothing, Miss," he says, +sturdily; "that's what we are paid for—to do our duty." And away +he rides. But the story does not end there.

As I have said, Van Sweller carried off the park scene to my +decided satisfaction. Even to me he was a hero when he foreswore, +for the sake of his friend, the romantic promise of his adventure. +It was later in the day, amongst the more exacting conventions +that encompass the society hero, when we had our liveliest +disagreement. At noon he went to O'Roon's room and found him far +enough recovered to return to his post, which he at once did.

At about six o'clock in the afternoon Van Sweller fingered his +watch, and flashed at me a brief look full of such shrewd cunning +that I suspected him at once.

"Very well," I answered, without giving him a clew to my +suspicions; "I will go with you to your rooms and see that you do +the thing properly. I suppose that every author must be a valet to +his own hero."

He affected cheerful acceptance of my somewhat officious proposal +to accompany him. I could see that he was annoyed by it, and that +fact fastened deeper in my mind the conviction that he was +meditating some act of treachery.

When he had reached his apartments he said to me, with a too +patronizing air: "There are, as you perhaps know, quite a number +of little distinguishing touches to be had out of the dressing +process. Some writers rely almost wholly upon them. I suppose that +I am to ring for my man, and that he is to enter noiselessly, with +an expressionless countenance."

"He may enter," I said, with decision, "and only enter. Valets do +not usually enter a room shouting college songs or with St. +Vitus's dance in their faces; so the contrary may be assumed +without fatuous or gratuitous asseveration."

"I must ask you to pardon me," continued Van Sweller, gracefully, +"for annoying you with questions, but some of your methods are a +little new to me. Shall I don a full-dress suit with an immaculate +white tie—or is there another tradition to be upset?"

"You will wear," I replied, "evening dress, such as a gentleman +wears. If it is full, your tailor should be responsible for its +bagginess. And I will leave it to whatever erudition you are +supposed to possess whether a white tie is rendered any whiter by +being immaculate. And I will leave it to the consciences of you +and your man whether a tie that is not white, and therefore not +immaculate, could possibly form any part of a gentleman's evening +dress. If not, then the perfect tie is included and understood in +the term 'dress,' and its expressed addition predicates either a +redundancy of speech or the spectacle of a man wearing two ties at +once."

With this mild but deserved rebuke I left Van Sweller in his +dressing-room, and waited for him in his library.

About an hour later his valet came out, and I heard him telephone +for an electric cab. Then out came Van Sweller, smiling, but with +that sly, secretive design in his eye that was puzzling me.

"I believe," he said easily, as he smoothed a glove, "that I +will drop in at –––– +[4] for +dinner."

I sprang up, angrily, at his words. This, then, was the paltry +trick he had been scheming to play upon me. I faced him with a +look so grim that even his patrician poise was flustered.

"You will never do so," I exclaimed, "with my permission. What +kind of a return is this," I continued, hotly, "for the favors I +have granted you? I gave you a 'Van' to your name when I might +have called you 'Perkins' or 'Simpson.' I have humbled myself so +far as to brag of your polo ponies, your automobiles, and the iron +muscles that you acquired when you were stroke-oar of your +'varsity eight,' or 'eleven,' whichever it is. I created you for +the hero of this story; and I will not submit to having you queer +it. I have tried to make you a typical young New York gentleman of +the highest social station and breeding. You have no reason to +complain of my treatment to you. Amy Ffolliott, the girl you are +to win, is a prize for any man to be thankful for, and cannot be +equalled for beauty—provided the story is illustrated by the +right artist. I do not understand why you should try to spoil +everything. I had thought you were a gentleman."

"What it is you are objecting to, old man?" asked Van Sweller, in +a surprised tone.

"To your dining at –––– +[5]," +I answered. "The pleasure would be yours, no doubt, +but the responsibility would +fall upon me. You intend deliberately to make me out a tout for a +restaurant. Where you dine to-night has not the slightest +connection with the thread of our story. You know very well that +the plot requires that you be in front of the Alhambra Opera House +at 11:30 where you are to rescue Miss Ffolliott a second time as +the fire engine crashes into her cab. Until that time your +movements are immaterial to the reader. Why can't you dine out of +sight somewhere, as many a hero does, instead of insisting upon an +inapposite and vulgar exhibition of yourself?"

"My dear fellow," said Van Sweller, politely, but with a stubborn +tightening of his lips, "I'm sorry it doesn't please you, but +there's no help for it. Even a character in a story has rights +that an author cannot ignore. The hero of a story of New York +social life must dine at –––– +[6] +at least once during its action."

"The magazine editors," answered Van Sweller, giving me a glance +of significant warning.

"To please subscribers around Kankakee, Ill.," said Van Sweller, +without hesitation.

"How do you know these things?" I inquired, with sudden suspicion. +"You never came into existence until this morning. You are only a +character in fiction, anyway. I, myself, created you. How is it +possible for you to know anything?"

"Pardon me for referring to it," said Van Sweller, with a +sympathetic smile, "but I have been the hero of hundreds of +stories of this kind."

"I thought…" I stammered; "I was hoping… that +is… Oh, well, of course an absolutely original conception +in fiction is impossible in these days."

"Metropolitan types," continued Van Sweller, kindly, "do not offer +a hold for much originality. I've sauntered through every story in +pretty much the same way. Now and then the women writers have made +me cut some rather strange capers, for a gentleman; but the men +generally pass me along from one to another without much change. +But never yet, in any story, have I failed to dine +at –––– +[7]."

"Perhaps so," admitted Van Sweller, looking out of the window into +the street below, "but if so it will be for the first time. The +authors all send me there. I fancy that many of them would have +liked to accompany me, but for the little matter of the expense."

"I say I will be touting for no restaurant," I repeated, loudly. +"You are subject to my will, and I declare that you shall not +appear of record this evening until the time arrives for you to +rescue Miss Ffolliott again. If the reading public cannot conceive +that you have dined during that interval at some one of the +thousands of establishments provided for that purpose that do not +receive literary advertisement it may suppose, for aught I care, +that you have gone fasting."

"Thank you," said Van Sweller, rather coolly, "you are hardly +courteous. But take care! it is at your own risk that you attempt +to disregard a fundamental principle in metropolitan fiction—one +that is dear alike to author and reader. I shall, of course attend +to my duty when it comes time to rescue your heroine; but I warn +you that it will be your loss if you fail to send me to-night to +dine at –––– +[8]."

"I will take the consequences if there are to be any," I replied. +"I am not yet come to be sandwich man for an eating-house."

I walked over to a table where I had left my cane and gloves. I +heard the whirr of the alarm in the cab below and I turned +quickly. Van Sweller was gone.

I rushed down the stairs and out to the curb. An empty hansom was +just passing. I hailed the driver excitedly.

"See that auto cab halfway down the block?" I shouted. "Follow it. +Don't lose sight of it for an instant, and I will give you two +dollars!"

If I only had been one of the characters in my story instead of +myself I could easily have offered $10 or $25 or even $100. But $2 +was all I felt justified in expending, with fiction at its present +rates.

The cab driver, instead of lashing his animal into a foam, +proceeded at a deliberate trot that suggested a by-the-hour +arrangement.

But I suspected Van Sweller's design; and when we lost sight of +his cab I ordered my driver to proceed at once to +–––– +[9].

I found Van Sweller at a table under a palm, just glancing over +the menu, with a hopeful waiter hovering at his elbow.

"Come with me," I said, inexorably. "You will not give me the slip +again. Under my eye you shall remain until 11:30."

Van Sweller countermanded the order for his dinner, and arose to +accompany me. He could scarcely do less. A fictitious character is +but poorly equipped for resisting a hungry but live author who +comes to drag him forth from a restaurant. All he said was: "You +were just in time; but I think you are making a mistake. You +cannot afford to ignore the wishes of the great reading public."

I took Van Sweller to my own rooms—to my room. He had never seen +anything like it before.

"Sit on that trunk," I said to him, "while I observe whether the +landlady is stalking us. If she is not, I will get things at a +delicatessen store below, and cook something for you in a pan over +the gas jet. It will not be so bad. Of course nothing of this will +appear in the story."

"Jove! old man!" said Van Sweller, looking about him with +interest, "this is a jolly little closet you live in! Where the +devil do you sleep?—Oh, that pulls down! And I say—what is this +under the corner of the carpet?—Oh, a frying pan! I see—clever +idea! Fancy cooking over the gas! What larks it will be!"

Two weeks afterward the postman brought me a large, fat envelope. +I opened it, and took out something that I had seen before, and +this typewritten letter from a magazine that encourages society +fiction:

SOUND AND FURY

Mr. Penne—Good morning, Miss Lore. +Glad to see you so prompt. We should finish that June installment for +the Epoch to-day. Leverett is crowding me for it. Are you +quite ready? We will resume where we left off yesterday. +(Dictates.) "Kate, with a sigh, rose from his knees, and—"

Miss Lore—Excuse me; you mean +"rose from her knees," instead of "his," don't you?

Mr. Penne—Er—no—"his," if you +please. It is the love scene in +the garden. (Dictates.) "Rose from his knees where, blushing +with youth's bewitching coyness, she had rested for a moment after +Cortland had declared his love. The hour was one of supreme and +tender joy. When Kate—scene that Cortland never—"

Miss Lore—Excuse me; but wouldn't +it be more grammatical to say +"when Kate saw," instead of "seen"?

Mr. Penne—The context will +explain. (Dictates.) "When Kate—scene +that Cortland never forgot—came tripping across the lawn it +seemed to him the fairest sight that earth had ever offered to his +gaze."

Mr. Penne (dictates)—"Kate +had abandoned herself to the joy of +her new-found love so completely, that no shadow of her former +grief was cast upon it. Cortland, with his arm firmly entwined +about her waist, knew nothing of her sighs—"

Mr. Penne (dictates)—"To +Cortland the chief charm of this girl +was her look of innocence and unworldiness. Never had nun—"

Mr. Penne +(emphatically)—"Never had nun in cloistered cell a face +more sweet and pure."

Mr. Penne (dictates)—"But +now Kate must hasten back to the house +lest her absence be discovered. After a fond farewell she turned +and sped lightly away. Cortland's gaze followed her. He watched +her rise—"

Miss Lore—Excuse me, Mr. +Penne; but how could he watch her eyes +while her back was turned toward him?

Mr. Penne (with extreme +politeness)—Possibly you would gather my +meaning more intelligently if you would wait for the conclusion of +the sentence. (Dictates.) "Watched her rise as gracefully +as a fawn as she mounted the eastern terrace."

Mr. Penne (dictates)—"And +yet Cortland's position was so far +above that of this rustic maiden that he dreaded to consider the +social upheaval that would ensue should he marry her. In no +uncertain tones the traditional voices of his caste and world +cried out loudly to him to let her go. What should follow—"

Miss Lore (looking up +with a start)—I'm sure I can't say, Mr. Penne. +Unless (with a giggle) you would want to add "Gallegher."

Mr. Penne (coldly)—Pardon +me. I was not seeking to impose upon +you the task of a collaborator. Kindly consider the question a +part of the text.

Mr. Penne (dictates)—"On +one side was love and Kate; on the other +side his heritage of social position and family pride. Would love +win? Love, that the poets tell us will last forever! (Perceives +that Miss Lore looks fatigued, and looks at his watch.) That's a +good long stretch. Perhaps we'd better knock off a bit."

Mr. Penne—I said, Miss +Lore, we've been at it quite a long time— +wouldn't you like to knock off for a while?

Miss Lore—Oh! Were you +addressing me before? I put what you said +down. I thought it belonged in the story. It seemed to fit +in all right. Oh, no; I'm not tired.

Mr. Penne—Very well, +then, we will continue. (Dictates.) "In +spite of these qualms and doubts, Cortland was a happy man. That +night at the club he silently toasted Kate's bright eyes in a +bumper of the rarest vintage. Afterward he set out for a stroll +with, as Kate on—"

Miss Lore—Excuse me, +Mr. Penne, for venturing a suggestion; but +don't you think you might state that in a less coarse manner?

Miss Lore—His condition. +Why not say he was "full" or +"intoxicated"? It would sound much more elegant than the way you +express it.

Mr. Penne (still darkly +wandering)—Will you kindly point out, +Miss Lore, where I have intimated that Cortland was "full," if you +prefer that word?

Miss Lore (calmly +consulting her stenographic notes)—It is right +here, word for word. (Reads.) "Afterward he set out for a stroll +with a skate on."

Mr. Penne (with +peculiar emphasis)—Ah! And now will you kindly +take down the expurgated phrase? (Dictates.) "Afterward +he set out for a stroll with, as Kate on one occasion had +fancifully told him, her spirit leaning upon his arm."

Mr. Penne +(dictates)—Chapter thirty-four. Heading—"What Kate +Found in the Garden." "That fragrant summer morning brought +gracious tasks to all. The bees were at the honeysuckle blossoms +on the porch. Kate, singing a little song, was training the +riotous branches of her favorite woodbine. The sun, himself, had +rows—"

Mr. Penne (very +slowly and with desperate +deliberation)—"The—sun—himself—had—rows—of—blushing—pinks—and—hollyhocks—and—hyacinths—waiting—that—he—might—dry—their—dew-drenched—cups."

Mr. Penne (dictates)—"The +earliest trolley, scattering the birds +from its pathway like some marauding cat, brought Cortland over +from Oldport. He had forgotten his fair—"

Mr. Penne +(very loudly)—"Forgotten his fair and roseate visions +of the night in the practical light of the sober morn."

Mr. Penne +(dictates)—"He greeted her with his usual smile and +manner. 'See the waves,' he cried, pointing to the heaving waters +of the sea, 'ever wooing and returning to the rockbound shore.'" +"'Ready to break,' Kate said, with—"

Miss Lore—My! One +evening he has his arm around her, and the next +morning he's ready to break her head! Just like a man!

Mr. Penne (with +suspicious calmness)—There are times, Miss Lore, +when a man becomes so far exasperated that even a woman—But +suppose we finish the sentence. (Dictates.) "'Ready to break,' +Kate said, with the thrilling look of a soul-awakened woman, 'into +foam and spray, destroying themselves upon the shore they love so +well."

Mr. Penne +(dictates)—"Cortland, in Kate's presence heard faintly +the voice of caution. Thirty years had not cooled his ardor. It +was in his power to bestow great gifts upon this girl. He still +retained the beliefs that he had at twenty." (To Miss Lore, +wearily) I think that will be enough for the present.

Miss Lore +(wisely)—Well, if he had the twenty that he believed he +had, it might buy her a rather nice one.

Mr. Penne +(faintly)—The last sentence was my own. We will +discontinue for the day, Miss Lore.

TICTOCQ

CHAPTER I

It is not generally known that Tictocq, the famous French +detective, was in Austin last week. He registered at the Avenue +Hotel under an assumed name, and his quiet and reserved manners +singled him out at once for one not to be singled out.

No one knows why he came to Austin, but to one or two he +vouchsafed the information that his mission was an important one +from the French Government.

One report is that the French Minister of State has discovered an +old statute among the laws of the empire, resulting from a treaty +between the Emperor Charlemagne and Governor Roberts which +expressly provides for the north gate of the Capital grounds being +kept open, but this is merely a conjecture.

Last Wednesday afternoon a well-dressed gentleman knocked at the +door of Tictocq's room in the hotel.

"You will see on the register that I sign my name Q. X. Jones," +said Tictocq, "and gentlemen would understand that I wish to be +known as such. If you do not like being referred to as no +gentleman, I will give you satisfaction any time after July 1st, +and fight Steve O'Donnell, John McDonald, and Ignatius Donnelly in +the meantime if you desire."

"I do not mind it in the least," said the gentleman. "In fact, I +am accustomed to it. I am Chairman of the Democratic Executive +Committee, Platform No. 2, and I have a friend in trouble. I knew +you were Tictocq from your resemblance to yourself."

"I am a man of few words," said Tictoq. "I will help your friend +if possible. Our countries are great friends. We have given you +Lafayette and French fried potatoes. You have given us California +champagne and—taken back Ward McAllister. State your case."

"I will be very brief," said the visitor. "In room No. 76 in this +hotel is stopping a prominent Populist Candidate. He is alone. +Last night some one stole his socks. They cannot be found. If they +are not recovered, his party will attribute their loss to the +Democracy. They will make great capital of the burglary, although +I am sure it was not a political move at all. The socks must be +recovered. You are the only man that can do it."

"Am I to have carte blanche to question every person connected +with the hotel?"

"The proprietor has already been spoken to. Everything and +everybody is at your service."

"Come to this room to-morrow afternoon at 6 o'clock +with the landlord, the Populist Candidate, +and any other witnesses elected from both parties, and I will +return the socks."

The Chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee, Platform No.2, +bowed courteously and withdrew.

CHAPTER II

The drawing-rooms of one of the most magnificent private +residences in Austin are a blaze of lights. Carriages line the +streets in front, and from gate to doorway is spread a velvet +carpet, on which the delicate feet of the guests may tread.

The occasion is the entrée into society of one +of the fairest buds in the City of the Violet +Crown. The rooms are filled with the +culture, the beauty, the youth and fashion of society. Austin +society is acknowledged to be the wittiest, the most select, and +the highest bred to be found southwest of Kansas City.

Mrs. Rutabaga St. Vitus, the hostess, is accustomed to draw around +her a circle of talent, and beauty, rarely equalled anywhere. Her +evenings come nearer approaching the dignity of a salon than any +occasion, except, perhaps, a Tony Faust and Marguerite reception +at the Iron Front.

Miss St. Vitus, whose advent into society's maze was heralded by +such an auspicious display of hospitality, is a slender brunette, +with large, lustrous eyes, a winning smile, and a charming +ingénue manner. She wears a china silk, cut princesse, +with diamond ornaments, and a couple of towels inserted +in the back to conceal prominence of shoulder blades. +She is chatting easily and +naturally on a plush covered tête-à-tête +with Harold St. Clair, the agent for a Minneapolis +pants company. Her friend and schoolmate, Elsie Hicks, +who married three drummers in one day, a week or two +before, and won a wager of two dozen bottles of +Budweiser from the handsome and talented young hack-driver, Bum +Smithers, is promenading in and out the low French windows with +Ethelbert Windup, the popular young candidate for hide inspector, +whose name is familiar to every one who reads police court +reports.

Somewhere, concealed by shrubbery, a band is playing, and during +the pauses in conversation, onions can be smelt frying in the +kitchen.

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 +"Love's Young Dream."

"And where have you been for some time past, you recreant +cavalier?" says Miss St. Vitus to Harold St. Clair. "Have you been +worshipping at another shrine? Are you recreant to your whilom +friends? Speak, Sir Knight, and defend yourself."

"Oh, come off," says Harold, in his deep, musical baritone; "I've +been having a devil of a time fitting pants on a lot of bow-legged +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 bow-legged—I mean—can't you imagine what a jam-swizzled time I +have getting pants to fit 'em? Business dull too, nobody wants 'em +over three dollars."

"You witty boy," says Miss St. Vitus. "Just as full of bon mots +and clever sayings as ever. What do you take now?"

"Give me your arm and let's go into the drawing-room and draw a +cork. I'm chewing a little cotton myself."

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.

A keen observer would have noted all this time the figure of a +solitary man who seemed to avoid the company but by adroit +changing of his position, and perfectly cool and self-possessed +manner, avoided drawing any especial attention to himself.

He had been found drinking beer in a saloon on East Pecan Street +by Colonel St. Vitus about a week before, and according to the +Austin custom in such cases, was invited home by the colonel, and +the next day accepted into society, with large music classes at +his service.

Professor von Bum is playing the lovely symphony in G minor from +Beethoven's "Songs Without Music." The grand chords fill the room +with exquisite harmony. He plays the extremely difficult passages +in the obligato home run in a masterly manner, and when he +finishes with that grand te deum with arpeggios on the side, there +is that complete hush in the room that is dearer to the artist's +heart than the loudest applause.

Empty with the exception of Tictocq, the great French detective, +who springs from behind a mass of tropical plants to his side.

"Be quick," says Tictocq: "give me those socks. There is not a +moment to spare."

"Ah, he confesses," says Tictocq. "No socks will do but those you +carried off from the Populist Candidate's room."

Tictooq hesitates not. He seizes the professor, throws him upon +the floor, tears off his shoes and socks, and escapes with the +latter through the open window into the garden.

CHAPTER III

The messieurs entrez. There are seven of them; the Populist +Candidate who is there by invitation, not knowing for what +purpose; the chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee, +platform No. 2, the hotel proprietor, and three or four Democrats +and Populists, as near as could be found out.

"Excuse me," says Tictocq, firmly. "You will oblige me by keeping +silent until I make my report. I have been employed in this case, +and I have unravelled it. For the honor of France I request that I +be heard with attention."

Tictocq stands in the centre of the room. The electric light burns +brightly above him. He seems the incarnation of alertness, vigor, +cleverness, and cunning.

"When informed of the robbery," begins Tictocq, "I first +questioned the bell boy. He knew nothing. I went to the police +headquarters. They knew nothing. I invited one of them to the bar +to drink. He said there used to be a little colored boy in the +Tenth Ward who stole things and kept them for recovery by the +police, but failed to be at the place agreed upon for arrest one +time, and had been sent to jail.

"I then began to think. I reasoned. No man, said I, would carry a +Populist's socks in his pocket without wrapping them up. He would +not want to do so in the hotel. He would want a paper. Where would +he get one? At the Statesman office, of course. I went there. +A young man with his hair combed down on his forehead sat behind the +desk. I knew he was writing society items, for a young lady's +slipper, a piece of cake, a fan, a half emptied bottle of +cocktail, a bunch of roses, and a police whistle lay on the desk +before him.

"'Can you tell me if a man purchased a paper here in the last three +months?' I said.

"'Accurately. He had blue whiskers, a wart between his shoulder +blades, a touch of colic, and an occupation tax on his breath.'

"Wait a minute," said the Populist Candidate, rising; "I don't see +why in the h––––"

"Once more I must beg that you will be silent," said Tictocq, +rather sharply. "You should not interrupt me in the midst of my +report."

"I made one false arrest," continued Tictocq. "I was passing two +finely dressed gentlemen on the street, when one of them remarked +that he had 'stole his socks.' I handcuffed him and dragged him to +a lighted store, when his companion explained to me that he was +somewhat intoxicated and his tongue was not entirely manageable. +He had been speaking of some business transaction, and what he +intended to say was that he had 'sold his stocks.'

"An hour afterward I passed a saloon, and saw this Professor von +Bum drinking beer at a table. I knew him in Paris. I said 'here is +my man.' He worshipped Wagner, lived on limburger cheese, beer, +and credit, and would have stolen anybody's socks. I shadowed him +to the reception at Colonel St. Vitus's, and in an opportune +moment I seized him and tore the socks from his feet. There they +are."

With a dramatic gesture, Tictocq threw a pair of dingy socks upon +the table, folded his arms, and threw back his head.

"No, by gosh, it ain't!" he replied, pointing a trembling finger +at the Democratic Chairman. "There stands the man who has +concocted the whole scheme. It is an infernal, unfair political +trick to lose votes for our party. How far has thing gone?" he +added, turning savagely to the detective.

"All the newspapers have my written report on the matter, and the +Statesman will have it in plate matter next week," said +Tictocq, complacently.

"For God's sake, my friends," pleaded the Candidate, following +them; "listen to me; I swear before high heaven that I never wore +a pair of socks in my life. It is all a devilish campaign lie."

"The damage is already done," they said. "The people have heard +the story. You have yet time to withdraw decently before the +race."

"Let's all go down and open a bottle of fizz on the Finance +Committee," said the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Platform +No. 2.

TRACKED TO DOOM

A myriad of lamps that line the Champs Elysées 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.

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.

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 d'or, +tread the same pavement.

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.

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.

Leaning against the bar is Carnaignole Cusheau—generally known as +the Gray Wolf.

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.

His striped blouse is wide open at the neck and falls outside of +his dingy leather trousers. The handle of a deadly looking knife +protrudes from his belt. One stroke of its blade would open a box +of the finest French sardines.

"Voilà, Gray Wolf," cries Couteau, the bartender. "How +many victims to-day? There is no blood upon your hands. Has the +Gray Wolf forgotten how to bite?"

"Sacrè Bleu, Mille Tonnerre, by George," hisses the +Gray Wolf. "Monsieur Couteau, you are bold indeed to speak +to me thus.

"By Ventre St. Gris! I have not even dined to-day. Spoils indeed. +There is no living in Paris now. But one rich American have I +garroted in a fortnight.

"Bah! those Democrats. They have ruined the country. With their +income tax and their free trade, they have destroyed the +millionaire business. Carrambo! Diable! +D––––n it!"

"Hist!" suddenly says Chamounix the rag-picker, who is worth +20,000,000 francs, "some one comes!"

The cellar door opened and a man crept softly down the rickety +steps. The crowd watches him with silent awe.

He went to the bar, laid his card on the counter, bought a drink +of absinthe, and then drawing from his pocket a little mirror, set +it up on the counter and proceeded to don a false beard and hair +and paint his face into wrinkles, until he closely resembled an +old man seventy-one years of age.

He then went into a dark corner and watched the crowd of people +with sharp, ferret-like eyes.

Gray Wolf slipped cautiously to the bar and examined the card left +by the newcomer.

Ten minutes later a beautiful woman enters the cellar. Tenderly +nurtured, and accustomed to every luxury that money could procure, +she had, when a young vivandière at the Convent of +Saint Susan de la Montarde, run away with the Gray Wolf, +fascinated by his many crimes and the knowledge that his +business never allowed him to scrape his feet in the hall +or snore.

"Parbleu, Marie," snarls the Gray Wolf. "Que voulez vous? +Avez-vous le beau cheval de mon frère, oule joli +chien de votre père?"

"No, no, Gray Wolf," shouts the motley group of assassins, rogues +and pickpockets, even their hardened hearts appalled at his +fearful words. "Mon Dieu! You cannot be so cruel!"

"Tiens!" shouts the Gray Wolf, now maddened to desperation, and +drawing his gleaming knife. "Voilà! Canaille! Tout +le monde, carte blanche enbonpoint sauve que +peut entre nous revenez nous a nous moutons!"

The horrified sans-culottes shrink back in terror as +the Gray Wolf seizes Maria by the hair and cuts her into +twenty-nine pieces, each exactly the same size.

As he stands with reeking hands above the corpse, amid a deep +silence, the old, gray-bearded man who has been watching the scene +springs forward, tears off his false beard and locks, and Tictocq, +the famous French detective, stands before them.

Spellbound and immovable, the denizens of the cellar gaze at the +greatest modern detective as he goes about the customary duties of +his office.

He first measures the distance from the murdered woman to a point +on the wall, then he takes down the name of the bartender and the +day of the month and the year. Then drawing from his pocket a +powerful microscope, he examines a little of the blood that stands +upon the floor in little pools.

He then enters rapidly in a memorandum book the result of his +investigations, and leaves the cellar.

Tictocq bends his rapid steps in the direction of the headquarters +of the Paris gendarmerie, but suddenly pausing, he strikes his +hand upon his brow with a gesture of impatience.

"Mille tonnerre," he mutters. "I should have asked the name of +that man with the knife in his hand."

The apartments are flooded with a mellow light from paraffine +candles in solid silver candelabra.

Three or four brass bands are playing behind a +portière between the coal shed, and also behind time. +Footmen in gay-laced livery bring in beer noiselessly +and carry out apple-peelings dropped by the guests.

Valerie, seventh Duchess du Bellairs, leans back on a solid gold +ottoman on eiderdown cushions, surrounded by the wittiest, the +bravest, and the handsomest courtiers in the capital.

"Ah, madame," said the Prince Champvilliers, of Palais Royale, +corner of Seventy-third Street, "as Montesquiaux says, 'Rien de +plus bon tutti frutti'—Youth seems your inheritance. You are +to-night the most beautiful, the wittiest in your own salon. I can +scarce believe my own senses, when I remember that thirty-one +years ago you—"

The Prince bows low, and drawing a jewelled dagger, stabs himself +to the heart.

"The displeasure of your grace is worse than death," he says, as +he takes his overcoat and hat from a corner of the mantelpiece and +leaves the room.

"Voilà," says Bèebè Francillon, +fanning herself languidly. "That is the way with men. +Flatter them, and they kiss your hand. Loose but a +moment the silken leash that holds them captive +through their vanity and self-opinionativeness, +and the son-of-a-gun gets on his ear at once. +The devil go with him, I say."

"Ah, mon Princesse," sighs the Count Pumpernickel, stooping and +whispering with eloquent eyes into her ear. "You are too hard upon +us. Balzac says, 'All women are not to themselves what no one else +is to another.' Do you not agree with him?"

Armande de Fleury, the young pianissimo danseuse from the Folies +Bergère is about to sing.

She slightly clears her throat and lays a voluptuous cud of +chewing gum upon the piano as the first notes of the accompaniment +ring through the salon.

As she prepares to sing, the Duchess du Bellairs grasps the arm of +her ottoman in a vice-like grip, and she watches with an +expression of almost anguished suspense.

Then, as Armande de Fleury, before uttering a note, reels, wavers, +turns white as snow and falls dead upon the floor, the Duchess +breathes a sigh of relief.

Then the guests crowd about the piano, gazing with bated breath, +and shuddering as they look upon the music rack and observe that +the song that Armande came so near singing is "Sweet Marie."

Twenty minutes later a dark and muffled figure was seen to emerge +from a recess in the mullioned wall of the Arc de Triomphe and +pass rapidly northward.

The network of evidence was fast being drawn about the murderer of +Marie Cusheau.

The spire of the Cathedral is 20,000 feet above the pavement, and +a casual observer, by making a rapid mathematical calculation, +would have readily perceived that this Cathedral is, at least, +double the height of others that measure only 10,000 feet.

At the summit of the spire there is a little wooden platform on +which there is room for but one man to stand.

Crouching on this precarious footing, which swayed, dizzily with +every breeze that blew, was a man closely muffled, and disguised +as a wholesale grocer.

Old François Beongfallong, the great astronomer, who +is studying the sidereal spheres from +his attic window in the Rue de Bologny, +shudders as he turns his telescope upon the solitary figure upon +the spire.

"Sacrè Bleu!" he hisses between his new celluloid +teeth. "It is Tictocq, the detective. I wonder whom he +is following now?"

While Tictocq is watching with lynx-like eyes the hill of +Montmartre, he suddenly hears a heavy breathing beside him, and +turning, gazes into the ferocious eyes of the Gray Wolf.

Carnaignole Cusheau had put on his W. U. Tel. Co. climbers and +climbed the steeple.

"Parbleu, monsieur," says Tictocq. "To whom am I indebted for the +honor of this visit?"

"Then listen. I am the murderer of Marie Cusheau. She was my wife +and she had cold feet and ate onions. What was I to do? Yet life +is sweet to me. I do not wish to be guillotined. I have heard that +you are on my track. Is it true that the case is in your hands?"

The Gray Wolf carefully adjusts the climbers on his feet and +descends the spire.

Monsieur le Compte Carnaignole Cusheau, once known as the Gray +Wolf, stands in the magnificent drawing-room of his palace on East +47th Street.

Three days after his confession to Tictocq, he happened to look in +the pockets of a discarded pair of pants and found twenty million +francs in gold.

Suddenly the door opens and Tictocq, the detective, with a dozen +gensd'arme, enters the room.

The Count laughed and took a paper from his pocket. "Read this," +he said, "here is proof that Marie Cusheau died of heart failure."

"We have made a mistake, monsieurs," he said, but as he turns to +leave the room, Count Carnaignole stops him.

The Count Carnaignole tears from his own face a false beard and +reveals the flashing eyes and well-known features of Tictocq, the +detective.

Then, springing forward, he snatches a wig and false eyebrows from +his visitor, and the Gray Wolf, grinding his teeth in rage, stands +before him.

A SNAPSHOT AT THE PRESIDENT

About a month ago the managing editor came into the room where we +were both sitting engaged in conversation and said:

Five minutes later I was seated in a palatial drawing-room car +bounding up and down quite a good deal on the elastic +plush-covered seat.

I shall not linger upon the incidents of the journey. I was given +carte blanche to provide myself with every comfort, and to spare +no expense that I could meet. For the regalement of my inside the +preparations had been lavish. Both Vienna and Germany had been +called upon to furnish dainty viands suitable to my palate.

I changed cars and shirts once only on the journey. A stranger +wanted me to also change a two-dollar bill, but I haughtily +declined.

The scenery along the entire road to Washington is diversified. +You find a portion of it on one hand by looking out of the window, +and upon turning the gaze upon the other side the eye is surprised +and delighted by discovering some more of it.

There were a great many Knights of Pythias on the train. One of +them insisted upon my giving him the grip I had with me, but he +was unsuccessful.

On arriving in Washington, which city I instantly recognized from +reading the history of George, I left the car so hastily that I +forgot to fee Mr. Pullman's representative.

In a spirit of jeu d'esprit I had had made a globular +representation of a "rolling stone." It was of wood, painted a +dark color, and about the size of a small cannon ball. I had +attached to it a twisted pendant about three inches long to +indicate moss. I had resolved to use this in place of a card, +thinking people would readily recognize it as an emblem of my +paper.

I had studied the arrangement of the Capitol, and walked directly +to Mr. Cleveland's private office.

I saw his hair rise on his head, and he ran like a deer to the +door, and, lying down, rolled down the long flight of steps into +the yard.

A little farther along I met the President's private secretary, +who had been writing a tariff letter and cleaning a duck gun for +Mr. Cleveland.

When I showed him the emblem of my paper he sprang out of a high +window into a hothouse filled with rare flowers.

I examined myself. My hat was on straight, and there was nothing +at all alarming about my appearance.

He was alone. He was conversing with Tom Ochiltree. Mr. Ochiltree +saw my little sphere, and with a loud scream rushed out of the +room.

He searched his coat pocket, and presently found a piece of paper +on which some words were written.

He laid this on his desk and rose to his feet, raised one hand +above him, and said in deep tones:

I saw him jerk a string, and a camera snapped on another table, +taking our picture as we stood.

"Don't die in the House, Mr. President," I said. "Go over into the +Senate Chamber."

"I'm no bum," I said, with spirit. "I represent The Rolling Stone, +of Austin, Texas, and this I hold in my hand does the same thing, +but, it seems, unsuccessfully."

"I thought you were a dynamiter," he said. "Let me see; Texas! +Texas!" He walked to a large wall map of the United States, and +placing his finger thereon at about the location of Idaho, ran it +down in a zigzag, doubtful way until he reached Texas.

"Oh, yes, here it is. I have so many things on my mind, I +sometimes forget what I should know well.

"Let's see; Texas? Oh, yes, that's the State where Ida Wells and a +lot of colored people lynched a socialist named Hogg for raising a +riot at a camp-meeting. So you are from Texas. I know a man from +Texas named Dave Culberson. How is Dave and his family? Has Dave +got any children?"

"Oh, excuse me. I forgot again. I thought I heard some talk of +its having been made a Republic again."

A curious film came over the President's eyes. He sat stiffly in +his chair like an automaton.

"I will state that political exigencies demand emergentistical +promptitude, and while the United States is indissoluble in +conception and invisible in intent, treason and internecine +disagreement have ruptured the consanguinity of patriotism, and—"

"One moment, Mr. President," I interrupted; "would you mind +changing that cylinder? I could have gotten all that from the +American Press Association if I had wanted plate matter. Do you +wear flannels? What is your favorite poet, brand of catsup, bird, +flower, and what are you going to do when you are out of a job?"

"Young man," said Mr. Cleveland, sternly, "you are going a little +too far. My private affairs do not concern the public."

"You Texans have a great representative in Senator Mills," he +said. "I think the greatest two speeches I ever heard were his +address before the Senate advocating the removal of the tariff on +salt and increasing it on chloride of sodium."

"Oh, no, he isn't. You must be mistaken," replied Mr. Cleveland, +"for he says he is. I really must go down to Texas some time, and +see the State. I want to go up into the Panhandle and see if it is +really shaped like it is on the map."

"When you get back to Texas," said the President, rising, "you +must write to me. Your visit has awakened in me quite an interest +in your State which I fear I have not given the attention it +deserves. There are many historical and otherwise interesting +places that you have revived in my recollection—the Alamo, where +Davy Jones fell; Goliad, Sam Houston's surrender to Montezuma, the +petrified boom found near Austin, five-cent cotton and the Siamese +Democratic platform born in Dallas. I should so much like to see +the gals in Galveston, and go to the wake in Waco. I am glad I met +you. Turn to the left as you enter the hall and keep straight on +out." I made a low bow to signify that the interview was at an +end, and withdrew immediately. I had no difficulty +in leaving the building as soon as I was outside.

I hurried downtown in order to obtain refreshments at some place +where viands had been placed upon the free list.

I shall not describe my journey back to Austin. I lost my return +ticket somewhere in the White House, and was forced to return home +in a manner not especially beneficial to my shoes. Everybody was +well in Washington when I left, and all send their love.

AN UNFINISHED CHRISTMAS STORY

Now, a Christmas story should be one. For a good many years the +ingenious writers have been putting forth tales for the holiday +numbers that employed every subtle, evasive, indirect and +strategic scheme they could invent to disguise the Christmas +flavor. So far has this new practice been carried that nowadays +when you read a story in a holiday magazine the only way you can +tell it is a Christmas story is to look at the footnote which +reads: ["The incidents in the above story happened on December +25th.—Ed."]

There is progress in this; but it is all very sad. There are just +as many real Christmas stories as ever, if we would only dig 'em +up. Me, I am for the Scrooge and Marley Christmas story, and the +Annie and Willie's prayer poem, and the long lost son coming home +on the stroke of twelve to the poorly thatched cottage with his +arms full of talking dolls and popcorn balls and—Zip! you hear +the second mortgage on the cottage go flying off it into the deep +snow.

So, this is to warn you that there is no subterfuge about this +story—and you might come upon stockings hung to the mantel and +plum puddings and hark! the chimes! and wealthy misers loosening +up and handing over penny whistles to lame newsboys if you read +further.

Once I knocked at a door (I have so many things to tell you I keep +on losing sight of the story). It was the front door of a +furnished room house in West 'Teenth Street. I was looking for a +young illustrator named Paley originally and irrevocably from +Terre Haute. Paley doesn't enter even into the first serial rights +of this Christmas story; I mention him simply in explaining why I +came to knock at the door—some people have so much curiosity.

The door was opened by the landlady. I had seen hundreds like her. +And I had smelled before that cold, dank, furnished draught of air +that hurried by her to escape immurement in the furnished house.

She was stout, and her face and lands were as white as though she +had been drowned in a barrel of vinegar. One hand held together at +her throat a buttonless flannel dressing sacque whose lines had +been cut by no tape or butterick known to mortal woman. Beneath +this a too-long, flowered, black sateen skirt was draped about +her, reaching the floor in stiff wrinkles and folds.

The rest of her was yellow. Her hair, in some bygone age, had been +dipped in the fountain of folly presided over by the merry nymph +Hydrogen; but now, except at the roots, it had returned to its +natural grim and grizzled white.

Her eyes and teeth and finger nails were yellow. Her chops hung +low and shook when she moved. The look on her face was exactly +that smileless look of fatal melancholy that you may have seen on +the countenance of a hound left sitting on the doorstep of a +deserted cabin.

I inquired for Paley. After a long look of cold suspicion the +landlady spoke, and her voice matched the dingy roughness of her +flannel sacque.

Paley? Was I sure that was the name? And wasn't it, likely, Mr. +Sanderson I meant, in the third floor rear? No; it was Paley I +wanted. Again that frozen, shrewd, steady study of my soul from +her pale-yellow, unwinking eyes, trying to penetrate my mask of +deception and rout out my true motives from my lying lips. There +was a Mr. Tompkins in the front hall bedroom two flights up. +Perhaps it was he I was seeking. He worked of nights; he never +came in till seven in the morning. Or if it was really Mr. Tucker +(thinly disguised as Paley) that I was hunting I would have to +call between five and—

But no; I held firmly to Paley. There was no such name among her +lodgers. Click! the door closed swiftly in my face; and I heard +through the panels the clanking of chains and bolts.

I went down the steps and stopped to consider. The number of this +house was 43. I was sure Paley had said 43—or perhaps it was 45 +or 47—I decided to try 47, the second house farther along.

I rang the bell. The door opened; and there stood the same woman. +I wasn't confronted by just a resemblance—it was the same +woman holding together the same old sacque at her throat +and looking at me with the same yellow eyes as if she had +never seen me before on +earth. I saw on the knuckle of her second finger the same +red-and-black spot made, probably, by a recent burn against a hot +stove.

I stood speechless and gaping while one with moderate haste might +have told fifty. I couldn't have spoken Paley's name even if I had +remembered it. I did the only thing that a brave man who believes +there are mysterious forces in nature that we do not yet fully +comprehend could have done in the circumstances. I backed down the +steps to the sidewalk and then hurried away frontward, fully +understanding how incidents like that must bother the psychical +research people and the census takers.

Of course I heard an explanation of it afterward, as we always do +about inexplicable things.

The landlady was Mrs. Kannon; and she leased three adjoining +houses, which she made into one by cutting arched doorways through +the walls. She sat in the middle house and answered the three +bells.

I wonder why I have maundered so slowly through the prologue. I +have it! it was simply to say to you, in the form of introduction +rife through the Middle West: "Shake hands with Mrs. Kannon."

For, it was in her triple house that the Christmas story happened; +and it was there where I picked up the incontrovertible facts from +the gossip of many roomers and met Stickney—and saw the necktie.

Stickney (Harry Clarence Fowler Stickney to whomsoever his full +baptismal cognominal burdens may be of interest) reached his +address at six-thirty Wednesday afternoon. "Address" is New +Yorkese for "home." Stickney roomed at 45 West 'Teenth Street, +third floor rear hall room. He was twenty years and four months +old, and he worked in a cameras-of-all-kinds, photographic +supplies and films-developed store. I don't know what kind of work +he did in the store; but you must have seen him. He is the young +man who always comes behind the counter to wait on you and lets +you talk for five minutes, telling him what you want. When you are +done, he calls the proprietor at the top of his voice to wait on +you, and walks away whistling between his teeth.

I don't want to bother about describing to you his appearance; +but, if you are a man reader, I will say that Stickncy looked +precisely like the young chap that you always find sitting in your +chair smoking a cigarette after you have missed a shot while +playing pool—not billiards but pool—when you want to sit down +yourself.

There are some to whom Christmas gives no Christmassy essence. Of +course, prosperous people and comfortable people who have homes or +flats or rooms with meals, and even people who live in apartment +houses with hotel service get something of the Christmas flavor. +They give one another presents with the cost mark scratched off +with a penknife; and they hang holly wreaths in the front windows +and when they are asked whether they prefer light or dark meat +from the turkey they say: "Both, please," and giggle and have lots +of fun. And the very poorest people have the best time of it. The +Army gives 'em a dinner, and the 10 +a. m. issue of the Night Final +edition of the newspaper with the largest circulation in the city +leaves a basket at their door full of an apple, a Lake Ronkonkoma +squab, a scrambled eggplant and a bunch of Kalamazoo bleached +parsley. The poorer you are the more Christmas does for you.

But, I'll tell you to what kind of a mortal Christmas seems to be +only the day before the twenty-sixth day of December. It's the +chap in the big city earning sixteen dollars a week, with no +friends and few acquaintances, who finds himself with only fifty +cents in his pocket on Christmas eve. He can't accept charity; he +can't borrow; he knows no one who would invite him to dinner. I +have a fancy that when the shepherds left their flocks to follow +the star of Bethlehem there was a bandy-legged young fellow among +them who was just learning the sheep business. So they said to +him, "Bobby, we're going to investigate this star route and see +what's in it. If it should turn out to be the first Christmas day +we don't want to miss it. And, as you are not a wise man, and as +you couldn't possibly purchase a present to take along, suppose +you stay behind and mind the sheep."

So as we may say, Harry Stickney was a direct descendant of the +shepherd who was left behind to take care of the flocks.

Getting back to facts, Stickney rang the doorbell of 45. He had a +habit of forgetting his latchkey.

Instantly the door opened and there stood Mrs. Kannon, clutching +her sacque together at the throat and gorgonizing him with her +opaque, yellow eyes.

(To give you good measure, here is a story within a story. Once a +roomer in 47 who had the Scotch habit—not kilts, but a habit of +drinking Scotch—began to figure to himself what might happen if +two persons should ring the doorbells of 43 and 47 at the same +time. Visions of two halves of Mrs. Kannon appearing respectively +and simultaneously at the two entrances, each clutching at a side +of an open, flapping sacque that could never meet, overpowered +him. Bellevue got him.)

"Evening," said Stickney cheerlessly, as he distributed little +piles of muddy slush along the hall matting. "Think we'll have +snow?"

THE UNPROFITABLE SERVANT

I am the richer by the acquaintance of four newspaper men. Singly, +they are my encyclopedias, friends, mentors, and sometimes +bankers. But now and then it happens that all of them will pitch +upon the same printworthy incident of the passing earthly panorama +and will send in reportorial constructions thereof to their +respective journals. It is then that, for me, it is to laugh. For +it seems that to each of them, trained and skilled as he may be, +the same occurrence presents a different facet of the cut diamond, +life.

One will have it (let us say) that Mme. André +Macarté's apartment was looted by six +burglars, who descended via the fire-escape and +bore away a ruby tiara valued at two thousand dollars and a +five-hundred-dollar prize Spitz dog, which (in violation of the +expectoration ordinance) was making free with the halls of the +Wuttapesituckquesunoowetunquah Apartments.

My second "chiel" will take notes to the effect that +while a friendly game of pinochle was in progress in the tenement +rooms of Mrs. Andy McCarty, a lady guest named Ruby O'Hara threw a +burglar down six flights of stairs, where he was pinioned and held +by a two-thousand-dollar English bulldog amid a crowd of five +hundred excited spectators.

My third chronicler and friend will gather the news threads of the +happening in his own happy way; setting forth on the page for you +to read that the house of Antonio Macartini was blown up at 6 +a. m., by the +Black Hand Society, on his refusing to leave two +thousand dollars at a certain street corner, killing a pet +five-hundred-dollar Pomeranian belonging to Alderman Rubitara's +little daughter (see photo and diagram opposite).

Number four of my history-makers will simply construe from the +premises the story that while an audience of two thousand +enthusiasts was listening to a Rubinstein concert on Sixth Street, +a woman who said she was Mrs. Andrew M. Carter threw a brick +through a plate-glass window valued at five hundred dollars. The +Carter woman claimed that some one in the building had stolen her +dog.

Now, the discrepancies in these registrations of the day's doings +need do no one hurt. Surely, one newspaper is enough for any man +to prop against his morning water-bottle to fend off the smiling +hatred of his wife's glance. If he be foolish enough to read four +he is no wiser than a Higher Critic.

I remember (probably as well as you do) having read the parable of +the talents. A prominent citizen, about to journey into a far +country, first hands over to his servants his goods. To one he +gives five talents; to another two; to another one—to every man +according to his several ability, as the text has it. There are +two versions of this parable, as you well know. There may be +more—I do not know.

When the p. c. returns he requires an accounting. Two servants +have put their talents out at usury and gained one hundred per +cent. Good. The unprofitable one simply digs up the talent +deposited with him and hands it out on demand. A pattern of +behavior for trust companies and banks, surely! In one version we +read that he had wrapped it in a napkin and laid it away. But the +commentator informs us that the talent mentioned was composed of +750 ounces of silver—about $900 worth. So the chronicler who +mentioned the napkin, had either to reduce the amount of the +deposit or do a lot of explaining about the size of the napery +used in those davs. Therefore in his version we note that he uses +the word "pound" instead of "talent."

A pound of silver may very well be laid away—and carried away—in +a napkin, as any hotel or restaurant man will tell you.

When the returned nobleman finds that the one-talented servant has +nothing to hand over except the original fund entrusted to him, he +is as angry as a multi-millionaire would be if some one should +hide under his bed and make a noise like an assessment. He orders +the unprofitable servant cast into outer darkness, after first +taking away his talent and giving it to the one-hundred-per cent. +financier, and breathing strange saws, saying: "From him that hath +not shall be taken away even that which he hath." Which is the +same as to say: "Nothing from nothing leaves nothing."

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.

Talent: A gift, endowment or faculty; some peculiar ability, +power, or accomplishment, natural or acquired. (A metaphor +borrowed from the parable in Matt. XXV. 14-30.)

In New York City to-day there are (estimated) 125,000 living +creatures training for the stage. This does not include seals, +pigs, dogs, elephants, prize-fighters, 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.

Nine hundred of these will have attained their fulness 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: "That's me."

Eighty, in the pinkest of (male) Louis XIV 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.

Ten, in tiny lace caps, shall dust Ibsen furniture for six minutes +after the rising of the curtain.

Nine shall attain the circuits, besieging with muscle, skill, eye, +hand, voice, wit, brain, heel and toe the ultimate high walls of +stardom.

Cliff McGowan and Mac McGowan were cousins. They lived on the West +Side and were talented. Singing, dancing, imitations, trick +bicycle riding, boxing, German and Irish dialect comedy, and a +little sleight-of-hand and balancing of wheat straws and +wheelbarrows on the ends of their chins came as easy to them as it +is for you to fix your rat so it won't show or to dodge a creditor +through the swinging-doors of a well-lighted café—according as +you may belong to the one or the other division of the greatest +prestidigitators—the people. They were slim, pale, consummately +self-possessed youths, whose fingernails were always +irreproachably (and clothes seams reproachfully) shiny. Their +conversation was in sentences so short that they made Kipling's +seem as long as court citations.

Having the temperament, they did no work. Any afternoon you could +find them on Eighth Avenue either in front of Spinelli's barber +shop, Mike Dugan's place, or the Limerick Hotel, rubbing their +forefinger nails with dingy silk handkerchiefs. At any time, if +you had happened to be standing, undecisive, near a pool-table, +and Cliff and Mac had, casually, as it were, drawn near, +mentioning something disinterestedly, about a game, well, indeed, +would it have been for you had you gone your way, unresponsive. +Which assertion, carefully considered, is a study in tense, +punctuation, and advice to strangers.

Of all kinships it is likely that the closest is that of cousin. +Between cousins there exist the ties of race, name, and +favor—ties thicker than water, and yet not coagulated with the +jealous precipitations of brotherhood or the enjoining obligations +of the matrimonial yoke. You can bestow upon a cousin almost the +interest and affection that you would give to a stranger; you need +not feel toward him the contempt and embarrassment that you have +for one of your father's sons—it is the closer clan-feeling that +sometimes makes the branch of a tree stronger than its trunk.

Thus were the two McGowans bonded. They enjoyed a quiet celebrity +in their district, which was a strip west of Eighth Avenue with +the Pump for its pivot. Their talents were praised in a hundred +"joints"; their friendship was famed even in a neighborhood where +men had been known to fight off the wives of their friends—when +domestic onslaught was being made upon their friends by the wives +of their friends. (Thus do the limitations of English force us to +repetends.)

So, side by side, grim, sallow, lowering, inseparable, undefeated, +the cousins fought their way into the temple of Art—art with a +big A, which causes to intervene a lesson in geometry.

One night at about eleven o'clock Del Delano dropped into Mike's +place on Eighth Avenue. From that moment, instead of remaining a +Place, the café became a Resort. It was as though King Edward had +condescended to mingle with ten-spots of a different suit; or Joe +Gans had casually strolled in to look over the Tuskegee School; or +Mr. Shaw, of England, had accepted an invitation to read +selections from "Rena, the Snow-bird" at an unveiling of the +proposed monument to James Owen O'Connor at Chinquapin Falls, +Mississippi. In spite of these comparisons, you will have to be +told why the patronizing of a third-rate saloon on the West Side +by the said Del Delano conferred such a specific honor upon the +place.

Del Delano could not make his feet behave; and so the world paid +him $300 a week to see them misconduct themselves on the +vaudeville stage. To make the matter plain to you (and to swell +the number of words), he was the best fancy dancer on any of the +circuits between Ottawa and Corpus Christi. With his eyes fixed on +vacancy and his feet apparently fixed on nothing, he "nightly +charmed thousands," as his press-agent incorrectly stated. Even +taking night performance and matinée together, he scarcely +could have charmed more than eighteen hundred, including +those who left after Zora, the Nautch girl, had squeezed +herself through a hoop twelve inches in diameter, and +those who were waiting for the moving pictures.

But Del Delano was the West Side's favorite; and nowhere is there +a more loyal Side. Five years before our story was submitted to +the editors, Del had crawled from some Tenth Avenue basement like +a lean rat and had bitten his way into the Big Cheese. Patched, +half-starved, cuffless, and as scornful of the Hook as an +interpreter of Ibsen, he had danced his way into health (as you +and I view it) and fame in sixteen minutes on Amateur Night at +Creary's (Variety) Theatre in Eighth Avenue. A bookmaker (one of +the kind that talent wins with instead of losing) sat in the +audience, asleep, dreaming of an impossible pick-up among the +amateurs. After a snore, a glass of beer from the handsome waiter, +and a temporary blindness caused by the diamonds of a transmontane +blonde in Box E, the bookmaker woke up long enough to engage Del +Delano for a three-weeks' trial engagement fused with a +trained-dog short-circuit covering the three Washingtons—Heights, +Statue, and Square.

By the time this story was read and accepted, Del Delano was +drawing his three-hundred dollars a week, which, divided by seven +(Sunday acts not in costume being permissible), dispels the +delusion entertained by most of us that we have seen better days. +You can easily imagine the worshipful agitation of Eighth Avenue +whenever Del Delano honored it with a visit after his +terpsichorean act in a historically great and vilely ventilated +Broadway theatre. If the West Side could claim forty-two minutes +out of his forty-two weeks' bookings every year, it was an +occasion for bonfires and repainting of the Pump. And now you know +why Mike's saloon is a Resort, and no longer a simple Place.

Del Delano entered Mike's alone. So nearly concealed in a +fur-lined overcoat and a derby two sizes too large for him was +Prince Lightfoot that you saw of his face only his pale, +hatchet-edged features and a pair of unwinking, cold, light blue +eyes. Nearly every man lounging at Mike's bar recognized the +renowned product of the West Side. To those who did not, wisdom +was conveyed by prodding elbows and growls of one-sided +introduction.

Upon Charley, one of the bartenders, both fame and fortune +descended simultaneously. He had once been honored by shaking +hands with the great Delano at a Seventh Avenue boxing bout. So +with lungs of brass he now cried: "Hallo, Del, old man; what'll it +be?"

Mike, the proprietor, who was cranking the cash register, heard. +On the next day he raised Charley's wages five a week.

Del Delano drank a pony beer, paying for it carelessly out of his +nightly earnings of $42.85-5/7. He nodded amiably +but coldly at the long line of Mike's patrons and strolled past +them into the rear room of the café. For he heard in there sounds +pertaining to his own art—the light, stirring staccato of a +buck-and-wing dance.

In the back room Mac McGowan was giving a private exhibition of +the genius of his feet. A few young men sat at tables looking on +critically while they amused themselves seriously with beer. They +nodded approval at some new fancy steps of Mac's own invention.

At the sight of the great Del Delano, the amateur's feet +stuttered, blundered, clicked a few times, and ceased to move. The +tongues of one's shoes become tied in the presence of the Master. +Mac's sallow face took on a slight flush.

From the uncertain cavity between Del Delano's hat brim and the +lapels of his high fur coat collar came a thin puff of cigarette +smoke and then a voice:

"Do that last step over again, kid. And don't hold your arms quite +so stiff. Now, then!"

Once more Mac went through his paces. According to the traditions +of the man dancer, his entire being was transformed into mere feet +and legs. His gaze and expression became cataleptic; his body, +unbending above the waist, but as light as a cork, bobbed like the +same cork dancing on the ripples of a running brook. The beat of +his heels and toes pleased you like a snare-drum obligato. The +performance ended with an amazing clatter of leather against wood +that culminated in a sudden flat-footed stamp, leaving the dancer +erect and as motionless as a pillar of the colonial portico of a +mansion in a Kentucky prohibition town. Mac felt that he had done +his best and that Del Delano would turn his back upon him in +derisive scorn.

An approximate silence followed, broken only by the mewing of a +café cat and the hubbub and uproar of a few million citizens and +transportation facilities outside.

Mac turned a hopeless but nervy eye upon Del Delano's face. In it +he read disgust, admiration, envy, indifference, approval, +disappointment, praise, and contempt.

Thus, in the countenances of those we hate or love we find what we +most desire or fear to see. Which is an assertion equalling in its +wisdom and chiaroscuro the most famous sayings of the most foolish +philosophers that the world has ever known.

Del Delano retired within his overcoat and hat. In two minutes he +emerged and turned his left side to Mac. Then he spoke.

"You've got a foot movement, kid, like a baby hippopotamus trying +to side-step a jab from a humming-bird. And you hold yourself like +a truck driver having his picture taken in a Third Avenue +photograph gallery. And you haven't got any method or style. And +your knees are about as limber as a couple of Yale pass-keys. And +you strike the eye as weighing, let us say, 450 pounds while you +work. But, say, would you mind giving me your name?"

"In other words, you're rotten. You can't dance. But I'll tell you +one thing you've got."

"Throw it all off of your system while you're at it," said Mac. +"What've I got?"

"Genius," said Del Delano. "Except myself, it's up to you to be +the best fancy dancer in the United States, Europe, Asia, and the +colonial possessions of all three."

"Genius," repeated the Master—"you've got a talent for genius. +Your brains are in your feet, where a dancer's ought to be. You've +been self-taught until you're almost ruined, but not quite. What +you need is a trainer. I'll take you in hand and put you at the +top of the profession. There's room there for the two of us. You +may beat me," said the Master, casting upon him a cold, savage +look combining so much rivalry, affection, justice, and human hate +that it stamped him at once as one of the little great ones of the +earth—"you may beat me; but I doubt it. I've got the start and +the pull. But at the top is where you belong. Your name, you say, +is Robinson?"

"It don't matter," said Delano. "Suppose you walk up to my hotel +with me. I'd like to talk to you. Your footwork is the worst I +ever saw, Madigan—but—well, I'd like to talk to you. You may not +think so, but I'm not so stuck up. I came off of the West Side +myself. That overcoat cost me eight hundred dollars; but the +collar ain't so high but what I can see over it. I taught myself +to dance, and I put in most of nine years at it before I shook a +foot in public. But I had genius. I didn't go too far wrong in +teaching myself as you've done. You've got the rottenest method +and style of anybody I ever saw."

"Oh, I don't think much of the few little steps I take," said Mac, +with hypocritical lightness.

"Don't talk like a package of self-raising buckwheat flour," said +Del Delano. "You've had a talent handed to you by the Proposition +Higher Up; and it's up to you to do the proper thing with it. I'd +like to have you go up to my hotel for a talk, if you will."

In his rooms in the King Clovis Hotel, Del Delano put on a scarlet +house coat bordered with gold braid and set out Apollinaris and a +box of sweet crackers.

"Forget it," said Del. "Drink and tobacco may be all right for a +man who makes his living with his hands; but they won't do if +you're depending on your head or your feet. If one end of you gets +tangled, so does the other. That's why beer and cigarettes don't +hurt piano players and picture painters. But you've got to cut 'em +out if you want to do mental or pedal work. Now, have a cracker, +and then we'll talk some."

"All right," said Mac. "I take it as an honor, of course, for you +to notice my hopping around. Of course I'd like to do something in +a professional line. Of course I can sing a little and do card +tricks and Irish and German comedy stuff, and of course I'm not so +bad on the trapeze and comic bicycle stunts and Hebrew monologues +and—"

"One moment," interrupted Del Delano, "before we begin. I said you +couldn't dance. Well, that wasn't quite right. You've only got two +or three bad tricks in your method. You're handy with your feet, +and you belong at the top, where I am. I'll put you there. I've +got six weeks continuous in New York; and in four I can shape up +your style till the booking agents will fight one another to get +you. And I'll do it, too. I'm of, from, and for the West Side. +'Del Delano' looks good on bill-boards, but the family name's +Crowley. Now, Mackintosh—McGowan, I mean—you've got your +chance—fifty times a better one than I had."

"I'd be a shine to turn it down," said Mac. "And I hope you +understand I appreciate it. Me and my cousin Cliff McGowan was +thinking of getting a try-out at Creary's on amateur night a month +from to-morrow."

"Good stuff!" said Delano. "I got mine there. Junius T. Rollins, +the booker for Kuhn & Dooley, jumped on the stage and engaged me +after my dance. And the boards were an inch deep in nickels and +dimes and quarters. There wasn't but nine penny pieces found in +the lot."

"I ought to tell you," said Mac, after two minutes of pensiveness, +"that my cousin Cliff can beat me dancing. We've always been what +you might call pals. If you'd take him up instead of me, now, it +might be better. He's invented a lot of steps that I can't cut."

"Forget it," said Delano. "Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and +Saturdays of every week from now till amateur night, a month off, +I'll coach you. I'll make you as good as I am; and nobody could do +more for you. My act's over every night at 10:15. Half an hour +later I'll take you up and drill you till twelve. I'll put you at +the top of the bunch, right where I am. You've got talent. Your +style's bum; but you've got the genius. You let me manage it. I'm +from the West Side myself, and I'd rather see one of the same gang +win out before I would an East-Sider, or any of the Flatbush or +Hackensack Meadow kind of butt-iners. I'll see that Junius Rollins +is present on your Friday night; and if he don't climb over the +footlights and offer you fifty a week as a starter, I'll let you +draw it down from my own salary every Monday night. Now, am I +talking on the level or am I not?"

Amateur night at Creary's Eighth Avenue Theatre is cut by the same +pattern as amateur nights elsewhere. After the regular performance +the humblest talent may, by previous arrangement with the +management, make its debut upon the public stage. Ambitious +non-professionals, mostly self-instructed, display their skill and +powers of entertainment along the broadest lines. They may sing, +dance, mimic, juggle, contort, recite, or disport themselves along +any of the ragged boundary lines of Art. From the ranks of these +anxious tyros are chosen the professionals that adorn or otherwise +make conspicuous the full-blown stage. Press-agents delight in +recounting to open-mouthed and close-eared reporters stories of +the humble beginnings of the brilliant stars whose orbits they +control.

Such and such a prima donna (they will tell you) made her initial +bow to the public while turning handsprings on an amateur night. +One great matinée favorite made his debut on a +generous Friday evening singing coon songs of his own +composition. A tragedian famous on two continents and +an island first attracted attention by an amateur +impersonation of a newly landed Scandinavian peasant +girl. One Broadway comedian that turns 'em away got a booking on a +Friday night by reciting (seriously) the graveyard scene in +"Hamlet."

Thus they get their chance. Amateur night is a kindly boon. It is +charity divested of almsgiving. It is a brotherly hand reached +down by members of the best united band of coworkers in the world +to raise up less fortunate ones without labelling them beggars. It +gives you the chance, if you can grasp it, to step for a few +minutes before some badly painted scenery and, during the playing +by the orchestra of some ten or twelve bars of music, and while +the soles of your shoes may be clearly holding to the uppers, to +secure a salary equal to a Congressman's or any orthodox +minister's. Could an ambitious student of literature or financial +methods get a chance like that by spending twenty minutes in a +Carnegie library? I do not not trow so.

But shall we look in at Creary's? Let us say that the specific +Friday night had arrived on which the fortunate Mac McGowan was to +justify the flattering predictions of his distinguished patron +and, incidentally, drop his silver talent into the slit of the +slot-machine of fame and fortune that gives up reputation and +dough. I offer, sure of your acquiescence, that we now forswear +hypocritical philosophy and bigoted comment, permitting the story +to finish itself in the dress of material allegations—a medium +more worthy, when held to the line, than the most laborious +creations of the word-milliners…

…easily among the wings +with his patron, the great Del Delano. For, +whatever footlights shone in the City-That-Would-Be-Amused, the +freedom of their unshaded side was Del's. And if he should take up +an amateur—see? and bring him around—see? and, winking one of +his cold blue eyes, say to the manager: "Take it from me—he's got +the goods—see?" you wouldn't expect that amateur to sit on an +unpainted bench sudorifically awaiting his turn, would you? So Mac +strolled around largely with the nonpareil; and the seven waited, +clammily, on the bench.

A giant in shirt-sleeves, with a grim, kind face in which many +stitches had been taken by surgeons from time to time, +i. e., with a long stick, looped at the end. +He was the man with the Hook. The +manager, with his close-smoothed blond hair, his one-sided smile, +and his abnormally easy manner, pored with patient condescension +over the difficult program of the amateurs. The last of the +professional turns—the Grand March of the Happy Huzzard—had been +completed; the last wrinkle and darn of their blue silkolene +cotton tights had vanished from the stage. The man in the +orchestra who played the kettle-drum, cymbals, triangle, +sandpaper, whang-doodle, hoof-beats, and catcalls, and fired the +pistol shots, had wiped his brow. The illegal holiday of the +Romans had arrived.

While the orchestra plays the famous waltz from "The Dismal Wife," +let us bestow two hundred words upon the psychology of the +audience.

The orchestra floor was filled by People. The boxes contained +Persons. In the galleries was the Foreordained Verdict. The claque +was there as it had originated in the Stone Age and was afterward +adapted by the French. Every Micky and Maggie who sat upon +Creary's amateur bench, wise beyond their talents, knew that their +success or doom lay already meted out to them by that crowded, +whistling, roaring mass of Romans in the three galleries. They +knew that the winning or the losing of the game for each one lay +in the strength of the "gang" aloft that could turn the applause +to its favorite. On a Broadway first night a wooer of fame may win +it from the ticket buyers over the heads of the cognoscenti. But +not so at Creary's. The amateur's fate is arithmetical. The number +of his supporting admirers present at his try-out decides it in +advance. But how these outlying Friday nights put to a certain +shame the Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and +matinées of the Broadway stage you should +know…

ARISTOCRACY VERSUS HASH

The snake reporter of The Rolling Stone was wandering up the +avenue last night on his way home from the Y.M.C.A. rooms when he +was approached by a gaunt, hungry-looking man with wild eyes and +dishevelled hair. He accosted the reporter in a hollow, weak +voice.

"'Let me tell you how it is,' said the stranger, inserting his +forefinger in the reporter's buttonhole and badly damaging his +chrysanthemum. 'I am a representative from Soapstone County, and I +and my family are houseless, homeless, and shelterless. We have +not tasted food for over a week. I brought my family with me, as I +have indigestion and could not get around much with the boys. Some +days ago I started out to find a boarding house, as I cannot +afford to put up at a hotel. I found a nice aristocratic-looking +place, that suited me, and went in and asked for the proprietress. +A very stately lady with a Roman nose came in the room. She had +one hand laid across her stom—across her waist, and the other +held a lace handkerchief. I told her I wanted board for myself and +family, and she condescended to take us. I asked for her terms, +and she said $300 per week.

"'I had two dollars in my pocket and I gave her that for a fine +teapot that I broke when I fell over the table when she spoke.'

"'You appear surprised,' says she. 'You will please remembah that +I am the widow of Governor Riddle of Georgiah; my family is very +highly connected; I give you board as a favah; I nevah considah +money any equivalent for the advantage of my society, I—'

"'Well, I got out of there, and I went to some other places. The +next lady was a cousin of General Mahone of Virginia, and wanted +four dollars an hour for a back room with a pink motto and a +Burnet granite bed in it. The next one was an aunt of Davy +Crockett, and asked eight dollars a day for a room furnished in +imitation of the Alamo, with prunes for breakfast and one hour's +conversation with her for dinner. Another one said she was a +descendant of Benedict Arnold on her father's side and Captain +Kidd on the other.

"'She only had one meal and prayers a day, and counted her society +worth $100 a week.

"'I found nine widows of Supreme Judges, twelve relicts of +Governors and Generals, and twenty-two ruins left by various happy +Colonels, Professors, and Majors, who valued their aristocratic +worth from $90 to $900 per week, with weak-kneed hash and dried +apples on the side. I admire people of fine descent, but my +stomach yearns for pork and beans instead of culture. Am I not +right?'

"'Your words,' said the reporter, 'convince me that you have +uttered what you have said.'

"'Thanks. You see how it is. I am not wealthy; I have only my per +diem and my perquisites, and I cannot afford to pay for high +lineage and moldy ancestors. A little corned beef goes further +with me than a coronet, and when I am cold a coat of arms does not +warm me.'

"'I greatly fear, 'said the reporter, with a playful hiccough, +'that you have run against a high-toned town. Most all the +first-class boarding houses here are run by ladies of the old +Southern families, the very first in the land.'

"'I am now desperate,' said the Representative, as he chewed a +tack awhile, thinking it was a clove. 'I want to find a boarding +house where the proprietress was an orphan found in a livery +stable, whose father was a dago from East Austin, and whose +grandfather was never placed on the map. I want a scrubby, ornery, +low-down, snuff-dipping, back-woodsy, piebald gang, who never +heard of finger bowls or Ward McAllister, but who can get up a +mess of hot cornbread and Irish stew at regular market +quotations.'

"The snake reporter sadly shook his head. 'I do not know,' he +said, 'but I will shake you for the beer.'

"Ten minutes later the slate in the Blue Ruin saloon bore two +additional characters: 10."

THE PRISONER OF ZEMBLA

So the king fell into a furious rage, so that none durst go near +him for fear, and he gave out that since the Princess Ostla had +disobeyed him there would be a great tourney, and to the knight +who should prove himself of the greatest valor he would give the +hand of the princess.

And the herald went about the country making his desire known, +blowing a great tin horn and riding a noble steed that pranced and +gambolled; and the villagers gazed upon him and said: "Lo, that is +one of them tin horn gamblers concerning which the chroniclers +have told us."

And when the day came, the king sat in the grandstand, holding the +gage of battle in his band, and by his side sat the Princess +Ostla, looking very pale and beautiful, but with mournful eyes +from which she scarce could keep the tears. And the knights which +came to the tourney gazed upon the princess in wonder at her +beauty, and each swore to win so that he could marry her and board +with the king. Suddenly the heart of the princess gave a great +bound, for she saw among the knights one of the poor students with +whom she had been in love.

The knights mounted and rode in a line past the grandstand, and +the king stopped the poor student, who had the worst horse and the +poorest caparisons of any of the knights and said:

"Sir Knight, prithee tell me of what that marvellous shacky and +rusty-looking armor of thine is made?"

"Oh, king," said the young knight, "seeing that we are about to +engage in a big fight, I would call it scrap iron, wouldn't you?"

About this time the Princess Ostla, who began to feel better at +the sight of her lover, slipped a piece of gum into her mouth and +closed her teeth upon it, and even smiled a little and showed the +beautiful pearls with which her mouth was set. Whereupon, as soon +as the knights perceived this, 217 of them went over to the king's +treasurer and settled for their horse feed and went home.

"Here's enough for a fight, anyhow," said the king. "Come hither, +O knights, will ye joust for the hand of this fair lady?"

The two knights fought for two hours, and at length the princess' +lover prevailed and stretched the other upon the ground. The +victorious knight made his horse caracole before the king, and +bowed low in his saddle.

On the Princess Ostla's cheeks was a rosy flush; in her eyes the +light of excitement vied with the soft glow of love; her lips were +parted, her lovely hair unbound, and she grasped the arms of her +chair and leaned forward with heaving bosom and happy smile to +hear the words of her lover.

"You have foughten well, sir knight," said the king. "And if there +is any boon you crave you have but to name it."

"Then," said the knight, "I will ask you this: I have bought the +patent rights in your kingdom for Schneider's celebrated monkey +wrench, and I want a letter from you endorsing it."

"You shall have it," said the king, "but I must tell you that +there is not a monkey in my kingdom."

With a yell of rage the victorious knight threw himself on his +horse and rode away at a furious gallop.

The king was about to speak, when a horrible suspicion flashed +upon him and he fell dead upon the grandstand.

A STRANGE STORY

In the northern part of Austin there once dwelt an honest family +by the name of Smothers. The family consisted of John Smothers, +his wife, himself, their little daughter, five years of age, and +her parents, making six people toward the population of the city +when counted for a special write-up, but only three by actual +count.

One night after supper the little girl was seized with a severe +colic, and John Smothers hurried down town to get some medicine.

The mother grieved very much over her husband's disappearance, and +it was nearly three months before she married again, and moved to +San Antonio.

The little girl also married in time, and after a few years had +rolled around, she also had a little girl five years of age.

She still lived in the same house where they dwelt when her father +had left and never returned.

One night by a remarkable coincidence her little girl was taken +with cramp colic on the anniversary of the disappearance of John +Smothers, who would now have been her grandfather if he had been +alive and had a steady job.

"I will go downtown and get some medicine for her," said John +Smith (for it was none other than he whom she had married).

"No, no, dear John," cried his wife. "You, too, might disappear +forever, and then forget to come back."

So John Smith did not go, and together they sat by the bedside of +little Pansy (for that was Pansy's name).

After a little Pansy seemed to grow worse, and John Smith again +attempted to go for medicine, but his wife would not let him.

Suddenly the door opened, and an old man, stooped and bent, with +long white hair, entered the room.

"Hello, here is grandpa," said Pansy. She had recognized him +before any of the others.

The old man drew a bottle of medicine from his pocket and gave +Pansy a spoonful.

FICKLE FORTUNE OR HOW GLADYS HUSTLED

"Press me no more Mr. Snooper," said Gladys Vavasour-Smith. "I can +never be yours."

The setting sun was flooding with golden light the oriel windows +of a magnificent mansion situated in one of the most aristocratic +streets west of the brick yard.

Bertram D. Snooper, a poor but ambitious and talented young +lawyer, had just lost his first suit. He had dared to aspire to +the hand of Gladys Vavasour-Smith, the beautiful and talented +daughter of one of the oldest and proudest families in the county. +The bluest blood flowed in her veins. Her grandfather had sawed +wood for the Hornsbys and an aunt on her mother's side had married +a man who had been kicked by General Lee's mule.

The lines about Bertram D. Snooper's hands and mouth were drawn +tighter as he paced to and fro, waiting for a reply to the +question he intended to ask Gladys as soon as he thought of one.

"Because," said Gladys firmly, speaking easily with great +difficulty, "the progression and enlightenment that the woman of +to-day possesses demand that the man shall bring to the marriage +altar a heart and body as free from the debasing and hereditary +iniquities that now no longer exist except in the chimerical +imagination of enslaved custom."

"It is as I expected," said Bertram, wiping his heated brow on the +window curtain. "You have been reading books."

"Besides that," continued Gladys, ignoring the deadly charge, "you +have no money."

The blood of the Snoopers rose hastily and mantled the cheek of +Bertram D. He put on his coat and moved proudly to the door.

When he had gone, Gladys felt an uncontrollable yearning take +possession of her. She said slowly, rather to herself than for +publication, "I wonder if there was any of that cold cabbage left +from dinner."

When she did so, a dark-complexioned man with black hair and +gloomy, desperate looking clothes, came out of the fireplace where +he had been concealed and stated:

"Aha! I have you in my power at last, Bertram D. Snooper. Gladys +Vavasour-Smith shall be mine. I am in the possession of secrets +that not a soul in the world suspects. I have papers to prove that +Bertram Snooper is the heir to the Tom Bean estate, +[12] +and I have discovered that Gladys' +grandfather who sawed wood for the Hornsby's was also a cook in +Major Rhoads Fisher's command during the war. Therefore, the +family repudiate her, and she will marry me in order to drag their +proud name down in the dust. Ha, ha, ha!"

As the reader has doubtless long ago discovered, this man was no +other than Henry R. Grasty. Mr. Grasty then proceeded to gloat +some more, and then with a sardonic laugh left for New York.

Of course, our readers will understand that this is only supposed +to the the case.

It really took less than a minute to make the little stars that +represent an interval of time.

We could not afford to stop a piece in the middle and wait fifteen +years before continuing it.

We hope this explanation will suffice. We are careful not to +create any wrong impressions.

Mr. Grasty had evidently worked his rabbit's foot successfully, +although he was quite a while in doing so.

Just as the preacher was about to pronounce the fatal words on +which he would have realized ten dollars and had the laugh on Mr. +Grasty, the steeple of the church fell off and Bertram D. Snooper +entered.

The preacher fell to the ground with a dull thud. He could ill +afford to lose ten dollars. He was hastily removed and a cheaper +one secured.

"Aha!" he said, "I thought I would surprise you. I just got in +this morning. Here is a paper noticing my arrival."

Mr. Grasty looked at the paper and turned deadly pale. It was +dated three weeks after Mr. Snooper's arrival.

"Speak, Bertram D. Snooper," said Gladys, "why have you come +between me and Henry?"

"I have just discovered that I am the sole heir to Tom Bean's +estate and am worth two million dollars."

Henry R. Grasty drew from his breast pocket a large tin box and +opened it, took therefrom 467 pages of closely written foolscap.

"What you say is true, Mr. Snooper, but I ask you to read that," +he said, handing it to Bertram Snooper.

Mr. Snooper had no sooner read the document than he uttered a +piercing shriek and bit off a large chew of tobacco.

"It is not as bad as that," said Bertram, "but it deprives me of +my entire fortune. But I care not for that, Gladys, since I have +won you."

"Those papers," said Henry R. Grasty, "are the proofs of my +appointment as administrator of the Tom Bean estate."

Twenty minutes later Bertram D. Snooper was seen deliberately to +enter a beer saloon on Seventeenth Street.

AN APOLOGY

The person who sweeps the office, translates letters from foreign +countries, deciphers communications from graduates of business +colleges, and does most of the writing for this paper, has been +confined for the past two weeks to the under side of a large red +quilt, with a joint caucus of la grippe and measles.

We have missed two issues of The Rolling Stone, and are now +slightly convalescent, for which we desire to apologize and +express our regrets.

Everybody's term of subscription will be extended enough to cover +all missed issues, and we hope soon to report that the goose +remains suspended at a favorable altitude. People who have tried +to run a funny paper and entertain a congregation of large piebald +measles at the same time will understand something of the tact, +finesse, and hot sassafras tea required to do so. We expect to get +out the paper regularly from this time on, but are forced to be +very careful, as improper treatment and deleterious after-effects +of measles, combined with the high price of paper and presswork, +have been known to cause a relapse. Any one not getting their +paper regularly will please come down and see about it, bringing +with them a ham or any little delicacy relished by invalids.

LORD OAKHURST'S CURSE

Lord Oakhurst lay dying in the oak chamber in the eastern wing of +Oakhurst Castle. Through the open window in the calm of the summer +evening, came the sweet fragrance of the early violets and budding +trees, and to the dying man it seemed as if earth's loveliness and +beauty were never so apparent as on this bright June day, his last +day of life.

His young wife, whom he loved with a devotion and strength that +the presence of the king of terrors himself could not alter, moved +about the apartment, weeping and sorrowful, sometimes arranging +the sick man's pillow and inquiring of him in low, mournful tones +if anything could be done to give him comfort, and again, with +stifled sobs, eating some chocolate caramels which she carried in +the pocket of her apron. The servants went to and fro with that +quiet and subdued tread which prevails in a house where death is +an expected guest, and even the crash of broken china and shivered +glass, which announced their approach, seemed to fall upon the ear +with less violence and sound than usual.

Lord Oakhurst was thinking of days gone by, when he wooed and won +his beautiful young wife, who was then but a charming and innocent +girl. How clearly and minutely those scenes rose up at the call of +his memory. He seemed to be standing once more beneath the old +chestnut grove where they had plighted their troth in the twilight +under the stars; while the rare fragrance of the June roses and +the smell of supper came gently by on the breeze. There he had +told her his love; how that his whole happiness and future joy lay +in the hope that he might win her for a bride; that if she would +trust her future to his care the devotedness of his lifetime +should be hers, and his only thought would be to make her life one +long day of sunshine and peanut candy.

How plainly he remembered how she had, with girlish shyness and +coyness, at first hesitated, and murmured something to herself +about "an old bald-beaded galoot," but when he told her that to +him life without her would be a blasted mockery, and that his +income was £50,000 a year, she threw herself on to him and froze +there with the tenacity of a tick on a brindled cow, and said, +with tears of joy, "Hen-ery, I am thine."

And now he was dying. In a few short hours his spirit would rise +up at the call of the Destroyer and, quitting his poor, weak, +earthly frame, would go forth into that dim and dreaded Unknown +Land, and solve with certainty that Mystery which revealeth itself +not to mortal man.

A carriage drove rapidly up the avenue and stopped at the door. +Sir Everhard FitzArmond, the famous London physician, who had been +telegraphed for, alighted and quickly ascended the marble steps. +Lady Oakhurst met him at the door, her lovely face expressing +great anxiety and grief. "Oh, Sir Everhard, I am so glad you have +come. He seems to be sinking rapidly. Did you bring the cream +almonds I mentioned in the telegram?"

Sir Everhard did not reply, but silently handed her a package, +and, slipping a couple of cloves into his mouth, ascended the +stairs that led to Lord Oakhurst's apartment. Lady Oakhurst +followed.

Sir Everhard approached the bedside of his patient and laid his +hand gently on this sick man's diagnosis. A shade of feeling +passed over his professional countenance as he gravely and +solemnly pronounced these words: "Madam, your husband has +croaked."

Lady Oakhurst at first did not comprehend his technical language, +and her lovely mouth let up for a moment on the cream almonds. But +soon his meaning flashed upon her, and she seized an axe that her +husband was accustomed to keep by his bedside to mangle his +servants with, and struck open Lord Oakhurst's cabinet containing +his private papers, and with eager hands opened the document which +she took therefrom. Then, with a wild, unearthly shriek that would +have made a steam piano go out behind a barn and kick itself in +despair, she fell senseless to the floor.

Sir Everhard FitzArmond picked up the paper and read its contents. +It was Lord Oakhurst's will, bequeathing all his property to a +scientific institution which should have for its object the +invention of a means for extracting peach brandy from sawdust.

Sir Everhard glanced quickly around the room. No one was in sight. +Dropping the will, he rapidly transferred some valuable ornaments +and rare specimens of gold and silver filigree work from the +centre table to his pockets, and rang the bell for the servants.

III—THE CURSE

Sir Everhard FitzArmond descended the stairway of Oakhurst Castle +and passed out into the avenue that led from the doorway to the +great iron gates of the park. Lord Oakhurst had been a great +sportsman during his life and always kept a well-stocked kennel of +curs, which now rushed out from their hiding places and with loud +yelps sprang upon the physician, burying their fangs in his lower +limbs and seriously damaging his apparel.

Sir Everllard, startled out of his professional dignity and usual +indifference to human suffering, by the personal application of +feeling, gave vent to a most horrible and blighting CURSE and ran +with great swiftness to his carriage and drove off toward the +city.

BEXAR SCRIP NO. 2692

Whenever you visit Austin you should by all means go to see the +General Land Office.

As you pass up the avenue you turn sharp round the corner of the +court house, and on a steep hill before you you see a +mediæval castle.

You think of the Rhine; the "castled crag of Drachenfels"; the +Lorelei; and the vine-clad slopes of Germany. And German it is in +every line of its architecture and design.

The plan was drawn by an old draftsman from the "Vaterland," whose +heart still loved the scenes of his native land, and it is said he +reproduced the design of a certain castle near his birthplace, +with remarkable fidelity.

Under the present administration a new coat of paint has +vulgarized its ancient and venerable walls. Modern tiles have +replaced the limestone slabs of its floors, worn in hollows by the +tread of thousands of feet, and smart and gaudy fixtures have +usurped the place of the time-worn furniture that has been +consecrated by the touch of hands that Texas will never cease to +honor.

But even now, when you enter the building, you lower your voice, +and time turns backward for you, for the atmosphere which you +breathe is cold with the exudation of buried generations.

The building is stone with a coating of concrete; the walls are +immensely thick; it is cool in the summer and warm in the winter; +it is isolated and sombre; standing apart from the other state +buildings, sullen and decaying, brooding on the past.

Twenty years ago it was much the same as now; twenty years from +now the garish newness will be worn off and it will return to its +appearance of gloomy decadence.

People living in other states can form no conception of the +vastness and importance of the work performed and the significance +of the millions of records and papers composing the archives of +this office.

The title deeds, patents, transfers and legal documents connected +with every foot of land owned in the state of Texas are filed +here.

Volumes could be filled with accounts of the knavery, the +double-dealing, the cross purposes, the perjury, the lies, the +bribery, the alteration and erasing, the suppressing and +destroying of papers, the various schemes and plots that for the +sake of the almighty dollar have left their stains upon the +records of the General Land Office.

No reference is made to the employees. No more faithful, competent +and efficient force of men exists in the clerical portions of any +government, but there is—or was, for their day is now over—a +class of land speculators commonly called land sharks, +unscrupulous and greedy, who have left their trail in every +department of this office, in the shape of titles destroyed, +patents cancelled, homes demolished and torn away, forged +transfers and lying affidavits.

Before the modern tiles were laid upon the floors, there were deep +hollows in the limestone slabs, worn by the countless feet that +daily trod uneasily through its echoing corridors, pressing from +file room to business room, from commissioner's sanctum to record +books and back again.

The honest but ignorant settler, bent on saving the little plot of +land he called home, elbowed the wary land shark who was searching +the records for evidence to oust him; the lordly cattle baron, +relying on his influence and money, stood at the Commissioner's +desk side by side with the preëmptor, whose little potato patch +lay like a minute speck of island in the vast, billowy sea, of his +princely pastures, and played the old game of "freeze-out," which +is as old as Cain and Abel.

Honest, earnest men have wrought for generations striving to +disentangle the shameful coil that certain years of fraud and +infamy have wound. Look at the files and see the countless +endorsements of those in authority:

The record books, spread upon long tables, in the big room +upstairs, are open to the examination of all. Open them, and you +will find the dark and greasy finger prints of half a century's +handling. The quick hand of the land grabber has fluttered the +leaves a million times; the damp clutch of the perturbed tiller of +the soil has left traces of his calling on the ragged leaves.

This is a large room, built as a vault, fireproof, and entered by +but a single door.

There is "No Admission" on the portal; and the precious files are +handed out by a clerk in charge only on presentation of an order +signed by the Commissioner or chief clerk.

In years past too much laxity prevailed in its management, and the +files were handled by all comers, simply on their request, and +returned at their will, or not at all.

In these days most of the mischief was done. In the file room, +there are about –––– files, each in +a paper wrapper, and +comprising the title papers of a particular tract of land.

You ask the clerk in charge for the papers relating to any survey +in Texas. They are arranged simply in districts and numbers.

He disappears from the door, you hear the sliding of a tin box, +the lid snaps, and the file is in your hand.

Twenty years ago there was a shrewd land agent living in Austin +who devoted his undoubted talents and vast knowledge of land +titles, and the laws governing them, to the locating of surveys +made by illegal certificates, or improperly made, and otherwise of +no value through non-compliance with the statutes, or whatever +flaws his ingenious and unscrupulous mind could unearth.

He found a fatal defect in the title of the land as on file in +Bexar Scrip No. 2692 and placed a new certificate upon the survey +in his own name.

The certificate by virtue of which the original survey had been +made was missing.

It was not be found in the file, and no memorandum or date on the +wrapper to show that it had ever been filed.

Under the law the land was vacant, unappropriated public domain, +and open to location.

The land was occupied by a widow and her only son, and she +supposed her title good.

The railroad had surveyed a new line through the property, and it +had doubled in value.

Sharp, the land agent, did not communicate with her in any way +until he had filed his papers, rushed his claim through the +departments and into the patent room for patenting.

Then he wrote her a letter, offering her the choice of buying from +him or vacating at once.

One day he was looking through some files and came across the +missing certificate. Some one, probably an employee of the office, +had by mistake, after making some examination, placed it in the +wrong file, and curiously enough another inadvertence, in there +being no record of its filing on the wrapper, had completed the +appearance of its having never been filed.

Sharp called for the file in which it belonged and scrutinized it +carefully, fearing he might have overlooked some endorsement +regarding its return to the office.

On the back of the certificate was plainly endorsed the date of +filing, according to law, and signed by the chief clerk.

If this certificate should be seen by the examining clerk, his own +claim, when it came up for patenting, would not be worth the paper +on which it was written.

Sharp glanced furtively around. A young man, or rather a boy about +eighteen years of age, stood a few feet away regarding him closely +with keen black eyes. Sharp, a little confused, thrust the +certificate into the file where it properly belonged and began +gathering up the other papers.

"A right interesting office, sir!" he said. "I have never been in +here before. All those papers, now, they are about lands, are they +not? The titles and deeds, and such things?"

"This one, now," said the boy, taking up Bexar Scrip No. 2692, +"what land does this represent the title of? Ah, I see 'Six +hundred and forty acres in B–––– country? +Absalom Harris, original +grantee.' Please tell me, I am so ignorant of these things, how +can you tell a good survey from a bad one. I am told that there +are a great many illegal and fraudulent surveys in this office. I +suppose this one is all right?"

"That paper I just saw you place in that file, I suppose is +something else—field notes, or a transfer probably?"

"Yes," said Sharp, hurriedly, "corrected field notes. Excuse me, I +am a little pressed for time."

It would never do to leave the certificate in the file; but he +could not take it out with that inquisitive boy watching him.

He turned to the file room, with a dozen or more files in his +hands, and accidentally dropped part of them on the floor. As he +stooped to pick them up he swiftly thrust Bexar Scrip No. 2692 in +the inside breast pocket of his coat.

This happened at just half-past four o'clock, and when the file +clerk took the files he threw them in a pile in his room, came out +and locked the door.

The boy might have seen him place the file in his pocket, and the +penalty of the law for such an act was very severe.

Some distance back from the file room was the draftsman's room now +entirely vacated by its occupants.

Sharp dropped behind the outgoing stream of men, and slipped slyly +into this room.

The clerks trooped noisily down the iron stairway, singing, +whistling, and talking.

Below, the night watchman awaited their exit, ready to close and +bar the two great doors to the south and cast.

It is his duty to take careful note each day that no one remains +in the building after the hour of closing.

It was his intention to linger until everything was quiet, and +then to remove the certificate from the file, and throw the latter +carelessly on some draftsman's desk as if it had been left there +during the business of the day.

He knew also that he must remove the certificate from the office +or destroy it, as the chance finding of it by a clerk would lead +to its immediately being restored to its proper place, and the +consequent discovery that his location over the old survey was +absolutely worthless.

As he moved cautiously along the stone floor the loud barking of +the little black dog, kept by the watchman, told that his sharp +ears had heard the sounds of his steps.

In all his queer practices and cunning tricks +he had not yet included any act that was downright criminal.

He had always kept on the safe side of the law, +but in the deed he was about to commit there was no +compromise to be made with what little conscience he had left.

The frontiers of one blend with the outside limits of the other, +and he who attempts to tread this dangerous ground may be +sometimes in one domain and sometimes in the other; so the only +safe road is the broad highway that leads straight through and has +been well defined by line and compass.

Sharp was a man of what is called high standing in the community. +That is, his word in a trade was as good as any man's; his check +was as good as so much cash, and so regarded; he went to church +regularly; went in good society and owed no man anything.

He was regarded as a sure winner in any land trade he chose to +make, but that was his occupation.

The act he was about to commit now would place him forever in the +ranks of those who chose evil for their portion—if it was found +out.

More than that, it would rob a widow and her son of property soon +to be of great value, which, if not legally theirs, was theirs +certainly by every claim of justice.

His own survey was in the patent room for patenting. His own title +was about to be perfected by the State's own hand.

He leaned his head on his hands for a moment, and as he did so a +sound behind him caused his heart to leap with guilty fear, but +before he could rise, a hand came over his shoulder and grasped +the file.

He rose quickly, as white as paper, rattling his chair loudly on +the stone floor.

The boy who land spoken to him earlier stood contemplating him +with contemptuous and flashing eyes, and quietly placed the file +in the left breast pocket of his coat.

"So, Mr. Sharp, by nature as well as by name," he said, "it seems +that I was right in waiting behind the door in order to see you +safely out. You will appreciate the pleasure I feel in having done +so when I tell you my name is Harris. My mother owns the land on +which you have filed, and if there is any justice in Texas she +shall hold it. I am not certain, but I think I saw you place a +paper in this file this afternoon, and it is barely possible that +it may be of value to me. I was also impressed with the idea that +you desired to remove it again, but had not the opportunity. +Anyway, I shall keep it until to-morrow and let the Commissioner +decide."

Far back among Mr. Sharp's ancestors there must have been some of +the old berserker blood, for his caution, his presence of mind +left him, and left him possessed of a blind, devilish, unreasoning +rage that showed itself in a moment in the white glitter of his +eye.

"I am no such fool, Mr. Sharp," said the youth. "This file shall +be laid before the Commissioner to-morrow for examination. If he +finds—Help! Help!"

Sharp was upon him like a tiger and bore him to the floor. The boy +was strong and vigorous, but the suddenness of the attack gave him +no chance to resist. He struggled up again to his feet, but it was +an animal, with blazing eyes and cruel-looking teeth that fought +him, instead of a man.

Mr. Sharp, a man of high standing and good report, was battling +for his reputation.

Presently there was a dull sound, and another, and still one more, +and a blade flashing white and then red, and Edward Harris dropped +down like some stuffed effigy of a man, that boys make for sport, +with his limbs all crumpled and lax, on the stone floor of the +Land Office.

The little dog barked at the foot of the stairs until his master +made him come into his room.

Sharp stood there for several minutes holding in his hand his +bloody clasp knife, listening to the cooing of the pigeons on the +roof, and the loud ticking of the clock above the receiver's desk.

A map rustled on the wall and his blood turned to ice; a rat ran +across some strewn papers, and his scalp prickled, and he could +scarcely moisten his dry lips with his tongue.

Between the file room and the draftsman's room there is a door +that opens on a small dark spiral stairway that winds from the +lower floor to the ceiling at the top of the house.

It is unnecessary, inconvenient, dusty, and dark as night, and was +a blunder of the architect who designed the building.

This stairway ends above at the tent-shaped space between the roof +and the joists.

Sharp opened this door and gazed for a moment up this narrow +cobwebbed stairway.

After dark that night a man opened cautiously one of the lower +windows of the Land Office, crept out with great circumspection +and disappeared in the shadows.

One afternoon, a week after this time, Sharp lingered behind again +after the clerks had left and the office closed. The next morning +the first comers noticed a broad mark in the dust on the upstairs +floor, and the same mark was observed below stairs near a window.

It appeared as if some heavy and rather bulky object had been +dragged along through the limestone dust. A memorandum book with +"E. Harris" written on the flyleaf was picked up on the stairs, +but nothing particular was thought of any of these signs.

Circulars and advertisements appeared for a long time in the +papers asking for information concerning Edward Harris, who left +his mother's home on a certain date and had never been heard of +since.

After a while these things were succeeded by affairs of more +recent interest, and faded from the public mind.

Sharp died two years ago, respected and regretted. The last two +years of his life were clouded with a settled melancholy for which +his friends could assign no reason. The bulk of his comfortable +fortune was made from the land he obtained by fraud and crime.

The disappearance of the file was a mystery that created some +commotion in the Land Office, but he got his patent.

It is a well-known tradition in Austin and vicinity that there is +a buried treasure of great value somewhere on the banks of Shoal +Creek, about a mile west of the city.

Three young men living in Austin recently became possessed of what +they thought was a clue of the whereabouts of the treasure, and +Thursday night they repaired to the place after dark and plied the +pickaxe and shovel with great diligence for about three hours.

At the end of that time their efforts were rewarded by the finding +of a box buried about four feet below the surface, which they +hastened to open.

The light of a lantern disclosed to their view the fleshless bones +of a human skeleton with clothing still wrapping its uncanny +limbs.

They immediately left the scene and notified the proper +authorities of their ghastly find.

On closer examination, in the left breast pocket of the skeleton's +coat, there was found a flat, oblong packet of papers, cut through +and through in three places by a knife blade, and so completely +soaked and clotted with blood that it had become an almost +indistinguishable mass.

With the aid of a microscope and the exercise of a little +imagination this much can be made out of the letter; at the top of +the papers:

QUERIES AND ANSWERS

Can you inform me where I +can buy an interest in a newspaper of +some kind? I have some money and would be glad to invest it in +something of the sort, if some one would allow me to put in my +capital against his experience.

Telegraph us your address at once, day message. Keep telegraphing +every ten minutes at our expense until we see you. Will start on +first train after receiving your wire.

This was written by a visitor to the State Saengerfest of 1892 +while conversing with a member who had just eaten a large slice of +limburger cheese.

Please state what the seven +wonders of the world are. I know five +of them, I think, but can't find out the other two.

The Temple of Diana, at Lexington, Ky.; the Great Wall of China; +Judge Von Rosenberg (the Colossus of Roads); the Hanging Gardens +at Albany; a San Antonio Sunday school; Mrs. Frank Leslie, and the +Populist party.

What does he mean by what? If he takes you by the arm and tells +you how much you are like a brother of his in Richmond, he means +Feel For Your Vest, for he wants to borrow a five. If he holds his +head high and don't speak to you on the street he means that he +already owes you ten and is Following a Fresh Victim.

Please decide a bet for us. +My friend says that the sentence, "The +negro bought the watermelon of the farmer" is correct, and I +say it should be "The negro bought the watermelon from the farmer." +Which is correct?

Do you know where I can +trade a section of fine Panhandle land for a pair of pants with +a good title?

We do not. You can't raise anything on land in that section. A man +can always raise a dollar on a good pair of pants.

Well, the Galveston News runs about second, and the San +Antonio Express third. Let us hear from you again.

Hush, Mr. Prospector. Not quite so loud, if you please. Come up to +the office some afternoon, and if everything seems quiet, come +inside, and look at our eye, and our suspenders hanging on to one +button, and feel the lump on the top of our head. Yes, she has +some rights of her own, and everybody else's she can scoop in.

Who was the author of the +sayings, "A public office is a public +trust," and "I would rather be right than President"?

Is the Lakeside Improvement +Company making anything out of their own town tract on the lake?

Footnotes

Colophon

Rolling Stones
+ was published in YEAR by
+ O. Henry.

This ebook was produced for the
+ Standard Ebooks project
+ by
+ PRODUCER,
+ and is based on a transcription produced in 2003 by
+ TRANSCRIBER_1, TRANSCRIBER_2, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+ for
+ Project Gutenberg
+ and on digital scans available at the
+ Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
+ PAINTING,
+ a painting completed in YEAR by
+ ARTIST.
+ The cover and title pages feature the
+ League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
+ typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
+ The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
+ January 1, 1900, 12:00 a.m.
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+

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INTRODUCTION