Add word joiners before and after hair spaces that precede horizontal ellipses
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Alex Cabal
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@ -49,7 +49,7 @@
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<p>“Don’t be in a hurry, Garvey,” he said, his face crimson and his speech thick. “I accept your p-p-proposition, though it’s dirt cheap at two hundred. A t-trade’s all right when both p-purchaser and b-buyer are s-satisfied. Shall I w-wrap it up for you, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Garvey?”</p>
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<p>Garvey rose, and shook out his broadcloth. “Missis Garvey will be pleased. You air out of it, and it stands Coltrane and Garvey. Just a scrap ov writin’, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree, you bein’ a lawyer, to show we traded.”</p>
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<p>Goree seized a sheet of paper and a pen. The money was clutched in his moist hand. Everything else suddenly seemed to grow trivial and light.</p>
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<p>“Bill of sale, by all means. ‘Right, title, and interest in and to’ … ‘forever warrant and—’ No, Garvey, we’ll have to leave out that ‘defend,’ ” said Goree with a loud laugh. “You’ll have to defend this title yourself.”</p>
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<p>“Bill of sale, by all means. ‘Right, title, and interest in and to’ … ‘forever warrant and—’ No, Garvey, we’ll have to leave out that ‘defend,’ ” said Goree with a loud laugh. “You’ll have to defend this title yourself.”</p>
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<p>The mountaineer received the amazing screed that the lawyer handed him, folded it with immense labour, and laced it carefully in his pocket.</p>
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<p>Goree was standing near the window. “Step here,” he said, raising his finger, “and I’ll show you your recently purchased enemy. There he goes, down the other side of the street.”</p>
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<p>The mountaineer crooked his long frame to look through the window in the direction indicated by the other. Colonel Abner Coltrane, an erect, portly gentleman of about fifty, wearing the inevitable long, double-breasted frock coat of the Southern lawmaker, and an old high silk hat, was passing on the opposite sidewalk. As Garvey looked, Goree glanced at his face. If there be such a thing as a yellow wolf, here was its counterpart. Garvey snarled as his unhuman eyes followed the moving figure, disclosing long, amber-coloured fangs.</p>
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@ -62,7 +62,7 @@
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<p>“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?”</p>
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<p>“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.”</p>
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<p>I felt a slow flush creeping into my face.</p>
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<p>“I thought …” I stammered; “I was hoping … that is … Oh, well, of course an absolutely original conception in fiction is impossible in these days.”</p>
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<p>“I thought …” I stammered; “I was hoping … that is … Oh, well, of course an absolutely original conception in fiction is impossible in these days.”</p>
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<p>“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 ⸻.”<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-7" id="noteref-7" epub:type="noteref">7</a></p>
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<p>“You will fail this time,” I said, emphatically.</p>
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<p>“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.”</p>
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@ -57,7 +57,7 @@
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<p>“Say!” he remarked, with uncertain utterance; “come and have a drink with us.”</p>
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<p>“Thank you, but I never drink. I find that alcohol, even in the smallest quantities, alters the perspective. And I must preserve my perspective, for I am studying the Bowery. I have lived in it nearly thirty years, and I am just beginning to understand its heartbeats. It is like a great river fed by a hundred alien streams. Each influx brings strange seeds on its flood, strange silt and weeds, and now and then a flower of rare promise. To construe this river requires a man who can build dykes against the overflow, who is a naturalist, a geologist, a humanitarian, a diver and a strong swimmer. I love my Bowery. It was my cradle and is my inspiration. I have published one book. The critics have been kind. I put my heart in it. I am writing another, into which I hope to put both heart and brain. Consider me your guide, gentlemen. Is there anything I can take you to see, any place to which I can conduct you?”</p>
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<p>I was afraid to look at Rivington except with one eye.</p>
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<p>“Thanks,” said Rivington. “We were looking up … that is … my friend … confound it; it’s against all precedent, you know … awfully obliged … just the same.”</p>
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<p>“Thanks,” said Rivington. “We were looking up … that is … my friend … confound it; it’s against all precedent, you know … awfully obliged … just the same.”</p>
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<p>“In case,” said our friend, “you would like to meet some of our Bowery young men I would be pleased to have you visit the quarters of our East Side Kappa Delta Phi Society, only two blocks east of here.”</p>
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<p>“Awfully sorry,” said Rivington, “but my friend’s got me on the jump tonight. He’s a terror when he’s out after local colour. Now, there’s nothing I would like better than to drop in at the Kappa Delta Phi, but—some other time!”</p>
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<p>We said our farewells and boarded a home-bound car. We had a rabbit on upper Broadway, and then I parted with Rivington on a street corner.</p>
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@ -58,7 +58,7 @@
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<p>“Some letters just came,” said Adkins. “I thought you might like to glance at them before you go.”</p>
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<p>Let us look over his shoulder and read just a few lines of one of them:</p>
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<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
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<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">My Dear, Dear Husband</span>: Just received your letter ordering us to stay another month. … Rita’s cough is almost gone. … Johnny has simply gone wild like a little Indian … Will be the making of both children … work so hard, and I know that your business can hardly afford to keep us here so long … best man that ever … you always pretend that you like the city in summer … trout fishing that you used to be so fond of … and all to keep us well and happy … come to you if it were not doing the babies so much good. … I stood last evening on Chimney Rock in exactly the same spot where I was when you put the wreath of roses on my head … through all the world … when you said you would be my true knight … fifteen years ago, dear, just think! … have always been that to me … ever and ever,</p>
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<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">My Dear, Dear Husband</span>: Just received your letter ordering us to stay another month. … Rita’s cough is almost gone. … Johnny has simply gone wild like a little Indian … Will be the making of both children … work so hard, and I know that your business can hardly afford to keep us here so long … best man that ever … you always pretend that you like the city in summer … trout fishing that you used to be so fond of … and all to keep us well and happy … come to you if it were not doing the babies so much good. … I stood last evening on Chimney Rock in exactly the same spot where I was when you put the wreath of roses on my head … through all the world … when you said you would be my true knight … fifteen years ago, dear, just think! … have always been that to me … ever and ever,</p>
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<footer>
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<p epub:type="z3998:signature">Mary.</p>
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</footer>
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@ -60,7 +60,7 @@
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<p>At another desk the eye is relieved by the sight of an ordinary man, attired with unscrupulous plainness, sitting with his feet up, eating apples, with his obnoxious hat on the back of his head. That man is no other than Colonel Tecumseh (once “Parleyvoo”) Pickens, the vice-president of the company.</p>
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<p>“No recherché rags for me,” I says to Atterbury, when we was organizing the stage properties of the robbery. “I’m a plain man,” says I, “and I do not use pajamas, French, or military hairbrushes. Cast me for the role of the rhinestone-in-the-rough or I don’t go on exhibition. If you can use me in my natural, though displeasing form, do so.”</p>
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<p>“Dress you up?” says Atterbury; “I should say not! Just as you are you’re worth more to the business than a whole roomful of the things they pin chrysanthemums on. You’re to play the part of the solid but disheveled capitalist from the Far West. You despise the conventions. You’ve got so many stocks you can afford to shake socks. Conservative, homely, rough, shrewd, saving—that’s your pose. It’s a winner in New York. Keep your feet on the desk and eat apples. Whenever anybody comes in eat an apple. Let ’em see you stuff the peelings in a drawer of your desk. Look as economical and rich and rugged as you can.”</p>
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<p>I followed out Atterbury’s instructions. I played the Rocky Mountain capitalist without ruching or frills. The way I deposited apple peelings to my credit in a drawer when any customers came in made Hetty Green look like a spendthrift. I could hear Atterbury saying to victims, as he smiled at me, indulgent and venerating, “That’s our vice-president, Colonel Pickens … fortune in Western investments … delightfully plain manners, but … could sign his check for half a million … simple as a child … wonderful head … conservative and careful almost to a fault.”</p>
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<p>I followed out Atterbury’s instructions. I played the Rocky Mountain capitalist without ruching or frills. The way I deposited apple peelings to my credit in a drawer when any customers came in made Hetty Green look like a spendthrift. I could hear Atterbury saying to victims, as he smiled at me, indulgent and venerating, “That’s our vice-president, Colonel Pickens … fortune in Western investments … delightfully plain manners, but … could sign his check for half a million … simple as a child … wonderful head … conservative and careful almost to a fault.”</p>
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<p>Atterbury managed the business. Me and Buck never quite understood all of it, though he explained it to us in full. It seems the company was a kind of cooperative one, and everybody that bought stock shared in the profits. First, we officers bought up a controlling interest—we had to have that—of the shares at 50 cents a hundred—just what the printer charged us—and the rest went to the public at a dollar each. The company guaranteed the stockholders a profit of ten percent each month, payable on the last day thereof.</p>
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<p>When any stockholder had paid in as much as $100, the company issued him a Gold Bond and he became a bondholder. I asked Atterbury one day what benefits and appurtenances these Gold Bonds was to an investor more so than the immunities and privileges enjoyed by the common sucker who only owned stock. Atterbury picked up one of them Gold Bonds, all gilt and lettered up with flourishes and a big red seal tied with a blue ribbon in a bowknot, and he looked at me like his feelings was hurt.</p>
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<p>“My dear Colonel Pickens,” says he, “you have no soul for Art. Think of a thousand homes made happy by possessing one of these beautiful gems of the lithographer’s skill! Think of the joy in the household where one of these Gold Bonds hangs by a pink cord to the whatnot, or is chewed by the baby, caroling gleefully upon the floor! Ah, I see your eye growing moist, Colonel—I have touched you, have I not?”</p>
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@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
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<p>Piggy was to call for her at seven. While she swiftly makes ready, let us discreetly face the other way and gossip.</p>
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<p>For the room, Dulcie paid two dollars per week. On weekdays her breakfast cost ten cents; she made coffee and cooked an egg over the gaslight while she was dressing. On Sunday mornings she feasted royally on veal chops and pineapple fritters at “Billy’s” restaurant, at a cost of twenty-five cents—and tipped the waitress ten cents. New York presents so many temptations for one to run into extravagance. She had her lunches in the department-store restaurant at a cost of sixty cents for the week; dinners were $1.05. The evening papers—show me a New Yorker going without his daily paper!—came to six cents; and two Sunday papers—one for the personal column and the other to read—were ten cents. The total amounts to $4.76. Now, one has to buy clothes, and—</p>
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<p>I give it up. I hear of wonderful bargains in fabrics, and of miracles performed with needle and thread; but I am in doubt. I hold my pen poised in vain when I would add to Dulcie’s life some of those joys that belong to woman by virtue of all the unwritten, sacred, natural, inactive ordinances of the equity of heaven. Twice she had been to Coney Island and had ridden the hobbyhorses. ’Tis a weary thing to count your pleasures by summers instead of by hours.</p>
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<p>Piggy needs but a word. When the girls named him, an undeserving stigma was cast upon the noble family of swine. The words-of-three-letters lesson in the old blue spelling book begins with Piggy’s biography. He was fat; he had the soul of a rat, the habits of a bat, and the magnanimity of a cat … He wore expensive clothes; and was a connoisseur in starvation. He could look at a shop-girl and tell you to an hour how long it had been since she had eaten anything more nourishing than marshmallows and tea. He hung about the shopping districts, and prowled around in department stores with his invitations to dinner. Men who escort dogs upon the streets at the end of a string look down upon him. He is a type; I can dwell upon him no longer; my pen is not the kind intended for him; I am no carpenter.</p>
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<p>Piggy needs but a word. When the girls named him, an undeserving stigma was cast upon the noble family of swine. The words-of-three-letters lesson in the old blue spelling book begins with Piggy’s biography. He was fat; he had the soul of a rat, the habits of a bat, and the magnanimity of a cat … He wore expensive clothes; and was a connoisseur in starvation. He could look at a shop-girl and tell you to an hour how long it had been since she had eaten anything more nourishing than marshmallows and tea. He hung about the shopping districts, and prowled around in department stores with his invitations to dinner. Men who escort dogs upon the streets at the end of a string look down upon him. He is a type; I can dwell upon him no longer; my pen is not the kind intended for him; I am no carpenter.</p>
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<p>At ten minutes to seven Dulcie was ready. She looked at herself in the wrinkly mirror. The reflection was satisfactory. The dark blue dress, fitting without a wrinkle, the hat with its jaunty black feather, the but-slightly-soiled gloves—all representing self-denial, even of food itself—were vastly becoming.</p>
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<p>Dulcie forgot everything else for a moment except that she was beautiful, and that life was about to lift a corner of its mysterious veil for her to observe its wonders. No gentleman had ever asked her out before. Now she was going for a brief moment into the glitter and exalted show.</p>
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<p>The girls said that Piggy was a “spender.” There would be a grand dinner, and music, and splendidly dressed ladies to look at, and things to eat that strangely twisted the girls’ jaws when they tried to tell about them. No doubt she would be asked out again. There was a blue pongee suit in a window that she knew—by saving twenty cents a week instead of ten, in—let’s see—Oh, it would run into years! But there was a secondhand store in Seventh Avenue where—</p>
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@ -43,7 +43,7 @@
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<p>They were silent for some minutes. Norah shivered, and thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket. Lorison uttered a remorseful exclamation.</p>
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<p>“I’m not cold,” she said. “I was just thinking. I ought to tell you something. You have selected a strange confidante. But you cannot expect a chance acquaintance, picked up in a doubtful restaurant, to be an angel.”</p>
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<p>“Norah!” cried Lorison.</p>
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<p>“Let me go on. You have told me about yourself. We have been such good friends. I must tell you now what I never wanted you to know. I am—worse than you are. I was on the stage … I sang in the chorus … I was pretty bad, I guess … I stole diamonds from the prima donna … they arrested me … I gave most of them up, and they let me go … I drank wine every night … a great deal … I was very wicked, but—”</p>
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<p>“Let me go on. You have told me about yourself. We have been such good friends. I must tell you now what I never wanted you to know. I am—worse than you are. I was on the stage … I sang in the chorus … I was pretty bad, I guess … I stole diamonds from the prima donna … they arrested me … I gave most of them up, and they let me go … I drank wine every night … a great deal … I was very wicked, but—”</p>
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<p>Lorison knelt quickly by her side and took her hands.</p>
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<p>“Dear Norah!” he said, exultantly. “It is you, it is you I love! You never guessed it, did you? ’Tis you I meant all the time. Now I can speak. Let me make you forget the past. We have both suffered; let us shut out the world, and live for each other. Norah, do you hear me say I love you?”</p>
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<p>“In spite of—”</p>
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@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
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<p>It was a scene set for the land of the lotus. The authority of the sea and the tropics, the mystery that attends unknown sails, and the prestige of drifting music on moonlit waters gave it an anodynous charm. Johnny Atwood felt it, and thought of Dalesburg; but as soon as Keogh’s mind had arrived at a theory concerning the peripatetic solo he sprang to the railing, and his ear-rending yawp fractured the silence of Coralio like a cannon shot.</p>
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<p>“Mel-lin-ger a-hoy!”</p>
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<p>The sloop was now on its outward tack; but from it came a clear, answering hail:</p>
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<p>“Goodbye, Billy … going home—bye!”</p>
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<p>“Goodbye, Billy … going home—bye!”</p>
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<p>The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Andador</i> was the sloop’s destination. No doubt some passenger with a sailing permit from some up-the-coast point had come down in this sloop to catch the regular fruit steamer on its return trip. Like a coquettish pigeon the little boat tacked on its eccentric way until at last its white sail was lost to sight against the larger bulk of the fruiter’s side.</p>
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<p>“That’s old <abbr class="name">H. P.</abbr> Mellinger,” explained Keogh, dropping back into his chair. “He’s going back to New York. He was private secretary of the late hotfoot president of this grocery and fruit stand that they call a country. His job’s over now; and I guess old Mellinger is glad.”</p>
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<p>“Why does he disappear to music, like Zo-zo, the magic queen?” asked Johnny. “Just to show ’em that he doesn’t care?”</p>
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<p>I wish I could stop this story here. Confound it! I will. No; it’s got to run it out. I didn’t make it up. I’m just repeating it.</p>
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<p>I’d like to throw bouquets at the wise cop, and the lady who rescues Girls from Jobs, and the prohibitionist who is trying to crush brandy balls, and the sky pilot who objects to costumes for stage people (there are others), and all the thousands of good people who are at work protecting young people from the pitfalls of a great city; and then wind up by pointing out how they were the means of Elsie reaching her father’s benefactor and her kind friend and rescuer from poverty. This would make a fine Elsie story of the old sort. I’d like to do this; but there’s just a word or two to follow.</p>
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<p>While Elsie was admiring herself in the mirror, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Otter went to the telephone booth and called up some number. Don’t ask me what it was.</p>
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<p>“Oscar,” said he, “I want you to reserve the same table for me this evening. … What? Why, the one in the Moorish room to the left of the shrubbery. … Yes; two. … Yes, the usual brand; and the ’85 Johannisburger with the roast. If it isn’t the right temperature I’ll break your neck. … No; not her … No, indeed … A new one—a peacherino, Oscar, a peacherino!”</p>
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<p>“Oscar,” said he, “I want you to reserve the same table for me this evening. … What? Why, the one in the Moorish room to the left of the shrubbery. … Yes; two. … Yes, the usual brand; and the ’85 Johannisburger with the roast. If it isn’t the right temperature I’ll break your neck. … No; not her … No, indeed … A new one—a peacherino, Oscar, a peacherino!”</p>
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<p>Tired and tiresome reader, I will conclude, if you please, with a paraphrase of a few words that you will remember were written by him—by him of Gad’s Hill, before whom, if you doff not your hat, you shall stand with a covered pumpkin—aye, sir, a pumpkin.</p>
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<p>Lost, Your Excellency. Lost Associations and Societies. Lost, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Lost, Reformers and Lawmakers, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts, but with the reverence of money in your souls. And lost thus around us every day.</p>
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</article>
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<p>“ ‘I seem to perceive,’ says I, ‘a kind of hiatus in the agrarian traditions in which heretofore, I have reposed confidence.’</p>
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<p>“ ‘Sure, Bunk,’ says he. ‘The yellow primrose on the river’s brim is getting to look to us Reubs like a holiday edition de luxe of the Language of Flowers with deckle edges and frontispiece.’</p>
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<p>“Just then the telephone calls him again.</p>
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<p>“ ‘Hello, hello!’ says he. ‘Oh, that’s Perkins, at Milldale. I told you $800 was too much for that horse. Have you got him there? Good. Let me see him. Get away from the transmitter. Now make him trot in a circle. Faster. Yes, I can hear him. Keep on—faster yet. … That’ll do. Now lead him up to the phone. Closer. Get his nose nearer. There. Now wait. No; I don’t want that horse. What? No; not at any price. He interferes; and he’s windbroken. Goodbye.’</p>
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<p>“ ‘Hello, hello!’ says he. ‘Oh, that’s Perkins, at Milldale. I told you $800 was too much for that horse. Have you got him there? Good. Let me see him. Get away from the transmitter. Now make him trot in a circle. Faster. Yes, I can hear him. Keep on—faster yet. … That’ll do. Now lead him up to the phone. Closer. Get his nose nearer. There. Now wait. No; I don’t want that horse. What? No; not at any price. He interferes; and he’s windbroken. Goodbye.’</p>
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<p>“ ‘Now, Bunk,’ says the farmer, ‘do you begin to realize that agriculture has had a hair cut? You belong in a bygone era. Why, Tom Lawson himself knows better than to try to catch an up-to-date agriculturalist napping. It’s Saturday, the Fourteenth, on the farm, you bet. Now, look here, and see how we keep up with the day’s doings.’</p>
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<p>“He shows me a machine on a table with two things for your ears like the penny-in-the-slot affairs. I puts it on and listens. A female voice starts up reading headlines of murders, accidents and other political casualities.</p>
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<p>“ ‘What you hear,’ says the farmer, ‘is a synopsis of today’s news in the New York, Chicago, <abbr>St.</abbr> Louis and San Francisco papers. It is wired in to our Rural News Bureau and served hot to subscribers. On this table you see the principal dailies and weeklies of the country. Also a special service of advance sheets of the monthly magazines.’</p>
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<p>“Well, I don’t know,” said Woods, reflecting. “Some of the papers have done good work in that line. There’s the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Morning Mars</i>, for instance. It warmed up two or three trails, and got the man after the police had let ’em get cold.”</p>
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<p>“I’ll show you,” said Kernan, rising, and expanding his chest. “I’ll show you what I think of newspapers in general, and your <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Morning Mars</i> in particular.”</p>
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<p>Three feet from their table was the telephone booth. Kernan went inside and sat at the instrument, leaving the door open. He found a number in the book, took down the receiver and made his demand upon Central. Woods sat still, looking at the sneering, cold, vigilant face waiting close to the transmitter, and listened to the words that came from the thin, truculent lips curved into a contemptuous smile.</p>
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<p>“That the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Morning Mars</i>? … I want to speak to the managing editor … Why, tell him it’s someone who wants to talk to him about the Norcross murder.</p>
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<p>“You the editor? … All right … I am the man who killed old Norcross … Wait! Hold the wire; I’m not the usual crank … Oh, there isn’t the slightest danger. I’ve just been discussing it with a detective friend of mine. I killed the old man at 2:30 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> two weeks ago tomorrow … Have a drink with you? Now, hadn’t you better leave that kind of talk to your funny man? Can’t you tell whether a man’s guying you or whether you’re being offered the biggest scoop your dull dishrag of a paper ever had? … Well, that’s so; it’s a bobtail scoop—but you can hardly expect me to phone in my name and address … Why? Oh, because I heard you make a specialty of solving mysterious crimes that stump the police … No, that’s not all. I want to tell you that your rotten, lying, penny sheet is of no more use in tracking an intelligent murderer or highwayman than a blind poodle would be … What? … Oh, no, this isn’t a rival newspaper office; you’re getting it straight. I did the Norcross job, and I’ve got the jewels in my suitcase at—‘the name of the hotel could not be learned’—you recognize that phrase, don’t you? I thought so. You’ve used it often enough. Kind of rattles you, doesn’t it, to have the mysterious villain call up your great, big, all-powerful organ of right and justice and good government and tell you what a helpless old gasbag you are? … Cut that out; you’re not that big a fool—no, you don’t think I’m a fraud. I can tell it by your voice … Now, listen, and I’ll give you a pointer that will prove it to you. Of course you’ve had this murder case worked over by your staff of bright young blockheads. Half of the second button on old <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Norcross’s nightgown is broken off. I saw it when I took the garnet ring off her finger. I thought it was a ruby … Stop that! it won’t work.”</p>
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<p>“That the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Morning Mars</i>? … I want to speak to the managing editor … Why, tell him it’s someone who wants to talk to him about the Norcross murder.</p>
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<p>“You the editor? … All right … I am the man who killed old Norcross … Wait! Hold the wire; I’m not the usual crank … Oh, there isn’t the slightest danger. I’ve just been discussing it with a detective friend of mine. I killed the old man at 2:30 <abbr class="time">a.m.</abbr> two weeks ago tomorrow … Have a drink with you? Now, hadn’t you better leave that kind of talk to your funny man? Can’t you tell whether a man’s guying you or whether you’re being offered the biggest scoop your dull dishrag of a paper ever had? … Well, that’s so; it’s a bobtail scoop—but you can hardly expect me to phone in my name and address … Why? Oh, because I heard you make a specialty of solving mysterious crimes that stump the police … No, that’s not all. I want to tell you that your rotten, lying, penny sheet is of no more use in tracking an intelligent murderer or highwayman than a blind poodle would be … What? … Oh, no, this isn’t a rival newspaper office; you’re getting it straight. I did the Norcross job, and I’ve got the jewels in my suitcase at—‘the name of the hotel could not be learned’—you recognize that phrase, don’t you? I thought so. You’ve used it often enough. Kind of rattles you, doesn’t it, to have the mysterious villain call up your great, big, all-powerful organ of right and justice and good government and tell you what a helpless old gasbag you are? … Cut that out; you’re not that big a fool—no, you don’t think I’m a fraud. I can tell it by your voice … Now, listen, and I’ll give you a pointer that will prove it to you. Of course you’ve had this murder case worked over by your staff of bright young blockheads. Half of the second button on old <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Norcross’s nightgown is broken off. I saw it when I took the garnet ring off her finger. I thought it was a ruby … Stop that! it won’t work.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Kernan turned to Woods with a diabolic smile.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve got him going. He believes me now. He didn’t quite cover the transmitter with his hand when he told somebody to call up Central on another phone and get our number. I’ll give him just one more dig, and then we’ll make a ‘getaway.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello! … Yes. I’m here yet. You didn’t think I’d run from such a little subsidized, turncoat rag of a newspaper, did you? … Have me inside of forty-eight hours? Say, will you quit being funny? Now, you let grown men alone and attend to your business of hunting up divorce cases and streetcar accidents and printing the filth and scandal that you make your living by. Goodbye, old boy—sorry I haven’t time to call on you. I’d feel perfectly safe in your sanctum asinorum. Tra-la!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello! … Yes. I’m here yet. You didn’t think I’d run from such a little subsidized, turncoat rag of a newspaper, did you? … Have me inside of forty-eight hours? Say, will you quit being funny? Now, you let grown men alone and attend to your business of hunting up divorce cases and streetcar accidents and printing the filth and scandal that you make your living by. Goodbye, old boy—sorry I haven’t time to call on you. I’d feel perfectly safe in your sanctum asinorum. Tra-la!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’s as mad as a cat that’s lost a mouse,” said Kernan, hanging up the receiver and coming out. “And now, Barney, my boy, we’ll go to a show and enjoy ourselves until a reasonable bedtime. Four hours’ sleep for me, and then the westbound.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The two dined in a Broadway restaurant. Kernan was pleased with himself. He spent money like a prince of fiction. And then a weird and gorgeous musical comedy engaged their attention. Afterward there was a late supper in a grillroom, with champagne, and Kernan at the height of his complacency.</p>
|
||||
<p>Half-past three in the morning found them in a corner of an all-night café, Kernan still boasting in a vapid and rambling way, Woods thinking moodily over the end that had come to his usefulness as an upholder of the law.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -53,7 +53,7 @@
|
||||
<p>At this he seized my coat, grovelled upon my desk, and burst again into distressful weeping. Whatever it was about, I said to myself that his grief was genuine.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Come now, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ader,” I said, soothingly; “what is the matter?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The answer came brokenly through his racking sobs:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Because I would not … let the poor Christ … rest … upon the step.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Because I would not … let the poor Christ … rest … upon the step.”</p>
|
||||
<p>His hallucination seemed beyond all reasonable answer; yet the effect of it upon him scarcely merited disrespect. But I knew nothing that might assuage it; and I told him once more that both of us should be leaving the office at once.</p>
|
||||
<p>Obedient at last, he raised himself from my dishevelled desk, and permitted me to half lift him to the floor. The gale of his grief had blown away his words; his freshet of tears had soaked away the crust of his grief. Reminiscence died in him—at least, the coherent part of it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Twas me that did it,” he muttered, as I led him toward the door—“me, the shoemaker of Jerusalem.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Oh, see!” exclaimed Miss Lydia, nudging his arm, and pointing to her programme.</p>
|
||||
<p>The major put on his glasses and read the line in the cast of characters that her finger indicated.</p>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Col.</abbr> Webster Calhoun. … <abbr class="name">H.</abbr> Hopkins Hargraves.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Col.</abbr> Webster Calhoun. … <abbr class="name">H.</abbr> Hopkins Hargraves.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>“It’s our <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Hargraves,” said Miss Lydia. “It must be his first appearance in what he calls ‘the legitimate.’ I’m so glad for him.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Not until the second act did Col. Webster Calhoun appear upon the stage. When he made his entry Major Talbot gave an audible sniff, glared at him, and seemed to freeze solid. Miss Lydia uttered a little, ambiguous squeak and crumpled her programme in her hand. For Colonel Calhoun was made up as nearly resembling Major Talbot as one pea does another. The long, thin white hair, curly at the ends, the aristocratic beak of a nose, the crumpled, wide, ravelling shirt front, the string tie, with the bow nearly under one ear, were almost exactly duplicated. And then, to clinch the imitation, he wore the twin to the major’s supposed to be unparalleled coat. High-collared, baggy, empire-waisted, ample-skirted, hanging a foot lower in front than behind, the garment could have been designed from no other pattern. From then on, the major and Miss Lydia sat bewitched, and saw the counterfeit presentment of a haughty Talbot “dragged,” as the major afterward expressed it, “through the slanderous mire of a corrupt stage.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
|
||||
<p>There is no coign of vantage more effective than the position of young lady cashier. She sits there, easily queen of the court of commerce; she is duchess of dollars and devoirs, countess of compliments and coin, leading lady of love and luncheon. You take from her a smile and a Canadian dime, and you go your way uncomplaining. You count the cheery word or two that she tosses you as misers count their treasures; and you pocket the change for a five uncomputed. Perhaps the brassbound inaccessibility multiplies her charms—anyhow, she is a shirt-waisted angel, immaculate, trim, manicured, seductive, bright-eyed, ready, alert—Psyche, Circe, and Ate in one, separating you from your circulating medium after your sirloin medium.</p>
|
||||
<p>The young men who broke bread at Hinkle’s never settled with the cashier without an exchange of badinage and open compliment. Many of them went to greater lengths and dropped promissory hints of theatre tickets and chocolates. The older men spoke plainly of orange blossoms, generally withering the tentative petals by after-allusions to Harlem flats. One broker, who had been squeezed by copper proposed to Miss Merriam more regularly than he ate.</p>
|
||||
<p>During a brisk luncheon hour Miss Merriam’s conversation, while she took money for checks, would run something like this:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Good morning, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Haskins—sir?—it’s natural, thank you—don’t be quite so fresh … Hello, Johnny—ten, fifteen, twenty—chase along now or they’ll take the letters off your cap … Beg pardon—count it again, please—Oh, don’t mention it … Vaudeville?—thanks; not on your moving picture—I was to see Carter in Hedda Gabler on Wednesday night with <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Simmons … ’Scuse me, I thought that was a quarter … Twenty-five and seventy-five’s a dollar—got that ham-and-cabbage habit yet. I see, Billy … Who are you addressing?—say—you’ll get all that’s coming to you in a minute … Oh, fudge! <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bassett—you’re always fooling—no—? Well, maybe I’ll marry you some day—three, four and sixty-five is five … Kindly keep them remarks to yourself, if you please … Ten cents?—‘scuse me; the check calls for seventy—well, maybe it is a one instead of a seven … Oh, do you like it that way, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Saunders?—some prefer a pomp; but they say this Cleo de Merody does suit refined features … and ten is fifty … Hike along there, buddy; don’t take this for a Coney Island ticket booth … Huh?—why, Macy’s—don’t it fit nice? Oh, no, it isn’t too cool—these lightweight fabrics is all the go this season … Come again, please—that’s the third time you’ve tried to—what?—forget it—that lead quarter is an old friend of mine … Sixty-five?—must have had your salary raised, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wilson … I seen you on Sixth Avenue Tuesday afternoon, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> De Forest—swell?—oh, my!—who is she? … What’s the matter with it?—why, it ain’t money—what?—Columbian half?—well, this ain’t South America … Yes, I like the mixed best—Friday?—awfully sorry, but I take my jiujitsu lesson on Friday—Thursday, then … Thanks—that’s sixteen times I’ve been told that this morning—I guess I must be beautiful … Cut that out, please—who do you think I am? … Why, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Westbrook—do you really think so?—the idea!—one—eighty and twenty’s a dollar—thank you ever so much, but I don’t ever go automobile riding with gentlemen—your aunt?—well, that’s different—perhaps … Please don’t get fresh—your check was fifteen cents, I believe—kindly step aside and let … Hello, Ben—coming around Thursday evening?—there’s a gentleman going to send around a box of chocolates, and … forty and sixty is a dollar, and one is two …”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Good morning, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Haskins—sir?—it’s natural, thank you—don’t be quite so fresh … Hello, Johnny—ten, fifteen, twenty—chase along now or they’ll take the letters off your cap … Beg pardon—count it again, please—Oh, don’t mention it … Vaudeville?—thanks; not on your moving picture—I was to see Carter in Hedda Gabler on Wednesday night with <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Simmons … ’Scuse me, I thought that was a quarter … Twenty-five and seventy-five’s a dollar—got that ham-and-cabbage habit yet. I see, Billy … Who are you addressing?—say—you’ll get all that’s coming to you in a minute … Oh, fudge! <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bassett—you’re always fooling—no—? Well, maybe I’ll marry you some day—three, four and sixty-five is five … Kindly keep them remarks to yourself, if you please … Ten cents?—‘scuse me; the check calls for seventy—well, maybe it is a one instead of a seven … Oh, do you like it that way, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Saunders?—some prefer a pomp; but they say this Cleo de Merody does suit refined features … and ten is fifty … Hike along there, buddy; don’t take this for a Coney Island ticket booth … Huh?—why, Macy’s—don’t it fit nice? Oh, no, it isn’t too cool—these lightweight fabrics is all the go this season … Come again, please—that’s the third time you’ve tried to—what?—forget it—that lead quarter is an old friend of mine … Sixty-five?—must have had your salary raised, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wilson … I seen you on Sixth Avenue Tuesday afternoon, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> De Forest—swell?—oh, my!—who is she? … What’s the matter with it?—why, it ain’t money—what?—Columbian half?—well, this ain’t South America … Yes, I like the mixed best—Friday?—awfully sorry, but I take my jiujitsu lesson on Friday—Thursday, then … Thanks—that’s sixteen times I’ve been told that this morning—I guess I must be beautiful … Cut that out, please—who do you think I am? … Why, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Westbrook—do you really think so?—the idea!—one—eighty and twenty’s a dollar—thank you ever so much, but I don’t ever go automobile riding with gentlemen—your aunt?—well, that’s different—perhaps … Please don’t get fresh—your check was fifteen cents, I believe—kindly step aside and let … Hello, Ben—coming around Thursday evening?—there’s a gentleman going to send around a box of chocolates, and … forty and sixty is a dollar, and one is two …”</p>
|
||||
<p>About the middle of one afternoon the dizzy goddess Vertigo—whose other name is Fortune—suddenly smote an old, wealthy and eccentric banker while he was walking past Hinkle’s, on his way to a street car. A wealthy and eccentric banker who rides in street cars is—move up, please; there are others.</p>
|
||||
<p>A Samaritan, a Pharisee, a man and a policeman who were first on the spot lifted Banker McRamsey and carried him into Hinkle’s restaurant. When the aged but indestructible banker opened his eyes he saw a beautiful vision bending over him with a pitiful, tender smile, bathing his forehead with beef tea and chafing his hands with something frappé out of a chafing-dish. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McRamsey sighed, lost a vest button, gazed with deep gratitude upon his fair preserveress, and then recovered consciousness.</p>
|
||||
<p>To the Seaside Library all who are anticipating a romance! Banker McRamsey had an aged and respected wife, and his sentiments toward Miss Merriam were fatherly. He talked to her for half an hour with interest—not the kind that went with his talks during business hours. The next day he brought <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McRamsey down to see her. The old couple were childless—they had only a married daughter living in Brooklyn.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -66,7 +66,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“I say it’s tough,” said I, “to drop into the vernacular, that Miss Greene should be deprived of the food she desires—a simple thing like kalsomine-pudding. Perhaps,” I continued, solicitously, “some pickled walnuts or a fricassee of Hungarian butternuts would do as well.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Everyone looked at me with a slight exhibition of curiosity.</p>
|
||||
<p>Louis Devoe arose and made his adieus. I watched him until he had sauntered slowly and grandiosely to the corner, around which he turned to reach his great warehouse and store. Chloe made her excuses, and went inside for a few minutes to attend to some detail affecting the seven-o’clock dinner. She was a passed mistress in housekeeping. I had tasted her puddings and bread with beatitude.</p>
|
||||
<p>When all had gone, I turned casually and saw a basket made of plaited green withes hanging by a nail outside the doorjamb. With a rush that made my hot temples throb there came vividly to my mind recollections of the headhunters—<em>those grim, flinty, relentless little men, never seen, but chilling the warmest noonday by the subtle terror of their concealed presence … From time to time, as vanity or ennui or love or jealousy or ambition may move him, one creeps forth with his snickersnee and takes up the silent trail … Back he comes, triumphant, bearing the severed, gory head of his victim … His particular brown or white maid lingers, with fluttering bosom, casting soft tiger’s eyes at the evidence of his love for her</em>.</p>
|
||||
<p>When all had gone, I turned casually and saw a basket made of plaited green withes hanging by a nail outside the doorjamb. With a rush that made my hot temples throb there came vividly to my mind recollections of the headhunters—<em>those grim, flinty, relentless little men, never seen, but chilling the warmest noonday by the subtle terror of their concealed presence … From time to time, as vanity or ennui or love or jealousy or ambition may move him, one creeps forth with his snickersnee and takes up the silent trail … Back he comes, triumphant, bearing the severed, gory head of his victim … His particular brown or white maid lingers, with fluttering bosom, casting soft tiger’s eyes at the evidence of his love for her</em>.</p>
|
||||
<p>I stole softly from the house and returned to my hut. From its supporting nails in the wall I took a machete as heavy as a butcher’s cleaver and sharper than a safety-razor. And then I chuckled softly to myself, and set out to the fastidiously appointed private office of Monsieur Louis Devoe, usurper to the hand of the Pearl of the Pacific.</p>
|
||||
<p>He was never slow at thinking; he gave one look at my face and another at the weapon in my hand as I entered his door, and then he seemed to fade from my sight. I ran to the back door, kicked it open, and saw him running like a deer up the road toward the wood that began two hundred yards away. I was after him, with a shout. I remember hearing children and women screaming, and seeing them flying from the road.</p>
|
||||
<p>He was fleet, but I was stronger. A mile, and I had almost come up with him. He doubled cunningly and dashed into a brake that extended into a small canyon. I crashed through this after him, and in five minutes had him cornered in an angle of insurmountable cliffs. There his instinct of self-preservation steadied him, as it will steady even animals at bay. He turned to me, quite calm, with a ghastly smile.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -49,7 +49,7 @@
|
||||
<p>She was too weak to light the lamp or to undress. She fell upon the iron cot, her fragile body scarcely hollowing the worn springs. And in that Erebus of the skylight room, she slowly raised her heavy eyelids, and smiled.</p>
|
||||
<p>For Billy Jackson was shining down on her, calm and bright and constant through the skylight. There was no world about her. She was sunk in a pit of blackness, with but that small square of pallid light framing the star that she had so whimsically and oh, so ineffectually named. Miss Longnecker must be right; it was Gamma, of the constellation Cassiopeia, and not Billy Jackson. And yet she could not let it be Gamma.</p>
|
||||
<p>As she lay on her back she tried twice to raise her arm. The third time she got two thin fingers to her lips and blew a kiss out of the black pit to Billy Jackson. Her arm fell back limply.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Goodbye, Billy,” she murmured faintly. “You’re millions of miles away and you won’t even twinkle once. But you kept where I could see you most of the time up there when there wasn’t anything else but darkness to look at, didn’t you? … Millions of miles … Goodbye, Billy Jackson.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Goodbye, Billy,” she murmured faintly. “You’re millions of miles away and you won’t even twinkle once. But you kept where I could see you most of the time up there when there wasn’t anything else but darkness to look at, didn’t you? … Millions of miles … Goodbye, Billy Jackson.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Clara, the coloured maid, found the door locked at 10 the next day, and they forced it open. Vinegar, and the slapping of wrists and burnt feathers proving of no avail, someone ran to phone for an ambulance.</p>
|
||||
<p>In due time it backed up to the door with much gong-clanging, and the capable young medico, in his white linen coat, ready, active, confident, with his smooth face half debonair, half grim, danced up the steps.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ambulance call to 49,” he said briefly. “What’s the trouble?”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -44,7 +44,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Let a paragraphic biography of Girod intervene.</p>
|
||||
<p>Etienne was an opera singer originally, we gathered; but adversity and the snow had made him <i xml:lang="la">non compos vocis</i>. The adversity consisted of the stranded San Salvador Opera Company, a period of hotel second-story work, and then a career as a professional palmist, jumping from town to town. For, like other professional palmists, every time he worked the Heart Line too strongly he immediately moved along the Line of Least Resistance. Though Etienne did not confide this to us, we surmised that he had moved out into the dusk about twenty minutes ahead of a constable, and had thus encountered the snow. In his most sacred blue language he dilated upon the subject of snow; for Etienne was Paris-born and loved the snow with the same passion that an orchid does.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mee-ser-rhable!” commented Etienne, and took another three fingers.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Complete, cast-iron, pussyfooted, blank … blank!” said Ross, and followed suit.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Complete, cast-iron, pussyfooted, blank … blank!” said Ross, and followed suit.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Rotten,” said I.</p>
|
||||
<p>The cook said nothing. He stood in the door weighing our outburst; and insistently from behind that frozen visage I got two messages (via the <abbr class="initialism">M.A.M.</abbr> wireless). One was that George considered our vituperation against the snow childish; the other was that George did not love Dagoes. Inasmuch as Etienne was a Frenchman, I concluded I had the message wrong. So I queried the other: “Bright eyes, you don’t really mean Dagoes, do you?” and over the wireless came three deathly, psychic taps: “Yes.” Then I reflected that to George all foreigners were probably “Dagoes.” I had once known another camp cook who had thought Mons., Sig., and Millie (Trans-Mississippi for <abbr>Mlle.</abbr>) were Italian given names; this cook used to marvel therefore at the paucity of Neo-Roman precognomens, and therefore why not—</p>
|
||||
<p>I have said that snow is a test of men. For one day, two days, Etienne stood at the window, Fletcherizing his finger nails and shrieking and moaning at the monotony. To me, Etienne was just about as unbearable as the snow; and so, seeking relief, I went out on the second day to look at my horse, slipped on a stone, broke my collarbone, and thereafter underwent not the snow test, but the test of flat-on-the-back. A test that comes once too often for any man to stand.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -73,12 +73,12 @@
|
||||
<p>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.</p>
|
||||
<p>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 <i epub:type="se:name.publication.play">Hamlet</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>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 trow so.</p>
|
||||
<p>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 …</p>
|
||||
<p>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 …</p>
|
||||
<p class="editorial">[Page of <abbr class="name">O.</abbr> Henry’s manuscript missing here.]</p>
|
||||
<p>… 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.</p>
|
||||
<p>A giant in shirtsleeves, with a grim, kind face in which many stitches had been taken by surgeons from time to time, <abbr class="initialism">i.e.</abbr>, 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 kettledrum, 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.</p>
|
||||
<p>While the orchestra plays the famous waltz from “The Dismal Wife,” let us bestow two hundred words upon the psychology of the audience.</p>
|
||||
<p>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 tryout 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 …</p>
|
||||
<p>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 tryout 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 …</p>
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<p class="editorial">[Here the manuscript ends.]</p>
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</article>
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</body>
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@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
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<p>But our programme ends with a brief “turn” or two; and then to the exits. Whoever sits the show out may find, if he will, the slender thread that binds together, though ever so slightly, the story that, perhaps, only the Walrus will understand.</p>
|
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<p>Extracts from a letter from the first vice-president of the Republic Insurance Company, of New York City, to Frank Goodwin, of Coralio, Republic of Anchuria.</p>
|
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<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">My Dear <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goodwin</span>:—Your communication per <abbr>Messrs.</abbr> Howland and Fourchet, of New Orleans, has reached us. Also their draft on <abbr class="postal">NY</abbr> for $100,000, the amount abstracted from the funds of this company by the late <abbr class="name">J.</abbr> Churchill Wahrfield, its former president. … The officers and directors unite in requesting me to express to you their sincere esteem and thanks for your prompt and much appreciated return of the entire missing sum within two weeks from the time of its disappearance. … Can assure you that the matter will not be allowed to receive the least publicity. … Regret exceedingly the distressing death of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wahrfield by his own hand, but … Congratulations on your marriage to Miss Wahrfield … many charms, winning manners, noble and womanly nature and envied position in the best metropolitan society …</p>
|
||||
<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">My Dear <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goodwin</span>:—Your communication per <abbr>Messrs.</abbr> Howland and Fourchet, of New Orleans, has reached us. Also their draft on <abbr class="postal">NY</abbr> for $100,000, the amount abstracted from the funds of this company by the late <abbr class="name">J.</abbr> Churchill Wahrfield, its former president. … The officers and directors unite in requesting me to express to you their sincere esteem and thanks for your prompt and much appreciated return of the entire missing sum within two weeks from the time of its disappearance. … Can assure you that the matter will not be allowed to receive the least publicity. … Regret exceedingly the distressing death of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wahrfield by his own hand, but … Congratulations on your marriage to Miss Wahrfield … many charms, winning manners, noble and womanly nature and envied position in the best metropolitan society …</p>
|
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<footer>
|
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<p epub:type="z3998:valediction">Cordially yours,</p>
|
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<p epub:type="z3998:signature z3998:sender">Lucius <abbr class="name">E.</abbr> Applegate</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
|
||||
<p>At first the words of a certain headline of a Sunday newspaper meant nothing to her; they conveyed only a visualized sense of familiarity. The largest type ran thus: “Lloyd <abbr class="name">B.</abbr> Conant secures divorce.” And then the subheadings: “Well-known Saint Louis paint manufacturer wins suit, pleading one year’s absence of wife.” “Her mysterious disappearance recalled.” “Nothing has been heard of her since.”</p>
|
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<p>Twisting herself quickly out of the hammock, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Conant’s eye soon traversed the half-column of the “Recall.” It ended thus: “It will be remembered that <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Conant disappeared one evening in March of last year. It was freely rumoured that her marriage with Lloyd <abbr class="name">B.</abbr> Conant resulted in much unhappiness. Stories were not wanting to the effect that his cruelty toward his wife had more than once taken the form of physical abuse. After her departure a full bottle of tincture of aconite, a deadly poison, was found in a small medicine cabinet in her bedroom. This might have been an indication that she meditated suicide. It is supposed that she abandoned such an intention if she possessed it, and left her home instead.”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Conant slowly dropped the paper, and sat on a chair, clasping her hands tightly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Let me think—O God!—let me think,” she whispered. “I took the bottle with me … I threw it out of the window of the train … I— … there was another bottle in the cabinet … there were two, side by side—the aconite—and the valerian that I took when I could not sleep … If they found the aconite bottle full, why—but, he is alive, of course—I gave him only a harmless dose of valerian … I am not a murderess in fact … Ralph, I—O God, don’t let this be a dream!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Let me think—O God!—let me think,” she whispered. “I took the bottle with me … I threw it out of the window of the train … I— … there was another bottle in the cabinet … there were two, side by side—the aconite—and the valerian that I took when I could not sleep … If they found the aconite bottle full, why—but, he is alive, of course—I gave him only a harmless dose of valerian … I am not a murderess in fact … Ralph, I—O God, don’t let this be a dream!”</p>
|
||||
<p>She went into the part of the house that she rented from the old Peruvian man and his wife, shut the door, and walked up and down her room swiftly and feverishly for half an hour. Merriam’s photograph stood in a frame on a table. She picked it up, looked at it with a smile of exquisite tenderness, and—dropped four tears on it. And Merriam only twenty rods away! Then she stood still for ten minutes, looking into space. She looked into space through a slowly opening door. On her side of the door was the building material for a castle of Romance—love, an Arcady of waving palms, a lullaby of waves on the shore of a haven of rest, respite, peace, a lotus land of dreamy ease and security—a life of poetry and heart’s ease and refuge. Romanticist, will you tell me what <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Conant saw on the other side of the door? You cannot?—that is, you will not? Very well; then listen.</p>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<p>She saw herself go into a department store and buy five spools of silk thread and three yards of gingham to make an apron for the cook. “Shall I charge it, ma’am?” asked the clerk. As she walked out a lady whom she met greeted her cordially. “Oh, where did you get the pattern for those sleeves, dear <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Conant?” she said. At the corner a policeman helped her across the street and touched his helmet. “Any callers?” she asked the maid when she reached home. “<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Waldron,” answered the maid, “and the two Misses Jenkinson.” “Very well,” she said. “You may bring me a cup of tea, Maggie.”</p>
|
||||
|
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