y'
 
 Volume XI
 
 HIS EYES CAUGHT THE OUTLINE OF A GIRL.
 
 THE NOVELS, STORIES 
 AND SKETCHES OF 
 F. HOPKINSON SMITH 
 
 AT CLOSE RANGE 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S 
 SONS j NET YORK j 1905
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY CHARLES SCRIBNKR's SONS 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 TO MY READERS 
 
 ON my writing-table lies a magnifying glass 
 the size of an old watch crystal, which helps me 
 to understand the mechanism of many interest- 
 ing things. With it I decipher at close range 
 such finger-work as the cutting of intaglios, the 
 brush-marks on miniatures, or perhaps the in- 
 tricate fusings of metals in the sword-guard of 
 a Samurai. 
 
 At the same close range I try to search the 
 secret places of the many minds and hearts 
 which in my nomadic life cross my path. In 
 these magnifyings and probings the unexpected 
 is ofttimes revealed : tenderness hiding behind 
 suspected cruelty; refinement under assumed 
 coarseness ; the joy of giving forcing its way 
 through thick crusts of pretended avarice. 
 
 The results confirm my theory, that at the 
 bottom of every heart-crucible choked with 
 life's cinders there can almost always be found 
 a drop of gold. 
 
 F. H. S. 
 
 150 E. 34th Street, New York.
 
 SRL'B 
 URL 1 
 
 HO ' 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A NIGHT OUT 3 
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 34 
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 56 
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE .... 77 
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI ... 99 
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 130 
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 143 
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 167 
 
 A POT OF JAM , 193
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 
 
 HIS EYES CAUGHT THE OUTLINE OF A GIRL 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 HEADS AND ARMS AND LEGS MADE THE PAS- 
 SAGE OF THE AISLE DIFFICULT 8 
 
 RIO GIUSEPPE . . , ... 118
 
 AT CLOSE RANGE
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 THOREAU once spent the whole livelong 
 night in the hush of the wilderness ; sit- 
 ting alone, listening to its sounds, the fall of a 
 nut, the hoot of a distant owl, the ceaseless 
 song of the frogs. 
 
 This night of mine was spent in the open ; 
 where men came and went, and where the rush 
 of many feet and the babel of countless voices 
 could be heard even in its stillest watches. 
 
 In my wanderings up and down the land, 
 speaking first in one city and then in another, 
 often with long distances between, I have had 
 the good fortune to enjoy many such nights. 
 Some of them are filled with the most delight- 
 ful memories of my life. 
 
 The following telegram was handed me as I 
 left the stage of the Opera House in Marshall, 
 Mich., some months ago : 
 
 "Can you speak in Cleveland to-morrow 
 afternoon at 2.30 ? Important. Answer." 
 
 I looked at my watch. It was half-past ten 
 o'clock. Cleveland was two hundred miles
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 away, and the Night Express to Toledo and 
 the East, due in an hour, did not stop at Mar- 
 shall. 
 
 I jumped into a hack, sprang out at the hotel 
 entrance and corralled the clerk as he was leav- 
 ing for the night. For some minutes we pored 
 over a railway guide. This was the result : 
 
 Leave Marshall at 1.40 A. M., make a short 
 run up the road to Battle Creek, stay there 
 until half-past three, then back again through 
 Marshall, without stopping, to Jackson lie 
 over another hour, and so on to Adrian and To- 
 ledo for breakfast, arriving at Cleveland at 1 1 . 30 
 the next morning. An all-night trip, of course, 
 with changes so frequent as to preclude the 
 possibility of sleep, but a perfectly feasible one 
 if the trains made reasonable time and connec- 
 tions. 
 
 This despatch went over the wires in reply : 
 
 "Yes, weather permitting." 
 
 To go upstairs and to bed and to be called in 
 two hours would n't pay for the trouble of un- 
 dressing ; better pick out the warm side of the 
 stove, take two chairs and a paper two days 
 old and kill time until one o'clock. I killed it 
 alone, everybody having gone to sleep but 
 the night porter, who was to telephone for the 
 hack and assist with my luggage. 
 
 4
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 It was a silent night, one of those white, 
 cold, silent nights when everything seems 
 frozen, the people as well as the ground ; no 
 wind, no sounds from barking dogs or tread of 
 hoof or rumble of wheels. A light snow was 
 falling an unnoticed snow, for the porter and 
 I were the only people awake ; at eleven o'clock 
 a few whirling flakes ; at twelve o'clock an inch 
 deep, packed fine as salt, and as hard ; at one 
 o'clock three inches deep, smooth as a sheet and 
 as unbroken ; no furrow of wheels or slur of foot- 
 step. The people might have been in their graves 
 and the snow their winding-shroud. 
 
 " Hack 's ready, sir." This from the porter, 
 rubbing his eyes and stumbling along with my 
 luggage. 
 
 Into the hack again same hack ; it had been 
 driven under the shed, making a night of it, too 
 my trunk with a red band outside with the 
 driver, my fur overcoat and grip inside with me. 
 
 There is nothing princely, now, about this 
 coat ; you would n't be specially proud of it if 
 you could see it just a plain fur overcoat 
 an old friend really and still is. On cold nights 
 I put it next to the frozen side of the car when 
 I am lying in my berth. Often it covers my 
 bed when the thermometer has dropped to zero 
 and below, and I am sleeping with my window 
 
 5
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 up. It has had experiences, too, this fur coat ; 
 a boy went home in it once with a broken leg, 
 and his little sister rode with her arm around 
 him, and once but this is n't the place to tell 
 about it. 
 
 From the hotel to the station the spools of 
 the hack paid out two wabbly parallel threads, 
 stringing them around corners and into narrow 
 streets and out again, so that the team could 
 find its way back, perhaps. 
 
 Another porter now met me not sleepy this 
 time, but very much awake ; a big fellow 
 in a jumper, with a number on his cap, who 
 caught the red-banded trunk by the handle and 
 " yanked " it (admirable word this !) on to the 
 platform, shouting out in the same breath, 
 " Cleveland via Battle Creek no extras ! " 
 
 Then came the shriek of the incoming train 
 a local bound for Battle Creek and beyond. 
 Two cars on this train, a passenger and a 
 smoker. I lugged the fur overcoat and grip up 
 the snow-clogged steps and entered the smoker. 
 No Pullman on these locals, and, of course, no 
 porter, and travellers, therefore, did their own 
 lifting and lugging. 
 
 The view down the perspective of this smoker 
 was like a view across a battle-field, the long 
 slanting lines of smoke telling of the carnage. 
 6
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 Bodies (dead with sleep) were lying in every 
 conceivable position, with legs and arms thrust 
 up as if the victims had died in agony ; some 
 face down; others with gaping mouths and 
 heads hooked across the seats. These heads 
 and arms and legs made the passage of the 
 aisle difficult. One a leg got tangled in my 
 overcoat, and the head belonging to it said with 
 a groan : 
 
 " Where in h are you goin' with that" 
 But I did not stop. I kept on my way to the 
 passenger coach. It was not my fault that no 
 Pullman with a porter attached was run on this 
 local. 
 
 There was no smoke in this coach. Neither 
 was there any heat. There was nothing that 
 could cause it. Something had happened, per- 
 haps to the coupling of the steam hose so that 
 it would n't couple ; or the bottom was out 
 of the hollow mockery called a heater ; or the 
 coal had been held up. Whatever the cause, a 
 freight shed was a palm garden beside it. Nor 
 had it any signs of a battle-field. It looked more 
 like a ward in a hospital with most of the beds 
 empty. Only one or two were occupied ; one 
 by a baby and another by its mother the 
 woman on one seat, her hand across the body 
 of the child, and both fast asleep, one little bare 
 
 7
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 foot peeping out from beneath the shawl that 
 covered the child, like a pink flower a-bloom in 
 a desert. 
 
 I can always get along in a cold car. It is a 
 hot one that incites me to murder the porter or 
 the brakeman. I took off the coat 1 was wear- 
 ing and laid it flat on a seat. Then came a layer 
 of myself with the grip for a pillow, and then a 
 top crust of my old friend. They might have 
 knocked out the end of the car now and I 
 should have been comfortable. Not to sleep 
 forty minutes would n't be of the slightest ser- 
 vice to a night watchman, let alone an all-night 
 traveller but so as to be out of the way of 
 porterless passengers lugging grips. 
 
 The weather now took a hand in the game. 
 The cold grew more intense, creeping stealthily 
 along, blowing its frosty breath on the windows ; 
 so dense on some panes that the lights of the 
 stations no longer shone clear, but were blurred, 
 like lamps in a fog. The incoming passengers 
 felt it and stamped their feet, shedding the snow 
 from their boots. Now and then some traveller, 
 colder than his fellow, stopped at the fraudulent 
 heater to warm his fingers before finding a seat, 
 and, strange to say, passed on satisfied due to 
 his heated imagination, no doubt. 
 
 The blanket of white was now six inches 
 8
 
 HEADS AND ARMS AND LEGS MADE THE PASSAGE OF THE AISLE DIFFICULT.
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 thick, and increasing every minute. The wind 
 was still asleep. 
 
 " Guess we 're in for it," said the conductor 
 to a ticket stuck in the hat of a man seated in 
 front. " I hear No. 6 is stalled chuck-a-block 
 this side of Schoolcraft. We'll make Battle 
 Creek anyway, and as much furder as we can 
 get, but there ain't no tellin' where we '11 bring 
 up." 
 
 I thrust my ticket hand through the crust of 
 my overcoat and the steel nippers perforated the 
 bit of cardboard with a click. I was undisturbed. 
 Battle Creek was where I was to get off ; what 
 became of the train after that was no affair of 
 mine. 
 
 Only one thing worried me as I lay curled 
 up like a cocoon. Was there a hotel at Battle 
 Creek within reasonable distance (walking, of 
 course ; no hack would be out a night like this), 
 with a warm side to its stove and two more 
 chairs in which I could pass the time of my stay, 
 or would there be only the railroad station 
 and if the last, what sort of a railroad station ? 
 one of those bare, varnished, steam-heated 
 affairs, with a weighing machine in one corner 
 and a slot machine in the other ? or a less mod- 
 ern chamber of horrors, with the seats divided 
 by iron arms instruments of torture for tired, 
 
 9
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 sleepy men, which must have been devised in 
 the Middle Ages ? 
 
 The wind now awoke with a howl, kicked off 
 its counterpane, and started out on a career of 
 its own. Ventilators began to rattle ; incoming 
 passengers entered with hands on their hats ; 
 outgoing passengers had theirs whipped from 
 their heads before they touched the platforms 
 of the stations. The conductor as he passed 
 shook his head ominously. 
 
 " Goin' to be a ring-tailed roarer," he said to 
 a man in the aisle whose face was tied up in a 
 shawl with the ends knotted on top of his cap, 
 like a boy with the toothache. " Cold enough 
 to freeze the rivets in the b'iler. Be wuss by 
 daylight." 
 
 "Will we make Battle Creek?" I asked, 
 lifting my head from the grip. 
 
 "Yes; be there in two minutes. He's 
 blowin' for her now." 
 
 Before the brakeman had tightened his clutch 
 on his brake I was on my feet, had shifted 
 overcoats, and v/as leaning against the fraudu- 
 lent heater ready to face the storm. 
 
 It would have been a far-seeing eye that 
 
 could have discovered a hotel. All I saw as I 
 
 dropped to the snow-covered platform was a 
 
 row of gas jets, a lone figure pushing a truck 
 
 10
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 piled up with luggage, one arm across his face 
 to shield it from the cutting snow, and above 
 me the gray mass of the station, its roof lost 
 in the gloom of the wintry night. Then an 
 unencumbered passenger, more active than I, 
 passed me up the wind-swept platform, pushed 
 open a door, and he and I stepped into What 
 did I step into ? Well, it would be impossible 
 for you to imagine, and so I will tell you in a 
 new paragraph. 
 
 I stepped into a little gem of a station, look- 
 ing like a library without its books, covered by 
 a low roof, pierced by quaint windows and 
 fitted with a big, deep, all-embracing fireplace 
 ablaze with crackling logs resting on old-fash- 
 ioned iron dogs, and beside them on the hearth 
 a huge pile of birch wood. A room once seen 
 never to be forgotten a cosey box of a place, 
 full of curved alcoves and half-round recesses 
 with still smaller windows, and a table bearing 
 a silver-plated ice-pitcher and two silver-plated 
 goblets, unchained (really, I am telling the 
 truth), and big easy chairs, five or six of them, 
 some of wicker-work with cushions, and a straw 
 lounge big enough and long enough to stretch 
 out on at full length. All this, remember, from 
 out a night savage as a pack of wolves, and 
 quite a thousand miles from home, 
 II
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 I gravitated instinctively toward the fire, 
 threw my overcoat and grip on the lounge, and 
 looked about me. The one passenger besides 
 myself tarried long enough at the ticket office 
 to speak to the clerk, and then passed on through 
 the other door. He lived here, perhaps, or pre- 
 ferred the hotel wherever that was to the 
 comforts of the station. 
 
 The ticket clerk locked his office, looked over 
 to where I stood with my back to the blazing 
 fire, my eyes roving around the room, and called 
 out: 
 
 " I 'm going home now. Hotel 's only three 
 blocks away." 
 
 " When is the down train due ? " I asked. 
 
 "Three-thirty." 
 
 " Will it be on time ? " 
 
 " Never stole it. Search me ! May be an hour 
 late ; may be two," he added with a laugh. 
 
 " I Ml stay here, if you don't mind." 
 
 "Course glad to have you. You'll want 
 more wood, though. . . . John!" this to 
 the man who had been pushing the truck 
 "bring in some more wood ; man's going to 
 stay here for No. 8. Good-night." And he 
 shut the door and went out into the storm, his 
 coat-sleeve across his face. 
 
 John appeared and dropped an armful of 
 
 12
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 clean split silver-backed birch logs in a heap on 
 the hearth, remarking as he bobbed his head 
 good-night, "Guess you won't freeze," and 
 left by the same exit as the clerk, a breath of 
 the North Pole being puffed into the cosey room 
 as he opened and shut the door. 
 
 There are times when to me it is a delight to 
 be left alone. I invariably experience it when I 
 am sketching. I often have this feeling, too, 
 when my study door is shut and I am alone 
 with my work and books. I had it in an in- 
 creased degree this night, with the snow drift- 
 ing outside, the wind fingering around the 
 windows seeking for an entrance, and the whole 
 world sound asleep except myself. It seemed 
 good to be alone in the white stillness. What 
 difference did the time of night make, or the 
 place, or the storm, or the morrow and what it 
 might bring, so long as I could repeat in a 
 measure the comforts and privacy of my own 
 dear den at home ? 
 
 I began to put my house in order. The table 
 with the pitcher and goblets was drawn up 
 by the side of the sofa, two easy chairs moved 
 into position, one for my feet and one for my 
 back, where the overhanging electric light would 
 fall conveniently, and another log thrown on the 
 fire, sending the crisp blazing sparks upward. 
 
 13
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 My fur overcoat was next hung over the chair 
 with the fur side out, the grip opened, and the 
 several comforts one always carries were fished 
 out and laid beside the ice-pitcher, my flask of 
 Private Stock, a collar-box full of cigars, some 
 books, and a bundle of proof with a special de- 
 livery stamp proofs that should have been 
 revised and mailed two days before. These last 
 were placed within reach of my hand. 
 
 When all was in order for the master of the 
 house to take his ease, I unscrewed the top 
 of the flask, and with the help of the pitcher 
 and the goblet compounded a comfort. Then I 
 lighted a cigar and began a tour of the room. 
 The windows were banked up with the drift ; 
 through the half-blinded panes I could see the 
 flickering gas jets and on the snow below them 
 the disks of white light. Beyond these stretched 
 a ruling of tracks edged by a bordering of empty 
 yard-cars, then a waste of white ending in 
 gloom. The only sounds were the creaking of 
 the depot signs swaying in the wind and the 
 crackle of the logs on my hearth mine now in 
 the isolation, as was everything else about me. 
 Next I looked between the wooden spindles of 
 the fenced-in ticket office, and saw where the 
 clerk worked and how he kept his pens racked 
 up and the hook on which he hung his hat and 
 
 14
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 coat, and near it the news-stand locked tight, 
 only the book posters showing over the top, and 
 so on back to my fire and into my fur-lined 
 throne. Then, with a sip of P. S., I picked up 
 my proof sheets and began to work. 
 
 Before I had corrected my first galley my ear 
 caught the sound of stamping feet outside. 
 Some early train-hand, perhaps, or porter, or 
 some passenger who had misread the schedule ; 
 for nothing up or down was to pass the station 
 except, perhaps, a belated freight. Then the 
 door was burst open, and a voice as crisp as 
 the gust of wind that ushered it in called out : 
 
 " Well, begorra ! ye look as snug as a bug in 
 a rug. What d' ye think of this for a night ? " 
 
 He was approaching the fire now, shaking 
 the snow from his uniform and beating his 
 hands together as he walked. 
 
 I have a language adapted to policemen and 
 their kind, and I invariably use it when occa- 
 sion offers. Strange to say, my delight at being 
 alone had now lost its edge. 
 
 "Corker, isn't it?" I answered. "Draw 
 up a chair and make yourself comfortable." 
 
 "Well, I don't care if I do. By Jiminy ! I 
 thought the ears of me would freeze as 1 come 
 acrost the yard. What are ye waitin' for the 
 3.30?" 
 
 15
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 " I am. Here, take a nip of this," and I 
 handed him the other goblet and pushed the 
 P. S. his way. Corrupting the Force, I know, 
 but then consider the temptation, and the fact 
 that I was stranded on a lone isle of the sea, or 
 adrift on a detached ice floe (that 's a better 
 simile), and he the only other human being 
 within reach. 
 
 He raised the flask to his eye, noted the flow 
 line, poured out three fingers, added one finger 
 of water, said " How ! " and emptied the mix- 
 ture into his person. Then I handed him a 
 cigar, laid aside my proofs, and began to talk. I 
 not only had a fire and a pile of wood, with 
 something to smoke and enough P. S. for two, 
 but I had a friend to enjoy them with me. 
 Marvellous place this Battle Creek ! 
 
 "Anything doing?" I asked after the storm 
 and the night had been discussed and my lighted 
 match had kindled his cigar. 
 
 " Only a couple o' drunks lyin' outside a 
 j'int," he answered, stretching his full length 
 in the chair. 
 
 " Did you run 'em in ? " 
 
 "No, the station was some ways, so I tuk 
 
 'em inside. I know the feller that runs the 
 
 j'int an' the back dure was open " and he 
 
 winked at me. " They 'd froze if I 'd left 'em 
 
 16
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 in the drift. Wan had the ears of him purty 
 blue as it wuz." 
 
 " Anything else ? " 
 
 "Well, there was a woman hollerin' bloody 
 murther back o' the lumber yard, but I did n't 
 stop to luk her up. They 're allus raisin' a 
 muss up there it was in thim tiniments. Ye 
 know the place." (He evidently took me for 
 a resident or a rounder.) " Guess I' 11 be jog- 
 gin' 'long" (here he rose to his feet), "my 
 beat's both sides of the depot an' I daren't 
 stop long. Good luck to ye." 
 
 " Will you drop in again ?" 
 
 "Yes, maybe I will," and he opened the 
 door and stepped out, his hand on his cap as 
 the wind struck it. 
 
 Half an hour passed. 
 
 Then the cough of a distant locomotive, 
 catching its breath in the teeth of the gale, 
 followed by the rumbling of a heavily loaded 
 train, growing louder as it approached, could 
 be heard above the wail of the storm. 
 
 When it arrived off my window I rose from 
 my seat and looked out through the blurred 
 glass. The breast of the locomotive was a 
 bank of snow, the fronts and sides of the cars 
 were plastered with the drift. The engineer's 
 head hung out of the cab window, his eye on the 
 
 17
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 swinging signal lights. Huddling close under 
 the lee of the last box car I caught the outline 
 of a brakeman, his cap pulled over his ears, his 
 jacket buttoned tight. The train passed with- 
 out stopping, the cough of the engine growing 
 fainter and fainter as it was lost in the whirl of 
 the gale. I regained my seat, lighted another 
 cigar, and picked up my proofs again. 
 
 Another half hour passed. The world began 
 to awake. 
 
 First came the clerk with a cheery nod ; then 
 the man who had brought in the wood and who 
 walked straight toward the pile to see how 
 much of it was left and whether I needed any 
 more ; then the lone passenger who had gone 
 to the hotel and who was filled to the burst- 
 ing point with profanity, and who emitted it 
 in blue streaks of swear words because of his 
 accommodations; and last the policeman, beat- 
 ing his chest like a gorilla, the snow flying in 
 every direction. 
 
 The circle widened and another log was 
 thrown on the crackling fire. More easy chairs 
 were drawn up, the policeman in one and the 
 clerk in another. Then the same old panto- 
 mime took place over the P. S. and the goblets, 
 and the old collar-box had its lid lifted and did 
 its duty bravely. The lone passenger, being 
 18
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 ill-tempered and out of harmony with the sur- 
 roundings, was not invited. (What a lot of 
 fun the ill-tempered miss in this world of care!) 
 
 Some talk of the road now followed, whether 
 the Flyer would get through to Chicago, the 
 clerk remarking that No. 8 ought to arrive at 
 3.30, as it was a local and only came from 
 Kalamazoo. Talk, too, of how long I would 
 have to wait at Jackson, and what accommoda- 
 tions the train had, the clerk in an apologetic 
 voice remarking, as he sipped his P. S., that 
 it was a "straight passenger," with nothing 
 aboard that would suit me. Talk of the town, 
 the policeman saying that the woman was 
 " b'ilin' drunk " and he had to run both her and 
 the old man in before the "tiniment got quiet," 
 the lone passenger interpolating from his seat 
 by the steam pipes that But it 's just as well 
 to omit what the lone passenger said, or this 
 paper would never see the light. 
 
 At 3.30 the clerk sprang from his chair. He 
 had, with his quick ear, caught the long-drawn- 
 out shriek of No. 8 above the thrash of the 
 storm. 
 
 Into my overcoat again, in a hurry this time 
 everybody helping the fur one, of course, 
 the other on my arm a handshake all around, 
 out again into the whirl, the policeman carrying 
 
 19
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 the grip ; up a slant of snow on the steps of the 
 cars not a traveller's foot had yet touched it, 
 and into an ordinary passenger coach : all in less 
 than two minutes less time, in fact, than it 
 would take to shift the scenery in a melodrama, 
 and with as startling results. 
 
 No sleeping corpses here sprawled over seats, 
 with arms and legs thrust up; no mothers 
 watched their children ; no half-frozen travellers 
 shivered beside ice-cold heaters. The car was 
 warm, the lights burned cheerily, the seats were 
 unlocked and faced both ways. 
 
 Not many passengers either only six be- 
 sides myself at my end. Three of them were 
 wearing picture hats the size of tea-trays, short 
 skirts, and high shoes with red heels. The other 
 three wore Derbies and the unmistakable garb 
 of the average drummer. Each couple had a 
 double seat all to themselves, and all six were 
 shouting with laughter. Packed in the other end 
 of the car were the usual collection of travellers 
 seen on an owl train. 
 
 I passed on toward the middle of the coach, 
 turned a seat, and proceeded to camp for the 
 night. The overcoat did service now as a seat 
 cushion and the grip as a rest for my elbow. 
 
 It soon became evident that the girls belonged 
 to a troupe on their way to Detroit ; that they 
 
 20
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 had danced in Kalamazoo but a few hours be- 
 fore, had supped with the drummers, and had 
 boarded the train at 2.50. As their conversa- 
 tion was addressed to the circumambient air, 
 'there was no difficulty in my gaining these facts. 
 If my grave and reverend presence acted as a 
 damper on their hilarity, there was no evidence 
 of it in their manner. 
 
 " Say, Liz," cried the girl in the pink waist, 
 " did you catch on to the " Here her head 
 was tucked under the chin of the girl behind her. 
 
 " Oh, cut it out, Mame ! " answered Liz. 
 "Now, George, you stop!" This with a 
 scream at one of the drummers, whose head had 
 been thrust close to Mame'sear in an attempt to 
 listen. 
 
 "Say, girls," broke in another they were 
 all talking at once " why, them fellers in the 
 front seat went on awful ! I seen Sanders lookin' 
 and" 
 
 " Well, what if he did look ? That guy 
 ain't" etc., etc. 
 
 I began to realize now why the other passen- 
 gers were packed together in the far end of the 
 car. I broke camp and moved down their way. 
 
 The train sped on. I busied myself studying 
 the loops and curls of snow that the eddying 
 wind was piling up in the cuts and opens, as 
 
 21
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 they lay glistening under the glow of the lights 
 streaming through the car windows ; noting, 
 too, here and there, a fence post standing alone 
 where some curious wind-fluke had scooped 
 clear the drifts. 
 
 Soon I began to speculate on the outcome of 
 the trip. I had at best only three hours leeway 
 between 11.30 A. M., the schedule time of arriv- 
 ing in Cleveland, and 2.30 P. M., the hour of 
 my lecture not much in a storm like this, 
 with every train delayed and the outlook worse 
 every hour. 
 
 At Albion the drummers got out, the girls 
 waving their hands at them through the frosted 
 windows. When the jolly party of coryphees 
 regained their seats, their regulation smiles, 
 much to my surprise, had faded. Five min- 
 utes later, when I craned my neck to look at 
 them, wondering why their boisterousness had 
 ceased, the three had wrapped themselves up 
 in their night cloaks and were fast asleep. The 
 drummers, no doubt, forgot them as quickly. 
 
 The conductor now came along and shook a 
 sleepy man on the seat behind me into con- 
 sciousness. He had a small leather case with 
 him and looked like a doctor was, probably ; 
 picked up above Battle Creek, no doubt, by a 
 hurry call. He had been catching a nap while 
 22
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 he could. Jackson was ten minutes away, so 
 the conductor told the man. 
 
 More stumbling down the snow-choked steps 
 and plunging through drifts (it was too early 
 yet for the yard shovellers), and I entered the 
 depot at Jackson my second stop on the way 
 to Cleveland. 
 
 No cry of delight escaped my lips as I pushed 
 open the door. The Middle Ages have it all 
 their own way at Jackson, and still do unless 
 the Battle Creek architect has since modernized 
 the building. Nothing longer than a poodle or 
 a six months' old baby could stretch its length 
 on these iron-divided seats. "Move on " must 
 have been the watchword, for nobody sat 
 not if they could help it. I tried it, spreading 
 the overcoat between two of them, but the iron 
 soon entered my soul, or rather my hip joints, 
 and yet I am not over large. No open wood 
 fire, of course, no easy chairs, no lounge ; 
 somebody might pass a few minutes in comfort 
 if there were. There was a sign, I remember, 
 nailed up, reading " No loiterers allowed here," 
 an utterly useless affair, for nobody that I saw 
 loitered. They "skedaddled" at once (that's 
 another expressive word, old as it is), and they 
 failed to return until the next train came along. 
 Then they gathered for a moment and again 
 23
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 disappeared. No, the station building at Jack- 
 son is not an enticing place not after Battle 
 Creek. 
 
 And yet I was not unhappy. I had only an 
 hour to wait perhaps two depending on the 
 way the tracks were blocked. 
 
 I unlocked the grip. There was nothing left 
 of the P. S. the policeman had seen to that ; 
 and the collar-box was empty the clerk had 
 had a hand in that two, if I remember. The 
 proofs were finished and ready to mail, and so 
 I buttoned up my fur coat and went out into 
 the night again in search of the post-box, 
 tramping the platform where the wind had 
 swept it clean. The crisp air and the sting of 
 the snowflakes felt good to me. 
 
 Soon my eye fell on a lump tied up with rope 
 and half buried in the snow. The up-train from 
 Detroit had thrown out a bundle of the morning 
 edition of the Detroit papers. I lugged it inside 
 the station, brushed off the snow, dragged it to 
 a seat beneath a flaring gas jet, cut the rope 
 with my knife, and took out two copies damp 
 with snow. I was in touch with the world once 
 more, whatever happened ! I soon forgot the 
 hardness of the seat and only became conscious 
 that some one had entered the room when a 
 voice startled me with : 
 24
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 "Say, Boss!" 
 
 I looked up over my paper and saw a boy 
 with his head tied up in an old-fashioned tippet. 
 He was blowing his breath on his fingers, his 
 cheeks like two red apples. 
 
 "Well, what is it? " 
 
 " How many poipers did ye swipe?" 
 
 " Oh, are you the newsboy ? Do these be- 
 long to you? " 
 
 "You bet! How many ye got? " 
 
 "Two." 
 
 "Ten cents, Boss. Thank ye," and he 
 shouldered the bundle and went out into the 
 night, where a wagon was standing to receive it. 
 
 "Level-headed boy," I said to myself. "Be 
 a millionaire if he lives. No back talk, no 
 unnecessary remarks regarding an inexcusable 
 violation of the law petty larceny if anything. 
 Just a plain business statement, followed by an 
 immediate cash settlement. A most estimable 
 boy." 
 
 A road employee now came in, looked at the 
 dull-faced clock on the wall, went out through 
 a door and into a room where a telegraph 
 instrument was clicking away, returned with a 
 piece of chalk and wrote on a blackboard : 
 
 "No. 31 52 minutes late." 
 
 This handwriting on the wall had a Belshaz- 
 25
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 zar-feast effect on me. If I lost the connection 
 at Adrian, what would become of the lecture in 
 Cleveland ? 
 
 Another man now entered carrying a black 
 carpet bag a sleepy man with his hair tousled 
 and who looked as if he had gone to bed in his 
 clothes. He fumbled in his pocket for a key, 
 went straight to the slot machine, unlocked 
 it, disclosing a reduced stock of chewing-gum 
 and chocolate caramels, opened his carpet bag 
 and filled the machine to the top. This sort 
 of a man works at night, I thought, when few 
 people are about. To uncover the mysteries 
 of a slot machine before a gaping crowd would 
 be as foolish and unprofitable as for a con- 
 jurer to show his patrons how he performed 
 his tricks. 
 
 I became conscious now, even as I turned the 
 sheets of the journal, that while my flask of 
 P. S. and the contents of my collar-box were 
 admirable in their place, they were not capable 
 of sustaining life, even had both receptacles 
 been full, which they were not. There was 
 evidently nothing to eat in the station ^ and 
 from what I saw of the outside, no one had 
 yet started a fire ; no one had even struck a 
 light. 
 
 At this moment a gas jet flashed its glare 
 26
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 through a glass door to my right. I had seen 
 this door, but supposed it led to the baggage 
 room a fact that did not concern me in the 
 least, for I had checked my red-banded trunk 
 through to Cleveland. I got up and peered in. 
 A stout woman in a hood, with a blanket shawl 
 crossed over her bosom, its ends tied behind 
 her back, was busying herself about a nickel- 
 plated coffee urn decorating one end of a long 
 counter before which stood a row of high stools 
 
 the kind we sat on in school. I tried the 
 knob of the door and walked in. 
 
 " Is this the restaurant ? " 
 
 " What would ye take it for a morgue ? " 
 she snapped out. 
 
 " Can I get a cup of coffee ? " 
 
 "No, ye can't, not till six o'clock. And ye 
 won't git it then if somebody don't turn out 
 to help. Sittin' up all night lally-gaggin' and 
 leavin' a pile o' dirty dishes for me to wash up. 
 Look at 'em ! " 
 
 "Who's sitting up? " I inquired in a mild 
 voice. 
 
 "These 'ladies' " this with infinite scorn 
 
 "that's doin' waitin' for six dollars a week 
 and what they kin pick up, and it 's my opinion 
 they picks up more 'n 's good for 'em." 
 
 " And they make you do all the work ? " 
 27
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 "Well, ye'd think so if ye stayed 'round 
 here." 
 
 " Can I help ? " 
 
 She had been swabbing down the counter as 
 she talked, accentuating every sentence with 
 an extra twist of her arm, the wash-cloth held 
 tight between her fingers. She stopped now 
 and looked me squarely in the face. 
 
 "Help/ What are you good for? " There 
 was a tone of contempt in her voice. 
 
 " Well, I 'm handy passing plates and cutting 
 bread and pie. I 've nothing to do till the train 
 comes along. Try me awhile." 
 
 "You don't look like no waiter." 
 
 " But I am. I 've been waiting on people all 
 my life." I had crawled under the counter 
 now and was standing beside her. "Where 
 will you have this? " and I picked up from 
 a side table a dish of apples and oranges caged 
 in a wire screen. I knew I was lost if I hesi- 
 tated. 
 
 "Lay 'em here," she answered without a 
 word of protest. I was not surprised. The 
 big and boundless West has no place for men 
 ashamed to work with their hands. Only the 
 week before, in Colorado Springs, I had dined 
 at a house where the second son of a noble lord 
 had delivered the family milk that same morn- 
 28
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 ing, he being the guest of honor. And then 
 I was hungry. 
 
 The woman watched me put the finishing 
 touches on the dish of fruit, and said in an 
 altered tone, as if her misgivings had been sat- 
 isfied : 
 
 " Now, fill that bucket with water, will ye? 
 The sink 's behind ye. I '11 start the coffee. 
 And here/" and she handed me a key "after 
 ye fetch the water, unlock the refrigerator and 
 bring me that ham and them baked beans." 
 
 Before the "ladies" had arrived half an 
 hour, in fact, before one of them had put in an 
 appearance I was seated at a small table cov- 
 ered with a clean cloth (I had set the table), 
 with half a ham, a whole loaf of bread, a pitcher 
 of milk that had been left outside in the snow 
 and was full of lovely ice crystals, a smoking 
 cup of coffee, and a smoking pile of griddle 
 cakes which the woman had compounded from 
 the contents of two paper packages, and which 
 she herself had cooked on a gas griddle and 
 very good cakes they were ; total cost, as per 
 schedule, fifty cents. 
 
 Breakfast over, I again sought the seclusion 
 
 of the Torture Chamber. The man with the 
 
 piece of chalk had been kept busy. No. 31 
 
 was now one hour and forty-two minutes late. 
 
 29
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 When it finally reached Jackson and I 
 boarded it with my grip and overcoat, it looked 
 as if it had run into a glacier somewhere up the 
 road and had half a snowslide still clinging to 
 its length. 
 
 Day had broken now, and what light could 
 sift its way through the falling flakes shone 
 cold and gray into the frost-dimmed windows 
 of the car. I had lost more than two hours of 
 my leeway of three, and the drifts were still 
 level with the hubs of the driving-wheels. 
 
 We shunted and puffed and jerked along, 
 waiting on side tracks for freight trains hours 
 behind time and switching out of the way of 
 delayed "Flyers," and finally reached Adrian. 
 (Does anybody know of a Flyer that is on 
 time when but a bare inch of snow covers the 
 track?) 
 
 Out of the car again, still lugging my im- 
 pedimenta. 
 
 "Train for Toledo and the East, did you 
 say?" answered the ticket agent. "Yes, No. 
 32 is due in ten minutes she 's way behind 
 time and so you 've just caught her. Your 
 ticket is good, but you can't carry no bag- 
 gage." 
 
 The information came as a distinct shock. 
 No baggage meant no proper habiliments in 
 30
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 which to appear before my distinguished and 
 critical audience the most distinguished and 
 critical which I ever had the good fortune to 
 address a young ladies' school. 
 
 " Why no baggage ?" 
 
 " 'Cause there 's nothing but Pullmans, and 
 only express freight carried it 's a news train. 
 Ought to have been here a week ago." 
 
 " Can I give up my check and send my 
 trunk by express ?" 
 
 " Yes. That 's the agent over there by the 
 radiator." 
 
 One American dollar accomplished it a 
 silver one ; they don't use any other kind of 
 money out West. 
 
 When No. 32 hove in sight the Fast Mail 
 is its proper name and stopped opposite the 
 small station at Adrian, a blessed, beloved, be- 
 capped, be-buttoned, and be-overcoated Pullman 
 porter an attentive, considerate, alert porter 
 emerged from it, and at a sign from me picked 
 up my overcoat and grip they now weighed a 
 ton apiece and with a wave of his hand con- 
 ducted me into a well-swept, well-ordered Pull- 
 man. 
 
 "Porter, what's your name?" I inquired. 
 (I always ask a porter his name.) 
 
 "Samuel Thomas, sah."
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 "Sam, is there a berth left ? " 
 
 "Yes, sah No. 9 lower." 
 
 "Is it in order?" 
 
 "Yes, sah made up for a gem'man at 
 South Bend, but he did n't show up." 
 
 " Let me see it." 
 
 It was exactly as he had stated ; even the 
 upper berth was clewed up. 
 
 "Sam!" 
 
 "Yes, sah." 
 
 "Are you married ? " 
 
 "Yes, sah." 
 
 " Got any children ? " 
 
 "Yes, sah two." 
 
 " Think a good deal of them ? " 
 
 "Yes, sah." The darky was evidently at 
 sea now. 
 
 " Well, Sam, I 'm going to bed and to sleep. 
 If anybody disturbs me until we get within 
 fifteen minutes of Cleveland, your family will 
 never see you alive again. Do you understand, 
 Sam ? " 
 
 " Yes, sah, I understand." His face was in a 
 broad grin now. " Thank ye, sah. Here 's an 
 extra pillow," and he drew the curtains about 
 me. 
 
 At twenty-five minutes past two, and with 
 32
 
 A NIGHT OUT 
 
 five minutes to spare, I stepped on to the plat- 
 form of the Academy for Young Ladies in 
 Cleveland, properly clothed and in my right 
 mind. 
 The " weather had permitted."
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 STEVE was angry. 
 You could see that from the way he strode 
 up and down the platform of the covered rail- 
 road station, talking to himself in staccato ex- 
 plosives, like an automobile getting under way. 
 Steve had lost his sample trunk ; and a drummer 
 without his trunk is as helpless as a lone fisher- 
 man without bait. 
 
 Outside, a snowstorm was working itself 
 up into a blizzard ; cuts level with the fences, 
 short curves choked with drifts, flat stretches 
 bare of a flake. Inside, a panting locomotive 
 crawled ahead of two Pullmans and a bag- 
 gage a Special from Detroit to Kalamazoo, 
 six hours late, loaded with comic-opera peo- 
 ple, their baggage, properties and Steve's 
 lost trunk. 
 
 When the train pulled up opposite to where 
 Steve stood, the engine looked like a snow- 
 plough that had burrowed through a drift. 
 
 Steve moved down to the step of the first 
 Pullman, his absorbing eye taking in the train, 
 the fragments of the drift, and the noses of the 
 
 34
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 chorus girls pressed flat against the frosted 
 panes. The conductor was now on the plat- 
 form, crunching a tissue telegram which the 
 station-master had just handed him. He had 
 stopped for orders and for a wider breathing 
 space, where he could get out into the open 
 and stretch his arms, and become personal and 
 perhaps profane without wounding the feelings 
 of his passengers. 
 
 Steve stepped up beside him and showed him 
 an open telegram. 
 
 "Yes, your trunk's aboard all right," re- 
 plied the conductor, "but I couldn't find it in 
 a week. A lot of scenery and ladders and truck 
 all piled in. I am sorry, but I would n't " 
 
 "What you 'wouldn't,' my sweet Aleck, 
 don't interest me," exploded Steve. "You get 
 a couple of porters and go through that stuff 
 and find my trunk, or I '11 wire the main office 
 that" 
 
 "See here, young feller. Don't get gay. 
 Hit that gourd of yours another crack and 
 maybe you '11 knock some sense into it. We 're 
 six hours late, ain't we ? We got three hours 
 to make Kalamazoo in, ain't we ? This show 's 
 got to get there on time, or there '11 be H to 
 pay and no pitch hot. Now go outside and 
 stand in a door somewheres and let the wind 
 
 35
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 blow through you. I Ml wire you in the morn- 
 ing, or you can take the 5. 40 and pick your 
 trunk up at Kalamazoo. Let her go, Johnny " 
 this to the engine driver. " All aboard ! " 
 
 Steve jerked a cigar from his waistcoat 
 pocket, cut off the end, and said, with a bite-in- 
 two-tenpenny-nail expression about his lips : 
 
 " Steve, you 're 'it.' i '11 git that trunk at 
 Kalamazoo." 
 
 Then he crossed the platform, made his way 
 to the street entrance, and stepped into the om- 
 nibus of the only hotel in the town. 
 
 When the swinging sign of the Two-dollar 
 House, blurred in the whirl of the storm, hove 
 in sight, Steve's face was still knotted in wrin- 
 kles. He had a customer in this town good for 
 three hundred dozen table cutlery, and but for 
 "this gang of cross-tie steppers," he said to 
 himself, he would . . . Here the hind heels 
 of the 'bus hit the curb, cutting short Steve's 
 anathema. 
 
 The drummer picked up his grip and made his 
 way to the desk. 
 
 " What 's the matter, Stevey ?" asked Larry, 
 the clerk. " You look sour." 
 
 " Sour ? I am a green pickle, Larry, that's 
 what I am a green pickle. Been waiting five 
 hours for my trunk in that oriental palm garden 
 
 36
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 of yours you call a station. It was aboard a 
 Special loaded with chorus girls and props. 
 Conductor wouldn't dump it, and now it's 
 gone on to Kalamazoo and " 
 
 " Oh, but you '11 get it all right. All you 've 
 got to do, Steve, is to " 
 
 " Get it ! Yes, when the daisies are blooming 
 over us. I want it now, Larry. Whenever I 
 run up against anything solid it 's always one 
 of these fly-by-nights. What do you think of 
 going upstairs in the dark and hauling out a 
 red silk hat and a pair of gilt slippers, instead 
 of a sample card of carvers ? Well, that 's what 
 a guy did for me last fall down at Logansport. 
 Sent me two burial caskets full of chorus-girl 
 props instead of my trunk. Oh, yes, I '11 get 
 it get it in the neck. Here, send this grip to 
 my room." 
 
 The clerk pursed his lips and looked over his 
 key rack. He knew that he had no room 
 none that would suit Stephen Dodd had 
 known it when he saw him entering the door, 
 the snow covering his hat and shoulders, his 
 grip in his hands. 
 
 " Going to stay all night with us, Stephen ?" 
 Larry asked. 
 
 " Sure ! What do you think I 'm here for ? 
 Blowing and snowing outside fit to beat the 
 
 37
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 band. What do you want me to do bunk in 
 the station?" 
 
 "H'm, h'm," muttered the clerk, studying 
 the key rack and name board as if they were 
 plans of an enemy's country. 
 
 Steve looked up. When a clerk began to say 
 "H'm," Steve knew something was wrong. 
 
 "Full?" 
 
 "Well, not exactly full, Steve, but h'm 
 we 've got the ' Joe Gridley Combination ' 
 with us overnight, and about everything ' ' 
 
 " Go on go on what 'd I tell you ? Up 
 ag'in these fly-by-nights as usual!" blurted 
 out Steve. 
 
 The clerk raised his hand deprecatingly. 
 
 " Sorry, old man. Put you on the top floor 
 with some of the troupe good rooms, of 
 course, but not what I like to give you. Lead- 
 ing lady 's got your room, and the manager 's 
 got the one you sometimes have over the 
 extension. It '11 only be for to-night. They 're 
 going away in the morning, and I " 
 
 "Cut it out cut it out and forget it," 
 interrupted Steve. "So am I going away in 
 the morning. Got to take the 5.40 and hunt 
 up that trunk. Can't do a thing without it. 
 Only waltzed in here to get something to eat 
 and a bed. Be back later. Put me anywhere. 
 
 38
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 This week 's hoodooed, and these show guys 
 are doing it. You want a guardian, Stephen 
 a gentle, mild-eyed little guardian. That's 
 what you want." 
 
 The clerk rang a gong that sounded like 
 a fire alarm and the porter came in on a 
 run. 
 
 "Take Mr. Dodd's grip and show him up to 
 Number n." 
 
 On the way upstairs Steve's quick eye caught 
 the flare of a play-bill tacked to one wall. 
 
 " What is it ?" he asked of the porter, point- 
 ing to the poster "an 'East Lynne ' or a 
 'Mother's Curse'?" 
 
 " No one o' them mix-ups, I guess. Song 
 and dance stunts. Number n, did Larry say ? 
 There ye are key's in the lock." And the 
 porter pushed open the door of the room with 
 his foot, dropped Steve's bag on the pine table, 
 turned up the gas the twilight was coming 
 on asked if there was "anything more" 
 found there was n't not even a dime and 
 left Steve in possession. 
 
 '"Bout as big as a coffin, and as cold," 
 grumbled Steve, looking around the room. 
 " No steam heat one pillow and " here he 
 punched the bed " one blanket, and thin at 
 that the bed hard as a Well, if this don't 
 
 39
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 take the cake ! If this burg don't get a hotel 
 soon I Ml cut it out of my territory." 
 
 Steve washed his hands ; wiped them on a 
 14 x 20 towel ; hung it flat, that it might dry 
 and be useful in the morning ; gave his hair a 
 slick with his comb; scooped up a dozen cigars 
 from a paper box, stuffed them in his outside 
 pocket ; relocked his grip, and retraced his steps 
 downstairs. 
 
 When he reached the play-bill again he 
 stopped for particulars. Condensed and pruned 
 of inflammatory adjectives, the gay-colored 
 document conveyed the information that the 
 "Joe Gridley Combination " would play for 
 this one night, performance beginning at 8 P. M. 
 sharp. Molly Martin and Jessie Hannibal would 
 dance, Jerry Gobo, the clown, would dislocate 
 the ribs of the audience by his mirth-provoking 
 sallies, and Miss Pearl Rogers of International, 
 etc., etc., would charm them by her up-to-date 
 delineations of genteel society. Then followed 
 a list of the lesser lights, including chorus girls, 
 clog dancers, and acrobats. 
 
 The porter was now shaking the red-hot 
 stove with a cast-iron crank the size and shape 
 of a burglar's jimmy, the ashes falling on a 
 square of zinc protecting the uncarpeted floor. 
 Steve recognized the noise, and looking down 
 
 40
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 over the hand rail called out, pointing to the 
 poster : 
 
 " How far 's this shebang ? " 
 
 "'Bout a block." 
 
 "That settles it," said Steve to himself in 
 the only contented tone of voice he had used 
 since he entered the hotel. " I '11 take this in." 
 And continuing on downstairs, he dropped into 
 a chair, completing the circle around the dis- 
 penser of comfort. 
 
 The business of the hotel went on. Trains 
 arrived and were met by the lumbering stage, 
 the passengers landing in the snow on the side- 
 walk some for supper, one or two for rooms. 
 
 Supper was announced by a tight-laced blonde 
 in white muslin, all hips and shoulders, throw- 
 ing open the dining-room and mounting guard 
 at the entrance, her face illumined by that 
 knock-a-chip-off-my-shoulder expression com- 
 mon to her class. 
 
 Instantly, and with a simultaneous scraping 
 of chair legs, the segments of the circle around 
 the stove flung themselves into the narrow 
 passageway. 
 
 Soon the racks were spotted with hats, their 
 owners being drawn up in fours around the sev- 
 eral tables Steve one of them the waiter 
 ladies serving with a sweetness of smile and
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 elegance of manner found nowhere outside of 
 a royal court, accompanied by a dignity of pose 
 made all the more distinguished by a certain 
 inward scoop of the back and instantaneous 
 outward bulge below the waist line seen only in 
 wax figures flanking a cloak counter. 
 
 Steve had a steak, liver and bacon, apple pie, 
 a cup of coffee, and a toothpick all in ten 
 minutes. Then he resumed his place by the 
 stove, lit a cigar, and kept his eye on the clock. 
 
 Three hours later Steve was again in his chair 
 by the stove. He had been to the show and had 
 sat through two hours of the performance. If 
 his expression had savored of vinegar over the 
 loss of his sample trunks, it was now double- 
 proof vitriol ! 
 
 "Thought you was goin' to the show," 
 grunted the porter between his jerks at the 
 handle ; he was again at the stove, the ther- 
 mometer marking zero outside. 
 
 " Been. Regular frost; buncoed out of fifty 
 cents ! That show is the limit ! A couple of 
 skinny-legged girls doing a clog stunt ; a bag of 
 bones in a low-necked dress playing Mrs. Lang- 
 try ; and a wall-eyed clown that looked like a 
 grave-digger. Rotten worst I ever saw ! " 
 
 "Full house? " 
 
 42
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 " Full of empties. 'Bout fifty people, I guess, 
 counting deadheads and ME." 
 
 Steve accentuated this last word as if his fifty 
 cents had been the only real income of the 
 house. 
 
 The outer door now opened, letting in a sec- 
 tion of the north pole and a cough. 
 
 Steve twisted around in his chair and recog- 
 nized Jerry Gobo, the clown. His grease paint 
 was gone, but his haggard features and the 
 graveyard hack settled his identity. 
 
 Jerry loosened the collar of his frayed, almost 
 threadbare coat, approached the stove slowly, 
 and stretching out one blue, emaciated hand, 
 warmed it for an instant at its open door in 
 an apologetic way as if the warming of one 
 hand was all that he was entitled to. 
 
 Steve absorbed him at a glance. He saw that 
 his neck was thin, especially behind the ears, 
 the cords of the throat showing; his cheeks 
 sunken; the sad, kindly eyes peering out at 
 him furtively from under bushy eyebrows, 
 bright and glassy ; his knees, too, seemed un- 
 steady. As he stood warming his chilled fin- 
 gers, his hand and arm extended toward the 
 heat, his body drawn back, Steve got the im- 
 pression of a boy reaching out for an apple, an<J 
 ready to cut and run at the first alarm. 
 
 43
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 " Kind o' chilly," the clown ventured, in a 
 voice that came from somewhere below his 
 collar button. 
 
 " Yes," said Steve gruffly. He did n't intend 
 to start any conversation. He knew these fel- 
 lows. One had done him out of eleven dollars 
 in a ten-cent game up at Logansport the winter 
 before. That particular galoot did n't have a 
 cough, but he would have had if he could have 
 doubled his winnings by it. 
 
 Jerry, rebuffed by Steve's curt reply, brought 
 up the other hand, toasted it for an instant at 
 the kindly blaze, rubbed the two sets of bony 
 knuckles together, and remarking this time to 
 himself that he "guessed he'd turn in," 
 walked slowly to the foot of the stairs and 
 began ascending the long flight, his progress up 
 one wall and half around the next marked by 
 his fingers sliding along the hand rail. Steve 
 noticed that the bunched knuckles stopped at 
 the first landing (it was all that he could see 
 from where he sat) , and after a spell of cough- 
 ing slid slowly on around the court. 
 
 The drummer bit off the end of a fresh cigar; 
 scraped a match on the under side of his chair 
 seat; lit the domestic, and said with his first 
 puff of smoke, his mind still on the emaciated 
 form of the clown : 
 
 44
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 " Kindlin' wood for a new crematory." 
 
 Again the outer door swung open. 
 
 This time the Walking Lady entered, accom- 
 panied by the Business Agent. She wore a long 
 brown cloak that came to her feet and a stringy 
 fur tippet, her head and face covered by a hat 
 concealed in a thick blue veil. This last she 
 unwound inside the hall, and seeing Steve mo- 
 nopolizing the stove, began the ascent of the 
 stairs, one step at a time, as if she was tired 
 out. 
 
 Steve turned his face away. The bag of bones 
 looked worse than ever. " 'Bout fifty in the 
 shade, I should think," he said to himself. 
 " Ought to be taking in washing and ironing." 
 Meantime Mathews, the Business Agent, was 
 occupied with the clerk Larry had presented 
 him with a bill. The rates, the agent pleaded, 
 were to be a dollar-sixty. Larry insisted on two 
 dollars. Steve pricked up his ears; this inter- 
 ested him. If Larry wanted any backing as to 
 the price he was within call. This information 
 he conveyed to Larry by lifting his chin and 
 slowly closing his left eye. 
 
 The outer door continued its vibrations with 
 the rapidity of its green-baize namesake leading 
 from the dining-room to the kitchen, ushering 
 in some member of the troupe with every swing, 
 
 45
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 including an elderly woman who had played 
 the Duchess in the first act and a fishwife in 
 the second ; some young men with their hats 
 over their noses, and four or five chorus girls. 
 The men looked around for the index hand 
 showing the location of the bar, and the girls, 
 after a fit of giggling, began the ascent of the 
 stairs to their rooms. Steve noticed that two of 
 them continued on to the third floor, where 
 Jerry Gobo, the clown, had gone, and where 
 he himself was to sleep. One of the girls looked 
 down at him as she turned the corner of the 
 stairs and nudged her companion all of which 
 was lost on the drummer. They had probably 
 recognized him in the audience. 
 
 Nothing, however, in their present make-up 
 could have recalled them to Steve's memory. 
 Molly Martin had exchanged her green silk 
 tights and gauze wings for a red flannel shirt- 
 waist, a black leather belt, blue skirt, and cat- 
 skin jacket. And Jessie Hannibal had shed 
 her frou-frou frills and was buttoned to her red 
 ears in a long gray ulster that reached down to 
 her active little feet, now muffled in a pair of 
 galoshes. 
 
 The dispute over the bill at an end, the Busi- 
 ness Agent fished up a roll from one pocket and 
 a handful of silver and copper coins from the 
 46
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 other, counted out the exact amount, waited 
 until the clerk marked a cross against his room 
 number, calling him at seven o'clock A. M., 
 tucked the receipt in his inside pocket, and 
 began the weary ascent. 
 
 Steve shook himself free from the chair. 
 This was about his hour. Rising to his legs, 
 he elongated one side of his round body with 
 his pudgy arm, and then the other, yawned 
 sleepily, tipped his hat farther over his eye- 
 brows, called to Larry to be sure and put him 
 down for the 5.40, and mounted the stairs to 
 his room. If he had had any doubts as to 
 the fraudulent character of the whole " shooting 
 match," his chance inspection of the caste had 
 removed them. 
 
 On entering his room Steve made several 
 discoveries, no one of which relieved his gloom 
 or sweetened the acidity of his mind. 
 
 First, that the temperature was so far below 
 that of a Pullman that the water-pitcher was 
 skimmed with ice and the towel frozen as stiff as 
 a dried cod-fish. Second, that Jerry, the clown, 
 occupied the room to the right, and the two 
 coryphees the room to the left. Third, that 
 the partitions were thin as paper, or, as Steve 
 expressed it, "thin enough to hear a feller 
 change his mind." 
 
 47
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 With the turning-off of the gas and the tuck- 
 ing of Steve's fat round face and head under 
 the single blanket and quilt, the sheet gripped 
 about his chin, there came a harsh, rasping 
 cough from the room on his right. Jerry had 
 opened. Steve ducked his head and covered 
 his ears. The clown would stop in a minute, 
 and then Mr. Dodd would drop off to sleep. 
 
 Another sound now struck his ear a wo- 
 man's voice this time, with a note of sympathy 
 in it. Steve raised his head and listened. 
 
 "Say, Jess, ain't that awful? I knew 
 Jerry 'd get it on that long jump we made. I 
 ain't heard him cough like that since we left 
 T'ronto." 
 
 "Oh, dreadful! And, Molly, he don't say 
 a word 'bout how sick he is. Billy had to help 
 him off with his Oh, just hear Jerry ! " 
 
 The talk ceased and Steve snuggled his head 
 again. He was n't interested in Jerry, or Molly, 
 or Jessie. What he wanted was six hours' 
 sleep, a call at 4.45, and his sample trunk. 
 
 Another paroxysm of coughing resounded 
 through the partition, and again Steve freed 
 his ear. 
 
 "Jerry ain't got but one little girl left, and 
 she 's only five years old. She 's up to the 
 Sacred Heart in Montreal. He sends her money 
 
 48
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 every week he told me so. He showed me 
 her picture oncet. Say ! give me some of the 
 cover ; it 's awful cold, ain't it?" 
 
 Steve heard a rustling and tumbling of the bed- 
 clothes as the girls nestled the closer. Molly's 
 voice now broke the short silence. 
 
 " Say, Jess, I 'm dreadful worried 'bout Jerry, 
 I bet he ain't got no more cover 'n we have. 
 He's right next to us, and 't ain't no warmer 
 where he is than it is here. I 'd think he 'd 
 tear himself all to pieces with that cough. I 
 hope nothin' '11 happen to him. He ain't like 
 Mathews. Nobody ever heard a crossword out of 
 Jerry, and he 'd cut his heart out for ye and " 
 
 Steve covered his head again and shut his 
 eyes. Through the coarse cotton sheet he 
 caught, as he dozed off to sleep (Jerry's cough 
 had now become a familiar sound, and therefore 
 no longer an incentive to insomnia), additional 
 details of Jerry's life, fortunes and misfortunes, 
 in such broken sentences as 
 
 "She never cared for him, so Billy told me. 
 She went off with Why, sure ! did n't you 
 know he got burnt out ? lost his trick ponies 
 when he was with Forepaugh It '11 be awful if 
 we have to leave him behind, and I 'm goin' 
 to see a doctor just as soon as we get to" 
 
 Here Steve fell into oblivion. 
 
 49
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 Ten minutes later he was startled by the 
 opening of his door. In the dim glow of the 
 hall gas jet showing through the crack and the 
 transom, his eyes caught the outline of a girl in 
 her nightdress, her hair in two braids down her 
 neck. She was stepping noiselessly and ap- 
 proaching his bed. In her hand she carried a 
 quilt. Bending above him Steve lying in the 
 shadow she spread the covering gently over 
 his body, tucked the end softly about his 
 throat, and as gently tiptoed out of the room. 
 Then there came a voice from the other side of 
 the partition : 
 
 " He ain't coughin' any more he 's asleep. 
 I got it over him. Now get all your clo'es, 
 Molly, and pile 'em on top. We can get 
 along." 
 
 Steve lay still. His first impulse was to cry 
 out that they had made a mistake that Jerry 
 was next door; his next was to slip into Jerry's 
 room and pile the quilt on him. Then he 
 checked himself the first would alarm and 
 mortify the girls, and the second would be like 
 robbing them of the credit of their generous 
 act. Jerry might wake and the girls would 
 hear, and explanations follow and all the pleasure 
 of their sacrifice be spoiled. No, he 'd hand it 
 back to the girls, and say he was much obliged 
 
 50
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 but he did n't need it. Again he stopped this 
 time with a sudden pull-up. Going into a chorus 
 girl's room, under any pretence whatever, in a 
 hotel at night ! No, sir-ee, Bob ! Not for 
 Stephen ! He had been there ; none of that in 
 his! 
 
 All this time the quilt was choking him his 
 breath getting shorter every minute, as if he 
 was being slowly smothered. A peculiar hot- 
 ness began to creep over the skin of his throat 
 and a small lump to rise near his Adam's apple, 
 followed by a slight moistening of the eyes 
 all new symptoms to Steve, new since his boy- 
 hood. 
 
 Suddenly there flashed into his mind the pic- 
 ture of a low-roofed garret room, sheltering a 
 trundle bed tucked away under the slant of 
 the shingles. In the dim light where he lay he 
 caught the square of the small window, the 
 gaunt limbs of the butternut beyond, and could 
 hear, as he listened, the creak of its branches 
 bending in the storm. All about were old-fash- 
 ioned things a bureau with brass handles; 
 a spinning-wheel ; ropes of onions ; a shelf of 
 apples; an old saddle ; and a rocking-chair with 
 one arm gone and the bottom half out. A soft 
 tread was heard upon the stairs, a white figure 
 stole in, and a warm hand nestling close to his 
 
 Si
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 cheeks tucked the border of a quilt under his 
 chin. Then came a voice. " I thought you 
 might be cold, son." 
 
 With a bound Steve sprang from the bed. 
 
 For an instant he sat on the edge of the hard 
 mattress, his eyes on the floor, as if in deep 
 thought. 
 
 "Those two girls lying there freezing, and 
 all to get that feller warm!" he muttered. 
 "You're a dog, Stephen Dodd that 's what 
 you are a yellow dog ! " 
 
 Reaching out noiselessly for his shoes and 
 socks, he drew them toward him, slipped in his 
 feet, dragged on his trousers and shirt, threw his 
 coat around his shoulders he was beginning 
 to shiver now opened the door of his room 
 cautiously, letting in more of the glow of the 
 gas jet, and stole down the corridor to the stair- 
 case. Here he looked into a black gulf. The 
 only lights were the one by the clerk's desk 
 and the glow of the stove. Quickening his 
 steps, he descended the stairs to the lower floor. 
 The porter would be up, he said to himself, 
 or the night watchman, or perhaps the clerk ; 
 somebody, anyway, would be around. He looked 
 over the counter, expecting to find Larry in his 
 chair ; passed out to the porter's room and 
 studied the trunks and boot-stand ; peered be- 
 
 52
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 hind the screen, and finding no one, made a 
 tour of the floor, opening and shutting doors. 
 No one was awake. 
 
 Then a new thought struck him. This came 
 with a thumping of one fist in the palm of the 
 other hand, his face breaking out into a satisfied 
 smile at his discovery. He remounted the stairs 
 the first flight two steps at a time, the second 
 flight one step at a time, the last few levels on 
 his toes. If he had intended to burglarize one 
 of the rooms he could not have been more care- 
 ful about making a noise. Entering his own 
 apartment, he picked up the quilt the girls had 
 spread over him, folded it carefully and laid it on 
 the floor. Then he stripped off his own blanket 
 and quilt and placed them beside it. These two 
 packages he tucked under his arm, and with 
 the tread of a cat crept down the corridor to the 
 stairway. Once there, he wheeled and with 
 both heels striking the bare floor came tramping 
 toward the girls' room. 
 
 Next came a rap like a five-o'clock call 
 low, so as not to wake the more fortunate in the 
 adjoining rooms, but sure and positive. Steve 
 knew how it sounded. 
 
 " Who's there? " cried Molly in a voice that 
 showed that Steve's knuckles had brought her to 
 consciousness. " 'T ain't time to get up, is it ? " 
 
 53
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 "No, I'm the night watchman ; some of the 
 folks is complaining of the cold and saying 
 there warn't covering enough, and so I thought 
 you ladies might want some more bedclothes," 
 and Steve squeezed the quilt in through the 
 crack of the door. 
 
 " Oh, thank you," began Molly; " we were 
 sorto'" 
 
 "Don't mention it," answered Steve, clos- 
 ing the door tight and shutting off any further 
 remark. 
 
 The heels were lifted now, and Steve crept 
 to Jerry's door on his toes. For an instant he 
 listened intently until he caught the sound of 
 the labored breathing of the sleeping man, 
 opened the door gently, laid the blanket and 
 quilt he had taken from his own bed over Jerry's 
 emaciated shoulders, and crept out again, dodg- 
 ing into his own room with the same sort of 
 relief in his heart that a sneak thief feels after 
 a successful raid. Here he finished dressing. 
 
 Catching up his grip, he moved back his 
 door, peered out to be sure he was not being 
 watched, and tiptoed along the corridor and so 
 on to the floor below. 
 
 An hour later the porter, aroused by his 
 alarm clock to get ready for the 5.40, found 
 
 54
 
 AN EXTRA BLANKET 
 
 Steve by the stove. He had dragged up another 
 chair and lay stretched out on the two, his head 
 lost in the upturned collar of his coat, his slouch 
 hat pulled down over his eyes. 
 
 " Why, I thought you 'd turned in," yawned 
 the porter, dumping a shovelful of coal into the 
 stove. 
 
 "Yes, I did, but I couldn't sleep." There 
 was a note in Steve's voice that made the por- 
 ter raise his eyes. 
 
 "Ain't sick, are ye?" 
 
 "No kind o' nervous get that way some- 
 times. Not in your way, am I ? "
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 HE was short and thick-set: round-bod- 
 ied a bulbous round, like an onion 
 with alternate layers of waistcoats, two gener- 
 ally; the under one of cotton duck showing a 
 selvage of white, and the outer one of velvet 
 or cloth showing a pattern of dots, stripes, or 
 checks, depending on the prevailing style at 
 the wholesale clothier's where he traded, the 
 whole topped by a sprouting green necktie. 
 Outside this waistcoat dropped a heavy gold 
 chain connecting with a biscuit-shaped watch, 
 the under convex of its lid emblazoned with his 
 monogram in high relief, and the upper concave 
 decorated with a photograph of his best girl. 
 
 The face of this inviting and correctly at- 
 tired young gentleman was likewise round ; 
 the ends of the mouth curving upward, not 
 downward upward, with a continuous smile 
 in each corner, even when the mouth was shut, 
 as if the laugh inside of him were still tickling 
 his funny bone and the corners of the mouth 
 were recording the vibrations. These uncon- 
 trollable movements connected with other hila- 
 
 56
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 rious wriggles puckering with merriment under 
 the pupils of his two keen, searching eyes, 
 bright as the lens of a camera and as sensitive 
 and absorbing. 
 
 Nothing escaped these eyes nothing that 
 was worth wasting a plate on. Men and their 
 uses, women and their needs, fellow travellers 
 with desirable information who were cutting 
 into the bulbous-shaped man's territory, were 
 all focussed by these eyes and deluded by this 
 mouth into giving up their best cash discounts 
 and any other information needed. Some hay- 
 seeds might get left, but not Sam Makin. 
 
 "Well, I guess not! No flies on Samuel! 
 Up and dressed every minute and ' next' every 
 time ! " Such was the universal tribute. 
 
 This knowledge did not end with humans. 
 Sam knew the best train out and in, and the 
 best seat in it ; the best hotel in town and 
 the best table in the dining-room, as well as the 
 best dish on the bill of fare not of one town, 
 but of hundreds all over his territory. That is 
 what he paid for, and that was what he in- 
 tended to have. 
 
 When Sam was on the road, in addition to 
 his grip which held a change of waistcoats 
 (Sam did his finest work with a waistcoat), 
 some collars, and a couple of shirts, one to wash 
 
 57
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 and the other to wear, a tooth-brush and a 
 comb he held the brass checks of four huge 
 trunks made of rawhide and strapped and cor- 
 nered with iron. These went by weight and 
 were paid for at schedule prices. When a bag- 
 gage-master overweighed these trunks an ounce 
 and charged accordingly, there came an uncom- 
 fortable moment and an interchange of opinions, 
 followed by an apology and a deduction, Sam 
 standing by. Only on occasions like these did 
 the smiles disappear from the corners of Sam's 
 mouth. 
 
 Whenever these ironclads, however, were 
 elevated to the upper floor of a hotel, and Sam 
 began to make himself at home, the wriggles 
 playing around the corners of his mouth ex- 
 tended quite up his smiling cheeks with the 
 movement of little lizards darting over a warm 
 stone. 
 
 And his own welcome from everybody in the 
 house was quite as cordial and hilarious. 
 
 "Hello, Sam, old man! Number 31*5 all 
 ready mail's on your bureau." This from 
 the clerk. 
 
 " Oh ! is it you ag'in, Mister Sam ? Oh 
 go 'long wid ye ! Now stop that ! " This from 
 the chambermaid. 
 
 " It 's good to git a look at ye ! And them 
 
 58
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 box-cars o' yourn ain't no bird-cages ! Yes, sir 
 thank ye, sir." This from the porter. 
 
 But it was when the trunks were opened and 
 their contents spread out on the portable and 
 double-upable pine tables, and Bullock & Sons' 
 (of Spring Falls, Mass.) latest and best assort- 
 ment of domestic cutlery was exposed to view, 
 and the room became crowded with Sam's cus- 
 tomers, that the smile on his face became a 
 veritable coruscation of wriggles and darts ; 
 scurrying around his lips, racing in circles from 
 his nose to his ears, tumbling over each other 
 around the corners of his pupils and beneath the 
 lids ; Sam talking all the time, the keen eyes 
 boring, or taking impressions, the sales increas- 
 ing every moment. 
 
 When the last man was bowed out and the 
 hatches of the ironclads were again shut, any 
 one could see that Sam had skimmed the cream 
 of the town. The hayseeds might have what 
 was left. Then he would go downstairs, square 
 himself before a long, sloping desk, open a non- 
 stealable inkstand, turn on an electric light, sift 
 out half a dozen sheets of hotel paper, and tell 
 Bullock & Sons all about it. 
 
 On this trip Sam's ironclads were not wide 
 open on a hotel table, but tight-locked aboard 
 
 59
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 a Fall River steamer. Sam had a customer in 
 Fall River, good for fifty dozen of B. & S.'s 
 No. 18 scissors, $g 10 per cent, off and 5 more 
 for cash. The ironclads had been delivered on 
 the boat by the transfer company. Sam had 
 taken a street-car. There was a block, half an 
 hour's delay, and Sam arrived on the string- 
 piece as the gang-plank was being hauled aboard. 
 
 "Look out, young feller ! " said the wharf- 
 man; " you're left." 
 
 "Look again, you Su-markee!" (nobody 
 knows what Sam means by this epithet), and 
 the drummer threw his leg over the rail of the 
 slowly moving steamer and dropped on her deck 
 as noiselessly as a cat. This done, he lifted a 
 cigar from a bunch stuffed in the outside pocket 
 of the prevailing waistcoat, bit off the end, 
 swept a match along the seam of his " pants " 
 (Sam's own), lit the end of the domestic, blew 
 a ring toward the fast disappearing wharfman, 
 and turned to get his ticket and stateroom, 
 neither of which had he secured. 
 
 Just here Mr. Samuel Makin, of Bullock & 
 Sons, manufacturers, etc., etc., received a slight 
 shock. 
 
 There was a ticket office and a clerk, and a 
 rack of stateroom keys, just as Sam had ex- 
 pected, but there was also a cue of passengers 
 60
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 a long, winding snake of a cue beginning at 
 the window framing the clerk's face and ending 
 on the upper deck. This crawling line of expect- 
 ants was of an almost uniform color, so far as 
 hats were concerned most of them dark blue, 
 and all of them banded about with a gold cord 
 and acorns. The shoulders varied a little, show- 
 ing a shoulder-strap here and there, and once 
 in a while the top of a medal pinned to a breast 
 pressed tight against some comrade's back. 
 Lower down, whenever the snake parted for an 
 instant, could be seen an armless sleeve and a 
 pair of crutches. As the head of this cue reached 
 the window a key was passed out and the for- 
 tunate owner broke away, the coveted prize in 
 his hand, and another expectant took his place. 
 
 Sam watched the line for a moment and then 
 turned to a bystander : 
 
 "What's going on here? a camp-meet- 
 ing?" 
 
 "No. Grand Army of the Republic going 
 to Boston for two days. Ain't been a berth 
 aboard here for a week. Sofas are going at two 
 dollars, and pillows at seventy -five cents." 
 
 Sam's mind reverted for a moment to the look 
 on the wharf man's face, and the corners of his 
 mouth began to play. He edged nearer to the 
 window and caught the clerk's eye. 
 61
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 "No hurry, Billy," and Sam winked, and all 
 the lizards darted out and began racing around 
 the corners of his mouth. "'Tend to these 
 gents first I'll call later. Number 15, ain't 
 it?" 
 
 The clerk moved the upper lid of his left eye 
 a hair's breadth, took a key from the rack and 
 slipped it under a pile of papers on his desk. 
 
 Sam caught the vibration of the lid, tilted his 
 domestic at a higher angle, and went out to 
 view the harbor and the Statue of Liberty and 
 the bridge any old thing that pleased him. 
 Then this expression slipped from between his 
 lips : 
 
 "That was one on the hayseeds ! Cold day 
 when you 're left, Samuel ! " 
 
 When supper time arrived the crowd was so 
 great that checks were issued for two tables, an 
 hour apart. When the captain of the boat and 
 the ranking officer of the G. A. R. filed in, fol- 
 lowed by a hungry mob, a lone man was discov- 
 ered seated at a table nearest the galley where 
 the dishes were hottest and best served. It was 
 Sam. He had come in through the pantry, and 
 the head steward Sam had known him for 
 years, nearly as long as he had known the 
 clerk had attended to the other details, one 
 of which was a dish of soft-shell crabs, only 
 62
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 enough for half a dozen passengers, and which 
 toothsome viands the head steward scratched 
 off the bill of fare the moment they had been 
 swallowed. 
 
 That night Sam sat up on deck until the 
 moon rose over Middle Ground Light, talking 
 shop to another drummer, and then he started 
 for stateroom Number 15, with an upper and 
 lower berth (both Sam's), including a set of 
 curtains for each berth a chair, a washbowl, 
 life preserver, and swinging light. On his way 
 to this Oriental boudoir he passed through the 
 saloon. It was occupied by a miscellaneous as- 
 sortment of human beings men, women, and 
 children in all positions of discomfort some 
 sprawled out on the stationary sofas, some flat 
 on the carpet, their backs to the panelling ; 
 others nodding on the staircase, determined to 
 sit it out until daylight. On the deck below, 
 close against the woodwork, rolled up in their 
 coats, was here and there a veteran. They had 
 slept that way many a time in the old days, 
 with the dull sound of a distant battery lulling 
 them to sleep they rather liked it. 
 
 The next morning, when the crowd swarmed 
 out to board the train at Fall River, Sam tarried a 
 moment at the now deserted ticket office, smiled 
 blandly at Billy, and laid a greenback on the sill. 
 
 63
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 " What 's the matter, old man, with my 
 holding on to Number 15 till I come back? This 
 boat goes back to New York day after to-mor- 
 row, does n't she ? " 
 
 Billy nodded, picked up a lead-pencil and put 
 a cross against Number 15 ; then he handed 
 Sam back his change and the key. 
 
 All that day in Fall River Sam sold cutlery, 
 the ironclads doing service. The next day he 
 went to Boston on a later train than the crowd, 
 and had almost a whole car to himself. The 
 third day he returned to Fall River an hour 
 ahead of the special train carrying the Grand 
 Army, and again with half the car to himself. 
 When the special rolled into the depot and was 
 shunted on to the steamboat dock, it looked, in 
 perspective from where Sam stood, like a tene- 
 ment house on a hot Sunday every window 
 and door stuffed with heads, arms, and legs. 
 
 Sam studied the mob for a few minutes, felt 
 in his "pants" pocket for his key, gave it one 
 or two loving pats with his fingers, and took a 
 turn up the dock where it was cooler and where 
 the human avalanche would n't run over him. 
 
 When the tenement house was at last un- 
 loaded, it was discovered that it had contained 
 twice as many people as had filled it two days 
 before. They had gone to Boston by different 
 64
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 lines, and being now tired out and penniless 
 were returning home by the cheapest and most 
 comfortable route. They wanted the salt 
 zephyrs of the sea to fan them to sleep, and the 
 fish and clams and other marine delicacies so 
 lavishly served on the Fall River Line as a tonic 
 for their depleted systems. 
 
 Not the eager, expectant crowd that with 
 band playing and flags flying had swept out of 
 the depot the day of the advance on Boston ! 
 Not that kind of a crowd at all, but a bedrag- 
 gled, forlorn, utterly exhausted and worn-out 
 crowd ; children crying, and pulled along by one 
 arm or hugged to perspiring breasts ; uniforms- 
 yellow with dust ; men struggling to keep the 
 surging mass from wives who had hardly 
 strength left for another step ; flags furled ; 
 bass drum with a hole in it ; band silent. 
 
 Sam looked on and again patted his key. The 
 hayseeds had aired their collars and had " got 
 it in the neck." No G. A. R. for Samuel; no 
 excursions, no celebrations, no picnics for him. 
 He had all his teeth, and an extra wisdom molar 
 for Sundays. 
 
 The contents of the tenement now began to 
 press through the closed shed on their way to 
 the gang-plank, and Sam, realizing the size of 
 the mob, and fearing that half of them, includ- 
 
 65
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 ing himself, would be left on the dock, slipped 
 into the current and was swept over the tem- 
 porary bridge, across the deck and up the main 
 staircase leading to the saloon up to the top 
 step. 
 
 Here the current stopped. 
 
 Ahead of him was a solid mass, and behind 
 him a pressure that increased every moment and 
 that threatened to push him off his feet. He 
 could get neither forward nor back. 
 
 A number of other people were in the same 
 predicament. One was a young woman who, in 
 sheer exhaustion, had seated herself upon the 
 top step level with the floor of the saloon. Her 
 hair was dishevelled, her bonnet awry, her 
 pretty silk cape covered with dust. On her lap 
 lay a boy of five years of age. Close to her 
 so close that Sam's shoulder pressed against his 
 stood a man in an army hat with the cord 
 and acorn encircling the crown. On his breast 
 was pinned a medal. Sam was so close he could 
 read the inscription : " Fair Oaks," it said, and 
 then followed the date and the name and num- 
 ber of the regiment. Sam knew what it meant : 
 he had had an uncle who went to the war, and 
 who wore a medal. His sword hung over the 
 mantel in his mother's sitting-room at home. 
 The man before him had, no doubt, been 
 66
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 equally brave : he had saved the colors the day 
 of the fight, perhaps, or had carried a wounded 
 comrade out of range of a rifle pit, or had thrown 
 an unexploded shell clear of a tent some little 
 thing like that. 
 
 Sam had never seen a medal that close be- 
 fore, and his keen lens absorbed every detail 
 the ribbon, the way it was fastened to the 
 cloth, the broad, strong chest behind it. Then 
 he looked into the man's firm, determined, 
 kindly face, with its piercing black eyes and 
 closely trimmed mustache, and then over his 
 back and legs. He was wondering now where the 
 ball had struck him, and what particular part of 
 his person had been sacrificed in earning so dis- 
 tinguishing a mark of his country's gratitude. 
 
 Then he turned to the woman, and a slight 
 frown gathered on his face when he realized 
 that she alone had blocked his way to the open 
 air and the deck beyond. He could step over 
 any number of men whenever the mass of 
 human beings crushing his ribs and shoulder- 
 blades began once more to move, but a woman 
 a tired woman with a boy out on a 
 jamboree like this, with 
 
 Here Sam stopped, and instinctively felt 
 around among his loose change for his key. 
 Number 15 was all right, anyway. 
 
 67
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 At the touch of the key Sam's face once 
 more resumed its contented look, the lizards 
 darting out to play, as usual. 
 
 The boy gave a sharp cry. 
 
 The woman put her hand on the child's 
 head, smoothed it softly, and looked up in the 
 face of the man with the medal. 
 
 " And you can get no stateroom, George ? " 
 she asked in a plaintive tone. 
 
 "Stateroom, Kitty! Why, we couldn't get 
 a pillow. I tried to get a shake-down some'ers, 
 but half these people won't get six feet of space 
 to lie down in, let alone a bed." 
 
 " Well, I don't know what we 're going to 
 do. Freddie 's got a raging fever ; I can't hold 
 him here in my arms all night." 
 
 Sam shifted his weight to the other foot and 
 concentrated his camera. The man with the 
 medal and the woman with the boy were 
 evidently man and wife. Sam had no little 
 Freddie of his own no Kitty, in fact not yet 
 no home really that he could call his own 
 never more than a month at a time. A Pullman 
 lower or a third story front in a three-dollar-a- 
 day hotel was often his bed, and a marble-top 
 table with iron legs screwed to the floor of a 
 railroad restaurant and within sound of a big- 
 voiced gateman bawling out the trains, gen- 
 68
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 erally his board. Freddie looked like a nice 
 boy, and she looked like a nice woman. Man 
 was O. K., anyhow didn't give medals of 
 honor to any other >kind. Both of them fools, 
 though, or they would n't have brought that kid 
 out 
 
 Again the child turned its head and uttered a 
 faint cry, this time as if in pain. 
 
 Sam freed his arm from the hip bone of the 
 passenger on his left, and said in a sympathetic 
 voice unusual for Sam : 
 
 " Is this your boy ? " The drummer was not 
 a born conversationalist outside of trade mat- 
 ters, but he had to begin somewhere. 
 
 "Yes, sir." The woman looked up and a 
 flickering smile broke over her lips. "Our only 
 one, sir." 
 
 "Sick, ain't he?" 
 
 " Yes, sir ; got a high fever." 
 
 The man with the medal now wrenched his 
 shoulder loose and turned half round toward 
 Sam. Sam never looked so jolly nor so trust- 
 worthy : the lizards were in full play all over 
 his cheeks. 
 
 "Freddie 's all tired out, comrade. I did n't 
 want to bring him, but Kitty begged so. It was 
 crossing the Common, in that heat your 
 company must have felt it when you come 
 
 69
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 along. The sun beat down terrible on Freddie 
 that 's what used him up." 
 
 Sam felt a glow start somewhere near his 
 heels, struggle up through his spinal column, and 
 end in his fingers. Being called ' ' comrade " by a 
 man with a medal on his chest was, somehow, 
 better than being mistaken for a millionaire. 
 
 " Can't you get a stateroom ? " Sam asked. 
 Of course the man couldn't he had heard 
 him say so. The drummer was merely sparring 
 for time trying to adjust himself to a new 
 situation one rare with him. Meanwhile the 
 key of Number 15 was turning in his pocket as 
 uneasily as a grain of corn on a hot shovel. 
 
 The man shook his head in a hopeless way. 
 The woman replied in his stead she, too, had 
 fallen a victim to Sam's smile. 
 
 " No, sir, that 's the worst of it," she said in 
 a choking voice. " If we only had a pillow we 
 could put Freddie's head on it and I could find 
 some place where he might be comfortable. I 
 don't much mind for myself, but it 's dreadful 
 about Freddie " and she bent her head over 
 the child. 
 
 Sam thought of the upper berth in Number 15 
 with two pillows and the lower berth with two 
 more. By this time the key of Number 15 had 
 reached a white heat. 
 
 70
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 " Well, I guess I can help out," Sam blurted. 
 " I 've got a stateroom got two berths in it. 
 Just suit you, come to think of it. Here " 
 and he dragged out the key " Number 15 
 main deck you can't miss it. Put the kid there 
 and bunk in yourselves " and he dropped the 
 key in the woman's lap, his voice quivering, a 
 lump in his throat the size of a hen's egg. 
 
 " Oh, sir, we could n't ! " cried the woman. 
 
 "No, comrade," interrupted the man, "we 
 can't do that; we " 
 
 Sam heard, but he did not tarry. With one 
 of his nimble springs he lunged through the 
 crowd, his big fat shoulders breasting the mob, 
 wormed himself out into the air ; slipped down 
 a ladder to the deck below, interviewed the 
 steward, borrowed a blanket and a pillow, and 
 proceeded to hunt up the ironclads. If the worst 
 came to the worst, he would string them in a 
 row, spread his blanket on top, and roll up for 
 the night. Their height would keep him off the 
 deck, and the roof above them would protect 
 him from the weather should a squall come up. 
 
 This done, he drew out a domestic from the 
 upper pocket, bit off the end, slid a match 
 along the well-worn seam, and blew a ring out 
 to sea. 
 
 " Could n't let that kid sit up all night, you
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 know," he muttered to himself. "Not your 
 Uncle Joseph: no sir-ee " and he wedged 
 his way back to the deck again. 
 
 An hour later, with his blanket over his 
 shoulder and his pillow under his arm, Sam 
 again sought his ironclads. Steward, chief 
 cook, clerk everything had failed. The 
 trunks with the pillow and blanket were all 
 that was left. 
 
 It was after nine o'clock now, and the sum- 
 mer twilight had faded and only the steamer's 
 lanterns shone on the heads of the people. As 
 he passed the companion-way he ran into a man 
 in an army hat. Backing away in apology he 
 caught the glint of a medal. Then came a fa- 
 miliar voice : 
 
 "Comrade, where you been keeping your- 
 self ? I 've been hunting you all over the boat. 
 You 're the man gave me the key, ain't you ? " 
 
 "Sure! How's the kid ? Is he all right? 
 Did n't I tell you you 'd find that up-to-date ? 
 It 's a cracker-jack, that room is ; I 've had it 
 before. Tell me, how 's the kid and the wife 
 kind o' comfy, ain't they ? " 
 
 " Both are all right. . Freddie 's in the lower 
 berth and Kitty sitting by him. He 's asleep, 
 and the fever 's going down ; ain't near so hot 
 72
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 as he was. You 're white, comrade, all the 
 way through." The man's big hand closed 
 over Sam's in a warm embrace. " I thank you 
 for it. You did us a good turn and we ain't 
 going to forget you." 
 
 Sam kept edging away ; what hurt him most 
 was being thanked. 
 
 " But that ain't what I 've been hunting you 
 for, comrade," the man continued. " You did n't 
 get a stateroom, did you ? " 
 
 " No," said Sam, shaking his head and still 
 backing away. "But I'm all right got a 
 pillow and a blanket see ! " and he held them 
 up. " You need n't worry, old man. This ain't 
 nothing to the way I sleep sometimes. I 'm 
 one of those fellows can bunk in anywhere." 
 Sam was now in sight of his trunks. 
 
 "Yes," answered the man, still keeping close 
 to Sam, "that's just what we thought would 
 happen ; that 's what does worry us, and worry 
 us bad. You ain't going to bunk in anywhere 
 not by a blamed sight ! Kitty and I have 
 been talking it over, and what Kitty says 
 goes ! There 's two bunks in that stateroom ; 
 Kitty's in one 'longside of the boy, and you 
 got to sleep in the other." 
 
 "Me! well but why, man!" Sam's 
 astonishment took his breath away. 
 
 73
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 : " You got to ! " The man meant it. 
 
 " But I won't ! " said Sam in a determined 
 voice. 
 
 "Well, then, out goes Kitty and the boy! 
 You think I 'm going to sleep in your bunk, 
 and have you stretched out here on a plank 
 some'ers ! No, sir ! You got to, I tell you ! " 
 
 "Why, see here!" Sam was floundering 
 about now as helplessly as if he had been 
 thrown overboard with his hands tied. 
 
 "There ain't no seeing about it, comrade." 
 The man was close to him now, his eyes boring 
 into Sam's with a look in them as if he was 
 taking aim. 
 
 "You say I've got to get into the upper 
 berth ? " asked Sam in a baffled tone. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Sam ruminated : " When ? " 
 
 " When Kitty gets to bed." 
 
 " How '11 I know ?" 
 
 " I '11 come for you." 
 
 " All right you '11 find me here." 
 
 Then Sam turned up the deck muttering to 
 himself: "That's one on you, Sam-u-e-1 
 one under the chin whisker. Got to eh ? 
 Well, for the love of Mike!" 
 
 In ten minutes Sam heard a whistle, and 
 raised his head. The man with the medal 
 
 74
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 was leaning over the rail looking down at 
 him. 
 
 Sam mounted the steps and picked his way 
 among the passengers sprawled over the floor 
 and deck. The man advanced to meet him, 
 smiled contentedly, walked along the corridor, 
 put his hand on the knob of the door of Num- 
 ber 15, opened it noiselessly, beckoned silently, 
 waited until Sam had stepped over the thresh- 
 old and closed the door upon him. Then the 
 man tiptoed back to the saloon. 
 
 Sam looked about him. The curtains of the 
 lower berth were drawn ; the curtains of the 
 upper one were wide open. On a chair was his 
 bag, and on a hook by the shuttered window 
 the cape and hat of the wife and the clothes of 
 the sleeping boy. 
 
 At the sight of the wee jacket and little half- 
 breeches, tiny socks and cap, Sam stopped short. 
 He had never before slept in a room with a 
 child, and a strange feeling, amounting almost 
 to awe, crept over him. It was as if he had 
 stepped suddenly into a shrine and had been 
 confronted by the altar. The low-turned lamp 
 and the silence no sound came from either 
 of the occupants only added to the force of 
 the impression. 
 
 Sam slipped off his coat and shoes, hung the 
 
 75
 
 A MEDAL OF HONOR 
 
 first on a peg and laid the others on the floor ; 
 loosened his collar, mounted the chair, drew 
 himself stealthily into the upper berth ; closed 
 the curtains and stretched himself out. As his 
 head touched the pillow a soft, gentle, rested 
 voice said : 
 
 " 1 can't tell you how grateful we are, sir 
 good-night." 
 
 "Don't mention it, ma'am," whispered Sam 
 in answer; "mighty nice of you to let me 
 come," and he dropped off to sleep. 
 
 At the breaking of the dawn Sam woke with 
 a start ; ran his eye around the room until he 
 found his bearings ; drew his legs together from 
 the coverlet ; let himself down as stealthily as 
 a cat walking over teacups ; picked up his shoes, 
 slipped his arms into his coat, gave a glance at 
 the closed curtains sheltering the mother and 
 child, and crossed the room on his way to the 
 door with the tread of a burglar. 
 
 Reaching out his hand in the dim light he 
 studied the lock for an instant, settled in his 
 mind which knob to turn so as to make the 
 least noise, and swung back the door. 
 
 Outside on the mat, sound asleep, so close 
 that he almost stepped on him, lay the Man 
 with the Medal. 
 
 76
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 IT was the crush hour at Sherry's. A steady 
 stream of men and women in smart toi- 
 lettes the smartest the town afforded had 
 flowed in under the street awning, through the 
 doorway guarded by flunkeys, past the dressing- 
 rooms and coat-racks, and were now banked up 
 in the spacious hall waiting for tables, the men 
 standing about, the women resting on the chairs 
 and divans listening to the music of the Hun- 
 garian band or chatting with one another. The 
 two cafes were full had been since seven 
 o'clock, every table being occupied except two. 
 One of these had been reserved that morning 
 by my dear friend Marny, the distinguished 
 painter of portraits, I being his guest, and 
 the other, so the head waiter told us, awaited 
 the arrival of Mr. John Stirling, who would 
 entertain a party of six. 
 
 When Marny was a poor devil of an illus- 
 trator, and worked for the funny column of the 
 weekly papers, we had studios in the same 
 building, we used to dine at Porcelli's, the 
 price of the two meals equalling the value of 
 
 77
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 one American trade dollar, and including one 
 bottle of vin ordinaire. Now that Marny wears 
 a ribbon in his buttonhole, has a suite of rooms 
 that look like a museum, man-servants and 
 maid-servants, including an English butler 
 whose principal business is to see that Marny 
 is not disturbed, a line of carriages before his 
 door on his reception days, and refuses two 
 portraits a week at his own prices we some- 
 times dine at Sherry's. 
 
 As I am still a staid old landscape painter 
 living up three flights of stairs with no one to 
 wait on me but myself and the ten-year-old 
 daughter of the janitor, I must admit that these 
 occasional forays into the whirl of fashionable 
 life afford me not only infinite enjoyment, but 
 add greatly to my knowledge of human nature. 
 
 As we followed the waiter into the cafe, a 
 group of half a dozen men, all in full dress, 
 emerged from a side room and preceded us into 
 the restaurant, led by a handsome young fellow 
 of thirty. The next moment they grouped 
 themselves about the other reserved table, the 
 young fellow seating his guests himself, draw- 
 ing out each chair with some remark that kept 
 the whole party laughing. 
 
 When we had settled, into our own chairs, 
 and my host had spread his napkin and looked 
 
 78
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 about him, the young fellow nodded his head 
 at Marny, clasped his two hands together, shook 
 them together heartily, and followed this sub- 
 stitute for a closer welcome by kissing his hand 
 at him. 
 
 Marny returned the courtesy by a similar 
 handshake, and bending his head said in a low 
 voice, "The Rajah must be in luck to-night." 
 
 "Who?" I asked. My acquaintance with 
 foreign potentates is necessarily limited. 
 
 " The Rajah Jack Stirling. Take a look at 
 him. You '11 never see his match ; nobody has 
 yet." 
 
 I shifted my chair a little, turned my head in 
 the opposite direction, and then slowly covering 
 Stirling with my gaze the polite way of star- 
 ing at a stranger got a full view of the man's 
 face and figure ; rather a difficult thing on a 
 crowded night at Sherry's, unless the tables are 
 close together. What I saw was a well-built, 
 athletic looking young man, with a smooth- 
 shaven face, laughing eyes, a Cupid mouth, curly 
 brown hair, and a fresh ruddy complexion ; a 
 Lord Byron sort of a young fellow with a mod- 
 ern, up-to-date training. He was evidently 
 charming his guests, for every man's head was 
 bent forward, seemingly hanging on each word 
 that fell from his lips. 
 
 79
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 " A rajah, is he ? He don't look like an Ori- 
 ental." 
 
 " He is n't. He was born in New Jersey." 
 
 " Is he an artist ? " 
 
 " Yes, five or six different kinds ; he draws 
 better than I do ; plays on three instruments, 
 and speaks five languages." 
 
 "Rich?" 
 
 "No dead broke half the time." 
 
 I glanced at the young fellow's faultless ap- 
 pearance and the group of men he was enter- 
 taining. My eye took in the array of bottles, the 
 number of wineglasses of various sizes, and 
 the mass of roses that decorated the centre of 
 the table. Such appointments and accompani- 
 ments are not generally the property of the 
 poor. Then, again, I remembered we were at 
 Sherry's. 
 
 "What does he do for a living, then ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " Do for a living ? He does n't do anything 
 for a living. He 's a purveyor of cheerfulness. 
 He wakes up every morning with a fresh stock 
 of happiness, more than he can use himself, and 
 he trades it off during the day for anything he 
 can get." 
 
 " What kind of things ? " I was a little hazy 
 over Marny's meaning. 
 
 80
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 "Oh, dinners social, of course board 
 bills, tailor's bills, invitations to country houses, 
 voyages on yachts anything that comes along 
 and of which he may be in need at the time. 
 Most interesting man in town. Everybody loves 
 him. Known all over the world. If a fellow gets 
 sick, Stirling waltzes in, fires out the nurse, puts 
 on a linen duster, starts an alcohol lamp for 
 gruel, and never leaves till you are out again. 
 All the time he is pumping laughs into you and 
 bracing you up so that you get well twice as 
 quick. Did it for me once for five weeks on a 
 stretch, when I was laid up in my studio with 
 inflammatory rheumatism, with my grub bills 
 hung up in the restaurant downstairs, and my 
 rent three months overdue. Fed me on the fat 
 of the land, too. Soup from Delmonico's, birds 
 from some swell house up the Avenue, where 
 he had been dining sent that same night with 
 the compliments of his hostess with a ' Please 
 forgive me, but dear Mr. Stirling tells me how 
 ill you have been, and at his suggestion, and 
 with every sympathy for your sufferings 
 please accept.' Oh, I tell you he 's a daisy ! " 
 
 Here a laugh sounded from Stirling's table. 
 
 " Who 's he got in tow now ? " I asked, as 
 my eyes roamed over the merry party. 
 
 "That fat fellow in eyeglasses is Crofield the 
 81
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 banker, and the hatchet-faced man with white 
 whiskers is John Riggs from Denver, President 
 of the C. A. worth ten millions. I don't 
 know the others some bored-to-death fellows, 
 perhaps, starving for a laugh. Jack ought to 
 go slow, for he 's dead broke told me so yes- 
 terday." 
 
 " Perhaps Riggs is paying for the dinner." 
 This was an impertinent suggestion, I know; 
 but then sometimes I can be impertinent 
 especially when some of my pet theories have 
 to be defended. 
 
 " Not if Jack invited him. He 's the last man 
 in the world to sponge on anybody. Inviting a 
 man to dinner and leaving his pocketbook in his 
 other coat is not Jack's way. If he has n't got 
 the money in his own clothes, he Ml find it 
 somehow, but not in their clothes." 
 
 "Well, but at times he must have ready 
 money," I insisted. "He can't be living on 
 credit all the time." I have had to work for all 
 my pennies, am of a practical turn of mind, and 
 often live in constant dread of the first of every 
 month that fatal pay-day from which there is 
 no escape. The success, therefore, of another 
 fellow along different and more luxurious lines 
 naturally irritates me. 
 
 "Yes, now and then he does need money. 
 82
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 But that never bothers Jack. When his tailer, 
 or his shoemaker, or his landlord gets him into 
 a corner, he sends the bill to some of his friends 
 to pay for him. They never come back any- 
 body would do Stirling a favor, and they know 
 that he never calls on them unless he is up 
 against it solid." 
 
 I instinctively ran over in my mind which of 
 my own friends I would approach, in a similar 
 emergency, and the notes I would receive in 
 reply. Stirling must know rather a stupid lot 
 of men or they could n't be buncoed so easily, 
 I thought. 
 
 Soup was now being served, and Marny and 
 the waiter were discussing the merits of certain 
 vintages, my host insisting on a bottle of '84 in 
 place of the '82, then in the waiter's hand. 
 
 During the episode I had the opportunity 
 to study Stirling's table. I noticed that hardly 
 a man entered the room who did not stop and 
 lay his hand affectionately on Stirling's shoul- 
 der, bending over and joining in the laugh. 
 His guests, too, those about his table, 
 seemed equally loyal and happy. Riggs's hard 
 business face evidently a man of serious life 
 was beaming with merriment and twice as 
 wide, under Jack's leadership, and Crofield 
 and the others were leaning forward, their eyes 
 
 83
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 fixed on their host, waiting for the point of his 
 story, then breaking out together in a simul- 
 taneous laugh that could be heard all over our 
 part of the room. 
 
 When Marny had received the wine he wanted 
 it's extraordinary how critical a man's palate 
 becomes when his income is thousands a year 
 instead of dollars I opened up again with my 
 battery of questions. His friend had upset all my 
 formulas and made a laughing-stock of my most 
 precious traditions. " Pay as you go and keep 
 out of debt" seemed to belong to a past age. 
 
 " Speaking of your friend, the Rajah, as you 
 call him," I asked, "and his making his friends 
 pay his bills does he ever pay back ? " 
 
 "Always, when he gets it." 
 
 "Well, where does he get it cards? " It 
 seemed to me now that I saw some comforting 
 light ahead, dense as I am at times. 
 
 "Cards! Not much never played a game 
 in his life. Not that kind of a man." 
 
 "How, then? " I wanted the facts. There 
 must be some way in which a man like Stirling 
 could live, keep out of jail, and keep his friends 
 friends like Marny. 
 
 "Same way. Just chucks around cheerful- 
 ness to everybody who wants it, and 'most 
 everybody does. As to ready money, there's 
 
 84
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 hardly one of his rich friends in the Street who 
 hasn't a Jack Stirling account on his books. 
 And they are always lucky, for what they buy 
 for Jack Stirling is sure to go up. Got to be 
 a superstition, really. I know one broker who 
 sent him over three thousand dollars last fall 
 made it for him out of a rise in some coal stock. 
 Wrote him a note and told him he still had 
 two thousand dollars to his credit on his books, 
 which he would hold as a stake to make an- 
 other turn on next time he saw a sure thing 
 in sight. I was with Jack when he opened the 
 letter. What do you think he did ? He pulled 
 out his bureau drawer, found a slip of paper 
 containing a list of his debts, sat down and 
 wrote out a check for each one of his creditors 
 and inclosed them in the most charming little 
 notes with marginal sketches some in water- 
 color which every man of them preserves 
 now as souvenirs. I 've got one framed in my 
 studio regular little Fortuny and the check 
 is framed in with it. Never cashed it and never 
 will. The Rajah, I tell you, old man, is very 
 punctilious about his debts, no matter how 
 small they are. Gave me fifteen shillings last 
 time I went to Cairo to pay some duffer that 
 lived up a street back of Shepheard's, a red- 
 faced Englishman who" had helped Jack out of 
 
 85
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 a hole the year before, and who would have 
 pensioned the Rajah for life if he could have 
 induced him to pass the rest of his years with 
 him. And he only saw him for two days ! 
 That 's the funny thing about Jack. He never 
 forgets his creditors, and his creditors never 
 forget him. I '11 tell you about this old Cairo 
 lobster that 's what he looked like red and 
 claw-y. 
 
 " When I found him he was stretched in a 
 chair trying to cool off ; he did n't even have 
 the decency to get on his feet. 
 
 " ' Who ?' he snapped out. Just as if I had 
 been a book agent. 
 
 "'Mr. John Stirling of New York.' 
 
 " ' Owes me fifteen shillings ? ' 
 
 " 'That 's what he said, and here it is/ and 
 I handed him the silver. 
 
 '"Young man/ he says, glowering at me, 
 ' I don't know what your game is, but I '11 tell 
 you right here you can't play it on me. Never 
 heard of Mw/^r-John-Stirling-of-New-York in 
 my life. So you can put your money back.' 
 I was n't going to be whipped by the old shell- 
 fish, and then I did n't like the way he spoke of 
 Jack. I knew he was the right man, for Jack 
 does n't make mistakes not about things like 
 that. So I went at him on another tack. 
 86
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 " ' Were n't you up at Philse two years ago 
 in a dahabieh ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes.' 
 
 " ' And did n't you meet four or five young 
 Americans who came up on the steamer, and 
 who got into a scrape over their fare ? ' 
 
 "'I might I can't recollect everybody I 
 meet don't want to half of 'em' All 
 this time I was standing, remember. 
 
 " ' And did n't you' I was going on to say, 
 but he jumped from his chair and was fumbling 
 about a bookcase. 
 
 " ' Ah, here it is ! ' he cried out. ' Here 's a 
 book of photographs of a whole raft of young 
 fellows I met up the Nile on that trip. Most of 
 'em owed me something and still do. Pick out 
 the man now you say owes me fifteen shillings 
 and wants to pay it.' 
 
 " ' There he is one of those three.' 
 
 "The old fellow adjusted his glasses. 
 
 " 'The Rajah ! That man! Know him? Best 
 lad I ever met in my life. I 'm damned if I take 
 his money, and you can go home and tell him 
 so.' He did, though, and I sat with him until 
 three o'clock in the morning talking about Jack, 
 and I had all I could do getting away from him 
 then. Wanted me to move in next day bag 
 and baggage, and stay a month with him. He 
 
 87
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 was n't so bad when I came to know him, if he 
 was red and claw-y." 
 
 I again devoted my thoughts to the dinner 
 what I could spare from the remarkable person- 
 age Marny had been discussing, and who still 
 sat within a few tables of us. My friend's story 
 had opened up a new view of life, one that I had 
 never expected to see personified in any one 
 man. The old-fashioned rules by which I had 
 been brought up the rules of "An eye for an 
 eye," and "Earn thy bread by the sweat of 
 thy brow," etc. seemed to have lost their 
 meaning. The Rajah's method, it seemed to 
 me, if persisted in, might help solve the new 
 problem of the day "the joy of living " al- 
 ways a colossal joke with me. I determined to 
 know something more of this lazy apostle in a 
 dress suit who dispensed sweetness and light at 
 some other fellow's expense. 
 
 "Why do you call him 'The Rajah,' 
 Marny ? " I asked. 
 
 "Oh, he got that in India. A lot of people 
 like that old lobster in Cairo don't know him 
 by any other name." 
 
 " What did he do in India?" 
 
 "Nothing in particular just kept on being 
 himself just as he does everywhere." 
 
 "Tell me about it."
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 " Well, I got it from Ashburton, a member 
 of the Alpine Club in London. But everybody 
 knows the story wonder you have n't heard 
 it. You ought to come out of your hole, old 
 man, and see what 's going on in the world. 
 You live up in that den of yours, and the pro- 
 cession goes by and you don't even hear the 
 band. You ought to know Jack he 'd do you 
 a lot of good," and Marny looked at me curi- 
 ously as a physician would, who, when he 
 prescribes for you, tells you only one half of 
 your ailment. 
 
 I did not interrupt my friend I was n't get- 
 ting thousands for a child's head, and twice 
 that price for the mother in green silk and dia- 
 monds. And I could n't afford to hang out my 
 window and watch any kind of procession, 
 figurative or otherwise. Nor could I afford to 
 exchange dinners with John Stirling. 
 
 "Do you want me to tell you about that 
 time the Rajah had in India ? Well, move your 
 glass this way," and my host picked up the 
 '84. "Ashburton," continued Marny, and he 
 filled my glass to the brim, " is one of those 
 globe-trotters who does mountain-tops for exer- 
 cise. He knows the Andes as well as he does 
 the glaciers in Switzerland ; has been up the 
 Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, and every other 
 
 89
 
 snow-capped peak within reach, and so he 
 thought he 'd try the Himalayas. You know 
 how these Englishmen are the rich ones. At 
 twenty-five a good many of them have ex- 
 hausted life. Some shoot tigers, some fit out cara- 
 vans and cross deserts, some get lost in African 
 jungles, and some come here and go out West 
 for big game ; anything that will keep them from 
 being bored to death before they are thirty-five 
 years of age. Ashburton was that kind. 
 
 " He had only been home ten days he had 
 spent two years in Yucatan looking up Toltec 
 ruins when this Himalaya trip got into his 
 head. Question was, whom could he get to go 
 with him, for these fellows hate to be alone. 
 Some of the men he wanted had n't returned from 
 their own wild-goose chases ; others could n't 
 get away, one was running for Parliament, 
 I think, and so Ashburton, cursing his luck, 
 had about made up his mind to try it alone, 
 when he ran across Jack one day in the club. 
 
 " ' Hello, Stirling ! Thought you 'd sailed for 
 America.' 
 
 " 'No,' said Jack, 'I go next week. What 
 are you doing here ? Thought you had gone to 
 India.' 
 
 " 'Can't get anybody to go with me,' an- 
 swered Ashburton. 
 
 90
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 " ' Where do you go first ? ' 
 
 " 'To Calcutta by steamer, and then strike 
 in and up to the foot-hills.' 
 
 '"For how long ? ' 
 
 " ' About a year. Come with me like a de- 
 cent man.' 
 
 '"Can't. Only got money enough to get 
 home, and I don't like climbing.' 
 
 " ' Money has n't got anything to do with it 
 you go as my guest. As to climbing, you won't 
 have to climb an inch. I Ml leave you at the foot- 
 hills in a bungalow, with somebody to take care 
 of you, and you can stay there until I come back.' 
 
 " ' How long will you be climbing ? ' 
 
 " ' About two months.' 
 
 " ' When do you start ? ' 
 
 " 'To-morrow, at daylight.' 
 
 "'All right, I'll be on board.' 
 
 "Going out, Jack got up charades and all 
 sorts of performances ; rescued a man overboard, 
 striking the water about as soon as the man 
 did, and holding on to him until the lifeboat 
 reached them ; studied navigation and took 
 observations every day until he learned how ; 
 started a school for the children there were a 
 dozen on board and told them fairy tales by 
 the hour ; and by the time the steamer reached 
 Calcutta every man, woman, and child had fallen 
 
 91
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 in love with him. One old Maharajah, who was 
 on board, took such a fancy to him that he in- 
 sisted on Jack's spending a year with him, and 
 there came near being a precious row when he 
 refused, which of course he had to do, being 
 Ashburton's guest. 
 
 "When the two got to where Jack was to 
 camp out and wait for Ashburton's return from 
 his climb it was a little spot called Bungpore 
 the Englishman fitted up a place just as he 
 said he would ; left two men to look after him 
 one to cook and the other to wait on him 
 fell on Jack's neck, for he hated the worst 
 kind to leave him, and disappeared into the 
 brush with his retainers or whatever he did 
 disappear into and with I never climbed 
 the Himalayas, and so I 'm a little hazy over 
 these details. And that 's the last Ashbur- 
 ton saw of Jack until he returned two months 
 later." 
 
 Marny emptied his glass, flicked the ashes 
 from his cigarette, beckoned to the waiter, and 
 gave him an order for a second bottle of '84. 
 During the break in the story 1 made another 
 critical examination of the hero, as he sat sur- 
 rounded by his guests, his face beaming, the 
 light falling on his immaculate shirt-front. I 
 noted the size of his arm and the depth of his 
 92
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 chest, and his lithe, muscular thighs. I noticed, 
 too, how quickly he gained his feet when wel- 
 coming a friend, who had just stopped at his 
 table. I understood now how the drowning 
 sailor came to be saved. 
 
 The wine matter settled, Marny took some 
 fresh cigarettes from his silver case, passed one 
 to me, and held a match to both in turn. Be- 
 tween the puffs I again brought the talk back 
 to the man who now interested me intensely. 
 I was afraid we would be interrupted and I have 
 to wait before finding out why his friend was 
 called the "Rajah." 
 
 " I should think he would have gone with 
 him instead of staying behind and living off his 
 bounty," I ventured. 
 
 ' ' Yes 1 know you would , old man , but Jack 
 thought differently, not being built along your 
 lines. You 've got to know him I tell you, 
 he '11 do you a lot of good. Stirling saw that, 
 if he went, it would only double Ashburton's 
 expense account, and so he squatted down to 
 wait with just money enough to get along those 
 two months, and not another cent. Told Ash- 
 burton he wanted to learn Hindustanee, and he 
 could n't do it if he was sliding down glaciers 
 and getting his feet wet it would keep him 
 from studying." 
 
 93
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 "And was Stirling waiting for him when 
 Ashburton came back ? " 
 
 "Waiting for him! Well, I guess! First 
 thing Ashburton ran up against was one of the 
 blackamoors he had hired to take care of Jack. 
 When he had left the fellow he was clothed in 
 a full suit of yellow dust with a rag around his 
 loins. Now he was gotten up in a red turban 
 and pajamas trimmed with gewgaws. The 
 blackamoor prostrated himself and began ko- 
 towing backward toward a marquee erected on 
 a little knoll under some trees and surrounded 
 by elephants in gorgeous trappings. 'The 
 Rajah of Bungpore ' that was Jack 'had 
 sent him,' he said, ' to conduct his Royal High- 
 ness into the presence of his illustrious master ! ' 
 
 "When Ashburton reached the door of the 
 marquee and peered in, he saw Jack lying back 
 on an Oriental couch at the other end smoking 
 the pipe of the country whatever that was 
 and surrounded by a collection of Hottentots of 
 various sizes and colors, who fell on their fore- 
 heads every time Jack crooked his finger. At 
 his feet knelt two Hindoo merchants displaying 
 their wares pearls, ivories, precious stones, 
 arms, porcelains stuffs of a quality and price, 
 Ashburton told me, that took his breath away. 
 Jack kept on he made out he did n't see Ash- 
 
 94
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 burton his slaves bearing the purchases away 
 and depositing them on a low inlaid table 
 teak wood, I guess in one comer of the mar- 
 quee, while a confidential Lord of the Treasury 
 took the coin of the realm from a bag or gourd 
 or whatever he did take it from and paid the 
 shot. 
 
 " When the audience was over, Jack waved 
 everybody outside with a commanding gesture, 
 and still lolling on his rugs or maybe his 
 tiger skins told his Grand Vizier to conduct 
 the strange man to his august presence. Then 
 Jack rose from this throne, dismissed the Grand 
 Vizier, and fell into Ashburton's arms roaring 
 with laughter." 
 
 " And Ash burton had to foot the bills, I sup- 
 pose," I blurted out. It is astonishing how sus- 
 picious and mean a man gets sometimes who 
 mixes as little as I do with what Marny calls 
 "the swim." 
 
 "Ashburton foot the bills ! Not much ! Listen, 
 you six by nine! Stirling hadn't been alone 
 more than a week when along comes the Maha- 
 rajah he had met on the steamer. He lived up 
 in that part of the country, and one of his pri- 
 vate detectives had told him that somebody 
 was camping out on his lot. Down he came in 
 a white heat, with a bag of bow-strings and a 
 
 95
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 squad of the 'Finest' in pink trousers and 
 spears. I get these details all wrong, old man 
 they might have been in frock-coats for all 
 I know or care but what I'm after is the 
 Oriental atmosphere a sort of property back- 
 ground with my principal figure high up on 
 the canvas and one costume is as good as 
 another. 
 
 "When the old Maharajah found out it was 
 Jack instead of some squatter, he fell all over 
 himself with joy. Wanted to take him up to 
 his marble palace, open up everything, unlock 
 a harem, trot out a half-dozen chorus girls in 
 bangles and mosquito-net bloomers, and do a lot 
 of comfortable things for him. But Jack said 
 No. He was put here to stay, and here he was 
 going to stay if he had t call out every man in 
 his army. The old fellow saw the joke and said 
 all right, here he should stay ; and before night 
 he had moved down a tent, and a bodyguard, 
 and an elephant or two for local color, so as 
 to make it real Oriental for Jack, and the next 
 day he sent him down a bag of gold, and ser- 
 vants, and a cook. Every pedler who appeared 
 after that he passed along to Jack, and before 
 Ashburton turned up Stirling had a collection of 
 curios worth a fortune. One half of them he 
 gave to Ashburton and the other half he brought 
 96
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 home to his friends. That inlaid elephant's tusk 
 hanging up in my studio is one of them you 
 remember it." 
 
 As Marny finished, one of the waiters who 
 had been serving Stirling and his guests ap- 
 proached our table under the direction of the 
 Rajah's finger, and, bending over Marny, whis- 
 pered something in his ear. He had the cashier's 
 slip in his hand and Stirling's visiting card. 
 
 Marny laid the bill beside his plate, glanced 
 at the card with a laugh, his face lighting up, 
 and then passed it to me. It read as follows : 
 " Not a red and no credit. Sign it for Jack." 
 
 Marny raised his eyes, nodded his head at 
 Stirling, kissed his finger-tips at him, fished up 
 his gold chain, slid out a pencil dangling at its 
 end, wrote his name across the slip, and said 
 in a whisper to the waiter : " Take this to the 
 manager and have him charge it to my account." 
 
 When we had finished our dinner and were 
 passing out abreast of Stirling's table, the Rajah 
 rose to his feet, his guests all standing about 
 him, their glasses in their hands Riggs's 
 whiskers stood straight, he was so happy 
 and, waving his own glass toward my host, 
 said : " Gentlemen, I give you Marny, the 
 Master, the Velasquez of modern times ! " 
 
 97
 
 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE 
 
 Some weeks later I called at Marny's studio. 
 He was out. On the easel stood a full-length 
 portrait of Riggs, the millionaire, his thin, 
 hatchet-shaped face and white whiskers in high 
 relief against a dark background. Scattered 
 about the room were smaller heads bearing a 
 strong resemblance to the great president. Jack 
 had evidently corralled the entire family and 
 all out of that dinner at Sherry's. 
 
 I shut the door of Marny's studio softly 
 behind me, tiptoed downstairs, dropped into a 
 restaurant under the sidewalk, and dined alone. 
 
 Marny is right. The only way to hear the 
 band is to keep up with the procession. 
 
 My philosophy is a failure.
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 E Via Garibaldi is astir to-day. From 
 the Ponte Veneta Marina, next the caffe 
 of the same name it is but a step to the 
 big iron gates of the Public Gardens, is a mov- 
 ing throng of Venetians, their chatter filling 
 the soft September air. Flags are waving all 
 kinds of flags, and of all colors ; gay lanterns of 
 quaint patterns are festooned from window to 
 window ; old velvets and rare stuffs, some in 
 rags and tatters, so often have they been used, 
 stream out from the balconies crowded with 
 pretty Venetians shading their faces with their 
 parasols as they watch the crowds below. In 
 and out of this mass of holiday-makers move the 
 pedlers crying their wares, some selling figs, 
 their scales of polished brass jingling as they 
 walk ; some with gay handkerchiefs and scarfs 
 draped about their trays ; here and there one 
 stands beside a tripod holding a big earthen dish 
 filled withfulpi miniature devil-fish about as 
 big as a toad so ugly that no man, however 
 hungry, except, perhaps, a Venetian, dares 
 swallow one with his eyes open. 
 
 99
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 Along this stretch of waving flags, gay-colored 
 lanterns, and joyous people, are two places 
 where the throngs are thickest. One is the 
 Gaffe Veneta Marina, its door within a cigarette's 
 toss of the first step of the curving bridge of 
 the same name, and the other is the Gaffe 
 Beneto, a smaller caffe farther down the wide 
 street wide for Venice. The Gaffe Veneta 
 Marina contains but a single room level with the 
 street, and on gala days its tables and chairs 
 are pushed quite out upon the marble flags. 
 The Gaffe Beneto runs through to the waters 
 of the Grand Canal and opens on a veranda 
 fitted with a short flight of steps at which the 
 gondolas often land their passengers. 
 
 These two caffes are the headquarters of two 
 opposing factions of gondoliers, enemies for 
 centuries, since the founding of their guild, in 
 fact the Nicolletti, whose caps in the old days 
 were black, and the Castellani, whose caps were 
 red. The first were publicans, renowned for 
 their prowess with the oar, but rough and out- 
 spoken, boastful in victory, bitter in defeat. 
 The second were aristocrats, serving the Doge 
 and often of great service to the State men 
 distinguished for their courtesy as well as for 
 their courage. These attributes have followed 
 these two guilds down to the present day. 
 100
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 Every year when the leaves of the sycamores 
 in the Public Gardens fade into brown gold, and 
 the great dome of the Salute, glistening like a 
 huge pink pearl, looms above the soft September 
 haze that blurs the water-line, these two guilds 
 the Nicolletti and Castellani meet in com- 
 bat, each producing its best oarsmen. 
 
 To-day the course is from the wall of the Pub- 
 lic Gardens to the Lido and back. Young Fran- 
 cesco Portera, the idol of the shipyards, a big- 
 boned Venetian, short-armed and strong, is to 
 row for the Nicolletti, and Luigi Zanaletto, a man 
 near twice his age, for the Castellani. 
 
 For days there has been no other talk than 
 this gondola race. Never in any September has 
 the betting run so high. So great is the inter- 
 est in the contest that every morning for a week 
 the line of people at the Monte di Pieta the 
 Government pawn shop has extended out into 
 the great corridor of the Palazzo, every arm and 
 pocket filled with clothing, jewels, knickknacks, 
 everything the owners can and cannot spare, to 
 be pawned in exchange for the money needed 
 to bet on this race. 
 
 There is good cause for this unusual excite- 
 ment. While Luigi is known as the successful 
 winner of the four annual races preceding this 
 one, carrying the flag of the Castellani to vie- 
 101
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 tory against all comers, and each year a new 
 contestant, many of his enemies insist that the 
 pace has told on him ; that despite his great 
 reach of arm and sinewy legs, his strength, by 
 reason of his age, they are all old at forty in 
 Venice (except the Castellani), is failing, and 
 that for him to win this fifth and last race would 
 be more than any guild could expect, glorious 
 as would be the result. Others, more knowing, 
 argued that while Francesco had an arm like a 
 blacksmith and could strike a blow that would 
 fell an ox, he lacked that refinement of training 
 which made the ideal oarsman ; that it was not 
 so much the size or quality of the muscles as it 
 was the man who used them ; that blood and 
 brains were more than brute force. 
 
 Still another feature added zest and interest to 
 the race, especially to members of the opposing 
 guilds. There was an unwritten law of Venice 
 that no man of either guild could win more than 
 five races in succession a foolish law, many 
 thought, for no oarsman had accomplished it. 
 This done, the victor retired on his laurels. 
 Ever after he became Primo the envied of his 
 craft, the well-beloved of all the women of his 
 quarter, young and old alike. Should Luigi 
 Zanaletto win this fifth race, no Nicolletti could 
 show their faces for very shame on the Piazza. 
 1 02
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 For weeks thereafter they would be made the 
 butt of the good-natured badinage of the popu- 
 lace. If, however, Luigi should lose this fifth 
 and last race, the spell would be broken and 
 some champion of the Nicolletti perhaps this 
 very Francesco, with the initiative of this race, 
 might gain succeeding victories, and so the Nicol- 
 letti regain the ground they had lost through 
 Luigi's former prowess. 
 
 Those of his guild, however, those who knew 
 and loved Luigi, had no such misgivings as to 
 the outcome. They lost no sleep over his ex- 
 pected defeat. As their champion stepped from 
 his gondola this beautiful September morning, 
 laying his oar along its side, and mounted the 
 marble steps of the landing opposite the Gaffe 
 Veneta Marina, those who got close enough to 
 note his superb condition only added to their 
 wagers. Six feet and an inch, straight, with 
 willowy arms strengthened by steel cords tied 
 in knots above the elbows, hauled taut along 
 the wrists and anchored in the hands grips 
 of steel, these hands, with thumbs and forefin- 
 gers strong as the jaws of a vice (he wields 
 and guides his oar with these) ; waist like a 
 woman's, the ribs outlined through the cross- 
 barred boating shirt; back and stomach in- 
 curved, laced and clamped by a red sash ; 
 103
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 thighs and calves of lapped leather ; shoulders 
 a beam of wood square, hard, unyielding ; 
 neck an upward sweep tanned to a ruddy 
 brown, ending in a mass of black hair, curly as 
 a dog's and as strong and glistening. 
 
 And his face ! Stop some morning before 
 the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, and look 
 up into the face of the great Colleoni as he sits 
 bestride his bronze horse, and ask the noble 
 soldier to doff his helmet. Then follow the 
 firm lines of the mouth, the wide brow, strong 
 nose, and iron chin. Add to this a skin bronzed 
 to copper by the sun, a pair of laughing eyes, 
 and an out-pointed mustache, and you have 
 Luigi. 
 
 And the air of the man ! Only gondoliers, 
 of all serving-men, have this humble fearless- 
 ness of manner a manner which combines 
 the dignity of the patrician with the humility 
 of the servant. It is their calling which marks 
 the difference. Small as is the gondola among 
 all water craft, the gondolier is yet its master, 
 free to come and free to go. The wide stretch 
 of the sea is his not another's : a sea hemmed 
 about by the palaces of ancestors who for ten 
 centuries dominated the globe. 
 
 But Luigi is still standing on the marble 
 104
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 steps of the landing opposite the Gaffe Veneta 
 Marina this lovely September day, doffing his cap 
 to the admiring throng, just as Colleoni would 
 have doffed his, and with equal grace. Not the 
 red cap of his guild that has been laid aside 
 for two centuries but his wide straw hat, with 
 his colors wound about it. 
 
 As he made his way slowly through the 
 crowd toward the caffe, an old woman who had 
 been waiting for him wrinkled, gray-haired, 
 a black shawl about her head held tight to the 
 chin by her skinny fingers, her eyes peering 
 from its folds stepped in front of him. She 
 lived near his home and was godmother to one 
 of his children. 
 
 " Luigi Zanaletto ! " she cried, catching him 
 by the wrist. 
 
 "Yes, good mother." 
 
 " That idiot Marco told my Amalia last night 
 that you will lose the race. He has been to the 
 Pieta and will bet all his money on Francesco." 
 
 " And why not, good mother ? Why do 
 you worry ? " 
 
 "Because the two fools will have no money 
 to be married on. They are called in San Rosa- 
 rio next Sunday, and the next is their wedding- 
 day. He has pawned the boat his uncle gave 
 him." 
 
 105
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 "And if he wins?" 
 
 "He will not win, Luigi. When that brute 
 came in from the little race we had last week I 
 was passing in a sandolo on my way to San 
 Giorgio. He was panting like a child after a 
 run. If he had no breath left in him then, where 
 will he be to-day ? " 
 
 " One cannot tell, good mother. Who told 
 the boy I would lose the race ?" 
 
 "Beppo Cavalli." 
 
 "Ah ! the Nicolletti," muttered Luigi. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " He has a boy, too, has he not, good mo- 
 ther ? " 
 
 "Yes, Amalia loved him once; now she 
 loves Marco. These girls are like the wind, 
 Luigi. They never blow two days alike." 
 
 Luigi stopped and looked out toward the 
 lagoon. He knew Cavalli. In summer he rowed 
 a barca ; in winter he kept a wine shop and 
 sold untaxed salt and smuggled cigarettes to 
 his customers. The crowd pressed closer, lis- 
 tening. 
 
 "Beppo Cavalli, good mother," he said 
 slowly, " means ill to the boy Marco and to 
 your daughter. The Cavallis are not backing 
 Francesco. They talk loud, but there is not a 
 soldo for him among them. Cavalli would get 
 106
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 that girl for his son ; she is pretty and would 
 bring customers to his shop. Where is Marco? " 
 
 " He is at the Gaffe Beneto with Cavalli and 
 Francesco. I have tired my tongue out talking 
 to Marco, and so has Amalia. His head is fixed 
 like a stone. Francesco is getting ready for this 
 afternoon, but it will do him no good. He has 
 not arms like this. Is it not so, men ? " and 
 she lifted Luigi's arm and held it up that the 
 crowd might see. 
 
 A great cheer went up in answer, and was 
 echoed by the crowd about the caffe door. 
 Luigi among the people of his quarter was like 
 their religion. 
 
 The champion had now reached one of the 
 tables of the caffe. Drawing out a chair, he 
 bent forward, shook hands with old Guide, the 
 proprietor, crooked his fingers gallantly at a 
 group of women in an overhanging balcony, 
 and was just taking his seat when a young girl 
 edged her way through the circle and slipped 
 her arm around the woman's neck. She had 
 the low brow surmounted by masses of jet- 
 black hair, drooping, sleepy eyelids shading 
 slumbering, passionate eyes, sensitive sweet 
 mouth, and oval face common to her class. 
 About her shoulders was draped a black shawl, 
 its fringes lost in the folds of her simple gown. 
 107
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 "Oh, Amalia ! " cried the woman, "has this 
 boy of yours given up his money yet ? " 
 
 " No, mother, he has promised to wait till I 
 come back. Marco is like a wild man when I 
 talk. I thought Luigi would speak to him if 
 I asked him. Please, dear Luigi, do not let him 
 lose his money. We are ruined if he bets on 
 Francesco." 
 
 Luigi reached out his hand and drew the girl 
 toward him. His own daughter at home had just 
 such a look in her eyes whenever she was in 
 trouble and came to him for help. 
 
 " How much will he bet, child ? " he asked 
 in a low voice. 
 
 " Every soldo he has. Cavalli talks to him 
 all the time. They are like crazy people over 
 there at the Beneto. Ah, good Luigi, do not win ! 
 I am so unhappy ! ' ' and the tears gathered in 
 her eyes. 
 
 Luigi, still holding her hand, laughed gently 
 as he looked up into her face. The others who 
 had heard the girl's plea laughed with him. 
 
 " Go, child, and bring Marco here to me. 
 Cavalli shall not ruin you both, if I can help it." 
 
 The girl pushed her hair back from her flushed 
 
 face, drew her shawl closer about her shoulders, 
 
 bent her pretty head, wormed her way out of 
 
 the dense throng pressing in upon the table, and 
 
 1 08
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 ran with all her might toward the Caffe Beneto, 
 followed by her mother. 
 
 In a few minutes the two were back again, 
 their arms fast locked in those of a young fellow 
 of twenty they marry young under Italian 
 suns who stood looking at Luigi with curious, 
 wondering eyes. Not that he did not know the 
 champion every man in Venice knew him 
 but because Cavalli had pictured Luigi as of 
 doubtful strength, and the Luigi before him did 
 not fit Cavalli's measure. 
 
 " Marco," said Luigi, a smile crossing his 
 face. 
 
 "Yes,Signore Zanaletto," answered the boy. 
 
 "Come nearer." 
 
 The young fellow advanced to the table. The 
 others who had been near enough to learn of 
 the girl's errand crowded the closer. Every ut- 
 terance of a champion on a day like this is of 
 value. 
 
 " You should be at work, boy, not betting on 
 the race. You earn your living with your hands ; 
 that is better than Cavalli's way ; he earns his 
 with his tongue. I am nearly twice your age 
 and have rowed many times, but I have never 
 yet wagered as much as a soldo on any race of 
 mine. Give your money to the good mother, 
 and let her take it to the Pieta and get your 
 109
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 boat. You will need it before the month is out, 
 she tells me." 
 
 The boy hung his head and did not answer. 
 
 " Why do you think I shall lose ? Have I not 
 won four already ? " 
 
 " Yes, but every year the signore gets older ; 
 you are not so strong as you were. And then, 
 no man has won five races in fifty years. It is 
 the Nicolletti's year to win, Cavalli says." 
 
 A cheer here went up from the outside of the 
 crowd. Some of the Nicolletti who had followed 
 the boy had been listening. 
 
 " Cavalli should read his history better. It is 
 not fifty years, but sixty. But we Italians work 
 for ourselves now, and are free. That counts for 
 something." 
 
 ' ' Francesco works, Signore Zanaletto. He has 
 arms like my leg." 
 
 "Yes, and for that reason you think him the 
 stronger ? ' ' 
 
 "I did when Cavalli talked to me. Now I am 
 in doubt." 
 
 The cheer that answered this reply came from 
 some Castellani standing in the door of the caffe. 
 When the cheering slackened a man on the out- 
 side of the crowd called out : 
 
 "Your Luigi is a coward. He will not bet 
 because he knows he '11 lose." 
 no
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 At this a big stevedore from the salt warehouse 
 lunged toward Luigi and threw a silver lira on his 
 table. 
 
 " Match that for Francesco ! " he cried. 
 
 Luigi pushed it back. 
 
 " When I bet it will be with my equal," he 
 said icily. 
 
 A laugh of derision followed, in which Marco 
 joined. The boy evidently thought the cham- 
 pion was afraid to risk his own money and 
 make his word good. Boys of twenty often 
 have such standards. 
 
 "Bet with Francesco, then, Signore Zana- 
 letto," cried the stevedore. " He is twice your 
 equal." 
 
 "Yes, bring him here," answered Luigi, 
 quietly. 
 
 Half a dozen men, led by the big stevedore, 
 made a rush for the Gaffe Beneto. While they 
 were gone, Marco, with Amalia and her mother, 
 kept their places beside Luigi's table, chatting 
 together in low tones. Luigi's refusal to bet 
 with the stevedore and his willingness to bet 
 with his opponent had unsettled Marco's mind 
 all the more. Marriage, with him as with most 
 of the people of his class, meant just money 
 enough to pay the priest and to defray expenses 
 of existence for a month. He would take his 
 in
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 chances after that. They might both go to work 
 again then, she back to her beads and he to his 
 boat, but they would have had their holiday, 
 and a holiday is the one thing valued above all 
 others by most Venetians. Should he lose, 
 however, he must give up the girl for the pre- 
 sent the prettiest in all the quarter. And then 
 perhaps Beppo Cavalli's son might find favor 
 again in her eyes. 
 
 Amalia's anxiety was none the less keen. She 
 had thrown over Cavalli's son for Marco, and 
 if anything should go wrong the whole quarter 
 would laugh at her. The two continued to ply 
 Luigi with questions : as to who would win the 
 toss for position ; whether the wind would be 
 against them ; whether the water would be 
 rough where the tide cut around the point of 
 San Giorgio all of which Marco, being a good 
 boatman, could have settled for himself had his 
 mind been normal. As they talked on, Luigi 
 read their minds. Reason and common sense 
 had evidently made no impression on the boy ; 
 he was not to be influenced in that way. Some- 
 thing stronger and more obvious, some demon- 
 stration that he could understand, was needed. 
 Amalia's mother was his friend, and had been 
 for years; what he could do to help her he 
 would, no matter at what cost. 
 
 112
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 The throng parted again, and the stevedore, 
 out of breath, forced his way into the circle. 
 
 "The great Francesco says he comes at no 
 man's call. He is a Nicolletti. If any Castellan! 
 wants to see him he must come to him. He 
 will wait for you at the Beneto." 
 
 A shout went up, and a rush to avenge the 
 insult was only stopped by Luigi gaining his 
 feet and raising his hand. 
 
 "Tell him," he said in a clear voice, loud 
 enough for every one to hear, "that there is 
 no need of his saying he is a Nicolletti ; we 
 would know it from his message. Come, boy, 
 I '11 show you of what stuff this gentleman is 
 made." 
 
 The crowd fell back, Luigi striding along, his 
 hand on Marco's shoulder. The champion could 
 hardly conceal a smile of triumph as he neared 
 the door of the Gaffe Beneto, which opened 
 to let them in. The two passed through the 
 long passage into the room opening out on the 
 veranda and the water beyond. Francesco sat 
 at a table with his back to a window, sipping a 
 glass of wine diluted with water. Cavalli, his 
 head bound with a yellow handkerchief, the 
 colors of the Nicolletti, a scowl on his face, sat 
 beside him. Every inch of standing room was 
 blocked with his admirers. 
 113
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 "Signore Francesco," said Luigi, courteously, 
 removing his hat, " I understand that you want 
 to lose some money on the race. I have come 
 to accommodate you. How much shall it be ? " 
 
 " Ten lire ! " cried one of the officers of the 
 regatta, pouring some silver beside Francesco's 
 hand as it rested on the table. ' ' Put your money 
 here, Signore Zanaletto. Our good landlord will 
 hold the stakes." 
 
 " The money is not enough, "answered Luigi. 
 "I am the challenged party, and have the right 
 to choose. Is it not so ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes," cried half a dozen voices; 
 " make it fifty lire ! We are not la^agnoni. 
 We have money plenty of it. See, Signore 
 Castellani " and half a dozen palms covered 
 with small coin were extended. 
 
 " I can choose, then, the kind of money and 
 the sum," continued Luigi. 
 
 "Yes, gold, silver, paper anything you 
 want!" 
 
 "Then, gentle Nicolletti," said Luigi, in his 
 softest and most courteous voice, " if you will 
 permit me, I will choose the poor man's money. 
 Match this, Signore Francesco," and he threw 
 a copper soldo (a coin the size and thickness of 
 an English penny) upon the table. " It is yours 
 if you win." 
 
 114
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 A roar of laughter greeted the announcement. 
 Francesco sprang to his feet. 
 
 " I am not here to be made a fool of ! I don't 
 bet with soldi ! I throw them to beggars ! " he 
 cried angrily. 
 
 " Pardon me, signore. Was it not agreed 
 that I had the choice ?" 
 
 Some muttering was heard at this, but no one 
 answered. 
 
 " Let us see your soldo, then, signore," con- 
 tinued Luigi. " The race is the thing, not the 
 money. A soldo is as good as a gold piece with 
 which to back one's opinions. Come, I am 
 waiting." 
 
 Francesco thrust his hand into his pocket, 
 hauled up a handful of small coin, picked out a 
 soldo and threw it contemptuously on the table. 
 
 "There will that do?" 
 
 Luigi picked up the copper coin, examined it 
 carefully, and tossed it back on the table. 
 
 "It is not of the right kind, signore. The 
 stamp is wrong. We Castellani are very par- 
 ticular as to what money we wager and win." 
 
 The crowd craned their heads. If it was a 
 counterfeit, they would put up another. This, 
 however, did not seem to be Luigi's meaning. 
 The boy Marco was so absorbed in the outcome 
 that he reached forward to pick up the coin to 
 
 "5
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 examine it the closer when Luigi stopped him 
 with his hand. 
 
 "What's the matter with the soldo?" 
 growled Francesco, scrutinizing the pieces; 
 "is n't it good?" 
 
 "Good enough, perhaps, for beggars, sig- 
 nore, and good enough, no doubt, for Nicolletti. 
 But it lacks the stamp of the Castellani. Hand 
 it to me, please, and I will put the mark of my 
 guild upon it. Look, good Signore Francesco ! " 
 
 As he spoke, Luigi caught the coin between 
 his thumb and forefinger, clutched it with a 
 grip of steel, and with a twist of his thumb 
 bent the copper soldo to the shape of a watch 
 crystal ! 
 
 "That kind of a soldo, signore," he said in 
 a low tone, as he tossed the concave coin back 
 upon the table. "Match it, please! Here, 
 try your fingers on my coin ! Come, I am 
 waiting. You do not answer, Signore Fran- 
 cesco. Why did you send for me, then ? Had 
 I known that your money was not ready I 
 would not have left my caffe. Perhaps, how- 
 ever, some other distinguished Nicolletti can 
 find some money good enough with which to 
 bet a Castellani," and he looked about him. 
 " No ? I am sorry, gentlemen, very sorry. 
 Addio ! " and he picked up the bent coin, 
 116
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 slipped it into his pocket, bowed like a doge to 
 the room, and passed out through the door. 
 
 In the dense mass that lined the wall of the 
 Public Gardens a girl and her lover stood with 
 anxious eyes and flushed, hot cheeks, watching 
 the home-stretch of the two contestants. 
 
 Francesco and Luigi, cheered by the shouts 
 of a thousand throats, had reached the stake- 
 boat off the Lido and were now swinging back 
 to the goal of the Garden wall, both bending 
 to their blades, Luigi half a length behind, 
 Francesco straining every nerve. Waves of 
 red and of gold the colors of the two guilds 
 surged and flashed from out the mass of 
 spectators as each oarsman would gain or lose 
 an inch. 
 
 Behind the lover and the girl stood the girl's 
 mother, her black shawl twisted into a scarf. 
 This she waved as heartily as the youngest 
 about her. 
 
 "Don't cry, you fools!" she stopped long 
 enough to shout in Amalia's ear. "It is his 
 old way. Wait till he reaches the red buoy. 
 Ah ! what did I tell you ! Luigi ! Luigi ! Bravo 
 Castellani ! See, Marco see! Ah, Signore 
 Francesco, your wind is gone, is it ? You 
 should nurse bambinos with those big arms of 
 
 117
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 yours. Ah, look at him ! Amalia, what did I 
 tell you, you two fools ! " 
 
 Marco did not answer. He was holding on 
 to the marble coping of the wall, his teeth set, 
 his lips quivering, his eyes fixed on Francesco's 
 body in silhouette against the glistening sea. 
 Luigi's long swing, rhythmical as a machine's, 
 graceful as the curves of a wind sail, did not 
 seem to interest him. The boy had made his 
 bet, and he would abide by it, but he would 
 not tell the mother until the race was won. He 
 had had enough of her tongue. 
 
 Suddenly Luigi clenched his thumb and fore- 
 finger tight about the handle of his oar, and 
 with the sweep of a yacht gaining her goal 
 headed straight for the stake-post, in full sight 
 of the thousands lining the walls. 
 
 A great shout went up. Red flags, red parasols, 
 rags, blankets, anything that told of Luigi's 
 colors, rose and fluttered in the sunlight. 
 
 "Primo! Primal" yelled the crowd. " Viva 
 Castellani ! Viva Zanaletto ! " 
 
 Then, while the whole concourse of people 
 held their breaths, their hearts in their mouths, 
 Luigi, with his fingers turned to steel, shot past 
 Francesco with the dash of a gull, and amid the 
 shouts of thousands lifted his victorious hat to 
 the multitude. 
 
 118
 
 RIO GIUSEPPE.
 
 THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI 
 
 For the first time in sixty years the same pair 
 of arms had won five races ! 
 
 Luigi was Primo and the Castellani the vic- 
 tors of the sea. 
 
 When Luigi 's boat had reached the main 
 landing of the Gardens and he had mounted the 
 great flight of marble steps, a hundred hands 
 held out to him joyous welcome. Amalia, who 
 had forced her way to his side, threw her arms 
 about his neck. 
 
 " Did the boy bet, child ?" he asked, wiping 
 the sweat from his face. 
 
 "Yes, signore." 
 
 "On Francesco? " 
 
 "No, dear Luigi, on you! Oh, I am so 
 happy ! " 
 
 " And what changed his mind ?" 
 
 "The soldo!" 
 
 "The soldo! That makes me happy, teo. 
 Add it to your dowry, child," and he placed 
 the coin in her hand. 
 
 She wears it now as a charm. The good priest 
 blessed it with her wedding-ring.
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 I 
 
 THE omnibus stopped in the garden, or, to 
 be more exact, at the porch of the hotel 
 opening into the garden. Not the ordinary omni- 
 bus, with a flapping door fastened with a strap 
 leading to the boot-leg of the man on top, a 
 post-office box inside with a glass front, holding 
 a smoky kerosene lamp, and two long pew- 
 cushioned seats placed so close together that 
 everybody rubs everybody else's knees when 
 it is full ; not that kind of an omnibus at all, 
 but a wide, low, yellow-painted (yellow as a 
 canary), morocco-cushioned, go-to-the-theatre- 
 in kind of an omnibus, drawn by a pair of stout 
 Normandy horses, with two men in livery on 
 the box in front and another on the lower step 
 behind who helps you in and out and takes 
 your bundles and does any number of delight- 
 ful and courteous things. 
 
 This yellow-painted chariot, moreover, was 
 just the kind of a vehicle that should have 
 moved in and out of this flower-decked garden. 
 Not only did its color harmonize with the sur- 
 
 120
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 roundings quite as a mass of yellow nastur- 
 tiums harmonizes with the peculiar soft green 
 of its leaves but its appointments were quite 
 in keeping with the luxury and distinction of 
 the place. For only millionaires and princes, 
 and people who travel with valets and maids, 
 and now and then a staid old painter like my- 
 self who is willing to be tucked away any- 
 where, but whose calling is supposed to lend 
 eclat to the register, are ever to be found there. 
 
 The omnibus, then, stopped at the hotel 
 porch and in front of the manager, who stood 
 with a bunch of telegrams in his hand. Behind 
 him smiled the clerk, and on his right bowed the 
 Lord High Porter in gold lace and buttons: 
 everything is done in the best and most approved 
 style at the Baur au Lac in Zurich. 
 
 "Did you telegraph, sir? No? Well let 
 
 me see Ah, yes ! I remember you 
 were here last year. Number 13, Fritz, on the 
 second floor" (this to a boy), and the mana- 
 ger passed on and saluted the other passengers 
 
 two duchesses in silk dusters, a count in a 
 straw hat with a green ribbon, and two Italian 
 noblemen in low collars and mustaches. At 
 least, they must have been noblemen or some- 
 thing better, judging from the profundity of the 
 manager's bow and the alacrity with which 
 
 121
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 Fritz, the boy, let go my bag and picked up 
 three of theirs. 
 
 Another personage now stepped up a little 
 man with the eyes of a fox a courier whom I 
 had not seen for years. 
 
 " Why, Joseph ! where did you drop from ?" 
 I asked. 
 
 " From the Engadine, my Lord, and I hope 
 your Lordship is most well." 
 
 " Pretty well, Joseph. What are you doing 
 here ? " 
 
 " It is an Englishman a lame Englishman 
 a matter of two weeks only. And you, my 
 Lord ? " 
 
 "Just from Venice, on my way back to 
 Paris," I answered. 
 
 By this time the manager was gazing with his 
 eyes twice their size, and the small boy was 
 standing in the middle of a heap of bags, won- 
 dering which one of the nobilities (including 
 myself) he would serve first. 
 
 Joseph had now divested me of my umbrella 
 and sketch-trap and was facing the manager. 
 
 " Did I hear that thirteen was the number 
 of his Lordship's room ? " he inquired of that 
 gentleman. "I will myself go. Give me the 
 bag" (this to the boy). "This way, my 
 Lord." And he led the way through the cool 
 
 122
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 hall filled with flowering plants and up a stair- 
 case panelled with mirrors. I followed content- 
 edly behind. 
 
 Joseph and I are old acquaintances. In my 
 journeyings around Europe I frequently run 
 across him. He and I have had some varied 
 experiences together in our time the first in 
 Milan at the Hotel Imperial. A young bride and 
 groom, friends of mine, a blue-eyed, sweet- 
 faced young girl with a husband but one year 
 her senior (the two with a 2000 letter of 
 credit, the gift of a doting father), had wired 
 for rooms for the night at the Imperial. It was 
 about eight o'clock when the couple drove up 
 in one of those Italian hacks cut low-neck a 
 landau really with coachman and footman on 
 the box, and Joseph in green gloves and a silk 
 hat on the front seat. My personal salutations 
 over, we all mounted the stairs, preceded by the 
 entire staff with the proprietor at their head. 
 Here on the first landing we were met by two 
 flunkeys in red and a blaze of electric light 
 which revealed five rooms. In one was spread a 
 game supper with every variety of salad known 
 to an Italian lunch-counter ; in another the 
 salon stood a mass of roses the size and shape 
 of an oleander in full bloom ; then came a huge 
 bedroom, a bathroom, and a boudoir. 
 123
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 The groom, young as he was, knew how little 
 was left of the letter of credit. The bride did 
 not. Neither did Joseph. 
 
 "What's all this for, Hornblend ? " asked 
 the groom, casting his eyes about in astonish- 
 ment. Hornblend is the other half of Joseph's 
 name. 
 
 " For Monsieur and Madame." 
 
 "What, for one night?" 
 
 Joseph worked both shoulders and extended 
 his red fingers he had removed his gloves 
 till they looked like two bunches of carrots. 
 
 "Does it not Monsieur please ? " 
 
 "Please! Do you think I'm a royal family ? " 
 
 The carrots collapsed, the shoulders stopped, 
 and a pained expression overspread Joseph's 
 countenance. The criticisms had touched his 
 heart. 
 
 The groom and I put our heads together 
 mine is gray, and I have seen many couriers in 
 my time ; his was blond and curly, and Joseph 
 was his first experience. 
 
 I beckoned to the proprietor. 
 
 "Who ordered this suite of rooms and all this 
 tomfoolery ? " 
 
 The man bowed and waved his hand loftily 
 toward the groom. 
 
 "How?" 
 
 124
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 "By telegraph." 
 
 "Let me see the despatch." 
 
 One of the functionaries the clerk 
 handed me the document. 
 
 " Is this the only one ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "It is signed 'Joseph Hornblend,' you see." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then let Hornblend pay for it. Now be 
 good enough to show these young people to a 
 bedroom, and send your head waiter to me. We 
 will all dine downstairs together in the cafe." 
 
 Since that night in Milan Joseph always has 
 called me "my Lord." 
 
 He had altered but little. His legs were per- 
 haps more bowed, the checks of his trousers a 
 trifle larger, and the part in his iron-gray hair 
 less regular than in the old days ; but the general 
 effect was the same the same flashy waist- 
 coat, the same long gold watch-chain baited 
 with charms, the same shiny, bell-crown silk 
 hat, and the same shade of green kid gloves 
 same pair, I think. Nor had his manner changed 
 that cringing, deferential, attentive manner 
 which is so flattering at first to the unsuspect- 
 ing and inexperienced, and so positive and top- 
 lofty when his final accounts are submitted 
 125
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 particularly if they are disputed. The voice, 
 too, had lost none of its soft, purring quality 
 a church-whisper voice with the drone of the 
 organ in it. 
 
 And yet withal Joseph is not a bad fellow. 
 Once he knows the size of your pocketbook he 
 willingly adapts his expenditures to its contents. 
 Ofttimes, it is true, there is nothing left but the 
 pocketbook, but then some couriers would take 
 that. When he is in doubt as to the amount, 
 he tries experiments. I have learned since that 
 the lay-out for the bride and groom that night 
 in Milan was only one of his experiments 
 the proprietor being co-conspirator. The coach 
 belonged to the hotel; the game supper was 
 moved up from the restaurant, and the flowers 
 had been left over from a dinner the night 
 before. Had they all done duty, Joseph's com- 
 missions would have been that much larger. 
 As it was, he collected his percentage only on 
 the coach and the two men on the box and the 
 flunkeys at the head of the stairs. These had 
 been used. The other preparations were only 
 looked at. 
 
 Then again, Joseph not only speaks seven 
 languages, but he speaks them well for Jo- 
 seph so much so that a stranger is never sure 
 of his nationality. 
 
 126
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 "Are you French, Joseph ?" I once asked 
 him. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Dutch?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "What, then?" 
 
 " I am a Jew gentleman from Germany." 
 
 He lied, of course. He 's a Levantine from 
 Constantinople, with Greek, Armenian, Hindu, 
 and perhaps some Turkish blood in his veins. 
 This combination insures him good temper, ca- 
 pacity, and imagination not a bad mixture 
 for a courier. Besides, he is reasonably honest 
 not punctiliously so not as to francs, per- 
 haps, but certainly as to fifty-pound notes 
 that is, he was while he served me. Of course, 
 I never had a fifty-pound note not all at once ; 
 but if I had had I don't think he would have 
 absorbed it not if I had signed it on the back 
 for identification and had kept it in a money- 
 belt around my waist and close to my skin. 
 
 Those things, however, never trouble me. I 
 don't want to make a savings-bank of Joseph. 
 It is his vivid imagination that appeals to me, 
 or perhaps the picturesqueness with which he 
 puts things. In this he is a veritable master. 
 His material, too, is not only uncommonly rich, 
 but practically inexhaustible. He knows every- 
 127
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 body; has travelled with everybody; has al- 
 ways kept one ear and one eye open even 
 when asleep, and has thus picked up an im- 
 mense amount of information regarding people 
 and events mostly his own patrons the 
 telling of which has served to enliven many a 
 quiet hour while he sat beside me as I painted. 
 Why, once I remember in Stamboul, when some 
 Arabs had 
 
 But I forget that I am following Joseph up- 
 stairs, and that his mission is to see that I am 
 comfortably lodged at the Baur au Lac in Zurich. 
 
 When we reached the second floor Joseph 
 met the porter emerging into the corridor with 
 my large luggage. He had mounted the back 
 stairs. 
 
 "Let me see Number 13, porter," cried Jo- 
 seph. "Ah, yes it is just as I supposed. Is 
 it in that hole you would put my Lord where 
 there is noise all the time ? You see that win- 
 dow, my Lord ? " (By this time I had reached 
 the two disputants and had entered the room.) 
 "You remember, your Highness, that enormous 
 omnibus in which you have arrived just ? It is 
 there that it sleeps." And Joseph craned his 
 head out of the window and pointed in the 
 direction of the courtyard. "When it goes out 
 in the morning at seven o'clock for the train it 
 128
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 is like thunder. The Count Monflot had this 
 room. You should have seen him when he was 
 awoke at seven. He was like a crazy man. He 
 pulled all the strings out of the bells, and when 
 the waiter come he had the hat-box of Monsieur 
 the Count at his head." 
 
 Dismissing the apartment with a contempt- 
 uous wave of his hand, Joseph, with the porter's 
 assistance, who had a pass-key, began a search 
 of the other vacant rooms : half the hotel was 
 vacant, I afterward learned ; all this telegram 
 and book business was merely an attempt to 
 bolster up the declining days of a bad season. 
 
 " Number 21 ? No it is a little better, but 
 it 's too near the behind stairs. It would be ab- 
 surd to put his Lordship there. Number 24 ?" 
 here he looked into another room. "No, 
 you can hear the grande baggage in the night 
 going up and down. No, it will not do." 
 
 The manager, having disposed of the other 
 members of the Emperor's household, now ap- 
 proached with a servile smile fitted to all parts 
 of his face. Joseph attacked him at once. 
 
 " Is his Lordship a valet, Monsieur, that you 
 should put him in such holes ? Do you not 
 know that he never wakes until ten, and has 
 his coffee at eleven, and the omnibus, you 
 know, sleeps there ? " And he pointed outside. 
 129
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 (Another Levantine lie: I am up at seven when 
 the light is right.) 
 
 Here the porter unlocked another room and 
 stood by smiling. He knew the game was up 
 now, and had reserved this one for the last. 
 
 " Number 28 ! Ah, this is something like. 
 Yes, my Lord, this will be quite right. La 
 Contessa Moriarti had this room yes, I re- 
 member." (Joseph never serves any woman 
 below the rank of contessa.) 
 
 So I moved into Number 28, handed Joseph 
 the keys, and the porter deposited my luggage 
 and withdrew, followed by the manager. Soon 
 the large and small trunks were disembowelled, 
 my sponge hung on a nail in the window, and 
 the several toilet articles distributed in their 
 proper places, Joseph serving in the triple ca- 
 pacity of courier, valet, and chambermaid 
 the lame Englishman being out driving, and 
 Joseph, therefore, having this hour to himself. 
 This distribution, of course, was made in de- 
 ference to my exalted rank and the ten-franc 
 gold piece which he never fails to get despite 
 my resolutions, and which he always seems to 
 have earned despite my knowledge as to how 
 the trick is performed. 
 
 Suddenly a crash sounded through the hall 
 as if somebody had dropped a tray of dishes. 
 130
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 Then came another, and another. Either every 
 waiter in the house was dropping trays, or an 
 attack was being made on the pantry by a mob. 
 
 Joseph, with a bound, threw back the door 
 and we rushed out. 
 
 Just opposite my room was a small salon 
 with the door wide open. In its centre stood a 
 man with an iron poker in his hand. He was 
 busy smashing what was left of a large mirror, 
 its pieces littering the floor. On the sofa lay 
 another man twice the size of the first one, who 
 was roaring with laughter. Down the corridor 
 swooped a collection of guests, porters, and 
 chambermaids in full cry, the manager at their 
 head. 
 
 "Two hundred and fifty francs, eh for a 
 looking-glass worth twenty francs ? " I heard 
 the man with the poker shout. " I blister with 
 my gas jet one little corner, and I must pay 
 two hundred and fifty francs. I have ruined the 
 mirror, have I, eh ? And it must be thrown 
 out and a new one put in to-morrow eh ? " 
 Bang ! bang ! Here the poker came down on 
 some small fragment still clinging to the frame. 
 " Yes, it will come out [bang !] all of it will 
 come out." 
 
 The manager was now trying to make him- 
 self heard. Such words as "my mirror," 
 
 131
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 "outrage," "Gendarme," could be heard 
 above the sound of the breaking glass and the 
 shrieks of the man on the sofa, who seemed to 
 be in a paroxysm of laughter. 
 
 I looked on for a moment. Some infuriated 
 lodger, angry, perhaps, at the overcharge in 
 his bill, was venting his wrath on the furniture. 
 It was not my mirror, and it was not my bill ; 
 the manager was present with staff enough to 
 throw both men downstairs if he pleased and 
 without my assistance, and so I turned and re- 
 entered my room. Two things fixed themselves 
 in my mind : the alert figure, trim as a fencer's, 
 of the man with the poker, and the laugh of 
 the fat man sprawling on the lounge. 
 
 Joseph followed me into my room and shut 
 the door softly behind him. 
 
 " Ah, I knew it was he. No other man is so 
 crazy like that. He would break the head of 
 the proprietaire just the same. That is an old 
 swindle. That mirror has been cracked four 
 five six times. The gas jet is fixed so that you 
 must crack it. All the mirrors like the one he 
 burnt it was only a little spot go upstairs 
 in the cheap rooms and new ones are brought 
 in for such games. 'Most always they pay, 
 but monsieur it is not like him to pay. He 
 has heard of the triek, perhaps is it not de- 
 132
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 Hcious ? " and Joseph's face widened into a 
 grin. 
 
 " You know him, then ? " I broke in. 
 
 " Know him ? oh, for many years. He is 
 the great Doctor Barsac. He smashes every- 
 thing he does n't like. He smashed that old 
 fat monsieur who made so much laugh. His 
 name is Mariguy. He looks like a cure, does 
 he not ? But he is not a cure ; he is an advo- 
 cate. Barsac is from Basle, but Mariguy lives 
 in Paris. Those two are never -separated ; they 
 love each other like a man and a wife. There 
 is a great medical convention here in Zurich, 
 and Barsac has brought Mariguy with him to 
 show him off. He put a new silver stomach in 
 Mariguy last winter and is very proud of it. 
 It is the great operation of the year, they say." 
 
 " What happened to the fat man, Joseph 
 was it an accident ? " 
 
 "No a duel. Barsac ran him through the 
 belly with his sword." 
 
 "Permit me, my Lord" And Joseph 
 stepped to the window. " Yes, there comes 
 the lame Englishman home from the drive. 
 Excuse me I will go and help him from his 
 carriage." And Joseph bowed himself out 
 backward. 
 
 133
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 II 
 
 Joseph's departure left my mind in an un- 
 settled state. I had n't the slightest interest 
 in the great surgeon who had made the cure 
 of the year, nor in the stout advocate with 
 his nickel-plated digestive apparatus. Both of 
 them might have broken every mirror in the 
 hotel and have thrown the fragments out of the 
 window, and the manager after them, without 
 raising my pulse a beat. Neither did the med- 
 ical convention nor the doctor's exhibit cause 
 me a moment's thought. Such things were 
 commonplace and of every-day occurrence. 
 Only the dramatic in life appeals to so staid 
 and gray an old painter as myself, and even 
 Joseph's picturesque imagination could not im- 
 bue either one of the incidents of the morning 
 with that desirable quality. 
 
 What really did appeal to me as I conjured 
 up in my mind the picture of the fat man 
 sprawled over the sofa-cushions roaring with 
 laughter was the duel and the causes that led 
 up to it. Why, if the man was his friend, had 
 the doctor selected the hilarious advocate as an 
 antagonist, and what could have induced the 
 surgeon to pick out that particular section of 
 his friend's surface in which to insert his sword. 
 
 134
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 That same night, in the smoking-room of the 
 hotel, Joseph caught sight of me as he passed 
 the open door and moved forward to my table. 
 He had changed his dress of the morning, dis- 
 carding the inflammatory waistcoat, and was 
 now upholstered in a full suit of black. He 
 explained that there were some friends of his 
 living in the village who were going to have 
 some music. The Englishman was in bed and 
 asleep, and now that he was sure that I was 
 comfortable, he could give himself some little 
 freedom, with his mind at rest. 
 
 I motioned him to a seat. 
 
 He laid his silk hat and one glove on an 
 adjoining table, spread his coat-tails, and de- 
 posited himself on the extreme edge of a chair 
 a position which would enable him to regain 
 his feet at a moment's notice should any of my 
 friends chance to join me. It is just such deli- 
 cate recognition of my rank and lordly belong- 
 ings that makes Joseph's companionship oft- 
 times a pleasure. 
 
 " You tell me, Joseph, that that crazy doctor 
 stabbed the fat man in a duel." 
 
 "Not stabbed, my Lord ! That is not the nice 
 word. It was done so so so." And Joseph's 
 wrist, holding an imaginary sword, performed 
 the grand thrust in the air. "He is a master 
 
 135
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 with the rapier. When he was at the Sorbonne 
 he had five duels and never once a scratch. His 
 honor was most paramount. He would fight 
 with anybody, and for the smallest thing if 
 one man had a longer cane, or wore a higher 
 hat, or took cognac in his coffee. Not for the 
 grisette or for the cards in the face ; not so big 
 a thing as that; quite a small thing that no- 
 body would remember a moment. And with his 
 friends always never with the man he did 
 not before know." 
 
 " And was the fat man his friend ? " 
 
 " His friend ! Mon Dieu ! they were like the 
 brothers. One two five year, I think 
 all the whole time of the instruction. I was not 
 there, of course, but a friend of mine tell me 
 a most truthful man, my friend." 
 
 "What was the row about ? Cognac in his 
 coffee ? " 
 
 " I do not know perhaps somethings. Yes, 
 I do remember now. It was the cutting of the 
 hair. Barsac like it short and Mariguy like it 
 long. Barsac tried to cut the hair from Mari- 
 guy's head when he was asleep, and then it 
 began. It was in that little wood at the bridge 
 at Suresne that they went to fight. You know 
 you turn to the right and there is a little place 
 all small trees there it was. 
 136
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 " When they all got ready, there quickly ar- 
 rive a carriage all dust, and the horse in a sweat, 
 and out jumps an old lady it was Mariguy 's 
 mother. Somebody had told her not Mari- 
 guy, of course, but some student. ' Stop ! ' she 
 cried ; ' you do not my son kill. You, Barsac, 
 you do nothing but fight ! ' Then they all talk, 
 and Mariguy say to Barsac, ' It cannot be ; my 
 mother, as you see, is old. There is no one but 
 me. If I am wounded, she will be in the bed 
 with fright. If I am killed, she will be dead. It 
 is my mother, you see, that you fight, not me.' 
 
 "Barsac take off his hat and bow to ma- 
 dame." (Joseph had now reached for his own 
 and was illustrating the incident with an appro- 
 priate gesture.) " ' Madame Mariguy,' said Bar- 
 sac, ' I make ten thousand pardons. I respect 
 the devotion of the mother/ and he went back 
 to Paris, and Mariguy get into the carriage and 
 go away with the mother." 
 
 " But, Joseph, of course that was not the 
 last of it?" 
 
 "Yes, my Lord, until one year ago." 
 
 " Why, did they have another quarrel, Jo- 
 seph?" 
 
 " N o, not another never but that one . They 
 were for a long time what you call friends of 
 the bosom. Every day after that they see each 
 137
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 other, and every night they dine at the Louis 
 d'Or below the Luxembourg. Then pretty soon 
 the doctor, he have take his degree and come 
 back to Basle to live, and Monsieur Mariguy also 
 have take his degree and become a great advo- 
 cate in Paris. Every week come a letter from 
 Barsac to Mariguy, and one from Mariguy to 
 Barsac." 
 
 Joseph stopped in his narrative at this point, 
 noticing perhaps some shade of incredulity across 
 my countenance, and said parenthetically: "I 
 am quite surprised, my Lord, that you have not 
 this heard before. It was quite the talk of Paris 
 at the time. No ? Well, then, I will tell you 
 everything as it did happen, for 1 do assure you 
 that it is most exciting. 
 
 " All this time it was quite ten years, per- 
 haps fifteen not one word does Monsieur Bar- 
 sac say to Monsieur Mariguy about the insult 
 of the long hair. AH the time, too, they are 
 together. For the summer they go to a little 
 village in the Swiss mountains, and for the win- 
 ter they go to Nice, and 'most every night they 
 play a little at the tables. It was there I met 
 them. 
 
 " One morning at Basle the doctor was at his 
 table eating the breakfast when the newspaper 
 is put on the side. He read a little and sip his 
 
 138
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 coffee, and then he read a little more all this, 
 my Lord, was in the papers at the time I am 
 quite astonished that you have not seen it 
 and then the doctor make a loud cry, and throw 
 the paper down, run upstairs, pack his bag, 
 jump into a fiacre and go like mad to the sta- 
 tion. The next morning he is in Paris, and at 
 the house of his friend Mariguy. In three days 
 they are at Suresne again not in the little 
 wood, but in the garden of Monsieur Rochefort, 
 who was his second. It was against the law to 
 go into the little wood to fight, so they took 
 the nearest place to their old meeting a small 
 sentiment, you see, my Lord, which Monsieur 
 the Doctor always enjoys. 
 
 "They toss up for the sun, and Monsieur 
 Barsac he gets the shade. At the first pass, no 
 one is hurt. At the second, Monsieur Barsac has 
 a little scratch on his wrist, but no blood. The 
 seconds make inspection most careful. They 
 regret that the encounter must go on, but the 
 honor is not yet satisfied. At the third, Mon- 
 sieur Mariguy made a misstep, and Monsieur 
 Barsac's sword go into Monsieur Mariguy's shirt 
 and come out at Monsieur Mariguy's back. 
 
 "You can imagine what then take place. 
 Doctor Barsac cry in a loud voice that his honor 
 is satisfied, and the next moment he is on his 
 139
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 knees beside his friend. Monsieur Mariguy is at 
 once put in the bed, and for one two three 
 months he is dead one day and breathe a little 
 the next. Barsac never leave the house of his 
 friend Monsieur Rochefort one moment not one 
 day does he go back to Basle. Every night he 
 is by the bed of Monsieur Mariguy. Then comes 
 the critical moment. Monsieur Mariguy must 
 have a new stomach ; the old one is like a stock- 
 ing with a hole in the toe. Then comes the 
 great triumph of Monsieur le Docteur. All Paris 
 come out to see. To make a stomach of silver 
 is to make one the fool, they say. The old doc- 
 tors shake their heads, but Barsac he only laugh. 
 In one more month Monsieur Mariguy is on his 
 feet, and every day walks a little in the Bois near 
 the house of Monsieur Rochefort. In one more 
 month he run, and eat himself full like a boy. 
 
 " He is now no longer the great advocate. He 
 is the example of Monsieur Barsac. That is why 
 he is here at the medical convention. They ar- 
 rived only yesterday and leave to-night. If you 
 turn a little, my Lord, you can see into the 
 other room. There they sit smoking. Ah ! do 
 you hear ? That is Monsieur Mariguy's laugh. 
 Oh, they enjoy themselves ! They have drank 
 two bottles of Johannisberger already twenty- 
 five francs each, if you please, my Lord. The 
 140
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 head waiter showed me the bottles. But what 
 does Barsac care ? He cut everything out of 
 the insides of the Prince Morin one day last 
 month, and had for a fee fifty thousand francs 
 and the order of St. John." 
 
 I bent my head in the direction of Joseph's 
 index finger and easily recognized the two men 
 at the table. The smaller man, Barsac, was 
 even more trim and alert-looking than when I 
 caught a glimpse of him in the bedroom. As he 
 sat and talked to Mariguy he looked more like 
 an officer in the French army than a doctor. 
 His hair was short, his mustache pointed, and 
 his beard closely trimmed. He had two square 
 shoulders and a slim waist, and talked with his 
 hands as if they were part of his mental equip- 
 ment. The other man, Mariguy, the "example," 
 was just a fat, jolly, good-natured Frenchman, 
 who to all appearance loved a bottle of wine 
 better than he did a brief. 
 
 Joseph was about to begin again when I 
 stopped him with this inquiry : 
 
 "There is one thing in your story, Joseph, 
 that I don't quite get : you say they were stu- 
 dents together ? " 
 
 "Yes, my Lord." 
 
 "That the first duel the one that the 
 mother stopped was fifteen years ago ? " 
 141
 
 A POINT OF HONOR 
 
 " Quite true, my Lord." 
 
 "And that this last duel was fought a year 
 ago, and that all that time they were together 
 whenever they could be, and devoted friends ? " 
 
 " Every word true, my Lord." 
 
 "Well, then, why did n't they fight before ? " 
 
 Joseph looked at me with a curious expres- 
 sion on his face one rather of disappointment, 
 as if I had utterly failed to grasp his meaning. 
 
 " Fight before ! It would have been impos- 
 sible, my Lord. Barsac's honor was at the 
 stake." 
 
 "And he must wait fifteen years," I asked 
 with some impatience, " to vindicate it ? " 
 
 " Certainly, my Lord or twice that time if 
 it was necessary. It was only when he read in 
 the paper at the table of his breakfast that 
 morning in Basle that he knew." 
 
 " What difference did that make ? " 
 
 " Every difference, my Lord ; Madame 
 Mariguy, the mother, was only the day before 
 dead."
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 A LONG reach of coast country, white and 
 smooth, broken by undulating fences 
 smothered in snowdrifts, only their stakes and 
 bush-tops showing ; farther away, horizontal 
 markings of black pines ; still farther away, a 
 line of ragged dunes bearded with yellow grass 
 bordering a beach flecked with scurries of foam 
 mouthings of a surf twisting as if in pain ; 
 beyond this a wide sea, greenish gray, gray and 
 gray-blue, slashed here and there with white- 
 caps pricked by wind rapiers ; beyond this 
 again, out into space, a leaden sky flat as paint 
 and as monotonous. 
 
 Nearer by, so close that I could see their 
 movements from the car window, spatterings of 
 crows, and higher up circling specks of gulls 
 glinting or darkening as their breasts or backs 
 caught the light. These crows and gulls were 
 the only things alive in the wintry waste. 
 
 No, one thing more two, in fact : as I came 
 nearer the depot, a horse tethered to the sec- 
 tion of the undulating fence, a rough-coated, 
 wind-blown, shackly beast ; the kind the great 
 
 143
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 Schreyer always painted shivering with cold out- 
 side a stable door (and in the snow, too), and a 
 man. Please remember, A MAN ! And please 
 continue to remember it to the end of this story. 
 
 Thirty-one years in the service he this 
 keeper of the Naukashon Life-Saving Station 
 twenty-five at this same post. Six feet and an 
 inch, tough as a sapling and as straight ; long- 
 armed, long-legged, broad-shouldered, and big- 
 boned ; face brown and tanned as skirt leather ; 
 eye like a hawk's ; mouth but a healed scar, 
 so firm is it; low-voiced, simple-minded, and 
 genuine. 
 
 If you ask him what he has done in all these 
 thirty-one years of service he will tell you : 
 
 " Oh, I kind o' forget ; the Superintendent 
 gets reports. You see, some months we 're not 
 busy, and then ag'in we ain't had no wrecks 
 for considerable time." 
 
 If you should happen to look in his locker, 
 away back out of sight, you would perhaps find 
 a small paper box, and in it a gold medal the 
 highest his government can give him in- 
 scribed with his name and a record of some par- 
 ticular act of heroism. When he is confronted 
 with the telltale evidence, he will say : 
 
 " Oh, yes they did give me that ! I 'm 
 keepin' it for my grandson." 
 144
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 If you, failing to corkscrew any of the details 
 out of him, should examine the Department's 
 reports, you will find out all he "forgets" 
 among them the fact that in his thirty-one years 
 of service he and the crew under him have saved 
 the lives of one hundred and thirty-one men and 
 women out of a possible one hundred and thirty- 
 two. He explains the loss of this unlucky man 
 by saying apologetically that "the fellow got 
 dizzy somehow and locked himself in the cabin, 
 and we did n't know he was there until she 
 broke up and he got washed ashore." 
 
 This was the man who, when I arrived at the 
 railroad station, held out a hand in hearty wel- 
 come, his own closing over mine with the grip 
 of a cant-hook. 
 
 " Well, by Jiminy ! Superintendent said you 
 was comin', but I kind o' thought you would n't 
 'til the weather cleared. Gimme yer bag 
 Yes, the boys are all well and will be glad to 
 see ye. Colder than blue blazes, ain't it ? Snow 
 ain't over yet. Well, well, kind o' natural to 
 see ye ! " 
 
 The bag was passed up ; the Captain caught 
 the reins in his crab-like fingers, and the bunch 
 of wind-blown fur, gathering its stiffened legs 
 together, wheeled sharply to the left and started 
 in to make pencil markings in double lines over 
 
 145
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 the white snow seaward toward the Naukashon 
 Life-Saving Station. 
 
 The perspective shortened : first the smooth, 
 unbroken stretch ; then the belt of pines ; then 
 a flat marsh diked by dunes ; then a cluster of 
 black dots, big and little the big one being 
 the Station house, and the smaller ones its out- 
 buildings and fishermen's shanties ; and then 
 the hard, straight line of the pitiless sea. 
 
 I knew the "boys." I had known some 
 of them for years : ever since I picked up one 
 of their stations, its site endangered by the 
 scour of the tide, ran it on skids a mile over 
 the sand to the land side of the inlet without 
 moving the crew or their comforts (even their 
 wet socks were left drying on a string by the 
 kitchen stove), shoved it aboard two scows 
 timbered together, started out to sea under the 
 guidance of a light-draught tug in search of its 
 new location three miles away, and then, with 
 the assistance of a suddenly developed north- 
 east gale, backed up by my own colossal engi- 
 neering skill, dropped the whole concern skids, 
 house, kitchen stove, socks and all into the 
 sea. When the surf dogs were through with its 
 carcass the beach was strewn with its bones 
 picked clean by their teeth. Only the weather- 
 cock, which had decorated its cupola, was left. 
 146
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 This had floated off and was found perched on 
 top of a sand-dune, whizzing away on its or- 
 namental cap as merry as a jig-dancer. It was 
 still whirling away, this time on the top of the 
 cupola at Naukashon. I could see it plainly as I 
 drove up, its arrow due east, looking for trouble 
 as usual. 
 
 Hence my friendship for Captain Shortrode 
 and his trusty surf men. Hence, too, my wel- 
 come when I pushed in the door of the sitting- 
 room and caught the smell of the cooking: 
 Dave Austin's clam chowder I could pick it 
 out anywhere, even among the perfumes of a 
 Stamboul kitchen ; and hence, too, the hearty 
 hand-grasp from the big, brawny men around the 
 stove. 
 
 " Well ! Kind o' summer weather you picked 
 out ! Here, take this chair Gimme yer coat. 
 Git them legs o' yourn in, Johnny. He 's a 
 new man John Partridge ; guess you ain't 
 met him afore. Where 's Captain Shortrode 
 gone? Oh, yes! puttin' up old Moth-eaten. 
 Ain't nothin' he thinks as much of as that old 
 horse. Oughter pack her in camphor. Well, 
 how 's things in New York ? Nelse, put on 
 another shovel of coal Yes, colder 'n Christ- 
 mas ! . . . Nothin' but nor'east wind since 
 the moon changed. . . . Chowder ! Yes, 
 
 147
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 yer dead right; Dave 's cookin' this week, and 
 he said this mornin' he 'd have a mess for ye." 
 
 A stamping of feet outside and two bifurcated 
 walruses (four hours out on patrol) pushed in 
 the door. Muffled in oilskins these, rubber- 
 booted to their hips, the snow-line marking 
 their waists where they had plunged through 
 the drifts ; their sou'-westers tied under their 
 chins, shading beards white with frost and faces 
 raw with the slash of the beach wind. 
 
 More hand-shakes now ; and a stripping of 
 wet outer-alls ; a wash-up and a hair-smooth ; 
 a shout of "Dinner!" from the capacious 
 lungs of David the cook ; a silent, reverential 
 grace with every head bowed (these are the 
 things that surprise you until you know these 
 men), and with one accord an attack is made 
 upon Dave's chowder and his corn-bread and 
 his fried ham and his Well, the air was keen 
 and bracing, and the salt of the sea a permeat- 
 ing tonic, and the smell ! Ah, David ! I wish 
 you 'd give up your job and live with me, and 
 bring your saucepan and your griddle and your 
 broiler and my appetite ! 
 
 The next night the Captain was seated at 
 the table working over his monthly report, the 
 kerosene lamp lighting up his bronzed face and 
 148
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 falling upon his open book. There is nothing 
 a keeper hates to do so much as making out 
 monthly reports ; his hard, horny hand is shaped 
 to grasp an oar, not a pen. Four other men 
 were asleep upstairs in their bunks, waiting 
 their turns to be called for patrol. Two were 
 breasting a northeast gale howling along the 
 coast, their Coston signals tightly buttoned 
 under their oilskins. 
 
 Tom Van Brunt and I Tom knew all about 
 the little kitchen stove and the socks he had 
 forgiven me my share in their loss were tilted 
 back against the wall in our chairs. The slop 
 and rattle of Dave's dishes came in through 
 the open door leading to the kitchen. Outside 
 could be heard the roar and hammer of the 
 surf and the shriek of the baffled wind trying 
 to burglarize the house by way of the eaves 
 and the shutters. 
 
 The talk had drifted to the daily life at the 
 Station ; the dreariness of waiting for something 
 to come ashore (in a disappointed tone from 
 Tom, as if he and his fellow surfmen had not 
 had their share of wrecks this winter) ; of the 
 luck of Number 16, in charge of Captain Elleck 
 and his crew, who had got seven men and a 
 woman out of an English bark last week without 
 wetting the soles of their feet. 
 149
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 " Fust shot went for'd of her chain plates," 
 Tom explained, "and then they made fast and 
 come off in the breeches-buoy. Warn't an hour 
 after she struck 'fore they had the hull of 'em 
 up to the Station and supper ready. Heavy sea 
 runnin' too." 
 
 Tom then shifted his pipe and careened his 
 head my way, and with a tone in his voice that 
 left a ring behind it which vibrated in me for 
 days, and does now, said : 
 
 " I 've been here for a good many years, and 
 I guess I '11 stay here long as the Guv'ment '11 
 let me. Some people think we 've got a soft 
 snap, and some people think we ain't. 'T is kind 
 o' lonely, sometimes then somethin' comes 
 along and we even up ; but it ain't that that 
 hurts me really it 's bein' so much away from 
 home." 
 
 Tom paused, rapped the bowl of his pipe on 
 his heel to clear it, twisted his body so that he 
 could lay the precious comfort on the window- 
 sill behind him safe out of harm's way, and 
 continued : 
 
 "Yes, bein' so much away from home. I Ve 
 been a surf man, you know, goin' on thirteen 
 years, and out o' that time I ain't been home 
 but two year and a half runnin' the days solid, 
 which they ain't. I live up in Naukashon vil- 
 150
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 lage, and you know how close that is. Cap'n 
 could 'a' showed you my house as you druv 
 'long through it's just across the way from 
 hisn." 
 
 I looked at Tom in surprise. I knew that the 
 men did not go home but once in two weeks, 
 and then only for a day, but I had not summed 
 up the vacation as a whole. Tom shifted his 
 tilted leg, settled himself firmer in his chair, and 
 went on : 
 
 " I ain't askin' no favors, and I don't expect 
 to git none. We got to watch things down 
 here, and we dasn't be away when the weather 's 
 rough, and there ain't no other kind 'long this 
 coast; but now and then somethin' hits ye and 
 hurts ye, and ye don't forgit it. I got a little 
 baby at home seven weeks old now hearty 
 little feller goin' to call him after the Cap'n," 
 and he nodded toward the man scratching away 
 with his pen. " I ain't had a look at that baby 
 but three times since he was born, and last 
 Sunday it come my turn and I went up to see 
 the wife and him. My brother Bill lives with 
 me. He lost his wife two year ago, and the 
 baby she left did n't live more 'n a week after 
 she died, and so Bill, not havin' no children of 
 his own, takes to mine I got three." 
 
 Again Tom stopped, this time for a percep-
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 tible moment. I noticed a little quiver in his 
 voice now. 
 
 "Well, when I got home it was 'bout one 
 o'clock in the day. I been on patrol that morn- 
 in' it was snowin' and thick. Wife had the 
 baby up to the winder waitin' for me, and they 
 all come out Bill and my wife and my little 
 Susie, she 's five year old and then we all went 
 in and sat down, and I took the baby in my 
 arms, and it looked at me kind o' skeered-like 
 and cried ; and Bill held out his hands and took 
 the baby, and he stopped cryin' and laid kind 
 o' contented in his arms, and my little Susie 
 said, ' Pop, I guess baby thinks Uncle Bill 's his 
 father.' . . . / tell you that hurt! " 
 
 As the last words dropped from Tom's lips 
 two of the surf men Jerry Potter and Robert 
 Saul, who had been breasting the northeast 
 gale pushed open the door of the sitting-room 
 and peered in, looking like two of Nansen's men 
 just off an ice-floe. Their legs were clear of 
 snow this time, the two having brushed each 
 other off with a broom on the porch outside. 
 Jerry had been exchanging brass checks with 
 the patrol of No. 14, three miles down the 
 beach, and Saul had been setting his clock by a 
 key, locked in an iron box bolted to a post two 
 miles and a half away and within sight of the 
 152
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 inlet. Tramping the beach beside a roaring surf 
 in a northeast gale blowing fifty miles an hour, 
 and in the teeth of a snow-storm each flake 
 cutting like grit from a whirling grindstone, was 
 to these men what the round of a city park is 
 to a summer policeman. 
 
 Jerry peeled off his waterproofs from head, 
 body, and legs; raked a pair of felt slippers 
 from under a chair ; stuck his stocking-feet into 
 their comforting depths; tore a sliver of paper 
 from the end of a worn-out journal, twisted it 
 into a wisp, worked the door of the cast-iron 
 stove loose with his marlin-spike of a finger, 
 held the wisp to the blaze, lighted his pipe care- 
 fully and methodically ; tilted a chair back, and 
 settling his great frame comfortably between its 
 arms, started in to smoke. Saul duplicated his 
 movements to the minutest detail, with the sin- 
 gle omission of those connected with the pipe. 
 Saul did not smoke. 
 
 Up to this time not a word had been spoken 
 by anybody since the two men entered. Men 
 who live together so closely dispense with 
 " How d' yes" and "Good-bys." I was not 
 enough of a stranger to have the rule modified 
 on my account after the first salutations. 
 
 Captain Shortrode looked up from his report 
 and broke the silence. 
 
 153
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 "That sluiceway cuttin' in any, Jerry ?" 
 
 Jerry nodded his head and replied between 
 puffs of smoke : 
 
 " 'Bout fifty feet, I guess." 
 
 The grizzled Captain took off his eye-glasses, 
 he only used them in making up his report, 
 laid them carefully beside his sheet of paper, 
 stretched his long legs, lifting his body to the 
 perpendicular, dragged a chair to my side of 
 the room, and said with a dry chuckle : 
 
 "I've got to laugh every time I think of 
 that sluiceway. Last month Warn't it last 
 month, Jerry ?" Jerry nodded, and sent a curl 
 of smoke through his ragged mustache, accom- 
 panied by the remark, " Yes last month." 
 
 The Captain continued : 
 
 "Last month, I say, we were havin' some 
 almighty high tides, and when they git to 
 cuttin' round that sluiceway it makes it bad 
 for our beach-cart, 'specially when we 've got 
 to keep abreast of a wreck that ain't grounded 
 so we can git a line to her ; so I went down 
 after supper to see how the sluiceway was 
 comin' on. It was foggy, and a heavy sea run- 
 nin' the surf showin' white, but everythin' 
 else black as pitch. Fust thing I knew I beared 
 somethin' like the rattle of an oar-lock, or a 
 tally-block, and then a cheer come just outside 
 
 154
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 the breakers. I run down to the swash and 
 listened, and then I seen her comin' bow on, 
 big as a house ; four men in her holdin' on to 
 the gunnels, hollerin' for all they was worth. I 
 got to her just as the surf struck her and rolled 
 her over bottom-side up." 
 
 " Were you alone ? " I interrupted. 
 
 " Had to be. The men were up and down 
 the beach and the others was asleep in their 
 bunks. Well, when I had 'em all together I 
 run 'em up on the beach and in here to the 
 Station, and when the light showed 'em up 
 Well, I tell ye, one of 'em a nigger cook 
 was a sight! 'Bout seven feet high, and thick 
 round as a flag-pole, and blacker 'n that stove, 
 and skeered so his teeth was a-chatterin'. 
 They'd left their oyster schooner a-poundin' 
 out on the bar and had tried to come ashore in 
 their boat. Well, we got to work on 'em and 
 got some dry clo'es on 'em, and " 
 
 " Were you wet, too ? " I again interrupted. 
 
 " Wet ! Soppin' ! I 'd been under the boat 
 feelin' 'round for 'em. Well, the King's Daugh- 
 ters had sent some clo'es down, and we looked 
 over what we had, and I got a pair of high-up 
 pants, and Jerry, who wears Number 12 
 Don't you, Jerry ?" (Jerry nodded and puffed 
 on) " had an old pair of shoes, and we found 
 
 155
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 a jacket, another high-up thing big 'nough to 
 fit a boy, that come up to his shoulder-blades, 
 and he put 'em on and then he set 'round here 
 for a spell dryin' out, with his long black legs 
 stickin' from out of his pants like handle-bars, 
 and his hands, big as hams, pokin' out o' the 
 sleeves o' his jacket. We got laughin' so we 
 had to go out by ourselves in the kitchen and 
 have it out ; did n't want to hurt his feelin's, 
 you know." 
 
 The Captain leaned back in his chair, laughed 
 quietly to himself at the picture brought back 
 to his mind, and continued, the men listening 
 quietly, the smoke of their pipes drifting over 
 the room. 
 
 " Next mornin' we got the four of 'em all 
 ready to start off to the depot on their way back 
 to Philadelphy there warn't no use o' their 
 stayin', their schooner was all up and down 
 the beach, and there was oysters 'nough 'long 
 the shore to last everybody a month. Well, 
 when the feller got his rig on he looked himself 
 all over, and then he said he would like to have 
 a hat. 'Bout a week before Tom here [Tom 
 nodded now, and smiled] had picked up on the 
 beach one o' these high gray stovepipe hats 
 with a black band on it, blowed overboard from 
 some o' them yachts, maybe. Tom had it up 
 156
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 on the mantel there dry in', and he said he 
 did n't care, and I give it to the nigger and off 
 he started, and we all went out on the back 
 porch to see him move. Well, sir, when he 
 went up 'long the dunes out here toward the 
 village, steppin' like a crane in them high-up 
 pants and jacket and them Number i2's of 
 Jerry's and that hat of Tom's 'bout three sizes 
 too small for him, I tell ye he was a show!" 
 
 Jerry and Saul chuckled, and Tom broke into 
 a laugh the first smile I had seen on Tom's 
 face since he had finished telling me about the 
 little baby at home. 
 
 I laughed too outwardly to the men and 
 inwardly to myself with a peculiar tightening 
 of the throat, followed by a glow that radiated 
 heat as it widened. My mind was not on the 
 grotesque negro cook in the assorted clothes. 
 All I saw was a man fighting the surf, groping 
 around in the blackness of the night for four 
 water-soaked, terrified men until he got them, 
 as he said, " all together." That part of it had 
 never appealed to the Captain, and never will. 
 Pulling drowning men, single-handed, from a 
 boiling surf, was about as easy as pulling gud- 
 geons out of a babbling brook. 
 
 Saul now piped up : 
 
 " Oughter git the Cap'n to tell ye how he 
 
 157
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 got that lady ashore last winter from off that 
 Jamaica brig." 
 
 At the sound of Saul's voice Captain Short- 
 rode rose quickly from his chair, picked up his 
 report and spectacles, and with a deprecating 
 wave of his hand, as if the story would have 
 to come from some other lips than his own, left 
 the room to "get an envelope," he said. 
 
 " He won't come back for a spell," laughed 
 Jerry. "The old man don't like that yarn." 
 " Old man " was a title of authority, and had 
 nothing to do with the Captain's fifty years. 
 
 I made no comment not yet. My ears were 
 open, of course, but I was not holding the tiller 
 of conversation and preferred that some one else 
 should steer. 
 
 Again Saul piped up, this time to me, reading 
 my curiosity in my eyes : 
 
 "Well, there warn't nothin' much to it, 
 'cept the way the Cap'n got her ashore," and 
 again Saul chuckled quietly, this time as if to 
 himself. "The beach was full o' shipyard rats 
 and loafers, and when they heared there was a 
 lady comin' ashore in the breeches-buoy, more 
 of 'em kept comin' in on the run. We 'd fired 
 the shot-line and had the anchor buried and the 
 hawser fast to the brig's mast and the buoy 
 rigged, and we were just goin* to haul in when 
 158
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 Cap'n looked 'round on the crowd, and he see 
 right away what they 'd come for and what 
 they was 'spectin' to see. Then he ordered the 
 buoy hauled back and he got into the breeches 
 himself, and we soused him through the surf 
 and off he went to the brig. He showed her 
 how to tuck her skirts in, and how to squat 
 down in the breeches 'stead o' stickin' her feet 
 through, and then she got skeered and said she 
 could n't and hollered, and so he got in with her 
 and got his arms 'round her and landed her, 
 both of 'em pretty wet." Saul stopped and 
 leaned forward in his chair. I was evidently 
 expected to say something. 
 
 "Well, that was just like the Captain," I 
 said mildly, " but where does the joke come 
 in?" 
 
 "Well, there warn't no joke, really," re- 
 marked Saul with a wink around the room, 
 " 'cept when we untangled 'em. She was 'bout 
 seventy years old, and black as tar. That 's 
 all!" 
 
 It seemed to be my turn now " the laugh" 
 being on me. Captain Shortrode was evidently 
 of the same opinion, for, on reentering the 
 room, he threw the envelope on the table, and 
 settling himself again in his chair looked my 
 way, as if expecting the next break in the con- 
 
 159
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 versation to be made by me. Two surfmen, 
 who had been asleep upstairs, now joined the 
 group, the laughter over Saul's story of the 
 " lady " having awakened them half an hour 
 ahead of their time. They came in rubbing 
 their eyes, their tarpaulins and hip-boots over 
 their arms. Jerry, Tom, and Saul still remained 
 tilted back in their chairs. They should have 
 been in bed resting for their next patrol (they 
 went out again at four A. M.), but preferred to 
 sit up in my honor. 
 
 Dozens of stories flashed into my mind the 
 kind I would tell at a club dinner, or with the 
 coffee and cigarettes and were as instantly 
 dropped. Such open-air, breezy giants, full of 
 muscle and ozone, would find no interest in the 
 adventures of any of my characters ; the cheap 
 wit of the cafes, the homely humor of the farm, 
 the chatter of the opera-box, or whisperings 
 behind the palms of the conservatory nothing 
 of this could possibly interest these men. I 
 would have been ashamed to offer it. Tom's 
 simple, straightforward story of his baby and 
 his brother Bill had made it impossible for me 
 to attempt to match it with any cheap pathos 
 of my own ; just as the graphic treatment of 
 the fitting out of the negro cook by the Cap- 
 tain, and of the rescue of the " lady" by Saul, 
 160
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 had ended all hopes of my entertaining the men 
 around me with any worm-eaten, hollow-shelled 
 chestnuts of my own. What was wanted was 
 some big, simple, genuine yarn : strong meat for 
 strong men, not milk for babes : something they 
 would know all about and believe in and were 
 part of. The storming of a fort ; the flagging 
 of a train within three feet of an abyss ; the 
 rescue of a child along a burning ledge five 
 stories above the sidewalk : all these themes 
 bubbled up and sank again in my mind. Some 
 of them I only knew parts of ; some had but 
 little point ; all of them were hazy in my mind. 
 I remembered, with regret, that I could only 
 repeat the first verse of the " Charge of the 
 Light Brigade," and but two lines of " Hora- 
 tius," correctly. 
 
 Suddenly a great light broke in upon me. 
 What they wanted was something about their 
 own life ; some account of the deeds of other life- 
 savers up and down the coast, graphically put 
 with proper dramatic effect, beginning slowly 
 and culminating in the third act with a blaze 
 of heroism. These big, brawny heroes about 
 me would then get a clearer idea of the estima- 
 tion in which they were held by their country- 
 men ; a clearer idea, too, of true heroism of 
 the genuine article, examples of which were 
 161
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 almost nightly shown in their own lives. This 
 would encourage them to still greater efforts, and 
 the world thereby be the better for my telling. 
 
 That gallant rescue of the man off Quogue 
 was just the thing ! 
 
 The papers of the week before had been full 
 of the bravery of these brother surfmen on the 
 Long Island coast. This, and some additional 
 information given me by a reporter who visited 
 the scene of the disaster after the rescue, could 
 not fail to make an impression, I thought. Yes, 
 the rescue was the very thing. 
 
 "Oh! men," I began, " did you hear about 
 that four-master that came ashore off Shinne- 
 cock last week ? " and I looked around into 
 their faces. 
 
 " No," remarked Jerry, pulling his pipe from 
 his mouth. " What about it ? " 
 
 "Why, yes, ye did," grunted Tom; "Num- 
 ber 17 got two of 'em." 
 
 "Yes, and the others were drowned," in- 
 terrupted Saul. 
 
 "Thick, warn't it ? " suggested one of the 
 sleepy surfmen, thrusting his wharf-post of a 
 leg into one section of his hip-boots preparatory 
 to patrolling the beach. 
 
 "Yes," I continued, "dense fog; couldn't 
 see five feet from the shore. She grounded 
 162
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 about a mile west of the Station, and all the 
 men had to locate her position by was the cries 
 of the crew. They could n't use the boat, the 
 sea was running so heavy, and they could n't 
 get a line over her because they could n't see 
 her. They stood by, however, all night, and 
 at daylight she broke in two. All that day the 
 men of two stations worked to get off to them, 
 and every time they were beaten back by the 
 sea and wreckage. Then the fog cleared a 
 little, and two of the crew of the schooner were 
 seen clinging to a piece of timber and some 
 floating freight. Shot after shot was fired at 
 them, and by a lucky hit one fell across them, 
 and they made fast and were hauled toward 
 the shore." 
 
 At this moment the surfman who had been 
 struggling with his hip-boots caught my eye, 
 nodded, and silently left the room, fully 
 equipped for his patrol. I went on : 
 
 " When the wreckage, with the two men 
 clinging to it, got within a hundred yards of the 
 surf, the inshore floatage struck them, and 
 smash they went into the thick of it. One of 
 the shipwrecked men grabbed the line and 
 tried to come ashore, the other poor fellow held 
 to the wreckage. Twice the sea broke his hold, 
 and still he held on." 
 
 163
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 The other surf man now, without even a nod, 
 disappeared into the night, slamming the outer 
 door behind him, the cold air finding its way 
 into our warm retreat. I ignored the slight dis- 
 courtesy and proceeded : 
 
 " Now, boys, comes the part of the story I 
 think will interest you." As I said this I swept 
 my glance around the room. Jerry was yawn- 
 ing behind his hand and Tom was shaking the 
 ashes from his pipe. 
 
 "On the beach" (my voice rose now) 
 " stood Bill Halsey, one of the Quogue crew. 
 He knew that the sailor in his weakened con- 
 dition could not hold on through the inshore 
 wreckage ; and sure enough, while he was 
 looking, a roller came along and tore the man 
 from his hold. In went Bill straight at the comb- 
 ers, fighting his way. There was not one chance 
 in a hundred that he could live through it, but 
 he got the man and held on, and the crew rushed 
 in and hauled them clear of the smother, both of 
 them half-dead, Bill's arms still locked around 
 the sailor. Bill came to soonest, and the first 
 words he said were, ' Don't mind me, I 'm all 
 right : take care of the sailor ! ' " 
 
 I looked around again ; Captain Shortrode was 
 examining the stubs of his horny fingers with as 
 much care as if they would require amputation 
 164
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 at no distant day ; Jerry and Saul had their gaze 
 on the floor. Tom was still tilted back, his eyes 
 tight shut. I braced up and continued : 
 
 " All this, of course, men, you no doubt heard 
 about, but what the reporter told me may be 
 new to you. That night the ' Shipping News ' 
 got Bill on the 'phone 'and asked him if he was 
 William Halsey. 
 
 "'Yes.' 
 
 " ' Are you the man who pulled the sailor out 
 of the wreckage this morning at daybreak ? ' 
 
 "'Yes.' 
 
 " ' Well, we 'd like you to write some little 
 account of ' 
 
 " ' Well, I ain't got no time.' 
 
 " ' If we send a reporter down, will you talk 
 to him and ' 
 
 '"No, for there ain't nothin' to tell ' 
 
 " ' You 're Halsey, are n't you ? ' 
 
 "'Yes.' 
 
 " 'Well, we should like to get some of the 
 details ; it was a very heroic rescue, and ' 
 
 " ' Well, there ain't no details and there ain't 
 no heroics. I git paid for what I do, and I done 
 it,' and he rang off the 'phone." 
 
 A dead silence followed one of those uncom- 
 fortable silences that often follows a society break 
 precipitating the well-known unpleasant quarter 
 
 165,
 
 SIMPLE FOLK 
 
 of an hour. This silence lasted only a minute. 
 Then Captain Shortrode remarked calmly and 
 coldly, and, I thought, with a tired feeling in his 
 voice : 
 
 " Well, what else could he have said ? " 
 
 The fur-coated beast was taken out of cam- 
 phor, hooked up to the buggy, and the Captain 
 and I ploughed our way back through the snow 
 to the depot, the men standing in the doorway 
 waving their hands Good-by. 
 
 The next day I wrote this to the Superin- 
 tendent at headquarters : 
 
 " These men fear nothing but God ! "
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 IT was when pulling in his milk one morning 
 that Dalny first made the acquaintance of 
 " Old Sunshine." The cans had become mixed, 
 Dalny's pint having been laid at the old man's 
 door and the old man's gill at Dalny's, and the 
 rectifying of the mistake "Old Sunshine "did 
 the rectifying laid the basis of the acquaintance. 
 Everybody, of course, in the Studio Building 
 knew the old man and his old sister by sight, 
 but only one or two well enough to speak to 
 him ; none of them to speak to the poor, faded 
 woman, who would climb the stairs so many 
 times a day, always stopping for her breath at 
 the landing, and always with some little pack- 
 age a pinch of tea, or a loaf of bread, or frag- 
 ment of chop which she hid under her apron 
 if she heard any one's steps. She was younger 
 than her brother by a few years, but there was 
 no mistaking their relationship ; their noses 
 were exactly alike long, semi-transparent 
 noses, protruding between two wistful, china- 
 blue eyes peering from under eyebrows shaded 
 by soft gray hair. 
 
 167
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 The rooms to which the sister climbed, and 
 where the brother worked, were at the top of 
 the building, away up under the corridor sky- 
 light, the iron ladder to its trap being bolted to 
 the wall outside their very door. It was sunnier 
 up there, the brother said. One of the rooms 
 he used for his studio, sleeping on a cot behind 
 a screen ; the other was occupied by his sister. 
 What little housekeeping was necessary went 
 on behind this door. Outside, on its upper 
 panel, was tacked a card bearing his name : 
 
 Adolpbe Woolfsen. 
 
 When he had moved in, some years before 
 long before Dalny arrived in the building 
 the agent had copied the inscription in his 
 book from this very card, and had thereafter 
 nailed it to the panel to identify the occupant. 
 It had never been removed, nor had any 
 more important name-plate been placed be- 
 side it. 
 
 Sometimes the janitor, in addressing him, 
 would call him "Mr. Adolphe," and sometimes 
 " Mr. Woolfsen ; " sometimes he would so far 
 forget himself as to let his tongue slip halfway 
 down "Old Sunshine," bringing up at the 
 "Sun " and substituting either one of the fore- 
 going in its place. 
 
 168
 
 " OLD SUNSHINE " 
 
 The agent who collected his rent always 
 addressed him correctly. "If it was agreeable 
 to Mr. Woolfsen, he would like to collect," etc. 
 Sometimes it was agreeable to Mr. Woolfsen, 
 and sometimes it was not. When it was agree- 
 able this the janitor said occurred only when 
 a letter came with a foreign postmark on it 
 the old painter would politely beg the agent to 
 excuse him for a moment, and shut the door 
 carefully in the agent's face. Then would follow 
 a hurried moving of easels and the shifting of a 
 long screen across his picture. Then the agent 
 would be received with a courteous bow and 
 handed to a chair a wreck of a chair, with 
 the legs unsteady and the back wobbly, while 
 the tenant would open an old desk, take a china 
 pot from one of the cubby-holes, empty it of 
 the contents, and begin to count out the money, 
 smiling graciously all the time. When it was 
 not agreeable to pay, the door was closed 
 gently and silently in the agent's face, and no 
 amount of pounding opened it again not that 
 day, at least. 
 
 Only Dalny knew what was behind that 
 screen, and only Dalny divined the old man's 
 reasons for concealing his canvas so carefully ; 
 but this was not until after weeks of friendly 
 greeting, including certain attentions to the old 
 
 169
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE " 
 
 sister, such as helping her up the stairs with a 
 basket an unusual occurrence for her, and, of 
 course, for him. This time it was a measure of 
 coal and a bundle of wood that made it so 
 heavy. 
 
 " Thank you, sir," she had said in her sweet, 
 gentle voice, her pale cheeks and sad eyes 
 turned toward him; "my brother will be so 
 pleased. No, I can't ask you in, for he is much 
 absorbed these days, and I must not disturb 
 him." 
 
 This little episode occurred only a few days 
 after the incident of the interchange of the por- 
 tions of milk, and was but another step to a 
 foregone intimacy so far as Dalny was con- 
 cerned. Not that he was curious, or lacked 
 society or advice. It was Dalny's way to be 
 gracious, and he rarely had cause to repent it. 
 He did not pretend to any system of friendli- 
 ness when meeting any fellow lodger on the 
 stairs. It began with a cheery "Good-morn- 
 ing," or some remark about the weather, or a 
 hope that the water did n't get in through the 
 skylight and spoil any of his sketches. If a 
 pleasant answer came in response, Dalny kept 
 on, and in a week was lending brushes or tubes 
 of color or a scuttle of coal, never borrowing 
 anything in return; if only a gruff " Yes " or a 
 170
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 nod of the head came in reply, he passed on 
 down or up the stairs whistling as usual or 
 humming some tune to himself. This was 
 Dalny's way. 
 
 At first the painter's sobriquet of " Old Sun- 
 shine " puzzled Dalny ; he saw him but seldom, 
 but never when his face had anything sunny 
 about it. It was always careworn and earnest, 
 an eager, hungry look in his eyes. 
 
 Botts, who had the next studio to Dalny, 
 solved the mystery. 
 
 " He 's crazy over a color scheme ; gone daft 
 on purples and yellows. I haven't seen it 
 nobody has except his old sister. He keeps it 
 covered up, but he 's got a 50 x 60 that he 's 
 worked on for years. Claims to have discovered 
 a palette that will make a man use smoked 
 glass when his picture is hung on the line. 
 That 's why he 's called ' Old Sunshine.' " 
 
 Dalny made no reply, none that would en- 
 courage Botts in his flippant view of the old 
 painter. He himself had been studying that 
 same problem all his life ; furthermore, he had 
 always believed that sooner or later some ma- 
 gician would produce three tones with har- 
 monies so exact that a canvas would radiate 
 light like a prism. 
 
 The next day he kept his studio door open 
 171
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 and his ear unbuttoned, and when the old man's 
 steps approached his door on his return from his 
 morning walk the only hour he ever went out 
 Dalny threw it wide and stepped in front of 
 him. 
 
 " Don't mind coming in, do you ? " Dalny 
 laughed. "I 've struck a snag in a bit of dra- 
 pery and can't get anything out of it. I thought 
 you might help " And before the old fellow 
 could realize where he was, Dalny had him in 
 a chair before his canvas. 
 
 " I 'm not a figure painter," the old man said 
 simply. 
 
 "That don't make any difference. Tell me 
 what 's the matter with that shadow it 's 
 lumpy and flat," and Dalny pointed to a fold of 
 velvet lying across a sofa, on which was seated 
 the portrait of a stout woman one of Dalny's 
 pot-boilers the wife of a rich brewer who 
 wanted a picture at a poor price one which 
 afterward made Dalny's reputation, so masterful 
 was the brushwork. The old Studio Building 
 was full of just such customers, but not of such 
 painters. 
 
 "It's of the old school," said the painter. 
 " I could only criticise it in one way, and that 
 might offend you." 
 
 " Go on what is the matter with it ? " 
 172
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 The old man rubbed his chin slowly and 
 looked at Dalny under his bushy eyebrows. 
 
 " I am afraid to speak. You have been very 
 kind. My sister says you are always polite, 
 and so few people are polite nowadays." 
 
 " Say what you please ; don't worry about 
 me. I learn something every day." 
 
 " No ; I cannot. It would be cruel to tell you 
 what I think, and Louise would not like it when 
 she knew I had told you, and I must tell her. 
 We tell each other everything." 
 
 "Is the color wrong?" persisted Dalny. 
 " I 've got the gray-white of the sky, as you 
 see, and the reflected light from the red plush 
 of the sofa ; but the shadows between Would 
 you try a touch of emerald green here ? " 
 
 The old man had risen from his seat now and 
 was backing away toward the door, his hat in 
 his hand, his bald head and the scanty gray 
 hairs about his temples glistening in the over- 
 head light of the studio. 
 
 " It would do you no good, my dear Mr. 
 Dalny. Paint is never color. Color is an essence, 
 a rhythm, a blending of tones as exquisite as 
 the blending of sounds in the fall of a mountain 
 brook. Match each sound and you have its 
 melody. Match each tone and you have light. 
 I am working working. Good-morning." 
 
 173
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE " 
 
 His hand was now on the door-knob, his face 
 aglow with an enthusiasm which seemed to 
 mingle with his words. 
 
 " Stop ! Don't go ; that 's what I think my- 
 self," cried Dalny. "Talk to me about it." 
 
 The old man dropped the knob and looked at 
 Dalny searchingly. 
 
 "You are honest with me ? " 
 
 "Perfectly." 
 
 "Then when I triumph you shall see ! and 
 you shall see it first. I will come for you ; not 
 yet not yet perhaps to-morrow, perhaps 
 next month but I will come ! " and he bowed 
 himself out. 
 
 The faded sister was waiting for him at the 
 top of the stairs. She had seen her brother 
 mount the first flight and the fourth, all this 
 by peering down between the banisters. Then 
 he had disappeared. This, being unusual, had 
 startled her. 
 
 "You must have stopped somewhere, 
 Adolphe," she said nervously. 
 
 "Yes, Louise; the painter on the floor below 
 called me." 
 
 "Is he poor, like us? " 
 
 "Poorer. We have the light beyond. He 
 has nothing, and never will have." 
 
 174
 
 " OLD SUNSHINE " 
 
 " What did he want ?" 
 
 "A criticism." 
 
 " And you gave it ? " 
 
 " No, I could not. I had not the heart to tell 
 him. He tries so hard. He is honest, but his 
 work is hopeless." 
 
 "Like the man on the first floor, who uses 
 the calcium light to show his pictures by ? " 
 
 "No, no; Mr. Dalny is a gentleman, not a 
 cheat. He thinks, and would learn he told 
 me so. But he cannot see. Ah, not to see, 
 Louise! Did you grind the new blue, dear? 
 Yes and quite smooth." 
 
 He had taken off his coat now, carefully, the 
 lining being out of one sleeve. The sister hung 
 it on a nail behind the door, and the painter 
 picked up his palette and stood looking at a 
 large canvas on an easel. Louise tiptoed out of 
 the room and closed the door of her own apart- 
 ment. When her brother began work she always 
 left him alone. Triumph might come at any mo- 
 ment, and even a word wrongly spoken might 
 distract his thoughts and spoil everything. She 
 had not forgotten nor ever would how, two 
 years before, she had come upon him suddenly 
 just as an exact tint had been mixed, and, be- 
 fore he could lay it on his canvas, had uncon- 
 sciously interrupted him, and all the hours and 
 
 175
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 days of study had to be done over again. Now 
 they had a system : when she must enter she 
 would cough gently; then, if he did not hear 
 her, she would cough again; if he did not 
 answer, she would wait, sometimes without 
 food, until far into the afternoon, when the day- 
 light failed him. Then he would lay down his 
 palette, covering his colors with water, and be- 
 gin washing his brushes. This sound she knew. 
 Only then would she open the door. 
 
 Botts had given Dalny the correct size of the 
 canvas, but he had failed to describe the picture 
 covering it. It was a landscape showing the 
 sun setting behind a mountain, the sky reflected 
 in a lake ; in the foreground was a stretch of 
 meadow. The sky was yellow and the moun- 
 tain purple; the meadow reddish brown. In the 
 centre of the canvas was a white spot the size 
 of a pill-box. This was the sun, and the centre of 
 the color scheme. Radiating from this patch 
 of white were thousands of little pats of chrome 
 yellow and vermilion, divided by smaller pats 
 of blue. The exact gradations of these tints 
 were to produce the vibrations of light. One 
 false note would destroy the rhythm; hence 
 the hours of thought and of endless trying. 
 
 These colors were not to be bought at the 
 ordinary shops. Certain rare oxides formed the 
 176
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 basis of the yellows, while the filings of bits 
 of turquoise pounded to flour were used in the 
 blues. Louise did this, grinding the minerals by 
 the hour, her poor thin hands moving the glass 
 pestle over the stone slab. When some care- 
 fully thought-out tint was laid beside another as 
 carefully studied, the combination meeting his 
 ideal, he would spring from his seat, crying out: 
 
 "Louise! Louise! Light! Light!" 
 
 Then the little woman would hurry in and 
 stand entranced. 
 
 "Oh! so brilliant, Adolphe ! It hurts my 
 eyes to look at it. See how it glows ! Ah, it 
 will come! " and she would shade her wistful 
 eyes with her hand as if the light from the flat 
 canvas dazzled her. These were gala hours in 
 the musty rooms at the top of the old Studio 
 Building. 
 
 Then there would come long days of depres- 
 sion. The lower range of color was correct, but 
 that over the right of the mountain and near the 
 zenith did not pulsate. The fault lay in the poor 
 quality of the colors or in the bad brushes or the 
 sky outside. The faded sister's face always fell 
 when the trouble lay with the colors. Even the 
 small measure of milk would then have to be 
 given up until the janitor came bearing another 
 letter with a foreign stamp. 
 177
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 Dalny knew nothing of all this, nor did any 
 one else in the building nothing positively of 
 their home life except from such outside in- 
 dications as the size of the can of milk and the 
 increasing shabbiness of their clothes. Dalny 
 had suspected it and had tried to win their con- 
 fidence in his impulsive way ; but all his ad- 
 vances had been met by a gentle, almost pa- 
 thetic, reserve which was more insurmountable 
 than a direct repulse. He also wanted to learn 
 something more of the old man's methods. He 
 had in his own earlier student days known 
 an old professor in Heidelberg who used to 
 talk to him about violet and green, but he 
 never got any farther than talk. Here was a 
 man, a German, too, perhaps, or perhaps a 
 Swede he could not tell from the name 
 some foreigner, anyhow, who was putting 
 his theories into practice, and, more convincing 
 still, was willing to starve slowly until they 
 materialized. 
 
 Once he had cornered the old man on the 
 stairs, and, throwing aside all duplicity, had 
 asked him the straight question : 
 
 " Will you show me your picture ? I showed 
 you mine." 
 
 "Old Sunshine" raised his wide-brimmed 
 hat from his head by the crown it was too 
 178
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 limp to be lifted in any other way and said 
 in a low voice : 
 
 "Yes, when it is a picture ; it is now only 
 an experiment." 
 
 " But it will help me if I can see your work. 
 I am but a beginner ; you are a master." 
 
 The good-natured touch of flattery made no 
 impression on the old man. 
 
 "No," he answered, replacing his hat and 
 keeping on his way downstairs, "I am not a 
 master. I am a man groping in the dark, fol- 
 lowing a light that beckons me on. It will not 
 help you; it will hurt you. I will come for 
 you ; I have promised, remember. Neither my 
 sister nor I ever break a promise. Good-morn- 
 ing ! " And again the shabby hat was lifted. 
 
 Dalny stood outside his own door listening to 
 the old man's steps growing fainter until they 
 reached the street ; then he resumed his work 
 on the green dress and puffy red face of the 
 brewer's wife, correcting the errors he had 
 made when she last sat for him, his mind un- 
 satisfied, his curiosity all the more eager. 
 
 As the winter came on, Dalny began to miss 
 the tread of the old man outside his door. The 
 old sister never made any noise, so he never 
 knew when she went up and down unless he 
 happened to be on the stairs at the same mo- 
 179
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 ment. He knew the old man was at work, be- 
 cause he could hear his ceaseless tramp before 
 his easel walking up to his picture, laying on 
 a pat of color, and walking back again. He 
 himself had walked miles had been doing it 
 the day before in his efforts to give ' ' carry- 
 ing " quality to the shadow under the nose of 
 the brewer's better half. 
 
 " I do not see your brother any more," Dalny 
 had said to her one morning, after meeting her 
 by accident outside his door carrying a basket 
 with a cloth over it. 
 
 " No," she answered ; " no ; he cannot spare 
 a moment these days. He hardly takes time 
 to eat, and I do all the errands. But he is very 
 happy." Here her face broke into a smile. 
 " Oh, so happy ! We both are " 
 
 " And is the great picture finished ? " he in- 
 terrupted, with a movement as if to relieve her 
 of the weight of the basket. 
 
 "Almost. . . . Almost. . . . Adolphe will 
 tell you when it is ready. No please, good 
 Mr. Dalny it is not heavy. But I thank you 
 all the same for wanting to help me. It is a little 
 hot soup for Adolphe. He is very fond of hot 
 soup, and they make it very nice at the corner." 
 
 The day following this interview Dalny 
 heard strange noises overhead. The steady 
 1 80
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 tramping had ceased ; the sounds were as if 
 heavy furniture was being moved. Then there 
 would come a pattering of lighter feet running 
 in and out of the connecting room. Then a 
 noise as if scrubbing was being done ; he thought 
 at one time he heard the splash of water, and 
 even looked up at his own ceiling as if expecting 
 a leak. 
 
 Suddenly these unusual sounds ceased, the 
 old man's door was flung open, a hurried step 
 was heard on the upper stairway, and a sharp 
 knock fell upon his own door. 
 
 Dalny opened it in the face of the old man. 
 He was bareheaded, his eyes blazing with ex- 
 citement, his face flushed as if by some uncon- 
 trollable joy. 
 
 " Come quick ! " he cried ; " we are all 
 ready. It was perfected this morning. We 
 have been putting things in order for you, for 
 we do not ever have guests. But you must be 
 careful your eyes are not accustomed, per- 
 haps, and " 
 
 Dalny darted back without listening to the 
 old man's conclusion, and threw on his coat. 
 The faded sister was upstairs, and he must be 
 presentable. 
 
 "And you like your picture," burst out 
 DaJny, as he adjusted his collar and cuffs 
 181
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 part of the old man's happiness had reached his 
 own heart now. 
 
 " Like it? It is not something to like, Mr. 
 Dalny. It is not a meal ; it is a religion. You 
 are in a fog, and the sun bursts through ; you 
 are in a tunnel, and are swept out into green 
 fields ; you grope in the dark, and an angel 
 leads you to the light. You do not ' like ' 
 things then you thank God on your knees. 
 Louise has done nothing but cry." 
 
 These words came in shortened sentences 
 divided by the mounting of each step, the two 
 hurrying up the stairs, "Old Sunshine " ahead, 
 Dalny following. 
 
 The sister was waiting for them at the open 
 door. She had a snow-white kerchief over her 
 shoulders and a quaint cap on her head, evi- 
 dently her best. Her eyes, still red from weep- 
 ing, shone like flashes of sunshine through fall- 
 ing rain. 
 
 " Keep him here, Louise, until I get my um- 
 brella lam afraid. No; stay till I come for 
 you " this to Dalny, who was, in his eager- 
 ness, peering into the well-swept, orderly look- 
 ing room. " Shut your eyes until I tell you 
 quick! under this umbrella" (he had picked it 
 up just inside the door) . 
 
 Dalny suffered himself to be led into the 
 182
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 room, his head smothered under the umbrella, 
 the old man's hand firmly grasping his as if the 
 distance between the door and the masterpiece 
 was along the edge of an abyss. 
 
 "Now!" cried the old man, waving the 
 umbrella aside. 
 
 Dalny raised his eyes, and a feeling of faint- 
 ness came over him. Then a peculiar choking 
 sensation crept into his throat. For a moment 
 he did not and could not speak. The thousands 
 of little patches of paint radiating from the centre 
 spot were but so many blurs on a flat canvas. 
 The failure was pathetic, but it was complete. 
 
 The old man was reading his face. The faded 
 sister had not taken her eyes from his. 
 
 " It does not dazzle you ! You do not see the 
 vibrations ? " 
 
 "I am getting my eyes accustomed to it," 
 stammered Dalny. "I cannot take it all in at 
 once." He was hunting around in his mind for 
 something to say something that would not 
 break the old man's heart. 
 
 " No ! You cannot deceive me. I had hoped 
 better things of you, Mr. Dalny. It is not your 
 fault that you cannot see." 
 
 The old man had crossed to the door of his 
 studio, had thrown it open, and stood as if 
 waiting for Dalny to pass out. 
 183
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 "Yes, but let me look a little longer," pro- 
 tested Dalny. The situation was too pathetic 
 for him to be offended. 
 
 "No no please excuse us we are very 
 happy, Louise and I, and I would rather you 
 left us alone. I will come for you some other 
 time when my picture has been sent away. 
 Please forgive my sister and me, but please go 
 away." 
 
 Weeks passed before Dalny saw either one 
 of the old people again. He watched for them, 
 his door ajar, listening to every sound ; but if 
 they passed up and down the stairs, they did 
 so when he was out or asleep. He had no- 
 ticed, too, that all was still overhead, except a 
 light tread which he knew must be the faded 
 sister's. The heavier footfall, however, was 
 silent. 
 
 One morning the janitor opened Dalny's 
 door without knocking and closed it softly be- 
 hind him. He seemed laboring under some ex- 
 citement. 
 
 " He 's up at St. Luke's Hospital ; they took 
 him there last night," he said in a whisper, 
 jerking his thumb toward the ceiling. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "'Old Sunshine.'" 
 
 184
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 " Crazy ? " 
 
 " No ; ill with fever ; been sick for a week. 
 Not bad, but the doctor would not let him stay 
 here." 
 
 " Did the sister go ? " There was a note of 
 alarm in Dalny's voice. 
 
 " No, she is upstairs. That 's why I came. I 
 don't think she has much to eat. She won't let 
 me in. Maybe you can get her to talk to you ; 
 she likes you she told me so." 
 
 Dalny laid down his palette, tiptoed hur- 
 riedly up the stairs, and knocked gently. There 
 was no response. Then he knocked again, this 
 time much louder, and waited. He heard the 
 rustling of a skirt, but there was no other 
 sound. 
 
 "It's Mr. Dalny, madam," he said in the 
 kindest, most sympathetic voice that ever came 
 out of his throat. 
 
 The door opened softly, and her face peered 
 through the crack. Tears were in her eyes 
 old and new tears following one another down 
 her furrowed cheeks. 
 
 " He is gone away ; they took him last night, 
 Mr. Dalny." Her voice broke, but she still 
 kept the edge of the door in her trembling 
 hand. 
 
 "Yes; I have just heard about it. Let me 
 
 185
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 come in, please; I want to help you. You are 
 all alone." 
 
 Her grasp slackened, and Dalny stepped in. 
 The room was in some confusion. The bed 
 where her brother had been ill was still in dis- 
 order, the screen that had concealed it pushed 
 to one side. On a table by his easel were 
 the remains of a meal. The masterpiece still 
 stared out from its place. The sister walked to 
 a lounge and sat down. 
 
 "Tell me the truth," Dalny said, seating 
 himself beside her. " Have you any money? " 
 
 " No ; our letter has not come." 
 
 " What do you expect to do ? " 
 
 "I must sell something." 
 
 "Let me lend you some money. I have 
 plenty, for I shall get paid for my picture to- 
 morrow ; then you can pay it back when yours 
 comes." 
 
 "Oh, you are so kind, but we must sell 
 something of our own. We owe a large sum ; 
 the rent is two months due, and there are other 
 things, and Adolphe must have some comforts. 
 No, I am not offended, but Adolphe would be if 
 he knew." 
 
 Dalny looked into space for a moment, and 
 asked thoughtfully, " How much do you 
 owe ? " 
 
 186
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 " Oh, a great deal," she answered simply. 
 
 "What things will you sell ? " At least he 
 could help her in this. 
 
 The faded old lady looked up at Dalny and 
 pointed to the masterpiece. 
 
 " It breaks our heart to send it away, but 
 there is nothing else to do. It will bring, too, a 
 great price ; nothing else we possess will bring 
 as much. Then we will have no more poverty, 
 and some one may buy it who will love it, and 
 so my brother will get his reward." 
 
 Dalny swept his eye around. The furniture 
 was of the shabbiest; pictures and sketches 
 tacked to the wall, but experiments in " Old 
 Sunshine's" pet theories. Nothing else would 
 bring anything. And the masterpiece ! That, 
 he knew, would not bring the cost of its frame. 
 
 "Where will you send it to be sold to an 
 art dealer ? " Dalny asked. He could speak a 
 good word for it, perhaps, if it should be sent 
 to some dealer he knew. 
 
 "No; to a place in Cedar Street, where 
 Adolphe sold some sketches his brother paint- 
 ers gave him in their student days. One by 
 Achenbach Oswald, not Andreas brought 
 a large sum. It was a great help to us. I have 
 written the gentleman who keeps the auction- 
 room, and he is to send for the picture to-mor- 
 
 187
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 row, and it will be sold in his next picture sale. 
 Adolphe was willing; he told me to do it. 
 ' Some one will know,' he said; ' and we ought 
 not to enjoy it all to ourselves.' Then again, 
 the problem has been solved. All his pictures 
 after this will be full of beautiful light." 
 
 The auction-room was crowded. There was 
 to be a sale of French pictures, some by the 
 men of '30 and some by the more advanced 
 impressionists. Many out-of-town buyers were 
 present, a few of them dealers. Dalny rubbed 
 his hands together in a pleased way when he 
 looked over the audience and the collection. 
 It was quite possible that some connoisseur 
 newly made would take a fancy to the master- 
 piece, confounding it with some one of the 
 pictures of the Upside-down School pictures 
 looking equally well whichever way they might 
 be hung. 
 
 The selling began. 
 
 A Corot brought $2700 ; a Daubigny, $940 ; 
 two examples of the reigning success in Paris, 
 $1100. Twenty-two pictures had been sold. 
 
 Then the masterpiece was placed on the easel. 
 
 "A Sunrise. By Adolphe Woolfsen of Dus- 
 seldorf," called out the auctioneer. " What am 
 I offered ? " 
 
 188
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 There came a pause, and the auctioneer re- 
 peated the announcement. 
 
 A man sitting by the auctioneer, near enough 
 to see every touch of the brush on " Old Sun- 
 shine's" picture, laughed, and nudged the man 
 next to him. Several others joined in. 
 
 Then came a voice from behind : 
 
 " Five dollars !" 
 
 The auctioneer shrank a little, a pained, sur- 
 prised feeling overspreading his face, as if some 
 one had thrown a bit of orange-peel at him. 
 Then he went on : 
 
 "Five dollars it is, gentlemen, Five five 
 five ! " Even he, with all the tricks of his trade 
 at his fingers' ends, could not find a good word 
 to say for " Old Sunshine's " masterpiece. 
 
 Dalny kept shifting his feet in his uneasiness. 
 His hands opened and shut ; his throat began to 
 get dry. Then he broke loose : 
 
 " One hundred dollars !" 
 
 The auctioneer's face lighted up as suddenly 
 as if the calcium light of the painter whom 
 "Old Sunshine" despised had been thrown 
 upon it. 
 
 " I have your bid, Mr. Dalny [he knew him] 
 one hundred hundred hundred one 
 one third and last call ! " 
 
 Dalny thought of the gentle old face waiting 
 
 189
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 at the top of the stairs, and of the old man's 
 anxious look as he lay on his pillow. The auc- 
 tioneer had seen Dalny's eager expression and 
 at once began to address an imaginary bidder on 
 the other side of the room his clerk, really. 
 
 " Two hundred two hundred two two 
 two "- 
 
 "Three hundred ! " shouted Dalny. 
 
 Again the clerk nodded : 
 
 "Four four!" 
 
 "Five!" shouted Dalny. This was all the 
 money he would get in the morning excepting 
 fifty dollars and that he owed for his rent. 
 
 " Five five five ! third and last call ! 
 SOLD ! and to you, Mr. Dalny ! Gentlemen, 
 you seem to have been asleep. One of the most 
 distinguished painters of our time is the pos- 
 sessor of this picture, which only shows that it 
 takes an artist to pick out a good thing ! " 
 
 She was waiting for him in her room, her own 
 door ajar this time. He had promised to come 
 back, and she was then to go to the hospital 
 and tell the good news to her brother. 
 
 With his heart aglow with the pleasure in 
 store for her, he bounded up the stairs, both 
 hands held out, his face beaming : 
 
 "Wonderful success! Bought by a distin- 
 190
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 guished connoisseur who won't let the auction- 
 eer give his name." 
 
 "Oh, I am so happy!" she answered. "That 
 is really better than the money; and for how 
 much, dear Mr. Dalny ? " 
 
 " Five hundred dollars ! " 
 
 The faded sister's face fell. 
 
 " I thought it would bring a great deal more, 
 but then Adolphe will be content. It was the 
 lowest sum he mentioned when he decided to 
 sell it. Will you go with me to tell him 9 
 Please do." 
 
 In the office of the hospital Dalny stopped to 
 talk to the doctor, the sister going on up to the 
 ward where " Old Sunshine " lay. 
 
 "Is he better ? " asked Dalny. " He is a 
 friend of mine." 
 
 The doctor tapped his forehead significantly 
 with his forefinger. 
 
 " Brain trouble ? " asked Dalny in a subdued 
 tone. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Will he get well ? " 
 
 The doctor shook his head discouragingly. 
 
 " How long will he last ? " 
 
 "Perhaps a week perhaps not twenty- 
 four hours." 
 
 The faded sister now entered. Her face was 
 
 191
 
 "OLD SUNSHINE" 
 
 still smiling no one had yet told her about 
 her brother. 
 
 " Oh, he is so happy, Mr. Dalny." 
 
 " And you told him ?" 
 
 "Yes! Yes!" 
 
 " And what did he say ? " 
 
 " He put his arms around me and kissed me, 
 and then he whispered, ' Oh ! Louise, Louise ! 
 the connoisseur knew ! ' "
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 AFTER a fit of choking that could be heard 
 all over the train the left lung of the loco- 
 motive gave out. I had heard her coughing up 
 the long grade and had begun to wonder whether 
 she would pull through, when she gave a wheeze 
 and then a jerk, and out went her cylinder 
 head. 
 
 Boston was four hours away and time of 
 value to me. So it was to all the other pas- 
 sengers, judging from the variety and pun- 
 gency of their remarks all except one, an old 
 lady who had boarded the train at a station 
 near the foot of the long grade and who occu- 
 pied a seat immediately in front of mine. 
 
 Such a dear old lady ! plump and restful, a 
 gray worsted shawl about her shoulders and a 
 reticule on her arm. An old lady with a round 
 rosy face framed in a hood-of-a-bonnet edged 
 with ruffles, the strings tied under her chin, 
 her two soft, human, kindly eyes peering at you 
 over her gold-rimmed spectacles resting on the 
 end of her nose. The sort of an old lady that 
 you would like to have had for a mother pro- 
 193
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 vided you never had one of your own that you 
 could remember so comforting would have 
 been her touch. 
 
 As the delay continued, the passengers made 
 remarks. Some I cannot remember ; others I 
 cannot print. 
 
 One man in unblacked boots, with a full set 
 of dusting-brush whiskers sticking up above his 
 collarless shirt, smooth-shaven chin, red face, 
 and a shock of iron-gray hair held in place by a 
 slouch hat, said he 'd "be doggoned if he ever 
 knowed where he was at when he travelled on 
 this road." 
 
 Another a man with a leather case filled 
 with samples on the seat beside him a rest- 
 less, loud-talking man, remarked that "they 
 ought to build a cemetery at both ends of the 
 road, and then the mourners could go in a walk 
 and everybody would be satisfied, instead of 
 trying to haul trains loaded with live people 
 that wanted to get somewheres." 
 
 Another a woman this time, in a flower- 
 covered hat and shiny brown silk dress, new, 
 and evidently the pride of her heart from the 
 care she took of it one of those crisp, breezy, 
 outspoken women of forty-five or fifty slim, 
 narrow-faced, keen-eyed, with a red quite 
 red nose that would one day meet an ambi- 
 194
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 tious upturned chin, and straight, firm mouth, 
 the under lip pressed tight against the upper 
 one when her mind was made up remarked 
 in a voice that sounded like a buzz-saw striking 
 a knot : 
 
 ''You ain't tellin' me that we're goin' to 
 miss the train at Springfield, be ye ? " 
 
 This remark being addressed to the car as a 
 whole no single passenger having vouchsafed 
 any such information was received in dead 
 silence. 
 
 The arrival of the conductor, wiping the 
 grease and grime from his hands with a wad 
 of cotton-waste, revived hope for a moment and 
 encouraged an air of gayety. 
 
 He was a gentlemanly conductor, patient, 
 accustomed to be abused and brief in his re- 
 plies. 
 
 " Maybe one hour ; maybe six." 
 
 The gayety ceased. 
 
 The bewhiskered man said, " Well, I '11 be 
 gosh-durned ! " 
 
 The sample-case man said, " 
 
 " (You can fill that up at your 
 
 leisure.) 
 
 The woman in the brown silk rose to her 
 feet, gathered her skirts carefully in her hand, 
 skewered the conductor with her eye, and said : 
 
 195
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 " You've gone and sp'ilt my day, that 's what 
 you've gone and done;" and, receiving no 
 reply, crossed the aisle and plumped herself 
 down in the overturned seat opposite the dear 
 old lady, adding, as she shook out her skirt : 
 
 " Dirt mean, ain't it? " 
 
 The Dear Old Lady looked at the Woman 
 in Brown, nodded in kindly assent, gazed at the 
 conductor over her spectacles until he had closed 
 the door, and said in a low, sweet voice that 
 was addressed to nobody in particular, and yet 
 which permeated the car like a strain of music : 
 
 "Well, if we're going to be here for six 
 hours I guess I '11 knit." 
 
 Just here I began to be interested. The 
 philosophy of the dear woman's life had evi- 
 dently made her proof against such trivialities. 
 Six hours ! What difference did it make ? 
 There was a flavor of the Mariana por la ma- 
 nana of the Spaniard and the Dolce far niente 
 of the Italian in her acceptance of the situation 
 that appealed to me. Another sun would rise 
 on the morrow as beautiful as the one we had 
 to-day ; why worry over its setting ? Let us 
 eat, drink, and be merry or knit. It was all 
 the same to her. 
 
 I immediately wanted to know more of this 
 passenger a desire that did not in the slight- 
 196
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 est degree extend to any other inmate of the 
 car. And yet there were restrictions and bar- 
 riers which I could not pass. Not occupying 
 the seat beside her or opposite her, but the one 
 behind her, I, of course, was not on terms of 
 such intimacy as would make it possible for 
 me to presume upon her privacy. She was 
 occupying her own house, as it were, framed in 
 between two seat-backs turned to face each 
 other, giving her the use of four seats one of 
 which had been usurped by the Woman in 
 Brown. I had my one seat with my bag beside 
 me, giving me the privileges of two sittings. Be- 
 tween us, of course, was the back of her own 
 seat, over which I looked and studied her back 
 hair and bonnet and shawl and knitting. 
 
 Under the circumstances I could no more in- 
 trude upon the Dear Old Lady's privacy than 
 upon a neighbor's who lived next door to me but 
 whom I did not know and who was separated 
 from me only by an eight-inch brick wall. The 
 conventionalities of life enforce these conditions. 
 When, therefore, the Dear Old Lady informed 
 me and the car that she would "knit," I got 
 myself into position to watch the operation; 
 not obtrusively, not with any intention of pry- 
 ing into her private life, but just because 
 well, just because I could n't help it. 
 197
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 There was something about her, somehow, 
 that I could not resist. I knew a Dear Old 
 Lady once. She was n't so stout as this old 
 lady and her eyes were not brown, but blue, 
 and her hair smooth as gray satin and of the 
 same color. I can see her now as I write, the 
 lamplight falling on her ivory needles and tan- 
 gle of white yarn and sometimes, even now, 
 I think I hear her voice. 
 
 The Dear Old Lady before me felt in her 
 pocket, pulling up her overskirt and fumbling 
 about for a mysterious pouch that was tied 
 around her waist, perhaps, and in which she 
 carried her purse, and then she pinched her 
 reticule and said to herself I was so near I 
 could hear every word : " Oh, I guess I put it 
 in the bag " and she leaned over and began un- 
 fastening the clasps of an old-fashioned carpet- 
 bag, encased in a pocket edition of a linen duster, 
 which rested on the seat in front of her and be- 
 side the Woman in Brown, who drew her im- 
 maculate, never-to-be-spotted silk skirt out of 
 the way of any possible polluting touch. 
 
 I craned my head. Somehow I could hardly 
 wait to see what kind of knitting she would 
 take out whether it was a man's stocking 
 or a baby's mitten or a pair of wee socks, or a 
 stripe to sew in an afghan to put over some- 
 
 198
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 body's bed. What stories could be written 
 about the things dear old ladies knit what 
 stories they are, really ! In every ball of yarn 
 there is a thread that leads from one heart to 
 another : to some big son or fragile daughter, 
 or to the owner of a pair of pink toes that won't 
 stay covered no matter how close the crib or 
 to a chubby-faced boy with frost-tipped ears 
 or cheeks. 
 
 First came the ball of yarn just plain gray 
 yarn and then two steel needles, and then 
 
 Then the Dear Old Lady stopped, and an 
 expression of blank amazement overspread her 
 sweet face as her fingers searched the interior 
 of the bag. 
 
 "Why," she said to herself, " why ! Well ! 
 You don't tell me that well ! I never knew 
 that to happen before. Oh, is n't that dreadful ! 
 Well, I never!" Here she drew out an unfin- 
 ished gray yarn stocking. "Just look at it! 
 Is n't it awful !" 
 
 The Woman in Brown sprang to her feet and 
 switched her dress close to her knees. 
 
 "What is it?" she cried. 
 
 " Jam ! " answered the old lady. 
 
 " Jam ! You don't mean to say " 
 
 "That's just what it is. Blackberry jam, 
 that my Lizzie put up for John just before I 
 199
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 left home and oh, is n't it too bad ! It 's 
 streaming all over the seat and running down 
 on the floor ! Oh my ! my ! " 
 
 The Woman in Brown gave a bound and was 
 out in the aisle. "Well, I should think," she 
 cried indignantly, " that you 'd had sense enough 
 to know better than to carry jam in a thing like 
 that. I ain't got none on me, hev I ? " 
 
 The Dear Old Lady did n't reply. She was 
 too much absorbed in her own misfortunes to 
 notice her companions. 
 
 "I told Lizzie," she continued, "just 'fore I 
 left, that she oughter put it in a basket, but 
 she 'lowed that it had a tin cap and was screwed 
 tight, and that she 'd stuff it down in my clothes 
 and it would carry all right. I ain't never left 
 it out of my hand but once, and then I give it 
 to the man who helped me up the steps. He 
 must have set it down sudden like." 
 
 As she spoke she drew out from the inside 
 of the bag certain articles of apparel which she 
 laid on the seat. One evidently a neck hand- 
 kerchief looked like a towel that had just 
 wiped off the face of a boy who had swallowed 
 the contents of the jar. 
 
 The Woman in Brown was in the aisle now 
 examining her skirts, twisting them round and 
 round in search of stray bits of jam. The Dear 
 
 200
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 Old Lady was still at work in her bag, her back 
 shielding its smeared contents. Trickling down 
 upon the floor and puddling in the aisle and un- 
 der the seats on the opposite side of the car ran 
 a sticky fluid that the woman avoided stepping 
 upon with as much care as if it had been a 
 snake. 
 
 I started forward to help, and then I suddenly 
 checked myself. What could 1 do ? The black- 
 berry jam had not only soaked John's stock- 
 ings, but it had also permeated. Well, the 
 Dear Old Lady was travelling and evidently on 
 the way to see John her son, no doubt 
 and to stay all night. No, it was beyond ques- 
 tion ; I could not be of the slightest use. Then 
 again, there was a woman present. Whatever 
 help the Dear Old Lady needed should come 
 from her. 
 
 "You ain't got no knife, I suppose?" I 
 heard the Woman in Brown say. " If you had 
 you could scrape most of it off." 
 
 " No," answered the Dear Old Lady. 
 " Have you ? " 
 
 "Well, I did hev, but I don't just know where 
 it is. It would gorm that up, too, maybe, if I 
 did find it." 
 
 "No, I guess the best way is to try and wash 
 it off. I '11 get rid of this anyway," the Dear 
 
 201
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 Old Lady answered ; and out came the treach- 
 erous jar with the crack extending down its 
 side, its metal top loose, the whole wrapped in 
 yellow paper all of which she dropped out of 
 the open window. 
 
 During this last examination the Woman in 
 Brown stood in the aisle, her skirts above her 
 ankles. It was n't her bag, or her stockings, or 
 her jam. She had paid her fare and was entitled 
 to her seat and its surrounding comforts : I had 
 a good view of her face as she stood in front of 
 me, and I saw what was passing in her mind. 
 To this air of being imposed upon, first by the 
 railroad and now by this fellow passenger, was 
 added a certain air of disgust a contempt for 
 any one, however old, who could be so stupid 
 and careless. The little wrinkles that kept 
 puckering at the base of her red lobster-claw of 
 a nose it really looked like one helped me 
 in this diagnosis. Its shape prevented her from 
 turning it up at anybody, and wrinkling was 
 all that was left. Having read her thoughts as 
 reflected in her face, I was no longer surprised 
 that she continued standing without offering 
 in any way to help her companion out of her 
 dilemma. 
 
 The Dear Old Lady's examination over, and 
 the intricacies of her bag explored and the cor- 
 202
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 ners of certain articles of apparel lifted and 
 immediately replaced again, she said to herself, 
 with a sigh of relief : 
 
 "Ain't but one stocking tetched, anyhow. 
 Most of it 's gone into my shoes yes, that 's 
 better. Oh, I was so scared ! " 
 
 " Everything stuck up, ain't it ? " rasped the 
 Woman. She hadn't taken her seat yet. It 
 seemed to me she could get more comfort out 
 of the Old Lady's misery standing up. 
 
 "Well, it might ha' been worse, but I ain't 
 goin' to worry a mite over it. I' 11 go to the 
 cooler and wash up what 1 can, and the rest 's 
 got to wait till I get to John's," she said in her 
 sweet, patient way, as she gathered up the bag 
 and its contents and made her way to the wash- 
 basin. 
 
 The car relapsed into its former dull condi- 
 tion. Those of the passengers who were not 
 experts and whose advice, if taken, would have 
 immediately replaced the cylinder head and sent 
 the train in on time, were picking flowers out- 
 side the track, but close enough to the train to 
 spring aboard at the first sign of life in the 
 motive power. Every now and then there would 
 come a back-thrust of the car and a bumping 
 into the one behind us. Some scientist who had 
 spent his life in a country store hereupon ex- 
 203
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 plained to a mechanical engineer who had a 
 market garden out of Springfield (I learned this 
 from their conversation) that " it was the b'iler 
 that acted that way ; the engineer was lettin' 
 off steam and the jerk come when he raised the 
 safety valve." 
 
 A brakeman now opened the door nearest the 
 water cooler, passed the old lady washing up, 
 ran amuck through a volley of questions fired at 
 him in rapid succession, and slammed the other 
 door behind him without replying to one of 
 them. In this fusillade the Woman in Brown, 
 who had now turned over a flower-picking pas- 
 senger's seat in addition to her own, had man- 
 aged her tongue with the rapidity and precision 
 of a Catling gun. 
 
 One of those mysterious rumors, picked up 
 from some scrap of conversation heard outside, 
 now drifted through the car. It conveyed the 
 information that another engine had been tele- 
 graphed for and would be along soon. This 
 possibility the Sample-Case Man demolished by 
 remarking in his peculiar vernacular unprint- 
 able, all of it that it was ten miles to the 
 nearest telegraph station and it would take two 
 hours to walk it. 
 
 The bottom having dropped out of this slight 
 hope, the car relapsed into its dull monotony. 
 204
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 No statement now of any kind would be believed 
 by anybody. 
 
 During this depression I espied the Dear Old 
 Lady making her way down the aisle. No trace 
 of anxiety was on her face. The bag had 
 resumed its former appearance, its linen duster 
 buttoned tight over its ample chest. 
 
 The Woman in Brown was waiting for her, 
 her feet up on the flower-picking passenger's 
 seat, her precious brown silk tucked in above 
 her shoes. 
 
 "Quite a muss, warn't it?" she said with 
 rather a gleeful tone, as if she rejoiced in the 
 Old Lady's punishment for her stupidity. 
 
 "Yes, but it's all right now. It soaked 
 through my shoes and went all over my cap, 
 and " Here she bent her head and whispered 
 into the Woman's ear. I realized then how im- 
 possible it would have been for me to have ren- 
 dered the slightest assistance. 
 
 She had taken her seat now and had laid the 
 bag in its original position on the cushion in 
 front of her. My heart had gone out to her, but 
 I was powerless to help. Once or twice I conned 
 over in my mind an expression of sympathy, 
 but I could not decide on just what I ought to 
 say and when I ought to say it, and so I kept 
 silent. I should not have felt that way about 
 205
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 the Woman in Brown, who sat across from me, 
 her two feet patting away on the seat cushion 
 as if to express her delight that she had es- 
 caped the catastrophe (toes express joy oftener 
 than fingers, if we did but know it) . It would 
 not have taken me five seconds to express my 
 opinion of her with my toes had she been a 
 man. 
 
 The Dear Old Lady began now to rearrange 
 her toilet, drawing up her shawl, tightening the 
 strings of her comfortable bonnet, wiping the 
 big gold spectacles on a bit of chamois from her 
 reticule. I watched every movement. Some- 
 how I could not keep my eyes from her. Then 
 I heard her say in a low voice to herself : 
 
 "Well, the toe warn't stained I guess I can 
 work on that." 
 
 Out came the needles and yarn again, and 
 the wrinkled fingers settled down to their work. 
 No more charming picture in the world than the 
 one now before me ! 
 
 The Woman in Brown held a different opinion. 
 Craning her head and getting a full view of the 
 Dear Old Lady peacefully and comfortably at 
 work, all her sorrows ended, she snapped out : 
 
 " I s'pose ye don't know I can't put my feet 
 down nowheres. It 's all a muck 'round here ; 
 you seed it when the jar fust busted, 'cause I 
 206
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 heard ye say so. I been 'spectin' ye 'd clean it 
 up somehow." 
 
 Down went the knitting and up she got. 
 
 " Oh, I 'm so sorry. I Ml get a newspaper 
 and wipe it up. I hope you did n't get none on 
 your clothes." 
 
 "Oh, I took care o' that! This is a brand- 
 new dress and I ain't wore it afore. I don't get 
 nothin' on my clothes I ain't that kind." 
 This last came with a note of triumph in her 
 voice. 
 
 I watched the Dear Old Lady lean over the 
 thin axe-handle ankles of the Woman in Brown, 
 mop up a little pool of jam juice, tuck the 
 stained paper under the crossbar, and regain 
 her seat. I started up to help, but it was all 
 over before I could interfere. 
 
 The Dear Old Lady resumed her knitting. 
 The Woman in Brown put down her feet ; her 
 rights had been recognized and she was satis- 
 fied. I kept up my vigil. 
 
 Soon a movement opposite attracted me. I 
 raised my eyes. The Woman in Brown, with 
 her eye on the Dear Old Lady, was stealthily 
 opening a small paper bundle. She had the air 
 of a boy watching a policeman. The paper 
 parcel contained a red napkin, a dinner knife, 
 and two fat sandwiches streaming with butter. 
 207
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 " Oh, you brought your lunch with you, did 
 ye ? " remarked the Dear Old Lady, who had 
 unexpectedly raised her eyes from her knitting 
 and at the wrong moment. 
 
 "Well, jes' a bite. I 'd offer ye some, but I 
 heard ye say that you were goin' to eat dinner 
 with your son. That 's so, ain't it ? " 
 
 "Yes, that's so." 
 
 The needles kept on their course, the Dear 
 Old Lady's thoughts worked in with every 
 stitch. It was now twelve o'clock, and Boston 
 hours away. John would dine late if he waited 
 for his old mother. 
 
 The red napkin had now been laid on the 
 seat cushion and the sandwiches placed side by 
 side in full sight of the car. Concealment was 
 no longer necessary. 
 
 "I don't s'pose ye left any water in the 
 cooler, did ye? " 
 
 "Oh, plenty," came the reply, the needles 
 still plying, the dear face fixed on their move- 
 ment. 
 
 " Well, then, I guess before I eat I '11 get a 
 cup," and she covered the luncheon with the 
 brown paper and passed down the aisle. 
 
 During her brief absence several important 
 incidents took place. First there came a jerk 
 that felt for a moment like a head-on collision. 
 208
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 This was a new locomotive, which had been 
 sent to our relief, butting into the rear car. 
 Then followed a rush of passengers, flower- 
 pickers, mechanical engineers, scientists, sam- 
 ple-case man, and, last, the man with the dust- 
 ing-brush whiskers. He paused for a moment, 
 located his seat by his umbrella in the rack 
 overhead, picked up the paper parcel, trans- 
 ferred it to the other seat, the one the Woman 
 in Brown had just left, tilted forward the back, 
 and sat down. 
 
 When he had settled himself and raised his 
 head, the Woman in Brown stood over him 
 looking into his eyes, an angry expression on 
 her face. She held a cup of water in her hand. 
 
 " My seat, ain't it ? " he blurted out. 
 
 " Yes, 'spec' it is," she snarled back, " long 
 as you want it." And she gathered her skirts 
 carefully, edged into the reduced space of her 
 former seat, laid the cup of water on the sill of 
 the window, and sat down as carefully as a hen 
 adjusting herself to a nest, and, I thought, with 
 precisely the same movement. 
 
 A moment more and she leaned over the 
 seat-back and said to the bewhiskered man : 
 
 " Hand me that napkin and stuff, will ye ? " 
 
 The man moved his arm, picked up his news- 
 paper, looked under it, and said : 
 209
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 "It ain't here." 
 
 " Well, I guess it is. I sot it there not more 'n 
 two minutes ago ! " 
 
 The man settled himself in his seat and began 
 to read. 
 
 "Look 'round there, will ye? Maybe it 
 dropped on the floor." 
 
 " It ain't on the floor. Guess I know a nap- 
 kin when I see it." This came with some 
 degree of positiveness. 
 
 " Well, it ain't here. I left it right where 
 you 're a-sittin' when I went and got this water. 
 You ain't eat it, hev ye ? " She was still in her 
 seat, her head twisted about, her face express- 
 ing every thought that crossed her mind. 
 
 " No, I ain't eat it. I ain't no goat! " and 
 the man buried his face in his paper. For him 
 the incident was closed. 
 
 Here there came a still small voice floating 
 out from the lips of the Dear Old Lady, slowly, 
 one word at a time : 
 
 " Ain't you set on it ? " 
 
 "Set on it! What!" 
 
 She was on her feet now, pulling her skirt 
 around, craning her neck, her face getting 
 whiter and whiter as the truth dawned upon her. 
 
 " Oh, Lordy ! Jes' look at it ! However did 
 I come to! Oh!" 
 
 2IO
 
 A POT OF JAM 
 
 "Here, take my handkerchief," murmured 
 the Dear Old Lady. " Let me help wipe it 
 off." And she laid down her knitting. 
 
 Oh, but it was a beautiful stain ! A large, 
 irregular, map-like stain, with the counties 
 plotted in bits of ham and the townships in 
 smears of bread, with little rivers of butter run- 
 ning everywhere. One dear, beloved rill in an 
 ecstasy of delight had skipped a fold and was 
 pushing a heap of butter ahead of it down a 
 side plait. 
 
 I hugged myself with the joy of it all. If it 
 had only been a crock she had sat in, with 
 sandwiches enough to supply a picnic. 
 
 And the stain ! 
 
 That should have been as large as the State 
 of Rhode Island.
 
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