7 
 T 
 
DAUGHTER OF THE TENEMENTS 
 
LA CORTESE. 
 Carrainella came dancing on the stage." Page 279. 
 
A DAUGHTER OF 
 
 THE TENEMENTS 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD W. TOWNSEND 
 
 AUTHOR OK 
 1 CHIMMIE FADDEN, MAJOR MAX, AND OTHER STORIES," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 LOVELL, CORYELL & COMPANY 
 310-318 SIXTH AVENUE 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY 
 EDWARD W. TOWNSEND. 
 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
3 
 
 9 
 
 f\ 
 
 TO MY BEST FRIEND AND MOST HELPFUL CRITIC, MY 
 WIFE, THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED. 
 
 E. W. T. 
 NEW YORK, Oct., 1895. 
 
 899716 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 I. AN AMBULANCE AT THE ARCADY 9 
 
 II. A DANCER S MARIAGE DE CONVENANCE, . . 21 
 
 III. _ AN ARISTOCRAT OF MULBERRY BEND, ... 29 
 
 IV. A NOTABLE CONCESSION TO CUPID, . . .36 
 
 V. A DANCER S GIRL; A JANITOR S BOY, . . .45 
 
 VI. ELEANOR S GLIMPSE OF TENEMENT HADES, . . 56 
 
 VII. THE CRIME IN THE NIANTIC, 7 1 
 
 VIII. WAR, ART, AND A BREAKFAST, .... 80 
 
 IX. BEFORE AN INSPECTOR OF POLICE, .... 90 
 
 X. A FALSE START AND A FAIR, . . . .103 
 
 XI. Miss HELEN S ENCOUNTER WITH DOMINICO, . .114 
 
 XII. A BOWERY BALLET DANCER S DEBUT, . . .121 
 
 XIII. A TODDY AND GLAD TIDINGS 134 
 
 XIV. THE EXODUS FROM MULBERRY BEND, . . .146 
 XV. A TENDERLOIN DISTRICT Box PARTY, . . .153 
 
 XVI. A BRIEF VISIT IN UTOPIA, 160 
 
 XVII. IN A SIERRA NEVADA MINING CAMP, . . .170 
 
 XVIII. TOWARD THE UNSEALED MOUNTAIN S HEART, . 181 
 
 XIX. ETTORE CESAROTTI S CONSCIENCE FUND, . . 191 
 
 XX. MARK WATERS PLAYS A PART, . . . .198 
 
 XXI. A NIGHT AT HOME AND ABROAD, .... 208 
 
 XXII. THE SECRET OF AN OPIUM DEN 223 
 
 XXIII. NEARING THE RAPIDS OF LIFE, .... 235 
 
 XXIV. OH, WHAT FOOLS MEN ARE! . . . .250 
 
 XXV. A FLICKERING LIGHT GOES OUT, .... 262 
 
 XXVI. TOM S VINDICATION AND MOLLY S TRIBUTE, . . 268 
 
 XXVII. Two TRIUMPHS AT THE MAYFAIR, . . . 273 
 
 XXVIII. "THE HAND OF GOD HAS STRUCK!" . . .283 
 
 XXIX. Two WEDDINGS AND A GARDEN, .... 292 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 LA CORTESE Frontispiece 
 
 MAGGIE LYON 14 
 
 ETTORE CESAROTTI 24 
 
 THE BLACKMAILERS, 26 
 
 DAN LYON, 3 
 
 BILL 32 
 
 RlCCODONNA, .......... 4 
 
 DOMINICO. 5 
 
 SWEATERS FREIGHT, 60 
 
 THE STRICKEN SLAVE, 64 
 
 MARK WATERS, . 7 2 
 
 THE PULLER-IN . . 82 
 
 A VOTER, .92 
 
 FATHER AND SON, ...... 100 
 
 THE YACHTSMAN, 104 
 
 THE FALSE SPORTSMAN 112 
 
 TERESA 116 
 
 THE BALLET-MASTER 126 
 
 PATERNAL PRIDE, 130 
 
 BOWERY ARTISTS 136 
 
 MR. FORDHAM, .......... 142 
 
 A WAIF, 150 
 
 THE NEW YORKER 154 
 
 MR. DEAN, 158 
 
 UNCLE BARNABY, 164 
 
8 List of Illustrations. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE SHOT-GUN MESSENGER, 172 
 
 HECTOR 178 
 
 GEORGE PEYTON 188 
 
 THE FARO DEALER, 194 
 
 THE MESSENGER 200 
 
 ONE OF THE TYPES, 212 
 
 OUTCASTS, 220 
 
 IN THE OPIUM DEN, 226 
 
 THE INTERVIEW, .... , 244 
 
 MRS. JACK DARING, 256 
 
 MOLLY 264 
 
 CHUNG 270 
 
 MAGGIE LYON, . . . 276 
 
 HELD, 288 
 
 AT MULBERRY COURT, 300 
 
A DAUGHTER OF THE TENEMENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AN AMBULANCE AT THE ARCADY. 
 
 IF you recall the long and popular engagement of the 
 Arcadian Burlesque Company at the Arcady Theatre 
 (as it was rechristened on the one hundredth night of 
 the company s triumphant appearance there), I can 
 identify Teresa Cesarotti so that you will be able to 
 recall her, too. Her name means nothing to you, for 
 the sufficient reason that it was never printed on the bills 
 of the play, or anywhere else, because Teresa was only 
 one of the ballet girls. A hundred of them, you say? 
 There were a great many, but yet I can identify her 
 if you saw the company more than once ; and if you are 
 the man I take you to be, you did. As for you, madam, 
 the kind of burlesques the Arcadians gave was not as 
 popular with women theatre-goers then as it has since 
 become for my part I deplore the change but even 
 if that were not so, you were too young then to go to 
 any theatre, for the Arcadians date back fifteen years, 
 when Union Square was still the centre of theatricals, 
 and you were a little school-girl. 
 
 Just now I am addressing your father or elder brother, 
 and will talk to you about occurrences within your 
 recollection as soon as we have done with this trouble- 
 
 9 
 
:o A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 some bnt necessary introduction of Teresa, on the night 
 she met with that accident which I really believe 
 brought about this history. But that is anticipating. 
 You, sir, recall that at the end of each act of the Arca 
 dians most popular burlesque sixteen of the ballet girls 
 separated into squads of four ; each four in turn marched 
 down the stage, swung to the right or left, counter 
 marched, two squads combined, and came down by 
 eights, and at last the sixteen swung down by company 
 front, kicking high and rhythmically, commanded by 
 the star with drawn sword the scabbard of that sword 
 being the largest piece of dress or ornament about her. 
 
 The men about town had those four squads of four 
 named, not prettily: the "Shorts," "Longs," "Thins," 
 and " Plumps. " The " Longs" came down the stage last, 
 and, when they started, the orchestra leader waved 
 more brass into the music, and the audience cheered 
 louder than ever; for the four strapping big girls 
 marched down with such a swing, with such an all- 
 conquering swagger, that it was delightfully exciting. 
 
 Well, then, Teresa was the tallest of the "Longs," 
 the one on the right of the line, to the left as you 
 looked. She was also, you recollect, now that I have 
 identified her, the prettiest in the company, as well as 
 the most graceful dancer, excepting the premiere. 
 
 One night some of Teresa s companions in the ballet, 
 and some of the habitues in the audience, noticed that 
 she frequently lost the dazzling smile which properly 
 belongs to an Amazon about to go forth to battle in silk 
 tights and kid slippers. When a glance from a com 
 panion would remind Teresa of this, the smile would 
 be re-affixed, as if it were a mask that had fallen and 
 been picked up. But then it would be dropped again. 
 When the curtain came down on the last act, and ballet, 
 
An Ambulance at the Arcady. n 
 
 chorus, and principals were hurrying to their dressing- 
 rooms, many of them humming the air of the last song, 
 dodging stage hands with whom they chaffed, or shout 
 ing reminders of engagements, Teresa waited at the 
 head of the stairs leading to the space beneath the stage 
 from which narrow halls led to their dressing-rooms, 
 until all her companions had hurriedly scattered. A 
 moment after the orchestra stopped " playing the audi 
 ence out," the orchestra leader appeared at the foot of 
 the stairs and Teresa started down to meet him. 
 
 "Where is Hector?" the leader asked, as they met in 
 the middle of the staircase. 
 
 "He was sick to-day. He wanted me to tell you," 
 Teresa answered, in slow, precise English, with a slight 
 Italian accent. 
 
 The leader shrugged his shoulders: 
 
 " He is sick too much since you got your salary raised. 
 He did not send a substitute and we were a second 
 violin short. If it were not for you that would lose him 
 his job, and it will anyway, next time. You can tell 
 him so." 
 
 The stairs where they were standing, once, no doubt, 
 had a handrail on the outside, opposite the wall, but it 
 had been knocked off, or purposely removed, years be 
 fore, because it interfered with the carrying up and 
 downstairs of bulky stage properties. To-night, a stage 
 hand, carrying an unwiedly throne over his head, started 
 down the stairs and, seeing Teresa and the leader stand 
 ing there, shouted: 
 
 "Lookout!" 
 
 The leader ran down the stairs, but Teresa, as she 
 looked up to see what was the matter, lost her balance 
 and fell over the unguarded side of the staircase. 
 
 There was a shriek, a moan, "O Santa Maria!" and 
 
12 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 silence. They rushed to her, lifted her, and carried 
 her fainting to her dressing room. The women who 
 dressed with her, frightened and crying, bathed her 
 face when she was laid on the floor, and a messenger 
 was sent for a doctor. One was found near-by, and 
 when he came Teresa had recovered consciousness, and 
 moaned piteously. 
 
 "I think her hip is fractured: it is injured badly, 
 anyway. You had better send for an ambulance," the 
 doctor said, when he had examined her. 
 
 The group of half-dressed men and women, crowded 
 into the little room and about the door, looked sorrow 
 fully at Teresa as, with her face drawn with pain and 
 fright, she asked one of the women what the doctor 
 said. 
 
 " You must go to the hospital, dear," said the woman, 
 who was called Maggie. 
 
 "But Carminella!" cried Teresa in sudden anguish. 
 " Who will take care of Carminella?" 
 
 "What is it?" asked the doctor. 
 
 " Her baby, Carminella," answered Maggie, and then 
 bent over Teresa and said, "We ll let Hector know; 
 he ll look after the baby." 
 
 Teresa only moaned and shook her head. Maggie 
 understood. The doctor may have guessed a little, 
 for he said kindly : " The Society will look after the 
 child." 
 
 "No! no!" shrieked Teresa, and many of the other 
 women looked nearly as frightened as she. 
 
 Teresa motioned to Maggie, and as the woman bent 
 over her again, whispered : " Go to my room and take 
 Carminella before they get her. Hide her! Come 
 closer." Maggie put her ear to Teresa s lips: "My 
 keys are in my satchel there, the room key and the 
 
An Ambulance at the Arcady. 13 
 
 trunk key. There s money in the trunk. Take it all. 
 Pay to keep Carminella away from the Society." 
 
 Maggie, a handsome Irish girl, one of the four who 
 belonged to Teresa s squad in the burlesque, had the wit 
 to take the keys from the satchel then and there, and 
 say, 
 
 " You want me to go to your room, dear, and get the 
 baby and the money?" Teresa nodded, " Yes." 
 
 " And it s by legal right, whatever the Society or 
 Hector say?" 
 
 Again the injured woman assented, and the other 
 girls of the ballet regarded Maggie with admiring ap 
 proval for her evidence of profound learning and 
 knowledge of the law. 
 
 "She said by legal right, " one whispered. "The 
 Society even can t touch her because we re witness that 
 Teresa said it was by legal right." 
 
 "I wonder Maggie wouldn t hurry though," another 
 whispered. * The Society might get there first. I ve 
 heard they have spies out." 
 
 Teresa caught this last remark and apparently for 
 got her pain in the overwhelming terror with which 
 she begged her companion to hurry. 
 
 Maggie was dressed and ready to go just as the am 
 bulance men carried Teresa out of the stage entrance on 
 a stretcher. 
 
 " I ll come to the hospital and let you know when I 
 have the baby safe," whispered the good-hearted Irish 
 girl to Teresa, as she walked by the side of the stretcher 
 to the ambulance. 
 
 "To-night?" asked Teresa. 
 
 "Sure, to-night, before I go to bed," answered Mag 
 gie, and Teresa smiled. 
 
 Maggie went to Teresa s room, let herself in and 
 
14 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 turned up a dimly burning lamp. She started and half 
 screamed, for the first thing the light disclosed was 
 Teresa s trunk, open, with its contents scattered. She 
 turned to the cradle half expecting to find that empty, 
 but little Carminella was sleeping there peacefully. A 
 paper pinned to the blanket covering the baby caught 
 her attention. It was not enclosed or folded. Maggie 
 took it to the light. She could make out only the ad 
 dress, " Teresa," and the signature, " Ettore." She was 
 frightened, but undecided for an instant only. 
 
 "If the money is gone it s all the more likely the 
 Society will be after the child," she thought. 
 
 She made a hasty examination of the tumbled con 
 tents of the trunk but found no money. From a bureau 
 drawer she gathered a bundle of the baby s clothing, and 
 then, quieting herself, woke the baby. 
 
 "It s Aunt Maggie," she said, as the child sat up 
 with suddenly wide-awake eyes. 
 
 "Aunt Maggie," the child repeated, laughing, for 
 she knew Maggie and liked her. 
 
 She dressed the child hurriedly, telling her she was 
 going to take her on a visit, and she would not see 
 mamma until to-morrow. 
 
 Carminella was fast asleep again by the time Maggie, 
 with the baby in her arms and a bundle by her side, 
 was riding down town on a Bowery car. She left the 
 car at Bayard Street and walked west, passing only a 
 few persons, and none of them paid especial attention 
 to her; but when she turned into Mulberry Street a 
 policeman on the corner, glancing sharply at her anx 
 ious face as she passed under the light of a gas lamp, 
 stepped up and asked, " Where d you get that bun 
 dle?" 
 
 "None of your business," Maggie answered, trying 
 
MAGGIE LYON. 
 None of your business, Maggie answered." Page 
 
An Ambulance at the Arcady. 15 
 
 to be bold about it, but her voice shook, for any one in 
 authority hinted, in her mind, at the Society. 
 
 "Perhaps it ain t," the officer said, "and perhaps you 
 won t tell where you re going with it." 
 
 " I m going to my uncle s." 
 
 "Most everybody s uncle has closed shop by this 
 time," said the officer, with a little laugh at his joke. 
 
 "I m going to my uncle Dan Lyon," Maggie said. 
 " Please don t stop me!" 
 
 " Well, there s no harm in Dan Lyon, sure, nor in 
 you, if you are his niece," said the officer. "But I 
 think I ll just see you there." 
 
 He let her pass on, but followed. Maggie went about 
 a third of the way down the block on the right hand 
 side, and turned into a dark passage. 
 
 "I ll light you up if you don t know the way," the 
 officer said, striking a match on the wall. 
 
 "I know the way well enough," Maggie responded. 
 
 She walked through the passage-way, across a brick 
 paved court, and into an open entrance of the rear tene 
 ment. The officer then took the bundle from her, say 
 ing good-naturedly, "You ve too much of a load for 
 three flights. Go along, I m coming." 
 
 They climbed up the stairs slowly, and on the third 
 landing Maggie knocked at a door. 
 
 "Who s that?" asked a hearty voice. 
 
 " It s Maggie, Uncle Dan. Let me in." 
 
 In a minute the door was opened by a man, in night 
 gown and old-fashioned nightcap, holding a lamp. He 
 looked aghast at the woman, the child, and the officer, 
 and exclaimed: "Holy Virgin! what s happened you, 
 Maggie girl?" 
 
 "It s all right, Uncle Dan," Maggie answered, half 
 sobbing. " Tell the officer it s all right." 
 
1 6 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 "Sure, it s all right, Cullen," Uncle Dan said, back 
 ing away to let Maggie in. 
 
 " It s all right if you say so, Dan. Good-night," said 
 the officer, turning down the stairs as the door was 
 closed. 
 
 "The officer ll say nothing, Uncle Dan?" Maggie 
 asked, as she put the sleeping child on the man s bed 
 and covered her. 
 
 "Sure he ll say nothing, twas me put him on the 
 force," Dan answered proudly. "But tell me, Maggie 
 girl: what s all this? You re in no trouble?" 
 
 Maggie, seated on the bed, by the side of the child, 
 told her story, to which Dan, who had put on a pair of 
 slippers, and an overcoat for a dressing-gown, listened 
 in judicial silence. 
 
 "And she s as good a girl as ever lived, Uncle Dan," 
 added Maggie; "she s married to one of the orchestra, 
 a man they call Hector Cesarotti, who has no good in 
 him except his good looks and fine airs. He treated 
 her terrible. Teresa and all our squad got a raise for 
 the hit we made at the beginning of the run of the 
 piece at the Arcady, and since then he s done nothing 
 but get drunk on her money. She was dreadful sav 
 ing, and all for the baby. She s crazy over the kid, 
 and now the brute has taken the money from the trunk, 
 I ll bet. I wonder what this note says. I know it s 
 from him, but the name is Ettore. See." She gave 
 Dan the paper she had found. He took it to the lamp. 
 
 " Ettore , why that s Italian for Hector, I know that 
 much. Listen! That s Minico. We ll have it read." 
 
 There was a tramp of heavy feet coming up the 
 stairs, and Dan shouted: "Minico!" 
 
 The door opened, and a ruddy, unshaved, smiling 
 face looked in. 
 
An Ambulance at the Arcady. 17 
 
 "Come in, Minico," said Dan, and a stalwart figure 
 followed the face into the room. " This is me niece, 
 Maggie." 
 
 The Italian pulled his soft woollen cap off his curly 
 black hair, nodded, and grinned. 
 
 " Here s a letter, Minico, we re after getting, and 
 can t just make out cause it s in your way of writing." 
 
 The Italian took the paper and studied over it. 
 Reading was evidently a troublesome task to him, but 
 after a long silence he looked up at Dan in a puzzled 
 way, jerked his head at Maggie and asked: " Was he 
 her man?" 
 
 "No, another girl s. What is it?" Dan replied. 
 
 " Well," Minico continued, as if relieved at the infor 
 mation, " He gone away ; he take-a da mon ; he no come 
 back. He say she get along better widout him." 
 
 "That s a nice story for me to be telling her at the 
 hospital," cried Maggie. " The^ villain!" 
 
 Minico did not understand all this, and with a friend 
 ly view toward getting into the discussion on equal 
 terms, asked Maggie what the man s whole name was. 
 
 " Ettore Cesarotti!" he exclaimed, when she in 
 formed him. " That vara big-a name. What you 
 calla da swell name in da old country in Italy." 
 
 " Lots of good the name will do her when he s run 
 off with the money," snapped Maggie. " I ve no heart 
 for the telling of it; but I must be going, Uncle Dan, 
 for I promised. You ll mind the kid till I m here 
 early in the morning?" 
 
 "Sure, Maggie girl. If I have to go before you 
 come, why, there s Tom to mind the little one." 
 
 " Tom 11 mind what?" This came from a slim, cotton- 
 robed figure standing in the doorway leading to a sec 
 ond room ; a straight, defiant figure of a boy, who looked 
 
i8 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 with big-eyed curiosity at the group whose talk had 
 disturbed his sleep. He was Dan s son. 
 
 "Come here, Tom, till I show you," Maggie said, 
 beckoning to him. 
 
 Tom tiptoed over to the sleeping child, and when 
 Maggie showed him the baby s face, his lips parted 
 and his eyes filled with wonder. 
 
 " I never seed anything so pretty in me life," he said 
 at last, slowly. 
 
 "Tom 11 mind it well enough," Maggie said, smiling 
 at her uncle, as she started to go. 
 
 " Sure," answered Dan, smiling back, "the child is 
 safe here; it s a daughter of the tenements now." 
 
 Maggie was not at all surprised, although she pre 
 tended to be, to find Officer Cullen standing in the 
 court just outside the entrance to the tenement. 
 
 "I was thinking you might not find your way out," 
 he said, striking a match. " It s easy to get from this 
 into another court and be lost entirely. Get out of the 
 way there!" 
 
 This last command was addressed to a huddled fig 
 ure asleep on the court pavement, which received the 
 j kick that accompanied the admonition with an affect 
 edly cheerful, "All right, boss." 
 
 "I wouldn t be losing my way in the day-time, but 
 I ve not been here often at night," Maggie said ami 
 cably, for she did not object to the guidance. 
 
 "I ve to go to the hospital," she added, "so I ll take 
 the elevated at Canal Street." 
 
 "My post don t run that far," said the officer, "but 
 I ll pass you along." 
 
 At the corner he signalled with his club and another 
 officer came. 
 
 " Pass her along to Canal," Cullen said to the second 
 
An Ambulance at the Arcady. 19 
 
 officer. "Good-night, Miss, you re thinking no harm 
 for me stopping you?" 
 
 "Sure not, that s your business. Good-night." 
 
 From post to post, and the patrol beats are short in 
 that neighborhood, Maggie was passed to her station 
 and was soon at the hospital. 
 
 "You cannot see the patient at this time of night," 
 said the hospital doctor to whom she made her errand 
 known, when she had at last been admitted to his office. 
 " But if you are a friend of hers named Maggie, and 
 bring any news of a person named Carminella, I will 
 take a message, if it is favorable, for she seems to be 
 suffering more in mind about that than in body from 
 the fracture." 
 
 "A person named Carminella," exclaimed Maggie, 
 "why that is her " 
 
 She was going to say " baby, " but caught herself. 
 Here was another official and he might tell the Society. 
 
 " Tell Teresa," she went on," that Carminella is well 
 and safe with my uncle." She did not add anything 
 about Hector or the letter. " That will come soon 
 enough, poor thing," she thought. 
 
 " How soon will she be able to work?" she asked the 
 doctor. 
 
 "Work?" he echoed in surprise, " I thought she was 
 an actress." 
 
 Maggie laughed. " Well, we call it work. She 
 dances. How soon can she dance again?" 
 
 "That can t be told now," the doctor replied cau 
 tiously. " It s a rather bad fracture of the hip. Some 
 times injuries of the kind don t leave patients with 
 much inclination for dancing. We can t tell yet. She 
 is young and strong." 
 
 Maggie turned away, sorrowful and weary. " Tell 
 
2O A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 her I ll call to-morrow," she said, and as the dawn was 
 graying the sky over the East River, she went to her 
 own home thinking of the perfidy of Hector. " Ettore, 
 indeed ! Much good that name will do her when her 
 own name is off the salary roll." 
 
 The doctor went to the ward where Teresa lay. She 
 was waiting, and watching for him with eager eyes. 
 "Carminella?" she cried, as the doctor reached her bed. 
 
 "She is well and safe with your friend s people," the 
 doctor said kindly. 
 
 " Madonna be thanked !" cried the woman, and covered 
 her face and wept softly. She was sleeping when he 
 passed through the ward a little later. " That news 
 was better than all our opiates," he said. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 A DANCER S MARIAGE DE CONVENANCE. 
 
 THREE years before, Teresa had attracted the attention 
 of Ettore Cesarotti, who played in the orchestra at the 
 theatre where the Italian girl first appeared after she 
 came to New York with a resplendent but promptly 
 bankrupted company. Many others were attracted by 
 the young ballet girl s beauty and grace, but the lan 
 guage of most of them was foreign to her, and those 
 she could understand talked love, but not marriage. 
 All except Ettore of the men she met of her own race 
 were also of her own class, but these she would not en 
 courage, for she was not without appreciation of her 
 beauty; and the sordid surroundings of her youth, and 
 a nature strangely lacking in impulsiveness for one 
 of her nationality, held fast in her a hope that that 
 beauty might be the means of her social and material 
 advancement. It is true that this unusual ambition 
 puzzled her companions and baffled others who sought 
 her companionship. Ettore was much above her so 
 cially, that was manifest; that he was equally above 
 his own apparent rank she thought she divined, but did 
 not disclose this guess to him. He thought he saw in 
 her the embryo of a great dancer who would earn fame 
 for herself and money for him ; and it was partly this 
 belief, and partly that he was really moved by her great 
 beauty and could not win her without the ring, that 
 prompted his proposal of marriage, which she accepted. 
 
 21 
 
22 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 They did not know much of each other. She thought 
 him handsome; he could teach her English, which she 
 must know in order to advance in her adopted country. 
 Extraordinary reasons, my dear madam, I know, for a 
 girl marrying, but consider that she was a child of 
 chorus people, and commend her that she insisted upon 
 the ring. Such vulgarians sometimes do marry for 
 mere material considerations, than which I know of 
 nothing appealing more strongly for the elevation of 
 all classes up to the social standards of our very high 
 est circles. 
 
 Ettore was not wholly a bad bargain at first. He 
 paid for dancing lessons by Professor Polli, who had 
 fitted many specialty dancers to earn sums which daz 
 zled Teresa to hear about; and he encouraged her, did 
 Professor Polli. He worked hard to develop her in 
 some specialty, and all the time there was a general 
 improvement which advanced her from the rear to 
 near the front ranks of the ballet in the companies she 
 appeared with. 
 
 Ettore kept at work, and took Teresa from the dingy 
 single room she had lived in, to a better room in a bet 
 ter neighborhood, near the theatre, and Teresa felt that 
 she had done well in marrying. 
 
 Then Carminella came, and with the baby Teresa s 
 first love was born. From the beginning it was the 
 object of her single, passionate, almost awful devotion. 
 Ettore was kind at first; divided his wages with Teresa, 
 took notice of the baby sometimes, and aided Teresa in 
 her eager study of English. Teresa slaved for the baby 
 and slaved to improve herself, but she felt that she was 
 not advancing much, and would have given up the un 
 wonted task of school-books if it had not been for Car 
 minella. 
 
A Dancer s Manage de Convenance. 23 
 
 " I must know so that Carminella will know. She 
 must learn to read printing so that she can study parts 
 and not always be in the ballet. Who is to teach her if 
 I do not?" and this beautiful twenty-year-old mother 
 drudged on with her school-books, with sewing for the 
 baby, with the work of her room, until her bones ached 
 and her head swam, but that was nothing; it was all 
 for Carminella, and she wished she could do more. 
 
 But when the baby was a year old Ettore began to 
 grumble at Teresa for being unprofitable. 
 
 Had he no use for his money but to keep her in idle 
 luxury ? The manager of the Arcadians had asked 
 when she was to return to work. There was a new 
 production into which she could go and earn ten dollars 
 a week. Hundreds of women were begging for such 
 places at five dollars a week. Was Teresa a star that 
 managers must come to her and beg? 
 
 Thus Ettore scolded, but Teresa would not go back 
 to the theatre yet, she said. Who was to care for 
 Carminella during the long rehearsals and perform 
 ances? 
 
 Then Ettore adopted another plan : he cut down Te 
 resa s allowances, and finally gave her nothing. The 
 baby needed clothes and she wanted good food to keep 
 strong for the baby. Yes, she would work. 
 
 At first Teresa took the baby with her to the theatre, 
 and put it in a basket in the dressing-room, but the 
 other women who dressed with Teresa made such a fuss 
 over it, cried and laughed over it, and hugged and 
 kissed it so much that Carminella could not sleep. 
 The baby took cold once going home after a perform 
 ance, and nearly died, and Teresa almost went in 
 sane ; so after that it was left at home, where a woman 
 in the house agreed for fifty cents a week to look into 
 
24 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 her room and see that the baby was all right while 
 Teresa was absent. 
 
 Then came the big hit of the squad in which Teresa 
 danced, and the successful strike of those knowing four 
 which resulted in compelling the anguished manager 
 to increase their salaries until they were paid twenty 
 dollars a week. Soon after that Ettore began neglect 
 ing his work, and sending a substitute to play second 
 violin while he played dominoes and drank in the cafe 
 of the Hotel Garibaldi, spending Teresa s salary. 
 
 They quarrelled about this, Teresa and Ettore, and 
 fought, sometimes, when Teresa would not tell him 
 what she did with a part of her salary which she was 
 hiding in her trunk for Carminella. 
 
 They had quarrelled, and he had struck her because 
 she would not give him money, on the evening she fell 
 from the stairs under the Arcady stage. Teresa had 
 gone to the theatre and Ettore had pretended to go to 
 the cafe. He had, in fact, returned to the room as 
 soon as she was gone, rifled her trunk, found nearly 
 $100, and written this note which Maggie took from 
 Carminella s blanket: 
 
 TERESA : I have taken the money which you have so wickedly 
 concealed from me. I shall not return, ever; and that you will 
 bless me for, because, selfish one, you will be happier without 
 your ETTORE. 
 
 It was many long weeks before Teresa saw that note. 
 Her injury proved serious, and there had to be an oper 
 ation which made it impossible for her ever to dance 
 again, but that she did not know either that she could 
 not dance again, that she would always walk with a 
 slight limp. It was years before she realized that, so 
 long did she hope. At first Maggie would not tell her 
 of the note, but Teresa must have suspected something, 
 
ETTORE CESAROTTI. 
 While he played dominoes and drank. "Page 24. 
 
A Dancer s Manage de Convenance. 25 
 
 for she never inquired about Ettore. It was Carmi- 
 nella always, and about the baby Maggie had always 
 good news. 
 
 "Sure, dear, the little one has three slaves: Uncle 
 Dan, Cousin Tom, ten years old, and an Italian who 
 lives on the floor with them, Dominico Cortese, that 
 Uncle Dan calls Minico. Uncle Dan keeps Tom out 
 of school j-ust to mind the baby, and it s no task for 
 Tom, for he is fonder of Carminella than of himself, 
 and he never lets a man, woman, or child in the tene 
 ment touch her except Minico, who is much better than 
 the rest. Indeed," explained Maggie, glad of an excuse 
 to boast a little about Uncle Dan, " Carminella is living 
 with aristocrats, even if she is in Mulberry Bend." 
 
 Maggie once proposed to bring the baby to the hos 
 pital, but, although the mother s heart choked her at 
 the thought, she said "No." The Society might have 
 heard that she was in the hospital and that the baby 
 had no kin to look after it, and might capture it if it 
 were taken so far away from its friends. 
 
 It may be incumbent on me to explain a little this 
 foolish fear of Teresa s about "the Society," as that 
 Society is called which takes the children of the poor, 
 when the poor cannot help themselves. I explain only 
 because it is proper that my readers should have the 
 same sensible ideas about this matter that all other 
 highly respectable and intelligent persons have. Of 
 course, if charitable people will give up their valuable 
 time to having laws passed giving them extraordinary 
 and arbitrary powers over the children of the poor, all 
 reasonable persons are justified in supposing that the 
 poor appreciate the noble and self-sacrificing motive 
 which prompts such efforts. Being poor, they can have 
 no such natural love for their offspring as would 
 3 
 
26 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 prompt resentment against any interference by the So 
 ciety in their relations with their children. That, I 
 say, is what one would reasonably and properly suppose. 
 But the poor are unreasonable and not infrequently 
 improper, so the rule does not work. They are some 
 times so sinfully unreasonable as to love their children, 
 or at least affect to, as much as if they were creatures 
 of refinement and education, and had power enough to 
 take other people s children away from them. 
 
 It is really humiliating to know the ingratitude of the 
 poor in this regard. Why, I recall, for instance, the 
 case of that Polish woman who was arrested because she 
 could not make enough money in her little tobacco 
 shop to pay the blackmailing demands of two police 
 officers (she thought they were collectors of legal taxes), 
 and when she was sent to jail to teach her to work 
 harder, "the Society" took her children, and very 
 properly. But when she came from jail and found 
 there was no law by which she could get her children 
 away from the Society, that unreasonable woman went 
 insane. The doctors said she went insane from grief, 
 but I have my own opinion, and that is that she went 
 insane through native, inborn, crass unreasonableness. 
 You see, those stories become known, and foolish and 
 ignorant people like Teresa hear them, and are thus 
 possessed by a wicked prejudice against the Society. 
 Besides, Teresa knew of a woman of her profession 
 who, ignorant of the law, allowed her fourteen-year old 
 daughter to dance on the stage she had danced at 
 home, and in the tenement courts, and on the streets 
 for years and the Society got that girl, took her where 
 the wicked mother could not see her, and the wicked 
 mother (in wicked rage, no doubt, but Teresa believed 
 it was in grief), killed herself. I have made this little 
 
THE BLACKMAILERS. 
 " Sha thought they were collectors of legal taxes." 1 Page 26. 
 
A Dancer s Mariage de Convenance. 27 
 
 explanation because I should feel that I had been un 
 just to Teresa if I had not explained that she had some 
 reasons, false and foolish reasons, to be sure, but she 
 believed them good, for her terror of that most kind, 
 considerate, and at all times reasonable institution, " the 
 Society." 
 
 When the day came that Teresa was to be discharged 
 from the hospital "cured," Maggie was there to go with 
 her to Dan s rooms, for Teresa s room had been given 
 up and her few belongings had been moved into a room 
 on the floor with Dan, where she could live the little 
 time it would take her hip to become strong and supple 
 again, Maggie said. 
 
 Teresa made no objection to this. She had some 
 pride, much more than most people in her station, and 
 she had thought of this in the last days in the hospital. 
 She knew that Dan had paid a month s rent for the 
 room, and she thought that he, too, must be bitter poor 
 to live in Mulberry Bend. But her pride had to give 
 way. In all the city there was not man or woman be 
 holden to her by tie of deed or blood she could call 
 upon for help, for car-fare to her baby s side! 
 
 There were benevolent societies, to be sure, she had 
 heard of them, and knew of girls who had been helped 
 by them, but was there one to offer her shelter with her 
 baby? She knew of none, and if she inquired there 
 was danger that the Society, the dreaded one, would 
 find out Carminella. Maggie had shown her, she had 
 to at last, the letter from Ettore. Teresa read it, 
 sobbed, cursed, and prayed a little, and then said she 
 would become Dan s debtor, and repay him when she 
 went back to work, and that would surely be soon. 
 
 It was a bright morning when they reached the Bend, 
 and Teresa smiled with delight at the familiar sights 
 
28 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 
 
 and sounds. She had never been there before, but she 
 knew streets in her native city so like this it seemed as 
 if she were at home again. The market stalls and 
 stands and wagons were loaded with just the same 
 heaps of brilliantly colored wares; the women bartering- 
 and laughing were dressed the same; the men, hawk 
 ing their fruit, vegetables, and fish, spoke the language 
 she knew, and turned and smiled as she recognized their 
 cries as something familiar; there was the same amaz 
 ing number of children none so beautiful as Carmi- 
 nella and the bright sun shone on the same frank con 
 fusion of all-prevailing dirt. 
 
 When they reached the court Maggie called on Te 
 resa to look up, and at an open window she saw a fair- 
 haired youngster, laughing roguishly, holding in his 
 arms the dark and beautiful Carminella. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 AN ARISTOCRAT OF MULBERRY BEND. 
 
 DAN LYON was an aristocrat of the Bend. A true ar 
 istocrat: he knew and valued his position, but never 
 made it objectionably prominent before his inferiors. 
 There were various things which aided in establishing 
 this aristocracy, and, as is sometimes the case with 
 other aristocrats in other stations in life, he was proud 
 est of the one thing which in the estimation of his 
 neighbors seemed more a matter of curiosity than pride : 
 he was a native-born American. There were records to 
 prove this, and Dan had them to show if the matter was 
 ever questioned. A few months after the arrival of his 
 father and mother from Ireland on a packet-ship, Dan 
 was born, not far from Hanover Square, and now, fifty 
 years afterward, he was employed as janitor of the 
 Niantic Building on Exchange Place, not many blocks 
 from where he was born. 
 
 This, I say, was to his neighbors more a matter of 
 curiosity than pride. That one should have been born 
 in the country and have had fifty years to work out of 
 the tenements, was curious enough, but not unparal 
 leled; that he could leave the district, that is, was in 
 worldly circumstances to do so, and did not, was pass 
 ing strange, and suggests the real reason the Bend took 
 much pride in Dan: he did not labor, as labor is known 
 there, for his daily bread ; and that established his aris 
 tocracy. Had not Dominico Cortese visited Dan in the 
 
 29 
 
^o A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 Niantic Building on matters relating to their common 
 interest, and reported to all who would listen that Dan 
 actually had an office with the name, "Janitor," painted 
 on the door! and men and women under his com 
 mand, who did the actual labor required about the build 
 ing to keep it in order and repair, to keep it clean, 
 warm in winter, cool in summer, free from beggars 
 and pedlers, and make it all that a dignified and quiet 
 old office building should be? 
 
 So Dominico reported, and so it became known, that 
 Dan did no manual labor, yet was paid wages beyond 
 the dreams of avarice; and that was what, in his neigh 
 bors estimation, made him an aristocrat; not the mere 
 accident of birth on which he prided himself so. 
 
 There was much discussion in the Bend, especially 
 in the tenement in which Dan lived, and the tenement 
 front and back of it, and on each side of it, as to what 
 wages Dan really was paid. The guesses varied wildly, 
 running from forty to seventy-five dollars a month, but 
 Dan never enlightened the curious. It was more than 
 enough, over and over again, to pay what it cost him 
 to live, and Tom, too, his ten-year-old son; and that 
 of course gave wondrous incentive to the flights of im 
 agination regarding the subject. He had money in the 
 bank, that was guessed by all, and known positively to 
 more than a score of his neighbors, whose banker he 
 was, Dominico Cortese among the number. 
 
 It seems almost unfair not to let Dan abide with you 
 in the more or less romantic vagueness in which he was 
 viewed by his neighbors, rather than tell the prosaic 
 and practical reason why he remained in the Bend. 
 When, something over twenty years before we first knew 
 him, Dan had married and gone to live in Mulberry 
 Bend, he was employed as a laborer in the Niantic 
 
DAN LYON. 
 "A true aristocrat: he knew and valued his position." Page 
 
An Aristocrat of Mulberry Bend. 31 
 
 Building on Exchange Place, which is between Broad 
 and William Streets, as you may know. 
 
 It was some time before his only son Tom was born 
 that he became janitor, and which of the two, his place 
 or his son, he was proudest of, Mrs. Dan said she never 
 could tell. Nearly ten years before we first met him, 
 when Tom was a baby, Mrs. Dan died, and it was about 
 that time many of his neighbors, Irish and Irish Amer 
 icans, moved away from the neighborhood up to the 
 Fortieth Streets on the west side. Dan would have 
 gone too, but he was a follower, politically, of Charles 
 Dean, and thereby earned some addition to his income. 
 Dan was something more than a conservative in all 
 matters relating to finances. He had been brought up 
 from a boy in an atmosphere of financial and commer 
 cial conservatism. In the Niantic Building there were 
 no tenants who speculated, who promoted, who adopted 
 new methods for old; who even so much as advanced a 
 junior to be a senior clerk, until after much serious con 
 sideration of the matter in all its possible bearings. So 
 when Dan considered the question of moving up-town 
 to the west side, he asked himself what would be his 
 chances of becoming a lieutenant there of a political 
 leader on whose staff he would fare as well as he did 
 under Mr. Dean. The latter really settled the matter 
 by suggesting to Dan that he could extend his useful 
 ness, in spite of the exodus of the Irish, by helping to 
 look out for the Italian vote, a new and important com 
 modity coming rapidly into the market. So Dan and 
 Tom and a foster-son of Dan s, William, ten years 
 Tom s senior, remained in the Bend, and there Dan 
 established relations of such a friendly and trusting 
 character with the Italians that he was able to be of 
 much service to Mr. Dean in a manner that gentle- 
 
32 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 man never failed to recognize. Dan hired the daughter 
 of an Italian tenant to " mind" motherless baby Tom dur 
 ing working hours until Tom was four years old, at 
 which age he went to a mission school, and began at 
 that same discreet age to otherwise " mind" himself ; 
 , early displaying a strength and independence of char 
 acter which in later years made him well, at any rate, 
 it made him our hero. 
 
 Dan s foster-son Bill was not, as some of the neigh 
 bors thought, a son of his wife, but of her first husband 
 by another wife. Dan had tried to do well by Bill, al 
 though he knew that the boy s father had been addicted 
 to the habit of beating the late Mrs. Lyon ; but the boy 
 broke away from the restraint of both school and home 
 at an early age, and passed youthful years of joyous, if 
 sometimes rough, and always checkered, independence, 
 in City Hall Square and on Newspaper Row. 
 
 When Carminella was taken to Dan s room Bill was 
 twenty years old. His bed was always made up and 
 waiting for him in the room where Tom s cot was, but 
 he seldom occupied it. That was Dan s cross. When 
 Bill worked it was as a barkeeper in a Bowery saloon, 
 and he objected, he said, to living in the Bend. If his 
 foster-father thought it good enough for himself and 
 Tom, to live in the poorest tenement district in the 
 city, that was Dan s affair. It was not good enough for 
 a barkeeper and a gentleman, and he was ashamed for 
 Dan that he thought it befitted him. That was the way 
 Bill talked when he had employment; but when he had 
 none he came home, delighting Dan s heart, and bor 
 rowed money and permitted Dan to show him off to the 
 neighbors, for he was a handsome fellow, looking five 
 years older than he was, and had the manners of a gen 
 tleman, all agreed; as, indeed, one should who earned 
 
BILL. 
 " And had the manners of a gentleman." Page 32. 
 
An Aristocrat of Mulberry Bend. 33 
 
 a living by means only a little removed from elegant 
 leisure, for so the occupation of attending the bar in a 
 glittering drinking-palace was regarded by the ped- 
 lers, rag-pickers, street-sweepers, and even the fruit 
 and fish vendors who belonged to Dominico s class. 
 
 Dan hired and furnished three rooms in his tenement, 
 and that also not only elevated him in the estimation of 
 his neighbors, who were often compelled to consider one 
 room for four persons sufficient living accommodation, 
 but it added to the air of mystery which surrounded 
 him. A sleeping-room for the boys, a sitting-room in 
 which was Dan s bed, and a third room for kitchen and 
 dining-room, each with whole and sound furniture, 
 seemed to Dan s fellow-tenants evidence of wealth and 
 luxurious taste. Dominico, who had a single room on 
 the opposite side of the hall on the same floor, was 
 Dan s chief lieutenant in his political affairs. 
 
 Dan picked out Dominico as an aid at first because 
 he could speak English, and found that he had made a 
 wise selection on other grounds, for Dominico was a 
 good-natured young fellow and popular with his coun 
 trymen. He was educated, too, for he could not only 
 read and write Italian after a cumbersome fashion, but 
 could read English print, and was making some pro 
 gress in writing English, under Tom s instructions. 
 It did not seem that such higher education could benefit 
 a man who peddled fruit from a cart he pushed about 
 the streets, but Dominico found that it did. He could 
 make quicker and better trades with the fruit commis 
 sion merchants, down Washington Market way, and 
 this induced other and less educated pedlers to pay 
 him a small commission to do their buying, and as 
 Dominico was as saving as any of his class, it came 
 about that he had the necessary capital for a bold and 
 
34 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 magnificent business venture which Dan suggested to 
 him only a year before Teresa met with the accident at 
 the Arcady Theatre. 
 
 Charles Dean, Dan s political chieftain and patron, 
 was the owner of the Tivoli Theatre in the Bowery. If 
 you have ever been there, you know that to the right 
 of the main entrance is a recess made by the closing of 
 another entrance which formerly led to Mr. Dean s pri 
 vate office, and on the left a corresponding entrance 
 which leads to the saloon over which is Mr. Dean s 
 name. The street entrance to the office had been closed 
 because people so often mistook it for the entrance to 
 the theatre, and men who called on Mr. Dean generally 
 had important and confidential business which should 
 not be interrupted ; so a less conspicuous entrance was 
 made from the lobby of the theatre. This left a recess, 
 a waste space, twelve feet wide, and about half as deep, 
 opening on the sidewalk, which Dan s practical eye ob 
 served just at a time when he was casting about in his 
 mind for some manner of compensating Dominico for 
 his valuable assistance in training the Italian hand in 
 the way it should vote. 
 
 He spoke to Mr. Dean, the source of all power and 
 benefits, and that night waited for Dominico, eager to 
 tell him that if he had the enterprise for the scheme 
 (Dari was his banker and knew he had the capital), he 
 could at once become a merchant ; could leave his life 
 of peddling, and go into business at a permanent fruit- 
 stand in front of the Tivoli. Dominico could not com 
 prehend it all at once. He walked up the Bowery with 
 Dan and they measured off the space, took note of all 
 the surroundings, observed that the light in front of 
 the theatre would save the expense of specially lighting 
 the stand, and Dominico remarked with excitement the 
 
An Aristocrat of Mulberry Bend. 35 
 
 number of people who went into the theatre carrying 
 bags of fruit and nuts. They called on Mr. Dean, 
 whom Dominicohad never seen, and the Italian blushed 
 and stammered with pride and delight when the great 
 man shook hands with him and said, in a perfectly 
 friendly manner: "Dan tells me, Minico, you ve quite 
 an idea of doing politics. You ll lose nothing by it 
 while you stick to me; no one ever did." 
 
 Dominico was so overcome by the great man s con 
 descension that he forgot for some time to wonder why 
 Mr. Dean had not worn a resplendent uniform. He had 
 always pictured him in his mind in that garb. Mr. Dean 
 told him he could use the space if he would build a 
 booth that would not deface the front of the building, 
 and added " whatever Dan says about the rent will be 
 all right." 
 
 Dan, who would have been a great politician if he 
 had not been such a conservative, told Dominico : " The 
 rent will be all right, Minico, if we carry our ward for 
 Mr. Dean s delegates to the County Convention." 
 
 Heaven forfend that I should let a line of politics 
 creep into this history, but I cannot refrain from re 
 cording that by an unexpectedly heavy Italian vote 
 Dan s ward secured for Mr. Dean a solid District Dele 
 gation in the County Convention, which enabled Mr. 
 Dean to name the Delegates to the State Convention 
 from his District, who, voting solidly under his direc 
 tion, turned the scales in favor of the man who was 
 nominated for Governor and elected; and who prob 
 ably never happened to meet Dominico Cortese, fruit 
 pedler. 
 
 4 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A NOTABLE CONCESSION TO CUPID. 
 
 So it came to pass when Maggie Lyon half carried 
 Teresa up the three flights of tenement stairs and led 
 her to the room where Tom was with Carminella, and 
 Teresa fell on her knees, sobbing and praying, and 
 kissing the baby, and Maggie took Tom away, there 
 were two aristocrats on that floor, for Dominico now 
 shared that distinction with Dan, and both aristocrats 
 were slaves of the beautiful little daughter of the tene 
 ment, Carminella. When Teresa could stop crying for 
 the joy of holding her baby in her arms again, she saw 
 that the room she was in was furnished with all of her 
 belongings, her bed, her scant furniture and trunk, the 
 baby s crib, and their few clothes. Her room fronted 
 on the court, and as Dominico had the only other room 
 on that side of the hall, these, with Dan s three, were 
 all the rooms on that floor of the narrow and shallow 
 tenement. "So you see, Teresa," said Maggie, when 
 she went back to her after Teresa had become quiet, 
 "it s not so bad. Uncle Dan has his rooms taken care 
 of every day. and swept once a week, and he makes 
 Dominico do the same with his, and there s plenty of 
 girls in our business who live in no better quarters, if 
 they are in a better part of the city." She added with 
 a laugh, " It s a mighty sight better than I had when I 
 lived on Cherry Hill." 
 
 36 
 
A Notable Concession to Cupid. 37 
 
 " And better than I ever had before I came to this 
 country," said Teresa. 
 
 " Until you go back to work again you can take care 
 of the rooms. The woman who lived here and did that 
 has gone away, and you can eat with Uncle Dan, who ll 
 be glad enough to have some one around, because it will 
 help keep Tom off the street at night, which is the dread 
 of Uncle Dan s life, so it s not so bad, is it?" 
 
 Teresa kissed the handsome, big-hearted Irish girl, 
 but did not make any other answer, for she was crying 
 again. Then Tom came in, and the baby set up a 
 shout of laughter, for she and Tom were already tre 
 mendous friends. That was the way Dan found them 
 when he came up, pretending it was for his lunch, al 
 though it was really to see if Carminella s mother had 
 arrived all right; and the women cooked him such a 
 meal he declared that if he were not an oldster he d be 
 thinking of giving Tom a new mother, and keep Te 
 resa there altogether. 
 
 " But she has a man already," laughed Maggie, " and 
 you re not to marry again, Uncle Dan, until after I get 
 what s coming to me from your will." 
 
 " And I d make a sorry husband when you re reading 
 my will, Maggie," said Dan, and then asked seriously: 
 "Are you hearing anything from your man, Teresa?" 
 
 She had heard nothing. Maggie said the orchestra 
 leader had heard he had gone west, and added a fer 
 vent wish that bad luck would go with him. But she 
 did not add that, good or bad luck, a chorus girl had 
 gone with him, although she and all the people in the 
 company knew such was the fact. 
 
 That night, when Carminella had been put to bed, 
 Teresa went to Dan s room, where he wanted to show 
 her Tom s drawings. Dan was immensely proud of 
 
}8 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 this accomplishment of the boy s, and wanted Teresa s 
 opinion about sending him to a night-school where 
 drawing was taught. 
 
 " He has great learning already," said Dan proudly, 
 "and he s not to go to work until he s fourteen, though 
 what there can be to teach him for four years more I 
 can t understand, unless it is some fancy dido like this 
 drawing; they do say if you get to be a boss at that 
 there s great wages in it." 
 
 Tom brought out his drawings, which were on cards 
 and half pages of office writing-paper, and a curious as 
 sortment of waste sheets Dan picked up from the floors 
 of the offices in the Niantic Building, after the offices 
 were closed for the day and before the sweepers went to 
 work. Teresa looked over the crude, untaught sketches 
 with wonder. She recognized a glimpse of the street, 
 a scene in the court, and a dozen heads of Carminella. 
 Tom blushed and was mighty proud of that. Teresa 
 told him that she had seen the work of great masters in 
 Italian cities where she lived as a girl before she came 
 to this country, and said his pictures of Carminella 
 were as like her as the pictures by the great were like 
 the people they painted. You see, Teresa was not an 
 artist, except in the way of being agreeable when she 
 wanted to be, so there was an excuse for her ignorant 
 slander of the great. 
 
 " It s what Minico is always saying!" exclaimed Dan. 
 " He is saying that if Tom could be apprenticed, like, 
 to a boss at this job, he d be making more money than 
 any of us. There s a fine night-school up at Cooper 
 Institute, just at the head of the Bowery, where they 
 teach this drawing, and I ll be thinking of sending the 
 boy there when he s a little older." 
 
 "If it s like dancing he can t begin too little," Te- 
 
A Notable Concession to Cupid. 39 
 
 resa said, in her slow, cautious English. " I ll begin to 
 teach Carminella dancing when she s three. I wish 
 they d begun with me then. You can t learn to do the 
 best if you begin bigger." 
 
 They sat about Dan s lamp talking, Tom trying with 
 eager diligence to draw Teresa s face, until Dominico 
 was heard coming heavily up the stairs. Dan called 
 him. The Italian looked into the room, saw Teresa, 
 slammed the door, and they heard him hurry to his 
 room. 
 
 " What s happened the man, I wonder?" said Dan. 
 
 What happened to Dominico was that, seeing Teresa, 
 he went to his room, lit a candle, and shaved off a two 
 days growth of beard, thick as plush, and then, after 
 scrubbing his reddened face until it seemed ready to 
 bleed, and putting a bright red and yellow silk scarf 
 into the collar of his blue flannel shirt, he returned and 
 made an awkward bow to his countrywoman. He spoke 
 to her in Italian, and she answered in English. 
 
 "That s right, girl!" exclaimed Dan, " make him 
 talk American. Sure the man s a citizen and a mer 
 chant, and he talks like one of us natives when he ain t 
 excited." 
 
 Tom was sent to bed so that Dominico might have a 
 chair, and Dan asked the merchant about his business. 
 There was trouble, Dominico said. He was at his busi 
 ness from six in the morning until midnight, except at 
 dinner time, when he left the stand in charge of a ped- 
 ler he paid to relieve him. He believed the pedler 
 was the greatest thief outside the Tombs, and that was 
 discouraging in general, and in particular, because, if 
 he had some one he could trust to relieve him, not only 
 at meal times, but at the dull hours of the day when 
 he could sleep, he would keep the stand open all night 
 
40 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 in pleasant weather. There was a good all-night trade on 
 the Bowery, and he felt he was losing the chance of his 
 life not to take advantage of it. He called upon Madonna 
 to tell him why all pedlers he could hire were cheats 
 and thieves and robbers, in addition to being pigs. 
 
 Dominico talked so fast and in such indifferent Eng 
 lish, Teresa could not understand all he said. She 
 was accustomed to the more precise speech and clearer 
 enunciation of the stage, as you could easily guess if 
 you heard her English, but she had understood enough 
 to know that Dominico wanted to employ help he could 
 trust. She had in sight an income of only a dollar and 
 a half a week for taking care of the rooms on the floor. 
 That would only pay for her room, and Carminella 
 must have clothes and delicate things to eat which 
 Dan s larder did not afford. The next day she went to 
 Dan and asked if she could not help Dominico. Dan 
 said he would think about it. He never decided 
 weighty matters of business off-hand. He did think 
 about it and talked to Dominico. The Italian said it 
 would be just the thing. He could trust her: he knew 
 that, he said, the minute he saw her; and a handsome 
 woman would attract customers, for did not the wife of 
 Riccodonna sell more fruit at their stand near Domi- 
 nico s in six hours, than her husband sold in eighteen? 
 and while she was pretty, as the women of the Bend 
 went, Madonna knew she weighed surely three hundred 
 pounds, and was a hag in comparison with Teresa; be 
 sides which, Riccodonna sold second-grade fruit and 
 was no better than a bandit. Dominico s enthusiasm 
 suddenly abated when Dan mentioned the subject of 
 wages. He could give Teresa two dollars a week, he 
 thought, and Dan thought he could give her five : two 
 for her services, three for her beauty. 
 
RICCODONNA. 
 Sold second-grade fruit, and was no better than a bandit." Page 40. 
 
A Notable Concession to Cupid. 41* 
 
 They compromised on four dollars a week, if, as 
 Dominico had incautiously suggested, Teresa not only 
 enabled him to keep the stand open more hours, but 
 attracted customers from Riccodonna. Within a week 
 after she first came to the Bend Teresa went to the 
 stand in front of the Tivoli to learn the mysteries of 
 the retail fruit business. She went at hours when Tom 
 was at home to look after Carminella, and in two weeks 
 Dominico was serenely sleeping during those hours. 
 Then the stand was kept open by him all night, and 
 he actually began dreaming of having a real store of 
 his own, so much did his trade improve. 
 
 But there was something else he dreamed about, wak 
 ing and sleeping, and that was Teresa, his handsome 
 countrywoman. He did not sigh and keep these dreams 
 to himself. Dominico was young, good-looking and 
 successful. He knew that there was not a maid of 
 Mulberry Bend he could not have for the asking, but 
 he had not cared to ask. His best quality was his 
 proper appreciation of his own merits, and until he saw 
 Teresa he had not met any woman, he frankly stated, 
 deserving of him. 
 
 He told all this and much more to Teresa, nor was 
 he discouraged when she urged the impediment of a 
 presumably living husband. There is a thing known 
 in Mulberry Bend, yes, and in other parts of the city, 
 as "common-law marriage." Dominico was a trifle 
 vague in his understanding of what kind of law com 
 mon law was, but he knew it was binding in the af 
 fair of matrimony. How the existence of another hus 
 band would complicate the situation he did not know, 
 but he would consult Dan, who knew everything. 
 Dan, of course, took the subject under advisement, 
 and he first went to see Maggie about Teresa s mar- 
 
42 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 riage, and was assured by her that it had been proper 
 and ceremonial, with priest and ring. When the situ 
 ation was explained to Maggie, she confided to her 
 uncle that there would be no trouble, if Teresa wanted 
 her liberty. There were members of the company 
 who had knowledge of Ettore, Teresa s husband, relat 
 ing to the chorus girl who had disappeared when Ettore 
 did, which would warrant a Court in giving her her 
 freedom. 
 
 Six months later Teresa was divorced. Dan arranged 
 the marriage settlement. He did more; for it was his 
 advice which finally induced Teresa to accept Domi- 
 nico. He told her that her lover was destined for great 
 things. He already had five hundred dollars to his 
 credit in Dan s bank-account. He was industrious, 
 sober, and strong. Her marriage with him would in 
 sure Carminella proper care and education. Minico 
 would make any reasonable provision which Teresa 
 demanded for her daughter s future. 
 
 Teresa seemed unreasonable in her demands. She 
 insisted that if she married they should not live in less 
 than two rooms, one of which should be Carminella s; 
 that they should not have lodgers; that Carminella 
 should be kept in school until she was fourteen years of 
 age; and that each week until she left school, Dominico 
 should put one dollar in a savings bank for Carmi 
 nella. 
 
 When Dan submitted these conditions to Dominico 
 the Italian called upon Santa Maria to say if he were a 
 millionaire, and if he had not always sold the first 
 grade of fruit when his competitors sold second grade 
 at the same price! Had Teresa been reared in the lap 
 of luxury all her life that she should demand such con 
 ditions; or had she worked hard for a living and been 
 
A Notable Concession to Cupid. 43 
 
 deserted by one husband? And had not he, Dominico 
 Cortese, paid the cost of her divorce? Gesu! 
 
 But Teresa was obstinate, and Dominico was in love, 
 and so they were married. It was a civil marriage, for 
 Teresa divorced could not be married by a priest. 
 "But we ll have the priest," said Dan, "when your 
 first man is dead; and they do say the West is a terrible 
 place for killing people, and that s where Ettore is 
 now." 
 
 To tell the truth, and in this instance I tell it with 
 pleasure, Teresa was nearly in love with Dominico. He 
 belonged to her class, which Ettore did not; he was 
 fond of Carminella, and Ettore had hated the baby ; he 
 had employed her where otherwise she must have 
 begged; and he was an honest and kind-hearted fellow, 
 whereas Ettore! But above and beyond all other 
 things, Carminella had been provided for until she 
 could provide for herself. Teresa had a secret plan for 
 the child which she hoped this marriage would permit 
 her to carry out. At fourteen she could be sent to Italy 
 to study with the money which would then be hers, and 
 taught to be a great dancer. Perhaps she would have 
 a voice Ettore had a fine one and would become a 
 great singer. 
 
 And there, with my story just begun, I have married 
 Teresa twice, and, do the best I can for her, I fear it 
 looks as if her second marriage, as much or nearly as 
 much as her first, was actuated by worldly pride and 
 ambition. I really did think, before I learned her 
 story, that one could have done with the vanities of the 
 world by going into the slums, but there, too, it ap 
 pears, are both false pride and mere worldly striving, 
 both of which I condemn and despise. Honest, simple 
 worth for me. The poor should always be lowly, for 
 
44 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 where can you find anything more compelling of admi 
 ration than among the lowly poor? Let those who will 
 find aught to admire among the rich and proud. By 
 the way, we jump twelve ) r ears in the next chapter, and 
 some chapters later meet people of wealth and position. 
 Not comparative, but actual great wealth, I ll have you 
 understand, sir, and position than which there is none 
 higher, finer, or more enviable in the city, madam! 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 A DANCER S GIRL, A JANITOR S BOY. 
 
 TWELVE years! Really it is not such an age of time 
 if you look at it from a certain view-point, and are 
 lucky enough to have that view-point to look from. 
 There is Jack Daring, if you please, who walks over 
 exactly the same miles, yards, and feet of Fifth Avenue 
 sidewalk to-day that he did twelve years ago, every day 
 he is in town ; rides over exactly the same number of 
 miles of road daily when he is in the country; takes 
 exactly the same number of cocktails before dinner and 
 the same number of glasses of whiskey and water after 
 dinner, for he is a conservative in the matter of chang 
 ing the quantity of his stimulant ; goes to the opera with 
 Mrs. Jack the same number of subscription nights; and 
 can recall but two events which fix certain of those 
 passing twelve years. Six years ago (Jack can give 
 you the day and month), he beat Colonel Bob Billings 
 six straight games of pool, which never happened be 
 fore or since; and four years ago his butler died of a 
 stroke of apoplexy. Jack has not had one since who 
 could mix a cocktail fit for a gentleman to drink, and 
 therefore Jack remembers the year in which the man 
 was so thoughtless as to die. 
 
 But on the other hand, to Tom Lyon, twelve years 
 since we saw him last had brought experiences beyond 
 his wildest imaginings: had been a whole lifetime to 
 him; had unfolded new and undreamt-of worlds. He 
 
 45 
 
46 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 lived yet in the only rooms he had ever known as home, 
 in the same back tenement in Mulberry Bend; and al 
 though he chafed at times over that, he had agreed with 
 his father to stay there until the block should be con- 
 , verted into a park, and the city had already begun pro 
 ceedings to that end. "Then, "said Dan, "we ll have 
 a home of our own, where you can bring your fine 
 friends," and more than this Dan would not say, al 
 though whenever he made the remark he showed 
 plainly that he could speak volumes more on the sub 
 ject if he would. 
 
 Tom had remained in the public schools, as the meth 
 odical Dan had planned, until he was fourteen years 
 old. A teacher of drawing came to the school the last 
 two years. The teacher was not a very good artist, in 
 fact he was a very poor one, but he was befriended by 
 a great man who had influence with a small politician 
 who was acquainted with a school commissioner who 
 had the appointment to make, and with whom he di 
 vided the money the great man paid to have the artist 
 provided for. Once a week the artist went to Tom s 
 school for an hour, and the scholars devoted that hour 
 to skylarking, until the drawing-master, who was sim 
 ple and conscientious, arranged to take the few scholars 
 who showed any evidence of aptitude with their pencils, 
 into a separate class-room. Then Tom made progress, 
 such marked progress, that the master one day gave 
 him a letter to his father advising that Tom be sent to 
 the night art-class at Cooper Union. 
 
 When Tom was fourteen he went into Mr. Dean s 
 service as an office boy, but in two years was employed 
 as call boy on the stage of the Tivoli Theatre. When 
 he was eighteen he was assisting the scene painter, and 
 then he went to his father and told him he was going 
 
A Dancer s Girl, A Janitor s Boy. 47 
 
 to use part of his wages to enter the Life Class in the 
 Art Students 1 League. He had submitted a drawing to 
 the League and found that he could enter the class, and 
 his mind was made up. 
 
 Dan pretended to " take the matter under considera 
 tion," as was his wont, but he saw that he had to agree. 
 He was proud of Tom, who was a stalwart, handsome 
 boy, was proud of his behavior, his good morals, his 
 honesty about his wages, and was fearful with a fear 
 that he never expressed, but which sometimes made 
 him start from his sleep at night in terror, that Tom 
 would break away from his home restraint and good 
 habits, and become like Bill, a wayward outcast. Dan 
 had some appreciation, too, of the fact that Tom s love 
 of art and devotion to its study were in a way an ex 
 pression of the things in his nature or temperament 
 which had saved him. The old man was close with the 
 boy in money matters. From the first he had insisted 
 upon having all his wages, but he made him a weekly 
 allowance, raised from time to time as Tom developed 
 his one extravagance, a love of fine clothes sinfully 
 fine, Dan thought, for a boy in his position. So the 
 allowance \vas increased again for the moderate ex 
 penses at the Art Students League, and Tom began his 
 morning trips to the League class-rooms, but performed 
 all of his duties on the paint-bridge of the Tivoli, too. 
 He grew thin and peaked with his long, hard study and 
 work. It was Teresa who noticed this first, but Tom 
 only laughed when his father told him what Teresa had 
 said about it. The fever of his art burned in him, and 
 ambition was born. Sometimes, when he took beau 
 tiful fourteen-year old Carminella to the free galleries 
 to see the exhibitions, or to the Museum in Central 
 Park on free days, he would tell her what he knew 
 
48 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 of the great masters whose work they saw, and when 
 she would say, " You will be great like them too, some 
 day, Tom," he would set his teeth and lips as if to lock 
 his speech, but then pour out to the half-comprehend 
 ing child the strength of his hope and ambitions, and 
 laugh for pure joy of expression. 
 
 Carminella never told at home of these confidences. 
 She had some comprehension of a difference between 
 Tom and the other people of the Bend. His study and 
 working hours, especially his association with the pupils 
 and masters of the Art School, were refining him, and 
 had a supple nature to influence. In their youthful 
 excursions together to the city art galleries and parks, 
 where their pleasure was on a plane far above the hard 
 material conditions of their home surroundings, Car 
 minella grew to mentally group Tom with the other 
 gentler people she had known the women who came to 
 teach in the mission schools where her own charac 
 ter had been moulded during these twelve years. 
 
 When Carminella was four years old Teresa had 
 taken her to a charity school near the Bend. Teresa 
 anxiously studied the refined face of the woman she 
 met there and talked with about Carminella. She 
 should bring the child every morning and call for her 
 every evening, she said. The child should never be 
 alone, never go or come without her. Would she be 
 taken care of and taught? The lady had Carminella 
 on her knees and was wondering at her great beauty, 
 and wondering, too, in a practical way, at her whole 
 and wholesome clothing, and at the precise, slow Eng 
 lish speech of the mother. " Would the child be under 
 the care of a lady; hear a lady s language?" Teresa 
 asked. 
 
 " Just now she will be under my care, and always in 
 
A Dancer s Girl, A Janitor s Boy. 49 
 
 the charge of some Daughter, as we call ourselves," 
 the lady answered, smiling. 
 
 Teresa started to go, then turned, bent over the lady s 
 hand, kissed it, and sobbed, " God will bless you if you 
 will be good to my baby. I want her to be good. 
 Good! Do you know?" 
 
 " I think I know. We are here to make good men 
 and women by teaching the children what goodness is," 
 the Daughter said, simply. 
 
 To that, and to other mission schools Carminella 
 went until she was fourteen ; never without Teresa or 
 Tom in going and returning. When she was not in 
 school Teresa watched Carminella hourly. On holi 
 days, Teresa took the girl with her to the stand, and 
 Carminella, with book or sewing, sat by her mother s 
 side in the recess at the back of the stand, or helped 
 her when customers were plenty. 
 
 One thing Teresa herself taught her, to dance. Pa 
 tiently, laboriously, tirelessly, with infinite care, the 
 woman who could dance no more, for that slight 
 lameness had never entirely disappeared, trained the 
 child s muscles, bones, flesh, blood, almost, so that she 
 could dance. In all of the mere physical accomplish 
 ments of a great premiere danseuse Carminella ex 
 celled at fourteen. All that she lacked was broad prac 
 tice. It was as if one had been drilled for years in 
 piano playing and confined to technical skill and rapid 
 reading in difficult exercises, and had never played, or 
 been shown, an imaginative composition. 
 
 Teresa wanted to send her to Professor Polli, who 
 had become a famous ballet-master, but to this Do- 
 minico would not agree. He could not spare the 
 money it would cost. Times had not always been 
 prosperous at the fruit-stand. The despised Ricco- 
 5 
 
50 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 donna and other equally despised keepers of neighbor 
 ing stands had made competition sharp, and they un 
 dersold Dominico. Then Dominico tried their trade 
 trick of dealing in second-grade fruit, and nearly went 
 insane when he lost much of his custom thereby. The 
 monstrous Riccodonna heard of this and improved the 
 quality of his stock just as Dominico lowered his, and, 
 as with rage and despair Dominico saw customers he 
 had had for years buying of his hated rival, he grew 
 gray and wrinkled. There were other troubles that 
 unhappy Italian had; Teresa always insisted on the 
 two rooms, and when he urged that to mitigate the 
 direful state of finances brought about by his extrava 
 gance in rooms, and Riccodonna s monstrous trade 
 tricks, they might at least take in three or four lodgers, 
 who could easily be accommodated in one room, Teresa 
 took Carminella in her arms and fled to Dan s room, 
 and it required all of Dan s diplomacy to bring about a 
 reconciliation. 
 
 " You made a contract, my man," Dan said to the dis 
 tressed and weeping Dominico, " and you got a good 
 woman by it" 
 
 " But is Carminella a princess that she is not to live 
 in rooms with lodgers, and is not to work until she is 
 fourteen?" exclaimed Dominico. 
 
 " It s against the factory laws for the children to work 
 before they are fourteen," replied Dan, who was not 
 only wise in the laws for the poor, but a stanch up 
 holder of them. 
 
 "What is the law?" wailed Dominico. "There is 
 Riccodonna, a pig and thief, who has two children, ten 
 and twelve years old, and they make together two dol 
 lars a week. It is so that he puts in the bank a hun 
 dred dollars a year from their earnings." 
 
DOMINICO. 
 But is Carminella a princess?" Page 50. 
 
A Dancer s Girl, A Janitor s Boy. 51 
 
 " But he must have the certificate that they are over 
 fourteen," said Dan, in surprise. 
 
 "The certificate!" exclaimed Dominico, in disdain. 
 "You know how to keep the laws, not how to get 
 around them. There is the notario publico in the sa 
 loon across the street who gives all who want such 
 certificates for twenty-five cents each." 
 
 This was true enough, and it was true that Dan did not 
 know of it, for he had never sought means to evade any 
 law. When he found out that Dominico was right, and 
 had the commission of the complaisant notary public 
 revoked, he was cursed for a meddling aristocrat and 
 a rival notary over on East Broadway profited much. 
 
 So Dominico let Carminella remain in school the 
 agreed time and did not take lodgers, but he .would not 
 pay for instructions under Professor Polli, because that 
 was not in the contract. 
 
 Teresa had long ago abandoned her hope of sending 
 Carminella to Italy. That dream vanished when she 
 found that the dollar a week Dominico gave her for 
 Carminella would not stay in the bank, hard as she 
 strove to keep it there. Not a penny of it was ever 
 used for herself, but Carminella had to have comfort 
 able and respectable clothes, and books, and the allow 
 ance did little more than satisfy Teresa s pride for Car 
 minella in these respects. 
 
 During the last two years of her school life, Car 
 minella had been something like a special pupil of 
 the mission teachers. She was older than the other 
 scholars, more intelligent, more companionable, be 
 cause of her mind and body untainted by the slums; 
 and her beauty won the heart of every woman who 
 went among the tenement schools doing Christ s work. 
 In the last six months she had really aided the latest 
 
52 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 recruit who had come from that mysterious other 
 world of homes, to brighten and better this world of 
 tenements. 
 
 "I am sure I could not teach you anything," the 
 stranger had said to Carminella, "you must be so much 
 wiser in these matters than I ever hope to be; I will be 
 the pupil, or at best your assistant." Those last six 
 months were happy days for Carminella. Her teacher 
 then was Miss Eleanor Hazelhurst, who, as everybody 
 knows who is familiar with the directory of the old 
 families on Washington Square, is the younger of the 
 two daughters of Dr. Hazelhurst (" Doctor" not in 
 medicine, but in nearly every other science and art 
 whose degrees are in the gift of the Universities of 
 America and Europe), who married into conjugal bliss, 
 a Washington Square home, a comfortable fortune, and 
 leisure to pursue his studies in " Egyptology antedating 
 Rameses I." Although you are to be formally pre 
 sented to the learned doctor and his charming family 
 under polite circumstances (and I for one wish this 
 story would promptly reach those same polite circum 
 stances; for it begins to appear that the poor are with 
 us not only always, but allwheres!), I feel that a word 
 about Eleanor Hazelhurst should be inserted here the 
 better to understand the personal influence which, more 
 than any other, affected Carminella s character. Elea 
 nor was only twenty-one years old when she first ap 
 peared, one morning, as a teacher in the mission-school 
 class Carminella attended. She was the youngest of 
 any of the teachers Carminella had ever known, and 
 more beautiful than the child thought a woman could 
 be. The Italian girl s ideas about the young teacher s 
 beauty were undoubtedly affected by Eleanor s charac 
 ter, which, indeed, was beautiful, and, as I have ex- 
 
A Dancer s Girl, A Janitor s Boy. 53 
 
 plained, her friendly attitude toward Carminella. She 
 imparted to the Italian child s responsive, emotional 
 nature something of her own simplicity and high-mind- 
 edness. As Teresa had taught Carminella to stand 
 erect and yet at ease, to walk with grace and buoyancy, 
 to move all her muscles with decision and fearlessness, 
 yet with a reserve of force which could check, extend, 
 make slow or quick, suave or elastic, and in all ways 
 instantly control physical action, so Eleanor s example 
 and teaching affected the girl s mind and spirit. Per 
 haps I should have said her teaching by example, for 
 Eleanor had had no training in the fine art of imparting 
 knowledge. She had taken up this work because of 
 an interest excited in tenement mission-work by sto 
 ries told by a young newspaper man named Philip 
 Peyton. 
 
 "But my dear Helen," exclaimed her sister Minnie, 
 the worldly, " that s no reason why you should go into 
 the slums any more than I should, or papa or mamma. 
 He tells the stories to us all. It comes of Phil Peyton 
 pretending to be a newspaper man, and learning all 
 sorts of ridiculous things about parts of the city which 
 never bothered us until we came to know about them. 
 I think it s absurd to want to know about a thing which 
 you know perfectly well is going to make you unhappy 
 when you know it. If I were papa I should forbid 
 you." 
 
 The smile with which Eleanor received this last de 
 noted exactly how much danger there was from pa 
 ternal injunction. 
 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst said (this was at dinner), with an air 
 which seemed to hint, however, at parental interfer 
 ence, " All charity is lovely and sweet, of course, and 
 I hope we shall always give in accordance with our 
 
54 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 means; but there are numerous societies organized for 
 the proper distribution of such gifts. It seems to me 
 the danger of Eleanor s proposed undertaking is in the 
 possible publicity. I m sure, Doctor (raising her voice 
 slightly), you would be distressed enough to have the 
 name Hazelhurst spread out in all the papers with pic 
 tures of Eleanor in 
 
 This suggested a picture whch was too much for the 
 worldly one s sense of humor, and Minnie spoiled her 
 mother s effect by interrupting gravely, " With pictures 
 of Eleanor in bloomers, addressing a Salvation Army 
 meeting at Five Points." 
 
 The doctor looked up and said placidly: "Well, 
 well, I guess we are all distressing ourselves unnec 
 essarily about this. There are societies to direct this 
 work, to be sure, but they doubtless need field vol 
 unteers of a class which cannot be hired ; so if baby 
 wants to try the experiment it may be wisest for us not 
 to discourage her." 
 
 Dr. Hazelhurst was engaged in researches where 
 in events most closely related by time were thou 
 sands, possibly tens of thousands of years apart, and 
 it seemed absurd, something like a presumption, 
 for the child who was a baby twenty years ago 
 to be anything else now, and Eleanor was to him 
 always "baby," Minnie "daughter," collectively "the 
 children." 
 
 Eleanor had not entered into the discussion. It was 
 a family trait that the one who purposed doing a thing 
 should not discuss it, for the reason, perhaps, that no 
 member of the family ever abandoned a purpose once 
 announced. The others discussed it as they might the 
 weather: with interest, but without hope of chang 
 ing it. To soothe the family dread of "publicity," 
 
A Dancer s Girl, A Janitor s Boy. 55 
 
 she agreed to be known in her work only as " Miss 
 Helen." 
 
 Thus it came about that in the last part of the im 
 portant twelve years, whose passing has been sketched 
 in this chapter, Carminella came under the benign in 
 fluence of Eleanor Hazelhurst. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ELEANOR S GLIMPSE OF TENEMENT HADES. 
 
 CARMINELLA was a marvel to Eleanor Hazelhurst, 
 and she had heard there were beautiful faces, and some 
 times beautiful forms, to be seen among the young wo 
 men or older girls in the slums. But here was this child 
 in years, although nearly a woman in stature, who not 
 only had a face so beautiful that it startled, and an 
 erect, slight figure carried with grace, but who was gen 
 tle in manner and speech. She expressed this surprise to 
 an associate in her work once. " Oh," replied the more 
 experienced woman, "you have our prize product, our 
 daughter of the tenements, as we call her. All her life 
 nearly she has been associated with teachers in our 
 schools, or similar ones, and we boast of her, and point 
 her out to our patrons as an example of what we could 
 make of children here if we had them under our influ 
 ence long enough. But they are usually taken from us 
 at six or eight years of age to help their fathers and 
 mothers sewing at home for sweaters. Before children 
 are Carminella s age they are usually employed in a 
 factory with certificates that they are fourteen, and 
 long before that our efforts to save them have been 
 nullified by their home and shop surroundings. Her 
 mother is a monomaniac, and her mania, happily, is 
 the care and education of that girl. I wonder what her 
 life is to be?" 
 
 After this, Eleanor made an equal and a companion 
 
 56 
 
Eleanor s Glimpse of Tenement Hades. 57 
 
 of Carminella in their school hours. Carminella 
 planned, advised, and helped in the school work, and 
 " Miss Helen" talked with her in their moments to 
 gether as she would to an equal; gave her books to 
 read which filled the child s mind with wonder and 
 exaltation, and brightened her life until her candle-lit 
 room in the dingy, crowded tenement was peopled with 
 the world s greatest, real and ideal; moving in scenes 
 which Carminella could not but think must be wholly 
 ideal, so completely they satisfied her stirred and broad 
 ening imagination. While Eleanor was giving Carmi 
 nella glimpses of what to the child of the tenements 
 was almost a dream-life, Carminella in turn showed the 
 woman to whom until now every refinement of luxury 
 had been accepted as a matter of course, realities which 
 were to her as new and startling phases of life as any 
 thing she had revealed or suggested to Carminella had 
 been to the child. 
 
 Eleanor had assumed and performed her task as a 
 teacher in the charity school for some months before 
 she saw the inside of the homes from which her pupils 
 came. One six-year-old Jewish child, a pinched and 
 withered little girl, had been in her school several 
 weeks. Eleanor had observed and wondered that under 
 the influences of fresh air and sunlight, of freedom from 
 care and toil, of friendly treatment, of the laughter 
 and frolic of the games she constantly provided for the 
 children, the worn look of an aged toiler had slipped 
 from the child s face, and been replaced by a look 
 of baby joy and happiness. But for several days this 
 child had been absent from the school. Instead of 
 making inquiries through an inspector employed for 
 that purpose, Eleanor decided to go and see for herself 
 what the home lives were which produced the start- 
 
58 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 ling effects she saw in her pupils and sought to ef 
 face. In leaving her schoolroom one evening, the next 
 day being a school holiday, she arranged with Carmi- 
 nella to meet her there in the morning, when Carmi- 
 nella should guide her to the home of the absent little 
 Jewess. It was Eleanor s custom to drive as far down 
 Broadway as Leonard Street, and leave her carriage 
 at the side of the big white marble insurance building, 
 to which place the carriage would return for her in the 
 evening. On this morning, as there were to be no 
 classes, she ordered the coachman to wait for her, and 
 she walked as usual across the few blocks from Broad 
 way where her quietly appointed equipage would be 
 passed by endless throngs of people unremarked, into 
 that other world where her liveried coachman and foot 
 man would have been assaulted on sight. 
 
 Carminella was waiting for her at the school, and 
 they set out at once for the home of Lena, the absent 
 one. 
 
 "It is in our block," said Carminella, "but it is on 
 the Baxter Street side. It is a back tenement almost in 
 a line with ours." 
 
 Perhaps with an unconscious intention to delay the 
 revelation which she felt her companion did not fore 
 see, and partly with a child s delight in showing off 
 what to her were the attractions of her own side of the 
 block, its brightness and gayety, Carminella led Eleanor 
 up Park Street and turned into Mulberry Bend toward 
 Bayard Street. That stretch of the Bend is one of the 
 two places in New York City so affected by the adjacent 
 conditions of living that the police there openly permit 
 during certain hours of the day violations of the law 
 concerning street obstructions. From seven until ten 
 in the morning market stalls and booths are allowed to 
 
Eleanor s Glimpse of Tenement Hades. 59 
 
 obstruct the sidewalk. The space in the houses, even 
 to the ground floors and the cellars, is so urgently de 
 manded as living and work room that without this 
 street market the swarming inhabitants would have no 
 place to conduct their daily household trade. 
 
 Eleanor and Carminella moved slowly along the 
 Bend, for the obstructions were too numerous and the 
 crowds too dense to permit of more than a slow work 
 ing forward. It was a bright, early spring day, and it 
 seemed to Eleanor as if every man, woman, and child 
 must have left the old rookeries on either side of the 
 street to enjoy the sun and the gay companionship of 
 the market-place. The gossip of the women, the 
 strange cries of the vendors, the shouts of the children 
 were all animated, light-hearted; the dress, even the 
 rags of the poorest, were bright-colored, and the mar 
 vellous things they sold lent attractiveness to the scene ; 
 the glinting bronze of the open kegs of humble her 
 rings, the scarlet of ropes of peppers, the green of bar 
 rels of olives; the gleaming white and purple of onions; 
 the silver shining fresh fish heaped high in wagon- 
 loads ; the cords of high-stacked monster loaves of bread 
 in every shade of brown; the almost startling degree 
 and variety of color in the open booths where women s 
 shawls, children s stockings, and men s neckerchiefs 
 were displayed and offered for sale by women who 
 laughed as they bantered their neighbors rubber- 
 booted men from the fish-market docks counting out 
 eels from barrels, or a gardener from Long Island 
 with bushels of dull-tinted winter vegetables, or a 
 fruit vendor with a load of his red and gold and purple 
 commodities, gathered from across oceans and conti 
 nents. 
 
 Many of the women and some of the men stopped 
 
60 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 their barter and banter to good-naturedly hail Carmi- 
 nella as she passed, and ask her in their own language 
 if the Signorina with her was the teacher from the mis 
 sion, and would she not like to replenish her wardrobe 
 or her cupboard from their wares. Before they had 
 walked ten yards Eleanor was conscious that she was 
 the object of polite attention. Once a fish vendor left 
 his wagon to light his pipe with a coal from the brazier 
 on which some dish was cooking in front of an area-way 
 bread-stall. As he stood, big, square-shouldered, and 
 seemingly immovable, holding with his fingers a live 
 coal to his pipe, he was so engrossed with his occupa 
 tion, and perhaps with the pretty eyes of the bread ven 
 dor, that he did not hear the first shout for him to clear 
 the way for Carminella and the lady. Then forty peo 
 ple, men, women, and children, shouted at him, and some 
 of the objurgations must have been very emphatic, for 
 he jumped, startled, to the curb, and thej-e, as they 
 passed he stood smiling apologetically, lifting his soft 
 woollen cap from his curling black hair and bowing with 
 an accompanying backward sweep of one rubber-booted 
 leg. 
 
 In the course of human events, as they are directed 
 and advanced by municipal energy, Mulberry Bend is 
 to be converted into a park. For the sunlight and air 
 so introduced into that neighborhood we shall all feel 
 appropriately proud of our share in the achievement, 
 yet I cannot but regret that even with all the delibera 
 tion our rulers may exercise in this matter, the trans 
 formation of the Bend into the park will have taken 
 place before any American painter shall have found 
 time from working up his " Naples sketches" and elab 
 orating his " scenes from Cairo streets" into ambitious 
 canvases, to step over into the Bend and preserve its 
 
SWEATERS FREIGHT. 
 "Hurried along, not speaking to those they passed." Page 61. 
 
Eleanor s Glimpse of Tenement Hades. 61 
 
 distinctive color and action for those of us who care. 
 He might even conceal his indiscretion by labelling his 
 picture "Street Scene in an Italian Town," and sell it, 
 i faith! 
 
 As they turned down Bayard Street, and then into 
 Baxter, Eleanor shivered as one who steps from sun 
 light into the silent, solemn shade of a vault. Every 
 condition of life which could affect mind or body was 
 reversed. The people, from the youngest to the oldest, 
 were speechless and grave and hopeless-looking. Men 
 staggered past, their bodies bent almost double under 
 what seemed impossible loads of clothing they were 
 carrying to and from the sweaters and the workshop- 
 homes; women carrying similar bundles on their heads, 
 or perhaps a bundle of wood from some builder s waste, 
 hurried along, not speaking to those they passed ; none of 
 the children seen was much more than a baby in years, 
 and they were silent too, and had no games: they were 
 in the street because while the sweaters work went on 
 there was no room for them in their homes. In the 
 dress of none was any bright color seen, and the only 
 sounds were the occasional cry of a hurt child, the snarl 
 ing of the low-browed men who solicited trade for the 
 clothing stores, quarrelling for the possession of a chance 
 victim ; and always, as the grinding ocean surf mutters 
 an accompaniment to all other shore sounds always, 
 always, always! was heard the whirring monotone of 
 the sewing-machine. 
 
 Carminella, who was looking for a number, stopped 
 before the entrance to a low, dark, tunnel-like passage 
 way, by the side of an equally low, dark and forbidding 
 drinking-saloon. 
 
 " It is the back tenement of this number," said Car 
 minella, and as she saw a slight, instinctive shrinking 
 
62 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 in her companion she took her hand. They walked 
 through the long entrance, which was damp with the 
 chill dampness which even midsummer heat never 
 wholly dispels. They came out into a small, narrow 
 court roughly paved with stone and bricks and so over 
 shadowed by tall buildings it was only a little less dark 
 than the passage-way. An Italian had just brought into 
 the court an enormous sack of waste paper, which his 
 wife and three children were aiding him to assort. 
 
 "There are few of my people on this side of the 
 block," said Carminella, as if she were sorry they had 
 happened upon this group. "These have just come 
 from Italy," she added, with a quick noting of their 
 clothes, " and they will be on our side of the block as 
 soon as some one dies there and makes room." Eleanor 
 was looking at what seemed to be a low bank of refuse 
 lying against the south wall of the court. 
 
 " Cannot we make some one at least take that away?" 
 she said to Carminella. The child spoke to the man in 
 Italian. The man grinned, and made a reply. Then 
 Carminella said, " It is snow, Miss Helen. It must stay 
 till it is melted. It takes a long time to warm these 
 courts, and then to cool them." Carminella asked the 
 woman if she knew in what rooms Lena s family lived: 
 no, she did not know, she had only been there three 
 weeks, and knew the name of no one in the tenement. 
 Carminella stepped toward the open stairway, but 
 Eleanor did not follow at once. She looked affrighted, 
 and as Carminella returned to her, she heard her whis 
 per: "God in heaven! Can nothing be done for such 
 as these?" And then in a tenser whisper, " Inasmuch 
 as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
 Carminella interrupted her by laying a hand softly on 
 her arm. "Wait," the child whispered, "wait till you 
 
Eleanor s Glimpse of Tenement Hades. 63 
 
 have seen the others. My people can smile. Did you 
 not see these smile? The others never smile. They 
 cannot." 
 
 This was the first actual glimpse Eleanor had ever 
 caught of the picture which society, ever weaving 
 pleasing harmonies in bright colors in the light, weaves 
 in the dark on the reverse side of the social tapestry : 
 but as yet merely the edge of the fabric had been turned 
 for her inspection. Gathering herself with a start she 
 followed Carminella into the entrance and up the stair 
 way of the rear tenement. The effluvia from the reek 
 ing wooden stairs, the odor of cooking cabbage which 
 came in clouds of steam from some of the open doors, 
 the sense of what she had seen, the dawning suspicion 
 of what she was to see, overcame her for a moment at 
 the first landing. She clutched Carminella in the dark 
 and gasped as though she were stifled. " It is silly, but 
 I cannot go on now. How much further?" 
 
 They found their way at last; and by a process of re 
 jection, going one flight further when every tenant on 
 a floor had professed ignorance of Lena. 
 
 At the rear of the fourth landing an open door led 
 into a small room with two windows looking on a nar 
 row court, little more than a passageway, facing some 
 wooden sheds used to stable pedlers horses. In 
 this room, as in nearly every one they had passed, 
 people were at work making clothing. Here there 
 were four men, a woman, a girl of probably sixteen 
 years of age, a boy younger than she, and two younger 
 girls. The youngest of the girls was seated on the 
 floor with disordered heaps of clothing all about her, 
 pulling threads from finished garments the other work 
 ers tossed to her. Three men were running sewing- 
 machines; the others were doing hand-sewing, or press- 
 
64 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 ing, and the arms of all were black to the elbow from 
 the dye of the coarse, cheap stiiff they worked on. As 
 Eleanor and her companion stopped at the open door 
 all of the toilers looked up for one hasty glance, but 
 without an instant s pause in their labor, all but the 
 youngest child. It was Lena. She gave a little cry of 
 recognition, and laid down her work as if to rise, but 
 a scowl from one of the men, her father, caused her to 
 continue her endless task. Lena could speak a little 
 English, the two hundred words or so, of English, such 
 as it is, which is the common language of all the chil 
 dren of the tenements, whatever may be the native 
 tongue of their parents. Carminella knew this lan 
 guage and also knew a few words of the Hebrew jargon 
 which was Lena s vernacular, and which she mixed with 
 her street vocabulary. As Carminella stepped into the 
 one little unoccupied space just inside the door, Eleanor 
 leaned against the door frame, glad of that partial rest, 
 for she was faint. Both the windows were closed, and 
 on a little coal stove against the sides of which were 
 propped a number of pressing irons, was a steaming 
 kettle of cabbage. The men at work each wore above 
 his trousers only a widely-gaping, sleeveless, cotton 
 undershirt; the woman and the children, including the 
 sixteen-year-old girl, were clothed above the waist in 
 much the same fashion as the men. After the first 
 short, suspicious scrutiny, none in the room except 
 Lena showed any consciousness of the presence of the 
 visitors. She, continuing her work with one hand, 
 made an effort with the other to catch together at the 
 throat the one garment over her shoulders, and she 
 looked up at Carminella as if aware of the object of the 
 visit, and ready to reply when she should be questioned. 
 And when Carminella did question her, Lena explained 
 
THE STRICKEN SLAVE. 
 Staring at her with irrational eyes." Page 65. 
 
Eleanor s Glimpse of Tenement Hades. 65 
 
 in language which was nearly as incomprehensible to 
 Eleanor as it was to Lena s work-fellows, although they 
 considered it English. She had been kept from school 
 by her father and mother to do the work an eight-year- 
 old sister had been doing until she was taken sick. 
 When she was well Lena would return to school. 
 
 Lena did not explain that her father wanted her to 
 stay in school until she could speak and read and write 
 English so that she could communicate with the Chris 
 tians who gave out work, and thus, perhaps, avert the 
 calamity of idleness when the family could get no 
 work from its own people. 
 
 Carminella translated what Lena said for Eleanor, 
 who, when she heard of the sick eight-year-old, tried to 
 peer into a dark inner room adjoining. " Ask her if her 
 sister is in there or at the hospital, and what she is sick 
 with," she said to Carminella. Lena explained again: 
 her sister was sick of a fever; she did not know what 
 fever. A woman in the tenement, whose husband was 
 a rag-picker, had said she would tell him to stop where 
 the doctors were and tell them of the sickness. 
 
 Lena s story was interrupted by a startled cry from 
 Eleanor, who had seen in a corner of the room a stricken, 
 fevered child s face rise slowly, staring at her with ir 
 rational eyes across a wall of unfinished work, built 
 above a pile of finished clothing which made the child s 
 sick-bed. 
 
 " It is the sick one," said Lena. 
 
 "Has she no bed?" exclaimed Eleanor. "Not even 
 a cot in the other room?" 
 
 " No, the boarders" Lena indicated the three men 
 working by her father s side "sleep in that room." 
 The family, seven, all slept in the room in which they 
 were working. 
 
66 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 " Has the child no care, no nursing, no delicacies?" 
 Eleanor asked. 
 
 Carminella could not make all of this understood by 
 Lena. She said at last, however, that her, Lena s 
 school-dress, had been pawned that morning, and with 
 the money her father bought a quarter of a chicken in 
 Hester Street, and it was now cooking in the pot with 
 the cabbage. The others would have no chicken, they 
 would have cabbage and black bread for dinner. 
 
 " Is it all you want to know?" whispered Carminella 
 to Eleanor. 
 
 " No," said Eleanor, with tightly drawn lips, " I want 
 to know all I can. I thought I knew something of this 
 life; I know nothing. Ask her ask her why, because 
 her sister could not work, she could not go to school." 
 
 The sewing-machines clicked and whirred, the 
 needles of the hand-sewers flashed in and out with the 
 steady regularity of machinery, and all the toilers bent 
 steadily, sombrely over their tasks as Lena, not neglect 
 ing her own work, however, again explained. 
 
 It was pitiful that she could explain, not so little, but 
 so much as she did. This child who in another condi 
 tion of society would be treated as only emerging from 
 babyhood, as just maturing at best into a mental ca 
 pacity to be safely vexed with the mysteries of A, B, 
 and C, with the sums of one and one, and two and two 
 told with a surprisingly flexible use of her frugal vocab 
 ulary (yet a vocabulary born of the necessity of under 
 standing such matters, if nothing else, and God knows 
 how seldom the understanding of anything else comes 
 into their lives!), explained, I say, this six-year-old 
 sweaters slave, as her bare, thin, dye-blackened arms 
 moved with sharp activity which never ceased from 
 daylight until far into the night, when nature dragged 
 
Eleanor s Glimpse of Tenement Hades. 67 
 
 them, listless, to her side and her head sank in restless 
 sleep on a pillow of her own work, while her elders 
 yet toiled on that, when they all worked, the family 
 earned six dollars a week! Not every week: some 
 times more, much more than that. But sometimes, 
 also, the cutters who prepared their work for them in 
 the big shops were out on strike, and they earned noth 
 ing; sometimes trade was dull, and they earned less 
 than six dollars a week: sometimes, too, when ships 
 brought to the city many loads of their people who had 
 escaped from the other country, wages went down, as 
 now, when for finishing " pants" they were paid but 
 five cents a pair; for " knee-pants" forty-two cents a 
 dozen ; for covering wooden buttons, the children s task 
 when other work was light, four cents a gross. In good 
 times and bad their wages came to six dollars a week at 
 the end of the year, so she could not go to school when 
 the fever took away one of the family from the work. 
 When her sister was well she would be back in school, 
 and then she would only have to work from daylight 
 until school-time, and after school hours until dark. 
 
 " But it will be better than this, something must 
 make it better than this," interrupted Eleanor, with a 
 sobbing break in her voice. 
 
 When Lena was made to understand the question she 
 spoke to her father and translated his reply, given som 
 brely as he worked, " Nothing would ever be better. 
 The wages always went down. The rent never did." 
 
 "Is there nothing to hope for then?" exclaimed 
 Eleanor. Carminella tried, but tried in vain, to render 
 this question to the little interpreter. Lena shook her 
 head. She could not understand. The word hope 
 was as foreign to her vocabulary as the thing it meant 
 was to their lives. 
 
68 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 Eleanor felt herself growing faint again, the air of 
 the hot, close room was lifeless: the odors from the per 
 spiring, unclean bodies of the workers, the coarse fumes 
 from the boiling cabbage, the steam arising from the 
 dampened shoddy under the hot iron of the presser, the 
 indescribable scent from the fever-scorched, uncared-for 
 patient, and the utter misery of it all made her weak 
 and dizzy. She had just made a faint motion for Car- 
 minella to come away with her, when a health officer, 
 of whose approach her ringing ears had taken no note, 
 stood by her side at the door. He recognized her as a 
 charity worker in the district in which his paid services 
 were employed, and raised his hat respectfully as he 
 said : " A case, supposed to be fever, has been reported 
 from this apartment. Have you been investigating it?" 
 
 " I only learned of it by accident," Eleanor replied. 
 
 He noted her weak voice and swooning look, and 
 promptly strode over the strewn confusion of garments 
 to the windows and threw both of them open. The 
 instant he entered the room the boy, probably ten 
 years of age, and a girl a year his senior, cried, parrot- 
 like, "Fourteen!" 
 
 " They are telling their age ; they think he is a truant 
 officer," Carminella whispered in explanation to Elea 
 nor. " That is what they are all taught to say, so they 
 will not be sent to school. It is the same in the shops, 
 when the factory inspector comes. " 
 
 Eleanor was not listening. She was eagerly watch 
 ing the health officer, who had gone to the sick child, 
 and was closely examining her. Then he went over to 
 the door and said to Eleanor: "Do not be alarmed at 
 what I say, but my duties require me to exercise some 
 authority over your immediate movements. I happen 
 to know who you are, and that Dr. Bailey is your fam- 
 
Eleanor s Glimpse of Tenement Hades. 69 
 
 ily physician. I was in his office as a student. You 
 have been exposed here to typhus fever. You must go 
 home at once and send for Dr. Bailey." 
 
 He stopped as if in conjecture. Eleanor looked as 
 if she had not understood a word he had spoken. 
 
 " How will you reach your home?" he asked, and 
 added, "you would expose others in a street car." 
 
 " My carriage is just at Broadway," she answered. 
 
 Again he paused, as if determining a plan, and then 
 said rapidly : " I will go and bring your carriage as far 
 as Centre Street. You will reach there no sooner than 
 I do. You will drive then to your stables, not to your 
 house. I will telephone to Dr. Bailey, who will meet 
 you there." 
 
 He started to go, but turned to the workers and 
 asked sharply, "Any one speak English here?" 
 
 " Me," Lena replied. No one else even looked up. 
 
 " None of this clothing must be taken out, and none 
 of you must leave the room until I return. You under 
 stand?" 
 
 "Yes," said Lena. 
 
 Eleanor reached the carriage, nervous and distressed. 
 The health officer mistook the cause of her agitation 
 and began to reassure her as to the remoteness, in her 
 case at least, of the danger from contagion. 
 
 "No, no, you do not understand," she cried impetu 
 ously. " I do not fear or care for myself, but I have 
 exposed this child, Carminella, here. It is I who am 
 to blame if anything happens to her. She must come 
 with me." 
 
 The officer forbade this. Carminella was near her 
 own home, where he could take immediate precautions 
 for her. He would go with her himself to her home. 
 For her to go with Miss Hazelhurst would be only 
 
70 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 an additional possible danger to whoever attended 
 them. 
 
 " Promise me then that Carminella shall have every 
 attention from you Dr. Bailey will give me. There 
 must be no question of expense," urged Eleanor. 
 
 "I promise you," he said. 
 
 Before the health officer had completed these 
 promised arrangements for Carminella s safety, Lena s 
 father had secured the aid of a tenant from another 
 floor, who was soon staggering toward a clothing fac 
 tory, bent beneath the mound of garments which had 
 made the typhus-fever patient s bed; each garment 
 to be offered for sale over some counter the next day; 
 a bargain, verily, for a death-warrant would be in 
 cluded free with every garment ! 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE CRIME IN THE NIANTIC. 
 
 I VE been wanting these many pages to get away from 
 the tenements, and I feel much pride and satisfaction in 
 the fact that now we are going on a visit to the Niantic 
 Building. It has already been said, I think, that the 
 Niantic is in Exchange Place between Broad and Wil 
 liam streets, and that is enough for those who know. 
 That locates it as one of the old-fashioned, five-story, 
 granite office-buildings where commercial aristocracy 
 transacts its business affairs in the same manner as 
 when the tenants of the building lived on Barclay 
 Street, or Park Place, or thereabouts, and took drives to 
 the homes of that venturesome colony of other aristo 
 crats, who had located out in the country, as far up-town 
 as Washington Square. 
 
 Only one modern improvement had been made in the 
 Niantic in the memory of man: an elevator, the small 
 est and slowest of its kind, had been selected after years 
 of thought and consultation between the owner, the 
 agent, and the janitor, Dan Lyon. 
 
 The offices in the Niantic are large, none of your 
 modern cubby-holes chiefly occupied by steam heaters 
 and various electrical contrivances. In these big offices 
 there are open grates for fires, and when the head of an 
 office wants any one in his employ he rings a hand-bell, 
 which sooner or later brings a "junior clerk," who 
 summons the person wanted. The business transacted 
 
72 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 there seems principally to relate to " The Estate of," for 
 old-fashioned Dutch names appear on nearly all the 
 office doors, and generally under the name is the le 
 gend: "The Estate of." 
 
 There is one suite of offices occupied by the Amer 
 ican agent of the Anglo-African Trading Co., and the 
 secretary of the American Society for the Deportation 
 of Escaped Slaves to the West Coast of Africa. The 
 agent and the secretary are the same man, but his name 
 does not appear. Perhaps because he is modest, but 
 more likely because his predecessor did not have his 
 name up. The reason for doing most things as they are 
 done in the Niantic is that they were done so in the 
 beginning. 
 
 There is a lawyer, and a very great one, in the Ni 
 antic who, influenced by the atmosphere of the build 
 ing, declines to use the typewriter, and all his papers 
 are copied by hand and by clerks who write with quill 
 pens. Some other lawyers say that his handwriting and 
 quill-pen scheme retains the Niantic lawyer a very de 
 sirable line of clients; so there may be something prac 
 tical, after all, in being old-fashioned. 
 
 Once the agent of the building, a philistine with an 
 office on Broadway, suggested to Dan that he and the 
 elevator boy should wear uniforms as janitors and ele 
 vator conductors in all big buildings did, and Dan 
 promptly threatened to resign his place. The owner 
 heard of it, and sharply told the agent that Dan was 
 not to be coerced in the matter of uniform or anything 
 else. 
 
 "And I guess he was right," said the agent, good-na 
 turedly, telling Dan about it afterward, " for I believe 
 if you left us every tenant in the building would move 
 out and we would have to put up a new building, for 
 
MARK WATERS. 
 His brow habitually wore a frown. 1 Page 73. 
 
The Crime in the Niantic. 73 
 
 no one else would come in here and pay the rent these 
 clear old fossils do." 
 
 Dan was dumb with amazement at this heinous libel 
 on the Niantic tenants. Not till the agent had left did 
 he make vocal his indignation, and then he said to 
 Dick, the elevator conductor: "The Niantic has the 
 finest lot of gentlemen in the city barring one and 
 these patent, new, cubby-hole, up-in-the-sky buildings 
 would be glad to have them. How would I look in 
 buttons and gold lace; me, an American-born citizen? 
 I d be a disgrace to the Niantic." 
 
 Dick knew who Dan referred to when he " barred one" 
 from his classification of the Niantic tenants as " the 
 finest gentlemen in the city." On the fourth floor were 
 two offices occupied by the latest tenant in the build 
 ing, the only one to move in, in fact, during the past 
 ten years. On one of the doors of these fourth-floor 
 offices was a sign which read " Philip Ormsbee Peyton," 
 and in smaller letters the words " Estate of," and lower 
 down, at the bottom of the ground-glass panel, " Mark 
 Waters." Waters was the only man in the building 
 with whom Dan was not on friendly terms. The new 
 tenant, who had been in the building two years, was a 
 man about forty-five years of age, rather imposing in 
 stature, with a fairly good face so long as you were not 
 conscious of the coarse lips nearly concealed by a heavy, 
 reddish moustache. His brow habitually wore a frown, 
 which you might take to mean sullenness and suspicion, 
 or studiousness and concentration of mind, as. you dis 
 liked or liked him. Waters had a disagreeable scene 
 with Dan when he first moved in, because Dan had 
 entered Waters private office, when he wanted to speak 
 to him on business. Waters had sworn at him and 
 threatened to have him discharged for daring to enter 
 
 7 
 
74 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 his office unasked, although the door was open and 
 Dan had business, but Dan s surprise and total freedom 
 from alarm in receiving the threat had caused Waters 
 to alter his manner. When the new tenant learned, as 
 he soon did learn, that Dan was treated by the other 
 tenants as an old and confidential personal employee, 
 he endeavored to efface the first bad impression he had 
 made. But Dan was proud, and was not without sus 
 picions. He returned the modest check Waters gave 
 him the first Christmas he was there, and thereafter 
 spoke to him only when obliged by his own duties as 
 janitor. 
 
 Late one warm spring afternoon it was the first of 
 May, indeed, and on the first of any month many people 
 go to the Niantic Building to pay rents to the various 
 " Estates of" Mr. Waters remained in his office until 
 after the occupants of all the others had departed ; had 
 joined, as they went their various ways, the rivulets 
 running toward the streams rushing toward the tor 
 rents pouring into the ferries, the elevated, and surface 
 cars, and the out-of-town steamers, which every day 
 drain the lower end of Manhattan Island of its sea of 
 humanity the reservoir-like office buildings gather and 
 store and discharge every day. And Lord! what is the 
 use of it all? 
 
 Waters was in his private office, which, like his clerk s, 
 had a door opening into the hall, and both doors as 
 well as the windows were open, for the heat of the day 
 had been excessive and was still radiating from the 
 mountains of steel and granite near-by and keeping the 
 air hot. Waters was looking at some papers which he 
 had taken from a long, folding pocket-book, open on the 
 desk before him, when his clerk timidly called him. 
 
 He started nervously, closed the pocket-book over the 
 
The Crime in the Niantic. 75 
 
 papers and turned toward the door leading to the other 
 room where his clerk stood. 
 
 "There are some letters to sign," the clerk said. 
 
 Waters rose and stood pressing a thumb on the pock 
 et-book. "And I suppose you want to go," he said to 
 the clerk gruffly. 
 
 "If I don t catch the six o clock train I can t take 
 one which stops at my station until seven," the clerk 
 said apologetically. 
 
 " Yes, I ve heard that a thousand times before. Bring 
 the letters." 
 
 The clerk took a step toward him, when Waters, cast 
 ing a glance at the papers open on the desk, walked 
 hurriedly toward the clerk, and said: "I ll sign them 
 at your desk." 
 
 At the very instant he left his office a Chinaman 
 walked into it from the hall, through the open door. 
 He looked into the other room, saw that neither man 
 there had noticed him, stepped over to the desk, picked 
 up the pocket-book, and noiselessly left the office, and 
 as noiselessly, but with rapid steps, walked down the 
 stairs and out into the street. There he reduced his 
 gait to the usual lazy swing of his people, walked to the 
 corner of William Street, when he turned and looked 
 back. There was no one in that early-deserted block, 
 and he turned and walked again to the Niantic Build 
 ing. He went to the elevator entrance and rang for 
 that sedate conveyance. When it reached the ground- 
 floor Tom Lyon stepped out, said good-by to Dick and 
 hurried away. Then Dick said to the Chinaman: 
 " Everybody gone, John. Elevator no run." 
 
 The Chinaman turned as if to go, but said : " Want to 
 pay lent to Mista Walta. Him gone?" 
 
 " Oh no, I guess not Get aboard and pay your rent. " 
 
76 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 The elevator had just started when a hoarse cry was 
 heard from the fourth floor. "Janitor! Lyon ! Ele 
 vator boy! Somebody, quick! I ve been robbed. Get 
 an officer quick. Somebody who left the building this 
 minute has robbed me!" 
 
 The elevator from below, and Dan Lyon from his 
 little office on the half-floor above, reached the fourth 
 floor at the same moment. 
 
 "Who has left this building within five minutes?" 
 shouted Waters. 
 
 His usually deeply flushed face was pale and streaked, 
 and he was evidently trying to control a tremendous 
 agitation. 
 
 Dan looked at Waters, then at Dick, seeking some 
 explanation. The Chinaman, apparently oblivious of 
 any excitement, smiled and bowed and said, "Boss send 
 me with lent, Mista Walta." Waters did not notice 
 him: "Can t you speak!" he roared at the others. 
 " Who just left the building?" 
 
 " Who?" repeated Dan, looking to the elevator boy. 
 
 " Tom ; no one else." 
 
 " No one has left since the offices closed, but my son, 
 Tom," Dan then said to Waters. 
 
 " He robbed my office, then ; where is he? Where " 
 
 Waters suddenly stopped and stepped back, for Dan 
 advanced toward him with a look that would have 
 cowed a braver man than he. 
 
 " My son Thomas robbed no one. Don t say that 
 again," he said in a voice that was low, but terrible 
 with rage. 
 
 "I took Tom up to Dan s office. He spoke to his 
 father in my sight, while I waited for him, and he 
 went down with me. He was on no other floor," put 
 in Dick eagerly. 
 
The Crime in the Niantic. 77 
 
 Waters* manner suddenly changed. " I was excited," 
 he said. "It s been a hot and busy day and I ve been 
 annoyed. I missed something from my desk and 
 thought it had been stolen. I ll look for it again. 
 Here you," he exclaimed to the innocently smiling 
 Chinaman, " where s your rent? Take it to my clerk," 
 and Waters went to his office, closing the doors behind 
 him. " That janitor s cub stole the book and they are 
 trying to shield him," he muttered excitedly, when he 
 was alone. He made another hopeless search of his 
 desk and the whole office for the missing book. The 
 clerk had receipted for the rent of the Chinatown store, 
 which honest Chung had brought from his employer, 
 and Chung, smiling and bowing, left the office and 
 walked out of the building in a careless, lounging man 
 ner, richer by how much he knew not, for he had not 
 yet examined the pocket-book mere chance had thrown 
 in his way. 
 
 Chung was not a professional thief. He was employed 
 in the store of his uncle Fong, a merchant of Mott 
 Street, and though he was much fonder of gambling 
 and smoking opium than selling lily-bulbs, bad tea, and 
 poor china for ten times their worth to white sight 
 seeing customers, he had never been in open conflict 
 with the law. He entered the Niantic Building that 
 afternoon on business; to pay the rent his uncle owed 
 the estate of Philip Ormsbee Peyton, as was his custom 
 on the first of every month. He was late, the elevator 
 was not in sight, the halls were deserted and quiet, and 
 prompted in part by his belief that the elevator had 
 ceased running for the day, and led partly by the 
 fascination of wandering alone through the silent halls 
 of a building which, to his mind, was the repository of 
 boundless wealth, he had slowly, noiselessly, strolled 
 
78 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 up the stairs. He saw no one; no one saw him. The 
 elevator was waiting at the landing by Dan s office, 
 where Tom had gone with a message to his father from 
 Mr. Dean. Chung reached the open door of Mr. Waters 
 private office just as Waters stepped into the clerk s 
 room. The Chinaman s alert eye caught sight of the 
 pocket-book. He knew that his cloth soled shoes would 
 make no sound on the carpeted floor, and without a 
 moment s hesitation he seized the opportunity to take 
 what he hoped would provide funds wherewith he might 
 turn the long opposing tide of fortune at the gaming 
 tables. His cunning in returning as he did prevented 
 the slightest suspicion against him, and as Waters sat 
 staring at his desk he became convinced that Tom Lyon 
 had stolen the book. Waters was strangely agitated. 
 The unnoticed clerk made a dozen futile attempts to 
 attract his employer s attention, that he might ask 
 permission to depart, and wondered at the evidence of 
 fear as much as rage he saw on Waters face. He 
 knew his employer s habits well enough to know that 
 the pocket-book did not contain much money, not more 
 than a hundred dollars, probably. To Waters that 
 would be a small loss; for, besides the estate of Pey 
 ton. Waters was the manager of several properties, 
 richer estates and trusts, which paid well, as the clerk 
 knew. Waters, harsh and brutal as the clerk knew him 
 to be, was not a penurious man except in the matter 
 of salary, sighed the clerk. He wondered if he was 
 to be kept from his suburban home until after the 
 seven-thirty train had left, and incur the expense of a 
 dinner in town. He coughed apologetically as he 
 thought of this, and Waters, hearing him, exclaimed: 
 " I thought you had gone. Go home. " 
 
The Crime in the Niantic. 79 
 
 The clerk picked up his lunch satchel and hurriedly 
 departed. 
 
 " If those papers fall into the hands of that damned 
 janitor who hates me, I m done for," groaned Waters. 
 
 He made a sudden resolve, locked his office, and 
 hurried down the stairs. He passed Dan at the street 
 entrance and tried to appear good-natured as he nodded 
 and said: "It s been a hot, busy day, Dan, and I was 
 tired and worried. Don t think about what I said." 
 
 Dan did not reply, and Waters hurried into Broad 
 Street, where he found a hack waiting for such belated 
 office-men as he, and glancing over his shoulder to see 
 that Dan was not watching, he whispered to the driver 
 as he entered the hack, " To police headquarters." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WAR, ART, AND A BREAKFAST. 
 
 WHEN Tom left his father s office he returned at once 
 to the Tivoli Theatre to keep an engagement there in 
 which he was much interested. He was to submit to 
 a newspaper man a drawing for an illustration in the 
 Daily Guardian. This chance, which had been one of 
 the day-dreams Tom most cherished, had come about 
 by accident, an accident which did much to influence 
 Tom s career. The night before there had been a cas 
 ualty on the Tivoli stage reported in brief notes in most 
 of the papers in traditional language, as " A Scene not 
 Down on the Bills. " A burlesque, " The Forty Thieves, " 
 was being played in which the fair Morgana was repre 
 sented by but I shall not tell you her name. She is 
 known in the Bowery theatres, where she is yet playing, 
 as Aline, and that is not at all like the name she bore 
 when she charmed an older generation in Broadway 
 theatres. Aline confessed to forty years, and has for 
 a decade, and I am as certain she was not sixty as I am 
 that she still looks not over thirty. As Morgana she is 
 as fair and sprightly and smart as her daughter, who is 
 playing the same line of characters in uptown theatres 
 without half mamma s chic. Anyway, Morgana breaks 
 Bowery hearts with the same ease and frequency she shat 
 tered the harder hearts of Broadway a score of years ago. 
 
 The night before the theft in the Niantic Building 
 a sailor-man, pursuing the object of his devotion with 
 
 80 
 
War, Art, and a Breakfast. 81 
 
 Jack-ashore impetuosity, had managed to elude the 
 stage-doorkeeper of the Tivoli, and appeared before 
 the amazed Morgana just as that lady was posed behind 
 a piece of scenery which was to be run back to disclose 
 her to an admiring audience. There was no time to 
 protest, no time to explain. Jack threw himself down 
 on his knees before his fair enslaver, and holding in 
 his outstretched hands a monster bouquet of faded roses 
 wired to a fat bundle of sticks, was pouring forth an im 
 passioned declaration of love when the scenery was run 
 back, and the unexpected picture disclosed to a hilarious 
 ly delighted audience. Jack favored the audience with 
 a profound wink, and awaited his Morgana s answer. 
 There was a sudden explosion of curses in the wing where 
 the stage-manager and his assistants were, and their 
 cries of despair deepened as a wilder roar of laughter 
 followed a sudden hot renewal of Jack s love declaration. 
 
 Tom happened to be standing in the wing, and his 
 wit came to the rescue. There was much opening and 
 closing of traps in the piece, and Tom knew that the 
 mechanics beneath the stage were alert for signals. 
 Marking that Jack knelt directly in the centre of a 
 double-door trap, Tom gave the signal to open it. 
 With the mysterious suddenness which belongs to such 
 disappearances Jack was swallowed out of sight in a 
 black hole, the doors swung back into place, and the 
 incident was ended: all but the laughter and cheers, 
 and the enthusiastic demands for Jack s reappearance. 
 
 News of the incident reached the row of reporters 
 offices opposite police headquarters, on Mulberry Street, 
 and the reporter who went to the Tivoli for all the 
 others was Philip Peyton, of the Guardian. 
 
 Tom told him the story with such good nature and 
 appreciation of its value that the newspaper man said 
 
82 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 in parting, " This is worth only an item in the morning 
 but I think there is a Sunday special story in it, with 
 more incidents of the same character. Do you think 
 you can give me some stuff if I call to-morrow?" 
 
 Tom said he thought he could and the next day, soon 
 after noon, Peyton called at the Tivoli. Tom had made 
 some pen-and-ink sketches of the Jack-Morgana inci 
 dent and was excitedly wondering how he could bring 
 about an opportunity to submit them to Peyton. The 
 latter made everything easy. His first question was, 
 " Have you been to lunch?" 
 
 Tom had not. 
 
 "Then let s go over to Faylor s and have something 
 to eat. I have not had breakfast yet, and besides it is 
 more comfortable to talk over a table with something on 
 it to eat and drink." 
 
 Tom agreed. He had never been at Faylor s, but he 
 knew where that fine, old-fashioned restaurant was, as 
 he knew every place of note of every kind south of 
 Fourteenth Street. He had no more thought of it as a 
 place he might patronize than he had thought of ever 
 entering any of those quiet, old, red-brick homes in the 
 lowei end of Fifth Avenue and on North Washington 
 Square, which, to his mind, instinctively represented 
 the best of civilization which wealth gives to the edu 
 cated. Much of the rough finish of Mulberry Bend had 
 been smoothed down on Tom by the attrition of the 
 Life Class. Not all. There were places on the surface 
 of his character where the manner and morals of the 
 Bend had cut in too deep to be polished out by a few 
 years of casual rubbing against less rugged planes. 
 Something happened before they left the Bowery which 
 showed this. Tom had stopped to speak to a messenger 
 who ran after him from the theatre, and Peyton strolled 
 
THE PULLER-IN. 
 The low-browed, brutal-faced pest." Page 83. 
 
War, Art, and a Breakfast. 83 
 
 slowly along. As he was passing a cheap-clothing 
 house, its sidewalk solicitor, one of those whose ener 
 getic efforts on behalf of trade sometimes lead to mur 
 der, the low-browed, brutal-faced pest known as the 
 "puller-in," with the sole purpose to annoy, nagged the 
 newspaper man to enter the store. Peyton paid no 
 attention to his tormentor, who finally placed a heav) 7 , 
 dirty hand on his shoulder. Just as Peyton brushed the 
 dirty hand from his shoulder Tom came up. The 
 puller-in again attempted to put his hand on Peyton, 
 when, with a lightning-like suddenness and precision, 
 Tom struck the fellow in the face with his fist, tripped 
 him with his heel, throwing him heavily, and then 
 kicked him in the jaw. It was not a light kick. It 
 was a heavy one, meant to stun, and it did. The three 
 movements by which the ugly brute had been laid low 
 and senseless did not seem to take a second of time, and 
 the next second Tom had slipped his hand in Peyton s 
 arm and was walking him westward, unmindful of the 
 din and outcry behind him, and winking at a policeman 
 who hurried the other way. Peyton was shaking with 
 excitement. It was minutes before he spoke. 
 
 "Why did you do that?" he said. He was surprised 
 at the entirely unagitated manner in which Tom re 
 plied: "Why, that mug was looking for trouble. He 
 didn t do a thing to a man except kill him less than a 
 year ago in a scrap he brought on by doing just what 
 he did to you. He got off on the grounds of self- 
 defence. I ve just been crazy to get a crack at him 
 ever since. If you had struck him, the gang from in 
 side the store we heard yelping would have jumped 
 you, and you d have been minus your watch, scarf-pin, 
 and probably an eye and a tooth or two, in a minute. 
 They did not dare to jump me, because they knew me, 
 
84 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 and kr>ew that if I d been jumped my friends would 
 have cleaned out the shop. That puller-in would not 
 have tackled you it he had seen that you were with me. 
 I had to give it to him as hard as I did, for if I d let 
 him up he d have probably pulled a knife." 
 
 Tom said all this in an indifferent and somewhat feel- 
 ingless manner, as if he were telling a more than twice- 
 told tale of the killing of a rattlesnake, long after the 
 adventure. 
 
 " But why did you run all that risk to save me the 
 annoyance of having that foul pig touch me again?" 
 Peyton asked. 
 
 Tom said slowly and seriously: " Because you are my 
 friend for one reason, and because he could have done 
 you." 
 
 " Done me? I don t quite understand," said Peyton. 
 
 " Done you; I mean whipped you," laughed Tom. 
 
 " But I am heavier than you, and possibly as good a 
 boxer," the other said, examining his companion criti 
 cally. 
 
 The men were of about the same height, an inch, 
 perhaps, to Tom s advantage. Peyton was sturdier in 
 build, as twenty-eight is apt to be sturdier than twenty- 
 two. The newspaper man was dark with a closely shorn 
 and pointed beard. Tom was light in all his coloring, 
 smooth-shaven and nervously thin, but his muscles were 
 all trained and hard. The two men regarded each other 
 for some time in half-amused silence, and Tom ran the 
 tips of his fingers knowingly down Peyton s shoulders 
 and arms, humming: 
 
 "Study the ankle, the elbow, the knee; 
 Pectoral muscles which no one can see. 
 Shoulders and hip-bones must always agree : 
 A la mode Kenyon Cox. " 
 
War, Art, and a Breakfast. #;> 
 
 "What s that?" Peyton asked, laughing. 
 
 "That s one of our Life-Class songs. You are well 
 muscled, Mr. Peyton. But when you want to thrash the 
 kind of a beast that puller-in is, you do it with your 
 nerves." 
 
 "Well, then, I thank you for your expenditure of 
 nervous force on my behalf. But what was that about 
 a Life Class?" said Peyton, in a manner dismissing the 
 other subject, in which he saw he could not interest 
 Tom. The new subject interested him intensely, and 
 at once. He told his new friend of his start in drawing 
 at the public school ; of the years in which he advanced 
 as far as he could be taken in Cooper Institute ; and of 
 his last three years in the League Life Class. And now, 
 he said, his teacher there had advised him to try outside 
 work, beginning, if he could find opportunity, with 
 pen-and-ink drawings for the newspapers. 
 
 Philip Peyton observed curiously the sudden change 
 in his companion. When he had been talking of the 
 incident which had made the gently-bred man tremble 
 with excitement, Tom had talked glibly, but as one 
 almost hardened, and the slang of the Bowery had 
 been close to the tip of his tongue. Now, when he 
 talked of his studies and his hopes, his manner was 
 almost diffident, and his words cautiously chosen and 
 slowly spoken, as if at times he had difficulty in supply 
 ing a conventional word in place of some first suggested 
 and illuminative term from his slang vocabulary. As 
 Tom talked, his companion recalled a German teacher 
 who, with his classes, spoke in English and German 
 indiscriminately, and in other company bridled his 
 tongue while his brain sought for the unaccustomed 
 English phrases. 
 
 At Faylor s Tom produced his drawings, and Philip, 
 
86 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 after ordering breakfast, examined them. Tom at the 
 same time examined his surroundings. They were as 
 new and strange to him as they would have been to a 
 Hottentot. But in a way which he could not have ex 
 plained if he had thought about it, he absorbed the 
 conventions, the atmosphere of the place, and made 
 them part of him ; was expanded by them, and to the 
 extent that they affect and educate, was ineffaceably 
 influenced by them. 
 
 I should remind you, perhaps, that Tom had never, 
 for instance, had a table napkin in his hand ; had never 
 seen more than one knife and fork placed beside a plate ; 
 had actually never been served at table by any person 
 other than one who was eating with him ; had never 
 seen wine drunk at meals. The restaurant was nearly 
 filled with ladies; detachments of the army of shoppers 
 who, not to delay their feverishly important operations 
 in preparation for the summer campaign, like Sherman s 
 army, foraged freely on the neighboring plantations; 
 and Faylor s has long been one of the most popular 
 plantations with that fair and peaceful army. 
 
 Peyton looked up from the drawings and was sur 
 prised and puzzled not to see Tom eagerly waiting his 
 judgment. "Isn t it all fine: picturesque, alive, well 
 colored and and illustrative and, and isn t it bully?" 
 Tom whispered when he saw Philip looking at him. 
 
 "What! the drawings?" Peyton almost gasped. 
 
 "Oh, damn the drawings!" Tom exclaimed im 
 patiently. " I mean this this scene, the people!" 
 
 " Why, yes," Philip replied a little doubtfully. " An 
 old-fashioned, or rather a conservative and quiet set of 
 people come here; the kind that still come this far 
 down-town to shop." 
 
 Tom did not comment or answer. He only half 
 
War, Art, and a Breakfast. 87 
 
 guessed Peyton s meaning, and the first course of the 
 breakfast arrived just then to divert them. Peyton had 
 no knowledge of Tom s history or antecedents. If he 
 guessed much during that breakfast he did not show 
 that he guessed at all. Tom s observation was quick 
 and trained, and he had an almost marvellous adapt 
 ability to his surroundings. Before the meal was fin 
 ished, and it was somewhat elaborate for the place, only 
 a close observer could have detected that Peyton s guest 
 was not accustomed to mid-day dejeuners a la fourchette. 
 The two men found each other sympathetic. Peyton 
 told Tom that he thought there was much merit and 
 decided style in his drawings, and if they were accept 
 able to his paper s art department he would try and get 
 him an order to illustrate the other stories he had told 
 him for his Sunday special article. 
 
 " There really should be nothing but original features 
 about this special article," Peyton said, "for the mere 
 suggestion of a special article by me is the most strik 
 ingly original thing that has happened in the Guardian 
 office in years. You see before you," he continued, in 
 a lazy, mock-serious manner, " one of the most pictur 
 esquely complete failures ever developed in newspaper- 
 dom. I have been advanced the noble sum of five 
 dollars a week twice since I began my professional 
 career on the Guardian, and am now drawing the glit 
 tering compensation of twenty-five dollars per week. 
 I have been tried in nearly every department of local 
 work, and in each have made a failure more signal than 
 its predecessor. I have been besought, ordered, begged, 
 commanded, and advised to do special work, and this 
 morning when I made my first suggestion for a special, 
 Stories of the Bowery Stage, my city editor, a patient, 
 long-suffering, but optimistic gentleman, experienced a 
 
88 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 slight shock of paralysis. He recovered sufficiently to 
 tell me there was hope for me yet, and to implore me 
 to get my copy in early in the week. So I have a day 
 off from Police Headquarters, where I am working at 
 my latest failure, to get this story from you. I shall 
 see you early this evening to let you know about the 
 other illustrations. Until then may heaven s choicest 
 blessings abide with you, and let us now go and barter 
 for some good cigars. " 
 
 This kind of fooling was new to Tom and delighted 
 him, as did all his experiences with his new friend. 
 He thought Peyton a wonderful man, his talk wonder 
 ful, his breakfast wonderful, and most wonderful of all 
 was the fact that he was going to have two or three and 
 perhaps more of his drawings published in the Guardian. 
 They parted good friends: each conscious of the other s 
 high regard. 
 
 When Tom hurried back to the Tivoli he reflected, 
 for the first time, that Peyton did not know really any 
 thing about him, except that he was an assistant scene- 
 painter, and had been a pupil in the League. He 
 wished he had told him where he lived, and his heart 
 sank with the sudden thought that his friend might not 
 have treated him just as he had if he knew he lived in 
 a Mulberry Bend tenement. He had met him under 
 false pretences! he accused himself. He dressed better 
 than his class, and that had deceived Peyton. When 
 he reached the Tivoli he found Teresa and Carminella 
 at the fruit-stand, and he rattled off a lively story of his 
 adventures. " And oh, Carminella, I wish you could 
 meet him!" he exclaimed. " He s a swell, a real swell, 
 I could tell that in a minute. " 
 
 "How?" interrupted Carminella, with serious, big- 
 eyed interest. 
 
War, Art, and a Breakfast. 89 
 
 "Oh, the his ensemble," Tom answered, calling 
 upon his League-Class vocabulary at this trying junc 
 ture. " His general appearance, walk, language, man 
 ner the way he made me feel at ease." This last with 
 conclusive emphasis. 
 
 "You would feel at ease anywhere," said Teresa, 
 with her impressive, slow speech, but she smiled good- 
 naturedly at her handsome young tenement-mate. 
 
 " Except in jail, Teresa," Tom laughed, as he ran into 
 the theatre. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 BEFORE AN INSPECTOR OF POLICE. 
 
 THE Bowery was awake for the night as Philip Pey 
 ton crossed it that evening on his way to the Tivoli to 
 keep his appointment with Tom Lyon. 
 
 The Bowery ! Tell me not its ancient glory has de 
 parted. As Philip saw it on that warm, bright, spring 
 evening he realized, as he never had before this born 
 New Yorker just now making his city s acquaintance 
 that the Bowery presents, to him who can see, a micro 
 cosm. There is man in worldly condition from wealth 
 to bitterest poverty ; in morals, from him who is devot 
 ing his life to following Christ s example among the 
 poor, to him to whom every crime and vice are familiar 
 by practice; in social planes, the absolute dictators of 
 their set (not uninfluenced by the conditions which 
 control the scions of wealth and ancient lineage further 
 north on Manhattan Island), to her who cannot even be 
 called a social outcast, for, not having been born into a 
 family, she never was cast out of that unit of the social 
 structure, yet knows enough of that social structure to 
 sullenly realize, sometimes, how admirably it is built if 
 its purpose be to keep her always in dumb, unprotesting 
 piteous degradation. One could carry on this kind of 
 contrast to the end, on the Bowery. There is the club 
 house called after the man who once went to the amazed 
 gentlemen composing the executive body of a National 
 Political Committee, and with grave brevity demon- 
 
 90 
 
Before an Inspector of Police. 91 
 
 strated that he controlled enough votes to throw his 
 district one way or the other; that the way his district 
 went the city would go, and as the city went the state 
 would go; and as the State of New York went that 
 year, the Presidential election would go. Then he re 
 minded his hearers that a man with less than his cun 
 ning and power, an ignorant bully, self-placed in control 
 of the criminal population of a seaside resort, once, in 
 pique, changed his politics, and with them the politics 
 of the administration of this great and glorious and free 
 American government. Next, he made certain con 
 ditions and gave the gentlemen an hour to accept them 
 and they were accepted. Standing in front of that 
 club-house, when Philip passed it, was a battered, 
 mumbling mass of flesh and bones and rags, a man, 
 picking at his own fingers, and vaguely longing for 
 another election day; for he recalled that on the last 
 one he had voted three times, had been paid fifty cents 
 for each vote, and had thereby, for once, been able to 
 get himself so drunk he forgot that he lived. It was a 
 glorious memory in the mangled mind of that citizen. 
 
 But it was not these phases of the Bowery which 
 entertained Philip. From the east, pouring in from 
 Grand Street, came troops of young men and women 
 from the homes of the well-to-do shop-keepers. They 
 were smartly dressed in the bright hues called out by 
 this first warm spring evening, and they made gay with 
 color and sound the Bowery throngs they joined. From 
 the west, from the streets between the Bowery and 
 Broadway, came the yet more brightly, if less smartly 
 dressed Italian women and girls; boisterous Irish- 
 American lads and lasses from the south, Monkey Hill 
 and Cherry Hill way. From the north, from Second 
 Avenue, Germans, by families, prosperous, pleasure- 
 
92 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 seeking, beer-hall bound. And from the fashionable 
 world stylishly-dressed parties of men, sometimes with 
 women, seeing the Bowery. There were scarlet women 
 in silks, with brilliant faces; scarlet women in rags, 
 with pinched, unpainted faces ; thieves and confidence 
 men close after rural visitors; Jacks ashore; soldiers 
 from the harbor forts, gay in the company of rogues 
 who, later in the evening, will add some drops from 
 vials in their pockets to Jacks and soldiers beer before 
 they rob them ; slum lassies from the Salvation Army ; 
 policemen, philosophers, fools, and hummed Philip, 
 " I with my harp was there." 
 
 The broad, clean thoroughfare was alive with the cars 
 of a dozen surface lines; thundrous as an island beach 
 with the roar of the elevated trains, the roar picked out 
 here and there with the shrill piping of museum or 
 concert-hall orchestras; it flashed with the added lights 
 from in front of half a score of theatres from a hundred 
 saloons; was sombred in spots by the dark fronts of 
 massive bank-buildings; and everywhere made lively 
 and alert by the scurrying games of thousands of chil 
 dren, whose parents, contented shop-keepers, were 
 enjoying their first sidewalk festival of the year. 
 
 Philip found Tom waiting for him in front of the 
 Tivoli, into which a crowd was pushing its way, eager 
 for the fun of frolicsome Aline as Morgana, in "The 
 Forty Thieves." 
 
 Tom s heart bounded and sent a flush of blood to his 
 cheeks at Philip s greeting: "The Czar of the Art 
 Department says you ll do, and you are to furnish six 
 more drawings, and you are to call on him and acquire 
 useful knowledge concerning the limitations of the 
 mechanical process by which your works of genius are 
 transferred to the virgin pages of the Guardian, and, 
 
A VOTER. 
 
 It was a glorious memory in the mangled mind of that citizen." 
 
 Page 91. 
 
Before an Inspector of Police. 93 
 
 please, he wants the drawings in a hurry and, great 
 heavens, what a gloriously handsome young woman ! or 
 is it a child, or a vision, or what?" 
 
 Tom, who was in a thrill of excitement and joy at 
 what Philip said regarding his work, started, and 
 vaguely followed the other s glance at the last of this 
 rattling talk. "Oh!" he said, "that is Carminella; she 
 is just leaving the fruit-stand with her mother: Domi- 
 nico, her father, has come to let them off. I wonder 
 what Cullen wants. He s been watching me for ten 
 minutes." 
 
 Cullen, our old friend officer Cullen, now in citi 
 zen s dress, for he has been promoted to be a detective 
 sergeant and is known as a "Headquarters man," 
 stepped toward the two young men and, seeing that he 
 had attracted Philip s attention, motioned to him. 
 
 Philip went over to the detective, whom he knew 
 through his Police Headquarters reporting, and they 
 walked a few steps more away from Tom. 
 
 " Is he a friend of yours?" Cullen asked of Philip, 
 indicating Tom, who had gone to speak to Carminella. 
 
 " He is," Philip responded promptly and decidedly. 
 
 "Well, I m glad of it," said Cullen, a little uneasily. 
 " He s a friend of mine, too. That is, his father, Dan 
 Lyon, put me on the force, and got me my promotions. 
 I earned my promotions right enough, but that doesn t 
 always get them for a man. His father has been my 
 backer ever since I put on the buttons. I ve known 
 Tom since he was four, and now I ve got a damned 
 hard job to do. " 
 
 The detective s manner more than what he said, 
 even, startled Philip. He looked at the officer for a 
 moment in alarm, and then suddenly said : " Oh ! that 
 puller-in has sworn out a warrant for him." 
 
94 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 The detective shook his head. "Oh, no!" he said. 
 " I heard of that. The puller-in threatened to have a 
 warrant on Tom, but the officer on post told him if he 
 did he d arrest him for assaulting you. It was a tech 
 nical assault, you know, putting his hand on you, and 
 the puller-in let the matter drop mighty sudden, for he 
 has had one narrow squeak in the courts, and he knows 
 if we ever have him up again we ll make it rough for 
 him." 
 
 "What is it then?" Philip asked anxiously. 
 
 "I don t know exactly myself," Cullen replied. 
 " The Inspector wants him, and I asked for the job of 
 bringing him in, for an officer who didn t know him 
 would go to his home, and then Dan would know. I 
 want to keep this from Dan if I can. I was not at 
 Headquarters when the complaint was made, but my 
 side partner was, and heard that a business man in an 
 office where Dan Lyon is janitor charges Tom with 
 having lifted a purse or pocket-book. Now, Tom Lyon 
 never lifted anybody s purse, or anything else; I know 
 his stock and there s none better." 
 
 "Who is it makes this charge?" Philip demanded 
 indignantly. 
 
 " A fellow I ve heard of as a sort of second-cut swell, 
 a Mark Waters. " 
 
 " Mark Waters!" exclaimed Philip, with sudden as 
 tonishment, " Mark Waters of the Niantic building?" 
 
 "Yes. Do you know him?" Cullen asked curiously. 
 
 "Well, I ought to know him," said Philip slowly, in 
 a tone of contempt. " Yes, I ought to know him much 
 better than I do. I am a fool for not knowing him 
 through and through, and letting the world know as 
 well. But perhaps I know enough. What must you 
 do now, Cullen?" 
 
Before an Inspector of Police. 95 
 
 " I have no warrant. This Waters, they tell me, was 
 in a terrible state of mind, but wanted the Inspector to 
 recover the article without any arrest. The Inspector 
 is at dinner now, and he left orders for Tom to be 
 brought in when he returned. I came here hoping to 
 find Mr. Dean, who could square anything for Tom, 
 but Dean is out of town. Seeing you with Tom I 
 thought I d speak to you, for he needs a friend." 
 
 "And he has one," Philip exclaimed stoutly. "He 
 must be told: let s call him up." 
 
 Tom had just said good-night to Carminella and her 
 mother when Philip called him. He came up laughing 
 with a story that the reports about Morgana s adventure 
 with her sailor lover had crowded the house, but stopped 
 suddenly after glancing quickly at the faces of the two 
 men. "What is it, Cullen?" he asked, almost repeating 
 Philip s question. " Has puller-in Cohen sworn out a 
 warrant for me?" 
 
 Cullen told him briefly. Tom laughed at first, but 
 when he saw they were not joking with him, he stag 
 gered and leaned heavily against an iron pillar of the 
 elevated road. 
 
 : Purse stealing!" he gasped. His face changed as 
 Philip never before thought face of man could change 
 in a second; but he knew he looked into the eyes of an 
 honest man. 
 
 "Now, old chap," said Philip assuringly, putting his 
 arm over Tom s shoulder, " I m going to Headquarters 
 with you as your friend. Cullen will give us all the 
 time we want to do what is necessary. Mr. Dean is 
 not here; is there any one else you want hunted up?" 
 
 What Philip said did not seem to convey a meaning 
 to Tom for some time. He looked at him blankly, and 
 after a silence said : " My father must not know. It 
 
96 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 would break his heart. Why!" he added suddenly, " I 
 was not in the Niantic building five minutes, and was 
 not out of sight of the elevator boy. Before Mr. Dean 
 left the city he gave me a message for dad some politi 
 cal message he only trusts to me and I delivered it 
 late ; the building was empty, I thought ; anyway there 
 was no call for the elevator, and the boy waited for me 
 while I spoke to dad. I steal a purse? I I My God, 
 Cullen Peyton " 
 
 " We ll get that elevator boy and go around to Head 
 quarters, " interrupted the detective sharply. He wanted 
 to give Tom something to do, for he seemed like a man 
 stricken in body and brain. 
 
 It was nine o clock when they reached Headquarters, 
 accompanied by Dick, the elevator boy. Dick told them 
 of the scene Waters had made in the Niantic building, 
 and that Tom s father had cautioned him to say nothing 
 about it to Tom ; thinking that nothing more would be 
 heard of it. 
 
 Cullen took Tom into the Inspector s office alone first. 
 He bore a message from Philip to the Inspector, saying 
 he was there not as a newspaper man, but as Tom s 
 friend. 
 
 When Cullen came out for Philip and Dick he whis 
 pered to the former: "Waters is in the next room and 
 the door is ajar. I thought you might have something 
 to say for his benefit. " 
 
 Philip nodded and they entered. " You give me your 
 word this is not for publication, Mr. Peyton," said the 
 Inspector, as he nodded Philip to a seat. 
 
 Philip walked over to where Tom was standing, white 
 and trembling with rage. 
 
 "I give you my word, Mr. Inspector," Philip said. 
 "I am interested in this case, first, because this man," 
 
Before an Inspector of Police. 97 
 
 he laid his hand on Tom s, "is my friend, and also be 
 cause I have a great curiosity to know on what grounds 
 Mark Waters can charge another man with being a 
 thief." 
 
 As he mentioned Waters name there was a slight 
 stir behind the partly open door. The Inspector mo 
 tioned to Cullen to close it, but at a sign and look from 
 the detective the Inspector smiled an instant, grimly, 
 and turned to Philip saying: "Cullen tells me you 
 have brought a witness for Lyon." 
 
 Philip indicated Dick, and the Inspector turned to the 
 boy and said: "Well, what have you to say, young 
 man?" 
 
 Dick told his story simply, and in a few words. 
 
 "That is exactly as you told the story," said the In 
 spector turning to Tom, " and you say your father I 
 know him well would be a witness to the same effect?" 
 
 " He knows the facts," answered Tom. 
 
 "I guess, then," said the Inspector, slightly raising 
 his voice, as the quick, grim smile came and went 
 again, " if the party complaining wants any further in 
 vestigation on this line he must go to court. I am 
 much obliged to you for coming without any trouble, 
 Lyon. You probably know as well as I that I could not 
 compel you to come without a warrant. The party 
 complaining did not seem to want a warrant, and this 
 is sometimes the quickest and simplest way of clearing 
 up a little matter of this kind. Good-night." 
 
 Cullen, at a word from his superior, went out with 
 the others. When he was alone the Inspector called 
 "Mr. Waters!" 
 
 Mark Waters came into the room, crimson and per 
 spiring. " How did that cub, Philip Peyton, get into this 
 affair?" he growled. 
 
98 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 The Inspector eyed the enraged man a moment in 
 silence before he replied, and then it was with a poorly 
 concealed sneer that he said: " He spoke loud enough 
 for you to hear, and if you did hear you know as much 
 as I do on that head. Now, Mr. Waters, this matter 
 has turned out as I predicted. You are on the wrong 
 scent. If you expect me to do anything more in the 
 case, you must give me some clue. I do not ask you to 
 tell me why you value the papers in that pocket-book so 
 highly, but I must know to whom else they would be of 
 value, or what they relate to. I must have something 
 more to start with than the mere fact that you have 
 been robbed of a pocket-book containing less than $100, 
 for which you are willing to pay $1,000, although the 
 papers are valueless. I can imagine a case, of course. 
 A man is sometimes willing to pay as much to recover 
 a love-letter, for instance, but I cannot work entirely 
 on imagination." 
 
 The Inspector seemed to be talking solely for the 
 purpose of giving himself an opportunity of studying 
 Waters face. He was eying him as if he would read 
 every twitch of his muscles, every flood and ebb of blood 
 which made the man s face alternately crimson and 
 gray, every contraction of the lips. 
 
 Waters suddenly looked up and the Inspector care 
 lessly lighted a cigar. 
 
 "There are circumstances connected with this case 
 which make me want more time before I consult you 
 further about it, Mr. Inspector. I am obliged to you 
 for what you have done; I ll call on you again. Good 
 night," said Waters hurriedly. 
 
 "Good-night, sir." 
 
 When the Inspector was alone he said musingly: 
 " That may be only a case of letters from another man s 
 
Before an Inspector of Police. 99 
 
 wife, but I think it is bigger game it s dirtier, any 
 way." 
 
 Cullen and Dick left the other two at the corner of 
 Houston Street, and Tom and Philip walked on down 
 Mulberry Street in silence for several blocks. Then 
 Philip felt the man by his side shaking with convulsive 
 sobs. He slipped his arm into Tom s but did not speak 
 until his companion was quieter. Then he said: "It 
 isn t anything, old fellow. You*ve been accused of noth 
 ing. A brute like that Waters cannot be prevented 
 from being himself. He is quite as likely to charge me 
 with the offence as you, for I go to his office sometimes." 
 
 "Why," Tom suddenly exclaimed, "your name is on 
 the door! I thought the name was familiar: Philip 
 Ormsbee Peyton. He sharply recoiled. " Have you 
 anything to do with him?" 
 
 "That is my father s name on his door," replied 
 Philip. " As to what I have to do with him I ll tell you 
 some time. If I were not a lazy, ignorant fool I d have 
 more to do with him ; probably not to his profit or peace 
 of mind. But let me tell you about my experiences 
 with the police. Is this your first arrest? Oh, you are 
 only a novice! Listen." 
 
 Philip told in extravagant language of college pranks 
 which had led to his arrest not once, but three times, 
 and of one appearance in court, where he was fined 
 and lectured for having aided and abetted a party of 
 freshmen in transferring from its rightful place to a 
 conspicuous position over the door of a noted faith-cure 
 apostle, an undertaker s signboard. He quieted Tom 
 with his nonsense, and that was something. He 
 stopped short just after they had passed Canal Street, 
 and looking about him asked in surprise : " But where 
 in the world are we going slumming?" 
 
ioo A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 "I live in in the slums," Tom answered bitterly. 
 " I beg your pardon for bringing you this far. I did 
 not think." 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said Philip simply. "May I 
 go home with you?" 
 
 Tom was silent for some time before he answered 
 frankly: "Yes, I should like to have you. It will 
 please my father to see me with a with you, when he 
 knows what has happened. I must tell him now." 
 
 Dan was at home and in deep trouble. He had not 
 thought at first that Waters would make any further 
 effort to implicate Tom, but when Tom did not come 
 home as he usually did, with Teresa and Carminella, 
 Dan had gone to the Tivoli and there learned from 
 Dominico that Tom had gone away with Cullen and a 
 strange gentleman. 
 
 The instant Tom stepped into his father s room each 
 saw in the other s face the tragedy of great pride 
 bruised and hurt deep. The old man came forward 
 and took both Tom s hands, and turned his pained face 
 defiantly toward the stranger. 
 
 Even so slight a thing as taking his boy s hands was 
 a rare demonstration of affection for Dan, and Tom 
 choked a little as he said : " This gentleman, Mr. Pey 
 ton, is my friend, dad. He has been with me. He 
 will tell you all about it." 
 
 Philip sat down close to Dan, and simply and quietly 
 told the story of the evening s adventure. He felt that 
 he was speaking well and sympathetically, as Dan s 
 stern old face relaxed and the tears slowly welled to 
 his eyes and fell. 
 
 "And now," said Philip, when he had finished his 
 story, "no one knows of this who will talk about it. 
 Mark Waters has injured you. I believe he has injured 
 
FATHER AND SON. 
 
 Turned his proud, pained face defiantly toward the stranger." 
 
 Page ioo 
 
Before an Inspector of Police. 101 
 
 a great many people. He may have injured me and 
 mine more than any one else. It may be right for me 
 to tell you about that some time, but now I do not see 
 that anything is to be done in relation to him." 
 
 Philip could not help but be aware that he had done 
 good by going home with Tom. He saw that there was 
 comfort for Dan in having such a friend for his boy at 
 such a time. And he saw, too, and never forgot it, 
 such pride in both the father and son as he would not 
 have believed could exist in the tenements. Philip was 
 thinking of this, they were all silent, when he was con 
 scious of Dan s close scrutiny. 
 
 "You are Philip Ormsbee Peyton s son," Dan said 
 quietly. 
 
 "I am." 
 
 " 1 remember him when he was not much older than 
 you are now. My father was a porter in his store. He 
 was a good man : kind to the poor. I thank you, sir, 
 for doing so fair by my boy. I am glad it was your 
 father s son that did it. Tom will be walking with you 
 to your car." . 
 
 As they arose, and Philip shook hands with tfye old 
 man, there was a knock at the door, and ?n ^rwer.tg 
 Dan s, "Come in," Carminella entered. 
 
 She looked shyly at the stranger, and then turned to 
 Tom. With a sudden impulse his tortured mind could 
 not control, Tom took her hands and said, with a poor 
 attempt at playfulness: "Carminella, you ll not be 
 liking your cousin Tom when you hear he s charged 
 with stealing." 
 
 The girl straightened up with a spring, drew both 
 of Tom s hands to her breast, turned on Philip with 
 blazing eyes, and cried: 
 
 " It is lies! Who says so?" 
 
IO2 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 Philip was almost frightened at the sudden fierce 
 passion of the girl, as he gasped: " Surely, not I." 
 
 Tom explained a little, but did not mention Waters 
 name, and Carminella, as suddenly melted as she had 
 been aroused, turned to Philip, and said softly: 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir. I did not know you were 
 his friend." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 A FALSE START AND A FAIR. 
 
 CULLEN S description of Waters as a second-rate swell 
 would have maddened him to crime, further crime, had 
 he heard it. Waters had an ideal dearer to him than 
 anything else on earth, to realize which he had already 
 sold himself to the devil and wrecked the life and for 
 tune of the only benefactor he ever had : to be known 
 as a member of a set of men, gentlemen, whose lives 
 are devoted to those various games, pastimes, chances, 
 and recreations we have elected to classify as "sports." 
 For many years before Philip s father s death Waters had 
 been his confidential manager in the old business on 
 Pearl street, where the Peyton fortune had been made by 
 Philip s grandfather, owner of many whaling-ships. 
 
 Philip s father had taken the business and fortune 
 left to him, and managed both with excellent care and 
 judgment for many years. It was not until the young 
 clerk, Waters, had shown inclination and capacity for 
 relieving the merchant of many important and irksome 
 details of his business that Peyton indulged to its limit 
 his extravagant fondness for sports. There was no 
 gambling instinct in him whatever. When he raced 
 horses which he bred, it was for the sport, not the pos 
 sible gain of racing; his yacht was not one of those 
 which were placed in commission for the regatta seasons 
 only, for he found sport in cruising, and his yacht was 
 in commission for the use of himself or his friends the 
 
 103 
 
104 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 whole season. His rented trout streams in Canada, and 
 the cost of his yearly big game expedition to the Rockies 
 were expenses which were four times Waters liberal 
 salary, and this Waters noted with rage and envy in his 
 heart; but more and more he took the affairs of busi 
 ness from Peyton s unresisting hands. 
 
 One time, after the merchant had given up going to his 
 office more than once a month, some important business 
 demanding his personal judgment, he sent for Waters 
 to come to him at his Westchester County place on the 
 Sound. It was on the eve of a yacht regatta, and 
 Waters, who remained for dinner and all night, met 
 half a dozen men he had read about in the papers with 
 awe and fierce envy for years. Not in the annals of 
 fashionable society, although he knew them to be men 
 belonging to fashionable families, but as promoters of 
 horse and bench shows, of driving and hunting clubs, 
 of gentlemen s riding races, international yacht rac 
 ing; of every sport and sporting enterprise in which 
 a gentleman may engage. To Waters these men s 
 lives, their achievements, but most of all their renown 
 in the world, were more enviable than vast wealth or 
 conspicuous social eminence would be to another man 
 differently constituted. 
 
 Waters was first dazed, then thrown into an ecstacy 
 of gratification, by their treatment of him that evening. 
 He was suspiciously alert for any difference in their 
 manner toward him from their manner to each other, 
 but he discovered none. They were quiet and some 
 what scant of speech in their intercourse, and so frank 
 and simple that Waters was amazed, although he studied 
 and copied them with diligent fervor. When he went 
 to his room he exulted aloud. He could not know then 
 that not one of the men he had met that evening would 
 
THE YACHTSMEN. 
 Ugly-looking brute, that business man of Peyton s/ Page 105. 
 
A False Start and a Fair. 105 
 
 ever recognize him again unless he was met under ex 
 actly similar circumstances; and, of course, he did not 
 hear one guest say to another, as they walked to the 
 yacht club-house, for a late last consultation with their 
 skipper : 
 
 " Ugly-looking brute, that business man of Peyton s." 
 
 " Yes," responded the other, " looks like a beast who d 
 give Phil a bad throw unless he felt a tight rein all the 
 time." 
 
 One of his friends, more intimate than the others, 
 suggested some such opinion as this concerning Waters 
 to Peyton ; but the unsuspicious, almost unsophisticated 
 man of the world, only laughed and said: 
 
 " You can judge a horse, a yacht, or a wine, Jack, but 
 not a man out of your class." 
 
 Peyton was one who, having once placed his confi- 
 fidence in another, would no more think of withdrawing 
 it until he was conscious of some flagrant abuse of that 
 confidence, than he would ask for a change in the con 
 ditions of a yacht-race after the starting-gun had been 
 fired, but he had not "the art to read the mind s con 
 struction in the face." Even in the year before the 
 financial storm which wrecked so many commercial 
 enterprises better piloted than Peyton s, when Waters 
 began urging the necessity of mortgaging real estate to 
 secure money required to save the business, even then 
 Peyton did not suspect. Banks were shy about lending 
 money to them, Waters said, but the banks saw the 
 storm approaching and were close-reefing in every 
 direction. Property after property was mortgaged, and 
 just as the storm broke over the commercial world, an 
 actual storm sent to the bottom of the North Pacific 
 Ocean a fleet of whalers, and with it the result of a 
 year s whaling which had been depended upon to help 
 
106 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 the old Pearl-street house ride safely out its stress of 
 weather. 
 
 When the crash came, Peyton was ill in bed : nothing 
 more than a very severe cold, the doctors said, con 
 tracted on a duck-shooting expedition. The day he 
 made an assignment to Mark Waters for the benefit of 
 all his creditors, Peyton s illness developed pneumonia, 
 at least that is what the doctors said; some of his 
 friends said that his heart was broken when he had to 
 tell his two sons, George, his oldest, and Philip Orms- 
 bee, his youngest and namesake, of the miserable fail 
 ure in which his life was ending. The sons thought 
 afterward that there was more he had wished to tell 
 them, something which distressed him, but for that 
 reason they would not let him talk any longer about 
 business. They pretended to laugh at the failure which 
 had robbed them of inheritance, boasted of their 
 strength, and their ability and willingness to meet the 
 world, tried in this way to ease his mind, and held his 
 hands and kept back their tears while he died. 
 
 "Thrown by that damned man, Waters! * some of 
 Peyton s friends said. 
 
 If this were so, it did not seem likely that there would 
 be any exposure. Waters and George were named as 
 executors in the will. Waters was already assignee, and 
 when he qualified before the court as executor George 
 did not qualify, because of a plan, formed even then, to go 
 to the far west. He knew nothing of the shameful facts, 
 and suspected nothing. He was told, and believed, that 
 although the creditors would be paid everything, there 
 would be nothing left to the estate but an encumbered 
 piece of property in Mott street, occupied by Chinese. 
 The income from this property might pay the interest 
 on the mortgage, the taxes, and other expenses, Waters 
 
A False Start and a Fair. 107 
 
 hoped. So George and Philip held what they called a 
 business conference. They had sold all their personal 
 property, actually everything but their rather extensive 
 wardrobes. " But we really need clothes, Phil," George 
 had said. Their funds combined made one thousand 
 dollars after they had paid all their personal debts. 
 
 " You take it, George," said Philip. " Father intend 
 ed you should go into the business, so he must have seen 
 that you had some business sense." 
 
 "We ll be business partners, and this will be our 
 capital," George said, for he already had a plan. " I ll 
 take this for both of us. In whatever I do, in whatever 
 I may earn, we will have equal shares." 
 
 This impressed Philip as having a very sound and 
 business-like ring to it, and George, too, felt that he 
 would have made a great business success if he had 
 only devoted to commerce the time he had spent in 
 perfecting himself in driving a four-in-hand. "Now 
 we ll sign articles of agreement," he added. 
 
 Together, and with much seriousness, they drew up a 
 paper which had many of the phrases used in agree 
 ments for foot-ball matches and yacht-races, and when 
 they both signed it they felt that this business confer 
 ence had been conceived in wisdom and carried out 
 with judicious foresight. 
 
 George was the older and the heavier. Both were 
 impressed by the fact that he weighed more than Philip 
 as a point in favor of the one who should be intrusted 
 with their capital to make the serious battle in life for 
 the firm. " It s the weight that counts in bucking the 
 centre, in hauling on the main sheet, and nearly every 
 thing," Philip said thoughtfully. 
 
 "But you: what are you to do, Phil?" George asked, 
 when the signing was over. 
 
io8 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 " I have reserved this to surprise you. I am going to 
 work. I m engaged as a reporter," said Philip. 
 
 "A re reporter!" gasped his brother. 
 
 " I know there is something vaguely humorous about 
 it," Philip responded, smiling. "Do you remember 
 Osgood, of your class?" 
 
 "Yes, a reading man, wasn t he?" 
 
 " Yes. And then he became a writing man, and now 
 he is what they call City Editor of the Guardian. Well, 
 I met him the other day, and he was might) 7 nice about 
 the the affair you know. He didn t sympathize, nor 
 anything of that kind, but in a bully, frank manner 
 asked me what I was going to do. I told him I might 
 train down for a jockey, or apply for a position as 
 skipper, or at least mate, of a yacht. He ignored my 
 feeble attempts to treat the matter humorously, and 
 explained briefly this situation: the Guardian, it ap 
 pears, does not hire experienced newspaper men : each 
 fall, it takes on (that s what they call it) its local staff 
 a crop of college graduates. This year s crop has 
 proved a failure, blighted by too much impressionism, I 
 think Osgood said. It seems they are going to plant 
 another crop, and, like the brick he is, he told me that 
 if I wanted to try he would put me on the paper." 
 
 "Osgood is a brick," said George emphatically. "I 
 wish I d known him better at college, but he didn t go 
 in for athletics much. I remember, though, he used to 
 cheer like the devil at the games. What s the pay? 
 Not more than a hundred a week, I suppose." 
 
 "No, "said Philip, laughing a little, "he was very 
 explicit about that. I am to have, to begin with, fif 
 teen dollars a week " 
 
 " But Phil, that won t do. You can t live on that." 
 
 "Oh yes, I can," Philip answered conclusively. 
 
A False Start and a Fair. 109 
 
 "Other men do. Besides, if I am approved I ll have 
 twenty dollars a week in two or three months, and in 
 six months more, twenty-five. In a year, if I m a suc 
 cess, they do something to me he called putting me 
 on space. That struck me as if I were to be dropped 
 off the earth, but he encouraged me by saying that 
 newspaper men on space do sometimes earn the sum 
 you named." 
 
 A week later George Peyton went to bid good-by to 
 the very worldly, the cynical, the merciless, the cold 
 she was variously called all these things by people 
 who thought they knew her Miss Minnie Hazelhurst. 
 George saw that she had been crying, and that nearly 
 did for him. 
 
 " I say, Minnie, I m not going away forever," he ex 
 claimed, trying to be brave about it. 
 
 " But you are going away without marrying me, and 
 that hurts my pride." 
 
 George laughed at this and said: "But I am going 
 to marry you, only you know you wouldn t have me if 
 I married you now, when I haven t a penny." 
 
 " I ve plenty of pennies." 
 
 " That s the trouble, Minnie." 
 
 "You know perfectly well, George Peyton, there is 
 no sentiment in this." She said this rapidly, as if she 
 thought in that way to stifle a sob; and she did, but she 
 had to dab her handkerchief at her eyes. " It s entirely 
 a matter of pride. I ordered you, when I was four and 
 you were six, to marry me, that is the tradition in both 
 our families, and I ve been ordering you ever since " 
 
 " Except when I took a turn at the ordering, Minnie," 
 the man interrupted. 
 
 "Well, you shouldn t have ordered. Now you are 
 thirty and will soon be bald and fat, and I m an old 
 
i io A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 maid of twenty-eight, and will soon be thin and sour, 
 and all because you have a stupid pride about my hav 
 ing money and you having none. I m not talking very 
 coherently, but you know what I mean; that in this 
 year, when we always said we d be married, it seems 
 wicked for you to think you have to think you are 
 obliged to make money, and can only make it where 
 I m certain they don t play polo, and you can t get a 
 thing to eat and " 
 
 And then that woman, whom the world thought to be 
 so cold, could not check the sobs any longer, and threw 
 herself into the arms of her big sweetheart. When he 
 had petted her for a time, somewhat as an affection 
 ate bear might have done, she suddenly exclaimed: 
 " George, I ll go with you." 
 
 " To play polo with me?" he asked. 
 
 He told her that every one made fortunes out in the 
 West, and he was sure he d have money enough in a 
 year to preserve his self-respect in marrying her. In 
 two years certainly, he said, and he kissed her and went 
 away and walked from Washington Square, through all 
 the crooked streets of Greenwich, to the North River, 
 before he discovered that he was not going toward 
 Broadway. 
 
 The next morning, with his thousand dollars, his ir 
 reproachable wardrobe, and some excellent letters, he 
 started for San Francisco, and Philip in the afternoon 
 reported a meeting of a Presbyterian Synod, and in the 
 evening assisted a sporting reporter in sending the 
 news of a prize-fight from Coney Island. 
 
 Mark Waters bade George good-by with expressions 
 of regret, but he walked out of the Grand Central depot, 
 after seeing George s train depart, with a sigh of relief 
 and a much lightened heart. 
 
A False Start and a Fair. 1 1 1 
 
 Philip Peyton, the merchant, had been trustee for 
 several rich old estates, as his father had been before 
 him. The affairs of these trusts he had always person 
 ally attended to with scrupulous care that none of them 
 should in the slightest degree ever become involved in 
 his own business. Nor had he ever allowed Waters to 
 acquire any implied authority in the conduct of these 
 trusts, as he had in his own business. This was not an 
 evidence of any suspicion of Waters; it was because the 
 trusts were, in Peyton s mind, something sacred which 
 he was in honor bound to personally guard and care for. 
 
 Thus it was that, when the crash came, the affairs of 
 these estates were found in sound and excellent con 
 dition. Waters, before his benefactor had been put in 
 his grave, had gone to the principals, and the lawyers 
 representing the principals, concerned in the estates, 
 and by blackening the character of Peyton, and making 
 it appear that it was only his, Waters , zealous and 
 unceasing watchfulness which had preserved the estates 
 intact, and unentangled in the affairs of the collapsed 
 business, he secured to himself the management of 
 several of the most profitable. Then it was he moved 
 his office to the Niantic building; and although, where 
 it had served his purpose to do so, he had maligned the 
 business integrity of his old employer, he was yet 
 shrewd enough to know that in the new business com 
 munity he sought to enter no name would be so potent 
 for him to conjure by; and on his office door he had 
 lettered: 
 
 PHILIP ORMSBEE PEYTON, 
 
 ESTATE OF. 
 
H2 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 Then he pursued, more openly than he had dared to 
 do while Peyton lived, his life s ambition: to be known 
 as a man belonging to the one class in New York he 
 envied more, even, than he envied the possessors of 
 great wealth, except as such possession enabled them 
 to indulge their inclinations; that class, grown up 
 within a generation, of men who devote their active 
 energies to the encouragement and practice of fashion 
 able and expensive sports and games. Waters believed 
 himself fitted to shine in such a set, as the coward 
 dreams of deeds of gallant daring; as the low-born lout 
 believes that only opportunity is lacking for him to 
 radiate a courtier s graces; as the pot-house politician 
 fancies that if a purblind public but saw aright, another 
 Jefferson or Hamilton would be raised in his person to 
 illuminate American statecraft. 
 
 Waters boasted to all who would listen, of his ac 
 quaintance with the men he had met at his dead em 
 ployer s board, and haunted public places where he 
 would be likely to meet them again; haunted the places 
 with rage torturing his heart even after he had learned 
 how calmly each of them could cut him. He joined 
 such clubs as may any man who will pay the dues; even 
 owned and ran a race-horse one season ; was swindled 
 on every hand, and yet did not find his name in the 
 ravenously devoured racing reports; attempted to drive 
 a decent team on the road, and felt the fear of death 
 when the horses, knowing a coward prentice hand was 
 guiding them, ran with him ; whereupon he left them 
 at a wayside inn, and sold them the next day for half 
 of what they had cost him ; eagerly sought the acquaint 
 ance of such celebrities as were easily met, and who 
 were willing to exchange a nod for his expensive sup 
 pers; felt murder in his heart when at times he would 
 
THE FALSE SPORTSMAN. 
 Even owned and ran a race-horse one season." Page 112. 
 
 10 
 
A False Start and a Fair. nj 
 
 see the penniless, arrogant son of his benefactor, Philip 
 Peyton, in familiar comradeship with those men be 
 tween whom and himself, even his dull sensibilities at 
 last perceived, there was a wall he could neither batter 
 down nor scale. Then he resentfully accepted his 
 level, and became a familiar figure among the over 
 dressed, vulgar habitues of conspicuous cafes, stage 
 entrances, and the apartments of comic-opera stars. 
 
 But while in his heart he was conscious of his failure 
 and raged against it, he did not deny himself the pleas 
 ure of boasting of what he had attained, for I do assure 
 you there are not lacking men a-plenty who envied him 
 because in their minds his position was as glorious and 
 desirable as, in his, the heights he had aspired to in vain. 
 
 You see it takes as many kinds of men to make a 
 world as, bless me! it takes kinds of chapters to make 
 a book. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MISS HELEN S ENCOUNTER WITH DOMINICO. 
 
 WHEN Carminella had completed her fourteenth year, 
 and with it she finished six months of what to her was 
 almost a dream-life, Dominico announced that she must 
 leave school and help at the fruit-stand. It would be 
 two years before she could go on the stage in any 
 capacity, and in those two years she must do all she 
 could to help the family fortune. The proper, the nat 
 ural place for her to begin was at the fruit-stand, in the 
 recess of the closed entrance in front of the Tivoli 
 Theatre. Teresa wept, but Dominico was not to be 
 moved. Teresa planned a thousand schemes of escape 
 for Carminella, but they each required money, and 
 Teresa had no money. 
 
 Is an honest man, asked Dominico, who works always 
 when he does not sleep, and who sleeps as little as pos 
 sible, to support a big girl of fourteen in idleness that 
 she may read more books? Did not his neighbors re 
 prove him and laugh at him for trying to make his 
 wife s daughter a lady? Show him in all the block, 
 from Baxter street to Mulberry, from Bayard to Park, 
 a girl of fourteen, yes, of twelve, of ten, he could say, 
 who did not work, and then he would do more for Car 
 minella, who already had more books in her room, and 
 more book-learning in her head, than could be found 
 anywhere else in the Bend. 
 
 Teresa threatened to appeal to Dan, and Dominico 
 
 114 
 
Miss Helen s Encounter with Dominico. 115 
 
 threatened to beat her if she did, Dan could judge 
 when their contract was in question, but there was no 
 contract now, for Carminella was fourteen and must 
 work. If Teresa did not like her to work at the stand, 
 where at least the policeman on post could have an eye 
 on her, and Tom was close at hand, then Carminella 
 could work for the sweater: work half-undressed in 
 sweltering rooms, with men and other girls. Did 
 Teresa know what the other girls were like? 
 
 "Gesu! I ll kill her first!" cried Teresa. 
 
 Eleanor Hazelhurst did not let Carminella go without 
 a struggle. She saw that it was a bitter thing for Car 
 minella to leave her, and the child s love of her and the 
 school touched her. And besides, Carminella really was 
 a help in the missionary work. Teresa had schemed 
 and planned, ceaselessly and tirelessly, to keep Carmi 
 nella from the people and the life in the Bend. She felt 
 no call of duty to aid in ameliorating the condition of 
 any there except her child. Without complaining she 
 considered the whole life there an immitigable evil from 
 which she strove to protect her child by her care, as the 
 Esquimau is protected from the ever-present lethal 
 cold by his encasing furs. The mortal polar blasts 
 are no more a fixed evil in their latitudes than was, to 
 Teresa s thinking, mortal corruption uneradicably 
 rooted in the tenements. But Carminella had been 
 taught in the mission schools to observe and think 
 about the life around her as a soluble social problem. 
 Her sympathies were deep and quick, and these taught 
 her knowledge of existing conditions which Eleanor 
 Hazelhurst eagerly sought to obtain and make known 
 to the thousands of wise and charitable men and women 
 she knew to be the friends of the tenement mission- 
 work. She longed to be able to present some scheme, 
 
n6 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 not fundamentally destined for the alleviation of the 
 conditions there she saw such schemes either failing 
 of their object or fertilizing the vicious fields but a 
 constitutional cure. In the mean time, however, one of 
 the immediate conditions which demanded her attention 
 was the state of Dominico Cortese s mind concerning 
 his right to the profit of Carminella s services. " Your 
 father must let you stay here; I cannot get on without 
 you," she had said to Carminella. 
 
 " You speak to my father, then, Miss Helen. He 
 may consent. No one can refuse you anything," Car 
 minella besought. 
 
 Biit Dominico could and did refuse. Eleanor went 
 to him at the fruit-stand. Dominico was cross. Did 
 the lady want Carminella s mind filled with notions 
 which would make her never satisfied to do as her 
 mother did, help at the stand? When did most of her 
 pupils leave school? Ah, at eight years old. To be 
 sure. Children must work there when they are able. 
 Surely they are able at eight. No? Perhaps she had 
 never been on the other side of the Bowery, over Hes 
 ter and Orchard street way. There they were at work 
 for the sweaters at four and five years old. Carminella 
 was nearly as big as a woman. Girls of her age helped 
 their fathers drag hand-organs about the street. Then 
 Carminella could help at the stand. If Carminella was 
 such a help at the school as the signorina said, then let 
 the rich and fashionable people who amused themselves 
 by coming down there, bothering the poor with notions 
 about living which they never had the wages to carry 
 out, why then let the rich and fashionable pay him for 
 Carminella s services at the school. Or, concluded 
 Dominico, with a grin, if the rich and fashionable folk 
 were not satisfied with the way the people lived down 
 
TERESA. 
 Gesul I ll kill her first." Page 115. 
 
Miss Helen s Encounter with Dominico. 117 
 
 there, why not give these people some of their money 
 so they could live differently? 
 
 All of Dominico s scolding was not lost on Eleanor. 
 She thought all the way home of what he had said 
 about paying Carminella for her services at the mission 
 school, and at home talked it over with her sister, Min 
 nie, the worldly, the cold-hearted. 
 
 " I suppose," said Minnie, after she had listened to all 
 her sister had to say, "there is no reason why you 
 shouldn t do this sort of thing the way you want to, 
 so long as you are determined to do it at all. If you 
 want to hire this Carminella about whom you have 
 raved to me so, and have spent all of your allowance in 
 this cheerful work, as I suppose you have, it does not 
 seem thai there is anything else to be done except for 
 me to pay her father, who seems to be the only person 
 with a particle of wisdom you have met down there, 
 whatever wages his daughter is worth to you. I sup 
 pose that is the reason why you have been so charmingly 
 confidential with me about this." 
 
 " It s awfully sweet of you, Minnie, to offer to do 
 this, for I really haven t a cent in the world. You 
 have no idea how much money one can give away down 
 there when you come to know the distress. If you 
 could only see this Carminella of mine, I know you d 
 feel repaid for what you are going to do for her." 
 
 "Yes, I dare say," Minnie replied, "but as she is 
 likely never to leave the slums I am just as likely never 
 to have that pleasure. By the way, doesn t the poor 
 youngster want some clothes? I was thinking about 
 that to-day. I could make her up a trunkful of mine." 
 
 Eleanor laughed outright as she exclaimed: 
 
 " Oh, Minnie, those people are as unknown to you, and 
 always will be, I suppose, as the inhabitants of Jupiter! 
 
n8 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 The simplest gown you have Carminella could no more 
 wear in Mulberry Bend than you could wear her finest 
 gown to the Patriarchs Ball. Besides, somehow, I 
 wouldn t care to offer Carminella clothes." 
 
 " Oh, in her case you confine yourself to providing 
 spiritual raiment only. It must be very interesting. 
 I m going to dress for dinner," said Minnie. 
 
 But Eleanor s plan, financed by Minnie, came to 
 naught. She proposed it to Dominico and Teresa at 
 the fruit-stand one day, and observed two remarkable 
 exhibitions of character. Teresa s eyes filled with tears 
 and she began with quick emotion to express her grati 
 tude. She checked herself at a look and a smothered 
 curse from Dominico. It would be entirely a question 
 of money, he said, crowding in front of Teresa. How 
 much would the signorina pay for his daughter s ser 
 vices? The lady should pay well, for Carminella could 
 not onl) 7 help with the care of teaching the youngest 
 pupils, but could sweep and scrub and wash. 
 
 Dominico translated the look of annoyance in Elea 
 nor s face to mean that he had overreached her by his 
 shrewdness and cunning, but Teresa saw and under 
 stood and blessed Eleanor, who would not treat Car 
 minella as a drudge. 
 
 "Carminella should be dressed," began Eleanor with 
 some hesitation, for Dominico was eying her with al 
 most fierce greed, "should be dressed a little differ 
 ently." She glanced at her own quiet gown. " I will 
 provide her with proper with other clothes." 
 
 Dominico looked elated, Teresa indignant. Eleanor 
 saw and added quickly, looking at the mother, " which 
 she can repay me for from her salary." 
 
 Dominico scowled and Teresa looked relieved. 
 
 "I shall inquire," continued Eleanor, "what the pay 
 
Miss Helen s Encounter with Dominico. 1 19 
 
 is of teachers of the youngest classes in the public 
 schools, and 
 
 "Oh no!" interrupted Dominico roughly. "Fools 
 may teach in the public schools if they have the politics 
 to get appointed. Carminella must have more: much 
 more if she is to be made to dress like a lady." 
 
 Eleanor looked hopelessly at Teresa, who made a 
 little sign: "We must talk it over with Dan: Domini- 
 co s friend Dan," she said. If Miss Helen (Eleanor 
 was still known only as Miss Helen in her charity 
 school work) would be so good as to see them again. 
 
 Eleanor said she would, and went her way. 
 
 When she left them the Italians quarrelled sharply. 
 Teresa said passionately that Carminella was her child 
 and Dominico had no business to interfere to prevent 
 the girl from taking service which would make a lady 
 of her. Yes, said Dominico, she should make a lady 
 of herself, but she should make money for them too. 
 She was their only child and made nothing; their 
 neighbors had many children and all earned wages. 
 Was he to be a fool and not make the most of his 
 chance? He knew the rich. They beat the poor 
 whenever they could. But he was too sharp for them. 
 He would make them pay back some of the hard-earned 
 money he had wasted these many years on Lady Car 
 minella. His neighbors would not call him a fool any 
 longer. 
 
 The case was presented to Dan, who took it under 
 advisement. At the first it seemed to him that this 
 was a fortunate offer for Carminella, but then he thought 
 of the contingencies. When Miss Helen left the work, 
 as she surely would they all did Carminella might 
 have no friend to keep her in the place. It would be 
 harder then for her to go back to the fruit-stand than if 
 
12O A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 she had never been associated as an equal with fine 
 folk. Tom was making fine friends, to be sure, but 
 Tom had a fine trade, and could make his own way. 
 Besides that but this Dan did not discuss with Domi- 
 nico and Teresa he, Dan, had something which war 
 ranted Tom in seeking a life better than the tenements. 
 This was something the cautious old man discussed 
 with no one. For many years he had been saving his 
 own and Tom s wages (Tom had not controlled his 
 own until he was of age), saving them and investing 
 them until now but they would know pretty soon. 
 When the Bend was made into a Park Dan grumbled 
 sometimes because the city was so slow about that Park 
 he would surprise Tom, surprise the world. 
 
 But about Carminella. To be sure it was right for 
 those who did not like it to try to get out of this tene 
 ment life. But they must be careful with the first step, 
 else they might slip back further than from where 
 they started. He had seen plenty of that tragedy. 
 There was Bill, his foster-son! But Dan would not 
 even think about Bill. His pride, but not his affection, 
 had been hurt there. Bill was not of his or even Tom s 
 blood. Dan had tried to do well by him, had failed, 
 and finally cast him off, but not until Bill had come into 
 conflict with the law the law that Dan so profoundly 
 respected. 
 
 Ah well ! he would consider the offer of Miss Helen 
 to engage Carminella, Carminella for whom Dan had 
 almost the affection of a father; Carminella their 
 daughter of the tenements. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A BOWERY BALLET-DANCER S Df BUT. 
 
 IN the mean time Carminella had taken her regular 
 watch at the fruit-stand. This, Teresa had arranged, 
 was in the lightest business hours of the day, the morn 
 ing hours, and Tom went and returned with her as he 
 went to his work and returned for lunch. Although 
 they had been the dullest business hours Carminella s 
 beauty drew so much custom to the stand that the trade 
 grew until the morning watch returned more profit to 
 Dominico than any other. All of these new customers 
 were not polite. Sometimes when Tom came from the 
 paint-bridge of the theatre to walk home with Carmi 
 nella, who was relieved at noon by her mother, his blood 
 boiled at the frightened look on the girl s face and 
 Teresa s wrathful eyes which told him plainly enough of 
 some attempted familiarity, some rough pleasantry, not 
 evilly intended perhaps, but which had frightened or 
 shocked the girl. Tom then felt as if he saw Carmi 
 nella pinned down by immovable timbers which held 
 her against all struggles, a victim for swiftly oncoming 
 flames. Sometimes, as they walked home together, 
 when Tom s heart had been stabbed by the sight of that 
 frightened look on the girl s face, he would groan aloud, 
 and Carminella, understanding, would press his hand 
 and tell him not to care. 
 
 Then it was that Tom first thought of how some day, 
 121 
 
122 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 if when this child became a woman she would love 
 him, he would save her from every trial and trouble 
 and heart-ache by making her his wife. But he never 
 breathed this thought to her whom he still looked upon 
 as a child; for it seemed so little while ago that he 
 "minded" her, was the big protecting brother of the 
 dark-eyed, beautiful baby. 
 
 Miss Helen duly made a definite offer for Carmi- 
 nella s services, and Dominico piggishly fought for more 
 pay, although Teresa pointed out that her proposed 
 salary was as much as a roomful of their neighbors 
 children made at covering buttons, finishing "pants," or 
 sewing sleeves in coats. Some of Dominico s churlish 
 ness was reported to Minnie Hazelhurst by Eleanor, 
 and Minnie s prompt proposal to have Dominico sent to 
 jail for being such a brute seemed quite a reasonable 
 plan to the charity-school teacher, so baffled and an 
 noyed she was by the Italian s greed and ill-nature. 
 Minnie at last announced that she would go down and 
 see Dominico herself, but when Eleanor pictured the 
 lurid scene likely to result from such an interview, she 
 begged her sister to abandon her heroic purpose. 
 
 One noon, just as Teresa arrived at the stand, Domi 
 nico came up with a fresh purchase of fruit. Tom and 
 the Tivoli stage-manager came out of the theatre and 
 the latter went to the stand and bought some oranges 
 from Carminella. As he turned to go, after a pleasant 
 word with her, he stopped, eyed her critically, observ 
 ing her height, her lithe, gracefully poised figure, and 
 then turned to Dominico and said : " It s a pity the girl 
 isn t sixteen years old, Minico. I could put her on in 
 the ballet at the next production if she was legal age." 
 
 Teresa s heart gave a great bound, but she was silent, 
 as Dominico hoped she would be. Then Dominico 
 
A Bowery Ballet-Dancer s Debut. 123 
 
 looked hard at Mr. Foster the stage-manager, and said 
 significantly: "She might be sixteen if it is a good 
 job." 
 
 Foster understood. At the Tivoli, in the heart of a 
 community where thousands of girls worked under age 
 in the factory, his ballet had frequently been recruited 
 by the quickly developed Italian girls of fourteen and 
 fifteen years of age, bearing certificates attesting their 
 age to be sixteen. 
 
 "Well," said the stage-manager after a pause, during 
 which he curiously eyed Teresa, for her face was 
 flushed and her eyes shining strangely, "you never 
 can tell how a new production will go. Can you, Mrs. 
 Cortese?" 
 
 Teresa shook her head. 
 
 "But," he added, peeling an orange methodically, 
 " Mr. Dean is letting us spend a lot of money on this 
 one, and it is going to be a stunner for this part of 
 town. It ought to have a three months run, at least. 
 We begin rehearsals next week. You can send the girl 
 in if you want to. She ll get five dollars a week." 
 
 Teresa heard this with a tumult of emotion. It was 
 the opening which might lead to Carminella s profiting 
 by all the years of training her body had received, and 
 might lead for now more than in the mother s time on 
 the stage "speaking" characters were developed from 
 the ranks of the ballet it might lead, also, to Carmin 
 ella s profiting by the training her mind had received. 
 The career of a teacher, which Miss Helen s offer had 
 hinted at, was remote at best, and between the child 
 and that career were many great obstacles, as Dan had 
 pointed out. But for a stage career she was equipped 
 as well as any beginner, better as to physical training, 
 than the majority. And on the stage her antecedents, 
 
124 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 the class from which she sprang, would be no obstacle, 
 as it surely would be in the other career Miss Helen s 
 offer had suggested. 
 
 They talked this over long and anxiously with Dan. 
 Dominico favored it. He was resentful and bitter 
 toward Miss Helen, and in his secret mind he argued 
 that the rich lady would be brought to his terms when 
 she saw that Carminella was being placed forever be 
 yond her influence. Teresa raised points which Dan 
 had to arrange. First, she would not sign a certificate 
 that Carminella was sixteen, as Dominico urged. She 
 would consent that Carminella should enter the ballet, 
 and take chances of a question being raised as to her age. 
 
 Teresa was no longer fearful of "the Society." She 
 admitted that that once-dreaded institution might inter 
 fere with Carminella s stage career for a year or two, 
 but she did not fear, as she once would, that the Societ)^ 
 would rob her of her child. She had become acquainted 
 with something more powerful even than the Society: 
 Charles Dean s influence with all persons in authority. 
 Teresa could trust to that magically potent influence 
 to save Carminella from annoyance if the question of 
 her age was raised. If it was, why Carminella could 
 be taken from the theatre and that would end the mat 
 ter. But it was not likely to be raised. Carminella, 
 they all agreed, looked as old as girls of eighteen of 
 American parents. Then arose another and greater 
 obstacle. Teresa made as a condition to Carminella s 
 accepting Mr. Foster s offer that Dominico should em 
 ploy assistants not only to take Carminella s place at 
 the stand, but her s, Teresa s, as well. 
 
 "Why yours?" demanded Dominico. 
 
 "Because," said Teresa, and she spoke in the manner 
 Dominico well knew admitted of no successful oppo- 
 
A Bowery Ballet-Dancer s Debut. 125 
 
 sition : " Because Carminella must never be out of my 
 sight. At rehearsal or performance never out of my 
 sight. Never; I know what it is. No, the girl could 
 go to the sweat-shops, if Dominico insisted, but not on 
 the stage unless her mother was there. Always there !" 
 
 Dominico stormed, and wept, but it made no differ 
 ence. He tried to bully, but Dan shut him up. 
 
 "It is a gamble," said Teresa. "If Carminella suc 
 ceeds she may earn twenty dollars a week. Yes, pos 
 sibly, twenty-five. If Dominico did not want to take 
 the risk, well." 
 
 At the mention of these figures Dominico s eyes 
 gleamed. Dan considered, and said Teresa was right. 
 Both the women s places at the fruit-stand could be 
 filled for two dollars a week, and then there would still 
 be left a profit of three dollars from Carminella s 
 wages. Dominico groaned and pretended to be much 
 abused, but agreed to all the terms. 
 
 The next week Teresa appeared with Carminella at 
 the Tivoli stage for rehearsal. The dim lights, the 
 hurry and crowding and preliminary confusion, the 
 clatter and shouts of the stage-hands, even the musty 
 smells, were as music and incense to the women. She 
 was trembling with the excitement of recollection as 
 she stood in the wings while the ballet-master classified 
 the raw and seasoned material before him. First, there 
 was a class of trained ballet from the up-town theatres 
 who had been " specially engaged" for this production, 
 and accounted themselves lucky, for if the production 
 was a success it would carry them through the dreaded 
 summer season when the up-town theatres were closed 
 and their earnings cut off. They were nearly all Irish- 
 American women, not at all unfamiliar with the sur 
 roundings, for most of them had been born in that part 
 ii 
 
126 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 of the city, lower down, and many of them were gradu 
 ates of the Tivoli and other Bowery stages. The next 
 class were the most experienced of the Tivoli ballet. 
 They were mostly Jewesses, foreign and native born, 
 with a few Irish-American among them. The third 
 class were young women who had occasional engage 
 ments at the Tivoli. They were a solid rank of New 
 York born Jewesses, young, handsome, Oriental-look 
 ing, slovenly dressed. The last class intended for figur 
 antes were all novices and nearly all Italian. 
 
 The successive waves of immigration which had 
 swept in and over the lower east side of New York 
 might have been noted in the four ranks by a student 
 of social phenomena of that neighborhood. 
 
 The ballet-master, an excitable little old Italian, also 
 "specially engaged," soon had his material in four 
 ranks, and inspected them as an adjutant inspects sol 
 diers at guard-mount. The first row was passed over 
 quickly. They were veterans, that could be seen by 
 their manner of standing still. An easy thing to do, 
 you say? Ask a ballet-master. It takes anywhere from 
 a week to a month to teach the most promising candi 
 date to stand well; from a month to a year to teach her 
 to walk across the stage so as not to be noticeably 
 awkward. 
 
 With the inspection of the second rank trouble began. 
 The master called upon some invisible deity located 
 apparently somewhere up in the flies, and asked with 
 hopeless shrugs of the shoulders if in his old age he was 
 to be punished by having such material imposed upon 
 him. The front rank giggled, the second rank wept, 
 and the third rank trembled. However, he only ordered 
 out one of the seconds, and replaced her with a waiting 
 candidate. There was more anguish with the third 
 
THE BALLET-MASTER. 
 An excitable little old Italian, specially engaged." Page 126. 
 
A Bowery Ballet Dancer s Debut. 127 
 
 rank. Four were expelled from that. When the places 
 of three there had been filled from the substitutes in the 
 wings, the master s eye fell upon Carminella. 
 
 " Step forward," he suddenly said to her. Carminella 
 marched forward one, two, three, four paces, when the 
 master clapped his hands, and she stood still while the 
 ballet-master studied her pose critically. 
 
 "You come here," he said, and Carminella was ad 
 vanced to the third rank. Teresa s heart beat as might 
 another mother s watching a daughter reading the 
 valedictory at the Commencement of a fashionable 
 college. "It is my teaching," she said to herself, and 
 she wondered where she had seen that ballet-master 
 before. 
 
 There was a piano for them to rehearse by, and 
 Carminella s rank had only marching to do, yet as she 
 swung up and down the stage, obeying the frantically 
 shouted orders of the ballet-master, wheeling, stopping, 
 repeating over and over some single movement, the 
 child felt as an eagle, born and taught to fly in a cage, 
 must feel at its first moment of liberty. 
 
 The ballet-master observed her, puzzled. " She is a 
 beginner?" he asked of the stage-manager. Suddenly 
 he thrust out a second-rank woman, told her to take her 
 place in the third rank, and promoted Carminella. For 
 an hour without stopping, the women were drilled in 
 the simplest of their evolutions, and then a halt was 
 called for rest. 
 
 The ballet-master sank down in a chair near where 
 Teresa and Carminella stood. "She has style: she 
 promises well," he said in Italian to Teresa, indicating 
 Carminella by a wave of the handkerchief with which 
 he had been mopping his face. 
 
 "I am glad," Teresa answered in English. 
 
128 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 The man stared at her and said : " You worked at 
 this. I have seen you. Where?" 
 
 "I was Teresa Cesarotti, of the Arcadians," she re 
 sponded, and felt as if she were speaking of herself in 
 another state of existence. 
 
 The master stared harder than before, and then sud 
 denly exclaimed: 
 
 " Teresa! of the Longs ! and you have forgotten me? 
 Ah, I am growing too old to be remembered by any 
 one but the devil. Poor old Polli !" 
 
 Teresa remembered him then, and he asked her if 
 she was looking for work in the production. If she was 
 he would put her in the first row. He would be glad 
 to have her. Women were not trained for the ballet 
 nowadays as she had been trained. 
 
 "I cannot do this work any more," she answered, 
 smiling sadly, "I am lame." 
 
 Professor Polli was tearfully sympathetic in an in 
 stant. Yes, he recalled. An accident, was it not, at 
 the Arcady? Ah, the ballet women could dance in 
 those days! Did she remember Maggie Lyon? Yes? 
 She is Marie Leon now, and a London sensation. 
 Speaking parts! Yes, indeed; speaking and singing. 
 Too stout to dance, Polli had heard. And who was this 
 promising girl by Teresa s side? the old ballet-master 
 prattled on. 
 
 " It is my daughter; my name is Cortese now," Teresa 
 answered. 
 
 "Oh, that was the secret! Teresa had trained the 
 child," Polli exclaimed, relieved to find an explanation 
 of the puzzle. " Since she was three? That was right. 
 She might become a dancer." Then he spoke rapidly 
 in the patois he recalled Teresa spoke, hoping the girl 
 could not understand, saying that he would not advance 
 
A Bowery Ballet Dancer s Debut. 129 
 
 her to the front rank, although with three weeks drill 
 ing at rehearsals she might do there. Let her get her 
 stage ease first in the second class. In the next pro 
 duction there would be a good chance for La Cortese. 
 
 Polli directed the rehearsals for two weeks, and then 
 left them in charge of the " house" ballet-master, the 
 director in permanent charge of the Tivoli ballet. This 
 man found Teresa s aid useful in the last week s rehear 
 sals, and in that way she became tacitly considered a 
 stage attachee. Without salary to be sure, but Teresa 
 did not care ; she was glad to have established a position 
 there which would allow her to be near Carminella at 
 all times. Her suggestions to the costumer were use 
 ful, too, and on the evening of the first production 
 Teresa helped Carminella and a room full of women in 
 their dressing. With Carminella she was like a mother 
 dressing her daughter for her debut ball, and when the 
 first call for the ballet was shouted, she critically ex 
 amined every detail of the pretty sailor-boy s costume 
 Carminella wore, and then, excited and proud, she took 
 her place in the wings by Tom s side. Tom had given 
 seats to his father and Dominico in the balcony, and 
 there were four eager pairs of eyes watching for one 
 figure in the ballet group which came on next to the 
 last ; for they entered in reverse order to their impor 
 tance in the composition, as " originally arranged and 
 personally directed by Professor Polli," said a line in 
 the programme. 
 
 More than four eager spectators picked out Car 
 minella as her line entered, came down the stage with 
 a sharply accentuated zig-zag skip, alternated with 
 a long, graceful, sweeping step, their arms hauling on 
 invisible halyards after the fashion of all sailors in 
 the ballet, divided at the footlights, and took their 
 
130 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 places in front of the line of glittering troops belong 
 ing to the army of no less distinguished a personage 
 than the Maharaja of Muggy-Poo, which had preceded 
 the sailors. Carminella stood at the down-stage end 
 of one line of the sailor crew, and the large percentage 
 of foreigners in the audience, more critical in such 
 matters than the Americans, singled her out not only 
 for the grace, precision, and springiness of her move 
 ments, but for the ease of her pose as she stood at salute, 
 hand at cap, prepared to welcome the entrance of the 
 resplendent admiral ; who, being a woman and the star 
 of the piece, ventured to dispense with the trousers of 
 the American Navy uniform in favor of pale-blue silk 
 tights. Every instant of time Teresa watched Carmi 
 nella and noted a dozen trifling faults for correction, and 
 yet she felt satisfied and hopeful, and dreamed of suc 
 cesses for her child she had once dreamed of for herself. 
 
 When the curtain fell on the first act, Mr. Foster, the 
 stage-manager, listened with acute anxiety to the ap 
 plause. His ear detected the clatter of the claque and 
 cast it aside ; and he smiled and drew a deep breath of 
 joy as above and beyond the claque there mounted the 
 welcome roar of spontaneous and enthusiastic applause 
 for which the curtain had to be raised for the ensemble 
 dance twice. In his office Mr. Dean gravely received 
 the congratulations of his friends. 
 
 "It s a return to the old-time glory of the Bowery," 
 said the heavy, slow-spoken, ruddy-faced, gray-mous- 
 tached elders of the neighborhood, whose pride in the 
 Bowery is their religion. 
 
 In the second act there was an interior of an Indian 
 palace, and the instant the calcium light flooded its 
 brilliant and harmonious colors and revealed its stately, 
 far-vistad columns and suave arches, there started in 
 
PATERNAL PRIDE. 
 That yell was as Irish as the green sod of Gal way. "Page 130. 
 
A Bowery Ballet Dancer s Debut. 131 
 
 the galleries, where the Orientals swarmed, and quickly 
 extended to the less impressionable Americans in the 
 lower parts of the house, a tumult of demand for "Ar 
 tist! Artist!" 
 
 The stage was empty. There was long delay, but 
 the cries kept up. Finally, the scene-painter appeared, 
 half dragging a reluctant figure from the first entrance. 
 It was Tom. The older man bowed but waved his 
 hand in acknowledgment to Tom, as if asking the audi 
 ence to include him in the praise of their applause. 
 
 Dan, in the gallery, seeing this with bulging eyes, 
 suddenly sprang to his feet and emitted one short, sharp, 
 piercing yell, which stopped all other noises in the 
 theatre, but for an instant only. Dan was luck go 
 with him, is an American. He can prove it by docu 
 ments, but that yell was as Irish as the green sod of 
 Galway whence it originated. He was standing up in 
 the front row of the gallery with his old-fashioned silk 
 hat held aloft, for once all his caution and conservatism 
 shaken out of him. The whole audience turned to look 
 at the man with the close-cropped gray hair and the 
 smooth stern face, and so did Tom. Catching his boy s 
 eye Dan, with a quick jerk of his hat, again sent forth 
 that challenging and triumphant yell, and every Irish 
 man and son of an Irishman in the theatre a solid lot 
 of men, the rulers of New York dived a hand under his 
 seat and the next second, with defiantly upheld silk hat, 
 sprang to his feet and answered the yell in kind. Then 
 there was a roar of laughter in which the yellers joined, 
 until some one sang out, pointing to the promoter of 
 all this excitement : " True for you, Dan Lyon. Galway 
 forever!" There was another roar and another cry: 
 "The artist is Dan s boy Tom," and once more Dan, 
 now utterly lost to his surroundings, a perfect example 
 
132 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 of atavism, an absolute reversion to the men of his an 
 cestry, led the yell ; and the cheering and laughter kept 
 up until Tom, blushing crimson, bowed, broke away, 
 and made a hasty exit. 
 
 Philip Peyton was in the audience he should have 
 been at Police Headquarters and saw and heard this. 
 He knew that the Guardian had not sent a man to write 
 a notice of the Tivoli production, so he went back to 
 Headquarters, wrote a notice, sent it to the night city- 
 editor with a personal note, and the next day Tom 
 Lyon s name was mentioned in connection with "the 
 very artistic scenic effects," in a new extravaganza at 
 the Tivoli on the Bowery. Philip was back at the 
 Tivoli, his own work done, in time to catch Tom leav 
 ing the theatre with Teresa, Carminella, and Dan; and 
 he insisted that the party should celebrate the evening s 
 success with him at the Arctic Garden. 
 
 He was in a gale of good spirits ; he took the party 
 to a box in the garden, ordered beer and frankfurter 
 sausages in the most reckless manner, congratulated 
 Tom enthusiastically, praised Carminella, and joked 
 Dan about the yell, which he said was the best part of the 
 show. Carminella regarded him with big-eyed wonder, 
 and blushed when he called her Miss Carminella, for 
 she had never been called that before; liked him when 
 he called her mother Mrs. Cortese, instead of Teresa, 
 as every one else did ; and laughed with the others at 
 his pretended enjoyment of the performance on the 
 Garden stage. Tom wanted to pay for part of the sup 
 per, but Philip would not let him. " No, my young- 
 artist friend," he said with much grandeur, "do not let 
 your success turn your head, and make you ambitious 
 to share the expenses of this Lucullan feast, for you see 
 in me, your host, a bloated capitalist a gold-mine 
 
A Bowery Ballet Dancer s Debut. 133 
 
 owner. Yes, children, I speak not in parables nor in 
 hyperbole. A big brother of mine, Harvard University 
 crew, 1 88-, is at present engaged in the joyful occupa 
 tion of digging gold from the rocky fastnesses of the 
 witching West. Not untold gold, perhaps, but he re 
 mitted to me, his silent partner, this day, per express, 
 charges prepaia one hundred dollars, half of the profits 
 of last month s clean-up, as he drolly expresses it." 
 
 Carminella had never seen or heard any one like Philip 
 before in her life, and in her wondering study of him 
 forgot, even, the events of her first night on the stage. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A TODDY, AND GLAD TIDINGS. 
 
 PROFESSOR POLLI S prediction of Carminella s advance 
 in the ranks of the Tivoli ballet was more than verified, 
 for she was placed at the end of the front row before 
 the production had run many weeks. It ran many 
 months and made a large profit, I am glad to say, on 
 the seemingly reckless expenditure Mr. Dean authorized 
 for it. I know, Mr. Reformer: I know all about Mr. 
 Dean and the political crimes and corruptions he is 
 charged with, so there is no need of your wagging your 
 outraged head at me about him. He is the ruler of 
 that District; carries it in his vest-pocket, if you like; 
 is its political dictator, too, if you please. I will grant 
 you that he is just as wicked as, with unceasing clamor, 
 you accuse him of being; and that in his District his 
 will, not the will of the majority, rules. Permit me to 
 shock you by saying that that is a fact for which Mr. 
 Dean deserves your profound thanks: yours and every 
 other law-abiding, property-owning, tax-paying citizen 
 of this ignorance-beset city. Do you happen to know 
 what the majority of that District is like? What its 
 ideas of " government" really are when the ever-cautious 
 police permit their expression, taking watchful heed 
 those ideas are not carried out; thus preventing the 
 pillage and burning of your peaceful, diamond-back 
 district homes? Do you happen to know what is the 
 average intelligence of the majority there? Do you 
 
 134 
 
A Toddy, and Glad Tidings. 135 
 
 happen to know that Mr. Dean is enabled to control 
 there because the morals of the majority are so much 
 worse than its political principles it would rather sell 
 its votes than rule? So far as Mr. Dean contributes 
 rulers to the general government of the city, state, 
 nation, I prefer taking my chances of safety under them 
 than under such as that District would contribute by the 
 free and untrammelled rule of the majority, my dear 
 Mr. Reformer. Teach that majority what American 
 institutions are, before you demand that it shall have a 
 free hand in their conduct. 
 
 But there! may I never lose another enemy if I again 
 break my promise not to introduce the subject of politics. 
 
 I was remarking that the famous production in which 
 Carminella made her first appearance had a long run. 
 In fact, there was no announcement of the "closing 
 weeks" until preparations were begun for the Holiday 
 spectacle. The house ballet-master urged Teresa ever- 
 faithful, ever-watchful, ever-cautious Teresa! to allow 
 Carminella to dance a solo, or "do a specialty," as he 
 called it, before the new piece was put on. But Teresa 
 said " No." There was danger in pushing the girl too 
 fast; in depriving her of the hard routine drill which 
 would make her muscles sturdy without diminishing 
 their suppleness, which would give her perfect under 
 standing and command of the stage as a dancing plat 
 form. So during all the hot months of summer, and 
 long into the fall, Carminella nightly made her appear 
 ance in the palace of the Maharaja of Muggy-Poo, on 
 the deck of the U. S. S. Constance, and on the beach of 
 the Island of Delight ; drinking pasteboard goblets of 
 champagne unbrahminically introduced into the Indian 
 palace; tossing off bumpers of grog on the deck of the 
 Constance ; and feasting on the tropical fruits of the 
 
136 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 Island of Delight. Then she and Tom and Teresa would 
 leave the stage-door together and walk over to the 
 Arctic Garden and have a real supper of beer and sand 
 wiches. Philip Peyton would frequently join them at 
 these suppers, which then would become great larks. 
 As they were regular and late patrons, the singers and 
 dancers on the Garden stage came to know them and 
 would "play at them;" and Philip would send glasses 
 of beer behind the stage to the performers, and hear the 
 fact alluded to in the next song. At that hour, between 
 eleven o clock and midnight, most of the Bowery sight 
 seers from up-town would be gone, and the hungry and 
 thirsty patrons of the place were " natives" and many 
 of them known to Tom. The table always reserved for 
 them near the big orchestrion (so that Philip could ask 
 for their favorite selections) became the centre about 
 which the young fellows Tom or Philip cared to intro 
 duce would gather; drawing their supper tables nearer 
 and gossiping about their work and interests. There 
 were some newspaper men Philip introduced, who 
 somehow that summer acquired the custom of stopping 
 at the garden for supper on the way up-town; some 
 bright, keen-eyed schoolfellows of Tom s, now law or 
 medical students, some already admitted to practice, 
 but not yet strong enough to fly out of the native field. 
 Give them time, messieurs, they will be with you, 
 further up-town, later. 
 
 " I m thinking of taking lodgings down here myself," 
 Peyton said one evening. " It s only necessary to be 
 an American and start down here to be a success. 
 Now I am an American, but successful only as a failure. 
 My night city-editor informed me this evening, with 
 tears which I took to be tears of delight streaming 
 down his pale, nervous face, that I had at last turned in 
 
BOWERY ARTISTS. 
 14 The singers and dancers would play at them. "Page 136. 
 
 12 
 
A Toddy, and Glad Tidings. 137 
 
 a story with every essential fact included and all abso 
 lutely correct. As I rose, choked with emotion, to 
 thank him, he added that the story I had turned in hap 
 pened not to be the story I had been sent out on another 
 man had brought that in earlier in the evening, and it 
 was then in type; and would I trot out again, dig up 
 my own story, and kindly hustle!" 
 
 "Whenever you re ready to change lodgings just let 
 me know," said Tom, "for I m beginning to feel as if I 
 belonged in a Guardian man s rooms. Your art depart 
 ment is sending me something to do nearly every day 
 now. I am to have a four-column illustration in next 
 Sunday, and I am to sign it, too, if you please, so I m 
 thinking about looking for apartments up your way." 
 
 Tom took from a wide, flat parcel on a chair by his 
 side a sheet of cardboard on which was a nearly finished 
 drawing. " I ve been working on this whenever I could 
 get a chance at the theatre," Tom added. Philip took 
 it and asked: "Is this the one you re to sign for the 
 Sunday Guardian?" When Tom said it was, Philip im 
 pudently took from his pocket one of those perpetually 
 inked pens, and wrote in the corner of the sketch : " T. 
 Fitz Gerald Lyon." When Tom saw this he exclaimed 
 indignantly, " Now wouldn t I look nice with my name 
 parted in the middle like that!" 
 
 "You take my advice, my son," Philip said, with 
 much gravity: "The signature, T. Fitz Gerald Lyon, 
 will prompt a hundred people to inquire about the artist, 
 yes, and to commend the art, where five would take 
 notice of T. F. Lyon s feeble efforts to please the eye." 
 
 Tom only laughed at this, but he did not change the 
 signature, and that, if you care to know, is the way the 
 precise form of Lyon s signature, with which we are all 
 so familiar now, was invented. 
 
138 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 " Oh, you re not the only one who has successes, " said 
 Carminella, teasing Tom a little: "what do you say to 
 my going into a Broadway-theatre ballet which Profes 
 sor Polli is to rehearse?" 
 
 Both men answered exactly together: "I say, no!" 
 said Tom, and he really looked a little bit anxious. 
 
 " I say, good !" Philip exclaimed, but he had not 
 changed from his bantering mood. 
 
 " I only didn t want you to have all the glory," Car 
 minella said, " or I would not have told, for I am not 
 going." 
 
 Both the men looked so inquiringly at Teresa, who 
 they knew, of course, would make the decision, that she 
 answered: "Carminella will dance a solo at the next 
 piece at the Tivoli. Better for her to stay there until 
 she goes to Broadway as a soloist or specialist." 
 
 "You are right, Mrs. Cortese," said Philip. "Miss 
 Carminella will come to Broadway as much a stranger, 
 coming from the Bowery, as from Vienna; so she had 
 better wait until she can come with a press agent, litho 
 graphs, stories of stolen diamonds, a French maid, and 
 an English fox-terrier." 
 
 Carminella laughed as Philip ran on in this way, but 
 Tom, somehow, did not seem to find as much simple fun 
 in that Bohemian evening as in others. Perhaps his 
 drawing had been passed over too lightly; perhaps the 
 party had not taken seriously enough his announcement 
 of the fact which had made his blood tingle all day, 
 that his name was to be signed to his work in the col 
 umns of the great Guardian. Perhaps, too, Tom could 
 not regard with great satisfaction the prospect of Car 
 minella leaving the Tivoli, which would mean her leav 
 ing the Bend. Then he would see her neither at work 
 nor at home. I guess that was the cause of his very 
 
A Toddy, and Glad Tidings. 139 
 
 unusual depression. The fact is that in the last year 
 or so there had been a check to Tom s growing impa 
 tience with his father s loyalty to their old home. He 
 did not know the particulars of his father s worldly 
 affairs; but he was not ignorant of the general belief 
 that Dan s long and patient industry and thrift, and the 
 real liking some of the business men in the Niantic 
 building had for him, who would be likely to advise 
 him wisely in the investment of his savings, had resulted 
 in the old man acquiring enough of this world s goods 
 to make it possible and proper that they should permit 
 themselves a better manner of living. Tom, I say, had 
 chafed under his father s insistance upon remaining in 
 the Bend under these circumstences until the last year 
 or so, during which Carminella had grown to a more 
 companionable age. Since she had begun to work at 
 the Tivoli they had been much together. They had 
 gone out together in the mornings for long walks in the 
 beautiful parts of the city on pleasant days, or Carmi 
 nella had posed for Tom when he wanted a woman s 
 figure in a drawing for the Guardian. During this time 
 he had been perfectly contented with the Bend as a 
 home. 
 
 That evening, as Tom, Teresa, and Carminella parted 
 at the entrance of the Garden from Philip, who was 
 going up-town with some companions, and they started 
 to walk down the Bowery, Teresa said to him : 
 
 "We are not going to leave the Tivoli yet, Tom, but 
 we are going to leave the tenement." 
 
 " Leave the tenement?" repeated Tom, his heart 
 sinking. 
 
 " Has not your father told you?" asked Teresa, with 
 surprise. " Then I should not have told you." 
 
 Tom found his father waiting up for him. This was 
 
140 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 an unusual occurrence, for, except when political duties 
 interfered, Dan s bed-time was nine o clock. 
 
 There was a sly, pleased look on the old man s face 
 as he watched his tall, handsome boy throw off his coat 
 and vest; fill his beloved pipe of the Art League days, 
 and sink into a chair, pulling his rather long, reddish hair 
 over his forehead ; the picture of a very dejected young 
 man, and therefore looking very unlike Tom Lyon. 
 
 "What s this you have in the paper, Tom?" asked his 
 father, pointing to the package Tom had thrown on the 
 lamp-table. 
 
 " Some drawings," answered Tom ; " this one is going 
 into the Guardian on Sunday." 
 
 "And what s this I see," said Dan, putting on his 
 spectacles to examine the signature. " Sure that s a 
 stylish way of writing your name. Your mother was a 
 Fitz Gerald, and none better ever came over. What 
 struck you to write your name all out like that?" 
 
 "I didn t write it, dad; Mr. Peyton did." 
 
 "Mr. Peyton, eh? I m proud of your having fine 
 friends like that, Tom; I m thinking sometimes that 
 you ll be ashamed of the old home you stay in for your 
 dad s sake." As Dan said this he lighted his own pipe, 
 and walked around behind Tom, and he was smiling 
 with great satisfaction as he smoked. 
 
 "Well, dad," said Tom, holding up a drawing, squint 
 ing at it, and blocking out a portion of it from his sight 
 with an intercepting thumb, "it doesn t do me any 
 harm at the Tivoli to be known to be living in Mul 
 berry Bend; but if I should take a studio, that s a sort 
 of an office to do my work in, you know, and give up 
 scene-painting and try to make a living as an artist, I 
 don t suppose it would help me to get buyers to have it 
 known that I live down here." 
 
A Toddy, and Glad Tidings. 141 
 
 Dan s smile faded for a moment. Perhaps he had 
 hoped for an expression of ready willingness on Tom s 
 part to remain in the Bend as long as his father thought 
 best, but the old man s smile of satisfaction returned 
 when Tom added, after a few vigorous puffs : " But if 
 you re stuck on staying here, dad, till the city clears 
 these rattle-traps out to make a park of the Bend, why 
 of course I ain t going back on you. What s good 
 enough for the old man ought to be good enough for the 
 kid, I guess!" 
 
 Tom shook himself, gave one of his natural, jolly 
 laughs, jumped up from his chair, squared off at his 
 father, pretended to aim a death-dealing blow at him, 
 tapped him lightly on the cheek and added, " Especially 
 when he s been as square an old man as you have been 
 to me. Take that, and that," and he tapped Dan twice 
 more. Dan countered the last blow, struck Tom on the 
 chest, and, as his son sank into a chair, pretending to 
 be knocked down, Dan took a seat opposite and said : 
 
 " Have your manners about you, T. Fitz Gerald Lyon, 
 or I ll show you the way the Ridge-street boys used to 
 lick the Cherry-hill gang. Now as I m having a long 
 story to tell you, before I begin fetch what you find in 
 the cupboard, on the bottom shelf." 
 
 Tom found there a bottle of whiskey, which he had 
 expected, for Dan took a glass of whiskey and water, and 
 only one, every night of his life. What was unexpected 
 there was a pitcher of ice-water, some lemons, and a 
 bag of lump sugar. They were all strangers ; as strange 
 in frugal Dan s cupboard as in any other in that tene 
 ment. 
 
 "Bring them here, Tom, and I ll show you the right 
 way to mix a toddy," said Dan. "It s fifteen years 
 since I treated myself to one, but we ll finish that bot- 
 
142 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 tie to-night, my boy. A glass of plain whiskey and 
 water has been my daily allowance for fifteen years. " 
 
 "Why, dad, what s the matter?" exclaimed Tom; for 
 he suddenly discovered that his father s smiling lips 
 were trembling and his eyes were filled. 
 
 The old man did not answer by word, but reached 
 over to the bed for his coat, and drew from an inside 
 pocket a long envelope from which he took a document 
 and gave it to his son. Tom opened it wonderingly, 
 looked at it long and hard, and then laid it down, saying : 
 
 " It s all Greek to me, dad, except that it s a deed to 
 something, and that it is in your name." 
 
 Dan told his story with a hundred explanations which 
 were, natural!) , of the liveliest interest to Tom, but 
 might not all be to my readers, so I will make of it a 
 briefer tale: 
 
 Fifteen years before, Dan Lyon had accumulated and 
 placed on deposit in a savings bank $1,000. He went 
 to the oldest tenant of the Niantic building, to Mr. 
 Fordham, the lawyer, who has been referred to as de 
 clining to substitute the typewriter for the quill pen in 
 his office business, and asked him if he could invest his 
 money in any better way than leaving it on deposit. 
 The lawyer liked Dan; they had grown up together in 
 the building since the lawyer had left his college, one to 
 wealth and position, the other to the respect of all men 
 who knew him. There was something alike in them, 
 in their caution and conservatism. With the same start 
 in life they would doubtless have attained much the 
 same position. Mr. Fordham said he would bear Dan s 
 case in mind and he did. His own country home was 
 in Long Island in the hills north of Hempstead plains. 
 It was an ancestral place and Mr. Fordham knew the 
 
MR. FORDHAM. 
 The lawyer liked Dan." Page 142. 
 
A Toddy, and Glad Tidings. 143 
 
 country well for miles around ; saw the gradual decline 
 in the value of farming lands thereabouts, and was one 
 of the first to note the indication of the approaching 
 fashionable drift which at last made an "abandoned 
 farm" in that neighborhood so valuable that it paid 
 speculators to give fancy prices for prosperous farms 
 and then announce them as " abandoned" and for 
 sale! He observed this tendency before it affected val 
 ues much, and made an uncommonly wise estimate of 
 the extent to which it would run. Near his own place 
 was a pretty twenty-acre farm and colonial farm-house 
 with shingle sides which was for sale, not as " aban 
 doned," for it was good land though out-at-elbows as a 
 farm, but at a reasonable price at a farm valuation. 
 Mr. Fordham wanted the property to add to his own 
 and would have bought it could he have obtained an 
 intervening piece of land. He thought of Dan, had 
 him over there one Sunday and showed him the place, 
 explained the probable future of the neighborhood, told 
 what should be done to the house and land, and what 
 the improvements would cost, and then told him he 
 would secure the place for him for his $1,000, and would 
 undertake to find some one who would " carry the place 
 on a mortgage at terms which Dan could meet." That 
 was Mr. Fordham s manner of concealing the fact that 
 he intended himself to carry through this momentous 
 investment for Dan. For laborious days and nights 
 Dan figured on unaccustomed questions of mortgage, 
 interest, cost of improvements on land and buildings, 
 on possible revenues from the farm converted into an 
 orchard and vegetable garden, and on his own capacity 
 for saving, and then announced to Mr. Fordham that he 
 thought he could clear the transaction out, making all 
 the payments and meeting the costs of all the improve- 
 
144 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 ments suggested, in fifteen years! The security was 
 perfectly good, and, although the interest rate Dan paid 
 was low, Mr. Fordham said he thought "his client 
 would be satisfied," and Dan saw the beginning of the 
 consummation of his life s ambition. Once started, the 
 struggle proved easier than Dan had counted upon. 
 His services to Mr. Dean paid him twice what he had 
 estimated they would, and for the last five years he had 
 practically had the management as janitor of a building 
 next to the Niantic, but he never thought of changing 
 a condition of the investment as it was first planned. 
 The increasing fashionableness and population of the 
 neighborhood made a better market for the farm pro 
 ducts, and Dan s income from that source exceeded his 
 estimate. There were many times when he had to 
 struggle hard not to let Tom know of this good fortune, 
 but it had always seemed to him that nine-tenths of the 
 glorious satisfaction of telling Tom that he actually 
 owned a home of his own which would support him 
 would be lacking if he had to add that it was mortgaged. 
 So when at last the whole encumbrance was paid off, 
 and this was on the very day Dan told him of it, besides 
 having this wonderful thing this unencumbered deed 
 to a home for them Dan had money in the bank where 
 with to furnish the farm-house as Tom might like. 
 
 " I wouldn t furnish it, Tom, without you to say how, 
 for Mr. Fordham is telling me the artists are doing 
 great tricks with those old farm-houses; making them 
 look like the old days again on the inside, he says, and 
 you ll have full swing there. And now, my boy, when 
 your fine friends say, Where are you living, T. Fitz 
 Gerald Lyon? you ll take your time answering and say, 
 careless-like, 4 Oh, down at me father s country place in 
 Long Island. Couldn t you run down and spend a 
 
A Toddy, and Glad Tidings. 145 
 
 night with us? The old man ll be glad to see you, and 
 he makes a fine toddy. He s the same Dan Lyon that 
 worked in the Niantic building, boy and man, near 
 fifty years! Tell em that, Tom, and your old dad will 
 be waiting down there for you, never going back on 
 your promised welcome, though you bring a dozen of 
 your fine friends at once. Tell em that, Tom." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE EXODUS FROM MULBERRY BEND. 
 
 DAN LYON had considered Dominico s affairs as well 
 as his own in his closing days at Mulberry Bend, and 
 had talked them over with Dominico and Teresa. Do 
 minico s business had thrived greatly of late, owing to 
 the large patronage of the Tivoli Theatre ; and besides 
 this betterment of the Cortese fortunes, Professor Polli 
 had taught Carminella some solo dances which he had 
 invented for her, or, more properly, had arranged to suit 
 her form and stature and the special directions in which 
 she had shown the greatest facility in her dancing. 
 The new dances had been rehearsed on the Tivoli stage 
 for the finishing touches, and Dominico, who had 
 watched, not the dancer but the faces of the house ballet- 
 master, the stage-manager, and Mr. Dean, had stoutly 
 held out for a salary of twenty-five dollars a week for 
 Carminella in the new piece, and had nearly died of joy 
 when he gained his point. He would undoubtedly have 
 died of rage had he known that he could just as readily 
 have demanded and obtained fifty dollars a week. The 
 new piece, a Christmas spectacle, was almost ready 
 when Dan had settled all his affairs with the men in 
 the Bend for whom he had been so many years a care 
 ful financial agent; closed up his political accounts 
 with Mr. Dean, and installed his successor in the Nian- 
 tic building. 
 
 As Carminella s increased wages would soon begin, 
 
 146 
 
The Exodus from Mulberry Bend. 147 
 
 Dan advised Dominico to move into a better neighbor 
 hood for her sake. To both Tom s and Teresa s sur 
 prise Dominico offered little objection to this change, 
 which meant considerable addition to the cost of their 
 living. That worthy and prosperous Italian had lately 
 developed some tastes and manners which might have 
 suggested to Dan, had he been a judge in those matters, 
 that Dominico s yearnings for a more fashionable life 
 would prompt him to lead, rather than reluctantly fol 
 low, the northward march. Dominico had discarded 
 the shapeless woollen cap of Mulberry Bend for a vel 
 vet yachting cap of most extraordinary size and plethoric 
 puffiness; no longer did he reserve his red and yellow 
 neck-scarfs for Sunday and other fete days, but they 
 gladdened and rejoiced his razor-scraped neck seven 
 days in the week. The earrings of Naples were made 
 to relinquish their accustomed hold, but more glittering 
 than they was the plated-gold watch-chain which hung 
 in graceful waves from pocket to buttonhole and from 
 buttonhole to pocket of his highly colored velveteen 
 vest. The pearl buttons on his corduroy coat grew in 
 size from week to week to the hilarious approval of the 
 Bowery. The brogans he was wont to wear no longer 
 covered his ample feet with comfort and protection, and 
 in their stead he stood in glorious" anguish in a pair of 
 tight and high-heeled boots. He loved, on warm sum 
 mer and fall evenings, standing beneath the electric 
 light in front of the Tivoli Theatre with naught of his 
 refulgence concealed, to discourse with his customers 
 on subjects pertaining to the stage and of his daughter s 
 success. He was a very butterfly of fashion, and when 
 it was proposed that their increased incomes warranted 
 a move into fields where his bright colors would be 
 more in harmony with his surroundings than in the 
 
148 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 back tenement of Mulberry Bend, Dominico exclaimed 
 with enthusiasm : " Are we pigs to always live in this 
 sty? No, let Riccodonna and his kind, whose daugh 
 ters could earn but two or three dollars a week sewing 
 at the machine from daylight to dark, stay there and 
 rot." Had not he, Dominico Cortese, an honest man if 
 ever one came from Italy, begged the stupid thief, Ric 
 codonna, to keep his children in the schools? Had he 
 not said, " Riccodonna, friend, make your daughters 
 learn everything as I make mine learn. Beat them if 
 they do not." "Let us go farther north, even beyond 
 Cooper Union, and live fashionable lives, with a room 
 in which to eat our food separate from the room in 
 which we cook. Let us have the good red wine of Italy 
 for fifty cents a gallon, and drink it when our best 
 friend, Dan, visits us from his palazzo on Long Island." 
 
 Dan, indeed, had to modify the transports of Domi 
 nico, or that socially revolutionized man would have 
 placed no limit on the delights and luxuries he prom 
 ised the family. 
 
 Before the new piece was put on, Teresa found a flat 
 on Tompkins Square into which they moved. It had 
 four rooms, besides its own bath-room, and they paid 
 twenty dollars a month. Dan made Teresa a present 
 of his furniture, which, with what they had, and a car 
 pet and a curtain for Carminella s room, a present from 
 Tom, set them up in housekeeping in such fashionable 
 style that Dominico wept that Riccodonna could not 
 see. 
 
 But in the enthusiasm Dominico felt and imparted 
 in some degree to Teresa, Carminella, and Dan, one of 
 the party, Tom, did not share. He was going to give 
 up his night-work at the theatre, when he and his father 
 moved to Mulberry Court, the name Dan had given to 
 
The Exodus from Mulberry Bend. 149 
 
 his Long Island home. He had begun that night-work, 
 as an assistant to Mr. Foster, the stage-manager, years 
 ago in lieu of the morning hours he then devoted to 
 the Art League. Now he would return to his all-day 
 work on the paint-bridge of the theatre, so that he 
 could return home for the evenings. He would not see 
 Carminella much, he thought, except at rehearsals. 
 Near the day for the separation, at one of the suppers 
 they took at the Garden, Tom spoke of this rather rue 
 fully, and Carminella had said : " But you will become 
 a great artist, will have your own studio, and then you 
 will not be at the Tivoli at all." 
 
 Poor Tom could not see that the brightness in the 
 girl s eyes as she said this was all for pride and hope in 
 him. She, so much more intuitive than he, though she 
 did not divine all, saw that Tom was in a mood danger 
 ous to his prospects, his ambition. Now, just as the 
 world was opening before him with a fair field for his 
 talents, he seemed for the first time in his life to be 
 satisfied with things as they were. She saw so much, 
 and said what she did to spur him back into his old-time 
 restlessness and high ambition. She did not know, and 
 perhaps Tom did not wholly realize, that because Car 
 minella was so much in his life there he was at last 
 content with it. So he was dissatisfied with her that 
 she could speak without regret of his leaving the Tivoli 
 altogether, and was silent and miserable during the rest 
 of the supper, although Philip was there and kept the 
 others laughing at his nonsense. When they separated 
 Tom said he would go home at once to be with his 
 father on this last night at the Bend, and Philip Peyton 
 went away to Tompkins Square with Carminella and 
 Teresa. Tom turned his way; and as he heard the 
 others laughing, waiting for a street car, felt something 
 13 
 
150 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 so heavy and miserable about his heart he wondered what 
 he had ever found in life which could make it seem gay 
 and bright. " Anyway, " he thought, " it is a great satis 
 faction if I can t be as much with Carminella as before, 
 that so good a fellow, and such a good friend of mine, 
 as Philip Peyton can be," and he turned and saw Philip 
 helping Carminella into the car, and she was again 
 laughing. 
 
 The new dances were a success from the first. Car 
 minella appeared in the second act of the Holiday spec 
 tacle as a Spanish gypsy, dancing before a camp of 
 British soldiers, whom she charmed into forgetfulness 
 of their duties while a gypsy prisoner, her father, made 
 his escape from the camp. Why he had been made a 
 prisoner, or what he did with the liberty she secured 
 for him, Carminella never discovered, although she was 
 a central figure in the incident every night for a month, 
 and, indeed, had a few lines to speak of a nature calcu 
 lated to sooth the mind of the commanding Britisher. 
 
 It was discovered at once that a dramatic motive for 
 her work, a cause for her appearance in the scene, added 
 something to the brilliancy of Carminella s manner, 
 and a spirit to the poetry of her movements in the gypsy 
 dance, and Mr. Foster at once set to work to have a dra 
 matic introduction written in for her second dance, in 
 which she appeared as an Egyptian slave ; the British 
 Army having moved to Cairo in the entr acte. In each 
 character Carminella spoke her few lines in a thrillingly 
 sweet contralto voice, and in such English accent as 
 Bowery theatre-goers had not listened to since the days 
 when the great stars of their profession shone on the 
 stage of the old Bowery, where the Hebrews swarm 
 now to hear the drama in their vernacular. In every 
 piece produced at the Tivoli that winter there was a 
 
A WAIF. 
 "Forced to appear on the streets." Page 151. 
 
The Exodus from Mulberry Bend. 151 
 
 speaking part of a few lines written in as a medium for 
 the introduction of Carminella in some character in 
 which she could dance. Mr. Foster refrained, as long 
 as his shrewd business sense permitted him, from making 
 a "feature," as it is called, of Carminella s dancing. 
 Not that he apprehended a visitation from the agent of 
 the Society which is overcome with such spasms of 
 horror if a young woman under sixteen years of age 
 appears on the stage, while fifty thousand children of 
 much less than that age are prevented from appearing 
 in the public schools for lack of school accommodation, 
 and are thereby forced to appear on the streets or in the 
 shops or sweaters dens. There was no danger of such 
 a visitation, for any one would readily accept without 
 question the assertion that Carminella was eighteen. 
 That was not why Mr. Foster hesitated ; it was to pre 
 vent a dreaded ebullition of Dominico s expensive pas 
 sion for more salary. Partly for this reason, and partly 
 not to attract the attention of Broadway theatre-mana 
 gers, as little as possible was publicly made of Carmi 
 nella s success. But when it became manifest beyond 
 possibility of denial that Carminella was a great draw 
 ing attraction at the Tivoli, all of her new dances were 
 promptly advertised in newspapers and show-bills, and 
 the relentless and exuberant Dominico was not satisfied 
 until he had at last secured a contract by which Car 
 minella was paid sixty dollars a week ! Twice as much 
 in a single night as he, honest Dominico, had earned 
 by a week s hard work, many and many a week! On 
 the day the contract was signed Dominico invested in a 
 paste-diamond pin of astounding size and dazzling 
 brilliancy, and so startling bright became his neck- 
 scarfs, his raw-red throat paled by contrast. When 
 that contract was signed (it engaged Carminella until 
 
152 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 the following fall), Mr. Dean and Mr. Foster, left alone, 
 heaved sighs of relief together. " The girl is worth 
 a hundred dollars a week to any Broadway house that 
 could use her work," said Mr. Foster. 
 
 " Yes, and most of them are running to that kind of 
 work, too," Mr. Dean added. 
 
 But as little as Broadway knows of the Bowery, which 
 is as little, generally, as the Bowery cares for Broad 
 way, the fame of the wonderfully beautiful girl who 
 was making another fortune for Charles Dean by her 
 character dances at the Tivoli spread to the haunts of 
 those who, soon wearing out the entertainment offered 
 by the up-town theatres, are ever alert for the novel 
 ties which are offered to the east, the west, the south, 
 yes, even to the north of the zigzag path which Broad 
 way cuts through their accustomed part of this Island 
 of Manhattan. And among the men who welcomed the 
 news that there was "something worth seeing at the 
 Tivoli" was Mr. Mark Waters. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A TENDERLOIN DISTRICT BOX-PARTY. 
 
 "I LL send for a box, and we ll take in that Tivoli 
 show," Waters said to a party of his friends who were 
 discussing the news of the attraction which some ad 
 venturous rounders had reported from the Bowery. In 
 his box party, the night they appeared in evening dress 
 at the Tivoli, were two pale, smooth-faced, loose-shoul 
 dered young men, who looked so bored it seemed a pity 
 they were compelled to endure the flatness of this life 
 another minute. They were two friends of whom 
 Waters was so proud he visibly swelled and puffed 
 whenever he was seen in their company. One was the 
 son of a Western millionaire, who was gratifying his 
 own ambition and breaking a simple mother s heart by 
 the frequency with which his name figured in sensa 
 tional incidents which aided, during his career there, 
 to give characteristic color to life in that section of our 
 beloved but sometimes unfortunate city known as the 
 "Tenderloin:" a section wherein, by some strange 
 meeting of social tides and currents, a whirlpool is 
 formed which, for once, commingles the scum and 
 dregs, the froth and sediment, that which glitters and 
 the debris from which it has once been separated ; as a 
 mountain torrent sometimes sweeps through the miner s 
 sluice-boxes, a wild and muddy stream scouring up 
 from the bottom the separated gold, adding it again to 
 the earth from which it has been washed, pouring all 
 
154 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 into a seething pool with bruising boulders, tossing 
 tree-trunks, with slime and gravel and wreckage of 
 carefully constructed works meant for the separation 
 and refining of the gold from the dross; and there, 
 sometimes floating on the surface; sometimes drawn 
 beneath the waves, appear and disappear, stained and 
 rent, wild-flowers, torn from their quiet canon homes 
 by the flood which has brought them to this turbulent 
 water and there will strand them. 
 
 The Westerner s companion was a New Yorker, 
 whose family name has been exalted for three genera 
 tions in an honored profession. His features were 
 strikingly handsome, and the hard mask his life was 
 already imposing over his young face as yet but half 
 concealed an inherited expression which, in his father s, 
 had been pride of name and place and achievement. In 
 him it was what? An evidence of the commingled 
 precious metal, which in his ancestors had been cleared 
 of its debris, and was now being torrent-swept back into 
 its native grime again? 
 
 Waters third guest was an old man, ten years Waters 
 senior, but in many ways the youngest-looking man in 
 the party. Although his trimmed and pointed mous 
 tache was nearly white, his complexion was an even, 
 pale red which, at a little distance, looked like the un 
 damaged pink of youth. His eyes were a little sur 
 prisingly little the worse for late hours and tobacco 
 and wine, and behind his rimless eye-glasses yet seemed 
 bright, especially as they lighted with pretended inter 
 est. There was really nothing in the world which in 
 terested him except to affect an interest in all things, 
 and this, and his slender sprightly figure, aided his 
 youthful appearance. He was one of those amazing 
 but picturesque products of the Tenderloin made possi- 
 
THE NEW YORKER. 
 The younger men were living that life from choice." Page 154. 
 
A Tenderloin District Box-Party. 155 
 
 ble by a physique which must have been inherited, unal 
 tered, from some cave-dwelling, bear-fighting ancestor. 
 
 The younger men were living that life from choice, 
 and they fraternized with Waters because they found 
 him one of its elements. The young New Yorker be 
 longed to some desirable clubs, and at such intervals as 
 their rules permitted, took Waters to them for dinner, 
 enjoying in a languid way the disapproval of his fellow 
 club members thereat. But he had wealth and posi 
 tion (at least his family held a position for him which 
 he might choose some day to accept), and his taste in 
 club guests was not too openly condemned. 
 
 All of Waters party at the Tivoli " had money" a 
 status not enjoyed by many of his customary compan 
 ions and he was proud and happy in their company. 
 The old man paid close and apparently absorbed atten 
 tion to the stage performance, applauded everybody and 
 everything while waiting for " La Cortese s" appear 
 ance; during which time the young men stared moodily 
 at the audience, and Waters followed their example, 
 copying their looks and manner as nearly as possible. 
 But when from the gallery, where Italians were numer 
 ous, came cries of "La Cortese! La Cortese!" announc 
 ing Carminella s appearance, there suddenly ceased in 
 Waters box, as everywhere else in the theatre, any 
 pretence of indifference. 
 
 Carminella s first dance was in the character of a 
 French cantiniere, in a zouave uniform, with a skirt 
 reaching to her leggings, and jaunty scarlet fez capping 
 her loose black hair. In the story of the play she was 
 supposed to be practising a dance she had learned from 
 native Algerians, and, as Professor Polli had arranged 
 it, the cantiniere found it impossible not to interrupt 
 the slower and more sensuous movements of the Moor- 
 
156 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 ish, with the livelier and to her more familiar steps of 
 the Parisian dances. Carminella, using her unswung 
 canteen as a tambourine, carried out with artistic spirit 
 the pretended fun and confusion of the errors and mis 
 takes of her dance ; and the alternate applause of the 
 French and Algerian troops, as she glided smoothly 
 from the favorite dance of one to the other, was taken 
 up by the audience, until on both sides of the footlights 
 there was an uproar of cheers and "bravas!" in the 
 highest tumult of which " La Cortese" broke from the 
 stage in an instant s riot of the can-can a la Polli. In 
 response to the roar of applause the favorite reappeared, 
 bowing, her fez in one hand, her long hair tossing about 
 her shoulders. 
 
 Waters leaned forward motionless, his heavy lips 
 parted and trembling, his usually dull eyes glaring 
 hotly. The two younger men were applauding with a 
 frank vigor of which they would have been ashamed 
 had they been conscious, and the old man, really the 
 least affected of the party but pretending to be quite 
 carried away by artistic fervor, was the first to think of 
 an appropriate display of enthusiasm. With the ap 
 pearance of one acting from uncontrollable impulse he 
 tore his boutonniere from the lapel of his coat and cast 
 it at Carminella s feet. The gossip that a party of 
 fashionables from up-town was in that box had passed 
 from mouth to mouth behind the scenes, and Carmi 
 nella, who had heard it, gave one quick, curious glance 
 at the four standing men just as the other three followed 
 the old man s example. As the flowers fell at her feet 
 Carminella smiled, stooped, picked up one, fastened it 
 by a quick movement to her zouave jacket, and bowed 
 herself from the stage and into the enveloping cloak 
 held by Teresa s outstretched arms. 
 
A Tenderloin District Box-Party. 157 
 
 By chance the flower she had picked up was the one 
 Waters had worn, and as he saw it fastened on her 
 breast he flushed heavily and his heart beat so that it 
 hurt him. 
 
 "Lucky boy, Waters!" exclaimed the old man, who 
 had noticed all. 
 
 "I say, but isn t she a howling beauty!" the young 
 New Yorker said, and then added, " We must find out 
 where the cage is that keeps that bird when she is not 
 let out on exhibition. You know Dean, don t you 
 Waters? Let s give him a jolly and learn something 
 useful about La Cortese. " 
 
 They found Mr. Dean in his private office, and after 
 Waters had introduced his companions, and ordered a 
 bottle of champagne served to them there from the bar 
 across the lobby, he said, " That s a great little woman 
 you have La Cortese, old man." 
 
 "Not so very little, either," answered the proprietor 
 of the Tivoli, smiling calmly. 
 
 "That s so," Waters said. "I was thinking of her 
 age, really. I suppose she is not much more than 
 nineteen or twenty." 
 
 "Not much more than that, I guess," Mr. Dean said, 
 with sudden caution. 
 
 He knew instantly and perfectly what his visitors 
 were there for, and smiled a little to himself. The only 
 quick-perceiving visitor, the old man, saw Dean s access 
 of caution, and motioned the waiter to bring another 
 bottle of champagne. 
 
 "They don t make them as good dancers as La Cor 
 tese at that age on this side. I suppose she was trained 
 in Italy," Waters continued when the second bottle had 
 been opened and passed. 
 
 " But she was trained here, right enough," Mr. Dean 
 
158 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 said. " Her mother was in this business before her, and 
 brought the girl up to it. You may remember (he 
 turned to the old man) a troupe of burlesquers who 
 made a sensation here, years ago, at the Arcady?" 
 
 Waters champagne-glass fell from his hand. He 
 stooped over, wiping the wine from his trousers, before 
 he asked, " And was her mother one of the Arcadians? 
 It seems to me I recall them." 
 
 "Yes," Mr. Dean said, "she was one of the squad 
 they nicknamed the Longs. La Cortese was a baby 
 then or not much more." 
 
 "Was her mother s name Cortese?" Waters asked, 
 trying to appear unconcerned, as he slowly filled a fresh 
 glass. 
 
 "No," vsaid Mr. Dean, closely eying Waters from 
 half-closed lids. " Her name then was let s see 
 what s this her name was? oh yes, it was Teresa Cesa- 
 rotti ; she was married to " 
 
 "Damnation!" 
 
 This interruption was from Waters, who dropped or 
 threw the champagne bottle on the floor. His compan 
 ions regarded him in amazement, for he had turned 
 suddenly white. 
 
 " What the devil ails you, Waters?" the young New 
 Yorker asked. 
 
 "The wire on that bottle cut my finger to the bone," 
 he answered. He wrapped a handkerchief around a 
 finger and swore some more before he said : " It s quite 
 a romance. Where could one call on La Cortese to pay 
 his respects?" 
 
 Mr. Dean rose to greet some more callers before he 
 answered over his shoulder : " We have a rule not to 
 give the address of any one of our people to outsiders." 
 
 Waters companions laughed a little at this. He left 
 
MR. DEAN. 
 
 "We have a rule, not to give the addresses of our people to outsiders." 
 
 Page 158. 
 
A Tenderloin District Box-Party. 159 
 
 them soon after they had returned up-town. " I believe 
 I ll wake up a doctor and have this finger dressed. 
 There may have been rust on that wire," he said, as he 
 bade them good-night. 
 
 " Waters seems to have been hit hard by La Cortese," 
 the Westerner said. 
 
 " Yes," the old man commented, " by La Cortese, or La 
 Teresa, or La Cesarotti, or La recollection, or La some 
 thing. How beastly early it is! It s too bad Waters 
 finger kept us from seeing La Cortese in the last act." 
 
 Mark Waters did not go to a doctor s, although when 
 he was alone he seemed suddenly to need a doctor s 
 care. He went at once to his apartments. All his ac 
 quired swagger of bearing had departed: he shook as if 
 with chill ; he cast nervous glances up and down the 
 street as he turned into the lighted entrance-way of his 
 apartment-house ; he started so that he cursed himself 
 when the hall-boy called to him and directed his atten 
 tion to his letters in his lock-box; and when he reached 
 his room and looked in his glass he met a frightened 
 gray face at which he glared as if at a stranger. 
 
 "Teresa Cesarotti of the Arcadians! An infant 
 daughter!" he said to the gray stranger, as if repeating 
 something burned into his memory. 
 
 "Teresa Cesarotti, a ballet woman, and of the Arca 
 dians. If it is really the one I am " 
 
 He did not finish the sentence to the gray stranger, 
 but turned and rang for a messenger. 
 
 "Hurry," he said to the messenger. "There is 
 nearly an hour of the performance left. Go into the 
 theatre and see the dancer called La Cortese. She will 
 be on in the last act. Watch her close so you will re 
 cognize her in her street dress. Follow her home and 
 bring me her address." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A BRIEF VISIT IN UTOPIA. 
 
 WHEN George Peyton made his " Articles of Agree 
 ment" with his brother Philip, took the family fortune 
 of $1,000, and said good-by to Minnie Hazelhurst, he 
 went, as has been said, to San Francisco. He had 
 many letters of introduction, but presented only one, to 
 a merchant who had been the San Francisco agent of 
 George s father in his North Pacific whaling interests 
 for many years. This merchant had visited New York 
 occasionally and been entertained by the elder Peyton, 
 and although neither of the sons had happened to meet 
 him they knew that their father had liked the Califor- 
 nian both personally and as a commercial associate. 
 When George went to the offices of Horace Masters, the 
 Californian, and sent in his card and letter, a young 
 man, only a few years his senior, briskly followed the 
 messenger out from an inner office, extended his hand 
 to George, and said with hearty cordiality, " Your letter 
 is addressed to my father,. Mr. Peyton. He is out of 
 the city, but a letter introducing you belongs to me as 
 much as to him. My name is Horace Masters, also, 
 and I am my father s partner in this business. It s 
 nearly lunch-time, isn t it? Now we ll go up to the 
 club to lunch and decide there on what we want to do 
 this afternoon and to-night. Where s your baggage? 
 Palace, eh? Well, we ll just stop in at the Palace and 
 have your stuff sent up to the house. Frank (to a 
 
 1 60 
 
A Brief Visit in Utopia. 161 
 
 clerk), I m going out to lunch. I may not be back to. 
 day. Come on, Mr. Peyton: we ll take a cable car to 
 the Palace, first." 
 
 This was Peyton s introduction to San Francisco hos 
 pitality. He had expected to be asked what his engage 
 ments would be after a week, and then to receive an 
 invitation to dinner, and be put up at a club, there to 
 find his own way about, as he knew would be the pro 
 gramme under similar circumstances in New York. 
 The junior Masters dropped his work on the instant and 
 was the New Yorker s almost constant companion, as 
 well as his host, during the week Peyton was in the 
 city. Of course, the young merchant had his father s 
 social obligations to pay off in his entertainment of 
 Peyton, but the latter saw enough of the general scheme 
 of such things in San Francisco to realize that he would 
 have been almost as heartily and spontaneously enter 
 tained had he not appeared as a social creditor. San 
 Franciscans are pleasure-loving for pleasure s sake; not 
 for the sake of its display. They constitute one Amer 
 ican community where work waits on play; where 
 business has not yet become the driver and the 
 business man the slave. Young Masters would hear 
 of no excuse about the transfer of the baggage. " My 
 father would dissolve our partnership," he said, "if 
 he returned to the city and found that I had left you 
 at a hotel." 
 
 They lunched at the Utopian Club, where Peyton was 
 made to feel every time he was introduced to a new 
 acquaintance that he was meeting a man whose cup of 
 happiness lacked only that introduction to be filled to 
 overflowing. Each meeting was the excuse for the sug 
 gestion of " a little cocktail," and, although they seemed 
 to be of maximum size they were potent of only the 
 
162 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 minimum of effect. " It s the climate," explained Mas 
 ters when Peyton spoke of this. 
 
 After a very leisurely lunch, and none of the scores 
 of lunchers seemed to be in the slightest hurry about 
 anything, they drove out through the beautiful Golden 
 Gate Park in a skeleton-buggy behind a pair of long- 
 tailed trotters (they have degenerated into docking tails, 
 alas! even out there since then), bred on the stock farm 
 of a millionaire experimenter in horse-flesh, who dis 
 covered the advantage to blood stock of a proper infu 
 sion of thoroughbred. When the shore of the Pacific 
 Ocean was reached and the anxious, ambitious horses 
 were turned down that wonderful stretch of beach, 
 Masters passed the reins over to Peyton, saying: 
 " Speed them a mile." The New Yorker took the reins 
 with a thrill of pleasure. Nature has made a three- 
 mile speed-track there the work of man can never 
 equal. A level, springy, noiseless road of ocean 
 sand which the tide with tireless patience keeps 
 ever cool and dustless and as smooth as a breadth 
 of tightened velvet. At the horses feet, to the right 
 combed the lazy breakers of the Pacific, stretching 
 beyond in limitless blue beneath the no deeper blue 
 of the unsullied sky: to the left, a billowy ocean of 
 blonde sand, resisting with restless shifting man s 
 effort to conquer it for the established gardens of 
 the park. The trotters, recognizing at once the con 
 trolling touch of a more experienced hand, sped with 
 willing, rhythmic, rangy strides down the sweep of 
 suavely curving shore to where a deserted old road 
 side house marked the turning for another route 
 back to the city. 
 
 "I never rode behind a team driven like that," said 
 the Californian, as he took the reins Peyton passed back 
 
A Brief Visit in Utopia. 163 
 
 to him at the turning. " You deserve your reputation 
 as a skilful whip." 
 
 " Any one could drive such horses on such a track, " 
 Peyton responded. " But why, tell me, in heaven s 
 name, were we the only drivers on that magnificent 
 beach? I should think all San Francisco would be 
 driving there. I have never seen or heard of anything 
 like it." 
 
 " It would be hard to tell," Masters answered. "We 
 pretend that the reason so little good driving stock is 
 owned in San Francisco is because of the wretched pave 
 ments and steep hills of the city. But I guess if all our 
 streets were like that beach we would not drive much. 
 There are plenty of men in the city who could afford to 
 keep stables filled with the stock our breeders have to 
 send East to sell, but they care for more leisurely pleas 
 ures: driving is too much like work to be a popular 
 recreation here. I seldom take this team out. It will 
 be a favor to me if you will use the turnout as your own 
 while you are here. " 
 
 That evening they went to the Utopian Club to dine. 
 While they were in the cafe Masters was called aside 
 by a member, and returned with an invitation to Pey 
 ton to join a party at dinner in a private dining-room. 
 " The party forms a sort of dining-club, of which I am 
 a member, and a vacancy at the last moment makes a 
 place for you," Masters explained. 
 
 Before they went in to dinner the Utopians donned red 
 silk robes, one of which was given to Peyton. Twenty- 
 one of them sat at a round table, spread in red, lighted 
 by red-shaded candles, in a room whose color scheme in 
 decoration was red, and only the red wine of the coun 
 try was served at the meal. Peyton examined his com 
 panions with liveliest interest. In age they were from 
 
164 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 an eager-faced youngster fresh from college, to a white- 
 haired patriarch past his three score and ten ; in worldly 
 place, Masters explained, from a junior bank clerk to 
 the millionaire president of his bank ; in professional 
 career, from a law clerk to a judge of a United States 
 Court; in the social scale, from a young artist unknown 
 as yet outside Utopia to a " Nob Hill" dweller whose 
 family supplied the leaders of the city s smartest soci 
 ety. The amount of the clean, pure, wholesome native 
 red wine they all drank was amazing. This was drunk 
 from water-goblets. A quart was placed at each plate 
 at the beginning; a second appeared at most of the 
 plates with the roast. As his eyes wandered about the 
 table Peyton felt them arrested again and again by the 
 cheerful glance of a man opposite, whom he heard the 
 others call Langle. At each glance Langle smiled as 
 if he and Peyton were the possessors in common of some 
 happy secret which would surely promote the gayety of 
 nations and make even Utopia more blest. Peyton 
 found himself returning the smile, and feeling extremely 
 well-disposed toward his silent vis-a-vis. At last Lan 
 gle, having again arrested Peyton s attention, ceremo 
 niously lifted his goblet of wine, pursed his lips in a 
 mischievous silent laugh, and then said in a tone whim 
 sically fraught with affection and importance, " A glass 
 of wine with you, Mr. Peyton." The manner and voice 
 were irresistible, and Peyton responded as even a 
 fanatical total abstainer must have done by carrying 
 his glass to his lips. At this auspicious action Langle 
 looked around the table, included all the diners in a 
 broad, bland, comprehending smile of welcome and 
 good-fellowship, and said: "Gentlemen, a glass of 
 wine with Mr. Peyton." From every Utopian there 
 came the hearty response, " A glass of wine with you, 
 
UNCLE BARNABY. 
 "The white-haired patriarch arose and spoke." Page 164. 
 
A Brief Visit in Utopia. 165 
 
 Mr. Peyton," and the stranger felt himself a stranger 
 no more. He looked over at Langle and nodded his 
 thanks when that ever-alert man instantly raised his 
 goblet again, smiled with twinkling eyes and whispered 
 "A glass of wine with you, sir," and at no time during 
 the evening did his glance by chance or design meet that 
 of Langle without the resulting invitation; each time 
 extended as if at that moment happily thought out for 
 the first time. 
 
 After a while there were sudden calls around the 
 table for "Uncle Barnaby," and the white-haired patri 
 arch arose and spoke. He was handsome, with a manly 
 beauty which suggested to Peyton pictures of fighting 
 admirals of the olden days. He addressed the company 
 as his "children," and in a kindly bluff manner talked 
 about them and himself, told stories, and suddenly, 
 without any excuse, broke off into an old-fashioned 
 sea-song of which the diners roared the chorus. Then 
 he said that he had intended to make a speech, but had 
 decided to impose that duty on his young friend Maple- 
 ton. In response to delighted cries for "Mapleton," a 
 tall, slight, erect man rose and began to speak. The first 
 note of his voice struck the ear with the pleasurable 
 shock of an unexpected organ peal. It was rich, deep, 
 resonant, booming, and his words poured forth like a 
 majestic stream moving steadily onward, and as a great 
 stream moves, naturally, and without effort. He smiled 
 sneeringly as he spoke of the world outside of Utopia; 
 smiled good-naturedly as he teased with their individual 
 foibles some of his hearers; but his face had almost an 
 exalted look as he closed with an apostrophe to that 
 unselfish friendship between men which, in their Uto 
 pia, was prized beyond riches and all worldly honor. 
 
 "He is your great orator: some distinguished law- 
 
166 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 yer?" Peyton whispered to Masters, while all applauded 
 at the finish. 
 
 "He is a newspaper man, a reporter," Masters an 
 swered, and Peyton, thinking of Philip, applauded all 
 the more. 
 
 A man left the table and went to a piano, where 
 another Utopian hummed while the pianist felt for the 
 chords, and soon swung into a full and harmonious ac 
 companiment of a tune he had never heard before, and 
 the singer sang verses written that day for that even 
 ing. Nearly every one at the table had contributed 
 something to the entertainment, a song, a speech, a 
 poem, a story, when Mr. Langle, whose glance Peyton 
 for discretionary reasons had long avoided, rose, moist 
 ened his lips several times, beamed upon all with im 
 partial friendliness, and remarked confidentially: "I 
 cannot conceal from you longer the glad tidings that we 
 will now listen to a song from my old and dear friend, 
 George Peyton." 
 
 Peyton felt his heart drop into some unknown depths 
 as he heard his name thus mentioned, but the spirit of 
 the gathering took quick possession of him revived 
 him and he sang, in a big, tuneful untrained voice, a 
 yachting song new to his listeners, but they caught the 
 chorus and were roaring it with him after the second 
 verse. 
 
 He lived in Utopia, waiting for the return of the 
 senior Masters, a week. It was as unlike any other life 
 he had ever known as if he had, indeed, been transported 
 to Sir Thomas More s fabled paradise. 
 
 Horace Masters, senior, greeted George Peyton with 
 almost fatherly affection, and after they had dined one 
 evening at the Masters home he took the New Yorker 
 into his library and said, with a kindness which was 
 
A Brief Visit in Utopia. 167 
 
 touching to Peyton: " Now, my boy, let s have a little 
 chat about what we are going to do. Your father s son 
 can meet the world and win success anywhere, but I am 
 glad you elected to come out here, to a younger country 
 where the resources are not all tied up yet ; and I am 
 glad you have come to me, for your father never had a 
 better friend or greater admirer. First, tell me frankly 
 how you stand financially." 
 
 George told him, with a sorrowful laugh at his own 
 meagre tale. 
 
 The merchant looked puzzled. " But every dollar of 
 your father s debts had been paid within ninety days of 
 the failure. Where was the need of the assignment 
 when there were assets available for such prompt pay 
 ment? A sound and solvent firm could not settle all its 
 affairs sooner. Wait! never mind that now. Was that 
 Mark Waters managing your father s affairs at the time 
 of the assignment?" 
 
 George told him the fact. 
 
 Mr. Masters puffed his cigar for some time in silence. 
 Then he said: "Everything went to the creditors: 
 real estate and all, I hear." 
 
 "Everything was sold," answered George. "Even 
 my father s horses, traps, his yacht, the horses and the 
 sloop my brother Philip and I owned. The cash we 
 saved, I have told you, came from some trifles, guns, 
 saddles, and things of that kind, we sold after every one 
 had been paid. The whole estate consists now of one 
 encumbered piece of business property in a poor part of 
 the city." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Masters, "I will ask you one more 
 question about the affair, and then we ll not talk about 
 that any more for the present : Did your father have 
 perfect confidence in that Mark Waters to the last?" 
 
1 68 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 "I cannot tell," George answered slowly. " At the 
 very last, almost the last hour, you understand, father 
 mentioned Waters, and seemed to want to talk about 
 him, but the subject plainly distressed him, and we, 
 Phil and I, would not let him talk about it any more 
 not then but then he died." 
 
 Masters walked up and down the library, wiping his 
 eyes in the dark corner of the room, but when he sat 
 down again he said cheerfully : " Do you want to go to 
 work in my office to-morrow morning?" 
 
 "Certainly not!" exclaimed George. " I would not 
 be worth my salt there ; I must go to work where mus 
 cle counts." 
 
 "Good for you! I hoped you d say that. We must 
 go to work where muscle and brain count together. 
 That is the way most of us who have made a little stake 
 here started. Have you any idea: anything in mind?" 
 
 "Well," George said, stammering a little. " Has all 
 the mining passed away? I ve heard father say your 
 heart was always in mining even if your capital was 
 not." 
 
 "And he was right there," Mr. Masters laughed. 
 "I m not one of the big miners, you must understand, 
 and never have been. But I ve always believed we ve 
 only scratched the surface of our gold deposits, and I 
 have kept a little investment, and a big piece of my 
 heart, in the mines ever since I left them. I have lately 
 received some very promising news from an old mining 
 camp it was once totally deserted, in fact called Blue 
 Canon, where I have some interests. It will do no 
 harm for you to take a trip up there. There is no secret 
 or mystery about gold-quartz mining. One intelligent 
 man can look as far into a mountain as another after he 
 has learned to tell quartz from porphyry, and iron 
 
A Brief Visit in Utopia. 169 
 
 pyrites from flake gold. You go up there. Look 
 around. If *you find something you like and it needs a 
 little money for development let me know, and I ll see 
 if I can t find the money rolling up California Street 
 hill. If you see anything that promises big examine 
 it carefully, and if you still like it let me know and I ll 
 take a run up there, and we ll make up our minds to 
 gether what s best to be done. Come to the office in 
 the morning, and we ll see if our cashier is good- 
 natured enough to fix matters up about expense. Eh?" 
 George declared that he had enough money for the 
 trip, and to last some time too. The merchant only 
 added : " As you like, my boy, but when you do need 
 a little advance let me know, and I ll send Horace out 
 to see if he can t shoot some on the fly. He s quite a 
 wing shot." 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 IN A SIERRA NEVADA MINING CAMP. 
 
 ON the morning of the second day after his talk with 
 the San Francisco merchant, George Peyton stood in 
 front of the stage-coach office in the hot little railroad 
 town of Goldville, watching his fellow passengers crowd 
 into and upon the Blue Canon coach. There were more 
 men bound for the revived mining camp than the coach 
 could accommodate; for no matter where a gold excite 
 ment springs up in California it finds, even yet, hun 
 dreds of men eager to rush in ; new-comers, like Peyton, 
 and old-timers whose lives have been passed in pursuit 
 of such excitement; not, I firmly believe, moved alone 
 by the fever of gold quest, but by the fascination of the 
 adventurous life which retains to-day nearly as many 
 romantic elements as it had when the master pictured 
 it for the world at Simpson s Bar and at Roaring 
 Camp. 
 
 Mr. Masters had reserved by telegraph a box seat for 
 Peyton, and when the nine passengers had been wedged 
 into the little mountain coach which did not seem large 
 enough to accommodate more than four inside, and the 
 driver had at last given his approval to the packing of 
 the baggage behind, and the disposal of the mail bags 
 and express box in the boot, George clambered up over 
 the front wheel and took a seat next to the driver. The 
 latter settled into his place, gathered up the reins of his 
 six hardy bronchos, and then a sturdy, rather serious 
 
 170 
 
In a Sierra Nevada Mining Camp. 171 
 
 looking man, carrying a short-barrelled shot-gun, 
 climbed up on the wheel and politely told George to 
 take a seat with two other passengers, back of the driver. 
 George, thinking he was entitled to the seat he had, 
 hesitated, when the driver said, " He s the messenger: 
 you are in his place." 
 
 Peyton s new position placed him with his knees just 
 back of the driver s shoulders. There he learned more 
 of the man who had displaced him. " He is the Express 
 company s shot-gun messenger," explained a man by 
 his side. " He goes along to guard the express-box, 
 because there s nearly as much money going into 
 Blue Canon now as there is coming out; and the 
 road agents have been pretty lively round these parts 
 lately. If we re stood up just slip your watch and 
 money into your boots, if you get a chance. Ain t got 
 boots , eh? Well, pass your stuff to me and I ll do the 
 best I can." 
 
 George did not know how much of this was tales for a 
 tenderfoot, but the visible presence of that messenger, 
 with his sawed-off, double-barrelled shot-gun resting 
 across his knees, lent verisimilitude to the passenger s 
 story, and the New Yorker felt his blood quicken. But 
 there were hours of delightful travelling before the 
 coach reached " the road-agent belt" of country. They 
 ascended by slight degrees to the first plateau above the 
 valley level, and Peyton s companion pointed out with 
 keen interest the young orange-groves lining the road 
 on either side. " I washed gold out of the soil those 
 trees are planted in, back in the fifties," he said. " We 
 never thought then that oranges would be raised as far 
 north as this. But I guess the folks who own those 
 grove s will take more gold off the trees than we ever 
 did below the grass-roots." 
 
172 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 A little higher, where the first low-rolling land of the 
 foot-hills formed the foundation buttresses of the mighty 
 walls of the Sierras, towering dark and green beyond, 
 they came into vineyards of flaming red and purple 
 grapes ; and after that, as the grade grew sharper, they 
 reached the uncultivated hills and shallow canons, 
 where the pale red trunks of the madrona, the twisted 
 deep-red branches of the manzanita, and the shady 
 boughs of the fragrant bay trees made homes for 
 squirrel, and mountain quail whose coaxing calls were 
 answered from side to side of the canons. After stop 
 ping for lunch and a change of horses at a station con 
 sisting of a very large stable and a very small bar and 
 dining-room, they soon swung out of the country of 
 madrona, manzanita, and bay, into the greater heights 
 of towering, sombre pine and sequoia, where the talk of 
 the passengers insensibly fell to whispers, and the 
 occasional harsh cry of the driver to his horses sounded 
 almost like a desecration. 
 
 At each turn of the road where the ridges between 
 the smaller canons ran down into the greater one up 
 which they slowly crawled, Peyton noticed that the 
 messenger lifted his weapon from his knees and held it 
 in easy readiness, as a pigeon-shot does while waiting 
 for his trap to be sprung. They had just made a sharp 
 turn, the lead and swing teams being close to the outer 
 edge of the road, when a man stepped from behind a 
 tree at the very head of the off leader, grasped its bridle 
 with one hand, and with the other raised a shot-gun, 
 demanding laconically, in a matter-of-fact voice, 
 " Throw down the box!" In one second of time a great 
 many things happened: the messenger and the man at 
 the horse s head both fired; the road agent fell in his 
 tracks; the driver with a -groan sank into the boot, as 
 
THE SHOT-QUN MESSENGER. 
 And fired at some one Peyton had not seen." Page 172. 
 
In a Sierra Nevada Mining Camp. 173 
 
 the horses in a wild panic bounded forward ; the mes 
 senger s right arm dropped to his side, but he swung 
 round in his seat, rested his gun on Peyton s shoulder, 
 holding the weapon in his left hand, and fired at some 
 one Peyton had not seen ; and Peyton slipped into the 
 driver s seat, gathered the reins from the tight clutch 
 of the unconscious driver s right hand, and within a 
 hundred yards had the frightened horses straightened 
 out and halted. There was a hurried scramble into the 
 road of the inside passengers, who were shouting and 
 cursing and asking questions. 
 
 As George set the powerful brake to the last notch, 
 the messenger turned to him and said, " Well, stranger, 
 you are a pretty good one. You saved us a spill down 
 the bank." He happened to glance at the foot George 
 held firmly against the brake, and seeing some blood 
 staining the exposed stocking, added: "And you were 
 hit yourself." 
 
 "Not much," George answered, kicking the leg out 
 and drawing it back, and finding the bones and muscles 
 all right. 
 
 " Now some of you men go to the heads of each 
 team," the messenger continued briskly, "and some 
 come here and help lift the driver down." 
 
 An examination disclosed that the driver had a shat 
 tered shoulder-blade, having received there the greater 
 part of the road agent s charge of buckshot; the mes 
 senger a badly wounded right arm, and George a slight 
 buckshot puncture in his right leg. Some of the pas 
 sengers dressed the wounds of the injured as well as 
 could be, and made the driver as comfortable as possi 
 ble inside the stage; and others, those who were armed, 
 walked back on the road, and after a while returned, 
 bringing with them the mortally wounded robber who 
 
174 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 had attempted to hold the coach horses. There were 
 no signs of his companion. 
 
 " I missed him, then," the messenger said regretfully. 
 
 George drove the team into Blue Canon. There had 
 not been so much excitement there since the rich find 
 in Last Chance tunnel. There was a doctor in camp, a 
 young man, college taught and hospital trained, who 
 tried hard to conceal his satisfaction at this sensational 
 opportunity to display his skill. His office was in his 
 bedroom in the Hotel Garibaldi, over the largest saloon 
 in camp, and there the injured ones were taken, fol 
 lowed by as many of the citizens as could crowd into 
 the room. After the serious injuries of the driver and 
 the painful hurt of the messenger had been dressed, and 
 the driver put to bed, the doctor turned to Peyton. 
 When the latter had bared his leg it was found that his 
 share of the charge of buckshot, one pellet, had made 
 not much more than a deep scratch, and buried itself 
 under the skin. When the doctor had extracted the 
 little ball he handed it to George with the remark, " It 
 is not much of a wound, but you could not have rowed 
 as well in 188- with this to bother you, Mr. Peyton. 
 
 " How did you know me?" George asked in surprise. 
 
 " When I saw the muscles of your leg, I knew you 
 had been an oarsman, and then I recalled your face 
 from photographs I have seen of the crew. I was grad 
 uated the year you entered." 
 
 This conversation was not more than half understood 
 by the listeners, but it added to the already intense in 
 terest the camp felt in the handsome tenderfoot who 
 had driven the stage into Blue Canon. 
 
 When the crowd had gathered at the bar, where Pey 
 ton was told he must go to engage a sleeping-room, the 
 messenger, who was being boisterously congratulated 
 
In a Sierra Nevada Mining Camp. 175 
 
 on his work, turned to the assemblage and said, " Gen 
 tlemen, I only done what I m well paid for doing, but 
 here is a gent who was paid nothing to look after our 
 skins, but who took the reins from Bill s hands when 
 the horses were running to beat hell I put a buckshot 
 through the off leader s off ear when I fetched the road- 
 agent and this gent saved us from a spill down the 
 bank. He done it as slick as any driver on the road; 
 which is why I ask you to join me in a drink with Mr. 
 Peyton. Hector! take the gents orders!" 
 
 This command brought to Peyton s notice a foreign- 
 looking, shifty-eyed little man, who wriggled about 
 among the crowd taking orders for drinkables, and 
 seemed glad that Peyton gave him an opportunity to 
 talk a little by an inquiry concerning a sleeping-room. 
 Hector said that although there was not a vacant room 
 in his house, anywhere in the camp indeed, Mr. Peyton 
 should be provided for. He should have his, Hector s, 
 room and Hector would make up a blanket bed some 
 where. 
 
 George attempted some civil objection to this, but 
 Hector seemed so distressfully anxious to secure him as 
 a lodger, he accepted the arrangement, not dreaming 
 that thereby Hector, having captured for his place the 
 lion of the hour, had done a stroke of business for his 
 bar trade which would warrant him in building an 
 addition to the "Hotel Garibaldi," known to the camp 
 only as " Hector s." The latter had not overrated the 
 "drawing" quality of his lion. That very evening all 
 the principal men of the camp; the superintendents of 
 the Last Chance and the other large mines, the lawyer, 
 the justice of peace, the express agent, and the assayer, 
 called formally upon George, and each in turn having 
 made his congratulations and paid his respects, with 
 
176 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 surprising promptness dispatched Hector for "a bottle 
 of wine ;" which George discovered meant there, as in 
 San Francisco, a bottle of champagne. 
 
 This all took place in the largest bedroom in the 
 house, Hector s, which had a seating capacity of six, 
 allowing two for the edge of the bed; and until mid 
 night there was never less than that number of callers. 
 Then the doctor ordered them all out, and went out 
 with them, telling George to go to bed. 
 
 It was a long time before George slept, and when he 
 did he dreamed that he was at a theatre in New York 
 where the curtain never went up and the orchestra 
 played forever; that the folding seat next to him had 
 been closed down on his leg, and was pinching him ; 
 the spectators in the gallery were making a terrific din, 
 demanding the raising of the curtain, and the throwing 
 down of the box; and then Minnie Hazelhurst drew the 
 cool tips of her fingers over his eyes, and the music and 
 noise ceased and he was in one of those cool canons, 
 where the quail called coaxingly, and at last he dreamed 
 that he fell asleep peacefully. That was when Hector 
 Cesarotti, in the gray of early morning, bade "good 
 night" to the last group of his noisy customers, whom 
 he had entertained for hours with his violin. 
 
 It was a long story for Hector Ettore Cesarotti but 
 I can make it a short one for my readers, how the hus 
 band of Teresa came to be George Peyton s host in Blue 
 Canon. With the money he took from Teresa, and 
 with his violin, he made his way, accompanied by a 
 coryphee from the Arcadians, across the Continent. 
 When his money gave out he earned more in a dozen 
 towns on the way, playing his violin in orchestras, con 
 cert-halls, sometimes in dance-halls; never stopping 
 
In a Sierra Nevada Mining Camp. 177 
 
 long in one place, for the coryphee was anxious to get 
 to San Francisco; and she never had any difficulty in 
 inducing Hector to move on, by working on his ever- 
 excited fear of the New York police, whom he firmly 
 believed were following him with a warrant of arrest. 
 
 In San Francisco he easily found profitable employ 
 ment in a popular third-class theatre, where he pre 
 ferred to work, thinking there would be less chance of 
 recognition there by the increasingly dreaded officers 
 of the law. He was useful in his new place, for he 
 could score, transpose, adapt, arrange, and if necessary 
 steal music " by ear," in a manner which made his ser 
 vices very valuable. 
 
 But his labor was profitable only to his lightsome 
 companion. That young person, finding a sure and 
 prompt means of procuring money by threatening to 
 inform the police of Hector s whereabouts, lived in ad 
 mired luxury on his earnings, condemning the unhappy 
 Hector to the meagre necessities of life ; and increasing 
 the misery of his lot by reminding him in accents of 
 stern morality, that so long as she left him enough of 
 his earnings to sustain life, it was more than he had 
 left Teresa, and therefore she was treating him better 
 than his deserts. He would see about it, would he! 
 He would not submit? Oh, that was good. Let him 
 try, and she would tell the police. 
 
 This always ended such disputes, and as these dis 
 putes were frequent, Hector felt no sense of loss or 
 wrong when he received a note from his coryphee one 
 day saying that she had sailed to Australia with a man 
 the police were not looking for, and she hoped he would 
 appreciate all she had done for him in trying to make a 
 better man of him. She advised him to save his money 
 and send his savings to Teresa. 
 
178 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 Now, curiously enough, this was a project Hector had 
 in mind, and had had for a long time. At first he 
 only thought to thereby expiate his crime and relieve 
 his life of the haunting fear of the law. Lately he had 
 realized some sense of the wrong he had done Teresa, 
 unrelated to his exaggerated notion of the legal aspect 
 of his crime. He recalled Teresa s beauty, her faithful 
 patience in trying to improve herself that she might be 
 his intellectual companion, if not his equal. Then he 
 remembered her devotion to the pretty baby he had 
 hated but now felt sentimentally fond of. She must be 
 a big girl now. But what kind of a girl? He had 
 heard of Teresa s accident, but nothing more. He ven 
 tured one or two guarded inquiries, but they had not 
 resulted in any further information. He was not cer 
 tain, even, that Teresa was alive. Any way he would 
 save until he had ten times as much money as he had 
 taken from her, would boldly inquire her whereabouts 
 from those who must know, send her the money, beg 
 her forgiveness, to the extent at least of securing im 
 munity from the law; and then seek out that despicable 
 coryphee and defy her. Thus did Hector resolve ; and 
 better yet, thus did he do in part. He earned good 
 wages and increased them by giving violin lessons in 
 the Italian quarter of San Francisco where he lived ; but 
 his old gambling instinct returned at times and then 
 his savings were depleted. His task became like the 
 religious obligations of a sinner not ever fully realized, 
 but intermittently acknowledged ; and at such times a 
 consolation- at others a conscience. Years went by 
 while Hector was engaged in this struggle, and he 
 might have never succeeded, nor again become involved 
 in this story, had it not been that a lucky run at cards 
 at a time when his savings were at high-water mark 
 
HECTOR. 
 He wandered from mining camp to camp." Page 
 
In a Sierra Nevada Mining Camp. 179 
 
 enriched him unexpectedly with the exact sum he had 
 long ago decided upon for his propitiatory offering to 
 Teresa. He actually had the money in his possession, 
 and was wondering in what channels he should seek 
 knowledge of Teresa, when he was suddenly plunged 
 into rage, despair, and hysterics, by the return to his 
 lonely fireside of the long-absent coryphee. She came 
 like fate, unheralded, unexplaining, pitiless. She 
 wanted money. Poor Hector tried to resist, but it was 
 no use. She got all ; and then took such delight in 
 exercising her easily applied torture that she overdid 
 her game Hector fled. 
 
 He wandered from mining camp to camp, always 
 earning an easy living with his violin and still service 
 able voice, which drew customers to music-hall or bar 
 room ; always fearful lest his Nemesis should overtake 
 him, always drinking to drown that fear. In a weak 
 ened and distracted form the project of sending money 
 to Teresa clung to him, and it was with this object that 
 he had a few hundred dollars saved when he heard of 
 the gold excitement at Blue Canon. He was one of the 
 pioneers in that camp, and before Peyton s arrival had 
 prospered enough to make the payment which secured 
 him possession of the flimsy, unpainted, two story, 
 rough-board house he had christened the Hotel Gari 
 baldi, but which the camp called "Hector s." 
 
 He developed a surprising capacity for work. He 
 ran all three departments of his hotel, the rooms, the 
 restaurant, the bar. People wondered at the dishes he 
 cooked, and a rumor was repeated that Hector was a 
 great chef practising his art in this humble place for 
 reasons into which it would not be polite to inquire. 
 He housed and fed the important men of the camp, and 
 charged them prices which became a joke; but so long 
 
180 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 as they could pay for the fun, they enjoyed the joke. It 
 was known that one man on leaving camp had settled a 
 generous restaurant and bar account by deeding Hector 
 a mining claim which was dignified by a two-hundred 
 foot tunnel, and innocent, so far as was known, of an 
 ounce of quartz, gold-bearing or otherwise. The claim 
 was called the " Porterhouse," because of its recent 
 owner s expensive fondness for that steak as cooked in 
 camp by Hector only. 
 
 At night in the Garibaldi Hector would play on his 
 violin for hours, as late, indeed, as any music-loving 
 miner would remain to drink. Yet the earliest cus 
 tomer in the restaurant could be sure of a meal prepared 
 by Hector, and the camp wondered when he slept. He 
 slept but little and was trying to substitute absinthe for 
 sleep, with results which plainly proved sleep to be the 
 better restorative. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 TOWARD THE UNSEALED MOUNTAIN S HEART. 
 
 THE morning after his triumphal entrance into Bine 
 Canon, George Peyton rose early, excited still by the 
 events of the day before, but feeling none the worse 
 physically, except for a sharp soreness where the buck 
 shot had ploughed across his leg. When he reached the 
 rough wooden sidewalk in front of the Garibaldi, he 
 found Hector there waiting for him. The thin, nervous 
 little Italian sidled up to the big muscular New Yorker 
 as the mincing hound of his country might have made 
 friendly advances to a St. Bernard. Had Mr. Peyton 
 slept well ; did his wound trouble him ; what would he 
 have for breakfast ; would he not like an absinthe frappe 
 at once? 
 
 Hector put these questions with a certain polite solici 
 tude which prompted George to extend his hand and 
 say : u I slept bully, thank you, and feel fit as a two-year- 
 old. I won t have anything to drink, but whenever it s 
 convenient I ll have breakfast; anything there is, you 
 know. Don t trouble yourself." 
 
 Peyton wondered why quick tears came to Hector s 
 eyes, but dismissed the subject with the half-correct 
 conclusion that the Italian had had too little sleep and 
 too much absinthe. Hector said breakfast would be 
 ready in half an hour; so George wandered down the 
 main street of the camp on one of the high, broad walks 
 which lined the depressed roadway, deep with red dust 
 
 181 
 
1 82 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 suggesting rivers of winter mud. Most of the houses 
 he passed were like the Garibaldi, board and unpainted, 
 but generally smaller. There was one brick building, 
 a relic of the early Blue Canon days when men were 
 there to garner gold by placer mining ; before the quest 
 of gold in quartz had been thought of. The sign on 
 the brick building was old, too, and read: "Wells, 
 Fargo & Co., Bank & Express Office." I am seriously 
 convinced that if gold should be discovered in the mid 
 dle of the deadly wastes of Death Valley, the earliest 
 pioneers would find there a red brick building illumi 
 nated with that familiar sign. 
 
 What interested Peyton most were the freight trains 
 with their eighteen horses driven by one man, astride a 
 wheel-horse, with one single rein attached to a leader s 
 bridle. These trains each consisted of two wagons, the 
 rear wagon called a "back action," each loaded with 
 stores, or lumber, or mining and mill machinery 
 Peyton s amazement at the fashion of driving eighteen 
 horses was so manifest that one driver, who recognized 
 him as the hero of yesterday s adventure, called to him, 
 and asked him how he would like to try his hand at 
 that kind of driving. 
 
 In a few minutes the early risers in Blue Canon were 
 edified and delighted to see the tenderfoot hero of the 
 hour, astride a wheel-horse, learning from an instructor 
 walking by his side how to guide a team of eighteen 
 horses by a long pull or short jerks of a single rein. In 
 making a turn from the main road he had to send the 
 lead teams so far beyond the turning-point it seemed 
 to Peyton that his wagons would land half a block be 
 yond; but he accomplished the feat so well (they can do 
 that on a mountain grade where you would hesitate to 
 turn a sulky) that when he dismounted the driver said 
 
Toward the Unsealed Mountain s Heart. 183 
 
 to him with approving confidence, " If you re looking 
 for a job you d better take to driving, coach or freight. 
 It pays better than working in a mine, and you don t get 
 blowed up by giant powder so often." 
 
 The friendly driver s advice reminded George that 
 in fact he was there for the very purpose whimsical 
 as it might seem to his coaching, riding, yachting, 
 hunting, pleasure-pursuing friends of oh! such a little 
 while ago of "looking for a job!" So, after breakfast 
 (he wondered at the fresh eggs in a cocotte with 
 chopped bacon ; at the chicken livers brochette, at the 
 excellent coffee excellent in spite of the condensed 
 milk), he asked Hector where he could find Mr. Ward, 
 superintendent of the Last Chance mine. The Italian 
 told him and, then said, after some stammering: " Par 
 don me, Mr. Peyton, I do not ask because of curious, 
 but are you looking for a job for work? I ask for 
 business, because if you are not engaged to work I have 
 some business to make." 
 
 George laughed and said good-naturedly: " I could 
 not help you much. I can make a fair claret-cup have 
 you a cucumber? and a decent Welsh rarebit, but I use 
 milk instead of ale in the rarebit, and this condensed 
 stuff might bother me." 
 
 Hector held up deprecating hands and exclaimed 
 earnestly: "You are making me fun, Mr. Peyton. I 
 know you are a gentleman. What is it you say? a 
 grand gentleman I know. I am " 
 
 He broke off with a shrug of his shoulders, and then 
 added, "Anyway, I still know what a gentleman is. 
 That much I know yet." He gulped a half-glass of 
 absinthe, drummed with his fingers on the table, his 
 face averted, and then went on : " What I have to offer 
 is work a gentleman may do anyway in this country." 
 
184 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 "Then let me hear what it is, for I am looking for 
 work!" exclaimed George, who was regarding the little 
 Italian with a puzzled look. 
 
 Hector explained : he owned a mining claim, he said, 
 on which some work must soon be done. It was what 
 they called "statutory work," and it must be done soon 
 or the claim would revert to the Government, and then 
 he would lose it. It was not far from the Last Chance, 
 and some experts thought it was on the line of the rich 
 lode of quartz found in that mine. If Mr. Peyton 
 would go to work there, pushing the tunnel ahead in 
 the direction it was supposed the lode lay, he, Hector, 
 would give him a half-interest in the claim as a partial 
 offset to his labor, and pay him half-wages, two dollars 
 a day, and board him until the legally required amount 
 of work was done. As Hector set forth this business 
 proposal he cast furtive glances at Peyton s face, and 
 looked relieved and talked with more manly straight 
 forwardness when at last he saw that he had secured 
 the stranger s earnest attention. When he had finished 
 Peyton said : " It seems to me very decent of you, Hec 
 tor, to make this oner at all. But of course I can t tell 
 whether it is to my advantage or not until I ve talked 
 with Mr. Ward, to whom I have a letter. I ll tell you 
 to-night what he thinks of it." 
 
 Mr. Ward smiled at first when George told him of 
 Hector s offer to work the Porterhouse mine, but after 
 some moments silence he said: "I guess that is a 
 sensible thing for you to do. You can learn a little 
 something about practical mining there, anyway; and 
 there is always the chance of a strike. If you do strike 
 it, why there is your half-interest in the property to be 
 considered. Hector s claim has a mighty good mill 
 site on it, with water all the year. Our company has 
 
Toward the Unsealed Mountain s Heart. 185 
 
 already thought of buying the claim just to secure that 
 site. We cut the lode on the main ridge which divides 
 into two ridges below us, and Hector s claim is on one 
 of those. Whether the lode runs along your ridge 
 or the other nobody knows, because the croppings 
 disappear before the ridge divides. Yes, I advise 
 you to try the chance. The face of the tunnel is in 
 easy-working rock, and I ll go out there with you 
 and show you how to square and set your timbers, 
 and a few other tricks of the trade. No one can see 
 into the mountain farther than the pick goes; and 
 I guess Mr. Masters will approve of my advising you 
 this way." 
 
 That settled the question for George, and the next 
 morning he started forth from the Garibaldi, carrying 
 a bright, new, tin dinner-pail, well filled by Hector; and 
 walked half a mile up one of the spurs or ridges between 
 which lay Blue Canon, ending a mile farther up where 
 the ridges came together. At the mouth of the tunnel 
 he found Mr. Ward with a supply of tools pick, shovel, 
 drills, hammer, wheelbarrow, and saw, axe, and adze 
 for the timbers; all loaned from the Last Chance, "to 
 be paid for when you strike it, or to be returned in good 
 order," Mr. Ward said, with a smile. 
 
 When George was at last alone in the cool face of the 
 tunnel his tunnel ! where the shadows were scattered, 
 not dispelled, by the two candles in their dirk-like can 
 dlesticks fastened to the timbers, he began to attack 
 the loose rocks before him with such weighty blows, 
 born of the enthusiasm with which he did all things 
 demanding his muscles, and of the excitement which 
 even experienced miners cannot but feel when they are 
 pushing forward into the hidden depths of the moun 
 tain which may always, "which may!" reveal wealth 
 
 16 
 
1 86 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 to reward the present work; he went at his task, I say, 
 with such mighty energy that even his great trained 
 lungs were soon gasping for air. He laughed when he 
 found himself compelled to rest on his pick and give 
 himself breath: " I hit that stroke up too lively, I ll get 
 to the lode just as soon at a thirty-four stroke. I won 
 der what a lode looks like, and if I d know one if I met 
 it walking down the Avenue. This is a long way from 
 the Avenue from the Bowery, as they say. I wonder 
 what Miss Minnie Hazelhurst, of North Washington 
 Square, would say if she saw me in blue jean overalls 
 and jumpers, chasing a lode in Blue Canon? But here! 
 no more loafing; the sooner I meet that lode the sooner 
 Minnie s cards will read Mrs. George Peyton, Thurs 
 days in January and February; 2 to 6. He took his 
 shovel, filled his barrow, and wheeled out the rock he 
 had picked down. When the rock rattled down the 
 long-unused waste dump it startled a deer in the canon 
 below. At noon he went to the mouth of the tunnel 
 and ate the lunch Hector had provided, and then 
 stretched himself out on a bed of pine needles for the 
 luxury of a pipe and a ten-minutes rest. As he lazily 
 looked about him, something away in the north, rising 
 grandly in the sky, apparently an illimitable distance 
 beyond the near-by ridge, caught and held his atten 
 tion. At first it seemed like a fixed white cloud; but 
 soon the blue-black streaks at its base assumed form 
 and meaning, and he knew he was looking at the snow 
 cap of Mount Shasta; upheld by those rugged bare ribs 
 of rock which seemed at first to be mere dark streaks 
 in a cloud of sunlight and shadow. Turning his gaze 
 up the canon at his feet he saw why it was called 
 "blue." Faint blue near by; darker a little beyond ; 
 ever increasing in depth of shade, until at last the 
 
Toward the Unsealed Mountain s Heart. 187 
 
 whole canon was filled with a sea of sublime purple, 
 where 
 
 "The foothills swell to buttress up the flanks 
 Of the main chain, snow-clad, supreme, elate; 
 Pointing eternal, silent, fixed, toward Heaven : 
 But Heaven lies all about !" 
 
 " I wish Minnie could see it," he thought, and as he 
 rose and stretched and shook himself h^ called out 
 "Minnie!" and when the opposite ridge sent back the 
 name, he faced it with a laugh and bellowed " Minnie! 
 Minnie! Minnie!" with such a roar that a squirrel 
 which, with cocked head, had been eying the scraps 
 from his meal, whisked away in fright at this new, big, 
 noisy animal. 
 
 Peyton became the most popular man in camp. He 
 found three other university men there, the doctor, the 
 lawyer, and a Heidelberg man who was the assayer. 
 They messed together at Hector s; and sometimes on 
 warm evenings, when the moon turned the blue of the 
 canon into silver and ebony, they lay under a big pine 
 opposite the Garibaldi and sang college songs, with 
 Hector s violin to accompany them ; and the miners 
 would leave the saloons and gambling tables and join 
 in the choruses, as they learned them. He listened 
 eagerly to the superintendent s talk of their craft; of 
 the dips, spurs, and angles of lodes; of the clay walls in 
 which nature packs her gold quartz, hanging-wall and 
 foot-wall ; of tunnels, shafts, inclines, drifts, cross-cuts, 
 winzes, stopes; of free and rebellious ores; of milling 
 processes, and hoisting and pumping. He organized 
 athletic sports for the miners on their holidays, and 
 entered every event but never won. When he lost at 
 throwing the hammer the doctor reminded him of his 
 
1 88 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 inter-collegiate record in that feat, and George laughed 
 and answered that in those days he competed with men 
 in his own class and it was a satisfaction to win, but 
 now there was more fun in seeing the others win. 
 When the delegates from the camp to the County Con 
 vention were leaving, they told him they would nomi 
 nate him for sheriff or break up the convention, if he 
 wanted the office. He had to plead non-residence as 
 his ground for declining the honor. 
 
 A thing that puzzled him was the behavior and man 
 ner of Hector. A dozen times the Italian had made 
 elaborate introductions to some mysterious subject he 
 evidently wished to disclose to George, or have his ad 
 vice upon ; but after painful attempts to arrive at the 
 matter in his mind he had retreated, or frankly broken 
 down. Once, after such a failure to unbosom himself, 
 he had asked Peyton if he could give him the address of 
 a man in New York who would attend to some confi 
 dential business for him. 
 
 " That depends, Hector, upon the nature of the busi 
 ness. Is it to select a new vest-pattern for you, or to 
 send some one a box of chocolates?" George responded. 
 
 Hector looked miserable and confused, but said, halt 
 ingly: "It is some business about a lady a woman. 
 That is, I do not know her address." 
 
 Peyton turned from Hector impatiently. He thought 
 the Italian was troubled about the matter of providing 
 for some left-handed entanglement, and answered care 
 lessly: "Oh! send to Mark Waters. He s about the 
 kind of sneak for that business." 
 
 He did not give Hector Mark Waters address, and 
 Hector did not hear any of Peyton s remark beyond the 
 name, and so did not catch the characterization of 
 Waters as a sneak. It happened that a few days later 
 
GEORGE PEYTON. 
 I ve struck it!" Page 190. 
 
Toward the Unsealed Mountain s Heart. 189 
 
 a letter came, forwarded for Peyton from San Francisco, 
 and printed on the envelope were Mark Waters name 
 and address. Hector copied them, and two days after 
 ward sent a letter to Waters regarding Teresa and Car- 
 minella, with a generous enclosure as a retainer, and a 
 first payment on account to his wife and child if they 
 should be found. Hector said nothing of this to Pey 
 ton, nor did he again for a long time attempt to speak 
 to him on the subject, which had always been difficult 
 of approach. 
 
 George kept steadily at work driving in his tunnel 
 farther and farther toward the sealed heart of the 
 mountain. He would have given up and gone to work 
 for Mr. Ward, had not the latter examined the face of 
 the tunnel when it had penetrated hard "country" 
 rock, and declared that, so far as any one could judge, 
 the indications were favorable. George was working, 
 now that the rock was solid and hard, with giant pow 
 der, as the form of dynamite is called which the miners 
 used. One evening he charged with giant powder three 
 short holes he had laboriously drilled working alone 
 he had both to hold and strike his drills attached his 
 fuses, laid the fuses across "snuffs" (short ends of 
 lighted candles), and ran to the mouth of the tunnel. 
 He waited there, at one side, until he heard the three 
 dull reports of the blast, and then went home for the 
 night. The next morning when he reached the face of 
 the tunnel he climbed over the rock thrown down by 
 the blast, and struck his pick into the face as was his 
 habit. The pick sank noiselessly. 
 
 For one instant all that he had heard about clay walls 
 went from him, and he wondered at this seeming phe 
 nomenon of the pick sinking noiselessly into adamantine 
 porphyry. The next instant, with a sharp cry and his 
 
190 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 heart beating so that he heard it, he caught up a candle 
 and knelt on the jagged rocks, with one hand tearing 
 at the clay, where it was peeling from the smooth sur 
 face of what? He took his pick and with a fury of 
 energy stripped off the clay and forced out pieces of 
 rock beyond it, and with these pieces in his hand ran to 
 the mouth of the tunnel. There he met Mr. Ward. 
 The latter, after one glance at Peyton, pushed him back 
 into the tunnel. "I ve struck it!" cried George, gasp 
 ing with excitement. " Let s hurry to camp to the 
 assayer!" 
 
 "And take the whole camp into your confidence? 
 You re too good-natured. You don t go out of this tun 
 nel until you are perfectly calm," Mr. Ward said, evi 
 dently very determined in his purpose. He did in fact 
 keep George in the tunnel until his first excitement had 
 abated, and then they went out into the sunlight. The 
 samples of the ledge rock George carried, for such they 
 were, looked to him like rough pieces of white chalk 
 splashed with ink, only they were much harder than any 
 chalk. Mr. Ward could not suppress some excitement 
 when he handled the samples. 
 
 "I ll take them to the assayer!" George exclaimed 
 again. 
 
 "You ll do nothing of the kind, unless you are a fool. 
 You ll send them to Mr. Masters, and go on here as if 
 nothing had happened until you hear from him. If 
 that rock turns out as good as it looks, we want more 
 claims along this ridge, and we ll have a lovely time buy 
 ing them if you blurt this out in camp," was Mr. Ward s 
 final comment. 
 
 How the rock turned out must be told in its proper 
 place, a later chapter, for I swear I have to return to 
 New York in the next. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ETTORE CESAROTTI S CONSCIENCE FUND. 
 
 IT was a few months before the Chinaman, Chung, 
 stole the pocket-book from Mark Waters desk in his 
 Niantic building office that Waters received the letter 
 from Hector, referred to in the last chapter. There 
 were many reasons to prompt Waters to throw the letter 
 in the waste-basket unread: it was long, rambling, and 
 written by a hand which trembled so that it demanded 
 patient perseverance to decipher it. But there was one 
 reason which commanded Waters prompt and serious 
 attention : there was money enclosed, and he had caught 
 at a promise of more, in some contingency. Waters 
 took the bank draft of $500 which Hector had enclosed, 
 and sent it out by his clerk for collection, to make sure 
 that the correspondence was not some hoax, or an 
 insane man s freak. When the clerk returned with the 
 amount of the draft in cash, Waters set to work to study 
 the letter. 
 
 Hector, of course, had not written the truth. He 
 wrote that Teresa Cesarotti and her daughter Carmi- 
 nella were distant kinsfolk of his who, so he had heard 
 by chance, were in distress, and in need of money. 
 He wished to aid them, but for family reasons did not 
 at present want them to learn his name or whereabouts. 
 His informant had not given him their address, and 
 he, Hector, was not certain that they were in New 
 York. " If you can learn," the letter continued, " with- 
 
 191 
 
192 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 out making inquiry of any law officers, that they 
 are in New York, and in need, and will send one-half 
 of the enclosed to them, and let me know all that you 
 find out about them, I will, if they need help, send you 
 something for them each month. Most of all, I do not 
 want you to let the fact that I am here be known to any 
 one who might inquire about me. It is nothing I need 
 be afraid of, but there are family reasons I may explain 
 to you in another letter, if we have more letters to 
 write. If you do not find them, keep of the enclosed 
 what your trouble is worth and send me back the other 
 part." 
 
 Again and again the letter went over the writer s 
 desire to remain unknown for the present, and at last 
 gave a clue to Teresa s identity. She was a member of 
 the " dancing chorus" of the Arcadian Burlesque Com 
 pany, and Hector gave other particulars as to the date 
 and place of the vogue of those burlesquers. 
 
 Waters, when he had made sure of every word in the 
 letter, leaned back in his chair, regarded with half- 
 closed eyes the money and Hector s labored scrawl, and 
 then mused: "The woman is the man s wife or mis 
 tress, and he has deserted her. He is guilty of some 
 crime for which the police want him. The connection 
 won t do me much good." 
 
 He raised his hand to strike his desk bell, intending 
 to direct his clerk to return the money to the writer. 
 His eyes fell on the five $100 bills, and then his hand 
 slowly descended on them instead of the bell. He 
 folded them up with Hector s letter and placed both in 
 an ample pocket-book which he returned to an inner 
 coat-pocket. He started a little as the thought suddenly 
 came to him: " How does this fellow know my name 
 and address?" He never for one moment connected 
 
Ettore Cesarotti s Conscience Fund. 193 
 
 George Peyton with the incident. He supposed that 
 George was in San Francisco, where, in care of Mr. 
 Masters, he mailed monthly statements of the accounts 
 of "The Estate of." He did not turn the money over 
 to his clerk to be entered and accounted for; it remained 
 in his pocket with the letter when he went up town 
 after office hours. 
 
 That evening, in a lobby of a theatre, Waters met an 
 acquaintance whose business, according to a very con 
 spicuous sign outside of his office, was " Theatrical 
 Agent." He conducted an employment office for peo 
 ple working in any capacity on the stage. He could 
 cast you " Hamlet" at an hour s notice, or supply a 
 " dancing" or singing chorus, five hundred strong, in 
 twenty-four hours. If the "latest London sensation" 
 was wanted, or a Little Eva who could introduce a song 
 and dance in " Uncle Tom s Cabin," he was the man to 
 consult. 
 
 Waters invited the agent into a " cafe" where almost 
 anything liquid except coffee was dispensed, and after 
 they were refreshed asked him, with clumsily assumed 
 indifference, " By the way, do yon happen to recall a 
 woman named Teresa Cesarotti who was in the chorus 
 or ballet of the Arcadians?" 
 
 The agent laughed : " My dear fellow, I ve had the 
 names of ten thousand chorus women on my books since 
 the Arcadians disbanded." 
 
 "I suppose so," Waters said, "but the name is odd 
 and I thought possibly you might recall it. It s no 
 matter, though." 
 
 "What was the name, again? I did not catch it," 
 the agent asked. 
 
 "Cesarotti Teresa Cesarotti," Waters repeated. 
 
 The agent bent his head, with closed eyes, a moment 
 
194 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 before he said, "That is an odd name, and yet it is 
 familiar, too. Cesarotti, Cesarotti hold on! I knew 
 a man by that name, and b gee! he was a fiddler in the 
 Arcadians. That s funny. I remember perfectly, now, 
 because there was quite a yarn about that fellow. He 
 was not in the business when he came here first, but 
 was something of a swell ; spent a lot of money ; bought 
 boxes at the opera, and sent flowers to the singers. 
 Oh! I recall Hector now." 
 
 "Hector!" 
 
 "Yes, that s what the gang used to call him. It was 
 the English for his Italian name " 
 
 " Ettore?" asked Waters. 
 
 "Sure. That s right. But, say, you seem to know 
 him better than I do. He went wrong through gin or 
 cards, and took to fiddling for a living. He married a 
 girl in the business, I think. That must be this Teresa 
 you are asking about." 
 
 "Perhaps," Waters replied. "What became of her, 
 do you know?" 
 
 " It seems to me," said the agent, slowly, "there was 
 a story about that. Either she skipped from Hector, 
 or he skipped from her. Anyway she was killed after 
 ward." 
 
 "Killed?" 
 
 " Yes, fell through a trap-door on the Arcady stage 
 one night, I think. Died in the hospital, as I recall." 
 
 "And her child? There was a girl!" Waters said 
 eagerly, and his arm pressed against the coat-pocket 
 where the $500 lay. 
 
 "Never heard of a child," the agent replied, looking 
 at Waters curiously. " If there was one, the Society 
 got her, I suppose, and she s now milking cows and 
 weeding vegetables out West somewhere. That s what 
 
THE FARO DEALER. 
 The polite, soft-spoken man who dealt the cards." Page 194. 
 
Ettore Cesarotti s Conscience Fund. 195 
 
 the Society does with them; but that s better than 
 working in the ballet at five dollars a week, with work 
 half the year. Going in to see the next act?" 
 
 At a late hour that night Mark Waters accompanied 
 a party of companions to a gambling-house, and when 
 he left it the polite, soft-spoken man who dealt the cards 
 at the faro table had straightened out Hector s five 
 $100 bills and laid them evenly on a pile of other bills 
 in the cash drawer at his right hand. 
 
 A week later Waters wrote this letter to Hector: 
 
 SIR : I am not in the habit of undertaking any business without 
 being fully advised of its nature in all particulars. For this rea 
 son and the additional one that there seems to be some event in 
 your life which has brought you into conflict with the law, I 
 should have returned your letter and remittance at once and 
 declined further correspondence, had not an accident made me 
 aware of the unfortunate, the pitiful circumstances of your wife 
 and daughter, for such I know the persons you refer to, to be. 
 My personal investigation of their state prompted me to use for 
 their benefit the full amount of the remittance you made to me 
 and some of my own means besides ; but that is no matter, for I 
 am always glad to give according to my means, especially when 
 I know of such sorrowful suffering as that in which I found those 
 unhappy women. I shall not inform you of their address, even 
 if you desire it, until you have given more evidence of being 
 worthy to communicate with them. It would injure my standing 
 in the business community to be known to have business relations 
 with so unworthy a person as you. so therefore I direct you, in 
 making your next remittance, to return therewith this letter. 
 Upon your compliance with this condition, and to some extent 
 also upon the amount of your future remittances (I say this as 
 the benefactor of your wife and child), will depend my observ 
 ance of your wish not to have the police informed of your where 
 abouts. 
 
 Waters spent hours upon the composition of this let 
 ter. It was neither signed nor addressed, nor did it 
 contain the name of either Teresa or Carminella. The 
 
196 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 blackmailing threat it contained was based upon his 
 assumption of Hector s criminality in some regard, and 
 it worked successfully. He enclosed it in a plain en 
 velope, and addressed it in a carefully disguised hand. 
 In exactly a month from the arrival of the first letter 
 Waters received a second letter from Hector, enclos 
 ing a remittance and Waters letter. 
 
 For many months Hector uncomplainingly, so far as 
 his letters showed, thus contributed to Waters income. 
 The latter frequently forced larger contributions, by 
 hinting that his conscience prompted him to abandon 
 the office he had undertaken as Hector s almoner, and 
 turn the matter over to the police. During all these 
 months the Hotel Garibaldi was making large profits, 
 and during the latter months Hector s income was 
 increased from the Porterhouse mine. Waters need of 
 ready money, which was growing grievous through 
 gambling and the extravagances of his ostentatious 
 vanity, at last made him reckless. In one of his com 
 munications to Hector he demanded a thousand dollars 
 and unguardedly signed the letter. It was returned as 
 usual by Hector, but with a check for only five hundred 
 dollars. Hector wrote : 
 
 ... I have already sent you many thousand dollars. I have 
 asked you many times to give me the address of my wife, Teresa 
 Cesarotti, and my daughter, Carminella. Now I say to you, for 
 I know my wife s good heart, that since I have done so much for 
 her, she will not ask the police to punish me for that bad thing I 
 have done. Now I say to you, tell my wife who it is that has 
 given her all this money ; tell her to write to me ; tell her that I 
 am a sick man and may soon die, but before I die it is right she 
 should know something about my family; who I am, to tell my 
 daughter, and about my property. I do not care for your threat. 
 I have a good friend here who tells me not to fear. 
 
 ETTORE CESAROTTI. 
 
Ettore Cesarotti s Conscience Fund. 197 
 
 Mark Waters put the draft which Hector enclosed 
 into his safe, for it was after banking hours when the 
 letter came and the draft could not be cashed until the 
 next day. The two letters, his own signed one which 
 Hector had returned, and the defiant one Hector had 
 written, lay open before him on his desk, and he was 
 regarding them scowlingly, trying to determine how he 
 could meet this unexpected and dangerous situation, 
 when he was interrupted by his clerk. 
 
 The reader will recall what happened then. Mark 
 Waters hastily folded the two tell-tale letters into his 
 open pocket-book which he left on his desk when he 
 went into the next room with his clerk. 
 
 It was at that moment the silent, smiling Chung, com 
 ing to pay his uncle s rent, saw the pocket-book and, 
 on the chance of its adding to his material welfare, ab 
 stracted it. 
 17 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MARK WATERS PLAYS A PART. 
 
 SINCE the time when, as he believed, Tom Lyon, the 
 janitor s son, had stolen the pocket-book from the 
 Niantic building, Waters first acute fear of disclosure 
 had been lulled and almost forgotten. Dan Lyon had 
 disappeared from the building, gone to live in the coun 
 try, and his son with him, Waters supposed; and he 
 heard or saw nothing more of them. The police had 
 made a little fruitless investigation, and Waters, for 
 obvious reasons, had not urged them into great activity. 
 The Police Inspector he had communicated with had 
 come to the conclusion that whoever had stolen the 
 pocket-book had extracted the money and then destroyed 
 the book and its other, to him worthless, contents as 
 troublesome evidence to be put out of the way as soon 
 as possible. This theory the Inspector had explained 
 to Waters, and, as it agreed with the hope of the latter, 
 he had accepted it readily, and finally the incident 
 ceased to cause him any anxiety. He wrote to Hector 
 that he had suddenly lost all track of his wife and 
 children, but believed that they had gone to Italy. 
 To dispel any suspicion in Hector s mind as to his 
 honesty in the business, Waters returned the last 
 remittance of $500, although it cost him a hard struggle 
 to do so. He was a complete coward, and the defi 
 ant letter had frightened him. Hector had written again 
 earnestly begging Waters to make immediate search for 
 
 198 
 
Mark Waters Plays a Part. 199 
 
 his wife and daughter, and hinted at a large fortune 
 which would go to Carminella. Waters had replied 
 that he was making every effort to find Teresa, and two 
 or three times since, in answer to Hector s increasingly 
 urgent letters, had assured him that he had secured 
 clues which would soon place him again in communica 
 tion with Teresa. Waters had used his utmost skill in 
 his additional correspondence with Hector to thoroughly 
 regain the Italian s confidence; for the later news from 
 Blue Canon spoke with certainty of the valuable property 
 which would be Teresa s and Carminella s at Hector s 
 death. As Waters then believed that Teresa was dead 
 and Carminella, if alive, a drudge on some Western 
 farm, he took a lively interest in the idea of having 
 Hector s property under his control. 
 
 Now, after all this time of immunity from fear of ex 
 posure, the discovery he had made in the Tivoli office, 
 in his conversation with Mr. Dean, shook, dazed, nearly 
 stunned him. He could not tell but that Hector, even 
 in that far-off California mining camp, would hear of 
 the almost sensational success of La Cortese, and, of 
 course, Waters did not know that the name " La 
 Cortese," would mean nothing to Hector. Exposure in 
 this matter meant much more than any possible punish 
 ment which could be inflicted upon him for his embez 
 zlement of the sums Hector had intrusted to him. It 
 would cause investigations, the thought of which made 
 him shiver, as he sat in a chill of perspiration waiting 
 for the return of the messenger he had sent to learn La 
 Cortese s address, after he left his companions on the 
 night of the alarming discovery in Mr. Dean s Tivoli 
 office. When the messenger returned and correctly 
 reported Carminella s address, he did not make the 
 customary appealing work of counting out the change. 
 
2OO A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 He gave a sharp look at Waters face and boldly walked 
 out without an allusion to money. He enlightened the 
 sleepy elevator-boy with the comment: " De mug has 
 been jolted hard, and so I pockets de boodle widout no 
 bluff, for he d take notice of nottin but a eart quake. 
 See?" 
 
 Something more nearly resembling an emotional 
 earthquake than he had ever before experienced was 
 shaking Waters. The cold confusion of fear, which 
 contracted his heart one moment and sent his blood in 
 icy jets through his chill body, the next gave way to an 
 overpowering flood of sensuality; until the gray fear in 
 his face was dyed in purple, and his heavy under-lip 
 drooped in an animal grin he could not control. In his 
 life Waters had never before been so stunned with desire, 
 with what, in his nature, was the one element of love 
 he was capable of feeling, as when Carminella had 
 fastened his flower in her zouave jacket with a wholly 
 impersonal, an almost childishly unconscious, smile. 
 
 How overpowering was this passion and I dislike to 
 describe by even that much -abused word, the sensual 
 torment he endured even Waters did not realize until 
 hours later, as he sat in his room trying to steady his 
 nerves with whiskey. He started suddenly, lifted his 
 head from the table, and looking straight before him 
 with attentive eyes as if regarding a person who had 
 addressed him, said aloud: "And she will inherit that 
 Cesarotti s property, besides saving me from any annoy 
 ance or question about the money he has sent me." 
 
 He already imagined Carminella his. 
 
 The next day Waters left his office early and went 
 to his room, where he dressed carefully for the call he 
 had decided to make at once on Teresa and her daughter. 
 
 All day he had thought ploddingly, and with minute 
 
THE MESSENGER. 
 De mug has been jolted hard." Page 200. 
 
Mark Waters Plays a Part. 201 
 
 care as to each detail, about the character he should 
 assume before these women he had defrauded, and in 
 one of whom he now felt an interest in which were 
 involved fear, greed, and passion. His whole life for 
 years had been an assumption of characters until it had 
 become a habit with him, before any anticipated 
 meeting, to determine upon the kind of person he 
 would like to appear as, and assume the role as well as 
 his rather slow and heavy wits permitted. He dressed 
 that afternoon with great care, and then drove to Ter 
 esa s apartments in a carriage, hired, but with two men 
 in livery on the box. Teresa, who happened to be in 
 Carminella s little front room, saw Waters leave the 
 carriage, and, recognizing him as one of the party who 
 had been at the Tivoli the night before, wondered who 
 such a distinguished person could be calling upon in 
 that humble neighborhood. 
 
 A moment after he had disappeared from her sight 
 up the front steps of the house she was surprised to 
 hear her own apartment bell ring, and she gave a hasty 
 scrutiny of her dress, and a quick glance at her hair 
 in Carminella s glass, before she pulled the curved lever 
 which released the latch of the front door on the floor 
 below. She stood at the open hall door of Carminella s 
 room as Waters reached her landing. He saw her, and 
 said in a voice of carefully measured politeness, " I am 
 Mr. Mark Waters. I am looking for Mrs. Cortese or 
 her daughter; I think you are one or the other of those 
 ladies." 
 
 He glanced at her as if he really were in doubt, and 
 Teresa smiled, one of her rare, rather serious smiles, as 
 she answered : 
 
 " I am Mrs. Cortese. Will you walk in, sir?" 
 
 Waters bowed, somewhat profoundly, entered Car- 
 
202 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 mineila s room, which answered as a reception room 
 because it was the only one carpeted, and took a seat 
 with his back to the light. He swung his silk hat by 
 its rim between the tips of the fingers of both hands 
 and laughed quietly and as pleasantly as he could 
 before he said : 
 
 " I am glad really to find you alone, Mrs. Cortese, for 
 it might be hard to explain my call to your daughter; 
 although my business, if I may call it business, concerns 
 her. I can talk to you because I feel as if we were old 
 friends, you and I." 
 
 " Old friends?" repeated Teresa, in her slow, exact 
 English, but with a tinge of pleased curiosity in her 
 voice. 
 
 " Well, not exactly that, perhaps," Waters said, trying 
 his best to appear easily affable. "Perhaps I should in 
 troduce myself only as an old admirer, that is " Waters 
 paused, and there was a shade of anxiety in his voice 
 as he added "if I have the pleasure of addressing a 
 lady I admired, although it was not my fortune to know 
 her, as Teresa Cesarotti, who was with the Arcadians a 
 few years ago." 
 
 Teresa flushed slowly and then answered simply: 
 
 " I was Mrs. Cesarotti, but many years ago." 
 
 Even as he sat in the shade she could see his face also 
 flush slowly. At the last moment he had a faint hope 
 that, after all, there might be some mistake, and that this 
 was not Hector s wife. He swung his hat between the 
 tips of his fingers a moment, collecting himself, and 
 then said: 
 
 "Really, is it many years ago? I remember you so 
 well and you have changed so little. But we will talk 
 about those days when we are better acquainted, per 
 haps. You are wondering why I called; I am a great 
 
Mark Waters Plays a Part. 203 
 
 admirer of the art of dancing; I had heard a great deal 
 about your daughter s success, and went to the Tivoli 
 last night to see if half what I had been told were true. 
 I found that I had not been told half the truth." 
 
 Waters gave a little cough of satisfaction as he 
 finished this speech. He had composed it in his office, 
 had actually written it out on paper and memorized it. 
 He felt more confidence now that he had brought about 
 an opportunity to repeat it, and had repeated it cor 
 rectly. Teresa made no comment, but he saw by her 
 face that she was seriously and not suspiciously inter 
 ested in what he said. He continued: 
 
 " I am not a theatrical manager, as perhaps you 
 might think from my interest in your daughter, yet it 
 lies in my power to bring her to the notice of the right 
 kind of manager in the right kind of a way. You 
 understand?" 
 
 Teresa did not understand and said nothing, which dis 
 concerted Waters a little, as he had planned and hoped 
 that Teresa at this point would ask some question 
 which would draw out the rest of his fable naturally. 
 He stammered a little as he resumed, " I thought, 
 perhaps he swallowed hard " you will understand 
 my motive for asking you if yon have any engagement 
 in prospect for your daughter at the end of her season 
 at the Tivoli?" 
 
 "We have no engagement," answered Teresa, "but 
 of course we hope to get up-town where they pay better 
 for a good specialty." 
 
 " That is exactly the point," said Waters, in a relieved 
 tone, as the conversation came round upon the lines he 
 had designed, "that is the point exactly; now all that I 
 have to ask further is that you make no engagement 
 until I have seen you again, let me say for a week, at 
 
2O4 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 least; during which time I promise you to take an 
 up-town manager to see La Cortese dance. You will 
 understand, I am sure, that I am doing this merely in 
 the interest of her art, which is a fad of mine. That 
 she is a daughter of one of the famous Longs makes 
 no difference." Waters laughed thickly as he made a 
 clumsy attempt to regard Teresa with off-hand gallantry 
 at this allusion to the "Longs." Teresa flushed and 
 smiled again as she said: "Oh, the Longs! I do re 
 member. It was what they called us, we were so tall, 
 four of us. Carminella is nearly so tall and she is 
 here/ 
 
 At that instant Carminella swung into the room from 
 the hall, or plunged in, or came in like an unexpected 
 gust of fresh air. I do not know how to describe it. 
 She entered, and the room was changed. She permeated 
 it, enlivened it, and the other two human beings, both 
 of great stature, somehow instantly seemed small ; the 
 man particularly small and insignificant, with the 
 impersonality of a piece ,of furniture. She strode over 
 to Teresa, kissed her, exclaiming: "It is so dark, 
 mamma!" and started toward the shuttered windows, 
 when she discovered the stranger. 
 
 " It is my daughter, Mr. Waters. " 
 
 Carminella came to a sudden sharp stop. She was 
 without any sign of embarrassment, like a deer in the 
 forest, motionless and statuesque at a strange sound which 
 bodes no danger. Waters, all his affectation shaken 
 from him, advanced toward her with outstretched hand. 
 Perhaps, as she had just come in from the bright day 
 light, she did not see the hand, for she suddenly stepped 
 to the windows saying, " Let us have some light, then 
 I can see you, Mr. Waters." She threw open the blinds 
 and standing in the full glare turned toward him with 
 
Mark Waters Plays a Part. 205 
 
 her hands clasped before her, and said frankly, " I am 
 very glad to see yon, Mr. Waters. You were one of the 
 gentlemen in the box last night who threw me the 
 boutonnieres. " 
 
 Waters flushed scarlet, and clinched his hands in an 
 effort to control himself, for he trembled as he looked 
 at the radiantly handsome girl standing before him, 
 her head slightly thrown back, regarding him with 
 some feeling which made her smile a little. 
 
 " It was my boutonniere you were kind enough to pick 
 up," Waters rejoined, cursing himself for the huski- 
 ness in his voice, and he felt the veins in his neck 
 beating against his collar. 
 
 "Oh! was it yours?" Carminella laughed. " It was 
 the red one, and I chose it because it went with my 
 costume." 
 
 Waters had rehearsed a number of speeches to be 
 used in the event of his meeting Carminella, but these 
 had all fled from him and he turned to go, muttering 
 something about her mother explaining the object of 
 his visit. The light with which Carminella had flooded 
 the room somehow her presence seemed to add to the 
 light revealed not only the pretty, simple furniture, 
 Tom s gift, but showed that the walls were hung with 
 black and colored crayon drawings, many of them 
 unframed. 
 
 One charcoal drawing, a bold, sketchy bit of work, 
 caught Waters attention, and as he looked at it he 
 steadied himself with one hand on the back of the chair 
 he had risen from. He moistened his lips several times 
 before he spoke: "Why that looks like the face of of 
 a young friend of mine." 
 
 " It is Tom Lyon, our best friend," exclaimed Carmi 
 nella quickly. The look on Waters face made her add 
 
206 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 with a note of defiance in her voice: " I have just come 
 from his studio. " She turned to Teresa, " Oh ! mamma, 
 the studio is lovely. You are to see it to-morrow." 
 
 This about the studio confused Waters; he knew 
 nothing about Tom s profession; but that the drawing 
 represented the head of Tom Lyon, the son of Dan, 
 there could be no doubt. He walked slowly as far as 
 the door, his brain in a tumult. There he turned, and 
 looking from mother to daughter said, " I must ask as 
 a favor that my good young friend Tom Lyon is not 
 told, not just yet, that I have called. I will tell you 
 why soon it was a little misunderstanding it was 
 with his father who was our janitor it will all be 
 arranged soon until then He looked almost ap- 
 pealingly at Teresa, who said, " Tom and his father are 
 our good friends " 
 
 "And mine, too," interrupted Waters, "but this is 
 a little business misunderstanding and until it is 
 settled " 
 
 "Well, if you wish," agreed Teresa, and Waters 
 bowed himself out of the room. 
 
 When she was alone with her mother, Carminella, 
 whose color had been deepening during the talk about 
 Tom, said seriously, " I do not like it, mamma, this 
 about our not telling Tom." 
 
 Teresa, who looked almost exultant, took her 
 daughter s hands and explained: " But you do not know, 
 Carminella, what it is; you have not heard yet. Mr. 
 Waters is a great man and powerful, and he is to bring 
 an tip-town manager to see you. He will get you an 
 engagement where every one may see that you are an 
 artist and beautiful. If it is some little quarrel with 
 Dan, it is not our quarrel." 
 
 "Are you sure he is great and powerful, mamma?" 
 
Mark Waters Plays a Part. 207 
 
 Carminella asked, taking down the crayon of Tom and 
 pinning it on the wall closer to her mirror. 
 
 " Did he not come here in his own carnage with two 
 servants?" 
 
 Carminella shrugged her shoulders; but any doubts 
 she may have had as to Waters influence were soon dis 
 sipated, for that very week Waters was seen in a Tivoli 
 box, with a great up-town manager, and before another 
 week the delighted and resplendent Dominico was 
 craftily negotiating a contract for Carminella s appear 
 ance in a forthcoming production concerning which the 
 newspapers were already broken out with paragraphs; 
 which production would signalize no less an event than 
 the return to her native New York of that tremendous 
 London sensation, Marie Leon, known in the first chap 
 ters of this history as Maggie Lyon. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A NIGHT AT HOME AND ABROAD. 
 
 CARMINELLA had said to Tom Lyon one night at their 
 Arctic Garden supper that he would soon be leaving 
 the Tivoli altogether and pursuing his art work in his 
 own studio, and this had come to pass just at the time 
 Mark Waters had made his troublesome discovery of 
 the existence of the wife and daughter of his correspon 
 dent in Blue Canon. The very day Waters called on 
 Teresa, as described in the last chapter, Carminella had 
 returned home from Tom s studio, where she had been 
 with Philip Peyton helping to install Tom in his 
 studio. Teresa had unquestioningly allowed Carmi 
 nella to go there without her, for she had always looked 
 on Tom in his relation to her daughter exactly as if he 
 had been Carminella s older brother. 
 
 The studio had been a find of Philip s. It belonged 
 to a famous artist and illustrator who was going 
 to Europe to stay a year. Philip knew him, and 
 when he heard of his intended departure, suggested 
 the plan of Tom s occupying the vacant New York 
 studio. It happened that the artist had seen some of 
 T. Fitz Gerald Lyon s work, and when Philip brought 
 the two men together, he admired Tom, and made 
 some pretty compliments about his work in a perfectly 
 frank manner which pleased Tom mightily. There 
 was no trouble after that about arranging for the sub 
 lease, and when Dan was brought over from Mulberry 
 
 208 
 
A Night at Home and Abroad. 209 
 
 Court to examine the premises and take the matter under 
 consideration, for once in his life there was no delay 
 in his passing judgment. He even offered to pay the 
 whole rent in advance, which did not do Tom a bit of 
 harm in the estimation of the great artist, who, how 
 ever, said that the agent of the studio building would 
 collect the monthly rent from Tom, as if there had been 
 no change in the tenant. There was a big, north-lighted 
 working-room which had the height of two floors, and 
 a bedroom and bathroom at one side, reached by a 
 short flight of unenclosed oak stairs running from the 
 studio. Beneath the bedroom and separated from the 
 studio by portieres, was a cosey, low-ceilinged room 
 called the model room, but used by the artist as his own 
 personal den when not required as a dressing-room by 
 a model. All the rooms were abundantly furnished by 
 the artist who had occupied them for years, and con 
 tained a confusion of properties and accessories the 
 artistic odds and ends a busy illustrator gathers about 
 him for his work. Most of these the departing artist 
 left in Tom s care and for his use. Carminella, Tom, 
 and Philip re-arranged them, and took account of stock: 
 the casts, the fabrics, the musical instruments, the 
 weapons old and new, the bits of armor, the antique 
 furniture, the brasses, the pottery, the glass, the china, 
 the rugs, furs, pipes, costumes a fascinating confusion 
 of the elements of the picturesque of every age and 
 every land. 
 
 Some of Tom s belongings were brought over from 
 Mulberry Court; for, although he intended to make a 
 practice of going home to dine with Dan and sleep there, 
 it was determined that his studio sleeping-room should 
 be made ready for use; "for," urged Philip, "there s no 
 telling when you may want a place in town to bunk in." 
 
2io A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 Tom was feverishly anxious to get to work in his 
 new quarters. There was what seemed to him the ap 
 palling rent to pay although his father had guaranteed 
 this, Tom had no thought of ever permitting him to make 
 his guarantee good and then there was an accumu 
 lation of orders he was eager to fill. The Guardian was 
 not the only publication calling upon him for drawings; 
 his signed work had opened a quick market for him. 
 Many weekly papers, some of the lesser magazines, and 
 a number of book publishers had ordered drawings from 
 him, and the hours of daylight were not long enough 
 for him to work in. The unaccountable laziness with 
 which an inscrutable Providence afflicts men of Tom s 
 profession and indeed of some others I know when 
 they have arrived at their first success had not yet made 
 a laggard of Tom. In truth the promptness with which 
 he responded to the professional calls upon him was no 
 small factor in influencing the sorely beset managers of 
 publishers art departments to send more orders to this 
 unnaturally industrious young artist. 
 
 Philip and Carminella bossed Tom relentlessly in 
 arranging the studio, and every one of their arrange 
 ments was upset or reversed by Tom when he actually 
 went to work there. Philip, who had also moved into new 
 quarters, decided to celebrate the studio opening by an 
 evening " at home," in his own rooms where Tom should 
 meet a few men " it would do him no harm to know." 
 
 Until within a month Philip, ever since George went 
 West, had lived in a cheap room in Greenwich village, 
 not far from Abingdon Square. George was a scant 
 and reticent correspondent and had written little that 
 was definite about the prospects of the Porterhouse Mine 
 Claim in Blue Canon ; but his remittances had increased 
 generously, and in a late letter, in which Philip was sure 
 
A Night at Home and Abroad. 211 
 
 he discovered signs of restrained excitement, George 
 had ordered that apartments for both of them be taken. 
 
 "Don t be too particular about the cost, old man," 
 George wrote. "I m not going to explain anything 
 about anything to you till I return, which may be soon 
 now, only don t be afraid to rent decent rooms. And 
 for heaven s sake, Phil, have a big bathroom for each 
 of us the biggest there is. I get a bath here by carry 
 ing pails of water from a spring to a shed where there 
 is a wooden washtub, which is used also for washing 
 the hotel linen. And we want a big parlor, Phil : a 
 stunning big parlor a man can swing clubs in without 
 smashing things. I ve lived in a seven-by-nine room 
 here so long where I have to get half out of the window 
 to dress, it seems to me I ll never go out of doors again 
 if ever I get into a big living-room. Get Minnie to 
 help you in buying stuff for the rooms: she knows a 
 corking lot about those things and everything, and don t 
 forget to send her those flowers on her birthday." 
 
 Minnie Hazelhurst selected not only the furniture for 
 the rooms, but the rooms as well ; and to satisfy her in 
 terpretation of what George Peyton meant by a "stun 
 ning big parlor," she, of course, had to select them far 
 down-town, as it happened, not far above Washington 
 Square. She said that it was only to secure a large 
 parlor she chose that location, and their nearness to 
 Washington Square had nothing to do with it. Indeed, 
 I am inclined to think she was ingenuous in this, for 
 the size of so-called parlors as they are apportioned to 
 unfortunate bachelors in up-town apartments would dis 
 courage even the most constricted roomer in the Hotel 
 Garibaldi, Blue Canon. 
 
 Philip s first intention had been to ask only a few 
 
 newspaper men to his "at home" in his new apart- 
 18 
 
212 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 ments, but he recalled the undeniably sincere interest 
 in Tom displayed by the illustrator whose studio they 
 had rented, and enlarged his list by inviting a few ar 
 tists. Knowing even all he did about Tom s anteced 
 ents, Peyton had no idea whatever of the excitement 
 Tom was thrown into by his contemplation of this affair. 
 Tom was conscious in a whimsical way that Peyton was 
 taking an innocent and perfectly good-natured pleasure 
 in " promoting" him ; " But, Lord !" thought Tom, " if he 
 could only have some notion of what I don t know about 
 this, he d go into a few more details in advance." Pey 
 ton in inviting Tom had only said, "Don t dress, old 
 man, because some of the fellows are coming up from 
 the Guardian office as they finish work, and I don t want 
 to put them to the trouble of going home to dress so 
 late in the evening." Tom "took this under advise 
 ment" as seriously as would his father; but strug 
 gle as he might with the phrase "don t dress," he 
 could make nothing of it that was compatible with his 
 ideas of propriety. He ended his hopeless wrestling by 
 assuring himself that whatever was the meaning of 
 the dictum, if he should be fortunate enough to dis 
 cover it, he would at least be sustained in any degree 
 of unconventionality since Peyton had intimated that 
 others, too, were coming who were not " to dress. " Tom 
 had never had occasion to wear man s conventional even 
 ing apparel and did not own such a thing, nor did he 
 know that " to dress" was the consecrated term for don 
 ning that particular attire. As it happened, he found 
 out all this upon the entrance of the guest who next 
 followed him into Philip s room. This was a man 
 whose name made Tom start. He was no less a person 
 age than Frank Farrington, the great illustrator, whose 
 vital work has made the world familiar with theroman- 
 
ONE OF THE TYPES. 
 How the devil did you get such a hold on those types?" Page 213 
 
A Night at Home and Abroad. 213 
 
 tic life of the border troops, the Indian reservation, the 
 round-up, the vaquero on his lonely trail, the Indian 
 in his frenzied dance, the cowboy in his rough pas 
 times. He was in evening dress, and said, as he shook 
 hands with Philip: "I had to dress to dine with some 
 people, but you ll let me stay as I am, won t you?" He 
 was a big, smooth-faced, boyish-looking man, yet evi 
 dently powerful and athletic, with the breadth and 
 breeziness of his beloved plains about him. Tom had 
 cut out and preserved from magazines and weekly 
 papers every illustration he had ever seen by Farring- 
 ton. As the great illustrator came toward him, Tom 
 was thinking if he would be bored to hear one more ad 
 mirer praise his work, and if he would not, how he, 
 Tom, would phrase his praise. But the compliments 
 started from the other side. 
 
 "Oh! I know you," Farrington said, in a big hearty 
 voice, as he grasped Tom s hand. " You re the chap 
 who is making all these fellows who draw nice little 
 men and women sit up and take notice of the real flesh 
 and blood East-side characters you ve been doing. But 
 I say, how the devil did you get such a hold on those 
 types?" Tom flushed, first at the praise and then at this 
 necessity, at the very outset, of having to explain that he 
 came from the slums. 
 
 Peyton promptly interrupted and Tom thanked him 
 in his heart for it : " Why he knows his down-town East- 
 side as you know your plains because he s lived there." 
 
 " Is that so?" exclaimed Farrington, in a tone of as 
 tonishment but beaming with delight. " That s the best 
 thing I ve heard since the dinner-bell. It s a glorious 
 day for New York illustrations if we re going to have 
 the East-side types drawn by some one who has ever 
 been farther south than Fourteenth Street." 
 
214 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 They were interrupted by the entrance of another ar 
 tist, a thin, rather anxious-browed, blond-bearded man 
 named Nielsen, who spoke with a slight foreign accent, 
 and who, in an incredibly short space of time, and ap 
 parently in a fury of passion, was assuring Farrington 
 that nobody, anywhere, now or ever, knew anything 
 about modelling or color, except Cornelius de Sart. He 
 broke off a tirade which it seemed impossible could end 
 in anything except a physical demonstration, and asked 
 Tom how he got all his orders. " Mr. Peyton got me 
 my first work," Tom answered, and added laughingly: 
 "Then I chased every publisher in the city who uses 
 drawings, dumped forty drawings in each of their art 
 departments, and considered myself lucky if I sold one 
 out of a hundred offered. They are coming to me a 
 little now. I suppose that s to head me off from chas 
 ing them any more." 
 
 "That is it," shouted Nielsen, with a sudden return 
 of his excitement. "Why should we chase them? I 
 would starve first!" 
 
 "You mean," said Farrington, "you ll keep in debt 
 to your dealer so that he can take two hundred and fifty 
 dollar still-lifes from you for twenty-five dollars." 
 
 From the preceding excitement of Nielsen Tom 
 thought that this retort of Farrington s could result in 
 nothing but blows; but to his astonishment Nielsen 
 burst into a dainty and musical laugh, locked arms with 
 Farrington, and said, " I guess you are right, old man, 
 but that is no reason we should" not see what kind of 
 cognac Peyton has." 
 
 The cognac was found to be good, and Farrington 
 asked Peyton, " Do you expect any newspaper men I 
 know?" 
 
 "I grieve to say I do not," Philip responded. "The 
 
A Night at Home and Abroad. 215 
 
 trouble is I m not myself well acquainted with the big 
 chaps in the profession I adorn. I don t think I should 
 care much for them anyway. I wonder whether it is 
 that success in newspaper work makes a man unsociable, 
 or whether only those who are not socially inclined make 
 successes? The fellows I know and like best are just 
 the every-day workers. They re a jolly lot, I like them 
 very much. The stars seem to be cold, unlovely bril 
 liants, and not likable, although this may be sour 
 grapes. Oh," he added, suddenly interrupting him 
 self, "except Richard Perry. You know him, Farring- 
 ton why, of course, you ve been to the North and South 
 poles with him, and ridden a tandem bicycle with him 
 round the equator." 
 
 The mere mention of Richard Perry s name seemed 
 to affect Farrington as if he had just heard the best kind 
 of joke. 
 
 "Did Dick Perry tell you he would come?" he asked, 
 laughingly. " But of course he did. He never declines 
 an invitation. He says it s so cold to decline, but he 
 sometimes makes good his acceptance, and most unex 
 pectedly. I met him once in Alaska. The Guardian 
 had sent him to make a canoe voyage across Behring 
 Straits to Siberia. He was outfitting his expedition when 
 I told him that I was going to the Mackenzie River 
 country, where I had heard there was a band of buffalo, 
 and asked him to go with me. He not only accepted, 
 but, by gee! he went with me. He altered his plans 
 with no more concern than if I had intercepted him go 
 ing into Del s for a cocktail and suggested that we cross 
 over to the St. James instead. Listen! That sounds 
 like him now." 
 
 The sound was as if the man-servant loaned for the 
 occasion from the Hazelhurst household had inadver- 
 
216 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 tently admitted a tornado and been knocked down by it. 
 The door opened, the tornado blew in. It was Dick 
 Perry. His hat was on the back of his head, exactly as 
 if, in his anxiety to reach his friends, he had forgotten 
 to give it to the servant. He was a stout, heavily mous- 
 tached man, and there was gray in his moustache, but 
 he carried with him the irresistible impression of joy 
 ous, boisterous, uncontrollable, inexperienced youth. 
 He was laughing as he entered, and he never ceased 
 laughing during the half-hour he stayed. 
 
 " Broke forty engagements to come here, Peyton," he 
 said, " and must leave in a minute. Must get on board 
 a Mediterranean steamer in Hoboken to-night. Going 
 to the Holy Land to write a story about the field Ruth 
 gleaned. Splendid idea for stories, don t you think? 
 Fifteen special articles on the subject, then print the 
 articles in a book; everybody named Ruth buys a book 
 must be a million of them then I ll have enough 
 money to stay at home long enough to make the ac 
 quaintance of my family. Why, this must be Mr. Lyon 
 you promised I should meet." 
 
 He strode over to Tom and shook his hand vigorously. 
 " Don t want any one to introduce me to you, Mr. Lyon ; 
 you re a coming man. Coming! Why you ve come 
 already. By Jove, your work is strong strong strong ! 
 Keep right on: don t you let them laugh you down 
 they ll begin to laugh at you when you get to be a little 
 better known. Some of em are trying to start a laugh 
 on Farrington now, but he s tough he don t mind. 
 Farrington s a good old boy, good old boy, good old boy! 
 Hello, Neilsen ! That s a stunning still-life you have at 
 the Exhibition. I d like to cut that pumpkin you 
 painted. It reminds me of the pies mother used to 
 make." He turned toward Philip. "I say, Peyton; 
 
A Night at Home and Abroad. 217 
 
 they tell me in the office you wrote that anarchist story 
 this morning. Strong story, vivid characterization. 
 They ought to put you on space. I ll write a friendly 
 letter to the managing editor about that : send it in by 
 the pilot in the morning. Good work, rny boy; good 
 work, good work! By Jove, this is smooth whiskey: 
 never tasted anything like it. From a private stock, 
 eh? Dr. Hazelhurst s? I know the doctor well. Love 
 ly character, that; beautiful, beautiful! Guess I ll run 
 over to Egypt from the Holy Land and see if I can t 
 dig up another Rameses for him. Make a good special 
 anyway. I say, Farrington, come along on the steamer 
 with me." 
 
 Perry was trying to persuade Farrington to take a 
 Mediterranean steamer with him that night, when three 
 or four of the Guardian men entered the room together. 
 The oldest of them, the only one in fact who looked 
 much more than a boy, had scarcely crossed the thresh 
 old before he exclaimed in a complaining voice and 
 with a rich Irish brogue : 
 
 " For the love of heaven, Peyton, would you have 
 good and honest men dying in your room of the drouth ! 
 Where s the beer?" 
 
 Philip introduced the new-comers to Tom, and of 
 him who had early announced a thirst, he said: "This 
 is Mr. Terence Lynn ; known to an admiring constitu 
 ency and reading public as Terry. His morals are ex 
 cellently white, and his soul inimitably green. I am 
 pleased to assure you of his distinguished consideration. 
 Having a fair capacity for English as she is spoke in 
 the United States, it is his peculiar will to superimpose 
 an Irish brogue on his speech only when he is in the 
 presence of those who for any reason he admires. My 
 own regard for this gentleman," continued Philip, in the 
 
218 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 voice of a showman Terence was furtively examining 
 the sideboard for beer" arises from the fact that he 
 always addressed my father in his richest brogue ; it is 
 in no degree lessened by the fact that in speaking to me 
 alone he uses only his purest English accent. He is 
 the yachting reporter of the Guardian, and is said to have 
 been partially tamed at Trinity College, Dublin." 
 
 " Your father, heaven rest his soul ! Master Peyton, 
 was a fine gentleman, and I grieve to think that a son of 
 his should talk so much and such nonsense. Have you 
 no beer at all, lad? Heaven sends us help," this at the 
 sight of the servant bearing a tray of bottled beer. 
 Having secured a bottle and glass, Lynn turned toward 
 Tom and said with an oily access of brogue : " As I 
 never read the magazines, sir, nor the illustrated papers 
 and peruse only that page of the Guardian which is 
 enriched with my own productions, I have not that 
 acquaintance with your elegant work which would en 
 able me to judge it with the fairness becoming an um 
 pire in all things. Tis a pity, too, for I have a dainty 
 taste in art. Indeed, at Trinity I was distinguished by 
 the faculty as one having a glorious future before him 
 with the brush and palette. Master Peyton has inher 
 ited his father s genius for cooling a bottle properly." 
 
 A tall, smooth-faced young man, as tall as Tom but 
 stouter, and with sloping shoulders and a generally col 
 lapsed appearance, who had been introduced as Mr. 
 Killip, of the Guardian, suddenly interrupted Lynn s 
 prattle by asking Tom, in a languid but slightly querul 
 ous tone, "What do you mean?" 
 
 "/ mean?" echoed Tom, a little startled. He was 
 subconsciously alive to the fact that he had been asked 
 a question which in Mulberry Bend was the conventional 
 form of challenge to a fight. Mr. Killip looked earnest 
 
A Night at Home and Abroad. 219 
 
 but not pugnacious. He repeated, " Yes, Mr. Lyon, 
 what do you mean?" 
 
 " I don t quite tumble I don t quite understand you, " 
 said Tom. 
 
 " What does your work mean?" Killip repeated insist 
 ently. 
 
 "Why a I don t believe I ve thought of that." 
 
 " Yes, you have, " said Killip, " you must have thought 
 of it. No one does creative work until he has decided 
 what it is to mean. Your work means for truth, does 
 it not? Can you deny it?" 
 
 "Well," said Tom, bewildered, and trying not to 
 laugh, " it may, but I am honest when I tell you I have 
 not thought of it in that way." 
 
 "You are mistaken," said Killip, sorrowfully, "you 
 mean your work to make for truth or else you would not 
 do the work you are doing. I should like to call at your 
 studio and talk with you about this : I consider it vastly 
 important." Tom invited Mr. Killip to call. 
 
 There was some supper served by the manifestly 
 amazed Hazelhurst servant, and then smoking and shop 
 talk. An artist, Mr. Norman, the first American 
 painter to discover that everything in nature is purple 
 as to color everything except such as happens to be 
 brick red and who had been one of Tom s instructors in 
 the Art League, brought Tom out famously in the shop 
 talk. Mr. Norman, who is quite a sane and sensible 
 man to meet in his own person, in spite of the violent 
 insanity of his palette, was better acquainted with Tom 
 on his mental side than was Philip even, and as he was 
 proud of his pupil, he took a pride in drawing him out. 
 Tom was not an adept at this sort of exercise, and in 
 deed never discovered Norman s intention, so gradually 
 was he led to express himself at greater and greater 
 
22O A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 length, and with more and more conviction, until sud 
 denly he stopped, blushing like a girl to find that he 
 alone was talking and all the others listening, and lis 
 tening intently. 
 
 "There!" exclaimed Mr. Killip, with as near ani 
 mation as he ever approached, " I knew I was right: I 
 knew you were making for truth, were a veritist in art." 
 
 There was a laugh at this, in which Tom joined, and 
 then said: "Well, you see, Mr. Killip, I never thought 
 out what I meant before, and I did not know when you 
 asked me." 
 
 As the Guardian men walked over toward Broadway 
 together, Terence Lynn said to Killip, speaking without 
 a trace of brogue : " If that Mr. Lyon is a product of the 
 tenements, as Peyton says he is, I m going to start a 
 movement to colonize all the art critics in the slums, 
 and make them live there until they learn not to talk 
 like mystics." 
 
 "Well, my auburn-haired child, how do you feel?" 
 Philip asked Tom when they were alone. 
 
 " As if I had been having a scrap, but with my brains 
 instead of my fists," Tom replied. 
 
 It was because his brains were in a pleasurable 
 tumult which he knew would keep him from sleep, 
 that Tom walked past his studio building on to Broad 
 way and down that strangely quiet thoroughfare. It 
 was after two o clock the Guardian men had been late 
 in arriving, of course and the occasional cable cars 
 glided quietly along without the clanging bells which 
 denote the day s ceaseless struggle through the crowded 
 street; now and then rumbled along a top-heavy vege 
 table wagon from Staten Island with driver fast asleep, 
 or one of those ridiculous circus wagons in which it 
 pleases the government to transport the mail in cities; 
 
OUTCASTS. 
 "Who would turn robbers if the stranger seemed timid." Page 221. 
 
A Night at Home and Abroad. 221 
 
 a few carts dashing up-town with papers containing " to 
 morrow s" news for those who in the Tenderloin dis 
 trict were yet wearing out "yesterday;" these were all 
 that kept Broadway from being deserted at that hour. 
 On the sidewalk Tom met an occasional policeman, and 
 a few tramps and thieves who seemed worn out with the 
 night, and to wish another day s sun would come. 
 These were all the dregs left at that hour of the bril 
 liant, rushing, noisy torrent of Broadway s day. 
 
 At Canal street Tom turned east, and at Mulberry, 
 south. He had no fixed purpose. The electric life 
 there is in that morning hour for some temperaments 
 affected him, and he was as awake as one is after a 
 morning bath. He was thinking of Carminella but 
 when was he not? and the old associations where he 
 was with her so much, was so often her protector, drew 
 him on. Mulberry street was less deserted than Broad 
 way; there were more outcasts eddied about there: more 
 tramps, more thieves, more lurking evil-doers, more 
 helpless, homeless ones; more beggars who would turn 
 robbers if the stranger from whom they solicited seemed 
 timid. Some of those approached Tom, but his calm 
 indifference turned them aside wondering why so well- 
 dressed a man should seem so much at home there. 
 Sometimes from a cellar-way would come the sound of 
 voices and the whining notes of an accordion ; and he 
 knew that an Italian ship had arrived that day and some 
 of its immigrant passengers were stored in that cellar 
 with their baggage, to sleep if they could to drink 
 stale beer and sing and get drunk, until niches could 
 be found next day for their housing. 
 
 As he neared the entrance to his old, well-remembered 
 court, a man emerged from it and turned slowly down 
 toward Park street. Tom recognized him as his foster- 
 
222 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 brother Bill. He had not seen him in a long time, not 
 since Dan had finally cast Bill off. There had never 
 been any intimacy between Tom and his foster-brother, 
 for Bill had almost entirely deserted Dan s roof when 
 Tom was a baby. The younger man had frequently 
 helped the other, had tried to induce him to do better 
 by himself, and they had never quarrelled. Tom turned 
 back when he saw the other, but he had walked only a 
 short distance when it occurred to him that Bill might 
 not know they had left the Bend, and had gone to the 
 old house for help, perhaps even for a bed, lacking one 
 anywhere else. 
 
 At this thought Tom turned quickly but Bill was not 
 in sight. He hurried down the Bend to Park street, and 
 there he saw Bill just turning the corner into Mott 
 street into Chinatown. That one glance made him run 
 up the hill, for he thought Bill athletic Bill walked as 
 if he were weak, perhaps with hunger, Tom s reproving 
 heart said. He reached Mott street just in time to see 
 his foster-brother turn into the entrance which he knew 
 led to an opium-smoking resort and worse. He 
 passed the entrance, but did not go in. He knew who 
 Bill would meet there. He had good reason to remem 
 ber that entrance later. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE SECRET OF AN OPIUM DEN. 
 
 THE entrance Bill Williams Dan Lyon s foster-son 
 had never taken the name of Lyon turned into was 
 reached by a narrow, worn pair of stone steps running 
 up alongside the front of an old, three-story, red brick 
 building. The basement and first floor were occupied 
 by Chinese merchants who dealt in the products of China ; 
 consisting exclusively, judging from the odors, and the 
 condition of the stairs and halls, of fish, flesh, and fowl, 
 preserved in grease. 
 
 The second floor was occupied by the dining-room 
 and kitchen of a Chinese restaurant, largely patronized 
 by white criminals, men and women. The women one 
 saw in that restaurant were nearly all young, for they 
 did not last long in the life of which that restaurant was 
 a part, and the recruits were little more than children- 
 rebels against the sweaters tasks. 
 
 On the third floor, in the front, with windows open 
 ing on an iron balcony overlooking the street, is what 
 is called there a " Joss temple. " In the rear of this room 
 is a hideous, squat grimacing figure before which in 
 cense sticks are always burning. The priests (if they 
 are priests of the temple who appear out of some half- 
 lighted corner of the room, noiselessly and stealthily, 
 and startle sight-seeing visitors) make a revenue by sell 
 ing a cent s worth of the incense sticks for twenty five 
 cents. Back of the temple a door leads from the hall- 
 19 223 
 
224 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 way into a little cubby-hole of an office. In this office 
 there is a counter extending from wall to wall, and 
 behind that is a door leading to a dark room beyond. 
 Back of this counter and in front of the second door 
 from eight or nine o clock in the evening until nearly 
 daylight, a Chinaman sits in a space which allows only 
 room for him and a narrow passage to the room beyond 
 when he lifts a gate in the counter to admit a customer. 
 The customers of that Chinese functionary are opium- 
 smokers, and their occupations, honest and otherwise, 
 keep them abroad late at night; in some instances 
 until the awful craving of the habit drags them to the 
 den, even though their occupation may be no less ex 
 citing than trying to escape from the police. "The 
 habit" is the term the smokers use to express a recur 
 rence of the craving for the drug, and the habit lays a 
 stronger hold upon its victims than anything except 
 death. 
 
 So the man who sits in the office has pretty regular 
 customers, and he gets to know them and their callings 
 pretty well, too; and he is proud of their acquaintance, 
 which is singular, for he is not and never was a profes 
 sional thief. In fact, the only thing to speak of seriously 
 Chung ever stole was Mark Waters pocketbook, on the 
 occasion when he went to Waters office to pay Uncle 
 Fong s rent for his premises in the building belonging 
 to Philip Ormsbee Peyton, Estate of. He was a clerk 
 then in Uncle Fong s store ; but the sudden possession 
 in cash of more than half a year s salary, for there were 
 nearly a hundred dollars in the purse, gave Chung the 
 longed-for capital to engage in an occupation more to 
 his taste. He bought an interest in the opium smoking 
 plant, ostensibly conducted as a lodging-house, on the 
 floor with the Joss temple. 
 
The Secret of an Opium Den. 225 
 
 News of the theft, and particularly the more interest 
 ing fact that the man who had been stolen from had 
 offered a large reward for the recovery of the purloined 
 papers; and that an innocent man, one Tom Lyon of the 
 Tivoli Theatre, had been taken to police headquarters 
 on suspicion of being the thief this news was eager 
 ly discussed by the criminals with whom Chung smoked 
 opium that very night. How did they learn the news? 
 Well, some of the thieves were also stool pigeons, sneak 
 agents of Headquarters detectives, and on more or less 
 intimate terms with them. Perhaps that accounted for 
 so much being known, and besides, innocent looking 
 Chung, when he heard the discussion, told his story; 
 how he had arrived at the Niantic building a few 
 minutes after the discovery of the theft; and he was 
 naturally anxious to learn more about it, especially 
 about the reward for the papers. 
 
 When he learned of the reward, Chung, with tireless 
 patience, cut Mark Waters pocket-book into a thousand 
 little pieces, and scattered the indistinguishable frag 
 ments in the gutters of Chinatown as he lazily strolled 
 along. The papers he folded into one small compact 
 thin wad, and hid them in a hollow of the thick sole of 
 one shoe, as he had hidden opium in both of his shoes 
 when he came into San Francisco on the ship from 
 China; thereby smuggling not a large portion to be 
 sure, but the thousand other Chinese who walked off the 
 ship with him all walked in shoes similarly charged, 
 and the total was considerable. 
 
 For many months Chung listened to all that the 
 thieves had to say about crimes and rewards, but never 
 heard that Waters had offered anything for the return 
 of the papers by the thief : the reward was for their re 
 covery by the police, and at that time Chung did not 
 
226 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 know how to turn such a condition of affairs into profit. 
 It was not long after Chung became part owner and 
 manager of the opium den that he found it belonged to 
 his business to establish friendly relations with the 
 police. Such places as his, being unlawful, have always 
 been included in the list of those which are permitted 
 to flourish only when they are a source of profit to the 
 officials sworn to suppress them. Chung submitted to 
 the blackmail (indeed he could not do otherwise and 
 conduct an unlawful business) with the smiling philoso 
 phy of his people when dealing with a ruling, superior, 
 Christian race, and even managed to secure a rebate on 
 the extortion-money wrung from him, by now and then 
 notifying the police of the hiding-place of criminals who 
 were "wanted." 
 
 Late on the night before Philip Peyton had Tom and 
 his other friends in his new rooms, Bill Williams, white 
 and trembling, dragged himself up the stairs to Chung s 
 cubby-hole office. He was a regular patron of the den, 
 his own living-room being in an attic overhead where 
 also Chung s room was. The Chinaman, after a mo 
 ment s glance at Bill, opened the counter gate for him 
 and handed him a little lacquer tray containing a smok 
 er s outfit : the pipe, a tiny horn-box of opium, the lamp, 
 and the needle on which the opium is cooked over the 
 lamp. Bill took the tray in his shaking hands, and 
 asked in a weak, husky voice: 
 
 "Has Molly come in?" 
 
 "No," answered Chung, and Bill passed through the 
 door into the den beyond. The den was a rather narrow 
 room, but probably fifteen feet long; on each side were 
 two sets of double bunks: that is, there were two lower 
 and two upper bunks on each side, and across the end 
 of the room were one upper and one lower bunk. Each 
 
IN THE OPIUM DEN. 
 "Then Bill heard Chung come to the door." Page 226. 
 
The Secret of an Opium Den. 227 
 
 bunk (they were nothing more than wide shelves) was 
 intended for the accommodation of two smokers, lying 
 down, with the lamp and other paraphernalia of the out 
 fit between them. Nearly every shelf was occupied by 
 one or two men or women, all in the profound sleep of 
 the opium smoker, when Bill entered. He hastily pre 
 pared his pipe and had taken the four or five long deep 
 draughts by which a smoker exhausts one preparation, 
 when he heard Chung in conversation with a man whose 
 voice he recognized. It was a police official known as 
 a ward man, a detective attached to the police station of 
 that precinct. When the ward man entered the office 
 Chung handed him a sealed envelope which he took and 
 placed in a large pocket-book containing other envel 
 opes. It may have been the resemblance of this pocket- 
 book in shape and size and color to one that Chung vivid 
 ly remembered which prompted him to ask the officer if 
 he recalled a pocket-book theft in the Niantic building. 
 Bill was lying on the shelf nearest the door, and it was 
 hearing this question which made him lay down his 
 pipe and listen intently, for he had heard of the suspi 
 cion against Tom Lyon in connection with that theft. 
 
 There was considerable talk between the Chinaman 
 and the ward man before the latter recalled the incident 
 Chung referred to. Then Bill heard Chung come to 
 the door and slide back a little panel which gave him 
 a view of the den. Bill dropped his head on the wooden 
 block which served as a pillow to his shelf, and affected 
 the deep sleep of an overcome smoker. Chung, appar 
 ently satisfied with his observation, closed the panel, 
 and as he did so Bill crept to the door, where, through 
 a crevice at the bottom of the panel, he could see and 
 hear what was going on in the office. Chung in a lower 
 voice said to the ward man: 
 
228 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 " Mebbe Mista Walta pay you that lewad if you catch 
 papers?" The ward man smiled knowingly and an 
 swered, 
 
 "Maybe. You got em?" 
 
 "No, I no got him," said Chung, "but mebbe I 
 catch him if you catch lewad. You find out arid come 
 back to-mollow night. If you can catch lewad mebbe 
 Chung can catch papers, then you and me divide lewad. " 
 
 "You re a pretty slick Chink. I ll see about that re 
 ward." 
 
 When the officer had departed, Chung took from a 
 shelf beneath his counter just such a pair of thick-soled 
 shoes as he had on his feet. He selected one and by 
 a little effort removed its sole. It had been hollowed 
 out and it contained some closely folded papers. He 
 examined them without unfolding them as he had a 
 thousand times before, wishing he could read their con 
 tents, and then replaced the shoes on the shelf. As he 
 did so Bill returned to his bunk, and Molly, the woman 
 he had inquired for, entered the office, learned from 
 Chung that Bill was inside, took only a pipe from the 
 Chinaman, passed through the door into the den, and 
 threw herself down on the bunk by the side of the ap 
 parently unconscious Bill. She began the preparation 
 of a pipe when Bill s hand crept to her throat, and he 
 whispered just above his breath, " Don t smoke!" 
 
 "My God, Bill, I must! The habit is on me," she 
 gasped. His fingers tightened on her throat so that she 
 could not speak further. 
 
 "Don t speak and don t smoke, I tell you!" he whis 
 pered. "The habit is on me too, but I ve held off for 
 half an hour." 
 
 The light from the opium lamp showed her his white 
 face drawn and twitching with the agony of the unsatis- 
 
The Secret of an Opium Den. 229 
 
 fied desire for the drug. She clenched her own hands 
 in her clothing as if a physical obstacle were necessary 
 to keep them from the pipe, glaring at her companion in 
 wonder; but he gave no explanation. Thus they lay 
 in a wretched agony of desire for the drug until they 
 heard Chung close the outer door and enter the den for 
 his own nightly smoke. Bill again simulated sleep and 
 the woman obeying his signal did the same, as Chung 
 passed by them. In a few minutes Bill, stealthily watch 
 ing the Chinaman, saw the pipe drop from his hand and 
 his head fall back in stupor. Then he noiselessly let 
 himself into the office, motioning Molly to follow. By 
 the light of his opium lamp he found the shoe, obtained 
 the papers, gave them to Molly, and whispered with 
 his mouth close to her ear, " Take these upstairs and hide 
 them. Then come back and smoke." He waited in the 
 office, prepared to head off Chung if the Chinaman 
 should happen to be aroused, until the woman returned, 
 and then locked the inside and outside doors just as they 
 had been fastened by Chung. 
 
 The next day Bill and Molly crossed the Brooklyn 
 Bridge and there took an elevated train, going neither 
 of them knew where. Any place where they would not 
 be known was what Bill sought. A short distance from 
 the end of the road they found a field where they would 
 not only be not known but not seen, and there he slowly 
 and laboriously deciphered the letters, which Molly 
 copied with pencil and paper, as Bill, word by word, 
 made out their contents. When this slow work was 
 all done, Bill told Molly to read her copy over to him, 
 and he listened attentively and with closed eyes as she 
 did so. 
 
 "What does it all mean, Bill?" she asked, when he 
 had remained silent for a long time. 
 
230 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 "I ain t just dead on t de whole game, Molly," Bill 
 answered, thoughtfully, " but I tumbles enough t pipe 
 dat dis Mark Waters would be up against it hard if 
 Teresa knowed of dese letters." 
 
 "Who s Teresa?" said Molly, with sudden jealous in 
 terest. 
 
 Bill did not care to explain all that he knew about 
 Teresa, for that would include something his rela 
 tionship to Dan and Tom Lyon. Of that in late years 
 Bill had not spoken. He bore no enmity to Dan, for he 
 realized that Dan had cause enough to disown him long 
 before he did, and for Tom this outcast had a regard 
 amounting almost to affection. It was about the only 
 remnant of purity and honesty left in his perverse, dis 
 torted nature. He had sheltered Tom when the latter 
 was still a child from some of the rough knocks unpro 
 tected childhood receives in the slums, and Tom had 
 not only been kind to him in the matter of giving him 
 money many times in later years, but had urged his way 
 ward foster-brother, with a kindness and consideration 
 no one else had ever shown him, to do better by himself. 
 
 "Who is Teresa?" repeated Molly, angrily. 
 
 "Can t you see who she is?" retorted Bill evasively. 
 " Didn t you just read de letters? Can t you see she s 
 de wife of de sucker what wrote de letter from Califor 
 nia? Dis mug, Waters, has been collarin all de boodle." 
 
 " How do you know he collared the boodle? How do 
 you know Teresa didn t get it?" said Molly, with in 
 creasing jealousy and anger. 
 
 " If she got de boodle would she be lettin her kid do 
 a song and dance on de Bowery? Besides, if de letters 
 didn t show Waters was crooked would he be offerin de 
 cops a tousand dollars for em?" 
 
 This did not explain much to Molly; she knew noth- 
 
The Secret of an Opium Den. 231 
 
 ing about the offer of reward, nor about Teresa and 
 Carminella. Molly was little more than a child in age, 
 and she came from the other side of the Bowery, from 
 Stanton Street. She had run away from the one over 
 crowded, miserable room where with brothers and 
 sisters, father and mother, she slaved for the sweaters. 
 She had met Bill in the life into which she had quickly, 
 he gradually, sunk, but while he was still a heroic figure 
 in that life. He had gained renown and for a time a 
 livelihood as a pugilist, but his ability to meet even 
 the poor athletic specimens he had to contend against 
 in the prize-fighting resorts in the lower East side had 
 been undermined, first by his becoming a slave of the 
 opium habit and then by the disease which kills so many 
 pugilists consumption. He yet had some renown 
 when Molly took up with him, and because she loved 
 him she clung to him even in these days of his direst 
 fortune. 
 
 She saw that it was useless then to ask any more 
 about Teresa, and to avoid quarrelling with him she 
 changed the subject by asking: 
 
 "Will you go to this Waters, and claim the reward?" 
 
 " No, Molly, I won t do it," he replied, kindly enough 
 now. 
 
 " I wonder you wouldn t, Bill. If we had that money 
 we could get away from from everything there. We 
 might come and live out in the country like this till you 
 got well of your cough, and got strong again." 
 
 Bill turned and put his hand on the girl s arm so gent 
 ly that it surprised her at first and then made the tears 
 come to her eyes. "I ll tell you, Molly, "he said, "why 
 I can t do it. Dere s as square a boy as ever lived was 
 pinched by de cops for stealin dis stuff. I knowed he 
 never done it, cause he s dead level. Well, dat boy is 
 
232 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 what dey calls my foster-brodder. If I goes t dis 
 Waters and asks for dis reward he ll tink, sure, Tom 
 stole de stuff and passed it t me. No, I wouldn t queer 
 Tom dat way for more dan a tousand. I m going t 
 take dis stuff t Tom t night. It may do him some 
 good t have it; anyway he can do some good t Teresa 
 wid de letters. We ll keep de copy you ve made, and 
 p raps you can make some money out of de game wid- 
 out queerin Tom. I ll see about dat." 
 
 It was late that night that Bill had gone to Mulberry 
 Bend. He learned there for the first time that the 
 Lyons and Corteses had left the Bend; that was all the 
 strangers in the tenements could tell him, and it was 
 when Bill was leaving there that Tom saw him. Bill 
 intended to go to the Tivoli and inquire Tom s address, 
 but the next day he could not leave his bed, nor could 
 he for many days. Molly watched by him and nursed 
 him as well as she could, but there was no money to 
 get medicine, not even opium nor food. One afternoon 
 she left him, taking the copies of the stolen letters with 
 her, and went to Mark Waters office. 
 
 " You must tell me what your business is with Mr. 
 Waters," said the clerk, eying the thin, pale, shabbily 
 dressed girl suspiciously. 
 
 "I ll tell my business to him," said Molly, defiantly. 
 " You can tell him if he don t see me he ll be sorry for 
 it, that s all!" 
 
 Waters, who heard this in his private office, came to 
 the door, looked at Molly sharply, and seemed to be re 
 lieved that she was no one he had ever known. He 
 motioned her into his office, closed the door after her 
 and then asked gruffly: 
 
 "Well now, what s your game? Be quick about it." 
 
 " My game is," Molly said, looking at Waters straight 
 
The Secret of an Opium Den. 233 
 
 and hard, " to get a hundred dollars from you. " Waters 
 was startled more by her manner than her demand. 
 
 "Perhaps you wouldn t mind telling me what your 
 security is," he said, making a poor attempt to sneer. 
 
 "That s fair enough," Molly responded, and she 
 handed him her copies of the letters. He was standing 
 when he received them, but he sank into a chair after one- 
 hasty glance at them. He glared at the letters so long 
 in silence that Molly said, finally, "They ain t so hard 
 to read, I guess. I m pretty good at writing. I went 
 to school until I was ten." 
 
 Waters looked up and tried to steady his voice as he 
 said: "I don t know whether I ll call a policeman 
 to take you out of here, or put you out myself and let 
 you go." 
 
 This speech taught him something of the nature of 
 the girl. She laughed at the man coolly and insolently. 
 Then she sat down in a chair and said, "You can suit 
 yourself about that. If you call a cop in I ll take him 
 where the real letters are. If you put me out I ll take 
 the real letters to that Teresa." 
 
 Waters jumped to his feet and rushed at the girl 
 threateningly. She rose without quailing and he stopped 
 short as she said, and it was she who threatened then : 
 
 "I want you to be quick about it, too, for I m in a 
 hurry. See?" 
 
 The blood suddenly mounted into Waters face in an 
 ominous manner, and he reeled, caught himself by the 
 back of his chair and sank down heavily. Molly watched 
 him closely and anxiously: she thought he was dying, 
 but there was no pity in her look as she saw him tear 
 open his collar, and heard him gasp. It was a minute 
 before he recovered so that he could speak, and she saw 
 then that he was more afraid of death than of her. His 
 
234 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 eyes wandered about the room wildly before they 
 seemed to find her. Then he said in a cowed, weak 
 voice : 
 
 " You wanted a hundred?" 
 
 Molly nodded, and he counted out the money for her 
 and handed it to her unsteadily, asking, " I get the 
 original letters for this?" 
 
 The girl walked to the hall door and opened it before 
 she turned and replied ; 
 
 " Next time perhaps." 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 NEARING THE RAPIDS OF LIFE. 
 
 MOLLY hurried from the Niantic building to the office 
 of a doctor whose sign she remembered on East Broad 
 way. 
 
 " What will you charge to go and see a man who is 
 sick?" she asked anxiously when she met the doctor. 
 
 "Five dollars," he replied, and added after a glance 
 at the girl, "in advance." 
 
 Molly paid him the money and told him the address. 
 He said he would call in half an hour, and as Molly 
 hurried down the street to a delicatessen store, she ex 
 ulted while passing a charity station where medical ad 
 vice and medicines are given free. I cannot explain 
 why it is that in the district of the poorest tenements 
 there are many like Molly wicked, perverse, uncon 
 trolled as she was who would rather die, more, had 
 rather see those they love die, than accept aid which 
 might save life; I know, too, there are many more who 
 would rather die than pay for aid, even some having 
 money wherewith to pay; and that, too, I cannot ex 
 plain ; nor could Molly if you asked her. 
 
 She bought many things for Bill, from the delica 
 tessen store, a fruit stand, a wine store, and hurried to 
 their room in the attic over the opium den, with her 
 arms full of bundles and packages. 
 
 " I ve got a lot of good grub, Bill ; and fruit, and wine, 
 and a paid doctor is coming soon, and you ll be well 
 
 235 
 
236 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 enough to fight again the first thing you know!" she 
 cried eagerly, as she entered the room. 
 
 " How much did you touch Waters for?" Bill asked 
 huskily. 
 
 "For ahun." 
 
 " Den I ve got t make a hun before I croak, and pay 
 it t Teresa; for dat boodle you got from Waters belongs 
 t Teresa, and not to us," Bill said. 
 
 Molly looked at him in amazement and then asked, 
 "What s worrying you, Bill?" 
 
 " Nottin much, Molly ; only dis game ain t right, and 
 I want t square tings before I goes. " 
 
 "Don t, Bill! don t! Don t talk about going. It 
 would kill me, Bill, sure." Molly threw herself on the 
 floor by the side of the blanket on which Bill lay, and 
 sobbed. 
 
 "Don t get rattled, Molly," Bill said, stroking her 
 hair. "I ve beentinkin , and well, we mustn t touch 
 Waters for any more dough." 
 
 " It wouldn t do no good, Bill, to try him again. He 
 had a fit and near died this time. He d die another 
 time, sure." 
 
 Molly was quite right about the effect of her visit on 
 Mark Waters. He sat silent and weak and shaking so 
 long in his chair that the clerk gave up hope of catching 
 his dinner train to the suburbs, and waited in resigned 
 misery for some sign. He certainly lacked spirit, for 
 when Waters called him, and asked him almost humbly 
 to help him downstairs and get a carriage for him, the 
 clerk forgave him years of meanness and insolence, and 
 pitied him. 
 
 In the carriage in which Waters rode all the way up 
 town to his apartment, he sat so huddled in the seat, 
 so limp, and utterly collapsed, he looked to the driver, 
 
Nearing the Rapids of Life. 237 
 
 who knew him, like a much smaller man, as he faintly 
 gave the order: "Drive me home; slowly, carefully." 
 For a long time he could not make orderly thought 
 out of the confused jumble of terrors which tangled and 
 affrighted his mind. Only an hour before Molly s 
 visit to his office he had received a letter from a San 
 Francisco detective agency to which he had applied for 
 information about Ettore Cesarotti, and that letter said: 
 
 " Our operator has returned from Blue Canon, and informs us 
 that Cesarotti, who is reported to be a very sick man, is really a 
 half-owner in the mine known as the Porterhouse Claim, which, 
 as we informed you in our last report, is being negotiated for by 
 a party of capitalists. The price is kept a secret, but as you will 
 see by the enclosed newspaper clippings it is an important mining 
 deal, and the sum involved is probably very large. Cesarotti s 
 partner is a New Yorker named George Peyton, whose agent in 
 the deal is a wealthy merchant named Horace Masters." 
 
 Cesarotti s partner George Peyton! Had Ettore told 
 Peyton of his dealings with Mark Waters? Their agent, 
 Horace Masters, who had, Waters knew, set investiga 
 tions on foot regarding his, Waters , affairs, which were 
 already embarrassing and threatening him ! 
 
 Waters, as he crouched in the carriage, tried to recall 
 and consider all the dangers in his path. Cesarotti, Pey 
 ton, Masters, one or all of them must inevitably expose 
 his embezzlement of the money sent for Teresa ; Masters 
 he knew was already on a trail which would lead to other 
 exposures ; George Peyton would return and investigate 
 as he never had the real affairs of the estate of his 
 father. Was not that enough that he must be tortured 
 by this unknown demon of a woman who suddenly ap 
 pears to blackmail him with the threat of those stolen 
 letters! And then Carminella! Even all his conceit 
 did not blind him to the fact that he had made no pro- 
 
 20 
 
238 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 gress toward winning her; and in his tortured mind to 
 win her meant a relief from all his close-crowding 
 dangers. And even beyond that he longed for Carmi- 
 nella so that he would have striven to win though not 
 to wed her, even if he knew nothing of Ettore Cesa- 
 rotti s fortune, and had not the possession of Carmi- 
 nella represented an end to the perils closing in upon him 
 from all sides. But over, and greater than all these 
 terrors and torments was the black shadow of the death 
 he felt had come so close to him that day. 
 
 He was recovered somewhat at the end of the long, 
 slow ride up-town, and when he reached his apartments 
 and drank glass after glass of whiskey as he dressed 
 he was defiant, if not brave of heart again. 
 
 At his late dinner he met the manager of the Mayfair 
 Theatre, who told him that Marie Leon had arrived from 
 London that day and had ordered rehearsals to begin 
 on the following Monday. " Marie Leon was immense 
 ly pleased at our engagement of La Cortese when she 
 learned that the girl was the daughter of the woman, 
 Teresa, who used to be in the ballet with her. By the 
 way> she wanted me to send word to this Teresa and La 
 Cortese, to call on her at her hotel to-morrow. I must 
 send a messenger," concluded the manager. 
 
 "Never mind," Waters said, "I shall see them to 
 night at the Tivoli, and I ll give them the message." 
 
 The manager leered knowingly and laughed as he 
 said, " You seem to be playing a star part in that family. " 
 
 Waters looked pleased, and made no denial of what 
 he knew to be the manager s meaning. He drove to 
 the Tivoli, and in his liquor-excited brain he was con 
 scious of the thought that he would be glad if the chance 
 came to carry Carminella off with him in the carriage. 
 Girls had been won so, he knew, even in New York 
 
Nearing the Rapids of Life. 239 
 
 but not with a Teresa guarding them, he thought, curs 
 ing. 
 
 He met them, Dominico, Teresa, Carminella, in front 
 of the theatre, and delivered Marie Leon s message. 
 " I have some business to talk with Mr. Cortese," he said 
 then, "so let us all drive up-town and have supper 
 together." 
 
 Teresa had noticed that when Carminella touched 
 Waters proffered hand she sharply withdrew her own 
 and quickly stepped back. Teresa replied to Waters 
 invitation : " No ; Carminella and I have supper at home, 
 now," and she started with Carminella toward a car. 
 She saw the look of disappointment on Dominico s face, 
 and added " Dominico will go with you. We must go 
 home." 
 
 Dominico, more gorgeous even than when we saw 
 him last, as to jewelry, vest pattern, and scarf, puffed 
 with pride as Waters surlily motioned him into the car 
 riage; and he purled nearly to the explosive point when 
 his host conducted him into the gaudy cafe of a third- 
 rate hotel into which Dominico would not have pre 
 sumed to go alone and ordered supper. 
 
 "Your wife is damned careful about the girl, Minico," 
 Waters said. 
 
 "Sure," answered Dominico, "and the wife is right. 
 Who would marry the girl if the mother was not care 
 ful?" 
 
 " But who can marry her with never a chance to speak 
 to her for himself? A man may not like to make love 
 before a girl s whole family." 
 
 Dominico, who was proudly convinced that Waters 
 was one of the richest and greatest men in New York, 
 looked at his companion in red perspiring delight, as he 
 slowly comprehended Waters meaning. "I suppose," 
 
240 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 he said, grinning encouragingly at Waters, " a girl must 
 marry some time; and I guess the mother isn t so afraid 
 of a man if she thinks the man means marriage." 
 
 " Dominico," said Waters, leaning over the table and 
 whispering hoarsely to the Italian, "I ll give you a 
 thousand dollars the day I get Carminella." 
 
 The Italian gasped with delight and amazement, but 
 suddenly drew back and said stoutly, " But a real 
 marriage, Mr. Waters; an honest wedding with the 
 priest!" 
 
 "I mean nothing else," Waters said seriously. 
 
 That night Dominico told the great, the good, the 
 wonderful news to Teresa, and burst into tears of an 
 noyance when Teresa, instead of being overcome with 
 delight, said slowly : 
 
 " Well, we will see. We will see what Carminella 
 says; we will find out about Mr. Waters." 
 
 "But Mr. Waters is a great and a rich man!" cried 
 Dominico. "Santa Maria! is it that you want a prince 
 to marry your daughter?" 
 
 " Two things I want. I want an honest man : and I 
 want a man Carminella will like to marry," answered 
 Teresa, unmoved, for she had begun to doubt her first 
 impression as to Waters greatness. 
 
 " Then is Mr. Waters a thief, that you do not say 
 yes ?" demanded Dominico. "Do thieves come to the 
 theatre in a carriage and take me to a grand hotel and 
 order champagne? Oh, that Riccodonna had seen me 
 drinking that champagne! But you, Teresa, I have 
 always loved! (Dominico had drunk -a great deal of the 
 champagne) want your Minico to go back to Mulberry 
 Bend and Carminella to the sweat shop. Why will you 
 be like this when we might always drink champagne? 
 and Riccodonna could see us!" 
 
Nearing the Rapids of Life. 241 
 
 But Teresa would only say, " If he is great and rich he 
 can prove that to me: and if Carminella likes him then 
 it may be well. We will say nothing until we talk with 
 Dan Lyon." 
 
 " Dan Lyon, you think, knows everything and Minico, 
 poor Minico! he knows nothing!" wept her husband, as 
 he rolled a cigarette with brown paper. 
 
 " Dan Lyon was the keeper of the Niantic building, 
 and he knows whether Mr. Waters is a gentleman or 
 only a Yankee Doodle," Teresa answered, crushing 
 Dominico into smoky silence. 
 
 Nothing was said to Carminella about the intentions 
 of Mark Waters. She and Teresa called on Marie Leon 
 the next day, and busy days followed. There were re 
 hearsals at the Mayfair, visits to the costumers and the 
 photographer, and visits to Tom Lyon s studio, for he 
 had many orders for drawings of Carminella for the 
 newspapers. There was a sudden breaking forth of long 
 paragraphs about the new dancer who was to appear in 
 the forthcoming great production at the Mayfair, which 
 was interesting as signalling the return to her native 
 country of Marie Leon. 
 
 The latter s press-agent was undoubtedly the active 
 incentive for the first and shorter of those paragraphs, 
 but, as he was a knowing press-agent and experienced, 
 he realized soon that his leisure hours had come: that 
 the press was writing up the two stars of the production 
 because there was a public interest in them ; a demand 
 for endless particulars about them which the agent, in 
 stead of having trouble in wedging into reluctant 
 columns, had trouble in supplying. Soon Carminella 
 led in the amount of space devoted to the two women, 
 and the fanciful weaving done out of the threads of in 
 cidents of her life must have convinced any one who 
 
242 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 knew the facts and read the articles that the quest for 
 romance writers in the ranks of journalism is not so 
 hopeless as is constantly and mournfully asserted by 
 those who are not journalists. 
 
 The Guardian, through Philip Peyton, arranged for 
 an interview with Carminellaby a woman reporter; and 
 as Carminella, when she was not at rehearsal, or at the 
 costumer s, or the photographer s, or at the Tivoli, 
 where she was yet dancing, was at Tom s studio, it was 
 decided to have the reporter meet her there, while she 
 was sitting for a drawing which Tom was making for the 
 Guardian article. This was only a couple of days before 
 the close of La Cortese s long engagement at the Tivoli 
 and the opening of the Mayfair season. Concerning the 
 latter there was a popular interest which warmed the 
 manager s heart; flattered Marie Leon s pride; made 
 Tom nervously anxious; keyed up Dominico to a pitch 
 of excitement, which, had it not found some relief in 
 the purchase of neckcloths of startling brilliancy, would 
 have quite prostrated him; made Teresa dream that 
 her once exalted ambitions for herself were certain to 
 be realized in her daughter; and left only Carminella of 
 all those directly interested, serene and unmoved. Car 
 minella took all her successes as if they belonged to her 
 by some right which it was needless to speculate upon ; 
 and this apparently calm assurance of successes and 
 superiority, in which there was not a particle of conceit, 
 was a mystery to the interviewers and all she met, add 
 ing vastly to her interest and attractiveness. No one, 
 not even that densely stupid Tom Lyon, with whom I 
 have no patience when I think of him in this relation, 
 guessed that the beautifully serene tranquillity with 
 which Carminella accepted the sunshine of success now 
 shed upon her life was because it seemed to her that 
 
Nearing the Rapids of Life. 243 
 
 there could be nothing but sunshine in life for anybody, 
 for Carminella was in love! 
 
 I have heard it said that the successful interviewer for 
 the newspapers is not the one who possesses most of the 
 police-court lawyer s ingenuity in cross-examination, 
 but the one with the greatest tact in securing the confi 
 dence and interest of the person to be interviewed. Miss 
 Bowman, of the Guardian, when she entered Tom s 
 studio with Philip Peyton, a few minutes after Car 
 minella, could not conceal a start of surprise as she saw 
 the girl she had heard so much of, and chiefly as a 
 daughter of the tenements. Her impression of what 
 this Italian dancing-girl was like did not prepare her 
 for a tall, slender, lithe young woman, with thin scarlet 
 lips, narrow jet-black brows running in almost un- 
 curved lines over big, dark, straight-looking eyes which 
 changed from grave to gay with the flashing quickness 
 of a baby s smile; with a profusion of black hair which, 
 in the season s mode, was both parted, and slightly 
 puffed, over a low brow, and a complexion from which 
 night-work and gas-light had bleached only a part of 
 the generous glow of her youth and race. Carminella 
 had frequently been charged with having an affected 
 accent. Tom and her mother knew that while it was 
 not the accent of her surroundings, it was natural in 
 that it was unconscious: it was a perfect acquisition (it 
 could not be called imitation) of Eleanor Hazelhurst s 
 softly modulated, broad, fully accentuated tone and 
 method of speech. 
 
 " I am glad you have come to interview me, for you 
 are pretty and nice," Carminella said to Miss Bowman 
 when they were in Tom s model room, where La 
 Cortese was dressing to be drawn in costume for the 
 Guardian. 
 
244 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 " I ll get even with Mr. Phil Peyton for telling me 
 fairy stories about this girl having been brought up in 
 the slums," Miss Bowman thought, and said aloud: 
 " Have you not always been interviewed by nice and 
 pretty people?" 
 
 "No," laughed Carminella. "A woman came to me 
 from the Sensation with a doctor, and wanted me to kick 
 high for them, and wanted to measure the muscles of 
 my legs. Mamma put them out of the rooms and threat 
 ened to whip them if they returned. The Sensation 
 printed two columns about me, with drawings they said 
 were made of my feet, ankles, calves, and knees. It was 
 too bad the reporter was a woman, for if it had been a 
 man Tom would have whipped him." 
 
 "Tom?" 
 
 "Yes, Tom Lyon," Carminella replied, as if there 
 were only one Tom in the world. 
 
 "Oh, we know him only as T. Fitz Gerald, " Miss 
 Bowman said. She had discovered in the three minutes 
 talk in the studio that the dancer was in love with the 
 artist, and she proceeded accordingly : " I think your 
 Tom is amazingly clever. He has illustrated some of 
 my stories for the Guardian, but I never met him. Some 
 how I did not think he was as handsome as I find him." 
 
 "He is handsome and great," Carminella answered, 
 as one who passes final judgment. 
 
 There was no trouble after that for the interviewer. 
 She praised Tom and Tom s work, and when Carmi 
 nella was posed on the model throne, and Miss Bowman 
 was seated where Carminella, in talking to her, was 
 in correct pose, they gossiped as old and familiar 
 friends. 
 
 " Mr. Peyton tells me you have been helping Miss 
 Hazelhurst in her charity-school work." 
 
THE INTERVIEW. 
 
 "As Carminella said this, she spoke intensely and leaned a little for 
 ward." Page 245. 
 
Nearing the Rapids of Life. 245 
 
 " Yes, I went there every day for two hours, until we 
 began rehearsing at the Mayfair." 
 
 " What do you think would be the most beneficial 
 charity in the tenement districts?" Miss Bowman asked 
 this as if she were not very much interested. She 
 was anxious not to scare Carminella off. In casting 
 about in her mind for a main scheme in her interview, 
 she had suddenly decided upon getting this girl, this 
 daughter of the tenements about whom the whole town 
 was now talking, to tell from her own experience what 
 it would be wisest to do to uplift the neglected masses 
 huddled in the congested districts. 
 
 Carminella answered promptly and decidedly: 
 
 " Provide amusement and entertainment in the even 
 ing for the children. In the day-time they are at school 
 or they are at work. In the evening and that is the bad 
 time for those who do not work there is now nothing 
 to do, nothing that is not bad. The boys and the girls 
 in the tenements who grow up and become wicked have 
 had nothing to amuse them or entertain them in the 
 evenings. It is only the children who can be taught, 
 or who can be saved by good people. If you want to 
 save them you must provide amusement to keep them 
 off the street and away from the wharves." 
 
 As Carminella said this she spoke intensely and 
 leaned a little forward. That was a little out of the 
 pose Tom had given her. He did not correct her, how 
 ever. He was working on her face in rapid but care 
 fully accurate lines, with lips compressed and eyes half 
 closed in anxious concentration, so eager was he to fix 
 in his drawing the expression with which Carminella 
 spoke. He finished her figure in that attitude, he 
 could draw her figure with his eyes closed, and so she 
 was illustrated in the Guardian the next morning, as you 
 
246 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 may remember, with this sentence underneath the illus 
 tration : 
 
 "It is only the children who can be taught, or who can be saved 
 by good people. " 
 
 Miss Bowman and Peyton returned to their office when 
 they all left the studio, and Tom said to Carminella as 
 they reached Fifth Avenue on their way across town : 
 " I dare you to walk up the avenue as far as the reser 
 voir and back. Your mother will not have come home 
 from Maggie Lyon s yet." 
 
 "You dare me!" Carminella replied, in pretended 
 scorn. " I can outwalk you for anything you like." 
 
 Tom thought, and tried to say, that he would like to 
 make the wager a kiss, but the tongue of this usually 
 very confident young man seemed suddenly afflicted 
 with an access of timidity. It was late October, and the 
 first refresh ing eagerness in the air had filled the avenue 
 with strollers, and prompted the young couple to stride 
 up the glorious promenade with a swinging gait that 
 caused hundreds as they passed to turn and look at them 
 with smiling admiration : they were so young and hand 
 some and happy, and so manifestly lovers. Some they 
 met recognized the girl, and whispered "La Cortese," 
 to companions, and some of Tom s new acquaintances 
 met them, raised their hats, and seemed to walk faster 
 and look brighter for the meeting. Then Tom would 
 tell Carminella about the friends they met, and stop 
 with a story half told. Sometimes he remained silent 
 so long Carminella would glance at him shyly, and if he 
 caught her glance they would both blush and he would 
 swallow hard ; swallow something he was trying to say, 
 it seemed, but all that he could say was about other 
 men, nothing about himself, or her foolish Tom! 
 
Nearing the Rapids of Life. 247 
 
 Down the avenue again, their long lithe legs reaching 
 out in such a rattling pace that some who instinctively 
 tried to follow pulled up panting in a block or two. 
 
 " Are you nervous about dancing at the Hazelhursts 
 to-morrow night?" Tom asked. 
 
 " Not at all," she answered. " I do not think I could 
 be nervous about dancing now, no matter where; and 
 you will be there." 
 
 Oh, Tom ! Tom ! Tom ! there was an opening. But 
 the big, stuttering good-for-nothing only said: "And 
 the next night is the opening at the Mayfair. " 
 
 " Yes: is it not a funny idea to open Saturday night?" 
 
 "Yes, it s funny," parrotted Tom, whose wit was 
 once so quick ! 
 
 At her door she shook hands with him, and gave him 
 such a look that he left her in a trance, from which he 
 woke a block from the house, only then realizing what 
 the look meant ; and then he turned and hurried back, 
 with his heart thumping in its sudden resolve to make 
 itself known to Carminella. 
 
 As Tom approached the door again he saw Dominico 
 leave the house and swagger down the street in the op 
 posite direction. "All right," thought Tom, "if she is 
 alone so much the better: I can tell her at once," and 
 he hurried up the stairs. The head of the stairs was 
 opposite the door leading into the family sitting- and 
 dining-room which was directly back of Carminella s 
 room. Dominico in going out, with his tenement-house 
 habits had left the hall door open, and at the threshold 
 Tom heard a voice which startled him so that his heart 
 almost stopped beating. Another step forward brought 
 Carminella s room in view through the open door 
 between the rooms. He saw Carminella standing still 
 with her back toward him, and bending over her hand 
 
248 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 was Mark Waters. Tom heard only two or three words 
 that Waters spoke, but those few made him stagger 
 back and catch the stair-rail for support. 
 
 It must be remembered that Tom never heard Carmi- 
 nella or Teresa or Dominico speak of Mark Waters 
 visits. It was not altogether Waters request that had 
 prompted Carminella s silence: she had never thought 
 of him otherwise than as a man who had some business 
 with the Mayfair theatre Waters had implied as much 
 and as one with whom her father was transacting the 
 business concerning her new engagement. She had 
 never had anything to do with the business affairs of 
 her engagements, and it is probable she would not have 
 mentioned Waters to Tom even had it not been Waters 
 request. Waters did not interest her in any respect, 
 and of course, she did not know of any reason why Tom 
 should be concerned about her acquaintance with him. 
 
 When Tom parted from Carminella at the front door 
 she ran upstairs and found Dominico and Waters in the 
 sitting-room. At a sign from Waters the Italian made 
 a hasty excuse and left the house. Carminella said, 
 " My mother will be at home very soon, Mr. Waters, if 
 you care to wait for her," and went into her own room, 
 closing the door; but in an instant Waters followed her. 
 She looked at him, startled at his action, and for a few 
 moments was made motionless and speechless by his 
 sudden, incoherent, frenzied declaration of love. Then 
 the girl turned, went quickly into the other room and 
 said: 
 
 "Mr. Waters, you must not speak to me like that; you 
 must not speak to me at all. No, don t follow me; I 
 am going out I am going to meet my mother." And 
 she left him. 
 
 Tom walked many weary blocks, his heart aching with 
 
Hearing the Rapids of Life. 249 
 
 rage and jealousy. " Waters, who accused me of being 
 a thief, admitted to those rooms, to Carminella s own 
 room and while she was alone! Alone too by Domi- 
 nico s design evidently, perhaps by Teresa s too !" How 
 could he know? His tortured brain could find no ex 
 planation of the astounding revelation that did not 
 further wrench and tear his aching heart. He could 
 not reason, could scarcely think at all, he could only 
 make one resolve he would not see Carminella the next 
 night at the Hazelhursts , he would never see her again. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 OH, WHAT FOOLS MEN ARE! 
 
 BUT Tom did see Carminella again, and the next 
 night at the Hazelhursts . 
 
 Minnie Hazelhurst had made up her mind that Dr. 
 and Mrs. Hazelhurst should issue cards for a musicale. 
 It was usually Minnie who decided upon the date and 
 character of the Hazelhursts social functions, and her 
 father and mother were usually content to issue cards in 
 accordance with her decisions. In this instance there had 
 been some slight family friction, however. It was at an 
 after-dinner family conclave when the form and style of 
 cards to be adopted for the season, and the special in 
 vitation list for the occasion, were being discussed, that 
 Minnie announced : 
 
 " I think mamma, we ll have that La Cortese, Eleanor s 
 slum pet, here to dance for us. " 
 
 "Slum pet?" echoed Mrs. Hazelhurst, as nearly 
 wholly amazed as she ever was in her life. 
 
 "Slum what, daughter?" mildly asked the doctor, 
 looking up from a volume of Egyptology. 
 
 " That is Minnie s fanciful paraphrase," Eleanor said, 
 smiling. " She means my pretty assistant, Carminella 
 Cortese, who is a professional dancer now." 
 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst continuing to look horrified and per 
 plexed, Minnie resumed : 
 
 " Mamma, dear, Eleanor has been talking about this 
 girl three meals a day every day for more than two 
 
 250 
 
Oh, What Fools Men Are! 251 
 
 years; I have almost decided to ask you not to invite 
 Philip Peyton here, as he never talks about any one 
 else; the papers have been writing about nothing else 
 for two weeks, and even George Peyton writes to me 
 madly, wildly, from three thousand miles away for a 
 photograph and full particulars about La Cortese, for 
 whom he seems to have found an antecedent father with 
 a fortune and consumption." 
 
 "Minnie, dear," said Mrs. Hazelhurst, "I wish you 
 would stop talking nonsense long enough to tell me if 
 the person you referred to as Eleanor s slum pet, and 
 her pupil Carminella, and this dancing-woman (Mrs. 
 Hazelhurst s voice became slightly frigid), La Cortese, 
 are one and the same?" 
 
 Minnie walked over behind her mother s chair and 
 stroked her hair before she replied: 
 
 " I thought that, perhaps, with Eleanor and Philip and 
 George and the newspapers all expressing amazement 
 at this singular coincidence, not only you but even papa 
 might have taken notice of the fact." 
 
 Dr. Hazelhurst once more looked up from his volume 
 and asked: 
 
 " Do I understand that Baby s pet pupil has become 
 a dancing-woman?" 
 
 "Yes," said Minnie gravely, "Eleanor strives to lead 
 them to the light, and they land at the footlights." 
 
 The doctor wheeled his chair around until he faced 
 Minnie, and then he said slowly: 
 
 "Why, how can that be? I understand that this girl 
 still aids Baby, and surely Baby cannot know a dancing- 
 woman. " The emphasis the doctor put on that " know" 
 spoke volumes on the subject of class distinction, of 
 which the doctor would be the first to assert that there 
 is none in this free country. 
 
 21 
 
252 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 "Eleanor not only knows a dancing-woman," said 
 Minnie, who always delighted in precipitating a con 
 flict between the theory and practice of the doctor s 
 democracy, " but she agrees with me that it would be 
 quite the thing to invite La Cortese here to dance for 
 our guests." 
 
 This was a fact; for while Minnie was a stout fighter 
 for the Hazelhurst social helm, she was a tactician as 
 well, and she never went into a hard battle without 
 assurance that she could depend upon Eleanor s rein 
 forcement. Eleanor s battery drew up at this critical 
 moment. 
 
 "I think, mamma," she said, "that this plan can be 
 carried out all right so far as we are concerned, and it 
 will do Carminella a great deal of good. If we have 
 her here, that means of course that fifty other peo 
 ple we know will engage her for private entertainments 
 during the winter. The girl has a very sweet natural 
 voice which, it seems to me, could be cultivated up to 
 something useful professionally. She could take lessons 
 with what she might earn at these private entertain 
 ments. And papa, in spite of her being a dancing- 
 woman, she is as sweet, pure-souled, beautiful a womai? 
 as I ever knew." 
 
 This and the smile with which she spoke to her father 
 silenced criticism long enough for Minnie to take the 
 floor. 
 
 "That s the very point, what Eleanor has just said. 
 Of course, I should never ask you to engage any of the 
 notorious dancers and singers so many people had to 
 entertain them last winter, but this being Baby s pet 
 pupil, and as we have made all the arrangements for 
 her coming here after the theatre that night, I suppose 
 it will be all right." 
 
Oh, What Fools Men Are! 253 
 
 The doctor returned to his volume. Mrs. Hazelhurst 
 sighed resignedly and remarked: 
 
 " Well, Minnie, if La Cortese announces herself to our 
 guests by kicking the chandelier I suppose you will ex 
 cuse me if I retire then to my room and leave you mis 
 tress of the revels." 
 
 Eleanor laughed quietly at this, but Minnie responded 
 dutifully : 
 
 "Yes, mamma, but we will put it in La Cortese s con 
 tract that she is not to kick the chandelier, for as we are 
 using electric lights she might be shocked as well as 
 you." 
 
 So that is how Carminella came to be asked to dance 
 at the Hazelhursts . Tom was invited at Philip Peyton s 
 suggestion. There was no trouble about that. Peyton 
 had taken Mrs. Hazelhurst and Minnie and Eleanor to 
 Tom s studio. There Mrs. Hazelhurst had had a cup 
 of tea and bought a drawing; and as Philip had made 
 some skilfully vague allusions to Tom s father s country 
 place, she returned home with a settled and comfortable 
 idea that Tom was a country gentleman s son, who had 
 gone into art for art s sake. Philip had sworn the girls 
 not to correct their mother s impression about Tom s 
 antecedents: he said he wanted the fun of doing that 
 himself later. 
 
 Tom had thought that he would not go to the Hazel- 
 hursts, and there see Carminella again. He thought so 
 all night long after leaving Carminella with Mark 
 Waters; thought so as he walked the streets and paced 
 the floor of his studio; thought so the next morning, 
 after the sleepless night, when he tried to work and could 
 not because he could only see Carminella on the model 
 throne. But after a while he asked himself why he 
 should not see her again, and was astonished at the load 
 
254 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 that seemed taken from his heart at the mere thought of 
 it. Why not? It would do no harm to see her; he need 
 not speak to her. Then he began to think of the loving 
 look that had taken him back, and pretty soon sanity 
 almost returned to him; for he questioned himself why 
 it was not possible that that loving look was honest? 
 He had heard nothing of what she had said to Waters, 
 only a little of what he had said to her. 
 
 He was carefully dressed two hours before the time 
 mentioned on his card of invitation, and went to the 
 Hazelhursts house on the very minute, although he 
 knew it was hours before Carminella would arrive ; yet 
 was surprised to find that he was the first guest there. 
 Minnie Hazelhurst said to him : " Let me show you a 
 room, which has come to be our picture gallery, library, 
 and music-room combined. There may be some things 
 there you will like to see, and, of course, no one can see 
 anything after the people come. " 
 
 Tom went with her through a colonnaded hall to a 
 room beyond, flooded with softly shaded electric light, 
 and which, in spite of its enormous size, through the 
 artful arrangement of furniture, adornments, and works 
 of art, gave the impression of being a constantly used 
 living-room. There were very many books in low cases 
 whose polished oak tops served as shelves for bits of 
 rare handicraft, and here and there on them leaned a 
 drawing, or an oil painting unframed and only on its 
 stretcher. In one snug corner was an enormous read 
 ing table where one could fancy Doctor Hazelhurst had 
 ample space to spread forth a dozen open volumes for 
 consultation, and still have elbow-room to write his own 
 notes. In another corner was a grand piano, and for 
 once a grand piano seemed modest and retiring, in that 
 vast room. Next to the piano was a handsome little 
 
Oh, What Fools Men Are! 255 
 
 stage which Tom rightly guessed was for Carminella. 
 In the same end of the room opposite the grand piano 
 was something Tom looked at with so much curiosity 
 Minnie explained to him it was an Indian settee. It 
 seemed to be a carved teak seat, backless and armless, 
 and was swung from the ceiling by ornamental brass 
 chains. 
 
 " But how do you get into it?" said Tom, noticing its 
 height from the floor. 
 
 " Oh, it s been elevated for this occasion only," Minnie 
 replied. " When one sits in it and swings, the chains 
 creak weirdly, and if that should happen during our 
 violinist s solo its notes might not be in harmony with 
 his, and he would account us a little better than the 
 wicked Philistines." She showed him etchings and 
 drawings and pastels and oils, until the other guests 
 began arriving. Minnie and Eleanor, and Philip when 
 he came, introduced Tom to people, one after another 
 as they arrived, and before the guests began drifting 
 toward the music-room, he found that he had met nearly 
 every one. But the people who tried to talk to him found 
 Tom unresponsive. He was thinking every moment of 
 Carminella, and though he tried to understand and be 
 interested in what was said to him, his heart was too 
 heavy, and I fear that a score of people who had heard 
 of the rising fame of T. Fitz Gerald Lyon decided that 
 he might be clever as an artist, but he was certainly 
 somewhat dense, socially. 
 
 The last of the soloists had been heard and had de 
 parted, and the guests, who were increasing in number 
 by late arrivals, had returned to the dining and adjoining 
 rooms where supper was served. There was an uncon 
 cealed, slightly excited anticipation over the arrival of 
 La Cortese. In Tom s case the excitement was not 
 
256 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 slight. He found himself looking anxiously toward 
 the hall at every little commotion of new arrival. One 
 such time he squarely caught the gaze of a woman not 
 young, small, piquante, and yet commanding. As she 
 entered from the hall Minnie Hazelhurst advanced 
 toward her saying: 
 
 "You are late, Mrs. Jack." 
 
 She answered in a voice perfectly well-bred but rather 
 hard, it seemed affectedly hard, and as if she cared that 
 more people than the one addressed should hear her: 
 
 "Why, Minnie; I wrote you Jack and I had to go to a 
 dinner. To get here even now we had to leave before 
 poor Jack had a glass of cognac. No, don t trouble your 
 self to send for any. Jack knows where it is." Then 
 she added in only a slightly lowered tone, " Who is that 
 long, red-headed, melancholy stranger over there? He s 
 a stunning-looking chap, wherever he came from. Is 
 he a cowboy with a letter from George Peyton?" 
 
 "Mrs. Jack," Minnie responded with pretended awe, 
 "he is my lion, and that s his name, T. Fitz Gerald 
 Lyon." 
 
 " Never heard of him," responded the other, calmly 
 surveying Tom through her lorgnette. "What is he? 
 A fiddler, or a prize-fighter, or an artist, or 
 
 " Excuse me a minute, Mrs. Jack," said Minnie, break 
 ing away suddenly. She waited until Mrs. Jack had 
 turned to speak to some one, and then went swiftly over 
 to Tom and whispered: "Now you ll be entertained. 
 Mrs. Jack Daring you ve heard of her, of course will 
 attack you because I ve told her you re a lion. She 
 doesn t know whether you shoot elephants or sail yachts. 
 She likes only those people who do either, or anything 
 else which makes them noted." Minnie passed on, 
 and a moment later Mrs. Jack approached Tom with 
 
MRS. JACK DARING. 
 You are thinking that I am making a picture." Page 257. 
 
Oh, What Fools Men Are! 257 
 
 extended hand, and speaking as if to a lifelong friend 
 said: 
 
 " Good-evening, Mr. Lyon ; I am Mrs. Daring. If 
 you ve ever heard of me it s probably as Mrs. Jack Dar 
 ing. What do you do that other people don t?" 
 
 " I I why a great many people do what I do," Tom 
 answered, utterly perplexed by this encounter. 
 
 "Oh, no, they don t," said Mrs. Jack coolly; "I know 
 the Hazelhurst set, so I know you re a stranger: I know 
 also the Hazelhursts don t increase their invitation list 
 except for celebrities." 
 
 " They have in this case, sure," Tom said, wondering 
 what could have induced this calm, handsome, brilliant 
 ly dressed woman to make game of him. He saw that 
 they were being observed by a number of people, and 
 then his artist eye remarked that Mrs. Jack had posed 
 herself very effectively, using the heavy dark folds of a 
 looped portiere as a background for her dazzling gown, 
 and no less dazzling bare shoulders and throat. "And 
 she had used me as an accessory in the composition," 
 thought Tom ; and with the thought he looked at her 
 and smiled. She was smiling, too, and she made Tom 
 blush furiously by saying: 
 
 " You are thinking that I m making a picture. Well, 
 I am. I am small, dark, rather good-looking; you are 
 tall, blond, and very good-looking, and I think we must 
 be a rather striking tableau vivant." 
 
 Tom was speechless, but she went on, " You have not 
 told me what you do!" 
 
 Tom consciously, or unconsciously, imitated her man 
 ner and frankness of speech. " Oh, I draw a great deal 
 and rather well; and paint a little rotten bad." 
 
 "I like that rotten as artists use it. What s the 
 commotion?" 
 
258 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 " I think La Cortese has arrived," Tom answered; 
 and just then Carminella came downstairs with Eleanor 
 and walked through the rooms. She looked so superbly 
 lovely it was not surprising that there were half-sup 
 pressed exclamations of admiration on all sides. She 
 was dressed in an unadorned, supple, white silk gown 
 and carried a garland of red roses. When she saw Tom 
 she bowed and smiled, and it was evident that she in 
 tended to go to him, but Mrs. Jack at that moment put 
 her hand on his arm and said: " We won t find a seat if 
 we do not go to the music-room now." 
 
 Carminella s eyes and lips clouded like a child s 
 as she saw Tom move away after only bowing con 
 strainedly. 
 
 Most of the guests had preceded them, and already 
 every available seat in the big room was filled, and many 
 men were standing. Mrs. Jack gave a quick glance 
 around the room, espied the swinging settee and directed 
 Tom by her hand on his arm, to that corner of the room. 
 "Why, this seat has been raised," she said, putting her 
 hands on it. " I could vault into it, if it were not for 
 my train. But you can lift me in." 
 
 " L-lift you in!" stammered Tom, feeling the per 
 spiration starting out on his forehead. 
 
 "Certainly, just jump me in, so." She put her own 
 hands on her waist. 
 
 Tom was utterly miserable. He felt that every one in 
 the room was watching them, but concluding that he 
 was a victim of inexorable fate, if not of a nightmare, 
 he put his hands on her waist, closed his eyes, muttered 
 a wish that he might die or wake up, and lifted. He 
 threw the light weight about two feet higher than the 
 settee, and she came down not gently, and with a gasp. 
 But she settled herself good-naturedly and remarked, 
 
Oh, What Fools Men Are! 259 
 
 " You are accustomed to lifting heavier women than I 
 or do you play football?" The settee began to swing 
 and she put one hand on Tom s shoulder to steady her 
 self. At that moment the orchestra began playing, and 
 Carminella glided on the stage, wearing a wreath of 
 roses, and carrying a garland in her hands. She stood 
 perfectly still in the centre of the stage during several 
 bars of music, the garland crossed in front of her, an 
 end in either hand by her side. She glanced slowly 
 about the room, saw Mrs. Jack place her hand on Tom s 
 shoulder, and Eleanor Hazelhurst and Philip Peyton, 
 who knew her face so well, wondered why her eyes 
 closed and her lips trembled for an instant. 
 
 It was a Greek dance she had studied long and hard 
 with Professor Polli, and had tried, but without success, 
 before a Tivoli audience. Carminella liked it best of 
 all her dances, and so did Tom, and it was his suggestion 
 that she try it before the Hazelhurst guests. It was an 
 expression of youthful, exuberant, out-of-door joyous- 
 ness, studied and artful as it was; and the action was 
 little more than light, graceful, running steps, with 
 rhythmic weaving of garland-laden hands. For a time 
 Carminella s face did not correspond in expression with 
 her dancing, but then she felt, she could not help but 
 feel, the intense impression her buoyant grace and warm 
 beauty were making upon the spectators, and her face 
 lighted with a smile. She, at least, had learned to smile 
 and be miserable, though Tom had not. 
 
 " She is the most exquisite creature I ever saw in my 
 life!" whispered Mrs. Jack. 
 
 Tom was silent. 
 
 " When did she come over?" 
 
 "Over from where?" Tom responded, shortly. 
 
 Wherever she s imported from?" 
 
260 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 "She is not imported: she s native." 
 
 "And is this her dbut?" 
 
 " No, she s danced two years at the Tivoli." 
 
 "Where s that?" 
 
 "On the Bowery." 
 
 " Do they do such things on the Bowery?" 
 
 Tom did not answer; and Mrs. Jack regarded the 
 back of his head with a puzzled look. Then she tried 
 again : 
 
 " Do you know her?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Mrs. Jack was silent a long time for her. She looked 
 at the dancer and caught a sidelong glance from her. 
 Then she leaned forward and examined the side of Tom s 
 face. She said to herself, "Oh, I see!" and whispered 
 to Tom, " And you love her?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And she loves you." 
 
 "She does not." 
 
 Tom started, as if just conscious that he was meekly 
 confessing to this woman he had known a quarter of an 
 hour what he had never confessed to any one else. 
 
 " I said," Mrs. Jack whispered again, "she loves you. 
 I did not ask you. I know it." 
 
 Tom turned a blazing face toward her. " How do 
 you know?" 
 
 " I know from a look she s just favored me with. If 
 she carries a stiletto I don t want to meet her. There, 
 she s finished. My! what applause from a kid-gloved 
 audience. See them crowd around her, Phil Peyton 
 and Eleanor doing the presentations. No; she shakes 
 her head. She won t dance again. Now, my dear young 
 giant, just lift me down. Careful ! What muscles you 
 have ! Now, run right over to that girl, take her hands, 
 
Oh, What Fools Men Are! 261 
 
 and say I love you. I fancy you can say that in a 
 rather fetching way. Run, faint heart! There! you re 
 losing her. Can t you see her making eyes, and playing 
 Peyton against you? She s going, she s gone! Oh, 
 what fools men are!" 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 A FLICKERING LIGHT GOES OUT. 
 
 "WHAT fools men are!" Nothing Mrs. Jack Daring 
 ever said was repeated more times by its hearer than was 
 the single and obvious truth she thus expressed to Tom. 
 When a man is not quite insane from jealousy, the per 
 fect faith of a life-time may weigh against ail unex 
 plained incident of a moment; and by constantly repeat 
 ing Mrs. Jack s axiom Tom at last came to apply it to 
 himself; to admit that Carminella who, through all her 
 life he had believed had known to personify honesty 
 and purity, might have some explanation which he should 
 hear of the presence of Mark Waters in her room. He 
 began to admit that he had been a fool not to seek that 
 explanation. And it is always a healthful contributory 
 step toward truth and justice when a man admits he 
 is a fool. 
 
 Tom went over to Mulberry Court early the next day 
 after the evening at the Hazelhurst s. A walk with Dan 
 to the top of the hills back of the Court, from where 
 Long Island Sound could be seen ; a talk with his father, 
 who came remarkably near divining the true circum 
 stances under which Waters had been alone with Car 
 minella; and an hour in the face of the fresh breeze 
 from the Sound, sent Tom back to the city with a 
 cooler, calmer mind, and a healthful determination to 
 see Carminella after the opening performance that 
 night at the Mayfair; to go home to supper with her. 
 
 262 
 
A Flickering Light Goes Out. 263 
 
 and Teresa, and have everything explained. Dan 
 promised to come over to the performance, and to make 
 one of the supper party, and to take all perplexing 
 matters under consideration. When Tom reached his 
 studio he found this note from Carminella: 
 
 DEAR TOM : Please be at the show. I don t think I can go on 
 if you are not there. And please meet us at the stage-door after 
 ward. I hoped to see you at the dress rehearsal this morning, 
 because I wanted to ask you why you were so unkind to me last 
 night. Have I done anything to offend you? CARMINE. 
 
 Tom hugged the note, shouted, sang and danced as 
 he dressed, and scolded himself in the mirror: "What 
 fools men are! But she has faith. She is an angel and 
 has the best nose and ears I ever saw in a life model or 
 cast. I am a fool ! She has thin lips like the Unknown, " 
 and he stopped to throw a kiss to the cast of that beau 
 tiful head, and even her calm, gentle lips seemed to be 
 saying, "What fools men are!" 
 
 He was about to leave his studio when the janitor 
 came to his door to say that a woman had asked for him, 
 but as she would not give her name he would not let 
 her into the building. She was waiting outside until 
 the janitor could ask Mr. Lyon if he would see Bill 
 Williams. "That can t be her name," added the jani 
 tor, "for no man could make himself up to look as 
 tough as she." 
 
 " Bill Williams !" exclaimed Tom. " Tell the woman 
 to come up here." 
 
 "You d better look out for your watch, then," the 
 janitor said, suspiciously. 
 
 It was Molly who entered the studio when Tom opened 
 the door in response to a faint knock; Mol 1 y, looking so 
 weak and weary, Tom made her sit down, against her 
 
264 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 will, and rest a few minutes before he would let her 
 speak. Then she said : " Bill sent you these, and said if 
 you didn t mind coming he d like to see you." 
 
 She handed him the letters Chung had stolen from 
 Mark Waters, and which Tom had been accused of steal 
 ing. Again and again Tom started and exclaimed aloud 
 as he read the letters : " Carminella s father alive ! Send 
 ing Teresa money! Through Mark Waters!" 
 
 The first thing that Tom made out of the amazing 
 revelation was that he had stumbled upon a motive for 
 Waters attitude toward Carminella, although he could 
 only grasp a confused and tangled idea of the whole situ 
 ation. 
 
 "And did Bill send for me?" he asked of Molly at 
 last. 
 
 "No," she repeated carefully: "he said if you didn t 
 mind coming he d like to see you." 
 
 "About what? Will to-morrow morning do?" Tom 
 asked, remembering Carminella s note, and that it was 
 approaching theatre hour. 
 
 " Bill thinks not," Molly answered. Then she buried 
 her face in her hands and sobbed. " He thinks he ll 
 die to-night. Oh, my God! don t let him die!" 
 
 " Come quick then!" exclaimed Tom, "and explain 
 how he got these letters as we go." 
 
 Molly s explanation included much with which the 
 reader is already acquainted. What was new had oc 
 curred within a few hours. In the afternoon Molly 
 went to the Tivoli and there learned Tom s studio ad 
 dress, for Bill had said that the letters must be delivered 
 to Tom that day. "I ain t going t last much longer, 
 Molly," he said, between short difficult breaths, as he 
 lay on the floor bed in their room over the opium den. 
 " Don t cry, girl. Watch me. I ll die game. I always 
 
MOLLY. 
 "Who entered the studio" in response to a faint knock." Page 263. 
 
 22 
 
A Flickering Light Goes Out. 265 
 
 took me punishment smilin . P raps I can go t Tom s 
 room if it s near a surface-car, wid you t help me, 
 Molly." At four o clock Bill said he felt stronger. 
 Molly helped him to dress, and they started to walk 
 across to Broadway, as the cable cars would take them 
 near Tom s address. At Centre street they stopped to 
 rest, and Bill, panting with the exertion of his short 
 walk, was standing on the curb leaning heavily on Molly, 
 when a carriage containing Mark Waters came slowly 
 along. Waters always drove home now. In the elevated 
 or surface cars at the hour business men were going up 
 town, acquaintances, of late, always failed to see him 
 over the tops of their evening papers ; and men he knew 
 only by sight glanced at him curiously, and whispered 
 to their companions. There were queer stories around 
 the street concerning Waters affairs, and he faced his 
 fellow business men as little as possible. 
 
 He saw Molly and her companion on the sidewalk, 
 and at his order the carriage stopped close to them. He 
 put his head out of the open window and, addressing 
 Molly, said: 
 
 " See here, my good girl, I didn t mean to be rough 
 with you when you called at my office. Those letters 
 you say you have are no value to any one else, and very 
 little to me. But if you have them, the original letters 
 I mean, I ll give you another hundred dollars for them, 
 and we ll call it square." 
 
 " It s Mark Waters," Molly whispered her companion, 
 and Bill said: " Dose letters ain t for sale. Dere goin 
 t Tom Lyon, now, and if you 
 
 " Tom Lyon, the thief who stole them !" said Waters, 
 in sudden rage. 
 
 " You lie!" gasped Bill, straightening up with a pain 
 ful effort, and stepping close to Waters. As he did so 
 
266 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 Waters right arm shot out of the window and his 
 clenched fist struck Bill in the face. As the weak man 
 staggered and fell heavily to the sidewalk the driver 
 whipped up his horse, and the carriage quickly disap 
 peared round the first corner to Broadway. Some 
 passers-by who had seen this called to a policeman to 
 stop the carriage, but at a sign from Bill, Molly said, 
 "No, no, it was an accident." 
 
 "I can t go no furder, Molly," Bill whispered, when 
 some men had helped him to his feet; and heavily and 
 wearily they dragged their way back to Mott street. 
 
 " I was near gone anyway, Molly," Bill said, when he 
 was again lying in the room, "but de punch and de fall 
 has done me. I ll soon be counted out. You take de 
 letters t Tom, and tell him if he don t mind comin I d 
 like t see him." 
 
 Molly left the room without car-fare. She knew there 
 was a little change in Bill s pocket, but she did not take 
 it, saying to herself: " I wouldn t like the gang to know 
 he died without a cent in his pocket." First she ran 
 over to East Broadway and induced the doctor, to whom 
 she had already paid most of the money she got from 
 Waters, to make one visit on trust. Then she went to 
 Tom s. 
 
 The denizens of Mott street looked in wonder as they 
 saw one of their own number hurrying along, almost 
 dragged by a tall young man in evening dress and fash 
 ionable top-coat. When this couple reached Bill s room 
 the doctor, already there, shook his head at Tom, and 
 Molly, who, with scared eyes saw the sign, threw her 
 self on the floor by the side of her dying lover. Tom 
 knelt by his other side : 
 
 "Tom!" 
 
 "Yes, Bill." 
 
A Flickering Light Goes Out. 267 
 
 "Would you mind askin Dad t forgive me, Tom?" 
 
 " He will forgive you. He would any time you asked, 
 Bill. Do you hear me ?" 
 
 "Yes, Tom." 
 
 "Can t you ask God to forgive you?" 
 
 " He wouldn t forgive a mug like me." 
 
 " He will if you ask, and are repentant." 
 
 Bill was silent for some time; then he felt for Tom s 
 hand, and held it as he whispered, " How is dat, Tom; 
 dat repentant?" 
 
 " If you are sorry for the evil you have done." 
 
 "I m sorry I wasn t straight, like you." 
 
 " No, no! Bill ; not like me: sorry for the evil you ve 
 done." 
 
 " I m sore on meself for havin been crooked. Is dat 
 right?" 
 
 "Yes, Bill." 
 
 There was another silence. The dying man drew his 
 foster-brother nearer to him, and then whispered more 
 faintly: "How shall I ask Him, Tom?" 
 
 " Say : God forgive me, a repentant sinner. 
 
 "Tom!" 
 
 "Yes, Bill." 
 
 " Can He hear me?" 
 
 "Yes, Bill." 
 
 "God forgive me, a repentant sinner. Molly!" 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 TOM S VINDICATION, AND MOLLY S TRIBUTE. 
 
 WHEN Tom had paid the doctor, who agreed to make 
 all necessary arrangements about having the funeral 
 from Dan s home, he gave Molly all the money he had 
 left, and made her promise that she would come to his 
 studio in the morning and go with him to Mulberry 
 Court. Then Tom hurried to Police Headquarters. 
 He found detective-sergeant Cullen first, and with him 
 went to the office of the same Inspector before whom 
 he had appeared on Waters accusation. The Inspector 
 listened with intense interest to Tom s story; read over 
 the letters Molly had given Tom ; questioned him about 
 Teresa, and smiled in what seemed to be grim satisfac 
 tion when Tom assured him he was positive Teresa 
 had never received from Mark Waters any remittances 
 from Blue Canon. 
 
 " That puts Mr. Mark Waters just where I want him !" 
 growled the Inspector. "And he tried to make a 
 monkey of me by getting me to bring you in for that 
 theft!" The Inspector turned to Tom and added, " You 
 may not know that Charles Dean, your old boss at the 
 Tivoli, threatened to have my shield taken away from 
 me for that fluke. " 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Tom, " I knew it. It was my father 
 who got him to let up on you. " 
 
 "Your father!" exclaimed the Inspector, reddening a 
 little ; " well, that don t make me feel any more cheerful 
 
 268 
 
Tom s Vindication, and Molly s Tribute. 269 
 
 about Mark Waters. All we have to do is to prove these 
 are not trick letters that they really came from Waters 
 office. That will be easy enough through Chung? Cul- 
 len, send a man out to bring Chung in here, right 
 away!" 
 
 When Cullen had done this, the Inspector added : 
 
 " I want you two to stay around Headquarters here 
 until I ve had a little business chat with Chung. If 
 he is easy, and I guess he will be (Cullen smiled behind 
 his hand), I ll have everything dead to rights on this Mr. 
 Mark Waters; and then, Cullen, I want you to bring 
 him in. Do you know where to locate him?" 
 
 " He will be at the opening of the Mayfair to-night," 
 Tom interrupted. 
 
 The Inspector strolled up and down the room two or 
 three times, referring to the letters as he did so. Then 
 he said to Tom : 
 
 "These two people, Teresa and Carminella, are 
 friends of yours?" 
 
 "Yes," replied Tom. "Carminella is La Cortese, 
 who is in the Mayfair opening." 
 
 "Well then," continued the Inspector, "you will 
 do me a favor if you will have them here when Cullen 
 brings Waters in. I only want to get their statement, 
 in his presence, that he has appropriated the money he 
 admits here, in this letter of his, he received for them." 
 
 The man who had been dispatched for Chung soon 
 returned with that blandly smiling Chinaman by his 
 side. As he was brought into the Inspector s room 
 Cullen and Tom went out together. 
 
 " I guess we ll have time to walk around a block or two, 
 while the Inspector puts that Chink through the 4 third 
 degree! " the detective remarked 
 
 Tom had heard of the police operation known as the 
 
270 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 " third degree," but he knew it would be useless to ques 
 tion Cullen about it. 
 
 When Chung was left alone with the Inspector he 
 added to the blandness of his smile and asked softly: 
 
 " You wan tee see me? Chung velly good man. " 
 
 The Inspector did not reply, did not look at Chung ; 
 in fact seemed oblivious of his presence. He went over 
 to his desk and examined the letters intently. This si 
 lence had the effect of effacing Chung s smile. When it 
 had continued two five ten minutes, he became nerv 
 ous; and when, by craning his neck, he caught sight of 
 the letters the Inspector was studying he began to trem 
 ble. One, two, three, four, five minutes more passed in 
 the same silence, and then Chung found his legs were so 
 unsteady that he sat down in a chair. When he did 
 this the Inspector, carrying the letters with him, walked 
 slowly to within a foot of Chung and said, with an ugly 
 sneer : 
 
 " Well, you thief ! what have you got to say for your 
 self?" 
 
 Chung began in a trembling voice to rattle off his fa 
 miliar story of how he entered the Niantic building after 
 the theft was discovered. The Inspector let him talk 
 on undisturbed so long that Chung took heart, regained 
 his smile and steadied his voice, when suddenly, like a 
 dart of lightning, the Inspector s big open hand struck 
 Chung on the side of his face and sent him sprawling 
 across the room. The Inspector, without looking at 
 Chung, went to his desk and rang a bell. From an ad 
 joining room a man came in and, without looking at 
 either of the occupants of the room, walked quietly to a 
 writing-table, opened a note-book, dipped a pen in ink 
 and silently waited without looking up. Then the In 
 spector said, in a low, stern voice : 
 
CHUNQ. 
 The Inspector let him talk on." Page 270. 
 
Tom s Vindication, and Molly s Tribute. 271 
 
 "Chung, you have lied enough. Get up, sit in that 
 chair again, and tell the truth. Be mighty careful that 
 you tell the exact truth, and that your story corresponds 
 to this (the Inspector picked up a blank sheet of paper 
 and pretended to be looking at some writing), or you ll 
 have more trouble." 
 
 Without an instant s hesitation, Chung told every de 
 tail of his theft of the pocket-book, and every circum 
 stance connected with it, including his offer to the ward- 
 man, and the recent mysterious disappearance of the 
 letters from his office. Then the Inspector said to the 
 stenographer who had taken down Chung s story : " Send 
 a man in here to take this Chinaman to the Tombs, and 
 tell Cullen and Lyon to come in here." 
 
 When Tom and Cullen entered the office the Inspector 
 said: "Tom Lyon, it s not a nice thing for an honest 
 man to be brought in here on suspicion, even in the 
 pleasantest way we can do it. I am sorry I had to bring 
 you in, and it may be a satisfaction to you to know that 
 I have the confession of the real thief in that case." 
 
 "Satisfaction!" gasped Tom. "That was the most 
 horrible experience of my life, Mr. Inspector. A man 
 accused me of theft ! As I have never actually disproved 
 his charge it has been a nightmare a thousand times 
 since ; and to my father, too, I know ; though we have 
 never spoken of it again." 
 
 " It s all right now, " said the Inspector heartily. " It s 
 getting late," he went on briskly. " Do you think those 
 people we want will be at the theatre yet?" 
 
 "If we hurry," said Tom, looking at his watch, "we 
 shall find them all." 
 
 Molly waited by the side of her dead lover until the 
 men came from the undertaker s, and then she went out 
 
272 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 into the street and turned north, making her way as 
 long as she could by the quieter and poorer side-streets, 
 where her figure would not attract attention. But at 
 last she turned into the busier and brighter streets, and 
 crept along until she came to an open florist s shop, into 
 which she turned. 
 
 "We have no flowers for pedlers," said the clerk, 
 supposing Molly wanted to buy faded flowers which 
 florists dispose of to street venders. Molly held out the 
 money Tom had given her, with the bitterly gained 
 knowledge, early turned to instinct in the children of 
 the pavements, that there was the talisman to conjure 
 the toleration which would gain her desire it was not 
 enough to evoke civility. 
 
 " I want some flowers for a coffin," she said. " White 
 flowers; the best this will buy," and gave the clerk the 
 address of the undertaker. 
 
 The clerk looked at the bills with manifest suspicion 
 as he counted them. 
 
 "Will you send your card?" he asked her. 
 
 "My card?" 
 
 " Yes, your carte de visite ; your name," said the clerk, 
 winking at the other clerks who were giggling. 
 
 "Oh, never mind the name," said Molly, wearily. 
 " Bill will know who sent them : I am the only one who 
 cares. " 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 TWO TRIUMPHS AT THE MAYFAIR. 
 
 IT was the greatest night in the history of that theatre, 
 the Saturday-night opening when Marie Leon and La 
 Cortese made their first and last appearance on the stage 
 of the Mayfair. The police early stopped the sale of 
 seats, yet, early as it was, they conveniently neglected 
 to do so until not another spectator could find even 
 standing-room. 
 
 Philip Peyton was there in a box with the ladies of 
 the Hazelhurst household, and Tom was expected to 
 complete the box party. Mark Waters occupied another 
 box with the same three companions who once accom 
 panied him to the Tivoli. Waters asked the young New 
 Yorker by his side: "Who are those women in the box 
 with Phil Peyton? Are they anybody?" 
 
 "Anybody! No, they are only Mrs. Hazelhurst and 
 her daughters ; leaders of the oldest, swellest set in New 
 York," his companion answered. 
 
 " How the devil does that cub ring in with such peo 
 ple?" Waters growled. 
 
 "That cub," the New Yorker drawled, "happened to 
 be bred in the same class ; he ranks with the Hazelhursts 
 in the Kennel Register. His brother George is to marry 
 the elder of those girls. By the way," he added, turn 
 ing and regarding Waters curiously, " I heard at the 
 club that George Peyton returns from the West to-night 
 with money to burn." 
 
 273 
 
274 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 "Not until to-morrow night," Waters said quickly. 
 
 " Oh, I forgot : you manage the Peyton estate. " 
 
 "Damned little estate left," Waters responded un 
 easily. 
 
 "Yes, I heard that at the club, too," the New Yorker 
 said, with slow insolence, and turned to stare gloomily 
 at the audience. 
 
 In the front row of the orchestra sat two striking and 
 interested figures: Dan Lyon and Dominico Cortese. 
 Dan s features are moulded in that Irish cast which so 
 strongly resembles the French, and which are frequently 
 found among the North Irelanders. His fine, stern old 
 face, pale and smooth-shaven, was in exact contrast to 
 Dominico s red, round, heavily moustached and broad 
 ly grinning. Dan frequently glanced at the Hazelhurst 
 box, for he knew that Tom was expected there, and he 
 wondered what was detaining him. No stage perform 
 ance could have such attraction for Dan as the sight of 
 Tom sitting in a box with the fine people he had 
 made his friends. Once, when he glanced that way, 
 Dan caught Eleanor Hazelhurst s eye, and she smiled 
 and bowed; and when he made sure the salutation was 
 meant for him Dan rose in his place, and stood, while 
 with dignified deliberation he bent in deep acknowledg 
 ment. People in the audience who knew the Hazel- 
 hursts concluded that the tall old gentleman in the 
 long frock coat, with cropped, straight-standing white 
 hair, who saluted their box, must be some celebrity; 
 perhaps a member of the French Chamber of Depu 
 ties: such a stranger was likely to have letters to the 
 Hazelhursts. Eleanor s mother asked who the stranger 
 was, and Eleanor answered only: " He is T. Fitz Gerald 
 Lyon s father," whereupon Mrs. Hazelhurst regarded 
 the Lord of Mulberry Court with entire approval. 
 
Two Triumphs at the Mayfair. 275 
 
 But who, many wondered, could be the extraordinary 
 gentleman sitting by the French deputy s side, and 
 evidently his companion? Dominico, for this tremen 
 dous occasion, had achieved the acme of gorgeousness ; 
 a butterfly, any number of butterflies, in comparison 
 would look like a flight of humble moths. On his 
 feet were patent-leather pumps which were, of physical 
 necessity, so broad at one place that, to bring them to 
 the fine point Dominico demanded, the maker had 
 been compelled to carry them out so many inches 
 beyond his toes they resembled in length the slippers 
 of a Fourteenth-century courtier. His tight laven 
 der trousers failed, by design, to connect with the tops 
 of his pumps, thereby artfully disclosing a section 
 of scarlet hose. His dress-coat was reddish-brown, 
 and was fairly crusted with enormous shell buttons, 
 and generously revealed a low-cut vest of purple, 
 crossed with a watch-chain of mighty links. His loose 
 ly flowing scarf was Dominico s pride, his own unaided 
 invention. It consisted of two voluminous breadths of 
 silk wound together; one a pale salmon in color, the 
 other a brilliant green. In his shirt-front was a cluster 
 of brilliants screwed into the very centre of the bosom, 
 leaving two button-holes, one above and one below, un 
 adorned. His hair and moustache were rich with oil 
 and perfume, and his red-scraped neck and face gleam 
 ing with perspiration. As often as Dan glanced furtive 
 ly at the box to see if Tom had arrived, Dominico 
 turned boldly in his seat and looked more anxiously at 
 the gallery. At last he uttered an exclamation of 
 joy Riccodonna and Signora Riccodonna were in the 
 gallery front-row seats Dominico had sent them ; they 
 had seen him, and their eyes and mouths were open 
 in amazement. It was the triumph Dominico had 
 
276 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 planned, and he perspired trickling rivulets of perfect 
 bliss. 
 
 There was plenty of excitement in the front of the 
 house, but it was nothing compared to that which had 
 caused almost a panic behind the scenes. Three times 
 the call-boy had gone to Marie Leon s room and asked 
 if she was ready, and three times retired, unsuccessfully 
 dodging slippers and shoes that impetuous lady had 
 thrown at him. The stage-manager was in despair, and 
 said he would call on the star himself ; condemning in im 
 polite language the tempers of all stars, and especially 
 those Irish-Americans who assumed French names. 
 In her dressing-room he found only her French maid 
 preparing Marie s next change of toilet. She informed 
 the stage-manager that Ma m selle Leon had gone to La 
 Cortese s dressing-room in tears and a horrible temper. 
 That was a fact. Marie was sitting on a trunk in Car- 
 minella s room smoking a cigarette (medicinally: she 
 said it cleared her throat) and weeping. She was talk 
 ing to Teresa between puffs and sobs: "Tom Lyon has 
 treated me shabbily every time we ve met, and here is 
 this letter from Uncle Dan saying I must not go over to 
 Mulberry Court, where, I wrote him, the Commodore 
 and I would go to-morrow. They are the only blood 
 kin I have in the world, and why should they be so par 
 ticular, when every one else treats me as if I were a 
 duchess and regularly married!" 
 
 " Dan is very particular about the marriage," Teresa 
 said. 
 
 The long-suffering stage-manager appeared. " Miss 
 Lon," he said pleadingly, "It s half-past eight; we 
 are announced to ring up at eight-fifteen. The 
 house is packed, the police have stopped the sale, 
 and every critic in town is in his seat. We can t ring 
 
MAGGIE LYON. 
 
 She was talking to Teresa between puffs and sobs." Page 276. 
 23 
 
Two Triumphs at the May fair. 277 
 
 up until you say you are ready. You are on in the 
 first scene." 
 
 Miss Leon turned her big- blue wet eyes toward the 
 stage manager, thoughtfully blew a cloud of smoke 
 toward him, turned her back on him and said, " Teresa, 
 I want to talk with you about this after the show. Car- 
 minella, you look lovely in that ragged street-dress. I 
 had one just like it, I remember it perfectly, when I 
 lived on Cherry Hill." 
 
 The stage-manager groaned, and pulled his hair. 
 " The critics get in a bad humor at these delays, Miss 
 Leon," he cried. 
 
 Miss Leon walked over to Carminella s dressing mir 
 ror, repaired from a paint-box the damages done by her 
 tears, turned to the stage-manager as if she had not seen 
 him before, and said, "Why don t you ring up? I ve 
 been ready half an hour!" 
 
 There was a great deal of good-natured interest in the 
 appearance of Marie Leon. The audience knew, for 
 the newspapers had left no detail untouched, that she 
 had been a New York ballet-girl ; that she had risen 
 to the minor roles in musical burlesques and comic 
 opera; that her voice had attracted the attention of a 
 wealthy New Yorker under whose patronage she had 
 gone to Paris and studied music for three years; that 
 she had made a debut in comic opera in London, said to 
 be successful ; and had returned to her native city the 
 triumphant possessor of a Paris wardrobe, a London 
 accent, and a New York millionaire. 
 
 It was generally expected that any success she would 
 achieve here would be due to her jewels and wardrobe, 
 both of which were known to be splendid. That indul 
 gent expectation was realized on the instant of her en 
 trance upon the Mayfair stage. From her boots to her 
 
278 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 coiffure, her gown, her gloves, her girdle, her fan, her 
 lorgnette, her jewels all were gorgeous ; all were perfect 
 in design and taste, and evoked quick honest applause 
 from the critically observant and admiring female half 
 of the audience. Marie had gained the approval of the 
 women of New York, the most discriminating judges 
 in the world of handsome and correct clothing. But 
 another kind of appreciation was started before she had 
 finished the first phrase of her opening aria. She had 
 plenty of ambition, and this with her desire to justify 
 the expenditure of her patron during her three ) T ears in 
 Paris, had kept her hard at her studies; and Marie Leon, 
 to the equal surprise and delight of her audience, showed 
 that she not only had a voice but knew how to sing a 
 combination in a light-opera star that made the critics 
 wonder if their ears were not playing them tricks. When 
 she made her exit it was plain to the habitues that the 
 audience was still in a state of lively expectancy : La 
 Cortese was yet to be seen. 
 
 There came upon the empty stage an Italian, wheel 
 ing one of those delightful piano-organs without which 
 the streets of New York would be drear indeed. He 
 stopped up-stage, centre, and began playing a lively 
 popular tune. This brought from the wings, right and 
 left, a number of children and half-grown boys and 
 girls who began dancing to the music. It was such 
 a scene as you may witness any bright day if you 
 will walk a block or two east or west of Broadway 
 below Madison Square. The audience had no idea 
 of what this was leading up to. Some laughed, some 
 looked uncomfortable, and some said, "This won t 
 do, you know, for a Broadway theatre. " One of the 
 older girls stopped dancing, looked off the stage and 
 cried: " La Cortese!" The other children took up the 
 
Two Triumphs at the Mayfair. 279 
 
 cry, and there was a shrill chorus of " La Cortese ! 
 La Cortese!" 
 
 As the children gradually made a tableau round the 
 organ-grinder, Carminella came dancing on the stage. 
 The claque started an applause but their task was hope 
 less. The whole audience sat in frosty silence. Was 
 this the Cortese that the papers had been writing about, 
 and picturing for weeks? this long-legged girl pretty to 
 be sure but dressed as a child, with flowing hair and a 
 cheap actually a torn calico frock ! 
 
 Carminella felt the shock of failure and her lips tight 
 ened. Dominico groaned aloud. The tears came to 
 Eleanor Hazelhurst s eyes; the New Yorker in Waters 
 box sneered: "Why don t they leave this sort of thing 
 to Larrigan s theatre?" The stage-manager cursed and 
 exclaimed: "I told Tom Lyon it would be a frost, I 
 knew it !" But Teresa murmured over to herself, " Pazi- 
 enza! Pazienza! She will bring them!" 
 
 The industrious organ-grinder stopped and Carmi 
 nella walked up the stage laughing, and the children 
 made a mechanical chorus to her musical notes. The 
 grinder began again, this time with the most popular 
 street-song of the day. Carminella again faced the 
 audience and began dancing, making her way down 
 the stage slowly. Some in the audience began to real 
 ize her wonderful grace, and there was a little murmur, 
 a little evidence of warmth. Carminella felt it, and as 
 if it had been her cue, began singing the song in a sweet, 
 true, untrained contralto voice. As she did so she elab 
 orated her dancing a little, never carrying it much 
 beyond the actual performances of children dancing 
 before a street organ, the difference being in the rich 
 grace of her body; the movements of her head, like a 
 wild flower on its stalk when it is stirred by the slight- 
 
280 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 est breeze ; the weaving and waving of her hands and 
 arms, as full of expression as chanted verse. She seemed 
 now to be moving in some other medium than air, so 
 slowly and lightly her feet fell, and her body have you 
 ever seen a trout, free and undisturbed in its native ele 
 ment, seen it turn in curves as suave as a caress? 
 
 The audience relaxed more. The children took up 
 the chorus of the song when she came to that, and some in 
 the top gallery joined with them ; then more, and others 
 in the lower gallery. Carminella began to smile, and 
 then more and more of the audience joined in the chorus. 
 This was something new to those in the fashionable 
 parts of the house, but it was contagious, and they, too, 
 were swinging in with the chorus. The music and Car 
 minella stopped, and the whole audience broke into a 
 quick, sharp, volley of applause. The hand-organ and 
 the children left the stage, and Carminella, now almost 
 directly over the footlights, stood there and laughed at 
 the audience, laughed so heartily, naturally, and gayly 
 at her hard-won triumph that the audience laughed 
 back, and renewed their applause. Then Carminella, 
 still laughing, ran off and into Teresa s waiting 
 arms. 
 
 "It was Tom s success," she panted to her mother. 
 " He planned it. It is his success. But where is Tom? 
 " He is not in that box. " 
 
 " I do not know, my child. But you must go on 
 again. Hear them applaud!" 
 
 Again and again, and yet again, she went on and 
 danced and sang, until the audience at last reluctantly 
 let her go in very pity; although Dominico and Dan 
 persisted in along-continued duet with their heels and 
 hands after every one else had become silent : Domi 
 nico with closed eyes and in red, damp ecstasy ; Dan with 
 
Two Triumphs at the Mayfair. 281 
 
 a look of serious defiance as if some one had ordered him 
 to stop. 
 
 But where was Tom? Dan, when he had recovered 
 from the excitement of Carminella s success, looked 
 again toward the box where his son was expected. 
 Philip Peyton motioned to him, and Dan made his way 
 in front of the first row, to the edge of the box. 
 
 " Where is Tom?" Peyton asked. " Did he come from 
 Long Island with you?" 
 
 "He came over ahead of me," Dan replied. "I 
 thought you might be knowing where he was, sir." 
 
 " No, I don t, but I ll go to the stage door and inquire ; 
 he may be behind," said Peyton. 
 
 Philip s inquiry for Tom at the stage door was carried 
 to Teresa. " Did she know where Mr. Lyon was?" 
 
 No, she did not. Carminella, who heard the message, 
 asked who had inquired for him and, when she learned, 
 told the messenger to send Mr. Peyton to the dressing- 
 room. 
 
 " Something has happened to him!" said Carminella, 
 in sudden alarm, when she heard that neither Philip nor 
 Dan knew where he was. " I wrote to him to-day that 
 I must see him. He would be here if something had 
 not happened." In her nervousness and excitement she 
 began to cry. Then, possibly with half-formulated in 
 tention of enlisting the whole force of the theatre in 
 the search for Tom, she declared she would not dance 
 again unless he was there. If he did not come she 
 would not dance, she would go and look for him her 
 self. When this cheerless intelligence was conveyed to 
 the already distraught stage-manager, crestfallen from 
 another bout with Maggie Lyon, he threw up his hands 
 and demanded in a voice of agony to know, first why he 
 had ever been born, and then what was the matter with 
 
282 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 La Cortese. The call-boy who had conveyed the mes 
 sage answered briskly, " She won t dance because Mr. 
 Tom Lyon ain t here to see her, sir. She says he s got 
 lost, and she s going out herself to ring in a general 
 alarm, sir." 
 
 " Oh, lord! a little trick like that can be turned," said 
 the stage-manager with a sigh of relief. " Now, look 
 here, you," to the call-boy, "you chase around to the 
 front of the house, see? Then you chase back to La 
 Cortese, understand? Then you say to her, all out of 
 breath, see? Tom Lyon is in the front. He came late 
 and he can t get any further than the lobby. See?" 
 
 "Sure," answered the call-boy, and he obeyed these 
 instructions to the letter, and Carminella was satisfied. 
 
 But Tom Lyon and detective-sergeant Cullen had not 
 yet started from Police Headquarters. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 "THE HAND OF GOD HAS STRUCK!" 
 
 THE knowing ones, the first-nighters, the habitues, 
 the critics, were all of one opinion with the occasionals 
 and the non-critical ; the Mayfair theatre could safely 
 cancel all its dates for the entire season. Marie Leon 
 and La Cortese would fill the theatre until the next 
 summer s heat drove its patrons out of town. In the 
 expression of this judgment La Cortese s name was 
 generally mentioned first. In the last act she gave the 
 Greek dance, already described when she appeared at 
 the Hazelhursts . The stage-manager had implored 
 her to broaden it; there was not enough "go" in it, he 
 declared. She did not say why, but she refused to alter 
 a step of the dance. Of course, the reason was, it was a 
 favorite of Tom s. 
 
 She dressed for the street hurriedly after her last 
 dance, which repeated the success of her first, for she 
 supposed Tom would be waiting for her. The stage 
 entrance opened on a quiet side-street, and as Tom did 
 not appear behind the scenes when she was dressed for 
 the street, Carminella wanted to go to the entrance and 
 wait for him ; but Teresa was detained. Maggie Lyon, 
 not yet dressed, had resumed her tears and her hygienic 
 smoke where she had left them off the cigarette rested 
 the throat after singing, she said and was again in Car- 
 minella s room asking Teresa over and over again why 
 Dan should have denied her his house, and receiving 
 
 283 
 
284 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 the same slow and cautious reply : " Dan is very par 
 ticular about the marriage." 
 
 "But for the love of heaven, Teresa," said Maggie, 
 lapsing from her London accent to the vernacular, " I 
 wonder he wouldn t be satisfied with me living as quiet 
 ly as I do. There isn t another woman on the stage of 
 my age say, Teresa, how old am I anyway? I ve lied 
 about it that much, I wonder I know I was ever born!" 
 
 Teresa laughed and said, " You were my age fifteen 
 years ago, but you are much younger than I am, now, 
 Maggie. 
 
 " How old are you then, dear?" asked Maggie, punc 
 turing a ring of smoke with the end of her cigarette. 
 
 "Thirty-five," answered Teresa. 
 
 "Well, that s not too old to marry," Maggie said 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 This conversation was upon a subject Teresa disliked 
 to discuss in Carminella s hearing. She had always 
 succeeded in keeping from her the seamy side of stage- 
 folks lives. She spoke to her in Italian, telling her 
 to go outside, meaning that she should go only to the 
 long entrance-way leading from the stage door to the 
 dressing-rooms; but Carminella interpreted this to be a 
 permission to go outside the stage door, and this she 
 did. The side-street was quiet, and only Maggie Lyon s 
 coupe stood at the curb, a little beyond the entrance. 
 As she looked up and down she saw the usual midnight 
 stream of people passing along on Broadway in one 
 direction and on Sixth Avenue in the other, but Tom, 
 for whom she looked, was nowhere in sight. Dominico 
 came around from Broadway and joined her at the door. 
 
 "Have you seen Tom?" she asked. 
 
 Dominico had not, but he told her Dan had gone to 
 Tom s studio to look for him. 
 
"The Hand of God Has Struck!" 285 
 
 "Then they lied to me!" she cried. "They told me 
 he was in front!" 
 
 As they stood there a carriage drove up and stopped 
 opposite the entrance, behind Maggie s coupe, and Mark 
 Waters stepped out of it, leaving the carriage door open 
 as he did so. He lifted his hat to Carminella but did 
 not speak to her, nor did she to him. He did speak to 
 Dominico, and in a brisk manner: 
 
 " Have you seen the manager?" he asked. " He is 
 looking for you." 
 
 " I looked for him but could not find him," said Do 
 minico. 
 
 " You will find him now in the cafe just north of the 
 box-office," said Waters, and Dominico started off with 
 an air of delighted importance. 
 
 Carminella drew back toward the stage door, but 
 Waters quickly stepped between her and it. She was 
 not frightened ; it occurred to her that Waters, perhaps, 
 meant to make an apology; his assumed humility sug 
 gested it. She stepped on to the sidewalk, away from 
 him however, and he approached her saying, " I only 
 came to see your father, but I can guess a service I can 
 do for you if you are looking for Tom Lyon. " 
 
 " I am," she said eagerly, wholly off her guard. 
 
 " See! Isn t that he?" he said, passing her and walk 
 ing to the carriage while he pointed toward Sixth 
 avenue. "Yes," he added, "you can see him from 
 here." 
 
 She followed him, looking in the direction he indi 
 cated, till she stood close to the curb, when he suddenly 
 lifted her off her feet, forced her into the carriage, 
 sprang in after her, slammed the door, and the driver 
 started his horses. While Waters had been pointing 
 toward the avenue, Tom Lyon and Cullen came rapidly 
 
286 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 down the street from Broadway. They were not twenty 
 feet away when the carriage door slammed, and both 
 heard Carminella s cry, which was instantly smothered. 
 They had an advantage of a second of time through 
 Waters driver having to turn out for the coupe in front 
 of him. Tom dashed to the carriage door and Cullen 
 rushed as quickly to the horses heads. He was recog 
 nized as an officer by the frightened driver, who brought 
 his team to a quick stop. At the same instant Tom had 
 wrenched open the carriage door andCarminella sprang 
 into his arms. 
 
 Cullen then jumped into the carriage and dragged 
 Waters back into it as he endeavored to escape through 
 the opposite door. There was a click of handcuffs, and 
 Cullen put his head out of the door and said quietly to 
 the driver: 
 
 ** Police Headquarters, my good man, and be sure 
 you don t lose your way." 
 
 As the carriage rolled off, Tom carried Carminella 
 into the stage entrance, where Teresa met them and 
 looked with startled, dumb alarm at the white rage in 
 both their faces. When Carminella saw her mother she 
 left Tom and with strange slowness walked to her. 
 With lips that scarcely moved she spoke a few words to 
 her in Italian. Teresa s face whitened as the others, 
 and the same rage came into it; but she only whispered 
 "Santa Maria Virgine!" and her right arm fell to her 
 side where her hand sought a fold of her dress and closed 
 on something hard. 
 
 11 Where is he?" she asked. Tom, as well as he could, 
 explained briefly, and, as he explained, Philip Peyton 
 and Dominico came to the entrance. When Peyton had 
 heard a little of the story that Carminella and Teresa 
 were to go to Headquarters he went for a carriage, re- 
 
"The Hand of God Has Struck!" 287 
 
 turned, and said to Tom : " Come ; we four will go on. 
 Dominico can wait and bring your father, who will sure 
 ly return here when he finds you are not at the studio." 
 
 Teresa had not spoken one word after her first ex 
 clamation. She sat on the back seat of the carriage, 
 her left arm around Carminella, her right hidden in a 
 fold of her dress. They were all silent on the drive to 
 Headquarters. Peyton tried once or twice to learn more 
 of the night s story from Tom, but met no response ; and 
 as the carriage passed electric lights, and he saw the 
 same look on the three tense faces about him, he felt as 
 if he were taking a ride in a cage of tigers. 
 
 At Headquarters Cullen met them and took them into 
 a room at one side of the Inspector s office, where they 
 waited for Dan and Dominico. 
 
 " Is he here? Ask him if he is here?" Teresa said to 
 Tom after a close scrutiny of her surroundings. Cullen 
 understood to whom Teresa referred, and told her that 
 Waters was in the building, and would be produced 
 before the Inspector soon. 
 
 "Can I see him?" Teresa asked this so softly that 
 Peyton, who was still uncomfortable from the look he 
 had seen in her eyes, regarded her in astonishment. 
 
 "Certainly," answered the detective. "He will be 
 confronted with you before the Inspector." 
 
 " But now? May I not see him alone only a minute, " 
 she pleaded in a tone almost of tenderness ; but her eyes 
 were gleaming, and her right arm was rigid from the 
 tension of the muscles of her hand, which clenched 
 something in a fold of her dress. 
 
 " Sorry, madam, but you cannot see him except before 
 the Inspector. Here are the others: all of you step this 
 way, please." 
 
 Dan arrived, looking distressed and anxious. It was 
 
288 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 a mental peculiarity of Dominico s that, when he was 
 greatly excited, he not only could not speak English 
 well, but could not understand it clearly either; and he 
 had received an impression from what little he had heard 
 of Tom s story that Mark Waters had ordered the arrest 
 and imprisonment of the entire party for conspiracy to 
 cheat Carminella out of the ownership of California; 
 and Tom was also charged with the abduction of Car 
 minella, and the death of one Bill Williams. This story, 
 as well as his excitement allowed him to tell it, he had 
 repeated to Dan on the way to Headquarters. Of course, 
 Dan knew Dominico was exploiting hallucinations of 
 various kinds, yet he feared that Waters machinations 
 had once more been directed against Tom, and it was 
 with this uncertainty that he, with the others, entered 
 the Inspector s office. He put his hand on Tom s 
 shoulder, but his son did not notice him, nor seem aware 
 of his presence : he was steadily watching Waters. The 
 latter was there, not knowing why, except so far as his 
 conscience informed him ; for the only explanation Cul- 
 len had given him was: "The Inspector wants to see 
 you." 
 
 Waters was making an heroic effort to appear right 
 eously indignant, and endeavored to meet Tom s steady 
 gaze with a look of scorn, but his eyes shifted. They 
 met Teresa s and he quailed perceptibly. She stood 
 erect and motionless, one arm around Carminella, one 
 by her side, its hand still hidden in the folds of her 
 dress. Philip had watched that tense, motionless arm 
 a long time. It seemed to fascinate him, and he stepped 
 up close behind her. 
 
 The Inspector came in, looked at no one, went quick 
 ly to his desk and began to arrange some papers. There 
 was a moment s silence which was ended by Dan s say- 
 
HELD. 
 I demand that you do so at once!" Page 288. 
 
"The Hand of God Has Struck!" 289 
 
 ing: "Mr. Inspector, is there a charge against my 
 boy?" 
 
 "Certainly not, Mr. Lyon," the Inspector answered, 
 " and never has been. An unfounded accusation was 
 made against him once by a citizen but, T am glad to 
 say, I have the confession of the right party in that case. " 
 
 Dan looked wonderfully relieved, and his hand slipped 
 down to Tom s, but Tom did not notice him. Again 
 the Inspector silently examined some papers, and 
 Waters face, which had been a disagreeable gray, began 
 to flush as he at last said: " Mr. Inspector, I shall go to 
 a higher authority than you to-morrow for redress for 
 the outrage committed on me by your officer to-night; 
 but I suppose you are the authority to end this present 
 farce, and I demand that you do so at once." 
 
 The Inspector took no notice of him, but having found 
 the letters he wanted, said, looking at Teresa: 
 
 "You are Mrs. Cortese?" 
 
 "lam." 
 
 "And were the wife of Ettore Cesarotti?" 
 
 "I was." 
 
 "And this is his daughter, Carminella?" 
 
 "It is." 
 
 " Do you recognize this as the signature of the Ettore 
 Cesarotti who was your husband?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 " By the way, Mr. Lyon (to Dan), could you identify 
 Mark Waters signature?" 
 
 "I could not," Dan answered. 
 
 "I could, Mr. Inspector, "said Peyton, and he stepped 
 to the desk and did so. Then he walked back to his 
 place behind Teresa. 
 
 "I ll only trouble you a minute more, Mrs. Cortese," 
 resumed the Inspector. " Have you ever received from 
 24 
 
290 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 your husband, through any person, or in any way, any 
 remittances, money, or anything from Ettore Cesarotti 
 I mean?" 
 
 " I have received nothing from him, nor heard from 
 him since he deserted me, nearly fifteen years ago. " 
 
 Waters had often assumed a false character, but never 
 in his life did he do a better piece of acting than at that 
 moment. He looked justly indignant, as he said with 
 an insolent drawl: "This may be imposing to these 
 foreigners, Mr. Inspector, but to me it is all bosh. You 
 have forcibly brought me here without a warrant: I de 
 mand my instant release. Pray, who gave you the au 
 thority of warrant, judge, and jury?" 
 
 ** Nobody," answered the Inspector, coolly. " This is 
 one of the things we do without authority when we 
 want evidence to hold a prisoner until we have a com 
 plaint, or indictment. But if you are particular to have 
 everything in proper form I guess we can accommodate 
 you. Cullen, take this prisoner to the Tombs, and charge 
 him, on your complaint, with attempted abduction." 
 
 The blood had been slowly rising, like a tide, in 
 Waters neck and face, but it dashed up like a wave as 
 he felt Cullen s firm grasp on his arm. He looked 
 quickly about the room with terrified eyes, then suddenly 
 fell to his knees and dragged himself toward Carmi- 
 nella: bravado, insolence, all assumption, were gone, as 
 he cried hoarsely, " Carminella, save me ! I meant no 
 harm! I would have married you. My God! Carmi 
 nella, save me, for I love you!" 
 
 The shock of the sudden craven abasement of the 
 man held all the spectators motionless and silent for a 
 moment. Then Carminella spoke, slowly, her voice 
 trembling, taking Tom s hand and carrying it to her 
 breast: "I love this man! You tried " 
 
"The Hand of God Has Struck!" 291 
 
 Waters staggered to his feet, maddened to an instant s 
 desperate strength by the girl s words and gesture. " I 
 tried?" he shouted. "You lie! You asked " 
 
 Tom and Teresa sprang at him. Dan threw himself 
 before his son: Philip Peyton grasped, with both hie, 
 Teresa s right hand which had slipped from the folds of 
 her dress, clutching a knife. 
 
 Waters had not seen this, or anything, after the lie he 
 tried to utter broke in his throat. His knees gave way, 
 and slowly at first, then with a quick collapse, his body 
 fell to the floor. 
 
 "Tom! Teresa!" said Dan, solemnly, "hold your 
 hands! The hand of God has struck!" 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 TWO WEDDINGS AND A GARDEN. 
 
 THE reader has heard enough in hints and gossip 
 about George Peyton s affairs the rehabilitation of 
 Philip in fashionable apartments; the reports of the 
 San Francisco detective agency to Mark Waters ; Minnie 
 Hazelhurst sending to Blue Canon, at George s request, 
 information about the Corteses; the gossip of the clubs, 
 reported by Waters companion in the Mayfair box; 
 enough such fragments of news and gossip have been 
 reported, I think, to give a pretty good idea of how 
 things have been going in Blue Canon since George 
 Peyton struck pay rock in the Porterhouse Claim mine. 
 
 George arrived in New York the evening following 
 Mark Waters death from apoplexy in the Inspector s 
 office ; and at night, when he went to their apartments 
 after leaving the Hazel hursts (where his call was of a 
 shockingly unfashionable length), he and Philip had 
 their second grave business conference, and told each 
 other volumes which had been left untold in their let 
 ters. Only a little of what they said which concerns 
 this story is not already known. The deal for a sale of 
 a half-interest in the Porterhouse claim was successfully 
 made by Horace Masters, and it left Ettore Cesarotti 
 and George Peyton each quarter-owner in the rich mine, 
 and gave them each a fortune to invest. It seemed for 
 some time that Hector, as Ettore was still called in Blue 
 
 292 
 
Two Weddings and a Garden. 293 
 
 Canon, would not live to see the deal consummated, but 
 the balsamic mountain-air was in his favor, and he fid 
 dled at the celebration the camp had over Peyton s good 
 luck when the deal was closed. 
 
 It was at that time he saw on the little table in Pey 
 ton s room a photograph which made him run breath 
 less to George. The picture was called "La Cortese," 
 and George told him it had been sent to him by a lady 
 in New York whose sister was interested in the original. 
 Hector declared it was a picture of his wife as she looked 
 when he married her. George wrote to Minnie and 
 learned the particulars, and then it was Hector confided 
 to him his whole story. 
 
 " He began at the beginning," George said, in telling 
 the story to Philip, " and that was that he was born a 
 gentleman; and went through to the end, and that was 
 a familiar yarn he had been swindled by Mark Waters." 
 When George told Hector all that he thought necessary 
 about Mark Waters, the Italian declared he would pre 
 pare for a journey to New York, get Teresa s forgive 
 ness, and kill Mark Waters. The doctor told him he 
 would better prepare for a longer journey. When Hec 
 tor became convinced that his end was near he took the 
 matter calmly, and made his preparations. All his 
 worldly affairs were left in the hands of George Peyton, 
 who was made executor of his will. One half of his 
 property was to go to Carminella upon her marriage or 
 majority. She could not marry before she was of age 
 without George s consent. The other half of the prop 
 erty George was to administer for Teresa s benefit, while 
 she lived. At her death, that share, too, was to go to 
 Carminella. " He died, satisfied with my promise that 
 when I returned here I would ask Teresa s forgiveness 
 for him ; and I have a letter for Teresa from the gentle- 
 
294 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 man, for Hector was a gentleman again before he died," 
 George said. 
 
 A few days after the funeral of Dan s foster-son, Bill 
 Williams (he was buried in a corner of the orchard lot 
 of Mulberry Court), Tom met George Peyton and Philip 
 at their apartments. 
 
 "So, young man," said George, clearing his throat 
 with a guardian s proper severity, "you are a suitor for 
 the hand of my pretty ward, are you? 
 
 "Yes, if you please, sir," said Tom in a meek voice, 
 smiling serenely. " But I may as well tell you I got 
 her consent and Teresa s before I knew you were in the 
 game. Dominico, however, objects to his daughter 
 marrying a poor artist ; but I may as well tell you that 
 he objected after he knew you were in the game. " 
 
 " Well, young man Philip, open a cold bottle of wine ! 
 Did I come back to civilization to go dry? Do you know, 
 young man, that I can cut Carminella off without a shil 
 ling if she marries without my consent?" 
 
 "Oh, kind sir," said Tom, taking a glass of wine, 
 "you can chuck all her shillings into the East river, 
 but our wedding-day will not be delayed." 
 
 " Well," laughed George, " I like your impudence, and 
 the impudence of everybody. Nobody treats me with 
 proper respect as a guardian. I told Miss Hazelhurst 
 you would have to ask my consent, and she laughed at 
 me, and said they were already making preparations for 
 your wedding in the Hazelhurst house. All the guar 
 dians I ever read about always had their own way, and 
 usually married their wards. But you can t deny me 
 the hallowed privilege of saying, " Take her, my son, 
 and be happy. " 
 
 The Mayfair theatre was closed after the opening 
 night, and soon the colored posters were covered over 
 
Two Weddings and a Garden. 295 
 
 with announcements of another attraction in which ap 
 peared neither the name of Marie Leon nor of La Cor- 
 tese. On Sunday, the day after the opening, Dominico 
 sought the Mayfair manager. Dominico was in exuber 
 ant spirits. He beamed and glowed and smiled and 
 seemed to walk on air. 
 
 " La Cortese will not appear to-morrow night never 
 again!" he said to the manager, and looked with excited 
 anticipation for the explosion he hoped would follow ; 
 but the manager only answered, in despair and weari 
 ness: 
 
 " Of course she won t. Do you suppose I want her to 
 dance in a closed theatre?" 
 
 "Closed?" echoed Dominico, in astonishment. 
 
 "Yes, closed," the manager repeated, "Marie Leon 
 has cancelled her engagement. 
 
 Dominico was too dazed to say anything until the 
 manager asked: 
 
 " What s the matter with La Cortese? Got a cold in 
 her feet?" 
 
 " She is sick," Dominico answered, " but not very, and 
 that is not it. She is rich, very rich!" and Dominico 
 smiled and glowed and beamed again. 
 
 " Oh, she s caught a millionaire too, has she?" growled 
 the manager. " Everybody connected with the show 
 seems to have struck good luck except me." 
 
 The explanation of the manager s remark about mil 
 lionaires was in a scene which occurred in one of the 
 sumptuous suite of hotel-rooms where Maggie Lyon, in 
 a morning gown of irreproachable freshness and beauty, 
 was eating a very substantial noonday breakfast, in spite 
 of occasional tears. She was thus engaged when Mr. 
 Jacob Van Hahn was announced, and admitted. 
 
 He was a mild, comfortable-looking, middle-aged 
 
296 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 man, with a blond moustache and blond hair parted 
 with neat exactness in the middle. He looked as if he 
 had never had a care in the world, and it is quite likely 
 he had not. He was of the fourth generation of rich 
 New York Van Hahns, so it was no trouble to him to 
 live a life of leisure. He had met Maggie Lyon when 
 she was singing minor parts in comic opera in New 
 York. Van Hahn s one accomplishment was a consider 
 ably-cultivated talent for music. He had expressed an 
 opinion that there was the making of a good singer in 
 Maggie Lyon, and when this was disputed it had amused 
 him to test his judgment by sending her to Paris for 
 musical training. He had been her patron in her pro 
 fessional career, first in London, and now in New York. 
 In their old New York days Van Hahn had frequently 
 entertained parties, of which Maggie was a member, on 
 board of his yacht, where she had shown such aptitude 
 for sailor lore he had called her " Captain. " Her name 
 for him was " Commodore." 
 
 He stopped, as he entered the room and saw that she 
 was crying, threw on a chair a bundle as big as a valise, 
 of morning newpapers, and exclaimed : 
 
 " What? The Captain in tears ! With every paper in 
 the city giving her a column of good notices!" 
 
 "Sit down, Commodore," she said, motioning to a 
 chair at the table, " I want to talk to you. " 
 
 "My, how solemn we are! Didn t they recall you 
 enough last night?" 
 
 " I want you to be serious, Commodore ; I want to tell 
 you something. I m going to quit all this." 
 
 " All what?" he asked opening his eyes wide. 
 
 "Why all everything," waving a hand which, 
 somehow, seemed to include the suite of rooms, the 
 Commodore, and herself. 
 
Two Weddings and a Garden. 297 
 
 "But, Maggie, I don t understand you," Van Hahn 
 said, and he looked a little troubled. 
 
 " I ll tell you, Jake," she said, leaning her elbows on 
 the table and resting her chin on her palms as she looked 
 across at him seriously. "It isn t right: it never has 
 been right, although you ve always been very nice and 
 kind to me. I ve made up my mind that I ought to see 
 what I can do alone. If my voice won t carry me 
 through without the diamonds and expensive costumes, 
 why, I ll I ll be a dressmaker, and you must never see 
 me any more." 
 
 Having thus announced her destiny, Maggie wept 
 softly, and Mr. Van Hahn said, with equal softness: 
 
 "Well, I ll be damned!" 
 
 Then he walked about the room, bit his blond mous 
 tache a good deal, kicked things that came in his way, 
 and otherwise indicated that he was undergoing the rare 
 experience of mental distress. At last he returned to 
 her and said : " What s brought you to this way of think 
 ing about about things, Maggie?" 
 
 She handed him Dan Lyon s letter and he read it. 
 It was dated the day before, and this is what Dan wrote : 
 
 "Mv DEAR NIECE MAGGIE: Tom brought me your note saying 
 you would come over here to-morrow with Mr. Van Hahn. You 
 know, Maggie, that your old uncle has always had a warm spot 
 in his heart for you, the only child of his only brother. Your 
 father knew before he died that until Tom was born it was my 
 meaning to leave whatever I might have when I died to you. If 
 I should die to-day, or whenever I die, you would find that I have 
 left something for you against hard luck. I am only telling you 
 this, Maggie, that you may know your old uncle s heart has not 
 turned against you ; but while I have a home where I hope, some 
 day, Tom will bring a good wife, as good as was your mother and 
 his, I can t welcome you with Mr. Van Hahn to it. But if ever 
 you re alone in the world, Maggie, my home is yours as long as 
 you can stay with your UNCLE DAN. " 
 
298 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 Mr. Van Hahn again walked up and down the room, 
 stopping a dozen times to re-read the letter. Then he 
 sat down again opposite Maggie and said quietly : " He s 
 a good deal of a chap, your uncle Dan. " Maggie nodded 
 and wept. He went to her writing-desk and returned in a 
 few minutes with a letter, which he handed to her saying : 
 
 " I couldn t get along very well without you, Maggie. 
 If you will have me, send Uncle Dan this." 
 
 And this was the letter: 
 
 "Mv DEAR MR. LYON : As you are Miss Maggie Lyon s nearest 
 relative, I write to you formally asking your sanction of our mar 
 riage. I shall consider it a great honor, if our plans meet your 
 approval, to have our wedding at your home, Friday next, as we 
 sail for England on Saturday. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 JACOB VAN HAHN. 
 To Daniel Lyon, Esq., Mulberry Court, L. I." 
 
 " Commodore, " said Maggie, when she could talk from 
 laughing and crying, " will you tell the management 
 the engagement is off at the Mayfair. And oh, Com 
 modore, there s a forfeit to pay under the contract. 
 Would you mind giving him your check?" 
 
 And so they were married. 
 
 There were only the Corteses and Tom at the wed 
 ding. They were happy enough over Dan s good 
 cheer, but quiet, because Molly was sick in the house: 
 "My daughter, Mrs. Williams," Dan called her. 
 
 There were more guests at the wedding of Tom and 
 Carminella, and they were all happy with the exception 
 of Dominico. That dispirited Italian had provided wed 
 ding garments for his own apparelling of a gorgeousness 
 that, in variety and vividness of colors, would pale the 
 palette of an impressionist. He showed this outfit to 
 Teresa, and he wept when she said he should not wear 
 
Two Weddings and a Garden. 299 
 
 them. Teresa that day made her first extravagant use 
 of her new income. She ordered a carriage, took 
 Dominico with her to a fashionable clothier s, and pro 
 vided that chastened man wth a complete wardrobe of 
 conventional cut and color. 
 
 " It is no pleasure to be rich in America, my Teresa," 
 he said disconsolately, when he was dressed for the wed 
 ding, "if even at our children s marriages we must dress 
 ever in mourning. But once in our beautiful Italy again ! 
 Gran Dio! If Riccodonna could only see me there!" 
 
 I wish I had space to describe all the pretty details 
 Eleanor and Minnie Hazlehurst provided for that wed 
 ding. Eleanor s interest, of course, was most in Carmi- 
 nella, but Minnie took a worldly pride in providing a 
 fashionable and exactly proper wedding for T. Fitz 
 Gerald Lyon, Minnie s affianced husband s associate in 
 his mining affairs; as, of course, Tom would become in 
 the management of Carminella s fortune. 
 
 Mrs. Jack Daring was one of the wedding guests. Tom 
 said to her, smiling, when she came to congratulate 
 them: 
 
 " I am much obliged to you, Mrs. Daring." 
 
 "For?" 
 
 "For calling me a fool. Don t you remember? It 
 started me right again." 
 
 " Yes, but you ve proved that you did not remain one. 
 Men do not remain fools always they have lucid inter 
 vals. My dear," she added to Carminella, "you don t 
 deserve a compliment from me because you looked at 
 me murderously the night you danced here but I must 
 say you are the only bride I ever saw in my life who 
 stood up gracefully at the sacrifice. Oh, and let me give 
 you some advice. Never let your husband lift you into a 
 swing. I have not been comfortable in a corset since. " 
 
300 A Daughter of the Tenements. 
 
 Tom and Carminella went to Blue Canon on their 
 wedding journey; and the first painting of Tom s that 
 was accepted at the Society Exhibition after their return 
 to New York was all in misty blue and purple; indicat 
 ing, rather than picturing, the mysterious depths of Blue 
 Canon as it appeared to him when he painted it from in 
 front of the old tunnel of the Porterhouse Claim mine, 
 with Carminella by his side plaiting fragrant bay- 
 leaves into a garland they placed on the grave of Ettore 
 Cesarotti. 
 
 Teresa and Dominico are visiting in Italy, where they 
 will remain until a pretty cottage is finished which 
 Carminella is building on a place near Dan s home. It 
 is all Carminella s idea the plan for the cottage and the 
 furnishing, the stable, and the pony and cart which 
 Teresa is to drive ; particularly to drive to the station 
 when Mr. and Mrs. Tom go over to visit her. It was 
 only Carminella s wish to have everything cottage, 
 stable and all ready for Teresa s use before she should 
 see them, that induced her to let her mother stay in Italy 
 so long ; but hard as was the separation for mother and 
 daughter it was a period of perfect rapture for Dominico. 
 Every steamer brought from him neckscarfs, wine, or 
 olives for Dan; and for Riccodonna, photographs of 
 Dominico in a carriage at Naples, with a guide at Rome, 
 in a wondrous new costume at Palermo, until the en 
 raged Riccodonna hated the very sight of the postman. 
 
 Dan Lyon is not lonely at Mulberry Court between 
 the weekly visits of Tom and his wife. There is a 
 young woman there he calls Molly, and speaks of as 
 "My daughter, Mrs. Williams." Molly was very ill 
 many weeks, and was fragile during all the winter; but 
 the care and attention, the wholesome life and, most of 
 all, the clean, pure air she breathed for the first time, did 
 
AT MULBERRY COURT. 
 "There is a young woman there whom he calls Molly." Page 300. 
 
Two Weddings and a Garden. 301 
 
 more than restore her health it gave her such health as 
 she never before had. Dan came over to the city and con 
 sulted with Eleanor Hazelhurst about Molly; and when 
 he told her he would gladly give the girl a home with 
 him, Eleanor said that was the best solution of the prob 
 lem of Molly s life. The sense of security the girl 
 would feel there for the first time, the sense of being 
 neither hunted nor shunned, would do more than reform, 
 would re-create her in a way no possible life she could 
 he helped to lead in the city would. "And," added 
 Eleanor, " you will be doing a noble act, Mr. Lyon, to 
 keep that girl in your home, where God will give her 
 nature strength to grow strong and beautiful." 
 
 It was a long time before Molly could be made to 
 understand that she need not leave Dan s home, but 
 when she comprehended it, the cure of her mind and 
 soul and body came all at once. The care of Mulberry 
 Court is in the strong hands of Dan s farmer and the 
 farmer s lusty wife the care of all but the flowers. 
 These never cease to be a beloved charge and wonder to 
 the strong old man and his slight young companion, 
 for Molly is little more than a child in years. Tom 
 takes them books the charming books which sympa 
 thetic lovers of flowers write, and in the evenings Molly 
 reads to Dan about these strange new friends ; and in 
 the daytime they hunt them in the woods, and plant and 
 care for them in the garden, but never pluck them, 
 because, Dan says, " They are there where we can see 
 them, and enjoy them, and care for them, too; but they ll 
 only fade and die the quicker if we take them away, 
 Molly dear, from where God gives them strength to 
 grow and be beautiful." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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