/ '- SOMETHING ELSE She was standing by the blue -and -gold vase, , . . her eyes bright with the sparkle of the outside world, as if she had brought its frosty brilliance into the sombre studio [Chapter VIlJ SOMETHING ELSE A Novel BY J. Breckenridge Ellis Author of "The Dread and Fear of Kings,' "The Holland Wolves," etc. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ERNEST L. BLUMENSCHEIN CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO, 1911 COPYRIGHT A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1911 Published September, 1911 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England PHESS OF THE VAIL COMPANY COSHOCTON, U. S. A. TO MY MOTHER CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I MYSTERY OF IRVING PAYNE . . .11 II A LODGING-HOUSE DREAM . . . 25 III THE JESSIE ROMANCE .... 41 IV RICH FOR ONE HOUR .... 62 V A NIGHT OF LOVE 76 VI THE MORNING AFTER . . . .85 VII STRANGE MEETING IN. THE STUDIO . 103 VIII THE ITALIAN SPY . . . . . .119 IX THE TRIP WITH WINIFRED . . .135 X THE LITTLE NEIGHBOR . . ,. .153 XI BUILDERS 165 XII THE GATHERING OF THE POOR . . 175 XIII IRVING PLOTS STRATEGY .... 196 XIV IRVING'S ADVENTURE WITH His SOUL . 10 XV THE JERRY ROMANCE .... 224 XVI, TRAMPS AND KISSES 240 XVII THE GATHERING OF THE RICH . . 264 XVIII THE RACE AGAINST DEATH . . . 284 XIX A TORN BANK CHECK 297 XX GERRYMANDERING 307 XXI IRVING MAKES His DECISION . . . 320 XXII THE MYSTERY is REVIVED .... 335 XXIII THE WIFE . . 350 Contents CHAPTER PAGE XXIV THE AMBUSCADE 366 XXV THE BATTLE OF THE COAL BARGES . 391 XXVI THE FATHER ..... V . 410 XXVII THE MOTHER 421 XXVIII IRVING ANP WINIFRED . 433 SOMETHING ELSE CHAPTER I MYSTERY OF IRVING PAYNE WITH the roar of the city all about him, Irving Payne heard nothing. Five distinct lines of vehicles moved in paral- lels of contrary motion between the western limits of City Hall Park and the massive buildings across Broad- way. This unpremeditated unity of scenic effect was broken by ceaseless cabs, hansoms, runabouts, and pe- destrians, as they penetrated the lines of progress and overflowed the waste places ; but Irving Payne saw only the open letter in his hand. Perhaps he did not see even the letter, though his eyes appeared intent upon the cramped feminine handwriting. He had read the words so many times that he knew them by heart; he was thinking, now, rather of their consequences than of their message: " If you care to learn anything regarding your par- entage," so the letter ran, " it will give me pleasure to enlighten you at any time. I am, I imagine, the only person living who knew both your father and your mother." Something Else The signature read, " Mrs. Sadie Wyse." The ad- dress was; one -of. -those "places," in old Greenwich Vil- lage, where the ' tartgled ' streets, despairing of ever being straightened out, give it up, and come to a stop. The mind of the young man was not unlike one of those unambitious thoroughfares. It had, as it were, come to a stop, but without having reached a place of repose. To be twenty-one, and never to have had the slightest idea what one's father or mother was, or is; then, suddenly to be offered the information " at any time," that was the case of Irving Payne. He was not sure that he cared to know, at this late day. In truth, he dreaded the revelation. Of course, he had had his long period of craving for knowledge, but that was in his boyhood. Even at that time he felt sure that his craving could never be satisfied, and this conviction had done much to reconcile him to lifelong mystery. Thus far he had lived without the love or the aid of those who owed him both affection and pro- tection. If they were living, he would rather not meet them now; if they were dead well, had they not al- ways been dead to him? On the other hand, Irving did not underestimate the importance of the fact that some one possessed the knowledge that had always been withheld from him. This Mrs. Sadie Wyse, of whom he had never heard until the receipt of her letter she, it appeared, held the key to the mystery. In a way, it seemed to put him in the power of an absolute stranger. As he stood leaning against the fence near the Nathan Hale monu- [12] Mystery of Irving Payne ment his attitude did not speak of irresolution, but of uneasiness. If such an emotion be left in the wreck- heap of the old psychology, Irving felt something like a faint presentiment of evil. Of course he must go to this Mrs. Sadie Wyse; but he would put off the inter- view as long as possible. At last, as if roused from profound slumber, Irving started, thrust the letter impatiently into his pocket, and mechanically looked up at the bronze statue, which seemed to say, " I am ready to meet my fate, are you ? " The gravity deepened on the young man's finely- moulded features. He stared beyond the leafless trees toward the imposing buildings that cut the skyline to the entrance of Brooklyn Bridge. Nearer at hand, the City Hall extended its marble wings, as if to catch the winter sunlight in all its bright promise. The compan- ion marble of the Court House received, also, that promise of warmth and invigorating life, which it would take months to redeem. Turning his glance toward Broadway, Irving instinctively drew himself up, as if girding the loins of his spirit for the fray. The roar, which had been smothered to a distant hum under the burden of his subconsciousness, suddenly penetrated to his senses, causing his blood to tingle. He felt himself called out into that current of man- ifold activity. The heavy grinding of overladen trucks, the discords of laboriously drawn drays, the lighter dash of hacks and carriages, the beat of an army's footsteps, the harsh blasts from automobiles, the clashing of innumerable voices, as they called, whistled, [13] Something Else commanded, cursed, and jested, all appealed to Irving Payne. He delighted in the badinage that descended from dizzy seats above pyramids of moving boxes and barrels ; in the whining of the pushcart vendors ; in the odors of fruits and flowers, as they were wafted from the sidewalk-stands. His heart responded with that buoyant joyousness which formed the dominant tone in his character. His attention was centred upon no par- ticular phase of the tumultuous street. It was life that appealed to him all manifestations of it, all agents. The goal was nothing, as yet; scarcely the di- rection mattered; the movement was all. Irving felt an instinctive desire to lose himself in the eager tide, to let himself be borne unresistingly past the postoffice toward old Trinity, or beyond Park Row toward the upper city what matter? His place in the city-scheme was definitely fixed. On the morrow he was to enter upon his labors as clerk in a downtown railroad office. He had nothing to do until to-morrow, except to find a cheap lodging-house. It was the serious face of Nathan Hale that reminded him once more of that mysterious letter, and of the unknown Mrs. Sadie Wyse. " Oh, yes," he said, speaking aloud to the statue, in answer to the expression of the bronze face, " it 's easy enough to be a hero, in the time of revolution ! " A voice spoke at his ear : " The time of revolution is now." Irving turned without displeasure. The intrusion of [14] Mystery of Irving Payne a stranger was just punishment for his folly of speak- ing aloud. The man who had accosted him was a singular fellow, dressed decently enough, and fairly respectable as to hair and beard, yet producing the impression of one who has been, as it were, caught up and cleaned and clothed for an especial occasion. This man of middle-age, finding he had Irving's atten- tion, pursed his lips, between which an excellent cigar was held unlighted, and added, impressively, " Sir, this is, I repeat, the time of revolution." He waved his arm like an orator. But, as if he found it tiresome to maintain so lofty an attitude, he immediately cast to the winds his air of prophet, and said, genially, " I am glad to meet you once more, my friend." " Once more ? " echoed Irving, vaguely, as he fixed upon him that cold look of suspicion born of many deal- ings with one's kind. " Then we have met before the revolution ? " There was upon the man's large and rather red face a look of lazy good-nature, mingled, as it appeared, with something like instinctive liking, which Irving found by no means unpleasant. From his whole person em- anated an atmosphere of worldly content, difficult to describe, but immediately perceptible a humanness, let us say, as if higher spiritual qualities, once pos- sessed, had not failed to mellow and sweeten what, in a lower order of man, would have been mere baseness. " About a week ago," said the man, confidentially, but [15] Something Else without offence in his intimacy, " you were over at Tompkins Square. So was I. Do you remember that particular disreputable individual who sold you some lead pencils? Well, I am that man." Irving laughed. " These clothes have made you a new creature ! " he exclaimed, with a sort of camarad- erie that astonished himself. Could this man really have been evolved from the tramp whose miserable rags had prompted a purchase of undesired pencils? That tramp had interested him as an example of the law of degeneracy. The present form was not sufficiently re- mote from its chrysalis state, to have lost all semblance of the grub. But this remarkable cleanness of person and carefulness of attire suggested a future in which wings might unfold a future in which cleanliness would not be remarkable, and clothes would not fit so ill. " Ah," said the man, with pensive gravity, " I am not a new creature, but a very old one, to-day : older than the tramp you saw at Tompkins Square. I am a sort of second folio; the original edition is lost, I assure you." He gave a short laugh, half bitter, half careless. A shadow passed over the light of his habitual satis- faction, and, as if to conceal the seriousness evoked by far-distant images of his youth, he turned away to light the cigar, saying, banteringly, " As my old enemy Horace used to observe, " Lenit albescens animos capil- lus: " A voice interposed sharply : " You no lighta dat cigarro ! " A dark, round-faced lounger, who had been [16] Mystery of Irving Payne watching from the corner of the bare grassplot, came forward excitedly. His sparkling black eyes narrowed to menacing slits, exactly midway between the brim of his derby and the straight, thin extension of his mus- tache. The match, whose tiny flame had been dangerously near the end of the cigar, fell upon the sidewalk. The middle-aged man winked ruefully at Irving. " I getta de clo'es for you," the Italian continued, indignantly. " I standa good for dem. I lenda de fine cigarro, de twenty-five-cent cigarro, so you be de manna, so you looka de high, de gran', de Fo' Hundred, de toppa-notcha. An' den you lighta dat cigarro; yet it is not yo' cigarro, it is mine-a, it is in de stock." " Well, well, Agostino," said the other, impa- tiently, " I forgot the cigar was only borrowed. You see," he added, grinning at Irving, " I 'm to be Queen of the May only for a few hours. Every penny I could realize from the lowly, but unconfining, business of pen- cil selling, has gone to rent this air of gentility. My good friend, Agostino, has pledged the Jew to keep me in sight till the suit is safe, once more, in Hester Street. The cigar, you understand, is still on the market. You will keep me in sight, Agostino, will you not? " " You mighta right," said Agostino, showing no sense of humor. Irving Payne, true to his characteristic of taking keen interest in all persons or scenes that touched his life, regarded the Italian's sinister face with artistic satisfaction, at the same time moving to the other side [17] Something Else of the slightly gray mendicant, to insure his pockets. For the less Irving had in his pockets, the more care- fully he guarded them. " Have you invested your earnings," Irving inquired, cheerfully, " in order to make an impression upon the park-sparrows ? " The other gave Irving a curious look. " Are you at leisure ? " he inquired, losing a good deal of his lazy drawl. " Will you let me show you the sequel to a strange history in my past ? You '11 not have far to go just to the Court House. Of course, you have heard of Mrs. J. S. Vandever the Fifth Avenue lady who spends such quantities of her husband's money on pink teas, and on charities of a darker color? " Of course, everybody had heard of the Vandevers. But it puzzled the young man to hear the name on the lips of this derelict of society. " Very good. J. S. Vandever is her second husband, you understand," remarked the man, casually. " I was the first." Irving stared. If the other was ever in earnest, he was now. After all, there were in this drifted wreck un- mistakable remains of culture, even of grace. His language was that of a gentleman, and the devastations of many a drinking-bout had left dulled, but not ex- tinguished, the sparks of humor and good sense. " She divorced me twenty-odd years ago," he con- tinued, with a humorous look toward Agostino, perhaps fearing that the Italian would again assert his lordship by some preposterous act of tyranny. " I did n't make [18] Mystery of Irving Payne any fight. Don't you think she ought to appreciate that? And to-day yes, in an hour I shall sue for divorce from this same lady, who has for years been Mrs. Vandever. She ought to do as she was done by, eh? But this is not a do-as-done-by world," he added, shaking his head, " so I 'm afraid she '11 oppose." His look grew serious. " Yet she has had her revenge. What more does she want? " " I never heard of such a divorce suit," observed Irving, who might have thought the other jesting, but for the final words. " Why divorce her? Are n't you two sufficiently separated, without a legal barricade? J. S. Vendever ought to be fence enough between you ! " " Oh, there 's a reason," returned the man, carelessly. "Would you like to see it through? Time for me to stretch my legs." " Come on," Agostino called. " I have put fine pant' on dose leg' you getta dat divorce alia right, sure, O. K." " I '11 come, too," said Irving, not surprised at his interest in the case, since everything smacking of life interested him, but wondering that his attention should be so absorbingly engaged. Here was an opportunity to banish Mrs. Sadie Wyse from his mind by supplying it with vivid impressions. Still, this disreputable stranger, this waif who offered no resistance to the in- sults of a sinister Italian what was his power by virtue of which he had won from Irving not only inter- est, but a feeling of liking? As they rounded the City Hall, Irving spoke, in order [19] Something Else to rouse his companion from a fit of abstraction. " You referred to a revolution." The man shook himself, and the shadow fled from his face. " You mistake ; I said the revolution. Look at this beautiful building. The architect who fashioned that marble pile from his brain-figments, was paid six dollars a day. Mark it well: six dollars. And what are six dollars? A night on Coney Island, a supper at the Plaza are these things worth a day of one's life ? Now we approach our Court House ; you see ? a ten- million-dollar monument of graft, for the sittings of justice. The City Hall is honest, but it was built a century ago. Who is honest nowadays? Therefore the revolution." Agostino had paused at the basement corner of the City Hall. Above his head the marble gleamed; but about him was the dark-hued background of the lower wall. From under the shabby derby, sparkled the brigand eyes; below was the thin mustache, extended, at either end, to a single hair. There was an effect of boyishness in the rounded chin ; the olive cheeks were plump ; but the thin lips were crafty. Irving's companion touched him upon the arm. " You ought to hear me at Union Square," he re- marked, with a grimace. " I win great applause. But I am more eloquent when shabbily dressed. Rags have entree to the heart, when starched linen is kept in the antechamber. I 'm too fine, now, to make anybody howl. Between you and me, I 'm an agitator." Irving jerked his thumb backward toward Agostino, [20] Mystery of Irving Payne saying, " Yonder, I suppose, is a future captain of jour revolution." Another grimace. " When he is, let us be colonels ! But of course I am in earnest, young man. At least I do not mean to say that 7 am in earnest, but the cause is an earnest one. I am in earnest about nothing, nothing in all the universe, except Come ! my divorce ! " They found the court room filled with well-dressed men and women. There were some two hundred di- vorce cases on the court calendar. No one had come to defend a suit, but many against whom suits had been brought had come to hear what the plaintiffs would say about them. " What an abnormal curiosity," whispered Irving's companion, as they found their seats. " As if they did not know how bad they were, they 've come to hear themselves abused." Suddenly he plucked the young man's sleeve. " Ah, there she is ! " was the somewhat agitated whisper. Irving's attention was directed toward two women, apparently of refinement and social importance, who sat apart from other onlookers. They were strikingly unlike, yet some indefinable touch marked them as dwellers in a common sphere. One had a heavy jaw, a challenging eye, and an unsympathetic mouth, suggest- ing one who makes a hobby of sports, particularly of racing. The other showed a marked irregularity of features, depressions before the lower outline of the face was reached, a sinking-in between underlip and [21] Something Else chin, a broad dimple in the chin, an undulation caused by the temples rising in slight curves from the black eyebrows, and below all, sloping waves of satin skin for the contour of the neck. The eyebrows were un- usually heavy. Large, soft, black eyes looked forth with haunting melancholy, seeming to shed a tender glow of womanliness over each little hollow of cheek, chin, neck, and mouth. It was one of those faces that seem to speak ; that sometimes speak most elo- quently when lips are mute. Those lips were full, and curved with exquisite grace ; they borrowed, from a certain habitual tilting back of the head, an added ef- fect of sensitiveness. Irving whispered, " Which was your wife : the lady off horseback, or the other? " The response was faintly given : " The other." Irving's companion had evidently surrendered himself to memories of the past. His accustomed indifference to all save ease of living was gone. No doubt, the sight of her who had once been his wife caused him to think of what he himself had been. The reply surprised Irving. He would much rather it had been she of the insolent gaze and square jaw. The eyes of the speaking face luminous orbs of Mrs. Vandever were suddenly intent upon the man at Irving's side. The coming of the lawyer had doubt- less signalled him out. Could she have known him in that promiscuous audience, him who sat with eyes upon the floor, with roughened" hands slightly twitching, with [22] Mystery of Irving Payne shoulders bent forward? Some twenty years ago, had he not met her gaze with eyes clear and unafraid? At that time he was her husband. Was it curiosity, only, that had brought her to the court room to see the partner of her girlhood's dance of dreams? Or did she, in spite of the fact that she had long been the wife of another, still cherish, in the hid- den chambers of her illusions, a picture of this man, like the retouched outlines of a fading photograph? Irving watched her intently ; but though she looked steadily over intervening benches with up-tilted chin, and downward gaze, he could not interpret the language of that vivid face. It seemed not so much to be speak- ing in an unknown tongue, as to be speaking of an un- known life a life far beyond the shallows in which Irving Payne had thus far sought sunbeams of momentary happiness. The lawyer touched the arm of the slightly gray plaintiff. At the same time, Mrs. Vandever and her companion rose to depart. " We cannot reach your case, to-day," the lawyer said. " However, it won't be opposed." He returned to his table. " So ends your chapter," Irving whispered, looking at his bowed companion, curiously. " Well, I must go forth to open one in my own life. Coming? " " I '11 wait till she 's gone," said the other with a lit- tle shudder. Irving descended the broad sweep of steps in time [23] Something Else to see Mrs. Vandever and her friend whirled, in a white and gilt electric brougham, out of Chambers Street into Broadway. Across the street, Agostino was unobtrusively visible, leaning against a corner of the City Hall, the ends of his sackcoat thrust upward by the insertion of each thumb in a trousers pocket. The Italian gave Irving a cursory glance, then fastened his beady eyes upon the ground, with an air of amiable humility. [24] CHAPTER II A LODGING-HOUSE DREAM AFTER leaving the Court House, Irving Payne boarded a Broadway car, bound north. Dis- regarding the objections of the rear-end clingers to the accretion of another atom, the young man calmly squeezed himself between some " matinee girls," in a warm juxtaposition that seemed to call for the music of an East Side dancing-club. With a good-humor thoroughly American, and a disregard for the comfort of others typically Manhattanese, he looked up Broadway's swarming canyon. Along the margins of the cliffs that is to say, the roofs of the sky- scrapers he was seeking the office in which, on the morrow, his duties as railroad day-clerk, were to be- gin. When, at last, he saw its rounded tower and fluttering flag above the enormous wholesale houses, there came to him a thrill of satisfaction. Those gilded signs were guarantees of his kinship with the tense, eager faces that forever drifted up and down the side- walks. He had become one of them. He felt the eagerness they manifested. They must hurry, hurry or be left behind ; and so must he. Of the city's four millions how many thousands were al- ready left behind so far that, for them, the path was Something Else lost that leads out of the wilderness of failure? He remembered the wreck he had encountered at City Hall Park the mendicant who, in borrowed clothes, had been intent upon divorce from a lady now the wife of a distinguished man of affairs. Had that first husband of Mrs. Vandever once hurried like these thousands whose rhythmic footbeats sounded above the crash of traffic? Had his face worn as did these, a look of burning impatience to reach some destination coupled with a blank oblivion of those touching him upon the way ? But, no surely Agostino's debtor had never taken an active part in the city's life. Surely he had never really lived. But every fibre of Irving Payne was alive and tingling. Even when tightly wedged between the high school girls whose handkerchiefs were damp from their hero's sor- rows sorrows mellowed by f ootlight-glamour and orchestral sighs Irving held his form bent forward, ready to leap at the first possible second. He hurled himself into space at West Fourth Street, and was al- most at the northern corner before he had checked the impetus given his body, as a last indignity, by the jammed street-car. His quest of Mrs. Sadie Wyse stopped him before an old-fashioned brownstone front, which bore the legend, " Gotham Repose." Irving was pleasantly sur- prised. The address Mrs. Wyse had given him was that of a lodging-house ; one of those shabbily re- spectable retreats near Washington Square, promising reasonable rates with accommodations apologetically [26] A Lodging- House Dream meagre. Gotham Repose with its high stoop, and its stone steps whose edges showed the dents of Time's never-aging teeth, seemed to have inherited some of its original owners' integrity. It promised loungers a fair degree of safety in leaving keys in trunk-locks. Fashion had, indeed, fled to> make room for necessity; but necessity had not yet allied itself to vice. The house stood in a row of its kind, not far from Green- wich Avenue. It looked out upon a bare triangular space through which one street ran completely, ran till it was out of sight; and to which another street came, peeped in, and, as if charmed by the prospect, ended itself then and there. Irving thought it would be a neat stroke of economy to learn all that Mrs. Wyse knew of his parentage, and, practically at the same time, engage a room. The thought pleased him, for he delighted in economy when it conflicted with none of his desires. He hastily as- cended the steps without touching his hand to the iron railing. The old-fashioned knocker, a reminder of the Greenwich Village of a century ago, looked at him as with a staring and unfriendly eye. As he let it fall, its reverberation seemed, in a curious manner, to re- sound in some unexplored depths of his being; and an indefinable sense of oppression was upon him, at the opening of the street-door. On deserting Broadway, Irving had left behind those clashing sound-waves of which one is scarcely aware until they have been succeeded by silence. In this tri- angular " place," noises were infrequent and of no [27] Something Else violent nature. Now, as the young man entered the sombre hallway, a deeper stillness closed about him, suggesting still farther isolation. At a glance, his eye took in the various doors, the abrupt flight of narrow stairs, which barely grazed the top of the back en- trance ; the interior of the parlor, revealed through the open threshold, and the gray-haired lady who had ad- mitted him. " I am Mrs. Wyse," said this lady, in a low, re- strained voice. This, then, was the only living person, at least so far as Irving knew, who possessed the knowledge of his parentage. The young man inhaled sharply, and his muscles grew rigid. It was as if he felt himself about to plunge into a cold and unknown stream. He gave his name, and referred to the letter. " Kindly enter," said the lady, showing no surprise, no particular interest. She moved gracefully toward the front room. " I have taken this house," she con- tinued, as he followed her, " and I rent the rooms to those who can furnish satisfactory references, and I " She added something which, to judge from her im- pressive manner, was of interest; but her voice had fal- len below the hearing-point. The lady closed the door, shutting out the lodging-house atmosphere with its evi- dence of damp umbrellas in the rack, a bathroom some- where upstairs, and a surreptitious habit, on the part of lodgers, of doing light housekeeping over gas jets. They seated themselves in the parlor, she, distant [28] A Lodging- House Dream and self-possessed, he, doing his utmost to restrain his impatience and to prepare himself for a possible shock. There prevailed in the room an air of taste which did much to condone the association of the upright piano with the folding-bed. On the wall were two portraits, one of the Prince of Wales, the other of a man who appeared equally distinguished. " My husband," said Mrs. Wyse, following his dis- turbed glance. " The Prince later King Edward was our friend. Thanks to him, we met many of the nobility, when we had our house in London." There was something in the aloofness of the lady's bearing to suggest that, in her association with the nobility, she had, as it were, caught a sort of duchess- contagion, and had been stricken for life. She im- pressed Irving unsympathetically. As he looked from her to the Prince of Wales, he did not, for a moment, doubt her claim to the rank that one acquires from con- tiguity with greatness. All this was outside of his experience, and therefore, of his sympathy. Moreover, he was not here to learn of princes. The father and mother who had deserted him to blind chance, who had never emerged from their cloud of mystery that he might accuse them definitely what of these ? Never- theless, as the lady drew nearer the object of his com- ing, he felt an impulse to delay the revelation. " And so," came the distant voice, without curiosity, without satisfaction, without, in a word, any emotion, " I see once more Irving Payne." She paused a mo- [29] Something Else ment, then added reflectively, " It is but yesterday, or so it seems, that I saw you, a little babe, in your mother's arms." Irving's face burned. He sought desperately to still the sudden hammering of his heart. "My mother?" he exclaimed, sharply. But he could not go on, though his lips moved. What could he ask, without asking amiss? The first great vital fact confronted him, de- manding definition. He stammered out, " Is she dead? " " Yes," Mrs. Wyse answered, dispassionately, " she died many years ago. Shall I tell you all I know? " " I entreat you to do so tell me everything." " About twenty years ago, I lived here happily with my husband. You have, of course, read of Colonel Wyse in your history, when you were a schoolboy. Yes, that great commander was my husband. We had a lovely home on Murray Hill. Perhaps you remember about the funeral how the President hurried from Washington on a special car that was before special cars were so common. And now, see! I am reduced to taking in lodgers " The faint voice sank below the surface. When it came to Irving's ears, it was saying, " About that time. Yes, a woman came to my home a woman of the under stratum." Mrs. Wyse seemed to set this woman at an infinite distance from herself and the Prince of Wales. " She told me that she had taken into her humble tenement, a mother and babe from Chicago. The mother had just died died from pneumonia brought on, doubtless, by exposure to the weather [30] A Lodging- House Dream that was a cruel winter. TJie woman from Chicago was your mother; and you were the babe." "Brought on by exposure to the weather?" Irving ejaculated, with a shudder. " And you say that was my mother? " " Yes. But I continue. Why did this woman of the lower stratum come to me, why tell me about the woman lying dead in her poor room, and the motherless babe? I will explain. When the Colonel and I came over from Europe, the year before his death, we were much abroad, at a time when Europe was not so common, it chanced that our tug had on board the wife of the captain. As we came out of quarantine, I engaged this excellent woman Mrs. Payne in conversation. She wished to adopt a little boy, never having had any chil- dren." " Ah, yes," Irving exclaimed, " I have heard Mother Payne speak of the lady who helped her to find an orphan." " Exactly. I considered her purpose a worthy one, and let it be known that I should like to find a deserv- ing case. So this woman of the lower stratum came to me, and I sent her to the wife of the tugboat captain. I need not tell you that that gentleman was Captain Silas Payne, who became your foster-father; his boat was the Hudsonia. The Paynes took you, without question. Indeed, they wanted to know nothing of your parents since they no doubt " Away went the aristo- cratic voice, into the depths. Irving, desperately determined to catch every word [31] Something Else that concerned himself, drew his chair nearer. What he most wished to hear, had not yet been uttered. Mrs. Wyse, whose lowness of voice was not the re- sult of weak lungs, but of acute self -consciousness, con- tinued in that key which modulated her personality to the tone of princes : " I did not know whether the Paynes adopted you or not," she murmured. " In fact, I lost sight of all the characters in our little story. About a week ago I read in the papers of the burning of the Hudsonia; it appears that Captain Payne had allowed the insurance to lapse. I am very sorry. I saw a reference to his ' adopted son,' and knew from the details that it must have been the babe whom I had recommended to Mrs. Payne. It occurred to me that, since you are now of age, you ought to know at least as much of your parents as the woman of the lower stratum told me before her death." " Her death ! Then this woman who befriended my mother is dead, too? " " Yes, she was pushed from an * L ' platform, and killed instantly. I imagine I am the only one who can tell you of your father and mother, except " The rest was lost, but Irving meant to have all before he left. It was years since he had spoken of his mother. Now when he pronounced the name, it sounded strange and unnatural in his ears, as if his voice sought a new and untried tone in which to pronounce the word of mystery. " This woman of the lower stratum," Mrs. Wyse con- [32] A Lodging- House Dream tinued, " told me that while your mother was lying dead in her home, your father came to seek her, and, find- ing her dead, threw himself upon her body with heart- breaking cries." Mrs. Wyse spoke evenly, but Irving started up, while darting pain pierced his heart. " Why were they separated? " he demanded, roughly. " Where had he been ? Why was she alone, to be ex- posed to the weather? " " Young man, pray be calm. Your mother had married against the wishes of her family. She was connected with a very powerful family here, but your father, while a good and deserving man, was poor. He was a Westerner, and they had eloped to Chicago. Affairs had gone badly. She slipped from home with her tiny babe, to appeal to her family. She came to New York, meaning to write to her husband that she had gained forgiveness, never doubting that she would obtain it. But she was repulsed. Disease struck her down. She w r as dying when she wrote to her husband, and as I said, when he reached her, she was already dead. Your father died soon after, also of pneu- monia, and perhaps, or, I should say, no doubt, without desire to live. So you see, they have all been gone, many years the father, the mother, and the woman who sheltered the mother and nursed the father; only you are left, you and your foster-parents." Irving, who was still upon his feet, walked to the window, and stood staring vacantly across the triangu- lar " place." His emotions were varied, but their only expression was a deep frown of perplexity. That his [33] Something Else parents had probably discarded him with a selfish, even criminal indifference to his fate, had been one of the sombre probabilities of his life. That is why he had dreaded all revelations. In spite of the tragedy that spoke beneath the surface of Mrs. Wyse's coldly chosen words, Irving felt an almost overpowering relief. That his father and mother should be dead was by no means startling; it was what he had always hoped, because death seemed for them the only excuse. It now ap- peared that they possessed this excuse ; not only so, but death had overtaken them they had not pursued it. But was it not strange that the Paynes had known nothing of the story? Perhaps not, since, in their de- sire to have him as their very own, they had refused to examine any clew that might have led to his identity. His frown, caused by the maze of tangled and broken threads that alone remained of his past this frown vanished. A feeling of infinite pity for the mother seeking forgiveness, for the father seeking his young wife, for the obscure fate of both, softened him, but not to the point of revealing his emotion to the landlady. There was something about Mrs. Wyse that demanded respect, yet forbade confidences. He could not think her false ; but he believed her cold and unsympathetic. " You have my sincerest gratitude for what you have told me," he said, presently walking to her chair. " What you have told me, makes everything so different ! " He extended his hand, and for a moment her cool fingers slipped into his grasp. " What was my father's name? " he asked, abruptly. [34] A Lodging- House Dream " I was sure you would be glad to know," murmured the other, " that your mother was connected with the best circles of New York society, and that your father was a gentleman, and that it was not indifference that caused you to be left unprovided for. His name? Let me see it escapes me in fact, I can remember neither his name, nor your mother's maiden-name. But I shall, no doubt, recollect them; or, at least, if I do not " Irving's disappointment was great. " Surely you have not forgotten? " " I am afraid so yes I cannot remember. The woman of the lower stratum " "She is dead!" " Yes, but she left a husband a worthless fellow a tramp, a miserable tramp. He deserted the woman even before she had breathed her last. He remembers the whole story." " A tramp ! " Irving echoed, in dismay. " Then the solution is indeed lost ! " " It is only a short time since I met this tramp," said Mrs. Wyse, thoughtfully. " He hangs about the city every winter. He will be sure to cross my path in a month or two, for he never fails to question me." Irving regarded her doubtfully. " Question you? " " Yes. This tramp would like to sell his secret, and he has always suspected that I knew the people who adopted you. The Paynes did not wish themselves to be known in the matter that was to shield you. So the tramp never has found out who got you, or what has [35] Something Else become of you. But he thinks I know. And he is anx- ious to make a little money out of his knowledge." "As for my mother's family," said Irving, with a contemptuous smile, " I would not give a penny to know who they are, I care not what their position. Those who turned away my mother to die of exposure, are dead to me. But certainly I should like to know my father's name, and my father's people. So if you ever see this tramp again, do not fail to send him to me." " Yes," whispered Mrs. Wyse, folding her hands. She was dressed in mourning, presumably in memory of the Colonel, and the black setting added a touch to the effect of her gentility. " You have rooms to rent," said Irving, somewhat abruptly. "Have you a cheap one? I mean a very cheap one." " My skylight-room is occupied. There is the third- floor back, for four dollars, held by a young man who means to give it up unless I can find him a room-mate. He is very respectable. Would you like to share the expense with him? " Irving considered. " What do you know of his busi- ness?" " He 's a night clerk in a Broadway railroad office. He is at work from six in the evening till three the next morning." " Well ! " cried Irving, " since I 'm to be at work dur- ing the day, that would suit me. So would the price. But I 'd like to see my man." He found his man in the third-floor back, a short, [36] A Lodging- House Dream stocky young fellow, very dark and taciturn whose manners plainly indicated that Irving was to be spared the fatigues of friendship. In planning how boxes and chairs could be so arranged as to permit free movement in the narrow chamber, it was Irving who talked, and smiled amiably, while Wedging merely nodded or shook his head. " Many things can be piled upon the radiator, I sup- pose," Irving remarked. " It never gets hot enough to burn anything, eh? That bedstead will have to stay across the window. We '11 bring in another, and fill all the rest of the space with it. But where '11 we be? Suppose I am in bed at ten. Here you come at three in the morning. You get your bed and stretch it across the door. Good. At about eight or, at worst, seven I am ready to sally forth. Now, will you be willing to get up and let me pass, or must I go down the fire- escape ? " Smiles are luxuries; Wedging was an economist. " I '11 change the door hinges so the door '11 open into the hall." "And you won't object to my climbing over you, every morning? " " Not for two dollars a week," answered the utili- tarian. That evening as Irving dined at the window-shelf of a lunch-wagon, which he styled his " buffet," a new exhilaration flavored his egg sandwich and Frankfurter. Before the burning of the Hudsonia, he had felt it his duty to learn all he possibly could at the university Something Else his foster-parents asked only that he become everything they were not. In their necessity, it was now his part to aid them with his brain and hands. An artist- friend had found him occupation; upon the morrow he was to begin his career as bread-winner. Nothing could have shed such cheering light upon the prospect as he had derived from the revelation of Mrs. Wyse. The burden of the past had slipped away. The cloud that had, throughout his life, threatened his future, seemed to have rolled away, showing a new sky full of hope. True, his parents were dead; but they had loved him. Father and mother had become separated ; but their mis- fortunes had been caused by their own poverty and the unforgiving spirit of their kindred. When he returned to the triangle where the three streets met, what had formerly seemed only dulness, was now peace and sweet content. As he passed the parlor-door on his way to his room, Mrs. Wyse addressed him, and he reproached himself for being irritated by her almost inaudible voice. " I hope you will regard Gotham Repose as a home, rather than a lodging-house," she murmured. " Every evening this room belongs to my guests. The piano is free to all. I hope you will enjoy my hospitality." She appeared distinguished, as she stood in the door- way, the light streaming over her gray hair, and touch- ing her correct mouth. Irving thanked her, thinking it not likely that he would ever put this hospitality to the proof. He had almost reached Wedging's room, when he discovered [38] A Lodging- House Dream a young woman coming down from the garret doubt- less the occupant of the skylight-room. Instead of a staircase, there was, as one often finds in such houses, simply a carpeted ladder. The first warning the young man received, of any one coming down this ladder, was a little foot, and an ankle, rounded to a marvel. It was just such a foot, it was just such an ankle, as Irving most admired, and least often saw ; and foot and ankle belonged to a form which carried out all the promise of this exquisite beginning. It was a figure neither tall nor impressive, but it was one filled out to the extreme of ideal plumpness, without the indiscretion of heaviness. Irving passed slowly on; but when he reached his door, he found it impossible to enter without looking back. Nothing could have exceeded the roundness of her arms, cheeks, chin, neck. This wave-scheme was continued in her black hair which was bound in scallops above large black eyes in a most tantalizing manner. There was, above all, a curve of the red lips which would have undermined the last foundation of resistance, had one stone remained upon another, in Irving's breast. Her dress was in the perfection of the latest possible mode; but Irving was too absorbed in noting face and form, to judge of the quality of fabrics, a practised eye needs but a glance to differentiate the debutante of the upper world from the simple shopgirl. Still, Irving's reason had not entirely deserted him; it told him that a lady of Fifth Avenue would not inhabit the skylight-room. [39] Something Else When the last sound of those amazing feet had died away, Irving slipped quietly into his new quarters as quietly as if afraid of awakening a dream of beauty. One look told him that Mrs. Wyse had set the second bed a slender iron affair upon one leg in the only available corner, there to remain until Wedging came to reduce it to the horizontal. Irving's baggage was here from the ferry-house the Paynes lived in New Jersey. Backing the one rocking-chair against the bed which he was to occupy, thus removing the rockers from the tiny field of operations, Irving seated himself, chin upon hand, and gave himself up to a bewildering dream. The radiator gradually lost all warmth; then it became cool; then cold. At last, the young man started up, and sought in his box for three rubber balls. He was an adept in keeping them up in the air, and it occurred to him that such rapid exercise should be warming. He could not go to bed so early, for he had not thought long enough about the exquisite curves of of the floating flag above his railroad office, of the rounded dome, the gilded letters of the various signs. All his future seemed written, in rounded lines of beauty. He grew warm; so warm that a flush appeared in his cheeks. A ball dropped but he did not pick it up. He had heard a sound from below that seemed calling. It was a " diminished chord," crushed out of the upright piano. " Let us see about that ! " said Irving, preparing to descend. He examined his tie, patted his hair, reset his pin. Then he hurried down to meet his fate. [40] CHAPTER III THE JESSIE ROMANCE IRVING PAYNE'S dream of splendid curves did not vanish with his first night at Gotham Repose. For one of his years, he had seen a good deal of the world, hence did not make the mistake of confusing; the dream with reality. Still, in the midst of such re- lentless realism as one finds in a railroad office, one may yet live much in dreams. Twenty stories above the sidewalk, the noise of Broad- way came to those office windows as the distant hum of bees. In the office, the routine work of typewriting letters and making tabulated reports scarcely allowed one's eyes the briefest holiday excursions from green baize tables to blue-prints along the walls. So far as intercourse with mankind was concerned, Irving might have been on a desert island with a few savages to fetch and carry. So deep was one's immersion in this back- water of existence, that the swinging of the heavy glass doors passed unnoticed. Messenger boys, no less obviously uniformed by the insolence of their swagger, than by cloth and buttons, kept the elevators busy. The noisy feet of telegraph boys, even their open-mouthed manner of chewing in- terminable gum, passed unperceived. [41] Something Else Had there been a disposition on Irving's part to es- cape, for a moment, from this perennial hurry, there was the chief day-clerk to crush the instinct of self- preservation. It was the business of the " old man " who was not much older than Irving to destroy in- dividualism. The " old man " knew that he owed his position to the fact that he was like, not unlike, all suc- cessful chief-clerks. It was for him to get the utmost work possible from each inferior, and the way to do so was to treat each man as a unit in a great machine. To this superior, Irving was no more a man than was the private stenographer a young woman. It did not take many days for Irving to realize the impossibility of pleasing the chief -clerk. There was a certain amount of work to be done ; if he failed to do it, there was a host of others waiting to step into his place. To do one's best meant exactly what was re- quired of every pawn in this great game of business. That is why every face wore a look, more or less alike, not of kinship of blood, or brotherhood, but of common fate. In that microcosm, so near the sky, each brain that felt itself capable of independent thought and wider achievement felt, at the same time, that iron bit of neces- sity that guides through unflowered paths to one's daily bread. Hitherto, Irving's life had been singularly free and simple, free because he was never required to serve actively upon Captain Payne, and therefore was as un- restrained as the river, without the river's toll of labor; simple, because of the wholesome, if obscure, lives of his [42] The Jessie Romance foster-parents. The Paynes had asked nothing of their adopted son, except to acquire an education that would fit him for a higher sphere than they had ever known. But for the burning of Captain Payne's tugboat, having faithfully attended the university long enough to satisfy his foster-parents needless to say, himself as well would have been free to look about, before plunging into any business. But when the Hudsonia went up in flames, the young man was glad enough to thank his artist-friend for his trouble in securing him a paying position. It did seem a pity, after studying so long at the university, that he could not work at Latin, or French, instead of railroad tariffs. Fortunately he did not find his Latin or French at all in his way. At the lodging-house of Mrs. Sadie Wyse, Irving would scarcely have found sufficient relief for his buoy- ant disposition, in its recoil from the remorseless grind of Broadway, had it not been for his dream. There was no satisfaction to be derived from his room-mate. He saw little of Wedging, except when crawling over that dark and taciturn young man's sleeping form, in the morning escapes from the third-floor back. It is true that, on ascending to the cramped room at bedtime, he usually found sheets of paper strewn about, covered with rows of figures. These figures, scribbled by Wedg- ing, seemed to deal with the market prices of every stock and bond cried upon Wall Street, or at the Curb. Wedging's calculations usually ended in a neat row of six zeroes, preceded by a figure not to be despised. That is why Irving, when conversing with Jessie Tiff, [43] Something Else often referred to his room-mate as " the millionaire." In the meantime, Wedging worked for fifteen dollars a week. Irving received twenty, but did not therefore feel justified in an interest in the Stock Exchange or the Board of Trade. But it did put him, as it were, upon his feet, at least for conversational purposes, so far as Jessie was concerned. Jessie Tiff was the one relief that rendered Mrs. Wyse's lodging-house a fit recoil from the slavery of the green baize desk. She was the dream, the dream of glorious curves, that had descended by way of the carpeted ladder from the skylight-room, into his life. If the day's work in the skyscraper was a period of suspended mental animation, a sort of wak- ing dream in monotone and monochrome, the dream of Jessie which made nothing of her last name was done in infinite variety. Irving sometimes dreamed that she was not a shop- girl, that her tones were never jarring, that her form of speech was not remorselessly bound in the fetters of bor- rowed slang. He dreamed that her taste in dressing had not been derived from close observation of those upon whom she waited at the department store; he dreamed that her splendid poise, her graceful movements, her little archings of the brows, and flexible turnings of the mouth, had not been copied from living prototypes of the fashionable avenues. He dreamed that all Jes- sie's manifestations of culture and refinement were in- herent, were as much a part of the actual Jessie, as was her charming form, and her deliciously rounded cheeks. [44] The Jessie Romance It is true that there were times when the rather high- pitched, rather sharp-edged tones of the pretty girl, made these dreams quake for their very lives ; when the same slangy expression that had done duty at a display at the Museum of Art, was brought to bear upon a seven-course dinner for forty cents both were " heavenly." Had her phrases been electrotyped, not to save the labor of setting up new type, but because there were no new ideas to be published? There were times, too, when, through the veneering of a more complex semblance, little spots of the original material appeared, before the ever-watchful Jessie could apply a brush of borrowed varnish. But there were other times when Jessie's great black eyes looked out wistfully upon the world that threatened to engulf her, and when the curved mouth was held mo- tionless in something like the melancholy of a child who is sad just because she must at one time or another be everything. At such times, Irving's dreams, no longer fighting against great odds of actuality, held high carnival a Mardi Gras, of which Irving was the king, and the queen was not far to seek. It was a curious truth maybe it was not the truth, then ? but it seemed to Irving that he most en j oy ed Jessie when she was not present ! Could such a paradox be possible ? For instance, when Monsieur du Pays filled the parlor with his tenor voice that voice, so Madame said, that had once sung with Caruso Irving was filled to his inmost being with the melody of Jessie. It might be soon after the girl had slipped from his side, soon [45] Something Else after she had ascended to her skylight-room per- chance to clean her gloves with benzine and it was certain to be while Monsieur was still singing. Mon- sieur's voice would tremble with " J'ai vu les s6aphins en songe " To the young man, " seraphins " was the French for Jessie-phins. According to Jessie, Monsieur was temporarily " out of a job." Madame stated it differently: "Monsieur du Pays is no longer appreciated." He had sung in grand opera, many times in Paris; once, but yes! in Milan ; and at the Metropolitan, before the fire. Alas ! Monsieur is no longer young. He tosses back his great head with the air, he swells his chest, and as he sings, keeps his eyes glued upon the portrait of the Prince of Wales. But he sees not that once-boasted as- set of American High Society. No, no, he beholds, in- stead, thousands of breathless faces propped, as it were, against giant support of his " Vive encore, hymne eternel." And when, in his last " S'elance vers leciel" he projects his voice heavenward, he hears the tumult of vanished years, as if ten thousand bravas sound for him their ghost-music. But to Irving Payne, all this is simply Jessie made harmoniously audible. " His throat is uncertain," Madame du Pays explains for the hundredth time. " That is just the trouble. One never can tell when it will cease to how do you say ? support. Monsieur has stood behind the footlights that caressed Parepa Rosa and other very great [46] The Jessie Romance artistes. But on his last appearance before the multi- tude mon dieu! his head was thrown back, his chest was expanded, as you see it now; but no music issued from that traitorous throat, not so much as one audi- ble sigh. What would you? The rabble thinks only of getting its money's worth. If one cannot sing, another can. But you hear him to-night is he not the great singer?" And Madame's eyes, usually gaunt and troubled, fill with a shining delight, bright enough, per- haps, to dissolve a tear. And, with Jessie gone, Irving sees only Jessie, hears only Jessie, loves Jessie, or loves her not. For it is a dream. And if Jessie Tiff has designs upon this young rail- road clerk, if there is premeditation in her absences, in her preening of feathers, in her clever imitation of finer natures, who shall say she has not the right? Need we climb the carpeted ladder and slyly enter Jessie's room the right of all honest readers to discover the young occupant, in faded kimono, carefully pressing and otherwise mysteriously renovating her gowns and winter wraps for the undoing of mankind? Shall we watch her creep from bed in the cold dawn to cook her egg, and heat her coffee, over the gas jet, shivering the while not we, but Jessie because the radiator is colder than her feet? One may have perfect feet, it appears, without the means of warming them, at the sixth hour of a December morning. Shall we take note of the fact that, though her wages are only six dollars a week, her room rent is two that her breakfast and dinner cost fifteen cents each, while the luncheon in the Something Else department store restaurant is ten? At any rate she has not much left, after the price of living, for the pleasures of life! There is something like a dollar and thirty cents for occasionally tipping the waiter, and for clothes and laundry but fortunately one can do one's own washing. No doubt there is a mother on the East Side, who borrows a little money now and then there is very little over yonder, it is said. So let Irving Payne look to himself! She recognized in Irving Payne a clean, upright man, one to be trusted. Without doubt, his devotion to any girl would take the old-fashioned course of matrimony. Perhaps she would marry him. His twenty dollars a week seemed a great deal, and, for all she knew, her re- spect for him might really be that love of which people spoke when they were on the stage, and of which every- body sang. It was plain enough that Irving brightened whenever he saw her coming, and that he sank into a sort of trance whenever she went away. Perhaps love affected him thus ; all hearts do not act alike. As Jessie industriously washed her stockings on the rickety stand of the little skylight-room, she cared not a pin for the powerful voice of Monsieur du Pays, as it came storming up the three flights of steps. As clearly as if she were down there, she could see Irving sitting with folded arms, dreaming of her, while pale-faced, emotional little Madame du Pays accompanied her husband on the coldly severe upright piano. Jessie preferred the pianos in some of her friends' boarding- houses, pianos whose tops groaned under a heterogeneous [48] The Jessie Romance collection of small statuary in undress, glass-encased chromos, and lithographs. But Mrs. Wyse did not use her instrument as a pedestal for art. Mrs. Wyse would be seated by the folding-bed which disguised itself so successfully as a bookcase, that it seemed rather an ac- cident than an accessory to the conspiracy of utilizing space. Yes, there sat Mrs. Wyse Jessie saw her only too distinctly wearing the lofty look that indicated she had had the music made to order at some fashion- able voice-establishment. Well, they liked that sort of thing. And so did she, she supposed, only one must make one's living, and make it in these very stockings, until others can be darned. Twenty dollars a week is, no doubt, a great deal of money to one who earns only six. But remember! with twenty dollars come five times as many longings that may almost be gratified. On a small income, you know your limitations ; but when the income is enlarged, who knows what may happen? Think of thirty dollars' worth of longings on twenty a week ! It was the prob- lem of Irving's life to get his thirty dollars' worth for his twenty. Not that he had twenty a week that one may take from his pocket to spend as one pleases. Half of Irving's earnings went to his foster-parents, that they might not lose their former payments on their New Jersey cottage. The first Sunday, he took them the ten dollars. The second Sunday, he sent it it would have been diffi- cult to leave Mrs. Wyse's lodging-house on that second [49] Something Else Sunday. The third Sunday he seemed glued to the house. On the fourth, departure was unthinkable. The first week of Jessie was like playing with the co- caine habit. Later, it was fastened upon him. The department store in which Jessie had accepted a position as saleslady she served at the handkerchief- counter, near the music-room was but a block or so from the airy nest in which Irving daily drooped his wings. Until six in the evening, he seldom stood up, and she never sat down, except during the noon-hour. Naturally, they sometimes sat down together. It might be in some dingy little restaurant in the French Quarter, or among the Italians south of Washington Square, where everything is cheap, and strange tastes may be attributed to a foreign cuisine. Or, they might lunch together in the department store restaurant. And what a difficult taste he had in the way of handkerchiefs! Considering his means, that young man bought too many of them, there can be no doubt of that ! This prodigal- ity took him often to her counter. He was standing there with her one day, just after their noon-luncheon, when they heard for the first time a song that was destined soon to sweep with awful dev- astation down every street and alley of the city, like the consuming fury of a prairie fire. It began in ragtime, of course " You may have the rest of the world, But give me New York for mine. I 'd swop the dough of Baltimo', And all the wealth of Philadelph', And all the fat of Cincinnat', [SO] The Jessie Romance And all the can of old San Fran', For a little bit of Broadway." That was the name of this piece de resistance, " A Little Bit of Broadway." There was a chorus, also, you may be sure, in ragtime : "New York! They all embark From the land of Cork, Let alone Newark, New Jer . . . zy." Jessie smiled. " Good for the nice old boy ! " she said heartily, glancing at the partition that shut off the music-room. " He 's found a job at last." It was, in truth, Monsieur du Pays singing in the music-room, so that prospective purchasers of the new- est songs might know what they were getting for their twenty-three cents. Poor Monsieur du Pays ! " He deserves something better," Irving exclaimed, with a wry mouth. " Sure! Don't all of us? " Jessie smiled. " He 's on to his job, all right. Ain't he the sweet old thing!" Irving winced. But when Jessie smiled into his eyes, not only showing a generous pleasure in the good luck of the whilom star of grand opera, but at the same time revealing an entrancing tenderness of melting lips There were other times better times, for they were mellowed by soft lights which were closely kin to even softer shadows. This was after Jessie had joined the evening's army of working-girls. That sea of weary faces, was touched, seemingly, with a sardonic mirthful- [51] Something Else ness, as if laughing at the fate so curiously devoid of humor. Jessie, borne along in the stream, was more like a beautiful leaf floating on dark waters, than an integral part of the stream of toil. Irving would de- tach her, leading her away to some cosey restaurant what is so romantic as eating? where prices rose to the level of cosiness. For a time they became denizens of the world in which the young man would have re- mained always. As they rested, with a keen appreciation of the bless- ings of rest, among snowy napkins, gleaming mirrors, and palms that were real; as they were soothed by the music of an orchestra composed of three violins and a piano ; as they were touched to vivid glory by the edg- ing of starlike lights, it was as if the department store and the railroad office were the dreams, and this dream, the real awakening. If the piano was always breaking through the gossamer cloth of melody spun by the weav- ing bows, did they notice ? If the waiter kept them wait- ing because he saw no fee at the end of his field of service, did they care? When the possibility of lingering longer in such scenes of gayety diminished to the vanishing-point of the cash- ier's half-veiled look, Irving would take Jessie home, by way of Fourth Street; and, as they entered the quiet " place " which he dubbed " Lee's Triangle," perhaps he would sing out j oy ously : "Let alone Newark, New Jer . . . ey." [52] The Jessie Romance Then both would trip up the steps of Gotham Repose singing, "New York!" Which they pronounced N'Yark " They all embark From the land of Cork" (Cark, mind!) "Let alone Newark, New Jer . . . zy." " You are always calling this place ' Lee's Triangle,' " said Jessie, on one such occasion. " That 's not its name." " It 's my name for it," said Irving, serenely. " These three streets, coming together, make an isosceles triangle, don't they ? " Did they ? Jessie was sure she did n't know. " So," Irving expounded, " as it 's an isosceles tri- angle, I call it ' Lee's Triangle ' for short." Jessie did not in the least know what isosceles meant, but she laughed ; it is nearly always safe to laugh. They went into the parlor reference is made to no particular evening, but to any evening. She picked out the air of "A Little Bit of Broadway." When she might have struck a wrong key, Irving held his finger upon it, to frighten her away; but if she stayed away, his hand went seeking hers. It often proved successful in the quest. There was more enjoyment in touching her hand, than in merely looking at it. Its shapeliness seemed of that sort that is better felt than seen ; besides, its warmth was lost to the eye. Sometimes he held it so [53] Something Else long before she drew smilingly away, that the possibility of Mrs. Wyse's entrance somewhat disconcerted him. But it was not disconcerting to Jessie; and it was de- licious to Irving. Sometimes when they came briskly out of the world of crystalline white, Irving would say, " I 'm afraid your hands must be cold." And Jessie, very frankly would extend her hand with- out a word ten times more charming because without a word and Irving would take her hand ; sometimes he touched her cheek, so red from the nipping frost, so round, so adorably round. Mrs. Wyse never inter- rupted them. That was well enough. Old people do not understand ; old people imagine but what have we to do with old people Irving and Jessie were as young as two persons can possibly be at their age in the twentieth century what a great, what a magnifi- cent, what a marvellous century it is, to be sure, be- cause we are living in it 1 Doubtless it was as well for Wedging that he had to go to work at six p. M., and hence saw nothing of all this. On Sundays when both Irving and Wedging were free, Jessie could take her choice; each was equally de- voted. Though Wedging " knew nothing about mu- sic," and therefore, being a true-born American, boasted somewhat vain-gloriously of the fact, he never tired of the havoc Jessie wrought in popular airs. Like a ship at anchor, he rode the sea of melody, heeding not the changes in the currents. He took up his posi- tion whence he could look into her face, usually on the [54] The Jessie Romance very divan occupied on weekdays by Irving. As Irving listened every day, so listened his room-mate once a week, and both heard the same thing not the Coon song, not the ragtime ditty, not the Indian ballad, but the subterranean murmur of their own emotions. If Jessie lightly skirted difficult bits of accompaniment, if, beholding ugly runs, she darted around the base, in order to play again the easy passages, who cared? Who cared for anything but Jessie ? To Wedging, love was no dream. It was a reality, wide awake and keenly alive to the certainty that his income could not adequately support a wife. This knowledge kept his intelligence from even so much as dozing. " Nobody is depending on me," he told Jessie, as they stood, one clear December afternoon, watching the bay from the Battery wall. " All I earn belongs to me and it '11 be yours, if you '11 wait for me. You 're the first girl I ever asked, and I '11 never ask another," he added, with never a sign on the surface, to suggest the swift current of subterranean emotions. Did he think that the way to win Jessie's heart feeding her upon facts? " But I ask you," he went on, prosaically ; " and I ask you to wait. For I tell you, I know I '11 be well fixed some day." And he held up his right arm, the fist clenched. That was a great deal for Wedging to do. It was a great deal for him to say. Unfortu- nately, Jessie did not compare him with former Wedging- manifestations. [55] Something Else " Just let me know when you are," was Jessie's non- committal retort. The stocky and exceedingly dark young man had none of Irving's grace, or good looks. He did not dress so well ; and he had never spent a penny on her behalf. Wedging's parsimonious precautions to ensure a future day of ease, seemed unattractive. What a waste of time going to Wall Street and Broad Street every weekday, immediately after his stingy luncheon of buttermilk (two cups) and bread-and-but- ter! How uninteresting, dawdling about brokers' of- fices, or in the visitors' gallery at the Exchange only to come home to fill many foolscap-pages with the fluctu- ating prices of stocks and bonds ! It did not enrich Wedging, nor did it amuse Jessie. She fancied it dis- contented him with his daily grind. Moreover, why did he pretend to care for her, when his heart and brain were given to railroad-bonds of jumbled geographical names? Three hours a day were not too many to spend on Wall and Broad Streets, yet he had never once taken her to a restaurant, or to a show. Not even to Moving Pic- tures. Just think of that ! " Can't you give me a little hope that you '11 wait for me," said Wedging, " just to make the game seem more worth while? There 's no use talking about love and all that ; but of course, if I did n't love you, I would n't be asking to devote my life to you." (How funny she thought him, when he said " love and " as if any con- junction, no matter how scientifically copulative, could add to perfection!) " This is no time to be romantic " (it was the only time that Jessie cared a pin for) " and [56] The Jessie Romance I know I'm nothing" (in his honest effort to win her, he was pretty hard on himself), " but the time '11 come you '11 see What do you say, Jess ? " " I 'm getting cold," was what Jessie said, as if hunt- ing something in a childish game, and getting farther from it all the time. " Ugh ! I 'm freezing. Don't you hate those choppy little waves out there in winter? Let 's go back to the old woman's " Thus we des- ignate Mrs. Sadie Wyse, in our pride of youth. " Say, Mr. Wedging, Irving Payne gave me the sweetest little Christmas present I ever saw. I '11 show it to you, when we get back." Cute? It certainly was. " He 's got nothing, except what he works for, day by day," Wedging growled. " I 'd hate to work like a dog, with nothing to show for it. But if I save up, remember it 's for your sake, Jess. What do you say ? " She said practically nothing, till they reached Trinity Church; there, she led the way into the graveyard. His gaze instinctively wandered down crooked Wall Street, and her heart was hardened. " Oh ! " she said, hypocritically, as she bent over a defaced tombstone, " I was mistaken ... I thought I read your name on it." But it was not really so bad as all that. Wedg- ing's hopes seemed dead; but they had not yet been buried. Wedging's ideas of economy were not those of Irving Payne. It was Irving's custom to save as carefully as present duty and pleasure allowed, save to the sacrifice of personal comfort, even personal needs then spend all in one grand pyrotechnical display of joy. About [57] Something Else once a month, one might find him in the marble corridors of those hotels in which people of wealth are seen all the time. During his brief evening of perihelion, he rubbed elbows with men whose names are heard around the world possibly without the firing of a shot for native land and dined in the same room with women whose diamonds, horses, and divorces furnished breath- less reading for those of us who are not so interesting. For that day nay, for that hour no one was more prodigal, in proportion to his capital, than Irving. His tips to the waiters changed each into winged-heeled Mer- curys; his critical taste was that of a born gourmet; and, at the theatre, no mediocre talent could coax his applause. In every appointment of dress he was im- maculate. He held Aladdin's lamp as long as there was a dollar in his pocket; and he rubbed it without hesitation. When the golden night was fled, gone was Irving's glory. But other such nights were to be an- ticipated ; those of the past put a good taste in memory's mouth, and the threadbare present was to be borne with grim philosophy. Hitherto, these upheavals from gray obscurity into the phosphorescent glare of bizarre splendor had pos- sessed for Irving Payne an isolation that makes even a volcano appear lonesome. His glory had lighted no sympathetic eye. Now, he was to have a companion. The climax of New Year's Eve was almost at hand, and Jessie was to shine by his side. There could be no dark corner in all the Great White Way, with Jessie by his side. [58] The Jessie Romance Their plans were laid with the strategic care demanded by economic joy. To the limit of his all, Irving' meant that they two should, for a time, take their places among the excessively rich and the perennially idle. They held delighted conferences over the wisest ways of securing the most folly a dollar will travel many roads, but on some it rolls much farther than on others. Irving half -believed these confidential plottings must be as enjoyable as the possible fruition. Time would tell; but, at present, Time was holding his tongue for Time has little to say, when two are young, together, perhaps knowing for he is very wise that neither would listen. It was a novel experience to Irving, to tell another and such another! just how much money he had to burn " spend " would be an anachronism. He con- fided in Jessie as if she had been what shall we say ? a favorite sister? So far, no word of love had compli- cated the situation. Therefore, he could look into her black eyes as often as he wished, without forcing a blush from their depths. Well, let us see : Every week he sends ten dollars to his foster-parents they have little to do in this history besides receiving that weekly allow- ance and his room comes to two more, his meals to five, and his laundry and the street-car fares. . . . Why go into that? But think of making these confi- dences to one so womanly, yet so girlish; so rosy, yet never too red; so plump, so round that's the word, so round oh, the wonder of her ! His watch has been pawned " You need n't be afraid, I '11 get it back [59] Something Else I 've done it before ; I always manage to redeem it." He who is so young and strong she who is so young and round surely they could redeem any promise, any hope, any ambition. Is happiness an old miser of a pawnbroker? Here they sit, on the night before the Great Night, intensely alive to the present, while speaking of the fu- ture; borrowing some of the next evening's brilliancy to warm this evening's smiles. They are in an Italian restaurant that promises very little with its weather- beaten front, its overshadowed sidewalk, its small win- dows. There is no sign as of " The Boar's Head," or 66 The King's Arms," of course not. We read noth- ing on the sign but " Pasquale's " ; that shows plainly enough, for each letter lights up, one at a time they seem to chase each other across the wall in an electric race. That is the exterior. But within glasses tin- kle, dishes clink together, laughter rises. Irving and Jessie hear everything, see everything. Now comes Chartier, the rather celebrated Chartier, who conducts a French restaurant ; he confers with Pasquale, his Italian rival. Has Pasquale a singer he could spare? Chartier's soloist has been arrested because of But none of us are perfect. It seems that these men exchange hostages of art, like generals in time of battle. Chartier, the Gaul, finding superfluous Italians on his list, sends them to Italian masters. He goes away empty-handed, however ; Pasquale has no French talent to spare. Jessie whispers to Irving, " I wonder would Monsieur [60] The Jessie Romance du Pays like Chartier's better than the music-room at the store?" " I '11 ask him," Irving answers. The next instant Monsieur du Pays is forgotten all is forgotten but New Year's Eve, that epoch of frenzied delight. All New York will be a pandemonium of revelry by night, with no ears for any warning car rattling over the stony road New York ! And " You may have the rest of the world, But give me New York for mine. I 'd swop the dough of Baltimo', And all the wealth of Philadelph' " And, in short, all civic splendor " For a little bit of Broadway." Together they chant the lines in that dingy Italian restaurant off Washington Square, after their spaghetti, siroppo, and black coffee chant while their feet beat time on the sanded floor, and their eyes turn from the cheap print of Garibaldi hanging in the place of honor, to smile into each other's glowing face. [61] CHAPTER IV RICH FOR ONE HOUR THE cab is at the door what magic brought this shiny-black, star-eyed carriage to quiet " Lee's Triangle " for our Cinderella? Into it climbs one of the most wonderful creatures in all the city, namely a Cinderella who, thanks to her surplus of $1.30 a week, has contrived to play her own fairy godmother. Never mind the unheard-of sacrifices, the starvings, the cold hours in the skylight-room. Never mind the pinch- ing that must follow this night of Jessie's reign. For she does not mind in the least, just now. Then, why should we? After her very close, indeed comes Irving Payne in his silk hat, his Chesterfield overcoat, his silk-faced dresscoat, his white drill single-breasted waistcoat, his white tie, his white deerskin gloves, his moonstone studs and links, his patent-leather buttoned tops and if one could see to the very skin of him everything a gen- tleman should wear, and nothing that a gentleman shouldn't. We stand almost in awe of our hero. Whence this apparel of rich simplicity? Heavens! do not inquire of us. It is on his back, at any rate. " I wonder, shall we have trouble to find places for our dinner? " says Jessie, with the distinguished languor [62] Rich For One Hour of one who appears weary of filets de sole, marquise and G. H. Mumm, extra dry. She was dressed. . . . But no, spare us ! "Trouble? I should think!" Irving interjects, laughing. Leaning back in pleasurable excitement the horses are now clacking down the street he tells her " the latest." There 's no use to go to Murray's, unless you engaged a chair weeks ago. At Shanley's, the reserved seats, that is to say, every seat, has been sold at five dollars. It 's the same story at Martin's. At Rector's ? Listen ! Twenty-five dollars for two. What do you think of that? " Did you ever ! " (This from Jessie. ) And mind you, that 's merely for the right to sit down. The real expense is later. " But, Irving, the big hotels ? " " Same thing," says Irving, jubilant over difficulties. " At Delmonico's, at Sherry's, at the Waldorf-Astoria and the like, they haven't charged in advance. But really, it '11 be just as hard to get into any of 'em. I 've known fellows I mean fellows with the unlimited turned away, hotel after hotel. It was that way last year." " Then what will we do? " asks Jessie, with a delicious shiver of alarm. " You wait," says Irving, who knows no more than she, what will happen. " I always trust to luck." It was early, but already the streets were filled with the holiday throngs. The noise had not commenced, but every man, woman, and child to be seen on the side- walks showed themselves provided with fruits of the [68] Something Else afternoon curb sales cowbells, tin horns, squeaking balloons, rattles, iron mocking birds, and everything else small enough to be carried, and loud enough to be heard above horses' hoofs. Another evidence of the approach- ing Saturnalia was furnished by the show-windows; they were boarded up from ground to topsash. Miles of pine boards protected plate glass, all the way from Trinity Church to Fourteenth Street. Apparently, the Old Year was expected to die hard. The cab stopped before one of New York's most splendid hotels. Irving was amazed to be graciously received ; he and his lady had been expected, it seemed not only so, but wonder was expressed that " the others " had not come. " Are the others coming later? " inquired the head- waiter, who guarded the street door as jealously as a sentinel listening for the password. At his nod, princes of fortune were admitted; at the shake of his head always accompanied by a regretful and respect- ful smile other princes were solemnly assured that " every place was occupied." As for the wandering canaille, they were thrust out, to a man, into the outer brightness of Broadway, which, to them, was the same as outer darkness. " The others will, no doubt, come later," said Irving gravely outwardly, his gravity was almost sombre. Of course he had been taken for some one else that was temporarily fortunate. " Will you wait for the others? " inquired the sover- eign of the dining-room. [64] Rich For One Hour " We will wait at the table," said Irving. " You need not bring us anything yet." When they were relieved of the dread presence, Irving looked at Jessie. " It 's a gold brick," he observed. " I wonder who I am ? " " I thought we were the whole thing," laughed Jessie. " It seems there are others." They laughed together, delighted with their adventure. It was as if they had just come to court, riding up to the castle out of some good old romance of olden time. There was much to be seen in the way of beauty and bounty, and, after all, they had come to see, rather than to eat. They enjoyed the prestige of lolling grace- fully in their coveted chairs, as to expression, conscien- tiously blase, while tardy arrivals envied them their good fortune. They won the errant glances of little parties seated at their bef ore-theatre dinners. Irving was de- lighted to observe that Jessie could hold her own or, to speak precisely, could hold the manner and air of an upper world. For to-night just for to-night he made one in this company of wealth and ease. He was a prince, dining in his own palace, and that young fellow who habitually held his nose to his typewriter eight hours a day, in some remote frontier of the sky- scraping world he was not, since his only existence was in Irving's consciousness. As they chatted incessantly, Jessie's studied grace lent lustre to his princely state. So perfect was her pretence of being used to it, that no artificiality outcropped ; the very fact that she was a novice kept from her face that [65] Something Else hardness, and from her eyes that level insolence, that comes from what shall we say ? from too much of it. To Irving and Jessie this was but a play in which they acted, a one-night's performance only. The be- diamonded ladies whose gleaming shoulders and clouds of lace showed in long vistas down the regal banqueting- hall, little did they think that our friends were mere pretenders, taking artistic delight in their disguises. Alas ! they did not think of them at all. " Here comes old Waxworks," whispered Jessie, re- ferring thus disrespectfully to the head waiter. That tall, immaculately dressed personage did, indeed, come, his austere face drawn in a many-creased mask of stern reproach. " And, oh, look ! immediately behind him are two couples, advancing in a straight line. They are, without doubt the others.' What shall we do? " Irving looked up with seeming calmness. " We have waited for you," he volunteered. The young man who was in the lead, responded coolly, " Many thanks." He hardly looked at Irving, because Jessie had caught his eye a handsome gray eye, it was, much like Irving's. His face seemed to have come out of a popular novel, popularly illustrated. It was much like Irving's also. The master of the feast waved his hand accusingly at Irving, as he said to the newcomer, apologetically, " I took him for you, sir." The newcomer then looked hard at Irving. The re- semblance between them was rather striking. Jessie no- ticed it at once; so did the two girls of the party. It [66] Rich For One Hour reminded Irving of looking at himself in the glass. He laughed at the fantasy, and something in his rueful merriment caused instant response. Potential liking hovered in the air. The girl who had come with the leader of the party asked, in an amused drawl, "Who am I with? The gentleman who says he is waiting for us, looks more like you than you do yourself." The chief dignitary turned upon Irving. " I must ask you and your lady to give up your seats," he said. Irving, who had already risen said, " I will not re- treat. I throw myself upon the mercy of the enemy." " You are saved," said the stranger. " We lost a couple on our way here ; fortunately they fell into the Bronx. You shall fill up the breach." All seated themselves, gayly. The adventure was as preposterously funny to the strangers as it was charm- ing to our friends. There were no formal introduc- tions ; they had fraternized in the midst of life's battle, presently to go each his way. Never again after to- night would these six sit down together so much the better, perhaps. But, for the hour, how joyous they were ! Joy was everywhere ; laughter leaped, like flame, from table to table : for was not this the last night of the Old Year and the first night of the New? The young man who looked like Irving, looked so like him that he need not be particularly described. One cannot use the same economy in terms on the other young man ; but, fortunately, he is not important to our purpose; it is enough to say that he had recently come [67] Something Else out of the West, bringing some of it with him. His companion was Stella. She and Beauty were chorus- girls, overdressed, it is true, but their natures were so disproportioned from the exaggerations of certain traits and the minimizing of what conventionality holds dear, that they might have seemed more artificial in simpler attire. The girls were chums, that was plain. A marvellous understanding ran like a private telephone line from one heart to the other. Who would have thought to hear their sallies, honoring each other's jests rather than exacting honor for one's own rare friendship, in- deed ! who would have thought them living on eighteen dollars a week when the show was " on," and, out of this salary, each paying for her two pairs of shoes, stockings, tights everything, you understand, and living on nothing when the show was " off." No one could have known these things, for these things no longer obtain. Irving is no railroad clerk, to- night; Jessie is not a shopgirl; Beauty and Stella are not danseuses there are no such parts in to-night's play. Every one is a star on New Year's Eve. There was something about Irving's frank enjoy- ment of everything that warmed the heart of the young man who resembled him ; but there was some- thing about Jessie that kept him from often looking at Irving. When all was said, Irving was a man. " Lady," the stranger addressed Irving's compan- ion, " I have at last met my Waterloo." " Have you ? " said Jessie, very much at sea. [68] Rich For One Hour Irving tacked to her rescue. " Are you Napoleon, or Wellington ? " he inquired, his tone suggesting that he had mapped out the Emperor's part for his own. In truth, the other's admiration gave Irving a pang, not so much because it was obvious, but because Jessie seemed to find it grateful. " I am the Duke," the stranger retorted. Irving laughed in his eyes he could n't help liking him ; but he answered warningly, " In that case, this is not your Waterloo." Nothing could save Jessie at this moment, for she placed her own hand upon the rudder. " Oh," she cried, tossing her head, " I ain't a teetotaller." There was a hilarious burst of laughter. Jessie was by no means an ignorant girl; in truth she knew an incredible amount of facts, but all of them were dated nineteen- hundred-and-blank. After that, Jessie was called Water Lulu, while he who admired her was impartially hailed as Duke, Nap or even Welly. Irving Payne was metamorphosed into Knickerbocker, and Bird Martin, the sun-burned West- erner, was simply " Colorado." Jessie soon forgot her confusion, and wisely grew taciturn. But she was as full of laughter as a quiver- ing sunbeam. When her curved red mouth closed, her eyes laughed; and when she laughed with her lips, by drawing back the corners of the mouth, the flash of her even teeth was irresistible. Something in the dis- tinguished admiration of the Duke seemed to animate her with tingling life. As for Beauty and Stella, they [69] Something Else seldom laughed out, but, at times, spoke in loud tones, as if, by force of voice, they would achieve the purpose of laughter. " But after all," said the young man who resembled Irving, speaking near the close of their repast, " there ought to be some sort of explanations, you know. Really I am not the Duke, though I look it. Martin never lived in Colorado he came from Kansas, wher- ever that is. He wants to break into society, but he keeps breaking out in such unexpected spots " Bird Martin grinned at Irving. " It 's hard," he allowed, with exaggerated humility. " Now just leave Colorado alone," cried Beauty, in her loud tones, " I 'm developing him very nicely." The young man resumed : " And my name is Van- dever." " I 've heard the name, somewhere," murmured Irving. It instantly recalled the beautiful face, so full of mel- ancholy, that had chained his attention in the Court House. Could this be the son of the Mrs. J. S. Van- dever of Fifth Avenue prestige? That was conceiv- able. But, in that case, he must also be the son of that degenerate, that pencil-peddling mendicant, of the East Side. It seemed an insult to ascribe to this gay, cul- tured young man, a father so disreputable. And yet that tramp had once been the husband of this stran- ger's mother if his mother was Mrs. J. S. Vandever. Irving sought to show no change of countenance. " Well," smiled Vandever, " and I 've heard of you, [70] Rich For One Hour too, Knickerbocker. That book of yours what did you call it? 'History of New York?' Yes? Humph! Part of it was mildly amusing. But don't dramatize it ; the public wants something different. By the way, did you write about New York before you visited Manhattan ? That 's the rule, you know." " Oh, I 've been here before," said Irving, with his boyish laugh. " I know the Flatiron from the Goddess of Liberty." " Silly ! " said Jessie, reproving her companion with a grimace. Just as if everybody did n't know that the Flatiron was not standing out in the water! Irving could say some really bright things, sometimes, she re- flected. Vandever drank in the charm of the provoked Jessie. She found his deep eyes revivifying. To her, he stood as a type of chivalrous wealth. His reckless spending moved her to something like contemptuous pity for Irving's limited prodigality. And Vandever was as handsome as Irving. And, to the shopgirl, he seemed so much more a man, in proportion to his fortune. Like Irving, like everybody, she had heard of the Van- devers ; and here sat the heir to many millions, looking into her face with glowing eyes. The standard of Jessie's favor deserted Irving for Vandever, just as it had formally gone over from Wedging to Irving. She reflected that, by a word, by merely keeping silent, Vandever could have cast Irving into the street. What consideration he had shown I Such heart! As [71] Something Else the talk flew back and forth, she did not seek to catch the bright interweaving threads; but when Vandever spoke, her curved mouth responded unconsciously in little tell-tale dashes and dots of telegraphic motion. She feared her uttered words must proclaim the hand- kerchief counter; she scarcely ate, lest her movements betray the atmosphere of cheap eating-houses. But she possessed a certain quality that lends grace to almost any setting, a quaint shyness that is restful to eyes the most cynical. Vandever consulted his watch. " Now for the show ! " he cried. He turned to Irving with hearty insistence: " Do come with us, Knickerbocker, you are a part of ourselves, to-night. Don't spoil such a fine beginning by selfishly mouching off by yourself " Jessie looked appealingly at Irving, but Irving had already bought their tickets. " That 's nothing," cried Colorado ; " I have a box for the season. I can't give you as much room as we have out West, but I insist that you fill up what we have." " Oh, out West ! " cried Beauty, reprovingly. "Where's that?" Stella exclaimed, " Who cares for any other part of the world " And she began to sing, in the showgirl's sterilized voice " Give me New York for mine. I 'd swop the dough of Baltimo' " Beauty sang forth the next line, " And all the wealth of Philadelph' " [72] Rich For One Hour " Come on, Jessie ! " exclaimed Irving, " you 're there with the goods, on this song." And they mixed up the lines thus " And all the fat of old San Fran', And all the can of Cincinnati " Then everybody shouted lustily, " For a little bit of Broadway." Then Colorado, thinking the others were with him, brayed forth, " New York ! " " You must say 6 New Yark,' " Beauty reproved him. She continued severely, in her capacity as society- trainer : " The worst kind of a give-away is to do a thing right, when it 's right to do it wrong." Singing in the palatial banqueting-hall ? Why not? You could scarcely hear a locomotive whistle. What a din, as they emerge upon Broadway! Is there a dis- cordant note capable of being snared, that is not poured forth from the green and crimson horns? They squeak, they bellow, they rumble, they trill, they blare. Thanks to .Vandever's resolution and Jessie's sad treach- ery, those two go off in one cab ; Beauty falls to Irving's share. It is only until they reach the theatre still, Irving did not want to be Beauty's Beast. Had he not witnessed the charming naivete of Jessie? He, as well as Vandever, had found it restful to the eye ; he as well as Vandever, had been impressed by the difference be- tween Jessie and the chorus girls. Thus they are mis- mated, however, thus they slowly progress through a storm a hurricane of confetti. [73] Something Else The horses can hardly make their way through the dense crowds that no sidewalks can contain. Thou- sands of laughing voices beat upon one's ear. The huge city is seeking, for one night, to express its power in audible guise. It is hard to find full expression, yet horns, ticklers, and shouts can do much. If one have no great wealth, he may at least spend all he has, appear- ing rich to the rich who do not care how you appear, more 's the pity ! But, best of all, consider Irving Payne, who will soon be with Jessie, after all ; as far as his money goes, he travels with kings of finance. That splendid cab is no hired vehicle it belongs to him, to the bottom of his purse, if he so desire ; and as long as he can pay for the seat he owns the very horses, the very driver, the driver's very soul. To be a part of such life that is Irving's reward for all privations, past and future a part of the noise, the laughter, the city's song. Of course it is supposable one may suppose anything that some railroad clerks, some shopgirls, some chorus girls are hiding in humble lodgings during this more than Mardi Gras, this more than Roman Carnival, are burrowing in obscure garrets to let their earnings accumulate. Is not Wedg- ing doing so at this very moment? fun-lacking, drudge-hardened Wedging, the lover! And see, now, how far he is from his lady's heart ! Not to be a part of it well! what's the use to live in the city? If one cannot mingle in the city-life, one might as well be in no matter are not all deserts alike? Here they go, then, Beauty throwing confetti from [74] Rich For One Hour lowered carriage-window, sometimes swaying back against Irving's shoulder and Irving never putting forth his arm to catch the supple form. He might do so a hundred times. When the blinding light of this brightest and longest street in all the world, paints her young-old face as with radiant sunshine, and a sudden lurch turns up her lips toward his, then he might, with- out exertion, or offence but he never does ; not that he intends to be a priest, or is blind to the languorous charms of Beauty. But, to save himself, he can't help thinking of Jessie with Vandever the Handsome, Van- dever the Bold, and heavens ! let us hope Vandever will play fair! They meet in Bird Martin's box. It seems to Irving that it is a long, long time months since he and Jessie sat down together, to discuss spaghetti and siroppo and black coffee, under the patriotic eye of Garibaldi. Is the realization as pleasant to the taste, as was that black coffee of Pasquale Pasquale whose sign reads simply " Pasquale's," as if the thousand other Pasquales of the city were not? Jessie seems to think so. Will you look? that rascal of a Vandever is holding her hand ! [75] CHAPTER V A NIGHT OF LOVE ^T "IT 'T'HEN the six young people are finally set- % /% / tied in the box, the play is half ended. y Y That does n't matter, since the plot has no consistency, unless it be that of always appearing at odds with itself, in trying to make the impossible epi- sodes seem connected. But it is not the play on the stage, it is the play facing the stage, that really counts. Irving' s eyes sweep the " diamond zone " of which he finds himself, for once, an integral gem; they suddenly halt; they have found a face looking across the wide gulf, and the face is unmistakably turned toward him. It is a face he would have said, it is the face of distinguished dignity and profound melancholy. From beneath the glorious jewels in the black hair, eyes of a softer and more moving glory, seem gazing at his youth out of the mellow mist of the Indian summer of middle- age. Her eyes, finding themselves discovered, turn away to look at the young man no more; but the one look has caused his head to whirl with half-etched emo- tions. The court-room unfolds around him ; at his side trembles the tramp who often haunts his memory ; and the face in yonder opera-box, that is the striking face [76] A Night of Love that lends pathetic mystery to his reproduction of the divorce court. A shudder crept over Irving's form. Turning ab- ruptly to his new-found friend, he asked, " Are you related to the Mrs. Vandever in that box? " He awaited the answer almost breathlessly, hoping for a negative. A negative would make short work of the tramp night- mare. " Rather," young Vandever answered, bending over Jessie's hand. He held her hand closely. He was in- terested in her rings, perhaps. Beauty observed. "Is that our cue?" she asked. " Must we come on ? " And she held out her hand that Bird Martin might hold it. " Jessie ! " Irving exclaimed, impatiently, even an- grily, as he found that she did not draw away. A hot flush mounted to his brow. " Don't worry about Water Lulu," said Stella gra- ciously. " I '11 hold your hand if you feel lonesome. You don't seem very humorous, do you, Knicker- bocker? " Irving, with an effort, swallowed his resentment. " I don't know how I ever thought of all those funny things in my History of New York," he said, absently. His eyes had again wandered to the opposite arc of the box- zone. Mrs. Vandever was apparently some twenty years younger than this white-haired second husband she must be almost the same age as the tramp. How unlike either, she looked ! As for the tramp, doubtless the life of a degenerate had given him that loose, shiftless, good- [77] Something Else natured air, which seemed by no means all bad, yet lacked any definite element of good. As to the second husband, this J. S. Vandever of vast enterprises and corresponding influence, his stern and sharply cut face seemed to defy the white gantlet that time had thrown upon his head. The face of Mrs. Vandever was moulded for the play of sensibility ; in contrast with the man of steel nerves by her side, she impressed one with her throbbing and resolutely restrained woman- hood. " That lady in the box," Martin volunteered, " is the Duke's mother. The gentleman with her is the great J. S. And they have a daughter that I wish was with them, for the sight of her is worth " " I wish," Vandever interrupted, coloring, " that you 'd keep my sister out of this, Colorado." " Colorado," said Stella, seeking to speak lightly, and not altogether succeeding, " you talk too much." A discordant note had jarred the harmony of their too- light comedy, a sombre warning, coming from below the surface of things a premonitory Wagnerian blast, hurled into the rippling shallows that flow toward tragedy. Stella and Beauty look neither at Vandever nor at each other, but each glowing cheek seems to have been splashed suddenly by a grayish streak of care. And so Vandever's sister must not be mentioned in our presence. Are not we beautiful also ? Stella seeks relief in her native element. " Frazzle will never make good," she remarks, directing Beauty's attention to the ballet. " Her dancing 's too conserva- [78] A Night of Love tive." Stella and Beauty are oddly drawn together at this moment. " She 's got to be conservative," Beauty answers, pro- fessionally ; " hers are mere shadows of mine, or yours." " Shall we change the subject? " Vandever suggests, feeling Jessie's hand about to elude him. Jessie rashly steps into the place of the fallen. " That disorganized mob we passed through, to get here," she says, in her Sunday-afternoon voice, a voice too correct, too distinct, alas ! " is the worst I have ever saw." Jessie seems lost, but Irving, ignoring affronts, gal- lantly covers her retreat with, " Oh, I don't know " tone absolutely natural, and sincere " I saw it that bad last year." Vandever, conscious of the enemy's weakness, forbears to fire a single shot. Down goes the final curtain. " Now ! " Irving ex- claims, with vast relief, " the play will begin." He would have been quite intoxicated by the brilliant scene, but for Jessie's hand in Vandever's. Why did he want to hold her hand? Why did she let him? In all their adventures through dingy streets and into shaded res- taurants, Irving had never held her hand so long. Nor had Jessie ever looked at him, as now she looked at Vandever. He experienced a sense of pain, to be un- derstood by any one who has not forgotten his youth a half-deadened twinge that was not without sweetness. To feel injured by one as pretty as Jessie is, in itself, a romance when one is young for the note of youth [79] Something Else must be insisted upon as the motif in this life-overture. It yielded Irving anticipations of a delicious quarrel, perhaps on their homeward ride. Love feeds we do not say it fattens on misunderstandings. All were standing, hovering at the front of the box, like pigeons ready for flight. Says Jessie to Irving, with determined loyalty, " I will ride back to the hotel with you." He has never seen her face so bright, her eyes so liquid, her form so inexpressibly rounded, has never felt so subtly the perfume of her being. To return with her to the banqueting-hall seems preferable to all other attainable delights. But he answers quietly. "Why not return as we came?" He cared that much, at all events. And one must care a good deal deliberately to thrust deeper into one's breast the weapon that another has but lightly wielded. They go as they came, therefore, rolling through the tumultuous street, breasting the deafening breakers of sound which have been intensified a hundred-fold. Oh, the merriment of the thousands ! How happy are they, because, the poor Old Year lies a-dying! " Home again ! " Vandever exclaims with his joyous, sunny smile; they seat themselves at the table that wit- nessed the formation of their acquaintanceship. Is it possible that, but a few hours before, Vandever and Jessie had never met? Irving does n't count. Their flushed smiles and little-knowing looks,,, we do not speak of Irving's ; he had nothing to look knowing about the smiles, we say, of Vandever and Jessie, showed [80] A Night of Love that they had been getting on capitally. As the night wears on, faces grow rosier, voices merrier ; those who have never met speak to each other, breaking through the palisades of all conventions. The night has gone mad. Up and down the streets of New York, swarm multi- tudes from Harlem, the Bronx, the Jersey shore, the East Side, Brooklyn, Long Island swarm in one huge rivalry of noise-making. Endless processions of auto- mobiles vie with each other in attempts to out-scream, out-bellow, out-laugh. When the doors swing open to admit sumptuously attired women with their perfectly groomed escorts, a wave of sound rolls in over the tables, breaking against mirrored walls like the shat- tered billows of a cliff-checked sea. And when the doors are closed, and jealously guarded against all who have not some magic password, then the tumult of the dining-room makes light heads grow dizzy. After ten o'clock, nothing in the great hotels, or in any celebrated restaurant along Broadway, can be bought to slake the thirst, but champagne. Fortunately one need drink nothing; fortunately, too, one's money may be already spent. It is twelve o'clock. What a frightful uproar! Those who thought noise had attained its climax, had not reckoned upon church bells and factory whistles. The Old Year is cast out upon the rubbish heap of time. Oh, the New Year, the New Year ! Vive le roil This midnight pandemonium is the warning call to our Cinderella. All is spent, saving the cabfare to [81] Something Else " Lee's Triangle." Those splendid black horses must soon be converted into mice. " We will go home, now," bravely speaks Irving to Jessie. " Yes," Jessie faintly responds. Until break of day there will be song and laughter in every hotel and restaurant between Fourteenth Street and Columbus Circle. It will take the revellers till break of day to spend their million dollars, though they average eight dollars each for champagne alone. Among these seventy-five thousand all-night devotees of pleasure, Jessie must leave, in Beauty's care, her new-found prince, the Duke de Vandever " Let 's all," says Beauty, opening her cigarette-case. " When shall we three meet again ? " inquires Van- dever, sincerely regretful over the separation. Irving rashly promises, " Exactly one month from to-night at eight, at this table. Who '11 be here? " " All, all! " cries Stella. " Drink to it! " When they were alone in the cab " Jessie," Irving asked, defiantly, " did he kiss you? " " No, he never," came the prompt response. " I want you to tell me, Jessie," Irving persisted, in a hard, unreasonable tone, " did he? " "Well?" Jessje asked. " Oh, Jessie ! " he burst forth. " And you knew all the time that I that I " " You did n't, and you don't," said Jessie, kindly. The voice grew strangely soft. " You see, I know about it, Irving and you don't. We are just jolly [82] A Night of Love chums. And and oh, what a night, what a night we have had! Please don't spoil it." Jessie's tone was so unusual that Irving was calmed in a moment. He felt that he did not know her as well as he had imagined. He spoke anxiously : " But, dear, you could love me just a little I know that" " Yes, dear," she interrupted, speaking in that same strangely old voice, "I could love you: just a little. But just a little love is the smallest thing on earth, when you want all. Some day, when a girl gives you a great, big love, you '11 know what I mean. But don't ask me, and don't ever ask anybody, for just a little love. It 's all, or nothing ; and I tell you, I know what I 'm talking about " She gave a little gurgling laugh, and added, " And you don't ! " They stood before the rough-edged steps of Gotham Repose. The cab was gone and Irving's last penny with it. Irving was grieved and silent. Jessie held out her hand to him the hand that toiled so cease- lessly at the handkerchief -counter the hand that Van- dever had held and said, " And when you find that girl, Irving, I don't want her to be like me, but more like like you." What could she have meant by that? What could she mean by these sudden tears, by this hiding of the face behind the hand he had not taken ? " And, O Irving ! " she cried desperately, " I wish I was like that, myself I mean like the girl you will win some day I mean like you. Because I don't know anything, [83] Something Else and I can't do anything, and I want to be something else." The crystalline clearness of New Year's Eve was softened to dim indecision, in " Lee's Triangle." The faces of the dreary houses were softened by the refine- ment of dimness and repose. Even the rough cobble- stones were smoothed out like a gray sheet of paper. Irving drew Jessie softly to him. Her lips, the lips that Vandever had pressed were so near, that her breath warmed his cheek ; but he did not kiss her. He only held his arm, for a moment, about her neck, then softly passed his hand over her eyes, and touched her hair. " Little girl," he said, gently, " good-bye. Go upstairs and dream, and I '11 just stroll about a while, and get used to waking up." He waited till her form vanished in the dimly lighted hall, then wandered for a time about the deserted by- streets, but the distant roar of Broadway kept break- ing upon his meditations, and besides, it was very cold. So it was not long before he came back to the lodging- house, without one thought concerning the possibilities of the New Year, without one resolution for the future. Rather heavily he ascended to his third floor back ; and, as he crawled over the log-like body of Wedging, he prodded it quite unnecessarily with his cold knee, in get- ting to his own bed. Poor Wedging! What had he done ? [84] CHAPTER VI THE MORNING AFTER THE morning after ah, everything 1 seems so different on the morning after, self included everything except the daily grind 1 When Irving encountered Jessie on the lodging-house steps, the morning following New Year's Eve, she was just as round, without doubt ; but her eye no longer flashed, her cheek was pale, and her raiment was toned down to a department store atmosphere. He found her greet- ing somewhat distant, not as if she meant to slight him, but as if she could not force her thoughts away from images of a past scene. As they sat side by side in a Broadway surface-car, Irving recalled their parting of the night before: how he had spoken to her of love, and, while speaking, had felt the bitter-sweet of longing; and how, somewhere in the early morning, he had been awakened from profound slumber by a little heartache that spoke thus : " Don't forget that Jessie loves another ! " He did not forget, but the ache was gone. What had become of last night's tenderness? Cruel fate, to throw these two so prosaically together, the morning after! Was it because her hand and lips had been appropriated by Vandever, that Irving found them insulated from the [85] Something Else current of his desire? Or is emptiness of soul, a corol- lary to emptiness of stomach? Without a penny to his name, and nothing pawn-worthy in his pockets, there seems no help, just now, for the Jessie romance. They parted almost in silence, these two who had subtly changed to each other, and to the world; and Irving went up to the day's work, which had not changed. The same blue prints stared at him in the same melan- choly way ; the same worldly-wise messenger boys noisily came and went ; the chief -clerk wore his habitual look of cold suspicion of the world, as if he fancied it meant to skip a few of its revolutions the first time he was off guard; the stenographers were just as haughty, and just as resolutely pompadoured as if their customary grievances against something had been provided with the ride in the elevator. The office-work, then, was the same; but is not one's real life entirely apart from the office? Irving came here to dig for gold. Life is spending, is it not ? spending or hoping to spend not digging, surely. After all, there is a grim satisfaction in having a famil- iar routine running, like a thread, through the heart of one's days. Irving could reflect, and actually did feel without reflection, " My money is all spent. Jessie does not love me. But here are the same old reports to make out, and columns like those of last week, to foot up, ex- actly as when I had my money and my dream of Jessie." The injustice of the system that keeps gray-bearded clerks at the same old desks while young favorites are crowded to the best posts without previous serv- [86] The Morning After ice one may denounce this, as one did last month, and as one will next year. There 's nothing like a perennial grievance to make one think himself unchanged. The indignation in the hearts of those who had toiled for " sixty-five a month " for the past twenty-five years, with never a hope, at this late day of " getting a raise " who can say that this very indignation does not keep those hearts fairly young? And yet, Irving was really different. He hardly knew it, for he was hungry without his breakfast, with- out his luncheon, without his dinner. Surely, at this rate, the young man will starve! But at dusk we find Irving over on the West Side, in the very heart of Old Greenwich Village. He is traversing those streets which a giant's hand seems to have cast in a maze of tangled threads between Houston Street and West Fourteenth. He walks briskly his last streetcar-ticket is gone till Weehawken brings before him the home of his artist- friend, the one who had found him the position in the railroad office. He has come to borrow money, per- haps? Let us see. It is one of those old houses that stand as monuments of the bygone days when Greenwich Village was a stage-journey from the city of New York. All about these jumbled streets stand ancient buildings, facing any direction, making no attempt to keep out of the way, houses and streets whose very existence is un- known to the great mass of the real city. For the real city has forgotten the past, it cares not even for the present. The real city has thrown its heart into [87] Something Else the future, like a heart of Bruce hurled into battle, and is straining every nerve to reach it. But over in Wee- hawken neighborhood, life has fallen asleep. Even the tenements of Trinity Church swarm dully, as if the hives were half-smothered. Irving beholds a bit of some past century, snared, as it were, in a time-trap a trap that could not possibly hold its ancient prey, but for the one-time custom of leasing houses for fifty or a hundred years. Irving's friend has lived sixty years in this same house, here where no artist of a modern day would think of dwelling, or even of visiting, unless he had a soul above strange smells. The neighborhood but really, there is no neighborhood, for one has nothing to do with the factory except rejoice when its smoke blows to- ward the Hudson. One lives to oneself in the rooms back of the corner grocery, with the studio on the second floor, and, for the rest, with one's memories of dead friends, which flavor even the visits of those still living. The house is of frame, crowded at one end by a three-story brick, and shoved at the other by a line of one-story shops. Its side faces the street, for it has neither front nor rear, standing like one in a train of cars, the brick house for the engine, the little shops for flat-cars, its broadside turned against any tide of in- novation that might threaten. Irving swiftly ascends the outside stairs which stretch from grocer's door to studio door, hugging the side or, if you will, the front of the building. When he reached the narrow platform above, he [88] The Morning After opened the only door, as usual, without knocking, though he had been six weeks absent. He passed at once into the barn-like room, which occupied the entire upper story. A man the man he sought was working at a half -finished portrait, with brush fastened to the end of a long mahlstick. The man looked up without surprise he had recog- nized the footsteps on the outside stair and nodded with a sort of gruff cordiality. " There you are ! " he said, with unmistakable satisfaction. A light swung over the easel, and its green shade deepened the habitual reserve of the artist's expression. He was sixty years or more ; strong, or rather, tough, for his age, but not as the saying goes, young. " I never come into this room," Irving declared, breezily, as he sniffed the faint perfume of paints, oils and turpentine, " without feeling that I have lost my way out of life into some sort of a story." He noted, with an affectionate smile, that Christopher Burl's table was just as he had last seen it, heaped with charcoals, pastels, colors, and trays of paint-tubes squeezed to limp disfigurement, or lying fat with plenty. Beyond the swinging light, the paint-cabinet stood ajar, as usual; and, as usual, the blue vase, as tall as a man's shoulders, looked across the bare floor at the articulated skeleton. Yes, everything seemed to be as it had been for the past three years, the same remote corners of semi-gloom, the same homely, time-blackened rafters, the same mat- ter-of-fact unfinished walls, here plastered, there only lathed, and the same Christopher Burl, reserved, seri- [89] Something Else ous, slow of movment. Even the half-finished face on the canvas harmonized with the atmosphere of familiar- ity; it was the face of last night's theatre, of last month's court room, and now, it seemed naturally enough, the face of the huge studio. Irving observed, after first drawing a chair before the open fireplace, and seating himself sidewise on the arm, " I see you are painting Mrs. Vandever's portrait." To that, nothing was to be said, apparently. Mr. Burl was not filled with redundant words. Irving secretly delighted in the other's silence, for it always pleased him to recognize familiar traits in those he liked. And he liked this Christopher Burl immensely, without knowing just why, unless because the other cared a great deal for him. " I was thinking, as I came over here," Irving said, cheerily, " that I could n't, for the life of me, explain how you and I ever get on so well. I feel more at home with you than with anybody, even Captain Payne, my foster-father. Was it really just three years ago that you came up to me in Washington Park to bor- row a match for your pipe? And did the match really light up our acquaintanceship or had we known each other a long time, in some former existence? " He laughed at the whimsical fancy. " It seems that we just grew on each other, till we 've become grafted." " Just growed up," said the artist, with a touch of Topsy. There was no smile on his face it was some- where within, and could n't get out. Christopher Burl's white hair was stroked straight up, according to custom ; [90] The Morning After his drooping mustache was white, and so was his short goatee, which left exposed the smooth, full cheeks. The pockets of his eyes were pronounced. The nose was straight and slightly rounded at the end. The broad brow was unwrinkled. Save for the shadow in the eyes, there would have been something boyish in the general effect ; but the shadow was there, ever lurking, as if Time, in his hurry, could not stop to cut his trademark at the corners of the mouth, or upon the forehead, and had left sorrow to tell of his passing. Irving looked affectionately at the platform support- ing the dais, on which he had once posed as a model, schoolbooks in hand. His eyes wandered to the dingy green damask curtain pulled across the skylight above the dais, to shut out the gathering night. Those had been jolly days. Having squandered every nickel of father Payne's allowance, here he had come to weather the gale of poverty, until the next remittance from New Jersey brought, him into port. Now, he was a man. And still Irving laughed out, suddenly and loudly. " I sup- pose you can guess what I 've come for? " Mr. Burl slowly unstrapped his brush from the mahl- stick. "Another relapse?" he asked, looking intently at the young man, as if in half a mind to paint him on the spot. " Have n't a penny in the world," Irving declared, not buoyantly, but by no means despondently. " I was just thinking I 'm precisely as I used to be, ex- cept I 'm no longer a boy. You '11 think that ought [91] Something Else to make a difference. I 'm sure it ought. But it does n't. Feels just the same. Yes, I 've come back to you, to recoup." " Pawn tickets ? " the other asked, without seeming interest. " One gold watch. One diamond stud. Several et ceteras. New Year's Eve," added Irving, listing his misfortunes. Mr. Burl was distinguished for pregnant brevity. "Hungry?" Irving imitated him, successfully. " Not a bite to- day." "Still hold your job?" " Still on that, yes. Oh, I '11 make it all back in a month, well, say two months. In the meantime? That 's the point. I must recoup. Going to let me do my cooking here, as in the university days? Going to let me have that spare bedroom? Lodgings are very ex- pensive." " Why not eat with me at my club ? " Mr. Burl asked, just as he had often asked Irving in the days referred to, when the young man's resources were on the minus- side of zero. He came to the fireplace, spread his legs, and stared down at the other's changeful face, his own never changing. Irving shook his head, always grateful, but always determined. " Not for mine," he declared. " I might as well go home and let mother and father Payne take care of me, or go to work on a tugboat. No; if a penniless man is n't independent, he is n't anything, [92] The Morning After not even a man. But I '11 tell you what I will do," he added, as a concession, " I '11 borrow, if you don't mind." There was one strange thing about this Christopher Burl, an entire stranger until three years ago, he never objected to lending. Irving was just as willing for the money to change hands as was the other. Is there any greater proof of friendship? Mr. Burl spread out his sackcoat, with nervous, slim hands buried in the pockets. " Boy," he said abruptly at certain moments, psychologically similar, he al- ways addressed Irving so " I don't ask you if it pays ; but, do you f eel that it pays ? " " Does it pay ? " repeated Irving, his eyes on the dancing flames, his hands locked behind his head "Why! it's what I'm for." Mr. Burl gave a noncommittal grunt, and tramped away from the hearth, kicking a hassock skimmingly over the bare floor, on his way to the table. He groped under palettes, papers and varnishes, unearthed a check- book, and filled in a blank for one hundred dollars. The same fountain-pen, without one ironic flourish, recorded Irving's promise-to-pay. The artist paused a moment to stare blankly at Mrs. Vandever's portrait, as if wondering how it had got into the room, then came back to the fire, after going out of his way to kick another hassock after the first. He had no dis- like for hassocks, as such; the act of kicking merely expressed a psychic state. Had not Irving known him so well, he might have suspected reluctance to lend, out of all proportion to his willingness to borrow. [93] Something Else . Knowing him so well, he was deeply puzzled. Some- thing had happened during his six weeks' absence something of vital importance to this lonely man. Mr. Burl abruptly, haltingly, made his announce- ment : " I am sorry to tell you, Irving, that you cannot have that spare bedroom that was as much yours as mine, during your educational recoups. It is it is in use. That is to say it is vacant, to-day, and it was vacant yesterday, but the fact is, it may be oc- cupied at any time. Which would inconvenience you." Irving was astonished. He was not certain whether the other was a widower or a bachelor, but it had been his understanding that Mr. Burl had no living relative. The artist continued : " But, as for coming here to concoct your messes, since it 's cheaper than the restau- rants, come ahead. Partition off your old corner. Cook what you please, when I 'm away at the club ; but if I 'm on the place, nothing but cocoa, mind." " Then I '11 get to work," said Irving, starting up briskly, still wondering about the bedroom, and about his friend's reticence. " With a salary of twenty a week, room-rent at two, remittance home of ten, and most of this hundred to the pawnbroker, I '11 have to hustle, I tell you! " He grinned somewhat ruefully. In a short time, Irving had fenced off a distant corner with his familiar screens, which fitted groove into groove. A ceiling of canvas about eight feet lower than the studio's rafters, stretched above the screens and the two walls of unplastered boards. Fortunately this impro- vised chamber embraced a window by means of which [94] The Morning After the odor of his cookery might escape. And sometimes it really did escape in that manner. A small coal-oil stove, and the presence of the little grocery in the same building insured a satisfied appetite. In the meantime, the artist had drawn one of the two huge armchairs before the hearth. With his briarpipe alight, he watched the ridiculous shadows of arms and shoulders cast by Irving upon the inner side of the screens. Every bite taken by the young man was dis- torted to Gargantuan proportions, but Mr. Burl did not smile; he only smoked and watched, with brooding intentness. When Irving finally emerged, " Now," said Mr. Burl, abruptly, " sit here " he nodded at the other armchair, " and tell me all about it. Everything, mind ; and if you tell me of any wisdom, I '11 not believe it." His goatee slightly quivered, which was as good as an open laugh. So Irving, from the depths of the great chair the chair which was usually dedicated to old Dr. Adams told of the wonderful lights and of none of the shadows of New Year's Eve ; for of course he began with the most important event of the past six weeks. The Duke by the way, the son of that very Mrs. Vandever, yonder, on the canvas the Duke had said this ; Irving had said that ; and Jessie had looked but that was all over, now. Mr. Burl, with legs crossed and with upper foot slightly swinging to and fro, drank it all in, as he looked from Irving to the fire, and back again. Irving [95] Something Else talked on and on, in a rush of merry memories, forget- ful of last night's heartache; and Christopher Burl reached forth to break a coal into a streaming flare of crimson. His face was touched by the light with a glow his emotions were no longer able to paint, how- ever artistic they might feel; but Irving glowed inde- pendently of the fire, as if he were adding physical warmth to the room of shadowed corners. Yes, thus they spoke, thus laughed, on New Year's Eve; thus, in a word, they had for a few hours, lived as many live every day. Nothing to worry about, nothing to do but pursue happiness, always overtaking it, then rush on to new delights. If one can but afford it, there is a whole lifetime of it no recoups, no fears of pawn- brokers, no cooking in a corner. Surely it is what we are for! " To keep it up all the time," sighed Irving, not with envy, but with infinite longing ; " it must be great ! " Then he added, " But to change the subject : I 've found out all about my parents." Christopher Burl dropped his pipe upon the bearskin. Too bad! There was a faint, sickly odor of scorched fur. After hasty hands had dashed away the sparks, a round bluish spot remained. The artist rose, nerv- ously. " Never mind the rug," he exclaimed. " What about your mother? " He refilled his briar, with a slightly tremulous hand. " She is dead," Irving answered softly, as he stared into the fire. " She came to New York, alone, to ask [96] The Morning After forgiveness of her family. She 'd eloped with my father ; her family disapproved of him. They would n't forgive. They turned her from the door." His voice deepened. " She was in great want. After she died, the Paynes took me, knowing nothing about her." A poignant pathos stole upon the young man's heart; it seemed to spread until it engulfed both him and his listener. He related all he had been told by Mrs. Wyse. Somehow, from her lips, the story had failed to achieve the tragic note that one feels rather than hears. The cold, carefully correct manner of the landlady had sterilized her narrative. Now it quivered with sorrow- ful life. In the telling, it came to Irving, surprisingly, how futile was all last night's adventure. The words he had but recently spoken about the real object of life, how hollow and meaningless they sounded, now, in memory ! When he had told everything, there was a long silence, broken at last by the older man : " You know nothing of your mother's family? " " No ; and I don't want to know anything. Those who had the heart to turn her out in the street to die of privation, well " He gave a short, bitter laugh : " You can understand that I would n't desire their ac- quaintance." Mr. Burl, with hands interlocked behind him, paced the floor with downcast head. He had taken his favorite path, that between the tall blue-and-gilt vase, and the skeleton. " Well ! " he said, not pausing in his walk, > [97] Something Else " and so, now you know thanks to this landlady. Well ! And after knowing, you are precisely where you were before, eh? " " Indeed I am not. I know that my father and mother loved me, and deserted me for one reason only because both died." " That makes a great difference," Mr. Burl admitted. " A vital difference," said Irving, starting up. "Don't you see? I can think of them without misgiv- ing ; I can think of them with love and pity. And be- fore Mrs. Wyse told me the truth, I did n't know. I was always afraid that they were had been what they were not, you understand. It gives me deeper breath. I have a heritage of poverty, but also of honor. And thanks to father and mother Payne, I have not felt poverty's sting. They have given me love." Back and forth marched the sombre figure of the artist. At last he said, " And your father's name ? Hi* family?" Irving shook his head. " Mrs. Wyse thinks she can find out for me, if she can't remember. But so far, she has n't been able to give the slightest clue." "You'll let me know, if you find out?" asked the other, eagerly he who was never eager. Irving promised, of course, and presently the figures which their intercourse had brought out of the vanished past, faded away, and other matters, matters of the day, clouded the very memory of the dead. The talk flowed presently into brighter pastures; flowers of friendship were refreshed. [98] The Morning After " Come ! " cried Mr. Burl, resuming his seat, " sing for me, boy. You 've neglected me shamelessly these past weeks." " I 've been awfully busy," said Irving, then thought of Jessie and paused with open mouth, then laughed. He sprang for the guitar. " There 's a song it 's old now been out, a month but maybe you have n't heard it " " I never hear any songs that you don't sing me," said the other, still with subtle reproach. Irving tuned the guitar, slapped its back ; tuned it again; spread his fingers over the strings, as if to wrench them off; went to hunt a hassock, meanwhile humping his body over the instrument as if careful not to wake it; propped his foot; tuned again; and so, at last, reached the point of clearing his throat. His voice was flexible a real convenience, when the only chords one knows are in C Major, to which all songs must be adjusted. He began: " You may have the rest of the world, But give me New York for mine. I 'd swop the dough of Baltimo', And all the wealth of" His voice died away. The ghost of New Year's Eve waved at him. " A jjerson can't sing that by himself," he declared ; " it sounds so flat ! " " It seemed to swing along fairly well, I thought," the listener demurred. " Oh, but it ought to go like a house afire," said Irv- ing, with a rueful laugh. " It takes a whole lot of peo- [99] Something Else pie. When I sing it alone, it 's as lonesome as as the morning after." It was about eleven, when Irving bade the other good- night. Then it was that Christopher Burl, with marked embarrassment, returned to the subject that had previ- ously mystified his guest. " Very sorry you can't have that spare bedroom, Irving, but " " Oh, that 's all ri " " And hold on. That is n't all. You 're welcome here at any time, as far as housekeeping goes, except unless In fact, we '11 have to make some sort of ar- rangement. Now, boy, I 'm going to be as frank as a man can be who speaks of mysteries. To be plain, the person that will come, occasionally, to occupy that spare bedroom is a is an unusual person, who does n't want it known that he or she as the case may be is in the city. There are reasons. They are excellent. Of course, since you 're not to have the bedroom, we 've solved that difficulty. But suppose that person were up here, when you came in. That person would rather die than be discovered in New York; I have no doubt would die but I owe that person shelter." " Then," Irving began, dismayed, but still too loyal to take offence " No, let me think." Mr. Burl dug his hands into his coat pocket, and spread out the corners till the sack- coat was like a sail. " See that window, over the out- side stairs? Now, whenever you come this way, look up ; and if this bicycle-lamp is in the window " he took one from the mantel, where it could not have [100] The Morning After belonged " that will mean,, ' Stay. , awaj/ . ,You see?" :,,!!' UKl^i?#> " It sounds adventurous," Irving said, doubtfully. " It is adventurous," Mr. Burl admitted, pursing his lips. " I would not miss your company, when the coast is clear, for any consideration, but I would n't have you come here, when that person is here, for well, for anything ; it 's a matter of honor." He laid his hand upon the young man's shoulder and said, with unwonted gentleness, " You feel all right about it, I hope, boy? " " I believe you really want me to come," Irving said, hesitatingly. " With all my heart. I want to hear more talk, more songs, in a word, I want you, boy. So humor my little mystery. There 's no harm in it, I assure you. After all, the mystery is not mine but the person's. Arid God knows, it 's something that can't be helped." " Sure, I '11 come," Irving declared, heartily. " I '11 keep an eye out for the bicycle-lamp ; you 'd better light her up at dusk, if there 's danger. And I '11 sing for you till I 'm hoarse ; maybe I '11 finally learn how." Mr. Burl was intensely gratified at the way his mystery had been received, but his only token of pleasure was a crushing hand-grip and the words, " If I had my wish, you 'd live here all the time." Surely that was much to say for a man who, three years ago, was an absolute stranger. Irving returned the clasp impulsively, declaring that the bicycle-lamp would introduce a delightful note of uncertainty into the adventures of his housekeeping. And yet, when he left [101] * Something Else Weehawken Street, his step was hardly so brisk as at his coming although, of course, the mysterious " person " could not concern him. He arrived in due time at his lodgings. Was there something sinister in the deep quiet of " Lee's Triangle " ? Was there something for- bidding in the frown of the narrow brownstone front? The stone flight showed, in the gloom, its grayish steps, like teeth broken at the edges, laughing in their old age. Were they laughing at Irving Payne? [102] CHAPTER VII STRANGE MEETING IN THE STUDIO IRVING was not now gathering dream-roses in his waking hours. During the days following his re- adjustment to economic conditions, work in the sky-scraper appeared the most vital of realities, that upon which hinged his self-preservation. Cooking his own dinner took away the essential zest for a meal which is born of vague ignorance as to details, and optimism as to the ensemble. A preliminary taste with one's nostrils, if too long enforced, dulls the palate. His evenings were spent so late with Christopher Burl that, when Irving returned to Gotham Repose, Mrs. Wyse's parlor had been converted into a bedroom, while the halls were but cold odors of the day's history. Sometimes, when he started to work in the mornings, he met Jessie, but they soon parted company ; for the young man's Spartan breakfast of one cup of coffee and a bun was not such as the brave could offer up at the shrine of the fair. Moreover, Irving imagined a grievance against Jes- sie he hardly knew what it was some reason for feeling aggrieved, such as forces people apart without prompting too close a scrutiny into the cause. He had virtually offered Jessie his most sacred possession [103] Something Else one might almost say, his only possession his heart. She had not taken it, luckily ; and now he had ceased to feel like giving it away. Had Irving really cared, even as much as he thought he cared, it would have been bitter irony that he served merely to remind Jessie of young Vandever. Irving's face and form, thanks to the surprising resemblance, brought before her the " Duke " standing among lights and flowers, his head thrown back that he might look down into her eyes, his eloquent hand clasping hers, knighting her spirit, as it were, till she ceased to feel herself an integral factor of department store life. But Irving did not care as much as he thought he cared ; and, according to his disposition, having lost one interest, he sought another. He could compare no pleasures to those that come as one's money vanishes pleasures, alas ! that show such ungrateful haste to over- take the money. But such delights were for the time beyond his reach ; so he exercised his gift of lowering his sounding board to catch those timid tones that twitter an octave below the full song of joy. Let but a note of pleasure, however faint, float within reach, he became its megaphone, swelling it to exaggerated proportions. The young man exercised himself as heartily to cheer up the lonely artist, as he had striven to amuse Jessie. In making the pretty shopgirl happy, his motives had been somewhat mercenary, after all, because her sweet smiles had paid him in gold. His was a very different reward, for making Mr. Burl's goatee quiver from the amusement that hid below the surface. Still, it was [104] Strange Meeting in the Studio something. This endeavor to brighten up Mr. Burl's life, not so much as a return for hospitality, as because all lives ought to be bright, forced upon Irving's memory the desire of the French restaurateur for a soloist. He was telling Mr. Burl about Monsieur du Pays, when he recalled Chartier's quest. That very night, Irving dropped in at the French restaurant, to interview the proprietor, and, the day after, sought Monsieur du Pays. He did not have to visit Jessie at her handkerchief -counter, to learn that the Frenchman was no longer employed on the other side of the partition. He knew it when Mrs. Wyse informed him that Monsieur was in his room, but " Not the front room on the second floor," said the little woman in distinguished black. She added in her aggravatingly correct tone, " He occupies the rear." Therefore, Monsieur du Pays was no longer a tryer-on of popular songs, daily fitting the voices of the musically affected. He and Madame were wont to flit back and forth between front room and back, according to good fortune. " What honor ! " Madame du Pays cried, her voice breaking in the fragile shrillness of crystalline excite- ment. " Give yourself the pain to enter. Here we are, all two." Irving gave himself the pain to enter ; also " de vous asseoir." From the window behind Monsieur du Pays' leonine head he caught a melancholy view of the scabby brick wall, upon which an early cat paraded. " But yes," said Madame, observing the young man's [105] Something Else disconcerted inspection, " one sees much of the wall, is it not? Eh bien! We feel much with ourselves, how- ever what you say, to home. We need not look at the cat." Irving told them about his lonely old bachelor-friend, of course saying nothing about the bicycle-lamp, for that might have assumed to them the significance of a native legend. Would Monsieur du Pays sing for the white-haired artist, just as a friend? It was no pro- fessional call, but perhaps Monsieur would enjoy the visit. It would be a delightful treat to Mr. Burl " And all of us will be richer," Irving declared, genially. " 'T is true my voice is at the rest," said Monsieur, " for it is two days since my throat refused to support ; it is that I have what you say lost the job. I am very strong to-day. I could r-r-roar like a lion." He shook his long blonde locks, defiantly. " But I can- not roar off the j ob ; for do I leave Angelique, to sing for pleasure ? " " Ah del! " cried Madame, with amazing volubility, " y u g w ^h Mr. Payne. It is my heart's desire. You come back, you tell me everything of new. Not often we are asked to drink the wine of friendship. We have bien soif for that wine, tou jours, is it not? " "Do I leave you for the wine of friendship?" ex- claimed the impressionable tenor. " Who but you sup- ports my courage when my accursed throat will not support my voice ? " The thin, shabbily dressed Angelique, how her ordinary face was transformed by the rare dignity of [106] Strange Meeting in the Studio the woman who knows herself beloved ! Had Irving ever thought her plain? The young man, half -remorseful at separating these old lovers, hurried to explain that Chartier would be at the studio. Chartier would hear Monsieur du Pays sing, and doubtless contract for his services, since he was without a soloist. Yes, it was the Chartier who owned the restaurant just off Washington Square, where you get a seven-course dinner for forty cents, with grand opera thrown in that is to say, a soloist, two violins and a piano. They were in desperate straits for a singer. Their old soloist was lost ; no one could find him, not even his wife. Chartier had explained, " It is that he have another girl voila! " In this restaurant Monsieur du Pays could sing the great songs of ten thirty fifty years ago. " If the great songs have been composed that long," Irving added, doubtfully. He could not think there had been much grand opera before the twentieth century. " And if your voice fails anyway, there will be so much noise and rattle of dishes " " It is what you call an opening ! " Monsieur ex- claimed, in an altered tone. " Who knows ? I may crawl through, perhaps. I will come. My throat " " Your throat will stand under, I know well," cried his wife. " You have this position already in your hand. Mr. Payne has given it. And you sing only the songs worthy. I nevair again," she cried, her eyes flashing ; " I nevair hear from your lips that * Coon, coon, coon, little yaller ba-a-a-by.' " [107] Something Else So it was arranged that Monsieur du Pays should come to the studio the next evening, at eight. " And you must tell your artist friend," cried Madame, " for I will not be there and Monsieur would not tell that once he sang for the great Queen Victoria, so good and very large. And at Rome Italie, vous savez as he stood after his last farewell, with his hand upon his bosom so the ladies threw their earrings and bracelets at the feet of him." When Irving had departed, Madame locked the door, and, from a dark cabinet, drew forth certain mysterious concoctions. Then Monsieur sat down, with a towel tucked under his celebrated throat, and Madame pro- ceeded to knead, manipulate, and tinge the long blonde locks which her ever-watchful eyes had detected in gray treachery. For it was not yesterday that Monsieur had sung for the Queen, so good and very large. At noon, the next day, Irving hurried to the West Side to prepare Mr. Burl for an evening of pleasure, and also to take a hasty luncheon from his tins. Mr. Burl had already set forth for his old-fogy club, so the luncheon was consumed hastily, and rather more noisily than usual. Above the clink of bottles and jars, rose the young man's voice in a little Italian song. He and Jessie had picked it up from the waiters of a happy- go-lucky lunch-stand, no matter where, no matter when, since, as he sang it, he did not once think of Jessie. Soft mush he made of the syllables the only way to show proficiency in modern tongues. To think that he could [108] Strange Meeting in the Studio sing that song without one souvenir of Jessie's smile, Jessie's voice, Jessie's roundness oh, the wonder of it! Suddenly his ears were assailed by a marvellously sweet, fresh voice, such as one may imagine issuing from the heart of a dewy rose " Agostino ! / hear you, Agostino ! You are in that corner. But you '11 not es- cape me this time." The voice sounded in the studio, at no great distance from the screen. Irving no longer sang. He stood open-mouthed, petrified. The name Agostino swept his mind back to the day of the Nathan Hale monument, and the letter from Mrs. Sadie Wyse. The Italian who did not wish his cigar smoked by the socialist, was called Agostino. Irving remorsefully reflected that, in his hurry to tell Mr. Burl about Monsieur du Pays, he had forgotten to look for the bicycle-lamp in the win- dow. That was natural since, having never once found it, he had ceased to fear its presence on the window-sill. Possibly the lamp was there, now, and its ineffectual warning had been intended to prevent his meeting the owner of the sweet, fresh voice, the voice of a dewy rose. Probably the owner of that voice was the " person " who had dispossessed him of the spare bedroom. If so, Mr. Burl had resolved upon keeping them apart. " I see you now ! " exclaimed the voice, with manifest license of conjecture. She gave vent to the merriest I of laughing trills. What a happy voice but above all, what a freshness permeated its deep-throated timbre! [109] Something Else It suggested fragrant fields under summer skies. " You might just as well come out," the voice continued. " I will wait here all day, if necessary." That was much longer than Irving could wait, no matter how displeased Mr. Burl might prove. Besides, in spite of the possibility that the lamp was in the win- dow, and that the lamp meant avoidance of this girl, and that it was to Mr. Burl's interests to prevent a meeting, Irving yielded to a certainty namely, that he must see this speaker. He hastily put on his coat, closed his window, snatched up the nickel-plated coffee- urn to sight at his grotesque reflection, and was moved thereby to indiscreet mirth. She heard the half -smothered chuckle, and grew com- ically severe. " I knew I 'd find you here ! " she de- clared. " Shame on you, Agostino ! " Desire to see the speaker called him forth ; the neces- sity for presently returning to the office commanded. He issued from his den. " I am not Agostino," he said, with deep humility, " but I am greatly 'shamed." She was standing by the blue-and-gold vase, one hand lightly resting against the rim, which rose above her shoulder. She had cast her wraps over the back of the nearest chair. Her cheeks were stained red from the nip- ping January air, while her eyes were bright with the sparkle of the outside world, as if she had brought its frosty brilliance into the sombre studio, and, by the warmth of her being, had melted the cold brightness to a sunny glow. " Then " she began, as if to catch up his words. [110] Strange Meeting in the Studio Her lips, parted in amused surprise, and her eyes, never faltering, mutely finished the question. Irving laughed as he gave his name laughed at himself for being caught, and at her for the dumb sur- prise, and at fate for bringing about the meeting. She was of that rare type of womanhood that inspires a sense of fellowship, even admiration, without a neces- sary accompaniment of sentiment. Probably her art- ist's working-dress the blue blouse with its rolling turned-down collar, and the business-like yacht cap had much to do in forming Irving's impression. He found something boyish in her attitude, perhaps the ef- fect of great independence of character, suggesting that sex was not her dominant quality, and might be disregarded in summing up her essentials. His concep- tion was strengthened by her form, tall and sturdily built, and by her serene air of self -poise. There seemed nothing weak about her, yet nothing bold. Charmingly at variance with this dominant note, was the full Southern face, with its merry, slightly raised, slightly projecting upper lip; and the deep, sweeping lashes; and the glorious richness of hair; and the eyes which, however independent, could not help being of a luminous brown, essentially feminine. " Miss Adams," she said, with an intermingling of the stranger's interest, or curiosity, and the stranger's re- serve. " Oh ! " cried Irving, his handsome face lighting up, " then I have at last met you. You are, of course, Dr. Lewis Adams's granddaughter ? " cm] Something Else She smiled whimsically. " But why am I a matter of course, when you are a mystery?" She was younger than Irving, but felt older, and as sure of him as of her- self. She felt that if he should ever shake hands with her, his arm would move through space in the shortest line from his heart, not in an arc of any social mode. In truth, with those penetrating brown eyes, she saw to the bottom stratum of his nature ; saw quite through those superfluous layers which he believed to be his true self. " I, a mystery ? " Irving exclaimed, ruefully. " But has n't your grandfather, or Mr. Burl, told you about me? " She shook her head, unable to hide her amusement at his disconcerted air, but ready to believe anything he might say : not because she had seen so little of the world as to be credulous, but because she had seen enough of it to have faith. She asked, " Why not tell me, your- self? " Then her rippling laughter was heard, like those meadowbrooks in the sun that purl in our mem- ories of childhood. The young man expostulated : " As often as I have heard of you! And they have never mentioned me to you? I have never been here when those two life-long friends were sitting yonder in the armchairs, that they did n't treat me to anecdotes of Winifred Adams. Did n't you know, during my university days, about my coming here to to I mean about that screened-in corner, yonder, and my and why it was there? " " Never, to all your questions," responded Winifred [112] Strange Meeting in the Studio Adams, waving her strong, full arm as if to sweep his doubts into the gigantic vase. " How insignificant I must appear to others ! " Irving murmured. The playfulness in her eyes engulfed the stranger's reserve. " But this leaves you entirely free to tell your story in your own way," she suggested. " I am dreadfully handicapped, nevertheless," he re- turned, snatching at his watch. " I '11 soon be whistled to Broadway. And we 've been so long meeting, I 'm afraid it may not happen again, since Mr. Burl and Dr. Adams are so secretive. I know of your studio in the attic of your home near Madison Square, and of your pictures, and exhibitions. Mr. Burl is as proud of your work as / am ; he and I used to celebrate whenever you scored a success ; I am one of that admiring and unknown public that you may have heard of. And I know how your grandfather took you to Paris when you were only fifteen years old and I know how long ago that was." " How alarmingly well-known I am ! " she exclaimed, with a return of her reserve. She walked to the fire- place, as if to step out of the conversation. " And how when you were only three years old," Ir- ving chuckled, " one day your grandfather bought you a long cane of stick-candy, and you said to him, ' G'an- papa, is oo doin' Winifred turned and made a face at him, by pouting out the under lip, and drawing down the upper lip a most charming moue that made him burst into delighted laughter. Her facial rebuke had been given without [113] Something Else design. She was so surprised at what she had done, that she joined in his laugh, as if both had been caught in a naughty prank. Then, in an effort to recapture her shattered dignity, she asked with a merry little frown, " Did n't Agostino come here to-day ? a low, heavy- set Italian with a mustache " "'I haven't seen him; Mr. Burl will know." And here was Mr. Burl entering from the outer land- ing, his step heavy and slow, his face darkly thoughtful. At sight of them, he stopped abruptly, stared with un- wavering eyes, while his white mustache bristled above his white goatee. Once more Irving remembered about the bicycle-lamp. His eager voice betrayed some nervousness as he ex- claimed, accusingly, " And you never told Miss Adams about me ! " At the same moment, Winifred asked, showing greater eagerness, " Uncle Christopher ! Have you seen any- thing of Agostino ? " She laughed because Irving had almost drowned out her words, then added, as an after- thought, " How do you do, Uncle Christopher? " Mr. Burl's stern face slightly relaxed, while his eyes grew at least twenty years younger. He came forward briskly, exclaiming, " Well, well, well ! " He laid a hand on each of Winifred's shoulders. " Come ! " and he pushed her to the armchair. " Sit you down, Sunbeam. Well, well, well ! What a happy surprise ! " So he was not angry, after all. There was no bicycle-lamp in the window. " No doubt you are surprised," she said, with pre- [114] Strange Meeting in the Studio tended severity. " Have you stolen my model? Oh, Uncle Christopher, what plagiarism ! I 'm sure there 's not another Italian in Mulberry Bend quite so villain- ous looking as my own Agostino. And I found him first," she added reproachfully. The muscles in the lower part of Mr. Burl's face slightly quivered a treat in the laughing-way, that he seldom permitted himself. " You '11 have to find another dago," he said, briefly. " The Black Handers, not I, are after your prize. He 's frightened to death, and is hiding don't breathe it, if you value his life at a straw in the home of a New Jersey tugboat captain Silas Payne. By the way," he added indifferently, not as if he had just thought of it, but as if it didn't matter, " Captain Silas Payne is this young man's what do you say ? foster-father." " I 'm glad to be brought into this," remarked Irving, who had been holding aloof, " even if the connecting chain is Agostino. But I did n't know father Payne had ever seen this Italian. I have n't heard him men- tioned." Mr. Burl turned to Winifred, as if Irving didn't count. " So you wonder that I never told you about this fellow ? " He nodded with the back of his head at the young man. " Well, well, well ! I 'm surely glad to see you, Sunbeam. Shall I tell you about him now ? " " Do ! " cried Winifred, nestling down in the great chair, and drawing Mr. Burl beside her. They were not related, hence her " Uncle Christopher " was a signal honor. " I have already suspected that he has a strange [115] Something Else and hidden story. But say the very best for him that you conscientiously can, Uncle Christopher." She looked down at the hem of her blue blouse, as if ready for anything. " Here is a young man, risking being late at the of- fice," began Mr. Burl, severely, " who, all his life, has looked upon pleasure as the only but no ! I shall tell you nothing." Mr. Burl interrupted himself, impa- tiently. " This is my friend, this Irving Payne, a good fellow through and through, whether he ever does any- thing, or not." "But the story?" Winifred demanded, looking up searchingly. " You 'd think no more of him if you heard it," said the other, " and that 's why it has never been told you." " But Mr. Burl ! " Irving remonstrated with a flushed face. His laugh was forced, for, oddly enough, the word " pleasure " had given him pain. She regarded the young man with a pensive, studious gaze which showed no consciousness of the rich golden beauty of her brown eyes, or the handsome features, manly yet embarrassed, that he held half -averted. " But it 's all your point of view, Sunbeam," Mr. Burl explained, indulgently. " You see, a sunbeam can't un- derstand a shadow, being altogether outside of its world. I might tell you how romantic a shadow may be; but what 's the use ? You are a Sunbeam." " Then," said Winifred, thoughtfully, " Mr. Payne - is he altogether outside of my world? " [116] Strange Meeting in the Studio " So far outside," said Mr. Burl, with conviction, " that he does n't know your world exists ! " " Oh, then " said Winifred. It was as if to say, " Good-bye ! " with one's handkerchief, waving it from deck, over an ever-widening sea. Irving felt hurt. He looked at his watch again, then spoke with a gravity that may have been just a little exaggerated : " I came to tell you, Mr. Burl, that I 've arranged to have the friend I spoke to you about Monsieur du Pays the man with the magnificent voice you remember? he will come to sing for you, to-night. And we '11 have a violin, too. I believe you '11 like it." " How fine ! " cried Winifred, looking at Irving again, her brow showing a puzzled wrinkle. " Grandfather and I have planned to spend the evening here. Will your friend mind singing for us ? " She turned to her host : " Or shall we put off our visit? " "Put off your visit? Put away such an idea! No, no, this boy is always doing something to enliven me. It 's often like blowing at a dead coal, eh, Irving ? But I appreciate his intentions, even when I don't appreciate the music. You won't mind Dr. Adams and his grand- daughter, will you, boy? " " Uncle Christopher," Winifred suggested, " maybe he is a sunbeam too ! " " He beams like one," remarked Mr. Burl, dryly. Irving was, indeed, radiant at the sudden prospect that opened up before his mental vision. Alas! he was [117] Something Else obliged to make a dive for the door. He called back, en route, " Mr. Burl! Please don't prejudice the jury in the prisoner's absence." Mr. Burl pursed his lips. " I promise not even to refer to you, till you show your face this evening." Winifred called, "And shall I promise not even to think of you?" He need not have shouted his protest as he almost fell down the outside stairs. Winifred did not make prom- ises that she knew would not be kept. [118] CHAPTER VIII THE ITALIAN SPY THAT evening, Irving visited a restaurant before his return to Weehawken Street. The precau- tion was well taken; for, when he entered the studio (the bicycle-lamp was not displayed), there sat Winifred Adams in the armchair, just as he had left her. Dr. Adams had been called away ; but Christopher Burl, pipe in mouth, was marching from the blue-and- gold vase to the skeleton, then back again. " Go ahead and boil your cocoa, Irving," said Mr. Burl, with the tactless practicality of the old. " Don't mind us. Do your cheese-and-cracker stunt, then come join us." Winifred opened her eyes wide. " I have eaten," said Irving, with dignity. The next moment he laughed in spite of himself. " Well ! " he added, " I wish, after all, I 'd let you tell the story be- fore the real trouble happened in. Go ahead, Mr. Burl, and relieve the tension.' 5 " I 've been dying from curiosity all afternoon," mur- mured Winifred, " so you can well understand that I 'm now exhausted." " The story we are about to tell," Mr. Burl began, with portentous gravity, " deals with a man named [119] Something Else Irving Payne. After he had lived to the age of how long do you want to live, Irving? We '11 give you every advantage." Irving was about to answer, that after thirty-five, it was immaterial, but remembered that his friend was much worse than that. He said nothing. But he was in- tensely alive to new impressions. He would not have thought it possible that the great armchair could ever frame so fair a picture. The splendid brown hair was turned to the gold of the brown eyes, by the rosy hearth- flames. The pure white of her cheeks was rendered daz- zling by the swinging lights. The height and solidarity of her form gave her impressiveness ; she was not one to be lost in an armchair, however large and cushiony. In changing from the artist's blouse and cap to simple at- tire, she had changed, seemingly, from the comrade to the woman. She was a woman in every feature of her alert face, in every movement of the long limbs, the strong bust, the flexible fingers. But her womanliness had none of the shrinking shyness, the difficult hesita- tion, of a vanished age. It was a womanliness that passed judgment upon men and events, because she had taken her place among men of affairs, to help to mould the events of the future, wielding her brush as Joan had wielded her sword, holding her place in the front ranks of the world's workers, as Joan had once led in battle. The impression upon Irving it had dwelt with him all that afternoon, at the office was the more marked because Winifred's essentials were not his own. He felt that Mr. Burl had spoken with truth, though the truth [120] The Italian Spy was exaggerated. He was, indeed, outside of this young woman's world; but it was not a world whose existence was unknown to him. He knew it just as he was ac- quainted with some history in many volumes Hume, or Grote, or Guizot, or Bancroft. He knew what was to be found in such reading, just as he knew what was to be met in Winifred's world. But the knowledge had never inspired a spirit of investigation. Mr. Burl resumed: "When the subject of our sketch died, at the end of a very, very long life, it was said of him that he had cheered the lives of those with whom he came in personal contact; that he had a pleasant smile, and was good and honest ; and that he now shares the oblivion which is the penalty one pays for entering paradise. And that is the whole story of Irving Payne." Irving laughed a little ruefully, but Winifred did not even smile. Then with subtle diplomacy, Irving broached a scheme which he had perfected between breaths in the railroad office. " I have been thinking," he said impersonally it is not good policy to appear anxious for accept- ance of terms " that your story, the true story of Irving Payne, might be slightly enlarged before the obituary. I was acquainted with this colorless mortal, and I knew that he meant to visit home next Sunday, where he would no doubt see Agostino, Agostino the wonderful Italian model." " How I envy you ! " Winifred exclaimed. " Do you know, I have him more than half-painted into a great picture I mean great in size " [121] Something Else Mr. Burl interposed with, " You mean nothing of the sort!" Winifred continued, her chin showing how completely the artist was disdained : " And it 's maddening to be compelled to sit idle, while my brain is burning up my plan to crinkled paper. You know what it is to be obliged to do nothing when you want to work work oh ! " she concluded, with astonishing energy. Did Irving know? "Yes," he said, "I knew you felt so. The part of the story that Mr. Burl has omitted is this : If you and he, or if you and your grand- father will go home with me, Sunday afternoon, we '11 force a compromise with Agostino. If the old ro- mances are true, nothing so delights Italians as slipping about in the dead of night to enter houses at secret signals. Agostino will come to be painted, I 'm sure, if he may do so stealthily." " But if you know him," responded Winifred, doubt- fully, " couldn't you induce him to form the plot? If you would ! " And her eyes sparkled. Irving waved away the suggestion. " Not without you," he said decidedly. " I don't know him at all. I could n't influence him in the least. But you " They were discussing this idea when the brisk step of Winifred's grandfather was heard without. He en- tered breezily a smooth-shaven, kind-faced man of seventy. His white hair was parted carefully in the mid- dle, while in a straight course with that popular line of short division, was a youthful dimple in his chin. His manner suggested that in youth he had stored up a The Italian Spy great quantity of reserved vital-force for these very days. Irving knew that Winifred's parents were dead, and that she lived with her grandfather in the big house northwest of Madison Square. Winifred, seeing their friendly footing, cried out that only a conspiracy on the part of Dr. Adams and Mr. Burl had kept her from hearing of Mr. Payne. " And he has a story ! " cried Winifred, accusingly. " Uncle Christopher won't tell it right, and grandfather has never told it at all." Dr. Adams leaned an elbow upon his knee, propped a plump cheek upon his knuckles in a self-conscious atti- tude, as if for a photographer. He looked into the fire. " I don't know Mr. Payne's story. As for Chris, he never could tell anything straight." Christopher Burl retorted with exceeding gruffness, " I 've never learned to soften my stories for weak brains." Then he looked sidewise at his old friend, and thrust forward his goatee, like a mastiff awaiting at- tack. The doctor remarked that attitude, and said, " / don't want your bone ! " The ostensible rudeness of these life-long friends to each other, and their courtly deference to Winifred, amused and touched Irving. The elders delighted in nothing so much as chaffing each other with rather heavy jibes these points, however, always wore foils: but they were not mocking each other so much as they were mocking old age. When Dr. Adams and " Uncle Chris- [123] Something Else topher " vied with each other in showing Winifred honor, it was not as the old regard the young, but as if she were able to rekindle those coals of youth which lie smothered, or haply glowing, in the hearts of the oldest of us. Irving began to fear that Winifred might suspect some dark thread in his life-history. " I '11 tell it my- self," he declared. " Tell it, tell it ! " cried Dr. Adams. " We '11 swear to every word, won't we, Chris ? " " Like troopers," Mr. Burl declared. They made a charming picture about the enormous fireplace, their faces reddened by the up-leaping flames, their hair touched to gold or snow, by the lights swing- ing from naked rafters. Back of them were the dusky nooks of the studio, their mysterious shadows playing along the barnlike walls, or fleeting over the glimmering floor. Winifred occupied the centre of the hearth-arc, with Mr. Burl on her right, his pipe taking transitory visits from mouth to knee ; and, on her other side, Dr. Adams, apparently enjoying his photographic pose. Irving, of course, leaned against the mantelpiece, his face softened by brown shadow. " When I met Mr. Burl, three years ago," said Irving, " it was like meeting some one I 'd always known. I can't tell you exactly how, but pretty soon he knew everything about me, and I knew as much of him as I know to-night and that 's almost nothing." " Nothing about him to know," Dr. Adams inter- jected; " he 's only a paint-brush and a stomach." [124] The Italian Spy " Into which stomach," Mr. Burl commented, " none of this doctor's pills will ever be pumped ! " " I was attending the university," Irving continued. " I was always running out of my allowance, though father Payne was pretty generous. I don't know why, for I kept account of every penny I have the little books showing everything I 've spent for the past five years. It went somehow." He laughed. Then in a light tone he told of his cookery in the studio, of his transitory flights into the upper world, of his recoup- ments, his present eclipse. All was gay, cheerful, nat- ural. Why save, except to spend? After spending, what is left, except to save? It was an endless round of the wheel of life. He kept it oiled as best he might, till it reached its highest point. After that well, down it had to come, of course, sinking from its own weight the specific gravity of necessity that holds poor mortals to the earth's surface. Winifred, with hands clasped about her knee, listened with steadfast gravity. "And what is ahead?" inquired Dr. Adams, inter- estedly. Mr. Burl turned upon him : " Just what is behind, simpleton ! " Irving laughed : " I ask nothing better," he declared. " After the drudgery of the railroad office horrid monotony ! or the cut-off existence of a river tug, I suddenly plunge into real life ; I find a new pair of lungs to breathe with, like an extra pair of bellows in a cramped blacksmith's shop. You three won't understand this. [125] Something Else You could enjoy that true life every day. But suppose you longed for it all the time the true life and could peep into it only once a month or so ; then you 'd understand why I 'm willing to live a sort of grub-life between flying-days. I don't feel that all of me is at work, in my obscurity; but when I emerge, every fibre of me is alive." Dr. Adams changed his pose, to lay a hand upon Winifred's strong arm. " This girl of mine," he said, " belongs by rights to what you call * real life.' She was born into it, and has the means. Do you see how white my hair is ? That comes from trying to persuade her to take her place in society to give up daubing and smearing and finger-staining and making some rather remarkable pictures, by the way. But she won't listen. She won't spend her time sitting up to be vis- ited, or going to visit people she does n't want to see. I 've had to give her up." He shook her arm playfully, crying, " Oh, you little grub ! " " Yes ! " Mr. Burl echoed, catching her other hand, " you little grub ! Why do you renounce dinners and theatre-parties and balls and week-ends in a word, ' real life ' to waste your time in cheering up the old heart of this prerfieer of Grub Street? Just because you are a grub, as Irving says. But come, Sunbeam, I know you must have your flying-days " And he lifted her up by the force of his sinewy arm. " We fly ! " exclaimed Dr. Adams, also rising. The two old fellows started on a run down the studio, drag- ging the laughing Winifred along between them. [126] The Italian Spy " Up and down ! " cried Mr. Burl, his nimble legs oddly at variance with the stern, business-like aspect of his overhanging brows and fixed mouth. The boyish countenance of the doctor glowed under the middle parting of his white hair; and the dimple in his chin deepened. Winifred's skirts swayed protestingly as her tall form was propelled violently through space. Her cheeks reddened ; were there ever softer, more finely mod- ulated fields of satin, for the growing of red roses? Her bosom rose and fell in the broad curves of perfect health; and when she laughed, her voice came to Irving with the fragrant suggestion of the heart of a dewy rose. " Now to the skeleton ! " said Mr. Burl sternly. When they reached that ghastly trophy, the artist stared hard at the grinning skull. " We 're no kin of yours," he de- clared. " We don't know you," cried Dr. Adams. But Winifred said nothing; and Irving noticed, when the men were again seated, that she paused behind her grandfather's chair, and stooped to rest her blooming cheek against the snow of his hair. When all were in perfect breath, Irving's project was broached. Dr. Adams at once agreed to accompany the young man Sunday afternoon, in quest of Agostino, whereupon Winifred's hesitation vanished. The adven- ture into Jersey assumed the guise of a holiday excur- sion. They discussed the details with enthusiasm ; Irving was enchanted. What a day it would be, with the old doctor by his side to say nothing of Winifred ! [127] Something Else It was half -past eight when footsteps were heard, and Monsieur du Pays was presented to the party. The once famous tenor was followed soon after by the French restaurateur, Chartier by name, who has abso- lutely nothing to do with this story, except to distract us with his violin. For although Chartier brought his hired violinist to accompany Du Pays, he could not for- bear the temptation to bring his own tormenting instru- ment. It was a long time since he had taken a holiday from his restaurant, a long time since he had drawn the bow. He meant to hear Du Pays and amuse himself at the same time. At sight of Winifred, Du Pays had grown straighter, had shaken the blonde locks from his leonine brow, as if his throat were endowed with strength from Sampson's hair. But Chartier, eager only to play, seated himself abruptly, motioned to the first violin of his restaurant orchestra to do the same, and arranged his rack with feverish activity. A dark and silent form had halted at the door, sep- arated by the length of the apartment from the lights. It was Pasquale, he of the Italian restaurant. Irving wondered at his presence, and Pasquale himself, know- ing he had no business there, looked mean and evasive. " He would come," said Chartier, nodding his head toward the motionless figure. " He follows. I say to him that I come here to accompany a great singer that I learn about, it may be to engage him for my restau- rant. Pasquale say, ' I come also.' I say, ' But no.' It is in vain. Here we have him." Pasquale did not utter a sound. [128] The Italian Spy Then the hired musician spoke, the middle-aged man with the red, good-natured face : " I told him that I did n't think you 'd want him here, and I knew we did n't ; but we could n't do a thing with him, this Pasquale." Pasquale moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue, looked shiftily toward Irving's screened-in corner, as if suspecting it of caging a wild beast, and remained dis- creetly silent. " Pray let him stay," murmured Winifred, in some distress. The hired musician, subtly aware of Winifred's charm- ing personality, stuffed out of sight the frayed edge of a socialistic cuff, and pulled up the shirt band from which the collar was banished, presumably, in the inter- ests of the brotherhood of man. Yes, there was no mis- taking the lazy, shiftless musician; it was the socialist whom Irving had accompanied to the Court House the day of the divorce-suit against Mrs. Vandever. In a word, this hired violinist was the first husband of Mrs. J. S. Vandever, and the father of Jessie's young Van- dever, otherwise " the Duke." Irving had not seen the tramp since that day of Mrs. Sadie Wyse's letter; and, as the musician made no sign of recognition, he contented himself with a careless nod. The wanderer Chartier addressed him as Arnold was better dressed than when selling pencils at Tomp- kins Square, but not so well as when fitted out in Agos- tino's rented garments. His long shaggy hair stood over his brow, or fell down to his eyes unevenly, and his large face with its suggestion of physical comfort, was 9 [ 129 ] Something Else covered with a week's beard. The young man remem- bered his impression of almost two months ago an impression of a refined natural man, from whom the spiritual nature has departed ; or rather, of a man whose spiritual qualities, never uppermost, have been absorbed by the earthy nature. It was not as if the musician were base or sensuous, but rather as if in straying from his highest estate, he had halted on the level plain of unambitious ease. They made ready to play, and it was then that this musician, known as Arnold, caught Irving's eye. In- stantly the man put his finger upon his lips while he assumed an expression of intense warning. The next moment, he was bending over his instrument. Irving was amazed. Did the other mean that he did not want to be recognized? Or was he referring to the presence of Pasquale? The overture, difficult of execution, was decidedly painful, suggesting the guillotine. It was amazing how Chartier could draw every note almost in the exact place, without ever achieving perfection. All that his sweaty labor evoked were squeaky protests and guttural rasps. " Ah, mon dieu! " groaned Du Pays, inwardly. Arnold with exceeding deliberation, laid his bow upon the floor, delicately adjusted his violin in its case, and picked up his rack to dismember it. He had never heard his employer perform, hence his hopeful beginning. Rising, he again pushed back the cuff, and started for the door. Chartier called him angrily, with threats of [130] The Italian Spy dismissal, but Arnold paused not till the door had closed him from their sight. Chartier, however, continued tri- umphantly, and poor Monsieur du Pays, hopeful of em- ployment at the restaurant where mere menials would be detailed to his accompaniment, raised his voice " ' Una voce poco fa Qui nel cor ni risono ' " Mr. Burl muttered, " 'T is the Barber of Seville." Chartier's violin squeaked horribly. " Aye," whispered Dr. Adams, " and with his razor keen!" In the meantime Irving was thinking about Arnold's strange gesture, and his precipitate retreat. Had his departure been prompted by an aesthetic ear alone? As the first husband of Mrs. Vandever how incredible that seemed ! possibly the portrait of the lady had startled him, rousing bitter memories. Irving glanced at the easel; no, the portrait was turned with its face to the wall. Besides, Arnold had warned Irving warned him of what ? In his exasperated perplexity, Irving lost some of Winifred's charming looks, as she delicately placed her fingers on her ears. At last the execution was complete. Du Pays sang triumphantly, '"E cento trappole, faro giacar, faro giacar, faro giacar,'" And it was done. From Chartier's poised bow, seemed to drip the blood of his murdered cavatina. Irving started from his reverie to announce, " Mon- sieur has sung for Queen Victoria. And at Rome [131] Something Else Rome, Italy, you understand the jewellers did a thriv- ing business when he sang grand opera, for the ladies threw their gems at his feet." Chartier played on. " So sorry " murmured Win- ifred, rising, " that " " Yes, yes," declared Dr. Adams, wickedly abetting her, " we have already stayed an unconscionable time. Good-bye adieu. So glad we heard you, Monsieur du Pays. No, Chris, no, we really must be going. Eh, Sunbeam?" " We have stayed too long," Winifred declared. Then turning to Irving, who was disconsolately helping her with her cloak " Remember then, Mr. Payne, we shall expect you ; and if Agostino " It was as he drew the sleeve upon her arm that the merest chance directed his eyes toward the almost for- gotten Pasquale. Such a look in the Italian's eyes! Such a contraction of the mouth! In a flash, Irving suspected the motive of Arnold's warning of his com- ing. Yes, Arnold was a friend of Agostino's, and would know that Agostino had sought refuge at the studio. This Pasquale must be one of the Black Handers, seek- ing Agostino's life. Winifred, a little out of breath from the exertion of the cloak, repeated, " And if Agostino " Irving caught her hand, and pressed it, significantly. Winifred, who was not used to having her hand pressed significantly by strange young gentlemen, turned crimson and tried to free herself. But her look of anger turned to surprise, as her eyes sought Irving's. As for [132] The Italian Spy the young man, he gave her hand a tighter pressure. Not only might Agostino's fate depend upon her silence, but his own happiness seemed to hang upon her firm, warm hand. Never before had he been given such an opportunity to do good, by the holding of a perfect hand. Irving spoke aloud, " Yes, you can depend upon me. I understand." " And I understand," said Winifred, which meant that he need cling to her no longer, since she comprehended the danger. He was obliged, therefore, to release her. And in a few minutes the cab had whirled her and her grandfather into another world. When they were gone, there never was a studio more cheerless, more vacant, more monotonous. With Wini- fred out of that armchair, there never was a chair that held out its arms with such hollow mockery. Irving, suddenly grown gloomy, almost morose, to judge from appearances, drew from his pocket the little rubber balls which he was able expertly to keep up in the air by the exertion of a single hand. He did so keep them in the air, holding his other arm rigidly behind his back, while Chartier played discouragingly, Du Pays rested his throat, and Christopher Burl smoked his pipe in motion- less gravity. After watching a while, Du Pays exclaimed, desper- ately, " Where may one obtain those things ? " Irving, never ceasing in his recreation, said briefly, " Corner grocery." Du Pays scurried downstairs, and soon returned with [133] Something Else rubber balls. He held his unengaged arm after Irving's example, and essayed the difficult feat. The fancy struck Mr. Burl, as he watched each standing fixedly, one arm behind his back, his eyes staring upward, that they were seeking their missing members among the raft- ers. It was impossible to guess Pasquale's thoughts, but not a movement escaped him; and from time to time he stealthily looked toward the closed-in corner, no doubt suspecting that Agostino was crouching behind the screen. When Chartier had had enough of it, he departed, carrying Du Pays with him, permanently engaged ; Pas- quale reluctantly followed. Irving lingered to talk it over with Mr. Burl, but at last he, too, went down the outside steps, and vanished in the darkness. It was very cold, but the young man was hardly sensible of the nip- ping breeze, for romantic prospects and romantic mem- ories attended him. When he found himself before the lodging-house of Mrs. Sadie Wyse, he could still feel Winifred's hand clasped in his ; and having reached the old stone steps to which all his romances seemed to bring him, at last it came to his mind that next Sunday, the day of his projected visit with Winifred to his foster-parents, was the day appointed for meeting young Vandever and his friends at the palace-like hotel, uptown. There would be plenty of time, after returning with Winifred, to keep the engagement with Vandever. Time? If one only had as much of some other things! Irving thrust his hand deep into his pocket just seventy-five cents. [134] CHAPTER IX THE TRIP WITH WINIFRED JUST seventy-five cents, it has been observed, was the sum total of Irving Payne's ready money. As the young man sat in the studio with his friend, the night before the Great Sunday, he said nothing about his resources. When one ostensibly scrapes the bottom of the empty bucket, it is a crying hint for refilling. Mr. Burl, after lending a hundred dollars most of which the pawnbroker had added to his hoard must not suffer extortion. Truly, imposi- tion is the toll of friendship ; but even such friendship as that of Damon and Pythias, languishes under too high a tariff. As the two stared into the fire from the great arm- chairs, Irving was wondering how he was to find money for the morrow. He would not need a great deal ; but one cannot travel about the country with beautiful ladies and old gentlemen who keep their shoes out of the dust, without something more than seventy-five cents. As for taking Jessie to the hotel to dine in the evening with Vandever and Bird Martin, and the two chorus girls, or two other girls of similar pliable conventions, that was out of the question. [135] Something Else In the first place, to take Jessie anywhere was un- thinkable. Jessie was so oh, she was a good girl, a really good and well-disposed little creature, but Ir- ving fidgeted. He had entirely forgotten how round Jessie was, or if he remembered, he did n't care. Why should n't she be round? What of it? He made noth- ing of her roundness. In the second place, even if he wanted to take Jessie ; even if it were not Jessie or anything like Jessie, but if it were Winifred, for instance even then, how could she be taken to a banquet on the leavings of his seventy-five cents ? Money is a very useful thing. It is more than a convenience. " For Heaven's sake, boy," remonstrated Mr. Burl, suddenly pointing his pipe at him, " leave off digging your heel into that rug, and that ditch in your forehead ! Be a social animal. Come to the surface." Irving would not disclose his pecuniary embarrass- ment, so he passed to the third reason for foregoing the supper at the uptown hotel; a reason he had thus far artfully withheld, that it might be used for conversa- tional purposes. Irving was reminded of it when his attention was called to the rug. The round bluish spot recalled the night when Mr. Burl dropped his pipe, on hearing that the young man had learned of his par- entage. " By the way," said Irving, shutting out Jessie's face with this conventional barricade, " Mrs. Wyse stopped me in the hall, this morning, to tell me something of ex- traordinary importance. It was, that she had met the [136] The Trip with Winifred tramp who knows my father's name, and the name of my mother's family." Mr. Burl almost dropped his pipe a second time, as he uttered a grunt that might have been expressive of sur- prise, or congratulation. Then, as Irving remained silent, the other said, " Well? Give us their names, Ir- ving." " I don't know the names. The tramp would n't tell Mrs. Wyse. He told her to get five hundred from me, and bring it to him, and he 'd give her the whole story." " Umph ! And you pulled the wad out of your pocket, I suppose, and forked it over, eh? " " I told her, ' Let 's make it a thousand.' ' Irving squirmed in the chair, and added, " Well, I had to tell her I was dead broke, of course. Anyway, if I 'd been the millionaire I expect to be, how 'd I have known the tramp would tell her the truth? " " And how would you have known that this Mrs. Wyse would have delivered the goods ? " returned the artist. "Oh," retorted Irving, "Mrs. Wyse is all right. You never saw such a pattern of aristocracy and mo- rality. She was a friend of the Prince of Wales." " In that case, of course she has every virtue," Mr. Burl growled. " But / don't believe in her. I believe she meant to keep that money. I don't believe in her tramp. There 's no such character, in my opinion." " If you knew Mrs. Wyse," began Irving. But what was the use to try to reproduce the austere quali- ties of the little woman in black? " Anyway," he said, [137] Something Else " I made her tell me where she was to have met this tramp, to hand him over my supposititious Wealth. She was to have met him at Rutgers Square at a quarter to nine, Sunday evening. So I am going there myself; and I '11 get all from him he knows." " How '11 you recognize this mythological tramp ? " " In the first place, he is a tramp. Then, he '11 be standing by the old fountain. Then, he has a mop of red hair, an enormous red mustache, and wears a ragged blue army-coat." " Does n't it strike you as singular that a friend of the Prince of Wales should meet the man you have de- scribed, at such an unheard-of place as Rutgers Square ? Is n't that the forum of the socialists ? " " All my life is a singular story," said Irving, con- tentedly. " Just take to-morrow, for instance : I 'm to go home, in the company of Miss Adams, which promises to be a charming adventure and we must n't forget the grandfather ; then I 'm to fare to the uptown- hotel, to explain to Vandever that the dinner is called off and you don't know what a fine fellow Vandever is ; it does me good to look at him, he so resembles me ; then I 'm to meet this mysterious tramp, and force, or wheedle from him, the name of my father I don't care a penny for my mother's family ; then I 'm to smuggle Agostino into Dr. Adams's house, unbeknown to the Black Handers, and get him away again the next night" Irving started up impetuously. " But this is life ! " he cried, his cheeks glowing. [138] The Trip with Winifred " Because it 's all in the future," Mr. Burl explained. " When the future is charted," said Irving, senten- tiously, " the day's voyage is bright with hope." " I 've found out this about the future," retorted Mr. Burl, tapping the arm of his chair with his empty pipe, as if beating time to his words : " If you suck all the juice out of it, before it 's yours to eat, you '11 find it a shrivelled lemon." " A shrivelled nothing ! " Irving scoffed. He would have gone away, but Mr. Burl proposed the spare bed- room. Why not sleep there to-night, and stay in bed the next morning, indefinitely ? Thus he would be fresh and ready for his Herculean day of pleasure and ad- venture. Irving gladly acquiesced. Nothing was said of the strange " person " who prevented the young man from habitually using the bedroom a " person " who, so far as Irving knew, had never yet come to occupy the chamber. Since he was not to return to his lodgings, they made a very late night of it, talking a good deal and saying even more by their silences. But that money must be borrowed. When Irving re- paired to Gotham Repose, shortly after noon, the next day, he was hardly sensible of the changes that had taken place, and were still in progress, in the lodging- house. It seemed to be a day of extensive house clean- ing, or moving. Doors stood ajar, unrelated pieces of furniture were taking an airing in the halls. An ex- planation of this unwonted phenomenon was received from Wedging. Irving found that prudent lover busily ciphering over many stray bits of paper. At his en- [139] Something Else trance into the third-floor back, Wedging gave his usual recognition, not by word of greeting, or by nod, but by a certain spasmodic contraction of the crooked-in legs as if to say, " I know you 're there." " Well, old man," said Irving heartily, throwing his hat upon the bed, and inwardly amused, as usual, at his own attitude of hail-fellow-well-met, "how goes it?" But he put his hat on his head again, for the room was not so warm as he had expected. In fact, the radiator was stone-cold. " Oh, / 'm all right,": Wedging's tone intimated, " But I fancy you are in a bad way." He gathered up the stray leaves and pocketed them. " Guess you know Mrs. Wyse has skipped no? I don't care, as I meant to pull out in a short time, anyway. A stranger has rented the house, but Mrs. Wyse got away with most of the furniture. Oh, she 's a wise one, Mrs. Sadie is not." Irving was speechless. Skipped? Going to pull out? What could it mean? " And I 'm going to leave the railroad office, too. I 've got a job with a broker over on Wall Street. Come to Sledge and Horn's, some time, and give us a call." " I '11 do it ! " cried Irving, emphatically. " I '11 place an order for a few million shares in A, B, and C Stocks and X, Y, and Z Securities. But in the meantime what do you mean about Mrs. Sadie Wyse? " " She 's pinched all the lodgers in the house, in her [140] The Trip with Winifred money-schemes," said Wedging, " except me. She 's skipped the police, just in time, carrying off the booty. Poor Jessie Tiff entrusted her with all her savings, and will have to go to live with her mother in the East Side. Look here, Mr. Payne," Wedging rose and thrust his hands into his pockets, while a deep red crept into his dark cheeks, " Is there anything has there ever been between you and between you two ? " Irving's answer was unhesitating, assuring, and col- loquial: "Nix!" " Then who is it ? " Wedging burst forth, plainly astonished at the other's denial. It gave Irving an un- pleasant thrill, this manifestation of emotion in the phlegmatic, colorless lodger. " I tell you, she cares for somebody. I thought it you all the time. And this is the day for settling it but since you But I tell you, it 's somebody, for when I asked her to marry me as soon as we knew Mrs. Wyse had robbed her on get-rich- quick propositions well, she refused me, all right." Then it must be Vandever. Irving exclaimed, " The little " But he did not complete his expression of Jessie's folly, not even to himself. New matters were being thrust upon his attention with a vengeance: Wedging's offer to Jessie; Jessie's adherence to an im- possible ideal; the amazing revelation of Mrs. Wyse's duplicity. And the new landlady must be interviewed at once ; since Wedging was going away, Irving would speak for the skylight-room. All this was immediate, thought-compelling. But all this, in fact, the entire [141] Something Else universe, faded into insignificance before the pressing need of the moment. Not theories, but conditions, con- fronted him ; money must be borrowed. Wedging was impossible. Irving descended to the second floor front, no longer the rear roam overlook- ing the scabby brick wall, Monsieur sings at Chartier's. " You cannot enter," said Madame du Pays, not open- ing the door to his knock. Her voice was abjectly apologetic. " Monsieur have the headache. Is it the visit of friendship we are fated to miss? But to-mor- row, come. But to-day, non, ca ne se pent pas" All this with incredible speed of tongue. " It is no visit of friendship," said Irving, piercing the door with sabre tones. " It is the visit of beggary. I have come to borrow five dollars. But don't bother, I '11 pawn my watch again it 's a very handy time- piece." " No, no, no, no," cried the voice of Monsieur du Pays. " Entrez, mon ami. Make the door open, Angel- ique. Eh bien! C'est beaucoup mieua. I feel better, for the light of a friend shines upon me. But, mon dieu, me voila dans un bel embarras." Monsieur du Pays was indeed in un bel embarras. Something had gone wrong with the hair-dyes, and Monsieur's head was no longer nobly blonde, but as red as a flannel rag. The air, too, was filled with a pungent odor that had refused the window a carriage-shop odor, recalling fresh leather, freshly varnished wood, and freshly greased axles. The tenor was himself the vehicle in process of remaking. [142] The Trip with Winifred " You want five? " cried the soloist, rising like a hero above his humiliation. " Shall I not make it ten? Do I not owe you all? It was you who told Monsieur Chartier how well he play ah, could you ? and you it was who did so, how you say? jolly him ; he take me at the fall of the hat. Qu'avez-vou done? We make it ten, is it not? " But Irving was firm. Only five, to be paid back at the next pay-day. " Pay it back ! " the two exclaimed in perfect unison, as if their part had been carefully rehearsed. Then Madame led with, "Do we not know?" and Monsieur declared, " I already hold it in my hand again." It was early in the afternoon when Irving breathed the refined atmosphere of the Adams home, off Madison Square. He had hardly seated himself in the little world of easy culture a culture too sure of itself to commit the unpardonable fault of being over-cautious when the doctor and Winifred announced themselves ready for the journey. On his way to the coupe, Irving was impressed with a sense of home-permanency, suggesting that whoever came and went with the ebb and flow of fashion (it was always ebb tide now in this once aristo- cratic district), the Adams family meant to remain. In this home-permanency the servants stood for more than accidental necessities. The butler was no cold abstrac- tion of butlerdom, but a man with evident interest in frontdoor admissions; the coachman, while never once turning his head to look down at the three in the coupe, made it felt that his wooden expression was for the [143] Something Else public gaze, while at bottom, he and the doctor under- stood one another. They discussed certain plans for inveigling Agostino to Winifred's studio, happily not feeling bound to any of them. This freedom to propose anything, however absurd or impossible, exactly suited Irving's fancy, which never cared for hard labor. It amused him to force Winifred's smile, and often he made her smile against her will. It was a captivating process, that smile of Winifred's, a lighting up of the wonderful brown eyes, a little uplift of the sweeping lashes, an ir- resistible tremble of the upper lip, and an almost micro- scopic drawing in of the under lip. In her street-dress, he found her different from the free and independent workman of blouse and cap, differ- ent from the meditative evening-lady of the huge arm- chair with hearth-flame glory. She was now the picture of reserved womanhood, holding in reservation, from na conscious volition, a thousand subtle graces which, like sweet violets, hid themselves for no other reason than because they were sweet violets. She did not impress him as seeking to hold him at a distance on account of their difference of station in life, or for any cause. She was at a distance, nevertheless, and he felt it even more surely because she made no point of the difference. The sweet violet does not appear to know it is sweet; but, however the wild violet may flaunt its larger leaves, and hold its larger blossoms in air, it knows what it is about, in not shrinking from sight in inodorous modesty. [144] The Trip with Winifred Irving, then, perceived this intangible difference. If he had cared greatly for Winifred, it might have stirred his ambition to reach her own plane of being. Should he ever care greatly for her, he might make the most difficult of attempts that of remaking himself ; not as Monsieur du Pays, for change of inherent character requires an alchemy far more potent than any hair-dye. Since he could not yet care enough for Winifred to do violence to his nature, he could not but take her innocent isolation in a sort of reproach to himself, who was con- scious of no wrong. Therefore his teasing efforts to compel Winifred's smile a teasing which, however free from malice, was doing him no good in Winifred's esti- mation. Dr. Adams pointed out the high-backed stone seat at the base of the Farragut statue, as his favorite rest- ing place in Madison Square, which was another way of saying in New York City. The silver-haired descend- ant of former Madison Square devotees grumbled at the caprices of old neighbors who had abandoned their birthright for the pottage of " Millionaire Row." He remembered when these enormous buildings were not when vacant lots and disreputable stables and hovels had their place in the world of interrupted culture, form- ing a relief, a certain setting of picturesque necessity. " But you are so young, so abnormally young," he broke off, with an impatient shake of the head ; " one place is the same as another to you." " Yes," remarked Winifred, " if you are in it." Her grandfather, to hide his secret delight at these Something Else words, cried out despairingly, " Oh, why have n't I Chris Burl here to quarrel with? " The coachman let them out at the Twenty-third Street Station, with a proprietary air as if calling all coachmen to witness the superior grade of humanity that he handled. The travellers were engulfed in the chilled brilliance and unassertive but unescapable smells of the Subway. After the uproar of Broadway and Twenty- third, the electric monotone of the underground passage was grateful to Irving. It gave him a sort of intimacy with his companions. Being obliged to stand up, for want of room, he had the pleasure of forcing Winifred to look up constantly into his face, with her always un- afraid eyes, and her sometimes deliciously quivering lip. The other passengers must have envied him his privilege ; he was sure they did, and brightened proportionally, for he was always at his best when people were looking. " By the way," said Irving not to Dr. Adams, of course, though that gentleman was standing at his very elbow, but to Winifred, though she was inconvenient "has Mr. Burl finished Mrs. Vandever's picture?" Winifred opened her eyes so wide, and Irving saw so much of their luminous brown splendor, that he almost began to care for her on the spot. She said, decidedly, " He has never begun Mrs. Vandever's picture." Irving hardly knew what she said, from looking into her eyes; and she was so surprised at his question, that she forgot to look away. That was unlucky for him, too. " But I saw it, when it was half -finished," he managed to say. [146] The Trip with Winifred " That 's not Mrs. Vandever's picture," said Winifred, with the finality of professional wisdom. " Do you know Mrs. Vandever? " " I have seen her several times. I even spoke to Mr. Burl about that portrait. He didn't deny its being hers." " Just like him ! " said Winifred, with the whimsical tilt of her little mouth, that was almost as harmful as the open look of the great eyes. " I know the picture you mean. That is n't Mrs. Vandever's portrait. It' s just a fancy sketch. There was n't a model. He saw a. face in the street, went home, and mixed his paints. He told me about it." Irving challenged her with, " But do you know Mrs. Vandever? " " Her daughter is to spend the day with me to-mor- row she '11 sleep at our house to-night," said Wini- fred conclusively, and her grandfather came into the conversation with "What, what, what! Know Mrs. Vandever? Bless my soul ! I 've been her family physician since before she married twenty-five or thirty years, I should say. What about her?" " Grandfather," interposed Winifred appealingly, " is Mr. Burl painting her portrait? " . "Chris?" ejaculated the physician. "Mrs. Van- dever? Fiddlesticks!" Irving laughed aloud they were so sure, and so was he. " If we ever meet at Mr. Burl's studio," he cried, " I '11 show you the evidence." [147] Something Else The ride on the ferryboat was all it should be, on a dazzling 1 Sunday afternoon. The transit to Jersey City interfered somewhat with the growing romance, but the automobile that bore them out of Harrison into the de- serted country, gave them once more the appearance of a family group. Irving drove. The afternoon was bracing with February cold, not too intense; and Wini- fred, animated and rosy, kept pointing out picturesque glimpses of barren fields and quaint cottages. Irving, who knew every foot of the way, for his boyhood had been spent in the neighborhood, took advantage of by- roads, and seldom-travelled short-cuts, to bring his favorite haunts into prospective. He and Winifred dif- fered as to artistic values, and argued ; she for the sake of art, he for an excuse to look at her. Presently Dr. Adams, riding over this light talk as if it were stubble, brought up the subject of the day's ex- citement: the suicide of a young married man who had been supposed enormously rich, but who had proved al- most penniless. " There was nothing left in life that he wanted," the doctor explained, judicially, " and therefore he got out of it." " He had his wife," said Winifred, who manifested a decided hostility to the deceased, or rather, to his method of escaping a difficult situation. " Yes, nominally," said the doctor, dryly. " But she was used to going at a certain pace, and he had nothing left to keep up with her. She 'd have left him been bound to would n't know how to live poor. She 's [148] The Trip with Winifred rather shallow at best, and it takes a genius to know how to live poor." " I had not suspected," remarked Irving, " that I was unusually gifted." " Oh, you don't know how to live poor," the doctor disposed of him in a sentence. " I do not say to be poor, but to live poor." " Young Warne had his life, at any rate," said Ir- ving. " He had as much as I have." "What is life?" returned the doctor, didactically. " Nobody knows. All we can know is our idea of life. Warne's idea of life was to live as the very rich. He sacrificed everything to appear a multimillionaire. When he kept slipping back and back, till he had lost the race, there was nothing to keep trying for. You might say he 'd lost his life, before he shot himself." " He had never really lived," Winifred exclaimed, her eyes burning. " He thought that eating and drinking, the club, the ballroom, the theatre, the Stock Exchange he thought these incidents of existence were life. The only standard for any life is its ideal. I don't be- lieve we '11 be judged by what we are, but by what we try to be." Irving felt the sudden sword-thrust, but made no sign. " Now that he is dead," Winifred went on, with in- creased earnestness, " can you tell me what the world has lost?" " Only a pretender, I should say," remarked her grandfather. [ 149 ] Something Else Winifred caught at the word, her eyes flashing. " Yes. Only a pretender to the throne a man should have occupied. Such an opportunity to be a man 1 How the world needs men ! so much more than men need it. And this Mr. Warne is gone, and the world fed and clothed him for nothing. He did n't pay his board bill, since he did no good for the race. And / say, the sooner the better ! " " Why, my dear Sunbeam ! " the old man remon- strated. " Please don't be so bloodthirsty." Winifred caught herself with a nervous laugh. Irving spoke : " I 'm glad that pretender's name was Warne ; for to save my life, I can't help feeling you are discussing Irving Payne." Winifred grew crimson and bit her lip ; at sight of which Dr. Adams cried out, loudly, " The bull's eye ! The bull's eye ! " Winifred made a revengeful grimace at her grand- father, that would surely have been ugly upon any other face. As Irving turned to look at her steadily, she held her lower lip between her teeth, but would say nothing. " You are no doubt right," remarked Irving, very pleasantly indeed, as to externals ; " the sooner the bet- ter. But before I shoot myself, to get out of the way in order that some real man may ascend my throne, allow me to make a last speech or leave a letter ' Kind friends : Before this bullet finds a vital spot ' You know, if I only wound myself, I '11 be arrested, but if I kill myself they '11 give me flowers ; and that seems hardly fair, does it ? " [150] The Trip with Winifred Winifred interposed, with vehemence, " Don't ! " Irving's real feeling asserted itself in sombre silence. Dr. Adams made no attempt to relieve the tension. If the young fellow who was perhaps not so frivolous as he appeared could derive any good from what had been said, let it sink deep, while there was a chance for seed-germination! Irving, who did not believe he was a useless factor in life, because life was so dear to him, and who did not admit the right of others to claim su- periority for their different views of life, tried to look as if nothing had happened; but he couldn't quite, though he hated sulking. " Anyway," said Winifred, at last, trying to rally, and appearing, in spite of her splendid height and breadth of form, almost child-like in unwonted embar- rassment, " I could n't have meant you, Mr. Payne, in the remotest degree I mean, except in the remotest degree or if I did, I did n't I was n't conscious of it. It was just what Mr. Burl said about you in the studio, that day we met. Have you forgotten that day? " Had he! " And when you told your story, you confirmed all he 'd said. You told us yourself that you were that you did n't care for anything except oh, you know what you said. And grandfather is very unkind, and and very unjust, and I think, ungallant." Her voice faltered. " Forgive me, Grandfather, but you ought not to have pointed my words at Mr. Payne ; for we are al- most strangers, and naturally I can know nothing of his ideals." [151] Something Else " I have n't any," Irving obstinately declared. " Then " Winifred's eyes flashed *- " be Mr. Warne, if you please, and take all I said as meant for you ! " Dr. Adams hid his face in his handkerchief, and shook all over from some suppressed emotion. What that emo- tion was, he carefully concealed. But Winifred's eyes were bright with defiance, and, at the same time, moist from wounded sensibility, when the machine drew up be- fore the simple cottage of Captain Payne. As Irving, still with face inscrutable, leaped to the ground, a shepherd dog came bounding around the house, barking joyful recognition. Irving pointed at the friend of his boyhood, and spoke of himself as having already sought ignoble oblivion. " At any rate," he remarked, quizzically, " his dog loved him." Nothing was to be said to that. As all three stood before the gate of his foster-parents' home, Irving, with his sudden, winning smile, turned to Winifred, and silently extended his hand. She looked at him suspiciously, conscious, the while, that her grandfather was watching, to see if she would yield the point. Her look halted in the outlying dim- ness of a smile. " But I have nothing to retract," she warned. Irving's smile grew instantly sunlike, and her last lingering mist was dissolved. " But I have everything to admit," he responded. Then they shook hands, and were friends. [152] CHAPTER X THE LITTLE NEIGHBOR IRVING had telephoned their coming, and his foster- mother met them at the door. She was a motherly woman, whose redness of face suggested much bend- ing over hot ovens for the evolution of browned turkeys and savory pies. One felt instinctively that, however she might mix her tenses, she would not be guilty of a heart- solecism. Irving kissed her heartily and announced, " This is mother Payne," just as he might have said, " I present the first lady of the land." " I am sorry to break bad news at the front door," said Mrs. Payne, " but I would n't send you word, Irving, for we did n't want you bothered. The captain has gone and broken his leg ; and you can come in and see for your- self." Inasmuch as the door opened directly into the sitting- room, and as the room was small and the captain no pygmy, being, indeed, a man of much blood and hard breathing, he was seen without difficulty. " Well, Father Payne ! " exclaimed Irving, reproach- fully, as he gazed upon the helpless limb extended across a chair, "what have you done now?" Captain Silas Payne narrowed his eyes to quizzical slits, while a thousand little wrinkles, about mouth and [153] Something Else eyes, formed a fit accompaniment to some witty re- joinder. It was the wit itself that failed of manifesta- tion. He could think of no pertinent reply to Irving's affectionate taunt, so his droll expression faded away, un- fruitful. The situation called for a truce to conventions, and Winifred was quick with sympathetic interest. " I fell from deck," the captain told her, " but I broke only one of 'em. Irv tells us you want Agostino. They say every creature has his use, and you 've proved the saying. But I 'm afraid he '11 never go back to New York. He 's scared to death on account of the Black Handers. They wrote him a letter, demanding money ; it was signed with the orthodox black fingers spread out as if to dip in his heart's blood. Of course it would make no great differ- ence if they did nab the dago ; but you could never make him believe it." " The way he fell from deck," interrupted Mrs. Payne, to whom only one subject proved just then of moment, " was this : he was coming down the Passaic after a lumber-barge, when two boys who 'd been rocking their skiff got themselves overturned. The captain never waited a second, he just jumped " " But never reached them," interposed the captain, much embarrassed at his unwonted role of hero. " All I accomplished was a game leg. Doctor, how 's business ? " " Swimming," Dr. Adams answered, in nautical phrase. " But the best is to be told," persisted Mrs. Payne, as [154] The Little Neighbor she tried to smooth down that lock of the captain's hair that she had been smoothing for thirty years. " The father of the boys thinks it means something to risk your life for little children ; and he 's going to let us have a porgy, on easy terms, just as soon as the captain can walk." " He 's rich," the captain explained, " and does n't care how he spends his money, I guess. Well! This means a new start in life for me, so I can't complain my tug burned to the last plank, doctor, and no in- surance. But the porgy will keep us afloat. Oh, there 's nothing like breaking a leg, to get up in this world." Winifred would have liked to ask what a " porgy " was, but suspected from the sound of the word that it was something not to be discussed before ladies. She observed no mystification upon her grandfather's face she would get it from him when they were alone, at all events ! " Agostino is working for our Little Neighbor," said Mrs. Payne ; she had been giving Irving pats upon arm and shoulder, when she thought the strangers were not looking. " Miss Adams had better go after him alone, for he 'd take fright at a crowd of us, and likely enough run away. Irving, how could you stay away from home all this time? " she added, plaintively. " I intended coming every week," said Irving, re- morsefully, " but one Sunday just followed another, till weeks were months and I hardly know how it [155] Something Else was. I 'm never so happy as when here, but but " Nothing occurred to him more explanatory than his last word, so he left it to speak for itself. Irving went with Winifred, to show her the way ; but Dr. Adams, like a good old gentleman, remained with the disabled captain. Mrs. Payne entertained him with details of country life. Her years of wandering, first as daughter of one tug captain, then as young wife of another, had given her an inextinguishable zest for per- manent anchorage. Ever since their adoption of Irving, the little family had dwelt in this cottage, never tiring, unless Irving tired, of the perennial themes of vegetables, chickens, and a cow. Likely enough, Irving had heard these subjects suffi- ciently exploited. As he conducted Winifred in quest of the Italian model, he did not allude to the charms of rural life. " You '11 like our Little Neighbor," he predicted. " She has lived just across the street from us, as far back as I can remember, but I 've hardly ever conversed with her. There never was anybody as shy and timid. She is about mother Payne's age, I imagine. She hides herself from the world ; there 's a life secret, no doubt. It 's too bad, when you consider what a fine sort she is. Maybe that 's the reason. She owns the greenhouse, and, every season, sends a market wagon to Gansevoort Market, not far from Mr. Burl's studio." The Little Neighbor's cottage was even smaller than that of the Paynes. No one answered the bell. Irving said, " We are sure to find her in the greenhouse. She never leaves her place, unless some one is sick, and needs [156] The Little Neighbor her. If it had n't been for a tough case of pneumonia in my boyhood, probably I 'd never have met her." If Irving had been wounded by Winifred's seeming as- sumption that he was a useless weight to the earth, her pretty interest in his little confidences did much to soothe the pain. That she was interested in every word he spoke regarding " the Little Neighbor " was unmistak- able ; and when Winifred was interested, her opened eyes and parted lips revealed a charm of depth and sweetness which her habitual reserve merely suggested. Oh, it paid well to interest Winifred! Sure enough, they found the Little Neighbor in the greenhouse; under her supervision, Agostino was spad- ing an asparagus-bed. He was the first to see them com- ing; all movement ceased, save for the snapping of his small black eyes. His employer, next perceiving, widened her blue eyes in startled terror. She had been taken so unaware, that she could not even falter a greet- ing. Agostino growled, " Come confonde! " which, to his mind, stood for Italian discrimination and English asperity. Irving hastily explained the object of the intrusion, and introduced Winifred to " Mrs. Hurt." As on the few former occasions of his conversing with her, so now, he felt the oddity of addressing her as " Mrs. Hurt," because in his home she had always been spoken of merely as " the Little Neighbor." What need had she for any other title, since, apparently she had neither relatives nor friends ? Why not be called " Little Neighbor " to [157] Something Else the end? This small, silent creature, always in black what a fossil, truly ! Only the need and illness of those about her could move her to spasmodic life, as a fossil may be jarred to motion by a hammer's blow. When Mrs. Hurt learned that they had not come to carry her off, the alarm in the big blue eyes eyes so unnaturally, even pathetically large, in contrast with the thinness of the pale face softened away. The startled expression that had given her a disquieting touch as of wildness, faded into appeal; as if, isolated from her kind, she had forgotten the stereotyped phrases with which we bridge those abysses that divide all personali- ties. " It is robbing you, I know," Winifred said, looking hungrily at the Italian, " but could n't somebody else do his work? Nobody could sit for me, in Agostino's place." " You shall have him, of course," said Mrs. Hurt, in shy haste. " It was just because he was staying at Captain Payne's, to hide, and wanted work, that I let him come. Take him at once. Put up the spade, Agostino." Agostino cried excitedly, " I willa not go, I willa not go-a!" " Put up that spade, instantly ! " cried the Little Neighbor, displaying astonishing firmness. " They won't let you be injured. You engaged yourself to Miss Adams, and you must keep your engagement." Agostino grasped the spade, as if to ward off the suggestion. " I go backa, an' dey killa me," he ex- [158] The Little Neighbor claimed, fiercely. " Dat letter say if I notta be in a certain place, de stilletto for me-a. It come from de Mano Nera de Black Hand-a." His voice grew more concentrated ; his eyes were tigerish. " I willa not go. La Mano Nera, who can escape? La Mano Nera never fail-a." " Oh, what a great big man, to be such a miserable coward!" ejaculated the intrepid Little Neighbor. " The police will protect you. Give your letter to the authorities. They '11 arrest the author, and im- prison him." Agostino laughed, with the fulness of great knowl- edge. " Dey bring 'im to trial, yaas, ver' like ! Dey sen' 'im to no prison for dey prove not'in' at alia. Maybe great big man; maybe coward. But great big man not feel mucha big, widout de stilletto in my backa. Quant e vie d'assalir mi." Irving laughed at the fluent tones of honest fear, and the other looked at him as if to say, " That 's the way you take it. Very well ! " " Agostino," said Irving, " this lady needs you in order to complete a very important work. You will go to her house to-morrow morning." He named the sum of money offered by Dr. Adams. Agostino waved it away excitedly with his spade, as if to drown the great temptation in a torrent of protestations. Luckily Irving beat him to the headwaters of threatening speech, and continued: " Wait. Listen to me. You '11 slip over to Mr. Burl's studio to-night, and look about you for a safe [159] Something Else hiding-place, with the studio for your base. Early in the morning, before the Black Handers are awake, I '11 come to your hiding-place with a cab, a closed cab, and carry you to Dr. Adams's. Nobody '11 know you are in the city. You '11 stay in his house all day, and at night, I '11 come for you, and drive you to the studio in a cab. Nobody shall know but myself. Then you '11 creep into some hole or other you ought to know plenty and in the morning we '11 repeat the story of the day before ; and so on, till your picture is finished. I wish it were my picture that Miss Adams wants. Why ! Agostino, it would be a regular picnic to me! Think of outwitting the Black Handers, and drawing a hand- some sum of money at the same time." " I not like-a no picanic-a, me," Agostino protested violently. " Let 's reason about this," Irving persisted, greatly enjoying the prominent part he was playing under the respectful observation of Winifred and the Little Neighbor. " It 's no trouble for you to reach Mr. Burl's studio undiscovered, since it is on the river. All the city 's beyond it. Once established there, surely you can hit upon a hiding-place till morning. If you can't, no doubt Mr. Burl would let you stay somewhere about the place. And think how much you 're going to be paid for all your delightful adventure ! " " I willa not, I willa not go-a," shouted Agostino, now dancing up and down in a perfect frenzy of nega- tion. But suddenly a thought struck him with such force that he dropped the spade. His swarthy face, [160] The Little Neighbor convulsed, but a moment before, in terror, broke into an insinuating and villainous smile. He held up his right hand, and snapped each finger by turn, deliberately, delicately. Then he stepped up to Irving, and would have tapped him upon the breast, had not the other drawn back. " So it is you,' 9 he said. " Alia de time, I try to think. It is you! And you know dat man what you talk wid, dat want de divorce-a ? You 'member dat man, alia right O. K.?" " You mean the the pedler, or musician, called Arnold? " " Yaas him, dat manna, dat Arnold, yaas, Dick Ar- nold." " I remember him very well." Indeed, Irving could not look at Agostino without thinking of the seedy socialist. " Ver' good. Che did! Oh, damma. Yaas, I go wid you ! " Agostino, evidently pleased with his secretly devised plan, formed an armistice with respectability, and, in a liquid whisper, gave Irving the details. Then Irving and Winifred left the greenhouse. " What snaky eyes he has ! " Winifred murmured, enthusiastically. " Did you ever see so perfect a Judas ? He 's a treasure." " He 's great," answered the young man rather ab- sently. Then he continued, " And did you notice the Little Neighbor's eyes? What a pity she won't mingle with healthy and well-fed people ! She could be happy, [ 161 ] Something Else if she 'd allow herself to be. Did you notice, after the first shock of seeing us, how brightened up was her face all during the visit ? " " Was it ? " murmured Winifred, vaguely. " I was watching my model." " Her cheeks seemed fuller, and even took on a slight color." He glanced somewhat shyly at Winifred, and thought " No wonder ! " He added, " I imagine young people never go there, except to order flowers. What do you say " He stopped as if doubtful of his im- pulse, yet forced to humor it " what do you say to going back a minute, merely to say, 'Hello'? She may never see you again." Winifred looked at him with adorable gravity. She was conscious of the delicate compliment, and it had come so spontaneously and so earnestly, as if it were all for the Little Neighbor's benefit, that she valued it highly. The Little Neighbor might never see her again ! What a pity for the Little Neighbor ! And why? Be- cause Irving thought her such a marvel to gaze upon? Well! They would return for a moment to the green- house " merely to say, ' Hello.' " And when they went back, Agostino was spading away, with many a dark thought, no doubt. But Mrs. Hurt had retired to a rustic bench, and was sitting with her face buried in her hands. The fragile form trem- bled. Winifred whispered, instinctively drawing Irving's arm, to bring his ear close to her mouth (she did not [162] The Little Neighbor have to pull so very hard), "Oh! we had better slip away." They would have done so had not their feet sounded upon the gravel path. Mrs. Hurt started up ; one thin hand sought her palpitating heart, the other brushed away the tears. " We just came back," Irving faltered, regretful for his impulse, " to say good-bye, you know. We did n't want anything except I thought you might like to see it was just to say ' Hello.' ' " Oh ! " exclaimed the Little Neighbor, with a radiant smile which, in a way, seemed more pathetic than her tears. "Just for that? How sweet!" She came hastily toward them, and, as she reached the door, paused beside the carnation-bed. She said, " One for each of" " Your friends," said Winifred. " But you must pin mine on," Irving declared, bend- ing his tall form as gallantly as he had lowered his head for Winifred's whispered words. " Mother Payne al- ways does ; and when she 's made it fast, she pats me on the shoulder " The Little Neighbor rose on tiptoe, and timidly, yet lingeringly, held her tremulous hand upon the broad shoulder ; and patted it ; and smiled most wistfully, as if to say, " But your place is out there out in the great world." And so it was. Yet long after Irving had gone forth to mingle in its strident turmoil, the influence of [163] Something Else the Little Neighbor made itself felt most unaccountably. For sometimes, as he raised his face from the desk in the sky-scraper, or, it might be, in the full current of the tempestuous street-life, the great blue eyes of the Little Neighbor would seem to look at him with strange wistfulness, and he would feel her timid touch upon his shoulder. [164] CHAPTER XI BUILDERS ON their return from the greenhouse, Irving and Winifred were silent. The scene with the Little Neighbor, though brief and simple, had lifted the young people to that plane of acquaint- anceship wherein lips need not move to prove them- selves friendly. As they appeared at the door " Come in and join us!" called the hearty voice of the disabled tug captain. " We 're all fine, you and I, and the world we live in." " Do hush, Captain," his wife remonstrated ; " Miss Adams won't know how to take you." " I 'm not a scow, nor yet a barge, to be taken any- where," came the jolly disclaimer. "I'm a porgy- man, now ; or will be, when I 've fought it out with my game leg." " Honey," said Dr. Adams genially, " I 've found out all about porgies, so you need n't be afraid to ask. A porgy is a small tug of, say, a hundred ton ; eh, Cap'n ? " " A hundred ton," the captain corroborated. " Aye, aye, mate." Having outlined Agostino's plan of stealing to Win- ifred's studio, unseen by possible assassins, Irving next asked his foster-father how he and the Italian ever be- [165] Something Else came acquainted. " I can't understand," Irving de- clared, " why this ruffian should come to you for pro- tection." " I '11 tell you the story," cried the captain, heartily, " but the doctor must tack away from my broken leg. I 'm surprised, Doctor, that a man of your profession should be so colliding with disabled craft, seeing as there 's no fog in the bay." " Aye, aye, Cap'n," responded Dr. Adams, hitching his chair farther from the extended roll of bandages, " I 'm luffing, sir. If I touch you again, send me be- low, sir." Captain Payne grinned in appreciation of the other's amiability, and began his story, while countless wrin- kles at the corners of his eyes, were spread out like nets to catch memory : " This Agostino, like thousands of his kind, left his wife and babies in Italy, and came across with nothing but a few English words and the clothes on his back. He 'd heard how quick we Amer- icans get rich (I guess Irv can tell you all about that). Pasquale, one of his countrymen, met him at the dock, and Agostino was his meat. The countryman Pas- quale found him lodgings by subletting him a room at a price higher than Tie had to pay. Also, Pasquale found our Agnostic a job at the dumps, you under- stand." Irving, recalling the sinister face of Pasquale in Mr. Burl's studio, the night of Du Pays' engagement, failed to head off the speaker; while Winifred, her curiosity aroused, spurred him on, with [166] Builders "Dumps?" " Yes, the city garbage and refuse heaps, you know," responded Captain Payne, enjoyingly. " The scrap- ings and ashbarrels are emptied at certain docks, to be hauled out to sea and dumped overboard. A con- tractor pays the city thousands every year, to sort out the old shoes and coffeegrounds. Well, Mr. Con- tractor or I should say Signor Contractor puts the work under bosses, who hire heads of gangs, and these scrape together the ignorant immigrants just come across. The under-boss has to squeeze the day- laborer to the last drop, if the over-boss is to make any- thing. But even at that lick, Aggy did much better than he could have done in his own country, where the old shoes are not thrown out upon the heaps, and where, they tell me, the coffee ' ain't got no grounds.' A-goose used to live right at the edge of his dump the only home, you understand, that he could call his own. When the sanitaries drove him out of one hole, he 'd burrow in another. And it 's remarkable what an appetite that man displayed, eating his victuals right " 66 Captain ! " his wife remonstrated. " How unpleasant ! " murmured Winifred. "Unpleasant?" echoed the captain. "Why, Miss, could you have inhaled that sickening " " Captain," said Mrs. Payne firmly, " enough has been said." " Lay to 1 " cried the captain, apostrophizing his own bark. " This is a good story, but my wife always spoils it. But I 'm not in a fix to fight it out with her. Well, [167] Something Else Agostino used to help trim the scows, but I '11 not tell you how he did it. He kept making money, till finally he had a scow hired, with laborers under him, and Lord, how he did squeeze 'em ! That 's how I got to know him, when I was towing his scow out to the Hook. I had a magnificent tug the Hudsonia it 's gone up, now. There was a miserable rivalry always going on among the dumps. I saved Aggy's life twice, and he thinks I 'm the greatest fellow going ; and maybe I am. You see, it does n't matter how worthless your life is, under the circumstances it 's the best you could have, or you 'd have a better one. A-goose thinks just as much of being saved from a knife in the back, as you or I would. Besides, he is n't really worthless. He sub- leases a tenement, and has a little joint where he sells coal by the bucketful; so the poor dagoes who buy of him pay at the rate of $13.50 a ton, while we have to pay only $6.75. There 's nothing so expensive as downright poverty. And so, as I said, the Agnostic squeezes the poor devils under him just like Tie was once like he was once was once squz; Lord ! I pretty nigh got caught in a box then," grinned the captain, triumphantly, " but I bust into the open, just in time." " Has he sent for his wife ? " Winifred inquired. " He expects to go after her next summer he 's been sending her money, right along. Curious morals, those chaps have. He 's managed to console himself But I talk too much for my leg." It must have been difficult for guests, the most re- served, to hold themselves aloof from the friendly [168] Builders Paynes ; and, since Dr. Adams and his granddaughter possessed that most charming trait of the truly cul- tured, adaptability, fellowship in the front room seemed woven of a homogeneous texture, in which finer and more homely threads were scarcely to be distinguished. Irving valued far more what lay at the bottom of his foster-parents' natures than what appeared on the sur- face. He had wished that Winifred might divine the undercurrents. Her understanding was even deeper than he could have hoped; and his pleasure at seeing Dr. Adams and his granddaughter sitting in the midst of the little family, as if joined by some intimate sym- pathy to their daily lives, was greater than he would have deemed possible. This impression, and the glow of satisfaction it im- parted, were uppermost when his automobile bore him with his two companions beyond the last glimpse of mother Payne's waving handkerchief. The isolation of country roads, the sudden glimpses of retired cottages, each a world of home life, in itself complete, seemed to draw the travellers nearer together, in shutting them out from other people's realms. But the restless streams of pleasure-seekers in Jersey City shattered the young man's dream-like ramparts, and the crash of trains and the strident note of hurry, inundated the peaceful meadows of his content. Wini- fred herself stood forth with disquieting clearness of outline from the soft haze of his indolent, untrekked dream-world. They stood waiting for the ferryboat. " You see ! " [169] Something Else said Winifred, suddenly resuming a conversation which her companions had forgotten, and taking up her vi- brating tone exactly where it had been broken off. She nodded emphatically toward the skyline of lower Man- hattan. " That is what I meant. Look at the vessels, the docks, the warehouses, the offices ; then see how cer- tain buildings tower above the rest, cutting the sky into scraps, as if it were smoky paper." " But, Honey," remonstrated Dr. Adams, startled out of some vision of the past by her energy, " what are you talking about, please? What is it you say you meant? And when did you mean it ? and where ? " " What we said on the ride," Winifred returned, leap- ing over unnecessary chasms to solid footing. " I never see New York from across the river or the bay, without thinking of what it means to be a man. I never grow used to that sight. It thrills me, as if I had never seen it before. Man did that. How those huge build- ings lord it over their humble inferiors the gilded dome, that sharp peak, and Park Row Building which has n't forgotten it once stood highest in all the world those giant twin buildings with the cars running in their basements, the sure-enough tallest buildings in the world. Poor little Trinity, doing her best to be seen, you hardly know she 's there ! " Dr. Adams turned to look into the face that had grown almost dark in its eloquent passion for power. " You would be a Singer Building ! " he declared, " if you 'd been built of stone and mortar. Why, Honey ! such commercialism! You actually crow because re- [170] Builders ligion is dwarfed by these traps laid to catch dol- lars." Irving hurriedly rallied to the doctor's standard. " Yes ! those buildings are only brick, stone, and steel, after all," he declared. " It 's those who inhabit them, that belong to real life. According to my notion, one does n't have to tower above others to live, because life does n't consist in being seen." " Which is fortunate, too," added the doctor, com- fortably, " else most of us would be dead 'uns." But Winifred would be serious. The look she turned upon Irving was too greatly in earnest to avoid the is- sue. She quivered from head to foot with exalted con- viction, and in seeking to express her soul, could not wholly avoid dogmatism : " It is the builder who im- presses the world, and not the one who inhabits. The world may pretend to believe otherwise. Of course those who have never built anything may buy up palaces and towers, but when you look at the buildings you don't see who own them only who built them. Is n't that true? Don't you feel so? " she asked eagerly. " The pyramids have forgotten the kings who were en- tombed within; but they never let the world forget the hands that raised stone upon stone." There was the fire of enthusiasm glowing in her brown eyes, in her flushed cheeks, above all, in her nervous voice. But all she had spoken was at such wide variance with Irving's philosophy of life, that he refused ignition. " Well ! " said Irving, turning from Winifred's face (they were now nearing the Manhattan shore) and [171] Something Else staring at the white line that the boat was cutting across the gray surface of the tide. " I suppose I am not one to forge swords for other men to wield; or build houses for other men to enjoy. I suppose I 'm not one of your builders, to leave some great work behind me for lazy, or incompetent posterity to wonder at." Dr. Adams waved his hand and said, " Here is life all about us, heaped up from centuries of preparation." " And here am I," Irving swiftly replied, " to get what I can out of it, then to go my way, giving place to others. If they get more out of it than I well ! so much the better for them; and so much the better for me, if I 'm content." He looked at Winifred, finding her opposition somewhat sweet, because it signified that she was interested in him ; and somewhat bitter, because he felt that she might be in the right, after all. Dr. Adams, wishing to spur his granddaughter to another assault, murmured, as in support of Irving, " If literature is my bent, just consider all the master- pieces of the world. Why should I write books, when it 's already impossible to read the world's best books, peddled at every street corner, thrown in as prizes with the new baking powders, the new brands of coffee ? " " If I like music," said Irving, aggressively, still looking at Winifred, who resolutely looked at the waves, " why should I compose operas, when so many match- less compositions are given away, to advertise pianos of some particular make? Do you understand what I mean ? " " What, what, what ! Know what you mean ? It 's [172] Builders just like a primer to me," the doctor declared. " It 's like some story I 've heard before." Winifred, still with eyes intent upon the river, smiled faintly, as if to say it was hardly worth the trouble to prolong the useless argument. Then she seemed to forget Irving and Dr. Adams altogether, as a pensive gravity settled upon her face. Was she thinking of the Little Neighbor, or of her success in the quest of Agos- tino? In reality, she was thinking most of Irving, when she seemed thinking least. Irving's antagonism grieved Winifred; not, of course, because of the personal resistance, but because she had begun to take an interest in the young man ; a deeper interest than she realized. She had seen enough of him to appreciate his generous qualities and higher capabilities, and it saddened her to think that his life, in spite of generous promise, might come to nothing. She wanted him to be more than a pleasant and handsome ^oung man, more than the young men of her casual acquaintance. Somehow, she felt that he could be much more. She would have done a good deal to inspire him with the aims that had carried her to honorable recognition as an artist. But it seemed that she had not learned that secret touch which alone can correct without hardening. As for Irving, it had vaguely floated over the sunny skies of his mind that he was not what he might be, pos- sibly not even what he should have been ; and that this lack, this possible defect, was his, not so much because circumstances had refused their aid, as because he had [173] Something Else felt no prompting of the need. Naturally he resisted a reshaping of his aims, but his resistance was perverse rather than determined. As he stared at the white line in their wake, it was not entirely beyond his fancy that he might one day some day comfortably far away in the future become a builder, after all. But he gave no sign of yielding, and Winifred said no more. Each stood in pensive mood, till the boat glided into its slip, just as the sun disappeared behind the silent factories of Jersey City. [174] CHAPTER XII THE GATHERING OF THE POOR IT was growing colder when Irving parted from Winifred and her grandfather. His complicated task of getting Agostino to Winifred's studio might seem to the doctor too great a favor from one almost a stranger ; but Winifred was too covetous of the Italian's likeness to question the young man's asser- tion " It '11 be like an adventure out of an old book of romance ; I would n't miss it for worlds ! " When, after a hurried visit to his lodgings, Irving reached Broadway, that backbone of the lower city which, through mischance, was thrown out of joint at Union Square, pictures of the river scene and of " Lee's Triangle " vanished from his mental vision. For a few moments the varied impressions of the day were sub- merged by the swarming men and women everywhere seeking Sunday rest from week-days' toil. He had never before been so sensible of the endless procession, the confusing threads of diverging footsteps, the ap- parent waste of human material. Among the over- whelming tidal-waves of numbers and differences, it seemed to him that he must cling, as by conscious effort, to the anchor of his personality. [175] Something Else He gave a rueful little gasp at the reflection that, as all these people were interesting to him only as a massed background for his thoughts his thoughts of Winifred, for instance so to them he was but a drop in the sea of life. How they swirled and broke in ed- dies about the bases of the giant sky-scrapers ! those enormous piles which would look down into this same chasm when cab and automobile and car bore a new generation, that of the present having come to the end of its striving. Those frames of many stories would remain ; and the careless world would forget all who had enjoyed but had not built. The young man gave his short laugh; it was rather void of mirth, to-night, yet was touched with humor of a sardonic sort, such as comes easiest to those who are not builders. Winifred's influence was beating for admission. Eight o'clock finds young Irving standing on the side- walk before the uptown hotel of young Vandever's ap- pointment. We have seen him enter that palatial lobby, money in his pockets, and beauty waiting on his smile, while on all sides the city rioted in a New Year's ecstasy. As he stands at the curb after his long walk, his is the consciousness that, of all the stupidly or gayly dressed men and women flitting from evening cabs to before-theatre repasts, none makes the transit of gleaming pavement more merrily than did he, a month or so ago. Alas! not forever can the year be new, however carefully it be protected with renewed resolves. Sooner or later often as soon as possible ! the threads ravel, and traitorous holes betray the [176] The Gathering of the Poor skin that the garment of the old year never could en- tirely conceal. But what can rob Irving of the glory that has been? May it warm his legs now, as the cold wind whips around the corner, and the pitifully small leavings of his borrowed five dollars lie inert in the lower depth of his pocket-world! His legs and his purse are thus brought to the sur- face, not to excite the commiseration of the more pros- perous. Those cold legs but serve him right, just as ours are undoubtedly warm because of our deserts. But they explain Jessie's tears. And who is Jessie? Irving might have asked ; let it be hoped that the reader is not so forgetful. Jessie thinks he has forgotten her, as indeed he has ; but she imagines that he has gone to feast with the rich and gay, wherein she errs. On this cruelest day of her life, the day on which she finds herself robbed of all her earnings by Mrs. Sadie Wyse, the low-voiced, the irreproachably gowned, the comrade of royalty, poor Jessie fancies that all the world has deserted her, except, perchance, a tiresome Wedging. She sees Irving seated at the board with Vandever Vandever with all his splendor, with all his gayety, his prodigality, and, likely enough, his Beauty and Stella. Ah, that is too much! Yes, there is Irving, no longer mindful of the shopgirl, dressed like a king for can one not rent the purple for a night? So thinks Jessie Tiff, passionate tears washing out her world from the last glimpse. In the meantime, one's legs are cold; is not poetic justice satisfied? From a cab, step Claude Vandever and Bird Martin, [ 177 ] Something Else one pale and the other red, from their hurried manner of life; there are so many balls and dinners and other functions to be attended or avoided, that one human body is not enough to drag through the continual round of pleasure; a single stomach, also, seems sadly inad- equate. Bird Martin laughed heartily, a little too noisily, perhaps. " We had up a bet on your forgetting this engagement," he said. " Glad to see you, Knicker- bocker." " But where 's Water Lulu? " demanded young Van- dever, his handsome face plainly betraying disappoint- ment. " The fact is," said Irving, " I came to call it off. It 's imperative for me to be at Rutgers Square at a quarter to nine, and I have no time to lose in getting there. I 'm more sorry than you can know." He shook hands with Vandever, and his pressure was re- turned with interest. These two had from the begin- ning taken a strong liking to each other. "Imperative?" ejaculated Vandever. "Oh, I say, now ! Look here, Knick, I 've broken three engage- ments just to spend the evening with you and have a time. Colorado was going for the girls, as soon 's we 'd found that you 'd kept the appointment. It '11 be too bad of you. Jump in with me, and we '11 bowl after Water Lulu, and Colorado can find Beauty or some- body else that '11 do just as well. The woods are full of her sort ; but there are n't so many Jessie-dears, like breaths of flowers in April rain, you know." [178] ' The Gathering of the Poor Irving was not enthusiastic. " Oh, yes," he said, " Jessie is a good girl, an exceptionally pure-minded and moral little creature. But I can't go. The fact is, Vandever, there 's some information I have never learned something that vitally concerns me. It has come into the possession of a tramp, and he '11 be at Rutgers Square at a quarter to nine, and I mean to have it out of him by bribes, or by force." " A tramp? How '11 you know him? " " He 's to wear an old army coat, and all his hair in its natural red hue, and a prodigious red mustache. He '11 be standing by the old fountain, and when I lay hands on him that secret is mine." Vandever took a sudden resolve. " I '11 go with you," he said, adventurously. " Maybe I '11 get to see some of the rent-rioting that 's crowding all the interesting news out of the papers nowadays. I have a few tene- ments of my own over there, but I 've never seen 'em. They 're on Ridge Street, and I think that 's some- where near Rutgers. Will you have me? I '11 stay with you till I meet my Waterloo." Irving was joyous at the prospect. " Come on, Col- orado," he exclaimed ; " I aeroplaned into your sort of life New Year's Eve; now you take a dive into my sort." " Not for mine," said Martin disconsolately. " I did n't leave Cripple Creek to nose around the East Side. No diving-bells for me ! " " Colly is such an ass ! " murmured Vandever, ami- ably. [179] Something Else " But I have n't got any bridle on," called Martin, as he made for the hotel entrance. As the Elevated car bore Irving and Vandever down Sixth Avenue, they fraternized most pleasantly. Those thousand topics of city life which everybody knows, and with which nobody, apparently, has anything to do, were like tiny threads, drawing their interests closer together. There was nothing serious about young Vandever ; all things that came to him, whether of pol- itics, religion, literature, life, or death, were indis- criminately ground in the mortar of his receptive mind under the destructive pestle of American humor. It did not seem worth while to discuss anything, only to laugh at everything. This exactly suited Irving, or, to be precise, would have suited him a day earlier. In some mysterious fashion, he found himself not just what he had been. His laughter was as easy in its flow as formerly ; but at times there seemed an undercurrent, moving in an oppo- site direction, as if to check lightheartedness. They left the car at the Bleecker Street Station, and in the quiet of the junction, dark faces drifted past, like disem- bodied spirits of evil foreboding. Occasionally the sullen silence was broken by whole-hearted laughter of negroes, inspired by some dim mote-beam of the ludi- crously grotesque. Vandever noticed nothing, but Ir- ving found himself giving heed to every slight incident of the journey. All seemed to have a part in the mys- tery of his parentage. They found Mulberry Street unusually active. A crowd eddied about the white face of Police Headquar- [180] The Gathering of the Poor ters, where officers were assembling in orderly form. Past the green lanterns jealously guarding the door, other crowds drifted, presently to circle about some old woman who had been that day dispossessed of her foul nest in a tenement, or about a spellbinder of socialistic or anarchistic faith. As the throngs swept down the Bowery, coalescing near Hester Street, one heard on every hand angry denunciations of the landlords, voiced in Italian, German, Greek, Yiddish, Russian everything except English. Past the museums, thea- tres, and lodging-houses hurried the mob, seeing noth- ing but their wrongs. The stamping of their feet, and the increasing roar of their voices, drowned the over- head pounding of the elevated cars, while the tracks above the asphalt beat back in hollow reverberation, the discords of anger. " It 's a riot ! " shouted Vandever, in his companion's ear, striving to be heard. More than Irving, he was 5 repelled by the want of self-restraint, by the frank ex- hibition of primitive emotions, above all, by the un- savory rags and emaciated forms. Of course these peo- ple were gripped by poverty. He was sorry; his pity would have been compassion, had they been clean and plump and contained. But they were so noisy about their misfortunes ! And so skinny, so gaunt, so di- shevelled, and so determined to put the blame upon those who are more fortunate! Irving shouted his reply : " They 're charged pretty high rent, considering the price of living. The land- lords grow richer, the tenants poorer; there seems no limit at either extreme, and certainly there 's no sta- [181] Something Else tionary point between. One is always rising, or going down." Then he gave his short laugh, as it occurred to him that he and Vandever were fair types of the ex- tremes. The relief of both was great when they emerged upon Rutgers Square, which proved almost deserted. If the tramp in the blue army-coat was not already at the old fountain, he should appear within the next five min- utes. And then, would Irving know all? His heart leaped. There was something ominous in the silence of the place, when one considered the great throngs of the discontented poor not far away. At such an hour, East Broadway, Rutgers Square, and Jefferson Street are ordinarily swarming with ill-clad humanity. Even the police squad, whose time of service ends at nine, had withdrawn to look after the malcontents in other quarters. The fresh squad had not arrived. Irving and Vandever were quite alone, save for one form which lingered near the old fountain. It was the form, not of a tramp in an army-coat, but of a young woman, an Italian, whose head was almost hidden by a red shawl. She leaned upon a crutch; when the two young men came forward, she held out a petitioning hand. The movement threw back the shawl, revealing a dark face whose childlike mouth and shrewd eyes and full, comely cheeks, produced a mingled im- pression of innocence, craftiness, and good looks. A thought occurred to Irving. " Did some one send [182] The Gathering of the Poor you here to meet Mrs. Wyse Mrs. Sadie Wyse? " he asked. " She told me I would find a man here in a big blue coat a man with red hair " The Italian shook her head, limped to prove a broken leg, and called for pecuniary treatment. Irving was sorely disappointed, but the cripple had a form so pleasing, and even did her hopping with such native grace, that he was poorer by a quarter, when he and Vandever moved away. Vandever, as rich as ever, murmured, " Poor little Italiana ! It must be very tiresome to keep up her pre- tence ; let us hope, when she turns the corner, she '11 stretch out that other leg, and give it a good shake." " It 's worth a quarter to me to believe in her lame- ness," said Irving, cheerfully. " I used to have a phi- losophy of life that I called Taking Things for Granted. But now I want to change things, it seems things, or people, including myself." He laughed whim- sically. " Look here, Vandever, there 's lots of money that I would n't give poor people for fear I 'd encourage pauperism ; and so I 've spent it on myself, to save it!" " Your philosophy is mine," Vandever declared. " I mean, Taking Things for Granted." " You can have it," returned Irving, " for I 'm go- ing to find something better. Look, Vandever, see the good my twenty-five cents has accomplished ; she 's cured already ! " The girl had tucked her crutch under one arm, and [183] Something Else was now running across the square, as dark and light as a flitting shadow. " It 's a signal ! " Vandever suddenly exclaimed. " She 's calling somebody. Look, she 's bringing on a group of people no, a crowd a mob a riot ! We don't riot with 'em, eh, Knickerbocker? " He seized Irving's arm adding, " This is something new for me; is it too late for a get-away? " It was nine o'clock. As by a preconcerted signal, given by the Italian, five thousand men and women came pouring out of sidestreets and alleyways, cellars, gar- rets, and bunk-houses. The roar of their voices as they came down Jefferson Street caused every tenement window to be thrown up, every door to fly open. At the head of the angry procession was drawn an open truck, carrying several speakers. Among them, Irving recognized Dick Arnold, mendicant, musician, orator. From windows, doors, housetops, and from all points of the street, rose cries " Down with the landlords ! " "Down with the rich!" " Down with the Government I " 66 Down with everything ! " The truck halted before the old fountain of Rutgers Square. One man held aloft a huge banner, while four speakers, standing back to back, cast their voices to the four points of the compass, all shouting simultaneously, but each his own words. One harangued in Italian, another in German, a third in Yiddish. Dick Arnold declaimed in English. The Gathering of the Poor The tumult was deafening. It seemed that no one cared to hear, but every one wanted to be heard, and to a different purpose. Irving and Vandever, caught near the outskirts of the dense mass, stared at the spectacle, without much thought of the misery that had caused the gathering of the poor. Irving divided his atten- tion between the truck and the old fountain. He lis- tened to Arnold's flights of eloquence, while noting the dignity which the able speaker borrowed from his very rags ; at the same time, he hoped to see the tramp, red- haired and blue-coated, make his appearance on the scene. He began to suspect that Mrs. Wyse had in- vented the story of the tramp, in order to rob Irving as she had robbed Jessie Tiff. Not far from the young men were a group of an- archists, waving red flags, and trying to divert the meeting to their own ends. " Something is the matter ! " bawled Arnold, from the open truck. " Yes, with the Government ! " shouted the anarch- ists. At this there came cries of " No red flag ! " and Arnold continued with, " We are tired of what we have. What do we want?" A voice shouted, " Something else ! " The cry embodied a universal longing. It was taken up " We want something else ! We want something else ! " Thousands caught at the seductive phrase. It was raised to heaven, completely drowning out a futile attempt to start the Marseillaise. " Something else I [185] Something Else Something else! Ah, that is it, that is what we want Something else ! " Tears came into many eyes. The impulsive embraced. The stolid raised their arms above their heads. The excitable danced up and down. The compact mass swayed back and forth, deliriously, rapturously, passionately, exclaiming, " Something else ! We want something else ! " Irving, happening to turn his eyes from the truck and the fountain, became aware of snaky eyes observ- ing him. There were the narrowed orbs of the Italian restaurateur, Pasquale, him who was now seeking Agos- tino. The shifting gaze was the same Irving had ob- served in the studio, on the night of the tenor's debut before Mr. Burl. Did Pasquale suspect that Irving knew the whereabouts of Agostino? Irving felt a little shock of uneasiness; and his foreboding of danger was none the less because Pasquale, finding himself recog- nized, immediately vanished in the crowd. Irving turned to Vandever, to suggest that they force their way out, since it was now certain that the tramp depicted by Mrs. Wyse, would not appear. His disappointment at not learning his father's name, was modified by surprise at finding Jessie Tiff leaning upon Vandever's arm. Jessie, who had been obliged to give up her room at Gotham Repose, was on her way to her mother's lodgings on Ridge Street. It was by the merest chance that she had met some of her friends of the department store world, shopgirls like herself who, attracted by the rent-riots, had paused at the out- skirts of the mob. Here she suddenly beheld Vandever, [186] The Gathering of the Poor like a star fallen into her obscurity. She went to him, of course, and the triumphant eyes she directed upon Irving proclaimed the right and joy of dis- covery. She seemed to say, " You would have kept us apart ! " The crowd pressed her close to Vandever's side where she was as safe as safe could be, for alas ! some- how she had lost, for Vandever, that elusive charm of " flowers in April rain." Gallantly he protected her, gayly he smiled down into her eyes. But his two- months' dreaming was far sweeter than the night's awakening. In the brilliant setting of New Year's Eve, Jessie's simplicity had affected him as subtly as a warm breeze blowing over those flowers in April rain, of which he had spoken. But now she seemed so much a part of the vast gathering of the poor, and so essential a part, that she shared their fate in his regard. He felt, " This is where she belongs ; while I T " Not for a good deal would he have had Jessie suspect his disillusionment; but the change was so marked in his feelings, that he laughed aloud, ruefully, one might have said sadly laughed so like Irving, that the latter cried, " Vandever ! that belongs to me ! " And so did Van- dever's feeling about Jessie belong to Irving. Irving saw her precisely as she was seen by Vandever. But to Jessie the world looked still the same. She had never loved Irving, and she did not now dislike him be- cause she imagined he had tried to come between her and Vandever; indeed she had no feeling about Irving. In [187] Something Else spite of all those dinners they had enjoyed together, those quiet evenings in romantic restaurants, those plot- tings for happiness, Irving was to her almost a stranger. That was because she allowed Vandever's image to shadow the world. Which shall be pitied more sin- cerely: Jessie because she loves in vain, or Vandever, because Jessie and his ideal are out of adjustment? Are they not like the mob that roars? Hear them call- ing, in appeal, in anger, with tears, with oaths, with prayers " Something else ! Something else ! We want some- thing else! The red flag! Down with the red flag! The Government overturned! No, the Government made better! No law! All law! Something else! Hurrah for the Bomb ! Hurrah for the Police ! " It is time to be thinking of the police, for here they come from Madison Street Station, brandishing night- sticks, proof against shouts in their honor, or their derision. Public speaking has taken place without per- mits. The police determinedly shove their way into a disorganized mass of unresisting men and women. Like wild beasts before the hunters, they turn and flee, this way and that, desiring nothing but escape, falling over each other in the mad lust for liberty. " If I were you," says Vandever hastily, " I 'd de- camp." " But you 're not me," Irving declares. " I have a monopoly on myself, and nobody 's going to bull the market." He had observed Arnold coming, and desired to wait for the violently flushed orator. [188] The Gathering of the Poor " Then I '11 see Jessie out of this," called Vandever, already separated from his new friend by the surging tide. " Good-bye, Knickerbocker ! " Irving was prevented from answering. An officer in dashing his stick among the obstinate heads of the anarchists, had inadvertently struck a mother with babe in arms. Instantly rose a tigerish yell, as if the blow had fallen upon a hundred hearts. A panic ensued. Those nearest Irving, not knowing what had happened, caught at the report that a bomb was about to explode. Their terror amounted to insanity. As Irving was hurled backward by the frantic popu- lace, he saw some one knocked down directly in his rear. It was the girl who had imposed upon his benevolence. She had long since discarded her crutch, and the agility with which she rebounded from the stones, proved the perfect condition of her limbs. Unfortunately, she was no sooner upon her feet than the fleeing crowd knocked her down again. Those oncoming, would, without doubt, have trampled blindly upon her body, for her head had struck the paving, and she lay half-stunned had not Irving leaped before her. " Stand back ! " Irving shouted, threatening with clenched hands. Those who were hurried against the athletic champion of the fallen, sought to recoil, but could not because of the stampede. Irving, finding him- self about to be lifted from his feet and dashed upon the helpless body of the young woman, made a determined resistance. An angry struggle ensued, which soon be- came a battle of one against a dozen. [189] Something Else Into this melee suddenly leaped a policeman, with club aimed at living's head, because the young man ap- peared to be the cause of the contention. Irving, uncon- scious of the danger that menaced him, felled one of his burly antagonists. He would at that moment have been stretched at full length upon the ground, but for the opportune arrival of Dick Arnold. Arnold, exasperated from the reaction of suspended oratory, and anxious to save Irving a crushing blow, grabbed, from behind, the uplifted club, wrenched it from the surprised fist, and brought it down with con- siderable violence upon the policeman's head. The officer fell. To speak publicly without a permit, is reprehensible ; but to lay hands upon Law and Order is unpardonable. Scarcely had the policeman's com- rades reached the spot, when there was no riot, no mob, no scuffling nothing but the din of retreating foot- steps. Dark basement-passages and black alley en- trances, showed whence the fluid populace had melted away. One moment, Irving had stood fighting over the body of an unknown Italian girl ; the next, it seemed that the earth moved from under him, or rather, that an ir- resistible tide lifted him from the pavement, to sweep him into an unknown port of safety. When he found his feet, as it were, he and Arnold, and the girl, were being ground together like pebbles in a millrace, as the mob poured along a narrow street between squalid tenements. "Keep on your feet!" roared Dick Arnold. His [190] The Gathering of the Poor voice was lost in the mad tumult. He squared his shoulders against those who were jammed against him, and struggled to give the girl air. Irving looked about wildly, and, in the semi-gloom, descried a deep stone doorway offering shelter from the suffocating com- pact. " That doorway ! " he shouted to Arnold. They locked arms, and the girl proved herself a valuable ally; both her sex and nationality stood them in good stead. The doorway was gained, and, in its shelter, they took deep breaths, while the multitude scurried past. " Saved ! " cried Irving gayly, stanching the blood from a fleshwound, and concealing his excitement in the guise of heroics. He turned to look more par- ticularly at the girl, who was held tightly against his side. She was pretty enough to render proximity agree- able, hence his sense of disappointment when, without a word, she dived between Arnold's sturdy legs, and wiggled in amazing fashion from the doorway to the facing street. She was gone in a moment. Irving watched for her head to bob up in midstream, but she was seen no more. " Such is gratitude," Irving gasped. " No," returned Arnold, " she 's grateful enough. Something 's up. Wait and we '11 see. There it is the door look out your head! " The black door, against which they were pressed, had suddenly opened inward, and a grimy fist was aimed at Irving's head. Arnold, unable to avert the blow, [191] Something Else had given warning in time. Irving dodged, then, wheeling sidewise, felled the unknown antagonist. The man fell backward. Over his body leaped three Italians from within the unlighted hall. They paid no attention to Arnold, apparently they did not observe him. Their united efforts were bent upon overpowering the young man. Irving could scarcely have been taken at greater dis- advantage. His breath was gone; his blow, which had delivered him from the first assailant, had told almost the extent of his resources. Standing with back against the stone embrasure, unarmed, and not yet re- covered from surprise, he faced three ferocious men, one of whom was provided with brass knuckles. It was the latter who first threw himself forward. Irving sud- denly slipped to the ground, to avoid the murderous as- sault. " Donta kill 'im ! " called one of the assailants. It was Pasquale. Evidently the object of the attack was to obtain from Irving the knowledge of Agostino's hid- ing place. The brass knuckles rang against the stone wall. At the same time, Irving reaching up from the ground, caught the would-be assassin by the legs, and dragged him to his knees. A blow from Arnold laid the fellow prostrate, just as Pasquale and his companion were rush- ing forward. They stumbled over the body of their ac- complice, and Irving, who had extricated himself from the burden, slipped from the ledge into the street. [192] The Gathering of the Poor In an instant, he was up and away, with Arnold's hand in his arm. They were engulfed by the mob; later, when the crowd diverged and thinned away down many obscure alleys, they breathed freer, finding them- selves no longer pressed. Arnold, who seemed to know every devious way, wound in an inexplicable fashion now to the right, now to the left, then seeming to double upon his course. At last these two found themselves alone among lofty tenements which looked dim and spectral against the wintry sky. " Huh ! " exclaimed Arnold, who was panting vio- lently, " I don't think anybody knows who laid out that policeman, and as for Pasquale's tribe, nobody cares. I 'm sure they did n't recognize me." He gave a long whistle " But was n't that a glorious race, a magnificent adventure ! You must have knocked over half a dozen, at Rutgers Square, to say nothing of the dagoes. It 'd be inconvenient if they 'd caught you red- handed!" " I 'd have been among the prostrate, but for you," Irving said, also panting heavily. " I wonder what '11 become of the Italian? " he added, mopping his brow, then baring his head to the cold night air. " Oh, she 's safe enough, thanks to you ; and as she happens to be a friend of mine, the thanks are doubled. I suppose you '11 want to get out of this now, won't you ? You '11 find everything quiet between here and Broadway. Good-night." The voice sounded a little wistful. There was no reference to their former 13 [ 193 ] Something Else meetings. Arnold's manner seemed to say, " I know you, but you need n't know me unless you choose." "But this is where you live, isn't it?" returned Irving. " I 'm sure yonder is the tenement that was so carefully described to me this afternoon. I was to have come to hunt you up, at a later hour, and since I 'm already here, there 's no need of coming back. It was really a fortunate coincidence, finding you at Rut- gers Square." " You say you were coming here to hunt me up ? " the other exclaimed, with seeming uneasiness. " What an honor ! " Irving laughed at the rather ungracious tone. " You are n't overwhelmed, luckily," he declared. " Yes, I went to Rutgers Square to meet some one, and later, was to have come here after you. The fact is, Agostino " Arnold caught his arm, warningly. " That name is n't safe on the street," he whispered. " But we are alone." " Alone ! I have no doubt a hundred eyes are watch- ing us. Everything 's quiet, on account of the police. Silence in this place is always treacherous. Come up to my room, and we can talk. Besides, ever since you bought pencils of me, I 've wished you might visit my room." " You have? " Irving asked, doubtfully. " Why? " " It 's a back room," said Arnold, a little plaintively. '* The sun never shines into the window. Come up there, and smile ! " [ 194 ] The Gathering of the Poor Even if it had not been a part of Agostino's plot for Irving to communicate secretly with Arnold, he could not have resisted this invitation. Moreover, the romantic mystery of Arnold's life interested him deeply. [195] CHAPTER XIII IRVING PLOTS STRATEGY SO I owe this visit to Agostino, do I? " said Ar- nold, when Irving Payne entered his humble room on the fourth floor of the tenement. " In that case, we 'd better lock the door." He did so. " It is n't the only good thing I 've owed to Agos- tino," he went on, as they sat down before a little coal stove. " You remember how he dressed me up for the divorce court, I suppose ? What a tyrant he proved over his cigar ! He 's a hard master," he concluded, laughing heartily. There was a bed of coals that needed stirring and feeding. Arnold poked, and replenished, without mov- ing from his chair. " I keep everything within reach," he said, pushing back the scuttle with a lazy foot, and balancing the poker across the lap of the stove. " I can reach out, and find anything I want, on my table, or on this wall, see my fiddle? I don't have to budge from my seat. Did you ever see anything like it? " Irving never had. Owing to the smallness of the room, the air was rather close, hence was easily warmed. Everything was cleaner than one might have expected. The single bedstead was not hopelessly, only despond- [196] Irving Plots Strategy ently, untidy. Arnold himself was not scrupulously neat, but he was better kept than his ragged garments seemed to warrant. Arnold divined the other's thought, and waved his arm good-naturedly. " I derive no lustre from my surroundings," he said; "I borrow no dignity from my clothes. I go on the same principle that governs house-insurance: I keep circumstances below my real value. Well, sir, it's uncommonly jolly to see you sitting over there. Lord ! you can't imagine how many times I 've dreamed of it and longed for it. You see, I 'm a lonely old codger, and I have n't got anything except my dreams and myself. When I meet some one that takes my fancy, I imagine him chumming it with me, in my sort of life and it 's a good sort of life, too, if you go in for this sort of thing from choice. Of course if you have to be poor, you 're always wish- ing you were n't, or that other folks were. But when it 's optional, it 's comfortable enough." " I 'm delighted to know it 's optional with you," said Irving, heartily. " And I 'm glad to have a peep into your life. As you say, I owe it to Agostino. He 's hiding from the Black Handers, over at my foster- parents', in Jersey. But a young lady who 'd engaged him for her model, needs him so badly that I 've under- taken to get him smuggled into her studio early in the morning." " That 's a big contract ; I hope it 's a pretty lady." "Both," Irving nodded. "Both, Mr. Arnold. Agostino finally agreed to spend to-night in the room [ 197 ] Something Else directly across the hall from Pasquale's bedroom. Pas- quale is the leader of the Italian gang " " Oh, I know that well enough. So Agostino wants to come to close quarters with the enemy, does he? " " He says Pasquale would never dream of his sleep- ing across the hall." " Agostino is a genius," Arnold declared. " But that room is occupied by a lady by the way, the very Italian woman whom you saved from being mangled by the mob. Her name 's Bianca. She is Agostino's sweetheart." " Agostino said she was his clerk in the coalshop." " Yes, that 's one of her capacities, I believe. Well? " " Well, Pasquale will suppose Bianca is safe in her room; but Bianca is to slip out, as soon as Pasquale is asleep, and Agostino will take her place." " What is to become of Bianca ? " " She will come here." " Which will throw me out into the street, I sup- pose? " exclaimed Arnold, ruefully. " That was Agostino's plan. He said you had plenty of other places." "Agostino is charming," Arnold declared, with a grin. " But I can understand that he would n't dare come here himself, since we are known to be friends. I am a little uneasy about him and Pasquale passing the night so close to each other." " But Pasquale will think the other room still oc- cupied by Bianca." Arnold laughed. "Oh, I wasn't thinking about [ 198 ] Irving Plots Strategy Pasquale's doing anything. The trouble is, Agostino will know that Pasquale is in reach of his stiletto ! But we can leave Pasquale to bother about that." It occurred to Irving that it was strange he should feel neither aversion nor fear, in the presence of this Bohemian. The fact that the door was locked seemed to insure safety, and promote good comradeship. The table was overrunning with second-hand books, dingy and tattered. " Best way to keep your property from being stolen," observed Arnold, following the young man's gaze, " is to have property that nobody else wants. I daresay I 'm the only man in the neighborhood who would rather read about a bandit than be one. As for my fiddle, everybody knows it 's mine ; and I 've played in the streets so often for the young people to dance, they 'd fight for it any time, to restore it to me. But you were saying that Bianca is to sleep here, while Agostino sleeps in Bianca's room. Then what? " " In the morning, before daybreak, precisely at six o'clock, Agostino is to be standing at the lost-and-found stand near the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. I '11 pick him up in a closed carriage, and whisk him away to the lady's studio." " Splendid !" Arnold lit a cheap pipe and, leaning back with an elbow on the table, surveyed his guest with indolent satisfaction. " I just can't tell you how jolly it is to find you here," he declared, anew. " And it 's such an amazing coincidence, too ! Everything fits in so well. If I had n't been with Agostino the day [199] Something Else of the divorce suit, he would n't have dreamed of send- ing you to me." " Did you get your divorce ? " Irving asked, never ceasing to wonder that young Vandever's father should prove such a castaway. Arnold nodded. Irving volun- teered that he had met Claude Vandever twice; had, in fact, been with him at the mass-meeting. To that, Ar- nold offered nothing; only smoked. " Mr. Arnold " Irving began, impetuously. Arnold stopped him, without apparent intention. " Wait ; you have n't told me how you happened to be at Rutgers Square ; it 's no secret, I suppose ? " Irving, checked in his purpose to rouse Arnold from his lethargic condition, was a little confused. " No," he said, hesitatingly, " my landlady told me that if I would be there at a quarter to nine, I 'd find a tramp who could tell me something I was intensely desirous of knowing." " Such as, for instance " Irving hesitated again ; but the kindly eyes, the pleas- ant face, red and coarsened by a preponderance of physical enjoyment, even the comfortable slow drawl of the sleepy voice, all invited confidence. He said, " My father's name." Arnold sat suddenly erect. "What?" he called, sharply. Then he grasped his pipe, and began refill- ing it. " That 's odd. Excuse my starting. The tramp was n't guaranteed to look anything like me, was he? I 'm a tramp, you know." "This particular tramp has red hair and a red [200] Irving Plots Strategy mustache," smiled Irving. " My landlady she was my landlady until she decamped with her lodgers' sav- ings was Mrs. Sadie Wyse. Never heard of her, I suppose? " " Never. And if she 's a thief, likely enough she in- vented the tramp. So you don't know your father's name? Your mother's, perhaps? " Irving shook his head. " Both are dead," he ex- plained. " They died when I was an infant, and those who adopted me did n't want to trace out the relatives, because they wanted to think of me as belonging only to them. But I am all the time thinking, Mr. Arnold, how surprising it is that you " " Oh, I daresay ! " interrupted Arnold. " I am very surprising, I have no doubt. You wonder that Claude's father should be such a degenerate as I. But Claude is not so lucky as you in one particular. You don't know who your father was, you tell me; well, Claude knows his." " He knows you? " " My dear boy, he does not know me how could he? But I invited his knowledge. I appeared before him a couple of years ago. I said, ' Claude, you have a happy home with your mother and your step-father. I could offer you nothing but a nomadic existence. At the same time, I feel it is your due to make the choice yourself. Here I am. Know me, if such is your de- sire.' It was not his desire. Of course it was not his desire! I was in Agostino's best rented clothes, too. I even wore a tie. But it was not his desire." [201] Something Else Arnold stirred at the fire, which reddened his face more than ever. Irving mused deeply. Then he spoke : " But that was n't his fault, Mr. Arnold. It 's yours. Leave this unworthy life. Be yourself. In every word and gesture, you show that you could be a man among men, not a drifting wreck." Irving was embarrassed, but he persevered : " You call yourself a degenerate. You call yourself a tramp. And you say that Agostino is your master that Italian trimmer of the dump- scows ! You accept these surroundings ! " Irving started up, impulsively. " Mr. Arnold ! Come back to yourself. Take your place in the world that needs you. Let me help you." He gave his nervous, high-tension laugh. " This is my first attempt at this sort of thing. But I 'm terribly in earnest. I can't leave you here to mould and decay in your cellar-life." He was sadly impeded by that fear of being ridiculous which, like a weight, drags so often at the heels of good resolve. But the next moment he stretched out his hand, as if to draw the mendicant from a material quagmire. " Let me help you ! " His manner was theatrical in the sense that the theatre catches, at times, those moods in which one's real self forgets to hide behind convention's mask. Arnold stared at him strangely. " You don't under- stand, of course. Shall I tell you? But how can I? Yes. When I was Mrs. Vandever's husband when she was Mrs. Arnold something happened, which was so entirely my own fault, and which cut me off so ir- revocably from society, that no one could defend me, no one could claim me as a friend. What I was ac- Irving Plots Strategy cused of I could not deny, it was too open; and I did not want to deny, for what I did was done because I wanted to do it, right or wrong. What it was is no matter ; but it was so big a thing that it simply blotted me out. You see? For a man can do a thing bigger than himself, something to raise him above himself, or to destroy his life. And when I did this thing which was bigger than myself, and found that it had forever cast me down forever, you understand it was my part to make the best of it. That 's what I 'm doing now. Look around you. This is the best of it! Sit down, my friend, and don't look so troubled." " There 's something better than this." " Not for me. After I did that thing, I tried to hide myself. But it was no use. The man I had been could not be hidden. I decided to become a different man. Therefore I sought the extreme of respectability and dignity. I became the tramp. One thing was left to me, and is with me still the love of life. The life of a tramp is not such a sad affair see how many follow it from choice! There is all the ease, and enjoyment of food, and, above all, the irresponsibility; nobody ex- pects anything of you ; you go here or there, it 's no matter ; this is your home, then that the open air, the moving train, New Orleans, Seattle, with the return to New York. But I must n't dilate, or you will be tempted to try it yourself. Sometimes one plays the fiddle in a restaurant-orchestra, but is not bound to stay ; or labors as a farmhand in Missouri, or Kansas, just for a taste of home-cooking and the feel of sweat [203] Something Else on a sunburned brow; and the little children come sometimes and lean against one's knee, big-eyed and un- afraid, just as one's very own might have done." " But even now " Irving tried to say. The other interrupted : " And there 's nothing else for me. What I did cut me off from my own rank, clouded my name, ruined me, as the Arnold who had been respected. I tell you, there 's no going back. But I 'm content with my life. Don't you think it sounds rather pleasant, after all? Let me tell you about Bianca. Perhaps you know that the sea occasionally washes up a quantity of sand and forms little islands hereabouts, bits of land that belong to nobody except Neptune. There is such an island at the mouth of Sheepshead Bay that came up from the sea in a night, as it were. I lived there for years ; in- deed, it 's my summer home. The tramps have taken possession of it. Bianca's father lived there. Bianca grew to love me just a tiny thing, then. A man is n't all bad when a child loves him, eh? I want to be buried there. Very fitting, you '11 allow the unclaimed tramp, buried in No Man's Land." " Fitting ! " cried Irving, strangely indignant. " No ! I tell you, no! It 's a real tragedy, this story you tell me a lost life, a lost opportunity. And even if it contents you, don't you owe something to the world? How is the race to be uplifted, if each shirks his part? " "Have you done anything for the race?" inquired Arnold, with his slow smile. Irving seemed to see Winifred standing before him. [204] Irving Plots Strategy "Have you paid your debt to the world?" Arnold persisted. " Is society any the better because of you? If you die, will some great work for mankind be sus- pended? But stop! You are very young, my dear boy. Let 's vary the question: Have you planned any great deed? Have you resolved to be of any use? Have you any prospect that when you die say at seventy or a hundred, or a thousand something will stop beside yourself? " Irving grinned somewhat ruefully, and Arnold laughed outright, as he refilled his pipe, an