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 BEEF, IRON AND WINE
 
 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 By 
 
 Jack Lait 
 
 Garden City New York 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company 
 
 1916
 
 Copyright, 1916, by 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 including the Scandinavian 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1915, 1916, J. KEELET 
 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction by J. Keeley, Editor of the 
 
 Chicago Herald ix 
 
 1. The Septagon 3 
 
 2. "Charlie the Wolf" 
 
 I. Was "Wanted" by Kelly and Kier- 
 nan so They Found Him Taking 
 
 the Air 19 
 
 II. In Honest Air, Far From His Lair, 
 
 Finds the Fire Escape All Wrong. 25 
 
 III. In New Haunts Nestles in Feathers; 
 
 Has Bounties Served on Platters. 32 
 
 IV. Gets by With It Enjoying Bankroll 
 
 in Peace; "Let Tm Go," says 
 
 Kiernan to Kelly 36 
 
 V. Kelly and Kiernan Go Toy Slum 
 ming; Encounter an Old Friend; 
 Watchdogs and Wolf Meet Over 
 
 Lambs 41 
 
 VI. Boy Has to Break Law to Get a 
 Look, Says Charlie the Wolf.
 
 vi Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Why Not Some Notice for Good 
 
 Boys? 46 
 
 VII. On Preparedness for the Higher 
 Life. Deplores Roughneck in 
 
 Refined Work 52 
 
 VIII. At the Ball Park Meets the Thirsty 
 Dicks. Opens Up About a Game 
 of Long Ago 58 
 
 3. Felice o the Follies 67 
 
 4. Lars, the Useless, Was a Nuisance, so He 
 
 Got a Public Office and Threw His Love 
 
 to the Birds 81 
 
 5. If a Party Meet a Party 91 
 
 6. Omaha Slim 
 
 I. Heard Nature Calling Him and 
 Thought of His Mother Till Work 
 and Fortune Fell His Way. . . 105 
 II. Political Philosophy Indorsed by 
 Luke the Dude. Election a Sys 
 tem or Guessing Game? . . . 112 
 
 III. Sniffs Scented Breezes of Lazy, Lan 
 
 guorous Spring. Poet Within 
 Him Answers as Befits . . . . 118 
 
 IV. On International Crisis: Soldier or
 
 Contents vii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Citizen? If All Go Fighting, 
 
 Who ll Be Voting? 123 
 
 7. Jennie, The Imp of the Night, Begs 
 Bread No More But Mike Will Soon 
 Be Big Enough 133 
 
 8. Taxi, Mister! 143 
 
 9. The Canada Kid 
 
 I. On Bad Boy Problem, Heredity or 
 Environment? Tells How Team 
 ster s Boy Went Wrong . . . 159 
 II. Finds a Queer Oasis in Dry, Rural 
 Desert, and Brings Back a Trophy 
 to Prove It 164 
 
 III. The Kid Looks 90 Days in the Face, 
 
 but Justice Triumphs. Virtue 
 
 Gets Its Just for Dessert . . . 169 
 
 IV. Hails Crafty Comrade . . . . 174 
 V. Only One to a Customer .... 179 
 
 VI. Loses His Jewel and Sorrows Bit 
 terly. Gives Epigrams of Love 
 and Life 184 
 
 10. Second From the End 193 
 
 11. Heritage of the Suffering Brother. The 
 
 Blushing Yokel Who Always Got the 
 Bitter Leavings 213
 
 viii Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 12. One Touch of Art 221 
 
 13. It Wasn t Honest, but It Was Sweet to 
 
 Save the Dimes; The Secret of the Little 
 
 Tin Bank 241 
 
 14. Ten Dollars Worth 249 
 
 15. The Gangster s Elegy 263 
 
 16. Pics 277 
 
 17. Annye s Ma 297
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 In announcing Jack Lait as a new contributor the 
 American Magazine called him "The Human Arabian 
 Nights." A pat, illuminating phrase, for he has One 
 Thousand and One ideas and rarely two alike. Lait 
 is a marvel to those who work with him. His ver 
 satility even mechanically is wonderful. To those 
 who read his output in the Chicago Herald of 75,000 
 words each month divided into from 30 to 35 stories, 
 each with a plot, a theme, cameo-cut characters, 
 seductive introductions and crashing climaxes, that 
 versatility must appeal; to those who write it is little 
 short of marvellous. 
 
 I do not, however, believe fecundity plus origi 
 nality, plus power of expression, plus the artful art of 
 suspense are the real elements of Lait s success. I 
 always think of him as the Human X-ray. He is the 
 interpreter of the subcutaneous of life. He seems to 
 divine in all manner of folks the exact emotions which 
 generate there. He surprises, even embarrasses us, 
 often, by his frank, plain exposition of what we have 
 
 iz
 
 x Introduction 
 
 been thinking, and what we have been thinking no 
 one knew we were thinking. 
 
 And Lait not only sees below the surface but also 
 illuminates the little things which really are the big 
 things of life. He analyzes the very commonplace, 
 and we wonder why we have found no novelty in 
 that which is old. He sings the songs of the unsung, 
 finds pathos in the ludicrous struggler, and comedy 
 in the pompous proud. Nothing is sacred to him 
 except his sympathies. 
 
 Lait as a reporter equalled the best. To-day, in 
 his new environment, he is still a reporter the re 
 porter of human emotions a super-craftsman. 
 
 From "boss" to office boy we in the office where 
 Jack pounds his typewriter salute his maiden book. 
 And we all feel a certain amount of pride in being 
 allowed to bask in the glory that will come from its 
 
 success. For we know Jack Lait. 
 
 J. KEELEY. 
 
 Editor of the Chicago Herald.
 
 I 
 
 THE SEPTAGON
 
 THE SEPTAGON 
 
 A^C was a rookie reporter but that was long 
 ago. Alec is smart. Now Alec owns flat 
 buildings. 
 
 Alec had scarcely worn the nickel plate off his star 
 before he came upon a chance to make money. That 
 is, he had the same chance that anybody had to make 
 money, only he had just found it out. What he 
 found out was what older and wiser heads knew 
 that if you have something that somebody else 
 wants, that somebody else will buy that something, 
 and pay you in coin. The "goods" is mighty. The 
 market for the goods doesn t fluctuate much. 
 
 What Alec found out, to be specific, was that if 
 he could construct dramatic stories, or correlate 
 interesting incidents with sequence, a moving-picture 
 company would pay him for them if he presented 
 them written on one side of the paper. Because he 
 worked for a newspaper he met a movie director; the 
 director opened the heavens for Alec by telling him
 
 4 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 that if he had any stories that were unusual, bright, 
 or compelling, he, the director, would prevail upon 
 the company to pay him, the reporter, commensurate 
 moneys for such stories. 
 
 Alec went forth into the day with a fortune staring 
 him in the face. It had never been put to him just 
 that way before. He had always thought, if he had 
 thought of it at all, that fellows who wrote for the 
 screen, and who got lots of money for it, no doubt, 
 were especially inspired or especially trained, or 
 well, anyway, they were especial. But now it was 
 as clear as glue anybody could do it. 
 
 He let his secret out to Billings. Billings was an 
 old-time newspaper man who had been at it so long 
 that he went home when he was through instead of 
 hanging around waiting for the first edition to come 
 up, so he could see what they had done with his copy 
 and how it looked in type. Billings rolled his own 
 cigarettes and never carried a cane. Billings didn t 
 look a bit surprised when Alec told him. Billings 
 said the director was probably quite right go 
 to it. 
 
 "But where do I get these dramas, these unusual 
 stories?" asked Alec. 
 
 "Ah," said Billings, "that s the trick! No, that
 
 The Septagon 5 
 
 isn t the trick, either. It s no trick to get stories. 
 But here s the trick to see them." 
 
 "I don t even see your argument," said Alec. 
 
 Billings had a story to do, but he turned from his 
 typewriter with resignation. 
 
 "The world," said Billings, "is alive with won 
 derful, untold drama and pathos and tragedy and 
 comedy and romance and moving-picture scenarios. 
 Like love, you don t have to seek it all over the New 
 York Central it s camping at the foot of your 
 domestic radiator, which would be the modern 
 parallel, I believe, for the classic hearthstone. Stories 
 never grow better, nor worse. In fact, they never 
 shift except as to choice or chance of characters to 
 make them or be made in them. Some wise-cracking 
 copy-reader of olden days said there were only seven 
 original plots. Those seven plots have been woven 
 into seven hundred thousand million stories there 
 must have been as many as that I wrote nearly 
 that many myself. 
 
 "Now then, like the Swiss battleships, where are 
 they? Everywhere, I believe I said was the correct 
 answer. They are wherever you can see them, if 
 you have the sight. Develop that look. You may 
 find something, because it s there there it is and
 
 6 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 there and there and over there. Drama is all 
 around you. So is farce. So is a working out of 
 every one of those seven plots. 
 
 "You can find a story in a street-car conductor, or a 
 toothpick sharpener, or a waitress with one eye, or a 
 loan shark with his eye on one thing, or a tinsmith, 
 or a rich man s only and owing son. He, or she, or 
 any of them, is mixed up in one of those seven plots. 
 He has to be. There are only seven. He can t get 
 out of one except to stumble into another. So, as 
 I said before, go to it." 
 
 It wasn t very convincing to Alec. But he knew 
 Billings was a reporter beyond doubting, and what he 
 said might be right. So he set forth in search of his 
 drama, come it in any of its seven varieties, none of 
 which he could have recognized, branded, or roped 
 at sight, and none of which he had ever surprised 
 camping on his radiator. 
 
 Scarcely outside the office door he saw a crippled 
 woman dragging past. He quickened. Drama 
 might be there. He followed her. It was a new 
 game, this being a drama detective. He noticed that 
 she was old and disgustingly lame and needlessly 
 dirty, and said "G* blesh you" monotonously, and 
 profaned under her breath those too busy or too
 
 The Septagon 7 
 
 stingy or too lazy or too cagey to cross her palm with 
 silver. 
 
 That was no drama. Maybe Billings could find a 
 story there. But Alec told himself he would be good 
 and gosh-danged if he could see two reels in the old 
 wench. 
 
 It was about going-home time for the rabble. 
 Alec glanced out into the street and saw a car go by. 
 It had seats for seventy and it carried one hundred 
 and sixty. The boys and women and girls and men 
 were rammed in like short filler in a long stogie. 
 
 "Home must look pretty good to the common 
 people to make em want it as bad as that," said 
 Alec silently. "It s a shame at that! But there s 
 no story in it you don t have to go to a theatre to 
 see that. People go to a theatre to get away from 
 such as that. The papers have even quit writing 
 editorials about it, it s so old and so cold. I d dare 
 Billings or anybody else to find any high spots in 
 that crowd of tired hoi polloi fighting for a spot to 
 stand to get to their corned beef and cabbage, or 
 gefuellte fish or lacks and schinken, or whatever the 
 poor devils eat. No nothing there." 
 
 So he turned away. The street car had passed, 
 anyway.
 
 8 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 Alec strolled to the corner. He saw a big, fat 
 boy with a bundle of newspapers under his arm stop 
 there and offer his sports extras for sale. A dirty 
 lad half his size walked up and said : 
 
 "Git off o my corner." 
 
 "Go awn," said the big boy, and he pushed the 
 little one down on his face, while his papers flew out 
 and into the muddy street. 
 
 The mite picked himself up. In his eyes flashed 
 the vindictive passion of Sicilian ancestry. He 
 reached into the gutter and picked up half a brick. 
 The big boy stood complacently laughing as the little 
 fellow, with his face drawn hard, walked steadily 
 toward him. The big boy drew back his ponderous 
 foot to kick him but the little street-rat, with scarce 
 a swing, let fly the ragged piece of brick. It struck 
 the big boy on the forehead, and he stumbled and 
 fell. 
 
 The baby walked over, picked up his piece of brick, 
 and stood over the fallen bully, ready to wallop 
 him again if need be. The bruised and prostrate 
 youth worked himself over to the curb and sat hold 
 ing his head with pain. The little chap picked up 
 what papers of his were still salable and what papers 
 the other one had dropped as he fell, took position
 
 The Septagon 9 
 
 within an inch of the whimpering enemy on the walk 
 and called "Extra Nother Italian Victory." 
 
 "Oh," said Alec to himself, "that might go if we 
 had had a camera right here to take it on the spot. 
 But that isn t plot. A couple of thieving little news 
 kids fighting for a place to sell yellow rot at a cent a 
 sensation isn t a scenario. Kids are kid-stuff, any 
 how. And, talking of kidding, I guess Billings was 
 having a little fun with me." 
 
 And he whistled and looked about. 
 
 Toward him up the street came one of the many, 
 unknown but familiar, unidentified but marked for 
 identification. She wasn t twenty, but her youth 
 was long ago. She raised her eye ever so little and 
 held his eye ever so long w r ith it. She waited. Alec 
 pulled a hard, Scotch smile that didn t miss much of 
 being a hard, Scotch sneer. Her eye dropped. The 
 girl moved on. 
 
 "The movies," mused Alec, "come under the head 
 of the newest profession. There is nothing new in 
 the oldest profession. There s nothing left to write 
 about that sort, and it s dirty business at best." 
 
 She moved along and Alec turned and watched her 
 as many men like him have watched girls like her, not 
 with sympathy nor with desire, but with curiosity.
 
 10 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 Out of a shadowed doorway slunk a male figure. 
 He looked up and down and then stepped out and 
 overtook the girl and shifted into step with her. She 
 looked up into his hard face. He spoke a word or 
 two. Then she sneakingly opened her purse and 
 took from it a crumpled bill and passed it into his 
 hand dangling at his side. He gave it a sideways 
 look without bending his head and shoved it into 
 his pocket. Then he hurried along, leaving the girl, 
 walking with measured strides, to take up her sodden 
 trade again. 
 
 "That s one," whispered Alec without speaking, 
 "that the censors would come out to meet and the 
 people in theatres don t want to see or know any 
 thing about. Fugh -me for the pleasant things of 
 life! They smell better and they sell better." 
 
 And he strolled along. 
 
 Past him, hurrying, came a young man, clean and 
 virile, sober and upright. Alec saw him almost run 
 as he drew near the girl. He reached her and touched 
 her elbow from behind. The girl swung sharply on her 
 heel, saw who it was, and flushed beneath her rouge. 
 
 Alec took a quick step and listened. 
 
 "You broke your promise, Alice," said the young 
 man. "I waited all night."
 
 The Septagon 11 
 
 The girl shook her head, a bit sadly, Alec thought, 
 but definitely and decisively. 
 
 "We ll forget it all, honey," said the young man. 
 "Yes, lean. I don t care what you ve been. You re 
 
 5 
 
 my 
 
 "No, I m not," said she. 
 
 The young man s face showed pain. He bent 
 closer and spoke so low that Alec could scarcely hear. 
 
 "The baby, dearie," he said, and it was almost a 
 sob; "the baby he cries for you." 
 
 The girl s eyes softened and she started to reach 
 with her hand toward the arm of the young man. 
 But just then she glanced about and saw, behind a 
 pillar of the elevated railroad structure, the malig 
 nant face of the man who had taken her money. Her 
 hand stopped. It grew limp and fell loosely to her 
 side. 
 
 "I can t, Billy," she said. "It s too late." 
 
 And she turned and walked on, up the street 
 slowly. 
 
 The man behind the pillar turned gradually and 
 followed her in a semicircle with his steely eyes. The 
 young man stood paralyzed and followed her in a 
 straight line down her crooked way with eyes that 
 were moist and soft and wonderfully sad. Alec
 
 12 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 followed her with cold and unlighted eyes a moment, 
 then turned completely around and walked back to 
 the office. 
 
 "That s a rotten triangle," he said to himself. 
 "There ll be a story there some day, with an angle in 
 the coroner s office, sure. But it s the same old 
 elemental mix-up. If I wrote that the director would 
 chuck me through a window. Guess this isn t my 
 day." 
 
 Alec found Billings rolling a cigarette into brown 
 paper till it was finished and looked like a strudel. 
 Then he caught his eye. 
 
 "Hello, Jason," said Billings. "Bring home the 
 bacon?" 
 
 And Alec told him in detail what he had seen in his 
 hour. Billings listened. When Alec finished he 
 looked up and said: 
 
 "Which one are you going to write first?" 
 
 "None," said Alec. "That street-corner stuff is 
 dead wood. I don t see anything in it to write." 
 
 Billings lit his cigarette. 
 
 "You didn t find much, I ll admit," said he. "You 
 were gone sixty minutes, and in that sixty minutes 
 you have circumscribed the entire septagon of human 
 emotions. You have been an eyewitness and an
 
 The Septagon 13 
 
 eavesdropper to the seven primary plots of all classic 
 narratives, expositions, diatribes, sonnets, jeremiads, 
 psalms, plays, novels, short stories, poems, odes, 
 epics, and librettos from Solomon and Sophocles to 
 George Randolph Chester and William Randolph 
 Hearst. You have tramped the dramatic geography 
 from "The Mysteries of Paris" to the blisteries of 
 Jack London and the irresisteries of Irving Berlin. 
 
 "You didn t see much. Let me, like a reporter 
 when setting out a story, list for you the events of the 
 day as you have seen them pass in review. Need 
 and Greed, Courage and Fear, Vice and Sacrifice, 
 and the ace of trumps, Love. 
 
 "You couldn t find a story there. Shakespeare 
 took the same combination and built The Merchant 
 of Venice. Dickens took the same combination and 
 built Oliver Twist. O. Henry took the same com 
 bination and wrote himself into heaven. 
 
 "You saw the modern prototype of Lazarus. You 
 saw David slay the newsboy Goliath. You saw the 
 Magdalen, and you did not bid her rise, and you, who 
 were not without sin, cast the first sneer. You saw 
 Bill Sikes and you saw Nancy. You saw Camille and 
 you saw Sappho and Carmen and Katinka Maslova, 
 and the rag and the bone and the hank of hair, and
 
 14 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 Anne of Austria and Little Nell, and you heard Elsie 
 Ferguson in Outcast. 
 
 "With beginners luck you threw a seven the first 
 roll and with beginners blindness you didn t read the 
 dice. 
 
 "You saw the seven wonders of the world of the 
 soul and you saw the seven souls of the world s 
 wonder. 
 
 "And you saw nothing. 
 
 "You started out after a two-reel drama and you 
 saw a too-real drama." 
 
 "Here," said Alec. "I asked you to help me and all 
 that, but I don t think you talk very decently to me. 
 I don t know where you get that stuff to bawl me 
 out like that." 
 
 "Never mind that," said Billings. "TelJ you 
 what. You write a scenario about a blind man look 
 ing for a heap of garbage to skim, and have him find 
 seven hills of gold. Make him a jibbering, jabbering 
 jackass who has heard about the seven gold-mine- 
 containing mountains, but who never believed a word 
 of it. Give him a wise old prospector who has been 
 finding gold for tenderfoots and plug-hat promoters 
 all his life, but who never could dig any ore for him 
 self. Have the wise old rummy lead the blind gink
 
 The Septagon 15 
 
 and give him the gold to feel to taste to smell- 
 have him finally grow out of patience and throw a 
 nugget of it at the blind man s head. The nugget 
 hits his head and, since gold against ivory clinks, let 
 the blind duffer show some interest at that stage. 
 Leave him still skeptical, suspicious, insolent, and 
 ungrateful until a rich dealer in precious metals comes 
 by and offers him a million for the mine. Then have 
 the blind man hit the wise old guide over the head 
 with his staff, take the money, and live happily ever 
 after that is, as happily as a blind man can live, 
 for he remains just as blind as ever, since his blind 
 ness is constitutional inherited, maybe and hope 
 less." 
 
 Alec raised his eyes as Billings came up for air. 
 
 "Say," said Alec, "that s a great story! By Luci 
 fer, I ll just write that for that picture fellow!" 
 
 "Sure, write it," said Billings. "Call it None so 
 Blind He Cannot Hear. " 
 
 And Alec did. 
 
 And it was a huge hit. 
 
 And the director said he had "discovered" a bear 
 cat; and engaged Alec at once, for famous compensa 
 tion. 
 
 And now and then Alec passes by his old office and
 
 16 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 looks out of his limousine and sees Billings buttoning 
 up his coat collar as he starts out to cover a drunken 
 murder or a temperance rally, for Billings is still a 
 reporter and regarded as one of the best on the 
 paper.
 
 n 
 
 "CHARLIE THE WOLF" 
 
 I. WAS WANTED 
 H. IN HONEST AIR 
 III. NESTLES IN FEATHERS 
 IV. GETS BY WITH IT 
 V. GOES TOY SLUMMING 
 VI. BOY HAS TO BREAK THE LAW 
 VII. ON PREPAREDNESS 
 VIII. AT THE BALL PARK
 
 II 
 
 "CHARLIE THE WOLF" 
 i 
 
 WAS WANTED 
 
 FOR five days and nights Kelly and Kiernan, 
 the prize front-office detectives, were hunt 
 ing Charlie the Wolf, Charlie was a burglar. 
 He had been out of Joliet three weeks, had made his 
 visit to headquarters, and was expected to stick his 
 head in every week or so and give an account of 
 himself. He hadn t been seen since the first trip. 
 
 The Chief had ordered a roundup of all the old- 
 timers, anyhow. And, besides, the front office al 
 ways was more or less nervous when Charlie was at 
 large. Stealing was the only business he had ever 
 followed, and the fact that he was eating was evidence 
 enough that he had been stealing He had just 
 finished a four-year sentence and served it out. He 
 wasn t paroled. Nobody ever thought of paroling 
 Charlie the Wolf. 
 
 It had been his fourth "stretch" in Joliet, following 
 
 19
 
 20 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 two at the reformatory in Pontiac and one in the 
 Chicago bridewell. Before he ever had seen the 
 inside of a cell, which was when he was fifteen, he 
 had been a bad boy, with bad antecedents. 
 
 It always had been easy to find the Wolf before. 
 
 All that had to be done was to find Kitty Cole 
 and Kitty always left a trail that was broad and 
 crimson. 
 
 But Kitty was dead. She had made her last 
 visit to the Wolf a month before he was released. 
 
 They say that when Charlie got word from the 
 inside that Kitty was dying it took four guards to 
 hold him. 
 
 Now, then, what had become of him in those three 
 weeks since he came back to Chicago? 
 
 Kelly and Kiernan had questioned every thief and 
 "squealer" in the town and nobody had seen him. 
 The saloons knew him not. The cigar store where 
 he played stush of old had not won him back. 
 
 "It must be another woman," said Kelly to Kier 
 nan. 
 
 "Yes a quiet one this time," said Kiernan to 
 Kelly. 
 
 No good burglaries had been reported in the time 
 the Wolf had prowled at liberty. There were one
 
 Charlie the Wolf 21 
 
 or two cheap ones, but any one who knew anything 
 knew the Wolf was no piker. And he hadn t left 
 town, most likely. Chicago always had been the 
 sole field of his art, and it wasn t probable the Wolf 
 had changed his spots. 
 
 "It*s funny," said Kelly to Kiernan. 
 
 "He s layin low, framin a big job somewhere," 
 said Kiernan to Kelly. 
 
 An inspiration seized the Chief. He called in Kelly 
 and Kiernan. 
 
 "Rums," said the Chief. "Where s Kitty Cole 
 buried?" 
 
 "I don t know," said Kelly and Kiernan. 
 
 "Find out," said the Chief. "And watch that 
 grave. That s where you ll nail the Wolf." 
 
 They started out. 
 
 "Sounds pretty good," said Kelly to Kiernan. 
 
 "We re a fine pair o dicks," said Kiernan to Kelly. 
 
 They found Kitty s grave in Calvary. 
 
 Nobody had been near it the attendant of that 
 section reported. 
 
 The detectives watched for three days and nobody 
 came near it. They reported back to the chief. 
 
 "We ll find him somewhere," said Kelly and 
 Kiernan to the Chief.
 
 22 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 The detectives put in extra hours. They watched 
 railroad stations, pawnshops, questionable apartment 
 houses, night-owl restaurants, and even the hop 
 joints, although the Wolf, unlike many of his breed, 
 never had been a habitue of the opium lounges. 
 
 Again they reported: 
 
 "We can t find hide nor hair of the Wolf. He s 
 prob ly turned square and dropped out a sight," 
 said Kelly and Kiernan to the Chief. 
 
 "Go on," said the Chief to Kelly and Kiernan. 
 "If he come in here right this minute he d probably 
 go out with a diamond necklace." 
 
 It was a beastly situation for the detectives. 
 
 The Chief wouldn t take them off the assignment 
 and they had exhausted every possible avenue of 
 logical search. 
 
 It was Sunday. Sunday is like any other day to 
 detectives. So they reported at headquarters as 
 usual and went forth ostensibly to seek the Wolf, but 
 actually to loaf. 
 
 It had gotten down to a game of endurance between 
 them and the Chief. If he insisted on keeping Kelly 
 and Kiernan hunting for a man who couldn t be 
 found, they couldn t argue with him. But, as there 
 was no place left to look for him, and they had to be
 
 Charlie the Wolf 23 
 
 somewhere, they went anywhere and put in their idle 
 time as best it entertained them. 
 
 It was a fine Sunday. The sun was shining and the 
 air was balmy. 
 
 "Let s go to Lincoln Park," said Kelly to Kiernan. 
 
 "And look at the other monkeys, huh?" said Kier 
 nan to Kelly. 
 
 To Lincoln Park they went. They strolled up the 
 roads and over the lawns to the zoo. They saw the 
 elephants and the zebras and the boa constrictors and 
 walked over to the lion house and there, standing 
 before a cage in which the king of beasts paced up 
 and down, stood Charlie die Wolf. 
 
 "Pipe," said Kelly to Kiernan. 
 
 "Cinch," said Kiernan to Kelly. 
 
 They walked up, one from each side, and each 
 gripped an arm. 
 
 "Hello," said the Wolf. 
 
 "We want you," said Kelly. 
 
 "Been layin for you for five days," said Kier 
 nan. 
 
 "Why didn t you come here in the first place?" 
 asked Charlie. "The place to find the Wolf is in the 
 zoo, ain t it?" 
 
 "Nix on the comedy," said Kelly.
 
 24 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "Whaddaya doin here, anyhow?" said Kier- 
 nan. 
 
 "I ll tell you what I m doin here," said the Wolf. 
 "See dat lion? Well, it s Sunday. He s caged in 
 dere like I used to be caged in. And on Sunday it 
 always useta seem harder den what jt was any odder 
 day. Dey lock ye in on Saturday night an dere ye 
 stay till Mundy mornin ." 
 
 "The lion?" asked Kelly. 
 
 "No the Wolf," said Charlie. "So I come up 
 here to take a look at me frien and brudder, de lion. 
 Ye know, it kind o hypped me from de start. But 
 de las t ree days it s been even closer to me. 
 
 "Ye see de way dat lion is gnawin at dem bars an* 
 de way he s growlin ? You t ink he s swearin , don t 
 ye? Well, he ain t." 
 
 "What is he doin ? 5 * asked Kelly. 
 
 "He s singin , I suppose," said Kiernan. 
 
 "No he s cryinV" said the Wolf. "T ree days 
 ago dat lion s lioness croaked. And dey drags her 
 away right in front o his cage. An dey tells me it 
 took four keepers to hold im." 
 
 "Come on," said Kelly to the Wolf. 
 
 "De chief wants to see ye," said Kiernan to the 
 Wolf.
 
 Charlie the Wolf 25 
 
 "Good luck, old lifer," said the Wolf to the 
 lion. 
 
 ii 
 
 IN HONEST AIR 
 
 Charlie the Wolf, "honor man" and four-time 
 alumnus of the state bastille, thought it all over 
 after he had paid a friendly visit to the ex-warden 
 the man who had given him the honor button, who 
 had let him work outdoors the last six months of his 
 last prison "stretch," and who had asked him to go 
 on the level and keep out of trouble. 
 
 The Wolf had not been quite honest since he was 
 turned loose to prowl. He had cut himself down to 
 one burglary a week, which was almost like being on 
 the honesty wagon with him, and a new temptation 
 was gnawing at him he wanted to try being really 
 honest, something he had never known since he 
 started running away with customers change when 
 he was a newsboy at the age of eight. 
 
 "I ll give it a tumble," said the Wolf. 
 
 First of all he had to cut away from his associates, 
 who were always finding "soft spots" and inviting 
 him in on burglaries. So he disappeared. 
 
 He went out into a residence district and got him-
 
 26 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 self a room in a three-story house, on the second 
 story. If he couldn t do second-story work he could 
 at least be on familiar ground. 
 
 There was a store downstairs a jewelry store. 
 He passed by it the first morning and as he looked 
 in, through force of habit, he saw a little man busying 
 himself about. The Wolf looked at him twice, then 
 he slunk away. The man was Barney Hein, a "fence" 
 whom the Wolf had known in the good old days. 
 
 What was he doing here? Had Barney, too, 
 "turned square" and come out of the busy centre 
 to live a decent life? 
 
 Maybe. 
 
 The Wolf turned back to look again and he saw a 
 man stealthily enter. The Wolf saw a number stand 
 ing clearly before his eyes, and felt a rush of prison 
 memories. The visitor to Barney the Fence was 
 Joe Gallagher, a pickpocket with whom he had served 
 two terms. 
 
 "That settles it," said the Wolf to himself. "I 
 thought for a minute Barney might a quit. But 
 Joe is a dip in his heart. Barney s out here under 
 cover. I guess I moved in the wrong house." 
 
 The W T olf walked around the block and made up 
 his mind to take his bag and move. He came in the
 
 Charlie the Wolf 27 
 
 back way. As he passed the rear door of the first 
 floor a woman, dressed screamingly, painted gaudily, 
 and carrying herself as no one who knew could mis 
 take, swished past him. 
 
 "Blond Clara," said the Wolf to himself. "A 
 shoplifter from the year 1. What m I into?" 
 
 He walked up to his flat and started down the hall 
 for his room. He had engaged it from a motherly 
 old w r oman who said she had one son who worked 
 nights. In the kitchen the Wolf ran plump into 
 the son, and immediately knew the sort of night work 
 it was. The son w r as Ned Navarre, the nifty faro 
 dealer who could do more things with a deck of 
 wrong cards than Herman the Great could with a 
 plug hat. 
 
 The Wolf entered his room and began to pack up. 
 This was no place for a man who had come to get 
 honest air. The police wouldn t believe him on oath 
 anyway, any time, and if they ever found him in this 
 honeycomb of vice, sin, and crime they would put 
 him away just on general principles. He must 
 make haste and "beat it." 
 
 The W T olf heard a heavy step on the stairs. Then 
 he heard two voices in conversation with Ned s old 
 lady. The Wolf didn t have to hold his palm to his
 
 28 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 ear. The voices were those of Kelly and Kiernan, 
 the chief s front office pussy-foot stars. 
 
 The police were inquiring after Benny the Bear, 
 a daylight holdup man who was reputed to be living 
 in the apartment. The woman told them Benny had 
 moved away three days ago, and had occupied that 
 middle room. That middle room was where the 
 Wolf was standing. 
 
 He knew Kelly and Kiernan would be in there in a 
 minute, and if they found him good-night. He 
 flashed the room in a glance and stepped out of the 
 window to a fire escape. He had his bag in his hand. 
 He pulled the shade down from outside and started 
 down the escape, but found it was "blind," with no 
 stairs or steps leading to the ground. The jump was 
 long and the Wolf wouldn t chance it. 
 
 He heard Kelly and Kiernan come in and talk as 
 they looked around. 
 
 "What s that?" said Kelly to Kiernan. 
 
 "A picture of Kitty Cole," said Kiernan to Kelly. 
 "You know who she is, don t you?" 
 
 "Who she was you mean," said Kelly to Kiernan. 
 "She was Charlie the Wolf s girl." 
 
 "How d I come to leave out that picture?" said the 
 Wolf to himself on the fire escape.
 
 Charlie the Wolf 29 
 
 The detectives shouted for the old woman and 
 cross-questioned her for ten minutes. The Wolf 
 stood out on the fire escape, his teeth chattering in a 
 driving wind and drowning rain. The old woman 
 said she had not seen Charlie the Wolf, nor did she 
 know him. The room had been occupied by a man 
 who said he was a Pullman conductor on a vacation. 
 But he had left the day before. The detectives 
 laughed at her, but let it go at that and went 
 away. 
 
 The Wolf heard the downstairs door slam. Then 
 he crawled back into the room, picked up the for 
 gotten picture, kissed it, and slipped it into his black 
 bag. Then he started for the front door. The old 
 lady intercepted him. 
 
 "Here," she said, "you owe a dollar and a quarter 
 room rent you can t get away like that." 
 
 "Don t be childish," said the Wolf. "Gimme the 
 up an down. Did ye ever see a guy as wet as I 
 am?" 
 
 "What s that got to do with my room rent?" yelled 
 Ned s mother. 
 
 "Only this," said the Wolf. "In a joint as crooked 
 as this the fire escapes oughta be covered, heated, an* 
 furnished.
 
 30 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 And he brushed past her and went back to the 
 district where his presence was no surprise and in 
 volved no peril. 
 
 in 
 
 NESTLES IN FEATHERS 
 
 Charlie the Wolf, burglar and honor man, again 
 decided that honesty was the best policy in the 
 metropolitan life. 
 
 Though his first venture at leaving his natural 
 fastnesses had been ungrateful and null, the Wolf 
 decided he would once more slink from his lair into 
 the wide open and take his chances with the lambs 
 and the hunters in alien fields. 
 
 The Wolf packed his bag, taking with him his little 
 wardrobe, his bull s-eye lantern, and his chisel. 
 
 "If I get a job that jimmy might be useful," he 
 mused. "And if I have to live in a new place the 
 flasher might help me find my way home in the 
 dark." 
 
 Into the heart of the Ghetto he went and found 
 asylum with a stout lady who had a front room aching 
 to be slept in. On the bed was a feather tick that 
 she had brought from Russia, and when the Wolf 
 curled up in it he sailed away and knew just how Hop-
 
 Charlie the Wolf 31 
 
 head Hank must have felt when he saw fields of 
 poppies and tin cans full of gold and all the policemen 
 on traffic duty. 
 
 Charlie dreamed on, when suddenly beneath him 
 there ripped out a clatter of an iron knocker against 
 a vibrating brass gong. He sat straight up in the 
 yielding feather tick and rubbed his ears. 
 
 "A burglar alarm," he whispered. "Am I dream- 
 in ?" 
 
 He was not dreaming. The bell must have clanged 
 away for ten minutes before he heard a sleepy man 
 thump down the stairs, blaspheming in a jargon 
 that was strange to Charlie s ear. He heard a lock 
 grind open and some one moving heavily below him, 
 and the bell stopped its clatter suddenly. He heard 
 the man come up again and slam a door and all was 
 quiet. 
 
 The Wolf lolled back into the warm feathers, pulled 
 the quilt up to his chin, doubled his knees luxuriously, 
 and beat it back to that land where he had no four- 
 time record and where he didn t have to climb 
 porches to blunder and to plunder. 
 
 Next morning the old lady served him a breakfast 
 such as Napoleon wrote into history in his tragic 
 Russian memoirs, Heine immortalized in his remi-
 
 32 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 niscences, and Gladstone longed for when he hadgrown 
 too eminent to feast among his own people. 
 "It s nice?" she asked. 
 "It s a lallah," said the Wolf. 
 "You sleeped nice?" 
 "Like a da like a doggone baby." 
 "You hear it rings sometimes a bell?" 
 "Yeh I made it. Sounded like a touchoff." 
 "No," said the old lady. "Tochow, he s next block. 
 It vas by Lefkowitz, downstairs, in his pine shop." 
 Before the breakfast was over the Wolf had been 
 apprised of a strange state of affairs. 
 
 Lefkowitz, the rich Ghetto pawnbroker, was the 
 man who had arisen in midnight to shut off the 
 burglar bell. Lefkowitz was deadly afraid of thieves. 
 Most of his business was done after six in the evening, 
 which left most of his current moneys on the premises 
 over night. He had installed a hair-trigger burglar 
 alarm with attachments to every door and window, 
 so delicate that the jar of a heavy wagon passing 
 on the cobbled street frequently upset it and started 
 it whanging until it woke up the whole neighbor 
 hood and until Lefkowitz made his weary and 
 profane way down two flights of stairs to shut it 
 off,
 
 Charlie the Wolf 33 
 
 The entire neighbourhood had become inured, ac 
 customed and hardened to it. The police paid no 
 further attention to it. 
 
 Two nights later the Wolf s slumbers again were 
 torn by the ringing of the Ghetto nuisance, and again 
 some ten minutes elapsed while old Lefkowitz awoke, 
 got on his bathrobe or whatever he wore that would 
 correspond, and bumped his heavy-footed way down 
 to shut off the scandalous uproar. Three nights 
 later the same thing happened. 
 
 Next evening, as he lay on the bed in his clothes, 
 at the open window, the Wolf heard familiar voices 
 below. The Chief s star thistledown "dicks" were 
 conversing. 
 
 "This is the layout where that there queer alarm 
 goes off every twenty minutes," said Kelly to Kier- 
 nan. 
 
 "Yeh an nobody pays no attention to it. Like 
 the kid that kep on yellin Wolf, " said Kiernan to 
 Kelly. 
 
 "Speakin o Wolf, what d ye figger s happened to 
 Charlie the Wolf? He hasn t been around the old 
 corners for a week," said Kelly to Kiernan. 
 
 "Layin low on some tough job, likely. He s a 
 crook in his heart. Any time he ain t where you can
 
 34 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 see him he s where he can see a haul," said Kiernan 
 to Kelly. 
 
 And the chief s prima donnas went along. 
 
 "Always all wrong," mused Charlie. And he 
 dozed off until the alarm went off beneath him with 
 such suddenness and violence that it lifted him half 
 a foot in the air before he remembered that it was 
 harmless. 
 
 Next night old Lefkowitz heard his proprietary 
 riot under way and in full cry shortly before daylight. 
 He turned over twice, yawned, stretched, pulled his 
 beard, and almost wished he hadn t ever installed the 
 thing which was so ringingly efficient. 
 
 "Let it ring," he said, and prepared to put his head 
 back on the pillow. 
 
 A neighbor s window went up. 
 
 "Hey," called the neighbor. "Hey you Lef 
 kowitz! Ab you don shut it up by your rotten hock 
 shop this ferflugte bell I throw right away through 
 your vindeh, a teapot." 
 
 Lefkowitz groaned, yawned, slid out of bed, and 
 started down his nightly path to cut off and reset the 
 switch. He unlocked the door leading to the cor 
 ridor, and a draught struck him. With a cry of fear 
 he threw up the light, took one sweeping look
 
 Charlie the Wolf 35 
 
 through his store, and ran through the open alley 
 door, screaming: 
 
 "P lice p lice robbers p lice." 
 
 The shop had been turned inside out. The old- 
 fashioned safe had been chiselled open and $700 worth 
 of loot had been abstracted. 
 
 The kindly old landlady knocked six times on the 
 front room door that morning, and, getting no answer, 
 opened it. The Wolf was gone, hide and hair. On 
 the dresser she saw currency. It was a $20 bill, 
 pinned to a note which was later read to her by a 
 little girl next door who went to school. It was as 
 follows : 
 
 "Here s a dubble X for you. It s all right I got 
 a bankroll. That bed and them brekfests was worth 
 every jit of it. I won t be back no more. I can t 
 stand the noise from that there bell. I come here 
 to live quiet and pertickly to get away from pawn 
 shops and burglar alarms and such as that. You 
 was great to me and I wanted to stay. But your 
 brekfests wasn t the only thing what was handed 
 to me here on a platter. Give my regards to his 
 Whiskers and tell him I says go get a bulldog. 
 
 "So long respectfully your 
 
 Border." 
 
 "Saw the Wolf layin around," said Kelly to Kier- 
 nan.
 
 36 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "Yeh he s got new clothes and a wad," said 
 Kiernan to Kelly. 
 
 "Says he got $700 from an uncle," said Kelly to 
 Kiernan. 
 
 IV 
 
 CHARLIE THE WOLF GETS BY WITH IT 
 
 Kelly and Kiernan were telling how sweet it 
 was in the old days and how lean the years had 
 grown. 
 
 "It seems the grifters was more entertaining in the 
 old days or was it because we was younger and had 
 more heart in our work?" said Kelly to Kiernan. 
 
 "Them was woolly, bully days when they was 
 honor among thieves, but now most of the jobs is 
 done by rummies without no records or nothin , and 
 the best way to look for a crook is in the city direc 
 tory," said Kiernan to Kelly. 
 
 And they both sat silent for a while and smoked 
 and thought. 
 
 "Have you been over to the grave lately?" asked 
 Kelly of Kiernan. 
 
 "Sunday," said Kiernan to Kelly. 
 
 And here is the story. 
 
 Seven years ago Kelly and Kiernan rounded up a
 
 Charlie the Wolf 37 
 
 gang of seven burglars. They had done 120 "jobs" 
 in two years. Six of the prisoners were bearded and 
 hardened thieves. One was a boy of seventeen 
 Johnny Symanski. 
 
 Johnny had been raised in the streets and fed in 
 the alleys. He was one of twelve children. His 
 father earned $1.60 a day in the lumber yards, near 
 which they lived in a basement. Johnny wasn t 
 strong. Some boys thrive on bits of bread, swigs of 
 flat beer, and cigarettes. Johnny somehow didn t. 
 He was a pale weakling who always looked like a 
 chased cur. But they said he could shinny up a porch 
 post to jimmy a door for a second-story "job" better 
 than Oliver Twist and twice as willingly. 
 
 The gang was arrested in the usual way. A "stool 
 pigeon" turned them up to Kiernan for 50 cents. 
 Some of the plunder was found around them. They 
 admitted more than one hundred crimes. 
 
 When the trial came up all were represented by 
 counsel and good counsel it was. That is, all 
 except Johnny. His folks had been notified, but 
 they either didn t care or couldn t. Anyway, no 
 body came to see him in jail and nobody appeared 
 for him at the trial. The other six deserted him cold. 
 Johnny never uttered a whimper. He was called
 
 38 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 as a witness against them, but was deaf and dumb. 
 The six got indefinite terms. 
 
 Johnny got a separate trial because of his youth. 
 Having not yet reached the penitentiary age, he 
 required special treatment. All alone, shrinking, 
 shivering, pale and thin, he nodded his head to the 
 judge in a plea of guilty and looked up with his faded 
 eyes for the inevitable answer. 
 
 The judge didn t have much taste for his job. 
 Kelly saw that and stepped up. 
 
 "Judge," he said, "here s a lad what never had no 
 chance. Parole him to me. I ll steer him straight." 
 
 The judge seemed relieved and did it gladly. 
 
 Johnny was to report weekly to Kelly. For a 
 while he did. Then he disappeared. For five years 
 nothing was heard from him. 
 
 One night, after midnight, Kelly and Kiernan were 
 kicking their heels in the captain s office when the 
 burglar-buzzer went off. It pointed to a minor bank 
 on a lonely corner. The detectives ran over. Kelly 
 took the back and Kiernan ran around to the front. 
 The rear door was open. The iron bars had been 
 bent and the iron door within forced how, no one 
 ever knew. 
 
 In the dim light of the office Kelly saw a shadow
 
 Charlie the Wolf 39 
 
 move. He turned toward it and pointed his revolver. 
 Just then he felt the steel of a gun barrel against his 
 ribs. 
 
 "Drop that gat," whispered a thin voice in his ear. 
 And Kelly did it. 
 
 The burglar threw up the lights and Kelly saw 
 himself standing beside a masked man. The little 
 eyes through the slits turned toward him. Then the 
 gun slid down at the end of a limp arm. 
 
 "It s kill you or a long stretch for me, Mr. Kelly," 
 said the burglar. "I ll take the stripes." 
 
 And he pulled off the mask, 
 
 He was Johnny Symanski. 
 
 Kelly was too puzzled and surprised to answer. 
 
 After a moment he stuck out his right hand and 
 up came Johnny s, unconscious of the fact that it 
 held a shining revolver. They were just about to 
 shake hands when Kiernan, who had entered from the 
 front, seeing his partner facing a man who was rais 
 ing a revolver, fired over Kelly s shoulder. Johnny 
 threw both arms up wildly and pitched over. 
 
 They folded his arms across his narrow chest and 
 knelt beside the dead burglar and prayed for forgive 
 ness for him and for themselves. 
 
 Then they called an ambulance and carried out the
 
 40 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 burden, which was light for their arms but heavy for 
 their hearts. 
 
 Nobody ever knew who had been killed. He was 
 buried as "Unidentified Man," and Kelly and Kier- 
 nan were the only mourners. 
 
 They bought him a grave where they knew he 
 would have wished to be buried. 
 
 That was two years ago. 
 
 "Have you seen Charlie the Wolf since he picked 
 up that bank roll?" said Kelly to Kiernan. 
 
 "I seen him yesterday," said Kiernan to Kelly. 
 
 "You know that story he told us about getting 
 $700 from his uncle well, you can take that with a 
 ton of salt," said Kelly to Kiernan. 
 
 "He copped it from Lefkowitz s pawnshop. He 
 was living in the same house," said Kiernan to Kelly. 
 
 "Who tipped you?" asked Kelly of Kiernan. 
 
 "Oh, an old stool of mine," said Kiernan to Kelly. 
 
 "Think we oughtta go and pick him up?" said 
 Kelly to Kiernan. 
 
 "Let him get away with it," said Kiernan to 
 Kelly. "The stool is the same one what tipped off a 
 big gang to me years ago. He s a no-good rat and 
 he d double-cross his dyin mother for the price of a 
 scuttle o beer."
 
 Charlie the Wolf 41 
 
 "What big gang did he ever tip off to you?" said 
 Kelly to Kiernan. 
 
 "The Bill Branigan gang the one Johnny was 
 with," said Kiernan to Kelly. 
 
 KELLY AND KIERNAN GO TOY SLUMMING 
 
 "This crime wave has to stop," said the Chief to 
 Kelly and Kiernan. 
 
 "You have my symp ty," said Kelly to the 
 Chief. 
 
 "The guns is mighty hungry an roughhouse this 
 year," said Kiernan to the Chief. 
 
 "Go on out and collar a few crooks," said the Chief 
 to both of them. 
 
 So they went forth to buy a few things for the 
 Christmas tree and nice, warm mittens for Kelly s 
 children, and a sweater jacket for Mrs. Kelly, nee 
 Kiernan, sister of the twin-star detective. 
 
 They wedged and eddied through, and with the 
 throngs along the main stem made their way to 
 the toy department first. They were examining red 
 sleds with the suspicious eyes of expert detectors 
 when they saw, across the aisle, fumbling over some 
 woolly bears, no one except Charlie the Wolf, their
 
 42 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 friend and entertainer, the four-time long-term porch 
 climber of golden memories. 
 
 "Hello, Wolf," called Kelly to Charlie. 
 
 "Out blowing sucker dough?" rejoined Charlie to 
 Kelly and Kiernan. 
 
 "Just a few little knickknacks for the women an 
 the toddlers," said Kiernan to Charlie. "What s 
 your lay?" 
 
 "Takin on a bundle o fuzzy lambs an audimadic 
 alligators," said the Wolf. "Listen to this here 
 teddy bear. See? When you pinches his stomach 
 he growls. It ain t a reg ler growl, but kids don 
 know much, an it ll do. I m takin three o them 
 bears." 
 
 "I m kinda strong on sleds," said Kelly. "Them 
 toy animals don go far wit healt y boys. They 
 wanna slide down hills an play horse-stuck-in-de- 
 snow an all that there kinda rough an tumble." 
 
 "A boy what s big enough to coast on a sled is big 
 enough to steal his toys," said Charlie the Wolf. 
 "I m buyin for little ones what ain t got no way to 
 get nuthin excep somebody slips em." 
 
 "Do you like them high sleds?" said Kiernan to the 
 Wolf. "Or is them ones what s close to the ground 
 better for a little Turk about this high, huh?"
 
 Charlie the Wolf 43 
 
 "I useta always crave them gunboat ones wit 
 slipp ry runners what you fall on an sail down a hill," 
 said the Wolf. "Say when I was a little goat when 
 I useta live out back o the Yards an the winters was 
 good an cold them days, say, I useta climb up Ho- 
 gan s hill f m behind, hold up one o them there little 
 Fords on skates, flop on it an away I d go way 
 down till I lit in a bank o soft snow acrost the froze 
 road. Sure them low boys is the goods." 
 
 "I was thinkin ," said Kelly to Kiernan, "that one 
 wit the horse painted on don look as strong as this 
 here one wit Snowbird stencilled on top, huh? 
 Think Roger d like that there one better, or would 
 he?" 
 
 "You re all wrong," said Kiernan to Kelly. "Go 
 40 cents deeper an send out that light green one wit 
 the steerin bar in the front. Steerin bars is the 
 greates thing you can put on a coastin sled. Don* 
 I see them little rowdies aroun out where we live 
 beltin down in the middle o the street an* sailin 
 aroun wagons an trucks an walkin people like 
 they wasn t there? All on account o them steerin 
 bars. Them is the latest, an they only hurts you 
 40 cents more. Be a sport, Kell, Christmas don 
 come only oncet a year go the limit."
 
 44 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "These here shaggy pussy-cats, they ain bad for a 
 quarter," sang out the Wolf. "Pipe the ribbons on 
 their neck, wit a little bell on the end. Them is for 
 girls, them is." 
 
 "I guess I ll take one wit steerin bars. You re 
 right, Kiernan," said Kelly. "Let the kid get 
 away wit the best. So I guess that there on, 
 huh?" 
 
 "The one underneat it," said Kiernan. "The 
 color s puttier. You know how kids is. They sets a 
 lot o store by colors. I can remember just like it 
 was last week, or last mont , how I useta t row rocks 
 at a sissy kid what lived in the nex block f m me be- 
 cus he had a green sled an the paint was all rubbed 
 off en mine. I done that for days. Then one day he 
 leaves his green sled out on his lawn while he runs in 
 to get a cup o hot tea or somethin an I comes by an 
 after that I had a green sled an he didn t have none 
 at all. The green one is the toppiest, Kell. Roger ll 
 like the green one, take it f m me." 
 
 "Do you s pose," called the Wolf, "that these here 
 lambs d get dirty awful quick? They re mighty 
 nice, but they re so damn white, kinda. I wonder if 
 they got any black sheeps or blue ones or somethin . 
 These here white ones won never do. Y know
 
 Charlie the Wolf 45 
 
 babies starts in to eat em, an when they gets dirty 
 they re t rough." 
 
 "Well," said Kelly, "black ones gets as dirty just 
 as quick as white ones, don t they?" 
 
 "Maybe," said the Wolf. "But it don show, an 
 what their mother don know won t hurt em. Dirt 
 don hurt kids. If it did we d all of us be dead. 
 But them white ones looks so soiled after a baby 
 gives em a game on the floor a while." 
 
 "Them eyes," said Kelly. "They looks like they 
 won t live long, an a baby ll swallow em if babies 
 is anything like they useta be." 
 
 "You re right," said the Wolf. "That scratches 
 them white lambs. I wonder how the lions is. But 
 lions is for boys only. Girls don take no intrust in 
 lions. They wan s cats an poodles an lambs. 
 An I got bears for boys now. Them pussy-cats wit 
 bells is all right for girls, but I got t ree o them now. 
 Guess I ll give them squirrels the up an over." 
 
 Their arms were full of bundles when they got to 
 the bottom of the elevator shaft. 
 
 "Maybe Roger won t eat up that green sled wit 
 the steerin bars, huh?" said Kelly to Kiernan. 
 
 "I dunno about them squirrels," said the Wolf. 
 "I dunno. They looks putty delicitt. But I guess
 
 46 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 they can still be played wit after the tails is off, 
 huh?" 
 
 "Say!" said Kiernan to the Wolf. "Who are you 
 buyin all that junk for? You ain t got no kids." 
 
 "I guess a guy what s lived the life I have, what s 
 chivvied a livin off o secon stories for thirty years 
 barrin when I was in stir I guess a guy what s done 
 that there can find a few kids to give toys to," said 
 the Wolf, and he walked the other way, showing 
 that he felt affronted. 
 
 VI 
 BOY HAS TO BREAK THE LAW 
 
 Kelly and Kiernan turned from the bench in 
 the Boys Court. Their case had just been put 
 over by the judge, who wanted time to investigate 
 further. 
 
 "Aw, what s there to investigate?" said Kelly to 
 Kiernan. 
 
 "If they sent a few more o these here young bums 
 to the school an done less investigatin there d be 
 less work for us an more action on the books," said 
 Kiernan to Kelly. 
 
 "Just a minute," said Charlie the Wolf, and they 
 turned to see their old friend, drink-buyer and mono-
 
 Charlie the Wolf 47 
 
 legist, the four-term second-story wonder with a 
 heart. 
 
 Charlie led them to Jake s Place, lined them against 
 the mahogany, and spake. 
 
 "That there boy," said the Wolf, "I know him. 
 An I know his old man. The kid is learnin to be a 
 barber an he works at it days. The old man is a 
 cobbler an he works at it days an nights. There s 
 four in the family the old folks, the kid, an a 
 younger brother. They all lives on State Street in 
 part of a room curtained off o the cobbler shop with 
 a tarpaulin. 
 
 "This here boy was pinched for hangin around a 
 poolroom. The law says a boy is gotta be eighteen 
 before he does that. After he s eighteen it s all 
 right. Well, he s only seventeen an a half, so it s all 
 wrong. An for that you wanna send him down to 
 the school an make a crook outta him." 
 
 "A reform school is to make men outta that kind 
 o tough kids," said Kelly. 
 
 "A little stretch behind the window wouldn do 
 that little rat no harm," said Kiernan. 
 
 "How d you like a little of it yourself?" said 
 Charlie to Kelly and Kiernan. 
 
 "How d you like to see your boy down there with
 
 48 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 the scum an the vermin? That there boy didn t 
 do nothin that youse didn do when you was his age 
 an I didn do long before. Maybe that s why we re 
 all crooked. Maybe that s what started us. But 
 I done mine in the school, an in the reformatory 
 twicet, an in the big house four times. Did it make 
 a man outta me? I ain no man. I m a wreck. 
 You wouldn lemme talk to your wife or shake hands 
 wit* your kids. An I went t rough the cleansing 
 fire of all them public finishin academies." 
 
 "Well? Whadde you want us to do? Pat him on 
 the back an thank him for violatin the poolroom 
 ordinance?" said Kelly. 
 
 "We don make no laws we only see to it that 
 them laws what are made is kep ," said Kier- 
 nan. 
 
 "Wit* a billy an a gun an a pair o bracelets youse 
 see to it that shoe clerks don spit on the sidewalks 
 an boys what ain t got no other place don go to the 
 only place they got to go," said the Wolf, with a 
 touch of bitterness. 
 
 "The night this here kid was nailed it was 10 below 
 zero. His old man was coughin an smokm a pipe. 
 The old lady was asleep. The littler kid was shootm 
 a marble again the stove. It wasn no ideal home
 
 Charlie the Wolf 49 
 
 atmosphere for a growin lad who wanted a little 
 fun. He took his hat an he went out. 
 
 "Where could he go? He didn have a jit. He 
 couldn go to no theayter, that costs dough. He 
 couldn go to no Y. M. C. A., that costs dough. He 
 wouldn go to no mission. How many kids would? 
 Would you? Would your kids? No there was 
 that wop poolroom, with a lotta guys knockin balls 
 around. The kid floats in there. He sits in a chair. 
 He ain doin nothin . Youse come in; he goes out." 
 
 "It s a violation," said Kelly. 
 
 "If we didn take him we d go up before the trial 
 board," said Kiernan. 
 
 "I ain t blamin youse," said the Wolf. "Only 
 it hurts me, that s all. 
 
 "Until the night you took that lad in his record 
 was clean an he had no more to do wit coppers than 
 I got to do wit preachers. Now he s been in for two 
 nights an he ll be in eight nights more till you report 
 to the court what I m tellin you now. An I know 
 you will. You ain t gonna slough that lad. You 
 ain t got no reason to. You ll tell the court an 
 he ll let him go with a warnin . But in the mean 
 time? What s he doin now? Huh? 
 
 "He s herded in wit a lotta young dips an porch-
 
 50 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 climbers, listenin to the weird, gaudy tales o their 
 rotten young lives. He won t forget them. He ll 
 come out sore. Even if he s paroled he ll be sore. 
 Everybody 11 know he s been pinched an tried. 
 Maybe the best he ll get 11 be paroled. That ll 
 hang over him. He ll prob ly get the gate in that 
 there barber school. Then where ll he go? Down a 
 alley wit a foot o gaspipe till he gets enough to buy 
 a gat an take a chance on the street. An you 
 know what his finish ll be? He ll kill a copper. 
 They all does, them kind o boys what s made sore 
 by what they thinks is a bum deal, whether it is or 
 not." 
 
 "I ll tell you," said Charlie the Wolf. "This here 
 haulin first offenders t rough the works is what 
 makes a lotta boys second offenders. They re 
 showed up in the detective bureau to the dicks. 
 This here is a dangerous young can idate for the pen, 
 says the sergeant, pointing at a mush-faced youngster 
 charged wit swipin a ham or sayin Oh, you kid 
 to a blonde. He didn t know that before. He swells 
 up his underfed chest an a new light comes in his 
 eyes. The sergeant is right he is a dangerous kid 
 from that there moment on. 
 
 "Then comes the reporters an they calls him fancy
 
 Charlie the Wolf 51 
 
 monickers an when he gets back home the other 
 kids points at him an talks in whispers an he swag 
 gers past em thinkin Dangerous kid, he s think- 
 in . An then he has to live up to his reputation or 
 be a heel, an a kid would rather do life than weaken 
 after he s notorious. He tells c couple o servant 
 girls what a terror he is, an after that it s all off. 
 I know. Wasn t I one of em? 
 
 "You don never see no roll call in Central when 
 the sergeant puts a kid wit his hair combed an a 
 clean collar on, an points to him an says: This 
 here is a fine lad. I found him in a factory, workin 
 overtime. Keep yer eye on him. He s gonna be a 
 millionaire some day. Say if you ever saw that 
 you d see a kid what would amount to somethin , 
 because if they s anything what makes a kid pay at 
 tention it s brass buttons an tin badges. 
 
 "No you never see nothin like that. No more 
 do you see anybody sayin what a great copper a 
 great copper is only what a great copper he was. 
 After a yegg puts a tunnel t rough a harness bull the 
 Chief gives out a statement sayin he feels the loss 
 keenly an of all the force there wasn t another uni 
 formed man wit the rank o patrolman what was as 
 faithful as this here one what was plugged. Why not
 
 52 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 say a few things about one of em while he s alive? 
 An why not say somethin good about a kid what 
 lives in tenements an slime an behaves himself 
 before he gets caught on a freezin night in a warm 
 poolroom? 
 
 "Did you ever notice how many people come to 
 testify to a guy s good character after he s indicted? 
 There ain no place to go and nobody wan s to go no 
 place to say a guy had a great rep for truth an 
 veracity in the community where he resides, or his 
 record is good for peace an quiet until he s lookin 
 Joliet in the eye. An then it s too late. 
 
 "T row in that other drink. I m goin . When 
 ever I get to talkin about them things like that I 
 wanna be by myself somewhere where I can think 
 an kick a chair." 
 
 VII 
 
 ON PREPAREDNESS 
 
 "Step down to the depot," said the Chief to Kelly 
 and Kiernan. "The sheriff is taking a bunch of crooks 
 to Joliet this morning, and there ll probably be a few 
 dips and grifters around to see them off. Maybe 
 you can pick up somebody that we need." 
 
 "The thieves is pretty busy nowadays I don t
 
 Charlie the Wolf 53 
 
 hardly think they ll be loafin around the depots," 
 said Kelly. 
 
 "The good ones don t get up till noon," said Kier- 
 nan. 
 
 "To the depot and beat it," said the Chief to 
 Kelly and Kiernan, and the pet front-office "dicks" 
 started. 
 
 Kelly and Kiernan bowed genially to the deputy 
 who had the squad of six in tow a burglar, a confi 
 dence man, and four bank robbers. The half dozen 
 were chained together at the wrists and looked meek 
 enough. The train pulled out and Kelly and Kiernan 
 pulled away. 
 
 "Not a live one did I see," said Kelly to Kiernan. 
 
 "The Chief had a bum whisper," said Kiernan to 
 Kelly. 
 
 "Come down to see the trains come in?" said 
 Charlie the Wolf, who had stepped noiselessly be 
 tween them from behind, startling the detectives 
 mightily. When they saw it was only their old crony, 
 the four-time penitentiary graduate, porch-climber, 
 raconteur, and drink-buyer, they sighed in relief and 
 mechanically tracked it for Jake s, across the street. 
 
 "What ll you have?" asked the Wolf, digging into 
 his pocket.
 
 54 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "The bottle," said Kelly and Kiernan, pointing 
 at once. 
 
 It was so ordered. 
 
 "What brings you around a depot?" asked Kelly 
 of the Wolf. "That ain t your game." 
 
 "Just come in? Where was you? Or are you 
 goin somewheres?" said Kiernan to the Wolf. 
 
 "Just blew down to see the boys off," said Charlie. 
 "Nick Marzen, that big guy with the low head, what 
 was in that picnic, is a old cellmate o mine from the 
 big house. I done two diff rent stretches with 
 him. He ain t a bad guy, Nick. But he s all 
 wrong. He ll never get nowheres, and he s a 
 failure." 
 
 Kelly and Kiernan poured. Charlie paid. 
 
 "Marzen," said the Wolf, "went down to the stir 
 about twenty years ago for murder. He was a 
 butcher. And he killed a guy with a cleaver, a messy 
 job. He was in jail about two years while the lawyers 
 was fightin for the little wad his folks had, and with 
 their combined efforts he was sentenced to be hung. 
 Then a governor commutes him and he gets a life 
 stretch and down he starts, when they commutes him 
 again and. he gets thirty -five years. Well, he does 
 about seventeen years and he gets out."
 
 Charlie the Wolf 55 
 
 "He went down for burglarly," said Kelly to the 
 Wolf. 
 
 "And a bungle trick it was, too," said Kiernan to 
 the Wolf. 
 
 "Sure," said Charlie to Kelly and Kiernan. "What 
 does a butcher know about second-story work? 
 This guy never got no trainin . He was a roughneck 
 from his heels up, and that there murder was some 
 kind of a grudge mix-up. But when he comes out 
 his folks don t want him nobody wants him. So he 
 looks around for a way to live. Well, he starts to be 
 a thief. 
 
 "Here s somethin about that that maybe youse 
 never thought of. You know, guys goes into the 
 profession o stealin , which is on.e o the hardest an* 
 most cultivated businesses known to man, without 
 no preparation, without no schoolin , without no 
 special talent, an , sometimes, without no serious 
 reflection at all. 
 
 "A guy what wants to be a plumber, he learns first 
 how to handle a monkey-wren,ch an a fountain pen; 
 a lad what s ambitious to drive a truck,, he learns 
 which way to pull a rein an how to tie up traffic 
 on a crossin ; a gink what is desirous of growin into 
 a barber learns how to strop a razor till it nearly cuts
 
 56 Beefy Iron and Wine 
 
 an how to get a shavin brush in your ear. But here 
 goes a nut like Marzen, with hands as big as flour bags, 
 the light tread of a coal wagon, an the agility of a 
 derrick, an he busts into a flat, wakes up the police 
 a mile away, sends in a riot call with every footstep, 
 an comes down the porch pillar into the arms of 
 squads of police gathered from six stations an 
 numb with waitin in the cold." 
 
 "He s right," said Kelly, setting down his glass. 
 "The boy talks sense." 
 
 "A little more from the bottle, Jake," said Kiernan. 
 
 "And what s the answer?" said the Wolf. "You 
 just saw part of it. Back goes the big lummox to 
 get a new number. 
 
 "When he first comes down there he s got a little 
 class. Murder ain t nothin to play with. An 
 everybody points him out an says here s a husky 
 what chopped up a guy with a meat axe, which got 
 him some small privileges an distinctions. But 
 now? A very bum burglary what he done with a axe, 
 too. He ll get no rec nition in the pen this trip. 
 He s very low now, very low. 
 
 "An it serves him dead right. He starts at the 
 top o the profession t rough a accidental piece o 
 work that didn t have no much purpose in it, but
 
 Charlie the Wolf 57 
 
 establishes him as a dangerous man. That ain t 
 the way to begin. It was a shine an a flash in the 
 pan. His career wasn founded on substantial prog 
 ress from the ground up. An now the results is 
 comin out an you sees he ain t properly prepared." 
 
 "I see just what you mean," said Kiernan. 
 
 "No just plain water on the side," said Kelly. 
 
 "The usual way," said the Wolf, "the right way, 
 is to begin as a lad, stealin mild at first maybe 
 a few bananas or some brass out of a basement. 
 Then he gets nailed an he goes to the juv nile home. 
 Then he comes out an goes at it with a little new 
 courage an he lands in the reform college. When he 
 comes out he s beginnin to know somethin an* 
 he starts good, which gets him in jail or the bridewell, 
 or both. A few bits in them is solid foundation for a 
 future. 
 
 "Then, when he s got a little age an wisdom an 
 nerve he turns his first neat one. Maybe he gets 
 away. Maybe he gets away with a few. Then he s 
 nailed an he goes down to the stir, developed an 
 ready to learn from the older an smarter guys there. 
 
 "Then he comes out an he s seasoned. He tries 
 soft ones, maybe, for a while, so he ll stay out a few 
 months. Then he gets his bravery back an pretty
 
 58 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 soon they cops him in a fly job, done good but gone 
 bad. He goes back. He gets out again. This time 
 they ain t gonna take him so easy. He s gettin a 
 little sour on the bars. So the next time they cor 
 ners him he yanks a gat an he kills a bull, an in the 
 due an decent course o time an reg lar process o 
 law they jerks him on the end of a rope an he goes 
 wherever he s goin an everybody says there was a 
 well-regulated, orderly life he begun at the beginnin 
 an he worked his way up an he stayed up till they 
 drops him t rough. 
 
 "But this big, fat, clumsy Marzen, he begins with 
 a murder and is sentenced to be hung; then he gets 
 life; then thirty -five years; he s out in seventeen; 
 now he goes down for a indeterm nate from one to 
 five years; when he gets out he ll be timid an he ll 
 do a petty sneak turn an he ll get a year in the band- 
 house; that ll make him a bum an he ll get vagged 
 an go back for six months. You know what his 
 finish ll be? Five an costs for sleepin in a hallway." 
 
 VIII 
 AT THE BALL PARK 
 
 "This here is tough," said Kelly to Kiernan, 
 "What s shot now?" said. Kiernan to Kelly.
 
 Charlie the Wolf 59 
 
 "The Chief wants us to go down to the ball park 
 an see if we can pick up any stray dips," said Kelly to 
 Kiernan. 
 
 "You bet it s tough," said Kiernan to Kelly. 
 "Bein* sentenced to watch a ball game on a nice, 
 warm, lazy afternoon, when the rest o the dicks is 
 sweatin in Central or hoofin around on cement 
 pavements, is pretty hard to take." 
 
 So the Chief s pet front-office sleuths slipped over 
 to Jake s and took on ballast and then proceeded to 
 the stadium where the mourning thousands had assem 
 bled to deplore the passing of their grandmothers. 
 
 Kelly and Kiernan enjoyed the game in that list 
 less, blase way that seasoned detectives lend to their 
 amusements. If there had been any pickpockets pres 
 ent they were innocent of any knowledge in the mat 
 ter. None had come up to make themselves known, 
 anyway. 
 
 But Kelly and Kiernan, through habit rather than 
 sense of duty, slipped out before the last visiting 
 batter struck out and took their stations at each side 
 of the main exit gate to sort of give the passing throng 
 the see-saw. 
 
 Thus engaged, both their hearts beat faster as they 
 simultaneously spied Charlie the Wolf, the genial
 
 60 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 four-time ex-convict, second-story man, reminiscent 
 drink-buyer and sawdust-floor philosopher. 
 
 The chase for malefactors ended right there. 
 The agents of law and order closed in on the Wolf, 
 linked arms with him, and arrested him that is, 
 took him into custody as far as the nearest saloon, 
 where Charlie, as a form and rite, asked them what 
 they d have, and they in similar observance pointed 
 at the dark-brown bottle. 
 
 When Charlie s $2 bill lay upon the moist mahog 
 any, not to be heard from until it had been pickled 
 in alcohol and preserved in the cash register, he as 
 sumed his prerogative and started. 
 
 "That there," said Charlie the Wolf, "is the first 
 ball game what I see in years in a reg lar park. I 
 ain t been loose now for a lot o springs. So I 
 thought I d drill out this afternoon and see if these 
 here p fesh nals is worth all the space what them 
 sportin writers gives em. 
 
 "Them ain t no slouch tossers, them ain t. But 
 down in the pen we had a few what wasn t cripples, 
 neither. I seen many a game down there, and for a 
 while I plays on one o the teams myself. 
 
 "Us cons what worked in the broom-fact ry, we 
 had a team. An the chair-shop had one, an the
 
 Charlie the Wolf 61 
 
 rockpile gang was the champeens, bein in better 
 condition alwus t rough takin more exercise. 
 
 "Well, we re playin one Saturday afternoon in 
 the prison yard, us broom-workers again the rock- 
 smashers. It was the decidin game and we d been 
 trainin and talkin and framin for weeks. 
 
 "It turns out to be a fine day. The sun was shinin 
 and the air was warm and there wasn no strong wind. 
 We trots out on the field and everybody was all 
 keyed up. They was many a bet down that day and 
 some o the poor scrubs stood to lose everything excep 
 their numbers if they guesses wrong. 
 
 "The warden and his fam ly is sittin over on a 
 bench and they gives each team the high-sign o* 
 success and good wishes as each side takes its prac- 
 tic n in turn. 
 
 "Then comes the call o Tlay ball! 
 
 "The umpire is a little forger f m down state, who 
 busted a young bank and went South with a Sunday- 
 school treasury. He had mutton-chop whiskers 
 when he was brought in. But now, of course, he was 
 shaved smooth. 
 
 "He gets behind the plate and the game starts. 
 Our pitcher is our star hope. He would o sure 
 landed in some big league if it hadn t o been that
 
 62 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 he was caught comin out o the wrong flat with a 
 lot o junk. We re dependin on him to hold down 
 them sluggers from the quarry. 
 
 "And he does. Innin after innin goes by. The 
 score is 3 and 2 in our favor in the ninth. They 
 ain t been a run in four innin s. 
 
 "The stone-crackers is got last bat. They s two 
 out and one husky jailbird on third. He was a 
 great batter, but he couldn t run very fast. I guess 
 that s why he was doin time. Anyway, a hit would 
 bring him in and the game d be tied up. Two runs 
 and all d be over and we d be on the bum. 
 
 "Our pitcher winds up and he slams one in. The 
 guy at bat is a immense brute what killed two 
 teamsters with his fists and is doin life. His name 
 is Gibbs and we all calls him Gibbs the Giant. 
 
 "Well, the firs ball comes hummin in. Gibbs 
 makes a swing like a pay-as-you-enter car goin 
 aroun a curve. He misses the ball a yard. One 
 strike. The nex* ball he foul-tips. Two strikes. 
 He spits on his hands, taps his heel with his wagon- 
 tongue, and steps up again. Our little porch-climber 
 slips him a slow one what sort o sails, hesitates, 
 wobbles, and floats right square over the centre o 
 the plate.
 
 Charlie the Wolf 63 
 
 "I t rows my mitt in the air and starts in. If ever 
 they was a strike that there slow boy was Mr. Strike 
 hisself. 
 
 "Quick as the ball slaps in the catcher s glove, 
 Giant Gibbs spins aroun and he looks that there lit 
 tle banker umpire in the eye. The umpire is got his 
 face all set to call a decision. 
 
 "Gibbs steps a foot near him and he slants out 
 that tough jaw o his n, and he puts it about a inch 
 from where the little banker s mutton chops was in 
 his days o glory. 
 
 "The umpire gulps and coughs and stands froze. 
 Well, says Gibbs. Call it call it. Say some- 
 thin . What was that?" 
 
 "The umpire looks up at Gibbs, towerin over him, 
 with the bat raised in both of his hands. 
 
 " Why, says the umpire. Why one ball! 
 
 "Say you should o heard the holler what went 
 up f m that broom-corn-cuttin bunch o soreheads. 
 Our captain comes runnin in. Gibbs stands there 
 with his bat and he waves him back. And back he 
 goes, bein only a con-man what couldn t lick nobody 
 excep maybe some woman. 
 
 "They wasn t nothin to it. Our pitcher lets 
 fly a fast one. But his nerve is gone. Gibbs lights
 
 64 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 on it and he knocks it out where many a convict 
 what watched it would o liked to be way outside 
 the walls, way out into freedom and vict ry. The 
 lumber-jack on third comes waddlin home and Gibbs 
 tears gallopin in behind him. And the broom-makers 
 is paupers for a month. There wasn a chew o t bac- 
 co left in the shop." 
 
 "It s all diff rent now, though," said Kelly to the 
 Wolf. "Now you re ridin easy and they ain no 
 empire takin you." 
 
 "He s right," said Kiernan to the Wolf. "Right 
 he is. Now you got a little dough for yourself and 
 even a few jits to spare to treat a friend now an* 
 again." 
 
 "Oh," said Charlie the Wolf. "If that s what you 
 mean have another drink. Sure."
 
 Ill 
 
 FELICE O THE FOLLIES
 
 Ill 
 
 THEY tell the story of a king who, when told 
 that the poor had no bread to eat, answered 
 naively : "Why don t they eat cake?" 
 
 It isn t as absurd as it may appear. Cake is some 
 times available where bread is impossible. 
 
 I have known men to drive about in their costly 
 autos because they didn t have car fare; I have seen 
 men guzzle wine because it was free when they 
 couldn t raise ham and eggs; many a girl has been 
 presented with silk stockings when what she needed 
 was flannel underwear. 
 
 So was it with Felice chorus girl. 
 
 Felice was in "The Follies." To be there meant 
 to be a chorus aristocrat, the last word in the arrival 
 of the fittest. It meant that if she eloped her picture 
 would go on Page 1 instead of being buried next to 
 classified ads. It meant that milliners and gowners 
 would freely credit her. It meant that all the other 
 
 67
 
 68 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 girls in all the other choruses would envy her and 
 talk about her. 
 
 But it did not mean that she did not have an old 
 mother who stayed behind in New York when "The 
 Follies" went a-touring. It did not mean that the 
 $30 a week wasn t spent before it came in to support 
 the old mother, send a younger sister to school, and 
 pay fines and costs for her brother, a young scape 
 grace who kept getting into every manner of cheap 
 and disreputable trouble all the time. 
 
 Felice had no burning desire for millinery, gowns, 
 diamonds, automobiles, or furs. What she wanted 
 was to see her mother s rent paid, her sister s tuition 
 and bare expenses provided, and her brother out of jail. 
 Little enough for a chorus beauty, nineteen years old, 
 with a tousled head of yellow hair that sparkled back 
 the footlights, flash for flash, and a pair of limbs that 
 made many a wife in the audience nervous. 
 
 Felice made her own hats, and they cost an average 
 of $1.67 and they looked like $90. She affected girl- 
 ishness, because the wardrobe of an ingenue is 
 cheaper than that of a leading woman. She made 
 her own breakfasts and ate her dinners far from the 
 gilded places where waiters tips determine one s social 
 standing.
 
 Felice o the Follies 69 
 
 Felice was no prude or wall-flower. She met men 
 the kind most chorus girls mostly meet, mostly 
 and now and then she accepted after-theatre invita 
 tions, and was pressed to have some more guinea hen 
 and drink another glass o" Burgundy. The men 
 always offered taxi rides to and from, never were 
 derelict in ordering and suggesting the best on the 
 bill of fare, and always tipped handsomely the 
 waiters. 
 
 What they spent on Felice any evening would have 
 made her happy for a week if she had it. Mother 
 kept writing for more money and sister never had 
 enough, and brother the more he got the more fly 
 paper he got into, and the less he had the more wrong 
 ways he found to go after it and get himself into other 
 sorts of messy mischief. 
 
 So Felice scrimped and cut expenses all she could 
 and kept drawn ahead, and even now and then had 
 to borrow from Psyche, her friend in the front row. 
 Psyche always had money. She spent more a week 
 than she earned a month, but she always had money. 
 Some one kept sending it to her in checks. Felice 
 never inquired into it. For one thing, Felice was not 
 curiously disposed. For another, Felice and every 
 body else in "show business" knew who it was that
 
 70 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 sent it and how much and why so Felice never felt 
 tempted to inquire. 
 
 Felice could have had checks, too, maybe. No 
 body had ever offered to send her any. The financial 
 overtures toward girls of the chorus are really largely 
 overestimated. But Felice was neither a child nor a 
 fool. And the fact that no one wants to give one 
 something doesn t preclude the possibility of getting 
 something if one asks for or goes after it. But 
 Felice didn t want it that way. 
 
 Felice was glad when the troupe got to Chicago. 
 Chicago meant at least twelve weeks, and that meant 
 boarding-house rates. On week stands it is hard to 
 get settled, and it is so easy to fall into a hotel near 
 the theatre. 
 
 But in Chicago there was a boarding-house, where 
 she had lived the season before, and she had written 
 ahead, and it was all right there would be room at 
 the table and a room the size of a table and the whole 
 works would cost $6 a week. Adding 60 cents a week 
 for car fares and about a dollar for the two dinners 
 downtown on matinee days and enough for tooth- 
 powder, newspapers, and the postage stamps to send 
 money home with, she should be able to mail out 
 about $21 each week. That wasn t bad.
 
 Felice o the Follies 71 
 
 Psyche went to a big hotel downtown with four 
 trunks. Felice went out to the boarding-house with 
 a little steamer half stuffed with paper to keep the 
 things from rattling. 
 
 Now, if this were a popular story a terrible accident 
 should happen to Psyche and Felice should live 
 happy in the realization that she was a good girl and 
 was kind to her relations. But this will not be a 
 popular story. Nothing out of the way happened to 
 Psyche. Her check was a day late, but that wasn t 
 serious. And Felice lived only as happily as one may 
 at $G a week. 
 
 Even that happiness lasted only till she received a 
 night letter (collect) from her brother, as follows: 
 
 "Richmond, Va. Police framed on me here, 
 waited till they got me standing in front of gambling- 
 house and threw me in and I m fined ten and costs, 
 making sixteen in all, and unless you wire me twenty 
 here, care city jail, will have to do ten days. Don t 
 throw me down this time. It will be the last. 
 Affectionately, your loving brother, HAL." 
 
 Felice had just sent $14 to her sister and $8.50 
 to her mother, and she didn t have $3 in the world. 
 She hadn t paid up her overdrafts on the manager 
 and he had said that would be about all. So she
 
 72 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 went to Psyche and said excitedly that she must 
 have $20. "Sure," said Psyche. "Fifty if you need 
 it." Felice said twenty would do and she took it. 
 
 Psyche s money felt heavy, though it looked just 
 like any other money. If it was tainted, the taint 
 didn t show on the face of the bill, which was yellow 
 in back and green in front and had pictures on it and 
 the figure "20" in 987 places. Felice looked it over 
 and over before she gave it to the telegraph clerk 
 together with the necessary change for transporting 
 it. 
 
 The clerk, a girl, looked up when she read the ad 
 dress on the wire and grinned. 
 
 "You chorus girls has queer sweethearts in queer 
 places," said the clerk. 
 
 Felice let it go at that. It was better than the 
 truth. 
 
 Next day she got word that her mother had fallen 
 on a soapy floor and broken her wrist, and that re 
 quired a doctor and no end of expense $15 or $18 
 anyway. Felice scratched her yellow head. Just 
 then a special delivery arrived from her sister saying 
 that the girls were all getting class pins and they cost 
 $4.50 apiece, and while, of course, sis didn t want to 
 be too hard on Felice if money was getting tight, still
 
 Felice o the Follies 73 
 
 she would feel just a little cheap and different if she 
 couldn t have it, because all the other girls were 
 going to have class pins. 
 
 Felice made one more trip to the kindly manager. 
 He shook his head and said he absolutely could not 
 advance another cent it was against the rules to let 
 any girl get in any further than Felice was now hypoth 
 ecated. He lent her $10 from his own pocket, which 
 she took with a blush and of which she sent $5 to her 
 sister in the next mail. That left her not enough to 
 take care of the mother s extra doctor bill, so she 
 waited till salary day and gave the boarding-house 
 landlady a heart-interest story (fictitious) and sent all 
 her wages home, which was enough to pay the current 
 expense and mend the wrist besides. 
 
 That night a youth with a tall collar w r as intro 
 duced to Felice and he invited her to dinner. She 
 accepted and he met her at the theatre after she had 
 gone "home" to change to her other things. 
 
 The youth bought flowers, engaged a taxi, and led 
 her into the basement refectory, not noticing that 
 two gray-haired waiters and two fat travelling men 
 laughed. He pressed cocktails, oysters, soup, crab- 
 flakes, squab, ice, corrugated ice cream, and a toy 
 demitasse on her, paid the bill with a flourish, tossed
 
 74 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 the waiter $2, and took her to the theatre in a taxicab. 
 On the way back to the theatre he told Felice that 
 he loved her and he kissed her. 
 
 "Can I meet you after the show?" he asked at the 
 stage door. 
 
 "Sure," said Felice. And he did. 
 
 They walked out of the alley together and the 
 youth raised his hand to the waiting line of taxis and 
 two of them started for the spot. Felice took him 
 by the arm and led him onto the sidewalk. 
 
 "Let s not drive," she said. 
 
 The young man cocked his eyebrows. 
 
 "Prefer to walk?" he asked. 
 
 "I love fresh air," said Felice. 
 
 So they walked and talked. And he told her again 
 that he loved her. 
 
 To the door of the subterranean cafe they came and 
 he started to lead down the steps. 
 
 "Let s go somewhere else some quiet little place," 
 said Felice. 
 
 "Don t you like the stylish ones with cabarets 
 and dancers and colored bands?" 
 
 "Hard on my nerves," said Felice. And she led 
 him to a little restaurant where they didn t have to 
 eat off the arm of a chair, but where men take their
 
 Felice o the Follies 75 
 
 own wives and where finger-bowls are not fea 
 tured. 
 
 "Do you like the food here?" asked the cub. 
 
 "Sure and it s kind of Bohemian," said Felice, 
 with which he agreed as he told her that he loved 
 her. 
 
 She walked him to a street car. He asked her 
 whether she really preferred to ride that way. She 
 said it was so much nicer. The youth agreed with 
 her except except that is well, one couldn t 
 kiss a pretty girl in a street car, could one? No, one 
 could not. But Felice said she would give him a 
 kiss in the hallway at the boarding-house. He said 
 he certainly would take it because he loved her. 
 
 When they arrived at the boarding-house he 
 started for his kiss but she held him off. 
 
 "Just a minute," said Felice. "Now you ve told 
 me thirty-two times since the matinee that you love 
 me." 
 
 "I ve loved you more times than that since the 
 night show," said he. 
 
 "Fine," said Felice. "Now listen. If you love 
 me you want to be with me a whole lot, don t you?" 
 
 "Every minute," said the youth. 
 
 "Hardly as good as that," said Felice. "But I ll
 
 76 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 make a little deal with you. I ll meet you every 
 night after the show, and on Wednesdays and Satur 
 days after the matinee and the night show. And you 
 can take me to supper and to dinner and home after 
 the show. And you ll always get a kiss in the hall 
 way." 
 
 "Wonderful," said the youth. 
 
 "Now," said Felice, "if I let you you would taxi 
 me till I d hear the gear-shifts grinding in my sleep 
 and you d buy a waiter a flat building and send that 
 restaurant keeper to Hot Springs for a vacation and 
 spend half a dollar a day redeeming your hat, would 
 n t you?" 
 
 "When a man is in love " he began to answer. 
 
 "Sure," said Felice. "Now, at the least, that would 
 cost you $10 a day, wouldn t it?" 
 
 "That s nothing," said the youth. "When a man 
 loves a girl 
 
 "Yes I know," said Felice. "Now I ll be a whole 
 lot happier, and if you really love me you ll be just 
 as happy on street cars and in the lunch joint. That 
 won t cost you over $2 a day. That way you ll 
 save $8 a day, won t you?" 
 
 "Yes," said he. "If that s the way you really 
 prefer it."
 
 Felice o the Follies 77 
 
 "I really do," said Felice. "Because I want you to 
 give me $4 a day." 
 
 "Why I m that is of course if you 
 
 "It s a proposition," said Felice. "Now don t get 
 me wrong. I m no gold digger. It s been suggested 
 that I could maybe get away with more than that. 
 But I don t need any more and I don t want it that 
 way. I don t want anything I don t earn. By going 
 around with you and saving you that much I surely 
 earn half of it, don t I?" 
 
 "When a man s in love," said the youth, "he ll 
 stand for most anything." 
 
 "I don t want you to stand for most anything," 
 said Felice, "because I don t propose to, myself. 
 I want you to make $4 a day, and let me make $4 a 
 day. Is it a go?" 
 
 "If you prefer it that way," said the young 
 man. 
 
 "Here s my hand on it till the end of the run," 
 said Felice. "Now understand this. I m going to 
 feel that I m earning that $4 a day and you re going 
 to feel that way, too. I wouldn t do it, only I need 
 the money. I have a mother to keep at home and a 
 sister to keep away from home and a young brother to 
 keep from going to a home. So, if it s any satisfac-
 
 78 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 tion to you, you ll know your money my money, if 
 you figure my way 11, be well spent." 
 
 "All right," said the young man. "I ll go through. 
 But don t you tell Psyche." 
 
 "Why?" asked Felice. "Why not tell Psyche?", 
 "Because," said the youth, "I m her brother and 
 she s got my old lady and my kid sister to keep be 
 sides me, so she mightn t like it."
 
 IV 
 LARS, THE USELESS, WAS A NUISANCE
 
 IV 
 LARS, THE USELESS, WAS A NUISANCE 
 
 FALL had come. 
 There was a zip in the air that bit through 
 summer clothes, and straw hats sold at your 
 own price. Likewise the tanned men-about-town 
 were about town again, telling what a wonderful 
 time they would have had were it not their wives 
 were along. 
 
 The first fall zephyr brought the "rheumatiz" into 
 the old bones of Useless Lars Gustafson, and he 
 warped his seamy face and his jaws began to knock 
 in tattoo against the stem of his pipe. 
 
 Useless had a job and all summer it had been a joy. 
 
 It was a responsible public office, procured by in 
 fluence, and it was good for life. His daughter s 
 husband knew a precinct captain and through him 
 had gotten it for him. He had gotten it for him 
 because the old man was a nuisance at home, and on 
 his new income could go away somewhere and board. 
 
 He was a sort of Inspector of Cigarette Stubs and 
 
 81
 
 82 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 Gatherer of Biscuit Boxes in a big park. He walked 
 about with a stick, at one end of which was a shiny, 
 round spear. With the spear he stabbed to the heart 
 the newspapers and lunch-leavings on the walks 
 and grass plots and put them in a bag. When the 
 bag was filled he took it to a big basket that hung 
 suspended around the trunk of a tree, dumped his 
 gatherings there, and started all over again. 
 
 All summer Lars had been picking up. It was 
 pretty monotonous, but life never had given him a 
 broad capacity for thrills, so he shuffled along and 
 broke the dullness of it by lighting his pipe often 
 and reading what his lunch was wrapped in. 
 
 But one day there came into his life a big love. 
 
 Useless was dumping his papers into the big bas 
 ket on the tree trunk and he spilled some on the grass. 
 He muttered peevishly, reached out and harpooned 
 the remains of an apple and projected it centrifugally 
 from the end of his weapon with aim to land it into 
 the basket. Instead it described a parabola into 
 the lower branches of the tree, some feet above the 
 basket. From the tree came a twittering and fright 
 ened fluttering and a robin flew out, circled excitedly 
 about, and returned timidly to where it had come 
 from.
 
 Lars, the Useless, Was a Nuisance 83 
 
 Useless climbed vsneakingly on a bench, which 
 backed to the other side of the tree. Up on the back 
 he carried his old legs, then stretched to tiptoes and 
 looked. There was a nest and it had four eggs. 
 The robin shrank back and looked pleadingly at him. 
 So Lars got down as best he could. 
 
 Next day when he approached the tree he stepped 
 lightly. He put his papers into the basket gingerly, 
 then climbed his bench again and took another look 
 into the nest. Hello! There were two little robins, 
 fuzzy and absurd little balls with their eyes closed, 
 just barely wiggling their little straw legs. 
 
 Useless was in ecstasy. He had a family. 
 
 Every day thereafter his life shaped itself with that 
 tree as its capital and that nest as its heart. 
 
 A bereavement came to shade his happiness, for 
 less than a week later he found one of the little robins 
 stiff beneath the tree. He dug up some sod with his 
 spear and buried it. 
 
 Then he looked and saw that the other was well 
 and lusty and the mother robin was feeding its gap 
 ing bill, out of all proportion to its youth and dimen 
 sions. Useless buried his grief with the dead and 
 smiled at the surviving baby. 
 
 My, how the little robin grew! One day it flut-
 
 84 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 tered out of the nest. Next day Useless had to stand 
 and wait eighteen minutes before he could dump his 
 pickings because the little fellow was perched on the 
 edge of the basket. 
 
 Lars daughter, whose husband had gotten him the 
 job, had been married many years. But there were 
 no grandchildren for Useless. One baby had come, 
 but she had died. They had called her Helga, after 
 Lars dead wife, and the name lived only long enough 
 to go on a little, cheap stone. Helga had been pretty 
 well forgotten by everybody except Useless. 
 
 He hadn t much to think about in the present 
 and nothing to worry about in the future, so what 
 went through his brain at all was of the past. And 
 when he saw that the little bird was strong and doing 
 well, it came to him that he was not so desolated and a 
 soft inspiration was born. Regardless of the dubious 
 sex of the healthy little fledgling, he called him 
 Helga. 
 
 He kept it a secret, because he knew he was old and 
 foolish, but it was his secret and he cherished it. 
 
 Every day he watched Helga and his mother and 
 saw how his grandbird grew strong and fine, with 
 feathers straightening out and breast growing brown 
 and sleek.
 
 Lars, the Useless, Was a Nuisance 85 
 
 At first he talked to Helga from a distance, but as 
 the days went on the bird grew to know him. Birds 
 love fools and old men, and he was both. Helga and 
 the mother-bird felt they could trust Useless, al 
 though his first approach had seemed hostile. 
 
 So they let the old cove talk to them and come near 
 and they got very chummy. 
 
 Useless told them he had named the youngest 
 Helga, and as godfather and grandfather would leave 
 the findings that seemed appetizing to birds at the 
 top of the heap in the basket, where the mother and 
 the "kid" could have easy commissary, and, by 
 saving the time wasted in hunting food, could spend 
 a social hour with him. 
 
 The birds agreed and liked it and they grew plump 
 on apple cores and banana skins and gave Useless 
 most of the time he demanded. 
 
 It grew so that, when he turned with hastening old 
 steps toward the tree, he whistled and the birds 
 heard him coming, and peeped out at him, and peeped 
 back to him and expected him, and Useless had more 
 fun and more to live for than he ever had had since 
 little Helga died. 
 
 When it was rainy and the birds wouldn t come 
 out, he climbed to them and made funny noises, low
 
 86 Beef,, Iron and Wine 
 
 and kindly, and they said they d see him when it 
 stopped raining. 
 
 And Useless knew they loved him, and it is wonder 
 ful to be loved. 
 
 September came, with a touch of Indian summer for 
 a day or two, then it became just September. Useless 
 found papers to stiletto, but his trips to the tree were 
 just as frequent. 
 
 The calendar showed October, and the job had 
 become a sinecure. Useless could spend more time 
 than ever with his chirping household, and never did 
 a man come home more eagerly or faithfully than 
 came Useless to his tree. He sat for hours at its foot 
 and smoked and talked to the robins as they sported 
 on the grass, which was beginning to brown at the 
 curling edges, and they talked back to him. 
 
 One day Useless came to his light labors from the 
 boarding-house and started for the park stables, 
 where he kept his weapon. That was the regular 
 routine. But it had rained most all the day before 
 and he had seen little of his birds, so he made a detour 
 to say good morning before he began his work day. 
 
 He whistled as he approached whistled again, and 
 got no answer. 
 
 They couldn t be asleep.
 
 Lars, the Useless, Was a Nuisance 87 
 
 The sun was up and his family kept regular hours. 
 
 He felt a sting of the "rheumatiz" in his left leg 
 and shoulder. He hurried his steps and came to the 
 foot of his tree trunk. 
 
 He could hardly climb the bench, it hurt him so, 
 but he made it, up to the top of the back, with a 
 smile, to surprise his silent family with his silent 
 coming. 
 
 Many a man has come home like that, with a smile 
 on his lips, to play peekaboo with his own. And 
 many a man s smile has died to find the nest empty. 
 
 Useless took a look. 
 
 The birds were not in their retreat. The furniture 
 of straw had not been smoothed as was the morning 
 custom. There was an unoccupied desolation about 
 the nest. 
 
 Useless looked again and a fear stabbed him to his 
 heart as cruelly as he stabbed the leavings of a picnic. 
 They were gone. His Helga was gone. 
 
 And the old man climbed down and sat at the foot 
 of his tree and lit his pipe, and shivered with the 
 stinging morning breeze and quivered with a new and 
 palpitating sorrow. 
 
 They were gone and had left no word behind, nor 
 had they said good-bye.
 
 88 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 They had gone like his first and his second Helga 
 had gone, in silence, and when he loved them most, 
 and in the winter of his years. 
 
 Fall had come.
 
 V 
 IF A PARTY MEET A PARTY
 
 IF A PARTY MEET A PARTY 
 
 IT SEEMS to be written in the book that 
 when a man does an act of gallantry toward 
 a female in distress he must and shall fall 
 in love with her. Any man brave enough to be brave 
 deserves to fare well with the fair, and it is up to 
 him to wrap his strong arms about her there and then 
 or as soon thereafter as circumstances allow. As to 
 the lady, of course she falls in love on the spot. Let s 
 see. 
 
 Ed Rourke, patrolman, was travelling nights out 
 in the tall grass. He had transgressed and had been 
 transferred. He had arrested a rowdy with the 
 wrong uncle, or a drunk with a drag, or an alderman s 
 private secretary, and for the good of the service 
 he had been assigned to a station where it took him 
 two days every day to go to work from where he 
 lived. 
 
 Ed was married. His wife was a girl from his own 
 parish, and he had known her a long time. They had 
 
 91
 
 92 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 married without much flurry or furlough. Their 
 home life was honest (some part of a policeman s 
 life must be honest) and tranquil and unexciting. 
 
 Rourke had entered the police service through a 
 longing for adventure. He preferred it to becoming 
 a plumber s helper or a motorman. He wanted to 
 hunt thieves and raid opium dens and shoot burglars 
 caught in the act. And here he was, out where he 
 got burrs on the tails of his blue coat, pacing for hours 
 up and down cold, dark, residential streets where 
 nothing ever happened. 
 
 Everything out in that neighborhood closed for the 
 night before he got there for duty. No thieves were 
 ever crazy enough to go so far out. It wasn t a 
 fashionable suburb one never even saw a taxi there. 
 
 Only one incident lighted up the nightly travel. 
 On the 2 :42 car each night came Millie Pringle, a little 
 waitress who worked downtown in a lunchroom until 
 two o clock. Ed had met her one night when he saw 
 her get off the car and start up a dark street, alone. 
 He addressed her and offered uniformed escort. She 
 readily accepted. So Ed found out that she made 
 that car nightly except Sunday, and he suggested that 
 he had better be there each night and see that she got 
 safely home over the two and a half blocks of desolate
 
 // a Party Meet a Party 93 
 
 sidewalk. Millie said, gee, it would be fine if he 
 would. 
 
 The only good look that Ed ever got of her was as 
 she alighted, when in the flare of the street-car plat 
 form lights he noted that she was prettily put to 
 gether, chubby, smiling, with nice white teeth and 
 nice pink lips and that she could not be more than 
 about nineteen. He liked her walk, too, which was 
 brisk and cute, and her talk, which was the what s 
 what in the latest refined slang. She chewed her gum 
 gracefully, she wore blue boots with white heels, and, 
 generally speaking, she was the kind of a girl who 
 would do anybody proud, anywhere. 
 
 Not a word had Ed spoken that would not have 
 passed muster had Millie s mother been along. But 
 there was somewhat in her smile as she caught his 
 face each night, looking ahead while the car ground 
 and grounded at the crossing, that led Ed to suspect 
 that Millie had noticed his broad shoulders, his curly 
 brown hair that showed beneath the white military 
 police cap, and his smooth young face which could 
 be looked at without annoyance. 
 
 When she smiled he smiled right back, giving tooth 
 for tooth and eye for eye. And Millie knew, likewise, 
 that each dimple registered, that the cocky little hat
 
 94 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 set off her round face tellingly, and that any man 
 might be proud to take her to the movies. 
 
 But no diplomatic messages had been exchanged. 
 Rourke was entirely within his duties, lending to a 
 lone girl police convoy at that hour, and Millie could 
 accept it in turn without compromise. They talked 
 of the weather and suffrage and President Wilson s 
 marriage and the fact that Thanksgiving, Christ 
 mas, and New Year came pretty close together and 
 that was all. Millie had told him what she did for a 
 living and that she was the only daughter of a widow 
 and that was all. Ed had told her that he came to 
 pound the suburban flagstones because he was in 
 Dutch at headquarters and that was all. 
 
 And then one night Ed hurried, as he did every 
 night, to make the car after his 2:30 pull at a box six 
 blocks away. Millie got off. He was just about 
 to join her, but she, quietly and without turning her 
 face toward him at all, said out of the corner of her 
 pretty little mouth, "Nix." Ed stepped back a pace 
 to get a better focus, for he was puzzled. Then he 
 noted that a man had gotten off the car at the same 
 corner, a pace behind the girl. That was unusual in 
 the wilderness. 
 
 Ed saw the man, but the man did not see Ed. His
 
 // a Party Meet a Party 95 
 
 eyes were fixed on the girl, who started up her dark 
 street. As she mounted to the walk he stepped 
 rapidly beside her and took her arm in his hand. 
 With an angry motion Millie swept her arm out of 
 his gingery grasp, turned toward Ed, and called: 
 "Officer." 
 
 Ed made it in two steps. The man saw him, 
 turned white, started to go, stopped and stood frozen. 
 Ed took him by the collar. 
 
 "What s the matter?" demanded Ed, addressing 
 the girl. 
 
 "This goof," said Millie hotly, "made a play for 
 me in the rest rant. I never gave him a tumble. 
 But he waits around till I get off and tails me on that 
 car and takes a seat acrost from me and gives me the 
 all-over like he was gonna buy me or something. I 
 wasn t gonna make no riot on that car, so I let him 
 step right into this. Now, where do we go from 
 here? Or do I have to let a lop-eared chicken chaser 
 like this run me all over town and get away with it?" 
 
 Ed tightened his grip on the fellow s collar. 
 
 "It isn t so, officer," said the prisoner. "I thought 
 I knew the young lady. That is I saw her in the 
 restaurant, and as I was going up the same way I was 
 about to suggest that as it is dark
 
 96 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "Dark, is it?" said Policeman Rourke, and with his 
 free hand he slapped the masher across the mouth, 
 drawing blood. "Live up here, do you?" and he 
 smacked him again. Then with the hand that 
 gripped the coat Rourke gave the unwelcome stranger 
 a shove that landed him in the middle of the dusty 
 roadway in a heap. 
 
 Rourke followed to the edge of the sidewalk. 
 
 "If I ever ketch you annoyin this here young lady 
 again or mashin on my beat I ll bust your nut and I ll 
 run you in," said Rourke, and he turned and took 
 Millie s arm and led her along toward her home. 
 
 Millie looked up at Ed s strong shoulders in his 
 well-fitting blue uniform. Her little hand stole up 
 on his arm and the spot it squeezed was as hard as 
 Bessemer. 
 
 "You re a bear," she said with feeling. 
 
 "It s that kind o roaches makes me wanna do 
 murder," said Rourke. "I didn t wanna take him in 
 becuz you would o had to go to court an so would I, 
 an the only way I could get to court at nine in the 
 mornin out here would be to sleep in the station four 
 hours, an then I d get home just in time to be too 
 late to start back this here way again. But I guess 
 he won t worry you no more after this,"
 
 // a Party Meet a Party 97 
 
 "Anybody what thinks he will, a dime ll get him 
 rich," said Millie with more feeling. 
 
 Millie gave him her hand the first time that 
 night when they parted at the gate. And Ed took it. 
 And he noticed that she had a soft little hand, though 
 a working girl, and that when he closed his big paw 
 over it it felt so warm and snuggly that he just kept 
 it there until he suddenly remembered that such 
 things mean something and he let go of it with sud 
 denness and vigor, raised his cap, and said : 
 
 "Well, good-night. I guess he won t worry you no 
 more after this." 
 
 "Anybody what thinks he will, a dime ll get him 
 rich," said Millie, w r ho had her set phrase for each 
 emotion. 
 
 Ed watched her down the black passageway to the 
 rear door \vhere she always slipped into the house, 
 then he turned and strolled back toward the main 
 avenue to meet the next car, from which the con 
 ductor always tossed him an early morning paper. 
 
 He was feeling pretty good. It had been an adven 
 ture and he had been a knight. The monotony had 
 been broken and so had the ice. 
 
 He wondered yes, he smiled, then frowned, then 
 whistled once, then smiled again and wondered.
 
 98 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 What would she say if she knew he was married? 
 He hadn t told her that he wasn t. Maybe she sus 
 pected. It wasn t hard to suspect it. But, no. 
 Girls never suspect it. Say they don t even believe 
 it when a fellow tells them so. 
 
 And to some, again, it doesn t make any difference. 
 That love thing is a funny sketch. A woman will let 
 herself go, get herself all in love and wrapped up in a 
 man she knows she can t have, follow him around 
 like a devoted little slave when all the time she 
 knows another woman has him but that s how they 
 are, those girls. So thought Ed as he strolled and 
 as he smiled. 
 
 The next night was Sunday, so he wasn t to meet 
 Millie. But he strolled past her house three times, 
 telling himself that he had to patrol that block, the 
 same as any other block, didn t he? As late as mid 
 night he saw a light in the house. But he couldn t 
 see in. He wondered what they were doing up so 
 late. But what mattered? He would ask her next 
 day. 
 
 All next evening Ed found himself looking at his 
 watch. He wasn t impatient for 2:42 nothing like 
 that. But he just didn t want to miss that pull at 
 the box and the girl would be scary and timid now
 
 // a Party Meet a Party 99 
 
 that she had been molested, so he mustn t fail in his 
 duty to her. No, by all means he mustn t fail. So 
 he was there and waiting when the headlight of the 
 car swung into view and standing at the crossing 
 walk as the platform stopped there. 
 
 Ed lifted his hat and beamed up at the step where 
 stood Millie, with a smile on her face, looking radiant. 
 
 Ed reached up to help her off when Suffering 
 Disorderly Conduct! the masher stepped out from 
 behind Millie, put his two feet on the ground, reached 
 up and offered his uplifted hand to Millie. Ed 
 pulled his cap firmly on his head and with one quick 
 motion drew back his right arm. Millie jumped 
 down, threw up both her hands before Officer 
 Rourke between him and the masher. 
 
 "Cut it out," said Millie sharply. 
 
 Ed stopped, his swing halting in midair. The 
 conductor rang his two bells and the car pulled away. 
 
 "What the " gasped Ed. 
 
 "You lay off that party," said Millie. 
 
 "Why, that s " 
 
 "Never you mind who he is. You ll find out mighty 
 quick who he is," and she turned to the well-dressed 
 little man, "Arthur," she said to him, "tip this 
 fresh harness bull off to what you think he oughta get
 
 100 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 wise to before they make kindlin wood outta his 
 hickory." 
 
 "Why," started the little man, clearing his throat 
 nervously, "I am Senator Carberry, member of the 
 state legislature from this district, and 
 
 "Not Franchise Carberry? " exclaimed Rourke. 
 
 "They sometimes call me that," said the little 
 man. 
 
 "Why, then then you re the boss o this distric - 
 an you 
 
 "You have nothing to fear, officer," said Carberry, 
 "I have no desire to punish you, though you do take 
 a great deal for granted for just a common patrol 
 man, and you are too handy with your hands for a 
 public servant." 
 
 "But you was " 
 
 "He was not," cut in Millie. "He was eating in 
 the rest rant and he sees me and well, I guess if a 
 party sees a party he likes well, I guess he s got a 
 right to get acquainted, ain t he?" 
 
 Rourke began to see it slowly. 
 
 "Miss Pringle tells me," said the senator, "that 
 you are dissatisfied with your assignment out here. 
 Now, instead of having you disciplined, as I well might 
 and as perhaps I really ought to, I am going to do you
 
 // a Party Meet a Party 101 
 
 a friendly turn. Miss Pringle has told me that you 
 have been of service to her in your way, as every 
 dutiful patrolman should be to a lady so I have 
 arranged that you be transferred back to your old 
 post downtown. You will be notified in the morn 
 ing that it has been ordered." 
 
 Ed looked at Millie. Millie looked at Carberry. 
 
 "Well, I m I m much bliged," stuttered Rourke. 
 "That is, if the lady thinks she can get home all 
 right nights like 
 
 "You should worry your poor old nut about me," 
 said Millie. "I ain t gonna be flipping rattlers 
 nights no more. I m gonna we re gonna Sen 
 ator Carberry and I are gonna 
 
 Rourke staggered back a step. Carberry offered 
 his arm to Millie, who cast an indignant and impu 
 dent glance at Rourke, turned lovingly a smile of 
 precipitated sugar toward the senator, and started 
 with him for the curb. 
 
 "You will be notified of your transfer in the morn 
 ing," called the senator over his shoulder. 
 
 "Leave it to him if he says transfer you they ll 
 hop you wherever he says," tossed Millie over her 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Thanks," said Rourke, coming out of his daze.
 
 102 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 The couple had made the sidewalk and Rourke was 
 forty feet away. He took three big steps, put his 
 two hands about his mouth to make a megaphone 
 and called after them, clearly and distinctly, "Thank 
 you, miss. And my wife ll be much obliged, too."
 
 VI 
 OMAHA SLIM 
 
 I. HEARD NATURE CALLING HIM 
 II. INDORSED BY LUKE THE DUDE 
 
 (Political Philosophy of Omaha Slim.) 
 
 III. SNIFFS SCENTED BREEZES 
 
 IV. ON INTERNATIONAL CRISIS
 
 VI 
 
 OMAHA SLIM 
 
 i 
 
 HEARD XATURE CALLING HIM 
 
 OMAHA SLIM, having shilled a night owl for 
 a dime, repaired him to the lodging-house of 
 his choice, bowed to the fuzzy gentry loung 
 ing about the lobby, and laid down the night s re 
 ceipts for the night s resting-place. 
 
 It had no canopy, and the linen cannot be described 
 because there wasn t any. 
 
 Where Slim did his sleeping, when he was lucky, 
 each patron gets six feet on a pine bench about two 
 feet from the floor. The sections are shiny and worn 
 from occupation and there are grooves at the head, 
 foot, and centre. 
 
 The pillow rests on a hinged shelf connected with a 
 rope to a lever in the office. Promptly at 6 o clock 
 the lever is pulled, all the headpieces drop, and no 
 guest has to be called twice, nor does he stop to say, 
 "All right in a minute, dear," then turn over again 
 
 105
 
 106 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 for that postscript snooze which is all that makes 
 getting up at all worth while. 
 
 With his head hanging and dangling, Slim knew 
 that it was time to arise. The other bos knew it, 
 too. They reached under their bunks, got their 
 hats, which constituted dressing for the day, and 
 shambled downstairs, where something else awaited 
 to compensate for time lost and dime lost in sleeping. 
 
 They call it "the rub of the brush" in that world 
 to which Slim belongs. They call it that because 
 that s the way it feels when it goes down. 
 
 Shaking and white-faced, the tramps filed sleepily 
 into the barroom and lined against the mile of bar. 
 The bartender had a solid circle of glasses before him, 
 each holding half a pint, and into these he was pour 
 ing from two bottles, one held in each hand, time 
 being more valuable than the stuff he poured and 
 spilled. And everywhere it spilled it ate a knot out 
 of the bar. 
 
 Slim took his and threw it down his throat. It 
 felt as though it had barbed wire in it and it shook 
 him from his toes to his hat. The kick was between 
 the two. When it had settled Slim lifted his head, 
 swelled out his racked chest, walked forth into the 
 sunlight and sat down on a keg.
 
 Omaha Slim 107 
 
 He sat there until the policeman turned the corner 
 toward him. Slim didn t wait for an invitation. 
 He arose and proceeded. 
 
 Now you would think Slim s first thought would be 
 of breakfast. But it was not. Breakfast had passed 
 out of his life with other customs that the fortunate 
 regard as necessities of life. He no more thought of 
 eating than of opera. 
 
 Slim had not slept as well as usual. He had 
 dreamed, and that was something that seldom hap 
 pened. 
 
 He had dreamed of his mother and of the farm 
 where he had lived. Slim never had loved that 
 farm. In boyhood it meant getting up before the 
 sun, milking, ploughing, and chopping wood. In 
 adolescence it had meant more of the same. In 
 manhood it had galled him until he struck out for 
 himself years ago to seek success and embrace failure. 
 
 But, in retrospect, the farm had reappeared. And 
 it had changed. His mother she must be pretty 
 old by now came to him, and she was kind and sweet. 
 It was early fall harvest time. That meant work, 
 and even in his dream Slim had shuddered. But after 
 the harvesting would be the gatherings and the barn 
 dances and the hard times parties. The girls he had
 
 108 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 known my, most of them must be women now, with 
 children and such would be there. 
 
 Slim s sense of the dramatic struck him now that 
 he was awake. Why not walk in on them at the hard 
 times party, enter thus on a laugh, win the envy of 
 them all for his realistic disguise, and tell no one but 
 his mother where he had been and what he had done? 
 The farm could take care of him. He could return 
 to a decent life and perhaps he could learn to like it. 
 This hoboing had its compensations, but it got one 
 nowhere, and it was not any more socially elegant 
 than living on a farm. Why not? 
 
 Slim was not the man to jump at a conclusion or a 
 delusion. His was by nature a slow and careful 
 process of determination. He thought of several 
 sides of the proposition, and, taken from the several 
 points of survey, back to nature looked like the goods. 
 
 So he started for the freight-yards, where, he knew, 
 trains left in the direction of his old home. 
 
 He dug down into his coat and brought up the 
 stub of a cigar, but he had no match. He was pass 
 ing a railroad station near the yards. In stations 
 there are always cigar stands, and, swinging at cigar 
 stands, there are always lights. A station, moreover, 
 is a place where a person dressed as Slim was could
 
 Omaha Slim 109 
 
 enter without probability of coming out at the end 
 of a boot. So he entered for his light. He got it. 
 
 In the station there always is a "men s waiting- 
 room." Nobody ever waits there except section 
 hands, harvest hands, and soldiers returning from 
 furlough. Slim knew there was security and sanc 
 tuary in the men s waiting-room, so he thought he d 
 stop there for a smoke and a think and a rest. 
 
 He sat down on a bench with a high, curved wooden 
 back and high, carved wooden arms at its extremities. 
 He crossed his legs and puffed and contemplated. 
 
 On the bench opposite him sat a crew of foreigners, 
 jabbering and gesticulating. They were entirely sur 
 rounded with picks, shovels, lunch, and cheap pipe 
 smoke. One of them, a foreman or colonel or some 
 thing above the mob, \vas standing with his hands 
 down in his horizontal trousers pockets. One of the 
 gang pointed to Slim and whispered something to his 
 chief, who turned, looked him over, and crossed to 
 him. 
 
 "How you lika come in country worka on de 
 sekcha?" he asked. 
 
 Slim looked up at him, slid down the bench a bit, 
 arose, and walked to the other end of the waiting- 
 room and sat on another bench.
 
 110 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 Across from him sat another gang. Some of it 
 could and did talk English. He had just settled 
 in a comfortable curve when one of the men, who 
 likewise seemed to have preferment over his fellows, 
 arose and came to him. 
 
 "Say, bo," he said, "I gotta gang o harvest 
 hustlers here an we kin use more. > T ree bucks a day 
 an chuck an dere s plenny o work. If ye wanna do 
 a couple o overtime tricks ye kin lay up fer all 
 winter. On?" 
 
 Slim picked himself up, blinked, and moved to 
 another corner of the room. There he sat down and 
 faced a squad of lumberjacks, so he moved to the 
 fourth and remaining corner, where he fell among a 
 horde of labourers on their way to build a dam on 
 some river somewhere. They looked happy and 
 dirty. Their overalls were worn and rubbed and 
 their spades were wrapped up in their lamb-lined 
 weather jackets. 
 
 Slim didn t even sit down near them. One of 
 them was eating slices of raw onion on dark rye bread, 
 and Slim s nostrils were tender on an empty stomach. 
 
 Slim started out. All he could see was shovels and 
 picks. All he could hear was the excited chatter of a 
 babel of rough men waiting for cattle cars and smelly
 
 Omaha Slim 111 
 
 smokers to take them to work. Work! The air 
 seemed charged with it. The place was blue with it. 
 Slim wanted a bit of fresh air and a look at people 
 who knew the values of things. 
 
 He thought of the ride on the bumpers and the 
 night that would come on, when it w r ould be cold 
 and comfortless and cramped. He thought of rain 
 w r hich probably would accompany him and be with 
 him when he got home. There wasn t any calf to 
 be fatted on the farm where he lived, and maybe his 
 brother, who had worked all his life and had a wife 
 and two children to keep from the fruits of that stingy 
 farm, might not bid him welcome. 
 
 His eye lighted on something. He stooped and 
 picked it up, looked about him, and saw no one had 
 seen. He bit it. It was good. It was a quarter. 
 His feet were still taking him toward the yards. He 
 heard a noise, looked up and saw the train that he 
 was going to flip pulling out. He looked at the 
 quarter again. 
 
 "A dime for grub, a nickel for a rub o de brush, 
 a dime for a flop on de kip and a rub o de brush in 
 de mornin in me mitt an I W T UZ on me way. 
 Guess I m losin me mind," he said. 
 
 He turned and saw the gang of section hands piling
 
 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 into a line of shabby coaches with their tools and 
 their paper telescopes and their bundles. The fore 
 man was the last, seeing all his men in before he 
 grasped the handrail and started up himself. Slim 
 was passing him. 
 
 "Hey," called Slim. "When I wakes up in me 
 hotel t morrer mornin I ll be glad I ain t wit youse, 
 ye bunch o fawraners." 
 
 II 
 
 INDORSED BY LUKE THE DUKE 
 
 (Political Philosophy of Omaha Slim) 
 
 Omaha Slim came out of the lodging-house and 
 blinked at the pale sun of budding spring. 
 
 Within him, tearing like the freshets of a mountain 
 falls, raged the half pint of squirrel whiskey (it makes 
 you climb a tree) that had just gurgled its carbolic 
 way down his main tunnel the "rub o the brush," 
 as it is called in slum parlance, descriptive of the way 
 it feels going down. 
 
 Omaha Slim, the fattest bum on the highway of his 
 kind, sat him upon a keg at the sidewalk s edge and 
 addressed Luke the Dude, who was distinguished 
 among the hobos because he carried a pocket comb
 
 Omaha Slim 113 
 
 and, from time to time, would take off his worn and 
 shiny crusher and caressingly comb his shock. 
 
 "Luke," said Slim, "this is a great little world. 
 Between now an lection you an I we re as careferee 
 as Cain an Abel in Paradise." 
 
 "Uhum," said Luke. 
 
 "There ain t no use n talkin politics was made 
 for the likes o you an me. The one thing what 
 our fathers battles for an dies for is this here right o 
 free-born Americans for to vote. They s a lot o 
 smart suckers what kicks us an hotfoots us every 
 time we stops to rest all the other mont s o the year. 
 But comes lection, we re as good as Rockefeller, 
 ain t we?" 
 
 "Uhum," said Luke, combing his hair. 
 
 "We re better n Rockefeller. Nobody knows how 
 he s agonna vote an nobody much gives a blow. 
 But they knows how you an I is agonna vote. An 
 they needs us. They jus can t get by wit out us. 
 Ain it the truth?" 
 
 "Uhum," said Luke. 
 
 "This here ward," said Omaha Slim, shifting his 
 right foot off his left foot and his left foot over on his 
 right foot; "this here ward is like a gold dollar. Its 
 value never changes. You know where it is an
 
 114 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 where it s agonna be, day in, day out. An who 
 makes it that way, huh?" 
 
 Luke ran the comb through his hair and put the 
 comb back in his pocket. 
 
 "We makes it that way," said Omaha Slim. "You 
 an me an the rest o the boys. We re a steady 
 value. We never flucjuates. We can be depended 
 on. We are depended on. They ain t hardly a gink 
 in all the town outside o he s got a p litical job or 
 he s one of us what can be depended on. What good 
 is a guy s vote when you don t know how he s agonna 
 vote? When nobody don know how a guy is agonna 
 vote what can he do wit his vote? Who ll trust him? 
 But wit our vote it s diff rent. They knows. They 
 can figger ahead. When they buy us they re buyin 
 somethin that s old an reliable an standard like a 
 gold dollar. So many votes so many bucks. We 
 knows how much we gets; they knows how many 
 they gets. It s business, that s what it is. It s 
 system. It s commercial soundness, figger-proof an 
 reg lar." 
 
 "Uhum," said Luke. 
 
 "An what s the answer? The answer is that way 
 up in politics they figger us way ahead in the future. 
 The administration knows we re gonna be here.
 
 Omaha Slim 115 
 
 They knows who we re agonna vote for. They knows 
 who we vote for is agonna get in. They knows 
 who gets in by our vote is agonna be wit the admin 
 istration. Do we amount to somethin ? Or are we 
 a lot o no-good bos like preachers an guys what ain t 
 got enough interest in their own town to study impor 
 tant politics says we are? Or are we?" 
 
 "Uhum," said Luke, taking out his comb. 
 
 "I puts in my eight good hours on the flop in there 
 las night. I gets my rub o the brush this mornin . 
 I got 40 cents jinglin in my kick an when that there s 
 gone I can raise a two-bit piece in headquarters. 
 Lection is comin an the coppers has been officed 
 not to give us the rush. Is this here livin ? Or 
 ain t it?" 
 
 "Uhum," said Luke. 
 
 "I sees the big feller las night you know, the 
 alderman. He s got a dime cigar in his teeth an 
 he s got a smile like a picher o Teddy Roosewild. 
 He looks the boys over an he shakes his head like 
 he s sayin to hisself, he s sayin : Them s my boys 
 some boys! He don say it, but I can see he thinks 
 it. An then what does he do? He walks up to the 
 bar like the big, fine gent what he is an he barks to 
 the bottle- juggler: Gi the boys all a drink. They
 
 116 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 was a panic, nearly, us gettin to the hardwood. The 
 barkeep he gets two dozen glasses an he slaps em on 
 the bar. He pulls em together wit his two arms in 
 a solid circle. He takes two bottles o that two-year- 
 old the real stuff an he pours wit bot hands. It 
 was rich booze. Drink hearty, says the Boss. An* 
 hearty was right. Was you there?" 
 
 "Uhum," said Luke, sliding the comb back into 
 his pocket. 
 
 "Did you read in the paper what that there woman 
 gets in the prim ry? Say I picks a paper outta one 
 o them keep-the-city-clean cans an I gets the official 
 figgers. It was a shame to do it to her. But it ll 
 teach them women a lesson after a while. It ll 
 show em politics ain no place for em. Politics is a 
 man s game. Could that there woman a came into 
 that there place over there an said, Gi the boys all 
 a drink? Could she? Well, until she can, politics 
 ain no place for er. Anyway, in this here ward or 
 any other ward what s run on a system an not in 
 that haphazard guessin contest way what they does 
 it in some o them swell wards where everybody 
 argues an nobody knows how it s agonna come out. 
 Them swell guys they wouldn t run their business 
 like they runs their politics. They ain no guessin
 
 Omaha Slim 117 
 
 about their business. They frames that ahead 
 knows every angle way in advance, how it s gonna 
 finish before they starts it. But their politics is 
 slipshod. They takes chances on who is agonna be 
 their alderman where they wouhln i;ake no chances 
 on who s gonna be their office boy. Am I crazy? 
 Or are you lis nin at all?" 
 
 "TJhum," said Luke. 
 
 "No, sir," said Omaha Slim. "Politics is a game 
 for men for smart men at that. An the guy what 
 gets along in it is the guy what frames ahead an* 
 counts noses an busts noses if they don count right. 
 It ain t no pastime for kid-glove Willies an for 
 women. Votin don do no good. That s peanut 
 stuff retail pennyante. Roundin up a t ousan* 
 voters more than that that s wholesale. An* 
 that s business. An that there gets results an 
 brings home the pork an the bacon. It takes a 
 general what s been trained from the gutter up, not a 
 amachoor what runs a bank or a butcher shop most 
 o the time an then tries to run politics on the side 
 when he ain too busy. Them rich parties calls us 
 bums. But we makes bums outta them on lection 
 day." 
 
 "Uhum," said Luke, reaching for his comb.
 
 118 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "Nix," said Omaha Slim. "You won t have time. 
 I m gonna buy. Are you wit me?" 
 
 "Betcher life and your dope is all aces, too," said 
 Luke, letting the comb fall back into his pocket. 
 
 in 
 
 SNIFFS SCENTED BREEZES 
 
 "This is the time o year," said Omaha Slim from 
 atop his keg, as he stretched his feet farther out 
 upon the sidewalk in front of the barrel-house, "when 
 I begins to feel lazy. In winter, when the breeze 
 crimps a party an everything is shootin around, 
 I got plenny o pep to panhandle a few. But in 
 spring I gets fine an lazy an I jus wanna loaf." 
 
 "Sure," said Sleepy Brannigan. 
 
 "When it s cold," insisted Omaha Slim, "an many 
 a night I carries the banner, keepin on my dogs so I 
 won freeze to death, then sometimes I wisht I would 
 of tooken up some kind o work. But aroun this 
 here time o year when the lilies begins to open up 
 an* lections is in the air an it gets warm enough to 
 sleep in a park, I should worry about soilin my mitts 
 with drudgery." 
 
 "You re right," said Sleepy Brannigan. 
 
 "I m nuts about nacher," said Slim. "I m cer-
 
 Omaha Slim 119 
 
 t nly stuck on nacher. This mornin I m comin 
 outta that there alley, an over in a corner where you 
 wouldn t think nothin could grow epsept rats an 
 swill, doggone my bleary old eye if I don see a 
 couple o blades o grass. Now, you know, that s 
 mighty swell, that is. I alwus did like grass aroun 
 where I lives. 
 
 "Y know, I was raised on a farm. My people was 
 well off. My ol man stands great out where we 
 lives. My brother Tom he s married an he goes to 
 church. I got a sister, too, somewhere. Oh, I 
 wasn born no bo. I could of be a prosp rous Reub 
 with whiskers over my ears an drive my own Ford, 
 I guess, maybe. 
 
 "But I m periodical. That s it periodical. Y see 
 a farmer is got to shovel his way t rough snow in 
 winter an in spring he s gotta plow. Now, in spring 
 this here love o nature an this here feelin like loafin* 
 alwus got me. An in winter I alwus wanted to see 
 life be in the big cities, where things was movin . 
 In winter I couldn t stand no farm, becus it was cold 
 an lonesome. An in spring I was off it on account 
 o the plowin . If they would of let me alone, so I 
 could tour in winter an come home an rest t rough 
 the warm months, I wouldn t have no grudge again
 
 120 Beef., Iron and Wine 
 
 the farm, an I d go home as fast as a way-freight d 
 carry me. But if I got home to-morrer mornin* 
 the ol man d have me between a pair o plow- 
 handles before I had time to kiss my ol lady howdy- 
 do." 
 
 ** Tain t square," said Sleepy Brannigan. 
 
 "No, sir. It ain t. But farmers is funny that 
 way. They don make no allowance for diff rent 
 leanin s in their children. Now, if my oP man would 
 of be a city guy, he d ask me: Son, what would you 
 like to be? An I d answer: Papa, I wanna be a 
 judge, or a artist, or a alderman something refined 
 like that. An I d get a chance to f oiler my own 
 ways an get to be somebody. But a boy what s 
 born on a farm there ain t no out. He s gotta push a 
 plow an milk an pull weeds. 
 
 "Now, I wasn born for no work like that. My oP 
 lady comes from a artistic fam ly. Her grandfather 
 was a interior decorator an sign-painter. I must of 
 took after him. Now, what s the use o sentencing 
 a lad what s born with a burnin for art to saw wood? 
 I wouldn stand for it. So I vamped." 
 
 "You done right," said Sleepy Brannigan. 
 
 "Tom, he never didn know nothin epsept sleepin , 
 gettin up, eatin like a wolf, tearin up a few acres o
 
 Omaha Slim 121 
 
 fine nacher, an goin back to sleep. With me it was 
 all diff rent. I could stand an watch him toil an 
 I d say, What a picher that d make! Specially 
 in spring. As soon as the air got soft an croony I 
 begin to see pichers. Well, they wasn no much 
 encouragement for picher work aroun where I lives. 
 So, when I says to my ol man I wan s to go to a city 
 an study to draw pichers he says go to the well an 
 draw a bucket o water. 
 
 "That s the kind o treatment I got. My ol 
 lady, she alwus kind o sympathied with me. You 
 see it was t rough her I got my finer feelin s. But she 
 didn amount to much aroun my house epsept when 
 it come time to serve the coffee an cakes. A farmer s 
 wife runs No. 2 to a farmer s cow. Oncet or twicet 
 she talked up for me an my ol man told her she was 
 crazy an to go wash the dishes. 
 
 "So I packs up my few belongin s an a suit of o 
 Tom s clo s an I beats it. 
 
 "What else could you do?" asked Sleepy Bran- 
 nigan. 
 
 "Since then I ve had a lot o ups an downs 
 mostly downs. I tried to get work, but in the big 
 towns when a fat hog what s got dough in every bank 
 kicks in eight a week to you, he wan s you to break
 
 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 your neck. I was asked to do the most unreasonable 
 kinds o work truckin cases, harnessin teams, 
 washin winders say, I could of just as well stayed 
 on the farm where I come from. 
 
 "I couldn find no artistic work. For a while I 
 was markin shippin boxes, but I paints one to 
 Newfoundland instead o New Zealand, an you 
 oughta heard the fuss. I was docked an canned. 
 I wouldn t stand for it, so I resigns. You know what 
 temp rament is? Well, never mind. It goes with a 
 soul for art. You wouldn t know if I told you. 
 
 "All that made me sore on humanity an civiliza 
 tion. If I was born with that kind of a disposition 
 that wasn my fault, was it? If I felt like musin an 
 thinkin poetry in the glad springtime I couldn help 
 it, could I? 
 
 "You couldn t take a antelope a wild, free 
 creacher of its native hills an hitch it up like a mule 
 to pull a garbage cart, could you? 
 
 "Well, what was the use o trying to make a farmer 
 or a freight handler outta me? Huh?" 
 
 Omaha Slim waited for a reply, and, getting none, 
 looked down to where Sleepy Brannigan was sitting 
 on the curb, his back leaning against the keg on 
 which Slim sat. Sleepy s head had fallen forward
 
 Omaha Slim 123 
 
 limply. He was snoring like a fondly tortured saxo 
 phone. 
 
 Slim shook his head. He drew himself together 
 with a gradual effort and rolled to his feet. He 
 looked down again at Sleepy, whose fat jowls rested 
 on his collarless shirt and whose ragged beard stuck 
 out like quills upon the fretful porcupine. 
 
 "What a picher that d make!" reflected Slim. 
 
 Then he walked around the keg and sat down on 
 the curb. He leaned back and rested against the 
 unoccupied portion of the support. He looked for a 
 moment at the blue, fair sky of spring; he breathed in 
 the new air of the young, budding season. He sighed. 
 In two minutes he was dreaming of flowers, flannel 
 cakes, and fairies. 
 
 IV 
 
 ON INTERNATIONAL CRISIS 
 
 Omaha Slim sat on the curb, casting a rotund 
 shadow toward the front elevation of his residence, 
 club and office, the dime flop over the barrel-house. 
 
 Beside him half sat, half lay Luke the Dude, his 
 legs extending into the street, snipping with a petite 
 pair of rusted manicure scissors the fringe from the 
 bottom of his trousers.
 
 124 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 Every now and then some, Luke stopped, laid his 
 scissors down on the stone, reached into an inner 
 pocket and drew forth his comb, took off his devas 
 tated hat and ran the comb through what had sur 
 vived of his hair. 
 
 "Dude," said Omaha Slim, "these here is excitin 
 times." 
 
 "Mouthful," said Luke, closing one eye and slanting 
 a sighting to the bottom of the left barrel of his 
 trousers to see whether he had trimmed off a cotton 
 hangnail or had cut into the quick. 
 
 "The air is full o germs," said Slim. "Full o 
 germs o war. Over there is a pennuant floatin 
 to our native breeze an it says: Help Get Villa. 
 That there soldier is been pacin up an down now for 
 weeks tryin to steer suckers in to go again the most 
 popular national game o the season. 
 
 "Then I reads that the President has declared war 
 again Germany." 
 
 "Go easy," said Luke, putting up the scissors and 
 taking down the comb. "He didn pull no war. He 
 jus busts off dipsomaniac relations, which is like 
 tellin a guy to beat it, but that don t say you hit him 
 in the nose." 
 
 "If you re gonna split hairs," said Slim, "all right.
 
 Omaha Slim 125 
 
 But I tell you they s war in this here air. An 
 when the air is full o war that s when us bos begins 
 to get a little attention. 
 
 "Aroun lection time an war time this here nation 
 can t make a move without us. 
 
 "Where do they start enlistin campaigns? Does 
 they go to the bully vards? Does they? Does they 
 send circ ler letters to bankers an brokers an shoe 
 clerks an tango dancers? Yes, they does. They 
 sticks out a banner where you an I can read. They 
 sends a male model with a khakeye uniform an a 
 someboyrearo to walk in front of us an make us 
 jealous an warlike. 
 
 "Who is the first to enlist? Is it mamma s naughty 
 boy with his hair shaved off over his ears? Is it? 
 It is not. It s us. You an me. Well, anyway, 
 guys like you an me. Our set. 
 
 "When it comes to parades them counter-leapers 
 an silk-pajama youths come staggerin out o candy 
 stores an fall in line. But when it comes to war 
 Uncle Sam hollers for reg lers. He ain t got no time 
 then for expert accountants an commercial bunko 
 men. He wants fighters. An who is the fighters? 
 Us." 
 
 "Well," said Luke, putting his comb back into the
 
 126 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 imitation morocco envelope and slipping that into 
 the pocket without the hole, "he figgers, Uncle Sam 
 does, that we ain t got no business to keep us here, 
 so maybe we ll be more willin to spring into the 
 breach." 
 
 "Where do you get that we ain t got no business 
 here?" asked Slim, making no effort to conceal that 
 he was hurt. "We ain t got no business? Ain t 
 they a lection comin ? Ain t they gonna be some 
 guy runnin for President soon? An for gov - 
 nor?" 
 
 "Sure," said Luke, rubbing his thumbnail on his 
 thigh. 
 
 "Very well," said Slim, convincingly and with 
 satisfaction. "They s gonna be a lection. Well, 
 who s gonna lect the President? An the gov nor? 
 Who? You an I an the likes o you an I. Is that 
 havin business, or ain t it? 
 
 "Is it more important to get a musket an a shave 
 an* thirteen a month an your beans in the field o 
 battle, or is it more important to stay here an elect a 
 President an a gov nor? Or ain t it?" 
 
 Luke the Dude pulled up his left foot and rubbed 
 the face of the shoe on the rear portion of his right 
 trouser, took it down again, looked it over with
 
 Omaha Slim 127 
 
 critical severity, put a silent O. K. on the shine, 
 reached for his comb, and said: 
 
 "Slim, I never t ought o them things that way. 
 You got a head for politics an the affairs o nashuns 
 an I ain t. But the way you puts it, it s a question. 
 It s a problem, that s what it is. 
 
 "They ain t no gettin out o this: We got to pick 
 between duty an duty. A citizen is got to choose 
 between his civic an his militarious conscience at a 
 time like this. It s too much for me." 
 
 "I ll tell you," said Slim. "My way o lookin at 
 it is this. 
 
 "They s a war on in Mexico right now. Of course 
 it s only a war again one man, but he s a tough bird, 
 even if he s dead, an while many is laughin , it ain t 
 no laughin matter. 
 
 "On the other hand, we re gonna be fightin Ger 
 many as sure as mud. That ll take a lot o men. 
 Figgerin one American to four Dutch, we ll need 
 not less than 300,000 soldiers. 
 
 "Now they s prob ly just about 300,000 bos in 
 America to-day. So that s tooken care of if they en 
 lists, man for man. 
 
 "But, if they does, bein a patriotic lot, you know 
 what ll happen.
 
 128 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "The money classes, they don want no war over 
 here. That kills trade. They wants a war in 
 Europe and them here to rake the kitty. But if we 
 boys goes off to war an leaves them guys here to do 
 the votin you know what they ll about do. They ll 
 vote in some guy without a chin, who s got one foot 
 in Wall Street an the other in the grave, an he ll 
 horn in the White House an he ll call off the war. 
 
 "So, if we put over a war, we leave our retreat 
 unguarded an along comes this here tool o the 
 malleaf actors an he puts the hull war on the bum." 
 
 "Gee," said Luke. "You can see them things a 
 good ways ahead an mighty straight. You should 
 o been a deputy sheriff or somethin in the way of a 
 public career," and he adjusted his necktie so that 
 the hole would be hidden in the knot. 
 
 "I got the low-down on the sichooation," said 
 Slim, happy to be understood and appreciated. 
 "An here s the way out of it. . Since they is a equal 
 need for to go in the bloody fields to fight an to stay 
 home for protectin the honor, policy, an destiny o 
 this here gov ment, a fifty-fifty cut is the answer. 
 
 "Half of us is got to go to war. Then the country 
 can make up the diff rence by enlistin 150,000 me 
 chanics an college boys. That ll leave 150,000 of us
 
 Omaha Slim 129 
 
 behind here to swing the votin , as 150,000 men what 
 can be relied on can do a great deal again a disor 
 ganized mass o voters what splits tickets. In the 
 same breath, the 150,000 of us on them bivouacs o 
 glory 11 give a substantial foundation to the fightin 
 forces." 
 
 "You re a bear," said Luke, shooting a string-tied 
 cuff. 
 
 "T anks," said Slim. "An you an me not bein* 
 experienced fighters, but bein experienced voters 
 an men who can be depended on in a critical hour 
 like is gonna face our country, we ll stay here an do 
 our end on lection day."
 
 VII 
 THE IMP OF THE NIGHT
 
 VII 
 THE IMP OF THE NIGHT 
 
 BETWEEN midnight and sunlight, when you 
 are either flying home on the soft springs of 
 your limousine or lying home on the soft 
 springs of your bed that is when they come out, the 
 little imps of the night. 
 
 Tousled and sleepy they stumble into the section 
 of skyscrapers with baskets on their arms and with 
 smaller brothers hanging to their unwashed little 
 hands. 
 
 They make no noise, for most of them are 
 barefooted and those who are not might as well 
 be. 
 
 They semi-sleep as they walk, these children of 
 poverty, who beg the bread you leave and the scraps 
 of food you push away. 
 
 For hours they wait in alleys and byways hun 
 dreds of them until the baby breadlines are served. 
 Then they semi-sleep their way home again, each 
 carrying two cents worth of stale biscuits as the earn- 
 
 133
 
 134 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 ings of a journey that few burglars would dare and a 
 wait that few watchmen would endure. 
 
 They are, for the most part, children of foreigners. 
 A great many of them are too young to go to school. 
 It sounds incredible, but five-year-olds are not rare in 
 the procession. They seldom are molested, but it is 
 a natural impulse for the weak to fear the strong. 
 When they see a policeman they shiver. When a man 
 suddenly turns a corner toward them they huddle 
 against a darkened window or the wall of a million- 
 dollar building. When any one addresses them they 
 grab hands and run piteously. 
 
 Their faces are ashen. Their limbs are lean and 
 fragile. Their eyes say nothing and ask nothing. 
 And they never beg anything but bread yester 
 day s. They come and go and never say a word and 
 seldom lift their eyes. 
 
 You who sleep at night never have seen them. It 
 is deep in the night before they reach downtown 
 from the slums in which they live. Their tired little 
 feet have brought them back before you turn over 
 for that last luxurious snooze. Only night owls know 
 them these infant scavengers of the big city. 
 
 There was a night owl who had seen them for years 
 and wondered why they did it.
 
 The Imp of the Night 135 
 
 Children are not good rebels. Children of men 
 and women who had been hitched to plows in Bo 
 hemia or flogged muzhiks in Russia seem to be no 
 rebels at all. 
 
 But the night owl asked himself what spark within 
 these half-dead children carbureted the motive force 
 that carried them over their nightly journeys miles 
 and hours. 
 
 He was an inquisitive night owl this bird. He 
 wrote stories for a newspaper and asking questions 
 long had been his business. He had asked presi 
 dents, champions, and suffragettes questions when he 
 wished to know something of burning moment. So, 
 why not ask these little camels of the city s desert 
 caravan? 
 
 He stood between the pillars before a big hotel. 
 Down the street came a little girl with a frock that 
 had once been gingham but now was nothing. She 
 wore no shoe nor sock. The baby had shoes and 
 socks. The baby was beside her, too tired to hold 
 her hand, so the larger one, who must have been fully 
 eight years old, was dragging the baby, sex doubtful, 
 by the sleeve. In the other hand the guide and 
 leader held a basket. 
 
 The night owl stepped forth and as gently as he
 
 136 Beef y Iron and Wine 
 
 might cornered the pair, driving them to cover in a 
 nook between one pillar and a wall. He stood before 
 them where they could not flee The larger one 
 might have made it, but she couldn t desert the baby. 
 So she turned up her very gray eyes and bit her lip. 
 
 "What s your name, little girl?" asked the night 
 owl. 
 
 "Jennie," said she, with a clutch in her throat, for 
 she was badly scared. 
 
 "And the little girl s name?" 
 
 "Mike," she said. 
 
 "What would you do if I gave you a nickel?" 
 asked the night owl, with a night owl s axiomatic and 
 automatic instinct that enough nickels pave a 
 nickel-plated road to anywhere. 
 
 "I d give it to ma," said the child. 
 
 "What do you do with the bread you get every 
 morning?" 
 
 "I give it to my ma." 
 
 "Who sends you downtown like this every morn 
 ing?" 
 
 "Nobody I just come." 
 
 "Who sent you in the first place?" 
 
 "My ma." 
 
 "What s your last name?"
 
 The Imp of the Night 137 
 
 "Dombrowsky." 
 
 "Here s a dollar," said the night owl. "Now I ll 
 tell you what we ll do. The bread you bring home 
 every day can t be worth over two cents. Let s call 
 it five to be sure. Now this dollar is twenty times five 
 cents. You can give it to your ma. And then you 
 needn t come downtown like this again for twenty 
 days. Do you understand?" 
 
 "No," said the child. 
 
 "Would you stay home like well, doggone it, 
 like my children and sleep every night if I gave you 
 a nickel a night?" 
 
 "If I stayed at home, where would I get the nickel?" 
 
 "I ll give it to you now enough for twenty days. 
 You tell me where you live and every twenty days 
 I ll send you twenty nickels. Do you understand 
 now? 
 
 "No," said Jennie. 
 
 "Just a minute," said the night owl. "I have an 
 idea. Now, don t run away. I won t hurt you. 
 Wait right here." 
 
 He dashed to the all-night drug-store and got a 
 dollar bill changed into twenty five-cent pieces. He 
 dashed back again and found Jennie hurrying along 
 with Mike by the sleeve.
 
 138 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 He was disappointed, but he ran after them and 
 cornered them again. 
 
 Mike went back to sleep and Jennie waited. 
 
 "Here," said the night owl. "Here are twenty 
 nickels. Now, you give one to your ma each day. 
 Tell her a man gives you a nickel a day to stay home 
 and sleep. If that isn t enough let me know. Here 
 is my card. Do you understand? My name and 
 address are on this card. Your ma or anybody can 
 write me at that address and say a nickel a day isn t 
 enough for Jennie to stay home and sleep. Then 
 I ll send you more. Do you understand?" 
 
 "Yes," said Jennie. 
 
 "Fine," said the night owl. 
 
 She took the nickels and the card a card which 
 opened doors of mayors and millionaires offices. 
 
 "Now, where do you live?" asked the night owl. 
 
 "Grand Avenue and Green Street," said Jennie. 
 
 The night owl put down "Jennie Dombrowsky, 
 Grand Avenue and Green Street," in his little note 
 book, below the private telephone number of the 
 chief of police and the address at which a certain 
 politician could be reached if a hurry call were neces 
 sary at night. 
 
 "Now run along," said the night owl.
 
 The Imp of the Night 139 
 
 Jennie woke up Mike and they walked along. 
 
 Nineteen days later the night owl made an after 
 noon visit to Grand Avenue and Green Street. 
 
 He asked for the Dombrowskys and was directed 
 up a smelly flight of stairs to a door. He knocked 
 and a fat woman with her sleeves rolled up answered. 
 
 As she opened the door he saw Mike in a corner, 
 asleep on the floor. 
 
 "Where s Jennie?" asked the night owl. 
 
 "What do you want from Jennie?" asked the fat 
 woman. 
 
 "I m the man who gives her the nickels I want to 
 give her some more," he said. 
 
 "Give," said the woman. He gave her twenty 
 nickels. She put them in her apron pocket. 
 
 "Jennie " she said, "Jennie was killed by a truck 
 three days ago when she was walking downtown 
 after bread." 
 
 And she slammed the door.
 
 VIII 
 TAXI, MISTER!
 
 VIII 
 TAXI, MISTER! 
 
 WHEN a keen newspaper reporter wants to 
 find out anything of what is going on in his 
 town he sees the police, buzzes the night 
 clerk in the owl drug-store, quizzes the dog watch 
 bell boy in the papier-mache hotel then he wigwags 
 his friend the taxi driver (every orthodox reporter 
 should have one) and says, "How about this?" And 
 then he finds out nothing. 
 
 The taxicab men of a big city carry more fatal 
 secrets than any other class some say more than all 
 other classes. A good front-seat man never looks 
 into a woman s face, never turns around after or 
 during the process of slipping in between the seat 
 and the wheel, and never puts down an address. 
 
 Yet he sees the woman, hears and sees everything 
 that transpires while his fare is riding, pretty nearly 
 knows what happens after he gets his and the com 
 pany s money. This goes for the uniformed man 
 riding for an accredited corporation. The unat- 
 
 143
 
 144 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 tached pirate who owns or leases his own cab is some 
 times quite another story. He is ofttimes a danger 
 ous man and has been known to 
 
 However, we will take up the legitimate chauffeur, 
 who has a number, who is called by a doorman with 
 a whistle, and who gets 20 per cent, of his takings plus 
 tips, which range from 20 per cent, to $20. 
 
 He flourishes night and day. You may think that 
 the restaurants, hotels and other places where 
 romance may hide and dark deeds take place have 
 their innings between sundown and the milkman, 
 but they are just as mysterious and just as prolific 
 between dawn and dinner. The taxi is such an 
 impersonal affair that men chance it in the bright 
 light of day, for a taxi has no identity. 
 
 Men who have limousines and chauffeurs of their 
 own use taxicabs for private jaunts where they would 
 not let their own untrusted wheelsman in on sub 
 rosa data. A man or a woman may call a taxicab, 
 leave home and go forth where? Shopping, of 
 course. After the taxi gets off the domestic street 
 well, a taxi has no identity, and a driver will go 
 where directed. 
 
 A taximan need not find out for himself where any-
 
 Taxi, Mister I 145 
 
 thing is. He need only go where he is told. No one 
 patron will know all the places. But all the patrons 
 he carries will in a short time have driven with him 
 to all the places, so that he will have the concen 
 trated shady knowledge of all the bloods, pikers, 
 come-ons, roisterers, gamblers, cheaters, beaux, rich 
 men s sons, and poor men s daughters. 
 
 Ask him who that man with the whiskers was who 
 called him to the office building, had him wait at 
 the tango retreat, reentered with a pretty girl, drove 
 her to the shabby boarding-house, had him wait, re- 
 entered alone, and drove to that big house with the 
 pillars where a butler lets him in. Ask him. He ll 
 tell you he never saw the man before, hasn t any 
 idea of who he might be, doesn t remember any such 
 trip. 
 
 But if I ask him I know him, for I have my one 
 taxi driver who loves me he will tell me. But he 
 will not tell me the truth. 
 
 For taxi drivers, who are not paid very much, 
 considering what they might collect, hang on to in 
 formation like Chinese prisoners after a raid, from 
 whom the star third-degree detective never got more 
 than a shrug and a foolish grin. 
 
 With all this, the management of the big taxi cor-
 
 146 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 poration trusts its drivers like a rural district trusts its 
 congressman. He is tabbed by "spotters" that walk 
 and peek from behind granite columns, buy rides, and 
 watch for violations of rules, and seek to engage the 
 uniformed chauffeurs in compromising conversations. 
 The thing that the wise admiral of a taxi fleet makes 
 clear is that there must be no gossip- no interchange 
 of intimate news between the men or from the men to 
 outsiders. No telegraph or phone company guards 
 its fiduciary status more sacredly. 
 
 There is another spy system. An incredibly 
 delicate and intricate mechanism operates with the 
 meter. It is strung on fine wires and leads to a 
 recording point which traces lines on a roll of paper. 
 Every move of the taxi records something. If it 
 starts, turns a corner, stops, goes on, turns about, 
 speeds up, slows down each twist shows. 
 
 At the end of the day the auditor opens the meter 
 box and unrolls the paper. He spreads it before him 
 and he can tell almost to a yard where and what time 
 that taxi came and went, how fast it travelled here, 
 there, and next place, which direction it took when it 
 turned that corner, how long it waited there almost 
 the name of the man who got in. 
 
 The best-managed taxis have automatic arrange-
 
 Taxi, Mister! 147 
 
 ments which cut off the gasoline supply when the 
 machine is pressed beyond a certain speed fixed 
 usually at the municipal limit. The company refuses 
 to pay fines. The chauffeur has to get himself out of 
 trouble unless it hits him from behind. 
 
 The driver advances on a private civil-service 
 routine. He gets no profitable hotel or theatre runs 
 until he has done long years as an apprentice, carry 
 ing passengers in the suburbs and from depots and 
 for open-air park tours. He must prove himself a 
 man of discretion, silence, care, phlegmatic tempera 
 ment, and a wife. That is a rule. He must be 
 married. No standard taxi company engages a 
 single man as a driver. I don t know what happens 
 if he becomes a widower or is divorced maybe he s 
 promoted. I don t know. But he has to be married 
 when he mounts his seat. Marriage means stability, 
 at least in theory. And successful is the man who 
 finds theories and puts them into use. 
 
 All this is preliminary to the tale of Marty Taylor, 
 skipper of a numbered, registered, polished taxicab 
 stationed opposite the fastest downtown hotel from 
 6 P.M. nightly, taking its regular turn on calls at 
 the door, where the starter gave command with a
 
 148 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 whistle that racked the quiet pedestrian from ear to 
 ear. 
 
 Marty had done his suburban sentence, had quali 
 fied, had driven on the money -run for two years with 
 out a serious mark against him, was married, and 
 showed up a recording roll in his meter box every day 
 that tallied and told no tales that embarrassed him. 
 He drove seven nights the week, and on rainy nights, 
 Saturday nights, New Year s eves, during auto shows, 
 conventions of Moose, Owls, and Elks, was lucky, if 
 he had time to grab a cup of Java and one of those 
 up there, on a high stool in the lunchroom. It was 
 the star taxi-call spot of the town. 
 
 He carried many. He remembered all. You 
 may have been amazed to read of a detective who 
 recognized a man he had arrested twenty years before 
 in a crowd. But remember that that is the detec 
 tive s principal business. You may wonder how a 
 switchboard operator can carry 5,000 numbers in her 
 head. She can t help it. Just that way Marty had 
 nothing to do all the way out on each ride except 
 speculate on who, where, and how regarding what 
 was behind him, and all the way back he had nothing 
 to do except speculate on why he and she went to that 
 address.
 
 Taxi, Mister! 149 
 
 So, when a mysterious party stepped up to Marty 
 one evening and slipped him a paper, Marty unfolded 
 it and read it by the front light of his cab and was 
 thunderstruck to find that it was a subpoena to ap 
 pear as a witness on behalf of a prominent merchant 
 who had entered divorce proceedings versus his wife. 
 
 Marty knew all about it. But how did the rich 
 man know he had driven the drive? How had he 
 been identified? Was it a rando m shot? Were all 
 the drivers being subpoenaed oh a chance or in an 
 elimination to see which one had steered the lady on 
 her wrong steer? It really was easy enough. The 
 merchant had had private snoopers shadowing his 
 wife and one of them had taken Marty s number. 
 
 Marty reported to his manager. The manager 
 was too wise to advise him to violate an oath. He 
 only shrugged his shoulders and remarked that if it 
 got around that taxi drivers were being subpoenaed 
 as divorce witnesses., and their testimony was im 
 portant well, people with ticklish journeys in mind 
 would be taxi shy, naturally, wouldn t they? Marty 
 admitted that they certainly would. "All fight- 
 let your conscience be your guide," said the manager. 
 
 Leave it to me," said Marty, who then slept in a 
 chair until time to go to court.
 
 150 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 Marty was lodged in a witness-room off the court 
 room after he had reported to the attorney of the 
 man who had subposnaed him. 
 
 "Is this going to cost you any time any work 
 I mean any earnings?" asked the attorney, privately. 
 
 "No," said Marty. "I don t want any money, 
 if that s what you mean." 
 
 "I thought- 
 
 "So did I," said Marty. "Let it go at that," and 
 he sat down and slept some more, for the three hours 
 in the barn chair had left him hungry for more. 
 
 A bailiff touched him on the shoulder presently, 
 and he was summoned into court, sworn, motioned 
 to the torture chair and asked his name, address, 
 occupation, and other irrelevant questions. Then 
 Mr. Fox got subtle. 
 
 "Where were you on the night of a week ago 
 Thursday?" he asked. 
 
 "On the seat of rny cab." 
 
 "Have you a record of where you drove at various 
 times that evening?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Has your company?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Have you ever seen this before?" and he held up
 
 Taxi, Mister ! 151 
 
 the charted roll of paper, which had been subpoenaed 
 d-uces tecum. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Do you know what it is?* 
 
 < XT~ " 
 
 i\o. 
 
 "Permit me, then, to inform you. The auditor of 
 your company has testified here that this line from 
 this point to that curve indicates that you left the 
 hotel at approximately 9:50 o clock P. M. of the day 
 in question, drove north about two and one-quarter 
 miles and east about one-third of a mile> stopped, 
 let out a passenger or passengers; the record shows 
 that you carried two passengers and collected $1.90. 
 Do you remember such a ride, with two passengers, 
 and collecting such a fare?" 
 
 Marty glanced up. In a seat at the table he saw 
 the woman he had carried over that ride. In his 
 mind s eye he saw the young professional dancer 
 whom he had carried with her. He knew exactly 
 where he had stopped -at a Frenchy restaurant 
 known for its curtained dining-rooms. He remem 
 bered that she had paid him had given him $3 
 and discharged him. She had been veiled. She was 
 veiled now, too. The chart in his mind was clearer 
 than the one in the lawyer s hand and more detailed.
 
 152 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "We never remember who we carry or where," said 
 he. 
 
 "That is not answering my question do you re 
 member that ride?" 
 
 "I never remember anything." 
 
 "Let me put it this way did you ever see this 
 lady before?" 
 
 "Not that I remember." 
 
 "Would you remember if you had?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You mean to say that if you had seen her if you 
 had seen her many times, let us say you would not 
 remember her?" 
 
 "Not if I could help it. ? 
 
 * What ? How can you help remembering people ? 
 
 "By forgetting them." 
 
 "Are you having sport with me?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Would you remember me if you saw me again?" 
 
 "Maybe if I saw you good." 
 
 "Did you ever drive me in your taxicab?" 
 
 "I don t know. Did I? Do you remember 
 me?" 
 
 The court said, "Here, here." 
 
 "Did the manager or any other official or employee
 
 Taxi, Mister! 153 
 
 of your company instruct you to block this inquiry 
 or refuse to give information?" 
 
 "No. The manager of the company told me to be 
 guided by my conscience. 
 
 "By that alone?" 
 
 "That s all he mentioned. But I suppose if I 
 want to use my head it s all right with him, too." 
 
 "Use your head to what purpose?" 
 
 "To think to remember." 
 
 "Well, then, combining your conscience and your 
 head in an effort to remember, do you remember such 
 a ride as I have described or do you remember this 
 lady here?" 
 
 "I never remember anything. * 
 
 "Your honor," cried the lawyer, addressing the 
 court, "this witness is insolent and it is my opinion 
 that his tactics are grossly contemptuous of this 
 court, not to say insulting to counsel and a flagrant 
 effort at defeating the ends of justice. I ask that 
 the witness be reproved or fined for contempt." 
 
 "The court," said his honor, "will guard its dignity 
 and will take action if contempt appears. Proceed 
 with the examination " 
 
 "Is it not a fact," bellowed the lawyer, "that on the 
 night of a week ago Thursday you drove this woman
 
 154 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 and a man from the hotel where you are stationed 
 
 i " 
 
 to 
 
 "Object leading question," interjected the wo 
 man s attorney. 
 
 "Sustained," said the court. 
 
 The irritated lawyer bit his pencil, bit his lips, tried 
 again. 
 
 "Did you ever hear of Cal or Calvin Shrewsbury, 
 a professional dancer?" 
 
 "Sure," said Marty. "He dances at the hotel." 
 
 "Ah and if you had driven him this dancer 
 whom you admit you know would you remember 
 that?" 
 
 "I didn t admit I knew him. I said I heard of 
 him." 
 
 "Well, do you know him?" 
 
 "Not that I can remember." 
 
 "Is he blond, dark, tall, short what does he look 
 like?" 
 
 "I didn t say I ever saw him. Why do you ask me 
 what he looks like?" 
 
 "Did you ever see him?" 
 
 "I suppose so. I don t remember." 
 
 "Is that he?" pointing to the woman s husband. 
 
 "I don t know."
 
 Taxi, Mister ! 155 
 
 "If that were he and you had ever driven him, 
 would you remember?" 
 
 "If I didn t forget." 
 
 "Did you ever drive him this man?" again point 
 ing to the husband. 
 
 The husband leaped up, flushed, raised his arm as 
 though to intervene, but his lawyer pushed him back 
 in his chair. 
 
 "Yes," said Marty. 
 
 "Ah, you remember this gentleman. If you re 
 member him how is it you cannot remember any one 
 else? If you cannot remember any one else, how 
 can you remember him?" 
 
 "I remember him," said Marty, "because, out 
 of thousands of men I ve drove, he was the only one 
 what ever told me to forget I drove him. That s 
 why I remember him. He s the only one what ever 
 told me that. He s the only one what I remember." 
 
 "That s all," said the lawyer. 
 
 The woman s lawyer arose. 
 
 "Where did you drive this man on the occasion that 
 he asked you to forget?" 
 
 "North two and a quarter miles, east a third of a 
 mile from the hotel." 
 
 "That s all," said the woman s lawyer.
 
 156 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 At 7 o clock that evening a woman, veiled, walked 
 to the side of Marty s cab. 
 
 "Here," she said, trying to press a wad of bills in 
 his hand. 
 
 "Beg pardon, lady but what s the idea?" asked 
 Marty. 
 
 "You were very very kind this morning in 
 court," said she. "I I was in your hands. I shall 
 never forget you." 
 
 "I don t remember you," said Marty. 
 
 The woman commanded him to open the door of 
 his car. She entered. 
 
 "Drive half a block north and stop," said she. 
 
 Marty cranked up, drove, and stopped. 
 
 "How much?" said the lady. 
 
 "Thirty cents." 
 
 "Here," she said. "The $99.70 is a tip." 
 
 "Thanks," said Marty. "If you ever need a 
 driver just call for Taylor Marty Taylor." 
 
 "I will," said she. "And will you remember me 
 now?" 
 
 "No," said Marty. "But Mrs. Taylor will. She 
 don t drive a taxi."
 
 JX 
 THE CANADA KID 
 
 I. WHAT S ENVIRONMENT? 
 
 II. FINDS A QUEER OASIS 
 
 III. LOOKS NINETY DAYS IN THE FACE 
 
 IV. A CRAFTY COMRADE 
 
 V. ONLY ONE TO A CUSTOMER 
 
 VI. LOSES His JEWEL
 
 IX 
 THE CANADA KID 
 
 i 
 WHAT S ENVIRONMENT ? 
 
 JUST about the way the Canada Kid told it to 
 me I tell it to you. 
 "I see where youse newspaper guys an a 
 lotta baldheaded parties wit whiskers an a lotta 
 judges is tryin to copper the lowdown on the bad 
 boy problem. It ain no problem. They s only 
 two gags to it what youse tallheads calls heredity 
 an environment. Now which is it? It s both. 
 I ll show you. 
 
 "They was two young cons sittin nex to each 
 other in Joliet, twistin rattan into chairs. One of 
 em was me; the other was Chiggers Boyd. We 
 was both good lads, but we was both bad boys. One 
 of us was heredity; one of us was environment; both 
 of us was doin time. 
 
 "Chiggers an me was born nex door to each other. 
 It wasn no boulevard where we come. They s a 
 
 159
 
 160 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 big offus buildin there now, an it sells by the front 
 foot; oncet it was two shanties, an it smelled by 
 the backyard. 
 
 "Chiggers old man was a teamster an his old 
 lady was a washwoman. They never saw a crooked 
 nickel unless you call beatin a horse for two dollars 
 a day taking a shade. My old man was a yegg, an 
 my old lady was a crook. 
 
 "My old man was killed bio win a safe when I 
 was a baby. My mother stole to feed me. I stole 
 the firs dime I ever had an every other dime I ever 
 had ever since. I stole a bass drum once. 
 
 "The firs good stealin I ever done was when I was 
 sellin papers. I useta wait till somebody gimme a 
 quarter or a half an I d give him the rush an say 
 Jus a minute bring yer change right back. That 
 there was years ago, but I bet some o them guys is 
 waitin yet for their change. F m that I begun 
 pickin pockets in a small way. Firs I jackrolled a 
 couple o drunks, then I spreads out a little an goes 
 after live ones. 
 
 "The firs good job I gets away wit is right in 
 broad daylight in front of a swell hotel. I takes a 
 rum wit a plug hat an a frock coat what s walkin 
 wit a umbrella in his duke an a cigar in his face, so
 
 The Canada Kid 161 
 
 busy thinkin what a wonder he is that he ain t got 
 no time to remember what he s got in the tail pocket 
 of his tailor-made coat. I strip him for a leather 
 poke an duck in an alley an look inside. It s got 
 eighty bucks in it. Say the sight o that much 
 dough scared me. I trun away the poke an I goes 
 home an I slips six o them ten-case notes to other 
 lads one of em went to Chiggers, who was my pal. 
 
 "Chiggers an me goes on a ice-cream jag an a 
 cigarette festival . It takes us two weeks to spend that 
 kale. By that time he had a touch o high life an 
 he wanted more. I told him where an how I made 
 the touch. It looked pretty easy to him. 
 
 "Well, the firs thing I know, Chiggers is out on 
 his own an pretty soon he comes in wit four dollars. 
 An so it goes on. 
 
 "I was pretty near thirteen before I takes my firs 
 flop. A plain-clothes dick nails me wit my fingers 
 in a rube s overcoat an in I goes. There wasn no 
 Juv nile Court then, so nex mornin I looks a judge 
 in the face. The judge he knows my old lady as 
 good as I do, an he says somethin about what else 
 could he expec from Mollie s boy, an he jolts me the 
 limit- down to the school. 
 
 "Well, I m in there about t ree weeks, learnin
 
 162 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 how to write an how to smoke hop an how to spell 
 an how to make the dice roll sevens, when a new lad 
 is brung in, an who could it be but my ol sidekicker 
 an childhood neighbor, Chiggers. He tells me he 
 was pinched in a crowd wit the goods. His parents 
 was in court an they hollered an promised an every 
 thing. But the cops says he was a pal o mine a 
 pal o the notorious son o the notorious safebuster an 
 the notorious shoplifter, an the judge says somethin 
 about what could he expec from a neighbor o mine, 
 and Chiggers is sent down to complete his ejucation. 
 
 "We graduates wit full honors when we re six 
 teen. The bulls is waitin for us. My old lady 
 croaks while I m away, so they ain nothin to keep 
 me aroun home. I blows for Canada that s where 
 my monicker come from. 
 
 "Outta nine years wit the Allies I does about four 
 in the iron trenches at Moose Jaw for gran larceny. 
 In Canada they re even harder on secon an t ird 
 timers than here, so I beats it back. I gets away wit 
 the work for a while an then Kelly and Kiernan jobs 
 me an I go down for a ten-spot, outta which I done 
 six honest years in the big house. 
 
 "About the fourt man to greet me in stir was 
 Chiggers. After he was sprung outta the school his
 
 The Canada Kid 163 
 
 old man gets him a job drivin a team an liftin 
 barrels. Chiggers knew how he could make more in 
 a day than they pay for that in a year an keep his 
 mitts clean besides. So he lef the team in a alley 
 an went back to somethin he knew somethin about. 
 He was doin one to five years when I runs acrost him 
 this time. 
 
 "He was out an back again before I was paroled 
 on good behavior. While he w r as out his mother 
 died an he told me it was a swell blowoff, wit a 
 church an weepin neighbors an everything, which 
 was all different from my old lady s finish, which 
 come in the bridewell from the D. T. s. 
 
 "An I gets to thinkin . 
 
 "Here s me what couldn t turn out no other way 
 becus I was the son of a tough box-cracker an 
 a whisky-drinkin counter-snatcher. How could I 
 turn out a preacher or a business guy, huh? I was a 
 thief before I was born. 
 
 "But here was Chiggers. He was the only child 
 of a sweaty swill-driver what was so square he 
 wouldn t take home kindlin wood off the city dump, 
 an a hard-washin , fat lady what d do a lace petti 
 coat over again if it had a dust spot on it. 
 
 "What right had Chiggers to land in the same
 
 164 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 pen wit me? Chiggers had went to church an to 
 school a little, an he was always kep in Sundays an 
 he had to be home nights an everything. Now, 
 where did all that get him anything? He wasn 
 even a better rattan bender than what I was, an the 
 only learnin I ever had was how to tell a cop by 
 lookin at his feet, which my dear old mother had 
 showed me when I was playin at her knee. 
 
 "Yes what was he doin in the same stir wit 
 me? If it was heredity what makes boys so side 
 ways, here I was to prove it. But they wasn none in 
 Chiggers. It must be the other environment. 
 
 "Well, what was Chiggers environment? Me 
 I was his environment. Get it? " 
 
 II 
 
 FINDS A QUEER OASIS 
 
 The Canada Kid, our nimble-fingered young friend, 
 had just returned from a voyage of reprisal among 
 the Reubens, toiling here and there where a Chautau- 
 qua, a merchants convention, or a Chaplin film 
 brought gatherings of the rural yeomanry. 
 
 He had brought back a little sugar and, breathing 
 the dirty air of his native metropolis again, was glad 
 to be home glad to be home, bo.
 
 The Canada Kid 165 
 
 The kid was no child. He loved all the fifty-two 
 cards in the pack when they sat in proper sequence 
 or juxtaposition; he craved his smooth liquor; he 
 loved to blink back at many candle power, incan 
 descent and iridescent, and he rejoiced that he was 
 again among the avenues of modernity, luxury, and 
 ribaldry, where he could get a steak that answered 
 to the edge of steel, and where he could get lump 
 sugar for his coffee. 
 
 So he leaned his elbow upon the cigar case of the 
 all-night levee drug-store and blew cigarette smoke 
 through his nostrils as he passed the time of night 
 with the owl clerk. 
 
 "I runs into a hot sketch down in one o them dry 
 burgs," said the Kid. "I m dyin for a shot o booze 
 dyin . I snoops around becus I knows they ain 
 no place where the sun shines what a guy can t get a 
 drink if he only knows how an where. But I can t 
 make no pig I can t turn up no sandy. 
 
 "I m standin there on a corner an along comes 
 a guy I bet he was eighty. He had white whiskers 
 from his ears to his shins. I says to myself that 
 here s a old settler. If anybody knows anything 
 that was the gink. So I wigwags him, he stops an 
 I braces him.
 
 166 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 " Stranger, says I, I m gonna ask you a question 
 an you think deep an answer careful, becus a 
 life depends on it. Is they in this here queer tank a 
 joint, a dive, or a hospital where a guy can get a 
 little swallow o booze, whiskey, alcohol, rum, or fusel- 
 oil? 
 
 "He looks right past me, he does, an he says off 
 in the air: I don know. But you turn aroun that 
 corner and walk in the second house to your right. 
 Don ring no bell or knock nobody won t answer. 
 Jus walk in the doors is open. When you gets in 
 side open the secon door on the left an walk in the 
 room. Then you ll know what to do. 
 
 " Will I get a drink there? says I. *I don know 
 nothin about that, says the party wit the white 
 muff. Jus do as I told you an you ll know what 
 to do, an he hobbles off. 
 
 "Well, I says to myself, the old buck is cracked, 
 but what harm could it do to take a chance? So 
 I beats aroun the corner, picks out the second house 
 to my right, tries the door and it opens; I walks in, 
 nobody stops me. I goes to the second door on my 
 left and tries that; it s open, too. I steps into a 
 room. I takes one look an I tumbles to the lay. 
 
 "What do you think was in that there room? On
 
 The Canada Kid 167 
 
 one wall is a sideboard, an standin on the sideboard 
 is a bottle of every kind o rye, Scotch, an bourbon 
 what you could name. In a corner is a tub o ice 
 an in it is floatin half a dozen bottles o seltzer. 
 On a table stands a lot o glasses. In a chiny bowl 
 is a lot o hunks o cracked ice. In a saucer is a 
 lot o cut lemon peels. 
 
 "And on a little stand in the middle o the room 
 stands a little tin quarter savin s bank." 
 
 "Queer layout," said the clerk. 
 
 "Get jerry," said the Canada Kid. "I sees the 
 wrinkle in a flash. It s a crime in that village to 
 peddle booze. But if a guy wants to trespass on pri 
 vate prop ty, walk into another man s house without 
 no invite an nobody seein him, an he wants to steal 
 the other party s booze an ice an lemon peel what s 
 standin in his private room if that party wants to 
 take a chance like that an cops off a drink, an if he 
 wants to do what he can to make up for it by drop- 
 pin a quarter in that little savin s bank, why say! 
 Get me?" 
 
 "Some scheme," said the clerk. 
 
 "Best I ever see," said the Kid. "I picks up the 
 bank an rattles it. It s one o them what don t 
 open till it s full, when it s got $20 in quarters. It
 
 168 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 was pretty near full. The help-yourself room must 
 a been gettin a great play. 
 
 " So I picks me my bottle o my favorite rye, I pours 
 four fingers, I takes a highball glass, I fishes up a 
 bottle o sizz, I drops a dice o ice in my tumbler, I 
 squeezes in the blood of a slice o lemon peel, I fills 
 er up an I drinks a toast to the guy what was clever 
 enough to think up a game like that all by himself 
 in a Reub one-night stand. I drinks my drink an I 
 drops a two-bit piece in the little tin bank. 
 
 " Then I fixes me another drink, sloughs that down, 
 an drops another two-bit piece in the bank. An 
 then I ducks, a wiser an a stronger man. An no 
 body seen me come in and nobody sees me go 
 out." 
 
 "It s a wild story," said the clerk. "And it s 
 a good story. The only thing the matter with it is 
 that I don t believe a word of it." 
 
 "You don t?" said the Canada Kid, hurt at the 
 blunt aspersion on his veracity. 
 
 "No I don t," said the clerk. 
 
 "You don t?" said the Kid, digging into his 
 pocket and bringing up his hand with a bright and 
 shining object in it. "Well, if you don t believe it 
 here s the little tin bank."
 
 The Canada Kid 169 
 
 in 
 
 LOOKS NINETY DAYS IN THE FACE 
 
 The Canada Kid was in trouble. Two stupid po 
 licemen had taken him in a week-end dragnet, together 
 with hundreds of others whom they found on "the 
 corners." The others were miscellaneous mongrels of 
 the underworld with no particular breed or brand. 
 But the Canada Kid was a "dip "of parts and of 
 class. And he felt ashamed of the company he was in. 
 
 So he let forth a squawk for help and his friend, the 
 Reporter, answered it. 
 
 "They re gonna vag me sure," said the Kid. 
 "This here captain is out for to make a record and he 
 don t care who suffers. It s a dirty shame after I 
 done swell lifts for years and bulled the swellest bulls 
 outta the Chief s office, to get picked up by a flatfoot 
 in harness and fer nuthin fer nuthin ." 
 
 "Is there anything on you?" asked the Reporter. 
 
 "Clean as a sucker," said the Kid. "I haven t 
 turned a trick for a week. I got dough in the kick, 
 so I ain t no vag. But that captain ll hang it on me. 
 This here round-up thing is gettin to be a pest. They 
 takes the sheeps wit the wolfs and they ain t got no 
 respec fer nobody. What do I do?"
 
 170 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 The Reporter said he knew the Judge and that 
 was the party it would be up to. So he promised 
 to appear as a character witness for his friend the 
 Kid and see what could be done. 
 
 A police court is not an orderly place at morning 
 session. The prisoners, lawyers, policemen, and 
 slummers mingle in a thick stew of coming and going, 
 pushing and crowding, gossiping and cursing, with 
 the Judge s flat bench the centre of the ebb and flow. 
 
 Gathered in a solid semicircle about the seat of 
 justice was as fine a crew of porch-climbers, safe- 
 crackers, crapshooters, and just plain bums as ever 
 had fallen soothingly upon the eye of the Reporter. 
 One by one they were called, got quick action, and 
 went downstairs to take the ride to the bridewell. 
 It was a hard day for the masses. The old Judge 
 rained alike upon the just and the unjust, and his 
 system was full of ninety days. 
 
 The Canada Kid was called. He had a lawyer 
 who had been paid in advance. The Captain pushed 
 his way forward for that case and the Reporter 
 crammed up to the front, likewise. 
 
 "This bird, your honor," said the Captain, "is 
 the Canada Kid. He is a notorious pickpocket. 
 He doesn t live in this district. We took him min-
 
 The Canada Kid 171 
 
 gling with the crowd. I want you to make an example 
 of this case." 
 
 "My client " began the Kid s lawyer, but the 
 Captain gave him a black look and the Judge si 
 lenced him. 
 
 "Just a minute, Judge," said the Reporter. "I 
 came here to testify to the defendant s character. 
 It is true that he has been in trouble, but I happen to 
 have seen him every night for several weeks and I 
 know from what I know that he has been behaving 
 and is trying to be decent and he will be if he is 
 let alone." 
 
 The Judge looked to the Captain; the Captain 
 smiled, then said: 
 
 "What s the use, your honor, bringing in this 
 kind of rats when men who ought to know better 
 come here to cheat us out of em? Now, there s no 
 use kidding ourselves, your honor. The Kid is a 
 dip he d steal the stars out of the flag, he would. 
 We ve been layin for him a long time. Now we got 
 him. Are you gonna let him get away with it? " 
 
 "You say," said the Judge to the Reporter, "that 
 you know of your own knowledge that this defendant 
 has been trying to live an honest life? " 
 
 "I do," said the Reporter, without a blush. "The
 
 172 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 police are especially sore at him because he tipped me 
 to some inside stuff." 
 
 "On the strength of your statement," said the 
 Judge, "I must find the defendant not guilty 
 Callanexcase." 
 
 The Captain threw up his hands and shook his 
 head. The Reporter smiled, for victory always is 
 sweet, and he and the Canada Kid worked their way 
 out of the crowd into the open area of the room. 
 
 The Kid had a sob in his throat. He started to 
 say something and couldn t. Then he just stuck out 
 his right paw and the Reporter took it. And the 
 Canada Kid found his voice. 
 
 "You re a pal," he said. "If it wasn t fer you I d 
 been downstairs by now wit the rest o the cattle 
 and a lot o fawraners an cheap panhandlers and 
 nickel snatchers. Say I had ninety days in the 
 bandhouse makin eyes at me. You never done 
 ninety out there. It ain t nice, take it from the Kid. 
 
 "My wife is waitin home fer me. And say 
 she ll be glad to see me. And when she sees you 
 well, our flat is yourn, and you can break the two of 
 us. Is that good enough?" 
 
 "Oh, that s all right," said the Reporter. "Glad 
 to do it for you."
 
 The Canada Kid 173 
 
 "You re an ace. Say, I guess that there Judge 
 don t think nothin of you, huh? Say you could 
 spring Jesse James, you could." 
 
 "The Judge knows I wouldn t testify to anything 
 but the truth," said the Reporter. 
 
 "It s all right I m laughin ," said the Kid. 
 "But I don t guess they was a guy in the town could 
 a beat that for me excep you. Did you make that 
 lawyer? He got a long ways, he did. He stands 
 good in this here court, he does like a rent collector 
 or somethin . No, sir I owe it to you, old scout. 
 I d a been on my merry way to that there muni- 
 cipial bastile by now if it wasn t fer you. And 
 maybe you don t think I know it? You done me a 
 turn, you did. But I was there fer you, too." 
 
 "For me?" asked the Reporter. 
 
 "You bet," said the Canada Kid. "Here s your 
 watch and your poke and your tiepin and your keys," 
 and he handed his dumbfounded friend his things 
 out of many pockets. 
 
 "Why- 
 
 " Tsallright," said the Kid. "I boosts em while 
 you was tellin how square I was." 
 
 "Right in court with coppers all around you 
 you re crazy," said the Reporter,
 
 174 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "Think I am? Did you see what was standin 
 alongside o you? Flip Ballinger, that there Cali 
 fornia crook what would V cleaned you if I hadn 
 beat him to it. They was too many dips there to 
 suit me. It was no safe place for square guys like 
 you and me." 
 
 IV 
 HAILS CRAFTY COMRADE 
 
 The Canada Kid stood wistfully at the corner 
 where the shopping crowds were eddying back and 
 forth, blew on his cold fingers, and sucked at a hand- 
 rolled cigarette that was out and rapidly being blown 
 apart. 
 
 In years gone by he had always picked up a con 
 siderable collection of Christmas change in the fort 
 night before the holiday. He was not in favor of 
 early shopping. He was for concentrating it all 
 into, let us say, the three weeks just before the big 
 day. He was for congestion and confusion. In that 
 atmosphere he worked most profitably. 
 
 The Kid s treasure was in other people s pockets. 
 It had to be approached with discretion and removed 
 with tact because other people are so fussy about such 
 things. Women, especially, were his fortune at times
 
 The Canada Kid 175 
 
 like this. Women have no pockets to speak of, but 
 they have pocketbooks. 
 
 Years ago, when women carried long, loose bags, 
 flapping from strings at their wrists, shopping crowds 
 were worth something. But now most of them held 
 little Saratoga trunks with stiff and unyielding sides, 
 attached to little leather straps held tightly clutched 
 between finger and thumb. And attempting to 
 blow one of those young safes in the grip of a shopper, 
 no matter how concentrated she might be in her 
 mission, was about as easy as touching an exposed 
 nerve without notifying the patient. 
 
 Furthermore, the Christmas buyers were assaying 
 less and less each year because they no longer carried 
 large rolls of bills, as Christmas buyers should at a 
 time when Yule supplies are in season. The depart 
 ment stores had gradually forged along and popular 
 ized an insidious system of charge accounts, so that 
 a prosperous woman could go forth and break her 
 husband with no more cash than enough for car fare 
 and a sundae. 
 
 All this made the Canada Kid feel peevish, pessi 
 mistic, and hurt. He was entitled to a Christmas, too. 
 And, from the outlook, it would be pretty lean. His 
 holiday trade was ruined and the scant pickings on
 
 176 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 street cars and in theatre crowds was scarcely worth 
 talking about. The police had him pretty thor 
 oughly marked and he couldn t work the soft spots 
 in the open where the loot was good as he could at 
 one time. "Merry Christmas" sounded in the 
 offing like a myth. 
 
 As he stood there he saw, slimly wending his way 
 through the curling crowd, Hugo the Wop, one of the 
 most successful and least ethical of his profession. 
 Hugo bore a charmed liberty and seemingly always 
 worked and never got into trouble, which made him 
 unpopular with the craft. For one thing, he seldom 
 took a chance, being satisfied to walk and walk and 
 watch and watch and spring only when it looked safe, 
 no matter how small the prospects. By sheer pa 
 tience and industry, Hugo managed to steal a pretty 
 fair living. 
 
 But he was no artist. He took no pride in his 
 work. He stole as though stealing were a trade 
 rather than a profession. Nothing was too small 
 for him to hook his fingers around. He threw noth 
 ing back into the water in his game of fishing for 
 coin. 
 
 The Canada Kid stepped out into the middle of 
 the walk and took hold of Hugo s arm. The sallow
 
 The Canada Kid 177 
 
 little raseaPs Body pulled up rigid, with a tremor 
 that ceased when it had passed from below, above 
 and through. Hugo turned his head slowly and fear- 
 somely. He saw the Kid. At first a look of supreme 
 relief crossed his features, succeeded by an expression 
 of anger. 
 
 "Fo what you grabba me?" demanded Hugo. 
 
 "C me ere," said the Kid, seeking to draw him 
 to the inner edge of the walk. 
 
 "Wha you want?" asked Hugo testily. "I gotta 
 no time." 
 
 "No I suppose you re on de way to see your sick 
 gran mudder or sumtin ," said the Kid. 
 
 "I gotta my work to do," said Hugo. 
 
 "C me ere," said the Kid, tightening his hold and 
 all but dragging Hugo toward the wall of the store 
 nearby. 
 
 Hugo, finding resistance unprofitable because of 
 his physical disadvantages, and unattractive because 
 of his natural carefulness and disinclination for 
 trouble, sidled along and faced the Kid. 
 
 " Well," said he. " Now what you want? " 
 
 "It s been pretty cheesy fer me," began the Kid. 
 
 "Not a cent," said Hugo. "You can go out 
 maka mon just lika me."
 
 178 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "I jus wants about a twenny," said the Kid. "I ll 
 kick it back soon. You know me, Wop, I can t 
 go long very long widdout puttin over a grand haul, 
 see? Jus twenny 
 
 "No," said Hugo. "I never len ." 
 
 "Ain t you got no dough?" asked the Kid. 
 
 "Sure," said Hugo. "I gotta a hundre an 
 ninety dollar in my innaside vest pocka. But he s a 
 mine, notta yourn. I never len ." 
 
 "Well, say you know I ain t de kind what goes 
 aroun makin cheap touches offa penny-swipers 
 like you. But I tell you I gotta have a twenny. 
 It s been tough rotten. I m a bum, see." 
 
 "I no care whatta you gotta," said Hugo. "I 
 gotta my dough; you go getta yourn," and, though 
 the Kid seized him by the vest and clung on for half a 
 minute, Hugo wrenched himself loose and, with 
 frightened but aggrieved and injured look, worked 
 his way back into the crowd again and took up his 
 business of seeking with shifty eye here and there 
 and there and beyond for an unguarded handbag 
 or a promising trousers pocket. 
 
 "Well, whaddaye know about dat dere stingy 
 Guinea, huh?" the Kid asked of the Kid. "Hikes 
 aroun wit a hundre an ninety bucks in is kick an
 
 The Canada Kid 179 
 
 won t loosen a double X fer an ol frien what s up 
 again it? Why, dat guy ain t got de firs idee about 
 bein square wit a pal or librul wit an ol friend in de 
 same line. An - 
 
 And the Kid turned toward the wall, and, holding 
 his two hands down where his action would not 
 attract attention, he ran his thumb over a little 
 bundle of bank-notes. 
 
 "An besides, he s a liar. Dere am no hundred 
 an ninety bucks here at all. Dere s only a hundred 
 an eighty -two." 
 
 ONLY ONE TO A CUSTOMER 
 
 The Canada Kid strolled dow*n the crowded street 
 where humanity bumped and fought to express its 
 buoyant Christmastide spirit. All platitudinous 
 blather about doing shopping early was past. It was 
 now or never. The throb of charity may have been 
 in the hearts of the throng, but hurry and grim deter 
 mination was stamped on its features. It was no 
 place for little men or weak women. The fittest were 
 the ones who arrived. 
 
 Like New Year s eve to the waiter or Fourth of 
 July to the firecracker packer, the day before Christ-
 
 180 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 mas, when millions shop in space meant for thousands, 
 was the day the argosy came home for the Canada 
 Kid and his fellow professionals in the refined 
 and nifty art of extracting from the pockets of 
 the preoccupied the means for the necessities of 
 life. 
 
 The Kid elbowed, looked two ways at once, and 
 worked like a beaver. The crowds sweeping out 
 through the revolving door of a big shopping empor 
 ium carried him almost to the edge of the sidewalk 
 and almost off his balance. 
 
 "The little reading lamp the little electric read 
 ing lamp twenty-five cents and no home complete 
 without one," sang a voice. 
 
 The Kid puckered up his forehead. He had heard 
 that mellifluous voice before somewhere. It car 
 ried an echo of a past a past of long ago. The Kid 
 turned and squirmed, and he saw a man with an arm 
 ful of little brass contrivances, wound with shiny 
 green snaky cords. 
 
 "The little reading lamp " 
 
 The Kid "got" him. "Silk" Tavannes, in his day 
 the smoothest green goods steerer, the oiliest master 
 of the tip and toss the West had known, who had 
 worked them all, from the Spanish letter to the inside
 
 The Canada Kid 181 
 
 tip from Sheepshead Bay. And there he was, a side 
 walk curbstone faker, peddling with droning voice 
 two-bit swindles to the Christmas crowds. 
 
 The Canada Kid was busy. But he had to stop, 
 lie breasted his way to where Tavannes stood. 
 
 "The little reading lamp " and "Silk" looked 
 
 up. "Well, I ll be- 
 
 "So you ve fell to this?" said the Canada Kid. "I 
 didn t think you had it in you." 
 
 A woman stopped, examined one of the corded 
 things, asked a question, and took one. "Silk" 
 short-changed her for a dollar and she went on her 
 way rejoicing. 
 
 "Shovin two-bit queers Silk Tavannes, the silk- 
 lined terror o the rural boob," said the Kid, shaking 
 his head mournfully. 
 
 Just then a householder with his arms heaped to 
 the nose with polyglot and undovetailing parcels 
 stopped, asked solicitously how the things worked, 
 and bought two for half a dollar. 
 
 "Thank you," said Silk." 
 
 "An 5 you thank em yet," said the Canada Kid. 
 Silk Tavannes passin out neatly wrapped pack 
 ages for a quarter in a crowd an thankin suckers, 
 
 yet."
 
 182 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "You see, lady," said Tavannes, "this plug here 
 attaches to any electric connection and by means of 
 this wire, which is unusually long, the lamp can be 
 adjusted to throw its rays anywhere within the radius 
 of the ordinary room. These little lamps are sold at 
 a loss, merely for the advertising* and to increase the 
 business of the electric light corporations, which are 
 behind the movement to sell these little lamps at 
 this time in this manner, so that 
 
 "I ll take three," said the woman, handing him a 
 $2 bill. 
 
 "A one," said Silk, handing her 25 cents. Thank 
 
 you." 
 
 "Merry Christmas to you and yours," said the 
 woman, and she sped on. 
 
 "Does the blame things work can you light em?" 
 asked the Kid. 
 
 "Don t make me laugh," said "Silk." "What do 
 you want for a quarter? The cord on them is worth 
 that much, even if there ain t no wire in it." 
 
 "I fought so," said the Kid. "Crooked to the 
 finish. An at twenny-five a t row. Pretty small 
 business, Silk. Takin suckers wit their hearts full 
 o Christmas, breakin their neck to buy somet in 
 for somebody, wit no suspicion in their soul you
 
 The Canada Kid 183 
 
 what used to trim smart-Alec get-rich-quick guys an 
 take the dicks what come after you. You ve flopped 
 a long way, Silk. A long way." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Tavannes. "They serve the double 
 purpose of reading and bedrbom lamps. You will 
 notice the length of the cord, the insulation of in 
 destructible wire, by means of which with ordinary 
 care the little lamp will last a lifetime and prove both 
 an ornament and an indispensable household ar 
 ticle 
 
 "One," said the man, and he took it and ran. 
 
 "Now that guy," said the Canada Kid, "he ll take 
 that there bum dummy lamp home an give it to his 
 wife an she ll kiss him an call him Daddy an wish 
 him a merry Christmas an then they ll start to light 
 it an he ll be a rummy in his own home on the bigges 
 night in the year what a guy is got square or crooked 
 an you gits whatever your cut-in is on his two bits. 
 It looks to me like peanut business for a guy like 
 you what amounted to somethin once an might yet 
 get by if you went out after the big work, wit your 
 talents an your front an your line o language 
 say " 
 
 "Yes, madame. We are not supposed to sell more 
 than one to a customer, but you look something
 
 184 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 like my dear old mother, and since you ask me so 
 hard, I ll let you have three," said "Silk." 
 
 "She bought somethin ," said the Kid. "Hookin* 
 women an kids, huh? Well, so long, Silk. I 
 t ought better of you. Merry Christmas to you just 
 the same. I gotta be goin ." 
 
 "Merry Christmas, Kid," said "Silk." "Say- 
 just a moment. I ve been pretty busy, so I ain t 
 had much time to talk back to you. But I want to 
 tell you something. You re right in a way. I m 
 standing here taking quarters away from the public 
 at large, skinning them and much obliged to do it. 
 They re out buying presents for their wives and their 
 husbands and their kids. It s a shame to do it, I 
 know. And I m ashamed to be grafting for chicken- 
 feed, myself." 
 
 "Then why " 
 
 "I ve got four kids of my own," said "Silk." 
 "Yes, ma am, the little electric reading lamp guar 
 anteed to 
 
 VI 
 THE CANADA KID LOSES HIS JEWEL 
 
 Here is the Canada Kid s lament: 
 
 "You remember Jewel? Sure you do my wife.
 
 Thp Canada Kid 185 
 
 WelJ, you ain t seen her much around lately, have 
 you? No nor me, neither. 
 
 "Gone with a fumble-fingered dip what couldn t 
 stick his arm in a empty barrel without turnin in a 
 riot call that clumsy gun what they call Larry 
 Larkin. Every time he lifts a poke the whole ma 
 chinery of the law begins to move. She ll do well 
 with that web-footed boy. 
 
 "But she s there she s there. I learned her every 
 thing she know r s, but now she s the smoothest booster 
 that ever went into a store with a blind pocket and 
 come out with a diamond necklace. And all I did 
 for that woman. When I meets her first she don t 
 know nothin . I heps her to the work. Her idea 
 of gettin by was to steal washin off the line. When 
 I last see her she s rollin in sparklers and she s got 
 a bank roll. 
 
 "And then, just to make her feel better, I marries 
 her. Sure license and everything. And say the 
 way I treats that woman nobody believed we was 
 married. That s the way I treats here. 
 
 "The first night we re married I takes her to a swell 
 joint for chicken stew and a bottle o wine. She s 
 heard I m pretty nifty, but you know how a guy is 
 when he s stuck. Well, she sees a pearl dog-collar
 
 186 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 on a society woman s neck and she goes crazy over it. 
 To cut it short, before we blows the place she s got 
 it. 
 
 "And now what does she do? When I m out work- 
 in , trying to cop a dollar on the rattlers and takin 
 chances, she s home loafin . When a woman ain t 
 got nothin to keep her hands movin , that s when 
 she gets into mischief. That s when Jewel meets 
 this Larkin, a jailbird what a decent gun wouldn 
 trade cigarettes with. And I comes home and she s 
 gone. 
 
 "I m through. I don* wanna never see her again. 
 She took me good and she left me flat, and no matter 
 how bad a guy feels there s a time when he s gotta 
 wake up an take a flop to himself. If she d a done 
 it in a moment s foolishness I could V forgive her. 
 But I see she had this framed, greased, and laid out 
 for days. So it s cold. 
 
 "It s got me wingin , too. I keep right on workin 
 I lift a boob for $106.60 on a mainstem caboose 
 yesterday. But what s the use? Who am I workin 
 for? What s the use o* gettin dough if you ain t 
 got a woman to give it to? Oh, yes, I keeps right 
 on takin suckers with their pockets smilin to me, 
 but I tell you this my heart ain t in my work."
 
 The Canada Kid 187 
 
 The Reporter told the Canada Kid he was sorry. 
 Who wouldn t have been? Because a man picks 
 pockets is no sign he hasn t a heart. And the Canada 
 Kid had always had one, and a big one, too. 
 
 The Reporter had seen the romance of the Canada 
 Kid and Jewel Slater, as pretty a girl as ever robbed 
 a store or lied to a judge. He had seen their happi 
 ness. They were interested in each other s work and 
 each had spurred the other on to greater deeds. It 
 was an ideal union. The Kid stole for Jewel and 
 Jewel stole for the Kid. It was touching any way 
 you take it and they took it both ways. 
 
 Then came Larry, who was all the Kid had called 
 him a professional pickpocket with the soft ap 
 proach of a motor truck, who was out of jail only 
 long enough to steal himself right back in again. 
 He had no art, he had no finesse, he had no beauty, 
 and the Kid had all these. And yet the Reporter 
 had seen a growing attachment between Jewel and 
 Larry and now had heard the pathetic climax it 
 developed. 
 
 Some months went by. The Reporter was draw 
 ing ellipses with a thick, blunt pencil point on a pad 
 of police paper in the reporter s dock at the trial 
 court. He looked up from the monotony of the
 
 188 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 cases that had gone on name, charge, facts, alibi, 
 thirty days at the sound of a familiar name. And 
 he looked up to see the pale face of Larry Larkin, 
 alone, frowsy, and surrounded by husky detectives. 
 
 The testimony was incontrovertible. Larkin had 
 been caught in flagrante delictu with his plowboy 
 hand in the pocket of a butcher. They flashed his 
 record and dragged him away, with a year in the 
 bridewell smiling a welcome to its prodigal. 
 
 Two days later the Reporter met Jewel. She had 
 been crying. 
 
 "Have you seen the Kid?" she asked. 
 
 "Some time ago," said the Reporter. 
 
 "Do you know where I can find him?" asked Jewel. 
 
 "I can find him," said the Reporter. 
 
 Jewel wrote down an address and a telephone 
 number on a scrap of an envelope. She handed it to 
 him, looked up into his face, and turned and walked 
 away. 
 
 The Reporter found the Canada Kid playing stuss 
 behind a cigar store. He called him aside. 
 
 "Jewel s back," said the Reporter. 
 
 "What s that to me?" blazed the Kid. "I told 
 you where she got off with me," and he turned back 
 toward the table.
 
 The Canada Kid 189 
 
 "That s her address and her phone number," he 
 said. "She was crying when I left her." 
 
 A week later the Reporter strolled through the 
 central highway of underworld commerce, where were 
 strung tragedies, comedies, and romances of the out 
 cast, like beads of many colors, shapes, and values 
 upon a thread of black. 
 
 Coming toward him, arm in arm, sauntered the 
 Canada Kid and Jewel, his wife. Jewel was fragrant 
 of Hubigant and iridescent with plume and wardrobe. 
 On her right hand flashed a jewellery store. On her 
 left was a lone bit of gold her wedding ring. 
 
 They were engrossed in each other. Jewel chanced 
 to look up and saw the Reporter. She nudged the 
 Kid lovingly and gently and he left her a moment and 
 drew the Reporter aside and wrung his hand. 
 
 "She s only a kid," said the Kid. "And kids will 
 play." 
 
 "Everything aces now?" asked the Reporter. 
 
 "Say," said the Canada Kid, and he reached down 
 and opened at his watch chain a heavy golden 
 locket that he had stolen from a business man 
 
 "You see this?" asked the Kid, and the Reporter 
 looked and saw therein a lock of hair of just the 
 color and texture of the fluffy blond hair of Jewel.
 
 190 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 The reporter inquiringly leaned his head toward 
 Jewel and the Kid leaned his head down to say "yes." 
 
 "You see that there?" asked the Canada Kid, 
 pointing to the little curl of Jewel s hair. "Well, 
 lemme tell you something you may never a got wise 
 to. One o them there hairs any one o them there 
 hairs is stronger than the Atlantic cable."
 
 X 
 
 SECOND FROM THE END
 
 X 
 
 SECOND FROM THE END 
 
 HEY, you you!" shouted the director, mo 
 tioning with his left. No response. 
 "You the big one second from that 
 end!" 
 
 She pulled herself together with a bang. Her eyes 
 slowly turned downward in the direction of the pit, 
 where the shirt-sleeved chorus director stood at the 
 night rehearsal of the "Rialto Girl." 
 
 "Welcome to Broadway, cutey," said he. 
 " Where ve you been?" 
 
 The showgirl looked about her as though coming 
 out of the enchantment of a far-away dream. 
 
 "I I was I m all right now," she said, opening 
 and shutting and opening her eyes swiftly many 
 times to make sure. 
 
 The director took a step forward in the dark 
 house and rested his foot on the brass chain that 
 keeps the bass fiddler from eating little children at 
 matinees. 
 
 193
 
 194 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "You was sleeping!" he shouted. "Where d you 
 get that stuff? You know what it costs to open up 
 this theatre and hold a rehearsal at night? Huh?" 
 
 The showgirl bit her lip. But she answered 
 nothing. 
 
 "Well, with these lights and them union stage 
 hands drawing wages that d break K. & E., and this 
 bush-league orchestry drawing double for overtime and 
 my little so much a day, this here rehearsal costs 
 about twenty-seven dollars a hour. Are you used 
 to sleeping in places what costs twenty-seven dollars 
 a hour? Huh?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the showgirl. 
 The director took his foot off the chain. 
 "Are you trying to make a simp o me in front 
 o this company?" he yelled. 
 "No, sir," said the showgirl. 
 "All right, then let s go," said the director. 
 He turned to the leader, who stood with bow up 
 raised. 
 
 "Shoot," said the director. 
 
 The showgirls, including the second from that 
 end, straightened up and started a stately number, 
 diagonal from down-stage left toward upper centre, 
 and stopped on music-cue.
 
 Second From the End 195 
 
 "Picture!" cried the director. 
 
 And they leaned upon their parasols and smiled. 
 For they were Palm Beach belles at the seaside. 
 
 In the director s breast still burned the "Yes, 
 sir. No, sir," from the second from that end. He 
 looked at the formation and the individual posings. 
 He shoved a whistle between his teeth and blew. The 
 music stopped mid-bar. The girls looked out to him, 
 each fearful, each certain that hers had been the 
 blunder. 
 
 "You!" said the director. "You Miss Sleeping 
 Beauty. Did you ever see a society woman in Palm 
 Beach lean on her parasol like that?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the showgirl. 
 
 The director threw up his hands. 
 
 "Well, of all the fresh Janes since Eva Tanguay 
 run a hatpin in Lew Fields s ankle, you re a star with 
 me!" he bellowed. "First, you paid twenty-seven 
 dollars a hour for a bedroom; now you know more 
 than what I do about how a Palm Beach millionaire 
 works with a parasol. Say, Ethel Barrymore 
 what s your name?" 
 
 "Gloria Gale," said the second from that end. 
 
 "No!" gasped the director. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the showgirl.
 
 196 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "Well, well!" said he, and for a moment he threw 
 his eyes toward the proscenium in apparent reverie. 
 "Well what do you think o that?" Then he 
 straightened himself, threw back his shoulders, and 
 called: "All right, the way you hold that parasol 
 is O. K. You girls watch the way Miss Gale holds 
 that parasol. Get it? All right let s go." 
 
 And they went. 
 
 Far into the night they went. Four numbers passed 
 through rehearsal. The director blew his whistle. 
 
 "Fine business," said he. "Ten-thirty in the 
 morning. And get up on them new lyrics for to 
 morrow. Let down your drop, Bill. G night." 
 
 The director put on his coat and hurried through 
 the front. He turned toward the passage that led 
 from the stage entrance, stopped, lit a cigarette, 
 tilted his little derby hat toward his right eye, leaned 
 his back against the wall, crossed his feet and waited. 
 
 Not unprepossessing was the chorus director. 
 He was one of the few in his industry that had 
 bucked through the borders of a union card. He had 
 begun his career as a stage hand, moving scenery. 
 Now he staged dances, and invented new rhythmic 
 foolishness for choruses, and was admitted a success 
 ful director, a severe taskmaster, and a natural dis-
 
 Second From the End 197 
 
 ciplinarian. He spoke sharply to his girls, but the 
 critics spoke sweetly of them. 
 
 His income now might have been ten thousand 
 dollars a year. His necktie cost a dollar, and his 
 clothes fit him as though they were made for him. 
 But his hair was saucered on the back of his neck, 
 which was reddish; and he wore a ring with two and 
 a half carats of diamonds clustered of forty chips. 
 
 Many a chorus girl preferred him to some flimsy 
 John, and he had met a few that he might have 
 fancied. But he was a single man. He knew too 
 much about chorus girls. All their secrets were his. 
 He knew some that earned their thirty dollars a week 
 and were always overdrawn, a dollar at a time; he 
 knew others that earned less and had better cars than 
 the owner of the show. He knew some he knew 
 all kinds. 
 
 The second from that end came out of the passage. 
 The director uncrossed his feet and lifted his derby 
 hat. She bowed, and was about to go along. But 
 he took her by the arm. 
 
 He looked her over, up and down. She was 
 dressed mostly in black nothing gaudy. Her little 
 toque was simple and tasteful. Her suit lined down 
 her slender figure with scarce a ripple and not a fold.
 
 198 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 Her slippers were high of heel and plain of toe. The 
 only jewel that she wore was consistency. 
 
 "Where re you living now, Miss Gale?" he asked. 
 
 "In a boarding-house, up in Harlem," said she. 
 
 "Better let me take you in a taxi," he suggested. 
 
 "Thanks," said the showgirl. 
 
 He called it. She entered, leaned back, shut her 
 sleepy eyes, and said nothing. 
 
 "How s it come, Miss Gale," said the director, 
 "that you re back in the chorus? Where s that 
 alimony and them stones?" 
 
 Without opening her eyes, and, perhaps without 
 breaking her chain of thought at all, she answered : 
 
 "He has millions and lawyers, and the alimony is 
 always tied up by some appeal or other in some court 
 or other. The jewels? I have the tickets." 
 
 "But you were way up in show-business," said 
 he. "Say, I remember when you first turned out 
 in The Toy Hussars. They used to call you the 
 girl with the lavender tights, and you knocked em 
 stiff at the Stuyvesant." 
 
 "That was fifteen years ago," said the showgirl. 
 "One can t wear tights forever. And after some 
 things one sometimes loses the taste for them." 
 
 "I can see that," said he. "But where s your
 
 Second From the End 199 
 
 pipes? Don t I remember you with the Herald 
 Square Comic Opera Company in Satan s Sweet 
 heart? You sung Love Divine, then. And, say, 
 you knocked em out o their seats with that soprano 
 and them the way you looked, in tights." 
 
 "That was the song that took me out of tights and 
 into mansions," she said. "That was the song I 
 was singing when he first saw me. I was getting 
 along nicely just then; but he fell in love with me, or 
 the song, or the tights or all of them. Anyw r ay, he 
 wouldn t give me any rest. He had millions. The 
 other girls all told me I was crazy even to hesitate. 
 They all envied me. Nobody knew." 
 
 "Well what happened?" asked the director 
 solicitously. 
 
 "He married me," said the showgirl. 
 
 "I see," said the director. 
 
 For blocks no sound within the taxi. The show 
 girl dreamed along. The director, coming to a cue 
 in the libretto of his thought, hummed dimly 
 
 "Oh, love divine, my soul s enchantress, 
 Oh, love divine, my queen of fairyland, 
 
 Could you but know the depth of my devotion, 
 Could I but kiss "
 
 200 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 The director turned to the showgirl. 
 
 " Could I but kiss " he hummed. "How s 
 
 the rest go again?" 
 
 : "Could I but kiss one finger of your hand, " she 
 recited, without melody. " Silly, isn t it? " 
 
 " Could I but kiss one finger of your hand, " he 
 hummed. "It didn t sound silly when you sung it 
 fifteen years back. I was shovin flats o scenery 
 then. I was always settin a scene back o you while 
 you was singing that. It was the hit o the show." 
 
 "What did you say?" said she. 
 
 "The hit o the show," said he. "It was one o 
 the greatest numbers I ever hear in a musical show." 
 
 "So he told me," said the showgirl, in a droning, 
 half -a wake voice. "He said it was beautiful. But 
 it wasn t long before he found other girls whose voices 
 sang beautiful songs to him. He had a wonderful 
 ear for that kind of music. He kept me in luxury. 
 He took me to Newport and Palm Beach and Cali 
 fornia and to a mansion in Cleveland. It would 
 have been fine if I hadn t been his wife. That was 
 what started the mischief. If I hadn t been his wife 
 he could have amused himself with me. But every 
 body knew we were married heaven knows the 
 newspapers printed enough about it so he made the
 
 Second From the End 201 
 
 mistake of introducing me into his kind of society in 
 the first few weeks, when he was still in love. That 
 gave me an appetite for it. My, how I did eat up 
 that drawing-room stuff! 
 
 "That s where the big rub came in. He thought 
 he d kite me around all-night restaurants and go 
 the way he thought was my way. But I wanted to 
 cut that style and go what I thought would be his 
 way. He let me get away with it for a while. He 
 introduced me to his folks. They didn t hit me or 
 throw anything, but that about let them out. They 
 looked at my clothes and almost fainted. I was all 
 wrong. I found that out early, and I switched from 
 my milliner and costumer, who was the most popular 
 outfitter on Longacre Square, but who didn t go so 
 strong on Park Avenue and in those frosty brown- 
 stones in the upper Eightieth streets. 
 
 "I tried. Goodness knows, nobody ever tried 
 harder than I did. I watched and I copied, and I 
 thought I was getting along fine and getting away 
 with a lot. But I began to notice things. The other 
 women looked at me as though I was an escaped 
 convict trying to reform, but with the prison brand 
 on me. When they thought I wasn t looking they 
 hunched their shoulders and giggled. At one formal
 
 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 reception a weatherbeaten old society chromo with 
 enamel on her face that would have had her stopped 
 in the entrance by the stage manager of a burlesque 
 troupe asked me sweetly if I wouldn t sing them a 
 song." 
 
 "Well, why didn t you! That s where you had 
 it on em all huh?" said the director. 
 
 She turned, looked at him in the dark cab, shook 
 her head. 
 
 "You d be the same hit in society that I was," 
 she said. 
 
 "I don t know why you shouldn t have run away 
 with that game," said he. "You ve got the looks, 
 you was way up in the profession, you sure got the 
 figger, and you was the wife of a party with all kinds 
 o dough." 
 
 "It isn t what you are," said the showgirl. "It 
 isn t even who you are. It isn t even who you were. 
 It s what you were. You can be the daughter of n 
 millionaire married to a bootblack you re still in; 
 but the daughter of a bootblack married to a million 
 aire out. My husband began to get that straight 
 after a bit. I was afraid of it. He knew it. Then 
 he began to steer me off. But I had that social 
 itch. I guess I began to annoy him. He wasn t the
 
 Second From the End 203 
 
 kind that annoyed very gamely. I insisted that I 
 was his wife, with all the rights that came with that. 
 He asked me to be reasonable. Of all the rotten 
 phrases on earth that s the hardest one to climb over. 
 Every one who doesn t want you to do w r hat you want 
 to do, or wants you to do what you shouldn t do, 
 asks you to be reasonable. 
 
 "Well, I wouldn t be reasonable. We had a scene 
 or two. And then he got up and walked out on me. 
 And what he told me before he went was worth 
 hearing. He told me that he had picked me up out 
 of the gutter mind you, out of the gutter! You 
 know how I was fixed and how I was getting by. I 
 had plenty of fine men crazy over me. And he said 
 he picked me out of the gutter! He said my society 
 notions were absurd insolent and impossible. I 
 was his wife, and my society notions were ab 
 surd. 
 
 So he went to his club. I called him up. You 
 know how much satisfaction you can get trying 
 to worm information out of a rich man s club 
 when no, of course you don t. But I do. I told 
 them I was his wife. The man who answered said 
 he was very sorry, but Well, so was I sorry. 
 After that I got a weekly check, but he never came
 
 04 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 near me again. I heard stories up and down the 
 row about his romancing. Then I met him one day 
 by appointment in his lawyer s office. 
 
 "It was the frostiest place I was ever in. Every 
 body walked on rubber heels in carpets to your ankles, 
 and I was afraid to talk more than in a whisper. 
 He sat at one side of the table, I across from him. 
 His family attorney sat at the end. They told me 
 that if I would agree to a reasonable settlement I 
 would be permitted to get a divorce. I jumped up 
 and I was going to throw an inkwell, but that lawyer 
 looked at me. No wonder those lawyers get a thou 
 sand dollars a day. I sat down. 
 
 "I said that I had grounds for all kinds of divorces 
 and didn t have to take a reasonable settlement. I 
 wanted a million cold. The lawyer smiled pretty 
 cold, too. My husband asked if he might have a 
 word. The lawyer, advising him with his eyes to say 
 nothing, said he could. My husband told me I was 
 silly; that I was from the stage. He said I was 
 ridiculous to expect he d be respectable. He didn t 
 expect it of me, he didn t believe I was, and I was 
 foolish if I thought he d be. He had married me 
 yes. But it had blown blue. Couldn t I understand 
 and be reasonable? It was quite out of the question
 
 Second From the End 205 
 
 for us to be man and wife again. Now if I would 
 take a thousand dollars a month 
 
 "That s a lot o dough," said the director. 
 
 "I didn t want it. I was his wife. I wanted all 
 that that carried with it. That s why I married him. 
 I didn t have to marry him to get a thousand dollars 
 a month. I was earning that when he took me off 
 the stage. I was offered that Well, never mind. 
 I didn t want it. I wanted his mother to take me 
 driving and his aunt to invite me to her week-ends. 
 I had had my pictures in every dramatic page in the 
 world. But I wanted one little measly head and 
 shoulders on the society page. I told him I wouldn t 
 take a settlement, he couldn t offer me one big 
 enough. He asked me if that was final. It was. 
 He said he was sorry, picked up his stick and his 
 gloves, bowed, and went. 
 
 "That was twelve years ago. I changed some of 
 my politics since then. I d take that settlement 
 now. I fooled away a couple of years waiting and 
 arguing with lawyers. Then I sued and forced so 
 much a year out of him. Then he offered the same 
 settlement if I d change the separate maintenance to a 
 complete divorce. I wasn t ready yet. When I was, 
 he had changed his mind he was angry. He had
 
 206 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 had a chance to marry a girl he was crazy about and 
 I didn t let him. Now she had married, and he was 
 bitter. He started fighting me. He shut off the 
 allowance and tied my suit in a knot. I don t know 
 where it is now. When I last heard from it it was up 
 in some court with a name I can t even remember. 
 Now I have no money to pay my lawyer, so I guess he 
 can t remember the name, either. And I m back in a 
 chorus. And here s my boarding-house. Good 
 night." 
 
 "Wait a minute," said the director, holding her by 
 the arm. "Say this marrying a millionaire ain t 
 all gravy, huh?" 
 
 "I wish I hadn t," said she. "Well, good-night." 
 
 "Just a minute. Say you ll forget what I said 
 to you in rehearsal when you was dreaming." 
 
 "Certainly," said the showgirl, as she fished a key 
 out of her bag and started to rise. 
 
 "Hold on," said the director, pressing her arm. 
 "You know, since I was wrestling fancy interiors at 
 the Stuyvesant I stepped along a few in the business. 
 I m pretty well thought of along the line. I make 
 my two hundred good bucks a week, and I got a little 
 bank roll planted that d surprise you." 
 
 "I m very glad to hear it," said she. "It was
 
 Second From the End 207 
 
 very kind of you to bring me home. I was so tired. 
 Good-night." 
 
 "Wait! I ain t through," said he, tightening his 
 thumb and finger on her slender arm. "What I was 
 going to say is this : I ain t never been married. Lots 
 o times I come pretty close, but marriage is a serious 
 business with me. W 7 hen I marry I want a girl 
 what ll be the whole world to me the whole world. 
 Now, how much would it take to push along that 
 there divorce o yours? A little wad ought to make 
 you free, and if you get alimony, ail right. If you 
 don t I don t care. It s you, not the money- 
 She drew her arm out of his clutch, turned her 
 whole body and faced him. 
 
 "Are are you do I understand that you want 
 to marry me?" 
 
 "Sure. I like you. You ve got a lot o class. I m 
 doing well. I did use to brag I d never marry out of 
 a chorus, but say- 
 She laughed. He stopped. 
 
 "Why, you poor thing!" said she. "You re absurd 
 insolent and impossible. Marry you? Why, I m 
 the wife of a multi-millionaire, a member of one of 
 the foremost families in American society." 
 "Why I thought you said "
 
 208 Beef,, Iron and Wine 
 
 "Out of the question," snapped she with decision. 
 "Can t you understand and be reasonable?" 
 
 And she opened the door of the taxi, walked across 
 the flaggings and up the steps of the shabby flat- 
 house, and he heard the key as it unlocked the 
 street door. 
 
 "Broadway and Forty-fourth," said he to the 
 driver, slamming the door. The taxi spun about 
 and started on the back trail. 
 
 The director lit a cigarette, tossed the match out 
 of the window, put his feet on the emergency seat, 
 and leaned back. He scratched the back of his neck 
 and fingered his watch charm. Block after block 
 he saw open with a slice of light and close behind him. 
 
 " Could I but kiss one finger of your hand, " he 
 hummed. 
 
 The skid-chains, tapping rhythmically against the 
 fenders, and the monotonous croon of the engine 
 beat time and sang with him. Over and over he 
 droned the lyrics and the melody, the big hit of that 
 by-gone hit. 
 
 The car pulled up sharply at his corner. The 
 driver jumped down and swung open the door. His 
 passenger was asleep, the cigarette was out. The 
 driver reached in and shook him.
 
 Second From the End 209 
 
 "Hey!" he called. "This here cab costs three 
 dollars a hour. Are you used to sleeping in places 
 what costs three dollars a hour? Huh?" 
 
 "No, sir," said the director, as he pulled himself 
 together with a bang.
 
 XI 
 HERITAGE OF THE SUFFERING BROTHER
 
 XI 
 HERITAGE OF THE SUFFERING BROTHER 
 
 DO YOU think there s a story in this for you?" 
 asked my friend, the old policeman who sits 
 all day in the corridor of the city hall, who 
 watches, who sees, who seldom tells. 
 
 I stood beside him while he told it to me the tale a 
 young farmer had told him at the foot of the elevator. 
 
 The young farmer was accompanied by a farmer 
 girl. Her eyes were blue and her hair was yellow. 
 Youth sang within her and the radiance of outdoor 
 life illumined her. They had just come in from the 
 depot. He carried a straw suitcase. He asked 
 the way to the marriage license window. It is the 
 policeman s duty to question young couples that have 
 the appearance of elopers. So my friend, the old 
 policeman, stopped the young farmer and asked him. 
 Thus he got the story. 
 
 On a little farm near South Bend, Ind., twin boys 
 were born some twenty years ago. A year or two 
 
 213
 
 214 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 later a girl was born on the juxtaposed farm. The 
 three children grew up together. 
 
 As sometimes chances, the twins were opposites in 
 every manner. One was a wild, daring youth, mis 
 chievous, disobedient, trespassing over the bounds of 
 all regular restrictions. The other was an orderly 
 lad, kind to his parents, respectful to his teachers, 
 steady at Sunday-school a good boy. 
 
 Let us call the bad twin Bill and the good one 
 Jack for further mention. 
 
 As was natural, Bill fell into roistering ways. He 
 was of little help or use about the farm. The hard 
 work and the dirty work all fell on Jack. Bill man 
 aged to get good clothes and keep them presentable. 
 Jack seldom got any and soiled them with work 
 when he did. 
 
 Bill gambled a bit, got to trapesing off to town 
 often, and was a bit of a disgrace to the home folks 
 and the countryside. Jack was always on the job, 
 and folks said he wasn t very bright. 
 
 The girl on the next farm grew along, and she was 
 pretty and she was good. 
 
 Bill and Jack both watched her; and both loved 
 her. 
 
 Bill loved her because she had blue eyes and soft
 
 Heritage of the Suffering Brother 215 
 
 hair and dimples and a rounded little form that 
 twinkled with charms and titillated with the graces 
 of wholesome youth. 
 
 Jack loved her because she was mild and fine; be 
 cause he saw her at worship on Sundays with her 
 hymn book, and then she wore the expression of a 
 madonna. 
 
 Bill courted her in his wild, whooping way. He 
 borrowed or stole or won the money to buy her shiny 
 gifts and take her buggy riding and send her candy 
 from town. 
 
 Jack wasn t much of a Lothario. He mostly 
 looked sheepishly at her and blushed. 
 
 So, as was bound to happen, she chose Bill, the 
 dashing, wayward, romantic, impetuous swain. 
 
 Bill took his victory with a swagger. Jack took 
 his defeat hard but silently. 
 
 Many of the older folks shook their heads because 
 they knew the little girl and loved her the little girl 
 who was pretty enough to dazzle the gay dog, Bill, 
 and pure and pious enough to break the heart of the 
 slow-going Jack. 
 
 Bill and the girl were to be married soon. His 
 rushing courtship was on everybody s tongue. 
 Jack s suffering was clear to everybody s eye.
 
 216 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 Then, on the eve of the wedding, Bill grew sick. 
 He hadn t been living just the safest sort of a life, 
 so the ailment grew dangerous. In spite of all that 
 they could do he died. 
 
 Jack and the girl and the folks followed the body 
 of Bill to the churchyard. Jack went home. The 
 girl went to her home. 
 
 Late that night there was a knock on the window 
 of the room where Jack lay awake, tossing in his bed, 
 thinking, wondering. 
 
 He opened his window and there stood the girl. 
 
 She had a shawl over her head and a cloak over her 
 nightgown. She had stolen out of the house after 
 her parents had kissed her good-night in her room. 
 
 She told Jack something that made his blood run 
 chill. She had loved Bill, the unscrupulous taking 
 Bill. She had wanted to be his wife. But another 
 reason had come that made her urge the marriage 
 without delay. And now Bill was dead! 
 
 All his life Jack had been taking Bill s leavings. 
 All his life he had seen Bill break his poor toys in 
 mischief. All his life he had seen Bill take and 
 destroy all that he had wanted. All his life he had 
 drudged and gone without that Bill might "sport" 
 and have.
 
 Heritage of the Suffering Brother 217 
 
 And Bill had soiled the one thing under Heaven 
 that he had truly loved because it was unsoiled. 
 And Bill had died and left him the aftermath of his 
 sins and his abandon. 
 
 The young farmer with the straw suitcase was 
 Jack. The girl who stood, blushing, beside him, was 
 the girl who had loved Bill. 
 
 "Do you think there s a story in that for you?" 
 asked my friend, the policeman.
 
 XII 
 ONE TOUCH OF ART
 
 XII 
 ONE TOUCH OF ART 
 
 IN FRAYED pajamas, at twilight, on the edge 
 of the bed, chin on hands, sat Jefferson Pay- 
 ton Garrick, actor out of a job. There came 
 a knock at the door. Garrick rose, stripped the cover 
 from the bed, draped it dexterously about him, as 
 though a toga, and struck a heroic attitude. 
 
 "Enter, knocker," roared Garrick, and Delilah 
 Dill, adolescent daughter of the boarding-house land 
 lady, forthwith did so. "What now, harbinger of 
 
 i o" 
 evilr 
 
 "Ma says," said Delilah, "that if you don t pay 
 at least one week s board to-morrow you ll find this 
 here room missin when you come back from your 
 daily homecomin around them theattical offices." 
 
 "She would dispossess me? For a few paltry 
 ducats?" 
 
 "That s ma she said to tell you this ain t no 
 home for aged and disrepyoutable actors. And she 
 said to tell you this ain t no hobos flop, neither. 
 
 221
 
 222 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 Now, you made me? To-morrow, by the clock. 
 Ma s gotta have security or currency; and you ain t 
 got no more trunks to grab." 
 
 "Ah, fair Delilah," sighed Garrick, "you have truly 
 shorn me close and trimmed me good." 
 
 "You don t look like no Samson to me," said 
 Delilah in the door. "To-morrow you ll come across 
 or you ll get kicked out." 
 
 "Can you beat it?" said Garrick. 
 
 When Delilah had done so he sat again upon the 
 bed, until his reverie was broken by an alien sound. 
 He turned toward the window. A leg appeared, 
 entering stealthily; then the other; then the remain 
 der of a man with a checked suit and a blue necktie. 
 The man saw Garrick, yanked a shiny revolver from 
 his pocket, and pointed it. 
 
 "One squawk and I ll plug ye," he said. 
 
 Garrick looked frightened. The man held his posi 
 tion and his expression. Garrick broadened into a 
 smile and at last began to laugh, aloud and boister 
 ously. 
 
 "Do you see anything funny, or are you just 
 nutty?" snapped the stranger. 
 
 "Did you ever hear about the burglar that broke 
 in on the Arkansas editor?" asked Garrick. "The
 
 One Touch of Art 
 
 editor was unarmed, so he engaged the burglar in 
 hand-to-hand conflict, and it was only after a ter 
 rific struggle that he was able to rob the burglar." 
 
 "Don t come that stuff on me," said the visitor, 
 "it s gettin late an I have to go t rough dis hull 
 building yet. Come on slip me." 
 
 "Fool," said Garrick bitterly. "If I had money I 
 wouldn t be here I d be out somewhere eating." 
 
 "Gee!" said the burglar. "It sounds like a 
 touch." 
 
 "I could unfold a tale 
 
 "Not a dime! You re de sixt actor I starts to 
 burgle to-night what tries to touch me." 
 
 "If you could lend me a dollar till Tuesday 
 
 "No chance." 
 
 "I promise not to spend it on liquor." 
 
 "Old stuff. Good-night," and the burglar started 
 back toward his window. 
 
 "Stay," cried Garrick. "I am no common mendi 
 cant. I am an actor." 
 
 "This here ain no place for me," said the fellow, 
 hurrying his steps. Garrick followed and seized 
 him by the coat tails. "Leave go o me or I ll call a 
 copper," cried the burglar. 
 
 "One moment," pleaded Garrick.
 
 224 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "Not a cent." 
 
 "I spurn your filthy alms," said Garrick. "You 
 are a burglar. Furthermore, you are an inartistic 
 burglar. Your costume is wrong, your make-up 
 woefully insufficient, and your slang horribly off 
 key. Even a vaudeville playwright wouldn t write 
 such an impossible burglar as you are." 
 
 "Say," said the intruder, turning back, "I ve 
 worked in swell apartments, I have." 
 
 "You re passe," said Garrick. "The burglar of to 
 day is a gentleman, an evening-dressed dude, in fact." 
 
 "Well, I never had no education." 
 
 "And you ll never amount to anything. I played 
 a burglar once, on Broadway. And if I had entered 
 feet first as you did, wearing the grotesque garb that 
 you affect, carrying a nickel-plated, mail-order re 
 volver that reflects gleams from the footlights, I d 
 have been kicked out of the Lamb s Club. Where s 
 your dark lantern? " 
 
 "Well, you see- 
 
 " Excuses always excuses! You play the char 
 acter rotten, your props are missing, and you have no 
 idea of technique. You re no burglar you re a 
 bungler." 
 
 "Well," said the stranger in mortification, "no-
 
 One Touch of Art 225 
 
 body ever showed me. I m a self-made gun, I am. 
 I never had no mother or nothin . " 
 
 "Then find some other occupation," said Garrick 
 testily. "When I was a stage manager I fired better 
 burglars than you." 
 
 "Am I that bad?" said the prowler. 
 
 "Worse. You are the most unconvincing burglar 
 I ever saw. Why, when I was supporting Lillian 
 Langtry 
 
 "Gee! Are you as old as that?" 
 
 "Man, boy, and stock actor," said Garrick. "I 
 have trod the boards these thirty years. I have 
 seen brilliant child actresses become forty-dollar 
 character women of no character; I have wrung forth 
 the magic syllables of Shakespeare in temples of art 
 where now they go to sleep on Mary Pickford films; 
 I remember Sarah Bernhardt s other leg and her 
 first two-legged farewell tour; I can recall De Wolf 
 Hopper before Casey went to bat. Why, I knew 
 Willie Collier when he was funny!" 
 
 "And you re broke? I thought youse actors get a 
 lot o money." 
 
 "Only in vaudeville," said Garrick. "And, sooner 
 than do a superannuated song and dance like Henry 
 Dixie, I would starve like a gentleman."
 
 226 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "How about moving pictures?" 
 
 "I can t ride a broncho." 
 
 "Can t you get a job in the reggeler theayters?" 
 
 "No I no longer speak their language. My di 
 alect is neither Yiddish enough for Potash and 
 Perlmutter nor British enough to play a German 
 
 spy." 
 
 "How about musical comedy?" 
 
 "Can t get Fred Stone for a partner." 
 
 "Say," said the stranger, lowering his revolver, 
 * how long has this been going?" 
 
 "As per my card in the Clipper" said Garrick, 
 "I have been at liberty for years." 
 
 "I ve only been out a few weeks." 
 
 "Lucky devil," said the actor. "You are in a busi 
 ness that has standards ethics, principles. It 
 doesn t vary with every whim of a fickle taste. It 
 isn t dependent on the foibles of arbitrary managers." 
 
 "We have to divide wit de bulls." 
 
 "No comparison policemen will listen to reason; 
 theatrical managers are beyond my understanding." 
 
 "Mine, too. I go to theayters every Tuesday 
 night my night off." 
 
 "Indeed a patron of the arts?" 
 
 "No, the scalpers."
 
 One Touch of Art Z27 
 
 "Ah, I see, patronizing your fellow-burglars. One 
 hand washes the other." 
 
 "Well, I wash my hands of de hull business," said 
 the burglar. "An dis ain t buyin fish fer next Fri 
 day. How about it? Do I get anything? " 
 
 "Gladly," said Garrick. "If I had anything. 
 But, you see, the landlady has bereft ine of all save 
 those pitiful wigs and beards " 
 
 "That spinach over there?" 
 
 "Indispensable to the actor of my generation," 
 sighed Garrick. "That was the sure-fire combina 
 tionthe actor and the whiskers ham and spinach. 
 Those are the remnants of my former grandeurs in 
 the one-night stands." 
 
 "Them ain t no good to me; I don t wear no dis- 
 
 c 
 
 guises." 
 
 "You don t need any. You re a caricature now." 
 
 "Well, then, I ll stow the cannon, an I guess I ll 
 be goin ." 
 
 "Wait!" cried the actor. "An inspiration! Is 
 that four-dollar gun loaded?" 
 
 "Sure; my wife loads it for me every mornin . 
 Now, there s some gal. She waits on me like a nurse, 
 and she s got eyes say!" 
 
 "I know, like stars, and teeth like pearls, and all
 
 228 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 that. But gramercy on your domestic felicities. 
 I want you to do me a service. Blow my brains 
 out." 
 
 "This here gat can t shoot nothin what ain t 
 there." 
 
 "A comedian!" said Garrick, shaking his head 
 sadly. "And I thought you were a heavy ! " 
 
 "I can t take no long chances like dat fer nuttin . 
 I ll tell you what here, you take de cannon an do 
 it yerself ," 
 
 "Never!" cried Garrick. "Suicide? Suicide by 
 the hero? Unheard of. The play would be a hope 
 less failure." 
 
 "Good-night," said the burglar, starting toward 
 the window. 
 
 "Wait I have it." 
 
 "Keep it." 
 
 "Hold! How would you like to take home to 
 that devoted female artillery expert five thousand 
 dollars?" 
 
 "Kiddin somebody?" 
 
 "Nobody." 
 
 Garrick turned to the chiffonier, opened a drawer, 
 and took out a folded document. 
 
 "You know what this is? You do not? This is
 
 One Touch of Art 229 
 
 an insurance policy on my life for five thousand 
 dollars." 
 
 "I get you if I drills your bean I collects." 
 
 "Precisely. You are a better business man than 
 you are a burglar. This policy would naturally 
 go to my daughter. She has proven ungrateful. 
 King Lear certainly knew what he was kicking 
 about. My daughter married a critic, and I dis 
 owned her. Now, I ll sign this instrument over to 
 you; and if I die, five thousand; if I live, nothing." 
 
 "Gee, that puts it right up to me, don t it?" 
 
 "Have you a fountain pen?" 
 
 "Sure," said the visitor, handing a gold-chased one. 
 "All burglars carries fountain pens." 
 
 "So I have noticed on bank cashiers, lawyers, 
 book agents, and booking agents. What did you say 
 the name was?" 
 
 "Slattery," said the burglar. "Slickey Slattery." 
 
 "To Slickey Slattery for love and affection," 
 repeated Garrick as he wrote. 
 
 Slattery took the policy, looked it over, and put it 
 in his pocket. 
 
 "All right," said he. "Now, how do ye wanna 
 die, sittin or standin ?" 
 
 "Put down that abominable pistol!" cried Gar-
 
 230 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 rick. "I can t die like a rummy. I must have 
 atmosphere the artistic inspiration, the exuber 
 ance of my art." 
 
 "If ye re lookin fer dat from me you ll die of old 
 age," said Slickey. 
 
 "I shall supply it," answered Garrick haughtily. 
 "In order to face death with the proper courage, aye, 
 even with joy, I shall set the stage and play for you 
 the climax of an exquisite tragedy. I shall carry 
 myself into it. When the moment comes for the 
 hero to die, you will fire and I shall expire with the 
 smile of a martyr. What a triumph for realism! 
 Now, mark me well and watch me closely. You sit 
 there. You are the audience and I the player. I 
 shall play for you the historic finale of Nathan 
 Hale. " 
 
 "Don t know him," said Slickey. 
 
 "Nathan Hale, the patriot," said Garrick ex 
 alted. "He died for his country two hundred and 
 forty-seven consecutive times at Daly s Theatre 
 when it was in its prime. 
 
 "I place this chair that is to be the scaffold. 
 It is morning. Over yonder verdant hills the sun of 
 an autumn morning rises to look upon a nation s 
 catastrophe. The little birds are twittering and the
 
 One Touch of Art 231 
 
 wind through yonder imaginary branches sighs as 
 though in penitential requiem. The kindly villagers 
 have risen early to gaze upon the execution of their 
 idol. They are banked in lines, here and there, 
 weeping, whispering, wondering. 
 
 "Ah who comes there? That stalwart, hand 
 some figure head erect, eyes flashing, his hands 
 bound behind him, flanked on all sides by murderous 
 cut-throats in scarlet uniforms? Nathan Hale! 
 Resolutely, asking no pity, he marches to his doom 
 and into history thus. The crowd stirs. He 
 mounts the scaffold. A deep voice is heard: 
 
 " Nathan Hale, what have you to say before you 
 are executed by order of his Majesty, King George, 
 as a spy ! He hisses it s-s-spy ! 
 
 "The crowd is hushed. Even the birds and the 
 wind seem silent, listening. There seems to be a 
 smile upon the handsome features as Nathan Hale, 
 looking upward to yonder realm whence heroes draw 
 their inspiration, answers in a clarion that rang 
 around the then civilized world and echoed through 
 the pages of text-books evermore, he answers: 
 
 ; "I regret that I have but one life to give to my 
 country." 
 
 Garrick tore the coat of his pajama suit open and
 
 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 bared his breast. Slattery looked at him a mo 
 ment, then began to sniffle and wipe his eyes with the 
 sleeve of his coat. 
 
 "Well," cried Garrick angrily. "Why didn t you 
 shoot, you pinhead? That was the cue. Country 
 - one life to give to my country, that s where he 
 dies." 
 
 "I couldn t," whimpered Slattery. "You made 
 me cry. That there was the saddest thing I ever 
 see in my hull life." 
 
 "A pretty compliment," said Garrick, "but gets us 
 nowhere. I see you are too easily touched." 
 
 "I ain t as easy to touch as some people thinks," 
 said Slattery, removing from his hip pocket a wallet 
 of goodly corpulence and placing it in his inner coat 
 pocket, after which he buttoned the coat. 
 
 "Hopeless," exclaimed Garrick. "Now listen, 
 blockhead, numbskull, boob. I m going to give 
 you one more chance. Did you ever hear of Fagin? " 
 
 " I knew a man once named Ragin." 
 
 "Fagin was a Jew " 
 
 " Wrong guy. Ragin was a Mick." 
 
 " Fagin appeared in a book by a man named Dick 
 ens. It was called Oliver Twist, though that was 
 but a minor role. He died a tragic death, especially
 
 One Touch of Art 233 
 
 in Milwaukee. I shall perform for you the ghastly 
 finish. Follow me closely. This is a cell. The 
 lights are low. The air is dank. Yonder the bars 
 shut the whining, clawing, hysterical Fagin from his 
 liberty. The coward s fear has driven him mad 
 mad, I tell you And Garrick executed the 
 
 death scene, rose to the finish and fell to the floor, his 
 head away from the side where Slattery sat. 
 
 Slattery, who had become more and more fright 
 ened as the scene progressed, at the finish staggered 
 back, then collected himself and, with stealthy steps, 
 started for the window. Garrick, having counted 
 ten, turned his head without rising. 
 
 "Hey," called Garrick. "Where are you going?" 
 
 Slattery stopped as though shot, shivering and 
 hesitating. 
 
 "I I I was just going over there I " 
 
 Garrick swung around and sat up, facing toward 
 Slattery, holding his knees in his clasped hands. 
 
 "Sneak thief!" he cried. "Pickpocket! Cur! 
 You were going to desert me desert old Fagin. 
 Why didn t you shoot me, you blundering idiot? 
 Can t you tell a death scene when you see one?" 
 
 "Gee! you scared the liver outta me. My mitt 
 trembled till I couldn t pull de trigger."
 
 234 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "So you tried to abandon me. Now, listen. I ll 
 give you one more opportunity. I will play you 
 Shylock. Shylock was an old man, as you will see 
 by this wig that I am about to adjust. He was a 
 moneylender." 
 
 "Well, why didn you go to him? * 
 
 "Atrocious! Now, pay strict attention. Shylock 
 had just been disgraced, defeated. His thirst for 
 Christian blood has strangled in his throat. Broken, 
 muttering, maniacal, with faltering step he goes 
 forth, tearing from his bosom a diatribe against man 
 kind And Garrick tore into the exit speech of 
 Shylock. 
 
 After a few words of the soliloquy Slattery raised 
 his pistol, and, taking careful aim, levelled it at the 
 breast of Garrick, who, hot in the fervor of his 
 speech, saw him, stopped abruptly, and threw his arm 
 over his crape-haired face. 
 
 "Stop! Put it down. What do you mean?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 "One more second you d been a dead duck." 
 
 "But why, imbecile? I played you two sublimely 
 horrible death scenes and twice you flivvered. And 
 now, in the midst of an oration that has nothing 
 to do with death, you would murder me. Why?"
 
 One Touch of Art 235 
 
 "Because you re rotten." 
 
 "Indeed?" retorted Garrick. "Go get a type 
 writer and a cigarette like the other critics, and get 
 barred out of the Shubert theatres. I see you have 
 no soul for art and no appreciation of the classics. 
 I will come to the level that meets with your infinites 
 imal brow. I w r ill do for you The Face on the Bar 
 room Floor. The finish of it is, He fell across the 
 picture, dead. As I say dead, you fire. Remember 
 - He fell across the- 
 
 Garrick turned. He looked at Slattery to see 
 whether the burglar was paying close attention. 
 He looked more keenly. Slattery, fallen against the 
 rail of the bed, was fast asleep. Garrick took him 
 by the arm. Slattery snored. There was a knock 
 on the door. Garrick, with a sudden idea, extracted 
 the wallet from the burglar s pocket and hid it in the 
 chiffonier drawer, lifted Slattery on the bed, and cov 
 ered him in a heap with the quilts, turned toward the 
 door with a greeting, and saw Delilah enter. 
 
 "Is it not enough," he cried, "that you hound my 
 days, but you must batter at my doors in the calm 
 of the evening?" 
 
 "Ma says," said Delilah, "she wants to know are 
 you gonna fade away to-morrow, cause they s an-
 
 236 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 other ham wants to move in here and he wants to 
 pay three dollars in advance." 
 
 "Pish tush," said Garrick loftily. "Who speaks 
 of three dollars? For that pittance you disturb my 
 siesta?" and he walked to the drawer and took out 
 the wallet. "Take that and that and that 
 
 "Why, Mr. Garrick- 
 
 "Ah, it s Mr. Garrick now. Stifle your insolent 
 questions. How dare you? Have my trunk sent up 
 forthwith. And, here I would have a light colla 
 tion. I wish pea soup, green onions, three squabs, 
 some truffles, mushrooms, asparagi that is the 
 plural of asparagus I wish plural asparagus; an 
 apple pie, not one act of a pie a whole production; 
 and beer, luscious, foaming, German, amber beer. 
 Can you get that kind of beer for this kind of 
 dough?" 
 
 "Why, sir yes, sir " 
 
 "And, mind you I want service. Service, or I ll 
 move out of this bush-league boarding-house. And 
 here give this to the ragged tank trouper who 
 presumed to cast eyes on my room. Tell him to buy 
 himself a clean shirt. And here this is a slight 
 honorarium for you." 
 
 "Oh, thanks, Mr. Garrick," gasped Delilah. "Ma U
 
 One Touch of Art 237 
 
 be so tickled and s prised. Only I can t help won 
 dering how 
 
 "How I got it? I earned it through my act- 
 ing." 
 
 Delilah ran on her errand, and Garrick strode to 
 the bed. He took the revolver from Slattery s limp 
 fingers and then kicked him in a most unguarded 
 location. Slattery began to yawn, sat up, stretched, 
 and rubbed his eyes. 
 
 "Now exit, upper left, through window," directed 
 Garrick, indicating with the pistol. 
 
 Slattery felt quickly for the wallet. 
 
 "Stung!" he cried. "Say, you ain t gonna chase 
 me outta here broke?" 
 
 "You d better get a move on, or begin to sing a 
 hymn," said Garrick, and Slattery started backing 
 toward the window. 
 
 "Ain t you gonna divvy with me after all I suf 
 fered?" 
 
 "Not a cent," said Garrick imperiously. "So I 
 murdered Shakespeare, did I? And you went to 
 sleep, did you? Why, I ve never been so 
 
 Garrick stepped forward and snatched the policy 
 out of Slattery s pocket. 
 
 "What do you mean, ruffian? You would rob me
 
 238 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 of my policy? Go and remember honesty is the 
 best policy, especially in this New York life." 
 
 "How do I get out?" asked Slattery, with a sigh of 
 resignation. "De way I come in?" 
 
 "No," said Garrick, shoving him out of the win 
 dow. "Head first." 
 
 Delilah entered with a huge tray of steaming food. 
 
 "What was that funny noise I just hear, Mr. 
 Garrick?" she said. 
 
 "Oh, I was merely rehearsing a new version of 
 Oliver Twist. Fagin has just thrown Bill Sykes 
 out of the window." 
 
 "Well, it ain t that way in the book," said Delilah. 
 "Fagin dies." 
 
 "Not always," said Garrick. "Only when played 
 by Nat Goodwin."
 
 XIII 
 IT WASN T HONEST, BUT IT WAS SWEET
 
 XIII 
 IT WASN T HONEST, BUT IT WAS SWEET 
 
 SICKLES was a loan shark. It isn t a pretty 
 business. Sickles wasn t any prettier than 
 his business. He had only one eye, but that 
 eye was on the main chance. His idea of the greatest 
 man of all times was the man who invented interest. 
 
 Sickles was married. His wife was a decent lady, 
 who had been his head bookkeeper. So she knew 
 many of the tricks of his trade, and when he gave her 
 the household money on Saturday nights she blushed. 
 
 Considerable literature has been made about mort 
 gage-shavers, tax sale hyenas, and usurers. A loan 
 shark with a heart never broke into the classics very 
 hard. Shy lock and Old Scrooge are the standby s. 
 And, generally speaking, this is as it should be. It 
 isn t a pretty business. 
 
 The loan shark is a commercializer of distress, 
 disease, death, failure, thunder-clap, and lightning 
 bolt. Folks never come to him unless they are flat 
 
 against the rough bricks. He knows that and is pre- 
 241
 
 242 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 pared. If you start your story he can finish it. He 
 knows them all. He can look at you and tell how 
 much you want and how much you ll get and how 
 long he ll wait. His ace in the hole is your shame at 
 coming to him and he collects with that facedown, 
 lowdown card. 
 
 Mrs. Sickles skimmed a little off the stingy domes 
 tic allowance and doled it to beggars, while Sickles 
 was drinking his coffee at home with milk instead of 
 cream and smiling joyfully at the possession of an 
 economical wife. 
 
 A newspaper in the city got an idea. It suggested 
 that folks get little tin banks and put a dime a day or 
 whatever they could or would into them and save up 
 for the poor the coins they wouldn t miss. Mrs. 
 Sickles thought well of the idea. She showed it to 
 Sickles at the breakfast table. 
 
 "Tin bank tin bank," said Sickles, and he hur 
 ried to his office. 
 
 But Mrs. Sickles couldn t get the thought out of her 
 head. A tin bank! There was something sweet 
 about it. It wasn t a forensic plea for noble charity. 
 It was such a simple way to put it such an easy way 
 to do such a wonderful thing. 
 
 So, with a guilty feeling, she cut a hole into a cocoa
 
 It Wasn t Honest, But It Was Sweet 243 
 
 can, a jagged slit. She held the can in her left hand, 
 and with her right she dropped a dime through it. 
 It tinkled against the bottom of the can. She 
 jumped. It was a very pleasant sound. But it 
 wasn t honest. 
 
 She sighed. How she would have liked to drop 
 dimes in that little tin can every hour, and take them 
 out again and drop them in the trembling palm of the 
 poor. She compromised on a dime a day. It grew 
 to be a regular and sacred ceremony. After Sickles 
 left in the morning and she had watched him around 
 the corner, hurrying to the elevated station, she tip 
 toed to her bureau, took out a dime, tiptoed to the 
 kitchen, pussy -footed into the pantry, reached up on 
 a high shelf, took down the tin bank, and rattled it. 
 
 How the sound grew more solid and how percept 
 ible the weight increased by putting in that one dime 
 a day. 
 
 Then she would poise the can in her left hand and 
 hold it up and with her right would slip in the day s 
 mite, rattle her treasure again, and put it up in its 
 hiding-place. It was a glorious secret heavy but 
 thrilling. 
 
 There was one touch of sadness about it to Mrs. 
 Sickles. She could never help thinking somehow
 
 244 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 that if little Ella had lived she would have taken her 
 in on the secret, and little Ella would have understood 
 and cherished it. But little Ella was in the grave 
 had been for years. My she would have been a big 
 girl now. However 
 
 The days went on, and unto each day was the dime 
 thereof tinkled into its hiding-place. It was growing 
 cold. Winter was asserting itself. Cases of suffer 
 ing were beginning to creep into the newspapers. 
 It would soon be time to open the bank. 
 
 Mrs. Sickles almost dreaded the thought. There 
 was so much joy in putting the dimes in the bank that 
 she would feel bereft when they went. But of course 
 they were there for giving, and of course the dimes 
 meant nothing to her only what they could do for 
 the needy; only that. 
 
 Mrs. Sickles still gave to an occasional beggar. 
 Beggars were plentiful, and as it grew colder they 
 became more so. To some of them she gave bread 
 and to some of them nothing, because she couldn t 
 feed the whole army. But she gave discriminatingly 
 and as freely as she could. 
 
 And then one day came a woman knocking at the 
 back door. She wore a shawl, and under it on her 
 arm was a baby, asleep. The woman was frail and
 
 It Wasn t Honest, Bud It Was Sweet 245 
 
 the child was heavy, so Mrs. Sickles asked her into 
 the kitchen to rest and warm up. She made a cup 
 of hot coffee for her and took the child in her own 
 arms. It was a girl, and it looked somewhat like 
 little Ella had looked when she was a baby. 
 
 The woman thanked her and seemed embarrassed. 
 It was her first day at begging, and she didn t do it 
 very well. She said that her husband was in the 
 bridewell for having thrown a chair through a saloon 
 window and that he had sold everything salable in 
 their two rooms on his last spree everything except 
 the stove. The stove, she said, was somewhat ornate 
 for them. It had been given them as a wedding pres 
 ent by the boys who worked in the shop where she 
 had worked until she got married. The stove cost 
 $33 and it was nickel-plated. 
 
 She said he would have sold the stove long ago, 
 but for a chattel mortgage. Her husband had put a 
 $15 plaster on it. She had paid more than $30 since 
 then in nickels, dimes, and quarters toward the princi 
 pal, for interest, and as interest on the interest to keep 
 the mortgage man from taking it away and she still 
 owed $4.10. 
 
 The man had been to her house that morning and 
 he had given her till five o clock that afternoon to get
 
 246 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 the $4.10 or out would go the stove. When the stove 
 went out well, it was winter, the baby was so 
 young, there weren t even any covers in the house to 
 speak of she didn t know what would happen when 
 it got colder. 
 
 Mrs. Sickles walked to the pantry, stood on her 
 tiptoes, and reached up on the high shelf. She came 
 back with a tin box in her hand that rattled as she 
 walked. 
 
 "Here," she said. "There are forty-three dimes 
 in that box I counted them as I dropped them in. 
 Go and pay off that wretched man and keep your 
 stove." 
 
 The woman smiled and cried. She took the tin 
 bank in one hand and the baby on the other arm and 
 went happy. She got on a street car, for she had to 
 go downtown, and there was 20 cents to spare in the 
 bank. She went to an office building and counted out 
 forty-one dimes to Sickles and went home and hugged 
 the baby in the warm spot on the floor beside the 
 stove.
 
 XIV 
 TEN DOLLARS WORTH
 
 XIV 
 TEN DOLLARS WORTH 
 
 YOU have heard of writing against time. You 
 may have heard of writing against space. 
 But have you ever heard of writing on space? 
 It is a trade idiom belonging to the confidential 
 glossary of a newspaper office. The space writer is 
 usually, though not always, a free lance who gets 
 news that staff reporters do not, and who sells his 
 news to one or more city editors and receives for it 
 not a salary or retainer but so much per column or 
 fraction thereof, which means his pay is measured 
 by the typed space that his stories occupy in the 
 paper, and thence the title "space writer." 
 
 To those who see and know a great many things 
 that seem highly interesting or important, which they 
 do not subsequently see in print anywhere, it would 
 seem that the space writer has a lucrative field and 
 should do well at $5 a column, not counting headline 
 space, which is the standard of compensation. May 
 be he should. But I never saw one unless he was 
 
 249
 
 250 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 especially endowed or unless he enjoyed star assign 
 ments because of unusual attainment and was paid 
 high rates and given free play, who ever bought dia 
 mond rings or fur-lined coats on the emoluments of 
 writing on space. 
 
 The space man is generally a broken-down old 
 reporter who has outlived that efficiency which is 
 demanded by an editorial pay roll, or one who has 
 tried to get a regular reportorial job and for some 
 reason never landed, or a hanger-on at some source 
 of possible news which does not erupt regularly 
 enough to be worth while "covering" by a salaried 
 man. 
 
 Sometimes he is a college student who adds to his 
 stingy allowance by selling an occasional item about 
 what the professor said in class or about who will lead 
 the march at the co-eds campus hop. Sometimes 
 he is a physician who turns in stories of queer and 
 weird operations, or a lawyer who tells of intricate 
 points of law in Supreme Court decisions that affect 
 everybody and bore everybody. Sometimes the 
 space writer is valuable and useful. Usually he is a 
 nuisance. He is even, in some instances, a charity 
 object whose paragraphs of unimpressive news are 
 bought and printed to help the poor, well-meaning
 
 Ten Dollars Worth 251 
 
 devil out. In all circumstances he is a semi-outsider 
 and his output is a by-product of reportorial organi 
 zation. He is not momentous. But he may be in 
 teresting. 
 
 And the old Globe Girdler was that. 
 
 He couldn t have been a day less than sixty. He had 
 hung around the same suburban police station since 
 long before the oldest reporter was a young reporter. 
 He belonged in it as much as either of its two cells 
 and he was just as rusty. He was permitted many 
 privileges because, though he was a glutton for space, 
 he never broke a confidence. It was his pride that 
 he had digested many a great story that for reasons 
 of great friendships he had held out. Sure enough, 
 some strippling reporter had most always gotten 
 the story sooner or later, and it was printed anyway 
 and the Globe Girdler got nothing for it. But he 
 had done his share. He never compromised with 
 his sense of honor. 
 
 That was why, maybe, he never made more than 
 about $8 a week. Nobody had ever known him to 
 turn up or turn in a story of any consequence. 
 
 He could get more names of Polish families at a 
 midnight fire loss $218, covered by insurance than 
 any other living note-taker, and he telephoned every
 
 252 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 last one of them in to some rewrite man who was 
 busy and really had no time to make believe he was 
 writing them down at the other end of the wire. 
 He gave descriptions to the final petal of the cere 
 monies at the outlying station when a new desk 
 sergeant was inducted into office, and then hunted 
 the paper through and found three lines in the "City 
 Brevities" about it, which he clipped and pasted 
 and turned in and for which he got twenty cents by 
 the column rule. But if there was a secret police 
 intrigue, or if a stranger reported to the desk that his 
 daughter had eloped with a prince, the Girdler either 
 never knew it or never told about it. 
 
 His principal occupation was reminiscing. How he 
 could go back into the past! He could imitate the 
 talk of that detective and the walk of that inspector 
 and tell how he set the spark which some other 
 reporter stole to set a flame that made the other 
 reporter famous in a night. 
 
 Furthermore, he had been all over the world, to 
 hear him tell of the strange countries he had visited, 
 and his nickname grew therefrom. He was a little 
 shaky in his geography, history, physiography, deep- 
 sea navigation, cross-country mapmaking, and other 
 sciences of the traveller. But he talked as readily
 
 Ten Dollars Worth 253 
 
 about the Himalayas as though he had really seen 
 them, described the equator and told how he had 
 risen at sunrise to get a clearer view of it, and took his 
 listeners about the world as sure-footedly as though 
 he actually believed he had been in the places he 
 told of. If he did believe it, he was alone. No one 
 else did, though no one ever told him so. 
 
 Perhaps it is unjust to say no one else believed it. 
 Lottie may have believed it. Lottie Kranz was her 
 whole name. She was the sole night shift of the little 
 all-night lunchroom a few doors down from the sta 
 tion. 
 
 It was at the counter of the lunchroom that the 
 Girdler spun his bravest stories of the baying wal 
 ruses he had strangled single-handed on the shores of 
 the Bay of Fundy; the camels he had ridden over the 
 vineyards of Australia, and the Sultan of Bulgaria, 
 who had begged him to stay and be his prime minister 
 or his general of Zouaves. 
 
 The policemen smoked stogies and listened and 
 wondered wondered how he could get himself so 
 twisted and tangled when he had the whole face of 
 the ball of earth to roam about in his narratives. 
 And Lottie listened and wondered, too. Lottie had 
 not travelled far nor read extensively. It was all
 
 254 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 new and strange to her. The only camel she had 
 ever seen was in a free zoo. It was very fascinating 
 to hear this vivid veteran rover tell of the wild, weird 
 foreigners men and beasts as though they were 
 not wonderful. 
 
 Lottie served the Globe Girdler cup of coffee after 
 cup of coffee, rich with extra cream, just to hold him 
 there as long as possible and hear him talk. He was 
 at his best in his cups coffee cups. He never was 
 asked to pay a check. Eleven years before, the wife 
 of the owner of the little lunchroom had eloped with 
 a plumber, and the Globe Girdler had not sent any 
 thing to the papers about it. The papers all had 
 something about it. But not from the Girdler. 
 Thereafter and forever he was the guest of the house. 
 
 Night after night he held forth in the beanery with 
 his tales of long ago. Why he had made these pil 
 grimages he never told. When, he never discussed. 
 Were they totalled from his own chronicles, he was 
 674 years old and had spent all that time in savage 
 climes, not counting at all the twenty or more years 
 in which he had not missed a night at the station, 
 and during which time he could not, therefore, have 
 wandered abroad to speak of. He let it be known 
 that in his youth he had enjoyed an independent
 
 Ten Dollars Worth 255 
 
 income from a huge estate a family affair, with a 
 crest that he didn t care to talk about too inti 
 mately. 
 
 It grew tiresome after an hour or two any evening, 
 and by 2 A. M. the Girdler usually found himself with 
 Lottie as his lone listener. That was when he was 
 at his best, freed of all restraint of congruity and con 
 sistency, and to Miss Kranz he told tales such as no 
 wanderer ever had brought back to civilization at 
 the hourly risk of life itself. To each tale Lottie 
 would say "Gee ain t that the limit?" and pour 
 him more chickory. 
 
 Each Tuesday afternoon, with his "string" neatly 
 pasted on slips of paper just column-length, the 
 Girdler appeared at the city room of the newspaper 
 and received an order at $5 per column for the column 
 and fraction thereof that he presented. He was 
 scrupulously honest in money. He never turned in 
 for pay what he had not turned in for news. And he 
 always was given the benefit of the split inch, and 
 he never asked for more and never voiced a grievance 
 in the office. 
 
 But one Tuesday he stood with his order in his 
 hand at the city editor s desk and that official turned 
 and asked what he was waiting for.
 
 256 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "I you see that is," began the Globe Girdler, 
 "I ve been thinking." 
 
 "Write me a hundred words about that that s 
 a front-page item," said the city editor.. 
 
 "I ve been thinking," said the Girdler, sidestepping 
 the shaft, "that I ve had an adventurous and exciting 
 career. I ve been all over the world, up and down 
 and across. I ve been immensely wealthy, and there s 
 a little blue blood in me that would sound pretty 
 good. And then, I ve been around that one station 
 so long that I m a landmark everybody around 
 there knows me, and a lot of people are interested in 
 me. I ve " 
 
 "What s all this leading up to?" cut in the city 
 editor. 
 
 "Well," said the Girdler, "I was just thinking 
 that it will be a pretty good story when when you 
 know, when I die." 
 
 " Why, you re not thinking of dying? " 
 
 "No no, I m good for years yet many years. 
 But when I do die, as I said, it ought to make a pretty 
 good story." 
 
 "Yes I suppose so. Never thought of it that 
 way." 
 
 "Worth a column or more, maybe. What do you
 
 Ten Dollars Worth 257 
 
 think?" said the Girdler, looking into the city edi 
 tor s face for the verdict. 
 
 "Oh, that would depend in part on the circum 
 stances of the but why talk about it?" 
 
 "Because I was thinking that when I die it will be 
 worth some space in view of my past and my ac 
 quaintances, and my long residence in the city, and 
 somebody will write it. I, of course, won t write it, 
 as I will be dead. But it will be worth space. And 
 I won t get paid for it, will I? I can t turn in the 
 story of my own death, can I?" 
 
 "You ve been scooped on stories that were pretty 
 nearly as close to you as that, so I guess you ll miss 
 out on that one, too," said the city editor. "What 
 is all this about?" 
 
 "I want to write my own obituary write it now 
 and get my space for it. The few details of the last 
 illness can be easily filled in later. When I die that 
 will be in my territory of course. And, since you 
 admit it will be worth space, and since somebody 
 will write it and get paid for it, who is more entitled 
 to it than I am? Who knows as much about me as 
 I do? Who " 
 
 "Here," said the city editor. "I see your view 
 point. But I never heard of anything so absurd.
 
 258 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 I ve heard of autobiographies, but never of an auto- 
 obituary. What put such an idea in your head? " 
 
 "I ll tell you the truth," said the Girdler. "I 
 need ten dollars the worst possible way. I ve planned 
 and pondered and I don t know where or how to get 
 it. I fell on this idea of writing my own obit and 
 selling it to the paper. You ll need it some time, 
 anyway. I m old and getting older. You might 
 need it soon. Anyway, it s an asset worth buying 
 let me write it and you can pay me space for it and 
 put it on the files for use when released by my death. 
 It s gambling in a future, I realize that. But I must 
 have ten dollars. That s two columns, isn t it? My 
 that s a lot. It will be the biggest story I ever 
 wrote. But I can give you two columns of hot obit 
 about myself. I was born in 
 
 "Never mind that," said the city editor. "Write 
 your notice. I ll pay you out of my own pocket and 
 I ll carry the investment. Then, when it is negoti 
 able, I ll sell it to the paper. I hope that will not be 
 for many years and 
 
 "Done," cried the Girdler. "I wouldn t do this, 
 only I need the ten dollars for something terribly 
 important vital, I might say. I ll have the obit 
 for you day after to-morrow."
 
 Ten Dollars Worth 259 
 
 On Thursday he brought it in, written by hand and 
 in fine penmanship. 
 
 "It will measure a little over two columns a 
 trifle," said he. " But let it go at $10." 
 
 He got the $10 and hurried off, smiling. 
 
 The city editor glanced over it later that evening. 
 He learned in the first line that the Globe Girdler s 
 name was Felix Eppes Hazelton. He had never even 
 suspected it before. The Globe Girdler w r as the 
 Globe Girdler think of finding him Felix Eppes 
 Hazelton. Not that the name meant anything, but 
 to think that the old Girdler had a name and such 
 a funny name. 
 
 In the bombastic and eulogistic style sui generis 
 to the life stories of the dead it spun on through its 
 3,000 and more words a confused narrative of incred 
 ible adventures, explorations, distinctions at hands 
 of barbaric royalty and exotic data culled from stray 
 reading and translated with inaccurate imagination. 
 The final paragraph dismissed the matter of the 
 double decade in local journalism as follows: 
 
 "Having tired of the chameleon life of the soldier 
 of fortune, wanderer, and sojourner, Hazelton came 
 to this city and entered upon a career of service to 
 the daily press to which he devoted the remainder of
 
 260 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 his life with the same earnestness, enthusiasm, and 
 devotion that he had given in his earlier years to see 
 ing the unseen, meeting tribes no white man had ever 
 met before and few since, and circumnavigating the 
 globe. He settled down to reportorial work and 
 applied his natural talents and the experiences that 
 he had gleaned in contact with all manner of men 
 toward brightening the columns of the daily press. 
 He was engaged in this work to the day of his unfor 
 tunate and premature demise." 
 
 The city editor dropped the manuscript. 
 
 "Poor old Girdler," he said, and smiled, then 
 shook his head. 
 
 A copy boy entered with a telegram. The city 
 editor opened it. It was dated at a suburb. It read 
 as follows : 
 
 "Add at end of my obit following paragraph: 
 Hazelton is survived by a handsome young widow, 
 who was Miss Lottie Kranz of this city. 
 
 " GIRDLER."
 
 XV 
 
 THE GANGSTER S ELEGY
 
 XV 
 THE GANGSTER S ELEGY 
 
 ELL, the boys makes a pretty solid front 
 for the funeral when it conies to layin 
 away the Gashouse Kid. A lot o the old- 
 timers what ain t been seen aroun these corners 
 much since the police broke up the distric turns out. 
 They was eleven automobiles, an if the ground had 
 have caved in aroun the Kid s grave an swallowed 
 all what was there they wouldn a ben a pocket 
 picked or a box yegged that night in Chi. That s what 
 we thought o the Kid. Is that there good enough? 
 
 The Kid wasn no grifter. But they all loved im. 
 He was such a nice, quiet little guy, he was, for his 
 business if you can call it a business. The news 
 papers calls him a gunman an a slugger. But he 
 wasn t them. 
 
 He was pretty nifty with his mitts, an for a little 
 sucker he packs a kick in his right what d jar a 
 buildin . He carried his brass knucks in his pencil 
 pocket an when he reaches for em he always looks 
 
 263
 
 264 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 so harmless the other guy never knew he slipped em 
 on till he come to in the emergency ward. But that 
 there wasn his reg lar business. He had a job in the 
 city hall. He didn go there much, but the job was 
 there, anyway. Them other things he done for 
 politics an to take care of his friends. There wasn 
 nobody what d swing faster or harder for a pal than 
 the Gashouse Kid. Do you wonder we was all for 
 im? 
 
 Well, when it got pretty hot aroun lection an it 
 looks like our alderman is gonna get took good, a lot 
 o welchin pups slides out f m under an goes over to 
 where it looks like a soft fall. But not the Kid. He s 
 up to his hip in the battle. He digs up a couple o the 
 crawfish an he gives em a line o talk, an when that 
 don get im nothin he wheels one of em on the side 
 of is head an knocks im forty feet f m his necktie. 
 That there comes off pretty reg lar for a week or so, 
 an a few of em get together an figures it out that the 
 Kid is gotta be stopped. 
 
 He gets a hunch sent his way to lay off. That 
 night he goes lookin for the gang what s framin on 
 im an he hangs a haymaker on the high guy s ear 
 an some rat takes a shot at im f m a doorway, an 
 a couple o dicks comes runnin an that breaks up
 
 The Gangster s Elegy 265 
 
 the arg ment. Next day the Kid gets hepped to who 
 it was pulled that there rod, an of course he sends 
 im word that he ll croak im an goes lookin for 
 im. The guy ducks. The Kid says the town ain t 
 big enough to hold im an he better blow if he 
 wan s to keep on walkin aroun . 
 
 Next night the crowd o cheap thieves an alley- 
 rustlers gets together an they picks three handy 
 boys to get the Gashouse Kid. 
 
 The Kid is standin in Turk McGregor s bar 
 drinkin with the Turk, when the phone rings an the 
 bartender calls the boss. The Turk comes back 
 after he talks an he calls the Kid to one side an he 
 says: 
 
 "I was just talkin with Bull Glunz. He says 
 they s three o them left-handed swill-box robbers 
 out to settle you. They re on their way over here 
 now." 
 
 "All right," says the Kid. "I better not let em 
 start no rough stuff in here," an he starts for the 
 door. 
 
 The Turk takes im by the shoulder. 
 
 "You stick right here," says he. "We got a few 
 good lads here an we ll give em a run." 
 
 "Le go o me," says the Kid. "Wit the coppers
 
 266 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 sloughin joints for a guy spittin on the floor, you 
 can t stand for no shootin in here. What s the use 
 o my gettin you in Dutch?" 
 
 "Never mind me," says the Turk. "We ll- 
 
 " Will you? " says the Kid. " Well, you won t. I 
 guess I ll take mine out in the open where I got room 
 to swing." 
 
 The Kid drinks his drink, puts down his good 
 dough, an walks out. The Turk follows im, beg- 
 gin im not to take on them three. But the Kid 
 he waves im off an he stands on the sidewalk, 
 whistlin kind o quiet, an he looks up an down, an 
 just as the Turk gets to the doorway a big red car 
 pulls up to the curb about a hundred feet down. 
 
 The Kid starts down that way. He s got a gat 
 under his arm an he s got his hand under his coat. 
 He gets halfway over when a bullet spits out o the 
 back o the car, through the isinglass panel. The 
 Kid t rows up his hands an he s got his cannon in his 
 right, an he tries to pull, but his knees doubles up 
 under im an he goes down like his clo s ain t got 
 nothin in em an his gun falls in the gutter. 
 
 The Turk makes a break for im on the run. He 
 hears a lever bein slipped in start, he hears a gear 
 shift grind, he sees the smoke come outta the ex-
 
 The Gangsters Elegy 267 
 
 haust an the big red car is on the getaway. Five 
 minutes later the Turk an two other good men 
 dumps the Gashouse Kid on a sofa in his flat an the 
 Kid s wife is screamin an callin on the saints. 
 
 That there is how the Kid got his. An a finer 
 little gent never thrun a brick or swung a sap. 
 
 Well, it was up to us to give im a sendoff and, as I 
 says, nobody couldn t a asked no finer funeral. 
 His lodge buries im, an if you d a heard that there 
 service you d a done what all of us done. You d a 
 pulled your little rag an cried. It was beautiful. 
 
 We gets together after the funeral an there s a 
 lot o wonderin who was in that car where that shot 
 come from. We all got a pretty close guess, but no 
 body knows exac ly. The alderman he hits the table 
 an he says he ll give a thousan bucks toward makin 
 it worth while for some guy to croak the guy what 
 croaked the Kid. Somebody else tosses in two 
 hundred an pretty soon they s over t ree thousan 
 dollars for a revenge fund. 
 
 We takes four hundred outta that an we buys a 
 granite shaft to go over the Kid s grave in Calvary. 
 An it stands there now, an there ain t many aroun* 
 it what s got anything on it. A committee o t ree 
 was selected for to buv the stone an write the in-
 
 268 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 scription. It was Chimp Carter, Johnny Lavelle, 
 an Gene the Greek. An here s what they cuts on 
 that stone: 
 
 Here lies the body of 
 G. HALLINAN 
 
 The Gashouse Kid. 
 He fought the good fight and he 
 
 died like a man. 
 
 Peace be unto the souls of them 
 what got him. Amen. 
 
 Swell, wasn t it? They must a got somebody to 
 make that up for em. 
 
 Well, we starts out lookin for them t ree tough 
 boys. The Turk says he didn see the number on the 
 red car becus the smoke come out an covers it up. 
 But they ain t no two big red cars aroun the distric 
 with a bullet hole in the back panel, an pretty soon 
 we hear where the car is. We find out who hired it 
 Buck Mellinger. So we lay for Buck an we gets im 
 in a little room off Shrimsky s an Gene the Greek 
 slips a dirk again his ribs an Buck swears he don 
 know nothin . He says he got that there car to go 
 out in the country an when he comes out o his 
 house it ain t there. We know Buck wasn t in it
 
 The Gangster s Elegy 269 
 
 when the shootin was pulled off, becus Buck was a 
 quiet party an that wasn his graft, never. 
 
 Gene the Greek, he was the Kid s tightest pal an 
 he takes it harder, maybe, than even the rest of us. 
 He s huntin an snoopin an askin ticklish questions 
 aroun an even he don get nowhere. It looks like 
 only the t ree guys what was in on the job is hep 
 an they ain t squawkin . 
 
 Well, mont s goes by. They s pretty near t ree 
 t ousan bucks waitin for the boy what blows a 
 tunnel t rough the sharpshooter what unbelted f m 
 inside that there car. An not in s doin . The alder 
 man holds the coin an he keeps us all rememberm 
 that there it is. An there ain t a lad in our end o 
 the graft what wouldn take a chance after that bank 
 roll an to square up for what them bottom-dealers 
 done the Kid. 
 
 Gene he s got a sweetheart, a blond Swede what 
 never was on the level wit nobody. She d been 
 cheatin an deliverin the work so long she didn 
 believe herself. She useta do a little shopliftin* 
 when she wasn too lazy- or too busy keepin cases 
 on her own twisted lies to Gene. The Greek sticks 
 by her, though, an once when she s nailed cold by a 
 private hopper what s hired by a department store
 
 270 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 an who don take no back kiddin f m the alderman 
 or nobody, Gene ups wit four hundred bones cash 
 bond what she blows an he stands for the break, 
 though it wasn comin none too fast for him, at that. 
 
 He was a gambler, Gene was none o your cigar 
 store crap shooters, either. He d play anybody any- 
 t ing for any dough or any part of it. But his graft 
 had went wit the rest when the bulls rousted the 
 good corners an he was just gettin by. But they 
 was always enough for Swede Frieda yes, enough 
 for her, an what she slips away where Gene wasn 
 supposed to know. 
 
 Well, Gene kites out down the state where he hears 
 they s a game runnin to clean up a little bundle. 
 He tells Frieda he ll be gone a week or ten days. 
 She cries Swede tears an she says she ll be mighty 
 lonely, an Gene, who ain t nobody s cluck, can take 
 that or leave it. He swallows it an smiles one o 
 them smiles what only a Greek an a stud player can 
 smile an he says nothin , only he ll be lonely, too. 
 
 He gets to the town what s supposed to be busted 
 wide open an he finds t ree newsboys pitchin dimes 
 an a whist tournament for the Belgians. He s just 
 got time to back-track on a rattler an he don take 
 no layover to send Frieda a wire or nothin , but he
 
 The Gangsters Elegy 271 
 
 heaves into the flat at eight that night. The Greek 
 breezes in t rough the front door just in time to see 
 a husky guy take a back window, an he blazes at 
 him an don hit nothin . An there stands Frieda. 
 
 "Who was thata gink?" says Gene. 
 
 "A he s just a frien o mine," says Frieda. 
 
 "\Yhata he do here when I m away, ha?" says 
 Gene. 
 
 "He well, he I- 
 
 Gene walks acrost an he slaps Frieda on the jaw 
 an she lights on her ear in a corner. The Greek 
 puts up his hardware an he starts for the door. 
 He s boilin , an that Greek is got a nasty disposition 
 when he s that way. 
 
 He gets half to the door an he turns an as he does 
 Frieda kinda groans like. An Gene weakens. He s 
 kinda soft when he s that way. 
 
 An in a minute he s over in that corner on his 
 knees, with that no good Swede s head in his hands, 
 kissin her an savin , "Gooda, kid no, no daddy 
 no hitta no, no." 
 
 An she opens her eyes an she pulls herself up on 
 her feet an he stands up, too, an she kinda nurses 
 the side of her head where Gene clouted her an she 
 swallows hard an chokes once or twice an then she
 
 272 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 lets loose an earful o language that would a made a 
 cab driver sick. 
 
 "You penny -ante, Castle Garden banana peddler," 
 she says. "You short-card bluffer," says she. "You 
 hit me? You lay me out? Me? Me what s got 
 more reg lar men shootin fer a crooked look f m 
 me than d talk to you, you ignorant scum o Europe, 
 you. Well, that s the blow-off. Here s curtains for 
 you, Gene the Greek," she roars. "I give you a 
 lot o class, I did, but f m now on I don know you," 
 an she swings aroun an reaches for her hat. 
 
 "Just a minute," says the Greek. "I ma sorry for 
 whatta I done. Let s take a fresh deal an it s a 
 righta." 
 
 "May be it s a righta for you, you swine," says 
 Frieda. "But get this straight it ain t a righta for 
 me. An it ain t never gonna be. Get outta my 
 way I m goin t rough that door." 
 
 "Yes, you are," says Gene. "You taka off the 
 hat an bringa the grub. I didn t have on train to 
 eat nothin ." 
 
 "Git your own cold scraps like you was used to 
 before I starts cookin for you, you busted fourflush," 
 Frieda kicks back, an she gets as far as Gene s arm, 
 what s stuck out straight between her an the door.
 
 The Gangster s Elegy 273 
 
 "If you wanna leava this flat my flat," says Gene, 
 quiet an cold, "you go outta de back winda like 
 de yellow quitter what he was here when I come in, 
 he went," says Gene. 
 
 Frieda s eyes are burnin . She knows it am no 
 use givin Gene no arg ment an less use to give him 
 no rough house. She takes a deep breat an she 
 looks him square in the eyes an she says : 
 
 "Gene, you step aside an lemme beat it outta here 
 peaceful an quiet. An if you don t I ll stand this 
 here joint as far on end you ll have to get a ladder to 
 crawl f m the sink to the piano." 
 
 "Who s gonna do all that?" says Gene. 
 
 "Me," says Frieda, thumpin her chest. "Me 
 an somebody else. Don t you kid yourself that that 
 guy what makes a getaway t rough that there window 
 is yellow. He ain t afraid o you or no dozen like you. 
 I tipped him to vamp when I hears you at the door 
 cause I didn t want no trouble here." 
 
 "They d a been plenty de trouble," says Gene. 
 
 "You said somethin ," says Frieda. "That there 
 guy was Butch Con way." 
 
 "Butch?" hollers the Greek. "That double-cros- 
 sin welcher 
 
 "That ll be all o that," says Frieda. "I m pretty
 
 274 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 fond o Butch, an you might as well know it. An 
 you better not recite no poetry about it, neither." 
 
 "No, you won t," she says. "Don t go barkin 
 around him or he ll put you were he put the Gashouse 
 Kid, you -" an she slaps her hand over her mouth as 
 Gene starts a step, then stops, then pulls aside an says: 
 
 "You kin go, Frieda," an he holds open the door 
 for her. 
 
 "Good-night, an I hope you like your grub. You ll 
 find some beer on ice, an don t forget to put the cat 
 out, Gene, dear," says the Swede, which was her 
 idea o comedy, an she breezes past him an slams 
 the door f m the outside. 
 
 That night a gat barks twice over in the far end o 
 the ward an the newspapers has another o them 
 front-page stories about a gunman mysteriously 
 settled Butch Conway is found dead an nobody 
 knows how it happened. 
 
 Next day Gene the Greek goes to the Gashouse 
 Kid s flat an he taps the widow on the shoulder an 
 she looks up an he drops twenny-eight hundred an 
 seventy-four dollars an sevenny cents in her lap. 
 
 "Here s a little pot the boys kittied out for you," 
 says the Greek.
 
 XVI 
 
 PICS
 
 XVI 
 PICS 
 
 MANY years ago, in a distant city, on a dark 
 night, and without the knowledge of the 
 police, the Play-plumbers and Scenario- 
 scissorers of a great nation met in executive session 
 to solve a weighty issue. 
 
 The public had demanded crook plays. The party 
 to play opposite the crook, in order that justice might 
 be served and the way of the transgressor be made as 
 hard as possible, was always a rude, flat-footed bull, 
 who slipped bracelets on the wrists of the evil genius 
 and made final exit with this line: "I ll send you down 
 for twenty years for this, Mr. Rat." 
 
 It was not a nice speech. But what could one 
 expect from a dick who wore a celluloid collar? 
 
 So the playwrights of the stage and screen pon 
 dered and pondered, and were at a severe loss until 
 a prominent Melodrama-malefactor arose and sug 
 gested the private detective. The meeting then 
 adjourned. 
 
 277
 
 280 . Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 And there rushed in upon the play market a fiction- 
 fathered female, who, protecting justice and virtue, 
 swung right and left with her sex and her beauty and 
 super-earthly endowments of courage and perspi 
 cacity, bearded the crooked senator, cancelled the 
 mortgage on the little home, elected the handsome 
 juvenile as mayor, and married him for a curtain. 
 And the fagged aisle-seater clapped and was pleased. 
 
 Among those who took in the new dramas with the 
 new fixers were the editors of newspapers. To them 
 it was a suggestion, a new thought. So they set 
 out to hunt girls for their staffs like the girls in the 
 plays. And they have been hunting ever since. 
 And they have found them with the same readiness 
 with which the rich man galloped through the eye 
 of the needle. 
 
 And to this day the hunt is on. But it is now a 
 good bet that the all-heroine girl reporter is a dodo 
 or a blue bird in actual existence, for she fails to be 
 with us. 
 
 I have seen many women reporters come hopefully 
 and go indignantly. Since it became noised that 
 thirty dollars a week awaited the perfect feminine 
 journalist, every girl who isn t trying to enter a 
 chorus, register in a movie, or marry young, has
 
 Pics 281 
 
 sought to report. Now and then one is the daughter 
 of somebody and is wished on the staff. She buys 
 mannish boots and makes ready to interview the 
 nurses who handle crippled children when the town 
 wants to know who s elected; she suggests that the 
 lady s name in the divorce case be suppressed because 
 the lady cried she saw her cry; she wants an armed 
 escort to take her home after dark when all the armed 
 escorts are writing murders or finance. 
 
 For a while she draws pay and disagrees with 
 the policy of the paper. But she never lasts. In 
 hundreds of tries I have known two girls who made 
 good as reporters and surprised and grateful edi 
 tors married them on the spot and retired them before 
 they blew up. They haven t that divining sense of 
 values; powdered noses can t smell news. 
 
 But, since the system has planted itself, and girls 
 seek the jobs who cannot always be turned down, 
 there is one specialty to which an ambitious girl can 
 apply herself on a newspaper and draw something 
 besides ex post facto profanity. She can bring in 
 photographs she can if her name is Miss Jessie 
 James. Before she is on the first column of her first 
 story she is climbing down a column from a second- 
 story, with a photograph for the fourth estate.
 
 282 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 Take a look at your favorite sheet. How many 
 pictures are there? Oh, twenty. Where do they 
 come from? When a party kills her good man, I 
 suppose she mails a cabinet sitting of herself to each 
 paper before she drinks the acid and falls across his 
 dear remains. When a lady elopes, she leaves a note 
 to Mamma and a picture postcard addressed to each 
 city editor yes, she does ! 
 
 Pictures have to be gotten. And they have to be 
 gotten quickly. And they have to be gotten whether 
 they can be gotten or not gotten. They don t 
 come out to meet you. The kind of pictures that 
 newspapers can get easily is the kind they don t want 
 hardly. Pictures occupy a lot of space in a mod 
 ern daily. And getting them is a science, a profes 
 sion, a vocation. 
 
 And as a "picture-chaser" the universal title that 
 goes with the office in every local room the female 
 sniper is sometimes the sharpshooting sister. 
 
 So, when somebody s niece with ambitions to 
 sound the tocsin of a better era for the many gets on 
 the pay roll through the man higher up, the city 
 editor apologizes to the assistant city editor, pokes a 
 thumb back over his shoulder toward the good dress 
 maker gone wrong, and whispers :
 
 Pics 283 
 
 "Pics." 
 
 Pics are pictures photographs likenesses re 
 productions portraits. The cryptic monosyllable 
 means worlds for the young woman who is standing 
 hard by, biting the pencil which she has sharpened, 
 and which, alas, is not to be her tool. She would have 
 done better had she sharpened a jimmy. In prepara 
 tion for journalism she has nibbled at rhetoric; she 
 has probed into metaphysics; she has held hands 
 with the Pythagorean theorem, rehearsed shorthand, 
 and read the life of Horace Greeley. For this she is 
 about to become a burglar, a beggar, a messenger, 
 a, green-goods pusher, a shoplifter maybe a ghoul. 
 
 It isn t overdrawn. I was an assistant city editor 
 once. I sent women after pictures and we printed 
 them. And if the pages of a newspaper could tell 
 stories! . . . However, I wasn t any better than 
 the rest; I couldn t have been much worse. 
 
 In my capacity on a fast metropolitan shriek with 
 a circulation of half a million a day, cut up by a dozen 
 editions between the first market reports and the 
 ninth inning, I ran the legs off many a picture-chaser 
 so fast her conscience couldn t catch her. I was 
 accessory before the fact to many a daylight mis 
 demeanor. I was a martinet but I made many a
 
 282 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 Take a look at your favorite sheet. How many 
 pictures are there? Oh, twenty. Where do they 
 come from? When a party kills her good man, I 
 suppose she mails a cabinet sitting of herself to each 
 paper before she drinks the acid and falls across his 
 dear remains. When a lady elopes, she leaves a note 
 to Mamma and a picture postcard addressed to each 
 city editor yes, she does ! 
 
 Pictures have to be gotten. And they have to be 
 gotten quickly. And they have to be gotten whether 
 they can be gotten or not gotten. They don t 
 come out to meet you. The kind of pictures that 
 newspapers can get easily is the kind they don t want 
 hardly. Pictures occupy a lot of space in a mod 
 ern daily. And getting them is a science, a profes 
 sion, a vocation. 
 
 And as a "picture-chaser" the universal title that 
 goes with the office in every local room the female 
 sniper is sometimes the sharpshooting sister. 
 
 So, when somebody s niece with ambitions to 
 sound the tocsin of a better era for the many gets on 
 the pay roll through the man higher up, the city 
 editor apologizes to the assistant city editor, pokes a 
 thumb back over his shoulder toward the good dress 
 maker gone wrong, and whispers :
 
 Pics 283 
 
 "Pics." 
 
 Pics are pictures photographs likenesses re 
 productions portraits. The cryptic monosyllable 
 means worlds for the young woman who is standing 
 hard by, biting the pencil which she has sharpened, 
 and which, alas, is not to be her tool. She would have 
 done better had she sharpened a jimmy. In prepara 
 tion for journalism she has nibbled at rhetoric; she 
 has probed into metaphysics; she has held hands 
 with the Pythagorean theorem, rehearsed shorthand, 
 and read the life of Horace Greeley. For this she is 
 about to become a burglar, a beggar, a messenger, 
 a green-goods pusher, a shoplifter maybe a ghoul. 
 
 It isn t overdrawn. I was an assistant city editor 
 once. I sent women after pictures and we printed 
 them. And if the pages of a newspaper could tell 
 stories! . . . However, I wasn t any better than 
 the rest; I couldn t have been much worse. 
 
 In my capacity on a fast metropolitan shriek with 
 a circulation of half a million a day, cut up by a dozen 
 editions between the first market reports and the 
 ninth inning, I ran the legs off many a picture-chaser 
 so fast her conscience couldn t catch her. I was 
 accessory before the fact to many a daylight mis 
 demeanor. I was a martinet but I made many a
 
 284 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 reporter. It is the West Point of the commissioned 
 officer of the press, this unpretty business of snaking 
 photographs. Some of my chasers have passed me 
 in the race since; one lived to roast my favorite 
 play in New York, and call its author a "person." 
 
 You may have noticed in the all-star casts that a 
 girl always plays the part of Oliver Twist. For some 
 kinds of picture jobs girls are more effective. They 
 get in more easily and get thrown out less frequently. 
 
 When a new member of no former service under 
 fire joins the camp, the journalistic parallels of 
 blanket-tossing are evoked to show the rookie a 
 rousing welcome and teach him his place. It is 
 customary to send a new reporter to the zoo to report 
 progress on the expected arrival of the papal bull; 
 or to send him on a flying assignment to the corner 
 of two streets which run the same way; or have him 
 call up the archbishop s residence by number hastily 
 slipped into his hand to ask for "Jimmy Ryan," if 
 the dignitary s name be the Rt. Rev. James Aloysius 
 Ryan and suchlike. 
 
 These ill-mannered and irreverent and probably 
 cruel jests are spared the cubesses. The assignment 
 man, with a look of grown-up resignation such as he 
 would carry if he were taking his grandmother to a
 
 Pics 285 
 
 football game or teaching his brother s baby how to 
 do long division, instructs her gravely in every minute 
 detail, explaining as much of the ethics and psy 
 chology of it as he thinks she can digest, and mix 
 ing with that the roughneck facts which she must 
 swallow. 
 
 So, if you bear all that in mind, you may reverse 
 with me to the time when I was that assistant city 
 editor and when this story happened, which I have 
 always since known I should write some day. 
 
 She was just out of college. Her teacher in English 
 12 had told her that she would make her mark 
 in constructive journalism her penmanship was 
 excellent and she had a perfectly cultivated art of 
 never splitting infinitives, something no collegiate 
 alumna would be guilty of ever doing. So she went 
 to her oldest brother except one, whom the owner of 
 my paper had for a year been trying to beat at golf, 
 but couldn t, and unbosomed her call. She showed 
 him her thesis on "A Journey to a Suburb an Ex 
 ercise in Powers of Observation," and he liked it. 
 He recognized the suburb, as he owned lots there. 
 So he let the boss beat him two strokes, and the next 
 day his sister sat nervously on the bench, waiting 
 to be told the subject of her first editorial, though
 
 286 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 she had a few pet subjects of her own that she in 
 tended to speak about. 
 
 I had to keep her waiting a little over two hours, 
 poor child. She had elected 2 p. M. to enter. On 
 an afternoon paper 2 p. M. is just between the explo 
 sion and counting the dead. 
 
 All I had to do between then and 4 p. M. was to 
 answer four telephones twice a minute per, check up 
 on each of twenty-two facts under inquiry for each 
 of thirty-three stories coming in from forty-four re 
 porters, edit copy at the rate of three hundred words 
 the minute, keep the stuff coming out of all the 
 typewriters by deadline, fire a boy, find out that 
 the man who was about to be divorced in our columns 
 as "a trick diver" was only "a truck driver"; save 
 a society paragraph about a function at 10 East 
 Columbus Street, the blue-book section, from getting 
 into print at 10 West Columbus Avenue, the black 
 belt; read the other seven afternoon papers to see 
 that we weren t left on any infinitesimal molecule 
 of news in any of the two hundred and sixty-three 
 city stories, and tell a club woman who called up 
 that we didn t usually settle arguments over the 
 phone, but that to the best of my knowledge Elsie 
 Janis was not engaged to De Wolf Hopper.
 
 Pics 287 
 
 The new attache, when I finally sent a boy to 
 command her presence, after the Penultimate Final 
 had been put to bed and only three of the telephones 
 were now ringing, catacornered over with an ex 
 pression that was to advise me she was not accus 
 tomed to such treatment. I motioned her to sit, 
 talked in two of the phones at once it s easy, a 
 receiver to each ear and addressed her at the same 
 time, while copying from the day s schedule the still 
 breathing assignments as a nucleus for the next day s 
 grind. 
 
 "Lady," said I always a gentleman, though on a 
 successful paper "I have no doubt that you have 
 come here with many original ideas. And, though 
 I have no time to listen to them, I grant you they are 
 good ideas. 
 
 "But, while this is a progressive institution and 
 bright and novel thoughts are the diamonds of our 
 diadem, we have found that we get the best results 
 by developing our new talent through a regular 
 and unvaried routine. 
 
 "Your choice of work most probably would lie 
 along lines of dramatic criticism or talks to unfortu 
 nate girls about to become mothers. But we have a 
 dramatic critic, and the less said to those girls the
 
 288 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 better. So, for the time being, your functions on the 
 staff will embrace the all-important, most particular 
 job of going out after photographs." 
 
 "Photographs!" 
 
 "Oh, well, then, let us call them pictures pics 
 saves time. Now, I know that this is a bit of a sur 
 prise to you. It is to every beginner. Yes, I know 
 you are not really a beginner, that you have had 
 scholastic preparation. Newspapers should be oper 
 ated on academic principles; but I want to tell you a 
 little secret. The man who owns this paper bought 
 it because it pays 11 per cent, on the investment. 
 So we have to print advertising. To get advertising 
 we have to have circulation. To pull circulation 
 we need what? Ah don t say it. Permit me. 
 We need pics ! 
 
 "So, you see, the very heart s blood of the paper, 
 its influence, its mighty tidal force, its 11 per cent., 
 devolve upon your slender shoulders from this mo 
 ment on." 
 
 She looked at me a bit dizzily. It was the old 
 work. She didn t know whether to take me seriously 
 and beat it, or play me for a lunatic and yell for help. 
 Before she had found the logarithm 
 
 "Because you are a girl," said I, "I shall spare you
 
 Pics 289 
 
 needless and painful experimenting and shall give 
 you, in a few rambling comments, the key, the code, 
 the decalogue, the concordance, the who s why, the 
 ladies guide, and the thumbnail nutshell log to the 
 complicated and highly specialized pilgrimage after 
 the elusive photograph. 
 
 "Hundreds of men and women, through indescrib 
 able hardships the pioneers of primitive picture- 
 chasing have sounded the depths of the craft, have 
 found its fallacies, have tracked its trickeries, have 
 mapped its mirages, have standardized its situations; 
 they have worked out to its finest subtleties the habits 
 of the animal and all its young, and invented after 
 a ponderous process of elimination a series of steel 
 traps that deliver the goods, bleating, at the feet of 
 the engraving-room foreman. 
 
 "All this invaluable wisdom, the gleanings of the 
 genius of generations of picture-chasers and their 
 children s children, I am about to impart to you at the 
 cost of but a few minutes, not counting the two 
 hours you waited." 
 
 She was gone. Her chin was higher than the back 
 of her neck, toward me, to drink in these mystic 
 secrets of a subject concerning which, five minutes 
 before, she had never even dreamed. She was gone,
 
 290 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 but she was still there. She was gone, but she 
 didn t know it. 
 
 "The fundamental psychology of this elevated 
 art lies in the baffling discovery that the people whose 
 pictures are most desired at any specific time are 
 just the people who do not desire that their pictures 
 be procured at that specific time. Scan the im 
 portant local news of to-day, or any day tragedies, 
 domestic disasters, breaches of promise, graft, ex 
 posure, romance all unsavory topics. It is unfor 
 tunate, but human beings are so constituted that 
 all they want to know about their neighbors is the 
 worst. And they want the worst illustrated. They 
 not only want to know about the grass widow who 
 eloped with her chauffeur, but they want to see her. 
 They want to see why the chauffeur eloped with her. 
 Her mother will have her photographs. Her mother 
 will be the only woman in town without a curiosity 
 to see those photographs. Her mother will fight 
 the whole world to see that no paper gets those 
 photographs, whereas a week ago she would have 
 paid to have them printed in connection with a char 
 ity bazaar, when no newspaper wanted to print them, 
 and nobody wanted to look at them if one had. 
 
 "In view of this deplorable clash of interests, it
 
 Pics 291 
 
 has been necessary to induce, create, achieve various 
 maneuvers by subterfuge, brass knuckles, or strata 
 gem to get the picture by means other than frankly 
 stating that the city editor would like to have one. 
 
 "These methods range from weeping upon the 
 already aching breast of the next of kin for purposes 
 of exciting sympathy, to high-class safe-blowing, 
 refined housebreaking, or a bit of chloroform, scien 
 tifically administered. Do not misunderstand me: 
 violence is not always necessary, and murder, es 
 pecially, is to be approached only after full realiza 
 tion that the circumstances are extreme and the 
 picture is for the front page." 
 
 She hung on my every word. Her eyes said, "Yes, 
 
 yes go on ! 
 
 "Anyway get the picture! That is the crowning 
 answer. While I again observe that we frown upon 
 wanton shedding of blood, always remember that 
 you have a powerful newspaper behind you, and you 
 need fear nothing. And don t come in and tell us 
 how you got it. If you don t get it we may ask some 
 questions. If you do we have no time to listen. 
 
 "A housemaid is very often susceptible, not shar 
 ing the timely pain and sudden secretiveness of rela 
 tives, and having an indigenous itch for one dollar
 
 292 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 in hand paid; so it is often well to attack the cas 
 tle from the servants drawbridge. Maybe you can 
 get into the house as a census- taker, and, discovering 
 the picture, find a chance to poach it. If the chance 
 is slim, throw a fit, and while the charitable lady runs 
 to get you a glass of water, hook the photo and jump 
 out of the window. 
 
 "Photographers are not supposed to sell private 
 individuals prints, but some of them are unethical; 
 and while we regret this, we cannot make them over, 
 and would accept a photograph thus treasonably 
 given over, and could even be induced to credit the 
 traitrous photographer. 
 
 "Another excellent flank movement which has 
 registered high results, is to suggest that if you could 
 take that beautiful portrait to the office and show it 
 to the city editor, one look at those benign, fragile 
 features would convince him that he shouldn t print 
 the scandalous story at all. 
 
 "Anyway get the picture! To illustrate my 
 earnest sincerity in this incontrovertible principle, 
 may I tell you modestly of an accomplishment of 
 my own, when I was but a struggling picture-chaser? " 
 
 Could I? 
 
 "For three days I had been trying to get a likeness
 
 Pics 293 
 
 of the wife of a prominent sheep-shearing-machinery 
 manufacturer who had precipitately departed for 
 Japan with the son of a nearby glass blower the 
 wife, not the manufacturer. The house was in 
 charge of a faithful servant, impervious to bribes, 
 deaf to diplomacy, with no feeling for artistic illus 
 trations. The flying squadron of every picture- 
 chasing fleet of every picture-printing sheet besieged, 
 stormed, bombarded that lone castle with its garrison 
 of one old housekeeper. And how she stood the 
 gaff! She disconnected the doorbell. She locked 
 all the doors. She took the receiver off the hook. 
 She clamped the windows it was an outrageous 
 case. 
 
 "A rival paper finally executed a simultaneous 
 front-and-rear assault. One reporter threw a brick 
 through the front window, bringing the female Davy 
 Crockett to that end, while another reporter chiselled 
 a back window, broke in through the kitchen, got 
 to the living-room, tore a life-size painting in a gold 
 frame off the wall, and scooted out down an alley. 
 I saw him run. He was fat. I was young and 
 athletic. I caught him cross lots, walloped him on 
 the chin, tore the masterpiece from his still conscious 
 fingers, and, with eight picture-chasers chasing me
 
 294 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 and the picture, managed to make a street car and 
 staggered, panting, with my offering, to the very desk 
 where now I sit, an executive!" 
 
 She would have married me if I had spoken then. 
 
 "You see, I got the picture. That is the feature 
 of the anecdote. 
 
 "Now, having given you in a few succinct sen 
 tences the composite, the nub of the bitter experi 
 menting of the foremost researchers in the alchemy 
 of gilt-edge picture producing, I shall ask you to 
 
 I glanced down at my schedule. 
 
 "To go to this address 
 
 I wrote the street and number on a slip of paper 
 and pushed it into her hungry hands. 
 
 "And get a picture of Beatrice Blaha, who has 
 advertised for her lost dog." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said she. "But suppose she does not 
 wish to give me a picture!"
 
 XVII 
 
 ANNYE S MA
 
 XVII 
 
 ANNYE S MA 
 
 THE genesis of the property man is an abys 
 mal mystery, not only to you outsiders who 
 pay to see a show, but to us insiders who 
 would pay not to. 
 
 The acrobat is a hardy flower, planted in the 
 Turner Halle, nurtured through visible night rehears 
 als and developed to florescence with the purchase 
 of three suits of green tights and one handker 
 chief; the manager is born (Omaha or Odessa) and 
 butterflys into winged bloom by the- warmth of the 
 copper s club chasing a scalper off the sidewalks; 
 the actor, who is also of the theatre, has no graduated 
 progress into the maturity of being, but naively in 
 sists that he can act and there are not enough man 
 agers to convince one actor; the stage carpenter has 
 driven a nail; the scene-shifter has driven a truck; 
 the box-office man was a royal admiral in a past 
 existence, and has the sea-going attributes of a 
 pirate with a salt-water contempt for a landsman 
 
 297
 
 298 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 flying two dollars; th.e usher has tried on a uniform 
 and it fits him; the press agent is a raucous liar - 
 it s a gift. 
 
 But in what obscure incubator is fledged that 
 versatile egg with a round head, that general special 
 ist, that jerry to all trades, that blundering bonehead 
 boob, the property man? 
 
 He is called many names, but he never has one. 
 He is Props. Be he young or tall, be he middle-aged 
 or married, be he Presbyterian or vegetarian, he is 
 never more than two things Props and a good union 
 man. He must be one to be the other. So he is 
 both. Even that doesn t make him well balanced. 
 
 Be it known to all men that if Props wanted to 
 work no one man could contain him. It would be an 
 interesting experiment if a property man who wanted 
 to work ever arose. There would be no limit to what 
 he could do if the union didn t get wind of it and 
 interfere. However, this is about vaudeville, not 
 chimeras. Yet, vaudeville is itself a bit of a chimera 
 fifteen minutes of Melba, sixteen minutes of the 
 Musical Walri (more than one musical walrus), and 
 a week to get over both. Any business that can use 
 on even terms a Guinea singer and a Guinea pig is, 
 shall be, must be, a chimera or what have you?
 
 Annye s Ma 299 
 
 The vaudeville trouper is an impecunious dog. 
 He carries nothing but a stick of No. 11 cheek-bone 
 ochre, a deed to a square mile on Long Island, and 
 resentment against the booking agent. For every 
 thing else he uses he writes ahead. That document 
 is known as a Property Plot. It comes, postage due, 
 to the stage carpenter, who leaves it where the prop 
 erty man will find it if he looks there. In that event 
 Props will read it if he is in the humor. It will in 
 form him of what the turn that sent the plot will re 
 quire a week from the following Monday in order to 
 give a performance. Every item in the plot is a 
 "prop." An artificial pansy may be a prop; two 
 horses may be two props. The range of props is 
 from a roulette wheel to a rosary; from a baby to a 
 bolo; from an aeroplane to a telegraph blank any 
 thing can be a prop except a conscience or your great 
 aunt. 
 
 All these articles are stipulated by commercial 
 nomenclature and special qualifications suggested by 
 the atmosphere, the subtleties or the imbecilities of 
 the act. No forty theatres could have one-tenth the 
 things called for in any plot. What the house does 
 eventually supply, if Props is sober and got a tip last 
 time the act performed there, is usually borrowed.
 
 300 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 The manager equips him with a block of passes, 
 which he gives to clerks in furniture stores for the 
 use of Louis XIV settees, to antique dealers for the 
 use of the battle-axe of chivalry, to the bartender 
 across the street for four fingers, or to the cut-rate 
 ticket shaver for ten cents on the dollar. 
 
 By Monday morning, when the talent oozes in, 
 he has collected a pitiful little heap of miscellaneous 
 rubbish, so that if he has not procured a tabouret for 
 the magician s gold-fish bowl he can at least offer 
 him an icebox or a rocking chair. In addition, he 
 has brewed the liquid factors of our arts weak tea 
 for wine, strong tea for whiskey. His thunder sheet 
 hangs ready to let loose the wrath of the heavens, 
 and in the left pocket of this overalled Aladdin rest 
 the instrumental gurgle of the nightingale and the 
 hoarse coo of the artificial jackass. Ring up the cur 
 tain, the show will now go on. 
 
 Monday morning is a period of petulance, lament, 
 blasphemy, and frenzied preparation about a vaude 
 ville house, which need not be here detailed, as 
 DeQuincey, the well-known hophead, told all there 
 is to say about panic and overnight jumps in "The 
 Flight of a Tartar Tribe." The orchestra leader is 
 puffing to get harmony between the tall soprano and
 
 Annyes Ma 301 
 
 the baritone comic, but they are married; the head- 
 liner is explaining to the carpenter where he is all 
 wrong, all wrong; trunks are banging in, and the 
 juggler is telling the oboe-blower how, when he 
 played in Austria well, it was all different; the 
 trained mongooses are taking exercises and the un 
 trained contralto is taking cold because the alley door 
 must stay open to let in the English ventriloquist s 
 luggage and the American dancer s baggage. 
 
 Props, a string-faked banjo between his teeth, a 
 stuffed owl in his left hand and a statue of Cupid in 
 his right, is strolling lethargically toward the dress 
 ing-room of the monologist, to make plain that hams 
 must smoke their own cigars, these being perishable 
 props and therefore not plottable. 
 
 When all the acts have disorganized the orchestra, 
 informed the manager that under no consideration 
 will they go on because their names are displayed 
 outside the theatre in type of ignominious and in 
 sulting dimensions, set up their sweethearts photo 
 graphs on their dressing-tables and mailed themselves 
 last week s salary in a money order addressed to a 
 secret post-office box in New York, they engage in 
 that amiable pastime known as catch-the-property- 
 man. He is elusive but is eventually cornered. All
 
 302 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 the ten acts, represented each by a committee of 
 from one soubrette to nine men, demand simultane 
 ously to know "How about my props?", Whereupon 
 he, having a rich disregard for actors and others 
 lower than he in the profession, tells them: "Yez sent 
 in your prope ty plots, didn t yez ? All right. Them 
 props ll be there before yez get there. On yer way." 
 
 In the theatre which this story is about to single 
 out, the property man was above and beyond the 
 average. How he had become a property man, why 
 he had become a property man, even when he had 
 become a property man, nobody knew. The man 
 ager of the theatre had found him there. He went 
 with the lease. The union, not the management, 
 assigns property men. 
 
 He requisitioned his passes weekly, and, since he 
 rarely sold all of them, he was slightly more honest 
 than most of them. He had been known to 
 furnish an act with nearly everything it called for. 
 And his props frequently got good notices from the 
 critics, who called them "investitures." So when 
 Hill & Dale, veteran vaudevillians, approached the 
 theatre with their new sketch act, their hearts beat 
 light and free.
 
 Annye s Ma 303 
 
 Hill, who was the husband of Dale, a towering 
 figure in his field, wrote the plot on hotel stationery, 
 with which vaudeville actors are generous, and set 
 out the desired properties, with which vaudeville 
 actors are lavish. The plot, designed to serve the 
 manager for his programing and "billing," the stage 
 carpenter (sometimes called the stage manager) with 
 his scene requirements, the leader with his musical 
 order, and Props with the shopping list of stage 
 notions, read as follows: 
 
 Those Nifty Artists 
 Wilbur HILL & DALE Annye 
 
 In their refined new vehicle 
 "A DAUGHTER S DASTARDLY DEED" 
 
 (Pathetic sketch; two principals; 15| min.) 
 
 OVERTURE: "Mother." Verse and chorus, vamp 
 till entrance. 
 
 SCENE PLOT: Kitchen in 2; door CU, window LU, 
 street backing. 
 
 PROP PLOT: 1 kitchen stove, shiny; 2 kitchen 
 chairs, neat but not nobby; 1 kitchen table, four legs 
 and drawer; 1 checkered tablecloth, fringed but not 
 frayed; 1 rag carpet, not ragged; 1 stove poker; 1
 
 304 Beef y Iron and Wine 
 
 small coal shovel and other stovical accessories, mis 
 cellany, etc. ; 1 lithograph, Mary Pickford, Roosevelt, 
 or selected subject, to relieve bareness of wall; 1 
 portrait middle-aged elderly lady, affectionate-look 
 ing, gray hair, neat frame. 
 
 (Stove DR; table C, with cloth on and chair at 
 each end; litho on wall U, 6 feet from floor; photo 
 old lady hung above door.) 
 
 In English all this meant that the scene was to be 
 set to the depth of the second entrance ("in 2"), 
 which contemplated that the back wall stand about 
 eight feet from the curtain line. There are four 
 entrances through the stationary wood wings, at 
 intervals of four feet "up stage" or back from the 
 proscenium. The capitalized symbols signify: C, 
 centre; L, left; R, right; D, down; U, up. Down is 
 toward the footlights, up is from the footlights. 
 Left is the audience s right, stage markings being 
 determined by the player s position as he faces the 
 house. 
 
 Therefore, Hill & Dale wanted stock scenery, set 
 to a depth of eight feet back of the outer curtain, 
 portraying an atmospheric kitchen, with a stove to 
 their left toward the audience, a clothed table in the
 
 Annye s Ma 305 
 
 centre of the scene, a window behind them to their 
 right, a homely chromo in the centre of the wall and a 
 portrait of a benign, matronly woman hanging above 
 the door behind them and slightly to their left. The 
 orchestra instructions meant that the song, "Mother," 
 played to the length of one verse and one trip through 
 the chorus, would introduce them, and was to be con 
 tinued in piano strain until the first appearance of one 
 of the players through the entrance, when it was to 
 stop abruptly without finishing out the measure. 
 
 Hill & Dale were in a far-off city when they sent in 
 their comprehensive, ambitious, and optimistic ac 
 count of what they would like to have and where they 
 would like to have it. Props opened their letter in 
 due form, and in due time ambled forth to see what 
 he could do about it. 
 
 The theatre had a stove poker, so if he could find 
 a stove to match it his heavy work would be finished, 
 and he could stop at Jake s Place to help the bar 
 tender roast the current bill, which did not do justice 
 to its props, as artistic a jumble of junk as had ever 
 been gathered on a single stage. The life of a prop 
 erty man has many disappointments. He goes to 
 huge efforts to procure a pickle jar, and finds that 
 the wizard takes flags of all the warring nations out of
 
 306 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 it, getting only a faint ripple, whereas if he threw it at 
 his assistant it would be a scream. 
 
 Props found a stove. It was a fancy base-burner 
 in its declension, and might have cost hundreds of dol 
 lars before people learned how to warm up a parlor. 
 For a poverty-punished kitchen range it struck the 
 inspired property detective as the last grasp. He 
 issued a pass to the owner and conscientiously made 
 entry in his little book as follows: "To 1 stove 7 
 passes." He couldn t find a rag carpet, but for only 
 two passes he traded in the use of an imitation Orien 
 tal that wept aloud to Allah. He got a lithograph 
 from a printer free a bockbeer goat. It had been a 
 cruel day s work. 
 
 Next day was just as tight. One of the other acts 
 on the bill had specified a new auto tire. Props tried 
 several cars, but found all the spares chained on, so 
 he borrowed a wagon wheel. Another team called 
 for Vassar pennants to deck a college-girl s dormitory 
 scene. Pennants are pennants. So he got two 
 marked "Cement Show" and six inscribed "Okla 
 homa." That killed the day. And day after day 
 died just like that something attempted, anything 
 done, had earned repose at Jake s. And, since Hill 
 & Dale were favorite headliners and it looked like a
 
 Annyes Ma 307 
 
 big week to come, the market for passes was bullish 
 and Props couldn t afford to waste any in satisfying 
 the temperamental whims of hyperpunctilious hams. 
 
 Monday morning dawned dismal and sloppy. 
 The troubadours poured in dripping and sore. A 
 couple of trains were late, a couple of trunks were 
 lost, the strong man hadn t slept well, the sister-act 
 couldn t book week after next, the trap-drummer had 
 a cramp in his elbow, the manager had a hangover, 
 the nearly human chimp had a baggage-car flea 
 it was a regular Monday morning in a regular vaude 
 ville theatre. 
 
 Hill & Dale, lugging little Dale Hill, just old 
 enough to be ornery and not old enough to make it a 
 three-act, tumbled moistly into dressing-room A, 
 threw their wraps on the zinc make-up table, and read 
 their mail. Nothing in that mail has bearing on the 
 events of this tale. But an incoming actor s mail 
 cannot be hurdled. One must go around it or plow 
 through it. It consists of nine announcements from 
 Italian restaurants to the effect that spaghetti is a 
 specialty, and professional trade is respectfully so 
 licited; seven boarding-houses making known that 
 rates obtain for the profession airy rooms, elegant 
 table; a dealer in second-hand costumes stating he
 
 308 Beef., Iron and Wine 
 
 doesn t care when he is paid, it is a pleasure to deal 
 with artists; suggestions from two theatrical papers 
 that a drop of ink makes millions think; a request 
 from the lady s brother to get him out on bail in a 
 distant city where he was jobbed by the police, 
 though innocent it will never happen again if they 
 pay his fine this last once; notice from the White 
 Rats Actors Union and Associated Actresses of the 
 United States, Mexico, and Canada, that unless back 
 dues are paid they cannot vote for High Chief 
 Exalted Rodent; printed slip from the management 
 that the word "damn" must not be used "during" per 
 formance, as this theatre caters exclusively to ladies 
 and gentlemen also, don t take dressing-room keys 
 out of theatre. 
 
 The little fellow was asleep on a trunk by the time 
 these diverse documents had been discussed and 
 digested, and the headliners strode to the centre of the 
 stage to demand an accounting, punish the guilty, 
 and make each plebeian actor know his place. From 
 billboard type to stage-door salute, the headliner 
 demands preferment and "reco nition." He is a 
 martinet on and a snob off. If business is good he 
 crows; if it is light he asks you what can you expect 
 from such a soused manager and such a pinhead press
 
 Annye s Ma 309 
 
 agent. He wants plenty of room to swell himself, 
 plenty of air when he unbelts to the stage carpenter, 
 and plenty of attention when he tells the leader that 
 the slide tombone is too forte. Even when not wear 
 ing his fur coat he insists on obeisance and genuflec 
 tion. 
 
 So, when Hill talked down to and Dale piped up 
 at the crew, none said them nay. The scenery was 
 let down. Hill tossed it a look with the slant of an 
 eye and said it was rotten but it would do. The elec 
 trician leaped for the marble board and juggled 
 switches at Hill s command until he had just the 
 right formula blending whites, reds, and ambers in the 
 footlights with two open floods of green from the 
 wings to effulge the spirit of a kitchen at eventide. 
 Then Hill went to it with the director, complaining 
 with wringed hands that while the theme of the 
 overture was an apostrophe to Mother, the drummer 
 lit on it as though it were a holler to Mother-in-Law. 
 The matter was compromised. 
 
 Now Hill turned himself to the real business of 
 the transaction. Where was Props? Where the 
 ah, there was Props. Hill rushed him. 
 
 "How about it our stuff where?" 
 
 "Don t git noisy," said Props. "Vaudeville
 
 310 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 headliners ain nothin in my young life. Youse 
 ain t the first act what plays this joint an there ll 
 be a hull lot more after youse is back on the split- 
 week time where youse come from so don t git noisy. 
 Now, what is it youse want?" 
 
 "Why we wrote " 
 
 "I know. I know." 
 
 "We called for- 
 
 "I know what you called for. What you wanna 
 know is what you get. There s the stove. I know 
 it ain t no kitchen stove. But that stove could go 
 in a kitchen. It s a poor kitchen, ain it? Well, 
 poor people takes what they gets. That there s the 
 table. Them is the chairs. Don t kick about them 
 chairs. Some o the best acts in vaudeville has used 
 them chairs an they wasn no kitchen acts, neither. 
 There s your litho an your tablecloth an your poker. 
 An if that ain t the swellest lookin carpet what ever 
 goes in a kitchen you can win a bet." 
 
 And he hitched his overalls and started UC. 
 
 "Hey!" shrieked Hill. "Wait a minute! The 
 picture! That crayon enlargement! The portrait! 
 The life-size face of the old lady the motherly old 
 lady the one what goes over the up-stage door the 
 framed one the picture the motherly old
 
 Annye s Ma 311 
 
 Props turned. 
 
 "Say. Where d you get that hollerin all over the 
 stage? You got a stove, didn t you? You can t 
 beat them chairs, can you? What do you want? 
 Everything?" 
 
 "But, my dear fellow that portrait is in the act. 
 It s got to be there. It s her dead mother. I bawl 
 her out and I point to the picture the enlarged 
 picture of her dead mother. She gets ashamed of 
 herself and she turns straight. It s got to be there. 
 She can t turn straight without a picture of her dead 
 mother, can she?" 
 
 "H m," said Props. "I never thought o that. 
 She couldn use a picher of her dead father, could 
 she? I got a picher of a old man. Her father is 
 just as good. I 
 
 Hill rumpled his fingers through his pompadour. 
 
 "Good heavens, man, no! The mother is in the 
 script. The mother is in the plot ! And the mother 
 was in the property plot. Nothing else can go. I 
 got to have a life-size mother I mean a life-size 
 lady I mean the face of a life-size oh, you know 
 what I mean ! And you got to get it. And have it 
 up there over that up-stage door the picture of a 
 sweet, motherly, kind, good-natured, old dead lady."
 
 312 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "All right, all right," said Props. "If you re 
 gonna split hairs, all right. It s pretty late now, but 
 I ll get it. I d a had it there in the first place if I 
 thought you wanted it. Half o the stuff youse ac 
 tors puts on them prope ty plots is put there jus to 
 see if I m nutty enough to go out an get it. So 
 can the riot. I ll have it hangin over that door. 
 Is that good enough?" 
 
 It was. Hill, muttering about the stupidity of 
 property men, went to his room to unpack. Props, 
 stuttering about the gluttony of pedantic players 
 (fussy bushers) for inconsequential minutiae, went 
 forth. 
 
 Props was in a bit of a pickle. He had been caught 
 short in the pass drive of an active bourse and sold 
 out to the bottom slip. No passes, no picture. But 
 he bethought him of Mrs. Lloyd, who kept a theatri 
 cal boarding house around the corner. Props sent her 
 an occasional patron, so she should be friendly. And, 
 as he remembered it, there was a picture hanging 
 in her parlor that would fill the Hill bill. Mrs. 
 Lloyd had once been a wardrobe woman herself, so 
 she would understand. In a pinch he could appeal to 
 her professional patriotism by picturing the dire 
 emergency.
 
 Annye s Ma 313 
 
 Props rang the bell, but no one answered. He 
 tried the door, it opened. He walked in, looked 
 about, no one was downstairs. He could see the 
 picture. Just what he wanted life-size, lifelike, 
 blown-up photo of an elderly matron with a double 
 chin, framed, glassed, wired. In a minute and a half 
 Props was out of that door with that picture. He 
 could explain later. He was in a hurry. 
 
 The show was on. The acrobats had taken their 
 nine bows and pointed to each other; the sister team 
 had sung "Jerusalem" in ragtime; the uncanny 
 chimpanzee had undressed and gone to bed in full 
 view of the matinee; the blackface had discussed 
 Ford, Bryan, Wilson, short skirts, neutrality, and 
 McGraw; the Russian ballet from Battle Creek had 
 warmed up the house; the World s Only Left-handed 
 Whistler, amid tremendous enthusiasm, had done the 
 Star-Spangled Banner while the kitchen for Hill & 
 Dale was being set. Props hung the picture, gave 
 the tout ensemble the see-saw O. K. 
 
 Everything was where it belonged when the orches 
 tra ripped into the intro. Up went the curtain, 
 and through the centre door came Miss Dale; her 
 face death-green, her eyes doped, dressed in tatters, 
 and reeling like a rag she staggered in. Her hand
 
 314 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 touched a dummy button on the wall, and the foot 
 lights, the wing lights, the spot lights, and the border 
 lights sprang into life almost simultaneously, dis 
 covering Hill on one of the chairs, his head in despair 
 upon his limp arms, as though he had sat through a 
 gruelling vigil and fallen into a merciful sleep. The 
 lights startled him. He arose shakily. The pallid, 
 cadaverous woman started toward him as though in 
 pleading, then sank back as though in fearsome 
 shame her celebrated characterization, the wife who 
 had sinned. 
 
 "Don t hit me, Jim !" she cried. "It s been a bitter 
 night. I m soaked to muh very bones. But I couldn t 
 stand it no longer. So I come back to you. My 
 heart was burnin , Jim. So I come out in the storm. 
 A dog wouldn t of come out on a night like this." 
 
 Hill pulled himself up and together. His splinter 
 ing fist came crashing down upon the board. He 
 kicked the chair out from behind him and strode 
 around the table. He seized her wrist. 
 
 "Where ve you been, Sal?" he barked hoarsely. 
 "Tell me, girl where ve you been? With him?" 
 
 She fell into a fit of consumptive coughing. His 
 fist unfolded. He looked at her, arm s length. His 
 anger died.
 
 Annye s Ma 315 
 
 "Why girl you re sick! You re " 
 
 "Yes, Jim," she wailed. "I m dyin . It s been 
 a-comin a long time. And to-night s storm is the 
 finish, I guess. I knew it. I wanted to come back 
 to you, Jim, before I go away forever and and ask 
 you, Jim ask you if you can forgive me." 
 
 "Forgive you, Sal? You ve broke my heart me 
 what worshipped the ground you walked on, Sal. 
 But I ll forgive you. It was wrong but he tempted 
 you, that monster in human shape! And I ll cut 
 his heart out for this! Don t cry, my girl I ll for 
 give you. Jim forgives you. There!" 
 
 And he folded her head in his mighty arms as she 
 broke into another fit of bronchitis. 
 
 The hug lasted. Slowly she drew back her head. 
 
 "Now I can die in peace, Jim," said she. "It 
 was all I wanted for you, you what I wronged so 
 basely, to say you forgive me and take me in those 
 dear arms once again. Just that, Jim and just 
 one other thing." 
 
 "What is it, girl? Speak." 
 
 "To see my dear dead mother s picture once again !" 
 
 He stepped back, clutched the table with his right 
 hand, and with a sweeping backward gesture of his 
 left as he looked down to her, said huskily:
 
 316 Beef, Iron and Wine 
 
 "Yes, Sal. Your ma was a plain woman, but a good 
 woman. Many a time in them dark, maddening 
 hours when I grew tired o watching for you through 
 that window, watchin for my Sal what never came, I 
 stood and gazed at them sweet, tender features o 
 the woman who put your hand in mine and says, 
 Jim, be good to her, she says. Yes, Sal, if she 
 was alive this day her heart would be broke like mine 
 is, but she would forgive you like I did. Look into 
 them features, Sal. You ll find mercy there!" 
 
 She turned, raising her clasped hands in prayer 
 above her head, and flung herself upon her knees at 
 the threshold. She lifted her head and from her 
 hacked throat came a wild cry: "Mother oh, 
 Mother " 
 
 The cry froze there. . . . 
 
 She looked up into the placid features of that 
 famous and favorite lady, the late Queen Victoria. 
 
 THE END
 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
 GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
 
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 A" ! i 1 1 ii I 1 1 | 
 000816385