THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 BEQUEST OF 
 
 Alice R. Hilgard 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
THE 
 FOUR MILLION 
 
 BY 
 
 O. HENRY 
 
 Author of 
 Cabbages and Kings 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE McCLURE CO. 
 
 MCMVII 
 
Acknowledgment is made to The New York World, 
 
 The Smart Set, and McClure s Magazine 
 
 for permission to republish these stories 
 
 Copyright, 1906, by McClure, Phillips & Co. 
 Published April, 1906 
 
 Third Impression. 
 
 REP GEN. UE. 
 ACCESS. NO. 
 
 GIFT 
 
 Copyright, 1905, by Press Publishing Company 
 
 Copyright, 1903-1905, by The S. S. McClure Company 
 
 Copyright, 1902, by Ess Ess Publishing Company 
 
PS. 
 
 1906 
 
 MM 
 
 Not very lony ago some one invented the 
 assertion that there were only "Four Hun- 
 dred" people in New York City who were 
 really worth noticing. But a wiser man has 
 arisen the census taker and his larger esti 
 mate of human interest has been preferred in 
 marking out the field of these little stories of 
 the "Four Million" 
 
 MS5794Q 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TOBIN S PALM 3 
 
 THE GIFT OF THE MAGI 16 
 
 A COSMOPOLITE IN A CAFE 26 
 
 BETWEEN ROUNDS . 36 
 
 THE SKYLIGHT ROOM 47 
 
 A SERVICE OF LOVE 58 
 
 THE COMING-OUT OF MAGGIE 68 
 
 MAN ABOUT TOWN 81 
 
 THE COP AND THE ANTHEM 89 
 
 AN ADJUSTMENT OF NATURE 100 
 
 MEMOIRS OF A YELLOW DOG 109 
 
 THE LOVE-PHILTRE OF IKEY SCHOENSTEIN . . 118 
 
 MAMMON AND THE ARCHER 127 
 
 SPRINGTIME A LA CARTE 139 
 
 THE GREEN DOOR ......... 150 
 
 FROM THE CABBY S SEAT 164 
 
 AN UNFINISHED STORY 173 
 
 THE CALIPH, CUPID AND THE CLOCK . . . . 185 
 
 SISTERS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE ..... 196 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF A BUSY BROKER .... 207 
 
 AFTER TWENTY YEARS 214 
 
 LOST ON DRESS PARADE 221 
 
 BY COURIER 232 
 
 THE FURNISHED ROOM 239 
 
 THE BRIEF DEBUT OF TILDY 251 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
TOBIN S PALM 
 
 TOBIN and me, the two of us, went down to 
 Coney one day, for there was four dollars between 
 us, and Tobin had need of distractions. For there was 
 Katie Mahorner, his sweetheart, of County Sligo, 
 lost since she started for America three months before 
 with two hundred dollars, her own savings, and one 
 hundred dollars from the sale of Tobin s inherited 
 estate, a fine cottage and pig on the Bog Shannaugh. 
 And since the letter that Tobin got saying that she 
 had started to come to him not a bit of news had he 
 heard or seen of Katie Mahorner. Tobin advertised 
 in the papers, but nothing could be found of the 
 colleen. 
 
 So, to Coney me and Tobin went, thinking that a 
 turn at the chutes and the smell of the popcorn might 
 raise the heart in his bosom. But Tobin was a hard- 
 headed man, and the sadness stuck in his skin. He 
 ground his teeth at the crying balloons; he cursed 
 the moving pictures; and, though he would drink 
 whenever asked, he scorned Punch and Judy, and was 
 for licking the tintype men as they came. 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 So I gets him down a side way on a board walk 
 where the attractions were some less violent. At a 
 little six by eight stall Tobin halts, with a more 
 human look in his eye. 
 
 " Tis here," says he, "I will be diverted. I ll 
 have the palm of me hand investigated by the wonder 
 ful palmist of the Nile, and see if what is to be 
 will be." 
 
 Tobin was a believer in signs and the unnatural in 
 nature. He possessed illegal convictions in his mind 
 along the subjects of black cats, lucky numbers, and 
 the weather predictions in the papers. 
 
 We went into the enchanted chicken coop, which 
 was fixed mysterious with red cloth and pictures of 
 hands with lines crossing em like a railroad centre. 
 The sign over the door says it is Madame Zozo the 
 Egyptian Palmist. There was a fat woman inside 
 in a red jumper with pothooks and beasties embroid 
 ered upon it. Tobin gives her ten cents and extends 
 one of his hands. She lifts Tobin s hand, which is 
 own brother to the hoof of a drayhorse, and examines 
 it to see whether tis a stone in the frog or a cast 
 shoe he has come for. 
 
 66 Man," says this Madame Zozo, " the line of your 
 fate shows " 
 
 " Tis not me foot at all," says Tobin, interrupt- 
 [4] 
 
TOBIN S PALM 
 
 ing. " Sure, tis no beauty, but ye hold the palm of 
 me hand." 
 
 "The line shows," says the Madame, "that ye ve 
 not arrived at your time of life without bad luck. 
 And there s more to come. The mount of Venus 
 or is that a stone bruise? shows that ye ve been in 
 love. There s been trouble in your life on account 
 of your sweetheart." 
 
 " Tis Katie Mahorner she has references with," 
 whispers Tobin to me in a loud voice to one side. 
 
 " I see," says the palmist, " a great deal of sor 
 row and tribulation with one whom ye cannot forget. 
 I see the lines of designation point to the letter K and 
 the letter M in her name." 
 
 " Whist ! " says Tobin to me ; " do ye hear that? " 
 
 " Look out," goes on the palmist, " for a dark man 
 and a light woman ; for they ll both bring ye trouble. 
 Ye ll make a voyage upon the water very soon, and 
 have a financial loss. I see one line that brings good 
 luck. There s a man coming into your life who will 
 fetch ye good fortune. Ye ll know him when ye see 
 him by his crooked nose." 
 
 " Is his name set down? " asks Tobin. " Twill be 
 convenient in the way of greeting when he backs up 
 to dump off the good luck." 
 
 " His name," says the palmist, thoughtful looking, 
 [5] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 " is not spelled out by the Hnes, but they indicate 
 tis a long one, and the letter o should be in it. 
 There s no more to tell. Good-evening. Don t block 
 up the door." 
 
 " Tis wonderful how she knows," says Tobin as 
 we walk to the pier. 
 
 As we squeezed through the gates a nigger man 
 sticks his lighted segar against Tobin s ear, and 
 there is trouble. Tobin hammers his neck, and the 
 women squeal, and by presence of mind I drag the 
 little man out of the way before the police comes. 
 Tobin is always in an ugly mood when enjoying 
 himself. 
 
 On the boat going back, when the man calls " Who 
 wants the good-looking waiter? " Tobin tried to plead 
 guilty, feeling the desire to blow the foam off a 
 crock of suds, but when he felt in his pocket he found 
 himself discharged for lack of evidence. Somebody 
 had disturbed his change during the commotion. So 
 we sat, dry, upon the stools, listening to the Dagoes 
 fiddling on deck. If anything, Tobin was lower in 
 spirits and less congenial with his misfortunes than 
 when we started. 
 
 On a seat against the railing was a young woman 
 dressed suitable for red automobiles, with hair the 
 colour of an unsmoked meerschaum. In passing by, 
 
 [6] 
 
TOBIN S PALM 
 
 Tobin kicks her foot without intentions, and, being 
 polite to ladies when in drink, he tries to give his hat 
 a twist while apologising. But he knocks it off, and 
 the wind carries it overboard. 
 
 Tobin came back and sat down, and I began to 
 look out for him, for the man s adversities were be 
 coming frequent. He was apt, when pushed so close 
 by hard luck, to kick the best dressed man he could 
 see, and try to take command of the boat. 
 
 Presently Tobin grabs my arm and says, excited: 
 " Jawn," says he, "do ye know what we re doing? 
 We re taking a voyage upon the water." 
 
 " There now," says I ; " subdue yeself . The boat ll 
 land in ten minutes more." 
 
 " Look," says he, " at the light lady upon the 
 bench. And have ye forgotten the nigger man that 
 burned me ear? And isn t the money I had gone a 
 dollar sixty-five it was ? " 
 
 I thought he was no more than summing up his 
 catastrophes so as to get violent with good excuse, 
 as men will do, and I tried to make him understand 
 such things was trifles. 
 
 " Listen," says Tobin. " Ye ve no ear for the gift 
 of prophecy or the miracles of the inspired. What 
 did the palmist lady tell ye out of me hand? Tis 
 coming true before your eyes. * Look out, says she, 
 
 [7] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 * for a dark man and a light woman ; they ll bring ye 
 trouble. Have ye forgot the nigger man, though 
 he got some of it back from me fist? Can ye show 
 me a lighter woman than the blonde lady that was 
 the cause of me hat falling in the water? And 
 where s the dollar sixty-five I had in me vest when we 
 left the shooting gallery ? " 
 
 The way Tobin put it, it did seem to corroborate 
 the art of prediction, though it looked to me that 
 these accidents could happen to any one at Coney 
 without the implication of palmistry. 
 
 Tobin got up and walked around on deck, looking 
 close at the passengers out of his little red eyes. I 
 asked him the interpretation of his movements. Ye 
 never know what Tobin has in his mind until he 
 begins to carry it out. 
 
 " Ye should know," says he, " I m working out the 
 salvation promised by the lines in me palm. I m 
 looking for the crooked-nose man that s to bring the 
 good luck. Tis all that will save us. Jawn, did ye 
 ever see a straighter-nosed gang of hellions in the 
 days of your life? " 
 
 Twas the nine-thirty boat, and we landed and 
 walked up-town through Twenty-second Street, Tobin 
 being without his hat. 
 
 On a street corner, standing under a gas-light and 
 [8] 
 
TOBIN S PALM 
 
 looking over the elevated road at the moon, was a 
 man. A long man he was, dressed decent, with a 
 segar between his teeth, and I saw that his nose made 
 two twists from bridge to end, like the wriggle of a 
 snake. Tobin saw it at the same time, and I heard 
 him breathe hard like a horse when you take the sad 
 dle off. He went straight up to the man, and I went 
 with him. 
 
 " Good-night to ye," Tobin says to the man. The 
 man takes out his segar and passes the compliments, 
 sociable. 
 
 " Would ye hand us your name," asks Tobin, 
 " and let us look at the size of it? It may be our 
 duty to become acquainted with ye." 
 
 " My name," says the man, polite, " is Frieden- 
 hausman Maximus G. Friedenhausman." 
 
 " Tis the right length," says Tobin. " Do you 
 spell it with an o anywhere down the stretch of 
 it?" 
 
 " I do not," says the man. 
 
 "Can ye spell it with an o ?" inquires Tobin, 
 turning anxious. 
 
 " If your conscience," says the man with the nose, 
 " is indisposed toward foreign idioms ye might, to 
 please yourself, smuggle the letter into the penulti 
 mate syllable." 
 
 [9] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 " Tis well," says Tobin. " Ye re in the presence 
 of Jawn Malone and Daniel Tobin." 
 
 " Tis highly appreciated," says the man, with a 
 bow. " And now since I cannot conceive that ye 
 would hold a spelling bee upon the street corner, will 
 ye name some reasonable excuse for being at large ? " 
 
 " By the two signs," answers Tobin, trying to ex 
 plain, " which ye display according to the reading of 
 the Eygptian palmist from the sole of me hand, ye ve 
 been nominated to offset with good luck the lines of 
 trouble leading to the nigger man and the blonde lady 
 with her feet crossed in the boat, besides the financial 
 loss of a dollar sixty-five, all so far fulfilled accord 
 ing to Hoyle." 
 
 The man stopped smoking and looked at me. 
 
 " Have ye any amendments," he asks, " to offer to 
 that statement, or are ye one too? I thought by the 
 looks of ye ye might have him in charge." 
 
 " None," says I to him, " except that as one horse 
 shoe resembles another so are ye the picture of good 
 luck as predicted by the hand of me friend. If not, 
 then the lines of Danny s hand may have been crossed, 
 I don t know." 
 
 " There s two of ye," says the man with the nose, 
 looking up and down for the sight of a policeman. 
 " I ve enjoyed your company immense. Good-night." 
 
 [10] 
 
TOBIN S PALM 
 
 With that he shoves his segar in his mouth and 
 moves across the street, stepping fast. But Tobin 
 sticks close to one side of him and me at the other. 
 
 " What ! " says he, stopping on the opposite side 
 walk and pushing back his hat; "do ye follow me? 
 I tell ye," he says, very loud, " I m proud to have 
 met ye. But it is my desire to be rid of ye. I am 
 off to me home." 
 
 " Do," says Tobin, leaning against his sleeve. 
 " Do be off to your home. And I will sit at the door 
 of it till ye come out in the morning. For the de 
 pendence is upon ye to obviate the curse of the nigger 
 man and the blonde lady and the financial loss of the 
 one-sixty-five." 
 
 " "Tis a strange hallucination," says the man, turn 
 ing to me as a more reasonable lunatic. "Hadn t 
 ye better get him home? " 
 
 " Listen, man," says I to him. " Daniel Tobin is 
 as sensible as he ever was. Maybe he is a bit de 
 ranged on account of having drink enough to dis 
 turb but not enough to settle his wits, but he is no 
 more than following out the legitimate path of his 
 superstitions and predicaments, which I will explain 
 to you." With that I relates the facts about the 
 palmist lady and how the finger of suspicion points 
 to him as an instrument of good fortune. " Now, 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 understand," I concludes, " my position in this riot. 
 I am the friend of me friend Tobin, according to me 
 interpretations. "Pis easy to be a friend to the pros 
 perous, for it pays ; tis not hard to be a friend to the 
 poor, for ye get puffed up by gratitude and have 
 your picture printed standing in front of a tenement 
 with a scuttle of coal and an orphan in each hand. 
 But it strains the art of friendship to be true friend 
 to a born fool. And that s what I m doing," says I, 
 " for, in my opinion, there s no fortune to be read 
 from the palm of me hand that wasn t printed there 
 with the handle of a pick. And, though ye ve got 
 the crookedest nose in New York City, I misdoubt 
 that all the fortune-tellers doing business could milk 
 good luck from ye. But the lines of Danny s hand 
 pointed to ye fair, and I ll assist him to experiment 
 with ye until he s convinced ye re dry." 
 
 After that the man turns, sudden, to laughing. 
 He leans against a corner and laughs considerable. 
 Then he claps me and Tobin on the backs of us and 
 takes us by an arm apiece. 
 
 " Tis my mistake," says he. " How could I be 
 expecting anything so fine and wonderful to be turn 
 ing the corner upon me? I came near being found 
 unworthy. Hard by," says he, " is a cafe, snug and 
 suitable for the entertainment of idiosyncrasies. Let 
 
TOBIN S PALM 
 
 us go there and have drink while we discuss the un 
 availability of the categorical." 
 
 So saying, he marched me and Tobin to the back 
 room of a saloon, and ordered the drinks, and laid the 
 money on the table. He looks at me and Tobin like 
 brothers of his, and we have the segars. 
 
 " Ye must know," says the man of destiny, " that 
 me walk in life is one that is called the literary. I 
 wander abroad be night seeking idiosyncrasies in the 
 masses and truth in the heavens above. When ye 
 came upon me I was in contemplation of the elevated 
 road in conjunction with the chief luminary of night. 
 The rapid transit is poetry and art: the moon but 
 a tedious, dry body, moving by rote. But these are 
 private opinions, for, in the business of literature, the 
 conditions are reversed. 5 Tis me hope to be writing 
 a book to explain the strange things I have discov 
 ered in life." 
 
 " Ye will put me in a book," says Tobin, disgusted ; 
 " will ye put me in a book? " 
 
 " I will not," says the man, " for the covers will 
 not hold ye. Not yet. The best I can do is to enjoy 
 ye meself , for the time is not ripe for destroying the 
 limitations of print. Ye would look fantastic in 
 type. All alone by meself must I drink this cup of 
 joy. But, I thank ye, boys; I am truly grateful." 
 
 [13] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 " The talk of ye," says Tobin, blowing through his 
 moustache and pounding the table with his fist, " is an 
 eyesore to me patience. There was good luck prom 
 ised out of the crook of your nose, but ye bear fruit 
 like the bang of a drum. Ye resemble, with your 
 noise of books, the wind blowing through a crack. 
 Sure, now, I would be thinking the palm of me hand 
 lied but for the coming true of the nigger man and 
 the blonde lady and 
 
 " Whist ! " says the long man ; " would ye be led 
 astray by physiognomy? Me nose will do what it 
 can within bounds. Let us have these glasses filled 
 again, for tis good to keep idiosyncrasies well mois 
 tened, they being subject to deterioration in a dry 
 moral atmosphere." 
 
 So, the man of literature makes good, to my no 
 tion, for he pays, cheerful, for everything, the capi 
 tal of me and Tobin being exhausted by prediction. 
 But Tobin is sore, and drinks quiet, with the red 
 showing in his eye. 
 
 By and by we moved out, for twas eleven o clock, 
 and stands a bit upon the sidewalk. And then the 
 man says he must be going home, and invites me and 
 Tobin to walk that way. We arrives on a side street 
 two blocks away where there is a stretch of brick 
 houses with high stoops and iron fences. The man 
 
TOBIN S PALM 
 
 stops at one of them and looks up at the top windows 
 which he finds dark. 
 
 " Tis me humble dwelling," says he, " and I begin 
 to perceive by the signs that me wife has retired to 
 slumber. Therefore I will venture a bit in the way 
 of hospitality. Tis me wish that ye enter the base 
 ment room, where we dine, and partake of a reason 
 able refreshment. There will be some fine cold fowl 
 and cheese and a bottle or two of ale. Ye will be 
 welcome to enter and eat, for I am indebted to ye for 
 diversions." 
 
 The appetite and conscience of me and Tobin was 
 congenial to the proposition, though twas sticking 
 hard in Danny s superstitions to think that a few 
 drinks and a cold lunch should represent the good 
 fortune promised by the palm of his hand. 
 
 " Step down the steps," says the man with the 
 crooked nose, " and I will enter by the door above 
 and let ye in. I will ask the new girl we have in the 
 kitchen," says he, " to make ye a pot of coffee to 
 drink before ye go. Tis fine coffee Katie Mahorner 
 makes for a green girl just landed three months. 
 Step in, 9 says the man, " and I ll send her down to 
 
 ye." 
 
 [15] 
 
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI 
 
 ONE dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. 
 And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved 
 one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and 
 the vegetable man and the butcher until one s cheeks 
 burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that 
 such close dealing implied. Three times Delia counted 
 it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next 
 day would be Christmas. 
 
 There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on 
 the shabby little couch and howl. So Delia did it. 
 Which instigates the moral reflection that life is 
 made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles pre 
 dominating. 
 
 While the mistress of the home is gradually sub 
 siding from the first stage to the second, take a look 
 at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. -It 
 did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly 
 had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy 
 squad. 
 
 In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which 
 no letter would go, and an electric button from which 
 
 [16] 
 
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI 
 
 no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertain 
 ing thereunto was a card bearing the name " Mr. 
 James Dillingham Young." 
 
 The " Dillingham " had been flung to the breeze 
 during a former period of prosperity when its pos 
 sessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the 
 income was shrunk to $20, the letters of " Dilling 
 ham " looked blurred, as though they were thinking 
 seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming 
 D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young 
 came home and reached his flat above he was called 
 * Jim " and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dilling 
 ham Young, already introduced to you as Delia. 
 Which is all very good. 
 
 Delia finished her cry and attended to her cheeks 
 with the powder rag. She stood by the window and 
 looked out dully at a grey cat walking a grey fence 
 in a grey backyard. To-morrow would be Christ 
 mas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy 
 Jim a present. She had been saving every penny 
 she could for months, with this result. Twenty dol 
 lars a week doesn t go far. Expenses had been 
 greater than she had calculated. They always are. 
 Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. 
 Many a happy hour she had spent planning for some 
 thing nice for him. Something fine and rare and 
 
 [17] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 sterling something just a little bit near to being 
 worthy of the honour of being owned by Jim. 
 
 There was a pier-glass between the windows of the 
 room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 
 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by 
 observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longi 
 tudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of 
 his looks. Delia, being slender, had mastered the 
 art. 
 
 Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood 
 before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, 
 but her face had lost its colour within twenty sec 
 onds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it 
 fall to its full length. 
 
 Now, there were two possessions of the James Dil- 
 lingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty 
 pride. One was Jim s gold watch that had been his 
 father s and his grandfather s. The other was Delia s 
 hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across 
 the airshaft, Delia would have let her hair hang out 
 the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her 
 Majesty s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon 
 been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in 
 the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch 
 every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his 
 beard from envy. 
 
 [18] 
 
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI 
 
 So now Delia s beautiful hair fell about her, rip 
 pling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. 
 It reached below her knee and made itself almost a 
 garment for her. And then she did it up again nerv 
 ously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute 
 and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the 
 worn red carpet. 
 
 On went her old brown jacket; on went her old 
 brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the bril 
 liant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the 
 door and down the stairs to the street. 
 
 Where she stopped the sign read : " Mme. Sof ronie. 
 Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Delia ran, 
 and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too 
 white, chilly, hardly looked the " Sofronie." 
 
 " Will you buy my hair ? " asked Delia. 
 
 " I buy hair," said Madame. " Take yer hat off 
 and let s have a sight at the looks of it." 
 
 Down rippled the brown cascade. 
 
 " Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass 
 with a practised hand. 
 
 " Give it to me quick," said Delia, 
 
 Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy 
 wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ran 
 sacking the stores for Jim s present. 
 
 She found it at last. It surely had been made for 
 [19] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 Jim and no one else. There was no other like it 
 in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them 
 inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and 
 chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by 
 substance alone and not by meretricious ornamenta 
 tion as all good things should do. It was even 
 worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she 
 knew that it must be Jim s. It was like him. Quiet 
 ness and value the description applied to both. 
 Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and 
 she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain 
 on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about 
 the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, 
 he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of 
 the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain. 
 
 When Delia reached home her intoxication gave 
 way a little to prudence and reason. She got out 
 her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to 
 work repairing the ravages made by generosity 
 added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, 
 dear friends a mammoth task. 
 
 Within forty minutes her head was covered with 
 tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonder 
 fully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her 
 reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and criti 
 cally, 
 
 [20] 
 
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI 
 
 " If Jim doesn t kill me," she said to herself, " be 
 fore he takes a second look at me, he ll say I look 
 like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I 
 do oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- 
 seven cents? " 
 
 At 7 o clock the coffee was made and the frying- 
 pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to 
 cook the chops. 
 
 Jim was never late. Delia doubled the fob chain 
 in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near 
 the door that he always entered. Then she heard 
 his step on the stair away down on the first flight, 
 and she turned white for just a moment. She had a 
 habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest 
 everyday things, and now she whispered : " Please 
 God, make him think I am still pretty." 
 
 The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed 
 it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, 
 he was only twenty-two and to be burdened with a 
 family ! He needed a new overcoat and he was with 
 out gloves. 
 
 Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a 
 setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon 
 Delia, and there was an expression in them that she 
 could not read, and it terrified her. It was not 
 anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 nor any of the sentiments that she had been pre 
 pared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that 
 peculiar expression on his face. 
 
 Delia wriggled off the table and went for him. 
 
 66 Jim, darling," she cried, " don t look at me that 
 way. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I 
 couldn t have lived through Christmas without giving 
 you a present. It ll grow out again you won t 
 mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows 
 awfully f asto Say * Merry Christmas ! Jim, and 
 let s be happy. You don t know what a nice what 
 a beautiful, nice gift I ve got for you." 
 
 " You ve cut off your hair? " asked Jim, labori 
 ously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact 
 yet even after the hardest mental labour. 
 
 " Cut it off and sold it," said Delia. " Don t you 
 like me just as well, anyhow? I m me without my 
 hair, ain t I?" 
 
 Jim looked about the room curiously 
 
 " You say your hair is gone? " he said, with an air 
 almost of idiocy. 
 
 " You needn t look for it," said Delia. It s sold, 
 I tell you sold and gone, too. It s Christmas Eve, 
 boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe 
 the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on 
 with a sudden serious sweetness, " but nobody could 
 
 [22] 
 
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI 
 
 ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops 
 on, Jim ? " 
 
 Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He 
 enfolded his Delia. For ten seconds let us regard 
 with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object 
 in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a 
 million a year what is the difference? A mathe 
 matician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. 
 The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not 
 among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated 
 later on. 
 
 Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and 
 threw it upon the table. 
 
 " Don t make any mistake, Dell," he said, " about 
 me. I don t think there s anything in the way of a 
 haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me 
 like my girl any less. But if you ll unwrap that 
 package you may see why you had me going a while 
 at first." 
 
 White fingers and nimble tore at the string and 
 paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and 
 then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical 
 tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employ 
 ment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the 
 flat. 
 
 For there lay The Combs the set of combs, side 
 [23] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 and back, that Delia had worshipped for long in 
 a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tor 
 toise shell, with jewelled rims just the shade to 
 wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were ex 
 pensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply 
 craved and yearned over them without the least hope 
 of possession. And now, they were hers, but the 
 tresses that should have adorned the coveted adorn 
 ments were gone. 
 
 But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length 
 she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile 
 and say : " My hair grows so fast, Jim ! " 
 
 And then Delia leaped up like a little singed cat 
 and cried, "Oh, oh!" 
 
 Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She 
 held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The 
 dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection 
 of her bright and ardent spirit. 
 
 " Isn t it a dandy, Jim ? I hunted all over town 
 to find it. You ll have to look at the time a hundred 
 times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to 
 see how it looks on it." 
 
 Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch 
 and put his hands under the back of his head and 
 smiled. 
 
 " Dell," said he, " let s put our Christmas pres- 
 [24] 
 
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI 
 
 ents away and keep em a while. They re too nice 
 to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the 
 money to buy your combs. And now suppose you 
 put the chops on." 
 
 The magi, as you know, were wise men wonder 
 fully wise men who brought gifts to the Babe in the 
 manger. They invented the art of giving Christ 
 mas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt 
 wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange 
 in case of duplication. And here I have lamely re 
 lated to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish 
 children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for 
 each other the greatest treasures of their house. But 
 in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said 
 that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. 
 Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are 
 wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the 
 magi. 
 
& COSMOPOLITE IN A CAFE 
 
 AT midnight the cafe was crowded. By some 
 chance the little table at which I sat had escaped 
 the eye of incomers, and two vacant chairs at it 
 extended their arms with venal hospitality to the 
 influx of patrons. 
 
 And then a cosmopolite sat in one of them, and I 
 was glad, for I held a theory that since Adam no true 
 citizen of the world has existed. We hear of them, 
 and we see foreign labels on much luggage, but we 
 find travellers instead of cosmopolites. 
 
 I invoke your consideration of the scene the mar 
 ble-topped tables, the range of leather-upholstered 
 wall seats, the gay company, the ladies dressed in 
 demi-state toilets, speaking in an exquisite visible 
 chorus of taste, economy, opulence or art; the sedu 
 lous and largess-loving garcons, the music wisely 
 catering to all with its raids upon the composers; 
 the melange of talk and laughter and, if you will, 
 the Wiirzburger in the tall glass cones that bend 
 to your lips as a ripe cherry sways on its branch 
 to the beak of a robber jay. I was told by a sculptor 
 from Mauch Chunk that the scene was truly Parisian. 
 
 [26] 
 
A COSMOPOLITE IN A CAFE 
 
 My cosmopolite was named E. Rushmore Coglan, 
 and he will be heard from next summer at Coney 
 Island. He is to establish a new " attraction " there, 
 he informed me, offering kingly diversion. And 
 then his conversation rang along parallels of latitude 
 and longitude. He took the great, round world in 
 his hand, so to speak, familiarly, contemptuously, and 
 it seemed no larger than the seed of a Maraschino 
 cherry in a table d hote grape fruit. He spoke dis 
 respectfully of the equator, he skipped from conti 
 nent to continent, he derided the zones, he mopped up 
 the high seas with his napkin. With a wave of his 
 hand he would speak of a certain bazaar in Hydera 
 bad. Whiff! He would have you on skis in Lap 
 land. Zip! Now you rode the breakers with the 
 Kanakas at Kealaikahiki. Presto ! He dragged you 
 through an Arkansas post-oak swamp, let you dry for 
 a moment on the alkali plains of his Idaho ranch, then 
 whirled you into the society of Viennese archdukes. 
 Anon he would be telling you of a cold he acquired 
 in a Chicago lake breeze and how old Escamila cured 
 it in Buenos Ayres with a hot infusion of the chu- 
 chula weed. You would have addressed a letter to 
 " E. Rushmore Coglan, Esq., the Earth, Solar Sys 
 tem, the Universe," and have mailed it, feeling con 
 fident that it would be delivered to him. 
 
 [27] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 I was sure that I had found at last the one true 
 cosmopolite since Adam, and I listened to his world 
 wide discourse fearful lest I should discover in it 
 the local note of the mere globe-trotter. But his 
 opinions never fluttered or drooped; he was as im 
 partial to cities, countries and continents as the winds 
 or gravitation. 
 
 And as E. Rushmore Coglan prattled of this little 
 planet I thought with glee of a great almost-cos- 
 mopolite who wrote for the whole world and dedi 
 cated himself to Bombay. In a poem he has to say 
 that there is pride and rivalry between the cities 
 of the earth, and that " the men that breed from 
 them, they traffic up and down, but cling to their 
 cities hem as a child to the mother s gown." And 
 whenever they walk " by roaring streets unknown " 
 they remember their native city " most faithful, fool 
 ish, fond ; making her mere-breathed name their bond 
 upon their bond." And my glee was roused because 
 I had caught Mr. Kipling napping. Here I had 
 found a man not made from dust; one who had no 
 narrow boasts of birthplace or country ; one who, if 
 he bragged at all, would brag of his whole round 
 globe against the Martians and the inhabitants of 
 the Moon. 
 
 Expression on these subjects was precipitated 
 [28] 
 
A COSMOPOLITE IN A CAFE 
 
 from E. Rushmore Coglan by the third corner to our 
 table. While Coglan was describing to me the topog 
 raphy along the Siberian Railway the orchestra glided 
 into a medley. The concluding air was " Dixie," 
 and as the exhilarating notes tumbled forth they 
 were almost overpowered by a great clapping of 
 hands from almost every table. 
 
 It is worth a paragraph to say that this remark 
 able scene can be witnessed every evening in num 
 erous cafes in the City of New York. Tons of brew 
 have been consumed over theories to account for it. 
 Some have conjectured hastily that all Southerners 
 in town hie themselves to cafes at nightfall. This 
 applause of the " rebel " air in a Northern city does 
 puzzle a little ; but it is not insolvable. The war with 
 Spain, many years generous mint and watermelon 
 crops, a few long-shot winners at the New Orleans 
 race-track, and the brilliant banquets given by the 
 Indiana and Kansas citizens who compose the North 
 Carolina Society have made the South rather a 
 " fad " in Manhattan. Your manicure will lisp 
 softly that your left forefinger reminds her so much 
 of a gentleman s in Richmond, Va. Oh, certainly; 
 but many a lady has to work now the war, you 
 know. 
 
 When " Dixie " was being played a dark-haired 
 [29] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 young man sprang up from somewhere with a Mosby 
 guerrilla yell and waved frantically his soft-brimmed 
 hat. Then he strayed through the smoke, dropped 
 into the vacant chair at our table and pulled out 
 cigarettes. 
 
 The evening was at the period when reserve is 
 thawed. One of us mentioned three Wiirzburgers 
 to the waiter; the dark-haired young man acknowl 
 edged his inclusion in the order by a smile and a 
 nod. I hastened to ask him a question because I 
 wanted to try out a theory I had. 
 
 " Would you mind telling me," I began, " whether 
 you are from " 
 
 The fist of E. Rushmore Coglan banged the table 
 and I was jarred into silence. 
 
 "Excuse me," said he, "but that s a question I 
 never like to hear asked. What does it matter where 
 a man is from? Is it fair to judge a man by his 
 post-office address? Why, I ve seen Kentuckians 
 who hated whiskey, Virginians who weren t descended 
 from Pocahontas, Indianians who hadn t written a 
 novel, Mexicans who didn t wear velvet trousers with 
 silver dollars sewed along the seams, funny English 
 men, spendthrift Yankees, cold-blooded Southerners, 
 narrow-minded Westerners, and New Yorkers who 
 were too busy to stop for an hour on the street to 
 
 [30] 
 
A COSMOPOLITE IN A CAFE 
 watch a one-armed grocer s clerk do up cranberries 
 in paper bags. Let a man be a man and don t handi 
 cap him with the label of any section." 
 
 " Pardon me," I said, " but my curiosity was not 
 altogether an idle one. I know the South, and when 
 the bands plays Dixie I like to observe. I have 
 formed the belief that the man who applauds that 
 air with special violence and ostensible sectional 
 loyalty is invariably a native of either Secaucus, N. 
 J., or the district between Murray Hill Lyceum and 
 the Harlem River, this city. I was about to put my 
 opinion to the test by inquiring of this gentleman 
 when you interrupted with your own larger theory, 
 I must confess." 
 
 And now the dark-haired young man spoke to me, 
 and it became evident that his mind also moved along 
 its own set of grooves. 
 
 " I should like to be a periwinkle," said he, mys 
 teriously, "on the top of a valley, and sing too- 
 ralloo-ralloo." 
 
 This was clearly too obscure, so I turned again to 
 Coglan. 
 
 "I ve been around the world twelve times," said 
 he. " I know an Esquimau in Upernavik who sends 
 to Cincinnati for his neckties, and I saw a goat- 
 herder in Uruguay who won a prize in a Battle 
 
 [31] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 Creek breakfast food puzzle competition. I pay rent 
 on a room in Cairo, Egypt, and another in Yoko 
 hama all the year around. I ve got slippers waiting 
 for me in a tea-house in Shanghai, and I don t have 
 to tell em how to cook my eggs in Rio Janeiro or 
 Seattle. It s a mighty little old world. What s the 
 use of bragging about being from the North, or the 
 South, or the old manor house in the dale, or Euclid 
 avenue, Cleveland, or Pike s Peak, or Fairfax County, 
 Va., or Hooligan s Flats or any place? It ll be a 
 better world when we quit being fools about some 
 mildewed town or ten acres of swampland just be 
 cause we happened to be born there." 
 
 " You seem to be a genuine cosmopolite," I said, 
 admiringly. " But it also seems that you would de 
 cry patriotism." 
 
 "A relic of the stone age," declared Coglan, 
 warmly. " We are all brothers Chinamen, Eng 
 lishmen, Zulus, Patagonians and the people in the 
 bend of the Kaw River. Some day all this petty 
 pride in one s city or State or section or country 
 will be wiped out, and we ll all be citizens of the 
 world, as we ought to be." 
 
 " But while you are wandering in foreign lands," 
 I persisted, " do not your thoughts revert to some 
 
 spot some dear and " 
 
 [32] 
 
A COSMOPOLITE IN A CAFE 
 
 "Nary a spot," interrupted E. R. Coglan, flip 
 pantly. " The terrestrial, globular, planetary hunk 
 of matter, slightly flattened at the poles, and known 
 as the Earth, is my abode. I ve met a good many 
 object-bound citizens of this country abroad. I ve 
 seen men from Chicago sit in a gondola in Venice 
 on a moonlight night and brag about their drainage 
 canal. I ve seen a Southerner on being introduced 
 to the King of England hand that monarch, without 
 batting his eyes, the information that his grand- 
 aunt on his mother s side was related by marriage 
 to the Perkinses, of Charleston. I knew a New 
 Yorker who was kidnapped for ransom by some 
 Afghanistan bandits. His people sent over the 
 money and he came back to Kabul with the agent. 
 Afghanistan ? the natives said to him through an 
 interpreter. * Well, not so slow, do you think ? 6 Oh, 
 I don t know/ says he, and he begins to tell them 
 about a cab driver at Sixth avenue and Broadway. 
 Those ideas don t suit me. I m not tied down to 
 anything that isn t 8,000 miles in diameter. Just 
 put me down as E. Rushmore Coglan, citizen of the 
 terrestrial sphere." 
 
 My cosmopolite made a large adieu and left me, 
 for he thought he saw some one through the chatter 
 and smoke whom he knew. So I was left with the 
 
 [33] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 would-be periwinkle, who was reduced to Wiirzburger 
 without further ability to voice his aspirations to 
 perch, melodious, upon the summit of a valley. 
 
 I sat reflecting upon my evident cosmopolite and 
 wondering how the poet had managed to miss him. 
 He was my discovery and I believed in him. How 
 was it ? " The men that breed from them they traf 
 fic up and down, but cling to their cities hem as a 
 child to the mother s gown." 
 
 Not so E. Rushmore Coglan. With the whole 
 world for his 
 
 My meditations were interrupted by a tremendous 
 noise and conflict in another part of the cafe. I 
 saw above the heads of the seated patrons E. Rush- 
 more Coglan and a stranger to me engaged in ter 
 rific battle. They fought between the tables like 
 Titans, and glasses crashed, and men caught their 
 hats up and were knocked down, and a brunette 
 screamed, and a blonde began to sing " Teasing." 
 
 My cosmopolite was sustaining the pride and rep 
 utation of the Earth when the waiters closed in on 
 both combatants with their famous flying wedge 
 formation and bore them outside, still resisting. 
 
 I called McCarthy, one of the French garpons, and 
 asked him the cause of the conflict. 
 
 " The man with the red tie " (that was my cos- 
 [34] 
 
A COSMOPOLITE IN A CAFE 
 
 mopolite) , said he, " got hot on account of things 
 said about the bum sidewalks and water supply of 
 the place he come from by the other guy." 
 
 " Why," said I, bewildered, " that man is a citizen 
 of the world a cosmopolite. He " 
 
 " Originally from Mattawamkeag, Maine, he 
 said," continued McCarthy, "and he wouldn t stand 
 for no knockin the place." 
 
 [35] 
 
BETWEEN ROUNDS 
 
 IHE May moon shone bright upon the private 
 boarding-house of Mrs. Murphy. By reference 
 to the almanac a large amount of territory 
 will be discovered upon which its rays also fell. 
 Spring was in its heydey, with hay fever soon 
 to follow. The parks were green with new leaves 
 and buyers for the Western and Southern trade. 
 Flowers and summer-resort agents were blowing ; the 
 air and answers to Lawson were growing milder; 
 hand-organs, fountains and pinochle were playing 
 everywhere. 
 
 The windows of Mrs. Murphy s boarding-house 
 were open. A group of boarders were seated on the 
 high stoop upon round, flat mats like German pan 
 cakes. 
 
 In one of the second-floor front windows Mrs. 
 McCaskey awaited her husband. Supper was 
 cooling on the table. Its heat went into Mrs. 
 McCaskey. 
 
 At nine Mr. McCaskey came. He carried his coal 
 [36] 
 
BETWEEN ROUNDS 
 
 on his arm and his pipe in his teeth; and he apolo 
 gised for disturbing the boarders on the steps as 
 he selected spots of stone between them on which 
 to set his size 9, width Ds. 
 
 As he opened the door of his room he received a 
 surprise. Instead of the usual stove-lid or potato- 
 masher for him to dodge, came only words. 
 
 Mr. McCaskey reckoned that the benign May moon 
 had softened the breast of his spouse. 
 
 " I heard ye," came the oral substitutes for kitch- 
 enware. " Ye can apollygise to riff -raff of the streets 
 for settin yer unhandy feet on the tails of their 
 frocks, but ye d walk on the neck of yer wife the 
 length of a clothes-line without so much as a Kiss 
 me fut, and I m sure it s that long from rubberin* 
 out the windy for ye and the victuals cold such as 
 there s money to buy after drinkin up yer wages at 
 Gallegher s every Saturday evenin , and the gas man 
 here twice to-day for his." 
 
 " Woman ! " said Mr. McCaskey, dashing his coat 
 and hat upon a chair, " the noise of ye is an insult 
 to me appetite. When ye run down politeness ye 
 take the mortar from between the bricks of the 
 foundations of society. Tis no more than exercisin* 
 the acrimony cf a gentleman when ye ask the dissent 
 of ladies blockin 5 the way for steppin between them, 
 
 [37] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 Will ye bring the pig s face of ye out of the windy 
 and see to the food?" 
 
 Mrs. McCaskey arose heavily and went to the stove. 
 There was something in her manner that warned Mr. 
 McCaskey. When the corners of her mouth went 
 down suddenly like a barometer it usually foretold a 
 fall of crockery and tinware. 
 
 " Pig s face, is it? " said Mrs. McCaskey, and 
 hurled a stewpan full of bacon and turnips at her 
 lord. 
 
 Mr. McCaskey was no novice at repartee. He 
 knew what should follow the entree. On the table 
 was a roast sirloin of pork, garnished with sham 
 rocks. He retorted with this, and drew the appro 
 priate return of a bread pudding in an earthen 
 dish. A hunk of Swiss cheese accurately thrown by 
 her husband struck Mrs. McCaskey below one eye. 
 When she replied with a well-aimed coffee-pot full 
 of a hot, black, semi-fragrant liquid the battle, ac 
 cording to courses, should have ended. 
 
 But Mr. McCaskey was no 50-cent table d hoter. 
 Let cheap Bohemians consider coffee the end, if they 
 would. Let them make that faux pas. He was 
 foxier still. Finger-bowls were not beyond the com 
 pass of his experience. They were not to be had in 
 the Pension Murphy ; but their equivalent was at 
 
 [38] 
 
BETWEEN ROUNDS 
 
 hand. Triumphantly he sent the granite-ware wash 
 basin at the head of his matrimonial adversary. 
 Mrs. McCaskey dodged in time. She reached for 
 a flatiron, with which, as a sort of cordial, she hoped 
 to bring the gastronomical duel to a close. But a 
 loud, wailing scream downstairs caused both her and 
 Mr. McCaskey to pause in a sort of involuntary 
 armistice. 
 
 On the sidewalk at the corner of the house Police 
 man Cleary was standing with one ear upturned, 
 listening to the crash of household utensils. 
 
 " Tis Jawn McCaskey and his missis at it again," 
 meditated the policeman. " I wonder shall I go up 
 and stop the row. I will not. Married folks they 
 are; and few pleasures they have. Twill not last 
 long. Sure, they ll have to borrow more dishes to 
 keep it up with." 
 
 And just then came the loud scream below-stairs, 
 betokening fear or dire extremity. " Tis probably 
 the cat," said Policeman Cleary, and walked hastily 
 in the other direction. 
 
 The boarders on the steps were fluttered. Mr. 
 Toomey, an insurance solicitor by birth and an in 
 vestigator by profession, went inside to analyse the 
 scream. He returned with the news that Mrs. 
 Murphy s little boy, Mike, was lost. Following 
 
 [39] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 the messenger, out bounced Mrs. Murphy two 
 hundred pounds in tears and hysterics, clutching the 
 air and howling to the sky for the loss of thirty 
 pounds of freckles and mischief. Bathos, truly; 
 but Mr. Toomey sat down at the side of Miss Purdy, 
 millinery, and their hands came together in sym 
 pathy. The two old maids, Misses Walsh, who com 
 plained every day about the noise in the halls, in 
 quired immediately if anybody had looked behind the 
 clock. 
 
 Major Grigg, who sat by his fat wife on the 
 top step, arose and buttoned his coat. " The little 
 one lost?" he exclaimed. "I will scour the city." 
 His wife never allowed him out after dark. But now 
 she said : " Go Ludovic ! " in a baritone voice. " Who 
 ever can look upon that mother s grief without 
 springing to her relief has a heart of stone." " Give 
 me some thirty or sixty cents, my love," said the 
 Major. "Lost children sometimes stray far. I 
 may need carfares." 
 
 Old man Denny, hall room, fourth floor back, who 
 sat on the lowest step, trying to read a paper by 
 the street lamp, turned over a page to follow up the 
 article about the carpenters strike. Mrs. Murphy 
 shrieked to the moon : " Oh, ar-r-Mike, f r Gawd s 
 sake, where is me little bit av a boy ? " 
 
 [40] 
 
BETWEEN ROUNDS 
 
 " When d ye see him last ? " asked old man Denny, 
 with one eye on the report of the Building Trades 
 League. 
 
 " Oh," wailed Mrs. Murphy, " twas yisterday, or 
 maybe four hours ago ! I dunno. But it s lost he is, 
 me little boy Mike. He was playin on the side 
 walk only this mornin or was it Wednesday? I m 
 that busy with work, tis hard to keep up with dates. 
 But I ve looked the house over from top to cellar, 
 and it s gone he is. Oh, for the love av Hiven " 
 
 Silent, grim, colossal, the big city has ever stood 
 against its revilers. They call it hard as iron; they 
 say that no pulse of pity beats in its bosom; they 
 compare its streets with lonely forests and deserts 
 of lava. But beneath the hard crust of the lobster 
 is found a delectable and luscious food. Perhaps a 
 different simile would have been wiser. Still, no 
 body should take offence. We would call no one a 
 lobster without good and sufficient claws. 
 
 No calamity so touches the common heart of hu 
 manity as does the straying of a little child. Their 
 feet are so uncertain and feeble ; the ways are so steep 
 and strange. 
 
 Major Griggs hurried down to the corner, and up 
 the avenue into Billy s place. " Gimme a rye-high," 
 he said to the servitor. " Haven t seen a bow-legged, 
 
 [41] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 dirty-faced little devil of a six-year-old lost kid 
 around here anywhere, have you ? " 
 
 Mr. Toomey retained Miss Purdy s hand on the 
 steps. " Think of that dear little babe," said Miss 
 Purdy, " lost from his mother s side perhaps already 
 fallen beneath the iron hoofs of galloping steeds oh, 
 isn t it dreadful? " 
 
 " Ain t that right ? " agreed Mr. Toomey, squeez 
 ing her hand. " Say I start out and help look for 
 urn!" 
 
 " Perhaps," said Miss Purdy 9 " you should. But, 
 oh, Mr. Toomey, you are so dashing so reckless 
 suppose in your enthusiasm some accident should be 
 fall you, then what " 
 
 Old man Denny read on about the arbitration 
 agreement, with one finger on the lines. 
 
 In the second floor front Mr. and Mrs. McCaskey 
 came to the window to recover their second wind. 
 Mr. McCaskey was scooping turnips out of his vest 
 with a crooked forefinger, and his lady was wiping 
 an eye that the salt of the roast pork had not bene 
 fited. They heard the outcry below, and thrust their 
 heads out of the window. 
 
 " Tis little Mike is lost," said Mrs. McCaskey, in 
 a hushed voice, " the beautiful, little, trouble-making 
 angel of a gossoon ! " 
 
 [42] 
 
BETWEEN ROUNDS 
 
 "The bit of a boy mislaid?" said Mr. McCaskey, 
 leaning out of the window. " Why, now, that s bad 
 enough, entirely. The childer, they be different. If 
 twas a woman I d be willin , for they leave peace 
 behind em when they go." 
 
 Disregarding the thrust, Mrs. McCaskey caught 
 her husband s arm. 
 
 " Jawn," she said, sentimentally, " Missis Mur 
 phy s little bye is lost. Tis a great city for losing 
 little boys. Six years old he was. Jawn, tis the 
 same age our little bye would have been if we had had 
 one six years ago." 
 
 " We never did," said Mr. McCaskey, lingering 
 with the fact. 
 
 " But if we had, Jawn, think what sorrow would 
 be in our hearts this night, with our little Phe- 
 lan run away and stolen in the city nowheres at 
 all." 
 
 " Ye talk foolishness," said Mr. McCaskey. " Tis 
 Pat he would be named, after me old father in 
 Cantrim." 
 
 " Ye lie ! " said Mrs. McCaskey, without anger. 
 " Me brother was worth tin dozen bog-trotting Mc- 
 Caskeys. After him would the bye be named." She 
 leaned over the window-sill and looked down at the 
 hurrying and bustle below. 
 
 [43] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 " Jawn," said Mrs. McCaskey, softly, " I m sorry 
 I was hasty wid ye." 
 
 " Twas hasty puddin , as ye say," said her hus 
 band, " and hurry-up turnips and get-a-move-on-ye- 
 cofFee. Twas what ye could call a quick lunch, all 
 right, and tell no lie." 
 
 Mrs. McCaskey slipped her arm inside her hus 
 band s and took his rough hand in hers. 
 
 " Listen at the cryin of poor Mrs. Murphy," she 
 said. " Tis an awful thing for a bit of a bye to be 
 lost in this great big city. If twas our little Phelan, 
 Jawn, I d be breakin me heart." 
 
 Awkwardly Mr. McCaskey withdrew his hand. 
 But he laid it around the nearing shoulders of his 
 wife. 
 
 " Tis foolishness, of course," said he, roughly, 
 " but I d be cut up some meself if our little Pat 
 was kidnapped or anything. But there never was 
 any childer for us. Sometimes I ve been ugly and 
 hard with ye, Judy. Forget it." 
 
 They leaned together, and looked down at the 
 heart-drama being acted below. 
 
 Long they sat thus. People surged along the side 
 walk, crowding, questioning, filling the air with ru 
 mours, and inconsequent surmises. Mrs. Murphy 
 ploughed back and forth in their midst, like a soft 
 
 [44] 
 
BETWEEN ROUNDS 
 
 mountain down which plunged an audible cataract 
 of tears. Couriers came and went. 
 
 Loud voices and a renewed uproar were raised in 
 front of the boarding-house. 
 
 "What s up now, Judy?" asked Mr. McCaskey. 
 
 " Tis Missis Murphy s voice," said Mrs. McCas 
 key, harking. " She says she s after finding little 
 Mike asleep behind the roll of old linoleum under the 
 bed in her room." 
 
 Mr. McCaskey laughed loudly. 
 
 " That s yer Phelan," he shouted, sardonically. 
 " Divil a bit would a Pat have done that trick. If 
 the bye we never had is strayed and stole, by the 
 powers, call him Phelan, and see him hide out under 
 the bed like a mangy pup." 
 
 Mrs. McCaskey arose heavily, and went toward the 
 dish closet, with the corners of her mouth drawn 
 down. 
 
 Policeman Cleary came back around the corner 
 as the crowd dispersed. Surprised, he upturned an 
 ear toward the McCaskey apartment, where the 
 crash of irons and chinaware and the ring of hurled 
 kitchen utensils seemed as loud as before. Police 
 man Cleary took out his timepiece. 
 
 " By the deported snakes ! " he exclaimed, " Jawn 
 McCaskey and his lady have been fightin for an 
 
 [45] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 hour and a quarter by the watch. The missis could 
 give him forty pounds weight. Strength to his 
 arm." 
 
 Policeman Cleary strolled back around the corner. 
 
 Old man Denny folded his paper and hurried up 
 the steps just as Mrs. Murphy was about to lock the 
 door for the night. 
 
 [46] 
 
THE SKYLIGHT ROOM 
 
 FlRST Mrs. Parker would show you the double 
 parlours. You would not dare to interrupt her 
 description of their advantages and of the merits 
 of the gentleman who had occupied them for eight 
 years. Then you would manage to stammer forth 
 the confession that you were neither a doctor nor a 
 dentist. Mrs. Parker s manner of receiving the ad 
 mission was such that you could never afterward 
 entertain the same feeling toward your parents, who 
 had neglected to train you up in one of the profes 
 sions that fitted Mrs. Parker s parlours. 
 
 Next you ascended one flight of stairs and looked 
 at the second-floor-back at $8. Convinced by her sec 
 ond-floor manner that it was worth the $12 that Mr, 
 Toosenberry always paid for it until he left to take 
 charge of his brother s orange plantation in Florida 
 near Palm Beach, where Mrs. Mclntyre always spent 
 the winters that had the double front room with pri 
 vate bath, you managed to babble that you wanted 
 something still cheaper. 
 
 If you survived Mrs. Parker s scorn, you were 
 [47] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 taken to look at Mr. Skidder s large hall room on the 
 third floor. Mr. Skidder s room was not vacant. He 
 wrote plays and smoked cigarettes in it all day long. 
 But every room-hunter was made to visit his room 
 to admire the lambrequins. After each visit, Mr. 
 Skidder, from the fright caused by possible eviction, 
 would pay something on his rent. 
 
 Then oh, then if you still stood on one foot, 
 with your hot hand clutching the three moist dol 
 lars in your pocket, and hoarsely proclaimed your 
 hideous and culpable poverty, nevermore would Mrs. 
 Parker be cicerone of yours. She would honk loudly 
 the word " Clara," she would show you her back, and 
 march downstairs. Then Clara, the coloured maid, 
 would escort you up the carpeted ladder that served 
 for the fourth flight, and show you the Skylight 
 Room. It occupied 7x8 feet of floor space at the 
 middle of the hall. On each side of it was a dark 
 lumber closet or storeroom. 
 
 In it was an iron cot, a washstand and a chair. 
 A shelf was the dresser. Its four bare walls seemed 
 to close in upon you like the sides of a coffin. Your 
 hand crept to your throat, you gasped, you looked 
 up as from a well and breathed once more. 
 Through the glass of the little skylight you saw a 
 square of blue infinity. 
 
 [48] 
 
THE SKYLIGHT ROOM 
 
 " Two dollars, suh," Clara would say in her half- 
 contemptuous, half-Tuskegeenial tones. 
 
 One day Miss Leeson came hunting for a room. 
 She carried a typewriter made to be lugged around 
 by a much larger lady. She was a very little girl, 
 with eyes and hair that had kept on growing after 
 she had stopped and that always looked as if they 
 were saying : " Goodness me ! Why didn t you keep 
 up with us ? " 
 
 Mrs. Parker showed her the double parlours. " In 
 this closet," she said, " one could keep a skeleton or 
 anaesthetic or coal " 
 
 " But I am neither a doctor nor a dentist," said 
 Miss Leeson, with a shiver. 
 
 Mrs. Parker gave her the incredulous, pitying, 
 sneering, icy stare that she kept for those who failed 
 to qualify as doctors or dentists, and led the way to 
 the second floor back. 
 
 "Eight dollars?" said Miss Leeson. "Dear me! 
 I m not Hetty if I do look green. I m just a poor 
 little working girl. Show me something higher and 
 lower." 
 
 Mr. Skidder jumped and strewed the floor with 
 cigarette stubs at the rap on his door. 
 
 " Excuse me, Mr. Skidder," said Mrs. Parker, 
 with her demon s smile at his pale looks. " I didn t 
 
 [49] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 know you were in. I asked the lady to have a look 
 at your lambrequins." 
 
 " They re too lovely for anything," said Miss Lee- 
 son, smiling in exactly the way the angels do. 
 
 After they had gone Mr. Skidder got very busy 
 erasing the tall, black-haired heroine from his latest 
 (unproduced) play and inserting a small, roguish 
 one with heavy, bright hair and vivacious features. 
 
 " Anna Held ll jump at it," said Mr. Skidder to 
 himself, putting his feet up against the lambrequins 
 and disappearing in a cloud of smoke like an aerial 
 cuttlefish. 
 
 Presently the tocsin call of " Clara ! " sounded to 
 the world the state of Miss Leeson s purse. A dark 
 goblin seized her, mounted a Stygian stairway, 
 thrust her into a vault with a glimmer of light in its 
 top and muttered the menacing and cabalistic words 
 "Two dollars!" 
 
 " I ll take it ! " sighed Miss Leeson, sinking down 
 upon the squeaky iron bed. 
 
 Every day Miss Leeson went out to work. At 
 night she brought home papers with handwriting on 
 them and made copies with her typewriter. Some 
 times she had no work at night, and then she would 
 sit on the steps of the high stoop with the other 
 roomers. Miss Leeson was not intended for a sky- 
 
 [50] 
 
THE SKYLIGHT ROOM 
 
 light room when the plans were drawn for her crea 
 tion. She was gay-hearted and full of tender, whim 
 sical fancies. Once she let Mr. Skidder read to her 
 three acts of his great (unpublished) comedy, " It s 
 No Kid ; or, The Heir of the Subway." 
 
 There was rejoicing among the gentlemen 
 roomers whenever Miss Leeson had time to sit on the 
 steps for an hour or two. But Miss Longnecker, 
 the tall blonde who taught in a public school and 
 said, " Well, really ! " to everything you said, sat on 
 the top step and sniffed. And Miss Dorn, who shot 
 at the moving ducks at Coney every Sunday and 
 worked in a department store, sat on the bottom 
 step and sniffed. Miss Leeson sat on the middle 
 step, and the men would quickly group around her. 
 
 Especially Mr. Skidder, who had cast her in his 
 mind for the star part in a private, romantic (un 
 spoken) drama in real life. And especially Mr. 
 Hoover, who was forty-five, fat, flush and foolish- 
 And especially very young Mr. Evans, who set up 
 a hollow cough to induce her to ask him to leave 
 off cigarettes. The men voted her " the funniest 
 and j oiliest ever," but the sniffs on the top step and 
 the lower step were implacable. 
 
 
 
 I pray you let the drama halt while Chorus stalks 
 [51] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 to the footlights and drops an epicedian tear upon 
 the fatness of Mr. Hoover. Tune the pipes to the 
 tragedy of tallow, the bane of bulk, the calamity 
 of corpulence. Tried out, Falstaff might have ren 
 dered more romance to the ton than would have 
 Romeo s rickety ribs to the ounce. A lover may 
 sigh, but he must not puff. To the train of Momus 
 are the fat men remanded. In vain beats the faith- 
 fullest heart above a 52-inch belt. Avaunt, Hoover ! 
 Hoover, forty-five, flush and foolish, might carry 
 off Helen herself; Hoover, forty-five, flush, foolish 
 and fat is meat for perdition. There was never a 
 chance for you, Hoover. 
 
 As Mrs. Parker s roomers sat thus one summer s 
 evening, Miss Leeson looked up into the firmament 
 and cried with her little gay laugh: 
 
 " Why, there s Billy Jackson ! I can see him from 
 down here, too." 
 
 All looked up some at the windows of sky 
 scrapers, some casting about for an airship, Jack 
 son-guided. 
 
 " It s that star," explained Miss Leeson, pointing 
 with a tiny finger. " Not the big one that twinkles 
 the steady blue one near it. I can see it every 
 night through my skylight. I named it Billy 
 Jackson." 
 
 [52] 
 
THE SKYLIGHT ROOM 
 
 Well, really ! " said Miss Longnecker. " I didn t 
 know you were an astronomer, Miss Leeson." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said the small star gazer, " I know as 
 much as any of them about the style of sleeves 
 they re going to wear next fall in Mars." 
 
 " Well, really ! " said Miss Longnecker. " The star 
 you refer to is Gamma, of the constellation Cassio 
 peia. It is nearly of the second magnitude, and its 
 meridian passage is " 
 
 " Oh," said the very young Mr. Evans, " I think 
 Billy Jackson is a much better name for it." 
 
 " Same here," said Mr. Hoover, loudly breathing 
 defiance to Miss Longnecker. " I think Miss Leeson 
 has just as much right to name stars as any of those 
 old astrologers had." 
 
 " Well, really ! " said Miss Longnecker. 
 
 " I wonder whether it s a shooting star," remarked 
 Miss Dorn. " I hit nine ducks and a rabbit out of 
 ten in the gallery at Coney Sunday." 
 
 " He doesn t show up very well from down here," 
 said Miss Leeson. " You ought to see him from my 
 room. You know you can see stars even in the day 
 time from the bottom of a well. At night my room 
 is like the shaft of a coal mine, and it makes Billy 
 Jackson look like the big diamond pin that Night 
 fastens her kimono with." 
 
 [53] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 There came a time after that when Miss Leeson 
 brought no formidable papers home to copy. And 
 when she went out in the morning, instead of 
 working, she went from office to office and let 
 her heart melt away in the drip of cold refusals 
 transmitted through insolent office boys. This 
 went on. 
 
 There came an evening when she wearily climbed 
 Mrs. Parker s stoop at the hour when she always re 
 turned from her dinner at the restaurant. But she 
 had had no dinner. 
 
 As she stepped into the hall Mr. Hoover met her 
 and seized his chance. He asked her to marry him, 
 and his fatness hovered above her like an avalanche. 
 She dodged, and caught the balustrade. He tried 
 for her hand, and she raised it and smote him weakly 
 in the face. Step by step she went up, dragging 
 herself by the railing. She passed Mr. Skidder s 
 door as he was red-inking a stage direction for Myr 
 tle Delorme (Miss Leeson) in his (unaccepted) 
 comedy, to " pirouette across stage from L to the 
 side of the Count. 5 Up the carpeted ladder she 
 crawled at last and opened the door of the skylight 
 room. 
 
 She was too weak to light the lamp or to undress. 
 She fell upon the iron cot, her fragile body scarcely 
 
THE SKYLIGHT ROOM 
 
 hollowing the worn springs. And in that Erebus of 
 a room she slowly raised her heavy eyelids, and 
 smiled. 
 
 For Billy Jackson was shining down on her, calm 
 and bright and constant through the skylight. 
 There was no world about her. She was sunk in a 
 pit of blackness, with but that small square of pallid 
 light framing the star that she had so whimsically 
 and oh, so ineffectually named. Miss Longnecker 
 must be right ; it was Gamma, of the constellation 
 Cassiopeia, and not Billy Jackson. And yet she 
 could not let it be Gamma. 
 
 As she lay on her back she tried twice to raise her 
 arm. The third time she got two thin fingers to her 
 lips and blew a kiss out of the black pit to Billy 
 Jackson. Her arm fell back limply. 
 
 " Good-bye, Billy," she murmured faintly. 
 " You re millions of miles away and you won t even 
 twinkle once. But you kept where I could see you 
 most of the time up there when there wasn t any 
 thing else but darkness to look at, didn t you? 
 . . . Millions of miles. . . . Good-bye, 
 Billy Jackson." 
 
 Clara, the coloured maid, found the door locked 
 at 10 the next day, and they forced it open. Vine 
 gar, and the slapping of wrists and burnt feathers 
 
 [55] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 proving of no avail, some one ran to phone for an 
 ambulance. 
 
 In due time it backed up to the door with much 
 gong-clanging, and the capable young medico, in his 
 white linen coat, ready, active, confident, with his 
 smooth face half debonair, half grim, danced up the 
 steps. 
 
 " Ambulance call to 49," he said briefly. " What s 
 the trouble?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, doctor," sniffed Mrs. Parker, as though 
 her trouble that there should be trouble in the house 
 was the greater. " I can t think what can be the 
 matter with her. Nothing we could do would bring 
 her to. It s a young woman, a Miss Elsie yes, a 
 Miss Elsie Leeson. Never before in my house " 
 
 "What room?" cried the doctor in a terrible 
 voice, to which Mrs. Parker was a stranger. 
 
 " The skylight room. It " 
 
 Evidently the ambulance doctor was familiar with 
 the location of skylight rooms. He was gone up the 
 stairs, four at a time. Mrs. Parker followed slowly, 
 as her dignity demanded. 
 
 On the first landing she met him coming back 
 bearing the astronomer in his arms. He stopped and 
 let loose the practised scalpel of his tongue, not 
 loudly. Gradually Mrs. Parker crumpled as a stiff 
 
 [56] 
 
THE SKYLIGHT ROOM 
 
 garment that slips down from a nail. Ever after 
 ward there remained crumples in her mind and body. 
 Sometimes her curious roomers would ask her what 
 the doctor said to her. 
 
 " Let that be," she would answer. " If I can get 
 forgiveness for having heard it I will be satisfied." 
 
 The ambulance physician strode with his burden 
 through the pack of hounds that follow the curiosity 
 chase, and even they fell back along the sidewalk 
 abashed, for his face was that of one who bears his 
 own dead. 
 
 They noticed that he did not lay down upon the 
 bed prepared for it in the ambulance the form that 
 he carried, and all that he said was : " Drive like 
 h 1, Wilson," to the driver. 
 
 That is all. Is it a story? In the next morning s 
 paper I saw a little news item, and the last sentence 
 of it may help you (as it helped me) to weld the 
 incidents together. 
 
 It recounted the reception into Bellevue Hospital 
 of a young woman who had been removed from No. 
 49 East street, suffering from debility in 
 duced by starvation. It concluded with these words : 
 
 "Dr. William Jackson, the ambulance physician 
 who attended the case, says the patient will recover." 
 
 [57] 
 
A SERVICE OF LOVE 
 
 \YHEN one loves one s Art no service seems too 
 hard. 
 
 That is our premise. This story shall draw a 
 conclusion from it, and show at the same time that 
 the premise is incorrect. That will be a new thing 
 in logic, and a feat in story-telling somewhat older 
 that the great wall of China. 
 
 Joe Larrabee came out of the post-oak flats of the 
 Middle West pulsing with a genius for pictorial art. 
 At six he drew a picture of the town pump with a 
 prominent citizen passing it hastily. This effort was 
 framed and hung in the drug store window by the 
 side of the ear of corn with an uneven number of 
 rows. At twenty he left for New York with a flow 
 ing necktie and a capital tied up somewhat closer. 
 
 Delia Caruthers did things in six octaves so prom 
 isingly in a pine-tree village in the South that her 
 relatives chipped in enough in her chip hat for her 
 to go " North " and " finish." They could not see 
 her f , but that is our story. 
 
 Joe and Delia met in an atelier where a number 
 of art and music students had gathered to discuss 
 
 [58] 
 
A SERVICE OF LOVE 
 
 chiaroscuro, Wagner, music, Rembrandt s works, 
 pictures, Waldteufel, wall paper, Chopin and Oolong. 
 
 Joe and Delia became enamoured one of the other, 
 or each of the other, as you please, and in a short 
 time were married for, (see above) when one loves 
 one s Art no service seems too hard. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Larrabee began housekeeping in a 
 flat. It was a lonesome flat something like the A 
 sharp way down at the left-hand end of the key 
 board. And they were happy; for they had their 
 Art, and they had each other. And my advice to the 
 rich young man would be sell all thou hast, and 
 give it to the poor janitor for the privilege of liv 
 ing in a flat with your Art and your Delia. 
 
 Flat-dwellers shall indorse my dictum that theirs 
 is the only true happiness. If a home is happy it 
 cannot fit too close let the dresser collapse and be* 
 come a billiard table; let the mantel turn to a row 
 ing machine, the escritoire to a spare bedchamber, 
 the washstand to an upright piano ; let the four 
 walls come together, if they will, so you and your 
 Delia are between. But if home be the other kind, 
 let it be wide and long enter you at the Golden 
 Gate, hang your hat on Hatteras, your cape on Cape 
 Horn and go out by the Labrador. 
 
 Joe was painting in the class of the great Magis- 
 [59] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 ter you know his fame. His fees are high ; his les 
 sons are light his high-lights have brought him 
 renown. Delia was studying under Rosenstock 
 you know his repute as a disturber of the piano 
 keys. 
 
 They were mighty happy as long as their money 
 lasted. So is every but I will not be cynical. Their 
 aims were very clear and defined. Joe was to be 
 come capable very soon of turning out pictures that 
 old gentlemen with thin side-whiskers and thick 
 pocketbooks would sandbag one another in his studio 
 for the privilege of buying. Delia was to become 
 familiar and then contemptuous with Music, so that 
 when she saw the orchestra seats and boxes unsold 
 she could have sore throat and lobster in a private 
 dining-room and refuse to go on the stage. 
 
 But the best, in my opinion, was the home life in 
 the little flat the ardent, voluble chats after the 
 day s study ; the cozy dinners and fresh, light break 
 fasts; the interchange of ambitions ambitions 
 interwoven each with the other s or else inconsider 
 able the mutual help and inspiration; and over 
 look my artlessness stuffed olives and cheese sand 
 wiches at 11 p. M. 
 
 But after a while Art flagged. It sometimes does, 
 even if some switchman doesn t flag it. Everything 
 
 [60] 
 
A SERVICE OF LOVE 
 
 going out and nothing coming in, as the vulgarians 
 say. Money was Jacking to pay Mr. Magister and 
 Herr Rosenstock their prices. When one loves one s 
 Art no service seems too hard. So, Delia said she 
 must give music lessons to keep the chafing dish 
 bubbling. 
 
 For two or three days she went out canvassing 
 for pupils. One evening she came home elated. 
 
 " Joe, dear," she said, gleefully, " I ve a pupil. 
 And, oh, the loveliest people! General General A. 
 B. Pinkney s daughter on Seventy-first street. 
 Such a splendid house, Joe you ought to see the 
 front door! Byzantine I think you would call it. 
 And inside! Oh, Joe, I never saw anything like it 
 before. 
 
 " My pupil is his daughter Clementina. I dearly 
 love her already. She s a delicate thing dresses 
 always in white; and the sweetest, simplest man 
 ners! Only eighteen years old. I m to give three 
 lessons a week; and, just think, Joe! $5 a lesson. 
 I don t mind it a bit; for when I get two or three 
 more pupils I can resume my lessons with Herr 
 Rosenstock. Now, smooth out that wrinkle between 
 your brows, dear, and let s have a nice supper." 
 
 " That s all right for you, Dele," said Joe, attack 
 ing a can of peas with a carving knife and a 
 
 [61]. 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 hatchet, "but how about me? Do you think I m 
 going to let you hustle for wages while I philander 
 in the regions of high art? Not by the bones of 
 Benvenuto Cellini! I guess I can sell papers or lay 
 cobblestones, and bring in a dollar or two." 
 
 Delia came and hung about his neck. 
 
 " Joe, dear, you are silly. You must keep on at 
 your studies. It is not as if I had quit my music 
 and gone to work at something else. While I teach 
 I learn. I am always with my music. And we can 
 live as happily as millionaires on $15 a week. You 
 mustn t think of leaving Mr. Magister." 
 
 "All right," said Joe, reaching for the blue scal 
 loped vegetable dish. " But I hate for you to be 
 giving lessons. It isn t Art. But you re a trump 
 and a dear to do it." 
 
 " When one loves one s Art no service seems too 
 hard," said Delia. 
 
 " Magister praised the sky in that sketch I made 
 in the park," said Joe. " And Tinkle gave me per 
 mission to hang two of them in his window. I may 
 sell one if the right kind of a moneyed idiot sees 
 them." 
 
 " I m sure you wilj," said Delia, sweetly. " And 
 now let s be thankful for Gen. Pinkney and this veal 
 roast." 
 
 .[62] 
 
A SERVICE OF LOVE 
 
 During all of the next week the Larrabees had an 
 early breakfast. Joe was enthusiastic about some 
 morning-effect sketches he was doing in Central 
 Park, and Delia packed him off breakfasted, cod 
 dled, praised and kissed at 7 o clock. Art is an 
 engaging mistress. It was most times 7 o clock 
 when he returned in the evening. 
 
 At the end of the week Delia, sweetly proud but 
 languid, triumphantly tossed three five-dollar bills 
 on the 8x10 (inches) centre table of the 8x10 (feet) 
 flat parlour. 
 
 " Sometimes," she said, a little wearily, " Clem 
 entina tries me. I m afraid she doesn t practise 
 enough, and I have to tell her the same things so 
 often. And then she always dresses entirely in 
 white, and that does get monotonous. But Gen- 
 Pinkney is the dearest old man! I wish you could 
 know him, Joe. He comes in sometimes when I am 
 with Clementina at the piano he is a widower, you 
 know and stands there pulling his white goatee. 
 And how are the semiquavers and the demisemi- 
 quavers progressing? he always asks. 
 
 "I wish you could see the wainscoting in that 
 drawing-room, Joe! And those Astrakhan rug por 
 tieres. And Clementina has such a funny little 
 cough. I hope she is stronger than she looks. Oh, 
 
 [63] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 I really am getting attached to her, she is so gentle 
 and high bred. Gen. Pinkney s brother was once 
 Minister to Bolivia." 
 
 And then Joe, with the air of a Monte Cristo, 
 drew forth a ten, a five, a two and a one all legal 
 tender notes and laid them beside Delia s earn 
 ings. 
 
 " Sold that watercolour of the obelisk to a man 
 from Peoria," he announced overwhelmingly. 
 
 "Don t joke with me," said Delia "not from 
 Peoria!" 
 
 " All the way. I wish you could see him, Dele. 
 Fat man with a woollen muffler and a quill tooth 
 pick. He saw the sketch in Tinkle s window and 
 thought it was a windmill at first. He was game, 
 though, and bought it anyhow. He ordered an 
 other an oil sketch of the Lackawanna freight de 
 pot to take back with him. Music lessons! Oh, I 
 guess Art is still in it." 
 
 " I m so glad you ve kept on," said Delia, heartily. 
 " You re bound to win, dear. Thirty-three dollars ! 
 We never had so much to spend before. We ll have 
 oysters to-night." 
 
 66 And filet mignon with champignons," said Joe. 
 " Where is the olive fork? " 
 
 On the next Saturday evening Joe reached home 
 [64] 
 
A SERVICE OF LOVE 
 
 first. He spread his $18 on the parlour table and 
 washed what seemed to be a great deal of dark paint 
 from his hands. 
 
 Half an hour later Delia arrived, her right hand 
 tied up in a shapeless bundle of wraps and bandages. 
 
 " How is this ? " asked Joe after the usual greet 
 ings. Delia laughed, but not very joyously. 
 
 " Clementina," she explained, " insisted upon a 
 Welsh rabbit after her lesson. She is such a queer 
 girl. Welsh rabbits at 5 in the afternoon. The 
 General was there. You should have seen him run 
 for the chafing dish, Joe, just as if there wasn t a 
 servant in the house. I know Clementina isn t in 
 good health ; she is so nervous. In serving the rabbit 
 she spilled a great lot of it, boiling hot, over my 
 hand and wrist. It hurt awfully, Joe. And the dear 
 girl was so sorry! But Gen. Pinkney! Joe, that 
 old man nearly went distracted. He rushed down 
 stairs and sent somebody they said the furnace man 
 or somebody in the basement out to a drug store 
 for some oil and things to bind it up with. It doesn t 
 hurt so much now." 
 
 "What s this?" asked Joe, taking the hand ten 
 derly and pulling at some white strands beneath the 
 bandages. 
 
 " It s something soft," said Delia, " that had oil 
 [65] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 on it. Oh, Joe, did you sell another sketch? " she 
 had seen the money on the table. 
 
 "Did I?" said Joe; "just ask the man from 
 Peoria. He got his depot to-day, and he isn t sure 
 but he thinks he wants another parkscape and a view 
 on the Hudson. What time this afternoon did you 
 burn your hand, Dele ? " 
 
 " Five o clock, I think," said Delia, plaintively. 
 " The iron I mean the rabbit came off the fire about 
 that time. You ought to have seen Gen. Pinkney, 
 Joe, when " 
 
 " Sit down here a moment, Dele," said Joe. He 
 drew her to the couch, sat beside her and put his 
 arm across her shoulders. 
 
 " What have you been doing for the last two 
 weeks, Dele?" he asked. 
 
 She braved it for a moment or two with an eye 
 full of love and stubbornness, and murmured a 
 phrase or two vaguely of Gen. Pinkney; but at 
 length down went her head and out came the truth 
 and tears. 
 
 " I couldn t get any pupils," she confessed. 
 " And I couldn t bear to have you give up your les 
 sons; and I got a place ironing shirts in that big 
 Twenty-fourth street laundry. And I think I did 
 very well to make up both General Pinkney and 
 
 [66] 
 
A SERVICE OF LOVE 
 
 Clementina, don t you, Joe? And when a girl in 
 the laundry set down a hot iron on my hand this 
 afternoon I was all the way home making up that 
 story about the Welsh rabbit. You re not angry, 
 are you, Joe? And if I hadn t got the work you 
 mightn t have sold your sketches to that man from 
 Peoria." 
 
 " He wasn t from Peoria," said Joe, slowly. 
 
 " Well, it doesn t matter where he was from. How 
 clever you are, Joe and kiss me, Joe and what 
 made you ever suspect that I wasn t giving music 
 lessons to Clementina? " 
 
 "I didn t," said Joe, "until to-night. And I 
 wouldn t have then, only I sent up this cotton waste 
 and oil from the engine-room this afternoon for a 
 girl upstairs who had her hand burned with a 
 smoothing-iron. I ve been firing the engine in that 
 laundry for the last two weeks." 
 
 " And then you didn t " 
 
 " My purchaser from Peoria," said Joe, " and 
 Gen. Pinkney are both creations of the same art but 
 you wouldn t call it either painting or music." 
 
 And then they both laughed, and Joe began : 
 
 " When one loves one s Art no service seems " 
 
 But Delia stopped him with her hand on his lips. 
 " No," she said" just < When one loves. " 
 
 [67] 
 
THE COMING-OUT OF MAGGIE 
 
 EVERY Saturday night the Clover Leaf Social 
 Club gave a hop in the hall of the Give and Take 
 Athletic Association on the East Side. In order to 
 attend one of these dances you must be a member 
 of the Give and Take or, if you belong to the 
 division that starts off with the right foot in waltz 
 ing, you must work in Rhinegold s paper-box fac 
 tory. Still, any Clover Leaf was privileged to 
 escort or be escorted by an outsider to a single 
 dance. But mostly each Give and Take brought the 
 paper-box girl that he affected; and few strangers 
 could boast of having shaken a foot at the regular 
 hops. 
 
 Maggie Toole, on account of her dull eyes, broad 
 mouth and left-handed style of footwork in the two- 
 step, went to the dances with Anna McCarty and 
 her " fellow." Anna and Maggie worked side by 
 side in the factory, and were the greatest chums ever. 
 So Anna always made Jimmy Burns take her by 
 Maggie s house every Saturday night so that her 
 friend could go to the dance with them. 
 
 [68] 
 
THE COMING-OUT OF MAGGIE 
 
 The Give and Take Athletic Association lived up 
 to its name. The hall of the association in Orchard 
 street was fitted out with muscle-making inventions. 
 With the fibres thus builded up the members were 
 wont to engage the police and rival social and ath 
 letic organisations in joyous combat. Between these 
 more serious occupations the Saturday night hops 
 with the paper-box factory girls came as a refining 
 influence and as an efficient screen. For sometimes 
 the tip went round, and if you were among the elect 
 that tiptoed up the dark back stairway you might 
 see as neat and satisfying a little welter-weight af 
 fair to a finish as ever happened inside the ropes. 
 
 On Saturdays Rhinegold s paper-box factory 
 closed at 3 p. M. On one such afternoon Anna and 
 Maggie walked homeward together. At Maggie s 
 door Anna said, as usual: "Be ready at seven, 
 sharp, Mag ; and Jimmy and me ll come by for you." 
 
 But what was this? Instead of the customary 
 humble and grateful thanks from the non-escorted 
 one there was to be perceived a high-poised head, a 
 prideful dimpling at the corners of a broad mouth, 
 and almost a sparkle in a dull brown eye. 
 
 " Thanks, Anna," said Maggie ; " but you and 
 Jimmy needn t bother to-night. I ve a gentleman 
 friend that s coming round to escort me to the hop." 
 
 [69] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 The comely Anna pounced upon her friend, shook 
 her, chided and beseeched her. Maggie Toole catch 
 a fellow! Plain, dear, loyal, unattractive Maggie, 
 so sweet as a chum, so unsought for a two-step or a 
 moonlit bench in the little park. How was it? 
 When did it happen? Who was it? 
 
 "You ll see to-night," said Maggie, flushed with 
 the wine of the first grapes she had gathered in 
 Cupid s vineyard. " He s swell all right. He s two 
 inches taller than Jimmy, and an up-to-date dresser. 
 I ll introduce him, Anna, just as soon as we get to 
 the hall." 
 
 Anna and Jimmy were among the first Clover 
 Leafs to arrive that evening. Anna s eyes were 
 brightly fixed upon the door of the hall to catch the 
 first glimpse of her friend s " catch." 
 
 At 8.30 Miss Toole swept into the hall with 
 her escort. Quickly her triumphant eye discov 
 ered her chum under the wing of her faithful 
 Jimmy. 
 
 " Oh, gee ! " cried Anna, " Mag ain t made a hit 
 oh, no! Swell fellow? well, I guess! Style? Look 
 at urn." 
 
 "Go as far as you like," said Jimmy, with sand 
 paper in his voice. " Cop him out if you want him. 
 These new guys always win out with the push. Don t 
 
 [70] 
 
THE COMING-OUT OF MAGGIE 
 
 mind me. He don t squeeze all the limes, I guess. 
 Huh!" 
 
 " Shut up, Jimmy. You know what I mean. I m 
 glad for Mag. First fellow she ever had. Oh, here 
 they come." 
 
 Across the floor Maggie sailed like a coquettish 
 yacht convoyed by a stately cruiser. And truly, 
 her companion justified the encomiums of the faith 
 ful chum. He stood two inches taller than the aver 
 age Give and Take athlete; his dark hair curled; 
 his eyes and his teeth flashed whenever he bestowed 
 his frequent smiles. The young men of the Clover 
 Leaf Club pinned not their faith to the graces of 
 person as much as they did to its prowess, its achieve 
 ments in hand-to-hand conflicts, and its preservation 
 from the legal duress that constantly menaced it. 
 The member of the association who would bind a 
 paper-box maiden to his conquering chariot scorned 
 to employ Beau Brummel airs. They were not con 
 sidered honourable methods of warfare. The swell 
 ing biceps, the coat straining at its buttons over the 
 chest, the air of conscious conviction of the super- 
 eminence of the male in the cosmogony of creation, 
 even a calm display of bow legs as subduing and 
 enchanting agents in the gentle tourneys of Cupid 
 these were the approved arms and ammunition of 
 
 [71] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 the Clover Leaf gallants. They viewed, then, the 
 genuflexions and alluring poses of this visitor with 
 their chins at a new angle. 
 
 "A friend of mine, Mr. Terry O Sullivan," was 
 Maggie s formula of introduction. She led him 
 around the room, presenting him to each new-arriv 
 ing Clover Leaf. Almost was she pretty now, with 
 the unique luminosity in her eyes that comes to a 
 girl with her first suitor and a kitten with its first 
 mouse. 
 
 " Maggie Toole s got a fellow at last," was the 
 word that went round among the paper-box girls. 
 "Pipe Mag s floor-walker" thus the Give and 
 Takes expressed their indifferent contempt. 
 
 Usually at the weekly hops Maggie kept a spot on 
 the wall warm with her back. She felt and showed 
 so much gratitude whenever a self-sacrificing part 
 ner invited her to dance that his pleasure was cheap 
 ened and diminished. She had even grown used to 
 noticing Anna joggle the reluctant Jimmy with her 
 elbow as a signal for him to invite her chum to walk 
 over his feet through a two-step. 
 
 But to-night the pumpkin had turned to a coach 
 and six. Terry O Sullivan was a victorious Prince 
 Charming, and Maggie Toole winged her first but 
 terfly flight. And though our tropes of fairyland 
 
 [72] 
 
THE COMING-OUT OF MAGGIE 
 
 be mixed with those of entomology they shall not spill 
 one drop of ambrosia from the rose-crowned melody 
 of Maggie s one perfect night. 
 
 The girls besieged her for introductions to her 
 " fellow." The Clover Leaf young men, after two 
 years of blindness, suddenly perceived charms in 
 Miss Toole. They flexed their compelling muscles 
 before her and bespoke her for the dance. 
 
 Thus she scored; but to Terry O Sullivan the 
 honours of the evening fell thick and fast. He 
 shook his curls; he smiled and went easily through 
 the seven motions for acquiring grace in your own 
 room before an open window ten minutes each day. 
 He danced like a faun; he introduced manner and 
 style and atmosphere; his words came trippingly 
 upon his tongue, and he waltzed twice in succession 
 with the paper-box girl that Dempsey Donovan 
 brought. 
 
 Dempsey was the leader of the association. He 
 wore a dress suit, and could chin the bar twice with 
 one hand. He was one of " Big Mike " O Sullivan s 
 lieutenants, and was never troubled by trouble. No 
 cop dared to arrest him. Whenever he broke a push 
 cart man s head or shot a member of the Heinrick 
 B. Sweeney Outing and Literary Association in the 
 kneecap, an officer would drop around and say: 
 
 [73] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 " The Cap n d like to see ye a few minutes round 
 to the office whin ye have time, Dempsey, me boy." 
 
 But there would be sundry gentlemen there with 
 large gold fob chains and black cigars ; and some 
 body would tell a funny story, and then Dempsey 
 would go back and work half an hour with the six- 
 pound dumbbells. So, doing a tight-rope act on a 
 wire stretched across Niagara was a safe terpsich- 
 orean performance compared with waltzing twice 
 with Dempsey Donovan s paper-box girl. At 10 
 o clock the jolly round face of " Big Mike " O Sul- 
 livan shone at the door for five minutes upon the 
 scene. He always looked in for five minutes, smiled 
 at the girls and handed out real perfectos to the 
 delighted boys. 
 
 Dempsey Donovan was at his elbow instantly, talk 
 ing rapidly. " Big Mike " looked carefully at the 
 dancers, smiled, shook his head and departed. 
 
 The music stopped. The dancers scattered to the 
 chairs along the walls. Terry O Sullivan, with his 
 entrancing bow, relinquished a pretty girl in blue 
 to her partner and started back to find Maggie. 
 Dempsey intercepted him in the middle of the floor. 
 
 Some fine instinct that Rome must have bequeathed 
 to us caused nearly every one to turn and look at 
 them there was a subtle feeling that two gladiators 
 
 [74] 
 
THE COMING-OUT OF MAGGIE 
 
 had met in the arena. Two or three Give and Takes 
 with tight coat sleeves drew nearer. 
 
 " One moment, Mr. O Sullivan," said Dempsey. 
 " I hope you re enjoying yourself. Where did you 
 say you lived? " 
 
 The two gladiators were well matched. Dempsey 
 had, perhaps, ten pounds of weight to give away. 
 The O Sullivan had breadth with quickness. Demp* 
 sey had a glacial eye, a dominating slit of a mouth, 
 an indestructible jaw, a complexion like a belle s and 
 the coolness of a champion. The visitor showed more 
 fire in his contempt and less control over his con 
 spicuous sneer. They were enemies by the law writ 
 ten when the rocks were molten. They were each 
 too splendid, too mighty, too incomparable to divide 
 pre-eminence. One only must survive. 
 
 " I live on Grand," said O Sullivan, insolently ; 
 " and no trouble to find me at home. Where do 
 you live?" 
 
 Dempsey ignored the question. 
 
 " You say your name s O Sullivan," he went on. 
 " Well, * Big Mike says he never saw you before." 
 
 " Lots of things he never saw," said the favourite 
 of the hop. 
 
 " As a rule," went on Dempsey, huskily sweet, 
 " O Sullivans in this district know one another. You 
 
 [75] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 escorted one of our lady members here, and we want 
 a chance to make good. If you ve got a family tree 
 let s see a few historical O Sullivan buds come out on 
 it. Or do you want us to dig it out of you by the 
 roots?" 
 
 " Suppose you mind your own business," suggested 
 O Sullivan, blandly. 
 
 Dempsey s eye brightened. He held up an inspired 
 forefinger as though a brilliant idea had struck 
 him. 
 
 " I ve got it now," he said cordially. " It was just 
 a little mistake. You ain t no O Sullivan. You are 
 a ring-tailed monkey. Excuse us for not recognis 
 ing you at first." 
 
 O Sullivan s eye flashed. He made a quick move 
 ment, but Andy Geoghan was ready and caught his 
 arm. 
 
 Dempsey nodded at Andy and William McMahan, 
 the secretary of the club, and walked rapidly toward 
 a door at the rear of the hall. Two other members 
 of the Give and Take Association swiftly joined the 
 little group. Terry O Sullivan was now in the hands 
 of the Board of Rules and Social Referees. They 
 spoke to him briefly and softly, and conducted him 
 out through the same door at the rear. 
 
 This movement on the part of the Clover Leaf 
 [76] 
 
THE COMING-OUT OF MAGGIE 
 
 members requires a word of elucidation. Back of 
 the association hall was a smaller room rented by the 
 club. In this room personal difficulties that arose 
 on the ballroom floor were settled, man to man, with 
 the weapons of nature, under the supervision of the 
 board. No lady could say that she had witnessed a 
 fight at a Clover Leaf hop in several years. Its 
 gentlemen members guaranteed that. 
 
 So easily and smoothly had Dempsey and the 
 board done their preliminary work that many in the 
 hall had not noticed the checking of the fascinating 
 O Sullivan s social triumph. Among these was Mag 
 gie. She looked about for her escort. 
 
 " Smoke up ! " said Rose Cassidy. " Wasn t you 
 on? Demps Donovan picked a scrap with your Liz 
 zie-boy, and they ve waltzed out to the slaughter 
 room with him. How s my hair look done up this 
 way, Mag? " 
 
 Maggie laid a hand on the bosom of her cheese 
 cloth waist. 
 
 " Gone to fight with Dempsey ! " she said, breath 
 lessly. " They ve got to be stopped. Dempsey 
 Donovan can t fight him. Why, he ll he ll kill 
 him!" 
 
 " Ah, what do you care ? " said Rosa. " Don t 
 some of em fight every hop?" 
 
 [77] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 But Maggie was off, darting her zig-zag way 
 through the maze of dancers. She burst through the 
 rear door into the dark hall and then threw her solid 
 shoulder against the door of the room of single 
 combat. It gave way, and in the instant that she 
 entered her eye caught the scene the Board stand 
 ing about with open watches ; Dempsey Donovan in 
 his shirt sleeves dancing, light-footed, with the wary 
 grace of the modern pugilist, within easy reach of 
 his adversary ; Terry O Sullivan standing with arms 
 folded and a murderous look in his dark eyes. And 
 without slacking the speed of her entrance she leaped 
 forward with a scream leaped in time to catch and 
 hang upon the arm of O Sullivan that was suddenly 
 uplifted, and to whisk from it the long, bright 
 stiletto that he had drawn from his bosom. 
 
 The knife fell and rang upon the floor. Cold steel 
 drawn in the rooms of the Give and Take Associa 
 tion ! Such a thing had never happened before. 
 Every one stood motionless for a minute. Andy 
 Geoghan kicked the stiletto with the toe of his shoe 
 curiously, like an antiquarian who has come upon 
 some ancient weapon unknown to his learning. 
 
 And then O Sullivan hissed something unintelligi 
 ble between his teeth. Dempsey and the board ex 
 changed looks. And then Dempsey looked at O Sul- 
 
 [78] 
 
THE COMING-OUT OF MAGGIE 
 
 livan without anger, as one looks at a stray dog, and 
 nodded his head in the direction of the door. 
 
 " The back stairs, Giuseppi," he said, briefly. 
 " Somebody 11 pitch your hat down after you." 
 
 Maggie walked up to Dempsey Donovan. There 
 was a brilliant spot of red in her cheeks, down which 
 slow tears were running. But she looked him bravely 
 in the eye. 
 
 " I knew it, Dempsey," she said, as her eyes grew 
 dull even in their tears. " I knew he was a Guinea. 
 His name s Tony Spinelli. I hurried in when they 
 told me you and him was scrappin . Them Guineas 
 always carries knives. But you don t understand, 
 Dempsey. I never had a fellow in my life. I got 
 tired of comin with Anna and Jimmy every night, 
 so I fixed it with him to call himself O Sullivan, and 
 brought him along. I knew there d be nothin doin 
 for him if he came as a Dago. I guess I ll resign 
 from the club now." 
 
 Dempsey turned to Andy Geoghan. 
 
 " Chuck that cheese slicer out of the window," he 
 said, " and tell em inside that Mr. O Sullivan has 
 had a telephone message to go down to Tammany 
 Hall." 
 
 And then he turned back to Maggie. 
 
 " Say, Mag," he said, " I ll see you home. And 
 [79] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 how about nextv Saturday night? Will you come to 
 the hop with me if I call around for you? " 
 
 It was remarkable how quickly Maggie s eyes 
 could change from dull to a shining brown. 
 
 "With you, Dempsey?" she stammered. "Say 
 will a duck swim? " 
 
 [80] 
 
MAN ABOUT TOWN 
 
 THERE were two or three things that I wanted 
 to know. I do not care about a mystery. So I 
 began to inquire. 
 
 It took me two weeks to find out what women carry 
 in dress suit cases. And then I began to ask why 
 a mattress is made in two pieces. This serious query 
 was at first received with suspicion because it 
 sounded like a conundrum. I was at last assured 
 that its double form of construction was designed to 
 make lighter the burden of woman, who makes up 
 beds. I was so foolish as to persist, begging to 
 know why, then, they were not made in two equal 
 pieces; whereupon I was shunned. 
 
 The third draught that I craved from the fount 
 of knowledge was enlightenment concerning the 
 character known as A Man About Town. He was 
 more vague in my mind than a type should be. We 
 must have a concrete idea of anything, even if it be 
 an imaginary idea, before we can comprehend it. 
 Now, I have a mental picture of John Doe that is as 
 clear as a steel engraving. His eyes are weak blue; 
 
 [81] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 he wears a brown vest and a shiny black serge coat. 
 He stands always in the sunshine chewing some 
 thing; and he keeps half-shutting his pocket knife 
 and opening it again with his thumb. And, if the 
 Man Higher Up is ever found, take my assurance 
 for it, he will be a large, pale man with blue wrist 
 lets showing under his cuffs, and he will be sitting 
 to have his shoes polished within sound of a bowling 
 alley, and there will be somewhere about him 
 turquoises. 
 
 But the canvas of my imagination, when it came 
 to limning the Man About Town, was blank. I 
 fancied that he had a detachable sneer (like the 
 smile of the Cheshire cat) and attached cuffs; and 
 that was all. Whereupon I asked a newspaper re 
 porter about him. 
 
 " Why," said he, " a Man About Town is some 
 thing between a 6 rounder and a clubman. He 
 isn t exactly well, he fits in between Mrs. Fish s 
 receptions and private boxing bouts. He doesn t 
 well, he doesn t belong either to the Lotos Club or to 
 the Jerry McGeogheghan Galvanised Iron Workers 
 Apprentices Left Hook Chowder Association. I 
 don t exactly know how to describe him to you. 
 You ll see him everywhere there s anything doing. 
 Yes, I suppose he s a type. Dress clothes every 
 
 [82] 
 
MAN ABOUT TOWN 
 
 evening; knows the ropes; calls every policeman and 
 waiter in town by their first names. No; he never 
 travels with the hydrogen derivatives. You gen 
 erally see him alone or with another man." 
 
 My friend the reporter left me, and I wandered 
 further afield. By this time the 3126 electric lights 
 on the Rialto were alight. People passed, but they 
 held me not. Paphian eyes rayed upon me, and left 
 me unscathed. Diners, heimgangers, shop-girls, con 
 fidence men, panhandlers, actors, highwaymen, mil 
 lionaires and outlanders hurried, skipped, strolled, 
 sneaked, swaggered and scurried by me; but I took 
 no note of them. I knew them all; I had read their 
 hearts ; they had served. I wanted my Man About 
 Town. He was a type, and to drop him would be an 
 error a typograph but no ! let us continue. 
 
 Let us continue with a moral digression. To see a 
 family reading the Sunday paper gratifies. The 
 sections have been separated. Papa is earnestly 
 scanning the page that pictures the young lady 
 exercising before an open window, and bending but 
 there, there ! Mamma is interested in trying to guess 
 the missing letters in the word N w Yo k. The 
 oldest girls are eagerly perusing the financial re 
 ports, for a certain young man remarked last Sun 
 day night that he had taken a flyer in Q., X. & Z. 
 
 [83] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 Willie, the eighteen-year-old son, who attends the 
 New York public school, is absorbed in the weekly 
 article describing how to make over an old skirt, for 
 he hopes to take a prize in sewing on graduation day. 
 
 Grandma is holding to the comic supplement with 
 a two-hours grip; and little Tottie, the baby, is 
 rocking along the best she can with the real estate 
 transfers. This view is intended to be reassuring, 
 for it is desirable that a few lines of this story be 
 skipped. For it introduces strong drink. 
 
 I went into a cafe to and while it was being 
 mixed I asked the man who grabs up your hot 
 Scotch spoon as soon as you lay it down what he 
 understood by the term, epithet, description, desig 
 nation, characterisation or appellation, viz. : a " Man 
 About Town." 
 
 " Why," said he, carefully, " it means a fly guy 
 that s wise to the all-night push see? It s a hot 
 sport that you can t bump to the rail anywhere be 
 tween the Flatirons see? I guess that s about what 
 it means." 
 
 I thanked him and departed. 
 
 On the sidewalk a Salvation lassie shook her con 
 tribution receptacle gently against my waistcoat 
 pocket. 
 
 " Would you mind telling me," I asked her, " if 
 [84] 
 
MAN ABOUT TOWN 
 
 you ever meet with the character commonly denomi 
 nated as A Man About Town during your daily 
 wanderings ? " 
 
 " I think I know whom you mean," she answered, 
 with a gentle smile. " We see them in the same 
 places night after night. They are ,the devil s body 
 guard, and if the soldiers of any army are as faith 
 ful as they are, their commanders are well served. 
 We go among them, diverting a few pennies from 
 their wickedness to the Lord s service." 
 
 She shook the box again and I dropped a dime 
 into it. 
 
 In front of a glittering hotel a friend of mine, 
 a critic, was climbing from a cab. He seemed at 
 leisure ; and I put my question to him. He answered 
 me conscientiously, as I was sure he would. 
 
 " There is a type of Man About Town in New 
 York," he answered. "The term is quite familiar 
 to me, but I don t think I was ever called upon to de 
 fine the character before. It would be difficult to 
 point you out an exact specimen. I would say, off 
 hand, that it is a man who had a hopeless case of 
 the peculiar New York disease of wanting to see and 
 know. At 6 o clock each day life begins with him. 
 He follows rigidly the conventions of dress and man 
 ners ; but in the business of poking his nose into 
 
 [85] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 places where he does not belong he could give 
 pointers to a civet cat or a jackdaw. He is the man 
 who has chased Bohemia about the town from raths 
 keller to roof garden and from Hester street to Har 
 lem until you can t find a place in the city where they 
 don t cut their spaghetti with a knife. Your Man 
 About Town has done that. He is always on the 
 scent of something new. He is curiosity, impudence 
 and omnipresence. Hansoms were made for him, 
 and gold-banded cigars; and the curse of music at 
 dinner. There are not so many of him; but his 
 minority report is adopted everywhere. 
 
 66 I m glad you brought up the subject; I ve felt 
 the influence of this nocturnal blight upon our city, 
 but I never thought to analyse it before. I can see 
 now that your * Man About Town should have been 
 classified long ago. In his wake spring up wine 
 agents and cloak models ; and the orchestra plays 
 6 Let s All Go Up to Maud s for him, by request, in 
 stead of Handel. He makes his rounds every even 
 ing; while you and I see the elephant once a week. 
 When the cigar store is raided, he winks at the 
 officer, familiar with his ground, and walks away 
 immune, while you and I search among the Presi 
 dents for names, and among the stars for addresses 
 to give the desk sergeant." 
 
 [86] 
 
MAN ABOUT TOWN 
 
 My friend, the critic, paused to acquire breath for 
 fresh eloquence. I seized my advantage. 
 
 " You have classified him," I cried with joy. 
 " You have painted his portrait in the gallery of city 
 types. But I must meet one face to face. I must 
 study the Man About Town at first hand. Where 
 shall I find him? How shall I know him? " 
 
 Without seeming to hear me, the critic went on. 
 And his cab-driver was waiting for his fare, too. 
 
 " He is the sublimated essence of Butt-in ; the re 
 fined, intrinsic extract of Rubber; the concentrated, 
 purified, irrefutable, unavoidable spirit of Curiosity 
 and Inquisitiveness. A new sensation is the breath 
 in his nostrils; when his experience is exhausted 
 he explores new fields with the indefatigability 
 of a-" 
 
 "Excuse me," I interrupted, "but can you pro 
 duce one of this type? It is a new thing to me. I 
 must study it. I will search the town over until I 
 find one. Its habitat must be here on Broadway." 
 
 " I am about to dine here," said my friend. 
 " Come inside, and if there is a Man About Town 
 present I will point him out to you. I know most 
 of the regular patrons here." 
 
 " I am not dining yet," I said to him. " You will 
 excuse me. I am going to find my Man About Town 
 
 [87] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 this night if I have to rake New York from the 
 Battery to Little Coney Island." 
 
 I left the hotel and walked down Broadway. The 
 pursuit of my type gave a pleasant savour of life and 
 interest to the air I breathed. I was glad to be in a 
 city so great, so complex and diversified. Leisurely 
 and with something of an air I strolled along with 
 my heart expanding at the thought that I was a 
 citizen of great Gotham, a sharer in its magnificence 
 and pleasures, a partaker in its glory and prestige. 
 
 I turned to cross the street. I heard something 
 buzz like a bee, and then I took a long, pleasant ride 
 with Santos-Dumont. 
 
 When I opened my eyes I remembered a smell of 
 gasoline, and I said aloud: " Hasn t it passed yet? " 
 
 A hospital nurse laid a hand that was not particu 
 larly soft upon my brow that was not at all fevered. 
 A young doctor came along, grinned, and handed me 
 a morning newspaper. 
 
 " Want to see how it happened? " he asked 
 cheerily. I read the article. Its headlines began 
 where I heard the buzzing leave off the night before. 
 It closed with these lines : 
 
 " Bellevue Hospital, where it was said that his 
 
 injuries were not serious. He appeared to be a typi 
 cal Man About Town." 
 
 [88] 
 
THE COP AND THE ANTHEM 
 
 ON his bench in Madison Square Soapy moved 
 uneasily. When wild geese honk high of nights, 
 and when women without sealskin coats grow kind 
 to their husbands, and when Soapy moves uneasily 
 on his bench in the park, you may know that winter 
 is near at hand. 
 
 A dead leaf fell in Soapy s lap. That was Jack 
 Frost s card. Jack is kind to the regular denizens of 
 Madison Square, and gives fair warning of his annual 
 call. At the corners of four streets he hands his 
 pasteboard to the North Wind, footman of the man 
 sion of All Outdoors, so that the inhabitants thereof 
 may make ready. 
 
 Soapy s mind became cognisant of the fact that 
 the time had come for him to resolve himself into a 
 singular Committee of Ways and Means to provide 
 against the coming rigour. And therefore he moved 
 uneasily on his bench. 
 
 The hibernatorial ambitions of Soapy were not of 
 the highest. In them there were no considerations 
 of Mediterranean cruises, of soporific Southern skies 
 
 [89] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 or drifting in the Vesuvian Bay. Three months on 
 the Island was what his soul craved. Three months 
 of assured board and bed and congenial company, 
 safe from Boreas and bluecoats, seemed to Soapy the 
 essence of things desirable. 
 
 For years the hospitable Blackwell s had been his 
 winter quarters. Just as his more fortunate fellow 
 New Yorkers had bought their tickets to Palm Beach 
 and the Riviera each winter, so Soapy had made his 
 humbler arrangements for his annual hegira to the 
 Island. And now the time was come. On the pre 
 vious night three Sabbath newspapers, distributed 
 beneath his coat, about his ankles and over his lap, 
 had failed to repulse the cold as he slept on his 
 bench near the spurting fountain in the ancient 
 square. So the Island loomed big and timely in 
 Soapy s mind. He scorned the provisions made in 
 the name of charity for the city s dependents. In 
 Soapy s opinion the Law was more benign than Phil 
 anthropy. There was an endless round of institu 
 tions, municipal and eleemosynary, on which he might 
 set out and receive lodging and food accordant with 
 the simple life. But to one of Soapy s proud spirit 
 the gifts of charity are encumbered. If not in coin 
 you must pay in humiliation of spirit for every bene 
 fit received at the hands of philanthropy. As Caesar 
 
 [90] 
 
THE COP AND THE ANTHEM 
 
 had his Brutus, every bed of charity must have its 
 toll of a bath, every loaf of bread its compensation of 
 a private and personal inquisition. Wherefore it is 
 better to be a guest of the law, which though con 
 ducted by rules, does not meddle unduly with a gen 
 tleman s private affairs. 
 
 Soapy, having decided to go to the Island, at once 
 set about accomplishing his desire. There were 
 many easy ways of doing this. The pleasantest was 
 to dine luxuriously at some expensive restaurant ; and 
 then, after declaring insolvency, be handed over 
 quietly and without uproar to a policeman. An ac 
 commodating magistrate would do the rest. 
 
 Soapy left his bench and strolled out of the square 
 and across the level sea of asphalt, where Broadway 
 and Fifth Avenue flow together. Up Broadway he 
 turned, and halted at a glittering cafe, where are 
 gathered together nightly the choicest products of 
 the grape, the silkworm and the protoplasm. 
 
 Soapy had confidence in himself from the lowest 
 button of his vest upward. He was shaven, and his 
 coat was decent and his neat black, ready-tied four- 
 in-hand had been presented to him by a lady mis 
 sionary on Thanksgiving Day. If he could reach a 
 table in the restaurant unsuspected success would be 
 his. The portion of him that would show above the 
 
 [91] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 table would raise no doubt in the waiter s mind. !A! 
 roasted mallard duck, thought Soapy, would be about 
 the thing with a bottle of Chablis, and then 
 Camembert, a demi-tasse and a cigar. One dollar for 
 the cigar would be enough. The total would not be 
 so high as to call forth any supreme manifestation of 
 revenge from the cafe management ; and yet the meat 
 would leave him filled and happy for the journey to 
 his winter refuge. 
 
 But as Soapy set foot inside the restaurant door 
 the head waiter s eye fell upon his frayed trousers 
 and decadent shoes. Strong and ready hands turned 
 him about and conveyed him in silence and haste to 
 the sidewalk and averted the ignoble fate of the 
 menaced mallard. 
 
 Soapy turned off Broadway. It seemed that his 
 route to the coveted island was not to be an epicurean 
 one. Some other way of entering limbo must be 
 thought of. 
 
 At a corner of Sixth Avenue electric lights and 
 cunningly displayed wares behind plate-glass made a 
 shop window conspicuous. Soapy took a cobble 
 stone and dashed it through the glass. People came 
 running around the corner, a policeman in the lead. 
 Soapy stood still, with his hands in his pockets, and 
 smiled at the sight of brass buttons. 
 
 [92] 
 
THE COP AND THE ANTHEM 
 
 "Where s the man that done that?" inquired the 
 officer excitedly. 
 
 " Don t you figure out that I might have had 
 something to do with it?" said Soapy, not without 
 sarcasm, but friendly, as one greets good fortune. 
 
 The policeman s mind refused to accept Soapy 
 even as a clue. Men who smash windows do not 
 remain to parley with the law s minions. They take 
 to their heels. The policeman saw a man half way 
 down the block running to catch a car. With drawn 
 club he joined in the pursuit. Soapy, with disgust 
 in his heart, loafed along, twice unsuccessful. 
 
 On the opposite side of the street was a restaurant 
 of no great pretensions. It catered to large appe 
 tites and modest purses. Its crockery and atmos 
 phere were thick; its soup and napery thin. Into 
 this place Soapy took his accusive shoes and telltale 
 trousers without challenge. At a table he sat and 
 consumed beefsteak, flapjacks, doughnuts and pie. 
 And then to the waiter he betrayed the fact that the 
 minutest coin and himself were strangers. 
 
 " Now, get busy and call a cop," said Soapy. 
 " And don t keep a gentleman waiting." 
 
 " No cop for youse," said the waiter, with a voice 
 like butter cakes and an eye like the cherry in a 
 Manhattan cocktail. " Hey, Con ! " 
 
 [93] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 Neatly upon his left ear on the callous pavement 
 two waiters pitched Soapy. He arose, joint by joint, 
 as a carpenter s rule opens, and beat the dust from 
 his clothes. Arrest seemed but a rosy dream. The 
 Island seemed very far away. A policeman who 
 stood before a drug store two doors away laughed 
 and walked down the street. 
 
 Five blocks Soapy travelled before his courage 
 permitted him to woo capture again. This time the 
 opportunity presented what he fatuously termed to 
 himself a " cinch." A young woman of a modest 
 and pleasing guise was standing before a show win 
 dow gazing with sprightly interest at its display of 
 shaving mugs and inkstands, and two yards from the 
 window a large policeman of severe demeanour leaned 
 against a water plug. 
 
 It was Soapy s design to assume the role of the 
 despicable and execrated " masher." The refined and 
 elegant appearance of his victim and the contiguity 
 of the conscientious cop encouraged him to believe 
 that he would soon feel the pleasant official clutch 
 upon his arm that would insure his winter quarters 
 on the right little, tight little isle. 
 
 Soapy straightened the lady missionary s ready- 
 made tie, dragged his shrinking cuffs into the open, 
 set his hat at a killing cant and sidled toward the 
 
 [94] 
 
THE COP AND THE ANTHEM 
 young woman. He made eyes at her, was taken with 
 sudden coughs and " hems," smiled, smirked and 
 went brazenly through the impudent and contemptible 
 litany of the " masher." With half an eye Soapy 
 saw that the policeman was watching him fixedly. 
 The young woman moved away a few steps, and 
 again bestowed her absorbed attention upon the 
 shaving mugs. Soapy followed, boldly stepping to 
 her side, raised his hat and said : 
 
 " Ah there, Bedelia ! Don t you want to come and 
 play in my yard ? " 
 
 The policeman was still looking. The persecuted 
 young woman had but to beckon a finger and Soapy 
 would be practically en route for his insular haven. 
 Already he imagined he could feel the cozy warmth of 
 the station-house. The young woman faced him and, 
 stretching out a hand, caught Soapy s coat sleeve. 
 
 " Sure, Mike," she said joyfully, " if you ll blow 
 me to a pail of suds. I d have spoke to you sooner, 
 but the cop was watching." 
 
 With the young woman playing the clinging ivy 
 to his oak Soapy walked past the policeman overcome 
 with gloom. He seemed doomed to liberty. 
 
 At the next corner he shook off his companion and 
 ran. He halted in the district where by night are 
 found the lightest streets, hearts, vows and librettos. 
 
 [95] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 Women in furs and men in greatcoats moved gaily in 
 the wintry air. A sudden fear seized Soapy that 
 some dreadful enchantment had rendered him immune 
 to arrest. The thought brought a little of panic 
 upon it, and when he came upon another policeman 
 lounging grandly in front of a transplendent the 
 atre he caught at the immediate straw of " disorderly 
 conduct." 
 
 On the sidewalk Soapy began to yell drunken gib 
 berish at the top of his harsh voice. He danced, 
 howled, raved and otherwise disturbed the welkin. 
 
 The policeman twirled his club, turned his back to 
 Soapy and remarked to a citizen. 
 
 " Tis one of them Yale lads celebratin the goose 
 egg they give to the JIartf ord College. Noisy ; but 
 no harm. We ve instructions to lave them be." 
 
 Disconsolate, Soapy ceased his unavailing racket. 
 Would never a policeman lay hands on him? In his 
 fancy the Island seemed an unattainable Arcadia. 
 He buttoned his thin coat against the chilling wind. 
 
 In a cigar store he saw a well-dressed man light 
 ing a cigar at a swinging light. His silk umbrella 
 he had set by the door on entering. Soapy stepped 
 inside, secured the umbrella and sauntered off with 
 it slowly. The man at the cigar light followed 
 hastily. 
 
 [96] 
 
THE COP AND THE ANTHEM 
 
 " My umbrella," he said, sternly. 
 
 " Oh, is it? " sneered Soapy, adding insult to petit 
 larceny. " Well, why don t you call a policeman ? I 
 took it. Your umbrella! Why don t you call a cop? 
 There stands one on the corner." 
 
 The umbrella owner slowed his steps. Soapy did 
 likewise, with a presentiment that luck would again 
 run against him. The policeman looked at the two 
 curiously. 
 
 " Of course," said the umbrella man " that is 
 well, you know how these mistakes occur I if it s 
 your umbrella I hope you ll excuse me I picked it 
 up this morning in a restaurant If you recognise 
 it as yours, why I hope you ll " 
 
 " Of course it s mine," said Soapy, viciously. 
 
 The ex-umbrella man retreated. The policeman 
 hurried to assist a tall blonde in an opera cloak across 
 the street in front of a street car that was approach 
 ing two blocks away. 
 
 Soapy walked eastward through a street damaged 
 by improvements. He hurled the umbrella wrath- 
 fully into an excavation. He muttered against the 
 men who wear helmets and carry clubs. Because he 
 wanted to fall into their clutches, they seemed to 
 regard him as a king who could do no wrong. 
 
 At length Soapy reached one of the avenues to the 
 [97] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 east where the glitter and turmoil was but faint. 
 He set his face down this toward Madison Square, 
 for the homing instinct survives even when the home 
 is a park bench. 
 
 But on an unusually quiet corner Soapy came to a 
 standstill. Here was an old church, quaint and ram 
 bling and gabled. Through one violet-stained win 
 dow a soft light glowed, where, no doubt, the organ 
 ist loitered over the keys, making sure of his mastery 
 of the coming Sabbath anthem. For there drifted 
 out to Soapy s ears sweet music that caught and held 
 him transfixed against the convolutions of the iron 
 fence. 
 
 The moon was above, lustrous and serene; vehi 
 cles and pedestrians were few; sparrows twittered 
 sleepily in the eaves for a little while the scene 
 might have been a country churchyard. And the an 
 them that the organist played cemented Soapy to 
 the iron fence, for he had known it well in the days 
 when his life contained such things as mothers and 
 roses and ambitions and friends and immaculate 
 thoughts and collars. 
 
 The conjunction of Soapy s receptive state of mind 
 and the influences about the old church wrought a 
 sudden and wonderful change in his soul. He viewed 
 with swift horror the pit into which he had tumbled, 
 
 [98] 
 
THE COP AND THE ANTHEM 
 
 the degraded days, unworthy desires, dead hopes, 
 wrecked faculties and base motives that made up hia 
 existence. 
 
 And also in a moment his heart responded thrill- 
 ingly to this novel mood. An instantaneous and 
 strong impulse moved him to battle with his des 
 perate fate. He would pull himself out of the mire ; 
 he would make a man of himself again ; he would 
 conquer the evil that had taken possession of him. 
 There was time ; he was comparatively young yet ; 
 he would resurrect his old eager ambitions and pur 
 sue them without faltering. Those solemn but sweet 
 organ notes had set up a revolution in him. To 
 morrow he w r ould go into the roaring downtown dis 
 trict and find work. A fur importer had once offered 
 him a place as driver. He would find him to-morrow 
 and ask for the position. He would be somebody in 
 the world. He would 
 
 Soapy felt a hand laid on his arm. He looked 
 quickly around into the broad face of a policeman, 
 
 " What are you doin here ? " asked the officer. 
 
 " Nothin ," said Soaj>y. 
 
 " Then come along," said the policeman. 
 
 " Three months on the Island," said the Magis 
 trate in the Police Court the next morning. 
 
 [99] 
 
AN ADJUSTMENT OF NATURE 
 
 IN an art exhibition the other day I saw a paint 
 ing that had been sold for $5,000. The painter 
 was a young scrub out of the West named 
 Kraft, who had a favourite food and a pet theory. 
 His pabulum was an unquenchable belief in the Un 
 erring Artistic Adjustment of Nature. His theory 
 was fixed around corned-beef hash with poached egg. 
 There was a story behind the picture, so I went home 
 and let it drip out of a fountain-pen. The idea of 
 Kraft but that is not the beginning of the story. 
 
 Three years ago Kraft, Bill Judkins (a poet), and 
 I took our meals at Cypher s, on Eighth Avenue. I 
 say " took." When we had money, Cypher got it 
 " off of " us, as he expressed it. We had no credit ; 
 we went in, called for food and ate it. We paid or 
 we did not pay. We had confidence in Cypher s 
 sullenness and smouldering ferocity. Deep down in 
 his sunless soul he was either a prince, a fool or an 
 artist. He sat at a worm-eaten desk, covered with 
 files of waiters checks so old that I was sure the 
 bottomest one was for clams that Hendrik Hudson 
 [100] 
 
AN ADJUSTMENT OF NATURE 
 had eaten and paid for. Cypher had the power, in 
 common with Napoleon III. and the goggle-eyed 
 perch, of throwing a film over his eyes, rendering 
 opaque the windows of his soul. Once when we left 
 him unpaid, with egregious excuses, I looked back 
 and saw him shaking with inaudible laughter be 
 hind his film. Now and then we paid up back scores. 
 But the chief thing at Cypher s was Milly. Milly 
 was a waitress. She was a grand example of 
 Kraft s theory of the artistic adjustment of nature. 
 She belonged, largely, to waiting, as Minerva did 
 to the art of scrapping, or Venus to the science 
 of serious flirtation. Pedestalled and in bronze she 
 might have stood with the noblest of her heroic 
 sisters as " Liver-and-Bacon Enlivening the World." 
 She belonged to Cypher s. You expected to see her 
 colossal figure loom through that reeking blue cloud 
 of smoke from frying fat just as you expect the 
 Palisades to appear through a drifting Hudson 
 River fog. There amid the steam of vegetables and 
 the vapours of acres of " ham and," the crash of 
 crockery, the clatter of steel, the screaming of 
 " short orders," the cries of the hungering and all 
 the horrid tumult of feeding man, surrounded by 
 swarms of the buzzing winged beasts bequeathed us 
 by Pharaoh, Milly steered her magnificent way like 
 [101] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 some great liner cleaving among the canoes of howl 
 ing savages. 
 
 Our Goddess of Grub was built on lines so majes 
 tic that they could be followed only with awe. Her 
 sleeves were always rolled above her elbows. She 
 could have taken us three musketeers in her two 
 hands and dropped us out of the window. She had 
 seen fewer years than any of us, but she was of such 
 superb Evehood and simplicity that she mothered us 
 from the beginning. Cypher s store of eatables she 
 poured out upon us with royal indifference to price 
 and quantity, as from a cornucopia that knew no ex 
 haustion. Her voice rang like a great silver bell ; 
 her smile was many-toothed and frequent; she 
 seemed like a yellow sunrise on mountain tops. I 
 never saw her but I thought of the Yosemite. And 
 yet, somehow, I could never think of her as existing 
 outside of Cypher s. There nature had placed her, 
 and she had taken root and grown mightily. She 
 seemed happy, and took her few poor dollars on 
 Saturday nights with the flushed pleasure of a child 
 that receives an unexpected donation. 
 
 It was Kraft who first voiced the fear that each 
 of us must have held latently. It came up apropos, 
 of course, of certain questions of art at which we 
 were hammering. One of us compared the harmony 
 
AN ADJUSTMENT OF NATURE 
 
 existing between a Haydn symphony and pistache 
 ice cream to the exquisite congruity between Milly 
 and Cypher s. 
 
 " There is a certain fate hanging over Milly," said 
 Kraft, " and if it overtakes her she is lost to Cypher s 
 and to us." 
 
 " She will grow fat?" asked Judkins, fearsomely. 
 
 " She will go to night school and become refined? " 
 I ventured anxiously. 
 
 " It is this," said Kraft, punctuating in a puddle 
 of spilled coffee with a stiff forefinger. " Caesar 
 had his Brutus the cotton has its bollworm, the 
 chorus girl has her Pittsburger, the summer boarder 
 has his poison ivy, the hero has his Carnegie medal, 
 art has its Morgan, the rose has its " 
 
 " Speak," I interrupted, much perturbed. " You 
 do not think that Milly will begin to lace? " 
 
 " One day," concluded Kraft, solemnly, " there 
 will come to Cypher s for a plate of beans a mil 
 lionaire lumberman from Wisconsin, and he will 
 marry Milly." 
 
 " Never ! " exclaimed Judkins and I, in horror. 
 
 " A lumberman," repeated Kraft, hoarsely. 
 
 " And a millionaire lumberman 1 " I sighed, 
 despairingly. 
 
 " From Wisconsin ! " groaned Judkins. 
 [103] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 We agreed that the awful fate seemed to menace 
 her. Few things were less improbable. Milly, like 
 some vast virgin stretch of pine woods, was made 
 to catch the lumberman s eye. And well we knew 
 the habits of the Badgers, once fortune smiled upon 
 them. Straight to New York they hie, and lay their 
 goods at the feet of the girl who serves them beans 
 in a beanery. Why, the alphabet itself connives. 
 The Sunday newspaper s headliner s work is cut for 
 him. 
 
 " Winsome Waitress Wins Wealthy Wisconsin 
 Woodsman." 
 
 For a while we felt that Milly was on the verge of 
 being lost to us. 
 
 It was our love of the Unerring Artistic Adjust 
 ment of Nature that inspired us. We could not give 
 her over to a lumberman, doubly accursed by wealth 
 and provincialism. We shuddered to think of Milly, 
 with her voice modulated and her elbows covered, 
 pouring tea in the marble teepee of a tree murderer. 
 No ! In Cypher s she belonged in the bacon smoke, 
 the cabbage perfume, the grand, Wagnerian chorus 
 of hurled ironstone china and rattling casters. 
 
 Our fears must have been prophetic, for on that 
 same evening the wildwood discharged upon us 
 Milly s preordained confiscator our fee to adjust- 
 
 [104] 
 
AN ADJUSTMENT OF NATURE 
 
 ment and order. But Alaska and not Wisconsin 
 bore the burden of the visitation. 
 
 We were at our supper of beef stew and dried 
 apples when he trotted in as if on the heels of a dog 
 team, and made one of the mess at our table. With 
 the freedom of the camps he assaulted our ears and 
 claimed the fellowship of men lost in the wilds of a 
 hash house. We embraced him as a specimen, and in 
 three minutes we had all but died for one another as 
 friends. 
 
 He was rugged and bearded and wind-dried. He 
 had just come off the " trail," he said, at one of 
 the North River ferries. I fancied I could see the 
 snow dust of Chilcoot yet powdering his shoulders. 
 And then he strewed the table with the nuggets, 
 stuffed ptarmigans, bead work and seal pelts of the 
 returned Klondiker, and began to prate to us of his 
 millions. 
 
 " Bank drafts for two millions," was his sum 
 ming up, " and a thousand a day piling up from my 
 claims. And now I want some beef stew and canned 
 peaches. I never got off the train since I mushed 
 out of Seattle, and I m hungry. The stuff the 
 niggers feed you on Pullmans don t count. You 
 gentlemen order what you want." 
 
 And then Milly loomed up with a thousand dishes 
 [105] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 on her bare arm loomed up big and white and pink 
 and awful as Mount Saint Elias with a smile like 
 day breaking in a gulch. And the Klondiker threw 
 down his pelts and nuggets as dross, and let his 
 jaw fall half-way, and stared at her. You could 
 almost see the diamond tiaras on Milly s brow and 
 the hand-embroidered silk Paris gowns that he meant 
 to buy for her. 
 
 At last the bollworm had attacked the cotton 
 the poison ivy was reaching out its tendrils to entwine 
 the summer boarder the millionaire lumberman, 
 thinly disguised as the Alaskan miner, was about to 
 engulf our Milly and upset Nature s adjustment. 
 
 Kraft was the first to act. He leaped up and 
 pounded the Klondiker s back. " Come out and 
 drink," he shouted. " Drink first and eat after 
 ward." Judkins seized one arm and I the other. 
 Gaily, roaringly, irresistibly, in jolly-good-fellow 
 style, we dragged him from the restaurant to a cafe, 
 stuffing his pockets with his embalmed birds and in 
 digestible nuggets. 
 
 There he rumbled a roughly good-humoured pro 
 test. " That s the girl for my money," he declared. 
 " She can eat out of my skillet the rest of her life. 
 Why, I never see such a fine girl. I m going back 
 there and ask her to marry me. I guess she won t 
 
 [106] 
 
AN ADJUSTMENT OF NATURE 
 
 want to sling hash any more when she sees the pile of 
 dust I ve got." 
 
 "You ll take another whiskey and milk now," 
 Kraft persuaded, with Satan s smile. " I thought 
 you up-country fellows were better sports." 
 
 Kraft spent his puny store of coin at the bar and 
 then gave Judkins and me such an appealing look 
 that we went down to the last dime we had in toast 
 ing our guest. 
 
 Then, when our ammunition was gone and the 
 Klondiker, still somewhat sober, began to babble 
 again of Milly, Kraft whispered into his ear such 
 a polite, barbed insult relating to people who were 
 miserly with their funds, that the miner crashed 
 down handful after handful of silver and notes, call 
 ing for all the fluids in the world to drown the 
 imputation. 
 
 Thus the work was accomplished. With his own 
 guns we drove him from the field. And then we 
 had him carted to a distant small hotel and put to 
 bed with his nuggets and baby seal-skins stuffed 
 around him. 
 
 " He will never find Cypher s again," said Kraft. 
 " He will propose to the first white apron he sees in 
 a dairy restaurant to-morrow. And Milly I mean 
 the Natural Adjustment is saved!" 
 [107] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 And back to Cypher s went we three, and, finding 
 customers scarce, we joined hands and did an In 
 dian dance with Milly in the centre. 
 
 This, I say, happened three years ago. And about 
 that time a little luck descended upon us three, and 
 we were enabled to buy costlier and less wholesome 
 food than Cypher s. Our paths separated, and I saw 
 Kraft no more and Judkins seldom. 
 
 But, as I said, I saw a painting the other day 
 that was sold for $5,000. The title was " Boadicea," 
 and the figure seemed to fill all out-of-doors. But 
 of all the picture s admirers who stood before it, I 
 believe I was the only one who longed for Boadicea 
 to stalk from her frame, bringing me corned-beef 
 hash with poached egg. 
 
 I hurried away to see Kraft. His satanic eyes 
 were the same, his hair was worse tangled, but his 
 clothes had been made by a tailor. 
 
 " I didn t know," I said to him. 
 
 " We ve bought a cottage in the Bronx with the 
 money," said he. " Any evening at 7." 
 
 " Then," said I, " when you led us against the 
 lumberman the Klondiker it wasn t altogether 
 on account of the Unerring Artistic Adjustment of 
 Nature?" 
 
 " Well, not altogether," said Kraft, with a grin." 
 [108] 
 
MEMOIRS OF A YELLOW DOG 
 
 I DON T suppose it will knock any of you peo 
 ple off your perch to read a contribution from 
 an animal. Mr. Kipling and a good many others 
 have demonstrated the fact that animals can express 
 themselves in remunerative English, and no magazine 
 goes to press nowadays without an animal story in it, 
 except the old-style monthlies that are still running 
 pictures of Bryan and the Mont Pelee horror. 
 
 But you needn t look for any stuck-up literature 
 in my piece, such as Bearoo, the bear, and Snakoo, 
 the snake, and Tammanoo, the tiger, talk in the 
 jungle books. A yellow dog that s spent most of 
 his life in a cheap New York flat, sleeping in a corner 
 on an old sateen underskirt (the one she spilled port 
 wine on at the Lady Longshoremen s banquet), 
 mustn t be expected to perform any tricks with the 
 art of speech. 
 
 I was born a yellow pup; date, locality, pedigree 
 and weight unknown. The first thing I can recol 
 lect, an old woman had me in a basket at Broadway 
 and Twenty-third trying to sell me to a fat lady. 
 [109] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 Old Mother Hubbard was boosting me to beat the 
 band as a genuine Pomeranian-Hambletonian-Red 
 Irish-Cochin-China-Stoke-Pogis fox terrier. The 
 fat lady chased a V around among the samples of 
 gros grain flannelette in her shopping bag till she 
 cornered it, and gave up. From that moment I was 
 a pet a mamma s own wootsey squidlums. Say, 
 gentle reader, did you ever have a 200-pound woman 
 breathing a flavour of Camembert cheese and Peau 
 d Espagne pick you up and wallop her nose all over 
 you, remarking all the time in an Emma Eames tone 
 of voice : " Oh, oo s um oodlum, doodlum, woodlum, 
 toodlum, bitsy-witsy skoodlums ? " 
 
 From a pedigreed yellow pup I grew up to be an 
 anonymous yellow cur looking like a cross between 
 an Angora cat and a box of lemons. But my mis 
 tress never tumbled. She thought that the two 
 primeval pups that Noah chased into the ark were 
 but a collateral branch of my ancestors. It took two 
 policemen to keep her from entering me at the 
 Madison Square Garden for the Siberian bloodhound 
 prize. 
 
 I ll tell you about that flat. The house was the 
 ordinary thing in New York, paved with Parian mar 
 ble in the entrance hall and cobblestones above the 
 first floor. Our flat was three fl well, not flights 
 
 [110] 
 
MEMOIRS OF A YELLOW DOG 
 
 climbs up. My mistress rented it unfurnished, and 
 put in the regular things 1903 antique unholstered 
 parlour set, oil chromo of geishas in a Harlem tea 
 house, rubber plant and husband. 
 
 By Sirius ! there was a biped I felt sorry for. He 
 was a little man with sandy hair and whiskers a 
 good deal like mine. Henpecked? well, toucans and 
 flamingoes and pelicans all had their bills in him. He 
 wiped the dishes and listened to my mistress tell 
 about the cheap, ragged things the lady with the 
 squirrel-skin coat on the second floor hung out on her 
 line to dry. And every evening while she was getting 
 supper she made him take me out on the end of a 
 string for a walk. 
 
 If men knew how women pass the time when they 
 are alone they d never marry. Laura Lean Jibbey, 
 peanut brittle, a little almond cream on the neck 
 muscles, dishes unwashed, half an hour s talk with 
 the iceman, reading a package of old letters, a couple 
 of pickles and two bottles of malt extract, one hour 
 peeking through a hole in the window shade into the 
 flat across the air-shaft that s about all there is to 
 it. Twenty minutes before time for him to come 
 home from work she straightens up the house, fixes 
 her rat so it won t show, and gets out a lot of sewing 
 for a ten-minute bluff. 
 
 [in] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 I led a dog s life in that flat. Most all day I lay 
 there in my corner watching that fat woman kill 
 time. I slept sometimes and had pipe dreams about 
 being out chasing cats into basements and growling 
 at old ladies with black mittens, as a dog was intended 
 to do. Then she would pounce upon me with a lot of 
 that drivelling poodle palaver and kiss me on the 
 nose but what could I do? A dog can t chew 
 cloves. 
 
 I began to feel sorry for Hubby, dog my cats 
 if I didn t. We looked so much alike that people 
 noticed it when we went out ; so we shook the streets 
 that Morgan s cab drives down, and took to climbing 
 the piles of last December s snow on the streets where 
 cheap people live. 
 
 One evening when we were thus promenading, and 
 I was trying to look like a prize St. Bernard, and 
 the old man was trying to look like he wouldn t 
 have murdered the first organ-grinder he 1 heard play 
 Mendelssohn s wedding-march, I looked up at him 
 and said, in my way: 
 
 " What are you looking so sour about, you oakum 
 trimmed lobster? She don t kiss you. You don t 
 have to sit on her lap and listen to talk that would 
 make the book of a musical comedy sound like the 
 maxims of Epictetus. You ought to be thankful 
 
 [112] 
 
MEMOIRS OF A YELLOW DOG 
 you re not a dog. Brace up. Benedick, and bid the 
 blues begone." 
 
 That matrimonial mishap looked down at me with 
 almost canine intelligence in his face. 
 
 " Why, doggie," says he, " good doggie. You 
 almost look like you could speak. What is it, doggie 
 Cats?" 
 
 Cats! Could speak! 
 
 But, of course, he couldn t understand. Humans 
 were denied the speech of animals. The only com 
 mon ground of communication upon which dogs and 
 men can get together is in fiction. 
 
 In the flat across the hall from us lived a lady with 
 a black-and-tan terrier. Her husband strung it 
 and took it out every evening, but he always came 
 home cheerful and whistling. One day I touched 
 noses with the black-and-tan in the hall, and I struck 
 him for an elucidation. 
 
 " See, here, Wiggle-and-Skip," I says, " you know 
 that it ain t the nature of a real man to play dry 
 nurse to a dog in public. I never saw one leashed to 
 a bow-wow yet that didn t look like he d like to lick 
 every other man that looked at him. But your boss 
 comes in every day as perky and set up as an ama 
 teur prestidigitator doing the egg trick. How does 
 he do it? Don t tell me he likes it." 
 
 [113] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 " Him ? " says the black-and-tan. " Why, he uses 
 Nature s Own Remedy. He gets spifflicated. At 
 first when we go out he s as shy as the man on the 
 steamer who would rather play pedro when they 
 make em all jackpots. By the time we ve been in 
 eight saloons he don t care whether the thing on the 
 end of his line is a dog or a catfish. I ve lost 
 two inches of my tail trying to sidestep those swing 
 ing doors." 
 
 The pointer I got from that terrier vaudeville 
 please copy set me to thinking. 
 
 One evening about 6 o clock my mistress ordered 
 him to get busy and do the ozone act for Lovey. I 
 have concealed it until now, but that is what she 
 called me. The black-and-tan was called " Tweet- 
 ness." I consider that I have the bulge on him as 
 far as you could chase a rabbit. Still " Lovey " is 
 something of a nomenclatural tin can on the tail of 
 one s self respect. 
 
 At a quite place on a safe street I tightened the 
 line of my custodian in front of an attractive, re 
 fined saloon. I made a dead-ahead scramble for the 
 doors, whining like a dog in the press despatches 
 that lets the family know that little Alice is bogged 
 while gathering lilies in the brook. 
 
 " Why, darn my eyes," says the old man, with a 
 [114] 
 
MEMOIRS OF A YELLOW DOG 
 grin ; " darn my eyes if the saffron-coloured son of a 
 seltzer lemonade ain t asking me in to take a drink. 
 Lemme see how long s it been since I saved shoe 
 leather by keeping one foot on the foot-rest? I 
 believe I ll " 
 
 I knew I had him. Hot Scotches he took, sitting 
 at a table. For an hour he kept the Campbells com 
 ing. I sat by his side rapping for the waiter with 
 my tail, and eating free lunch such as mamma in her 
 flat never equalled with her homemade truck bought 
 at a delicatessen store eight minutes before papa 
 comes home. 
 
 When the products of Scotland were all exhausted 
 except the rye bread the old man unwound me from 
 the table leg and played me outside like a fisherman 
 plays a salmon. Out there he took off my collar and 
 threw it into the street. 
 
 " Poor doggie," says he ; " good doggie. She 
 shan t kiss you any more. S a darned shame. Good 
 doggie, go away and get run over by a street car and 
 be happy." 
 
 I refused to leave. I leaped and frisked around 
 the old man s legs happy as a pug on a rug. 
 
 " You old flea-headed woodchuck-chaser," I said to 
 him "you moon-baying, rabbit-pointing, egg- 
 stealing old beagle, can t you see that I don t want 
 [115] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 to leave you? Can t you see that we re both Pups in 
 the Wood and the missis is the cruel uncle after you 
 with the dish towel and me with the flea liniment and 
 a pink bow to tie on my tail. Why not cut that all 
 out and be pards forever more? " 
 
 Maybe you ll say he didn t understand maybe he 
 didn t. But he kind of got a grip on the Hot 
 Scotches, and stood still for a minute, thinking. 
 
 " Doggie," says he, finally, " we don t live more 
 than a dozen lives on this earth, and very few of us 
 live to be more than 300. If I ever see that flat any 
 more I m a flat, and if you do you re flatter; 
 and that s no flattery. I m offering 60 to 1 that 
 Westward Ho wins out by the length of a dachs 
 hund." 
 
 There was no string, but I frolicked along with 
 my master to the Twenty-third street ferry. And 
 the cats on the route saw reason to give thanks that 
 prehensile claws had been given them. 
 
 On the Jersey side my master said to a stranger 
 who stood eating a currant bun: 
 
 " Me and my doggie, we are bound for the Rocky 
 Mountains." 
 
 But what pleased me most was when my old man 
 pulled both of my ears until I howled, and said : 
 
 " You common, monkey-headed, rat-tailed, sul- 
 [116] 
 
MEMOIRS OF A YELLOW DOG 
 
 phur-coloured son of a door mat, do you know what 
 I m going to call you ? " 
 
 I thought of " Lovey," and I whined dolefully. 
 
 " I m going to call you Pete, " says my master ; 
 and if I d had five tails I couldn t have done enough 
 wagging to do justice to the occasion. 
 
 [117] 
 
THE LOVE-PHILTRE OF IKEY 
 SCHOENSTEIN 
 
 THE Blue Light Drug Store is downtown, between 
 the Bowery and First Avenue, where the distance 
 between the two streets is the shortest. The Blue- 
 Light does not consider that pharmacy is a thing of 
 bric-a-brac, scent and ice-cream soda. If you ask 
 it for pain-killer it will not give you a bonbon. 
 
 The Blue Light scorns the labour-saving arts of 
 modern pharmacy. It macerates its opium and per 
 colates its own laudanum and paregoric. To this 
 day pills are made behind its tall prescription desk 
 pills rolled out on its own pill-tile, divided with a 
 spatula, rolled with the finger and thumb, dusted with 
 calcined magnesia and delivered in little round paste 
 board pill-boxes. The store is on a corner about 
 which coveys of ragged-plumed, hilarious children 
 play and become candidates for the cough drops and 
 soothing syrups that wait for them inside. 
 
 Ikey Schoenstein was the night clerk of the Blue 
 Light and the friend of his customers. Thus it is on 
 the East Side, where the heart of pharmacy is not 
 glace. There, as it should be, the druggist is a coun- 
 
 [118] 
 
LOVE-PHILTRE OF IKEY SCHOENSTEIN 
 
 sellor, a confessor, an adviser, an able and willing 
 missionary and mentor whose learning is respected, 
 whose occult wisdom is venerated and whose medicine 
 is often poured, untasted, into the gutter. There 
 fore Ikey s corniform, be-spectacled nose and nar 
 row, knowledge-bowed figure was well known in the 
 vicinity of the Blue Light, and his advice and notice 
 were much desired. 
 
 Ikey roomed and breakfasted at Mrs. Riddle s two 
 squares away. Mrs. Riddle had a daughter named 
 Rosy. The circumlocution has been in vain you 
 must have guessed it Ikey adored Rosy. She 
 tinctured all his thoughts ; she was the compound 
 extract of all that was chemically pure and officinal 
 the dispensatory contained nothing equal to her. 
 But Ikey was timid, and his hopes remained insoluble 
 in the menstruum of his backwardness and fears. 
 Behind his counter he was a superior being, calmly 
 conscious of special knowledge and worth ; outside he 
 was a weak-kneed, purblind, motorman-cursed ram 
 bler, with ill-fitting clothes stained with chemicals 
 and smelling of socotrine aloes and valerianate of 
 ammonia. 
 
 The fly in Ikey s ointment (thrice welcome, pat 
 trope!) was Chunk McGowan. 
 
 Mr. McGowan was also striving to catch the bright 
 [119] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 smiles tossed about by Rosy. But he was no out 
 fielder as Ikey was ; he picked them off the bat. At 
 the same time he was Ikey s friend and customer, 
 and often dropped in at the Blue Light Drug Store 
 to have a bruise painted with iodine or get a cut 
 rubber-plastered after a pleasant evening spent along 
 the Bowery. 
 
 One afternoon McGowan drifted in in his silent, 
 easy way, and sat, comely, smooth-faced, hard, in 
 domitable, good-natured, upon a stool. 
 
 " Ikey," said he, when his friend had fetched his 
 mortar and sat opposite, grinding gum benzoin to a 
 powder, " get busy with your ear. It s drugs for me 
 if you ve got the line I need." 
 
 Ikey scanned the countenance of Mr. McGowan for 
 the usual evidences of conflict, but found none. 
 
 " Take your coat off," he ordered. " I guess al 
 ready that you have been stuck in the ribs with a 
 knife. I have many times told you those Dagoes 
 would do you up." 
 
 Mr. McGowan smiled. "Not them," he said. 
 " Not any Dagoes. But you ve located the diagnosis 
 all right enough it s under my coat, near the ribs. 
 Say ! Ikey Rosy and me are goin to run away and 
 get married to-night." 
 
 Ikey s left forefinger was doubled over the edge of 
 [120] 
 
LOVE-PHILTRE OF IKEY SCHOENSTEIN 
 
 the mortar, holding it steady. He gave it a wild rap 
 with the pestle, but felt it not. Meanwhile Mr. 
 McGowan s smile faded to a look of perplexed 
 gloom. 
 
 " That is," he continued, " if she keeps in the no 
 tion until the time comes. We ve been layin pipes 
 for the getaway for two weeks. One day she says she 
 will; the same evenin she says nixy. We ve agreed 
 on to-night, and Rosy s stuck to the affirmative this 
 time for two whole days. But it s five hours yet till 
 the time, and I m afraid she ll stand me up when it 
 comes to the scratch." 
 
 "You said you wanted drugs," remarked Ikey. 
 
 Mr. McGowan looked ill at ease and harassed a 
 condition opposed to his usual line of demeanour. He 
 made a patent-medicine almanac into a roll and fitted 
 it with unprofitable carefulness about his finger. 
 
 " I wouldn t have this double handicap make a 
 false start to-night for a million," he said. " I ve got 
 a little flat up in Harlem all ready, with chrysan 
 themums on the table and a kettle ready to boil. 
 And I ve engaged a pulpit pounder to be ready at 
 his house for us at 9 :30. It s got to come off. And 
 if Rosy don t change her mind again ! " Mr. Mc 
 Gowan ceased, a prey to his doubts. 
 
 " I don t see then yet," said Ikey, shortly, " what 
 [121] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 makes it that you talk of drugs, or what I can be 
 doing about it." 
 
 " Old man Riddle don t like me a little bit," went 
 on the uneasy suitor, bent upon marshalling his argu 
 ments. " For a week he hasn t let Rosy step outside 
 the door with me. If it wasn t for losin a boarder 
 they d have bounced me long ago. I m makin $20 a 
 week and she ll never regret flyin the coop with 
 Chunk McGowan." 
 
 " You will excuse me, Chunk," said Ikey. " I 
 must make a prescription that is to be called for 
 soon." 
 
 " Say," said McGowan, looking up suddenly, 
 " say, Ikey, ain t there a drug of some kind some 
 kind of powders that ll make a girl like you better if 
 you give em to her? " 
 
 Ikey s lip beneath his nose curled with the scorn 
 of superior enlightenment; but before he could an 
 swer, McGowan continued: 
 
 " Tim Lacy told me he got some once from a 
 croaker uptown and fed em to his girl in soda water. 
 From the very first dose he was ace-high and every 
 body else looked like thirty cents to her. They was 
 married in less than two weeks." 
 
 Strong and simple was Chunk McGowan. A better 
 reader of men than Ikey was could have seen that his 
 
. LOVE-PHILTRE OF IKEY SCHOENSTEIN 
 
 tough frame was strung upon fine wires. Like a 
 good general who was about to invade the enemy s 
 territory he was seeking to guard every point against 
 possible failure. 
 
 " I thought," went on Chunk hopefully, " that if I 
 had one of them powders to give Rosy when I see 
 her at supper to-night it might brace her up and 
 keep her from reneging on the proposition to skip. I 
 guess she don t need a mule team to drag her away, 
 but women are better at coaching than they are at 
 running bases. If the stuff ll work just for a couple 
 
 hours it ll do the trick." 
 
 " When is this foolishness of running away to be 
 happening? " asked Ikey. 
 
 " Nine o clock," said Mr. McGowan. " Supper s 
 at seven. At eight Rosy goes to bed with a headache. 
 At nine old Parvenzano lets me through to his back 
 yard, where there s a board off Riddle s fence, next 
 door. I go under her window and help her down the 
 fire-escape. We ve got to make it early on the 
 preacher s account. It s all dead easy if Rosy don t 
 balk when the flag drops. Can you fix me one of them 
 powders, Ikey?" 
 
 Ikey Schoenstein rubbed his nose slowly. 
 
 " Chunk," said he, " it is of drugs of that nature 
 that pharmaceutists must have much carefulness. To 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 you alone of my acquaintance would I intrust a 
 powder like that. But for you I shall make it, and 
 you shall see how it makes Rosy to think of you." 
 
 Ikey went behind the prescription desk. There he 
 crushed to a powder two soluble tablets, each con 
 taining a quarter of a grain of morphia. To them 
 he added a little sugar of milk to increase the bulk, 
 and folded the mixture neatly in a white paper. 
 Taken by an adult this powder would insure several 
 hours of heavy slumber without danger to the sleepe". 
 This he handed to Chunk McGowan, telling him to 
 administer it in a liquid if possible, and received the 
 hearty thanks of the backyard Lochinvar. 
 
 The subtlety of Ikey s action becomes apparent 
 upon recital of his subsequent move. He sent a 
 messenger for Mr. Riddle and disclosed the plans of 
 Mr. McGowan for eloping with Rosy. Mr. Riddle 
 was a stout man, brick-dusty of complexion and sud 
 den in action. 
 
 " Much obliged," he said, briefly, to Ikey. " The 
 lazy Irish loafer! My own room s just above Rosy s. 
 I ll just go up there myself after supper and load the 
 shot-gun and wait. If he comes in my back yard 
 he ll go away in a ambulance instead of a bridal 
 chaise." 
 
 With Rosy held in the clutches of Morpheus for a 
 [124] 
 
LOVE-PHILTRE OF IKEY SCHOENSTEIN 
 many-hours deep slumber, and the bloodthirsty 
 parent waiting, armed and forewarned, Ikey felt 
 that his rival was close, indeed, upon discomfiture. 
 
 All night in the Blue Light Drug Store he waited 
 at his duties for chance news of the tragedy, but 
 none came. 
 
 At eight o clock in the morning the day clerk ar 
 rived and Ikey started hurriedly for Mrs. Riddle s to 
 learn the outcome. And, lo ! as he stepped out of the 
 store who but Chunk McGowan sprang from a pass 
 ing street car and grasped his hand Chunk Mc 
 Gowan with a victor s smile and flushed with joy. 
 
 "Pulled it off," said Chunk with Elysium in his 
 grin. " Rosy hit the fire-escape on time to a second, 
 and we was under the wire at the Reverend s at 
 9.30^. She s up at the flat she cooked eggs this 
 mornin in a blue kimono Lord! how lucky I am! 
 You must pace up some day, Ikey, and feed with us. 
 I ve got a job down near the bridge, and that s where 
 I m heading for now." 
 
 " The the powder? " stammered Ikey. 
 
 " Oh, that stuff you gave me ! " said Chunk, broad- 
 
 . ening his grin ; " well, it was this way. I sat down 
 
 at the supper table last night at Riddle s, and I 
 
 looked at Rosy, and I says to myself, ( Chunk, if you 
 
 get the girl get her on the square don t try any 
 
 [125] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 hocus-pocus with a thoroughbred like her. And 
 I keeps the paper you give me in my pocket. And 
 then my lamps fall on another party present, who, 
 I says to myself, is failin in a proper affection to 
 ward his comin son-in-law, so I watches my chance 
 and dumps that powder in old man Riddle s coffee 
 see? " 
 
 [126] 
 
MAMMON AND THE ARCHER 
 
 OLD Anthony Rockwell, retired manufacturer and 
 proprietor of Rockwall s Eureka Soap, looked out 
 the library window of his Fifth Avenue mansion and 
 grinned. His neighbour to the right the aristo 
 cratic clubman, G. Van Schuylight Suffolk-Jones 
 came out to his waiting motor-car, wrinkling a con 
 tumelious nostril, as usual, at the Italian renaissance 
 sculpture of the soap palace s front elevation. 
 
 " Stuck-up old statuette of nothing doing ! " com 
 mented the ex-Soap King. " The Eden Musee 11 get 
 that old frozen Nesselrode yet if he don t watch 
 out. I ll have this house painted red, white, and blue 
 next summer and see if that ll make his Dutch nose 
 turn up any higher." 
 
 And then Anthony Rockwall, who never cared for 
 bells, went to the door of his library and shouted 
 " Mike ! " in the same voice that had once chipped 
 off pieces of the welkin on the Kansas prairies. 
 
 66 Tell my son," said Anthony to the answering 
 menial, " to come in here before he leaves the 
 house." 
 
 [127] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 When young Rockwall entered the library the old 
 man laid aside his newspaper, looked at him with a 
 kindly grimness on his big, smooth, ruddy counte 
 nance, rumpled his mop of white hair with one hand 
 and rattled the keys in his pocket with the other. 
 
 " Richard," said Anthony Rockwall, " what do you 
 pay for the soap that you use? " 
 
 Richard, only six months home from college, was 
 startled a little. He had not yet taken the measure 
 of this sire of his, who was as full of unexpected 
 nesses as a girl at her first party. 
 
 " Six dollars a dozen, I think, dad." 
 
 " And your clothes ? " 
 
 " I suppose about sixty dollars, as a rule." 
 
 " You re a gentleman," said Anthony, decidedly. 
 "I ve heard of these young bloods spending $24 a 
 dozen for soap, and going over the hundred mark for 
 clothes. You ve got as much money to waste as any 
 of em, and yet you stick to what s decent and mod 
 erate. Now I use the old Eureka not only for 
 sentiment, but it s the purest soap made. Whenever 
 you pay more than 10 cents a cake for soap you buy 
 bad perfumes and labels. But 50 cents is doing very 
 well for a young man in your generation, position and 
 condition. As I said, you re a gentleman. They say 
 it takes three generations to make one. They re off. 
 [128] 
 
MAMMON AND THE ARCHER 
 
 Money 11 do it as slick as soap grease. It s made you 
 one. By hokey ! it s almost made one of me. I m 
 nearly as impolite and disagreeable and ill-mannered 
 as these two old Knickerbocker gents on each side of 
 me that can t sleep of nights because I bought in 
 between em." 
 
 " There are some things that money can t accom 
 plish," remarked young Rockwall, rather gloomily. 
 
 " Now, don t say that," said old Anthony, shocked. 
 " I bet my money on money ever time. I ve been 
 through the encyclopaedia down to Y looking for 
 something you can t buy with it; and I expect to 
 have to take up the appendix next week. I m for 
 money against the field. Tell me something money 
 won t buy." 
 
 "For one thing," answered Richard, rankling a 
 little, " it won t buy one into the exclusive circles of 
 society." 
 
 " Oho ! won t it ? " thundered the champion of the 
 root of evil. " You tell me where your exclusive 
 circles would be if the first Astor hadn t had the 
 money to pay for his steerage passage over? " 
 
 Richard sighed. 
 
 " And that s what I was coming to," said the old 
 man, less boisterously. " That s why I asked you to 
 come in. There s something going wrong with you, 
 [129] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 boy. I ve been noticing it for two weeks. Out with 
 it. I guess I could lay my hands on eleven millions 
 within twenty-four hours, besides the real estate. 
 If it s your liver, there s the Rambler down in the 
 bay, coaled, and ready to steam down to the Ba 
 hamas in two days." 
 
 " Not a bad guess, dad ; you haven t missed it 
 far." 
 
 " Ah," said Anthony, keenly ; " what s her name ? " 
 
 Richard began to walk up and down the library 
 floor. There was enough comradeship and sympa 
 thy in this crude old father of his to draw his 
 confidence. 
 
 "Why don t you ask her?" demanded old An* 
 thony. " She ll jump at you. You ve got the money 
 and the looks, and you re a decent boy. Your hands 
 are clean. You ve got no Eureka soap on em. 
 You ve been to college, but she ll overlook that." 
 
 " I haven t had a chance," said Richard. 
 
 " Make one," said Anthony. " Take her for a 
 walk in the park, or a straw ride, or walk home with 
 her from church. Chance ! Pshaw ! " 
 
 " You don t know the social mill, dad. She s part 
 of the stream that turns it. Every hour and min 
 ute of her time is arranged for days in advance. I 
 must have that girl, dad, or this town is a black- 
 [130] 
 
MAMMON AND THE ARCHER 
 
 jack swamp forevermore. And I can t write it 
 I can t do that." 
 
 " Tut ! " said the old man. " Do you mean to tell 
 me that with all the money I ve got you can t get an 
 hour or two of a girl s time for yourself? " 
 
 " I ve put it off too late. She s going to sail for 
 Europe at noon day after to-morrow for a two 
 years stay. I m to see her alone to-morrow evening 
 for a few minutes. She s at Larchmont now at her 
 aunt s. I can t go there. But I m allowed to meet 
 her with a cab at the Grand Central Station to-mor 
 row evening at the 8.30 train. We drive down 
 Broadway to Wallack s at a gallop, where her mother 
 and a box party will be waiting for us in the lobby. 
 Do you think she would listen to a declaration from 
 me during that six or eight minutes under those 
 circumstances? No. And what chance would I have 
 in the theatre or afterward? None. No, dad, this 
 is one tangle that your money can t unravel. We 
 can t buy one minute of time with cash ; if we could, 
 rich people would live longer. There s no hope 
 of getting a talk with Miss Lantry before she 
 sails." 
 
 "All right, Richard, my boy," said old Anthony, 
 cheerfully. "You may run along down to your club 
 now. I m glad it ain t your liver. But don t forget 
 [131] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 to burn a few punk sticks in the joss house to the 
 great god Mazuma from time to time. You say 
 money won t buy time? Well, of course, you can t 
 order eternity wrapped up and delivered at your 
 residence for a price, but I ve seen Father Time get 
 pretty bad stone bruises on his heels when he walked 
 through the gold diggings." 
 
 That night came Aunt Ellen, gentle, sentimental, 
 wrinkled, sighing, oppressed by wealth, in to Brother 
 Anthony at his evening paper, and began discourse 
 on the subject of lovers woes. 
 
 " He told me all about it," said brother Anthony, 
 3 awning. " I told him my bank account was at his 
 service. And then he began to knock money. Said 
 money couldn t help. Said the rules of society 
 couldn t be bucked for a yard by a team of ten- 
 millionaires." 
 
 " Oh, Anthony," sighed Aunt Ellen, " I wish you 
 would not think so much of money. Wealth is 
 nothing where a true affection is concerned. Love 
 is all-powerful. If he only had spoken earlier ! She 
 could not have refused our Richard. But now I 
 fear it is too late. He will have no opportunity to 
 address her. All your gold cannot bring happiness 
 to your son." 
 
 At eight o clock the next evening Aunt Ellen took 
 [132] 
 
MAMMON AND THE ARCHER 
 a quaint old gold ring from a moth-eaten case and 
 gave it to Richard. 
 
 " Wear it to-night, nephew," she begged. " Your 
 mother gave it to me. Good luck in love she said 
 it brought. She asked me to give it to you when 
 you had found the one you loved." 
 
 Young Rock wall took the ring reverently and tried 
 it on his smallest finger. It slipped as far as the 
 second joint and stopped. He took it off and stuffed 
 it into his vest pocket, after the manner of man. 
 And then he phoned for his cab. 
 
 At the station he captured Miss Lantry out of the 
 gadding mob at eight thirty-two. 
 
 " We mustn t keep mamma and the others wait 
 ing," said she. 
 
 " To Wallack s Theatre as fast as you can drive ! " 
 said Richard loyally. 
 
 They whirled up Forty-second to Broadway, and 
 then down the white-starred lane that leads from 
 the soft meadows of sunset to the rocky hills of 
 morning. 
 
 At Thirty-fourth Street young Richard quickly 
 thrust up the trap and ordered the cabman to 
 stop. 
 
 " I ve dropped a ring," he apologised, as he 
 climbed out. " It was my mother s, and I d hate to 
 [133] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 lose it. I won t detain you a minute I saw where 
 it fell." 
 
 In less than a minute he was back in the cab with 
 the ring. 
 
 But within that minute a crosstown car had 
 stopped directly in front of the cab. The cabman 
 tried to pass to the left, but a heavy express wagon 
 cut him off. He tried the right, and had to back 
 away from a furniture van that had no business to be 
 there. He tried to back out, but dropped his reins 
 and swore dutifully. He was blockaded in a tangled 
 mess of vehicles and horses. 
 
 One of those street blockades had occurred that 
 sometimes tie up commerce and movement quite sud 
 denly in the big city. 
 
 " Why don t you drive on? " said Miss Lantry, 
 impatiently. " We ll be late." 
 
 Richard stood up in the cab and looked around. 
 He saw a congested flood of waggons, trucks, cabs, 
 vans and street cars filling the vast space where 
 Broadway, Sixth Avenue and Thirty-fourth street 
 cross one another as a twenty-six inch maiden fills her 
 twenty-two inch girdle. And still from all the cross 
 streets they were hurrying and rattling toward the 
 converging point at full speed, and hurling them 
 selves into the struggling mass, locking wheels and 
 [134] 
 
MAMMON AND THE ARCHER 
 adding their drivers imprecations to the clamour. 
 The entire traffic of Manhattan seemed to have 
 jammed itself around them. The oldest New Yorker 
 among the thousands of spectators that lined the 
 sidewalks had not witnessed a street blockade of the 
 proportions of this one. 
 
 " I m very sorry," said Richard, as he resumed 
 his seat, " but it looks as if we are stuck. They 
 won t get this jumble loosened up in an hour. It was 
 my fault. If I hadn t dropped the ring we " 
 
 " Let me see the ring," said Miss Lantry. " Now 
 that it can t be helped, I don t care. I think theatres 
 are stupid, anyway." 
 
 At 11 o clock that night somebody tapped lightly 
 on Anthony Rockwall s door. 
 
 " Come in," shouted Anthony, who was in a red 
 dressing-gown, reading a book of p- ratical adven 
 tures. 
 
 Somebody was Aunt Ellen, looking like a grey- 
 haired angel that had been left on earth by mistake. 
 
 " They re engaged, Anthony," she said, softly. 
 " She has promised to marry our Richard. On their 
 way to the theatre there was a street blockade, and 
 it was two hours before their cab could get out of it. 
 
 " And oh, brother Anthony, don t ever boast of 
 the power of money again. A little emblem of true 
 
 [135] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 love -a little ring that symbolised unending and 
 unmercenary affection was the cause of our Rich 
 ard finding his happiness. He dropped it in the 
 street, and got out to recover it. And before they 
 could continue the blockade occurred. He spoke to 
 his love and won her there while the cab was hemmed 
 in. Money is dross compared with true love, 
 Anthony." 
 
 "All right," said old Anthony. "I m glad the 
 boy has got what he wanted. I told him I wouldn t 
 spare any expense in the matter if " 
 
 " But, brother Anthony, what good could your 
 money have done?" 
 
 " Sister," said Anthony Rockwall. " I ve got my 
 pirate in a devil of a scrape. His ship has just 
 been scuttled, and he s too good a judge of the 
 value of money to let drown. I wish you would 
 let me go on with this chapter." 
 
 The story should end here. I wish it would as 
 heartily as you who read it wish it did. But we 
 must go to the bottom of the well for truth. 
 
 The next day a person with red hands and a blue 
 polka-dot necktie, who called himself Kelly, called 
 at Anthony Rockwall s house, and was at once re 
 ceived in the library. 
 
 "Well," said Anthony, reaching for his cheque- 
 [136] 
 
MAMMON AND THE ARCHER 
 
 book, " it was a good bilin of soap. Let s see you 
 had $5,000 in cash." 
 
 " I paid out $300 more of my own," said Kelly. 
 " I had to go a little above the estimate. I got the 
 express wagons and cabs mostly for $5; but the 
 trucks and two-horse teams mostly raised me to $10. 
 The motormen wanted $10, and some of the loaded 
 teams $20. The cops struck me hardest $50 I 
 paid two, and the rest $20 and $25. But didn t it 
 work beautiful, Mr. Rockwall? I m glad William 
 A. Brady wasn t onto that little outdoor vehicle mob 
 scene. I wouldn t want William to break his heart 
 with jealousy. And never a rehearsal, either! The 
 boys was on time to the fraction of a second. It was 
 two hours before a snake could get below Greeley s 
 statue." 
 
 " Thirteen hundred there you are, Kelly," said 
 Anthony, tearing off a check. " Your thousand, and 
 the $300 you were out. You don t despise money, 
 do you, Kelly?" 
 
 " Me? " said Kelly. " I can lick the man that in 
 vented poverty." 
 
 Anthony called Kelly when he was at the door. 
 
 " You didn t notice," said he, " anywhere in the 
 tie-up, a kind of a fat boy without any clothes on 
 shooting arrows around with a bow, did you?" 
 [137] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 "Why, no," said Kelly, mystified. " I didn t. If 
 he was like you say, maybe the cops pinched him 
 before I got there." 
 
 66 1 thought the little rascal wouldn t be on hand," 
 chuckled Anthony. " Good-by, Kelly." 
 
 [138] 
 
SPRINGTIME A LA CARTE 
 
 IT was a day in March. 
 
 Never, never begin a story this way when you 
 write one. No opening could possibly be worse. It 
 is unimaginative, flat, dry and likely to consist of 
 mere wind. But in this instance it is allowable. For 
 the following paragraph, which should have in 
 augurated the narrative, is too wildly extravagant 
 and preposterous to be flaunted in the face of the 
 reader without preparation. 
 
 Sarah was crying over her bill of fare. 
 
 Think of a New York girl shedding tears on the 
 menu card! 
 
 To account for this you will be allowed to guess 
 that the lobsters were all out, or that she had sworn 
 ice-cream off during Lent, or that she had ordered 
 onions, or that she had just come from a Hackett 
 matinee. And then, all these theories being wrong, 
 you will please let the story proceed. 
 
 The gentleman who announced that the world was 
 an oyster which he with his sword would open made 
 a larger hit than he deserved. It is not difficult to 
 [139] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 open an oyster with a sword. But did you ever 
 notice any one try to open the terrestrial bivalve 
 with a typewriter? Like to wait for a dozen raw 
 opened that way? 
 
 Sarah had managed to pry apart the shells with 
 her unhandy weapon far enough to nibble a wee bit 
 at the cold and clammy world within. She knew no 
 more shorthand than if she had been a graduate in 
 stenography just let slip upon the world by a busi 
 ness college. So, not being able to stenog, she could 
 not enter that bright galaxy of office talent. She 
 was a free-lance typewriter and canvassed for odd 
 jobs of copying. 
 
 The most brilliant and crowning feat of Sarah s 
 battle with the world was the deal she made with 
 Schulenberg s Home Restaurant. The restaurant 
 was next door to the old red brick in which she hall- 
 roomed. One evening after dining at Schulenberg s 
 40-cent, five-course table d hote (served as fast as 
 you throw the five baseballs at the coloured gen 
 tleman s head) Sarah took away with her the bill of 
 fare. It was written in an almost unreadable script 
 neither English nor German, and so arranged that 
 if you were not careful you began with a toothpick 
 and rice pudding and ended with soup and the day; 
 of the week. 
 
 [140] 
 
SPRINGTIME A LA CARTE 
 
 The next day Sarah showed Schulenberg a neat 
 card on which the menu was beautifully typewritten 
 with the viands temptingly marshalled under their 
 right and proper heads from " hors d oeuvre " to 
 " not responsible for overcoats and umbrellas." 
 
 Schulenberg became a naturalised citizen on the 
 spot. Before Sarah left him she had him willingly 
 committed to an agreement. She was to furnish 
 typewritten bills of fare for the twenty-one tables in 
 the restaurant a new bill for each day s dinner, and 
 new ones for breakfast and lunch as often as changes 
 occurred in the food or as neatness required. 
 
 In return for this Schulenberg was to send three 
 meals per diem to Sarah s hall room by a waiter an 
 obsequious one if possible and furnish her each 
 afternoon with a pencil draft of what Fate had 
 in store for Schulenberg s customers on the 
 morrow. 
 
 Mutual satisfaction resulted from the agreement. 
 Schulenberg s patrons now knew what the food they 
 ate was called even if its nature sometimes puz 
 zled them. And Sarah had food during a cold, dull 
 winter, which was the main thing with her. 
 
 And then the almanac lied, and said that spring 
 had come. Spring comes when it comes. The frozen 
 snows of January still lay like adamant in the cross- 
 
 [141] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 town streets. The hand-organs still played " In the 
 Good Old Summertime," with their December vivac 
 ity and expression. Men began to make thirty-day 
 notes to buy Easter dresses. Janitors shut off steam. 
 And when these things happen one may know that 
 the city is still in the clutches of winter. 
 
 One afternoon Sarah shivered in her elegant hall 
 bedroom ; " house heated ; scrupulously clean ; conven 
 iences; seen to be appreciated." She had no work 
 to do except Schulenberg s menu cards. Sarah sat 
 in her squeaky willow rocker, and looked out the win 
 dow. The calendar on the wall kept crying to her: 
 " Springtime is here, Sarah springtime is here, I 
 tell you. Look at me, Sarah, my figures show it. 
 You ve got a neat figure yourself, Sarah a nice 
 springtime figure why do you look out the window 
 so sadly ? " 
 
 Sarah s room was at the back of the house. Look 
 ing out the window she could see the windowless 
 rear brick wall of the box factory on the next 
 street. But the wall was clearest crystal ; and Sarah 
 was looking down a grassy lane shaded with cherry 
 trees and elms and bordered with raspberry bushes 
 and Cherokee roses. 
 
 Spring s real harbingers are too subtle for the 
 eye and ear. Some must have the flowering crocus, 
 
 [142] 
 
SPRINGTIME A LA CARTE 
 
 the wood-starring dogwood, the voice of bluebird 
 even so gross a reminder as the farewell handshake 
 of the retiring buckwheat and oyster before they 
 can welcome the Lady in Green to their dull bosoms. 
 But to old earth s choicest kin there come straight, 
 sweet messages from his newest bride, telling them 
 they shall be no stepchildren unless they choose to be. 
 
 On the previous summer Sarah had gone into the 
 country and loved a farmer. 
 
 (In writing your story never hark back thus. It 
 is bad art, and cripples interest. Let it march, 
 march.) 
 
 Sarah stayed two weeks at Sunnybrook Farm. 
 There she learned to love old Farmer Franklin s son 
 Walter. Farmers have been loved and wedded and 
 turned out to grass in less time. But young Walter 
 Franklin was a modern agriculturist. He had a tele 
 phone in his cow house, and he could figure up ex 
 actly what effect next year s Canada wheat crop 
 would have on potatoes planted in tjie dark of the 
 moon. 
 
 It was in this shaded and raspberried lane that 
 Walter had wooed and won her. And together they 
 had sat and woven a crown of dandelions for her 
 hair. He had immoderately praised the effect of the 
 yellow blossoms against her brown tresses; and she 
 
 [143] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 had left the chaplet there, and walked back to the 
 house swinging her straw sailor in her hands. 
 
 They were to marry in the spring at the very 
 first signs of spring, Walter said. And Sarah came 
 back to the city to pound her typewriter. 
 
 A knock at the door dispelled Sarah s visions of 
 that happy day. A waiter had brought the rough 
 pencil draft of the Home Restaurant s next day fare 
 in old Schulenberg s angular hand. 
 
 Sarah sat down to her typewriter and slipped a 
 card between the rollers. She was a nimble worker. 
 Generally in an hour and a half the twenty-one 
 menu cards were written and ready. 
 
 To-day there were more changes on the bill of 
 fare than usual. The soups were lighter ; pork was 
 eliminated from the entrees, figuring only with Rus 
 sian turnips among the roasts. The gracious spirit 
 of spring pervaded the entire menu. Lamb, that 
 lately capered on the greening hillsides, was becom 
 ingly exploited with the sauce that commemorated 
 its gambols. The song of the oyster, though not 
 silenced, was diminuendo con amove. The frying-pan 
 seemed to be held, inactive, behind the beneficent 
 bars of the broiler. The pie list swelled; the richer 
 puddings had vanished; the sausage, with his drap 
 ery wrapped about him, barely lingered in a pleasant 
 
 [144] 
 
SPRINGTIME A LA CARTE 
 thanatopsis with the buckwheats and the sweet but 
 doomed maple. 
 
 Sarah s fingers danced like midgets above a sum 
 mer stream. Down through the courses she worked, 
 giving each item its position according to its length 
 with an accurate eye. 
 
 Just above the desserts came the list of vegetables. 
 Carrots and peas, asparagus on toast, the perennial 
 tomatoes and corn and succotash, lima beans, cab 
 bage and then 
 
 Sarah was crying over her bill of fare. Tears 
 from the depths of some divine despair rose in her 
 heart and gathered to her eyes. Down went her 
 head on the little typewriter stand; and the key 
 board rattled a dry accompaniment to her moist 
 sobs. 
 
 For she had received no letter from Walter in two 
 weeks, and the next item on the bill of fare was 
 dandelions dandelions with some kind of egg but 
 bother the egg ! dandelions, with whose golden 
 blooms Walter had crowned her his queen of love 
 and future bride dandelions, the harbingers of 
 spring, her sorrow s crown of sorrow reminder of 
 her happiest days. 
 
 Madam, I dare you to smile until you suffer this 
 test: Let the Marechal Niel roses that Percy 
 [145] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 brought you on the night you gave him your heart 
 be served as a salad with French dressing before 
 your eyes at a Schulenberg table d hote. Had Juliet 
 so seen her love tokens dishonoured the sooner would 
 she have sought the lethean herbs of the good 
 apothecary. 
 
 But what a witch is Spring! Into the great cold 
 city of stone and iron a message had to be sent. 
 There was none to convey it but the little hardy 
 courier of the fields with his rough green coat and 
 modest air. He is a true soldier of fortune, this 
 dent-de-lion this lion s tooth, as the French chefs 
 call him. Flowered, he will assist at love-making, 
 wreathed in my lady s nut-brown hair; young and 
 callow and unblossomed, he goes into the boiling 
 pot and delivers the word of his sovereign mistress. 
 
 By and by Sarah forced back her tears. The 
 cards must be written. But, still in a faint, golden 
 glow from her dandeleonine dream, she fingered the 
 typewriter keys absently for a little while, with her 
 mind and heart in the meadow lane with her young 
 farmer. But soon she came swiftly back to the 
 rock-bound lanes of Manhattan, and the typewriter 
 began to rattle and jump like a strike-breaker s 
 motor car. 
 
 At 6 o clock the waiter brought her dinner and 
 [146] 
 
SPRINGTIME A LA CARTE 
 
 carried away the typewritten bill of fare. When 
 Sarah ate she set aside, with a sigh, the dish of 
 dandelions with its crowning ovarious accompani 
 ment. As this dark mass had been transformed 
 from a bright and love-indorsed flower to be an 
 ignominous vegetable, so had her summer hopes 
 wilted and perished. Love may, as Shakespeare said, 
 feed on itself: but Sarah could not bring herself 
 to eat the dandelions that had graced, as orna 
 ments, the first spiritual banquet of her heart s true 
 affection. 
 
 At 7.30 the couple in the next room began to quar 
 rel: the man in the room above sought for A on his 
 flute; the gas went a little lower; three coal wagons 
 started to unload the only sound of which the 
 phonograph is jealous; cats on the back fences 
 slowly retreated toward Mukden. By these signs 
 Sarah knew that it was time for her to read. She 
 got out "The Cloister and the Hearth," the best 
 non-selling book of the month, settled her feet on her 
 trunk, and began to wander with Gerard. 
 
 The front door bell rang. The landlady answered 
 it. Sarah left Gerard and Denys treed by a bear 
 and listened. Oh, yes; you would, just as she did! 
 
 And then a strong voice was heard in the hall 
 below, and Sarah jumped for her door, leaving the 
 
 [147] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 book on the floor and the first round easily the 
 bear s. 
 
 You have guessed it. She reached the top of the 
 stairs just as her farmer came up, three at a jump, 
 and reaped and garnered her, with nothing left for 
 the gleaners. 
 
 " Why haven t you written oh, why ? " cried 
 Sarah. 
 
 " New York is a pretty large town," said Walter 
 Franklin. " I came in a week ago to your old ad 
 dress. I found that you went away on a Thursday. 
 That consoled some; it eliminated the possible Fri 
 day bad luck. But it didn t prevent my hunting 
 for you with police and otherwise ever since ! " 
 
 " I wrote ! " said Sarah, vehemently. 
 
 "Never got it!" 
 
 " Then how did you find me? " 
 
 The young farmer smiled a springtime smile. 
 
 " I dropped into that Home Restaurant next door 
 this evening," said he. " I don t care who knows it ; 
 I like a dish of some kind of greens at this time of 
 the year. I ran my eye down that nice typewritten 
 bill of fare looking for something in that line. When 
 I got below cabbage I turned my chair over and 
 hollered for the proprietor. He told me where you 
 lived." 
 
 [148] 
 
SPRINGTIME A LA CARTE 
 
 " I remember," sighed Sarah, happily. " That 
 was dandelions below cabbage." 
 
 " I d know that cranky capital W way above the 
 line that your typewriter makes anywhere in the 
 world," said Franklin. 
 
 " Why, there s no W in dandelions," said Sarah, 
 in surprise. 
 
 The young man drew the bill of fare from his 
 pocket, and pointed to a line. 
 
 Sarah recognised the first card she had typewrit 
 ten that afternoon. There was still the rayed 
 splotch in the upper right-hand corner where a tear 
 had fallen. But over the spot where one should have 
 read the name of the meadow plant, the clinging 
 memory of their golden blossoms had allowed her 
 fingers to strike strange keys. 
 
 Between the red cabbage and the stuffed green 
 peppers was the item: 
 
 "DEAREST WALTER, WITH HARD- 
 BOILED EGG." 
 
 [149] 
 
THE GREEN DOOR 
 
 SUPPOSE you should be walking down Broad 
 way after dinner, with ten minutes allotted to 
 the consummation of your cigar while you are 
 choosing between a diverting tragedy and some 
 thing serious in the way of vaudeville. Suddenly a 
 hand is laid upon your arm. You turn to look into 
 the thrilling eyes of a beautiful woman, wonderful 
 in diamonds and Russian sables. She thrusts hur 
 riedly into your hand an extremely hot buttered roll, 
 flashes out a tiny pair of scissors, snips off the sec 
 ond button of your overcoat, meaningly ejaculates 
 the one word, " parallelogram ! " and swiftly flies 
 down a cross street, looking back fearfully over 
 her shoulder. 
 
 That would be pure adventure. Would you ac 
 cept it? Not you. You would flush with embar 
 rassment; you would sheepishly drop the roll and 
 continue down Broadway, fumbling feebly for the 
 missing button. This you would do unless you are 
 one of the blessed few in whom the pure spirit of 
 adventure is not dead. 
 
 [150] 
 
THE GREEN DOOR 
 
 True adventurers have never been plentiful. They 
 who are set down in print as such have been mostly 
 business men with newly invented methods. They 
 have been out after the things they wanted golden 
 fleeces, holy grails, lady loves, treasure, crowns and 
 fame. The true adventurer goes forth aimless and 
 uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate. A 
 fine example was the Prodigal Son when he started 
 back home. 
 
 Half-adventurers brave and splendid figures 
 have been numerous. From the Crusades to the 
 Palisades they have enriched the arts of history 
 and fiction and the trade of historical fiction. But 
 each of them had a prize to win, a goal to kick, 
 an axe to grind, a race to run, a new thrust in tierce 
 to deliver, a name to carve, a crow to pick so they 
 were not followers of true adventure. 
 
 In the big city the twin spirits Romance and Ad 
 venture are always abroad seeking worthy wooers. 
 As we roam the streets they slyly peep at us and 
 challenge us in twenty different guises. Without 
 knowing why, we look up suddenly to see in a win 
 dow a face that seems to belong to our gallery of 
 intimate portraits; in a sleeping thoroughfare we 
 hear a cry of agony and fear coming from an empty 
 and shuttered house ; instead of at our familiar curb 
 
 [151] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 a cab-driver deposits us before a strange door, which 
 one, with a smile, opens for us and bids us enter; 
 a slip of paper, written upon, flutters down to our 
 feet from the high lattices of Chance; we exchange 
 glances of instantaneous hate, affection and fear 
 with hurrying strangers in the passing crowds ; a 
 sudden souse of rain and our umbrella may be shel 
 tering the daughter of the Full Moon and first 
 cousin of the Sidereal System ; at every corner hand 
 kerchiefs drop, fingers beckon, eyes besiege, and the 
 lost, the lonely, the rapturous, the mysterious, the 
 perilous, changing clues of adventure are slipped 
 into our fingers. But few of us are willing to hold 
 and follow them. We are grown stiff with the ram 
 rod of convention down our backs. We pass on; 
 and some day we come, at the end of a very dull life, 
 to reflect that our romance has been a pallid thing 
 of a marriage or two, a satin rosette kept in a safe- 
 deposit drawer, and a lifelong feud with a steam 
 radiator. 
 
 Rudolf Steiner was a true adventurer. Few were 
 the evenings on which he did not go forth from his 
 hall bedchamber in search of the unexpected and the 
 egregious. The most interesting thing in life seemed 
 to him to be what might lie just around the next 
 corner. Sometimes his willingness to tempt fate led 
 [152] 
 
THE GREEN DOOR 
 
 him into strange paths. Twice he had spent the 
 night in a station-house; again and again he had 
 found himself the dupe of ingenious and mercenary 
 tricksters ; his watch and money had been the price 
 of one flattering allurement. But with undiminished 
 ardour he picked up every glove cast before him into 
 the merry lists of adventure. 
 
 One evening Rudolf was strolling along a cross- 
 town street in the older central part of the city. 
 Two streams of people filled the sidewalks the 
 home-hurrying, and that restless contingent that 
 abandons home for the specious welcome of the 
 thousand-candle-power table d hote. 
 
 The young adventurer was of pleasing presence, 
 and moved serenely and watchfully. By daylight 
 he was a salesman in a piano store. He wore his 
 tie drawn through a topaz ring instead of fastened 
 with a stick pin; and once he had written to the 
 editor of a magazine that " Junie s Love Test," by 
 Miss Libbey, had been the book that had most in 
 fluenced his life. 
 
 During his walk a violent chattering of teeth in a 
 glass case on the sidewalk seemed at first to draw his 
 attention (with a qualm), to a restaurant before 
 which it was set; but a second glance revealed the 
 electric letters of a dentist s sign high above the 
 [153] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION" 
 
 next door. A giant negro, fantastically dressed in 
 a red embroidered coat, yellow trousers and a mili 
 tary cap, discreetly distributed cards to those of the 
 passing crowd who consented to take them. 
 
 This mode of dentistic advertising was a common 
 sight to Rudolf. Usually he passed the dispenser of 
 the dentist s cards without reducing his store; but 
 to-night the African slipped one into his hand so 
 deftly that he retained it there smiling a little at 
 the successful feat. 
 
 When he had travelled a few yards further he 
 glanced at the card indifferently. Surprised, he 
 turned it over and looked again with interest. One 
 side of the card was blank ; on the other was written 
 in ink three words, "The Green Door." And then 
 Rudolf saw, three steps in front of him, a man throw 
 down the card the negro had given him as he passed. 
 Rudolf picked it up. It was printed with the 
 dentist s name and address and the usual sched 
 ule of " plate work " and " bridge work " and 
 " crowns," and specious promises of " painless " 
 operations. 
 
 The adventurous piano salesman halted at the cor 
 ner and considered. Then he crossed the street, 
 walked down a block, recrossed and joined the up 
 ward current of people again. Without seeming to 
 
 [154] 
 
THE GREEN DOOR 
 
 notice the negro as he passed the second time, he 
 carelessly took the card that was handed him. Ten 
 steps away he inspected it. In the same handwriting 
 that appeared on the first card " The Green Door " 
 was inscribed upon it. Three or four cards were 
 tossed to the pavement by pedestrians both following 
 and leading him. These fell blank side up. Rudolf 
 turned them over. Every one bore the printed legend 
 of the dental " parlours." 
 
 Rarely did the arch sprite Adventure need to 
 beckon twice to Rudolf Steiner, his true fol 
 lower. But twice it had been done, and the quest 
 was on. 
 
 Rudolf walked slowly back to where the giant 
 negro stood by the case of rattling teeth. This 
 time as he passed he received no card. In spite of 
 his gaudy and ridiculous garb, the Ethiopian dis 
 played a natural barbaric dignity as he stood, of 
 fering the cards suavely to some, allowing others 
 to pass unmolested. Every half minute he chanted 
 a harsh, unintelligible phrase akin to the jabber of 
 car conductors and grand opera. And not only did 
 he withhold a card this time, but it seemed to Rudolf 
 that he received from the shining and massive black 
 countenance a look of cold, almost contemptuous 
 disdain. 
 
 [155] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 The look stung the adventurer. He read in it a 
 silent accusation that he had been found wanting. 
 Whatever the mysterious written words on the cards 
 might mean, the black had selected him twice from 
 the throng for their recipient; and now seemed to 
 have condemned him as deficient in the wit and spirit 
 to engage the enigma. 
 
 Standing aside from the rush, the young man 
 made a rapid estimate of the building in which he 
 conceived that his adventure must lie. Five stories 
 high it rose. A small restaurant occupied the base 
 ment. 
 
 The first floor, now closed, seemed to house 
 millinery or furs. The second floor, by the winking 
 electric letters, was the dentist s. Above this a poly 
 glot babel of signs struggled to indicate the abodes 
 of palmists, dressmakers, musicians and doctors. 
 Still higher up draped curtains and milk bottles 
 white on the window sills proclaimed the regions of 
 domesticity. 
 
 After concluding his survey Rudolf walked briskly 
 up the high flight of stone steps into the house. Up 
 two flights of the carpeted stairway he continued ; and 
 at its top paused. The hallway there was dimly 
 lighted by two pale j ets of gas one far to his right, 
 the other nearer, to his left. He looked toward the 
 [156] 
 
THE GREEN DOOR 
 
 nearer light and saw, within its wan halo, a green 
 door. For one moment he hesitated; then he seemed 
 to see the contumelious sneer of the African juggler 
 of cards ; and then he walked straight to the green 
 door and knocked against it. 
 
 Moments like those that passed before his knock 
 was answered measure the quick breath of true ad 
 venture. What might not be behind those green 
 panels ! Gamesters at play ; cunning rogues baiting 
 their traps with subtle skill; beauty in love with 
 courage, and thus planning to be sought by it; 
 danger, death, love, disappointment, ridicule 
 any of these might respond to that temerarious 
 rap. 
 
 A faint rustle was heard inside, and the door 
 slowly opened. A girl not yet twenty stood there, 
 white-faced and tottering. She loosed the knob and 
 swayed weakly, groping with one hand. Rudolf 
 caught her and laid her on a faded couch that stood 
 against the wall. He closed the door and took a 
 swift glance around the room by the light of a flick 
 ering gas jet. Neat, but extreme poverty was the 
 story that he read. 
 
 The girl lay still, as if in a faint. Rudolf looked 
 around the room excitedly for a barrel. People must 
 be rolled upon a barrel who no, no; that was for 
 [157] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 drowned persons. He began to fan her with his hat. 
 That was successful, for he struck her nose with the 
 brim of his derby and she opened her eyes. And 
 then the young man saw that hers, indeed, was the 
 one missing face from his heart s gallery of inti 
 mate portraits. The frank, grey eyes, the little 
 nose, turning pertly outward; the chestnut hair, 
 curling like the tendrils of a pea vine, seemed the 
 right end and reward of all his wonderful adventures. 
 But the face was wofully thin and pale. 
 
 The girl looked at him calmly, and then smiled. 
 
 "Fainted, didn t I?" she asked, weakly. "Well, 
 who wouldn t? You try going without anything to 
 eat for three days and see ! " 
 
 "Himmel!" exclaimed Rudolf, jumping up. 
 " Wait till I come back." 
 
 He dashed out the green door and down the stairs. 
 In twenty minutes he was back again, kicking at the 
 door with his toe for her to open it. With both arms 
 he hugged an array of wares from the grocery and 
 the restaurant. On the table he laid them bread 
 and butter, cold meats, cakes, pies, pickles, oysters, 
 a roasted chicken, a bottle of milk and one of red- 
 hot tea. 
 
 " This is ridiculous," said Rudolf, blusteringly, 
 " to go without eating. You must quit making elec- 
 [158] 
 
THE GREEN DOOR 
 
 tion bets of this kind. Supper is ready." He helped 
 her to a chair at the table and asked : " Is there a 
 cup for the tea?" " On the shelf by the window," 
 she answered. When he turned again with the cup 
 he saw her, with eyes shining rapturously, begin 
 ning upon a huge Dill pickle that she had rooted 
 out from the paper bags with a woman s unerring in 
 stinct. He took it from her, laughingly, and poured 
 the cup full of milk. " Drink that first," he ordered, 
 " and then you shall have some tea, and then a 
 chicken wing. If you are very good you shall have 
 a pickle to-morrow. And now, if you ll allow me to 
 be your guest we ll have supper." 
 
 He drew up the other chair. The tea brightened 
 the girl s eyes and brought back some of her colour. 
 She began to eat with a sort of dainty ferocity 
 like some starved wild animal. She seemed to regard 
 the young man s presence and the aid he had ren 
 dered her as a natural thing not as though she 
 undervalued the conventions ; but as one whose great 
 stress gave her the right to put aside the artificial 
 for the human. But gradually, with the return of 
 strength and comfort, came also a sense of the little 
 conventions that belong; and she began to tell him 
 her little story. It was one of a thousand such as 
 the city yawns at every day the shop girl s story 
 
 [159] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 of insufficient wages, further reduced by " fines " 
 that go to swell the store s profits ; of time lost 
 through illness ; and then of lost positions, lost hope, 
 and the knock of the adventurer upon the green 
 door. 
 
 But to Rudolf the history sounded as big as the 
 Iliad or the crisis in " Junie s Love Test." 
 
 "To think of you going through all that," he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " It was something fierce," said the girl, sol 
 emnly. 
 
 "And you have no relatives or friends in the 
 city?" 
 
 " None whatever." 
 
 "I am all alone in the world, too," said Rudolf, 
 after a pause. 
 
 "I am glad of that," said the girl, promptly; 
 and somehow it pleased the young man to hear that 
 she approved of his bereft condition. 
 
 Very suddenly her eyelids dropped and she sighed 
 deeply. 
 
 "I m awfully sleepy," she said, "and I feel so 
 good." 
 
 Rudolf rose and took his hat. 
 
 " Then I ll say good-night. A long night s sleep 
 will be fine for you." 
 
 [160] 
 
THE GREEN DOOR 
 
 He held out his hand, and she took it and said 
 "good-night." But her eyes asked a question so 
 eloquently, so frankly and pathetically that he an 
 swered it with words. 
 
 " Oh, I m coming back to-morrow to see how you 
 are getting along. You can t get rid of me so 
 easily." 
 
 Then, at the door, as though the way of his 
 coming had been so much less important than the 
 fact that he had come, she asked : " How did you 
 come to knock at my door? " 
 
 He looked at her for a moment, remembering the 
 cards, and felt a sudden jealous pain. What if they 
 had fallen into other hands as adventurous as his? 
 Quickly he decided that she must never know the 
 truth. He would never let her know that he was 
 aware of the strange expedient to which she had 
 been driven by her great distress. 
 
 "One of our piano tuners lives in this house," 
 he said. " I knocked at your door by mistake." 
 
 The last thing he saw in the room before the 
 green door closed was her smile. 
 
 At the head of the stairway he paused and looked 
 curiously about him. And then he went along the 
 hallway to its other end ; and, coming back, ascended 
 to the floor above and continued his puzzled explora- 
 
 [161] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 tions. Every door that he found in the house was 
 painted green. 
 
 Wondering, he descended to the sidewalk. The 
 fantastic African was still there. Rudolf confronted 
 him with his two cards in his hand. 
 
 " Will you tell me why you gave me these cards 
 and what they mean?" he asked. 
 
 In a broad, good-natured grin the negro exhibited 
 a splendid advertisement of his master s pro 
 fession. 
 
 "Dar it is, boss," he said, pointing down the 
 street. " But I spect you is a little late for de fust 
 act." 
 
 Looking the way he pointed Rudolf saw above 
 the entrance to a theatre the blazing electric sign 
 of its new play, " The Green Door." 
 
 " I m informed dat it s a fust-rate show, sah," 
 said the negro. " De agent what represents it pus- 
 sented me with a dollar, sah, to distribute a few of 
 his cards along with de doctah s. May I offer you 
 one of de doctah s cards, sah?" 
 
 At the corner of the block in which he lived Rudolf 
 stopped for a glass of beer and a cigar. When he 
 had come out with his lighted weed he buttoned his 
 coat, pushed back his hat and said, stoutly, to the 
 lamp post on the corner: 
 
 [162] 
 
THE GREEN DOOR 
 
 " All the same, I believe it was the hand of Fate 
 that doped out the way for me to find her." 
 
 Which conclusion, under the circumstances, cer 
 tainly admits Rudolf Steiner to the ranks of the 
 true followers of Romance and Adventure. 
 
FROM THE CABBY S SEAT 
 
 iHE cabby has his point of view. It Is more 
 single-minded, perhaps, than that of a follower 
 of any other calling. From the high, swaying 
 seat of his hansom he looks upon his fellow-men 
 as nomadic particles, of no account except when pos 
 sessed of migratory desires. He is Jehu, and you 
 are goods in transit. Be you President or vagabond, 
 to cabby you are only a Fare. He takes you up, 
 cracks his whip, joggles your vertebrae and sets you 
 down. 
 
 When time for payment arrives, if you exhibit a 
 familiarity with legal rates you come to know what 
 contempt is; if you find that you have left your 
 pocketbook behind you are made to realise the mild 
 ness of Dante s imagination. 
 
 It is not an extravagant theory that the cabby s 
 singleness of purpose and concentrated view of life 
 are the results of the hansom s peculiar construction. 
 The cock-of-the-roost sits aloft like Jupiter on an 
 unsharable seat, holding your fate between two 
 thongs of inconstant leather. Helpless, ridiculous, 
 [164] 
 
FROM THE CABBY S SEAT 
 
 confined, bobbing like a toy mandarin, you sit like 
 a rat in a trap you, before whom butlers cringe 
 on solid land and must squeak upward through a 
 slit in your peripatetic sarcophagus to make your 
 feeble wishes known. 
 
 Then, in a cab, you are not even an occupant ; 
 you are contents. You are a cargo at sea, and the 
 " cherub that sits up aloft " has Davy Jones s street 
 and number by heart. 
 
 One night there were sounds of revelry in the big 
 brick tenement -house next door but one to McGary s 
 Family Cafe. The sounds seemed to emanate from 
 the apartments of the Walsh family. The sidewalk 
 was obstructed by an assortment of interested neigh 
 bours, who opened a lane from time to time for a 
 hurrying messenger bearing from McGary s goods 
 pertinent to festivity and diversion. The sidewalk 
 contingent was engaged in comment and discussion 
 from which it made no effort to eliminate the news 
 that Norah Walsh was being married. 
 
 In the /ulness of time there was an eruption of 
 the merry-makers to the sidewalk. The uninvited 
 guests enveloped and permeated them, and upon the 
 night air rose joyous cries, congratulations, laugh 
 ter and unclassified noises born of McGary s obla 
 tions to the hymeneal scene. 
 [165] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 Close to the curb stood Jerry O Donovan s cab. 
 Night-hawk was Jerry called; but no more lustrous 
 or cleaner hansom than his ever closed its doors 
 upon point lace and November violets. And Jerry s 
 horse! I am within bounds when I tell you that he 
 was stuffed with oats until one of those old ladies 
 who leave their dishes unwashed at home and go 
 &bout having expressmen arrested, would have smiled 
 yes, smiled to have seen him. 
 
 Among the shifting, sonorous, pulsing crowd 
 glimpses could be had of Jerry s high hat, battered 
 by the winds and rains of many years; of his nose 
 like a carrot, battered by the frolicsome, athletic pro 
 geny of millionaries and by contumacious fares ; 
 of his brass-buttoned green coat, admired in the 
 vicinity of McGary s. It was plain that Jerry had 
 usurped the functions of his cab, and was carrying 
 a " load." Indeed, the figure may be extended and 
 he be likened to a bread-waggon if we admit the tes 
 timony of a youthful spectator, who was heard to 
 remark "Jerry has got a bun." 
 
 From somewhere among the throng in the street 
 or else out of the thin stream of pedestrians a young 
 woman tripped and stood by the cab. The pro 
 fessional hawk s eye of Jerry caught the movement. 
 He made a lurch for the cab, overturning three or 
 
 [166] 
 
FROM THE CABBY S SEAT 
 
 four onlookers and himself no! he caught the cap 
 of a water-plug and kept his feet. Like a sailor 
 shinning up the ratlins during a squall Jerry mounted 
 to his professional seat. Once he was there McGary s 
 liquids were baffled. He seesawed on the mizzenmast 
 of his craft as safe as a Steeple Jack rigged to the 
 flagpole of a skyscraper. 
 
 " Step in, lady," said Jerry, gathering his lines. 
 
 The young woman stepped into the cab ; the doors 
 shut with a bang; Jerry s whip cracked in the air; 
 the crowd in the gutter scattered, and the fine han 
 som dashed away crosstown. 
 
 When the oat-spry horse had hedged a little his 
 first spurt of speed Jerry broke the lid of his cab 
 and called down through the aperture in the voice 
 of a cracked megaphone, trying to please: 
 
 " Where, now, will ye be drivin to ? " 
 
 "Anywhere you please," came up the answer, 
 musical and contented. 
 
 " Tis drivin for pleasure she is," thought Jerry. 
 And then he suggested as a matter of course: 
 
 " Take a thrip around in the park, lady. Twill be 
 ilegant cool and fine." 
 
 " Just as you like," answered the fare, pleasantly. 
 
 The cab headed for Fifth avenue and sped up that 
 perfect street. Jerry bounced and swayed in his 
 
 [167] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 seat. The potent fluids of McGary were disquieted 
 and they sent new fumes to his head. He sang an 
 ancient song of Killisnook and brandished his whip 
 like a baton. 
 
 Inside the cab the fare sat up straight on the 
 cushions, looking to right and left at the lights and 
 houses. Even in the shadowed hansom her eyes shone 
 like stars at twilight. 
 
 When they reached Fifty-ninth street Jerry s head 
 was bobbing and his reins were slack. But his horse 
 turned in through the park gate and began the old 
 familiar nocturnal round. And then the fare leaned 
 back, entranced, and breathed deep the clean, whole 
 some odours of grass and leaf and bloom. And the 
 wise beast in the shafts? knowing his ground, struck 
 into his by-the-hour gait and kept to the right of 
 the road. 
 
 Habit also struggled successfully against Jerry s 
 increasing torpor. He raised the hatch of his storm- 
 tossed vessel and made the inquiry that cabbies do 
 make in the park. 
 
 "Like shtop at the Cas-sino, lady? Gezzer 
 r freshm s, n lish n the music. Ev body shtops." 
 
 " I think that would be nice," said the fare. 
 
 They reined up with a plunge at the Casino en 
 trance. The cab doors flew open. The fare stepped 
 [168] 
 
FROM THE CABBY S SEAT 
 
 directly upon the floor. At once she was caught in a 
 web of ravishing music and dazzled by a panorama 
 of lights and colours. Some one slipped a little 
 square card into her hand on which was printed a 
 number 34. She looked around and saw her cab 
 twenty yards away already lining up in its place 
 among the waiting mass of carriages, cabs and motor 
 cars. And then a man who seemed to be all shirt- 
 front danced backward before her; and next she 
 was seated at a little table by a railing over which 
 climbed a jessamine vine. 
 
 There seemed to be a wordless invitation to pur 
 chase; she consulted a collection of small coins in a 
 thin purse, and received from them license to order 
 a glass of beer. There she sat, inhaling and absorb 
 ing it all the new-coloured, new-shaped life in a 
 fairy palace in an enchanted wood. 
 
 At fifty tables sat princes and queens clad in all 
 the silks and gems of the world. And now and then 
 one of them would look curiously at Jerry s fare. 
 They saw a plain figure dressed in a pink silk of the 
 kind that is tempered by the word " foulard," and a 
 plain face that wore a look of love of life that the 
 queens envied. 
 
 Twice the long hands of the clocks went round. 
 Royalties thinned from their al fresco thrones, and 
 [169] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 buzzed or clattered away in their vehicles of state. 
 The music retired into cases of wood and bags of 
 leather and baize. Waiters removed cloths point 
 edly near the plain figure sitting almost alone. 
 
 Jerry s fare rose, and held out her numbered card 
 simply : 
 
 "Is there anything coming on the ticket?" she 
 asked. 
 
 A waiter told her it was her cab check, and that 
 she should give it to the man at the entrance. This 
 man took it, and called the number. Only three 
 hansoms stood in line. The driver of one of them 
 went and routed out Jerry asleep in his cab. He 
 swore deeply, climbed to the captain s bridge and 
 steered his craft to the pier. His fare entered, and 
 the cab whirled into the cool fastnesses of the park 
 along the shortest homeward cuts. 
 
 At the gate a glimmer of reason in the form of 
 sudden suspicion seized upon Jerry s beclouded 
 mind. One or two things occurred to him. He 
 stopped his horse, raised the trap and dropped his 
 phonographic voice, like a lead plummet, through 
 the aperture: 
 
 " I want to see four dollars before goin 9 any fur 
 ther on th thrip. Have ye got th dough?" 
 
 " Four dollars ! " laughed the fare, softly, " dear 
 [170] 
 
FROM THE CABBY S SEAT 
 
 me, no. I ve only got a few pennies and a dime 
 or two." 
 
 Jerry shut down the trap and slashed his oat-fed 
 horse. The clatter of hoofs strangled but could not 
 drown the sound of his profanity. He shouted chok 
 ing and gurgling curses at the starry heavens; he 
 cut viciously with his whip at passing vehicles; he 
 scattered fierce and ever-changing oaths and impre 
 cations along the streets, so that a late truck driver, 
 crawling homeward, heard and was abashed. But 
 he knew his recourse, and made for it at a gallop. 
 
 At the house with the green lights beside the steps 
 he pulled up. He flung wide the cab doors and tum 
 bled heavily to the ground. 
 
 " Come on, you," he said, roughly. 
 
 His fare came forth with the Casino dreamy smile 
 still on her plain face. Jerry took her by the arm 
 and led her into the police station. A gray-mous- 
 tached sergeant looked keenly across the desk. He 
 and the cabby were no strangers. 
 
 " Sargeant," began Jerry in his old raucous, mar 
 tyred, thunderous tones of complaint. " I ve got a 
 fare here that " 
 
 Jerry paused. He drew a knotted, red hand across 
 his brow. The fog set up by McGary was beginning 
 to clear away. 
 
 [171] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 "A fare, sargeant," he continued, with a grin, 
 " that I want to inthroduce to ye. It s me wife that 
 I married at ould man Walsh s this avening. And a 
 divil of a time we had, tis thrue. Shake hands wid 
 th sargent, Norah, and we ll be off to home." 
 
 Before stepping into the cab Norah sighed pro 
 foundly. 
 
 " I ve had such a nice time, Jerry," said she. 
 
 [172] 
 
AN UNFINISHED STORY 
 
 no longer groan and heap ashes upon our 
 heads when the flames of Tophet are mentioned. 
 For, even the preachers have begun to tell us that 
 God is radium, or ether or some scientific compound, 
 and that the worst we wicked ones may expect is 
 a chemical reaction. This is a pleasing hypothesis ; 
 but there lingers yet some of the old, goodly terror 
 of orthodoxy. 
 
 There are but two subjects upon which one may 
 discourse with a free imagination, and without the 
 possibility of being controverted. You may talk 
 of your dreams; and you may tell what you heard 
 a parrot say. Both Morpheus and the bird are in 
 competent witnesses; and your listener dare not at 
 tack your recital. The baseless fabric of a vision, 
 then, shall furnish my theme chosen with apologies 
 and regrets instead of the more limited field of 
 pretty Polly s small talk. 
 
 I had a dream that was so far removed from the 
 higher criticism that it had to do with the ancient, 
 respectable, and lamented bar-of- judgment theory. 
 [173] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 Gabriel had played his trump; and those of us 
 who could not follow suit were arraigned for exam 
 ination. I noticed at one side a gathering of profes 
 sional bondsmen in solemn black and collars that 
 buttoned behind; but it seemed there was some trou- 
 \ ble about their real estate titles; and they did not 
 f appear to be getting any of us out. 
 
 A fly cop an angel policeman flew over to me 
 and took me by the left wing. Near at hand was 
 a group of very prosperous-looking spirits arraigned 
 for judgment. 
 
 " Do you belong with that bunch? " the policeman 
 asked. 
 
 "Who are they? " was my answer. 
 
 "Why," said he, "they are 
 
 But this irrelevant stuff is taking up space that 
 the story should occupy. 
 
 Dulcie worked in a department store. She sold 
 Hamburg edging, or stuffed peppers, or automobiles, 
 or other little trinkets such as they keep in depart 
 ment stores. Of what she earned, Dulcie received six 
 dollars per week. The remainder was credited to 
 her and debited to somebody else s account in the 
 
 ledger kept by G Oh, primal energy, you say, 
 
 Reverend Doctor Well then, in the Ledger of Pri 
 mal Energy. 
 
 [174] 
 
AN UNFINISHED STORY 
 
 During her first year in the store, Dulcie was paid 
 five dollars per week. It would be instructive to 
 know how she lived on that amount. Don t care? 
 Very well; probably you are interested in larger 
 amounts. Six dollars is a larger amount. I will tell 
 you how she lived on six dollars per week. 
 
 One afternoon at six, when Dulcie was sticking her 
 hat-pin within an eighth of an inch of her medulla 
 oblongata, she said to her chum, Sadie the girl that 
 waits on you with her left side : 
 
 " Say, Sade, I made a date for dinner this evening 
 with Piggy." 
 
 " You never did ! " exclaimed Sadie admiringly. 
 "Well, ain t you the lucky one? Piggy s an awful 
 swell ; and he always takes a girl to swell places. He 
 took Blanche up to the Hoffman House one evening, 
 where they have swell music, and you see a lot of 
 swells. Y r ou ll have a swell time, Dulce." 
 
 Dulcie hurried homeward. Her eyes were shin 
 ing, and her cheeks showed the delicate pink of 
 life s real life s approaching dawn. It was Fri 
 day; and she had fifty cents left of her last week s 
 wages. 
 
 The streets were filled with the rush-hour floods of 
 people. The electric lights of Broadway were glow 
 ing calling moths from miles, from leagues, from 
 
 [175] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 hundreds of leagues out of darkness around to come 
 in and attend the singeing school. Men in accurate 
 clothes, with faces like those carved on cherry stones 
 by the old salts in sailors homes, turned and stared 
 at Dulcie as she sped, unheeding, past them. Man 
 hattan, the night-blooming cereus, was beginning to 
 unfold its dead-white, heavy-odoured petals. 
 
 Dulcie stopped in a store where goods were cheap 
 and bought an imitation lace collar with her fifty 
 cents. That money was to have been spent other 
 wise fifteen cents for supper, ten cents for break 
 fast, ten cents for lunch. Another dime was to be 
 added to her small store of savings ; and five cents 
 was to be squandered for licorice drops the kind 
 that made your cheek look like the toothache, and last 
 as long. The licorice was an extravagance almost 
 a carouse but what is life without pleasures? 
 
 Dulcie lived in a furnished room. There is this 
 difference between a furnished room and a boarding- 
 house. In a furnished room, other people do not 
 know it when you go hungry. 
 
 Dulcie went up to her room the third floor back 
 in a West Side brownstone-front. She lit the gas. 
 Scientists tell us that the diamond is the hardest sub 
 stance known. Their mistake. Landladies know of 
 a compound beside which the diamond is as putty. 
 [176] 
 
AN UNFINISHED STORY 
 
 They pack it in the tips of gas-burners ; and one may 
 stand on a chair and dig at it in vain until one s 
 fingers are pink and bruised. A hairpin will not re 
 move it ; therefore let us call it immovable. 
 
 So Dulcie lit the gas. In its one-fourth-candle- 
 power glow we will observe the room. 
 
 Couch-bed, dresser, table, washstand, chair of 
 this much the landlady was guilty. The rest was 
 Dulcie s. On the dresser were her treasures a gilt 
 china vase presented to her by Sadie, a calendar is 
 sued by a pickle works, a book on the divination 
 of dreams, some rice powder in a glass dish, and 
 a cluster of artificial cherries tied with a pink 
 ribbon. 
 
 Against the wrinkly mirror stood pictures of Gen 
 eral Kitchener, William Muldoon, the Duchess of 
 Marlborough, and Benvenuto Cellini. Against one 
 wall was a plaster of Paris plaque of an O Callahan 
 in a Roman helmet. Near it was a violent oleograph 
 of a lemon-coloured child assaulting an inflammatory 
 butterfly. This was Dulcie s final judgment in art; 
 but it had never been upset. Her rest had never been 
 disturbed by whispers of stolen copes ; no critic had 
 elevated his eyebrows at her infantile entomol 
 ogist. 
 
 to call for her at seven. While she 
 [177] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 swiftly makes ready, let us discreetly face the other 
 way and gossip. 
 
 For the room, Dulcie paid two dollars per week. 
 On week-days her breakfast cost ten cents ; she made 
 coffee and cooked an egg over the gaslight while she 
 was dressing. On Sunday mornings she feasted roy 
 ally on veal chops and pineapple fritters at 
 " Billy s " restaurant, at a cost of twenty-five cents 
 and tipped the waitress ten cents. New York pre 
 sents so many temptations for one to run into ex 
 travagance. She had her lunches in the department- 
 store restaurant at a cost of sixty cents for the week : 
 dinners were $1.05. The evening papefs show me 
 a New Yorker going without his daily paper ! came 
 to six cents; and two Sunday papers one for the 
 personal column and the other to read were ten 
 cents. The total amounts to $4.76. Now, one has to 
 buy clothes, and 
 
 I give it up. I hear of wonderful bargains in 
 fabrics, and of miracles performed with needle and 
 thread; but I am in doubt. I hold my pen poised 
 in vain when I would add to Dulcie s life some of 
 those joys that belong to woman by virtue of all the 
 unwritten, sacred, natural, inactive ordinances of the 
 equity of heaven. Twice she had been to Coney Is 
 land and had ridden the hobby-horses. Tis a weary 
 [178] 
 
AN UNFINISHED STORY 
 
 thing to count your pleasures by summers instead of 
 by hours. 
 
 Piggy needs but a word. When the girls named 
 him, an undeserving stigma was cast upon the noble 
 family of swine. The words-of -three-letters lesson 
 in the old blue spelling book begins with Piggy s 
 biography. He was fat; he had the soul of a rat, 
 the habits of a bat, and the magnanimity of a cat. 
 . . . He wore expensive clothes; and was a con 
 noisseur in starvation. He could look at a shop-girl 
 and tell you to an hour how long it had been since 
 she had eaten anything more nourishing than marsh- 
 mallows and tea. He hung about the shopping dis 
 tricts, and prowled around in department stores with 
 his invitations to dinner. Men who escort dogs upon 
 the streets at the end of a string look down upon 
 him. He is a type ; I can dwell upon him no longer ; 
 my pen is not the kind intended for him; I am no 
 carpenter. 
 
 At ten minutes to seven Dulcie was ready. She 
 looked at herself in the wrinkly mirror. The reflec 
 tion was satisfactory. The dark blue dress, fitting 
 without a wrinkle, the hat with its jaunty black 
 feather, the but-slightly-soiled gloves all represent 
 ing self-denial, even of food itself were vastly be 
 coming. 
 
 f!79] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 Dulcie forgot everything else for a moment ex 
 cept that she was beautiful, and that life was about 
 to lift a corner of its mysterious veil for her to 
 observe its wonders. No gentleman had ever asked 
 her out before. Now she was going for a brief 
 moment into the glitter and exalted show. 
 
 The girls said that Piggy was a " spender." 
 There would be a grand dinner, and music, and 
 splendidly dressed ladies to look at, and things to eat 
 that strangely twisted the girls jaws when they tried 
 to tell about them. No doubt she would be asked out 
 again. 
 
 There was a blue pongee suit in a window 
 that she knew by saving twenty cents a week in 
 stead of ten, in let s see Oh, it would run into 
 years ! But there was a second-hand store in Seventh 
 Avenue where 
 
 Somebody knocked at the door. Dulcie opened it. 
 The landlady stood there with a spurious smile, sniff 
 ing for cooking by stolen gas. 
 
 " A gentleman s downstairs to see you," she said. 
 " Name is Mr. Wiggins." 
 
 By such epithet was Piggy known to unfortunate 
 ones who had to take him seriously. 
 
 Dulcie turned to the dresser to get her handker 
 chief; and then she stopped still, and bit her under- 
 [180] 
 
AN UNFINISHED STORY 
 
 lip hard. While looking in her mirror she had seen 
 fairyland and herself, a princess, just awakening 
 from a long slumber. She had forgotten one that 
 was watching her with sad, beautiful, stern eyes 
 the only one there was to approve or condemn what 
 she did. Straight and slender and tall, with a look 
 of sorrowful reproach on his handsome, melancholy 
 face, General Kitchener fixed his wonderful eyes 
 on her out of his gilt photograph frame on the 
 dresser. 
 
 Dulcie turned like an automatic doll to the 
 landlady. 
 
 " Tell him I can t go," she said dully. " Tell him 
 I m sick, or something. Tell him I m not going 
 out." 
 
 After the door was closed and locked, Dulcie fell 
 upon her bed, crushing her black tip, and cried for 
 ten minutes. General Kitchener was her only friend. 
 He was Dulcie s ideal of a gallant knight. He looked 
 as if he might have a secret sorrow, and his won 
 derful moustache was a dream, and she was a little 
 afraid of that stern yet tender look in his eyes. She 
 used to have little fancies that he would call at the 
 house sometime, and ask for her, with his sword 
 clanking against his high boots. Once, when a boy 
 was rattling a piece of chain against a lamp-post 
 [181] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 she had opened the window and looked out. But 
 there was no use. She knew that General Kitchener 
 was away over in Japan, leading his army against 
 the savage Turks; and he would never step out of 
 his gilt frame for her. Yet one look from him had 
 vanquished Piggy that night. Yes, for that 
 night. 
 
 When her cry was over Dulcie got up and took 
 off her best dress, and put on her old blue kimono. 
 She wanted no dinner. She sang two verses of 
 " Sammy." Then she became intensely interested in 
 a little red speck on the side of her nose. And after 
 that was attended to, she drew up a chair to the 
 rickety table, and told her fortune with an old deck 
 of cards. 
 
 " The horrid, impudent thing ! " she said aloud. 
 " And I never gave him a word or a look to make 
 him think it ! " 
 
 At nine o clock Dulcie took a tin box of crackers 
 and a little pot of raspberry jam out of her trunk, 
 and had a feast. She offered General Kitchener some 
 jam on a cracker; but he only looked at her as the 
 sphinx would have looked at a butterfly if there are 
 butterflies in the desert. 
 
 "Don t eat it if you don t want to," said Dulcie. 
 " And don t put on so many airs and scold so with 
 
 [182] 
 
AN UNFINISHED STORY 
 
 your eyes. I wonder if you d be so superior 
 and snippy if you had to live on six dollars a 
 week." 
 
 It was not a good sign for Dulcie to be rude to 
 General Kitchener. And then she turned Benvenuto 
 Cellini face downward with a severe gesture. But 
 that was not inexcusable ; for she had always thought 
 he was Henry VIII., and she did not approve of 
 him. 
 
 At half-past nine Dulcie took a last look at the 
 pictures on the dresser, turned out the light, and 
 skipped into bed. It s an awful thing to go to bed 
 with a good-night look at General Kitchener, Wil 
 liam Muldoon, the Duchess of Marlborough, and 
 Benvenuto Cellini. 
 
 This story really doesn t get anywhere at all. 
 The rest of it comes later sometime when Piggy 
 asks Dulcie again to dine with him, and she is feel 
 ing lonelier than usual, and General Kitchener hap 
 pens to be looking the other way ; and then 
 
 As I said before, I dreamed that I was standing 
 near a crowd of prosperous-looking angels, and a 
 policeman took me by the wing and asked if I be 
 longed with them. 
 
 "Who are they?" I asked. 
 
 " Why," said he, " they are the men who hired 
 [183] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 working-girls, and paid em five or six dollars a week 
 to live on. Are you one of the bunch? " 
 
 " Not on your immortality," said I. " I m only 
 the fellow that set fire to an orphan asylum, and 
 murdered a blind man for his pennies." 
 
 [184] 
 
THE CALIPH, CUPID AND THE CLOCK 
 
 PRINCE MICHAEL, of the Electorate of Val- 
 leluna, sat on his favourite bench in the park. 
 The coolness of the September night quickened 
 the life in him like a rare, tonic wine. The 
 benches were not filled ; for park loungers, with their 
 stagnant blood, are prompt to detect and fly home 
 from the crispness of early autumn. The moon was 
 just clearing the roofs of the range of dwellings that 
 bounded the quadrangle on the east. Children 
 laughed and played about the fine-sprayed fountain. 
 In the shadowed spots fauns and hamadryads wooed, 
 unconscious of the gaze of mortal eyes. A hand 
 organ Philomel by the grace of our stage carpen 
 ter, Fancy fluted and droned in a side street. 
 Around the enchanted boundaries of the little park 
 street cars spat and mewed and the stilted trains 
 roared like tigers and lions prowling for a place to 
 enter. And above the trees shone the great, round, 
 shining face of an illuminated clock in the tower of 
 an antique public building. 
 
 Prince Michael s shoes were wrecked far beyond 
 [185] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 the skill of the carefullest cobbler. The ragman 
 would have declined any negotiations concerning his 
 clothes. The two weeks stubble on his face was 
 grey and brown and red and greenish yellow as if 
 it had been made up from individual contributions 
 from the chorus of a musical comedy. No man 
 existed who had money enough to wear so bad a hat 
 as his. 
 
 Prince Michael sat on his favourite bench and 
 smiled. It was a diverting thought to him that he 
 was wealthy enough to buy every one of those close- 
 ranged, bulky, window-lit mansions that faced him, 
 if he chose. He could have matched gold, equipages, 
 jewels, art treasures, estates and acres with any 
 Croesus in this proud city of Manhattan, and 
 scarcely have entered upon the bulk of his holdings. 
 He could have sat at table with reigning sovereigns. 
 The social world, the world of art, the fellowship 
 of the elect, adulation, imitation, the homage of the 
 fairest, honours from the highest, praise from the 
 wisest, flattery, esteem, credit, pleasure, fame all 
 the honey of life was waiting in the comb in the hive 
 of the world for Prince Michael, of the Electorate 
 of Valleluna, whenever he might choose to take it. 
 But his choice was to sit in rags and dinginess on a 
 bench in a park. For he had tasted of the fruit of 
 [186] 
 
THE CALIPH, CUPID AND THE CLOCK 
 
 the tree of life, and, finding it bitter in his mouth, 
 had stepped out of Eden for a time to seek distrac 
 tion close to the unarmoured, beating heart of the 
 world. 
 
 These thoughts strayed dreamily through the 
 mind of Prince Michael, as he smiled under the 
 stubble of his polychromatic beard. Lounging thus, 
 clad as the poorest of mendicants in the parks, he 
 loved to study humanity. He found in altruism more 
 pleasure than his riches, his station and all the 
 grosser sweets of life had given him. It was his 
 chief solace and satisfaction to alleviate individual 
 distress, to confer favours upon worthy ones who had 
 need of succour, to dazzle unfortunates by unex 
 pected and bewildering gifts of truly royal mag 
 nificence, bestowed, however, with wisdom and 
 judiciousness. 
 
 And as Prince Michael s eye rested upon the glow 
 ing face of the great clock in the tower, his smile, 
 altruistic as it was, became slightly tinged with con 
 tempt. Big thoughts were the Prince s; and it was 
 always with a shake of his head that he considered 
 the subjugation of the world to the arbitrary meas 
 ures of Time. The comings and goings of people 
 in hurry and dread, controlled by the little metal 
 moving hands of a clock, always made him sad. 
 [187] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 By and by came a young man in evening clothes 
 and sat upon the third bench from the Prince. For 
 half an hour he smoked cigars with nervous haste, 
 and then he fell to watching the face of the illumi 
 nated clock above the trees. His perturbation was 
 evident, and the Prince noted, in sorrow, that its 
 cause was connected, in some manner, with the slowly 
 moving hands of the timepiece. 
 
 His Highness arose and went to the young man s 
 bench. 
 
 " I beg your pardon for addressing you," he said, 
 " but I perceive that you are disturbed in mind. If 
 it may serve to mitigate the liberty I have taken 
 I will add that I am Prince Michael, heir to the 
 throne of the Electorate of Valleluna. I appear in 
 cognito, of course, as you may gather from my ap 
 pearance. It is a fancy of mine to render aid to 
 others whom I think worthy of it. Perhaps the mat 
 ter that seems to distress you is one that would more 
 readily yield to our mutual efforts." 
 
 The young man looked up brightly at the Prince. 
 Brightly, but the perpendicular line of perplexity 
 between his brows was not smoothed away. He 
 laughed, and even then it did not. But he accepted 
 the momentary diversion. 
 
 " Glad to meet you, Prince," he said, good 
 [188] 
 
THE CALIPH, CUPID AND THE CLOCK 
 
 humouredly. " Yes, I d say you were Incog, all right. 
 Thanks for your offer of assistance but I don t 
 see where your butting-in would help things any. 
 It s a kind of private affair, you know but thanks 
 all the same." 
 
 Prince Michael sat at the young man s side. He 
 was often rebuffed but never offensively. His cour 
 teous manner and words forbade that. 
 
 " Clocks," said the Prince, " are shackles on the 
 feet of mankind. I have observed you looking per 
 sistently at that clock. Its face is that of a tyrant, 
 its numbers are false as those on a lottery ticket; 
 its hands are those of a bunco steerer, who makes an 
 appointment with you to your ruin. Let me entreat 
 you to throw off its humiliating bonds and to cease 
 to order your affairs by that insensate monitor of 
 brass and steel." 
 
 " I don t usually," said the young man. " I carry 
 a watch except when I ve got my radiant rags on." 
 
 " I know human nature as I do the trees and 
 grass," said the Prince, with earnest dignity. " I 
 am a master of philosophy, a graduate in art, and I 
 hold the purse of a Fortunatus. There are few 
 mortal misfortunes that I cannot alleviate or over 
 come. I have read your countenance, and found in 
 it honesty and nobility as well as distress. I beg 
 [189] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 of you to accept my advice or aid. Do not belie 
 the intelligence I see in your face by judging from 
 my appearance of my ability to defeat your 
 troubles." 
 
 The young man glanced at the clock again and 
 frowned darkly. When his gaze strayed from the 
 glowing horologue of time it rested intently upon 
 a four-story red brick house in the row of dwellings 
 opposite to where he sat. The shades were drawn, 
 and the lights in many rooms shone dimly through 
 them. 
 
 " Ten minutes to nine I " exclaimed the young 
 man, with an impatient gesture of despair. He 
 turned his back upon the house and took a rapid 
 step or two in a contrary direction. 
 
 " Remain ! " commanded Prince Michael, in so 
 potent a voice that the disturbed one wheeled around 
 with a somewhat chagrined laugh. 
 
 " I ll give her the ten minutes and then I m off," 
 he muttered, and then aloud to the Prince : " I ll 
 join you in confounding all clocks, my friend, and 
 throw in women, too." 
 
 " Sit down," said the Prince calmly. a I do not 
 accept your addition. Women are the natural ene 
 mies of clocks, and, therefore, the allies of those who 
 would seek liberation from these monsters that 
 [190] 
 
THE CALIPH, CUPID AND THE CLOCK 
 
 measure our follies and limit our pleasures. If you 
 will so far confide in me I would ask you to relate 
 to me your story." 
 
 The young man threw himself upon the bench with 
 a reckless laugh. 
 
 "Your Royal Highness, I will," he said, in tones 
 of mock deference. " Do you see yonder house 
 the one with three upper windows lighted? Well, at 
 6 o clock I stood in that house with the young lady 
 I am that is, I was engaged to. I had been doing 
 wrong, my dear Prince I had been a naughty boy, 
 and she had heard of it. I wanted to be forgiven, 
 of course we are always wanting women to forgive 
 us, aren t we, Prince? 
 
 " I want time to think over it, said she. There 
 is one thing certain; I will either fully forgive you, 
 or I will never see your face again. There will be 
 no half-way business. At half -past eight, she said, 
 at exactly half-past eight you may be watching the 
 middle upper window of the top floor. If I decide 
 to forgive I will hang out of that window a white 
 silk scarf. You will know by that that all is as was 
 before, and you may come to me. If you see no 
 scarf you may consider that everything between us 
 is ended forever. That," concluded the young man 
 bitterly, " is why I have been watching that clock. 
 
 [191] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 The time for the signal to appear has passed twenty- 
 three minutes ago. Do you wonder that I am a little 
 disturbed, my Prince of Rags and Whiskers ? " 
 
 " Let me repeat to you," said Prince Michael, in 
 his even, well-modulated tones, " that women are the 
 natural enemies of clocks. Clocks are an evil, women 
 a blessing. The signal may yet appear." 
 
 " Never, on your principality ! " exclaimed the 
 young man, hopelessly. " You don t know Marian 
 of course. She s always on time, to the minute. 
 That was the first thing about her that attracted me. 
 I ve got the mitten instead of the scarf. I ought to 
 have known at 8.31 that my goose was cooked. I ll 
 go West on the 11.45 to-night with Jack Mil- 
 burn. The jig s up. I ll try Jack s ranch awhile 
 and top off with the Klondike and whiskey. Good 
 night er er Prince." 
 
 Prince Michael smiled his enigmatic, gentle, com 
 prehending smile and caught the coat sleeve of the 
 other. The brilliant light in the Prince s eyes was 
 softening to a dreamier, cloudy translucence. 
 
 " Wait," he said solemnly, " till the clock strikes. 
 "I have wealth and power and knowledge above 
 most men, but when the clock strikes I am afraid. 
 Stay by me until then. This woman shall be yours. 
 You have the word of the hereditary Prince of Valle- 
 [192] 
 
THE CALIPH, CUPID AND THE CLOCK 
 
 luna. On the day of your marriage I will give you 
 $100,000 and a palace on the Hudson. But there 
 must be no clocks in that palace they measure our 
 follies and limit our pleasures. Do you agree to 
 that?" 
 
 " Of course," said the young man, cheerfully, 
 " they re a nuisance, anyway always ticking and 
 striking and getting you late for dinner." 
 
 He glanced again at the clock in the tower. The 
 hands stood at three minutes to nine. 
 
 " I think," said Prince Michael, " that I will sleep 
 a little. The day has been fatiguing." 
 
 He stretched himself upon a bench with the man 
 ner of one who had slept thus before. 
 
 "You will find me in this park on any evening 
 when the weather is suitable," said the Prince, sleep 
 ily. " Come to me when your marriage day is set and 
 I will give you a cheque for the money." 
 
 " Thanks, Your Highness," said the young man, 
 seriously. " It doesn t look as if I would need that 
 palace on the Hudson, but I appreciate your offer, 
 just the same." 
 
 Prince Michael sank into deep slumber. His bat 
 tered hat rolled from the bench to the ground. The 
 young man lifted it, placed it over the frowsy face 
 and moved one of the grotesquely relaxed limbs into 
 [193] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 a more comfortable position. " Poor devil ! " he 
 said, as he drew the tattered clothes closer about 
 the Prince s breast. 
 
 Sonorous and startling came the stroke of 9 from 
 the clock tower. The young man sighed again, 
 turned his face for one last look at the house of his 
 relinquished hopes and cried aloud profane words 
 of holy rapture. 
 
 From the middle upper window blossomed in the 
 dusk a waving, snowy, fluttering, wonderful, divine 
 emblem of forgiveness and promised joy. 
 
 By came a citizen, rotund, comfortable, home- 
 hurrying, unknowing of the delights of waving silken 
 scarfs on the borders of dimly-lit parks. 
 
 " Will you oblige me with the time, sir ? " asked the 
 young man; and the citizen, shrewdly conjecturing 
 his watch to be safe, dragged it out and announced : 
 
 " Twenty-nine and a half minutes past eight, 
 sir." 
 
 And then, from habit, he glanced at the clock in 
 the tower, and made further oration. 
 
 " By George ! that clock s half an hour fast ! First 
 time in ten years I ve known it to be off. This watch 
 of mine never varies a " 
 
 But the citizen was talking to vacancy. He turned 
 and saw his hearer, a fast receding black shadow, 
 [194] 
 
THE CALIPH, CUPID AND THE CLOCK 
 
 flying in the direction of a house with three lighted 
 upper windows. 
 
 And in the morning came along two policemen on 
 their way to the beats they owned. The park was 
 deserted save for one dilapidated figure that 
 sprawled, asleep, on a bench. They stopped and 
 gazed upon it. 
 
 " It s Dopy Mike," said one. " He hits the pipe 
 every night. Park bum for twenty years. On his 
 last legs, I guess." 
 
 The other policeman stooped and looked at some 
 thing crumpled and crisp in the hand of the sleeper. 
 
 " Gee ! " he remarked. " He s doped out a fifty- 
 dollar bill, anyway. Wish I knew the brand of hop 
 that he smokes." 
 
 And then " Rap, rap, rap ! " went the club of real 
 ism against the shoe soles of Prince Michael, of 
 the Electorate of VaUeluna. 
 
 [195] 
 
SISTERS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE 
 
 1HE Rubberneck Auto was about ready to start. 
 The merry top-riders had been assigned to their 
 seats by the gentlemanly conductor. The sidewalk 
 was blockaded with sightseers who had gathered to 
 stare at sightseers, justifying the natural law that 
 every creature on earth is preyed upon by some other 
 creature. 
 
 The megaphone man raised his instrument of tor 
 ture; the inside of the great automobile began to 
 thump and throb like the heart of a coffee drinker. 
 The top-riders nervously clung to the seats ; the old 
 lady from Valparaiso, Indiana, shrieked to be put 
 ashore. But, before a wheel turns, listen to a brief 
 preamble through the cardiaphone, which shall point 
 out to you an object of interest on life s sightseeing 
 tour. 
 
 Swift and comprehensive is the recognition of 
 white man for white man in African wilds; instant 
 and sure is the spiritual greeting between mother 
 and babe; unhesitatingly do master and dog com 
 mune across the slight gulf between animal and 
 [196] 
 
SISTERS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE 
 
 man; immeasurably quick and sapient are the brief 
 messages between one and one s beloved. But all 
 these instances set forth only slow and groping in 
 terchange of sympathy and thought beside one other 
 instance which the Rubberneck coach shall disclose. 
 You shall learn (if you have not learned already) 
 what two beings of all earth s living inhabitants 
 most quickly look into each other s hearts and souls 
 when they meet face to face. 
 
 The gong whirred, and the Glaring-at-Gotham car 
 moved majestically upon its instructive tour. 
 
 On the highest, rear seat was James Williams, of 
 Cloverdale, Missouri, and his Bride. 
 
 Capitalise it, friend typo that last word word 
 of words in the epiphany of life and love. The scent 
 of the flowers, the booty of the bee, the primal drip of 
 spring waters, the overture of the lark, the twist 
 of lemon peel on the cocktail of creation such is the 
 bride. Holy is the wife; revered the mother; gal- 
 liptious is the summer girl but the bride is the 
 certified check among the wedding presents that the 
 gods send in when man is married to mortality. 
 
 The car glided up the Golden Way. On the bridge 
 of the great cruiser the captain stood, trumpeting 
 the sights of the big city to his passengers. Wide- 
 mouthed and open-eared, they heard the sights of 
 [197] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 the metropolis thundered forth to their eyes. Con 
 fused, delirious with excitement and provincial 
 longings, they tried to make ocular responses to the 
 megaphonic ritual. In the solemn spires of spread 
 ing cathedrals they saw the home of the Vander- 
 bilts; in the busy bulk of the Grand Central depot 
 they viewed, wonderingly, the frugal cot of Russell 
 Sage. Bidden to observe the highlands of the Hud 
 son, they gaped, unsuspecting, at the upturned 
 mountains of a new-laid sewer. To many the ele 
 vated railroad was the Rialto, on the stations of 
 which uniformed men sat and made chop suey of 
 your tickets. And to this day in the outlying dis 
 tricts many have it that Chuck Connors, with his 
 hand on his heart, leads reform; and that but for 
 the noble municipal efforts of one Parkhurst, a dis 
 trict attorney, the notorious " Bishop " Potter gang 
 would have destroyed law and order from the Bowery 
 to the Harlem River. 
 
 But I beg you to observe Mrs. James Williams 
 Hattie Chalmers that was once the belle of Clover- 
 dale. Pale-blue is the bride s, if she will; and this 
 colour she had honoured. Willingly had the moss 
 rosebud loaned to her cheeks of its pink and as for 
 the violet! her eyes will do very well as they are, 
 thank you. A useless strip of white chaf oh, no, 
 
 [198] 
 
SISTERS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE 
 
 he was guiding the auto car of white chiffon or 
 perhaps it was grenadine or tulle was tied beneath 
 her chin, pretending to hold her bonnet in place. 
 But you know as well as I do that the hatpins did 
 the work. 
 
 And on Mrs. James Williams s face was recorded a 
 little library of the world s best thoughts in three 
 volumes. Volume No. 1 contained the belief that 
 James Williams was about the right sort of thing. 
 Volume No. 2 was an essay on the world, declaring 
 it to be a very excellent place. Volume No. 3 dis 
 closed the belief that in occupying the highest seat 
 in a Rubberneck auto they were travelling the pace 
 that passes all understanding. 
 
 James Williams, you would have guessed, was 
 about twenty-four. It will gratify you to know 
 that your estimate was so accurate. He was ex 
 actly twenty-three years, eleven months and twenty- 
 nine days old. He was wejl built, active, strong- 
 jawed, good-natured and rising. He was on his 
 wedding trip. 
 
 Dear kind fairy, please cut out those orders for 
 money and 40 H. P. touring cars and fame and a 
 new growth of hair and the presidency of the boat 
 club. Instead of any of them turn backward oh, 
 turn backward and give us just a teeny-weeny bit 
 
 [199] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 of our wedding trip over again. Just an hour, dear 
 fairy, so we can remember how the grass and pop 
 lar trees looked, and the bow of those bonnet strings 
 tied beneath her chin even if it was the hatpins 
 that did the work. Can t do it? Very well; hurry 
 up with that touring car and the oil stock, then. 
 
 Just in front of Mrs. James Williams sat a girl in 
 a loose tan jacket and a straw hat adorned with 
 grapes and roses. Only in dreams and milliners 
 shops do we, alas! gather grapes and roses at one 
 swipe. This girl gazed with large blue eyes, credu 
 lous, when the megaphone man roared his doctrine 
 that millionaires were things about which we should 
 be concerned. Between blasts she resorted to Epicte- 
 tian philosophy in the form of pepsin chewing gum. 
 
 At this girl s right hand sat a young man about 
 twenty-four. He was well-built, active, strong- 
 jawed and good-natured. But if his description 
 seems to follow that of James Williams, divest it of 
 anything Cloverdalian. This man belonged to hard 
 streets and sharp corners. He looked keenly about 
 him, seeming to begrudge the asphalt under the feet 
 of those upon whom he looked down from his 
 perch. 
 
 While the megaphone barks at a famous hostelry, 
 let me whisper you through the low-tuned cardia- 
 [200] 
 
SISTERS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE 
 
 phone to sit tight; for now things are about to hap 
 pen, and the great city will close over them again as 
 over a scrap of ticker tape floating down from the 
 den of a Broad street bear. 
 
 The girl in the tan jacket twisted around to view 
 the pilgrims on the last seat. The other passengers 
 she had absorbed ; the seat behind her was her Blue 
 beard s chamber. 
 
 Her eyes met those of Mrs. James Williams. Be 
 tween two ticks of a watch they exchanged their 
 life s experiences, histories, hopes and fancies. And 
 all, mind you, with the eye, before two men could 
 have decided whether to draw steel or borrow a 
 match. 
 
 The bride leaned forward low. She and the girl 
 spoke rapidly together, their tongues moving quickly 
 like those of two serpents a comparison that is not 
 meant to go further. Two smiles and a dozen nods 
 closed the conference. 
 
 And now in the broad, quiet avenue in front of 
 the Rubberneck car a man in dark clothes stood with 
 uplifted hand. From the sidewalk another hurried 
 to join him. 
 
 The girl in the fruitful hat quickly seized her com 
 panion by the arm and whispered in his ear. That 
 young man exhibited proof of ability to act 
 [201] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 promptly. Crouching low, he slid over the edge of 
 the car, hung lightly for an instant, and then dis 
 appeared. Half a dozen of the top-riders observed 
 his feat, wonderingly, but made no comment, deem 
 ing it prudent not to express surprise at what might 
 be the conventional manner of alighting in this be 
 wildering city. The truant passenger dodged a han 
 som and then floated past, like a leaf on a stream 
 between a furniture van and a florist s delivery 
 wagon. 
 
 The girl in the tan jacket turned again, and looked 
 in the eyes of Mrs. James Williams. Then she faced 
 about and sat still while the Rubberneck auto 
 stopped at the flash of the badge under the coat 
 of the plainclothes man. 
 
 " What s eatin you? " demanded the megaphonist, 
 abandoning his professional discourse for pure 
 English. 
 
 " Keep her at anchor for a minute," ordered the 
 officer. " There s a man on board we want a Phila 
 delphia burglar called Pinky McGuire. There 
 he is on the back seat. Look out for the side, 
 Donovan." 
 
 Donovan went to the hind wheel and looked up at 
 James Williams. 
 
 " Come down, old sport," he said., pleasantly. 
 
SISTERS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE 
 
 " We ve got you. Back to Sleepytown for yours. It 
 ain t a bad idea, hidin on a Rubberneck, though. 
 I ll remember that." 
 
 Softly through the megaphone came the advice of 
 the conductor: 
 
 " Better step off, sir, and explain. The car must 
 proceed on its tour." 
 
 James Williams belonged among the level heads. 
 With necessary slowness he picked his way through 
 the passengers down to the steps at the front of the 
 car. His wife followed, but she first turned her 
 eyes and saw the escaped tourist glide from behind 
 the furniture van and slip behind a tree on the edge 
 of the little park, not fifty feet away. 
 
 Descended to the ground, James Williams faced 
 his captors with a smile. He was thinking what a 
 good story he would have to tell in Cloverdale about 
 having been mistaken for a burglar. The Rubber 
 neck coach lingered, out of respect for its patrons. 
 What could be a more interesting sight than 
 this? 
 
 " My name is James Williams, of Cloverdale, 
 Missouri," he said kindly, so that they would not be 
 too greatly mortified. " I have letters here that will 
 show " 
 
 " You ll come with us, please," announced the 
 [203] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 plainclothes man. " Pinky McGuire s description 
 fits you like flannel washed in hot suds. A detective 
 saw you on the Rubberneck up at Central Park and 
 phoned down to take you in. Do your explaining at 
 the station-house." 
 
 James Williams s wife his bride of two weeks 
 looked him in the face with a strange, soft radiance 
 in her eyes and a flush on her cheeks, looked him in 
 the face and said: 
 
 " Go with em quietly, Pinky, and maybe it ll be 
 in your favour." 
 
 And then as the Glaring-at-Gotham car rolled 
 away she turned and threw a kiss his wife threw 
 a kiss at some one high up on the seats of the 
 Rubberneck. 
 
 "Your girl gives you good advice, McGuire," 
 said Donovan. " Come on, now." 
 
 And then madness descended upon and occupied 
 James Williams. He pushed his hat far upon the 
 back of his head. 
 
 " My wife seems to think I am a burglar," he 
 said, recklessly. " I never heard of her being crazy ; 
 therefore I must be. And if I m crazy, they can t 
 do anything to me for killing you two fools in my 
 madness." 
 
 Whereupon he resisted arrest so cheerfully and 
 [204] 
 
SISTERS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE 
 industriously that cops had to be whistled for, and 
 afterwards the reserves, to disperse a few thousand 
 delighted spectators. 
 
 At the station-house the desk sergeant asked for 
 his name. 
 
 " McDoodle, the Pink, or Pinky the Brute, I for 
 get which," was James Williams s answer. " But 
 you can bet I m a burglar; don t leave that out. 
 And you might add that it took five of em to pluck 
 the Pink. I d especially like to have that in the 
 records." 
 
 In an hour came Mrs. James Williams, with Uncle 
 Thomas, of Madison Avenue, in a respect-compelling 
 motor car and proofs of the hero s innocence for all 
 the world like the third act of a drama backed by 
 an automobile mfg. co. 
 
 After the police had sternly reprimanded James 
 Williams for imitating a copyrighted burglar and 
 given him as honourable a discharge as the depart 
 ment was capable of, Mrs. Williams rearrested him 
 and swept him into an angle of the station-house. 
 James Williams regarded her with one eye. He 
 always said that Donovan closed the other while 
 somebody was holding his good right hand. Never 
 before had he given her a word of reproach or of 
 reproof. 
 
 [205] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 " If you can explain," he began rather stiffly, 
 " why you " 
 
 " Dear," she interrupted, " listen. It was an hour s 
 pain and trial to you. I did it for her I mean the 
 girl who spoke to me on the eoach. I was so happy, 
 Jim so happy with you that I didn t dare to refuse 
 that happiness to another. Jim, they were married 
 only this morning those two ; and I wanted him to 
 get away. While they were struggling with you I 
 saw him slip from behind his tree and hurry across 
 the park. That s all of it, dear I had to do it." 
 
 Thus does one sister of the plain gold band know 
 another who stands in the enchanted light that 
 shines but once and briefly for each one. By rice 
 and satin bows does mere man become aware of 
 weddings. But bride knoweth bride at the glance 
 of an eye. And between them swiftly passes com 
 fort and meaning in a language that man and 
 widows wot not of. 
 
 [206] 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A BUSY BROKER 
 
 PlTCHER, confidential clerk in the office of 
 Harvey Maxwell, broker, allowed a look of mild 
 interest and surprise to visit his usually expres 
 sionless countenance when his employer briskly 
 entered at half past nine in company with his 
 young lady stenographer. With a snappy " Good- 
 morning, Pitcher," Maxwell dashed at his desk as 
 though he were intending to leap over it, and then 
 plunged into the great heap of letters and telegrams 
 waiting there for him. 
 
 The young lady had been Maxwell s stenographer 
 for a year. She was beautiful in a way that was 
 decidedly unstenographic. She forewent the pomp 
 of the alluring pompadour. She wore no chains, 
 bracelets or lockets. She had not the air of being 
 about to accept an invitation to luncheon. Her dress 
 was grey and plain, but it fitted her figure with 
 fidelity and discretion. In her neat black turban hat 
 was the gold-green wing of a macaw. On this morn 
 ing she was softly and shyly radiant. Her eyes were 
 [207] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 dreamily bright, her cheeks genuine peachblow, her 
 expression a happy one, tinged with reminiscence. 
 
 Pitcher, still mildly curious, noticed a difference in 
 her ways this morning. Instead of going straight 
 into the adjoining room, where her desk was, she 
 lingered, slightly irresolute, in the outer office. Once 
 she moved over by Maxwell s desk, near enough for 
 him to be aware of her presence. 
 
 The machine sitting at that desk was no longer a 
 man ; it was a busy New York broker, moved by buzz 
 ing wheels and uncoiling springs. 
 
 "Well what is it? Anything?" asked Maxwell 
 sharply. His opened mail lay like a bank of stage 
 snow on his crowded desk. His keen grey eye, im 
 personal and brusque, flashed upon her half impa 
 tiently. 
 
 " Nothing," answered the stenographer, moving 
 away with a little smile. 
 
 " Mr. Pitcher," she said to the confidential clerk, 
 " did Mr. Maxwell say anything yesterday about en 
 gaging another stenographer?" 
 
 " He did," answered Pitcher. " He told me to get 
 another one. I notified the agency yesterday after 
 noon to send over a few samples this morning. It s 
 9.45 o clock, and not a single picture hat or piece of 
 pineapple chewing gum has showed up yet. 9 
 
 [208] 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A BUSY BROKER 
 
 " I will do the work as usual, then," said the young 
 lady, " until some one comes to fill the place." And 
 she went to her desk at once and hung the black 
 turban hat with the gold-green macaw wing in its 
 accustomed place. 
 
 He who has been denied the spectacle of a busy 
 Manhattan broker during a rush of business is handi 
 capped for the profession of anthropology. The poet 
 sings of the " crowded hour of glorious life." The 
 broker s hour is not only crowded, but the minutes 
 and seconds are hanging to all the straps and packing 
 both front and rear platforms. 
 
 And this day was Harvey Maxwell s busy day. 
 The ticker began to reel out jerkily its fitful coils of 
 tape, the desk telephone had a chronic attack of 
 buzzing. Men began to throng into the office and call 
 at him over the railing, jovially, sharply, viciously, 
 excitedly. Messenger boys ran in and out with mes 
 sages and telegrams. The clerks in the office jumped 
 about like sailors during a storm. Even Pitcher s 
 face relaxed into something resembling anima 
 tion. 
 
 On the Exchange there were hurricanes and land 
 slides and snowstorms and glaciers and volcanoes, 
 and those elemental disturbances were reproduced in 
 miniature in the broker s offices. Maxwell shoved his 
 
 [209] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 chair against the wall and transacted business after 
 the manner of a toe dancer. He jumped from ticker 
 to phone, from desk to door with the trained agility 
 of a harlequin. 
 
 In the midst of this growing and important stress 
 the broker became suddenly aware of a high-rolled 
 fringe of golden hair under a nodding canopy of vel 
 vet and ostrich tips, an imitation sealskin sacque and 
 a string of beads as large as hickory nuts, ending 
 near the floor with a silver heart. There was a self- 
 possessed young lady connected with these acces 
 sories ; and Pitcher was there to construe her. 
 
 " Lady from the Stenographers Agency to see 
 about the position," said Pitcher. 
 
 Maxwell turned half around, with his hands full of 
 papers and ticker tape. 
 
 "What position?" he asked, with a frown. 
 
 " Position of stenographer," said Pitcher. " You 
 told me yesterday to call them up and have one sent 
 over this morning." 
 
 "You are losing your mind, Pitcher," said Max 
 well. " Why should I have given you any such in 
 structions? Miss Leslie has given perfect satisfac 
 tion during the year she has been here. The place 
 is hers as long as she chooses to retain it. There s 
 no place open here, madam. Countermand that or- 
 [210] 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A BUSY BROKER 
 
 der with the agency, Pitcher, and don t bring any 
 more of em in here." 
 
 The silver heart left the office, swinging and bang 
 ing itself independently against the office furniture 
 as it indignantly departed. Pitcher seized a moment 
 to remark to the bookkeeper that the " old man " 
 seemed to get more absent-minded and forgetful 
 every day of the world. 
 
 The rush and pace of business grew fiercer and 
 faster. On the floor they were pounding half a dozen 
 stocks in which Maxwell s customers were heavy in 
 vestors. Orders to buy and sell were coming and 
 going as swift as the flight of swallows. Some of 
 his own holdings were imperilled, and the man was 
 working like some high-geared, delicate, strong 
 machine strung to full tension, going at full speed, 
 accurate, never hesitating, with the proper word and 
 decision and act ready and prompt as clockwork. 
 Stocks and bonds, loans and mortgages, margins and 
 securities here was a world of finance, and there was 
 no room in it for the human world or the world of 
 nature. 
 
 When the luncheon hour drew near there came a 
 slight lull in the uproar. 
 
 Maxwell stood by his desk with his hands full of 
 telegrams and memoranda, with a fountain pen over 
 [211] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 his right ear and his hair hanging in disorderly 
 strings over his forehead. His window was open, for 
 the beloved janitress Spring had turned on a little 
 warmth through the waking registers of the earth. 
 
 And through the window came a wandering per 
 haps a lost odour a delicate, sweet odour of lilac 
 that fixed the broker for a moment immovable. For 
 this odour belonged to Miss Leslie; it was her own, 
 and hers only. 
 
 The odour brought her vividly, almost tangibly 
 before him. The world of finance dwindled suddenly 
 to a speck. And she was in the next room twenty 
 steps away. 
 
 "By George, I ll do it now," said Maxwell, half 
 aloud. " I ll ask her now. I wonder I didn t do it 
 long ago." 
 
 He dashed into the inner office with the haste of a 
 short trying to cover. He charged upon the desk of 
 the stenographer. 
 
 She looked up at him with a smile. A soft pink 
 crept over her cheek, and her eyes were kind and 
 frank. Maxwell leaned one elbow on her desk. He 
 still clutched fluttering papers with both hands and 
 the pen was above his ear. 
 
 " Miss Leslie," he began hurriedly, " I have but a 
 moment to spare. I want to say something in that 
 
 [212] 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A BUSY BROKER 
 moment. Will you be my wife? I haven t had time 
 to make love to you in the ordinary way, but I really 
 do love you. Talk quick, please those fellows are 
 clubbing the stuffing out of Union Pacific." 
 
 " Oh, what are you talking about ? " exclaimed the 
 young lady. She rose to her feet and gazed upon 
 him, round-eyed. 
 
 " Don t you understand? " said Maxwell, restively. 
 " I want you to marry me. I love you, Miss Leslie. 
 I wanted to tell you, and I snatched a minute when 
 things had slackened up a bit. They re calling me 
 for the phone now. Tell em to wait a minute, 
 Pitcher. Won t you, Miss Leslie? " 
 
 The stenographer acted very queerly. At first she 
 seemed overcome with amazement ; then tears flowed 
 from her wondering eyes; and then she smiled sun 
 nily through them, and one of her arms slid tenderly 
 about the broker s neck. 
 
 "I know now," she said, softly. "It s this old 
 business that has driven everything else out of your 
 head for the time. I was frightened at first. Don t 
 you remember, Harvey? We were married last even 
 ing at 8 o clock in the Little Church Around the 
 Corner." 
 
 [213] 
 
AFTER TWENTY YEARS 
 
 THE policeman on the beat moved up the avenue 
 impressively. The impressiveness was habitual and 
 not for show, for spectators were few. The time 
 was barely 10 o clock at night, but chilly gusts of 
 wind with a taste of rain in them had well nigh 
 depeopled the streets. 
 
 Trying doors as he went, twirling his club with 
 many intricate and artful movements, turning now 
 and then to cast his watchful eye adown the pacific 
 thoroughfare, the officer, with his stalwart form and 
 slight swagger, made a fine picture of a guardian of 
 the peace. The vicinity was one that kept early 
 hours. Now and then you might see the lights of a 
 cigar store or of an all-night lunch counter; but the 
 majority of the doors belonged to business places 
 that had long since been closed. 
 
 When about midway of a certain block the police 
 man suddenly slowed his walk. In the doorway of 
 a darkened hardware store a man leaned, with an 
 unlighted cigar in his mouth. As the policeman 
 walked up to him the man spoke up quickly. 
 
AFTER TWENTY YEARS 
 
 "It s all right, officer," he said, reassuringly. 
 " I m just waiting for a friend. It s an appointment 
 made twenty years ago. Sounds a little funny to 
 you, doesn t it? Well, I ll explain if you d like to 
 make certain it s all straight. About that long ago 
 there used to be a restaurant where this store stands 
 Big Joe Brady s restaurant." 
 
 " Until five years ago," said the policeman. " It 
 was torn down then." 
 
 The man in the doorway struck a match and lit his 
 cigar. The light showed a pale, square-jawed face 
 with keen eyes, and a little white scar near his right 
 eyebrow. His scarfpin was a large diamond, oddly 
 set. 
 
 " Twenty years ago to-night," said the man. " I 
 dined here at * Big Joe Brady s with Jimmy Wells, 
 my best chum, and the finest chap in the world. He 
 and I were raised here in New York, just like two 
 brothers, together. I was eighteen and Jimmy was 
 twenty. The next morning I was to start for the 
 West to make my fortune. You couldn t have 
 dragged Jimmy out of New York ; he thought it was 
 the only place on earth. Well, we agreed that night 
 that we would meet here again exactly twenty years 
 from that date and time, no matter what our con 
 ditions might be or from what distance we might 
 [215] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 have to come. We figured that in twenty years each 
 of us ought to have our destiny worked out and 
 our fortunes made, whatever they were going to 
 be." 
 
 " It sounds pretty interesting," said the policeman. 
 " Rather a long time between meets, though, it seems 
 to me. Haven t you heard from your friend since 
 you left?" 
 
 " Well, yes, for a time we corresponded," said the 
 other. " But after a year or two we lost track of 
 each other. You see, the West is a pretty big prop 
 osition, and I kept hustling around over it pretty 
 lively. But I know Jimmy will meet me here if 
 he s alive, for he always was the truest, stanchest 
 old chap in the world. He ll never forget. I 
 came a thousand miles to stand in this door to 
 night, and it s worth it if my old partner turns 
 up." 
 
 The waiting man pulled out a handsome watch, the 
 lids of it set with small diamonds. 
 
 " Three minutes to ten," he announced. " It was 
 exactly ten o clock when we parted here at the res 
 taurant door." 
 
 "Did pretty well out West, didn t you?" asked 
 the policeman. 
 
 "You bet! I hope Jimmy has done half as well. 
 [216] 
 
AFTER TWENTY YEARS 
 
 He was a kind of plodder, though, good fellow as he 
 was. I ve had to compete with some of the sharpest 
 wits going to get my pile. A man gets in a groove 
 in New York. It takes the West to put a razor-edge 
 on him." 
 
 The policeman twirled his club and took a step 
 or two. 
 
 " I ll be on my way. Hope your friend comes 
 around all right. Going to call time on him 
 sharp?" 
 
 " I should say not i " said the other. " I ll give 
 him half an hour at least. If Jimmy is alive 
 on earth he ll be here by that time. So long, 
 officer." 
 
 " Good-night, sir," said the policeman, passing on 
 along his beat, trying doors as he went. 
 
 There was now a fine, cold drizzle falling, and the 
 wind had risen from its uncertain puffs into a steady 
 blow. The few foot passengers astir in that quarter 
 hurried dismally and silently along with coat collars 
 turned high and pocketed hands. And in the door of 
 the hardware store the man who had come a thou 
 sand miles to fill an appointment, uncertain almost 
 to absurdity, with the friend of his youth, smoked 
 his cigar and waited. 
 
 About twenty minutes he waited, and then a tall 
 [217] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 man in a long overcoat, with collar turned up to 
 his ears, hurried across from the opposite side 
 of the street. He went directly to the waiting 
 man. 
 
 "Is that you, Bob?" he asked, doubtfully. 
 
 " Is that you, Jimmy Wells ? " cried the man in the 
 door. 
 
 " Bless my heart ! " exclaimed the new arrival, 
 grasping both the other s hands with his own. " It s 
 Bob, sure as fate. I was certain I d find you here 
 if you were still in existence. Well, well, well! 
 twenty years is a long time. The old restaurant s 
 gone, Bob ; I wish it had lasted, so we could have had 
 another dinner there. How has the West treated 
 you, old man? " 
 
 " Bully ; it has given me everything I asked it for. 
 You ve changed lots, Jimmy. I never thought you 
 were so tall by two or three inches." 
 
 " Oh, I grew a bit after I was twenty." 
 
 " Doing well in New York, Jimmy ? " 
 
 " Moderately. I have a position in one of the city 
 departments. Come on, Bob; we ll go around to a 
 place I know of, and have a good long talk about 
 old times." 
 
 The two men started up the street, arm in arm. 
 The man from the West, his egotism enlarged by sue- 
 [218] 
 
AFTER TWENTY YEARS 
 
 cess, was beginning to outline the history of his 
 career. The other, submerged in his overcoat, lis 
 tened with interest. 
 
 At the corner stood a drug store, brilliant with 
 electric lights. When they came into this glare 
 each of them turned simultaneously to gaze upon 
 the other s face. 
 
 The man from the West stopped suddenly and re 
 leased his arm. 
 
 " You re not Jimmy Wells," he snapped. " Twenty 
 years is a long time, but not long enough to change 
 a man s nose from a Roman to a pug." 
 
 " It sometimes changes a good man into a bad one," 
 said the tall man. " You ve been under arrest for ten 
 minutes, 6 Silky Bob. Chicago thinks you may have 
 dropped over our way and wires us she wants to have 
 a chat with you. Going quietly, are you? That s 
 sensible. Now, before we go on to the station here s 
 a note I was asked to hand you. You may 
 read it here at the window. It s from Patrolman 
 Wells." 
 
 The man from the West unfolded the little piece 
 of paper handed him. His hand was steady when he 
 began to read, but it trembled a little by the time he 
 had finished. The note was rather short. 
 
 " Bob: I was at the appointed place on time. 
 [219] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 When you struck the match to light your cigar I saw 
 it was the face of the man wanted in Chicago. Some 
 how I couldn t do it myself, so I went around and 
 got a plain clothes man to do the job. 
 
 "JIMMY." 
 
 [220] 
 
LOST ON DRESS PARADE 
 
 MR. TOWERS CHANDLER was pressing his 
 evening suit in his hall bedroom. One iron was 
 heating on a small gas stove; the other was being 
 pushed vigorously back and forth to make the 
 desirable crease that would be seen later on extend 
 ing in straight lines from Mr. Chandler s patent 
 leather shoes to the edge of his low-cut vest. So 
 much of the hero s toilet may be intrusted to our 
 confidence. The remainder may be guessed by 
 those whom genteel poverty has driven to ignoble 
 expedient. Our next view of him shall be as he de 
 scends the steps of his lodging-house immaculately 
 and correctly clothed ; calm, assured, handsome in 
 appearance the typical New York young clubman 
 setting out, slightly bored, to inaugurate the pleas 
 ures of the evening. 
 
 Chandler s honorarium was $18 per week. He was 
 employed in the office of an architect. He was 
 twenty-two years old; he considered architecture to 
 be truly an art ; and he honestly believed though he 
 would not have dared to admit it in New York that 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 the Flatiron Building was inferior in design to the 
 great cathedral in Milan. 
 
 Out of each week s earnings Chandler set aside 
 $1. At the end of each ten weeks with the extra 
 capital thus accumulated, he purchased one gentle 
 man s evening from the bargain counter of stingy 
 old Father Time. He arrayed himself in the regalia 
 of millionaires and presidents; he took himself to 
 the quarter where life is brightest and showiest, and 
 there dined with taste and luxury. With ten dollars 
 a man may, for a few hours, play the wealthy idler 
 to perfection. The sum is ample for a well-con 
 sidered meal, a bottle bearing a respectable label, 
 commensurate tips, a smoke, cab fare and the or 
 dinary etceteras. 
 
 This one delectable evening culled from each dull 
 seventy was to Chandler a source of renascent bliss. 
 To the society bud comes but one debut; it stands 
 alone sweet in her memory when her hair has 
 whitened ; but to Chandler each ten weeks brought a 
 joy as keen, as thrilling, as new as the first had 
 been. To sit among bon vivants under palms in the 
 swirl of concealed music, to look upon the habitues 
 of such a paradise and to be looked upon by them 
 what is a girl s first dance and short-sleeved tulle 
 compared with this? 
 
LOST ON DRESS PARADE 
 
 Up Broadway Chandler moved with the vespertine 
 dress parade. For this evening he was an exhibit 
 as well as a gazer. For the next sixty-nine evenings 
 he would be dining in cheviot and worsted at dubious 
 table d hotes, at whirlwind lunch counters, on sand 
 wiches and beer in his hall bedroom. He was willing 
 to do that, for he was a true son of the great city of 
 razzle-dazzle, and to him one evening in the limelight 
 made up for many dark ones. 
 
 Chandler protracted his walk until the Forties be 
 gan to intersect the great and glittering primrose 
 way, for the evening was yet young, and when one 
 is of the beau monde only one day in seventy, one 
 loves to protract the pleasure. Eyes bright, sinister, 
 curious, admiring, provocative, alluring were bent 
 upon him, for his garb and air proclaimed him a 
 devotee to the hour of solace and pleasure. 
 
 At a certain corner he came to a standstill, pro 
 posing to himself the question of turning back toward 
 the showy and fashionable restaurant in which he 
 usually dined on the evenings of his especial luxury. 
 Just then a girl scudded lightly around the corner, 
 slipped on a patch of icy snow and fell plump upon 
 the sidewalk. 
 
 Chandler assisted her to her feet with instant and 
 solicitous courtesy. The girl hobbled to the wall of 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 the building, leaned against it, and thanked him 
 demurely. 
 
 " I think my ankle is strained," she said. " It 
 twisted when I fell." 
 
 " Does it pain you much? " inquired Chandler. 
 
 " Only when I rest my weight upon it. I think I 
 will be able to walk in a minute or two." 
 
 " If I can be of any further service," suggested 
 the young man, " I will call a cab, or " 
 
 " Thank you," said the girl, softly but heartily. 
 " I am sure you need not trouble yourself any fur 
 ther. It was so awkward of me. And my shoe heels 
 are horridly common-sense; I can t blame them 
 at all." 
 
 Chandler looked at the girl and found her swiftly 
 drawing his interest. She was pretty in a refined 
 way; and her eye was both merry and kind. She 
 was inexpensively clothed in a plain black dress that 
 suggested a sort of uniform such as shop girls wear. 
 Her glossy dark-brown hair showed its coils beneath 
 a cheap hat of black straw whose only ornament was 
 a velvet ribbon and bow. She could have posed as a 
 model for the self-respecting working girl of the 
 best type. 
 
 A sudden idea came into the head of the young 
 architect. He would ask this girl to dine with him. 
 
LOST ON DRESS PARADE 
 
 Here was the element that his splendid but solitary 
 periodic feasts had lacked. His brief season of ele 
 gant luxury would be doubly enjoyable if he could 
 add to it a lady s society. This girl was a lady, he 
 was sure her manner and speech settled that. And 
 in spite of her extremely plain attire he felt that he 
 would be pleased to sit at table with her. 
 
 These thoughts passed swiftly through his mind, 
 and he decided to ask her. It was a breach of eti 
 quette, of course, but oftentimes wage-earning girls 
 waived formalities in matters of this kind. They 
 were generally shrewd judges of men; and thought 
 better of their own judgment than they did of use 
 less conventions. His ten dollars, discreetly ex 
 pended, would enable the two to dine very well 
 indeed. The dinner would no doubt be a wonderful 
 experience thrown into the dull routine of the girl s 
 life; and her lively appreciation of it would add to 
 his own triumph and pleasure. 
 
 "I think," he said to her, with frank gravity, 
 " that your foot needs a longer rest than you sup 
 pose. Now, I am going to suggest a way in which 
 you can give it that and at the same time do me a 
 favour. I was on my way to dine all by my lonely 
 self when you came tumbling around the corner. 
 You come with me and we ll have a cozy dinner and 
 [225] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 a pleasant talk together, and by that time your 
 game ankle will carry you home very nicely, I am 
 sure." 
 
 The girl looked quickly up into Chandler s clear, 
 pleasant countenance. Her eyes twinkled once very 
 brightly, and then she smiled ingenuously. 
 
 "But we don t know each other it wouldn t be 
 right, would it? " she said, doubtfully. 
 
 " There is nothing wrong about it," said the young 
 man, candidly. " I ll introduce myself permit me 
 Mr. Towers Chandler. After our dinner, which I 
 will try to make as pleasant as possible, I will bid you 
 good-evening, or attend you safely to your door, 
 whichever your prefer." 
 
 " But, dear me ! " said the girl, with a glance at 
 Chandler s faultless attire. " In this old dress and 
 hat!" 
 
 " Never mind that," said Chandler, cheerfully. 
 " I m sure you look more charming in them than any 
 one we shall see in the most elaborate dinner 
 toilette." 
 
 " My ankle does hurt yet," admitted the girl, at 
 tempting a limping step. " I think I will accept your 
 invitation, Mr. Chandler. You may call me Miss 
 Marian." 
 
 " Come, then, Miss Marian," said the young archi- 
 
LOST ON DRESS PARADE 
 
 tect, gaily, but with perfect courtesy ; " you will 
 not have far to walk. There is a very respectable 
 and good restaurant in the next block. You will 
 have to lean on my arm so and walk slowly. It is 
 lonely dining all by one s self. I m just a little bit 
 glad that you slipped on the ice." 
 
 When the two were established at a well-appointed 
 table, with a promising waiter hovering in attend 
 ance, Chandler began to experience the real joy that 
 his regular outing always brought to him. 
 
 The restaurant was not so showy or pretentious 
 as the one further down Broadway, which he always 
 preferred, but it was nearly so. The tables were well 
 filled with prosperous-looking diners, there was a 
 good orchestra, playing softly enough to make con 
 versation a possible pleasure, and the cuisine and 
 service were beyond criticism. His companion, even 
 in her cheap hat and dress, held herself with an air 
 that added distinction to the natural beauty of her 
 face and figure. And it is certain that she looked at 
 Chandler, with his animated but self-possessed man^ 
 ner and his kindling and frank blue eyes, with some 
 thing not far from admiration in her own charming 
 face. 
 
 Then it was that the Madness of Manhattan, the 
 Frenzy of Fuss and Feathers, the Bacillus of Brag, 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 the Provincial Plague of Pose seized upon Towers 
 Chandler. He was on Broadway, surrounded by 
 pomp and style, and there were eyes to look at him. 
 On the stage of that comedy he had assumed to play 
 the one-night part of a butterfly of fashion and an 
 idler of means and taste. He was dressed for the 
 part, and all his good angels had not the power to 
 prevent him from acting it. 
 
 So he began to prate to Miss Marian of clubs, of 
 teas, of golf and riding and kennels and cotillions 
 and tours abroad and threw out hints of a yacht lying 
 at Larchmont. He could see that she was vastly 
 impressed by this vague talk, so he endorsed his pose 
 by random insinuations concerning great wealth, and 
 mentioned familiarly a few names that are handled 
 reverently by the proletariat. It was Chandler s 
 short little day, and he was wringing from it the best 
 that could be had, as he saw it. And yet once or 
 twice he saw the pure gold of this girl shine through 
 the mist that his egotism had raised between him and 
 all objects. 
 
 " This way of living that you speak of," she said, 
 " sounds so futile and purposeless. Haven t you any 
 work to do in the world that might interest you 
 more? " 
 
 " My dear Miss Marian," he exclaimed " work! 
 [228] 
 
LOST ON DRESS PARADE 
 
 Think of dressing every day for dinner, of making 
 half a dozen calls in an afternoon with a policeman 
 at every corner ready to jump into your auto and take 
 you to the station, if you get up any greater speed 
 than a donkey cart s gait. We do-nothings are the 
 hardest workers in the land." 
 
 The dinner was concluded, the waiter generously 
 feed, and the two walked out to the corner where 
 they had met. Miss Marian walked very well now; 
 her limp was scarcely noticeable. 
 
 " Thank you for a nice time," she said, frankly. 
 " I must run home now. I liked the dinner very much, 
 Mr. Chandler." 
 
 He shook hands with her, smiling cordially, and 
 said something about a game of bridge at his club. 
 He watched her for a moment, walking rather rapidly 
 eastward, and then he found a cab to drive him 
 slowly homeward. 
 
 In his chilly bedroom Chandler laid away his even 
 ing clothes for a sixty-nine days rest. He went 
 about it thoughtfully. 
 
 " That was a stunning girl," he said to himself. 
 " She s all right, too,, I d be sworn, even if she does 
 have to work. Perhaps if I d told her the truth in 
 stead of all that razzle-dazzle we might but, con 
 found it ! I had to play up to my clothes." 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 Thus spoke the brave who was born and reared in 
 the wigwams of the tribe of the Manhattans. 
 
 The girl, after leaving her entertainer, sped swiftly 
 cross-town until she arrived at a handsome and sedate 
 mansion two squares to the east, facing on that ave 
 nue which is the highway of Mammon and the aux 
 iliary gods. Here she entered hurriedly and ascended 
 io a room where a handsome young lady in an elab 
 orate house dress was looking anxiously out the 
 window. 
 
 " Oh, you madcap ! " exclaimed the elder girl, when 
 the other entered. " When will you quit frightening 
 us this way? It is two hours since you ran out in 
 that rag of an old dress and Marie s hat. Mamma 
 has been so alarmed. She sent Louis in the auto to 
 try to find you. You are a bad, thoughtless Puss." 
 
 The elder girl touched a button, and a maid came 
 in a moment. 
 
 " Marie, tell mamma that Miss Marian has 
 returned." 
 
 " Don t scold, sister. I only ran down to Mme. 
 Theo s to tell her to use mauve insertion instead of 
 pink. My costume and Marie s hat were just what 
 I needed. Every one thought I was a shopgirl, I am 
 sure." 
 
 " Dinner is over, dear ; you stayed so late." 
 [230] 
 
LOST ON DRESS PARADE 
 
 " I know. I slipped on the sidewalk and turned 
 my ankle. I could not walk, so I hobbled into a res 
 taurant and sat there until I was better. That is 
 why I was so long." 
 
 The two girls sat in the window seat, looking out 
 at the lights and the stream of hurrying vehicles in 
 the avenue. The younger one cuddled down with her 
 head in her sister s lap. 
 
 "We will have to marry some day," she said 
 dreamily " both of us. We have so much money 
 that we will not be allowed to disappoint the public. 
 Do you want me to tell you the kind of a man I could 
 love, Sis?" 
 
 " Go on, you scatterbrain," smiled the other. 
 
 " I could love a man with dark and kind blue eyes, 
 who is gentle and respectful to poor girls, who is 
 handsome and good and does not try to flirt. But I 
 could love him only if he had an ambition, an object, 
 some work to do in the world. I would not care how 
 poor he was if I could help him build his way up. 
 But, sister dear, the kind of man we always meet 
 the man who lives an idle life between society and his 
 clubs I could not love a man like that, even if his 
 eyes were blue and he were ever so kind to poor girls 
 whom he met in the street." 
 
 [231] 
 
BY COURIER 
 
 IT was neither the season nor the hour when the 
 Park had frequenters ; and it is likely that the young 
 lady, who was seated on one of the benches at the 
 side of the walk, had merely obeyed a sudden im 
 pulse to sit for a while and enjoy a foretaste of 
 coming Spring. 
 
 She rested there, pensive and still. A certain mel 
 ancholy that touched her countenance must have been 
 of recent birth, for it had not yet altered the fine and 
 youthful contours of her cheek, nor subdued the 
 arch though resolute curve of her lips. 
 
 A tall young man came striding through the park 
 along the path near which she sat. Behind him 
 tagged a boy carrying a suit-case. At sight of the 
 young lady, the man face changed to red and back 
 to pale again. He watched her countenance as he 
 drew nearer, with hope and anxiety mingled on his 
 own. He passed within a few yards of her, but he 
 saw no evidence that she was aware of his presence 
 or existence. 
 
 Some fifty yards further on he suddenly stopped 
 and sat on a bench at one side. The boy dropped 
 
BY COURIER 
 
 the suit-case and stared at him with wondering, 
 shrewd eyes. The young man took out his handker 
 chief and wiped his brow. It was a good handker 
 chief, a good brow, and the young man was good to 
 look at. He said to the boy : 
 
 " I want you to take a message to that young 
 lady on that bench. Tell her I am on my way to the 
 station, to leave for San Francisco, where I shall join 
 that Alaska moose-hunting expedition. Tell her 
 that, since she has commanded me neither to speak 
 nor to write to her, I take this means of making one 
 last appeal to her sense of justice, for the sake of 
 what has been Tell her that to condemn and dis 
 card one who has not deserved such treatment, with 
 out giving him her reasons or a chance to explain 
 is contrary to her nature as I believe it to be. Tell 
 her that I have thus, to a certain degree, disobeyed 
 her injunctions, in the hope that she may yet be 
 inclined to see justice done. Go, and tell her 
 that." 
 
 The young man dropped a half-dollar into the 
 boy s hand. The boy looked at him for a moment 
 with bright, canny eyes out of a dirty, intelligent 
 face, and then set off at a run. He approached the 
 lady on the bench a little doubtfully, but unembar 
 rassed. He touched the brim of the old plaid bicycle 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 cap perched on the back of his head. The lady 
 looked at him coolly, without prejudice or favour. 
 
 " Lady," he said, " dat gent on de oder bench sent 
 yer a song and dance by me. If yer don t know de 
 guy, and he s tryin to do de Johnny act, say de 
 word, and I ll call a cop in free minutes. If yer does 
 know him, and he s on de square, w y I ll spiel yer de 
 bunch of hot air he sent yer." 
 
 The young lady betrayed a faint interest. 
 
 " A song and dance ! " she said, in a deliberate, 
 sweet voice that seemed to clothe her words in a 
 diaphanous garment of impalpable irony. " A new 
 idea in the troubadour line, I suppose. I used to 
 know the gentleman who sent you, so I think it will 
 hardly be necessary to call the police. You may 
 execute your song and dance, but do not sing too 
 loudly. It is a little early yet for open-air vaude 
 ville, and we might attract attention." 
 
 " Awe," said the boy, with a shrug down the length 
 of him, "yer know what I mean, lady. Tain t a 
 turn, it s wind. He told me to tell yer he s got his 
 collars and cuffs in dat grip for a scoot clean out to 
 Frisco. Den he s goin to shoot snow-birds in de 
 Klondike. He says yer told him not to send round 
 no more pink notes nor come hangin over de garden 
 gate, and he takes dis means of puttin yer wise. 
 
 [234] 
 
BY COURIER 
 
 He says yer refereed him out like a has-been, and 
 never give him no chance to kick at de decision. He 
 says yer swiped him, and never said why." 
 
 The slightly awakened interest in the young lady s 
 eyes did not abate. Perhaps it was caused by either 
 the originality or the audacity of the snow-bird 
 hunter, in thus circumventing her express commands 
 against the ordinary modes of communication. She 
 fixed her eye on a statue standing disconsolate in the 
 dishevelled park, and spoke into the transmitter: 
 
 " Tell the gentleman that I need not repeat to him 
 a description of my ideals. He knows what they 
 have been and what they still are. So far as they 
 touch on this case, absolute loyalty and truth are 
 the ones paramount. Tell him that I have studied 
 my own heart as well as one can, and I know its 
 weakness as well as I do its needs. That is why I 
 decline to hear his pleas, whatever they may be. I 
 did not condemn him through hearsay or doubtful 
 evidence, and that is why I made no charge. But. 
 since he persists in hearing what he already well 
 knows, you may convey the matter. 
 
 "Tell him that I entered the conservatory that 
 evening from the rear, to cut a rose for my mother. 
 Tell him I saw him and Miss Ashburton beneath the 
 pink oleander. The tableau was pretty, but the pose 
 
 [235] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 and juxtaposition were too eloquent and evident to 
 require explanation. I left the conservatory, and, at 
 the same time, the rose and my ideal. You may carry 
 that song and dance to your impresario." 
 
 " I m shy on one word, lady. Jux jux put me 
 wise on dat, will yer? " 
 
 " Juxtaposition or you may call it propinquity 
 or, if you like, being rather too near for one main 
 taining the position of an ideal." 
 
 The gravel spun from beneath the boy s feet. He 
 stood by the other bench. The man s eyes interro 
 gated him, hungrily. The boy s were shining with 
 the impersonal zeal of the translator. 
 
 " De lady says dat she s on to de fact dat gals 
 is dead easy when a feller comes spielin ghost stories 
 and tryin to make up, and dat s why she won t listen 
 to no soft-soap. She says she caught yer dead to 
 rights, huggin a bunch o calico in de hot-house. She 
 side-stepped in to pull some posies and yer was 
 squeezin de oder gal to beat de band. She says it 
 looked cute, all right all right, but it made her sick. 
 She says yer better git busy, and make a sneak for 
 de train." 
 
 The young man gave a low whistle and his eyes 
 flashed with a sudden thought. His hand flew to the 
 inside pocket of his coat, and drew out a handful of 
 
BY COURIER 
 
 letters. Selecting one, he handed it to the boy, fol 
 lowing it with a silver dollar from his vest-pocket. 
 
 " Give that letter to the lady," he said, " and ask 
 her to read it. Tell her that it should explain the 
 situation. Tell her that, if she had mingled a little 
 trust with her conception of the ideal, much heart 
 ache might have been avoided. Tell her that the 
 loyalty she prizes so much has never wavered. Tell 
 her I am waiting for an answer." 
 
 The messenger stood before the lady. 
 
 "De gent says he s had de ski-bunk put on him 
 widout no cause. He says he s no bum guy ; and, 
 lady, yer read dat letter, and I ll bet yer he s a white 
 sport, all right." 
 
 The young lady unfolded the letter, somewhat 
 doubtfully, and read it. 
 
 DEAR DR. ARNOLD : I want to thank you for your 
 most kind and opportune aid to my daughter last 
 Friday evening, when she was overcome by an attack 
 of her old heart-trouble in the conservatory at Mrs. 
 Waldron s reception. Had you not been near to catch 
 her as she fell and to render proper attention, we 
 might have lost her. I would be glad if you would 
 call and undertake the treatment of her case. 
 Gratefully yours, 
 
 ROBERT ASHBURTON. 
 [237] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 The young lady refolded the letter, and handed it 
 to the boy. 
 
 " De gent wants an answer," said the messenger. 
 Wot s de word?" 
 
 The lady s eyes suddenly flashed on him, bright, 
 smiling and wet. 
 
 " Tell that guy on the other bench," she said, with 
 a happy, tremulous laugh, "that his girl wants 
 him." 
 
 [238] 
 
THE FURNISHED ROOM 
 
 RESTLESS, shifting, fugacious as time itself 
 is a certain vast bulk of the population of the red 
 brick district of the lower West Side. Homeless, they 
 have a hundred homes. They flit from furnished 
 room to furnished room, transients forever tran 
 sients in abode, transients in heart and mind. They 
 sing " Home, Sweet Home " in ragtime ; they carry 
 their lares_jji_^3iates in a bandbox; their vine is 
 entwined about a picture hat; a rubber plant is 
 their fig tree. 
 
 Hence the houses of this district, having had a 
 thousand dwellers, should have a thousand tales to 
 tell, mostly dull ones, no doubt; but it would be 
 strange if there could not be found a ghost or two 
 in the wake of all these vagrant guests. 
 
 One evening after dark a young man prowled 
 among these crumbling red mansions, ringing their 
 bells. At the twelfth he rested his lean hand-baggage 
 upon the step and wiped the dust from his hat-band 
 and forehead. The bell sounded faint and far away 
 in some remote, hollow depths. 
 
 [239] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 To the door of this, the twelfth house whose bell 
 he had rung, came a housekeeper who made him 
 think of an unwholesome, surfeited worm that had 
 eaten its nut to a hollow shell and now sought to 
 fill the vacancy with edible lodgers. 
 
 He asked if there was a room to let. 
 
 " Come in," said the housekeeper. Her voice came 
 from her throat; her throat seemed lined with fur. 
 "I have the third floor back, vacant since a week 
 back. Should you wish to look at it? " 
 
 The young man followed her up the stairs. A 
 faint light from no particular source mitigated the 
 shadows of the halls. They trod noiselessly upon a 
 stair carpet that its own loom would have forsworn. It 
 seemed to have become vegetable; to have degen 
 erated in that rank, sunless air to lush lichen or 
 spreading moss that grew in patches to the stair 
 case and was viscid under the foot like organic mat 
 ter. At each turn of the stairs were vacant niches 
 in the wall. Perhaps plants had once been set within 
 them. If so they had died in that foul and tainted 
 air. It may be that statues of the saints had stood 
 there, but it was not difficult to conceive that imps 
 and devils had dragged them forth in the darkness 
 and down to the unholy depths of some furnished pit 
 below. 
 
 [240] 
 
THE FURNISHED ROOM 
 
 " This is the room," said the housekeeper, from her 
 furry throat. "It s a nice room. It ain t often 
 vacant. I had some most elegant people in it last 
 summer no trouble at all, and paid in advance to 
 the minute. The water s at the end of the hall. 
 Sprowls and Mooney kept it three months. They done 
 a vaudeville sketch. Miss B retta Sprowls you may 
 have heard of her Oh, that was just the stage names 
 right there over the dresser is where the marriage 
 certificate hung, framed. The gas is here, and you 
 see there is plenty of closet room. It s a room every 
 body likes. It never stays idle long." 
 
 " Do you have many theatrical people rooming 
 here ? " asked the young man. 
 
 " They comes and goes. A good proportion of my 
 lodgers is connected with the theatres. Yes, sir, this 
 is the theatrical district. Actor people never stays 
 long anywhere. I get my share. Yes, they comes 
 and they goes." 
 
 He engaged the room, paying for a week in ad 
 vance. He was tired, he said, and would take pos 
 session at once. He counted out the money. The 
 room had been made ready, she said, even to towels 
 and water. As the housekeeper moved away he put, 
 for the thousandth time, the question that he carried 
 at the end of his tongue. 
 
 [241] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 " A young girl Miss Vashner Miss Eloise Vash- 
 ner do you remember such a one among your 
 lodgers? She would be singing on the stage, most 
 likely. A fair girl, of medium height and slender, 
 with reddish, gold hair and a dark mole near her 
 left eyebrow." 
 
 " No, I don t remember the name. Them stage 
 people has names they change as often as their 
 rooms. They comes and they goes. No, I don t call 
 that one to mind." 
 
 No. Always no. Five months of ceaseless inter 
 rogation and the inevitable negative. So much time 
 spent by day in questioning managers, agents, 
 schools and choruses ; by night among the audiences 
 of theatres from all-star casts down to music halls so 
 low that he dreaded to find what he most hoped for. 
 He who had loved her best had tried to find her. He 
 was sure that since her disappearance from home 
 this great, water-girt city held her somewhere, but it 
 was like a monstrous quicksand, shifting its par 
 ticles constantly, with no foundation, its upper 
 granules of to-day buried to-morrow in ooze and 
 slime. 
 
 The furnished room received its latest guest with 
 a first glow of pseudo-hospitality, a hectic, hag 
 gard, perfunctory welcome like the specious smile of 
 
THE FURNISHED ROOM 
 
 a demirep. The sophistical comfort came in reflected 
 gleams from the decayed furniture, the ragged bro 
 cade upholstery of a couch and two chairs, a foot- 
 wide cheap pier glass between the two windows, from 
 one or two gilt picture frames and a brass bedstead 
 in a corner. 
 
 The guest reclined, inert, upon a chair, while the 
 room, confused in speech as though it were an apart 
 ment in Babel, tried to discourse to him of its divers 
 tenantry 
 
 A polychromatic rug like some brilliant-flowered 
 rectangular, tropical islet lay surrounded by a bil 
 lowy sea of soiled matting. Upon the gay-papered 
 wall were those pictures that pursue the homeless 
 one from house to house The Huguenot Lovers, The 
 First Quarrel, The Wedding Breakfast, Psyche at 
 the Fountain. The mantel s chastely severe outline 
 was ingloriously veiled behind some pert drapery 
 drawn rakishly askew like the sashes of the Ama 
 zonian ballet. Upon it was some desolate flotsam 
 cast aside by the room s marooned when a lucky 
 sail had borne them to a fresh port a trifling vase 
 or two, pictures of actresses, a medicine bottle, some 
 stray cards out of a deck. 
 
 One by one, as the characters of a cryptograph 
 become explicit, the little signs left by the furnished 
 
 [848] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 room s procession of guests developed a significance. 
 The threadbare space in the rug in front of the 
 dresser told that lovely woman had marched in the 
 throng. Tiny finger prints on the wall spoke of 
 little prisoners trying to feel their way to sun and 
 air. A splattered stain, raying like the shadow of 
 a bursting bomb, witnessed where a hurled glass or 
 bottle had splintered with its contents against the 
 wall. Across the pier glass had been scrawled with 
 a diamond in staggering letters the name " Marie." 
 It seemed that the succession of dwellers in the fur 
 nished room had turned in fury perhaps tempted 
 beyond forbearance by its garish coldness and 
 wreaked upon it their passions. The furniture was 
 chipped and bruised ; the couch, distorted by bursting 
 springs, seemed a horrible monster that had been 
 slain during the stress of some grotesque convul 
 sion. Some more potent upheaval had cloven a great 
 slice from the marble mantel. Each plank in the 
 floor owned its particular cant and shriek as from a 
 separate and individual agony. It seemed incredible 
 that all this malice and injury had been wrought 
 upon the room by those who had called it for a time 
 their home; and yet it may have been the cheated 
 home instinct surviving blindly, the resentful rage at 
 false household gods that had kindled their wrath. 
 
 [244] 
 
THE FURNISHED ROOM 
 
 A hut that is our own we can sweep and adorn and 
 cherish. 
 
 The young tenant in the chair allowed these 
 thoughts to file, soft-shod, through his mind, while 
 there drifted into the room furnished sounds and 
 furnished scents. He heard in one room a tittering 
 and incontinent, slack laughter; in others the mono 
 logue of a scold, the rattling of dice, a lullaby, and 
 one crying dully ; above him a banj o tinkled with 
 spirit. Doors banged somewhere ; the elevated trains 
 roared intermittently; a cat yowled miserably upon 
 a back fence. And he breathed the breath of the 
 house a dank savour rather than a smell a cold, 
 musty effluvium as from underground vaults mingled 
 with the reeking exhalations of linoleum and mil 
 dewed and rotten woodwork. 
 
 Then, suddenly, as he rested there, the room was 
 filled with the strong, sweet odour of mignonette. It 
 came as upon a single buffet of wind with such 
 sureness and fragrance and emphasis that it almost 
 seemed a living visitant. And the man cried aloud: 
 " What, dear? " as if he had been called, and sprang 
 up and faced about. The rich odour clung to him 
 and wrapped him around. He reached out his arms 
 for it, all his senses for the time confused and com 
 mingled. How could one be peremptorily called by 
 
 [245] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 an odour? Surely it must have been a sound. But, 
 was it not the sound that had touched, that had 
 caressed him? 
 
 " She has been in this room," he cried, and he 
 sprang to wrest from it a token, for he knew he 
 would recognise the smallest thing that had belonged 
 to her or that she had touched. This enveloping 
 scent of mignonette, the odour that she had loved 
 and made her own whence came it? 
 
 The room had been but carelessly set in order. 
 Scattered upon the flimsy dresser scarf were half a 
 dozen hairpins those discreet, indistinguishable 
 friends of womankind, feminine of gender, infinite of 
 mood and uncommunicative of tense. These he 
 ignored, conscious of their triumphant lack of iden 
 tity. Ransacking the drawers of the dresser he came 
 upon a discarded, tiny, ragged handkerchief. He 
 pressed it to his face. It was racy and insolent with 
 heliotrope; he hurled it to the floor. In another 
 drawer he found odd buttons, a theatre programme, 
 a pawnbroker s card, two lost marshmallows, a book 
 on the divination of dreams. In the last was a wom 
 an s black satin hair bow, which halted him, poised 
 between ice and fire. But the black satin hair-bow 
 also is femininity s demure, impersonal, common or 
 nament, and tells no tales. 
 
 [246] 
 
THE FURNISHED ROOM 
 
 And then he traversed the room like a hound on 
 the scent, skimming the walls, considering the cor 
 ners of the bulging matting on his hands and knees, 
 rummaging mantel and tables, the curtains and hang 
 ings, the drunken cabinet in the corner, for a visible 
 sign, unable to perceive that she was there beside, 
 around, against, within, above him, clinging to him, 
 wooing him, calling him so poignantly through the 
 finer senses that even his grosser ones became cog 
 nisant of the call. Once again he answered loudly: 
 "Yes, dear!" and turned, wild-eyed, to gaze on 
 vacancy, for he could not yet discern form and colour 
 and love and outstretched arms in the odour of mign 
 onette. Oh, God ! whence that odour, and since when 
 have odours had a voice to call? Thus he groped. 
 
 He burrowed in crevices and corners, and found 
 corks and cigarettes. These he passed in passive 
 contempt. But once he found in a fold of the mat 
 ting a half-smoked cigar, and this he ground be 
 neath his heel with a green and trenchant oath. He 
 sifted the room from end to end. He found dreary 
 and ignoble small records of many a peripatetic ten 
 ant ; but of her whom he sought, and who may have 
 lodged there, and whose spirit seemed to hover there, 
 he found no trace. 
 
 And then he thought of the housekeeper. 
 [247] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 He ran from the haunted room downstairs and to 
 a door that showed a crack of light. She came out 
 to his knock. He smothered his excitement as best 
 he could. 
 
 " Will you tell me, madam," he besought her, " who 
 occupied the room I have before I came ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir. I can tell you again. Twas Sprowls 
 and Mooney, as I said. Miss B retta Sprowls it was 
 in the theatres, but Missis Mooney she was. My 
 house is well known for respectability. The marriage 
 certificate hung, framed, on a nail over " 
 
 " What kind of a lady was Miss Sprowls in looks, 
 I mean?" 
 
 " Why, black-haired, sir, short, and stout, with a 
 comical face. They left a week ago Tuesday." 
 
 "And before they occupied it?" 
 
 " Why, there was a single gentleman connected 
 with the draying business. He left owing me a week. 
 Before him was Missis Crowder and her two chil 
 dren, that stayed four months; and back of them 
 was old Mr. Doyle, whose sons paid for him. He 
 kept the room six months. That goes back a year, 
 sir, and further I do not remember." 
 
 He thanked her and crept back to his room. The 
 room was dead. The essence that had vivified it was 
 gone. The perfume of mignonette had departed-. In 
 [248] 
 
THE FURNISHED ROOM 
 
 its place was the old, stale odour of mouldy house 
 furniture, of atmosphere in storage. 
 
 The ebbing of his hope drained his faith. He sat 
 staring at the yellow, singing gaslight. Soon he 
 walked to the bed and began to tear the sheets into 
 strips. With the blade of his knife he drove them 
 tightly into every crevice around windows and door. 
 "When all was snug and taut he turned out the light, 
 turned the gas full on again and laid himself grate 
 fully upon the bed. 
 
 
 
 It was Mrs. McCool s night to go with the can 
 for beer. So she fetched it and sat with Mrs. 
 Purdy in one of those subterranean retreats where 
 house-keepers foregather and the worm dieth 
 seldom. 
 
 " I rented out my third floor, back, this evening," 
 said Mrs. Purdy, across a fine circle of foam. " A 
 young man took it. He went up to bed two hours 
 ago." 
 
 "Now, did ye, Mrs. Purdy, ma am?" said Mrs. 
 McCool, with intense admiration. " You do be a won 
 der for rentin rooms of that kind. And did ye tell 
 him, then? " she concluded in a husky whisper, laden 
 with mystery. 
 
 " Rooms," said Mrs. Purdy, in her furriest tones, 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 " are furnished for to rent. I did not tell him, Mrs. 
 McCool." 
 
 " Tis right ye are, ma am ; tis by renting rooms 
 we kape alive. Ye have the rale sense for business, 
 ma am. There be many people will rayjict the rentin 
 of a room if they be tould a suicide has been after 
 dyin in the bed of it." 
 
 "As you say, we has our living to be making," 
 remarked Mrs. Purdy. 
 
 "Yis, ma am; tis true. Tis just one wake ago 
 this day I helped ye lay out the third floor, back. 
 A pretty slip of a colleen she was to be killin her 
 self wid the gas a swate little face she had, Mrs. 
 Purdy, ma am." 
 
 " She d a-been called handsome, as you say," said 
 Mrs. Purdy, assenting but critical, " but for that 
 mole she had a-growin by her left eyebrow. Do fill 
 up your glass again, Mrs. McCooL" 
 
 [250] 
 
THE BRIEF DEBUT OF TILDY 
 
 IF you do not know Bogle s Chop House and 
 Family Restaurant it is your loss. For if you 
 are one of the fortunate ones who dine expen 
 sively you should be interested to know how the other 
 half consumes provisions. And if you belong to the 
 half to whom waiters checks are things of moment, 
 you should know Bogle s, for there you get your 
 money s worth in quantity, at least. 
 
 Bogle s is situated in that highway of bourgeoisie, 
 that boulevard of Brown-Jones-and-Robinson, Eighth 
 Avenue. There are two rows of tables in the room, 
 six in each row. On each table is a caster-stand, con 
 taining cruets of condiments and seasons. From the 
 pepper cruet you may shake a cloud of something 
 tasteless and melancholy, like volcanic dust. From 
 the salt cruet you may expect nothing. Though a 
 man should extract a sanguinary stream from the 
 pallid turnip, yet will his prowess be balked when he 
 comes to wrest salt from Bogle s cruets. Also upon 
 each table stands the counterfeit of that benign 
 sauce made " from the recipe of a nobleman in 
 India." 
 
 [251] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 At the cashier s desk sits Bogle, cold, sordid, slow, 
 smouldering, and takes your money. Behind a moun 
 tain of toothpicks he makes your change, files your 
 check, and ejects at you, like a toad, a word about 
 the weather. Beyond a corroboration of his meteor 
 ological statement you would better not venture. 
 You are not Bogle s friend; you are a fed, transient 
 customer, and you and he may not meet again until 
 the blowing of Gabriel s dinner horn. So take your 
 change and go to the devil if you like. There you 
 have Bogle s sentiments. 
 
 The needs of Bogle s customers were supplied by 
 two waitresses and a Voice. One of the waitresses 
 was named Aileen. She was tall, beautiful, lively, 
 gracious and learned in persiflage. Her other name? 
 There was no more necessity for another name at 
 Bogie s than there was for finger-bowls. 
 
 The name of the other waitress was Tildy. Why 
 do you suggest Matilda? Please listen this time 
 Tildy Tildy. Tildy was dumpy, plain-faced, and too 
 anxious to please to please. Repeat the last clause 
 to yourself once or twice, and make the acquaintance 
 of the duplicate infinite. 
 
 The Voice at Bogle s was invisible. It came from 
 the kitchen, and did not shine in the way of origi 
 nality. It was a heathen Voice, and contented itself 
 
 [252] 
 
THE BRIEF DEBUT OF TILDY 
 with vain repetitions of exclamations emitted by 
 the waitresses concerning food. 
 
 Will it tire you to be told again that Aileen was 
 beautiful? Had she donned a few hundred dollars 
 worth of clothes and joined the Easter parade, and 
 had you seen her, you would have hastened to say 
 so yourself. 
 
 The customers at Bogle s were her slaves. Six 
 tables full she could wait upon at once. They who 
 were in a hurry restrained their impatience for the 
 joy of merely gazing upon her swiftly moving, grace 
 ful figure. They who had finished eating ate more 
 that they might continue in the light of her smiles. 
 Every man there and they were mostly men tried 
 to make his impression upon her. 
 
 Aileen could successfully exchange repartee 
 against a dozen at once. And every smile that she 
 sent forth lodged, like pellets from a scatter-gun, in 
 as many hearts. And all this while she would be 
 performing astounding feats with orders of pork and 
 beans, pot roasts, ham-and, sausage-and-the-wheats, 
 and any quantity of things on the iron and in the 
 pan and straight up and on the side. With all this 
 feasting and flirting and merry exchange of wit 
 Bogle s came mighty near being a salon, with Aileen 
 for its Madame Recamier. 
 
 [253] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 If the transients were entranced by the fascinating 
 Aileen, the regulars were her adorers. There was 
 much rivalry among many of the steady customers. 
 Aileen could have had an engagement every evening. 
 At least twice a week some one took her to a theatre 
 or to a dance. One stout gentleman whom she and 
 Tildy had privately christened " The Hog " pre 
 sented her with a turquoise ring. Another one known 
 as " Freshy," who rode on the Traction Company s 
 repair wagon, was going to give her a poodle as 
 soon as his brother got the hauling contract in the 
 Ninth. And the man who always ate spareribs and 
 spinach and said he was a stock broker asked her to 
 go to "Parsifal" with him. 
 
 " I don t know where this place is," said Aileen 
 while talking it over with Tildy, " but the wedding- 
 ring s got to be on before I put a stitch into a 
 travelling dress ain t that right? Well, I guess!" 
 
 But, Tildy! 
 
 In steaming, chattering, cabbage-scented Bogle s 
 there was almost a heart tragedy. Tildy with the 
 blunt nose, the hay-coloured hair, the freckled skin, 
 the bag-o -meal figure, had never had an admirer. 
 Not a man followed her with his eyes when she went 
 to and fro in the restaurant save now and then when 
 they glared with the beast-hunger for food. None 
 
THE BRIEF DE^BUT OF TILDY 
 of them bantered her gaily to coquettish interchanges 
 of wit. None of them loudly " jollied " her of morn 
 ings as they did Aileen, accusing her, when the eggs 
 were slow in coming, of late hours in the company 
 of envied swains. No one had ever given her a tur 
 quoise ring or invited her upon a voyage to mysteri 
 ous, distant " Parsifal." 
 
 Tildy was a good waitress, and the men tolerated 
 her. They who sat at her tables spoke to her briefly 
 with quotations from the bill of fare ; and then raised 
 their voices in honeyed and otherwise-flavoured ac 
 cents, eloquently addressed to the fair Aileen. They 
 writhed in their chairs to gaze around and over the 
 impeding form of Tildy, that Aileen s pulchritude 
 might season and make ambrosia of their bacon and 
 eggs. 
 
 And Tildy was content to be the unwooed drudge 
 if Aileen could receive the flattery and the homage. 
 The blunt nose was loyal to the short Grecian. She 
 was Aileen s friend ; and she was glad to see her rule 
 hearts and wean the attention of men from smoking 
 pot-pie and lemon meringue. But deep below our 
 freckles and hay-coloured hair the unhandsomest of 
 us dream of a prince or a princess, not vicarious, but 
 coming to us alone. 
 
 There was a morning when Aileen tripped in to 
 [255] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 work with a slightly bruised eye; and Tildy s solici 
 tude was almost enough to heal any optic. 
 
 " Fresh guy," explained Aileen, " last night as 
 I was going home at Twenty-third and Sixth. 
 Sashayed up, so he did, and made a break. I turned 
 him down, cold, and he made a sneak; but followed 
 me down to Eighteenth, and tried his hot air again. 
 Gee ! but I slapped him a good one, side of the face. 
 Then he give me that eye. Does it look real awful, 
 Til? I should hate that Mr. Nicholson should see 
 it when he comes in for his tea and toast at ten." 
 
 Tildy listened to the adventure with breathless 
 admiration. No man had ever tried to follow her. 
 She was safe abroad at any hour of the twenty-four. 
 What bliss it must have been to have had a man 
 follow one and black one s eye for love ! 
 
 Among the customers at Bogle s was a young man 
 named Seeders, who worked in a laundry office. Mr. 
 Seeders was thin and had light hair, and appeared to 
 have been recently rough-dried and starched. He 
 was too diffident to aspire to Aileen s notice; so he 
 usually sat at one of Tildy s tables, where he devoted 
 himself to silence and boiled weakfish. 
 
 One day when Mr. Seeders came in to dinner he 
 had been drinking beer. There were only two or 
 three customers in the restaurant. When Mr. 
 
 [256] 
 
THE BRIEF DEBUT OF TILDY 
 
 Seeders had finished his weakfish he got up, put his 
 arm around Tildy s waist, kissed her loudly and 
 impudently, walked out upon the street, snapped his 
 fingers in the direction of the laundry, and hied him 
 self to play pennies in the slot machines at the 
 Amusement Arcade. 
 
 For a few moments Tildy stood petrified. Then 
 she was aware of Aileen shaking at her an arch fore 
 finger, and saying: 
 
 " Why, Til, you naughty girl ! Ain t you getting 
 to be awful, Miss Slyboots! First thing I know 
 you ll be stealing some of my fellows. I must keep 
 an eye on you, my lady." 
 
 Another thing dawned upon Tildy s recovering 
 wits. In a moment she had advanced from a hope 
 less, lowly admirer to be an Eve-sister of the potent 
 Aileen. She herself was now a man-charmer, a mark 
 for Cupid, a Sabine who must be coy when the 
 Romans were at their banquet boards. Man had 
 found her waist achievable and her lips desirable. 
 The sudden and amatory Seeders had, as it were, per 
 formed for her a miraculous piece of one-day laundry 
 work. He had taken the sackcloth of her uncome- 
 liness, had washed, dried, starched and ironed it, and 
 returned it to her sheer embroidered lawn the robe 
 of Venus herself. 
 
 [257] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 The freckles on Tildy s cheeks merged into a rosy 
 flush. Now both Circe and Psyche peeped from her 
 brightened eyes. Not even Aileen herself had been 
 publicly embraced and kissed in the restaurant. 
 
 Tildy could not keep the delightful secret. When 
 trade was slack she went and stood at Bogle s desk. 
 Her eyes were shining ; she tried not to let her words 
 sound proud and boastful. 
 
 " A gentleman insulted me to-day," she said. " He 
 hugged me around the waist and kissed me." 
 
 " That so ? " said Bogle, cracking open his busi 
 ness armour. "After this week you get a dollar a 
 week more." 
 
 At the next regular meal when Tildy set food 
 before customers with whom she had acquaintance 
 she said to each of them modestly, as one whose 
 merit needed no bolstering: 
 
 " A gentleman insulted me to-day in the restau 
 rant. He put his arm around my waist and kissed 
 me." 
 
 The diners accepted the revelation in various ways 
 some incredulously, some with congratulations; 
 others turned upon her the stream of badinage that 
 had hitherto been directed at Aileen alone. And 
 Tildy s heart swelled in her bosom, for she saw at 
 last the towers of Romance rise above the horizon 
 
 [258] 
 
THE BRIEF DEBUT OF TILDY 
 of the grey plain in which she had for so long 
 travelled. 
 
 For two days Mr. Seeders came not again. Dur 
 ing that time Tildy established herself firmly as a 
 woman to be wooed. She bought ribbons, and ar 
 ranged her hair like Aileen s, and tightened her 
 waist two inches. She had a thrilling but delightful 
 fear that Mr. Seeders would rush in suddenly and 
 shoot her with a pistol. He must have loved her des 
 perately ; and impulsive lovers are always blindly 
 jealous. 
 
 Even Aileen had not been shot at with a pistol. 
 And then Tildy rather hoped that he would not shoot 
 at her, for she was always loyal to Aileen; and she 
 did not want to overshadow her friend. 
 
 At 4 o clock on the afternoon of the third day Mr. 
 Seeders came in. There were no customers at the 
 tables. At the back end of the restaurant Tildy was 
 refilling the mustard pots and Aileen was quartering 
 pies. Mr. Seeders walked back to where they stood. 
 
 Tildy looked up and saw him, gasped, and pressed 
 the mustard spoon against her heart. A red hair- 
 bow was in her hair ; she wore Venus s Eighth Avenue 
 badge, the blue bead necklace with the swinging 
 silver symbolic heart. 
 
 Mr. Seeders was flushed and embarrassed. He 
 [259] 
 
THE FOUR MILLION 
 
 plunged one hand into his hip pocket and the other 
 into a fresh pumpkin pie. 
 
 " Miss Tildy," said he, " I want to apologise for 
 what I done the other evenin . Tell you the truth, I 
 was pretty well tanked up or I wouldn t of done it. 
 I wouldn t do no lady that a-way when I was sober. 
 So I hope, Miss Tildy, you ll accept my pology, and 
 believe that I wouldn t of done it if I d known what 
 I was doin and hadn t of been drunk." 
 
 With this handsome plea Mr. Seeders backed 
 away, and departed, feeling that reparation had been 
 made. 
 
 But behind the convenient screen Tildy had thrown 
 herself flat upon a table among the butter chips and 
 the coffee cups, and was sobbing her heart out out 
 and back again to the grey plain wherein travel they 
 with blunt noses and hay-coloured hair. From her 
 knot she had torn the red hair-bow and cast it upon 
 the floor. Seeders she despised utterly; she had but 
 taken his kiss as that of a pioneer and prophetic 
 prince who might have set the clocks going and the 
 pages to running in fairyland. But the kiss had 
 been maudlin and unmeant ; the court had not stirred 
 at the false alarm; she must forevermore remain the 
 Sleeping Beauty. 
 
 Yet not all was lost. Aileen s arm was around 
 [260] 
 
THE BRIEF DEBUT OF TILDY 
 her; and Tildy s red hand groped among the butter 
 chips till it found the warm clasp of her friend s. 
 
 "Don t you fret, Til," said Aileen, who did not 
 understand entirely. " That turnip-faced little 
 clothespin of a Seeders ain t worth it. He ain t any 
 thing of a gentleman or he wouldn t ever of 
 apologised." 
 
 THE END 
 
 [261] 
 
RETURN TO 
 
 Thisb 
 Rem 
 
 BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 *~A Klrw. Of 
 
 B 2005 
 
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 M 
 
BERKELEY 
 
 WITH BROS 
 
 R,v.v. lf,wl<.Lc 
 
 Stationery, Pictures .