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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW VORSC • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 1\IACMILLAN & CO., LiMiraa 
 
 i-ONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNS 
 
 THE MACMlLLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
THE RUDDER 
 
 A NOVEL WITH SEVERAL HEROES 
 
 BY 
 MARY S. WATTS 
 
 Author of "Nathan Burke." "Van Cleve,' 
 '•The Rise of Jennie Gushing," etc 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 St. Martin's Street, London 
 
 1916 
 
PART ONE 
 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 
 
 y^ 
 
 ^■dm 17 
 
THE RUDDER 
 
 A NOVEL WITH SEVERAL HEROES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OUR Middle Western States abound in what 
 certain manufacturers of humorous epithet in 
 other sections of the country have called 
 with a gay and stingless opprobrium, '^ freshwater col- 
 leges." Of old — that is to sa}^, about the fourth or 
 fifth decade of the last century when most of them 
 were founded — these institutions symbolised to the 
 public mind not merely the adva.ncement of learning, 
 but its advancement by way of some particularly stift', 
 comfortless theological doctrine, and some mortally 
 iiard-bitten moral standards; so that even now the ma- 
 ture native of these parts involuntarily associates any 
 freshwater college with Calvinism, Abolition, the tem- 
 perance-pledge, and sizzling denunciations of pretty 
 nearly every form of entertainment. I say involun- 
 tarily because the notion persists against our better 
 knowledge ; for, of course, all that has been changed. 
 Nowadays they have forgotten all about Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin and Ten Nights in a Bar-Room; they have 
 fraternities, and dramatic clubs, and class dinners, 
 and commencement-week parties and such-like vain so- 
 
4 ... THE BUDDER 
 
 cial e.xerci?^es. even as do the saltiest of the salt-water 
 estaVljHbil)ie2ii^L Yes^ yoa may read in this morning's 
 paper how the Cambridge (Ohio) Wesleyan nine de- 
 feated the Thebes (Indiana) Baptist Brothers' four 
 to three, the game going to eleven innings; and 
 towai-ds Thanksgiving Day w^hen the football season 
 is at its height, the colours of both Thebes and Cam- 
 bridge are carried to victory on many a field of broken 
 Wesleyan ribs and damaged Baptist noses. The old 
 order has passed away before the vital necessity of 
 being up to date. 
 
 Something like the above reflections went through 
 the mind of Mr. Marshall Cook, that well-known man 
 of letters, during his two hours' journey on the *' In- 
 terurban," the morning of the hot June day on which 
 by invitation he was to deliver the commencement ad- 
 dress before and to the Cambridge undergraduates — 
 class of '04 — the faculty of the college, and some 
 scores of collegians' parents and friends. He had it 
 in his satchel — fifty typewritten pages of humbug, to 
 quote his own unsparing judgment, which he cal- 
 culated could be stretched to occupy an hour, read 
 with deliberation and allowing occasional pauses to 
 point his statements, or for applause — here Mr. Cook 
 grinned quite diabolically. If asked, he would have 
 said that he did not expect to amuse or enlighten — 
 the gift of amusing and enlightening is a rare one, and 
 he had reasonable doubts about possessing it; at any 
 rate, nothing of the sort, according to his experience, 
 was wanted at a college commencement — and most 
 assuredly none of those ribald comments about fresh- 
 water and creeds and so on. No, he knew his duty. 
 The speech must last an hour — anything of less 
 length, even if packed with the wisdom of the ages, 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 5 
 
 would not be considered to earn the money — and it 
 must be wrought entirely of sterling platitudes, recog- 
 nisable at first sight, so that everybody would know 
 how to receive them. It would be difficult, he thought 
 sardonically, to get together a larger or better selec- 
 tion than that contained in his fifty -page manuscript ; 
 he was as sure of the applause as man can be of any- 
 thing in this chance-ruled universe. 
 
 Perhaps his attitude of mind was not that of the 
 college-man; and in fact, the eminent author had 
 never gone to college, not even to Cambridge, although 
 he was born — forty -odd years earlier — and had 
 grown up in the same State, within a hundred miles. 
 Now he surveyed the landscape with the not very pro- 
 found interest its unimpressive comeliness would have 
 roused in a stranger ; it occurred to him ironically that 
 this country of his birth was best known to him thus 
 through a car-window, and that furthermore, dreadful 
 to state, he had no desire to know it better. He had 
 visited the city that was his old home only at wide 
 intervals and for scarcely longer than a day or so at 
 a time, during the last ten years. The " Interurban '' 
 lumbered along at a great rate, picking up as it ad- 
 vanced towards Cambridge, increasing numbers of 
 nice-looking people about whom there was a gala and 
 expectant air so pronounced that Cook presently 
 passed from an approving wonder at the growth and 
 enterprise of the i)opulation since his day to the con- 
 jecture that all these worthy pilgrims were bound to 
 the commencement likewise, to see Thomas, Richard 
 or Henry get his degree. There were automobiles, 
 too, heading in the same direction ; they could be seen 
 all morning, spinning like mechanical toys on a white, 
 dusty pin-stripe of road that paralleled the traction- 
 
6 THE RUDDER 
 
 line at half a mile's distance — the Jeffersonville 
 Pike, as Cook's seat-mate informed him. 
 
 ^^ Oh, yes, of course ! I remember it now ! " the au- 
 thor ejaculated in sudden recognition. " I used to 
 take bicycle rides out that way years ago. It was al- 
 ways a good road." 
 
 " They're saying all the roads will be made better 
 now these motor cars have come — so many people'll 
 be wanting a good road to ride on, you know,'' his 
 neighbour remarked. " And that's a good thing any- 
 w^ays," he added with enthusiasm. ^' Good roads is 
 a grand thing for the country entirely." 
 
 " — a gr-rand thing for the counthry intoirely," was 
 what he really said; and the richness of this accent, 
 the cast of the speech itself, taken with various other 
 slight signs, such as his hearty colour, his long, 
 strong, comic-cartoon jaw, his blunt nose and quick, 
 bright blue eyes, sufficiently indicated his nationality 
 — or at least his very recent descent — to Mr. Cook, 
 who now looked at him for the first time, though they 
 had been travelling in company since the car left 
 town. The novelist also noted that his companion 
 was heroically arrayed, regardless of the thermome- 
 ter, in a new frock-coat and new light trousers of 
 expensive cloth and cut, with shining new shoes on 
 his rather prominent and unmanageable feet, with a 
 huge seal-ring on the little finger of one of his heavy 
 red fists, with a tie of the best quality of silk, bro- 
 caded in lively hues on a green background, and 
 finally with a top-hat which, however, was mani- 
 festly almost too much for him to endure, notwith- 
 standing his proved strength of mind and body. He 
 had shoved it inelegantly backwards and sidewise, and 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 7 
 
 the crimson mark it had made showed ou his forehead 
 and even around the back of his honest bullet-head 
 under the thin, grizzled-sandy hair. He met Cook's 
 e^'e with an expression of tentative good-fellowship. 
 
 " Hot day/' said the man of letters, prompted by 
 the other's appearance. 
 
 '' It is that I And the crowd makes it worse.'' 
 
 ** Yes. Is it always this way, or is there some- 
 thing going on somewhere? " Cook asked experi- 
 mentally, with the cunning of his trade. He had the 
 name of being a photogTaphically accurate student of 
 character and manners, acquired, he would some- 
 times maintain, by the observance of a single simple 
 rule, namely : make the other fellow talk ! 
 
 In this case, the other fellow responded with grati- 
 fying willingness. He said sure there were going to 
 be grand doings at the College up yonder at Cam- 
 bridge, graduating exercises for the young men, the 
 seniors, as they called um. They all got a paper, a 
 cert'f'cate like, to show they was all through and 
 done with ut and in good standing. 'Twas give to 
 um in style with speeches and music and all the lads' 
 fathers and mothers and slathers of girls besides, 
 only of course nobody was looking at them — he 
 winked with a sidelong glance of vast rogiiishness — 
 sitting in the seats and applauding. It beat every- 
 thing how much the boys thought of them diplomys. 
 They framed um and hung um up in the parlour. He 
 said that for all the good that did um towards getting 
 a job, it was like them signs the Board of Health puts 
 up where there's measles or the like — '^ Keep Out " ! 
 He chuckled and fetched Cook a jog in the ribs with 
 Ms elbow; then, on a second thought, explained with 
 
S THE RUDDER 
 
 some earnestness, that this unfeeling levity was " all 
 put on." 
 
 " A young fellow'll be that solemn, you can't, for 
 the soul of you, keep from teasing him a little. By 
 the same token he'll find out there's some truth to the 
 joke, as he goes along, poor boy ! " he finished, with a 
 dash of the truly Celtic underlying melancholy; and 
 hauled out a mighty gold watch, and consulted it. 
 ^^ We're near there." 
 
 In fact, the brick tower of the city hall of Cam- 
 bridge now" showed intermittently between the hills 
 and tree-tops, and though the road had not yet be- 
 come a street, houses were thicker on both sides of 
 it. The journey w^as almost over. Cook realised, pri- 
 vately bestowing a spirited anathema on his own in- 
 difference and want of diligence. Here he had been 
 side by side with this gem of an Irishman for the 
 better part of a whole morning, and had got nothing 
 out of him! And the man was of a type ordinarily 
 not easy for the inquisitive novelist to get at ; he had 
 a shrewd face, full of sense and character, and to 
 have caught him in so expansive a mood was a real 
 stroke of luck, recognised, alas, too late. 
 
 However, better late than not at all ! " Got a boy 
 up there yourself, I guess?" he suggested amiably; 
 and was rewarded by an answer of unfathomable 
 pride and satisfaction at once a little funny and a 
 little touching. 
 
 " I have, sir. It's the four years' course he's taken 
 in three, and him only twenty -one last January. He's 
 to speak the — the vallydictorium speech, too. It 
 seems that's a great honour, according to how the 
 young fellows look at it — not that it means anything 
 much to me/' he interpolated, affecting a tolerant 
 
THE RETURN OF TDE NATIVE 9 
 
 disinterestedness. " Dad gets set back forty or fifty 
 dollars for one of these black silk gowns and dinky 
 little caps they've got to wear, besides all the rest of 
 the foolishness — banquets and athaletics and all — 
 everybody w^orks but Father, hey ? " He drew up one 
 eye and the corresponding corner of his mouth hu- 
 morously. '^ Looks like it was up to Father most of 
 the time these days. I was for hiring the gow^n, my- 
 self — there's places where you can do that, and as 
 long as Tim — I mean Chauncey — as long as the lad 
 never w^ears it but the once, what's the differ? You'd 
 have thought I'd insulted uni just to hint at it ! His 
 mother was the worst. ^ Look at all the money ye've 
 spent already, fifteen hundred dollars if it's a cent ! ' 
 she says. ^ A little more won't be a drop in the 
 bucket! And annyways,' she says, turning my own 
 w ords against me, ' it's only once in a lifetime, and 
 God knows ye don't want to grudge your son nothing, 
 when ye'll never have the chance again ! ' " 
 
 " That's so ! " said Cook with a warmth not w^holly 
 assumed, though, at the same instant, he was won- 
 dering ironically whether this brave fellow might not 
 have many, many more chances to spend money on his 
 boy. " She had you there ! " 
 
 " She did ! After that I'd nothing to do but hold 
 my tongue and pay up like a man. Well, well, he'll 
 maybe be handing that same gown on to his own son 
 for him to graduate in, some day. That's more than 
 my father could do for me — a whole lot more, as the 
 kids do be saying in their slang talk. It was little 
 enough school I had, leave alone college and com- 
 mencements and sw^ally-tail coats and black silk 
 gowns and all." He gave a kind of humorous sigh. 
 " Education's a grand thing, though, ain't it? " 
 
10 THE RUDDEE 
 
 " It is indeed, tlie greatest thing there is. Isn't 
 your wife with yon? Isn't she going to the com- 
 mencement, too?'' 
 
 ^' Going, is it? '' echoed the other, much amused. 
 ^^ Is she going? As if you could head her off with 
 dinnamite or a pick-axe! All the child she's got in 
 the world ! Yes, she's going. She's back there." He 
 jerked a species of reversed nod towards the rear 
 seats ; and the car coming to a halt at that moment to 
 take on another troop of commencement visitors, both 
 men got up to accommodate some of the women pas- 
 sengers. They accomplished what was left of the 
 trip squeezed between others in the aisle, and clinging 
 to the straps; so that their exchange of confidences 
 broke off abruptly, to the author's regTet. 
 
 He promised himself to keep an eye out for Mrs. 
 Irishman and for the valedictorian, the hero of the 
 ceremonies, when the family should be united ; but in 
 the confusion of the final stopping-place, they escaped 
 him. Indeed, they went out of his mind altogether. 
 There was no station building at Cambridge ; the " In- 
 terurban " merely stopped dead in the middle of the 
 village main street, and incidentally of a consider- 
 able gathering of those nice-looking people whom 
 Cook had previously remarked. They were now de- 
 barking from his own car and half a dozen more, lined 
 up on the tracks and switch, and from the automobiles 
 and innumerable horse- vehicles at the curb ; and wei'e 
 being met by other nice-looking people in surprising 
 force. Young men sprang up in squads ; ever}^ where 
 at least two girls bloomed where only one or none at all 
 had bloomed before; the college pennant waved mul- 
 titudinously ; the college yell exploded regularly with 
 magnificent vim and precision; and as the celebrity 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 11 
 
 himself set foot on the ground, a toy balloon striped 
 with the college colours bumped lightly against his 
 hat, knocking it over his eyes, and soared away. 
 Somebody who was already shaking his hand, gave an 
 exclamation of concern. 
 
 ''Mr. Cook, I believe? — Oh, how^ annoying I — 
 Where did that thing come from? — Fm so sorry, 
 I'm sure it wasn't intended — you see we're in a great 
 deal of excitement, of course — is your hat all right? 
 My name is Chadwick — we've had some correspond- 
 ence, you perhaps remember? It's a very great jjleas- 
 ure to have you here, Mr. Cook ; we were highly grati- 
 fied when you consented to come. We turn this way 
 
 — this young man is my son — Jimmie, take Mr. 
 Cook's bag. Oh, yes, you must really let him have it. 
 I'm afraid James hasn't read any of your work, Mr. 
 Cook. His taste in literature runs just now to bio- 
 graphies of Black Bill, the Bandit Baron of Big Butte 
 
 — hey, Jim? Ah-hal" 
 
 Cook eyed the youngster, who stood before him, 
 swinging the valise, reddening through his tan and 
 freckles, difiSdent but refreshingly unimpressed. 
 " ' An author by the river's brim a simple author w^as 
 to him ' — and so forth and so on," said the visitor, 
 with relish. " If I were only Mr. Christy Matthewson 
 now — I " at which mildly satirical insinuation the 
 father laughed inordinately. Master James turned a 
 deeper red still, stood on one foot in order to tickle 
 his ankle with the other, and at length remarked, 
 
 They cleared the crowd, and started off for Pro- 
 fessor Chadwick's house — moral philosophy was his 
 chair, it presently developed — where there was to be 
 luncheon and Mr. Cook would meet the Dean and 
 
12 THE RUDDER 
 
 other members of the college staff. From almost any 
 quarter of the little town you might see the campus; 
 there were good old beech and linden trees, and a 
 bronze fountain presided over by a representation of 
 the founder, his watch-chain and whiskers done to the 
 life, one hand resting upon an open folio, the other 
 spread abroad in the gesture habitual (presumably) 
 to all American public men of whom statues are 
 erected. The stone buildings of the college were pret- 
 tily draped with vines, ivy and honeysuckles and 
 drooping purple panicles of wistaria; here were Cen- 
 tral Hall, the Old Dormitory, the Library, Shelborne's, 
 and so on — the professor pointed them out in turn. 
 " Our stadium is down in that direction," he said, wav- 
 ing a hand ; " you can't see it from here. It's consid- 
 ered to be very well equipped — cinder track, a foot- 
 ball and baseball field, and all that sort of thing, you 
 know, on quite a large scale. The Cothurnus gave 
 their play there this year, because of the space and 
 the general effect — it was Julius Cwsar.^^ 
 
 '' That was a good selection — almost all male parts. 
 The women are negligible." 
 
 Chadwick smiled. " In point of fact, they elimi- 
 nated Portia and Calpurnia altogether ! And even 
 Mrs. Chadwick had to admit that the play got along 
 perfectly smoothly without them. The boys did sur- 
 prisingly well ; it was really very good, especially the 
 forum scene. Young Devitt, the young fellow that 
 was Marc Antony, was quite rousing. Of course it's 
 a great acting part, and I suppose nobody could en- 
 tirely spoil those wonderful lines, but he did his ' hon- 
 ourable men ' admirably. I thought we had turned 
 up a histrionic genius, but it seems that he had seen 
 the Ben Greet pla.yers, and modelled his Antony on 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 13 
 
 theirs — which showed some taste, if no originality. 
 Devitt is one of our brightest men, however — took 
 honours in English. He's very anxious to meet you ; 
 they all are, naturally.'' 
 
 Cook uttered a polite deprecatory murmur, wonder- 
 ing meanwhile if they had ever heard of him, and the 
 other went on : " After the exercises, we always have 
 a reception for the graduating class and their families. 
 I hope you won't find it fatiguing. You say you 
 just got in from the East this morning? " He 
 accompanied this with an inquiring glance (of which 
 he was probably quite unconscious) at the guest's 
 neat toilette: Cook was a rather finicking little 
 man. 
 
 " Yes, but I went to a hotel and had a general fresh- 
 ening-up — I'm not at all tired, thank you," he ex- 
 plained, not without inward amusement. " I was 
 quite prepared for a hot, dusty, sooty trip. We all 
 of us know what travel in this part of the country is 
 like." 
 
 " Yes. It's not so bad when one is used to it. I'm 
 from Wisconsin myself." Mr. Chadwick hesitated, 
 then added with some civil curiosity : "I was under 
 the impression that you had your home here still, Mr. 
 Cook — in Cincinnati, I mean, of course. In fact,^ 
 I'm quite sure we forwarded some mail to you there.. 
 I hope there hasn't been any mistake made about that 
 
 — you went to a hotel — ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, that's all right — I'll get it — it's quite 
 safe, I'm sure, and probably of no importance anyway. 
 Why, I used to live here — with my sister — a mar- 
 ried sister and her family. She is dead now ; but the 
 rest of them are still here, and I expect to visit them 
 
 — my nieces, that is — while I'm here. The name is 
 
14 THE EUDDER 
 
 rather unusual — Maranda, you perhaps remem- 
 ber — ? They live on the North Hill. I didn't go 
 out there this morning — didn't want to disturb them 
 so early — it's a household of women." 
 
 " I see. I was alarmed for a minute, figuring some 
 invaluable manuscript going floating off around the 
 country and finally bringing up at the Dead Letter 
 Ofiiee ! We have to cross here — '^ 
 
 It was a " stand-up luncheon " ; Cook afterwards 
 gave a very sprightly description of the same sort of 
 function in his novel Julia Denhy^s Career^ hitting off 
 the Faculty and the Faculty's wives and daughters, 
 and the coffee and sandwiches and little cakes and 
 salad and ices, and the people who asked him what 
 he was working at now, and the other people who told 
 him of wonderful places to get " material " in that 
 style of good-natured satire for which he had some 
 reputation. " Brilliant studies of dulness " one critic*^ 
 had called his stories ; and Cook himself used to make 
 a quaint picture of his own mind running about, busily 
 picking up and storing away unconsidered trifles 
 which it later rummaged out, furbished up, and 
 patched and pieced together into something service- 
 able, like any thrifty housewife in a garret. He did 
 not know — so he said — whether this was a gift or 
 a mere habit, but its activities, sometimes practical 
 and sometimes not, were continually surprising him- 
 self. 
 
 (i We're expecting a great treat this afternoon, Mr. 
 Cook," one lady said to him with engaging earnestness. 
 ^^ Of course, it's like all the other good things in this 
 life—" 
 
 " Best in anticipation? " 
 
 ^^ No, no — why, how horrid ! I meant it's onlv to 
 
THE RETUEN OF THE NATIVE 15 
 
 be won after we have done our appointed share of 
 suffering in patience. You know we have to sit 
 through the valedictory before we come to youJ' 
 
 " The valedictory? " said Cook alertly; and he was 
 about to ask a question, when some one else spoke — 
 one of the professors, as it happened. 
 
 '' Sitting through one valedictory isn't such an or- 
 deal," he said, stirring his cup with a reminiscent air. 
 '" Suppose you had to sit through three hundred and 
 odd I That was what happened at my college up here 
 at — " he named the place — " until a few years ago, 
 when they mercifully suspended the practice. Every 
 graduate had to make a speech in my time — only 
 about ten minutes long, you know, but everybody had 
 to have his say. It lasted two daj^s or so. They took 
 you in alphabetical order. All your family and 
 friends were there, of course, from A to Andsoforth." 
 He stirred again, and added without a smile : " My 
 name is Wilson. I had a large audience — large, rel- 
 atively speaking, that is. There was one man in the 
 class named Zieloncka." 
 
 "Ah? He was all that was left of them — left of 
 three hundred ! " 
 
 " Just so, sir ! " And here Cook was again about 
 to ask his question, but the other again unwittingly in- 
 tervened. "Nowadays the boys have just as much 
 to do, and by the time Commencement week is over, 
 we're all just as much exhausted, but in an entirely 
 different way. I wonder if Mrs. Chadwick has any 
 of the leaflets with the programmes left, the ones they 
 give to visitors — ? I should like Mr. Cook to see — " 
 He looked about vaguely, but the supply of pro- 
 gi-ammes seemed to have failed. However, young Mr. 
 James Chadwick chanced to pass at that moment, 
 
16 THE RUDDER 
 
 munching a sandwich, and being appealed to, halted 
 obligingly. 
 
 " Yep. I got one — only you can't have it for keeps, 
 because I want it myself/' he said, crammed the last 
 bite into his mouth, and fished out a document at 
 sight of which the lady gave a dainty exclamation. 
 
 " Oh, Jimmie! Couldn't you get Mr. Cook a clean 
 one? That's dreadful ! " 
 
 Jimmie divided a glance of masculine impatience 
 between the other two. ^^ I ain't going to give it to 
 him anyway. He just wants to knoiv, that's all," said 
 he; and opened the leaflet, and pointed with a stubby 
 little grimy forefinger. " That's the track events. 
 That's what you wanted, didn't you? The reason it 
 looks mussed up is I wrote all the fellows' names that 
 won, you know, and it was a blue indelible pencil and 
 some soda-water got spilled on it afterwards so the 
 blue kind of ran all over it, but you can read 'em still," 
 he explained seriously and confidentially to Cook's 
 thorough delight. 
 
 " Oh, yes, easily," said the latter with equal gravity, 
 following Jimmie's Isabella-hued finger-nail. " The 
 hundred-yard dash was won by a man named Stokes, 
 I see." 
 
 " No, that's Stone. Watch out for the creases, or 
 she'll come in two ! That's Putting-the-Shot next — 
 Loring got that — Amzi Loring II — see? He's a big 
 fellow ; he plays left field on the team — not the class 
 team, the college team. I guess he's going into pro- 
 fessional ball — " 
 
 " Incidentally Loring is one of our graduates to-day, 
 Mr. Cook," said Wilson drily ; " a very great ornament 
 to the class, as you may infer." 
 
 " Don't you think your mother may be needing you, 
 
THE RETUKN OF THE NATIVE 17 
 
 Jimmie? " the lady sii«:gested ; "you can leave your 
 programme with Mr. Cook." She had been, to say the 
 truth, grievously disillusioned by this small episode. 
 " I supposed of course he would be interesting, or at 
 least, different/' she said afterwards in intimacy; 
 " but ever so many of the literary people I've met have 
 been rather commonplace. Isn't it queer? " 
 
 " Just a minute, Jimmie/' the disappointing person 
 now said. '' Tell me about some of these others. 
 What's all this, for instance? " 
 
 The leaf he had turned was in tolerable condition 
 and unpencilled. Jimmie craned over to inspect it. 
 *' Oh, that! That isn't anything — it just tells what 
 thev're ^i^oino' to do to-dav," he announced. And sure 
 enough, Cook read : 
 
 Invocation 
 By The DEA^' 
 
 Music 
 
 Oh, holy day, oh, happy day ! Standish 
 
 Quartette and chorus for male voices 
 Cambridge College Choib 
 
 Valedictory Address 
 T. Chauncey Devitt 
 
 Cook paused. ^' Chauncey " and ^' Devitt " I His 
 housewife's memory gi'oped an instant, then tr-iumph- 
 antly pounced upon and dragged forth all that he had 
 overheard concerning those two names. " Chauncey " 
 — he actually remembered the father's " Tim — I 
 mean Chauncey — " was of course the valedictorian, 
 but he was in all probability Marc Antony, too. 
 
 " Well, now, this is interesting," he said to Profes- 
 sor Wilson. " I was just about to ask you the valedic- 
 torian's name — " and he gave the other some account 
 of the acquaintance he had scraped that morning. 
 
18 THE EUDDER 
 
 Chadwick came up to them and listened and nodded 
 his head at the last. 
 
 " I've never met Devitt's family — I understand 
 the father is a road-contractor — a superintendent of 
 road-building, or something of that sort/' he said 
 vaguely. " I daresay he — er — came up from the 
 ranks, as so many do — a self-made man. That's the 
 best product of our civilisation — eh, don't you think 
 so? I dislike to hurry you, Mr. Cook, but we must 
 start presently. Whenever you're ready — ? " 
 
 As they began to move, Wilson said, ^' You'll meet 
 Devitt senior again this afternoon, Mr. Cook, and what 
 then? I tremble for you. He'll regard you as a kind 
 of literary confidence-man, won't he? " 
 
 " I doubt very much if he recognises me," said the 
 author serenely. " He'll be too much taken up with 
 his wonderful, splendiferous, valedictory ing son. Do 
 you know the young man? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, of course. I had him in Romance 
 Languages. A prodigious grind. I've seen brighter 
 men, but I never saw any man work harder. Indus- 
 try is a good deal more welcome to the average teacher 
 than cleverness — not that either commodit}^ is very 
 abundant ! Of course I don't mean to say that young 
 Devitt is dull — not at all ! I only mean he's not so 
 bright as some of the other men that haven't done 
 nearly so well. That's a contradiction that one often 
 meets with in a class-room. The tortoises are forever 
 outstripping the hares. No calamitous sense of 
 humour to get in the wa}^, and interfere with serious 
 study, you know; no foolhardy seeking after 
 novelty — " He wound up his half-ironical words 
 with a descent into slang. " Give me the tortoises 
 every time ! " 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 19 
 
 " Somehow or other ^ T. Chauncev ' doesn't sound 
 to me at all bright," said Cook. " ' T. Chauncey ' — 
 eh?'' He fixed a quizzical eye on the other, who 
 shrugged. 
 
 " Oh well I A very young man, you know — '^ 
 
 But Cook was unappeased. " ' T. Chauncey ' is al- 
 together too stylish,'' he said solemnly, shaking his 
 head, and Wilson himself laughed unwillingly. 
 
 Later, on the platform in Central Hall, before the 
 embanked faces, while the organ purred low and 
 melodiously and the graduates filed in two by two in 
 their newly mounted regalia black and flossing and 
 rustling gTavely, Cook felt a sudden sense of levity 
 rebuked. Good Heaven, he thought, what pain, what 
 toil, what sacrifice, what anguish of doubts and hopes, 
 what pathetic faith, those rows on rows of fathers and 
 mothers embodied I And what defenceless ignorance, 
 what pitiful cocksure egotism and ambition and heart- 
 breaking confidence these poor bedecked lads I He 
 stood with the others, bowing his head during the 
 prayer, and thinking : " I would not say those things. 
 I would not beseech the Almighty for grace or help; 
 I'd ask Him just to give the boys a little luck. It 
 makes no difference how great a young man's endow- 
 ment, or how good a start he gets, we've all got to 
 have a little luck to weather it through.'' Perhaps 
 he did put up some such simple petition for them, 
 remembering his own youth, and a hundred shabby 
 mistakes ; and sat down not a little moved. Nobody 
 else was, apparently, in the slightest degree, he ob- 
 served, glancing around the semi-circle of professors ; 
 nothing to get maudlin over from their breadwinners' 
 point of view. Cook reminded himself, regaining his 
 normal mood. While the quartette and chorus thun- 
 
20 THE RUDDER 
 
 dered holiness and happiness from somewhere to the 
 rear of the stage, he searched for his Irishman, and 
 erelong discovered him looming very big on a front 
 seat, with his fists planted squarely on his knees, radi- 
 ating content, a sight to warm the heart. Alongside 
 was another person whom Cook identified without 
 any trouble as the mother, terrifically corseted, con- 
 scious, unsmiling, much more sophisticated and con- 
 ventional than her husband, whose appearance and 
 behaviour, the author guessed, were giving her gnaw- 
 ing anxieties. She whispered to him, and Mr. Devitt, 
 bending down painfully, bestowed his silk hat (which 
 he had informally hung over the arm of the chair) in 
 the holder underneath; anon she whispered again 
 energetically, and he got out a vast handkerchief and 
 diligently exercised it on his chin and short, project- 
 ing moustache ; once more she whispered, and he obe- 
 diently readjusted himself, sitting rigidly upright, and 
 straightening his cuffs, his tie, his waistcoat under 
 her exacting eye. Cook fancied he saw in the pan- 
 tomime, joined to what he already knew of them, a 
 complete register of this couple's married life, of their 
 individual characters and aspirations. Again he 
 sharply regretted his negligence that morning. " I 
 might have met the wife too, if I had had my wits 
 about me ! " he lamented inwardly. " Nov/ it's all off ! 
 The minute she knows I'm ' Mr. Cook, the author,' 
 she'll mount guard. It was a chance in a thousand. 
 That family is a whole text-book with illustrations — 
 son and all, very likely." 
 
 Upon the instant, he became aware with a start that 
 the music had ended, that even the applause was tap- 
 ering off, and that the valedictorian was already on 
 his feet, in a pose by the little table with the classic 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 21 
 
 tumbler of water on it, about to begin. The novelist 
 looked at T. Chaunce^^ hard, finding himself unexpect- 
 edly impressed. Young Devitt did not at all resemble 
 either parent ; on the contrary, he was slight and tall 
 with a shock of black hair, cavernous black eyes, a 
 sallow face hectically touched with colour just now, 
 and a general appearance of ill-health about which 
 there was something singularly dramatic. When he 
 moved he limped perceptibly, without somehow sug- 
 gesting either deformity or injury, only suffering 
 borne with for-titude, put out of mind by sheer resolu- 
 tion. That or some other indefinable quality about 
 his tense presence brought before the mind the figure 
 of Genius as most of us conceive it, ruthlesslv self- 
 subduing, burning out body and soul on some altar of 
 high endeavour. The fancy was ratified, as it were, 
 by the detachment of his manner ; he made his address 
 from memory in a fine, clear, resonant voice, com- 
 posedly, but ^dthout any sort of forwardness or undue 
 assurance. It was as if he thoroughly realised his 
 position of untried youth preaching at its elders, but 
 was too much in earnest about what he had to sav 
 to make any bids for tolerance or sympathy. The 
 audience paid him the tribute of genuine attention, 
 and there was nothing perfunctory in the long roll of 
 applause at the end; it was charged with real inter- 
 est, real admiration which the young man accepted 
 ^\i.th the same strikingly serious-minded and single- 
 hearted air, bowing gravely and taking the laurel 
 w^reath which some one handed to him over the edge 
 of the stage, and returning to his chair with his halt- 
 ing step, unobtrusively significant. 
 
 "He did very well, don't you think?" Wilson re- 
 marked in the author's ear, under cover of the next 
 
22 THE RUDDER 
 
 musical selection. ^^ One was never in momentary 
 terror of his breaking down. Nothing epoch-making 
 about the speech, to be sure — in fact, without Shake- 
 speare and the Bible and a few minor reservoirs of 
 quotation, I don't know where the speech would have 
 been I " 
 
 " Without them, nobody knows where any speech 
 would be ! '' said Cook grimly. It was his turn next. 
 
 ^K . . It belongs to our later years and to our wider 
 vision of life to discover that . . .'' etc. ". . . To you 
 young men, I preach no supine nor spiritless policy 
 when I say that we must all inevitably encounter some 
 unendurable circumstances that must nevertheless be 
 endured, some intolerable conditions that must 
 whether or no be tolerated. It is our part not to 
 struggle under the trial, any more than to seek to 
 evade it; rather let us carry it if we must, emerge 
 from it if w^e may, with our greatest care to possess 
 ourselves in spiritual freedom, unbroken and undis- 
 honoured . . ." etc. ". . . In the w^ords of Seneca's 
 pilot : ^ O Neptune, you may save me if you will, 
 you may sink me if you will, but come what may, I 
 will hold the rudder true ! ' " 
 
 Thus — and Avith a good deal more in the same vein 
 — did Mr. Cook discourse for his appointed hour, and 
 received his meed of applause at the close with the 
 wary and good-humoured cynicism in which he had 
 trained himself. The end of any speech was always 
 w^elcome, he would say ; this time he added* mentally, 
 smiling at his own conceit, that really that peroration 
 w^as very neat — it would scarcel}^ have been i^ossible 
 to pick out anything neater or more appropriate to 
 the occasion ! And, in fact, he was repeatedly assured 
 of this afterwards when numbers of people came and 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 23 
 
 complimented and thanked liim, and told him how 
 illuminating his words had been. 
 
 This was during the reception which took place on 
 the platform immediately after the conferring of the 
 degrees, and after the Cambridge College Choir had 
 performed for the final time (Alma Mater , IlaiJ and 
 Farewell !) their song merging into the Doxology. 
 The next moment everybody was in motion ; the chairs 
 and benches scraped thunderously; there was much 
 hand-shaking, some kissing, some furtive shedding of 
 tears, an exchange of felicitations between parents, 
 teachers, pupils. In the middle of it all, the gradu- 
 ates were brought up for introduction, one after the 
 other, and Professor Wilson, to whom the office had 
 fallen, presently said : ^' Mr. Cook, you remember 
 our honour man, I'm sure? " And Cook shook hands 
 with his fellow-orator, making a light reference to 
 their fellowship. 
 
 ^^ Arcades amho! — eh? " said he. ^' I was in a mis- 
 erable panic, weren't you? '' 
 
 " No, I was not frightened," said the dark youth 
 gravely, fixing his profound black eyes on Cook with 
 an interest so intense as to be rather disconcerting; 
 it aroused in the latter a vivid feeling of protest. 
 " Good Lord, my dear young man, don't take me so 
 seriously I " he wanted to cry out. But it was obvious 
 that young Devitt was taking everything and every- 
 body, including himself, with abysmal seriousness. 
 
 " I was not frightened," he repeated. 
 
 " And you spoke from memory too. I never could 
 have done that in the world." 
 
 " Now you are jesting,'' said T. Chauncey, with a 
 solemn smile. ^' That was very wonderful what you 
 said at the last — the pilot's words — " he quoted in 
 
24 THE RUDDER 
 
 Ms deep, rolling voice: "^ Come icJiat may, I icill 
 hold the rudder true! ' That Avas wonderful and 
 beautiful." 
 
 ^' I trust you noticed that it was also not original,'^ 
 the author said. " I thought it would make a hit 
 with this audience," he added, profanely and reck- 
 lessly experimenting according to his habit. 
 
 The experiment w^as not a success. Young Devitt 
 did indeed for one instant look somewhat puzzled and 
 dubious, so that Cook had hopes of having shocked 
 him into something like natural speech and behaviour; 
 then his face cleared. He eyed the author with the 
 same uncomfortable intensity, and said again : " You 
 are jesting." He paused. "Are you working now, 
 Mr. Cook?" 
 
 " I work more or less all the time," said Cook pa- 
 tiently. 
 
 "All the time? Yes, I suppose you have to, so as 
 to keep a grip on your style. That's the way all great 
 geniuses do. I always read everything you write. I 
 think the humour in your stories is marvellous — " 
 
 " Thank you. I'm glad you like them. Are your 
 father and mother here, Mr. Devitt? I should like to 
 meet them," the author interposed hastily. He had 
 been aware, all the while, of the father and mother 
 standing by their chairs, quite alone ; no one seemed 
 to know them; no one had spoken to them except a 
 professor's wife here and there; facts which had no 
 effect on the elder Devitt in his beaming mood, but 
 Mrs. Devitt's air w^as both downcast and angTy — 
 angry to the verge of tears, as Cook was sharp enough 
 to perceive. To do him justice, it was as much a cer- 
 tain humane sympathy as his curiosity that prompted 
 
THE RETURX OF THE NATIVE 25 
 
 him. '' I'd like to kuow your father and mother/^ 
 he said, sincerely. 
 
 The young man glanced carefully in every direction 
 except the right one. And now the colour flushed his 
 sallow face, he hesitated, he stammered : " Ye-yes, 
 ' they're here — they — they — they don't care any- 
 * thing for society — they don't go into society at all, 
 hardly — not at all — I don't know where they are 
 just now — " he repeated his wretched pretence of 
 gazing all around in search of them. ^' I do believe 
 they've run off somewhere — I'll have to hunt them 
 np — they don't care for society at all — " He was 
 natural enough now, alas I The spectacle of him 
 moved Cook with contempt and amusement and an 
 understanding pity. 
 
 Luckily for all parties concerned, perhaps, the epi- 
 sode went no further, for Wilson interrupted just then 
 with another introduction. "Ah, Mr. Cook? This 
 is Mr. Amzi Loring — er, Tico^ isn't it? Mr. Amzi 
 Loring Tico — Second, you understand, Mr. Cook. 
 The class poet.'' And hereupon Cook shook hands 
 with a huge, high, wide young bruiser with an under- 
 shot jaw (so the author catalogued him) who, for his 
 part, gTunted " Huh I " scowling helplessly at both of 
 them. Wilson escaped with a Puck-like gi-in. 
 
 " Pardon me, did you say the class i^oet? " inquired 
 Cook. 
 
 Mr. Amzi Loring Two reiterated his first remark. 
 "Huh I'' said he; "I'd look nice writing poetry, 
 wouldn't I?" He remained glowering down at the 
 little man, clumsy but unembarrassed, profoundly 
 bored and making no slightest attempt to conceal it. 
 
 " Well, this is a child of Nature I " thought the au- 
 
26 THE EUDDER 
 
 thor; and memory serving liim handily once more, he 
 said: " Loring? You won in some of the athletic 
 events, I think? " 
 "Yeah.'' 
 
 Cook tried again. " I met a man once that was 
 about your size, and his business w^as selling chocolate- 
 creams — " 
 
 " Huh? " Amzi Two smiled! " Chocolate-creams, 
 huh?" His face could not be said to light up — no 
 emotion, Cook fancied, could make him look other 
 than a big brute — but the gaze he bent on the author 
 was at least more attentive. " Chocolate-creams ! " 
 He chuckled raucously. 
 
 " It doesn't seem a man's-size job any more than 
 writing poetry, hey? " Cook volunteered further. 
 
 " No." After a moment's consideration, during 
 which he scanned the author's meagre proportions 
 quite openly and coolly, he said : " Size hasn't got 
 anything to do with it, of course. I know that. But 
 I haven't got any use for poetry, anyhow. It's all 
 right for you, I guess." 
 
 " I guess it is," said Cook soberly. " Or for a man 
 like Devitt now, your valedictorian — " 
 
 " Some noise, wasn't he? " said Loring; and looking 
 down on Cook, to the latter's bottomless astonishment, 
 he deliberately drooped one eyelid in Brobdignagian 
 mockery. Before the author could recover, the young 
 fellow followed up this unexpected mark of confidence 
 by saving more confidentially still : " Say, I know 
 your niece. Miss Maranda." 
 " Indeed? " 
 
 " Yeah. I don't mean Fannie — I mean Nellie, the 
 pretty one, you know. She's your niece, isn't she? " 
 " Yes. Her sister Fannie is my niece, too." 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 27 
 
 "Hull? Ho, lio — she's jour niece, too, is she? — 
 Hev? Ho-lia! " Cook said to himself that never did 
 a more inexpensive witticism meet with greater appre- 
 ciation! Young Loring chuckled and chuckled. He 
 looked at the author with flattering friendliness; he 
 became loquacious, expansive : " That's what I like 
 about Nellie Maranda. She can say the brightest 
 things. She isn't anybody's fool if she is pretty. 
 Most of 'em are, you know," he said. '' I just hap- 
 pened to remember just now that you were her uncle 
 
 — the one that wrote, that is. I'd forgotten all about 
 you," he explained tactfully. " I live near her — the 
 North Hill just off of Adams Eoad. That's my father 
 over there. Here, I'll get him.'' 
 
 He shouldered off, leaving Cook with the thought 
 that here was one boy who was not ashamed of his 
 family, at any rate. The Devitts, father, mother and 
 son, had disappeared. Wilson rejoined him, remark- 
 ing blandly : " I sujDpose you had a sharj) passage of 
 wits with Loring Two, Mr. Cook?" 
 
 " What I want to know is : how under Heaven did 
 that young man ever get through college? ''Cook said. 
 " Was he too valuable in — er — in athletic circles 
 to be dropped? Of course it's insulting to hint at 
 such a thing, but in confidence now, was that it? " 
 
 The other waved a cool gesture. " How should I 
 know? Athletic prestige is not to be undervalued by 
 any college these days, it's true. Is he bringing his 
 father? By the way, the father, Amzi One, is a prom- 
 inent citizen. I should have thought vou would re- 
 member him. He's the Loring they call the Ice-King 
 
 — now don't you remember? " 
 
 " The Ice-King? " echoed Cook hazily. And then 
 he found himself being presented not to a Santa-Claus- 
 
28 THE KUDDER 
 
 looking individual wreathed in white cotton-batting^ 
 and diamond-dust as the title suggested, but to a pros- 
 perous, middle-aged gentleman suitably clad, who 
 shook his hand cordially, calling him Mr. Brooks, and 
 observed that it was very hot, but only what was to 
 be expected at this season of the year. 
 
 ^' You haven't got any kick coming because it's hot,'' 
 said young Amzi, and winked at Cook again. " Dad 
 can't ever get his mind off of business." He quoted 
 the refrain of a ditty popular at that date, '' ' Hoiv 
 would you like to be the ice-man? / don't know! ' '' 
 And at this rich piece of humour, he laughed and the 
 elder man laughed so uproariously that people stand- 
 ing near jumped and stared at them. Cook laughed 
 with even keener enjoyment than the others, though 
 (it is possible) not entirely for the same reason. He 
 was often accused of " lifting " his characters bodily 
 from life, and as often solemnly denied it. " No profit 
 in it," he would aver; " truth is so much stranger than 
 fiction that you can't make it plausible." And it is a 
 fact that for that or other reasons, no one at all re- 
 sembling the two Lorings ever appeared in any of his 
 novels, not even in that famous chapter of Julia 
 Deribifs Career, although you might have supposed 
 they w^ould offer ideal " material." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MR. COOK returned on the " Intenirban " as 
 democratically as he had come, and un- 
 recognised amongst the crowd, notwith- 
 standing the conspicuous role he had played in the 
 afternoon's j)roceedings. He was not the man to be 
 cast down by this neglect, however — quite the con- 
 trary; the lack of personal distinction he sincerely 
 considered one of his best assets, it was of so much use 
 in '^ making the other fellow talk." The little author 
 looked so safe, hainnless, ordinary — " And in fact I 
 am perfectly safe, harmless and ordinary," he would 
 have said with his dry smile. On this occasion he fell 
 in with a couple of nice lads, friends going through 
 college together ; they would graduate next year, they 
 told him, and were led to chatter eagerly and frankly 
 about their plans which involved Xew Mexico, South 
 Africa, the Klondike, thev were not vet certain which. 
 One of them meant to be a mining engineer, and the 
 other was taking some sort of electrical construction 
 course in " Tech," he said, adding : " You see Bill 
 and I are expecting to kind of do team-work." And 
 he nodded brightly at Cook, confidently supposing 
 himself understood. Neither of them knew Mr. Amzi 
 Loring or T. Chauncey Devitt, to Cook's disappoint- 
 ment; he had hoped to discover some new point of 
 view of those two celebrities. But in any case these 
 boys allowed themselves no personal opinions; they 
 looked upon everybody and everything connected with 
 
 29 
 
30 THE RUDDER 
 
 their college with the same loyal and unreserved en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 They reached the city at last, in a hot, sticky dusk. 
 Cook worked his way out of his earful of people 
 briskly enough, but he paused on the curb, hesitating. 
 The very air felt tired ; newsboys w^ere squawking the 
 ^ baseball extras ; the evening crowds were just start- 
 ing homeward, every car grinding by fringed with 
 men. One w^ould not have thought the street-corner 
 a pleasant place to linger; the North Hill, with its 
 comparative coolness and quiet would seem to the 
 casual judgment much more attractive; yet, for some 
 reason Mr. Cook appeared to be in no hurry to gain 
 that haven. In point of fact, he was thinking in a 
 gross, unsesthetic fashion which would have shocked 
 admirers of his genius, why not dine down-town? 
 Why not get a room down-town, for that matter? 
 Must he stay out at the house? Couldn't this thing 
 Ibe compromised somehow with a visit — a nice visit 
 of a couple of hours, say — a nice, agreeable talk — 
 wouldn't that do? He w^as afraid it wouldn't do. 
 He didn't want to hurt any one's feelings — might as 
 well go through Avith it — might as well get it done 
 and over with, as long as he was here — and at this 
 stage he was interrupted by a large presence at his 
 elbow, familiarly accosting him. 
 
 "Hello!'' it said; "here you are! Say, w^here'd 
 you go to? I lost you in the shuffle up there right 
 at the end when everybody was good-bye-ing. We 
 wanted to bring you along with our crowd. We had 
 a special. Take you out to the Hill now, if you like, 
 in the machine. Take both of you. Your niece is 
 here." 
 
 It was Amzi Two again, six feet of him, grinning 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 31 
 
 with bis imdersliot jaw, like an amiable — a tempor- 
 arily amiable — bulldog, bewilderingly friendly, and 
 so big that Cook's mind for the moment could take in 
 nothino- but this bigness. " I don't see how I ever 
 missed you I " he involuntarily ejaculated. 
 
 "■ I told you. We had one of their special cars — 
 you can charter 'em from the Traction Company. We ^ 
 were right behind you all the way. There she is/' 
 said the other, nodding towards a resplendent convey- 
 ance, all maroon paint, polished nickel rods, plate- 
 glass windows and wicker chairs of which, sure 
 enough, Cook remembered to have caught glimpses 
 trundling in the rear on the way down. Indeed, it 
 had been not only striking to the eye, but vociferously 
 so to the ear also, what with tin horns, megaphones, 
 the college yell, and so on. It stood empty now, the 
 motorman lounging over his helm. Cook stared, not 
 quite understanding. 
 
 " Thank you very much for thinking about me," he 
 said precisely. ''The house isn't on the car-line, 
 though, so I can't accept — " 
 
 ''Wake up!'' said Amzi Two in rough and impa- 
 tient jocularity. " I don't want to take you in that. 
 Our machine's here. I told you that before. The 
 shuff's got it across the street in front of the drug- 
 store — see it? The big red one — the Packard. 
 There's Dad talking to Miss Maranda. She's waving 
 to you now. Come on I " 
 
 He seized the author's valise in one muscular grasp, 
 the author's elbow in the other, and had them both 
 well under way before the last words were out of 
 his mouth. Cook submitted. The only thing, he 
 thought, that could be more ridiculous than a little 
 man being carted across the street by a big man, was 
 
32 THE EUDDEE 
 
 the same little man getting into a bad temper about 
 it. And this young lout meant well, no question of 
 that, though what it was in himself that had found 
 such marked favour with Amzi Two w^as a matter of 
 mystery to Cook. He acquitted both Lorings of the 
 sort of snobbery that delights in exhibiting an in- 
 timacy with people of his profession; that would be 
 more in T. Chauncey's line, the author said to himself 
 shrewdly. But these two men — ! It was hard to 
 believe that either father or son had ever read any- 
 thing but the daily paper in his life ; poems or pumps, 
 stories or shoe-polish, it was all one to them how their 
 new friend made a living. " They love me for my- 
 self alone ! '' Cook decided with inward laughter. 
 
 On the other side of the street there stood the great, 
 flaring automobile which the " shuff " was just now 
 engaged in cranking; the " shuff was another stal- 
 wart individual with a uniform of imposing smart- 
 ness. Everything about the Lorings was large and 
 opulent; their single group overshadowed all else in 
 sight, the drugstore, the crowd, the incessant news- 
 boys, the dray laden with barrels on one hand, the 
 humble livery-stable coupe on the other. Loring 
 senior in his natty light waistcoat was chatting with 
 a tall young lady in a white dress and hat, who, in 
 her different way, was not the least distinguished fig- 
 ure of the whole distinguished scene. Cook realised 
 it with a fresh surprise, as if the delicately high-col- 
 oured brunette face she turned towards him had been 
 that of some stranger instead of his own near kins- 
 woman. ^' I forget in between times how pretty Nel- 
 lie is,'' he was thinking as he greeted her. " Well, 
 Nellie!'' 
 
 She came up and put her hand in his with a very 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 33 
 
 simple, correct air of enthusiasm and affection min- 
 gled in careful proportions, not too much of either, 
 the place being too public for that. There was noth- 
 ing pleasingly girlish about it, but in fact, Miss Mar- 
 anda must have been about twenty-five years old, and 
 gave an instant impression of social experience and 
 thoroughly reliable manners. ^' Well, Uncle I Are 
 yoa nearly worn out? " she said in smiling sympathy; 
 and included the others with : " He's been away from 
 here so long he can't be hardened to the sight of the 
 thermometer in the nineties any more." 
 
 Loring One took the elderly man's privilege of star- 
 ing at her with open admiration; Loring Two red- 
 dened under her casual eyes like any schoolboy. He 
 looked as if he must be red to his very heels — no 
 slight distance ! Whatever this would indicate it was 
 not embarrassment as might have been supposed, for 
 he spoke directly with authoritative ease. 
 
 " It'll be cool riding. There's always a breeze. 
 Here, put this in, Garry," he brusquely commanded 
 the chauffeur, passing him Cook's bag. And, over- 
 looking her quick gesture of protest, he went on to 
 Miss Maranda in a tone scarcely less brusque : " Get 
 in front. You get in front, and I'll drive." 
 
 " Why, that's so kind of you, Mr. Loring, but 
 I — " "^ 
 
 " Hold up, son ! " interposed the older man. " The 
 young lady was just explaining to me — " 
 
 " We can't, you know, Mr. Loring — I'm so sorry I 
 You see I came doT\Ti to meet Mr. Cook — " 
 
 " I wouldn't have had you do it in this prostrating 
 heat, Eleanor," began this last; "if Mr. Loring 
 w^ants — " 
 
 Young Amzi's heavy voice cut all the civilities short. 
 
34 THE KUDDER 
 
 As an exhibition of force and directness it suggested 
 his performances at putting the shot. "What's the 
 matter? Why can't you? " he bluntly demanded of 
 the girl. 
 
 " Because I've a ^ hack ' here already," said Nellie, 
 laying a humorous stress on the word ; and she waved 
 her hand, grimacing piquantly, towards the coupe, the 
 driver of which, taking the gesture for a signal, 
 clucked to his horse and moved up along the curb. 
 " Here he comes now. It's for you, Uncle Marshall. 
 Mrs. Maranda ordered it for you." 
 
 "Mrs. Maranda? For me!'^ repeated Cook; and 
 now it was his turn to change colour, inexplicably ; the 
 flush crept slowly up over his thin hatchet-face. 
 " Mrs. Maranda sent it for me? " 
 
 " She would do it, you know," said his niece de- 
 fensively as their eyes met. 
 
 There was an infinitesimal pause — infinitesimal, 
 yet somehow long enough to be marked, uncomfort- 
 able. Cook spoke hurriedly in an ineffectual attempt 
 to cover it up. " That was very nice of — of your 
 mother," he said, fumbling the last word a little, per- 
 haps annoyed at his inability to conceal annoyance. 
 In a second he had recovered, however, and added 
 smoothly enough : " You see how it is, Mr. Loring. 
 I'm overwhelmed with hospitalities which I'm afraid 
 I don't at all deserve! If one could only do two 
 things at once — " 
 
 Young Loring came down again like a well-aimed 
 bludgeon. " Bosh ! " he ejaculated freely. " Send 
 the rig back to the stable, and you come along with us. 
 Horses are so dead slow, it makes me tired to look at 
 
 'em." 
 
 Cook, now quite master of himself, adjusted his 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 35 
 
 features to an expression of polite helplessness. " If 
 one could only be in two places at once — " he mur- 
 mured. 
 
 " Guess you'll have to give up, son," said the Ice- 
 King, good-humouredly. But the younger man 
 seemed himself to have already come to that decision. 
 He uttered a single brief comment : '^ Huh I '' and 
 hustled them over to Mrs. Maranda's '' hack "' with the 
 not-too-gentle promptness and vigour apparent in 
 most of his actions so far. He shoved them both in, 
 slammed the door, said to Xellie : " I'll 'phone you 
 this evening, if I don't come over," said to the driver, 
 " 's all right, George I " and was back climbing into his 
 own vehicle, all in one breath I Garry manipulated 
 the wheel; the automobile moved off majestic as a 
 freight-locomotive and not far from the same size. 
 The last Cook and the girl saw of them, Loring the son 
 was lighting a long, large, dark cigar in the shelter of 
 his father's hat, which the latter gentleman obligingly 
 held for that purpose; they vanished around the cor- 
 ner with an aroma of gasoline streaming like a pen- 
 nant in their rear. The hack, following at its sober 
 pace, lost sight of them almost at once. 
 
 " Tremendously energetic young man I " said Cook, 
 with a half laugh. " In fact, I should say he was all 
 energv and not much else I Who are thev, Xellie? 
 Somebody new? Since the last time I was here, I 
 mean." 
 
 " Whv, no — not exactlv. Thev've alwavs lived 
 here. Mr. Loring's father — the old Mr. Loring — is 
 the one thev call the Ice-Kins:. I think thev used to 
 live somewhere down town. But now they've bought 
 that great, big place of the Hendersons — you remem- 
 ber where the Hendersons lived — ? '' 
 
36 THE EUDDER 
 
 The author nodded. '' Any Mrs. Loring? " he in- 
 quired. 
 
 " No. The two men live there by themselves — a 
 whole tribe of servants, of course. They've done a 
 great deal to the place. It's quite gorgeous now.'' 
 
 Cook gave an amused exclamation. " Gorgeous in 
 whose taste? Did Amzi senior or junior direct the 
 alterations? " 
 
 " Neither one of them," said the girl, laughing too, 
 though constrainedly. " They knew better than to 
 try, and got architects and decorators. They're not 
 such Philistines as you think, Uncle Marshall," she 
 added, with a certain warmth. 
 
 " I don't mind Philistines," said Cook with another 
 laugh, protesting indirectly against her indirect ac- 
 cusation. For the next moment he was bending all 
 his energies to lighting a cigarette — he never smoked 
 cigars ; they made him sick — and spoke brokenly, be- 
 tween inhalations. " I don't ask your leave, Nellie — 
 you smoke them yourself — so it can't offend you — " 
 He had it going, threw away the match, and blew out 
 a mouthful of smoke, through which he said casually : 
 " How long have you knowm the Lorings yourself? 
 The young one seemed to consider himself quite inti- 
 mate." 
 
 '^ Oh, a year or so — I don't remember where I met 
 him first — playing tennis, I believe it was. He 
 played in the tournament last summer. He knows 
 all the men and girls in the club, of course," Nellie 
 said carelessly, and therewith abandoned young Lor- 
 ing. " Now tell me about yourself. Uncle Marsh. 
 Oh, I'm not going to ask you any of those questions 
 you hate so," she interrupted herself quickly, reading 
 his face. " I mean what kind of a day did you have? 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 37 
 
 Was it interesting at tlie Commencement? Or just 
 ?>o/e-ious? " 
 
 '^ Wlij, everything's always interesting, more or 
 less, you know," the novelist declared. " Nobody ever 
 needs to be bored, I think.'' He gave her some ac- 
 count of the day's doings, to which Nellie showed her- 
 self a bright and accommodating listener. 
 
 " ' T. Chauncey I ' " she repeated at one point, with 
 incredulous relish. " Oh, come now. Uncle Marsh, 
 you made that up! That's too good to be true I " 
 
 " Not 1 1 That's just it! I couldn't have made up 
 anything half so good. T. Chauncey was his name." 
 "Did he live up to it?" 
 
 " Capitally — as far as stage presence goes, that is," 
 said Cook, recalling his first impression of the young 
 man ; ''^he looked like Lord Byron ! " 
 
 "And talked like John Smith, I suppose? " 
 "Exactly. However, there must be something in 
 him. People sometimes seem to feel some queer kind 
 of handicap, talking to me — they're a little affected 
 — seem to have it too much on their minds that I'm 
 Mittery.' I fancied that was what was the matter 
 with him, though he had a great air of self-possession." 
 Cook paused, frowning meditatively. " T. Chauncey 
 was not without personal force — magnetism, if you 
 choose. You felt it even when he was reciting his 
 banalities. There must be something in him," said 
 the author again with conviction. He went on with 
 his tale, ending with : " The w^hole thing was 
 interesting. I don't quite know what to make of 
 him." 
 
 " Well, 7 do I I think he was disgusting to feel that 
 way about his old father and mother that had done 
 everything in the world for him ! " said Nellie. Her 
 
38 THE RUDDER 
 
 dark face flashed. '^ Disgusting I '' she ejaculated 
 again with generous vehemence. Cook, observing her, 
 said to himself that it was as if she had forgotten her 
 conventional creed, dropped for one second her in- 
 visible shield of manners, and stood forth the real 
 woman, spirited and impulsive. She herself must 
 have been aware of it, for meeting his scrutiny, she 
 coloured and laughed and bit her lip. " Not that I 
 need to excite myself over it ! '' she said lightly. 
 '' He's not the only person in the world that's ashamed 
 of his relatives, I daresay.'' 
 
 *^ One in every family," said Cook, shrugging. 
 "And the truth is, every family has some members 
 it's ashamed of. I myself — I've had to walk down 
 street with sundry gentlemen and ladies that I'd have 
 given a good deal not to be seen with ! " 
 
 "Meaning mef '' said Nellie, sparkling. She gave 
 his arm a little shake, affectionate and teasing. It 
 Avas another of her unruly impulses, as Cook saw with 
 the thought that w^hether they were of any significance 
 or not, they had a certain heady charm, and became 
 her well. He cocked his head to one side, and e^^ed 
 her all over in exaggeratedly critical appraisal. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know ! " he drawled loftily ; they both 
 laughed. 
 
 " You and I always do get along, don't we, Uncle 
 Marsh? " said the girl. Even with the words her face 
 that had been so gay suddenly clouded. Perhaps 
 Cook's own expression changed. They fell silent. 
 The carriage laboriously climbed the hill, and turned 
 into Paradise Park. It was skirting the reservoir be- 
 fore either of them spoke again. 
 
 " I should have asked before this — er — how is 
 Mrs. Maranda? " Cook said at last, almost with for- 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 39 
 
 mality. " I took it tliat she was well — that is, as 
 well as usual — or I should have heard." 
 
 Nellie answered with equal stiffness; they might 
 have been two distant acquaintances exchanging per- 
 functory civilities about another distant acquaint- 
 ance. " Thank you, Uncle Marshall, she is about the 
 same. Of course she doesn't get out at all — she can't 
 go anywhere, but otherwise she seems to be as strong 
 as anybody. The doctor says she is." 
 
 "Well — er — is there much nursing?" 
 
 " No," said Nellie, looking straight ahead ; " she is 
 not really sick, you know. She never has any pain. 
 If one may judge by eating and sleeping, she is per- 
 fectly well. Of course she has to have some atten- 
 tion." She paused. " Fannie does almost everything 
 for her." 
 
 Cook made a movement.- " That is not at all neces- 
 sary," he said in a chilly voice; "I have repeatedly 
 told Fannie, and told Mrs. Maranda that that wasn't 
 necessary. It ought to be perfectly possible to get 
 some person — a maid or somebody — " 
 
 " Mrs. Maranda says that another servant would 
 upset the house too much, and she doesn't want to put 
 us to so much inconvenience," said Nellie imperson- 
 ally, as if she were repeating a lesson. " She says 
 that she feels just as if we w^ere her own children, and 
 she knows we feel the same towards her as we would 
 towards our own mother; she knows that we love to 
 take care of her. Besides, she savs that we all know 
 it's our duty not to lay the expense of another maid 
 on you, and we can't think of accepting it from you — 
 I beg your pardon. Uncle Marshall? You said — ?" 
 " Nothing — nothing," said the other hastily. Nel- 
 lie resumed in the same resolutelv colourless fashion. 
 
40 THE RUDDER 
 
 " She says that she would gladly give us more to- 
 wards the expenses of the house — she would gladly 
 pay more than her share (she says) but she has all she 
 can do now — she has so many people to take care of 
 — people who are really needier than Fannie and my- 
 self, and have more claim on her — " 
 
 " Homer and his family, of course — I understand, 
 Nellie, never mind the rest/' Cook interrupted with 
 some effort. The little man's face was the hue of an- 
 tique mahogany, he lit another cigarette with a hand 
 that shook. His niece gave him a side-glance, and 
 appeared momentarily to be on the brink of some out- 
 burst similar to her other outbursts. She held it back, 
 speaking from a quick second thought. 
 
 " Fannie wants it too. Uncle Marshall. I mean she 
 wants things just as they are. She tcants to — " 
 
 ^^ Undoubtedly. I quite understand," said Cook. 
 Something trenchant in his utterance, mild and gov- 
 erned as it was, ended the discussion. Nellie, indeed, 
 shrank a little. She was afraid of him at times — 
 not so much of what he might say to her, as of what he 
 might think of her. The girl could conceive no 
 greater humiliation than for Uncle Marshall to find 
 iier dull. Presently, with conscious determination, 
 they recommenced their first slight chatter, gos- 
 sip, news, stories, and by degrees the odd tension re- 
 laxed. 
 
 The Maranda house was on Church Lane, in a neigh- 
 bourhood established as ^' nice " about the year 1885, 
 but now beginning to suffer an invasion of utilitarian- 
 ism. Many of the old places had been turned into 
 boarding-houses, many others into duplex flats; and 
 at the entrance of the street, an ungainly apartment 
 building, tiers on tiers of porches, windows aligned 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NxVTIVE 41 
 
 like the cells for mail in a postofQce, occupied the site 
 of the old Gilmore homestead, as Cook recollected. 
 
 ^^ The IIiiii is at the gate!'' he said, surveying it. 
 " Our social doom is sealed ! Nobody lives cheek by 
 jowl with that — nobody ! " 
 
 " If people know who you are^ it doesn't make any 
 difference,'' said Nellie, rather literally and simply. 
 
 They came to a good-sized house of indeterminate 
 style, with a round bay on one corner, a rainbow- 
 coloured window of " art-glass " evidently lighting 
 the staircase-landing, a front porch adorned with in- 
 tricately sculptured wooden railings, minarets and 
 finials, and within the shelter of this last, as could be 
 seen from the street, an invalid's wheel-chair with 
 cushions from which somebody first waved a greeting 
 to them, and then, starting up, called out excitedly. 
 Some one else came running from the interior. Cook 
 sent vague smiling politenesses in that general direc- 
 tion, somewhat hampered by the movements of getting 
 out of the carriage, giving a hand to Nellie, taking off 
 his hat and feeling in his pocket, all at very nearly the 
 same instant. There was another high-pitched volley 
 from the porch; Nellie began some confused speech 
 and abruptly broke off ; the author looked about, won- 
 dering if he had forgotten anything. 
 
 " Mis' M'randa, she's a-hollerin' to you, boss," the 
 coloured driver notified him quite superfluously, as he 
 took Cook's tip. "Tears lak she's tellin' you sum- 
 pin'. Is you got yo' grip? Yessuh, thanky, suh!" 
 He turned about and drove away just as Fannie Mar- 
 anda, out of breath, reached them. 
 
 " Oh, Uncle Marshall, so glad to see you I '' she said 
 cordially, taking both his hands, but with her eyes ad- 
 dressinof Nellie. " Hasn't it been dreadfully hot, 
 
42 THE EUDDER 
 
 thougli? Did you liave a nice trip? You must be all 
 tired out — only you're always so neat — you don't 
 look as if anything could upset you — " Here she 
 abandoned him, with an equally nervous and dis- 
 jointed apology^ " Just a minute, Uncle Marshall — 
 I heg your pardon — Oh, the man's gone! Mercy, 
 Nellie, did you — ?" She half lowered her voice. 
 ^' You know she didn't want Uncle Marsh to — " 
 
 " I didn't have a chance,'' said Nellie, shortly. 
 " Never mind, Fannie ! " 
 
 "She won't like it — she wanted imrticidarly — 
 you know — " the other girl whispered, with an 
 alarmed look. 
 
 " I couldn't help it. I didn't try anyhow ! " said 
 Nellie, fiercely conclusive. " Do stop ! '^ All at once 
 her temper flared, and was smothered again, as she 
 glanced at her uncle. 
 
 " What's up? " the latter inquired. In a second he 
 realised that whatever was " up," it was something 
 hideously awkward, requiring to be met with an ap- 
 pearance of unconsciousness; there was a heart-sink- 
 ing familiarity in the scene. " Same old thing! " he 
 thought while he braced himself to say gaily : " Some 
 tragedy about the steak for dinner? Never mind it, 
 Fannie ! Nell's right — never mind ! " 
 
 Nellie murmured feverishly something about it's 
 being just nonsense — a — a surprise — they had in- 
 tended to surprise him. Yes, that was it I They had 
 meant to give him a surprise — ! She burst into a 
 kind of savage giggle, and started quickly towards the 
 house where all this while the other lady was standing 
 at the head of the porch steps, talking or rather ex- 
 claiming in a shrilly sweet insistent voice. Fannie 
 did not laugh; she stood still, troubled, out of coun- 
 
THE EETUKN OF THE NATIVE 43 
 
 tenance, not even able to feign laughter. Fannie was 
 a large, serious-faced, blonde girl with beautiful and 
 very near-sighted blue eves ; she looked thirty, and was 
 in reality three years younger than her sister. 
 Neither one of them would have been guessed, off- 
 hand, and seen apart from him, to be any kin of 
 Cook's ; yet — for a curious fact — between the small, 
 sallow, dark, homely man and Nellie Maranda who 
 was considered a strikingly pretty woman, there did 
 exist a resemblance too fleeting and elusive to be de- 
 fined which sometimes caused people to declare that 
 they might be known for uncle and niece anywhere. 
 
 " You're looking well, Fannie," the author now said. 
 " Here I What are you trying to do? " he ejaculated 
 precii^itately, as she motioned to take up his luggage. 
 Cook snatched it from her, horrified. ^^ Good gTa- 
 cious, do you think I'm going to let you carry my 
 things?'' 
 
 " Oh, but I like to. Uncle Marshall ! Please let 
 me ! ' 
 
 " Not this time ! '' 
 
 She walked by his side, touching his sleeve with the 
 tips of her fingers in a quaintly diffident caress. " It's 
 so nice to have you here again. Uncle Marshall." 
 
 " Same to you, and many of 'em, Fan ! " said Cook, 
 elaborately jocose — and also thoroughly sincere. 
 Blood is thicker than water! He was thinking that 
 after all it was good to get back home, and see the 
 girls, and the hot, dirty, friendly old town, and the 
 people whom he had known, amongst whom he had 
 lived. What had possessed him a while ago to dream 
 of evading all this — of escaping with an ordinary 
 call—? 
 
 '^ Fannie! '' cried the voice on the porch, anxiously, 
 
44 THE RUDDER 
 
 '^ why don't you take those things for your uncle? 
 You know he's not strong! He'll be exhausted! 
 Marshall, do put that down and let her carry it. I 
 wash / could help — you know I would in a minute if 
 I could — " And Cook having by this time reached 
 her, his sister-in-law, or perhaps it would be more ac- 
 curate to say his brother-in-law's widow, came and 
 welcomed him with almost hysterical warmth. 
 
 '^ Marshall dear, we are so glad to have you here. 
 You know we're simply bursting with iDride about you 
 
 — you know that, don't you? At least you'll believe 
 it when I tell you so, for I never say anything I don't 
 mean, you know that! You're late — I do hope din- 
 ner isn't spoiled — you haven't got time to take a bath 
 
 — isn't it a pity ? — I know you want one, but dinner 
 can't wait any longer. You can just sit down the way 
 you are — w^e don't care if you are all over dust and 
 dirt, do we, girls? It does make you look funny, 
 though! Do look, Nellie, it's so absurd to see your 
 Uncle Marshall, of all men in the world, with a dirty 
 neck and ears like a little boy ! " 
 
 " Juliet, you're just the same as ever — full of fun 
 in spite of your health. Such a sense of humour ! " 
 said Cook with a heartiness that might have aroused 
 some suspicion in any one who knew him w^ell. Nel- 
 lie, in fact, did give him a sharp glance; and some- 
 thing must have occurred at the moment to put her 
 into a good temper, for she began to laugh. Cook 
 went on smoothly : " May I wash my hands, though? 
 There's time for that? Is it my same old room? 
 Fine ! All right, Fannie, I know the way — I ought 
 to!" 
 
 He went up into the pretty, feminine place. There 
 were frilled pillows, frilled white curtains, a toilet- 
 
THE KETURN OF THE NATIVE 45 
 
 table decked with frills, a bunch of pink sweet-peas in 
 a dove-coloiired vase, copies of all his novels in em- 
 broidered linen slip-covers, spread out upon a pale 
 blue blotter with silver corner pieces on the white 
 enamelled table bv the window. The author looked 
 around with a shame-faced gi'in. " It's pathetic I '' he 
 reprimanded himself. He sat down gingerly in one of 
 the slim white chairs. Through the open window 
 there came a scent of honeysuckle and the sound 
 of the ladies' voices on the porch below. Mrs. 
 Maranda's, pleasantly incisive, reached him dis- 
 tinctly. 
 
 " Didn't you give the man — the driver — didn't 
 you give him that twenty-five cents, Xellie? What! 
 Why, Xellie, I told you positiveli/ to be sure to tip him 
 yourself! It's horrid and inhospitable to let your 
 uncle do the tipping — besides he probably can't af- 
 ford it. That's the reason I sent the carriage — you 
 knew that. I gave you that quarter for that especial 
 purpose — I thought you might forget it, so I sent 
 Fannie to remind you, but I suppose she didn't get 
 there quick enough — fleshy people can't get around 
 very fast. Still I don't see why you didn't remember 
 it in time yourself — I don't see how you could let 
 your Uncle Marshall pay for anything while he's our 
 guest — " 
 
 '' I didn't forget. I couldn't help it. I don't think 
 men like women to do things like that anyhow — not 
 before their very faces, at least — " 
 
 " Very well, if you think you know so much more 
 about men than I do. All the girls know more about 
 men than the married women nowadays, it seems. 
 No, you can keep the quarter, Nellie, I don't want it. 
 I gave it to you to tip the driver with, and I considered 
 
46 THE EUDDER 
 
 it gone from that moment, of course, so you may as 
 well keep it — " 
 
 Cook got up vdth a violence which he immediately 
 controlled, as he retreated from the window. " O 
 Lord ! '' he uttered under his breath. Then he looked 
 at his own vexed and dispirited face in the glass with 
 a wry smile. '^ Same old thing!" he said again, 
 wearily resigned. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THIS story wMcli, against all appearances so 
 far, is by no means the story of Mr. Mar- 
 shall Cook, must stick to that gentleman's 
 biography for a while yet ; long enough, at least, to 
 relate certain events of his career antedating Com- 
 mencement Day, 1904, at Cambridge College. He is 
 listed in ^YJlo's Who? and the year of his birth, 1858, 
 correctly given — with a space considerately left for 
 that of his death — together with some other relatively 
 unimportant information, as that his father's name 
 was Horace Cook, his mother's Anne Marshall, his 
 present place of residence Xew York City, etc. In his 
 native town, spite of its unimaginable growth and 
 change during the half-century since he was born, 
 there still remain some genealogically minded vet- 
 erans who will tell you upon inquiry : '^ Cook? Oh, 
 yes, he s one of that old Cook family. They're all 
 gone now, except himself. Well, of course, there are 
 Eleanor's girls, but one wouldn't call them Cools, you 
 know. He only had that one sister, Eleanor — Mrs. 
 Frank Maranda. Xot th is Mrs. Maranda, she's a sec- 
 ond wife. Eleanor's been dead for years.'' 
 
 Having got well started, the oldest inhabitant may 
 be led into further details ; as, for instance, that the 
 name Maranda which to many ears has a strongly 
 foreign sound, is, as a matter of fact, English or per- 
 haps Irish. At anv rate, Mr. Maranda came from 
 
 47 
 
48 THE RUDDER 
 
 Baltimore, and there was nothing foreign about him, 
 his family having been settled in America — the 
 United States, that is — for two or three generations. 
 He made a good deal of money in the insurance busi- 
 ness ; indeed, when he first came here, it was to man- 
 age the Middle- Western branch of the Baltimore Mu- 
 tual, and that, doubtless, was how he happened to get 
 so well acquainted with Horace Cook, who was in the 
 Tri-State Fire and Life for so long. Afterwards Mar- 
 anda married Eleanor ; they had the two children, just 
 those two girls, and then Eleanor died. That was 
 when Nellie — the older daughter, named for her 
 mother — was about ten years old. Sad, wasn't it? 
 Here very likely the oldest inhabitant — especially 
 if it happens to be a lady — will heave a sigh of relish, 
 and will then continue : " Nobody could blame Mr. 
 Maranda for marrying again, even though it was so 
 soon — only a year. What was he to do with those 
 poor little motherless children — and girls at that — 
 with his business on his mind, and no one to trust them 
 to — nothing but servants? A man is so helpless in 
 a case like that ! " It seems Mr. Maranda had no 
 feminine relatives, widowed or spinster sisters, 
 cousins or aunts, to step into the breach; none came 
 forward with such an offer, anyhow. Both grand- 
 parents on the Cook side had died shortly before 
 Eleanor. Marshall, then a lank seedy young fellow 
 who had a position with the Utopia Buggy Company 
 book-keeping and was no earthly good at it or at any- 
 thing else — people thought in those days — Marshall 
 Cook was living Avith the Marandas. The forlorn 
 household consisted of the two men, the two children, 
 fat little patient, quiet Fannie, and Nellie, a black- 
 browed youngster Avith a frightful temper, it was re- 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 49 
 
 ported. Who could blame Maranda, sure enough? 
 Besides, he behaved very sensibly. It was not as if 
 
 — the gossips remarked to one another approvingly 
 
 — he had gone off and got some flighty, frivolous, ig- 
 norant and self -occupied young girl, with a pretty 
 face, and nothing behind it. No, he made a suitable 
 and dignified match. The second wife was Juliet 
 Morehead, a woman of his own age — some people said 
 a trifle older — a very bright woman besides being a 
 sweet, lovely character, as was shown by the way she 
 took hold of and administered the house, and mothered 
 the little girls. She never had any children of her 
 own, but she certainly was a model step-mother. 
 That notoriously difficult position was not made any 
 easier for her by Nellie Maranda, the one ^v^th the tem- 
 per, it was sometimes rumoured ; Fannie, on the other 
 hand, probably never gave her any trouble. Fannie 
 was devoted to " Aunt Juliet " — as well she might be, 
 and Nellie too ! Mrs. Maranda — they said — did 
 everything for those girls, everything ; even after 
 Frank Maranda's death, even after she had that at- 
 tack of nervous prostration which left her a more or 
 less helpless invalid for the rest of her life, she kept 
 on living with them and " doing " for them. This, 
 too, in face of the fact that she had that shiftless 
 brother, Homer Morehead, on her hands and was 
 understood to be constantly " doing '^ for him and his 
 family, too. 
 
 For Juliet had the Morehead money. It was on 
 account of the manifest shiftlessness of his son, 
 Homer, that old Judge Morehead left almost all of his 
 comfortable fortune to his daughter. The wisdom of 
 this arrangement was proved by the fact that Homer 
 ran through his share in no time at all, while Juliet 
 
50 THE KUDDER 
 
 always held on to hers. If it had not been for her, 
 nobody knows what would have become of Homer — 
 or the Maranda girls either, as Juliet herself used to 
 say with a laugh. She always made light of what she 
 did for them — she was of a sunny, kindly, generous 
 ' disposition. " Everybody says I'd give away my head, 
 if it wasn't fastened on ! " she often told Fannie and 
 Nellie gaily. Yes, it was fortunate for all parties 
 concerned that Juliet had money, not only because of 
 Homer, the improvident and do-less, with his large, 
 improvident, do-less family, but because when Mr. 
 Maranda died some five years after this second mar- 
 riage, he left so little. He had made a handsome in- 
 come, but they must have lived up to it fully. There 
 were some bonds for Nellie and Fannie; the girls had 
 perhaps five hundred a year between them, and the 
 Church Street house, it was discovered, stood in their 
 names. 
 
 '^ They can't live on that^ of course — / shall have 
 to provide for them. But they have this home, and 
 their income will dress them both nicely — with what 
 I give them," Mrs. Juliet told all their friends, in her 
 open way. She believed in being open, insisted on ab- 
 solute frankness and truthfulness above all else. '' It 
 would put you girls in such a bad light to outsiders if 
 they saw you extravagantly dressed when they all 
 know how dependent you are," she pointed out to them 
 wisely and kindly. '' That w^as the reason I thought 
 I ought to tell Mrs. Boynton myself that that elegant 
 wrap Fannie was wearing was one of mine that I gave 
 her the other day. I told her about it's being a new 
 one that I'd only worn once or twice. Fan. I wasn't 
 going to have her going around saying that you wore 
 my old cast-off clothes. She seemed to think it per- 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 51 
 
 fectly wonderful that I would give away anything so 
 handsome as that, but I said to her: 'Why, Mrs. 
 Boynton, I love to give things to the girls. They're 
 just the same as my own children, and don't you know 
 that a mother's greatest delight is in making sacri- 
 fices for her children — particularly if they are daugh- 
 ters? I Jove to do for the girls.' I didn't think any- 
 thing of it; you know it's just the way I do all the 
 time. I never put on anything, or pretend to be any- 
 thing but what I am. But you ought to have seen 
 Mrs. Boynton! She was so touched that her face 
 flushed and her eyes filled up. She said : ' Oh, Mrs. 
 Maranda, you're simply the best woman I know ! ' 
 Wasn't that ridiculous ! " 
 
 "Yes, wasn't it!" Nellie agreed promptly and 
 pleasantly — but somehow not entirely to Mrs. Mar- 
 anda's satisfaction. She felt a vague discomfiture, a 
 vague resentment, and said to herself irrelevantly that 
 it didn't make any difference how much she did for 
 them, Nellie was perfectly unappreciative ! 
 
 The melancholy and discreditable truth is that Miss 
 Eleanor Maranda, even at the very beginning when she 
 was a mere child, refused, sometimes tacitly by those 
 actions that speak louder than words, sometimes — 
 when she flew into one of her rages — a haute voix, 
 with sharp and singularly well-aimed speeches, to join 
 in the chorus of praise and admiration raised by 
 everybody else around her step-mother. She evaded 
 Mrs. Maranda's profuse caresses, and never made the 
 slightest motion towards returning them, she declined 
 to say she loved the new mother, declined in so many 
 words to believe that the new mother loved her, de- 
 clined to obey her, would have declined to have any- 
 thing to do with her at all, had that course been pos- 
 
52 THE RUDDER 
 
 sible. As she grew older, the corrective discipline she 
 incurred — and undoubtedly deserved — seemed in- 
 deed to develop another spirit in the girl, but one to- 
 tally different from what might have been expected, 
 and still intractable; she was neither sulky nor sub- 
 missive ; she did not fawn, she did not rebel ; her man- 
 ner toward the older woman crystallised into a kind of 
 hard and brilliant civility with which no one could 
 reasonably have found fault, yet which at times con- 
 trived to be more offensive than the grossest ill-breed- 
 ing. "You treat me just as if I were a stranger! " 
 Mrs. Maranda complained with tears. " Don't you 
 want me to be as polite to you as I would be to a 
 stranger?" inquired Nellie evenly. The other found 
 herself without a retort, and that naturally aggravated 
 the grievance; for not the least irritating quality of 
 Nellie's manner was that it suggested cleverness. If 
 there must be people who dislike us, we would rather 
 they should be notoriously dull people ; somehow, any 
 display of intelligence or good taste on their part, in 
 other directions, affronts us ! Perhaps Mrs. Maranda, 
 notwithstanding the sweet pride in and affection for 
 the two girls, about which her friends were continually 
 lauding her, was not too well-pleased when the same 
 friends with the best intentions in the world, brought 
 her reports of Nellie's brightness in class, Nellie's un- 
 deniable grace and good looks, Nellie's quickness of 
 tongue and sense of humour. " Yes, she is not at all 
 an ordinary girl — rather difficulty sometimes, you 
 know," she would permit herself to say with a signifi- 
 cant sigh. And the visitor, remembering those tales 
 of Nellie's temper — true tales they were, too ! — 
 would go away moved and wondering at Mrs. Mar- 
 anda's patience and unselfishness — Mrs. Maranda 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 53 
 
 herself used to wonder at her own patience and un- 
 selfishness for that matter. 
 
 For Nellie icas difficult. Letting alone that unkind 
 and groundless prejudice against her father's second 
 wife, letting alone that capacity for making herself 
 disagreeable already described, the girl was full of the 
 strangest whims — whims of laughing over things in- 
 comprehensibly non-humorous to Mrs. Maranda, and 
 on the other hand of crying in the wrong place for the 
 wrong reason. Though, as has been seen, she must 
 have been cold-hearted in the extreme to have treated 
 her step-mother as she did, Nellie could be inordinately 
 tender to such unresponsive creatures as her animal 
 pets ; she would be forever bringing in orphan kittens, 
 mangy dogs, trapped sparrows off the street and tend- 
 ing them and ministering to them by the hour ; she was 
 even known to have stopped deliberately outside a 
 saloon (of all places I) where some drayman's team 
 happened to be standing, and washed off the horses' 
 sweaty collar-sore necks in the watering-trough! 
 Mrs. Juliet was very properly scandalised; she read 
 Nellie a long and — for once — a severe lecture. 
 " This is no more than what your dear father would 
 have said to you. . . .'' ^' I am only anxious to pre- 
 vent your thoughtlessly bringing disgTace on his name. 
 . . .'' ^' When a girl makes herself common in such a 
 way, people naturally blame those who have brought 
 her up. . . .'' ^' I shall have a great deal of trouble 
 explaining this conduct of yours to outsiders. Try to 
 remember that when you have any of these T\ild im- 
 pulses. Just say to yourself: 'It will give Aunt 
 Juliet trouble, and which is the more unkind, to let 
 this horse or cow or whatever it is go, or to give some- 
 body trouble? ' Just ask yourself that, Eleanor, and 
 
54 THE RUDDER 
 
 I'm sure you won't ever do anything coarse or unlady- 
 like again. . . .'' These are a few excerpts from Mrs. 
 Maranda's gentle and judicious remarks; and she 
 wound up by announcing with firmness : " I believe 
 in being kind to dumb animals, but there is such a 
 thing as carrying kindness to extremes, and I will 
 have to say to you, Eleanor, that I will not have any 
 more of those nasty, dirty pets of yours in my house." 
 
 " In whose house? " said Nellie, with her deadly 
 smoothness. And there was a silence while Mrs. 
 Maranda's justifiable wrath, her justifiably hurt feel- 
 ings gathered head. 
 
 ^' I don't think that you would live in your house 
 ( since you are so bent upon having me understand that 
 it is your house) very long without me, Eleanor," she 
 said with a reproachful dignity. " Aren't you your- 
 self forgetting something? It costs a good deal for 
 all of us to live here, Nellie." 
 
 " That's just what I was thinking ! It costs you so 
 much, and you don't really have to do it. Fannie and 
 I and Uncle Marsh could scratch along somehow, and 
 in conscience nobody could blame you if you went and 
 lived with your dear brother. They need help more, 
 and they are ever so much nicer than we are — or than 
 / am, at any rate. You wouldn't have the responsi- 
 bility of me any longer, and instead of only Fannie 
 to wait on you, there would be all the Morehead chil- 
 dren, and they are seven, aren't they? They were at 
 last accounts. Only one Fannie and seven dear, 
 sweet, loving nephews and nieces : Ella and Louise 
 and Jamie and Caroline and — what's the name of 
 the one with the hare-lip? — Douglas? David's the 
 baby, I believe — " 
 
 " I will not stay here to be insulted this way ! " said 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 55 
 
 Mrs. Maranda, and got up trembling with the im- 
 potent anger which Nellie seemed to know how to 
 arouse in her, even by a method at once so bizarre and 
 so simple as the enumeration of Homer s children. 
 She rustled to the door, clutching blindly at the 
 knob. " Where is Fannie? Tell Fannie to come to 
 me and bring the aromatic spirits of ammonia — '' 
 
 " And there would be Mrs. Homer, too — your dear 
 sister-in-law that you're so fond of,'' Nellie went on, 
 callously smiling. ^' You know you'd love to live 
 with her — " 
 
 But Mrs. Maranda was gone. Strange to relate, 
 Nellie could rout her at any time by these references. 
 Yet few of us would consider ourselves " insulted " 
 by the mention of our relatives in terms so amiable. 
 Homer Morehead, it was true, had in the everyday 
 phrase '^ married beneath him.'' He married a cham- 
 bermaid in some third-rate hotel down town, having 
 first met her, gossip unkindly reported, when she was 
 taking care of him during a prolonged spell of sober- 
 ing up after an equally prolonged spree. By this 
 time, fifteen years had gone over; the pretty girl of 
 those days was now a fat„ blowsy, loud, good-natured 
 slattern ; there was a houseful of fat, loud, slatternly 
 girls, and unkempt louts of boys. From a visit there, 
 one came away with weird memories of smells of 
 cooking and cheap perfumery commingled ; of sounds 
 of doors banging, dishes clattering, the piano metal- 
 lically discoursing rag-time airs; of the sight of 
 plusli picture-frames, the parlour fire-place densely 
 smoking, Mrs. Homer in a dress with grease-spots 
 down the front and the placket-hole open. Brother 
 or no brother, it would have been impossible for some 
 people to exist in such an environment; but Mrs. 
 
56 THE EUDDER 
 
 Maranda, as slie often said, would gladly have gone 
 to live with the Moreheads, so as to help them along, 
 only for the fact that in her invalid state, she would 
 have been merely an added care in that already care- 
 burdened household. '^ They can't keep any servant, 
 of course, and a person who is laid on the shelf as 
 I have to be, can't help but be a care, I know that. 
 I do all I can for them in other ways,'' Mrs. Juliet 
 would explain to a circle of sympathising admirers. 
 She was absolutely honest; she believed every w^ord 
 she uttered. Nellie perversely chose to disbelieve; 
 but even so, why should the above innocent-sounding 
 speeches have irritated the older lady, affectionate 
 and self-sacrificing sister that she was? Impossible 
 to guess. 
 
 For a grateful contrast, Fannie Maranda was never 
 known to say a word or behave in any way that was 
 not dutiful, obedient, and becoming to her name and 
 upbringing. She was as pretty in the blond colour- 
 ing as Nellie in the dark, her features even more 
 nearly regular and neatly outlined ; and — to keep on 
 with the comparison — if she was not quite so clever 
 as the older sister, she was still quite clever enough — 
 " whenever she had the chance," the other girls of 
 their set would sometimes add. According to them, 
 the main thing she lacked w^as some odd, purely phys- 
 ical quality of brightness which Nellie most markedly 
 possessed ; they called it ^^ styles' with impressive em- 
 phasis, whenever they tried to give it a name at all, 
 and not infrequently pronounced the opinion that 
 Fannie would show it, too — " if she ever had a 
 chance." Pressed to explain this more or less ob- 
 scure utterance, the young things were generally at 
 fault; they could not say exactly what it was that 
 
THE EETURN OF THE NATIVE 57 
 
 made Fannie so different from everybody else, espe- 
 cially from her own sister; they vigorously denied 
 that Nellie eclipsed her intentionally or not ; it would 
 seem that Fannie deliberately preferred the shadow. 
 She stayed at home a great deal; she said she didn't 
 care to go out; whenever you went there she was al- 
 ways busy, reading to Mrs. Maranda, or doing some 
 sewing ; Fannie was " aw^f ully devoted " to Mrs. Mar- 
 anda. Nellie wasn't — Nellie was, well, you know, 
 more original , But Fannie w^as just as sweet as 
 could be, and she'd have a good time, if anybody ever 
 let her have a chance! 
 
 And what, all the w^hile, was Mr. Marshall Cook 
 doing in this galere? Nothing of any importance — 
 nothing at all, from his sister-in-law's point of view, 
 although he went do^^Ti to the office every morning 
 and came home every night, and paid his board punc- 
 tually, and had no bills or bad habits ; and, in short, 
 conducted himself like any other respectable gentle- 
 man of her acquaintance, except in the matter of his 
 taste for letters. Mrs. Juliet used to inveigh com- 
 passionately against his spending so much time over 
 those stories and " things " he was always trying to 
 write. '^ It takes genius to w^rite anything, you know, 
 Marshall. And I don't believe even the geniuses 
 make much of a living at it ; it must be so precarious. 
 They can't ever be sure that what they write is going 
 to sell or not. Of course, if you could only w^ite 
 something good the magazines w^ould take it; but to 
 earn anything like a steady income, you'd have to keep 
 on writing good things, and that would be a fearful 
 strain. As it is, you keep on sending those things and 
 sending them, and the editors send them straight 
 back ; and there's all that time wasted, that you can't 
 
58 THE RUDDER 
 
 ever bring back ! You might be doing something use- 
 ful or improving yourself ; at least you ought to stick 
 to your book-keeping.'' 
 
 ^^ I believe I do stick to my book-keeping/' said 
 Marshall. 
 
 " Oh, yes. But you know what I mean ; your head 
 is full of this other thing all the time — " 
 
 " Not during office-hours ! " said Marshall ; and he 
 added with determined good-humour : " Come now, 
 Juliet, if I choose to fritter away my spare hours 
 writing, it's very sad to witness, of course, but you 
 don't need to have it on your mind. I'm willing for 
 you to tell me how to do my duty, but why not let me 
 take my pleasure my own way? " 
 
 " I don't see how it can be any pleasure to you to 
 work so hard over those stories and then have them 
 all sent back time after time," said the lady reason- 
 ably. " You know you can keep books. I'd rather 
 be a good book-keeper than a failure writing stories ; 
 it would be more dignified. It's not just my ow^n 
 judgment, either, Marshall, everyljody says the same 
 thing." 
 
 Marshall let her have the last word; in fact, what 
 was there for him to say? There were moments when 
 the young fellow — he was still a young fellow at this 
 time — felt a depressing conviction that she was right. 
 The only defence he had was the fact of his being, 
 contrary to popular belief, a very good book-keeper. 
 He had enough intelligence and humour to realise that 
 the book-keeping was his sheet-anchor to windward, 
 and the strength of character to hold to it, at all 
 events until he could be fairly certain of an equal 
 independence following the trade of his choice; even 
 then, book-keeping might still be an anchor in re- 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 59 
 
 serve, so to sj^eak. " If literature fails, there is al- 
 ways the wood-pile/' he would quote, resolutely light- 
 hearted. The office-desk was Marshall's wood-pile; 
 the hours he put in earning his hundred dollars a 
 month balanced, he thought, those other hours of 
 arduous idleness, Sundays, holidays, long, toilsome, 
 delightful niglits. In justice to him, it ought to be 
 said that he never took himself too seriously ; he was 
 always ready to make sport of his fruitless efforts. 
 It was partly because that seemed to him the most un- 
 assailable pose; be yourself the first one to laugh at 
 yourself. After such conversations as the above with 
 Mrs. Maranda, he would go and start an essay . . . 
 " Failure imposes no responsibilities ; so that to fail 
 
 — within limits — is to lead the most easy-going and 
 independent of lives. Success buys a man's freedom, 
 and by a masterstroke of irony, impoverishes him at 
 the same time . . ." and so forth, in as near an imita- 
 tion as he could compass of Stevenson, Bacon, Mon- 
 taigne, whomsoever he happened to have been reading 
 last. Mercy on us, what a deskful of lyrics, sonnets, 
 sketches, stories, critical and philosophical disserta- 
 tions accumulated before Success began simultane- 
 ously to reward and impoverish him I His room — 
 it was not then the pink and white shell in which we 
 have since beheld him but a prosaic apartment ^^th a 
 little sheet-iron gas-stove and a black walnut bureau 
 
 — would have overflowed with manuscripts, had he 
 not been a man of methodical and old-maidish habits. 
 As Mrs. Maranda pointed out, the literary productions 
 invariably returned. ^' In the economy of creation — 
 my creation — nothing is ever destroyed. It only 
 changes its form I " Cook would say with Spartan 
 laughter, as he burned them up, one by one. 
 
60 THE EUDDER 
 
 He must have been hard upon thirty years old be- 
 fore he achieved recognition — reputation would be 
 too large a word. Eleanor was seventeen or so when 
 her uncle went to New York to live. " All the best 
 talent in the country gravitates to New York sooner 
 or later, you know/' Mrs. Maranda explained to that 
 part of the public which now suddenly began to take 
 an interest in Marshall Cook. She herself had al- 
 ways done so, always believed in his powers, always 
 encouraged him, she said — and sincerely thought. 
 Her gTatification at seeing Marshall's name and work 
 in print, actually bought and paid for, was not the 
 less kind and genuine for being coupled with a naive 
 astonishment. " It does seem wonderful, doesn't it? 
 But I alwaj^s said you had it in you, Marshall. / 
 knew you would amount to something some day, in 
 spite of what everybody else said," she proclaimed 
 with pride. Cook laughed and Nellie laughed too, 
 with disproportionate heartiness, it seemed to Mrs. 
 Maranda, who had spoken without humorous intent; 
 but it was only natural for Marshall to be in good 
 spirits, she reflected, and as for Nellie, the girl was 
 forever copying him. 
 
 So Mr. Cook went; and he did not come back, ex- 
 cept for short and infrequent visits. By the facts 
 that he was noticeably spruce in appearance on these 
 and on other occasions w^hen people ran across him in 
 New York, that he never seemed to be at all low in 
 pocket, was known to have travelled mdely, had a 
 new novel out every year or so, and sent Nellie and 
 Fannie, of whom he was fond in his way, generous 
 presents which the girls freely talked about and 
 showed — by these facts, the community surmised 
 that Marshall Cook had " made good." And when he 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 61 
 
 wrote that volume of picaresque tales containing the 
 perfectly dreadful one called The Adventure of Silvio 
 and the Fair Venetian, the one that was dramatised 
 afterwards, and the Public Morals League used in- 
 fluence with the major to prevent its being produced 
 — when that happened, I say, everybody knew that 
 Marshall Cook had definitely "arrived/' and was 
 probably on the road to fortune! 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 DINNER went off without incident, Cook ac- 
 cepting and discharging the role of domestic 
 hero with the good grace he could always 
 command. The little man remembered earlier days 
 when his comfort and approval had not been so 
 strenuously sought after with an amusement en- 
 tirely humane. " ' I was not ever thus . . . but 
 now — ow ! ' '' he quoted at himself with gusto. He 
 thought all three women presented feminine types 
 well worth study. " What would happen if I should 
 fall to swearing at the servant, and calling the coffee 
 slop?" he speculated inwardly. "Why, nothing at 
 all, probably I Juliet would simply bow before the 
 familiar manifestation of the Eternal Male; she might 
 even be a little proud of her acquaintance with the 
 artistic temperament en deshahille! Poor Fannie 
 would go away and cry — quietly in a corner where 
 I couldn't see her. Eleanor — well, Eleanor is much 
 more of a problem. She might fly out and tell me I 
 was a coarse brute; she might rend me with deft 
 sarcasm ; or she might — yes, she actually might put 
 her neck under my heel! Even intelligent women 
 seem to have that extraordinary liking for masculine 
 tyranny — " 
 
 His sister-in-law unconsciously interrupted. " I 
 don't want the tenderloin, Marshall," she cried out 
 energetically from her end of the table. " I never 
 have allowed myself to get into that selfish, mean 
 
 \)2 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE G3 
 
 liabit of having dainties cooked up for me separately, 
 or taking the choicest bits on the dish. You take it, 
 take that piece you just cut, and give me off of the sir- 
 loin side. I don't care whether I'm sick or well, I 
 simply tcon't be pampered.'' 
 
 '^ It isn't everybody that has your power of self- 
 sacrifice and self-control," said Cook, helping himself 
 obediently. 
 
 " No, that's what people are always telling me. 
 They seem to think it so wonderful in a person as sick 
 as I have been for so long. / don't think anything of 
 it at all! It's perfectly natural to me to be that 
 way. Too funny ! — Mattie, that's our scrubwoman 
 that we have to come in and clean every now and then, 
 was here the other day to do the curtains, and Fannie 
 wheeled my chair out in the yard so that I could give 
 directions, and right in the middle of putting the cur- 
 tains on the frames, Mattie stof>ped short and said: 
 * Well, Mis' M'randa ' — that's the way she talks, you 
 know — ^you sut'n'y is wunnerful, settin' there in 
 that sick-chair, jes' runnin' ev'thing lak you was as 
 strong as anybody ! ' ^ Nothing wonderful about it, 
 Mattie,' I said. ^ I just make up my mind to do it I ' 
 She said just what you said just now, Marshall, that's 
 what made me think of her — ^ Well, Mis' M'randy, 
 there sut'n'y ain't many lak you. You is got more 
 will-power than anybody I ever saw.' " 
 
 "You're vindicated. Uncle Marsh," said Eleanor. 
 "Mattie's a judge. It's something for you to be in 
 Mattie's class." 
 
 "Wasn't that the telephone?" Fannie interposed 
 hastily ; she looked from her uncle to her sister ^ith 
 troubled, appealing blue eyes. Perhaps luckily, the 
 telephone had indeed begun to ring; Nellie jumped up^ 
 
€4 THE RUDDER 
 
 quite as a matter of course, it appeared, to answer it. 
 The instrument stood on a table in tlie hall whence 
 they could presently hear her end of the conversation, 
 light exclamations, laughter, subtle catchwords im- 
 I^enetrable to the layman, but evidently of some deep, 
 ridiculous import — it was charmingly silly and 
 youthful and gay. 
 
 " That does remind me so much of the times when 
 you were at home, Marshall," said Mrs. Juliet, with 
 a reminiscent sigh. ^^ Don't you remember how Eliza 
 Grace used to call you up and talk forever? And 
 then you'd call her up and talk forever! I had to 
 tell you that you oughtn't to use the telephone all day 
 long like that. Don't you remember how I used to 
 tell you?" 
 
 " Yes. You told me," said the author. Innocent 
 words enough, but Fannie looked worried again ; pos- 
 sibly Mrs. Maranda detected some note of warning 
 which she interpreted after her own fashion. 
 
 " Oh, I didn't mean — " she checked herself. 
 ^^ Bessie Grace isn't married yety did you know? " 
 she said, with a kind of elaborate avoidance of signifi- 
 cance. " She must be every day of thirty-five. Those 
 same beautiful teeth, though, still." 
 
 " Thirty-five would be a little early to install false 
 ones, wouldn't it? " said Marshall, fairly moved to 
 laughter against his will. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know that — I was only trying to give 
 you some idea of how little she has changed. You'd 
 know her at once." 
 
 " I daresay I would. I see Miss Grace sometimes 
 at that summer place they have down on Long Island. 
 I go down there once in a while — weak-ends, you 
 know." 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 65 
 
 '^ Oh! '' said Mrs. Maranda, somewhat taken aback; 
 then she laughed amiably. " Well, I might have 
 known J if I had stopped to think. It's a very hand- 
 some place, isn't it? They have vso much money. 
 After all, it's no wonder Bessie's never married. She 
 could always have everything she w^anted anyhow. 
 She doesn't need to marry." 
 
 Cook privately uttered an ejaculation much in the 
 style of those he had recently uttered, but to quite an- 
 other power, shocking to relate. " Oh, — I Same old 
 thing ! " he thought fiercely. He even began aloud : 
 " I really don't believe Miss Grace — " but having by 
 the time he got that far, got himself in hand again, 
 and into his inveterate mood of ironic contemplation, 
 he let the speech merge unobtrusively, as it w^ere, into 
 a sip of coffee. Why should he take up the cudgels 
 in behalf of Bessie Grace? Silence would serve hei* 
 better; and as to himself, silence invariably served 
 Mm best in Mrs. Maranda's company. 
 
 Nellie came back just then, bright-eyed, with a 
 higher pink in her clear, dark cheeks, smiling a little 
 consciously, even defiantly, as she met their inquir- 
 ing looks. " It was Mr. Loring," she said to Cook, 
 slipping into her chair. '' He said he was going to 
 telephone, you know — " She paused expectantly, 
 and then, as nobody had anything to say, added: 
 " He wants to take us out to-morrow afternoon in his 
 machine." 
 
 " Us? " repeated her uncle. " You mean you girls." 
 
 " Oh, I can't go," said Fannie nervously. " I've 
 got to finish something I'm doing. I don't want to 
 go." 
 
 " I Mion't suppose he really expects my company or 
 yours. Fan," Mrs. Maranda said, beginning to laugh. 
 
66 THE RUDDER 
 
 " I never go anywhere, and you liate the wind and 
 dust so. He must have known it was perfect!}^ safe 
 to include us/^ 
 
 "He said everybody/' said Nellie belligerently. 
 " Fannie doesn't take the time to go automobiling 
 often enough to find out whether she minds the wind 
 and dust or not — '' 
 
 ^^ Don^t, Nell, please! '^ Fannie said in an under- 
 tone. 
 
 Nellie didn't; that is to say, she at once moderated 
 her voice and manner to the formidable politeness she 
 had cultivated. It had the air of having been ac- 
 quired from Cook himself by inheritance or associa- 
 tion or direct imitation, for it was at these moments 
 that she most resembled him. 
 
 " Oh, yes, Fannie, I forgot," she said, earnestly peni- 
 tent ; " you w^ant to get that embroidered waist 3^ou>e 
 making for Aunt Juliet done. That's important — 
 yes, you ought to stay at home and finish that, by all 
 means — " 
 
 " But I leant to — I like it — " said the other girl 
 vehemently. She altered her form of adjuration, 
 glancing apologetically at her uncle. " Now, Nellie, 
 do — ! Isn't she funny. Uncle Marshall ? She thinks 
 everybody hates sewing because she does." 
 
 " Any one would suppose, to hear Eleanor, that I 
 made a slave of Fannie," said Mrs. Maranda, indig- 
 nantly. " She ivill do it, Marshall. I try my best 
 to stop her, but she will do it. You love to sew for 
 me, don't you. Fan? " 
 
 " Why, of course I do. Aunt Juliet. And besides, 
 I'd like to see anybody make me if I didn't want to ! " 
 Fannie asserted with prodigious spirit. " Don't be 
 such a goosie, Nell! I'd rather be sitting here nice 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 67 
 
 and cool and quiet than tearing aroimd a whole after- 
 noon in all this heat and dust in somebody's old 
 automobile I " 
 
 ^' There! You see, Marshall I" said Mrs. Maranda 
 triumphantly. " Fan and I understand each other, 
 don't we? " She stretched out her hand, and squeezed 
 her niece's affectionately. 
 
 " Besides, it's just as Aunt Juliet says,'' Fannie 
 went on; ^' I don't believe Mr. Loring expects me for 
 one minute." 
 
 Eleanor eyed her sister with a peculiar expression, 
 seeing which Cook thought it high time to intervene 
 mth the suggestion that Amzi Two hardly seemed to 
 be enough of a diplomat for the behaviour ascribed to 
 him. " At any rate, Fve been asked, and Fm going 
 just as if I thought he meant it ! '' he declared. " How 
 about you, Nellie? " 
 
 " Oh, I accepted right away. I don't care a thing 
 about doing my duty ; I'm going to have a good time," 
 said Nellie, incomprehensibly. She kept on, overrid- 
 ing Fannie's low-voiced prayer, '^ Please j Nellie — I " 
 " You know, Uncle Marshall, I think that's so good 
 that you make the old watch-mender, old John Deer- 
 ing say — in The Wagon and The Star^ you know? 
 — where you make him say : ^ You do your duty and 
 you'll be made a convenience of. That's all doing 
 your duty ever gets you I ' I think that's so good I '' 
 
 '' Thank you," said Marshall, ^\dth a slight grin. 
 " Personally though, it's my belief that there may be 
 a certain spiritual satisfaction to be got out of it. 
 Shall we return to our mutton? What time is young 
 Mr. Loring coming for us? " 
 
 ^' About four o'clock. But — " Nellie hesitated; 
 then she explained precipitately, as if to hurry it over 
 
68 THE EUDDER 
 
 and be done with it, that she believed the invitation 
 came in part from old Mr. Loring — " The other one, 
 the young one, said his father thought you — you 
 might like to go through one of their plants/' the girl 
 finished with some diffidence. 
 
 ^^ One of their plants? Their ice factories? Do 
 you mean to say they have more than one? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. They have a chain — they call it a chain, 
 you know. It's — it's a trade term, I daresay," said 
 Nellie still diffidently, reddening. ^^ Don't laugh, 
 Uncle Marsh ! " 
 
 " I'm not laughing. I'm lost in admiration of that 
 figure of speech. A chain of ice factories! It's 
 stupendous ; it gives you some idea of what it must be 
 to be an ice-king. One? I want to see the whole 
 what-d'ye-call-it — the parure — " 
 
 " I don't see what there is so funny about it — 
 you're just teasing, Uncle Marsh. You know I 
 couldn't help saying you'd love to go. They — they 
 w^ant to show you some attention — they only want 
 to be nice," Nellie protested hotly. For this one time 
 she did not avail herself of the arsenal of barbed little 
 ironies she ordinarily kept at hand. All at once her 
 small squared chin quivered ; her lips that were oddly 
 and attractively squared at the corners quivered so 
 that she had trouble to manage the words. " They're 
 so interested in their business they think it must 
 be interesting to everybody. I think it's fine for 
 anybody to feel that way. It's — it's so big and 
 "inanly! '^ 
 
 "Why, of course, Nell — I understand. It's all 
 right for Mr. Loring to be proud of his work and to 
 like to show it off to people; that's the w^ay a man 
 ought to feel," said Cook, contrite, surprised, remotely 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 69 
 
 disquieted. " I wasn't making fun of him. It is 
 very nice of him to want to entertain me. To be 
 sure, I don't know — " he stopped and fingered his 
 napkin an instant. " I don't know much about 
 machinery. Hope I won't seem abysmally dull when 
 they try to explain things to me," he ended fluently 
 enough, although that was not what he had set out 
 to say. " I don't know why they should exert them- 
 selves to this extent on my account,'' was the remark 
 first on his lips ; but at that very moment some glim- 
 mering perception of their reasons — or of young 
 Amzi's reasons, at least — entered Mr. Cook's mind. 
 Not for naught had he been writing novels for ten 
 years, and studying his fellow-man for an even longer 
 time. But it was neither of the Amzis, father or son, 
 who disquieted the eminent man of letters ; it was his 
 niece Eleanor. 
 
 However, the next day when at the torrid hour of 
 mid-afternoon he had named — in fact, twenty min- 
 utes in advance of it — young Mr. Loring and the 
 shutf and another automobile, a light grey one this 
 time of equal size but still more magnificent appoint- 
 ments, drew up before the house, Miss Maranda was 
 not only unprepared, but kept the equipage waiting 
 until long past the time agreed on in the coolest and 
 most approved style. Cook, on his way downstairs, 
 glanced into the shaded room where his sister-in-law, 
 in a white lawn neglige, effervescing with ruffles, lace 
 edges and knots of lavender ribbon, was disposed on 
 the chaise longue ; in a chair near by Fannie bent over 
 more sheer white stuff, laces and ribbons mounded in 
 her lap. Since luncheon, they had occupied these 
 positions, a gentle monotone of instruction, advice^ 
 critical comment flowing from the older lady. 
 
70 THE KUDDER 
 
 " Better change your mind and come along with us, 
 Fannie," said Cook, halting at the threshold. 
 
 ^' Oh, she hasn't got time to get dressed now," Mrs. 
 Maranda called out. " I don't think it would be wise 
 for Fannie to go out in this heat anyhow, I'm glad 
 she decided not to. It's not very safe for stout peo- 
 ple to go out in the sun. I'd have been worried to 
 death if Fannie had gone." 
 
 Cook stepped inside the room. " I should think 
 you'd be tired," he said, standing over the girl's chair. 
 "What's that you're doing? Ripping something? 
 You can't see in this light, Fannie, you'll put your 
 eyes out." He made a motion to raise the curtain, but 
 Mrs. Maranda arrested him with a high sound of 
 protest. 
 
 ''Don't! Don't let that blaze of sunlight in here, 
 Marshall ! You've forgotten that window faces west. 
 We'd be broiled to a crisp. All Fannie needs is a 
 little light on her hands, barely enough to see to cut 
 the threads. Men are the funniest things when they 
 undertake to tell women how to work ! " she remarked 
 in accents of humorous vexation. " You aren't tired, 
 are you, Fannie? " 
 
 '^3Ief No, indeed!" said Fannie, with cheerful 
 emphasis. She straightened up, drawing a breath of 
 relief, pushing her rumpled fair hair from off her fore- 
 head with the back of her hand. In the semi-dark her 
 face looked pale above her limp, stringy, white blouse. 
 " I wish I hadn't sewed this quite so carefully, that's 
 all ! " she said, ruefully smiling. " It makes it just 
 that much harder to take apart." 
 
 "Why take it apart, then?" her uncle wanted to 
 know. He lifted up a section of the garment warily. 
 It seemed to him an arabesque of strips of lace and 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 71 
 
 embroidery; there were numberless small hooks and 
 eyes, and groups of tiny tucks crossed and re-crossed 
 one another in complex reticulations. " It looks very 
 gorgeous to me.'' 
 
 " Well, it turaed out not quite what Aunt Juliet 
 wanted. She thought of something else — " 
 
 " Oh, it's given us no end of trouble," Mrs. Maranda 
 explained. '^ Fannie's had to rip it all up, every 
 stitch, twice before this. It simply irouJdn't fit com- 
 fortably. Finally the other day, I thought out a way 
 to get it right at last, so we went at it again, tooth and 
 nail. We've got it now, I'm sure. The third time's 
 the charm, you know." 
 
 " I see. It must be nice to work for you, Juliet, 
 you always seem to have so many ideas about how 
 to do things," said Cook. 
 
 Fannie spoke quickly. " It's not like icorh, you 
 know. Uncle Marshall. It's just sewing." 
 
 " Oh, I suppose se^dng does look like work to a 
 man,'^ said Mrs. Maranda with an indulgent laugh. 
 " I'm just like you, though. Fan, I never thought of 
 sewing as icork^ when I had my health. I don't think 
 Fan's as good at it as I used to be, but she does well 
 enough. I'd never find fault with Fannie's sewing." 
 
 " You never find fault anyhow. You just suggest 
 improvements, eh? " said Marshall, suavely. 
 
 " Come on, now, Fannie," he urged the girl again. 
 " Drop that and come with us.'' 
 
 *^ I cciivty Uncle Marshall. You go on yourself, and 
 don't mind me," Fannie said, ripping steadily. 
 
 " Good gracious, Marshall, don't nag the poor child 
 so I You mean it kindlv, but it gets to be verv wear- 
 ing," Mrs. Juliet mildly admonished him. 
 
 Cook obeyed, philosophically repeating his formula 
 
72 THE EUDDER 
 
 in private : " Same old thing ! " and wondering for 
 what was probably the thousandth time whether after 
 all it did not argue a certain pettiness of spirit in him- 
 self to be so irritated by things so petty. Nellie 
 joined him in crisp w^hite skirts, white shoes, a white 
 hat pinned at what he guessed to be the angle of ex- 
 treme smartness on her dead black hair and anchored 
 down by a white veil. Cook thought that he had 
 never seen anything more enticing than the fashion 
 in which this veil with its dots drew up snugly under 
 the girl's chin, the slack of it twisted with skill into a 
 little tight peak ; it was neat, captivating, irresistible. 
 He was sure no other woman could put on a veil in 
 exactly that way; yet like all the small adjustments 
 of Nellie's toilette, it was visibly uncalculated. That 
 w^as one of her strongest points, he reflected, that take- 
 it-or-leave-it integrity of good looks, that effortless 
 and unconscious distinction. Having awaited the 
 moment of Miss Maranda's farewells to her household 
 with some misgivings, he was more or less surprised 
 but fervently thankful when nothing untoward hap- 
 pened. Instead, Nellie came away with an ordinary 
 word or two, in a kind of happy preoccupation. 
 
 " Good-bye ! I suppose w^e'll be back about six or 
 half-past," she called out, smiled absently at her uncle 
 and walked out of the house and down the steps, but- 
 toning her gloves, with her eyes, which somehow 
 seemed bigger and brighter to-day than usual, fixed 
 on the automobile — or the young man by it — at the 
 gate. 
 
 Mr. Loring was slouching negligently against the 
 side of the car, hands in pockets, smoking one of his 
 fearsome cigars, with his hat tilted forward to ward 
 off the white hot sun ; and at their approach he did not 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 73 
 
 alter this attitude, merely remarking gruffly : " Hello ; 
 you're late ! " 
 
 " Really? '' said Nellie, meeting his scowl with a 
 piquant bravado. 
 
 He mimicked her. " Yeah ! ^ Really ' ! Say, you 
 may as well know it right now, when I say a quarter 
 to four to-day, I mean a quarter to four to-day. I 
 don't mean to-morrow morning at half -past ten." 
 
 Cook decided that this must be intended humor- 
 ously ; it must embody Amzi Two's ideas of the feath- 
 ery jocularities suited to the comprehension of the 
 opposite sex — '' But he had better look out how he 
 adopts that bullying tone wdth Eleanor, even in fun," 
 thought her uncle. Lo and behold, Eleanor took it 
 meekly as a lamb I 
 
 " Oh, I — I didn't know that it made any difference. 
 I didn't suppose we had to be so deadly punctual as 
 all that,'' she said, laughing deprecatingly, fingering 
 the little twist of her veil, lifting to him eyes full of 
 disarming appeal. Without a hint of coquetry, such 
 a look would have reduced the average young man to a 
 jelly-like state of acquiescence, of admiring submis- 
 sion; as a matter of fact, it did obviously so reduce 
 the chauffeur who caught it on the wing, so to speak, 
 and stared and coloured foolishly. The chauffeur, 
 by the way, had taken off his hat before her and stood 
 up straight, and altogether looked and acted ten times 
 more like a gentleman than his master, to Cook's mind. 
 Young Mr. Loring, for his part, remained unmoved, 
 to all outward seeming, at least ; to tell the truth, his 
 countenance was scarcely qualified to exhibit any emo- 
 tion readily or vividly. 
 
 "Didn't know, huh?" he inquired. He looked 
 away from her deliberately — but not without effort, 
 
74 THE EUDDER 
 
 Cook judged — then back. " Don't jou try any girly- 
 girly business like that. You're too smart for it any- 
 how." And now his eyes finally came to rest on her 
 with an expression that caused Cook hastily to avert 
 Ms own. Such a jumble of inconsistencies is the na- 
 ture of man that the writer of Silvio and the Fair 
 Venetian, besides being himself a person of good 
 moral character, was strongly of the opinion that 
 w^hat he called with a commendable vagueness " all 
 that sort of thing " ought to be confined strictly to fic- 
 tion; confronted with it in real life, it made him 
 ashamed. Nellie did not seem offended, her uncle no- 
 ticed ; but girls either do not understand " that sort 
 of thing," or think they must pretend not to under- 
 stand it, he reasoned inwardly. 
 
 He became aware that their host was addressins: 
 him. ^' Any time to-day! Just say u-Jien! It's not 
 more than hot enough to fry an egg right where you're 
 standing, but don't hurry yourself ! " young Amzi ob- 
 served in that vein of dainty irony which he had at 
 command. He was already established at the steer- 
 ing-wheel, with Nellie beside him ; she smiled over his 
 shoulder at her uncle with an odd sort of apologetic 
 gaiety. The chauffeur stood at attention in a killingly 
 stylish pose, one eye on the young lady ; Cook got in, 
 and they sped with giddy smoothness up the street. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ALL being fish that comes anywhere near the 
 nets of Mr. Cook's profession, he would not or- 
 dinarily have let slip the chance to get ac- 
 quainted with Garry and Garry's world afforded him 
 by this ride, throughout which he and the chauffeur, 
 sitting together in the back of the automobile, were 
 left to their own entertainment, and might have ex- 
 changed all sorts of confidences w^ithout interruption 
 or fear of being overheard by the other half of the 
 party. But his friendly purveyors of "material" 
 would have been concerned to know that, for once, 
 the novelist neglected that which was fairly under 
 his hand. He scarcely spoke to Garry and made no 
 attempt to draw the young man out ; furthermore, he 
 paid only scant attention to the landscape, the streets 
 and houses and public squares, parks, monuments 
 which indeed whizzed past at a gait unfavourable to 
 careful examination. Perhaps he noticed that there 
 had been few revolutionary alterations since his day ; 
 at any rate, they manifestly did not interest him. 
 He sat dumbly surveying the two pairs of shoulders 
 in front of him, these slim and elegantly turned, those 
 hulking like a prize-fighter's, with mounting perplex- 
 ity, distaste and reluctant apprehension. 
 
 ". . . In short, I was — and still am, for that mat- 
 ter — a prey to the gloomiest forebodings," Cook 
 later wrote to one of his intimates. " The phrase is 
 not new, it's barely possible you have seen it before; 
 
 75 
 
76 THE EUDDER 
 
 but it's beautiful language, and describes my state 
 of mind to a T. Nothing new either, or necessarily 
 alarming, about two young people falling in love with 
 each other — but if you could behold these together ! 
 It's incredible and true! You know my niece, and 
 though it is hardly likely that you have met the 
 young man, you may have seen him, as they tell me 
 he is now a neighbour of yours in the old Henderson 
 place. He is physically of an architecture not easily 
 overlooked — somewhere between Siegfried and John 
 L. Sullivan. I judge his intelligence finds itself in 
 very roomy quarters; in fact, I shouldn't wonder if 
 it knocked about quite loose. . . . That this great 
 oaf should be in love with Nellie is not surprising — 
 wouldn't be a matter of any consequence, really, but 
 for the stupefying fact that, unless all signs fail, Nel- 
 lie is in love with him! I repeat if you could see 
 them together, you would understand how the thing 
 can be at the same time incredible and true. It made 
 me think of Bottom and Titania. Girls are such 
 strange creatures — women are such strange crea- 
 tures — I hope you don't mind my saying that most 
 of you seem to have the most astounding, sometimes 
 appalling ideals — from a man's point of view — of 
 masculine good looks, and sense and behaviour. No 
 doubt Eleanor thinks young Loring gloriously big 
 and manly, gloriously capable of knocking her down 
 and beating her and tying her to the bedpost ! Well, 
 perhaps that sort of treatment would make her 
 happy; I feel sure that she would presently despise 
 any civil, decent fellow who was her obedient and 
 adoring slave. She wants a tyrant — or thinks she 
 does. . . . 
 
 " I am boring you to death about my niece. The 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 77 
 
 trutli is, I am fond of lier. . . . One thing is impor- 
 tant: do not suppose for a minute that Eleanor would 
 take him for the sake of the establishment, and trips 
 to Euroi^e and Paris millinery and limousines and all 
 that. She is not that kind; she could have set her- 
 self up long ago after that manner, had she chosen, 
 but I want you to believe that Nellie is too fine, too 
 high for any such squalid bargain. There has al- 
 ways been to me something splendid and flaming 
 about her spirit — like a new sword. . . . You will 
 think me a perfect mush of paternal sentiment, or 
 else you will accuse me, as you have before, of writ- 
 ing letters to you by way of literary exercise. . . ." 
 
 And so forth and so on. So strong is habit, it may 
 be Cook did half consciously turn and shape some of 
 the above sentences while he sat watching ; and listen- 
 ing — for shameful to admit, he did listen — when 
 scraps of the young people's talk floated back. 
 
 " You know you just wanted to keep me sticking 
 around waiting for you, to see how I'd stand it," he 
 heard young Amzi say acutely; "you were kind of 
 trying me out, now weren't you? " 
 
 Nellie gave him a glance cool and flashing as the 
 rapier to which her uncle likened her in his thought. 
 The little man saw it with a kind of tentative relief; 
 it was more natural, more like Nellie, than that other 
 dove-eyed business, he told himself. " No, I knew how 
 you'd act," she said ; " you'd act like a big man out of 
 patience." Her shrug conveyed both decision and in- 
 difference. " Couldn't be helped. I simply have to 
 take my time dressing; I always want to look per- 
 fectly all right when I go out ^i.th a man — " 
 
 "Do, huh?" 
 
 " Yes. My uncle isn't painfully particular or 
 
78 THE RUDDER 
 
 Miss-Nan cy-isli, you know, but he knows when peo- 
 ple look right, just the same." 
 
 "Oh, Jiim! I — I thought you meant me/' The 
 car lurched; Mr. Loring must have given the wheel 
 a twitch inadvertently. 
 
 "Oh, you, too, of course," said Miss Maranda in 
 matter-of-fact tones — too carefully matter-of-fact, 
 the alert student of life and manners behind her 
 thought, stretching his ears for every slightest varia- 
 tion from her normal key. " But my uncle is very 
 observant — much more so than most men. He sees 
 everything — little things and all." 
 
 " Well, I suppose that's his job," said Amzi tol- 
 erantly. " Seems funny for a man. I've never read 
 any of his stories — I can't read novels. They're all 
 guff, you know. I always fall asleep. But I know 
 he's bright all right. I can tell by the way he talks 
 — not that talk he gave us at commencement — I 
 can't listen to that guff — I mean the way he talks 
 when he's just talking. He's got a kind of way of 
 saying things that's exactly like Billy Evans — you 
 know that show that was here last winter, His 
 Royal NihSy don't you remember? " 
 
 " I don't believe I saw that." 
 
 "You ought to have. It was great. Evans was 
 their funny man, you know. He's a little fellow, 
 too, rather on the same order as your uncle ; they say 
 he's one of the best comedians on the stage to-day. 
 And you know it's just like your uncle; the things he 
 says aren't so funny, it's just his way of saying them. 
 Every time he opens his mouth he gets a laugh ! But 
 it was a good show anyhow. I like a good musical 
 show, don't you? " 
 
 " Yes, ever so much." 
 
THE EETURX OF THE NATIVE 79 
 
 &• 
 
 ^' I take iu every one of them that comes along 
 Pass up most of the others, you know — they're too 
 slow for me. Shakespeare's pretty good sometimes, 
 only it's not true to life. Xobody ever talked in po- 
 etry; that's what makes me tired. And then I can't 
 stand the kind where they don't do a thins^ hut sit 
 around and hold a talk-fest. I mean like this fel- 
 low's plays — what's his name — ?" 
 
 " Shaw^? " 
 
 " Yeah. Xo ! Some Dutch-sounding name — " 
 
 "Maeterlinck?" 
 
 " Yeah, I guess that's it — that's near enough, any- 
 how. They're all alike. I can't stand any of 'em. 
 I want something with some go to it — something 
 bright and snappy and up to date. I bet you do too, 
 don't you? " 
 
 " Well, I — I like the other kind, too," Xellie sub- 
 mitted, with a return of her deprecatory air. And 
 as Loring slowed do^Ti at the moment, tooling 
 around a curve that needed all his attention, the girl 
 sent a swift, questioning look rearward. " Uncle 
 Marsh, are your ears burning? Vre've been talking 
 about you? " 
 
 " Have you? I'll listen harder after this,'' re- 
 torted Cook. He read an expression half defiant, 
 half wistful on her face that moved him, sympathet- 
 ically. " Poor child, how afraid she is that I'll make 
 fun of him I " was his first inward comment; his next 
 in renewed irritation : " But what possessed her to 
 let herself fall in love with him? It cant last — it's 
 too impossible I " Aloud he inquired casually : 
 ^- ^Tiere are we now? I've lost my bearings." 
 
 It seemed to be a new suburb of little, box-like 
 houses built in rows among wide, unkempt stretches 
 
80 THE RUDDER 
 
 of open ground that must have been pastures but re- 
 cently. There were tall new electric-light poles, dis- 
 connected lengths of new sidewalks and new curbing, 
 new sewers suddenly nosing out of banks of raw 
 earth; the way they were following was a declassed 
 thing, neither road nor street, all ruts, ridges, tem- 
 porary culverts, surveyors' stakes, hummocks of sand, 
 gravel and paving-stones, around and between which 
 young Loring jockeyed the big car with a satisfying 
 adroitness. " Why, it's Elmwood Avenue — tell him 
 Elmwood Avenue,'' he said shortly and sidewise to 
 Nellie, who herself had not recognised the locality. 
 And in a minute or two, having arrived at a stretch 
 of comparatively smooth going, he relaxed enough — 
 though still with a vigilant eye ahead, and still speak- 
 ing from the corner of his mouth — to add : " It's 
 all new around here, but the city's growing like every- 
 thing out this way, towards Elmwood, on account of 
 the factories out here, you know. Eberlein Chair 
 Company — Utopia White Lead — Ohio Valley Roll- 
 ing Mills — they're all out at Elmwood, and a whole 
 lot more, besides ourselves." He jerked a facetious 
 gesture towards the cramped little cottages, before 
 apiilying his whole mind to the wheel again. " It's 
 not exactly a kid-glove neighbourhood, but it's all 
 right — respectable people — they naturally settle 
 around where their work is. Hello! I guess we'll 
 have to wait till that gets by." 
 
 He manoeuvred the automobile into position at the 
 side of the road, pending the advance of a steam- 
 roller that now hove in sight clamorously; behind it 
 they could see the narrow way a very ant-hill for ac- 
 tivity, picks, dump-carts, mules and men in ceaseless 
 motion, and near at hand the labourers' coats and. 
 
THE EETURN OF TUE NATIVE 81 
 
 dinner-pails were banked against a sort of mammoth 
 portable Noali's-Ark wherein they stored their tools, 
 Cook supposed; ^^ Shamrock Construction Company, 
 No. 4," he read stencilled on its slanting lids. Young 
 Loring leaned back, and tapped him on the knee. 
 '' Say, maybe my old Dad didn't have the long head! " 
 he said — or rather shouted, elevating his voice above 
 the uproar of the oncoming steam-roller. He screwed 
 up one eye, and nodded at Cook, shrewdly complacent. 
 " Maybe the old man wasn't Johnny -on-the-spot ! He 
 came out here ten years ahead of everybody else, and 
 started an ice-plant — the one he's going to show you 
 this afternoon, you knoAv; it's right out here at the 
 end of this street — he had it all figured out how this 
 part of town was going to grow, and beat 'em all to 
 it. Bet you his whole outfit, gTOund, railroad-switch, 
 buildings, stables and all — bet you the whole outfit 
 didn't cost him the fifth of what these other fellows 
 are giving for the land alone now ! '' Amzi Two drew 
 back to observe the effect of his statement in trium- 
 phant expectation. 
 
 " Enterprising man, your father I " bellowed Cook. 
 "Hey? Yeah, he's enterprising all right. Why, 
 what d'ye think? " said the son, leaning over again, 
 and again tapping the other's knee by way of empha- 
 sis ; " they were going to soak him a big assessment 
 for this road improvement, the city was, you know — 
 there was graft in it for somebody, of course — but 
 Dad headed 'em off. He just went around and got 
 some of the other property owners interested so 
 they'd go in with him, and then went to the authori- 
 ties and says, ' Here, gentlemen, we'll take hold and 
 do this thing ourselves, and maintain it ourselves ac- 
 cording to the regulations or requirements or what- 
 
82 THE RUDDER 
 
 ever they are, laid down in the charter, and it don't 
 need to cost the city a cent, all the same as if it was 
 a private road in somebody's grounds.' That was 
 pretty straight talk, you know, and it was all in the 
 papers — Father took care of that — and the council- 
 men, this John Dal ton and the rest of these ward heel- 
 ers that were looking for their rake-off, why, you see 
 it kind of put 'em in a hole. Anyway, I expect every 
 now and then they know they've got to do something 
 to try and keep solid Avith the respectable element — " 
 The steam-roller was abreast of them by this time, 
 and Mr. Loring's lungs, adequate as they were to most 
 occasions, came off second-best in that competition. 
 He finished the tale. Cook judged by the movements 
 of his face, but all that the latter caught of it was a 
 fragment here and there, indicating that Loring sen- 
 ior had carried his point and personally hired the 
 contractor, and that the completed job was going to 
 cost him and his associates some thousands less than 
 " the city figures," and moreover that they were " get- 
 ting value for every dollar they put in." 
 
 " Yes, it takes enterprise to think of and manage 
 schemes like that," said Cook, as the clatter subsided, 
 and they resumed the road ; the next instant he him- 
 self leaned eagerly to touch his niece's shoulder. 
 " Nellie, I want you to look — not right now, he might 
 see you — wait a minute and then look. That big 
 man standing on the embankment to your right, talk- 
 ing to two of the workmen — he looks just like them, 
 only he has his coat on — that's that fine old Irish- 
 man I met yesterday — the interesting old fellow I 
 was telling you about, remember? " 
 
 " That's Devitt," said young Loring, turning to 
 look in the direction, unmindful of Cook's warning. 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 83 
 
 " Mike Devitt. He runs the Shamrock Construction 
 Company — owns it and runs it. He's the one jou 
 know I told you Father made the deal with for the 
 road. Did you say you knew him?'' His face ex- 
 jjressed his incredulous surprise, replaced, however, 
 almost at once by a not very pleasing amusement. 
 "• Oh, yes, I remember ! Little Chauncey, the Pride 
 of the Precinct — that's his pop. Well, well, to be 
 sure ! " 
 
 Nellie, after an incurious glance, remarked rather 
 doubtfully that of course Mr. Devitt must be out of 
 the ordinary — he was a rather rough-looking man,, 
 wasn't he, to be at the head of any important work — 
 it seemed queer. 
 
 " Well, he can't go around on ditches and stone- 
 piles dressed for a pink tea," said Amzi, juggling the 
 wheel expertly. " But anyhow old Mike's a regular 
 flannel-mouth; Irish as they make 'em. It's not so 
 very long, you know, since he was getting up at five 
 o'clock when the whistle blew and starting off with 
 his shovel and dinner-can and one of these little short 
 black pipes they all smoke, just like the others. He 
 wouldn't mind doing it now, as far as that goes, I 
 guess. Dad says he's got plenty of sense, and a 
 square man, too. I suppose Chauncey dear would 
 faint dead away if he thought anybody remembered 
 papa in those days." 
 
 '^ I gather, Mr. Loring, that you think very highly 
 of Chauncey," said Cook. 
 
 They were moving slowly of necessity, but young 
 Loring all but brought the car to a standstill while he 
 directed a puzzled and inquiring scowl uj^on his guest. 
 ^"Huh?" said he. Then his face began to clear; he 
 chuckled deep in the throat, his little light eyes clos- 
 
84 THE RUDDER 
 
 ing together in thorough enjoyment. " The way you 
 said that I thought for a minute you were in earnest. 
 You do remind me an awful lot of Billy Evans — I 
 guess you've seen him in, His Royal Nibs^ you know 
 where he comes on with the red whiskers and the 
 tomato-can tied on over one ear, and the first thing 
 he does is to hit his hand against the stove? It's sup- 
 posed to be red-hot, of course, and somebody says to 
 him that fool way people do : ^ Oh, did you hurt 
 yourself? ' and he says : ' Oh, no; I was just petting 
 the stove.' You said that just like him." He turned 
 to his steering once more, still chuckling. " Why, 
 you've got me right, Mr. Cook; I just love Chaun- 
 cey ! " And, being obliged at this point to halt a sec- 
 ond time while two or three loads of sand deployed 
 across the road, he screwed around to say, seriously 
 now : " Say, that fellow's phony, that's what he is, 
 phony all the way through — phony brains, i)hony 
 education, phony everything. You know what I 
 mean, don't you? I mean he's all front. He'll kind 
 of con you along — if you don't know him — into 
 thinking there's something to him, and there isn't! 
 Not a thing! He couldn't deliver the goods to save 
 his neck. That kind makes me tired." He paused, 
 eyeing Cook to note the effect of this lucid exi^osition 
 of his views. 
 
 The author had understood enough at least to be 
 roused and interested; Amzi's remarks, all unknown 
 to himself, might shed a light on both young men. 
 " Well, you know him, and I don't," Cook said. '^ He 
 certainly is a very unusual looking fellow, with that 
 poetic head, and that limp. I was rather impressed." 
 
 " All front y I tell you," repeated the other, roughly. 
 " Limp nothing ! He didn't have to limp — unless 
 
THE EETUKN OF THE NATIVE 85 
 
 he had a sore corn or something. There's nothing 
 the matter with his legs, or his feet either — anybody 
 up there could have told you thai. I'll bet you any- 
 thing he read up in some book about some celebrity 
 that was lame, so he thought he'd be lame! Limp 
 nothing I " 
 
 The novelist chuckled in his turn. '' I wish I had 
 time to cultivate T. Chauncey ! '' he declared. 
 
 "Do, huh? Well, you'd find him just like what 
 I'm telling you. That kind makes me tired." 
 
 " They would me, too," said Nellie warmly. 
 
 "Would, huh?" said Amzi, looking down on her 
 with a kind of caressing mockery. " You know a lot 
 about it, don't you? " 
 
 " Oh, of course, a man is ever so much better able 
 to judge people than any woman can ever be, but I 
 know I wouldn't like anybody that was such a goose. 
 What does he want to look sick for? " Miss Maranda 
 asked disdainfully. "It's too silly. / like strong 
 people. Do you know that's what your name means? 
 It means strong/' 
 
 " It does? How do you know? " 
 
 " I looked it up in the Bible — in the Concordance, 
 that is. Amzi's a Bible name, and it said it meant 
 strong," said Nellie, not meeting his eyes, though 
 speaking in an impersonal style — too impersonal by 
 far, her uncle said to himself gi-imly. The young 
 man looked at her, his face lit by an ancient fire. 
 The automobile yawed widely, and he recalled him- 
 self. 
 
 "Strong? I — I guess they got me right,'' he 
 stammered, bending his mind and hands to their task, 
 one would have guessed by main force. 
 
 They crossed some railway tracks, and a step far- 
 
8ij THE KUDDER 
 
 ther on, the road which hereabouts was nearing com- 
 pletion brought up in a weedy and dusty little vale, 
 among odds and ends of dilapidated fencing and 
 plank sidewalk, and clumps of haggard vegetation, 
 half-grown ailanthus trees, and wastes of wild clover. 
 All the senses were vividly aware of sawdust and cin- 
 ders and fodder and machinery and horses. In the 
 middle of the landscape there appeared a big, sprad- 
 dling, temporary-looking structure, sheathed in cor- 
 rugated iron with a wooden stoop at one corner, a 
 13latform-scales in front of it, a smokestack at the far 
 end, and to the rear a gigantic coop, cage, crib — the 
 novelist could think of no name absolutely describing 
 it, as he gazed, many feet higher than the building 
 alongside, miraculously enclosing a mja^iad cascades 
 of water. It dropped from tray to tray in straight 
 and ordered sheets ceaselessly, supplying an accom- 
 paniment to every sound of the neighbourhood Tvdth 
 its insistent liquid rustle, defying the intelligence by 
 suggesting a cube of water on end, braced about 
 lightly with wooden frames. Amzi Two being occu- 
 pied with steering a course to the i)latform, Garry 
 eagerly enlightened the visitors. 
 
 " It's where they cool the water off before they run 
 it inside — I tJiinIc that's what it's for, anyhow," he 
 said. " That's what they told me. I come out here 
 with the car for the boss, every day." 
 
 "City water?" 
 
 " Sure. But it's filtered inside somewhere. It's 
 an elegant modern plant, the latest things, sanitary 
 machinery and everything," Garry assured them loy- 
 ally. " All of Mr. Loring's are." 
 
 Cook, who now discovered that he had been expect- 
 ing white tiles, marble tanks, brass pipes, plate-glass 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 87 
 
 — something, in brief, between a plumber's show- 
 room and an aquarium, stared at the corrugated iron 
 exterior of the elegant modern plant and at its barn- 
 yard-like environment in amused curiosity. The 
 scarred and blistered door opening on the stoop bore 
 a sign relating that here was the Office ; and emerging 
 from it, they beheld Amzi senior, stout and clean, 
 wiping his ruddy brow and the inside band of his 
 straw hat, smiling upon them with all the strong lines 
 of his face drawn into genial welcome. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ". . . Mr. Loring the elder is the personification 
 of American, self-made, commercial success — our 
 favourite slogan * Make good ' put into flesh/' wrote 
 Cook in that letter of which we have already had a 
 glimpse. " Mind you, I'm not saying this in any 
 spirit of condescension. He and his ice-factories may 
 be uncomely and insesthetic and crassly untilitarian, 
 crassly devoted to the trade of money-getting, but by 
 virtue of those very qualities, they are our most char- 
 acteristic national i^roduct, and I, for one, admire 
 and respect them. It's a big thing to create a new 
 type, and we've done it! We may not have any dis- 
 tinctively American art or science — nothing that 
 can be symbolised anyway — but we've got the Amer- 
 ican Business-Man and nothing exists or ever has ex- 
 isted just like him. Most of our writer fellows hold 
 him up for a sordid, selfish, ruthless grubber; I see 
 him as true a pioneer as our forefathers, animated by 
 the same adventurous idealism. . . . 
 
 " We went into the Office which, before seeing the 
 place, I had been foolish enough to suppose would be 
 on the order of the directors' room at a bank where I 
 was once suffered to penetrate. This, on the con- 
 trary, was a box about ten or twelve feet square with 
 a cannon-stove, a high desk and a high stool, a low 
 desk and a swivel-chair, a calendar and a cuspidor. 
 There was a rickety flight of three or four steps in 
 
 88 
 
THE EETUr.X OF TUE NATIVE 89 
 
 one corner with a door opening at the top, leading off 
 into some imgniessed territory. And from thence 
 ever and anon we heard a high, whining whistle, the 
 clank of chains, and a measured crashing. Mr. Lo- 
 ring interpreted these Dante-esque sounds as ^ the 
 pneumatic hoist letting go.' And seeing my interest 
 which, I believe, gratified him as genuine interest 
 always does a man whose own heart is wholly in his 
 w^ork, he added: MVe're strictly a business propo- 
 sition here, Mr. Schultze, nothing fancy, or the kind 
 you people that write care about, I warn you. But I 
 thought you might like to see it, just for curiosity.' 
 
 "I told him I had been in business myself, as a 
 book-keeper, before I took to writing. 
 
 " ' Uh-huh,' says he, eyeing me searchingly. ' How 
 did you happen to quit ? ' 
 
 "Upon my explaining that I found I could make 
 more at the other trade, and liked it better, he nod- 
 ded and remarked thoughtfully — and most truly — 
 that it was all a gamble with most young fellows, and 
 they were lucky when they found out what they could 
 do early, and stuck to it. Perhaps he had the ordi- 
 nary wage of a bookkeeper in mind and wanted, not 
 unnaturally, to make a comparison, for he next asked 
 in a perfectly inoffensive manner as one business-man 
 to another, how much it cost me, on the average, to 
 get out a book? When I told him that it had never 
 cost me anything as the publisher attended to all 
 that, his face expressed some doubt as to either my 
 sanity or the publisher's, I don't know which, but he 
 judiciously dropped the subject. His own book- 
 keeper, to whom he presently introduced us, was a 
 weird little creature with a great many beads and 
 frizzes, and a preternaturally small waist, and high 
 
90 THE EUDDER 
 
 heels and high colour — absolutely respectable, 
 though, as anybody could see with half an eye ! — 
 whose rating was ^ A. Number one/ he said heartily. 
 Miss Schlochtermaier — this was her stupendous 
 name — giggled amongst her frizzes and said with 
 equal heartiness that she was sure she didn't know 
 why she wouldn't try to do her work first-class, when 
 she had such a nice boss that treated everybody so 
 nice. I believe that both of them were in earnest, too, 
 and that this was no mere passage of pretty speeches 
 for effect. It developed during the conversation that 
 Mr. Loring has never had a strike among his hands 
 in the whole of his business career, or indeed any kind 
 of trouble with them. But the fact is he doesn't em- 
 ploy very many, notwithstanding the magnitude of 
 his ice-making operations. For instance, at the Elm- 
 wood ^ plant ' where they can turn out upwards of 
 three hundred tons a dav — or mavbe it was three 
 thousand ! — anyway, some unbelievable amount — 
 there are only seven or eight hands regularly em- 
 ployed, setting aside the drivers, stablemen, etc. 
 They all looked like very decent fellows, and nobody 
 seemed to be having a particularly hard job, which 
 may account in part for the evident good feeling be- 
 tween master and men. . . . 
 
 "... I might without impropriety, I suppose, in 
 view of his own inquiries, have asked Mr. Loring how 
 much it cost him to get out a ton of ice, ' on the aver- 
 age,' but I refrained. The man's a millionaire, by 
 just and legitimate methods, doubtless ; and doubtless 
 too, owing to his own integrity and industry — why 
 not let it go at that? At any rate by this time I 
 should probably have forgotten the figures or got them 
 all muddled up — my brain reels Avith statistics. Lo- 
 
THE EETUKN OF THE NATIVE 91 
 
 ring himself turned out to be so much more interesting 
 than the thing he does that I could not always keep 
 my mind on his highly instructive discourse. I kept 
 wondering what he was like when he was a young 
 man just starting out, and what his choice of a wife 
 had been, and what sort of a romance they had had, 
 and what he expected of his son and whether the 
 young gentleman would come up to the mark. To 
 tell the truth, the prospects are not hopeful that way ; 
 he hasn't half his father's brains. I did ask the elder 
 man what his son was going to do, and Amzi senior 
 said : ^ Oh, I guess likely hell go in with me. But 
 a young man's got to look around a little first, you 
 know.' I detected a furtive uneasiness in his man- 
 ner, all the more noticeable because so foreign to him. 
 
 ". . . They get the ammonia that they do the freez- 
 ing with in the form of an incredibly compressed gas 
 in tanks hermetically sealed up, and let it out as 
 they want it. Each tank costs tw^enty-five dollars, 
 and if they have good luck w^ith them they last two 
 or three months, for they can condense this surprising 
 stuff and use it over again. I lost some important 
 things he said at this point about how much each 
 tank weighed, and how many times it could be used, 
 and the danger of its leaking out through some pin- 
 hole and volatilizing on its own hook to the detri- 
 ment of everybody in the vicinity — I say I lost most 
 of this because, while maintaining an air of rapt 
 attention, I was really contemplating the picture he 
 unwittingly called up of those precious tanks of am- 
 monia in a cave underground or in rows in a court- 
 yard like the jars of oil in the Forty Thieves. . . ." 
 
 The elder Loring, in fact, out of his honest pride 
 in his w^ork, had prepared a little sermon on the 
 
92 THE RUDDER 
 
 whole duty of ice-making and the processes connected 
 tlierewitli, which he insisted on delivering before the 
 inspection of the factory began. And that over, he 
 led his not entirely enlightened audience up the flight 
 of steps into a kind of monstrous attic whence issued 
 those sounds Mr. Cook has described. " Now, I'm 
 not going to tell you anything right now about what 
 you see here," he announced, sweeping a gesture 
 around the place ; ^' because this is the end. Here's 
 where the finished product, the ice, comes ready for 
 shipment. Final stage. First I want to show you 
 the apparatus we use for running off the ammonia as 
 I was telling you, at intense heat, and returning it at 
 intense cold, you recollect? " 
 
 Cook tried to look as if he recollected. And while 
 the Ice-King strode on to a door opposite, and young 
 Amzi and Nellie murmured together, sauntering 
 somewhere in the rear, he gaped around at the great 
 empty loft. As the depot for the " finished i^roduct " 
 it seemed as if it ought to be cold, but it was scarcely 
 even cool, the outside air and sunshine entering freely 
 through a number of barn-like windows in either 
 gable. The floor was paved with a rough mosaic of 
 what looked like oblong boxes set on edge, each one 
 having a counter-sunk handle in the side exposed; 
 they were moist and a little slippery. Along one 
 side there ran two big cast-iron pipes, one of them 
 coated either with a thick rime of frost or a deposit 
 of salt, the novelist was not sure which ; he dimly re- 
 called some mention of a " saline solution." Instead 
 of a horde of overalled or half-naked workmen, such 
 as the word factory brings before the imagination, 
 there was only one man in sight, stationed at the 
 other end of the garret, too far away for Cook to see 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 93 
 
 what he was doing. Indeed, at the moment, he was 
 lounging with folded arms, not doing anything at all, 
 though with a casual eye turned on some strands of 
 wire cable travelling the length of the room at shoul- 
 der-height. As Cook looked on, he indifferently 
 diverted his gaze to the party, and must have ex- 
 changed some signal with his principal, for the latter 
 called out with an arresting movement of the hand : 
 *' 'S all right, Tom, I don't want that now. When 
 we come back'll be time enough. I'll let you know 
 
 Tom nodded; and A^ith these cabalistic words, Mr. 
 Loring peremptorily motioned to his guests to fol- 
 low. As they passed through the door and began the 
 ascent of more steps, there arose behind them the 
 same banshee screech thev had heard before, accom- 
 panied by the same reverberating crash. 
 
 " Set 'em up in the other alley ! " said young Amzi 
 facetiously. 
 
 '' She certainly does make a lot of noise when she 
 lets go," his father assented with an appreciative 
 grin. 
 
 " Is that what you were telling that man to do? '' 
 Cook asked. 
 
 " That man? What man? Oh, you mean Tom. 
 No, I was telling him about something else I've had 
 fixed up. Thought maybe it might entertain you and 
 the voung ladv. You'll see it as we come back,'' said 
 Amzi senior ; and he squinted roguishly. '^ Now, 
 then, Mr. Crooks, you want to keep your eye on this 
 set of pipes, because those over there are on the back- 
 track — I mean to sav that's where the freezing- 
 fluid has done its work, and it's simply being cleaned 
 and returned. You want to follow it in the profjer 
 
94 THE RUDDER 
 
 — er — rotation, y'see. Up these stairs now — this 
 business ain't like most businesses, you kind of be- 
 gin at the top instead of the bottom — hey? Ha-ha! 
 Now in these coils at this side — look out, don't touch 
 'em ! — is where the cooling process commences — " 
 He kept on talking, pointing out, explaining, Cook 
 listening accommodatingly, if without any very clear 
 comprehension. The young people had by this time 
 ceased to make any pretence of attention ; they trailed 
 behind, shamelessly unheedful, occupied with each 
 other. 
 
 The exposition drew towards a close on the ground- 
 floor in the engine-room, which, as Mr. Loring dis- 
 criminately remarked, was too much like any other 
 engine-room to demand close study; and it was here 
 that they encountered the only other hands besides 
 Tom to be seen about the place, namely, an engineer 
 and fireman, neither of whom, as Cook noticed, was 
 ai)parently overburdened with work. 
 
 '^ This machinery of yours is nothing short of 
 miraculous to a person like me, Mr. Loring," he said 
 honestly ; " you see I can't take in all of your explana- 
 tions. It looks to me as if all these mechanical de- 
 vices attended to themselves and minded their own 
 business, going ahead and making ice without help or 
 management from anybody ! " 
 
 "Well, I guess there hasn't been any machine in- 
 vented yet that will quite do that," said the other 
 with a laugh; "we've got all the latest appliances, 
 of course. I believe in that, you bet! There's that 
 automatic stoker now. It's the best on the market. 
 I ought to know, for I've tried out a dozen of 'em. 
 It costs money, but anything that saves labour, saves 
 time, saves materials, will bring you out ahead in 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 95 
 
 the long run. If anybody gets out anything better, 
 why, I'll scrap this stoker and get the new one. 
 That's my principle. I don't care how much I spend, 
 I'm going to have the best. Talk about competition ! 
 Competition's never worried 7ne any. All you've got 
 to do is to see that your product is better than any- 
 body else's. That'll knock competition galley-west." 
 
 Cook regarded the best automatic stoker on the 
 market with due respect. It hitched along a sort of 
 trolley, pausing at intervals with uncanny delibera- 
 tion to tilt itself and discharge a ration of slack coal 
 into a reservoir which impulsively opened at that 
 precise moment. Loring stood by, with his hands in 
 his pockets and chin sunken into his collar, following 
 its movements with an appraising eye. 
 
 "There! That's sheer magic to me!" ejaculated 
 the author. " It's something like another machine I 
 saw recently up in the power-house at Niagara — a 
 thing that got up and oiled a certain crank or cog 
 every now and then, and then went and sat doT\Ti 
 again till the next time." 
 
 Amzi One bestowed on him a rather peculiar side- 
 glance. ^^ Did, hey? " said he; " some machine that! 
 This one has to have a man feed and set it. I guess 
 I'll have to get some of your story-books, Mr. — Er — , 
 I guess you're quite a writer." 
 
 " Oh, come now, Mr. Loring, you know I didn't 
 mean that description to be taken too literally," re- 
 torted the little man, good-humoured and unabashed. 
 They both began to laugh. It was in a curious good- 
 fellowship — curious, considering their several char- 
 acters — that they started back through the factory. 
 We have seen something of what Mr. Cook thought of 
 his companion; what the latter thought of Mr. Cook 
 
96 THE RUDDER 
 
 lie expressed over tlie dinner-table that evening. 
 " That little Snooks, or whatever his name is, is a 
 smart little fellow, son," said he ; ^' he's a capable 
 man ! I know a capable man when I see one.'' 
 
 On this return trip, in fact, under the spell of 
 Cook's talent for companionship, the elder Loring be- 
 came quite communicative. He touched on his own 
 life history ; how he had been born and raised up here 
 in Madison County on a farm — no, not a poor boy, 
 his folks were well off — he had brothers and sisters 
 living up there on the home place, and around the 
 neighbourhood now, and they all lived nice and had 
 nice farms. He just didn't want to stay in the coun- 
 try when he was a young fellow. Came down here 
 just after the Centennial, when he was about twenty- 
 one years old, and got a job first off in the freight- 
 office of the B. and O. road. Then after two years 
 or so of that, he went with the Columbian Express 
 Company. Both these places kind of put him in 
 touch with the draying and hauling business, you can 
 see how they would, so pretty soon he went into it for 
 himself, with a couple of wagons and teams, and a 
 little office down on Third Street right where the 
 commission-houses were. He made money at that. 
 Then along come this big opening in the ice industry 
 when they got to making it by machinery along about 
 eighteen-seventy-nine, and he saw the possibilities in 
 it, and jumped right in. And sure enough she began 
 to boom, and she'd boomed ever since — oh, not with- 
 out his getting down and scratching gravel, you bet ! 
 You can't ever get something for nothing — hey, 
 ain't that so? People got the idea that there must be 
 easy money in the ice business because water was 
 about as cheap as air, and all you had to do was freeze 
 
THE EETUKN OF THE NATIVE 97 
 
 it ; but if they'd try it once, they'd find out there was 
 a good deal more to it besides that. 
 
 Cook agreed that there was a great deal more to it. 
 " Managing the men, I should think, would be of it- 
 self, no slight job. Altogether in all your stables and 
 factories there must be an army of them." 
 
 " Well, no, not so many — except of course in hot 
 weather like this when we have to have a day and 
 night shift on the engines, and more pullers and more 
 delivery-wagons out." He gave Cook a few figures 
 which, as has been seen, the novelist afterwards 
 quoted. " But the men aren't the problem — not 
 especially. Got to have 'em tolerably steady and 
 sober, that's all. I never have any trouble with the 
 men. They haven't got any union, for one thing — 
 not that that would make any difference to me,^^ said 
 the Ice-King a little truculently. He jingled a fistful 
 of coins in either pocket. " I can beat any union 
 hands down. Come to think of it, the engineers are 
 unionised — I'd forgotten about 'em, that shows how 
 much I think of the unions ! " he said T\^th a grunt of 
 amusement. " I always say to those fellows when 
 they come to me for a job — I deal with every one of 
 'em direct, you know; I don't want any superin- 
 tendents or Jack-in-offices mixing in — I always say 
 to 'em : ^ Look here, my place is open to everybody. 
 I don't care whether you're in the union or out of it. 
 I know how to treat a man square without any union 
 holding a club over me, or him either. If I didn't 
 know how to act square, I wouldn't be where I am 
 to-day. Xow — ' I says to 'em — ^if you work 
 for me, you've got to work alongside other men that 
 may be union and may not, that's none of your busi- 
 ness. I'm hiring you to attend to my business, and 
 
98 THE KUDDEB 
 
 if you don't like my ideas, you don't need to stay, 
 I treat 3"0u all alike; you get your wages right on 
 the dot, and if you get hurt or sick or in trouble, I'll 
 see you through. There ain't any union that'll get 
 you higher pay for the same amount and kind of 
 work, or fairer treatment than I'll give you, as long 
 as you do your duty. Now are you willing to come 
 on this understanding? ' Most of 'em are, and most 
 of 'em stick. Because they find I'm telling the truth 
 and acting up to my word." 
 
 " I suppose they are mostly men of some intelli- 
 gence." 
 
 Loring grunted again. " Intelligence — no ! They 
 don't have to be overly intelligent," he said, not with- 
 out scorn. " And they aren't — the run of 'em aren't. 
 An engineer, of course, has to understand the ma- 
 chinery; they've got to have a license. But one of 
 these pullers, like Tom, for instance, he don't need 
 any headpiece — just enough to learn when to turn on 
 the power and dump a cake of ice. Anybody could 
 do it — you could do it, if you had the muscle, and it 
 don't even take a great deal of that, since we've been 
 using this compressed air system." They were near- 
 ing the scene of Tom's operations as he spoke, and 
 Mr. Loring dropped his voice to add : " You'll see 
 him work the hoist directly, and if you don't think 
 he earns his two dollars a day about as easy as any- 
 body could — practically unskilled labor, mind you! 
 — if you don't think he's got a snap for a man of that 
 calibre, I'm a Dutchman! Here, this way. Duck 
 your heads, she's going over ! " 
 
 The long sagging cables, obedient to some mys- 
 terious agency high in the dusky rafters above them, 
 were moving in concert crabwise from side to side 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 99 
 
 over an area perhaps twenty feet wide, the entire 
 length of the room. Young Amzi fearlessly seized 
 hold of them and lifted them over Nellie's head for 
 the fraction of a second, as she dashed across the 
 space, stooping, laughing, tossing him a brilliant 
 glance like a flower. 
 
 " Good work ! " said Amzi, following her at leisure. 
 '' You don't have to stoop. Sport ! " he advised Cook 
 in jocose vein, as the latter prepared to join them. 
 '' Even if it knocked you over, you wouldn't have very 
 far to fall ! " He smote the little author a stagger- 
 ing clap on the back, and burst into Gargantuan 
 laughter. Nellie flushed, with an apprehensive look 
 at her uncle; and the elder Loring began to expostu- 
 late, though himself obliged to restrain a chuckle. 
 
 " Here, here, here, son ! I don't believe you know 
 Mr. — this gentleman well enough for that kind of a 
 joke — " 
 
 But Cook's good-humour was invincible. '^ Never 
 mind, sir, never mind the joke," he interposed. " Just 
 don't let him hit me like that in earnest — " And 
 here the pneumatic hoist setting up its high-pitched 
 note of warning, effected a diversion. 
 
 They w^atched it swing a metal casket across in its 
 powerful claws, poise an instant over a steep shiny-wet 
 toboggan-slide, and thunderously let fall a cake of 
 ice ; it swept dizzily down the slope, vanishing at the 
 far end with another concussion. " They weigh three 
 hundred pounds," Mr. Loring said. " Nice and clear, 
 wasn't it? " 
 
 "Beautifully clear! I was just thinking it was 
 like a great glass box," said Cook. '' It had no look 
 of being solid." 
 
 " Um-huh. Well, I have seen things put inside it," 
 
100 THE RUDDER 
 
 said the other, sly anticipation suddenly appearing on 
 his features. He nodded significantly to the puller; 
 and presently with another clang, another wail of 
 escaping air, there boomed down upon the runway 
 and fled past them another three hundred pounds 
 with a dark object embedded in the middle of it, at 
 sight of which Cook gave an exclamation. 
 
 "^'WJiat!^' he shouted, rushing to peer after it. 
 
 "I told 'em to save out that cake and send it up 
 to the house for you," said Amzi One, smiling, well- 
 pleased. " You'll see it again when you get home." 
 
 " Mr. Loring," said Cook solemnly. He paused, 
 swallowing with a mighty effort, even some slight con- 
 tortion of the facial muscles. An onlooker, seeing 
 him in pantomime, might have interpreted his ex- 
 pression as that of a man choking with laughter 
 which he was determined to suppress. " Mr. Loring, 
 my work has seldom had a — a token of appreciation 
 that I — I value m-more — ahem — ho, ha — ahem^ 
 hem — ! '^ 
 
 ^' Well, I haven't ever read any of your works, you 
 know," said the Ice-King quickly. " I went to a book- 
 store and asked for the latest, and they told me that 
 w^as it. Thought maybe it would be a kind of a 
 unique experience for you to see it that way, right in 
 the centre of a block of ice. Did you notice you could 
 read the title plain as day? That shows you how 
 clear our ice is." 
 
 " Yes, it is a unique experience," said the author ; 
 and again he halted abruptly. He took out his hand- 
 kerchief, and used it with astonishing noisy vigour. 
 ^'' I — I really don't know what to say — ahem — ho, 
 ha — ahem! Anybody that huys .one of my books 
 is doing me a favour, you know, but this is — really — 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIvE 101 
 
 I — alio, hem! Yes, I saw the title dihUnctiy. It'y a 
 volume of short stories that I've been told needed cold 
 storage, or some other i}reservative — eh? Oh, ho, 
 ha, ha, ha ! " and now Mr. Cook did give way to laugh- 
 ter most freely ; he laughed till the tears came into his 
 eyes, joined by the other man, who observed with a 
 wink that he'd certainly have to get that book and 
 read it himself, if it was as gamey as its author hinted. 
 
 Miss Maranda did not laugh. She stood silently, 
 rather red in the face, intently prodding the ferule 
 of her parasol into a knot-hole in the floor. And 
 neither did the younger Amzi laugh, being too much 
 occupied with her to take note of what was going on 
 elsewhere. It was Eleanor, however, who, raising 
 her head at last and avoiding her uncle's eyes as she 
 stared absently through the windows at that end of 
 the loft, was the first to perceive that something 
 " unique " appeared to be taking place outside also. 
 
 " Do look at those men I " she said. " They're tear- 
 ing this way like mad. There! One of them just 
 shouted something. Do you suppose anything's hap- 
 pened? " 
 
 Amzi Two bent down to look past her. " Just set 
 off a blast probably, and they're beating it to get out 
 of the way," he suggested. 
 
 " No, no, they've finished all the blasting work — 
 at this end anyhow," said his father. He looked in 
 turn; they heard the men's voices; Miss Schlochter- 
 maier shrilly responded to the outcry. 
 
 Cook did*^ not stop to think about it at the time, 
 but he remembered afterwards with a certain admira- 
 tion the older Loring s prompt acti\dty, the economy, 
 sureness and despatch of his every movement whether 
 of mind or bodv. While the rest of them were still 
 
102 THE RUDDER 
 
 hanging irresoTiite/ idly guessing, he was at the door, 
 he was in the office, he was asking, answering, giving 
 orders. By the time they reached it, he was talking 
 imperatively into the telephone ; he crooked his finger 
 and the bookkeeper ran to him; he uttered a word, 
 and everybody in sight sprang to the allotted task or 
 post. Garry and the automobile sped down the road 
 at punishable speed; bottles of whiskey began to ap- 
 pear from nowhere; somebody was pounding ice. A 
 big negro man leaning against the door, getting his 
 breath in gasps with the sweat rolling down his face, 
 answered questions excitedly. 
 
 " Yessuh, yes'm. Ah run all the way, mighty neah 
 er half-mile — yessuh, close ontuh er half-mile — 
 they ain't no telefoam nea'ah 'n this yer one. Yessuh, 
 yes'm, Mistuh Devitt done had er stroke — pears lak' 
 it mus' be er stroke. He done jus' give er groan, 
 ' Uh-uh ! ' jus' go lak' that, an' drap right ovah whar 
 he was standin'. Yes, boss — no, suh. Ah dunno 
 wher'er it was sun-stroke or his hea't, er what it was. 
 He jus' give er groan, ^ Uh-h-h ! ' an' jus' crimple right 
 up whar he was standin' — yessuh, yes'm — " 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 SO timely aud well-takeu were Mr. Loring's 
 measures that a doctor, a limber sharp-eyed 
 young fellow, arrived with his kit of forbid- 
 ding-looking tools ready for action, some minutes 
 ahead of the automobile bearing Mr. Devitt. And 
 happily, after all, the flurry proved to be without so 
 serious a cause as everybody had at first feared; the 
 hero was '^ nothing like dead, nor thinking about it/' 
 as Miss Schlochtermaier later observed. By the time 
 he reached the factory, supported on the floor of the 
 tonneau between two stalwart, clay-besmeared gentle- 
 men from his ranks, he had almost regained conscious- 
 ness ; indeed, these latter testified that he had never 
 entirely lost it, having from the beginning dazedly but 
 with firmness objected to having his boots taken off 
 when one Samaritan volunteered for that service. 
 ^' Seemed like he was plumb set aginst it, so Tony just 
 had to leave 'em be," one of the men explained apolo- 
 getically. 
 
 Tony, who needed only a scarlet sash to be the pic- 
 ture of a Sicilian brigand, corroborated the statement 
 with many amiable nods and smiles. '' Da boss he 
 ees come — a all ri' queek now? I guess yess? " was 
 his cheerful conviction. 
 
 " Sure ! " said the young doctor heartily, after one 
 rapid glance into the stricken man's lead-coloured 
 face. The spectacle of it, taken with his heavy 
 breathing and uncertain eyes, was still sufficiently 
 
 103 
 
104 THE KUDDER 
 
 alarming to the lay onlookers; but the doctor's au- 
 thoritative coolness steadied them all. He knelt 
 down by the couch which Eleanor had hastily im- 
 provised out of automobile cushions and rugs, rolling 
 up his sleeves, giving directions. " Easy now ! No, 
 don't let his head down flat — just a little higher — 
 so! That's it. Miss — that's right! " he said approv- 
 ingly to the girl, who showed herself admirably col- 
 lected, efficient and quick to understand. " No, I 
 don't want the ice. Take his other arm, one of you. 
 Now this way — work it this way, see? " 
 
 It was Tony who helped him; the other man, the 
 negro labourer, the bookkeeper. Cook, the two Lorings 
 stood around the room helplessly, watching. " If you 
 want anything, just say so. Just say what it is," 
 Amzi senior said at intervals, with his hand on the 
 telephone. 
 
 '' Better get outside, and let him have whatever air 
 there is in here, hadn't we? " said Cook. The younger 
 Amzi immediately adopted the suggestion; he went 
 outside and lit a cigarette; the chauffeur joined him 
 and they talked in low tones. 
 
 " He'll come around in a minute," the doctor said 
 watchfully, not ceasing the massage. 
 
 ^^ Take-a da boot — eh?" asked the Italian, hope- 
 fully. 
 
 Mr. Devitt moved his head; he essayed to raise it. 
 
 " Look out, he's coming 'round," said the doctor 
 again. And to be sure, the patient spoke; he also 
 fixed his eyes frowningly on all their faces in succes- 
 sion, fastening at last on Nellie's. 
 
 " What the devil ye want me boots off for? I don't 
 want 'em off, I'm telling ye ! " said Mr. Devitt. 
 
 Miss Schlochtermaier uttered a slight scream and 
 
THE RETUPiX OF THE NATIVE 105 
 
 then began to giggle hysterically. " Oh, my, if that 
 ain't the hir/gcst relief I '' she exclaimed. 
 
 "All right, sir,'' said the doctor, soothingly. 
 " Just don't you try to talk for a minute. Drink this. 
 See if you can't drink this now." 
 
 " Here, you mind the telephone," Amzi One com- 
 manded the bookkeeper. " If you want anything, 
 just tell her. She'll get it for you or telephone, you 
 know, for anything you want," he reiterated, and 
 went outside too, and lit a cigar. 
 
 " Oughtn't I to open his collar? " asked Nellie. 
 
 " Be Heayens, ye'd haye to put one on me first! " the 
 sick man answered her unexpectedly. His yoice and 
 grin were feeble, but his eyes had assumed a normal 
 expression, and the effort he made to sit up was much 
 stronger. Nellie began to laugh a little hysterically 
 in her turn, and eyen the doctor chuckled as he re- 
 strained Deyitt's moyement. 
 
 "Here,. now, don't get too brash. You'll haye to 
 lie still for a while yet. You've been sick, you know." 
 
 " Who? Me? Who're ye talking to anyways? Is 
 it yourself, Tony? Where's the rest of the boys? " 
 
 " He'll be all' right now," said the doctor aside to 
 Nellie, and rose, dusting off the knees of his trousers. 
 Sure enough, in another minute, Deyitt seemed to 
 come to himself completely and sitting up, propped 
 against Tony's shoulder, asked what time it was, rec- 
 ognised the place and Mr. Loring, and vigorously ex- 
 pressed mingled annoyance, wonder, gratitude and 
 apology. 
 
 " If this don't beat all ! Did anybody ever hear the 
 like? It's not as if I was a drinking man — I've al- 
 ways kept away from the stuff — anybody that knows 
 me'll tell you that. 'Twas a touch o' the sun, doctor, 
 
106 . THE EUDDER 
 
 I don't know? This is the fine time o' day for me to 
 be getting sunstroke, now ain't it? Ah, well, I'm not 
 as young as I was, and that's the truth. Mr. Loring, 
 sir, and Miss — " he made a deprecatory gesture — 
 ^^ I don't know your name, but I'm that obliged to ye ! 
 And I'm sorry I give ye so much trouble," said 
 Michael earnestly. 
 
 Amzi the elder acknowledged the words by a brief 
 inarticulate sound. But Nellie spoke out with her 
 bright freedom which was yet somehow not familiar, 
 not forward ; it made one think of Viola, of Rosalind. 
 '' My name is Eleanor Maranda," she said. " And 
 you haven't been any trouble at all, Mr. Devitt. And 
 I really haven't done anything — none of us have — 
 so you're not to think about it any more. Just think 
 about taking care of yourself in this heat, and keeping 
 well." 
 
 " That's right," the doctor said, looking up with a 
 sagacious and w^arning wag of the head from the 
 satchel which he was now rei3acking. ^' You ought to 
 be careful — " He made some abstruse references to 
 " cardiac action," ^^ sclerosis," and so on, and finished 
 with another general caution. " Not too much exer- 
 tion, not too much excitement, you know. Better 
 rest for a day or so after this. I suppose there's 
 somebody here that can take him to his home? He'd 
 better not attempt it by himself," he added, looking 
 around, with a glance, perhaps involuntary, towards 
 the big automobile. 
 
 Nellie's eyes followed his, and then turned upon 
 young Amzi. But it appeared that both Lorings, 
 father and son, considered the incident closed as far 
 as concerned them and their good offices. The 
 younger man shifted his cigar, and looked off, delib- 
 
THE EETUKX OF THE NATIVE 107 
 
 eratelj unresponsive even to Xellie's mute appeal; 
 the elder said loudly and joyially that of course that 
 would be all right — Devitt could stay here as long 
 as he wanted to, till whenever he felt equal to mov-. 
 ing — going back down-town, that is — certainly that 
 would be all right. He looked at his watch, and ex- 
 claimed with surprise that it was only five o'clock — 
 only just five — this whole thing, this whole excite- 
 ment hadn't been more than fifteen minutes I Seemed 
 longer, didn't it? Well, all's well that ends well, 
 hey? Certainly it would be all right for Mr. Devitt 
 to stay until he got good and rested up. Of course 
 there would be somebody around the place — there 
 was always somebody around. 
 
 Cook was about to offer his services, when Nellie 
 intervened. " Never mind," she said, colouring hotly 
 in a kind of humane mortification which her uncle at 
 least perfectly well understood. '' I'll stay here. 
 The men and I can manage very well; I believe we 
 could take him home on the street-car — " 
 
 ^'Oh, you can't do anything like that, Nellie. 
 You'd better not try anything like that. Now you 
 leave it to me, or one of us — it'll be attended to — " 
 Cook began ; but his undertone was lost in Amzi Two's 
 vehement gi'owl of protest. 
 
 ^^You!'^ he said in an impatience flavoured with 
 anger, even with contempt. " You don't know what 
 you're talking about. It takes a woman to think she 
 can boss things! You don't have to lug him around. 
 Let some of his own men do it. They can take him 
 home in one of their dump-carts if they can't find any- 
 thing else — make up a bed in the bottom of it and it 
 would be good enough. It won't be the first time he's 
 ridden in one of 'em — " during all of which speech 
 
108 THE RUDDER 
 
 — and there was more of it to the same effect — young 
 Mr. Loring did not take the trouble to abate his nat- 
 urally loud^ heavy voice, in spite of Eleanor's ur- 
 gently and distressfully significant face. Even Amzi 
 senior looked momentarily perturbed; and Cook, for 
 his part, was actually hoping that the sick man was 
 still too sick to catch the meaning of this discussion, 
 when Devitt spoke. 
 
 "I thank ye, Miss, but I couldn't think of it," he 
 said, not without dignity. The fact that he was 
 merely an elderly Irishman of the working-class^ 
 sprawling on the floor in a blue denim shirt none too 
 clean, with a worn old coat smelling of stale tobacco 
 and perspiration, and a pair of old muddy brogans 
 patched on the soles — these facts and details all at 
 once passed from view. " If ye'll be so kind as to 
 telephone my Tvdfe, and tell her gentle-like, not to 
 scare her — if ye'll do that much more for me, 'tis 
 more than I ought to be putting on ye, but I can't 
 ever be even with your kindness anyways. And if 
 Mr. Loring will leave me the loan of his floor to lay 
 on till my boy Tim — Chauncey, that is — till he can 
 get to me, there's no need for any of ye to bother your 
 heads any more about me. I thank ye all." 
 
 It was a dismissal. There seemed nothing for it 
 but to do as he requested, and then take themselves 
 off, leaving him to the care of his men, several of 
 whom had now collected, some anxious, some stolid, 
 some only inquisitive. Sudden quiet fell and they 
 all made way when the ice monarch emerged ; nobody 
 ventured to question him. Cook followed slowly in 
 a discomfort which no ironical reminders that it was 
 not his business how humanely or inhumanely these 
 Loring men acted, could alleviate. He wondered, 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 109 
 
 flincliing, what these others thought, and wondered 
 again, as he looked at them, to see that apparently 
 they were not thinking at all ; they seemed to take 
 everything that was happening as a matter-of-course. 
 A man — even their ^' boss " — was taken sick ; he was 
 looked after or he was neglected; he died or he got 
 well ; it was all on the knees of the gods — those gods 
 who had allotted them their hard, dull lives, their 
 jjoor, dull minds. Cook flinched again in a sudden 
 torment of pity and self-abasement. 
 
 The evening whistles blew in the factories at Elm- 
 wood hard by; the crowd augmented as empty ice- 
 wagons arrived one after another jingling stable- 
 wards, their crews volleying inquiries. Garry began 
 to crank u]). Young Amzi, gloweringly silent, 
 waited on Eleanor who retreated at length, doubtful 
 and reluctant. One divined that, left to her own de- 
 sire, or had there been more women to back her up, 
 the girl could not have been persuaded to abandon 
 her patient; but Miss Schlochtermaier was already 
 departing in a twitter, and this company of males 
 daunted Nellie, for all her spirit. Her petticoated 
 presence amongst them became somehow unnecessary, 
 even meddlesome, an added burden. Still she hesi- 
 tated, thereby pushing young Loring to the farthest 
 verge of irritation. 
 
 " Come along I I tell you you can't do anything 
 more, you're just in the way. A girl hasn't any busi- 
 ness around this kind of a place. What can you do 
 for a sick man? '' he said rou2:hlv. ^^ He's not so very 
 sick anyhow — he'll be all right directly — the doctor 
 says so. You can't kill that kind. Come 0)i! 
 You're keeping everybody waiting." 
 
 " I know — I'm coming," said Eleanor meekly. 
 
110 THE EUDDER 
 
 "I — I just wanted to be sure it was right to leave 
 him." She broke away to appeal to the doctor. " Do 
 YOU really think it's all right, doctor? Do the men 
 know enough to take care of him? Will it be safe 
 for us to go awaj before his son gets here?" 
 
 " Oh-h, Lord! '■ ejaculated Amzi Two, in exaspera- 
 tion. 
 
 ^' He won't have any return of that — that — what- 
 ever it was? I mean the heat won't affect him that 
 way again? '' 
 
 The doctor, who had taken Devitt's foreman aside 
 and was addressing some parting injunction to him 
 in a confidential voice, cocked an eye towards her, 
 and made a species of negative grimace, slight but of 
 emphatic meaning. " Heat won't hurt him. It 
 wasn't the heat. He'd have had the same kind of an 
 attack in zero weather. That trouble he has'll get 
 him some day. But you needn't to worry about the 
 heat," said he, jerked the ink into his fountain-pen, 
 and went on writing out the road-contractor's name 
 and address at the foreman's dictation, on a leaf of 
 his prescription-book. " First of the month's time 
 enough," he added liberally, in answer to some 
 mumbled suggestion from the foreman. The elder 
 Loring gave him a cigar. 
 
 ^^Had enough? Ready to come now?" Amzi 
 junior wanted to know of Nellie, almost threaten- 
 ingly. 
 
 " Better obey, Nellie, before Mr. Loring gets a 
 club," said Cook, in his pleasantest and simplest man- 
 ner. Whatever the remark was meant to convey it 
 passed over the younger Amzi and left him unscathed ; 
 the operation. Cook thought savagely, was compar- 
 able to sticking pins into a rhinoceros ; but the older 
 
THE RETUEN OF THE NATIVE 111 
 
 man gave him an investigating side-glance, and ha- 
 La'd not quite spontaneonsh'. 
 
 ",Here now, son ! " he remonstrated ; '^ you let 
 the young lady take her own time. What's the 
 hurry?" 
 
 ^^ I'm coming/' said Eleanor in tlie submissive 
 style that her uncle inwardly admitted " stumped '^ 
 him. 
 
 " T don't Tvant you standing around here for a lot 
 of other men to stare at. I Avon't have it," the young 
 man growled violently in her ear, as he helped her 
 into the car ; and Xellie smiled, not ill-pleased I 
 
 No more adventures befell them on the way home; 
 and the ice-king set his guests down at their own 
 gate with strong expressions of good-will, coupled 
 with equally strong regrets when he heard that Mr. 
 Cook was to leave for the " East " the next day. Not 
 that Mr. Loring supposed his new acquaintance to be 
 about to make the long and more or less hazardous 
 journey to Bagdad or some other point in the Orient ; 
 to middle-western ears, the '' East " means specifically 
 the city of New^ York, and all roads lead thither. 
 
 " Well, now, that's a pity. I was hoping we were 
 going to see a little more of you," he said sincerely. 
 ^^ I'd have liked to have you over at the house to din- 
 ner, but we'll have to let that go until the next time 
 you're out this way, I guess. I'm pleased to have met 
 vou, Mr. — er — and I mean what I said about vour 
 book. I'm going to get it — I'm going to get all 
 of 'em. Well, good-bye! Take care of yourself! 
 Hey? Oh, yes — yes — " He took Cook's card with 
 a faintly surprised look v»^hich, however, cleared up 
 directly. ''The Oasis Club, West Forty-Fifth/' 
 " Why, yes, certainly, I'll hunt you up the next time 
 
112 THE RUDDER 
 
 I'm on. Be glad to. Do you know — " he added 
 with a half laugh — " do you know I hadn't any idea 
 an author would have a card, or a regular place where 
 you could find him — unless, of course, he repre- 
 sented some newspaper, or something of that sort. 
 But after all, it's a business like any other business. 
 Well, take good care of yourself ! '' 
 
 " 'Bye I " said the other Amzi, offering his hand. 
 
 " What? Shan't I see you again before I go? " the 
 novelist asked agreeably. 
 
 " Guess not." 
 
 " I thought you might be coming over? " 
 
 " Huh ! Xo>' 
 
 He parted from Nellie in similar fashion, with 
 scarcely a word; they looked at each other. Cook 
 groaned in spirit — he was very careful not to groan 
 in the flesh ! — to see that look. " Of course he won't 
 come over while I'm still here — I might have known 
 that! ^^ he said to himself. " Nellie's coached him, 
 or else he simply doesn't want to come when there's 
 so little chance of seeing her alone. They seem to 
 have a tolerably plain understanding already. Good 
 Lord! But after that exhibition this afternoon, how 
 can she — ? " 
 
 Speculating gloomily, he followed Nellie up the 
 walk; and coming down it they met a friend of the 
 family, hurrying home from an informal summer call 
 which, she assured them, had prolonged itself to this 
 ^' scandalous " hour without her being conscious of 
 it. " It was so delightfully cool and pleasant on your 
 porch, and we were having such a nice chat, I didn't 
 realise — Mercy, no, I couldn't stay to dinner, thank 
 you so much ! — Mr. Cook, I'm ashamed to look you 
 in the face, I haven't read your last book ! I'm going 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 113 
 
 to, of course, I can liardly wait — the minute I get 
 time — Isn't it wonderful how many books there 
 are? One can't get around all of them. Are you 
 working now? It must be so interesting. I was just 
 saying to Mrs. Maranda how much we all envied her, 
 having a celebrity in the house ! " She stopped for 
 breath, smiling, a little excited, visibly awaiting some 
 scintillating bit of repartee. 
 
 " Well-er-a celebrity ? I'm afraid Mrs. Maranda 
 
 — among others — wouldn't recognise me by that de- 
 scription — I'd be out of my class, you know, Mrs. 
 Clapp — " 
 
 " Indeed you icouldn't be ! We're all just as proud 
 of you as we can be. How long are you — ? To-mor- 
 row afternoon? You do make such flying visits. 
 Mrs. Maranda told me she was afraid she couldn't get 
 you to stay. She's so disappointed — she enjoys so 
 having you here. And takes so much interest in your 
 career I But she's a lovely woman anyhow — she 
 lives for others ! Oh, my dear — ! " and here Mrs. 
 Clapp turned to Nellie impulsively. " You are the 
 luckiest to have somebody like that for a step-mother 
 
 — the sweetest thing! And perfectly devoted to you. 
 I wish you could hear the sweet way she talks about 
 you. I can't help telling you. You know — or you 
 know", Mr. Cook, with all your wonderful study of the 
 world and human nature, that she's very, very un- 
 usual ! " 
 
 " Yes, she is unusual. I realise that we ought to be 
 thankful that she is so unusual," said Marshall, 
 gravely. 
 
 " And she's such a sufferer, too ! Tve known Mrs. 
 Maranda for years, and I always say that there isn't 
 anybody like her," Mrs. Clapp said with warmth. " I 
 
114 THE KUDDER 
 
 must fly — it's perfectly awful my staying this way. 
 Give my love to Fannie — so sorry she's sick.'' 
 
 Mrs. Maranda was alone on the porch, languidly 
 fanning in her wheeled-chair; and in reply to Cook's 
 surprised and concerned inquiries after I'annie, told 
 them that she had gone to lie down. " She thought 
 that she had a headache coming on. All that talk 
 about the heat frightened her into it, I believe — you 
 know poor Fannie's so nervous and imaginative, she 
 goes to pieces at the least thing, and there's no use 
 trying to reason her out of it. I've tried that. I 
 made her go. She actually got me a little nervous, 
 too, ripping and tearing at that dress. She hasn't 
 a particle of self-control — Dear me, if she had ever 
 had to go through what Fve gone through ! When 
 she began to get into that state, I kept saying to her : 
 ^ Fannie, do stop ! Do leave it alone ! You're ruin- 
 ing it. I don't want you to work at it when you're 
 in that hysterical condition.' So finally I persuaded 
 her. I'm all worn out with her myself." 
 
 Eleanor made an inarticulate sound ; then she went 
 swiftly indoors and upstairs. Cook sat down and 
 took a palm-leaf fan. " No wonder you're worn out, 
 Juliet! The trouble is you're too sympathetic," he 
 said gently. " You think too much of other people." 
 
M 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 RS. JULIET MARANDA, being of that 
 feminine generation which was trained to 
 a devout belief that the man of the house 
 must be " entertained '^ every moment that he was in 
 it, whatever his own desire and disposition, sat with 
 her guest on the front porch until a late hour after 
 dinner, " entertaining '' him faithfully — and at 
 times, perhaps, in ways she did not suspect. Cook 
 had long ago explored every nook and corner of his 
 sister-in-law's mind — not a varied or extensive ter- 
 ritory according to his probably prejudiced view; he 
 believed that he knew exactly how much she would un- 
 derstand, exactly what she would think, feel, say un- 
 der any given circumstances ; and as a matter of fact 
 his guesses seldom went astray. Withal she did not 
 bore him ; she was not a dull woman ; Marshall had a 
 theory that it did him good to exercise his faculty for 
 listening sympathetically, or appearing to listen sym- 
 pathetically, and it most unquestionably did him good 
 to exercise that other faculty for throwing in small, 
 amiable, guileless-sounding speeches that Juliet al- 
 ways innocently took at their face value. After this 
 fashion he enlivened the two hours for himself, and 
 was almost too successful in creating the illusion of 
 companionship for Mrs. Maranda ! 
 
 " I hate to go — it is so delightful to have a con- 
 genial person to talk to,'' she said at length, rising 
 with a sigh. " But you know how it is. I have to 
 
 115 
 
116 THE RUDDER 
 
 go to bed at a certain hour. What a nuisance a per- 
 son's health can be ! When you have to take care of 
 yourself all the time, the way I do, I mean. But 
 then, if I dicWt, I'd be a constant trouble to every- 
 body, and that's the only reason I do! For myself 
 I don't care. I'm used to suffering — Oh, yes, I 
 don't mind it at all ! " Mrs. Maranda went on heroic- 
 ally as Cook uttered an inarticulate murmur of con- 
 dolence. " I never talk about it. I try to keep it out 
 of sight and out of mind as much as possible. But it 
 is provoking when I have to leave an interesting talk 
 like this and go to bed. You don't mind my not stay- 
 ing up longer with you, do you, Marshall? You know 
 if I did, I probably wouldn't sleep one wink all night, 
 and I can't stand that strain." She paused, and 
 added impressively : " I only slept two hours last 
 night ! " 
 
 '^ What! That's very serious. Have you had the 
 doctor? " Cook inquired anxiously. 
 
 " Gracious, no, Marshall ! I wouldn't have the 
 doctor for that. It's three dollars a visit, you know," 
 said his sister-in-law with some asperity. " Some 
 l^eople would, no doubt — some people get nervous 
 about themselves. Fortunately I have plenty of self- 
 control." 
 
 Cook coughed. '^ Er — ah-h ! Yes, to be sure — " 
 He moved to open the screen-door for her. 
 
 " I really hate to go," Mrs. Maranda said again, 
 lingering. " I wish you were going to be here longer. 
 It's so nice. Women shut up in a house together get 
 so tired of one another. I know every idea in Fan- 
 nie's and Nellie's heads, both of them ! " 
 
 "Do you? I wish I did!" said Cook, honestly 
 enou2:h. He had refrained from discussing Nellie's 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 117 
 
 affairs of sentimeut with the older lady, whom Nellie 
 herself would not dream of taking into confidence; 
 knowing that, Mr. Cook would have considered it in- 
 discreet, even disloyal and altogether beneath him to 
 have opened the subject with Mrs. Maranda — how- 
 ever much he might reveal and whatever comments he 
 might make to a certain other person ! " Do they 
 know everv idea in vours, too? ■■ he asked. 
 
 " The girls f No indeed! '^ cried out Mrs. Maranda, 
 htimorotisly shocked. " Why, Marshall, I thought 
 you knew better than that! Girls never think of any- 
 thins^ or anvbodv but themselves. No, I do all the 
 thinking and planning for the house, and for every 
 single person in it. The doctors have always tried 
 to stop me; they always keep telling me not to shoul- 
 der all the responsibilities, but you know that isn't 
 my disposition. I'm one of those people that can't 
 be satisfied unless thev are doini? their whole dutv. 
 I told Doctor Lloyd that the other day when he was 
 doing his best to persuade me to let things go a little, 
 and he sat and looked at me for at least a minute per- 
 fectly silent — the strangest way I Then he all at 
 once burst out : ^ Well, Mrs. Maranda, there aren't 
 so many people that " can't be satisfied " in that 
 w^av, as vou think. You're one in a thousand I ' 
 ^ Oh, doctor,' I said; ^that's all nonsense I There're 
 plenty of people that have as much sense of duty as I 
 have — plenty!^ But he seems to think I'm won- 
 derful. When he heard you were coming he asked 
 me if you had ever put me in a book. I said : ' Oh, 
 Marshall wouldn't do that! ' " 
 
 " No, of course I wouldn't I '' said Cook, heartily. 
 
 " Of course not I That's what I told him," said the 
 lady, a faint note of disai^pointment in her voice, 
 
118 THE EUDDER 
 
 which caused Mr. Cook to smile villainously in the 
 dark. She went in, and the author settled himself to 
 the smoking of more cigarettes — innumerable ciga- 
 rettes, one after another, stretched out at ease with 
 his hands behind his head and his feet elevated to the 
 porch railing, now that the formality required by 
 Mrs. Juliet's presence could be abandoned. Thus he 
 sat motionless and smoked and contemplated the 
 stars until the sound of the door opening again drew 
 his eyes to his niece Eleanor slipping gently out 
 through it. " Hey? " said Cook, stirring lazily. 
 
 ^' Don't move, Uncle Marsh, don't get up. I 
 thought I'd come out for a while. It's too hot up- 
 stairs to sleep." She perched herself on the railing, 
 alongside his feet. " Don't look at me either, if you 
 think it's too shocking. I'm just the same as usual, 
 only I've got on a kimono instead of a dress. This 
 isn't New York, so you needn't mind." 
 
 " Don't mind. Like it," said her uncle indistinctly 
 through his cigarette. " Look nice — what I can see 
 of you." Nellie was indeed only a slender white 
 silhouette poised on the rail, her kimono clinging 
 poetically to her long young figure; her arms were 
 bare, her hair an irregular blot of darkness around 
 the pale blot of her face. In this attitude and cos- 
 tume she did not suggest the ghost or fairy ; hers was 
 the springy yet substantial grace of a Diana. " Shake 
 foot, eh?" said Cook, shifting the cigarette so as to 
 hold out his right hand free. " Stick it out, Nell I " 
 
 She gave a sort of abstracted laugh, and put out her 
 foot obediently. It was a thin, narrow foot, small- 
 boned though not small, for Nellie was a tall woman ; 
 and it was handsomely cased just now in a silk stock- 
 ing and a fanciful mule of black brocade with a high, 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 110 
 
 tapering scarlet heel; the thing dropped down and 
 swung from her toe as Cook took the compact instep 
 into his hand and wagged it caressingly. This was an 
 old trick, left over from the days when, a lean, gloomy, 
 dyspeptic lad of eighteen or so, he had played with 
 the baby girl, and made goblin faces, and told her 
 nightmare tales without ever succeeding, to his dis- 
 appointment, in frightening her; Eleanor was of a 
 good spirit. She bent down and fitted the slipper on 
 again, as he released her foot at the conclusion of this 
 rite, which of old had always marked and consum- 
 mated their treaties of peace. 
 
 '' You gave me these, do you remember? You sent 
 them to me from some gorgeous Fifth Avenue shop 
 last Christmas. I think they are so pretty. You 
 always seem to know exactly w hat everybody likes." 
 
 " That's my job," said the other, lightly. 
 
 Nellie leaned against the post, staring at the sky 
 for a w^hile in silence. A clock somewhere in the 
 neighbourhood struck. " Twelve," she said, counting. 
 There was another silence. ''Fan's been horridly 
 
 sick." 
 
 Cook exclaimed in real sympathy this time: 
 " Pshaw ! That's too bad ! Oughtn't we to get some- 
 body?" 
 
 '' A doctor, you mean? She icon't^ you know. I 
 didn't want to fret her. She's a little bit better now. 
 Headache. It's perfectly racking, I've been bath- 
 ing it for her," said Nellie disconnectedly. Then 
 after another gap of silence, she suddenly announced 
 with fierce emphasis: " I hate to have Fannie sick I 
 I can't hear it. She's so — well, I hate it, that's all I 
 It's — it's beastly ! " 
 
 Her uncle gTunted his entire acquiescence. 
 
120 THE RUDDER 
 
 " There's no need of it. It doesn't have to be," said 
 Nellie. " That's one of the things that make me so 
 angry — and I can't do anything! Fannie thinks 
 she ought — ! But she doesn't have to — she doesn't 
 have to at all — " 
 
 Her vehemence seemed to expect denial or argu- 
 ment ; but Cook, who could easily enough fill out the 
 gaps in these broken statements, embarked on neither. 
 That refrain of '^ Same old thing " echoed through his 
 mind. He remembered the youthful bitterness of his 
 own revolt when he was Eleanor's age ; and her recog- 
 nition of helplessness touched him. That " I can't 
 do anything ! " revealed her in the clutch of Circum- 
 stance, not '' fell " indeed — a word which would have 
 been ludicrously high — but incredibly potent and 
 silly. In his own case, there had been the advantage 
 of his sex ; one way or another he could always escape ; 
 and for him there was never the truly distressing 
 spectacle of a Fannie. It was the most unhappy 
 comedy ; but how or when, if ever, would the curtain 
 fall on it? The grave thing was its possible effect 
 on Eleanor's character — a good character at the 
 start, high and generous, and backed by a good intelli- 
 gence, he thought. For all her fire, she displayed, by 
 and large, a self-control that surprised him, that he 
 could admire ; as, for instance, at this moment, when 
 he knew it was costing her a strong effort not to lash 
 out in denunciation of the feeble, yet astonishingly 
 effective tyranny under which she and Fannie lived. 
 Whatever it was that contributed to withhold her — 
 pride, sense of humour, consideration for himself, the 
 spirit of noblesse oblige — whatever it was, Marshall 
 liked his niece for it. But how much longer could she 
 keep up this sort of thing, particularly when there 
 
THE KETURN OF THE NATIVE 121 
 
 was a way out of it — a way that, worse luck, ob- 
 viously suited her? He moved uneasily, aud Nellie 
 began to speak again. 
 
 '' That was rather funny this afternoon, wasn't it? '' 
 she said with the tentative air that Cook had grown to 
 recognise in mixed imijatience, pity and amusement. 
 " That about the ice, I mean. Freezing your book 
 into a cake that way.'' 
 
 The author chuckled involuntarily. " Yes, that 
 was rather funny," he admitted. 
 
 " Mr. Loring meant it to be. He did it for a joke, 
 of course you know that. Uncle Marshall?" 
 
 " Yes. Yes, indeed ! " 
 
 " Of course he's never had anything to do with a 
 man like you before. He — he doesn't know anything 
 about people that write. I suppose he doesn't care 
 for books — novels. I — I know the other Mr. Lor- 
 ing doesn't. Business-men don't as a rule," Nellie 
 was explaining when all at once her own fluency 
 seemed to disconcert her. " But you know, anyway 
 — you know about everybody," she ended suddenly. 
 
 Mr. Cook had no reply for this compliment ; during 
 the pause that ensued he lit another cigarette amid 
 certain panicky forebodings which were not without 
 foundation, as Nellie's next remark proved. 
 
 '' Oh, Uncle Marshall, I wish you would say some- 
 thing! You just sit there and think! '^ 
 
 "I — I wasn't thinking, Eleanor," stammered her 
 uncle guiltily; and then they both laughed con- 
 strainedly, yet it cleared the air somehow. The girl 
 went on talking with more of her natural freedom 
 and confidence. 
 
 " I suppose you thought it was dreadful of them — 
 of Mr. Loring — to go off and leave that poor man 
 
122 THE KUDDER 
 
 with his sun-stroke. I suppose if it had been you, 
 you would have sent him safe home in the machine." 
 
 Cook humanely tried to say what he believed she 
 w^anted him to say. '' Oh, I don't know, Nellie. If 
 I had been in Mr. Loriug's place, I might not have 
 felt myself called upon to do any more for What's- 
 his-name — Devitt — either. Mr. Loring had al- 
 ready acted with the best kind of humanity, the prac- 
 tical, energetic kind that gets results; he may have 
 saved the man's life. I daresay Devitt didn't care to 
 be under further obligations to him, for that matter. 
 The old fellow seemed to be pretty tough physically, 
 and was not suffering or in danger any more. Oh, no, 
 I don't see anything especially ^ dreadful ' about the 
 w^ay Mr. Loring acted. I only hope if I'm ever in 
 trouble, there'll be as efficient a Samaritan around." 
 
 '' Well, I — I thought at first it was dreadful, but 
 afterwards I began to see it more your way," said 
 Nellie, in eager and pathetic relief. " Men seem to 
 be so hard sometimes, but then the women go just to 
 the other extreme — weak and sentimental, you know. 
 I — I did want to stay there and look after him, but 
 I see now it wouldn't have done." 
 
 ^' Lord, no ! " 
 
 Eleanor gave a slight sigh and settled back against 
 the post; in spite of Cook's efforts and of her own 
 self-persuasive arguments, her bearing somehow did 
 not suggest satisfaction; and he was scarcely sur- 
 prised when she said a little plaintively : " I wish I 
 could do something for people, though. Uncle Mar- 
 shall. I mean I wish I could have some work among 
 people like that — " 
 
 ''Woiv! Here! Don't go to thinking that Mr. 
 Devitt is one of the class that needs to be worked 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 123 
 
 among ! '' Cook iuterriipted in amused alarm. " That 
 would be an awful mistake. In the first place, he's 
 an upright, intelligent, self-respecting man ; and sec- 
 ondly, speaking from a base, material standpoint, he's 
 probably able to buy and sell me ten times over! I 
 told you he had that son at college. That sort of 
 man is just as much the backbone of the country 
 as — well, as our friend, the Ice-King. You can't 
 patronise people like the Devitts. The next genera- 
 tion will be glad to marry 'em ! " 
 
 "Oh, I — I didn't know," said the girl, taken 
 aback. " He looked like — I haven't had any expe- 
 rience, of course. What I meant, though, was that 
 I'd like to go down town into the real slums and 
 work — Social Service, or something like that. I 
 1c7iow I could do it, and I'd love to. I wouldn't 
 patronise them either. Uncle Marsh, I'd just be 
 interested in them. I'm sure that's what they'd 
 like." 
 
 " That's the right idea, I believe, Nellie," said Cook, 
 seriously. '' Poor people, or the ' lower classes,' as w^e 
 call them, don't want to be instructed or converted or 
 civilised, I often think. They want what the Roman 
 mob demanded a matter of twenty centuries ago — 
 bread and circuses. Enough to eat and a little 
 amusement, a little happiness, poor wretches ! " He 
 smoked thoughtfully for half a minute. " Well, why 
 don't you do that, then, if you want to so much? " 
 
 "Aunt Juliet is afraid for me to," said Nellie, 
 in her most carefully expressionless voice. " She's 
 afraid that if I w^ent down town into those places, 
 among the people, I'd bring back some horrible dis- 
 ease — have it myself and give it to everybody in the 
 house. You see how it is, Uncle Marshall." 
 
124 THE RUDDER 
 
 Indeed, Marshall saw; columns of rlietorie could 
 not have made the exi^lanation clearer. 
 
 The next morning came on refreshingly with less 
 heat, less dust, and, being Sunday, less factory-smoke 
 in the air. Contrary- wise, Mr. Cook detected a higher 
 pressure and a certain thickening in his domestic at- 
 mosphere, owing, he sardonically conjectured, to Sab- 
 bath influences, or his own impending departure by 
 the " Limited " that afternoon. Fannie came down 
 to breakfast, pale and heavy-lidded, but conscien- 
 tiously cheerful ; Eleanor's demeanour reminded him 
 of all the stock metaphors dealing with banked fires, 
 volcanoes temporarily quiescent, calms before the 
 tempest, charged weapons hanging on the trigger; he 
 pictured himself as one who smiled and smiled and 
 was a villain still ; but Juliet — Juliet, Cook declared 
 inwardly, was in magnificent vein ! She warned Fan- 
 nie, who scarcely touched a morsel, against the dan- 
 gers of eating too much, and getting any fleshier; she 
 inquired of Nellie whether Mr. Loring senior could 
 read and write, and expressed surprise at hearing that 
 he possessed those accomplishments, knowing that 
 " self-made men of his class were illiterate as a rule " ; 
 she was sympathetically doubtful about the success of 
 Cook's latest work, with abundant assurances that it 
 was really good in her opinion, no matter what the 
 critics and people in general said. Seldom, in short, 
 had Mrs. Maranda given a more finished exhibition of 
 her powers, armoured in innocence and unconscious- 
 ness. 
 
 " You say you had a bad night? " Cook commented 
 courteously after Mrs. Juliet had, in fact, said so, 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 125 
 
 with minute detail. " Why, Juliet, it's wonderful 
 how naturally and easily you talk — as if you felt per- 
 fectly well! You force yourself to it, of course. It 
 takes a will of iron to do that ! '' said Marshall with 
 an admiring sigh, avoiding Eleanor's arrowy glance. 
 
 ^^ Oh, I wasn't sicky just restless and nervously ex- 
 hausted, you know. I don't call that anj^thing," 
 said Mrs. Maranda, somehow faintly uncomfortable. 
 She did not know what it was about her brother-in- 
 law's nice-sounding speeches that sometimes disturbed 
 her ; the tidy, insignificant man with his commonplace 
 features, his eyeglasses, his unimportant manner, was 
 certainly not a person to be feared, least of all by 
 one who had known him for years, long before he got 
 to be so clever and famous — as Mrs. Maranda pri- 
 vately put it. Then why — ? Cook was ashamed of 
 himself, easily reading the vague, child-like trouble 
 of her face. But now Nellie took a hand with omi- 
 nous amiability. 
 
 *^ Speaking of Mr. Loring — " said she ; ^' do you 
 know, Uncle Marshall, something has just dawned 
 on me too late, the way things generally dawn ! I'm 
 afraid I must have seemed very ill-bred and snobbish 
 to the man Mr. Loring called the puller ^ do you re- 
 member? I didn't pay any attention to him." 
 
 ^^ Hey ? " said Cook, for the moment unsuspicious. 
 He laughed. " Why, I don't know that you needed 
 to pay any attention. It might have embarrassed him 
 a good deal, if you had." 
 
 " What is a puller? " Mrs. Maranda asked. Fan- 
 nie began to look anxious. 
 
 " It's the man that takes the cakes of ice out of 
 the box they're frozen in," Nellie explained, and ad- 
 dressed her uncle again, earnestly. ^^ Of course you 
 
126 THE RUDDER 
 
 didn't know, but I thoiiglit he looked weirdly familiar 
 somehow, and I was going to speak to Mm only the 
 excitement about Mr. Devitt put everything else out 
 of my head." And here she turned to Mrs. Maranda 
 and spoke penitently. " I'm so sorry, Aunt Juliet, I 
 don't know what your family will think. It w^as one 
 of the Morehead boys, Tom, I think. You know I 
 don't see any of them for years at a time, and there 
 are so many anyhow. Your own nephew, and I 
 didn't speak to him ! I am so sorry ! " 
 
 After an appalling moment, Mrs. Juliet gathered 
 strength to say f reezingly : " You must be mistaken, 
 Eleanor.'' 
 
 " Oh, no. I asked Mr. Loring afterwards as we 
 were coming home, and he said yes, his name was 
 Morehead. The w^ork isn't hard. Aunt Juliet; you 
 mustn't w^orry about that," said Miss Maranda, 
 kindly. " Mr. Loring said anybody could do it — 
 it doesn't take any training or even intelligence, he 
 said. The machine does it all, practically. But I 
 wish I had spoken to him. You'd like to have him 
 come and see you, wouldn't you? " 
 
 "I — I don't know Homer's children at all — I — " 
 began poor Mrs. Maranda in helpless irritation. 
 
 " This young fellow didn't look more than eighteen 
 or so — nothing but a boy," said Cook, with for his 
 part the best of intentions. " I suppose he took what- 
 ever job he could get, rather than be idle." 
 
 " Very likely, and it does him credit ! " Nellie as- 
 sented cordially. " Particularly as he may not be 
 able to read and write, you know. I do wish I had 
 spoken to him ! However, he may not have recog- 
 nised me. And you tipped him anyhow. Uncle Mar- 
 shall ; I saw you giving him something w^hen Mr. Lo- 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 127 
 
 ring's back was turned, so I daresay he doesn't resent 
 my behaviour — " 
 
 " Nellie, I will not submit to this I I — I — I will 
 not — I" Mrs. Juliet stuttered out, rustling up from 
 her chair furiously. " I — you — it's a deliberate in- 
 sult, it — I —'' 
 
 " Why, what's the matter, Aunt Juliet? Don't you 
 like to hear about your family? " 
 
 " They are not my family — they are my brother's 
 family, they — I — '' 
 
 " Let's go out and look at the garden, Fannie ; you 
 take me out and show me the garden," said Cook, 
 seizing his other niece's arm and propelling her off 
 the scene in sheer panic. And once safely outside 
 among the roses : ^^ Woof! '' he ejaculated, and went 
 through a pantomime of T\iping his forehead. 
 
 Fannie returned his grimace with a dismayed little 
 smile. " Nell icill do it, you know," she said resign- 
 edly. " It always makes Aunt Juliet perfectly hop- 
 jjing. And Nellie enjoys that, of course." 
 
 ^^ You don't, I imagine." 
 
 " No," said Fannie, shrugging j^atiently. " I'd 
 rather go along quietly without any fusses. But 
 Nellie can't help herself and Aunt Juliet can't either, 
 I suppose, so there you are ! " 
 
 Cook picked up a long-handled digging-fork, and 
 began to prod about the roots of the plants. ^' There 
 you are, Fan," he said presently. ^' The innocent by- 
 stander always gets the worst of it." 
 
 ^^ Oh, no. Uncle Marshall, you're mistaken ; / don't 
 ever have any trouble," said Fannie with urgent ear- 
 nestness. " Nellie never says a word to me; and you 
 know how lovely and kind Aunt Juliet always is to 
 me. She and Nellie just can't get along, that's alL 
 
128 THE EUDDER 
 
 The trouble is, Aunt Juliet, without meaning to, is 
 all the time rubbing Nellie the Avrong way, somehow. 
 And it's not exactly temper with Nell, either, as so 
 many people think ; it's — it's — I believe it's spirit. 
 She can't stand being rubbed the wrong way? " Fan- 
 nie halted on a questioning inflection, and her uncle 
 nodded, absently pecking at the ground. '^ Nellie 
 isn't a bit mean/' said the sister. Cook nodded again. 
 '^ She seems sometimes to get an idea into her head 
 that I'm being put upony somehow. But you know, 
 Uncle Marshall, that's nonsensical. Aunt Juliet is 
 just as good and generous to both of us as can be. 
 She's done everything for us for years. I don't see 
 how we can ever return it, ever! '' 
 
 Cook heard the note of fanaticism in her voice with 
 the mixture of impatience and respect that fanaticism 
 inspires. Bray her in a mortar, and the girl would 
 not abandon principles or practice ! He sympathised 
 with Eleanor's view of the waste and futility of the 
 process, but on Fannie's side there was a kind of un- 
 reasonable justice, too. And when she said in a mo- 
 ment that she was a little afraid the sun might bring 
 back her headache, and moved to go into the house, 
 Marshall made no effort to detain her, although he 
 guessed that her real motive was not anything so 
 trifling as the care of her own health. No, Fannie 
 was going to fan Aunt Juliet, to support Aunt Juliet 
 with smelling-salts, and iced drinks, and alcohol rub- 
 bings, and words of comfort ! Same old thing ! 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 COOK continued liis aimless pottering around 
 the flower-beds, wondering in humorous res- 
 ignation which one of the women would come 
 to him next. He looked at his watch and calculated 
 that in not more than five hours the thrice-blessed 
 " Limited " would be bearing him away " East," back 
 to work, to bachelorhood, to another week-end in an- 
 other o'arden, at the recollection of which it may be 
 he coloured a little and felt foolish and promptly ad- 
 dressed a biting jibe to his inner self. At about the 
 same time, as he was leaning on his tool, idly staring 
 about the neat suburban yard, there came within view 
 two gentlemen approaching along the street, with in- 
 quiring glances to this side and that as of strangers 
 in the neighbourhood. They caught sight of him, and 
 after a moment's inspection and some interchange 
 of words, crossed, heading definitely in his direction. 
 Simultaneously, Cook recognised one of them to 
 be the younger Devitt. He was not limping to-day; 
 the author noted the fact inquisitively. On the con- 
 trary, he came on with a vigorous step which suited 
 equally well his undeniably striking personality. 
 Xothing sickly or Byronic about him now ; very likely, 
 indeed, those attributes had resided in the academic 
 gown and mortar-board in which Cook had first seen 
 him, garments which have a way of conferring dis- 
 tinction. But even young Devitt's present informal 
 dress which was nothing more picturesque than the 
 light " sack-suit " and straw hat of the season, to be 
 
 129 
 
130 THE EUDDER 
 
 seen by the dozens anywhere — even that acquired 
 character by his carriage ; more than ever Cook was 
 convinced that this was not an ordinary young man. 
 
 He w^ent to meet them; and having got up close: 
 " Mr. Cook ! '' said young Chauncey in his fine voice, 
 and took off his hat with the air of a prince in dis- 
 guise, unconsciously royal. Hereupon the little man 
 of letters, who looked like nobody in this high pres- 
 ence, shook hands with Mr. Devitt and with Mr. De- 
 vitt's companion. " Know my friend, Mr. Dalton ! " 
 said Chauncey sonorously. Cook obediently ex- 
 changed salutations with the mental reservation that 
 he would rather not know Mr. Dalton any too inti- 
 mately, although the latter was a well-fed, well- 
 dressed, prosperous-looking person, something in the 
 style of Loring senior, but with much more open and 
 engaging manners. Why this unreasoning preju- 
 dice? Mr. Cook himself might not have been able to 
 explain it. " I've met confidence-men in my time," he 
 once remarked obscurely, referring to this occasion. 
 
 Devitt introduced Cook himself as " Mr. Cook, the 
 celebrated author " ; and Dalton on his side was most 
 hearty. '^ Pleased to meet you, sir!" he said, and 
 looked the other over with a pair of pale blue, very 
 rapidly moving eyes. There occurred that slight 
 pause, familiar enough to the " celebrated author," in 
 w^hich people obviously awaited some trenchant bit 
 of fun or wisdom from him; or, failing that, a majes- 
 tic inquiry as to the object of this visit. In fact, he 
 was wondering mightily on this last point, but kept it 
 to himself, inviting them to seats in the shade with a 
 joking word or two of apology. 
 
 " A little dirt on one's hands is a matter of no con- 
 sequence in our town, I know, but if I seem to have 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 131 
 
 more than my share, it's because I've been grubbing 
 around the garden as you see." 
 
 " Regular farmer, hey? " said Mr. Dal ton pleas- 
 antly. " They say this here fellow that writes the 
 funny things has a farm up in Indiana. I pretty 
 near laughed my head off over that play of his — 
 can't remember his name, but you know who I mean. 
 Everybody knows Mm.'' 
 
 Young Devitt looked disproportionately grave and 
 interested. "Do you like outside work?" he de- 
 manded. 
 
 " Why not? '' 
 
 " I thought you wouldn't want to do anything but 
 write," said Chauncey with a simplicity that some- 
 how startled Cook, it seemed so out of keeping with 
 the young man's mature and forceful bearing. He 
 was used to all sorts of personal questions and com- 
 ments ; but it was not often that they struck him with 
 such a sense of incongruity. 
 
 " Oh, well," he said lightly ; " you know the profes- 
 sions of letters and agriculture aren't so very differ- 
 ent. At least they have one quality in common ; both 
 require an unconquerably sanguine temperament. 
 Eh?" 
 
 Dal ton said " Ump? " with a look uncomprehend- 
 ing and interested but wary, as of one who suspected 
 he might be Tvdtnessing some species of conversational 
 thimble-rig game. Devitt listened ^dth unsmiling in- 
 tentness. 
 
 " That is very true," he said impressively, his deep 
 eyes fastened on Cook's face. " ' The professions of 
 letters and agriculture are alike in requiring an un- 
 conquerably sanguine temperament.' That is very 
 true, Mr. Cook." 
 
132 THE KUDDER 
 
 "Is your father feeling better this morning?'' 
 asked the author, hastily. '' I hope so." 
 
 Dalton spoke while young Chauncey was appar- 
 ently yet gathering himself for a reply. In spite of 
 his unstable glance, the older man — in years he 
 might almost have been his companion's father — 
 was ready and direct of speech and kind enough of 
 heart as now appeared. 
 
 "Why, Mike's a lot better — almost as good as 
 ever ! " he said warmly. " And say, Mr. Cook, that's 
 one reason Timmie here and I come out to see you. 
 The old man wanted to thank you and that lady, your 
 daughter or whoever it was — Mrs. Maranda, ain't 
 she? We found the name in the telephone-book — he 
 wanted to thank you both so bad that we had all the 
 trouble in the world to keep him from getting up and 
 coming himself. Not that he's in bed, you know. 
 Lord, you couldn't keep him in led! But the doc 
 said he had to stay in the house, and Mike did kick 
 on that. He felt so good he didn't see why he 
 couldn't go along just the same as ordinary; and he 
 wanted to see that lady. He said his own daughter 
 couldn't have been kinder to him. So when he found 
 what between Mrs. Devitt and Doc McKenna, and 
 the boy here and I — they got me down to his house, 
 talking to him like a Dutch uncle ! — that he couldn't 
 get to go, why, nothing would do him but we must 
 come out and tell you and her all about it anyhow." 
 
 Mr. Dalton Avould have been surprised if he could 
 have known the kind of impression his plain recital 
 made. Cook was thoroughly pleased, touched, vin- 
 dicated. The nice old Irishman! The fine, decent, 
 right-feeling old fellow ! 
 
 " Mr. Devitt makes too much of what we did — 
 
THE EETUKN OF THE NATIVE 133 
 
 certainly of what / did/' lie said. " And as for my 
 niece, I'm sure nothing could give her more satisfac- 
 tion than to be of some use — to help a little, you 
 know. Tell Mr. Devitt that if he is bent on thanking 
 us, the way he can do it best is by staying at home 
 and getting well. We'd have been distressed if he 
 had taxed himself to come out here and — " At this 
 point Mr. Cook, perceiving that neither one of the 
 visitors was attending, and that both were staring 
 straight past at somebody or something else, turned 
 his own head in time to see his niece Eleanor coming 
 down the steps. She stopped at sight of them, and 
 looked inquiringly but without hesitating; all of 
 Eleanor's movements exhibited a kind of prompt and 
 gracious decision. 
 
 Dalton jogged Cook's elbow. " Is that her now? " 
 he wanted to know, in a heavy undertone. 
 
 ^^ That is my niece. Yes." 
 
 '' Golly ! " said Dalton hoarsely, gazing with all his 
 eves. 
 
 Young Devitt, for his part, gazed too, but dumbly. 
 Meeting the girl, he was more solemn and Dalton 
 perhaps a thought more jovial than Avas natural to 
 either man, though they could not have been said to 
 be ill at ease. Eleanor herself heard their errand 
 Tvith much the same feeling as Cook. 
 
 " Is he better? Is he really all right again? " she 
 asked, her face flushing and brightening as she looked 
 from one to the other. " Why, of course he couldn't 
 come out here — it would have been dreadful ! And 
 I didn't do a thing anyhow." She turned to the son. 
 " You're going to make him take more care of himself 
 after this, aren't you? Did he ever have anything 
 like this before? " 
 
134 THE RUDDER 
 
 "Why, I — er — I don't know/' said Chauncey. 
 The frank surprise of her expression seemed to em- 
 barrass him. To Cook's eye he had the look of 
 squirming under it, helplessly. But Dalton inter- 
 vened readily — even glibly! — with an explana- 
 tion. 
 
 " Tim ain't been home much these last three or four 
 years," he said. " He's been off at college, and of 
 course Mrs. Devitt, same as all the rest of these moth- 
 ers, she don't let him know if there's any trouble at 
 home, if she can help it. You know how that is, miss. 
 I believe Mike's had kind of dizzy spells once or twice, 
 but I guess it ain't anything so serious as it looks — 
 just nerves going back on him a little now and then. 
 Mike's getting on towards sixty years old, and he 
 can't do what he used to, that's about the size of it. 
 He ought to lay off and let somebody else attend to 
 the work and the worry. That's what I tell him. I 
 can talk to him pretty plain ; he's known me all my 
 life ever since we was both a lot younger, and he'll 
 take it from me. Trouble is, Mike thinks there ain't 
 anybody can look after his business but him. He 
 won't let go." 
 
 ^^It will be different now that you are at home, 
 though," Eleanor said to Tim — or Chauncey — who 
 received the intimation with an uncertain smile. 
 
 " Sure ! Tim'll take right hold ! " said Dalton with 
 prodigious warmth, and slapped his companion on 
 the shoulder approvingly. " Sure he will, ma'am ! I 
 don't know, though," he added waggishly ; " Tim may 
 get these dizzy spells himself, especially if any young 
 lady like you happens to be around ! " 
 
 Cook and Eleanor each executed a polite laugh; 
 and the young man, after an instant, followed them 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 135 
 
 tentatively. "I — I believe I know somebody you 
 know/' he was now emboldened to say to her. 
 " They're named Morehead — they live across the 
 street from us." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know about the Moreheads." 
 " As soon as she heard the name, mv mother said 
 she thought you must be one of those Marandas they 
 talk about sometimes — " 
 
 "You don't mean ^Junk^ Morehead?" inquired 
 Dalton. " At least that ain't his real name but he 
 goes by it mostly in the Thirteenth Ward. You don't 
 mean you know himf'^ And upon being answered 
 that this was the case, his countenance, as he eyed 
 Eleanor, expressed his real feeling with a freedom 
 which. Cook privately opined, was seldom allowed it. 
 Unspeakable astonishment looked from Mr. Dalton's 
 every feature. " I guess you don't go there very 
 often, all the same I " he hazarded at last. 
 
 Sunday dinner was eaten in the middle of the day 
 actually; figuratively, the hour resembled midnight, 
 such was the gloom emanating from Mrs. Maranda's 
 apartment. Cook and Eleanor sat at table in x^rofane 
 cheerfulness; but Fannie and the servant stole about 
 on tiptoe with lowered voices, and the former neg- 
 lected her own meal to speed upstairs and down T\i.th 
 Mrs. Maranda's trav, from the room where the in- 
 valid sat with her outraged feelings in a rebuking 
 seclusion. She had not gone to bed, Fannie informed 
 the others, returning from one of her flights in quest 
 of another hot roll and a little more of the lamb and 
 peas — Aunt Juliet had not gone to bed, but she said 
 she wasn't equal to coming down ; she couldn't take a 
 step. 
 
136 THE EUDDER 
 
 " How about you, Fan? " said her uncle. " Seems 
 to me you're taking a good many/' 
 
 " Oh, Fni all right! '' said Fannie, pallid, kind, in- 
 domitable. 
 
 A little later Cook himself went up to bid his sis- 
 ter-in-law good-bye. There was the familiar obscur- 
 ity and strong aroma of smelling-salts; and Mrs. Ma- 
 randa, from her pillowed chair, gave him a limp hand, 
 and murmured, '' Marshall ! '' with tragic feebleness. 
 
 '' It's dreadful for your visit to end this way. / 
 Jioped that this time anyhow — ! But Eleanor will 
 do it, you know. I know how men hate scenes like 
 that this morning — I would hate them myself, even 
 if they didn't break me down so. A man's home 
 ought to be lovely and peaceful. I'm sure I would 
 always do everything to make it so here for you. I 
 often tell Eleanor that — but nothing does any good. 
 And I was feeling so bright and well and happy this 
 morning ! I can't understand her, Marshall ; I don't 
 think she is wilfully cruel — I always tell her I for- 
 give her the things she says, because I cannot believe 
 she is wholly responsible at such times — " 
 
 "Er — yes. That's very noble of you, Juliet — 
 shows so much discernment, too! Er — what did 
 Eleanor say, though?" 
 
 " Oh, Marshall, I can't repeat it ; I can't tell you — 
 I hardly know myself, only that it was terriUe! I'm 
 all shocked and unstrung — it's so bad for me — my 
 neurasthenia, you know — " 
 
 " Are you in pain? Hadn't we better send for the 
 
 doct— ?" 
 
 "No, no!^^ Mrs. Maranda interrupted crisply, 
 starting up. " I don't ivant the doctor. I can bear 
 it, and Fannie knows exactly what to do for me — of 
 
THE EETURN OF THE NATIVE 137 
 
 course she's not as good as a trained nurse, but she 
 does very well. I ivotrt have the doctor." She sank 
 back. ^' Don't be anxious about me, Marshall/' she 
 adjured him with wan earnestness; " I'm not sick/^ 
 
 " No. As long as you are able to eat a little, it's a 
 good sign/' said her brother-in-law in a reassured 
 voice, glancing at the emptied tray. " I'll try not to 
 be anxious. Only you see I don't quite know what's 
 been the matter — " 
 
 "Oh, goodness, Marshall, it's this terrible shock; 
 I told you that before ! " Mrs. Juliet said, not without 
 sharpness. " Nellie shocked me terribly ^ talking the 
 way she did ! " 
 
 " Um — yes. But what did she say? ^' 
 
 He felt penitently as if he had been something of a 
 brute, when poor Mrs. Juliet broke into hysterical in- 
 coherencies ; also he wondered if he might not be mak- 
 ing matters worse, and what would happen among the 
 women after he had gone? It did not seem as if 
 things could possibly keep on this way ; yet, after all, 
 how many, many times had this happened ! 
 
 " I c-can't tell you — you know how Nellie can 
 talk ! " the other sniffed stormily. " You can hardly 
 ever lay a finger on i^liat Nellie says. She lashed me 
 with a tv-icJiip. I told her that. I s-said to her, 
 ^Eleanor, you're lashing me with a w-toJiip!' 
 Wouldn't you have thought that would have stopped 
 her if she had any heart? But she only laughed and 
 said that was true, she had m-made a m-mistake; she 
 ought to have taken a s-slipperl" Mrs. Maranda 
 gobbed out fiercely. 
 
 Cook coughed. " I'll — er-h-hem ! I'll speak to 
 Nellie — h-hem-hem! '"' he said, rising. 
 
 " It won't do any good, Marshall — Nellie doesn't 
 
138 THE RUDDER 
 
 love me ! I don't know why she never has loved me ! '' 
 The last thing he heard as he went downstairs was 
 Mrs. Maranda calling Fannie to rub her hands and 
 arms with alcohol — " it may soothe me a little.'' 
 
 Eleanor came to him with almost the same words 
 as the older lady. " It's all horrid, Uncle Marsh. 
 It's horrid to have it happen while you're here. Oth- 
 erwise I don't care ! " she declared frankly. 
 
 " I wish you'd try to get along with her, Nell. It 
 takes self-control, but you could do it." 
 
 " Like Fannie, you mean ? " 
 
 " No, I don't mean like Fannie," said Cook. '^ 1 en- 
 tirely agree with you that Fannie's idea is a perfectly 
 senseless self-abnegation, and that it's exasperating 
 to witness. But do you think you make it any easier 
 for Fannie by this sort of thing? " 
 
 " She would he the same, and do the same anyhow. 
 I can't make it any different for Fannie one way or 
 the other," retorted the girl, with truth, as Cook 
 knew. Nellie spoke calmly; she was not given to 
 tears and hysterics. Her manner towards him was 
 without feminine appeal; she was like a boy in her 
 spirit of angry fairness, her sense of equality- 
 ^' Let's be plain, Uncle Marshall. You talk to me 
 about self-control and consideration for Fannie, and 
 all the while you know that the only person in the 
 house who has no self-control and no consideration 
 for anybody else is Aunt Juliet. Why don't you talk 
 to herf Because it's hopeless. Because she couldn't 
 understand. She'd only cry and think you were 
 mean, or in a bad temper or something. It's ridicu- 
 lous that the rest of us, just because we can under- 
 stand and have some kind of an intelligence and some 
 kind of a conscience, should have to give in to that 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 139 
 
 poor, dull, vain, selfish, feeble creature, who wants to 
 be told all the time how fine and sweet and lovely and 
 wonderful she is — " 
 
 " Well ! / tell her I That's what / do ! '' Cook in- 
 terjected. 
 
 Eleanor eyed him, refusing to answer his grin. 
 "Yes, you do. But do you always think that's 
 nice? " she asked acutely. " Those smooth speeches 
 that the poor thing swallows down whole, while you 
 are laughing in your sleeve at her — do you think 
 that's nice? '' 
 
 " Why, no, Nellie,'' her uncle admitted. " It's not 
 in the least nice. I rather think it's something no 
 gentleman should do. But if she doesn't know^ she's 
 no worse off. And I can't get through without some 
 recreation ! " he finished, rubbing one hand up the 
 back of his head, plaintively comic. 
 
 " Well, / can't do it, Uncle Marshall — I get too 
 angry. And besides, the fun wears off," said Nellie, 
 still seriously. " She gets to be too tiresome ^ith 
 her cheap, ostentatious, slip-shod sentimentalism, her 
 pitiful, unconscious hypocrisy. All that childish 
 bawling and sulking is just because of the Moreheads. 
 She's ashamed of them. It's contemptible — ! " 
 
 "Oh, come now, Eleanor!" said Cook chuckling 
 irrepressibly. " Anybody would be ashamed of the 
 Moreheads. ^Jiinh'^' he quoted, wagging his head. 
 " You can't blame her for wanting to keep Junk in the 
 background." 
 
 " I'm not blaming her for being ashamed of them," 
 the girl said. '' Fd be ashamed of them, too, but I'd 
 be honest about it. I wouldn't make a parade of how 
 good I was to them, and take other people's praise for 
 it, and fool myself with a lot of saintly talk. I think 
 
140 THE KUDDER 
 
 that's shoddy. I'd say flat out that I couldn't stand 
 'em, and I wouldn't tell anybody about what I did for 
 them. Why, you would too, you know you w^ould ! '^ 
 she added rather ambiguously. 
 
 " Maybe I would," said Cook, also ambiguously. 
 He began to assemble his travelling gear, w^hile she 
 looked on sombrely. 
 
 " YouVe escaped^ Uncle Marshall," she said, after 
 a moment. " A man can alw^ays escape. It's harder 
 for a woman. Look at me! If I could get aw^ay for 
 only a little while every day, I could stand it the rest 
 of the time. But I can't even do that ! I'm not al- 
 low^ed to work. I'm not supposed to do anything but 
 sit at home and be a young lady, and sing Aunt 
 Juliet's praises by the hour. Oh, I know I'm not so 
 terribly badly off; plenty of girls would enyj me. I 
 don't want to make mountains out of molehills. 
 But what am I to do f '^ 
 
 The little man straightened up from the valise he 
 was locking, all the jocularity gone out of his face; 
 and it was with gravity and feeling that he did what 
 he was seldom known to do uninvited — that is, he 
 made a short speech, containing a certain amount of 
 advice. 
 
 " Whatever you do, Eleanor," he said, '^ don't do 
 it in too much haste. Young people don't know how 
 long life is. I often think there would be a deal 
 less suffering and trouble in the world, if we could 
 all be brought to realise the eternal quality of our 
 acts. The thing we do, we do not once, for to-day, 
 for this one time, but forever and forever, and we've 
 got to lie down and get up with it the rest of our lives. 
 Even going slow, even using our best judgment, 
 things don't always turn out right. But the dilemma 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 141 
 
 is that we can't drift along. We've got to make de- 
 cisions. We've each got a rudder, and we must steer 
 ourselves with it the best way we can. That's what 
 I tried to tell those college-boys the other day. I 
 don't know how clear I was about it, or whether I'm 
 making myself clear to you now. You said just now 
 that it was harder for a woman than for a man. I 
 doubt that. I think there comes to everybody, men 
 and women alike, a time when they feel they've got to 
 — to take the boat in charge — to lay a course and 
 stick to it, you know. And there're always so many 
 courses! So I'll say to you by w^ay of keeping up 
 this highly original metaphor," he rounded off, more 
 lightly ; ^^ don't go off on the wrong tack ! And don't 
 get in a hurry, and pile on too much sail ! Here 
 endeth the lesson! Shake foot, eh? That's right!" 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 NOT long before the day in the earliest 'nine- 
 ties when Mr. Marshall Cook, to use his own 
 figure of speech, adjusted his rudder to an- 
 other course, packed wp his manuscripts and cleared 
 for New York — not more than a year or so before 
 that event, Miss Eliza Grace was j)resented to the 
 society of her native city, at a formal entertainment, 
 given by her grandmother on the 3"oung lady's nine- 
 teenth birthday. It was the handsomest party of that 
 season; everybody went; there were wagon-loads of 
 flowers, barrels of champagne-punch, incalculable 
 yards of new frocks. The debutante's grandmother 
 wore all her well-known diamonds; the debutante 
 herself was dressed with priceless Parisian simplicity ; 
 and, possessing a doll-like regularity of feature set 
 off by a doll's pink-and-white-ness of complexion, and 
 a full crop of flaxen hair in corresponding style, made, 
 it is to be hoped, a most pleasing impression. Except 
 for the ordinary greetings, to perform which does not 
 require a high degi^ee of intelligence and may be 
 drilled into almost anybody. Miss Grace was not ob- 
 served to open her mouth the whole evening, not even 
 to laugh; though it was reported upon the best au- 
 thority that she cried herself to sleep in her beauti- 
 ful blue and rose and ivory-white Watteau bed-room, 
 after it was all over. 
 
 She was the only grandchild — the only remaining 
 descendant, in fact! — of the late Andrew J. Grace 
 
 142 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 143 
 
 of the Gracetown Tool \yorks, a pioneer in that in- 
 dustry at which he amassed a great fortune. Bessie 
 got it all ; even the widowed grandmother's share, it- 
 self of splendid proportions, was practically hers al- 
 ready. The girl did not want it; she did not want 
 any of the money; she wanted her grandfather of 
 Avhom she had always been very fond. She refused 
 desperately up to the end to believe that he could be 
 taken from her, and when the blow fell at last, sat 
 under it in a tortured dumbness that alarmed those 
 nearest her, and caused others to remark on the stol- 
 idity of her disposition. Bessie was fifteen when this 
 happened ; af terAvards Mrs. Grace took her to Europe, 
 and for four or five years they lived liberally here and 
 there, saw the old world at ease, and liked it better 
 than their own, ^^ in some ways/^ as citizens of this 
 Republic have the habit of saying. Mrs. Grace her- 
 self voiced their opinions in a speech frequently 
 quoted in her circle after she brought her little blonde 
 heiress home again, upon the latter's coming of age. 
 " Oh, yes, it's all very finished, very charming, very 
 nice in some icays^ but I prefer a country where the 
 average unmarried man is rather afraid of a rich 
 girl ! " 
 
 Gossip intimated that Mrs. Grace got what she pre- 
 ferred in full measure. Whether the money, with its 
 inevitable suggestion of extravagance and self-indul- 
 gence, frightened away the average independent- 
 spirited bachelor of their acquaintance, or whether 
 something in the girl herself discouraged them, money 
 or no money, was not clearly understood, but as a 
 matter of fact. Miss Eliza Grace was not a success in 
 society — judged by the standard of popularity with 
 the other sex, that is. Nobody ever paid her signifi- 
 
144 THE RUDDER 
 
 cant '^ attention." She was sliy, or dull, or sullen or 
 taciturn, it was not certain which, but there was no 
 explaining her quiet ways, her few words, her rare 
 laughter except on one or other of these hypotheses. 
 The young fellows did not know what to make of her ; 
 she never tried to entertain them, and as for starting 
 a flirtation, one would as soon have expected it from 
 the bisque shepherdess on the mantelpiece, which she 
 resembled. On the other hand they got on well 
 enough with her grandmother, who, at sixty, offered 
 a shining example of the woman of the world with 
 the best that that implies of mannerliness and spright- 
 liness and amiable sophistication. Mrs. Grace had 
 been pretty, too, in the same style as Bessie, small, 
 and neatly turned, but with the opposite colouring. 
 ^^My hair was black — quite shiny black," she told 
 one gentleman who was commenting on the likeness. 
 " I looked like a china doll while Bessie looks like a 
 wax one — eh? Never mind!" she added coolly, as 
 he began some embarrassed protestations. " Why not 
 a dollF To be sure, it's a drawback. People at first 
 naturally conclude that you haven't any sense. Later 
 they find out that you have, and there is nothing more 
 agreeable than an agreeable disappointment — eh?" 
 So all the young men went to the house and made 
 duty calls, and sent duty bouquets, and danced duty 
 dances that first season, and there was the proper ex- 
 change of entertainments back and forth, and gossip 
 generously allowed that Mrs. Grace had done every- 
 thing in the world for her granddaughter, and if the 
 girl couldn't get anywhere socially with all that back- 
 ing, it was manifestly her own fault, and the case 
 was hopeless. Well, then, Bessie didn't get any- 
 where ; perhaps she did not care about it ; perhaps her 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 145 
 
 appearance of indifference was pure bluff; no one 
 could say. Her second winter ^' out " must have 
 seemed as flat and uneventful from a young woman's 
 standpoint as if she had been fifty years old and per- 
 manently laid on the shelf. As time went on, and 
 from a ^' bud " she gradually grew to be classed among 
 the " old girls '' — both of which graphic terms are 
 borrowed from the Society Jottings column in the 
 Sunday Observer — Miss Grace withdrew more and 
 more from the public eye. At that, she did not take 
 to art, or to kindergarten work, or Social Service, or 
 the Woman's Club, or to any of the approved chan- 
 nels for an " old girl's '' activities ; her tastes were as 
 queer and unnatural in those as in other directions. 
 She travelled a good deal; she collected old china; 
 she had a wonderful garden at the North Hill place, 
 and another down on Long Island where they had a 
 country house; and bye and bye she and her grand- 
 mother, to the puzzled surprise of their society, 
 seemed to have made, by hook or crook, an extended 
 acquaintance amongst people of note such as mu- 
 sicians, actors, playwrights and the like, and would 
 forever be entertaining some celebrity at one or other 
 home. " That's one of the things that money some- 
 times brings to people," was Mrs. Juliet Maranda's 
 explanation. " Geniuses are human ; they're just as 
 fond of creature comforts as the rest of us, and vnll 
 go where they can get them. I ought to know some- 
 thing about geniuses; I've lived in the house with 
 one I " 
 
 This brings us back deviously to Mr. Cook, the 
 young author — he teas young in those days, some- 
 where about twenty -nine or thirty — whose Times 
 and Tides came out the same year with Bessie Grace, 
 
U6 THE EUDDER 
 
 but contrariwise made a gratifying sensation. Mar- 
 shall went to the Grace party ; he went to all the par- 
 ties that winter in the first high hat and white waist- 
 coat and made-to-order eyening-clothes he had ever 
 owned in his life, a circumstance which, together with 
 the other circumstance that he was mistaken two or 
 three times for the caterer's head- waiter, occasioned 
 him much sardonic amusement. He knew all the 
 men, but very few women, setting aside the conscien- 
 tious hostesses who sent him cards, because of his 
 family, and because they were ^^ inviting everybody 
 anyhow, you know." It was not until a much later 
 date that they began to be interested in him more 
 personally. For that matter, to ladies in their posi- 
 tion a young man is nothing more nor less than a 
 pair of legs that can dance ; and as Marshall was con- 
 spicuously unable to do that, he could not be con- 
 sidered an asset. He used to roam about unob- 
 trusively watching and listening and sometimes in- 
 deed looking rather wistfully at the pretty girls, to 
 whom he could easily have got an introduction, if he 
 could have persuaded himself that they would care 
 to know him. He liked women and believed that, 
 given the chance, he understood them; but not these 
 bright, fluttering creatures. So he continued to 
 roam, and in the course of it, one evening came upon 
 Miss Grace, sitting by herself, apparently forgotten 
 by everybody as usual, and as usual apparently care- 
 less of that fact. She recognised him with an un- 
 smiling little nod; and upon that Cook was inspired 
 by sheer curiosity to go and sit down by her. 
 
 Miss Grace looked at him with her expressionless 
 blue eyes, and said in a clear, rather high voice, also 
 
THE EETURN OF THE NATIVE 147 
 
 of (loll-isli suggestion : ^' What made you so sur- 
 prised wlieu I knew you? " 
 
 Marsliall was more than surprised at this piece of 
 discernment; he was thunder-struck; coming from 
 her, of all people in the world, the effect was almost 
 uncanny. " I almost always am surprised when any- 
 body remembers me,'' he said honestly. " I look so \ 
 much like everybody else — lil^e ten thousand other 
 men, at any rate.'' 
 
 The girl examined his face seriously, but did not 
 make the obvious rejoinder, the rejoinder nine girls 
 out of ten would have made ; she said nothing, and it 
 came into Cook's head, characteristically enough, to 
 speak to her with absolute straightforwardness, and, 
 as he put it inwardly, ^' see w^hat would happen " ! 
 
 " Do you like parties? " he asked. 
 
 "Like this? No," said Miss Grace. "That's not 
 because I'm intellectual or anything of that sort. I 
 don't like them because I don't like them, that's all. 
 Like not liking chocolate nougat, you know\" 
 
 " I see. Some other kind of amusement, maybe — ? 
 The opera, or — ? " 
 
 " Yes. Only people are always wanting to take me 
 to Mda and I don't want to go to Mda. I want 
 to see Human Hearts and Lottie , the Poor Bales- 
 lady. I think — " she stopped suddenly, and Mar- 
 shall read a certain anxiety in the immobile face 
 she turned toward him ; but under his humorous, com- 
 prehending eyes, something new came to life there. 
 Like others, perhaps she felt the reassuring and sym- 
 pathising touch of his interest, that, because it was 
 genuine, never failed of its effect. 
 
 ''The Queen of the Opium Ring is a very good 
 
148 THE RUDDER 
 
 one, too," he said as tliey both began to smile. " Tell 
 me something else you'd like/' 
 
 " You don't mind, Mr. Cook? I do feel impelled to, 
 somehow," said Bessie, naively. " Well, then, I'd 
 like to go to the beer-gardens on the hill-tops and 
 drink beer and eat green onions and bread and cheese. 
 I'd like to go on the river in a shanty -boat, and to the 
 Police Station, and to Latonia to the races. I'd like 
 to go behind the scenes on the stage, and I'd just as 
 lief see a fight, and I'd like to talk to Salvation Army 
 people, and I wish I could know a cabman, or an all- 
 night lunch-stand man, or some boot-blacks and horse- 
 jockeys and policemen — " 
 
 " Wait a minute ! " Cook interrupted her. " Do 
 you want to go around to all those places by your- 
 self? Is that it? " 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so," said Miss Grace, taking 
 thought ; " at least, I don't mean going in a party, you 
 know. Anybody can do that. People often do that. 
 That's just slumming — it's stereotyped. Yes, I sup- 
 pose I want to go by myself. Of course, if I were a 
 man, I would. You do. That's how you find out 
 so much." 
 
 " Oh, yes, but it's not so much fun as you think go- 
 ing around by oneself. Miss Grace," said the young 
 fellow, betraying his loneliness for once — and to this 
 flaxen-haired, insiiDid-looking little thing ! He pulled 
 up, stunned by w^hat he had discovered both in him- 
 self and her. 
 
 Bessie nodded briskly. " It's not an adventure to 
 you. It's all in the day's work. Well, I believe I 
 envy that, too. Now tell me about yourself. What 
 would you like to do best? " 
 
 " I think I'd like to take you around to some of the 
 
TUE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 149 
 
 places jou've been talking about — not to the lurid 
 ones — Police Court, you know — I'm afraid that 
 wouldn't do. I don't know whether it would do at 
 all for me to take you anyhow," said Cook, in some 
 confusion. " But that's what I'd like." 
 
 The pretty pink and white mask turned towards 
 him again, lifeless as at first. ^^Oh!" said Miss 
 Grace. All at once a bright, impenetrable coolness 
 enveloped her; she was like some fairy-tale heroine 
 touched by unkind magic to an icicle, to a diamond, 
 before his eyes. " You are very kind. Thank you ! " 
 she said, rising. And Cook bowed himself away in 
 a hurry before she could complete the dismissal by 
 turning her back on him, which was what her manner 
 led one to expect! 
 
 He walked off not so much hurt as perplexed, won- 
 dering if she received or rather repelled other men's 
 impulsive friendliness in the same fashion. " Prob- 
 ably not. Probably the individual counts!" said 
 Marshall to himself, in his sharp but lenient w^ay. 
 "Heaven knows I'm nothing much to look at, and 
 of no importance otherwise to a young lady ! Maybe 
 I was a little fresh with my offers, too. She scarcely 
 knows me, and — " and here he halted, a new guess 
 dyeing his face crimson. "Oh,— !" said Mr. Cook, 
 in dreadful profanity, jamming his hat down upon 
 his brows with a fierce movement. '' That's what she 
 thinks, does she? Me! I'll show her!" He made 
 savage resolutions never to go near Miss Eliza Grace 
 again. 
 
 In the meantime, going home in their carriage, Mrs. 
 Grace was saying to her granddaughter : " Who was 
 the man I saw you talking to just after supper? " 
 " That was a Mr. Cook." 
 
150 THE KUDDER 
 
 "Cook? Oh, yes, I remember Mm now — one of 
 that old Cook family. Yes, that's who he is/' said 
 the older lady, after consideration. " Nice people. 
 He's connected someway with Mrs. Frank Maranda, 
 too ; she's a very lovely woman, they say. He writes, 
 doesn't he? Somebody told me he wrote. Is he 
 nice?" 
 
 " Oh, quite too nice," said Miss Grace, in a tone 
 which her elder must have recognised unfavourably, 
 for she uttered an impatient ejaculation. 
 
 " ' Quite too nice,' " she echoed. " I suppose the 
 poor harmless young fellow asked you if he might 
 call, eh? " And, as the girl made an assenting sound, 
 Mrs. Andrew Grace's own small ordinarily impassive 
 features twitched ; she spoke in a sort of affectionate 
 vexation. " Bessie, I've told you over and over again 
 that American men are safe. We don't have fortune- 
 hunters here. Of course I'm only your grandmother, 
 and you know a great deal more than I do, neverthe- 
 less I happen to be quite sure of what I'm talking 
 about in this instance. You must stop thinking those 
 things. To begin with, they're really sordid, and — 
 and small-minded. You don't want to be that, I 
 hope. You must stop it." 
 
 " Very well, grandma, I'll try," said Bessie, without 
 interest. " He did seem rather nice at first. Then 
 I thought he was getting like the rest of them. He 
 wanted — he said — " she shrugged amongst her furs 
 and velvets, and was silent. 
 
 Mrs. Grace w^as far too astute — china-doll exterior 
 and all ! — to inquire further as to what he had 
 w^anted or said. She was sorry for the young man, 
 sorry for her granddaughter, in whom she felt some- 
 thing more serious than the familiar exaggerated 
 
THE RETUKN OF THE NxVTIVE 151 
 
 cynicism and melanclioly of nineteen. '' I begin to 
 wish I had never taken you abroad, Bessie," she said 
 presently. '' I thought it would be a fine thing — 
 travel — art — languages — all that. But over there 
 it's so different; a girl gets the wrong point of view. 
 It's a mistake for Americans — some Americans any- 
 how — to start their young people in that society. Of 
 course there are adventurers and harpies everywhere, 
 but — I can't understand why you don't see the dif- 
 ference in our men ! " she exclaimed almost testily. 
 " You're clever enough, and you've had enough expe- 
 rience." 
 
 Possibly this last was true, and Miss Grace may 
 have had enough experience in one direction to have 
 instructed even a dull girl ; but if there were any 
 needv members of the Enoiish or continental nobilitv 
 and gentry in her backgi^ound, any flashy Komeos and 
 Captain Rooks, she never revealed them. She went 
 her way; and now discovered with what feelings who 
 can say that it led her into Mr. Cook's at every turn. 
 Neither of them had noticed it before ; but it seemed 
 as if they were forever running into each other. 
 They knew the same people, they were asked on the 
 same occasions, more than once they were paired at 
 dinners and theatre parties — in short, as the gentle- 
 man vowed to himself, it looked as if the very devil 
 was in it! He could not have avoided her if he had 
 wanted to, and in a little while Marshall began dis- 
 mally to suspect that he did not want to ! Besides, 
 after a time, Bessie herself ceased to evade him; she 
 became altogether frank, friendly, delightful. She 
 never bored him about his writing; she had identical 
 tastes ; she even laughed with his own relish over the 
 same sort of jokes; sink her money — and poor Mar- 
 
152 THE KUDDER 
 
 shall would have given worlds to sink it to the bottom 
 of the sea — and there could not have been found a 
 couple better matched. 
 
 Mr. Cook's character and code of morals, if not 
 quite flawless, were of a fibre to keep him from letting 
 slip the slightest hint of all this to Miss Grace, or to 
 anybody. He knew their world, and had not prac- 
 tised telling it stories for nothing. The young lady, 
 whatever she felt, was not less sophisticated. 
 Though she took Marshall's violets and whimsical 
 verses, and had him out to dinner, and went with him 
 to a score of places, yes, even to the beer-gardens and 
 melodramas of that first interview — though they 
 were, undoubtedly, seen very often together, there 
 was never any talk about them. They liked each 
 other so openly that it discouraged rumour; not to 
 mention the fact that Bessie Grace, for all her money, 
 and Marshall Cook, for all his talent, were both pro- 
 foundly uninteresting persons to society at large. 
 Next year Cook went away; he went to New York, 
 and his city knew him no more ; Miss Grace embarked 
 on those eccentric courses which have already been 
 outlined; and we may presume the romance — so to 
 call it — died a natural death, since fifteen years 
 after, though still single, they were still the best of 
 friends. 
 
 The Grace house on Long Island was a most beau- 
 tiful and correct piece of colonial architecture, de- 
 signed by one of the leading men of the day. Prom- 
 inent authorities commented on the pure antique 
 ^^ feeling " of its roof-line and chimneys, on the abso- 
 lute propriety of its setting, walks, arbours, groves, 
 terraces and so forth, which likewise had been laid 
 out by a landscape artist of renown, on the frugal 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 153 
 
 and unconscious elegance of its furnishings breath- 
 ing the forefathers' own spirit, for which Miss Grace 
 herself was mainly responsible. She used to quote 
 some of the opinions with unappreciative laughter, 
 out of a bound volume of foolscap Avherein she wrote 
 them down — " Half-Minutes with Great Talkers '' 
 was lettered in gilt on the cover. "Grace before 
 meat ! " Cook said whenever she sat down to the en- 
 joyment of this collection of banalities. 
 
 " Take care, you're in here, too ! " retorted Bessie. 
 ''Cooked meat^ eh?" For some reason she never 
 would let him have more than a glimpse at a page 
 here and there, in spite of their intimacy. During 
 the part of the year that they spent at " Eversofar," 
 Cook came and went much more often than he or they 
 realised; the house was frequented by so many of 
 kindred professions, people that sang, people that 
 painted, people that played every instrument in the 
 orchestra, floating or stranded members of upper- 
 class Bohemia. " I seem to be meeting you here all 
 the time!" Walter Stevens the illustrator said to 
 Cook one day. 
 
 '' I was just about to say that to you ! " grinned the 
 little man. " ' 'Tis but a tent where takes (as often 
 as he can) his rest,' a writer to the publishers ad- 
 dressed — ! " 
 
 Miss Grace and her grandmother started off rather 
 suddenly to Europe the summer that Cook went out 
 to the commencement exercises at Cambridge Col- 
 lege. They were gone by the time he got back to New 
 York, so Marshall missed his week-end in the coun- 
 try, and set himself to work in a lonesome and unwar- 
 rantably resentful mood. However, Bessie got and 
 answered his letters ; she urged him to " drop every- 
 
154 THE RUDDER 
 
 thing and run over for a breathing-spell." They ex- 
 pected to be in Switzerland in August. Couldn't he? 
 He had to write briefly that he was too busy. 
 
 " It's this play, you know," Bessie said, reading out 
 occasional passages to Mrs. Grace, as they sat on the 
 balcony outside their hotel windows. 
 
 " I thought the censor, or the morality -man, or 
 whoever he is, had forbidden it," said the other lady, 
 yawning. 
 
 " It's not the same one. That was One Night in 
 Ycnice. I don't suppose he'll get that put on.^ 
 This is Dcnjs Like These — altogether different." 
 
 " Much better choice of a title, anyway. Days 
 seem somehow more dependable than nights," Mrs. 
 Grace drawled. 
 
 It was October when they landed at the West Street 
 docks ; and they got their baggage through, and went 
 np town with the maids and trunks and cabs and set- 
 tled themselves at the hotel, without sight or word 
 of Mr. Cook, although that gentleman could ordinar- 
 ily be counted on to meet them and make himself use- 
 ful. It was one of the few ways in Avhich he could 
 get even with them for their endless and most 
 gracious hospitality, Marshall told himself. There 
 were no flowers, no bon-bons, no notes, no telephone 
 messages. He must be very busy indeed. The play 
 had opened; Days Like These stared from all the 
 hoardings, and at night winked electrically above the 
 sidewalk of Broadway; on sending around for seats 
 they found the house sold two weeks ahead. " I hope 
 
 1 She was mistaken. Not only bas it since been put on, but as 
 all the world knows, it bas bad a prodigious run everywhere, 
 and as a moral rectifier is classed witb Damaged Goods and other 
 pieces every young person, boy or girl, in the country should see. 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 155 
 
 he'll have a few more days like these ! " said Bessie 
 epigrammatically ; " he must be making something 
 out of it at this rate ! " Whatever she thought of his 
 silence and defection, she gave no sign ; indeed, being 
 at thirtj-five as inanimate of feature, and almost as 
 smooth and i^ink and white and flaxen as ever, it was 
 still difficult to associate her with such a process as 
 thinking under any circumstances. 
 
 Next evening at dinner, Mr. Cook turned up, with- 
 out warning, in morning-dress — he who was so fas- 
 tidious about his appearance ! — and looking so worn 
 and worried that both ladies exclaimed with concern. 
 " I couldn't get here — couldn't take time to write 
 even — couldn't do anything — but I knew you would 
 understand,'' he said. And then, seeing that they did 
 not in the least understand, exclaimed in his turn : 
 ^^ Why, didn't you knoiv? You Jcneic^ didn't you? 
 You saw it all in the papers? Good Heavens, I 
 thought of course you would know I " 
 
 They had not noticed the papers. Marshall made a 
 gesture of weary amusement. 
 
 " You must be the only people in New York, in the 
 United States, in the whole universe that don't know, 
 I think ! " said he. ^' Every man, woman and child 
 that I have ever met, and some that I haven't, has had 
 something to say to me about it ! " He spoke to 
 Bessie. " You remember my writing to you last sum- 
 mer about my niece? About this love-affair she was 
 having? Well — I " He made another gesture. 
 *^ She's gone and done it ! " 
 
 ^'' What! '^ cried out the other two in concert. 
 
 " Yes. She's married him. They are married. 
 You know how I felt about it." He paused. ^' I have 
 no business bothering you with all this. My private 
 
156 THE RUDDER 
 
 affairs — that is, if anybody were allowed to have any 
 private affairs nowadays — ! " 
 
 '' You can't, at least. Not in your position, I sup- 
 pose," said Miss Grace. " But it doesn't bother us at 
 all — we do understand, now that we know — only 
 you must tell us some more. I don't see why the 
 papers — when did it happen? " 
 
 " Tuesday — Wednesday — don't ask me ! I got 
 the telegram — it was the letter kind, you know — 
 two or three nights ago at dinner. A bolt out of a 
 clear sky — I hadn't any idea, though I daresay I 
 should have had — I ought to have been ready for 
 it. Actually I don't know whether they had just had 
 it done — whether it was just over — the wedding, 
 you know — " 
 
 " Yes. Mercy, don't speak of it as if it had been an 
 operation for appendicitis ! " 
 
 Cook laughed. " I'm flustered still," he said, be- 
 srinnin": to recover his natural manner. " But it's 
 nothing — not a patch — not a circumstance to what 
 I was when this telegram arrived saying they were 
 coming on — " 
 
 Mrs. and Miss Grace ejaculated again. ^' What? 
 Coming on? They're heref 
 
 He shook his head. " Not now. They left this 
 afternoon. But they were here for three days. That 
 accounts for me, doesn't it?" Cook cast a ruefully 
 comic glance down over himself. " It never occurred 
 to me that you might not have seen the papers. Of 
 course the home ones were full of it — ' Elopement in 
 Smart Set! Amzi Loring Two, Amateur Baseball 
 Champion and All Around Athlete — Miss Eleanor 
 Maranda, Most Beautiful Girl in Society, Niece 
 of the Distinguished Novelist and Playwright — '! 
 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 157 
 
 That's where / get on, as my nephew Amzi would 
 say. The minute the papers here found out about 
 the relationship — you can imagine ! " 
 
 ^^ Was it an elopement? " 
 
 " You may call it that. They went across the river 
 to a 'squire in Covington and he ' tied the knot/ as 
 the reporters have been saying. Eleanor's an Epis- 
 copalian, too! They didn't want a regulation wed- 
 ding, it seems. At least, he didn't, and that was 
 enough for Eleanor. She may have had reasons of 
 her own besides — didn't want any family fuss, very, 
 likely," Cook said, thinking of his sister-in-law. 
 '^ She knew what / thought. I remember preaching 
 her an idiotic sermon about not doing anything rash 
 and all that; of course she knew what I had in mind. 
 Still she might have known I wouldn't have inter- 
 fered. They're both of age anyhow, so why the 
 'squire and why Kentucky? They could have got- 
 ten themselves quietly married at home by a clergy- 
 man. However, it's clone now and can't be undone ! " 
 He spread one hand in a movement expressive of de- 
 feat and finality. " I really have no business to come 
 here and bother you with this," he said again apolo- 
 getically. 
 
 "Don't be absurd and considerately^ Bessie ad- 
 jured him with great freedom. " Besides I'm a per- 
 fect puddle of vulgar curiosity. I'm a living interro- 
 gation-mark. I wouldn't be human and a woman, 
 otherwise. What did old Mr. Loring say?" 
 
 " Nothing so far. For that matter there isn't any- 
 thing to say. He couldn't make any reasonable ob- 
 jection to Eleanor any more than I could think up 
 anything reasonable against his son. That's one of 
 the things that make it all tragically silly. I wrote 
 
158 THE EUDDER 
 
 to him; as the only man in Eleanor's family, I 
 thought I ought to do that, though I hadn't the least 
 notion what to say. The letter was all vague refer- 
 ences to ^ youth must be served ' and so on. No doubt 
 he'll write me back a plain man's letter, temperate 
 and sensible, that will put my cheap devices to 
 shame — ^Marshall Cook, Esquire: Dear Sir; 
 Yours of the seventh inst. rec'd and contents duly 
 noted — ' " He began to laugh again, interrupting 
 himself as before deprecatingly. " Do forgive me ! 
 I can't seem to stop talking about it. There hasn't 
 been time yet to hear from him. I haven't had time 
 for anything myself." 
 
 Mrs. Grace surveyed him. " Marshall Cook," she 
 said with solemnity ; ^' am I to be disappointed in you 
 after all these years? Do you mean to tell me that 
 you've been dogging the young people around for two 
 or three days when all they wanted in the world was 
 to be left alone? And you pretend to know all about 
 it — to TVTite love-stories — reprehensible ones at 
 that! What have you been thinking of — ?" 
 
 '^ Think f cried out Cook; ^^ I haven't had a 
 thought in my head for three days! How does one 
 think? What is the process? I've forgotten how. 
 No, don't laugh either, all this hasn't been so very 
 funny ! " he went on, his own smile giving place to 
 an expression almost melancholy. " It's not funny," 
 he reiterated. " I've been with them all the time, but 
 not of my own desire, you may take my word for it. 
 It was Eleanor. She wanted me. Perhaps I seemed 
 to her to supply some element of conventionality — 
 regularity — social sanction — I don't know what. 
 After the 'squire, you know, and all this nightmare of 
 publicity. Perhaps to her mind I rescued the sit- 
 
TUE FiETURN OF THE NATIVE 159 
 
 nation from being ^common' — poor Eleanor I" lie 
 sighed unatfectedly. '' She stopped me from giving 
 her a wedding-present — that is, she wouldn't take 
 anything — wouldn't let me get her anything. But 
 we passed a bird-fancier's place one day, where they 
 had all kinds of pet animals for sale, and she took a 
 fancy to an Angora kitten that was in the window, 
 so I insisted on going in and buying it for her. She 
 actually cried a little — I don't know why! It's a 
 honeymoon! Do you know she hadn't any wedding- 
 ring, even? The State doesn't require one, it seems. 
 Amzi bought one for her after they got here. It 
 doesn't seem the same thing to me, and I'm sure it 
 doesn't to her, but she pretends to be satisfied, any- 
 how. He made fun of it himself, but he did get it for 
 her; he's in love with her after his fashion. We've 
 been going around incessantly looking at automobiles 
 all morning, and to the ball-game every afternoon. 
 There's a World's Series being played, or about to be 
 played that he's deeply interested in. At night we 
 went to ' musical shows ' — that's the proper term, 
 you know — " Cook shook his head. " It's a honey- 
 moon ! " 
 
PAKT TWO 
 THE WAGON AND THE STAR 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 NOWADAYS, those of us who frequent lecture- 
 courses are likely to hear at any time from 
 the official in charge of the entertainment 
 that the name of T. Chauncey Devitt needs no intro- 
 duction to the American public; in spite of which 
 fact, the gentleman invariably is introduced with 
 some outlay of flourishing phrases. And, after sev- 
 eral stirring rounds of applause, he begins in his usual 
 impressive style his address entitled, " The Worth 
 of an Ideal," or perhaps that other one : " The Mak- 
 ing of a Soul '' ; or, again, it may be : ^' The Price of 
 a Man,'' " The Value of an Opportunity," " The Pass- 
 ing of an Illusion," etc. Some of the lectures — 
 w^hich have had a vast success — have been brought 
 out lately in book form by the author with a preface in 
 which he states that they are the fruit of five years^ 
 exhaustive study of governmental questions, political 
 economy, sociology, ethics and religion. It has been 
 ignorantly or perhaps maliciously suggested that to 
 master any single one of these subjects would require 
 the whole five years, if not more, of any ordinary mor- 
 tal's time and labour ; but that only goes to prove that 
 Mr. Devitt is not ordinary. He is, indeed, hors con- 
 cours as regards both capacity and achievement; for 
 besides giving a half-decade of his short life — he can- 
 not be much over thirty at this writing — to the pur- 
 suit and dissemination of knowledge, as just de- 
 
 163 
 
164 THE RUDDER 
 
 scribed, lie lias always taken an active interest in all 
 the large issues of the day. Initiative, Referendum, 
 and Recall, the Single Tax, Prohibition, Equal Suf- 
 frage, Organised Labor — he has lent his eloquence 
 and his i^rofound store of information to the support 
 of all of them. Nothing can exceed the warmth, the 
 scope and catholicity of his convictions ; as the daily 
 press has remarked, ^' Devitt is right there with the 
 noise every time ! " — a piece of that vulgar and sim- 
 ple levity which all our great men must learn to en- 
 dure. 
 
 T. Chauncey endures it, for his part, unruffled; he 
 gives the impression that it is surprisingly easy to 
 be a great man ; and moreover he was firmly resolved 
 on being one from the beginning, from the first mo- 
 ment that his mind could grasp the idea of a future at 
 all. Yes, twenty -odd years ago, when he was little 
 Tim Devitt — nobody dreamed of calling him Chaun- 
 cey in those days — a boy playing around the rail- 
 road-tracks and elevators and lumber-yards of the 
 East End, diving off the coal-barges and learning to 
 swim and manceuvi^e a john-boat among the muddy 
 currents of the Ohio, running errands to the corner 
 grocery for his mother, and fetching a can of beer 
 from the saloon now and then for his father, going to 
 school and plaguing the life out of the motormen and 
 train-hands by risking his own in sudden hair-rais- 
 ing excursions onto the tracks in front of their trol- 
 ley-cars and locomotives — all the while young Tim 
 was conducting himself thus, to outward seeming no 
 whit different from the commonplace lads his com- 
 panions, he was secretly absorbed in contemplation of 
 his coming greatness. He fixed no date for it; he 
 never consciously worked towards it; yet the boy was 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 165 
 
 as confident of future eminence as of sunrise on the 
 morrow. How or for what he would become cele- 
 brated was a mere detail ; the vision, at once hazy and 
 brilliant, revealed nothing clearly or definitely but 
 himself, sujireme, dramatic, in the centre of the stage, 
 the focus of applause. Possibly the scholastic dis- 
 tinction which entered into his expectations when- 
 ever he chanced to think of it like every other sort of 
 distinction, was the one he cared least about, though 
 he was fond of reading, had a facile memory, and was 
 by way of being a fjrize pupil in all his classes. If 
 anything, what he looked forward to specifically was 
 leadership among men, notwithstanding the fact that 
 he never arrived at any kind of leadership among 
 boys. Indeed, so far from being the chieftain of a 
 ^^ gang," he never even belonged to one; secret con- 
 claves, dens and rendezvous, signs and pass-words — 
 from all these familiar fooleries he was somehow ex- 
 cluded. Whatever gift, whether that of inspiring 
 fear or admiration or simply a devoted unreasoning 
 adherence, qualifies a boy to lead, or to take part in 
 councils, his fellows must have decided that Tim 
 lacked it. Perhaps he was not well enough liked or 
 well enough disliked; perhaps he was not considered 
 at all, one way or the other. At any rate, obscurity 
 and unimportance were his portion, like that of many 
 another prophet amongst his own peoi^le. The com- 
 rades of Mr. Devitt's youth should regret their unap- 
 preciative blindness now ; yet, to the mind of one ob- 
 server at least, there is something formidably shrewd, 
 cold and trustworthy about the collective judgment 
 of boys. What becomes of it as they grow into men, 
 is another of the mysteries of human development. 
 If Tim was aware of his detachment, it only served 
 
166 THE EUDDER 
 
 to confirm his dreams. He read about Caesar, Na- 
 poleon, Lord Byron, George Washington, and sundry 
 other historical personages, not to mention scores of 
 heroes of romantic fiction, and perceiving that one and 
 all had dwelt — more or less — in splendid isolation, 
 marked from the cradle for the loneliness of glory, 
 unhesitatingly set himself in their company. Al- 
 though, putting success aside, they seldom had much 
 in common, and were men of widely differing charac- 
 ters and careers, Tim could discern a striking resem- 
 blance between himself and every one of them! It 
 was extraordinary. Perhaps he heightened it by a 
 diligent imitation of each succeeding one, as he con- 
 ceived that hero to have been in appearance and man- 
 ner as fast as he made their acquaintance through 
 the public library, of which he was the steadiest 
 patron known. Master Timothy's literary tastes, and 
 his impressive rendition of his various roles filled his 
 parents with a happy wonder and admiration and ex- 
 pectation. They themselves had no idea of being 
 anybody but Michael Devitt and Norah Devitt his 
 wife, she that was Norah McCarthy, plain decent peo- 
 ple, and their own performances in the reading line 
 never got beyond the daily newspaper and the Cath- 
 olic Messenger. 
 
 " Sure, the boy reads a book off in the turn of your 
 hand ; it's no more to him than eating down a dish of 
 stir-about, he's that quick. He gets through the big- 
 gest ones they have in two days. I don't know is it 
 safe for him, he's so young and all," his mother would 
 say, her pride flimsily disguised as anxiety. ^' It 
 seems like it's not in nature for anybody to be so 
 bright at his age — fourteen his last birthday. But 
 w^e can't hold him — his father nor I, we can't hold 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 167 
 
 him. And wlien all's said, tlie learning comes as 
 easy as easy to him. 'Tis not as if Tim had to work 
 hard. That's what all his teachers do be telling me 
 Avhiles I get to worrying. * Leave the boy alone, Mrs. 
 Devitt,' they says. ' There's no saying how far he'll 
 go, and that kind has to be let go their own ways. 
 You'd ought to be proud of your son, 'stead of fussing j 
 over him/ they says. ' Well,' I says, ' I ain't proud. 
 For what should / be boasting? 'Twas the Lord 
 above done it, not me. Praise be ! ' " And here, very 
 likely, the mother would cross herself with tears in 
 her eyes, while the shawl-headed neighbour to whom 
 she had confided all this as they met over the sink 
 in the tenement-house hallway would nod and cluck, 
 and call on the heavenly powers in her turn with 
 words of congratulation and sympathy. " God be 
 good to us, it's God's truth ye're telling, Mrs. Devitt. 
 The boy's a fine boy entirely. We'll be hearing of 
 him one of these days, mark my words ! " 
 
 There was a time in his life, during his college 
 years, and at about the date when the " Chauncey " 
 was introduced into his name, when young Tim found 
 it convenient to forget these tenement-house days, and 
 was not over-enthusiastic about presenting the elder 
 Devitts in the society to which he himself aspired. 
 He has gotten all over this diffidence now; he ac- 
 knowledges without any false shame that he is a self- 
 made man, sprung from the people — the common 
 people. Nothing so exalted as a tenement-house 
 sheltered his birth and boyhood; it was a shanty! 
 And he will talk willingly and copiously about his 
 early trials, struggles, privations, about the paternal 
 dinner-pail, the maternal washboard, his own bare 
 feet and frequently empty stomach. He no longer 
 
1G8 THE EUDDER 
 
 sliuns the mention of Michael and Norah ; on the con- 
 trary he brings in their names as often as may be, 
 with a break in his magnificent voice. " Father ! 
 Mother! Are there words in our language — in any 
 language — more beautiful than those?" he says. I 
 myself have heard him say it, though Avhether in a 
 lecture on governmental questions, or on political 
 economy, or sociology, or religion or ethics, for the 
 soul of me, I can't remember. It is very touching, 
 though; and you respect him for the regret he un- 
 affectedly expresses that his own father and mother, 
 after having done what they could for him, which 
 you gather was pathetically little, have passed be- 
 yond the reach of his gi-ateful affection. He had 
 hoped some day to repay them, to give them a secure 
 and comfortable old age — "But,'' he says with 
 solemn resignation ; " that was not to be ! " 
 
 It has been intimated, however, that Mike Devitt, 
 besides being astounded beyond measure, would not 
 have been best pleased had any such reports as the 
 above concerning himself and his family and his cir- 
 cumstances been circulated during his lifetime. 
 Michael came out from the old country about the year 
 eighteen-seventy -seven ; and to be sure he was nothing 
 but a green young Irishman without much in the way 
 of either money or education, but tolerably well 
 equipi3ed, on the other hand, with pluck, ambition and 
 common-sense. At first he swung a pick in the 
 ditches, and bellowed curses at his team of mules, and 
 said " sir " to the boss, and doubtless did live in a 
 shanty, or in any kind of a bunk-house with the rest 
 of his gang of day-labourers. But that was all over 
 by the time he fetched Norah McCarthy out from 
 Sligo, and they were married and set up housekeep- 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 1G9 
 
 ing in the two rooms over the bakery at the corner 
 of Pearl and Miami Streets. Shanty, forsooth! It 
 may not have been a palace, but it was anything but 
 a shanty, whatever their son's recollection of it. 
 Norah kept it as neat as a new pin; with only one 
 child to look after, she had abundant leisure as their 
 neighbours pointed out, and moreover Mike was the 
 best of men about the house. He never raised a hand 
 to her, or came home drunk in his life. They lived 
 well, and put by a penny, too. Yes, Michael Devitt 
 would have made it painfully lively for anybody who 
 suggested then or at any other time that his wife had 
 ever had to wash any shirts but her own man's, or 
 that his son ever went barefoot and hungry. And as 
 to providing for his old age, I believe he did that him- 
 self, on a modest scale ; T. Chauncey is said to draw 
 something of an income still from his father's estate, 
 enough to keep him at ease. That was the main end 
 and object of all the old people's work and thrift and 
 prayers. " We'll make our Timmie a gentleman, or 
 know the reason why ! " Norah used to say ; and one 
 hopes that the honest couple are taking their long 
 rest, satisfied. 
 
 The first fifteen years of Tim's life witnessed sev- 
 eral changes of residence, each registering a step up- 
 ward in the Devitt style of living, along with their 
 increasing prosperity ; but it w^as not until he was in 
 his second year at high school, and there began to be 
 talk of Cambridge College, that Tim's mother all at 
 once found the East End a highly undesirable locality 
 in which to make a home and bring up a family. It 
 was noisy, it was dirty, it was dangerous with so 
 many railroads and roughs, it was too near the 
 Piyer— "And that's a true word, anyhow! The 
 
170 THE EUDDER 
 
 river's a bad neighbour, the kind tliat's forever run- 
 ning in ! " Mike agreed witli a laugli. So they shook 
 the dust of Pearl Street and its en\drons from their 
 feet, and went and took a house — a house this time, 
 mind you! No more tenements for Mrs. Michael 
 Devitt ! — at the opposite end of the city, on Poplar, 
 near the foot of the Incline, in a much more refined 
 neighbourhood where there were a good many board- 
 ing and rooming establishments populated by medi- 
 cal students, dressmakers, dej)artment-store clerks 
 and so on, and a saloon only about every two blocks. 
 The house was a two-story brick with a bath-room and 
 side-yard; and what with that and her parlour all 
 newly furnished in golden oak and lace curtains, and 
 a lady to come in and help with the cleaning once a 
 week, and Mike making money hand over fist at the 
 road-contracting, and young Tim carrying off prize 
 after prize at school, and herself having a dress or 
 hat for the asking — what with all this, her old East 
 End friends reported that ISTorah Devitt got that stuck 
 up, she never came to see them any more, or had so 
 much as a word you'd throw at a dog whenever they 
 met! But Mike now — nobody had anything to say 
 against him! He was always easy as an old shoe and 
 never forgot any one, in spite of his good luck, and 
 his rise in life. 
 
 " Luck, is it? Well, ye may call it that, but I spell 
 it w-o-r-k ! " he sometimes responded good-naturedly 
 and sensibly. " Of course, IVe got a pull. Oh, yes, 
 it's a grand pull I've got with two friends of mine that 
 I can always count on. One of 'em's Mister Right 
 Hand, and the other's Mister Left ! " 
 
 ^' It's not so much them two, as it is Mister Head 
 on your shoulders, Micky,'' one of his friends 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAB 171 
 
 retorted. " That's where you've got the bulge. 
 There's plenty of men come out here the same time 
 as you did, and started the same way, and look at 'em ! 
 Look at 'em! They're just where they were, and 
 they'll never get any further. Why, I'll bet you've 
 got some of 'em working for you this minute." 
 
 ^' Sure I have that ! " said Michael, rather ruefully. 
 " Not so many — one or two — but 'tis enough ! The 
 boys ain't so handy with themselves as they was once, 
 but I can't turn 'em down. They're getting old. 
 There's Corcoran now — ye mind him? Denny Cor- 
 coran, he's full as old as I am. They fired him off the 
 Waterworks tunnel job the other day, and here he 
 comes to me with the sorrowful tale, and for old sake's 
 sake I had to give him something to do. I could name 
 ye a dozen like him. Of course 'tis the drink that's 
 the matter with Denny, poor fellow. But they ain't 
 all that way. I don't know just what it is ails 'em; 
 they can't seem to get ahead any. I mean young ones 
 and old ones and all; there's something wrong Tvdth 
 'em. They've got just as good a chance as ever I had ; 
 but they can't seem to take hold somehow. And then 
 they talk about my luck ! " 
 
 " No, they haven't got as good a chance as yourself, 
 Mike," said the other. " They're not made the way 
 you are. The way things are nowadays, a man's got 
 to get down and scratch gravel — he's got to hustle, 
 or somebody '11 walk right over him. Yep, yoit know 
 how that is, I guess. No need to tell yoii. Well, 
 now, you can do it, and / can do it ; but these others 
 can't do it, that's all. The poor devils can't do it. 
 All the same, they got to live, ain't they? A man's 
 got a right to his job, ain't he? That's what the 
 unions takes care of, like I was telling you. That's 
 
172 THE RUDDER 
 
 ^^hat the unions is for. A workingman's got to work ; 
 lie hasn't got any time to look out for himself that 
 way, so his union takes hold and sees that he gets a 
 square deal; keeps people from sticking more onto 
 him than he can do, and then telling him he's incom- 
 petent and throwing him out. It's not fair to meas- 
 ure the ordinary man ui^ against one of these experts, 
 and then say : ^ Here, you ain't doing as well as this 
 other fellow. Git ! ' That ain't fair. The only fair 
 thing is to standardise the work, so there won't be 
 any unjust comparison. But who's going to do that? 
 Not the employers, you bet ! They're going to squeeze 
 the last ounce of work they can out of a man, and 
 throw him away when they're through with him. 
 That's where the union steps in and keeps 'em from 
 taking the bread out of his mouth, and out of his 
 wife and children's mouth. Ain't that right? Ain't 
 it right the workingmen should get together and fix 
 up some kind of organisation to protect 'em against 
 organised capital? " 
 
 " Sure, it's right. Why, I'm just as strong for the 
 union as you are. Jack," said Devitt hastily. " I'll 
 give the boys the raise. I know they have a hard time 
 getting along — some of 'em do, that is. I don't have 
 it so easy always myself. I've been a workingman 
 too — am still by times, for that matter — only there 
 wasn't any union when I began, and what I say is 
 that I got along without it, just the same. It's as I 
 was saying, some of us do and some don't, unions or 
 
 no unions." 
 
 ^' Things were different twenty years ago. You 
 couldn't do it now, Mike. You couldn't make out to 
 live hardly nowadays on the wages you got then. 
 Things have gone up so, it ain't but fair that wages 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 17 
 
 <> 
 
 slioiild go up to meet 'em. It's no more than reason- 
 able. You know there ain't any set of men that 
 could get me to come to you with any proposition that 
 wasn't reasonable. That's what I told 'em, I said: 
 ' There's reason in everything, and I won't stand for 
 anything out of reason, nor Mike Devitt won't neither, 
 not if / knoAv him ! ' I says : ' You can talk about 
 calling a strike on him, and getting him all tied up 
 if you want to, it won't make a bit of difference to 
 Devitt, unless he sees there's reason in it.' I gave 
 'em a good talking to. Nothing in it for me. I just 
 like to see things done in a square way." He made a 
 liberal gesture : '' Can't help it — that's the way I 
 feel. I wouldn't put this up to you, if I didn't think 
 it was fair, Mike." 
 
 " I know, I know. I told ye I'd give 'em the raise," 
 said Mike, hastily again, in fact with a warmth of 
 agreement that may have cost him some effort. 
 "And now we're over with business, ye'll stay and 
 have some supper, or Norah'll be in our hair, the both 
 of us ! " he added much more spontaneously, as the 
 other grasped his hand. 
 
 This guest was Mr. John Dalton, a familiar figure 
 in the Thirteenth Ward, where he had been council- 
 man for a period of years, conscientiously giving his 
 whole time and attention to the duties of that office, 
 it may be presumed, since he was not observed ever 
 to be engaged in any other business, trade or pro- 
 fession. Now, however, he was out of politics, hav- 
 ing become Secretary of the Federation of Teamsters 
 and Allied Trades, with an office in the Kremlin 
 Building, instead of the little room on Liver Alley 
 behind Metznauer's Place where he used to carry on 
 the work of being a councilman ; and, judging from 
 
174 THE RUDDER 
 
 appearances, he was making a success at this job, too, 
 without undue exertion. Off-hand, one would not 
 have guessed that he and the elder Devitt would be 
 particularly congenial; he was some years younger 
 than Michael, and having been born on this side, must 
 have grown up with very different standards and 
 points of view — not to mention environment and op- 
 portunities and advantages. But the families came 
 from the same little neighbourhood in the old coun- 
 try. Devitts and Daltons knew one another from old 
 times, by-gone generations of them had intermarried, 
 their association was a habit, a tradition. Council- 
 man and Secretary Dalton had always been as inti- 
 mate in the Devitt household as any friend they had ; 
 and his heavy-set figure — growing somewhat heavier 
 of late years — his diamond scarf-pin, his small, bold, 
 light blue eyes, his stiff black moustache and big jaw, 
 his thick laughter, his ready, fluent talk, were among 
 young Tim's first recollections. Tim thought Dalton 
 a great man ; he wore good clothes not only on Sun- 
 days but every day, he smoked cigars instead of a 
 little rank pipe, he could drink any amount, he had 
 plenty of money, he went about making speeches, it 
 had been printed in the newspapers and Tim had seen 
 it with his own eyes that Jack Dalton owned Con- 
 gressman Candee; what more in the way of a hero 
 could one ask? 
 
 It was disappointing and provoking at the same 
 time that it impressed Timothy even more with a sense 
 of the other's greatness to find out that he could not 
 successfully ape this potent and splendid personage; 
 besides the clothes, the cigars and the money, he un- 
 certainly perceived something else in Dalton's equip- 
 ment, some enviable and formidable quality which he 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 175 
 
 himself did not possess — as yet ! Whatever it was, 
 Tim was sure that he woukl possess it some day ; but 
 in the meanwhile, even he, who f^erhaps was not gifted 
 with much humorous insight, realised that openly to 
 take Dalton for a pattern might be regarded as merely 
 funny. The conclusion was enforced by the total lack 
 of serious consideration which his ventures at Dal- 
 ton's swagger and half-jocular, half-bullying assur- 
 ance met with in the home circle. 
 
 "Ho, ye want a dollar, do ye?'' his father would 
 say, suddenly lowering the paper, and grimacing at 
 him with a sharpness of eye that, to tell the truth, 
 caused the embryo Dalton to shiver in his shoes. 
 " My fine Timmie wants a dollar ! And who told ye 
 to come at me like a pirate demanding it? Is that a 
 way to behave? Mamma, why don't ye bring this 
 boy up better? '' 
 
 "Now, then, Mike, give it to him. He asked ye 
 for it civil enough, ye know he did. Ye just want to 
 tease the poor child. Never mind, Tim dearie, your 
 father will have his fun. Hell give it ye directly," 
 cried the mother, bristling. " Now then, Mick — ! " 
 
 " Ye're spoiling him, that's vvhat ye are, Norah. 
 He'd ought to be earning his own dollars in place of 
 coming to me for them," Devitt pretended to gi^umble, 
 getting out the money, nevertheless. " He's sixteen 
 years old. When I was sixteen, if I'd gone to the 
 old man, it's not a dollar I'd have got, but a whack 
 over the head ! By the same token, I didn't do it ! " 
 
 " Of course ye didn't, ye great, strapping fellow 
 with a fist on ye like a ham," said Mrs. Devitt, indig- 
 nantly. " Ye never will understand that Timmie's 
 delicate. The boy hasn't the stren'th to work your 
 way. It takes all he's got for the studying. Would 
 
176 THE RUDDER 
 
 ye rather Tim was out on your roads digging your 
 ditches along with them dagos and niggers than get- 
 ting himself a good education to — to be — to be a 
 credit to your old age? Think shame to yourself, 
 Mike Devitt — !'' 
 
 *' Mother of Christ, will ye listen to the woman ! 
 Norah, I never said a w^ord like that! I just said — '^ 
 
 And at this point Master Tim generally escaped, 
 with his dollar, to be sure, but conscious of con- 
 spicuous failure in the role of Dalton. As far as get- 
 ting the money w^as concerned, his mother's methods 
 were much more effective ; but I am afraid that, while 
 finding her extremely convenient and reliable, the 
 young gentleman did not thank her for her excited 
 partisanship; I am afraid that, in spite of the noble 
 sentiments he expresses nowadays, Timothy felt, at 
 this time, a very definite contempt for his mother. 
 And amongst his many models, I doubt if it ever oc- 
 curred to him to class Michael Devitt; but did ever 
 any boy yet make a hero of his own father? 
 
 It may speak something for young Devitt's char- 
 acter that the desire and determination to achieve his 
 destined greatness after the style of John Dalton 
 really governed him, notwithstanding an occasional 
 boyish shifting of allegiance, from this time forward. 
 All the while he was at college, engaged with branches 
 of education of which Mr. Dalton had never heard, 
 or in recreations of a description to rouse the latter's 
 unbridled scorn and laughter — all the while T. 
 Chauncey w^as grinding away, getting everything by 
 heart with astounding accuracy, garnering in more 
 prizes, regarded by his mother with adoring pride, 
 by his teachers with a dubious wonder, by his fellow- 
 scholars scarcely at all one way or another — all this 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 177 
 
 while Chaiincev was cherishing his plans of rising to 
 power, affluence, distinction a la manicre Dalton I 
 He never confided his ambitions to anybody, partly 
 because he never made any close friends, and j^artly 
 from a profound caution, or rather secretiveness 
 which he early develojied, which, indeed, the circum- 
 stances required of him. When asked what he meant 
 to do or be, it was manifestly impossible to explain 
 that his career was to be shaped upon John Dalton's. 
 No one would have understood; Chauncey himself 
 did not clearly understand, for that matter. He had 
 no bent for research, analysis, investigation, original 
 work, in short, of any kind. However, he speedily 
 got an answer ready ; he was not to be caught like so 
 many of the young fellows who would unblushingly 
 confess that they had not yet decided upon their 
 future. When, for instance, Professor Wilson in- 
 quired, Chauncey tranquilly rei)lied that he intended 
 to be a consulting engineer. 
 
 "A — er — a stationarv one?" said Wilson, look- 
 ing extraordinarily interested. 
 
 " Yes. Yes, of course," said Tim, who recollected 
 having seen the term stationary applied to engineers 
 somewhere, somehow, in one of his books. 
 
 ^' Of course. A consulting engineer would nat- 
 urally have to be stationary," said the Professor, in a 
 mild and thoughtful way, quite devoid of significance. 
 It should not have made T. Chauncey for the moment 
 faintly uncomfortable ; but he never liked Wilson, or 
 felt at ease in his presence. 
 
1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ■^HE first people with whom the Devitts made 
 acquaintance on moving to Poplar Street 
 were Mr. and Mrs. Homer Morehead and 
 their large family. This was natural, as they lived 
 just across the way, and the two households must 
 have met soon ; but in point of fact, it was the very 
 next day, when Norah with her head wrapped in a 
 towel was flying to and fro everywhere upstairs, 
 downstairs, indoors and out, scouring, sweeping, or- 
 dering and arranging, and Mike was good-humouredly 
 swearing at the stove-pipe, and Tim was staying home 
 from school to run errands and help with the step- 
 ladders and buckets of water — it was while they 
 were in the middle of this that Mrs. Morehead, re- 
 versing the usual proceeding when new-comers ap- 
 pear in a neighbourhood, sent over to borrow a 
 dishpan ! " And the next time I set eyes on it," Mrs. 
 Devitt related afterwards, grimly amused, " 'twas 
 standing on the wash-bench by the hydrant in their 
 backyard, and whether there was potato-peelings or 
 somebody's dirty shirt in it, I couldn't tell ye, but it 
 looked like both ! ^ Oh, my, if there ain't your pan ! ' 
 says Mrs. Morehead, seeing me stare. ^ Ain't the 
 girls careless now? ' she says, laughing like. ^ I'll see 
 it's sent back right away.' ^ Oh, don't mind about it, 
 Mrs. Morehead,' says I. ^ I'm not needing it. I've 
 plenty of pans. Never mind it ! ' So, sure enough, 
 she didn't! She's got it this minute, and I'm just as 
 
 178 
 
THE WAGON AXD THE STAR 179 
 
 well-pleased. The way it looked, there ain't a pig 
 but what would have turned up his nose at the notion 
 of taking his swill out of it. It wasn't long till we 
 found out what kind they were. I've never loaned 
 'em since, though not for the want of asking I Them 
 Moreheads are all of 'em a poor, footless lot. They 
 do be calling the father ^Junk,' ye know, and 'tis a 
 good name for him; junk's all he's fit for. There's 
 times I feel sorry for the childer, for it's not their 
 fault; what could ye expect? Like father, like son I " 
 Now behold how inconsistent are the judgments of 
 man I Homer Morehead, whom thrifty, reputable, 
 successful people like the Devitts and others dis- 
 missed with a contemptuous nickname, actually re- 
 sembled in certain not inconspicuous aspects the uni- 
 versally respected — it may even be, feared I — John 
 Dal ton. Homer had once held office too ; he had been 
 head of the Garbage Department, from which position 
 an unappreciative administration deposed him after 
 about two years, since when he had been allowed to re- 
 main, against his own earnest protest, " out of poli- 
 tics." Also like Dalton he was reputed to hold any 
 amount of liquor ; and he was another lily of the field, 
 nobody ever having known him to toil, much less spin, 
 even when he had a job. But it was Mr. Morehead's 
 misfortune to lack what the other so eminently pos- 
 sessed, the outward accessories of greatness. In di- 
 rect contrast to Dalton, Junk loafed in his own home, 
 or hung about the street corners, forever ^' striking " 
 somebodv for a dollar or a drink, seedv, unshaved, un- 
 washed, and out of pocket. He was fathoms deep in 
 debt to every tradesman in the neighbourhood; his 
 conversation was an endless funereal narrative of 
 hard luck and unjust treatment. It would not have 
 
180 THE RUDDER 
 
 been Homer upon whom young Tim Devitt would 
 have striven to model himself — perish the thought! 
 Tim would have ridiculed the suggestion that the 
 mighty Dalton and this ineffectual creature had any- 
 thing in common, or might be at bottom two of a 
 trade. He was, however, observant enough to note 
 and imitate — within limits — Dalton's manner to- 
 ward the other man, whom the ex-councilman appar- 
 ently felt free to use or abuse at will. He would 
 treat Junk to a glass of beer as he might throw a bone 
 to a hungry mongrel; and likewise whistled him to 
 heel, or kicked him out of the way figuratively — 
 perhaps at times literally — whenever it suited his 
 mood or convenience. The spectacle helped to con- 
 firm Tim's belief in his hero, and strengthened his 
 resolution to be himself some day an owmer of con- 
 gressmen and Moreheads. 
 
 Meantime he was on i)retty intimate terms with the 
 neighbours across the street, rather to his mother's 
 uneasiness. It was true the Morehead boys w^ere not 
 of an age to associate with her son — in other w^ords 
 to contaminate him; Tom was too old, twenty or so, 
 occasionally had work somewhere, and at any rate 
 was seldom home by day or night ; the other boys were 
 too young, four or five years Tim's junior, quite be- 
 neath the notice of a freshman at Cambridge College. 
 It was the young women of the family that Mrs. De- 
 vitt looked upon with disfavour, against whom she 
 was eternally aiming those pathetically futile shafts 
 of ridicule, criticism, sarcasm with which mothers 
 seek to protect their sons from sentimental entangle- 
 ments. Mrs. Michael was a good woman; she would 
 not breathe a word against the girls' characters, 
 though Heaven knew it was strange how they man- 
 
THE WxVGON AND THE STAR 181 
 
 aged to keep straight, coming out of such a home! 
 After all, they were young, there was a chance for 
 them yet ; some day they might leave off lazying round 
 the house, reading novels with the beds not made and 
 the dishes standing, or dressing themselves up with 
 false hair and high heels and jjaint and powder and 
 parading the streets making eyes at the men, and 
 going to shows at the theatre, and to the Zoo and the 
 Lagoon with whatever fellow asked them — they 
 mi(jht leave off all that some day — but Mrs. Xoah's 
 manner indicated that it was much to be doubted — 
 and stay at home and learn to cook and redd up the 
 house and make their clothes or at least mend them 
 decently. If some such change did not take place, 
 you had only to look at their mother, the fat, slovenly 
 thing in her greasy old skirts with the placket-hole al- 
 ways hanging out — you need only look at Jier to see 
 what the girls were coming to I Sorry indeed would 
 the man be that married 'em, Tim's mother averred 
 with a sort of scornful sympathy which had the same 
 effect on the person for whom it was intended as the 
 whole of the foregoing speech — that is to say, no ef- 
 fect whatever ! Master Tim would hear this kind of 
 talk day by day, meal by meal ; and would rise up im- 
 mediately thereafter and go over and sit on the front 
 steps with Lutie Morehead all evening ! 
 
 Mrs. Devitt, like other ladies in similar circum- 
 stances, was not entirely fair ; there was something to 
 be said on the side of the sirens. The Morehead girls 
 all worked ; they were working when Tim Devitt first 
 started off to Cambridge, long before he had begun 
 to think of making a living. Ella had the gift of a 
 course at business-college from some rich relative — 
 it was reported — and got a place as stenographer in 
 
182 THE EUDDER 
 
 a down-town office; Louise (Lutie) was with a ladies' 
 tailor on Seventh Street, Carrie at the ribbon counter 
 in the Bon Marche. They had no time and perhaps, 
 when they came home at night, not much energy left 
 for cultivating the domestic arts; and might be par- 
 doned for taking their ease or their pleasure on Sun- 
 days and holidays, even in the style Mrs. Devitt right- 
 eously condemned. As to a knowledge of the world 
 and of the value of money, any one of them probably 
 had a good deal the advantage of her Timmie, for all 
 his sex and his intellect, his striking appearance and 
 no less striking manners v/hich his years at Cam- 
 bridge brought to a finished perfection. 
 
 Lutie Morehead was the one who had come, of yore, 
 to borrow the dish-pan. And from that day, though 
 she was then only a gawky girl-lout of fifteen with her 
 frowsy yellow hair tied up in a bit of shoestring and 
 a dirty gingham slip burst out at the armholes and 
 not nearly long enough or full enough to cover her 
 growing young body respectably — from that day she 
 had cherished a devouring admiration for Tim Devitt ; 
 it would not be going too far to call it a passion. 
 Whoever loved that loved not at first sight? Tim 
 was so dark, slender and elegant looking; he had such 
 beautiful eyes; he spoke differently, he wore his 
 clothes differently, he carried himself differently from 
 other boys. He was the living image of a certain 
 Guy Maltravers, the villain — and therefore the most 
 fascinating character — in Hearts and Hands^ the 
 current melodrama in the Fireside Magazine; Lutie 
 used to call him Gu (thus she pronounced it) in her 
 thoughts, until he took to calling himself Chauncey, 
 an innovation which she was the earliest to adopt. 
 
 By that time, that is, during his senior year, Lutie 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 183 
 
 had ^' bloomed iuto womanhood " as the Fireside 
 Magazine would have said, as T. Chauncej himself 
 might have said, for that matter; it is a handy and 
 high-sounding phrase, besides being in this case more 
 than usually descriptive. For Lutie had not stopped 
 at blooming; she was already alarmingly full-blown, 
 '^ taking after " Mrs. Morehead in a tendency to flesh, 
 and being a healthy young woman with a fine appe- 
 tite. There are gentlemen, like Mr. John Dalton, for 
 instance, who admire an opulent figure, but poor 
 Lutie knew instinctively that T. Chauncey would not. 
 She herself thought that it was not " refined," wept 
 and worried in secret, starved by fits and starts, 
 hoarded her money to buy various expensive " reduc- 
 ing " girdles, corsets and what-nots, and spent hours 
 of torture belted, laced and strapped into them — 
 all without the loss of an inch or an ounce ! It was 
 exasperating. Otherwise, however, she was a pretty 
 girl. She would have received attentions in plenty 
 from the male youth of Poplar Street and its vicinity 
 if she had given anybody the slightest encouragement. 
 But these unlucky lads had no distinction ; they were 
 not picturesque ; they were not spectacular ; they did 
 not go to Cambridge and carry off all the honours at 
 the same time that they were wild and dashing and 
 dangerous like the heroes of Mr. Chambers' novels. 
 They clerked in groceries and drug-stores, or drove 
 delivery -wagons ; so far from resembling Gu Maltrav- 
 ers, they not infrequently had distressing crops of 
 pimples, and they wore ready-made ties and bought 
 '' two-pant suits *' for thirteen-fifty at the Bon Mar- 
 che. Lutie would have none of their society; she 
 cared only for T. Chauncey's, and alas, T. Chauncey 
 knew it ! 
 
184 THE RUDDER 
 
 For young Mr. Devitt was not at all in love with 
 Lutie Morehead; his mother might have spared her 
 worry on that score. What kept him sitting on the 
 Morehead steps or the Morehead parlour sofa side by 
 side with her whispering in the semi-dark until an in- 
 discreetly late hour was no warmth of feeling on his 
 own side; it was wholly on Lutie's. He was not in 
 the least averse to her being in love with him, and 
 showing it ; her adoring devotion enfolded him luxuri- 
 ously, caressing his every sense. It was as profound 
 and unquestioning as his mother's, only spiced with 
 something else, something ardent and electrifying 
 that the young man recognised with a species of 
 shamed delight. Here was a situation for a Don 
 Juan ; but Chauncey did not really want to be a Don 
 Juan ; he merely wanted to be thought one. He knew 
 that being a Don Juan nowadays is likely to turn out 
 a costly recreation what with the Mann law, and 
 breach-of-promise proceedings in the courts, and con- 
 sidered himself a great deal too clever to " get into 
 trouble that way '' ; but, apart from that, Lutie did 
 not stimulate him to the adventure. He liked to feel 
 her thrill when he held her hand or kissed her; he 
 liked to see her change colour and tremble under his 
 gaze; he even liked it when she would jump up and 
 move away from him in a panic, chokingly murmur- 
 ing that he could just shut his face and not say any 
 more things like that; he needn't think he could get 
 flip with her, and so on; Chauncey relished all this 
 too much to forego it, but all the same, Lutie was 
 safe. It was too easy, too obvious ! What man ever 
 vehemently desired what he could have for the ask- 
 ing? If she had only been a married woman, now — ! 
 But even then, he told himself, she would have missed 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STxiR 185 
 
 the flavour, the piquancy of the affair; she had not 
 the slightest instinct for intrigue. He would not 
 have been ill-pleased if she had shown a disposition 
 to pine away in a wan and hectic decline with unsatis- 
 fied longing. The operation would have been a pretty 
 lengthy one in view of Lutie's health and avoirdupois, 
 and somehow the suggestion moves unpoetic souls to 
 profane hilarity; but Chauncey was serious; he was 
 always deeply serious about himself. 
 
 And so was Lutie; perhaps the gi-atifying serious- 
 ness with which she took him was, when all was said, 
 her strongest attraction. That part of their con- 
 versation which was not philandering was given ex- 
 clusively to T. Chauncey, his plans, his endeavours, 
 his successes — he never had any failures — his past, 
 present and future. Lutie heard all about Cambridge, 
 Chauncey's classmates whom he was always excelling, 
 his professors whom he was always confuting, the 
 fraternities that competed for the honour of his mem- 
 bership, the dramatic, literary and debating societies 
 of which he was the leading light, the girls whom he 
 had met and, of course, conquered; he referred to 
 these last with a chivalrous reluctance — a name, a 
 sigh, a quick and conscious changing of the subject — 
 but in spite of him it aroused suspicion, and rowelled 
 poor Lutie into a miserable activity of question and 
 surmise. 
 
 " Is she pretty? '' was invariably her first anxiety. 
 
 " Yes — beautiful ! Please don't talk about her — 
 j)lease don't ask me any more about her ! '' 
 
 "Where is she now? Still up there at Cam- 
 bridge? " 
 
 " No. They took her to Europe. Professor Man- 
 ners sent for me. He said he wanted to talk to me 
 
186 THE EUDDER 
 
 about his daughter frankly, man to man. I had to 
 tell him that I could not — ! It was not my fault 
 that Margaret — ! I said to him : * Professor, I 
 think my heart is dead — I think it is a stone. I 
 care for nothing but my career. I cannot love.' He 
 said: * Good God, Devitt; won't you reconsider? 
 Can't you think it over?' But I — I coulchvt — ! '^ 
 Chauncey broke off, sweeping his thick, wavy, blue- 
 black hair back from his forehead with the noble ges- 
 ture natural to him. He stared past her at the man- 
 telpiece whereon there stood beneath the crayon por- 
 trait of Mrs. Morehead, a cup and saucer of blue glass 
 decorated with gilt traceries, a china representation 
 of a shoe ripped open at one side with a china big toe 
 coming through, a small vase of Oriental ware from 
 the Japanese store, filled with toothpicks, and two 
 metallic-looking figures in seventeenth-century cos- 
 tume, each drawing a sword. Chauncey gazed at 
 these objects with tragic, brooding eyes. " It was 
 horrible I " he said, shuddering. " Don't speak to me 
 again about it, Lutie I " 
 
 " Huh ! " said Lutie, and went on, unmoved by this 
 appeal : " Didn't you see her again after that ? " 
 
 ^' Yes, once. Don't, Lutie — don't torture me ! I 
 want to forget! Can't you understand that there are 
 things a man must forget? " 
 
 " All right," said Lutie, meekly and rather prosa- 
 ically. " I won't." It was at such moments that 
 her inadequacy became most annoyingly apparent; 
 she never knew when or how to play up to him. 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, she was gaiilty of downright 
 tactlessness; witness, for example, her display of 
 overweening interest in Amzi Loring Two on coming 
 across his picture in baseball uniform and the article 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 18T 
 
 about liim in tlie afternoon paper that summer before 
 his last year at college when he spent the vacation on 
 tour with a professional team. " Millionaire Busher 
 Cracks Out Home Run," the extra was headlined ; and 
 there stood ximzi grinning pugnaciously over his bat 
 from the middle of a column of more or less accurate 
 biography. Lutie studied it with questions and com- 
 ments that T. Chauncey Devitt — who, as yet, had not 
 been approached for his photograph by any journal 
 — found dull to a degree. 
 
 " My, he's big, ain't he? It's funny his going to 
 Cambridge and your knowing him, and here he is in 
 the paper ! Don't it seem funny to you to know some- 
 body that way, and then have his picture staring right 
 at you in the paper? I guess he must be pretty good ; 
 it says here : ' New York is rumoured to have offered 
 ten thousand for the new star, but Steinie says " Nay, 
 nay!'" Who's Steinie, do you suppose?" 
 
 " Steinkampf, they mean — the owner or manager 
 of the team, you know. That's just a newspaper 
 story, most likely," Chauncey explained in a bored 
 voice. "It's nothing but a little scrub league any- 
 how. It's only because his home is here that they 
 make such a fuss over him. And then his father 
 being so prominent in business. Everybody knows 
 who he is, and they can't afford to overlook him, you 
 know." 
 
 "Well, he knocked the ball like everything any- 
 way! I guess he can play ball all right," said Lutie 
 obtusely. "They wouldn't let him in the ball-club 
 just because his father was a millionaire. Do you 
 believe he is, really? " 
 
 " It's not a matter to which I have ever given the 
 slightest attention," said Chauncey .majestically. 
 
188 THE KUDDER 
 
 " Well, I would ! I should think you'd have got 
 some idea from knowing this one. Tom says they've 
 each one got their own machine. He's working out 
 at their Elmwood works, so of course he knows the 
 old man, and I expect he must know the other, too. 
 I'll ask him. What's he like, anyhow? Ain't his 
 rooms perfectly elegant? Or have you ever been 
 there?" 
 
 Chauncey shrugged. " Of course. But we aren't 
 congenial. Why, he isn't like anybody particularly; 
 he's not a man anybody would single out. Fd never 
 make a friend of him. Mentally Loring is — ! " He 
 shook his head, words failing him. 
 
 " Goodness, he ain't off in his head, is he? " 
 
 " No, no. I don't mean anything like that," said 
 T. Chauncey impatiently. '' I mean he hasn't* any 
 mentality. He can't do anything but play baseball." 
 
 " Uh-huh," said Lutie, returning to the photograph 
 with undiminished interest. " I'd like to see him 
 once, though. I heard he was dead stuck on one 
 of the society girls here, Miss M'randa — Nellie 
 M'randa. She's right in with that North Hill crowd 
 — real society ^ you know. Lots of 'em, Edie Gar- 
 rard, and Annette Gebhardt and Bessie Grace and all 
 that moneyed crowd — " said Lutie, rattling the 
 names off glibly — " Lots of 'em come to Fritsch for 
 their tailor-mades, and that's how I heard. Nellie 
 M'randa's come, too, but just with somebody while 
 they were trying on ; she don't get anything of Fritsch ; 
 I guess she hasn't got the price. I heard some of the 
 girls one time when she was there kinda kidding her 
 about some fellow; maybe it was this same fellow. 
 I didn't say anything, or let on, of course, but she's 
 a kinda relation of Pop's — well, not a real relation^ 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 181> 
 
 just by marriage, kinda — she don't know me when 
 she sees me, and I kinda don't like to breeze up to her 
 and tell her who I am — it would look, well, kinda 
 freshy you know, and as if I wanted to break in, and 
 it don't make any difference if a girl is poor and got 
 to work, you can show just as much true refinement 
 as if you had a million, / think. She's got lots of 
 style and — oh, I don't know — you know! I mean 
 you'd know she was somebody anywhere you met her,, 
 if you met her in the moon or anywhere — you know 
 what I mean? She's got the dandiest form! They 
 say this Loring Two fellow is just crazy about her — - 
 and here's his picture in the paper! Ain't it funny 
 what a small place the world is, after all?" 
 
 At the moment the world seemed to Mr. Devitt 
 much too small a place to accommodate himself and 
 Amzi Two comfortably. Chauncey disliked the other 
 young man as heartily as it was in his power, not 
 being a person of strongly defined tastes or very deep 
 feelings, to dislike anybody. Even if he could have 
 been brought to acknowledge it, he could not have 
 explained why; who ever can? He would have been 
 pleased to hear young Loring called a big, stupid 
 brute ; but it was not exactly because of his stupidity 
 or brutality that Chauncey did not fancy him. Per- 
 haps the trouble was that Amzi, for his part, refused, 
 as it were, to make the enmity mutual — an absurd 
 reason, but a reason nevertheless. The big man 
 w^ould not take the trouble to hate his fellow-scholar ; 
 w^hen he noticed Chauncey at all, it was to laugh at 
 him, and there was something in his laugh that made 
 it harder to endure than a kick. His lack of " men- 
 tality " was annoyingly exhibited in such diversions 
 as cooing or trilling the name of Chauncey in his great 
 
190 THE EUDDER 
 
 raucous voice on sight of the other a square off; or 
 by going up behind Chauncey as the latter paced 
 along in dignity, and ramming his hat down to his 
 ears ; or again by seizing Chauncey by the collar and 
 waistband and obliging him to " walk Spanish '' 
 across the campus in full view of errant townspeople, 
 ribald small boys, classmates, even instructors and, 
 hideous to relate, young ladies of their common ac- 
 quaintance. There is nothing humorous about this 
 horseplay, excej)t to the simplest and coarsest minds ; 
 but for that very reason one cannot found a quarrel 
 upon it. If a man strikes you in the face, it is an in- 
 sult to be gravely resented; but what are you going 
 to do if he turns you up and spanks you? Self- 
 respect would seem to enjoin reticence and inaction; 
 the less said the better, in short. Mr. Devitt's sole 
 recourse w^as to distance the other in the class-room ; 
 and that was but an apples-of-Sodom sort of revenge, 
 for Amzi cared nothing about his standing as a 
 scholar, nor did any one else. He always " got 
 through," nobody knew how, and nobody inquired. 
 So long as he remained the star half-back, the crack 
 left-fielder, the champion all-around athlete, the Fac- 
 ulty would wink at anything to keep him in Cam- 
 bridge was Chauncey 's bitter and probably most un- 
 just judgment; and Loring himself would rather wear 
 those titles than all the academic laurels in creation. 
 Next summer both young men graduated. That 
 was one occasion, at least, when Chauncey had abso- 
 lutely the premier part, and acquitted himself to ad- 
 miration, as has been seen. It was the highest mo- 
 ment of his life so far; and every one, all his world, 
 seemed to grasp its significance as a manifestation of 
 Ms character, an earnest of what fate held in store 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 191 
 
 for liim. The other young fellows congratulated him 
 honestly ; the president, the professors spoke in grave 
 and kindly approval; the girls applauded and ad- 
 mired ; it was a season of almost perfect satisfaction. 
 Almost, because there was the inevitable crumpled 
 rose-leaf to disturb his rest; in this case, the behav- 
 iour of his father and mother which caused Chauncey 
 wretched uneasiness in anticipation, and turned out 
 to be even worse than he had feared. 
 
 "Here now, don't! ^' he said crossly, twisting out of 
 Mrs. Devitt's joyfully effervescent embrace. '' Don't ! 
 Can't you see nobody else does? The first thing you 
 know everybody'll be laughing at us. This isn't like 
 any place you've ever been before, remember, and peo- 
 ple don't act the way you've been used to." 
 
 "I know — I know — I can't help it, Timmie — I 
 don't want to shame ye before all the grand folks — I 
 won't any more — though, to be sure, they're none of 
 'em noticino; me anvwavs," said his mother, valiantly 
 trying to hold back her tears ; she was in a muddle of 
 emotions, pride, hysterical tenderness, sheer excite- 
 ment, and chagrin at the treatment accorded her by 
 the " grand folks." Was she not the mother of the 
 " champeen," as she innocently ranked Chauncey in 
 her thoughts? Even if the other mothers were jeal- 
 ous, as well they might be, they ought to put a better 
 face on it; 'twouldn't hurt them to be neighbourly. 
 " Your poppa's nearly worn the life out of me, any- 
 how, with his contrariness," she added in apology. 
 " Mike, ye're never taking your gloves off, after the 
 time I had getting 'em on ye? " 
 
 " They've split, thank God ! '' said Michael, winking 
 at Chauncey, as he wadded the gloves into a lump, 
 and thrust them into his hip-pocket (horrors!). 
 
192 THE RUDDER 
 
 ^' That's better ! They were near killing me. 
 Whoosh ! I feel as if I could breathe now. I wish 
 my shoes would do the same ! " 
 
 "Ah now, Mike, ye're just doing that to tease 
 me — " 
 
 " Honest to God, Norah, them gloves is osJcerspeelty 
 as old Hoffmann says — " 
 
 Chauncey surveyed them both in a kind of savage 
 misery. " Well, you don't need to make such a noise 
 about it. Everybody'll think you never had a pair of 
 gloves before in your life,'' he adjured his father in a 
 fierce undertone. " You've made enough noise al- 
 ready. You oughtn't to have stamped on the floor 
 that way when you wanted to applaud. Nobody 
 stamps and hammers that way, or makes any noise. 
 It's not like a wake." 
 
 " Faith, you're soberer than if it was one," retorted 
 his father with sj^irit. " Well, I don't wonder ye feel 
 that way, Timmie lad," he added, softening at once. 
 " It's a grand day for ye, one that ye'll remember all 
 your life." 
 
 " Sure, it is that! I always knew ye'd do fine ever 
 since ye was a little lad," said Norah. " I always 
 knew ye would ! But all the same, somehow, I — I 
 can't take it in — " Her chin quivered; the tears 
 would come in spite of her. She was thinking of the 
 time when he had been her little boy ; he would pound 
 on her knee with his chubby fist and order her to take 
 him up — order her, mind ye, the wee devil ! And 
 sometimes he would wake in the dark night, and cry 
 for her — 
 
 " Don't say ^ you tvas ' — it's ^ you were ' — what are 
 you crying for? There's nothing to cry about. No- 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 193 
 
 body else is crying/' Chauncej urged. " Here comes 
 somebody. Do please try to keejj quiet — ! '' 
 
 Professor Wilson came up, and was presented, 
 kindly ignoring the fluster. " I'll have to borrow this 
 young gentleman for a minute. Mr. Cook wants to 
 meet him/' he said, his hand on Chauncey's arm. 
 " The one who gave the address, you know? Right 
 over there." 
 
 '' Mr. Cook, is it? Oh, yes ! Ain't he a little whif- 
 fet of a man now ! But his speech was good enough^ 
 though 'twasn't near the equal of Tim's — I mean 
 Chauncey's — not that I'd be faulting Mr. Cook, only 
 considering how much older he is — " A glare from 
 Chauncey reduced Mrs. Devitt to red-faced silence, 
 biting her lips as the tears began to rise again. 
 
 " He's a very nice fellow, though. Wouldn't you 
 like to come and meet him, too?" said Wilson, send- 
 ing from one to another of them the smile that al- 
 ways made Chauncey so restless. 
 
 " They — they can't — they've got to go presently 
 
 — we've got to go — they can't possibly take the time 
 
 — thank you — " he stammered. 
 
 ^' GOy d'ye say?" echoed Michael in astonishment; 
 ^' why, we've got the whole day ! " 
 
 " No, we haven't. We ought to get back — we — 
 we have to — that is, we can't stay — you wait right 
 here for me — " commanded the son desperately- 
 " They realh^ ought not — my mother isn't strong. 
 She can't stand heat like this. She ought to be at 
 home — " he was quite fluent now, and indeed would 
 himself have believed everything he was saying, if it 
 had not been for the Professor's eye on him — that 
 expressionless yet disconcerting eye. However, Wil- 
 
194 THE RUDDER 
 
 son made no remark; tliey walked off together to 
 where Cook was standing. Mike and Norah, left 
 alone once more in the middle of the crowed of push- 
 ing, congratulating, happy, excited people, not one of 
 whom knew them or spoke to them, felt that the day 
 had come to an end, the great, glorious day on which 
 they had built so much, to which they had looked for- 
 ward for so long — and somehow, it was a kind of 
 disappointment after all. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Y0U:N^G Mr. Devitt, in his anxiety for his par- 
 ents' health, hurried their departure so that 
 they may not have had time to observe that 
 none of the other fathers and mothers and relatives 
 of all degi^ees and rejoicing friends were as yet dream- 
 ing of leaving. Not much notice was taken of their 
 own movements, singularly enough, in view of the 
 forward part Chauncey had played in the day's cere- 
 monies, and of his three or four years' residence dur- 
 ing which his fellow-students and the personnel of 
 the college must have come to know him well. As 
 usual, isolation was the penalty he must pay for 
 greatness — at least so Chauncey himself would have 
 accounted for the indifference sometimes shown him ; 
 it was natural that lesser spirits should be afraid or 
 jealous. However, as they made their way along, 
 there came upon them a tall, heav;>-set, fine-looking 
 and most impeccably dressed gentleman about Devitt 
 senior's own age, to wit, Mr. Amzi Loring One ; and 
 after a swift glance, he stopped short, holding out his 
 hand and speaking with great cordiality. 
 
 ^^ Hello, Devitt! H'are you? Glad t' see you," 
 said Mr. Loring, in the rapid, word-clipping jargon of 
 his tribe, the tribe of mid-Western business-men. 
 " Got a boy here, I see. Well, well, well ! Oh, Mrs, 
 Devitt ! " He shook hands with Chauncey, too, look- 
 ing him over with a species of casual sharpness. 
 "Let's see, you're the young fellow that made the 
 
 195 
 
196 THE RUDDER 
 
 yaledictory speech, eh?" he said, obviously not so 
 much impressed by that performance, notwithstand- 
 ing all that it implied of honour and eminence, as by 
 the fact which he stated next : '' You're lame, I no- 
 tice — an accident, they told me. Pity it had to hap- 
 pen right now ! But it's not painful, I hope — a 
 sprain, isn't it, or something like that? I think 
 that's what they said." 
 
 '^ Er — no, sir — yes — I mean it's all right," said 
 Chauncey uncomfortably, disliking old Amzi on the 
 spot. He was out of temper already; the lameness 
 which he had had no difficulty in persuading himself 
 w^as genuine, which at first had seemed to add so fine 
 a touch of melancholy to his platform presence, now 
 bade fair to become a nuisance what with people's 
 foolish questions and the unforeseen necessity of 
 keeping it up ! 
 
 " Sure I'm going to bathe it in hot water and salt 
 and a w^ee taste of vinegar the minute he gets home. 
 That draws out the pain, d'ye mind — ? " his mother 
 w^as saying eagerly in her high-pitched voice with the 
 brogue, nodding reassuringly at Loring with all the 
 flowers on her hat bristling and quivering in unison. 
 The young man could have ground his teeth ; he hated 
 old Loring for the way Mrs. Devitt said " Misther," 
 for the way he himself had said " sir," for listening 
 so good-naturedly, for the unconsciousness with 
 which he wore his clothes that w^ere so well-cut and 
 seemly, for the very air of established and unconsid- 
 ered habit with which he took off his straw hat in 
 the feminine presence. Honest Michael Devitt took 
 off Ms hat, his ridiculous top hat, with the gesture of 
 the Irish peasant that he was ; if his " Prince Albert " 
 had had a tongue it could not have proclaimed its 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 19T 
 
 status as " Sunday clothes '^ louder ; and liis son vis- 
 ited a bitter resentment at the contrast upon Loring's 
 head. Chauncej's vocabulary, it is true, furnished 
 him with no such phrases as " Irish peasant " ; what 
 he said to himself was that his father looked and 
 acted like a fanner; they all did; and Loring was a 
 pompous^ patronising plutocrat! 
 
 In the meantime Mr. Loring, who was a plain man, 
 and Mike De\dtt, who was another plain man, were 
 talking together as equals without once referring to 
 or even remembering the difference between their 
 bank-accounts or in their manners and language and 
 social condition, which indeed, if brought to their no- 
 tice, would have been instantly dismissed as non- 
 existent or of no importance. If Chauncey had been 
 less occupied with those matters he might have ob- 
 served a certain anxiety overspread his father's face 
 as he drew the other aside, and he might have de- 
 tected conciliation, apology, even defence in Michael's 
 clearing of the throat, in his : " Well now. Mister 
 Loring, there's something I was wanting to speak to 
 ye about — " Xorah, for her part, guessed the some- 
 thing to be troublesome and grave on the instant, and 
 laid a deprecating hand on her son's arm when he 
 would have moved on impatiently. 
 
 " Wait just a minute, Timmie darling I Papa's 
 talking business," she whispered with the awe which 
 that topic always aroused in her. To see her so pat- 
 ently unsophisticated added extra weight to Chaun- 
 cey's burden of mortification. 
 
 " Well, what if he is ? You act as if he was saying 
 his prayers," he said loudly, and fetched a laugh 
 for the benefit of any bystanders within hearing. 
 '' Women are the funniest! It's about time you 
 
198 THE RUDDER 
 
 stopped saying ^ Papa/ '' lie added, sinking Ms voice 
 again. " It sounds so flat, you know." 
 
 "Does it now? I never thought — I will, though, 
 after this — I'll remember," Mrs. Devitt promised 
 him meekly, but a little absently; for once her mind 
 was not wholly on her boy. She watched the two 
 older men with their two strong, intent faces, Mike 
 arguing, old Amzi giving ear, and turn about. Some- 
 times neither spoke for a second, their eyes meeting 
 in a studious silence. Then, when one recommenced, 
 the other would nod, or wag negatively, or purse his 
 under lijD, or interrupt ^ith emphasis, or merely 
 throw in a short word. What was it all about? 
 " I'll get it out of Mike to-night, one way or another," 
 the wife resolved in uneasiness. " He's been acting 
 worried anyways, and he never wants me to know." 
 Which was quite true ; perhaps her husband had some 
 justifiable doubts as to her discretion, but at any rate 
 Norah often complained that she knew scarcely more 
 of his affairs than the next-door neighbour. As for 
 Chaunce}^ it was somehow not conceivable either that 
 his father should confide in him, or that he would be 
 interested, ^^obody, least of all his parents, could 
 associate him speculatively with the " Shamrock Con- 
 struction Company " in any of its activities. Even 
 Mr. Loring, who had never laid eyes on the young 
 man before in his life, concurred spontaneously in 
 this opinion. 
 
 " Going to take the boy with you in the business? " 
 he inquired as Mike and he returned to the others, the 
 conference being ended. "Guess not, eh?" He 
 brought his indifferently discerning gaze to bear on 
 Chauncey again. " Little early to make plans maybe 
 — but I guess not," he repeated. " He don't look as 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAK 199 
 
 if he'd do very well, cussing out the gang ! " said the 
 Ice-King, laughing tolerantly. 
 
 So the}^ went home at last. Mr. Dalton came up to 
 Poplar Street that evening to offer congratulations, 
 he said, and Avas very loud, genial and hearty. Norah 
 had a lavish supi3ly of good things to eat, and perhaps 
 a drop or two of something good to drink in spite of 
 Father Clancy's i^resence; and all the neighbours 
 came in to help the celebration along. Schlochter- 
 maier, the butcher from down street, and the old lady 
 Schlochtermaier, his mother, and Hilda, his sister, 
 the one that had the book-keeping job out at Loring's, 
 and the Morehead girls with peek-a-boo waists and 
 their heads dressed out to the size of so many bushel- 
 baskets in rats and j)uffs, and all the Multloons down 
 to the baby, and that little red-haired Giannetti girl 
 that Tom Morehead was going with, and the two 
 Casey boys with a raft of other young folks — it 
 was a representative gathering. Chauncey stalked 
 through the scene melodramatic and remote as Dante 
 in the groves, surveyed by the rest with boundless 
 admiration flavoured with some fear which was by no 
 means distasteful to him, nor indeed to his mother; 
 she took pride in his conscious superiority to all these 
 people, took pride in his superiority to herself. " I 
 was always bound he should be a gentleman, and look 
 at him I " she said to herself delightedly. " Look at 
 the air of him alongside them other boys ! They 'ain't 
 anywhere ! " 
 
 It was true ; Chauncey was aware of it with a pleas- 
 ant sense of security. No crudely humorous Loring 
 Two, no purseproud Loring One, no Wilson of the 
 disquieting smile here ! And, moreover, no annoying 
 curiosity as to what he was going to do or be; they 
 
200 THE RUDDER 
 
 were all too dazzled to venture the question. Even 
 the great Dalton, whose interest was more or less of 
 a compliment, tactfully avoided the subject, treating 
 Chauncej instead as an equal, and proffering him a 
 perfect dreadnought of a cigar as man to man, with 
 no trace of the jolly condescension he had been wont 
 to employ. Dalton himself was another centre of 
 admiring and fearful respect, though he was anything 
 but aloof in his manner; his greatness went hand in 
 hand with marked ability as a " good mixer," and 
 when he took Mike off unceremoniously for a private 
 smoke and talk on the front steps, there were not a 
 few who envied their host that affable bullvins:. 
 Norah was so tired and " let down " in her own 
 phrase when the welcome bed-time hour arrived after 
 everybody had gone, that she forgot her anxieties of 
 the afternoon; it was nothing out of the way that 
 Michael should be silent and glum when the excite- 
 ment was over; he was tired and "let-down," too. 
 But he got up bright and early the next morning as 
 usual and had been out on the work three hours when 
 Chauncey came yawning down to breakfast. 
 
 What happened next has been recounted. Chaun- 
 cey and the men brought his father home like a war- 
 rior on his shield, only growling, joking and j)rotest- 
 ing in a style quite foreign to that classic figure ; their 
 own doctor hurried in; Father Clancy came again; 
 Poplar Street congregated in full strength as on the 
 night before, and later retired rather disappointed, 
 on the whole, that events were not going to culminate 
 in a funeral. Mr. Dalton did not hear about it until 
 the next day when he called upon other business — 
 for he stretched a point when he told Cook that the 
 invalid had sent for him; it is just possible that he 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 201 
 
 was the last person in the world Michael wanted to 
 see! However, to do him justice, the ex-councilman 
 was concerned enough at the news of his old ac- 
 quaintance's seizure to put aside his original errand. 
 Instead he volunteered to help carry thanks and apol- 
 ogies to Miss Maranda, as has been seen; and was 
 good-nature itself with young Chauncey. It is true 
 lie did not talk much, but he listened ; so that by the 
 time they started home from the Maranda visit 
 Chauncey felt on terms of the most confidential inti- 
 macy with the chieftain. What Mr. Dalton felt, who 
 could have guessed? His was a countenance not de- 
 signed by nature for the frank expression of his 
 thought. 
 
 '' This Cook's a waiter, you say? '' he asked as they 
 waited for the trolley-car. " Writes stories, hey? " 
 
 "Yes. He's well known in the — er — the intel- 
 lectual world. I've met him before," said Chauncey 
 negligently. "What do you think of him?" 
 
 " Oh, he's one of the silk-stocking crowd, I guess," 
 said Mr. Dalton. ("Here, what you doing? I can 
 pay my own fare — oh, well, all right, if you want 
 to ! Can't make me mad I ) The girl is, too — ^ Four. 
 Hundred ' they used to call 'em years ago." He got 
 out a toothpick and applied it diligently as he contin- 
 ued the subject with a fluency and enthusiasm he had 
 not hitherto displayed. "Some class to her^ huh? 
 Say, dye know it was real, too ! It was all there. ^ I 
 tell you when a woman's solidly pretty like she is, 
 she can put it all over the rest of 'em, makes no differ- 
 ence whether she's expecting you, or where she is or 
 what she's doing or what she's got on — and you bet 
 their clothes count! '' said Mr. Dalton, who, although 
 a single man, was probably not without some experi- 
 
202 THE EUDDEE 
 
 mental knowledge on this i)omt. ^' She's got the 
 goods, that's why. They can't fix up with paint and 
 powder and stuffing like the real thing." He leaned 
 back, champing his toothpick with conviction. 
 
 Chauncey thrilled with gratification at being ad- 
 mitted to this relaxed and revealing mood, upon an 
 even footing, too. When men begin to gossip about 
 women — ! He rose to the occasion, a look of infinite 
 fatigue, infinite experience settling on his features. 
 
 " Yes, I've often noticed just what you say — only 
 women don't interest me any more," he said lan- 
 guidly. " They used to when I was younger — but 
 I'm tired of it. Too much sameness, you know. A 
 man gets tired of it." 
 
 " Sure ! Sure he does ! " Dalton agreed, eyeing him 
 sidelong with peculiar closeness. ^^ I see you know 
 something about 'em," he remarked seriously. 
 Chauncey shrugged, with a brief sigh. " Uh-huh," 
 said Mr. Dalton. An instant later, with disappoint- 
 ing irrelevance, he called his companion's attention 
 to a cartoon in the comic supplement of the Sunday 
 paper, with a sudden and violent explosion of laugh- 
 ter. " Those things get me every time ! " he declared 
 when he could speak coherently, wiping tears of en- 
 joyment from his eyes. Nor did he again, through- 
 out the journey, bring up the previous topic, though 
 the younger man awaited it eagerly. Chauncey 
 w^anted Mr. Dalton to keep on talking about women, 
 or, at any rate, about Eleanor Maranda ; and saw too 
 late that he himself, with his seasoned airs, had 
 blocked the way! 
 
 The truth was that Mr. T. Chauncey Devitt, Avhose 
 interest up to this date had been naively concentrated 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 203 
 
 on himself, now discovered with a novel and rather 
 agreeable commotion of the senses that he was think- 
 ing about somebody else. Alas for all those young 
 men whose broken hearts — as he freely confessed — 
 lay at his door, and alas in particular for Lutie More- 
 head ! Chauncey was already comparing her to Miss 
 Maranda with the most disastrous results. Eleanor 
 — who would have been dumbfounded to know that 
 any such comparison was being made — was actually 
 no better-looking, trait for trait, than the other girl, 
 but Chauncey judged, perhaps correctly, that no one 
 would look twice at Lutie with Miss Maranda in the 
 room. It was her height ; it was the shapely slimness 
 of her figure ; it w^as her fine black hair, wdth the wide 
 riffle running through it from her temples, from the 
 nape of her neck; it was the movements of her body, 
 sure and dainty as those of a Kentucky thoroughbred ; 
 it was — the difference eluded him, yet in its light 
 poor Lutie became a gross, tepid, inert creature with- 
 out a single allurement. Anon, the desire to know 
 what this goddess had thought of him, Chauncey De- 
 vitt, ravaged him; he could not know! He might 
 never have the chance of speaking to her again, might 
 never even see her. It was devastating, romantically 
 and spectacularly devastating; it recalled all the 
 tales of defeated passion he had ever read in prose 
 or verse, history or fiction. Betw^een posing before 
 his own inw^ard view in a species of Claude Melnotte 
 role, and an outward, visible pose as nearly simulat- 
 ing Mr. Cook as he could manage, Chauncey's de- 
 meanour for a while w-as so saturnine and so sur- 
 charged with tragedy that Mrs. Devitt was convinced 
 something must be WTong with his bodily condition, 
 
201 THE RUDDER 
 
 and treated him for divers ignoble complaints with 
 equally ignoble remedies until his appetite and re- 
 bellious temper reassured her. 
 
 All this of course did not interfere with a resump- 
 tion of the familiar amorous footing with Lutie. 
 Only young Mr. Devitt, notwithstanding his profound 
 acquaintance with the eternal feminine, could not 
 have been much more subtle than the average man. 
 For his carefully careless references to Miss Maranda, 
 his clumsy guiding of the conversation in her direc- 
 tion speedily aroused Lutie's suspicions. " Seems to 
 me you're awfully interested in the Marandas all of 
 a sudden/' she commented sharply. "^^ I don't know 
 anything much about 'em, except what I hear every 
 now and then down to the shop. You needn't to ask 
 me/' 
 
 ^^Well, on Pop's — on my father's account, you 
 know — " 
 
 " Aw, rats ! You never killed vourself worrvin^- 
 about him before, and he's been took the same way 
 two-three times," said Lutie. After a moment she 
 added : " That Nellie Maranda must be every day 
 of thirty years old — twenty-six or seven anyJiotv, 
 She and Loring are engaged, or as good as." And 
 perceiving some tell-tale expression on the other's 
 face, she repeated the news with jealous satisfaction. 
 " Why, don't you remember, I told you that long ago? 
 Why, I thought everybody knew tJiat. She's crazy 
 about him." 
 
 Loring again I It seemed as if he were doomed for- 
 ever to be clashing with that unspeakable, insupport- 
 able personality. It did not make it any more 
 palatable to know that their respective positions were 
 such that Loring and he, as a matter of fact, were 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 205 
 
 not likely ever to come into contact at all. Young 
 Amzi with his money and his tastes lived in a differ- 
 ent world from that of Mike Devitt's son. Even busi- 
 ness interests would scarcely bring them together; 
 for Chauncey, about this time, went into the office of 
 the Federated Teamsters under John Dalton's wing 
 and eye ; and Mr. Dal ton felt for the Ice-King and all 
 his kind the same fondness that a certain notorious 
 personage is said to entertain for holy water. 
 
 The feeling cannot accurately be said to have been 
 mutual ; Amzi senior, if questioned, would probably 
 have gone no farther than the statement that he 
 " hadn't any use " for the other. He was too prac- 
 tical a man to take up time and energy merely in dis- 
 approval of anybod}^, his main desire in life being, 
 as he would have said, to " get results,'' namely, to 
 have something to show for every slightest expendi- 
 ture, even of sentiment. He would give his view of 
 Mike Devitt's seizure, for instance, frankly, but with 
 a complete detachment as of a business that no way 
 concerned him. 
 
 " Heart trouble is probably what's the matter," he 
 said ; " but worry's got a good deal to do with it, I 
 shouldn't be surprised. He's been having trouble 
 with his men, or rather with their union leaders, here 
 lately. The men in general are a decent enough set, 
 but they've got a lot of scalawags to run 'em. It's 
 alw^ays the way. Seems their head man is that bad 
 egg, Jack Dalton, the same one that used to be coun- 
 cilman down in the Thirteenth Ward — right in T^^th 
 the gang. The fellow seems to have Devitt right un- 
 der his thumb ; by George, sir, the man's afraid to say 
 his soul's his own ! He told me some of his troubles 
 here the other day up at Cambridge at the Commence- 
 
206 THE EUDDER 
 
 ment; Ms boy graduated same time mine did, so of 
 course we ran across each other. I didn't want to 
 talk business there but he would do it. We gave him 
 the contract for this road out to Elmwood, you know, 
 to be done by a certain date, of course, and he's been 
 working on it right along, and everything going 
 smooth, until here the other day he fired a couple of 
 his tarriers for coming round drunk or soldiering on 
 him, or something — some perfectly just cause, mind 
 you. Devitt's an honest man and treats everybody 
 fairly. Well, then, I guess these two hoboes were 
 part of Dalton's outfit — handy-men of some kind, 
 you understand — for presently along comes Dalton 
 and orders them put back on the job, or he'll call a 
 strike and tie everything up so Devitt can't fill his 
 contract. He was worrying himself sick over it. 
 ' Why, Mike,' says I, ^ if I was in your place, I'd tell 
 Dalton to go to — ' Mr. Loring named the locality 
 with vigour. ' I'd let him call a strike till he was 
 black in the face, and if the men quit, I'd hire another 
 gang, and let 'em stay quit ! Why, they can't do any- 
 thing to you ! ' I says. ' You go to the mayor, and 
 tell him how it is, and he'll let you have police pro- 
 tection in case there's any trouble.' He kind of hesi- 
 tated, and said Dalton was a friend of his! Great 
 friend to have, hey? But I expect that's true, too; 
 you know these Irish will hang together in spite of 
 everything. And then Devitt, though he's a man of 
 considerable force, isn't any different otherwise from 
 most of his own workmen ; he says he's for the union 
 himself — wants to be on both sides! Anyhow, he's 
 all sewed uj) with 'em and can't break away. He acts 
 like Dalton owned him. And we call this a free coun- 
 try!" 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 207 
 
 However, the Elmwood Road contract was carried 
 out on time, and to everybody's satisfaction, for 
 Michael had a high standard. Also he made a good 
 recovery not only from his physical ailment, what- 
 ever it was, bnt from the fit of the '' blues " as Norah 
 characterised it, which had preceded it. For things 
 seemed now to be going on more swimmingly for them 
 than ever before. The " Shamrock Construction 
 Company " took on more work than at any period of 
 its existence hitherto, was obliged to double its force, 
 and erelong to open an office — an office with a desk 
 and a safe, and a telephone and a stenogi'apher, like 
 any business man's in the Kremlin Building where it 
 was located. That was a proud moment for Norah 
 Devitt. Her Mike with an office! The idea pleased 
 her infinitelv more even than that of owning their 
 own house. She could not keep the word off of her 
 tongue ; and went about among their friends, none of 
 whom were so fortunate, with casual references to 
 Mr. Devitt 's having just gone to his office, to his hav- 
 ing just come away from his office, to her own visits 
 to the offi.ce, to the position and equipment of the 
 office, until she had every one bored to the final gasp. 
 Chauncey was in an office, too ; not his father's, it is 
 true, but that he should be wanted elsewhere seemed 
 to Mrs. Michael an extra vindication of his abilities. 
 She spared nobody the details of his engagement by 
 Mr. Dalton. 
 
 ^' Bound and determined he was to have the boy ! 
 Don't be asking me what 'tis that Chauncey does, for 
 I'll never tell ye. I haven't any head for business. 
 Mr. Dalton says he's the makings of a public man in 
 him ; he says the boy's a born speaker — at meetings, 
 ve know, and the like. He savs thev've often a need 
 
208 THE RUDDER 
 
 of somebody like that to — to present the working- 
 man's cause, he says. ^ Fine talk, Mr. Dalton/ says 
 I — I know him well, I talk right up to him — ^ Fine 
 talk, but what for are ye taking my Timmie — Chaun- 
 cey, I mean — what for are ye taking him off hither 
 and yon all over the country to your conventions and 
 goings-on all the time? Haven't ye nobody to do 
 your speechifying but just Mm? And what's it all 
 about anyhow?' I asked him. He laughed. ^Why,' 
 he says, ^ Mrs. Devitt, it's all in the paper. Don't 
 ye ever read the paper? ' And sure enough, there it 
 was with T. Chauncey Devitt's name printed out 
 where he got up and said something! The paper's 
 right there on the what-not, Mrs. Ryan, ye can see 
 for yourself. ' Ah, well, Mr. Dalton,' I said to him, 
 ' I'd just as lief have Chauncey at home even if you 
 do keep him all day long at the office.' Your two 
 boys is at the pipe-foundry along with their father, 
 ain't they, Mrs. Hulsmann? Well, ye'd ought to be 
 thankful ye can get them off ^dth their dinner- 
 buckets early in the morning, and have the place to 
 yourself. 'Tis an awful job starting my two men, 
 each one to their office ; the day's half over before I'm 
 through with it." 
 
 There was a solid foundation for all her innocent 
 maternal bragging and boasting. However unde- 
 fined the labours Chauncey performed " in the office," 
 he did indeed travel about with Mr. Dalton, to Chi- 
 cago, to Indianapolis, to Denver and elsewhere, and 
 he did cut some figure oratorically, in a youthful and 
 modest w^ay, at all those places. As time went on his 
 association with Dalton and by consequence with the 
 Federated Teamsters and other industrial organisa- 
 tions became more intimate, his championship of the 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 209 
 
 workingman's cause more ardent and outspoken — 
 or, at any rate, more liable to get into print. Cliaun- 
 cey felt that he was fulfilling his destiny, he was 
 advancing to greatness with the superb ease and ra- 
 pidity which genius commands, which he had always 
 inwardl}' predicted for himself. From the moment 
 when he received the first request for a photograph 
 for i3ublication, when the first reporter called upon 
 him for an interview, he knew that he had arrived. 
 The iDinnacle was just what he had dreamed it; such 
 the atmosphere and such the view. He had plenty 
 of money, he dressed better than Dalton, to say noth- 
 ing of his being incomparably better-looking, he was 
 just as much talked about, just as deferentially ap- 
 proached, he — no, even Chauncey had to admit to 
 himself that he owned no j)olitical followers or lead- 
 ers as yet ; not yet was he the power Jack Dalton was 
 — Jack Dalton whose right-hand man he was, whom 
 he still feared, still implicitly obeyed. Perhaps he 
 still had a smile for Lutie Morehead — which is the 
 phrase T. Chauncey himself would have used to de- 
 scribe his lingering regard; but Miss Maranda, or 
 young Mrs. Amzi Loring, must have disappeared from 
 his horizon with her marriage. It is certain that 
 after that first meeting he did not see her again for 
 over five years. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 DRIVING out towards the North Hill, and 
 after passing through Paradise Park and 
 the settlement of Murphyville, the visitor to 
 these parts will come to Adams Road, which the gen- 
 tleman with the megaphone on the rear platform of 
 the sightseeing automobile will not fail to inform the 
 passengers is one of the city's handsomest ^^ residential 
 districts." And thereafter he will call attention suc- 
 cessively to the old Gebhardt place — now a private 
 hospital — the Andrew J. Grace place, the Meigs 
 place, and presently among the rest to the Loring 
 place — " where the animal fountain is." This bit of 
 description, if brief, is adequate, for though the Lor- 
 ing grounds are wide and varied, little but the " ani- 
 mal fountain " can be seen. The architect to whom 
 Mr. Loring entrusted the renovation of the property 
 w^hen he bought it fifteen or twenty years ago, evolved 
 a decorative scheme of w^hich the most marked feature 
 was the wall laid in bricks of mellow tones with pic- 
 turesque bonding, panels, buttresses and so on, which 
 defends the entire street frontage. It is so high that 
 one may only see above it receding depths of foliage, 
 or sometimes a clear space of sky, cut by the remote 
 spires of poplars — a classic fragment like a line out 
 of Vergil. Within, one quickly fancies steps, borders, 
 groves and balustrades of the same cool, alien, perfect 
 design ; without, the " animal fountain " offers an in- 
 congruous, yet withal pleasing, touch of neighbourli- 
 
 210 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 211 
 
 ness and homely wayside welcome. It is nothing but 
 a concrete drinking-t rough, suitably dis^^osed for the 
 needs of dogs and horses against the wall with sup- 
 ports and a dado of archaic looking creatures inter- 
 mingled in the friendly fashion of the Apocalypse, and 
 a motto in rugged lettering from the liturgy of the 
 Greek Church — it is said — : " And also for these, 
 O Lord, we supplicate Thy great tenderness of heart. 
 For Thou hast promised to save both man and beast, 
 and great is Thy loving kindness." 
 
 It was put up by young Mrs. Loring during her 
 time, rather to the amusement of her friends, most 
 of whom, since Society took to motor-cars, had ceased 
 to be interested in horses, and who thought, more- 
 over, that the carved sentiment was of an ostentatious 
 solemnity not in good taste. They shared, in some 
 measure, the opinion of her husband, who when he was 
 in a bad temper would grunt that the d — d thing re- 
 minded him of Spring Grove — referring to the local 
 cemetery — and declare his intention of having it 
 torn down at once; and when amiable made jokes 
 about automobiles needing water and loving kind- 
 ness too — not the most brilliant of joke, but jokes 
 at which, let it be said, Mrs. Loring invariably smiled. 
 You would think that a man could ask no more of his 
 wife than that she should laugh at his jokes; then 
 what was it about Eleanor's obliging smile that would 
 send Amzi scowling from the room, or cause him to 
 break forth in loud unmannerly upbraidings, before 
 the servants, before guests, anywhere, in any com- 
 pany? People used to say that it was very uncom- 
 fortable to entertain or be entertained by the Loring 
 couple ; there seemed to be so much ^' friction '' ; you 
 never knew what was going to happen. The fountain, 
 
212 THE EUDDER 
 
 it was reported, was a mere straws-show-which-waj- 
 tlie-wind-blows incident; if it had been only that — ! 
 
 But this was after they had been married two or 
 three years. In the beginning, no doubt, both were 
 hajDpy enough. Amzi admired with all his force his 
 handsome wife who had so much sense and spirit ; he 
 liked her smile — which may not have been quite the 
 same sort of smile as it became later — in those days, 
 liked her readiness of tongue. He was proud of her 
 and ineffably proud of and satisfied with himself for 
 acquiring her ; truly, as Cook had said, he was in love 
 with her " after his fashion," and perhaps it was no 
 such bad fashion, as men go. Eleanor, on her side, 
 could hoodwink herself into believing that she was 
 happy, whether or no; it is a trick that comes natu- 
 rally to women. She could put out of her mind the 
 fact that her wedding and honeymoon — possibly the 
 bridegroom himself ! — w^ere incredibly unlike every- 
 thing she had ever pictured, at variance with all the 
 standards and traditions of her class, accompanied 
 by the sort of newspaper notoriety she had been 
 trained to look upon as abhorrent, and requiring ex- 
 planations that must end by becoming irksome. Amzi 
 cared nothing for all this ; he never gave it a thought, 
 so why should she? Eleanor said to herself with 
 bravado. 
 
 Upon review, she found that she could scarcely tell 
 how it had happened; it was all a huddle of events. 
 Between them, they had come to the decision, sud- 
 denly, unaccountably, without rhyme or reason — as 
 it seemed in retrospect — and then, somehow, all at 
 once, with stunning ease and swiftness, the thing was 
 done ! She was always able to call up irrelevant and 
 absurdly non-essential odds and ends, such as the 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 213 
 
 untimely rawness of the September day, the look of 
 the drugstore where she had waited down-town for 
 Amzi, two girls giggliugiy striving together as to 
 which should pay for their ice-cream-sodas, Amzi driv- 
 ing up in the red car, and coming in and nervously 
 buying chewing-gum. They had looked at each other, 
 and said: ^' Oh, here you are I" She was in the 
 strangest muddle at seeing him — relief, regret, a 
 desperate impulse to turn back, a desperate resolve 
 to go forward — the strangest muddle. Was he, too? 
 He was silent, chewing steadily, guiding the automo- 
 bile, not looking at her, but straight ahead with a 
 frown. Crossing the bridge, she had spoken once: 
 " How high the river is I " she had said. She remem- 
 bered the 'squire's little stuffy office with the steam- 
 heat turned on prematurely, a wasp buzzing formid- 
 ably up and down the cloudy-window-panes, the 
 'squire himself needing a clean collar. Amzi had 
 growled at him to ^' cut it out " when he facetiously 
 suggested that kissing the bride was in order; but 
 both men laughed when she asked in perplexity and 
 uneasiness if they were really married now — if that 
 was all — if they were sure — ? The ceremony had 
 seemed to her halting and insufficient. Some sort of 
 negro porter, scenting a tip, was hanging about out- 
 side, and eagerly volunteered to crank the machine; 
 three or four boys raised a yapping for '^ The Newly- 
 weds." They drove off at a great pace, but once back 
 across the river, were fain to halt — down on Third 
 Street among the dravs and car-tracks, to the liberallv 
 expressed dissatisfaction of the gentry employed 
 thereabouts — while they tried to make up their 
 minds what to do next ! In the end they went out to 
 Schwartz's Garden on the hill-top for dinner; it was 
 
214 THE EUDDER 
 
 rather cold and gloomy at the little tables outdoors 
 under the grape-arbours with the tanbark underfoot 
 littered with falling leaves; they had champagne and 
 German pancakes; she remembered how she had 
 laughed and laughed hysterically when Amzi said 
 that now it was over, he felt — " just like you do 
 when you've sat down on a chair that was lower than 
 you expected ! '' And then they took the seven o'clock 
 train for New York. 
 
 Oh, yes, she was entirely happy — or would have 
 been, Eleanor told herself, but for the one thing that 
 troubled her, a haunting feeling that she had some- 
 how neglected Fannie, done Fannie an injustice, not 
 confiding in her, leaving her all alone to bear the 
 brunt of what Eleanor chose to consider her step- 
 mother's silly tyranny. To be sure, she thought, with 
 a kind of wistful humour, her championship had never 
 accomplished anything but the making poor Fan more 
 miserable, and the atmosphere of the house more un- 
 comfortable. Nevertheless, up till now, she had con- 
 trived to take care of Fannie, to defend her; how 
 would it be after this desertion? Characteristically 
 enough, it never came into her head to impose Fannie 
 on her husband ; she recoiled from the idea of asking 
 him for anything on her own behalf. That attitude 
 of stiff-necked independence may not have been the 
 proper or natural one for a young bride very much 
 in love with her husband, but Eleanor deliberately 
 closed her eyes to certain aspects of the married state, 
 extinguished debate by telling herself again that she 
 was perfectly happy. Except when she thought of 
 Fannie, that is. There were times, too, when she was 
 conscious of something unsatisfactory in her uncle's 
 attitude. He was tact and kindness itself, unobtrus- 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 215 
 
 ivelj skilful about falling in with Amzi's wa^^s, with 
 her own ways, invariably saving the right thing, un- 
 derstanding everything, making allowances for every- 
 thing — in conscience she could have asked no more 
 of him. Yet Eleanor found herself illogically resent- 
 ing the perfection of his behaviour; Uncle Marshall 
 was too abnormally humane^ she declared inwardly 
 with vrry amusement. 
 
 Meanwhile they heard from the elder Loring — a 
 verdict, however, which they had awaited in no sus- 
 pense, for Amzi announced confidently from the first 
 that, " it would be all right with Father.-' And in 
 fact, that was what Amzi senior intimated in so many 
 words : ^' All right. Keep me posted on movements. 
 Come home when ready,'' he telegraphed laconically. 
 They went back, accordingly, as soon as the " World's 
 Series'' was concluded; it was only a week. Garry 
 met them at the station, smiling and awkward and 
 mumbling his respects to Mrs. Loring with a red face. 
 Eleanor had some difliculty in controlling her owti 
 shyness and excitement; but Amzi was quite the old 
 married man by this time. He had smoked, or slept 
 or read the paper all the way out from New York, 
 leaving Eleanor to her own entertainment; and now 
 nodded shortly to Garry, and took the steering-wheel 
 in the most matter-of-fact style in the world. They 
 drove out to the house; and as they turned into the 
 drive between the brick pillars — the ^^ animal foun- 
 tain '' was not there by the gate then, of course — 
 Amzi One came out to the head of the steps. 
 
 He helped Eleanor out, and shook hands with her 
 and with his son, and said: "Well, well, well I 
 Took snap judgment on us, didn't you? " And there 
 was a kind of irresolute pause, both of the men look- 
 
216 THE RUDDER 
 
 ing to Eleanor to relieve the situation by some femi- 
 nine expedient, probably an outburst of talk. ^' Nice 
 day, isn't it? " said old Amzi at last, clearing his 
 throat. Eleanor did not know whether she wanted 
 to laugh or cry, but common-sense kept her from do- 
 ing either. 
 
 " The place looks lovely ! " she said, looking straight 
 at Mr. Loring, Avith her head up, in a way she had. 
 Indeed, the fine bulk of the house, with its chimneys 
 hung with creepers, at the top of lawns and terraces 
 descending towards a far view of the river, made a 
 very beautiful and composed picture ; old Amzi liked 
 her straightforward admiration. For a moment she 
 seemed to him not at all a young, freshly married 
 woman, but like a boy — a nice, bright, companion- 
 able boy, spirited enough, but properly diffident in 
 the presence of his elders. 
 
 " Yes, I think myself it's pretty hard to beat just 
 now,'' he assented warmly. '^ But if you have a 
 chance to see it in the spring — of course you will, 
 though — " he halted, the cloud of embarrassment 
 closing in again. " Your room — your rooms — that 
 is, yours and Amzi's rooms are all ready. That is, I 
 told some of these girls — the hired help, you know — 
 to get 'em ready, and I expect they did. I expect it's 
 all right. There isn't any lady around to look after 
 things like that, of course, but I — I guess you'll find 
 everything all right." 
 
 "Sure! Come on, Eleanor!" said young Amzi. 
 " My same old room, hey. Dad? " 
 
 " Why — er — yes — only there's plenty of room 
 — plenty more, if you want more/' said the other, ac- 
 tually purpling all over his face. ^^ Phew! '' he ejac- 
 ulated inwardly, as they retreated. Though of any- 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 217 
 
 thing but a romantic turn, it struck tlie elder Mr. Lor- 
 ing that joung people took this thing of getting mar- 
 ried in an astonishingly literal and phlegTaatic man- 
 ner nowadays. Of course a man — ! But the girl, 
 too, w as as cool as a cucumber ! " Mary and I 
 weren't that way when we were married — or Mary 
 wasn't anyhow I " he thought. His wife had been dead 
 twenty years; she did not live long. Old Amzi him- 
 self was really not so very old — not more than fifty- 
 five or -six, it is likely. 
 
 There was, in truth, as much room as anybody could 
 possibly desire in the great old house which had been 
 rejuvenated from end to end expensively, but in the 
 best of taste, Mr. Loring having engaged a well-known 
 firm of decorators for that sole purpose. ^' Oh, the 
 hapi)y, happy decorators, with everything their own 
 way, and no women bothering around ! " Eleanor said 
 when he told her this ; and made him laugh. 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder if they did have a pretty good 
 time," he said ; '' I don't know anything about it, and 
 told them so. That's what I was paying them for — 
 the know-how. I wasn't entirely satisfied either, right 
 at first, but it's grown on me since. Now that big 
 mantel-piece over there with nothing on it but those 
 stone baskets full of stone peaches and grapes and 
 things — seemed to me a kind of a joke at first. A 
 solid marble apple that you could knock a man over 
 with, you know? Nothing cosy about it somehow. 
 But I like it now I've got used to it." 
 
 This was during dinner, by the end of which cere- 
 mony, Eleanor and her father-in-law found them- 
 selves on the way to being friendly enough, somewhat 
 to the surprise of each. He was in the middle of a 
 humorous account of some of his experiences with the 
 
218 THE EUDDER 
 
 reporters, when one of these latter called. Mr. Lor- 
 ing counteracted young Amzi's grufl refusal to be in- 
 terviewed by consenting himself with the utmost ur- 
 banity. 
 
 ^^ Here now, you don't want to send out any mes- 
 sages like that! " he interposed, rising; " I'll see him. 
 I've been seeing 'em all. It's always better to see 
 'em." And when the extras came out with headlines : 
 " Ice-King Forgives. Runaway Son and Bride Re- 
 ceived With Open Arms/ accompanied by pictures 
 of all of them, of the house, the grounds, the automo- 
 bile and everybody and everything else even remotely 
 concerned down to Eleanor's Angora kitten, Amzi 
 One himself brought them to her, chuckling. " Now 
 you see what they do to you when they want to be real 
 nice! So you can judge what it would have been if 
 they'd had it in for you, for any reason ! " he pointed 
 out, infinitely pleased that she joined in his laugh. 
 He said to himself that he liked a woman that could 
 see a joke. 
 
 Also he liked the good taste — he called it good 
 sense — which prompted the young woman to with- 
 draw after a reasonable while, and leave father and 
 son together for that thrashing out of certain prac- 
 tical questions vrhich was due sooner or later. Never- 
 theless, in a few minutes he would have been glad if 
 she had stayed, for of the two men, the elder felt much 
 the more awkward. He cleared his throat and 
 fidgeted, hoping Amzi would make a beginning; but 
 as his son sat stolidly smoking, apparently uncon- 
 scious that anything needed to be said and that it 
 would become him to say it first, Mr. Loring at length 
 remarked tentatively: "Well, son, I guess I've got 
 to make up my mind to your being grown up. I 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 219 
 
 thought I realised it already^ but I didn't — not fully. 
 Seeing you with a wife has kind of opened my eyes, 
 I suppose." 
 
 " Uh-huh," said the other, unsentimentally. 
 
 "Nice girl, too, I judge. And pretty — no two 
 ways about that!'' said old Amzi. "By George, I 
 never saw a finer figure on a woman I " 
 
 " Uh-huh," said Amzi Two again. He yawned. 
 
 After a silence, Mr. Loring himself went to the 
 point ; going to the point at once would, indeed, have 
 been his preference, pourparlers not being at all in 
 his line, though this time the circumstances had 
 seemed to demand them. "Well now, Amzi," said 
 he ; " I guess it's time for us to have a little talk about 
 what you're going to do. I haven't spoken to you 
 about it hitherto, because a young man naturally 
 wants to look around first, for a while, and I didn't 
 see any reason why you shouldn't take your time to it. 
 But a man that's got a wife, and maybe'll have a 
 family before long, ought to have some plans about his 
 future. Now — " 
 
 " Aw, hire a hall I " interrupted young Amzi, yaT\Ti- 
 ing again. " I don't need anybody to tell me all 
 that ! " He threw away the stub of his cigar, and 
 reached for a pipe, looking up at his father from 
 under his brows, as he began to fill it. " Say, you 
 must have hated like sin to cut loose at me with that 
 sermon. Dad I " he observed \\ith a grin. He blew out 
 the stem of the pipe. " Don't you worry I I've got 
 it all framed up. I'm going with the Pacemakers 
 this coming season — " 
 " The Pacemakers? '' 
 
 " Yeah. You know. The same team I played with 
 before. I met McFarland while I was East, and 
 
220 THE EUDDER 
 
 signed up with him. Play left field, of course, like I 
 always do." 
 
 Mr. Loring sat with his hands on his knees, listen- 
 ing. If any private castles of his went crashing into 
 nothingness at that moment, his immobile face gave 
 no sign. He merely inquired : " How much do they 
 give you? '' 
 
 " Eighteen hundred. That's good enough for a 
 starter — of course it's only one of these alfalfa-cir- 
 cuit teams, I know that as well as anybody. I'm not 
 going to stay with them all my days. I'll be in one of 
 the big leagues inside a year or two, or I'll know the 
 reason why," Amzi Two prophesied coolly. " No use 
 blowing around about it though beforehand, you 
 know. Get there first, and then do jour bloTvdng, if 
 you want to blow^ — that's my idea ! " 
 
 Mr. Loring did not speak for a moment. Then he 
 asked another question: "How old are you, Amzi? 
 IVe lost count." 
 
 " Twenty-three." 
 
 "Twenty-three?" repeated the father. "Well!" 
 He stared thoughtfully at the other lying almost on 
 his back in the deep chair with legs stretched out 
 and hands clasped under his head. " Twenty-three. 
 That's old enough to know your own mind," said Mr. 
 Loring with detachment. " I expect that's more than 
 I was making when I was your age, plugging along 
 down at the old B. and O. They pay bigger salaries 
 for every kind of job nowadays. As I understand it, 
 in the baseball business you don't have to work the 
 Tvhole year, either." 
 
 " 'Bout eight months. Of course you've got to keep 
 yourself in something like condition between times. 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 221 
 
 We go down to the training-camp — it's at Galveston 
 this year — in February." 
 
 There was another prolonged silence. Mr. Loring 
 shifted his legs, and selected a cigar for himself with 
 minute care. Nibbling the point off of it, he said: 
 ^' Humph — er — what does your wife think about it, 
 Amzi? " 
 
 " Eleanor? She hasn't got anything to think about 
 it — or say about it, or do about it, for that matter. 
 You can't have women mixing in.'' 
 
 ^^OJi!'' After a further meditative interval, old 
 Amzi said : " The reason I asked was I was wonder- 
 ing what she was going to do while you were off on 
 your trips. Of course she can stay right here, but — " 
 
 " Oh, she's coming along. They often take their 
 wives. Pay her expenses yourself, of course. The 
 management couldn't be expected to do that." 
 
 Mr. Loring moved, making an inarticulate sound. 
 " Well but, look here, son — " said he, cautiously. 
 " How about that, anyhow? What kind of a lot are 
 these ball-players, and the women they have around? 
 Seems to me — " 
 
 " Oh, Lord, now you're beginning I " Amzi Two ejac- 
 ulated in impatient disgust. " Mr. Cook started off 
 with that, and Eleanor wanted to know the first thing ! 
 ' See here,' I said to her : ' If they're good enough for 
 me, they're good enough for you I I don't want any 
 of that fool society flub-dub. You'll just come along 
 and behave yourself, and not put on any fool airs. 
 You've got plenty of sense, and here's where you have 
 a chance to show it ! ' That shut her up. She may 
 as well know first as last that I won't stand for any 
 nonsense," he concluded ominously. 
 
222 THE KUDDER 
 
 The elder Loring, through a halo of tobacco smoke, 
 surveyed his son with the far, indecipherable coun- 
 tenance of the Sphynx. " You're old enough to know 
 your own mind, Amzi,'' said he again. " And — " he 
 added in complete philosophical detachment, as be- 
 fore; " and w^hat you don't know you'll find out! " 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MR. LORING junior's prowess in left field 
 was such that at the end of two seasons 
 he was drafted into one of the major 
 leagues even as he had predicted, along with a, great 
 number of other eligibles of whom he was among the 
 few who, it transpired, could '^deliver the goods'' 
 as he himself stated. Amzi Two batted " around the 
 300-mark," acquired the nickname of " Butch " Lor- 
 ing, and invariably got a rousing reception from the 
 bleachers when he trotted out to his position, on the 
 home gi'ounds. In foreign territory he was, if not 
 popular, at least respected, owing to his ability to 
 return any blackguarding with equal fluency, and 
 moreover to back up his utterances by such practical 
 demonstrations as going over to the benches and ad- 
 ministering correction to any member of the audience 
 whose manners displeased him, or for that matter to 
 any umpire or fellow-player. In the course of time, 
 these habits cost him numerous suspensions and fines 
 w^hich latter, however, he was said to be so well able 
 to pay that they did not " hurt him much '' ; and he 
 was also said to drink more than was seemly once in 
 a while, but "not enough to hurt him much" — to 
 quote public opinion again. 
 
 After the first year, Mrs. Amzi stayed at home. To 
 be accurate, she came back very suddenly and unex- 
 pectedly in the middle of the second season, and never 
 accompanied her husband again. At the beginning, 
 
 223 
 
224 THE KUDDER 
 
 she liad been most enthusiastic about these journey- 
 ings; according to her, they Avere fascinatingly in- 
 formal and adventurous. She was full of humorous 
 anecdotes of the queer third- or fourth- or even tenth- 
 rate towns and hotels where they stopjDed, the people 
 they met, the baseball magnates, the players and their 
 ladies, the way they dressed, talked, lived; her tale 
 was wonderfully keen and sparkling. People said 
 that it was all done to save her face; that it was a 
 desperate bluff to make everybody believe that she 
 was happy in her life, and her choice, maybe to make 
 herself believe it. Her friends pitied and admired 
 her, and were angry with her, and gossiped about her 
 all at once. 
 
 What happened that second season nobody liked to 
 inquire. Perhaps some good-looking young pitcher 
 was too attentive; perhaps the other women were 
 jealous, and made horrid scenes; perhaps Eleanor 
 offended the baseball circles unconsciously — or con- 
 sciously ! They said she was capable of it ! — Per- 
 haps her own high temper rebelled at last. All sorts 
 of rumours went the rounds, but not even her near- 
 est friends, not even her own sister, knew to a cer- 
 tainty. But that something grave and final had come 
 to pass, they were all sure; her return was too pre- 
 cipitate not to arouse suspicion, to say nothing of the 
 fact that thereafter, she remained at home, never so 
 much as setting foot inside the ball-i)ark even when 
 Amzi's team was playing in town. Besides, there was 
 that visible " friction." It was amazing — those who 
 knew her best said — that a girl like Eleanor Loring 
 would stand for one minute the way her husband 
 talked and acted to her; he was so loud, so domineer- 
 ing, so " common " in a word. It was only what was 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 225 
 
 to have been expected ; impossible to understand why 
 she had married him in the first place I On the other 
 hand, it could not be denied — they said — that Xellie 
 wasn't yery nice to Mm at times. You know Nellie 
 Maranda ; that nasty, quiet waj' she had, when she felt 
 like it I Anyhow the whole business was dreadful, 
 and they could not see how it was going to end. 
 
 The strange thing was that all this time Eleanor 
 seemed to get along most amicably with the elder Lor- 
 ing. He must haye known all about everything that 
 was going on, he must have seen it all. But he and 
 Eleanor were good friends enough, and there was no 
 intimation of his having had any break with his son. 
 Amzi senior was, in fact, very much absorbed in his 
 business, in comparison to which baseball games or 
 young married peoples' quarrels were to him of slight 
 interest. One might have supposed that at his age, 
 and with the money he had already made, he would 
 have relaxed a little, or delegated a part of his labours 
 and responsibilities to some trustworthy subordinate ; 
 on the contrary he worked as hard as ever he had 
 worked at the outset of his career, up early, visiting 
 from factory to factory, interviewing superintendents, 
 hands, wagon-drivers, cutting down expenses here, 
 making new installations there, experimenting, im- 
 proving, vigilant, tireless, incomparably efficient. 
 Every summer he methodically took a vacation of four 
 weeks. " Well, all work and no play makes Jack a 
 dull boy. I guess I'll go fishing," were the words in 
 which he used yearly to publish the approach of this 
 event. He always went to the same place, one of the 
 Wisconsin lakes ; and when his month was up, would 
 reappear, sunburned, mosquito-bitten and refreshed, 
 and apply his shoulder to the wheel with more zest 
 
226 THE RUDDER 
 
 than ever. At intervals he made a business-trip, to 
 all the larger cities; he was a prominent member of 
 the Chamber of Commerce, and frequently obliged 
 to receive and entertain visiting commercial notables ; 
 otherwise he had no social life. Every Wednesday 
 night he went to the theatre, and every Saturday had 
 a party of five prosperous old cronies to play poker. 
 The stakes were high, and there was a liberal supply 
 of the good Bourbon County product ; but these hard- 
 headed old boys always contrived to separate at some- 
 thing after midnight with a perfect propriety of de- 
 meanour, and judging by Amzi One himself, turned 
 up at the usual hour next morning, severally as fresh 
 as so many daisies I 
 
 In all this, young Mrs. Loring naturally had no 
 portion ; but neither had her husband. Loring senior 
 was not going to change the habits of years merely 
 because of the presence of a son and a daughter-in- 
 law in his household. He let them go their way, 
 sagaciously making no comments and offering no ad- 
 vice. Some people reported that the younger Amzi's 
 choice of a profession was a severe disappointment to 
 the older ; but there could have been no solid founda- 
 tion for such a story. Young Amzi was a success- 
 ful man, commanding a high salary in an honest 
 trade; no father as sensible as Mr. Loring would ask 
 more. One is reminded of that little farcical sketch 
 Batter Up! by Marshall Cook, which was travelling 
 the vaudeville circuit about this time. One character 
 says to another with contempt : " But So-and-So is 
 nothing but a ball-player ! " The other retorts : 
 " Sure I He's the best second baseman in the league. 
 Now you tell us what you^re the best man in the 
 country at ! " Mr. Loring went to see the play two or 
 
THE WAGON x\ND THE STAR 227 
 
 three times, and recommended it strongly to every- 
 body be knew. 
 
 Eleanor first won tbe Ice-King's regard by the un- 
 swerving tact with which she managed her relations 
 with his servants. She was not mistress in the house ; 
 the position presented difficulties of which Mr. Loring 
 who had dealt with underlings all his life was thor- 
 oughly aware. Eleanor must have conducted herself 
 in accordance with old Amzi's formless creed of fair- 
 ness, prudence, dignity and civility, and he knew that 
 the performance called imperatively for a good head, 
 as well as a good heart. A dull woman might have 
 made him uncomfortable. As it was, Eleanor added 
 an unobtrusive decorative touch ; and she " grew on 
 him " like the rest of the decorations. He liked com- 
 ing home and dressing and going down to his hand- 
 some dinner-table and sitting in company with this 
 handsome daughter-in-law, whom he privately con- 
 sidered an " elegant lady " — the most elegant he had 
 even seen. Sometimes he wondered why it was that 
 she and Amzi irritated each other so; lie could get 
 along with either one of them! From time to time 
 he gave her presents — sums of money of such stag- 
 gering proportions that Eleanor at first protested. 
 
 " But it's more than my whole income — it's more 
 than I've ever had in my life — I don't mean at one 
 time, I mean my whole life — why, I can't spend it I " 
 she expostulated. 
 
 "Can't, hey?" said old Amzi, amused at her con- 
 sternation. " Never you mind about that! You'll 
 get away with it fast enough. There never was a 
 woman yet that couldn't. That's all right, too. I 
 like to see you well dressed. I like to be well dressed 
 myself." Which was true; Mr. Loring was no fop^ 
 
228 THE RUDDER 
 
 but he undeniably had an exacting taste in waist- 
 coats. 
 
 It was upon this very matter of pocket-money that 
 they had their first — their only — disagreement ; 
 even then old Amzi was rather puzzled than put out 
 by her behaviour. She went down town one snapping 
 cold day in early autumn w^ith two hundred and fifty 
 dollars he had given her on the understanding that 
 she was to buy a set of furs with it. Mr. Loring 
 seldom made any conditions about the use of his 
 largesse, but this time, having hai)pened to see some 
 fashionable actress with a muff and collar that took 
 his fancy, it pleased him to order Eleanor to get the 
 same. " She's a good deal on your style, tall and slim 
 with black hair, or a wig — all made up, of course, 
 but she put me in mind of you. Now I want you to 
 get that," he enjoined her seriously. And thinking 
 of it again as they sat over their coffee after dinner, 
 in the sun-room : " Well, did you buy 'em? '' he asked 
 smilingly. 
 
 " Why — I — no," said Eleanor, with a troubled 
 look. " No, I didn't. I was going to tell you." 
 
 " Two hundred and fifty wouldn't reach? " queried 
 Amzi. " But you surely could get something on the 
 same order, couldn't you? " 
 
 "Oh, yes — oh, it was 2^^("nty! Only — I bought 
 them and then I decided not to take them." 
 
 "What was the matter? " 
 
 Eleanor looked wistfully at her father-in-law, won- 
 dering if he would understand; it did not help mat- 
 ters to realise suddenly that she herself hardly under- 
 stood. " Well, you know I went down to get them — 
 and I think you were very kind to want me to have 
 them — and I really thought I w^anted them myself 
 
i 
 
 THE WAGON AND THE STAR 229 
 
 — I picked out a perfectly beautiful set — " she began, 
 colouring- high, moving the cups and saucers about 
 with nervous fingers. ^^ I saw some other things, and 
 so I stayed quite late, shopping — '' 
 
 " She's gone over the amount I " thought old Amzi, 
 as she hesitated; and he frowned. He disliked that; 
 nobody had any excuse for exceeding his gifts, which, 
 he prided himself were always ample — yes, more 
 than ample, by George I Few men were as free- 
 handed I "Well?'' he said aloud, shortly. 
 
 The tone spurred her ; she faced him fearlessly now, 
 and told the rest of her story with that defiant 
 straightforwardness, which at heart, pleased him. " I 
 had sent Garry home, so I took the Adams Road car, 
 and it was crowded with workmen going home — hod- 
 carriers and day-labourers with dinner-pails — that 
 kind of men, all of them dirty and tired as they could 
 be. There wasn't an overcoat in the lot ; they had on 
 their ragged working-clothes, not even flannel shirts, 
 just jeans, and their overalls were plastered with 
 clay and mud, and wet through — and it's cold — you 
 know how cold it is. One of them — he was a 
 coloured man — was hanging to a strap just in front 
 of me, and I heard him say to another: ^Ah jus' 
 gotter have a pair of shoes somehow or othah. Ah 
 jus' plain 'hJceged ter raise three dollahs somehow an' 
 git me a pair of shoes. Wintah's comin".' He didn't 
 say it in a complaining way at all — just in the or- 
 dinary course of talk — just as if he were speaking 
 about the weather or politics. And the other one 
 didn't seem to think anything of it either. And their 
 feet were out of their wretched, broken old boots — 
 both of them. Their feet were fairly on the ground 
 
 — dreadful feet, perfectly lead-coloured with the cold, 
 
230 THE KUDDER 
 
 and with great cracks in their heels! It was dread- 
 ful I " 
 
 " Well? '' said Mr. Loring again as she paused, but 
 with a different inflection now, one indicating pro- 
 found and amazed curiosity. ^^Well?" 
 
 "I tell you it was horrible!^' cried out Eleanor; 
 she made a violent gesture with her two hands. 
 " There I sat, and I had just spent hundreds of dol- 
 lars for fiirSy and idiotic clothes, and here were those 
 two men wanting nothing but shoes — three-dollar 
 shoes I '' She had to stop to control her trembling 
 lips. "I couldn^t do it after that — I couldn't do 
 it ! " 
 
 " Couldn't do what? " 
 
 " I couldn't go around wearing those furs/' said 
 Eleanor, fiercely. ^^ When I got home, I telephoned 
 and told them that I'd changed my mind, and that I 
 wouldn't; take them. Me with furs — and those poor 
 men! If they had wanted something magnificent — 
 something way beyond them — if they had been envy- 
 ing somebod}^, or jealous of somebody — but they only 
 wanted shoes! Just cheap shoes — just something 
 to cover their feet and keep them from freezing — 
 that was all they asked. Why, they didn't even ask 
 — they weren't beggars — they were just i)lanning 
 how they could earn enough money for shoes. It's 
 too pitiful! It's all wrong! I have so much that I 
 don't need at all. Look at this room ! Look at this 
 dress ! It's all wrong ! " 
 
 Mr. Loring obediently looked. His gaze travelled 
 automatically all around the sun-room which was a 
 charming place with latticed walls, interrupted sym- 
 metrically by casements clothed in bright chintz; 
 there was a floor of tiles, there were potted plants, 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 231 
 
 cut flowers, a pleasant fire on the hearth, shaded 
 lights serenely burning. Eleanor's fine shoulders 
 stood out against the cushions clean and firm of out- 
 line as marble ; the rich little silver service winked in 
 front of her ; the dress svrept out in folds whose sump- 
 tuous texture he recognised, though he could not have 
 named it ; she was a regal picture, if, at the moment, ' 
 a somewhat disquieting one. 
 
 « Mj — good — Lord I '' he uttered. Eleanor's 
 Uncle IMarshall was familiar enough with this blazing 
 mood, but it was something new to old Amzi. After 
 an instant, he said with careful mildness: "Well, 
 what did jou do with your money, Eleanor? You 
 didn't give it to the darky with the cracked heels? " 
 
 The tragic fires died down, extinguished by her 
 quick smile ; and, a sense of humour being of the very 
 stuff of sanity, Mr. Loring was reassured, even before 
 she spoke. 
 
 " No. That wouldn't have done him any good, 
 you know," said Eleanor practically. " No. The 
 cheque's in bank to my account. I put it there this 
 morning, the way you told me to do always." 
 
 " I thought you had a pretty level head! " said Mr. 
 Loring, relieved ; then perplexity overtook him again. 
 " Only, if your head's level enough for that, I don't see 
 how you ever worked yourself into such an excitement 
 over this man to begin with. Aren't you feeling 
 well? I mean, you — you aren't feeling — er ; — ner- 
 vous, or anything? " 
 
 " Oh, I'm all right — I'm scarcely ever sick, you 
 know," said Eleanor, with half a laugh. " No." She 
 looked down, fingering the tray, a little ashamed of 
 her outbreak; then raised her eyes to his gallantly. 
 " It's just that it seemed to me so dreadful for me to 
 
232 THE EUDDER 
 
 liave so mucli, and that poor fellow so little. I — I 
 couldn't stand it. Don't you seef 
 
 This she said with sufficient calmness, though ur- 
 gently ; old Amzi, considering her seriously perceived 
 what seemed to him a fanatically stubborn conviction, 
 coupled imi)ossibly with essential reasonableness. It 
 interested him to the point of argTiment — something 
 which he had never before thought worth w^hile with 
 a woman. 
 
 " If I understand you, Eleanor," he said, " you've 
 got an idea somehow that you wrong this negro man 
 by being better off than he is. How do you make that 
 out? What makes you think that? " 
 
 '' Why, because I haven't done anything to deserve 
 it!" Eleanor cried. "It's not faii^l It's not right! 
 It's — " 
 
 Mr. Loring waved a tranquillising hand. " I get 
 your point," said he. " It's an accident, of course, 
 and the luck of it happens to be all on your side. 
 Well now, the w^ay I look at it, the Lord is responsible 
 for that kind of accident. They talk about all men 
 being born free and equal. That's a fallacy — or, at 
 least, the equal part of it is. He starts some people 
 out white and some coloured; He lets some be born 
 blind and some idiots ; He fixes some so they'll always 
 have good health like yourself, as you were saying just 
 now, and He makes some that never draw a well 
 breath ; and He gives some people the gumption to get 
 ahead and make something of themselves, while He 
 fits others out to be failures and criminals and I don't 
 know what all. You may think it's sacrilegious to 
 blame it on the Almighty, but what're you going to do 
 about it? It's not your fault anyhow. It's no more 
 wrong or unfair for you to be in easy circumstances 
 
THE WAGON AXD THE STAR 233 
 
 while some people aren't, than it is for you to be well 
 while lots of people are sick.'' 
 
 " I can't help it," said Eleanor obstinately. ^' It 
 doesn't seem right. It was so pitiful. / don't do any- 
 tJiincjy and he works hard." 
 
 "Don't / work hard?" said Mr. Loring. "You 
 know it. You've seen me. I've worked hard all my 
 life. But I take notice nobody's worrying over mc! ^' 
 
 " Well, but you're different — it's different some- 
 how," said Eleanor, in dire confusion. 
 
 "Different? Different how?'' demanded Amzi 
 One. He got up and stood in front of the mantel- 
 piece, looming over Eleanor, with his cigar in the 
 angle of his mouth, with his big square jaw, his big 
 square shoulders, his complexion ruddy and coarse 
 but clean with the cleanliness of a decent life, a lit- 
 tle arrogant, but self-respecting and self-confident 
 from the soundest of reasons. " How am I different? 
 Because I've made my way and made money? While 
 a man's poor and works for somebody else he's to be 
 pitied and coddled and sympathised with and made 
 much of, hey? And the minute he gets to be well 
 off and hires another man to work for him, it's all 
 ^ wrong ' and ^ unfair ' and ^ unjust ' — is that it ? 
 The man that has to work for me is the noblest crea- 
 ture and the most unfortunate and abused creature 
 on earth, and v\'hen I give him a job and pay him all 
 he's worth, I'm taking advantage of his necessities, 
 and I'm — what's this they call it? Oh, yes I — I'm 
 an ' exploiter of labour ' ! If I'm a rich man I can't 
 possiblv be an honest man. Anvbodv that has the 
 money to pay for a good house and good clothes must 
 be skinning some poor devil of a coloured man who 
 hasn't any shoes I " 
 
234 THE EUDDER 
 
 " I didn't say that ! That wasn't what I meant ! " 
 Eleanor broke in. " I meant — " she halted stammer- 
 ing, in a chaos, strong as ever in her belief — the be- 
 lief surely of every generous soul — that she was her 
 brother's keeper, but wholly unable to express it. 
 
 Mr. Loring waited relentlessly for her to finish. 
 After a proper interval, he said, kindly enough — in 
 fact, his manner throughout had been most patient 
 and temperate — ^' I know you hadn't anything per- 
 sonal in mind, Eleanor. I just wanted to show you 
 where that line of thought would land you. It's that 
 kind of cheap Socialist rant that fellows like this 
 Chauncey Devitt go around and stir up trouble with, 
 calling themselves the ' friends of Labour ' and all the 
 rest of it. Of course, some of 'em are cranks, and 
 they're in earnest. I don't know why the lunacy 
 courts don't get hold of that kind oftener. But with 
 most they talk that kind of humbug because it's popu- 
 lar and they get paid for doing it ; they couldn't make 
 a dollar any other way to save their lives. It's easy 
 for a man to believe that he's being ill-treated, espe- 
 cially when he sees somebody else that's got more than 
 he has; there isn't anybody hardly that knows when 
 he has enough. That's why I say this Anarchist doc- 
 trine is so popular. But you can see how false it is. 
 Why, take my own case when I was a young fellow 
 starting out. I had to work for another man; did I 
 think he was ^ exploiting ' me? Not that I remember. 
 I intended some day to be in a place where I could 
 hire Jiim if I wanted to, and I was too busy getting 
 there to bother about being ' exploited.' I had to 
 think twice before I bought an extra pair of shoes, 
 too, but you'd never have dreamed of pitying me. Or 
 take me as I am now. I've made money, but it's not 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 235 
 
 a drop in the bucket to what Carnegie and John D. 
 have. Do I think they wrong me by being richer men 
 than I am? Wh}', I'd be crazy! You divide all the 
 money there is in the world to-day, share and share 
 alike, and at the end of a year the same men would be 
 rich, and the same others would be wanting three- 
 dollar shoes. Now you don't want to get any hyster- 
 ical notions about the poor workingman ; there never 
 was a time or a country where the poor workingman 
 had so much done for him as he's having right here 
 and now. And if he isn't quite in your class as 
 regards luxuries, why, that's no reason why you 
 shouldn't have a little fun and buy what you want.'' 
 
 Eleanor did not attempt an answer. She rose, too, 
 and stood beside him, and, happening to drop her 
 handkerchief, Mr. Loring stooped with a handiness 
 surprising in a man of his age and build and restored 
 it to her neatly. They looked at each other smiling 
 again, something about the small civility clearing the 
 air. 
 
 ^^ All the same, you haven't proved that / have any 
 business to be better off than the coloured man. I'm 
 not worth my salt in any way that I know of," said 
 Eleanor. 
 
 Amzi One did not dispute the fact ; he accounted for 
 it as being in the normal and obvious order of things. 
 " You're a woman," he said. " And anyhow, you 
 don't want to get morbid about it. That doesn't do 
 any good. You can think of something to do. Fancy- 
 work, or something, you know." 
 
 " Yes, I could do fancy-work," Eleanor agreed. On 
 a sudden she felt an immense respect, a kind of regi'et- 
 ful liking, a kind of envy for old Amzi, who was so 
 sure of his own light, who walked so straightly by it. 
 
236 THE EUDDER 
 
 " Of course I believe in giving to charities and all 
 that, you know/' Mr. Loring added hastily, on some 
 new thought. " Everybody ought to do that. That's 
 only right.'' 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 LEAVING out that one slight ruffle, life with 
 Eleanor and her father-in-law went on with 
 unprecedented smoothness. The big house- 
 hold moved on such well-oiled hinges that she could 
 have no domestic cares, people thought, though she 
 took an interest in various departments, had a lovely 
 flower-garden and an eminently practical one for vege- 
 tables, experimented picturesquely with a dairy and 
 Jerseys, with a poultry-house and eggs, and ordered 
 and set up the animal-fountain without a word of 
 objection from Loring senior. In the meantime she 
 was as busy as any other young married woman of her 
 set with clothes and charities and clubs and her 
 church, busier perhaps — restlessly occupied all day 
 long. It was true she did not " go out " much other- 
 wise; for most of the year her husband was not at 
 home, and when he was at home, alas, there was that 
 deplorable '' friction.'' When they did '' go out " to- 
 gether, it was a painful experience for Society, even 
 though a highly interesting one. At best, it was said, 
 one always felt as if something might " break loose '' 
 any minute I 
 
 " She doesn't ever seem to want to do what he wants 
 her to do," her friends reported, '' and then, instead of 
 one or other of them giving in, or at least keeping 
 quiet, and fighting it out as soon as they're by them- 
 selves—instead of that, why, he bawls at her and 
 orders her around, and then she says something that 
 
 237 
 
238 THE RUDDER 
 
 doesn't sound like anything, but it always makes him 
 jjcrfectly furious! l\e seen him get so mad he'd take 
 her by the arm and fairly shove her along — in public 
 places, like the theatre or the Countiy Club, you know, 
 or anywhere — in somebody's house, for that matter, 
 he doesn't care. Right before peoi)le ! I'd die if any 
 man treated me that way, where everybody you know 
 can see and hear the whole thing. It's so common! 
 I don't see how she stands it ! " 
 
 Mrs. Juliet Maranda heard the stories with a sad 
 but meaning smile, nodding quietly. " She tcoiild 
 marry him ! I can't imagine what it w^as about him 
 that attracted her ; he and his father both seem to 
 me to be typical nouveaux riches — so loud and vul- 
 gar. I believe Eleanor thought him very handsome; 
 you know in the nicest families there will be a strain 
 of the most unaccountable low taste cropping out now 
 and then." 
 
 " That is very true, Juliet," said Mr. Marshall Cook, 
 to whom this remark was addressed. " You are such 
 a keen observer ! " And then, with a face of the 
 kindest concern, he inquired : " By the w^ay — I 
 haven't been back here for so long, you know — talk- 
 ing about people, do you mind if I ask how your 
 brother and his family are getting along? " 
 
 " Of course I don't mindy Marshall," said the lady, 
 drawing herself up in a species of furious calm. " I 
 don't know why you should think I would mind being 
 asked about Homer. They are doing very well, thank 
 you. It would be a good thing if Eleanor gave people 
 as little occasion for scandalous gossip." 
 
 " I haven't heard any scandalous gossip about 
 Eleanor yet," said Cook, innocently. " Unless what 
 you've been telling me is scandal. Is it? " 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 239 
 
 " Certainly not I I never repeat scandal," said Mrs. 
 Maranda indignantly. "You knoiv I don't. I said 
 scandal because — that is — well, the whole thing is 
 very disagi^eeable. People are inclined to lay the 
 blame on him, but it takes two to make a quarrel; I 
 always tell everybody that in justice they ought to 
 remember that. Maybe after this they will really be- 
 lieve at last that Eleanor is very, very difficult." 
 
 There was truth in that, too. Cook admitted to him- 
 self, though he never would have to Mrs. Juliet. He 
 went out to dine with the Lorings — a ghastly expe- 
 rience. The master of the house was away on his 
 annual fishing excursion, but young Amzi's team hap- 
 pened to be playing in town that week, a series of 
 four games with the '' Black Sox,'' so " Butch " Loring 
 was at home, and welcomed his relative-in-law with a 
 surly amiability. He rather liked the little man, who 
 ''^ hadn't any high-brow airs about him." The other 
 guests were a well-known sporting gentleman, to wit : 
 Andy Farrell, the billiard champion, and another 
 w^hom the host called " Do€." Cook did not catch his 
 surname, but discovered in the course of talk that he 
 had acquired his title legitimately from the College 
 of Veterinary Surgeons, and had afterwards become 
 eminent in baseball society through his abilities at 
 manipulating sprains, sore muscles, etc. His T\ife 
 was along, too, a large, fleshy, flashy lady, the first 
 sight of whom moved Cook, who nevertheless was the 
 least snobbish of men, with horrified sympathy for his 
 niece. But Mrs. Doc turned out to be almost patheti- 
 cally harmless, bleached hair and all. She sat in 
 silence, completely overawed by the huge, dim, costly 
 place, by the frigidly decorous servants, by the per- 
 fect manners of her hostess, eating timidly not nearly 
 
240 THE EUDDER 
 
 as much as she wanted, saying " No, sir, I wouldn't 
 wish any," when the butler offered a dish, watching 
 Eleanor to see which fork the latter used, and chang- 
 ing from one to another of her own in agonised un- 
 certainty. Even Cook, with all his tact and kindness, 
 could not set her at ease; he thought that Eleanor 
 might have, but Eleanor did not try! On the con- 
 trary, there she sat, cool, impervious, polite, appar- 
 ently unaware of young Amzi's scowl at the other end 
 of the table. She made even her uncle uncomfortable. 
 Wet blankets were nothing to it ; the atmosphere was 
 fairly leaden. Amzi Two ate sullenly ; the other men 
 were alternately awkwardly loquacious, or when 
 Eleanor turned her gracious eyes on them, awkwardly 
 dumb. Cook talked on desperately ; in the extremity 
 he actually talked about himself ! 
 
 " Oh, did you write that piece that Charlie Duke 
 starred in, last winter? '' Farrell said in surprise. 
 
 " Batter Up? Yes, I wrote that." 
 
 " I didn't know you were a writer." 
 
 " I daresay you thought I was a monologue artist, 
 Mr. Farrell," said Cook, grinning uncontrollably. 
 '' No wonder ! " 
 
 The other looked uncertain as to how to take this, 
 until " Doc " jogged him in the ribs, when they both 
 burst into abrupt guffaws which ceased with equal 
 abruptness as they glanced apprehensively towards 
 Eleanor. 
 
 " Thanks, mister, I wouldn't wish any," said the 
 veterinarianess, for at least the tenth time. 
 
 " You'd better not take that to Mrs. Loring either, 
 Hanson," shouted young Amzi savagely as the butler 
 neared Eleanor. '' She don't want it. It ain't good 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 241 
 
 enoiigli for her. Nothing or nobody here is good 
 enough for her ! " 
 
 After an instant of uneasy silence, Farrell said in 
 mock reproach: "Aw, say, Butch, that's an awful 
 slam at the rest of us ! '' And he and Doc laughed 
 again, encouraged by the fact that Eleanor herself 
 joined them with a relish which occasioned her uncle 
 considerable disquiet. 
 
 "What's going to happen 7ioicf he thought, eye- 
 ing young Amzi's lowering countenance. 
 
 " Here you, bring another bottle, and have it cold I " 
 the latter ordered; and having drunk, he addressed 
 another remark to the table in sreneral. " D've know 
 that joke about married men living longer than single 
 men? The answer is they don't live any longer, it only 
 seems longer! " 
 
 Cook ha-ha'ed; everybody made anxious haste to 
 ha-ha, in fact, except Mrs. Doc who observed Elea- 
 nor's smile in naive wonder. 
 
 " I've found out that's time, too," said their host, 
 filling his glass again — whereat the other two men 
 exchanged a significant glance. " I've found out 
 something else," said Amzi Two, glowering impar- 
 tially at everybody. " You'd think it would cost a 
 married man just twice as much to live, wouldn't you? 
 Well, it don't. It costs three or four times. That's 
 another joke on him." 
 
 " And a very good joke, too," said Eleanor, sweetly. 
 " As often as I hear it, I laugh just as much as I did 
 the first time years ago." And laugh she did, with 
 an appearance of the keenest enjoyment I 
 
 Cook found himself tongue-tied in absolute blank- 
 ness of mind ; Farrell said presently : " Say, that's 
 
242 THE KUDDER 
 
 another slam, ain't it?" and pumped up a nervous 
 laugh. Young Amzi got up with something very like 
 an oath — 
 
 And just then, by a stroke of luck, Mrs. Doc ^^ swal- 
 lowed wrong," coughing and strangling and turning 
 purple in the face, so that, in the noise and alarm 
 and excitement incident to this catastrophe, the exhi- 
 bition of '^ friction " preceding it, passed, somehow, 
 into the backgTound. The evening wore through, no- 
 body knew how. Cook went away in FarrelFs auto- 
 mobile with the rest of them to whom, as usual, the 
 little man knew how to make his company acceptable. 
 
 " Sharkey would make Butch cut out that booze if 
 he knew about it," the billiard-player said confiden- 
 tially, naming the manager of young Amzfs team. 
 
 " He don't take enough to hurt him," said Doc. 
 
 " No. Makes him kinda ugly, that's all." 
 
 " Bet you he's ugly as sin anyhow when he feels like 
 it ! " said the lady of the party. " You got a tooth- 
 pick? " And, being supplied, she leaned back in her 
 corner, exercising the instrument with a sigh of com- 
 fort. "They hit it off pretty well, I don't think! 
 She's pretty, ain't she? But didn't she set there like 
 a stone image, though? Gee! You couldn't j)ick 
 your teeth in fronta her! '^ 
 
 Cook saw his niece once more during his visit which, 
 as usual with him, was of the briefest ; it was the day 
 after that calamitous dinner, when he went out to say 
 good-bye. Eleanor was alone; they had a delightful 
 hour in the pretty little latticed tea-house in the gar- 
 den, talking about the Japanese iris just then in opu- 
 lent bloom, about Eleanor's farming experiences as 
 compared with Miss Bessie Grace's, about Marshall's 
 last play and the things the critics had said for and 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 243 
 
 against, about everything under the sun, in short, 
 'except the domestic infelicities of young Mr. and Mrs, 
 Amzi Loring. The author scarcely knew whether he 
 had hoped for or dreaded Eleanor's confidences; but 
 hope and dread were alike groundless as he told him- 
 self afterwards not without disdain for his own mis- 
 judgments. He might have known that Nellie would 
 say nothing to him. However disappointed or disil- 
 lusioned or tried in spirit she might be, it was not in 
 her character to ease herself by talk — unless upon 
 one of her violent impulses ; even then she might rage, 
 denounce, excoriate, but she would never feebly com- 
 plain. " Nell is verily the captain of her soul,'- he 
 mused. '^ I don't know what her rudder is, or how 
 she directs it. It's a gallant ship, but Lord I What 
 a cruise I '' The trite figure made him smile ; but he 
 thought of reefs and desert beaches, and wondered 
 again what the end would be. 
 
 " She didn't even mention her husband's name once. 
 He might have been dead, or rather he might never 
 have existed I It doesn't seem possible for things to 
 go on much longer this way," he said to Fannie. 
 " They can't even make a show of getting along, as 
 most people would in common decency and considera- 
 tion for outsiders. They don't seem able to let each 
 other alone. He tries to cram these friends of his 
 down Eleanor's throat — the most futile piece of 
 bullying that ever was I Why, the friends themselves 
 don't like it — they were bored to death. And Elea- 
 nor retaliates by acting, in that indescribable way of 
 hers, like Satan himself. More futility! Do you 
 suppose this is the way they have lived ever since they 
 were married? Five years'? Good Heavens I It 
 can't keep on — only I don't see what Nellie's to 
 
244 THE RUDDER 
 
 do exactly — I don't see what escape there is for 
 either of them, that wouldn't involve a lot more pub- 
 licity — you'd think they'd have had enough of that 
 at the time of the marriage — " 
 
 " Oh, Nellie wouldn't ever get a divorce, if that's 
 what you're thinking of, Uncle Marshall," Fannie in- 
 terrupted, peering at him through the large round 
 spectacles she had recently been obliged to mount, 
 w^ith shrinking horror at the suggestion. Cook had 
 found Fannie fatter and paler than ever this time, 
 from confinement to the house and want of exercise, 
 he conjectured ; what with that and her imperfect eye- 
 sight and a tendency to stumble in her walk which she 
 had developed of late, she seemed to him unwarrant- 
 ably old and wilted. '' It would be so common,^' she 
 said anxiously. " You've forgotten how^ it is here, 
 you've lived so long in New York. But nohodij you 
 knoiv gets divorced here — only once in a long while, 
 and then they keep it very quiet. And we're Episco- 
 palians, too. I'm sure they wouldn't. I mean /lim^ 
 too. I think he'd hate it — not the way Eleanor 
 would, of course, but just as much. I'm sure they 
 w^ouldn't." 
 
 " They probably couldn't very easily, anyhow\ 
 Nothing to get divorced about, no reasonable cause, 
 that is — incompatibility, of course. But everybody 
 talks anyhow; people are prone to conclude that in- 
 compatibility is a mere blind — that there's really 
 something dreadful behind it," said Cook. " In this 
 case it would happen to be true. Incompatibility de- 
 scribes the trouble to a nicety. But what would Nel- 
 lie do, supposing they did separate? Come back here 
 to live? I'm afraid that w^ouldn't w^ork very well 
 either." 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 245 
 
 He would not offend his niece's unreasoning sense 
 of duty and loyalty by picturing with unkind detail 
 Mrs. Maranda's attitude in the event of so complete 
 and inexpensive a vindication as Eleanor's return; 
 Fannie was well able to imagine it for herself, Cook 
 reflected, hearing already in fancy his sister-in-law's 
 complacent I-told-you-sos. After all, few people 
 would have better reason to be complacent, to be se- 
 curely convinced of their own wisdom and saintliness. 
 The entire community would behold and acclaim it. 
 
 " No. Nellie and Aunt Juliet never seem to agree 
 about anything, you know," said poor Fannie. 
 " Even now when she comes over to see us, they some- 
 times have one of — of those times — you know? I 
 don't know what makes Nellie do it — only Aunt Ju- 
 liet is — well, she does — of course, she doesn't mean 
 to, but—" 
 
 " I know," said Marshall. Then, after a minute, 
 he added with prodigious speculative gravity : " The 
 classic idea of hell is very foolishly exalted, I think. 
 Everlasting fires and torments and all that — it's al- 
 together too spacious, too grandiose. Hell is prob- 
 ably a cheap, every-day place, full of cheap, every-day 
 tribulations. You go round and round, beating your- 
 self against the shabby walls, and there is no outlet, 
 no release — Don't mind me. Fan; this is a mild 
 form — I'm never violent! So you don't believe 
 that Eleanor would consider a divorce. Has she ever 
 said anything to you about it? " 
 
 "Why, no — that is, not exactly — she never ex- 
 actly talked about separating from Amzi — " Here 
 Fannie hesitated, so that Mr. Cook had space to ad- 
 mire the subtlety of the feminine powers of expres- 
 sion, and interpretation — " Only — well, once she 
 
246 THE RUDDER 
 
 told me that if she should ever be left alone to take 
 care of herself, she knew what she would do. She 
 said she'd go straight into Associated Charities work. 
 Take a salary for it, joii know. She's done work for 
 them as a volunteer already; they're glad to have 
 ladies — people that have been taught something 
 about tact and discretion, so as not to offend the poor 
 people, or antagonise them. They say it's very hard 
 to get hold of just the right person, even among 
 ladies," said Fannie, biting off a thread. " That 
 seems odd, doesn't it? " 
 
 " Not so very odd," said Cook, dryly. " It takes a 
 good deal of intelligence to be kind. Well, Eleanor is 
 intelligent. I should think she could do that kind of 
 work very well." 
 
 "Why, Uncle Marshall, she does do it very well! 
 They say she's wonderful at it. She gets along with 
 them, and doesn't try to manage them or patronise 
 them or pry into their affairs, and they all like her. 
 She's worked mostly for the Maternity Society, I be- 
 lieve, and that's often rather dreadful — going to all 
 kinds of places and looking after those poor women. 
 Sometimes their husbands have gone off and deserted 
 them, and often there hasn't been any husband at all. 
 Eleanor has to find out and report, and see about 
 nurses and — and baby-clothes," Fannie explained, 
 colouring faintly — " and do it all in a nice way with- 
 out hurting their feelings, or making them unhappy. 
 You'd be surprised to see how good she is at it ! " 
 
 " No, I'm not surprised," her uncle declared 
 warmly. " It's just what I should have expected of 
 her. Eleanor would succeed in anything she made up 
 her mind to succeed in, for that matter, but if she 
 likes this and is interested, you can't ask anything bet- 
 
THE WAGON .VXD THE STAR 247 
 
 ter. Only as a means of support, I don't know 
 whether it's very practical — " 
 
 ^^ AYell, she didn't say she was going to do it. It 
 was only in case, you know? " 
 
 This was another subject which Eleanor had not 
 touched upon in her talk vnXh. him. Cook wondered 
 why. " She must know that I would acquit her of 
 ostentation about her good works. She may simply 
 hare thought that I wouldn't be interested — but that 
 doesn't seem likely either. I give it up I It's evident 
 I haven't plumbed Nellie's depths yet, after having 
 known her from a baby," he decided. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 MR. COOK'S visit and the sojurn in town of 
 Amzi Two's team came to an end about the 
 same time; and Eleanor went back to her 
 daily affairs perhaps as much relieved by one depar- 
 ture as by the other. She had taken on the share of 
 another Maternity Society worker during the latter's 
 hot-weather absence, and it kept her busy; but she 
 wanted to be busy. In having her mind and hands 
 full all day, and going to bed at night tired out, she 
 satisfied her restlessness — or punished her discon- 
 tent with things as they w^ere, as she herself had made 
 them! Besides she reallj^ liked the work, and was 
 gratified at her own success in it. '^ I always knew I 
 could do something of the kind," she said to Miss 
 Penry, the district visitor from the Deaconess' Home 
 with whom she often fell in on her rounds. " I've al- 
 ways wanted to experiment and see if I couldn't make 
 the people like me ; and they really dOy you know, most 
 of them. Sometimes the women are quite ferocious 
 at first, and want to shut the door in my face, but I 
 always make friends with them in the end. That's 
 one of the things that make it so interesting; you 
 never know how they are going to take you, or what 
 prejudice you may have to overcome, or how you're 
 going to go at it. It's something new and different 
 all the time." 
 
 Miss Penry surveyed her kindly, thinking that no- 
 bodv could very well help liking anything so youthful, 
 
 248 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 249 
 
 so generously enthusiastic, and above all so pretty. 
 Eleanor, while quite aware of her own good looks, 
 would have been astonished to know of their conquer- 
 ing quality — much more astonished than pleased ; 
 the idea of winning by mere beaut}' would have hu- 
 miliated her. It made her allies unconsciously. " I 
 just love to look at Mrs. Loring," was the remark that 
 most frequently followed her, coupled sometimes with 
 such adjectives as '' cute '' and '^ sweet,'' and " styl- 
 ish " or, in a flight of language, " magnetic.'' Miss 
 Penry, who had a plain, good face and went about in 
 her black Deaconess's uniform and bonnet and big, 
 ugly square shoes, a real angel of mercy, charity and 
 kindness, if ever one walked this earth, was herself 
 unenviously fond of looking at Mrs. Loring. 
 
 " You want to take care and not wear yourself out," 
 she admonished her maternally. ^^ Bye and bye, it 
 won't seem so new and different. I've been a charity- 
 worker twenty years now, and it's much the same 
 thing right along, seems to me. Same kind of igno- 
 rance, same kind of foolishness, same kind of wrong- 
 doing over and over again, day in and day out. There 
 are times when it looks as if all 3'our work went for 
 nothing, and it gets to be pretty discouraging. But 
 work does count, you know, it does count after all. 
 The thing to do is to keep at it anyhow." She had not 
 much faith that Eleanor would keep at it anyhow, to 
 tell the truth ; Miss Penry had seen a good deal in her 
 twenty years. 
 
 Eleanor not only made this and other acquaint- 
 ances ; she had adventures — or what seemed like ad- 
 ventures to a young woman of her conventional up- 
 bringing. There was the family on the shanty-boat 
 at the foot of Lancaster Street ; there was the mulatto 
 
250 THE RUDDER 
 
 chambermaid in tlie Broadway rooming-house; there 
 was the dreadful place at the corner of Sixth and 
 Silver Streets upstairs over the saloon. Even Elea- 
 nor, who had been undaunted by vicious dogs, vitu- 
 perative old hags, drunken men, and nearly every va- 
 riety of disease and dirt, discerned something in the 
 aspect of Sixth and Silver Streets that gave her pause. 
 The entrance was between two buildings, down a pass- 
 age w^ith a trickle of foul w^ater through the middle 
 of it, into a little courtyard, a mere air-shaft, of which 
 she could just catch a glimpse. The blind brick walls 
 were not three feet apart; midway in one of them 
 there was a sinister door. She stood, rallying her 
 forces against the fancy that somebody might reach 
 out and snatch her through it, and the other fancy 
 that at the very moment she was being spied upon ab- 
 horrently from secret cracks and peepholes, when 
 there came along, walking with prodigious strides, a 
 tall, lean, harsh-faced gentleman whom she recog- 
 nised and spoke to with a warmth the remembrance 
 of which afterwards rather amused her. She really 
 did not know^ him very well, and at that mainly by 
 report. It was that Mr. Kendrick, the same one who 
 had been engaged to, or at least " hanging around '' 
 Miss Gilbert for so long; that fact alone would have 
 placed him for Eleanor and her contemporaries, for 
 Miss Gilbert was one of the " old girls '' whose set 
 came out years before Nellie Maranda's. ^^ Oh, Mr. 
 Kendrick ! '' said Eleanor then, with the cordiality of 
 her relief. 
 
 He stopped, staring. " Mrs. Loring? " He stared 
 again, with an effect of looking from her to their sur- 
 roundings incredulously. 
 
 " Charity," said Eleanor succinctly. 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 251 
 
 " Oh ! '' Once more he stared about, and back at 
 her. " Got lost somehow? '^ 
 
 " No, indeed. I was sent here by the Maternity So- 
 ciety. This is the place, isn't it? " She showed him 
 the address noted on a slip of paper. " Right in 
 there? Only it looks — do you suj^pose it's all 
 right?'' 
 
 Mr. Kendrick intimated indirectly that it was not 
 all right, first by guessing that there had been some 
 mistake made, and then by wanting to know if the 
 charitable societies didn't have any men they could 
 send to some places, his expression indicating that he 
 had no very high opinion of the intelligence and ca- 
 pacity of the charitable societies. He heard Eleanor's 
 explanation patiently, however, and then suggested 
 that there was a drug-store about two blocks away on 
 Poplar Street in a respectable neighbourhood, where 
 she could wait, if she liked, while he went in here and 
 made her investigations for her. ^^You can't stand 
 around on the sidewalks here, you know." he said au- 
 thoritatively. 
 
 " That's ever so kind of you,'' said Eleanor in grate- 
 ful surprise; he was the last man in the world from 
 w^hom she would have expected so much good- will. 
 " I hate to take your time, though. Can't I just go 
 in with you? " 
 
 " No," said Mr. Kendrick, uncompromisingly, 
 marching her along. " I guess there's been some mis- 
 take made, or they wouldn't have sent you here," he 
 repeated, as if in apology. " It's not out of my way. 
 I'm going over here on Amelia Street, to see a tenant 
 w^e have, anyhow." 
 
 '^ Oh, Amelia Street? There's a place there I've got 
 to 2:0 to, too. Is that all ri^ht? '' 
 
252 THE KUDDER 
 
 " Oil, yes. Amelia — Poplar — Clinton — every- 
 thing north of Silver is all right. Poor people, but 
 decent, all of them — the kind that work, you know,'' 
 said Mr. Kendrick, as if that were amply descriptive. 
 " It's perfectly safe." 
 
 Eleanor tried to recall what she had heard about 
 the geography of the " red-light district/' but unsuc- 
 cessfully. She might have been in the very heart of 
 it! 
 
 " I suppose there was some mistake," she said. 
 ^^ The ladies on the Board give us these assignments, 
 just as the applications for help hapi)en to come in. 
 I don't think they know anything about the places." 
 
 " No, seems not," Mr. Kendrick agreed dryly. 
 " Well, / know. Any man that's been in the real-es- 
 tate business in this town as long as I have — ! " 
 
 Eleanor was moved with sudden curiosity. Why 
 not ask him a question or two, even if the subject were, 
 generally speaking, taboo? It would be for her own 
 future guidance, and when all was said, she was a 
 married woman, and he a middle-aged man of iron 
 respectability, as everybody knew. '' Mr. Kendrick," 
 she said, " who owns the disreputable houses? " 
 
 He took it in the most matter-of-fact manner im- 
 aginable. "Why, disreputable people, mostly. I 
 couldn't tell about all of 'em, off-hand, of course. But 
 if you mean the one you were at just now, why, I 
 happen to know that that's owned by a man named 
 Dalton, one of the corrupt political gang here. 
 You've probably never heard of him, but — " 
 
 "Oh, yes, I remember. Jack Dalton?" 
 
 " Yes. I believe he poses as out of politics now, 
 but it doesn't make any difference what he pretends 
 he is or isn't, the fellow's a notorious scoundrel. He 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 253 
 
 has a good deal of that sort of property scattered 
 around all over town. And he's only one out of a lot, 
 you know. I don't suppose we're worse than any 
 other city of our size, but weVe got our share of Dal- 
 tons — plenty of 'em ! '^ 
 
 ^^ Are there? And that's one of the things they do, 
 is it?'' said Eleanor, feeling herself on the way to a 
 greater enlightenment than Mr. Kendrick knew. " I 
 don't see why the respectable property-holders — but 
 then I heard — who owns the rest of the places, be- 
 sides those men? You don't mind telling? I mean, 
 is it a question I ought not to ask of a man in your 
 business? " 
 
 He looked momentarily dumbfounded, so that Elea- 
 nor wondered if he thought it a question that ought 
 not to be asked of any man in any business. " Mind 
 telling? " he echoed. " Why, no I It's all right if 
 you want to know\ You have to go around these 
 slums more or less, I suppose. Why, it's just as I was 
 saying to you just now; they are other fellows of 
 Dalton's stripe — gangsters — saloon-men — profes- 
 sional gamblers — any rascal that's out for the easy 
 money. Often, too. a woman that's running a house 
 will own it. I guess it all sounds pretty bad to you, 
 Mrs. Loring," Mr. Kendrick ended with a kind of re- 
 gretful tolerance. " But you probably realise if 
 you've been at this slum-work any time at all that 
 these things have to be — or they are^ anyhow, in 
 spite of law and morality." 
 
 ^' The reason I asked you, and the reason I thought 
 maybe you — you wouldn't want to tell me on ac- 
 count of your business associations, or something — '^ 
 Eleanor said, embarrassed but straightforward ac- 
 cording to her habit, " was that I heard that all that 
 
254 THE KUDDER 
 
 kind of property in town was owned by three or four 
 of our most wealthy and prominent people — socially 
 prominent and supposed to be irreproachable, you 
 know. That seemed to me very dreadful, Mr. Ken- 
 drick ; it was certain to be people I knew, maybe some- 
 body on this very Charitable Board. To think that 
 their money came from such a source ! '^ 
 
 Mr. Kendrick let pass the fact that she had thought 
 he himself might be interested to safeguard the repu- 
 tations of these devotees of Mammon. " Whoever 
 said that didn't mention any names, I expect," he said 
 wdth deliberation. ^^ Probably couldn't." 
 
 " It was our minister," said Eleanor quickly, feel- 
 ing somehow that that reverend gentleman's own rep- 
 utation was endangered. " He said it last Sunday 
 in a sermon on Dives and Lazarus. Mr. Seymour — 
 don't you know him? " 
 
 '' Yes. I go to All Saints myself, when I go any- 
 where. Mr. Seymour's a good man and means well, 
 but I think he's mistaken about that statement," said 
 Mr. Kendrick, dispassionately. " If you stop to con- 
 sider, you'll see why I question it. This is a city of 
 more than three hundred and fifty thousand people, 
 among whom there are a great many rich men. To 
 find out which ones owned real estate here, and where 
 and what the pieces were, and under w^hat conditions 
 and to whom they were leased or rented or made to 
 render income — I say to find out all that about every 
 rich man in town would take an expert's whole time 
 for about a year, between the city and county records, 
 and the tax-duplicate, and the land-and-title guaranty 
 companies, and the real-estate offices, and the prop- 
 erty itself. I never saw Mr. Seymour in any of those 
 places, and I'm there every day myself. That's why 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 255 
 
 I think I'm qualified to judge. I don't think it would 
 be humanly j)ossible for Mr. Seymour to have con- 
 ducted an investigation like that and attended to his 
 church and parish duties faithfully besides — as he 
 always has done, in my observation. It looks to me 
 as if he made that statement, repeating something he 
 had heard but hadn't taken the trouble to verify." 
 
 It looked that way to Eleanor, too! Vexation in- 
 vaded her to review the disquiet into which she had 
 been thrown by an utterance which, because it was 
 delivered with weight from the pulpit, she had not 
 recognised for mere gossip. The very simplicity of 
 Mr. Kendrick's rebuttal piqued her; she might have 
 had sense enough to think out anything so obvious 
 herself! But there she had sat, with all the rest of 
 the congregation, and swallowed the sensational in- 
 dictment down whole, not a soul, as far as she knew, 
 " stopping to consider." Instead, as they walked 
 away, she remembered overhearing : " Well, some of 
 these godly old skinflints got theirs to-day ! " and " I 
 tell you, I respect Mr. Seymour a good deal more for 
 having the nerve to get up and tell the truth like that, 
 at the risk of alienating his best-paying parish- 
 ioners ! " and — among the women, alas ! — " Who 
 do you suppose he meant? The So-and-Sos? They 
 say — " All of them, herself and Mr. Seymour in- 
 cluded, seemed to her now childishly credulous, child- 
 ishly irresponsible. Mr. Kendrick unwittingly sup- 
 ported the idea by going on explaining, patiently, 
 laboriously, in words of one syllable, as it were. One 
 glance into his face showed Eleanor that he doubted 
 if it might not be a waste of time, but thought it his 
 duty to try to set her right, if possible. 
 
 "In my business experience," said he, "I have 
 
256 THE KUDDER 
 
 never run across any reputable man who made a prac- 
 tice of dealing in that kind of property. To begin 
 with, it's not a good business proposition ; it's too un- 
 certain and too much trouble. Those people are all 
 the time getting into hot water with the police, and 
 being raided and hauled up in court, and sometimes 
 there's a murder, or some other pretty bad scrape; 
 nobody wants all that scandal and publicity. The 
 owner would have to attend to the property and col- 
 lect the rents himself, because — '' said Mr. Kendrick, 
 with a painstaking plainness that rebuked Eleanor 
 more than the sharpest words — " because he couldn't 
 get any honest, respectable agent to do that sort of 
 work, and he couldn't trust anybody else. Well- 
 known church members — I suppose Mr. Seymour in- 
 timated that that was the kind of man — wouldn't 
 care to be seen around such neighbourhoods, and most 
 wealthy men are too busy with big things anyhow, to 
 take the time. You see how impracticable the whole 
 thing would be. Of course I'm only speaking from 
 my own observation ; but I think if the next time you 
 hear anybody say anything like that, you will make an 
 inquiry, you will find that things are about as I have 
 stated." 
 
 " I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Kendrick," said 
 Eleanor humbly. The speech sounded so inadequate 
 to her that the next moment she burst out in her 
 heady fashion : " I think we're all a set of fools — 
 the rector and all of us ! " 
 
 " Oh, no, I wouldn't say that'^ said Mr. Kendrick. 
 
 He deposited her at the drug-store, much as if she 
 had been a rather valuable package, went off and re- 
 turned in an incredibly short space of time Tvdth a 
 complete report of conditions at Sixth and Silver, to 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 257 
 
 which he added some recommendations of his own^ 
 uncommonly pointed, practical and withal kindly. 
 " He's realiy interesting in his way/' Eleanor after- 
 wards told her friends, who were unanimously of the 
 contrary opinion. '' He probably can't talk about 
 anything but his business, of course. Still I can see 
 how Miss Lorrie Gilbert might like him." ' 
 
 Backed by his assurance that the locality was per- 
 fectly safe, she hunted up the other address she had 
 been given : " Mrs. Michele Giannetti, 21 Amelia 
 Street," and found it to be a fruit store, with a stalk 
 of bananas swinging beneath the awning, and baskets 
 of peaches and tomatoes displayed on the pavement 
 with a fine disregard of the Health Officer's regula- 
 tions. Inside, in a glass counter, there were some 
 unholy looking cakes and candies; fly-paper was 
 spread at random amongst the stock. Eleanor made 
 her way in, and a swarthy Italian woman slouched 
 forward, with a swarthy little boy barely clad in an 
 undershirt and drawers trailing after her. From the 
 litter of feathers and smell of scalding in the rear of 
 the place, Eleanor gathered that they had been pluck- 
 ing a chicken; in fact, a cat was busy in one corner 
 with a bit of the offal. 
 
 "Mrs. Giannetti?" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am. You want-a buy, eh?" 
 
 " No. I came to see about the sickness in the house 
 you know? " 
 
 " Seekness? " said Mrs. Giannetti. She shook her 
 head. " Me, I don' know heem. Tony I " 
 
 The boy briskly addressed Eleanor. " Me mudder 
 she can't talk United States so good. She ain't ever 
 learned anything but dago," said he. " Who're youse 
 lookin' for? " 
 
258 THE RUDDER 
 
 " They said Mrs. Giannetti. It's — it's about the 
 baby — your baby/' said Eleanor, moving nearer to 
 the woman, and lowering her voice, mindful of the 
 child's presence. 
 
 Mrs. Giannetti, however, exclaimed in a loud tone 
 of astonishment : " Babee? Me? Baheef '' and fol- 
 lowed this up with a shout of laughter. " Wat you 
 t'ink 'bout dat, eh? Me, I don' get any more babee, 
 lady! I been forty-nine year; I get married t'irty- 
 tree year, fourt' of nex' mont'," she explained circum- 
 stantially, as soon as she could speak for mirth. " I 
 should w^orry for get babee, eh?" 
 
 " Aw, shut up, you big simp ! " said Tony impa- 
 tiently. "Betcha she means Lina. W'y, she ain't 
 sick yet, lady," he said to Eleanor. "If youse th' 
 nurse, like th' other lady said she was goin' t' send, 
 w^'y, youse way off ! 'Tain't time yet.'^ 
 
 " She come in five week just," said Mrs. Giannetti, 
 who appeared to have a turn for statistics. "You 
 got-a close for hamhino — leetl' close, eh?" 
 
 " We're going to send some. I came to see how she 
 was, and to tell her about them — how to take care of 
 them, you know," said Eleanor. " I'm sure she's the 
 one. if you'll tell me where to find her — ?" 
 
 "Sure!" said Tony wdllingly. "It's upstairs. 
 I'll show youse." And, piloting her towards the back, 
 he further volunteered : " she's me sister, but her name 
 ain't Giannetti, her name's Morehead. That's w-at 
 put youse in wrong. I guess th' other lady didn't 
 know." 
 
 "Morehead?" said Eleanor, startled. 
 
 " Yeah. Lina's married all right, all right. She's 
 had two kids a'ready, only they both died. But that's 
 going some." 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 259 
 
 They paused, panting, on tlie top step. 
 
 " How old are you, Tony? " Eleanor asked him. 
 
 " 'Leven," said Tony, rattling the door-knob. 
 
 Mrs. Lina Giannetti Morehead, with the peevish, 
 discoloured face and uncrainlv ficrure of a woman in 
 her state of body, came heavily and opened to them. 
 "Well?" she snapped. "What you coming home 
 this time of day for? Oh!'' 
 
 "GVanI 'fain't Tom, it's th' lady from th' 
 Society," said her brother, and introduced the other to 
 Eleanor, jerking his head. " That's her I " He re- 
 treated down the stairs, yodeling. Mrs. Morehead re- 
 mained inhospitably in her doorway, looking Eleanor 
 up and down. 
 
 "Well?" she demanded again, querulously. 
 
 " May I come in ? " 
 
 Mrs. Morehead grudgingly opened the door a little 
 wider; in the very act, her opposition suddenly gave 
 way to listless indifference. " It don't look fixed up, 
 but I can't help it. I can't do anything, seems like. 
 I'm so tired all the time," she complained. Indeed, 
 the briefest glance around the two rooms, one opening 
 into the other, revealed that they could not have been 
 fixed up for a long while ; dust of an imposing antiq- 
 uity, to Eleanor's alert houseT\dfe's eye, had collected 
 in corners, on the window-panes, in the meshes of the 
 lace curtains draping them ; it furred all the strands 
 of the red and green and tinsel rope portiere. The 
 bed stood unmade with repellent blankets ; unwashed 
 dishes, pots, plates, saucepans crowded the top of the 
 stove, the sink, the table; and underneath the latter 
 lay a hambone enveloped in a cottony fuzz of green 
 and white mould. On the bureau at Eleanor's elbow, 
 her casual survey itemised a soiled blue satin pin- 
 
260 THE RUDDER 
 
 cushion, with odds and ends of mock jewellery stuck 
 into it; a jar full of a pink compound that looked like 
 rouge ; a bottle of brilliantine ; two small tin canisters 
 of talcum powder; a white canvas shoe; a comb full 
 of hair ; a half -sandwich of rye bread and Schweitzer 
 cheese ; sundry rags ; a copy of an obscene little weekly 
 paper entitled The Midnight Bell of which she had 
 heard, with " spicy details of wife's infidelities en- 
 rage HUSBAND " in head-line type on the outside page ; 
 and finally, very active and inquiring amongst the 
 litter, a large black cockroach. Mrs. Morehead saw 
 this other visitor, too, and made a perfunctory dab at 
 it, rolling into a sort of bat, one section of an ancient 
 pair of corsets that was lying conveniently at hand. 
 '^ Them things get all over everything," she remarked, 
 after missing her aim, sinking back exhaustedly. " I 
 haven't got any time to keep after 'em. I just can't 
 get through anything, long as I'm this way." 
 
 The words, the whole hopeless x)icture went to Nel- 
 lie's heart. Poor, unkempt, untaught, unhelped and 
 helpless creature, what could be expected of her? 
 Eleanor thought of her own friends whom she had 
 seen in the same condition, daintily nested, petted, 
 cheered and waited on, with her familiar shamed sense 
 of injustice and rebellion. " Of course you can't do 
 anything," she said in ardent sympathy; "it's very 
 hard all this part of it, waiting so long, and feeling 
 so wretched. But in a little while now it will all be 
 over, and it will be so nice when you have your baby. 
 Do you want a boy or a girl? " 
 
 " My God, I don't care I One's as bad as the other, 
 I guess," said Mrs. Morehead without interest, but 
 eyeing her guest's hat speculatively. " I just wish it 
 was over and done with, that's all, I just wish I could 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 261 
 
 get out on tlie street again and see somebody and get 
 some clothes I '' she burst out fretfully. ^' I'm dog- 
 tired of this." 
 
 " I'll bring you some clothes — that's what I came 
 to see you about/' Eleanor eagerly began to tell her; 
 ^' there's a bundle of all the things the baby has to 
 have right at the first — " 
 
 "The 'bahij? Bahj/ clothes? Oh!'^ ejaculated its 
 prospective mother with an utter lack of enthusiasm. 
 
 " We — we thought that would help you a little/' 
 said Eleanor uncertainly ; she was a good deal taken 
 aback. " We thought maybe you might not have all 
 you needed — " 
 
 " Yeah. All right. You can leave 'em." 
 
 " Well, they've all been nicely washed and ironed 
 and then sterilised, you know, so that they will be ab- 
 solutely clean to put on the new little one," said Elea- 
 nor, coming to what she always felt to be the most 
 delicate point in these negotiations. "And so the 
 bundle is not to be opened until the very last minute, 
 for fear of — for fear of accidents. Something might 
 happen to get into it, you know, even with all your 
 care." 
 
 " My God, I ain't got any time to be opening baby- 
 bundles, an^'how. You can just leave 'em," said the 
 other shortly. 
 
 " We thought that you might not have been able to 
 ! get quite enough," Eleanor said, in fear that she had 
 been guilty of tactlessness. " One has to make so 
 many things for a baby — " 
 
 " Oh, I ain't made none. I ain't had any time. It's 
 all I can do to get around," said Mrs. Morehead, with 
 a return of languor. 
 
 Eleanor felt her sympathy that had been so sincere 
 
262 THE EUDDER 
 
 and spontaneous oozing away, like Bob Acres' cour- 
 age. She strove to recover it self -reproachfully ; and 
 was casting about for a cheering or consoling speech, 
 when somebody came noisily up the stairs, and at the 
 top, without any formalities, thrust open the door, 
 with a loud challenge : " 'Lo, Lina ! '' 
 
 " 'Lo ! '' said the mistress of the establishment, with- 
 out stirring. 
 
 The newcomer stepped inside. It was a plump, 
 florid young woman, in a skin-tight soiled white skirt, 
 a skin-tight openwork blouse, and a narrow white 
 kid belt clamped like a vise around the middle of her, 
 giving, between the inordinate bulge of her bust and 
 hips, a final effect of excruciating tightness. She 
 also wore a necklace and pendant set with turquoise 
 and diamonds, and a large hat of startling eccentrici- 
 ties of brim, skewered to her head by pins set with 
 amethysts and pearls ; and she swung from one hand 
 a mesh-bag of gold set with emeralds and rubies. 
 '' Gee ! You sure are getting one fine shape ! " she 
 commented freely, surveying her hostess. And then 
 in a scream of surprise : " Mrs. Loring ! Well, what 
 do you know about that? " 
 
 " Mis' Loring'? '^ echoed the other woman, roused to 
 some show of curiosity. " For God's sake, you don't 
 say ! " They both stared. 
 
 "I — I'm sure I know you," Eleanor stammered to 
 the fat young woman, much embarrassed. " Only I'm 
 so stupid about names — I can't remember — " 
 
 " Don't mention it ! " said the other, frigidly for- 
 mal. But the next instant she burst into a most good- 
 natured laugh. '^ Say, that sounded awfully funny, 
 didn't it, me telling you not to mention it, that way? 
 I didn't mean for you not to mention my name, you 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 263 
 
 know — I wasn't thinking how it would sound. I 
 don't believe jou ever heard my name anyhow. I 
 seen you lots of times down to Fritseh's, Mrs. Loring. 
 I'm the one they call Miss Lutie, don't you know? 
 Miss Lutie.'' 
 
 '^ Oh! Oh, yes, of course! I knew your face — " 
 
 " That's just my given name, you know. My last 
 name's Morehead," said Lutie, suddenly embarrassed 
 in her turn ; her face took on an even deeper red as she 
 glanced around the room and back to Eleanor. 
 " Morehead. You know, I guess." 
 
 "Oh, you mean Mrs. Maranda's — ? Yes? No, I 
 didn't know I Why, isn't that nice? Isn't it inter- 
 esting for us to meet this way?" said Eleanor, in a 
 voice of convincing friendliness. It was real ; her hu- 
 mane vision gave her some glimpse of what might be 
 going through poor Lutie's mind, and to set her at her 
 ease, to be kind, to help without offence, Eleanor 
 called upon every resource of a gentlewoman. She 
 spoke to the other. " Why, then, you must be her 
 brother's wife? I noticed the name, but I didn't 
 think about it's being the same family. There might 
 be ever so many Moreheads, not related at all, you 
 know." 
 
 " Uh-huh," said Tom's wife, sullenly. The revela- 
 tion seemed to have awakened a kind of dull hostility 
 within her. Eleanor recollected that Tom Morehead 
 had once been employed at Mr. Loring's Elmwood fac- 
 tory — might be still, for all she knew. There was a 
 pause. 
 
 " Say, Lina, looks like you done a lot of houseclean- 
 ing round here lately — nit I " Lutie said at length 
 with forced jocularity. 
 
 " My God, Lute Morehead, if you felt like I do — 
 
264 THE RUDDER 
 
 Say, it's a pity about you anyhow, ain't it? Your 
 being so smart, ain't it? '' retorted the other savagely. 
 " If you ever get a chance to get married, you'd bet- 
 ter do better n what I did, or you'll find out what it's 
 like. Working and slaving yourself to death on fif- 
 teen dollars a week, and being sick all the time like 
 this," she wound up with a vengeful eye on Eleanor. 
 
 Lutie opened her mouth for what would probably 
 have been a stinging repartee, but controlled herself, 
 likewise mindful of the outsider; and Eleanor inter- 
 vened in something of a panic. " Don't worry about 
 your house — you have enough to worry you without 
 that/' she said, wondering whether she was striking 
 the right note, or making matters worse. " Every- 
 thing's going to come around all right, and if you let 
 yourself worry, it might be bad for the baby, you 
 know. The clothes will come in a few days, and the 
 Society takes charge of the nurse and the doctor, and 
 the things you may need from the drug-store. So you 
 must let all that go off your mind completely." Elea- 
 nor rose. " And — and I hope you will let me come 
 and see you again? " she said earnestly. 
 
 Mrs. Morehead did not answer. After an instant 
 Lutie got up too, and said with a careful affectation 
 of what she would doubtless have called the " society 
 manner " : " Oh, that's so sweet of you, Mrs. Loring. 
 Of course, we'd love to have you. Must you go? Let 
 me walk along with you? " 
 
 " Well, I like your nerve ! You just don't go one 
 step out of here till you hand over my lahvaleer, Miss 
 Lutie ! " her sister-in-law interrupted, lumbering up 
 out of her chair with unexpected activity. " I like 
 your nerve borrowing off of me, and going round all 
 diked out as if it was your own ! I give six dollars 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 265 
 
 for that lalivaleer, and it ain't for you to go round 
 all diked out in, and lose it, like as not, or get it 
 busted somehow — You give it here! You give it 
 rio-ht here this minute! " she screeched out in a sud- 
 den fury, moving on the other with menacing hands. 
 
 " Ain't I? Ain't I just as fast as I can? Mv God, 
 what do jou take me for? Think I want to swipe 
 your old lahvaleer? I come round here to-day, just 
 to give it back to you. Ain't I doing it as fast as I 
 can?" screamed out Lutie, her face flaming as she 
 struggled with the fastening of the pendant; she 
 wrenched it loose finally, and flung the thing at its 
 owner. " There ! There's your old lahvaleer ! 
 S'pose I want it? I'll let you know if you think you 
 can call me a thief, you — ! " Eleanor heard a lively 
 interchange of epithets, as she retreated hastily down 
 the stairs. 
 
 She was not alarmed for the bodily safety of either 
 woman, shrewdly calculating that this little family 
 disagreement would wear itself out in squalling and 
 foul words. Young Mrs. Loring had profited, too, by 
 her experience at this kind of charity work, brief as 
 it w^as ; and about this last encounter there was to her 
 something as grotesque as it was terrible. For it icas 
 terrible, Eleanor repeated to herself as she walked 
 on, it teas terrible for people to try to live and bring 
 up children on fifteen dollars a week. Fifteen dol- 
 lars ! The hat she was wearing cost that much ! The 
 feeling that something was wrong, monstrously wrong 
 somewhere, came back upon her generous spirit in 
 full force. When an inconvenient sense of humour 
 suggested that the purchase of pinchbeck jewellery 
 scarcely helped to solve the Morehead problems in 
 domestic economy, and that certain aspects of their 
 
266 THE RUDDEE 
 
 menage could be improved at no cost except tliat of a 
 bar of soap and a little good- will, Eleanor silenced it 
 with her retort: What do you expect? Can you 
 blame that poor young woman for liking pretty 
 things? It may be silly, but it is much more pitiful. 
 Do you look for her to have your tastes and your 
 standards? She does not know how to be clean, to 
 be frugal, to be thrifty. Who has ever taken the least 
 interest in her, or tried to teach her? Not you, at 
 any rate. Yet is it not somebody's duty? And why 
 not yours, Eleanor Loring? 
 
 At the corner she was overtaken by the fat girl, 
 walking with tempestuous hurry, still simmering from 
 the conflict; she shied off in miserable awkwardness, 
 catching Eleanor's eye, and would have gone charging 
 by her, but Eleanor made haste to speak. 
 
 " Oh, you go my way. Do you live near here? '^ 
 she said, invitingly shortening her own step. Lutie 
 hesitated, red-faced, then fell in beside her. " Yeah. 
 Right up here on Poplar." 
 
 Eleanor took counsel with herself and framed an- 
 other remark. " It's so odd I never knew who you 
 were, though I've seen you so often at Mr. Fritsch's. 
 Y^ou've been ^dth him a good while, haven't you? " 
 
 " Eight years," said Lutie shortly. 
 
 " So long as that? It must be a nice place, then. 
 Do you like it? " 
 
 " I guess it's as good as any. Don't make much 
 difference. All of us girls has to work somewhere, 
 Mrs. Loring," said Lutie Tvith bitterness. 
 
 ^^ It is hard," said Eleanor, answering the feeling 
 in the other's voice with so much honest sympathy 
 in her own that Lutie warmed to her from that mo- 
 ment. " I don't suppose ordinary work really hurts 
 
THE WAGON AND THE STAR 2GT 
 
 anybody," said Eleanor; '^ but it's liard for a girl just 
 the same. How many of you are there? '' 
 
 '' Well, there's Ella and Carrie besides me. There's 
 my brothers too, of course; I've got three brothers 
 living still — two of the boys died, you know." Lutie 
 hesitated again, then said bluntly: "Mrs. Loring^ 
 who told you about Lina, Tom's wife, you know? 
 Who was it told you and those other ladies about 
 her? " 
 
 " It was a Miss Penry. She goes around, and when- 
 ever she finds people that are — that she thinks are 
 — that seem to need a little help — " 
 
 "Oh, that old thing I I know herf said Lutie. 
 " It's a lot her business, ain't it? Well, I don't mean 
 she ain't nice," she interpolated apologetically. " But 
 she — oh, you know what I mean. We had her to 
 board with us one winter when she was district-visit- 
 ing around that way she does — just plain rubbering, 
 that's what / call it. It's the way she does it, you're 
 not a hit that way! " Lutie affirmed enthusiastically. 
 And hereupon she all at once became voluble, eagerly 
 confiding, opening her mind with an abandon which 
 w^ould have astonished Eleanor if she had not met 
 with it before among Lutie's kind; she thought the 
 readiness with which they poured out all their simple 
 opinions, beliefs and experiences upon the slightest 
 show of interest was very touching. " I wouldn't 
 want Miss Penry coming around me — not that she 
 ain't a lady and nice and wants to do for you, but she 
 just don't appeal to me — you know what I mean — " 
 She squeezed Eleanor's arm. " Lina don't mind what 
 anybody does for her, though; she'd just as leave! 
 Lina's not refined — of course you know that, Mrs. 
 Loring. Her folks are just as dago as can be — her 
 
268 THE RUDDER 
 
 old father and motlier, I mean — right straight from 
 the old country. They ain't like Americans, you 
 know; they\l take anything anybody'd do for 'em. 
 Tom tvould marry her — you can't stop a man — and 
 she was crazy after him, never let him alone a min- 
 ute. You wouldn't believe the things that girl done 
 to get him ! " Lutie dilated at some length upon what 
 was evidently considered a mesalliance in the More- 
 head family. " Well, I s'pose it's a good thing some- 
 hod y's looking out for her. She can't look out for 
 herself," she ended. " If we ain't home already ! " 
 
 Eleanor looked up at the row of windows and dingy 
 lace curtains across the narrow brick front with the 
 western sun blazing against it; there was a sign 
 " Furnished Room " in one of them with a forlorn 
 plant dying in a gaudy little jardiniere on the sill. 
 She looked at the dusty, dirty, stone steps, at the 
 dusty, dirty walk along one side with sodden rags 
 thrown down, and old newspapers flapping here and 
 there, and a broken chair tilted against the wall in 
 the cool dark caiion between it and the next building. 
 Eleanor looked without flinching. If she saw there 
 an opportunity for doing a great and much-needed 
 service, she saw also certain freedom, a release from 
 her dissatisfaction ; and with all her fine, hot impulses, 
 she had too plentiful an endowment of ironic penetra- 
 tion and common-sense not to read her own motives. 
 She was no heroine in her own eyes ; merely a discon- 
 tented woman, trying to forget herself and to be of 
 some use. 
 
 " ' Furnished Room,' " she read. " That's where 
 you had Miss Penry, I suppose. How would you like 
 to have another lodger? Would you have me^ for in- 
 stance? " 
 
PART THREE 
 BREAD AND CIRCUSES 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 SOCIETY heard without any great commotion 
 that the Amzi Lorings had finally agreed — for 
 the first time since their marriage, it was sug- 
 gested I — upon one point, namely : that it was hope- 
 less for them to try to live together any longer. For 
 once, there was nothing in the newspapers; indeed 
 nothing happened of a sensational enough nature to 
 be worthy of print. The separation was conducted, 
 people said, with the utmost reserve and dignity — 
 trust Nellie Maranda for that ! But for that matter, 
 the Loring men themselves were equally averse to 
 publicity ; and he would have been a plucky journalist 
 who approached Amzi Two on the subject. Loring 
 senior, going east on one of his business tours shortly 
 afterwards, called on Mr. Marshall Cook at his rooms 
 at the Oasis Club to explain exactly how things stood 
 — not that he felt that his son needed defence or jus- 
 tification, as he was very careful to make clear. 
 
 " They couldn't make a go of it, so they've decided 
 to stop trying,'' said he. " I don't know that it was 
 the fault of either one of 'em — they simply couldn't 
 make a go of it. Amzi's my son, but I don't want to 
 take sides. I don't claim that he is altogether blame- 
 less, but I guess you know as well as I do that he's 
 never ill-treated her, or run around with other women. 
 Amzi is too much of a man for that kind of low-down 
 business — " he eyed Cook challengingly ; and then 
 rather spoiled the effect of this expression of confi- 
 
 271 
 
272 THE EUDDER 
 
 dence by adding : " Anyhow, a man's got to live 
 pretty straight and take care of himself, if he exiDects 
 to stick in organised athletics." 
 
 "Oh, I know that, Mr. Loring," Cook assented cor- 
 dially. " I'm sure of that. No one that knew him 
 would believe any charge of that kind. Besides," he 
 went on with a half smile; " if he ever had misbehaved 
 that way, the chances are that Eleanor would have 
 stuck to him through thick and thin ! She's a proud 
 woman, and you know the pride of women is a very 
 queer thing." 
 
 Mr. Loring looked as if he did not quite grasp this 
 subtlety, but let it pass as of no particular importance. 
 " Well, neither one of them can complain of the other's 
 having done anything absolutely icrong, that's what 
 ought to be distinctly understood. I consider that 
 I'm in a position to say, as I've lived in the same house 
 with them all this time — going on six years. Per- 
 sonally, I regret this very much, Mr. Cook, I like your 
 niece ; we've never had a word. I'm sorry this had to 
 happen; but I don't see any other end to it. They 
 couldn't grind along that way forever. In their place 
 I would get a divorce and be done Tvdth it; things of 
 that nature ought to be settled once for all ; at least 
 that would be my idea. It could have been done 
 quietly without any talk ; it's done every day. How- 
 ever, they both seemed to be in favour of just separat- 
 ing. I don't know what their idea is, but it looks to 
 me as if they both hated like poison to own up pub- 
 licly that they've made such a fizzle of it ! " Here 
 he and the author exchanging a glance, both men 
 grinned openly. " You can't account for the things 
 people do," said Amzi One, wagging sagaciously. 
 " In the first place, they run off to get married, which 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 273 
 
 they didn't need to do the least in the world. No- 
 body was hindering them. And now when you'd 
 think they'd be good and tired of it, and would jump 
 at the chance to be free from each other, why, they 
 haw and gee, and can't make up their minds ! How- 
 ever, I haven't attempted to argue with them. Best 
 to keep out of it." 
 
 " If they'd had children, it might have been differ- 
 ent." 
 
 " Yes. But that's not a thing that a person can 
 talk to them about. Well ! " He got up. ^^ I'm very 
 glad to have had this little talk with you, Mr. Cook. 
 I was pretty sure you would feel about it the same as 
 I do; that is, that they have to be let alone. Don't 
 make any difference what mistakes we see young peo- 
 ple making, it's no good our trying to steer 'em. I 
 just didn't want you to get a T\Tong impression, and 
 think I was indifferent. It seems Eleanor's got a 
 great notion of supporting herself by doing some kind 
 of uplift work in the slums. I suppose you know 
 about that?" 
 
 Cook nodded. " Yes, she wrote me. She's always 
 had a turn for it — always wanted to do something 
 of the kind." 
 
 " Yes. Well. They pay her something, I under- 
 stand. Well, she'll probably get along all right. 
 She's very fiery and enthusiastic about helping those 
 people; I guess she'll get some of that knocked out 
 of her, but she'll probably get along all right," said 
 Mr. Loring Avith his habitual detachment. 
 
 Mrs. Andrew J. Grace was president of the Ma- 
 ternity Society that winter; at seventy years of age 
 she was still very active and useful in charitable work. 
 And she presently informed her granddaughter that 
 
274 THE RUDDER 
 
 Mrs. Loring was one of the most efficient aides they 
 had. " She always has her reports gotten up very con- 
 cisely for the monthly meetings — of course any one 
 can do it, it's just filling out cards and answering in- 
 quiries, but hers give one a feeling of being so thor- 
 ough and reliable somehoAv; and her comments are 
 always so good. She seems to take so much personal 
 interest, and that's what those poor creatures need 
 most, I've no doubt. The way she does it and the 
 things she says sometimes remind me a good deal of 
 Mr. Cook — the same kind of humour and sympathy, 
 you know, Bessie. We never had anybody that could 
 do it so well before — not even Lorrie Gilbert. I 
 only hope Mrs. Loring won't wear herself out at it, 
 that's all; a great deal of it can't help but be very 
 sordid and tiresome. It's so strange that she can do 
 it so well, when it takes all sorts of tact and patience, 
 and they say she couldn't get along with her husband 
 at all ; they say they had a horrible time." 
 
 " All the girls say that she has a very high temper. 
 She looks as if she might have, somehow. Those 
 formidable straight black eyebrows ! Maybe the slum 
 ladies don't mind it ; or maybe if she'd married a one- 
 eyed bricklayer vrith tuberculosis she'd have been a 
 perfect angel to him," Bessie suggested. 
 
 " He wouldn't have been much more impossible than 
 this Loring man, I daresay. Mercy, will you ever 
 forget the time Mr. Cook came and told us about the 
 wedding! Has he said anything to you about this 
 last development? " 
 
 " No — not very much, that is. He's mentioned it, 
 but that's all." 
 
 ^^Why, I thought he told you everything!" ex- 
 claimed Mrs. Grace unguardedly. The next moment 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 275 
 
 she felt, as she phrased it in her vexation, as if she 
 could have bitten her tongue out I '' I must be getting 
 childish I " she said to herself wrathfuUy. To be sure, 
 Bessie's expression did not change; but her small, 
 immobile features, like Mrs. Grace's own, never dis- 
 l)lajed much expression, whatever she felt or thought. 
 She picked up a fine little trifle of ivoiy carving off 
 of her desk, and turned it about contemplatively, as 
 she answered. 
 
 ^^ Oh, ordinary gossip, yes. He talks to me quite 
 freely in that way at times. But naturally not about 
 his own family so much. He's very fond of this niece 
 anyway ; /ie never will allow that she is high-tempered. 
 It's always Nellie is so ' spirited ' with him." Bessie 
 put the ornament down, and smiled at her grand- 
 mother, T\dth impervious blue eyes. 
 
 ^' Well, when you write to him, tell him what a 
 success she is making of this work. He'll be pleased." 
 
 " Why don't you write and tell him yourself? I 
 haven't anything particular to write about just now," 
 said Miss Grace nonchalantly. And though the fat 
 envelope lying on the desk under her hand had ar- 
 rived from Marshall that Saturday morning, though 
 Bessie would reply to it without fail the following 
 Saturday, Mrs. Grace, who knew all this, felt some- 
 how as if she had made another mistake. 
 
 Xot long afterwards, the two ladies, going through 
 their calling-list, came to Mrs. Maranda. Once a year 
 their handsome limousine took them around to 
 ^' everybody " in succession, Mrs. Grace preserving 
 the punctilious habits of her youth ; so, in due course, 
 it deposited them at the Church Street house. And 
 there was Mrs. Maranda, graciously limp in her in- 
 valid's chair, excusing herself from rising as she re- 
 
276 THE RUDDER 
 
 ceived them; and Fannie, sitting with her back to 
 the light, rather quiet and silent, with her hands 
 clasped rigidly in her lap; and there, too, as it hap- 
 pened, was Nellie Loring herself. It was known that 
 she had scarcely any time to spare for visiting even 
 her own people nowadays. But there she was, tall 
 and slim, indomitably and indefinably elegant as ever, 
 looking as if she had never been near a slum in her 
 life, Bessie told her uncle afterwards. " I am sure 
 Mrs. Loring is just such another as the old-fashioned 
 heroines of novels who could wear one dress through 
 three volumes and all kinds of strenuous adventures, 
 and look absolutely fresh and beautiful and dainty 
 up to the very end ! " she wrote, to Cook's amusement. 
 " But your niece is a much more flavoursome person 
 than any of the Amelias and Amandas could have 
 been. It was an interesting call." Cook read that 
 with another laugh. He guessed that the Grace ladies 
 had embarrassed themselves by efforts to keep away 
 from such subjects as divorce; and perhaps Eleanor 
 had had a tilt with Mrs. Juliet. No doubt it had been 
 an interesting call ! 
 
 Miss Grace, indeed, did feel a slight awkwardness 
 at first, thinking of the separation, and — in spite of 
 her denials — of certain confidential statements from 
 Mr. Cook which, very likely, he had no business to 
 make. " I don't think I ever saw you before without 
 some of that exquisite fancy-work you're always do- 
 ing," she said to Fannie, by way of making talk. 
 
 "I — I'm not working on anything just now," said 
 Fannie, loosening her hands and then clasping them 
 together more tightly, with a nervous movement. 
 
 "Poor Fan's eyes have given out completely. 
 Isn't it a pity? " Mrs. Maranda explained. 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 277 
 
 Fannie herself said nothing; she seemed somehow 
 to shrink together as the others, a little startled, be- 
 gan to nnirniiir inarticulate sympathy, but Eleanor 
 spoke quickly. 
 
 '^Oh, not completely, Aunt Juliet I That's just a 
 phrase — a — a way of talking,'' she said, and 
 reached out and took one of her sister's idle hands in 
 hers, holding it firmly. " Fannie's just gone and over- 
 worked, and her eyes have to have a rest, that's all. 
 They're going to be all right in a little while." 
 
 " Eleanor thinlvs it's proper to talk in that encour- 
 aging way, but / believe in facing the worst. It takes 
 more moral courage, but you can make up your mind 
 to amjtJiing if you try — if you only exert your T\ill- 
 power,'' said Mrs. Maranda with splendid resolution. 
 ^^Dear me, with my ill-health, I've had so much of 
 that to do ! I tell Fannie there's nothing gained by 
 deluding yourself with false hopes. She ought to 
 look at her trouble squarely without shrinking. 
 Don't you think I'm right, Mrs. Grace? Don't you 
 think that's the best way? " 
 
 "A — er — perhaps so," said the old lady, turning 
 her round, bright, black eyes like a pair of jet 
 cabochons to Fannie's shadowed face. " But I don't 
 believe there's any real trouble for you to look at, my 
 dear. I used to* do a great deal of that dreadfully 
 trying fine work when I was your age, but I had to 
 stop it, too. It's a passing thing, of course; it just 
 teaches one to be careful." 
 
 Mrs. Maranda smiled tolerantly and shook her 
 head. "That's very good advice, but poor Fan is 
 past the stage when being careful would do her any 
 good. Doctor Saunders says he hopes that she will 
 never go entirely blind, but will always be able to see 
 
278 THE RUDDER 
 
 to take care of herself and to get around the house. 
 He Jiopes so. I tell Fannie that it's her duty to pre- 
 pare herself for — for that sort of a future, and to 
 make the best of it. Fannie always has been more or 
 less active, but now if she has to be useless, why, she 
 has to be useless, that's all. Poor Fan! Of course 
 it will be hard.'' 
 
 " It would be very hard for Mrs. Maranda espe- 
 cially,'' said Eleanor, smiling brightly and ingenu- 
 ously around the circle. " She might have to hire a 
 sewing-girl to do all her work for her, and I don't 
 think any of them can sew as well as my sister." 
 
 ^^ Don't, Nell ! " Fannie said in a low voice. 
 
 " Fannie loves so to sew and embroider, it's been 
 impossMe for me to stop her," said Mrs. Maranda 
 after a pause. 
 
 "With all Aunt Juliet's iconderful will-power, 
 too ! " Nellie pointed out admiringly to the others; her 
 tone w^as sincerity itself. 
 
 " Do you know, Mrs. Loring, you remind me very 
 much of Mr. Cook, sometimes," said Miss Grace, some- 
 what abruptly and irrelevantly. 
 
 ^' Do I ? " said Eleanor, colouring, well pleased. 
 " I like to be told that ! " Suddenly she seemed to 
 the other a different w^oman, candid and warmly 
 charming. The impression flashed and vanished, yet 
 w^as registered on Bessie's mind, as if with the snap- 
 ping of some inward camera, she fancied; she won- 
 dered what it was that she had seen, and in what the 
 likeness to Cook had consisted. For now Mrs. Lor- 
 ing was again only a very handsome woman with a 
 kind of crystalline hardness about her ; and how Mar- 
 shall would have laughed at the sujrgestion of his be- 
 ing either hard or handsome! 
 
 '&&^ 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 279 
 
 a 
 
 Mj grandmotlier is enthusiastic about the way 
 YOU manage the Maternity Society cases," she said. 
 " They've had ever so many helpers, but no one half 
 so good as you, she says/' 
 
 '' I'm interested in the work, you know." 
 
 " You must be to go and live — " Bessie began. 
 Then: "Good gracious I What am I saying!" she 
 thought, checking herself, panic-struck. 
 
 " Yes. I have a room down on Poplar Street," 
 said Eleanor calmly. " It's convenient to my dis- 
 trict." 
 
 " You know, of course, Mrs. Grace, that Eleanor 
 doesn't have to do it,'' Mrs. Maranda interposed. " I 
 want her to feel that her home is here with me just 
 as it always was before — er — before, you know. 
 My husband's children are welcome to all I have, just 
 as if they were my own, it doesn't make any difference 
 u-Jiat happens. But she icill go and live among those 
 dreadful people, as if her necessities drove her to it. 
 I was saying to her just as you came in that I should 
 think she would want to have herself sterilised or 
 sprinkled with formaldehyde or something before she 
 goes to anybody's house — any decent i^erson's, I 
 mean. She doesn't know what kind of infection she 
 may be distributing around I " 
 
 "Well, you know having babies isn't at all infec- 
 tious," Mrs. Grace objected with amusement ; " if 
 Mrs. Loring isn't exposed to anything but that — 
 {Horrors! What kUJ that sound like to her?) — 
 Have you got a nice place to board, Mrs. Loring? " 
 she asked precipitately. 
 
 " Oh, yes, good enough. It's with some people 
 named Morehead," said Eleanor. " They try to be 
 nice to me. Respectable people, you know, although 
 
280 THE EUDDER 
 
 Mr. Morehead gets drunk once in a while. They 
 keep liim out of the way until he's presentable again, 
 and he's not bothered me so far. To be sure I'm not 
 about the house much ; I have to be out making visits 
 almost all day." 
 
 " Morehead? Oh, I remember. You had a report 
 some time ago about a Mrs. Morehead. Is that the 
 place where you are?" inquired Mrs. Grace, display- 
 ing a most vivacious interest in her relief at getting 
 safely away from what promised to be a ticklish 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 " No. It's the same family, though — a married 
 son. No, I'm afraid even I couldn't stand living with 
 those people," said Eleanor, with what seemed to Mrs. 
 Maranda a hideous deliberation. What was Eleanor 
 going to say next? What mortifying revelation was 
 she about to make? She kept her step-mother poised 
 in well-nigh unbearable apprehension, and then with 
 tactics truly feline — so it looked to Juliet — deferred 
 the moment ! '' They will probably have to have more 
 help, Mrs. Grace," she said. " I was going to bring 
 up their case at the next meeting. The man drinks, 
 too, and is out of employment half the time ; he hasn't 
 any trade, and can't really do anything except or- 
 dinary day labour. And his wife is very shiftless and 
 ignorant. Their baby is about six months old now, a 
 poor, sickly little thing — she doesn't seem capable 
 of learning how to take care of it — " she went on 
 giving Mrs. Grace further details, without even glanc- 
 ing towards the lady of the house, speechless in her 
 chair. The fact was, as Eleanor readily guessed, that 
 both the Grace ladies had forgotten all about Mrs. 
 Maranda's family connections and maiden name, 
 which were not of nearly so much importance to the 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 281 
 
 community as poor Mrs. Juliet naively believed them 
 to be. Her terrors were quite needless, so Eleanor 
 benevolently took care to prolong and aggravate them 
 by those sharp devices of T\'hich she was mistress. 
 She had long ago gauged what she chose to consider 
 the small shallows of Mrs. Maranda's spirit, and 
 knew to a nicety how to perplex, to annoy, to frighten 
 or aggrieve her. 
 
 Mrs. and Miss Grace took their leave at length, and 
 re-entered their stately vehicle, and continued their 
 round, the elder lady checking off the last name with 
 the remark that she supposed they might never have 
 kept up the Maranda acquaintance at all if it had 
 not been for Mr. Cook. " Knowing him so well, it 
 wouldn't seem quite nice not to pay his people some 
 attention — though, by the way, I don't think he cares 
 very much about any of them himself, except Mrs. 
 Loring." 
 
 " She is the only person in the family, that's evi- 
 dent," said Bessie. " Everybody always says that 
 Mrs. Maranda is a sweet, good woman, and she's 
 done everything for those girls, but somehow I — 
 well, she might be pretty tiresome to live with, I 
 imagine. I thought it was rather tactless and 
 thoughtless the way she talked to that poor thing 
 who may be going blind. Yet she meant well, I'm 
 sure.'' 
 
 ^' It wasn't tactless and thoughtless, it was down- 
 right stupid I '' said Mrs. Grace, forcibly. ^^ It made 
 me think of what your grandfather used to say ; that 
 one good, kind fool could do more harm and cause 
 more suffering than all the villains in creation 
 
 f '? 
 
 'j-« 
 
 She smiled at the remembrance, then sighed, and they 
 were silent for a while, gazing out of the carriage 
 
282 THE KUDDER 
 
 windows but witlioiit seeing the landscape, as they 
 thought of the dead man. 
 
 " Well/' said Bessie at last. ^' Our young friend, 
 Mrs. Loring, is no fool — anything but ! One can see 
 that. And she's not a villain either, for all those 
 Mephistophelian eyebrows. I don't know what she 
 is. I can't quite make her out." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ELEANOR'S room at the Morelieads was fur- 
 nished with an iron bedstead intricately 
 scrolled and floriated, which she innocently 
 supposed to be enamelled a greyish drab until it 
 emerged from her scrubbing white, as originally, save 
 where the paint had scaled off in patches ; the bedding 
 was approximately the same colour before she ef- 
 fected some changes in it also. There was a golden- 
 oak dressing-table with a heart-shaped mirror, a wash- 
 stand, and a little, palsied, tiipod-like table of no 
 recognisable wood or other material; to the eye and 
 touch it gave the impression, even after repeated wash- 
 ings, of being cast out of solidifying liquorice. There 
 were besides a Morris chair with the arms sawed in 
 the likeness of a lion's head in profile, and cushions 
 of red velveteen; an iron mantelpiece draped with a 
 strip of pink silk the ends finished with a kind of 
 fringe of little tin crescents alternating with little 
 balls of pink chenille; a dust-hued paper of no per- 
 ceptible pattern on the walls, nicely harmonising with 
 the carpet on the floor ; and a pink stoneware cuspidor, 
 wreathed with roses in bas-relief. There were lace 
 curtains. The back of the flreplace had fallen in, 
 partly dislodging the grate which was sagging side- 
 wise, and the rubbish, bricks, soot and old ashes 
 augmented by a stray medicine-bottle, burnt matches, 
 webs of cotton string and wads of paper sprawled over 
 
 283 
 
284 THE KUDDER 
 
 tlie iron fender, Mrs. Morehead not having had time 
 yet, as she explained, to straighten or remove it. 
 
 This was Mrs. Homer Morehead, who was now fat 
 and middle-aged with a quantity of dead-looking, grey- 
 ish-yellowish hair that grew in lovely waves and ten- 
 drils framing her large, thick-featured face ; in youth, 
 it was probably brilliantly blond, and one of her main 
 attractions, though she must have been a very pretty 
 woman. It was natural that years of hard work, 
 small means and the cares of a family should have 
 withered her, although, to tell the truth, Mrs. " Junk,'' 
 even to Eleanor's inexperienced eyes, had not the ap- 
 pearance of ever having suffered greatly from any of 
 these things — certainly not from work or worry at 
 any rate. And, in fact, she herself, at their first in- 
 terview, avowed frankly that she was no longer 
 capable of either; she was an invalid, it seemed! 
 
 " I can't do much, I'm so kinda weak — I get kinda 
 weak spells with my heart or nerves, I don't know 
 which it is, and then I can't do a living thing," she 
 continued, a propos of the grate, dropping into the 
 Morris chair that cried aloud under her w^eight ; " and 
 I've hardly ever got any help, the girls being out all 
 the time, you know, and they won't hardly lift a hand 
 when they come home anyhow, so it's no wonder 
 things don't get done, if I slave and slave, even. I 
 can't do everything. I ain't hardly had the stren'th 
 to get up here since Miss Penry went. Well, this is 
 the room. Mis' Loring. I guess it ain't like what 
 you've had, but poor people can't have things, you 
 know." 
 
 " It's very nice, I expect to be perfectly comfort- 
 able," said Eleanor heroically. " The landlord ought 
 to fix that grate for you, oughtn't he? " 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 285 
 
 " Well, I want the parlour papered, and I don't be- 
 lieve he'll do both," said Mrs. Morchead with more 
 animation. " You know how ^nen are. If I told him 
 about the 2:rate first, he d say it ought to be attended 
 to right off, and we could wait for the paper. I just 
 thought I wouldn't tell him for a while — there's the 
 swellest paper with roses and a kinda little gold net- 
 work running all over, and you cut out the border, I 
 seen on a lady friend of mine's parlour the other day 
 that she just had done. That's the kind I'm going to 
 have. There ain't anything much the matter with 
 that grate really. You could prop it up at this end 
 with a little piece of brickbat and it wouldn't ever 
 show in the world, and I'll bet Homer can put that 
 back where it's fell in, so's it'll do. You won't need it 
 so long as the weather keeps hot anyway. Homer's 
 a handy boy at anything like that." 
 
 "A boy? Oh, you have a son Homer?" 
 " Yes. Named after his Pa. I'll have him clean 
 up them ashes and truck for you. Mis' Loring, and 
 anything else you want done," said Mrs. Morehead, 
 looking vaguely around. Then she returned to a 
 minute survey and appraisal of Eleanor's toilette — 
 as it seemed — her gaze moving slowly over it from 
 top to toe. " I guess your bathroom at home's all 
 solid marble, ain't it? " she asked, irrelevantly. 
 ^^ There ain't any water in this house, only on the first 
 floor." 
 
 " Oh, that's no matter. I can manage." 
 " Homer'll carry up for you, if you want. Say, do 
 pardon me, Mis' Loring, but that baby-Irish on your 
 w^aist is the swellest thing I ever saw I It's put in so 
 cute — " 
 
 ^' Isn't that your bell ringing? " interrupted Elea- 
 
286 THE RUDDER 
 
 nor, the gong at the front door having, in fact, 
 whanged thunderously twice in the last half minute. 
 
 " Oh, I guess it's just the mail-man, and nothing but 
 a circular anyway," said Mrs. Morehead, serenely in- 
 ert in the Morris chair. ^' Homer'll go ; he always 
 does if he's anywheres around. Say, pardon my 
 curiosity, but did you have that waist made or is it 
 a bought model? " 
 
 " Neither one. I made it myself, lace and all," said 
 Eleanor; ^^ I'm glad you like it," she added kindly. 
 
 "^^ Made it yourself? You never — ? And the lace, 
 too I Well, what do you think of that ! " 
 
 " Why, it's not at all hard. I'll show you the stitch. 
 You know how to crochet, don't you? " 
 
 " Oh, I ain t any time for crochet-work, thanks just 
 the same," said Mrs. Morehead, suddenly losing in- 
 terest. " It takes all my strength to run this house. 
 Poor people can't do things like that, Mis' Loring. 
 Y^ou'll find out." 
 
 Some imp spurred Eleanor to suggest that she 
 might instruct the all-efficient Homer in the art of 
 crocheting; he could doubtless compass it. But she 
 good-naturedly refrained, asking, instead : " I won- 
 der if I could speak to your little boy now? I'd like 
 to, if it's not too much trouble to get him." 
 
 " Oh, my, no ! He's somewhere, I expect. You can 
 'most always get Homer easy enough," Mrs. More- 
 head assured her ; and in point of fact, nothing could 
 have been easier than the method of getting Homer, 
 which she forthwith demonstrated without stirring 
 from the chair. She raised her voice in a prolonged 
 and penetrating cry : '^ Ho-o-mer.^ 0-o-oh, Eo-o-o- 
 mer ! " 
 
 The incantation was successful, in that it raised 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 287 
 
 an answering hoot from the depths of the house : 
 "Wh-at? All riM'' And directly they heard dis- 
 tant movements, steps, and a door banging. 
 
 " Homer's not just what you'd call a little boy, 
 though he's small for his age," his mother further ex- 
 pounded indifferently. " He's going on fourteen. 
 He got a kind a set-back when he was real little, so I i 
 don't believe he'll ever be like he was full-grown — 
 like a life-size man, you know. Some of them men 
 down to the saloon useta get him in there and give 
 him something to drink — fill him up so's to see him 
 act funny, you know, and I've always thought that's 
 what done it. Set him back that way in his growth, 
 I mean. But he's plenty strong." 
 
 Eleanor looked at her tranquil face, listened to 
 her even utterance in a kind of unbelieving yet con- 
 vinced horror; she saw^ that the thing was too mon- 
 strous not to be true; and every faculty w^ithin her 
 blazed up in white-hot anger. " Do you mean to say 
 that you — ?" she began; and then, to her credit be 
 it said, Eleanor arrested herself. Of what use was 
 her late-coming denunciation? She would only 
 puzzle and antagonise this dull, gelatinous creature, 
 she would only further becloud that little puddle of a 
 soul ; and if she was to help this class of people at all, 
 it was imperative that, first of all, she should gain their 
 confidence, their liking. She amended her question 
 hastily : " Do the men still do that? " 
 
 "What? Make him drunk? No, not any more. 
 Homer got on to 'em after a while — when he begun 
 to get older, you know, and then he stopped his own 
 self. He wouldn't let 'em give him no more; he 
 wasn't going to be made fun of. Homer's always been 
 a smart kid." 
 
288 THE EUDDER 
 
 Here Homer arrived; he came no farther than the 
 threshold whence he threw a glance at Mrs. More- 
 head, accompanied by an interrogative grunt, and 
 immediately fixed his whole attention on Eleanor, 
 who, for her part, was not less interested. They ex- 
 changed a searching stare. It was a relief to find that 
 there was nothing repellently dwarfish about the boy's 
 short, thick figure and disprof)ortionately big, strong- 
 looking hands and feet, though Eleanor found herself 
 silently concurring in his mother's opinion that he 
 would never reach the normal stature of a man. She 
 thought he did not have a bad face; it was like a 
 thousand other faces neither homely nor handsome, 
 and his light grey eyes met her steadily. 
 
 " Yeah. Sure. I can fix it,'' he said when the 
 needs of the fireplace had been pointed out. '^ Yeah, 
 I can carry the buckets up and dovrn for you — if I 
 don't get no steady job that'll take me away, that is." 
 He appeared to reflect, then announced : " I guess I 
 can do it anyway. You won't want 'em except morn- 
 ings and evenings, will you? '' 
 
 " I told you Homer would," said Mrs. Morehead, 
 placidly. " You won't need to keep after him to make 
 Mm, either, Mrs. Loring. Homer's smart." 
 
 " It don't take any smartness to carry buckets," 
 said Homer drily. " Say, Maw, Mrs. Sullivan's over 
 to see you. She's downstairs now." 
 
 Mrs. Morehead departed with alacrity; she was 
 equally fatigued with her prospective lodger's society, 
 and anxious to flourish her before Mrs. Sullivan. 
 Eleanor and the boy were left still openly examining 
 each other, Eleanor from her chair in the middle of 
 the room, slim, erect and unconsciously brilliant in 
 her plain and immaculate dress with her parasol 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 289 
 
 across her knees, and ITomer planted in the doorway, 
 his hands in the pockets of his shabby old trousers 
 girdled about him with a strap. 
 
 ^^ Homer," said Eleanor with gravity. " Your 
 mother didn't say anything about it, but I don't ex- 
 pect you to do these things for me for nothing. That 
 wouldn't be very good business, it seems to me/' said 
 Eleanor, quoting Amzi One with relish. 
 
 Homer responded with the extremely practical re- 
 mark that if she hadn't said anything, he would have! 
 ^^ It's five cents a bucket, up or down." 
 
 " Five cents up or down. Very good." 
 
 There ensued a pause during which Homer ap- 
 peared to be considering some other proposition, which 
 he finally introduced : " Say — I " 
 
 " Yes? " said Eleanor, instantly applying herself 
 to listen in a fashion which seemed somehow to sat- 
 isfy or reassure the boy ; he came a step into the room, 
 and spoke with a certain caution. 
 
 " I don't ever give away a business deal. I don't 
 tell nobody how much I'm making, nor nothing else 
 about it, see? " said he, his eyes searching hers with 
 the strangest mixed expression of anxiety, confidence 
 and a silent entreaty that both perplexed and touched 
 her. 
 
 " I suppose that is the best way," she said. 
 
 " 'Tain't sense to let folks know how much you got," 
 Homer insisted. 
 
 " No, indeed." 
 
 Homer eyed her doubtfully. " I won't put the price 
 up on you, but I won't throw in no extras, neither," 
 he warned. 
 
 " To be sure not ! A bargain's a bargain." 
 
 " All right ! " said Homer, suddenly brisk. " Now 
 
290 THE KUDDER 
 
 jou tell me what all you want done, and I'll get 
 busy." 
 
 After this fashion began Eleanor's stay on Poplar 
 Street. The young woman entered upon it with some- 
 thing of the spirit of the pioneer settlers in our wilder- 
 nesses aforetime, to whom the assurance that a thing 
 could not be done was a challenge to do it; and it 
 may be that she also shared a little in their courage, 
 their persistency, their unconscious or voiceless ideal- 
 ism. Add to these a good strong constitution and 
 some sense of humour, both of which she possessed, 
 and it would be hard to find a combination of qualities 
 better fitting one for charity work. To her applauding 
 or concerned friends, Eleanor would reply that of 
 course it was uncomfortable, but of what importance 
 was that? It was interesting. She worked — oh yes. 
 But she had tried being idle, and that was the most 
 tiresome business on earth. She might not make 
 quite the success she had expected, still she did once 
 in a while " get results " which were sufficiently en- 
 couraging. And she was continually learning some- 
 thing. 
 
 For instance — although in her mingled amusement 
 and discomfiture she confided this to no one except 
 her Uncle Marshall — she discovered that she had 
 rather lost caste, not among her own class, but with 
 those whom she wanted to serve, by coming to dwell 
 among them! Young Mrs. Amzi Loring with her 
 automobiles and toilettes, and her name in the ^^ So- 
 ciety Jottings '' column of the Observer every Sun- 
 day was a much more striking and satisfying person- 
 age than the same Mrs. Loring removed from her 
 glittering background and accessories, and washing 
 a bedstead in Mrs. Junk Morehead's front room. It 
 
BEEAD AND CIRCUSES 291 
 
 lias probably always been at a considerable loss of 
 prestige that the mighty haye descended from their 
 seats to hob-nob with the un-mighty. " Of course 
 these people don't want to be patronised, and they 
 are not snobs in our sense of the word, but I actually 
 seem to haye made more impression on them when I 
 was more distant, and obyiously a great deal better 
 off I '' Eleanor reflected. It was as if they had en- 
 joyed pointing out to her and contemplating them- 
 selyes the contrast between her affluence and their 
 poyerty; and obscurely resented the fact that this 
 contrast no longer existed. Instead, as Eleanor dem- 
 onstrated, the difference nowadays was mainly that 
 between being clean and being dirty, being lazy and 
 being industrious, being thrifty and being improyi- 
 dent; but who wanted to be shown ilicit? 
 
 Xot the Morehead family, at all eyents. They w^it- 
 nessed their tenant's reforms in her small territory 
 with abundant curiosity and amusement, but — except- 
 ing possibly Lutie — without the faintest impulse to 
 emulate them. The younger women enyied Eleanor's 
 '' style,'' her hair, her figure, her complexion, while 
 continuing to deck themselyes with soiled sham finery, 
 to pile their heads in extrayagant copy of the season's 
 most extrayagant fashions, to ajDply rouge and powder 
 in lieu of taking a bath. They maryelled at her deft 
 and quiet moyements, at the pleasant intonations of 
 her yoice ; and went on banging doors, holding squawk- 
 ing conyersations between the third floor and the 
 cellar, slamming and shoying the furniture and one 
 another. Mrs. Morehead slopped about the house in 
 apparel of an indescribable age and negligence, some- 
 times going through perfunctory motions with a 
 broom and duster; more often she sat in the parlour 
 
292 THE RUDDER 
 
 most of the morning reading a novel or the Mid- 
 niglit Belly and spent the afternoon gossiping on 
 her own front steps or a neighbour's when the weather 
 was warm, huddled by one or other of their respective 
 kitchen stoves when it was cold. Always there was 
 a stack of dishes in a pan of greasy water in the sink, 
 always a chilly, depressing mess of sheets or under- 
 wear or weird nameless rags soaking in a tub set on 
 an upturned chair, always a penetrating aroma of 
 food cooking or stale, of musty carpets and of a mys- 
 terious something, subtly alcoholic which Eleanor, 
 after much observation, at last identified as Mr. More- 
 head. " I'm sure from his looks, if you lighted one 
 end of him he'd blaze up like a torch," she wrote her 
 uncle. " He must be fairly steeped in whiskey. The 
 hot days when I first came here, he used to pass dozing 
 in a chair tilted against the wall in the alley-waj^ be- 
 tween the two houses. When the weather changed he 
 took to sleeping indoors on the floor — any floor any- 
 where. I have never seen him do anything else. Ow- 
 ing to this careful avoidance of exertion, and to the 
 alcohol which everybody knows is a sovereign pre- 
 servative, I have no doubt, though he is a dreary, 
 feeble, long, lean scarecrow with apparently one foot 
 in the grave, he vdW outlast all the righteous, hard- 
 w^orking teetotallers by half a lifetime! Mr. Ken- 
 clrick, whom I have got to know quite well, says that 
 ^ Junk ' is just like certain unsalable stocks, he'll al- 
 ways have a ' nuisance value ' I " 
 
 Eleanor, in fact, chanced so often in her walks 
 abroad, upon Mr. Kendrick whose interests, it would 
 seem, took him likewise into these humble neighbour- 
 hoods, that she arrived not only at knowing him much 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 293 
 
 better, but at rather welcoming the sight of his stiff, 
 leathery countenance creasing into a smile (^'Ex- 
 actly like an old boot-leg!'' she described it) when 
 they encountered. But it was not until coming home 
 one day and finding him at the door that she found out 
 he was the landlord, or, more rigidly speaking, the 
 landlord's agent, the hard-fisted individual who pre- 
 ferred making necessary repairs to laying out money 
 on unnecessary decorations. 
 
 '' Well, we're even," he said. " I hadn't any idea 
 you were the Moreheads' ' lady-roomer.' " And to 
 Eleanor's surprise, he chuckled heartily ; but she her- 
 self laughed when he explained that Mrs. Morehead 
 had laid a startling increase in their water -bill at the 
 " lady-roomer's " door. ^^ She says she never saw any- 
 body use so much water. It's a scandal I " 
 
 Eleanor told him about the arrangement with 
 Homer junior. " He seems to think it very business- 
 like to keep these financial transactions quiet, but I 
 don't think he'd mind my telling you/^ 
 
 Mr. Kendrick's smile vanished. ^' Why, Mrs. Lor- 
 ing," he said; "don't you know what the boy meant? 
 They'd take his money away from him, if they knew 
 he had any. He wants to keep it for himself. You 
 can't exactly blame him. He earns it." 
 
 " Blame him! " cried out Eleanor; " I don^t blame 
 him ! Why, that worthless father of his would drink 
 it all up ! Homer himself seems to me a very decent 
 sort of boy; at least he has some sense and some am- 
 bition. He told me he was going to buy himself a 
 knitted woollen sweater when he had saved up enough. 
 He said he wanted to be warm this winter anyicaij: 
 I daresay the poor boy has never been warm in his 
 
294 THE KUDDEE 
 
 life. No wonder lie didn't want me to tell, and I 
 certainly won't ! I don't see how anybody could blame 
 liim." 
 
 " He's a minor, you know, so his parents have a 
 right in law to every last cent he makes," Mr. Ken- 
 drick rejoined. " However, I'm with 3'Ou ! " he added 
 with his dry smile. " I hope Homer'll hang onto it! " 
 
 Eleanor was about to burst out with the opinion 
 that such a law was abominable, when a better illum- 
 ination revealed to her that it was not abominable, 
 only inevitable, being based like every other law on a 
 profound, however unjustified, distrust of human na- 
 ture. After all, how many young people voluntarily 
 do their duty? How many people of any age, for that 
 matter? The Morehead young women contributed 
 something, each one of them, to the family funds, but 
 by no means ungTudgingly, as Eleanor knew. On 
 Saturday nights there was always a grand screech- 
 ing wrangle, every word of which ascended with per- 
 fect distinctness to her room ; and the last time Lutie 
 had come storming to the door and begged to be let 
 in and had sat on the bed and sobbed and hysterically 
 declared that she wasn't going to stay at home any 
 longer to be treated so! She had set her heart oo 
 getting a pair of white canvas shoes — " to w-w-wear 
 to the r-rally," Lutie said between gulps and sniffs — 
 but now they had taken the money " off of her " and 
 she wished she was dead I Eleanor comforted her as 
 well as she could. 
 
 " You might wear a pair of mine," she said ; and the 
 difference in size rendering this impracticable, sug- 
 gested that Lutie's old ones could be cleaned up and 
 mended " so as to do for just once more anyway." 
 
 " No, they can't ! They're all busted out," wailed 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 295 
 
 the victim of parental tyranny. '^ I don't care! I'll 
 show him, the dirty old slob I He can't keep on tak- 
 ing my money off of me I " 
 
 '^ Xever mind, just go anyhow. Your feet don't 
 show ; nobody ever sees them in a crowd,'' said Elea- 
 nor, employing an argument eminently ad Morehead, 
 as she thought ; but poor Lutie was not to be beguiled 
 this time. 
 
 '' Oh, my Lord, Mrs. Loring, you know you wouldn't 
 have ijour feet not looking as nice as the rest of you, 
 not for one minute I You wouldn't be caught dead 
 without your feet looking nice. There ain't any use 
 your talking to me that way I " she snapped miserably. 
 " I'll just have to stay home, that's all ! And I 
 w-wanted to go — I w-wanted to go-o I " 
 
 " Oh, now, don't cry I We'll think up something,'^ 
 said Eleanor soothingly as if to a child. Indeed, she 
 was growing accustomed to the intrinsic childishness 
 of the average adult human being, as exhibited by 
 Lutie's class; to her mind it was gi-otesque, it was 
 wearisome, it was exasperating, but more than any- 
 thing else, it was pitiful. " Tell me about the rally. 
 What is it like? What do you do?'' she asked. 
 
 The rally, it seemed, was primarily a sort of 
 political hearth- and heart-warming in the Thirteenth 
 Ward occurring annually, promoted by ex-Councilman 
 John Dalton in chief, with a few subordinate local 
 celebrities. They chartered the steamboat Queen City 
 of the ^yest and took the crowd to Lowery's 
 Beach for the whole day ; there was a barbecue or fish- 
 fry — '^Only, of course it ain't a real one like they 
 used to have in old times. Them days they say every- 
 body, the whole push, you know, kids and old people 
 and do2:s and cats and everything else kinda sat 
 
296 THE KUDDER 
 
 around and all ate outa one big disli, or something — 
 I don't know Iioav they done it, but it musta been 
 fierce ! '^ Lutie opined. " Of course they wouldn't 
 have nothing like that nowadays. They get a real 
 swell caterer, and have tables and a regular bar for 
 the men, and everything swell. It's all free, you 
 know. All the attractions at the Beach are open, too ; 
 you don't have to pay one cent for the Shoot-the- 
 Chutes, or the Whirlpool, or Going-to-Heaven, or the 
 Panama Canal, or any of 'em. And there's a danc- 
 ing platform, and two bands so they can change off 
 and rest, without the music stopping. You do have 
 the swellest time. And they always have a speech 
 by some real swell speaker — not Dalton, you know, 
 he never talks — but some big man like Bryan or 
 Debs or somebody. This year they're going to have 
 Chauncey Devitt — " Her features puckered together 
 as the tears started again. " And now I can't go ! I 
 do think it's the meanest, dirtiest thing — ! " 
 
 " Never mind ! Don't give it up yet. We'll fix it 
 somehow — " 
 
 " Last year him and me come back on the boat to- 
 gether. It was the loveliest moonlight," sighed Lutie. 
 " Well, I ain't going one step without I'm dressed 
 right. I'm not going to have people ashamed of me 
 looking jai//^ she announced with savage determina- 
 tion. 
 
 Eleanor had a shrewd guess at who w^as meant by 
 " people," having been an unwilling eavesdropper at 
 family conferences such as that of this Saturday even- 
 ing when the name of Chauncey Devitt had been freely 
 mentioned in various delicate, satirical pleasantries 
 addressed to Lutie. Soon after her arrival on Poplar 
 Street, she found that the tidy place across the way 
 
BKExVD AND CIRCUSES 297 
 
 was the borne of the elderly Irishman whom she re- 
 called — without, however, being able to picture a 
 single feature of his face — in his attack of illness 
 out at the Elmwood factory, half a dozen years ago. 
 Eleanor felt as if it were half a dozen centuries! A 
 deal of water had gone under the bridges since that 
 day. The son and some other man had come out to 
 the house to thank her, she remembered. She did not 
 take much interest in the Devitts, one glance at their 
 home being enough to assure her that her services 
 would never be needed there. Moreover, Mrs. De- 
 vitt was very ^^ stuck-up " and " kept herself to her- 
 self in a way that Eleanor gathered was more or 
 less offensive to Mrs. Morehead and her circle. Some- 
 times Eleanor saw her, a little, wiry black-haired 
 Irishwoman, looking seventy, and probably not over 
 fifty-five, moving about her domain on errands of 
 cleanliness with her head done up in a radiantly white 
 towel, or going to Mass of a Sunday morning with a 
 black silk dress and a nice braided cloth cape, and a 
 stout umbrella and her fine gold watch and chain that 
 Mike gave her on their twenty-first wedding anniver- 
 sary. Of the men of the family it was reported that 
 the son, the well-known labour " agitator," was seldom 
 at home, and the father got up and was off to work 
 so early in the mornings — even at his age — and re- 
 turned so late in the evenings that there was not 
 much time left him for neighbourliness; but nobody 
 had any fault to find with Mike Devitt on that score 
 or any other. He, at least, among the Devitts, was 
 unanimously liked; and they were sorry to see that 
 the old man had failed some here lately, the gossips 
 told Eleanor, wagging their heads ; he looked broken ; 
 one or two hard years since nineteen-seven had been 
 
298 THE KUDDER 
 
 almost too much for Mike; he had trouble sometimes 
 with his men, and he wasn't as well able to handle 
 them in a strike or any such situation as he had been 
 when younger, 
 
 Eleanor listened inattentively; she heard so much 
 talk — rumours, scandal, " secrets " by the ream, by 
 the column, by the square yard! But one day, com- 
 ing home, she was halted on the crossing by a spread- 
 ing lake from some burst water-main, and as she stood 
 poised on a paving block, with her skirts drawn into 
 one hand, casting about for the best place to plant 
 her next step, she found herself in company with a 
 slender young man, who, catching her eye, took off his 
 hat with a free and sweeping gesture. 
 
 " Mrs. Loring,'' said he in an uncommon voice, deep, 
 mellow and ringing. He had black eyes, fine, strong 
 features, a very nobly shaped head with thick, waving 
 black hair swept back from the forehead in the fashion 
 to be seen in portraits of our elder statesmen. Other- 
 w^ise his toilette was that of any well-dressed man to- 
 day, in a quiet taste; nevertheless he looked like 
 Hamlet, he looked like Eomeo! 
 
 Eleanor saw all this — she could not help seeing, 
 nobody could have helped seeing — in the moment 
 that she faced him, ransacking her memory, unable 
 to name him, and a little embarrassed, though nowa- 
 days many people whom she did not recognise knew 
 and spoke to her; but surely a presence so striking, 
 so full of significance and force as this, she ought to 
 be able to place, she thought with mortification, and 
 coloured under his unwavering gaze, and stammered 
 some sort of greeting. " I was just wondering how 
 to get through this pond without wading," she said 
 inanely. 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 200 
 
 "Permit me!'' said the stranger. For a startled 
 instant, Eleanor thought that he was going to take 
 off his coat and spread it down for her to tread on — 
 another Releigh! It would not have been at all out 
 of keeping with his unconsciously picturesque figure 
 and movements. But he merely offered his hand with 
 a sober courtesy; and, thus upheld, a hop, stop and 
 jump landed her, dry-footed and laughing, on the side- 
 walk. 
 
 " Thank you so much ! '' 
 
 Their eyes met, and Eleanor coloured again. The 
 young man gave her another long, unfathomable look, 
 and bowed and walked off ; and presently afterwards, 
 Eleanor from her window, saw him entering with his 
 own latch-key, apparently, the house across the street. 
 
 " Why, that is who he is I The son, the Devitt ! " 
 she exclaimed inwardly. " He knew me ! '' She w^ent 
 and looked at herself in the glass. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ALL this while, as Eleanor wrote her uncle, her 
 acquaintance on Poplar Street and in the 
 . neighbourhood had been widening from daj 
 to day — she hoped her capacity for being useful or 
 for exerting some sort of good influence had kept 
 pace. It was uphill work, though; much more up- 
 hill, she naively confessed, than she had expected ; she 
 had been struck, time and again, Avith the singular 
 instability of these people; you could never be sure of 
 having definitely accomplished anything with them! 
 '' Not that I try to ' Christianise ' any of them," she 
 told him. " Fancy me leading ' Junk ' (for instance) 
 into the Episcopal Church fold ! I'm not good enough 
 myself, and I don't know enough. Besides, I am in- 
 clined to follow the advice of one of the Salvation 
 Army women I keep meeting wherever I go : ^ Saj, 
 girlie, don't you ever say I told you, but you want to 
 cut out the come-to-Jesus-dear-sister stuff, and get 'em 
 to scrub the floor and cook up some kind of decent eats 
 for the man and the kids. If they would, it would 
 help to stop the drunkenness and truancy quicker'n all 
 the Gospel you can preach from now till Christmas I ' 
 There are moments, however, when neither method 
 seems to me conspicuously successful. These More- 
 head people where I live are, I am afraid, too settled 
 in their habits ever to learn anything different — 
 except perhaps Homer. Mrs. Tom Morehead some- 
 times shows a flash of energy ; she seems really fond 
 
 300 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 301 
 
 of her baby, worrying over it fiercely like a cat ; and, 
 also like a cat, without being capable of learning any- 
 thing beyond the merest elementary principles about 
 taking care of it. Her husband is hopeless, another 
 edition of Morehead pcre^ not vicious or brutal, just 
 a weak, dull creature. He used to work for Mr. Lor- 
 ing once as an ice-puller — don't you remember? — 
 but lost that job long ago as he always has every job, 
 through drink or sheer laziness. This spring when 
 he got out of work, I went to Mr. Loring and got him 
 to take Tom back for another try ; and he has actually 
 stayed there and kept straight since then, owing to 
 constant vigilance and ' going after ' on my part. I 
 haven't any illusions about the reform being perma- 
 nent It seems as if you couldn't put character and 
 morals into people like that ; you yourself have to be 
 character and morals for them. . . . We have a celeb- 
 rity ^in our midst,' Mr. T. C. De^itt, the labour 
 leader; his family live across the street, and of course 
 everybody around here knows him. They all talk a 
 good deal about ' Tim ' or ' Chaunce,' some of them 
 rather slightingly, by the way of ' showing off ' how 
 familiar they are with him, I suspect; as usual, he is 
 not unanimously honoured in his own land. He looks 
 very earnest and interesting, an out-of-the-ordinary 
 type; I should like to meet him and hear him talk 
 about those things that we all ought to know more 
 about — I mean unions and wages and employers and 
 employed, and the unemployed, too, poor things. 
 They say he speaks very powerfully and convincingly 
 — on the workingman's side, of course ; he comes from 
 that class — makes no bones about saying so — and 
 that must help him to understand their point of view, 
 and to study industrial conditions much more closely 
 
302 THE RUDDER 
 
 and sjmpatheticallj than any * rank outsider ' like 
 me, for instance. I want so to help and I am so hor- 
 ribly hampered merely by being who I am. But the 
 more I see of this pathetic ignorance and suffering 
 and the hideous inequality and unfairness of circum- 
 stances, the more I feel that something ought to be 
 done. . . .'' 
 
 Cook smiled and shook his head over that last 
 sentence. ^^ ^ Something ought to be done!' That's 
 characteristic of all these warm-hearted humanitar- 
 ians. Nellie finds out suddenly that everything is not 
 apparently all for the best in this best of all possible 
 worlds, and immediately she begins that age-old, 
 touching, impotent outcry that something ought to be 
 done. What ^ something ' could be done that would 
 transform Tom Morehead into an upright, industrious 
 citizen? Eleanor knows too much to expect any such 
 miracle; but she doesn't realise that for all this 
 suffering and inequality that distress her so to be abol- 
 ished at a blow by ^ somebody ' doing ^ something ' 
 would be just as miraculous. She doesn't realise that 
 she herself and her fellow-workers are already doing 
 the most practical ^ something ' that can be done. 
 And Devitt! Why, I remember that young fellow; 
 I remember thinking he gave promise," said Mr. Cook, 
 somewhat complacently. " It will be interesting to 
 hear what Nellie gets out of him." But oddly enough, 
 aside from a passing notice that they had met, in all 
 her letters, Eleanor did not mention the labour leader 
 again. 
 
 As it happened their formal meeting did not take 
 place very soon, notwithstanding the intimate nature 
 of Poplar Street society. From her window Eleanor 
 saw Mr. Devitt almost every day going down to his 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 303 
 
 office — it was the office of the Federation of Team- 
 sters, Liitie told her — like any other man, yet most 
 imlike all other men in the unaffected grace of his 
 bearing, crowned with a common soft hat and carry- 
 ing a cane or even a prosaic umbrella in a manner to 
 recall irresistibly the plumes and rapier of romance. 
 He had a habit — or presently developed it — of paus- 
 ing on the step and allowing his gaze to stray over 
 the facade of the house opposite in an absently specu- 
 lative style, lingering longest on the two windows — 
 with clean white curtains neatly parted and tied back, 
 and rows of geraniums flourishing vividly in trim little 
 pots aligTied on the sills — which belonged to the 
 lodger's room. Indeed, they differed sufficiently from 
 the other windows to arrest anybody's attention, even 
 a man's, as Eleanor reminded herself with a laugh; 
 nevertheless she drew back with cheeks suddenly hot 
 on meeting his eyes full one morning. '^ What made 
 me do that? How perfectly silly! '' she thought the 
 next second, annoyed at herself; and went boldly to 
 the window again, and threw it open, and leaned out 
 over the flowers with her little watering-can in hand. 
 Mr. Devitt was still there; he took off his hat with his 
 unconsciously fine gesture, and Eleanor pleasantly 
 recos-nised the salute as she would have anybody's; 
 and there this unimportant incident ended. 
 
 However, it occurred again ; and now and then, as 
 was most natural, they came face to face on the street. 
 Once, Mr. Devitt was in company with a big, round- 
 shouldered, elderly man in well-worn clothing with a 
 soiled collar and tie beneath which one caught a 
 glimpse of a blue cotton shirt like a day-labourer's; 
 Eleanor did not recollect his rough, weather-beaten 
 face, but she divined him to be the father. And once 
 
304 THE KUDDER 
 
 tlie celebrity had for companion a totally different per- 
 son — different from himself and different from Devitt 
 the elder — heavy-set and flashy with a great deal of 
 cigar and watch-chain, and great hairy hands and a cer- 
 tain kind of glance which the young woman, who was by 
 no means slow of observation, had by this time learned 
 to interpret pretty accurately. Chauncey gave her 
 his customary long, slow look about which, in distinc- 
 tion to Mr. John Dalton's, there was not the least of- 
 fence, but Eleanor hurried past this time with the 
 scantest acknowledgment. Inwardly she recoiled 
 from the sight of him in such an association, until 
 with a certain relief it occurred to her that after all 
 a man in his position must know and suffer every- 
 body, good, bad, indifferent; it was unavoidable in 
 the work of reform and regeneration to which he had 
 dedicated himself. On another occasion Mr. Devitt 
 was carefully convoying his mother along; she saw 
 him speak to the little old woman who thereupon ad- 
 dressed to her a nervous smile and a bob of the head 
 and whole body which was almost a curtsey. Eleanor 
 had an impulse to stop and speak, but some stronger 
 feeling, she did not know what, withheld her. Simul- 
 taneously she began to think that this was becoming 
 ridiculous — this solemn mute bowing and eyeing of 
 each other at successive encounters ! They could not 
 keep that up forever, yet they must inevitably keep 
 on meeting. In common civility, in common sense, 
 one or other of them ought to break the ice, make 
 some advance, it need not be farther than a remark 
 about the weather ; but somehow she could not make 
 up her mind to it, and neither, apparently, could Mr. 
 Devitt. 
 
 In the meanwhile, as she told her uncle, she heard 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 305 
 
 talk enoii<2:li about the hero, and to spare. Liitie filled 
 her ears with confidences, to Eleanor's growing irrita- 
 tion. The girl's eternal *^ I says '' and " he says,'' 
 her open infatuation seemed somehow to vulgarise 
 him, though Eleanor privately refused to believe a 
 word of the stuff. It was impossible, in her judg- 
 ment, for such a man either to have ever been in love 
 with such a girl as Lutie or to have kept up the 
 shabby flirtation all these years. She thought it not 
 unlikely that a good many other women had run after 
 him, having witnessed performances of that nature 
 even among women of her own class who, if they had 
 no more sense than Lutie, were at least supposed to 
 have been trained to a better control of their instincts. 
 All sisters under the skin I And men being likewise 
 all brothers, Mr. Devitt could not be blamed if h^ had 
 met some of them half-way; he was only human and 
 masculine. So Eleanor decided with the ^\isdom of 
 her sex. But in Lutie's case, it must have been all on 
 the girl's side, she concluded in impatient pity. It 
 was true that Mrs. Tom Morehead, gossiping about 
 him in a strain of exaggerated intimacy, declared that 
 Chaunce Devitt had at one time " acted like he was 
 dead stuck on Lute," but she guessed he VI got over it, 
 or never meant anything — any good — he took such 
 good care to keep out of her road now, and it was 
 sickening to see how she went on about him — and 
 so forth and so on, all of which Eleanor took with a 
 whole handful of salt, let alone a gi-ain! Lutie and 
 Mrs. Tom were at daggers drawn just then. Young 
 Homer expressed a contrary opinion. 
 
 " Aw, he wasn't ever stuck on Lutie, nor any other 
 girl. He's stuck on himself, that's who he's stuck 
 on ! " said Homer coldlv. 
 
306 THE RUDDER 
 
 ^^ You don't like Mr. Devitt?" Eleanor said. 
 
 Homer eyed her. "Well — now — he ain't ever 
 done nothing to me/' he rejoined, diplomatically evad- 
 ing the main point; much experience had showed 
 Homer the wisdom of the middle-of-the-road course. 
 Still, his attitude was not explicitly approving; nor, 
 to the discerning eye, was that of Mr. Kendrick, 
 though he too maintained a strict regard for neutral- 
 
 ity. 
 
 "Devitt? Oh, you mean T. Chauncey? Is he at 
 home? Yes, that's so, I remember now, he's adver- 
 tised to make an address at Jack Dalton's picnic. 
 The authorities must be breathing a good deal easier 
 since they heard what he was here for," was Mr. Ken- 
 drick's somewhat obscure conclusion. 
 
 " The authoritiesf Why? " 
 
 " Well, you know, Dal ton is generally supposed to 
 be one of the head men in stirring up these troubles 
 between the union workmen and the contractors or 
 the big concerns that employ them, only his name 
 doesn't often appear. He always gets somebody like 
 Devitt to do the heavy talking ; T. Chauncey's a spell- 
 binder, you know — silver-tongued orator," said Mr. 
 Kendrick with an impartial air. " So wherever Devitt 
 goes in connection with Dalton, it's like a storm signal. 
 But if he's just here to speak at this Thirteenth Ward 
 rally, it looks as if they didn't mean to start anything 
 this time." 
 
 " You don't care anything about things like that. 
 You're not interested in labour questions," said 
 Eleanor. Mr. Kendrick glanced at her ardent, ac- 
 cusing face, and said no, he didn't believe he was; 
 he'd always been pretty busy. 
 
 Eleanor meant to go to the rally, in the spirit of ad- 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 307 
 
 venture, she told herself, and also, as she would have 
 freely admitted, because she wanted to hear Mr. De- 
 vitt; she wanted to be informed, to broaden her out- 
 look, at the same time that she was trying to get 
 nearer to these people. This last result was being 
 rapidly accomplished; not only had Poplar Street 
 taken her into its confidence, but her acquaintance ex- 
 tended farther, even to the very confines of the Ward, 
 as she discovered one day, on being halted and warmly 
 addressed as she was passing Schlochtermaier's by 
 some one issuing therefrom with a brown paper par- 
 cel smelling of fish. 
 
 '' Mrs. Loring ! Well, my goodness I " exclaimed 
 the stranger, figuratively — in fact, all but literally 
 — nailing her in front of the decorated hams, the 
 dishpans full of sauerkraut, and the naked poultry 
 with which Schlochtermaier tantalised the public 
 from his show-window. "I heard you was living- 
 down here. It's funny we ain't ever run into each 
 other before this, ain't it? Only I'm not over this 
 way so often — just to see Heinie once in a while." 
 She jerked her head (which was marvellously coiffed 
 with little tight, light yellow i3uffs and frizzes) side- 
 wise towards the butcher's shop. " Heinie Schloch- 
 termaier, I mean — of course I call him Heinie, as 
 long as he's my brother, you know. Oh, didn't you 
 know? Why, Mirey yes, Heinle's my brother! Well, 
 the idea, your not knowing that! Come to think of 
 it though, there wouldn't be any way for you to know, 
 except the name, and w^e might not be the only 
 Schlochtermaier family on top of the ground anyway. 
 But we're the only ones around here, I guess." 
 
 " Why no, I didn't know. Miss Hilda," said Eleanor, 
 devoutly thankful that the other had identified her- 
 
308 THE RUDDER 
 
 self. Now, though she had visited Mr. Loring's Elm- 
 wood factory only two or three times, she recognised 
 the bookkeeper with her flaxen fuzz, her spectacles, 
 her little, clean, dried-out face and figure. " I didn't 
 know Mr. Schlochtermaier had a sister.'' 
 
 " Oh my, yes ! I seen you didn't. You looked so 
 s'prised." 
 
 " Elmwood is a good way from here, and somehow 
 I never connected you with this part of the city." 
 
 " Sure, you wouldn't ! " agreed the other, beaming 
 on her admiringly. " You wouldn't be likely to hear 
 anybody talking about me much, and of course I hear 
 about you lots! Everybody talks about you — that 
 is — I — well, I don't mean — I mean I mean — uh 
 
 — er — " and here poor Miss Schlochtermaier babbled 
 off in red-faced confusion, ^^ mad enough to bite her 
 tongue out," so she afterwards stated, for having al- 
 lowed it to run into that awful, ambiguous speech. 
 
 " You don't tell me you've always lived here? Be- 
 fore I came? And all this time since? " said Eleanor 
 quickly in a humane anxiety to help her cover up the 
 blunder. " But not with your brother surely, or I 
 couldn't have helped knowing." 
 
 " No, I — he — well, when Heinie he got married 
 
 — but I wasn't at home for a good while before that 
 anyhow, on account of it being so far to get up every 
 morning and go way out to Elmwood — I'm over on 
 Fifteenth now," Miss Schlochtermaier stammered un- 
 intelligibly. But in another second or two she re- 
 covered, and was soon talking copiously as they 
 walked along together. " You see it's this way. 
 Heinie, he's always lived with Mother and she kep' 
 the house of course, so they kinda took care of each 
 other, so I knew they was all right, and I didn't mind 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 309 
 
 being off at Elmwood by myself. I useta get dowu 
 Sundays and afternoons sometimes, so I knew they 
 was all right, and Mother she didn't need me around 
 all the time, and Ileinie he's just as good as gold, if 
 he is my own brother, I don't care who hears me say 
 it! But, Mrs. Loring, you know how men are. Time 
 come when he wanted to get married, and that's all 
 right, too; a man he should get married while he's 
 young already," said Heinle's sister, relapsing momen- 
 tarily into the idiom of her youth, as she became en- 
 grossed in the narrative. ^' So he gets married, that's 
 about two years ago now, and he got a nice girl, too, 
 real settled and nothing flighty nor stylish about her. 
 But, Mrs. Loring, you know how it is. It ain't the 
 same for Mother, and she's getting old now — it ain't 
 the same like having your own house, when your son 
 gets married for himself, not but what Katie ain't 
 nice to her, but you're always an extra person around 
 — you know how it is? " 
 
 Eleanor nodded. 
 
 " Yes, that's just it ! " said the other. " Without 
 no hard feelings either, because everybody irants to 
 act right. But I seen how it was after a little bit, so 
 I fixed it up for Mother to come and us live together, 
 just her and me our own selves, you know. ' What's 
 a daughter for, if she don't get to live with her mother 
 once?' I says to 'em. ^ Looks like there ain't any 
 Mr. Man coming along to take care of me,' I says, ^ so 
 I guess it's up to Mother ! ' I just joked along like 
 that to keep Heinie and Katie from their feelings hurt, 
 you know, and so's Mother wouldn't get to worrying 
 over she was a care to anybody — you know how that 
 is. So that was when I quit Mr. Loring.'' 
 
 " Oh, you're not there any more? " 
 
310 THE EUDDER 
 
 " My goodness, no ! Not for two years — didn't 
 you know? Well, that's how it was. I didn't get 
 fired either — you needn't to think that for one min- 
 ute ! I ain't the kind to get fired off of no job," said 
 Miss Schlochtermaier, bristling a little. " I been 
 with Loring's twelve years, and I'd 'a' been there right 
 now, hadn't been for this thing. Mother she couldn't 
 go way out there to Elm wood to live, off from her 
 church and everybody she knows, and I couldn't stay 
 in town and w^ork out there — I couldn't have stood 
 that, and there'd have been the car-fare, too. So w^e 
 got us a little flat on Fifteenth and moved in. Mr. 
 Loring w^as awfully nice about me leaving. He'd 
 have changed me into one of the other offices, only 
 there ain't any of 'em any nearer than Elmwood 
 scarcely, so there wouldn't have been any good. They 
 don't ever seem to have ice-factories right in town, you 
 know, they're always off outside somewhere. Yes, 
 we're good friends. He give me twenty-five dollars — 
 outside my regular money, you know — when I went 
 aw^ay, and says if I ever wanted help or a recommenda- 
 tion or anything to come to him. But I don't guess 
 I'll ever need to; when I get on a job, I sticl'/' said 
 the little old maiden proudly. " I went with Mr. De- 
 vitt week after I quit Loring's. I didn't have a speck 
 of trouble getting something to do." 
 
 "With Mr. Devitt?" said Eleanor, alert at once; 
 " that must be very interesting. I suppose you go to 
 the — the meetings — when he makes speeches? 
 What is he like?" 
 
 ''Eeyf uttered Miss Schlochtermaier, stopping 
 dead, staring, vacant of face. '^ Speeches? '' she 
 echoed. ''Oh!'' She looked relieved. ''You're 
 thinking about Timmie — Chauncey. Law I I didn't 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 311 
 
 mean Jtun! I meant Mr. Devitt — the old man — 
 Mike, jou know — the Shamrock Construction Com- 
 pany, jou know. They do roads and paving contracts 
 and those kind of things, don't jou know? The of- 
 fice is in the Kremlin Building. Thafs where I am. 
 My I " She set forward again. " ' Speeches I ' I 
 couldn't think what you meant I Simply couldn't 
 think what you meant. Looked like one of us was 
 going crazy! Mr. Devitt would about as soon jump 
 off the Suspension Bridge as make a speech. That's 
 his son you're thinking about." 
 
 Eleanor coloured a little, oddlv discomfited to re- 
 alise that she had forgotten there was such a person 
 in existence as the elder Devitt. Yet after all, was 
 not the younger the only real person in the family? 
 ^' I thought perhaps you were Mr. Chauncey Devitt's 
 secretary — er — stenographer, you know." 
 
 ^^ Oh my, no I I don't believe he'd have much use 
 for a stenographer. He hasn't got any office even," 
 Miss Schlochtermaier said with a laugh. " The 
 Teamsters' What-you-may-call-'ems have their head- 
 quarters in our building, two-three floors over us. 
 But it ain't an office. It's just where they meet. 
 Dalton runs 'em, you know — I giiess you've heard 
 about Mm — and Chauncey's in with him, so that's 
 what must have give you the idea that it was his 
 office. But there ain't any work going on regular — 
 what I'd call work, that is. They have a girl about 
 three mornings in the week to write letters or send out 
 notices, I guess ; but I wouldn't take no little bit of a 
 jyb like that. I wouldn't work for Dalton anyhow, 
 not if he gave me the whole shebang,'' she added 
 gratuitously. 
 
 The speech and tone revealed a sentiment regarding 
 
312 THE RUDDER 
 
 Mr. Dalton common to all the respectable people Elea- 
 nor had met; unanimously they coupled it with an 
 inexplicable toleration. And Chauncey Devitt was 
 even " in with him " — distasteful news ! But he had 
 an excuse, which she promptly remembered, and elab- 
 orated. 
 
 '^ There must be somebody like that Mr. Dalton to 
 handle the men — that's what you mean when you 
 say he runs them, isn't it?" she said. "I suppose 
 they're a very rough lot, and he's the only kind of man 
 that can do much with them." 
 
 " Maybe so — can't prove it by me. I don't want 
 to know anything more about 'em than I do already. 
 Enough's a plenty," returned the other, assuming a 
 kind of acid indifference. Her manner changed as 
 she added in a moment, halting : '' This here's where 
 we live at, Mrs. Loring. You gotta go to the side en- 
 tance behind the grocery, but the rooms is real nice 
 w^hen you get upstairs — running water and gas and 
 everything. I — I'd like ever so much for you to 
 come in and see Mother some time — right now, if 
 you would?'' she said shyly. " Mother'd be tickled 
 to death, and I'll let her fix up some coffee and cakes 
 — that's real Dutch, you know, like they do in the 
 old country — I've heard her talk about it — when 
 they got callers. She'd love it." 
 
 " So would I ! " said Eleanor cordially ; seldom in- 
 deed did she come upon people and homes such as 
 these — it was an oasis in the desert, she thought, 
 touched and amused, the shadow of a great rock in a 
 weary land ! The tiny rooms were as tidy and smil- 
 ing as she had expected with a stand of green plants, 
 a canary in a shining cage; the clean old German 
 woman came and welcomed her delightedly; and di- 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 313 
 
 rectly the kettle was on the stove — the speckless, 
 polished stove I — and hosi^itable odours spread 
 abroad. 
 
 '^ I always let her do it, if she can," Miss Schloch- 
 termaier whispered with a confidential wink as her 
 mother moved to and fro ecstatically busy. " I like 
 her to think she can do things. It makes her hap- 
 pier. And there ain't so much in it for old people, 
 Mrs. Loring. You know how that is. Just livinfj 
 ain't any fun. It's kinda pitiful how easy I can fool 
 her. I get up every morning before she's awake and 
 get breakfast going and do up the house, and maybe 
 iron out a shirtwaist or some kind of work like that 
 before I go down to the office — I do my marketing on 
 the way. And same way get dinner when I come 
 home evenings. Sundays I got plenty of time to do 
 all my mending and clean around and bake a cake or 
 something — it gives you such a kinda nice home-y 
 feeling, ain't it? I guess you think I ain't very re- 
 ligious, but Mother she goes to church for both of us. 
 And you know all the time she never once gets on'^ 
 I jolly her along and tell her she's doing the house- 
 keeping, and she thinks she's the whole works I " 
 
 " I think you work pretty hard," Eleanor said. 
 
 " Oh my, no I Mr. Devitt's just as easy as easy ! 
 And there ain't so much for the office-girl to do in his 
 kind of business anyhow. I don't ever get there till 
 seven in the morning and sometimes I'm out by five. 
 I never was in a place where I had it so easy," de- 
 clared Miss Schlochtermaier vigorously, quite mistak- 
 ing the other's meaning. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 TCHAUNCEY DEVITT, the labour "agi- 
 tator," was, in fact, on that day when he 
 fell in with Mrs. Amzi Loring, just re- 
 turning home from one of his many errands of agi- 
 tating — this time the United Culvert and Bridge 
 Workers in a neighbouring State, whom he had stirred 
 up to demand their rights as regarded more pay and 
 shorter hours, in several outbursts of most impas- 
 sioned and resounding oratory. The result was a sig- 
 nal victory for organised labour; the culvert and 
 bridge workers struck as one man; the construction 
 companies planted guards and imported outside help ; 
 the strikers, on their part, brought in arms, ammuni- 
 tion and dynamite which, in accordance doubtless 
 with their published declaration of a desire to keep 
 the peace, they prudently concealed in the cellar of 
 an abandoned warehouse, where it was presently dis- 
 covered and despotically confiscated by the police. 
 Fortunately for the cause, however, this did not hap- 
 pen until after the strike-breakers and their guards 
 had been successfully mobbed, one man killed and a 
 number severely injured; a private citizen who had 
 nothing whatever to do with bridges or culverts, be- 
 ing merely floorwalker in a department-store, was 
 shot through the groin and crippled for life; some 
 altruistic culvert and bridge workers blew up a par- 
 tially completed concrete viaduct, and set fire to the 
 construction company's buildings near by, but with- 
 
 314 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 315 
 
 out making a total wreck of either ; there was talk of 
 calling out the militia, a measure which, however, the 
 governor refused to take, his enemies basely insinuat- 
 ing that he was " after the labour vote " to re-elect 
 him ; and at the end of three weeks of disorder during 
 which each side pointed to the others activities as 
 " outrages ' ^ matters were adjusted by a compromise. 
 The men went back to work at an advance of three 
 and a half cents an hour instead of five, and the pub- 
 lic, which had been naturally the heaviest sufferer, 
 made ready to live happily ever after — or until the 
 next time ! 
 
 " Sure, three cents and a half more ain't much to 
 give them poor boys. They might as well have done 
 it first as last,'' Mrs. Devitt said warmly. ^' 'Twould 
 have spared a lot of trouble.'' 
 
 " Xo, it's not much. But it onlv took the last straw 
 to break the camel's back, ye know," said her husband 
 with a kind of heavy effort at jocularity. ^^ If they 
 stick me the same, ve'll have to go without vour new 
 gas-range this winter, Xorah. At least, I expect ye'd 
 rather do that than have them bouncing bricks off my 
 head, or than to see me brung home on a shutter, 
 forbye." 
 
 ^^Mike! Ye don't say — ! But your men would 
 never strike on ye, though I " cried out Mrs. Devitt. 
 "Annyways they wouldn't do tJiatI Mishandle ye 
 that have been so kind to um I " 
 
 " Wouldn't they? Ye don't know what men'll do. 
 Ko man knows w^hat his own brother'll do," said 
 Michael gloomily. He pushed away the dishes in 
 front of him which indeed he had scarcely tasted, and 
 began to stuff the tobacco into his short pipe with a 
 hand that was not so firm as it had once been. The 
 
316 THE RUDDER 
 
 neighbours were right ; Mike Devitt was not a young 
 man any more; his face sagged in tired lines; his 
 little blue eyes had lost their fearless and cheerful 
 outlook ; they seemed to be forever on the watch, still 
 steady, still open, but misted by an eternal anxiety. 
 Norah looked at him in uneasiness that was half vexa- 
 tion ; what ailed the man? He was having another of 
 his despondent spells was her conclusion, and now he 
 w^ould sit around the house mum and glum for days, 
 going out and coming in without a word even to her, 
 except in gruff denial that anything was the matter 
 with him. After a while he would get over it, and act 
 more like his old, even-tempered self, joking and teas- 
 ing her; but these black moods were growing on him 
 — there was no getting around it, they were growing 
 on him! The wife wondered with a dart of terror 
 whether he had been threatened, it might even be at- 
 tacked by some worker in his " gangs '' ; he would not 
 have told her; he never told her anything. She had 
 an instant vision of a cluster of hulking desperadoes 
 lying in wait at some dark corner, with stones, pick- 
 axes, revolvers — of Mike's senseless and broken body 
 huddled in the gutter, thrust down a sewer! Was 
 that what was on his mind? 
 
 "Mother o' God, Mike — !" she began, quavering; 
 then a saner second thought reassured her. " But 
 Timmie wouldn't let ye be hurt," she said gladly.' 
 " Nor John Dalton. The men would mind tJiem. 
 'Tis safe and sound ye are, and no need to be afraid 
 of annybody, even if they'd want to do you that mean.'^ 
 
 "Afraid, is it? Me afraid? What kind of dam 
 fool talk is that? " shouted Mike, turning a face of 
 sudden fury towards her; he struck his fist on the 
 table with another oath, and broke a saucer, the 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 317 
 
 pieces flying hither and yon. The unaccustomed do- 
 mestic clatter, and his wife's appalled eyes calmed him 
 like a spell. ^' There now, look what I done I If 
 that wasn't the clumsy trick!" he ejaculated with 
 another unconvincing attempt at lightness. " Tst, 
 tst ! Ain't that too bad, the saucer's broke entirely ! 
 Never mind, Norah, go get yourself another — get the 
 whole dozen, if ye can't find the mate to this one. 
 Never mind — I — I was just in fun, ye know. I 
 didn't mean to be rough." 
 
 ^' Ye never swore at me before/' said poor Norah 
 in tears. "What's come over ye to call that fun? 
 Ye scared me." 
 
 " Sure, I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it, Norah 
 darlint ! I'm that sorry and ashamed ! But ye know 
 I'm always flaring out that way, when I get my Irish 
 up, as folks do be saying," her husband said with 
 caresses. But he left her only half comforted. For 
 it was not true that he was given to outbursts of an- 
 ger ; never before in their life together had he shown 
 such want of self-control, and the knowledge lay 
 heavy on Norah's heart. 
 
 Not for any length of time, though; her own 
 " Irish " was far too mercurial a quality to leave her 
 long in the depths — or on the heights either, for that 
 matter. And now Timmie — that is, Chauncey — 
 was at home, and it would never do to shadow his all- 
 too-short stay with her worry over his father's wor- 
 ries. To be sure Tim might not notice ; it was scant 
 time he had for her, the mother thought with a sigh 
 which she instantly stifled, as if her longing were 
 somehow treasonable. Nowadays Norah's worship of 
 and pride in her son were not without a touch of fear ; 
 there were times when he seemed so lofty, so distant ; 
 
318 THE RUDDER 
 
 he so plainly belonged to a world dazzlinglj greater 
 than hers, greater even than his father's. He was 
 always very kind and gracious to her, let her wait on 
 him to her heart's content, and when she spoke, lis- 
 tened with patience; but when he spoke himself, it 
 w^as of things she could not understand, of people as 
 aloof as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whom Norah 
 had once seen riding grandly in a carriage with his 
 lady by his side. When Tim was a little fellow, she 
 used to make up a story for him out of that magnifi- 
 cent episode ; she would not venture on such idle talk 
 now. Tim was hand in glove with potentates so much 
 higher up that he wouldn't give a snap of his finger 
 for all the Lord Lieutenants in Christendom. Truly 
 she had made a gentleman of him with a vengeance; 
 it frightened his mother as much as it pleased her. 
 
 Chauncey, for his part, took the credit of the 
 achievement wholly to himself. It was at about this 
 time that, in his public utterances — including inter- 
 views with reporters — he introduced those veiled and 
 casual references to the difficulties, disadvantages and 
 bitter trials of a self-made man's career which display, 
 as has been pointed out, a knowledge only to be gained 
 by experience. The revelation strengthened his cor- 
 dial understanding with what he was wont to call on 
 the platform — with a fine originality — the Forces 
 of Labour; though his struggles had brought him out 
 from their ranks, he was still with them, still of them ; 
 with the enslaved against the enslavers ; with the chat- 
 tels against the owners; with the bossed against the 
 bosses! He had declared and defined his position a 
 hundred times in these ringing periods. True, 
 Chauncey's own father was one of the above enslavers, 
 owners, bosses ; true, Chauncey spent Michael Devitt's 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 310 
 
 money freely, and had never done a stroke of work 
 to help earn it; but these facts were not generally 
 known, and the young man himself was not aware of 
 any inconsistency of attitude ; he found it no trouble 
 to run with tlie hare and hunt with the hounds, al- 
 though that curious athletic feat might embarrass 
 some persons. 
 
 It is to be remarked that at twenty-seven or -eight 
 years of age, Mr. Chauncey was a good deal more 
 sophisticated than when we first beheld him deliver- 
 ing the valedictory at Cambridge College, and assum- 
 ing a limp with the idea of making his presence more 
 impressive. That boyish absurdity would be unthink- 
 able to him now; and besides, if he needed anything 
 of the sort, Chauncey probably knew a trick worth 
 two of that. Maybe he had learned by observation, 
 maybe Jack Dalton, that man of many councils, had 
 taught him. But the truth is that Chauncey's en- 
 dowment of voice and manner and appearance was 
 such as to render him independent of tricks; audi- 
 ences pronounced him " magnetic,'' sat rapt, and were 
 ready to be carried off their feet, before he uttered a 
 word. Already he had a vast acquaintance, a vast 
 following of admirers. He knew all the heads of all 
 the Labour organisations in the country, incidentally 
 to his profession, of course ; but he knew many heads 
 of other organisations, too, presidents of railroads, 
 owners of mines and manufacturing enterprises, no- 
 torious '' exploiters of Labour ■ ' ; he had sat at table 
 with bought henchmen of the Trusts — that is to say, 
 w^ith Supreme Court judges and corporation lawyers ; 
 he had shaken hands with a candidate for the Presi- 
 dency of the United States, had spoken from a Cha- 
 tauquan rostrum alongside an ex-candidate. No won- 
 
320 THE RUDDER 
 
 der his mother approached him, metaphorically on 
 bended knees, no wonder his father sat silent in his 
 presence, eyeing him almost as if he were a stranger ; 
 on the contrary, the wonder was, as Norah told her 
 Michael in proud and tender awe, that Chauncey 
 should come back to their little home, their little waj^s 
 at all. 
 
 ^' And sure ye might act more proud over him. 
 'T wouldn't spoil the boy if ye was to let him know 
 that his father thinks well of him,'' she said with re- 
 proach. 
 
 " Go on, Norah, woman, I can't praise him to his 
 face. I'd feel a fool ! " said Mike good-humouredly. 
 ^* It's not a man's way with his son." 
 
 " Well, ye're able enough when it comes to telling 
 your hands that they done a good job on the cement 
 walk or the street-crossing or whatever," cried out his 
 wife. " Ye've plenty of good words for them, and not 
 one for your own boy ! I suppose it would have been 
 different if ye'd had him with you in the business. 
 Then ye might have praised him up once in a while."* 
 
 " It ivould have been different, Norah," her hus- 
 band assented with a slight sigh. " Timmie would 
 have known me and the work better, for one thing. 
 As it is he don't know the first thing about either. 
 It's grand to see him where he is, so thick with the 
 great folks, with his fine education as good as any of 
 'em, and the papers coming out with their : ^ T. 
 Chauncey Devitt was seen at his hotel and states,' 
 or : ^ Devitt denies ' so-and-so, and all the rest of it. 
 Only — There's things I don't like about it. I some- 
 times wish — Sure, it's a queer sort of muddled 
 world we've got to live in ! " he ended philosophically, 
 and cheerfully enough, as Norah was relieved to note. 
 
% 
 
 BREAD AND CIRCUSES 321 
 
 Before this last home-coming Chauncey had indeed 
 exhibited signs of distaste for Poplar Street, even 
 suggesting an apartment in one of the hill-top build- 
 ings, with talk of a servant and boarding at the cafe, 
 which caused his mother much frightened and un- 
 happy speculation. "What would I be doing with 
 a hired girl? I couldn't sit vdth my hands folded 
 and watch her work; she'd drive me wild inside a 
 week. A kaffay, is it? Sure, I wouldn't want to eat 
 with a lot of people watching me! And, dearie, 
 'twould take a mint of money, more than we've any 
 business to spend," she argued timidly. During his 
 absence she fortified herself with fresh objections ; but 
 lo and behold, '^ Dearie " appeared to have forgotten 
 all about his surburban apartment-house aspirations I 
 He looked annoyed when Norah at length tremulously 
 reopened the subject, remarked that he was perfectly 
 comfortable in their present home, pointed out that 
 she would dislike the idleness and want of privacy 
 consequent on such a change, and wound up with a 
 severe lecture on the high cost of living ! Never was 
 there a more complete f ace-abotit ; but his mother was 
 too overjoyed to remind him of his former attitude. 
 
 Poor Norah Devitt would scarcely have rested so 
 easy if she could have known that her son, for all this 
 display of prudence, was not thinking of her or his 
 father or their petty affairs, but of a pair of bril- 
 liant eyes, a head of rich black hair, a tall and lithe 
 figure enticingly curved and tapered, a fine, slender 
 hand just touching his. He was thinking and dream- 
 ing of young Mrs. Amzi Loring, in short, and while 
 she remained across the street, oxen and wain-ropes 
 couldn't have dragged T. Chauncey away. In the 
 half-dozen years since he had seen her, Mr. Devitt 
 
322 THE KUDDER 
 
 had not " guarded her image in his heart," as he fer- 
 vently told himself — not quite! One may suppose 
 that the gentleman had had some amorous experi- 
 ences; but those were all forgotten now. He had, it 
 must be admitted, a pretty good gift at forgetting. 
 Also let us admit that he did not lack taste; he was 
 right when he swore inwardly that he had never met 
 any woman to compare with her. Her status as a 
 wife living apart from her husband, which seemed to 
 his mother questionable, not to say scandalous, was 
 an added attraction in Chauncey's eyes; but in spite 
 of it, in spite of the fact that the house wherein the 
 goddess lived, the very windows of her bedroom faced 
 his own not fifty feet away, in spite even of knowing 
 that she knew him, in spite of passing her on the 
 street every day, he did not dare to speak to her after 
 that first time. Her glance set his blood on fire 
 though he could read in it at most only a grave in- 
 terest ; that was what baffled him, put him off, tied his 
 tongue. Yet for her to show that much was some- 
 thing ; maybe — roseate fancy ! — maybe she would 
 not allow those beautiful eyes to express more! In 
 her Yere de Yere caste — which Chauncey knew as 
 the " smart set " — he suspected that women made a 
 point of not wearing any organ so intimate as their 
 hearts on their sleeves. True, he was familiar with 
 the manners of the '' smart set " only as depicted on 
 the stage and in novels; but there was romance in 
 that position too. A man's a man for a' that — par- 
 ticularly a self-made man. He rehearsed a hundred 
 scenes in which alternately she scorned him and he 
 scorned her, both of them meanwhile suffering the 
 deadliest pangs of unrequited passion ; not to mention 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 323 
 
 a hundred other scenes wherein — dreadful to hint ! 
 — quite the reverse took place. 
 
 Etcetera, etcetera ! He said to himself that he was 
 desperately in love; and perhaps he was. His be- 
 haviour differed nowise from that of any other young 
 man under the same influence, except that Chauncey 
 did not go mooning about, neglecting his work. He 
 had no work to neglect! He saw^ Mr. Dalton every 
 day but at the moment that gentleman required noth- 
 ing of him. The association with Dalton may have 
 lost some of its savour for him by this date; once, 
 that time when, walking together, they passed Elea- 
 nor, Chauncey for all his accelerated pulses, felt that 
 he would as lief have not seen her, have gone himself 
 unseen. His patron's eye followed her with an ex- 
 pression for which the young man could joyfully have 
 throttled him. 
 
 "Some filly that!" was Mr. Dalton's comment. 
 "Who is she,' Tim?" 
 
 Chauncey told him frigidly. 
 
 " Mrs. Loring? Why, she ain't such a filly after 
 all ! " said Dalton, still elegantly figurative. " I re- 
 member her now. She's Butch Loring's wife — di- 
 vorced wife, that is." 
 
 " They aren't divorced. They separated, that's all. 
 She couldn't live with that fellow." 
 
 Dalton glanced at him. "Just separated? Don't 
 he pay her anything? " 
 
 " No ! " said Chauncey fiercely. He really knew 
 nothing about it, but much preferred to think of Elea- 
 nor as un-alimonied. 
 
 " Well, if he's the kind of man she can't live with, 
 I don't see why she don't get a divorce and stick him 
 
324 THE RUDDER 
 
 for so much a month," said Mr. Dalton, who was noth- 
 ing if not practical. '' Butch can afford it. He's 
 taking down five or six thousand with the Black Sox.'' 
 Dalton glanced at his companion again, and pro- 
 ceeded casually : " I guess he's worth all of that, 
 too. He's a good ball-player. I never saw a man 
 as big as he is handle himself so well — quick as 
 lightning ! " 
 
 '^ I know all about him. I went to college with 
 him," said Chauncey, dissembling his rage as he im- 
 agined successfully. He had not thought of being 
 jealous before, but now the idea of Amzi Two as 
 Eleanor's husband devastated him. " He hasn't any 
 mentality ! Never did have any ! " 
 
 Dalton put out a hand and solicitously tickled his 
 proteges jaw. "Mentality — ouclil '^ he remarked 
 facetiously. " Let's see ! I guess you mean horse- 
 sense. Maybe not, but Butch's a whaling good ball- 
 player just the same. Whatever little ' mentality ' 
 he's got he keeps it on the job ; and that helps a man a 
 lot." And here Mr. Dalton, reading the other's mind 
 with that easy penetration which so often seemed to 
 Chauncey little short of diabolical, gave another quick 
 look into his flushed face, winked, and observed: 
 " Never you mind, Tim, you can easy get the inside 
 track of him. / ain't going to try and cut you out, 
 anyhow. Fact is, I wouldn't have much chance with 
 her — I ain't her style," said Dalton with perfect good- 
 humour and another display of perspicacity. 
 
 It had, of course, occurred to Chauncey to pump 
 Lutie Morehead about the lady-roomer, what she did, 
 what she said, above all he desperately wanted to 
 know whether she ever mentioned Mm, asked any 
 questions about him? But there were obstacles; Lu- 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 325 
 
 tie herself was the main one ! She was forever " flag- 
 ging '' him ; if he said two words to her, the next thing 
 she'd be hanging round his neck, he thought disgust- 
 edly. Memories of sentimental scenes with her rose 
 up to mock and irritate him ; she would infallibly ex- 
 pect him to begin that all over again, and if he did 
 not, if instead he talked of Mrs. Loring — ! Chaun- 
 cey did actually know enough about Lutie's species 
 by this time, to envisage calamity. 
 
 No use, therefore, to look to Lutie; in the plain 
 words which Chauncey employed privately, he did not 
 want to be mixed up with Lutie any more than could 
 be helped. At this gloomy moment, chance did him 
 a good turn by putting young Homer in his way ; ordi- 
 narily he took no notice of Homer, but the latter hav- 
 ing undertaken for a compensation to fetch Mrs. De- 
 vitt a slice of ham from Schlochtermaier's, Chauncey, 
 waylaying him at the gate, could pass the time of 
 day without arousing suspicion. 
 
 " Ah, Homer ! " 
 
 " Ah, yourself ! " retorted Homer, ceasing to whis- 
 tle, eyeing him expectantly. 
 
 " Pretty busy boy, aren't you? " said Chauncey af- 
 fably. 
 
 " Why? You want anything done? '' 
 
 " No, oh, no ! '' said Chauncey, a little taken aback. 
 ^^ I — ah — er — everybody well at your house?'' 
 
 a Yep.'' 
 
 " I see you've got your front room rented.'' 
 
 " Yep." 
 
 He moved to pass, but Chauncey detained him, cast- 
 ing about frantically for an excuse. " Oh — ah — 
 any of you going to the rally? " 
 
 ^' Yep. / am. I got a job helping Ehrmann's with 
 
326 THE RUDDER 
 
 the ice-cream freezers — they're doing the catering, 
 you know/' said Homer ; " Lute's going too, I guess. 
 She said first she couldn't, but I guess she'll make it 
 somehow." 
 
 " Ah I " said Chauncey again, tepidly. " Hope it 
 wdll be a nice day." 
 
 " They'll have a big crowd an^^how," said Homer. 
 And now, when Chauncey had given up hope, the un- 
 expected happened ! " Mrs. Loring said she was go- 
 ing to go, if it poured dow^n rain. She wants to hear 
 you speak." 
 
 Chauncey's heart impossibly got up — turned 
 around — sat down again ! He began to laugh ner- 
 vously. " Mrs. Loring? " 
 
 ^^ Yep. She's around here like Miss Penry, you 
 know. She and Hilda Schlochtermaier are going to- 
 gether." 
 
 *^ Well, well ! " said Chauncey, from a dizzy eleva- 
 tion. Then he perceived that it had now become pos- 
 sible for him to ask naturally : " What's Mrs. Loring 
 like?" 
 
 " Say, you're about the forty-'leventh person — man, 
 I mean — that's ast me that ! " said Homer, slightly 
 bored. " Why, she ain't like anything. She's all 
 right. You can see her every day. She's the one 
 that's got our room, that dark-haired lady, I guess 
 you've seen her." 
 
 " Er — maybe I have. Is — is — is she — well, 
 what is she like? " 
 
 " I told you. She's all right. That is, if you don't 
 ast her too many questions," said Homer; and upon 
 some sudden recollection, he grinned. " Say, you 
 know she's married to this here Butch Loring, you 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 327 
 
 know who he is, the same one that's playing left field 
 for the Black Sox — ? " 
 
 ^^ Yes," said Chauncey impatiently. 
 
 " Well, you know she won't stay with him, she'd 
 ruther come down here and live and go out around 
 like Miss Penrv done, you know, and Ma and the rest 
 they think she's kinda nutty. But you take it from 
 me, she ain't I Ma hinted round and then come right 
 out and ast her what for she left Loring^ what he done 
 to her and all that, and what do you think Mrs. Loring 
 did? Just looked at Ma and kinda laughed. That's 
 all I Every tiling! ^^ recited Homer, chuckling. " Tell 
 you. Ma got hers that time I " 
 
 Chauncey listened in the seventh heaven, though, to 
 be sure, he was not particularly interested in the 
 tale of Mrs. Morehead's discomfiture. To bring the 
 conversation back to the main point, he said : " I 
 wonder why she's so anxious to hear me." 
 
 Homer responded frankly that Chauncey might 
 search him! 
 
 ^' She — she didn't say anything more about me?" 
 
 " Xope ! Xot 't I heard, anyhow I " Chauncey 
 tipped him recklessly and lavishly a half dollar for 
 running the ham errand, although the boy, who was 
 lionest, exclaimed. " Your mother paid me," said 
 Homer, astonished. " Well, all right, if you say so I " 
 
 The day of the rally arrived in due course, but 
 Chauncey scarcely knew how he got through the in- 
 terval. The address he was to give he later incor- 
 porated in that one entitled, " The Price of a Man," 
 which has become familiar to many audiences. It 
 contains that well-known passage : " To control in- 
 dustry, to tame it to the usages of racial growth, to 
 
328 THE RUDDER 
 
 make it subservient to the high needs of life's spiritual 
 and physical evolution — that is the age-long war into 
 which the last century has plunged the world. It is 
 the war of the human race against uncontrolled in- 
 dustry. It is the dim-sighted, gigantic struggle of 
 mankind against the domination of civilisation by 
 MACHINERY, a domination that puts women and chil- 
 dren into factories and breaks them there; that 
 makes of the workingman an unthinking shell; that 
 slowly, insidiously threatens the home idea; that is 
 shaking women's moral standards and glutting men's 
 SOULS with unearned wealth ! " 
 
 Contrary to what one might suppose, it was no 
 trouble at all for Chauncey to turn off paragraph 
 after paragraph of close reasoning and lucid exposi- 
 tion like the above ; he had the facility of genius. All 
 the while he was thus engaged, he was thinking — alas 
 for moral standards and the home idea ! — about his 
 neighbour's wife. In this weather she went forth 
 every day in plain skirts, plain blouses of a luminous 
 whiteness, which seemed magically to repel dust and 
 soot; the heat had no effect on her; always she was 
 like a fresh cut flower, cool, delicate and crisp yet with 
 textures of alluring suggestion. The morning of the 
 picnic dawned to the joy of the Thirteenth Ward, 
 clear, hot and dry as Death Valley; and Chauncey 
 saw his lady clad as described in white linen, pique or 
 what-not, mystic, wonderful, waiting on the front 
 steps for Hilda Schlochtermaier, who erelong arrived, 
 also in white, also crisp and clean but with a differ- 
 ence. No textures about Hilda; she was all edges like 
 a " saltine " cracker. They went off together ; the 
 street was already full of a cheerful mob heading for 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 329 
 
 the public landing. Mr. Devitt, as orator of the day, 
 did not mingle with these profane vulgar souls on 
 board the Queen City of the West; he would go out to 
 Lowerj's Beach by automobile. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE address was scheduled for half past three 
 in the afternoon, by which time it was ex- 
 pected that the " barbecue," the fat men's race 
 ( Prize : a box of cigars ) , the three-legged race ( Prize : 
 a pair apiece of Solomon & Kabakoff 's " Wearever 
 Pants " ) , the potato race ( For ladies. Prize : a solid 
 quadruple-plated silver hand-mirror), the tug-of-war, 
 and the ball-game between the Comers (average age 
 twenty-one) and the Goers (average age thirty-five), 
 would be over. The boat went back at five with those 
 who were already surfeited with the day's combined 
 physical and intellectual entertainment, or who had 
 to get supper and put the children to bed, or for any 
 other reason preferred to be at home ; it returned later 
 for the " dancing crowd." Thus all tastes were con- 
 sulted, and none were allowed to conflict; even the 
 orator must cram all his eloquence into a speech of 
 forty minutes' length — no more were he Demos- 
 thenes ! Chauncey was what his chief and benefactor, 
 Mr. Dalton, wittily termed " heeled " ; that is, he knew 
 the regulations and had timed himself accordingly. 
 He ascended the platform, bowed to the applause with 
 his striking and perfectly spontaneous beauty of move- 
 ment, and launched out, searching the audience mean- 
 while for Mrs. Loring. He had thought he could sin- 
 gle her in her white dress out of any number; but 
 Heavens and Earth, there were countless hundreds 
 of women in white dresses! A mania for white 
 
 330 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 331 
 
 dresses appeared to have overtaken the entire feminine 
 community. And so far from being tall, slender, 
 fresh, piquant, distinguished, was there ever before 
 such an assemblage of dowdy, dumpy, gawky, string- 
 haired, red-faced, perspiring — briskly he averted his 
 glance! He had caught Lutie's eye! 
 
 ". . . The army of toilers, unable to protect them- 
 selves as individuals, and denied the right to organise 
 under threat of discharge and blacklisting . . ." he 
 declaimed in his strong and thrilling voice, and con- 
 tinued the search. She would be, of course, with 
 Hilda Schlochtermaier, and Hilda was homely enough, 
 in all conscience, to stand out, even from this aggre- 
 gation, like a sunflower on a coal heajD. ..." mil- 
 lions in men and money handed over to some son as 
 a birthday gift — the destinies of thousands depend- 
 ent upon a STOCK-MARKET transaction! And yet- 
 there is wonder at industrial unrest — " There she 
 was ! 
 
 Chauncey halted inadvertently ; some admirers, in- 
 genuously supposing that it was the moment for ap- 
 plause, started off resoundingly, and this gave him 
 time to recover. She was sitting erect and tense, ab- 
 sorbed, listening, one might have said, with every 
 nerve of her; a wave of gratification swept over the 
 young man. He waited for the hand-clapping and 
 shouting to subside with a patient, deprecating smile, 
 his eyes fixed on hers; then began again, directly at 
 her. 
 
 " Ain't he the dandiest looldng fellow, though ! " 
 a girlish neighbour, quite unknown to Eleanor, sighed 
 in her ear, unable to restrain her enthusiasm. Elea- 
 nor drew away, scarcely heeding, but annoyed. She 
 wanted to be let alone, to concentrate every faculty 
 
332 THE RUDDER 
 
 on following the argument which, she said to herself 
 in humiliation at her own unwonted slowness, was 
 proving much more intricate than she had expected. 
 How ignorant and feeble had been all her conceptions 
 of the relations between Capital and Labour! She 
 now^ saw how complicated they were. She had indeed 
 suspected that things w^ere gravely wrong; but this 
 man knew! His voice moved her to the very core, it 
 was so earnest, so pleading. Of course he had to use 
 some rhetorical and melodramatic devices in speaking 
 to an audience such as this; disliking artifice, he yet 
 must suit the tool to the material, Eleanor sympathet- 
 ically divined. But he himself was sincerity and con- 
 viction embodied. His words that rang with brave 
 and righteous defiance held besides a tone of exalted 
 resignation, as if he felt himself to be a voice crying 
 in the wilderness, yet — because he had the vision ! — 
 he could find faith and hope to keep on, undeterred. 
 
 ". . . To control industry, to tame it to the usages 
 of racial growth, to make it subservient to the high 
 needs of life's spiritual and physical evolution — that 
 is the age-long war into which the last century has 
 plunged the world. It is the war of the human race 
 against uncontrolled industry . . ," 
 
 Here the orator was again interrupted by a burst 
 of approval, which, however, may not have been abso- 
 lutely unanimous, for, under cover of the noise a 
 man's voice behind Eleanor drawled : " ' Uncon- 
 trolled industry,' hey? Devitt ought to see our nig- 
 ger janitor once ! He's got liis industry under elegant 
 control ! " 
 
 Somebody else gave a short snort of laughter, and 
 — as the applause began to die down — shot back a 
 whisper : " Say, Jim, I've had 'bout 'nough. What 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 333 
 
 say we pass up tlie rest of it, 'n' less go out 'n' get a 
 drink?" Their chairs scraped. 
 
 Eleanor glowed with anger. Eyes have they and 
 see not I Ears and they hear not I But this was prob- 
 ably only a fragment expressive of the whole, a single 
 examxDle of the indifference, the dull humour with 
 which that strong and self-sacrificing spirit yonder 
 on the platform had always to contend. By what 
 irony of the gods was it decreed that she who did 
 not need to be persuaded was the most appreciative, 
 the most conscientious listener he had I Once or 
 twice it seemed to her as if he must have found her 
 out, by one of those strange intuitions which we have 
 all felt and followed; his eves certainlv sought hers. 
 
 ", . . And when the robbers, time and death 
 
 Across my path conspiring stand, 
 
 I cheat them with a clod, a breath, 
 
 And pass the swoed from hand to hand ! " 
 
 It was over; everybody was getting up, while she 
 still sat tranced, the noble voice vibrating through 
 her ; and Mr. Devitt still stood, with one hand resting 
 on the little table at the side of the stage, acknowl- 
 edging a parting salvo from the audience, and then 
 turning his gaze, most unequivocally this time, in her 
 direction. Oh, he had recognised her, that was it! 
 He bowed witli his usual deliberation. 
 
 Miss Schlochtermaier rose, too, shaking out her stiff 
 skirts. " Well, I guess that's all, Mrs. Loring. He 
 always ends up that way with a verse of portry. I 
 don't know w^hat the portry's got to do with it, but 
 I never heard him once that he didn't speak some right 
 at the end. That sword-and-hand verse, or else that 
 one about steering yourself straight. I can't remem- 
 ber what it says exactly." She glanced at Eleanor's 
 
334 THE KUDDEE 
 
 irradiated face, and gave an exclamation. " Mrs. 
 Loring! Why, you — you ain't been cr7/i/i^f What's 
 the matter? Does it hurt you anywhere? You ain't 
 feeling bad? " 
 
 " No, no ! '' said Eleanor. " I'm well — I'm all 
 \ right ! '' And in proof she laughed a little hysteri- 
 • cally. "I — I was just interested — you know? — in 
 w^hat he said.'' 
 
 " Well, I should thinic! '^ said Miss Schlochtermaier, 
 surveying her with critical concern. ^^ You look all 
 worked up I I seen other people get that way too, at 
 church revivals and places like that, you know. 
 There, now you're laughing real natural ! " she ejacu- 
 lated in open relief. " Honest, I was scared for a 
 minute ! " 
 
 " Dear me, I must have been a spectacle ! " 
 
 " Don't you worry ! " said the other devotedly ad- 
 miring. " You couldn't look anything but the sweet- 
 est 'n' prettiest thing that ever was, if you tried! 
 Mrs. Loring, I just can't help saying it to your face. 
 My, your eyes are just like stars ! " 
 
 They had elected to go home at five, neither one 
 caring to join the " dancing crowd." It wasn't al- 
 ways so grand anyhow, on the late boat, Hilda averred 
 guardedly; she didn't see any use of having such a 
 lot to drink, and the girls and fellows after they got 
 to dancing — oh, she didn't know — it was too kinda 
 sporty for her. Now this trip you weren't nearly so 
 crowded, and it was mostly family parties, and what 
 if them poor tired, sleepy kids did get to scrapping and 
 yelling their heads off, that didn't hurt you. And 
 you got home in good daylight. Tell you, a girl had 
 ought to be careful these days ! Hers was the ancient 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 335 
 
 voice of Respectability, which occasionally finds itself 
 crying in a wilderness, too! 
 
 Sure enough, they fell in with a number of family 
 parties, among them the Tom Moreheads, Tom freshly 
 shaven and washed, and dressed in his cheap best and 
 manfully lugging the baby, all of which Eleanor was 
 gratified to note. She went and spoke to them ; Tom 
 looked up at her with too much admiration by far in 
 his good-natured, characterless face to suit Mrs. Tom, 
 scowling in elaborate gewgaws and open-worked, em- 
 broidered, short-sleeved and low-necked finery, from 
 the seat beside him. She had wanted to stay for the 
 dancing, and resented bitterly the " poky " obligations 
 of married life, a husband to be fed, dishes to be 
 washed, a baby to be nursed ; and lumped Mrs. Loring 
 in with the rest of her crosses. What business did 
 sJie have coming round pretending to be poor, and 
 looking like that? 
 
 '^Xo; she ain't been good — she ain't ever good — 
 she's crying and fussing the whole time," she said 
 savagely in answer to Eleanor's inquiry about the 
 baby. " Well, I gTiess Tom had better carry his own 
 kid for once. I'm dog-tired with her. Look how's 
 she got me all mussed up I I ain't fit to be seen, she's 
 spoiled everything I got. Seems like a baby's the 
 hottest thing on earth. I'll bet it was ninety to-day, 
 and if you hold her for a minute, you feel like it 
 was a hundred and ninety." 
 
 '' She's all right with daddy, ain't you, kid? " said 
 Tom, juggling the pallid, sticky, whimpering little 
 creature from one knee to the other. 
 
 Lutie sauntered up, and her sister-in-law imme- 
 diately transferred her resentment to her; but, not 
 
336 THE KUDDER 
 
 being secretly afraid of Lutie, Mrs. Tom expressed 
 her mood with much more point and venom. 
 
 "Hello, Lute! Where's jour beau? Chauncey's 
 always so attentive — or did he shake you this time? '' 
 
 "Ain't it funny, Mrs. Loring, how common some 
 people talk, and they're just the kind that never get 
 to learn any different ! " said Lutie, achieving a fin- 
 ished unconcern. "Was you asking about Mr. De- 
 vitt, Lina? Why, he's gone back in the machine, same 
 w^ay he come." 
 
 "Machine? Gee, he has it pretty easy!" Tom re- 
 marked, not unreasonably. 
 
 " Well, you could too, if you was half as smart as 
 he is ! " snapped his wife. Tom smiled feebly over the 
 baby at Eleanor. 
 
 " She's kinda tired," he said in apology. 
 
 Eleanor judged it high time to withdraw, before 
 relations amongst the Moreheads became any more 
 strained. Besides, she really would like a few min- 
 utes apart, to review Mr. Devitt's speech, while it was 
 still fresh in her mind. To her surprise, however, it 
 was even now difficult to recall exactly what he had 
 said ; her memory was provokingly blank except as to 
 his eyes, the tones of his voice, his unconsciously dra- 
 matic figure. In the middle of this, Lutie came and 
 stood beside her, rather to her annoyance; but Lutie 
 was for once subdued in mood, staring absently at 
 the stretches of sand-bar and drying mud left bare 
 by the shrinking river, at the fleets of coal-barges, the 
 fishing-camps, the shanty-boats, the Government 
 dredge, slipping by in slow defile. After a while she 
 sighed heavily. 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Loring, don't you think he talks beau- 
 tifully?" 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 337 
 
 "He? Oh, YOU mean Mr. Devitt?'' said Eleanor, 
 somehow disconcerted to find that they had been think- 
 ing about the same person with an equal absorption. 
 " Why, I — '' 
 
 " Of course, though, you're used to it,'' said Lutie, 
 half envious, half wistful. " You hear your uncle all 
 the time — the one that writes the books — of course 
 you've heard him talk a lot." 
 
 u ^^ell — er — my uncle rather makes fun of things. 
 He's — he's not at all like Mr. Devitt. He hardly 
 ever lets you see his — his serious side — what he 
 reallij thinks, you know,'' Eleanor explained reluc- 
 tantly ; it sounded lame in her own ears. Never be- 
 fore iiad the thought of her uncle been unwelcome to 
 her, but just now — ! A curious and irritating un- 
 easiness invaded her. No, her Uncle Marshall did not 
 " talk beautifully " ; it was impossible to imagine him 
 " talking beautifully " according to Lutie's standard, 
 that is to say, in any fashion remotely resembling Mr. 
 Devitt. The mere notion, as Eleanor was uncomfort- 
 ably aware, would fill him with stark delight. He 
 was easily capable of making fun of Mr. Devitt among 
 the thousand other people — including himself — that 
 he ruthlessly made fun of; nothing was sacred to 
 Uncle Marshall, and nobody safe from his innocent- 
 sounding comments. 
 
 She felt Lutie at her side give a kind of twitch, and 
 looked around and saw Miss Schlochtermaier coming 
 towards them with what dark and picturesque and 
 cavalier personage — I 
 
 " That's her I Mrs. Loring, I want you to be ac- 
 quainted with Mr. Devitt," Hilda proclaimed. " I 
 just been telling him how interested you was I " 
 
 Their hands touched. A bolt of fire, a bolt of ice 
 
338 THE RUDDER 
 
 sped through the young man. What was she say- 
 ing? 
 
 "Oh, but we've met! Isn't that so, Mr. Devitt? 
 Only it was so very informally over a mud-puddle that 
 we've both been undecided since whether we ought to 
 speak or cut each other dead ! " 
 
 Chauncey was momentarily taken aback by her 
 frankness; the next instant he was inwardly pro- 
 nouncing it with rapture " cute." He had no answer 
 ready, but stood looking dow^n at her, smiling and 
 reddening a little, boyishly and very becomingly em- 
 barrassed. 
 
 " Really we were both very stiff and absurd, weren't 
 we? " said Eleanor with a little knowing, confidential 
 grimace that Chauncey found utterly enchanting, no 
 less so than her words. It was provoking that he still 
 could think of no rejoinder sufficiently bright, but 
 Eleanor should have been satisfied with the way he 
 looked at her. 
 
 " Thought you were going back to the city in your 
 machine, Chaunce," Lutie said, harmlessly enough, 
 but Chauncey forthwith hated her. He hated her for 
 that familiar address — for her misleading air of pro- 
 prietary knowledge of his movements, which were 
 none of her business — for putting him to the trouble 
 of inventing excuses — for rolling her eyes meaningly 
 at him — for being fat — for existing at all on the 
 same planet with himself and Mrs. Loring! 
 
 " No ! " he said shortly. " I hadn't any idea of it. 
 It's not my machine. I haven't any." His eyes went 
 back to Eleanor. 
 
 "What's good enough for the rest of us's good 
 enough for you, ain't it, Chauncey? " said Miss 
 Schlochtermaier, maternally. 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 339 
 
 " I hope so I '' said the young man, with a fine lifting 
 of the head. 
 
 Eleanor, watching him, said to herself that she 
 could understand how Lutie might irritate him; it 
 would be misery to such a spirit to have any act mis- 
 construed in Lutie's peculiarly sordid and petty way. 
 She spoke to him impetuously ; nothing " cute " about 
 her manner now ! '^ It's true what Miss Hilda was 
 saying just now, Mr. Devitt, I'm very much interested 
 in your work. All this time, I've been wanting to 
 speak to you, to — to ask you about things, you 
 know? " 
 
 " Yes? " said Chauncey gravely. 
 
 " I've been so much puzzled. I see things happen- 
 ing that I l:noio are all wrong, yet everybody takes 
 them for granted, even the people that are suffering 
 by them! I feel as if people like myself who are a 
 little outside of it, ought to do something — it's not 
 right, it can^t be right for us to stand and look on — ? " 
 She paused on an upward inflection, and Chauncey 
 bent his head in slow and melancholy recognition of 
 the evils she had marked, like a sad young prophet. 
 
 " But I don't know how to begin I I don't know 
 what to do I " Eleanor turned her flushed, lovely, en- 
 thusiastic face full on him with a look almost plead- 
 ing. She was devoutly and most self-forgetfully in 
 earnest. If that ironic little man, her uncle, could 
 have seen and heard her, he would have been stirred 
 to the depths of the soul which he would probably 
 have vehemently denied possessing; Marshall would 
 have found her pathetically splendid with her vague, 
 brave convictions, her wasted fires. 
 
 " Ah, but do any of us know what to do, Mrs. Lor- 
 ing? " Chauncey said with a tired smile. 
 
340 THE EUDDEE 
 
 ■ *^ Why, you do ! You're doing sometliing all tlie 
 time. I suppose it's like rolling a mill-stone uphill, 
 but you keep at it anyhow ! " 
 
 Chauncey shrugged. " Oh, my small efforts — ! 
 Wouldn't you like to sit down? There're two places 
 over there." 
 
 They established themselves by the rail. Chauncey 
 leaned one elbow on it, propping his head on his hand, 
 and gazed at her pensively. Neither of them knew 
 what had become of the other couple, and alas, neither 
 of them cared. As a matter of fact. Miss Schlochter- 
 maier had benevolently drawn Lutie away, hooking an 
 arm into hers, for a stroll around the decks. 
 
 " I know she wants to talk to him — you oughta 
 seen her this afternoon while he was making his 
 speech — all worked up ready to cry ! Don't ask me 
 why, 'cause I'll never tell you ! I can't make head nor 
 tail out of that kinda high-brow stuff ! " said the lit- 
 tle stenographer with a species of affectionate amuse- 
 ment. " But she's perfectly wrapped up in it, and 
 all I got to say is, if they w^ant to talk, for the Lord's 
 sake let 'em ! Only you 'n' I don't have to stand it ! " 
 Lutie allowed herself to be trailed along, not very 
 graciously, battling against certain shadowy misgiv- 
 ings. 
 
 Meanwhile, Eleanor was experiencing anew that 
 mortifying sensation of not being able to lay hold on 
 anything in the labour-leader's address, potent as had 
 been its effect on her. She was sure that he had 
 touched on many points upon which she urgently 
 needed further illumination, but was baffled by the 
 persistent fact that she could not remember them! 
 How talk intelligently to a man about his statements 
 and opinions, when to save her soul she could not 
 
BREAD AND CIRCX'SES 341 
 
 quote a single word of his concerning them? That 
 phrase " uncontrolled industry '' indeed returned to 
 her, but now accompanied by the recollection of the 
 two unappreciative men behind her, it only evoked a 
 heinous desire to laugh I She ended by saying rather 
 timidly : " The whole thing is very hard to under- 
 stand, isn't it, Mr. Devitt? All those questions you've 
 studied, I mean. They — they're very compli- 
 cated." 
 
 " Why, no. I've always found them very simple." 
 
 He smiled at her kindly, indulgently. '' Of course 
 he's used to banalities such as that remark of mine I *^ 
 thought Eleanor ; and she was silent a moment, vexed 
 with herself, looking down, playing with the tassel of 
 her parasol. Chauncey continued to gaze, admiring 
 her eyelashes, her ear with a loose tendril of hair curl- 
 ing caressingly around the pink lobe of it. She raised 
 her eyes, and he hastily turned away his own — not 
 soon enough, however, to avert the dumbfounding sus- 
 picion that for the first time shot through Eleanor's 
 mind. The next instant she told herself angrily that 
 it was ridiculous. 
 
 " I daresay it does seem simple to you. But other 
 people don't understand. That accounts for their op- 
 position, don't you think? Because I'm sure nobody 
 is really mean. Thev don't understand, that's 
 all—?" 
 
 She halted as before with a questioning rise in her 
 voice that Chauncey found charming — though, this 
 time, he began to wish that she wouldn't be quite so 
 " intense." It kept him on the stretch, not knowing 
 what extraordinary unkno^-n and therefore unsafe 
 territory she might go exploring into next. Mr. 
 T. Chauncey Devitt's type of student and philosopher 
 
342 THE RUDDER 
 
 is one that invariably keeps the straight and beaten 
 path. He bowed his head again in grave assent. 
 
 " I hope you don't mind my coming to you with my 
 difficulties," said Eleanor apologetically. "Some- 
 times this afternoon, I thought you were speaking di- 
 rectly to me, as if you realised that I honestly icanted 
 to be told — that I was at least trying to follow 
 you — " 
 
 Chauncey received an inordinately encouraging 
 thrill. " I was! I was speaking to you,'' he said, his 
 fine voice trembling slightly. " Only to you ! " 
 
 ii I've — I've often heard that orators w^ould single 
 out some person in the audience — '' Eleanor stam- 
 mered, startled ; " somebody that seemed to be — er — 
 sympathetic — " 
 
 " Yes. Soul speaks to soul sometimes. One feels 
 it," said Chauncey, venturing farther. 
 
 And what would Mr. Marshall Cook have said to 
 that specimen exhibit of the art of " talking beauti- 
 fully " ? He came into Eleanor's mind again at the 
 moment that she darted her companion a glance edged 
 like a razor. That was exactly the sort of speech with 
 which Uncle Marshall amused himself when people 
 bored him w^ith exactly the sort of speech she had just 
 been making, she thought. She ought to have known 
 better ; she had got what she deserved. The difference , 
 between her and Uncle Marshall's victims was that 
 whereas they were unconscious and consequently un- % 
 hurt, sJie was clever enough to know when she had 
 been stupid ! Mr. Devitt made fun more openly, more 
 mercilessly than her uncle, but she rather liked him 
 for it. The man had to do something; in all prob- 
 ability he was fairly hounded by sentimental females 
 who " thought he was speaking directly to them/' and 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 343 
 
 who considered themselves " sympathetic '' — Grr-r ! 
 
 " You're not angrj^ with me? " said Chauncey, 
 alarmed by her silence, her quick colour, and most of 
 all by the sudden deadly brightness of that glance. 
 *' Mrs. Loring, did I offend you by — by saying that? '' 
 
 To his relief, she laughed — a wholly delightful, 
 wholly friendly laugh. The look she gave him now 
 was gay, mischievous, confidential. " Xo, oh, no, Mr. 
 Devitt ! I'm only angry at myself for being silly. I 
 promise you it won't happen again I '' she told him — 
 a perfectly incomprehensible statement to Chauncey, 
 but the infatuated young fellow was too happy to 
 trouble about deciphering it ; it was enough that she 
 should be ready, even openly pleased to establish him 
 on this blissfully intimate footing. For the short 
 remainder of the excursion up to the final moment on 
 Poplar Street, she was not once " intense "' again ; on 
 the contrary, enchantingly " cute '' I 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 DURING the following clajs it was natural that 
 Eleanor and her new acquaintance should en- 
 counter each other even more frequently than 
 before. Perhaps they were looking for each other; 
 one of them, at least, was not above timing and map- 
 ping out his walks abroad to that sole end. For now 
 Chauncey need no longer restrict himself to grave, 
 wordless salutations, to prolonged and deep-eyed gaz- 
 ing. He could boldly cross over and speak to her, 
 join her and walk by her side, help her on or off the 
 street-car, carry a parcel or mail a letter for her, hold 
 an umbrella over her. He forced himself to be satis- 
 fied with these snatches of her company, brief and 
 public as they were ; for deliberately to propose seeing 
 her elsewhere, or to visit her at the Morehead house 
 was unthinkable. Putting aside that unfortunate, 
 lovelorn, jealous Lutie, it was unthinkable. There 
 were moments when he desperately chafed at these 
 restraints, told himself that he could not endure the 
 tantalising situation, devised one insane scheme for 
 altering it after another until his brain ached — all to 
 no purpose. Knowing the young man, one might have 
 supposed that he would infinitely relish the romance 
 of his position, in love with a woman of different so- 
 cial rank, a married woman at that, beautiful and 
 unhappy! Time was when Chauncey could have 
 dreamed of nothing more delightful than to find him- 
 self in such a role. Lo, in actual practice, it turned 
 
 344 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 345 
 
 out to be sheer torment I It devastated Ms nights, 
 took away his appetite, gave him a distaste for every- 
 thing else in life. He passed hours in alternations of 
 miserable hope that she knew — that she did not know 
 — that she would stay on Poplar Street forever — 
 that she would go back to her home where he could 
 follow and see her in private. As has been hinted, for 
 a bachelor to go calling on a pretty young married 
 woman, to say nothing of carrying on an intrigue watli 
 her, would not be respectable on Poplar Street; but 
 Chauncey entertained the belief — not altogether er- 
 roneous — that in Mrs. Loring's circle, it might be 
 done, if done with discretion and good taste. How- 
 ever, there was no present outlook that way; there 
 was no outlook in any direction; contrariwise, there 
 was the imperative necessity for him to keep his state 
 from the public knowledge. Chauncey did his best, 
 warring against absent-mindedness, attacks of the 
 blues, the disposition to " hang around " Mrs. Loring 
 too markedly, to look at her too often, too long, too 
 ardently. He did his best with tolerable success, if 
 one could judge by the fact that nobody appeared to 
 notice anything amiss with him, or asked any sus- 
 picious question — excepting Jack Dalton — Dalton 
 of the Mephistophelian powers of observation I — 
 who startled him out of a sombre mood one day by 
 inquiring what was up, and had the little grass- 
 widow showed him the frozen face? 
 
 ^' I — I — I don't know what you're talking about,'' 
 stuttered Chauncey, purple to the eyebrows, showing 
 so unmistakably that he knew perfectly well what the 
 other was talking about, that Dalton roared out with 
 laughter. 
 
 " 'S all right, Timmiel I ain't going to give you 
 
346 THE EUDDER 
 
 away/' he said, when he could speak, wiping tears of 
 the keenest enjoyment from his eyes. ^' What w^ould 
 I w^ant to talk about it for anyway? That wouldn't 
 get me nothing ! '' And in fact, Chauncey knew that 
 the dictator's word was to be depended on in this in- 
 stance ; Mr. Dalton had eminently the qualities of his 
 Satanic gifts. 
 
 Besides, he had other business of real importance on 
 hand, business Avhich might presently require the tal- 
 ents of T. Chauncey Devitt, too. About this time 
 rumours began to circulate of new labour ^^ agitation." 
 It was amongst the ice-men, teamsters, pullers and so 
 on ; they were to be organised for mutual defence and 
 protection, to obtain more pay, easier hours, freedom 
 on Sundays — to control their industry, in short. In 
 their union there would emphatically be strength, for 
 these things being denied, they would incontinently 
 go on strike, and then where Avould everybody be with 
 the thermometer at ninety in the shade? 
 
 " Sundays off, hey? " young Homer Moreland re- 
 marked. " Well, that'll be another day for Tom to get 
 soused on ! " 
 
 " Not if there's no ice to chill the stuff with, Homer," 
 said Mr. Kendrick ; " you can't drink lukewarm beer 
 — not enough to get happy on, that is." 
 
 " Oh, the s'loons'll have ice all right ; the breweries 
 make it theirselves. They won't have no trouble. 
 Not while Jack Dalton's thirsty anyhow," said Homer 
 sardonically. " You wait and see ! " 
 
 But those who adjusted themselves to follow this 
 advice would have been disappointed. For, all at 
 once, the talk died down ; nobody was thinking about 
 the woes of ice-men or their organisation against op- 
 pression ; nobody dreamed of striking ; the vans of the 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 347 
 
 Independent Comi)any, the Eureka Fuel & Cold Stor- 
 age Company, the North Hills Ice Delivery, the Elm- 
 wood Ice Company, the A. Loring & Company (which, 
 it was popularly believed, owned all the others) con- 
 tinued to drive about the town, melodiously proclaim- 
 ing their wares at everybody's back-door. Peoi)le 
 drew a relieved breath, and took a dime's worth in- 
 stead of the usual twenty cents', because for an odd 
 coincidence, the weather had just turned cool. A 
 wave of low temperature swept the country ; Nashville 
 reported 64 "^ at twelve noon, Chicago a drop of thirty 
 in one half-hour; frost was feared in North Dakota; 
 corn quotations soared on all the exchanges ; according 
 to the Bureau, the refreshing condition was to last a 
 week ; the newspaper humourist wanted to know where 
 his ear-muffs had been put ; and — to repeat — by the 
 strangest coincidence, the ice-men ceased to discuss 
 their wrongs and the possible remedies. 
 
 Incidentally, T. Chauncey was left at leisure to pur- 
 sue the path that is notoriously the reverse of smooth. 
 ^' If she turns you down again, go and get drunk, 
 Tim," the secretary of the Federated Teamsters coun- 
 selled him benevolently. " You got plenty of time. 
 Nothing doing around here for a week or so yet ! " 
 As it happened, however, that was a means of solace 
 not acceptable to this hero; he had always been a 
 commendably temperate young man. 
 
 Moreover, to tell the truth, a much more diffident 
 lover than Chauncey would have perceived that the 
 lady, if she did not absolutely encourage him, had cer- 
 tainly not as yet " turned him down." What was 
 she thinking of? Whither was she drifting, and let- 
 ting him drift? She herself deliberately refused to 
 know. Mrs. Eleanor Loring was thirty and some- 
 
348 THE EUDDER 
 
 tiling; with all her sporadic unconventionality, she 
 was a completely sophisticated young woman who had 
 spent a very considerable part of the fifteen years since 
 her entrance into society in accumulating experience 
 with the ways of men in love, having received, it was 
 authoritatively reported, numberless offers of mar- 
 riage any one of which would probably have been 
 preferable to her ultimate choice. Yes, Eleanor was 
 too thoroughly seasoned not to know what was hap- 
 pening; by this time, she could not pretend that Mr. 
 Devitt sought her because of an insatiable interest in 
 her work, or that she was allowing him to, because of 
 an insatiable interest in his. She might tell herself 
 all she chose about not wanting to bore him by talk- 
 ing his shop or her own, she was entirely aware that 
 philanthropies, social regeneration, the rights of man, 
 the menace of class, and all the rest of it were the 
 last subjects in the world they thought of in each 
 other's company ! She was not vain, not sensual ; if 
 any one had told her that the spectacle of this pictur- 
 esque young man — who was also a man of mark — 
 helplessly following her about, unable to look at her 
 without entreaty, ready, as the phrase goes, to lie 
 down and let her walk over him — if any one had told 
 her that this spectacle subtly flattered her, or ap- 
 pealed as subtly to other senses, Eleanor would have 
 been justly indignant. And yet — ! 
 
 Even when the officials of such labour organisations 
 as the Federated Teamsters began their activities 
 among the ice-men, activities of which the outcome 
 was the main topic of conversation with the worried 
 housekeepers of Poplar Street, Eleanor did not once 
 bring the matter up with the one person who was 
 in a position to give her authentic information. T. 
 
BEEAD AND CIECUSES 349 
 
 Chauncey must have known all there was to know 
 about the facts and arguments on both sides ; he was, 
 naturally, in the thick of it, present at every confer- 
 ence, constantly interviewing or being interviewed. 
 One would have supposed that Eleanor would jump 
 at this rare chance for education, for enlightenment, 
 for acquiring that priceless thing, the point of view. 
 She did nothing of the sort I It was not that she 
 doubted Mr. Devitt's aims or motives, or the high 
 quality of his spirit and intelligence — oh, no I But 
 she confessed to herself with a great effect of frank- 
 ness a fear that, like most reformers, he was not prac- 
 tical. His dreams were beautiful, they were noble, 
 they corresponded to his voice and appearance — but 
 they were dreams. They distorted his vision of reali- 
 ties. Take this very business of the ice-men and their 
 projected strike : whatever Mr. Devitt thought, it was 
 impossible to believe that Mr. Loring ever oppressed 
 anybody ; and on the other hand, there was Tom More- 
 head to whom, Eleanor thought in exasperation, a 
 little oppression might do a world of good I Tom had 
 been backsliding again lately. Perhaps neither one 
 of these men fairly represented his class, but if that 
 were the case, the futility, the actual injustice of 
 generalising about them became more apparent — to 
 her, at least ; Mr. Devitt, ^dth his eyes lifted up to the 
 hills, saw nothing in between I And there was an- 
 other aspect of the question which it seemed strange 
 the labour-leader should have overlooked — for no 
 man so gTeat-souled would have deliberately refused 
 to consider it : however greedy and selfish and despotic 
 the ice-kings, however much they needed restraint and 
 discipline, they could never in all their days do their 
 fellow-citizens one-tenth as much harm as these strik- 
 
350 THE KUDDER 
 
 ing employes could in a single twenty-four hours. 
 Eleanor thought of the hospitals, of sick women in the 
 tenements she knew so well, of the wilting babies, of 
 the children, hot, bare-legged, their grimy little fore- 
 heads plastered with moist hair, gathered at the tail- 
 boards of the ice-wagons, of a poor fat man she had 
 seen carried into a drug-store the other day, his big 
 body sagging flabbily like a half-stuffed sack, one of 
 the Samaritans rushing to ring up a doctor, the drug- 
 store young clerk energetically scooping handfuls of 
 crushed ice out of the freezers behind his soda-water 
 counter and piling them all over the sufferer's uncon- 
 scious head. Obviously Mr. Devitt did not realise 
 that it was upon the innocent and helpless public that 
 the penalty would fall most heavily, rather than upon 
 the ice-manufacturers, or he would have started this 
 " agitation " in winter-time. But on her reciting this 
 surmise to Miss Schlochtermaier, the latter received 
 it sceptically — in fact, not without impatience. 
 
 " Oh my, Tim ain't got anything to say about it, 
 Mrs. Loring," she said. " He just goes round, making 
 the speeches — he can make first-rate speeches, you 
 know, and I guess it kind of stirs the men up and keeps 
 'em going. But he ain't got any real say. It's Dalton 
 that runs 'em. You can't tell me anything about it. 
 I know! '' said the little old maid, jabbing a hat-pin 
 through the crown of her hat and through the ornate 
 wad of frizzes on top of her head with fierce move- 
 ments. " Dalton's in it for what he can get out of it 
 — why, everybody knows that I Everybody knows 
 Jack Dalton. He'd see this whole to^vTi frying in the 
 bad place, and he wouldn't give anybody a square inch 
 of ice till he got their last dollar ! That's the kind lie 
 is ! Well, I s'pose we gotta stand it ! " she added with 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 351 
 
 a pbilosopliical pessimism. ^^ neinie's worried like 
 everything. It'll put his business on the blink, not 
 having no ice to keep the meat with, you know. He 
 says you can't hardly keep it as it is, with all the ice 
 you can stuff in the refrig'rator. I told him why 
 didn't he stock up with a lot of hams and tongues 
 and corn-beef; people'll buy smoked meat anyhow, i 
 But he's worried. He says trouble is if your trade 
 once gets away from you, why it's gone! You don't 
 ever get it back. Well, I know one thing! I'm go- 
 ing to get ice for my mother and keep her comfortable, 
 if I got to pack it from the factory on my back ! " 
 
 Eleanor herself had not remembered the butchers 
 and greengrocers, Heinie and the other Heinies! 
 Here were more unfortunates I ^^ I — I don't believe 
 Mr. Devitt can know — why don't some of you that 
 have known him so long go and tell him — ? " she ven- 
 tured, hesitating. But the other took her up almost 
 snappishly. 
 
 " 'Tain't Tim Devitt at all, ain't I just been telling 
 you? It's Dalton." 
 
 " Well, w^hat position has Mr. Devitt got in the 
 office then? " said Eleanor, beginning to be somehow 
 irritated with Miss Schlochtermaier who icould keep 
 on harping on Dalton; Eleanor did not want her to 
 talk about Dalton ; she wanted her to talk about Mr. 
 Devitt. 
 
 '^ I don't know I Dalton's s'posed to be secretary 
 of the Federated Teamsters, but I don't know what he 
 does either," said Hilda scornfully unconcerned. 
 ^' You know, Mrs. Loring," she went on confidentially ; 
 " seeing that man — Dalton, I mean — and how he 
 does has kinda set me against the whole union busi- 
 ness. Maybe some of 'em are all right; but / ain't 
 
352 THE RUDDER 
 
 ever needed to be in no union, and I've worked as hard 
 as any man and made my living same as a man ever 
 since I was fifteen years old. No, sir! You couldn't 
 get me into one of 'em, not if you was to take and 
 prove to me it would double my saFry. What good's 
 that going to do you, if you gotta pay out a lot of it 
 in dues? S'pose I'm going to give up a lot of my 
 good money for some crook like Jack Dalton to live 
 on? 'Cause that's where the dues goes, ain't it? Not 
 for me! I seen too much." She became more confi- 
 dential. '' Say, do you know how he does? Becomes 
 into our office — old Mr. Devitt's office, you know — 
 'bout once in every so often, whenever he wants money, 
 I guess, and just regularly holds poor old Mr. Devitt 
 up ! Yes, sir ! I've known him to time and again. / 
 wouldn't give him a cent, if / was Mr. Devitt, but he's 
 scared Dalton'll call his teamsters off and tie up the 
 work for months and months and ruin him like they 
 done some contractors already. He digs up every 
 time regular as clockwork; he's as good as a bank- 
 account for Dalton. Say, I feel sorry for the old 
 man. Irish are awfully funny, ain't they? He gets 
 way down in the mouth so you'd think he was going to 
 suicide the next minute, and then first thing you know 
 he's way up and all excited and happy as can be! 
 He's mostly down though, nowadays. But that's one 
 reason I can't stand for the unions." 
 
 Decidedly, Eleanor thought, Miss Schlochtermaier, 
 industrious, upright, self-denying and in the main sen- 
 sible woman as she was, could be mortally tiresome at 
 times. It was evident that she really knew nothing 
 about the Teamsters' Union or either the older or 
 younger Mr. Devitt's relations with it ; she merely felt 
 a bitter personal prejudice against this Dalton man. 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 353 
 
 It was probably justifiable, Eleanor admitted to her- 
 self again with a fine show of frankness and impar- 
 tiality ; Dalton, by all accounts, must be a scoundrel ; 
 but that was no reason why the union should be 
 saddled with his misdoin^rs. As to Mr. Chauncey 
 Deyitt taking his orders from Dalton — which was 
 what the stenographer seemed to intimate — Eleanor 
 in private disdainfully refused to belieye any such 
 statement. It was mere gossip to which their associa- 
 tion lent a colour of truth — an association imposed 
 on the younger man by — by — er — by circum- 
 stances, she somewhat cloudily concluded, and with- 
 out a doubt thoroughly distasteful to him. x\ prac- 
 tical man with an eye to sordid details might haye 
 avoided it; but what would you have? Mr. Deyitt 
 was not practical ; he dwelt on Olympus. 
 
 " One of their kinks is these ^ sympathetic ' strikes," 
 pursued Miss Schlochtermaier, oblivious of her com- 
 panion's unresponsive attitude. " Because the team- 
 sters strike, why then the culvert and ditch workers, 
 they got to walk out too. Same like if we was all in 
 unions, I'd got to strike if the scrubwomen in our 
 building did, see? Can you beat it? But the limit is 
 when they tell you if you're union, you can't work 
 with nothing but union things — union-made hatchets 
 and trowels and bricks and paint and machinery, ac- 
 cording to what you use in your trade, you know. I 
 guess that sounds to you like baby-talk, but it's the 
 solemn truth, and there's plenty of grown-up men that 
 stand up for it. When Dalton started that stuff wath 
 Mr. Devitt, I just butted right in — I couldn't help 
 it ! ' Well, gee- whiz ! ' I says. ^ What you going to 
 do 'bout the sand and gravel, Mr. Devitt? They ain't 
 union-made. Here the Lord went and put 'em round 
 
354 THE RUDDER 
 
 everywhere for anybody to use that wanted! What 
 do you know about that, anyhow, Mr. Dalton? ' says 
 I. ' Looks like you couldn't ever get God Almighty 
 into your union ! Maybe you don't want Him, though. 
 Some folks is awful choose-y,' I says. Dalton didn't 
 get mad. He just laughed and says : ' Say, I'm real 
 scared of you, Miss Hilda. You act like you was one 
 of these suffergettes ! ' And then he went right ahead, 
 and made old Devitt buy a whole outfit of picks and 
 shovels and wheelbarrows and things like that that 
 he didn't need any more than he needed another set 
 of arms and legs. What he had was good enough, only 
 it didn't come from union concerns, see? The way 
 Dalton put it up to him he couldn't help himself ; but 
 all the time he knew that Dalton was getting a rake-off 
 on every last one of them tools, or he wouldn't have 
 lifted a finger about 'em, union or no union. That's 
 the way it goes right along. Well, I don't know what 
 you are going to do about it ! " 
 
 Eleanor listened reluctantly. It was as if the 
 homely fabric of the other's speech were woven upon 
 some stout warp of common-sense and right-minded- 
 ness, nearly resembling that which underlay the talk 
 of old Amzi Loring, of Mr. Kendrick, even of so im- 
 measurably different a person as her uncle, Marshall 
 Cook. As with them, it annoyed, it somehow^ ob- 
 scurely dismayed her to find that she could not think 
 of anything equally plain and reasonable sounding 
 to bring forward on the opposite side. Of course 
 neither party w^as wholly right or wholly w^rong. 
 When so many masters abused their power, it was 
 natural that abuses should have crept into the man- 
 agement of the men's affairs, too. Such anecdotes 
 as Miss Schlochtermaier's proved it; and w^hat Eleanor 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 355 
 
 would have liked would have been, not an ar^iment, 
 but the same species of anecdote to offer in rebuttal. 
 But she could not remember any ; she had never heard 
 any as apt and pjointedl The truth was that every- 
 thing she had encountered in newspapers, pamphlets 
 and magazines in the shape of printed utterances from 
 the apostles of Labour had seemed to her against her 
 will to be incendiary rubbish. To be sure she had 
 not yet read anything of Mr. Devitt's; somehow she 
 did not want to; he was so impractical. It was a 
 pity. If he could only possess — for righteous ends 
 — a tithe of Dalton's deadly efficiency — ! But ap- 
 parently he was not always able even to protect his 
 father against it. 
 
 Now the mercury began again to climb steadily; 
 and simultaneously a returning tide of disquieting 
 news about the ice-situation rose and rose. Meetings 
 were held; various compromises were suggested, as 
 that the ice be still delivered on Sundays, but the 
 men work in shifts; the Associated Charities pub- 
 lished a letter of appeal to both sides ; all the doctors 
 in town signed another; the editors unanimously 
 hedged (the typesetters being very strongly organised) 
 so that, as Mr. Kendrick observed with grim amuse- 
 ment, it would have taken a Philadelphia lawyer to 
 tell which party any newspaper in town supported. 
 Mr. Loring, representing the manufacturers — indeed 
 he was regarded by the labour-leaders as the very head 
 and front of the opposition and it was against him 
 that their ftilminations were mainly directed — stub- 
 bornly refused to recognise the union ; the union there- 
 upon refused to submit the matter to arbitration; it 
 was a deadlock. 
 
 As a piece of news all this was welcomed with rap- 
 
356 THE EUDDER 
 
 ture from clay to day by journalists all over the coun- 
 try; for these events took place a year or so before 
 that famous date when the German siege-guns opened 
 on the forts at Liege, and in those remote days, in 
 the dead of summer it was likely to be a dull and try- 
 ing business to get the columns filled. The ice-strike 
 crowded even the sporting gossip from the front page, 
 so that it was quite casually that one learned that the 
 Black Sox, assisted by native Ohio talent in the person 
 of that incomparable left-fielder and all-around athlete 
 Butch Loring, would be in town next week for a series 
 of four games, one of them a double-header. As to 
 " Society Jottings," scarcely anybody troubled to read 
 that department of the Ohserver. All the world not 
 already at the seashore or the mountains was hurry- 
 ing to get away before the lack of ice was added to 
 the discomforts of a Middle-Western July ; one noted, 
 however, that the Andrew J. Grace ladies had not 
 gone yet, and — by another of those coincidences with 
 which this chapter has been so occupied — Marshall 
 Cook, the well-known author, was expected to arrive 
 Monday for a short visit. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE last ice-wagons went their rounds late 
 Monday afternoon, their crews benevolently 
 urging everybody to " stock u^^ with ice all 
 they could " ; and Tuesday morning dawned scarcely 
 hotter than the stifling night preceding it, but piti- 
 lessly bright. The union-leaders were as good as 
 their word; not an ice-man was visible or audible — 
 professionally, that is. There were doubtless num- 
 bers of them upholding this spirited stand against 
 tyranny by loafing about the streets, the saloons, the 
 moving-picture theatres, or perhaps the neighbour- 
 hood of the ice-factories. Tom Morehead was at home 
 drunk, rather luckily for him, as it enabled him to prove 
 an alibi later when there was a question raised as to 
 the personnel of the crowd that collected out at Elm- 
 wood, when Mr. Loring's arm was broken by a stone 
 thrown through the office-window. The city, how- 
 ever, was not altogether ice-less; housekeepers heard 
 with relief qualified by a new dread that the factories 
 would keep on producing ice as long as their engineers 
 did not walk out ^' sympathetically '■ ; so, for a while 
 at least, the problem was merely how to get it trans- 
 ported. Thereupon the streets all at once swarmed 
 with automobiles, elegant little electric coupes, road- 
 worn runabouts, limousines, touring-cars new and old, 
 with all sorts and conditions of horse-drawn vehicles, 
 from broughams and barouches to jolt-wagons, every 
 one carrying its block of ice swathed in old carpets, 
 quilts, newspapers, anything to keep the invaluable 
 
 357 
 
358 THE RUDDER 
 
 freight from leaking off before it reached the refrigera- 
 tor ; in a day or two these sights became too common 
 to be noticed. Even the goat-carts, wheelbarrows, 
 baby-carriages and bicycles that were presently 
 pressed into service especially in the cheaper quarters 
 of the city, even the men laboriously bearing a chunk 
 on their shoulders and squirming as the water trickled 
 down their backs, even the women struggling along 
 with a poor five cents' worth in a market-basket or a 
 net bag — even these ceased to draw a passing glance. 
 It was astounding how^ readily and resourcefully the 
 public met the emergency ; astounding the good-nature 
 with which it bore a hardship which was entirely un- 
 necessary and undeserved. The visitor from Mars 
 about whose possible opinions we occasionally hear 
 a discussion, could not have been shown a spectacle 
 more tj^pically American. 
 
 " Tell you what, though, it ain't going to last this 
 way,'' Homer confided to Eleanor in the course of a 
 business conference. Homer had purveyed himself a 
 soap-box mounted on a dismembered pair of roller- 
 skates, with which he was carrying on a thriving trade 
 delivering ice at " two cents a throw " in small lots up 
 and down Poplar Street and the vicinity ; and Eleanor 
 had engaged him on the above terms to take a lump to 
 a sick woman on the third floor of Fifty -two Amelia 
 just around the corner. " It won't last, 'cause it's 
 too easy," said Homer sagely. " First thing you know 
 nobody'll care whether there's any ice-men or not; 
 everybody's getting ice somehow right along. The 
 strikers know they gotta think up something else, and 
 they'll do it direckly. Like calling out the engineers 
 or something. I guess the only reason they ain't done 
 that already is they gotta make a deal with 'em. The 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 359 
 
 bosses of the engineers^ union ain't going to start no 
 sympathy strike without there's something in it for 
 them —'' 
 
 ^' Where are you getting your ice? " Eleanor inter- 
 rupted hastily. She did not care to hear any more of 
 Homer's appallingly shrewd-sounding comments, as- 
 suring herself vehemently that Mr. Devitt would never 
 lend himself to any bargaining such as the boy in- 
 timated. 
 
 '^ Engine-house. Only they won't sell you none 
 after 'leven 'clock, so you gotta hustle. Stand in 
 line, of course, after you get there,'' said Homer, pre- 
 paring to hustle, as aforesaid. Eleanor, in the spirit 
 of curiosity, accompanied him. 
 
 " How do the]} happen to have it? " she wondered. 
 
 Homer couldn't say. All he knew was that you 
 could get it there. They just knocked off a chunk 
 anyhow with a mallet and chisel, so sometimes vou got 
 a good big lump for your nickel, and sometimes hardly 
 nothing. ^' You gotta pay just the same. Ice is ice.'' 
 
 Approaching the engine-house they found the street 
 lively as an ant-hill with ice-buyers — a coloured man 
 with a lump perched on top of a wash-basket full of 
 soiled clothes and guyed in position Tvith string; two 
 young girls giggling along with a piece in a coal- 
 scuttle ; a man shoving a block onto the rear platform 
 of the street-car amidst the free raillery of the pas- 
 sengers thereon ; another man trundling his supply in 
 a keg; a haggard woman with a dishpan. The wide 
 doorway was almost blocked with marketers, not 
 standing in line as Homer had described them, but 
 camped about everywhere, and frenziedly dodging and 
 elbowing and edging to the front at every chance, in 
 spite of the efforts of the policeman stationed there to 
 
360 THE RUDDER 
 
 keep them in order. " No liurry now, folks, no hurry ! 
 First come, first served, of course, as long as she last. 
 If you don't get none to-day, that'll learn you to get 
 up a little earlier to-morrow. Here, you boy, you go 
 back there where you belong! I saiv you, now! 
 Look out, lady, that coloured lady's ahead of you! 
 Well now, ma'am, I can't help if if she got here first. 
 No, mister, I can't go in there and get it for you. 
 No, I can't speak to the cap nor nobody — " this was 
 the burden of his oratory, reiterated incessantly. 
 
 Notwithstanding his vigilance, Homer skilfully in- 
 serted himself among the first ranks, whence he sent 
 a grin and wink to Eleanor standing out of the crowd 
 on the opposite sidewalk. She could see a pair of 
 shirt-sleeved men going to and fro under the gleaming 
 paint and polish of the engine and the yawning horse- 
 collars ; above two or three firemen lounged in the win- 
 dows, looking clown unconcernedly. The people jostled 
 one another on the cobbles, some of them weary and 
 glum, some making a frolic of it, one man indifferently 
 settled on the handles of his wheelbarrow, reading 
 the morning newspaper in the middle of the car-tracks. 
 It was glaringly hot; the heat seemed to come up in 
 waves laden with odours of manure, garbage and 
 sweating bodies. Presently the crowd swayed and 
 scattered, as a trolley-car stalked by two automobiles 
 clanged around the angle at the head of the street ; the 
 man on the wheelbarrow looked up, folded his paper 
 with deliberation unmoved by a dozen wildly screeched 
 warnings, and withdrew himself and his equipage at 
 the same leisurely pace in the exact nick of time. 
 
 " Look who's here, Timmie ! " one of the occupants 
 of the first automobile gTunted, removing his big cigar ; 
 he had quick light eyes that roamed everywhere and 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 3G1 
 
 saw everything in a second, and he burst into a thick 
 chuckle at the expression of his companion's face when 
 the latter, following his advice, caught sight of the 
 tall woman on the sidewalk. ^' By — I Slie sure has 
 got the figure ! - ' added Mr. Daltou with admiring pro- 
 fanity. 
 
 He laughed again as the young fellow without a 
 word to him jumped out of the car and shouldered im- 
 patiently through the crowd. Chauncey had reached 
 a stage where he didn't give a damn who knew it or 
 what they thought, his patron remarked inwardly with 
 the amused and contemptuous sympathy which — we 
 are told — all the world feels for a lover, balanced by 
 a complimentary approval of Chauncey's taste. She 
 was not only pretty but tolerably certain to be ex- 
 pensive, in Mr. Dalton's opinion; Tim wasn't any 
 piker, anyhow I 
 
 Eleanor had caught sight of Dalton, too, with her 
 familiar prick of rej^ugnance ; it is not easy to under- 
 stand how she contrived immediately to put him and 
 his manifestly close relations with the other, out of 
 her mind as Chauncey took her hand. There was a 
 good deal of staring and nudging, and talk rumbled 
 briskly behind him. She was vexed to feel the colour 
 coming up to her face ; it always showed so I And in 
 fact, she could see his eyes following it avidly. 
 
 " Mrs. LoringI What are you doing here? " 
 
 Eleanor managed a laugh to keep herself in coun- 
 tenance. " Doing? Why, what should I be doing? 
 Getting ice, to be sure ! " 
 
 ^'Yoii!'' Chauncey was so openly horrified, look- 
 ing all around her meanwhile for the pan, bucket, 
 basket or what-not in which he conceived she must be 
 meaning to convey it away, that Eleanor laughed out 
 
362 THE KUDDER 
 
 genuinely enough this time. It almost restored her 
 self-possession to obsei^v-e him so ingenuously lacking 
 it. 
 
 " Don't look so shocked ! The Morehead boy's get- 
 ting it for me." 
 
 '' Oh I But jou — do you — ? " 
 
 " No, it's not for myself. It's for one of my poor 
 people." 
 
 '' Oh ! Still, you — you ought not to be here," said 
 Chauncey, not trying to subdue the note of tender 
 authority in his voice. " You ought not to be going 
 around in this heat. You will make yourself sick — " 
 
 " Fiddle-de-dee ! — Begging your pardon, Mr. De- 
 vitt! Do I look sick?" retorted Eleanor with a des- 
 perate aping of her natural spirit. But she could not 
 meet the young man's eyes ; she looked casually up and 
 down the street, rallying her forces — sparring for 
 time, Mr. Dalton would have expressed it! That 
 gentleman in apparent — perhaps actual — forgetful- 
 ness of his associate, was leaning over the side of the 
 automobile, in close converse with the chief of the 
 fire-company; the street-car had gone; the ice-market 
 had resumed its activities, blocking the w^ay of the 
 other automobile yonder. All around were the same 
 gross sights, sounds, smells, yet Arcadia bloomed on 
 Amelia Street, and possibly those who, too, have abode 
 there some little while, can comprehend the miracle. 
 
 " You look like an angel — you are an angel ! " 
 Chauncey w^as saying fervidly under his breath. " I 
 can't bear to see you in this i3lace. You weren't made 
 for things like this. Promise me you — " 
 
 And all the while the second automobile, cornered in 
 the rear of Dalton's, after a persuasive honk or two, 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 363 
 
 was politely awaiting his pleasure. " I believe you 
 had better shut down the engine, Garvin/' the little 
 fair lady in the back ordered her chauffeur at last. 
 " We can't move a step. The policeman must have 
 told that man ahead to stop ; at least he doesn't seem 
 to have any idea of going on." 
 
 The man beside her laughed. " Oh, innocence ! 
 Oh, simplicity ! That plug-ugly is not of those feeble 
 mortals who are halted by policemen. He's a leader 
 of hundreds. He says to the cop : ^ Go I ' and the 
 cop goeth I ^ Come ! ' and he cometh ! That's Dal- 
 ton." 
 
 "Dalton?" 
 
 ^^ Yes. Don't tell me you don't know who the gang- 
 leaders in your own town are! Don't tell me you 
 don't read your own newspapers I Dalton's the busi- 
 ness-agent for these striking teamsters, the ones that 
 are making all the trouble with the ice-dealers, you 
 know. Once he was a ward boss — may be still, for 
 what I know — but I daresay this pays better. I met 
 him one time years ago, and I've never forgotten him 
 — he's not the sort of person one forgets.'' 
 
 "Mr. Cook, I think you have met everybody! 
 * Business-agent ' ! What a beautifully descriptive 
 term ! " 
 
 " And how accurate ! Here we are, you observe, 
 precisely like everybody else, standing round waiting 
 his orders. If that isn't getting results, if that isn't 
 good business, what is? " 
 
 " We could get out and walk to your niece's — it's 
 only a square — and have Garvin come after us — " 
 His exclamation interrupted her. " What is it? 
 W^here, did you say? Oh! '^ 
 
364 THE RUDDER 
 
 They both stared a moment silently. "I wonder 
 who tiie young man is/' Miss Grace was saying, just 
 as Eleanor's glance reached them. 
 
 Amelia Street displaced Arcadia with magic-lan- 
 tern celerity as she waved and nodded and smiled 
 signals of welcome. Whatever Chauncey felt, Eleanor 
 regained common-sense and composure with actual 
 relief, though mingled with her sincere delight at see- 
 ing her uncle there was a slight uneasiness. He al- 
 ways saw so much; what had he seen just now? 
 Psiiaw, there had been nothing to see — nor to hear 
 either! Mr. Devitt had an exaggerated way of talk- 
 ing sometimes, that was all ; it was the Irish strain in 
 him. Uncle Marshall would understand that; it 
 would interest him. And wasn't he with Miss Grace, 
 anyhow, thought Eleanor with sudden satisfaction not 
 untinged with malice. Tit for tat! Uncle Marshall 
 couldn't say anything, she thought — and then burned 
 with inward shame. She was acting like a schoolgirl 
 — and worse ! She saw Miss Grace lay a detaining 
 hand on his arm just as her uncle was opening the 
 carriage-door. They spoke together for a minute, and 
 Miss Grace sent Eleanor her doll-like smile over his 
 shoulder as she finally let him go. Something about 
 this little intimate scene set the younger woman on 
 her guard; she wished there had been some way of 
 hinting to Mr. Devitt that it would be the part of 
 social prudence for him to take an unhurried and 
 graceful leave of her. No such idea had entered his 
 head ; on the contrary, there he stood, hatless in the 
 broiling sun, looking noble and devoted, not in the 
 least awkward, not in the least embarrassed as a 
 man with more worldly training certainly would have 
 been. And now here was her uncle, cordial, kind, 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 3G5 
 
 sliarp-ejed, discreet, " horribly humane '' and tactful 
 as ever, clasping both her hands, recognising Mr. 
 Devitt with his unfailing courtesy, saying just the right 
 thing, looking just the right way, absolutely the most 
 comfortable companion on earth. Warm affection 
 overcame her. How glad she was to see him again! 
 " Well, it's very nice to hear you say that, Eleanor ; 
 and it's very nice, too, to see you looking so well. 
 The weather seems to agree with vou — whv, onlv a 
 few days, as usual, till next week, perhaps. I'm 
 thinking of going out to the Yellowstone, didn't I 
 write you? I'll i)robably stop again on my way back 
 
 — but the fact is the house isn't the same without 
 you there. Xell, I miss you all the time — " 
 
 " Uncle Marshall, dotit! I'll begin to weep out 
 loud here on the street — '' 
 
 ^' She won't, Mr. De\4tt, don't be alarmed I " said 
 Cook, glancing into the other's concerned face with a 
 laugh. " She wouldn't do anything like that in pub- 
 lic for worlds. And besides, she's really as hard as 
 nails — no family sentiment about her I '' 
 
 " I cannot believe that, Mr. Cook," said Chauncey, 
 in his deep, mellow voice. " I, who have seen her in 
 these humble homes, ministering at the bedside of 
 suffering and poverty, I Jaioic her for what she is!^^ 
 
 " Oh — er — quite so ! " said Cook, after an infin- 
 itesimal pause. He coughed, occuj^ying himself with 
 his eyeglasses. " As I was about to say, when I went 
 to call on Miss Grace and she found out my forlorn 
 state of mind — the bereaved uncle, you understand 
 
 — why, she insisted most kindly on bringing me down 
 here to see Mrs. Loring. We couldn't telephone you 
 and give notice, Eleanor. The Moreheads aren't in 
 the book." 
 
366 THE KUDDER 
 
 " Mercy, no I People generally catch me at the 
 Charities.'' 
 
 ^' She wanted to see you herself, anyhow. And — 
 ah — Mr. Devitt, when I told Miss Grace who you 
 were just now, she — ahem ! — she expressed a great 
 desire to make your acquaintance," said the little man, 
 in so unnaturally elaborate a style that his niece shot 
 him a suspicious glance. Imj)ossible to read any- 
 thing but ordinary civil solicitude in his face, never- 
 theless Eleanor wondered restlessly what they were 
 up to, he and Miss Grace. She feared the Greeks and 
 their gifts, not without reason, perhaps. Again, she 
 longed to warn Mr. Devitt; he was so simple, so 
 earnest, so serious, his own life had been so hard, that 
 he might not at once understand these people with 
 their assumption of inveterate levity. Their curiosity 
 was not a compliment, he might even find it an offence. 
 Then she remembered with an odd gratification that 
 after all this sort of thing could be nothing new to 
 him; in his public life he must meet with it as con- 
 stantly as her uncle himself, and very likely Mr. 
 Devitt shared the latter's humorously philosophical 
 views. 
 
 At any rate, he was at no visible disadvantage as he 
 went over and was presented to Miss Grace; he was 
 easily the most dignified and striking figure in the 
 group. Miss Grace was beckoning her. " Dinner at 
 eight," she said as Eleanor joined them. " At eight, 
 Mr. Devitt, don't fail us." She addressed her smile 
 to Eleanor. " I wanted to ask you to dine with us to- 
 morrow night, Mrs. Loring, and I've persuaded Mr. 
 Devitt to forget all about formalities and come too. 
 Just ourselves and Mr. Cook, you know. Nobody's 
 in town, and it's too hot to bother about being stiff 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 3G7 
 
 and conventional, don't jou think? May I send the 
 car for you? It's suck a trip to the North Ilill." 
 
 Decidedly they were up to something! But Mr. 
 Devitt had already accepted; and what if the two — 
 or Bessie Grace, for Eleanor lo3'ally acquitted her 
 uncle of anything beyond a good-natured mischievous- 
 ness — were as guileful as serpents while seeming 
 harmless as doves? What if they were? She and 
 Mr. Devitt were quite capable of taking care of them- 
 selves, Eleanor thought, piqued. By way of demon- 
 strating this fact, she matched her smile and the can- 
 didly pleased inflections of her voice to Miss Grace's 
 with finished nicety. " Why, that will be lovely ! So 
 delighted to come ! At eight o'clock, did you say? '' 
 
 " Yes. I'm going to have a lavish supply of iced 
 things, Mr. Devitt, just to defy you," said Bessie, 
 audaciously. " There's a man in our cellar who 
 presses buttons, or turns handles or does something 
 with a machine, and presently we have all the ice we 
 want! You wouldn't be so brutal as to deprive us of 
 him, I'm sure — two helpless women, advanced in 
 years. I'm not afraid of you, anyhow." 
 
 " Our system is not one of intimidation, Miss 
 Grace," Chauncey told her gravely. 
 
 "No?" She considered him with her large infan- 
 tile blue eyes. '' Xo. Of course not ! " 
 
 Cook murmured something about being thrice- 
 armed, and appeared to have further trouble with his 
 eyeglasses. There was an instant of embarrassment 
 w^hich everybody felt except Chauncey. Then, as luck 
 would have it, Homer created a diversion by summon- 
 ing Eleanor unceremoniously. 
 
 " Say, I got yer ice. Mis' Loring. Where you want 
 it took to?" 
 
368 THE KUDDER 
 
 A neighbouring clock boomed eleven, and the peo- 
 ple began to disperse. Dalton stood up in his auto- 
 mobile, looking around and behind him and discover- 
 ing the others with scowling surprise at first ; then he 
 gi'inned. Cook caught his eye, and performed an 
 impressive salute. 
 
 ^' May we pass, Mr. Dalton? " he called out. 
 
 " Sure thing! " said Dalton obligingly, trying to re- 
 member where he had seen that little fellow^ before. 
 The car, obedient to his orders, lumbered over to one 
 side, and let the other go by. 
 
 " If you took as thorough a look at him as he did 
 at you, you'll know Mr. Dalton again,'' Cook said to 
 Bessie, half angry, half amused. 
 
 " I did look at him. I should rather like to ask Mm 
 to dinner. Could it be managed? " 
 
 '^ What! '' shouted Marshall, outraged. '' To din- 
 ner! To your Jiouse! That thug! That out-and- 
 out blackguard! That — " Words actually failed 
 him momentarily; then he swallowed, and recovered 
 himself. " You don't know what you're talking about, 
 Bessie," he said severely. " The idea's monstrous.'' 
 
 ^' Of course if you don't think it would do, Mr. 
 Cook — " said Bessie, looking down meekly. 
 
 ''Do? Good Heavens! Why—" Marshall 
 checked himself again. He spoke in a different tone, 
 hurriedly. "I — I don't mean to dictate, of course. 
 I have no business — it was only that you didn't seem 
 to realise — I — I beg your pardon." He got very 
 red and tried to laugh. " I didn't mean to speak to 
 you — your first name, you know — I didn't mean — 
 it slipped out. Miss Grace, I apologise on my knees ! " 
 
 "Oh, I understand perfectly. Don't feel so — it 
 was nice of you to tell me. Really I was just talking 
 
BEEAD AND CIRCUSES 3G9 
 
 — I didn't mean anything except that this Mr. Bnsi- 
 ness-Agent looks as interesting as the other man, in a 
 different way. Do you suppose they represent two 
 different forces in the labour organisations? " 
 
 " If they do, I think I'd back Dalton against De- 
 vitt,'' said the author. " I don't know what to jnake 
 of that young man. Whereas he who runs may read 
 Dalton. What an extraordinary set they seem to be ! 
 As if putting all those poor people we saw back there 
 to this trouble, and anxiety, and loss of time and 
 money, and actual distress — as if that served anv 
 earthly good end! ^ Intimidation \f ^'^ He chuckled 
 with relish. " Throwing stones at old Loring is not 
 an effort at intimidation — oh no! It's moral sua- 
 sion I " 
 
 ^^ Maybe Mr. Devitt didn't know anything about 
 that, or he might have prevented it." 
 
 '' Maybe." 
 
 " Mrs. Loring seems to know him very well." 
 
 " Yes, she does," said Cook thoughtfully. 
 
 " It will be interesting if we can get her to draw 
 him out." 
 
 " Yes," said Cook again, but with so abstracted an 
 air, twirling the point of his close-clipped beard, that 
 Miss Grace discreetly changed the subject. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING Homer's reasonable 
 expectations, the strikers' plan of campaign 
 remained unchanged to all appearances 
 throughout that day and the next, though their lead- 
 ers circulated in automobiles from factory to factory, 
 and more conferences were held. Mr. Loring stood 
 by his guns, the engineers stuck to their posts, the com- 
 munity patiently suffered or patiently devised means 
 to overcome the discomforts of the situation. A break 
 in the weather, Homer's fellow-cynics pointed out, 
 would almost certainly bring matters to a crisis, but 
 nothing of the kind was in prospect, according to the 
 Bureau. With July in full swing, the deadening heat 
 might continue for two weeks, which would give the 
 labour generals ample time to formulate and carry out 
 whatever scheme they had " up their sleeve." 
 
 But it was little that one labour-leader, at least, 
 recked of all this during that twenty-four hours ! T. 
 Chauncey Devitt, that friend of the toiling masses, 
 that fearlessly eloquent champion of the Rights of 
 Labour, was going about with his head in the clouds. 
 To do him justice, the young man was quite invulner- 
 able to whatever attractions wealth, social distinc- 
 tion, literary eminence and so on, the society of Miss 
 Grace and Mr. Cook might be supposed to exert ; was 
 he not T. Chauncey Devitt? He valued this dinner 
 invitation only because he fondly believed it would 
 give him the opportunity he longed for, he ached and 
 prayed for, of seeing his lady alone, of having her to 
 
 370 
 
BREAD AND CIECUSES 371 
 
 himself for a blessed moment. There would surely 
 be some stairway, some alcove, some corner of a moon- 
 lit terrace — his breath came quick. At last I After 
 his fashion he staged in fancy a hundred scenes with 
 her, away from this shabby environment of Poplar 
 Street, in the setting that became her — and also, he 
 imagined, became himself. After to-night, what 
 might not happen? As he dressed, his clean little 
 room wath the lace curtains sweeping the floor, with 
 the pink conch-shells on the hearth, the bog-oak cruci- 
 fix over the bed, the crocheted tidies and pincushion, 
 the chromo of the Virgin displaying her Sacred Heart 
 that he had won for first prize in the rhetoric class at 
 Saint Xavier's when he was thirteen years old — this 
 chaste, bourgeois interior that his mother tended with 
 such passionate devotion, expanded into a gilded 
 apartment the mere description of which with all its 
 scandalous implications would have taken Norah's 
 breath away. He sang, he whistled, he smiled at him- 
 self in the glass, boyishly vain of the slim elegance of 
 his own figure in evening dress, pleased with the fine 
 lines of his white waistcoat that Xorah had done up 
 for him with her own hands, delightedly horrified at 
 its cost. 
 
 " Fourteen dollars, no less, for a bit of pique ye 
 couldn't cut a handkerchief out of I But why 
 shouldn't the boy please himself? It's none too good 
 for him ! " she said with pride as she and Michael, sit- 
 ting over their tea and potatoes and cold ham in the 
 kitchen, heard Chauncey carolling overhead. 
 
 " 'Tis all right for them that has the price," said 
 her husband sourly. ''I haven't. And I'd look at 
 fourteen dollars a long w^hile before I'd blow it on a 
 white vest, anyhow." 
 
372 THE RUDDER 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, Mike, what would you be do- 
 ing with a white vest? YeVe no place to w^ear such 
 a thing. Our Chauncey's different." 
 
 " To be sure ! He's a fine gentleman, and look at 
 all he's doing for the ice-men, and the rest of us, him 
 and Jack Dalton! Jack's a neat dresser, too. Ye 
 need fourteen-dollar vests when ye work like they do. 
 Next thing the men'll have to have 'em too. Why 
 not? 'Tis a shame the w^ay we treat 'em, hard-fisted, 
 bullying old skin-flints like Mr. Loring and myself I " 
 
 Norah looked at him with the distress and apprehen- 
 sion that his black moods, though now of almost daily 
 recurrence, invariably caused her. She did not un- 
 derstand his heavy irony; she only knew that he 
 seemed to be angered over a trifle — Chauncey's waist- 
 coat ! The fact, taken with the rest of his talk which 
 sounded to her quite wildly incoherent and irrelevant, 
 put into her mind dreadful doubts and fears. 
 
 "What for are ye talking about Mr. Loring, Mike? 
 Sure, he ain't nothing like you, nor you like him. 
 Don't let the thought of him worry ye. He can't hurt 
 Timmie," she said soothingly. " Do ye feel all right 
 the day? Your head don't hurt, does it? 'Tis the 
 heat; I'll fix ye something. Ye hadn't ought to be 
 out on the work all day in the sun, with them dizzy 
 spells like to come on ye any minute. I'll have to 
 be getting after ye to make ye mind yerself better — ! " 
 
 " Oh, hold your tongue, Norah, woman, for God's 
 sake!" Michael burst out violently, as she got up 
 and began to bustle about him. " Leave me alone I 
 I'm wanting nothing, I tell ye ! " He pushed his wife 
 away impatiently and got up and got his pipe and 
 went outside. A neighbour sprawling on the steps 
 next door in a similar neglige of shirtsleeves and 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 373 
 
 socks bailed liim with the inquiry if it was hot enough 
 for him, to Avhich Mike only responded with a grunt. 
 He sat sulkily dumb, and the other man presently 
 abandoned the attempt at sociability. Xorah, wiping 
 her eyes and the dishes, noted with a miserable satis- 
 faction that he accorded every one the same treat- 
 ment as herself; so that outsiders if they chanced to 
 overhear him giving her the rough side of his tongue 
 as he did just now would think little of it, since noth- 
 ing pleased him and nobody got a civil word out of 
 him nowadays. 
 
 Chauncey came downstairs and paused in the door- 
 way, his tall and clean-lined black-and-white figure 
 looking ludicrously out of place in the hot little 
 kitchen tTiat smelled perpetually of cooking and scrub- 
 bing. "Hello, mother!'' he said indifferently, and 
 came in and stooped to look over the short white cur- 
 tain at the window-sash just above the sink. An au- 
 tomobile croaked outside; Miss Grace's big car was 
 drawing up at the opposite curb. All the children on 
 the square congregated around it. 
 
 " Is it for Mrs. Loring, I dinnaw? " queried Xorah 
 with excitement and respect. 
 
 " Yes. Take care, she'll see you ! " 
 
 Xorah obediently drew back, wringing the soapy 
 water from her hands with due attention to his broad- 
 cloth, and natty light overcoat. She surveyed her 
 son with happy shining eyes, all trouble forgotten for 
 the moment. 
 
 " Couldn't ye find your stovepipe hat, Tim — Chaun- 
 cey? I put it out on the bed.'' 
 
 " Yes, I saw it. But, Great Scott, I don't want that 
 thing to-night I " 
 
 " Sure, I thought all the gentlemen — " 
 
374 THE RUDDER 
 
 " Oh, you don't know anything about it. You never 
 go anywhere.'' 
 
 Eleanor descended the steps, holding her white wrap 
 up about her throat ; the children set up a treble pip- 
 ing which she answered in her pleasant, low-pitched 
 voice, fending off the swarming little figures, the little 
 inquisitive, dirty fingers gaily and kindly. The young 
 man had the glimpse for which he was lying in wait ; 
 framed in the window of the limousine against its 
 light-coloured linings, her shapely black head, her 
 straight, high profile appeared for an instant like a 
 cameo. The smart footman slammed the door; the 
 car, with a preliminary cough or two, moved off ma- 
 jestically. Chauncey straightened up with a long 
 breath. His eyes fell on his mother standing with 
 her hands resting on the rim of the sink, the Welsbach 
 light overhead bringing out with its strong blue- white 
 glare every detail of her square, dry, active body, her 
 grey hair strained back into a hard little knot, her 
 spectacles, her shining red knuckles ; it revealed too a 
 heavenly expression of love and admiration and utter 
 self-forgetfulness, but Chauncey did not see that. It 
 was out of his own exuberant self-content and joyous 
 expectation that he bent and kissed her. " Good- 
 night, Mamsie ! " 
 
 He had not used the endearing nickname since he 
 was a little fellow, and the tears came again into 
 Norah's eyes to hear it and to feel his caress, but 
 she held them back valiantly. " Go along now, Tim- 
 mie! What d'ye want? Gingerbread? That's how 
 ye used to get it out of me. Well, have a good time ! 
 Is it a banquet now? Do ye have to make a speech for 
 them? Ye needn't laugh at your old mother, ye ras- 
 cal. Whisht, Tim, go easy by your father, he ain't 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 375 
 
 so well to-ni,Ji'ht I Better not speak to liim, without he 
 says something first, I think — " She listened anx- 
 iously, but no word passed between the two men, and 
 Chauncey strode off down street, the children scatter- 
 ing before him, and calling out disrespectful person- 
 alities from a safe distance: they were not so friendly 
 to him as to the '' Visiting Lady '' by which title they 
 knew Eleanor rather than by her name. 
 
 Going out to the North Hill, one entered a zone of 
 cooler air; and as Chauncey stood in the massiye 
 vestibule of the Grace house, he was aware of a fra- 
 grant freshness breathing oyer spacious stretches of 
 turf, and from the clustering trees. With a pleasing 
 calculation the stone arches framed landscape pictures 
 of drop-curtain suggestion — alleys between the trees, 
 the distant curye of the river bank, specked T\i.th 
 lights. Inside, in the hall, there was a lofty stillness, 
 broken once in a while by remote voices and laughter. 
 Chauncey remembered Poplar Street, its noises and 
 kitchens and front steps with a rush of aversion sur- 
 prising in such an advocate of all that Poplar Street 
 represented I Guided in the direction of the sounds, 
 he arrived at a small draT\ing-room '' done " in Chi- 
 nese yellows and blues, a marvel of good taste, in- 
 timate and gracious in spite of its mirrors and lacquer 
 and damask walls and deliberate symmetry of orna- 
 ment. There sat — on one of the delicate caned 
 satinwood settees with the bouquets and ribbons 
 painted by Angelica Kauffmann in the medallions of 
 its back — there sat little blonde Miss Grace in a 
 white toilette as elaborately un-elaborate as her blue- 
 and-yellow ^' period '' apartment, with a collar of 
 pearls ; there was another lady with more jewels and a 
 dress quite as low-necked though her carefully waved 
 
376 THE RUDDER 
 
 and puffed hair was as grey as his mother's; she re- 
 minded Chaiincey of the dowager duchesses he had 
 seen on the stage and he braced himself to endure be- 
 comingly the chilly survey of her lorgnette. There 
 was Eleanor I She was sitting with her back towards 
 him. And there was the immaculate and perplexing \ 
 Mr. Cook, standing in the middle of the floor, deliv- 
 ering some sort of oration, with melodramatic tones 
 and gestures! 
 
 ". . . Why is it when for fifty centuries the mas- 
 ter has made the laws, that when within this cen- 
 tury the MAN has asserted his right to a voice in the 
 enactment of lav^^s, the question of fairness is so 
 often raised ... ?" 
 
 Chauncey thought the point was very well taken, 
 and promised himself to remember it. He was pro- 
 portionately astonished when Mr. Cook abruptly 
 ended in a burst of irrelevant laughter ; and the ladies 
 applauded frivolously. 
 
 " Wonderful I '' Miss Grace ejaculated. " It 
 sounds just as if it meant something! Is it easy to 
 do?" 
 
 " Well, talking is always easier than thinking, you 
 know," said the author, and helped himself to a cock- 
 tail. " Though a modest man, I believe with prac- 
 tice I would go far. The first necessity is to bone up 
 a vocabulary of catchwords — " 
 
 " Oh, Uncle Marshall, don't exaggerate that way ! 
 It's — it's not just ! " Eleanor said in a troubled voice. 
 " The labour-men are very much in earnest. You 
 oughtn't to make fun of them. You know I've been 
 down and lived among working-people for more than 
 a year now, and I know about them. Of course they 
 
BEEAD AND CIRCUSES 377 
 
 aren't saints, and some of them aren't intelligent or 
 even honest, but — " 
 
 " Neither are we I They're just like ourselves, in 
 my observation. Only two kinds of people : men and 
 women. There's no difference between your slum and 
 the North Hill, except — " 
 
 " It's not a slum, sir. That shows how much you 
 know." 
 
 " Well, it's not a place where I'd choose to ' loaf 
 and invite my soul,' " said Marshall, sipping his cock- 
 tail. 
 
 "You are afraid your soul might send regrets?" 
 Miss Grace suggested. 
 
 " Exactly. We've never been on very intimate 
 terms, anj'how." 
 
 Eleanor gave a slight exclamation ; she had seen the 
 other guest in the pier-glass opposite her, and rose 
 involuntarily, turning toAvards him. They gazed at 
 each other ; and Cook, catching the look in Chauncey's 
 eyes, after a startled instant, said to himself that he 
 didn't blame young Devitt. Eleanor was splendid to- 
 night; any man might have stared at her too long and 
 perhaps too ardently. The labour-leader himself was 
 rather on the matinee-hero order, in point of appear- 
 ance I Miss Grace tripped forward. 
 
 Chauncey was presented to the old duchess, whose 
 manners, to his surprise and faint disappointment, 
 turned out to be perfectly plain and simple ; and so 
 far from going over him haughtily through her lorg- 
 nette, she gave him a nice old wrinkled hand, and 
 looked at him kindly, if rather searchingly with her 
 bright black eyes. They went in to dinner in another 
 pretty room with casements opening on a terrace, and 
 
378 THE RUDDER 
 
 sat down cosily at a small round table with a bowl 
 of cottage flowers, snapdragon, larkspur, daisies for 
 the only decoration. Nothing seemed to be luxurious 
 or costly, not even the dinner, though it was exceed- 
 ingly good. Nobody talked in terms of a hundred 
 thousand dollars a year; nobody said a word to Mr. 
 Cook about his books, and the celebrity himself did 
 not once refer to them! Indeed, Chauncey thought 
 he did not talk at all in a cultured manner; on the 
 contrary he actually used slang freely with obvious 
 relish, and stuck to topics the reverse of literary. It 
 was all somehow a little disconcerting at first, much 
 more so than would have been the frigid pomp for 
 Avhich he had prepared himself. Still, he found them 
 likable; with all their flippancy, they showed a flat- 
 tering curiosity and interest, and listened with the 
 deepest attention to whatever he said. Mrs. Grace, 
 for instance, wanted to know how he had happened 
 to " go into the labour business," as she quaintly de- 
 scribed Chauncey's activities; and when he told her 
 that he had felt the troubled soul of the toilers call- 
 ing to him, everybody was manifestly impressed. 
 
 " I don't think Mr. Grace ever had any trouble with 
 the hands,'' the old lady remarked ; " of course that 
 w^as a good many years ago. They didn't seem to 
 have strikes in those days." 
 
 " They didn't know as much as they do now, isn't 
 that the reason, Mr. Devitt? " said the little author, 
 turning on him a gaze of mild inquiry. ^^ Organisa- 
 tion has greatly improved the workingman in that 
 respect, hasn't it? " 
 
 " In every respect, my dear sir ! At least, so we 
 think," said Chauncey, with becoming modesty. 
 " Even our enemies — that is, those who are opposed 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 379 
 
 to us — " he interpolated gravely tactful ; " even thej 
 will admit that under union leadership the condition 
 of the workingman has bettered immeasurably." 
 
 " Then what do they want to strike for 7iowf ^' 
 queried Mrs. Grace innocently. 
 
 One cannot prepare oneself against absurdities, so 
 it happened that Chauncey had no answer ready; he 
 gave her instead an indulgent smile. She was really 
 a dear old soul, diamonds and all, and as a matter of 
 fact, no more ignorant than the rest of them; there 
 seemed to be about all of their questions and com- 
 ments the same kind of baffling simplicity. Mr. Cook 
 asked if they had coloured men in the unions, and 
 being answered no, absolutely wanted to know why 
 not? Why not! Chauncey patiently pointed out to 
 him what white men wouldn't suffer was an associa- 
 tion, whereupon Miss Grace naively inquired if the 
 coloured men weren't toilers, too? 
 
 " No, of course not ! Whoever saw a coloured man 
 toil? " said Cook, while Chauncey was still searching 
 for a rejoinder which somehow eluded him. But with 
 that and some laughter the " labour business " disap- 
 peared from the conversation! Chauncey could not 
 have said whether the subject was avoided by tacit 
 common consent, or by some sort of polite jockeying, 
 but it never came up again, though he himself would 
 have been willing, even pleased to continue it; he 
 liked to be interviewed. 
 
 Mrs. Loring, he noticed, was rather silent all this 
 while. She was seated across from him, an arrange- 
 ment which after the first disappointment of not be- 
 ing beside her had been swallowed, he found on the 
 whole more to his liking. The table was small, the 
 flowers unobtrusive, the candles discreetly dim; he 
 
380 THE RUDDER 
 
 could look at lier often and long without imprudence, 
 his position making it natural. He did look. Once 
 or twice as the dinner wore along, he forgot himself, 
 or rather forgot everything but himself and her, and 
 presently became aware with a guilty start that some 
 one had spoken to him, had perhaps repeated the 
 remark, and answered at random, gathering himself ^ 
 together as best he could. Sometimes their eyes met, 
 and with a delirious hope he saw or fancied he saw 
 the beautiful colour sweep slowly upwards over her 
 face. She had on a cloudy black dress ; the soft folds 
 of it caressed her maddeningly. There was a tiny 
 mole dotted in the gracious curve where her arm and 
 shoulder joined, that alternately showed and retreated 
 tantalisingly with every movement, under the filmy 
 bretelle. She wore a thread of a chain about her 
 neck with a pendant, flakes of diamonds in a web 
 of silver edged with fairy-like fringes and tassels that 
 hung down and ran together in a point just resting 
 in the sweet valley between her rising breasts. The 
 young man looked and looked until he thought he 
 would suffocate with longing. 
 
 " You smoke, Mr. Devitt? " Cook said to him for 
 the third time. Chauncey came to himself with a 
 shock of anxiety ; he smiled and stammered and fum- 
 bled in the cigarette case Cook was holding out to 
 him, furtively inspecting the little man's face. But 
 Cook merely looked interested in Chauncey and the ' 
 cigarettes; he explained with a deprecating humour 
 that he couldn't smoke cigars. Everybody was stand- 
 ing up; the ladies moved towards the terrace; in the 
 background the butler was stalking the company, 
 with a tray of coffee-cups and silverware. Another 
 minute and they were outside under the night and 
 
BKEAD AND CIRCUSES 381 
 
 stars, in the comparative safety of the semi-darkness ; 
 and so far as he knew Chauncey had not betrayed him- 
 self. 
 
 Now were due those delicious moments about which 
 he had been speculating rapturously for the last 
 twenty-four hours. Alack and alas for all balked and 
 tormented lovers, the chances for a solitude a dcujr 
 seemed as remote as ever! The wicker chairs and 
 tables were drawn up in a circle; Mrs. Grace appar- 
 ently had no notion of obliterating herself in the style 
 customary and becoming to her years; her daughter 
 and the author, instead of pairing off decently as 
 Chauncey had expected, sat as if rooted, and kept on 
 with their gay, friendly talk, never allowing them- 
 selves to become confidential, never leaving Mrs. Lor- 
 ing and himself out of it for one second, with a posi- 
 tively infernal civility. Nobody made the slightest 
 move to go and look at the moon; nobody suggested 
 that he be shown the house or the grounds or the 
 view. He had the poor comfort of sitting nearer her^ 
 and gazing as before. It was an intolerable kind of 
 blissful misery which seemed to have already lasted 
 for years, centuries, aeons, and would last, unless, he 
 wildly thought, he went mad and died of love — killed 
 himself at her feet! The idea was rather attractive. 
 
 When, however — after another cycle or so ! — she 
 arose, and he knew that the evening was over, Chaun- 
 cey suddenly found in desolation of spirit that he did 
 not want it to end at all, that, since nothing better 
 could be hoped for, he wanted it to keep on this way 
 forever. As he stood by, listening to the good-nights, 
 and mechanically answering those addressed to him- 
 self, he noticed with a dart of envy that Mr. Cook was 
 not leaving yet. He could stay as long as he chose. 
 
382 THE RUDDER 
 
 very likely, and have his girl to himself, and whisper 
 to her out there on the terrace ; that's what people got 
 for being successful authors and little old maids with 
 barrels of money ! Cook was of an age to be Chaun- 
 eey's father, and Miss Grace well-preserved, to be 
 sure, and nice enough, but there was nothing to her. 
 It was ridiculous and infuriating. 
 
 " So nice of you to come, Mr. Devitt. I hope we 
 haven't bored you so that you will fly at sight of us 
 hereafter," said the subject of these uncomplimentary 
 reflections. Chauncey was just rummaging for some 
 correspondingly smooth and civil repartee, when she 
 routed every thought from his mind, by adding: 
 " I'm sending Mrs. Loring back and there's plenty of 
 room for you, if you would like — ? It must be very 
 crowded in the street-cars a night like this, everybody 
 riding around trying to cool off — " 
 
 What else she said, what the others said, Chauncey 
 did not know. He rei^lied somehow, his heart bound- 
 ing, his head in a whirl. He went and got his over- 
 coat and hat from the silent, well-bred English foot- 
 man in the cloakroom, who pocketed the prodigious 
 tip Chauncey thrust upon him, and sneered behind 
 his back. He followed Eleanor down the steps; he 
 handed her into the car ; and it rolled off, leaving Mr. 
 Cook under the great bronze lanterns of the carriage- 
 entrance, looking after them with a very queer, dubi- 
 ous countenance. 
 
 The author slowly and meditatively made his way 
 back to the blue-and-yellow drawing-room where the 
 ladies of the house were sitting. " Well? " said he, 
 looking from one to the other. 
 
 "Well?" echoed Bessie, and watched him subside 
 into a chair. After a silence she said : " Mr. Devitt 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 383 
 
 is a very striking, unusual, impressive-looking per- 
 son!" 
 
 " Yes. Mr. Devitt is a very striking, unusual, im- 
 pressive-looking person ! " Cook repeated. 
 
 For some reason they all began to laugb. 
 
 The automobile sped along. Eleanor, though, like 
 any woman, she had ten times greater command of 
 herself than the young man at her side, was trem- 
 blingly conscious of his nearness, as indeed she had 
 been all evening, with moments of wonder, of self- 
 scorn, of a sort of ashamed abandon. The presence of 
 the others, instead of a vexation, was to her as that of 
 armed forces and outworks of defence. Now that the 
 enemy was at her very gates, she rushed to her own 
 weapons, assuring herself meanwhile with a desperate 
 hypocrisy that of course she would not yield, she had 
 no idea of yielding — it would be foolish and worse, 
 degrading — her only uncertainty was whether she 
 could hold him in check. His silence was ominous. 
 She began to talk fast and breathlessly about any- 
 thing, everything, repeating gossip which ordinarily 
 she herself would have been the first to silence. She 
 could not stop to observe noblesse oblige in this ex- 
 tremity ! 
 
 " My uncle and Miss Grace are really exasperating. 
 He has been in love with her for years, and everybody 
 thinks she would have him if he would only ask her. 
 But he won't, because of her money. He doesn't seem 
 to know that the things he has done — his position in 
 the literary world, you know — he's a very well-known 
 man — it never seems to occur to him that that off- 
 sets all her millions — I daresay she has millions, I 
 don't know, of course — but anybody can see that they 
 are very wealthy. It would be an ideal match ; they 
 
384 THE RUDDER 
 
 are so congenial — but he simply won't, he's too stiff- 
 necked. Such a pity ! If he — " She finished with 
 a shrug. 
 
 "Are you cold?" said Chauncey huskily; and 
 reached behind her and gathered up the wrap which 
 had slid from her shoulders with the movement. He 
 did not withdraw his arm; his fingers touched her 
 lightly. Eleanor, balancing on some mental tight- 
 rope, decided that it was best to pretend unconscious- 
 ness of his attitude. At the rate the car was going, 
 they would reach Poplar Street in a few minutes, and 
 he must i^erforce return to sanity. 
 
 " Oh, thank you, not at all." 
 
 " Yes, you are ! You are cruelly cold — to me ! " 
 whispered the young man, getting his voice with an 
 effort, his sigh stirring the loose waves of her hair. 
 His other hand groped for hers and held it with sud- 
 den violence. 
 
 Eleanor heard her voice saying, ^^ Please, Mr. De- 
 vitt — ! " while she made no movement to release her- 
 self. The devices whose flimsiness and futility she 
 had known all along fell to pieces before the onslaught 
 of her own senses, abetting this male passion. In 
 chaos she grasped at straws ; this was not right — she 
 ought to have stopped him — she could not — oh, for 
 shame ! She knew very well it was her own fault — 
 w^ell, what harm did it do? — it was not right — w^hat 
 would people say if they knew — ! 
 
 The car swayed around a turn, and threw her 
 against his shoulder. "At least I am not to blame 
 for tliatf was the one thought that careered wildly 
 through her, as she felt his embrace, rigid yet quiver- 
 ing, tighten around her, the pounding of his heart, 
 his broken breathing. 
 
BREAD AND CIPvCUSES 385 
 
 " Oh, Eleanor — ! '' 
 
 And then, like a cold wave, the light from the arc 
 lamp at the head of Poplar Street spread over them^ 
 and the car slackened speed, already slanting toward 
 the curb I Chaiincev released her abruptly, his voice 
 and some semblance of self-control coming back to 
 him with the furious oath he ground out behind his ^ 
 clenched teeth. Eleanor went into light laughter; 
 she did not like him the less for that disappointed 
 l)rofanitY; she could not keep herself from glancing 
 roiiuishlT into the Tounix man's white face as he 
 helped her out of the automobile, and she fled wp the 
 steps relieved, exultant, reckless. Poplar Street had 
 long since gone to bed, its windows gaping for a breath 
 of fresh air; but there was a light in the Morehead 
 front room. In the one at the back next the kitchen 
 Lutie was asleep with her head on the soiled and 
 sticky red cotton tablecloth, but Eleanor did not know 
 that. She had forgotten Lutie's existence. ^' He will 
 have to give the chauffeur a tip, and that will keep 
 him until I get inside,'^ she thought, fitting the key; 
 '^ otherwise he is capable of — " Of what? She would 
 not finish the sentence, even to herself; and indeed, 
 she had no time for there he was at her shoulder I 
 
 '^ Let me do that," he said with authority, taking 
 the key out of her hand. Eleanor submitted in re- 
 turning panic. On the cramjied threshold they had 
 to stand close together. He pushed the door back, 
 and stood against it, lookins: down at her. Eleanor 
 passed in hurriedly. 
 
 " Thank you. Good-night ! '' 
 
 But Chauncey had come in behind her. He closed 
 the door gently, and they faced each other in the dim^ 
 hot, little room. He came nearer. 
 
386 THE RUDDER 
 
 " Eleanor ! Don't send me away ! I — I can^t 
 leave you — I can't stand it any longer. Eleanor, 
 you won't make me go away from you now? ^' 
 
 His voice was only a gasping murmur, but still 
 beautiful, more than ever so in this pleading. 
 Eleanor stood mute, the turmoil recommencing within 
 her : this was not right — but if he kept on — she 
 would not jdeld — pshaw, she had yielded long ago 
 in her heart ! — this was not right — but what harm 
 did it do? — He was free and so was she, or nearly 
 so — it was not right — what if people found out — 
 
 "Do you want me to go? Eleanor, look at me! 
 Speak to me! Say you'll let me stay with you! I 
 — Eleanor — ! " He had her in his arms ; and bent 
 down and brushed aside the pendant. 
 
 The strange thing is that if he had kissed her lips, 
 Eleanor might not have felt the fierce revulsion that 
 followed that caress. But all at once, in a lightning- 
 flash of disgust, she beheld the pair of them as a com- 
 mon man, a common woman, sensually excited, mak- 
 ing love to each other or rather barefacedly desiring 
 each other in the old, old, dull animal fashion with 
 the old revolting tricks and gestures, as if neither 
 one of them had a soul or an intelligence, here in a 
 close, ugly hole of a room that smelled vulgarly ! She 
 stepped back, freeing herself with an unexpected 
 movement. 
 
 " I think — " she was beginning aloud in a cold and 
 well-controlled voice, when some slight noise at the 
 door arrested her. 
 
 " Hope you folks had a nice time ! " said Lutie. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE morning papers came out with headlines 
 such as : " Ice Situation Tightens Up," 
 " Engineers Hold Parley/' etc., but the pub- 
 lic, reading with fresh alarms, found the columns un- 
 derneath to contain, after all, no real news, nothing 
 but the rumours already in circulation, revamped. 
 There were articles with cartoons describing scenes 
 at the ice-depots in humorous vein, and ditto jDathetic. 
 T. Chauncej Devitt in yesterday's inter^^ew, deplored 
 the suffering among the poor, pointed out that Mr. 
 Loring had a great deal to answer for, and nobly de- 
 clared that if all means of bringing that gentleman 
 to reason and to a conviction of his wrong-doing 
 failed, he himself would order a carload of ice sent 
 over from Covington — there being no strike on the 
 Kentucky side of the river — for free distribution, 
 IDaying for it out of his own pocket I " Yeah, he'll do 
 that, T. Chauncey'll do that — in a pig's eye I " re- 
 marked Mr. Kendrick and other sceptics, coming upon 
 this item. Elsewhere one read that it was ninety- 
 five by the thermometer in the Government Building 
 the day before; and that the attendance at the ball- 
 imrk had been rather light, owing to the low standing 
 of the home team which was being brought down still 
 more by the efforts of the Black Sox; yesterday's 
 game made the latter's third consecutive victory, hav- 
 ing been won by Loring's ^' lucky wallop in the sev- 
 enth." 
 
 Eleanor had not seen these reports when she started 
 
 387 
 
388 THE EUDDER 
 
 out a little late, but fresh and vigorous in defiance 
 of the heat, to find Homer Morehead and begin her 
 rounds. The boy had been invaluable in this pinch, 
 he was so quick, reliable and ready to assume respon- 
 sibility. As usual she did not have far to go in 
 search of him ; Homer was sitting on the front door- 
 step engaged in reassembling the pair of skates from 
 Ms box-cart lying alongside. 
 
 " Well, Homer, good morning ! I think we had 
 better go around first to old Mrs. Hanke, and see what 
 she wants — " 
 
 But Homer, who ordinarily responded with so much 
 alacrity, did not budge. " Nothin' doin' ! " said he, 
 and continued operations on the skates with a stubbed 
 penknife which he employed as a screw-driver. 
 " What is that? What did you say? '' 
 He looked at her sidewise, pursing up his lij^s and 
 wagging his head with an expression at once knowing 
 and regretful. " 'S all off, Mrs. Loring ! I told you 
 how it would be. I knew they'd spring something 
 before long,'' he said, and returned to the skates, with 
 a squint along the rollers to see that they were in 
 alignment. The significance of his employment and 
 of the dismantled cart began to emerge, to Eleanor's 
 dismay. 
 
 ^^ Do you mean we can't get ice any more? " 
 '^ That's about it," said Homer. Having completed 
 the job to his satisfaction, he set the skate beside its 
 fellow, and stood up, snapping the i)enknife shut and 
 thrusting it into his pocket with an air that expressed 
 finality. " At least there's going to be slews of folks 
 that won't get none. You gotta go to the fact'ry 
 and then they won't let you have none, without you 
 got a doctor's cert'f'cate there's sickness in the house. 
 
BKEAD AND CIRCUSES 389 
 
 I guess that lets you 'n' me out, Mrs. Loring. You 
 can't beat it out to a factory every time somebody 
 wants ice, let alone you can't get doctor's cert'f cates 
 for all of ^em ; and / couldn't lug it all that way for 
 you, anyhow." 
 
 Eleanor listened to him blankly. ^^ Are you sure, 
 Homer?" 
 
 " Try for yourself and see ! " Homer advised her 
 with detachment. ^' I did." 
 
 "But they're making ice still? They've got the 
 ice? " Eleanor asked ; and as he nodded a gust of blind 
 resentment shook her. Of all selfish, criminal follies 
 this was the climax ! It made no difference who was 
 to blame; they were all to blame! "What are they 
 thinking of? Has nohody any sense? People must 
 have ice — they must have it ! What does Mr. Loring 
 say?" 
 
 " He ain't nothin' to do ^ith it I don't b'lieve," said 
 the boy. " Somebody said he vras sick — laid off with 
 that arm broke, you know. Anyhow, the strikers got 
 fellows in charge at all the ice-plants, and they've 
 sprung that cert'f'cate business like I was telling you. 
 They're making it go all right, too! I s'pose they 
 claim it don't hurt well people to go without ice, and 
 thev're willing to let the sick ones have it, ain't they? 
 What you going to do 'bout it? Course the hospitals 
 and institootions they're all getting it right along, 
 'cause they're cram-jam full of sick people. As long 
 as it's that way, the strikers can claim they ain't any- 
 body got any kick to make. Dalton's pretty slick." 
 
 "Does — does Mr. Devitt know?" Eleanor asked 
 uneasily. 
 
 " Sure thing ! He goes round to all the fact'ries 
 every day, you know." 
 
390 THE RUDDER 
 
 Eleanor stood still, confronting her own helpless- 
 ness with her old familiar flaming rebellion; but she 
 had herself under stricter discipline than in Mrs. 
 Maranda's day, or rather realised that there was noth- 
 ing tangible, as it were, to rebel against, no one in- 
 dividual of whom to make a target. For the first 
 time in her life she was without recourse; an appeal 
 to Mr. Loring (which, oddly enough, w^as her first 
 impulse) she dismissed as futile; if he had made up 
 his mind, nothing she could do or say would bring 
 him to alter it. Besides, to tell the truth, Eleanor 
 found her view of old Amzi's conduct somehow dis- 
 torted by her profound respect for him ; in this quar- 
 rel, he might not be wholly right, but she was pos- 
 sessed by an ungovernable conviction that he was so 
 nearly right, that she could not but applaud him for 
 " sticking it out." The strikers must undoubtedly 
 be right, in a measure, too, but strive as she would 
 she could not look upon them as equally trustworthy. 
 This Dalton man, now — but she immediately averted 
 her mind from Dalton. Mr. Devitt — her blood 
 quickened in spite of her — Mr. Devitt was too im- 
 practical, too visionary, too one-sided to apply to in 
 such a crisis. After last night, how could she go 
 to him? Let him come to her — it burned through 
 her that she was thinking of him now only as a lover, 
 not as a power, not as a leader any more. He was 
 a young man who had kissed her — and this morning 
 Eleanor forgave him that kiss. 
 
 "Lina's raising the roof," Homer observed, cas- 
 ually. " I was gettin' ice right along for her to fix 
 that dope she feeds the kid with. Well, she ain't the 
 only one." 
 
 No, Lina was not the only one. Eleanor thought 
 
BREAD AND CIKCUSES 391 
 
 of the mothers aud babies all over the city — she 
 could have uaiiied a score in her own district — with 
 another stab of impotent anger and pity. Oh, the 
 fools, oh, the senseless stubborn brutes that men could 
 be ! But it was a waste of time to stand here manu- 
 facturing denunciations. " You've been everywhere , 
 did you say, Homer? Well, then, it's my turn to 
 try," she said determinedly, and set off without much 
 idea of where to go or what she meant to do, but find- 
 inof that merelv to be in action restored her self-con- 
 fidence. After all. Homer was only a boy, with a 
 boy's limitations in the way of resource and personal 
 influence; she was not to be so easily defeated. 
 
 There was no ice at the engine-house, but she had 
 expected that and went on undismayed. The drug- 
 gist at the corner had gotten it on his representa- 
 tions that some medicines could not be kept in this 
 weather without it, and that his establishment was 
 '^next thing to a hospital anyhow," he told Eleanor; 
 of course he had none for sale; the soda-water foun- 
 tain was tinkling merrily. At Schlochtermaier's the 
 assistant meat-cutter said that their supply of ice 
 from the day before w^oiild only last till noon; he 
 didn't know what they'd do after that; Heinie had 
 gone out to see about it — and Gee, wasn't this thing 
 fierce, though ! Eleanor started off again ; there was 
 the usual stream of all sorts of vehicles through the 
 streets carrying ice ; she overheard people relating the 
 devices by w^hich they had gotten it, the other devices 
 which had failed. Xo one believed that this new trial 
 would continue long; there were too many ways of 
 ^'beating the game"; any doctor would give you a 
 certificate, no matter whether you had sickness in 
 your family or not. Anyhow, if this thing kept on. 
 
392 THE RUDDER 
 
 pretty soon people would get used to going without 
 ice; they didn't have ice in summer thirty or forty 
 years ago before ice-machines and refrigerator-cars 
 were invented, and nobody worried about it. ^^ Sure 
 they didn't worry! They just died! Died off like 
 flies, IDarticularly the children and the feeble ones, 
 there're statistic-sharks that have got the figures to 
 prove it. Must have been lots of fun ! " sarcastically 
 retorted the man to whom the above argument was ad- 
 dressed. Eleanor remembered those comparative 
 tables of mortality, too, with a sinking heart. 
 
 She came to the tenement where the Tom More- 
 heads were living and went in, exchanging comments 
 and condolences with other tenants as she climbed 
 the stairs. Some of them had a little ice, and their 
 poor, tumbledown, unsavoury boxes were crowded 
 with the meat, milk and what-not that they were try- 
 ing to keep for less fortunate friends. The lank, 
 worn, overworked women sighed and exclaimed and 
 wondered how long the trouble would last, but not 
 one of them shared, or at least expressed, Eleanor's 
 furious rancour. They accepted this unnecessary 
 and cruelly undeserved suffering as they accepted the 
 other hard circumstances of their lives, as if it were, 
 like the July heat, an act of the Power above which 
 nobody could complain about, or provide against, or 
 avert ! 
 
 Tom Morehead came to their door with his puffed 
 eyes, his tallowy face, with his bare feet in a pair of 
 ragged slippers, his dirty undershirt clutched about 
 his neck; but he was sober for once, and smiled 
 weakly at sight of Eleanor. Through the door she 
 had a glimpse of the place unkempt as usual; and 
 
BKEAD AND CIKCUSES 303 
 
 from the room beyond an incessant thin wailing pene- 
 trated her ears like a needle. 
 
 " W'y, Mrs. Loring! Lina, here's Mrs. Loring 
 come to see you ! " Tom said with a miserable affecta- 
 tion of heartiness. Inarticulate but savage sounds 
 answered him from the inner apartment. '^ Lina, she 
 can't come just now, I guess — she — she's busy. I 
 don't guess you got time to wait/' said Tom, hesitat- 
 ing, with uncertain eyes. But he fell back resignedly 
 as Eleanor walked in. " We ain't got fixed up yet — 
 we wasn't looking for comp'ny so early. Haye a 
 chair, Mrs. Loring — you must be tired — all them 
 stairs — " 
 
 Eleanor cut short his nervous stammerings. " How 
 is the baby? " 
 
 ^^ Wy, she ain't so well — " 
 
 " Have you had the doctor? " 
 
 '' W*y, no, ma'am, we ain't yet. We — we're kinda 
 in trouble," said Tom, lowering his voice with an un- 
 easy glance towards the other door. " You know 
 how^ it is, Mrs. Loring — ? " 
 
 " Xobody has any ice — yes, I know. But if you 
 could get the doctor here, he'd give you an order for 
 it on the baby's account, and then you could get it, 
 even if you had to go out to Elmwood.'' 
 
 " Well, we — we ain't got nobody to send — " 
 
 Eleanor controlled her temper ; the spectacle would 
 have astonished Mr. Cook, and perhaps enlightened 
 him as to what and how much she had learned this 
 past year. "Xobody to send? Can't you go your- 
 self? " 
 
 " W'y — I — I — " 
 
 " Haven't you any money? " 
 
394 THE RUDDER 
 
 " No'm — that is — I got fifty cents, onV — " lie 
 looked towards the door again — " on'y Lina — she — 
 I give it to her, ^n' she — she — '^ His eyes appealed 
 to Eleanor desperate!}'. 
 
 Lina appeared violently in the doorway, with the 
 baby in her arms. " Never you mind, Mrs. Loring, 
 don't you waste no time on liim! -^ she said in a high, 
 grating voice. ^' I ain't. I'm through with him ! 
 I'm through with that lazy, stinking drunk ! Wat 
 you staying round here for? Didn't I tell you to clear 
 out? " she screamed, advancing on the man. " Ain't 
 I told you I'm through with you, you — ! " She flung 
 an epithet at him like a stone. 
 
 " Say, look out, Lina, you — you don't want Mrs. 
 Loring to think — to think nothing — " Tom expostu- 
 lated; he began wretched apologies to Eleanor. 
 " Lina, she's all tired 'n' played out ; she's real nerv- 
 ous, you know. Say, don^t, Lina! Say, you ain't 
 asked Mrs. Loring to set down — " 
 
 But Lina was beyond conventions. "You lemme 
 alone! I guess I know w'at I mean. You get outa 
 this, Tom Morehead, or I'll show you, you — ! You 
 and your old ice-strike! You can just take your old 
 ice-strike and go to hell with it, that's w'at you can 
 do ! Look w'at you done to my baby ! Look w'at you 
 done to my baby ! " She grasped the poor little crea- 
 ture to her in a paroxysm of maternal passion dread- 
 ful to witness, it was so like the helpless anguish of a 
 she-animal over its sick or wounded young. 
 
 The husband turned to Eleanor with a despairing 
 gesture. " That's the way she acts right along. I 
 can't do nothing — they ain't nothing I can do. She 
 keeps blaming it on me, and I ain't done nothing. 
 Wy, my God, w'at could I do — ? " he whimpered. 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 395 
 
 " Better go away a minute, and let me talk to her," 
 said Eleanor, gently, sick at heart for both of them. 
 She put him aside and went up to the w^oman. " Lis- 
 ten to me, Lina — " 
 
 All at once Lina's fit of rage and terror broke down 
 in a storm of sobs ; she collapsed on the littered floor, 
 moaning and rocking herself to and fro with the cry- 
 ing baby huddled in her arms. " Oh, Mrs. Loring, her 
 food's all spoiled ! It's all soured ! It won't keep a 
 minute without we got some ice! The milk w^on't 
 keep nor nothin' ! She'll starve to death — she'll die 
 — shell die! Oh, what'll I do? What'll I do? '' 
 
 " Listen to me ! " said Eleanor again ; and her 
 strong, firm, kind voice actually quieted them. They 
 looked at her in a fascination not untouched with 
 fear. " I am going to get you some ice. Your hus- 
 band must go with me to carry it, and we will go 
 straight out to one of the factories, at Elmwood, or 
 w^herever is nearest, without waiting to see the doctor, 
 or to get any certificate or anything. I will make 
 them give me some; they will as soon as they know 
 who I am. Now you must give Tom his money, and 
 we will go." 
 
 " Mrs. Loring, I won't, I won/t! I won't let him 
 have no money for to go and get soused on — ! " 
 
 " Give him the money ! " repeated Eleanor steadily. 
 '' You must make your own money go as far as yon 
 can, before you take any from the Charities. Give 
 him the money, Lina. I will see that it is spent 
 right." 
 
 The other obeyed her like a child. 
 
 " Now^ come with me — no, never mind your 
 clothes, that's of no consequence — " 
 
 " I don't know how I'll make out to carry it — " 
 
396 THE RUDDER 
 
 " You can fix one of those slings of cord, the kind 
 they carry watermelons with — I've seen dozens of 
 people carrying ice around that way/' said Eleanor, 
 mastering her impatience. '' Come now ! " 
 
 On the street Tom held back again. " Mrs. Loring, 
 where you going? You going to Elmwood? " 
 
 ^^Yes. Well?" 
 
 " Wy, I — I — " said Tom, wavering. ^^ I don't 
 know — Mr. Loring, maybe's got it in for me, you 
 know, 'n' I — I — " 
 
 " If Mr. Loring is there, he won't do anything ta 
 you. There is nothing to be afraid of," said Eleanor, 
 keeping the contempt out of her face and voice by a 
 strong effort. He followed her on the street-car 
 meekly. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ELExlXOR had only been at Elmwood once or 
 twice since that other hot da}^ years ago, be- 
 fore she was married, before anything had 
 happened in her life, as it seemed to her now. In 
 this time the fields and half-finished streets had be- 
 come a well-settled suburb, built up in rows of small 
 houses, and there were many more shops and factor- 
 ies. The macadam road that the Shamrock Construc- 
 tion Company was building that summer had been 
 altered beyond recognition almost throughout its en- 
 tire length by paving and cross-streets, but in the 
 neighbourhood of the ice-plant it reappeared in its 
 original aspect like the rest of the scenery in that 
 particular region. There stood the building, corru- 
 gated iron walls, tower of water, weighing-platform 
 and all; there was the weedy, dusty esplanade, the 
 same all-but-dead ailanthus trees, even the scummv 
 runlet of sewage in the bottom of the ditch that she 
 remembered. The machinery was in motion, smoke 
 rising from the stack. An elderly policeman with 
 grey hair was sitting on a bench improvised from a 
 plank and a couple of kegs, in the exiguous shade. 
 There were numbers of men lounging about singly and 
 in knots — so many, in fact, that, gathered together, 
 they would have made a good-sized crowd. They 
 looked curiously at Eleanor, and some of them knew 
 Tom and spoke to him. These conversations w^re 
 carried on in guarded undertones, and whatever the 
 
 397 
 
398 THE RUDDER 
 
 burden of tliem, they had no reassuring or encourag- 
 ing effect on Thomas, whose unwholesome face pres- 
 ently took on a look of even greater perturbation than 
 before. He addressed Eleanor huskily, pulling at 
 her sleeve as she picked her way towards the little 
 office-stoop. 
 
 " Mrs. Loring ! Say, Mrs. Loring ! " 
 
 "Well?'' 
 
 " Wj, I — I — I don't b'lieve we'd better try to get 
 no ice here," whispered Tom in agitation, his eyes 
 darting fearfully to both sides of him, behind him, 
 here, there and everywhere but at her, or straight 
 ahead. " We'd oughta try some of the other places, 
 I b'lieve." 
 
 " But we're here now, and we must get the ice and 
 get back to your wife as soon as we can ! " argued 
 Eleanor sharply; and then some new expression on 
 his features moved her to ask: "What is the mat- 
 ter? " 
 
 " Mr. Loring's here an' — he's in the office — an' — 
 an' they's some of the men here — that fellow I was 
 talking to he says — they say — " 
 
 " Well, I should like to see Mr. Loring. Mr. Lor- 
 ing's the very person I w^ant to see. Why are you so 
 afraid of him? I'm sure Mr. Loring doesn't care a 
 thing about you one way or the other. Even if he 
 did, even if he w^as very angry with you, he wouldn't 
 do anything to you," Eleanor said in utter exaspera- 
 tion. She told herself that she prefered his wife 
 with all her fury to this abject creature ; no such cow- 
 ardly fears would have swayed Mrs. Tom, or any other 
 mother for that matter. 
 
 But Eleanor was mistaken in her estimate of Tom's 
 motives; for once in his life, he was not thinking 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 300 
 
 altogether of liimself. " I don't mean him — Mr. 
 Loring — I don't mean just Jiim — I mean all of 'em 
 — all them men. Don't you see they ain't selling no 
 ice? Don't you see they ain't nobody but kinda 
 roughs round here? An' just that one old orf'cer — 
 Jic couldn't do nothing, if they — if they was to start 
 somepin'. YouM oughta not be here, Mrs. Loring — 
 honest, you'd oughta not be here ! " Tom mumbled im- 
 ploringly. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " said Eleanor, all her stubborn pride 
 and spirit roused. She glanced around imperiously. 
 *^ Nothing's going to happen. That man was just try- 
 ing to frighten you. Look, there's some one coming to 
 get ice now. Nothing's going to hai^pen." 
 
 Tom looked at her, at the approaching automo- 
 bile, at the closed office-door, at the groups of men, 
 at the solitary policeman, and finally at Eleanor 
 again; the sweat broke out on his forehead, but, let 
 it be said to his honour, he did not desert her. Know- 
 ing to the full the risk they ran — a risk undreamed- 
 of by Eleanor herself — knowing it well, Tom did his 
 poor best to be a man. 
 
 "That ain't nobody after ice. That's Devitt," a 
 man near them said, as the car drew up. The men 
 began to close in towards it; Chauncey stood up; 
 there were two others in the automobile with him, 
 but they remained seated. The office-door opened, 
 and Mr. Loring came out on the stoop, with his left 
 arm in a sling; a curious kind of rumble ran through 
 the crowd at sight of him ; and then there was a bar of 
 silence. 
 
 Eleanor had started, and crimsoned, and involun- 
 tarily retreated a step or two, suddenly feeling that 
 she did not want Chauncey to see her ; of course they 
 
400 THE RUDDER 
 
 must meet again, sooner or later, but not here, not 
 now, not until she was better prepared. She ve- 
 hemently hoped that he would miss her in this 
 crowd ; and then, glancing around once more, realised 
 in a startled instant, that she could hardly escape no- 
 tice, being the only woman there, that these men were 
 indeed a sinister-looking set, as poor Tom had warned 
 her, that, in fine, something was going to happen, 
 after all ! 
 
 " Mr. Loring ! " Chauncey said, his voice carrying 
 easily across the space that separated them. '^ Good 
 morning, sir ! " 
 
 Old Amzi looked at him and said : ^^ What do you 
 want? " 
 
 " Mr. Loring, you understand without doubt the 
 arrangements that have been made for the purchase 
 of ice? That is to say, that none is to be sold except 
 in case of sickness or a physician's written — er — 
 guarantee? " said Chauncey, rolling his syllables 
 slowly and splendidly. 
 
 '^'^ I haven't made any such arrangement,'' said Mr. 
 Loring. 
 
 A formidable sound arose from the crowd, but died 
 down as Chauncey began speaking, with a fine ges- 
 ture. " Mr. Loring, I entreat you ! " he said in his 
 deep, moving voice. " Don't stand in the way of our 
 endeavours to bring about peace and mutual good- 
 will. Above all, don't inflict more suffering on the 
 public. I have just come from the mayor; his honour 
 knows that we are peaceable and law-abiding citizens. 
 But it is unwise to provoke people by — by unrea- 
 sonable stubbornness, and by — er — a show of armed 
 force," said Chauncey, glancing at the policeman. 
 ^*We have patiently tried to convince you that our 
 
BEEAD AND CIRCUSES 401 
 
 demands are just; we deplore the violence that has 
 resulted from your previous — " 
 
 Mr. Loring made a movement with his free hand 
 which had the effect of arresting the other's fluent and 
 resonant speech. " You want me, as I understand it, 
 to let some of your men come here and sit in my office 
 and check off my sales, and dictate to me who I'm to 
 sell to. That's Avhat you've been doing in the other 
 places, so I take it that's w^hat you expect to do here." 
 He paused, and as his eyes rested on them the two 
 men in the car rose, making ready to descend. 
 ^' Well, I refuse. I won't allow anything of the sort," 
 said old Amzi strongly and deliberately, w^atching 
 them. 
 
 One of them hesitated, but the other, .grinning, 
 pushed open the door and jumped out, and his com- 
 panion, after a second, followed him. They moved 
 towards Mr. Loring who, from his elevated position, 
 eyed them undisturbed, though others drew together 
 in their w^ake, and ominous noises seemed to be com- 
 ing from all sides. His attitude was much more con- 
 fident than that of the labour-leader, who stood in the 
 automobile watching, too, but with an indefinable 
 effect of confusion or uncertainty. All the while 
 the machinery throbbed steadily, the w^ater purled, 
 the pneumatic hoist screamed at regular intervals, 
 and a switch-engine with some cars ground along the 
 tracks behind the factory, the train-crew craning 
 from their stations to see what was going forward. 
 
 Chauncey finally called out something which was 
 lost in the increasing racket; there was a kind of ir- 
 resolute movement in the crowed of men. Somebody 
 shouted at Mr. Loring a question or perhaps a threat 
 which was unintelligible to Eleanor, but old Amzi 
 
402 THE RUDDER 
 
 answered at the top of liis lungs and most unequivo- 
 cally. " I don't take orders from any of you. You've 
 tried to wreck my jjlace, and you've tried to kill me ; 
 you can try again I But I'll see you all to — " 
 
 The hooting of the freight-engine drowned the last 
 words ; it was reinforced by a fusillade of honks from 
 an automobile-horn, and as the train drew over the 
 crossing, this second automobile came into view 
 charging over the tracks and directly at the mob at 
 such a rate of speed that they gave back involuntarily, 
 opening out a little. It halted within fifty feet of the 
 porch. The hood was folded back, so that there was 
 visible inside a tall, brawny young man with a light 
 suit of clothes extremely well-cut and well-fitting, 
 with an undershot jaw, a heavy layer of sunburn, and 
 a strong scowl the iDermanency of which was indi- 
 cated by two upright creases betw^een his quick little 
 eyes; these last, without any semblance of haste or 
 effort, comprehended the place in one glance. In 
 similar style leisurely and composed, yet without a 
 single wasted movement, he got up, opened the door, 
 stepped out. He addressed Mr. Loring. 
 
 " 'Lo, Dad ! " 
 
 " Xo ! " said Amzi One, allowing his son a brief 
 glance. 
 
 " Some crowd you've got here," commented the lat- 
 ter agreeably. Mr. Loring grunted. 
 
 The younger Amzi shoved his straw hat a trifle 
 back, thrust both hands into his trousers pockets, 
 planted his feet apart, and in this easy posture again 
 surveyed the scene. He might well have been dis- 
 quieted by it, but no trace of any such emotion, or of 
 anything resembling anger or excitement showed on 
 his prize-fighter countenance; he looked amused, if 
 
BKEAD AND Cir.CUSES 403 
 
 anything, but there was a quality in this amusement 
 which was hardly satisfj'ing; it suggested a jolly ogre. 
 Of the forty or fifty men there was probably not one 
 who did not know who he was and his reputation for 
 competent sayagery. They stood undecided, eyei'y- 
 body looking to his neighbour for the next moye; the 
 policeman tardily advanced ; and in the instant Amzi 
 Two spoke. 
 
 '^ Haying a picnic, hey?" said he. And here- 
 upon, scarcely stirring from his place, he reached out 
 with a motion astoundingly quick yet calculated like 
 a wing-shot, like the unerring pounce of a cat, plucked 
 a man from among those nearest, twirled him about, 
 and picked a reyolyer from somewhere in his gar- 
 ments, all in the twinkling of an eye. The half a 
 dozen immediate witnesses had no more than gasped 
 when the thing was done; those on the outskirts did 
 not know what had happened ; the news travelled out 
 to them as they saw the glittering arc of the weapon's 
 flight as Amzi Two tossed it towards the policeman, 
 who, taken a little aback, fumbled, dropped, and then 
 retrieved it gallantly. 
 
 " Good boy, George I Sign you on I '' said Amzi 
 Two approvingly. Then he spoke to the late o^Tier of 
 the revolver squirming ineffectually in his grasp. 
 " Tut, tut I Little men shouldn't carry guns. ^Tiy, 
 you might have hurt somebody, I saw you go to pull 
 it, you know — Xow, now, it's not a bit nice to talk 
 that way. That was a real bad word. Why, I be- 
 lieve you're trying to hit me. Oh, I see ! You're try- 
 ing to hit yourself. Why, look at the little man try- 
 ing to shove his own face in with his own little 
 fisties ! '' said Amzi Two, obliging the other to per- 
 form this act very vigorously. " Right on the 
 
404 THE KUDDER 
 
 smeller! Ain't he cute, boys! Ouch! Look out! 
 Don't hammer on that one eye all the time! Paste 
 the other once in a while. See, like this ! Oh, watch 
 the little man trying to eat dirt ! All right, you can 
 eat dirt if you want to. There now — ! " 
 
 It did not last thirty seconds ; the mob gazed upon 
 it spell-bound. Mr. Loring from his rostrum began 
 to speak once, but on some second thought checked 
 himself, looking on with the rest. Young Amzi 
 straightened himself, and sent around his formidably 
 jocular glance. 
 
 ^^ Anybody else looking for anything? " he inquired. 
 
 It appeared that nobody else w^as looking for any- 
 thing. 
 
 ^^ Say, Mr. Loring — " the policeman began. 
 
 " All right, officer, run him in I The charge is car- 
 rying concealed weapons," interrupted Amzi Two 
 promptly. "Concealed weapons — get that?" He 
 dusted his hands lightly together. And now his eye 
 lit upon the other automobile as if for the first time. 
 <- Why, look who's here ! My old friend Tim Devitt — 
 Cliauncey! '^ he trolled, in a raucous falsetto. " How^ 
 do, Cliauncey! '' An hysterical snigger ran through 
 the crowd. 
 
 Chauncey had been standing in the car, all his fac- 
 ulties a muddle of indecision, conscious helplessness, 
 conscious inabilit}' to think, and something very much 
 like fright. He did not lack physical courage, but as 
 a matter of fact he had never been in such a position 
 as this before ; he had addressed crowds, he had never 
 been called upon to handle one. Dalton was the man 
 for that — Dalton or some other equally potent and 
 ruthless business-agent. On a sudden it had been 
 made hideously j)lain to him that his oratory was 
 
BREAD AXD CIRCUSES 405 
 
 powerless to prevent these men from doing all that 
 Mr. Loring defied them to do; he saw the place laid 
 waste, old Amzi's dead body under the ruins, him- 
 self standing by, incredibly and horribly futile. A 
 hundred sounding phrases with which he had been 
 wont to " sway the multitude '' as he fondly imagined, 
 swept through his mind and in one moment of terri- 
 fied enlightenment he knew them for the idle stuff 
 they were, and himself for a mouther of cheap and 
 empty catchwords. Had he been a genuine fanatic, 
 riot and bloodshed would have mattered nothing to 
 him; but Chauncey was not genuine; except as 
 directly concerned himself, he had never done an hour 
 of genuine thinking in his life, or felt a single gen- 
 uine emotion. Xow in the mill-race of events, he was 
 without one rock of principle to cling to; he could 
 only remember Dalton and the newspapers. 
 
 It was not altogether to his discredit that the relief 
 with which he perceived the danger to Mr. Loring 
 pass, was seasoned with a furious mortification. If 
 he had ever really had any ascendency over this crowd 
 of men it was gone — gone beyond recall, snatched 
 from him by this big, swaggering, jeering bully in 
 whose hateful presence Chauncey found himself 
 standing to-day, as of old, dumb and out of coun- 
 tenance — maddeningly dumb and out of counte- 
 nance. Set at naught, dispossessed with contemptu- 
 ous ease by a man whom he told himself was his in- 
 ferior jet whom he knew he could not cope with — it 
 was, let us allow, not altogether monstrous that 
 Chauncey wished Mr. Loring's salvation had been 
 postponed, or had come about some other way. The 
 trouble was that young Amzi's advantage was not 
 wholly one of mere muscle ; he was playing the grand 
 
406 THE EUDDER 
 
 role ; the other young man recognised the fact against 
 his own will, and hated him the more for it. 
 
 '^ Mr. Loring/' he began, stammering, getting him- 
 self together with tremendous effort. " You come 
 here into the midst of these toilers — you come here 
 — er — with the presumption of your class, riding in 
 your automobile — '' 
 
 " That's all right, I pay for my automobile, Tim — 
 Chauncey! '' Amzi Two broke in, uttering the last 
 word in the same high and affected fashion which 
 brought a guffaw from the audience this time. " Who 
 pays for yours? '' he demanded with sudden rough- 
 ness. "Hey? Why, the union does. That's what 
 they're striking for, ain't they? Sure! Here's one 
 of 'em now ! '' With a motion as unexpected and as 
 supremely dexterous as before, he jerked forward the 
 unlucky Tom Morehead whom some current had 
 swept near. " Here's a striker I Look at him ! 
 Ain't he a bird? Where's your automobile, bo? 
 Hey? You haven't got any? Want to help pay for 
 Chauncey's, don't you? Yeah, like hell you do! 
 Want to hand the shuff his, too — don't forget that, 
 Clarence ! " He wrested away the half-dollar which 
 the other was clutching, and flipped it into the car 
 where it fell at the chauffeur's feet; the latter hesi- 
 tated a second then picked it up, grinning. Every- 
 body laughed again. 
 
 " Shut your mouth, Montmorency, or I'll shut it for 
 you ! " Amzi Two wittily admonished his victim, jog- 
 ging him to and fro to the vast diversion of his com- 
 rades. "Hey? You wanted icef You wanted ice? 
 For the hahyf You've got a nerve ! " ejaculated Amzi 
 Two, holding the whining, struggling wretch at arms' 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 407 
 
 length easily, and surveying liim in ferocious mock 
 admiration. " YouVe got a nerve coming round here 
 to buy ice for the hahij! Why, say, Clifford, you're 
 striking^ you know. You don't want ice! You've 
 got to save your dough to pay Chauncey. He does 
 such a lot for you! My, my, ain't you ashamed?'' 
 Still holding the other he turned again towards 
 Chauncey. ^' Say, here's one of your men going back 
 on you. Wants to buy ice for his lahjj! Can you 
 beat that?" He affected to examine Tom as if\he 
 latter had been some si^ecies of noxious insect. 
 '^ God d — n you, did God make you? " said Amzi Two 
 genially. "Better let him go, Chauncey! S'long, 
 Claude ! Bye-bye ! " 
 
 He flipped Tom away with scarcely more effort than 
 he had put forth for the half-dollar, and the crowd 
 hooted servilely. "Anybody else want anything?'' 
 Amzi Two queried once more. 
 
 No, nobody else displayed the least desire for any- 
 thing, unless it might be a change of scene; for sun- 
 dry members of the gathering were now unobtrusively 
 retiring from it. 
 
 " Make 'em all go 'way, Chauncey! Make all those 
 rude men go 'way ! " Young Amzi adjured their some- 
 time leader. " Go 'way yourself ! " He flapped a 
 huge hand at Chauncey lackadaisically. " You make 
 me 50 tired ! " 
 
 Chauncey, in a lamentable fluster, attempted to 
 rally his late followers. " I will see Mr. Dalton — I 
 will take to him — Mr. Dalton shall know of this 
 outrage — " 
 
 " That's right, Chauncey, see Jack Dalton ! '^ 
 shrilled the tormenter. " Get him to learn you an- 
 
408 THE KUDDER 
 
 other piece! Tell Jack to come himself next time, 
 or send a man ! Why, Chauncej, you look kinda mad ! 
 Don't get mad at me — ! " 
 
 For Chauncey, in a spurt of rage, jumped to the 
 ground, and strode towards him with clenched hands. 
 " You — ! '' he choked out. It was an act of sheer 
 folly, as he knew, but he could not have restrained 
 himself, had he believed the gallows would be his por- 
 tion. 
 
 Alas, alas, something much worse than the gallows 
 awaited him ! " Oh, my, don't hurt me, Chauncey, 
 I'll be good ! " bawled the other in burlesque terror. 
 And, deftly evading Chauncey's unskilled fists, he 
 seized him by the collar and waistband in the posture 
 detestably familiar to their college days. '' Walk 
 Spanish ! " roared Amzi Two with horrid laughter ; 
 and, painful to relate, Chauncey did walk Spanish, 
 ungently assisted by the other's knee, back to the car 
 — into the car ! The chauffeur inexplicably had it in 
 readiness ; it rolled off in a tempest of ignoble merri- 
 ment; and presently the crowd somehow had melted 
 clean away ! 
 
 Amzi the younger strolled over to the porch where 
 his father was still standing. The two men looked at 
 each other for a moment, in embarrassment, quite 
 without words. 
 
 " Well, son, you stood 'em up in great shape ! " said 
 old Amzi at length. 
 
 The other made an inarticulate sound. He settled 
 his belt and trousers, and drew down his hat to shade 
 his eyes. " Gee, this sure is one hot day ! " he re- 
 marked, squinting at the horizon. 
 
 "How'd you happen to come out, Amzi?" 
 
 " Well ... I ... I had a kinda hunch . . ." 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 409 
 
 " Uh-huli," said Mr. Loring. " Will you be out to 
 the house this evening? " 
 
 ^^ Why, no, I guess not. I guess I'll keep right on 
 at the hotel with the rest of the fellows. It's more 
 convenient, vou know." 
 
 " Uh-huh," said the older Amzi, again, without dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 " Does that hurt you much, father? " 
 
 Loring senior wagged his head negatively. 
 ^' Xump I Some fever in it, of course, but it's getting 
 along all right, the doctor says. Take about six 
 weeks, he says. I can waggle my fingers a little, see? 
 I thought at first it was lucky to be my left arm, but, 
 by George, it's pretty near as much trouble as if it was 
 my right! Funny how much you do with your left 
 hand without noticing it." 
 
 " Sure ! You've got to use it all the time." 
 
 They both gazed absently about in every direction 
 except at each other. " Old place looks just the 
 same," said Amzi Two. 
 
 " Yes ... I thought they were going to rush you 
 one time, Amzi. I started to holler at you to look out, 
 and then I thought to myself, better not ! He's hold- 
 ing 'em all right, I thought to myself. Better not mix 
 in till I have to I So I didn't." 
 
 " Hungh ! That bunch ! " grunted the younger man 
 in immeasurable scorn. 
 
 " Well, they might have rushed you any time, you 
 know that/' his father insisted. ^' Only you got 'em 
 going. They didn't have the nerve." 
 
 "Hungh! That bunch!" said Amzi Two again. 
 The next instant his face changed; he stepped back 
 involuntarily with a loud ejaculation. 
 
 Hey?" said Mr. Loring alertly, bracing himself 
 
 a 
 
410 THE EUDDEE 
 
 for some new encounter. His eyes followed the 
 other's. '^ Eleanor! '^ he shouted out. 
 
 Eleanor came up to them, paling and flushing, ex- 
 cited, her eyes very bright. She looked at Amzi Two 
 in stark admiration for that physical superiority 
 which, when all is said, is man's strongest appeal to 
 woman ; she was proud of her husband, strong, arro- 
 gant and fearless. At the moment Amzi Two might 
 have done with her what he chose ; but he had no idea 
 of doing anything; he merely stood and stared. His 
 father who had twice the younger man's intelligence 
 and power of observation did indeed glimpse dimly 
 something of Eleanor's feeling; the staggering 
 thought visited him that she had come there seeking 
 Amzi to " make up " ! He dismissed it on the instant, 
 as being totally foreign to her character. But why 
 was she there at all? The idea that she might have 
 witnessed the scene just passed, rendered it all at once 
 intolerably brutal to old Loring whose theories about 
 a woman's place and functions were those of an earlier 
 and perhaps more fastidious generation. " Good 
 Lord, Eleanor ! " he uttered in a shocked voice. 
 '' What on earth — ? " 
 
 " 'Lo, Nellie ! " Amzi Two managed to say, simul- 
 taneously. 
 
 " Well, Amzi — ! " said Eleanor. She began to 
 laugh hysterically. 
 
 Amzi Two scowled, eyeing her doubtfully. Having 
 a well-founded distrust of Eleanor's moods he was 
 not certain, in the present instance, whether she 
 was laughing with him or at him, but thought it 
 most likely to be the latter. " What're you doing 
 round here anyhow?" he demanded almost threaten- 
 ingly. 
 
BREAD AXD CIRCUSES 411 
 
 But Eleanor had already ceased to laugli ; in truth 
 it was at herself that she had been laughing, at cer- 
 tain ironies of the situation unguessed by Amzi Two. 
 She replied to them both, explaining concisely. " The 
 man's name is Tom Morehead — you remember him? '' 
 she said to Loring senior at the end. 
 
 " Yes. But — where is he? " 
 
 ^^I don-t know. I think he ran away. He's the 
 same man you took the money from/' Eleanor said to 
 young Amzi in a matter-of-fact way. " It doesn't 
 make any difference about him. I'll get the ice, if 
 you'll let me have it. IVe ever so many poor people 
 that I'd like to get some for. I can send a wagon, or 
 get it downtown some way." 
 
 There was a short pause. Old xlmzi, looking at 
 the pair in front of him, waited a reasonable while 
 for one or other of them to act; then took command 
 himself. He was a business man. 
 
 "All right, Eleanor. You go into the office and 
 wait a minute. I'll see about the ice for you. Well, 
 now, Amzi — " 
 
 " I guess I'll be moving, Dad," said the other Amzi. 
 ^^ Huh — er — good-bye, Nellie." 
 
 " Good-bye," said Eleanor. 
 
 She went into the office, and after a moment Mr. 
 Loring came in and sat down at the desk, and drew 
 the telephone towards him, frowning a little at the 
 inconvenience of having only one hand to use. " Just 
 a minute ! " he said to her. " I'll call up Garry, and 
 have him come out and take you downtown in the 
 machine. You can take some ice to this sick woman 
 and baby — whoever you've got on hand — right now, 
 and send for whatever you want later." And hav- 
 ing issued his orders, he hung up the instrument, and 
 
412 THE RUDDER 
 
 turned towards lier. " Funny about that Morehead 
 fellow running off I " he said with a laugh. 
 
 " Well, I really ought not to have made him come 
 here/' Eleanor said. " He knew that you wouldn't 
 let him have any ice — a striking employe ! I might 
 have known it myself, but I — " Mr. Loring's expres- 
 sion halted her. 
 
 ^^ Xot sell him any ice? Because of his being on 
 strike?" old Amzi exclaimed. "What put that into 
 his head? " 
 
 " Why, isn't it so? Wasn't that what Amzi meant? 
 I thought you would let me have it though — I was 
 sure you would let me have it anyhow — " 
 
 Mr. Loring sat and looked at her in perplexity and 
 actual concern. " Eleanor," he said at last. " You 
 know me. You can't suppose that I would refuse ice 
 to anybody. It's a question of women's and chil- 
 dren's lives — it's a question of common-sense and 
 decenc3\ Morehead can have ice like anybody else. 
 I'm not going to make any distinctions. Why, that's 
 what's made most of this trouble — I mean my refus- 
 ing to knuckle down to a set of fellows like Dalton 
 and that blatherskite Devitt, and letting them tell me 
 what I'm to do. What Amzi said? Why, Eleanor, 
 didn't you know that Amzi was just bawling 'em out? 
 He wanted to scare 'em, and he did scare 'em — he 
 scared 'em blue! That was all that talk was for. 
 Didn't you know that? " 
 
 " Why, no, I — I thought he was in earnest — " 
 
 Old Amzi gave her another thoughtful survey. 
 ^'' You weren't frightened ! " he said. 
 
 ^^Mef cried out Eleanor, ungrammatical in her 
 astonishment. ^^ Me frightened? Why, no! There 
 wasn't anything for me to be frightened about. At 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 413 
 
 least, I don't think so — I never remember to have 
 been frightened in my whole life, so of course I can't 
 tell ! " she added naively. 
 
 It made Amzi One smile. " No, you're not the 
 kind to frighten easy," he remarked. " You're hon- 
 est. But do you know w^hat was the matter w^ith 'em, 
 Eleanor? I'll tell you. If they had really believed 
 they were doing right, Amzi couldn't have bluffed 
 'em — he couldn't have made 'em back down that way. 
 But there wasn't a man in that gang of hoodlums and 
 jailbirds that didn't know they were all nothing but 
 trash. That Devitt fellow, spouting round about the 
 rights of labour and all the rest of the stuff, he don't 
 believe in what he's saying — he's just going over 
 what he's learned off like a piece out of a book — like 
 one of these phonograjDh records. You could hire 
 him to talk on any side. That's the kind he is and it's 
 the cheapest kind on earth." 
 
 ^^ I think I knew he was a sham all along,'' said 
 Eleanor to herself rather than to her companion. 
 But old Amzi took her up promj^tly. 
 
 " Hey? You mean the minute he began to talk this 
 morning? Why, of course you'd know he was a sham 
 — anybody with as good sense as you've got ! " he de- 
 clared with a warmth of approval that humbled her 
 more than the most biting reproof. " Of course you'd 
 be onto him right off. Plenty of people aren't, 
 though. Plenty of people think a man's saying some- 
 thing because he's stringing words together! Don't 
 make any difference how he lies or blows, or what 
 kind of slush he talks. But you put a man like that 
 up against the real thing, and see what happens! 
 You saw this morning. He don't know what to do! 
 He just w^ants to get out of it! If there's anything 
 
414 THE KUDDER 
 
 like resi^onsibility or accountability going to be put 
 on Mm, why, lie's scared stiff ! He runs off with his 
 tail between his legs. It wouldn't make any differ- 
 ence how wrong or crazy he was, if he solidly believed 
 he was right, you couldn't scare him. You can't scare 
 an honest man, Eleanor — " 
 
 The telephone rang, and Mr. Loring turned to it, 
 fumbling one-handed with another grimace of im- 
 patience. "Yes, this is the Elmwood Ice-Plant. 
 . . . Yes, this is him talking. . . . Oh, why, how d'ye 
 do, Mr. Schlochtermaier ! . . . Yes, sir. . . . Yes, 
 right along. . . . Why, any quantity you say. . . . 
 All right, we'll take care of that for you. . . ." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 NOW indeed the daily press had cause for 
 thankfulness; every editor and every re- 
 porter on the staff might throw up his hat 
 and rejoice. No event of so much local importance 
 as the abortive attempt upon Mr. Loring's Elmwood 
 fastness had occurred since the Court-House Riots 
 thirty years before. To be sure, nobody knew ex- 
 actly what had happened. Not a word could be got 
 out of old Amzi, though his house, the Elmwood office 
 and all the other offices of his " chain '' were under 
 fire all day long. T. Chauncey Devitt was at home 
 sick — he had tonsilitis — he had been ailing for the 
 past week, and the doctor had finally ordered him to 
 bed — he was not at the Elmwood factory at all on 
 the morning in question, and therefore knew nothing 
 about what had taken place — his condition was se- 
 rious and he positively could not see anybody ; it was 
 the first time in his career that he had refused an au- 
 dience to a journalist I Business-agent John Dalton 
 was sick, too — he was in the hosf)ital — he was out 
 of town — he was anywhere you choose, but wherever 
 that might be, he was unapproachable. Amzi Loring 
 Two was found easily enough at the Hotel Preston 
 with the other members of the Black Sox team, but 
 not in a communicative mood; he was a person to 
 make his moods respected. Nobody would talk, yet 
 it was erelong obvious that somebody must have 
 talked! "Backbone of Ice Strike Broken!'' one 
 
 415 
 
416 THE RUDDER 
 
 i:>aper announced. "Where Are My Wandering 
 Boys To-night? T. Chauncey's Union Gets Away 
 From Him ! '' recited another most flippantly and 
 moreover falsely, let us hoj)e. But by far tlie most 
 popular sentiment appeared in the Observer: 
 " Eee-Yah ! At-a-Boy^ Butch ! " vociferated this 
 organ of public opinion; and fifteen thousand people 
 went out to see the game that afternoon. 
 
 In the stuffy seclusion of his bedroom, Chauncey 
 read these and other items of information or misin- 
 formation in angry bewilderment. He w^as like a 
 child who should have hurt himself with his favourite 
 toy. He could not understand what it was that was 
 happening to him, except that for no adequate rea- 
 son he was all at once being made the butt of indecent 
 ridicule by the very same public which for years had 
 admired and applauded him. Everything that had 
 taken place at Elmwood could have been explained; 
 Chauncey felt that he could have explained that dis- 
 aster perfectly had he been allowed to ; he would have 
 talked, he would have filled the air with words, but 
 upon Dalton's command he must hold his tongue. 
 
 To tell the truth, the latter's admonitions to silence 
 were delivered with unpleasant force and with a 
 choice of language which even his protege at moments 
 felt inclined to resent. "^Tiat in hell you been do- 
 ing? " was the form in which Mr. Dal ton's first in- 
 quiry was cast when he called Chauncey to the tele- 
 f>hone, upon receiving a report of the morning's hap- 
 penings from some discreetly obscure lieutenant. 
 And after listening a minute or so in profane im- 
 patience, he slammed the instrument shut, and posted 
 up to the Devitt house, alarmingly black of counte- 
 nance. However, he heard Chauncey through this 
 
BEEAD AND CIRCUSES 417 
 
 time without interruption, grimly chewing a cold 
 cigar; and sat and surveyed him afterwards for so 
 long a while in the same boding silence that Chaun- 
 cey was relieved when the doorbell rang and Mrs. 
 Devitt came timidly to the room with news that a 
 gentleman from the Herald was downstairs wanting 
 to see — 
 
 "Well, he don^t! Tim don't see him, nor any- 
 body else, see?'' growled out Dalton, forestalling 
 Chauncey with a look that sent the young man back 
 to his chair as effectively as a blow. " Tell 'em he's 
 sick — tell "em he's dead — tell 'em what you d — n 
 please ! " He shoved the cowed woman out of the 
 room with the door as he closed it. 
 
 " But if I could talk to him a minute — '' Chauncey 
 expostulated. "You don't kiioic — everybody will 
 get the — the wrong impression — if I could talk to 
 them, I could — " 
 
 " Say, don't you think you've about done enough 
 talking? " inquired Dalton, turning a gloomy eye on 
 Ms junior; and he proceeded in a few brief but pithy 
 sentences to set forth his own opinion of what Chaun- 
 cey had and had not done besides talking, with inci- 
 dental references to his career and capacity couched 
 in terms calculated to scorch the very woodwork of 
 the room! "Yeah, you'll talk and you'll explain, 
 
 you boob ! " he snarled at the finish. " You will, 
 
 hey? jS^ot a word! You hear me? I don't 
 
 know, don't I? You can bet your—" he specified 
 distinctly what Chauncey could bet — "you can bet 
 I do know now! '' He surveyed the other in sardonic 
 
 admiration. " By , you got such a front you had 
 
 me bluffed part*^ way ! But not any more ! " He 
 abruptly changed his tone to one of scoffing argument. 
 
418 THE RUDDER 
 
 ^* Why say, you're through! You're a dead one, only 
 you don't know it. There's a lot of dead men going 
 round, playing they're alive, but believe me they 
 ain't! Know what killed 'em? Why, they got the 
 laugh, same way you're going to. There ain't any 
 way'll kill a man quicker and deader than getting the 
 laugh on him. That's something you didn't know, 
 did you? Well, this'll learn you, if there's any learn 
 in you — " He pungently expressed his doubts on 
 the last point. 
 
 Chauncey sat dumb under the other's scornful in- 
 vective. Dalton had been angry with him once or 
 twice before, but never to such a pitch as this. Yet 
 it seemed to the young man that this was the time 
 of all others when he had been conspicuously blame- 
 less ! How could he have foreseen what was going to 
 happen at Elmwood? Or what could he have done 
 to prevent it? It was all as much Dalton's business 
 and Dalton's fault as his; Dalton was treating him 
 like a criminal when in reality he was a martyr, not 
 even permitted to say a word in his own defence. He 
 would have attempted again to set the facts before 
 Dalton in their proper light, but the latter had evi- 
 dently made up his mind not to listen ; he would not 
 understand. There was nothing for it, Chauncey 
 felt, but to resign himself. 
 
 "Well, what do you think I'd better do? Do you 
 think I had better stay here? I might go somewhere 
 — to French Lick, you know, or somewhere," he ven- 
 tured. 
 
 Dalton got up. " I don't give a where you 
 
 go," said he, walking deliberately to the door. 
 
 " I only asked because I thought I wouldn't — that 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 419 
 
 is, you wouldn't — that is, I guess I'd better not go 
 down to the office yet awhile? " said Chauncey. 
 
 The other paused with his hand on the knob, 
 wheeled slowly, and gave Chauncey a long look; he 
 smiled peculiarly, then drew an exaggeratedly gentle 
 sigh. " I got to hand it to you, Tim," he said, wag- 
 ging his head ; " I thought you only had me bluffed 
 about half. Honest, I did! But you — why, you 
 put it all over me ! " said Mr. Dalton, in sad surprise. 
 "Yes, sir, I was sure you had something up there 
 Avhere your hat fits — I never run across a fellow be- 
 fore that didn't have something there, and I thought 
 you had, too. I never got real wise to you till this 
 minute." As before, he changed his tone with sud- 
 den roughness. "Say, you're fired! F-i-r-e-d! I 
 told you you was through^ already. Xow I'm saying 
 it again ; you're through, done, dead I " 
 
 " You — you mean you don't want — I'm not to — 
 to have my position with you any more? " Chauncey 
 faltered in abysmal confusion. 
 
 " He's got me ! " said Dalton, apostrophising the 
 ceiling. Then he brought his glance to rest on 
 Chauncey again. " You're on, Tim ! By I be- 
 gun to think I'd have to call your mother a ! 
 
 Come to think, though, I ain't sure you'd have quit 
 on your own hook even for that! ^^ 
 
 He went. Chauncey sat for a long while among 
 the fragments of his pinchbeck world. He did not 
 know that it was pinchbeck ; he had had no enduring 
 revelations. He was troubled mainly by the discov- 
 ery that he must reconstruct his scheme of life, leav- 
 ing out two such fundamental elements as Dalton 
 and the Federation. One cannot be a labour-leaden 
 
420 THE RUDDER 
 
 or a leader of any kind without somebody to follow 
 one ; even Chauncey could perceive that anomaly. It 
 never occurred to him to doubt Dalton's word or 
 power ; he knew he was indeed " through '' if Dalton 
 said so. His mind revolved aimlessly about the idea. 
 It was not until some time later that he remembered 
 there were other problems besides the Labour prob- 
 lem, about which an orator of his unusual gifts might 
 be equally eloquent with equal success sesthetically 
 and — ahem! — commercially. There are just as 
 good fish in the sea, in short, as ever were caught. 
 He had already been sought by magazine editors, by 
 lyceum bureaus and caterers to newspaper syndicates 
 and the popular-lecture platform. Eventually, as 
 we all know, T. Chauncey Devitt arrived at a dis- 
 tinction in these fields which eclipsed even his earlier 
 I)erformances. He is a great man. 
 
 At the moment, however, Chauncey's outlook was 
 very bleak. It was not until he had remained housed 
 and gloomy, denying himself to every one, for two or 
 three days, that the pose gradually assumed a dra- 
 matic aspect to him, like that of Napoleon in defeat. 
 There was comfort in the thought. The melancholy 
 remoteness of his bearing increased to such a degree 
 that his mother felt herself in a fair way to go dis- 
 tracted with anxiety. Norah had no conception of 
 what had taken place; she knew only that Timmie 
 was in trouble and that Mr. Loring and Jack Dalton, 
 bad luck to them, were somehow at the bottom of it. 
 She faithfully turned away the newspaper-men who 
 supposed the vagueness of her answers to be inten- 
 tional and credited her accordingly with profound 
 guile I Poor Norah was afraid of them, afraid of the 
 neighbours, afraid that Chauncey was going to pine 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 421 
 
 away and die of some mysterious ailment, afraid of 
 Dalton, and to cap all afraid to tell her liusband a 
 single one of lier terrors. Mike was so changed 
 
 these days. 
 
 " Dalton was here the day/' she did indeed venture 
 ' to say across the supper-table, w^hile still smoulder- 
 ing with the recollection of his ruffianly w^ords and 
 manner to her. It's himself w^ould give Jack Dalton 
 a fine thrashing if he knew about it — or at least he 
 would have once upon a time, she thought. Chaun- 
 cey had not resented it, but that was because he 
 couldn't have seen or heard anything of it at all, the 
 poor boy was that miserable I 
 
 "Was he? Did he want me? " said Mike, looking 
 up quickly. Norah's resolution broke down before 
 some menace in his eye or movement; she had not the 
 courage to betray Dalton. 
 
 " No, 'twas to see Timmie," she said, pouring the 
 tea with a shaking hand. 
 
 "To see Tim?" her husband repeated. "It'll be 
 my turn next, likely. What for did he w^ant to see 
 Tim?" 
 
 "Ah then, Mike, I don't know; how should I 
 
 know?" said Norah piteously. "The boy's sick. 
 
 He won't eat nothing — that is, just a bit here and a 
 
 wee sup there. They done something to him; what 
 
 ( is it, I don't know — " 
 
 " Oh, Tim's well enough. Don't be a fool ! " said 
 Michael, pushing his chair back with a grating noise. 
 Norah looked after him despairingly through her 
 tears. It had come to this, then! With a husband 
 and a son in the house, she must submit to be sworn 
 at and hustled by Jack Dalton. It seemed to her as 
 if his shadow lay black on their hearth. 
 
422 THE KUDDER 
 
 At last, within something less than the nine days 
 popularly assigned to such matters, the hue and cry 
 died down. Reporters ceased to call on Poplar 
 Street; ice- wagons were seen rolling about the thor- 
 oughfares as formerly ; no more queues at the engine- 
 house; no more private foragers dashing frantically 
 to and fro. It was supposed that some compromise 
 had been effected, but as usual nobody knew exactly 
 what had happened. Chauncey went to French Lick 
 over the week-end, and by the time he got back the 
 public was moving serenely on its way, exhibiting 
 that amazing facility at forgetting certain occur- 
 rences which is equalled only by the amazing tenacity 
 Avith which it remembers certain others. The young 
 man's spirits revived; he began to think about Mrs. 
 Loring, to wonder w^hat she had been thinking about 
 him all this time. A merciful fate spared him the 
 knowledge that Eleanor had witnessed that Elm wood 
 scene ; he had not seen her. Now Chauncey felt that 
 no power on earth or elsewhere, not even Jack Dal- 
 ton, could keep him from confiding all to her; he 
 longed ardently to explain to Eleanor; his version 
 was the only true one ; no matter what she had heard, 
 she must hear him, tnust believe him. She would un- 
 derstand; she would sympathise because she — he 
 thrilled again to remember the thrill of that night. 
 
 He had to curb his impatience. The blinds of the 
 Morehead front bedroom were down, the plants in 
 the window-boxes frizzled to a crisp ; and his mother, 
 reciting the neighbourhood chronicle, casually let 
 drop the fact that she had not seen " that Mrs. Lo- 
 ring " for some days ; maybe she was away on a vaca- 
 tion, or making a visit to some of her swell friends. 
 
 " Ye never had time yet to tell me about them peo- 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 423 
 
 pie je went out to take supper with that night — 
 that time when Mrs. Loring went, too, d'ye mind?'' 
 said Xorah. " I suppose they was all dressed up like 
 queens. A man wouldn't know" anything about W'hat 
 they had on, though. Lutie says that little Miss 
 Grace ain't nothing to look at, for all her money — '' 
 
 Chauncey let her run on; he himself was thinking 
 of the last time he had seen Lutie, when she had been 
 (with good reason!) even more unwelcome to him 
 than usual. He would have liked to know just how 
 much Lutie had seen, how long she had been eaves- 
 dropping. She would talk, of course — but after all, 
 thought Chauncey securely, what if she did talk? 
 Everybody knew how Lutie Morehead felt about him. 
 She might gossip her head off, tell lies nineteen to 
 the dozen, or merely tell the truth, and people would 
 only laugh in their sleeves and egg her on. 
 
 He saw Lutie repeatedly, but always at a distance, 
 as she went to and from her work, and had it been 
 anybody else, he would have thought she was avoid- 
 ing him ; she seemed to be always in a hurry, and al- 
 ways looking in the opposite direction. At any rate, 
 he would not have gone to her for information as to 
 Mrs. Loring's whereabouts ; for that matter, he could 
 not make any inquiry anywhere except in the most cir- 
 cumspect fashion. The only person to whom he 
 might have applied openly was Homer Morehead jun- 
 ior, and that young gentleman had disappeared too. 
 There was no mystery about Homer, however ; Chaun- 
 cey heard that he had gotten a job, on probation, but 
 there was little doubt that he w^ould " make good." 
 He was running an elevator in the building where 
 Mr. Kendrick's office was; Mr. Kendrick had recom- 
 mended him. He was getting fifteen dollars a 
 
424 THE EUDDER 
 
 month, and had gone to live down-town at the Y. M. 
 C. A. Home for Boys, or some such j)lace. Homer 
 had risen several degrees in the public esteem since 
 these events; one heard on all sides that he w^as a 
 'good boy, a steady boy, and nobody's fool either; 
 every one had always prophesied a successful future 
 for him ! 
 
 In the end Chauncey got the first authoritative re- 
 port in a random conversation with Miss Schlochter- 
 maier. It seemed that Mrs. Loring had gone out to 
 her old home on the North Hill to be with her sister, 
 who was crippled or blind or something; Miss Schloch- 
 termaier w^as rather indistinct — " But I bet Mrs. 
 Loring just does everything for her — I bet she's just 
 an angel to her ! She's the loveliest lady I ever come 
 in contack with ! " was the stenographer's enthusias- 
 tic verdict. Chauncey listened with an indifference 
 not w^holly feigned ; his private opinion was that the 
 sister w^as a nuisance, and that Mrs. Loring might be 
 an angel, but emphatically not Miss Schlochtermaier's 
 kind of angel. 
 
 It was the very next morning that Eleanor re- 
 turned. Chauncey, lurking behind his curtains, be- 
 held hers widely drawm; and, with the familiar 
 exquisite shock, caught a glimpse of her within. It 
 was only ten days, yet it seemed to him an age, since 
 they met, since they parted ! He said to himself that 
 he iiad forgotten how beautiful she was — he had for- 
 gotten the turn of her w^aist, the carriage of her head, 
 the proud sureness of her step and movements. 
 While he gazed she vanished; she must have left the 
 room. He waited for her to reappear, and in the in- 
 terval noticed idly that there was a taxi at the curb, 
 and an express-wagon a little farther along. But 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 425 
 
 between them, in easy conversation with the chauf- 
 feur, what figure was that, what neat and carefully 
 dressed figure of short stature with a cigarette, with 
 eyeglasses, with a close-trimmed iron-grey beard? 
 It was her uncle; it was Mr. Marshall Cook — ahsit 
 0111671 ! — as Chauncey might have said if he had re- 
 membered a word of his classics, or understood a 
 word while he was studying them. For the sight of 
 the author somehow operated most depressingly on 
 Chauncey's high-beating heart. What was he doing 
 here? A pair of expressmen whom he had not seen 
 enter the house emerged cumbrously from it, with a 
 trunk between them — her trunk ! They came down 
 the steps and loaded it on their wagon ; and drove off 
 unconcernedly, just as if there were no such thing 
 as tragedv in the world. 
 
 She was going away; she would not be here on 
 Poplar Street any more; that much was plain, but 
 where would she be? With the invalid sister, with 
 Mr. Cook, Avith — Good Heavens! — her husband? 
 Chauncey felt that he could not endure the uncer- 
 tainty ; if he let this moment go by, in what difficult 
 and devious w^ays, with what harrowing delays must 
 his pursuit be continued! Prudent or not, he must 
 find out now, at once, even if the knowledge should 
 be torment. He ran downstairs, and snatched a hat 
 from the rack, and went out, starting briskly down 
 street, with a poor pretence of not noticing what was 
 going on across the way, which he converted directly 
 into another poor pretence of surprise and awakening 
 interest. He looked, slackened his pace, looked 
 again, halted. Eleanor was standing on the thresh- 
 old. 
 
 She saw him and nodded. Chauncey crossed over, 
 
426 THE EUDDER 
 
 striving not to appear too eager. Mrs. Loring was 
 not at all nervous; there seemed to the excited and 
 self-conscious young man something almost formid- 
 able in the composure with which she stood and 
 waited for him, buttoning her glove. Then he remem- 
 bered that women are notoriously better actors than 
 men. He went up to her, beginning to put out his 
 hand and withdrawing it awkwardly when she made 
 no corresponding gesture; her hands, indeed, seemed 
 to be too busy with the gloves or what-not. She 
 smiled on him, however; Amzi Two could probably 
 have told him something about that smile, but Chaun- 
 eey had never seen it before; it arrested him like a 
 dash of cold water in the face. 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Devitt ! " said Eleanor, smiling, arching 
 her fine eyebrows in amiable recognition. Cook 
 started and turned around, puckering his forehead to 
 focus his near-sighted gaze, a little dazzled by the 
 sunlight. 
 
 " It's Mr. Devitt, Uncle Marshall," intoned Eleanor 
 correctly in her pleasant, well-bred voice. " You re- 
 member him, of course." She paused. " Mr. Devitt, 
 the labour-leader." 
 
 There were no words to characterise her manner — 
 or, at any rate, Chauncey could think of none. It 
 was the quintessence of delicate and bland offence, 
 yet one inferred that she would not take the trouble 
 to insult him. He stood before her at first incredu- 
 lous, then aghast, then suddenly in a boiling turmoil 
 of disappointment, mortification, sheer rage. He 
 wanted to swear at her; he wanted to call her vile 
 names ; he wanted to scream out : " Why, curse you, 
 I've held you in my arms ; I've kissed your breast ; I 
 could have had you for nothing — you would have 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 427 
 
 let me; you wanted me to I What do you mean 
 by looking at me and talking to me like this, as if — 
 as if — " the qualit}- of her hatefulness eluded him 
 again; he could not ])\\t a name to it; he could only 
 seethe inwardly. No consideration for Eleanor with- 
 held him from some such outburst; it was himself 
 that he was thinking of ; he had his own face to save. 
 
 And all the while here was that simple-minded lit- 
 tle fellow, her uncle, spreading civil conventionalities 
 over the situation in complete unconsciousness of its 
 uglier aspects — so Chauncey thought. He braced 
 himself to an attitude of similar sophistication. Po- 
 lite inquiries passed. Yes, Mrs. Loring was going 
 away for a while ; she and her sister were going East 
 to spend the rest of the summer with Mr. Cook in a 
 cottage he had taken down on the Cape; always cool 
 there, you know. Always so hot here. Every one 
 needed a change now and then. Mr. Devitt himself 
 had been away for a few days. What a delightful 
 evening they had had with Mrs. and Miss Grace ! 
 
 Cook handed his niece into the cab. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 IF Cook had a guess at what had passed between 
 his niece and the man they left standing on the 
 curb, or at the significance of the last scene, he 
 sagely kept it to himself. For that matter his guess 
 would have gone no farther than that the young fel- 
 low yonder had lost his head over Eleanor, who could 
 not help being attractive to men, and that she ap- 
 13eared to have found it necessary, finally, to " set him 
 down hard " — such was the vulgar colloquial Eng- 
 lish Mr. Cook iDrivately and sometimes publicly em- 
 ployed. The episode did not greatly interest him; 
 during this visit, which had reached the unprece- 
 dented length of ten days, he had been busy and trou- 
 bled. In spite of a way of life which is supposed to 
 engender selfishness, particularly in bachelors, Mar- 
 shall had a sense of duty, which of late had been dis- 
 turbingly active. It had not ceased to press upon 
 him the conviction that something ought to be done 
 for his niece, Fanny. 
 
 To tell the truth, after twentv-four hours of Mrs. 
 Maranda in her new role of guardian angel to the 
 blind or all-but-blind girl, there were moments when 
 the mild little man of letters could have gone berserk 
 with anger and pity. It went to his heart to see the 
 poor thing feeling her way about the house, or sitting 
 drearily idle, she whom he remembered for years back 
 so willingly and tirelessly industrious. In her own 
 w^ay Fanny had once been almost as pretty and al- 
 
 428 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 429 
 
 ways as dainty as Eleanor; he thonght there was a 
 horrible small pathos in the spectacle of her now with 
 her hair untidily or unbecomingly dressed, her blouse 
 buttoned awry; she could not see herself; her hands 
 had lost their deftness. She was barely thirty -one; 
 nobody ever dies of being unhappy, all romance to the 
 contrary notwithstanding. Cook thought bitterly, so 
 Fannie had before her a lifetime of this same humble 
 and uncomplaining wretchedness. Her aifliction was 
 enough in itself; but, to top that, she must support 
 the childishly unconscious brutalities of a thoroughly 
 good woman. Twenty times a day Cook, flinching 
 himself, saw Fanny flinch beneath her aun't barbar- 
 ous sympathy, only paralleled by her barbarous fun. 
 He actually shut himself in his room, and shook an 
 accusing fist at space. "How can such things be?" 
 he cried out. " Satan himself couldn't have invented 
 anything more monstrous. If Juliet were only had, 
 if she did what she does knowingly out of malice or 
 meanness, why, one could get even with her — one 
 could pay her back cruelty for cruelty — one might 
 have at least that much savage satisfaction. If she 
 were only had — but, good Lord, she's nothing but a 
 fool ! Nobody can get even with a fool ! Nobody can 
 do anything to a fool ! " 
 
 It was there and then that Marshall made up his 
 mind about the something which must be done for 
 Fannie. He said afterwards that he would recom- 
 mend the same experiment to any novelist for the 
 profitable study of character afforded by the ways 
 in which the three women received his plan. Fannie 
 was a mixture of anxious distress at having given him 
 trouble, and of a timid hope and delight touching to 
 witness. Eleanor's gratitude blazed; nothing pa- 
 
430 THE KUDDER 
 
 thetic about her! She seized upon his project, ex- 
 panding and embellishing it with subordinate proj- 
 ects of her own, which differed from those of most 
 enthusiasts by being in the main practicable. " Do 
 it? Of course we can do it!" she iDroclaimed su- 
 j)erbly. " We'll i^aj you back whatever you advance 
 to start us housekeeping, Uncle Marshall. Fannie 
 and I couldn't be satisfied otherwise. We couldn't 
 take that much from you just as a gift." She over- 
 rode his objections royally. " I know where I can get 
 just the apartment we need — four or five rooms — 
 that will be big enough for us, and have a place for 
 you, too, when you come to make us a visit. We'll 
 have everything so simple that Fannie will learn how 
 to get around and manage it in no time while I'm out 
 or at the Charities. Oh, Fan, worv't it be fun? Our 
 own home, only think ! " Eleanor threw her arms 
 around the other's neck and kissed her, and embraced 
 Cook too, bursting into laughter a little wildly with 
 tears in her eyes at the little man's embarrassment. 
 " Poor Aunt Juliet ! I'm sure she doesn't think of it 
 as a plan. It's more like a — a pogrom to her ! " she 
 wound up, laughing again. 
 
 Indeed, poor Mrs. Maranda was surprised, ag- 
 grieved, finally confounded. She frankly did not 
 know what to make of Marshall, what to make of the 
 girls ! Had they not lived for years under her care, 
 and how could they possibly get along without her? 
 Had she not always made a sweet, lovely home for 
 them even in the face of Eleanor's lack of apprecia- 
 tion, even after poor dear Fannie became a helpless 
 burden? She could not conceive why they should 
 want to go off and set up in a place by themselves, all 
 to themselves, or how their uncle ever came to sug- 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 431 
 
 gest siicli a tiling. Think of how it wonld look to 
 outsiders ! Think of her ill-health ! Think of the ex- 
 pense to her of maintaining a separate establishment ! 
 Mrs. Juliet wept, adjured, complained, had hysterics, 
 went to bed and sent for the doctor — all to no pur- 
 pose. She saw with stupefaction the preparations ' 
 going forward unhindered; she might cry her eyes 
 out, she might stay in bed till doomsday, for the first 
 time in her life nobody would heed her. It was a 
 rout, a debacle. Before this Marshall had sometimes 
 friofhtened her with his immovable suavity, his 
 speeches that sounded so harmless, yet so often left 
 Iier with a sense of defeat and insecurity; now she 
 trembled before him, before the invincible and invul- 
 nerable male to whose decision all femininity must 
 bow as to Juggernaut — so Mrs. Maranda had been 
 trained to believe in her mid-Victorian youth. Cook 
 knew the attitude of mind ; he allowed her to remain 
 in it ! 
 
 " It appears that I am a brute! " he said to himself 
 with a grin. ^' I insist that Fannie and Eleanor shall 
 have this little outing down on the Cape with me this 
 summer, and then that they shall have a home of 
 their own, irrespective of what Juliet wants or has 
 aranged. I am the Man of the family, and when I 
 put my awful foot down, who dares dispute me? 
 Even the time-honoured device of going into ladylike 
 tantrums has no effect. I am a ramping, roaring, 
 masculine monster. Bien! That settles it. Xow 
 we all know where we stand ! '' 
 
 So the packing-up and moving, the bargaining and 
 ordering, all the countless odds and ends were pres- 
 ently attended to, mainly by Eleanor herself. The 
 Poplar Street expedition was put off to the last, 
 
432 THE EUDDEE 
 
 whether intentionally or not she could scarcely have 
 told. Upon her return in the fall, her work would 
 be in another quarter of the city. She had said to 
 Miss Penry that she would like something new. 
 
 " There isn't an^^thing new^ Mrs. Loring. You 
 ought to know that by this time, after a year of this 
 charity work," said Miss Penry with good-humoured 
 impatience. " It'll be the same kind of dirt and fool- 
 ishness and ignorance and worse; same kind of peo- 
 ple, good and bad and betwixt-and-between. No use 
 to expect anything else.'' 
 
 Eleanor regarded her thoughtfully. " I don't ex- 
 pect anything else," she said. " I've gotten all over 
 my notions about the ' deserving poor.' I've found 
 out there aren't any ^ deserving poor.' But I've found 
 out another thing that's a great deal more impor- 
 tant, and that is that it doesn't make any difference 
 whether they are deserving or not; they've got to be 
 taken care of whatever they are. Good or bad, 
 what's the odds? We have them on our hands, and 
 we must look out for them. Only I want a new set 
 to look out for." 
 
 She smiled, though Miss Penry was sober. 
 
 ^^All right. A person does get tired of being in 
 one place all the time," said the latter. " And when 
 that happens I think you sometimes lose your influ- 
 ence with the people. They get tired of you. All 
 right, Mrs. Loring, I'll get 'em to shift you. You 
 might take the East End this time. That's way off 
 at the other side of the city, and you'll find a whole 
 new outfit of drunks and defective children, and good- 
 for-nothing wives and poor diseased things — same as 
 usual, but with different names and faces." She 
 stopped, then added candidly : " Do you know I was 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 433 
 
 sure youxl get discouraged and quit I But I don't be- 
 lieve you will, after all. You've got tlie right idea.'^ 
 
 The morning of their departure came around at 
 last, and Poplar Street could no longer be avoided. 
 When Cook volunteered to go with her, Eleanor 
 found herself rather guiltily glad of his support; 
 nothing could happen with her uncle standing by — 
 if she should meet some one, for instance — 
 
 But they met nobody at first ; nobody was in sight 
 when Eleanor went up the familiar steps. Lutie 
 opened the door, starting back and glowering at the 
 visitor. 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Loring! Quite a stranger, ain't you? '' 
 she said with an effort, achieving a loud neigh of 
 laughter. " I hear you're going to leave us." 
 
 " I'm going to take a vacation first, and then — " 
 
 " I'm on mine now. I guess you didn't expect to 
 find me around home — not that you'd be coming 
 to see me anyhow," said Lutie with biting emphasis. 
 "Your things is all upstairs just the way you left 
 'em. Nobody's touched 'em, nor took any, I guess." 
 
 Eleanor went up, dogged by the remembrance of 
 the other's wretched eyes. For Lutie's vindictive 
 speech somehow rang hollow; she was not a jealous 
 termagant; she was only hopeless, only unhappy. 
 The perception smote Eleanor with a sense of guilt 
 which she would willingly have exchanged for the 
 worst of physical pain. It was in vain that she ar- 
 gued with herself that it was not her fault that the 
 young man had been attracted to her; that she had 
 consciously done nothing to win him away from Lu- 
 tie; that, indeed, he never had been Lutie's. It was 
 in vain that she told herself what a poor creature he 
 w^as ; she knew that that was nothing to Lutie ; Lutie 
 
434 THE RUDDER 
 
 could not be made to see him as lie was, and if she 
 could, it would not matter to her. She loved him. 
 Eleanor had stolen him and with the best will in the 
 world could not give him back. Both women knew 
 that, the one with what longing and despair, the other 
 in what self-contemning humiliation. 
 
 Eleanor walked about, gathering up clothing and 
 trifles with unheeding hands. There was not much 
 to do. She thrust everything into her trunk and 
 locked it mechanically, and went to call the express- 
 man. Lutie came up the stairs and met her on the 
 landing. 
 
 " Ready? '^ she asked. And then, drawing her lips 
 into a smile : " Say, your gentleman friend's down 
 there. I guess he seen something was doing over 
 here, and came across to find out.'' 
 
 Eleanor made no pretence of not understanding. 
 " I don't want to see him," she said, recoiling invol- 
 untarily. 
 
 " Shouldn't think you would with so many people 
 round," said Lutie meaningly. 
 
 " I don't want to see him," Eleanor repeated. " I 
 am going away — I want to say good-bye to you, 
 Lutie — " 
 
 "Why, sure, of course! Of course you only come 
 because you were just crazy about me, and just plain 
 had to say good-bye ! " the gird retorted. Her eyes 
 evading Eleanor's chanced to fall on the reflection 
 of their two figures in the mirror. There stood Elea- 
 nor, lithe, erect and cool, A^ith her high head, her fine 
 hands, her toilette that seemed to the other so inimi- 
 tably " stylish " ; and here Lutie, thick-set, corsetless, 
 heavily pretty in a soiled dressing-sacque and a skirt 
 that dragged down unevenly at the back. It was a 
 
BREAD AND CIECUSES 435 
 
 cruel comparison. All at once Lntie's eyes filled up, 
 overflowed; she tried to speak, but broke into hard 
 sobs instead, leaning against the door-post with her 
 arm across her face, her whole body shaking. " Oh, 
 Mrs. Loring — oh, I don't see how you could — I 
 don't see how you could — ! " she moaned. 
 
 If Eleanor had done any w^rong, she expiated it all 
 in that moment of anguished pity and self-abasement. 
 "Lutie, don't, don't!'' she whispered, her own voice 
 breaking. '' I didn't mean to — I know I ought not 
 
 to—" 
 
 "'Tain't that! I ain't blaming you!" the other 
 gasped incoherently between paroxysms. " You 
 can't help being pretty — and lovely clothes — and 
 everything — you can't help it. It ain't your fault 
 that way. Only it ain't fair! You got it all already. 
 You can't help it, I know, but — " she began again in- 
 consistently ; '' I didn't think you icould, Mrs. Loring 
 — I don't see how you could — " 
 
 Eleanor stood before her an instant helpless, tor- 
 tured ; she had an impulse to fly, to escape any more 
 of it, but acted on another and better one. She went 
 up to the poor thing, and put her arms about her, and 
 Lutie, surrendering, wept on the enemy's shoulder and 
 eased her heart, and Eleanor comforted her. "Lu- 
 tie," she said in a voice strong and steady now as the 
 support of her kind arms ; " Lutie, it's all over — it's 
 over for good and all. After this one time I will 
 never see him again. I won't be so very far away, of 
 course, but I promise you I will make it so that he 
 and I shall never meet again. Then presently he will 
 forget me — forget how he felt about me — forget 
 everything's that happened — " 
 
 "Yes. Seems like that's the way men are — 
 
436 THE RUDDER 
 
 they're always forgetting/' sighed Lutie. They kissed 
 each other good-bye. 
 
 So Eleanor descended, and presently gave Mr. De- 
 vitt his conge, after the manner described. She 
 would have done so in any event; she believed that 
 she despised him for a cheap, meretricious fool; the 
 trouble really was that she had been a fool herself in 
 company Tvith him — that was the unforgivable and 
 unforgettable thing ! But the spectacle of Lutie un- 
 doubtedly edged her more keenly. She went from the 
 scene with the sensation of having done a neat job 
 superlatively well. After a while of this placid look- 
 ing upon the work and seeing that it was good, she 
 returned comfortably to the affairs of the moment. 
 " How much time have we? I haven't anything more 
 to do, but women always worry about making a train, 
 you know." 
 
 Her uncle looked at his watch. '' Oh, easily 
 enough, barring accidents. Even if this little tin 
 kettle should break down, we could take the cars — " 
 
 At that precise instant the little tin kettle, turning 
 a corner, jerked to a standstill with such undue vio- 
 lence as to throw them backwards and forwards in 
 their seats. " Oh, my prophetic soul I " Cook jolted 
 out. "What's up?" 
 
 They suddenly found themselves in the skirts of a 
 gathering crowd; a policeman loomed in the middle 
 of it, other j^olicemen Avere arriving, there were heads 
 at all the windows, vehicles stalled here and there, 
 rising hubbub. 
 
 " Ambulance coming, sir," said the driver. " I 
 can't get through here. Go round the square? " 
 
 " Yes — if you can turn — " 
 
 Even that slight manoeuvre had to be executed 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 437 
 
 slowly and with caution. During the backing and 
 tilling, Cook spoke out of the window to the nearest 
 pair of shirtsleeves. " Whaf s the matter?" 
 
 ^^ Accident I " said the other concisely. He nodded 
 towards a towering facade on the corner. " Up there 
 in the Kremlin Building." 
 
 "Ah? What was it?" 
 
 "Dont know. Man hurt — or killed maybe. 
 They're taking him out now." He stood on tiptoe, 
 craning, then settled back disappointed. " You can't 
 get near enough to see anything." 
 
 Cook and his niece went on down to their train 
 which left at noon ; and it was not until the next day, 
 loitering through a late breakfast, that they found 
 in the Boston morning-papers what it was that they 
 had been within a few feet of witnessing. The Krem- 
 lin Building I They both remembered the spot, the 
 delay, the excitement; and Cook, reading down the 
 column, ejaculated in horrified and disbelieving sur- 
 prise : 
 
 "Good heavens I Why, it's not possible! Devitt! 
 It's not that Devitt — not the young man — it's his 
 father. It says here the ' Shamrock Construction 
 Company,' so it must mean the older one. Yes, Mi- 
 chael Devitt! I remember him well! Why, you 
 can't believe it ! He must have gone suddenly insane. 
 One can't help thinking that people who do things 
 like that are insane — temporarily, anyhow. Poor 
 old Mike ! Well, ^ Home he's gone and ta'en his 
 wages I ' Xobody ever will know what it was all 
 about now. Xobodv can ever sav with certainty." 
 
 In fact, there had been only one eye-witness, and 
 people pointed out that poor Hilda Schlochtermaier 
 was next door to crazv herself from the shock, so that 
 
438 THE KUDDEE 
 
 her testimony was not absolutely reliable, even when 
 the coroner managed to hold her down to plain state- 
 ments. It took a deal of time and trouble, for she 
 w^ould go wandering off into irrelevancies, in particu- 
 lar about Jack Dalton, whom she accused of responsi- 
 bility for what had happened and much else besides. 
 She never had any use for him — he wasn't any good 
 and everybody knew it — oh, yes, he and Mr. Devitt 
 had always been friends — that is, she supposed they 
 began by being friends — but it looked to her like Mr. 
 Devitt was just afraid of Dal ton now, afraid of hav- 
 ing any fuss with him. Dalton had got thousands of 
 dollars out of him ; she knew that — well, maybe not 
 thousands, but hundreds anyway. It w^as just plain 
 robbery, same as if he'd cracked a safe — Dalton 
 ought to have been in the Pen long ago — and so on 
 and so on. They had to bring her back to the point 
 again and again. 
 
 Sifted out, what she said was that she had been in 
 Mr. Devitt's employ as stenographer and office-girl 
 for nearly four years. No, she had never noticed 
 anything queer about him ; often he would be kind of 
 worried and down in the mouth, but he never acted 
 queer ; she was sure there wasn't anything the matter 
 with him. He was the nicest old man — not what 
 you'd call refined, but real nice feelings about every- 
 thing. She never worked for anybody she liked bet- 
 ter. 
 
 She said that she w^ent to the office that morning as 
 usual; it was Eoom 912, the Kremlin Building. 
 They only had one room, with just her desk and his. 
 Old Mike didn't need much of an office for his busi- 
 ness, you know. He wasn't there ever, except morn- 
 ings for a couple of hours; they would go over the 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 439 
 
 mail together, and he would kind of tell her what to 
 answer. He wasn't any hand to dictate letters or 
 things like that; as soon as she got to knowing the 
 business pretty well, he left a good deal of that part 
 of it to her, while he'd be out on the work. She kept 
 the books, and the men's time, and did the banking — 
 regular oflfice work. They kept the cash in Mr. De- 
 vitt's drawer, but both of them had keys to it, and 
 often she'd pay off the hands Saturday night — when- 
 ever Mr. Devitt asked her to. She never had thought 
 anything of his having that gun — that revolver — 
 in the drawer with the money. Lots of men were 
 careful to have a gun somewheres around handy, if 
 they had a lot of money to take care of. He had said 
 to her that it was in case of trouble, because the men 
 were a rough lot, and she might holler her head off, 
 when one squint at that gun right under her hand 
 would fix 'em. No, Mr. Devitt had not showed her 
 how to load it; she was scared to touch it; she be- 
 lieved there were cartridges or shells or whatever 
 they use in one of the drawers of the desk, but she 
 couldn't say. No, she didn't know whether he had 
 loaded it that morning, or whether it was loaded al- 
 ready. Yes, that was the revolver — and oh, please, 
 mister, please — ! 
 
 She became very hysterical and incoherent here, 
 and it was some time before they could quiet her 
 enough to proceed with the inquest. At last she 
 went on to say that she had opened up the place and 
 done some work already when Mr. Devitt came in ; he 
 seemed the same as usual ; he spoke to her about a bid 
 he had put in for the cement work on the new via- 
 duct. It was about half past eleven when Dalton 
 came. She did not know whether Devitt was expect- 
 
440 THE RUDDER 
 
 ing him or not. It was nothing out of the way for 
 him to drop in at any time. When she saw him she 
 just thought: "Well, I bet he's mad about the way 
 his old ice-strike fizzled out ; maybe he didn't get his 
 rake-off. I bet he's going to start something with 
 Mike's men just to get even, and show everybody he's 
 in the game still. That would be just like him. He 
 ain't no better than one of these yeggs, and he'd ought 
 to be doing time this minute — " She had to be 
 brought back to the main narrative again. 
 
 After some kind of abrupt greeting, Dalton went 
 over to Devitt, w^ho w^as sitting at his desk, and said 
 something which the stenographer did not catch. 
 She was not listening, being busy, and, as she re- 
 peated, accustomed to Dalton's visits which, accord- 
 ing to her, only had one object. They talked for a 
 while; once Dalton laughed. After a while Mr. De- 
 vitt got up, and she heard the keys jingle when he 
 took them out of his pocket and started to unlock the 
 cash-drawer. That made her look around; she was 
 not frightened, only startled — as she tried to ex- 
 plain — because old Mike had never taken money out 
 of their cash and given it to Dalton right in front of 
 lier; he always wrote a cheque. 
 
 She saw him standing up with his hand in the 
 drawer ; Jack Dalton was still sitting on the opposite 
 side of the desk. Devitt said : " It's no use. Jack. 
 I can't do it. That's my answer. Will you go 
 now?" 
 
 Dalton grinned and shook his head and said: 
 "Oh, forget it!" or "Oh, can that talk!" or some- 
 thing of that kind. 
 
 The other man said again: "It's no use, I tell 
 you. I haven't got it. I can't do it. It's the truth 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 441 
 
 I-m telling you." Then he stopped for a second, and 
 then said : ^' Well, if yon tcill have it, take it I " 
 
 Hilda screamed and ran towards them ; but she was 
 too late. 
 
 The report rang deafeningh^ in the room; but, 
 strangely enough, it was not that, but the woman's 
 screams that brought the people. An eleyator-boy, 
 the iDOStman, and one of the scrub-women employed in 
 the building were among the first, and all said that 
 they had heard a noise which they supposed to be the 
 back-fire of an automobile somewhere, and that they 
 would haye paid no attention, if it had not been for 
 the screaming. As it was, people outside actually 
 knew what had happened before those within and 
 much nearer; for some of the sewing-machine girls 
 in the Weareyer Pants Company's workshop on the 
 parallel floor of the power-building across the alley, 
 eating their luncheon by the Avindows, saw into a part 
 of the room, and it was they who gaye the initial 
 alarm, rushing back through their own territory ; and 
 somebody turned in the police-call. In fiye minutes 
 the place boiled with people, the doctor had been sent 
 for, the newspaper-men were gathering. Deyitt still 
 stood with the reyolyer in his hand, and Miss Schloch- 
 termaier, still screaming, was trying to wrest it from 
 him. Dalton lay where he had fallen, his feet tan- 
 gled in the chair that had gone oyer with him; the 
 body twitched once or twice, but the shot had been 
 point-blank through the heart, and he must haye died 
 instantly. The scrub-woman put her apron over his 
 face. 
 
 The police-captain, who knew both men, said: 
 " My God, Mr. Devitt, what you done? " 
 
 " He didn't do nothing — he didn't do nothing ! 
 
442 THE RUDDER 
 
 It was him — it was Jack Dalton ! " shrieked Miss 
 Schlochtermaier. " Get that gun away from him I ■ ' 
 
 Devitt held on to the weapon in spite of her fran- 
 tic efforts. He said : " Is he dead? I guess I killed 
 him, then.'' 
 
 " He come in here and attackted you — you know 
 he did — you know he did ! " Hilda cried out. " I was 
 here — I saw it ! " she screamed at the others. " It's 
 Dalton's gun! He'd 'a' killed Mr. Devitt, only he 
 got it off of him ! Dalton done it, I tell you ! " 
 
 " I guess I've killed him," Mike repeated. 
 
 "He had to — he had to! Dalton got mad at 
 somej)in' Mr. Devitt says, and went for him with — 
 w^ith that there chair, and he'd 'a' busted his head 
 open — and Dalton a great, big, strong young feller 
 
 — and him an old man — " 
 
 " No, no. Jack was near my own age," said Mi- 
 chael Devitt. He looked at the officer and said: 
 " He had me with my back to the wall." 
 
 " Don't talk — you hadn't oughta talk — ! " said 
 the police-captain hastily. " I got to take you in 
 charge, you know, and afterwards you can tell 'em 
 how it happened — " 
 
 " That's right, don't you pay no 'tention to him, 
 off'cer! He ain't right in his head — he ain't re- 
 spons'ble. I guess I oughta know. I was right here 
 
 — I saw it! He didn't do it — he had to do it, he 
 couldn't help himself — ! " Miss Schlochtermaier 
 kept on screaming wildly fluent, until the other office- 
 girls got around her and led her away, while the po- 
 licemen were getting the place cleared. 
 
 Some one kindheartedly undertook to break the 
 news to Devitt's wife and son; they took him down 
 to the patrol-wagon. He went very quietly, not 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 443 
 
 seeming to see or at least to mind the crowd, and not 
 noticing any individuals in it, not even when Kaba- 
 koff of the Wearever Pants came rushing up, trying 
 to break through the cordon of police. 
 
 " Mr. Devitt, he iss my friendt. We are friends, 
 yass ! I know him from 'way back. You let him go 
 home, Mister Cop, yass? I gif you bell for him — 
 look — see — ! " yelled Kabakoff excitedly, tears of 
 honest emotion coursing down his Oriental features, 
 the while he brandished a handful of soiled paper cur- 
 rency under the officer's nose. " I sfo his bell — Mike 
 he iss goot for it — he iss goot man — '' 
 
 " Sa-ay, you can't get bail for murder," expostu- 
 lated the captain, backing away from this onslaught. 
 *' That ain't the way to do it, anyhow. Don't you 
 know nothing? Sa-ay, keep quiet, now I" 
 
 The crowd dispersed ; only the reporters trailed the 
 patrol-wagon. One of them, a green hand, would 
 haye followed Miss Schlochtermaier, thinking he 
 scented a " story " ; but a better seasoned companion 
 dissuaded him. " She'll keep,'' said he. '^ They'll 
 screw all she knows out of her. She's just crazy now, 
 trying to lie him out of it, like women do. Let's hop 
 this car. It'll get us up to the jail 'most as soon as 
 they get there." 
 
 They hopped it; and, standing on the rear plat- 
 form, re-discussed the event. " I guess Dalton got 
 his^ all right," said the older man. " He wasn't any 
 prize citizen." 
 
 " Well, he got it good and plenty, anyhow. I never 
 saw anybody dead before — I mean any person that 
 had been killed like that," said the other, with strong 
 distaste. 
 
 They were silent a moment, then the senior spoke 
 
444 THE EUDDER 
 
 with a half-laugh. ^^ Say, did you get the little 
 swede trying to crowd his money on the officer? He 
 thought he could buy Deyitt off. I'll bet Ikey 
 wouldn't have done that much for his own mother ! " 
 
 " He seemed to think a lot of Devitt. I noticed a 
 good many of them did. He's got lots of friends." 
 
 " He'll need 'em ! " said the other oracularly. 
 
 But this sagacious gentleman was mistaken. Old 
 Mike Devitt would never need friends any more. 
 " He didn't say anything/' the police-captain ex- 
 plained. " But we didn't think anything of that. 
 Most of 'em go along quietly, because what's the use, 
 hey? Nor he didn't complain of feeling bad; only 
 just before we reached the station he gave a kind of 
 groan, and kind of slumped down this way. And I 
 says: ^Aw, take a brace! You^re going to be all 
 right ! ' I says. But I don't believe he heard me. 
 We got the doc right off, soon as he didn't move, and 
 we saw there was something wrong; and he said old 
 Mike was gone already; he went when he give that 
 groan. Heart. He'd had trouble with it, off and 
 on, for years, I been told since. Looks like this last 
 business must have been too much for him." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 PARADISE PARK, despite its exalted name, is 
 an intimate, even domestic place. There is a 
 highly utilitarian pumping-station and reser- 
 voir for the city's water-supply in the middle of it, 
 a street-car track traverses it, its borders are en- 
 croached upon by unfashionable residences. The 
 elect would smile at the notion of taking outdoor 
 recreation there, though once, we are told, the park 
 was rather the mode for a summer afternoon drive. 
 Nowadays we leave such simple pleasures to the 
 bourgeoisie who take the children to hear the Sunday 
 concerts, and spoon with sweethearts on out-of-the- 
 way benches, and eat luncheons out of shoe-boxes, just 
 as do the other bourgeoisie in other parks all the 
 world over. Yet the park does not lack a charm over 
 and above the flowers and green vistas with which it 
 seeks to vindicate its title; the outlines of its hills 
 are picturesque, and at times it will even take on that 
 look of homely antiquity so dear to the American 
 taste. " If you get the bluff with the engine-house 
 of the Incline perched on the brow of it in profile, 
 it reminds you of the Rhine," Mr. Cook said. " And 
 there's that grand bit of concrete retaining-wall 
 they've built to hold back the hill-side; it looks as if 
 it might be the last remaining fragment of ancient 
 fortifications.'' 
 
 '' Yes. Wouldn't that make the basis of a fine story 
 
 445 
 
446 THE RUDDEB 
 
 to tell some uninstructed foreign visitor — from Great 
 Britain, by preference. ' This is all that is left of the 
 old city-wall, Lord Algernon — erected in Indian 
 days, you know. The Kentuckohis — one of our sav- 
 age tribes — used to call it in their figurative lan- 
 guage Upa-Ga-In-Stit, or Place of Very Bad Medi- 
 cine.' '' 
 
 " You have concealed from me this talent for ro- 
 mance, Miss Grace. Was that the act of a true 
 friend? " 
 
 Bessie laughed. They were sitting on the brick 
 parapet protecting the road that circles about the rim 
 of the reservoir. The April sun was warm, the 
 ground and air moist with exhaling frost; it spread 
 a kind of blur upon the landscape, dimming the fresh- 
 hued sward and budding trees, and imparting even to 
 the band-stand, and the chimneyed red-brick pumping- 
 house that deceptively time-worn. Old World appear- 
 ance that Cook had remarked. He had taken off his 
 overcoat and Miss Grace had opened her jacket, which 
 was the exceedingly smart jacket of a new spring suit ; 
 her pale gold hair gleamed under a hat heaped with 
 violets ; there was a bunch of the raal flowers at her 
 waist — MarshalFs offering when he came to take her 
 for this stroll. Neither of them was in the least dis- 
 turbed about the possibility of being counted with 
 the bourgeoisie. They had been sitting and saunter- 
 ing this hour in perfect indifference to the opinions 
 of the sophisticated. 
 
 " Pretty time of day for you to be finding out the 
 richness of my resources ! " Bessie retorted ; then 
 added immediately, indeed, rather hurriedly : " It's 
 very rash to go hurling those crumbs of mortar into 
 the reservoir, Mr. Cook. Besides being bad for the 
 
BREAD xiND CIRCUSES 447 
 
 public health and destructive of the public property, 
 a park policeman might come along and catch you 
 in the act, and hand us both over to the authorities. 
 The least they'd do would probably be to boil us alive 
 in the water we'd contaminated.'' 
 
 Cook who, in fact, had been with a kind of absent 
 industry, mechanically picking loose particles from 
 between the bricks apparently for the purpose of see- 
 ing how far he could shy them into the lake, desisted 
 "I obey,'' said he; "not because I am convinced or 
 alarmed, but because I like to be bossed — I like you 
 to boss me, that is." 
 
 And once more Miss Grace spoke with unnecessary 
 haste. " Speaking of women bosses — " 
 
 "' I wasn't," said Cook. 
 
 " Well — I mean — I was thinking about your 
 niece — your niece Mrs. Loring, I mean, of course. 
 I haven't had a chance yet to tell you how well we 
 think she's managing her bureau — at the Charities, 
 you know. Grandmamma is on the Board, and she 
 says Mrs. Loring is invaluable." 
 
 Cook made an assenting sound. " Nellie likes it. 
 She seems to have found her place at last, after all her 
 blind blundering. I say : ' all her blundering ' as if 
 I knew all about her. Of course I don't. None of 
 us know much about one another. But anybody can 
 see that Xell's marriage was one blunder, at any rate ; 
 and nobody ever gets off with only one." 
 
 " She and her sister seem to be so happy living to- 
 gether." 
 
 " Oh, yes. Poor Fan I She can see a little. It's 
 better than it was at first, but I'm afraid it can't be 
 cured. Still, she's happy. She worships Eleanor — 
 wants everything about the house to be the way 
 
448 THE KUDDER 
 
 Eleanor likes it, every dish that comes on the table, 
 every curtain and stick of furniture. You'd think 
 she was one of those insanely devoted wives you hear 
 about. And Eleanor reads the paper over the break- 
 fast-table, and goes out to work and comes in again, 
 and settles the bills, for all the world like a man ! I 
 believe she, too, is happier than she has ever been in 
 her life." 
 
 " It's the independence, I suppose,'^ said Miss 
 Grace. " Do you know," she went on with a slight 
 hesitation ; " we — I thought maybe you would have 
 her come and live with you, after the divorce." 
 
 "Live with me? Nellie?" said the author, evi- 
 dently considerably startled. " Gracious, no ! I'm 
 very fond of her ; but living with Nell — well, it would 
 be rather like trying to dance the tango in a tray 
 full of red-hot eggs, without burning yourself or 
 breaking any of ^em! No she's a dear, but 
 living with her — ! '' he wagged his head expres- 
 sively. 
 
 " Well, I didn't know — it seemed natural. Isn't 
 it ridiculous how we are all given to planning out 
 other people's lives? " 
 
 " It doesn't seem to me ridiculous for you to have 
 given a thought to planning out mine. I — I like — 
 it makes me happy to be told that you — " 
 
 For the moment he did not seem able to get any 
 farther, and Bessie precipitately interposed : " Oh, 
 look at the light on those roofs down below there 
 shining through that thin smoke ! It gives that very 
 same beautiful antique dinginess you were just talk- 
 ing about — " 
 
 " I wasn't," said Cook again. " I haven't talked 
 about that for a half hour. I have been trying all 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 440 
 
 this while to talk about you aud myself — aud, Bes- 
 sie, you won't let me." 
 
 Bessie thought: "You never would let yourself 
 before!" And then, to her panicky astonishment, 
 heard her own tongue utter those words without let 
 or hindrance or direction of any sort! Moreover, 
 there must have been some damaging admission or 
 revelation in her tone, for the next instant she was 
 obliged to remonstrate faintly: "Please don't! 
 Somebody might see — " 
 
 But Marshall held her hand tight, and got out his 
 three words manfully. ..." I — I couldn't tell you 
 before, Bessie, I couldn't let myself show it — only I 
 daresay it has always showed in spite of me. But 
 even if I hadn't had my own standards of — of hon- 
 our and self-respect, I knew what you thought about 
 fortune-hunters — " 
 
 "I never thought you were one!'' cried Bessie. 
 " I wouldn't have thought so even if you — even if 
 
 you — " 
 
 " I couldn't. Any man in my position — ! The 
 position isn't so very different now — only — it seems 
 different somehow^, since — since — since I've gotten 
 to be better known and — and all that ! " said Cook, 
 stammering and colouring painfully. " It's not quite 
 as if I had nothing — '' 
 
 Suddenly Bessie began to laugh, though with a 
 catch like a sob. The pink came back to her cheeks ; 
 she looked like a girl. And he thought his heart 
 stopped a beat when he caught her tenderly teasing 
 glance. 
 
 " Oh, Marshall, vou've done it so badly ! You made 
 such a bungle of it — and all your heroes make love 
 so beautifully, even the naughty ones ! " 
 
450 THE EUDDER 
 
 i^fter a while they went wandering through the 
 park again. 
 
 " I'll have to have an audience with your grand- 
 mother," Cook said. " I feel rather in a twitter — '^ 
 
 '' Oh, hut she likes you ! " 
 
 ^^Not any better, I'm afraid, than a dozen better 
 men that have wanted to marry you. Oh, Bessie, how 
 I have raged ! And had to make fun of myself all the 
 time! Because there wasn't any use, you see. One 
 might as well make fun. It began the first time I 
 ever saw you, at a party one night. You had on a 
 pink dress. I was quite alone; nobody knew me, not 
 even the hostess ! You don't remember, I daresay — " 
 
 " But I do! I remember very well. I think I 
 wasn't very nice to you. I was very young and ab- 
 surdly bitter the way very young people can be. One 
 never does anything by halves at that age. Oh, yes, 
 I remember I '' 
 
 They were both silent a little, thinking of the years 
 which they had perhaps wasted. Yet were it all to 
 be lived over, neither one would act otherwise. 
 
 " The first thing I do when I'm back in New York 
 will be to go to Tiffany's I " Cook announced sud- 
 denly. 
 
 She stopped still, looking at him in serious protest. 
 " Why, Marshall, don't do that ! I've got such quan- 
 tities of jewellery — that is — " 
 
 " You haven't got a collection of engagement-rings, 
 I hope? At any rate, I'm not going to be done out 
 of the slightest one of my heroes' privileges. I'm go- 
 ing to get a great, staring one like a chunk of glass, 
 in execrable taste. Then I'll know the dream has 
 come true, ^ for keeps ' — " 
 
 They laughed extravagantly, and in the midst of 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 451 
 
 their laughter, found themselves with further merri- 
 ment in an unfamiliar neiglibourhood, at the head of 
 some steps that dropped down to lower levels still 
 more unfamiliar. The park was somewhere at their 
 backs; but all unwitting, thev had emerged from it, 
 and now buildings, intervening, shut it off. Here 
 were cobblestones, houses descending the hill-sides 
 staircase-wise, with cramped, ill-favoured back-vards 
 reticulated with clothesline on the shelves between. 
 But some two squares to their right, the Incline was 
 visible striding down on giant stilts; and Cook, after 
 a survey, pronounced the locality to be Parallel 
 Street, not very far, he thought, from Eddystone 
 Avenue where the freight-yards are. 
 
 " Not the choicest spot in town to go walking in I '^ 
 said he, between amusement and concern. " I haven't 
 known what I was doing for some time, or we never 
 would have fetched up here! However, I won't let 
 you climb back up hill again. Suppose we valiantly 
 go on down and get the Cherry Street car? It must 
 be somewhere near here ; Mercy Hospital's on one cor- 
 ner, and I think there's a church somewhere round — 
 they have respectability in the immediate vicinity 
 anyhow I " 
 
 They went on down accordingly, and erelong dis- 
 covered Mercy Hospital, and likewise the church, one 
 consecrated to the worship of the sect of Early Chris- 
 tians, as it appeared from a tablet. Indeed, it would 
 have been difficult to have missed this edifice; outside 
 the United States flag floated from a staff, other flags 
 protruding decoratively from the lancet windows; 
 there were a good many idlers about, none of them 
 looking vividly interested, to be sure, and numbers 
 of children on the steps or performing acrobatically 
 
452 THE RUDDER 
 
 along the high iron fence. Within, it was evident 
 some sort of exercises were going on; the voice of a 
 single speaker penetrated through the open doors and 
 windows, rising and falling. 
 
 " Why, this isn't at all disreputable! '' Bessie mur- 
 mured disappointedly in Cook's ear. " You've taken 
 me to ever so much worse places than this! Let's 
 find out what's happening. There's a lovely, blear- 
 eyed gentleman you might ask.'' 
 
 But this was not necessary ; for, coming abreast of 
 the main entrance, they perceived a pair of large white 
 placards disposed, easel-fashion, one on each side of 
 it, lettered in red and black with exhortations to all 
 citizens to Carry on the Fight ! " It is Half Done. 
 Make a Good Job of it! Drive the Dirty Doggeries 
 out of Business, and let's have a Clean Town. No 
 Liquor — No Vice!" Farther down you were re- 
 minded that it cost you nothing to come in and be 
 informed; the evils of intemperance were being set 
 forth in three lectures to which admittance was abso- 
 lutely free. Speakers : Tuesday night, the Honour- 
 able Selwyn B. Jukes. Wednesday night, Mrs. Anna 
 Chatt Brangle. Thursday afternoon — 
 
 ''Who's this? What do' I see?" exclaimed Cook 
 dramatically, fixing his eyeglasses. " Well, well, are 
 there no limits to his abilities? I thought he was a 
 labour-leader ! " 
 
 Miss Grace suggested that maybe labour-leadering 
 was now out of date, demoded in short. " Why don't 
 we go in, and hear him on Prohibition? If he's half 
 as eloquent as he was that night at dinner — ! " 
 
 So they went in, and were accommodated with seats 
 in a pew near the door, the auditorium being hand- 
 somely packed with Early Christians, or others. 
 
BREAD AND CIRCUSES 453 
 
 And sure enough, there was T. Chauncey Devitt on 
 the platform, dark, graceful, sonorous, delivering sen- 
 tences and paragraphs and whole pages about the 
 Shadow of the Curse overcoming the Happy Radiance 
 of the Hearth, with interruptions of magnificent ap- 
 plause. He was " swaying the multitude -' ; a good 
 half of the women were in tears ; sometimes there was 
 cheering. Cook and Bessie sat and listened soberly ; 
 they did not look at each other. 
 
 " He's gettin' near the end now. I c'n gen'lly tell. 
 You'd oughta come in sooner ! '^ a woman sitting next 
 to Miss Grace volunteered in a whisper. " Oh, my ! ^' 
 She settled back, sighing luxuriously, and dabbed at 
 her eyes with a ball of handkerchief. 
 
 In fact, Chauncey was getting near the end in easily 
 recognisable style. He had taken up an attitude in 
 the centre of the stage, arms outspread and face raised 
 to Heaven, and was declaiming, almost chanting in 
 measured cadences the noble words of his peroration. 
 Bessie felt a twitch from her companion, and turning 
 w^as astounded to behold him with his face buried in 
 his hands, and shoulders heaving. 
 
 "What's the matter? What is the matter?'' she 
 whispered urgently; and was relieved when Marshall 
 showed her a corner of his features convulsed indeed, 
 but not by the emotion she had supposed. 
 
 " Here, let's get out of this, or w^e'll be disgi^aced I '' 
 he said between two muffled paroxysms. " C-come 
 on, I c-can't hold in any longer I " 
 
 They got outside, the orator's final words pursuing 
 them . . . "but come what may, I will hold the 
 euhder true ! '^ 
 
 THE END 
 
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