MEARA WHOLE CITY FULL 
 
 EDWARD 
 
 BY 
 
 W. TOWNSEND 
 
 rnia 
 I 
 
 I II
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL 
 
 EDWARD w TOWNSEND, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "A DAUGHTER OF THE TENEMENTS," "MAJOR 
 MAX," "CHIMMIE FADDEN," ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 F. A. NANKIVELL. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY 
 
 G. W. Dillingham Co., Publishers, 
 
 MDCCCXCVII. 
 
 rights reserved.}
 
 To my friend CHARLES W. GOULD, 
 whose wise kindness has been a con 
 tinual encouragement to me, this book 
 is dedicated with affectionate regard. 
 
 E. W. T. 
 
 New York, 1897.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 PACK 
 
 Just Across the Square ... 9 
 A Rose of the Tenderloin . . 35 
 Ann Eliza's Triumph . . .61 
 The Man Outside . . . . 77 
 The Dog on the Roof . . .89 
 Guardians of the Law . . . 103 
 A Dinner of Regrets . . . 113 
 The Night Elevator Man's Story . '29 
 By Whom the Offence Cometh . 141 
 The Reward of Merit . . . 1 59 
 The House of Yellow Brick . . 175 
 The Little Life of Pietro . .189 
 When a Man Judges . ... 203 
 Polly Slanguer's Trousseau . . 247 
 
 [7] 
 
 1782153
 
 JUST ACROSS THE SQUARE.
 
 WHEN Philip arrived at the Grand 
 Central Station and left his car, holding 
 fast to his traveling bag in spite of the 
 efforts of a red-capped, importunate 
 person to relieve him of it, he found that 
 his heart was thumping as if he had 
 just finished a hundred-yard foot-race. 
 He discovered at the same time that 
 he was laughing aloud and he brought 
 himself sharply to " attention," and 
 actually stood still for several seconds, 
 determined to assume at least an out- 
 ward calm before he really set foot in 
 his Mecca, the goal of his ambition, 
 his fairyland New York. 
 
 [ii]
 
 12 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 He repeated to himself the instruc- 
 tions he had written down as he had 
 received them from a student friend 
 who had lived in New York, and add- 
 ed : " This is Forty-second street, 
 and I must face it and look for a horse- 
 car going to my right. Hello, there is 
 one." He bucked through the inter- 
 fering line of cabmen, and boarded the 
 car, saying, " And keep in that car until 
 it passes underneath the elevated car 
 line." He was smiling within in com- 
 plete rapture, but maintained a sober 
 mien until he saw a grim, Egyptian- 
 looking pile, and then he blurted out 
 " Fifth avenue !" 
 
 He could not help that. The joy of 
 discovering that the Murray Hill reser- 
 voir was so like the pictures of it he 
 had studied as to assure him of the lo- 
 cality, overcame his outward gravity, 
 and until Sixth avenue was reached he
 
 JUST ACROSS THE SQUARE. 13 
 
 frankly smiled back at the smiling pas- 
 sengers, and gave up, with a sense of 
 relief, the effort not to appear a 
 stranger. 
 
 Then the elevated ! He could have 
 drawn working plans for the construc- 
 tion of an elevated railroad, including a 
 station, and, indeed, he had done so in 
 class work Philip was an architectural 
 draughtsman yet the first sight of the 
 actual structure was a surprise and 
 delight to him. 
 
 " Ride to Bleecker street," he said, 
 reciting his written instructions when 
 he was seated in a downtown train. 
 Then the sights and sounds of that 
 raised road ride ! His eager eyes 
 caught the platform sign " Bleecker 
 street," or he would have missed his 
 station ; his ears not being educated to 
 identify the information intended by 
 the gateman's shouted " 'Ker street !"
 
 14 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 He had to walk 
 only a short distance 
 north to reach the 
 lodgings he hoped 
 to secure on South 
 Washington Square, 
 yet in that short 
 walk he recognized 
 several landmarks 
 described in his 
 friend's directions. At the sign of the 
 Caf6 au Chat Noir he stopped and 
 saluted hilariously, for the restaurant 
 of the Black Cat figured frequently in 
 his friend's most buoyant tales of bo- 
 hemian life in New York. 
 
 He tramped on elate, and literally 
 quivered with happiness at the first 
 sight of the beautiful and stately white 
 marble arch. That identified the Square 
 to him, and he soon found the lodging 
 house he sought.
 
 JUST ACROSS THE SQUARE. 15 
 
 The Janitor had received his letters, 
 and told him he could have the very 
 room his art-student friend had occu- 
 pied ; and when he was in it and alone, 
 and had taken one look out of the back 
 window seen the one grimy black- 
 limbed tree, in the grimy black court, 
 the back windows facing him on the 
 opposite side of the court, and a young 
 Italian woman at one of those windows, 
 all just as his friend had told him 
 Philip shouted and danced for joy until 
 the Italian looked over and smiled. 
 Whereupon he promptly threw her a 
 kiss. A closer examination of his room 
 disclosed graphic evidences of his 
 friend's former occupancy frequently 
 in the form of caricatures of the Janitor 
 and these so excitingly thrust into his 
 understanding that he was actually, and 
 at last, a part of the life of which he 
 had heard so much and dreamed so
 
 1 6 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 long, he was as close upon hysterics as 
 a healthy athlete of twenty-three ever 
 approaches. 
 
 When his trunk came he put on his best 
 street clothes, and was surprised to find 
 that they looked a trifle odd, not quite 
 so fine and fashionable as they seemed 
 when he last wore them at home. He 
 took his one letter of introduction and, 
 as he went out of the house, stopped 
 and showed its address to the Janitor. 
 When that austere person read it, he 
 instantly altered the manner he had at 
 first adopted toward the new fourth- 
 flight-back lodger. 
 
 " Do you know where that is ?" 
 Philip asked. 
 
 " Sure, sir ; that is just across the 
 Square. That is North Washington 
 Square, don't you see, sir, and this is 
 South Washington Square." 
 
 Philip laughed. " That's my first
 
 JUST ACROSS THE SQUARE. 17 
 
 slip," he said. " I did not relate the 
 two sides of the Square. I guess I 
 thought the gentleman lived why, in 
 quite a different part of the city,'* and 
 he glanced about at his dingy surround- 
 ings. 
 
 " Well, it is a very different part of 
 town, in one way, sir. It's very swell 
 just across the Square, and Mr. Gun- 
 ton, the gentleman your letter is to, is 
 the richest one on the row. I often 
 see him." 
 
 Philip blithely went on his way and 
 before he had reached the arch, toward 
 which he was irresistibly drawn, he 
 began to realize the difference between 
 the upper and lower sides of the Square. 
 The big, sedate red brick mansions 
 fronting on the North side affirmed 
 themselves even to his unsophisticated 
 eyes to be the homes of established 
 wealth.
 
 1 8 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 " And I am sure of a welcome in one 
 of those homes," Philip thought hap- 
 pily. He found the Gunton house, and 
 sent in his letter. In a few minutes 
 he was shaken by both hands by a 
 big, hearty man, who repeated over 
 and over : 
 
 <; Phil Morrow's boy ! Phil Morrow's 
 boy, every inch of him ! And I've 
 never seen your father since you were 
 born." 
 
 When Philip told him that he hoped 
 to obtain employment in an architect's 
 office, Mr. Gunton exclaimed : " Noth- 
 ing easier, Black is the greatest of 
 them all, as you know, and is not only 
 my warm personal friend, but has 
 charge of a great deal of work I hap- 
 pen to control. We'll fix that as soon 
 as you're ready. But not a word 
 of business or affairs now, my boy. 
 The first thing is dinner. Why not
 
 JUST ACROSS THE SQUARE. 19 
 
 dine with us to-night ? Any engage- 
 ments ?" 
 
 " I've only been in the city two hours, 
 and I know no one but you." 
 
 " Phil Morrow's son need know no 
 one but me in New York," said the old 
 man sententiously. " Then this even- 
 ing at 7 o'clock. Mrs. Gunton will be 
 anxious to see you. She never met 
 your father she's the second Mrs. 
 Gunton, and a country girl but she's 
 heard me speak of him often enough. 
 I loved your father. I tried often to 
 have him come here." 
 
 As Philip was leaving the house Mr. 
 Gunton said : " II you have an evening 
 dress suit, put it on." 
 
 " Oh, I have." 
 
 " You must not mind my asking you. 
 Neither your father nor I had one at 
 your age." 
 
 Philip's mind was in a ferment of
 
 20 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 bliss as he left the Gunton house and 
 stood gazing once more at the Wash- 
 ington arch " I must walk," he said 
 to himself exultantly, "or I'll be 
 arrested for dancing in the street. It 
 does not seem possible that it can be 
 true, but it is true !" 
 
 He started up Fifth avenue, hugging 
 himself with boyish abandonment. 
 Everything now was as the realization 
 of a dream. He knew the names of the 
 two churches he passed before reach- 
 ing Fourteenth street ; knew the names 
 of their architects, and observed that a 
 chapel addition had been made to one 
 since it had been pictured for his 
 treasured copy of " Notable New York 
 Architecture." He recognized Four- 
 teenth street before he read the names 
 on its street-car lines, and rejoiced 
 in his knowledge. 
 
 " I know New York ! It is mine !
 
 JUST ACROSS THE SQUARE. 21 
 
 Big, beloved, beautiful city it is mine ! 
 Mine as an American, and it has wel- 
 comed me !" 
 
 Then on up to Twenty-third street, 
 where he was swept into the late after- 
 noon whirl, and willingly let himself 
 drift where the torrent of humanity 
 chanced. 
 
 At dinner that evening he sat next to 
 Mrs. Gunton. " A country girl, in- 
 deed !" he thought, as he observed her, 
 the most dazzlingly beautiful woman he 
 had ever seen. 
 
 His host told stories about his boy- 
 hood's friend, Phil Morrow, and became 
 sentimental over his recollections of 
 their days at the country school. One 
 guest, a quiet, gravely observant man, 
 made Philip's heart swell with pride by 
 his talk about his father, " that great 
 scholar and philosopher, Philip Mor- 
 row," and when the grave man had
 
 42 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 ceased talking Philip was conscious that 
 he had been suddenly boomed into 
 something like a lion in the estimation 
 of the other guests, only for being his 
 father's son. 
 
 As the ladies rose to leave the table 
 Mrs. Gunton said to Philip : " Come 
 with us, Mr. Morrow ; these men are 
 going to talk about debentures, and 
 something called common or preferred, 
 
 I forget which, but it has to do with 
 six per cent., and I want you to talk to 
 me about the country." 
 
 When they were seated together in
 
 JUST ACROSS THE SQUARE. 23 
 
 the library, where she led him, and told 
 him he might smoke, she said, with an 
 air of the greatest importance, " Did 
 you ever see a lot of little black pigs 
 feeding at a trough of buttermilk, eat- 
 ing until they shivered with the impos- 
 sible effort to eat more, and then climb- 
 ing into the trough ? I have, and I'd 
 give up my box at the opera to see 
 that most fascinating sight again. Did 
 you ever see a dignified turkey gobbler 
 chasing a grasshopper ? Tell me every- 
 thing like that you've seen, and then if 
 I like the way you tell it I'll select a 
 rich girl to marry you." 
 
 She was only a few years older than 
 he, and he saw her with dazzled eyes 
 and brain, and he'd never been in love 
 before, and well, she gently pressed his 
 hand as she bade him good night, saying : 
 
 " Where are you living, country 
 cousin ?"
 
 24 NEAR A "WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 " Just across the Square," Philip re- 
 plied. 
 
 Her eyebrows arched slightly, but 
 steadied instantly. She had never 
 happened to know any one from the 
 other side of the Square. " That is 
 jolly," she said, " you must be neigh- 
 borly, and come and see us often." 
 
 " We'll see about putting you at 
 work in Black's office right away," were 
 Mr. Gunton's parting words. 
 
 Philip stood at one of the corners of
 
 JUST ACROSS THE SQUARE. 25 
 
 the end of the Avenue, and looking 
 through the arch saw glimmering down 
 upon him in friendly radiance the 
 lighted cross surmounting the tower of 
 the Judson Memorial Church. " The 
 symbol of Faith," he murmured. " And 
 I have faith ; faith in the promise of 
 my father's friend ; faith in my ability 
 to succeed. How beautiful she is !" he 
 continued, but that was irrelevant, for 
 then he was thinking of his father's 
 friend's young wife ; yet irrelevant 
 thoughts are not the most easily dis- 
 missed. He stood there in the crisp 
 autumn night air happier than he had 
 ever been before in his life. Even his 
 most extravagant dream of professional 
 advancement had never gone beyond 
 what Mr. Gunton's promise seemed to 
 assure ; and it may have been this 
 thought which triumphed in his heart, 
 but what he was saying was :
 
 2 6 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 " I will paint a picture in black and 
 white of this arch with the lighted cross 
 seen through it, and beyond. I wonder 
 
 if it will please her." It was of her and 
 
 not of his father's friend that he was 
 
 thinking, and it was of her he dreamed. 
 
 The next morning Philip break-
 
 JUST ACROSS THE SQUARE. 27 
 
 fasted recklessly at the Black Cat. He 
 felt that there was no need of being 
 niggardly about his expenses now that 
 he was assured of immediate work. 
 Life was as bright as the day. 
 
 He strolled up the avenue, looking 
 for a certain flower shop he had noticed 
 the afternoon before, and there he 
 selected a bunch of violets, gasping a 
 little when the salesman asked a dollar 
 
 r^ . 
 
 for it. 
 
 " Can you send it ?" Philip inquired, 
 giving Mrs. Gunton's address. Cer- 
 tainly, it could be sent easily enough, 
 for a ten dollar bunch of roses another 
 guest of the evening before had ordered, 
 was going to the same address. 
 
 The salesman did not explain that. 
 
 Two weeks later Mr. Black, the 
 architect, was in Mr. Gunton's office 
 discussing some important building 
 plans. The architect had not been
 
 28 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 gone more than a minute when Mr. 
 Gunton hurriedly sent a clerk to recall 
 him. He was lost, however. 
 
 " It's too bad," said Mr. Gunton. 
 " But I 11 write to him. I must put 
 Phil Morrow s boy at work." 
 
 He started to dictate the letter, but 
 some men came in to talk about de- 
 bentures, and common or preferred 
 something, which had to do with six 
 per cent. 
 
 Two weeks later still, a month after 
 Philip arrived in New York, he entered 
 the house on South Washington Square, 
 and the Janitor who was waiting to ask 
 him for next month's rent, did not do 
 so ; the boy looked so hopelessly 
 wretched. 
 
 He had not been very careful of 
 his small store of money, and it 
 was gone in a week, and some of his 
 books and trinkets went the second
 
 JUST ACROSS THE SQUARE. 29 
 
 week. He tortured himself with two 
 questions : Why did he not hear from 
 Mr. Gunton ? Why did he not go 
 to Mr. Gunton ? He saw the Gun- 
 ton house every day, just across 
 the Square ; often saw the master 
 enter and leave it ; more often saw 
 the mistress enter and leave. At such 
 times of watching he would answer the 
 first question readily : Mr. Gunton's 
 silence was the pure forgetfulness of a 
 very busy man. For the second ques- 
 tion he miserably told himself that a 
 visit from him to Mr. Gunton for no 
 other purpose than to ask his aid in 
 securing work would be in the nature 
 of begging. He labored with himself 
 to prove that this was a foolish, false, 
 even a wicked mental perversion, be- 
 got of pride and over-sensitivness. 
 But the more he argued the more 
 deeply rooted and rank became the
 
 30 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 thought. Then he turned upon himself 
 and held his deeper underlying thought 
 at bay, and knew that while he would 
 have sturdily asked his father's friend 
 for the fulfilment of his reiterated 
 promise, he could not bring himself to 
 beg for the means of living from the 
 husband of the woman who had been 
 his hostess, who had called him " Coun- 
 try cousin," who was so beautiful ! 
 
 Then, in the third week, when he be- 
 gan to pawn his clothes, the possibility 
 of calling at the house just across the 
 Square vanished utterly ; and when in 
 the fourth week he was of necessity re- 
 duced to one poor meal a day he even 
 gave up his futile rounds of the archi- 
 tects' offices, searching for work, and 
 did not return to his lodgings until 
 after dark, for he had a dread of the 
 possibility of being seen by any one in 
 the Gunton house. That day, at the
 
 JUST ACROSS THE SQUARE. 31 
 
 end of the fourth week, when he had 
 eaten nothing for forty-eight hours, and 
 had failed to secure work as a laborer 
 on the docks, he returned to his room 
 and saw the Italian family seated at 
 their supper. The young woman threw 
 him a kiss and showed all her white 
 teeth as she pointed him out, at his 
 window, to her companions. As he 
 stood there half wondering what would 
 be his reception if he went to the 
 Italian's rooms and asked them for the 
 food he was starving for, Mrs. Gunton, 
 in her dressing room just across the 
 Square, called to her husband through 
 an open door : 
 
 " Have you ever spoken to Mr. Black 
 about young Morrow, my dear ?" 
 
 "I'm glad you reminded me of it," 
 Mr. Gunton replied, " Black will be 
 here for dinner this evening, and I'll fix 
 the matter,"
 
 32 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 " Young Morrow has been here some 
 time without employment, has he not?" 
 
 " Only a week or so. Just time for 
 a country boy to have a bit of a look 
 around the town." 
 
 " It's a month ago to-night he dined 
 here. He sent me some violets the 
 next day." 
 
 " Did he ? Well, he is Phil Morrow's 
 son, sure enough. You know that boy's 
 father loaned me his savings for my 
 expenses to New York forty years ago." 
 
 An hour later, at dinner, Mr. Gunton 
 suddenly said to Mr. Black, " By the 
 way, I want you to put a young friend 
 of mine at work." 
 
 The Architect grimaced a little as he 
 replied : " The trouble is that your 
 young friends in my office do not 
 work." 
 
 " But Philip Morrow will," exclaimed 
 Mr. Gunton,
 
 JUST ACROSS THE SQUARE. 33 
 
 " Philip Morrow ? Philip Morrow," 
 repeated Mr. Black reflectively. 
 "Where have I seen that name? 
 Why !" he exclaimed suddenly, " I 
 voted to give the first prize to a man 
 of that name, in a competition for 
 some building plans in which I was 
 one of the judges. I was outvoted, 
 but if that is the same man, I want 
 him." 
 
 " Was he from my old town ?" asked 
 Mr. Gunton eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, so he was," Mr. Black re- 
 sponded. 
 
 The conversation was interrupted by 
 a horrified butler who whispered to 
 Mr. Gunton: 
 
 " A policeman wants to see you." 
 
 " Excuse me for bothering you, Mr. 
 Gunton," said the officer, when that 
 gentleman met him in the hall. " But 
 a young man has just killed himself,
 
 34 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 and your card was the only address 
 found in his room." 
 
 " My card ? My God, man ! 
 Where ?" 
 
 " In a fourth story back room, in a 
 house just across the Square."
 
 A ROSE OF THE TENDERLOIN.
 
 I MET Harry, Tenderloin Harry, that 
 day as he was alighting from a han- 
 som, at the corner of Fifth avenue and 
 one of the upper Thirtieth streets. 
 There was nothing surprising in seeing 
 him on Fifth avenue, for that, as well 
 as one side of Seventh avenue, is in the 
 Tenderloin a fact which seems to es- 
 cape the minds of those who comment 
 on that interesting precinct. 
 
 " Sherry's, as well as Shanley's, is in 
 the Tenderloin," Harry phrased it to 
 me once. 
 
 It was surprising, though, that he 
 
 [37]
 
 38 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 should have been in a hansom, for he 
 usually goes afoot through his beloved 
 precinct, and it was more surprising to 
 see him lift a three-year-old girl from 
 the cab a child with big, frank, hand- 
 some blue eyes that were dancing with 
 excitement, I noticed, when I stopped 
 to speak to Harry. 
 
 " We been to Hentrem Park," she 
 interrupted, as we were chatting. 
 
 " That means Central Park," Harry 
 interpreted, smiling down at the child. 
 
 " And haw ions, and tigers and and 
 potomums and elphim an and dote 
 tarriage." 
 
 " Goat carriage," Harry again inter- 
 preted, proudly. 
 
 I walked down the cross-street with 
 them, the child holding a hand of each 
 of us and chattering excitedly. They 
 stopped in front of a house near Sixth 
 avenue.
 
 A ROSE OF THE TENDERLOIN. 39 
 
 " Now doin' hee Mamma, and tell 
 Mamma 'bout Hentrem Park," said the 
 child, as Harry took her in his arms to 
 carry her up the steps. 
 
 " Dood-by, oo do and hee Hentrem 
 Park and dote tarriage," she said over 
 Harry's shoulders, waving a plump lit- 
 tle hand at me as I walked on. 
 
 I knew as much about Harry as do 
 most men who know the Tenderloin 
 and no more. I knew that was not his 
 home, and I wondered if his curious 
 history included a romance involving 
 the life of that beautiful child. I was 
 yet lazily speculating about the man 
 and the baby when, after walking a few 
 blocks up Broadway, I had returned as 
 far as the corner of the same cross- 
 street, and there I was almost run 
 into by Harry, with the child in his 
 arms. 
 
 He was greatly excited, more than I
 
 40 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 had ever seen him before, and the child 
 was crying from fright. 
 
 " Here !" he exclaimed as he saw me, 
 " Quick ! you're just the man. You 
 know where my rooms are ; take this 
 child there." 
 
 He stopped a passing coupe and 
 pushed me in and put the baby in my 
 arms before I had a chance to ask a 
 question. 
 
 " Here are my keys ; call the land- 
 lady she'll do whatever's wanted !" 
 and he slammed the door, giving the 
 address to the driver. 
 
 I tried to quiet the child, but she 
 was thoroughly frightened ; at what 
 she could not say, but I guessed it was 
 the panic she had been thrown into by 
 seeing some sudden and great change 
 in Harry. 
 
 I was relieved when the landlady 
 joined me in Harry's apartments, for
 
 A ROSE OF THE TENDERLOIN. 4! 
 
 she was a motherly and calm woman, 
 who soon had the child quiet, and inter- 
 ested in some picture papers. 
 
 I told her what little I knew, but she 
 asked no questions and showed no curi- 
 osity she had been Harry's landlady 
 for many years, and perhaps had learned 
 not to be surprised or curious over any 
 business of his. 
 
 I had been there not more than half 
 an hour when a man came with a little 
 trunk, and word from Harry that it be- 
 longed to the baby and was to be 
 opened. Mrs. Masters, the landlady, 
 opened the trunk and took out some of 
 its contents, with many exclamations of 
 delight at the rich and pretty clothes. 
 The baby took a knowing and inter- 
 ested hand in this, selecting a " dess 
 mamma likes," which Mrs. Masters put 
 on the child. 
 
 " Unky Harry say mamma dawn
 
 42 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 'way. Do oo know where mamma 
 dawn ?" 
 
 " No, dearie," said Mrs. Masters. 
 
 " My name not dearie ; my name, 
 Osie." 
 
 " Osie? Oh, Rose!" 
 
 " Ess, Osie." 
 
 It was getting dark, and little Rose 
 began to whimper and want to go to 
 her mamma, so Mrs. Masters undressed 
 her and put her to bed. I saw them in 
 Harry's bedroom from where I sat in 
 his parlor. 
 
 " Do you say prayers, Rose ?" 
 
 " Ess, I say Dod bess mamma." 
 
 " And papa?" 
 
 The child looked up at Mrs. Masters 
 wonderingly, and repeated, sleepily: 
 
 " Dod bess mamma 'at's all." 
 
 Mrs. Masters and I were whispering 
 in the parlor, which was only half lit 
 from the electric lights shining in
 
 A ROSE OF THE TENDERLOIN. 43 
 
 through the curtains from the street 
 below, and had just started at a cry 
 from Rose as Harry came in. 
 
 He stood on the threshold as he 
 heard the baby's voice saying : " I doin' 
 tiss mamma dood-night. Mamma, turn 
 tiss Osie dood-night." 
 
 Mrs. Masters had the little one sound 
 asleep soon, and then Harry told his 
 story. 
 
 It was a long story, and much of it 
 you may have read in the papers the 
 next morning. Even if you did not, 
 there is no use telling it all here. 
 The headline in the papers told most 
 of it : " Another Tenderloin Suicide." 
 
 "I never knew the father of the 
 child," said Harry, sitting with his back 
 to the light from the street, " and I 
 hope I never may. The poor girl I 
 knew before she before she came into 
 the Tenderloin. After the baby was
 
 44 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 born I saw the mother sometimes in 
 the restaurants and music halls some- 
 times on the street. One day I met 
 her with the baby, and the little one 
 kind of took to me, and we became 
 good pals the little one and me. I 
 used to send it little things from the 
 shops dresses and hats and things 
 and take it out to the park once in a 
 while. 
 
 " To-day I got a note from the mother 
 asking me if I'd take Rose out for a 
 ride. I saw her the little woman 
 when I called for the baby, and it 
 seemed to me she was jollier than 
 usual. When we got back to the house, 
 they'd just found it out found her 
 dead, and some of the women set up a 
 cry that the Society would take the kid 
 take Rose, you know and that gave 
 me a scare. That's when I met you. 
 
 " I've made arrangements about the
 
 A ROSE OF THE TENDERLOIN. 45 
 
 funeral and that will be all right. But 
 it's Rose I'm thinking of. Is she sleep- 
 ing all right, Mrs. Masters?" 
 u Like a little angel, Harry." 
 He tip-toed into his bedroom, and 
 when he came back he said nothing for 
 many minutes. Then he lighted the 
 gas, and handing me a sheet of paper, 
 said: "They found this addressed to 
 me." 
 
 It read : 
 
 " HARRY: Please look after the 
 baby. I have pawned everything but 
 the baby's clothes. I have no right to 
 ask this of you, only that the baby likes 
 you. I can't stand this any longer. 
 Good-by. ROSE. 
 
 "Harry Try and put the baby in a 
 way to be brought up good, and God 
 will bless you, R."
 
 46 NEAR A WHOLK CITY FULL. 
 
 For several days after this I missed 
 Harry from his favorite promenades. 
 His absence was as noticeable as would 
 be that of the Worth Monument from 
 its pedestal. I began to wonder much 
 what had become of him, and then, what 
 had become of pretty little Rose. So 
 I called to learn. 
 
 "Yes, he's in," said Mrs. Masters, 
 smiling with much good nature. It 
 occurred to me that I had not seen her 
 smile much before then. 
 
 A young woman in a nursemaid's cap 
 and apron admitted me to the hall of 
 Harry's apartments. She seemed to 
 be a particularly amiable young woman, 
 and was also smiling most sympatheti- 
 cally. I heard shouts of merriment, a 
 chorus of deep-chested laughs upholding 
 a solo of the sweetest sound on earth 
 the unaffected laugh of a happy child. 
 
 Seated on the floor was Kendhope,
 
 A ROSE OF THE TENDERLOIN. 47 
 
 the comedian ; and never in his long 
 and successful career had he held such 
 an appreciative and favoring audience. 
 
 Opposite him Harry was seated on a 
 low chair, holding Rose on his knee, 
 and she was watching Kendhope with 
 fascinated eagerness. The distinguished 
 comedian held in one hand Rose's fa- 
 vorite doll and in the other a comic 
 mask. The game was for Rose to ask 
 the doll a question and Kendhope to 
 answer through the mask, in the pre- 
 tense of speaking for the doll. 
 
 Standing around were a half dozen 
 men of Harry's class, men whose bril- 
 liant waistcoats were well plumped out, 
 whose dress and linen in all respects, if 
 somewhat showy in design or color, 
 were most notable for exquisite neat- 
 ness. 
 
 " Have oo been a dood dirl to-day ?" 
 Rose asked.
 
 48 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 Kendhope answered through the 
 mask, at the same time making the doll 
 nod and squirm drolly. 
 
 " Ess, very dood dirl ; 'cept I eat too 
 much apple sauce." 
 
 Rose laughed and clapped her hands 
 at this answer, and the men roared. I 
 learned that that was a joke on Harry. 
 The nurse had told him that apple sauce 
 was good for Rose, and he had promptly 
 arranged with the chef at Delmonico's 
 for the delivery of a fresh quart of 
 apple sauce three times a day, and paid 
 for six months' supply in advance. 
 
 " Damn me if she ain't up to the 
 limit." 
 
 This was said by a man who had 
 graduated from the prize ring into the 
 betting ring, and had retired rich. 
 
 Harry gave him an ugly look. 
 
 " Damn me !" said Rose, looking up 
 inquiringly, as if for a meaning.
 
 A ROSE OF THE TENDERLOIN. 
 
 49 
 
 " There, see what you've done !" 
 Harry said to the abashed offender. 
 " It's a bad word and don't mean any- 
 thing, Rosie. I wonder Tom had no 
 more sense." 
 
 "Tom div me a new doll," Rosie 
 said, absolving the penitent sinner 
 with a smile. 
 
 The game was 
 changed ; a splendid 
 pair of red silk, 
 silver mounted 
 reins, presented 
 to Rose by a re- 
 tired horseman, 
 was harnessed on 
 to the whole party by the donor, and 
 Rose drove us all round the room with 
 shouts of joy. 
 
 I noticed a number of changes in the 
 room. A sideboard, wont to present a 
 generous offering of drinkables, was
 
 50 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 converted into a doll's playhouse ; a 
 centre-table around which most of the 
 men present were in the habit of en- 
 gaging in heavy play, no longer held 
 cards and poker chips, but was now in- 
 nocently arrayed with a profusion of 
 baby tea-things. 
 
 When Rose stopped, tired of driving 
 her obedient team, she stood in front of 
 a large photograph of Mile. Blanc in 
 the meagre " fairy " costume in which 
 she entranced vaudeville audiences last 
 winter. 
 
 " At's a angel," said Rose. 
 
 Harry flushed, took the photograph 
 and threw it into the open fire. Then 
 with a sudden impulse he went about 
 the room gathering all such souvenirs, 
 and in a moment more there was a con- 
 flagration of the finest collection in 
 town of music hall celebrities' auto- 
 graph pictures.
 
 A ROSE OP THE TENDERLOIN. 51 
 
 Presently the nurse came and said it 
 was time for Rose's supper and bed. 
 
 Baby and nurse disappeared, but the 
 men did not go. They sat around 
 talking softly and apparently waiting 
 for something. Everything Rose had 
 said and done was rehearsed and de- 
 clared to be the most wonderful per- 
 formance in the world. 
 
 "The nurse wouldn't let her have 
 those foils, Jack," said Harry, pointing 
 to a handsome pair of miniature fen- 
 cing foils on the mantel. " She said 
 the baby would be sticking them into 
 her eyes." 
 
 "Of course, "remarked Tom reproach- 
 fully, glad to find another offender. 
 " Do you want to put the kid's eyes 
 out ?" 
 
 " I didn't think of that," Jack an- 
 swered apologetically. " I was reading 
 in the paper that girls are going in for
 
 52 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 fencing nowadays, and I thought she 
 couldn't begin too young." 
 
 " Those boxing-gloves were a great 
 hit, Frank," Harry said to another. 
 
 " Were they ?" Frank asked delight- 
 edly. 
 
 "She's a wonder with them. Hon- 
 est, she poked me in the nose with 
 them till it bled," Harry added. 
 
 There was a supressed chuckle of 
 delight at this. 
 
 From the further conversation I 
 learned that Harry's friends passed 
 every afternoon with him and Rose, 
 and that that young person had already 
 been presented with about everything 
 the shops of New York afford, from a 
 cart and pony to a pair of diamond 
 earrings. The giver of the latter had 
 been astonished to learn that girl babies 
 are not born with ears ready pierced for 
 earrings.
 
 A ROSE OF THE TENDERLOIN. 53 
 
 The talk gradually hushed, and at 
 last the men were all silent, looking 
 toward the nursery door. There was a 
 little start, and then a more intense 
 stillness, when the door was opened 
 and Rose, in her nightgown, came in. 
 She was tired, and there was the little 
 strain of sleepy pensiveness in her voice 
 as she went to each man and bade him 
 " Dood-night," receiving from each a 
 half timid but reverent kiss. 
 
 Then she went to Harry, and, kneel- 
 ing in the firelight, prayed : 
 
 " Dod bess mamma and Unky Harry 
 and Bob and Frank and and 
 
 " And Tom," whispered a thick 
 voice. 
 
 " Ess, and bess Tom, and and " 
 
 It was a very sleepy voice which con- 
 cluded : 
 
 " And bess all Unky Harry's dood 
 friends."
 
 54 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 Harry kissed her and the nurse took 
 her away. 
 
 The men departed slowly and quietly. 
 
 " Wait, I want to see you," Harry 
 said to me. 
 
 It was so long before he spoke I 
 thought he might have fallen asleep, 
 and at last I asked : " What is it, old 
 man ?" 
 
 "I don't know any good woman," 
 he said, " not the kind that dead 
 mother would want me to give the 
 baby to." 
 
 " Have you decided to give up 
 Rosie ?" 
 
 " I must," Harry answered slowly, 
 and with an effort which seemed neces- 
 sary to steady his voice. 
 
 " It's kind of hard," he continued 
 after a pause, " it's kind of hard to 
 think that I might be doing the baby 
 harm just to be seen with her. Every
 
 A ROSE OF THE TENDERLOIN. 55 
 
 one in town knows me by sight, at 
 least. Supposing Rose should be seen 
 with me every day now, and then grow 
 up in New York. Why, someone 
 would remember, and say of her, when 
 she was a young lady : ' She's related 
 to Tenderloin Harry, I remember see- 
 ing them together.' That might harm 
 her." There was another silence be- 
 fore he resumed : " It's better to give 
 her up now before I get fond of her. 
 I might not be willing later. Can you 
 help me?" 
 
 " Help you ?" 
 
 " To find some good woman who 
 wants a little angel like Rose who'd 
 be kind to her bring her up good. 
 There need not be any trouble about 
 money. I've got some, and no one to 
 leave it to except Rosie." 
 
 I promised Harry I'd help him. I 
 had the matter in mind constantly, but
 
 56 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 it was weeks before chance offered the 
 opportunity I wanted. 
 
 One evening I dined at the house of 
 a friend where I met a man and wife 
 from a large Western city. The man 
 was a lawyer, as was my host, and was 
 in New York in connection with some 
 important litigation. The Westerner's 
 wife was a gracious, attractive woman, 
 but there seemed to be beyond her typ- 
 ical Western vivacity a note of sadness 
 of discontent. 
 
 When the other guests had gone we, 
 my host and I, discussed them, after 
 the manner of men, I fear, as much as 
 women. 
 
 " She is not a happy woman," said 
 my host, "although you'd say she has 
 everything to make her so. Her hus- 
 band is successful and prosperous, she 
 has a beautiful home, is a leader so- 
 cially, and important in all those liter-
 
 A ROSE OF THE TENDERLOIN. 57 
 
 ary, musical and benevolent movements, 
 which so much occupy the energies of 
 women of society in Western towns. 
 But she has no children." 
 
 Then I told my host the story of 
 Rose. 
 
 The next day there was a long inter- 
 view, which I brought about, between 
 my host, the Western lawyer and 
 Harry. As a result of the interview 
 Rose was taken by her nurse to a hotel 
 to see the Western lawyer's wife, and 
 for a week thereafter the baby was with 
 her every day. Harry, in rain or sun- 
 shine, faithfully walked up and down 
 in front of the hotel up and down all 
 the hours the baby's visits lasted and 
 only ended his sentryship when Rose 
 and the nurse returned to his apart- 
 ments. 
 
 Then I received this note from 
 Harry :
 
 58 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 " She is coming this afternoon to 
 take the baby away. Please come up, 
 as I've never seen the lady, and you 
 can help perhaps. HARRY." 
 
 I went, and when the lady came I 
 introduced Harry. She knew the whole 
 story who and what he was but she 
 shook hands with him cordially. 
 
 The other men Harry's friends 
 were there, but they hung silently 
 about the windows, and seemed deeply 
 interested in the sights of the street. 
 
 Rose came in from the nursery, pret- 
 tily dressed to go out. Perhaps it was 
 because her usually boisterous slaves 
 did not have any greeting for her, or 
 perhaps a look in Harry's face which 
 gave Rose a little fright. Children take 
 panic like animals from slight causes 
 which men do not discover. She ran 
 to Harry and clutched his coat.
 
 A ROSE OF THE TENDERLOIN. 59 
 
 " What oo doin' do ?" she asked, look- 
 ing up in his face. 
 
 " I'm not going to do anything, 
 dear," he answered, looking straight 
 ahead so that he did not see her arms 
 outstretched to be taken. 
 
 The lady gave a quick searching 
 glance at Harry's set face, and then 
 said with nervous resolution : 
 
 " I shall be in town a week or two 
 yet, but I thought it better to take 
 Rose now ; you might grow to be fond 
 of her." 
 
 "Yes, lady, I might," Harry said still 
 not looking at Rose. 
 
 "Where I doin' ?" the baby asked. 
 
 "With me. Come, Rose." 
 
 " Is Unky Harry tummin' ?" 
 
 " No, I'm not, Rosie." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 Harry gently detached the baby's 
 fingers from his coat, and there was a.
 
 6o 
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 slight movement in the group by the 
 window as he said, huskily : 
 
 ' Because your mother said that 
 that if I put you where you'd be 
 brought up good, Rosie dear, God 
 would bless me." 
 
 The lady slipped out of the room 
 with Rose. 
 
 " And, by God, He ought to !" 
 sobbed Harry.
 
 ANN ELIZA'S TRIUMPH.
 
 I OFTEN think that the admitted 
 mental superiority of the people of 
 Greenwich Village results from the 
 fact that the young of that most in- 
 teresting section of Manhattan Island 
 are early required to master the prob- 
 lem of how two parallel lines can 
 meet. 
 
 Every New York boy and girl knows 
 that the numbered streets run east and 
 west in parallel lines, twenty to the 
 mile, but only the youth of old Green- 
 wich are confronted with the mystery 
 of two of these streets, West Tenth and 
 West Fourth, meeting, and thereby 
 
 [63]
 
 64 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 compelled to solve that mystery or 
 upset a cherished axiom in geometry. 
 
 That alone, aside from the superior 
 social conditions of Greenwich, is 
 enough, I contend, to account for the 
 mental alertness of the inhabitants, 
 which exceeds, as I believe, that of the 
 residents of any other portion of New 
 York, from the Battery to the Bronx. 
 
 John Hope's Ann Eliza was the 
 brightest girl in Greenwich, and was so 
 acknowledged from the time she first 
 went to the Greenwich Avenue School, 
 near Jefferson Market, to the time she 
 left her father's home, on Bank street, 
 which was when she was eighteen years 
 old, after having been her father's 
 housekeeper for four years. 
 
 Mrs. Hope died when the fifth baby 
 was born, and, besides the youngest, 
 Ann Eliza had the care of two other 
 children younger than she, not counting
 
 ANN ELIZA'S TRIUMPH. 65 
 
 Charley, who was an office-boy in the 
 dock office of the steamship line where 
 his father was a clerk and had been for 
 twenty years. 
 
 Charley took care of himself, but 
 Ann Eliza took care of the three other 
 children, and of the five-room apart- 
 ment where they lived. Also she 
 cooked, washed, made beds, cleaned 
 house, and even then had time to 
 practise singing at the old-fashioned 
 piano, which her mother owned before 
 she married John Hope, in her father's 
 home, in Little West Twelfth street. 
 
 The neighbors said Ann Eliza was a 
 credit to her mother's bringing up ; 
 and they often called in the evenings 
 to hear Ann Eliza play and sing, and 
 they told J/ohn Hope that he was a 
 mighty lucky man to have a daughter 
 as smart as Ann Eliza, and as strong. 
 Only Charley helped her to wash the
 
 66 
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY PULL. 
 
 dinner dishes, and prepare things for 
 the next day's early breakfast, yet Ann 
 Eliza had the rooms cleaned up and 
 looking spick and span before the 
 neighbors, even those who had hired 
 help, were through with the dish wash- 
 ing. 
 
 One of the neighbors had a son who 
 was a clerk in a Sixth avenue depart- 
 ed 
 
 ment store, and he used to bring the 
 popular songs to Ann Eliza so early in 
 their vogue that they would have them 
 all learned, including quartette parts
 
 ANN ELIZA'S TRIUMPH. 67 
 
 John Hope sang tenor and Charley 
 bass, curiously enough long before the 
 other Greenwichers had the songs half 
 mastered. 
 
 Through the department store clerk 
 his name was Harold Beeckman and 
 his father's great-grandfather had 
 owned a farm of many acres where 
 Greenwich is now solidly bricked up 
 through Harold, I say, a publisher of 
 songs heard of Ann Eliza, and after 
 that she received songs by the score as 
 soon as ever they were printed ; and 
 then Greenwich sang only such songs 
 as Ann Eliza made popular. 
 
 They are great folks over in that 
 part of town for popular songs. They 
 still openly and boldly indulge in the 
 elsewhere abandoned habit of sitting 
 out on the front steps on warm even- 
 ings, and that, possibly, fosters chorus 
 singing.
 
 6& NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 Harold Beeckman told Ann Eliza 
 one night that he had quarreled dread- 
 fully with the song publisher because 
 the latter had suggested that he would 
 be willing to pay Ann Eliza a commis- 
 sion on the sale of songs, if she would 
 agree to popularize only tliose pub- 
 lished by his house. 
 
 " I told him," said Harold, severely, 
 "that I thought he was just as mean as 
 he could be, even to suggest that you 
 would accept pay for doing anything 
 any one could connect with stage sing- 
 ing. The idea !" 
 
 Ann Eliza regarded Harold with 
 such sudden deep interest that her big 
 gray eyes were for once wide open ; 
 and the young man discovered with 
 rapture that the more one saw of her 
 eyes the more beautiful they were 
 and his love became, if possible, greater 
 than ever.
 
 ANN ELIZA'S TRIUMPH. 69 
 
 "Yes," he continued, "the idea of 
 that rude man associating your name 
 with why, of course, I never go to 
 such places, but you know what I mean, 
 Ann Eliza." 
 
 " Harold, I do not know what you 
 mean or what you are talking about. 
 For a minute I thought it was some- 
 thing about my singing in public on 
 the stage, perhaps." 
 
 Ann Eliza looked radiant as she 
 spoke of the stage, but she laughed 
 carelessly a moment later, and added : 
 " No such luck, though." 
 
 " Ann Eliza Hope, do you know 
 what you are talking about ? You 
 ought to be ashamed!" exclaimed 
 Harold, shocked. 
 
 " Look here, Harold," Ann Eliza 
 suddenly retorted, " if it is true, what 
 you've told me, that those song pub- 
 lishers sometimes get girls engagements
 
 JO NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 just to have their songs sung on the 
 stage, why, you send him trotting down 
 here fast as you can." 
 
 Harold thought she was " joking, of 
 course, and forgot all about the inci- 
 dent a little later, when they were all 
 in the parlor singing together. 
 
 Ann Eliza did not forget. In fact she 
 thought over the matter a great deal, 
 until one day she put on a large black 
 velvet hat which threw a shadow al- 
 most down to her well adjusted chin, 
 and walked forth to a business inter- 
 view with the publisher whose advances 
 Harold had met so sternly. This inter- 
 view was the first of a series, which 
 finally resulted in her going one after- 
 noon to a theatre where she sang with 
 only the orchestra leader who played 
 her accompaniment on a piano and 
 the manager for audience. 
 
 All this she did without the knowl-
 
 ANN ELIZA S TRIUMPH. 
 
 edge of her father, of Harold, of any 
 one of her acquaintances, except a girl 
 of her own age, who agreed to go into 
 the Hope rooms and look out for the 
 children while Ann Eliza was away. 
 
 She wanted much to inform Harold, 
 because she would enjoy his horror 
 over what she was doing, but she knew 
 he would tell, and she did not quite like 
 the idea of her fa- 
 ther knowing. He 
 would not scold 
 he had never scolded 
 her or any one else 
 in all his life but 
 he might look sur- 
 prised and hurt, and 
 she would not like 
 that. 
 
 When the theatre 
 manager had told 
 her to practise half a dozen songs be-
 
 72 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 fore her mirror, so that she would know 
 how to look while singing, and to come 
 back in a month and he might give her 
 a chance to " do a turn," she still kept it 
 a secret from all but that one girl friend. 
 But how she practised ! 
 
 Even the baby began crooning the 
 songs she sang, and Horatio, the six- 
 year-old, could sing every one through 
 without a mistake in words or notes. 
 
 Then one evening she told her father 
 and Harold that she had accepted an 
 engagement to sing in a vaudeville 
 theatre, and that her engagement be- 
 gan the next night. 
 
 Papa Hope looked dazed and was 
 silent. He could not understand, and 
 even when he found his voice he only 
 repeated in a shocked tone : 
 
 "Why Ann Eliza! Ann Eliza!" 
 
 But Harold made up for the other's 
 lack of comment. He drew himself up
 
 ANN ELIZAS TRIUMPH. 
 
 73 
 
 stiffly he was ambitious to become 
 
 a floorwalker, and was practising a 
 
 haughty and dignified mien regarded 
 
 Ann Eliza with a look of 
 
 mingled scorn and horror 
 
 before he exclaimed : 
 
 " Ann Eliza Hope, you 
 
 shock and grieve me ! 
 
 Imagine the chagrin of a 
 
 Beeckman, who thought 
 
 of you as his future wife, 
 
 when he hears that you 
 
 even contemplate making yourself a 
 
 show on the public stage. No woman 
 
 can expect ever to become a Beeckman 
 
 and entertain such folly in her her 
 
 virgin thoughts." 
 
 Harold was proud of that speech, 
 and observed with much satisfaction 
 that it caused tears to come to John 
 Hope's eyes. It brought evidence of 
 quite a different kind of emotion into
 
 74 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 Ann Eliza's gray eyes, and they 
 snapped as she replied : " I guess you 
 don't know what you are talking about, 
 Harold Beeckman. I'm not going to 
 make a show of myself. I'm going to 
 dress just as I do here in the evenings, 
 and sing the same songs, and " there 
 was a note of triumph in her voice now 
 " I'm to have fifteen dollars a week 
 to start with, and twenty-five dollars if 
 I make a hit." Harold started a little 
 as he heard the amount of the salary, 
 for it was more than his own, and as 
 much as John Hope's, but he only 
 answered with increasing scorn : 
 
 " Go your way, Ann Eliza, but re- 
 turn the ring I gave you before you 
 disgrace yourself for pelf!" 
 
 He. got the ring back so quickly and 
 with such a look that he could not com- 
 mand another speech at once. 
 
 Then John Hope spoke in a tearful,
 
 ANN ELIZA'S TRIUMPH. 
 
 75 
 
 wandering manner, about his honest 
 name being dragged in the mire, and 
 the memory of his sainted wife being 
 polluted, and a happy home broken up. 
 
 This made Ann Eliza cry, and she 
 was glad when Charley came in and 
 defended her. But Harold urged on 
 John Hope's poor rage, until there was 
 a very unhappy scene, ending in Ann 
 Eliza leaving the house much in the 
 manner of heroines in melodramas. 
 
 If I should tell you the 
 name under which Ann 
 Eliza made her vaude- 
 ville debut, I would not 
 have to remind you of 
 the instantaneous hit she 
 made how all New 
 York flocked to the thea- 
 tres where she sang the 
 simple songs of the street 
 nor to tell you of the
 
 7 6 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 almost fabulous pay she soon received 
 as the most popular American vaude- 
 ville singer. 
 
 Now, Harold is her husband, and is 
 supported by her in luxurious idleness ; 
 and her father is her manager, having 
 given up his work in the steamship 
 office at the same time Harold resigned 
 from the department store. 
 
 Charley works away merrily in the 
 steamship office, and visits Ann Eliza 
 Sunday evenings in her brilliant rooms ; 
 and there they sing the songs of the 
 Greenwich days ; but Ann Eliza plays 
 the tunes on a much finer piano than 
 the little jingling one by which they 
 first learned those songs in the faded 
 old parlor in Bank Street. Harold's 
 baritone and John Hope's tenor are 
 never heard in these Sunday-evening 
 concerts, for Harold and John are al- 
 ways engaged elsewhere on Ann Eliza's 
 only evenings at home.
 
 THE MAN OUTSIDE.
 
 TENDERLOIN HARRY knows more 
 about human nature perhaps I should 
 restrict this statement by saying that I 
 refer to the impulsive, elemental human 
 nature which contributes the comedy- 
 tragedy ingredient to that multi-phased 
 section of New York known as " the 
 Tenderloin " and can read it at sight 
 better than any one else I've ever met. 
 It gives me something like a mental 
 shiver when I observe how pitilessly 
 bare to his understanding are the mo- 
 tives and emotions of men and women 
 who believe they have safely masked 
 their secrets ; yet it is the kind of shiver 
 
 [79]
 
 80 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 I am ever ready to experience for the 
 liberal education which accompanies it 
 in the pursuit of " the proper study of 
 mankind." 
 
 It was for that reason I motioned 
 Harry to join me at the table where I 
 was taking a noonday breakfast when 
 he strolled in, groomed, fresh, pink- 
 cheeked as usual. I shall not name 
 the restaurant, but designate it, say, as 
 
 D 1's ; for to be too explicit might 
 
 reveal to others the identity of the three 
 persons concerning whom Harry so en- 
 tertainingly enlightened me. Harry sat 
 at my table, which was by one of the 
 side windows that give on Twenty th 
 street, and as the day was warm the 
 window was thrown full open. 
 
 While I was yet alone at the table I 
 had remarked with considerable curi- 
 osity a well-dressed man who had twice 
 left the opposite sidewalk, come to my
 
 THE MAN OUTSIDE. 8 1 
 
 window and carefully scanned the peo- 
 ple in the restaurant. 
 The man was mid- 
 dle-aged, but gave 
 an impression of 
 sprightly youth ; an 
 impression enhanced 
 by the circumstance 
 that his moustache, 
 though gray-tinged, 
 was both curled and 
 waxed. What most 
 fixed my attention to him, however, 
 was a curious mixture of boldness and 
 something which was not quite timidity 
 insecurity, say which he displayed 
 when he searched the restaurant with 
 his eyes. It was evident that whoever 
 he sought, he sought eagerly. The look 
 in his eyes was impatient ; even petulant. 
 Well, Harry joined me, and soon 
 afterward the Man Outside came again
 
 82 NEAR A WHOLE CITY* KULL. 
 
 to the window, and in his furtive search 
 of the room his eyes met Harry's, when 
 to my surprise, he flushed, turned 
 abruptly and walked away. 
 
 " What is it ?" I asked, discovering a 
 contemptuous curve on my companion's 
 usually amiable lips. 
 
 " I'll tell you," he began, and then he 
 added, after a pause, " no, I'll show you 
 soon." 
 
 He glanced as he spoke toward two 
 women who just then entered the room, 
 taking seats at a table near ours. One 
 was large, tall, calm, indifferent ; the 
 other was small, daintily formed, of the 
 gentle-modest type. Each was exquisite- 
 ly dressed, and appointed in every detail. 
 They were opposite and pronounced in 
 type, and each acted her type in a man- 
 ner which comforted one with the as- 
 surance that any untoward financial 
 disturbance in their lives might still
 
 THE MAN OUTSIDE. 83 
 
 preserve them to us on the stage. Even 
 in their manner of removing their gloves 
 each was typical ; the smaller seeming- 
 ly sensible of a possible indelicacy in 
 the growing exposure of a naked hand, 
 the larger calmly deliberate, with com- 
 plete confidence that when the opera- 
 tion should be over she would display 
 a shapely and perfectly manicured 
 hand for the edification of men and 
 envy of women. 
 
 Harry, who takes some pride in my 
 training in such studies, seemed pleased 
 when I whispered, " No woman could 
 possibly be as modest as the little one 
 looks, nor so grand a dame as the other 
 appears." 
 
 " They belong to the little play I'm 
 going to show you," Harry said. 
 
 The smaller woman carried a pretty 
 purse, which she placed on the table ; 
 and then beckoned to a waiter, who
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 approached, and, to catch her low 
 spoken, rapid utterance, bent his head 
 
 close to 
 hers. The 
 waiters at 
 
 D 1's are 
 
 a dm irably 
 trained, and 
 knowing. 
 There was 
 in this one's 
 attitude and expression just a touch of 
 familiarity which told much. When 
 she had finished speaking to him the 
 waiter approached our table and, pre- 
 tending to perform some little service 
 for us, made a slight signal at the open 
 window. 
 
 The Man Outside saw the signal, and 
 a minute later entered the restaurant. 
 He walked with a defiant swagger to 
 their table and took a seat with the two
 
 THE MAN OUTSIDE. 85 
 
 women. The waiter did not place the 
 chair for him. That is a very unusual 
 
 omission in D 1's. The man took a 
 
 menu and proceeded to order a very 
 elaborate and expensive breakfast, in- 
 cluding a rare vintage wine. His voice 
 swaggered just as his person had de- 
 fiantly. The smaller woman flushed 
 slightly and looked supremely happy : 
 the other calmly studied the costumes 
 about her; she had scarcely noticed the 
 man. The smaller woman's hand slipped 
 as she broke a roll, and the motion 
 shoved her purse some distance from 
 her, and toward the man. Later, in 
 moving a glass, she still further moved 
 the purse, and soon after that the man's 
 napkin carelessly fell over the purse, 
 and when he afterward picked up the 
 napkin the purse was no longer in 
 sight. 
 
 Then Harry said, " Let's go into the
 
 86 NKAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 other room and smoke," and we did so. 
 Then he said : " Did you understand it ?" 
 
 "Not all." 
 
 " That man who was outside the 
 one who is breakfasting in there now 
 was well born and well educated, too," 
 Harry resumed. " He never had much 
 money ; only enough to belong to one 
 or two good clubs, to keep a horse, per- 
 haps, and to live as most fashionable 
 men do. He got rid of his money in a 
 way which put him into newspaper 
 stories, and put him out of his clubs. I 
 suppose it isn't very becoming of me 
 as you might say to talk about men's 
 morals, but I'd have some respect for 
 that fellow which I have not if he'd 
 either go to work or go hungry. But 
 he's not the only man in town with an 
 income of nothing a year who does nei- 
 therwell born and well educated at 
 that."
 
 THE MAN OUTSIDE. 87 
 
 " Do you mean 
 
 "I mean," interrupted Harry quietly, 
 " that that Man Outside was waiting 
 for his breakfast."
 
 THE DOG ON THE ROOF.
 
 " YES, I stole the 
 dog. Maybe it's the 
 only thing I ever 
 stole, and maybe it 
 isn't. That's noth- 
 ing to you, is it? 
 You asked me for 
 the story and I'll tell 
 it to you. I don't 
 suppose you're a Headquarter's detec- 
 tive. I know you are not. Why ? 
 Perhaps I know them all. Perhaps it 
 comes handy in my graft to know them. 
 That's nothing to you, is it? 
 
 " I had a friend Marty. He was
 
 92 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 dead square. He was educated, too, 
 and had the brains to turn a trick that 
 would make the town talk about him 
 for a month, but he wouldn't do it. 
 He was just square all the way through, 
 but he was my friend. 
 
 "You asked me for the story, and I'll 
 tell it to you if you'll print his name 
 right and say that he was square. 
 Never mind me, it was him I was think- 
 ing of always thinking of. Whether 
 I had all I wanted to eat or not, or 
 whether I had a place to sleep or not, 
 it wasn't myself I was thinking of it 
 was him. 
 
 " Well, you saw the dog on the roof, 
 you say. You know he was well-bred, 
 eh? You know a thing about dogs, 
 then. He took first prize in his class 
 up at Madison Square Garden. That's 
 right. He sold for a thousand the next 
 day and I stole him,
 
 THE DOG ON THE ROOF. 93 
 
 " My friend's name was Marty 
 Martin Borden. We went to school to- 
 gether on Broome Street. Yes, they 
 call that part of town Poverty Hollow, 
 and that's right, too, I guess. He went 
 longer than me ; he was educated. He 
 went up to fractions ; but I left when 
 my mother died and my father was 
 sent away. I guess I was about eight, 
 something like eight, but I'm not qliite 
 sure. They've got it at Headquarters 
 with my picture. You can look there, 
 if you like. 
 
 " Marty's father earned good wages 
 in a foundry down by Corlears Hook, 
 and Marty was kept in school until he 
 was twelve, I think. 
 
 " He was always looking me up and 
 taking me home with him for grub and 
 a place to sleep, and even when he was 
 a little kid, was always giving me 
 straight tips and telling me I'd do bet-
 
 94 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 ter if I was square. But what could I 
 do ? I had to live. I had a right to 
 live, even if I couldn't get work. Isn't 
 that right ? 
 
 " Well, when Marty's old man died, 
 Marty got work down in the foundry 
 doing little jobs a kid could do. 
 
 " One day he'd been there a few 
 years while I was doing time an iron 
 beam fell on him and did something 
 queer to his back. No, I don't know 
 what it was. The doctors at Bellevue 
 had a lot of long names for it, but they 
 didn't do Marty's back any good. I 
 was calling on him every day and fetch- 
 ing him things what I could get, until 
 they said Marty should go to the 
 Island. 
 
 " That near broke his heart 'cause he 
 knew it meant he never was to be 
 cured, and was to live over there in the 
 hospital all his life. I saw him crying
 
 THE DOG ON THE ROOF. 95 
 
 one day when I went to Bellevue, and 
 it near set me crazy. 
 
 "Well, I went to the boss doctor of 
 the hospital and asks why had Marty 
 to go to the Island, and he says be- 
 cause he had no home to go to. That 
 set me thinking. I got something that 
 day never mind how and I rented a 
 room and went to the boss and said I'd 
 take Marty home with me. I showed 
 him the room-rent receipt, and showed 
 him the money to hire a carriage to 
 take Marty home in, and they let me 
 have him. 
 
 " It was a little room just under the 
 roof, with a step-ladder running up to 
 a glass skylight which had a sliding 
 window. 
 
 " I told Marty I was working, and 
 lied about what my job was, and all 
 about it. If he knew how it was it 
 would have made him feel terrible bad,
 
 96 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 'cause, you see, he was so square. The 
 worst of it was, that even when I had 
 money I couldn't stay home with him, 
 'cause then he'd see I wasn't working, 
 and that would make him feel terrible 
 bad. I wanted to stay home, too, 
 'cause I knew he was lonely, lying 
 there on his back all day, so weak he 
 couldn't hold up a book or paper to 
 read. 
 
 " I was on Fifth avenue one day, 
 away up by the Park, kind of looking 
 round to see if anything would come 
 my way, when a young swell comes 
 along with a bull terrier. The dog was 
 a beauty. I saw the swell hadn't 
 owned him long, for the dog wasn't 
 friendly with him. I don't know just 
 how it was, but all of a sudden it strikes 
 me what good company the dog would 
 be for Marty, and I sneaks up and grabs 
 it, I made the chase all right, for I
 
 THE DOG ON THE ROOF. 
 
 97 
 
 don't think the swell missed the dog 
 until I was out of sight. 
 
 " I waited until it 
 was time for me 
 to be home from 
 ' work,' and I goes 
 to our room and 
 puts the dog on 
 Marty's bed. 
 
 " Of course, dogs 
 are better than most men, but Marty 
 was as good as a dog, and those 
 two took to each other from the 
 time they looked straight into each 
 other's eyes. Honest, it is a wonder 
 the way they were chums from the 
 first minute I put the dog on the bed. 
 I told Marty I'd found the dog and 
 would look out for an advertisement 
 for it, and return it. Well, the adver- 
 tisement came all right, and there were 
 pieces in the paper about the prize win-
 
 9 8 
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 ner the swell had paid a thousand for, 
 being lost. The reward kept jumping 
 up every day until it was '$250 and 
 no questions.' 
 
 " The day that happened, I only had 
 enough money to get the cheapest kind 
 of food for Marty and the dog, and I 
 made up my mind I'd return the dog 
 and get a lot of nice things for Marty. 
 
 " I'll tell you why I 
 didn't. When I went 
 to our room I thought 
 first Marty had gone 
 crazy, for he was 
 laughing like nothing 
 was the matter with 
 his back, and there 
 was no pains in his head. 
 
 "Comfort that was the name Marty 
 give the dog, for Marty was educated 
 and knew a lot of words Comfort was 
 on the bed doing all the tricks you ever
 
 THE DOG ON THE ROOF. 99 
 
 heard of. Marty told me Comfort 
 could climb the ladder, slide back the 
 window and go on the roof. Honest, 
 while Marty was telling this, the dog 
 was looking at him with his head on 
 one side and his eyes cocked up know- 
 ing, and when Marty stopped, the dog 
 ran up the ladder and was doing all his 
 stunts on the skylight. Every once in 
 awhile Comfort would stop his tricks 
 and stand with his forefeet on the edge 
 of the skylight, grinning, and his ears 
 cocked, like he was saying : ' How do 
 you like that, Marty?' 
 
 " Then he'd dance all over the tin 
 roof and make a noise like it was rain- 
 ing. When it was terrible hot up there, 
 Marty would say: "Let's have a rain- 
 storm, Comfort,' and the dog would go 
 up on the roof and patter around with 
 his claws on the tin till Marty would 
 call him down.
 
 IOO NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 " So I didn't take the dog back for 
 the reward. 
 
 " That was the way it was till Marty 
 till the end. 
 
 " When I could get the money I'd 
 have a paid doctor, but Marty said not 
 to. He knew it was coming, but he 
 never showed he was getting punish- 
 ment. Comfort seemed to know too, 
 and I guess he stopped sleeping at all, 
 for if Marty would make a move at 
 night that wouldn't frighten a fly, Com- 
 fort would be at his side as quick as 
 me ; kind of kissing his hand and ma- 
 king little talks to him, you know, the 
 way dogs do. 
 
 " Well, Marty quit one night ; one 
 hand in mine and one on Comfort's 
 neck. The wagon came for him I 
 hadn't any money that time fora hearse 
 and when the men took him out of 
 the room Comfort went up on the roof.
 
 THE DOG ON THE ROOF. 
 
 101 
 
 I was standing on the sidewalk while 
 they were putting Marty in the wagon, 
 when some people said : ' Look at the 
 dog!' 
 
 " Comfort was on the edge of the 
 roof looking down, and as the men shut 
 the door of the wagon on Marty the dog 
 jumped. I broke my arm here, trying to 
 
 catch him, but he struck the sidewalk. 
 He licked my hand when L picked him 
 up, and tried to tell me he did it on 
 purpose to die and then he died.
 
 IO2 
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITV FULL. 
 
 " The officer who came up for the 
 crowd recognized the dog, and I'll get 
 six months to-day for stealing him. 
 Well, I did steal him, and I'll say so 
 now ; for Marty's gone, and he never 
 knew."
 
 GUARDIANS OF THE LAW.
 
 THE life which 
 goes to make the 
 seamy side of the 
 Tenderloin was, in 
 those days, scattered 
 through the district 
 south of Washing- 
 ton Square. Cora 
 was of that life, and 
 in her earliest days there, when she was 
 young and beautiful for she was beau- 
 tiful, even up to the time of the great 
 tragedy in her life she was the dis- 
 trict's most conspicuous figure. Her 
 wild, tumultuous career furnished gos- 
 sip for the streets and cafes, as much as 
 
 [105]
 
 106 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 the scandal of her downfall, only a few 
 years before, furnished gossip for the 
 boudoirs and clubs. 
 
 She had not been long in the old 
 Tenderloin before she was in the power 
 of the blackmailers, who, appointed 
 guardians of law and order, instigated 
 disorder and lawlessness that they might 
 the more profit. 
 
 That part of Cora's story was told to 
 the world when the State Senate sent 
 to New York some of its members, 
 commissioned to make inquiry into the 
 methods of the guardians of the law, 
 and who uncovered such a hideous sys- 
 tem of pitiless blackmail and oppression 
 that they withdrew in dismay, their task 
 half done ; but that half served to work 
 a political revolution. 
 
 Cora had been made to pay more 
 than the price of " protection " in her 
 calling ; had been forced also to pay
 
 GUARDIANS OF THE LAW. 107 
 
 the police a large price for not giving 
 up her child to " the Society." 
 
 That child, the pretty eight-year old 
 boy, Cora would not part with even to 
 those who came to her from the other 
 life from which she had fallen, and of- 
 fered for the family's sake to take little 
 Frank and give him a home where he 
 would never see her again and learn to 
 forget her. She drove those people 
 from her with fury. The child was 
 hers ! It was the only creature on 
 earth she loved who loved her ! Part 
 with him ? No ! with her life first ! 
 
 But the police knew another way. 
 " Give us money," they said, "or we'll 
 have the child taken from you by the 
 law the law we represent." 
 
 She raved in awful passion, but she 
 was helpless ; so she gave them her 
 earnings and kept her child. But 
 they wanted more. She could earn
 
 108 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 more. " Go and earn more ; we want 
 more." 
 
 Then the time came when she could 
 not give all that was demanded, for the 
 greed of her hounding tyrants grew, 
 and they arrested her and took the boy 
 with them to the police station. 
 
 They would make a conspicuous ex- 
 ample of her. The women of the dis- 
 trict must be taught that these threats 
 were not idle ; that unless they paid 
 they would be treated like Cora. 
 
 She fought with frenzy in the police 
 station ; and when they took the boy 
 away, and she heard him cry after her, 
 and called on her not to let them give 
 him to "the Society " he had learned 
 to dread, she went mad. 
 
 " Give him to me," she shrieked. 
 " He is honest born. Here is the ring. 
 See ! Here's the ring on my finger. 
 It's all you have not robbed me of.
 
 GUARDIANS OF THE LAW. 109 
 
 Dear God ! Dear God ! Don't let 
 them take the boy ! He's honest born. 
 I'm not honest, but, dear God, let me 
 have my boy !" 
 
 She was sent away for six months 
 because she was not an honest woman, 
 and the police who sent her away pro- 
 fited much, for the women of the dis- 
 trict knew the threats against them 
 could be carried out, and they paid 
 paid their lives. 
 
 When Cora returned from her first 
 banishment she tried to learn where her 
 boy was. There was none to tell her. 
 Had she been honest they could have 
 refused her, but who was she to ask 
 questions about what the law had done? 
 The officers of that law drove her from 
 street to street and warned her not to 
 talk about her boy, or they would ban- 
 ish her again. Then Cora felt that she 
 had been deserted by God as well as
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 by man, and she cursed Him, and sank 
 out of sight of all but the lowest, curs- 
 ing Him. 
 
 It is pitiful that she was doomed 
 to exist so long, in such a life, 
 but so she lived for twenty years, 
 until she was dragged forth into the 
 light of day ; one 
 of the sodden things 
 who sullenly mum- 
 bled their stories 
 to the grave Sen- 
 ators, and instantly 
 sank out of sight 
 again. Out of sight 
 of all but the guard- 
 ians of the law, for 
 once again she was 
 brought before a 
 Police Magistrate. 
 He knew her. All the court attend- 
 ants knew her ; quarreling, fighting,
 
 GUARDIANS OF THE LAW. JH 
 
 drunken Cora. Even the young police- 
 man who appeared before the Magis- 
 trate knew of her, though he had 
 never before arrested her. When he 
 had told his story she struck him in the 
 face and made his mouth bleed. 
 
 " Prefer an additional charge against 
 her for assault," said the Magistrate. 
 
 " I don't mind," said the officer, wip- 
 ing the blood from his lips. " She 
 didn't hurt me. I'd rather not, Your 
 Honor." 
 
 " I order you to !" shouted the Magis- 
 trate. " It will allow me to send her 
 away so much longer." 
 
 The officer went over to the clerk to 
 make the charge, and an old Sergeant 
 stepped up to the Magistrate and 
 whispered to him : ." Excuse me, Judge, 
 but I wish you wouldn't make the 
 arresting officer prefer that charge." 
 
 " Why ?"
 
 IT2 
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 " Well, Judge, he doesn't know ; 
 neither does she ; but well, Cora is his 
 mother."
 
 A DINNER OF REGRETS.
 
 IN GEORGE MARSDEN'S manhood his 
 college days remained his one senti- 
 mental memory, undimmed as the hard 
 working years went by growing deeper 
 and more vivid indeed, like the 
 thoughts of a boyish love in one whose 
 later years bring no rival romance. 
 His college had been his boyish love, 
 in which his classmates shared the 
 wealth and ardor of his affections. 
 They never guessed this, for the shy, 
 scholarly Westerner had no intimates, 
 and belonged to no set. His slight 
 lameness kept him out of all athletics, 
 and his meagre allowance gave him no 
 
 ["51
 
 Il6 NKAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 place in the club and society life of the 
 college. 
 
 He was as little known as any man 
 of his class, yet no man knew more 
 about his fellows than did Marsden, as 
 his rapturous letters to his mother 
 told. 
 
 She had come from college people, 
 and persisted in the long struggle 
 which was necessary to overcome her 
 husband's reluctance to send their only 
 child " back East," for what in his 
 opinion was a useless and extravagant 
 education. The boy ought to go into 
 the mill as he had done, said the father; 
 but the mill was making thousands of 
 dollars now where it had been making 
 hundreds then. So the mother urged 
 and had her way ; but the rich mill man 
 was obdurate in the matter of spend- 
 ing money, and George was supposed, 
 by any of his classmates who ever gave
 
 A DINNER OF REGRETS. 117 
 
 the matter a passing thought, to be a 
 poor man's son, struggling for an edu- 
 cation. 
 
 To George, however, those four years 
 were a period of romance, of ideal ex- 
 istence, from which he returned to his 
 home with such emotions as would 
 have been more comprehensible had he 
 parted from a promised sweetheart for 
 whom he was going out into the world 
 to make a fortune. 
 
 His life was instinct with some such 
 thought, too, for he entered eagerly 
 into the never-ending hard grind of his 
 father's business, saying to himself, " I 
 will make myself rich to endow my 
 college ; to go to New York, where so 
 many of my classmates are, and become 
 one of their society ; renew with them 
 all those dear associations." 
 
 With his mother he talked over the 
 men of his class until she, like him,
 
 1 1 8 NKAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 called them all by their first names, and 
 would tell him eagerly the news of their 
 doings, which she obtained from eastern 
 papers she took for that purpose. In 
 that way for he corresponded with 
 none of them he knew of Jack's mar- 
 riage, of Tom's renown as a polo 
 player, that Harry was commodore of a 
 yacht club ; of the business successes 
 and failures, and of the social ambitions 
 achieved all that became newspaper 
 gossip about the men of his class. 
 
 For fifteen years there was no chance 
 to reunite with those old and romantic 
 associations. The mill business grew 
 until it wore out the elder Marsden, and 
 a year after his death, the widow and 
 son, released at last from the slavery of 
 accumulation, willingly closed with the 
 offer of a syndicate to take over the 
 vast money-making plant, and welcomed 
 the opportunity of going to New York.
 
 A DINNER OF REGRETS. 1 19 
 
 They were very rich now, these people 
 whose domestic and social life had 
 been on the scale of one of their thou- 
 sands of skilled laborers ; and the great- 
 est pleasure their wealth gave them 
 was in anticipating the joy of a dream 
 to be realized when George should re- 
 sume the romance of his college life. 
 
 Before they started George wrote 
 twenty letters to the men whose New 
 York business, residence or club 
 addresses were known to him. 
 
 As soon as he had registered at the 
 Waldorf he asked eagerly for his mail, 
 and was shocked when he learned that 
 there was none. 
 
 His mother reminded him reassur- 
 ingly that they had followed so soon 
 after his own letters no answers could 
 be expected for a day or so. He con- 
 sulted the hotel's city and club direct- 
 ories and found that he had made
 
 120 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 several errors in the addresses, and in 
 these instances he wrote again. It was 
 his mother who suggested that when he 
 heard from his friends he should 
 arrange a reunion dinner. The maitre 
 d'hotel was called into consultation. 
 He was not much interested at first. A 
 dinner for about twenty in a private 
 dining room ? He would arrange it if 
 M'sieu would be pleased to state about 
 how much per plate he would wish the 
 dinner to cost. 
 
 " The question of price is not to be 
 considered," said George, flushing a 
 little. " I am going to entertain some 
 old college friends, and no expense is 
 to be spared in the matter either of 
 dinner, wines, music or flowers." 
 
 The maitre d'hotel was immediately 
 vastly interested. He would prepare a 
 menu and submit it with suggestions as 
 to music and decorations. For what
 
 A DINNER OF RKGRETS. 121 
 
 evening should he reserve a dining 
 room ? 
 
 George glanced questioningly at his 
 mother, who remarked after a pause : 
 " A week from to-night. We will leave 
 the details to you." 
 
 "Bien, Madame. I 
 will arrange all. A week 
 from to-night," said the 
 maitre d'hotel, bowing 
 his departure. 
 
 The next day George 
 loitered in the lobby, 
 anxiously watching every 
 arrival of mail, and ea- 
 gerly asking for his. There was none. 
 Once he saw enter and go to the caf6 a 
 man whom he recognized as a class- 
 mate, but he met the man's unwitting 
 gaze, hesitated, stopped and returned 
 to his seat. He felt his heart throbbing 
 as if he had been cut by a woman he
 
 122 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 loved ; but he said to himself : " Of 
 course he would not recognize me, 
 bearded as I am. He looks the same 
 though, just the same as he did the last 
 time I saw him, carried on the fellows' 
 shoulders with the rest of the winning 
 crew." 
 
 The next morning there was a letter. 
 It ran thus : 
 
 " DEAR MARSDEN : I am glad to 
 hear you are returning to civilization. 
 Whenever you are in town look me up 
 at one of the clubs to which I am send- 
 ing you cards." 
 
 This was signed with the name of the 
 man he had seen at the hotel. 
 
 " He knew I was there, then," mused 
 George mournfully, " and though he 
 was in the very hotel he did not ask for 
 me."
 
 A DINNER OF REGRETS. 123 
 
 A later mail brought him visitor's 
 cards for three clubs. 
 
 He talked the situation over with his 
 mother, who advised that formal invita- 
 tions to the dinner be sent to his class- 
 mates, and George acted upon the ad- 
 vice ; tempering the formality, however, 
 with expressions of the pleasure he an- 
 ticipated in renewing the acquaintance 
 of his expected guests. 
 
 On the following day there came a 
 dozen formal regrets, almost identical 
 in wording, and one effusive acceptance. 
 No responses whatever were received 
 from the rest of his invitations. 
 
 Mrs. Marsden and George supposed 
 that those who had not declined would 
 come, so no alteration was made in the 
 dinner order. 
 
 " Some of the fellows who declined 
 may drop in after the other engage- 
 ments they speak of," said George
 
 I2/!. NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 hopefully, " so we'll have the table pre- 
 pared for them all." 
 
 Frank Homer, the man who ac- 
 cepted, was the only one who came to the 
 dinner. He was received in Mrs. 
 Marsden's parlor, for the widow had 
 expressed an eager desire to meet her 
 son's friends. 
 
 Homer was faultlessly dressed and 
 he was demonstratively polite in his 
 greetings. While they still supposed 
 that other guests would arrive, Homer 
 was plied with questions about the 
 men of the class, and though his an- 
 swers were glibly given, his listeners 
 soon discovered that they were random 
 guesses. 
 
 As the time passed and it became 
 evident that the others were not coming, 
 Homer's confidence and assertiveness 
 grew. George was sick at heart when, 
 a. half hour after dinner had been
 
 A DINNER OF REGRETS. 125 
 
 announced, he said, with a forced 
 laugh : 
 
 " Well, Homer, you and I will be- 
 gin the feast without waiting for the 
 others." 
 
 The idea crossed his mind of aban- 
 doning the private dining room and 
 taking his single guest to the cafe, but 
 he could not give up the belief that 
 others would come ; so the two men 
 sat down to a table prepared for twenty- 
 one. 
 
 The host was overcome much more 
 by sorrow than by mortification. His 
 mind refused to realize the truth, and 
 devised almost whimsical excuses 
 causes which could suddenly affect a 
 dozen of his expected guests ; possibly 
 he had misdated his invitations. 
 
 For a time he was almost unconscious 
 of Homer's presence, and did not 
 notice his guest's amazing consump-
 
 126 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 i 
 
 , r. ~ ^-_- -V - 
 
 tion of wine until he was suddenly 
 aroused to the other's condition by his 
 insolent braggadocio. 
 
 It must have been his instinct, for he 
 had no experience in such matters, 
 which then revealed Homer to him in 
 his true character a drunken sponger. 
 
 The distressing dinner came to a close 
 at last, when Homer, after a third glass 
 of brandy, ordered a waiter to bring 
 him pen and ink. The waiter obeyed, 
 and Homer, taking a blank check from 
 his pocket, filled it out, saying to the 
 waiter : " Take that to the office and
 
 A DINNER OF REGRETS. 127 
 
 have it cashed for me," but turned in- 
 stantly to George and said : " Perhaps 
 you have the amount in your pocket, 
 old man, it's only a hundred." 
 
 Marsden silently handed the bills to 
 his guest, who pocketed them and then, 
 rilling a champagne glass with brandy, 
 said with a grin : 
 
 " Pardon me for not having congratu- 
 lated you before, old man, on the sale 
 of your mills. I saw an account of it 
 in a financial paper, so I know that this 
 sum is a mere trifle to you." 
 
 Marsden, with sudden determination 
 said stiffly : 
 
 " May I ask if that is why you ac- 
 cepted my invitation to dinner ?" 
 
 Homer took up his brandy and drank 
 it before he replied : 
 
 "Why, old chap, you've been square 
 with me, so I don't mind telling you 
 that I came to your dinner because I
 
 128 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 should have gone without one, other- 
 wise." 
 
 Marsden only half suppressed a bitter 
 sigh. Homer regarded his host a mo- 
 ment with a pitying smile and then 
 said : 
 
 " That check of mine may come back 
 to you marked ' No Funds,' it's a way 
 my checks have, so I'll square accounts 
 by giving you some valuable advice : 
 The next time you get up a class din- 
 ner, let me know a little in advance, 
 and I'll send the boys marked copies of 
 that financial paper. Then you won't 
 have any regrets."
 
 THE NIGHT ELEVATOR MAN'S 
 STORY.
 
 lit 
 
 ?** 
 
 'You seen her here, 
 eh ? She was a 
 pretty kid, too, for 
 sure. Lots of peo- 
 ple asked me why I 
 had her in the ele- 
 vator here with me. 
 No, not lots, you 
 know, cause there 
 ain't lots what ride in this elevator ; but 
 nearly everyone what did wanted to 
 know all about the kid. I didn't tell 
 them mostly, cause when she was asleep 
 I didn't like to talk and wake her up, 
 so I just didn't say nothing. 
 
 " It was like this that I first fetched
 
 132 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 her in the elevator : I was passing by 
 her floor and heard her cry. Well, I 
 took my passenger up to the floor 
 above, and coming down I heard her cry 
 again. It wasn't a cry like the kid was 
 hurted, or I'd gone in the room right 
 away. It was, you know, like the kid 
 was scared, see ? Well, I came down 
 to the ground floor landing and tried to 
 read my paper, but all I could do was 
 just to hear that kid a-crying. I 
 couldn't hear it for fair, you know ; I 
 couldn't hear it right, I mean, but I 
 could hear it, just the same. Kind of 
 in my mind I could hear it, you know. 
 
 " Well, I kept making a bluff at read- 
 ing my paper, but all the time I wasn't 
 doing a thing but just hearing in my 
 mind that kid up there on the fifth 
 floor, crying like it was scared 
 frightened, you know. 
 
 "After a bit I couldn't stand for it
 
 THE NIGHT ELEVATOR MAN S STORY 133 
 
 no longer, so I just pulled up to the 
 fifth and listened, and there was the 
 kid crying sobbing, you know and 
 for sure, just as I'd heard it in my 
 mind, see ? 
 
 " Say, it wasn't my business all right, 
 but I just let myself in with the pass- 
 key, and I goes to the crib where the 
 kid was, and I gives it a jolly, see ? 
 ' What's the matter with us, kiddie ?' 
 says I ; and say, she catches my hand 
 with one of her soft little hands, and 
 says, you know, with her little kid kind 
 of talk, she says that the bogy man 
 was after her. 
 
 " So I says what bogy man ; and she 
 says the bogy man her mamma told her 
 would catch her if she wasn't a good 
 little girl, and kept still all the time 
 her mamma was away. 
 
 " I had to leave her then, for some 
 one was ringing up the elevator ; but
 
 134 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 when I'd took the passenger to his 
 floor I goes back to the kid, and she 
 was crying worse than before, so I 
 grabs her up" with a blanket and takes 
 her out in the elevator with me. 
 
 " Say, she liked that up to the limit. 
 
 We talked with each other to beat the 
 band, and I told her stories till she 
 went to sleep on the long seat there. 
 
 " I got her to bed and all tucked in 
 before her mother come home, and it 
 wasn't very early at that. 
 
 " People in this kind of apartment 
 house don't always come home too
 
 THE NIGHT ELEVATOR MAN*S STORY. 135 
 
 early, and there ain't much talk about 
 it when they do particular the women. 
 
 " Well, the next night I heard the 
 kid crying again and, say, honest, she 
 was calling my name. 
 
 " ' Dannie,' she was saying ; 'Dannie 
 turn take me, Dannie.' Say, you know 
 that fetches me quick. It was the same 
 story again ; her mother had told her 
 the bogy man would come and bite 
 her hands off if she made any noise, 
 and she was crying because she thought 
 the bogy man was there. 
 
 " I took her out in the elevator 
 again, wrapped up in the blanket, and 
 then she says, comfy as a bull pup on 
 a fur rug ; ' Tell me a story, Dannie,' 
 says she. 
 
 " Well, I never thought I could 
 make up so many yarns as I did for 
 that kid. You know, yarns about 
 fairies what are in books printed for
 
 136 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 kids. I never read any of those 
 books myself until I bought one for 
 her ; and she never had none until I 
 bought that one. I read the stories all 
 day until I knew them for fair, and 
 they were not so bad, even for me, 
 at that. Then I'd tell her the stories, 
 and make up others about the mugs 
 the folks, I mean what were in the 
 book. 
 
 " That was because I got to taking 
 her out to the elevator every night. 
 The housekeeper told me that the 
 mother mostly slept all day, and, to 
 keep the kid quiet, the mother would 
 make her dopey in the day time, and 
 that was the reason the kid couldn't 
 sleep at night. 
 
 "I wasn't minding it, cause I got to 
 want the kid with me as much as the 
 kid wanted to come. 
 
 " We was getting great chums. We
 
 THE NIGHT ELEVATOR MAN*S STORY. 137 
 
 near wore out that fairy book, and she 
 knew all the stories in it for fair, as 
 well as me ; and every night in the 
 long hours when nobody almost used 
 the elevator, I'd make up new yarns 
 till she'd go to sleep as quiet as a 
 kitten, there on the seat where you 
 seen her. 
 
 "One night I showed her a picture in 
 a paper, and it was about a little kid 
 what was playing with a doll you 
 know, a little kid about her size. She 
 looks at the picture a long time, and 
 when I'd told her about a hundred 
 stories about it, she says, ' Dannie, 
 what's a doll ?' 
 
 " Honest, that breaks me all up. I 
 wasn't brought up too fine myself, but 
 for sure I seen plenty of dolls, even in 
 our tenement, which this house would 
 buy twenty of them. 
 
 " Well, the next day I bought a doll,
 
 138 
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 and some dresses for it, and, say, you 
 should seen the kid that night ! She 
 wouldn't go to sleep, and my stories 
 
 wasn't in it, a little bit. She dressed 
 and undressed that doll a million times, 
 and loved it till it was near busted to 
 pieces. 
 
 " That kind of fetches me, you know 
 kind of fetches me silly. I wondered 
 what kind of woman the kid's mother 
 could be, but I never found out. She 
 skipped but left the kid behind. 
 
 " I was for taking the kid home with
 
 THE NIGHT ELEVATOR MAN'S STORY. 139 
 
 me, 'cause, you see, she didn't seem to 
 care about her mother being gone 
 so long as she could ride up and 
 down, up and down in the elevator with 
 Dannie, and play with the doll, and 
 hear my stories you know, the yarns 
 I'd make up for her about the fairy 
 folks in the book. 
 
 " But the cop on this beat heard of 
 the case and reported it to the Society. 
 A Gerry ngent came and took the kid. 
 He had a paper you know a paper 
 from the Court House, so I had to let 
 her go. 
 
 " She cried a good bit, but I gave 
 her the raggy doll and the worn book, 
 and and say, it's kind of lonesome 
 riding up and down here at night with- 
 out her, 'cause I can hear her cry not 
 for fair, you know, but my mind can 
 hear her when I tries to read my paper 
 and can't."
 
 BY WHOM THE OFFENCE COMETH.
 
 LENA'S father and mother, with three 
 children, one older and one younger 
 than Lena, came to New York and went 
 to live in Ludlow Street, a little below 
 Hester, when she was six years 
 old. They took two rooms ; one hav- 
 ing windows opening on the tenement 
 court, the other, an inside room with- 
 out light ; and they let the dark room 
 to three boarders, men who came over 
 on the ship with them.
 
 144 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 The father rented two sewing ma- 
 chines, and he and his wife, the two 
 older children and the three boarders 
 began making clothing for the man who 
 had rented them the machines. Lena 
 helped at first pulling threads, and in a 
 little while did some of the hand-sew- 
 ing. But her father learned that nearly 
 all the families in the neighborhood 
 sent at least one child to school, that 
 there might be a member who could 
 speak English ; and so it was deter- 
 mined to send Lena to school. This 
 was not decided upon until it was found 
 that the younger sister, four and a half 
 years old, could pull threads, and might 
 soon be taught to do the rough sewing 
 Lena had done, and that Lena, herself, 
 by beginning at daylight and working 
 till school time, and working after 
 school until dark, could still toil five or 
 six hours a, day on the sweaters' task,
 
 BY WHOM THE OFFENCE COMETH. 145 
 
 and thus her labor was not wholly lost 
 to the family. 
 
 Lena learned rapidly to speak, read, 
 and write English so rapidly, that her 
 father w r ould have taken her from 
 school when she was eight years old, 
 but for the further advantage of hav- 
 ing one in the family with sufficient 
 knowledge of figures to keep a check 
 on the sweater. This outweighed the 
 immediate gain of another pair of 
 hands always in the work-shop home to 
 help in the constant, endless battle 
 against eviction and starvation. These 
 were the reasons Lena was not taken 
 from school until she was ten years old. 
 Then she returned to the all-day work 
 with the other members of the family 
 and the three boarders ; eight toilers in 
 one room which had such daylight as 
 struggled through the murky court. 
 
 The schoolroom had been so over-
 
 146 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 crowded that the Health Board was 
 always complaining to the School Board, 
 which complained to the Aldermen, 
 who complained to the Legislature, 
 which sent Investigating Commitees, 
 which wrote illuminative Reports which 
 enlightened no one because they were 
 not read ; but that swarm of toiling 
 men, women and children in one small 
 room, where five of them slept and all 
 of them ate, was worse than anything 
 Lena ever endured at school. The life 
 was hideously repulsive to her. She 
 rebelled. 
 
 Her father tore his beard and cursed 
 the day when he had been so blind a 
 fool as to allow a child of his to be 
 taught to despise her station, to im- 
 bibe wicked, extravagant notions, un- 
 fitting her to do in silence and without 
 complaint all that her strength permit- 
 ted. That was her lot in life. How
 
 BY WHOM THE OFFENCE COMETH. 147 
 
 else were they to live? He wept aloud. 
 Why should Lena rebel that so many 
 of them worked and ate and slept in 
 but two rooms? Why should she re- 
 proach him with the boarders, while her 
 sisters did not? How else did their 
 neighbors live ? 
 
 So Lena toiled on, sullenly silent, 
 rebellious only within. 
 
 In summer, the hours were cruelly 
 long ; all worked from daylight to dark, 
 dumb, sombre, hopeless, through the 
 sweltering days ; men, women and chil- 
 dren half naked in the torture of the 
 heat. But when not a ray of daylight 
 remained to guide another stitch, Lena 
 would leave the others gasping at the 
 open windows or in the poisonous 
 court, or in the reeking street littered 
 with withered children and foul gar- 
 bage, and hurry to the river front, where 
 boys and girls, not much older than
 
 148 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 she, met in wayward freedom, breathed 
 fresh air, danced on the dock, and 
 drank beer when any of the young men 
 had money. 
 
 There was one young 
 man, ferret-faced, cow- 
 ard-eyed, who often had 
 money. He gave Lena 
 scarf-pins and other val- 
 uable trinkets which he 
 told her to pawn ; and 
 she would do so and 
 divide the money with 
 him. She did not know 
 at first that he was a thief, but she 
 guessed it when she saw that at a sig- 
 nal from the lookout, warning them of 
 a policeman's approach, he would slip 
 like a rat into the river and disappear 
 under one of the wharves. 
 
 One night, she was not quite fourteen 
 years old then, Lena did not go home.
 
 BY WHOM THE OFFENCK COMETH. 149 
 
 It was two weeks before the oldest sis- 
 ter learned, and told her father, that 
 Lena had taken up with a pickpocket, 
 not of their race. 
 
 It came of her being educated beyond 
 her class ; made dissatisfied with her 
 lot among her people ! The father 
 spoke, dry-eyed and solemn, as one who 
 pronounces doom: henceforth there 
 was no sister Lena, and it was to be as 
 if there never had been. But the moth- 
 er's work was splashed with tears for 
 many days, although she did not men- 
 tion that child her brightest, her fair- 
 est, her best-beloved ever again. 
 
 Lena, and Bat the pickpocket, lived 
 in many places, but always west of the 
 Bowery, for she wished not to meet any 
 of her people, and she knew they never 
 went further west than that thorough- 
 fare. Sometimes the two left the city 
 hurriedly and went to live across one of
 
 150 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 the rivers, where Bat would hide in 
 their rooms for days. At such times 
 Lena would pawn the trinkets and 
 clothes Bat had given her, and when 
 the money she got in that way was 
 gone, if Bat had word from New York 
 that he could not yet leave his hiding, 
 Lena would go to the big stores and 
 steal. 
 
 Once, when there was a great parade 
 on Fifth Avenue, Bat took Lena with 
 him by devious west-side ways to Wash- 
 ington Square. He skulked like a wolf 
 about the lower side of the Square until 
 the police were called away from the 
 protection of his prey to clear the 
 Avenue for the parade. Then he slipped 
 suddenly, stealthily, into the crowd on 
 the end of the Avenue, and was soon 
 passing stolen booty to Lena following 
 close, her heart throbbing. Besides 
 taking the stuff he passed to her, Lena's
 
 BY WHOM THE OFFENCE COMETH. 151 
 
 duties were to signal at the approach 
 of the police, to watch the men Bat 
 robbed, and if any gave alarm before 
 Bat was at a safe distance, she was to 
 pretend to faint close to the victim, 
 thus drawing around him a denser 
 crowd, so that he could not give pur- 
 suit. 
 
 They worked along the lower end of 
 the Avenue, and in spite of the strain 
 and excitement of this terrible hazard, 
 some vagrant perception of Lena's, un- 
 enlisted in the main purpose of her 
 mind, thrilled at the rare spring beauty 
 of the Square, at the blissful peace sug- 
 gested by the calm and stately old 
 houses, which then were settings for 
 such loveliness as she had not dreamed 
 woman could express. She had never 
 seen, never fancied anything like this. 
 Once the tense tragedy of the seconds 
 slipped vholly from her mind as her
 
 I 2 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 furtive gaze was caught and fascinated 
 by the picture at an open window of a 
 fair, pure-browed girl, joyous with the 
 stirring pomp of the passing pageant. 
 Suddenly, as Lena gazed, she saw that 
 radiant young face pale with shock as 
 an officer gripped the shoulder of a 
 white-faced thief in the crowd ; and 
 that same instant the outcast's glimpse 
 of Paradise was ended by Bat's signal 
 to her to escape. 
 
 Bat was sent away to prison for a 
 long time. When he was sentenced 
 Lena had tried to kiss him good-by, but 
 he had cursed her for her stupid inat- 
 tention which had resulted in his arrest. 
 
 Lena left the court-room penniless, 
 for of course all that the pawn shops 
 yielded had been given to Bat, and she 
 could not steal, as the police were 
 watching her closely. Something drew 
 her to the Chinese restaurant in Mott
 
 BY WHOM THE OFFENCE COMETH. 153 
 
 You wantee 
 experienced, 
 
 street which she had frequented with 
 Bat. She thought it was hunger, and 
 because she could get credit there ; but 
 when Chung, the proprietor, brought 
 her tea and food she could not eat. 
 Yet she was racked by appetite a tu- 
 mult of bodily demand, a horrible, un- 
 satiated craving ! 
 
 " The habit is on you. 
 pipe," said Chung the 
 observing. 
 
 "Yes, my God, 
 opium !" the girl gasped, 
 clutching the Chinaman 
 in sudden, fierce joy at 
 the understanding of her 
 desire. 
 
 " Chung velly good 
 man. Him give you pipe all you 
 wantee, and plittee clo', heap plittee 
 clo'." Chung said this to her some 
 hours afterward.
 
 154 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 For a year Lena was one of the white 
 slaves in Chinatown. She and the 
 other white slaves, as they visited each 
 other to smoke opium and -languidly 
 discuss their chances of " lasting " much 
 longer, would laugh sometimes at the 
 stories that their owners had guards on 
 the outskirts of the Chinese quarter to 
 prevent their escape. 
 
 " Nothing could drive us away from 
 here away from the pipes but the 
 
 Morgue wagon, 
 they laughed. 
 
 they would say as
 
 BY WHOM THE OFFENCE COMETH. 155 
 
 Lena did not seem to be " lasting." 
 Chung observed this with Oriental 
 equanimity, and told her one day, 
 when she said she could not get up to 
 dress, that she had to ; she must go, for 
 he had another slave. Lena protested 
 feebly. Then he beat her, and she said 
 she would go. Some of the other 
 women helped her to dress and she 
 dragged herself away. She was going 
 to some friends she said. 
 
 It was -just such a bright spring day 
 as that on which Bat had been arrested. 
 In her half-torpor she longed to see 
 again that beautiful, fresh green Square, 
 and the quiet, peaceful old homes. 
 Perhaps, too, she would see that pure- 
 browed girl who looked as the angels 
 must look. She tried to hurry, but 
 could not, and it was dark when she 
 reached Washington Square. She was 
 very tired and weak, but when she
 
 i S 6 
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 stopped to rest the police ordered her 
 to move on. She crossed the Square 
 slowly, painfully ; and the young 
 French and Italian mothers, out in the 
 open there with their babies, sighed 
 and looked sor- 
 rowfully after her 
 when they had 
 seen her face in 
 the flashes of the 
 electric lights. 
 
 More slowly, 
 more painfully, 
 Lena dragged her- 
 self up the avenue 
 to the house 
 where she had 
 seen the beautiful 
 girl, and now when 
 she saw its win- 
 dows closed and shaded she moaned, 
 and wandered on aimlessly. But when
 
 BY WHOM THE OFFENCE COMETH. 157 
 
 she had walked a few blocks further all 
 her strength had ebbed and she stag- 
 gered against a stately, church-like 
 building, sagged and sank down and 
 died. Two men turning to enter the 
 building held the skirts of their coats 
 aside that they might not touch the 
 poor, huddled figure. They were go- 
 ing in to a meeting of the Board of For- 
 eign Missions to urge the sending forth 
 of more men to teach in distant lands 
 the gospel of Jesus Christ.
 
 THE REWARD OF MERIT.
 
 " GET to work or get out of here." 
 
 " Well, I have a right to wages if I 
 work." 
 
 " You get your bed and board and 
 clothes. What more do you want ? If I 
 gave you a licking, 1 guess you wouldn't 
 be so funny about wages." 
 
 " Kids that sell papers and black 
 boots get more than I do ; they have 
 the price of a theatre ticket once in a 
 while. I don't." 
 
 The latter speaker was a sharp-faced 
 lad of sixteen or eighteen years, judg- 
 ing from his stature and slight, unset 
 frame. He had the look of a man ; a 
 very knowing man ; an ugly, vicious 
 
 [161]
 
 162 
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 man just then, for he was scowling sul- 
 lenly at the Chatham Square saloon- 
 keeper, his father, with whom he was 
 talking. 
 
 Larry, the boy, was seated at one of 
 the drinking tables, slouched down 
 
 deep in his chair, his hat dragged over 
 his eyes so low that his head was 
 thrown far back as he glared at his 
 father, who was standing at the end of 
 the bar, near the heavy beer keg cooler. 
 A customer entered, sat down at one 
 of the tables and ordered a glass of
 
 THE REWARD OF MERIT. 163 
 
 beer. When Mike Golden had drawn 
 the beer he motioned Larry to serve 
 it, but the lad shrugged his shoulders 
 and slouched towards the door. The 
 father suddenly turned, picked up a 
 light bar glass and threw it at his son. 
 It struck him in the back, but evidently 
 did not hurt him. He opened the door 
 and held it open as he turned and said, 
 " That settles it. You can pay wages 
 to some one to do my work ; and don't 
 you forget this : I'll get even with 
 you." 
 
 Then he went out of the place. 
 
 Golden did not seemed angered ; not 
 even much annoyed. He swore a little 
 at his son, and remarked to the cus- 
 tomer : " That's the thanks a man gets 
 for bringing up a kid like a gentleman. 
 He never had to do a stroke of work 
 for a living only help around here a 
 little. He's smart enough to get into
 
 164 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 something good something in your 
 line Tor he can write elegant, and 
 spell any word you give him. His 
 mother was that way educated. Any- 
 thing on this morning ?" 
 
 "Yes, I'm staked out here for Billy. 
 He's got a come-on from New Jersey 
 that I'm to steer to the turning joint." 
 
 Mike Golden's place was a head- 
 quarters for " green-goods " swindlers. 
 Victims were brought there by mem- 
 bers of the gang, who met them by 
 appointment in some neighboring town, 
 took them to Golden's and introduced 
 them to other men, who took them to 
 the "turning joint," the place where 
 the victims exchanged good money for 
 waste paper. It was a profitable busi- 
 ness for Golden, as it not only brought 
 him liberal customers, but he was finan- 
 cially interested in the swindle. 
 
 His neighbors envied him, not alone
 
 THE REWARD OF MERIT. 165 
 
 for the immediate profit he was known 
 to make, but also because his connec- 
 tion with the swindlers insured him im- 
 munity from police interference and 
 blackmail, to which his less fortunate 
 neighbors were sorely subjected. 
 
 Larry wandered down Park row 
 musing on his fortunes. There was 
 nothing very desperate in his case ; he 
 could return, he knew, to his father's 
 place, as he had returned before, and 
 suffer nothing more than a severe 
 thrashing for his mutiny. 
 
 But he disliked the prospect of that 
 more now than he ever had before. 
 Why, too, he asked himself, should he 
 be kept at work around the saloon with 
 no money for amusement, except the 
 little change he could steal from 
 drunken or careless customers ? Many 
 of these customers themselves were 
 little more than boys, certainly only a
 
 1 66 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 few years older than he ; yet they 
 sometimes had pockets full of money 
 they got by swindling games, or steal- 
 ing. He was as clever as any of them, 
 yet his only opportunities were in steal- 
 ing their change ! 
 
 He bought a bundle of afternoon 
 papers and started up Broadway. He 
 had done that many times, yet there 
 was a new purpose in his mind now, 
 and it was so sudden and intense, it 
 showed in his face so plainly, that 
 genuine newsboys he passed whispered 
 to each other, " Fake !" 
 
 Larry did not call out his papers 
 until he was in the comparatively quiet 
 streets of the wholesale dry-goods dis- 
 trict west of Broadway. He sold to 
 several customers, who handed him 
 exact change for the purchases, before 
 he was stopped by an elderly man, 
 evidently a merchant, who, after fum-
 
 THE REWARD OF MERIT. 
 
 i6 7 
 
 bling in an outside 
 pocket of his top-coat 
 for pennies which he 
 could not find, un- 
 buttoned the coat 
 and brought out a 
 dollar bill from an 
 inside pocket, say- 
 ing : 
 
 " Can you make 
 change, boy ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 Larry's eyes were fixed on the heavy 
 gold watch chain crossing the mer- 
 chant's waistcoat. He pretended to 
 be hampered in making change by his 
 bundle of papers. 
 
 " Will you hold them, please ?" he 
 said, offering his bundle to the man, 
 and forcing a smile into his face, which 
 he suddenly felt to be bloodless and 
 drawn.
 
 l68 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 The man who still held his dollar 
 bill in one hand, good-naturedly took 
 the papers in the other, and at that in- 
 stant Larry made a quick, sharp jerk 
 at the chain. Something parted ; he 
 felt the watch swinging in his hand, 
 and he darted away, turning around a 
 loaded truck just as the man gave his 
 first cry : " Stop thief!" 
 
 Porters, clerks, truckmen, rushed 
 first to the robbed man and then in the 
 direction they were told Larry had 
 taken, toward Broadway. Larry had 
 doubled around two or three trucks 
 and darted into a doorway, from which 
 he soon emerged with others attracted 
 from within by the excitement ; and 
 when Broadway was reached he was 
 lagging behind in the crowd which 
 supposed it was pursuing him.
 
 THE REWARD OF MERIT. 169 
 
 It was nearly midnight, and the 
 head of the green-goods gang was in 
 Golden's saloon, drinking with the 
 proprietor, and making a settlement of 
 the day's profits. The Jerseyman had 
 only bought two hundred dollars worth 
 of green goods, and Golden's share 
 twenty dollars had just been paid to 
 him, when a policeman entered the 
 place, nodded familiarly to Golden and 
 his companion, and motioned the for- 
 mer to follow him into a back room. 
 There he said, laughing : 
 
 " Your kid is up against it, Mike." 
 
 " Larry ?" 
 
 " Yes, he pinched a watch and 
 shoved it at Sampson's for five dollars. 
 He could have got twenty if he'd 
 known his business." 
 
 The officer laughed pleasantly 
 again. 
 
 Golden did not seem to see the
 
 1 70 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 humor of the story, for he scowled and 
 said, with an oath : 
 
 " How much to fix it ?" 
 
 " Oh, as it's you, Sampson only wants 
 ten, and ten will do me." 
 
 Golden gave the officer the twenty 
 dollar bill he had just received, and 
 asked : 
 
 " Have you located Larry?" 
 
 " Easy ; at the Tivoli Theatre. Do 
 you want him ?" 
 
 " Yes, damn him, I want him," the 
 father replied, angrily. 
 
 In an hour the boy was brought to the 
 saloon. He was more rebellious and 
 sullen, than frightened. 
 
 " I'll take the nonsense out of you, 
 my boy," his father said. 
 
 Golden had told Tom, the green- 
 goods man, the story, and Tom had 
 been impressed with the spirit displayed 
 by the boy.
 
 THE REWARD OF MERIT. 171 
 
 " What are you going to do with him, 
 Mike ?" he asked. 
 
 " Why, I'm going to hammer the 
 hide off his back." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "What for? It cost me twenty dol- 
 lars to square the job. That's what 
 for." 
 
 " But that isn't the boy's fault. Next 
 time he'll know enough to come to you 
 and find out where there's a safe fence 
 to put a watch up in. Hasn't a boy 
 got to learn ?" 
 
 "Well, I'll teach him not to learn at 
 my expense." 
 
 Tom regarded the boy amiably a 
 moment and then said : 
 
 " Your old man tells me that you are 
 keen at writing, and spelling, and fig- 
 ures, Larry." 
 
 " I am ; but what good does that do 
 me serving beer ?" Larry responded,
 
 172 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 regarding his questioner hopefully, for 
 his shrewd mind had half divined the 
 purpose of the question. 
 
 " I'll tell you what, Mike," the other 
 man said. " I can give the boy a 
 chance. We need another letter writer, 
 and if Larry can do the trick there's 
 fair pay in it, anyway. Don't lick 
 him this time. He's got good spirit 
 and nerve, and it ain't right to break 
 them. He'll need them in our game." 
 
 So Larry was soon at work copying 
 forms of letters which are sent out to 
 inquiring gullibles, setting forth the 
 advantages of dealing in green goods. 
 
 Pretty soon he ventured improve- 
 ments on the forms ; and before a year 
 he was considered the best composer of 
 letters in the gang. Then he was tried 
 at other work ; piloting " come-ons " to 
 the city ; steering them to the turning 
 joint, and in both kinds of work his
 
 THE REWARD OF MERIT. 173 
 
 calm nerve distinguished him as a su- 
 perior in his profession. 
 
 Tom, the leader, remained his patron 
 and promoted his interests until the 
 most difficult work of all was assigned 
 to Larry that whereby worthless pa- 
 per is substituted for the decoy package 
 of good money on which the victim has 
 feasted his greedy, dishonest eyes. 
 
 Now Larry is the assistant manager 
 of the most prosperous "green-goods " 
 concern in New York ; and as an evi- 
 dence of his power and influence he 
 deprived his father at one time of the 
 patronage of the business." 
 
 " I told you I'd get even with you," 
 he replied when his father begged Larry 
 not to ruin him in his old age. 
 
 Don' t do me wrong like that, Larry," 
 his father said, whimpering. 
 
 The successful young man relented 
 after a while, and restored the patron-
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 age to his fa- 
 ther, saying: 
 "I just 
 wanted to 
 show you that 
 I knew my 
 business when 
 I told you I 
 was above 
 stealing small 
 change from 
 little crooks. 
 I'm a gentle- 
 man, I am." 
 "You are, Larry, my boy, and I'm 
 proud of you."
 
 THE HOUSE OF YELLOW BRICK.
 
 IN the lower part of Pell street there 
 is a house the people of the block call 
 the " yellow brick.'' Nearly all the 
 houses thereabout are brick, and many 
 of them are painted yellow, but this one 
 alone is so called. It may be that it is 
 the only house that has been painted 
 within the memory of the oldest 
 resident of the quarter, and so took its 
 name ; for an event of the kind would 
 be much talked of, and become a part 
 of the Chinatown folk lore. 
 
 Now, for example, in this matter of 
 tradition, which becomes folk lore in 
 the quarter : Kate never knew the 
 woman who was strangled to death by 
 
 [i?7J
 
 178 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 a Chinaman in the yellow brick ; neither 
 did the woman Kate succeeded in the 
 back room up two 
 flights ; nor did that 
 woman's predeces- 
 sor know the stran- 
 g 1 e d woman, yet 
 they all frequently told the story, talked 
 about it, thought about it, dreamed 
 about it. It occurred ten years ago, 
 and Kate was the fourth tenant of the 
 room since then, for the women live 
 only about three years after they go 
 into the quarter. 
 
 Some live longer much longer if 
 they do not " get the habit ;" do not 
 become slaves of the opium pipe. But 
 there arc few who do not indulge them- 
 selves in the delight of forgetfulness. 
 And who shall condemn them for this 
 lesser sin which enables them to escape 
 if only in dreams the hideousgreater
 
 THE HOUSE OF YELLOW BRICK. 179 
 
 tragedy of their lives ? Yet because it 
 is known to kill most of its white de- 
 votees more quickly than all their other 
 vices, they weakly fight the opium habit, 
 and many are killed by it while still 
 maintaining the pathetic fiction that 
 they are not its victims. 
 
 " I'll never get the habit," Kate said 
 to the woman who occupied the room 
 inside of hers. That inside room was 
 totally without natural light or ventila- 
 tion, unless Kate, as she sometimes did, 
 lighted and ventilated it by opening a 
 door which connected the rooms, and 
 gave the two tenants an opportunity 
 for social visits. 
 
 " I'll never get the habit," she re- 
 peated to Julie, " for they say you go 
 terrible fast after you get the habit. 
 Is it so, Julie?" 
 
 Julie gave a quick glance at Kate, 
 saw the half wistful, half frightened
 
 l8o NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 look in her young face, and then 
 answered carelessly, " Oh, there's them 
 as says the pipe isn't so bad as that. 
 The Chinamen smokes all their lives 
 and no harm." 
 
 " But they say that's because they 
 are Chinamen, and that whites is 
 always done by it." 
 
 Julie made no reply at once. She 
 was boiling a tin pot of coffee on the 
 little stove. Kate had sent out to No. 
 Sixteen an hour ago for the coffee, but 
 when it came she did not want it ; and 
 Julie, coming in and seeing her condi- 
 tion for Julie herself was dying of 
 the habit, and knew the signs urged 
 Kate to drink the coffee, and the girl 
 promised to do so if it was heated 
 again. 
 
 " Did you know the girl who was 
 strangled in this room ?" Kate asked, 
 when she had taken the cup of hot
 
 THE HOUSE OF YELLOW BRICK. l8l 
 
 coffee and placed it on the oil-cloth 
 covered table by her side. 
 
 " Sure not," Julie replied, laughing. 
 The women of that quarter laugh not 
 infrequently. If you could hear their 
 laughter you would rather hear them 
 weep. " That was ten years ago, and 
 I'm here only three years. How long 
 is this you've been here, Kittie ?" 
 
 " It's two years come why, it's two 
 years to-morrow, New Year's day." 
 
 " And you was seventeen?" 
 
 " Sixteen, then," Kate answered. 
 
 " That accounts for the hurry way 
 she's going," Julie said, under her 
 breath, for she knew that the youngest 
 girls succumb quickest in the quarter. 
 She knew that Kate had had the habit 
 only a year, for she did not smoke the 
 first year she was there, and was al- 
 ready dying ; whereas Rose, the negro 
 woman who lived on the floor above,
 
 1 82 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 had had the habit four or five years, 
 and was a strong woman yet, to the 
 amazement of the white slaves. 
 
 " Drink the coffee, Kittie, it's good 
 for you," Julie said. 
 
 Kate stirred the coffee and took a 
 few spoonfuls, plainly to please her 
 companion, and then asked with nerv- 
 ous eagerness : 
 
 " Did you go to church on Christ- 
 mas ?" 
 
 " Sure I did. I never miss church 
 on Christmas. All the girls were there 
 nearly all, except you." 
 
 " I smoked too much the night be- 
 fore, and didn't wake up at five 
 o'clock." 
 
 " We all stayed up so as not to miss 
 early service." 
 
 <l Was it good ?" Kate asked. 
 
 " Yes," Julie said ; ' it was awful 
 good. I got blue and cried." She
 
 THE HOUSE OF YELLOW BRICK. 183 
 
 laughed a little as she said this, and 
 Kate laughed too. 
 
 Rose, the negro woman, came into 
 the room, looked sharply at Kate, and 
 then said to Julie : 
 
 " Won't she drink the coffee ?" 
 
 " I don't want it," Kate said wearily; 
 but the other women induced her to 
 drink some. 
 
 " I'll stay up to-night," she remarked 
 after awhile, " and go to church at five, 
 in the morning." 
 
 " I wouldn't smoke, then," Rose 
 said, " until after the church. It's ter- 
 rible unlucky to be dopey in church. 
 It's only once in a year that you need 
 to go." 
 
 " I won't smoke if you'll stay with 
 me, Julie, and help me to keep from 
 it," Kate said. " I haven't got the 
 habit, you know I wouldn't get it 
 but I feel terrible like a pipe now. I
 
 184 NEAR A WHOLE CITV FULL. 
 
 won't get ratty if you'll stay, Julie. 
 I'd like to go to church New Year's 
 morning because I remember no, I 
 won't smoke, or get ratty if you'll stay, 
 Julie." 
 
 Kate said this with such fluttering 
 affright and despairing apprehension in 
 her voice that the women exchanged 
 sympathetic glances, and assured her 
 they would remain and aid her in her 
 purpose. 
 
 They did stay, 
 and had a hard time 
 keeping the girl 
 from throwing her- 
 self out of the win- 
 dow on to the stones 
 of the court below. But by the use 
 of such remedies as they knew, they 
 had Kate asleep for a couple of 
 hours, before, supported by Julie, she 
 started out in the black, chill morning
 
 THE HOUSE OF YELLOW BRICK. 
 
 i8 5 
 
 air to walk to the church on Mott 
 street. 
 
 They were on their knees in the back 
 of the church when a woman softly 
 knelt by Julie's side, called her sister, 
 and asked if she might pray for her. 
 
 " Speak to her, lady," Julie whis-
 
 1 86 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 pered, motioning to Kate's swaying 
 form. " Speak to her ; she's going 
 first and soon." 
 
 The woman drew close to Kate, and 
 put an arm around her, or she would 
 have fallen. She called her sister, and 
 asked her to pray. 
 
 Kate looked into the woman's 
 beautiful, beatified face, and answered 
 in a frightened whisper, " I can't, 
 lady." 
 
 " Were you never taught ?" 
 
 "Yes, lady, but I forget I never 
 forgot until now. Now I forget you 
 see it was two years ago will you 
 will you pray for me ?" 
 
 The woman held the girl in both of 
 her arms, and whispered prayers for 
 her soul while Kate softly wept and, 
 after a little, remembered a child's 
 prayer, and sobbed it out. 
 
 When the early morning service was
 
 THE HOUSE OF YELLOW BRICK. 187 
 
 over the woman's arm was still round 
 the girl, and it was she, and not Julie, 
 who supported Kate through the gray 
 dawn, in the silent, sullen streets, back 
 to the yellow brick, and up the dark 
 stairs to Kate's room. 
 
 " May I come and see you again ?" 
 the visitor said, at the door. 
 
 " Yes. When ?" the girl gasped 
 longingly, as if clutching the woman 
 with her voice. 
 
 " To-day. I'll come back at nine 
 o'clock. It will be a New Year's call." 
 
 She called at the hour. Julie met 
 her and said, " Some One called before 
 you, lady." 
 
 The visitor looked into the room and 
 murmured, " I did not think it would 
 come so soon." 
 
 " She might have lived another day, 
 a week, or perhaps a month, but she 
 would not smoke after you left,"
 
 1 88 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 explained Julie. " She told me to say 
 to you, lady and it was the last thing 
 she said that she was afraid if she 
 smoked she would forget the prayer 
 you helped her to remember."
 
 THE LITTLE LIFE OF PIETRO.
 
 HE was such a very little boy that 
 the teachers of the Mission School won- 
 dered if it would not be necessary to 
 send one of the older scholars for him 
 every day. This was when Maria, his 
 mother, brought him there to ask if he 
 could come every morning and stay 
 until evening. 
 
 The gently bred lady who was devot- 
 ing her life to mission work in the most 
 congested and therefore the most de- 
 praved district of the East Side, ex- 
 plained that Pietro would be welcome 
 there every day, would be amused and 
 taught, and kept safe while his parents 
 were at work. That was the purpose 
 of the school.
 
 192 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 Then she asked the young mother 
 some questions about the nationality, 
 age and employment of herself and hus- 
 band, as is the custom. The husband 
 and father "worked around," Maria 
 said, and she " worked out." The teach- 
 er gave a quick glance at the young 
 woman's hands and asked no further 
 questions about the kind of labor she 
 performed. 
 
 Pietro did not have to be sent for, or 
 escorted home. He knew the streets 
 
 too well alas! 
 he knew little 
 else to be in 
 danger of los- 
 inghisway. He 
 was old enough 
 to be taught 
 to read, but 
 seemed to be a 
 slow-witted boy, which was the more
 
 THE LITTLE LIFE OF PIETRO. 193 
 
 surprising because uncommonly bright 
 and alert eyes lighted up his thin little 
 face. 
 
 " We shall be able to make some- 
 thing of Pietro, yet, when we once 
 arouse his mind into any degree of 
 life," the teacher said one day to her 
 assistant, after they had been talking to 
 Pietro, trying to find a point of intelli- 
 gence on which to begin. 
 
 A little later she missed her purse 
 which had been supposedly safe in a 
 usually inaccessible skirt pocket. Pietro 
 was missing, too, although it was an 
 hour before the school's closing time. 
 " We've found the point of intelli- 
 gence," remarked Miss Hastings, the 
 teacher, with a smile, and she resolved 
 to seek the suspected culprit when the 
 school was dismissed. 
 
 She was familiar with the district and 
 soon found Pietrq's home, where, in
 
 194 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 view of the purpose of her visit, she en- 
 tered without knocking. She inter- 
 rupted a family quarrel. Maria's hus- 
 band had beaten her because she insisted 
 upon returning the pocketbook Pietro 
 had stolen from the teacher. 
 
 The woman denied the beating when 
 Miss Hastings entered the little tene- 
 ment room. Of course it was her duty 
 to do so, but her husband, being both 
 drunk and angry, was indiscreet, and 
 said defiantly that he had whipped his 
 wife, and had done so because she 
 wanted to take the money Pietro had 
 "found." He wanted the money to 
 buy food for his little boy. 
 
 The child, hearing this, laughed. He 
 had a bottle in his hand which he was 
 waiting to take out and have filled with 
 gin. That was the kind of " food " the 
 father wanted to buy, and as the child 
 was actually hungry, the lie made
 
 THE LITTLE LIFE OF PIETRO. ipt; 
 
 him laugh and sneer ; an expression of 
 emotion not agreeable in a boy of Pie- 
 tro's age if you ever happen to hear 
 it. 
 
 Maria handed the purse to Miss Hast- 
 ings, and said: "Well, then, he did lick 
 me 'cause I wouldn't let him blow in the 
 stuff the kid pinched off you, lady. I 
 wonder the father wouldn't have more 
 respect than that you being good to 
 the kid. But the man's drunk now, 
 lady, so I hope you'll not have him ar- 
 rested. He wouldn't done it if he'd 
 been sober." 
 
 " Is it true that you have no food ; at 
 all?" asked Miss Hastings. 
 
 "There ain't never no food," volun- 
 teered Pietro. 
 
 " Have you no work ?" she asked the 
 husband. 
 
 He turned his back and swaggered to 
 the court window before he replied :
 
 196 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 "No, an honest man can't get no 
 work." 
 
 Miss Hastings knew the man was a 
 sneak thief and had asked the question 
 only to be kind. He added, suddenly 
 turning on Maria with a snarl, " And 
 she don't earn nothing with the cops 
 always chasing her off the street." 
 
 Maria covered her face with her 
 hands and wept. " You know well 
 enough what I am, lady," she wailed, 
 piteously. "I saw that you knew when 
 I first took Pietro to you, but I wanted 
 him brought up good. Now you won't 
 take him back, I suppose, and he'll have 
 to go on the street and steal, until the 
 Society gets him." 
 
 The thought of the "Society " caused 
 little Pietro to add his lamentations to 
 his mother's. Of course, he knew noth- 
 ing about the " Society ;" to such as 
 he, it is only the bogy man.
 
 THE LITTLE LIFE OF PIETRO. 197 
 
 Miss Hastings said quietly, that she 
 saw more reason than she had known 
 before why she should continue to give 
 Pietro her daily care, and told the 
 mother to send him, as usual, the next 
 day. She sent some bread and meat to 
 the room, and perhaps was thinking of 
 it that evening, for she did not answer 
 a woman who asked her, at a dinner- 
 party, if she did not find slumming full 
 of amusing experiences. 
 
 Pietro fulfilled the promise of his 
 eyes, for he was soon an uncommonly 
 apt pupil, especially in the kindergar- 
 ten work, where dexterity of fingers 
 counted. He became very fond of 
 Miss Hastings, and from time to time, 
 brought her presents of watches, jew- 
 elry or umbrellas which she turned over 
 to the captain of the precinct police, 
 who usually found a rightful owner for 
 the results of Pietro's skill, and com-
 
 198 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 pounded a felony with Miss Hastings 
 in aiding her to protect the thief. He 
 was a good and experienced captain, 
 and because of his admiration for Miss 
 Hastings and her work, he cheerfully 
 lied about any subject when she consid- 
 ered it expedient for him to do so to 
 further her effort to ultimately reform 
 Pietro. But the police captain assured 
 her that the case was hopeless. " I 
 have known both the father and mother 
 since they were Pietro's age, and their 
 fathers and mothers before them. It's 
 bad blood, Miss, and can't be cured, 
 but of course I'll help you, as long as 
 you want to try," he often said. 
 
 You see the captain was both wise 
 and indulgent. 
 
 "Me mudder's sent t' de Island for 
 six mont's," Pietro announced to Miss 
 Hastings, one day. 
 
 "And your father?"
 
 THE LITTLE LIFE OF PIETRO. 199 
 
 " He aint got a t'ing but money," 
 Pietro answered, proudly. " He's drunk 
 all de time. He must have turned a 
 great trick." 
 
 Miss Hastings 
 knew what had hap- 
 pened; that the po- 
 lice, tired of " chas- 
 ing her off the 
 streets," had arrest- 
 ed Maria, and that 
 the father's " great 
 trick " would prob- 
 ably deprive Pietro 
 of paternal care, 
 also. It was this 
 knowledge which 
 p r o m p te d Miss 
 Hastings to set in motion the legal 
 machinery which would place Pietro 
 under the care of the Society. She 
 thought he had divined her purpose
 
 200 
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 and was hiding, for he was absent from 
 school the next day. The next she re- 
 ceived word from the Society's agent, 
 asking her to call at Pietro's home ; the 
 boy had made the request, the agent 
 wrote. 
 
 When she reached the room she 
 found there, besides the agent, a doctor 
 
 who was just going out. The neigh- 
 bors said the father had made Pietro 
 drink, and had beaten him to make 
 him do so.
 
 THE LITTLE LIFE OF PIETRO. 2OI 
 
 " If I had been called a few hours 
 earlier," said the doctor, drawing on his 
 gloves, " I might have counteracted the 
 effect of the alcoholic poison and saved 
 the little fellow." 
 
 Miss Hastings looked down at the 
 white, still little face and said : " He is 
 saved."
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES.
 
 " PAUL can marry daughter when he 
 has a thousand dollars in the bank. 
 I've said it, and I'll stick to it. It is 
 right, or I'd not say it." 
 
 " But David," said his wife, " we have 
 many thousands ; one of them could 
 be spared." 
 
 " Martha, you know exactly how 
 many thousands we have, and it's right 
 you should, for you've helped me save 
 them, all these years. They seem 
 many to us, for we think of how small 
 the start was, but they are no more 
 than a spendthrift could waste in a few 
 years." 
 
 w But Paul's no spendthrift, David." 
 
 [205]
 
 206 
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 Mrs. Martens laid her hand on her hus- 
 band's, and he took it, patted it not 
 ungently with his hard and deeply 
 seamed hand as he answered : " We 
 do not know what he is inclined to be 
 
 with money, except as we can judge 
 from what his father was yes, and a 
 little more ; Paul's saved nothing yet, 
 though he's been earning full wages in 
 the Works for six months now." 
 
 " But he's had expenses, David, ex-
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 207 
 
 penses it makes us proud to know he 
 has had. He'd to buy a dress suit to 
 go to his class dinner." 
 
 "Aye, and preside," added David 
 Martens, with a touch of eagerness in 
 his voice. 
 
 Mrs. Martens went to the dining- 
 room mantle-piece, and took from be- 
 hind the clock a newspaper clipping. 
 She put on her spectacles and read 
 aloud, as she had many times, an item 
 under the head, " Notes of College 
 Societies," wherein it was told how 
 Paul Josselyn had presided with " dis- 
 tinguished wit," at his Technology 
 School class, in a fashionable hotel. 
 
 " Paul has fine friends," David Mar- 
 tens said, after a pause during which he 
 seemed to be giving himself time for 
 full appreciation of what his wife had 
 read. " They have practical value, too, 
 when one is educated like Paul. It's
 
 208 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 the scientific knowledge, such as Paul 
 has, that makes the head men in in- 
 dustries these days. The mechanical 
 knowledge don't carry us to the front 
 any longer." 
 
 " It's carried you near to the front, 
 David Martens," his wife said proudly. 
 
 " Yes, Martha, it's carried me to the 
 office of Superintendent. There I stop. 
 Paul may be President some day, for 
 he has the scientific knowledge, and 
 that I never had." 
 
 " President of the Works !" almost 
 gasped Mrs. Martens. " Yet David, 
 you won't give your consent to his 
 marrying Frances." 
 
 The old mechanic turned to his wife 
 with a quaint smile : " You women 
 folks are always taking it that the best 
 that can happen is sure to happen. 
 Paul may be President of the Works 
 some day. Yes, that is so, but he'll
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 209 
 
 never be even a foreman unless he has 
 the material in him which will make 
 him save a thousand dollars when he 
 knows he must save that to have my 
 consent to marry Frances." 
 
 " They love each other very much," 
 Mrs. Martens said, which was not by 
 way of an answer, but because Frances 
 was her only child. 
 
 " And I love Frances," David an- 
 swered simply. 
 
 Just then from the parlor they heard 
 Frances playing softly on the piano. 
 Mrs. Martens smiled, though there 
 were tears in her eyes. " It's time for 
 Paul to come," she said, " and that is 
 the tune he likes best. 
 
 " If I did not love her," continued 
 David, as if he had not been inter- 
 rupted, " I might not be so set in my 
 mind to see how Paul is to be with his 
 money. His father made more money
 
 210 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 in the Works than I did, for he in- 
 vented many improvements in machin- 
 ery and the Directors paid him well, 
 but he died penniless." 
 
 " He gave Paul a fine education," 
 Mrs. Martens suggested. 
 
 " No," answered David reluctantly. 
 " No, Paul was put through the school 
 by the Directors. I never told you 
 that, but it is so. The father was to 
 repay the advance, but he died, and 
 some of us paid for his funeral." 
 
 Mrs. Martens sighed and then was 
 silent. " If Paul comes straight from 
 the ferry he should be here by this 
 time," David said, glancing at the 
 clock. 
 
 " Never fear his going to his room 
 before he comes here after being away 
 from the city for a week," commented 
 Mrs. Martens, smiling confidently. 
 
 " He's a young man to be sent alone
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 211 
 
 to install that plant in Baltimore ; he's 
 been in the Works but two years, draw- 
 ing a man's wages but six months of 
 that time. In my beginning days, a 
 man would have been in the Works 
 ten years before he'd be trusted with 
 the work Paul was sent to Baltimore 
 to do," mused the Superintendent. 
 
 " But you're not counting the four 
 years in the School, he put in studying 
 what you learned at the bench," com- 
 mented the wife. 
 
 "Aye, more than I learned at the 
 bench," the old man said a little sadly. 
 " Paul knows all the science of the 
 Works," and then, turning to his wife 
 with a kindly smile, he continued, " I've 
 done with all my old prejudice against 
 book-learning, Martha, and it was you 
 who made me give up that prejudice 
 when you argued me into sending 
 Frances to the College. If anything
 
 212 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 should happen to what we have saved, 
 Frances could earn a living in half a 
 dozen ways and yet not have to do 
 drudgery work." 
 
 " Frances is educated to take the 
 station of a lady," the mother said sim- 
 ply. "I wonder what keeps Paul." 
 
 A servant brought a telegram to the 
 dining-room. It was an unusual form 
 of message to be received in that home, 
 and Mrs. Martens and Frances, who 
 had come to the dining-room, waited 
 apprehensively as David adjusted his 
 spectacles, opened the message and 
 read aloud slowly : 
 
 " Delayed by an accident. I am un- 
 hurt. Will be at the house at nine 
 o'clock this evening. PAUL." 
 
 Richard Josselyn, Paul's father, and 
 David Martens had been craft-fellows
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. :>I3 
 
 in the Works for thirty years. Most of 
 that time Josselyn had been Martens' 
 superior, but when he died he held the 
 position of foreman of the Draughting 
 Department, whereas Martens was not 
 only Superintendent of all the Works 
 but was a stockholder and director in 
 the Company. He had always saved, 
 even when his wages were smallest, and 
 had invested his savings invariably in 
 the stock of the Company. He had 
 never done anything brilliant for the 
 works, yet his economical methods, his 
 sure knowledge of workmen, his unfail- 
 ing promptness in keeping the Com- 
 pany's obligations in all contracts, had 
 long made him recognized as the Com- 
 pany's most valuable employe. Since 
 he had become a director there had 
 never been a strike nor the threat of a 
 strike among the thousands of me- 
 chanics employed in the Works.
 
 214 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 Richard Josselyn had invented a 
 score of labor-saving devices and some 
 tools which had been adopted by the 
 Works, and for whose patents he had 
 been paid large prices, but for one suc- 
 cess he had made a dozen disastrous 
 failures in his inventions, and it was in 
 costly pursuit of impracticable mechan- 
 ical ideas that he had wasted all of liis 
 large earnings and bonuses. His wife 
 had died when Paul was little more 
 than a baby, and so it came about that 
 Paul had always been more at home in 
 the Martens household than in his 
 father's somewhat haphazard apart- 
 ments. When Paul was old enough to 
 be apprenticed in the Works, David 
 Martens advised that it should be done, 
 but Richard Josselyn said no. He could 
 afford to give his son a good education 
 and he should do so. Paul should go 
 through one of the modern scientific
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 215 
 
 schools, which were doing so much to 
 elevate the calling of mechanics. David 
 shook his head over this decision, but 
 said nothing, for he was a genius in the 
 matter of minding his own business. 
 He was not so silent, however, when 
 Martha declared that it was right for 
 them to send Frances to a woman's 
 college. Against this he argued 
 strongly. He was a mechanic ; Martha 
 was the daughter of a mechanic. It 
 would be presumptuous in them to 
 give Frances an education which their 
 parents would never have thought of in 
 connection with a mechanic's child. 
 
 Then David Martens discovered that 
 the comely woman who had been un- 
 complaining all these years in the hard 
 unrelieved drudgery of life imposed by 
 his ideas of domestic economy, had not 
 only very different but very decided 
 views regarding their child.
 
 21 6 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 " You may say, David Martens," she 
 said to him, " that you are only a me- 
 chanic and you always will say that, for 
 you are proud of the name, but you are 
 Superintendent of the Works, and you 
 may be a director one day ; it's not 
 only a woman's whim that must decide 
 you in this, but it's your duty in view 
 of your position your duty to so- 
 ciety." 
 
 David looked up with quick inquiry 
 at this. His duty to society was a 
 problem which had never vexed him ; 
 he was, in fact, and he was conscious of 
 it, an exemplary member of society as 
 he viewed it ; he voted according to his 
 honest convictions, paid his taxes with- 
 out protest, attended a Church which 
 he helped to support, and forever 
 watched over the Works. Until now 
 it had never occurred to him that he 
 was beholden to society in other re-
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 217 
 
 spects. There was one other duty he 
 performed, which, in a narrow sense, 
 had to do with society, but which to 
 him was a sore penance ; that was to 
 attend with Martha the annual dinner 
 given by the President of the Company 
 at his house to the Superintendent, the 
 foremen and their wives. He recalled 
 this now with a dubious smile : 
 
 " Is it things like the annual dinner 
 you're thinking of, Martha?" 
 
 She laughed then and said, " Perhaps 
 that gave me the thought, David, but 
 when you become a director, Frances 
 and I will go to the directors' dinners 
 with you, and she'll be as fine as any of 
 their wives and daughters when she 
 comes from college." 
 
 David noted the words, " When she 
 comes from college," and though he 
 was no great student of the feminine 
 mind in general, he knew Martha's very
 
 21 8 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 well, and knew then that in the end he 
 would have to agree with her, or make 
 her very unhappy. So like a wise man 
 he let his wife have her way and 
 Frances went to college. 
 
 When she was graduated her father 
 was a director, a fact which did not 
 overawe the daughter, and she at once 
 set about re-adjusting her parents' man- 
 ner of living in a way against which 
 they but feebly protested. Inside of a 
 year they had moved into a more pre- 
 tentious house in a more fashionable 
 quarter of the city, and Mrs. Martens 
 had two servants to help her care for 
 the house. When she heard of the in- 
 vitation to the directors' dinner she 
 asked her mother if her father still per- 
 sisted in going to these dinners in his 
 old-fashioned broadcloth frock-coat. 
 When she learned that David was still 
 unregenerate in this respect, she con-
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 219 
 
 ducted that astonished old gentleman 
 to a fashionable tailor and had the de- 
 fects of his wardrobe supplied. She 
 was a tyrant, but there was no rebellion 
 against her tyranny. Indeed, father 
 and mother Martens were very proud, 
 and justly so, of all that their daughter 
 was and all that she did. One act of 
 hers settled forever her supremacy 
 not in their love for her, for there she 
 had always been supreme, but in their 
 pride and delight in her. When Paul 
 came home from the School, and in- 
 stantly and violently fell in love with 
 his former playmate, and she as in- 
 stantly and as violently fell in love with 
 him, the Martens house soon became 
 the scene of much youthful gaiety. 
 Both of the young people had been 
 popular in their classes, and their class- 
 mates made the nucleus of the com- 
 pany which surrounded Frances. The
 
 22O NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 first time she told her father and mother 
 that a number of her friends and Paul's 
 were coming to the house on a certain 
 night, for music and dancing and sup- 
 per, they acquiesced and aided her pre- 
 parations ; but on the evening of the 
 affair Frances suddenly discovered that 
 her parents evidently intended not to 
 be present when her guests came. 
 Then her face flushed and her eyes 
 flashed : " Papa and mamma Martens, 
 what do you mean ?" she exclaimed. 
 
 " Why, dear," stammered her mother, 
 a little frightened at this outburst, 
 "we thought perhaps you'd enjoy it 
 more Then she stopped, for the 
 
 girl burst out : 
 
 " I'm having my friends here so they 
 can see what a lovely mother and 
 father I have. All my friends know 
 how proud I am of you. You were the 
 handsomest couple at the directors'
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 221 
 
 dinner and I want all the world to 
 know it." Then she burst into tears 
 and her father and mother dressed to 
 receive her guests. 
 
 Paul was not ignorant of the loving 
 tyranny his sweetheart exercised over 
 her parents, so he was a confident lover 
 when he went to David Martens and 
 asked his consent to their marriage. 
 David said he had no objections, but 
 that before Paul could marry Frances 
 he must show that he understood one 
 science which had not been taught at 
 the School the science of saving 
 money. Paul was almost as elated as 
 if he had secured an unconditional con- 
 sent. That was six months before the 
 night of his return from Baltimore it 
 was just when he had been put on the 
 full pay-roll of the Works. He saved 
 fifty dollars the first month and then he 
 fell into sudden despair, for although
 
 222 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 he knew his position would soon be bet- 
 tered, he could not hope to save the full 
 thousand dollars within the year, and to 
 wait a year was impossible ! That night 
 his hopes were raised again by his talk 
 with Frances. She told him that her 
 mother was their advocate with her 
 father. This seemed so hopeful to both 
 of them that they agreed it would not be 
 improvident for Paul to expend his sav- 
 ings for a new dress suit to wear at his 
 class dinner over which he was to pre- 
 side. 
 
 David Martens was a proud man 
 when at the lunch hour the day after 
 that class dinner he heard several of 
 the foremen gravely congratulating 
 Paul upon the fine position he had made 
 for himself in the world. The young 
 man was a great favorite with the work- 
 men and foremen, and they predicted a 
 great success for him in the Works ; so
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 223 
 
 they were honestly glad and told him 
 so, that one of their own members, who 
 held himself no better than they, in 
 spite of his education, should be spoken 
 of in the newspapers as presiding at a 
 class dinner in a fashionable hotel. 
 
 But week after week went by, and 
 then month after month and Paul grew 
 desperate as he confronted again and 
 again his penniless condition. Some- 
 times it was a bunch of roses for Fran- 
 ces, or a box of bon-bons, or seats at a 
 theatre where their young companions 
 were going in a party, seldom any in- 
 dulgence for himself alone, yet in the 
 end the same condition resulted an- 
 other month was begun with no savings 
 in hand. Again and again he scolded 
 himself and made stern resolutions. 
 Frances and he talked over their un- 
 happy lot with more than the frankness 
 of lovers, because they had always been
 
 224 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 playfellows, and she schemed to aid 
 him in his savings, and yet she was 
 happy when the spendthrift's flowers 
 would come to tell her that he thought 
 of her in his absence. 
 
 Paul appealed again to David Mar- 
 tens. He was so unhappy he told the 
 old mechanic that he could not do him- 
 self justice at the Works. No matter 
 what his work was, a calculation involv- 
 ing only the tables of figures with which 
 he was most familiar, or a new calcula- 
 tion to which he must apply the most 
 advanced theory he had studied ; a 
 simple measurement, or a demonstra- 
 tion of tensional strength, whatever he 
 was given to do was so involved with 
 the still greater problem of saving one 
 thousand dollars that his training was 
 nought. That problem paralyzed the 
 strength of his mind. Would not Mr. 
 Martens relent ? Could he not see the
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 225 
 
 sense of it the justice of it ? Why 
 plague him with this demand now ? 
 He would rise in the Works, he would 
 soon be in a position where a thousand 
 dollars would not be so great a matter. 
 He loved Frances and Frances loved 
 him ; it was cruel to keep them apart. 
 So the young man urged impetuously. 
 But the old man said " No !" He had 
 not set a hard task for Paul. It was 
 not the young man's actual possession 
 of a thousand dollars in itself, but he 
 did insist upon some evidence that Paul 
 knew what money meant and would 
 understand its value. Frances would 
 inherit what to people in their walk of 
 life was a large fortune, yet vastly 
 larger fortunes had been dissipated in 
 a few years by men whose only faults 
 were by some considered commendable 
 virtues. He would not risk his daugh- 
 ter's future happiness. He insisted
 
 226 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 upon his terms. In this David Martens 
 was resolute. His wife, his daughter, 
 had no more success in their endeavors 
 to alter his mind than had Paul. 
 
 The work in Baltimore had kept Paul 
 there for a week, and when it was fin- 
 ished and well done, and he had been 
 congratulated upon it, he hurried to the 
 station and waited eagerly for the train 
 that would carry him to New York, to 
 Frances! The train he entered was 
 nearly filled, for it was a through one 
 from the South, and Paul passed by 
 several seats which contained one pas- 
 senger only, but was otherwise filled 
 with the passenger's hand-luggage, be- 
 fore he came to one where sat a young 
 man who held his traveling-bag on his 
 knees, and Paul seated himself by his 
 side, laying his own hand-bag on the 
 floor at his feet. They had not traveled 
 far before Paul became conscious that
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 227 
 
 his neighbor was laboring under great 
 excitement. He started whenever the 
 conductor passed through the car, and 
 at the few stations where they stopped 
 he watched the doors of the car appre- 
 hensively. Paul might have given this 
 more thought had he not been en- 
 grossed otherwise and more pleasantly 
 in re-reading the letters he had received 
 from Frances during his absence, and 
 therefore only occasionally regarded 
 his companion when the latter made 
 an unusual start of apprehension or 
 nervousness. 
 
 But suddenly, without an instant's 
 warning, thoughts of his neighbor, of 
 his letters, of all things were driven out 
 of Paul's head by an awful crash. 
 Whether it was one or five minutes 
 later Paul never knew. He regained con- 
 sciousness, and found himself lying on 
 the side of the overturned car in a
 
 228 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 tangle and confusion of men and bag- 
 gage. There were shouts of fright, 
 shrieks of pain, prayers, curses, and 
 moans of the dying. His experiences 
 as a football player helped Paul at that 
 moment, and indeed, through his still 
 half-dazed mind, and before he had 
 realized what the accident was, a whim- 
 sical recollection of a certain hard scrim- 
 mage on a football field came to him 
 vividly. Then, before he made any 
 bodily effort to extricate himself, he 
 proceeded with some calmness to satisfy 
 himself that his injuries had not de- 
 prived him of all his physical powers. 
 Then he cautiously extricated himself 
 and without much trouble, and con- 
 cluded, as he was doing so, that he had 
 been knocked senseless by being struck 
 in the head by a piece of flying bag- 
 gage. At this thought he instinctively 
 looked about for his own hand-bag, for
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 229 
 
 it contained some valuable mechanical 
 plans. He found it near at hand, 
 grasped it and then discovered that a 
 window on the side of the car above him 
 had been broken clear of its glass and 
 rescuers were already there and shout- 
 ing to him to climb nearer so that they 
 could pull him out. In another minute 
 he had been dragged out of the car and 
 lowered down to the ground. There 
 his eye took in the extent and the 
 cause of the accident. A cross-line 
 train had smashed into the one car be- 
 hind that in which he rode, and seem- 
 ingly had utterly demolished it. His 
 car had been overturned but not greatly 
 damaged, but he had escaped from a 
 horrible danger which he now saw 
 threatened those who were still in the 
 overturned coach. The engine which 
 had cut through the rear car had set it 
 on fire, and the flames were rapidly
 
 230 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 approaching the coach from which he 
 had just escaped. He had complete 
 possession of his faculties now, and 
 tossing his hand-bag by the side of a 
 pile of ties stacked like cord wood near 
 by, he rushed to the assistance of those 
 who were endeavoring to save his fel- 
 low passengers. Paul was powerful 
 and agile, and in a few minutes was 
 directing and leading the work of res- 
 cue. He was down again in the ruins 
 of the car and had passed out several 
 unconscious forms when he was warned 
 to make his own escape good, as the 
 fire had caught the end of the coach he 
 was working in. 
 
 " There is one man wedged in there 
 I want to try to get out !" he answered 
 back, and returned to the spot where 
 he had noticed the man whose seat he 
 had shared. The man was unconscious, 
 probably already dead, but Paul strug-
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 23! 
 
 gled with all his magnificent strength 
 to release the form which was impris- 
 oned beneath broken seats and torn 
 and twisted flooring, and only ceased 
 when he was driven back by the flame 
 and smoke. 
 
 The people cheered the young ath- 
 lete as he emerged from the car, black- 
 ened, cut and bruised as he was, and a 
 doctor took him by the arm and said, 
 " You've done good work, young man, 
 but you need a little of my attention 
 yourself. Come !" 
 
 He led Paul back to the pile of ties, 
 and there bathed and roughly dressed 
 his wounds, the worst of which, on his 
 temple, was not serious, and was caused 
 probably by the blow which had first 
 knocked him senseless. When this was 
 finished the people were driven back 
 from the car by the heat of the flames, 
 and Paul, picking up his satchel, went
 
 232 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 with the other passengers to one of the 
 forward cars which had not been injured 
 nor even derailed. There the conduc- 
 tor came to him, thanked him for what 
 he had done and took his name and 
 address. 
 
 When he reached New York he has- 
 tened to his room, where he changed 
 his torn clothing, and removed as much 
 as possible the evidences of disaster 
 and then went to David Marten's 
 home. 
 
 The next morning David Martens 
 called at Paul's room, shrewdly antici- 
 pating what he found to be the case, 
 the young man was not able to leave 
 his bed. He himself declared he was 
 fit and wanted to go to the Works with 
 David, but the railroad company's doc- 
 tor, already there, ordered that Paul 
 should remain in bed ; there was dan- 
 ger of fever he said, and the patient
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 233 
 
 must rest quietly for a day or two. 
 His medical treatment would be free 
 and the railroad company would gladly 
 make up his loss of wages. 
 
 So Paul submitted and David Mar- 
 tens went on alone to the Works, buy- 
 ing a bundle of morning papers in which 
 he read with much pride the account 
 of Paul's gallant work of rescue, where 
 Paul was described as a young mechan- 
 ical engineer of great promise in his 
 profession. 
 
 " I wish," sighed David, " that Paul 
 had saved that thousand dollars." 
 
 Perhaps Mrs. Martens had divined 
 that David would have some such 
 thought as this, that her husband's heart 
 would be softened toward Paul by the 
 danger he had gone through, the injur- 
 ies he had received and the conspicuous 
 display he had made of his bravery and 
 his strength, but the Superintendent
 
 234 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 was obdurate. He remained obdurate 
 the next day under a stronger pressure 
 than he had yet been subjected to in 
 this trial of his affections. Mrs. Mar- 
 tens and Frances had been to see Paul 
 and the doctor was there. He was a 
 wise physician and a sympathetic man, 
 and he realized the value, in making a 
 diagnosis, of learning as much as pos- 
 sible of a patient's mental as well as 
 physical condition, and something of 
 the former had puzzled him in Paul's 
 case. He was sympathetic, I have said, 
 and it was by the exercise of this valu- 
 able quality that he was enabled to 
 learn, while not the exact fact, pretty 
 nearly the truth regarding the relation 
 between Paul and Frances, and he 
 hinted to Mrs. Martens that he would 
 have his patient as fit as could be wished 
 for, if he could relieve him from the 
 cause of his mental worry. That eve-
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 235 
 
 ning David Martens had this phase of 
 the case presented to him by his wife 
 and daughter in a manner which moved 
 the old mechanic deeply, but it did not 
 move him enough to make him come to 
 their way of thinking. 
 
 Paul, alone in his room, amused him- 
 self with reading the almost endless 
 columns of description the papers 
 printed about the disaster, and that 
 evening he was keenly interested in a 
 story developed by the latest editions. 
 It was told that the messenger of a 
 Washington bank had been identified 
 as one of the victims whose body had 
 been nearly consumed by the burning 
 of the overturned car. The messenger, 
 on the day of the accident, in pursuance 
 of a duty he had performed daily for a 
 number of years, had taken from the 
 bank a satchel, containing forty thou- 
 sand dollars in greenbacks, which he
 
 236 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 was expected to deliver at the office of 
 an express company in Washington, for 
 forwarding to a New York bank. In- 
 stead of doing so the messenger had 
 boarded the doomed train, as subse- 
 quent developments proved, and had 
 been killed in the accident. The iden- 
 tification of his body had been absolute, 
 and the money, consumed by the flames, 
 a total loss to the bank, as nothing re- 
 mained of the satchel and its contents, 
 except the steel frame of a handbag 
 found near the remnants of the body. 
 
 Paul felt certain from the minute 
 description given of the unfortunate 
 messenger, that he was the young man 
 with whom he had shared a seat in the 
 day coach, and whose body the 
 approaching flames had forced him to 
 abandon. 
 
 This story impressed upon Paul for 
 the first time the dreadfulness of the
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 237 
 
 accident he had been through. Until 
 then it had seemed to him by some 
 trick of his mind something with 
 which he had not been personally 
 associated, but now the delayed realiza- 
 tion coming to him as he was, depressed 
 by fever and loneliness, and more than 
 all heart-sore and despondent because 
 of what seemed to him the cruelty of 
 David Martens' unrelinquished posi- 
 tion about his engagement to Frances, 
 oppressed him until it seemed to him 
 that life was wholly without hope. 
 Happily it is the dower of youth to 
 fight successfully against even the 
 uttermost depression, and Paul began 
 this fight now, first by laughing at him- 
 self, rather dolorously to be sure. He 
 told himself he was a fool to abide by the 
 doctor's advice, he needed change and 
 companionship, he said, and he would 
 dress and go and see Frances. He did
 
 238 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULT. 
 
 dress and was about to leave his room 
 when he discovered that apparently his 
 total financial resources consisted of 
 the one five-cent piece he found in his 
 pocket. His expenses to Baltimore 
 would be coming to him from the 
 Works, but that did not solve the 
 immediate problem of how he was 
 going to get to David Martens' house 
 and back. It was too far for him to 
 walk in his weakened condition. 
 " True," he said, laughing bitterly, 
 " I have car fare one way and I might 
 borrow the other necessary nickel 
 from the man who wants me to show 
 a thousand dollars in savings for a very 
 particular reason." 
 
 He was lashing himself with re- 
 proaches when it suddenly occurred to 
 him that he had put a few dollars in 
 bills in his satchel with his plans and 
 other papers, and he drew the leather
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 239 
 
 bag out of the wardrobe into which he 
 had thrown it the night he returned. 
 Its regular key would not unlock it 
 and he tried several before he suc- 
 ceeded. He ceased wondering over 
 this, and ceased with a shock when, 
 upon opening the bag, he saw that it 
 contained only a neatly contrived pack- 
 age, sealed with red wax, and addressed 
 to the New York bank for which the 
 missing package of money from Wash- 
 ington was destined. The simple 
 explanation flashed upon him at once. 
 In the crash of the accident which had 
 sent men and baggage flying, the mes- 
 senger's satchel, a duplicate of his, had 
 landed near him, indeed had probably 
 been the missile which had reminded 
 him of the time he was kicked in the 
 head in a football scrimmage. Then 
 Paul sat for a long time in a half 
 daze. First came a terrible tumult of
 
 240 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 thoughts out of which he could not 
 force his mind to relate anything 
 plainly, and then at last unbidden, 
 fiercely contended against, came the 
 thought : " This money and the man 
 who stole it are supposed to have been 
 destroyed. It is a loss which amounts 
 to but little beyond a record in book- 
 keeping, the writing off of this amount 
 to profit and loss on the books of one 
 the' richest banks in the world." He 
 recalled that not long before the papers 
 had been filled with accounts of a great 
 financial transaction of national import, 
 by which that bank had profited more 
 than a hundred times the amount 
 which lay snugly wrapped up in the 
 brown paper package. It would be 
 lost to be sure indeed was it not 
 already lost ? by men who, though 
 they had lost it, would never miss it. 
 But what would its possession mean to
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 241 
 
 another : to a man in love who could 
 not marry for the want of one-fortieth 
 part of what lay there snugly in its 
 brown paper package ? 
 
 He started to lift the package from 
 the bag but as his finger-tips touched 
 it he recoiled with a cry. He was still 
 sitting there gazing at the package 
 when the daylight came in through the 
 window. He waited until he supposed 
 the bank would be open, and then, tak- 
 ing the satchel, he rode down town, 
 reached the bank and asked to see the 
 president. " What is your business 
 with the president ?" asked the man he 
 had inquired of. 
 
 " I wish to see him in relation to the 
 forty thousand dollars which was sup- 
 posed to have been lost the other day," 
 answered Paul faintly. 
 
 In a minute the astonished clerk led 
 Paul into the president's office. That
 
 242 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 official regarded Paul's haggard face 
 with some suspicion, and then was evi- 
 dently frightened when he saw the 
 satchel in his hand. 
 
 " What do you want ?" he asked 
 sharply. 
 
 " I want you to examine the con- 
 tents of the package in this satchel, to 
 count the money it contains, and give 
 me a receipt for it." 
 
 There was no doubt now in the presi- 
 dent's mind that he was dealing with 
 an insane person, but he gave a quick 
 order to some clerks to open the pack- 
 age, and in a few minutes the money 
 had been opened, sorted and counted. 
 The package itself had been recognized 
 as the missing one, and when this had 
 been called to the president's attention, 
 he turned to Paul and said harshly: 
 
 " Now, sir, explain your possession of 
 this money."
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 243 
 
 " I was about to do so," Paul said, 
 " I was on the wrecked train. I 
 believe I sat by the side of the mes- 
 senger. I had a satchel with me like 
 this, and in my escape took this, sup- 
 posing it to be mine. I did not dis- 
 cover the mistake until last night." 
 
 " Who are you ?" the president asked, 
 eyeing Paul curiously now, but it was 
 evident from his tone that he was con- 
 vinced of the truth of the story. 
 
 " My name is Paul Josselyn." 
 
 "Oh yes, we read about your heroic 
 deeds at the wreck." 
 
 Paul did not reply to this. He was 
 leaning rather heavily upon the desk 
 before which he stood. 
 
 " Now this is most extraordinary," 
 continued the official. " We never 
 should have searched for this package. 
 We were convinced that it was burned. 
 We had already charged up the loss,
 
 244 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 for, you understand, the Washington 
 bank is merely our agent, and the loss 
 fell on us." 
 
 Paul seemed not to be paying much 
 attention. " If you will give me a 
 receipt showing I have delivered the 
 package to you I believe I will go," he 
 said. 
 
 " But not without a reward," the 
 bank president said, heartily now, and, 
 after a glance at Paul, he motioned to 
 a clerk to push a chair for him. 
 
 " I do not wish any reward," Paul 
 said leaning on the chair as he started 
 towards the door. 
 
 " Nonsense !" exclaimed the presi- 
 dent. " We never expected to see a 
 dollar of this. It is as if we had 
 picked the money up in the street. 
 Now a " here the president hesitated 
 a moment and then added, " I believe 
 I am at liberty to say that the direc-
 
 WHEN A MAN JUDGES. 245 
 
 tors will warrant me in giving you five 
 thousand dollars of this." 
 
 " No," said Paul, again starting to- 
 ward the door, " I will accept no re- 
 ward." And then he added with a 
 little laugh, " But if you had said one 
 thousand dollars it might have inter- 
 ested me." 
 
 The president began an expostula- 
 tion, but stopped suddenly, for Paul 
 dropped to the floor in a faint. 
 
 The president of the works was a 
 director in that bank, and that after- 
 noon he told David Martens how Paul 
 returned the money, as the story was 
 told him by the bank president. 
 
 In the evening David went to Paul's 
 room and he found the doctor there, 
 troubled. Paul was sleeping restlessly, 
 and the doctor said to Mr. Martens : 
 
 " I should not like to have you 
 waken my patient unless " and he
 
 246 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 looked straight and significantly into 
 into the superintendent's eyes, " unless 
 you have something cheerful, agreeable 
 you understand, for him to hear." 
 David Martens regarded the doctor 
 thoughtfully and then said : 
 
 " I think, sir, I'll chance waking him." 
 
 What he said to the invalid was this : 
 
 " Paul, you must be getting well soon 
 
 and come up to the house to fix the 
 
 wedding-day with Frances."
 
 POLLY SLANGUER'S TROUSSEAU.
 
 THE Major was late for afternoon tea 
 with Mrs. Max. 
 
 Possibly an explanation is required 
 not why he was late, for the reason of 
 that tells this story but why he takes 
 tea, and with Mrs. Max. 
 
 " I will argue with no man," said the 
 Major, to Mrs. Jack Daring, who was 
 present that afternoon, and who, hap- 
 pily for the reader, had asked these 
 very explanations, for I find two are 
 required, " I will argue with no man or 
 woman on my dictum that whiskey 
 should never be partaken of until after 
 dinner. The American male human 
 is addicted to the cocktail habit be- 
 
 [249]
 
 250 
 
 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 fore dinner. Tea, my dear Mrs. Max, 
 is not only an admirable substitute, but 
 its consumption before dinner leaves 
 unrequisitioned our total capacity for 
 whiskey and water until its proper time 
 for exercise after dinner." 
 
 " When he talks like that," said Mrs. 
 Max, " I know he has something on 
 his mind. But what in ever Polly 
 Slanguer ordered her trousseau by cable 
 for, I'm sure !" 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Max," said Mrs. Jack 
 plaintively, "if the Major has anything 
 on his mind don't suggest it to him. I 
 love him most when 
 he talks about 
 nothing." 
 
 Mrs. Max smiled 
 contentedly, poured 
 two spoonsful of 
 tea over three large 
 lumps of sugar and
 
 POLLY SLANGUER S TROUSSEAU. 25 I 
 
 devoted herself to sipping the result- 
 ant strop de th^ as the Major con- 
 tinued : 
 
 " Besides the physical, I may say the 
 physiological, aspect of this case, there 
 is another which suggests itself to my 
 mind ; it pertains to social ethics. The 
 American husband and wife directly 
 they are one begin to become two. In 
 married life they see each other at 
 breakfast, when the husband devotes 
 himself to his newspaper and the wife 
 to the concoction of coffee. They see 
 each other at dinner when they are en- 
 tertaining guests or are being enter- 
 tained as guests, and consequently 
 seated as far apart as possible. Unless 
 the American husband adopts, as I have 
 done, the English custom of afternoon 
 tea, he soon accomplishes what my 
 friend Ambrose Bierce has called a 
 'disintroduction ' to his wife. There.
 
 252 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 fore, my dear Mrs. Max kindly add a 
 drop of rum to my tea, it is over redo- 
 lent of lemon therefore, the husband 
 should daily take tea with his wife, thus 
 to renew and continue the romance of 
 their days of courtship." 
 
 Mrs. Max dipped from the bottom of 
 her tea cup a portion of moistened 
 sugar and administered it to the setter 
 dog, who received this daily tribute to 
 his manifold excellences with a becom- 
 ing display of chivalrous gratitude. 
 Then Mrs. Max remarked : 
 
 "I'll tell you, Mrs. Jack, why the 
 Major always comes home to tea. He 
 can't wait any longer than that to learn 
 the latest scandals I have heard from 
 you." 
 
 " The latest scandals about me, you 
 mean, my dear." 
 
 " No," the Major remarked judicial- 
 ly, " I hear those from Jack."
 
 POLLY SLANGUER'S TROUSSEAU. 253 
 
 " He only pretends to know," Mrs. 
 Jack said confidentially. " I try to tell 
 Jack the scandals about me but he won't 
 listen. He says they bore him, though 
 I try my best to provide a quality that 
 ought to interest him. I really should 
 have married you, Major." 
 
 " Why ?" asked Mrs. Max, assisting 
 the setter in a dignified effort to balance 
 the teaspoon on his nose. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," pouted Mrs. 
 Jack, " perhaps because I think I could 
 have shocked the Major. Have you 
 told him that Polly Slanguer ordered 
 her trousseau by cable ?" 
 
 " Some one spoke of it," the Major 
 said, " and somehow that reminds me 
 I suppose because it is so unlike of 
 the reason I am late for tea to-day. I 
 have been slumming." 
 
 " Slumming ?" exclaimed Mrs. Max, 
 looking up with surprise.
 
 254 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 " Yes, going about among the poorest 
 tenements," the Major explained. 
 
 " Oh, that's Fanny Van Cortlandt's 
 game," Mrs. Jack remarked knowingly. 
 " She works it very cleverly, too. She 
 gives people gruel I think it's gruel, 
 but it may be guava jelly. It makes 
 her interesting to a lot of men. It's 
 rather clever for a girl as good looking 
 as Fannie is." 
 
 The Major winked largely at the set- 
 ter dog, who came over and put his big 
 paws on the Major's knees. 
 
 " The slums ?" mused Mrs. Max, " I 
 remember them now. They write plays 
 about them, or do they sing in the 
 streets in the slums? It's something 
 like that I know." 
 
 " They may sing in the slums," said 
 the Major thoughtfully, " I daresay 
 theydo, but I happened not to encounter 
 the singing kind to-day."
 
 POLLY SLANGUER'S TROUSSEAU. 255 
 
 Mrs. Max looked up quickly. She 
 knows the Major's moods by his voice, 
 though she does not always acknowl- 
 edge them. 
 
 " Why were you in the slums to-day, 
 dear ?" she asked simply. 
 
 " I went," replied the Major after a 
 pause, " because I wished to acquaint 
 myself with facts which should guide 
 us in giving wisely what we give in 
 charity. Some people have established 
 in the slums a station for the distribu- 
 tion of free food. I have heard the 
 wisdom of such charity disputed so I 
 went to investigate for myself. It is 
 not a pleasant sight, mesdames, to see 
 men and women and children actually 
 suffering for the want of any kind of 
 food, even when one does not know 
 any of the sufferers, personally." 
 
 "And of course one never does," re- 
 marked Mrs, Max comfortably.
 
 256 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 " That is the droll part of my experi- 
 ence," the Major continued, " which I 
 was about to relate. By the way, did 
 the vintage champagne come to-day ?" 
 
 " Yes, and I have ordered some of it 
 cooled," Mrs. Max said almost with 
 haste, perhaps relieved at the more 
 agreeable trend of the Major's conver- 
 sation. " Polly Slanguer is so eccen- 
 tric !" 
 
 " To be sure. Tell us about Polly 
 and her cabled trousseau," the Major 
 said, patting the setter's head. 
 
 " Oh hang Polly Slanguer and her 
 trousseau !" interrupted Mrs. Jack Dar- 
 ing in a manner which made Mrs. Max 
 looked up at her with arched eyebrows 
 of surprise ; then she said : 
 
 " Pardon me, Major. I did not 
 mean to interrupt you. I can see you 
 were really interested in the what was 
 it ? oh, the slums."
 
 POLLY SLANGUER'S TROUSSEAU. 257 
 
 " It is scarcely worth speaking about, 
 and I should not trouble you, except 
 that I need your help advice about 
 a friend I met there to-day." 
 
 " Major ! A friend in the the 
 slums ?" exclaimed Mrs. Max aghast. 
 
 " I think I am justified in saying that 
 he is one of my best friends, as he saved 
 my life at the risk of his own more than 
 once." 
 
 All thoughts of Polly and her trous- 
 
 *".- '*--"- - *' 
 
 seau by cable were now banished from 
 Mrs. Max's mind. She went over to
 
 258 NEAR A WHOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 the Major and sat on the arm of his 
 chair. " Tell me," she said. 
 
 " You have heard me speak many 
 times of a Sergeant who was with me in 
 my company, when we were fighting 
 Indians ? The soldiers called him 
 ' Parson.' " 
 
 ' The man who rode forty miles to 
 get the material for a Christmas punch 
 for you and Bob Billings?" 
 
 " That is the man. Well, to-day I 
 visited that ' relief station,' as it is 
 called, and saw at a glance that most of 
 those receiving food were not only cold, 
 ill-clad and poor, but went there actu- 
 ally hungry. It was a sight not calcu- 
 lated to make one wholly content, and 
 by the way, that vintage champagne 
 arrived to-day? Good, we'll have it 
 served at dinner. What was I saying ? 
 I was about to leave the place when a 
 man who was devouring a plate of food
 
 POLLY SLANGUER'S TROUSSEAU. 259 
 
 with the eagerness it is not nice to see, 
 as I was, saying, in a fellow human 
 being, suddenly straightened to ' atten- 
 tion ' and gave me a salute the army 
 salute. It was a minute before I recog- 
 nized the Parson." 
 
 " Major, the man who saved your life, 
 poor, hungry !" 
 
 " I took him away with me, and when 
 I asked him for his story the big fellow 
 cried. Yet it is such a simple story ! 
 He had been refused re-enlistment, as 
 he was physically unfit. Not from 
 wounds, but from the effect of exposure 
 in that Indian campaign. He is a car- 
 penter by trade, a native American, a 
 God fearing man you said some of the 
 new wine had been put on ice ? Ah ! 
 It is so very simple it is scarcely worth 
 telling. He could not find work ; he 
 did not know how to beg ; he was nearly 
 starved ; his pride kept him from ap-
 
 260 NEAR A \\HOLE CITY FULL. 
 
 plying to me, and I found him by 
 chance at the place where he was eating 
 the first meal he had had in days." 
 
 "The poor, dear man ! Where is he 
 now?" 
 
 " I was about to tell you. He is in 
 the kitchen telling the cook campaign 
 stories about me, and eating a square 
 meal after each story. Can we not em- 
 ploy him about the place ?" 
 
 " Yes, dear, for the rest of his life ; 
 but not until he has told campaign 
 stories and eaten square meals for a 
 month." 
 
 "You were saying that the wine 
 
 " Let's send a bottle of it out to the 
 dear old Parson," Mrs. Jack suggested. 
 
 THE END.
 
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