I UN: 
 
 DOG 
 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
BOOKS BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH 
 PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 PETER. Illustrated $1.50 
 
 THE TIDES OF BARNEGAT. Illustrated . . . 1.50 
 
 THE FORTUNES OF OLIVER HORN. Illustrated 1.50 
 THE ROMANCE OF AN OLD-FASHIONED 
 
 GENTLEMAN. Illustrated 1.50 
 
 COLONEL CARTER S CHRISTMAS. Illustrated . 1.50 
 
 FORTY MINUTES LATE. Illustrated 1.50 
 
 THE WOOD FIRE IN No. 3. Illustrated . . . 1.50 
 
 THE VEILED LADY. Illustrated 1.50 
 
 AT CLOSE RANGE. Illustrated 1.50 
 
 THE UNDER DOG. Illustrated 1.50 
 
I threw him in the bushes and got the letter." 
 
THE 
 UNDER DOG 
 
 BY 
 
 R HOPKINSON SMITH 
 
 ILLUSTRATED , 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 NEW YORK:::::::::::::::::: 1910 
 
.". " : !/". C<5YA|HT, 1903, stf *. 
 RKfiS SOEaB NE fr^ -SO 
 
 Published, May, 1908 
 
To my Readers: 
 
 In the strife of life some men lose place through 
 physical weakness or lost opportunities or impaired 
 abilities ; struggle on as they may, they must al 
 ways be the Under Dog in the fight. 
 
 Others are misjudged often by their fellows ; 
 sometimes by the law. If you are one of the 
 fellows, you pass the man with a nod. If you are 
 the law, you crusk out his life with a sentence. 
 
 Still others lose place from being misunder 
 stood; from being out of touch with their sur 
 roundings; out of reach of those who, if they 
 knew, would help; men with hearts chilled by 
 neglect, whose smouldering coals coals deep hid 
 den in their nature need only the warm breath of 
 some other man s sympathy to be fanned back 
 into life. 
 
 Once in a while there can be met another kind, 
 one whose poverty or uncouthness makes us shun 
 him at sight ; and yet one, if we did but know it, 
 with a joyous melody in his heart, ofttimes in tune 
 
 v 
 
 249005 
 
TO MY READEES 
 
 with our own harmonies. This kind is rare, and 
 when found adds another ripple to our scanty 
 stock of laughter. 
 
 These Under Dogs grave and gay have al 
 ways appealed to me. Their stories are printed 
 here in the hope that they may also appeal to you, 
 
 F. H. S. 
 
 New York. 
 
 Tl 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAQK 
 
 No Respecter of Persons 1 
 
 /. The Crime of Samanthy North . . 3 
 
 II. Bud TUden, Mail-Thief . .... 29 
 
 ///. "Eleven Months and Ten Days " . . 57 
 
 Capn Bob of the Screamer 77 
 
 A Procession of Umbrellas 99 
 
 "Z)oc" Shipmarts Fee 129 
 
 Plain Fin Paper- Hanger 151 
 
 Long Jim 179 
 
 Compartment Number Four Cologne 
 to Paris 215 
 
 Sammy 239 
 
 Marnys Shadow 265 
 
 Muffles The Bar- Keep 293 
 
 His Last Cent . 
 
NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS 
 
THE CRIME OF 
 SAMANTHY NORTH 
 
 I have been requested to tell this story, and ex 
 actly as it happened. The moral any man may 
 draw for himself. I only want to ask my readers 
 the question I have been asking myself ever since 
 I saw the girl : Why should such things be among 
 us? 
 
 Marny s studio is over the Art Club. 
 
 He was at work on a picture of a canon with 
 some Sioux Indians in the foreground, while I 
 sat beside him, watching the play of his masterly 
 brush. 
 
 Dear old Aunt Chloe, in white apron and red 
 bandanna, her round black face dimpled with 
 smiles, was busying herself about the room, 
 straightening the rugs, puffing up the cushions 
 of the divan, pushing back the easels to get at 
 the burnt ends of abandoned cigarettes, doing her 
 best, indeed, to bring some kind of domestic order 
 out of Marny s Bohemian chaos. 
 
 ]STow and then she interpolated her efforts with 
 such remarks as: 
 
DOG 
 
 "No, doan move. De Colonel" her sobriquet 
 for Marny "doan keer whar he drap his see- 
 gars. But doan you move, honey" sobriquet 
 for me. "I kin git em." Or "Clar to goodness, 
 you pillows look like a passel o hogs done tromple 
 ye, yo re dat mussed." Critical remarks like 
 these last were given in a low tone, and, although 
 addressed to the offending articles themselves, 
 accompanied by sundry cuffs of her big hand, 
 were really intended to convey Aunt Chloe s pri 
 vate opinion of the habits of her master and his 
 friends. 
 
 The talk had drifted from men of the old 
 frontier to border scouts, and then to the Ken 
 tucky mountaineers, whom Marny knows as thor 
 oughly as he does the red men. 
 
 "They are a great race, these mountaineers," 
 he said to me, as he tossed the end of another 
 cigarette on Aunt Chloe s now clean-swept floor. 
 Marny spoke in crisp, detached sentences between 
 the pats of his brush. "Big, strong, whalebone- 
 and-steel kind of fellows; rather fight than eat. 
 Quick as lightning with a gun ; dead shots. Built 
 just like our border men. See that scout astride 
 of his horse ?" and he pointed with his mahl- 
 stick to a sketch on the wall behind him "looks 
 like the real thing, don t he ? Well, I painted him 
 from an up-country moonshiner. Found him one 
 morning across the river, leaning up against a 
 telegraph pole, dead broke. Been arrested on a 
 
 4 
 
THE CKIME OF SAMANTHY NORTH 
 
 false charge of making whiskey without a license, 
 and had just been discharged from the jail. 
 Hadn t money enough to cross the bridge, and 
 was half-starved. So I braced him up a little, 
 and brought him here and painted him." 
 
 We all know with what heartiness Marny can 
 "brace." It doubtless took three cups of coffee, 
 half a ham, and a loaf of bread to get him on his 
 feet, Marny watching him with the utmost sat 
 isfaction until the process was complete. 
 
 "You ought to look these fellows over; they re 
 worth it. Savage lot, some of em. Remind me 
 of the people who live about the foothills of the 
 Balkans. Mountaineers are the same the world 
 over, anyway. But you don t want to hunt for 
 these Kentuckians in their own homes unless you 
 send word you are coming, or you may run up 
 against the end of a rifle before you know it. I 
 don t blame them." Marny leaned back in his 
 chair and turned toward me. "The Government 
 is always hunting them as if they were wild beasts, 
 instead of treating them as human beings. They 
 can t understand why they shouldn t get the best 
 prices they can for their corn. They work hard 
 enough to get it to grow. Their theory is that 
 the Illinois farmer feeds the corn to his hogs 
 and sells the product as pork, while the moun 
 taineer feeds it to his still and sells the product 
 to his neighbors as whiskey. That a lot of Con 
 gressmen who never hoed a row of corn in their 
 
 5 
 
THE UXDEK DOG 
 
 lives, nor ran a furrow, or knew what it was to 
 starve on the proceeds, should make laws send 
 ing a man to jail because he wants to supply his 
 friends with liquor, is what riles them, and I don t 
 blame them for that, either." 
 
 I arose from my chair and examined the sketch 
 of the starving mountaineer. It was a careful 
 study of a man with clear-cut features, slim and 
 of wiry build, and was painted with that mastery 
 of detail which distinguishes Marny s work over 
 that of every other figure-painter of his time. 
 
 The painter squeezed a tube of white on his 
 palette, relit his cigarette, fumbled over his sheaf 
 of brushes and continued: 
 
 "The first of every month just about now, by 
 the way they bring twenty or thirty of these 
 poor devils down from the mountains and lock 
 them up in Covington jail. They pass Aunt 
 Chloe s house. Oh, Aunt Chloe !" and he turned 
 to the old woman "did you see any of those 
 wild people the last two or three days? that s 
 what she calls em," and he laughed. 
 
 "Dat I did, Colonel hull drove on em. 
 Nough to make a body sick to see em. Two on 
 em was chained together. Dat ain t no way to 
 treat people, if dey is ornery. I wouldn t treat 
 a dog dat way." 
 
 Aunt Chloe, sole dependence of the Art Club 
 below-stairs : day or night nurse every student 
 in the place knows the touch of her hand when 
 
 6 
 
THE CEIME OF SAMANTHY NOETH 
 
 his head splits with fever or his hones ache with 
 cold; provider of buttons, suspender loops and 
 buckles; go-between in most secret and confi 
 dential affairs; mail-carrier the dainty note 
 wrapped up in her handkerchief so as not to 
 "spile it!" no, she wouldn t treat a dog that 
 way, nor anything else that lives and breathes or 
 has feeling, human or brute. 
 
 "If there s a new drove of them, as Aunt 
 Chloe says," remarked Marny, tossing aside his 
 brushes, "let s take a look at them. They are 
 worth your study. You may never have another 
 chance." 
 
 This was why it happened that within the hour 
 Marny and I crossed the bridge and left his 
 studio and the city behind us. 
 
 The river below was alive with boats, the clouds 
 of steam from their funnels wreathed about the 
 spans. Street-cars blocked the roadway; tugging 
 horses, sweating under the lash of their drivers 
 whips, strained under heavy loads. The air was 
 heavy with coal-smoke. Through the gloom of 
 the haze, close to the opposite bank, rose a grim, 
 square building of granite and brick, its grimy 
 windows blinking through iron bars. Behind 
 these, shut out from summer clouds and winter 
 snows, bereft of air and sunshine, deaf to the 
 song of happy birds and the low hum of wander 
 ing bees, languished the outcast and the innocent, 
 the vicious and the cruel. Hells like these are 
 
 f 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 the infernos civilization builds in which to hide 
 its mistakes. 
 
 Marny turned toward me as we reached the 
 prison. "Keep close/ 7 he whispered. "I know 
 the Warden and can get in without a permit," 
 and he mounted the steps and entered a big door 
 opening into a cold, bare hall with a sanded floor. 
 To the right of the hall swung another door la 
 belled "Chief of Police." Behind this door was 
 a high railing closed with a wooden gate. Over 
 this scowled an officer in uniform. 
 
 "My friend Sergeant Cram/ 7 said Marny, as 
 he introduced us. The officer and I shook hands. 
 The hand was thick and hard, the knotted knuckles 
 leaving an unpleasant impression behind them as 
 they fell from my fingers. 
 
 A second door immediately behind this one was 
 now reached, the Sergeant acting as guide. This 
 door was of solid wood, with a square panel cut 
 from its centre, the opening barred like a bird 
 cage. Peering through these bars was the face 
 of another attendant. This third door, at a mum 
 bled word from the Sergeant, was opened wide 
 enough to admit us into a room in which half a 
 dozen deputies were seated at cards. In the op 
 posite wall hung a fourth door, of steel and heavily 
 barred, through which, level with the eyes, was 
 cut a peep-hole concealed by a swinging steel 
 disk. 
 
 The Sergeant moved rapidly across the room, 
 8 
 
THE CEIME OF SAMANTHY NORTH 
 
 pushed aside the disk and brought to view the 
 nose and eyes of a prison guard. 
 
 As our guide shot back a bolt, a click like the 
 cocking of a. gun sounded through the room, fol 
 lowed by the jangle of a huge iron ring strung 
 with keys. Selecting one from the number, he 
 pushed it into the key-hole and threw his weight 
 against the door. At its touch the mass of steel 
 swung inward noiselessly as the door of a bank- 
 vault. With the swinging of the door there 
 reached us the hot, stuffy smell of unwashed 
 bodies under steam-heat the unmistakable odor 
 that one sometimes meets in a court-room. 
 
 Marny and I stepped inside. The Sergeant 
 closed the slab of steel, locking us inside, and then, 
 nodding to us through the peep-hole, returned to 
 his post in the office. 
 
 We stood now on the rim of the crater, looking 
 straight into the inferno. By means of the dull 
 light that struggled through the grimy, grated 
 windows, I discovered that we were in a corridor 
 having an iron floor that sprang up and down 
 under our feet. This was flanked by a line of 
 steel cages huge beast-dens really reaching to 
 the ceiling. In each of these cages was a small, 
 double-barred gate. 
 
 These dens were filled with men and boys; 
 some with faces thrust through the bars, some with 
 hands and arms stretched out as if for air; one 
 hung half-way up the bars, clinging with hands 
 
 9 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 and feet apart, as if to get a better hold and better 
 view. I had seen dens like these before : the man- 
 eating Bengal tiger at the London Zoo lives in 
 one of them. 
 
 The Warden, who was standing immediately 
 behind the attendant, stepped forward and shook 
 Marny s hand. I discharged my obligations with 
 a nod. I had never been in a place like this 
 before, and the horror of its surroundings over 
 came me. I misjudged the Warden, no doubt. 
 That this man might have a wife who loved him 
 and little children who clung to his neck, and 
 that underneath his hard, forbidding exterior a 
 heart could beat with any tenderness, never oc 
 curred to me. As I looked him over with a half- 
 shrinking glance, I became aware of a slash in 
 denting his pock-marked cheek that might have 
 been made by a sabre cut was, probably, for it 
 takes a brave man to be a warden ; a massive head 
 set on big shoulders ; a square chin, the jaw hinged 
 like a burglar s jimmy; and two keen, restless, 
 elephant eyes. 
 
 But it was his right ear that absorbed my at 
 tention or rather, what was left of his right ear. 
 Only the point of it stuck up ; the rest was clipped 
 as clean as a rat-terrier s. Some fight to a finish, 
 I thought; some quick upper-cut of the razor of 
 a frenzied negro writhing under the viselike grasp 
 of this man-gorilla with arms and hands of steel ; 
 or some sudden whirl of a stiletto, perhaps, which 
 
 10 
 
THE CKIME OF SAMAETHY NORTH 
 
 had missed his heart and taken his ear. I did 
 not ask then, and I do not know now. It was a 
 badge of courage, whatever it was a badge which 
 thrilled and horrified me. As I looked at the 
 terrible mutilation, I could but recall the hideous 
 fascination that overcame Josiane, the heroine of 
 Hugo s great novel, "The Man Who Laughs," 
 when she first caught sight of Gwynplaine s mouth 
 slit from ear to ear by the Comprachicos. The 
 outrage on the Warden was not so grotesque, but 
 the effect was the same. 
 
 I moved along the corridor and stood before 
 the beasts. One, an old man in a long white 
 beard, leathery, sun-tanned face and hooked nose, 
 clasped the bars with both hands, gazing at us 
 intently. I recognized his kind the moment I 
 looked at him. He was like my Jonathan Gor 
 don, my old fisherman who lived up in the Fran- 
 conia Notch. His coarse, homespun clothes, dyed 
 brown with walnut-shells, slouch hat crowning 
 his shock of gray hair, and hickory shirt open at 
 the throat, only heightened the resemblance; es 
 pecially the hat canted over one eye. Why he 
 wore the hat in such a place I could not under 
 stand, unless to be ready for departure when his 
 summons came. 
 
 There were eight other beasts besides this old 
 man in the same cage, one a boy of twenty, who 
 leaned against the iron wall with his hands in 
 his pockets, his eyes following my every move- 
 
 11 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 ment. I noticed a new blue patch on one of his 
 knees, which his mother, doubtless, had sewn with 
 her own hands, her big-rimmed spectacles on her 
 nose, the tallow dip lighting the log cabin. I 
 recognized the touch. And the boy. I used to 
 go swimming with one just like him, forty years 
 ago, in an old swimming-hole in the back pasture, 
 and hunt for honey that the bumblebees had stored 
 under the bank. 
 
 The old man with the beard and the canting 
 hat looked into my eyes keenly, but he did not 
 speak. He had nothing to say, perhaps. Some 
 thing human had moved before him, that was all ; 
 something that could come and go at its pleasure 
 and break the monotony of endless hours. 
 
 "How long have you been here ?" I asked, low- 
 earing my voice and stepping closer to the bars. 
 
 Somehow I did not want the others to hear. 
 It was almost as though I were talking to Jona 
 than my dear Jonathan and he behind bars ! 
 
 "Eleven months and three days. Reckon I be 
 the oldest" and he looked about him as if for 
 confirmation. "Yes, reckon I be." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "SellinV 
 
 The answer came without the slightest hesita 
 tion and without the slightest trace in his voice 
 of anything that betokened either sorrow for his 
 act or shame for the crime. 
 
 "Eleven months and three days of this !" I re- 
 12 
 
THE CRIME OF SAMAOTHY NORTH 
 
 peated to myself. Instinctively my mind went 
 back to all I had done, seen, and enjoyed in these 
 eleven months and three days. Certain individual 
 incidents more delightful than others stood out 
 clear and distinct: that day under the trees at 
 Cookham, the Thames slipping past, the white- 
 sailed clouds above my tent of leaves; a morning 
 at Dort, when Peter and I watched the Dutch lug 
 gers anchor off the quay, and the big storm came 
 up; a night beyond San Giorgio, when Luigi 
 steered the gondola in mid-air over a sea of mir 
 rored stars and beneath a million incandescent 
 lamps. 
 
 I passed on to the next cage, Marny watching 
 me but saying nothing. The scout was in this 
 one, the "type" in Marny s sketch. There were 
 three of them tall, hickory-sapling sort of young 
 fellows, with straight legs, flat stomachs, and thin 
 necks, like that of a race-horse. One had the look 
 of an eagle, with his beak-nose and deep-set, un- 
 cowed eyes. Another wore his yellow hair long 
 on his neck, Custer-fashion. The third sat on 
 the iron floor, his knees level with his chin, his 
 head in his hand. He had a sweetheart, perhaps, 
 who loved him, or an old mother who was wring 
 ing her hands at home. This one, I learned after 
 ward, had come with the last batch and was not 
 yet accustomed to his surroundings; the others 
 had been awaiting trial for months. All of them 
 wore homespun clothes not the ready-made 
 
 13 
 
THE UNDEB DOG 
 
 clothes sold at the stores, but those that some 
 woman at home had cut, basted, and sewn. 
 
 Marny asked them what they were up for. 
 Their answers differed slightly from that of the 
 old man, but the crime and its penalty were the 
 same. 
 
 "Makin ," they severally replied. 
 
 There was no lowering of the eyelids when they 
 confessed ; no hangdog look about the mouth. 
 They would do it again when they got out, and 
 they intended to, only they would shoot the quicker 
 next time. The earth was theirs and the fulness 
 thereof, that part of it which they owned. Their 
 grandfathers before them had turned their corn 
 into whiskey and no man had said nay, and so 
 would they. Not the corn that they had stolen, 
 but the corn that they had ploughed and shucked. 
 It was their corn, not the Government s. Men 
 who live in the wilderness, and feed and clothe 
 themselves on the things they raise with their own 
 hands, have no fine-spun theories about the laws 
 that provide revenue for a Government they never 
 saw, don t want to see, and couldn t understand 
 if they did. 
 
 Marny and I stood before the grating, looking 
 each man over separately. Strange to say, the 
 artistic possibilities of my visit faded out of my 
 mind. The picturesqueness of their attire, the 
 browns and grays accentuated here and there by 
 a dash of red around a hat-band or shirt-collar all 
 
 14 
 
THE CEIME OF SAMANTHY NOKTH 
 
 material for my own or my friend s brush made 
 not the slightest impression upon me. It was the 
 close smell, the dim, horrible light, the quick 
 gleam of a pair of eyes looking out from under 
 shocks of matted hair the eyes of a panther 
 watching his prey; the dull stare of some boyish 
 face with all hope crushed out of it; these were 
 the things that possessed me. 
 
 As I stood there absorbed in the terrors before 
 me, I was startled by the click of the catch and 
 the clink of keys, followed by the noiseless swing 
 of the steel door as it closed again. 
 
 I turned and looked down the corridor. 
 
 Into the gloom of this inferno, this foul-smell 
 ing cavern, this assemblage of beasts, stepped a 
 girl of twenty. A baby wrapped about with a 
 coarse shawl lay in her arms. 
 
 She passed me with eyes averted, and stood 
 before the gate of the last steel cage the woman s 
 end of the prison the turnkey following slowly. 
 Cries of "Howdy, gal ! What did ye git ?" were 
 hurled after her, but she made no answer. The 
 ominous sound of drawn bolts and the click of 
 a key, and the girl and baby were inside the bars 
 of the cage. These bars, foreshortened from where 
 I stood, looked like a row of gun-barrels in an 
 armory rack. 
 
 "That girl a prisoner ?" I asked the Warden. 
 
 I didn t believe it. I knew, of course, that it 
 couldn t be. I instantly divined that she had 
 
 15 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 come to comfort some brother or father, or lover, 
 perhaps, and had brought the baby with her be 
 cause there was no place to leave it at home. I 
 only asked the question of the Warden so he could 
 deny it, and deny it, too, with some show of feel 
 ing this man with the sliced ear and the gorilla 
 hands. 
 
 "Yes, she s been here some time. Judge sus 
 pended sentence a while ago. She s gone after 
 her things." 
 
 There was no joy over her release in his tones, 
 nor pity for her condition. 
 
 He spoke exactly, it seemed to me, as he would 
 have done had he been in charge of the iron- 
 barred gate of the Colosseum two thousand years 
 ago. All that had saved the girl then from the 
 jaws of his hungriest lion was the twist of Nero s 
 thumb. All that saved her now was the nod of 
 the Judge s head both had the giving of life and 
 death. 
 
 A thin mist swam before my eyes, and a great 
 lump started from my heart and stuck fast in 
 my throat, but I did not answer him; it would 
 have done no good might have enraged him, in 
 fact. I walked straight to the gate through which 
 she had entered and peered in. I could see be 
 tween the gun-barrels now. 
 
 It was like the other cages, with barred walls 
 and sheet-iron floors. Built in one corner of the 
 far end was a strong box of steel, six feet by four 
 
 16 
 
THE CEIME OF SAMANTHY NOKTH 
 
 by the height of the ceiling, fitted with a low 
 door. This box was lined with a row of bunks, 
 one above the other. From one was thrust a small 
 foot covered with a stocking and part of a skirt; 
 some woman prisoner was ill, perhaps. Against 
 the wall of this main cage sat two negro women ; 
 one, I learned afterward, had stabbed a man the 
 week before ; the other was charged with theft. 
 The older the murderess came forward when 
 she caught sight of me, thrust out her hands be 
 tween the bars, and begged for tobacco. 
 
 In the corner of the same cage was another steel 
 box. I saw the stooping figure of the young girl 
 come out of it as a dog comes out of a kennel. 
 She walked toward the centre of the cage she 
 still had the baby in her arms laid the child 
 on the sheet-iron floor, where the light from the 
 grimy windows fell the clearer, and returned to 
 the steel box. The child wore but one garment 
 a short red-flannel shirt that held the stomach 
 tight and left the shrivelled legs and arms bare. 
 It lay flat on its back, its eyes gazing up at the 
 ceiling, its pinched face in high light against the 
 dull background. Now and then it would fight 
 the air with its little fists or kick its toes above 
 its head. 
 
 The girl took from the kennel a broken paper 
 box and, returning with it, knelt beside the child 
 and began arranging its wardrobe, the two ne- 
 gresses watching her listlessly. Not much of a 
 
 17 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 wardrobe only a ragged shawl, some socks, a 
 worsted cap, a pair of tiny shoes, and a Canton- 
 flannel wrapper, once white. This last had little 
 arms and a short waist. The skirt was long 
 enough to tuck around her baby s feet when she 
 carried it. 
 
 I steadied myself by one of the musket-barrels, 
 watched her while she folded the few pitiful gar 
 ments, waited until she had guided the shrunken 
 arms into the sleeves of the soiled wrapper and 
 had buttoned it over the baby s chest. Then, when 
 the lump in my throat was about to stop my 
 breathing, I said: 
 
 "Will you come here, please, to the grating? 
 I want to speak to you." 
 
 She raised her head slowly, looked at me in a 
 tired, hopeless way, laid her baby back on the 
 sheet-iron floor, and walked toward me. As she 
 came into the glow of the overhead light, I saw 
 that she was even younger than I had first sup 
 posed nearer seventeen than twenty a girl with 
 something of the curious look of a young heifer 
 in a face drawn and lined but with anxiety. 
 Parted over a low forehead, and tucked behind 
 her ears, streamed two braids of straight yellow 
 hair in two unkempt strands over her shoulders. 
 Across her bosom and about her slender figure 
 was hooked a yellow-brown dress made in one 
 piece. The hooks and eyes showed wherever the 
 strain came, disclosing the coarse chemise and the 
 
 18 
 
THE CKIME OF SAMAOTHY NORTH 
 
 brown of the neck beneath. This strain, the strain 
 of an ill-fitting garment, accentuated all the 
 clearer, in the wrinkles about the shoulders and 
 around the hips, the fulness of her delicately 
 modelled lines; quite as would a jacket buttoned 
 over the Milo. On the third finger of one hand 
 was a flat silver ring, such as is sold by the country 
 pedlers. 
 
 She stood quite close to the bars, patiently await 
 ing my next question. She had obeyed my sum 
 mons like a dog who remembered a former dis 
 cipline. No curiosity, not the slightest interest; 
 nothing but blind obedience. The tightened grasp 
 of these four walls had taught her this. 
 
 "Where do you come from ?" I asked. 
 
 I had to begin in some way. 
 
 "From Pineyville." The voice was that of a 
 child, with a hard, dry note in it. 
 
 "How old is the baby ?" 
 
 "Three months and ten days." She had counted 
 the child s age. She had thought enough for 
 that. 
 
 "How far is Pineyville ?" 
 
 "I doan ? know. It took mos all night to git 
 here." There was no change in the listless 
 monotone. 
 
 "Are you going out now?" 
 
 "Yes, soon s I kin git ready." 
 
 "How are you going to get home?" 
 
 "Walk, I reckon." There was no complaint in 
 19 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 her tone, no sudden exhibition of any suffering. 
 She was only stating facts. 
 
 "Have you no money ?" 
 
 "~No." Same bald statement, and in the same 
 hopeless tone. She had not moved not even to 
 look at the child. 
 
 "What s the fare ?" 
 
 "Six dollars and sixty-five cents." This was 
 stated with great exactness. It was the amount 
 of this appalling sum that had, no doubt, crushed 
 out her last ray of hope. 
 
 "Did you sell any whiskey ?" 
 
 "Yes, I tol the Judge so. 7 Still no break in 
 her voice. It was only another statement. 
 
 "Oh! you kept a saloon?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "How did you sell it, then?" 
 
 "Jest out of a kag in a cup." 
 
 "Had you ever sold any before ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Why did you sell it, then?" 
 
 She had been looking into my face all this time, 
 one thin, begrimed hand the one with the ring 
 on it tight around the steel bar of the gate that 
 divided us. With the question, her eyes dropped 
 until they seemed to rest on this hand. The an 
 swer came slowly: 
 
 "The baby come, and the store wouldn t chalk 
 nothin for us no more." Then she added, quickly, 
 as if in defence of the humiliating position, "Our 
 
 20 
 
THE CEIME OF SAMANTHY NOKTH 
 
 corn-crib was sot afire last fall and we got be 
 hind." 
 
 For a brief instant she leaned heavily against 
 the bars as if for support, then her eyes sought 
 her child. I waited until she had reassured her 
 self of its safety, and continued my questions, 
 my finger-nails sinking deeper all the time into 
 the palms of my hands. 
 
 "Did you make the whiskey ?" 
 
 "No, it was Martin Young s whiskey. My hus 
 band works for him. Martin sent the kag down 
 one day, and I sold it to the men. I give the 
 money all to Martin cept the dollar he was to 
 gimme for sellin it." 
 
 "How came you to be arrested?" 
 
 "One o the men tol on me cause I wouldn t 
 trust him. Martin tol me not to let em have it 
 thout they paid." 
 
 "How long have you been here?" 
 
 "Three months next Tuesday." 
 
 "That baby only two weeks old when they ar 
 rested you?" My blood ran hot and cold, and 
 my collar seemed five sizes too small, but I still 
 held on to myself. 
 
 "Yes." The answer was given in the same 
 monotonous, listless voice not a trace of indig 
 nation over the outrage. Women with suckling 
 babies had no rights that anybody was bound to 
 respect not up in Pineyville; certainly not the 
 gentlemen with brass shields under the lapels of 
 
 21 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 their coats and Uncle Sam s commissions in their 
 pockets. It was the law of the land why find 
 fault with it? 
 
 I leaned closer so that I could touch her hand 
 if need he. 
 
 "What s jour name?" 
 
 "Samanthy North." 
 
 "What s your husband s name?" 
 
 "His name s North." There was a trace of sur 
 prise now in the general monotone. Then she 
 added, as if to leave no doubt in my mind, "Les 
 lie North." 
 
 "Where is he?" I determined now to round 
 up every fact. 
 
 "He s home. We ve got another child, and he s 
 takin care of it till I git back. He d be to the 
 railroad for me if he knowed I was coming; but 
 I couldn t tell him when to start cause I didn t 
 know how long they d keep me." 
 
 "Is your home near the railroad?" 
 
 "No, it s thirty-six miles furder." 
 
 "How will you get from the railroad?" 
 
 "Ain t no way cept walkin ." 
 
 I had it now, the whole damnable, pitiful story, 
 every fact clear-cut to the bone. I could see it 
 all: the look of terror when the deputy woke her 
 from her sleep and laid his hand upon her ; the 
 parting with the other child; the fright of the 
 helpless husband; the midnight ride, she hardly 
 able to stand, the pitiful scrap of her own flesh 
 
THE CKIME OF SAMANTHY NORTH 
 
 and blood tight in her arms; the procession to 
 the jail, the men in front chained together, she 
 bringing up the rear, walking beside the last 
 guard; the first horrible night in jail, the walls 
 falling upon her, the darkness overwhelming her, 
 the puny infant resting on her breast ; the staring, 
 brutal faces when the dawn came, followed by the 
 coarse jest. IsTo wonder that she hung limp and 
 hopeless to the bars of her cage, all the spring 
 and buoyancy, all the youth and lightness, crushed 
 out of her. 
 
 I put my hand through the bare and laid it on 
 her wrist. 
 
 "lSTo, you won t walk; not if I can help it." 
 This outburst got past the lump slowly, one word 
 at a time, each syllable exploding hot like balls 
 from a Roman candle. "You get your things to 
 gether quick as you can, and wait here until I 
 come back, 77 and I turned abruptly and motioned 
 to the turnkey to open the gate. 
 
 In the office of the Chief of Police outside I 
 found Marny talking to Sergeant Cram. He was 
 waiting until I finished. It was all an old story 
 with Marny every month a new batch came to 
 Covington jail. 
 
 "What about that girl, Sergeant the one with 
 the baby ? 77 I demanded, in a tone that made them 
 both turn quickly. 
 
 "Oh, she s all right. She told the Judge a 
 straight story this morning, and he let her go on 
 
 23 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 spended sentence. They tried to make her plead 
 Not guilty/ but she wouldn t lie about it, she said. 
 She can go when she gets ready. What are you 
 drivin at? Are you goin to put up for her?" 
 and a curious look overspread his face. 
 
 "I m going to get her a ticket and give her some 
 money to get home. Locking up a seventeen-year- 
 old girl, two hundred miles from home, in a den 
 like that, with a baby two weeks old, may be jus- 
 tuce, but I call it brutality ! Our Government can 
 pay its expenses without that kind of revenue." 
 The whole bundle of Roman candles was popping 
 now. Inconsequent, wholly illogical, utterly in 
 defensible explosions. But only my heart was 
 working. 
 
 The Sergeant looked at Marny, relaxed the 
 scowl about his eyebrows, and smiled; such 
 "softies" seemed rare to him. 
 
 "Well, if you re stuck on her and I m damned 
 if I don t believe you are let me give you a 
 piece of advice. Don t give her no money till 
 she gets on the train, and whatever you do, don t 
 leave her here over night. There s a gang around 
 here" and he jerked his thumb in the direction 
 of the door "that might " and he winked know 
 ingly. 
 
 "You don t mean " A cold chill suddenly 
 developed near the roots of my hair and trickled 
 to my spine. 
 
 "Well, she s too good-lookin to be wanderin 
 round huntin for a boardin -house. You see her 
 
 24 
 
THE CEIME OF SAMANTHY NOKTH 
 
 on the train, that s all. Starts at eight to-night. 
 That s the one they all go by those who git out 
 and can raise the money. She ought to leave now, 
 cordin to the regulations, but as long as you re 
 a friend of Mr. Marny s I ll keep her here in the 
 office till I go home at seven o clock. Then you d 
 better have someone to look after her. JSTo, you 
 needn t go back and see her" this in answer to 
 a movement I made toward the prison door. "I ll 
 fix everything. Mr. Marny knows me." 
 
 I thanked the Sergeant, and we started for the 
 air outside something we could breathe, some 
 thing with a sky overhead and the dear earth un 
 derfoot, something the sun warmed and the free 
 wind cooled. 
 
 Only one thing troubled me now. I could not 
 take the girl to the train myself, neither could 
 Marny, for I had promised to lecture that same 
 night for the Art Club at eight o clock, and Marny 
 was to introduce me. The railroad station was 
 three miles away. 
 
 "I ve got it!" cried Marny, when we touched 
 the sidewalk, elbowing our way among the crowd 
 of loafers who always swarm about a place of this 
 kind. (He was as much absorbed in the girl s 
 future, when he heard her story, as I was. ) "Aunt 
 Chloe lives within two blocks of us let s hunt 
 her up. She ought to be at home by this time." 
 
 The old woman was just entering her street door 
 when she heard Marny s voice, her basket on her 
 arm, a rabbit-skin tippet about her neck. 
 
THE UNDEE DOG 
 
 "Dat I will, honey/ 7 she answered, positively, 
 when the case was laid before her. "Dat I will; 
 deed an double I will." 
 
 She stepped into the house, left her basket, 
 joined us again on the sidewalk, and walked with 
 us back to the Sheriff s office. 
 
 "All right," said the Sergeant, when we brought 
 her in. "Yes, I know the old woman ; the gal will 
 be ready for her when she comes, but I guess I d 
 better send one of my men along with em both 
 far as the depot. Ain t no use takin no chances." 
 
 The dear old woman followed us again until 
 we found a clerk in a branch ticket-office, who 
 picked out a long green slip from a library of 
 tickets, punched it with the greatest care with a 
 pair of steel nippers, and slipped it into an 
 official envelope labelled: "K. C. Pineyville, Ky. 
 8 P.M." 
 
 With this tightly grasped in her wrinkled brown 
 hand, together with another package of Marny s 
 many times in excess of the stage fare of thirty-six 
 miles and which she slipped into her capacious 
 bosom, Aunt Chloe "made her manners" with the 
 slightest dip of a courtesy and left us with the re 
 mark : 
 
 "Sha n t nothin tech her, honey; gwinter stick 
 right close to her till de steam-cars git to movin . 
 I ll be over early in de mawnin an let ye know. 
 Doan worry, honey ; ain t nothin gwinter happen 
 to her arter I gits my han s on her." 
 
 26 
 
THE CKIME OF SAMANTHY 1STOETH 
 
 When I came down to breakfast, Aunt Chloe 
 was waiting for me in the hall. She looked like 
 the old woman in the fairy-tale in her short black 
 dress that came to her shoe-tops, snow-white apron 
 and headkerchief, covered by a close-fitting nun- 
 like hood only the edge of the handkerchief 
 showed making her seem the old black saint that 
 she was. It not being one of her cleaning-days, 
 she had "kind o spruced herself up a li l mite," 
 she said. She carried her basket, covered now with 
 a white starched napkin instead of the red-and- 
 yellow bandanna of work-days. No one ever knew 
 what this basket contained. "Her luncheon/ some 
 of the art-students said ; but if it did, no one had 
 ever seen her eat it. "Someone else s luncheon," 
 Marny added; "some sick body whom she looks 
 after. There are dozens of them." 
 
 "Larrovers fur meddlins," Aunt Chloe invari 
 ably answered those whose curiosity got the better 
 of their discretion an explanation which only 
 deepened the mystery, no one being able to trans 
 late it. 
 
 "She s safe, honey!" Aunt Chloe cried, when 
 she caught sight of me. "I toted de baby, an she 
 toted de box. Po li l chinkapin! Mos break a 
 body s heart to see it! Clar to goodness, dat 
 chile s leg warn t bigger n a drumstick picked to 
 de bone. De man de Sheriff sent wid us didn t 
 go no furder dan de gate, an when he lef us dey 
 all sneaked in an did dere bes ter git her from me. 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 Wuss-lookin harum-scarums you ever see. Kep 
 a-tellin her de ticket was good for ten days an 
 dey d go wid her back to town; an dat if she d 
 stay dey d take her cross de ribber to see de city. 
 I seed she wanted ter git home to her husban , an 
 she tol em so. Den dey tried to make her believe 
 he was comin for her, an dey pestered her so an 
 got her so mixed up wid deir lies dat I was feared 
 she was gwine to give in, arter all. She warn t 
 nothin but a po weak thing noways. Den I riz 
 up an tol em dat I d call a pleeceman an take dat 
 ticket from her an de money I gin her beside, if 
 she didn t stay on dat car. I didn t give her de 
 velope ; I had dat in my han to show de conductor 
 when he come, so he could see whar she was ter git 
 off. Here it is" and she handed me the ticket- 
 seller s envelope. "Warn t nothin else saved me 
 but dat. When dey see d it, dey knowed den some 
 body was a-lookin arter her an dey give in. Po 
 critter! I reckon she s purty nigh home by dis 
 time !" 
 
 The story is told. It is all true, every sickening 
 detail. Other stories just like it, some of them 
 infinitely more pitiful, can be written daily by 
 anyone who will peer into the cages of Covington 
 jail. There is nothing to be done ; nothing can be 
 done. 
 
 It is the law of the land the just, holy, benefi 
 cent law, which is no respecter of persons. 
 
 28 
 
II 
 
 BUD TILDEN, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 "That s Bud Tilden, the worst of the bunch," 
 said the jail Warden the warden with the sliced 
 ear and the gorilla hands. "Reminds me of a cat - 
 mount I tried to tame once, only he s twice as 
 
 As he spoke, he pointed to a prisoner in a slouch 
 hat clinging half-way up the steel bars of his cage, 
 his head thrust through as far as his cheeks would 
 permit, his legs spread apart like the letter A. 
 
 "What s he here for ?" I asked. 
 
 "Bobbin the U-nited States mail." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "Up in the Kentucky mountains, back o Bug 
 Holler. Laid for the carrier one night, held him 
 up with a gun, pulled him off his horse, slashed the 
 bottom out o the mail-bag with his knife, took 
 what letters he wanted, and lit off in the woods, 
 cool as a chunk o ice. Oh ! I tell ye, he s no sar 
 dine; you kin see that without my tellin ye. 
 They ll railroad him, sure." 
 
 "When was he arrested ?" 
 
 "Last month come down in the November 
 29 
 
THE IINDEK DOG 
 
 batch. The dep ties had a circus fore they got the 
 irons on him. Caught him in a clearin bout two 
 miles back o the Holler. He was up in a corn-crib 
 with a Winchester when they opened on him. No 
 body was hurted, but they would a-been if they d 
 showed the top o their heads, for he s strong as a 
 bull and kin scalp a squirrel at fifty yards. They 
 never would a-got him if they hadn t waited till 
 dark and smoked him out, so one on em told me." 
 He spoke as if the prisoner had been a rattlesnake 
 or a sheep-stealing wolf. 
 
 The mail-thief evidently overheard, for he 
 dropped, with a cat-like movement, to the steel 
 floor and stood looking at us through the bars from 
 under his knit eyebrows, his eyes watching our 
 every movement. 
 
 There was no question about his strength. As 
 he stood in the glare of the overhead light I could 
 trace the muscles through his rough homespun 
 for he was a mountaineer, pure and simple, and not 
 a city-bred thief in ready-made clothes. I saw that 
 the bulging muscles of his calves had driven the 
 wrinkles of his butternut trousers close up under 
 the knee-joint and that those of his thighs had 
 rounded out the coarse cloth from the knee to the 
 hip. The spread of his shoulders had performed 
 a like service for his shirt, which was stretched out 
 of shape over the chest and back. This was crossed 
 by but one suspender, and was open at the throat 
 a tree-trunk of a throat, with all the cords support- 
 
 30 
 
BUD TILDES, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 ing the head firmly planted in the shoulders. The 
 arms were long and had the curved movement of 
 the tentacles of a devil-fish. The hands were 
 big and bony, the fingers knotted together with 
 knuckles of iron. He wore no collar nor any 
 coat ; nor did he bring one with him, so the War 
 den said. 
 
 I had begun my inventory at his feet as he stood 
 gazing sullenly at us, his great red hands tightly 
 clasped around the bars. When in my inspection 
 I passed from his open collar up his tree-trunk of 
 a throat to his chin, and then to his face, half- 
 shaded by a big slouch hat, which rested on his 
 flaring ears, and at last looked into his eyes, a 
 slight shock of surprise went through me. I had 
 been examining this wild beast with my judgment 
 already warped by the Warden ; that s why I began 
 at his feet and worked up. If I had started in on 
 an unknown subject, prepared to rely entirely 
 upon my own judgment, I would have begun at 
 his eyes and worked down. My shock of surprise 
 was the result of this upward process of inspection. 
 An awakening of this kind, the awakening to an 
 injustice done a man we have half -under stood, 
 often comes after years of such prejudice and mis 
 understanding. With me this awakening came 
 with my first glimpse of his eyes. 
 
 There was nothing of the Warden s estimate in 
 these eyes ; nothing of cruelty nor deceit nor greed. 
 Those I looked into were a light blue a washed- 
 31 
 
THE UNDEB DOG 
 
 out china blue ; eyes that shone out of a good heart 
 rather than out of a bad brain ; not very deep eyes ; 
 not very expressive eyes ; dull, perhaps, but kindly. 
 The features were none the less attractive; the 
 mouth was large, well-shaped, and filled with big 
 white teeth, not one missing ; the nose straight, with 
 wide, well-turned nostrils; the brow low, but 
 not cunning nor revengeful; the chin strong and 
 well-modelled, the cheeks full and of good color. 
 A boy of twenty I should have said perhaps 
 twenty-five ; abnormally strong, a big animal with 
 small brain-power, perfect digestion, and with 
 every function of his body working like a clock. 
 Photograph his head and come upon it suddenly 
 in a collection of others, and you would have said : 
 "A big country bumpkin who ploughs all day and 
 milks the cows at night." He might be the blood 
 thirsty ruffian, the human wild beast, the Warden 
 had described, but he certainly did not look it. I 
 would like to have had just such a man on any 
 one of my gangs with old Captain Joe over him. 
 He would have fought the sea with the best of them 
 and made the work of the surf-men twice as easy 
 if he had taken a hand at the watch-tackles. 
 
 I turned to the Warden again. My own sum 
 ming up differed materially from his estimate, but 
 I did not thrust mine upon him. He had had, of 
 course, a much wider experience among criminals 
 I, in fact, had had none at all and could not 
 be deceived by outward appearances. 
 
 32 
 
BUD TILDEN, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 "You say they are going to try him to-day ?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "Yes, at two o clock. Nearly that now," and he 
 glanced at his watch. "All the witnesses are down, 
 I hear. They claim there s something else mixed 
 up in it besides robbing the mail, but I don t re 
 member what. So many of these cases comin and 
 goin all the time! His old father was in to 
 see him yesterday, and a girl. Some o the men 
 said she was his sweetheart, but he don t look like 
 that kind. You oughter seen his father, though. 
 Greatest jay you ever see. Looked like a fly-up- 
 the-creek. Girl warn t much better lookin . They 
 make em out o brick-clay and ham fat up in them 
 mountains. Ain t human, half on em. Better go 
 over and see the trial." 
 
 I waited in the Warden s office until the deputies 
 came for the prisoner. When they had formed in 
 line on the sidewalk I followed behind the posse, 
 crossing the street with them to the Court-house. 
 The prisoner walked ahead, handcuffed to a deputy 
 who was a head shorter than he and half his size. 
 A second officer walked behind; I kept close to 
 this rear deputy and could see every movement he 
 made. I noticed that his fingers never left his hip- 
 pocket and that his eye never wavered from the 
 slouch hat on the prisoner s head. He evidently 
 intended to take no chances with a man who could 
 have made mince-meat of both of them had his 
 hands been free. 
 
 33 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 We parted at the main entrance, the prisoner, 
 with head erect and a certain fearless, uncowed 
 look on his boyish face, preceding the deputies 
 down a short flight of stone steps, closely followed 
 by the officer. 
 
 The trial, I could see, had evidently excited un 
 usual interest. When I mounted the main flight 
 to the corridor opening into the trial chamber and 
 entered the great hallway, it was crowded with 
 mountaineers wild, shaggy, unkempt-looking fel 
 lows, most of them. All were dressed in the garb 
 of their locality: coarse, rawhide shoes, deerskin 
 waistcoats, rough, butternut-dyed trousers and 
 coats, and a coon-skin or army slouch hat worn 
 over one eye. Many of them had their saddle-bags 
 with them. There being no benches, those who 
 were not standing were squatting on their 
 haunches, their shoulders against the bare wall. 
 Others were huddled close to the radiators. The 
 smell of escaping steam from these radiators, 
 mingling with the fumes of tobacco and the effluvia 
 from so many closely packed human bodies, made 
 the air stifling. 
 
 I edged my way through the crowd and pushed 
 through the court-room door. The Judge was just 
 taking his seat a dull, heavy-looking man with a 
 bald head, a pair of flabby, clean-shaven cheeks, 
 and two small eyes that looked from under white 
 eyebrows. Half-way up his forehead rested a pair 
 of gold spectacles. The jury had evidently been 
 
 34 
 
BUD TILDES, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 out for luncheon, for they were picking their teeth 
 and settling themselves comfortably in their chairs. 
 
 The court-room a new one outraged, as 
 usual, in its construction every known law of pro 
 portion, the ceiling being twice too high for the 
 walls, and the big, uncurtained windows (they 
 were all on one side) letting in a glare of light that 
 made silhouettes of every object seen against it. 
 Only by the closest attention could one hear or 
 see in a room like this. 
 
 The seating of the Judge was the signal for the 
 admission of the crowd in the corridor, who filed 
 in through the door, some forgetting to remove 
 their hats, others passing the doorkeeper in a defi 
 ant way. Each man, as soon as his eyes became 
 accustomed to the glare from the windows, looked 
 furtively toward the prisoners box. Bud Tilden 
 was already in his seat between the two deputies, 
 his hands unshackled, his blue eyes searching the 
 Judge s face, his big slouch hat on the floor at his 
 feet. What was yet in store for him would drop 
 from the lips of this face. 
 
 The crier of the court, a young negro, made his 
 announcements. 
 
 I found a seat between the prisoner and the 
 bench, so that I could hear and see the better. The 
 Government prosecutor occupied a seat at a table 
 to my right, between me and the three staring 
 Gothic windows. When he rose from his chair his 
 body came in silhouette against their light. With 
 
 35 
 
THE UKDEK DOG 
 
 his goat-beard, beak-nose, heavy eyebrows, long, 
 black hair resting on the back of his coat-collar, 
 bent body, loose-jointed arms, his coat-tails sway 
 ing about his thin legs, he looked (I did not see 
 him in any other light) like a hungry buzzard 
 flapping his wings before taking flight 
 
 He opened the case with a statement of facts. 
 He would prove, he said, that this mountain-ruf 
 fian was the terror of the neighborhood, in which 
 life was none too safe ; that although this was the 
 first time he had been arrested, there were many 
 other crimes which could be laid at his door, had 
 his neighbors not been afraid to inform upon 
 him. 
 
 Warming up to the subject, flapping his arms 
 aloft like a pair of wings, he recounted, with some 
 dramatic fervor, what he called the "lonely ride of 
 the tried servant of the Government over the rude 
 passes of the mountains/ recounting the risks 
 which these faithful men ran ; then he referred to 
 the sanctity of the United States mails, reminding 
 the jury and the audience particularly the audi 
 ence of the chaos which would ensue if these sa 
 cred mail-bags were tampered with ; "the stricken, 
 tear-stained face of the mother," for instance, who 
 had been waiting for days and weeks for news of 
 her dying son, or "the anxious merchant brought to 
 ruin for want of a remittance which was to tide 
 him over some financial distress," neither of them 
 knowing that at that very moment some highway- 
 
 36 
 
BUD TILDEN, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 man like the prisoner "was fattening off the result 
 of his theft" This last was uttered with a slap 
 ping of both hands on his thighs, his coat-tails 
 swaying in unison. He then went on in a graver 
 tone to recount the heavy penalties the Govern 
 ment imposed for violations of the laws made to 
 protect this service and its agents, and wound up 
 by assuring the jury of his entire confidence in 
 their intelligence and integrity, knowing, as he did, 
 how just would be their verdict, irrespective of 
 the sympathy they might feel for one who had pre 
 ferred "the hidden walks of crime to the broad 
 open highway of an honest life." Altering his tone 
 again and speaking in measured accents, he ad 
 mitted that, although the Government s witnesses 
 had not been able to identify the prisoner by his 
 face, he having concealed himself in the bushes 
 while the rifling of the pouch was in progress, yet 
 so full a view was gotten of his enormous back 
 and shoulders as to leave no doubt in his mind 
 that the prisoner before them had committed the 
 assault, since it would not be possible to find two 
 such men, even in the mountains of Kentucky. As 
 his first witness he would call the mail-carrier. 
 
 Bud had sat perfectly stolid during the 
 harangue. Once he reached down with one long 
 arm and scratched his bare ankle with his fore 
 finger, his eyes, with the gentle light in them that 
 had first attracted me, glancing aimlessly about 
 the room ; then he settled back again in hie chair, 
 
 37 
 
THE UKDEK DOG 
 
 its back creaking to the strain of his shoulders. 
 Whenever he looked at the speaker, which was sel 
 dom, a slight curl, expressing more contempt than 
 anxiety, crept along his lips. He was, no doubt, 
 comparing his own muscles to those of the buzzard 
 and wondering what he would do to him if he ever 
 caught him out alone. Men of enormous strength 
 generally measure the abilities of others by their 
 own standards. 
 
 "Mr. Bowditch will take the chair 1" cried the 
 prosecutor. 
 
 At the summons, a thin, wizen-faced, stubbly- 
 bearded man of fifty, his shirt-front stained with 
 tobacco-juice, rose from his seat and took the 
 stand. The struggle for possession of the bag must 
 have been a brief one, for he was but a dwarf com 
 pared to the prisoner. In a low, constrained voice 
 the awful hush of the court-room had evidently 
 impressed him and in plain, simple words, in 
 strong contrast to the flowery opening of the prose 
 cutor, he recounted the facts as he knew them. He 
 told of the sudden command to halt ; of the attack 
 in the rear and the quick jerking of the mail-bags 
 from beneath his saddle, upsetting him into the 
 road; of the disappearance of the robber in the 
 bushes, his head and shoulders only outlined 
 against the dim light of the stars ; of the flight of 
 the robber, and of his finding the bag a few yards 
 away from the place of assault with the bottom 
 cut. None of the letters was found opened j which 
 
 3d 
 
BUD TILDES, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 ones were missing he couldn t say. Of one thing 
 he was sure none were left behind by him on the 
 ground, when he refilled the bag. 
 
 The bag, with a slash in the bottom as big as 
 its mouth, was then passed around the jury-box, 
 each juror in his inspection of the cut seeming to 
 be more interested in the way in which the bag 
 was manufactured (some of them, I should judge, 
 had never examined one before) than in the way 
 in which it was mutilated. The bag was then put 
 in evidence and hung over the back of a chair, 
 mouth down, the gash in its bottom in full view 
 of the jury. This gash, from where I sat, looked 
 like one inflicted on an old-fashioned rubber foot 
 ball by a high kicker. 
 
 Hank Halliday, in a deerskin waistcoat and 
 dust-stained slouch hat, which he crumpled up in 
 his hand and held under his chin, was the next 
 witness. 
 
 In a jerky, strained voice he told of his mailing 
 a letter, from a village within a short distance of 
 Bug Hollow, to a girl friend of his on the after 
 noon of the night of the robbery. He swore posi 
 tively that this letter was in this same mail-bag, 
 because he had handed it to the carrier himself 
 before he got on his horse, and added, with equal 
 positiveness, that it had never reached its destina 
 tion. The value or purpose of this last testimony, 
 the non-receipt of the letter, was not clear to me, 
 except upon the theory that the charge of robbery 
 39 
 
THE UlSTDEK DOG 
 
 might fail if it could be proved by the defence that 
 no letter was missing. 
 
 Bud fastened his eyes on Halliday and smiled 
 as he made this last statement about the undeliv 
 ered letter, the first smile I had seen across his 
 face, but gave no other sign indicating that Halli 
 day s testimony affected his chances in any way. 
 
 Then followed the usual bad-character witnesses 
 both friends of Halliday, I could see ; two this 
 time one charging Bud with all the crimes in the 
 decalogue, and the other, under the lead of the 
 prosecutor, launching forth into an account of a 
 turkey-shoot in which Bud had wrongfully claimed 
 the turkey an account which was at last cut short 
 by the Judge in the midst of its most interesting 
 part, as having no particular bearing on the case. 
 
 Up to this time no one had appeared for the 
 accused, nor had any objection been made to any 
 part of the testimony except by the Judge. Neither 
 had any one of the prosecutor s witnesses been 
 asked a single question in rebuttal. 
 
 With the resting of the Government s case a 
 dead silence fell upon the room. 
 
 The Judge waited a few moments, the tap of his 
 lead-pencil sounding through the stillness, and 
 then asked if the attorney for the defence was 
 ready. 
 
 No one answered. Again the Judge put the 
 question, this time with some impatience. 
 
 Then he addressed the prisoner. 
 40 
 
BUD TILDES, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 "Is your lawyer present ?" 
 
 Bud bent forward in his chair, put his hands 
 on his knees, and answered slowly, without a tre 
 mor in his voice : 
 
 "I ain t got none. One come yisterday to the 
 jail, but he didn t like what I tol him and he ain t 
 showed up since." 
 
 A spectator sitting by the door, between an old 
 man and a young girl, both evidently from the 
 mountains, rose to his feet and walked briskly to 
 the open space before the Judge. He had sharp, 
 restless eyes, wore gloves, and carried a silk hat 
 in one hand. 
 
 "In the absence of the prisoner s counsel, your 
 Honor," he said, "I am willing to go on with this 
 case. I was here when it opened and have heard 
 all the testimony. I have also conferred with some 
 of the witnesses for the defence." 
 
 "Did I not appoint counsel in this case yester 
 day ?" said the Judge, turning to the clerk. 
 
 There was a hurried conference between the two, 
 the Judge listening wearily, cupping his ear with 
 his hand and the clerk rising on his toes so that he 
 could reach his Honor s hearing the easier. 
 
 "It seems," said the Judge, resuming his posi 
 tion, and addressing the room at large, "that the 
 counsel already appointed has been called out of 
 town on urgent business. If the prisoner has no 
 objection, and if you, sir " looking straight at 
 the would-be attorney "have heard all the testi- 
 
 41 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 mony so far offered, the Court sees no objection to 
 your acting in his place." 
 
 The deputy on the right side of the prisoner 
 leaned over, whispered something to Tilden, who 
 stared at the Judge and shook his head. It was evi 
 dent that Bud had no objection to this nor to any 
 thing else, for that matter. Of all the men in the 
 room he seemed the least interested. 
 
 I turned in my seat and touched the arm of my 
 neighbor. 
 
 "Who is that man who wants to go on with the 
 case ?" 
 
 "Oh, that s Bill Cartwright, one of the cheap, 
 shyster lawyers always hanging around here look 
 ing for a job. His boast is he never lost a suit. 
 Guess the other fellow skipped because he thought 
 he had a better scoop somewhere else. These poor 
 devils from the mountains never have any money 
 to pay a lawyer. Court appoints em." 
 
 With the appointment of the prisoner s attorney 
 the crowd in the court-room craned their necks in 
 closer attention, one man standing on his chair for 
 a better view until a deputy ordered him down. 
 They knew what the charge was. It was the de 
 fence they all wanted to hear. That had been the 
 topic of conversation around the tavern stoves of 
 Bug Hollow for months past. 
 
 Cartwright began by asking that the mail-car 
 rier be recalled. The little man again took the 
 stand. 
 
BUD TILDES, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 The methods of these police-court lawyers al 
 ways interest me. They are gamblers in evidence, 
 most of them. They take their chances as the 
 cases go on ; some of them know the jury one or 
 two is enough ; some are learned in the law more 
 learned, often, than the prosecutor, who is a Gov 
 ernment appointee with political backers, and now 
 and then one of them knows the Judge, who is also 
 a political appointee and occasionally has his party 
 to care for. All are valuable in an election, and a 
 few of them are honest. This one, my neighbor 
 told me, had held office as a police justice and was 
 a leader in his district. 
 
 Cartwright drew his gloves carefully from his 
 hands, laid his silk hat on a chair, dropped into 
 it a package of legal papers tied with a red string, 
 and, adjusting his glasses, fixed his eyes on the 
 mail-carrier. The expression on his face was 
 bland and seductive. 
 
 "At what hour do you say the attempted rob 
 bery took place, Mr. Bowditch ?" 
 
 "About eleven o clock." 
 
 "Did you have a watch ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "How do you know, then ?" The question was 
 asked in a mild way as if he intended to help the 
 carrier s memory. 
 
 "I don t know exactly; it may have been half- 
 past ten or eleven." 
 
 "You, of course, saw the man s face V 9 
 43 
 
THE TJKDEK DOG 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then you heard him speak ?" Same tone as if 
 trying his best to encourage the witness in his state 
 ments. 
 
 "No. 77 This was said with some positiveness. 
 The mail-carrier evidently intended to tell the 
 truth. 
 
 Cartwright turned quickly with a snarl like that 
 of a dog suddenly goaded into a fight. 
 
 "How can you swear, then, that the prisoner 
 made the assault ? 77 
 
 The little man changed color and stammered out 
 in excuse: 
 
 "He was as big as him, anyway, and there ain t 
 no other like him nowhere in them parts. 77 
 
 "Oh, he was as lig as him, was he ?" This retort 
 came with undisguised contempt. "And there are 
 no others like him, eh? Do you know everybody 
 in Bell County, Mr. Bowditch ? 77 
 
 The mail-carrier did not answer. 
 
 Cartwright waited until the discomfiture of the 
 witness could be felt by the jury, dismissed him 
 with a wave of his hand, and, looking over the 
 room, beckoned to an old man seated by a girl 
 the same couple he had been talking to before his 
 appointment by the Court and said in a loud 
 voice : 
 
 "Will Mr. Perkins Tilden take the stand ?" 
 
 At the mention of his fathers name, Bud, who 
 had maintained throughout his indifferent atti- 
 
 44 
 
BUD TILDEN, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 tude, straightened himself erect in his chair with 
 so quick a movement that the deputy edged a foot 
 nearer and instinctively slid his hand to his hip- 
 pocket. 
 
 A lean, cadaverous, painfully thin old man in 
 answer to his name rose to his feet and edged his 
 way through the crowd to the witness-chair. lie 
 was an inch taller than his son, though only half 
 his weight, and was dressed in a suit of cheap cloth 
 of the fashion of long ago, the coat too small for 
 him, even for his shrunken shoulders, and the 
 sleeves reaching only to his wrists. As he took 
 his seat, drawing in his long legs toward his chair, 
 his knee-bones, under the strain, seemed to he on 
 the point of coming through his trousers. His 
 shoulders were bowed, the incurve of his thin 
 stomach following the line of his back. As he 
 settled back in his chair he passed his hand ner 
 vously over his mouth, as if his lips were dry. 
 
 Cartwright s manner to this witness was the 
 manner of a lackey who hangs on every syllable 
 that falls from his master s lips. 
 
 "At what time, Mr. Tilden, did your son Bud 
 reach your house on the night of the robbery ?" 
 
 The old man cleared his throat and said, as if 
 weighing each word : 
 
 "At ten minutes past ten o clock." 
 
 "How do you fix the time ?" 
 
 "I had just wound the clock when Bud come 
 
 45 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 "Now, Mr. Tilden, how far is it to the cross 
 roads where the mail-carrier says he was 
 robbed?" 
 
 "About a mile and a half from my place." 
 
 "And how long would it take an able-bodied 
 man to walk it ?" 
 
 " Bout fifteen minutes." 
 
 "Not more?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 The Government s attorney had no questions to 
 ask, and said so with a certain assumed non 
 chalance. 
 
 Cartwright bowed smilingly, dismissed Bud s 
 father with a satisfied gesture of the hand, looked 
 over the court-room with the air of a man who was 
 unable at the moment to find what he wanted, 
 and in a low voice called : "Jennetta Moore !" 
 
 The girl, who sat within three feet of Cart- 
 wright, having followed the old man almost to the 
 witness-stand, rose timidly, drew her shawl closer 
 about her shoulders, and took the seat vacated by 
 Bud s father. She had that half-fed look in her 
 face which one sometimes finds in the women of 
 the mountain-districts. She was frightened and 
 very pale. As she pushed her poke-bonnet back 
 from her ears her unkempt brown hair fell about 
 her neck. 
 
 But Tilden, at mention of her name, half- 
 started from his chair and would have risen to his 
 feet had not the officer laid his hand upon him, 
 
 46 
 
BUD TILDES, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 He seemed on the point of making some protest 
 which the action of the officer alone restrained. 
 
 Cartwright, after the oath had been adminis 
 tered, began in a voice so low that the jury 
 stretched their necks to listen : 
 
 "Miss Moore, do you know the prisoner ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, I know Bud." She had one end of the 
 shawl between her fingers and was twisting it aim 
 lessly. Every eye in the room was fastened upon 
 her. 
 
 "How long have you known him ?" 
 
 There was. a pause, and then she said in a faint 
 voice: 
 
 "Ever since he and me growed up." 
 
 "Ever since you and he grew up, eh?" This 
 repetition was in a loud voice, so that any juryman 
 dull of hearing might catch it. "Was he at your 
 house on the night of the robbery 1" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "At what time ?" 
 
 " Bout ten o clock." This was again repeated. 
 
 "How long did he stay ?" 
 
 "Not more n ten minutes." 
 
 "Where did he go then 2" 
 
 "He said he was goin ? home." 
 
 "How far is it to his home from your house 2" 
 
 " Bout ten minutes walk." 
 
 "That will do, Miss Moore," said Cartwright, 
 and took his seat. 
 
 The Government prosecutor, who had sat with 
 47 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 shoulders hunched up, his wings pulled in, rose 
 to his feet with the aid of a chair-back, stretched 
 his long arms above his head, and then, lowering 
 one hand level with the girl s face, said, as he 
 thrust one sharp, skinny finger toward her : 
 
 "Did anybody else come to see you the next 
 night after the robbery ?" 
 
 There was a pause, during which Cartwright 
 busied himself with his papers. One of his meth 
 ods was never to seem interested in the cross-exam 
 ination of any one of his witnesses. 
 
 The girl s face flushed, and she began to fumble 
 the shawl nervously with her fingers. 
 
 "Yes, Hank Halliday," she murmured, in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "Mr. Halliday, who has testified here?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "What did he want?" 
 
 "He wanted to know if I d got a letter he d writ 
 me day before. And I tol him I hadn t. Then he 
 lowed he d a-brought it to me himself if he d 
 knowed Bud was goin to turn thief and hold up 
 the mail-man. I hadn t heard nothin bout it and 
 nobody else had till he began to talk. I opened the 
 door then and tol him to walk out ; that I wouldn t 
 hear nobody speak that way bout Bud Tilden. 
 That was fore they d rested Bud." 
 
 "Have you got that letter now ?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "Did you ever get it ?" 
 48 
 
BUD TILDEN, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "Did you ever see it ?" 
 
 "E~o, and I don t think it was ever writ." 
 
 "But he has written you letters before ?" 
 
 "He used to; he don t now." 
 
 "That will do." 
 
 The girl took her place again behind the old 
 man. 
 
 Cartwright rose to his feet with great dignity, 
 walked to the chair on which rested his hat, took 
 from it the package of papers to serve as an ora 
 tor s roll he did not open it, and they evidently 
 had no bearing on the case and addressed the 
 Judge, the package held aloft in his hand : 
 
 "Your Honor, there s not been a particle of evi 
 dence so far produced in this court to convict this 
 man of this crime. I have not conferred with him, 
 and therefore do not know what answers he has 
 to make to this infamous charge. I am convinced, 
 however, that his own statement under oath will 
 clear up at once any doubt remaining in the minds 
 of this honorable jury of his innocence." 
 
 This was said with a certain ill-concealed tri 
 umph in his voice. I saw now why he had taken 
 the case, and saw, too, the drift of his defence 
 everything thus far pointed to the old hackneyed 
 plea of an alibi. He had evidently determined on 
 this course of action when he sat listening to the 
 stories Bud s father and the girl had told him as 
 he sat beside them on the bench near the door. 
 
 49 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 Their testimony, taken in connection with the un 
 certain testimony of the Government s principal 
 witness, the mail-carrier, as to the exact time of 
 the assault, together with the prisoner s testimony 
 stoutly denying the crime, would insure either an 
 acquittal or a disagreement. The first would 
 result in his fees being paid by the court, the 
 second would add to this amount whatever Bud s 
 friends could scrape together to induce him to 
 go on with the second trial. In either case his 
 masterly defence was good for an additional num 
 ber of clients and perhaps of votes. It is humil 
 iating to think that any successor of Choate, Web 
 ster, or Evarts should earn his bread in this way, 
 but it is true all the same. 
 
 "The prisoner will take the stand !" cried Cart- 
 wright, in a firm voice. 
 
 As the words left his mouth, the noise of shuf 
 fling feet and the shifting of positions for a better 
 view of the prisoner became so loud that the Judge 
 rapped for order, the clerk repeating it with the 
 end of his ruler. 
 
 Bud lifted himself to his feet slowly (his being 
 called was evidently as much of a surprise to him 
 as it was to the crowded room), looked about him 
 carelessly, his glance resting first on the girl s face 
 and then on the deputy beside him. He stepped 
 clumsily down from the raised platform and shoul 
 dered his way to the witness-chair. The prosecut 
 ing attorney had evidently been amazed at the 
 
 50 
 
BUD TILDEN, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 flank movement of his opponent, for he moved his 
 position so he could look squarely in Bud s face. 
 As the prisoner sank into his seat, the room be 
 came hushed in silence. 
 
 Bud kissed the book mechanically, hooked his 
 feet together and, clasping his big hands across 
 his waist-line, settled his great body between the 
 arms of the chair, with his chin resting on his 
 shirt-front. Cartwright, in his most impressive 
 manner, stepped a foot closer to Bud s chair. 
 
 "Mr. Tilden, you have heard the testimony of 
 the mail-carrier; now be good enough to tell the 
 jury where you were on the night of the robbery 
 how many miles from this mail-sack?" and he 
 waved his hand contemptuously toward the bag. 
 It was probably the first time in all his life that 
 Bud had heard any man dignify his personality 
 with any such title. 
 
 In recognition of the compliment, Bud raised 
 his chin slightly and fixed his eyes more intently 
 on his questioner. Up to this time he had not 
 taken the slightest notice of him. 
 
 " Bout as close s I could git to it bout three 
 feet, I should say maybe less." 
 
 Cartwright gave a slight start and bit his lip. 
 Evidently the prisoner had misunderstood him. 
 The silence continued. 
 
 "I don t mean here, Mr. Tilden ;" and he pointed 
 to the bag. "I mean the night of the so-called rob- 
 bery." 
 
 61 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 "That s what I said; bout as close s I could 
 git." 
 
 "Well, did you rob the mail?" This was 
 asked uneasily, but with a half-concealed laugh 
 in his voice as if the joke would appear in a 
 minute. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "No, of course not." The tone of relief was 
 apparent. 
 
 "Well, do you know anything about the cutting 
 of the bag?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Who did it?" 
 
 "Me." 
 
 "You?" The surprise was now an angry one. 
 
 "Yes, me." 
 
 At this unexpected reply the Judge pushed his 
 glasses high up on his forehead with a quick mo 
 tion and leaned over his bench, his eyes on the 
 prisoner. The jury looked at each other with 
 amazement ; such scenes were rare in their experi 
 ence. The prosecuting attorney smiled grimly. 
 Cartwright looked as if someone had struck him 
 a sudden blow in the face. 
 
 "What for?" he stammered. It was evidently 
 the only question left for him to ask. All his 
 self-control was gone now, his face livid, an angry 
 look in his eyes. That any man with State s prison 
 yawning before him could make such a fool of him 
 self seemed to astound him. 
 
 53 
 
BUD TILDES, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 Bud turned slowly and, pointing his finger at 
 Halliday, said between his closed teeth: 
 
 "Ask Hank Halliday; he knows." 
 
 The buzzard sprang to his feet. There was the 
 scent of carrion in the air now; I saw it in his 
 eyes. 
 
 "We don t want to ask Mr. Halliday; we want 
 to ask you. Mr. Halliday is not on trial, and we 
 want the truth if you can tell it." 
 
 The irregularity of the proceeding was unno 
 ticed in the tense excitement. 
 
 Bud looked at him as a big mastiff looks at a 
 snarling cur with a look more of pity than con 
 tempt. Then he said slowly, accentuating each 
 word: 
 
 "Keep yer shirt on. You ll git the truth git 
 the whole of it. Git what you ain t lookin for. 
 There ain t no liars up in our mountains cept them 
 skunks in Gov ment pay you fellers send up to us, 
 and things like Hank Halliday. He s wuss nor 
 any skunk. A skunk s a varmint that don t stink 
 tell ye meddle with him, but Hank Halliday stinks 
 all the time. He s one o them fellers that goes 
 round with books in their pockets with picters in 
 em that no girl oughter see and no white man 
 oughter read. He gits em down to Louisville. 
 There ain t a man in Pondville won t tell ye it s 
 true. He shoved one in my outside pocket over to 
 Pondville when I warn t lookin , the day fore I 
 held up this man Bowditch, and went and told the 
 
 53 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 fellers round the tavern that I had it. They come 
 and pulled it out and had the laugh on me ; and 
 then he began to talk and said he d write to Jen- 
 netta and send her one o the picters by mail and 
 tell her he d got it out o my coat, and he did. 
 Sam Kellers seen Halliday with the letter and told 
 me after Bowditch had got it in his bag. I laid 
 for Bowditch at Pondville Corners, but he got past 
 somehow, and I struck in behind Bill Somers s 
 mill, and crossed the mountain and caught up with 
 him as he was ridin through the piece o woods 
 near the clearin . I didn t know but he d try to 
 shoot, and I didn t want to hurt him, so I crep up 
 behind and threw him in the bushes, cut a hole in 
 the bag, and got the letter. That s the only one I 
 wanted and that s the only one I took. I didn t 
 rob no mail, but I warn t goin to hev an honest, 
 decent girl like Jennetta git that letter, and there 
 warn t no other way." 
 
 The stillness that followed was broken only by 
 the Judge s voice. 
 
 "What became of that letter 2" 
 
 "I got it. Want to see it ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Bud felt in his pockets as if looking for some 
 thing, and then, with an expression as if he had 
 suddenly remembered, remarked: 
 
 "No, I ain t got none. They stole my knife 
 when they rested me." Then facing the court 
 room, he added : "Somebody lend me a knife, and 
 
 54 
 
BUD TILDEN, MAIL-THIEF 
 
 pass me my hat over there longside them 
 sheriffs." 
 
 The court-crier took the hat from one of the 
 deputies, and the clerk, in answer to a nod of as 
 sent from the Judge, passed Bud an ink-eraser 
 with a steel blade in one end. 
 
 The audience now had the appearance of one 
 watching a juggler perform a trick. Bud grasped 
 the hat in one hand, turned back the brim, inserted 
 the point of the knife between the hat lining and 
 the hat itself and drew out a yellow envelope 
 stained with dirt and perspiration. 
 
 "Here it is. I ain t opened it, and what s more, 
 they didn t find it when they searched me;" and 
 he looked again toward the deputies. 
 
 The Judge leaned forward in his seat and said : 
 
 "Hand me the letter." 
 
 The letter was passed up by the court-crier, 
 every eye following it. His Honor examined the 
 envelope, and, beckoning to Halliday, said: 
 
 "Is this your letter ?" 
 
 Halliday stepped to the side of the Judge, fin 
 gered the letter closely, and said: "Looks like my 
 writin ." 
 
 "Open it and see." 
 
 Halliday broke the seal with his thumb-nail, and 
 took out half a sheet of note-paper closely written 
 on one side, wrapped about a small picture- 
 card. 
 
 "Yes, it s my letter;" and he glanced sheepishly 
 55 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 around the room and hung his head, his face 
 scarlet. 
 
 The Judge leaned back in his chair, raised his 
 hand impressively, and said gravely: 
 
 "This case is adjourned until ten o clock to- 
 
 Two days later I again met the Warden as he 
 was entering the main door of the jail. He had 
 been over to the Court-house, he said, helping the 
 deputy along with a new "batch of moonshiners." 
 
 "What became of Bud Tilden ?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, he got it in the neck for robbin the mails, 
 just s I told you he would. Peached on himself 
 
 like a d fool and give everything dead away. 
 
 He left for Kansas this morning. Judge give him 
 twenty years." 
 
 He is still in the lock-step at Leavenworth 
 prison. He has kept it up now for two years. His 
 hair is short, his figure bent, his step sluggish. 
 The law is slowly making an animal of him that 
 wise, righteous law which is no respecter of 
 persons. 
 
 56 
 
Ill 
 
 "ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN 
 DAYS" 
 
 It was a feeble old man of seventy-two this time 
 who sat facing the jury, an old man with bent 
 back, scant gray hair, and wistful, pleading eyes. 
 
 He had been arrested in the mountains of Ken 
 tucky and had been brought to Covington for trial, 
 chained to another outlaw, one of those "moon 
 shiners" who rob the great distilleries of part of 
 their profits and the richest and most humane Gov 
 ernment on earth of part of its revenue. 
 
 For eleven months and ten days he had been 
 penned up in one of the steel cages of Covington 
 jail. 
 
 I recognized him the moment I saw him. 
 
 He was the old fellow who spoke to me from be 
 tween the bars of his den on my visit the week 
 before to the inferno the day I found Samanthy 
 North and her baby and who told me then he 
 was charged with "sellin " and that he "reckoned" 
 he was the oldest of all the prisoners about him. 
 He had on the same suit of coarse, homespun 
 clothes the trousers hiked up toward one shoulder 
 from the strain of a single suspender ; the waistcoat 
 held by one button; the shirt open at the neck, 
 
 57 
 
THE UlSTDEE DOG 
 
 showing the wrinkled throat, wrinkled as an old 
 saddle-bag, and brown, hairy chest. 
 
 He still carried his big slouch hat, dust-be 
 grimed and frayed at the edges. It hung over one 
 knee now, a red cotton handkerchief tucked under 
 its brim. He was superstitious about it, no doubt ; 
 he would wear it when he walked out a free man, 
 and wanted it always within reach. Hooked in its 
 band was a trout-fly, a red ibis, some souvenir, per 
 haps, of the cool woods that he loved, and which 
 brought back to him the clearer the happy, careless 
 days which might never be his again. 
 
 The trout-fly settled all doubts in my mind as to 
 his origin and his identity. He was not a "moon 
 shiner" ; he was my old trout fisherman, Jonathan 
 Gordon, come back to life, even to his streaming, 
 unkempt beard, leathery skin, thin, peaked nose, 
 and deep, searching eyes. That the daisies which 
 Jonathan loved were at that very moment bloom 
 ing over his grave up in his New Hampshire hills, 
 and had been for years back, made no difference to 
 me. I could not be mistaken. The feeble old man 
 sitting within ten feet of me, fidgeting about 
 in his chair, the glare of the big windows 
 flooding his face with light, his long legs tucked 
 under him, his bony hands clasped together, the 
 scanty gray hair adrift over his forehead, his 
 slouch hat hooked over his knee, was my own 
 Jonathan come back to life. His dog, George, too, 
 was somewhere within reach, and so were his 
 
 58 
 
"ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS" 
 
 fishing-pole and creel, with its leather shoulder- 
 band polished like a razor-strop. You who read 
 this never saw Jonathan, perhaps, but you an 
 easily carry his picture in your mind by remember 
 ing some one of the other old fellows you used to 
 see on Sunday mornings hitching their horses to 
 the fence outside of the country church, or saunter 
 ing through the woods with a fish-pole over their 
 shoulders and a creel by their sides, or with their 
 heads together on the porch of some cross-roads 
 store, bartering eggs and butter for cotton cloth 
 and brown sugar. All these simple-minded, open- 
 aired, out-of-doors old fellows, with the bark on 
 them, are very much alike. 
 
 The only difference between the two men lay 
 in the expression of the two faces. Jonathan al 
 ways looked straight at you when he talked, so that 
 you could fathom his eyes as you would fathom a 
 deep pool that mirrored the stars. This old man s 
 eyes wavered from one to another, lighting first on 
 the jury, then on the buzzard of a District Attor 
 ney, and then on the Judge, with whom rested the 
 freedom which meant life or which meant im 
 prisonment: at his age death. This wavering 
 look was the look of a dog who had been an outcast 
 for weeks, or who had been shut up with a chain 
 about his throat ; one who had received only kicks 
 and cuffs for pats of tenderness a cringing, 
 pleading look ready to crouch beneath some fresh 
 cruelty. 
 
 59 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 This look, as the trial went on and the buzzard 
 of an attorney flapped out his denunciations, deep 
 ened to an expression of abject fear. In trying to 
 answer the questions hurled at him, he would 
 stroke his parched throat mechanically with his 
 long fingers as if to help the syllables free them 
 selves. In listening to the witnesses he would 
 curve his body forward, one skinny hand cupped 
 behind his ear, his jaw dropping slowly, revealing 
 the white line of the lips above the straggling 
 beard. Now and then as he searched the eyes of 
 the jury there would flash out from his own the 
 same baffled, anxious look that comes into dear old 
 Joe Jefferson s face when he stops half-way up the 
 mountain and peers anxiously into the eyes of the 
 gnomes who have stolen out of the darkness and 
 are grouping themselves silently about him a 
 look expressing one moment his desire to please 
 and the next his anxiety to escape. 
 
 There was no doubt about the old man s crime, 
 not the slightest. It had been only the tweedledum 
 and tweedledee of the law that had saved him the 
 first time. They would not serve him now. The 
 evidence was too conclusive, the facts too plain. 
 The "deadwood," as such evidence is called by the 
 initiated, lay in heaps more than enough to send 
 him to State prison for the balance of his natural 
 life. The buzzard of a District Attorney who had 
 first scented out his body with an indictment, and 
 
 60 
 
"ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS 
 
 who all these eleven months and ten days had sat 
 with folded wings and hunched-up shoulders, wait 
 ing for his final meal I had begun to dislike him 
 in the Bud Tilden trial, but I hated him now (a 
 foolish, illogical prejudice, for he was only doing 
 his duty as he saw it) had full control of all the 
 "deadwood"; had it with him, in fact. There 
 were not only some teaspoonfuls of the identical 
 whiskey which this law-breaker had sold, all in an 
 eight-ounce vial properly corked and labelled, but 
 there was also the identical silver dime which had 
 been paid for it. One of the jury was smelling 
 this whiskey when I entered the court-room; an 
 other was fingering the dime. It was a good dime, 
 and bore the stamp of the best and greatest nation 
 on the earth. On one side was the head of the 
 Goddess of Liberty and on the other was the 
 wreath of plenty: some stalks of corn and the 
 bursting heads of wheat, with one or two ivy 
 leaves twisted together, suggesting honor and glory 
 and achievement. The "deadwood" the evidence 
 was all right. All that remained was for the 
 buzzard to flap his wings once or twice in a speech ; 
 then the jury would hold a short consultation, a 
 few words would follow from the presiding Judge, 
 and the carcass would be ready for the official un 
 dertaker, the prison Warden. 
 
 How wonderful the system, how mighty the 
 results ! 
 
 61 
 
THE UNDEB DOG 
 
 One is often filled with admiration and astonish 
 ment at the perfect working of this mighty engine, 
 the law. Properly adjusted, it rests on the bed- 
 plate of equal rights to all men; is set in motion 
 by the hot breath of the people superheated often 
 by popular clamor; is kept safe by the valve of a 
 grand jury; is governed in its speed by the wise 
 and prudent Judge, and regulated in its output 
 by a jury of twelve men. 
 
 Sometimes in the application of its force this 
 machine, being man-made, like all machines, and 
 thus without a soul, gets out of order, loosens a 
 cog or bolt perhaps, throwing the mechanism "out 
 of gear," as it is called. When this happens, the 
 engine resting on its bed-plate still keeps its foun 
 dation, but some lesser part, the loom or lathe or 
 driving-wheel, which is another way of saying the 
 arrest, the trial or the conviction, goes awry. 
 Sometimes the power-belt is purposely thrown off, 
 the machinery stopped, and a consultation takes 
 place, resulting in a disagreement or a new trial. 
 When the machine is started again, it is started 
 more carefully, with the first experience remem 
 bered. Sometimes the rightful material the 
 criminal, or the material from which the criminal 
 is made to feed this loom or lathe or driving- 
 wheel, is replaced by some unsuitable material like 
 the girl whose hair became entangled in a flying- 
 belt and whose body was snatched up and whirled 
 mercilessly about. Only then is the engine \rork- 
 
 62 
 
"ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS" 
 
 ing on its bed-plate brought to a standstill. The 
 steam of the boiler, the breath of the people, keeps 
 up, but it is withheld from the engine until the 
 mistake can be rectified and the girl rescued. The 
 law of mercy, the divine law, now asserts itself. 
 This law, being the law of God, is higher than 
 the law of man. Some of those who believe in the 
 man-law and who stand over the mangled body of 
 the victim, or who sit beside her bed, bringing her 
 slowly back to life, affirm that the girl was careless 
 and deserved her fate. Others, who believe in the 
 God-law, maintain that the engine is run not to kill 
 but to protect, not to maim but to educate, and 
 that the fault lies in the wrong application of the 
 force, not in the force itself. 
 
 So it was with this old man. Eleven months and 
 ten days before this day of his second trial (eleven 
 months and three days when I first saw him), a 
 flying-belt set in motion up in his own mountain- 
 home had caught and crushed him. To-day he was 
 still in the maw of the machinery, his courage 
 gone, his spirit broken, his heart torn. The group 
 about his body, not being a sympathetic group, 
 were insisting that the engine could do no wrong; 
 that the victim was not a victim at all, but lawful 
 material to be ground up. This theory was sus 
 tained by the District Attorney. Every day he 
 must have fresh materials. The engine must run. 
 The machinery must be fed. 
 
 And his record ? 
 
 6? 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 Ah, how often is this so in the law ! his record 
 must be kept good. 
 
 After the whiskey had been held up to the light 
 and the dime fingered, the old man s attorney 
 a young lawyer from the old man s own town, a 
 smooth-faced young fellow who had the gentle 
 look of a hospital nurse and who was doing his 
 best to bring the broken body back to life and free 
 dom put the victim on the stand. 
 
 "Tell the jury exactly how it all happened," he 
 said, "and in your own way, just as you told it 
 to me." 
 
 "I ll try, sir; I ll do my best." It was Eip s 
 voice, only fainter. He tugged at his collar as 
 if to breathe the easier, cleared his throat and be 
 gan again. "I ain t never been in a place like this 
 but once before, and I hope you ll forgive me if 
 I make any mistakes," and he looked about the 
 room, a flickering, half-burnt-out smile trembling 
 on his lips. 
 
 "Well, I got a piece of land bout two miles 
 back of my place that belongs to my wife, and I 
 ain t never fenced it in, for I ain t never had no 
 time somehow to cut the timber to do it, she s been 
 so sickly lately. Bout a year ago I was goin long 
 toward Hi Stephens s mill a-lookin for muskrats 
 when I heard some feller s axe a-workin away, 
 and I says to Hi, Hi, ain t that choppin goin on 
 on the wife s land ? and he said it was, and that 
 
 64 
 
"ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS" 
 
 Luke Slianders and his boys had been drawin out 
 cross-ties for the new railroad; thought I knowed 
 it 
 
 "Well, I kep long up and come on Luke jes s 
 he was throwin the las stick onto his wagon. He 
 kinder started when he see me, jumped on and 
 begin to drive off. I says to him, Luke, I says, 
 I ain t got no objection to you havin a load of 
 wood ; there s plenty of it ; but it don t seem right 
 for you to take it thout askin , specially since the 
 wife s kind o peaked and it s her land and not 
 yourn. He hauled the team back on their hind 
 legs, and he says: 
 
 " When I see fit to ask you or your old woman s 
 leave to cut timber on my own land, I will. Me 
 and Lawyer Fillmore has been a-lookin into 
 them deeds, and this timber is mine; and he 
 driv off. 
 
 "I come along home and studied bout it a bit, 
 and me and the wife talked it over. We didn t 
 want to make no fuss, but we knowed he was a- 
 lyin , but that ain t no unusual thing for Luke 
 Shanders. 
 
 "Well, the nex mornin I got into Pondville 
 bout eight o clock and set a-waitin till Lawyer 
 Fillmore come in. He looked kind o shamefaced 
 when he see me, and I says, What s this Luke 
 Shanders s been a-tellin me bout your sayin my 
 wife s timberland is hisn ? 
 
 "Then he began splainin that the riginal lines 
 65 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 Was drawed wrong and that old man Shanders g 
 land, Luke s father, run to the brook and took in 
 all the white oak on the wife s lot and " 
 
 The buzzard sprang to his feet and shrieked 
 out: 
 
 "Your Honor, I object to this rigmarole. Tell 
 the jury right away" and he faced the prisoner 
 "what you know about this glass of whiskey. 
 Get right down to the facts; we re not cutting 
 cross-ties in this court." 
 
 The old man caught his breath, placed his fin 
 gers suddenly to his lips a.s if to choke back the 
 forbidden words, and, in an apologetic voice, mur 
 mured : 
 
 "I m gettin there s fast s I kin, sir, deed I 
 am; I ain t hidin nothin ." 
 
 He wasn t. Anyone could see it in his face. 
 
 "Better let him go on in his own way," remarked 
 the Judge, indifferently. His Honor was looking 
 over some papers, and the monotonous tones of the 
 witness diverted attention. Most of the jury, too, 
 had already lost interest in the story. One of the 
 younger members had settled himself in his chair, 
 thrust his hands into his pockets, stretched out his 
 legs, and had shut his eyes as if to take a nap. 
 Nothing so far had implicated either the whiskey 
 or the dime ; when it did he would wake up. 
 
 The old man turned a grateful glance toward the 
 Judge, leaned forward in his chair, and with bent 
 head looked about him on the floor as if trying to 
 
 66 
 
"ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS" 
 
 pick up the lost end of his story. The young attor 
 ney, in an encouraging tone, helped him find it 
 with a question: 
 
 "When did you next see Mr. Fillmore and Luke 
 Shanders ?" 
 
 "When the trial come off/ 7 answered the old 
 man, raising his head again. "Course we couldn t 
 lose the land. Twarn t worth much till the new 
 railroad come through; then the oak come handy 
 for cross-ties. That s what set Fillmore and Luke 
 Shanders onto it. 
 
 "When the case was tried, the Judge seed they 
 couldn t bring no riginal deed cept one showin* 
 that Luke Shanders and Fillmore was partners in 
 the steal, and the Judge lowed they d have to pay 
 for the timber they cut and hauled away. 
 
 "They went round then a-sayin they d get even, 
 though wife and I lowed we d take anything rea 
 sonable for what hurt they done us. And that 
 went on till one day bout a year ago Luke come 
 into my place and said he and Lawyer Fillmore 
 would be over the next day ; that they was tired o* 
 fightin , and that if I was willin to settle they 
 
 was. 
 
 u 
 
 One o the new Gov ment dep ties was sittin* 
 in my room at the time. He was goin long up 
 to town-court, he said, and had jest drapped in to 
 pass the time o day. There he is sittin over 
 there," and he pointed to his captor. 
 
 "I hadn t never seen him before, though I 
 67 
 
THE UKDEK DOG 
 
 a good many of em, but lie showed me his badge, 
 and I knowed who he was. 
 
 "The nex mornin Lawyer Fillmore and Luke 
 stopped outside and hollered for me to come out. 
 I wanted em to come in. Wife had baked some 
 biscuit and we was determined to be sociable-like, 
 now that they was willin to do what was fair, 
 and I lowed they must drive up and git out. They 
 said that that s what they come for, only that they 
 had to go a piece down the road, and they d be back 
 agin in a half-hour with the money. 
 
 "Then Luke Shanders lowed he was cold, and 
 asked if I had a drap o whiskey." 
 
 At mention of the all-important word a visible 
 stir took place in the court-room. The young man 
 with the closed eyes opened them and sat up in 
 his chair. The jury ceased whispering to one an 
 other ; the Judge pushed his spectacles back on his 
 forehead and moved his papers aside ; the buzzard 
 stretched his long neck an inch farther out of his 
 shirt-collar and lowered his head in attention. The 
 spigot, which up to this time had run only "empty 
 ings," was now giving out the clear juice of the 
 wine-vat. Each man bent his tin cup of an ear to 
 catch it. The old man noticed the increment and 
 looked about him anxiously, as if dreading another 
 rebuff. He started to speak, cleared his throat, 
 pulled nervously at his beard for a moment, glanc 
 ing furtively about the room, and in a lower tone 
 repeated the words : 
 
 68 
 
"ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS" 
 
 "Asked if I had a drap o whiskey. Well, I 
 always take a dram when I want it, and I had some 
 prime stuff my son Ned had sent me over from 
 Frankfort, so I went back and poured out bout 
 four fingers in a glass, and took it out to him. 
 
 "After he drunk it he handed me back the glass 
 and driv off, say in he d be round later. I took the 
 glass into the house agin and sot it longside the 
 bottle on the mantel, and when I turned round 
 there sot the Gov ment dep ty. He d come in, wife 
 said, while I was talkin with Luke in the road. 
 When he gee the glass he asked if I had a license, 
 and I told him I didn t sell no liquor, and he asked 
 me what that was, and I told him it was whiskey, 
 and then he got the bottle and took a smell of it, 
 and then he held up the glass and turned it upside 
 down and out drapped a ten-cent piece. Then he 
 rested me !" 
 
 The jury was all attention now ; the several ex 
 hibits were coming into view. One fat, red-faced 
 juror, who had a dyed mustache and looked like 
 a sporting man, would have laughed outright had 
 not the Judge checked him with a stern look. 
 
 "You didn t put the dime there, did you ?" the 
 young attorney asked, in a tone that implied a 
 negative answer. 
 
 "No, sir ; I don t take no money for what I give 
 a man." This came with a slight touch of indigna 
 tion. 
 
 "Do you know who put it there 
 M 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 "Well, there warn t nobody but Luke Shanders 
 could V done it, cause nobody had the glass but 
 him. I heard since that it was all a put-up job, 
 that they had swore I kep a roadside, and they 
 had sot the dep ty onto me; but I don t like to 
 think men kin be so mean, and I ain t a-sayin it 
 now. If they knew what I ve suffered for what 
 they done to me, they couldn t help but feel sorry 
 for me if they re human." 
 
 He stopped and passed his hands wearily over 
 his forehead. The jury sat still, their eyes riveted 
 on the speaker. Even the red-faced man was lis 
 tening now. 
 
 For an instant there was a pause. Then the old 
 man reached forward in his seat, his elbows on his 
 knees, his hands held out as if in appeal, and in a 
 low, pleading tone addressed the jury. Strange 
 to say, neither the buzzard nor the Judge inter 
 rupted the unusual proceeding : 
 
 "Men, I hope you will let me go home now; 
 won t you, please ? I ain t never been customed 
 all my life to bein shut up, and it comes purty 
 hard, not bein so young as I was. I ain t findin 
 no fault, but it don t seem to me I ever done any- 
 thin to deserve all that s come to me lately. I got 
 long best way I could over there" and he pointed 
 in the direction of the steel cages "till las week, 
 when Sam Jelliff come down to see his boy and 
 told me the wife was took sick bad, worse than she s 
 been yet. She ain t used to bein alone; you d 
 
 70 
 
"ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS" 
 
 know that if you could see her. The neighbors 
 is purty good to her, I hear, but nobody don t under 
 stand her like me, she and me bein so long together 
 mos fifty years now. You ll let me go home, 
 won t you, men? I git so tired, so tired; please 
 let me go." 
 
 The buzzard was on his feet now, his arms 
 sawing the air, his strident voice filling the court 
 room. 
 
 He pleaded for the machine for the safety of 
 the community, for the majesty of the law. He 
 demanded instant conviction for this trickster, this 
 Fagin among men, this hoary-headed old scoundrel 
 who had insulted the intelligence of twelve of the 
 most upright men he had ever seen in a jury-box, 
 insulted them with a tale that even a child would 
 laugh at. When at last he folded his wings, 
 hunched up his shoulders and sat down, and the 
 echoes of his harsh voice had died away, it seemed 
 to me that I could hear vibrating through the room, 
 as one hears the murmur of a brook after a storm, 
 the tender tones of the old man pleading as if for 
 his life. 
 
 The jury had listened to the buzzard s harangue, 
 with their eyes, not with their ears. Down in 
 their hearts there still rang the piteous words. 
 The man-made machine was breaking down; its 
 mechanism out of "gear"; the law that governed 
 it defective. The God-law, the law of mercy, was 
 being set in motion. 
 
 71 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 The voice of the Judge trembled a little as lie 
 delivered his charge, as if somehow a stray tear 
 had clogged the passage from his heart to his lips. 
 In low, earnest tones that every man strained his 
 ear to catch, he reviewed the testimony of the wit 
 nesses, those I had not heard ; took up the uncon- 
 tradicted statement of the Deputy Marshal as evi 
 denced by the exhibits before them ; passed to the 
 motive behind the alleged conspiracy ; dwelt for a 
 moment on the age and long confinement of the 
 accused, and ended with the remark that if they 
 believed his story to be an explanation of the facts, 
 they must acquit him. 
 
 They never left their seats. Even the red-faced 
 man voted out of turn in his eagerness. The 
 God-law had triumphed! The old man was 
 free. 
 
 The throng in the court-room rose and made 
 their way to the doors, the old man going first, 
 escorted by an officer to see him safely outside. 
 The Judge disappeared through a door; the clerk 
 lifted the lid of his desk and stowed beneath it the 
 greasy, ragged Bible, stained with the lies of a 
 thousand lips. The buzzard crammed his hat 
 over his eyes, turned, and without a word to any 
 one, stalked out of the room. 
 
 I mingled with the motley throng, my ears alert 
 for any spoken opinions. I had seen the flying- 
 belt thrown from the machine and the stoppage of 
 
 n 
 
"ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS" 
 
 the engine. I wanted now to learn something of 
 the hot breath of the people who had set it in mo 
 tion eleven months and ten days before, 
 
 "Reckon he ll cut a blue streak for home now," 
 muttered a court-lounger, buttoning up his coat; 
 "that is, if he s got one. You ll never catch him 
 sellin any more moonshine." 
 
 "Been me, I d soaked him, 7 blurted out a corner- 
 loafer. "If you can t convict one of these clay- 
 eaters when you ve got him dead to rights, ain t 
 no use havin no justice." 
 
 "I thought Tom [the buzzard] would land him," 
 said a stout, gray-whiskered lawyer who waa 
 gathering up his papers. "First case Tom s lost 
 this week. Goes pretty hard with him, you know, 
 when he loses a case." 
 
 "It would have been an outrage, sir, if he had 
 won it," broke in a stranger. "The arrest of 
 an old man like that on such a charge, and his con 
 finement for nearly a year in a hole like that one 
 across the street, is a disgrace. Something is rot 
 ten in the way the laws are administered in the 
 mountains of Kentucky, or outrages like this 
 couldn t occur." 
 
 "He wouldn t thank you, sir, for interfering," 
 remarked a bystander. "Being shut up isn t to 
 him what it is to you and me. He s been taken 
 care of for a year, hasn t he ? Warmed and fed, 
 and got his three meals a day. That s a blamed 
 sight more than Le gets at home. They re only 
 
 73 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 half-human, these mountaineers, anyway. Don t 
 worry; he s all right." 
 
 "You ve struck it first time," retorted the Dep 
 uty Marshal who had smelled the whiskey, found 
 the dime, and slipped the handcuffs on the old 
 man s withered wrists. "Go slow, will you ?" and 
 he faced the stranger. "We got to do our duty, 
 ain t we ? That s the law, and there ain t no way 
 gittin round it. And if we make mistakes, what 
 of it ? We ve got to make mistakes sometimes, or 
 we wouldn t catch half of em. The old skeesiks 
 ought to be glad to git free. See ?" 
 
 Suddenly there came to my mind the realization 
 of the days that were to follow and all that they 
 would bring to him of shame. I thought of the 
 cold glance of his neighbors, the frightened stare 
 of the children ready to run at the approach of 
 the old jail-bird, the coarse familiarity of the 
 tavern lounger. Then the cruelty of it all rose 
 before me. Who would recompense him for the 
 indignities he had suffered the deadly chill of the 
 steel clamps ; the long days of suspense ; the bitter 
 ness of the first disagreement ; the foul air of the 
 inferno, made doubly foul by close crowding of 
 filthy bodies, inexpressibly horrible to one who had 
 breathed all his life the cool, pure air of the open 
 with only the big clean trees for his comrades ? 
 
 And if at last his neighbors should take pity 
 upon him and drive out the men who had wrecked 
 
 74 
 
"ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS" 
 
 his old age, and lie should wander once more up 
 the brook with his rod over his shoulder, the faith 
 ful dog at his heels, and a line of the old song still 
 alive in his heart, what about those eleven months 
 and ten days of which the man-law had robbed 
 him? 
 
 mighty machine ! O benign, munificent law ! 
 Law of a people who boast of mercy and truth and 
 equal rights and justice to all. Law of a land with 
 rivers of gold and mountains of silver, the sum of 
 its wealth astounding the world. 
 
 What s to be done about it ? 
 
 Nothing. 
 
 Better drag a dozen helpless Samanthy Norths 
 from their homes, their suckling babes in their 
 arms, and any number of gray-haired old men 
 from their cabins, than waive one jot or tittle of 
 so just a code ; and lose the tax on whiskey. 
 
CAP N BOB OF THE SCREAMER 
 
CAFN BOB OF THE SCREAMER 
 
 Captain Bob Brandt dropped in to-day, looking 
 brown and ruddy, and filling my office with a 
 breeze and freshness that seemed to have followed 
 him all the way in from the Gea. 
 
 "Just in, Captain?" I cried, springing to my 
 feet, my fingers closing round his no more wel 
 come visitor than Captain Bob ever pushes open 
 my office-door. 
 
 "Yes Teutonic." 
 
 "Where did you pick her up Fire Island ?" 
 
 "No ; bout hundred miles off Montauk." 
 
 Captain Bobjhas been a Sandy Hook pilot for 
 some years back. 
 
 "How was the weather ?" I had a chair ready 
 for him now and was lifting the lid of my desk 
 in search of a box of cigars. 
 
 "Pretty dirty. Nasty swell on, and so thick 
 you could hack holes in it. Come pretty nigh 
 missin ? her" and the Captain opened his big 
 storm-coat, hooked his cloth cap with its ear-tabs 
 on one prong of the back of one office-chair, 
 stretched his length in another, and, bending for 
 ward, reached out his long, brawny arm for the 
 cigar I waa extending toward him. 
 
 79 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 I have described this sea-dog before as a 
 younger sea-dog twenty years younger, in fact 
 He was in my employ then he and his sloop 
 Screamer. Every big foundation stone that Caleb 
 set in Shark Ledge Light the one off Keyport 
 harbor can tell you about them both. 
 
 In those light-house days this Captain Bob was 
 "a tall, straight, blue-eyed young fellow of twenty- 
 two, with a face like an open book one of those 
 perfectly simple, absolutely fearless, alert men. 
 found so often on the New England coast, with 
 legs and arms of steel, body of hickory, and hands 
 of whalebone ; cabin boy at twelve, common sailor 
 at sixteen, first mate at twenty, and full captain 
 the year he voted." 
 
 He is precisely the same kind of man to-day, 
 plus twenty years of experience. The figure is 
 still the figure of his youth, the hickory a little 
 better seasoned, perhaps, and the steel and whale 
 bone a little harder, but they have lost none of 
 their spring and vitality. The ratio of promotion 
 has also been kept up. That he should now rank 
 as the most expert pilot on the station was quite 
 to be expected. He could have filled as well a 
 commander s place on the bridge, had he chosen to 
 work along those lines. 
 
 And the modesty of the man ! 
 
 Nothing that he has done, or can still do, has 
 ever stretched hig hat measure or swelled any part 
 of his thinking apparatus. The old pilot-cap is 
 
 SO 
 
CAP N BOB 
 
 still number seven, and the sensible bead beneatb 
 it number seven, too. It could be number eight, 
 or nine, or even ten, if it had expanded in pro 
 portion to the heroic quality of many of his deeds. 
 During the light-house days, for instance, when 
 some sudden shift of wind would churn the long 
 rollers into bobbles and then into frenzied seas that 
 smothered the Ledge in white suds, if a life-boat 
 was to be launched in the boiling surf, the last 
 man to jump aboard, after a mighty push with his 
 long hindmost leg, was sure to be this same bundle 
 of whalebone and hickory. And should this boat, 
 a few minutes later, go whirling along in the 
 "Race," bottom side up, with every worker safe 
 astride her keel, principally because of Captain 
 Bob s coolness and skill in hauling them out of 
 the water, again the last man to crawl beside the 
 rescued crew would be this same long-legged, long- 
 armed skipper. 
 
 Or should a guy-rope snap with a sound like a 
 pistol-shot, and a great stone swung to a boom and 
 weighing tons should begin running amuck through 
 piles of cement, machinery, and men, and some one" 
 of the working gang, seeing the danger, should, 
 with the quickness and sureness of a mountain- 
 goat, spring straight for the stone, clutching the 
 end of the guy and bounding off again, twisting 
 the bight round some improvised snubbing-post, 
 thus checking its mad career, you would not have 
 had to ask his name twice. 
 
 81 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 "Cap n Bob stopped it, sir," was sure to have 
 been the proffered reply. 
 
 So, too, in his present occupation of pilot. 
 It was only a few years ago that I stood on the 
 deck of an incoming steamer, straining my eyes 
 across a heaving sea, the horizon lost in the dull 
 haze of countless froth-caps; we had slowed for a 
 pilot, so the word came down the deck. Suddenly, 
 against the murky sky-line, with mainsail double- 
 reefed and jib close-hauled, loomed a light craft 
 plunging bows under at every lurch. Then a chip 
 the size of your hand broke away from the frail 
 vessel, and a big wave lying around for such prey, 
 sprang upon it with wide-open mouth. The tiny 
 bit dodged and slipped out of sight into a mighty 
 ravine, then mounted high in air, upborne in the 
 teeth of another great monster, and again was lost 
 to view. Soon the chip became a bit of driftwood 
 manned by two toy men working two toy oars like 
 mad and bearing at one end a yellow dot. 
 
 Then the first officer walked down the deck to 
 where I stood, followed by a huddle of seamen who 
 began unrolling a rope ladder. 
 
 "You re right," I heard an officer answer a pas 
 senger. "It s no fit weather to take a pilot. Cap 
 tain wouldn t have stopped for any other boat but 
 No. 11. But those fellows out there don t know 
 what weather is." 
 
 The bit of driftwood now developed into a yawl. 
 The yellow dot broadened and lengthened to the 
 
 83 
 
CAP1ST BOB 
 
 semblance of a man standing erect and unbutton 
 ing his oil-skins as he looked straight at the steamer 
 rolling port-holes under, the rope ladder flopping 
 against her side. Then came a quick twist of the 
 oars, a sudden lull as the yawl shot within a boat s 
 length of the rope ladder, and with the spring of 
 a cat the man in oil-skins landed with both feet on 
 its lower rung, and the next instant he was over 
 the steamer s rail and on her deck beside me. 
 
 I thought I knew that spring, even before I 
 saw his face or got hold of his hand. 
 
 It was Captain Bob. 
 
 As I look at him now, sitting in my office-chair, 
 the smoke of the cigar curling about his bronzed, 
 weather-tanned face, my eye taking in his slim 
 waist, slender thighs, and long, sinewy arms and 
 hands that have served him so well all his life, I 
 can hardly believe that twenty years have passed 
 over his head since we worked together on Shark 
 Ledge. But for the marks chalked on his temples 
 by the Old Man with the Hour-glass and the few 
 tally-scores of hard work crossing the corners of 
 his mouth and eyes, he has the same external ap 
 pearance as in the old days. Even these indexes 
 of advancing years are lost when he throws his 
 head up and laughs one of his spontaneous, ring 
 ing laughs that fills my office full of sunshine, 
 illumining it for hours after he has gone. 
 
 "This pilotin s pretty rough sometimes," Cap 
 tain Bob continued between the puffs of smoke, 
 
 83 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 "but it ain t nothin to the old days. When I look 
 back on it all, seems to me as if we was out o our 
 heads most o the time. I didn t know it then, 
 but twas true all the same. Think now o layin 
 the Screamer broadside on that stone pile at Shark 
 Ledge, unloadin them stone with nothin but a 
 couple o spar buoys to keep er off. Wonder I 
 didn t leave er bones there. Would if I hadn t 
 knowed every stick o timber in er and jest what 
 she could stagger under." 
 
 "But she was a good sea-boat," I interpolated. 
 "The Screamer was always the pride of the work." 
 
 "]SFone better. You d a-thought so if you d been 
 with us that night off Hatteras; we layin to, 
 hatches battened down. I never see it blow wuss. 
 It came out o the nor west bout dark, and fore 
 mornin I tell ye it was a-humpin things. We 
 started with a pretty decent set o sails, new eye 
 lets rove in and new clew lines, but, Lord love ye, 
 we hadn t taken old Hatteras into consideration. 
 Bill Nevins, my engineer, and a landsman who was 
 to work the h istin engine, looked kind er peaked 
 when what was left of the jib come rattlin down 
 on his fo c s le hatch, but I says to him, the 
 Screamer s all right, Billy, so she don t strike 
 nothin and so long s we can keep the water out er. 
 Can t sink er any more n an empty five-gallon 
 ker sene can with the cork in. We ll lay round 
 here till mornin and then set a signal. Some- 
 tbing U come along pretty soon, Sure nough, 
 
 M 
 
CAPN BOB 
 
 long oome a coaler bound for Charleston. She 
 see us a-wallowin in the trough and our mast 
 thrashin for all it was worth. 
 
 " What d ye want ? the skipper says, when he 
 got within hail. 
 
 " Some sail-needles and a ball o twine/ I hol 
 lered back; we got everything else. You should 
 juat a-heard him cuss " and one of Captain Bob s 
 laughs rang through the room. "Them s two 
 things I d forgot didn t think o them in fact till 
 the mainsheet give way. 
 
 "Well, he chucked em aboard with another cuss. 
 I hadn t no money to pay no salvage. All we 
 wanted was them needles and a little elbow-grease 
 and gumption. So we started in, and fore night, 
 she still a-thrashin , I d fixed up the sails, patched 
 the eyelets with a pair o boot-legs, and was off 
 again." 
 
 "What were you doing off Hatteras, Captain 
 Bob ?" I asked. I was leading him on, professing 
 ignorance of minor details, so that I could again 
 enjoy the delight of hearing him tell it. 
 
 "Oh, that was another one o them crazy jobs I 
 used to take when I didn t know no better. Why, 
 I guess you remember bout that wreckin job off 
 Hamilton, Bermuda ?" 
 
 He was settled in his chair now, his legs crossed, 
 his head down between his shoulders. 
 
 "You see, after I quit work on the ledge/ I was 
 put to i for a job, and there come along a feller 
 
 85 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 by the name of Lamson the agent of an insurance 
 company, who wanted me to go to Bermuda and 
 git up some forty-two pieces o white I-talian 
 marble that had been wrecked three years before 
 off the harbor of Hamilton. They ran from three 
 to twenty-one tons each, he said. So off I started 
 with the Screamer. He didn t say, though, that 
 the wreck lay on a coral reef eight miles from land, 
 or I d stayed to home in New Bedford. 
 
 "When I got to where the wreck lay you couldn t 
 see a thing bove water. So I got into an old divin 
 dress we had aboard one we used on the Ledge 
 oiled up the pump and went down to look her over, 
 and by Jiminy Criminy, not a scrap o that wreck 
 was left cept the rusty iron work and that part 
 o the bottom plankin of the vessel that lay under 
 the stones ! Everything else was eaten up with the 
 worms ! Funniest-lookin place you ever see. The 
 water was just as clear as air, and I could see 
 every one o them stone plain as daylight looked 
 like so many big lumps o white sugar scattered 
 round and they were big ! One of em weighed 
 twenty-one tons, and none on em weighed less n 
 five. Of course I knew how big they were fore 
 I started, and I d fitted up the Screamer special 
 to h ist em, but I didn t know I d have to handle 
 em twice ; once from where they laid on that coral 
 reef in twenty-eight feet o water and then unload 
 em on the Navy Yard dock, above Hamilton, and 
 then pick em up agin, load em board the Scream- 
 
 86 
 
CAPT BOB 
 
 er, and unload em once more board a Boston brig 
 they d sent down for em one o them high-waist- 
 ed things bout sixteen feet from the water-line to 
 the rail. That was the wust part of it." 
 
 Captain Bob stopped, felt in his pocket for a 
 match, found it empty, rose from his chair, picked 
 one from a match-safe on my desk, lighted his 
 cigar, and resumed his seat again. I have found 
 it wisest to let him have his own way in times like 
 these. If I interrupt the flow of his talk it may 
 stop for the day, and I lose the best part of the 
 enjoyment of having him with me. 
 
 "Pretty decent chaps, them Englishmen" puff- 
 puff the volume of smoke was all right once more. 
 "One Monday morning I ran out of the Navy Yard 
 dock within sight of the wreck. I had been layin 
 up over Sunday to get out of the way of a norther, 
 when I luffed a little too soon, and bang went my 
 bowsprit and scraped off about three feet of red 
 paint from the end of the dock. One of the watch 
 men was on the string-piece, and saw the whole 
 thing. Come ashore, he says, and go and see the 
 Admiral ; you can t scrape no paint off this dock 
 with my permission. 
 
 "Well, I waited four hours for his nibs. When 
 he come to his office quarters he was bout up to 
 my arms, red as a can-buoy, and white hair stickin 
 up straight as a shoe-brush on his head. He looked 
 cross enough to bite a tenpenny nail in two. 
 
 " Ran into the dock, did ye ran into Her 
 87 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 Majesty s dock, and ye had room enough to turn a 
 fleet in! Do you think we paint these docks for 
 the fun of havin you lubbers scrape it off ? You ll 
 pay for paintin it over, sir that s what you ll do, 
 or I ll libel your boat, and send a file of marines 
 down and tie her up/ and away he went up the 
 dock to his office again. 
 
 " Gosh ! I said to myself. Guess I m in a fix. 
 The boys stood around and heard every word, and 
 I tell ye it warn t no joke. As to money, there 
 warn t a ten-dollar bill in the crew. I d spent 
 every cent I could rake and scrape to fit the 
 Screamer out, and the boys were workin on shares, 
 and nobody was to get any money until the last 
 stone that big twenty-one-ton feller was board 
 the brig. Then I could go to the agents in Hamil 
 ton and draw two-thirds of my contract. That 
 twenty-one-ton chunk, I forgot to tell ye, I had 
 picked up the day before, and it was then aboard 
 the Screamer, and we was on our way down to 
 Hamilton, where the brig lay, when her nose 
 scraped off the Admiral s paint. 
 
 "It did look kind o nasty for us, and no mis 
 take. One day more, and we d a been through 
 and had our money. 
 
 " Go up and see him, said the watchman. He 
 gits cool sometimes as sudden as he gits hot. So 
 Bill Kevins, my engineer, who was workin the 
 h ister, and I went up. The old feller was sittin 
 on the piazza in a big rattan chair. 
 
 88 
 
CAP N BOB 
 
 " Come aboard/ he hollered, soon s he see Bill 
 and me a-standin in the garden-path with our hats 
 off, lookin like two jailbirds about to be sentenced. 
 Well, we got up on the porch, and he looked us all 
 over, and said: 
 
 " Have you got that money with you V No/ 
 I said, I haven t/ and I ups and tells him just how 
 we was fixed, and how we had worked, and how 
 short we was of grub and clothes and money, and 
 then I said, an now I come to tell ye that I hit the 
 dock fair and square, and it was all my fault, and 
 that I ll pay whatever you say is right when I put 
 this stone board and get my pay. 
 
 "He looked me all over I tell you I was pretty 
 ragged ; nothin but a shirt and pants on, and they 
 was almighty tore up, especially where most every 
 body wants to be covered and Bill was no better. 
 We d bout used up our clo es so that sail-needles 
 nor nothin else wouldn t a-done us no good, and we 
 had no time nor no spare cash to go ashore and 
 get others. 
 
 "While I was a-talkin , the old feller s eyes was 
 a-borin into mine then he roared out, No, sir; 
 you won t! you won t pay one d d shillin , sir. 
 You ll go back to your work, and if there s any 
 thing you want in the way of grub or supplies send 
 here for it and you shall have it. Good-day. I 
 tell ye he was a rum one." 
 
 "Was that the last time you saw him?" I 
 asked. 
 
 80 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 "Not much. When we got Alongside the brig the 
 next day, her Cap n see that twenty-one-ton stone 
 settin up on the deck of the Screamer, lookin like 
 a big white church, and he got so scared he went 
 ashore and started a yarn that we couldn t lift that 
 stone sixteen feet in the air, and over her rail and 
 down into the hold, and that we d smash his brig, 
 and it got to the Admiral s ears, and down come 
 two English engineers, in cork helmets and white 
 jackets and gold buttons, spic an span as if they d 
 stepped out of the chart-room of a yacht. One was 
 a colonel and the other was a major. They were 
 both just back from India, and natty-lookin chaps 
 as you ever saw. And clear stuff all the way 
 through you could tell that before they opened 
 their mouths. 
 
 "I was on the deck of the Screamer, overhaulin 
 the fall, surrounded by most of the crew, gettin 
 ready to h ist the stone, when I first saw em. They 
 and the Cap n were away up above me, leanin over 
 the rail, lookin at the stone church that some o the 
 boys was puttin the chains round. Bill JSTevins 
 was down in the fo c s le, firin up, with the safety- 
 valve set at 125 pounds. He had half a keg o 
 rosin and a can o kerosene to help out with in case 
 we wanted a few pounds extry in the middle of the 
 tea-party. Pretty soon I heard one of em holler : 
 
 " Ahoy ! Is the Captain aboard ? 
 
 " He is/ I said, steppin out. Who wants 
 himf 
 
 90 
 
CAPST BOB 
 
 " Colonel Throckmorton/ he says, and Major 
 Severn. 
 
 " Come aboard, gentlemen/ I says. 
 
 "So down they come, the Colonel first, one foot 
 at a time touchin the ladder, the Major following. 
 When he reached the deck and wheeled around to 
 look at me you just ought to have seen his face. 
 
 " Are you the Captain ? he says, and he looked 
 me over bout as the admiral had done. 
 
 " I be, I said, Captain Eobert Brandt, of Pig 
 eon Cove, Cape Ann, master and owner of the 
 sloop Screamer, at your service I kep front side 
 to t him. What can I do for you ? 
 
 " Well, Captain, he began, perhaps it is none 
 of our business, but the Captain of the brig here/ 
 and he pointed up above him, has asked us to look 
 over your tackle and see whether it is safe enough 
 to lift this stone. He s afraid you ll drop it and 
 smash his deck in. Since I ve seen it, and what 
 you propose to lift it with, I ve told him there s no 
 danger, for you ll never get it off the deck. We 
 are both officers of the Engineering Corps, and it 
 is our business to know about such things. 
 
 " What makes you think the Screamer won t 
 lift it ? I asked. 
 
 " Well, says the Colonel, looking aloft, her 
 boom ain t big enough, and that Manila rope is too 
 light. I should think it wasn t over three and 
 three-quarter-inch rope. We all know fifteen tons 
 is enough weight for that size rope, even with a 
 
 91 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 fourfold purchase, and we understand you say this 
 stone weighs twenty-one. 
 
 " I m sorry, gentlemen/ I said, and if you are 
 worried about it you d better go board the brig, 
 for I m about ready to pick the stone up and land 
 her. 
 
 "Well, the Major said he guessed he would, if 
 I was determined to pull the mast out of my 
 sloop, but the Colonel said he d stay by and see 
 it out. 
 
 "Just then Bill Nevins stuck his head out of the 
 fo c s le. He was blacker than I was ; all smeared 
 with grease and stripped to his waist. It was hot 
 enough anywhere, but it was sizzlin down where 
 he was. 
 
 " All ready, Cap n, he says. She s got every 
 pound she can carry. 
 
 "I looked everything over saw the butt of the 
 boom was playin free in the wooden socket, 
 chucked in a lot of tallow so it could move easy, 
 give an extra twist to the end of the guy, and hol 
 lered to Bill to go ahead. She went chuckety- 
 chuck, chuckety-chuck for half a dozen turns; 
 then she slowed down soon as she struck the full 
 weight, and began to pant like an old horse climb- 
 in a hill. All this time the Colonel was callin 
 out from where he stood near the tiller: She ll 
 never lift it, Captain she ll never lift it. 
 
 "Next come a scrapin long the deck, and 
 the big stone swung clear with a foot o daylight 
 
 92 
 
CAPN BOB 
 
 tween it and the deck. Then up she went, crawl- 
 in slowly inch by inch, till she reached the height 
 of the brig s rail. 
 
 "JSTow come the wust part. I knew that when 
 I gave orders to slack away the guy-rope so as to 
 swing the stone aboard the brig, the Screamer 
 would list over and dip her rail in the water. So 
 I made a jump for the rope ladder and shinned 
 up the brig s side so as to take a hand in landin 
 the stone properly on the brig s deck so as to save 
 her beams and break the jar when I lowered the 
 stone down. I had one eye now on the stone and 
 the other on the water, which was curling over the 
 Screamer s rail and makin for the fo c s le hatch. 
 Should the water pour down this hatch, out would 
 go my fires and maybe up would come her b iler. 
 
 " Ease away on that guy and lower away easy/ 
 I hollered to Bill. The stone dropped to within 
 two feet of the brig s deck and swung back and 
 for ards. Then I heard Bill yell. I was expectin 
 it. 
 
 " Water s comin in ! 
 
 "I leaned over the brig s rail and could see the 
 slop of the sea combin over the Screamer s fo c s le 
 hatch. Bill s fires would be out the next minute. 
 There was just two feet now tween the stone and 
 the deck where I stood too much to drop; but 
 there was nothing else to do, and I hollered : 
 
 " All gone. 
 
 "Down she come with a run, struck the big tim- 
 93 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 bers on the deck, and by Jimmy 1 ye could a-heard 
 that old brig groan from stem to stern. 
 
 "I jumped on top of the stone and threw off the 
 shackles, and the Screamer came up on an even 
 keel as easy as a duck ridin the water. 
 
 "You just oughter seen the Colonel when the old 
 boat righted herself, and he had climbed up and 
 stood Alongside the Major a-talkin it over. 
 
 "Pretty soon he came up to where I was a-gettin 
 the tackle ready to lower the stone in the hold, and 
 he says : 
 
 " Well, you made your word good, Cap n, but 
 I want to tell you that nobody but an American 
 could a-done it. It would cost me my commission 
 if I should try to do what you have done/ 
 
 " Well, gentlemen, I says, what was wrong 
 about it ? What s the matter with the Screamer s 
 rig? 
 
 " Well, the size of the rope for one thing, says 
 the Colonel, and the boom. 
 
 " Well, p haps you ain t looked it over, I says, 
 and I began unravelling an end that stuck out near 
 the shackle. If you ll look close here and I 
 held the end of the rope up you ll see that every 
 stran of that rope is made of the best Manila yarn, 
 and laid as smooth as silk. I stood over that rope 
 myself when it was put together. Old Sam Han 
 son of New Bedford laid up that rope, and there 
 ain t no better nowhere. I knew what it had to 
 do, and I warn t goin to take no chances of its not 
 
 94 
 
OAPJST BOB 
 
 doin* it right. As to that boom, I want to tell ye 
 that I picked that boom out o about two hundred 
 sticks in Tom Carlin s shipyard, in Stonington, 
 and had it scraped and ironed just to please me. 
 There ain t a rotten knot in it from butt to finish, 
 and mighty few of any other kind. That stick s 
 growed right that s what s the matter with it; 
 and it bellies out in the middle, just where it ought 
 to be thickest. 
 
 "Well, they didn t say nothin* for a while, cept 
 to walk round the stone once or twice and slap it 
 with their hands, as if they wanted to make sure 
 it was all there. My men were all over it now, and 
 we was gettin things in shape to finish up. I tell 
 ye the boys were mighty glad, and so was I. It 
 had been a long pull of six months work, and we 
 were out of most everything, and as soon as the 
 big stone was down in the brig s hold, and warped 
 back and stowed with the others and that 
 wouldn t take but a day or two more we would 
 clean up, get our money, and light out for 
 home. 
 
 "All this time the Colonel and the Major were 
 buzzin each other off by the other rail. Pretty 
 soon they both come over to where I stood, and 
 the Colonel reached out his hand. 
 
 " Cap n Brandt, he says and he had a look 
 in his face as if he meant it and he did, every 
 word of it it would give Major Severn and my 
 self great pleasure if you would dine with us to- 
 
 95 
 
THE UNDER DOQ 
 
 night at the Canteen. The Admiral is coming, 
 and some brother officers who would be pleased to 
 know you. 
 
 "Well, I was struck all of a heap for a minute, 
 knowing what kind of clo es I had to go in, and 
 so I says : 
 
 " Well, gentlemen, that s very nice of you, and 
 I see you mean it, and if I had anything fittin 
 to wear there s nothin I would like better ; but ye 
 see how I m fixed, and I lifted my arms so he 
 could see a few holes that he might a-missed before, 
 and I motioned to some other parts of my get-up 
 that needed repairs. 
 
 ( That don t make no difference, Cap n, what 
 kind of clo es you come in. We dine at eight 
 o clock. 
 
 "Of course I knew I couldn t go, and I didn t 
 want em to think I intended to go when I didn t, 
 BO I says, rather positive-like : 
 
 " Very much obliged, gentlemen, but I guess 
 I ll have to get you to count me out this time. I 
 knowed I warn t fittin to sit at anybody s table, 
 especially if that old Admiral was comin . 
 
 "The Colonel see I was in earnest, and he stepped 
 up, quick-like, and laid his hand on my shoulder. 
 
 " Captain Brandt, he says, we ain t worryin 
 bout your clo es, and don t you worry. You can 
 come in your shirt, you can come in your socks, 
 or you can come without one damned rag only 
 oomel " 
 
 96 
 
CAPN BOB 
 
 The Captain stopped, shook the ashes from his 
 cigar, slowly raised himself to his feet, and 
 reached for his hat. 
 
 "Did you go, Captain ?" I asked. 
 
 The Captain looked at me for a moment with 
 one of those quizzical glances which so often light 
 up his face when something amuses him, and said, 
 as he hlew a cloud of smoke to the ceiling : 
 
 "Well, I didn t forget my manners. When it 
 got dark dark, mind ye I went up and sat on 
 the piazza and had a smoke with em Admiral 
 and all. But I didn t go to dinner not in them 
 pants." 
 
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS 
 
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS 
 
 This all happened on the banks of the Seine, 
 above St. Cloud above Suresne, in fact, or rather 
 its bridge the new one that has pieced out the 
 old one with the quaint stone arches that we love. 
 
 A silver-gray haze, a pure French gray, hung 
 over the river, softening the sky-line of the near-by 
 hills, and making ghosts of a row of gendarme pop 
 lars guarding the opposite bank. 
 
 On my side of the stream wandered a path close 
 to the water s edge so close that I could fill my 
 water-cups without leaving my sketching-stool. 
 Over this path, striped with shadows, big trees tow 
 ered, their gnarled branches interlaced above my 
 head. On my right, rising out of a green sward 
 cleared of all underbrush, towered other trees, 
 their black trunks sharp-cut against the haze. In 
 the distance, side by side with the path, wound the 
 river, still asleep, save where it flashed into waves 
 of silver laughter at the touch of some frolicsome 
 puff of wind. Elsewhere, although the sun was 
 hours high, it dozed away, nestling under the 
 101 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 overhanging branches making their morning 
 toilet in its depths. But for these long, straight 
 flashes of silver light glinting between the tree- 
 trunks, one could not tell where the haze ended and 
 the river began. 
 
 As I worked on, my white umbrella tilted at the 
 exact angle so that my palette, hand, and canvas 
 would be hidden from the inquisitive sun, a group 
 of figures emerged from a clump of low trees, and 
 made their way across the green sward the man 
 in an ivory-black coat, evidently a priest, even at 
 that distance; the woman in a burnt-umber dress 
 with a dot of Chinese white for a head probably 
 a cap; and the third, a girl of six or eight in a 
 brown madder dress and yellow-ochre hat. 
 
 An out-door painter, while at work, tumbles 
 everything that crosses his path or comes within 
 range of his vision into the crucible of his palette. 
 The most majestic of mountains and the softest 
 of summer clouds are to him but flat washes of 
 cobalt, and the loveliest of dimples on the fairest of 
 cheeks but a shadow-tone, and a high light made 
 real by pats of indigo and vermilion. 
 
 So in the three figures went among my trees, the 
 priest in the background against a mass of yellow 
 light black against yellow is always a safe con 
 trast; the burnt-umber woman breaking the 
 straight line of a trunk, and the child red on 
 green intensifying a slash of zinober that illu 
 mined my own grassy sward. 
 10* 
 
A PKOCESSION OF UMBEELLAS 
 
 Then my interest in the group ceased. The 
 priest, no doubt, was taking his sister, or his aunt, 
 or his mother, with their own or somebody else s 
 little girl, out for an airing, and they had come 
 at the precise moment when I had begun to long 
 for just such a collection of people ; and now they 
 could take themselves off and out of my perspec 
 tive, particularly the reddish-brown girl who kept 
 on dancing in the sunniest places, running ahead of 
 the priest and the woman, lighting up and accentu 
 ating half a dozen other corners of the wood in 
 terior before me in as many minutes, and making 
 me regret before the paint was half dry on her 
 own little figure that I had not waited for a better 
 composition. 
 
 Then she caught sight of my umbrella. 
 
 She came straight toward me with that slowing 
 of pace as she approached the nearer, her curiosity 
 getting the better of her timidity quite as a fawn 
 or a little calf would have done, attracted by some 
 bit of color or movement which was new to it. The 
 brown madder dress I now saw was dotted with 
 little spots of red, like sprays of berries ; the yel 
 low-ochre hat was wound with a blue ribbon, and 
 tied with a bow on one side. I could see, too, that 
 she wore slippers, and that her hair was platted 
 in two pig-tails, and hung down her back, the ends 
 fastened with a ribbon that matched the one on 
 her hat. 
 
 She stood quite still, her face perfectly impas- 
 103 
 
THE ITNDER DOG 
 
 give, her little hands clasped together, the brim of 
 her hat shading her eyes, which looked straight at 
 my canvas. 
 
 I gave no sign of her presence. It is dangerous 
 to break down the reserve of silence, which is often 
 the only barrier between an out-door painter and 
 the crowds that surround him. Persisted in, it 
 not only compels their respect, even to the lowering 
 of their voices and the tip-toeing in and out of the 
 circle about you, but shortens the time of their 
 visits, a consummation devoutly to be wished. So 
 I worked on in silence, never turning toward this 
 embodiment of one of Boutet de MonveFs draw 
 ings, whose absorbed face I could see out of one 
 corner of my eye. 
 
 Then a ripple of laughter broke the stillness, 
 and a little finger was thrust out, stopping within 
 a hair s-breadth of the dot of Chinese white, still 
 wet, which topped my burnt-umber figure. 
 
 "Tres drole, Monsieur!" 
 
 The voice was sweeter than the laugh. One of 
 those flute-like, bird-throated voices that children 
 often have who live in the open all their lives, 
 chasing butterflies or gathering wild flowers. 
 
 Then came a halloo from the greensward. The 
 priest was coming toward us, calling out, as he 
 walked : 
 
 "Susette! Susette!" 
 
 He, too, underwent a change. The long, ivory- 
 black cassock, so unmistakable in the atmospheric 
 104 
 
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS 
 
 perspective, became an ordinary frock-coat; the 
 white band of a collar developed into the regula 
 tion secular pattern, and the silk hat, although of 
 last year s shape, conformed less closely in its lines 
 to one belonging exclusively to the clergy. The 
 face, though, as I could see in my hurried glance, 
 and even at that distance, was the smooth, clean 
 shaven face of a priest the face of a man of fifty, 
 I should think, who had spent all his life in the 
 service of others. 
 
 Again came the voice, this time quite near. 
 
 "Susette ! Susette !" 
 
 The child, without turning her head, waved her 
 hand in reply, looked earnestly into my face, and 
 with a quick bending of one knee in courtesy, and 
 a "Merci, M sieu; merci," ran with all her speed 
 toward the priest, who stretched wide his arms, 
 half-lifting her from the ground in the embrace. 
 Then a smile broke over his face, so joyous, so full 
 of love and tenderness, so much the unconscious 
 index of the heart that prompted it, that I laid 
 down my palette to watch them. 
 
 I have known many priests in my time, and I 
 have never ceased to marvel at the beauty of the tie 
 which binds them to the little ones of their flocks. 
 I have never been in a land where priests and chil 
 dren were not companions. These long-frocked 
 guardians sit beside their playgrounds, with noses 
 in their breviaries, or they head processions of 
 boys and girls on the way to chapel, or they f ollow, 
 105 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 two by two, behind a long string of blue-checked 
 aprons and severe felt hats, the uniform of the 
 motherless; or they teach the little vagrants by 
 the hour often it is the only schooling that these 
 children get. 
 
 But I never remember one of them carrying 
 such a waif about in his arms, nor one irradiated 
 by such a flash of heavenly joy when some child, 
 in a mad frolic, saw fit to scrape her muddy shoes 
 down the front of his clean, black cassock. 
 
 The beatific smile itself was not altogether new 
 to me. Anyone else can see it who wanders into 
 the Gallery of the Prado. It irradiates the face of 
 an old saint by Ribera a study for one of his 
 large canvases, and is hung above the line. I used 
 to stand before it for hours, studying the technique. 
 The high lights on the face are cracked in places, 
 and the shadows are blackened by time, but the ex 
 pression is that of one who looks straight up into 
 heaven. And there is another a Correggio, in the 
 Hermitage, a St. Simon or St. Timothy, or some 
 other old fellow whose eyes run tears of joy, and 
 whose upturned face reflects the light of the sun. 
 Yet there was something in the face of the priest 
 before me that neither of the others had a pecul 
 iar human quality, which shone out of his eyes, 
 as he stood bareheaded in the sunshine, the little 
 girl in his arms. If the child had been his daugh 
 ter his very own and all he had, and if he had 
 caught her safe from some danger that threatened 
 106 
 
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS 
 
 her life, it could not have expressed more clearly 
 the joyousness of gratitude or the bliss inspired 
 by the sense of possessing something so priceless 
 that every other emotion was absorbed. 
 
 It was all over in a moment. He did not con 
 tinue to beam irradiating beatitudes, as the old 
 Ribera and the older Correggio have done for hun 
 dreds of years. He simply touched his hat to me, 
 tucked the child s hand into his own, and led her 
 off to her mother. 
 
 I kept at my work. For me the incident, de 
 lightful as it was, was closed. All I remembered, 
 as I squeezed the contents of another tube on to my 
 palette, was the smile on the face of the priest. 
 
 The weather now began to take part in the gen 
 eral agitation. The lazy haze, roused by the joy 
 ous sun, had gathered its skirts together and had 
 slipped over the hills. The sun in its turn had 
 been effaced by a big cloud with scalloped edges 
 which had overspread the distant line of the river, 
 blotting out the flashes of silver laughter, and so 
 frightening the little waves that they scurried off 
 to the banks, some even trying to climb up the stone 
 coping out of the way of the rising wind. A cool 
 gust of air, out on a lark, now swept down the 
 path, and, with lance in rest, toppled over my white 
 umbrella. Big drops of rain fell about me, spitting 
 the dust like spent balls. Growls of thunder were 
 heard overhead. One of those rollicking, two- 
 faced thunder-squalls, with the sun on one side 
 107 
 
THE TJKDEK DOG 
 
 and the blackness of the night on the other, was 
 approaching. 
 
 The priest had seen it, for he had the child pick 
 aback and was running across the sward. The 
 woman had seen it, too, for she was already col 
 lecting her baskets, preparing to follow, and I 
 was not far behind. Before she had reached the 
 edge of the woods I had overtaken her, my traps 
 under my arm, my white umbrella over my head. 
 
 "The Chalet Cycle is the nearest," she volun 
 teered, grasping the situation, and pointing to a 
 path opening to the right as she spoke. 
 
 "Is that where he has taken the child?" I asked, 
 hurriedly. 
 
 "No, Monsieur Susette has gone home. It is 
 only a little way." 
 
 I plunged on through the wet grass, my eyes on 
 the opening through the trees, the rain pouring 
 from my umbrella. Before I had reached the end 
 of the path the rain ceased and the sun broke 
 through, flooding the wet leaves with dazzling 
 light 
 
 These two, the clouds and the sun, were evi 
 dently bent on mischief, frightening little waves 
 and painters and bright-eyed children and good 
 priests who loved them! 
 
 108 
 
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS 
 
 n 
 
 Do you happen to know the Chalet Cycle ? 
 
 If you are a staid old painter who takes life as 
 he finds it, and who loves to watch the procession 
 from the sidewalk without any desire to carry one 
 of the banners or to blow one of the horns one 
 of your three-meals-a-day, no heel-taps, and go-to- 
 bed-at-ten-o clock kind of a man, then make a note 
 of the Cycle. The melons are excellent ; the ome 
 lets are wonders, and the salads something to be 
 remembered. But, if you are two-and-twenty, 
 with the world in a sling and both ends of the sling 
 in your hand, and if this is your first real outing 
 since your college days, it would be just as well for 
 you to pass it by and take your coffee and rolls at 
 the little restaurant over the bridge, or the one 
 farther down the street. 
 
 Believe me, a most seductive place is this Chalet 
 Cycle, with its tables set out under the trees ! 
 
 A place, at night, all hanging lanterns and 
 shaded candles on tete-d-tete tables, and close-drawn 
 curtains about the kiosks. A place, by day, where 
 you lunch under giant red and white umbrellas, 
 with seats for two, and these half -hidden by Japan 
 ese screens, so high that even the waiters cannot 
 look over. A place with a great music-stand smoth 
 ered in palms and shady walks and cosey seats, 
 out of sight of anybody, and with deaf, dumb, and 
 109 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 blind waiters. A place with a big open gateway 
 where everybody can enter and ah ! there is 
 where the danger lies a little by-path all hedged 
 about with lilac bushes, where anybody can escape 
 to the woods by the river an ever-present refuge 
 in time of trouble and in constant use more s the 
 pity for it is the unexpected that always happens 
 at the Chalet Cycle. 
 
 The prettiest girls in Paris, in bewitching bicy 
 cle costumes, linger about the music-stand, losing 
 themselves in the arbors and shrubberies. The 
 kiosks are almost all occupied: charming little 
 Chinese pagodas these eight-sided, with lattice 
 screens on all sides screens so tightly woven that 
 no curious idler can see in, and yet so loosely put 
 together that each hidden inmate can see out. 
 Even the trees overhead have a hand in the villany, 
 spreading their leaves thickly, so that the sun it 
 self has a hard time to find out what is going on 
 beneath their branches. All this you become aware 
 of as you enter the big, wide gate. 
 
 Of course, being quite alone, with only my bat 
 tered old umbrella for company, I did not want 
 a whole kiosk to myself, or even half of a giant 
 umbrella. Any quiet corner would do for me, I 
 told the Maitre d Hotel, who relieved me of my 
 sketch-trap anywhere out of the rain when it 
 should again break loose, which it was evidently 
 about to do, judging from the appearance of the 
 clouds anywhere, in fact, where I could eat a filet 
 110 
 
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS 
 
 smothered in mushrooms, and drink a pint of vin 
 ordinaire in peace. 
 
 "No, I expected no one." This in answer to a 
 peculiar lifting of the eyebrows and slight wave of 
 his hand as he drew out a chair in an unoccupied 
 kiosk commanding a view of the grounds. Then, 
 in rather a positive tone, I added : 
 
 "Send me a waiter to take my order orders for 
 one, remember." I wanted to put a stop to his in 
 sinuations at once. Nothing is so annoying when 
 one s hair is growing gray as being misunderstood 
 especially by a waiter. 
 
 Affairs overhead now took a serious turn. The 
 clouds evidently disapproving of the hilarious go 
 ings-on of the sun poking its head out just as the 
 cloud was raining its prettiest had, in retaliation, 
 stopped up all the holes the sun could peer through, 
 and had started in to rain harder than ever. The 
 waiters caught the angry frown on the cloud s face, 
 and took it at its spoken word it had begun to 
 thunder again- and began piling up the chairs to 
 protect their seats, covering up the serving-tables, 
 and getting every perishable article under shelter. 
 The huge mushroom-umbrellas were collapsed and 
 rushed into the kiosks some of them into the one 
 where I sat, it being the largest ; small tables were 
 turned upside down, and tilted against the tree- 
 trunks, and the storm-curtains of all the little 
 kiosks let down and buttoned tight to the frames. 
 Waiters ran hither and thither, with napkins and 
 111 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 aprons over their heads, carrying fresh courses for 
 the several tables or escaping with their empty 
 dishes. 
 
 In the midst of this melee a cab dashed up to 
 the next kiosk to mine, the wheels cutting into the 
 soft gravel ; the curtains were quickly drawn wide 
 by a half-drowned waiter, and a young man with 
 jet-black hair and an Oriental type of face slipped 
 in between them. 
 
 Another carriage now dashed up, following the 
 grooves of the first wheels not a cab this time, 
 but a perfectly appointed coupe, with two men in 
 livery on the box, and the front windows banked 
 with white chrysanthemums. I could not see her 
 face from where I sat she was too quick for that 
 but I saw the point of a tiny shoe as it rested 
 for an instant on the carriage-step and a whirl of 
 lace about a silk stocking. I caught also the move 
 ment of four hands two outstretched from the 
 curtains of the kiosk and two from the door of the 
 coupe. 
 
 Of course, if I had been a very inquisitive and 
 very censorious old painter, with a tendency to 
 poke my nose into and criticise other people s busi 
 ness, I would at once have put two and two together 
 and asked myself innumerable questions. Why, 
 for instance, the charming couple did not arrive at 
 the same moment, and in the same cab? or why 
 they came all the way out to Suresne in the rain, 
 when there were so many cosey little tables at Lau- 
 112 
 
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS 
 
 rent s or at the Voisin, on the Rue Cambon, or in 
 the Cafe Anglais on the Boulevard. Whether, too, 
 either one were married, and if so which one, and 
 if so again, what the other fellow and the other 
 woman would do if he or she found it all out ; and 
 whether, after all, it was worth the candle when it 
 did all come out, which it was bound to do some 
 day sooner or later. Or I could have indulged in 
 the customary homilies, and decried the tendencies 
 of the times, and said to myself how the world was 
 going to the dogs because of such goings-on ; quite 
 forgetting the days when I, too, had the world in 
 a sling, and was whirling it around my head with 
 all the impetuosity and abandon of youth. 
 
 But I did none of these things that is, nothing 
 Paul Pryish or presuming. I merely beckoned to 
 the Maitre d Hotel, as he stood poised on the edge 
 of the couple s kiosk, with the order for their 
 breakfast in his hands, and, when he had reached 
 my half-way station on his way across the garden 
 to the kitchen, stopped him with a question. Not 
 with my lips that is quite unnecessary with an 
 old-time Maitre d Hotel but with my two eye 
 brows, one thumb, and a part of one shoulder. 
 
 "The nephew of the Sultan, Monsieur " he an 
 swered, instantly. 
 
 "And the lady?" 
 
 "Ah, that is Mademoiselle Ernestine Beraud of 
 the Variete. She comes quite often. For Mon 
 sieur, it is his first time this season," 
 113 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 He evidently took me for an old habitue. There 
 are some compensations, after all, in the life of a 
 staid old painter. 
 
 With these solid facts in my possession I 
 breathed a little easier. Mademoiselle Ernestine 
 Beraud, from the little I had seen of her, was 
 quite capable of managing her own affairs without 
 my own or anybody else s advice, even if I had 
 been disposed to give it. She no doubt loved the 
 lambent-eyed gentleman to distraction; the kiosk 
 was their only refuge, and the whole affair was 
 being so discreetly managed that neither the lam 
 bent-eyed gentleman nor his houri would be 
 obliged to escape by means of the lilac-bordered 
 path in the rear on this or any other morning. 
 
 And if they should, what did it matter to me ? 
 The little row in the cloud overhead would soon 
 end in further torrents of tears, as all such rows 
 do ; the sun would have its way after all and dry 
 every one of them up; the hungry part of me 
 would have its filet and pint of St. Julien, and the 
 painter part of me would go back to the little path 
 by the river and finish its sketch. 
 
 Again I tried to signal the Haitre d Hotel as 
 he dashed past on his way to the kiosk. This time 
 he was under one of the huge umbrellas which 
 an "omnibus" was holding over him, Rajah-fash 
 ion. He had a plump melon, half-smothered in 
 ice, in his hands, to protect it from the downpour, 
 the rain making gargoyles of the points of tho 
 
 in 
 
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS 
 
 ribs of the umbrella. Evidently the breakfast 
 was too important and the expected fee too large 
 to intrust it to an underling. He must serve it 
 himself. 
 
 Up to this moment no portion of my order had 
 materialized. ~No cover for one, nor filet, nor vin 
 ordinaire, nor waiter had appeared. The painter 
 was growing impatient. The man inside was be 
 coming hungry. 
 
 I waited until he emerged with an empty dish, 
 watched him grasp the giant umbrella, teeter on 
 the edge of the kiosk for a moment, and plunge 
 through the gravel, now rivers of water, toward 
 my kiosk, the "omnibus" following as best he 
 could. 
 
 "A thousand pardons, Monsieur " he cried 
 from beneath his shelter, as he read my face. "It 
 will not be long now. It is coming here, you can 
 see for yourself " and he pointed across the 
 garden, and tramped on, the water spattering his 
 ankles. 
 
 I looked and saw a solemn procession of huge 
 umbrellas, the ones used over the tete-a-tete tables 
 beneath the trees, slowly wending its way toward 
 where I sat, with all the measured movement and 
 dignity of a file of Eastern potentates out for an 
 airing. 
 
 Under each umbrella were two waiters, one 
 carrying the umbrella and the other a portion of 
 my breakfast The potentate under the first urn- 
 115 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 brella, who carried the wine, proved to be a 
 waiter-in-chief ; the others bearing the filet, plates, 
 dishes, and glasses were ordinary "omnibuses," 
 pressed into service as palanquin-bearers by reason 
 of the storm. 
 
 The waiter-in-chief, with the bottle, dodged 
 from under his bungalow, leaving it outside and 
 still open, like a stranded circus-tent, stepped into 
 my kiosk, mopped the rain from his coat-sleeves 
 and hands with a napkin, and, bowing solemnly, 
 pointed to the label on the bottle. This meeting 
 my approval, he relieved the rear-guard of the 
 dishes, arranged the table, drew the cork of the 
 St. Julien, filled my glass, dismissed the assistants 
 and took his place behind my chair. 
 
 The closeness of the quarters, the protection it 
 afforded from the raging elements, the perils my 
 companion had gone through to serve me, made 
 possible a common level on which we could stand. 
 We discussed the storm, the prospect of its clear 
 ing, the number of unfortunates in the adjacent 
 Bois who were soaked to the skin, especially the 
 poor little bicycle-girls in their cotton bloomers, 
 now collapsed and bedraggled. We talked of the 
 great six-day cross-country bicycle-race, and how 
 the winner, tired out, had wabbled over the Bridge 
 that same morning, with the whole pack behind 
 him, having won by less than five minutes. We 
 talked of the people who came and went, and who 
 they were, and how often they dined, and what 
 116 
 
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS 
 
 they spent, and ate and drank, and of the rich 
 American who had given the waiter a gold Louis 
 for a silver franc, and who was too proud to take 
 it back when his attention was called to the mis 
 take (which my companion could not but admit 
 was quite foolish of him) ; and, finally, of the 
 dark-skinned Oriental with the lambent eyes, and 
 the adorable Ernestine with the pointed shoes and 
 open-work silk stockings and fluffy skirts, who oc 
 cupied the kiosk within ten feet of where I sat 
 and he stood. 
 
 During the conversation I was busy with my 
 knife and fork, my eyes at intervals taking in 
 the scene before me; the comings and goings of 
 the huge umbrellas one, two, or three, as the 
 serving of the dishes demanded, the rain stream 
 ing from their sides ; now the fish, now the salad, 
 now a second bottle of wine in a cooler, and now 
 the last course of all on an empty plate, which my 
 companion said was the bill, and which he char 
 acterized as the most important part of the pro 
 cession, except the pour boire. Each time the pro 
 cession came to a full stop outside the kiosk until 
 the sentinel waiter relieved them of their burdens. 
 My sympathies constantly went out to this man. 
 There was no room for him inside, and certainly 
 no wish for his company, and so he must, perforce, 
 balance himself under his umbrella, first on one 
 leg and then on the other, in his effort to escape 
 the spatter which now reached his knees, quite as 
 117 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 would a wet chicken seeking shelter under a cart- 
 body. 
 
 I say my companion and I "talked" of these 
 several sights and incidents as I ate my luncheon. 
 And yet, really, up to this time I had not once 
 looked into his face, quite a necessary thing in 
 conducting a conversation of any duration. But 
 then one rarely does in talking to a waiter when 
 he is serving you. My remarks had generally 
 been addressed to the dish in front of me, or to 
 the door opposite, through which I looked, and his 
 rejoinders to the back of my shirt-collar. If he 
 had sat opposite, or had moved into the perspec 
 tive, I might once in a while have caught a 
 glimpse, over my glass or spoon, of his smileless, 
 mask-like face, a thing impossible, of course, with 
 him constantly behind my chair. 
 
 When, however, in the course of his monotone, 
 he mentioned the name of Mademoiselle Ernestine 
 Beraud and that of the distinguished kinsman of 
 His Serene Highness, the Grand Pan-Jam of the 
 Orient, I turned my head in his direction. 
 
 "You know the Mademoiselle, then ?" 
 
 My waiter shrugged his shoulders, his face still 
 impenetrable. 
 
 "Monsieur, I know everybody in Paris. Why 
 not ? Twenty-three years a waiter. Twenty years 
 at the Cafe de la Paix in Paris, and three years 
 here. Do you wonder ?" 
 
 There are in my experience but four kinds of 
 118 
 
A PBOCESSIOlsr OF UMBKELLAS 
 
 waiters the world over. First, the thin, nervous 
 waiter, with a set smile, who is always brushing 
 away imaginary crumbs, adjusting the glasses 
 an inch this way, an inch that way, and then back 
 again to their first position, talking all the time, 
 whether spoken to or not, and losing interest the 
 moment you pay him his fee. Then the stolid, 
 half-asleep waiter, fat and perpetually moist, who 
 considers his duties over when he has placed your 
 order on the cloth and moved the wine within 
 reach of your hand. Next the apprentice waiter, 
 promoted from assistant cook or scullion-boy, who 
 carries on a conversation in signs behind your back 
 with the waiter opposite him, smothering his 
 laughter at intervals in the same napkin with which 
 he wipes your plate, and who, when he changes a 
 course, slants the dishes up his sleeve, keeping the 
 top one in place with his chin, replacing the plates 
 again with a wavy motion, as if they were so many 
 quoits, each one circling into its place a trick of 
 which he is immensely proud. 
 
 And last and this is by no means a large class 
 the grave, dignified, self-possessed, well-mannered 
 waiter; smooth-shaven, spotlessly clean, noiseless, 
 smug and attentive. He generally walks with a 
 slight limp, an infirmity due to his sedentary 
 habits and his long acquaintance with his several 
 employers decanters. He is never under fifty, is 
 round of form, short in the legs, broad of shoulder, 
 and wears his gray hair cut close. He has had a 
 119 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 long and varied experience; he has been buttons, 
 valet, second man, first man, lord high butler, and 
 then down the scale again to plain waiter. This 
 has not been his fault but his misfortune the 
 settling of an estate, it may be, or the death of a 
 master. He has, with unerring judgment, summed 
 you up in his mind before you have taken your 
 seat, and has gauged your intelligence and breed 
 ing with the first dish you ordered. Intimate 
 knowledge of the world and of men and of women 
 especially the last has developed in him a dis 
 trust of all things human. He alone has seen the 
 pressure of the jewelled hands as they lay on the 
 cloth or under it, the lawful partner opposite. He 
 alone has caught the last whispered word as the 
 opera-cloak fell about her shoulders, and knows 
 just where they dined the next day, and who paid 
 for it and why. Being looked upon as part of the 
 appointments of the place, like the chandeliers or 
 the mirrors or the electric bell that answers when 
 spoken to but never talks back, he has, uncon 
 sciously to those he serves, become the custodian 
 of their closest secrets. These he keeps to himself. 
 Were he to open his mouth he could not only break 
 up a score or more of highly respectable families, 
 but might possibly upset a ministry. 
 
 My waiter belonged to this last group. 
 
 I saw it in every deferential gesture of his body, 
 and every modulated tone of his voice. Whether 
 his moral nature had become warped and cracked 
 
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS 
 
 and twisted out of all shape by constant daily and 
 nightly contact especially the last with the sort 
 of life he had led, or whether some of the old-time 
 refinement of his better days still clung to him, 
 was a question I could not decide from the ex 
 hibits before me certainly not from the calm 
 eyes which never wavered, nor the set mouth 
 which never for a moment relaxed, the only im 
 portant features in the face so far as character- 
 reading is concerned. 
 
 I determined to draw him out ; not that he in 
 terested me in any way, but simply because such 
 studies are instructive. Then, again, his account 
 of his experiences might be still more instructive. 
 When should I have a better opportunity ? Here 
 was a man steeped in the life of Paris up to his 
 very eyelids, one thoroughly conversant with the 
 peccadilloes of innumerable viveurs peccadilloes 
 interesting even to staid old painters, simply as 
 object-lessons, especially those committed by the 
 other gay Lothario: the fellow, for instance, who 
 did not know she was dangerous until his letter of 
 credit collapsed; or the peccadilloes of the beau 
 tiful moth who believed the candle lighting her 
 path to be an incandescent bulb of joy, until her 
 scorched wings hung about her bare shoulders: 
 That kind of peccadillo. 
 
 So I pushed back my chair, opened my cigar- 
 case, and proceeded to adjust the end of my mental 
 probe. There was really nothing better to do, 
 121 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 even if I had no such surgical operation in view. 
 It was still raining, and neither I nor the waiter 
 fcbuld leave our Chinese- junk of an island until 
 the downpour ceased or we were rescued by a life 
 boat or an umbrella. 
 
 "And this nephew of the Sultan," I began again 
 between puffs, addressing my remark to the match 
 in my companion s hand, which was now burning 
 itself out at the extreme end of my cigar. "Is 
 he a new admirer ?" 
 
 "Quite new only ten days or so, I think." 
 
 "And the one before the old one what does 
 he think?" I asked this question with one of 
 those cold, hollow, heartless laughs, such as 
 croupiers are supposed to indulge in when they 
 toss a five-franc piece back to a poor devil who 
 has just lost his last hundred Napoleons at bacca 
 rat I have never seen this done and have never 
 heard the laugh, but that is the way the story 
 books put it particularly the blood-curdling part 
 of the laugh. 
 
 "You mean Pierre Channet, the painter, Mon 
 sieur?" 
 
 I had, of course, never heard of Pierre Channet, 
 the painter, in my life, but I nodded as knowingly 
 as if I had been on the most intimate relations 
 with him for years. Then, again, this was my 
 only way of getting down to his personal level, the 
 only way I could draw him out and get at his real 
 character. By taking his side of the question, he 
 122 
 
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS 
 
 would unbosom himself the more freely, and, per 
 haps, incidentally, some of the peccadilloes some 
 of the most wicked. 
 
 "He will not think, Monsieur. They pulled 
 him out of the river last month." 
 
 "Drowned?" 
 
 His answer gave me a little start, but I did not 
 betray myself. 
 
 "So they said. The water trickled along his 
 nose for two days as he lay on the slab, before 
 they found out who he was." 
 
 "In the morgue ?" I inquired in a tone of sur 
 prise. I spoke as if this part of the story had 
 not reached me. 
 
 "In the morgue, Monsieur." 
 
 The repeated words came as cold and merciless 
 as the drops of water that fell on poor Channet 
 as he lay under the gas-jets. 
 
 "Drowned himself for love of Mademoiselle 
 Beraud, you say?" 
 
 "Quite true, Monsieur. He is not the only ona 
 I know four." 
 
 "And she began to love another in a week?" 
 My indignation nearly got the better of me this 
 time, but I do not think he noticed it. 
 
 "Why not, Monsieur ? One must live." 
 
 As he spoke he moved an ash-tray deliber 
 ately within reach of my hand, and poured the 
 balance of the St. Julien into my glass without a 
 quiver. 
 
 123 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 I smoked on in silence. Every spark of human 
 feeling had evidently been stifled in him. The 
 Juggernaut of Paris, in rolling over him, had 
 broken every generous impulse, flattening him 
 into a pulp of brutal selfishness. That is why his 
 face was so smooth and cold, his eyes so dull and 
 his voice so monotonous. I understood it all now. 
 I changed the subject. I did not know where it 
 would lead if I kept on. Drowned lovers were not 
 what I was looking for. 
 
 "You say you have only been two years in 
 Suresne?" I resumed, carelessly, flicking the ashes 
 from my cigar. 
 
 "But two years, Monsieur." 
 
 "Why did you leave Paris ?" 
 
 "Ah, when one is over fifty it is quite done. 
 Is it not so, Monsieur ?" this made with a little 
 deferential wave of his hand. I noted the tribute 
 to the staid painter, and nodded approvingly. He 
 was evidently climbing up to my level. Perhaps 
 this plank, slender as it was, might take him out 
 of the slough and land him on higher and better 
 ground. 
 
 "Yes, you are right. And so you came to 
 Suresne to be quiet." 
 
 "Not altogether, Monsieur. I came to be near 
 Well! we are never too old for that Is it not 
 so?" He said it quite simply, quite as a matter 
 of course, the tones of his voice as monotonous as 
 any he had yet used just as he had spoken of poor 
 124 
 
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS 
 
 Channet in the morgue with the water trickling 
 over his dead face. 
 
 "Oh, then, even at fifty you have a sweetheart I" 
 I blurted out with a sudden twist of my probe. 
 I felt now that I might as well follow the iniquity 
 to the end. 
 
 "It is true, Monsieur." 
 
 "Is she pretty?" As long as I was dissecting 
 I might at least discover the root of the disease. 
 This remark, however, was not addressed to his 
 face, but to a crumb of ashes on the cloth, which I 
 was trying to remove with the point of a knife. 
 He might not have answered, or liked it, had I 
 fired the question at him. point-blank. 
 
 "Very pretty " still the same monotone. 
 
 "And you love her!" It was up to the hilt 
 now. 
 
 "She is the only thing I have left to love, Mon 
 sieur," he answered, calmly. 
 
 Then, bending over me, he added: 
 
 "Monsieur, I do not think I am mistaken. 
 Were you not painting along the river this morn 
 ing?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And a little child stood beside you while you 
 worked?" Something in his voice as he spoke 
 made me raise my head. To my intense amaze 
 ment the listless eyes were alight with a tender 
 ness that seemed to permeate his whole being, and 
 a smile of infinite sweetness was playing about his 
 125 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 mouth the smile of the old saint the Ribera of 
 the Prado! 
 
 "Yes, of course; the one playing with the 
 priest/ 7 I answered, quickly. "But " 
 
 "No; that was me, Monsieur. I have often 
 been taken for a priest, especially when I am off 
 duty. It is the smooth face that misled you " 
 and he passed his hand over his cheeks and chin. 
 
 "You the priest !" This came as a distinct sur 
 prise. "Ah, yes, I do see the resemblance now. 
 And so your sweetheart is the woman in the white 
 cap." At last I had reached his tender spot. 
 
 "No, you are wrong again, Monsieur. The 
 woman in the white cap is my sister. My sweet 
 heart is the little girl my granddaughter, Su- 
 sette." 
 
 I raised my own white umbrella over my head, 
 picked up my sketch-trap, and took the path back 
 to the river. The rain had ceased, the sun 
 was shining brilliant, radiant sunshine; all the 
 leaves studded with diamonds; all the grasses 
 strung with opals, every stone beneath my feet a 
 gem. 
 
 I didn t know when I left what became of 
 Mademoiselle Ernestine Beraud, with her last 
 lover under the sod, and the new one shut up in 
 the kiosk, and I didn t care. I saw only a little 
 girl a little girl in a brown-madder dress and 
 126 
 
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS 
 
 yellow-ochre hat; with big, blue eyes, a tiny pug- 
 nose, a wee, kissable mouth, and two long pig 
 tails down her back. Looking down into her 
 bonny face from its place, high up on the walls of 
 the Prado, was an old cracked saint, his human 
 eyes aglow with a light that came straight from 
 heaven. 
 
 1ST 
 
-DOC" SHIPMAN S FEE 
 
"DOC" SHIPMAN S FEE 
 
 It was in the Doctor s own office that he told me 
 this story. He has told me a dozen more, all 
 pulled from the rag-bag of his experience, like 
 strands of worsted from an old-fashioned reticule. 
 Some were bright-colored, some were gray and 
 dull some black; most of them, in fact, sombre 
 in tone, for the Doctor has spent much of his life 
 climbing up the rickety stairs of gloomy tene 
 ments. ISTow and then there comes out a thread 
 of gold which he weaves into the mesh of his talk 
 some gleam of pathos or heroism or unselfish 
 ness, lightening the whole fabric. This kind of 
 story he loves best to tell. 
 
 The Doctor is not one of your new-fashioned 
 doctors quartered in a brownstone house off the 
 Avenue, with a butler opening the door; a pair of 
 bob-tailed grays; a coupe with a note-book tucked 
 away in its pocket bearing the names of various 
 millionnaires ; an office panelled in oak; a waiting- 
 room lined with patients reading last month s 
 magazines until he should send for them. He has 
 no such abode nor belongings. He lives all alone 
 by himself in an old-fashioned house on Bedford 
 Place oh, such a queer, hunched-up old house 
 131 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 and such a quaint old neighborhood poked away 
 behind Jefferson Market and he opens the door 
 himself and sees everybody who comes there are 
 not a great many of them nowadays, more s the 
 pity. 
 
 There are only a few such houses left up the 
 queer old-fashioned street where he lives. The 
 others were pulled down long ago, or pushed out 
 to the line of the sidewalk and three or four stories 
 piled on top of them. Some of these modern ones 
 have big, carved marble porticos, made of painted 
 zinc and fastened to the new brickwork. Inside 
 these portals are a row of bronze bells and a line 
 of speaking tubes with cards below bearing the 
 names of those who dwell above. 
 
 The Doctor s house is not like one of these. It 
 would have been had it not belonged to his old 
 mother, who died long ago and who begged him 
 never to sell it while he lived. He was thirty 
 years younger then, but he is still there and so is 
 the old house. It looks a little ashamed of its 
 shabbiness when you come upon it suddenly hid 
 ing behind its pushing neighbors. First comes 
 an iron fence with a gate never shut, and then a 
 flagged path dividing a grass-plot, and then an old- 
 fashioned wooden stoop with two steps, guarded 
 by a wooden railing (many a day since these were 
 painted) ; and over these railings and up the sup 
 ports which carry the roof of the portico straggles 
 a honeysuckle that does its best to hide the shabbi- 
 133 
 
"DOC" SHERMAN S FEE 
 
 ness of the shingles and the old waterspout and 
 sagging gutter, and fails miserably when it gets to 
 the farther cornice, which has rotted away, show 
 ing under its dismal paint the black and brown 
 rust of decaying wood. 
 
 Then way in under the portico comes the door 
 with the name-plate, and next to it, level with the 
 floor of the piazza or portico either you please, 
 for it is a combination of both are two long 
 French windows, always open in summer evenings 
 and a-light on winter nights with the reflection of 
 the Doctor s soft-coal fire, telling of the warmth 
 and cheer within. 
 
 For it is a cheery place. It doesn t look like a 
 doctor s office. There are dingy haircloth sofas, 
 it is true, and a row of shelves with bottles, and 
 funny-looking boxes on the mantel one an elec 
 tric battery and rows and rows of books on the 
 walls. But there are no dreadful instruments 
 about. If there are, you don t see them. 
 
 The big chair he sits in would swallow up a 
 smaller man. It is covered with Turkey red and 
 has a roll cushion for his head. There are two of 
 these chairs one for you, or me; this last has 
 big arms that come out and catch you under the 
 elbows, a mighty help to a man when he has just 
 learned that his liver or lungs or heart or some 
 other part of him has gone wrong and needs over 
 hauling. 
 
 Then there is a canary that sings all the time, 
 133 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 and a small dog oh, such a low-down, ill-bred, 
 tousled dog; kind of a dog that might have been 
 raised around a lumber-yard was, probably 
 one ear gone, half of his tail missing; and there 
 are some pots of flowers, and on the wall near the 
 window where everybody can see is a case of but 
 terflies impaled on pins and covered by a glass. 
 No, you wouldn t think the Doctor s office a grew- 
 some place, and you certainly wouldn t think the 
 Doctor was a grewsome person not when you 
 come to know him. 
 
 If you met him out on Sunday afternoon in his 
 black clothes, white neck-cloth, and well-brushed 
 hat, his graj hair straggling over his coat-collar, 
 pounding his cane on the pavement as he walked, 
 you would say he had a Sunday-school class some 
 where. If you should come upon him suddenly, 
 seated before his fire, his gold spectacles clinging 
 to his finely chiselled nose, his thoughtful face 
 bending over his book, you would conclude that 
 you had interrupted some savant, and bow your 
 self out. 
 
 But you must ring his bell at night say two 
 o clock A.M. ; catch his cheery voice calling through 
 the tube from his bedroom in the rear "Yes; 
 coming right away be there soon as I get my 
 clothes on" feel the strength and sympathy and 
 readiness to help in the man, and try to keep step 
 with him as he hurries on, and then watch him 
 when he enters the sick-room, diffusing hope and 
 134 
 
0)00" SHIPMAN S FEE 
 
 cheer and confidence, and listen to the soft, sooth 
 ing tones of his voice, before you really get at the 
 inside lining of "Doc" Shipman. 
 
 All this brings me to the story. Of course, I 
 could have told you the bare facts without giving 
 you an idea of the man and his surroundings, but 
 that wouldn t be fair to you, for you would have 
 missed knowing the Doctor, and I the opportunity 
 of introducing him to you. 
 
 We were sitting in the old-fashioned office, 
 then, one snowy night in January, the Doctor 
 leaning back in his chair, his meerschaum pipe in 
 his mouth the one with the gold cap that a long- 
 ago patient gave him when he straightened his 
 back and tugged at his fob, bringing to the sur 
 face a small gold watch one I had not seen 
 before. 
 
 "Where s the silver one ?" I asked, referring 
 to an old silver-backed watch I had seen him 
 wear. 
 
 The Doctor looked up and smiled. 
 
 "That s in the drawer. I don t wear it any 
 more not since I got this one back." 
 
 "What happened ? Was it broken P 
 
 "No, stolen." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 "Oh, some time ago. Help yourself to a cigar 
 and I ll tell you about it. 
 
 "One night last summer I came in late, took 
 off my coat and vest, hung them on a chair by the 
 135 
 
THE UKDEK DOG 
 
 window and went to bed, leaving the sashes ajar, 
 for it was terribly hot and I wanted a draught of 
 air through from my bedroom." 
 
 (I must tell my reader here that the Doctor is 
 a born story-teller and something of an actor as 
 well. He seldom explains his characters or situa 
 tions as he goes on by putting in "I said" and a he 
 said" and similar expressions. You know by the 
 tones of his voice who is speaking, and his gestures 
 supply the rest.) 
 
 "I always carried this watch in my vest-pocket. 
 I carry it now inside my waistband so they will 
 have to pull me to pieces to get it 
 
 "Well, about three o clock in the morning I 
 had just heard the old clock in the tower strike, 
 and was dozing off to sleep again a footstep 
 awoke me to consciousness. I looked through these 
 doors" here the Doctor was pointing to the fold 
 ing doors of the office where we sat "and through 
 my bedroom saw the dim outline of a man moving 
 about this room. He had my vest and trousers 
 over his arm. I sprang up, but he was too quick 
 for me, and before I could reach him he had 
 slipped through the windows out on to the porch, 
 down the yard, through the gate, and was gone. 
 
 "With him went my mother s watch, which was 
 in the upper vest-pocket, and some fifty dollars in 
 money. I didn t mind the money, but I did the 
 watch. It was my mother s, a present from my 
 father when they were first married, and had the 
 136 
 
"DOC" SHIPMAN S FEE 
 
 initials E. M. 8. from J. H. $. engraved on the 
 under side of the case. When she died I pasted 
 the dear old lady s photograph inside the upper 
 lid. I know almost everybody around here, and 
 they all know me ; they come in here with broken 
 heads for me to sew up, and stab wounds, and 
 such-like misfortunes, and when they heard what 
 had happened to me they all did what they 
 could. 
 
 "The Captain of the precinct came around, and 
 everybody was very sorry, and they hunted the 
 pawnshops, and I offered a reward in fact, did 
 all the foolish things you do when you have lost 
 something you think a heap of. But no trace of 
 the watch could be found, and so I gave it up and 
 tried to forget it and couldn t. That s why I 
 bought that cheap silver one. My only clew to 
 the thief was the glimpse I had of a scar on his 
 cheek and a slight dragging of his foot as he 
 stepped about my room. 
 
 "One night last autumn there came a ring at the 
 bell, and I let in a man with a slouch hat pulled 
 over his eyes and the collar of his coat turned up. 
 He was soaking wet, the water oozing from his 
 shoes and slopping the oilcloth in the hall where 
 he stood. I had never seen him before. 
 
 " Doc/ he said, I want you. They all call 
 me Doc around here especially this kind of a 
 man and I saw right away where he belonged. 
 
 " What for? 
 
 137 
 
THE IINDEK DOG 
 
 pal s sick. 
 
 " What s the matter with him P 
 
 " Well, he s sick took bad. He ll die if he 
 don t git help. 
 
 " Where is he ? 
 
 " Down in Washington Street. 
 
 " Queer/ I said to myself, his wanting me to 
 go two miles from here, when there are plenty of 
 doctors nearer by, and so I said to him: 
 
 " You can get a doctor nearer than me. I m 
 waiting for a woman case and may be sent for any 
 minute. Try the Dispensary on Canal Street; 
 they ve always a doctor there. 
 
 " No we don t want no Dispensary sharp. 
 We want you. Pal s sent me for you he knows 
 you, but you mightn t remember him. 
 
 " I ll go. These are the people I can never 
 refuse. They are on the hunted side of life and 
 don t have many friends. I slipped on my rub 
 bers and coat, picked up my umbrella and my bag 
 with my instruments in it; hung a card in the 
 window so the hall-light would strike it, marked 
 Back in an hour in case the woman sent for me ; 
 locked my door and started after him. 
 
 "It was an awful night. The streets were run 
 ning rivers, the wind rattling the shutters and flat 
 tening the umbrellas of everybody who tried to 
 carry one one of those storms that drives straight 
 at the front of the house, drenching it from chim 
 ney to sidewalk. We waited under the gas-lamp, 
 138 
 
"DOC" SHIPMAN S FEE 
 
 boarded a Sixth Avenue car, and got out at a sig 
 nal from my companion. During the trip he sat 
 in the far corner of the car, his hat slouched over 
 his eyes, his coat-collar covering his ears. He evi 
 dently did not want to be recognized. 
 
 "If you know the neighborhood about Washing 
 ton Street you know it s the last resort of the 
 hunted. When they want to hide, they burrow 
 under one of these rookeries. That s where the 
 police look for them, only they ve got so many 
 holes they can t stop them all. Captain Packett 
 of the Ninth Precinct told me the other day that 
 he d rather hunt a rattlesnake in a tiger s cage 
 than go open-handed into some of the rookeries 
 around Washington Street. I am never afraid in 
 these places; a doctor s like a Sister of Charity 
 or a hospital nurse they re safe anywhere. I 
 don t believe that other fellow would have stolen 
 my watch if he had known I was a doctor. 
 
 "When we left the car at Canal Street, my com 
 panion whispered to me to follow him, no matter 
 where he went. We kept along close to the houses, 
 past the dives the streets, even here, were almost 
 deserted ; then I saw him drop down a cellarway. 
 I followed, through long passages, up a creaking 
 pair of stairs, along a deserted corridor only one 
 gas-jet burning up a second flight of stairs and 
 into an empty room, the door of which he opened 
 with a key which he held in his hand. He waited 
 until I passed in, locked the door behind us, felt 
 139 
 
THE UKDEK DOG 
 
 his way to a window, the glow of some lights in 
 the tenements opposite giving the only light in the 
 room, and raised the sash. Then down a fire- 
 escape, across a wooden bridge, widen was evi 
 dently used to connect the two buildings; through 
 an open door, and up another stairs. At the end 
 of this last corridor my companion pushed open a 
 door. 
 
 " Here s the "Doc," I heard him say. 
 
 "I looked into a room about as big as this we sit 
 in. It was filled with men, most of them on the 
 floor with their backs to the wall. There was a 
 cot in one corner, and a pine table on which stood a 
 cheap kerosene lamp, and one or two chairs. The 
 only other furniture were a flour-barrel and a dry- 
 goods box. On top of the barrel was a tin coffee 
 pot, a china cup, and half a loaf of bread. Against 
 the window there was but one was tacked a 
 ragged calico quilt, shutting out air and light. 
 Flat on the floor, where the light of the lamp fell 
 on his face, lay a man dressed only in his trousers 
 and undershirt. The shirt was clotted with blood ; 
 so were the mattress under him and the floor. 
 
 " Shot ? I asked of the man nearest me. 
 
 " Yes. 
 
 "I knelt down on the floor beside him and 
 opened his shirt. The wound was just above the 
 heart; the bullet had struck a rib, missed the lungs, 
 and gone out at the back. Dangerous, but not 
 necessarily fatal. 
 
 140 
 
"DOC" SHIPMA1SPS FEE 
 
 "The man turned his head and opened his eyes. 
 He was a stockily built fellow of thirty with a 
 clean-shaven face. 
 
 " Is that you, "Doc"? 
 
 " Yes, where does it hurt V 
 
 " "Doc" Shipman who used to be at Belle- 
 vue five or six years ago ? 
 
 " Yes now tell me where the pain is. 
 
 " Let me look at you. Yes that s him. That s 
 the "Doc," boys. Where does it hurt? Oh, all 
 around here back worst and he passed his 
 hand over his side. 
 
 "I looked him over again, put in a few stitches, 
 and fixed him up for the night. When I had fin 
 ished he said : 
 
 " Come closer, "Doc" ; am I going to die ? 
 
 " No, not this time ; you ll pull through. Close 
 shave, but you ll weather it. But you want some 
 air. Here, you fellows and I motioned to two 
 men leaning against the quilt tacked over the win 
 dow rip that off and open that window. He s 
 got to breathe too many of you in here, anyway. 
 
 "One of the men moved the lidless dry-goods 
 box against the wall, picked up the kerosene lamp 
 and placed it inside, smothering its light; the 
 other tore the lower end of the quilt from the sash, 
 letting in the fresh, wet night-air. 
 
 "I turned to the wounded man again. 
 
 " You say you ve seen me before ? 
 
 " Yes, on^ce. You sewed this up and he held 
 141 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 up his arm showing a healed scar. Tou ve forgot 
 it, but I haven t. 
 
 " Where? 
 
 " Bellevue. They took me in there. You 
 treated me white. That s why my pal hunted you 
 up. Say, Bill and he called to my companion 
 with the slouch hat pay the "Doc." 
 
 "Half a dozen men dove instantly into their 
 pockets, but my companion already had his roll of 
 bills in his hand. He bent over so that the glow 
 of the half-smothered lamp could fall upon his 
 hand, unrolled a twenty-dollar bill and handed it 
 to me. 
 
 "I passed it back to him. I don t want this. 
 Five dollars is my fee. If you haven t anything 
 smaller, wait till I come to-morrow, then you can 
 give me a ten. I m ready to go now; lead the 
 way out. 
 
 "Next morning I went to see him again. Bill, 
 by arrangement, met me at the corner of the street 
 and took me to the wounded man s room, in and 
 out, by the same route we had taken the night be 
 fore. I found he had passed a good night, had 
 no fever, and was all right. I left some medicine 
 and directions, got my ten dollars, and never went 
 again. 
 
 "Last month, some two days before Christmas, 
 
 I was sitting here reading it was after twelve 
 
 o clock when I heard a tap on the window-pane. 
 
 I pushed aside the shade and looked out. A thick- 
 
 142 
 
"DOC" SHERMAN S FEE 
 
 set man motioned me to open the door. When he 
 got inside the hall he said : 
 
 " Ain t forgot me again, have you, "Doc" ? 
 
 " No, you re the man I fixed up in Washington 
 Street last fall. 
 
 " Yes, that s right, "Doc" ; that s me. Can I 
 come in ? I got something for you. 
 
 "I brought him in and he sat down on that sofa. 
 Then he pulled out a package from his inside 
 pocket. 
 
 " "Doc," he began, I was thinking to-night 
 of what you done for me and how you did it, and 
 how decent you ve been about it always, and I 
 thought maybe you wouldn t feel offended if I 
 brought you this bunch of scarfpins to take your 
 pick from and he unwrapped the bundle. 
 There s a pearl one that might please you and 
 here s another that sparkles take your pick, 
 "Doc." It would please me a heap if you would 
 and he handed me half a dozen scarfpins 
 stuck in a flannel rag some of them of great 
 value. 
 
 "I didn t know what to say at first. I couldn t 
 get mad. I saw he was in dead earnest, and I 
 saw, too, that it was pure gratitude on his part 
 that prompted him to do it. That s a kind of 
 human feeling you don t want to crush out in a 
 man. When he s got that, no matter what else he 
 lacks, you ve got something to build on. I pulled 
 out the pearl pin from the others. I wanted to 
 143 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 get time to make up my mind as to what I really 
 ought to do. 
 
 " Very nice pin/ I said. 
 
 " Yes, I thought so. I got it on a Sixth Ave 
 nue car. Maybe you ll like the gold one better; 
 take your pick, it s all the same to me. That one 
 you ve got in your hand is a good one/ I was 
 slowly looking them over, making up my mind 
 how I would refuse them and not hurt his feel 
 ings. 
 
 " How did you get this one ? I asked, holding 
 up the pearl pin. 
 
 " I picked it up outside Cooper Union. 
 
 " On the sidewalk ? 
 
 " No, from a feller s scarf. I held the cab 
 door for him. He spoke exactly as if he had been 
 a collector who had been roaming the world for 
 curios. Take em both, "Doc" or all of em 
 I mean it. 
 
 "I laid the bundle on the table and said : Well, 
 that s very kind of you and I don t want you to 
 think I don t appreciate it but you see I don t 
 wear scarf pins, and if I did I don t think I ought 
 to take these. You see we have two different pro 
 fessions you ve got yours and I ve got mine. I 
 saw off men s legs, or I help them through a spell 
 of sickness. They pay me for it in money. You ve 
 got another way of making your living. Your pa 
 tients are whoever you happen to meet. I mightn t 
 like your way of doing, and you mightn t like 
 144 
 
"DOC" SHIPMAN S FEE 
 
 mine. That s a matter of opinion, or, perhaps, of 
 education. You ve got your risks to run, and 
 I ve got mine. If I cut too deep and kill a man 
 they can shut me up just as they can if you get 
 into trouble. But I don t think we ought to mix 
 up the proceeds. You wouldn t want me to give 
 you this five-dollar bill and I held up a note a 
 patient had just paid me and therefore I don t 
 see how I ought to take one of your pins. I may 
 not have made it plain to you but it strikes me 
 that way. 
 
 " Then you ain t mad cause I brought em ? 
 and he looked at me searchingly from under his 
 dark eyebrows, his lips firmly set. 
 
 " No, I m very grateful to you for wanting to 
 give them to me only I don t see my way clear 
 to take them. 
 
 "He settled back on the sofa and began twirling 
 his hat with his hand. Then he rose from his 
 seat, a shade of disappointment on his face, and 
 said, slowly: 
 
 " Well, "Doc," ain t there something else I can 
 do for you? Man like you must have something 
 you want something you can t get without some 
 body s help. Think now you mightn t see me 
 again, 
 
 "Instantly I thought of my mothers watch. 
 
 Yes, there is. Somebody came along one 
 night when I was asleep and borrowed my vest 
 hanging over that chair by the window, and my 
 145 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 trousers, and my mother s watch was In the vest 
 pocket. If you could help me get that back you 
 would do me a real service one I wouldn t for 
 get. 
 
 " What kind of a watch ? 
 
 "I described it closely, its inscription, the por 
 trait of my mother in the case, and showed him 
 a copy of her photograph like the one here. 
 Then I gave him as close a description of the man 
 as I could. 
 
 "When I had described the scar on his face he 
 looked at me in surprise. When I added that he 
 had a slight limp, he said, quickly : 
 
 " ( Short man with close-cropped hair and a 
 swipe across his chin. Lost a toe, and stumbles 
 when he walks. I ll see what I can do. He ain t 
 one of our men. He comes from Chicago. He 
 never stays more n a day or two in any town. 
 Don t none of em know him round here. Leave 
 it to me ; may take some time see you in a day 
 or two and he went out. 
 
 "I didn t see him for a month not until two 
 nights ago. He didn t ring the bell this time. He 
 came in through the window. I thought the catch 
 was down, but it wasn t. Funny how quick these 
 fellows can see a thing. As soon as he shut the 
 glass sash behind him he drew the curtains close ; 
 then he turned down the gas. All this, mind you, 
 before he had opened his mouth. Then he said: 
 
 " Anybody here but you ? 
 146 
 
"DOC" SHIPMAN S FEE 
 
 "Sure? 
 
 " Yes, very sure. 
 
 "He spoke in a husky, rasping voice, like a man 
 who had caught his breath again after a long run. 
 
 "He turned his back to the window, slipped his 
 hand in his hip-pocket and pulled out my mother s 
 watch. 
 
 " Is that it, "Doc"? 
 
 "The light was pretty low, but I d have known 
 it in the dark. 
 
 " Yes, of course it is and I opened the lid in 
 search of the old lady s photo. Where did you 
 get it ? 
 
 " Look again. There ain t no likeness. 
 
 " No, but here are the marks where they 
 scraped it off and I held it close to his eyes. 
 Where did you get it ? 
 
 " Don t ask no questions, "Doc." I had some 
 trouble gittin next the goods, and maybe it ain t 
 over yet. I ll know in the morning. If any 
 body asks you anything about it, you ain t lost 
 no watch see? Last time you seen me I was 
 goin West, see don t forget that. That s all, 
 "Doc." If you re pleased, I m satisfied. 
 
 "He held out his hand to say good-by, but I 
 wouldn t take it. His appearance, the tone of his 
 voice, and his hunted look made me a little ner 
 vous. 
 
 " Sit down. You ll let me pay you for it, 
 
 u? 
 
THE UNDEK DOG- 
 
 won t you ? Wait until I go back in my bedroom 
 for some money. 
 
 " No, "Doc," you can t pay me a cent. I m 
 sorry they got the mother s picture, but I couldn t 
 catch up with the goods before. That would have 
 been the best part of it for me. Mothers is scarce 
 now kind you and me had dead or alive. You 
 won t mind if I turn out the gas while I slip out, 
 do you, and you won t mind either if I ask you to 
 sit still here. Somebody might see you and he 
 shook my hand and started for the window. As 
 his hand neared the latch I could see in the dim 
 light that his movements were unsteady. Once he 
 stumbled and clutched at the bookcase for sup 
 port 
 
 c Hold on/ I said and I walked rapidly 
 toward him don t go yet you are not well. 
 
 "He leaned against the bookcase and put his 
 hand to his side. 
 
 "I was alongside of him now, my arm under 
 his, guiding him into a chair. 
 
 " Are you faint ? 
 
 " Yes got a drop of anything, "Doc"? That s 
 all I want. It ain t nothing. 
 
 "I opened my closet, took out a bottle of brandy 
 and poured some into a measuring-glass. He 
 drank it, leaned his head for an instant against 
 my arm and, with the help of my hand slipped 
 under his armpit, again struggled to his feet. 
 
 "When I withdrew my hand it was covered 
 148 
 
"DOC" SHERMAN S FEE 
 
 with blood. It was too dark to see the color, but 
 I knew from the sticky feeling of it just what it 
 was. 
 
 " My God ! man/ I cried ; you are hurt, your 
 shirt s all bloody. Come back here until I can see 
 what s the matter. 
 
 "No, "Doc" no! I tell you. It s stopped 
 bleeding now. It would be tough for you if they 
 pinched me here. Keep away, I tell you I ain t 
 got a minute to lose. I didn t want to hurt him 
 even after he gave me this one in my back, but 
 his girl was wearing it and there warn t no other 
 way. Git behind them curtains, "Doc." Sol 
 Good-by. 
 
 "And he was gone." 
 
 140 
 
PLAIN FIN_PAPER. HANGER 
 
PLAIN FIN PAPER-HANGER 
 
 The man was a little sawed-off, red-headed 
 Irishman, with twinkling, gimlet eyes, two up- 
 curved lips always in a broad smile, and a pair 
 of thin, caliper-shaped legs. 
 
 His name was as brief as his stature. 
 
 "Fin, your honor, by the grace of God. F-i-n, 
 Fin. There was a Mac in front of it once, and 
 an V to the tail of it in the old times, so me 
 mother says, but some of me ancisters bad cess 
 to em ! wiped ? em out. Plain Fin, if you plase, 
 
 sor." 
 
 The punt was the ordinary Thames boat: a 
 long, narrow, flat-bottomed, shallow craft with 
 tapering ends decked over to serve as seats, the 
 whole propelled by a pole the size of a tight-rope 
 dancer s and about as difficult to handle. 
 
 Chartering the punt had been easy. All I had 
 had to do was to stroll down the path bordering 
 the river, run my eye over a group of boats lying 
 side by side like a school of trout with their noses 
 up-stream, pick out the widest, flattest, and least 
 upsettable craft in the fleet, decorate it with a pair 
 153 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 of Turkey-red cushions from a pile in the boat- 
 house, and a short mattress, also Turkey-red a 
 good thing at luncheon-hour for a tired back is 
 a mattress slip the key of the padlock of the 
 mooring-chain in my pocket and stroll back again. 
 
 The hiring of the man for days after my arrival 
 at Sonning-on-Thames, was more difficult, well- 
 nigh impossible, except at a price per diem which 
 no staid old painter they are all an impecunious 
 lot could afford. There were boys, of course, for 
 the asking; sunburnt, freckle-faced, tousle-headed, 
 barefooted little devils who, when my back was 
 turned, would do handsprings over my cushions, 
 landing on the mattress, or break the pole the first 
 day out, leaving me high and dry on some island 
 out of calling distance; but full-grown, sober- 
 minded, steady men, who could pole all day or 
 sit beside me patiently while I worked, hand me 
 the right brush or tube of color, or palette, or open 
 a bottle of soda without spilling half of it that 
 kind of man was scarce. 
 
 Landlord Hull, of the White Hart Inn what 
 an ideal Boniface is this same Hull, and what an 
 ideal inn promised a boatman to pole the punt 
 and look after my traps when the Henley regatta 
 was over ; and the owner of my own craft, and of 
 fifty other punts besides, went so far as to say that 
 he expected a man as soon as Lord Somebody-or- 
 Other left for the Continent, when His Lordship s 
 waterman would be free, adding, meaningly: 
 154 
 
PLAIN FIN PAPER-HANGER 
 
 "Just at present, zur, when we do be avin sich 
 a mob lot from Lunnon, specially at week s-end, 
 zur, we ain t got men enough to do our own polin . 
 It s the war, zur, as has took em off. Maybe 
 for a few day, zur, ye might take a and yerself 
 if ye didn t mind." 
 
 I waved the hand referred to the forefinger 
 part of it in a deprecating manner. I couldn t 
 pole the lightest and most tractable punt ten yards 
 in a straight line to save my own or anybody else s 
 life. Then again, if I should impair the precision 
 of my five fingers by any such violent exercise, rny 
 brush would wabble as nervously over my canvas 
 as a recording needle across a steam-gauge. Poling 
 a rudderless, keelless skiff up a crooked stream by 
 means of a fifteen-foot balancing pole is an art 
 only to be classed with that of rowing a gondola. 
 Gondoliers and punters, like poets, are born, not 
 made. My own Luigi comes of a race of gondo 
 liers dating back two hundred years, and punters 
 must spring from just such ancestors. No, if I 
 had to do the poling myself, I should rather get out 
 and walk. 
 
 Pin solved the problem not from any special 
 training (rowing in regattas and the like), but 
 rather from that universal adaptability of the 
 Irishman which fits him for filling any situation 
 in life, from a seat on a dirt-cart to a chair in an 
 aldermanic chamber. 
 
 "I am a paper-hanger by trade, sor," lie began, 
 155 
 
THE UKDEK DOG 
 
 "but I was brought up on the river and can put 
 a punt wid the best. Try me, sor, at four bob a 
 day ; I m out of a job." 
 
 I looked him over, from his illuminated head 
 down to his parenthetical legs, caught the merry 
 twinkle in his eyes, and a sigh of relief escaped 
 me. Here was not only a seafaring man, accus 
 tomed to battling with the elements, skilled in the 
 handling of poles, and acquainted with swift and 
 ofttiines dangerous currents, but a brother brush, 
 a man conversant with design and pigments; an 
 artist, keenly sensitive to straight lines, har 
 mony of tints, and delicate manipulation of sur 
 faces. 
 
 I handed him the key at once. Thenceforward 
 I was simply a passenger depending on his strong 
 right arm for guidance, and at luncheon-hour 
 upon his alert and nimble, though slightly in 
 curved, legs for sustenance, the inn being often a 
 mile away from my subject. 
 
 And the inns ! or rather my own particular 
 inn the White Hart at Sonning. 
 
 There are others, of course the Red Lion at 
 Henley; the old Warboys hostelry at Cookham; 
 the Angler at Marlowe; the French Horn across 
 the black water and within rifle-shot of the White 
 Hart a most pretentious place, designed for mil- 
 lionnaires and spendthrifts, where even chops and 
 tomato-sauce, English pickles, chowchow and the 
 like, ales in the wood and other like commodities 
 156 
 
PLAIN FIN PAPEK-HANGER 
 
 and comforts, are dispensed at prices that compel 
 all impecunious, staid painters like myself to 
 content themselves with a sandwich and a pint 
 of hitter and a hundred other inns along the 
 river, good, bad, and indifferent. But yet with all 
 their charms I am still loyal to my own White 
 Hart. 
 
 Mine is an inn that sets back from the river 
 with a rose-garden in front the like of which you 
 never saw nor smelt of: millions of roses in a 
 never-ending bloom. An inn with low ceilings, a 
 cubby-hole of a bar next the side entrance on the 
 village street; two barmaids three on holidays; 
 old furniture; a big fireplace in the hall; red- 
 shaded lamps at night; plenty of easy-chairs and 
 cushions. An inn all dimity and cretonne and 
 brass bedsteads upstairs and unlimited tubs one 
 fastened to the wall painted white, and about eight 
 feet long, to fit the largest pattern of Englishman. 
 Out under the portico facing the rose-garden and 
 the river stand tables for two or four, with snow- 
 white cloths made gay with field-flowers, and the 
 whole shaded by big, movable Japanese umbrellas, 
 regular circus-tent umbrellas, their staffs stuck in 
 the ground wherever they are needed. Along the 
 sides of this garden on the gravel-walk loll go-to- 
 sleep straw chairs, with little wicker tables within 
 reach of your hand for B. & S., or tea and toast, 
 or a pint in a mug, and down at the water s edge 
 seafaring men like Fin and me find a boat-house 
 157 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 with half a score of punts, skiffs, and rowboats, 
 together with a steam-launch with fires banked 
 ready for instant service. 
 
 And the people in and about this White Hart 
 inn! 
 
 There are a bride and groom, of course. !Nb 
 well-regulated Thames inn can exist a week with 
 out a bride and groom. He is a handsome, well- 
 knit, brown-skinned young fellow, who wears 
 white flannel trousers, chalked shoes, a shrimp- 
 colored flannel jacket and a shrimp-colored cap 
 (Leander s colors) during the day, and a faultr 
 lessly cut dress-suit at night. 
 
 She has a collection of hats, some as big as 
 small tea-tables ; fluffy gowns for mornings ; short 
 frocks for boating; and a gold belt, two shoulder- 
 straps, and a bunch of roses for dinner. They 
 have three dogs between them one four inches 
 long well, perhaps six, to be exact another a 
 bull terrier, and a third a St. Bernard as big as 
 a Spanish burro. They have also a maid, a valet, 
 and a dog-cart, besides no end of blankets, whips, 
 rugs, canes, umbrellas, golf-sticks, and tennis-bats. 
 They have stolen up here, no doubt, to get away 
 from their friends, and they are having the happi 
 est hours of their lives. 
 
 "Them two, sor," volunteers Fin, as we pass 
 
 them lying under the willows near my morning 
 
 subject, a is as chuck-full of happiness as a hive s 
 
 full of bees. They was out in their boat yister- 
 
 158 
 
PLAIN FIN PAPER-HANGEK 
 
 day, sor, in all that pour, and it rolled off em 
 same as a duck sheds water, and they laughin so 
 ye d think they d split. What s dresses to them, 
 sor, and her father ? Why, sor, he could buy and 
 sell half Sonnin . He s jist home from Africa that 
 chap is or he was the week he was married wid 
 more lead inside him than would sink a corpse. 
 You kin see for yerself that he s made for fightin . 
 Look at the eye on him !" 
 
 Then there is the solitary Englishman, who 
 breakfasts by himself, and has the morning paper 
 laid beside his plate the moment the post-cart ar 
 rives. Fin and I find him half the time on a 
 bench in a cool place on the path to the Lock, his 
 nose in his book, his tightly furled umbrella by 
 his side. No dogs nor punts nor spins up the river 
 for him. He is taking his holiday and doesn t 
 want to be meddled with or spoken to. 
 
 There are, too, the customary maiden sisters - 
 the unattended and forlorn up for a week; and 
 the young fellow down from London, all flannels 
 and fishing-rods three or four of them in fact, 
 who sit round in front of the little sliding wicket 
 facing the row of bottles and pump-handles 
 divining-rods for the beer below, these pump- 
 handles chaffing the barmaids and getting as 
 good as they send; and always, at night, one or 
 more of the country gentry in for their papers, 
 and who can be found in the cosey hall discussing 
 the crops, the coming regatta, the chance of Lean- 
 159 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 der s winning the race, or the latest reports of 
 yesterday s cricket-match. 
 
 Now and then the village doctor or miller 
 quite an important man is the miller you would 
 think so if you could see the mill drops in, 
 draws up a chair, and ventures an opinion on the 
 price of wheat in the States or the coal strike or 
 some kindred topic, the coming country fair, or 
 perhaps the sermon of the previous Sunday. 
 
 "I hope you ? eard our Vicar, sir No ? Sorry 
 you didn t, sir. I tell yer Vs a nailer." 
 
 And so much for the company at the White 
 Hart Inn. 
 
 II 
 
 You perhaps think that you know the Thames. 
 You have been at Henley, no doubt, during re 
 gatta week, when both banks were flower-beds of 
 blossoming parasols and full-blown picture-hats, 
 the river a stretch of silver, crowded with boats, 
 their occupants cheering like mad. Or you know 
 Marlowe with its wide stream bordered with 
 stately trees and statelier mansions, and Oxford 
 with its grim buildings, and Windsor dominated 
 by its huge pile of stone, the flag of the Empires 
 floating from its top; and Maidenhead with its 
 boats and launches, and lovely Cookham with its 
 back water and quaint mill and quainter lock. 
 You have rowed down beside them all in a shell, 
 160 
 
PLAIN FIN P APSE-HANGER 
 
 or have had glimpses of them from the train a or 
 sat under the awnings of the launch or regular 
 packet and watched the procession go by. All 
 very charming and interesting, and, if you had 
 but forty-eight hours in which to see all England, 
 a profitable way of spending eight of them. And 
 yet you have only skimmed the beautiful river s 
 surface as a swallow skims a lake. 
 
 Try a punt once. 
 
 Pole in and out of the little back waters, lying 
 away from the river, smothered in trees ; float over 
 the shallows dotted with pond-lilies; creep under 
 drooping branches swaying with the current ; stop 
 at any one of a hundred landings, draw your boat 
 up on the gravel, spring out and plunge into the 
 thickets, flushing the blackbirds from their nests, 
 or unpack your luncheon, spread your mattress, 
 and watch the clouds sail over your head. Don t 
 be in a hurry. Keep up this idling day in and day 
 out, up and down, over and across, for a month or 
 more, and you will get some faint idea of how 
 picturesque, how lovely, and how restful this 
 rarest of all the sylvan streams of England can be. 
 
 If, like me, you can t pole a punt its length 
 without running into a mud-bank or afoul of the 
 bushes, then send for Pin. If he isn t at Sonning 
 you will hear of him at Cookham or Marlowe or 
 London but find him wherever he is. He will 
 prolong your life and loosen every button on your 
 waistcoat. Fin is the unexpected, the ever-bub- 
 161 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 bling, and the ever-joyous; restless as a school-boy 
 ten minutes before recess, quick as a grasshopper 
 and lively as a cricket. He is, besides, brimful 
 and spilling over with a quality of fun that is 
 geyserlike in its spontaneity and intermittent flow. 
 When he laughs, which he does every other min 
 ute, the man ploughing across the river, or the boy 
 fishing, or the girl driving the cow, turn their 
 heads and smile. They can t help it. In this re 
 spect he is better than a dozen farmers each with 
 his two blades of grass. Fin plants a whole acre 
 of laughs at once. 
 
 On one of my joyous days they were all joy 
 ous days, this one most of all I was up the back 
 water, the "Mud Lark" (Fin s name for the punt) 
 anchored in her element by two poles, one at each 
 end, to keep her steady, when Fin broke through 
 a new aperture and became reminiscent. 
 
 I had dotted in the outlines of the old footpath 
 with the meadows beyond, the cotton-wool clouds 
 sailing overhead only in England do I find these 
 clouds and was calling to the restless Irishman 
 to sit still or I would send him ashore . . . wet, 
 when he answered with one of his bubbling out 
 breaks : 
 
 "I don t wonder yer hot, sor, but I git that 
 fidgety. I been so long doin nothin ; two months 
 now, sor, since I been on a box." 
 
 I worked on for a minute without answering. 
 Hanging wall-paper by standing on a box was 
 162 
 
PLAIN FIN PAPER-HANGER 
 
 probably the way they did it in the country, the 
 ceilings being low. 
 
 "No work?" I said, aimlessly. As long as he 
 kept still I didn t care what he talked or laughed 
 about 
 
 "Plinty, sor an summer s the time to do it. 
 So many strangers comin an goin , but they won t 
 let me at it. I m laid off for a month yet; that s 
 why your job come in handy, sor." 
 
 "Row with your Union?" I remarked, listlessly, 
 my mind still intent on watching a sky tint above 
 the foreground trees. 
 
 "No wid the perlice. A little bit of a scrim 
 mage wan night in Trafalgar Square. It was me 
 own fault, sor, for I oughter a-knowed better. It 
 was about three o clock in the mornin , sor, and I 
 was outside one o them clubs just below Picca 
 dilly, when one o them young chaps come out wid 
 three or four others, all b ilin drunk one was 
 Lord Bentig jumps into a four-wheeler standin 
 by the steps an hollers out to the rest of us: A 
 guinea to the man that gits to Trafalgar Square 
 fust; three minutes start, and off he wint and we 
 after him, leavin wan of the others behind wid his 
 watch in his hand." 
 
 I laid down my palette and looked up. Paper- 
 hanging evidently had its lively side. 
 
 "Afoot?" 
 
 "All four of em, sor lickety-split and hell s 
 loose. I come near runnin over a bobbie as I 
 163 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 turned into Pall Mall, but I dodged him and kep 
 on and landed second, with the mare doubled up 
 in a heap and the rig a-top of her and one shaft 
 broke. Lord Bentig and the other chaps that was 
 wid him was standin waiting and when we all fell 
 in a heap he nigh bu st himself a-laughin . He 
 went bail for us, of course, and give the three of 
 us ten bob apiece, but I got laid off for three 
 months, and come up here, where me old mother 
 lives and I kin pick up a job." 
 
 "Hanging paper ?" I suggested with a smile. 
 
 "Yes, or anything else. Ye see, sor, I m handy 
 carpentering or puttin on locks, or the likes o 
 that, or paintin , or paper-hanging or mendin 
 stoves or tinware. So when they told me a painter 
 chap wanted me, I looked over me perfessions and 
 picked out the wan I tho t would suit him best. 
 But it s drivin a cab I m good at; been on the 
 box fourteen year come next Christmas. Ye don t 
 mind, do ye, sor, my not tellin ye before ? Lord 
 Bentig ll tell ye all about me next time ye see 
 him in Lunnon." This touch was truly Finian. 
 "He s cousin, ye know, sor, to this young chap 
 what s here at the inn wid his bride. They 
 wouldn t know me, sor, nor don t, but I ve driv 
 her father many a time. My rank used to be near 
 his house on Bolton Terrace. I had a thing hap 
 pen there one night that more water? Yes, sor 
 and the other brush the big one ? Yes, sor 
 thank ye, sor. I don t shake, do I, sor ?" 
 164 
 
PLAIN FIN PAPER-HANGEK 
 
 "No, Fin; go on." 
 
 "Well, I was tellin ye about the night Sir 
 Henry s man that s the lady s father, sor come 
 to the rank where I sat on me box. It was about 
 ten o clock rainin hard and bad goin , it was 
 that slippery. 
 
 " His Lordship wants ye in a hurry, Fin/ and 
 he jumped inside. 
 
 "When I got there I see something was goin 
 on a party or something the lights was lit clear 
 up to the roof. 
 
 " His Lordship s waitin in the hall for ye/ 
 said his man, and I jumped off me box and wint 
 inside. 
 
 " Tin/ said His Lordship, speakin low, there s 
 a lady dinin wid me and the wine s gone to her 
 head, and she s that full that if she waits until 
 her own carriage comes for her she won t git home 
 at all ! Go back and get on yer cab wid yer fingers 
 to yer hat, and I ll bring her out and put her in 
 meself. It s dark and she won t know the differ 
 ence. Take her down to Cadogan Square I don t 
 know the number, but ye can t miss it, for it s 
 the fust white house wid geraniums in the win 
 ders. When ye git there ye re to git down, help 
 her up the steps, keepin yer mouth shut, unlock 
 the door, and set her down on the sofa. You ll 
 find the sofa in the parlor on the right, and can t 
 miss it. Then lay the key on the mantel here it 
 is. After she s down, step out softly, close the 
 165 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 door behind ye, ring the bell, and some of her ser 
 vants will come and put her to bed. She s often 
 took that way and they know what to do. Then 
 he says, lookin at me straight, I sent for you, 
 Fin, for I know I kin trust ye. Come here to 
 morrow and let me know how she got through and 
 I ll give ye five bob. 
 
 "Well, sor, in a few minutes out she come, 
 leanin on His Lordship s arm, steppin loike she 
 had spring-halt, and takin half the sidewalk to 
 turn in. 
 
 " Good-night, Your Ladyship, says His Lord 
 ship. 
 
 " Good-night, Sir Henry, she called back, her 
 head out of the winder, and off I driv. 
 
 "I turned into the Square, found the white 
 house wid the geraniums, helps her out of me cab 
 and steadied her up the steps, pulled the key out, 
 and was just goin to put it in the lock when she 
 fell up agin the door and open it went. The gas 
 was turned low in the hall, so that she wouldn t 
 know me if she looked at me. 
 
 "I found the parlor, but the lights were out ; so 
 widout lookin for the sofa I was afraid some- 
 body d come and catch me -I slid her into a 
 rockin -chair, laid the key on the hall-table, shut 
 the door softlike, rang the bell as if there was 
 a fire next door, jumped on me box, and driv 
 off. 
 
 "The next mornin I went to see His Lordship, 
 166 
 
PLAIN YIN PAPEK-HANGER 
 
 ye land her all right, Fin ? 
 
 " I did, sor/ I says. 
 
 " Had ye any trouble wid the key ? 
 
 " No, sor/ I says, the door was open. 
 
 " That s queer/ he says ; maybe her husband 
 came in earlier and forgot to shut it. And ye put 
 her on the sofa 
 
 " No, sor, in a big chair. 
 
 " In the parlor on the right ? 
 
 " No, sor, in a little room on the left down 
 one step 
 
 "He stopped and looked at me. 
 
 " Ye re sure ye put her in the fust white 
 house ? 
 
 " I am, sor. 
 
 " Wid geraniums in the winder ? 
 
 " Yes, sor. 
 
 " Bed ? he says. 
 
 " No, white/ I says. 
 
 " On the north side of the Square ? 
 
 " No/ I says, on the south. 
 
 " My God ! Fin/ he says, ye left her in the 
 wrong house! 
 
 It was I who shook the boat this time. 
 
 "Oh, ye needn t laugh, sor; it was no laughin 
 matter. I got me five bob, but I lost His Lord 
 ship s custom, and I didn t dare go near Cadogan 
 Square for a month." 
 
 These disclosures opened up a new and wider 
 horizon. Heretofore I had associated Fin with 
 167 
 
THE USTDEK DOG 
 
 simple country life as a cheery craftsman a 
 Jack-of -all-trades : one day attired in overalls, with 
 paste-pot, shears, and ladder, brightening the walls 
 of the humble cottagers, and the next in polo cap 
 and ragged white sweater, the gift of some summer 
 visitor (his invariable costume with me), adapting 
 himself to the peaceful needs of the river. Here, 
 on the contrary and to my great surprise, was a 
 cosmopolitan ; a man versed in the dark and devi 
 ous ways of a great city ; familiar with life in its 
 widest sense ; one who had touched on many sides 
 and who knew the cafes, the rear entrances to the 
 theatres, and the short cut to St. John s "Wood with 
 the best and worst of them. These discoveries 
 came with a certain shock, but they did not impair 
 my interest in my companion. They really en 
 deared him to me all the more. 
 
 After this I was no longer content with listen 
 ing to his rambling dissertations on whatever hap 
 pened to rise in his memory and throat I began 
 to direct the output. It was not a difficult task; 
 any incident or object, however small, served my 
 purpose. 
 
 The four-inch dog acted as valve this morning. 
 
 Somebody had trodden on His Dogship; some 
 unfortunate biped born to ill-luck. In and about 
 Sonning to tread on a dog or to cause any animal 
 unnecessary pain is looked upon as an unforgive- 
 able crime. Dogs are made to be hugged and 
 coddled and given the best cushion in the boat. 
 168 
 
PLAIN FIN PAPEK-HAJSTGER 
 
 "A man, a girl, and a dog" is as common as "a 
 man, a punt, and an inn." 
 
 Instantly the four-inch morsel four inches, 
 now that I think of it, is about right; six inches 
 is too long this morsel, I say, gave a yell as 
 shrill as a launch-whistle and as fetching as a 
 baby s cry. Instantly three chambermaids, two 
 barmaids, the two maiden sisters who were break 
 fasting on the shady side of the inn gable, and the 
 dog s owner, who, in a ravishing gown, was taking 
 her coffee under one of the Japanese umbrellas, 
 came rushing out of their respective hiding-places, 
 impelled by an energy and accompanied by an im- 
 petuousness rarely seen except perhaps in some 
 heroic attempt to save a drowning child sinking 
 for the last time. 
 
 "The darlin " this from Katy the barmaid, 
 who reached him first "who s stomped on him?" 
 
 "How outrageous to be so cruel!" this from 
 the two maiden sisters. 
 
 "Give him to me, Katy oh, the brute of a 
 man!" this from the fair owner. 
 
 The solitary Englishman with his book and his 
 furled umbrella, who in his absorption had com 
 mitted the crime, strode on without even raising 
 his hat in apology. 
 
 "D d little beast!" I heard him mutter as 
 
 he neared the boat-house where Fin and I were 
 stowing cargo. "Ought to be worn on a watch- 
 chain or in her buttonhole." 
 169 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 Fin had his hand on his lips keeping his laugh 
 ing apparatus in order until the solitary disap 
 peared down the path to the trees, then he leaned 
 my way. 
 
 "I know him, sor," he whispered. "He s a bar 
 rister down in Temple Bar. He don t remember 
 me, sor, but I know him. He s always treadin 
 on something something alive always, sor, and 
 wid both feet! He trod on me once. I thought 
 it was him when I see him fust but I wasn t sure 
 till I asked Landlord Hull about him." 
 
 "How came you to know him ?" 
 
 "Well, sor, he had an old lady on his list two 
 years ago that was always disputin distances and 
 goin to law about her cab-fares. I picked her up 
 one day in St. James Street and druv her to Ken 
 sington Gardens and charged her the rates, and she 
 kicked and had me up before the magistrate, and 
 this old ink-bottle appeared for her. She s rich 
 and always in hot water. Well, we had it meas 
 ured and I was right, and it cost her me fare and 
 fifteen bob besides. When it was figured up she 
 owed me sixpence more measurement I hadn t 
 charged her for the first time, and I summoned 
 her and made her pay it and twelve bob more to 
 teach her manners. What pay he got I don t 
 know, but I got me sixpence. He was born back 
 here about a mile that s why he comes here for 
 his holiday." 
 
 Fin stopped stowing cargo two bottles of soda, 
 170 
 
PLAIN FIN PAPEK-HANGEK 
 
 a piece of ice in a bucket, two canvases, my big 
 easel and a lunch-basket and moving his cap 
 back from his freckled forehead said, with as much 
 gravity as he could maintain : 
 
 "I ought to have been a barrister, sor ; I started 
 as one." 
 
 The statement did not surprise me. Had he 
 added that he had coached the winning crew of the 
 regatta the year before, laid the marquetry floors 
 of Cliveden (not far away), or led the band at 
 the late Lord Mayor s show, I should have re 
 ceived his statements with equal equanimity. So 
 I simply remarked, "When was that, Fin"? quite 
 as I should had I been gathering details for his 
 biography my only anxiety being to get the facts 
 chronologically correct. 
 
 "When I was a gossoon of twenty, sor maybe 
 eighteen I m fifty now, so it s far back enough, 
 God knows. And it all happened, too, not far 
 from that old ink-bottle s place in Temple Bar. I 
 was lookin at it wan day last winter when I had 
 a fare down there that I took up in old Bond 
 Street. I did the sweepin out and startin fires. 
 Wan day wan of the clerks got fired because he 
 couldn t serve a writ on another barrister chap 
 who owed a bill that me boss was tryin to collect. 
 JSTobody could git into his rooms, try every way 
 they could. He had nigh broke the head o wan 
 o the young fellers in the office who tried it the 
 day before. He niver come out, but had his grub 
 171 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 sent him. This had been goin on for a month. 
 All kinds o games had been put up on him and 
 he beat em all. 
 
 " Til do it/ I says, in a week s time or less. 
 The manager was goin through the office and 
 heard the laugh they give me. What s this ? he 
 says, cross like. Tin says he kin serve the writ/ 
 the clerk says. I kin/ 1 says, startin up, or I ll 
 throw up me job. 
 
 Give him the writ/ he says, and give him 
 two days off. It kin do no harm for him to try. 
 
 Well, I found the street, and went up the stairs 
 and read the name on the door and heard some 
 body walkin around, and knew he was in. Then 
 I lay around on the other side o the street to 
 see what I could pick up in the way o the habits 
 o the rat. I knew he couldn t starve for a week 
 at a time, and that something must be goin in, 
 and maybe I could follow up and git me foot in 
 the door before he could close it ; but I soon found 
 that wouldn t work. Pretty soon a can o milk 
 come and went up in a basket that he let down 
 from his winder. As he leaned out I saw his head, 
 and it was a worse carrot than me own. Then 
 along come a man with a bag o coal on his back 
 and a bit o card in his hand with the coal-yard on 
 it and the rat s name underneath, a-lookin up at 
 the house and scratchin his head as to where he 
 was goin . 
 
 "I crossed over and says, Who are ye lookin 
 172 
 
PLAIN YIN P APSE-HANGER 
 
 for ? And lie hands me the card. I m his man/ 
 I says, and I been waitin for ye me master s 
 sick and don t want no noise, and if ye make 
 any I ll lose me place. I ll carry the bag up 
 and dump it and bring ye the bag back and a 
 shillin for yer trouble. Wait here. Hold on/ I 
 says; take me hat and let me have yours, for I 
 don t git a good hat every day, and the bag s that 
 dirty it ll spile it. 
 
 " Go on, he says ; I ve carried it all the way 
 from the yard and me back s broke. Well, I 
 pulled his hat ever me eyes and started up the 
 stairs wid the bag on me shoulder. When I got to 
 the fust landin I run me hands over the bag, git- 
 tin em good and black, then I smeared me face, 
 and up I went another flight. 
 
 " Who s there ? he says, when I knocked. 
 
 " Coals, I says. 
 
 " Where from ? he says. 
 
 "I told him the name on the card. He opened 
 the door an inch and I could see a chain between 
 the crack. 
 
 " Let me see yer face/ he says. I twisted it 
 out from under the edge of the bag. All right/ 
 he says, and he slipped back the chain and in I 
 went, stoopin down as if it weighed a ton. 
 
 " Where ll I put it ? I says. 
 
 " In the box/ he says, walkin toward the 
 grate. Have ye brought the bill? 
 
 C{ I have/ I says, still keepin me head down. 
 173 
 
THE TOTDEK DOG 
 
 It s in me side pocket. Pull it out, please, me 
 hand s that dirty and out come the writ ! 
 
 "Ye ought to have seen his face when he read 
 it. He made a jump for the door, but I got there 
 fust and downstairs in a tumble, and fell in a 
 heap at the foot with everything he could lay hia 
 hands on comin after me tongs, shovel, and 
 poker. 
 
 "I got a raise of five bob when I went back and 
 ten bob besides from the boss. 
 
 "I ought to have stayed at the law, sor; I d be 
 a magistrate by now a-sittin on a sheepskin in 
 stead of 
 
 "Where ll I put this big canvas, sor up agin 
 the bow or laid flat ? The last coat ain t dry yet," 
 he muttered to himself, touching my picture with 
 his finger in true paper-hanger style. "Oh, yes, 
 I see all ready, sor, ye kin step in. Same place 
 we painted yesterday, sor? up near the mill? 
 All right, sor." And we pushed out into the 
 stream. 
 
 These talks with Fin are like telephone mes 
 sages from the great city hardly an hour away. 
 They always take place in the open, while I am 
 floating among pond-lilies or drifting under wide- 
 spreading trees, their drooping leaves dabbling in 
 the silent current like children s fingers, or while 
 I am sitting under skies as blue as any that bend 
 above my Beloved City by the Sea; often, too, 
 174 
 
PLAIN YIN PAPER-RANGER 
 
 when the delicious silence about me is broken only 
 by the lapping of the water around my punt, the 
 sharpening of a bit of charcoal, or the splash of 
 a fish. That his stories are out of key with my 
 surroundings, often reminding me of - things I 
 have come miles over the sea to forget, somehow 
 adds to their charm. 
 
 There is no warning given. Suddenly, and ap 
 parently without anything that leads up to the 
 subject in mind, this irrepressible Irishman 
 breaks out, and before I am aware of the change, 
 the glory of the morning and all that it holds for 
 me of beauty has faded out of the slide of my 
 mental camera and another has taken its place. 
 Again I am following Fin s cab through the mazes 
 of smoky, seething London, now waiting outside a 
 concert-hall for some young blood, or shopping 
 along Regent Street, or at full tilt to catch a Chan 
 nel train at Charing Cross each picture enriched 
 by a running account of personal adventure that 
 makes them doubly interesting 
 
 "You wouldn t mind, sor," he begins, "if I tell 
 ye of a party of three I took home from a grand 
 ball one of the toppy balls of the winter, in one 
 o them big halls on the Strand? Two o ? them 
 was dressed like the Royal family in satins that 
 stuck out like a haystack and covered with dia 
 monds that would hurt your eyes to look at 
 em " And then in his inimitable dialect im 
 possible to reproduce by any combination of vow- 
 175 
 
THE UKDEK DOG 
 
 els at my command, and punctured every few min 
 utes by ringing laughs that can be heard half a 
 mile away follows a description of how one of 
 his fares, Ikey by name, the son of the stoutest 
 of the women, by a sudden lurch of his cab 
 Ikey rode outside while rounding into a side 
 street, was landed in the mud. 
 
 a Oh, that was a great night, sor," he rattles on. 
 "Ye ought to V seen him when I picked him up. 
 He looked as if they d been a-swobbin the cobbles 
 wid him. Oh, me son ! me son ! it s kilt ye are P 
 she hollered out, clawin him wid both hands, and 
 up they hauled him all over them satin dresses ! 
 And where do ye think I took em, sor ? To Han 
 over Square, or out by St. James Park ? No, sor, 
 not a bit of it ! Down in an alley in Whitechapel, 
 sor, that ye d be afraid to walk through after sun 
 down, and into a shop wid three balls over it. 
 What do ye think o that, sor ?" 
 
 Or he launches forth into an account of how he 
 helped to rescue a woman s child from the clutches 
 of her brutal husband ; and of the race out King s 
 Road followed by the husband in a hansom, and 
 of the watchful bobbie who, to relieve a threatened 
 block in the street, held up the pursuing hansom 
 at the critical moment, thus saving the escaping 
 child, half-smothered in a blanket, tight locked in 
 its mother s arms, and earning for Fin the biggest 
 fare he ever got in his life. 
 
 "Think of it, sor ! Fifteen bob for goin a mile, 
 176 
 
PLAIN FIN PAPEK-HANGER 
 
 she a-hollerin all the time that she d double the 
 fare if I kep ahead. But, Lord love ye, sor, she 
 needn t V worried; me old plug had run in the 
 Derby wance, and for a short spurt like that he 
 was game back to the stump of his tail." 
 
 When the last morning of his enforced exile 
 arrived and Fin, before I was half-dressed, pre 
 sented himself outside my bedroom door, an open 
 letter in his hand, not a trace of the punt-poling 
 Irishman was visible in his make-up! 
 
 He wore a glazed white tile, a yellow-brown 
 coat with three capes, cut pen-wiper fashion, and 
 a pair of corduroy trousers whose fulness con 
 cealed in part the ellipse of his legs. 
 
 "Here s a letter from me boss, sor," he blurted 
 out, holding it toward me. "He says I kin go to 
 work in the mornin . Ye don t mind, do ye, sor ?" 
 
 "Of course I mind, Fin ; I ll have trouble to fill 
 your place. Are you sorry to leave ?" 
 
 "Am I sorry, sor ? No ! savin yer presence, 
 I m glad. What s the good of the country, any 
 how, sor, except to make picters in ? Of course, 
 it s different wid you, sor, not knowin the city, 
 but for me why God rest yer soul, sor, I wouldn t 
 give one cobble of the Strand no bigger n me fist 
 for the best farm in Surrey. 
 
 "Call me, sor, next time ye re passin my rank 
 177 " 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 any time after twelve at night, and I ll show ye 
 fun enough to last ye yer life." 
 
 Something dropped out of the landscape that 
 day something of its brilliancy, color, and charm. 
 The water seemed sluggish, the sky-tones dull, the 
 meadows flat and commonplace. 
 
 It must have been Fin s laugh! 
 
 178 
 
LONG JIM 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 Jim met me at the station. I knew it was Jim 
 when I caught sight of him loping along the plat 
 form, craning his neck, his head on one side as 
 if in search of someone. He had the same stoop 
 in his shoulders ; the same long, disjointed, sham 
 bling body six feet and more of it that had 
 earned him his soubriquet. 
 
 "Guess you be him/ 7 he said, recognizing me as 
 easily, his face breaking suddenly into a broad 
 smile as I stepped on to the platform. "Old man 
 lowed I d know ye right away, but I kind o mis 
 trusted till I see ye stop and look raound same s 
 if ye d lost the trail. I ll take them traps and 
 that bag if ye don t mind," and he relieved me of 
 my sketch-kit and bag. "Buck-board s right out 
 here behind the freight shed," and he pointed 
 across the track. "Old mare s kinder skeery o 
 the engine, so I tied her a piece off." 
 
 He was precisely the man I had expected to 
 find even to his shaggy gray hair matted close 
 181 
 
THE TINDER DOG 
 
 about his ears, wrinkled, leathery face, and long, 
 scrawny neck. He wore the same rough, cowhide 
 boots and the very hat I had seen so often repro 
 duced such a picturesque slouch of a hat with 
 that certain cant to the rim which betokens long 
 usage and not a little comfort, especially on bal 
 sam boughs with the sky for a covering, and only 
 the stars to light one to bed. 
 
 I had heard all these several details and ap 
 pointments described ever so minutely by an en 
 thusiastic brother brush who had spent the pre 
 ceding summer with old man Marvin Jim s 
 employer but he had forgotten to mention, or 
 had failed to notice, the peculiar softness of Jim s 
 voice and his timid, shrinking eyes the eyes of 
 a dog rather than those of a man not cowardly 
 eyes, nor sneaking eyes more the eyes of one who 
 had suffered constantly from sudden, unexpected 
 blows, and who shrank from your gaze and dodged 
 it as does a hound that misunderstands a gesture. 
 
 "Old man s been spectin ye for a week," Jim 
 rambled on as he led the way to the shed, hitching 
 up his one leather suspender that kept the brown 
 overalls snug up under his armpits. "P raps ye 
 expected him to meet ye," he continued, "but ye 
 don t know him. He ain t that kind. He won t 
 go even for Ruby." 
 
 "Who s Ruby?" The brother brush had not 
 mentioned him. "Mr. Marvin s son?" 
 
 "!N"o, she s Mother Marvin s girl. She s away 
 182 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 to Plymouth to school. Stand here a minute till 
 I back up the buck-board." 
 
 The buck-board is the only vehicle possible over 
 these mountain-roads. It is the volante of the 
 Franconia range, and rides over everything from 
 a bowlder to a wind-slash. This particular ex 
 ample differed only in being a trifle more rickety 
 and mud-bespattered than any I had seen; and 
 the mare had evidently been foaled to draw it 
 a fur-coated, moth-eaten, wisp-tailed beast, tied to 
 the shafts with clothes-lines and scraps of deerhide 
 a quadruped that only an earthquake could have 
 shaken into nervousness. And yet Jim backed her 
 into position as carefully as if she had felt her 
 harness for the first time, handing me the reins 
 until he strapped my belongings to the hind axle, 
 calling a Whoa, Bess!" every time she rested a 
 tired muscle. Then he lifted one long leg over 
 the dash-board and took the seat beside me. 
 
 It was my first draught of a long holiday; my 
 breathing-spell; my time for loose neckties and 
 flannel shirts and a kit slung over my shoulder 
 crammed with brushes and color-tubes; my time 
 for loafing and inviting my soul. It felt inexpres 
 sibly delightful to be once more out in the open 
 out under the wide sweep of the sky; rid of 
 the choke of narrow streets; exempt of bells, 
 mails, and telegrams, and free of him who knocks, 
 enters, and sits and sits and sits. And it was 
 the Indian summer of the year; when the air is 
 183 " 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 spicy with the smoke of burning leaves and the 
 mountains are lost in the haze ; when the unshaven 
 cornfields are dotted with yellow pumpkins and 
 under low-branched trees the apples lie in heaps; 
 when the leaves are aflame and the round sun 
 shines pink through opalescent clouds. 
 
 "Ain t it a hummer of a day? 7 Jim exclaimed, 
 suddenly, looking toward the valley swimming in 
 a silver mist below us. "By Jiminy! it makes a 
 man feel like livin , don t it ?" 
 
 I turned to look at him. He, too, seemed to 
 have caught the infection. His shoulders had 
 straightened, his nostrils were dilated like a deer s 
 that sniffs some distant scent; his face was aglow. 
 I began to wonder if, with my usual luck, I had 
 not found the companion I always looked for in 
 my outings that rare other fellow of the right 
 kind, who responds to your slightest wish with all 
 the enthusiasm and gusto of a boy, and so vaga- 
 bondish in his tendencies that he is delighted to 
 have you think for him and to follow your lead. 
 
 I had not long to wait. Before we had gone a 
 mile into the forest Jim jerked the mare back 
 upon her haunches and, pointing to a great hem 
 lock standing sentinel over us, cried out with boy 
 ish enthusiasm : 
 
 "Take a look at him once. Ain t he a ring- 
 tailed roarer? Seems to me a tree big as him 
 must be awful proud just o bein a tree. Ain t 
 nothin raound here kin see s fur as he kin, any- 
 184 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 ways." "My luck again/ I thought to myself. 
 I knew I could not be mistaken in the outward 
 signs. 
 
 "You like trees, then?" I asked, watching the 
 glow on his face. 
 
 "Like em! Well, wouldn t you if ye d lived 
 mong em long s I have ? Trees don t never go 
 back on ye, and that s what ye can t say o every 
 thing." The analogy was obscure, but I attrib 
 uted it to Jim s slender stock of phrases. "I ve 
 knowed that hemlock ever since I come here, and 
 he s just the same to me as the fust day I see him. 
 Ain t never no change in trees ; once they re good 
 to ye they re allus good to ye. Birds is different 
 so is cattle but trees and dogs ye kin tie to. 
 Don t the woods smell nice ? Do ye catch on to 
 them spruces dead ahead of us ? Maybe ye can t 
 smell em till ye git yer nose cleared out o them 
 city nosegays," he continued, with a kindly in 
 terest in his voice. "But ye will when ye ve been 
 here a spell. Folks that live in cities think there 
 ain t nothin smells sweet but flowers and cologne. 
 They ain t never slep on balsam-boughs nor got 
 a whiff o a birchbark fire, nor tramped a bed 
 o ferns at night. There s a cool, fresh smell for 
 ye! I tell ye there s a heap o perfumes raound 
 that ye can t buy at a flower-store and cork up in 
 a bottle. Well, I guess Git up, Bess!" and he 
 flopped the reins once more along the ridges and 
 hollows of the mare s back while he encouraged 
 185 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 her to renewed efforts with that peculiar clucking 
 sound heeded only by certain beasts of burden. 
 
 At the end of the tenth mile he stopped the 
 mare suddenly. 
 
 "Hold on," he cried, excitedly, "there s that 
 scraggy-tail. I missed him when I come down- 
 See ! there he is on that green log. I was feared 
 he d passed in his chips." I looked and saw a 
 huge gray squirrel with a tail like a rabbit. 
 "That s him. Durn mean on his tail, warn t it? 
 And one paw gone, too. The dog catched him one 
 day last year and left him tore up that way. I 
 found him limping along when I was a-sugaring 
 here in the spring and kinder fixed him up, and 
 he s sorter on the lookout for me when I come 
 along. He s got a hole round here somewheres." 
 
 Jim sprang out of the buck-board. Fumbling 
 under the seat he brought out a bag of nuts. The 
 squirrel took them from his hand, stuffing his 
 mouth full, five at a time, limping away to hide 
 them, and back again for more until the bag was 
 empty, Jim, contented and unhurried, squatting 
 on the ground, his long knees bent under him. 
 The way in which he did this gave me infinite 
 delight. No vagabond I had ever known ignored 
 time and duty more complacently. 
 
 We drove on in silence, Jim taking in every 
 thing we passed. This shambling, slenderly edu 
 cated, and clay-soiled man was fast looming up as 
 a find of incalculable value the most valuable of 
 186 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 my experience. The most important thing, how 
 ever, was still to be settled if a perfect harmony of 
 interests was to be established between us would 
 he like me ? 
 
 Marvin s cabin, in which I was to spend my 
 holiday, lay on a clearing half a mile or more out 
 side the woods and at the foot of a hill that helped 
 prop up the Knob. The stage road ran to the left. 
 The house was a small two-story affair built of 
 logs and clapboards, and was joined to the out 
 lying stable by a covered passage which was lined 
 with winter firewood. Marvin, who met us at the 
 pasture-gate, carried a lantern, the glow of the 
 twilight having faded from the mountain-tops. 
 He was a small, thick-set man, smooth-shaven as 
 far as the under side of his chin and jaws, with a 
 whisk-broom beard spread over his shirt-front and 
 half of his waistcoat. His forehead was low, and 
 his eyes set close together sure sign of a close- 
 fisted nature. 
 
 To my great surprise his first words, after a 
 limp handshake and a perfunctory "pleased to see 
 you," were devoted to an outbreak on Jim for 
 having been so long on the road. "Been waitin 
 here an hour," he said. "What in tarnation kep 
 ye, anyway? Them cows ain t milked yit!" 
 
 "Don t worry. I won t go back on them cows," 
 replied Jim, quietly, as he drove through the gate 
 way, following Marvin, who walked ahead swing 
 ing the lantern to show the mare the road. 
 187 
 
THE TOTDEK DOG 
 
 Mrs. Marvin s manner was as abrupt as that of 
 her husband. 
 
 "Well, well!" she said, as I stepped upon the 
 porch, "guess you must be beat out comin so fur. 
 Come in and set by the stove/ 7 and she resumed 
 her work in the pantry without another word. 
 
 I was not offended at her curtness. These deni 
 zens of the forest pass too many hours alone and 
 speak too seldom to understand the value of polite 
 ness for politeness sake. The wife, moreover, 
 redeemed herself the next morning when I found 
 her on the back porch feeding the birds. 
 
 "Snow ain t fur off," she remarked, in explana 
 tion, as she scattered the crumbs about, "and I 
 want em to larn early where they kin find some 
 thing to eat. Ruby d never forgive me if I didn t 
 feed the birds. She loves em bout as much as 
 Jim does." 
 
 Neither she nor her husband became any more 
 cordial as they knew me better. To them I was 
 only the boarder whose weekly stipend helped to 
 decrease the farm debt, and who had to be fed 
 three times a day and given a bed at night. It 
 was Jim who made me feel at home. He was the 
 fellow I had longed for ; the round peg of a chance 
 acquaintance that exactly fitted into the round 
 hole of my holiday life, and he fulfilled my every 
 expectation. He would fish or hunt or carry a 
 sketch-trap or wash brushes, or loaf, or go to sleep 
 beside me or get up at daylight whatever the 
 188 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 one half of me wanted to do, Jim, the other half, 
 agreed to with instant cheerfulness. 
 
 And yet, in spite of this constant companion 
 ship, I never crossed a certain line of reserve 
 which he had set up between us. He would 
 ramble on by the hour about the things around 
 us; about the trees, the birds, and squirrels; of 
 the way the muskrats lived by the sawmill dam, 
 and their cleverness in avoiding his traps; about 
 the deer that "yarded" back of Taft s Knob last 
 winter, and their leanness in the spring. Some 
 times he would speak of Mother Marvin, saying 
 she "thought a heap of Ruby, and ought to," and 
 now and then he would speak of Ruby with a cer 
 tain tender tone in his voice, telling me of the 
 prizes she had won at school, and how nobody 
 could touch her in " rithmetic and readin ." But, 
 to my surprise, he never discussed any of his pri 
 vate affairs with me. I say "surprise," for until 
 I met Jim I had found that men of his class 
 talked of little else, especially when over camp- 
 fires smouldering far into the night. 
 
 This reticence also extended to Marvin s affairs. 
 The relations between them, I saw, were greatly 
 strained, although Jim always discharged his 
 duties conscientiously, never failing to render a 
 strict account of the time he spent with me, which 
 Marvin always itemized in the weekly bill. I 
 used often to wonder if he were not under some 
 obligation to his employer which he could not re- 
 189 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 quite; it might be for food and shelter in his 
 earlier days, or perhaps that he was weighted hy 
 a money debt he was unable to pay. 
 
 One morning, after a particularly ugly out 
 break in which Jim had been denounced for some 
 supposed neglect of his duties, I asked him, then 
 lying beside me, his head cupped upon his saucer 
 of a slouch hat, why he stayed on with a man like 
 Marvin, so different from himself in every way. 
 I had often wondered why Jim stood it, and 
 wished that he had the spirit to try his fortunes 
 elsewhere. In my sympathy for him I had even 
 gone so far as to hint once or twice at my finding 
 him other employment. Indeed, I must confess 
 that the only cloud between us dimming my 
 confidence in him was this very lack of inde 
 pendence. 
 
 "Well, I got to git along with him for a spell 
 yit," Jim answered, slowly, his eyes turned up to 
 the sky. "He is ornery, and no mistake, and I 
 git mad at him sometimes; but then ag in I feel 
 kinder sorry for him somehow. He s a queer 
 kind, ain t he, to be livin up here all his life with 
 trees and mountains all round him, all doin their 
 best to please him and I don t know nothin 
 friendlier nor honester and yet him bein what 
 he is? I d a thought they d thawed him out 
 fore this. And he s so dog-goned close, too, if I 
 must say it. Why, if it warn t for Mother Mar 
 vin, some o us raound here" and he stopped and 
 190 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 lowered his voice "would be out in the cold; 
 some ye wouldn t suspect, too." 
 
 This apparently studied reticence only incited 
 my curiosity to learn something more of the man 
 for whom I had begun to have a real affection. I 
 wanted particularly to know something of his life 
 before he came to Marvin s! -twelve years now. 
 I could not, of course, ask Marvin or his wife for 
 any details my intimacy with Jim forbade such 
 an invasion of his privacy and I met no one else 
 in the forest. I saw plainly that he was not a 
 mountaineer by birth. Not only did his dialect 
 differ from those about him, but his habits were 
 not those of a woodsman. For instance, he would 
 always carry his matches loose in his pocket, in 
 stead of in a dry box ; then, again, he would wear 
 his trousers rolled up like a fireman s, as if to 
 keep out the wet, instead of tucking them into his 
 boots to tramp the woods the better. Now and 
 then, too, he would let fall some word or expression 
 which would betray greater familiarity with the 
 ins and outs of the city than with the intricacies 
 of the forest. 
 
 "It was fixed up in a glass case like one Abe 
 Condit used to have in his place in the Bowery," 
 he said once in describing a prize trout some city 
 fisherman had stuffed and framed. But when I 
 asked him, with some surprise, if he knew the 
 Bowery, he looked at me quickly, with the slight 
 est trace of offended dignity in his eyes, as if I 
 191 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 had meant to overstep the line between us, and 
 answered quickly : 
 
 "I knowed Abe Condit," and immediately 
 changed the conversation. 
 
 And yet I must admit that there was nothing in 
 the way he answered this and all my other ques 
 tions that weakened my confidence in his sincer 
 ity. If there were any blackened pages in his past 
 record that he did not want to lay bare even to me, 
 they were discolored, I felt sure, more by priva 
 tions and suffering than by any stains he was 
 ashamed of. 
 
 II 
 
 One morning at daybreak I was awakened by 
 Jim swinging back my door. He had on his 
 heavy overcoat and carried a lantern. His slouch 
 hat was flattened on the back of his head ; the rim 
 flared out, framing his face, which was wreathed 
 in smiles. He seemed to be under some peculiar 
 excitement, for his breath came thick and fast. 
 
 " Sorry to wake ye, but I m goin to Plymouth," 
 and he lowered his head and stepped inside my 
 room. "Ruby s comin . Feller brought me a let 
 ter she d sent on by the stage. The driver left it 
 at the sawmill. I d a told ye las night, but ye d 
 turned in." 
 
 "When will you be back?" I called out from 
 between the bedclothes. We had planned a trip 
 192 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 to the Knob the next day, and were to camp out 
 for the night. He evidently saw my disappoint 
 ment in my face, for he answered quickly, as he 
 bent over me : 
 
 "Oh, to-night, sure; and maybe Ruby ll go 
 along. There ain t nothin ye kin teach her bout 
 campin , and she ll go anywheres I ll take her 
 leastways, she allus has." This last was said with 
 some hesitation, as if he had suddenly thought 
 that my presence might make some difference to 
 her. "Leave yer brushes where I kin git em," 
 he continued, anxious to make up for my disap 
 pointment. "I ll wash em when I git back," and 
 he clattered down the steep stairs and slammed the 
 door behind him. 
 
 I jumped from my bed, threw up the narrow, 
 unpainted sash and watched his tall, awkward 
 figure swinging the lantern as he hurried away 
 toward the shed where the gray mare lived in 
 solitude. Then I crept back to bed again to plan 
 my day anew. 
 
 When I joined Marvin at breakfast I found 
 him in one of his ugliest moods, with all his 
 bristles out; not turned toward me, nor even 
 toward his wife, but toward the world in general. 
 Strange to say, he made no allusion to his daugh 
 ter s return nor to Jim s absence. 
 
 Suddenly his wife blurted out, as if she could 
 restrain her joy no longer : 
 
 "You ain t never seen Kuby. She s comin to- 
 193 
 
THE UKDEK DOG 
 
 night. Jim s gone for her. The head teacher s 
 sick and some o the girls has got a holiday." 
 
 "Yes/ I answered, quietly; a Jim told me." 
 
 "Oh, he did !" And she put down her cup and 
 leaned across the table. "Well, I m awful glad 
 she s comin , just so ye kin see her. Ye won t 
 never forgit her when ye do. She s got six months 
 more, then she s comin home for a spell until she 
 goes teachin ," and a look of exultant pride and 
 joy of which I had never believed her capable 
 came into her eyes. 
 
 Marvin turned his head and in a half-angry 
 way said: 
 
 "It s bout time. Little good ye ve had o her 
 for the last four years with yer fool notions bout 
 eddication." And he put on his hat and went out. 
 
 "How old is your daughter ?" I asked, more to 
 soften the effect of Marvin s brutal remark than 
 anything else. 
 
 "She s seventeen, I guess, but she s big for her 
 age." 
 
 The announcement came as a surprise. I had 
 supposed from the way Jim had always spoken of 
 her that she was a child of twelve. The possibili 
 ties of her camping out became all the more re 
 mote. 
 
 "And has she been away from you long this 
 time?" 
 
 " Bout four months. I didn t spect her to 
 come till Christmas, till she wrote Jim to come foi 
 194 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 her. He allus fetches her. They ll be long bout 
 dark." 
 
 I instantly determined to extend the heartiest 
 of welcomes to this little daughter, not alone be 
 cause of the mother and Jim, but because the 
 home-coming of a young girl had always appealed 
 to me as one of the most satisfying of all family 
 events. My memory instinctively went back to 
 the return of my own little bird, and of the many 
 marvellous preparations begun weeks before in 
 honor of the event. I saw again in my mind the 
 wondrous curtains, stiff and starched, hung at the 
 windows and about the high posts of the quaint 
 bedstead that had sheltered her from childhood; 
 I remembered the special bakings and brewings 
 and the innumerable bundles, big and little, that 
 were tucked away under secretive sofas and the 
 thousand other surprises that hung upon her com 
 ing. This little wood-pigeon should have my best 
 attention, however simple and plain might be her 
 plumage. 
 
 Moreover, I was more than curious to see what 
 particular kind of a fledgling could be born to 
 these two parent birds one so hard and unsympa 
 thetic and the other so kind and simple. Jim, I 
 remembered, had always spoken enthusiastically 
 of Ruby, but then Jim always spilled over the 
 edges whenever he spoke of the things he loved, 
 whether they were dogs, trees, flowers, or brilliant 
 young maidens. 
 
 195 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 At nine o clock that night my ear caught the 
 sound of wheels ; then came Jim s "Whoa ! Bess/ 7 
 and the mother threw wide the door and caught 
 her daughter in her arms. 
 
 "Oh, mother!" the girl cried, "wasn t it good 
 I could come ?" and she kissed her again. Then 
 she turned to me I had followed out in the star 
 light "Uncle Jim sent me word you were here, 
 and I was so glad. I ve always wanted to see 
 somebody paint, and Uncle Jim says he s sure you 
 will let me go sketching with you. I wasn t com 
 ing home with the other girls until I got his letter 
 and knew that you were here." 
 
 She said this frankly and simply, without the 
 slightest embarrassment, and without a trace of 
 any dialect in her speech. Jim evidently had not 
 exaggerated her attainments. She had, too, un 
 consciously to herself, solved one of the mysteries 
 that surrounded me. If Jim was her uncle it 
 must be on her mother s side; it certainly could 
 not be on Marvin s. 
 
 "And I m glad, too," I replied. "Of course you 
 shall go, and Jim tells me also that you are as 
 good a woodsman as he is. And so Jim s your 
 uncle, is he ? He never told me that" 
 
 "Oh, no," she answered quickly, with a little 
 deprecatory air. "He isn t my real uncle. He s 
 just Jim, but I ve always called him Uncle Jim 
 ever since I was a little girl. And I love him 
 dearly; don t I, Uncle Jim?" and she turned 
 196 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 toward him as he entered the door carrying her 
 bundle, followed by her father with the kerosene 
 lamp, Marvin having brought it out to help Jim 
 unload the buck-board. 
 
 "That s what ye allus says, baby-girl," an 
 swered Jim, "so I got to believe it. And if I 
 didn t, there wouldn t be no use o livin not a 
 mite." There was a vibrating tenderness in the 
 man s voice, and an indescribable pathos in its 
 tone, as he spoke, that caused me instinctively to 
 turn my head and look into his face. 
 
 The light shone full upon it so full and direct 
 that there were no shadows anywhere. Whether 
 it was because of the lamp s direct rays or because 
 of his long ride in the crisp November air, I could 
 not decide, but certain it was that Jim s face was 
 without a wrinkle, and that he looked twenty 
 years younger. Even the hard, drawn lines about 
 his mouth and nose had disappeared. 
 
 With the light of the lamp came another reve 
 lation. While the girl s cheap woollen dress and 
 jacket, of a pattern sold in the country stores, 
 showed her to be the product of Marvin s home 
 and the recipient of his scanty bounty, her trim, 
 well-rounded figure, soft, glossy hair now that 
 her hat was off and small hands and feet, classed 
 her as one of far gentler birth. There was, too, 
 as she passed in and out of the room helping her 
 mother with the supper-table, a certain grace and 
 dignity, especially in the way in which she bent 
 197 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 her head on one side to listen, a gesture often seen 
 in a drawing-room, but never, in my experience, 
 in a cabin. What astonished me most, however, 
 were her hands her exquisitely modelled hands, 
 still ruddy from the fresh night-air, but so won 
 derfully curved and dimpled. And then, too, the 
 perfect graciousness and simplicity of her manner 
 and its absolute freedom from coquetry or self- 
 consciousness. Her mother was right I would 
 not soon forget her. And yet, by what freak of 
 Nature, I found myself continually repeating, had 
 this flower been made to bloom on this soil? 
 Through what ancestor s veins had this blood 
 trickled, and through what channels had it reached 
 these humble occupants of a forest home ? 
 
 But if her mother was the happier for her com 
 ing, Jim, radiant with joy, seemed to walk on air. 
 His head was up, his arms were swinging free, 
 and there was a lightness and spring in his move 
 ments that made me forget the grotesqueness of 
 his gait. Nor, as the days went by, did this buoy 
 ant happiness ever fail him. He and Ruby were 
 inseparable from the time she opened the rude 
 door of her bedroom in the morning until she bade 
 us all good-night and carried with her all the light 
 and charm and joyousness of the day. The camp 
 ing-out, I may as well state, had been given up 
 as soon as I had mentioned it, she saying to me 
 with a little start, as if frightened at the propo 
 sition, that she thought she d better stay home and 
 198 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 help her mother. Then, seeing Jim s face fall, 
 she added, a But we can be off all day, can t 
 we?" 
 
 And Jim answered that it was all right, just 
 as Ruby said that we would go fishing instead, 
 and that he had spotted an old trout that lived in 
 a hole down the East Branch that he d been saving 
 for her, and that he had tied the day before the 
 "very fly that will fix him" all of which was 
 true, for Euby landed him the next day with all 
 the skill of a professional, besides a dozen smaller 
 ones whose haunts Jim knew. 
 
 And so the weeks flew by, Euby tramping the 
 forest daily between us or sitting beside me as I 
 painted, noting every stroke of my brush and ask 
 ing me innumerable questions as to the choice of 
 colors and the mixing of the tints. At other times 
 she would ply me with questions, making me tell 
 her of the things I had seen abroad and of the 
 cities and peoples she had read of; or she would 
 talk of the books she had studied, and of others 
 she wanted to read. Jim would listen eagerly, 
 with a certain pride in his eyes that she knew so 
 much and could talk so well, and when we were 
 alone he would comment on it: 
 
 "Nearly catched ye, didn t she ? I see once or 
 twice ye were stumped clean out o yer boots on 
 them questions she fired. How her little head 
 holds it all is what bothers me. But I allus 
 knowed how it would be; I told the old man so 
 199 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 ten year ago. Ain t one o em raound here kin 
 touch her." 
 
 At night, under the kerosene lamp in the cabin, 
 she would ask me to read aloud, she looking up 
 into my face and drinking in every word, the 
 others listening, Jim watching every expression 
 that crossed her face. 
 
 Dear old Jim! I still see your tender, shrink 
 ing eyes peering at her from under your 
 bushy eyebrows and still hear the low ripple of 
 your merry laugh over her volleys of questions. 
 You were so proud of her and so happy in those 
 days! So tender in touch, so gentle of voice, so 
 constant in care ! 
 
 One morning I had some letters to write, and 
 Ruby and Jim took the rods and went up the brook 
 without me. They both begged me to go, Ruby 
 being particularly urgent, I thought, but I had 
 already delayed the mail too long and so refused 
 point-blank too abruptly, perhaps, as I thought 
 afterward, when I remembered the keen look of 
 disappointment in her face. When she re-entered 
 the cabin alone an hour later she passed me hur 
 riedly, and calling out to her father that Jim was 
 wanted at the sawmill to fix the wheel and would 
 not be back until morning, shut herself into her 
 room before I could offer myself in Jim s place 
 which I would gladly have done, now that her 
 morning s pleasure had been spoiled. 
 
 When she joined us at supper she had kept 
 300 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 her room all day I saw that her eyes were red, 
 as if she had been crying. I knew then that I had 
 offended her. 
 
 "Buby, I really couldn t go," I said. "You 
 don t feel cross about it, do you ?" 
 
 "Oh, no," she answered, with some earnestness. 
 "And I knew you were busy." 
 
 "And about Jim what s the matter with the 
 wheel ?" I asked, greatly relieved at the discovery 
 that whatever troubled her, my staying at home 
 had not caused it. 
 
 "One of the buckets is broken Uncle Jim al 
 ways fixes it," and she turned her head away to 
 hide her tears. 
 
 "Is Jim a carpenter, too?" I asked, with a 
 smile. 
 
 "Why, yes," she replied. "Didn t you know 
 that? They often send for him to fix the mill. 
 There s no one else about here who can." And 
 she changed the conversation and began talking of 
 the beauty of that part of the brook where they 
 had been to fish, and of the rich brown tint of 
 the water in the pools, and how lovely the red 
 sumachs were reflected in their depths. 
 
 The next morning, and without any previous 
 warning, Kuby appeared in her cloth dress and 
 jacket and announced her intention of taking the 
 stage back to Plymouth, adding that as Jim had 
 not returned, Marvin must drive her over to the 
 cross-roads. I offered my services, but she de- 
 201 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 clined them graciously but firmly, bidding me 
 good-by and saying with one of her earnest looks, 
 as she held my hand in hers, that she should never 
 forget my kindness to Jim, and that she would 
 always remember me for what I had done for him, 
 and then she added with peculiar tenderness: 
 
 "And dear Uncle Jim won t forget you, either." 
 
 And so she had gone, and with her had faded 
 all the light and joyousness of the place. 
 
 When Jim returned the next day I was at work 
 in the pasture painting a group of white birches. 
 I hallooed to him as he shambled along within a 
 hundred yards of me, swinging his arms, but he 
 did not answer except to turn his head. 
 
 That night at table he replied to my questions 
 in monosyllables, explaining his not stopping 
 when I had called in the morning by saying that 
 he didn t want to " sturb me," and when I 
 laughed and told him using his own words that 
 Ruby "wouldn t pass a fellow and give him the 
 dead, cold shake," he pushed back his chair with 
 a sudden impatient gesture, said he had forgotten 
 something, and left the table without a word or 
 look in reply. 
 
 I knew then that I had hurt him in some way. 
 
 "What s the matter with Jim, Mr. Marvin ? 
 He seems put out about something. Did he say 
 anything to you?" I asked, astonished at Jim s 
 behavior, and anxious for some clew by which to 
 solve its mystery. 
 
 202 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 "Got one o his spells on. Gits that way some 
 times, and when he does ye can t git no good out 
 o him. I want them turnips dug, and he s got to 
 do it or git out. I ain t hired him to loaf round 
 all day with Ruby and to sulk when she s gone. 
 I m a-payin him wages right along, ain t I ?" he 
 added with some fierceness as he stopped at the 
 door. "What he gits for fixin the mill ain t 
 nothin to me I don t git a cent on it." 
 
 Ill 
 
 When the morning came and Jim had not re 
 turned I started for the mill. I found him alone, 
 sitting idly on a bench near the water-wheel. I 
 had heard the hum of the saw before I reached the 
 dam and knew that he had finished his work. 
 
 "Jim," I said, walking up to him and extend 
 ing my hand, "if I have done anything to hurt 
 your feelings, I m sorry. If I had known you 
 would have been put out by my not going with 
 Ruby I would have let the mail wait." 
 
 He took my hand mechanically, but he did not 
 raise his eyes. The old look had returned to his 
 face, as if he were afraid of some sudden blow. 
 "I did all I could to make Ruby s visit a happy 
 one don t you know I did ?" I continued. 
 
 He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his 
 knees, his eyes still on the ground. There was 
 something infinitely pathetic in the attitude. 
 203 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 "Ye ain t done nothin to me," he answered, 
 slowly, "and ye ain t done nothin to Ruby. I 
 cottoned to ye fust time I see ye, and so did Ruby, 
 and we still do. It ain t that." 
 
 "Well, what is it, then? Why have you kept 
 away from me ?" 
 
 He arose wearily until his whole length was 
 erect, hooked his long arms behind his back, and 
 began walking up and down the platform. He 
 was no longer my comrade of the woods. The 
 spring and buoyancy of his step had gone out of 
 him. He seemed shrivelled and bent, as if some 
 sudden weakness had overcome him. His face 
 was white and drawn, and the eyelids drooped, as 
 if he had not slept. 
 
 At the second turn he stopped, gazed abstract 
 edly at the boards under his feet, as a man some 
 times does when his mind is on other things. 
 Mechanically he stooped to pick up a small iron 
 nut that had slipped from one of the bolts used 
 in repairing the wheel, and in the same abstracted 
 way, still ignoring me, raised it to his eye, looked 
 through the hole for a moment, and then tossed it 
 into the dam. The splash of the iron striking the 
 water frightened a bird, which arose in the air, 
 sang a clear, sweet note, and disappeared in the 
 bushes on the opposite bank. Jim started, turned 
 his head quickly, following the flight of the bird, 
 and sank slowly back upon the bench, his face in 
 his hands. 
 
 204 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 "There it is again," lie cried out. "Every way 
 I turn it s the same thing. I can t even chuck 
 no thin overboard but I hear it" 
 
 "Hear what ?" The keen anguish expressed in 
 his voice had alarmed me. 
 
 "That song-sparrow did ye hear it ? I tell ye 
 this thing ll drive me crazy. I tell ye I can t 
 stand it I can t stand it." And he turned his 
 head and covered his face with his sleeve. 
 
 The outburst and gesture only intensified my 
 anxiety. Was Jim s mind giving away ? I arose 
 from my seat and bent over him, my hand on his 
 arm. 
 
 "Why, that s only a bird, Jim I saw it it s 
 gone into the bushes." 
 
 "Yes, I know it ; I seen it ; that s what hurts me ; 
 that s what s allus goin to hurt me. And tain t 
 only goin to be the birds. It s goin to be the 
 trees and the gray-backs and the trout we catched, 
 and everywhere I look and every place I go to it s 
 goin to be the same thing. And it ain t never 
 goin to be no better never never long as I 
 live. She said so. Them was her very words. 
 I ain t never goin to forgit em." And he leaned 
 his head in a baffled, tired way against the plank 
 ing of the milL 
 
 "Who said so, Jim ?" I asked. 
 
 Jim raised his head, looked me straight in the 
 face and, with the tears starting in his eyes, an 
 swered in a low voice : 
 
 205 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 "Ruby. She loves em loves every one o em. 
 Oh, what s goin to become o me now, any 
 how ?" 
 
 "Well, but I don t " The revelation came to 
 me before I could complete the sentence. Jim s 
 face had told the story of his heart ! 
 
 "Jim," I said, laying my hand on his shoulder, 
 "do you love Ruby ?" 
 
 "Sit down here," he said, in a hopeless, de 
 spondent voice, "and mebbe I ll git grit enough to 
 tell ye. I ain t never told none o the folks that 
 comes up here o how things was, but I m goin to 
 tell you. And I m goin to tell it to ye plumb 
 from the beginnin , too." And a sigh like the 
 moan of one in pain escaped him. 
 
 "Twelve years ago I come here from New York. 
 I d been cleaned out o everything I had by a man 
 I trusted, and I was flat broke. I didn t care 
 where I went, so s I got away from the city and 
 from people. I wanted to git somewheres out into 
 the country, and so I got aboard the train and kep 
 on till I d struck Plymouth. There my money 
 gin out and I started up the road into the moun 
 tains. I thought I d hire out to some choppers 
 for the winter. When night come I see a light 
 and knocked at the door and Jed opened it. He 
 warn t goin to keep me, but he was a-buildin the 
 shed where the old mare is now, and he found out I 
 was handy with the tools and didn t want no wages, 
 only my board, so he let me stay. The next spring 
 206 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 he hired me regular and give me wages every 
 month. I kep along, choppin in the winter and 
 helpin round the place, and in summer goin out 
 with the parties that come up from the city, helpin 
 em fish and hunt. I liked that, for I loved the 
 woods ever since I was a boy, when I used to go 
 off by myself and stay days and nights with noth- 
 in but a tin can o grub and a blanket. That s 
 why I come here when I went broke. 
 
 "One summer there come a feller from Boston 
 to fish. He brought his wife along, and I used to 
 go out with both o em. The man s wife was put- 
 tin up for some o them children s homes, and she 
 used to talk to Marm Marvin about takin one o 
 the children and what a comfort it would be to 
 the child to git out into the fresh air, and one 
 mornin fore she left she took Jed down in the 
 woods and talked to him, and the week after she 
 left for home Marm Marvin sent me over to the 
 station same place I fetched ye and out she got 
 with a tag sewed on her jacket and her name on 
 it, and a bundle o clothes no bigger n your head. 
 She was bout seven or eight years old, and the 
 cunnin est young un ye ever see. Jus the same 
 eyes she s got now, only they looked bigger, cause 
 her cheeks was caved in." 
 
 "Not Ruby, Jim!" I cried, in astonishment. 
 
 "Yes, Euby. That s what was on the tag." 
 
 "And she isn t Marvin s child?" 
 
 "No more n she s yourn, nor mine. She ain t 
 207 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 nobody s child that anybody knows about. She s 
 jus Ruby, and that s all there is to her. 
 
 "Well, by the time I d got her out to the farm 
 and had heared her talk and seen her clap her 
 hands at the chippies, and laugh at the birds, and 
 go half wild over every little thing she d see, I 
 knowed I d got hold o something that filled up 
 every crack o my heart. And she didn t come a 
 day too soon, for Jed had got so ugly there warn t 
 no livin with him, and I d made up my mind to 
 quit, and I would if he hadn t took a streak ag in 
 Ruby at the start. Then I knowed where my trail 
 led. And arter that I never let her out o my 
 sight. Marm Marvin was different. She never 
 had no child o her own, and she warmed up to 
 Ruby more n more every day, and she loves her 
 now much as she kin love anything. 
 
 "That fust winter we had a good deal o snow 
 and I made a pair o leggins for her out o a deer s 
 skin I d killed, and rigged up a sled, and I d haul 
 her after me wherever I went, and when school 
 opened down to the cross-roads I d haul her down 
 and bring her back if the snow warn t too deep, 
 and when summer come she d go long jus the 
 same. I taught her to fish and shoot, and often 
 she d stay out in camp with me all night when I 
 was tendin the sugar-maples she sleepin on the 
 balsams with my coat throwed over her. 
 
 "Things went on this way till bout three years 
 ago, when I see she warn t gittin ahead fast as 
 208 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 she could, and I went for the old man to send her 
 to school down to Plymouth. Marm Marvin was 
 willing hut Jed held out, and at last he give in 
 after my talkin to him. So I hooked up the buck- 
 hoard and drove her down to Plymouth and left 
 her, with her arms round my neck and the tears 
 streamin down her face. But she was game all 
 the same, only she hated to have me leave her. 
 
 "Every July and Christmas I d go for her, and 
 she d allus be waitin for me at the head o ? the 
 stairs or would come runnin down with her arms 
 wide open, and she d kiss me and hug me and call 
 me dear Uncle Jim, and tell me how she loved me, 
 and how there warn t nothin in the world she 
 loved so much ; and then when she d git home we d 
 tramp the woods together every chance we got." 
 
 Jim stopped and bent forward, his face in his 
 hands, his elbows on his knees. For a time he 
 was silent ; then he went on : 
 
 "This last time when I went for her she pretty 
 nigh took my breath away. She seemed just as 
 glad to see me, but she didn t git into my arms 
 as she useter, and she looked different, too. She 
 had growed every way bigger, and wider, and 
 older. I kep a-lookin at her, tryin* to find the 
 little girl I d left some months afore, but she 
 warn t there. She acted different, too more quiet 
 like and still, so that I was feared to touch her 
 like I useter, and took it out in talkin to her and 
 listenin to all she told me o what she was larnin" 
 209 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 and how this winter she was goin to git through 
 and git her certificate, and then she was goin to 
 teach and help her mother she allus called Marm 
 Marvin mother. Then she told me o how one o 
 the teachers a young fellow from a college was 
 goin to set up a school o his own and goin to 
 git some o the graduates to help teach when he 
 got started, and how he had asked her to be one 
 o em, and how she was goin with him. 
 
 "Since you been here and us three been together 
 and I begun to see how happy she was a-talkin to 
 you and askin you questions, I got worse n ever 
 over her. I begun to see that I warn t what I 
 had been to her. When we was trampin and fish- 
 in it was all right and she d talk to me bout the 
 ways o the birds and what flowers come up fust 
 and all that, but when it got to geography and his 
 tory I warn t in it with her, and you was. That 
 sickened me more n ever. Pretty soon I began 
 to feel as if everything I had in life war slippin 
 away from me. I didn t want her to shut me out 
 from anything she had. I wanted to have half, 
 same s we alias had half for me and half for her. 
 Why, lately, when T lay awake nights a-thinkin it 
 over, I ve wished sometimes that she hadn t 
 growed up at all, and that she d allus be my baby- 
 girl and I her Uncle Jim. 
 
 "Yesterday mornin " Jim s voice broke, and 
 he cleared his throat "Yesterday mornin we 
 went down the branch, as ye know, and she was 
 210 
 
LOKG JIM 
 
 a-settin on a log throwin her fly into the pool, 
 when one o them song-sparrows lit on a bush and 
 looked at her, and begin to sing like he d bust his 
 little chest, and she sung back at him with her 
 eyes a-laughin and her hair a-flyin , and I stood 
 lookin at her and my heart choked up in my 
 throat, and I leaned over and took the rod out o 
 her hand. 
 
 " Baby-girl/ I says, there ain t a bird round 
 here that ain t got a mate ; and that s what makes 
 em so happy. I ain t got nobody but you, Kuby 
 don t go way from me, child stay with me. 
 And I told her. She looked at me startled like, 
 same as a deer does when he hears a dog bark; 
 then she jumped up and begin to cry. 
 
 " Oh, Jim Jim dear Jim ! she says. I 
 love you so, and you ve been so good to me all 
 my life, but don t don t never say that to me 
 again. That can never be not so long as we live. 
 And she dropped down on the ground and cried 
 till she couldn t git her breath. Then she got up 
 and kissed my hands and went home, leavin me 
 there alone feelin like I d fell off a scaffoldin and 
 struck the sidewalk." 
 
 Jim arose from his seat and began pacing the 
 platform again. I had not spoken a word through 
 his long story. 
 
 "Jim," I began, "how old are you ?" 
 
 "Forty-two," he said, in a patient, listless way. 
 
 "More than twice as old as Kuby, aren t you? 
 211 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 Old enough, really, to be her father. You love 
 her, don t you love her for herself not your 
 self ? You wouldn t let anything hurt her if you 
 could help it. You were right when you said 
 every hird has its mate. That s true, Jim, and 
 the way it ought to be- but they mate with this 
 year s birds, not last year s. When men get as old 
 as you and I we forget these things sometimes, 
 but they are true all the same." 
 
 "I know it," he broke out, "I know it ; you can t 
 tell me nothin about it. I thought it all over 
 more n a hundred times lately. I could bite my 
 tongue off for sayin what I did to her, and spilin 
 her visit, but it s done now and I can t help it, 
 and I ve got to stay here and bear it." 
 
 "No, Jim, don t stay here. So long as she sees 
 you around here she ll be unhappy, and you will 
 be equally miserable. Go away from here; find 
 work somewhere ,else." 
 
 "When ?" he said, quietly. 
 
 "Now; right away; before she comes back at 
 Christmas." 
 
 "No, I can t do it, and I won t. Not till she 
 graduates and gits her certificate. That ll be next 
 June." 
 
 "What s that got to do with it ?" 
 
 "Got a good deal to do with it. If I should 
 leave now jes s winter s comin on I mightn t git 
 another job, and she d have to come home and her 
 eddication be sp ilt" 
 
 213 
 
LONG JIM 
 
 "What would bring her home ?" I asked in sur 
 prise. 
 
 "What would bring her home ?" he repeated, 
 with some irritation. "Why they d send her if 
 the bills warn t paid that s what. Marm Marvin 
 couldn t help her, and Jed wouldn t give her a 
 cent. Them school-bills, you know, I ve always 
 paid out o my wages that s why Jed let her go. 
 No ; I ll stick it out here till she finishes, if it kills 
 me. Baby-girl sha n t miss nothin through Tie." 
 
 One beautiful spring day I swung back the gate 
 of a garden on the outskirts of the village of 
 Plymouth and walked up a flower-bordered path 
 to a cottage porch smothered in vines. 
 
 Ruby was standing in the door, her hands held 
 out to me. I had not seen her for years. Her 
 husband had not returned yet from their school, 
 but she expected him every minute. 
 
 "And dear old Jim ?" I asked. "What has be 
 come of him?" 
 
 "Look," she said, pointing to a shambling, awk 
 ward figure stooping under the apple-trees, which 
 were in full bloom. "There he is, picking blossoms 
 with little Ruby. He never leaves her for a 
 minute." 
 
 318 
 
COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUR 
 COLOGNE TO PARIS 
 
COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUR 
 COLOGNE TO PARIS 
 
 He was looking through a hole a square hole, 
 framed about with mahogany and ground glass. 
 His face was red, his eyes were black, his mus 
 tache waxed to two needle-points was a yellow 
 ish brown; his necktie blue and his uniform dark 
 chocolate seamed with little threads of vermilion 
 and incrusted with silver poker-chip buttons em 
 blazoned with the initials of the corporation which 
 he served. 
 
 I knew I was all right when I read the initials. 
 I had found the place and the man. The place 
 was the ticket-office of the International Sleeping- 
 Car Company. The man was its agent. 
 
 So I said, very politely and in my best French 
 it is a little frayed and worn at the edges, but 
 it arrives sometimes 
 
 "A lower for Paris." 
 
 The man in chocolate, with touches of the three 
 primary colors distributed over his person, half- 
 closed his eyes, lifted his shoulders in a tired way, 
 loosened his fingers, and, without changing the 
 lay-figure expression of his face, replied: 
 
 "There is nothing." 
 
 317 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 "Not a berth?" 
 
 "Not a berth." 
 
 "Are they all paid for?" and I accented the 
 word paid. I spend countless nights on Pullmans 
 in my own country and am familiar with many 
 uncanny devices. 
 
 "All but one." 
 
 "Why can t I have it? It is within an hour of 
 train-time. Who ordered it?" 
 
 "The Director of the great circus. He is here 
 now waiting for his troupe, which arrives from 
 Berlin in a special car belonging to our company. 
 The other car the one that starts from here is 
 full. We have only two cars on this train Mon 
 sieur the Director has the last berth." 
 
 He said this, of course, in his native language. 
 I am merely translating it. I would give it to you 
 in the original, but it might embarrass you; it cer 
 tainly would me. 
 
 "What s the matter with putting the Circus Di 
 rector in the special car? Your regulations say 
 berths must be paid for one hour before train- 
 time. It is now fifty-five minutes of eight. Your 
 train goes at eight, doesn t it? Here is a twenty- 
 franc gold piece never mind the change" and I 
 flung a napoleon on the desk before him. 
 
 The bunch of fingers disentangled themselves, 
 
 the shoulders sank an inch, the waxed ends of the 
 
 taffy-colored mustache vibrated slightly, and a 
 
 smile widened in circles across the flat dulness of 
 
 218 
 
COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUR 
 
 Ms face until it engulfed his eyebrows, ears, and 
 chin. The effect of the dropping of the coin had 
 been like the dropping of a stone into the still 
 smoothness of a pool the wrinkling wavelets had 
 reached the uttermost shore-line. 
 
 The smile over, he opened a book about the size 
 of an atlas, dipped a pen in an inkstand, recorded 
 my point of departure Cologne, and my point of 
 arrival Paris; dried the inscription with a pinch 
 of black sand filched from a saucer same old 
 black sand used in the last century cut a section 
 of the page with a pair of shears, tossed the coin 
 in the air, listened to its ring on the desk with a 
 satisfied look, slipped the whole twenty-franc piece 
 into his pocket regular fare, fifteen francs, ir 
 regular swindle, five francs and handed me the 
 billet. Then he added, with a trace of humor in 
 his voice: 
 
 "If Monsieur the Director of the Circus comes 
 now he will go in the special car." 
 
 I examined the billet. I had Compartment 
 Number Four, upper berth, Car 312. 
 
 I lighted a cigarette, gave my small luggage- 
 checks to a porter with directions to deposit my 
 traps in my berth when the train was ready the 
 company s office was in the depot and strolled out 
 to look at the station. 
 
 You know the Cologne station, of course. It 
 is as big as the Coliseum, shaped like an old-fash 
 ioned hoop-skirt with a petticoat of glass, and 
 219 
 
THE UJSTOEK DOG 
 
 connects with one of the most beautiful bridges 
 in the world. It has two immense waiting-rooms, 
 with historical frescos on the walls and two huge 
 fireplaces supported on nudities shivering with the 
 cold, for no stick of wood ever blazes on the well- 
 swept hearths. It has also a gorgeous restaurant, 
 with panelled ceiling, across which skip bunches 
 of butterfly Cupids in shameless costumes, and an 
 inviting cafe with never-dying palms in the win 
 dows, a portrait of the Kaiser over the counter 
 holding the coffee-urn, and a portrait of the 
 Kaiserin over the counter holding the little sticky 
 cakes, the baby bottles of champagne, and the 
 long lady-finger sandwiches with bits of red ham 
 hanging from their open ends like poodle-dogs 
 tongues. 
 
 Outside these ponderous rooms, under the arch 
 ing glass of the station itself, is a broad platform 
 protected from rushing trains and yard engines by 
 a wrought-iron fence, twisted into most enchanting 
 scrolls and pierced down its whole length by slid 
 ing wickets, before which stand be-capped and be- 
 buttoned officials of the road. It is part of the 
 duty of these gatemen never to let you through 
 these wickets until the arrival of the last possible 
 moment compatible with the boarding of your 
 car. 
 
 So if you are wise that is, if you have been 
 left behind several times depending on the watch 
 fulness of these Cerberi and their promises to let 
 220 
 
COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUB 
 
 you know when your train is ready you hang 
 about this gate and keep an eye out as to what is 
 going on. I had been two nights on the sleeper 
 through from "Warsaw and beyond, and could 
 take no chances. 
 
 Then again, I wanted to watch the people com 
 ing and going it is a habit of mine ; nothing gives 
 me greater pleasure. It has made me an expert 
 in judging human nature. I natter myself that 
 I can tell the moment I set my eyes on a man 
 just what manner of life he leads, what language 
 he speaks, whether he be rich or poor, educated 
 or ignorant. I can do all this before he opens his 
 mouth. I have never been proud of this faculty. 
 I have regarded it more as a gift, as I would an 
 acute sense of color, or a correct eye for drawing, 
 or the ability to acquire a language quickly. I was 
 born that way, I suppose. 
 
 The first man to approach the wicket was the 
 Director of the Circus. I knew him at once. 
 There was no question as to his identity. He wore 
 a fifty-candle-power stone in his shirt-front, a silk 
 hat that shone like a new hansom cab, and a Prince 
 Albert coat that came below his knees. He had 
 taken off his ring boots, of course, and was with 
 out his whip, but otherwise he was completely 
 equipped to raise his hat and say: "Ladies and Gen 
 tlemen, the world-renowned," etc., etc., "will now 
 perform the blood-curdling act of," etc. 
 
 He was attended by a servant, was smooth- 
 221 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 shaven, had an Oriental complexion as yellow as 
 the back of an old law-book, black, jet-black eyes, 
 and jet-black hair. 
 
 I listened for some outbreak, some explosion 
 about his bed having been sold from under him, 
 some protest about the rights of a citizen. None 
 came. The gatemaii merely touched his hat, slid 
 back the gate, and the Director of the Greatest 
 Show on Earth, smiling haughtily, passed in, 
 crossed the platform and stepped into a wagon-lit 
 standing on the next track to me labelled "Paris 
 312," and left me behind. The gateman had had 
 free tickets, of course, or would have, for him 
 self and family whenever the troupe should be in 
 Cologne. There was no doubt of it I saw it in 
 the smile that permeated his face and the bow that 
 bent his back as the man passed him. This kind 
 of petty bribery is, of course, abominable, and 
 should never be countenanced. 
 
 Some members of the troupe came next. The 
 gentleman in chocolate with my five francs in hia 
 pocket did not mention the name of any other 
 member of the troupe except the Director, but it 
 was impossible for me to be mistaken about these 
 people I have seen too many of them. 
 
 She was rather an imposing-looking woman 
 not young, not old dressed in a long travelling- 
 cloak trimmed with fur (how well we know these 
 night-cloaks of the professional!), and was hold 
 ing by a short leash an enormous Danish hound; 
 222 
 
COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUR 
 
 one of those great hulking hounds a hound whose 
 shoulders shake when he walks, with white, 
 blinky eyes, smooth skin, and mottled spots 
 brown and gray spattered along his back and 
 ribs. Trick dog, evidently one who springs at 
 the throat of the assassin (the assassin has a thin 
 slice of sausage tucked inside his collar-button), 
 pulls him to the earth, and sucks his life s blood 
 or chews his throat. She, too, went through with 
 a sweep the dog beside her, followed by a maid 
 carrying two band-boxes, a fur boa, and a bunch 
 of parasols closely furled and tied with a ribbon. 
 I braced up, threw out my shoulders, and walked 
 boldly up to the wicket. The be-buttoned and be- 
 capped man looked at me coldly, waved me away 
 with his hand, and said "Nein." 
 
 Now, when a man of intelligence, speaking the 
 language of the country, backed by the police, the 
 gendarmerie, and the Imperial Army, says "Nein" 
 to me, if I am away from home I generally bow 
 to the will of the people. 
 
 So I waited. 
 
 Then I heard the low rumble of a train and a 
 short high-keyed shriek we used to make just 
 such shrieking sounds by blowing into keys when 
 we were boys. The St. Petersburg express was 
 approaching end foremost the train with the 
 special sleeping-car holding the balance of the cir 
 cus troupe. The next moment it bumped gently 
 into Car No. 312, holding the Director (I won- 
 223 
 
THE rnSTDEK DOG 
 
 dered whether he had my berth), the woman with 
 the dog, and her maid. 
 
 The gateman paused until the train came to a 
 dead standstill, waited until the last arriving pas 
 senger had passed through an exit lower down 
 along the fence, slid back the gate, and I walked 
 through alone! Not another passenger either 
 before or behind me! And the chocolate gentle 
 man told me the car was full! The fraud! 
 
 When I reached the steps of Car ~No. 312 I 
 found a second gentleman in chocolate and poker- 
 chip buttons. He was scrutinizing a list of sold 
 and unsold compartments by the aid of a conduc 
 tor s lantern braceleted on his elbow. He turned 
 the glare of his lantern on my ticket, entered the 
 car and preceded me down its narrow aisle and 
 slid back the door of Number Four. I stepped 
 in, and discovered, to my relief, my small lug 
 gage, hat-box, shawl, and umbrella, safely de 
 posited in the upper berth. My night s rest, at all 
 events, was assured. 
 
 I found also a bald-headed passenger, who was 
 standing with his back to me stowing his small lug 
 gage into the lower berth. He looked at me over 
 his shoulder for a moment, moved his bag so that 
 I could pass, and went on with his work. My 
 sharing his compartment had evidently produced 
 an unpleasant impression. 
 
 I slipped off my overcoat, found my travelling- 
 cap, and was about to light a fresh cigarette when 
 224 
 
COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUB 
 
 there came a tap at the door. Outside in the aisle 
 stood a man with a silk hat in his hand. 
 
 "Monsieur, I am the Manager of the Com- 
 pagnie Internationale. It is my pleasure to ask 
 whether you have everything for your comfort. I 
 am going on to Paris with this same train, so I 
 shall be quite within your reach." 
 
 I thanked him for his courtesy, assured him 
 that now that all my traps were in my berth and 
 the conductor had shown me to my compartment, 
 my wants were supplied, and watched him knock 
 at the next door. Then I stepped out into the 
 aisle. 
 
 It was an ordinary European Pullman, some ten 
 staterooms in a row, a lavatory at one end and 
 a three-foot sofa at the other. "When you are un 
 willing to take your early morning coffee on the 
 gritty, dust-covered, one-foot-square, propped-up- 
 with-a-leg table in your stuffy compartment, you 
 drink it sitting on this sofa. Three of these com 
 partment doors were open. The woman with the 
 dog was in Number One. The big dog and the 
 maid in Number Two, and the Ring Master in 
 Number Three (his original number, no doubt; the 
 clerk had only lied) I, of course, came next in 
 Number Four. 
 
 Soon I became conscious that a discussion was 
 
 going on in the newly arrived circus-car whose 
 
 platform touched ours. I could hear the voice of a 
 
 woman and then the gruff tones of a man. Then 
 
 225 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 a babel of sounds came sifting down the aisle. I 
 stepped over the dog, who had now stretched him 
 self at full length in the aisle, and out on to the 
 platform. 
 
 A third gentleman in chocolate the porter of 
 the circus-car and a duplicate of our own was be- 
 ing besieged by a group of people all talking at 
 once and all in different tongues. A mild-eyed, 
 pink-cheeked young man in spectacles was speak 
 ing German; a richly dressed woman of thirty- 
 five, very stately and very beautiful, was inter 
 polating in Russian, and a plump, rosy-cheeked, 
 energetic little Englishwoman was hurling Eng 
 lish in a way as pointed as it was forcible. Every 
 body was excited and everybody was angry. Stand 
 ing in the car-door listening intently was a French 
 maid and two round-faced, wide-collared boys, of 
 say ten and twelve. The dispute was evidently 
 over these two boys, as every attack contained 
 some direct allusion to "mes enfants" or "these 
 children" or a die Kinder," ending in the fore 
 finger of each speaker being thrust bayonet fash 
 ion toward the boys. 
 
 While I was making up my mind as to the par 
 ticular roles which these several members of the 
 Greatest Show on Earth played, I heard the Eng 
 lish girl say in Erench, of course English- 
 French with an accent: 
 
 "It is a shame to be treated in this way. We 
 have paid for every one of these compartments, 
 226 
 
COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUR 
 
 and you know it. The young masters will not go 
 in those vile-smelling staterooms for the night. 
 It s no place for them. I will go to the office and 
 complain." 
 
 The third chocolate attendant, in reply, merely 
 lifted his shoulders. It was the same old lift - 
 a tired feeling seems to permeate these gentlemen, 
 as if they were bored to death, A hotel clerk on 
 the Riviera sometimes has this lift when he tells 
 you he has not a bed in the house and you tell him 
 he prevaricates. I knew something of the lift 
 it had already cost me five francs. I knew, too, 
 what kind of medicine that sort of tired feeling 
 needed, and that until the bribe was paid the 
 young woman and her party would be bedless. 
 
 My own anger was now aroused. Here was a 
 woman, rather a pretty woman, an Anglo-Saxon 
 my own race in a strange city and under the 
 power of a minion whose only object was plunder. 
 That she jumped through hoops or rode bareback 
 in absurdly short clothes, or sold pink lemonade in 
 spangles, made no difference. She was in trouble, 
 and needed assistance. I advanced with my best 
 bow. 
 
 "Madam, can I do anything for you?" 
 
 She turned, and, with a grateful smile, said: 
 
 "Oh, you speak English?" 
 
 I again inclined my head. 
 
 "Well, sir, we have come from St. Petersburg 
 by way of Berlin. We had five compartments 
 227 
 
THE TOTOEK DOG 
 
 through to Paris for our party when we started, 
 all paid for, and this man has the tickets. He 
 says we must get out here and buy new tickets or 
 we must all go in two staterooms, which is impos 
 sible " and she swept her hand over the balance 
 of the troupe. 
 
 The chocolate gentleman again lifted his shoul 
 ders. He had been abused in that way by passen 
 gers since the day of his birth. 
 
 The richly dressed woman, another Leading 
 Lady doubtless, now joined in the conversation 
 she probably was the trained rabbit-woman or the 
 girl with the pigeons pigeons most likely, for 
 these stars are always selected by the management 
 for their beauty, and she certainly was beau 
 tiful. 
 
 "And Monsieur" this in French again I 
 spare the reader "I have given him" pointing 
 to the chocolate gentleman "pour boire all the 
 time. One hundred francs yesterday and two gold 
 pieces this morning. My maid is quite right it is 
 abominable, such treatment " 
 
 The personalities now seemed to weary the at 
 tendant. His elbows widened, his shoulders nearly 
 touched his ears, and his fingers opened; then he 
 went into his closet and shut the door. So far as 
 lie was concerned the debate was closed. 
 
 The memory of my own five francs now loomed 
 up, and with them the recollection of the trick by 
 which they had been stolen from me. 
 228 
 
COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUR 
 
 "Madam," I said, gravely, "I will bring the 
 manager. He is here and will see that justice is 
 done you." 
 
 It was marvellous to watch what followed. 
 The manager listened patiently to the Pigeon 
 Charmer s explanation of the outrage, started sud 
 denly when she mentioned some details which I 
 did not hear, bowed as low to her reply as if she 
 had been a Duchess his hat to the floor slid 
 back the closet-door, beckoned me to step in, 
 closed it again upon the three of us, and in less 
 than five minutes he had the third chocolate gen 
 tleman out of his chocolate uniform and stripped 
 to his underwear, with every pocket turned inside 
 out, bringing to light the one-hundred-franc note, 
 the gold pieces, and all five of the circus parties 
 tickets. 
 
 Then he flung the astonished and humiliated 
 man his trousers, waited until he had pulled them 
 on, grabbed him by his shirt-collar and marched 
 him out of the car across the platform through the 
 wicket gate, every passenger on the train looking 
 on in wonder. Five minutes later the whole party 
 the stately Pigeon Charmer, her English maid, 
 the spectacled German (performing sword-swal- 
 lower or lightning calculator probably), and the 
 two boys (tumblers unquestionably), with all their 
 belongings were transferred to my car, the Pig 
 eon Charmer graciously accepting my escort, the 
 passengers, including the bald-headed man my 
 239 
 
THE UKDEB DOG 
 
 room-mate standing on one side to let us pass: 
 all except the big dog, who had shifted his quarters, 
 and was now stretched out at the sofa end of the 
 car. 
 
 Then another extraordinary thing happened 
 or rather a series of extraordinary things. 
 
 When I had deposited the Pigeon Charmer in 
 her own compartment (Number Five, next door), 
 and had entered my own, I found my bald-headed 
 room-mate again inside. This time he was seated 
 by the foot-square, dust-covered table assorting 
 cigarettes. He had transferred my small luggage 
 bag, coat, etc. to the lower berth, and had ar 
 ranged his own belongings in the upper one. 
 
 He sprang to his feet the instant he saw me. 
 
 The bow of the Sleeping-Car Manager to the 
 Pigeon Charmer was but a bend in a telegraph-pole 
 to the sweep the bald-headed man now made me. 
 I thought his scalp would touch the car-floor. 
 
 "No, your Highness, 7 he cried, "I insist" this 
 to my protest that I had come last that he had 
 prior right besides, he was an older man, etc., 
 etc. "J could not sleep if I thought you were not 
 most comfortable nothing can move me. Pardon 
 me will not your Highness accept one of my 
 poor cigarettes? They, of course, are not like the 
 ones you use, but I always do my best. I have now 
 a new cigarette-girl, and she rolled them for me 
 herself, and brought them to me just as I was 
 leaving St. Petersburg. Permit me" and he 
 330 
 
COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUR 
 
 handed me a little leather box filled with Russian 
 cigarettes. 
 
 Now, figuratively speaking, when you have 
 been buncoed out of five francs by a menial in a 
 ticket-office, jumped upon and trampled under 
 foot by a gate-keeper who has kept you cooling 
 your heels outside his wicket while your inferiors 
 have passed in ahead of you to have even a bald- 
 headed man kotow to you, give you the choice 
 berth in the compartment, move your traps him 
 self, and then apologize for offering you the best 
 cigarette you ever smoked in your life well! that 
 is to have myrrh, and frankincense, and oil of 
 balsam, and balm of Gilead poured on your ten- 
 derest wound. 
 
 I accepted the cigarette. 
 
 Not haughtily not even condescendingly 
 just as a matter of course. He had evidently 
 found out who and what I was. He had seen me 
 address the Pigeon Charmer, and had recognized 
 instantly, from my speech and bearing both, 
 perhaps that dominating vital force, that breezy 
 independence which envelops most Americans, and 
 which makes them so popular the world over. 
 In thus kotowing he was only getting in line with 
 the citizens of most of the other effete monarchies 
 of Europe. Every traveller is conscious of it. 
 His bow showed it so did the soft purring qual 
 ity of his speech. Recollections of Manila, San 
 tiago, and the voyage of the Oregon around Cape 
 231 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 Horn were in the bow, and Kansas wheat, Georgia 
 cotton, and the Steel Trust in the dulcet tones of 
 his voice. That he should have mistaken me for a 
 great financial magnate controlling some one of 
 these colossal industries, instead of locating me in 
 stantly as a staid, gray-haired, and rather impecu 
 nious landscape-painter, was quite natural. Others 
 before him have made that same mistake. Why, 
 then, undeceive him? Let it go he would leave 
 in the morning and go his way, and I should never 
 see him more. So I smoked on, chatting pleasantly 
 and, as was my custom, summing him up. 
 
 He was perhaps seventy smooth-shaven black 
 coal-black eyes. Dressed simply in black clothes 
 not a jewel no watch-chain even no rings on 
 his hands but a plain gold one like a wedding-ring. 
 His dressing-case showed the gentleman. Bottles 
 with silver tops brushes backed with initials 
 soap in a silver cup. Red morocco Turkish slip 
 pers with pointed toes ; embroidered smoking-cap 
 all appointments of a man of refinement and of 
 means. Tucked beside his razor-case were some 
 books richly bound, and some bundles tied with 
 red tape. Like most educated Russians, he spoke 
 English with barely an accent. 
 
 I was not long in arriving at a conclusion. No 
 one would have been no one of my experience. 
 He was either a despatch-agent connected with the 
 Government, or some lawyer of prominence, who 
 was on his way to Paris to look after the interests 
 232 
 
COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUR 
 
 of some client of his in Russia. The latter, prob 
 ably. The only man on the car he seemed to know, 
 besides myself, was the Sleeping-Car Manager, who 
 lifted his hat to him as he passed, and the Ring 
 Master, with whom he stood talking at the door 
 of his compartment. This, however, was before I 
 had brought the Pigeon Charmer into the car. 
 
 The cigarette smoked, I was again in the corri 
 dor, the bald-headed man holding the door for me 
 to pass out first. 
 
 It was now nine o clock, and we had been under 
 way an hour. I found the Pigeon Charmer occu 
 pying the sofa. The two young Acrobats and the 
 Lightning Calculator were evidently in bed, and 
 the maid, no doubt, busy preparing her mistress s 
 couch for the night. She smiled quite frankly 
 when I approached, and motioned me to a seat be 
 side her. All these professional people the world 
 over have unconventional manners, and an ac 
 quaintance is often easily made at least, that has 
 been my experience. 
 
 She began by thanking me in French for my 
 share in getting her such comfortable quarters 
 dropped into German for a sentence or two, as if 
 trying to find out my nationality and finally into 
 English, saying, parenthetically: 
 
 "You are English, are you not?" 
 
 No financial magnate this time rather queer, 
 I thought that she missed that part of my per 
 sonality. My room-mate had recognized it, even 
 to the extent of calling me "Your Highness." 
 233 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 "No, an American." 
 
 "Oh, an American! Yes, I should have 
 known ISTo, you are not English. You are too 
 kind to be English. An Englishman would not 
 have taken even a little bit of trouble to help us." 
 I noticed the race prejudice in her tone, but I did 
 not comment on it. 
 
 Then followed the customary conversation, I 
 doing most of the talking. I began by telling her 
 how big our country was; how many people we 
 had; how rich the land; how wealthy the citizens; 
 how great the opportunities for artists seeking dis 
 tinction, etc. We all do that with foreigners. 
 Then I tried to lead the conversation so as to find 
 out something about herself particularly where 
 she could be seen in Paris. She was charming in 
 her travelling-costume- she would be superb in 
 low neck and bare arms, her pets snuggling under 
 her chin, or alighting on her upraised, shapely 
 hands. But either she did not understand, or she 
 would not let me see she did the last, probably, 
 for most professional people dislike all reference to 
 their trade by non-professionals they object to be 
 even mentally classed by themselves. 
 
 While we talked on, the Dog Woman opened the 
 door of her compartment, knocked at the Dog s 
 door his Dogship and the maid were inside pat 
 ted the brute on his head, and re-entered her com 
 partment and shut the door for the night. 
 
 I looked for some recognition between the two 
 234 
 
COMPARTMENT NUMBER FOUR 
 
 members of the same troupe, but my companion 
 gave not the slightest sign that the Dog Woman 
 existed. Jealous, of course, I said to myself. 
 That s another professional trait. 
 
 The Ring Master now passed, raised his hat and 
 entered his compartment. No sign of recognition; 
 rather a cold, frigid stare, I thought. 
 
 The Sleeping-Car Manager next stepped through 
 the car, lifted his hat when he caught sight of my 
 companion, tiptoed deferentially until he reached 
 the door, and went on to the next car. She ac 
 knowledged his homage with a slight bend of her 
 beautiful head, rose from her seat, gave an order 
 in Russian to her English maid who was standing 
 in the door of her compartment, held out her hand 
 to me with a frank good-night, and closed the door 
 behind her. 
 
 I looked in on the bald-headed man. He was 
 tucked away in the upper berth sound asleep. 
 
 When the next morning I moved up the long 
 platform of the Gare du Nord in search of a cab, 
 I stepped immediately behind the big Danish 
 hound. He was hulking along, his shoulders shak 
 ing as he walked, his tongue hanging from his 
 mouth. The Woman had him by a leash, her maid 
 following with the band-boxes, the feather boa, 
 and the parasols. In the crowd behind me walked 
 the bald-headed man, his arm, to my astonishment, 
 235 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 through that of the Ring Master s. They both ko 
 towed as they switched off to the baggage-room, 
 the Ring Master bowing even lower than my room 
 mate. 
 
 Then I became sensible of a line of lackeys in 
 livery fringing the edge of the platform, and at 
 their head a most important-looking individual 
 with a decoration on the lapel of his coat. He was 
 surrounded by half a dozen young men, some in 
 brilliant uniforms. They were greeting with great 
 formality my fair companion of the night before! 
 The two Acrobats, the German Calculator, and the 
 English bareback-rider maid stood on one side. 
 
 My thought was that it was all an advertising 
 trick of the Circus people, arranged for spectacular 
 effect to help the night s receipts. 
 
 While I looked on in wonder, the Manager of 
 the Sleeping-Car Company joined me. 
 
 "I must thank you, sir," he said, "for making 
 known to me the outrage committed by one of our 
 porters on the Princess. She is travelling incog 
 nito, and I did not know she was on the train un 
 til she told me last night who she was. We get 
 the best men we can, but we are constantly having 
 trouble of that kind with our porters. The trick 
 is to give every passenger a whole compartment, 
 and then keep packing them together unless they 
 pay something handsome to be let alone. I shall 
 make an example of that fellow. He is a new one 
 and didn t know me" and he laughed. 
 236 
 
COMPARTMENT NUMBER EOUR 
 
 "Do they call her the Princess?" I asked. 
 They were certainly receiving her like one, I 
 thought. 
 
 "Why, certainly, I thought you knew her," 
 and he looked at me curiously, "the Princess 
 Dolgorouki Sliniski. Her husband, the Prince, is 
 attached to the Emperor s household. She is trav 
 elling with her two boys and their German tutor. 
 The old gentleman with the white mustache now 
 talking to her is the Russian Ambassador. And 
 you only met her on the train? Old Azarian told 
 me you knew her intimately." 
 
 "Azarian!" I was groping round in the fog 
 now. 
 
 "Yes your room-mate. He is an Armenian 
 and one of the richest bankers in Russia. He 
 lends money to the Czar. His brother got on with 
 you at Cologne. There they go together to look 
 after their luggage they have an agency here, al 
 though their main bank is in St. Petersburg. The 
 brother had the compartment next to that woman 
 with the big dog. She is the wife of a rich brewer 
 in Cologne, and just think we must always give 
 that brute a compartment when she travels. Is it 
 not outrageous? It is against the rules, but the 
 orders come from up above" and he jerked his 
 finger meaningly over his shoulder. 
 
 The fog was so thick now I could cut it with a 
 knife. 
 
 "One moment, please," I said, and I laid my 
 237 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 hand on Ids elbow and looked him searchingly in 
 the eye. I intended now to clear things up. 
 "Was there a circus troupe on the train last 
 night?" 
 
 "No." The answer came quite simply, and I 
 could see it was the truth. 
 
 "Nor one expected?" 
 
 "No. There was a circus, but it went through 
 last week." 
 
SAMMY 
 
SAMMY 
 
 It was on the Limited: 10.30 Night Express 
 out of Louisville, bound south to Nashville and 
 beyond. 
 
 I had lower Four. 
 
 When I entered the sleeper the porter was mak 
 ing up the berths, the passengers sitting about in 
 each other s way until their beds were ready. 
 
 I laid my bag on an empty seat, threw my over 
 coat over its back, and sat down to. face a news 
 paper within a foot of my nose. There was a 
 man behind it, but he was too intent on its columns 
 to be aware of my presence. I made an inspection 
 of his arms and hands and right leg, the only por 
 tions of his surface exposed to view. 
 
 I noticed that the hands were strong and well- 
 shaped, their backs speckled with brown spots 
 too well kept to have guided a plough and too 
 weather-tanned to have wielded a pen. The leg 
 which was crossed, the foot resting on the left 
 knee, was full and sinewy, the muscles of the thigh 
 well developed, and the round of the calf firmly 
 modelled. The ankle was small and curved like 
 an axe handle and looked as tough. 
 
 There are times when the mind lapses into va- 
 241 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 cancy. ^Nothing interests it. I find it so while 
 waiting to have my berth made up; sleep is too 
 near to waste gray matter. 
 
 A man s thighs, however, interest me in any 
 mood and at any time. While you may get a man s 
 character from his face, you can, if you will, get 
 his past life from his thigh. It is the walking 
 beam of his locomotion; controls his paddles and 
 is developed in proportion to its uses. It indi 
 cates, therefore, the man s habits and his mode of 
 life. 
 
 If he has sat all day with one leg lapped over 
 the other, arm on chair, head on hand, listening or 
 studying preachers, professors, and all the other 
 sedentaries sit like this then the thigh shrinks, 
 the muscles droop, the bones of the ankle bulge, 
 and the knee-joints push through. If he delivers 
 mail, or collects bills, or drives a pack-mule, or 
 walks a tow-path, the muscles of the thigh are 
 hauled taut like cables, the knee-muscles keep 
 their place, the calves are full of knots one big 
 one in a bunch just below the strap of his knicker 
 bockers, should he wear them. 
 
 If he carries big weights on his back sacks of 
 salt, as do the poor stevedores in Venice; or coal in 
 gunnies, as do the coolies in Cuba ; or wine in 
 casks, or coffee in bags, then the calves swell ab 
 normally, the thighs solidify; the lines of beauty 
 are lost ; but the lines of strength remain. 
 
 If, however, he has spent his life in the saddle, 
 242 
 
SAMMY 
 
 rounding up cattle, chasing Indians, hunting ban 
 dits in Mexico, ankle and foot loose, his knees 
 clutched tightly, hugging that other part of him, 
 the horse, then the muscles of the thigh round out 
 their intended lines the most subtle in the modu 
 lating curving of the body. The aboriginal bare 
 back rider must have been a beauty. 
 
 I at once became interested then in the man 
 before me, or rather in his thighs the "Extra" 
 hid the rest. 
 
 I began to picture him to myself young, blond 
 hair, blue eyes, drooping mustache, slouch hat 
 canted rakishly over one eye ; not over twenty-five 
 years of age. I had thought forty, until a move 
 ment of the paper uncovered for a moment his 
 waist-line which curved in instead of out. This 
 settled it not a day over twenty-five, of course ! 
 
 The man s fingers tightened on the edges of the 
 paper. He was still reading, entirely unconscious 
 that my knees were within two inches of his own. 
 
 Then I heard this exclamation 
 
 "It s a damned outrage !" 
 
 My curiosity got the better of me I coughed. 
 
 The paper dropped instantly. 
 
 "My dear sir," he said, bending forward courte 
 ously and laying his hand on my wrist, "I owe you 
 an apology. I had no idea anyone was opposite 
 me." 
 
 If I was a surprise to him, he was doubly so 
 tome, 
 
 243 
 
THE UNDEK DOG- 
 
 My picture had vanished. 
 
 He was sixty-five, if a day; gray, with bushy 
 eyebrows, piercing brown eyes, heavy, well- 
 trimmed mustache, strong chin and nose, with 
 fine determined lines about the mouth. A man in 
 perfect health, his full throat browned with many 
 weathers showing above a low collar caught to 
 gether by a loose black cravat a handsome, 
 rather dashing sort of a man for one so old. 
 
 "I say it is a shame, sir, 77 he continued, "the 
 way they are lynching the negroes around here. 
 Have you read the Extra ? 77 passing it over to me 
 "Another this morning at Cramptown. It 7 s an 
 infernal outrage, sir! 77 
 
 I had read the "Extra," with all its sickening 
 details, and so handed it back to him. 
 
 "I quite agree with you/ 7 I said ; "but this man 
 was a brute. 77 
 
 "No doubt of it, sir. WeVe got brutal negroes 
 among us, just as weVe got brutal white men. 
 But that 7 s no reason why we should hang them 
 without a trial; we still owe them that justice. 
 When we dealt fairly with them there was never 
 any such trouble. There were hundreds of plan 
 tations in the South during the war where the 
 only men left were negroes. We trusted our wives 
 and children to them; and yet such outrages as 
 these were unheard of and absolutely impossible. 
 I don 7 t expect you to agree with me, of course; 
 244 
 
SAMMY 
 
 but I tell you, sir, the greatest injustice the North 
 ever did the slave was in robbing him of his home. 
 I am going to have a smoke before going to bed. 
 Won t you join me?" 
 
 Acquaintances are quickly made and as quickly 
 ended in a Pullman. Men s ways lie in such di 
 verse directions, and the hours of contact are often 
 so short, that no one can afford to be either un 
 gracious or exclusive. The "buttoned-up" misses 
 the best part of travelling. He is like a camera 
 with the cap on he never gets a new impression. 
 The man with the shutters of his ears thrown wide 
 and the lids of his eyes tied back gets a new one 
 every hour. 
 
 If, in addition to this, he wears the lens of his 
 heart upon his sleeve, and will adjust it so as to 
 focus the groups around him it may be a pair of 
 lovers, or some tired mother, or happy child, or 
 lonely wayfarer, or a waif he will often get a 
 picture of joy, or sorrow, or hope life dramas all 
 which will not only enrich the dull hours of 
 travel, but will leave imprints on the mind which 
 can be developed later into the richest and ten- 
 derest memories of his life. 
 
 I have a way of arranging my own sensitized 
 plates, and I get a certain amount of entertain 
 ment out of the process, and now and then a Rem 
 brandt effect whose lights and darks often thrill 
 me for days. 
 
 So when this unknown man, with his young legs 
 245 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 and his old face, asked me, on one minute s ac 
 quaintance, to smoke, I accepted at once. 
 
 "I am right about it, my dear sir/ he contin 
 ued, biting off the end of a cigar and sharing with 
 me the lighted match. "The negro is infinitely 
 worse off than in the slave days. We never had to 
 hang any one of them then to make the others be 
 have themselves." 
 
 "How do you account for it ?" I asked, settling 
 myself in my chair. (We were alone in the smok 
 ing compartment.) 
 
 "Account for what ?" 
 
 "The change that has come over the South 
 to the negro," I answered. 
 
 "The negro has become a competitor, sir. The 
 interests of the black man and the white man now 
 lie apart. Once the white man was his friend; 
 now he is his rival." 
 
 His eyes were boring into mine; his teeth set 
 tight. 
 
 The doctrine was new to me, but I did not inter 
 rupt him. 
 
 "It wasn t so in the old days. We shared what 
 we had with them. One-third of the cabins of 
 the South were filled with the old and helpless. 
 Now these unfortunates are out in the cold ; their 
 own people can t help them, and the white man 
 won t." 
 
 "Were you a slave-owner?" I asked, not wish 
 ing to dispute the point. 
 
 246 
 
SAMMY 
 
 "No, sir; but my father was. He had fifty of 
 them on our plantation. He never whipped one 
 of them, and he wouldn t let anybody else strike 
 them, either. There wasn t one of them that 
 wouldn t have come back if we had had a place to 
 put him. The old ones are all dead now, thank 
 God! all except old Aleck; he s around yet." 
 
 "One of your father s slaves, did you say ?" 
 
 I was tapping away at the door of his recollec 
 tions, camera all ready. 
 
 "Yes ; he carried me about on his back when I 
 was so high," and he measured the distance with 
 his hand. "Aleck and I were boys together. I 
 was about eight and he about fifteen when my 
 father got him." 
 
 My companion paused, drumming on the leather 
 covering of his chair. I waited, hoping he would 
 at least open his door wide enough to give me a 
 glimpse inside. 
 
 "Curiously enough," he went on, "I ve been 
 thinking of Aleck all day. I heard yesterday that 
 he was sick again, and it has worried me a good 
 deal. He s pretty feeble now, and I don t know 
 how long he ll last." 
 
 He flicked the ashes from his cigar, nursing his 
 knee with the other hand. The leg must have 
 pained him, for I noticed that he lifted it care 
 fully and moved it on one side, as if for greater 
 relief. 
 
 "Rheumatism?" I ventured, sympathetically. 
 247 
 
THE IHSTDEB DOG 
 
 "No ; just gets that way sometimes," he replied, 
 carelessly. "But Aleck s got it bad; can hardly 
 walk. Last time I saw him he was about bent 
 double." 
 
 Again he relapsed into silence, smoking 
 quietly. 
 
 "And you tell me," I said, "that this old slave 
 was loyal to your family after his freedom ?" 
 
 He hadn t told me anything of the kind; but 
 I had found his key-hole now, and was determined 
 to get inside his door, even if I picked the lock 
 with a skeleton-key. 
 
 "Aleck!" he cried, rousing himself with a 
 laugh; "well, I should say so! Anybody would 
 be loyal who d been treated as my father treated 
 Aleck. He took him out of jail and gave him a 
 home, and would have looked after him till he 
 died if the war hadn t broken out. Aleck wasn t 
 raised on our plantation. He was a runaway from 
 North Carolina. There were three of them that 
 got across the river a man and his wife and 
 Aleck. The slave-driver had caught Aleck in our 
 town and had locked him up in the caboose for 
 safe-keeping. Then he came to my father to help 
 him catch the other two. But my father wasn t 
 that kind of a man. The old gentleman had 
 curious notions about a good many things. He 
 believed when a slave ran away that the fault was 
 oftener the master s than the negro s. They are 
 nothing but children, he would say, f and you 
 248 
 
SAMMY 
 
 must treat them like children. Whipping is a 
 poor way to bring anybody up/ 
 
 "So when my father heard about the three run 
 aways he refused to have anything to do with the 
 case. This made the driver anxious. 
 
 " Judge/ he said my father had been a Judge 
 of the County Court for years if you ll take the 
 case I ll give you this boy Aleck as a fee. He s 
 worth a thousand dollars. 
 
 " Send for him/ said my father. I ll tell you 
 when I see him. 
 
 "So they brought him in. He was a big, strong 
 boy, with powerful shoulders, black as a chunk of 
 coal, and had a look about him that made you trust 
 him at first sight. My father believed in him the 
 moment he saw him. 
 
 " What did you run away for, Aleck ? he 
 asked. 
 
 "The boy held his head down. 
 
 " My mother died, Marster, an I couldn t stay 
 dar no mo . 
 
 " I ll take him/ said my father ; but on con 
 dition that the boy wants to live with me. 
 
 "This was another one of the old gentleman s 
 notions. He wouldn t have a negro on the place 
 that he had to watch, nor one that wasn t happy. 
 
 "The driver opened his eyes and laughed; but 
 my father meant what he said, and the papers 
 were made out on those terms. The boy was out 
 side in charge of the Sheriff while the papers were 
 249 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 being drawn, and when they were signed the 
 driver brought him in and said : 
 
 " He s your property, Judge. 
 
 " Aleck/ father said, you ve heard ? 
 
 " Yes, sah. 
 
 "The boy stood with tears in his eyes. He 
 thought he was going to get a life-sentence. He 
 had never faced a judge before. 
 
 " Well, you re my property now, and I ve got 
 a proposition to make to you. There s my horse 
 outside hitched to that post. Get on him and ride 
 out to my plantation, two miles from here; any- 
 body ll tell you where it is. Talk to my negroes 
 around the quarters, and then go over to Mr. 
 Shandon s and talk to his negroes find out from 
 any one of them what kind of a master I am, and 
 then come back to me here before sundown and tell 
 me if you want to live with me. If you don t 
 want to live with me you can go free. Do you 
 understand ? 
 
 "My father said it all over again. Aleck looked 
 at the driver, then at the Sheriff, and then at my 
 father. Then he crept out of the room, got on 
 the mare, and rode up the pike. 
 
 " You ve thrown your money away, said the 
 driver, shrugging his shoulders. You ll never 
 see that nigger again. 
 
 "The Sheriff laughed, and they both went out. 
 Father said nothing and waited. About an hour 
 before sundown back came Aleck. Father always 
 250 
 
SAMMY 
 
 said lie never saw a man change so in four hours. 
 He went out crouching like a dog, his face over 
 his shoulder, scared to death, and he came back 
 with his head up and a snap in his eye, looking 
 as if he could whip his weight in wildcats. 
 
 " Til go wid ye, an thank ye all my life/ was 
 all he said. 
 
 "Well, it got out around the village, and that 
 night the other two runaways the man and wife 
 they were hiding in the town gave themselves 
 up, and one of our neighbors bought them both 
 and set them to work on a plantation next to ours, 
 and the driver went away happy. 
 
 "I was a little fellow then, running around 
 barefooted, but I remember meeting Aleck just as 
 if it were yesterday. He was holding the horse 
 while my father and the overseer stood talking on 
 one side. They were planning his work and where 
 he should sleep. I crept up to look at him. I 
 had heard he was coming and that he was a 
 runaway slave. I thought his back would be 
 bloody and all cut to pieces, and that he d have 
 chains on him, and I was disappointed because I 
 couldn t see his skin through his shirt and because 
 his hands were free. I must have gotten too near 
 the mare, for before I knew it he had lifted me 
 out of danger. 
 
 " What s your name ? I asked. ^e 
 
 " Aleck/ he said ; an what s your name, yMth 
 marster? md he 
 
 251 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 " Sammy/ I said. 
 
 "That s the way it began between us, and it s 
 kept on ever since. I call him Aleck/ and he 
 calls me Sammy 7 never anything else, even to- 
 day." 
 
 "He calls you Sammy !" I said, in astonish 
 ment. The familiarity was new to me between 
 master and slave. 
 
 "Yes, always. There isn t another person in 
 the world now that calls me Sammy/ " he an 
 swered, with a tremor in his voice. 
 
 My travelling-companion stopped for a moment, 
 cleared his throat, drew a silver match-safe 
 from his pocket, relighted his cigar, and con 
 tinued. 
 
 "The overseer put Aleck to ploughing the old 
 orchard that lay between the quarters and the 
 house. I sneaked out to watch him as a curious 
 child would, still intent on seeing his wounds. 
 Soon as Aleck saw me, he got a board and nailed 
 it on the plough close to the handle for a seat, 
 and tied up the old horse s tail so it wouldn t 
 switch in my face, and put me on it, and I never 
 left that plough till sundown. My father asked 
 Aleck where he had learned that trick, and Aleck 
 told him he used to take his little brother that 
 svay before he died. 
 
 "After the orchard was ploughed Aleck didn t 
 Fatiid;hing but look after me. We fished together 
 before >nt swimming together ; and we hunted eggs 
 252 
 
SAMMY 
 
 and trapped rabbits; and when I got older and 
 had a gun Aleck would go along to look after the 
 dogs and cut down the trees when we were out for 
 coons. 
 
 "Once I tumbled into a catfish-hole by the dam, 
 and he fished me out; and once, while he had 
 crawled in after a woodchuck, a rock slipped and 
 pinned him down, and I ran two miles to get help, 
 and fell in a faint before I could tell them where 
 he was. What Aleck had in those days I had, and 
 what I had he had; and there was no difference 
 between us till the war broke out. 
 
 "I was grown then, and Aleck was six or seven 
 years older. We were on the border-line, and one 
 morning the Union soldiers opened fire, and all 
 that was left of the house, barns, outbuildings, and 
 negro quarters was a heap of ashes. 
 
 "That sent me South, of course, feeling pretty 
 ugly and bitter, and I don t know that I ve gotten 
 over it since. My father was too old to go, and he 
 and my mother moved into the village and lived 
 in two rooms over my father s office. The negroes, 
 of course, had to shift for themselves, and hard 
 shifting it was the women and children herding 
 in the towns and the men working as teamsters 
 and doing what they could. 
 
 "The night before I left home Aleck crawled 
 
 out to see me. I was hidden in a hayrick in the 
 
 lower pasture. He begged me to let him go with 
 
 me, but I knew father would want him, and he 
 
 253 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 finally gave in and promised to stay with him, and 
 I left. But no one was his own master in those 
 days, and in a few months they had drafted Aleck 
 and carried him off. 
 
 " Three years after that my mother fell ill, and 
 I heard of it and came hack in disguise, and was 
 arrested as a suspicious character as I entered the 
 town. I didn t blame them, for I looked like a 
 tramp and intended to. The next day I was let 
 out and went home to where my mother and father 
 were living. As I was opening the garden-gate 
 it was night Aleck laid his hand on my shoulder. 
 He had on the uniform of a United States soldier. 
 I couldn t believe my eyes at first. I had lost 
 track of him, and, as I found out afterward, so 
 had my father. We stood under the street-lamp 
 and he saw the look in my face and threw his 
 hands up over his head as a negro does when some 
 sudden shock comes to him. 
 
 " Don t turn away f om me, Sammy, he cried ; 
 please don t, Sammy. T ain t my fault I got on 
 dese clo es, deed it ain t Dey done fo ced me. 
 I heared you was here an I been tryin to git to 
 ye all day. Oh, I so glad to git hold ob ye, Sam 
 my, so glad, so glad. He broke out into sobs of 
 crying. I was near it myself, for he was the first 
 one from home I had seen, and there was some 
 thing in his voice that went through me. 
 
 "Then he unbuttoned his coat, felt in his 
 pocket, pushed something into my hand, and dis- 
 254 
 
SAMMY 
 
 appeared in the darkness. When I got inside and 
 held it out to the light, he had given me two five- 
 dollar greenbacks! 
 
 "I was sitting by my mother the next night 
 about ten o clock she wouldn t let me out of her 
 sight when there came a rap at the door and 
 Aleck came in. I knew how my father would feel 
 about seeing him in those clothes. I didn t know 
 till afterward that they were all he had and that 
 the poor fellow was as bad off as any of us. 
 
 "Father opened upon Aleck right away, just as 
 I knew he would, without giving him a chance to 
 speak. He upbraided him for going into the 
 Army, told him to take his money back, and 
 showed him the door. The old gentleman could be 
 pretty savage when he wanted to, and he didn t 
 spare Aleck a bit. Aleck never said a word just 
 listened to my father s abuse of him his hands 
 folded over his cap, his eyes on the two bills lying 
 on the table where my father had thrown them. 
 Then he said, slowly: 
 
 " Marse Henry, I done hearn ye every word. 
 You don t want me here no mo , an I m gwine 
 away. I ain t a-fightin agin you an Sammy an 
 neber will it s cause I couldn t help it dat I m 
 wearin dese clo es. As to dis money dat you 
 won t let Sammy take, it s mine to gib cause I 
 saved it up. I gin it to Sammy cause I fotched 
 him up an cause he s as much mine as he is 
 your n. He ll tell ye so same s me. If you say 
 255 
 
THE UNDEE DOG 
 
 I got to take dat money back I got to do it cause 
 I ain t neber dis beyed ye an I ain t gwine to 
 begin now. But I don t want yer ter say it, Marse 
 Henry I don t want yer to say it. You is my 
 marster I know, but Sammy is my chile. An 
 anudder thing, dey ain t gwine to let him stay in 
 dis town more n a day. I found dat out yisterday 
 when I beared he d come. Dar ain t no money 
 whar he s gwine, an dis money ain t nothin to 
 me cause I kin git mo an maybe Sammy can t. 
 Please, Marse Henry, let Sammy keep dis money. 
 Dere didn t useter be no diffence tween us, and 
 dere oughtn t to be none now. 
 
 "My father didn t speak again he hadn t the 
 heart, and Aleck went out, leaving the money on 
 the table." 
 
 Again my companion stopped and fumbled over 
 the matches in his safe, striking one or two ner 
 vously and relighting his cigar. It was astonish 
 ing how often it went out. I sat with my eyes 
 riveted on his face. I could see now the lines of 
 tenderness about his mouth and I caught certain 
 cadences in his voice which revealed to me but too 
 clearly why the negro loved him and why he must 
 always be only a boy to the old slave. The cigar 
 a-light, he went on: 
 
 "When the war closed I came home and began 
 to pick up my life again. Aleck had gone to Wis 
 consin and was living in the same town as young 
 Cruger, one of my father s law-students. When 
 256 
 
SAMMY 
 
 my father died, I telegraphed Cruger, inviting him 
 to serve as one of the pall-bearers, and asked him 
 to find Aleck and tell him. I knew he would be 
 hurt if I didn t let him know. 
 
 "At two o clock that night my niece, who was 
 with my mother, rapped at my door. I was sitting 
 up with my father s body and would go down 
 every hour to see that everything was all right 
 
 " There s a man trying to get in at the front 
 door, she said. I got up at once and went down 
 stairs. I could see the outlines of a man s figure 
 moving in the darkness, but I could not distin 
 guish the features. 
 
 " Who is it ? I asked, throwing open the door 
 and peering out. 
 
 " It s me, Sammy it s Aleck. Take me to my 
 ole marster. 
 
 "He came in and stood where the light fell full 
 upon him. I hardly knew him, he was so changed 
 much older and bent, and his clothes hung on 
 him in rags. 
 
 "I pointed to the parlor-door, and the old man 
 went on tip-toe into the room and stood looking 
 at my father s dead face for a long time the body 
 lay on a cot. Then he placed his hat on the floor 
 and got down on his knees. There was just light 
 enough to see his figure black against the white of 
 the sheet that covered the cot. For some minutes 
 he knelt motionless, as if in prayer, though no 
 gound escaped him. Then he stretched out his big 
 257 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 black hand and passed it over the body, smoothing 
 it gently and patting it tenderly as one would a 
 sleeping child. By and by he leaned closer to my 
 father s face. 
 
 " Marse Henry/ I heard him say, please, 
 Marse Henry, listen. Dis yere s Aleck. Yer 
 wouldn t hear me the las time but yer got ter hear 
 me now. It s yo Aleck, Marster, dat s who it is. 
 I come soon s I could, Marse Henry, I didn t wait 
 a minute. He stopped as if expecting an answer, 
 and went on. I ain t neber laid up nothin agin 
 ye though, Marse Henry. When ye turned me 
 out dat night in the col cause I had dem soger 
 clo es on an didn t want me to gin dat money to 
 Sammy, I knowed how yer felt, but I didn t lay it 
 up agin ye. I ain t neber loved nobody like I 
 loved you, Marse Henry, you an Sammy. Do yer 
 member when I fust come ? Member how ye tuk 
 me out o jail, an gin me a home ? Member how 
 ye nussed me when I was sick, an fed me when I 
 was hongry, an put clo es on me when I was most 
 naked ? Nobody neber trusted me with nothin till 
 you trusted me, dey jus beat me an hunt me. 
 An don t yer member, Marse Henry, de time ye 
 gin me Sammy an tol me to take care on him? 
 you ain t forgot dat day, is yer ? He s here, Mars 
 ter; Sammy s here. He s settin outside a-watch- 
 in . Him an me togedder, same s we useter was. 
 
 "He got upon his feet, and looked earnestly into 
 the dead face. Then he bent down and picked up 
 258 
 
SAMMY 
 
 one corner of the white sheet, and kissed it rever 
 ently. He did not touch the face. When he had 
 tiptoed out of the room, he laid his hand on my 
 shoulder. The tears were streaming down his 
 face: 
 
 " It was jes like ye, Sammy, to send fo me. 
 We knows one anudder, you an me and he 
 turned toward the front door. 
 
 " Where are you going, Aleck ? I asked. 
 
 " I dunno, Sammy some place whar I kin lay 
 down. 
 
 " You don t leave here to-night, Aleck/ I said. 
 Go upstairs to that room next to mine you know 
 where it is and get into that bed. He held up 
 his hand and began to say he couldn t, but I in 
 sisted. 
 
 "The next morning was Sunday. I saw when 
 he came downstairs that he had done the best he 
 could with his clothes, but they were still pretty 
 ragged. I asked him if he had brought any others, 
 but he told me they were all he had. I didn t say 
 anything at the time, but that afternoon I took him 
 to a clothing store, had it opened as a favor to me, 
 and fitted him out with a suit of black, and a shirt, 
 and shoes and a hat everything he wanted and 
 got him a carpet-bag, and told Abraham, the 
 clothier, to put Aleck s old things into it, and he 
 would call for them the next day. 
 
 "When we got outside, Aleck looked himself all 
 over along his sleeves, over his waistcoat, and 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 down to his shoes. He seemed to be thinking about 
 something. He would start to speak to me and 
 stop and look over his clothes again, testing the 
 quality with his fingers. Finally he laid his hand 
 on my arm, and, with a curious, beseeching look 
 in his eyes, said: 
 
 " Sammy, all yesterday, when I was a-comin , 
 I was a-studyin about it, an I couldn t git it out n 
 my mind. It come to me agin when I saw Marse 
 Henry las night, an I wanted to tell him. But 
 when I got up dis mawnin an see myself I 
 knowed I couldn t ask ye, Sammy, an I didn t. 
 Now I got dese clo es, it s come to me agin. I kin 
 ask ye now, an I don t want ye to fuse me. I 
 want ye to let me drive my marster s body to de 
 grave. 
 
 "I held out my hand, and for an instant neither 
 of us spoke. 
 
 " Thank ye, Sammy, was all he said." 
 
 Again my companion s voice broke. Then he 
 went on : 
 
 "When the carriages formed in line I saw Aleck 
 leaning against the fence, and the undertaker s 
 man was on the hearse. I caught Aleck s eye and 
 beckoned to him. 
 
 " What s the matter, Aleck ? Why aren t you 
 on the hearse ? 
 
 " De undertaker man wouldn t let me, Sam 
 my; an I didn t like to sturb you an de 
 mistis. 
 
 260 
 
SAMMY 
 
 "The tears stood in his eyes. 
 
 " Go find him and bring him to me/ I said. 
 
 "When he came I told him the funeral would 
 stop where it was if he didn t carry out my 
 orders. 
 
 "He said there was some mistake, though I 
 didn t helieve it, and went off with Aleck. As 
 we turned out of the gate and into the road I 
 caught sight of the hearse, Aleck on the box. He 
 sat bolt upright, head erect, the reins in one hand, 
 the whip resting on his knee, as I had seen him 
 do so often when driving my father grave, dig 
 nified, and thoughtful, speaking to the horses in 
 low tones, the hearse moving and stopping as each 
 carriage would be filled and driven ahead. 
 
 "He wouldn t drive the hearse back; left it 
 standing at the gate of the cemetery. I heard the 
 discussion, but I couldn t leave my mother to 
 settle it. 
 
 " I ain t gwine to do it, I heard him say to 
 the undertaker. It was my marster I was tendin 
 on, not yo horses. You can drive em home yo - 
 self. " " 
 
 My companion settled himself in his chair, 
 rested his head on his hand, v and closed his eyes. 
 I remained silent, watching him. His cigar had 
 gone out; so had mine. Once or twice a slight 
 quiver crossed his lips, then his teeth would close 
 tight, and again his face would relapse into calm 
 impassiveness. 
 
 261 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 At this instant the curtains of the smoking-room 
 parted and the Pullman porter entered. 
 
 "Your berth s all ready, Major/ said the 
 porter. 
 
 My companion rose from his chair, straightened 
 his leg, held out his hand, and said : 
 
 "You can understand now, sir, how I feel about 
 these continued outrages. I don t mean to say 
 that every man is like Aleck, but I do mean to say 
 that Aleck would never have been as loyal as he 
 is but for the way my father brought him up. 
 Good-night, sir." 
 
 He was gone before I could do more than ex 
 press my thanks for his confidence. It was just as 
 well any further word of mine would have been 
 superfluous. Even my thanks seemed out of 
 place. 
 
 In a few minutes the porter returned with, 
 "Lower Four s all ready, sir." 
 
 "All right, I m coming. Oh, porter." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Porter, come closer. Who is that gentleman 
 Fve been talking to ?" 
 
 "That s Major Sam Garnett, sir." 
 
 "Was he in the war ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, he was, for a fact. He was in de 
 
 Cavalry, sir, one o Morgan s Raiders. Got more n 
 
 six bullets in him now. I jes done helped him 
 
 off wid his wooden leg. It was cut off below de 
 
 262 
 
SAMMY 
 
 knee. His old man Aleck most generally takes 
 care of dat leg. He didn t come wid him dis trip. 
 But he ll be on de platform in de mornin a-waitin 
 for him." 
 
 963 
 
MARNY S SHADOW 
 
MARNY S SHADOW 
 
 If you know the St. Nicholas and if you don t 
 you should make its acquaintance at once you 
 won t breakfast upstairs in that gorgeous room 
 overlooking the street where immaculate, smileless 
 waiters move noiselessly about, limp palms droop 
 in the corners, and the tables are lighted with imi 
 tation wax candles burning electric wicks hooded 
 by ruby-colored shades, but you will stumble down 
 a dark, crooked staircase to the left of the office- 
 desk, push open a swinging, green baize door 
 studded with brass tacks, pass a corner of the bar 
 resplendent in cut glass, and with lowered head slip 
 into a little box of a place built under the side 
 walk. 
 
 Here of an afternoon thirsty gentlemen sip their 
 cocktails or sit talking by the hour, the smoke from 
 their cigars drifting in long lines out the open door 
 leading to the bar, and into the caffe beyond. Here 
 in the morning hungry habitues take their first 
 meal those whose life-tickets are punched with 
 much knowledge of the world, and who, therefore, 
 know how much shorter is the distance from where 
 they sit to the chef s charcoal fire. 
 
 Marny has one of these same ragged life-tickets 
 267 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 bearing punch-marks made the world over, and so 
 whenever I journey his way we always breakfast 
 together in this cool, restful retreat, especially of a 
 Sunday morning. 
 
 On one of these mornings, the first course had 
 been brought and eaten, the cucumbers and a 
 special mysterious dish served, and I was about to 
 light a cigarette we were entirely alone when a 
 well-dressed man pushed open the door, leaned for 
 a moment against the jamb, peered into the room, 
 retreated, appeared again, caught sight of Marny, 
 and settled himself in a chair with his eyes on the 
 painter. 
 
 I wondered if he were a friend of Marny s, or 
 whether he had only been attracted by that glow 
 of geniality which seems to radiate from Marny s 
 pores. 
 
 The intruder differed but little in his manner 
 of approach from other strangers I had seen hover 
 ing about my friend, but to make sure of his 
 identity the painter had not yet noticed the man 
 I sent Marny a Marconi message of inquiry with 
 my eyebrows, which he answered in the negative 
 with his shoulders. 
 
 The stranger must have read its meaning, for 
 he rose quickly, and, with an embarrassed look on 
 his face, left the room. 
 
 "Wanted a quarter, perhaps/ I suggested, 
 laughing. 
 
 "No, guess not. He s just a Diffendorfer. Al- 
 268 
 
MARNY S SHADOW 
 
 ways some of them round Sunday mornings. 
 That s a new one, never saw him before. In town 
 over night, perhaps." 
 
 "What s a Diff endorf er 2" 
 
 "Did you never meet one?" 
 
 "No, never heard of one." 
 
 "Oh, yes, you have; you ve seen lots of them." 
 
 "Do they belong to any sect?" 
 
 "JSTo." 
 
 "What are they, then?" 
 
 "Just Diffendorfers. Thought I d told you 
 about one whom I knew. No? Wait till I light 
 my cigar; it s a long story." 
 
 "Anything to do with the fellow who s just 
 gone out?" 
 
 "Not a thing, though I m sure he s one of 
 them. You ll find Diffendorfers everywhere. 
 First one I struck was in Venice, some years ago. 
 I can pick them out now at sight." Marny struck 
 a match and lighted his cigar. I drew my cup of 
 coffee toward me and settled myself in my chair 
 to listen. 
 
 "You remember that little smoking-room to the 
 right as you enter the Gaffe Quadri," he began; 
 "the one off the piazza? Well, a lot of us fellows 
 used to dine there Whistler, Rico, Old Ziem, 
 Roscoff, Fildes, Blaas, and the rest of the gang. 
 
 "Jimmy was making his marvellous pastels that 
 year" (it is in this irreverent way that Marny 
 often speaks of the gods), "and we used to crowd 
 269 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 into the little room every night to look them over. 
 We were an enthusiastic lot of Bohemians, each 
 one with an opinion of his own about any subject 
 he happened to be interested in, and ready to back 
 it up if it took all night. Whistler s pastels, how 
 ever, took the wind out of some of us who thought 
 we could paint, especially Roscoff, who prided 
 himself on his pastels, and who has never forgiven 
 Jimmy to this day. 
 
 "Well, one night, Auguste, the head-waiter 
 you remember him, he used to get smuggled cigar 
 ettes for us; that made him suspicious; always 
 thought everybody was a spy pointed out a man 
 sitting just outside the room on one of the leather- 
 covered seats. Auguste said he came every even 
 ing and got as close as he could to our table with 
 out attracting attention; close enough, however, to 
 hear every word that was said. If I knew the man 
 it was all right ; if I didn t know him, he suggested 
 that I keep an eye on him. 
 
 "I looked around, and saw a heavy-featured, 
 dull-looking man about twenty-five, dressed in a 
 good suit of well-cut clothes, shiny stove-pipe silk 
 hat, high collar with a good deal of necktie, a big 
 pearl pin, and a long gold watch-chain which went 
 all around his neck like an eye-glass ribbon. He 
 had a smooth-shaven face, two keen eyes, a flat 
 nose, square jaw, and a straight line of a mouth. 
 
 "I didn t know the man, didn t want to know 
 him, fellows in silk hats not being popular with 
 270 
 
MAKNY S SHADOW 
 
 us, and I didn t keep an eye on him except long 
 enough to satisfy myself that the man was only 
 one of those hungry travellers who was adding to 
 his stock of information by picking up the crumbs 
 of conversation which fell from the tables, and not 
 at all the kind of a person who would hold me or 
 anybody else up in a sotto portico or chuck me over 
 a bridge. Then again, I was twenty pounds 
 heavier than he was, and could take care of myself. 
 
 "Some nights after this I was dining alone, none 
 of the boys having shown up owing to a heavy 
 rain, when Auguste nudged me, and there sat this 
 stranger within ten feet of my table. He dropped 
 his eyes when he saw me looking at him, and be 
 gan turning the sheets of a letter he had in his 
 hand. I was smoking one of Auguste s cigarettes, 
 and checking the menu with a lead-pencil, when 
 it slipped from my hand and rolled between the 
 man s feet. He rose, picked up the pencil, laid it 
 beside my plate, and without a word returned to 
 his seat, that same curious, inquisitive, hungry 
 look on his face you saw a moment ago on that fel 
 low s who has just gone out. Auguste, of course, 
 lost all interest in my dinner. If he wasn t after 
 me then he was after him ; both meant trouble for 
 Auguste. 
 
 "I shifted my chair, opened the Gazetta to 
 
 serve as a screen, and looked the fellow over. If 
 
 lie were following me around to murder me, as 
 
 Auguste concluded he always had some cock-and- 
 
 271 
 
THE UKDEK DOG 
 
 bull story to tell lie was certainly very polite 
 about it. I could see that lie was not an Italian, 
 neither was he a German nor a Frenchman. He 
 looked more like a well-to-do Dutchman like one 
 of those young fellows you and I used to see at the 
 Harmonic Club in Dordrecht, or on the veranda 
 of the Amstel, in Amsterdam. They look more 
 like Americans than any other people in Europe. 
 
 "The next night I was telling the fellows some 
 stories, they crowding about to listen, when 
 Auguste whispered in my ear. I turned, and 
 there he was again, his eyes watching every mouth 
 ful I swallowed, his ears taking in everything that 
 was said. The other fellows had noticed him now, 
 and had christened him Marny s Shadow. One 
 of them wanted to ask him his business, and fire 
 him into the street if it wasn t satisfactory, but I 
 wouldn t have it. He had said nothing to me or 
 anybody else, nor had he, so far as I knew, fol 
 lowed me when I went out. He had a perfect 
 right to dine where he pleased if he paid for it 
 and he did so Auguste admitted, and liberally, 
 too. He could look at whom he pleased. The fact 
 is, that but for Auguste, who was scared white half 
 the time, fearing the Government would get on to 
 his cigarette game, no one would have noticed him. 
 Besides, the fellow might have his own reasons for 
 remaining incog., and if he did we all knew he 
 wouldn t have been the first one. 
 
 "A few days after this I was painting up the 
 272 
 
MARNY S SHADOW 
 
 Zattere near San Rosario I was making the 
 sketch for that big Giudecca picture the one that 
 went to Munich that year you remember it ? lot 
 of figures around a fruit-stand, with the church on 
 the right and the Giudecca and Lagoon beyond 
 and had my gondolier Marco posing some twenty 
 feet away with his back turned toward me, when 
 my mysterious friend walked out from a little calle 
 this side of the church, looked at Marco for a mo 
 ment without turning his head he didn t see me 
 and stopped at a door next to old Pietro Varni s 
 wine-shop. He hesitated a moment, looking up 
 and down the Zattere, opened the door with a key 
 which he took from his pocket, and disappeared in 
 side. I beckoned to Marco, and sent him to the 
 wine-shop to find Pietro. When he came (Pietro 
 was agent for the lodging-rooms above, and let 
 them out to swell painters we couldn t afford 
 them fifty lira a week, some of them more I 
 said : 
 
 " Tietro, did you see the chap that went up 
 stairs a few moments ago? 7 
 
 " Yes, signore. 
 
 " Do you know who he is? 
 
 Yes, he is one of my gentlemen. He has the 
 top floor the one that Signore Almadi used to 
 live in. The Signore Almadi is gone away/ 
 
 " How long has he been here? 
 
 " About a month. 
 
 " Is he a painter ? 
 
 273 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 " No, I don t think so. 
 
 " What is he, then? 
 
 " Ah, Signore, who can tell? At first his let 
 ters were sent to me now he gets them himself. 
 The last were from Monte Carlo, from the Hotel 
 Hotel I forget the name. But why does the 
 Signore want to know? He pays the rent on the 
 day that is much better. 
 
 " Where does he come from? 
 
 "Pietro shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " That will do, Pietro. 
 
 "There was evidently nothing to be gotten out 
 of him. 
 
 "The next day we had another rainstorm 
 regular deluge. This time it came down in sheets; 
 campos running rivers; gondolas half full of wa 
 ter, everything soaked. I had a room in the top 
 of the Palazzo da Mula on the Grand Canal just 
 above the Salute and within a step of the tra- 
 ghetto of San Giglio. By going out of the rear 
 door and keeping close to the wall of the houses 
 skirting the Fondamenta San Zorzi, I could reach 
 the traghetto without getting wet. The Quadri 
 was the nearest caffe, anyhow, and so I started. 
 
 "When I stepped out of the gondola on the 
 other side of the canal and walked up the wooden 
 steps to the level of the Campo, my mysterious 
 friend moved out from under the shadow of the 
 traghetto box and stood where the light from the 
 lantern hanging in front of the Madonna fell upon 
 
MARNY S SHADOW 
 
 his face. His eyes, as usual, were fixed on mine. 
 He had evidently been waiting for me. 
 
 "I thought I might just as well end the thing 
 then as at any other time. There was no question 
 now in my mind that the fellow meant business. 
 
 "I turned on him squarely. 
 
 " You waiting for me ? 
 
 " What for? 
 
 " I want you to go to dinner with me. 
 
 " Where? 
 
 " Anywhere you say. 
 
 " I don t know you. 
 
 " Yes, that s what I thought you would say. 
 
 " Do you know me ? 
 
 " No. 
 
 " Know my name ? 
 
 " Yes, your name s Marny. 
 
 " What s yours? 
 
 " Mine s Diffendorfer. 
 
 " Where do you want to dine? 
 
 " Anywhere you say. How will the Quadri 
 do? 
 
 " In a private room? I said this to see how 
 he would take it. He still stood in the full glare 
 of the lantern. 
 
 " No, unless you prefer. I would rather dine 
 downstairs more people there. 
 
 " All right lead the way, I ll follow. 
 
 "It was the worst night that you ever saw. 
 275 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 Hardly a soul in the streets. It had set in for a 
 three days storm, I knew; we always had them in 
 Venice during December. My friend kept right 
 on without lookLi^ /oehind him or speaking to me; 
 over the bridge* through the Campo San Moise and 
 so on to the Piazza and the caffe. There were only 
 half a dozen fellows inside when we entered. 
 These greeted me with the yell of welcome we 
 always gave each other on entering, and which this 
 time I didn t return. I knew they would open 
 their eyes when they saw us sit down together, and 
 I didn t want any complications by which I would 
 be obliged to introduce him to anybody. I hated 
 not to be decent, but you see I didn t know but 
 I d have to hand him over to the police before I 
 was through with him, and I wanted the respon- 
 eibility of his acquaintance to devolve on me 
 alone. Roscoff either wouldn t or didn t take in 
 the situation, for he came up when we were seated, 
 leaned over my chair, and put his arm around my 
 neck. I saw a shade of disappointment cross my 
 companion s face when I didn t present Roscoff to 
 him, but he said nothing. But I couldn t help it 
 I didn t see anything else to do. Then again, 
 Roscoff was one of those fellows who would never 
 let you hear the end of it if anything went 
 wrong. 
 
 "The man looked at the bill of fare steadily for 
 gome minutes, pushed it over to me, and said: You 
 order. 
 
 276 
 
MAKNT S SHADOW 
 
 "There was nothing gracious in the way he said 
 it more like a command tha anything else. It 
 nettled me for a moment. I < Vt like your but- 
 toned-up kind of a man that gi .s you a word now 
 and then as grudgingly as if he were doling out 
 pennies from a pocket-book. But I kept still. 
 Then I was on a voyage of discovery. The tones 
 of his voice jarred on me, I must admit, and I an 
 swered him in the same peremptory way. Not 
 that I had any animosity toward him, but so as to 
 meet him on his own ground. 
 
 " Then it will be the regular table d hote din 
 ner with a pint of Chianti for each/ I snapped out. 
 Will that suit you? 
 
 " Yes, if you like Chianti. 
 
 " I do when it s good. 
 
 " Do you like anything better? he asked, as if 
 he were cross-questioning me on the stand. 
 
 " Yes. 
 
 " What? 
 
 " Well, Yalpocelli of 82. That was the best 
 wine in their cellar, and cost ten lire a bottle. 
 
 " Is there anything better than that? he de 
 manded. 
 
 " Yes, Valpocelli of 71. Thirty lire a bottle. 
 They haven t a drop of it here or anywhere 
 else. 
 
 "Auguste, who had been half-paralyzed when 
 we gat down, and who, in his bewilderment, had 
 not heard the conversation, reached over and 
 277 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 placed the ordinary Chianti included in the price 
 of the dinner at my elbow. 
 
 "The man raised his eyes, looked at Auguste 
 with a peculiar expression, amounting almost to 
 disgust, on his face, and said: 
 
 " I didn t order that. Take that stuff away and 
 bring me a bottle of 82 a quart, mind you if 
 you haven t the 71. 
 
 "All through the dinner he talked in monosyl 
 lables, answering my questions but offering few 
 topics of his own; and although I did my best to 
 draw him out, he made no statement of any kind 
 that would give me the slightest clew as to his an 
 tecedents or that would lead up either to his occu 
 pation or his purpose in seeking me out. He 
 didn t seem to wish to conceal anything about him 
 self, although of course I asked him no personal 
 questions, nor did he pump me about my affairs. 
 He was just one of those dull, lifeless conversa 
 tionalists who must be probed all the time to get 
 anything out of. Before I was half through the 
 dinner I wondered why I had bothered about him 
 at all. 
 
 "All this time the fellows were off in one corner 
 watching the whole affair. When Auguste 
 brought the 82, looking like a huge tear bottle 
 dug up from where it had rusted for two thousand 
 years, Roscoff gave a gasp and crossed the room 
 to tell Billy Wood that I had struck a millionnaire 
 who was going to buy everything I had painted, 
 278 
 
MAKNT S SHADOW 
 
 including my big picture for the Salon, all of which 
 was about as close as that idiot Roscoff ever got 
 to anything. 
 
 "When the bill was brought Diffendorfer turned 
 his back to me, took out a roll of bills from his hip- 
 pocket, and passed a new bank-note to Auguste 
 with a contemptuous side wiggle of his forefinger 
 and the remark in English in a tone intended for 
 Auguste s ear alone: No change. 
 
 "Auguste laid the bill on his tray and walked 
 up to the desk with a face struggling between joy 
 over the fee and terror for my safety. A fellow 
 who lived on ten-lire wine and who gave money 
 away like water must murder people for a living 
 and have a cemetery of his own in which to bury 
 his dead. He evidently never expected to see me 
 alive again. 
 
 "Dinner over and paid for, my host put on his 
 coat, said Good-night with rather an embarrassed 
 air, and without looking at anyone in the room 
 not even Roscoff, who made a move as if to inter 
 cept him Roscoff had some pictures of his own to 
 sell walked dejectedly out of the caffe and disap 
 peared in the night. 
 
 "When I crossed the traghetto the following 
 evening the storm had not abated. It was worse 
 than on the previous night; the wind was blowing 
 a gale and whirling the fog into the narrow streets 
 and choking up the archways and sotti portici. 
 
 "As my foot touched the flagging of the Campo, 
 279 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 Diffendorfer stepped forward and laid his hand on 
 my arm. 
 
 " You are late/ he said. He spoke in the same 
 crisp way he had the night before. Whether it 
 was an assumed air of bravado, or whether it was 
 his natural ugly disposition, I couldn t tell. It 
 jarred on me again, however, and I walked on. 
 
 "He stepped quickly in front of me, as if to bar 
 my way, and said, in a gentler tone: 
 
 " Don t go away. Come dine with me. 
 
 " But I dined with you yesterday. 
 
 " Yes, I know and you hated me afterward. 
 I ll be better this time. 
 
 " I didn t hate you, I only 
 
 " Yes, you did, and you had reason to. I wasn t 
 myself, somehow. Try me again to-day. 
 
 "There was something in his eyes a troubled, 
 disappointed expression that appealed to me and 
 so I said: 
 
 " All right, but on one condition : it s my dinner 
 this time. 
 
 " And my wine, he answered, and a satisfied 
 look came into his face. 
 
 " Yes, your wine. Come along. 
 
 "The fellow s blunt, jerky way of speaking had 
 somehow made me speak in the same way. Our 
 talk sounded just like two boys who had had a 
 fight and who were forced to shake hands and 
 make up. My own curiosity as to who he might 
 be, what he was doing in Venice, and why he was 
 280 
 
MARTY S SHADOW 
 
 pursuing me, was now becoming aroused. That 
 he should again throw himself in my way after 
 the stupid dinner of the night before only deep 
 ened the mystery. 
 
 "When we got inside, just as we were taking 
 our seats at one of the small tables in that side room 
 off the street, a shout of laughter came from the 
 next room the one we fellows always dined in. I 
 had determined to get inside of the fellow at this 
 sitting, and thought the more retired table better 
 for the purpose. Diffendorfer jumped to his feet 
 on hearing the laughter, peered into the room, and, 
 picking up his w T et umbrella, said: 
 
 " Let s go in there more people. I followed 
 him, and drew out another chair from a table op 
 posite one at which Roscoff, Woods, and two or 
 three of the boys were dining. They all nudged 
 each other when we came in, and a wink went 
 around, but they didn t speak. They behaved pre 
 cisely as if I had a girl in tow and wanted to be 
 left alone. 
 
 "This dinner was exactly like the first one. 
 Diffendorfer ordered the same wine Valpocelli, 
 82, and ate each course that Auguste brought him, 
 with only a word now and then about the weather, 
 the number of people in Venice, and the dishes. 
 The only time when his face lighted up was when 
 a chap named Cruthers, from Munich, who ar 
 rived that morning and who hadn t been in Venice 
 for years, came up and slapped me on the back and 
 281 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 hollered out as he dragged up a chair and sat down 
 beside me: Glad to see you, old man; what are 
 you drinking? 
 
 "I reached for the 82 there was only a glass 
 left and was moving the bottle within reach of 
 my friend s hand when Diffendorfer said to Au- 
 guste: 
 
 " Bring another quart of 82; then he turned 
 and said to the Munich chap: Sorry, sir, it isn t 
 the 71, but they haven t a bottle in the house/ 
 
 "I was up a tree, and so I said: 
 
 " Cruthers, let me present you to my friend, 
 Mr. Diffendorfer. My companion at mention of 
 his name sprang up, seized Cruthers s fingers as if 
 he had been a long-lost brother, and pretty nearly 
 shook his hand off. Cruthers said in reply: 
 
 " I m very glad to meet you. If you re a friend 
 of Marny s you re all right. You ve got all you 
 ought to have in this world. You must have 
 known Cruthers he was always saying that kind 
 of frilly things to the boys. Then they both sat 
 down again. 
 
 "After this quite a different expression came 
 into the man s face. His embarrassment, or ugli 
 ness of temper, or whatever it was, was gone. He 
 jumped up again, insisted upon filling Cruthers s 
 glass himself, and when Cruthers tasted it and 
 winked both of his eyes over it, and then got up 
 and shook Diffendorfer s hand a second time to let 
 him know how good he thought it was, and how 
 282 
 
HARNY S SHADOW 
 
 proud he was of being his guest, Diffendorfer g 
 face even broke out into a smile, and for a moment 
 the fellow was as happy as anybody about him, 
 and not the chump he had been with me. He was 
 evidently pleased with Cruthers, for when Cruthers 
 refused a third glass he said to him: To-morrow, 
 perhaps and, beckoning to Auguste, said, in a 
 voice loud enough for us all to hear : Put a cork in 
 it and mark it; we ll finish it to-morrow. 
 
 "Cruthers made no reply, not considering him 
 self, of course, as one of the party, and, nodding 
 pleasantly to my companion, joined Woods s table 
 again. 
 
 "When dinner was over, Diffendorfer put on his 
 hat and coat, handed me my umbrella, and said: 
 
 " I m going home now. Walk along with 
 me? 
 
 "It was still raining, the wind rattling the 
 swinging doors of the caffe. I did not answer for 
 a moment. The dinner had left me as much in 
 the dark as ever, and I was trying to make up my 
 mind what to do next. 
 
 " Why not stay here and smoke ? I asked. 
 
 " No, walk along with me as far as the tra- 
 ghetto, please, and he laid his hand in a half- 
 pleading way on my arm. 
 
 "Again that same troubled look in his face that 
 
 I had seen once before made me alter my mind. 
 
 I threw on my coat, picked up my umbrella, nodded 
 
 to the boys, who looked rather anxiously after me, 
 
 283 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 and plunged through the door and out into the 
 storm. 
 
 "It was the kind of a night that I love, a regu 
 lar howler. Most people think the sunshine makes 
 Venice, but they wouldn t think so if they could 
 study it on one of these nights when a nor easter 
 whirls up out of the Adriatic and comes roaring 
 across the lagoons as if it would swallow up the 
 dear old girl and sweep her into the sea. She don t 
 mind it. She always comes up smiling the next 
 day, looking twice as pretty for her bath, and I m 
 always twice as happy, for IVe seen a whole lot of 
 things I never would have seen in the daylight. 
 The Campanile, for one thing, upside down in the 
 streaming piazza; slashes of colored light from the 
 shop-windows soaking into the rain-pools; and 
 great, black, gloomy shadows choking up alleys, 
 with only a single taper peering out of the dark 
 ness like a burglar s lantern. 
 
 "When we turned to breast the gale the rain 
 had almost ceased and struggled on through the 
 Ascensione, a sudden gust of wind whirled my um 
 brella inside out, and after that I walked on ahead 
 of him, stopping every now and then to enjoy the 
 grandeur of it all, until we reached the traghetto. 
 When we arrived, only one gondola was on duty, 
 the gondolier muffled to his eyes in glistening oil 
 skins, his sou wester hat tied under his chin. 
 
 "Once on the other side of the Canal it started 
 in to rain again, and so Diffendorfer held his own 
 284 
 
MARTY S SHADOW 
 
 umbrella over me until we reached my gate on the 
 Fondamenta San Zorzi, in the rear of my quarters. 
 He stood beside me under the flare of the gas-jets 
 while I fumbled in my pocket for my night-key 
 I had about decided to invite him in and pump him 
 dry and then said: 
 
 " I live a little way from here; don t go in; 
 come home with me. 
 
 "A strange feeling now took possession of me, 
 which I could not account for. The whole plot 
 rushed over me with a force which I must confess 
 sent a cold chill down my back. I began to think: 
 This man had forced himself upon me not once, 
 but twice; had set up the best bottle of wine he 
 could buy, and was now about to steer me into a 
 den. Then the thought rose in my mind I could 
 handle any two of him, and if I give way now and 
 he finds I am over-cautious or suspicious, it will 
 only make it worse for me when I see him again. 
 This was followed by a common-sense view of the 
 whole situation. The mystery in it, after all, if 
 there was any mystery, was one of my own mak 
 ing. To ask a man who had been dining with you 
 to come to your lodging was neither a suspicious 
 nor an unusual thing. Besides, while he had been 
 often brusque, and at times curt, he had shown me 
 nothing but kindness, and had tried only to please 
 me. 
 
 "My mind was made up instantly. I deter* 
 mined to follow the affair to the end. 
 285 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 " Tes, I ll go, and I pulled my umbrella into 
 shape, opened it with a flop, and stepped from the 
 shelter of the doorway into the pelt of the driving 
 rain. 
 
 "We kept on up the Fondamenta, crossed the 
 bridge by the side of the Canal of San Yio as far 
 as the Gaffe Calcina, and then out on the Zattere, 
 which was being soused with the waves of the 
 Giudecca breaking over the coping of its pave 
 ment. Hugging the low wall of Clara Montalba s 
 garden, he keeping out of the wind as best he 
 could, we passed the church of San Rosario and 
 stopped at the same low door opening into the 
 building next to Pietro s wine-shop the one I had 
 seen him enter when I was painting. The caffe 
 was still open, for the glow of its lights streamed 
 out upon the night and was reflected in the rain- 
 drenched pavement. Then a thought struck 
 me: 
 
 " Come in here a moment/ I said to him, and 
 I pushed in Pietro s door. 
 
 " Pietro/ I called out, so that everybody in the 
 caffe could hear, I m going up to Mr. Diffendor- 
 fer s room. Better get a fiasco of Chianti ready 
 the old kind you have in the cellar. When I 
 want it I ll send for it. If I was going into a trap 
 it was just as well to let somebody know whom I 
 was last seen with. The boys had seen me go out 
 with him, but nobody knew where he lived or 
 where he had taken me. I was ashamed of it as 
 286 
 
MAKNY S SHADOW 
 
 soon as I had said it, but somehow I felt as if it 
 were just as well to keep my eyes open. 
 
 "Diffendorfer pushed past me and called out to 
 Pietro, in a half -angry tone: 
 
 " CNb, don t you send it. I ve got all the wine 
 we ll want/ turned on his heel, held his door 
 open for me to pass in, and slammed it behind 
 us. 
 
 "It was pitch-dark inside as we mounted the 
 stairs one step at a time until we reached the sec 
 ond flight, where the light from a smouldering 
 wick of a fiorentina set in a niche in the wall shed 
 a dim glow. At the sound of our footsteps a door 
 was opened in a passageway on our left, a head 
 thrust out, and as suddenly withdrawn. The same 
 thing happened on the third landing. Diffendor- 
 fer paid no attention to these intrusions, and kept 
 on down a long corridor ending in a door. I didn t 
 like the heads it looked as if they were waiting 
 for Diffendorfer to bring somebody home, and 
 so I slipped my umbrella along in my hand until 
 I could use it as a club, and waited in the dark 
 until he had found the key-hole, unlocked the door, 
 and thrown it open. All I saw was the gray light 
 of the windows opposite this door, which made a 
 dim silhouette of Diffendorfer s figure. Then I 
 heard the scraping of a match, and a gas-jet 
 flashed. 
 
 " Come in/ called Diffendorfer, in a cheery 
 tone. Wait till I punch up the fire. Here, take 
 287 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 tMs seat/ and lie moved a great chair close to the 
 grate. 
 
 "I have seen a good many rooms in my time, but 
 I must say this one took the breath out of me for 
 an instant. The walls were hung in old tapestries, 
 the furniture was of the rarest. There were three 
 or four old armchairs that looked as if they had 
 been stolen out of the Doge s Palace. 
 
 "Diffendorfer continued punching away at the 
 fire until it burst into a blaze. 
 
 "In another moment he was on his feet again, 
 saying he had forgotten something. Then he en 
 tered the next room there were three in the suite 
 unlocked a closet, brought back a mouldy-look 
 ing bottle and two Venetian glasses, moved up a 
 spider-legged, inlaid table, and said, as he placed 
 the bottle and glasses beside me: 
 
 " That s the Valpocelli of 71. You needn t 
 worry about helping yourself; I ve got a dozen bot 
 tles more. 
 
 "I thought the game had gone far enough now, 
 and I squared myself and faced him. 
 
 " See here, Mr. Diffendorfer, I said, before I 
 take your wine I ve got some questions to ask you. 
 I m going to ask them pretty straight, too, and I 
 want you to answer them exactly in the same way. 
 You have followed me round now for two weeks. 
 You invite me to dinner a man you have never 
 seen before and when I come you sit like a bump 
 on a log, and half the time I can t get a word out 
 288 
 
MAKNY S SHADOW 
 
 of you. You spend your money on me like water 
 none of which I can return, and you know it 
 and when I tell you I don t like that sort of thing 
 you double the expense. Now, what does it all 
 mean? Who are you, anyway, and where do you 
 come from? If you re all right there s my hand, 
 and you ll find it wide open. 
 
 "He dropped into his chair, put his head into 
 his hands for a moment, and said, in a greatly al 
 tered tone: 
 
 " If I told you, you wouldn t understand. 
 
 " Yes, I would. 
 
 " No, you wouldn t you couldn t. You ve had 
 everything you wanted all your life I haven t 
 had anything. 
 
 " Me ! what rot ! You ve got a chair under 
 you now that will sell for more money than I see 
 in a year/ 
 
 " Yes and nobody to sit in it; not a man who 
 knows me or wants to know me. 
 
 " But why did you pick me out ? 
 
 " Because you seemed to be the kind of a man 
 who would understand me best. I watched you 
 for weeks, though you didn t know it. You ve got 
 people who love you for yourself. You go into 
 Florian s or the Quadri and you can t get a chance 
 to swallow a mouthful for fellows who want to 
 shake hands with you and slap you on the back. 
 When I saw that, I got up courage enough to speak 
 to you. 
 
 2S9 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 " When that first night you wouldn t introduce 
 me to your friend Roscoff, I saw how it was and 
 how you suspected me, and I came near giving it 
 up. Then I thought I d try again, and if you 
 hadn t introduced Mr. Cruthers to me, and if he 
 hadn t drank my wine, I would have given it up. 
 But I don t want them to like me because I m with 
 you. I want them to like me for myself, so they ll 
 be glad to see me when I come in, just as they are 
 glad to see you. 
 
 " I come from Pennsylvania. My father owns 
 the oil-wells at Stockville. He came over from 
 Holland when he was a boy. He sent me over 
 here six months ago to learn something about the 
 world, and told me not to come back till I did. I 
 got to Paris, and I couldn t find a soul to talk to 
 but the hotel porter; then I kept on to Lucerne, 
 and it was no better there. When I got as far as 
 Dresden I mustered up courage to speak to a man 
 in the station, but he moved off, and I saw him 
 afterward speaking to a policeman and pointing to 
 me. Then I came on down here. I thought 
 maybe if I got some good rooms to live in where 
 people could be comfortable, I could get somebody 
 to come in and sit down. So I bought this lot of 
 truck of an Italian named Almadi a prince or 
 something and moved in. I tried the fellows who 
 lived here you saw them sticking their heads out 
 as we came up but they don t speak English, so 
 I was as bad off as I was before. Then I made up 
 390 
 
MAKISTY S SHADOW 
 
 my mind Fd tackle you and keep at it till I got 
 to know you. You might think it queer now that 
 I didn t tell you before who I was or how I came 
 here, or how lonesome I was just lonesome but 
 I just couldn t. I didn t want your pity, I wanted 
 your friendship. That s all. 
 
 "He had straightened up now, and was leaning 
 back in his chair. 
 
 " And it was just dead lonesomeness, then, was 
 it? and I held out my hand to him. 
 
 " Yes the deadliest kind of lonesome. Kind 
 makes you want to fall off a dock. Now, please 
 drink my wine and he pushed the bottle toward 
 me I had a devil of a hunt for it, but I wanted 
 to do something for you you couldn t do for your 
 self. 
 
 "We fellows, I tell you, took charge of Diffen- 
 dorfer after that, and a ripping good fellow he was. 
 We got that high collar off of him, a slouch hat on 
 his head instead of his stove-pipe, and a pipe in his 
 mouth, and before the winter was over he had more 
 friends than any fellow in Venice. It was only 
 awkwardness that made him talk so queer and 
 ugly. And maybe we didn t have some good times 
 in those rooms of his on the Zattere!" 
 
 Marny stopped, threw away the end of his cigar, 
 laid a coin under his plate for the waiter and an 
 other on top of it for Henri, the chef, reached for 
 291 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 his hat, and said, as he rose from his seat, and 
 flecked the ashes from his coat-sleeve: 
 
 "So now, whenever I see a poor devil haunting 
 a place like this, looking around out of the corner 
 of his eye, hoping somebody will speak to him, I 
 say that s a Diffendorfer, and more than half the 
 time I m right." 
 
 39* 
 
MUFFLES THE BAR-KEEP 
 
MUFFLES THE BAR-KEEP 
 
 My friend Muffles has had a varied career. 
 Muffles is not his baptismal name if he were ever 
 baptized, which I doubt. The butcher, the baker, 
 the candlestick maker, and the brewer especially 
 the brewer knew him as Mr. Richard Mulford, 
 proprietor of the Shady Side on the Bronx and 
 his associates as Dick. Only his intimates knew 
 him as Muffles. I am one of his intimates. This 
 last sobriquet he earned as a boy among his fellow 
 wharf-rats, by reason of an extreme lightness of 
 foot attended by an equally noiseless step, partic 
 ularly noticeable when escaping from some guar 
 dian of the peace who had suddenly detected him 
 raiding an apple-stand not his own, or in depleting 
 a heap of peanuts the property of some gentleman 
 of foreign birth, or in making off with a just- 
 emptied ash-barrel Muffles did the emptying 
 on the eve of an election. 
 
 If any member of his unknown and widely scat 
 tered family reached the dignity of being consid 
 ered the flower of the clan, no stretch of imag- 
 295 
 
THE UNDER DOG- 
 
 ination or the truth on the part of his acquaint 
 ances and they were numerous ever awarded 
 that distinction to Muffles. He might have been a 
 weed, but he was never a flower. A weed that 
 grew up between the cobbles, crouching under the 
 hoofs of horses and the tramp of men, and who 
 was pulled up and thrown aside and still lived on 
 and flourished in various ways, and all with that 
 tenacity of purpose and buoyancy of spirit which 
 distinguishes all weeds and which never by any 
 possibility marks a better quality of plant, vege 
 table or animal. 
 
 The rise of this gamin from the dust-heap to 
 his present lofty position was as interesting as it 
 was instructive. Interesting because his career 
 was a drama instructive because it showed a 
 grit, pluck, and self-denial which many of his con 
 temporaries might have envied and imitated: 
 wharf-rat, newsboy, dish-washer in a sailor s dive, 
 bar-helper, bar-tender, bar-keeper, bar-owner, 
 ward heeler, ward politician, clerk of a district 
 committee go-between, in shady deals, between 
 those paid to uphold the law and those paid to 
 break it and now, at this time of writing, or was 
 a year or so ago, the husband of "the Missus," 
 as he always calls her, the father of two children, 
 one three and the other five, and the proprietor 
 of the Shady Side Inn, above the Harlem Eiver 
 and within a stone s throw of the historic Bronx. 
 
 The reaching of this final goal, the sum of all 
 
MUFFLES THE BAR-KEEP 
 
 his hopes and ambitions, was due to the same 
 tenacity of purpose which had characterized his 
 earlier life, aided and abetted by a geniality of 
 disposition which made him countless friends, a 
 conscience which overlooked their faults, together 
 with a total lack of perception as to the legal 
 ownership of whatever happened to be within his 
 reach. As to the keeping of the other command 
 ments, including the one of doing unto others as 
 you would have them do unto you 
 
 Well, Muffles had grown up between the cobbles 
 of the Bowery, and his early education had conse 
 quently been neglected. 
 
 The Shady Side Inn, over which Muffles pre 
 sided, and in which he was one-third owner the 
 Captain of the Precinct and a "Big Pipe" con 
 tractor owned the other two-thirds was what was 
 left of an old colonial mansion. There are dozens 
 of them scattered up and down the Bronx, lying 
 back from the river; with porches falling into 
 decay, their gardens overrun with weeds, their 
 spacious rooms echoing only the hum of the sew 
 ing-machine or the buzz of the loom. 
 
 This one belonged to some one of the old 
 Knickerbockers whose winter residence was below 
 Bleecker Street and who came up here to spend the 
 summer and so escape the heat of the dog-days. 
 You can see it any day you drive up the Speed 
 way. It has stood there for over a hundred years 
 and is likely to continue. You know its history, 
 297 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 too or can, if you will take the trouble to look up 
 its record. Aaron Burr stopped here, of course 
 he stopped about everywhere along here and slept 
 in almost every house; and Hamilton put his 
 horse up in the stables only the site remains; 
 and George Washington dined on the back porch, 
 his sorrel mare tied to one of the big trees. There 
 is no question about these facts. They are all down 
 in the books, and I would prove it to you if I 
 could lay my hand on the particular record. 
 Everybody believes it Muffles most of all. 
 
 Many of the old-time fittings and appurtenances 
 are still to be seen. A knocker clings to the front 
 door a wobbly old knocker, it is true, with one 
 screw gone and part of the plate broken but still 
 boasting its colonial descent. And there is a half- 
 moon window over the door above it, with little 
 panes of glass held in place by a spidery parasol 
 frame, and supported on spindling columns once 
 painted white. And there is an old lantern in the 
 hall and funny little banisters wreathed about a 
 flight of stairs that twists itself up to the second 
 floor. 
 
 The relics now that I come to think of it 
 stop here. There was a fine old mantel framing 
 a great open fireplace in the front parlor, before 
 which the Father of His Country toasted his toes 
 or sipped his grog, but it is gone now. Muffles s 
 bar occupied the whole side of this front room, 
 and the cavity once filled with big, generous logs, 
 298 
 
MUFFLES THE BAK-KEEP 
 
 blazing away to please the host s distinguished 
 guests, held a collection of bottles from Muffles s 
 cellar a moving cellar, it is true, for the beer- 
 wagon and the grocer s cart replenished it daily. 
 
 The great garden in the rear of the old mansion 
 has also changed. The lines of box and sweet 
 syringa are known only by their roots. The rose- 
 beds are no more, the paths that were woven into 
 long stripes across its grass-plats are overgrown 
 and hardly traceable. Only one lichen-covered, 
 weather-stained seat circling about an old locust- 
 tree remains, and this is on its last legs and needs 
 propping up or did the last time I saw it. The 
 trees are still there. These old stand-bys reach 
 up their arms so high, and their trunks are so big 
 and straight and smooth, that nothing can despoil 
 them. They will stay there until the end that 
 is, until some merciless Commissioner runs the 
 line of a city street through their roots. Then 
 their fine old bodies will be drawn and quartered, 
 and their sturdy arms and lesser branches go to 
 feed the fires of some near-by factory. 
 
 No ladies of high degree now sip their tea be 
 neath their shade, with liveried servants about 
 the slender-legged tables, as they did in the old 
 days. There are tables, of course a dozen in 
 all, perhaps, some in white cloths and some in 
 bare tops, bare of everything except the glass of 
 beer it depends very largely on what one or 
 ders, and who orders it but the servants are 
 299 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 missing unless you count Muffles and his stable- 
 boy. Two of these old aristocrats I am speaking 
 of the old trees now, not Muffles, and certainly 
 not the stable-boy two giant elms (the same 
 that Washington tied his mare to when they were 
 little) stand guard on either side of the back 
 porch, a wide veranda of a porch with a honey 
 suckle, its stem as thick as your arm, and its 
 scraggy, half -dead tendrils plaited in and out of the 
 palings and newly painted lattice-work. 
 
 On Sunday mornings and this tale begins with 
 a Sunday morning Muffles always shaved him 
 self on this back porch. On these occasions he was 
 attired in a pair of trousers, a pair of slippers, and 
 a red flannel undershirt. 
 
 I am aware that this is not an extraordinary 
 thing for a man living in the country to do on a 
 Sunday morning, and it is not an extraordinary 
 costume in which to do it. It was neither the 
 costume nor the occupation that made the opera 
 tion notable, but the distinguished company who 
 sat around the operator while it went on. 
 
 There was the ex-sheriff a large, bulbous man 
 with a jet-black mustache hung under his nose, a 
 shirt-collar cut low enough to permit of his breath 
 ing, and a skin-tight waistcoat buttoned over a 
 rotundity that rested on his knees. He had rest 
 less, quick eyes, and, before his "ex" life began 
 and his avoirdupois gained upon him, restless, 
 quick fingers with steel springs inside of them 
 300 
 
MUFFLES THE BAR-KEEP 
 
 good fingers for handling the particular people he 
 "wanted." 
 
 Then there was the "Big Pipe" contractor a 
 lean man with half -moon whiskers, a red, weather- 
 beaten, knotted face, bushy gray eyebrows, and a 
 clean-shaven mouth that looked when shut like a 
 healed scar. On Sunday this magnate wore a yel 
 low diamond pin and sat in his shirt-sleeves. 
 
 There could be found, too, now and then, tilted 
 back on their chairs, two or three of the light- 
 fingered gentry from the race-course near by pale, 
 consumptive-looking men, with field-glasses hung 
 over their shoulders and looking like bank-clerks, 
 they were so plainly and neatly dressed ; as well 
 as some of the less respectable neighbors, besides 
 a few intimate personal friends like myself. 
 
 While Muffles shaved and the group about him 
 discussed the several ways some of them rather 
 shady, I m afraid in which they and their con 
 stituents earned their daily bread, the stable-boy 
 he was a street waif, picked up to keep him 
 from starving served the beverages. Muffles had 
 no Sunday license, of course, but a little thing 
 like that never disturbed Muffles or his friends 
 not with the Captain of the Precinct as part 
 owner. 
 
 My intimacy with Muffles dated from a visit I 
 had made him a year before, when I stopped in 
 one of my sketching-tramps to get something cool 
 ing. A young friend of mine a Vnusician was 
 301 
 
THE UNDER DOO 
 
 with me. Muffles s garden was filled with visitors; 
 some celebration or holiday had called the people 
 out. Muffles, in expectation, had had the piano 
 tuned and had sent to town for an orchestra of 
 three. The cornet and bass-viol had put in an ap 
 pearance, but the pianist had been lost in the 
 shuffle. 
 
 "De bloke ain t showed up and we can t git 
 nothin out o de fish-horn and de scrape see?" 
 was the way Muffles put it. 
 
 My friend was a graduate of the Conservatoire, 
 an ex-stroke, crew of 91, owned a pair of shears 
 which he used twice a year in the vaults of a down 
 town bank, and breakfasted every day at twelve 
 but none of these things had spoiled him. 
 
 "Don t worry," he said; "put a prop under 
 your piano-lid and bring me a chair. I ll work 
 the ivories for you." 
 
 He played till midnight, drank his free beers 
 between each selection, his face as grave as a judge 
 except when he would wink at me out of the corner 
 of his eye to show his intense enjoyment of the 
 whole situation. You can judge of its effect on 
 the audience w T hen I tell you that one young girl 
 in a pink shirt-waist was so overcome with emo 
 tion and so sorry for the sad young man who had 
 to earn his living in any such way, that she laid 
 a ten-cent piece on the piano within reach of my 
 friend s fingers. The smile of intense gratitude 
 which permeated his face a "thank-God-you- 
 302 
 
MUFFLES THE BAK-KEEP 
 
 have-saved-me-from-starvation" smile, was part of 
 the evening s enjoyment. He wears the dime now 
 on his watch-chain; he says it is the only money 
 he ever earned by his music ; to which one of his 
 club-friends added, "Or in your life." 
 
 Since that time I have been persona grata to 
 Muffles. Since that time, too, I have studied him 
 at close range: on snowy days for I like my 
 tramps in winter, with the Bronx a ribbon of 
 white, even though it may be too cold to paint 
 as well as my outings on Sunday summer morn 
 ings when I sit down with his other friends to 
 watch Muffles shave. 
 
 On one of these days I found a thin, cadaverous, 
 long-legged, long-armed young man behind the 
 bar. He had yellow-white hair that rested on his 
 head like a window-mop, whitey blue eyes, and a 
 pasty complexion. When he craned his neck in 
 his anxiety to get my order right, I felt that his 
 giraffe throat reached down to his waist-line and 
 that all of it would come out of his collar if I 
 didn t make up my mind at once "what it should 
 be." 
 
 "Who s he, Muffles ?" I asked. 
 
 "Dat s me new bar-keep. I ve chucked me 
 job." 
 
 "What s his name?" 
 
 "Bowser." 
 
 "Where did you get him ?" 
 
 "Blew in here one night las month, purty nigh 
 303 
 
THE TOTDEK DOG 
 
 froze out of a job and hungry. De Missus got 
 soft on him she s dat kind, ye know. Yer 
 oughter seen him eat ! Well, I guess ! Been in a 
 littingrapher s shop ye kin tell by his fingers. 
 Say, Bowser, show de gentleman yer fingers." 
 
 Bowser held them up as quickly as if the order 
 had come down the barrel of a Winchester. 
 
 "And ye oughter see him draw. Gee! if I 
 could draw like him I wouldn t do nothin else. 
 But I ain t never had nothin in my head like that. 
 A feller s got to have sumpin besides school-larnin 
 to draw like him. ~Now you re a sketch-artist, 
 and know. Why, he drawed de Sheriff last Sun 
 day sittin in de porch huggin his bitters, to de 
 life. Say, Bowse, show de gentleman de picter 
 ye drawed of de Sheriff." 
 
 Bowser slipped his hand under the bar and 
 brought out a charcoal sketch of a black mustache 
 surrounded by a pair of cheeks, a treble chin, and 
 two dots of eyes. 
 
 "Kin hear him speak, can t ye ? And dat ain t 
 nothin to de way he kin print. Say, Bowse" 
 the intimacy grew as the young man s talents 
 loomed up in Muffles s mind "tell de gentleman 
 what de boss said bout yer printin ." 
 
 "Said I could print all right, only there warn t 
 no more work." There was a modesty in Bowser s 
 tone that gave me a better opinion of him. 
 
 "Said ye could print all right, did he ? Course 
 he did and no guff in it, neither. Say, Missus" 
 304 
 
MUFFLES THE BAR-KEEP 
 
 and he turned to his wife, who had just come in, 
 the youngest child in her arms. She weighed 
 twice as much as Muffles one of those shapeless 
 women with a kindly, Alderney face, and hair 
 never in place, who lets everything go from collar 
 to waist-line. 
 
 "Say, Missus, didn t de Sheriff say dat was a 
 perfec likeness ?" And he handed it to her. 
 
 The wife laughed, passed it back to Muffles and, 
 with a friendly nod to me, kept on to the kitchen. 
 
 "Bar-room ain t no place for women," Muffles 
 remarked in an undertone when his wife had dis 
 appeared. "Dat s why de Missus ain t never 
 round. And when de kids grow up we re goin to 
 quit, see? Dat s what de Missus says, and what 
 she says goes !" 
 
 All that summer the Shady Side prospered. 
 More tables were set out under the trees ; Bowser 
 got an assistant; Muffles wore better clothes; the 
 Missus combed out her hair and managed to wear 
 a tight-fitting dress, and it was easy to see that 
 fame and fortune awaited Muffles or what he 
 considered its equivalent. Muffles entertained his 
 friends as usual on the back porch on Sunday 
 mornings, but he shaved himself upstairs and 
 wore an alpaca coat and boiled shirt over his red 
 flannel underwear. The quality of the company 
 improved, too or retrograded, according to the 
 point of view. Now and then a pair of deer, with 
 long tails and manes, hitched to a spider-web of a 
 305 
 
THE UKDEK DOG 
 
 wagon, would drive up to the front entrance and 
 a gentleman wearing a watch-chain, a solitaire 
 diamond ring, a polished silk hat, and a white 
 overcoat with big pearl buttons, would order "a 
 pint of fiz" and talk in an undertone to Muffles 
 while he drank it. Often a number of these com 
 binations would meet in Muffles s back room and a 
 quiet little game would last until daylight. The 
 orders then were for quarts, not pints. On one 
 of these nights the Captain of the Precinct was 
 present in plain clothes. I learned this from Bow 
 ser from behind his hand. 
 
 One night Muffles was awakened by a stone 
 thrown at his bedroom window. He went down 
 stairs and found two men in slouch hats ; one had 
 a black carpet-bag. They talked some time to 
 gether, and the three went down into the cellar. 
 When they came up the bag was empty. 
 
 The next morning one of those spider-wheeled 
 buggies, driven by one of the silk hat and pearl- 
 buttoned gentlemen, accompanied by a friend, 
 stopped at the main gate. When they drove away 
 they carried the contents of the black carpet-bag 
 stowed away under the seat. 
 
 The following day, about ten o clock in the 
 morning, a man in a derby hat and with a pair 
 of handcuffs in his outside pocket showed Muffles 
 a paper he took from his coat, and the two went 
 off to the city. When Muffles returned that same 
 night I had heard he was in trouble and waited 
 806 
 
MUFFLES THE BAK-KEEP 
 
 for his return he nodded to me with a smile, and 
 said: 
 
 "It s all right. Pipes went bail." 
 
 He didn t stop, but walked through to the back 
 room. There he put his arms around his wife. 
 She had sat all day at the window watching for 
 his return, so Bowser told me. 
 
 II 
 
 One crisp, cool October day, when the maples 
 blazed scarlet and the Bronx was a band of pol 
 ished silver and the hoar-frost glistened in the 
 meadows, I turned into the road that led to the 
 Shady Side. The outer gate was shut, and all 
 the blinds on the front of the house were closed. 
 I put my hand on the old brass knocker and 
 rapped softly. Bowser opened the door. His 
 eyes looked as if he had not slept for a week. 
 
 "What s the matter anybody sick ?" 
 
 "No dead !" and he burst into tears. 
 
 "Not Muffles!" 
 
 "No the Missus." 
 
 "When f " 
 
 "Last night. De boss is inside, all broke up." 
 
 I tiptoed across the hall and into the bar-room. 
 He was sitting by a table, his head in his hands, 
 his back toward me. 
 
 "Muffles, this is terrible ! How did it happen ?" 
 
 He straightened up and held out his hand, 
 307 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 guiding me to a seat beside Mm. For some min 
 utes he did not speak. Then he said, slowly, ignor 
 ing my question, the tears streaming down his 
 cheeks : 
 
 "Dis ends me. I ain t no good widout de 
 Missus. You thought maybe when ye were round 
 that I was a-runnin things; you thought maybe 
 it was me that was lookin after de kids and keep- 
 in em clean; you thought maybe when I got 
 pinched and they come near jugging me that some 
 of me pals got me clear you don t know nothin 
 bout it. De Missus did that, like she done every 
 thing." 
 
 He stopped as if to get his breath, and put his 
 head in his hands again rocking himself to and 
 fro like a man in great physical pain. I sat silent 
 beside him. It is difficult to decide what to do or 
 say to a man under such circumstances. His refer 
 ence to some former arrest arose in my mind, and 
 so, in a perfunctory way more for something to 
 say than for any purpose of prying into his former 
 life I asked: 
 
 "Was that the time the Pipe Contractor went 
 bail for you ?" 
 
 He moved his head slightly and without raising 
 it from his hands looked at me from over his 
 clasped fingers. 
 
 "What, dat scrape a month ago, when I hid dem 
 goods in de cellar ? Naw ! Dat was two pals o 
 mine. Dey was near pinched and I helped em 
 808 
 
MUFFLES THE BAK-KEEP 
 
 out. Somebody give it away. But dat ain t noth- 
 in Cap n took care o dat. Dis was one o me 
 own five year ago. What s goin to become o de 
 kids now ?" And he burst out crying again. 
 
 m 
 
 A year passed. 
 
 I had been painting along the Thames, lying in 
 my punt, my face up to the sky, or paddling in 
 and out among the pond-lilies. I had idled, too, 
 on the lagoons of my beloved Venice, listening to 
 Luigi crooning the songs he loves so well, the soft 
 air about me, the plash of my gondolier s oar 
 wrinkling the sheen of the silver sea. It had been 
 a very happy summer ; full of color and life. The 
 brush had worked easily, the weather had lent a 
 helping hand; all had been peace and quiet. 
 Ofttimes, when I was happiest, somehow Muffles s 
 solitary figure rose before me, the tears coursing 
 down his cheeks, and with it that cold silence a 
 silence which only a dead body brings to a house 
 and which ends only with its burial. 
 
 The week after I landed it was in November, 
 a day when the crows flew in long wavy lines and 
 the heavy white and gray clouds pressed close upon 
 the blue vista of the hills I turned and crossed 
 through the wood, my feet sinking into the soft 
 carpet of its dead leaves. Soon I caught a glimpse 
 309 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 of the chimneys of Shady Side thrust above the 
 evergreens; a curl of smoke was floating upward, 
 filling the air with a filmy haze. At this sign of 
 life within, my heart gave a bound. 
 
 Muffles was still there ! 
 
 When I swung back the gate and mounted the 
 porch a feeling of uncertainty came over me. The 
 knocker was gone, and so was the sign. The old- 
 fashioned window-casings had been replaced by a 
 modern door newly painted and standing partly 
 open. Perhaps Muffles had given up the bar and 
 was living here alone with his children. 
 
 I pushed open the door and stepped into the old- 
 fashioned hall. This, too, had undergone changes. 
 The lantern was missing, and some modern furni 
 ture stood against the walls. The bar where Bow 
 ser had dispensed his beverages and from behind 
 which he had brought his drawings had been re 
 placed by a long mahogany counter with marble 
 top, the sideboard being filled with cut glass and 
 the more expensive appointments of a modern es 
 tablishment. The tables and chairs were also of 
 mahogany ; and a new red carpet covered the floor. 
 The proprietor was leaning against the counter 
 playing with his watch-chain a short man with a 
 bald head. A few guests were sitting about, read 
 ing or smoking. 
 
 "What s become of Mulford," I asked; "Dick 
 Mulford, who used to be here ?" 
 
 The man shook his head. 
 310 
 
MUFFLES THE BAK-KEEP 
 
 "Why, yes, you must have known him some 
 of his friends called him Muffles." 
 
 The man continued to shake his head. Then he 
 answered, carelessly: 
 
 "I ve only been here six months another man 
 had it before me. He put these fixtures in." 
 
 "Maybe you can tell me ?" and I turned to the 
 bar-keeper. 
 
 "Guess he means the feller who blew in here 
 first month we come," the bar-keeper answered, 
 addressing his remark to the proprietor. "He 
 said he d been runnin the place once." 
 
 "Oh, you mean that guy! Yes, I got it now," 
 answered the proprietor, with some animation, as 
 if suddenly interested. "He come in the week we 
 opened worst-lookin bum you ever see toes out 
 of his shoes, coat all torn. Said he had no money 
 and asked for something to eat. Billy here was 
 goin to fire him out when one of my customers 
 said he knew him. I don t let no man go hungry 
 if I can help it, and so I sent him downstairs and 
 cook filled him up. After he had all he wanted 
 to eat he asked Billy if he might go upstairs into 
 the front bedroom. I don t want nobody prowlin 
 round not that kind, anyhow but he begged so 
 I sent Billy up with him. What did he do, Billy ? 
 You saw him." And he turned to his assistant. 
 
 "Didn t do nothin but just look in the door. 
 He held on to the jamb and I thought he was 
 goin to fall. Then he said he was much obliged, 
 311 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 and he walked downstairs again and out the door 
 cryin like a baby, and I ain t seen him since." 
 
 Another year passed. To the picture of the 
 man sitting alone in that silent, desolate room was 
 added the picture of the man leaning against the 
 jamb of the door, the tears streaming down his 
 face. After this I constantly caught myself peer 
 ing into the faces of the tramps I would meet in 
 the street. Whenever I walked before the benches 
 of Madison Park or loitered along the shady 
 paths of Union Square, I would stop, my eye run 
 ning over the rows of idle men reading the adver 
 tisements in the morning papers or asleep on the 
 seats. Often I would pause for a moment as some 
 tousled vagabond would pass me, hoping that I 
 had found my old-time friend, only to be disap 
 pointed. Once I met Bowser on his way to his 
 work, a roll of theatre-bills under his arm. He 
 had gone back to his trade and was working in a 
 shop on Fourteenth Street. His account of what 
 had happened after the death of "the Missus" only 
 confirmed my fears. Muffles had gone on from 
 bad to worse ; the place had been sold out by his 
 partners; Muffles had become a drunkard, and, 
 worse than all, the indictment against him had 
 been pressed for trial despite the Captain s ef 
 forts, and he had been sent to the Island for a 
 year for receiving and hiding stolen goods. He 
 had been offered his freedom by the District At 
 torney if he would give up the names of the two 
 312 
 
MUFFLES THE BAR-KEEP 
 
 men who had stolen the silverware, but he said 
 he d rather "serve time than give his pals away," 
 and they sent him up. Some half -orphan asylum 
 had taken the children. One thing Bowser knew 
 and he would "give it to me straight/ and he 
 didn t care who heard it, and that was that there 
 was "a good many gospil sharps running church- 
 mills that warn t half as white as Dick Mulford 
 not by a d sight." 
 
 One morning I was trying to cross Broadway, 
 dodging the trolleys that swirled around the 
 curves, when a man laid his hand on my arm with 
 a grip that hurt me. 
 
 It was Muffles ! 
 
 Not a tramp; not a ragged, blear-eyed vaga 
 bond older, more serious, the laugh gone out of 
 his eyes, the cheeks pale as if from long confine 
 ment. Dressed in dark clothes, his face clean 
 shaven; linen neat, a plain black tie the hat 
 worn straight, not slouched over his eyes with a 
 rakish cant as in the old days. 
 
 "My God! but I m glad to see ye," he cried. 
 "Come over in the Square and let s sit down." 
 
 He was too excited to let me ask him any ques 
 tions. It all poured out of him in a torrent, his 
 hand on my knee most of the time. 
 
 "Oh, but I had it tough ! Been up for a year. 
 
 You remember about it, the time Pipes went bail. 
 
 I didn t git none o the swag; it warn t my job, 
 
 but I seed em through. But that warn t nothin . 
 
 313 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 It was de Missus what killed me. Hadn t been 
 for de kids I d been off the dock many a time. 
 Fust month or two I didn t draw a sober breath. 
 I couldn t stand it. Soon s I d come to I d git to 
 thinkin agin and then it was all up wid me. Then 
 Pipes and de Sheriff went back on me and I didn t 
 care. Bowser stuck to me the longest. He got de 
 kids took care of. He don t know I m out, or he d 
 turn up. I tried to find him, but nobody don t 
 know where he was a-workin none of de bar 
 rooms I ve tried. Oh, but it was tough ! But it s 
 all right now, d ye hear? All right ! I got a job up 
 in Harlem, see? I m gittin orders for coal." 
 And he touched a long book that stuck out of his 
 breast-pocket. "And I ve got a room near where 
 I work. And I tell ye another thing," and his 
 hand sought mine, and a peculiar light came into 
 his eyes, "I got de kids wid me. You just oughter 
 see de boy legs on him thick as your arm ! I tell 
 ye that s a comfort, and don t you forgit it. And 
 de little gal ! Ain t like her mother ? what ! well, 
 I should smile!" 
 
 314 
 
HIS LAST CENT 
 
HIS LAST CENT 
 
 Jack Waldo stood in his studio gazing up at the 
 ceiling, or, to be more exact, at a Venetian church- 
 lamp which he had just hung and to which he had 
 just attached a red silk tassel bought that morn 
 ing of a bric-a-brac dealer whose shop was in the 
 next street. There was a bare spot in that corner 
 of his sumptuously appointed room which offend 
 ed Waldo s sensitive taste a spot needing a touch 
 of yellow brass and a note of red and the silk 
 tassel completed the color-scheme. The result was 
 a combination which delighted his soul ; Jack had 
 a passion for having his soul delighted and an in 
 satiable thirst for the things that did the delight 
 ing, and could no more resist the temptation to 
 possess them when exposed for sale than a con 
 firmed drunkard could resist a favorite beverage 
 held under his nose. That all of these precious 
 objects of bigotry and virtue were beyond his 
 means, and that most of them then enlivening his 
 two perfectly appointed rooms were still unpaid 
 for, never worried Jack. 
 
 "That fellow s place," he would say of some 
 dealer, "is such a jumble and so dark that nobody 
 can see what he s got. Ought to be very grateful 
 317 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 to me that I put em where people could see em. 
 If I can pay for em, all right, and if I can t, let 
 him take em back. He always knows where to 
 find em. I m not going to have an auction." 
 
 This last course of "taking his purchases back" 
 had been followed by a good many of Jack s cred 
 itors, who, at last, tired out, had driven up a furni 
 ture van and carted the missing articles home 
 again. Others, more patient, dunned persistently 
 and continually every morning some one of 
 them until Jack, roused to an extra effort, 
 painted pot-boilers (portrait of a dog, or a child 
 with a rabbit, or Uncle John s exact image from 
 a daguerrotype many years in the family) up to 
 the time the debt was discharged and the precious 
 bit of old Spanish leather or the Venetian chest or 
 Sixteenth Century chair became his very own for 
 all time to come. 
 
 This "last-moment" act of Jack s this re 
 prieve habit of saving his financial life, as the 
 noose was being slipped over his bankrupt neck 
 instead of strangling Jack s credit beyond repair, 
 really improved it. The dealer generally added 
 an extra price for interest and the trouble of col 
 lecting (including cartage both ways), knowing 
 that his property was perfectly safe as long as it 
 stayed in Jack s admirably cared-for studio, and 
 few of them ever refused the painter anything he 
 wanted. When inquiries were made as to his 
 financial standing the report was invariably, 
 318 
 
HIS LAST CENT 
 
 "Honest but slow he ll pay some time and some 
 how," and the ghost of a bad debt was laid. 
 
 The slower the better for Jack. The delay 
 helped his judgment. The things he didn t want 
 after living with them for months (Jack s test of 
 immortality) he was quite willing they should 
 cart away ; the things he loved he would go hungry 
 to hold on to. 
 
 This weeding-out process had left a collection 
 of curios, stuffs, hangings, brass, old furniture, 
 pottery, china, costumes and the like, around 
 Jack s rooms, some of which would have enriched 
 a museum: a Louis XVI. cabinet, for instance, 
 that had been stolen from the Trianon (what a 
 lot of successful thieves there were in those days) ; 
 the identical sofa that the Pompadour used in her 
 afternoon naps, and the undeniable curtain that 
 covered her bed, and which now hung between 
 Jack s two rooms. 
 
 In addition to these ancient and veritable "an 
 tiques" there was a collection of equally veritable 
 "moderns," two of which had arrived that morn 
 ing from an out-of-town exhibition and which 
 were at this precise moment leaning against the 
 legs of an old Spanish chair. One had had three 
 inches of gilt moulding knocked off its frame in 
 transit, and both bore Jack s signature in the 
 lower left-hand corner. 
 
 "Didn t want em, eh?" cried Jack, throwing 
 himself on to the divan, temporarily exhausted 
 319 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 with the labor of hanging the lamp and attaching 
 the tassel. "Wanted something painted with 
 darning-needle brushes little tooty-wooty stuff 
 that everybody can understand. See the barn 
 door and the nails in the planks and all them 
 knots ! " Jack was on his feet now, imitating the 
 drawl of the country art-buyer " Ain t them 
 natural! Why, Maria, if you look close ye can 
 see jes where the ants crawl in and out. My, 
 ain t that wonderful ! " 
 
 These remarks were not addressed to the offend 
 ing canvas nor to the imaginary countryman, but 
 to his chum, Sam Ruggles, who sat hunched up in 
 a big armchair with gilt flambeaux on each corner 
 of its high back it being a holiday and Sam s 
 time his own. Ruggles was entry clerk in a down 
 town store, lived on fifteen dollars a week, and was 
 proud of it. His daily fear he being of an emi 
 nently economical and practical turn of mind 
 was that Jack would one day find either himself 
 tight shut in the lock-up in charge of the jailer or 
 his belongings strewed loose on the sidewalk and 
 in charge of the sheriff. They had been college 
 mates together these two and Sam loved Jack 
 with an affection in which pride in his genius and 
 fear for his welfare were so closely interwoven, 
 that Sam found himself most of the time in a con 
 stantly unhappy frame of mind. Why Jack 
 should continue to buy things he couldn t pay for, 
 instead of painting pictures which one day some- 
 320 
 
HIS LAST CENT 
 
 tody would want, and at fabulous prices, too, was 
 one thing he could never get through his head. 
 
 "Where have those pictures been, Jack?" in 
 quired Sam, in a sympathetic tone. 
 
 "Oh, out in one of those God s-free-air towns 
 where they are studying high art and microbes 
 and Browning one of those towns where you can 
 find a woman s club on every corner and not a 
 drop of anything to drink outside of a drug-store. 
 Why aren t you a millionnaire, Sam, with a gallery 
 one hundred by fifty opening into your conserva 
 tory, and its centre panels filled with the works of 
 that distinguished impressionist, John Somerset 
 Waldo, K. A.?" 
 
 "I shall be a millionnaire before you get to be 
 R.A.," answered Sam, with some emphasis, "if 
 you don t buckle down to work, old man, and bring 
 out what s in you and stop spending your allow 
 ance on a lot of things that you don t want any 
 more than a cow wants two tails. E"ow, what in 
 the name of common-sense did you buy that 
 lamp for which you have just hung? It doesn t 
 light anything, and if it did, this is a garret, not 
 a church. To my mind it s as much out of place 
 here as that brass coal-hod you ve got over there 
 would be on a cathedral altar." 
 
 "Samuel Ruggles !" cried Jack, striking a the 
 atrical attitude, "you talk like a pig-sticker or a 
 coal-baron. Your soul, Samuel, is steeped in com 
 mercialism; you know not the color that delights 
 321 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 men s hearts nor the line that entrances. The 
 lamp, my boy, is meat and drink to me, and com 
 panionship and a joy unspeakable. Your dull 
 soul, Samuel, is clay, your meat is figures, and 
 your drink profit and loss ; all of which reminds 
 me, Samuel, that it is now two o clock and that 
 the nerves of my stomach are on a strike. Let 
 me see" and he turned his back, felt in his 
 pocket, and counted out some bills and change 
 "Yes, Sam" here his dramatic manner changed 
 "the account is still good we will now lunch. 
 !Not expensively, Samuel" with another wave of 
 the hand "not riotously simply, and within our 
 means. Come, thou slave of the desk eat, drink, 
 and be merry, for to-morrow we die or bust, 
 Samuel, which is very nearly the same thing!" 
 
 "Old John" at Solari s took their order a por 
 ter-house steak with mushrooms, peas, cold aspar 
 agus, a pint of extra dry in honor of the day, 
 Jack insisted, although Sam protested to the verge 
 of discourtesy together with the usual assort 
 ment of small drinkables and long smokables a 
 Reina Victoria each. 
 
 On the way back to the studio the two stopped 
 to look in a shop-window, when Jack gave a cry 
 of delight and pressed his nose against the glass 
 to get a better view of a small picture by Monet 
 resting on an easel. 
 
 "By the gods, Sam ! isn t that a corker ! See 
 the way those trees are painted ! Look at the air 
 322 
 
HIS LAST CENT 
 
 and light in it not a value out of scale per 
 fectly charming! charming" and he dived into 
 the shop before Sam could check him. 
 
 In a moment he was out again, shaking his 
 head, chewing his under-lip, and taking another 
 devouring look at the canvas. 
 
 "What do they want for it, Jack ?" asked Sam 
 his standard of merit was always the cost of a 
 thing. 
 
 "About half what it s worth six hundred dol 
 lars." 
 
 "Whew!" burst out Sam; "that s nearly as 
 much as I make in a year. I wouldn t give five 
 dollars for it" 
 
 Jack s face was still pressed against the glass 
 of the window, his eyes riveted on the canvas. 
 He either did not hear or would not answer his 
 friend s criticism. 
 
 "Buy it, Jack," Sam continued, with a laugh, 
 the hopelessness of the purchase making him the 
 more insistent. "Hang it under the lamp, old 
 man I ll pay for the candles." 
 
 "I would," said Jack, gravely and in perfect 
 seriousness, "only the governor s allowance isn t 
 due for a week, and the luncheon took my last 
 cent." 
 
 The next day, after business hours, Sam, in the 
 
 goodness of his heart, called to comfort Jack over 
 
 the loss of the Monet a loss as real to the painter 
 
 as if he had once possessed it he had in that first 
 
 323 
 
THE UNDER DOG- 
 
 glance through the window-pane; every line and 
 tone and brush-mark was his own. So great was 
 Sam s sympathy for Jack, and his interest in the 
 matter, that he had called upon a real millionnaire 
 and had made an appointment for him to come to 
 Jack s studio that same afternoon, in the hope that 
 he would leave part of his wealth behind him in 
 exchange for one of Jack s masterpieces. 
 
 San found Jack flat on the floor, his back sup 
 ported by a cushion propped against the divan. 
 He was gloating over a small picture, its frame 
 tilted back on the upright of his easel. It was the 
 Monet ! 
 
 "Did he loan it to you, old man?" Sam in 
 quired. 
 
 "Loan it to me, you quill-driver ! No, I bought 
 it!" 
 
 "For how much ?" 
 
 "Full price six hundred dollars. Do you sup 
 pose I d insult Monet by dickering for it ?" 
 
 "What have you got to pay it with?" This 
 came in a hopeless tone. 
 
 "Not a cent ! What difference does that make ? 
 Samuel, you interest me. Why is it your soul 
 never rises above dollars and cents ?" 
 
 "But, Jack you can t take his property 
 and " 
 
 "I can t can t I? His property! Do you sup 
 pose Monet painted it to please that one-eyed, 
 double-jointed dealer, who don t know a picture 
 324 
 
HIS LAST CENT 
 
 from a hole in the ground ! Monet painted it for 
 me me, Samuel ME -who gets more comfort 
 out of it than a dozen dealers ME and that part 
 of the human race who know a good thing when 
 they see it. You don t belong to it, Samuel. 
 What s six hundred or six millions to do with it ? 
 It s got no price, and never will have any price. 
 It s a work of art, Samuel a work of art. That s 
 one thing you don t understand and never will." 
 "But he paid his money for it and it s not 
 
 right " 
 
 "Of course that s the only good thing he has 
 done paid for it so that it could get over here 
 where I could just wallow in it. Get down here, 
 you heathen, take off your shoes and bow three 
 times to the floor and then feast your eyes. You 
 think you ve seen landscapes before, but you 
 haven t. You ve only seen fifty cents worth of 
 good canvas spoiled by ten cents worth of paint. 
 I put it that way, Samuel, because that s the only 
 way you ll understand it. Look at it! Did you 
 ever see such a sky ? Why, it s like a slash of light 
 across a mountain-pool! I tell you Samuel 
 that s a masterpiece!" 
 
 While they were discussing the merits of the 
 landscape and the demerits of the transaction 
 there came a knock at the door and the Moneybags 
 walked in. Before he opened his lips Jack had 
 taken his measure. He was one of those connois 
 seurs who know it all. The town is full of them. 
 325 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 A short connoisseur with a red face red in spots 
 close-clipped gray hair that stood up on his head 
 like a polishing brush, gold eyeglasses attached to 
 a wide black ribbon, and a scissored mustache. He 
 was dressed in a faultlessly fitting serge suit en 
 livened by a nankeen waistcoat supporting a gold 
 watch-chain. The fingers of one hand clutched a 
 palm-leaf fan; the fingers of the other were ex 
 tended toward Jack. He had known Jack s gover 
 nor for years, and so a too formal introduction was 
 unnecessary. 
 
 "Show me what you ve got," he began, "the 
 latest, understand. Wife wants something to 
 hang over the sideboard. You ve been doing some 
 new things, I hear from Ruggles." 
 
 The tone of the request grated on Jack, who 
 had risen to his feet the moment "His Finance" 
 (as he insisted on calling him afterward to Sam) 
 had opened the door. He felt instantly that the 
 atmosphere of his sanctum had, to a certain ex 
 tent, been polluted. But that Sam s eyes were 
 upon him he would have denied point-blank that 
 he had a single canvas of any kind for sale, and 
 so closed the incident. 
 
 Sam saw the wavering look in his friend s face 
 and started in to overhaul a rack of unframed 
 pictures with their faces turned to the wall. 
 These he placed one after the other on the ledge 
 of the easel and immediately above the Monet, 
 ^vhich still kept its place on the floor, its sunny 
 336 
 
HIS LAST CENT 
 
 face gazing up at the shopkeeper, his clerk, and his 
 customer. 
 
 "This the newest one you ve got?" asked the 
 millionnaire, in the same tone he would have used 
 to his tailor, as he pointed to a picture of a strip of 
 land between sea and sky one of those uncertain 
 landscapes that a man is righteously excused for 
 hanging upside down. 
 
 "Yes," said Jack, with a grave face, "right off 
 the ice." 
 
 Sam winced, but "His Finance" either did not 
 hear it or supposed it was some art-slang common 
 to such a place. 
 
 "This another ?" he inquired, fixing his glasses 
 in place and bending down closer to the Monet. 
 
 "No that s out of another refrigerator," re 
 marked Jack, carelessly not a smile on his 
 face. 
 
 "Rather a neat thing," continued the Money 
 bags. "Looks just like a place up in Somesbury 
 where I was born same old pasture. What s the 
 price ?" 
 
 "It isn t for sale," answered Jack, in a decided 
 tone. 
 
 "Not for sale?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, I rather like it," and he bent down 
 closer, "and, if you can fix a figure, I might " 
 
 "I can t fix a figure, for it isn t for sale. I 
 didn t paint it it s one of Monet s." 
 327 
 
THE UNDER DOG- 
 
 "Belongs to you don t it 2" 
 
 "Yes belongs to me." 
 
 "Well, how about a thousand dollars for it?" 
 
 Sam s heart leaped to his throat, but Jack s face 
 never showed a wrinkle. 
 
 "Thanks; much obliged, but I ll hold on to it 
 for a while. I m not through with it yet." 
 
 "If you decide to sell it will you let me know ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Jack, grimly, and picking up the 
 canvas and carrying it across the room, he turned 
 its face to the wall. 
 
 While Sam was bowing the millionnaire out 
 (there was nothing but the Monet, of course, which 
 he wanted now that he couldn t buy it), Jack occu 
 pied the minutes in making a caricature of His 
 Finance on a fresh canvas. 
 
 Sam s opening sentences on his return, out of 
 breath with his run back up the three flights of 
 stairs, were not complimentary. They began by 
 impeaching Jack s intelligence in terms more pro 
 fane than polite, and ended in the fervent hope 
 that he make an instantaneous visit to His Satanic 
 Majesty. 
 
 In the midst of this discussion in which one 
 side roared his displeasure and the other answered 
 in pantomime between shouts of his own laughter 
 there came another knock at the door, and the 
 owner of the Monet walked in. He, too, was in a 
 disturbed state of mind. He had heard some 
 things during the day bearing directly on Jack s 
 328 
 
HIS LAST CENT 
 
 credit, and had brought a bill with him for the 
 value of the picture. 
 
 He would like the money then and there. 
 
 Jack s manner with the dealer was even more 
 lordly and condescending than with the would-be 
 buyer. 
 
 "Want a check when now? My dear sir! 
 when I bought that Monet was there anything said 
 about my paying for it in twenty-four hours? 
 To-morrow, when my argosies arrive laden with 
 the spoils of the far East, but not now. I never 
 pay for anything immediately it would injure 
 my credit. Sit down and let me offer you a cigar 
 my governor imports em and so you can be 
 assured they are good. By the way what s be 
 come of that Ziem I saw in your window last 
 week ? The Metropolitan ought to have that pict 
 
 ure." 
 
 The one-eyed dealer Jack was right, he had 
 but one eye at once agreed with Jack as to the 
 proper ultimate destination of the Ziem, and 
 under the influence of the cigar which Jack had 
 insisted on lighting for him, assisted by Jack s 
 casual mention of his father a name that was 
 known to be good for half a million and encour 
 aged greatly encouraged indeed by an aside 
 from Sam that the painter had already been of 
 fered more than he paid for it by a man worth 
 millions under all these influences, assistances, 
 and encouragements, I say, the one-eyed dealer so 
 329 
 
THE UNDEK DOG 
 
 modified his demands that an additional twenty- 
 four hours was granted Jack in which to settle his 
 account, the Monet to remain in his possession. 
 
 When Sam returned from this second bowing- 
 out his language was more temperate. "You re a 
 Cracker- Jack," was all he said, and closed the door 
 behind him. 
 
 During the ten days that followed, Jack gloated 
 over the Monet and staved off his various creditors 
 until his father s semi-monthly remittance arrived. 
 Whenever the owner of the Monet mounted the 
 stairs by appointment and pounded at Jack s door, 
 Jack let him pound, tiptoeing about his room un 
 til he heard the anxious dealer s footsteps echoing 
 down the stairs in retreat. 
 
 On the day that the "governor s" remittance ar 
 rived it came on the fifteenth and the first of 
 every month Sam found a furniture van backed 
 up opposite Jack s studio street entrance. The 
 gravity of the situation instantly became apparent. 
 The dealer had lost patience and had sent for the 
 picture; the van told the story. Had he not been 
 sure of getting it he would not have sent the van. 
 
 Sam went up three steps at a time and burst 
 into Jack s studio. He found its owner directing 
 two men where to place an inlaid cabinet. It was 
 a large cabinet of ebony, elaborately carved and 
 decorated, and the two furniture men judging 
 from the way they were breathing had had their 
 hands full in getting it up the three flights of 
 330 
 
HIS LAST CENT 
 
 stairs. Jack was pushing back the easels and 
 pictures to make room for it when Sam entered. 
 His first thought was for the unpaid-for picture. 
 
 "Monet gone, Jack ?" he asked, glancing around 
 the room hurriedly in his anxiety to find it. 
 
 "Yes last night. He came and took it away. 
 Here," (this to the two men) "shove it close to the 
 wall," pointing to the cabinet. "There now go 
 down and get the top, and look out you don t break 
 those little drawers. What s the matter with you, 
 Samuel? You look as if somebody had walked 
 over your grave." 
 
 "And you had no trouble ?" 
 
 "Trouble ? What are you dilating about, Sam 
 uel ? We never have any trouble up here." 
 
 "Then it s because I ve kept him quiet. I ve 
 been three times this week and held him up much 
 as I could do to keep him from getting out a war 
 rant." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "Your one-eyed dealer, as you call him." 
 
 "My one-eyed dealer isn t worrying, Samuel. 
 Look at this," and he pulled out a receipted bill. 
 "His name, isn t it ? Received in full payment 
 Six hundred dollars. Seems odd, Samuel, doesn t 
 it?" 
 
 "Did your governor send the money ?" 
 
 "Did my governor send the money! My gov 
 ernor isn t so obliging. Here don t stand there 
 with your eyes hanging out on your cheeks; look 
 331 
 
THE UNDER DOG 
 
 on this found it yesterday at Sighfor s. Isn t it 
 a stunner ? bottom modern except the feet, but the 
 top is Sixteenth Century. See the way the tor 
 toise-shell is worked in lots of secret drawers, 
 too, all through it going to keep my bills in one 
 of em and lose the key. What are you staring at, 
 anyhow, Sam?" 
 
 "Well but Jack I don t see " 
 
 "Of course you don t see ! You think I robbed 
 a bank or waylaid your Moneybags. I did took 
 twelve hundred dollars out of his clothes in a 
 check on the spot wrote it right there at that 
 desk for the Monet, and sent it home to his 
 Palazzo da Avenue. Then I took his dirty check, 
 indorsed it over to that one-eyed skinflint, got the 
 balance in bills, bought the cabinet for five hun 
 dred and eighty-two dollars cash forgive me, 
 Samuel, but there was no other way and here is 
 just eighteen dollars to the good" and he pulled 
 out some bank-notes "or was before I gave those 
 two poor devils a dollar apiece for carrying up this 
 cabinet. To-night, Samuel to-night we will 
 dine at the Waldorf." 
 
 332 
 
BOOKS BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH 
 Published by Charles Scribner s Sons 
 
 PETER 
 
 Illustrated. I2mo, $1.50 
 
 Peter Grayson is a banker of the old school, a middle aged 
 man of high ideals and of a buoyant, cheery optimism; a man 
 of taste and experience, welcome at many dinner tables and 
 country houses; a member of the Century Club and the asso 
 ciate of painters, writers and architects. 
 
 THE TIDES OF 
 BARNEGAT 
 
 Illustrated. I2mo, $1.50 
 
 "The story is one of strong dramatic power. It is doubt 
 less the best piece of work Mr. Smith has done. It s style is 
 direct and incisive, revealing a series of strongly drawn pict 
 ures. " Philadelphia Record. 
 
 THE FORTUNES 
 OF OLIVER HORN 
 
 Illustrated. I2mo, $1.50 
 
 "It is in the character-drawing that the author has done 
 his best work. No three finer examples of women can be 
 found than Margaret Grant, Sallie Horn, Oliver s mother; 
 and Lavinia Clendenning, the charming old spinster." 
 
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BOOKS BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF AN OLD- 
 FASHIONED GENTLEMAN 
 
 Illustrated in color by 
 A. I. Keller. I2mo. $1.50 
 
 "A breath of pure and invigorating fragrance out of the 
 fogs and tempests of the day s fiction." Chicago Tribune. 
 
 " The most finished literary work that Mr. Smith has yet 
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 " A dainty engaging tale of right thinking and clean living." 
 Philadelphia North American. 
 
 THE WOOD FIRE IN No. 3 
 
 With eight illustrations in color 
 by Alonzo Kimball. izmo. $1.50 
 
 "There are rollicking humor, pathos, romance, and dra 
 matic quality in the stories, whose themes are sufficiently 
 varied to suit all tastes." Chicago Evening Post. 
 
 " None of Mr. Smith s writings have shown more delight 
 fully his spirit of genial kindliness and sympathetic humor." 
 
 Boston Herald. 
 
 COLONEL CARTER S 
 CHRISTMAS 
 
 With eight illustrations in color 
 by F. C. Yohn. I2mo. $1.50 
 
 " Altogether the best character ever created by Mr. Smith." 
 
 Providence Journal. 
 
 "The dear old Colonel claims our smiles and our lore as 
 simply and as whole-heartedly as ever, and we thank the author 
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BOOKS BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH 
 
 FORTY MINUTES 
 LATE 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 Illustrated. $1.50 
 
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 it furnishes a capital example of impressionistic writing." 
 
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 Illustrated. I2mo, $1.50 
 
 "These little stories are as entertaining as any he has 
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 Illustrated. I2mo, $1.50 
 
 "These simple tales contain more of the real art of character- 
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 THE UNDER DOG 
 
 Illustrated. I2mo, $1.50 
 
 "Mr. Hopkinson Smith s genius for sympathy finds full 
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 another . . . each serves as a centre for an episode, rapid, 
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BOOKS BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH 
 
 "The Thackeray of American fiction." 
 
 Boston HtraU. 
 
 THE 
 
 NOVELS, STORIES 
 AND SKETCHES 
 
 OF 
 
 F. HOPKINSON SMITH 
 
 Beacon Edition. In Eighteen Volumes 
 
 "He has always had unquestioning faith in the sig 
 nificance and interest of the simple, universal human 
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 gentle-mannered, or robust, untrained men and women. 
 
 "As he looks at nature so he looks at man : with 
 clear vision, with sympathy rather than curiosity ; with 
 an eye for the fine things in the rugged man and the 
 vigorous, sinewy, self-sustaining woman, and for the 
 natural virtues, the deep tenderness, the true-heartedness 
 in the man of long descent and the woman of gentle 
 breeding. 
 
 " His style is singularly concise, exact, compact ; 
 possessed of a vitality which uses various arts of ex 
 pression; his style is notable for concentration, aolidity, 
 reality." HAMILTON W. MABII. 
 
 FOR PARTICULARS 
 
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 11