arc light down the frolicsome way.
Morley stood, turning over and over the dime in his pocket and
laughing gleefully to himself. "'Front,'" he chanted under his
breath; "'front' does it. It is trumps in the game. How they take it
in! Men, women and children - forgeries, water-and-salt lies - how
they all take it in!"
An old man with an ill-fitting suit, a straggling gray beard and a
corpulent umbrella hopped from the conglomeration of cabs and street
cars to the sidewalk at Morley's side.
"Stranger," said he, "excuse me for troubling you, but do you know
anybody in this here town named Solomon Smothers? He's my son, and
I've come down from Ellenville to visit him. Be darned if I know
what I done with his street and number."
"I do not, sir," said Morley, half closing his eyes to veil the joy
in them. "You had better apply to the police."
"The police!" said the old man. "I ain't done nothin' to call in the
police about. I just come down to see Ben. He lives in a five-story
house, he writes me. If you know anybody by that name and could" -
"I told you I did not," said Morley, coldly. "I know no one by the
name of Smithers, and I advise you to" -
"Smothers not Smithers," interrupted the old man hopefully. "A
heavy-sot man, sandy complected, about twenty-nine, two front teeth
out, about five foot" -
"Oh, 'Smothers!'" exclaimed Morley. "Sol Smothers? Why, he lives in
the next house to me. I thought you said 'Smithers.'"
Morley looked at his watch. You must have a watch. You can do
it for a dollar. Better go hungry than forego a gunmetal or the
ninety-eight-cent one that the railroads - according to these
watchmakers - are run by.
"The Bishop of Long Island," said Morley, "was to meet me here
at 8 to dine with me at the Kingfishers' Club. But I can't leave
the father of my friend Sol Smothers alone on the street. By St.
Swithin, Mr. Smothers, we Wall street men have to work! Tired is no
name for it! I was about to step across to the other corner and have
a glass of ginger ale with a dash of sherry when you approached me.
You must let me take you to Sol's house, Mr. Smothers. But, before
we take the car I hope you will join me in" -
An hour later Morley seated himself on the end of a quiet bench
in Madison Square, with a twenty-five-cent cigar between his lips
and $140 in deeply creased bills in his inside pocket. Content,
light-hearted, ironical, keenly philosophic, he watched the moon
drifting in and out amidst a maze of flying clouds. An old, ragged
man with a low-bowed head sat at the other end of the bench.
Presently the old man stirred and looked at his bench companion. In
Morley's appearance he seemed to recognize something superior to the
usual nightly occupants of the benches.
"Kind sir," he whined, "if you could spare a dime or even a few
pennies to one who" -
Morley cut short his stereotyped appeal by throwing him a dollar.
"God bless you!" said the old man. "I've been trying to find work
for" -
"Work!" echoed Morley with his ringing laugh. "You are a fool, my
friend. The world is a rock to you, no doubt; but you must be an
Aaron and smite it with your rod. Then things better than water will
gush out of it for you. That is what the world is for. It gives to
me whatever I want from it."
"God has blessed you," said the old man. "It is only work that I
have known. And now I can get no more."
"I must go home," said Morley, rising and buttoning his coat. "I
stopped here only for a smoke. I hope you may find work."
"May your kindness be rewarded this night," said the old man.
"Oh," said Morley, "you have your wish already. I am satisfied. I
think good luck follows me like a dog. I am for yonder bright hotel
across the square for the night. And what a moon that is lighting
up the city to-night. I think no one enjoys the moonlight and such
little things as I do. Well, a good-night to you."
Morley walked to the corner where he would cross to his hotel. He
blew slow streams of smoke from his cigar heavenward. A policeman
passing saluted to his benign nod. What a fine moon it was.
The clock struck nine as a girl just entering womanhood stopped on
the corner waiting for the approaching car. She was hurrying as if
homeward from employment or delay. Her eyes were clear and pure, she
was dressed in simple white, she looked eagerly for the car and
neither to the right nor the left.
Morley knew her. Eight years before he had sat on the same bench with
her at school. There had been no sentiment between them - nothing but
the friendship of innocent days.
But he turned down the side street to a quiet spot and laid his
suddenly burning face against the cool iron of a lamp-post, and said
dully:
"God! I wish I could die."
THE BUYER FROM CACTUS CITY
It is well that hay fever and colds do not obtain in the healthful
vicinity of Cactus City, Texas, for the dry goods emporium of
Navarro & Platt, situated there, is not to be sneezed at.
Twenty thousand people in Cactus City scatter their silver coin with
liberal hands for the things that their hearts desire. The bulk of
this semiprecious metal goes to Navarro & Platt. Their huge brick
building covers enough ground to graze a dozen head of sheep. You
can buy of them a rattlesnake-skin necktie, an automobile or an
eighty-five dollar, latest style, ladies' tan coat in twenty
different shades. Navarro & Platt first introduced pennies west of
the Colorado River. They had been ranchmen with business heads, who
saw that the world did not necessarily have to cease its revolutions
after free grass went out.
Every Spring, Navarro, senior partner, fifty-five, half Spanish,
cosmopolitan, able, polished, had "gone on" to New York to buy
goods. This year he shied at taking up the long trail. He was
undoubtedly growing older; and he looked at his watch several times
a day before the hour came for his siesta.
"John," he said, to his junior partner, "you shall go on this year
to buy the goods."
Platt looked tired.
"I'm told," said he, "that New York is a plumb dead town; but I'll
go. I can take a whirl in San Antone for a few days on my way and
have some fun."
Two weeks later a man in a Texas full dress suit - black frock coat,
broad-brimmed soft white hat, and lay-down collar 3-4 inch high,
with black, wrought iron necktie - entered the wholesale cloak and
suit establishment of Zizzbaum & Son, on lower Broadway.
Old Zizzbaum had the eye of an osprey, the memory of an elephant and
a mind that unfolded from him in three movements like the puzzle of
the carpenter's rule. He rolled to the front like a brunette polar
bear, and shook Platt's hand.
"And how is the good Mr. Navarro in Texas?" he said. "The trip was
too long for him this year, so? We welcome Mr. Platt instead."
"A bull's eye," said Platt, "and I'd give forty acres of unirrigated
Pecos County land to know how you did it."
"I knew," grinned Zizzbaum, "just as I know that the rainfall in El
Paso for the year was 28.5 inches, or an increase of 15 inches, and
that therefore Navarro & Platt will buy a $15,000 stock of suits
this spring instead of $10,000, as in a dry year. But that will be
to-morrow. There is first a cigar in my private office that will
remove from your mouth the taste of the ones you smuggle across the
Rio Grande and like - because they are smuggled."
It was late in the afternoon and business for the day had ended,
Zizzbaum left Platt with a half-smoked cigar, and came out of the
private office to Son, who was arranging his diamond scarfpin before
a mirror, ready to leave.
"Abey," he said, "you will have to take Mr. Platt around to-night
and show him things. They are customers for ten years. Mr. Navarro
and I we played chess every moment of spare time when he came. That
is good, but Mr. Platt is a young man and this is his first visit to
New York. He should amuse easily."
"All right," said Abey, screwing the guard tightly on his pin. "I'll
take him on. After he's seen the Flatiron and the head waiter at the
Hotel Astor and heard the phonograph play 'Under the Old Apple Tree'
it'll be half past ten, and Mr. Texas will be ready to roll up in
his blanket. I've got a supper engagement at 11:30, but he'll be all
to the Mrs. Winslow before then."
The next morning at 10 Platt walked into the store ready to do
business. He had a bunch of hyacinths pinned on his lapel. Zizzbaum
himself waited on him. Navarro & Platt were good customers, and never
failed to take their discount for cash.
"And what did you think of our little town?" asked Zizzbaum, with
the fatuous smile of the Manhattanite.
"I shouldn't care to live in it," said the Texan. "Your son and I
knocked around quite a little last night. You've got good water, but
Cactus City is better lit up."
"We've got a few lights on Broadway, don't you think, Mr. Platt?"
"And a good many shadows," said Platt. "I think I like your horses
best. I haven't seen a crow-bait since I've been in town."
Zizzbaum led him up stairs to show the samples of suits.
"Ask Miss Asher to come," he said to a clerk.
Miss Asher came, and Platt, of Navarro & Platt, felt for the first
time the wonderful bright light of romance and glory descend upon
him. He stood still as a granite cliff above the canon of the
Colorado, with his wide-open eyes fixed upon her. She noticed his
look and flushed a little, which was contrary to her custom.
Miss Asher was the crack model of Zizzbaum & Son. She was of the
blond type known as "medium," and her measurements even went
the required 38-25-42 standard a little better. She had been at
Zizzbaum's two years, and knew her business. Her eye was bright, but
cool; and had she chosen to match her gaze against the optic of the
famed basilisk, that fabulous monster's gaze would have wavered and
softened first. Incidentally, she knew buyers.
"Now, Mr. Platt," said Zizzbaum, "I want you to see these princess
gowns in the light shades. They will be the thing in your climate.
This first, if you please, Miss Asher."
Swiftly in and out of the dressing-room the prize model flew, each
time wearing a new costume and looking more stunning with every
change. She posed with absolute self-possession before the stricken
buyer, who stood, tongue-tied and motionless, while Zizzbaum orated
oilily of the styles. On the model's face was her faint, impersonal
professional smile that seemed to cover something like weariness or
contempt.
When the display was over Platt seemed to hesitate. Zizzbaum was a
little anxious, thinking that his customer might be inclined to try
elsewhere. But Platt was only looking over in his mind the best
building sites in Cactus City, trying to select one on which to
build a house for his wife-to-be - who was just then in the
dressing-room taking off an evening gown of lavender and tulle.
"Take your time, Mr. Platt," said Zizzbaum. "Think it over to-night.
You won't find anybody else meet our prices on goods like these.
I'm afraid you're having a dull time in New York, Mr. Platt. A
young man like you - of course, you miss the society of the ladies.
Wouldn't you like a nice young lady to take out to dinner this
evening? Miss Asher, now, is a very nice young lady; she will make
it agreeable for you."
"Why, she doesn't know me," said Platt, wonderingly. "She doesn't
know anything about me. Would she go? I'm not acquainted with her."
"Would she go?" repeated Zizzbaum, with uplifted eyebrows. "Sure,
she would go. I will introduce you. Sure, she would go."
He called Miss Asher loudly.
She came, calm and slightly contemptuous, in her white shirt waist
and plain black skirt.
"Mr. Platt would like the pleasure of your company to dinner this
evening," said Zizzbaum, walking away.
"Sure," said Miss Asher, looking at the ceiling. "I'd be much
pleased. Nine-eleven West Twentieth street. What time?"
"Say seven o'clock."
"All right, but please don't come ahead of time. I room with a
school teacher, and she doesn't allow any gentlemen to call in the
room. There isn't any parlor, so you'll have to wait in the hall.
I'll be ready."
At half past seven Platt and Miss Asher sat at a table in a Broadway
restaurant. She was dressed in a plain, filmy black. Platt didn't
know that it was all a part of her day's work.
With the unobtrusive aid of a good waiter he managed to order a
respectable dinner, minus the usual Broadway preliminaries.
Miss Asher flashed upon him a dazzling smile.
"Mayn't I have something to drink?" she asked.
"Why, certainly," said Platt. "Anything you want."
"A dry Martini," she said to the waiter.
When it was brought and set before her Platt reached over and took
it away.
"What is this?" he asked.
"A cocktail, of course."
"I thought it was some kind of tea you ordered. This is liquor. You
can't drink this. What is your first name?"
"To my intimate friends," said Miss Asher, freezingly, "it is
'Helen.'"
"Listen, Helen," said Platt, leaning over the table. "For many years
every time the spring flowers blossomed out on the prairies I got to
thinking of somebody that I'd never seen or heard of. I knew it was
you the minute I saw you yesterday. I'm going back home to-morrow,
and you're going with me. I know it, for I saw it in your eyes when
you first looked at me. You needn't kick, for you've got to fall
into line. Here's a little trick I picked out for you on my way
over."
He flicked a two-carat diamond solitaire ring across the table. Miss
Asher flipped it back to him with her fork.
"Don't get fresh," she said, severely.
"I'm worth a hundred thousand dollars," said Platt. "I'll build you
the finest house in West Texas."
"You can't buy me, Mr. Buyer," said Miss Asher, "if you had a
hundred million. I didn't think I'd have to call you down. You
didn't look like the others to me at first, but I see you're all
alike."
"All who?" asked Platt.
"All you buyers. You think because we girls have to go out to dinner
with you or lose our jobs that you're privileged to say what you
please. Well, forget it. I thought you were different from the
others, but I see I was mistaken."
Platt struck his fingers on the table with a gesture of sudden,
illuminating satisfaction.
"I've got it!" he exclaimed, almost hilariously - "the Nicholson
place, over on the north side. There's a big grove of live oaks and
a natural lake. The old house can be pulled down and the new one set
further back."
"Put out your pipe," said Miss Asher. "I'm sorry to wake you up, but
you fellows might as well get wise, once for all, to where you stand.
I'm supposed to go to dinner with you and help jolly you along so
you'll trade with old Zizzy, but don't expect to find me in any of
the suits you buy."
"Do you mean to tell me," said Platt, "that you go out this way with
customers, and they all - they all talk to you like I have?"
"They all make plays," said Miss Asher. "But I must say that you've
got 'em beat in one respect. They generally talk diamonds, while
you've actually dug one up."
"How long have you been working, Helen?"
"Got my name pat, haven't you? I've been supporting myself for eight
years. I was a cash girl and a wrapper and then a shop girl until I
was grown, and then I got to be a suit model. Mr. Texas Man, don't
you think a little wine would make this dinner a little less dry?"
"You're not going to drink wine any more, dear. It's awful to think
how - I'll come to the store to-morrow and get you. I want you to
pick out an automobile before we leave. That's all we need to buy
here."
"Oh, cut that out. If you knew how sick I am of hearing such talk."
After the dinner they walked down Broadway and came upon Diana's
little wooded park. The trees caught Platt's eye at once, and he
must turn along under the winding walk beneath them. The lights
shone upon two bright tears in the model's eyes.
"I don't like that," said Platt. "What's the matter?"
"Don't you mind," said Miss Asher. "Well, it's because - well, I
didn't think you were that kind when I first saw you. But you are
all like. And now will you take me home, or will I have to call a
cop?"
Platt took her to the door of her boarding-house. They stood for a
minute in the vestibule. She looked at him with such scorn in her
eyes that even his heart of oak began to waver. His arm was half way
around her waist, when she struck him a stinging blow on the face
with her open hand.
As he stepped back a ring fell from somewhere and bounded on the
tiled floor. Platt groped for it and found it.
"Now, take your useless diamond and go, Mr. Buyer," she said.
"This was the other one - the wedding ring," said the Texan, holding
the smooth gold band on the palm of his hand.
Miss Asher's eyes blazed upon him in the half darkness.
"Was that what you meant? - did you" -
Somebody opened the door from inside the house.
"Good-night," said Platt. "I'll see you at the store to-morrow."
Miss Asher ran up to her room and shook the school teacher until she
sat up in bed ready to scream "Fire!"
"Where is it?" she cried.
"That's what I want to know," said the model. "You've studied
geography, Emma, and you ought to know. Where is a town called
Cac - Cac - Carac - Caracas City, I think, they called it?"
"How dare you wake me up for that?" said the school teacher."
Caracas is in Venezuela, of course."
"What's it like?"
"Why, it's principally earthquakes and negroes and monkeys and
malarial fever and volcanoes."
"I don't care," said Miss Asher, blithely; "I'm going there
to-morrow."
THE BADGE OF POLICEMAN O'ROON
It cannot be denied that men and women have looked upon one another
for the first time and become instantly enamored. It is a risky
process, this love at first sight, before she has seen him in
Bradstreet or he has seen her in curl papers. But these things do
happen; and one instance must form a theme for this story - though
not, thank Heaven, to the overshadowing of more vital and important
subjects, such as drink, policemen, horses and earldoms.
During a certain war a troop calling itself the Gentle Riders rode
into history and one or two ambuscades. The Gentle Riders were
recruited from the aristocracy of the wild men of the West and the
wild men of the aristocracy of the East. In khaki there is little
telling them one from another, so they became good friends and
comrades all around.
Ellsworth Remsen, whose old Knickerbocker descent atoned for his
modest rating at only ten millions, ate his canned beef gayly by the
campfires of the Gentle Riders. The war was a great lark to him, so
that he scarcely regretted polo and planked shad.
One of the troopers was a well set up, affable, cool young man, who
called himself O'Roon. To this young man Remsen took an especial
liking. The two rode side by side during the famous mooted up-hill
charge that was disputed so hotly at the time by the Spaniards and
afterward by the Democrats.
After the war Remsen came back to his polo and shad. One day a well
set up, affable, cool young man disturbed him at his club, and he
and O'Roon were soon pounding each other and exchanging opprobrious
epithets after the manner of long-lost friends. O'Roon looked seedy
and out of luck and perfectly contented. But it seemed that his
content was only apparent.
"Get me a job, Remsen," he said. "I've just handed a barber my last
shilling."
"No trouble at all," said Remsen. "I know a lot of men who have
banks and stores and things downtown. Any particular line you
fancy?"
"Yes," said O'Roon, with a look of interest. "I took a walk in your
Central Park this morning. I'd like to be one of those bobbies on
horseback. That would be about the ticket. Besides, it's the only
thing I could do. I can ride a little and the fresh air suits me.
Think you could land that for me?"
Remsen was sure that he could. And in a very short time he did. And
they who were not above looking at mounted policemen might have seen
a well set up, affable, cool young man on a prancing chestnut steed
attending to his duties along the driveways of the park.
And now at the extreme risk of wearying old gentlemen who carry
leather fob chains, and elderly ladies who - but no! grandmother
herself yet thrills at foolish, immortal Romeo - there must be a hint
of love at first sight.
It came just as Remsen was strolling into Fifth avenue from his club
a few doors away.
A motor car was creeping along foot by foot, impeded by a freshet
of vehicles that filled the street. In the car was a chauffeur and
an old gentleman with snowy side whiskers and a Scotch plaid cap
which could not be worn while automobiling except by a personage.
Not even a wine agent would dare do it. But these two were of no
consequence - except, perhaps, for the guiding of the machine and
the paying for it. At the old gentleman's side sat a young lady
more beautiful than pomegranate blossoms, more exquisite than the
first quarter moon viewed at twilight through the tops of oleanders.
Remsen saw her and knew his fate. He could have flung himself under
the very wheels that conveyed her, but he knew that would be the last
means of attracting the attention of those who ride in motor cars.
Slowly the auto passed, and, if we place the poets above the autoists,
carried the heart of Remsen with it. Here was a large city of
millions, and many women who at a certain distance appear to resemble
pomegranate blossoms. Yet he hoped to see her again; for each one
fancies that his romance has its own tutelary guardian and divinity.
Luckily for Remsen's peace of mind there came a diversion in the
guise of a reunion of the Gentle Riders of the city. There were
not many of them - perhaps a score - and there was wassail and
things to eat, and speeches and the Spaniard was bearded again in
recapitulation. And when daylight threatened them the survivors
prepared to depart. But some remained upon the battlefield. One of
these was Trooper O'Roon, who was not seasoned to potent liquids.
His legs declined to fulfil the obligations they had sworn to the
police department.
"I'm stewed, Remsen," said O'Roon to his friend. "Why do they
build hotels that go round and round like catherine wheels?
They'll take away my shield and break me. I can think and talk
con-con-consec-sec-secutively, but I s-s-stammer with my feet. I've
got to go on duty in three hours. The jig is up, Remsen. The jig is
up, I tell you."
"Look at me," said Remsen, who was his smiling self, pointing to his
own face; "whom do you see here?"
"Goo' fellow," said O'Roon, dizzily, "Goo' old Remsen."
"Not so," said Remsen. "You see Mounted Policeman O'Roon. Look at
your face - no; you can't do that without a glass - but look at mine,
and think of yours. How much alike are we? As two French _table
d'hote_ dinners. With your badge, on your horse, in your uniform,
will I charm nurse-maids and prevent the grass from growing under
people's feet in the Park this day. I will have your badge and your
honor, besides having the jolliest lark I've been blessed with since
we licked Spain."
Promptly on time the counterfeit presentment of Mounted Policeman
O'Roon single-footed into the Park on his chestnut steed. In a
uniform two men who are unlike will look alike; two who somewhat
resemble each other in feature and figure will appear as twin
brothers. So Remsen trotted down the bridle paths, enjoying himself
hugely, so few real pleasures do ten-millionaires have.
Along the driveway in the early morning spun a victoria drawn by a
pair of fiery bays. There was something foreign about the affair,
for the Park is rarely used in the morning except by unimportant
people who love to be healthy, poor and wise. In the vehicle sat an
old gentleman with snowy side-whiskers and a Scotch plaid cap which
could not be worn while driving except by a personage. At his side
sat the lady of Remsen's heart - the lady who looked like pomegranate
blossoms and the gibbous moon.
Remsen met them coming. At the instant of their passing her eyes
looked into his, and but for the ever coward's heart of a true lover
he could have sworn that she flushed a faint pink. He trotted on for
twenty yards, and then wheeled his horse at the sound of runaway
hoofs. The bays had bolted.
Remsen sent his chestnut after the victoria like a shot. There was
work cut out for the impersonator of Policeman O'Roon. The chestnut
ranged alongside the off bay thirty seconds after the chase began,
rolled his eye back at Remsen, and said in the only manner open to
policemen's horses:
"Well, you duffer, are you going to do your share? You're not
O'Roon, but it seems to me if you'd lean to the right you could
reach the reins of that foolish slow-running bay - ah! you're all
right; O'Roon couldn't have done it more neatly!"
The runaway team was tugged to an inglorious halt by Remsen's
tough muscles. The driver released his hands from the wrapped
reins, jumped from his seat and stood at the heads of the team.
The chestnut, approving his new rider, danced and pranced, reviling
equinely the subdued bays. Remsen, lingering, was dimly conscious of
a vague, impossible, unnecessary old gentleman in a Scotch cap who
talked incessantly about something. And he was acutely conscious of
a pair of violet eyes that would have drawn Saint Pyrites from his
iron pillar - or whatever the allusion is - and of the lady's smile
and look - a little frightened, but a look that, with the ever coward
heart of a true lover, he could not yet construe. They were asking
his name and bestowing upon him wellbred thanks for his heroic deed,
and the Scotch cap was especially babbling and insistent. But the
eloquent appeal was in the eyes of the lady.
A little thrill of satisfaction ran through Remsen, because he had a
name to give which, without undue pride, was worthy of being spoken
in high places, and a small fortune which, with due pride, he could
leave at his end without disgrace.
He opened his lips to speak and closed them again.
Who was he? Mounted Policeman O'Roon. The badge and the honor of
his comrade were in his hands. If Ellsworth Remsen, ten-millionaire
and Knickerbocker, had just rescued pomegranate blossoms and Scotch
cap from possible death, where was Policeman O'Roon? Off his beat,
exposed, disgraced, discharged. Love had come, but before that there
had been something that demanded precedence - the fellowship of men
on battlefields fighting an alien foe.
Remsen touched his cap, looked between the chestnut's ears, and took
refuge in vernacularity.
"Don't mention it," he said stolidly. "We policemen are paid to do
these things. It's our duty."
And he rode away - rode away cursing _noblesse oblige_, but knowing he
could never have done anything else.
At the end of the day Remsen sent the chestnut to his stable and
went to O'Roon's room. The policeman was again a well set up,
affable, cool young man who sat by the window smoking cigars.
"I wish you and the rest of the police force and all badges, horses,
brass buttons and men who can't drink two glasses of _brut_ without
getting upset were at the devil," said Remsen feelingly.
O'Roon smiled with evident satisfaction.
"Good old Remsen," he said, affably, "I know all about it. They
trailed me down and cornered me here two hours ago. There was a
little row at home, you know, and I cut sticks just to show them. I
don't believe I told you that my Governor was the Earl of Ardsley.
Funny you should bob against them in the Park. If you damaged that
horse of mine I'll never forgive you. I'm going to buy him and take
him back with me. Oh, yes, and I think my sister - Lady Angela, you
know - wants particularly for you to come up to the hotel with me
this evening. Didn't lose my badge, did you, Remsen? I've got to
turn that in at Headquarters when I resign."
BRICKDUST ROW
Blinker was displeased. A man of less culture and poise and wealth
would have sworn. But Blinker always remembered that he was a
gentleman - a thing that no gentleman should do. So he merely looked
bored and sardonic while he rode in a hansom to the center of
disturbance, which was the Broadway office of Lawyer Oldport, who
was agent for the Blinker estate.
"I don't see," said Blinker, "why I should be always signing
confounded papers. I am packed, and was to have left for the North
Woods this morning. Now I must wait until to-morrow morning. I hate
night trains. My best razors are, of course, at the bottom of some
unidentifiable trunk. It is a plot to drive me to bay rum and a
monologueing, thumb-handed barber. Give me a pen that doesn't
scratch. I hate pens that scratch."
"Sit down," said double-chinned, gray Lawyer Oldport. "The worst has
not been told you. Oh, the hardships of the rich! The papers are not
yet ready to sign. They will be laid before you to-morrow at eleven.
You will miss another day. Twice shall the barber tweak the helpless
nose of a Blinker. Be thankful that your sorrows do not embrace a
haircut."
"If," said Blinker, rising, "the act did not involve more signing of
papers I would take my business out of your hands at once. Give me a
cigar, please."
"If," said Lawyer Oldport, "I had cared to see an old friend's son
gulped down at one mouthful by sharks I would have ordered you to
take it away long ago. Now, let's quit fooling, Alexander. Besides
the grinding task of signing your name some thirty times to-morrow,
I must impose upon you the consideration of a matter of business - of
business, and I may say humanity or right. I spoke to you about
this five years ago, but you would not listen - you were in a hurry
for a coaching trip, I think. The subject has come up again. The
property - "
"Oh, property!" interrupted Blinker. "Dear Mr. Oldport, I
think you mentioned to-morrow. Let's have it all at one dose
to-morrow - signatures and property and snappy rubber bands and that
smelly sealing-wax and all. Have luncheon with me? Well, I'll try
to remember to drop in at eleven to-morrow. Morning."
The Blinker wealth was in lands, tenements and hereditaments, as the
legal phrase goes. Lawyer Oldport had once taken Alexander in his
little pulmonary gasoline runabout to see the many buildings and
rows of buildings that he owned in the city. For Alexander was
sole heir. They had amused Blinker very much. The houses looked so
incapable of producing the big sums of money that Lawyer Oldport
kept piling up in banks for him to spend.
In the evening Blinker went to one of his clubs, intending to dine.
Nobody was there except some old fogies playing whist who spoke to
him with grave politeness and glared at him with savage contempt.
Everybody was out of town. But here he was kept in like a schoolboy
to write his name over and over on pieces of paper. His wounds were
deep.
Blinker turned his back on the fogies, and said to the club steward
who had come forward with some nonsense about cold fresh salmon roe:
"Symons, I'm going to Coney Island." He said it as one might say:
"All's off; I'm going to jump into the river."
The joke pleased Symons. He laughed within a sixteenth of a note of
the audibility permitted by the laws governing employees.
"Certainly, sir," he tittered. "Of course, sir, I think I can see
you at Coney, Mr. Blinker."
Blinker got a pager and looked up the movements of Sunday
steamboats. Then he found a cab at the first corner and drove to a
North River pier. He stood in line, as democratic as you or I, and
bought a ticket, and was trampled upon and shoved forward until,
at last, he found himself on the upper deck of the boat staring
brazenly at a girl who sat alone upon a camp stool. But Blinker did
not intend to be brazen; the girl was so wonderfully good looking
that he forgot for one minute that he was the prince incog, and
behaved just as he did in society.
She was looking at him, too, and not severely. A puff of wind
threatened Blinker's straw hat. He caught it warily and settled it
again. The movement gave the effect of a bow. The girl nodded and
smiled, and in another instant he was seated at her side. She was
dressed all in white, she was paler than Blinker imagined milkmaids
and girls of humble stations to be, but she was as tidy as a cherry
blossom, and her steady, supremely frank gray eyes looked out from
the intrepid depths of an unshadowed and untroubled soul.
"How dare you raise your hat to me?" she asked, with a smile-redeemed
severity.
"I didn't," Blinker said, but he quickly covered the mistake by
extending it to "I didn't know how to keep from it after I saw you."
"I do not allow gentlemen to sit by me to whom I have not been
introduced," she said, with a sudden haughtiness that deceived him.
He rose reluctantly, but her clear, teasing laugh brought him down
to his chair again.
"I guess you weren't going far," she declared, with beauty's
magnificent self-confidence.
"Are you going to Coney Island?" asked Blinker.
"Me?" She turned upon him wide-open eyes full of bantering surprise.
"Why, what a question! Can't you see that I'm riding a bicycle in
the park?" Her drollery took the form of impertinence.
"And I am laying brick on a tall factory chimney," said Blinker.
"Mayn't we see Coney together? I'm all alone and I've never been
there before." "It depends," said the girl, "on how nicely you
behave. I'll consider your application until we get there."
Blinker took pains to provide against the rejection of his
application. He strove to please. To adopt the metaphor of his
nonsensical phrase, he laid brick upon brick on the tall chimney of
his devoirs until, at length, the structure was stable and complete.
The manners of the best society come around finally to simplicity;
and as the girl's way was that naturally, they were on a mutual
plane of communication from the beginning.
He learned that she was twenty, and her name was Florence; that she
trimmed hats in a millinery shop; that she lived in a furnished room
with her best chum Ella, who was cashier in a shoe store; and that
a glass of milk from the bottle on the window-sill and an egg that
boils itself while you twist up your hair makes a breakfast good
enough for any one. Florence laughed when she heard "Blinker."
"Well," she said. "It certainly slows that you have imagination. It
gives the 'Smiths' a chance for a little rest, anyhow."
They landed at Coney, and were dashed on the crest of a great human
wave of mad pleasure-seekers into the walks and avenues of Fairyland
gone into vaudeville.
With a curious eye, a critical mind and a fairly withheld judgment
Blinker considered the temples, pagodas and kiosks of popularized
delights. Hoi polloi trampled, hustled and crowded him. Basket
parties bumped him; sticky children tumbled, howling, under his
feet, candying his clothes. Insolent youths strolling among the
booths with hard-won canes under one arm and easily won girls on
the other, blew defiant smoke from cheap cigars into his face. The
publicity gentlemen with megaphones, each before his own stupendous
attraction, roared like Niagara in his ears. Music of all kinds that
could be tortured from brass, reed, hide or string, fought in the
air to grain space for its vibrations against its competitors. But
what held Blinker in awful fascination was the mob, the multitude,
the proletariat shrieking, struggling, hurrying, panting, hurling
itself in incontinent frenzy, with unabashed abandon, into the
ridiculous sham palaces of trumpery and tinsel pleasures, The
vulgarity of it, its brutal overriding of all the tenets of
repression and taste that were held by his caste, repelled him
strongly.
In the midst of his disgust he turned and looked down at Florence
by his side. She was ready with her quick smile and upturned, happy
eyes, as bright and clear as the water in trout pools. The eyes were
saying that they had the right to be shining and happy, for was
their owner not with her (for the present) Man, her Gentleman Friend
and holder of the keys to the enchanted city of fun?
Blinker did not read her look accurately, but by some miracle he
suddenly saw Coney aright.
He no longer saw a mass of vulgarians seeking gross joys. He now
looked clearly upon a hundred thousand true idealists. Their
offenses were wiped out. Counterfeit and false though the garish
joys of these spangled temples were, he perceived that deep
under the gilt surface they offered saving and apposite balm and
satisfaction to the restless human heart. Here, at least, was the
husk of Romance, the empty but shining casque of Chivalry, the
breath-catching though safe-guarded dip and flight of Adventure, the
magic carpet that transports you to the realms of fairyland, though
its journey be through but a few poor yards of space. He no longer
saw a rabble, but his brothers seeking the ideal. There was no magic
of poesy here or of art; but the glamour of their imagination turned
yellow calico into cloth of gold and the megaphones into the silver
trumpets of joy's heralds.
Almost humbled, Blinker rolled up the shirt sleeves of his mind and
joined the idealists.
"You are the lady doctor," he said to Florence. "How shall we go
about doing this jolly conglomeration of fairy tales, incorporated?"
"We will begin there," said the Princess, pointing to a fun pagoda
on the edge of the sea, "and we will take them all in, one by one."
They caught the eight o'clock returning boat and sat, filled with
pleasant fatigue, against the rail in the bow, listening to the
Italians' fiddle and harp. Blinker had thrown off all care. The
North Woods seemed to him an uninhabitable wilderness. What a fuss
he had made over signing his name - pooh! he could sign it a hundred
times. And her name was as pretty as she was - "Florence," he said it
to himself a great many times.
As the boat was nearing its pier in the North River a two-funnelled,
drab, foreign-looking sea-going steamer was dropping down toward the
bay. The boat turned its nose in toward its slip. The steamer veered
as if to seek midstream, and then yawed, seemed to increase its
speed and struck the Coney boat on the side near the stern, cutting
into it with a terrifying shock and crash.
While the six hundred passengers on the boat were mostly tumbling
about the decks in a shrieking panic the captain was shouting at the
steamer that it should not back off and leave the rent exposed for
the water to enter. But the steamer tore its way out like a savage
sawfish and cleaved its heartless way, full speed ahead.
The boat began to sink at its stern, but moved slowly toward the
slip. The passengers were a frantic mob, unpleasant to behold.
Blinker held Florence tightly until the boat had righted itself.
She made no sound or sign of fear. He stood on a camp stool, ripped
off the slats above his head and pulled down a number of the life
preservers. He began to buckle one around Florence. The rotten
canvas split and the fraudulent granulated cork came pouring out in
a stream. Florence caught a handful of it and laughed gleefully.
"It looks like breakfast food," she said. "Take it off. They're no
good."
She unbuckled it and threw it on the deck. She made Blinker sit down
and sat by his side and put her hand in his. "What'll you bet we
don't reach the pier all right?" she said and began to hum a song.
And now the captain moved among the passengers and compelled order.