unaccustomed glow about his heart. He was near to being a happy man.
He had shaken the hand of Ikey Snigglefritz.
THE PURPLE DRESS
We are to consider the shade known as purple. It is a color justly
in repute among the sons and daughters of man. Emperors claim it
for their especial dye. Good fellows everywhere seek to bring their
noses to the genial hue that follows the commingling of the red and
blue. We say of princes that they are born to the purple; and no
doubt they are, for the colic tinges their faces with the royal tint
equally with the snub-nosed countenance of a woodchopper's brat. All
women love it - when it is the fashion.
And now purple is being worn. You notice it on the streets. Of course
other colors are quite stylish as well - in fact, I saw a lovely thing
the other day in olive green albatross, with a triple-lapped flounce
skirt trimmed with insert squares of silk, and a draped fichu of lace
opening over a shirred vest and double puff sleeves with a lace band
holding two gathered frills - but you see lots of purple too. Oh, yes,
you do; just take a walk down Twenty-third street any afternoon.
Therefore Maida - the girl with the big brown eyes and cinnamon-colored
hair in the Bee-Hive Store - said to Grace - the girl with the
rhinestone brooch and peppermint-pepsin flavor to her speech - "I'm
going to have a purple dress - a tailor-made purple dress - for
Thanksgiving."
"Oh, are you," said Grace, putting away some 71/2 gloves into the
63/4 box. "Well, it's me for red. You see more red on Fifth avenue.
And the men all seem to like it."
"I like purple best," said Maida. "And old Schlegel has promised to
make it for $8. It's going to be lovely. I'm going to have a plaited
skirt and a blouse coat trimmed with a band of galloon under a white
cloth collar with two rows of - "
"Sly boots!" said Grace with an educated wink.
" - soutache braid over a surpliced white vest; and a plaited basque
and - "
"Sly boots - sly boots!" repeated Grace.
" - plaited gigot sleeves with a drawn velvet ribbon over an inside
cuff. What do you mean by saying that?"
"You think Mr. Ramsay likes purple. I heard him say yesterday he
thought some of the dark shades of red were stunning."
"I don't care," said Maida. "I prefer purple, and them that don't
like it can just take the other side of the street."
Which suggests the thought that after all, the followers of purple
may be subject to slight delusions. Danger is near when a maiden
thinks she can wear purple regardless of complexions and opinions;
and when Emperors think their purple robes will wear forever.
Maida had saved $18 after eight months of economy; and this had
bought the goods for the purple dress and paid Schlegel $4 on the
making of it. On the day before Thanksgiving she would have just
enough to pay the remaining $4. And then for a holiday in a new
dress - can earth offer anything more enchanting?
Old Bachman, the proprietor of the Bee-Hive Store, always gave a
Thanksgiving dinner to his employees. On every one of the subsequent
364 days, excusing Sundays, he would remind them of the joys of the
past banquet and the hopes of the coming ones, thus inciting them
to increased enthusiasm in work. The dinner was given in the store
on one of the long tables in the middle of the room. They tacked
wrapping paper over the front windows; and the turkeys and other
good things were brought in the back way from the restaurant on the
corner. You will perceive that the Bee-Hive was not a fashionable
department store, with escalators and pompadours. It was almost
small enough to be called an emporium; and you could actually go
in there and get waited on and walk out again. And always at the
Thanksgiving dinners Mr. Ramsay -
Oh, bother! I should have mentioned Mr. Ramsay first of all. He is
more important than purple or green, or even the red cranberry
sauce.
Mr. Ramsay was the head clerk; and as far as I am concerned I am for
him. He never pinched the girls' arms when he passed them in dark
corners of the store; and when he told them stories when business
was dull and the girls giggled and said: "Oh, pshaw!" it wasn't G.
Bernard they meant at all. Besides being a gentleman, Mr. Ramsay
was queer and original in other ways. He was a health crank, and
believed that people should never eat anything that was good for
them. He was violently opposed to anybody being comfortable, and
coming in out of snow storms, or wearing overshoes, or taking
medicine, or coddling themselves in any way. Every one of the ten
girls in the store had little pork-chop-and-fried-onion dreams every
night of becoming Mrs. Ramsay. For, next year old Bachman was going
to take him in for a partner. And each one of them knew that if she
should catch him she would knock those cranky health notions of his
sky high before the wedding cake indigestion was over.
Mr. Ramsay was master of ceremonies at the dinners. Always they had
two Italians in to play a violin and harp and had a little dance in
the store.
And here were two dresses being conceived to charm Ramsay - one
purple and the other red. Of course, the other eight girls were
going to have dresses too, but they didn't count. Very likely
they'd wear some shirt-waist-and-black-skirt-affairs - nothing as
resplendent as purple or red.
Grace had saved her money, too. She was going to buy her dress
ready-made. Oh, what's the use of bothering with a tailor - when
you've got a figger it's easy to get a fit - the ready-made are
intended for a perfect figger - except I have to have 'em all taken
in at the waist - the average figger is so large waisted.
The night before Thanksgiving came. Maida hurried home, keen and
bright with the thoughts of the blessed morrow. Her thoughts were of
purple, but they were white themselves - the joyous enthusiasm of the
young for the pleasures that youth must have or wither. She knew
purple would become her, and - for the thousandth time she tried to
assure herself that it was purple Mr. Ramsay said he liked and not
red. She was going home first to get the $4 wrapped in a piece of
tissue paper in the bottom drawer of her dresser, and then she was
going to pay Schlegel and take the dress home herself.
Grace lived in the same house. She occupied the hall room above
Maida's.
At home Maida found clamor and confusion. The landlady's tongue
clattering sourly in the halls like a churn dasher dabbing in
buttermilk. And then Grace come down to her room crying with eyes as
red as any dress.
"She says I've got to get out," said Grace. "The old beast. Because
I owe her $4. She's put my trunk in the hall and locked the door. I
can't go anywhere else. I haven't got a cent of money."
"You had some yesterday," said Maida.
"I paid it on my dress," said Grace. "I thought she'd wait till next
week for the rent."
Sniffle, sniffle, sob, sniffle.
Out came - out it had to come - Maida's $4.
"You blessed darling," cried Grace, now a rainbow instead of sunset.
"I'll pay the mean old thing and then I'm going to try on my dress.
I think it's heavenly. Come up and look at it. I'll pay the money
back, a dollar a week - honest I will."
Thanksgiving.
The dinner was to be at noon. At a quarter to twelve Grace switched
into Maida's room. Yes, she looked charming. Red was her color.
Maida sat by the window in her old cheviot skirt and blue waist
darning a st - . Oh, doing fancy work.
"Why, goodness me! ain't you dressed yet?" shrilled the red one.
"How does it fit in the back? Don't you think these velvet tabs look
awful swell? Why ain't you dressed, Maida?"
"My dress didn't get finished in time," said Maida. "I'm not going
to the dinner."
"That's too bad. Why, I'm awfully sorry, Maida. Why don't you put on
anything and come along - it's just the store folks, you know, and
they won't mind."
"I was set on my purple," said Maida. "If I can't have it I won't go
at all. Don't bother about me. Run along or you'll be late. You look
awful nice in red."
At her window Maida sat through the long morning and past the time
of the dinner at the store. In her mind she could hear the girls
shrieking over a pull-bone, could hear old Bachman's roar over his
own deeply-concealed jokes, could see the diamonds of fat Mrs.
Bachman, who came to the store only on Thanksgiving days, could see
Mr. Ramsay moving about, alert, kindly, looking to the comfort of
all.
At four in the afternoon, with an expressionless face and a lifeless
air she slowly made her way to Schlegel's shop and told him she
could not pay the $4 due on the dress.
"Gott!" cried Schlegel, angrily. "For what do you look so glum? Take
him away. He is ready. Pay me some time. Haf I not seen you pass
mine shop every day in two years? If I make clothes is it that I do
not know how to read beoples because? You will pay me some time when
you can. Take him away. He is made goot; and if you look bretty in
him all right. So. Pay me when you can."
Maida breathed a millionth part of the thanks in her heart, and
hurried away with her dress. As she left the shop a smart dash of
rain struck upon her face. She smiled and did not feel it.
Ladies who shop in carriages, you do not understand. Girls whose
wardrobes are charged to the old man's account, you cannot begin to
comprehend - you could not understand why Maida did not feel the cold
dash of the Thanksgiving rain.
At five o'clock she went out upon the street wearing her purple
dress. The rain had increased, and it beat down upon her in a
steady, wind-blown pour. People were scurrying home and to cars with
close-held umbrellas and tight buttoned raincoats. Many of them
turned their heads to marvel at this beautiful, serene, happy-eyed
girl in the purple dress walking through the storm as though she
were strolling in a garden under summer skies.
I say you do not understand it, ladies of the full purse and varied
wardrobe. You do not know what it is to live with a perpetual
longing for pretty things - to starve eight months in order to bring
a purple dress and a holiday together. What difference if it rained,
hailed, blew, snowed, cycloned?
Maida had no umbrella nor overshoes. She had her purple dress and
she walked abroad. Let the elements do their worst. A starved heart
must have one crumb during a year. The rain ran down and dripped
from her fingers.
Some one turned a corner and blocked her way. She looked up into Mr.
Ramsay's eyes, sparkling with admiration and interest.
"Why, Miss Maida," said he, "you look simply magnificent in your
new dress. I was greatly disappointed not to see you at our dinner.
And of all the girls I ever knew, you show the greatest sense and
intelligence. There is nothing more healthful and invigorating than
braving the weather as you are doing. May I walk with you?"
And Maida blushed and sneezed.
THE FOREIGN POLICY OF COMPANY 99
John Byrnes, hose-cart driver of Engine Company No. 99, was
afflicted with what his comrades called Japanitis.
Byrnes had a war map spread permanently upon a table in the second
story of the engine-house, and he could explain to you at any hour
of the day or night the exact positions, conditions and intentions
of both the Russian and Japanese armies. He had little clusters of
pins stuck in the map which represented the opposing forces, and
these he moved about from day to day in conformity with the war news
in the daily papers.
Wherever the Japs won a victory John Byrnes would shift his pins,
and then he would execute a war dance of delight, and the other
firemen would hear him yell: "Go it, you blamed little, sawed-off,
huckleberry-eyed, monkey-faced hot tamales! Eat 'em up, you little
sleight-o'-hand, bow-legged bull terriers - give 'em another of them
Yalu looloos, and you'll eat rice in St. Petersburg. Talk about your
Russians - say, wouldn't they give you a painsky when it comes to a
scrapovitch?"
Not even on the fair island of Nippon was there a more enthusiastic
champion of the Mikado's men. Supporters of the Russian cause did
well to keep clear of Engine-House No. 99.
Sometimes all thoughts of the Japs left John Byrnes's head. That
was when the alarm of fire had sounded and he was strapped in his
driver's seat on the swaying cart, guiding Erebus and Joe, the
finest team in the whole department - according to the crew of 99.
Of all the codes adopted by man for regulating his actions toward
his fellow-mortals, the greatest are these - the code of King
Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, the Constitution of the United
States and the unwritten rules of the New York Fire Department. The
Round Table methods are no longer practicable since the invention
of street cars and breach-of-promise suits, and our Constitution is
being found more and more unconstitutional every day, so the code of
our firemen must be considered in the lead, with the Golden Rule and
Jeffries's new punch trying for place and show.
The Constitution says that one man is as good as another; but the
Fire Department says he is better. This is a too generous theory,
but the law will not allow itself to be construed otherwise. All of
which comes perilously near to being a paradox, and commends itself
to the attention of the S. P. C. A.
One of the transatlantic liners dumped out at Ellis Island a lump of
protozoa which was expected to evolve into an American citizen. A
steward kicked him down the gangway, a doctor pounced upon his eyes
like a raven, seeking for trachoma or ophthalmia; he was hustled
ashore and ejected into the city in the name of Liberty - perhaps,
theoretically, thus inoculating against kingocracy with a drop of
its own virus. This hypodermic injection of Europeanism wandered
happily into the veins of the city with the broad grin of a pleased
child. It was not burdened with baggage, cares or ambitions. Its
body was lithely built and clothed in a sort of foreign fustian;
its face was brightly vacant, with a small, flat nose, and was
mostly covered by a thick, ragged, curling beard like the coat
of a spaniel. In the pocket of the imported Thing were a few
coins - denarii - scudi - kopecks - pfennigs - pilasters - whatever the
financial nomenclature of his unknown country may have been.
Prattling to himself, always broadly grinning, pleased by the roar
and movement of the barbarous city into which the steamship cut-rates
had shunted him, the alien strayed away from the, sea, which he
hated, as far as the district covered by Engine Company No. 99.
Light as a cork, he was kept bobbing along by the human tide, the
crudest atom in all the silt of the stream that emptied into the
reservoir of Liberty.
While crossing Third avenue he slowed his steps, enchanted by the
thunder of the elevated trains above him and the soothing crash of
the wheels on the cobbles. And then there was a new, delightful
chord in the uproar - the musical clanging of a gong and a great
shining juggernaut belching fire and smoke, that people were
hurrying to see.
This beautiful thing, entrancing to the eye, dashed past, and the
protoplasmic immigrant stepped into the wake of it with his broad,
enraptured, uncomprehending grin. And so stepping, stepped into the
path of No. 99's flying hose-cart, with John Byrnes gripping, with
arms of steel, the reins over the plunging backs of Erebus and Joe.
The unwritten constitutional code of the fireman has no exceptions
or amendments. It is a simple thing - as simple as the rule of three.
There was the heedless unit in the right of way; there was the
hose-cart and the iron pillar of the elevated railroad.
John Byrnes swung all his weight and muscle on the left rein. The
team and cart swerved that way and crashed like a torpedo into the
pillar. The men on the cart went flying like skittles. The driver's
strap burst, the pillar rang with the shock, and John Byrnes fell
on the car track with a broken shoulder twenty feet away, while
Erebus - beautiful, raven-black, best-loved Erebus - lay whickering
in his harness with a broken leg.
In consideration for the feelings of Engine Company No. 99 the
details will be lightly touched. The company does not like to be
reminded of that day. There was a great crowd, and hurry calls were
sent in; and while the ambulance gong was clearing the way the men
of No. 99 heard the crack of the S. P. C. A. agent's pistol, and
turned their heads away, not daring to look toward Erebus again.
When the firemen got back to the engine-house they found that one of
them was dragging by the collar the cause of their desolation and
grief. They set it in the middle of the floor and gathered grimly
about it. Through its whiskers the calamitous object chattered
effervescently and waved its hands.
"Sounds like a seidlitz powder," said Mike Dowling, disgustedly,
"and it makes me sicker than one. Call that a man! - that hoss
was worth a steamer full of such two-legged animals. It's a
immigrant - that's what it is."
"Look at the doctor's chalk mark on its coat," said Reilly, the desk
man. "It's just landed. It must be a kind of a Dago or a Hun or one
of them Finns, I guess. That's the kind of truck that Europe unloads
onto us."
"Think of a thing like that getting in the way and laying John up
in hospital and spoiling the best fire team in the city," groaned
another fireman. "It ought to be taken down to the dock and drowned."
"Somebody go around and get Sloviski," suggested the engine driver,
"and let's see what nation is responsible for this conglomeration of
hair and head noises."
Sloviski kept a delicatessen store around the corner on Third avenue,
and was reputed to be a linguist.
One of the men fetched him - a fat, cringing man, with a discursive
eye and the odors of many kinds of meats upon him.
"Take a whirl at this importation with your jaw-breakers, Sloviski,"
requested Mike Dowling. "We can't quite figure out whether he's from
the Hackensack bottoms or Hongkong-on-the-Ganges."
Sloviski addressed the stranger in several dialects that ranged in
rhythm and cadence from the sounds produced by a tonsilitis gargle
to the opening of a can of tomatoes with a pair of scissors. The
immigrant replied in accents resembling the uncorking of a bottle of
ginger ale.
"I have you his name," reported Sloviski. "You shall not pronounce
it. Writing of it in paper is better." They gave him paper, and he
wrote, "Demetre Svangvsk."
"Looks like short hand," said the desk man.
"He speaks some language," continued the interpreter, wiping his
forehead, "of Austria and mixed with a little Turkish. And, den,
he have some Magyar words and a Polish or two, and many like the
Roumanian, but not without talk of one tribe in Bessarabia. I do
not him quite understand."
"Would you call him a Dago or a Polocker, or what?" asked Mike,
frowning at the polyglot description.
"He is a" - answered Sloviski - "he is a - I dink he come from - I dink
he is a fool," he concluded, impatient at his linguistic failure,
"and if you pleases I will go back at mine delicatessen."
"Whatever he is, he's a bird," said Mike Dowling; "and you want to
watch him fly."
Taking by the wing the alien fowl that had fluttered into the
nest of Liberty, Mike led him to the door of the engine-house and
bestowed upon him a kick hearty enough to convey the entire animus
of Company 99. Demetre Svangvsk hustled away down the sidewalk,
turning once to show his ineradicable grin to the aggrieved firemen.
In three weeks John Byrnes was back at his post from the hospital.
With great gusto he proceeded to bring his war map up to date. "My
money on the Japs every time," he declared. "Why, look at them
Russians - they're nothing but wolves. Wipe 'em out, I say - and the
little old jiu jitsu gang are just the cherry blossoms to do the
trick, and don't you forget it!"
The second day after Byrnes's reappearance came Demetre Svangvsk,
the unidentified, to the engine-house, with a broader grin than
ever. He managed to convey the idea that he wished to congratulate
the hose-cart driver on his recovery and to apologize for having
caused the accident. This he accomplished by so many extravagant
gestures and explosive noises that the company was diverted for half
an hour. Then they kicked him out again, and on the next day he came
back grinning. How or where he lived no one knew. And then John
Byrnes's nine-year-old son, Chris, who brought him convalescent
delicacies from home to eat, took a fancy to Svangvsk, and they
allowed him to loaf about the door of the engine-house occasionally.
One afternoon the big drab automobile of the Deputy Fire
Commissioner buzzed up to the door of No. 99 and the Deputy stepped
inside for an informal inspection. The men kicked Svangvsk out a
little harder than usual and proudly escorted the Deputy around 99,
in which everything shone like my lady's mirror.
The Deputy respected the sorrow of the company concerning the loss
of Erebus, and he had come to promise it another mate for Joe that
would do him credit. So they let Joe out of his stall and showed
the Deputy how deserving he was of the finest mate that could be
in horsedom.
While they were circling around Joe confabbing, Chris climbed into
the Deputy's auto and threw the power full on. The men heard a
monster puffing and a shriek from the lad, and sprang out too late.
The big auto shot away, luckily taking a straight course down the
street. The boy knew nothing of its machinery; he sat clutching the
cushions and howling. With the power on nothing could have stopped
that auto except a brick house, and there was nothing for Chris to
gain by such a stoppage.
Demetre Svangvsk was just coming in again with a grin for another
kick when Chris played his merry little prank. While the others
sprang for the door Demetre sprang for Joe. He glided upon the
horse's bare back like a snake and shouted something at him like
the crack of a dozen whips. One of the firemen afterward swore that
Joe answered him back in the same language. Ten seconds after the
auto started the big horse was eating up the asphalt behind it like
a strip of macaroni.
Some people two blocks and a half away saw the rescue. They said
that the auto was nothing but a drab noise with a black speck in the
middle of it for Chris, when a big bay horse with a lizard lying on
its back cantered up alongside of it, and the lizard reached over
and picked the black speck out of the noise.
Only fifteen minutes after Svangvsk's last kicking at the hands - or
rather the feet - of Engine Company No. 99 he rode Joe back through
the door with the boy safe, but acutely conscious of the licking he
was going to receive.
Svangvsk slipped to the floor, leaned his head against Joe's and
made a noise like a clucking hen. Joe nodded and whistled loudly
through his nostrils, putting to shame the knowledge of Sloviski,
of the delicatessen.
John Byrnes walked up to Svangvsk, who grinned, expecting to be
kicked. Byrnes gripped the outlander so strongly by the hand that
Demetre grinned anyhow, conceiving it to be a new form of
punishment.
"The heathen rides like a Cossack," remarked a fireman who had seen
a Wild West show - "they're the greatest riders in the world."
The word seemed to electrify Svangvsk. He grinned wider than ever.
"Yas - yas - me Cossack," he spluttered, striking his chest.
"Cossack!" repeated John Byrnes, thoughtfully, "ain't that a kind of
a Russian?"
"They're one of the Russian tribes, sure," said the desk man, who
read books between fire alarms.
Just then Alderman Foley, who was on his way home and did not know
of the runaway, stopped at the door of the engine-house and called
to Byrnes:
"Hello there, Jimmy, me boy - how's the war coming along? Japs still
got the bear on the trot, have they?"
"Oh, I don't know," said John Byrnes, argumentatively, "them Japs
haven't got any walkover. You wait till Kuropatkin gets a good whack
at 'em and they won't be knee-high to a puddle-ducksky."
THE LOST BLEND
Since the bar has been blessed by the clergy, and cocktails open the
dinners of the elect, one may speak of the saloon. Teetotalers need
not listen, if they choose; there is always the slot restaurant,
where a dime dropped into the cold bouillon aperture will bring
forth a dry Martini.
Con Lantry worked on the sober side of the bar in Kenealy's cafe.
You and I stood, one-legged like geese, on the other side and went
into voluntary liquidation with our week's wages. Opposite danced
Con, clean, temperate, clear-headed, polite, white-jacketed,
punctual, trustworthy, young, responsible, and took our money.
The saloon (whether blessed or cursed) stood in one of those little
"places" which are parallelograms instead of streets, and inhabited
by laundries, decayed Knickerbocker families and Bohemians who have
nothing to do with either.
Over the cafe lived Kenealy and his family. His daughter Katherine
had eyes of dark Irish - but why should you be told? Be content with
your Geraldine or your Eliza Ann. For Con dreamed of her; and when
she called softly at the foot of the back stairs for the pitcher of
beer for dinner, his heart went up and down like a milk punch in the
shaker. Orderly and fit are the rules of Romance; and if you hurl
the last shilling of your fortune upon the bar for whiskey, the
bartender shall take it, and marry his boss's daughter, and good
will grow out of it.
But not so Con. For in the presence of woman he was tongue-tied and
scarlet. He who would quell with his eye the sonorous youth whom
the claret punch made loquacious, or smash with lemon squeezer the
obstreperous, or hurl gutterward the cantankerous without a wrinkle
coming to his white lawn tie, when he stood before woman he was
voiceless, incoherent, stuttering, buried beneath a hot avalanche
of bashfulness and misery. What then was he before Katherine? A
trembler, with no word to say for himself, a stone without blarney,
the dumbest lover that ever babbled of the weather in the presence
of his divinity.
There came to Kenealy's two sunburned men, Riley and McQuirk. They
had conference with Kenealy; and then they took possession of a
back room which they filled with bottles and siphons and jugs and
druggist's measuring glasses. All the appurtenances and liquids of
a saloon were there, but they dispensed no drinks. All day long
the two sweltered in there pouring and mixing unknown brews and
decoctions from the liquors in their store. Riley had the education,
and he figured on reams of paper, reducing gallons to ounces and
quarts to fluid drams. McQuirk, a morose man with a red eye, dashed
each unsuccessful completed mixture into the waste pipes with curses
gentle, husky and deep. They labored heavily and untiringly to
achieve some mysterious solution like two alchemists striving to
resolve gold from the elements.
Into this back room one evening when his watch was done sauntered
Con. His professional curiosity had been stirred by these occult
bartenders at whose bar none drank, and who daily drew upon
Kenealy's store of liquors to follow their consuming and fruitless
experiments.
Down the back stairs came Katherine with her smile like sunrise on
Gweebarra Bay.
"Good evening, Mr. Lantry," says she. "And what is the news to-day,
if you please?"
"It looks like r-rain," stammered the shy one, backing to the wall.
"It couldn't do better," said Katherine. "I'm thinking there's
nothing the worse off for a little water." In the back room
Riley and McQuirk toiled like bearded witches over their strange
compounds. From fifty bottles they drew liquids carefully measured
after Riley's figures, and shook the whole together in a great glass
vessel. Then McQuirk would dash it out, with gloomy profanity, and
they would begin again.
"Sit down," said Riley to Con, "and I'll tell you.
"Last summer me and Tim concludes that an American bar in this
nation of Nicaragua would pay. There was a town on the coast where
there's nothing to eat but quinine and nothing to drink but rum. The
natives and foreigners lay down with chills and get up with fevers;
and a good mixed drink is nature's remedy for all such tropical
inconveniences.
"So we lays in a fine stock of wet goods in New York, and bar
fixtures and glassware, and we sails for that Santa Palma town on
a lime steamer. On the way me and Tim sees flying fish and plays
seven-up with the captain and steward, and already begins to feel
like the high-ball kings of the tropics of Capricorn.
"When we gets in five hours of the country that we was going to
introduce to long drinks and short change the captain calls us over
to the starboard binnacle and recollects a few things.
"'I forgot to tell you, boys,' says he, 'that Nicaragua slapped an
import duty of 48 per cent. ad valorem on all bottled goods last
month. The President took a bottle of Cincinnati hair tonic by
mistake for tobasco sauce, and he's getting even. Barrelled goods is
free.'
"'Sorry you didn't mention it sooner,' says we. And we bought two
forty-two gallon casks from the captain, and opened every bottle we
had and dumped the stuff all together in the casks. That 48 per cent
would have ruined us; so we took the chances on making that $1,200
cocktail rather than throw the stuff away.
"Well, when we landed we tapped one of the barrels. The mixture was
something heartrending. It was the color of a plate of Bowery pea
soup, and it tasted like one of those coffee substitutes your aunt
makes you take for the heart trouble you get by picking losers. We
gave a nigger four fingers of it to try it, and he lay under a
cocoanut tree three days beating the sand with his heels and refused
to sign a testimonial.
"But the other barrel! Say, bartender, did you ever put on a straw
hat with a yellow band around it and go up in a balloon with a
pretty girl with $8,000,000 in your pocket all at the same time?
That's what thirty drops of it would make you feel like. With two
fingers of it inside you you would bury your face in your hands and
cry because there wasn't anything more worth while around for you to
lick than little Jim Jeffries. Yes, sir, the stuff in that second
barrel was distilled elixir of battle, money and high life. It was
the color of gold and as clear as glass, and it shone after dark
like the sunshine was still in it. A thousand years from now you'll
get a drink like that across the bar.
"Well, we started up business with that one line of drinks, and it
was enough. The piebald gentry of that country stuck to it like a
hive of bees. If that barrel had lasted that country would have
become the greatest on earth. When we opened up of mornings we had a
line of Generals and Colonels and ex-Presidents and revolutionists a
block long waiting to be served. We started in at 50 cents silver a
drink. The last ten gallons went easy at $5 a gulp. It was wonderful
stuff. It gave a man courage and ambition and nerve to do anything;
at the same time he didn't care whether his money was tainted or
fresh from the Ice Trust. When that barrel was half gone Nicaragua
had repudiated the National debt, removed the duty on cigarettes and
was about to declare war on the United States and England.
"'Twas by accident we discovered this king of drinks, and 'twill
be by good luck if we strike it again. For ten months we've been
trying. Small lots at a time, we've mixed barrels of all the harmful
ingredients known to the profession of drinking. Ye could have
stocked ten bars with the whiskies, brandies, cordials, bitters,
gins and wines me and Tim have wasted. A glorious drink like that
to be denied to the world! 'Tis a sorrow and a loss of money. The
United States as a nation would welcome a drink of that sort, and
pay for it."
All the while McQuirk lead been carefully measuring and pouring
together small quantities of various spirits, as Riley called them,
from his latest pencilled prescription. The completed mixture was of
a vile, mottled chocolate color. McQuirk tasted it, and hurled it,
with appropriate epithets, into the waste sink.
"'Tis a strange story, even if true," said Con. "I'll be going now
along to my supper."
"Take a drink," said Riley. "We've all kinds except the lost blend."
"I never drink," said Con, "anything stronger than water. I am just
after meeting Miss Katherine by the stairs. She said a true word.
'There's not anything,' says she, 'but is better off for a little
water.'"
When Con had left them Riley almost felled McQuirk by a blow on the
back.
"Did ye hear that?" he shouted. "Two fools are we. The six dozen
bottles of 'pollinaris we had on the slip - ye opened them
yourself - which barrel did ye pour them in - which barrel, ye
mudhead?"
"I mind," said McQuirk, slowly, "'twas in the second barrel we
opened. I mind the blue piece of paper pasted on the side of it."
"We've got it now," cried Riley. "'Twas that we lacked. 'Tis the
water that does the trick. Everything else we had right. Hurry, man,
and get two bottles of 'pollinaris from the bar, while I figure out
the proportionments with me pencil."
An hour later Con strolled down the sidewalk toward Kenealy's cafe.
Thus faithful employees haunt, during their recreation hours, the
vicinity where they labor, drawn by some mysterious attraction.
A police patrol wagon stood at the side door. Three able cops were
half carrying, half hustling Riley and McQuirk up its rear steps.
The eyes and faces of each bore the bruises and cuts of sanguinary
and assiduous conflict. Yet they whooped with strange joy, and
directed upon the police the feeble remnants of their pugnacious
madness.
"Began fighting each other in the back room," explained Kenealy to
Con. "And singing! That was worse. Smashed everything pretty much
up. But they're good men. They'll pay for everything. Trying to
invent some new kind of cocktail, they was. I'll see they come out
all right in the morning."
Con sauntered into the back room to view the battlefield. As he went
through the hall Katherine was just coming down the stairs.
"Good evening again, Mr. Lantry," said she. "And is there no news
from the weather yet?"
"Still threatens r-rain," said Con, slipping past with red in his
smooth, pale cheek.
Riley and McQuirk had indeed waged a great and friendly battle.
Broken bottles and glasses were everywhere. The room was full of
alcohol fumes; the floor was variegated with spirituous puddles.
On the table stood a 32-ounce glass graduated measure. In the bottom
of it were two tablespoonfuls of liquid - a bright golden liquid that
seemed to hold the sunshine a prisoner in its auriferous depths.
Con smelled it. He tasted it. He drank it.
As he returned through the hall Katherine was just going up the
stairs.
"No news yet, Mr. Lantry?" she asked with her teasing laugh.
Con lifted her clear from the floor and held her there.
"The news is," he said, "that we're to be married."
"Put me down, sir!" she cried indignantly, "or I will - Oh, Con,
where, oh, wherever did you get the nerve to say it?"
A HARLEM TRAGEDY
Harlem.
Mrs. Fink had dropped into Mrs. Cassidy's flat one flight below.
"Ain't it a beaut?" said Mrs. Cassidy.
She turned her face proudly for her friend Mrs. Fink to see. One eye
was nearly closed, with a great, greenish-purple bruise around it.
Her lip was cut and bleeding a little and there were red finger-marks
on each side of her neck.
"My husband wouldn't ever think of doing that to me," said Mrs.
Fink, concealing her envy.
"I wouldn't have a man," declared Mrs. Cassidy, "that didn't beat me
up at least once a week. Shows he thinks something of you. Say! but
that last dose Jack gave me wasn't no homeopathic one. I can see
stars yet. But he'll be the sweetest man in town for the rest of the
week to make up for it. This eye is good for theater tickets and a
silk shirt waist at the very least."
"I should hope," said Mrs. Fink, assuming complacency, "that Mr.
Fink is too much of a gentleman ever to raise his hand against me."
"Oh, go on, Maggie!" said Mrs. Cassidy, laughing and applying witch
hazel, "you're only jealous. Your old man is too frapped and slow
to ever give you a punch. He just sits down and practises physical
culture with a newspaper when he comes home - now ain't that the
truth?"
"Mr. Fink certainly peruses of the papers when he comes home,"
acknowledged Mrs. Fink, with a toss of her head; "but he certainly
don't ever make no Steve O'Donnell out of me just to amuse
himself - that's a sure thing."
Mrs. Cassidy laughed the contented laugh of the guarded and happy
matron. With the air of Cornelia exhibiting her jewels, she drew
down the collar of her kimono and revealed another treasured bruise,
maroon-colored, edged with olive and orange - a bruise now nearly
well, but still to memory dear.
Mrs. Fink capitulated. The formal light in her eye softened to
envious admiration. She and Mrs. Cassidy had been chums in the
downtown paper-box factory before they had married, one year before.
Now she and her man occupied the flat above Mame and her man.
Therefore she could not put on airs with Mame.
"Don't it hurt when he soaks you?" asked Mrs. Fink, curiously.
"Hurt!" - Mrs. Cassidy gave a soprano scream of delight. "Well,
say - did you ever have a brick house fall on you? - well, that's just
the way it feels - just like when they're digging you out of the
ruins. Jack's got a left that spells two matinees and a new pair of
Oxfords - and his right! - well, it takes a trip to Coney and six
pairs of openwork, silk lisle threads to make that good."
"But what does he beat you for?" inquired Mrs. Fink, with wide-open
eyes.
"Silly!" said Mrs. Cassidy, indulgently. "Why, because he's full.
It's generally on Saturday nights."
"But what cause do you give him?" persisted the seeker after
knowledge.
"Why, didn't I marry him? Jack comes in tanked up; and I'm here,
ain't I? Who else has he got a right to beat? I'd just like to catch
him once beating anybody else! Sometimes it's because supper ain't
ready; and sometimes it's because it is. Jack ain't particular about
causes. He just lushes till he remembers he's married, and then
he makes for home and does me up. Saturday nights I just move the
furniture with sharp corners out of the way, so I won't cut my
head when he gets his work in. He's got a left swing that jars you!
Sometimes I take the count in the first round; but when I feel like
having a good time during the week or want some new rags I come up
again for more punishment. That's what I done last night. Jack knows
I've been wanting a black silk waist for a month, and I didn't think
just one black eye would bring it. Tell you what, Mag, I'll bet you
the ice cream he brings it to-night."
Mrs. Fink was thinking deeply.
"My Mart," she said, "never hit me a lick in his life. It's just
like you said, Mame; he comes in grouchy and ain't got a word to
say. He never takes me out anywhere. He's a chair-warmer at home for
fair. He buys me things, but he looks so glum about it that I never
appreciate 'em."
Mrs. Cassidy slipped an arm around her chum. "You poor thing!"
she said. "But everybody can't have a husband like Jack. Marriage
wouldn't be no failure if they was all like him. These discontented
wives you hear about - what they need is a man to come home and kick
their slats in once a week, and then make it up in kisses, and