ed a fat, black cigar, which he chewed as he
smoked. " You know," he said, " that I was
brought up in Connecticut. I own the old home-
stead there still, and a tenant of mine lives in it.
I've got a place in London, or, I mean, my wife
has, and one in Scotland, and one in Brittany, a
chateau, and one in well, I've a good many here
and there. I keep 'em closed till I want 'ern. I've
never been to the shooting-place in Scotland my
sons go there nor to the London house, but I
have to the French place, and I like it next best
to only one other place on earth. Because it's
among big trees and on a cliff, where you can see
the ships all day, and the girls in colored petti-
coats catching those little fish you eat with brown
bread. I go there in the summer and sit on the



A PATRON OF ART 153

cliff, and smoke and feel just as good as though
I owned the whole coast and all the sea in sight.
I bought a number of pictures of Brittany, and
the girls had the place photographed by a fellow
from Paris, with the traps in the front yard, and
themselves and their friends on the front terrace
in groups. But it never seemed to me to be just
what I remembered of the place. And so what
I want to ask is, if you'll go up to my old place
in Connecticut and paint me a picture of it as I
used to know it when I was a boy, so that I can
have it by me in my room. A picture with the
cow-path leading up from the pool at the foot of
the hill, and the stone walls, and the corn piled
on the fields, and the pumpkins lying around, and
the sun setting behind the house. Paint it on one
of these cold, snappy afternoons, when your blood
tingles and you feel good that you're alive. And
when you get through with that, I'd like you to
paint me a picture to match it of the chateau, and
as many little sketches of the fishermen, and the
girls with the big white hats and bare legs and
red petticoats, as you choose. You can live in
the homestead till that picture's done, and then
you can cross over and live in the chateau.

" I don't see that there is anything wrong in
painting a picture to order, is there ? You paint
a portrait to order, why shouldn't you paint an
old house, or a beautiful castle on a cliff, with the
sea beyond it ? If you wish, I'll close with you
now and call it a bargain."



154 A PATRON OF ART

Mrs. Carstairs had been standing all this time
with an unframed picture in one hand, and a dust
brush in the other, and her husband had been
sitting on the rolled-up Turkish rug and trying
not to look at her.

" I'd like to do it very well," he said, simply.

" Well, that's good," replied the railroad king,
heartily. " You'll need a retaining fee, I suppose,
like lawyers do; and you put your best work on
the two pictures and remember what they mean
to me, and put the spirit of home into them. It's
my home you're painting, do you understand ? I
think you do. That's why I asked you instead
of asking any of the others. Now, you know
how I feel about it, and you put the feeling into
the picture; and as to the price, you ask whatever
you please, and you live at my houses and at my
expense until the work is done. If I don't see
you again," he said, as he laid a check down on
the table among the brushes and paint tubes and
cigars, "I will wish you a merry Christmas."
Then he hurried out and banged the door behind
him and escaped their thanks, and left them alone
together.

The pictures of Breton life and landscape were
exhibited a year later in Paris, and in the winter
in New York, and, as they bore the significant nu-
merals of the Salon on the frame, they were im-
mediately appreciated, and many people asked
the price. But the attendant said they were al-
ready sold to Mr. Cole, the railroad king, who



A PATRON OP ART 155

had purchased also the great artistic success of
the exhibition an old farm-house with a wintry
landscape, and the word " Home " printed be-
neath it.



ANDY M'GEE'S CHORUS GIKL



ANDY M'GEE'S CHOKUS GIRL



ANDY M'GEE was a fireman, and was de-
tailed every evening to theatre duty at the
Grand Opera House, where the Ada Howard
Burlesque and Comic Opera Company was play-
ing " Pocahontas." He had nothing to do but to
stand in the first entrance and watch the border
lights and see that the stand lights in the wings
did not set fire to the canvas. He was a quiet,
shy young man, very strong-looking and with a
handsome boyish face. Miss Agnes Carroll was
the third girl from the right in the first semi-
circle of amazons, and very beautiful. By rights
she should have been on the end, but she was so
proud and haughty that she would smile but sel-
dom, and never at the men in front. Brady, the
stage manager, who was also the second come-
dian, said that a girl on the end should at least
look as though she were enjoying herself, and
though he did not expect her to talk across the
footlights, she might at least look over them
once in a while, just to show there was no ill feel-
ing. Miss Carroll did not agree with him in
this, and so she was relegated to the third place,



160 ANDY M'GEE'S CHOKUS GIRL

and another girl who was more interested in the
audience and less in the play took her position.
When Miss Carroll was not on the stage she used
to sit on the carpeted steps of the throne, which
were not in use after the opening scene, and
read novels by the Duchess, or knit on a pair of
blue woollen wristlets, which she kept wrapped
up in a towel and gave to the wardrobe woman
to hold when she went on. One night there was
a quicker call than usual, owing to Ada Howard's
failing to get her usual encore for her waltz song,
and Brady hurried them. The wardrobe woman
was not in sight, so Agnes handed her novel and
her knitting to M'Gee and said : " Will you hold
these for me until I come off ?" She looked at
him for the first time as she handed him the
things, and he felt, as he had felt several times
before, that her beauty was of a distinctly dis-
turbing quality. There was something so shy
about her face when she was not on the stage,
and something so kindly, that he stood holding the
pieces of blue wool, still warm from her hands,
without moving from the position he had held
when she gave them to him. When she came
off he gave them back to her and touched the
visor of his cap as she thanked him. One of
the other beautiful amazons laughed and whis-
pered, " Agnes has a mash on the fire laddie,"
which made the retiring Mr. M'Gee turn very
red. He did not dare to look and see what effect
it had on Miss Carroll. But the next evening he



ANDY M'GEE'S CHORUS GIRL 161

took off his hat to her, and she said " Good-even-
ing," quite boldly. After that he watched her a
great deal. He thought he did it in such a way
that she did not see him, but that was only be-
cause he was a man ; for the other women noticed
it at once, and made humorous comments on it
when they were in the dressing-rooms.

Old man Sanders, who had been in the chorus
of different comic-opera companies since he was
twenty years old, and who was something of a
pessimist, used to take great pleasure in abus-
ing the other members of the company to Andy
M'Gee, and in telling anecdotes concerning them
which were extremely detrimental to their charac-
ters. He could not find anything good to say of
any of them, and M'Gee began to believe that the
stage was a very terrible place indeed. He was
more sorry for this, and he could Hot at first
understand why, until he discovered that he was
very much interested in Miss Agnes Carroll, and
her character was to him a thing of great and poig-
nant importance. He often wished to ask old
Sanders about her, but he was afraid to do so,
partly because he thought he ought to take it for
granted that she was a good girl, and partly be-
cause he was afraid Sanders would tell him she
was not. But one night as she passed them^ as
proud and haughty looking as ever, old Sanders
grunted scornfully, and M'Gee felt that he was
growing very red.

"Now, there is a girl, "said the old man, "who
11



162

ought to be out of this business. She's too good
for it, and she'll never get on in it. Not that she
couldn't keep straight and get on, but because
she is too little interested in it, and shows no
heart in the little she has to do. She can sing a
little bit, but she can't do the steps."

"Then why does she stay in it?" said Andy
M'Gee.

" Well, they tell me she's got a brother to sup-
port. He's too young or too lazy to work, or a
cripple or something. She tried giving singing
lessons, but she couldn't get any pupils, and now
she supports herself and her brother with this."

Andy M'Gee felt a great load lifted off his
mind. He became more and more interested in
Miss Agnes Carroll, and he began to think up
little speeches to make to her, which were intend-
ed to show how great his respect for her was, and
what an agreeable young person he might be if
you only grew to know him. But she never
grew to know him. She always answered him
very quietly and very kindly, but never with any
show of friendliness or with any approach to it,
and he felt that he would never know her any
better than he did on the first night she spoke to
him. But three or four times he found her
watching him, and he took heart at this and from
something he believed he saw in her manner and
in the very reticence she showed. He counted
up how much of his pay he had saved, and con-
cluded that with it and with what he received



ANDY M'GEE'S CHORUS GIRL 163

monthly he could very well afford to marry.
When he decided on this he became more devot-
ed to her, and even the girls stopped laughing
about it now. They saw it Was growing very
serious indeed.

One afternoon there was a great fire, and he
and three others fell from the roof and were
burned a bit, and the boy ambulance surgeon lost
his head and said they were seriously injured,
which fact got into the afternoon papers, and
when Andy turned up as usual at the Opera
House there was great surprise and much rejoic-
ing. And the next day one of the wounded fire-
men who had had to remain in the hospital over-
night told Andy that a most beautiful lady had
come there and asked to see him and had then
said : " This is not the man ; the papers said
Mr. M'Gee was hurt." She had refused to tell her
name, but had gone away greatly relieved.

Andy dared to think that this had been Ag-
nes Carroll, and that night he tried to see her
to speak to her, but she avoided him and went
at once to her dressing-room whenever she was
off the stage. But Andy was determined to
speak to her, and waited for her at the stage
door, instead of going back at once to the engine-
house to make out his report, which was entirely
wrong, and which cost him a day's pay. It was
Tuesday night, and salaries had just been given
all around, and the men and girls left the stage
door with the envelopes in their hands and dis-



164 ANDY M'GEE'S CHORUS GIRL

cussing the different restaurants at which they
would fitly celebrate the weekly walk of the
ghost. Agnes came out among the last, veiled,
and moving quickly through the crowd of half-
grown boys, and men about town, and poor rela-
tions who lay in wait and hovered around the
lamp over the stage door like moths about a can-
dle. Andy stepped forward quickly to follow her,
but before he could reach her side a man stepped
up to her, and she stopped and spoke to him in a
low tone and retreated as she spoke. Andy heard
him, with a sharp, jealous doubt in his heart, and
stood still. Then the man reached for the enve-
lope in the girl's hand and said, " Give it to me,
do you hear?" and she drew back and started to
run, but he seized her arm. Then Andy jumped
at him and knocked him down, and picked him up
again by the collar and beat 'him over the head.
"Stop !" the girl cried. " Stop !"

" Stop like ," said Andy.

" Stop ! do you hear ?" cried the woman again
"He has a right to the money. He is my hus-
band."

Andy asked to be taken off theatre duty, and
the captain did what he asked. After that he
grew very morose and unhappy, and was as cross
and disagreeable as he could be ; so that the other
men said they would like to thrash him just once.
But when there was a fire he acted like another
man, and was so reckless that the captain, mistak-
ing foolhardiness for bravery, handed in his name



ANDY M'GEE'S CHORUS GIEL 165

for promotion, and as his political backing was
very strong, he was given the white helmet and
became foreman of another engine-house. But
he did not seem to enjoy life any the more, and
he was most unpopular. The winter passed away
and the summer came, and one day on Fifth Ave-
nue Andy met old man Sanders, whom he tried
to avoid, because the recollections he brought up
were bitter ones ; but Sanders buttonholed him
and told him he had been reading about his get-
ting the Bennett medal, and insisted on his tak-
ing a drink with him.

"And, by the way," said Sanders, just as Andy
thought he had finally succeeded in shaking him
off, "do you remember Agnes Carroll? It seems
she was married to a drunken, good-for-nothing
lout, who beat her. Well, he took a glass too
much one night, and walked off a ferry-boat into
the East River. Drink is a terrible thing, isn't
it ? They say the paddle-wheels knocked the "

" And his wife ?" gasped Andy.

" She's with us yet," said Sanders. " We're at
the Bijou this week. Come in and see the piece."

Brady, the stage manager, waved a letter at
the acting manager.

"Letter from Carroll," he said. "Sends in her
notice. Going to leave the stage, she says ; go-
ing to get married again. She was a good girl,"
he added with a sigh, " and she sang well enough,
but she couldn't do the dance steps a little bit."



A LEANDER OF THE EAST RIVER



A LEANDER OF THE EAST RIVER



"TTEFTY" BURKE was one of the best
-1 *- swimmers in the East River. There was
no regular way open for him to prove this, as the
gentlemen of the Harlem boat-clubs, under whose
auspices the annual races were given, called him
a professional, and would not swim against him.
"They won't keep company with me on land,"
Hefty complained, bitterly, " and they can't keep
company with me in the water ; so I lose both
ways." Young Burke held these gentlemen of
the rowing clubs in great contempt, and their
outriggers and low-necked and picturesque row-
ing clothes as well. They were fond of lying
out of the current, with the oars pulled across at
their backs for support, smoking and commenting
audibly upon the other oarsmen who passed them
by perspiring uncomfortably, and conscious that
they were being criticised. Hefty said that these
amateur oarsmen and swimmers were only pretty
boys, and that he could give them two hundred
yards start in a mile of rough or smooth water
and pass them as easily as a tug passes a lighter.
He was quite right in this latter boast ; but, as



170 A LEANDEK OF THE EAST KIVEK

they would call him a professional and would not
swim against him, there was no way for him to
prove it. His idea of a race and their idea of a
race differed. They had a committee to select
prizes and open a book for entries, and when the
day of the races came they had a judges' boat
with gay bunting all over it, and a badly fright-
ened referee and a host of reporters, and police
boats to keep order. But when Hefty swam, his
two backers, who had challenged some other
young man through a sporting paper, rowed in a
boat behind him and yelled and swore directions,
advice, warnings, and encouragement at him, and
in their excitement drank all of the whiskey that
had been intended for him. And the other young
man's backers, who had put up ten dollars on
him, and a tugboat filled with other rough young
men, kegs of beer, and three Italians with two
fiddles and one harp, followed close in the wake
of the swimmers. It was most exciting, and
though Hefty never had any prizes to show for
it, he always came in first, and so won a great deal
of local reputation. He also gained renown as a
life-saver ; for if it had not been for him many a
venturesome lad would have ended his young life
in the waters of the East River.

For this he received ornate and very thin gold
medals, with very little gold spread over a large
extent of medal, from grateful parents and admir-
ing friends. These were real medals, and given to
him, and not paid for by himself as were "Rags"



A LEANDER OF THE EAST RIVER 171

Raegan's, who always bought himself a medal
whenever he assaulted a reputable citizen and the
case was up before the Court of General Sessions.
It was the habit of Mr. Raegan's friends to fall
overboard for him whenever he was in difficulty
of this sort, and allow themselves to be saved, and
to present Raegan with the medal he had pre-
pared ; and this act of heroism would get into the
papers, and Raegan's lawyer would make the
most of it before the judges. Rags had been
Hefty 's foremost rival among the swimmers of
the East Side, but since the retirement of the for-
mer into reputable and private life Hefty was the
acknowledged champion of the river front.

Hefty was not at all a bad young man that is,
he did not expect his people to support him and
he worked occasionally, especially about election
time, and what he made in bets and in backing
himself to swim supplied him with small change.
Then he fell in love with Miss Casey, and the
trouble and happiness of his life came to him
hand and hand together ; and as this human feel-
ing does away with class distinctions, I need not
feel I must apologize for him any longer, but just
tell his story.

He met her at the Hon. P. C. McGovern's
Fourth Ward Association's excursion and picnic,
at which he was one of the twenty-five vice-presi-
dents. On this occasion Hefty had jumped over-
board after one of the Rag Gang whom the mem-
bers of the Half-Hose Social Club had, in a spirit



172 A LEANDER OF THE EAST EIVER

of merriment, dropped over the side of the boat.
This action and the subsequent rescue and ensu-
ing intoxication of the half-drowned member of
the Rag Gang had filled Miss Casey's heart with
admiration, and she told Hefty he was a good one
and ought to be proud of himself.

On the following Sunday he walked out Ave-
nue A to Tompkins Square with Mary, and he
also spent a great deal of time every day on her
stoop when he was not working, for he was work-
ing now and making ten dollars a week as an as-
sistant to an ice-driver. They had promised to
give him fifteen dollars a week and a seat on the
box if he proved steady. He had even dreamed
of wedding Mary in the spring. But Casey was
a particularly objectionable man for a father-in-
law, and his objections to Hefty were equally
strong. He honestly thought the young man no
fit match for his daughter, and would only prom-
ise to allow him to " keep company " with Mary
on the condition of his living steadily.

So it became Hefty's duty to behave himself.
He found this a little hard to do at first, but he
confessed that it grew easier as he saw more of
Miss Casey. He attributed his reform to her
entirely. She had made the semi-political, semi-
social organizations to which he belonged appear
stupid, and especially so when he lost his money
playing poker in the club-room (for the club had
only one room), when he might have put it away
for her. He liked to talk with her about the



A LEANDER OF THE EAST RIVER 173

neighbors in the tenement, and his chance of po-
litical advancement to the position of a watchman
at the Custom-house Wharf, and hear her play
" Mary and John " on the melodeon. He boasted
that she could make it sound as well as it did on
the barrel-organ.

He was very polite to her father and very much
afraid of him, for he was a most particular old
man from the North of Ireland, and objected to
Hefty because he was a good Catholic and fond
of street fights. He also asked pertinently how
Hefty expected to support a wife by swimming
from one pier to another on the chance of win-
ning ten dollars, and pointed out that even this
precarious means of livelihood would be shut off
when the winter came. He much preferred " Pat-
sy" Moffat as a prospective son-in-law, because
Moffat was one of the proprietors in a local ex-
press company with a capital stock of three
wagons and two horses. Miss Casey herself, so it
seemed to Hefty, was rather fond of Moffat ; but
he could not tell for whom she really cared, for
she was very shy, and would as soon have thought
of speaking a word of encouragement as of speak-
ing with unkindness.

There was to be a ball at the Palace Garden on
Wednesday night, and Hefty had promised to call
for Mary at nine o'clock. She told him to be on
time, and threatened to go with her old love,
Patsy Moffat, if he were late.

On Monday night the foreman at the livery



174 A LEANDEB OF THE EAST RIVER

stable of the ice company appointed Hefty a
driver, and, as his wages would now be fifteen
dollars a week, he concluded to ask Mary to marry
him on Wednesday night at the dance.

He was very much elated and very happy.

His fellow-workmen heard of his promotion and
insisted on his standing treat, which he did sev-
eral times, until the others became flippant in
their remarks and careless in their conduct. In
this innocent but somewhat noisy state they start-
ed home, and on the way were injudicious enough
to say, " Ah there !" to a policeman as he issued
from the side door of a saloon. The policeman
naturally pounded the nearest of them on the
head with his club, and as Hefty happened to be
that one, and as he objected, he was arrested. He
gave a false name, and next morning pleaded not
guilty to the charge of " assaulting an officer and
causing a crowd to collect."

His sentence was thirty days in default of three
hundred dollars, and by two o'clock he was on
the boat to the Island, and by three he had dis-
carded the blue shirt and red suspenders of an
iceman for the gray stiff cloth of a prisoner. He
took the whole trouble terribly to heart. He knew
that if Old Man Casey, as he called him, heard
of it there would be no winning his daughter with
his consent, and he feared that the girl herself
would have grave doubts concerning him. He
was especially cast down when he thought of the
dance on Wednesday night, and of how she would



A LEANDER OF THE EAST RIVER 175

go off with Patsy Moffat. And what made it
worse was the thought that if he did not return
he would lose his position at the ice company's
stable, and then marriage with Mary w r ould be
quite impossible. He grieved over this all day,
and speculated as to what his family would think
of him. His circle of friends was so well known
to other mutual friends that he did not dare to
ask any of them to bail him out, for this would
have certainly come to Casey's ears.

He could do nothing but wait. And yet thirty
days was a significant number to his friends, and
an absence of that duration would be hard to ex-
plain. On Wednesday morning, two days after
his arrest, he was put to work with a gang of
twenty men breaking stone on the roadway that
leads from the insane quarters to the penitentiary.
It was a warm, sunny day, and the city, lying
just across the narrow channel, never looked more
beautiful. It seemed near enough for him to
reach out his hand and touch it. And the private
yachts and big excursion-boats that passed, bang-
ing out popular airs and alive with bunting, made
Hefty feel very bitter. He determined that when
he got back he would go look up the policeman
who had assaulted him and break his head with a
brick in a stocking. This plan cheered him some-
what, until he thought again of Mary Casey at
the dance that night with Patsy Moffat, and this
excited him so that he determined madly to break
away and escape. His first impulse was to drop



176 A LEANDER OF THE EAST EIVEE

his crowbar and jump into the river on the in-
stant, but his cooler judgment decided him to wait.
At the northern end of the Island the grass runs
high, and there are no houses of any sort upon it.
It reaches out into a rocky point, where it touches
the still terribly swift eddies of Hell Gate, and
its sharp front divides the water and directs it
towards Astoria on the east and the city on the
west. Hefty determined to walk off from the
gang of w r orkmen until he could drop into this
grass and to lie there until night. This would be
easy, as there was only 7 one man to watch them,
for they were all there for only ten days or one
month, and the idea that they should try to escape