by O. Henry
Thus Goodall’s tempter deserts him. That youth, uncomplaining and uncaring, takes a spell at coughing, and, recovered, wanders desultorily on down the street, the name of which he neither knows nor recks. At a certain point he perceives swinging doors, and hears, filtering between them, a noise of wind and string instruments. Two men enter from the street as he arrives, and he follows them in. There is a kind of antechamber, plentifully set with palms and cactuses and oleanders. At little marble-topped tables some people sit, while soft-shod attendants bring the beer. All is orderly, clean, melancholy—gay; of the German method of pleasure. At his right is the foot of a stairway. A man standing there holds out his hand. Goodall extends his, full of silver, and the man selects therefrom a coin. Goodall goes upstairs, and sees there two galleries extending along the sides of a concert hall which he now perceives to lie below and beyond the anteroom he had first entered. These galleries are divided into boxes or stalls which bestow, with the aid of hanging lace curtains, a certain privacy upon their occupants.
Passing, with aimless feet, down the aisle contiguous to these saucy and discreet compartments, he is half checked by the sight, in one of them, of a young woman, alone and seated in an attitude of reflection. This young woman becomes aware of his approach. A smile from her brings him to a standstill, and her subsequent invitation draws him, though hesitating, to the other chair in the box, a little table between them.
Goodall is only nineteen. There are some whom, when the terrible god Phthisis wishes to destroy he first makes beautiful; and the boy is one of these. His face is wax, and an awful pulchritude is born of the menacing flame in his cheeks. His eyes reflect an unearthly vista engendered by the certainty of his doom. As it is forbidden man to guess accurately concerning his fate, it is inevitable that he shall tremble at the slightest lifting of the veil.
The young woman is well dressed, and exhibits a beauty of a distinctly feminine and tender sort; an Eve-like comeliness that seems scarcely predestined to fade.
It is immaterial, the steps by which the two mount to a certain plane of good understanding; they are short and few, as befits the occasion.
A button against the wall of the partition is frequently disturbed, and a waiter comes and goes at its signal. Pensive Beauty would nothing of wine; two thick plaits of her blonde hair hang almost to the floor; she is a lineal descendant of the Loreley. So the waiter brings the brew; effervescent, icy, greenish-golden. The orchestra on the stage is playing “Oh, Rachel.” The two youngsters have exchanged a good bit of information. She calls him “Walter,” and he calls her “Miss Rosa.”
Goodall’s tongue is loosened, and he has told her everything about himself. About his home in Tennessee, the old pillared mansion under the oaks, the stables, the hunting; the friends he has; down to the chickens, and the box bushes bordering the walks. About his coming South for the climate, hoping to escape the hereditary foe of his family. All about his three months on a ranch; the deer hunts, the rattlers, and the rollicking in the cow camps. Then of his advent to Santone, where he has indirectly learned from a great specialist that his life’s calendar probably contains but two more leaves. And then of this death-white, choking night which has come and strangled his fortitude, and sent him out to seek a port amid its depressing billows.
“My weekly letter from home failed to come,” he told her, “and I was pretty blue. I knew I had to go before long, and I was tired of waiting. I went out and began to buy morphine at every drug store where they would sell me a few tablets. I got thirty-six quarter-grains, and was going back to my room and take them, but I met a queer fellow on a bridge, who had a new idea.”
Goodall fillips a little pasteboard box upon the table, “I put ’em all together in there.”
Miss Rosa, being a woman, must raise the lid, and gave a slight shiver at the innocent-looking triturates. “Horrid things! but, those little, white bits—they could never kill one!”
Indeed they could. Walter knew better. Nine grains of morphia! Why, half the amount might.
Miss Rosa demands to know about Mr. Hurd, of Toledo, and is told. She laughs like a delighted child. “What a funny fellow! But tell me more about your home and your sisters, Walter. I know enough about Texas and tarantulas and cowboys.”
The theme is dear, just now, to his mood, and he lays before her the simple details of a true home; the little ties and endearments that so fill the exile’s heart. Of his sisters, one Alice furnishes him a theme he loves to dwell upon.
“She is like you, Miss Rosa,” he says. “Maybe not quite so pretty, but just as nice, and good, and—”
“There! Walter,” says Miss Rosa sharply, “now talk about something else.”
But a shadow falls upon the wall outside, preceding a big, softly treading man, finely dressed, who pauses a second before the curtains and then passes on. Presently comes the waiter with a message: “Mr. Rolfe says—”
“Tell Rolfe I ’m engaged.”
“I don’t know why it is,” says Goodall, of Memphis, “but I don’t feel as bad as I did. An hour ago I wanted to die, but since I’ve met you, Miss Rosa, I’d like, so much, to live.”
The young woman whirls around the table, lays an arm behind his neck, and kisses him on the cheek.
“You must, dear boy,” she says. “I know what was the matter. It was this miserable foggy weather that has lowered your spirit and mine too—a little. But, look now!”
With a little spring she has drawn back the curtains. A window is in the wall opposite, and lo! the mist is cleared away. The indulgent moon is out again, revoyaging the plumbless sky. Roof and parapet and spire are softly pearl enamelled. Twice, thrice the retrieved river flashes back, between the houses, the light of the firmament. A tonic day will dawn, sweet and prosperous.
“Talk of death, when the world is so beautiful!” says Miss Rosa, laying her hand on his shoulder. “Do something to please me, Walter. Go home to your rest, and say: ‘I mean to get better,’ and do it.”
“If you ask it,” says the boy, with a smile, “I will.”
The waiter brings full glasses. Did they ring? No; but it is well. He may leave them. A farewell glass. Miss Rosa says: “To your better health, Walter.” He says: “To our next meeting.”
His eyes look no longer into the void, but gaze upon the antithesis of death. His foot is set in an undiscovered country to-night. He is obedient, ready to go. “Good-night,” she says.
“I never kissed a girl before,” he confesses, “except my sisters.”
“You did n’t this time,” she laughs, “I kissed you—good-night.”
“When shall I see you again?” he persists.
“You promised me to go home,” she frowns, “and get well. Perhaps we shall meet again—soon. Good-night.” He hesitates, his hat in hand. She smiles broadly and kisses him once more, upon the forehead. She watches him far down the aisle, then sits again at the table.
The shadow falls once more against the wall. This time the big, softly stepping man parts the curtains and looks in. Miss Rosa’s eye meets his, and for half a minute they remain thus, silent, fighting a battle with that king of weapons. Presently the big man drops the curtains and passes on.
The orchestra ceases playing suddenly, and an important voice can be heard loudly talking in one of the boxes farther down the aisle. No doubt some citizen entertains there some visitor to the town, and Miss Rosa leans back in her chair and smiles at some of the words she catches:
“Purest atmosphere—in the world—litmus paper all along—nothing hurtful—our city—nothing but pure ozone.”
The waiter returns for the tray and glasses. As he enters, the girl crushes a little empty pasteboard box in her hand, and throws it in a corner. She is stirring something in her glass with her hat-pin.
“Why, Miss Rosa,” says the waiter, with the civil familiarity he uses,—“putting salt i
n your beer this early in the night!”
Friends in San Rosario
* * *
THE WEST-BOUND stopped at San Rosario on time at 8.20 A.M. A man with a thick black-leather wallet under his arm left the train and walked rapidly up the main street of the town. There were other passengers who also got off at San Rosario, but they either slouched limberly over to the railroad eating-house or the Silver Dollar saloon, or joined the groups of idlers about the station.
Indecision had no part in the movements of the man with the wallet. He was short in stature, but strongly built, with very light, closely-trimmed hair, smooth, determined face, and aggressive, gold-rimmed nose glasses. He was well dressed in the prevailing Eastern style. His air denoted a quiet but conscious reserve force, if not actual authority.
After walking a distance of three squares he came to the centre of the town’s business area. Here another street of importance crossed the main one, forming the hub of San Rosario’s life and commerce. Upon one corner stood the post-office. Upon another Rubensky’s Clothing Emporium. The other two diagonally opposing corners were occupied by the town’s two banks, the First National and the Stockmen’s National. Into the First National Bank of San Rosario the newcomer walked, never slowing his brisk step until he stood at the cashier’s window. The bank opened for business at nine, and the working force was already assembled, each member preparing his department for the day’s business. The cashier was examining the mail when he noticed the stranger standing at his window.
“Bank does n’t open ’til nine,” he remarked, curtly, but without feeling. He had had to make that statement so often to early birds since San Rosario adopted city banking hours.
“I am well aware of that,” said the other man, in cool, brittle tones. “Will you kindly receive my card?”
The cashier drew the small, spotless parallelogram inside the bars of his wicket, and read:
“Oh—er—will you walk around inside, Mr.—er—Nettlewick. Your first visit—did n’t know your business, of course. Walk right around, please.”
The examiner was quickly inside the sacred precincts of the bank, where he was ponderously introduced to each employee in turn by Mr. Edlinger, the cashier—a middle-aged gentleman of deliberation, discretion, and method.
“I was kind of expecting Sam Turner round again, pretty soon,” said Mr. Edlinger. “Sam ’s been examining us now, for about four years. I guess you ’ll find us all right, though, considering the tightness in business. Not overly much money on hand, but able to stand the storms, sir, stand the storms.”
“Mr. Turner and I have been ordered by the Comptroller to exchange districts,” said the examiner, in his decisive, formal tones. “He is covering my old territory in Southern Illinois and Indiana. I will take the cash first, please.”
Perry Dorsey, the teller, was already arranging his cash on the counter for the examiner’s inspection. He knew it was right to a cent, and he had nothing to fear, but he was nervous and flustered. So was every man in the bank. There was something so icy and swift, so impersonal and uncompromising about this man that his very presence seemed an accusation. He looked to be a man who would never make nor overlook an error.
Mr. Nettlewick first seized the currency, and with a rapid, almost juggling motion, counted it by packages. Then he spun the sponge cup toward him and verified the count by bills. His thin, white fingers flew like some expert musician’s upon the keys of a piano. He dumped the gold upon the counter with a crash, and the coins whined and sang as they skimmed across the marble slab from the tips of his nimble digits. The air was full of fractional currency when he came to the halves and quarters. He counted the last nickle and dime. He had the scales brought, and he weighed every sack of silver in the vault. He questioned Dorsey concerning each of the cash memoranda—certain checks, charge slips, etc., carried over from the previous day’s work—with unimpeachable courtesy, yet with something so mysteriously momentous in his frigid manner, that the teller was reduced to pink cheeks and a stammering tongue.
This newly-imported examiner was so different from Sam Turner. It had been Sam’s way to enter the bank with a shout, pass the cigars, and tell the latest stories he had picked up on his rounds. His customary greeting to Dorsey had been, “Hello, Perry! Have n’t skipped out with the boodle yet, I see.” Turner’s way of counting the cash had been different, too. He would finger the packages of bills in a tired kind of way, and then go into the vault and kick over a few sacks of silver, and the thing was done. Halves and quarters and dimes? Not for Sam Turner. “No chicken feed for me,” he would say when they were set before him. “I ’m not in the agricultural department.” But, then, Turner was a Texan, an old friend of the bank’s president, and had known Dorsey since he was a baby.
While the examiner was counting the cash, Major Thomas B. Kingman—known to every one as “Major Tom”—the president of the First National, drove up to the side door with his old dun horse and buggy, and came inside. He saw the examiner busy with the money, and, going into the little “pony corral,” as he called it, in which his desk was railed off, he began to look over his letters.
Earlier, a little incident had occurred that even the sharp eyes of the examiner had failed to notice. When he had begun his work at the cash counter, Mr. Edlinger had winked significantly at Roy Wilson, the youthful bank messenger, and nodded his head slightly toward the front door. Roy understood, got his hat and walked leisurely out, with his collector’s book under his arm. Once outside, he made a bee-line for the Stockmen’s National. That bank was also getting ready to open. No customers had, as yet, presented themselves.
“Say, you people!” cried Roy, with the familiarity of youth and long acquaintance, “you want to get a move on you. There ’s a new bank examiner over at the First, and he ’s a stem-winder. He ’s counting nickles on Perry, and he ’s got the whole outfit bluffed. Mr. Edlinger gave me the tip to let you know.”
Mr. Buckley, president of the Stockmen’s National—a stout, elderly man, looking like a farmer dressed for Sunday—heard Roy from his private office at the rear and called him.
“Has Major Kingman come down to the bank yet?” he asked of the boy.
“Yes, sir, he was just driving up as I left,” said Roy.
“I want you to take him a note. Put it into his own hands as soon as you get back.”
Mr. Buckley sat down and began to write.
Roy returned and handed to Major Kingman the envelope containing the note. The major read it, folded it, and slipped it into his vest pocket. He leaned back in his chair for a few moments as if he were meditating deeply, and then rose and went into the vault. He came out with the bulky, old-fashioned leather note case stamped on the back in gilt letters, “Bills Discounted.” In this were the notes due the bank with their attached securities, and the major, in his rough way, dumped the lot upon his desk and began to sort them over.
By this time Nettlewick had finished his count of the cash. His pencil fluttered like a swallow over the sheet of paper on which he had set his figures. He opened his black wallet, which seemed to be also a kind of secret memorandum book, made a few rapid figures in it, wheeled and transfixed Dorsey with the glare of his spectacles. That look seemed to say: “You ’re safe this time, but——”
“Cash all correct,” snapped the examiner. He made a dash for the individual bookkeeper, and, for a few minutes there was a fluttering of ledger leaves and a sailing of balance sheets through the air.
“How often do you balance your pass-books?” he demanded, suddenly.
“Er—once a month,” faltered the individual bookkeeper, wondering how many years they would give him.
“All right,” said the examiner, turning and charging upon the general bookkeeper, who had the statements of his foreign banks and their reconcilement memoranda ready. Everything there was found to be all right. Then the stub book of the
certificates of deposit. Flutter—flutter—zip—zip—check! All right. List of overdrafts, please. Thanks. H’m-m. Unsigned bills of the bank, next. All right.
Then came the cashier’s turn, and easy-going Mr. Edlinger rubbed his nose and polished his glasses nervously under the quick fire of questions concerning the circulation, undivided profits, bank real estate, and stock ownership.
Presently Nettlewick was aware of a big man towering above him at his elbow—a man sixty years of age, rugged and hale, with a rough, grizzled beard, a mass of gray hair, and a pair of penetrating blue eyes that confronted the formidable glasses of the examiner without a flicker.
“Er—Major Kingman, our president—er—Mr. Nettlewick,” said the cashier.
Two men of very different types shook hands. One was a finished product of the world of straight lines, conventional methods, and formal affairs. The other was something freer, wider and nearer to nature. Tom Kingman had not been cut to any pattern. He had been mule-driver, cowboy, ranger, soldier, sheriff, prospector, and cattleman. Now, when he was bank president, his old comrades from the prairies, of the saddle, tent, and trail found no change in him. He had made his fortune when Texas cattle were at the high tide of value, and had organized the First National Bank of San Rosario. In spite of his largeness of heart and sometimes unwise generosity toward his old friends, the bank had prospered, for Major Tom Kingman knew men as well as he knew cattle. Of late years the cattle business had known a depression, and the major’s bank was one of the few whose losses had not been great.
“And now,” said the examiner, briskly, pulling out his watch, “the last thing is the loans. We will take them up now, if you please.”