Complete Works of Frank Norris

by Frank Norris

  “Oh,” she said, with a mixture of coquetry and timidity that was charming, “is this — this is Mr. Barclay, I believe?”

  Barclay replied that he had every reason to think it was.

  “I am Miss Willis,” she went on; “Mrs. Trevor’s cousin.”

  Barclay bowed.

  “From the country.”

  Barclay smiled, because it was evident she expected him to.

  “And Mrs. Trevor asked me to — to talk to you in case you came before she got back — and — and — I don’t think she will be back for half an hour.”

  “It is delightful!” murmured Barclay, vaguely. “Which?” said Miss Willis, beginning to laugh. “By the way, you had better sit down.” She settled herself upon the sofa.

  “Why, just this.” Barclay waved his hand as though to take in the situation, inclusive of Miss Willis and himself.

  “It’s delicious!” said Miss Willis.

  Barclay sat down — upon the sofa.

  “But we’ve not been introduced, you know,” began Miss Willis, shaking her head at him.

  “We must get along without it.”

  “Do you think we can?”

  “Can what?”

  “Get along — together.”

  “Some one has said that ‘together’ is the prettiest word in the language. Yes, I think we can.”

  “But will you meet me half way — you know, I’m from the country.”

  “I’ll do more than that, if you will let me.” Barclay dropped his hand upon the sofa.

  “That would be very kind. Oh, I was to make tea for you, so Mrs. Trevor said.”

  “Oh, bother the tea! Wouldn’t you rather talk?”

  “I think I would — to you.”

  Barclay looked quizzically at the point of his varnished boot.

  “You know, I — I’m not in such a hurry to have Mrs. Trevor come home.” He slid his hand an inch or two along the sofa.

  “And she won’ t be here for — a — whole — half — hour.

  “I’ve heard of a battle that was won in less than that time. Do you think a girl could be?”

  “Could be won in half an hour?”

  “Yes.”

  “That would depend much upon the man, wouldn’t it?”

  “If the girl would meet him half way?”

  “But one man promised to do more than that.”

  “I say, Miss Willis—”

  “If the girl would let him, you know. And she might not let him—”

  Barclay’s hand paused.

  “Unless—”

  It moved forward again.

  “Unless she felt sure the man thought she was worth the battle.”

  The hand moved forward another inch. There was an instant’s silence, then Barclay said:

  “She is worth it, I think.”

  “But it might be a long and very dreadful battle.”

  “I’m thinking of the girl, not of that.” As he spoke his hand touched hers, in the folds of her gown. He took it in his own. She did not move. Suddenly she flashed a smile at him.

  “I’m sorry Mrs. Trevor keeps you waiting so long. It’s more than half an hour already.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Are you quite sure of that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Miss Willis drew her hand from his and rose to her feet with a good-humored smile, then she said:

  “I ought not to be surprised at her being late, because I know that she does not intend to come at all.”

  “Not coming at all?” said Barclay, puzzled.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Mrs. Trevor has digged a little pit for you, and that you have fallen into the midst of it.”

  “The deuce!” exclaimed Barclay, his eyes widening. “You know — or perhaps you don’t know,” continued Miss Willis, smiling good-naturedly, “that Mrs. Trevor has been of late a little — just a little — suspicious of your protestations of devotion. She thinks that you are a sad rogue, Mr. Barclay, and that despite your assurances, that you would flirt most outrageously, most unconscionably, with the first pretty girl who would permit it.”

  “Come, now, I say, Miss Willis.”

  “And so, since Mrs. Trevor has the great goodness to think me not too unpresentable, she asked me to receive you this afternoon, and to make myself agreeable, in order that I might inform her afterward as to results.”

  “The devil she did!” cried Barclay, quite out of countenance. He got to his feet, his forehead puckering uneasily.

  “She even went so far,” said Miss Willis, always with the same entrancing smile, “as to confide to me two little notes, one of which I was to hand you in case you proved faithful, and the other should you prove false. In one of them — the one you would have received had you been good — she thanks you for your constancy, and swears to you that she will always and forever love you; the other one — well, the other one treats you in the manner you have deserved and gives you your freedom.”

  “And naturally,” said Barclay, gloomily, “it is this last one you are going to give me?”

  “Don’t you think you have merited it?”

  “How do you know one letter from the other?”

  “The bad one I marked with a cross — see?” and she held it towards him.

  “I say — look here, Miss Willis,” exclaimed Barclay, suddenly; “are you vexed with me for what has happened this afternoon? Do you regret our little tete-a-tete?”

  Miss Willis put her lips together and turned the note about and about in her fingers. She said nothing. “Well, then,” said Barclay, “when you tell Mrs. Trevor all about it, she won’t be very well pleased will she, now?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Women like Mrs. Trevor, even when they are expecting it, don’t like to be — deceived.”

  “She will be furious.”

  “Especially when their successful rival is their little cousin — from the country?”

  “That is one way of looking at it, of course.”

  “Which you hadn’t thought of. I shall be dismissed, of course: but aren’t you afraid she will send you home as well? You know the ‘woman scorned’ quotation?”

  “She might send me back — that is quite true.”

  “Whereas, if you should give me the other letter — the one without the cross — Mrs. Trevor will never know, and I can come often, and — and — and have you make tea for me when Mrs. Trevor is out, and thus you and I and Mrs. Trevor — all of us, in fact — will be happy. Now what do you say?”

  Miss Willis hesitated a moment. (You know what happens when a woman hesitates.) Her eyes met Barclay’s, and she smiled in spite of herself.

  Then without a word she handed him the unmarked letter.

  There was a roll of wheels on the asphalt outside, and the clapping of a carriage door.

  “There is Mrs. Trevor now!” exclaimed Miss Willis.

  “JUSTIN STURGIS”

  WESTERN CITY TYPES

  A SERIES OF SKETCHES FROM The Wave of May 2-16, 1896.

  I. The Plumber’s Apprentice

  His name is “Jonesee,” and he is a tinner and gas-fitter during six days of the week, or at least attempts to persuade his brother-in-law, into whose shop he has been received, that such is his serious occupation. Jonesee tried to impress the fiction upon himself during the first days of his apprenticeship, but the strain of sustaining the character increased in proportion as the novelty of the work diminished, until he has come by gentle degrees to keeping up appearances only during the times when the boss is in, and they are literally “appearances” even then. He never works unless he is absolutely driven to it, and he probably never will as long as he can live at home and exploit his father — who is an annealer in the Mint — for enough change to keep him in beer and “cigareets.”

  In the back room of the grimy tin-shop on Polk Street, Jonesee languishes and chafes by turns. The only ornaments on the walls are
a couple of pictures cut from bill posters of the “Danites,” and a dirty map of San Francisco, on which the location of the tin-shop is at once betrayed by a worn and soiled spot, the result of frequent contact with greasy fingertips. Jonesee hates the place, and is much more content when he is sent out to do an odd job in the neighborhood.

  At such times one sees him on the front platforms of cable cars, his hand-furnace for heating his soldering irons between his feet, together with his solder-sticks, pliers, clamping tools, etc., wrapped in their carpet case, his pockets loaded with brass faucets, short sections of lead pipe, and tweezers.

  On these occasions he wears a suit that has once been black, but has now faded to a shade of green, except upon the trousers above the knee, where, by constant friction with lead and grease and dirt, they are thickly coated with a glazed and shining varnish of black. His battered derby hat is of a blackish green as well, and is marked with sweat stains around the band. He is always smoking the butt of a “cigareet,” which sticks to his lower lip even when he opens his mouth to talk.

  He is even more contented when he goes out to lunch at noon in the Polk-street restaurant, in the window of which one sees three china pigs and a plaster of Paris cow knee-deep in a thick layer of white beans. He likes to gabble and lounge at length among the postmen, car-conductors, and barbers who frequent the place, and hear the latest word on ward politics and prize-fights, or shake dice or match nickels for cigars.

  Sunday, however, is Jonesee’s great day. It is the one day of the seven when he is released from the work of seeming to work. He is not in evidence till the afternoon. Then sometimes he goes out to the Park or to the Cliff House, or sometimes, on rare occasions, rents a horse and buggy with a friend and drives there; sometimes he goes “across the Bay” on a public picnic, or sometimes “takes in” the races, or balloon jumps or high dives as opportunity affords.

  But his favorite and characteristic occupation of a Sunday afternoon is general and promiscuous loafing, posing, trying to be tough, showing himself off in his cheap finery, for at such times he is dressed with scrupulous attention.

  His soft felt hat is pushed back upon his head far enough to show his hair parted very much to one side, neatly oiled and plastered and brought down over his temple in a beautiful flat curve. He wears an inexpensive “Prince Albert” invariably unbuttoned to show the flowered design of his waistcoat. In the lapel of this coat he wears a tuberose. His stand-up collar is very low and overlaps in front, while around this collar and often getting above it is a crocheted four-in-hand “necktie” of salmon pink silk, tied very tightly and transfixed with a scarfpin representing a palette and brushes, with four colors in variously tinted Rhinestones. He fastens this necktie to the side of his shirt so that it traverses diagonally the whole of the triangular expanse left by the vest. His trousers fit him very tightly and are of light brown cloth with broad chocolate colored stripes. The cuffs around his thick red wrists are frayed and in one of his freckled fists he carries a cane, a slender wisp of ebony with a gold head, won at the Tinners’ and Gasfitters’ Prize Masquerade Ball.

  Thus arrayed, and attended by odors of tobacco, beer, hair oil, and German cologne, he lounges with three or four others of his stripe about the entrances of corner groceries, where a Milwaukee beer sign decorates the salient corner and where you may see displayed advertisements for cheap butter, eggs, and tea, painted in green marking ink upon wrapping paper. Here, together with his friends, he will while the time away, talking loud, swearing, spitting, scuffling, and joshing the girls that pass in twos and threes. Now and then he and his friends will go into the bar behind the store and have a “steam” or sometimes himself and a comrade will take off their coats, go into the middle of the street and with frequent cries of “all de way now” pitch curves at one another with an adamantine ball. Toward the close of the afternoon he will sometimes go with them to Golden Gate Avenue and watch the “turn-outs” coming home from the park, commenting upon the horses, and joshing the girl bicyclists. In the evening he goes to a cheap theater, and occasionally closes the day’s enjoyment by becoming drunk and disorderly.

  II. The “Fast Girl.”

  She dresses in a black, close-fitting bolero jacket of imitation astrachan with enormous leg-of-mutton sleeves of black velvet, a striped silk skirt, and a very broad hat, tilted to one side. Her hair is very blonde, though, somehow, coarse and dry, and a little flat curl of it lies low over her forehead. She is marvelously pretty.

  She belongs to a certain class of young girl that is very common in the city. She is what men, amongst each other, call “gay,” though that is the worst that can be said of her. She is virtuous, but the very fact that it is necessary to say so is enough to cause the statement to be doubted.

  When she was younger and a pupil at the Girls’ High School, she had known, and had even been the companion of, girls of good family, but since that time these girls have come to ignore her. Now almost all of her acquaintances are men, and to most of these she has never been introduced. They have managed to get acquainted with her on Kearny Street, at the theaters, at the Mechanics’ Fair, and at baseball games. She tells these men that her name is “Ida.”

  She loves to have a “gay time” with them, which, for her, means to drink California champagne, to smoke cigarettes, and to kick at the chandelier. Understand distinctly, however, that she is not “bad,” that there is nothing vicious about her. Ida is too clever to be “bad,” and is as morbidly careful of appearances and as jealous of her reputation as only fast girls can be.

  She lives with her people on Golden Gate Avenue. Her father has a three-fourths interest in a carpet cleaning “establishment” in the Mission, and her mother gives lessons in hand-painting on china and on velvet.

  In the evening, especially if it be a Saturday evening, Ida invents all sorts of excuses to go “down town.” You see her then on Kearny or Market streets about the time the theaters open, arm in arm with one or perhaps two other girls who are precisely like her. At this time she is not in the least “loud,” either in dress or in conversation, but somehow when she is in the street she cannot raise a finger or open her mouth without attracting attention.

  Like “Jonesee,” Sunday is her great day. Ida usually spends it “Across the Bay” somewhere. A party is gotten up and there is no “chaperon.” Two or three of the men with whom she and her friends have become acquainted during the week arrange the “date.” The day’s amusement is made to include a lunch at one of the suburban hotels and a long drive in a hired “rig.” The party returns home on one of the ferry boats late in the afternoon. By that time they are quite talked out, their good spirits are gone, and they sit in a row, side by side, exchanging monosyllables. Ida’s face is red, her hair is loose, and the little blonde curl has lost its crispness. She has taken off her gloves by this time. In one of her bare hands she carries her escort’s cane, and in the other a bunch of wilted wild flowers. Sometimes, however, the party returns to the city in a later boat, one that makes the trip after dark. Then everything is changed. The party “pairs off” at once. You will see Ida and her “fellar” sitting in one of the dark corners of the deck. The fellar sits as close as the length of his acquaintance with Ida will justify. He rests his elbow on the rail back of her and, by and by, carelessly lets his forearm drop at full length.

  When the Mechanics’ Fair opens Ida rarely misses an evening. I remember that I once saw her and the fellar in the art gallery up-stairs. Ida’s mother, “who gives lessons in hand-painting,” had an exhibit there which they were interested to find: a bunch of yellow poppies painted on black velvet and framed in gilt. When they had found it they stood before it some little time hazarding their opinions and then moved on from one picture to another. Ida had the fellar buy a catalogue and made it a duty to find the title of every picture, for she professes to be very fond of hand-painting. She had “taken it up” at one time and abandoned it only because the oil or the turpentine or something had been unheal
thy for her.

  On this occasion she looked at each picture carefully, her head on one side. “Of course,” she explained to the fellar, “I’m no critic, I only know what I like. I like those ‘heads,’ those ideal heads like that one,” and she pointed with her arm outstretched to a picture of the head of a young girl with disheveled brown hair and upturned eyes. The title of the picture was “Faith.”

  “Yes,” said Ida, reflectively, “I like that kind.”

  III. An Art Student

  He is in evidence to the world outside, at the opening days of spring exhibits, and in and about the art gallery in the Mechanics’ Fair. Sometimes you see him coming back to the city on one of the ferry boats late Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. He has been sketching over in Alameda or among the Berkeley hills. He carries his stretchers, camp-stool, umbrella, and paint-box in a clumsy shawl-strapped bundle, and his empty lunch-basket is full of faded eschscholtzias and wild flowers.

  On week days he works — and he works hard — at the School of Design — the Art Institute. For the past five years he has been working away here desperately, painting carrots, dead fish, bunches of onions, and, above all, stone jugs. He toils at these jugs with infinite pains. If he can manage to reproduce truthfully the little film of dust that gathers upon them, he is happy. A dusty stone jug is his ideal in life.

  He thinks he is an artist and he is quite conscientious about it, and thoroughly believes himself capable of passing opinions upon any picture painted. He expresses these opinions in a loud voice before the picture in question, looking at it with half-shut eyes, making vague gestures at it with his closed fist, moving the thumb as though it were a brush.