by O. Henry
I took Bill to see the cavity that has been drilled in the city’s tooth, soon to be filled with the new gold subway; and the Eden Musee, and the Flatiron and the crack in the front window-pane of Russell Sage’s house, and the old man that threw the stone that did it when he was a boy — and I asked Bill what he thought of New York.
“You may mean well,” said Bill, with gentle reproach, “but you’ve got in a groove. You thought I was underwear buyer for the Blue- tront Dry Goods Emporium of Pine Knob, N. C., didn’t you? Or the junior partner of Slowcoach & Green, of Geegeewocomee, State of Goobers, come on for the fall stock of jeans, lingerie and whetstones? Don’t treat me like a business friend.
“Do you suppose the wild, insensate longing I feel for metropolitan gayety is going to be satisfied by waxworks and razor-back architecture? Now you get out the old envelope with the itinerary on if, and cross out the Brooklyn Bridge and the cab tha t Morgan rides home in and the remaining objects of interest, for I am going it alone. The Tenderloin, well done, is what I shall admire for to see.”
Bill Jeremy has a way of doing as he says he will. So I did not urge upon him the bridge, or Carnegie Hall or the great Tomb — wonders that the unselfish New Yorker reserves, unseen, for his friends.
That evening Bill descended, unprotected, upon the Tenderloin. The next day he came and put his feet upon my desk and told me about it.
“This Tenderloin,” said he, “is a cross between a fake sideshow and a footrace. It’s a movable feast — somethin’ like Easter, or tryin’ to eat spaghetti with chopsticks.
“Last night I put all my money but nine dollars under a corner of the carpet and started out. I had along a bill-of-fare of this here Tenderloin; it said it begins at Fourteenth street and runs to Forty-second, with Fourth avenue and Seventh on each side of it. Well, I started up from Fourteenth so I wouldn’t miss any of it. Lots of people was travel’in’ on the streets in a hurry. Thinks I, the Tenderloin’s sizzlin’ to-night; if I don’t hurry I won’t get a seat at the performance.
“Most of the crowd seemed to be goin’ up and I went up. And then they seemed to be goin’ down, and I went down. I asks a man n a light overcoat with a blue jaw leanin’ against a lamppost where was this 1 enderloin.
“‘Up that way,’ he says, wavin his finger-ring.
“‘How’ll I know it when I get to it?’ I asks.
“‘Yah!’ says he, like he was sick. ‘ Easy! Youse’il see a flax-headed cull stakin’ a doll in a 98-cent shirtwaist to a cheese sandwich and sarsaparilla, and five Salvation Army corporals waitin’ round for de change. Dere’ll be a phonograph playin’ and nine cops gettin’ ready to raid de joint. Dat’tt be it.’
“I asked that fellow where I was then.
“ ‘Two blocks from de Pump,’ says he.
“I goes on uptown, and seein’ nothin’ particular in the line of sinful delight, I strikes ‘crosstown to another avenue. That was Sixth, I reckon. People was still walkin’ up and down, puttin’ first one foot in front and then the other in the irreligious and wicked manner that I suppose has given the Tenderloin its frivolous reputation. Street cars was runnin’ past, most impious and unre- generate; and the profligate Dagoes was splittin’ chestnuts to roast with a wild abandon that reminded me considerably of doings in Paris, France. The dissipated bootblacks was sleepin’ in their chairs, and the roast peanut whistles sounded gay and devilish among the mad throng that leaned against the awnin’ posts.
“A fellow with a high hat and brass buttons gets down off the top of his covered sulky, and says to me, ‘Keb, sir?’
‘“Whereabouts is this Tenderloin, Colonel?’ I asks.
“‘You’re right in the centre of it, boss,’ says he. ‘You are standin’ right now on the wickedest corner in New York. Not ten feet from here a push-cart man had his pocket picked last night; and if you’re here for a week I can show you at least two moonlight trolley parties go by on the New Amsterdam line.’
“‘Look here,’ says 1, ‘I’m out for a razoo. I’ve got nine iron medallions of Liberty wearin’ holes in my pocket limn’. I want to split this Tenderloin iff two if there’s anything in it.
Now put me on to something that’s reai degraded and boisterous and sizzling with cultured and uproarious sin. Something in the way of metropolitan vice that I can be proud of when I go back home. Ain’t you got any civic pride about you?’
‘“This sulky driver scratched the heel of his chin.
‘“Just now, boss,’ says he, ‘everything’s layin’ low. There’s a tip out that Jerome’s cigarettes ain’t agreein’ with him. If it was any other time — say,’ says he, like an idea struck him, ‘how’d you like to take in the all-night restaurants? Lots of electric lights, boss, and people and fun. Sometimes they laugh right out loud. Out-of-town visitors mostly visit our restaurants.’
“‘Get away,’ says I, ‘I’m beginnin’ to think your old Tenderloin is noth- in’ but the butcher’s article. A little spice and infamy and audible rict is v/hat I am after. If you can’t furnish it go back and climb on your demi-barouche. We have restaurants out West,’ I tells him, ‘where we eat grub attended by artificial light and laughter. Where is the boasted badness of your unjustly vituperated city?’
I he fellow rubs his chin again.
Deed if I know, boss,’ says he, ‘right now. You see Jerome’ — and then he buds out with another idea. ‘Tell you what,’ says he, ‘be the very thing! You jump in my keb and I’ll drive you over to Brooklyn. My aunt’s giving a euchre party to-night,’ says he, ‘because Miles O’Reilly is busy, watchin’ the natatorium — somebody tipped him off it was a pool-room. Can you play euchre? The keb’ll be $3.50 an hour. Jump right in, boss.’
“That was the best I could do on the wickedest corner in New York. So I walks over where it’s more righteous, hopin’ there might be somethin’ doin’ among the Pharisees. Everything, so far as I could see, was as free from guile as a hammock at a Chautauqua picnic. The people just walked up and down, speakin’ of chrysanthemum shows and oratorios, and enjoyin’ the misbegotten reputation of bein’ the wickedest rakes on the continent.”
“It’s too bad, Bill.” I said, “that you were disappointed in the Tenderloin. Didn’t you have a chance to spend any of your money?”
“Oh, yes,” said Bill. “I managed to drop one dollar over on the edge of the sinful district. I was goin’ along down a boulevard when I hears an awful hollerin’ and fussin’ that sounded good — it reminded me of a real enjoyable rough-house out West. Some fellow was quarrelin’ at the top of his voice, usin’ cuss words, and caliin’ down all kinds of damnation about somethin’.
“The sounds come out through a big door in a high buildin and I went in to see the fun. Thinks I, I’ll get a small slice of this here Tenderloin anyhow. Well, I went in, and that’s where I dropped the dollar, i hey came around and collected it.”
“What was inside, Bill?” I asked.
“A fellow told me, when we come out,” said Bill, “it was a church, and one of these preachers that mixes up in politics was denouncin’ the evils of the Tenderloin
THE STRUGGLE OF THE OUTLIERS
AGAIN, to-day, at a certain street, on the ragged boundaries of the city, Lawrence Holcombe stopped the trolley car and got off. Holcombe was a handsome, prosperous business man of forty; a man of high social standing and connections. His comfortable suburban residence was some five miles farther out on the car line from the street where so often of late he had dropped off the outgoing car.
The conductor winked at a regular passenger, and nodded his head archly in the direction of Holcombe’s hurrying figure.
“Getting to be a regular thing,” commented the conductor.
Holcombe picked his way gingerly down a roughly graded side street infested with ragged urchins and impeded by abandoned tinware. He stopped at a small cottage fenced in with a patch of stony ground with a fewr stunted shade-trees growing about it. A stout, middle-aged woman was washing clothes in
a tub at one side of the door. She looked around, and smiled a smile of fat recognition.
“ Good avening, Mr. Holcombe. is it yerself ag’in? Ye’ll find Katie inside, sir.”
“Did you speak to her for me?” asked Holcombe, in a low voice; “did you try to help me ga;n her consent as you promised to do?”
“Sure, and I did that. But, sir, ye know gvurls wi!l be gyurls. The more ye coax ‘em the wilfuller they gets. ’Tis yer own pleadin’ that’ll get her if anything will. An’ 1 hopes ye may, for I tells her she’d never get a betther offer than yours, sir. ’Tis a good girl she is, and a tidy hand for anything from the kitchen to the parlour, and she’s never a fault except, maybe, a bit too much likin’ for dances and ruffles and ribbons, but that’s natural to her age and good looks if I do say it meself, bein’ her mither, Mr. Holcombe. Ye can spake ag’in to Katie, sir, and maybe this time ye’ll have luck unless Danny Conlan, the wild gossoon, has been at it ag’in overpersuadin’ her ag’inst ye.”
Holcombe turned slightly pale, and his lips closed tightly for a moment.
“I’ve heard of this fellow Conlan before. Why does he interfere? Why does he stand in the way? Is there anything between him and Katie? Does Katie care for him?”
Mrs. Flynn gave a sigh, like a puff of a locomotive, and a flap upon the washboard with a sodden garment fhat sent Holcombe, well splashed, six feet away.
“ Ask me no questions about what’s in a gyurl’s heart and Fll tell ye no lies. Her own mither can’t tell any more than yerself, Mr. Holcombe.”
Holcombe stepped inside the cottage. Katie Flynn, with rolled-up sleeves, was ironing a dress of flounced muslin. Criticism of Hol- combe’sdeviation from his own sphere to this star of lower orbit must have waned at the sight of the girl. Her beauty was of the most solvent and convincing sort. Dusky Irish eyes, one great braid of jetty, shining hair, a crimson mouth, dimpling and shaping itself to every mood of its owner, a figure strong and graceful, seemingly full of imperishable life and action — Katie Flynn was one to be sought after and striven for.
Holcombe went and stood by her side as she ironed, and watched the lithe play of muscles rolling beneath the satiny skin of her rounded forearms.
“Katie,” he said, his voice concealing a certam anxiety beneath a wooing tenderness, “I have come for my answer. It isn’t necessary to repeat what we have talked over so often, but you know how anxious I am to have you. You know my circumstances and posiaon, and that you will have every comfort and every privilege that you could ask for. Say ‘Yes,’ Katie, and I’ll be the luckiest man in this town to-day.”
Kate set her iron down with a metallic click, and leaned her elbows upon the ironing board. Her great blue-black eyes went, in rheir Irish way, from, sparkling fun to thoughtful melancholy.
“Oh, Mr. Holcombe, I don’t know what to say. I know you’d be kind to me, and give me the best home I could ever expect. I’d like to say ‘yes’ — indeed I would. I’d about decided to tell you so, but there’s Danny — he objects so.”
Danny again! Holcombe strode up and down the room impatiently frowning.
“Who ‘S this fellow Conlan, Katie?” he asked. “Eer> time I nearly get your consent he comes between us. Does he want you to live always in this cottage for the convenience of his mightiness? Why do you listen to him?”
“He wants me,” said Katie, ia the voice of a small, spoiled child.
“Well, I want yuu too,” said Holcombe, masterfully. “If I could see this wonderful Mr. Corlan, of the persuasive tongue, I’d argue the matter with him.”
“He’s been the champion middleweight lighter of this town,” said Katie, a bit mischievously.
“Oh, has he! Well, that doesn’t frighten me, Katie. In fact, I am not sure but what I’d tackle him a few rounds myself, with you for the prize; although I’m somewhat rusty with the gloves.”
“Whist! there he comes now,” exclaimed Katie, her eyes widening a little with apprehension.
Holccmbe looked out the door and saw a young man coming up from the gate. He walked with an easy swagger. His face was smooth and truculent, but not bad. He wore a cap pulled down to one eye. He walked inside the house and stopped at the door of the room in which stood his rival and the hone of contention.
“You’re after my girl agam, are you?” be grumbled, huskily and ominously. “I don’t like it, do you see? I’ve told her so, and I tell you so. She stays here. For ten cents I’d knock your block off. Do you see?”
“Now Mr. Conlan,” began Holcombe, striving to avoid the argumentum ad hominem, “listen to reason. It is only fair to let Katie choose for herself. Is it quite rhe square thing to try to prevent her from doing what she prefers to do? If it had not been for your interference I would have had her long it ago.
“For live cents,” pursued the unmoved Mr. Conlan, lowering his terms, “ I’d knock your block off.”
Into Holcombe’s eye there came the light of desperate resolve. He saw but one way to clear the obstacle from his path.
“I am told,” he said quietly and firmly, “that you are a fighter. Your mind seems to dwell upon physical combat as the solution to all questions. Now, Conlan, I’m no scrapper, but I’ll fight you to a finish any time within the next three minutes to see who gets the girl. If I win she goes with me. If you win you have your way, and I’ll not trouble her again. Are you game?”
Danny Conlan’s hard, blue eyes looked a sudden admiration.
“You’re all right,” he conceded with gruif candour. “I didn’t think you was that sort. You re all right,, It’s a dead fair sporting prop., and I’m your company. I’ll stand by the results according to terms. Come on, and I’ll show you where it can be pulled off. You’re all right.”
Katie tried to interfere, but Danny silenced her. He led Holcombe down the hill to a deep gully that sheltered them from view. Night was just closing in upon the twilight. They laid aside their coats and hats. Here was a situation in the methodical existence of Lawrence Holcombe, real estate and bond broker, representative business man of unquestionable habits and social position! Fighting with a professional tough in a gully in a squalid settlement for the daughter of an Irish washerwoman!
The combat was a short one. If it had lasted longer, Holcombe would have lost, for both his wind and his science had deteriorated from long lack of training. Therefore, he forced the fighting from the start. It is difficult to say to what he owed his victory over the once champion middleweight. One thing in his favour was that Mr. Conlan’s nerve and judgment had been somewhat shattered by the effects of a recent spree. Another must have been that Holcombe was stimulated to supreme exertion by an absorbing incentive to win — a prompting more powerful than the instinct of the gladiator, deeper than all the motives of gallantry, and more important than the vital influence of love itself. A third fortuitous adjunct was, without doubt, a chance blow upon the projecting chin of the middleweight, under which that warrior sank to the gully’s grime and remained incapable, while Holcombe stood above h:m and leisurely counted him out.
Danny got shakily to his feet, and proved to be a true sport.
“You’re all right,” he said. “But if we’d had it by rounds ’twould have ended different. The girl goes with you, do you see? Pm on the square.”
They climbed back to the cottage.
“It’s settled,” announced EIol- combe. “Mr. Conlan removes his objections.”
“That’s straight,” said Danny. “He’s all right.”
Holcombe had only a scratched and slightly reddened chin from a vicious, glancing uppercut from Danny’s left. Danny showed punishment. One eye was nearly closed. His lip was bleeding.
Katie was a true woman. Such do not at once crown the victor in the tourney for their favour. Pity comes first. The victor must wait for his own. It will come to him. She flew to t he vanquished champion and comforted him, ministering to his bruises. Holcombe stood, serene and smiling, without jealousy.
“To-morrow,” he said to
Katie, with head erect and beaming eyes.
“To-morrow, if you like,” answered Katie.
Holcombe minced his precarious way up the ragged hill among the obsolete tinware. His car came along a-glitter with electric lights and jammed with passengers. He jumped to the rear platform and stood there. At his side he found Weatherly, a friend and neighbour, who had also built a house in the suburbs, a few squares from his own.
“Hello, Holcombe,” yelled Weatherly, above the crash of the car. “ Been looking over some real estate, out here? How’re Mrs. Holcombe and the young H’s?”
“First rate,” shouted Holcombe, “when I left home this morning. How’s the family with you?”
“Only so-so. Usual suburban troubles. Servants won’t stay so far out; tradesmen object to delivering goods in the country; cars break down, etc. What’s pleasing you so? Made a lucky deal to-day?”
Holcombe’s face wore an ecstatic look. He was lingering a little scratch on his chin with one hand. He leaned his head towards Weath- erly’s ear.
“Say, Bob, do you remember that Irish girl, Katie Flynn, that was with the Spatfords so long a time?”
“I’ve heard of her,” said Weath- erly. “They say she stayed a year with them without a single day off. But I don’t believe anv fairv story like that.”
“’Twas a fact. Well, I engaged her to-day for a cook. She’s going out to the house to-morrow.”
“Confound you for a lucky dog,” shouted Weatherly, with envy in his tones and his heart, “and you live four blocks further out than we do!”
THE END
MY TUSSLE WITH THE DEVIL by O. Henry’s Ghost
This collection was published in 1918, offering readers short stories and poems by an anonymous writer, whose style is in the same vein as O. Henry’s works.