by O. Henry
‘Thought I’d drop up to McCloskey’s,’ he would answer, ‘and play a game or two of pool with the fellows.’
Of late such had been John Perkins’ habit. At ten or eleven he would return. Sometimes Katy would be asleep; sometimes waiting up; ready to melt in the crucible of her ire a little more gold plating from the wrought-steel chains of matrimony. For these things Cupid will have to answer when he stands at the bar of justice with his victims from the Frogmore flats.
Tonight John Perkins encountered a tremendous upheaval of the commonplace when he reached his door. No Katy was there with her affectionate, confectionate kiss. The three rooms seemed in portentous disorder. All about lay her things in confusion. Shoes in the middle of the floor, curling tongs, hair bows, kimonos, powder-box, jumbled together on dresser and chairs – this was not Katy’s way. With a sinking heart John saw the comb with a curling cloud of her brown hair among its teeth. Some unusual hurry and perturbation must have possessed her, for she always carefully placed these combings in the little blue base on the mantel, to be some day formed into the coveted feminine ‘rat’.
Hanging conspicuously to the gas jet by a string was a folded paper. John seized it. It was a note from his wife running thus:
Dear John – I just had a telegram saying mother is very sick. I am going to take the 4.30 train. Brother Sam is going to meet me at the depot there. There is cold mutton in the icebox. I hope it isn’t her quinsy again. Pay the milkman fifty cents. She had it bad last spring. Don’t forget to write to the company about the gas meter, and your good socks are in the top drawer. I will write tomorrow.
Hastily,
Katy
Never during their two years of matrimony had he and Katy been separated for a night. John read the note over and over in a dumbfounded way. Here was a break in a routine that had never varied, and it left him dazed.
There on the back of a chair hung, pathetically empty and formless, the red wrapper with black dots that she always wore while getting the meals. Her weekday clothes had been tossed here and there in her haste. A little paper bag of her favourite butterscotch lay with its string yet unwound. A daily paper sprawled on the floor, gaping rectangularly where a railroad timetable had been clipped from it. Everything in the room spoke of a loss, of an essence gone, of its soul and life departed. John Perkins stood among the dead remains with a queer feeling of desolation in his heart.
He began to set the rooms tidy as well as he could. When he touched her clothes a thrill of something like terror went through him. He had never thought what existence would be without Katy. She had become so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like the air he breathed – necessary but scarcely noticed. Now, without warning, she was gone, vanished, as completely absent as if she had never existed. Of course it would be only for a few days, or at most a week or two, but it seemed to him as if the very hand of death had pointed a finger at his secure and uneventful home.
John dragged the cold mutton from the icebox, made coffee and sat down to a lonely meal face to face with the strawberry marmalade’s shameless certificate of purity. Bright among withdrawn blessings now appeared to him the ghosts of pot roast and the salad with tan polish dressing. His home was dismantled. A quinsied mother-in-law had knocked his lares and penates sky-high. After his solitary meal John sat at a front window.
He did not care to smoke. Outside the city roared to him to come join in its dance of folly and pleasure. The night was his. He might go forth unquestioned and thrum the strings of jollity as free as any gay bachelor there. He might carouse and wander and have his fling until dawn if he liked; and there would be no wrathful Katy waiting for him, bearing the chalice that held the dregs of his joy. He might play pool at McCloskey’s with his roistering friends until Aurora dimmed the electric bulbs if he chose. The hymeneal strings that had curbed him always when the Frogmore flats had palled upon him were loosened. Katy was gone.
John Perkins was not accustomed to analysing his emotions. But as he sat in his Katy-bereft 10 x 12 parlour he hit unerringly upon the keynote of his discomfort. He knew now that Katy was necessary to his happiness. His feeling for her, lulled into unconsciousness by the dull round of domesticity, had been sharply stirred by the loss of her presence. Has it not been dinned into us by proverb and sermon and fable that we never prize the music till the sweet-voiced bird has flown – or in other no less florid and true utterances?
‘I’m a double-dyed dub,’ mused John Perkins, ‘the way I’ve been treating Katy. Off every night playing pool and bumming with the boys instead of staying home with her. The poor girl here all alone with nothing to amuse her, and me acting that way! John Perkins, you’re the worst kind of a shine. I’m going to make it up for the little girl. I’ll take her out and let her see some amusement. And I’ll cut out the McCloskey gang right from this minute.’
Yes, there was the city roaring outside for John Perkins to come dance in the train of Momus. And at McCloskey’s the boys were knocking the balls idly into the pockets against the hour for the nightly game. But no primrose way nor clicking cue could woo the remorseful soul of Perkins, the bereft. The thing that was his, lightly held and half scorned, had been taken away from him, and he wanted it. Backward to a certain man named Adam, whom the cherubim bounced from the orchard, could Perkins, the remorseful, trace his descent.
Near the right hand of John Perkins stood a chair. On the back of it stood Katy’s blue shirtwaist. It still retained something of her contour. Midway of the sleeves were fine, individual wrinkles made by the movements of her arms in working for his comfort and pleasure. A delicate but impelling odour of bluebells came from it. John took it and looked long and soberly at the unresponsive grenadine. Katy had never been unresponsive. Tears – yes, tears – came into John Perkins’ eyes. When she came back things would be different. He would make up for all his neglect. What was life without her?
The door opened. Katy walked in carrying a little hand satchel. John stared at her stupidly.
‘My! I’m glad to get back,’ said Katy. ‘Ma wasn’t sick to amount to anything. Sam was at the depot, and said she just had a little spell, and got all right soon after they telegraphed. So I took the next train back. I’m just dying for a cup of coffee.’
Nobody heard the click and the rattle of the cogwheels as the third-floor front of the Frogmore flats buzzed its machinery back into the Order of Things. A band slipped, a spring was touched, the gear was adjusted and the wheels revolved in their old orbits.
John Perkins looked at the clock. It was 8.15. He reached for his hat and walked to the door.
‘Now, where are you going, I’d like to know, John Perkins?’ asked Katy, in a querulous tone.
‘Thought I’d drop up to McCloskey’s,’ said John, ‘and play a game or two of pool with the fellows.’
Dougherty’s Eye-Opener
Big Jim Dougherty was a sport. He belonged to that race of men. In Manhattan it is a distinct race. They are the Caribs of the North – strong, artful, self-sufficient, clannish, honourable within the laws of their race, holding in lenient contempt neighbouring tribes who bow to the measure of Society’s tape-line. I refer, of course, to the titled nobility of sportdom. There is a class which bears as a qualifying adjective the substantive belonging to a wind instrument made of a cheap and base metal. But the tin mines of Cornwall never produced the material for manufacturing descriptive nomenclature for ‘Big Jim’ Dougherty.
The habitat of the sport is the lobby or the outside corner of certain hotels and combination restaurants and cafés. They are mostly men of different sizes, running from small to large; but they are unanimous in the possession of a recently shaven, blue-black cheek and chin and dark overcoats (in season) with black velvet collars.
Of the domestic life of the sport little is known. It has been said that Cupid and Hymen sometimes take a hand in the game and copper the queen of hearts to lose. Daring theorists have averred – not content with simply saying – that a sport
often contracts a spouse, and even incurs descendants. Sometimes he sits in the game of politics; and then at chowder picnics there is a revelation of a Mrs Sport and little Sports in glazed hats with tin pails.
But mostly the sport is Oriental. He believes his womenfolk should not be too patent. Somewhere behind grilles or flower-ornamented fire escapes they await him. There, no doubt, they tread on rugs from Teheran and are diverted by the bulbul and play upon the dulcimer and feed upon sweetmeats. But away from his home the sport is an integer. He does not, as men of other races in Manhattan do, become the convoy in his unoccupied hours of fluttering laces and high heels that tick off delectably the happy seconds of the evening parade. He herds with his own race at corners, and delivers a commentary in his Carib lingo upon the passing show.
‘Big Jim’ Dougherty had a wife, but he did not wear a button portrait of her upon his lapel. He had a home in one of those brownstone, iron-railed streets on the west side that look like a recently excavated bowling alley of Pompeii.
To this home of his Mr Dougherty repaired each night when the hour was so late as to promise no further diversion in the arch domains of sport. By that time the occupant of the monogamistic harem would be in dreamland, the bulbul silenced, and the hour propitious for slumber.
‘Big Jim’ always arose at twelve, meridian, for breakfast, and soon afterward he would return to the rendezvous of his ‘crowd’.
He was always vaguely conscious that there was a Mrs Dougherty. He would have received without denial the charge that the quiet, neat, comfortable little woman across the table at home was his wife. In fact, he remembered pretty well that they had been married for nearly four years. She would often tell him about the cute tricks of Spot, the canary, and the light-haired lady that lived in the window of the flat across the street.
‘Big Jim’ Dougherty even listened to this conversation of hers sometimes. He knew that she would have a nice dinner ready for him every evening at seven when he came for it. She sometimes went to matinees, and she had a talking machine with six dozen records. Once when her Uncle Amos blew in on a wind from upstate, she went with him to the Eden Musée. Surely these things were diversions enough for any woman.
One afternoon, Mr Dougherty finished his breakfast, put on his hat, and got away fairly for the door. When his hand was on the knob he heard his wife’s voice.
‘Jim,’ she said firmly, ‘I wish you would take me out to dinner this evening. It has been three years since you have been outside the door with me.’
‘Big Jim’ was astounded. She had never asked anything like this before. It had the flavour of a totally new proposition. But he was a game sport.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘You be ready when I come at seven. None of this “wait two minutes till I primp an hour or two” kind of business, now, Dele.’
‘I’ll be ready,’ said his wife calmly.
At seven she descended the stone steps in the Pompeian bowling alley at the side of ‘Big Jim’ Dougherty. She wore a dinner gown made of a stuff that the spiders must have woven, and of a colour that a twilight sky must have contributed. A light coat with many admirably unnecessary capes and adorably inutile ribbons floated downward from her shoulders. Fine feathers do make fine birds; and the only reproach in the saying is for the man who refuses to give up his earnings to the ostrich-tip industry.
‘Big Jim’ Dougherty was troubled. There was a being at his side whom he did not know. He thought of the sober-hued plumage that this bird of paradise was accustomed to wear in her cage, and this winged revelation puzzled him. In some way she reminded him of the Delia Cullen that he had married four years before. Shyly and rather awkwardly he stalked at her right hand.
‘After dinner I’ll take you back home, Dele,’ said Mr Dougherty, ‘and then I’ll drop back up to Seltzer’s with the boys. You can have swell chuck tonight if you want it. I made a winning on Anaconda yesterday; so you can go as far as you like.’
Mr Dougherty had intended to make the outing with his unwonted wife an inconspicuous one. Uxoriousness was a weakness that the precepts of the Caribs did not countenance. If any of his friends of the track, the billiard cloth or the square circle had wives they had never complained of the fact in public. There were a number of table d’hôte places on the cross streets near the broad and shining way; and to one of these he had purposed to escort her so that the bushel might not be removed from the light of his domesticity.
But while on the way Mr Dougherty altered those intentions. He had been casting stealthy glances at his attractive companion, and he was seized with the conviction that she was no selling-plater. He resolved to parade with his wife past Seltzer’s café, where at this time a number of his tribe would be gathered to view the daily evening procession. Yes; and he would take her to dine at Hoogley’s, the swellest slow-lunch warehouse on the line, he said to himself.
The congregation of smooth-faced tribal gentlemen were on watch at Seltzer’s. As Mr Dougherty and his reorganised Delia passed they stared, momentarily petrified, and then removed their hats – a performance as unusual to them as was the astonishing innovation presented to their gaze by ‘Big Jim’. On the latter gentleman’s impassive face there appeared a slight flicker of triumph – a faint flicker, no more to be observed than the expression called there by the draft of little casino to a four-card spade flush.
Hoogley’s was animated. Electric lights shone – as, indeed, they were expected to do. And the napery, the glassware and the flowers also meritoriously performed the spectacular duties required of them. The guests were numerous, well-dressed and gay.
A waiter – not necessarily obsequious – conducted ‘Big Jim’ Dougherty and his wife to a table.
‘Play that menu straight across for what you like, Dele,’ said ‘Big Jim’. ‘It’s you for a trough of the gilded oats tonight. It strikes me that maybe we’ve been sticking too fast to home fodder.’
‘Big Jim’s’ wife gave her order. He looked at her with respect. She had mentioned truffles; and he had not known that she knew what truffles were. From the wine list she designated an appropriate and desirable brand. He looked at her with some admiration.
She was beaming with the innocent excitement that woman derives from the exercise of her gregariousness. She was talking to him about a hundred things with animation and delight. And as the meal progressed her cheeks, colourless from a life indoors, took on a delicate flush. ‘Big Jim’ looked around the room and saw that none of the women there had her charm. And then he thought of the three years she had suffered immurement, uncomplaining, and a flush of shame warmed him, for he carried fair play as an item in his creed.
But when the Honourable Patrick Corrigan, leader in Dougherty’s district and a friend of his, saw them and came over to the table, matters got to the three-quarter stretch. The Honourable Patrick was a gallant man, both in deeds and words. As for the Blarney Stone, his previous actions toward it must have been pronounced. Heavy damages for breach of promise could surely have been obtained had the Blarney Stone seen fit to sue the Honourable Patrick.
‘Jimmy, old man!’ he called; he clapped Dougherty on the back; he shone like a midday sun upon Delia.
‘Honourable Mr Corrigan – Mrs Dougherty,’ said ‘Big Jim’. The Honourable Patrick became a fountain of entertainment and admiration. The waiter had to fetch a third chair for him; he made another at the table, and the wineglasses were refilled.
‘You selfish old rascal!’ he exclaimed, shaking an arch finger at ‘Big Jim’, ‘to have kept Mrs Dougherty a secret from us.’
And then ‘Big Jim’ Dougherty, who was no talker, sat dumb, and saw the wife who had dined every evening for three years at home, blossom like a fairy flower. Quick, witty, charming, full of light and ready talk, she received the experienced attack of the Honourable Patrick on the field of repartee and surprised, vanquished, delighted him. She unfolded her long-closed petals, and around her the room became a garden. They tried to include ‘Big Jim’ in the conver
sation, but he was without a vocabulary.
And then a stray bunch of politicians and good fellows who lived for sport came into the room. They saw ‘Big Jim’ and the leader, and over they came and were made acquainted with Mrs Dougherty. And in a few minutes she was holding a salon. Half a dozen men surrounded her, courtiers all, and six found her capable of charming. ‘Big Jim’ sat, grim, and kept saying to himself: ‘Three years, three years!’
The dinner came to an end. The Honourable Patrick reached for Mrs Dougherty’s cloak; but that was a matter of action instead of words, and Dougherty’s big hand got it first by two seconds.
While the farewells were being said at the door the Honourable Patrick smote Dougherty mightily between the shoulders.
‘Jimmy, me boy,’ he declared, in a giant whisper, ‘the madam is a jewel of the first water. Ye’re a lucky dog.’
‘Big Jim’ walked homeward with his wife. She seemed quite as pleased with the lights and show windows in the streets as with the admiration of the men in Hoogley’s. As they passed Seltzer’s they heard the sound of many voices in the café. The boys would be starting the drinks around now and discussing past performances.
At the door of their home Delia paused. The pleasure of the outing radiated softly from her countenance. She could not hope for Jim of evenings, but the glory of this one would lighten her lonely hours for a long time.
‘Thank you for taking me out, Jim,’ she said gratefully. ‘You’ll be going back up to Seltzer’s now, of course.’
‘To — with Seltzer’s,’ said ‘Big Jim’ emphatically. ‘And d— Pat Corrigan! Does he think I haven’t got any eyes?’
And the door closed behind both of them.
A Harlem Tragedy
Harlem.
Mrs Fink has dropped into Mrs Cassidy’s flat one flight below.