STRICTLY BUSINESS

by O. Henry

  "Sure it was," answered the girl with spirit. "Why, what do you think? Do you suppose I'd lie to you? Go down to the shop and ask 'em. I handed it to you on the level."

  "On the dead level?" said Cork. "That's the way I want it; because - "

  "Because what?"

  "I throw up my hands," said Cork. "You've got me goin'. You're the girl I've been lookin' for. Will you keep company with me, Ruby?"

  "Would you like me to - Eddie?"

  "Surest thing. But I wanted a straight story about - about yourself, you know. When a fellow had a girl - a steady girl - she's got to be all right, you know. She's got to be straight goods."

  "You'll find I'll be straight goods, Eddie."

  "Of course you will. I believe what you told me. But you can't blame me for wantin' to find out. You don't see many girls smokin' cigarettes in places like Rooney's after midnight that are like you."

  The girl flushed a little and lowered her eyes. "I see that now," she said meekly. "I didn't know how bad it looked. But I won't do it any more. And I'll go straight home every night and stay there. And I'll give up cigarettes if you say so, Eddie - I'll cut 'em out from this minute on."

  Cork's air became judicial, proprietary, condemnatory, yet sympathetic. "A lady can smoke," he decided, slowly, "at times and places. Why? Because it's bein' a lady that helps her pull it off."

  "I'm going to quit. There's nothing to it," said the girl. She flicked the stub of her cigarette to the floor.

  "At times and places," repeated Cork. "When I call round for you of evenin's we'll hunt out a dark bench in Stuyvesant Square and have a puff or two. But no more Rooney's at one o'clock - see?"

  "Eddie, do you really like me?" The girl searched his hard but frank features eagerly with anxious eyes.

  "On the dead level."

  "When are you coming to see me - where I live?"

  "Thursday - day after to-morrow evenin'. That suit you?"

  "Fine. I'll be ready for you. Come about seven. Walk to the door with me to-night and I'll show you where I live. Don't forget, now. And don't you go to see any other girls before then, mister! I bet you will, though."

  "On the dead level," said Cork, "you make 'em all look like rag-dolls to me. Honest, you do. I know when I'm suited. On the dead level, I do."

  Against the front door down-stairs repeated heavy blows were delivered. The loud crashes resounded in the room above. Only a trip-hammer or a policeman's foot could have been the author of those sounds. Rooney jumped like a bullfrog to a corner of the room, turned off the electric lights and hurried swiftly below. The room was left utterly dark except for the winking red glow of cigars and cigarettes. A second volley of crashes came up from the assaulted door. A little, rustling, murmuring panic moved among the besieged guests. Frank, cool, smooth, reassuring, could be seen in the rosy glow of the burning tobacco, going from table to table.

  "All keep still!" was his caution. "Don't talk or make any noise! Everything will be all right. Now, don't feel the slightest alarm. We'll take care of you all."

  Ruby felt across the table until Cork's firm hand closed upon hers. "Are you afraid, Eddie?" she whispered. "Are you afraid you'll get a free ride?"

  "Nothin' doin' in the teeth-chatterin' line," said Cork. "I guess Rooney's been slow with his envelope. Don't you worry, girly; I'll look out for you all right."

  Yet Mr. McManus's ease was only skin- and muscle-deep. With the police looking everywhere for Buck Malone's assailant, and with Corrigan still on the ocean wave, he felt that to be caught in a police raid would mean an ended career for him. He wished he had remained in the high rear room of the true Capulet reading the pink extras.

  Rooney seemed to have opened the front door below and engaged the police in conference in the dark hall. The wordless low growl of their voices came up the stairway. Frank made a wireless news station of himself at the upper door. Suddenly he closed the door, hurried to the extreme rear of the room and lighted a dim gas jet.

  "This way, everybody!" he called sharply. "In a hurry; but no noise, please!"

  The guests crowded in confusion to the rear. Rooney's lieutenant swung open a panel in the wall, overlooking the back yard, revealing a ladder already placed for the escape.

  "Down and out, everybody!" he commanded. "Ladies first! Less talking, please! Don't crowd! There's no danger."

  Among the last, Cork and Ruby waited their turn at the open panel. Suddenly she swept him aside and clung to his arm fiercely.

  "Before we go out," she whispered in his ear - "before anything happens, tell me again, Eddie, do you l - do you really like me?"

  "On the dead level," said Cork, holding her close with one arm, "when it comes to you, I'm all in."

  When they turned they found they were lost and in darkness. The last of the fleeing customers had descended. Half way across the yard they bore the ladder, stumbling, giggling, hurrying to place it against an adjoining low building over the roof of which their only route to safety.

  "We may as well sit down," said Cork grimly. "Maybe Rooney will stand the cops off, anyhow."

  They sat at a table; and their hands came together again.

  A number of men then entered the dark room, feeling their way about. One of them, Rooney himself, found the switch and turned on the electric light. The other man was a cop of the old régime - a big cop, a thick cop, a fuming, abrupt cop - not a pretty cop. He went up to the pair at the table and sneered familiarly at the girl.

  "What are youse doin' in here?" he asked.

  "Dropped in for a smoke," said Cork mildly.

  "Had any drinks?"

  "Not later than one o'clock."

  "Get out - quick!" ordered the cop. Then, "Sit down!" he countermanded.

  He took off Cork's hat roughly and scrutinized him shrewdly. "Your name's McManus."

  "Bad guess," said Cork. "It's Peterson."

  "Cork McManus, or something like that," said the cop. "You put a knife into a man in Dutch Mike's saloon a week ago."

  "Aw, forget it!" said Cork, who perceived a shade of doubt in the officer's tones. "You've got my mug mixed with somebody else's."

  "Have I? Well, you'll come to the station with me, anyhow, and be looked over. The description fits you all right." The cop twisted his fingers under Cork's collar. "Come on!" he ordered roughly.

  Cork glanced at Ruby. She was pale, and her thin nostrils quivered. Her quick eye danced from one man's face to the other as they spoke or moved. What hard luck! Cork was thinking - Corrigan on the briny; and Ruby met and lost almost within an hour! Somebody at the police station would recognize him, without a doubt. Hard luck!

  But suddenly the girl sprang up and hurled herself with both arms extended against the cop. His hold on Cork's collar was loosened and he stumbled back two or three paces.

  "Don't go so fast, Maguire!" she cried in shrill fury. "Keep your hands off my man! You know me, and you know I'm givin' you good advice. Don't you touch him again! He's not the guy you are lookin' for - I'll stand for that."

  "See here, Fanny," said the Cop, red and angry, "I'll take you, too, if you don't look out! How do you know this ain't the man I want? What are you doing in here with him?"

  "How do I know?" said the girl, flaming red and white by turns. "Because I've known him a year. He's mine. Oughtn't I to know? And what am I doin' here with him? That's easy."

  She stooped low and reached down somewhere into a swirl of flirted draperies, heliotrope and black. An elastic snapped, she threw on the table toward Cork a folded wad of bills. The money slowly straightened itself with little leisurely jerks.

  "Take that, Jimmy, and let's go," said the girl. "I'm declarin' the usual dividends, Maguire," she said to the officer. "You had your usual five-dollar graft at the usual corner at ten."

  "A lie!" said the cop, turning purple. "You go on my beat again and I'll arrest you every time I see you."

  "No, you won't," said the girl. "And I'll tell you why. Witnesses saw me give you the money to
-night, and last week, too. I've been getting fixed for you."

  Cork put the wad of money carefully into his pocket, and said: "Come on, Fanny; let's have some chop suey before we go home."

  "Clear out, quick, both of you, or I'll - "

  The cop's bluster trailed away into inconsequentiality.

  At the corner of the street the two halted. Cork handed back the money without a word. The girl took it and slipped it slowly into her hand-bag. Her expression was the same she had worn when she entered Rooney's that night - she looked upon the world with defiance, suspicion and sullen wonder.

  "I guess I might as well say good-bye here," she said dully. "You won't want to see me again, of course. Will you - shake hands - Mr. McManus."

  "I mightn't have got wise if you hadn't give the snap away," said Cork. "Why did you do it?"

  "You'd have been pinched if I hadn't. That's why. Ain't that reason enough?" Then she began to cry. "Honest, Eddie, I was goin' to be the best girl in the world. I hated to be what I am; I hated men; I was ready almost to die when I saw you. And you seemed different from everybody else. And when I found you liked me, too, why, I thought I'd make you believe I was good, and I was goin' to be good. When you asked to come to my house and see me, why, I'd have died rather than do anything wrong after that. But what's the use of talking about it? I'll say good - by, if you will, Mr. McManus."

  Cork was pulling at his ear. "I knifed Malone," said he. "I was the one the cop wanted."

  "Oh, that's all right," said the girl listlessly. "It didn't make any difference about that."

  "That was all hot air about Wall Street. I don't do nothin' but hang out with a tough gang on the East Side."

  "That was all right, too," repeated the girl. "It didn't make any difference."

  Cork straightened himself, and pulled his hat down low. "I could get a job at O'Brien's," he said aloud, but to himself.

  "Good-by," said the girl.

  "Come on," said Cork, taking her arm. "I know a place."

  Two blocks away he turned with her up the steps of a red brick house facing a little park.

  "What house is this?" she asked, drawing back. "Why are you going in there?"

  A street lamp shone brightly in front. There was a brass nameplate at one side of the closed front doors. Cork drew her firmly up the steps. "Read that," said he.

  She looked at the name on the plate, and gave a cry between a moan and a scream. "No, no, no, Eddie! Oh, my God, no! I won't let you do that - not now! Let me go! You shan't do that! You can't - you mus'n't! Not after you know! No, no! Come away quick! Oh, my God! Please, Eddie, come!"

  Half fainting, she reeled, and was caught in the bend of his arm. Cork's right hand felt for the electric button and pressed it long.

  Another cop - how quickly they scent trouble when trouble is on the wing! - came along, saw them, and ran up the steps. "Here! What are you doing with that girl?" he called gruffly.

  "She'll be all right in a minute," said Cork. "It's a straight deal."

  "Reverend Jeremiah Jones," read the cop from the door-plate with true detective cunning.

  "Correct," said Cork. "On the dead level, we're goin' to get married."

  Let the story wreck itself on the spreading rails of the Non Sequitur Limited, if it will; first you must take your seat in the observation car "Raison d'être" for one moment. It is for no longer than to consider a brief essay on the subject - let us call it: "What's Around the Corner."

  Omne mundus in duas partes divisum est - men who wear rubbers and pay poll-taxes, and men who discover new continents. There are no more continents to discover; but by the time overshoes are out of date and the poll has developed into an income tax, the other half will be paralleling the canals of Mars with radium railways.

  Fortune, Chance, and Adventure are given as synonymous in the dictionaries. To the knowing each has a different meaning. Fortune is a prize to be won. Adventure is the road to it. Chance is what may lurk in the shadows at the roadside. The face of Fortune is radiant and alluring; that of Adventure is flushed and heroic. The face of Chance is the beautiful countenance - perfect because vague and dream-born - that we see in our tea-cups at breakfast while we growl over our chops and toast.

  The Venturer is one who keeps his eye on the hedgerows and wayside groves and meadows while he travels the road to Fortune. That is the difference between him and the Adventurer. Eating the forbidden fruit was the best record ever made by a Venturer. Trying to prove that it happened is the highest work of the Adventuresome. To be either is disturbing to the cosmogony of creation. So, as bracket-sawed and city-directoried citizens, let us light our pipes, chide the children and the cat, arrange ourselves in the willow rocker under the flickering gas jet at the coolest window and scan this little tale of two modern followers of Chance.

  "Did you ever hear that story about the man from the West?" asked Billinger, in the little dark-oak room to your left as you penetrate the interior of the Powhatan Club.

  "Doubtless," said John Reginald Forster, rising and leaving the room.

  Forster got his straw hat (straws will be in and maybe out again long before this is printed) from the checkroom boy, and walked out of the air (as Hamlet says). Billinger was used to having his stories insulted and would not mind. Forster was in his favorite mood and wanted to go away from anywhere. A man, in order to get on good terms with himself, must have his opinions corroborated and his moods matched by some one else. (I had written that "somebody"; but an A. D. T. boy who once took a telegram for me pointed out that I could save money by using the compound word. This is a vice versa case.)

  Forster's favorite mood was that of greatly desiring to be a follower of Chance. He was a Venturer by nature, but convention, birth, tradition and the narrowing influences of the tribe of Manhattan had denied him full privilege. He had trodden all the main-traveled thoroughfares and many of the side roads that are supposed to relieve the tedium of life. But none had sufficed. The reason was that he knew what was to be found at the end of every street. He knew from experience and logic almost precisely to what end each digression from routine must lead. He found a depressing monotony in all the variations that the music of his sphere had grafted upon the tune of life. He had not learned that, although the world was made round, the circle has been squared, and that it's true interest is to be in "What's Around the Corner."

  Forster walked abroad aimlessly from the Powhatan, trying not to tax either his judgment or his desire as to what streets he traveled. He would have been glad to lose his way if it were possible; but he had no hope of that. Adventure and Fortune move at your beck and call in the Greater City; but Chance is oriental. She is a veiled lady in a sedan chair, protected by a special traffic squad of dragonians. Crosstown, uptown, and downtown you may move without seeing her.

  At the end of an hour's stroll, Forster stood on a corner of a broad, smooth avenue, looking disconsolately across it at a picturesque old hotel softly but brilliantly lit. Disconsolately, because he knew that he must dine; and dining in that hotel was no venture. It was one of his favorite caravansaries, and so silent and swift would be the service and so delicately choice the food, that he regretted the hunger that must be appeased by the "dead perfection" of the place's cuisine. Even the music there seemed to be always playing da capo.

  Fancy came to him that he would dine at some cheap, even dubious, restaurant lower down in the city, where the erratic chefs from all countries of the world spread their national cookery for the omnivorous American. Something might happen there out of the routine - he might come upon a subject without a predicate, a road without an end, a question without an answer, a cause without an effect, a gulf stream in life's salt ocean. He had not dressed for evening; he wore a dark business suit that would not be questioned even where the waiters served the spaghetti in their shirt sleeves.

  So John Reginald Forster began to search his clothes for money; because the more cheaply you dine, the more surely must you pay. All of the thir
teen pockets, large and small, of his business suit he explored carefully and found not a penny. His bank book showed a balance of five figures to his credit in the Old Ironsides Trust Company, but -

  Forster became aware of a man nearby at his left hand who was really regarding him with some amusement. He looked like any business man of thirty or so, neatly dressed and standing in the attitude of one waiting for a street car. But there was no car line on that avenue. So his proximity and unconcealed curiosity seemed to Forster to partake of the nature of a personal intrusion. But, as he was a consistent seeker after "What's Around the Corner," instead of manifesting resentment he only turned a half-embarrassed smile upon the other's grin of amusement.

  "All in?" asked the intruder, drawing nearer.

  "Seems so," said Forster. "Now, I thought there was a dollar in - "

  "Oh, I know," said the other man, with a laugh. "But there wasn't. I've just been through the same process myself, as I was coming around the corner. I found in an upper vest pocket - I don't know how they got there - exactly two pennies. You know what kind of a dinner exactly two pennies will buy!"

  "You haven't dined, then?" asked Forster.

  "I have not. But I would like to. Now, I'll make you a proposition. You look like a man who would take up one. Your clothes look neat and respectable. Excuse personalities. I think mine will pass the scrutiny of a head waiter, also. Suppose we go over to that hotel and dine together. We will choose from the menu like millionaires - or, if you prefer, like gentlemen in moderate circumstances dining extravagantly for once. When we have finished we will match with my two pennies to see which of us will stand the brunt of the house's displeasure and vengeance. My name is Ives. I think we have lived in the same station of life - before our money took wings."

  "You're on," said Forster, joyfully.

  Here was a venture at least within the borders of the mysterious country of Chance - anyhow, it promised something better than the stale infestivity of a table d'hôte.