IX
LITTLE OLD NEW YORK
Monday's mail for the Arrowhead was brought in by the Chinaman while MaPettengill and I loitered to the close of the evening meal: a canvassack of letters and newspapers with three bulky packages of merchandisethat had come by parcels post. The latter evoked a passing storm from myhostess. Hadn't she warned folks time and again to send all her stuff byexpress instead of by parcels post, which would sure get her gunned someday by the stage driver who got nothing extra for hauling such matter?She had so!
We trifled now with a fruity desert and the lady regaled me with a briefexposure of our great parcels-post system as a piece of the nerviestpenny pinching she had ever known our Government guilty of. Because why?Because these here poor R.F.D. stage drivers had to do the extra haulingfor nothing.
"Here's old Harvey Steptoe with the mail contract for sixty dollars amonth, three trips a week between Red Gap and Surprise Valley,forty-five miles each way, barely making enough extra on express matterand local freight to come out even after buying horse-feed. Then comesparcels post, and parties that had had to pay him four bits or a dollarfor a large package, or two bits for a small one, can have 'em broughtin by mail for nothing. Of course most of us eased up on him after weunderstood the hellish injustice of it. We took pains not to have thingssent parcels post and when they come unbeknown to us, like these hereto-night, we'd always pay him anyway, just like they was express. It wasonly fair and, besides, we would live longer, Harvey Steptoe beingmorose and sudden.
"Like when old Safety First Timmins got the idea he could have all hissupplies sent from Red Gap for almost nothing by putting stamps on 'em.He was tickled to death with the notion until, after the second load ofabout a hundred pounds, some cowardly assassin shot at him from thebrush one morning about the time the stage usually went down past hisranch. The charge missed him by about four inches and went into the barndoor. He dug it out and found a bullet and two buckshot. Old SafetyFirst ain't any Sherlock Holmes, but even Doctor Watson could of solvedthis murderous crime. When Harvey come by the next night he went out andsays to him, 'Ain't you got one of them old Mississippi Yaegers aboutseventy-five years old that carries a bullet and two buckshot?' Harveythought back earnestly for a minute, then says,'Not now I ain't. I usedto have one of them old hairlooms around the house but I found theyain't reliable when you want to do fine work from a safe distance; so Ithrew her away yesterday morning and got me this nice new 30-30 down toGoshook & Dale's hardware store.'
"He pulled the new gun out and patted it tenderly in the sight of oldTimmins. 'Ain't it a cunning little implement?' he says; 'I tried it outcoming up this afternoon. I could split a hair with it as far, say, asfrom that clump of buck-brush over to your barn. And by the way, Mr.Timmins,' he says, 'I got some more stuff for you here from the SquareDeal Grocery--stuff all gummed up with postage stamps.' He leans his newtoy against the seat and dumps out a sack of flour and a sack of driedfruit and one or two other things. 'This parcels post is a grand thing,ain't it?' says he.
"'Well--yes and no, now that you speak of it,' says old Safety First.'The fact is I'm kind of prejudiced against it; I ain't going to havethings come to me any more all stuck over with them trifling littlepostage stamps. It don't look dignified.' 'No?' says Harvey. 'No,' saysSafety First in a firm tone. 'I won't ever have another single thingcome by mail if I can help it.' 'I bet you're superstitious,' saysHarvey, climbing back to his seat and petting the new gun again. 'I betyou're so superstitious you'd take this here shiny new implement off myhands at cost if I hinted I'd part with it.' 'I almost believe I would,'says Safety First. 'Well, it don't seem like I'd have much use for itafter all,' says Harvey. 'Of course I can always get a new one if myfancy happens to run that way again.'
"So old Safety First buys a new loaded rifle that he ain't got a use onearth for. It would of looked to outsiders like he was throwing hismoney away on fripperies, but he knew it was a prime necessity of lifeall right. The parcels post ain't done him a bit of good since, though Isend him marked pieces in the papers every now and then telling how thepostmaster general thinks it's a great boon to the ultimate consumer.And I mustn't forget to send Harvey six bits for them three packagesthat come to-night. That's what we do. Otherwise, him being morose andturbulent, he'd get a new gun and make ultimate consumers out of all ofus. Darned ultimate! I reckon we got a glorious Government, likecandidates always tell us, but a postmaster general that expected stagedrivers to do three times the hauling they had been doing with no extrapay wouldn't last long out at the tail of an ... route. There'd bepieces in the paper telling about how he rose to prominence from thetime he got a lot of delegates sewed up for the people's choice and howhis place will be hard to fill. It certainly would be hard to fill outhere. Old Timmins, for one, would turn a deaf ear to his country'scall."
Lew Wee having now cleared the table of all but coffee, we lingered fora leisurely overhauling of the mail sack. Ma Pettengill slit envelopesand read letters to an accompanying rumble of protest. She several timeswished to know what certain parties took her for--and they'd be fooledif they did; and now and again she dwelt upon the insoluble mystery ofher not being in the poorhouse at that moment; yes, and she'd of beenthere long ago if she had let these parties run her business like theythought they could. But what could a lone defenceless woman expect?She'd show them, though! Been showing 'em for thirty years now, andstill had her health, hadn't she?
Letters and bills were at last neatly stacked and the poor weak womanfell upon the newspapers. The Red Gap Recorder was shorn of its wrapper.Being first a woman she turned to the fourth page to flash a practisedeye over that department which is headed "Life's Stages--At theAltar--In the Cradle!--To the Tomb." Having gleaned recent vitalstatistics she turned next to the column carrying the market quotationson beef cattle, for after being a woman she is a rancher. Prices forthat day must have pleased her immensely for she grudgingly mumbled thatthey were less ruinous than she had expected. In the elation of whichthis admission was a sign she next refreshed me with various personalitems from a column headed "Social Gleanings--by Madame On Dit."
I learned that at the last regular meeting of the Ladies' FridayAfternoon Shakespeare Club, Mrs. Dr. Percy Hailey Martingale had read apaper entitled "My Trip to the Panama-Pacific Exposition," after which adainty collation was served by mine hostess Mrs. Judge Ballard; thatMiss Beryl Mae Macomber, the well-known young society heiress, wasvisiting friends in Spokane where rumour hath it that she would take acourse of lessons in elocution; and that Mrs. Cora Hartwick Wales,prominent society matron and leader of the ultra smart set of Price'sAddition, had on Thursday afternoon at her charming new bungalow, cornerof Bella Vista Street and Prospect Avenue, entertained a number of herinmates at tea. Ma Pettengill and I here quickly agreed that theproofreading on the Recorder was not all it should be. Then sheunctuously read me a longer item from another column which was signed"The Lounger in the Lobby":
"Mr. Benjamin P. Sutton, the wealthy capitalist of Nome, Alaska, and aprince of good fellows, is again in our midst for his annual visit toHis Honour Alonzo Price, Red Gap's present mayor, of whom he is anold-time friend and associate. Mr. Sutton, who is the picture of health,brings glowing reports from the North and is firm in his belief thatAlaska will at no distant day become the garden spot of the world. Inthe course of a brief interview he confided to ye scribe that on hispresent trip to the outside he would not again revisit his birthplace,the city of New York, as he did last year. 'Once was enough, for manyreasons,' said Mr. Sutton grimly. 'They call it "Little old New York,"but it isn't little and it isn't old. It's big and it's new--we haveolder buildings right in Nome than any you can find on Broadway. Sincemy brief sojourn there last year I have decided that our people beforegoing to New York should see America first."
"Now what do you think of that?" demanded the lady. I said I would beable to think little of it unless I were told the precise reasons forthis rather brutal abuse of a great city. What, indeed, were the "manyre
asons" that Mr. Sutton had grimly not confided to ye scribe?
Ma Pettengill chuckled and reread parts of the indictment. Thereaftershe again chuckled fluently and uttered broken phrases to herself."Horse-car" was one; "the only born New Yorker alive" was another. Itbecame necessary for me to remind the woman that a guest was present. Idid this by shifting my chair to face the stone fireplace in which apine chunk glowed, and by coughing in a delicate and expectant manner.
"Poor Ben!" she murmured--"going all the day down there just to get oneromantic look at his old home after being gone twenty-five years. Idon't blame him for talking rough about the town, nor for his criminalact--stealing a street-car track."
It sounded piquant--a noble theft indeed! I now murmured a bit myself,striving to convey an active incredulity that yet might be vanquished byfacts. The lady quite ignored this, diverging to her own opinion of NewYork. She tore the wrapper from a Sunday issue of a famous metropolitandaily and flaunted its comic supplement at me. "That's how I alwaysthink of New York," said she--"a kind of a comic supplement to the restof this great country. Here--see these two comical little tots standingon their uncle's stomach and chopping his heart out with theiraxes--after you got the town sized up it's just that funny and horrible.It's like the music I heard that time at a higher concert I was drug toin Boston--ingenious but unpleasant."
But this was not what I would sit up for after a hard day'sfishing--this coarse disparagement of something the poor creature wasunfitted to comprehend.
"Ben Sutton," I remarked firmly.
* * * * *
"The inhabitants of New York are divided fifty-fifty between them thatare trying to get what you got and them that think you're trying to getwhat they got."
"Ben Sutton," I repeated, trying to make it sullen.
"Ask a man on the street in New York where such and such a building isand he'll edge out of reaching distance, with his hand on his watch,before he tells you he don't know. In Denver, or San Francisco now, theman will most likely walk a block or two with you just to make sure youget the directions right."
"Ben Sutton!"
"They'll fall for raw stuff, though. I know a slick mining promoter fromArizona that stops at the biggest hotel on Fifth Avenue and has himselfpaged by the boys about twenty times a day so folks will know howimportant he is. He'll get up from his table in the restaurant andfollow the boy out in a way to make 'em think that nine million dollarsis at stake. He tells me it helps him a lot in landing the wise ones."
"Stole a street-car track," I muttered desperately.
"The typical New Yorker, like they call him, was born in Haverhill,Massachusetts, and sleeps in New Rochelle, going in on the 8:12 andcoming out on the--"
"I had a pretty fight landing that biggest one this afternoon, from thatpool under the falls up above the big bend. Twice I thought I'd losthim, but he was only hiding--and then I found I'd forgotten my landingnet. Say, did I ever tell you about the time I was fishing for steelhead down in Oregon, and the bear--" The lady hereupon raised a hushinghand.
* * * * *
Well, as I was saying, Ben Sutton blew into town early last Septemberand after shaking hands with his old confederate, Lon Price, he says howis the good wife and is she at home and Lon says no; that Pettikins hasbeen up at Silver Springs resting for a couple weeks; so Ben says it'stoo bad he'll miss the little lady, as in that case he has somethinggood to suggest, which is, what's the matter with him and Lon taking aswift hike down to New York which Ben ain't seen since 1892, though hewas born there, and he'd now like to have a look at the old home inLon's company. Lon says it's too bad Pettikins ain't there to go along,but if they start at once she wouldn't have time to join them, and Bensays he can start near enough at once for that, so hurry and pack thesuitcase. Lon does it, leaving a delayed telegram to Henrietta to besent after they start, begging her to join them if not too late, whichit would be.
While they are in Louis Meyer's Place feeling good over this coop, incomes the ever care-free Jeff Tuttle and Jeff says he wouldn't mindgoing out on rodeo himself with 'em, at least as far as Jersey Citywhere he has a dear old aunt living--or she did live there when he was alittle boy and was always very nice to him and he ain't done right innot going to see her for thirty years--and if he's that close to the bigtown he could run over from Jersey City for a look--see.
Lon and Ben hail his generous decision with cheers and on the way toanother place they meet me, just down from the ranch. And why don't Icome along with the bunch? Ben has it all fixed in ten seconds, he beingone of these talkers that will odd things along till they sound even,and the other two chiming in with him and wanting to buy my ticket rightthen. But I hesitated some. Lon and Ben Sutton was all right to go with,but Jeff Tuttle was a different kittle of fish. Jeff is a decent man inmany respects and seems real refined when you first meet him if it's insome one's parlour, but he ain't one you'd care to follow step by stepthrough the mazes and pitfalls and palmrooms of a great city if you'resensitive to public notice. Still, they was all so hearty in theirurging, Ben saying I was the only lady in the world he could travel thatfar with and not want to strangle, and Lon says he'd rather have me thanmost of the men he knew, and Jeff says if I'll consent to go he'll takehis full-dress suit so as to escort me to operas and lectures in aclassy manner, and at last I give up. I said I'd horn in on their partysince none of 'em seemed hostile.
I'd meant to go a little later anyway, for some gowns I needed and someshopping I'd promised to do for Lizzie Gunslaugh. You got to hand it toNew York for shopping. Why, I'd as soon buy an evening gown in LosAngeles as in Portland or San Francisco. Take this same LizzieGunslaugh. She used to make a bare living, with her sign reading "Plainand Fashionable Dressmaking." But I took that girl down to New Yorktwice with me and showed her how and what to buy there, instead of goingto Spokane for her styles, and to-day she's got a thriving littlebusiness with a bully sign that we copied from them in the East--"Madame Elizabeth, Robes et Manteaux." Yes, sir; New York has at leastone real reason for taking up room. That's a thing I always try to getinto Ben Sutton's head, that he'd ought to buy his clothes down thereinstead of getting 'em from a reckless devil-dare of a tailor up inSeattle that will do anything in the world Ben tells him to--and hetells him a plenty, believe me. He won't ever wear a dress suit,either, because he says that costume makes all men look alike and heain't going to stifle his individuality. If you seen Ben's figure onceyou'd know that nothing could make him look like any one else, him beingbuilt on the lines of a grain elevator and having individuality noclothes on earth could stifle. He's the very last man on earth thatshould have coloured braid on his check suits. However!
My trunk is packed in a hurry and I'm down to the 6:10 on time. Lon isvery scared and jubilant over deserting Henrietta in this furtive way,and Ben is all ebullient in a new suit that looks like a lodge regaliaand Jeff Tuttle in plain clothes is as happy as a child. When I getthere he's already begun to give his imitation of a Sioux squaw with ahare lip reciting "Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night" in her nativelanguage, which he pulls on all occasions when he's feeling too good.It's some imitation. The Sioux language, even when spoken by a trainedelocutionist, can't be anything dulcet. Jeff's stunt makes it sound likegrinding coffee and shovelling coal into a cellar at the same time.Anyway, our journey begun happily and proved to be a good one, the dayspassing pleasantly while we talked over old times and played ten-centlimit in my stateroom, though Jeff Tuttle is so untravelled that he'llactually complain about the food and service in a dining-car. The poorpuzzled old cow-man still thinks you ought to get a good meal in one,like the pretty bill of fare says you can.
Then one morning we was in New York and Ben Sutton got his first shock.He believed he was still on the other side of the river because hehadn't rid in a ferryboat yet. He had to be told sharply by parties inuniform. But we got him safe to a nice tall hotel on Broadway at last.Talk about your hicks from the brush--Ben was it, c
oming back to thishere birthplace of his. He fell into a daze on the short ride to thehotel--after insisting hotly that we should go to one that was pulleddown ten years ago--and he never did get out of it all that day.
Lon and Jeff was dazed, too. The city filled 'em with awe and they madeno pretense to the contrary. About all they did that day was to buypicture cards and a few drinks. They was afraid to wander very far fromthe hotel for fear they'd get run over or arrested or fall into the newsubway or something calamitous like that. Of course New York was lookingas usual, the streets being full of tired voters tearing up thecar-tracks and digging first-line trenches and so forth.
It was a quiet day for all of us, though I got my shopping started, andat night we met at the hotel and had a lonesome dinner. We was all toodazed and tired to feel like larking about any, and poor Ben was sodownright depressed it was pathetic. Ever read the story about a mangoing to sleep and waking up in a glass case in a museum a thousandyears later? That was Ben coming back to his old town after onlytwenty-five years. He hadn't been able to find a single old friend norany familiar faces. He ordered a porterhouse steak, family style, forhimself, but he was so mournful he couldn't eat more than about twodollars' worth of it. He kept forgetting himself in dismalreminiscences. The onlysright thing he'd found was the men tearing upthe streets. That was just like they used to be, he said. He maunderedon to us about how horse-cars was running on Broadway when he left andhow they hardly bothered to light the lamps north of Forty-secondStreet, and he wished he could have some fish balls like the oldSinclair House used to have for its free lunch, and how in them goldendays people that had been born right here in New York was seen sofrequently that they created no sensation.
He was feeling awful desolate about this. He pointed out differentparties at tables around us, saying they was merchant princes fromSandusky or prominent Elks from Omaha or roystering blades fromPittsburgh or boulevardeers from Bucyrus--not a New Yorker in sight. Hesaid he'd been reading where a wealthy nut had seat out an expedition tothe North Pole to capture a certain kind of Arctic flea that haunts onlya certain rare fox--but he'd bet a born New Yorker was harder to find.He said what this millionaire defective ought to of done with hisinherited wealth was to find a male and female born here and have 'emstuffed and mounted under glass in a fire-proof museum, which would be afar more exciting spectacle than any flea on earth, however scarce andarctic. He said he'd asked at least forty men that day where they wasborn--waiters, taxi-drivers, hotel clerks, bartenders, and just anybodythat would stop and take one with him, and not a soul had been bornnearer to the old town than Scranton, Pennsylvania. "It'sheart-rending," he says, "to reflect that I'm alone here in this bigcity of outlanders. I haven't even had the nerve to go down to WestNinth Street for a look at the old home that shelters my boyhoodmemories. If I could find only one born New Yorker it would brace me upa whole lot."
It was one dull evening, under this cloud that enveloped Ben. We didn'teven go to a show, but turned in early. Lon Price sent a picture card ofthe Flatiron Building to Henrietta telling her he was having a drearytime and he was now glad he'd been disappointed about her not coming, solove and kisses from her lonesome boy. It was what he would of sent heranyway, but it happened to be the truth so far.
Well, I got the long night's rest that was coming to me and started outearly in the A.M. to pit my cunning against the wiles of the New Yorkdepartment stores, having had my evil desires inflamed the day before byan afternoon gown in chiffon velvet and Georgette crepe with silverembroidery and fur trimming that I'd seen in a window marked down to$198.98. I fell for that all right, and for an all-silk jersey sportsuit at $29.98 and a demi-tailored walking suit for a mere bagatelle,and a white corduroy sport blouse and a couple of imported eveninggowns they robbed me on--but I didn't mind. You expect to be robbed foranything really good in New York, only the imitation stuff that's wornby the idle poor being cheaper than elsewhere. And I was so busy in thiswhirl of extortion that I forgot all about the boys and their troublestill I got back to the hotel at five o'clock.
I find 'em in the palm grill, or whatever it's called, drinkingstingers. But now they was not only more cheerful than they had been thenight before but they was getting a little bit contemptuous and Westernabout the great city. Lon had met a brother real estate shark from SaltLake and Jeff had fell in with a sheep man from Laramie--and treated himlike an equal because of meeting him so far from home in a strange townwhere no one would find it out on him--and Ben Sutton had met up withhis old friend Jake Berger, also from Nome. That's one nice thing aboutNew York; you keep meeting people from out your way that are lonesome,too. Lon's friend and Jeff's sheep man had had to leave, beingencumbered by watchful-waiting wives that were having 'em paged everythree minutes and wouldn't believe the boy when he said they was out.But Ben's friend, Jake Berger, was still at the table. Jake is a goodsoul, kind of a short, round, silent man, never opening his head for anylength of time. He seems to bring the silence of the frozen North downwith him except for brief words to the waiter ever and anon.
As I say, the boys was all more cheerful and contemptuous about NewYork by this time. Ben had spent another day asking casual parties ifthey was born in New York and having no more luck than a rabbit, but itseemed like he'd got hardened to these disappointments. He said he mightleave his own self to a museum in due time, so future generations wouldknow at least what the male New Yorker looked like. As for the female,he said any of these blondes along Broadway could be made to look nearenough like his mate by a skilled taxidermist. Jeff Tuttle here saysthat they wasn't all blondes because he'd seen a certain brunette thatafternoon right in this palm grill that was certainly worth preservingfor all eternity in the grandest museum on earth--which showed that Jeffhad chirked up a lot since landing in town. Ben said he had used theterm "blonde" merely to designate a species and they let it go at that.
Lon Price then said he'd been talking a little himself to people he metin different places and they might not be born New Yorkers but theycertainly didn't know anything beyond the city limits. At this he looksaround at the crowded tables in this palm grill and says very bitterlythat he'll give any of us fifty to one they ain't a person in the placethat ever so much as even heard of Price's Addition to Red Gap. And sothe talk went for a little, with Jake Berger ever and again crooning tothe waiter for another round of stingers. I'd had two, so I stayed outon the last round. I told Jake I enjoyed his hospitality but two wouldbe all I could think under till they learned to leave the dash ofchloroform out of mine. Jake just looked kindly at me. He's as chatty asMount McKinley.
But I was glad to see the boys more cheerful, so I said I'd get mylumpiest jewels out of the safe and put a maid and hairdresser to workon me so I'd be a credit to 'em at dinner and then we'd spend a jollyevening at some show. Jeff said he'd also doll up in his dress suit andget shaved and manicured and everything, so he'd look like one in my ownwalk of life. Ben was already dressed for evening. He had on a totallynew suit of large black and white checks looking like a hotel floor froma little distance, bound with braid of a quiet brown, and with a vest ofwide stripes in green and mustard colour. It was a suit that theautomobile law in some states would have compelled him to put dimmerson; it made him look egregious, if that's the word; but I knew it was nogood appealing to his better nature. He said he'd have dinner orderedfor us in another palm grill that had more palms in it.
Jake Berger spoke up for the first time to any one but a waiter. Heasked why a palm room necessarily? He said the tropic influence of thesepalms must affect the waiters that had to stand under 'em all day,because they wouldn't take his orders fast enough. He said thelanguorous Southern atmosphere give 'em pellagra or something. JeffTuttle says Jake must be mistaken because the pellagra is a kind of aSpanish dance, he believes. Jake said maybe so; maybe it was tropicneurasthenia the waiters got. Ben said he'd sure look out for a freshwaiter that hadn't been infected yet. When I left 'em Jake was holding asplit-second watch on the waiter he'd just giv
en an order to.
By seven P.M. I'd been made into a work of art by the hotel help andmight of been observed progressing through the palatial lobby with mypurple and gold opera cloak sort of falling away from the shoulders.Jeff Tuttle observed me for one. He was in his dress suit all right,standing over in a corner having a bell-hop tie his tie for him that henever can learn to do himself. That's the way with Jeff; he simplywasn't born for the higher hotel life. In his dress suit he looksexactly like this here society burglar you're always seeing a picture ofin the papers. However, I let him trail me along into this jewelled palmroom with tapestries and onyx pillars and prices for food like the townhad been three years beleagured by an invading army. Jake Berger isalone at our table sipping a stinger and looking embarrassed becausehe'll have to say something. He gets it over as soon as he can. He saysBen has ordered dinner and stepped out and that Lon has stepped out tolook for him but they'll both be back in a minute, so set down and orderone before this new waiter is overcome by the tropic miasma. We do thesame, and in comes Lon looking very excited in the dress suit he wasmarried in back about 1884.
"Ben's found one," he squeals excitedly--"a real genuine one that wasborn right here in New York and is still living in the same house he wasborn in. What do you know about that? Ben is frantic with delight and isgoing to bring him to dine with us as soon as he gets him brushed offdown in the wash room and maybe a drink or two thrown into him to revivehim from the shock of Ben running across him. Ain't it good, though!Poor old Ben, looking for a born one and thinking he'd never find himand now he has!"
We all said how glad we was for Ben's sake and Lon called over a titledaristocrat of foreign birth and ordered him to lay another place at thetable. Then he tells us how the encounter happened. Ben had stepped outon Broadway to buy an evening paper and coming back he was sneaking alook at his new suit in a plate-glass window, walking blindly ahead atthe same time. That's the difference between the sexes in front of aplate-glass window. A woman is entirely honest and shameless; she'llstop dead and look herself over and touch up anything that needs it ascool as if she was the last human on earth; while man, the coward, walksby slow and takes a long sly look at himself, turning his head more andmore till he gets swore at by some one he's tramped on. This is how Benhad run across the only genuine New Yorker that seemed to be left. He'drun across his left instep and then bore him to the ground like one ofthese juggernuts or whatever they are. Still, at that, it seemed kind ofa romantic meeting, like mebbe the hand of fate was in it. We chattedalong, waiting for the happy pair, and Jake ordered again to be on thesafe side because the waiter would be sure to contract hookworm orsleeping sickness in this tropic jungle before the evening was over.Jeff Tuttle said this was called the Louis Chateau room and he liked it.He also said, looking over the people that come in, that he bet everydress suit in town was hired to-night. Then in a minute or two more,after Jake Berger sent a bill over to the orchestra leader with a cardasking him to play all quick tunes so the waiters could fight betteragainst jungle fever, in comes Ben Sutton driving his captive New Yorkerbefore him and looking as flushed and proud as if he'd discovered astrange new vest pattern.
The captive wasn't so much to look at. He was kind of neat, dressed inone of the nobby suits that look like ninety dollars in the picture andcost eighteen; he had one of these smooth ironed faces that made himlook thirty or forty years old, like all New York men, and he had theconventional glue on his hair. He was limping noticeably where Ben hadrun across him, and I could see he was highly suspicious of the wholegang of us, including the man who had treated him like he was acockroach. But Ben had been persuasive and imperious--took him off hisfeet, like you might say--so he shook hands all around and ventured toset down with us. He had the same cold, slippery cautious hand thatevery New York man gives you the first time so I says to myself he's areal one all right and we fell to the new round of stingers Jake hadmotioned for, and to the nouveaux art-work food that now came along.
Naturally Ben and the New Yorker done most of the talking at first;about how the good old town had changed; how they was just putting upthe Cable Building at Houston Street when Ben left in '92, and wasn'tthe old Everett House a good place for lunch, and did the other oneremember Barnum's Museum at Broadway and Ann, and Niblo's Garden wasstill there when Ben was, and a lot of fascinating memories like that.The New Yorker didn't relax much at first and got distinctly nervouswhen he saw the costly food and heard Ben order vintage champagne whichhe always picks out by the price on the wine list. I could see him plainas day wondering just what kind of crooks we could be, what our game wasand how soon we'd spring it on him--or would we mebbe stick him for thedinner check? He didn't have a bit good time at first, so us four otherskind of left Ben to fawn upon him and enjoyed ourselves in our own way.
It was all quite elevating or vicious, what with the orchestra and thesingers and the dancing and the waiters with vitality still unimpaired.And New York has improved a lot, I'll say that. The time I was therebefore they wouldn't let a lady smoke except in the very lowest tabled'hotes of the underworld at sixty cents with wine. And now the only onein the whole room that didn't light a cigarette from time to time was anervous dame in a high-necked black silk and a hat that was never madefarther east than Altoona, that looked like she might be taking notesfor a club paper on the attractions or iniquities of a great metropolis.Jeff Tuttle was fascinated by the dancing; he called it the "tangle" andsome of it did look like that. And he claimed to be shocked by theflagrant way women opened up little silver boxes and applied the paints,oils, and putty in full view of the audience. He said he'd just as liefsee a woman take out a manicure set and do her nails in public, and Iassured him he probably would see it if he come down again next year,the way things was going--him talking that way that had had his whitetie done in the open lobby; but men are such. Jake Berger just lookedaround kindly and didn't open his head till near the end of the meal. Ithought he wasn't noticing anything at all till the orchestra put on ashadow number with dim purple lights.
"You'll notice they do that," says Jake, "whenever a lot of these peopleare ready to pay their checks. It saves fights, because no one can seeif they're added right or not." That was pretty gabby for Jake. Then Ilistened again to Ben and his little pet. They was talking their way upthe Bowery from Atlantic Garden and over to Harry Hill's Place which,it seemed the New Yorker didn't remember, and Ben then recalled an oldleper with gray whiskers and a skull cap that kept a drug store inBleecker Street when Ben was a kid and spent most of his time wateringdown the sidewalk in front of his place with a hose so that ladies goingby would have to raise their skirts out of the wet. His eyes was quitedim as he recalled these sacred boyhood memories.
The New Yorker had unbent a mite like he was going to see the madadventure through at all costs, though still plainly worried about thedinner check. Ben now said that they two ought to found a New York club.He said there was all other kinds of clubs here--Ohio clubs and Southernclubs and Nebraska societies and Michigan circles and so on, that givelarge dinners every year, so why shouldn't there be a New York club;maybe they could scare up three or four others that was born here ifthey advertised. It would of course be the smallest club in the city orin the whole world for that matter. The New Yorker was kind of coldtoward this. It must of sounded like the scheme to get money out of himthat he'd been expecting all along. Then the waiter brought the check,during another shadow number with red and purple lights, and this ladpulled out a change purse and said in a feeble voice that he supposed wewas all paying share and share alike and would the waiter kindly figureout what his share was. Ben didn't even hear him. He peeled a largebill off a roll that made his new suit a bad fit in one place and heleft a five on the plate when the change come. The watchful New Yorkernow made his first full-hearted speech of the evening. He said that Benwas foolish not to of added up the check to see if it was right, andthat half a dollar tip would of been ample for the waiter. Ben pretendednot to hear this either, and started a
gain on the dear old times. I saysto myself I guess this one is a real New Yorker all right.
Lon Prince now says what's the matter with going to some corking goodshow because nothing good has come to Red Gap since the Parisian BlondWidows over a year ago and he's eager for entertainment. Ben says "Fine!And here's the wise boy that will steer us right. I bet he knows everyshow in town."
The New Yorker says he does and has just the play in mind for us, onethat he had meant to see himself this very night because it has beenendorsed by the drama league of which he is a regular member. Well, thatsounded important, so Ben says "What did I tell you? Ain't we lucky tohave a good old New Yorker to put us right on shows our first night out.We might have wasted our evening on a dead one."
So we're all delighted and go out and get in a couple of taxicabs, Benand this city man going in the first one. When ours gets to the theatreBen is paying the driver while the New Yorker feebly protests that heought to pay his half of the bill, but Ben don't hear him and don't hearhim again when he wants to pay for his own seat in the theatre. I gotmy first suspicion of this guy right there; for a genuine New Yorker hewas too darned conscientious about paying his mere share of everything.You can say lots of things about New Yorkers, but all that I've ever methave been keenly and instantly sensitive to the presence of a determinedbuyer. Still I didn't think so much about it at that moment. This onelooked the part all right, with his slim clothes and his natty cloth hatand the thin gold cigarette case held gracefully open. Then we get intothe theatre. Of course Ben had bought a box, that being the only place,he says, that a gentleman can set, owing to the skimpy notions oftheatre-seat builders. And we was all prepared for a merry evening atthis entertainment which the wise New Yorker would be sure to know was agood one.
But that curtain hadn't been up three minutes before I get my next shockof disbelief about this well-known club man. You know what a good playmeans in New York: a rattling musical comedy with lively songs, a tenornaval lieutenant in a white uniform, some real funny comedians, and alot of girls without their stockings on, and so forth. Any one thatthinks of a play in New York thinks of that, don't he? And what do weget here and now? Why, we get a gruesome thing about a ruined home withthe owner going bankrupt over the telephone that's connected with WallStreet, and a fluffy wife that has a magnetic gentleman friend in asport suit, and a lady crook that has had husband in her toils, only hesees it all now, and tears and strangulations and divorce, and afaithful old butler that suffers keenly and would go on doing it withouta cent of wages if he could only bring every one together again, and ashot up in the bathroom or somewhere and gripping moments and soforth--I want to tell you we was all painfully shocked by this break ofthe knowing New Yorker. We could hardly believe it was true during thefirst act. Jeff Tuttle kept wanting to know when the girls was comingon, and didn't they have a muscle dancer in the piece. Ben himself washighly embarrassed and even suspicious for a minute. He looks at the NewYorker sharply and says ain't that a crocheted necktie he's wearing, andthe New Yorker says it is and was made for him by his aunt. But Benain't got the heart to question him any further. He puts away his basesuspicions and tries to get the New Yorker to tell us all about what agood play this is so we'll feel more entertained. So the lad tells usthe leading woman is a sterling actress of legitimate methods--all toohard to find in this day of sensationalism, and the play is a triumph ofadvanced realism written by a serious student of the drama that istrying to save our stage from commercial degradation. He explained a lotabout the lesson of the play. Near as I could make out the lesson wasthat divorce, nowadays, is darned near as uncertain as marriage itself.
"The husband," explains the lad kindly, "is suspected by his wife tohave been leading a double life, though of course he was never guilty ofmore than an indiscretion--"
Jake Berger here exploded rudely into speech again. "Thai wife isleading a double chin," says Jake.
"Say, people," says Lon Price, "mebbe it ain't too late to go to a showthis evening."
But the curtain went up for the second act and nobody had the nerve toescape. There continued to be low murmurs of rebellion, just the same,and we all lost track of this here infamy that was occurring on thestage.
"I'm sure going to beat it in one minute," says Jeff Tuttle, "if one of'em don't exclaim: 'Oh, girls, here comes the little dancer!'"
"I know a black-face turn that could put this show on its feet," saysLon Price, "and that Waldo in the sport suit ain't any real reason whywives leave home--you can't tell me!"
"I dare say this leading woman needs a better vehicle," says the NewYorker in a hoarse whisper.
"I dare say it, too," says Jeff Tuttle in a still hoarser whisper. "Abetter vehicle! She needs a motor truck, and I'd order one quick if Ithought she'd take it."
Of course this was not refined of Jeff. The New Yorker winced and loyalBen glares at all of us that has been muttering, so we had to set theretill the curtain went down on the ruined home where all was lost savehonour--and looking like that would have to go, too, in the next act.But Ben saw it wasn't safe to push us any further so he now said thispowerful play was too powerful for a bunch of low-brows like us and weall rushed out into the open air. Everybody cheered up a lot when we gotthere--seeing the nice orderly street traffic without a gripping momentin it. Lon Price said it was too late to go to a theatre, so what couldwe do to pass the time till morning? Ben says he has a grand idea and wecan carry it out fine with this New York man to guide us. His grand ideais that we all go down on the Bowery and visit tough dives where thefoul creatures of the underworld consort and crime happens every minuteor two. We was still mad enough about that play to like the idea. A goodlegitimate murder would of done wonders for our drooping spirits. So Benputs it up to the New Yorker and he says yes, he knows a vicious resorton the Bowery, but we'd ought to have a detective from central officealong to protect us from assault. Ben says not at all--nodetective--unless the joints has toughened up a lot since he used toinfest 'em, and we all said we'd take a chance, so again we was intaxicabs. Us four in the second cab was now highly cynical about Ben'sNew Yorker. The general feeling was that sooner or later he would sinkthe ship.
Then we reach the dive he has picked out; a very dismal dive with a roomback of the bar that had a few tables and a piano in it and asweet-singing waiter. He was singing a song about home and mother, thatin mem-o-ree he seemed to see, when we got to our table. A very gloomyand respectable haunt of vice it was, indeed. There was about a dozenmale and female creatures of the underworld present sadly enjoying thishere ballad and scowling at us for talking when we come in.
Jake Berger ordered, though finding you couldn't get stingers here andhaving to take two miner's inches of red whiskey, and the New Yorkerbegun to warn us in low tones that we was surrounded by danger on everyhand--that we'd better pour our drink on the floor because it would bedrugged, after which we would be robbed if not murdered and thrown outinto the alley where we would then be arrested by grafting policemen.Even Ben was shocked by this warning. He asks the New Yorker again if heis sure he was born in the old town, and the lad says honest he was andhas been living right here all these years in the same house he was bornin. Ben is persuaded by these words and gives the singing waiter a fiveand tells him to try and lighten the gloom with a few crimes of violenceor something. The New Yorker continued to set stiff in his chair, onehand on his watch and one on the pocket where his change purse was thathe'd tried to pay his share of the taxicabs out of.
The gloom-stricken piano player now rattled off some ragtime and thedepraved denizens about us got sadly up and danced to it. Say, it wasthe most formal and sedate dancing you ever see, with these gun menholding their guilty partners off at arm's length and their faces alldrawn down in lines of misery. They looked like they might be a bunch ofstrict Presbyterians that had resolved to throw all moral teaching tothe winds for one purple moment let come what might. I want to tell youthese depraved creatures of the underworld was darned near as depressingas th
at play had been. Even the second round of drinks didn't liven usup none because the waiter threw down his cigarette and sung anothertearful song. This one was about a travelling man going into a gildedcabaret and ordering a port wine and a fair young girl come out to singin short skirts that he recognized to be his boyhood's sweetheart Nell;so he sent a waiter to ask her if she had forgot the song she once didsing at her dear old mother's knee, or knees, and she hadn't forgot itand proved she hadn't, because the chorus was "Nearer My God to Thee"sung to ragtime; then the travelling man said she must be good and pure,so come on let's leave this place and they'd be wed.
Yes, sir; that's what Ben had got for his five, so this time he give thewaiter a twenty not to sing any more at all. The New Yorker washorrified at the sight of a man giving away money, but it was well spentand we begun to cheer up a little. Ben told the New Yorker about thetime his dog team won the All Alaska Sweepstake Race, two hundred andsix miles from Nome to Candle and back, the time being 76 hours, 16minutes, and 28 seconds, and showed him the picture of his lead dogpasted in the back of his watch. And Jake Berger got real gabby at lastand told the story about the old musher going up the White Horse Trailin a blizzard and meeting the Bishop, only he didn't know it was theBishop. And the Bishop says, "How's the trail back of you, my friend?"and the old musher just swore with the utmost profanity for threestraight minutes. Then he says to the Bishop, "And what's it like backof you?" and the Bishop says, "Just like that!" Jake here gotembarrassed from talking so much and ordered another round of thissquirrel poison we was getting, and Jeff Tuttle begun his imitation ofthe Sioux squaw with a hare lip reciting "Curfew Shall Not RingTo-night." It was a pretty severe ordeal for the rest of us, but we wasready to endure much if it would make this low den seem more homelike.Only when Jeff got about halfway through the singing waiter comes up,greatly shocked, and says none of that in here because they run anorderly place, and we been talking too loud anyway. This waiter had askull exactly like a picture of one in a book I got that was dug upafter three hundred thousand years and the scientific world couldn'tever agree whether it was an early man or a late ape. I decided I didn'tcare to linger in a place where a being with a head like this could passon my diversions and offenses so I made a move to go. Jeff Tuttle saysto this waiter, "Fie, fie upon you, Roscoe! We shall go to somerespectable place where we can loosen up without being called for it."The waiter said he was sorry, but the Bowery wasn't Broadway. And theNew Yorker whispered that it was just as well because we was lucky toget out of this dive with our lives and property--and even after thatthis anthropoid waiter come hurrying out to the taxis after us with myfur piece and my solid gold vanity-box that I'd left behind on a chair.This was a bitter blow to all of us after we'd been led to hope foroutrages of an illegal character. The New Yorker was certainly making amisdeal every time he got the cards. None of us trusted him any more,though Ben was still loyal and sensitive about him, like he was an onlychild and from birth had not been like other children.
The lad now wanted to steer us into an Allied Bazaar that would still beopen, because he'd promised to sell twenty tickets to it and had 'em onhim untouched. But we shut down firmly on this. Even Ben was firm. Hesaid the last bazaar he'd survived was their big church fair in Nomethat lasted two nights and one day and the champagne booth alone took insix thousand dollars, and even the beer booth took in something liketwelve hundred, and he didn't feel equal to another affair like thatjust yet.
So we landed uptown at a very swell joint full of tables and orchestrasaround a dancing floor and more palms--which is the national flower ofNew York--and about eighty or a hundred slightly inebriated debutantesand well-known Broadway social favourites and their gentlemen friends.And here everything seemed satisfactory at last, except to the NewYorker who said that the prices would be something shameful. However, noone was paying any attention to him by now. None of us but Ben cared ahoot where he had been born and most of us was sorry he had been at all.
Jake Berger bought a table for ten dollars, which was seven more than ithad ever cost the owner, and Ben ordered stuff for us, including avintage champagne that the price of stuck out far enough beyond otherprices on the wine list, and a porterhouse steak, family style, forhimself, and everything seemed on a sane and rational basis again. Itlooked as if we might have a little enjoyment during the evening afterall. It was a good lively place, with all these brilliant society peoplemingling up in the dance in a way that would of got 'em thrown out ofthat gangsters' haunt on the Bowery. Lon Price said he'd never witnessedso many human shoulder blades in his whole history and Jeff Tuttle sentoff a lot of picture cards of this here ballroom or saloon that a waitergive him. The one he sent Egbert Floud showed the floor full ofbeautiful reckless women in the dance and prominent society matronsdrinking highballs, and Jeff wrote on it, "This is my room; wish you washere." Jeff was getting right into the spirit of this bohemian nightlife; you could tell that. Lon Price also. In ten minutes Lon had madethe acquaintance of a New York social leader at the next table and wasdancing with her in an ardent or ribald manner before Ben had finishedhis steak.
I now noticed that the New Yorker was looking at his gun-metal watchabout every two minutes with an expression of alarm. Jake Berger noticedit, too, and again leaned heavily on the conversation. "Not keeping youup, are we?" says Jake. And this continual watch business must of beengetting on Ben's nerves, too, for now, having fought his steak to afinish, he says to his little guest that they two should put up theirwatches and match coins for 'em. The New Yorker was suspicious right offand looked Ben's watch over very carefully when Ben handed it to him. Itwas one of these thin gold ones that can be had any place for a hundreddollars and up. You could just see that New Yorker saying to himself,"So this is their game, is it?" But he works his nerve up to take achance and gets a two-bit piece out of his change purse and they match.Ben wins the first time, which was to of settled it, but Ben says rightquick that of course he had meant the best two out of three, which theNew Yorker doesn't dispute for a minute, and they match again and Benwins that, too, so there's nothing to do but take the New Yorker's watchaway from him. He removes it carefully off a leather fob with a giltacorn on it and hands it slowly to Ben. It was one of these extrasuperior dollar watches that cost three dollars. The New Yorker lookedvery stung, indeed. You could hear him saying to himself, "Serves meright for gambling with a stranger!" Ben feels these suspicions and ishurt by 'em so he says to Jeff, just to show the New Yorker he's anhonest sport, that he'll stake his two watches against Jeff's solidsilver watch that he won in a bucking contest in 1890. Jeff says he'son; so they match and Ben wins again, now having three watches. Then LonPrice comes back from cavorting with this amiable jade of the youngerdancing set at the next table and Ben makes him put up his goldseven-jewelled hunting-case watch against the three and Ben wins again,now having four watches.
Lon says "Easy come, easy go!" and moves over to the next table again tohelp out with the silver bucket of champagne he's ordered, taking JeffTuttle with him to present to his old friends that he's known for all oftwenty minutes. The New Yorker is now more suspicious then ever of Ben;his wan beauty is marred by a cynical smile and his hair has comeunglued in a couple of places. Ben is more sensitive than ever to thesesuspicions of his new pal so he calls on Jake Berger to match his watchagainst the four. Jake takes out his split-second repeater and him andBen match coins and this time Ben is lucky enough to lose, therebyshowing his dear old New Yorker that he ain't a crook after all. But theNew Yorker still looks very shrewd and robbed and begins to gulp thechampagne in a greedy manner. You can hear him calling Jake aconfederate. Jake sees it plain enough, that the lad thinks he's beenhigh-graded, so he calls over our waiter and crowds all five watchesonto him. "Take these home to the little ones," says Jake, and dismissesthe matter from his mind by putting a wine glass up to his ear andlistening into it with a rapt expression that shows he's hearing theroar of the ocean up on Alaska's rockbound coast.
The New Yorker is a mi
te puzzled by this, but I can see it don't takehim long to figure out that the waiter is also a confederate. Anyway,he's been robbed of his watch forever and falls to the champagne againvery eager and moody. It was plain he didn't know what a high-powereddrink he was trifling with. And Ben was moody, too, by now. He quitrecalling old times and sacred memories to the New Yorker. If the latterhad tried to break up the party by leaving at this point I guess Benwould of let him go. But he didn't try; he just set there soggilydrinking champagne to drown the memory of his lost watch. And prettysoon Ben has to order another quart of this twelve-dollar beverage. TheNew Yorker keeps right on with the new bottle, daring it to do its worstand it does; he was soon speaking out of a dense fog when he spoke atall.
With his old pal falling into this absent mood Ben throws off his owndepression and mingles a bit with the table of old New York familieswhere Lon Price is now paying the checks. They was the real New Yorkers;they'd never had a moment's distrust of Lon after he ordered the firsttime and told the waiter to keep the glasses brimming. Jeff Tuttle wasnow dancing in an extreme manner with a haggard society bud agedthirty-five, and only Jake and me was left at our table. We didn't countthe New Yorker any longer; he was merely raising his glass to his lipsat regular intervals. He moved something like an automatic chess playerI once saw. The time passed rapidly for a couple hours more, with JakeBerger keeping up his ceaseless chatter as usual. He did speak once,though, after an hour's silence. He said in an audible tone that the NewYorker was a human hangnail, no matter where he was born.
And so the golden moments flitted by, with me watching the crazy crowd,until they began to fall away and the waiters was piling chairs on thenaked tables at the back of the room. Then with some difficulty wewrenched Ben and Lon and Jeff from the next table and got out into thecrisp air of dawn. The New Yorker was now sunk deep in a trance and juststood where he was put, with his hat on the wrong way. The other boyshad cheered up a lot owing to their late social career. Jeff Tuttle saidit was all nonsense about its being hard to break into New York society,because look what he'd done in one brief evening without trying--and heflashed three cards on which telephone numbers is written in daintyfeminine hands. He said if a modest and retiring stranger like himselfcould do that much, just think what an out-and-out social climber mightachieve!
Right then I was ready to call it an absorbing and instructive eveningand get to bed. But no! Ben Sutton at sight of his now dazed New Yorkerhas resumed his brooding and suddenly announces that we must all make apilgrimage to West Ninth Street and romantically view his old home whichhis father told him to get out of twenty-five years ago, and which wecan observe by the first tender rays of dawn. He says he has been havingprecious illusions shattered all evening, but this will be a holy momentthat nothing can queer--not even a born New Yorker that hasn't made thegrade and is at this moment so vitrified that he'd be a mere glass crashif some one pushed him over.
I didn't want to go a bit. I could see that Jeff Tuttle would soon begindragging a hip, and the streets at that hour was no place for Lon Price,with his naturally daring nature emphasized, as it were, from drinkingthis here imprisoned laughter of the man that owned the joint we hadjust left. But Ben was pleading in a broken voice for one sight of theold home with its boyhood memories clustering about its modest front andI was afraid he'd get to crying, so I give in wearily and we was oncemore encased in taxicabs and on our way to the sacred scene. Ben hadquite an argument with the drivers when he give 'em the address. Theykept telling him there wasn't a thing open down there, but he finallygot his aim understood. The New Yorker's petrified remains was carefullytucked into the cab with Ben.
And Ben suffered another cruel blow at the end of the ride. He climbedout of the cab in a reverent manner, hoping to be overcome by the sightof the cherished old home, and what did he find? He just couldn'tbelieve it at first. The dear old house had completely disappeared andin its place was a granite office building eighteen stories high. Benjust stood off and looked up at it, too overcome for words. Up near thetop a monster brass sign in writing caught the silver light of dawn. Thesign sprawled clear across the building and said PANTS EXCLUSIVELY.Still above this was the firm's name in the same medium--looking like acouple of them hard-lettered towns that get evacuated up in Poland.
Poor stricken Ben looked in silence a long time. We all felt hissuffering and kept silent, too. Even Jeff Tuttle kept still--who all theway down had been singing about old Bill Bailey who played the Ukelelein Honolulu Town. It was a solemn moment. After a few more minutes ofsilent grief Ben drew himself together and walked off without saying aword. I thought walking would be a good idea for all of us, especiallyLon and Jeff, so Jake paid the taxi drivers and we followed on footafter the chief mourner. The fragile New Yorker had been exhumed andplaced in an upright position and he walked, too, when he understoodwhat was wanted of him; he didn't say a word, just did what was told himlike one of these boys that the professor hypnotizes on the stage. Iherded the bunch along about half a block back of Ben, feeling it wasdelicate to let him wallow alone in his emotions.
We got over to Broadway, turned up that, and worked on through thatdinky little grass plot they call a square, kind of aimless like andwondering where Ben in his grief would lead us. The day was well begunby this time and the passing cars was full of very quiet people on theirway to early work. Jake Berger said these New Yorkers would pay for itsooner or later, burning the candle at both ends this way--dancing allnight and then starting off to work.
Then up a little way we catch sight of a regular old-fashioned horse-cargoing crosstown. Ben has stopped this and is talking excitedly to thedriver so we hurry up and find he's trying to buy the car from thedriver. Yes, sir; he says its the last remnant of New York when it waslittle and old and he wants to take it back to Nome as a souvenir.Anybody might of thought he'd been drinking. He's got his roll out andwants to pay for the car right there. The driver is a cold-looking oldboy with gray chin whiskers showing between his cap and his comforterand he's indignantly telling Ben it can't be done. By the time we getthere the conductor has come around and wants to know what they'relosing all this time for. He also says they can't sell Ben the car andsays further that we'd all better go home and sleep it off, so Ben hands'em each a ten spot, the driver lets off his brake, and the old arkrattles on while Ben's eyes is suffused with a suspicious moisture, asthey say.
Ben now says we must stand right on this corner to watch these cars goby--about once every hour. We argued with him whilst we shivered in thebracing winelike air, but Ben was stubborn. We might of been there yetif something hadn't diverted him from this evil design. It was a stringof about fifty Italians that just then come out of a subway entrance.They very plainly belonged to the lower or labouring classes and Ijudged they was meant for work on the up-and-down street we stood on,that being already torn up recklessly till it looked like most otherstreets in the same town. They stood around talking in a delirious orItalian manner till their foreman unlocked a couple of big piano boxes.Out of these they took crowbars, axes, shovels, and other instruments oftheir calling. Ben Sutton has been standing there soddenly waiting foranother dear old horse-car to come by, but suddenly he takes notice ofthese bandits with the tools and I see an evil gleam come into his tiredeyes. He assumes a businesslike air, struts over to the foreman of thebunch, and has some quick words with him, making sweeping motions of thearm up and down the cross street where the horse-cars run. After aminute of this I'm darned if the whole bunch didn't scatter out andbegin to tear up the pavement along the car-track on this cross street.Ben tripped back to us looking cheerful once more.
"They wouldn't sell me the car," he says, "so I'm going to take back abunch of the dear old rails. They'll be something to remind me of thedead past. Just think! I rode over those very rails when I was a tot."
We was all kind of took back at this, and I promptly warned Ben thatwe'd better beat it before we got pinched. But Ben is confident. He saysno crime could be safer in New York tha
n setting a bunch of Italians totearing up a street-car track; that no one could ever possibly suspectit wasn't all right, though he might have to be underhanded to someextent in getting his souvenir rails hauled off. He said he had told theforeman that he was the contractor's brother and had been sent with thisnew order and the foreman had naturally believed it, Ben looking like arich contractor himself.
And there they was at work, busy as beavers, gouging up the very lastremnant of little old New York when it was that. Ben rubbed his hands inecstasy and pranced up and down watching 'em for awhile. Then he wentover and told the foreman there'd be extra pay for all hands if they gota whole block tore up by noon, because this was a rush job. Hundreds ofpeople was passing, mind you, including a policeman now and then, but noone took any notice of a sight so usual. All the same the rest of usedged north about half a block, ready to make a quick getaway. Ben kepttelling us we was foolishly scared. He offered to bet any one in theparty ten to one in thousands that he could switch his gang over toBroadway and have a block of that track up before any one got wise.There was no takers.
Ben was now so pleased with himself and his little band of faithfulworkers that he even begun to feel kindly again toward his New Yorkerwho was still standing in one spot with glazed eyes. He goes up andtries to engage him in conversation, but the lad can't hear any morethan he can see. Ben's efforts, however, finally start him to mutteringsomething. He says it over and over to himself and at last we make outwhat it is. He is saying: "I'd like to buy a little drink for the partym'self."
"The poor creature is delirious," says Jake Berger.
But Ben slaps him on the back and tells him he's a good sport and he'llgive him a couple of these rails to take to his old New York home; hesays they can be crossed over the mantel and will look very quaint. Thelad kind of shivered under Ben's hearty blow and seemed to struggle outof his trance for a minute. His eyes unglazed and he looks around andsays how did he get here and where is it? Ben tells him he's amongfriends and that they two are the only born New Yorkers left in theworld, and so on, when the lad reaches into the pocket of his nattytopcoat for a handkerchief and pulls out with it a string of funnylittle tickets--about two feet of 'em. Ben grabs these up with a strangelook in his eyes.
"Bridge tickets!" he yells. Then he grabs his born New Yorker by theshoulders and shakes him still further out of dreamland.
"What street in New York is your old home on?" he demands savagely. Thelad blinks his fishy eyes and fixes his hat on that Ben has shook loose.
"Cranberry Street," says he.
"Cranberry Street! Hell, that's Brooklyn, and you claimed New York,"says Ben, shaking the hat loose again.
"Greater New York," says the lad pathetically, and pulls his hat firmlydown over his ears.
Ben looked at the imposter with horror in his eyes. "Brooklyn!" hemuttered--"the city of the unburied dead! So that was the secret of yourstrange behaviour? And me warming you in my bosom, you viper!"
But the crook couldn't hear him again, haying lapsed into his trance andbecome entirely rigid and foolish. In the cold light of day his face nowlooked like a plaster cast of itself. Ben turned to us with a huntedlook. "Blow after blow has fallen upon me to-night," he says tearfully,"but this is the most cruel of all. I can't believe in anything afterthis. I can't even believe them street-car rails are the originals.Probably they were put down last week."
"Then let's get out of this quick," I says to him. "We been exposingourselves to arrest here long enough for a bit of false sentiment onyour part."
"I gladly go," says Ben, "but wait one second." He stealthily approachesthe Greater New Yorker and shivers him to wakefulness with anotherhearty wallop on the back. "Listen carefully," says Ben as the ladstruggles out of the dense fog. "Do you see those workmen tearing upthat car-track?"
"Yes, I see it," says the lad distinctly. "I've often seen it."
"Very well. Listen to me and remember your life may hang on it. You goover there and stand right by them till they get that track up and don'tyou let any one stop them. Do you hear? Stand right there and make themwork, and if a policeman or any one tries to make trouble you soak him.Remember! I'm leaving those men in your charge. I shall hold youpersonally responsible for them."
The lad doesn't say a word but begins to walk in a brittle manner towardthe labourers. We saw him stop and point a threatening finger at them,then instantly freeze once more. It was our last look at him. We goteverybody on a north-bound car with some trouble. Lon Price had gone tosleep standing up and Jeff Tuttle, who was now looking like the societyburglar after a tough night's work at his trade, was getting turbulentand thirsty. He didn't want to ride on a common street car. "I want atashicrab," he says, "and I want to go back to that Louis Chateau roomand dance the tangle." But we persuaded him and got safe up to arestaurant on Sixth Avenue where breakfast was had by all withoutfurther adventure. Jeff strongly objected to this restaurant at first,though, because he couldn't hear an orchestra in it. He said he couldn'teat his breakfast without an orchestra. He did, however, ordering applepie and ice cream and a gin fizz to come. Lon Price was soon sleepinglike a tired child over his ham and eggs, and Jeff went night-night,too, before his second gin fizz arrived.
Ben ordered a porterhouse steak, family style, consuming it in a moodyrage like a man that has been ground-sluiced at every turn. He said hefelt like ending it all and sometimes wished he'd been in the cab thatplunged into one of the forty-foot holes in Broadway a couple of nightsbefore. Jake Berger had ordered catfish and waffles, with a glass ofInvalid port. He burst into speech once more, too. He said the nights inNew York were too short to get much done. That if they only had nightsas long as Alaska the town might become famous. "As it is," he says, "Idon't mind flirting with this city now and then, but I wouldn't want tomarry it."
Well, that about finished the evening, with Lon and Jeff making the roomsound like a Pullman palace car at midnight. Oh, yes; there was onething more. On the day after the events recorded in the last chapter, asit says in novels, there was a piece in one of the live newspaperstelling that a well-dressed man of thirty-five, calling himself CliffordJ. Hotchkiss and giving a Brooklyn address, was picked up in a dazedcondition by patrolman Cohen who had found him attempting to direct theoperations of a gang of workmen engaged in repairing a crosstown-cartrack. He had been sent to the detention ward of Bellevue to awaitexamination as to his sanity, though insisting that he was the victimof a gang of footpads who had plied him with liquor and robbed him ofhis watch. I showed the piece to Ben Sutton and Ben sent him up a pillowof forget-me-nots with "Rest" spelled on it--without the sender's card.
No; not a word in it about the street-car track being wrongfully toreup. I guess it was like Ben said; no one ever would find out about thatin New York. My lands! here it is ten-thirty and I got to be on the jobwhen them hayers start to-morrow A.M. A body would think I hadn't a careon earth when I get started on anecdotes of my past.
Somewhere in Red Gap Page 9