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Title: O. Henryana
Seven Odds and Ends, Poetry and Short Stories
Author: O. Henry
Release Date: April 4, 2020 [eBook #61755]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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O. HENRYANA
Seven Odds and Ends
Poetry and Short Stories
by
O. HENRY
Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1920
Copyright, 1920, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
All rights reserved, including that of translation
into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian
Acknowledgement
For permission to republish much of the material contained in this
volume, the publishers are indebted to Cosmopolitan, Everybody's
Magazine, Town Topics, and the Youth's Companion.
Table of Contents
The Crucible
A Lunar Episode
Three Paragraphs
Bulger's Friend
A Professional Secret
The Elusive Tenderloin
The Struggle of the Outliers
O. Henryana
The Crucible
Hard ye may be in the tumult,
Red to your battle hilts,
Blow give for blow in the foray,
Cunningly ride in the tilts;
But when the roaring is ended
Tenderly, unbeguiled,
Turn to a woman a woman's
Heart, and a child's to a child.
Test of the man, if his worth be
In accord with the ultimate plan,
That he be not, to his marring,
Always and utterly man;
That he bring out of the tumult,
Fitter and undefiled,
To a woman the heart of a woman,
To children the heart of a child.
Good when the bugles are ranting
It is to be iron and fire;
Good to be oak in the foray,
Ice to a guilty desire.
But when the battle is over
(Marvel and wonder the while)
Give to a woman a woman's
Heart, and a child's to a child.
A Lunar Episode
The scene was one of supernatural weirdness. Tall, fantastic mountains
reared their seamed peaks over a dreary waste of igneous rock and
burned-out lava beds. Deep lakes of black water stood motionless as
glass under frowning, honeycombed crags, from which ever and anon
dropped crumbled masses with a sullen plunge. Vegetation there was
none. Bitter cold reigned and ridges of black and shapeless rocks cut
the horizon on all sides. An extinct volcano loomed against a purple
sky, black as night and old as the world.
The firmament was studded with immense stars that shone with a wan and
spectral light. Orion's belt hung high above.
Aldebaran faintly shone millions of miles away, and the earth gleamed
like a new-risen moon with a lurid, blood-like glow.
On a lofty mountain that hung toppling above an ink-black sea stood a
dwelling built of stone. From its solitary window came a bright light
that gleamed upon the misshapen rocks. The door opened and two men
emerged locked in a deadly struggle.
They swayed and twisted upon the edge of the precipice, now one
gaining the advantage, now the other.
Strong men they were, and stone rolled from their feet into the valley
as each strove to overcome the other.
At length one prevailed. He seized his opponent, and raising him high
above his head, hurled him into space.
The vanquished combatant shot through the air like a stone from a
catapult in the direction of the luminous earth.
"That's three of 'em this week," said the Man in the Moon as he lit a
cigarette and turned back into the house. "Those New York interviewers
are going to make me tired if they keep this thing up much longer."
Three Paragraphs
"Copy," yelled the small boy at the door. The sick woman lying on the
bed began to move her fingers aimlessly upon the worn counterpane. Her
eyes were bright with fever; her face, once beautiful, was thin and
pain drawn. She was dying, but neither she nor the man who held her
hand and wrote on a paper tablet knew that the end was so near.
Three paragraphs were lacking to fill the column of humorous matter
that the foreman had sent for. The small pay it brought them barely
furnished shelter and food. Medicine was lacking but the need for that
was nearly over.
The woman's mind was wandering; she spoke quickly and unceasingly, and
the man bit his pencil and stared at the pad of paper, holding her
slim, hot hand.
"Oh, Jack; Jack, papa says no, I cannot go with you. Not love you!
Jack, do you want to break my heart? Oh, look, look! the fields are
like heaven, so filled with flowers. Why have you no ice? I had ice
when I was at home. Can't you give me just a little piece, my throat
is burning?"
The humourist wrote: "When a man puts a piece of ice down a girl's
back at a picnic, does he give her the cold shoulder?"
The woman feverishly put back the loose masses of brown hair from her
burning face.
"Jack, Jack, I don't want to die! Who is that climbing in the window?
Oh, it's only Jack, and here is Jack holding my hand, too. How funny!
We are going to the river tonight. The quiet, broad, dark, whispering
river. Hold my hand tight. Jack, I can feel the water coming in. It is
so cold. How queer it seems to be dead, dead, and see the trees above
you."
The humourist wrote: "On the dead square--a cemetery lot."
"Copy, sir," yelled the small boy again. "Forms locked in half an
hour."
The man bit his pencil into splinters. The hand he held was growing
cooler; surely her fever must be leaving. She was singing now, a
little crooning song she might have learned at her mother's knee, and
her fingers had ceased moving.
"They told me," she said weakly and sadly, "that hardships and
suffering would come upon me for disobeying my parents and marrying
Jack. Oh, dear, my head aches so I can't think. No, no, the white
dress with the lace sleeves, not that black, dreadful thing! Sailing,
sailing, sailing, where does this river go? You are not Jack, you are
too cold and stern. What is that red mark on your brow? Come, sister,
let's make some daisy chains and then hurry home, there is a great
black cloud above us--I'll be better in the morning. Jack, if you'll
hold my hand tight. Jack, I feel as light as a feather--I'm just
floating, floating, right into the cloud and I can't feel your hand.
Oh, I see her now, and there is the old love and tenderness in her
face. I must go to her. Jack. Mother, mother!"
The man wrote quickly:
"A woman generally likes her husband's mother-in-law the best of all
his relatives."
Then he sprang to the door, dashed the column of copy into the boy's
hand, and moved swiftly to the bed.
He put his arm softly under the brown head that had suffered so much,
but it turned heavily aside.
The fever was gone. The humourist was alone.
Bulger's Friend
It was rare sport for a certain element in the town when old Bulger
joined the Salvation Army. Bulger was the town's odd "character," a
shiftless, eccentric old man, and a natural foe to social conventions.
He lived on the bank of a brook that bisected the town, in a wonderful
hut of his own contriving, made of scrap lumber, clapboards, pieces of
tin, canvas and corrugated iron.
The most adventurous boys circled Bulger's residence at a respectful
distance. He was intolerant of visitors, and repelled the curious with
belligerent and gruff inhospitality. In return, the report was current
that he was of unsound mind, something of a wizard, and a miser with a
vast amount of gold buried in or near his hut. The old man worked at
odd jobs, such as weeding gardens and whitewashing; and he collected
old bones, scrap metal and bottles from alleys and yards.
One rainy night when the Salvation Army was holding a slenderly
attended meeting in its hall, Bulger had appeared and asked permission
to join the ranks. The sergeant in command of the post welcomed the
old man with that cheerful lack of prejudice that distinguishes the
peaceful militants of his order.
Bulger was at once assigned to the position of bass drummer, to his
evident, although grimly expressed, joy. Possibly the sergeant, who
had the success of his command at heart, perceived that it would be no
mean token of successful warfare to have the new recruit thus
prominently displayed, representing, as he did, if not a brand from
the burning, at least a well-charred and sap-dried chunk.
So every night, when the Army marched from its quarters to the street
corner where open-air services were held, Bulger stumbled along with
his bass drum behind the sergeant and the corporal, who played "Sweet
By and By" and "Only an Armor-Bearer" in unison upon their cornets.
And never before in that town was bass drum so soundly whacked. Bulger
managed to keep time with the cornets upon his instrument, but his
feet were always wo-fully unrhythmic. He shuffled and staggered and
rocked from side to side like a bear.
Truly, he was not pleasing to the sight. He was a bent, ungainly old
man, with a face screwed to one side and wrinkled like a dry prune.
The red shirt, which proclaimed his enlistment into the ranks, was a
misfit, being the outer husk of a leviathan corporal who had died some
time before. This garment hung upon Bulger in folds. His old brown cap
was always pulled down over one eye. These and his wabbling gait gave
him the appearance of some great simian, captured and imperfectly
educated in pedestrian and musical manoeuvres.
The thoughtless boys and undeveloped men who gathered about the street
services of the Army badgered Bulger incessantly. They called upon him
to give oral testimony to his conversion, and criticized the technique
and style of his drum performance. But the old man paid no attention
whatever to their jeers. He rarely spoke to anyone except when, on
coming and going, he gruffly saluted his comrades.
The sergeant had met many odd characters, and knew how to study them.
He allowed the recruit to have his own silent way for a time. Every
evening Bulger appeared at the hall, marched up the street with the
squad and back again. Then he would place his drum in the comer where
it belonged, and sit upon the last bench in the rear until the hall
meeting was concluded.
But one night the sergeant followed the old man outside, and laid his
hand upon his shoulder. "Comrade," he said, "is it well with you?"
"Not yet, sergeant," said Bulger. "I'm only tryin.' I'm glad you come
outside. I've been wantin' to ask you: Do you believe the Lord would
take a man in if he come to Him late like--kind of a last resort, you
know? Say a man who'd lost everything--home and property and friends
and health. Wouldn't it look mean to wait till then and try to come?"
"Bless His name--no!" said the sergeant. "Come ye that are heavy
laden; that's what He says. The poorer, the more miserable, the more
unfortunate--the greater His love and forgiveness."
"Yes, I'm poor," said Bulger. "Awful poor and miserable. You know when
I can think best, sergeant? It's when I'm beating the drum. Other
times there's a kind of muddled roarin' in my head. The drum seems to
kind of soothe and calm it. There's a thing I'm tryin' to study out,
but I ain't made it yet."
"Do you pray, comrade?" asked the sergeant.
"No, I don't," said Bulger. "What'd be the use? I know where the hitch
is. Don't it say somewhere for a man to give up his own family or
friends and serve the Lord?"
"If they stand in his way; not otherwise."
"I've got no family," continued the old man, "nor no friends--but one.
And that one is what's driven me to ruin."
"Free yourself!" cried the sergeant. "He is no friend, but an enemy
who stands between you and salvation."
"No," answered Bulger, emphatically, "no enemy. The best friend I ever
had."
"But you say he's driven you to ruin!"
The old man chuckled dryly: "And keeps me in rags and livin' on scraps
and sleepin' like a dog in a patched-up kennel. And yet I never had a
better friend. You don't understand, sergeant. You lose all your
friends but the best one, and then you'll know how to hold on to the
last one."
"Do you drink, comrade?" asked the sergeant.
"Not a drop in twenty years," Bulger replied. The sergeant was
puzzled.
"If this friend stands between you and your soul's peace, give him
up," was all he could find to say.
"I can't--now," said the old man, dropping into a fretful whine. "But
you just let me keep on beating the drum, sergeant, and maybe I will
some time. I'm a-tryin'. Sometimes I come so near thinkin' it out that
a dozen more licks on the drum would settle it. I get mighty nigh to
the point, and then I have to quit. You'll give me more time, won't
you, sergeant?"
"All you want, and God bless you, comrade. Pound away until you hit
the right note."
Afterward the sergeant would often call to Bulger: "Time, comrade!
Knocked that friend of yours out yet?" The answer was always
unsatisfactory.
One night at a street corner the sergeant prayed loudly that a certain
struggling comrade might be parted from an enemy who was leading him
astray under the guise of friendship. Bulger, in sudden and plainly
evident alarm, immediately turned his drum over to a fellow volunteer,
and shuffled rapidly away down the street. The next night he was back
again at his post, without any explanation of his strange behaviour.
The sergeant wondered what it all meant, and took occasion to question
the old man more closely as to the influence that was retarding the
peace his soul seemed to crave. But Bulger carefully avoided
particularizing.
"It's my own fight," he said. "I've got to think it out myself. Nobody
else don't understand."
The winter of 1892 was a memorable one in the South. The cold was
almost unprecedented, and snow fell many inches deep where it had
rarely whitened the ground before. Much suffering resulted among the
poor, who had not anticipated the rigorous season. The little squad of
Salvationists found more distress then they could relieve.
Charity in that town, while swift and liberal, lacked organization.
Want, in that balmy and productive climate, existed only in sporadic
cases, and these were nearly always quietly relieved by generous
neighbours. But when some sudden disastrous onslaught of the
elements--storm, fire or flood--occurred, the impoverished sufferers
were often too slowly aided because system was lacking, and because
charity was called upon too seldom to become a habit. At such times
the Salvation Army was very useful. Its soldiers went down into alleys
and byways to rescue those who, unused to extreme want, had never
learned to beg.
At the end of three weeks of hard freezing a level foot of snow fell.
Hunger and cold struck the improvident, and a hundred women, children
and old men were gathered into the Army's quarters to be warmed and
fed. Each day the blue-uniformed soldiers slipped in and out of the
stores and offices of the town, gathering pennies and dimes and
quarters to buy food for the starving. And in and out of private
houses the Salvationists went with baskets of food and clothing, while
day by day the mercury still crouched among the tens and twenties.
Alas! business, that scapegoat, was dull. The dimes and quarters came
more reluctantly from tills that jingled not when they were opened.
Yet in the big hall of the Army the stove was kept red-hot, and upon
the long table, set in the rear, could always be found at least coffee
and bread and cheese. The sergeant and the squad fought valiantly. At
last the money on hand was all gone, and the daily collections were
diminished to a variable sum, inadequate to the needs of the
dependents of the Army.
Christmas was near at hand. There were fifty children in the hall, and
many more outside, to whom that season brought no joy beyond what was
brought by the Army. None of these little pensioners had thus far
lacked necessary comforts, and they had already begun to chatter of
the tree--that one bright vision in the sober monotony of the year.
Never since the Army first came had it failed to provide a tree and
gifts for the children.
The sergeant was troubled. He knew that an announcement of "no tree"
would grieve the hearts under those thin cotton dresses and ragged
jackets more than would stress of storm or scanty diet; and yet there
was not money enough to meet the daily demands for food and fuel.
On the night of December the 20th the sergeant decided to announce
that there could be no Christmas tree: it seemed unfair to allow the
waxing anticipation of the children to reach too great a height.
The evening was colder, and the still deep snow was made deeper by
another heavy fall swept upon the wings of a fierce and shrill-voiced
northern gale. The sergeant, with sodden boots and reddened
countenance, entered the hall at nightfall, and removed his threadbare
overcoat. Soon afterward the rest of the faithful squad drifted in,
the women heavily shawled, the men stamping their snow-crusted feet
loudly upon the steep stairs. After the slender supper of cold meat,
beans, bread, and coffee had been finished all joined in a short
service of song and prayer, according to their daily habit.
Far back in the shadow sat Bulger. For weeks his ears had been
deprived of that aid to thought, the booming of the big bass drum. His
wrinkled face wore an expression of gloomy perplexity. The Army had
been too busy for the regular services and parades. The silent drum,
the banners, and the cornets were stored in a little room at the top
of the stairway.
Bulger came to the hall every night and ate supper with the others. In
such weather work of the kind that the old man usually did was not to
be had, and he was bidden to share the benefits conferred upon the
other unfortunates. He always left early, and it was surmised that he
passed the nights in his patchwork hut, that structure being
waterproof and weathertight beyond the promise of its outward
appearance. Of late the sergeant had had no time to bestow upon the
old man.
At seven o'clock the sergeant stood up and rapped upon the table with
a lump of coal. When the room became still he began his talk, that
rambled off into a halting discourse quite unlike his usual positive
and direct speeches. The children had gathered about their friend in a
ragged, wriggling, and wide-a-wake circle. Most of them had seen that
fresh, ruddy countenance of his emerge, at the twelve-stroke of a
night of splendour, from the whiskered mask of a magnificent Santa
Claus. They knew now that he was going to speak of the Christmas tree.
They tiptoed and listened, flushed with a hopeful and eager awe. The
sergeant saw it, frowned, and swallowed hard. Continuing, he planted
the sting of disappointment in each expectant little bosom, and
watched the light fade from their eyes.
There was to be no tree. Renunciation was no new thing to them; they
had been born to it. Still a few little ones in whom hope died hard
sobbed aloud, and wan, wretched mothers tried to hush and console
them. A kind of voiceless wail went among them, scarcely a protest,
rather the ghost of a lament for the childhood's pleasures they had
never known. The sergeant sat down and figured cheerlessly with the
stump of a pencil upon the blank border of a newspaper.
Bulger rose and shuffled out of the room without ceremony, as was his
custom. He was heard fumbling in the little room in the hallway, and
suddenly a thunderous roar broke out, filling the whole building with
its booming din. The sergeant started, and then laughed as if his
nerves welcomed the diversion.
"It's only Comrade Bulger," he said, "doing a little thinking in his
own quiet way."
The norther rattled the windows and shrieked around the corners. The
sergeant heaped more coal into the stove. The increase of that cutting
wind bore the cold promise of days, perhaps weeks, of hard times to
come. The children were slowly recovering the sad philosophy out of
which the deceptive hope of one bright day had enticed them. The women
were arranging things for the night; preparing to draw the long
curtain across the width of the hall, separating the children's
quarters and theirs from those of the men.
About eight o'clock the sergeant had seen that all was shipshape; and
was wrapping his woolen comforter around his neck, ready for his cold
journey homeward, when footsteps were heard upon the stairway. The
door opened, and Bulger came in covered with snow like Santa Claus,
and as red of face, but otherwise much unlike the jolly Christmas
saint.
The old man shambled down the hall to where the sergeant stood, drew a
wet, earth-soiled bag from under his coat, and laid it upon the table.
"Open it," he said, and motioned to the sergeant.
That cheery official obeyed with an indulgent smile. He seized the
bottom of the bag, turned it up, and stood, with his smile turned to a
gape of amazement, gazing at a heap of gold and silver coin that
rolled upon the table.
"Count it," said Bulger.
The jingling of the money and wonder at its source had produced a
profound silence in the room. For a time nothing could be heard but
the howling of the wind and the chink of the coins as the sergeant
slowly laid them in little separate piles.
"Six hundred," said the sergeant, and stopped to clear his throat,
"six hundred and twenty-three dollars and eighty-five cents!"
"Eighty," said Bulger. "Mistake of five cents. I've thought it out at
last, sergeant, and I've give up that friend I told you about. That's
him--dollars and cents. The boys was right when they said I was a
miser. Take it, sergeant, and spend it the best way for them that
needs it, not forgettin' a tree for the young 'uns, and--"
"Hallelujah!" cried the sergeant.
"And a new bass drum," concluded Bulger.
And then the sergeant made another speech.
A Professional Secret
The Story of a Maid Made Over
Dr. Satterfield Prince, physician to the leisure class, looked at his
watch. It indicated five minutes to twelve. At the stroke of the hour
would expire the morning term set apart for the reception of his
patients in his handsome office apartments. And then the young woman
attendant ushered in from the waiting-room the last unit of the
wealthy and fashionable gathering that had come to patronize his
skill.
Dr. Prince turned, his watch still in hand, his manner courteous, but
seeming to invite promptness and brevity in the interview. The last
patient was a middle-aged lady, richly dressed, with an amiable and
placid face. When she spoke her voice revealed the drawling, musical
slur and intonation of the South. She had come, she leisurely
explained, to bespeak the services of Dr. Prince in the case of her
daughter, who was possessed of a most mysterious affliction. And then,
femininely, she proceeded to exhaustively diagnose the affliction,
informing the physician with a calm certitude of its origin and
nature.
The diagnosis advanced by the lady--Mrs. Galloway Rankin--was one so
marvelously strange and singular in its conception that Dr. Prince,
accustomed as he was to the conceits and vagaries of wealthy
malingerers, was actually dumfounded. The following is the matter of
Mrs. Rankin's statement, briefly reported:
She--Mrs. Rankin--was of an old Kentucky family, the Bealls. Between
the Bealls and another historic house--the Rankins--had been waged for
nearly a century one of the fiercest and most sanguinary feuds within
the history of the State. Each generation had kept alive both the hate
and the warfare, until at length it was said that Nature began to take
cognizance of the sentiment and Bealls and Rankins were born upon
earth as antagonistic toward each other as cats and dogs. So, for four
generations the war had waged, and the mountains were dotted with
tombstones of both families. At last, for lack of fuel to feed upon,
the feud expired with only one direct descendant of the Bealls and one
of the Rankins remaining--Evalina Beall, aged nineteen, and Galloway
Rankin, aged twenty-five. The last mortal shot in the feud was fired
by Cupid. The two survivors met, became immediately and mutually
enamoured, and a miracle transpired on Kentucky soil--a Rankin wedded
a Beall.
Interposed, and irrelevant to the story, was the information that coal
mines had been discovered later on the Rankin lands, and now the
Galloway Rankins were to be computed among the millionaries.
All that was long enough ago for there to be now a daughter, twenty
years of age--Miss Annabel Rankin--for whose relief the services of
Dr. Prince was petitioned.
Then followed, in Mrs. Rankin's statement, a description of the
mysterious, though by her readily accounted for, affliction.
It seemed that there was a peculiar difficulty in the young lady's
powers of locomotion. In walking, a process requiring a coordination
and unanimity of the functions--Dr. Prince, said Mrs. Rankin, would
understand and admit the nonexistence of a necessity for anatomical
specification--there persisted a stubborn opposition, a most contrary
and counteracting antagonism. In those successively progressive and
generally unconsciously automatic movements necessary to proper
locomotion, there was a violent lack of harmony and mutuality. To give
an instance cited by Mrs. Rankin--if Miss Annabel desired to ascend a
stairway, one foot would be easily advanced to the step above, but
instead of aiding and abetting its fellow, the other would at once
proceed to start downstairs. By a strong physical and mental effort
the young lady could walk fairly well for a short distance but
suddenly the rebellious entities would become uncontrollable, and she
would be compelled to turn undesirable corners, to enter impossible
doorways, to dance, shuffle, sidestep and perform other undignified
and distressing evolutions.
After setting forth these lamentable symptoms, Mrs. Rankin
emphatically asserted her belief that the affliction was the result of
heredity--of the union between the naturally opposing and contrary
Beall and Rankin elements. She believed that the inherited spirit of
the ancient feud had taken on physical manifestations, exhibiting them
in the person of the unfortunate outcome of the union of opposites.
That in Miss Annabel Rankin was warring the imperishable antipathy of
the two families. In other words, that one of Miss Rankin's--that is
to say, that when Miss Rankin took a step it was a Beall step, and the
next one was dominated by the bequeathed opposition of the Rankins.
Doctor Prince received the communication with his usual grave,
professional attention, and promised to call the next day at ten to
inspect the patient.
Promptly at the hour his electric runabout turned into the line of
stylish autos and hansoms that wait along the pavements before the
most expensive hostelry on American soil.
When Miss Annabel Rankin entered the reception parlour of their choice
suite of rooms Doctor Prince gave a little blink of surprise through
his brilliantly polished nose glasses. The glow of perfect health and
the contour of perfect beauty were visible in the face and form of the
young lady. But admiration gave way to sympathy when he saw her walk.
She entered at a little run, swayed, stepped off helplessly at a sharp
tangent, advanced, marked time, backed off, recovered and sidled with
a manoeuvring rush to a couch, where she rested, with a look of
serious melancholy upon her handsome face.
Dr. Prince proceeded with his interrogatories in the delicate,
reassuring gentlemanly manner that had brought him so many patrons who
placed a value upon those amenities. Miss Annabel answered frankly and
sensibly, indeed, for one of her years. The feud theory of Mrs. Rankin
was freely discussed. The daughter also believed in it.
Soon the physician departed, promising to call again and administer
treatment. Then he buzzed down the Avenue and four doors on an
asphalted side street to the office of Dr. Grumbleton Myers, the great
specialist in locomotor ataxia and nerve ailments. The two
distinguished physicians shut themselves in a private office, and the
great Myers dragged forth a decanter of sherry and a box of Havanas.
When the consultation was over both shook their heads.
"Fact is," summed up Myers, "we don't know anything about anything.
I'd say treat symptoms now until something turns up; but there are no
symptoms."
"The feud diagnosis, then?" suggested Doctor Prince, archly, ridding
his cigar of its ash.
"It's an interesting case," said the specialist, noncommittally.
"I say, Prince," called Myers, as his caller was leaving.
"Er--sometimes, you know, children that fight and quarrel are shut in
separate rooms. Doesn't it seem a pity, now, that bloomers aren't in
fashion? By separ--"
"But they aren't," smiled Doctor Prince, "and we must be fashionable,
at any rate."
Doctor Prince burned midnight oil--or its equivalent, a patent,
electric, soft-shaded, midnight incandescent, over his case. With such
little success did his light shine that he was forced to make a little
speech to the Rankins full of scientific terms--a thing he
conscientiously avoided with his patients--which shows that he was
driven to expedient. At last he was reduced to suggest treatment by
hypnotism.
Being crowded further, he advised it, and appeared another day with
Professor Adami, the most reputable and non-advertising one he could
find among that school of practitioners.
Miss Annabel, gentle and melancholy, fell an easy victim--or, I should
say, subject--to the professor's influence. Previously instructed by
Doctor Prince in the nature of the malady he was about to combat, the
dealer in mental drugs proceeded to offer "suggestion" (in the
language of his school) to the afflicted and unconscious young lady,
impressing her mind with the conviction that her affliction was
moonshine and her perambulatory powers without impairment.
When the spell was removed Miss Rankin sat up, looking a little
bewildered at first, and then rose to her feet, walking straight
across the room with the grace, the sureness and the ease of a Diana,
a Leslie-Carter, or a Vassar basketball champion. Miss Annabel's sad
face was now lit with hope and joy. Mrs. Rankin of Southern
susceptibility wept a little, delightedly, upon a minute lace
handkerchief. Miss Annabel continued to walk about firmly and
accurately, in absolute control of the machinery necessary for her so
to do. Doctor Prince quietly congratulated Professor Adami, and then
stepped forward, smilingly rubbing his nose glasses with an air. His
position enabled him to overshadow the hypnotizer who, contented to
occupy the background temporarily, was busy estimating in his mind
with how large a bill for services he would dare to embellish the
occasion when he should come to the front.
Amid repeated expressions of gratitude, the two professional gentlemen
made their adieus, a little elated at the success of the treatment
which, with one of them, had been an experiment, with the other an
exhibition.
As the door closed behind them. Miss Annabel, her usually serious and
pensive temper somewhat enlivened by the occasion, sat at the piano
and dashed into a stirring march. Outside, the two men moving toward
the elevator heard a scream of alarm from her and hastened back. They
found her on the piano-stool, with one hand still pressing the keys.
The other arm was extended rigidly to its full length behind her, its
fingers tightly clenched into a pink and pretty little fist. Her
mother was bending over her, joining in the alarm and surprise. Miss
Rankin rose from the stool, now quiet, but again depressed and sad.
"I don't know what did it," she said, plaintively; "I began to play
and that arm shot back. It wouldn't stay near the piano while the
other one was there."
A ping-pong table stood in the room.
"A little game, Miss Rankin," cried Professor Adami, gayly, trying to
feel his way.
They played. With the racquet in the refractory arm, Miss Annabel
played in fine style. Her control of it was perfect. The professor
laid down his racquet.
"Ah! a button is loose on my coat," said he. "Such is the fate of
sorrowful bachelors. A needle and thread, now. Miss Rankin?"
A little surprised, but smiling acquiescence, Annabel brought the
articles from another room.
"Now thread the needle, if you please," said Professor Adami.
Annabel bit off two feet of the black silk. When she came to thread
the needle the secret was out. As the hand presenting the thread
approached the other holding the needle that arm was jerked violently
away. Doctor Prince was first to reduce the painful discovery to
words.
"Dear Miss and Mrs. Rankin," he said, in his most musical
consolation-baritone, "we have been only partially successful. The
affliction, Miss Rankin, has passed from your--that is, the affliction
is now in your arms."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Annabel, "I've a Beall arm and a Rankin arm, then.
Well, I can use one hand at a time, anyway. People won't notice it as
they did before. Oh, what an annoyance those feuds were, to be sure!
It seems to me they should make laws against them."
Doctor Prince looked inquiringly at Professor Adami. That gentleman
shook his head. "Another day," he said. "I prefer not to establish the
condition at a lesser interval than two or three days."
So, three days afterward they returned, and the professor replaced
Miss Rankin under control. This time there was, apparently, perfect
success. She came forth from the trance, and with full muscular
powers. She walked the floor with a sure, rhythmic step. She played
several difficult selections upon the piano, the hands and arms moving
with propriety and with allied ease. Miss Rankin seemed at last to
possess a perfectly well-ordered physical being as well as a very
grateful mental one.
A week afterward there wafted into Doctor Prince's office a youth,
generously gilded. The hallmarks of society were deeply writ upon him.
"I'm Ashburton," he explained; "T. Ripley Ashburton, you know. I'm
engaged to Miss Rankin. I understand you've been training her for some
breaks in her gaits--" T. Ripley Ashburton caught himself. "Didn't
mean that, you know--slipped out--been loafing around stables quite a
lot. I say, Doctor Prince, I want you to tell me. Candidly, you know.
I'm awful spoons on Miss Rankin. We're to be married in the fall. You
might consider me one of the family, you know. They told me about the
treatment you gave her with the--er--medium fellow. That set her up
wonderfully, I assure you. She goes freely now, and handles her
fore--I mean you know, she's over all that old trouble. But there's
something else started up that's making the track pretty heavy; so I
called, don't you understand."
"I had not been advised," said Doctor Prince, "of any recurrence of
Miss Rankin's indisposition."
T. Ripley Ashburton produced a silver cigarette-case and contemplated
it tenderly. Receiving no encouragement, he replaced it in his pocket
with a sigh.
"Not a recurrence," he said, thoughtfully, "but something different.
Possibly I'm the only one in a position to know. Hate to discuss
it--reveal Cupid's secrets, you know--such a jolly low thing to
do--but suppose the occasion justifies it."
"If you possess any information or have observed anything," said
Doctor Prince, judicially, "through which Miss Rankin's condition
might be benefited, it is your duty, of course, to apply it in her
behalf. I need hardly remind you that such disclosures are held as
secrets on professional honour."
"I believe I mentioned," said Mr. Ashburton, his fingers still
hovering around the pocket containing his cigarette case, "that Miss
Rankin and I are ever so sweet upon each other. She's a jolly, swell
girl, if she did come from the Kentucky mountains. Lately she's acted
awful queerly. She's awful affectionate one minute, and the next she
turns me down like a perfect stranger. Last night I called at the
hotel, and she met me at the door of their rooms. Nobody was in sight,
and she gave me an awful nice kiss--er--engaged, you know, Doctor
Prince--and then she fired away and gave me an awful hard slap in the
face. 'I hate the sight of you,' she said; 'how dare you take the
liberty!'" Mr. Ashburton drew an envelope from his pocket and
extracted from it a sheet of note paper of a delicate heliotrope tint.
"You might read this note, you know. Can't say if it's a medical case,
'pon my honour, but I'm awfully queered, don't you understand."
Doctor Prince read the following lines:
My dearest Ripley:
Do come around this evening--there's a dear boy--and take
me out somewhere. Mamma has a headache, and says she'll be
glad to be rid of both of us for a while. 'Twas so sweet
of you to send those pond lilies--they're just what I
wanted for the east windows. You darling boy--you're so
thoughtful and good--I'm sure you're worth all the love of
Your very own
Annabel.
P.S.--On second thoughts, I will ask you not to call this
evening, as I shall be otherwise engaged. Perhaps it has
never occurred to you that there may be two opinions about
the vast pleasure you seem to think your society affords
others. Clothes and the small talk of clubhouses and
racetracks hardly ever succeed in making a man without
other accessories.
Very respectfully,
Annabel Rankin.
Being deprived of the aid of his consolation cylinders, T. Ripley
Ashburton sat, gloomy, revolving things in his mind.
"Ah!" exclaimed Doctor Prince, aloud, but addressing the exclamation
to himself; "driven from the arms to the heart!" He perceived that the
mysterious hereditary contrariety had, indeed, taken up its lodging in
that tender organ of the afflicted maiden.
The gilded youth was dismissed, with the promise that Doctor Prince
would make a professional call upon Miss Rankin. He did so soon, in
company with Professor Adami, after they had discussed the strange
course taken by this annoying heritage of the Bealls and Rankins. This
time, as the location of the disorder required that the subject be
approached with ingenuity, some diplomacy was exercised before the
young lady could be induced to submit herself to the professor's art.
But evidently she did so, and emerged from the trance as usual without
a trace of unpleasant effect.
With much interest and some anxiety Doctor Prince passed several days
awaiting the report of Mr. Ashburton, who, indeed, of all others would
have to be depended upon to observe improvements, if any had occurred.
One morning that youth dropped in, jubilant.
"It's all right, you know," he declared, cheerfully. "Miss Rankin's
herself again. She's as sweet as cream, and the trouble's all off.
Never a cross word or look. I'm her ducky, all right. She won't
believe what I tell her about the way she used to treat me. Intimates
I make up the stories. But it's all right now--everything's running on
rubber tires. Awfully obliged to you and the old boy--er--the medium,
you know. And I say, now, Doctor Prince, there's a wonderful
improvement in Miss Rankin in every way. She used to be rather stiff,
don't you understand--sort of superior, in a way--bookish, and a habit
of thinking things, you know. Well, she's cured all round--she's a
topper now of any bunch in the set--swell and stylish and lively! Oh,
the crowd will fall in to her lead when she becomes Mrs. T. Ripley.
Now, I say. Doctor Prince, you and the--er--medium gentleman come and
take supper tonight with Mrs. and Miss Rankin and me. I'd be delighted
if you would, now--I would indeed--just for you to see, you know, the
improvement in Miss Rankin."
It transpired that Doctor Prince and Professor Adami accepted Mr.
Ashburton's invitation. They convened at the hotel in the rooms of the
Rankins. From there they were to proceed to the restaurant honoured by
Mr. Ashburton's patronage.
When Miss Rankin swept gracefully into the room the professional
gentlemen felt fascination and surprise conflicting in their feelings.
She was radiant, bewitching, lively to effervescence. Her mother and
Mr. Ashburton hung, enraptured, upon her looks and words. She was most
becomingly clothed in pale blue.
"Oh, bother!" she suddenly exclaimed, most vivaciously, "I don't like
this dress, after all. You must all wait," she commanded, with a
captivating fling of her train, "until I change." Half an hour later
she returned, magnificent in a stunning costume of black lace.
"I'll walk with you downstairs, Professor Adami," she declared, with a
charming smile. Halfway down she left his side abruptly and joined
Doctor Prince. "You've been such a benefit to me," she said. "It's
such a relief to get rid of that horrid feud thing. Heavens! Ripley,
did you forget those bonbons? Oh, this horrid black dress! I shouldn't
have worn it; it makes me think of funerals. Did you get the scent of
those lilacs then? It makes me think of the Kentucky mountains. How I
wish we were back there."
"Aren't you fond of New York, then?" asked Doctor Prince, regarding
her interestedly.
She started at the sound of his voice and looked up vivaciously.
"Indeed I am," she said, earnestly. "I adore New York. Why, I couldn't
live without theatres and dances and my daily drives here. Oh,
Ripley," she called, over her shoulder, "don't get that bull pup I
wanted; I've changed my mind. I want a Pomeranian--now, don't forget."
They arrived on the pavement.
"Oh, a carriage!" exclaimed Miss Rankin; "I don't want a carriage, I
want an auto. Send it away!"
"All right," said Ashburton, cheerily, "I thought you said a
carriage."
In obedience to orders the carriage rolled away and an open auto
glided up in its place.
"Stuffy, smelly thing!" cried Miss Rankin, with a winsome pout. "We'll
walk. Ripley, you and Doctor Prince look out for mamma. Come on,
Professor Adami." The indulgent victims of the charming beauty obeyed.
"The dear, dear child!" exclaimed Mrs. Rankin, happily, to Doctor
Prince. "How full of spirits and life she is getting to be! She's so
much improved from her old self."
"Lots," said Ashburton, proudly and fatuously. "She's picked up the
regular metropolitan gaits. Chic and swell don't begin to express her.
She's cut out the pensive thought business. Up-to-date. Why she
changes her mind every two minutes. That's Annabel."
At the fashionable restaurant where they were soon seated, Doctor
Prince found his curiosity and interest engaged by Miss Rankin's
behaviour. She was in an agreeably fascinating humour. Her actions
were such as might be expected from an adored child whose vacillating
whims were indulged by groveling relatives. She ordered article after
article from the bill of fare, petulantly countermanding nearly
everyone when they were set before her. Waiters flew and returned,
collided, conciliated, apologized, and danced at her bidding. Her
speech was quick and lively, deliciously inconsistent, abounding in
contradictions, conflicting statements, "bulls," discrepancies and
nonconformities. In short, she seemed to have acquired within the
space of a few days all that inconsequent, illogical frothiness that
passes current among certain circles of fashionable life.
Mr. T. Ripley Ashburton showed a doting appreciation and an addled
delight at the new charms of his fiancee--charms that he at once
recognized as the legal tender of his set.
Later, when the party had broken up, Doctor Prince and Professor Adami
stood, for a moment, at a corner, where their ways were to diverge.
"Well," said the professor, who was genially softened by the excellent
supper and wine, "this time our young lady seems to be more fortunate.
The malady has been eradicated completely from her entity. Yes, sir,
in good time, our school will be recognized by all."
Doctor Prince scrutinized the handsome, refined countenance of the
hypnotist. He saw nothing there to indicate that his own diagnosis was
even guessed at by that gentleman.
"As you say," he made answer, "she appears to have recovered, as far
as her friends can judge."
When he could spare the time. Doctor Prince again invaded the sanctum
of the great Grumbleton Myers, and together they absorbed the poison
of nicotine.
"Yes," said the great Myers, when the door was opened and Doctor
Prince began to ooze out with the smoke, "I think you have come to the
right decision. As long as none of the persons concerned has any
suspicion of the truth, and is happy in the present circumstances, I
don't think it necessary to inform him that the _feuditis Beallorum et
Rankinorum_--how's the Latin, doctor?--has only been driven to Miss
Rankin's brain."
The Elusive Tenderloin
There is no Tenderloin. There never was. That is, none that you could
run a tapeline around. The word really implies a condition or a
quality--much as you would say "reprehensibility" or "cold feet."
Metes and bounds have been assigned to it. I know. Realists
have prated of "from Fourteenth to Forty-second," and "as far
west as" etc., but the larger meaning of the word remains with me.
Confirmation of my interpretation of the famous slaughterhouse
noun-adjective came to me from Bill Jeremy, a friend out of the West.
Bill lives in a town on the edge of the prairie-dog country. At times
Bill yearns to maintain the tradition that "ginger shall be hot i' the
mouth." He brought his last yearning to New York. And it devolved upon
me. You know what that means.
I took Bill to see the cavity that has been drilled in the city's
tooth, soon to be filled with the new gold subway; and the Eden Musee,
and the Flatiron and the crack in the front windowpane of Russell
Sage's house, and the old man that threw the stone that did it when he
was a boy--and I asked Bill what he thought of New York.
"You may mean well," said Bill, with gentle reproach, "but you've got
in a groove. You thought I was underwear buyer for the Blue-Front Dry
Goods Emporium of Pine Knob, NC, didn't you? Or the junior partner of
Slowcoach & Green, of Geegeewocomee, State of Goobers, come on for
the fall stock of jeans, lingerie, and whetstones? Don't treat me like
a business friend.
"Do you suppose the wild, insensate longing I feel for metropolitan
gayety is going to be satisfied by waxworks and razorback
architecture? Now you get out the old envelope with the itinerary on
it, and cross out the Brooklyn Bridge and the cab that Morgan rides
home in and the remaining objects of interest, for I am going it
alone. The Tenderloin, well done, is what I shall admire for to see."
Bill Jeremy has a way of doing as he says he will. So I did not urge
upon him the bridge, or Carnegie Hall or the great Tomb--wonders that
the unselfish New Yorker reserves, unseen, for his friends.
That evening Bill descended, unprotected, upon the Tenderloin. The
next day he came and put his feet upon my desk and told me about it.
"This Tenderloin," said he, "is a cross between a fake sideshow and a
footrace. It's a movable feast--somethin' like Easter, or tryin' to
eat spaghetti with chopsticks.
"Last night I put all my money but nine dollars under a corner of the
carpet and started out. I had along a bill-of-fare of this here
Tenderloin; it said it begins at Fourteenth Street and runs to
Forty-second, with Fourth Avenue and Seventh on each side of it. Well,
I started up from Fourteenth so I wouldn't miss any of it. Lots of
people was travellin' on the streets in a hurry. Thinks I, the
Tenderloin's sizzlin' tonight; if I don't hurry I won't get a seat at
the performance.
"Most of the crowd seemed to be goin' up and I went up. And then they
seemed to be goin' down, and I went down. I asks a man in a light
overcoat with a blue jaw leanin' against a lamppost where was this
Tenderloin.
"Up that way," he says, wavin' his finger-ring.
"'How'll I know it when I get to it?' I asks.
"'Yah!' says he, like he was sick. 'Easy! Youse'll see a flax-headed
cull stakin' a doll in a 98-cent shirtwaist to a cheese sandwich and
sarsaparilla, and five Salvation Army corporals waitin' round for de
change. Dere'll be a phonograph playin' and nine cops gettin' ready to
raid de joint. Dat'll be it.'
"I asked that fellow where I was then.
"'Two blocks from de Pump,' says he.
"I goes on uptown, and seein' nothin' particular in the line of sinful
delight, I strikes 'crosstown to another avenue. That was Sixth, I
reckon. People was still walkin' up and down, puttin' first one foot
in front and then the other in the irreligious and wicked manner that
I suppose has given the Tenderloin its frivolous reputation. Street
cars was runnin' past, most impious and unregenerate; and the
profligate Dagoes was splittin' chestnuts to roast with a wild abandon
that reminded me considerably of doings in Paris, France. The
dissipated bootblacks was sleepin' in their chairs, and the roast
peanut whistles sounded gay and devilish among the mad throng that
leaned ag'inst the awnin' posts.
"A fellow with a high hat and brass buttons gets down off the top of
his covered sulky, and says to me, 'Keb, sir?'
"'Whereabouts is this Tenderloin, Colonel?' I asks.
"'You're right in the centre of it, boss,' says he. 'You are standin'
right now on the wickedest corner in New York. Not ten feet from here
a pushcart man had his pocket picked last night; and if you're here
for a week I can show you at least two moonlight trolley parties go by
on the New Amsterdam line.'
"'Look here,' says I, 'I'm out for a razoo. I've got nine iron
medallions of Liberty wearin' holes in my pocket linin'. I want to
split this Tenderloin in two if there's anything in it. Now put me on
to something that's real degraded and boisterous and sizzling with
cultured and uproarious sin. Something in the way of metropolitan vice
that I can be proud of when I go back home. Ain't you got any civic
pride about you?'
"This sulky driver scratched the heel of his chin.
"'Just now, boss,' says he, 'everything's layin' low. There's a tip
out that Jerome's cigarettes ain't agreein' with him. If it was any
other time--say,' says he, like an idea struck him, 'how'd you like to
take in the all-night restaurants? Lots of electric lights, boss, and
people and fun. Sometimes they laugh right out loud. Out-of-town
visitors mostly visit our restaurants.'
"'Get away,' says I, 'I'm beginnin' to think your old Tenderloin is
nothin' but the butcher's article. A little spice and infamy and
audible riot is what I am after. If you can't furnish it go back and
climb on your demi-barouche. We have restaurants out West' I tells
him, 'where we eat grub attended by artificial light and laughter.
Where is the boasted badness of your unjustly vituperated city?'
"The fellow rubs his chin again. 'Deed if I know, boss,' says he,
'right now. You see Jerome'--and then he buds out with another idea.
'Tell you what,' says he, 'be the very thing! You jump in my keb and
I'll drive you over to Brooklyn. My aunt's giving a euchre party
tonight,' says he, 'because Miles O'Reilly is busy, watchin' the
natatorium--somebody tipped him off it was a poolroom. Can you play
euchre? The keb'll be $3.50 an hour. Jump right in, boss.'
"That was the best I could do on the wickedest corner in New York. So
I walks over where it's more righteous, hopin' there might be
somethin' doin' among the Pharisees. Everything, so far as I could
see, was as free from guile as a hammock at a Chautauqua picnic. The
people just walked up and down, speakin' of chrysanthemum shows and
oratorios, and enjoyin' the misbegotten reputation of bein' the
wickedest rakes on the continent."
"It's too bad. Bill." I said, "that you were disappointed in the
Tenderloin. Didn't you have a chance to spend any of your money?"
"Oh, yes," said Bill. "I managed to drop one dollar over on the edge
of the sinful district. I was goin' along down a boulevard when I
hears an awful hollerin' and fussin' that sounded good--it reminded me
of a real enjoyable roughhouse out West. Some fellow was quarrelin' at
the top of his voice, usin' cuss words, and callin' down all kinds of
damnation about somethin'.
"The sounds come out through a big door in a high buildin' and I went
in to see the fun. Thinks I, I'll get a small slice of this here
Tenderloin anyhow. Well, I went in, and that's where I dropped the
dollar. They came around and collected it."
"What was inside. Bill?" I asked.
"A fellow told me, when we come out," said Bill, "it was a church, and
one of these preachers that mixes up in politics was denouncin' the
evils of the Tenderloin."
The Struggle of the Outliers
Again today, at a certain street, on the ragged boundaries of the
city, Lawrence Holcombe stopped the trolley car and got off. Holcombe
was a handsome, prosperous business man of forty; a man of high social
standing and connections. His comfortable suburban residence was some
five miles farther out on the car line from the street where so often
of late he had dropped off the outgoing car. The conductor winked at a
regular passenger, and nodded his head archly in the direction of
Holcombe's hurrying figure.
"Getting to be a regular thing," commented the conductor.
Holcombe picked his way gingerly down a roughly graded side street
infested with ragged urchins and impeded by abandoned tinware. He
stopped at a small cottage fenced in with a patch of stony ground with
a few stunted shade-trees growing about it. A stout, middle-aged woman
was washing clothes in a tub at one side of the door. She looked
around, and smiled a smile of fat recognition.
"Good avening, Mr. Holcombe, is it yerself ag'in? Ye'll find Katie
inside, sir."
"Did you speak to her for me?" asked Holcombe, in a low voice; "did
you try to help me gain her consent as you promised to do?"
"Sure, and I did that. But, sir, ye know gyurls will be gyurls. The
more ye coax 'em the wilfuller they gets. 'Tis yer own pleadin'
that'll get her if anything will. An' I hopes ye may, for I tells her
she'll never get a betther offer than yours, sir. 'Tis a good girl she
is, and a tidy hand for anything from the kitchen to the parlour, and
she's never a fault except, maybe, a bit too much likin' for dances
and ruffles and ribbons, but that's natural to her age and good looks
if I do say it meself, bein' her mither, Mr. Holcombe. Ye can spake
ag'in to Katie, sir, and maybe this time ye'll have luck unless Danny
Conlan, the wild gossoon, has been at it ag'in overpersuadin' her
ag'inst ye."
Holcombe turned slightly pale, and his lips closed tightly for a
moment.
"I've heard of this fellow Conlan before. Why does he interfere? Why
does he stand in the way? Is there anything between him and Katie?
Does Katie care for him?"
Mrs. Flynn gave a sigh, like a puff of a locomotive, and a flap upon
the washboard with a sodden garment that sent Holcombe, well splashed,
six feet away.
"Ask me no questions about what's in a gyurl's heart and I'll tell ye
no lies. Her own mither can't tell any more than yerself, Mr.
Holcombe."
Holcombe stepped inside the cottage. Katie Flynn, with rolled-up
sleeves, was ironing a dress of flounced muslin. Criticism of
Holcombe's deviation from his own sphere to this star of lower orbit
must have waned at the sight of the girl. Her beauty was of the most
solvent and convincing sort. Dusky Irish eyes, one great braid of
jetty, shining hair, a crimson mouth, dimpling and shaping itself to
every mood of its owner, a figure strong and graceful, seemingly full
of imperishable life and action--Katie Flynn was one to be sought
after and striven for.
Holcombe went and stood by her side as she ironed, and watched the
lithe play of muscles rolling beneath the satiny skin of her rounded
forearms.
"Katie," he said, his voice concealing a certain anxiety beneath a
wooing tenderness, "I have come for my answer. It isn't necessary to
repeat what we have talked over so often, but you know how anxious I
am to have you. You know my circumstances and position, and that you
will have every comfort and every privilege that you could ask for.
Say 'Yes,' Katie, and I'll be the luckiest man in this town today."
Kate set her iron down with a metallic click, and leaned her elbows
upon the ironing board. Her great blue-black eyes went, in their Irish
way, from sparkling fun to thoughtful melancholy.
"Oh, Mr. Holcombe, I don't know what to say. I know you'd be kind to
me, and give me the best home I could ever expect. I'd like to say
'yes'--indeed I would. I'd about decided to tell you so, but there's
Danny--he objects so."
Danny again! Holcombe strode up and down the room impatiently
frowning.
"Who is this fellow Conlan, Katie?" he asked. "Every time I nearly get
your consent he comes between us. Does he want you to live always in
this cottage for the convenience of his mightiness? Why do you listen
to him?"
"He wants me," said Katie, in the voice of a small, spoiled child.
"Well, I want you too," said Holcombe, masterfully. "If I could see
this wonderful Mr. Conlan, of the persuasive tongue, I'd argue the
matter with him."
"He's been the champion middleweight fighter of this town," said
Katie, a bit mischievously.
"Oh, has he! Well, that doesn't frighten me, Katie. In fact, I am not
sure but what I'd tackle him a few rounds myself, with you for the
prize; although I'm somewhat rusty with the gloves."
"Whist! there he comes now," exclaimed Katie, her eyes widening a
little with apprehension.
Holcombe looked out the door and saw a young man coming up from the
gate. He walked with an easy swagger. His face was smooth and
truculent, but not bad. He wore a cap pulled down to one eye. He
walked inside the house and stopped at the door of the room in which
stood his rival and the bone of contention.
"You're after my girl again, are you?" he grumbled, huskily and
ominously. "I don't like it, do you see? I've told her so, and I tell
you so. She stays here. For ten cents I'd knock your block off. Do you
see?"
"Now Mr. Conlan," began Holcombe, striving to avoid the _argumentum ad
hominem_, "listen to reason. It is only fair to let Katie choose for
herself. Is it quite the square thing to try to prevent her from doing
what she prefers to do? If it had not been for your interference I
would have had her long ago."
"For five cents," pursued the unmoved Mr. Conlan, lowering his terms,
"I'd knock your block off."
Into Holcombe's eye there came the light of desperate resolve. He saw
but one way to clear the obstacle from his path.
"I am told," he said quietly and firmly, "that you are a fighter. Your
mind seems to dwell upon physical combat as the solution to all
questions. Now, Conlan, I'm no scrapper, but I'll fight you to a
finish any time within the next three minutes to see who gets the
girl. If I win she goes with me. If you win you have your way, and
I'll not trouble her again. Are you game?"
Danny Conlan's hard, blue eyes looked a sudden admiration.
"You're all right," he conceded with gruff candour. "I didn't think
you was that sort. You're all right. It's a dead fair sporting prop.,
and I'm your company. I'll stand by the results according to terms.
Come on, and I'll show you where it can be pulled off. You're all
right."
Katie tried to interfere, but Danny silenced her. He led Holcombe down
the hill to a deep gully that sheltered them from view. Night was just
closing in upon the twilight. They laid aside their coats and hats.
Here was a situation in the methodical existence of Lawrence Holcombe,
real estate and bond broker, representative business man of
unquestionable habits and social position! Fighting with a
professional tough in a gully in a squalid settlement for the daughter
of an Irish washerwoman!
The combat was a short one. If it had lasted longer, Holcombe would
have lost, for both his wind and his science had deteriorated from
long lack of training. Therefore, he forced the fighting from the
start. It is difficult to say to what he owed his victory over the
once champion middleweight. One thing in his favour was that Mr.
Conlan's nerve and judgment had been somewhat shattered by the effects
of a recent spree. Another must have been that Holcombe was stimulated
to supreme exertion by an absorbing incentive to win--a prompting more
powerful than the instinct of the gladiator, deeper than all the
motives of gallantry, and more important than the vital influence of
love itself. A third fortuitous adjunct was, without doubt, a chance
blow upon the projecting chin of the middleweight, under which that
warrior sank to the gully's grime and remained incapable, while
Holcombe stood above him and leisurely counted him out.
Danny got shakily to his feet, and proved to be a true sport.
"You're all right," he said. "But if we'd had it by rounds 'twould
have ended different. The girl goes with you, do you see? I'm on the
square."
They climbed back to the cottage.
"It's settled," announced Holcombe. "Mr. Conlan removes his
objections."
"That's straight," said Danny. "He's all right."
Holcombe had only a scratched and slightly reddened chin from a
vicious, glancing uppercut from Danny's left. Danny showed punishment.
One eye was nearly closed. His lip was bleeding.
Katie was a true woman. Such do not at once crown the victor in the
tourney for their favour. Pity comes first. The victor must wait for
his own. It will come to him. She flew to the vanquished champion and
comforted him, ministering to his bruises. Holcombe stood, serene and
smiling, without jealousy.
"Tomorrow," he said to Katie, with head erect and beaming eyes.
"Tomorrow, if you like," answered Katie.
Holcombe minced his precarious way up the ragged hill among the
obsolete tinware. His car came along aglitter with electric lights and
jammed with passengers. He jumped to the rear platform and stood
there. At his side he found Weatherly, a friend and neighbour, who had
also built a house in the suburbs, a few squares from his own.
"Hello, Holcombe," yelled Weatherly, above the crash of the car. "Been
looking over some real estate, out here? How're Mrs. Holcombe and the
young H's?"
"First rate," shouted Holcombe, "when I left home this morning. How's
the family with you?"
"Only so-so. Usual suburban troubles. Servants won't stay so far out;
tradesmen object to delivering goods in the country; cars break down,
etc. What's pleasing you so? Made a lucky deal today?"
Holcombe's face wore an ecstatic look. He was fingering a little
scratch on his chin with one hand. He leaned his head towards
Weatherly's ear.
"Say, Bob, do you remember that Irish girl, Katie Flynn, that was with
the Spaffords so long a time?"
"I've heard of her," said Weatherly. "They say she stayed a year with
them without a single day off. But I don't believe any fairy story
like that."
"'Twas a fact. Well, I engaged her today for a cook. She's going out
to the house tomorrow."
"Confound you for a lucky dog," shouted Weatherly, with envy in his
tones and his heart, "and you live four blocks further out than we
do!"
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