When the brakeman swung back the door and with resonant indifference
shouted in Esperanto “Granderantal stashun,” Galbraithe felt like jumping
up and gripping the man’s hand. It was five years since he had heard
that name pronounced as it should be pronounced, because it was just five
years since he had resigned from the staff of a New York daily and left
to accept the editorship of a small Kansas weekly. These last years had
been big years, full of the joy of hard work, and though they had left
him younger than when he went, they had been five years away from New
York. Now he was back again for a brief vacation, eager for a sight of
the old crowd.
When he stepped from the car he was confused for a minute. In the mining
camp at present substituted for the former terminal he was green as a
tenderfoot. It took him a second to get his bearings, but as soon as he
found himself fighting for his feet in the dear old stream of commuters
he knew he was at home again. The heady jostle among familiar types made
him feel that he hadn’t been gone five days, although the way the horde
swept past him proved that he had lost some of his old-time skill and
cunning in a crowd. But he didn’t mind; he was here on a holiday, and
they were here on business and had their rights. He recognized every
mother’s son of them. Neither the young ones nor the old ones were a day
older.
They wore the same clothes, carried the same bundles and passed the same
remarks. The solid business man weighted with the burden of a Long
Island estate was there; the young man in a broker’s office who pushed
his own lawn mower at New Rochelle was there; the man who got aboard at
One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Street was there. There was the man with
the Van Dyke, the man with a mustache, and the fat, smooth-shaven man,
and the wives, the sisters and the stenographers of all these. They were
just as Galbraithe had left them—God bless ’em.
Swept out upon Forty-second Street, he took a long, full breath. The
same fine New York sky was overhead (the same which roofed Kansas) and
the same New York sun shone down upon him (even as in its gracious bounty
it shone upon Kansas). The thrill of it made him realize as never before
that, though the intervening years had been good to him, New York was in
his blood. His eyes seized upon the raw, angular buildings as eagerly as
an exiled hill man greets friendly mountain peaks. There are no
buildings on earth which look so friendly, once a man gets to know them,
as those about the Grand Central. Galbraithe noticed some new
structures, but even these looked old. The total effect was exactly as
he had left it. That was what he appreciated after his sojourn among the
younger cities of the West. New York was permanent—as fixed as the pole
star. It was unalterable.
Galbraithe scorned to take cab, car or bus this morning. He wanted to
walk—to feel beneath his feet the dear old humpy pavement. It did his
soul good to find men repairing the streets in the same old places—to
find as ever new buildings going up and old buildings coming down, and
the sidewalks blocked in the same old way. He was clumsy at his
hurdling, but he relished the exercise.
He saw again with the eyes of a cub reporter every tingling feature of
the stirring street panorama, from gutter to roof top, and thrilled with
the magic and vibrant bigness of it all. Antlike, men were swarming
everywhere bent upon changing, and yet they changed nothing. That was
what amazed and comforted him. He knew that if he allowed five years to
elapse before returning to his home town in Kansas he wouldn’t recognize
the place, but here everything was as he had left it, even to the men on
the corners, even to the passers-by, even to the articles in the store
windows. Flowers at the florist’s, clothing at the haberdasher’s, jewels
at the jeweler’s, were in their proper places, as though during the
interval nothing had been sold. It made him feel as eternal as the
Wandering Jew. The sight of the completed public library restored him to
normal for a moment but, after all, the building looked as though it had
been long finished. A public library always does. It is born a century
old.
The old Fifth Avenue Hotel was gone, but he wondered if it had ever been.
He didn’t miss it—hardly noticed any change. The new building fitted
into its niche as perfectly as though it had been from the first ordained
for that particular spot. It didn’t look at all the upstart that every
new building in Kansas did.
He hurried on to Park Row, and found himself surrounded by the very
newsboys he had left. Not one of them had grown a day older. The lanky
one and the lame one and the little one were there. Perhaps it was
because they had always been as old as it is possible for a boy to be,
that they were now no older. They were crying the same news to the same
indifferent horde scurrying past them. Their noisy shouting made
Galbraithe feel more than ever like a cub reporter. It was only
yesterday that his head was swirling with the first mad excitement of it.
Across the street the door stood open through which he had passed so many
times. Above it he saw the weather-beaten sign which had always been
weather-beaten. The little brick building greeted him as hospitably as
an open fire at home. He knew every inch of it, from the outside sill to
the city room, and every inch was associated in his mind with some big
success or failure. If he came back as a vagrant spirit a thousand years
from now he would expect to find it just as it was. A thousand years
back this spot had been foreordained for it. Lord, the rooted stability
of this old city! He had forgotten that he no longer had quarters in
town, and must secure a room. He was still carrying his dress-suit case,
but he couldn’t resist the temptation of first looking in on the old
crowd and shaking hands. He hadn’t kept in touch with them except that
he still read religiously every line of the old sheet, but he had
recognized the work of this man and that, and knew from what he had
already seen that nothing inside any more than outside could be changed.
It was about nine o’clock, so he would find Hartson, the city editor,
going over the morning papers, with his keen eyes alert to discover what
had been missed during the night. As he hurried up the narrow stairs his
heart was as much in his mouth as it had been the first day he was taken
on the staff. Several new office boys eyed him suspiciously, but he
walked with such an air of familiarity that they allowed him to pass
unquestioned. At the entrance to the sacred precinct of the city
editor’s room he paused with all his old-time hesitancy. After working
five years under Hartson and then five years for himself as a managing
editor, be found he had lost nothing of his wholesome respect for the
man. Hartson’s back was turned when Galbraithe entered, and he waited at
the rail until the man looked up. Then with a start Galbraithe saw that
this wasn’t Hartson at all.
“I—I beg pardon,” he stammered.
“Well?” demanded the stranger.
“I expected to find Mr. Hartson,” explained Galbraithe.
“Hartson?”
“I used to be on the staff and—”
“Guess you’re in the wrong office,” the stranger shut him off abruptly.
For a moment Galbraithe believed this was possible, but every scarred bit
of furniture was in its place and the dusty clutter of papers in the
corner had not been disturbed. The new city editor glanced suspiciously
toward Galbraithe’s dress-suit case and reached forward as though to
press a button. With flushed cheeks Galbraithe retreated, and hurried
down the corridor toward the reportorial rooms. He must find Billy
Bertram and get the latter to square him with the new city editor. He
made at once for Billy Bertram’s desk, with hand extended. Just beyond
was the desk he himself had occupied for five years. Bertram looked
up—and then Galbraithe saw that it wasn’t Bertram at all.
“What can I do for you, old man?” inquired the stranger. He was a man of
about Bertram’s age, and a good deal of Bertram’s stamp.
“I was looking for Billy Bertram,” stammered Galbraithe. “Guess he must
have shifted his desk.”
He glanced hopefully at the other desks in the room, but he didn’t
recognize a face.
“Bertram?” inquired the man who occupied Bertram’s desk. He turned to
the man next to him.
“Say, Green, any one here by the name of Bertram?”
Green lighted a fresh cigarette, and shook his head.
“Never heard of him,” he replied indifferently.
“He used to sit here,” explained Galbraithe.
“I’ve held down this chair for fifteen months, and before me a chump by
the name of Watson had that honor. Can’t go back any farther than that.”
Galbraithe put down his suit case, and wiped his forehead. Every one in
the room took a suspicious glance at the bag.
“Ever hear of Sanderson?” Galbraithe inquired of Green.
“Nope.”
“Ever hear of Wadlin or Jerry Donahue or Cartwright?”
Green kicked a chair toward him.
“Sit down, old man,” he suggested. “You’ll feel better in a minute.”
“Ever hear of Hartson? Ever hear of old Jim Hartson?”
“That’s all right,” Green encouraged him. “If you have a line in that
bag you think will interest us, bring it out. It’s against office rules,
but—”
Galbraithe tried to recall if, on his way downtown, he had inadvertently
stopped anywhere for a cocktail. He had no recollection of so doing.
Perhaps he was a victim of a mental lapse—one of those freak blank spaces
of which the alienists were talking so much lately. He made one more
attempt to place himself. In his day he had been one of the star
reporters of the staff.
“Ever hear of—of Galbraithe?” he inquired anxiously.
By this time several men had gathered around the two desks as interested
spectators. Galbraithe scanned their faces, but he didn’t recognize one
of them.
“Haven’t got a card about your person, have you?” inquired Green.
“Why, yes,” answered Galbraithe, fumbling for his case. The group
watched him with some curiosity, and Harding, the youngest man, scenting
a story, pushed to the front. With so many eyes upon him Galbraithe grew
so confused that he couldn’t find his card case.
“I’m sure I had it with me,” he apologized. “Remember where you were
last night?” inquired Green.
“Just got in this morning,” answered Galbraithe. “I—here it is.”
He drew out a card and handed it to Green. The group gathered closer and
read it.
“Harvey L. Galbraithe, Moran County Courier.”
Green solemnly extended his hand.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Galbraithe. Up here on business, or pleasure?”
“I used to work here,” explained Galbraithe. “I came up on a vacation to
see the boys.”
“Used to work on this sheet?” exclaimed Green, as though doubting it.
“I left in nineteen seven,” answered Galbraithe.
“Nineteen seven,” exclaimed Green, with a low whistle. “You are sure
some old-timer. Let’s see—that’s over fifteen hundred days ago. When
did you come on?”
“Just before the Spanish War,” answered Galbraithe eagerly. “Hartson
sent me to Cuba.”
Harding came closer, his eyes burning with new interest.
“Gee,” he exclaimed, “those must have been great days. Why in thunder
can’t Taft stir up a little trouble like that? I ran across an old
codger at the Press Club once who had been with Dewey at Manila.”
He spoke as Galbraithe might speak of the Crimean War. He pressed the
latter for details, and Galbraithe, listening to the sound of his own
voice, allowed himself to be led on. When he was through he felt
toothless, and as though his hair had turned gray.
“Those were the happy days,” exclaimed Harding. “The game was worth
playing then—eh, old man?”
“Yes,” mumbled Galbraithe. “But don’t any of you know what has become of
Hartson?”
“Haydon would probably remember him—”
“Haydon?” broke in Galbraithe. “Is he here?”
He looked wistfully about the room to the corner where the exchange
editor used to sit.
“He died last spring,” said Green. “Guess he was the last leaf on the
tree.”
“He came on five years ahead of me,” said Galbraithe. “He and I did the
barrel murders together.”
“What was that story?” inquired Harding.
Galbraithe looked at Harding to make sure this was not some fool joke.
At the time nothing else had been talked of in New York for a month, and
he and Haydon had made something of a name for themselves for the work
they did on it. Harding was both serious and interested—there could be
no doubt about that. That was eight years ago, and it stuck out in
Galbraithe’s mind as fresh as though it were yesterday. But what he was
just beginning to perceive was that this was so because he had been away
from New York. To those living on here and still fighting the old game
it had become buried, even as tradition, in the multiplicity of
subsequent stories. These younger men who had superseded him and his
fellows already had their own big stories. They came every day between
the dawn and the dark, and then again between the dark and the dawn. Day
after day they came unceasingly, at the end of a week dozens of them, at
the end of the month hundreds, at the end of a year thousands. It was
fifteen hundred days ago that he had been observing the manifold
complications of these million people, and since that time a thousand
volumes had been written about as many tragedies enacted in the same old
setting. Time here was measured in hours, not years. Only the stage
remained unchanged.
Galbraithe stood up, so dazed that he faltered as though with the palsy.
Harding took his arm.
“Steady, old man,” he cautioned. “You’d better come out and have a
drink.”
Galbraithe shook his head. He felt sudden resentment at the part they
were forcing upon him.
“I’m going back home,” he announced.
“Come on,” Harding encouraged him. “We’ll drink to the old days, eh?”
“Sure,” chimed in Green. The others, too, rose and sought their hats.
“I won’t,” replied Galbraithe, stubbornly. “I’m going back home, I tell
you. And in ten years I’ll be twenty-five years younger than any of
you.”
He spoke with some heat. Harding laughed, but Green grew sober. He
placed his hand on Galbraithe’s arm.
“Right,” he said. “Get out, and God bless you, old man.”
“If only Haydon had been here—” choked Galbraithe.
“I expect he’s younger than any of us,” replied Green, soberly. “He’s
measuring time by eternities.”
Galbraithe picked up his bag.
“S’long,” he said.
He moved toward the door, and the entire group stood stock still and
without a word saw him go out. He hurried along the narrow corridor and
past the city editor’s room. He went down the old stairs, his shoulders
bent and his legs weak. Fifteen hundred days were upon his shoulders.
He went out upon the street, and for a moment stood there with his ears
buzzing. About him swarmed the same newsboys he had left five years
before, looking no older by a single day. Squinting his eyes, he studied
them closely. There was Red Mick, but as he looked more carefully he saw
that it wasn’t Red Mick at all. It was probably Red Mick’s younger
brother. The tall one, the lanky one and the little lame one were there,
but their names were different. The drama was the same, the setting the
same, but fifteen hundred days had brought a new set of actors for the
same old parts. It was like seeing Shakespeare with a new cast, but the
play was older by centuries than any of Shakespeare’s.
Galbraithe hailed a taxi.
“Granderantal stash-un,” he ordered.
Peering out the window, he watched the interminable procession on street
and sidewalks. He gazed at the raw, angular buildings—permanent and
unalterable. Overhead a Kansas sun shone down upon him—the same which in
its gracious bounty shone down upon New York.
_Frederick Orin Bartlett_.