HE ENTERS SOCIETY
England, in all its Istra-ness, scarce gave Mr. Wrenn a better thrill
for his collection than the thrill he received on the November evening
when he saw the white doorway of Mrs. R. T. Ferrard, in a decorous row
of houses on Thirtieth Street near Lexington Avenue.
It is a block where the citizens have civic pride. A newspaper has not
the least chance of lying about on the asphalt—some householder with a
frequently barbered mustache will indignantly pounce upon it inside of
an hour. No awe. is caused by the sight of vestibules floored with
marble in alternate black and white tiles, scrubbed not by landladies,
but by maids. There are dotted Swiss curtains at the basement windows
and Irish point curtains on the first floors. There are two polished
brass doorplates in a stretch of less than eight houses. Distinctly, it
is not a quarter where children fill the street with shouting and
little sticks.
Occasionally a taxicab drives up to some door without a crowd of small
boys gathering; and young men in evening clothes are not infrequently
seen to take out young ladies wearing tight-fitting gowns of black, and
light scarfs over their heads. A Middle Western college fraternity has
a club-house in the block, and four of the houses are private—one of
them belonging to a police inspector and one to a school principal who
wears spats.
It is a block that is satisfied with itself; as different from the Zapp
district, where landladies in gingham run out to squabble with
berry-venders, as the Zapp district is from the Ghetto.
Mrs. Arty Ferrard’s house is a poor relation to most of the residences
there. The black areaway rail is broken, and the basement-door grill is
rusty. But at the windows are red-and-white-figured chintz curtains,
with a $2.98 bisque figurine of an unclothed lady between them; the
door is of spotless white, with a bell-pull of polished brass.
Mr. Wrenn yanked this bell-pull with an urbane briskness which, he
hoped, would conceal his nervousness and delight in dining out. For he
was one of the lonely men in New York. He had dined out four times in
eight years.
The woman of thirty-five or thirty-eight who opened the door to him was
very fat, two-thirds as fat as Mrs. Zapp, but she had young eyes. Her
mouth was small, arched, and quivering in a grin.
“This is Mr. Wrenn, isn’t it?” she gurgled, and leaned against the
doorpost, merry, apparently indolent. “I’m Mrs. Ferrard. Mr. Poppins
told me you were coming, and he said you were a terribly nice man, and
I was to be sure and welcome you. Come right in.”
Her indolence turned to energy as she charged down the hall to the
large double door on the right and threw it open, revealing to him a
scene of splendor and revelry by night.
Several persons [they seemed dozens, in their liveliness] were singing
and shouting to piano music, in the midst of a general redness and
brightness of furnishings—red paper and worn red carpet and a high
ceiling with circular moldings tinted in pink. Hand-painted pictures of
old mills and ladies brooding over salmon sunsets, and an especially
hand-painted Christmas scene with snow of inlaid mother-of-pearl,
animated the walls. On a golden-oak center-table was a large lamp with
a mosaic shade, and through its mingled bits of green and red and pearl
glass stormed the brilliance of a mantle-light.
The room was crowded with tufted plush and imitation-leather chairs,
side-tables and corner brackets, a couch and a “lady’s desk.” Green and
red and yellow vases adorned with figures of youthful lovers crammed
the top of the piano at the farther end of the room and the polished
black-marble mantel of the fireplace. The glaring gas raced the
hearth-fire for snap and glare and excitement. The profusion of
furniture was like a tumult; the redness and oakness and polishedness
of furniture was a dizzying activity; and it was all overwhelmingly
magnified by the laughter and singing about the piano.
Tom Poppins lumbered up from a couch of terrifically new and red
leather, and Mr. Wrenn was introduced to the five new people in the
room with dismaying swiftness. There seemed to be fifty times five
unapproachable and magnificent strangers from whom he wanted to flee.
Of them all he was sure of only two—a Miss Nelly somebody and what
sounded like Horatio Hood Tem (Teddem it was).
He wished that he had caught Miss Nelly’s last name (which, at dinner,
proved to be Croubel), for he was instantly taken by her sweetness as
she smiled, held out a well-shaped hand, and said, “So pleased meet
you, Mr. Wrenn.”
She returned to the front of the room and went on talking to a lank
spinster about ruchings, but Mr. Wrenn felt that he had known her long
and as intimately as it was possible to know so clever a young woman.
Nelly Croubel gave him the impression of a delicate prettiness, a
superior sort of prettiness, like that of the daughter of the Big White
House on the Hill, the Squire’s house, at Parthenon; though Nelly was
not unusually pretty. Indeed, her mouth was too large, her hair of
somewhat ordinary brown. But her face was always changing with emotions
of kindliness and life. Her skin was perfect; her features fine, rather
Greek; her smile, quick yet sensitive. She was several inches shorter
than Mr. Wrenn, and all curves. Her blouse of white silk lay tenderly
along the adorably smooth softness of her young shoulders. A smart
patent-leather belt encircled her sleek waist. Thin black lisle
stockings showed a modestly arched and rather small foot in a black
pump.
She looked as though she were trained for business; awake,
self-reliant, self-respecting, expecting to have to get things done,
all done, yet she seemed indestructibly gentle, indestructibly good and
believing, and just a bit shy.
Nelly Croubel was twenty-four or twenty-five in years, older in
business, and far younger in love. She was born in Upton’s Grove,
Pennsylvania. There, for eighteen years, she had played Skip to Malue
at parties, hid away the notes with which the boys invited her to
picnics at Baptist Beach, read much Walter Scott, and occasionally
taught Sunday-school. Her parents died when she was beginning her
fourth year in high school, and she came to New York to work in
Wanamacy’s toy department at six dollars a week during the holiday
rush. Her patience with fussy old shoppers and her large sales-totals
had gained her a permanent place in the store.
She had loftily climbed to the position of second assistant buyer in
the lingerie department, at fourteen dollars and eighty cents a week
That was quite all of her history except that she attended a
Presbyterian church nearly every Sunday. The only person she hated was
Horatio Hood Teddem, the cheap actor who was playing the piano at Mr.
Wrenn’s entrance.
Just now Horatio was playing ragtime with amazing rapidity, stamping
his foot and turning his head to smirk at the others.
Mrs. Arty led her chattering flock to the basement dining-room, which
had pink wall-paper and a mountainous sideboard. Mr. Wrenn was placed
between Mrs. Arty and Nelly Croubel. Out of the mist of strangeness
presently emerged the personality of Miss Mary Proudfoot, a lively but
religious spinster of forty who made doilies for the Dorcas Women’s
Exchange and had two hundred dollars a year family income. To the right
of the red-glass pickle-dish were the elderly Ebbitts—Samuel Ebbitt,
Esq., also Mrs. Ebbitt. Mr. Ebbitt had come from Hartford five years
before, but he always seemed just to have come from there. He was in a
real-estate office; he was gray, ill-tempered, impatiently honest, and
addicted to rheumatism and the newspapers. Mrs. Ebbitt was addicted
only to Mr. Ebbitt.
Across the table was felt the presence of James T. Duncan, who looked
like a dignified red-mustached Sunday-school superintendent, but who
traveled for a cloak and suit house, gambled heavily on poker and
auction pinochle, and was esteemed for his straight back and knowledge
of trains.
Which is all of them.
As soon as Mrs. Arty had guided Annie, the bashful maid, in serving the
vegetable soup, and had coaxed her into bringing Mr. Wrenn a napkin,
she took charge of the conversation, a luxury which she would never
have intrusted to her flock’s amateurish efforts. Mr. Poppins, said
she, had spoken of meeting a friend of Mr. Wrenn’s; Mr. Morton, was it
not? A very nice man, she understood. Was it true that Mr. Wrenn and
Mr. Morton had gone clear across the Atlantic on a cattle-boat? It
really was?
“Oh, how interesting!” contributed pretty Nelly Croubel, beside Mr.
Wrenn, her young eyes filled with an admiration which caused him
palpitation and difficulty in swallowing his soup. He was confused by
hearing old Samuel Ebbitt state:
“Uh-h-h-h—back in 18—uh—1872 the vessel _Prissie_—no, it was 1873; no,
it must have been ’72—”
“It was 1872, father,” said Mrs. Ebbitt.
“1873. I was on a coasting-vessel, young man. But we didn’t carry
cattle.” Mr. Ebbitt inspected Horatio Hood Teddem darkly, clicked his
spectacle case sharply shut, and fell to eating, as though he had
settled all this nonsense.
With occasional witty interruptions from the actor, Mr. Wrenn told of
pitching hay, of the wit of Morton, and the wickedness of Satan, the
boss.
“But you haven’t told us about the brave things _you_ did,” cooed Mrs.
Arty. She appealed to Nelly Croubel: “I’ll bet he was a cool one. Don’t
you think he was, Nelly?”
“I’m sure he was.” Nelly’s voice was like a flute.
Mr. Wrenn knew that there was just one thing in the world that he
wanted to do; to persuade Miss Nelly Croubel that (though he was a
solid business man, indeed yes, and honorable) he was a cool one, who
had chosen, in wandering o’er this world so wide, the most perilous and
cattle-boaty places. He tried to think of something modest yet striking
to say, while Tom was arguing with Miss Mary Proudfoot, the respectable
spinster, about the ethics of giving away street-car transfers.
As they finished their floating custard Mr. Wrenn achieved, “Do you
come from New York, Miss Croubel?” and listened to the tale of
sleighing-parties in Upton’s Grove, Pennsylvania. He was absolutely
happy.
“This is like getting home,” he thought. “And they’re classy folks to
get home to—now that I can tell ’em apart. Gee! Miss Croubel is a
peach. And brains—golly!”
He had a frightened hope that after dinner he would be able to get into
a corner and talk with Nelly, but Tom Poppins conferred with Horatio
Hood Teddenm and called Mr. Wrenn aside. Teddem had been acting with a
moving-picture company for a week, and had three passes to the
celebrated Waldorf Photoplay Theater.
Mr. Wrenn had bloodthirstily disapproved Horatio Hood’s effeminate
remarks, such as “Tee _hee!_” and “Oh, you naughty man,” but when he
heard that this molly-coddle had shared in the glory of making moving
pictures he went proudly forth with him and Tom. He had no chance to
speak to Mrs. Arty about taking the room to be vacated.
He wished that Charley Carpenter or the Zapps could see him sitting
right beside an actor who was shown in the pictures miraculously there
before them, asking him how they made movies, just as friendly as
though they had known each other always.
He wanted to do something to entertain his friends beyond taking them
out for a drink. He invited them down to his room, and they came.
Teddem was in wonderful form; he mimicked every one they saw so amiably
that Tom Poppins knew the actor wanted to borrow money. The party were
lovingly humming the popular song of the time—“Any Little Girl That’s a
Nice Little Girl is the Right Little Girl for Me”—as they frisked up
the gloomy steps of the Zapps. Entering, Poppins and Teddem struck
attitudes on the inside stairs and sang aloud.
Mr. Wrenn felt enormously conscious of Mrs. Zapp down below. He kept
listening, as he led them up-stairs and lighted the gas. But Teddem so
imitated Colonel Roosevelt, with two water-glasses for eye-glasses and
a small hat-brush for mustache, that Mr. Wrenn was moved wrigglingly to
exclaim: “Say, I’m going out and get some beer. Or ’d you rather have
something else? Some cheese sandwiches? How about ’em?”
“Fine,” said Tom and Teddem together.
Not only did Mr. Wrenn buy a large newspaper-covered bundle of bottles
of beer and Swiss-cheese sandwiches, but also a small can of caviar and
salty crackers. In his room he spread a clean towel, then two clean
towels, on the bureau, and arrayed the feast, with two water-glasses
and a shaving-mug for cups.
Horatio Hood Teddem, spreading caviar on a sandwich, and loudly singing
his masterpiece, “Waal I swan,” stopped short and fixed amazed eyes on
the door of the room.
Mr. Wrenn hastily turned. The light fell—as on a cliff of crumbly gray
rock—on Mrs. Zapp, in the open door, vast in her ungirdled gray
wrapper, her arms folded, glowering speechlessly.
“Mist’ Wrenn,” she began, in a high voice that promised to burst into
passion.
But she was addressing the formidable adventurer, Bill Wrenn. He had to
protect his friends. He sprang up and walked across to her.
He said, quietly, “I didn’t hear you knock, Mrs. Zapp.”
“Ah _didn’t_ knock, and Ah want you should—”
“Then please do knock, unless you want me to give notice.”
He was quivering. His voice was shrill.
From the hall below Theresa called up, “Ma, come down here. _Ma!_”
But Mrs. Zapp was too well started. “If you think Ah’m going to stand
for a lazy sneaking little drunkard keeping the whole street awake, and
here it is prett’ nearly midnight—”
Just then Mr. William Wrenn saw and heard the most astounding thing of
his life, and became an etemal slave to Tom Poppins.
Tom’s broad face became hard, his voice businesslike. He shouted at
Mrs. Zapp:
“Beat it or I’ll run you in. Trouble with you is, you old hag, you
don’t appreciate a nice quiet little chap like Wrenn, and you try to
bully him—and him here for years. Get out or I’ll put you out. I’m no
lamb, and I won’t stand for any of your monkey-shines. Get out. This
ain’t your room; he’s rented it—he’s paid the rent—it’s his room. Get
out!”
Kindly Tom Poppins worked in a cigar-store and was accustomed to talk
back to drunken men six feet tall. His voice was tremendous, and he was
fatly immovable; he didn’t a bit mind the fact that Mrs. Zapp was still
“glaring speechless.”
But behold an ally to the forlorn lady. When Theresa, in the hall
below, heard Tom, she knew that Mr. Wrenn would room here no more. She
galloped up-stairs and screeched over her mother’s shoulder:
“You will pick on a lady, will you, you drunken scum—you—you cads—I’ll
have you arrested so quick you—”
“Look here, lady,” said Tom, gently. “I’m a plain-clothes man, a
detective.” His large voice purred like a tiger-tabby’s. “I don’t want
to run you in, but I will if you don’t get out of here and shut that
door. Or you might go down and call the cop on this block. He’ll run
you in—for breaking Code 2762 of the Penal Law! Trespass and
flotsam—that’s what it is!”
Uneasy, frightened, then horrified, Mrs. Zapp swung bulkily about and
slammed the door.
Sick, guilty, banished from home though he felt, Mr. Wrenn’s voice
quavered, with an attempt at dignity:
“I’m awful sorry she butted in while you fellows was here. I don’t know
how to apologize”
“Forget it, old man,” rolled out Tom’s bass. “Come on, let’s go up to
Mrs. Arty’s.”
“But, gee! it’s nearly a quarter to eleven.”
“That’s all right. We can get up there by a little after, and Mrs. Arty
stays up playing cards till after twelve.”
“Golly!” Mr. Wrenn agitatedly ejaculated under his breath, as they
noisily entered Mrs. Arty’s—though not noisily on his part.
The parlor door was open. Mrs. Arty’s broad back was toward them, and
she was announcing to James T. Duncan and Miss Proudfoot, with whom she
was playing three-handed Five Hundred, “Well, I’ll just bid seven on
hearts if you’re going to get so set up.” She glanced back, nodded,
said, “Come in, children,” picked up the “widow,” and discarded with
quick twitches of the cards. The frightened Mr. Wrenn, feeling like a
shipwrecked land-lubber, compared this gaming smoking woman unfavorably
with the intense respectability of his dear lost patron, Mrs. Zapp. He
sat uneasy till the hand of cards was finished, feeling as though they
were only tolerating him. And Nelly Croubel was nowhere in sight.
Suddenly said Mrs. Arty, “And now you would like to look at that room,
Mr. Wrenn, unless I’m wrong.”
“Why—uh—yes, I guess I would like to.”
“Come with me, child,” she said, in pretended severity. “Tom, you take
my hand in the game, and don’t let me hear you’ve been bidding ten on
no suit without the joker.” She led Mr. Wrenn to the settee hat-rack in
the hall. “The third-floor-back will be vacant in two weeks, Mr. Wrenn.
We can go up and look at it now if you’d like to. The man who has it
now works nights—he’s some kind of a head waiter at Rector’s, or
something like that, and he’s out till three or four. Come.”
When he saw that third-floor-back, the room that the smart people at
Mrs. Arty’s were really willing to let him have, he felt like a man
just engaged. It was all in soft green—grass-green matting, pale-green
walls, chairs of white wicker with green cushions; the bed, a couch
with a denim cover and four sofa pillows. It gave him the impression of
being a guest on Fifth Avenue.
“It’s kind of a plain room,” Mrs. Arty said, doubtfully. “The furniture
is kind of plain. But my head-waiter man—it was furnished for a friend
of his—he says he likes it better than any other room in the house. It
_is_ comfortable, and you get lots of sunlight and—”
“I’ll take—How much is it, please, with board?”
She spoke with a take-it-or-leave-it defiance. “Eleven-fifty a week.”
It was a terrible extravagance; much like marrying a sick woman on a
salary of ten a week, he reflected; nine-teen minus eleven-fifty left
him only seven-fifty for clothes and savings and things and—but—” I’ll
take it,” he said, hastily. He was frightened at himself, but glad,
very glad. He was to live in this heaven; he was going to be away from
that Zapp woman; and Nelly Croubel—Was she engaged to some man? he
wondered.
Mrs. Arty was saying: “First, I want to ask you some questions, though.
Please sit down.” As she creaked into one of the wicker chairs she
suddenly changed from the cigarette-rolling chaffing card-player to a
woman dignified, reserved, commanding. “Mr. Wrenn, you see, Miss
Proudfoot and Miss Croubel are on this floor. Miss Proudfoot can take
care of herself, all right, but Nelly is such a trusting little
thing—She’s like my daughter. She’s the only one I’ve ever given a
reduced rate to—and I swore I never would to anybody!… Do
you—uh—drink—drink much, I mean?”
Nelly on this floor! Near him! Now! He had to have this room. He forced
himself to speak directly.
“I know how you mean, Mrs. Ferrard. No, I don’t drink much of
any—hardly at all; just a glass of beer now and then; sometimes I don’t
even touch that a week at a time. And I don’t gamble and—and I do try
to keep—er—straight—and all that sort of thing.”
“That’s good.”
“I work for the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company on Twenty-eighth
Street. If you want to call them up I guess the manager’ll give me a
pretty good recommend.”
“I don’t believe I’ll need it, Mr. Wrenn. It’s my business to find out
what sort of animiles men are by just talking to them.” She rose,
smiled, plumped out her hand. “You _will_ be nice to Nelly, _won’t_
you! I’m going to fire that Teddem out—don’t tell him, but I am—because
he gets too fresh with her.”
“Yes!”
She suddenly broke into laughter, and ejaculated: “_Say_, that was hard
work! Don’t you _hate_ to have to be serious? Let’s trot down, and I’ll
make Tom or Duncan rush us a growler of beer to welcome you to our
midst…. I’ll bet your socks aren’t darned properly. I’m going to sneak
in and take a look at them, once I get you caged up here…. But I won’t
read your love-letters! Now let’s go down by the fire, where it’s
comfy.”