I have spoken casually, in this rambling story of mine, of young
Marshall, a fellow-lodger at Miss Minion's. He was the Brummel of the
boarding-house. The fact that he occupied the smallest rear
hall-bedroom, with the minimum of daylight, in no way affected his
standing, for everybody knew that he went out in society. Indeed, for
him more spacious quarters were hardly needed, as he was seldom at home
except to dress and to sleep. By day he hurried about Wall Street,
buying and selling bonds. On the winter evenings he stepped forth from
his cell a splendid figure, realizing, as nearly as possible, those
spotless and creaseless young men whom the illustrators draw with so
much unction. Then we might have imagined that he would step on, into
his brougham, to be whirled away to some smart dinner. Alas! his
equipage was not even a cab. His pair of prancing blacks were only his
galoches, and his protection against the weather a long ulster, a
chest-protector of thickly padded satin, and an opera-hat. The great
trouble which Marshall had on these nightly expeditions was getting
home. I do not mean to insinuate that it was to find Miss Minion's
door. It was to pass Miss Minion's door. There were several
absent-minded old gentlemen living in the house who had a way of
forgetting that they were not its sole occupants. Coming in from their
weekly or monthly trip to the theatre, the hour would to them seem
horribly late and they would catch the chain. Occasionally I was
myself their victim, and had to stand shivering outside, ringing the
bell with one hand and with the other playing a tattoo on the panels.
More generally it was Marshall, for, though I was frequently held very
late at my work downtown, he was abroad at his pleasures even later.
The lateness with which he pursued these pleasures was no evidence
against their innocence. Tom Marshall was one of the most innocent men
that I have ever known. He was not a New Yorker. He came, as he told
me, of the Marshalls of Pogatuck, in Maine. The way that he said it
made me understand that there was no bluer blood in the land than that
running in the veins of the Pogatuck Marshalls, and it explained why
the Knickerbockers were so willing to meet him as an equal. He had
come from Pogatuck by way of Harvard, and one advantage which his
education had given him was an acquaintance that he could turn to use,
inasmuch as his great ambition was to "go out." To him a card to the
Ruyters would have been an olive-wreath of victory. It was a trophy
that he hoped to win, and to that end he worked patiently, selling
bonds all day, and at night as patiently setting forth in his galoches,
his ulster, and his opera-hat to storm the outer works of society. He
belonged to innumerable dancing-classes. Indeed, it seemed to me that
he kept himself poor meeting their dues, for I remember more than one
occasion when he appealed to me in distress because he had to send
fifteen dollars to the treasurer of the Tuesdays or the Fridays and the
pater had forgotten to remit his allowance. Tom Marshall's father was
the most forgetful of men.
I liked him. You could not help liking him. He was so thoroughly
good-natured and affable. His conversation was by no means
instructive, but there was an airiness about his views and ambitions
which was restful to one who was taking life as seriously as was I in
those days. I got to know him by having constantly to let him in. Of
all the lodgers in the house, I was the most likely to be up late, and
if one of the forgetful old gentlemen fastened the door-chain, to me
would fall the duty of answering the signals of distress from the stoop.
Tom Marshall has played but a small part in my life. Like that of
Boller of '89, his place in the cast is a minor one. He is one of
those who fall in near the end of the line when the company joins hands
to sidle across the stage, bowing and smiling, after the second act.
Yet without him I wonder sometimes how my own play would have ended.
It seems to me now as though he must have been born in Pogatuck, as
though his whole life had been ordered, his love of going out
developed, so that at the proper moment he might enter the stage where
I was playing the hero to an empty house. He entered it at one o'clock
in the morning. The door was chained. At the moment I was sitting in
my room, on my one comfortable chair, my book on the floor at my side,
my pipe in my mouth, and I was smoking very hard. What countless pipes
I had smoked in this same way since the night, a month before, when I
had dined with Rufus Blight! What countless nights I had sat in this
same way, in this same month, with my book on the floor and my mind
revolving ceaselessly in a circle! This night I had come to that part
of the circle where I thought of Penelope, the lovely, the formal, the
distant Penelope, when down in the depths of the house I heard the
muffled clatter of the bell and faint rat-tats upon the front door. I
went to the window and put out my head, to see on the stoop the muffled
black figure of Tom Marshall.
"It was old Ransome again, I'll bet you," he said, when I had unchained
the door and we stood in the dimly lighted hall. "This is the third
time this month that he has locked me out, confound him!"
I raised my finger to my lips, cautioning Marshall not to arouse the
whole house. But he would not be silenced--it was early yet,
anyway--he had been to a Friday cotillon and it was a beastly
bore--even the supper was poor--he wanted something to eat. His foot
was on the stairs when he discovered that he was hungry. He discovered
at the same time that he was indebted to me for having let him in, not
alone this time but many others, and he insisted on showing his
appreciation by taking me out to a late supper. I demurred. Marshall
talked louder. I insinuated that he had been drinking, to which he
replied that the Fridays never served anything but weak punch. I
should have protested further, but Mrs. Markham's door opened at the
head of the stairs and I heard her breathing indignantly. For the sake
of quiet I consented, and so it happened that at one o'clock in the
morning I found myself in the street, with my arm tucked under
Marshall's and our faces set toward O'Corrigan's chop-house.
O'Corrigan's has been torn down these many years, but you can see a
score of replicas of it on upper Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Its
plate-glass windows were adorned with set pieces of lobsters and
oysters, celery and apples, and you entered through a revolving door
into an atmosphere laden heavily with kitchen fumes, into a room which
multiplied itself in many mirrors. When you went there for the first
time the man who took you, if he knew his New York, would tell you of
O'Corrigan's rise from waiting at a downtown lunch-counter to the
ownership of these glittering halls.
Of course, Tom Marshall knew O'Corrigan. He hailed him cordially, and
it seemed to me that he had no little pride in the privilege. He even
nodded to the bartender as we passed him, leading me to the archway
whence we could survey the adjoining room to see what was going on
there. But nothing was going on there. These late-night restaurants
are at their best in colored pictures. There they seem to own an
atmosphere of light and joy. There lovely women sip champagne, that
gayest of wines, from dainty glasses, and gallant men seem to say to us
that if you would have health and wealth and happiness you would never
go home until morning, but would live with them in this bright world of
wine and women and song. Really, they are melancholy places,
especially in their gayest hours. If vice really were attractive, how
vicious most of us would be! I do not say that O'Corrigan's was a
vicious place. At certain hours its patronage was of the dullest
respectability from the suburbs. Dull respectability is not supposed
to be abroad in the early hours of the morning, but it does seek at
times to hover on the edge of disrespectability with something of the
roguish curiosity of childhood. And now the respectables and the
unrespectables, a motley gathering in that garish room, amid the ugly
debris of their feasting, made an unattractive picture from which I
turned with a sense of relief to the quieter place behind us.
As we moved to a table in a secluded corner, I saw Talcott and Bob
Grant sitting with their heads close together over a litter of plates
and glasses. Grant spoke to me. As he rose and offered his hand, I
noticed in his eyes that watery brightness which comes in certain
stages of conviviality. The effusiveness of his greeting might have
flattered me had I not realized that his heart was unduly expanded by
alcohol. To see such a great, good-natured animal as young Grant thus
exhilarated was not surprising to me, but with Talcott it was
different. I had known him only as a quiet, self-possessed man who,
from policy if nothing else, I believed must be as circumspect in his
life as in his clothes. Now he spoke to me. His greeting was
perfunctory. In his eyes was that watery dulness which comes with the
later stages of conviviality. His hair was tousled, his collar
crushed, his tie awry; for whiskey muddles the clothes as well as the
brain. He nodded to me; he wondered what I was doing out so late; he
snapped his fingers and called loudly for Andrew. The summons to the
waiter was for me a hint to be gone.
Tom Marshall was greatly impressed by the fact that I knew Talcott and
Grant. When I rejoined him he seemed to treat me with greater respect
than hitherto, for he had been rather patronizing. It was surprising
to him, always so busy storming the outer works, to know that I, the
drudge of the fourth floor front, who never "went out," was so intimate
with these gallant cadets who lived in the citadel. He had come to
give me beer. Now in a faltering voice he suggested champagne, rubbing
his hands and smiling as he named it, as though it were his habit to
indulge nightly in so expensive a beverage. Remembering that he had
owed me five dollars for many months, I deemed it unwise to make an
unnecessary inroad into his pocket-book. With my refusal he grew
insistent, and at last consented, only with reluctance, to a modest
repast of welsh-rabbit and beer.
"And the beer at once," he commanded the waiter.
Then, unfolding his napkin on his knees and lighting a cigarette, he
looked over my shoulder to the distant table where the two heads were
close together over the litter of plates and glasses. "So you know
Talcott and Grant," he went on. "I'm sorry you didn't introduce me,
Malcolm. I've seen them around, of course, but, strangely, have never
met them. They are a great pair--stacks of money--Grant especially.
Talcott was in Harvard with me--was rather a snob and went with the
rich crowd--very smart now. He was one of Willie Ruyter's ushers."
I smiled with compassion at this broken discourse. It brought to my
mind Mrs. Bannister. Tom Marshall and Mrs. Bannister looked at life
from the same view-point and I from one entirely different. To my mind
there was nothing very remarkable in having my existence acknowledged
by two very muddled young men, who in their present state acknowledged
also their brotherhood with the _roué_ whom I had seen in the next room
or the cabman sitting outside on his box in a half-stupor. I might
envy the good fortune which allowed them to move in the same world as
Penelope Blight, but to disavow intimacy with them, even to one so
strangely ambitious as Tom Marshall, called for no loss of pride. With
some show of temper I avowed that I hardly knew them. I had only met
them once or twice at the house of friends. But the sincerity with
which I disowned them served only to heighten the new-born respect with
which Marshall treated me. He did not know that I "went out."
Laughing, I retorted that I never did go out. He said that I must;
that he would take me out; he would present me to the right people. He
launched into the delights of going out and the necessity of going out
if a man was to be anybody at all; then suddenly stopped at the thought
that the beer ordered at once was very slow in coming.
"That waiter is always confoundedly slow," he said. "I should have
insisted on having Andrew. I apologize, Malcolm--I should have thought
of Andrew. You would have enjoyed Andrew."
"Andrew?" I repeated, questioning.
"Yes, Andrew," replied Marshall. "Here's the beer. Now, George, hurry
those rabbits--I'm famished. Andrew," he went on, lighting a fresh
cigarette, "is a remarkable character. He is full of philosophy. He
quoted Herbert Spencer to me the other night. He has a sly way--and a
somewhat disconcerting one--when you order a drink, of trying to induce
you to take mineral water, and if he can, and O'Corrigan is not within
hearing, he serves a temperance lecture with every Scotch and soda."
Marshall tapped his forehead. "A little queer," he said sagely, "but
shrewd. By Jove, there he is now arguing with Bob Grant--a temperance
lecture, I'll bet--trying to persuade him to take plain soda."
I looked over my shoulder to see this philosophic waiter who served
temperance lectures with whiskey. His back was to me. I saw only a
tall, loose-jointed figure clad in a waiter's jacket, a long, black arm
outstretched, a napkin draped over it, a long, thin hand clutching a
bill-of-fare, and a head of dark hair shot with white. The
bill-of-fare struck the table in emphasis, the napkin waved like a flag
of battle, both arms were stretched out wide in appeal. Grant laughed
again--uproariously.
"I'll bet he is trying to uplift those fellows," said Marshall. "He
has a good chance to get in a word, as O'Corrigan is in the next room."
I turned to my companion. At that moment I was more interested in the
non-arrival of the welsh-rabbit than in the scene behind me, for
waiters are by nature inclined to be voluble when the opportunity is
given them, and to me there was nothing particularly amusing in the
picture of young Grant, with that graciousness which comes with too
much drink, condescending to argue with this crack-brained fellow who
moved with his head in the clouds while his weary feet shuffled in and
out of O'Corrigan's kitchen. At the moment there was nothing familiar
to me in the tall, thin figure, nothing more than I should have seen in
any other lank, shambling waiter waving a napkin and a bill-of-fare. I
was growing tired. I was regretting that I had even allowed Tom
Marshall to inveigle me out so late, to breathe heavy air and to eat
heavy food at this hour, when I should be refreshing my body with sleep.
But Tom Marshall's spirits grew higher as the night grew older. He was
immensely comfortable with his beer and cigarettes, immensely amused at
the argument which was going on behind my back.
"You really must meet Andrew. You will enjoy him, Malcolm," he said.
"I'll call him over when he is through with those men. He is a
character worth knowing."
"You speak of him as if you had known him for a long time," I returned,
and I think my lips must have curled a little; but if I was
unappreciative of the hospitality which I was enjoying, my excuse was
my great weariness.
"Oh dear, no," he demurred; "I've been coming here for years--late at
night, you understand, for a bite occasionally. I never saw him until
last fall--got talking to him--I always like to talk to waiters, to get
their ideas. I found him a curious chap, better educated than most of
them and surprisingly well informed--surprisingly. He seemed to have
knocked around a good deal."
"Had been a waiter in Hoboken, I suppose," said I, "and in
Philadelphia----"
"In Hoboken!" My sarcasm nettled Marshall. "He told me that he had
never been a waiter at all until he came here; he was simply looking
for an opportunity to find something really congenial. He was fresh
from Canton. In Hoboken!" Tom Marshall leaned toward me aggressively.
"Why, man, he has been everywhere--through the South Seas, in----"
There _was_ something familiar in the tall, thin figure, something that
even the waiter's jacket and the waving napkin could not hide.
"What's up now?" Marshall cried.
I had half risen from my chair and turned. Talcott and Grant were
leaning over their table, elbows resting there, heads close together.
And behind Talcott's chair the black figure was bent until the hands
could touch the floor. He was brushing up scattered crumbs. As I
looked, he raised his head, and it seemed to me that he had forgotten
his menial task, had forgotten his menial place, for he was very still.
He was no longer dusting. The napkin fell from his outstretched hand.
He was listening to the muttered, maudlin conversation as though from
the chaos of it he gathered some sober words of truth.
I looked at my companion. "In the South Seas, you said, Marshall. Has
he spoken of San Francisco? Do you know his name?"
Marshall sprang from his chair. I was up too, and it was to see the
Professor with a hand on Talcott's collar, shaking him, holding him at
arm's length as he shook him, as though this man were some contemptible
thing that he would touch as little as he could and yet must hold to
and shake until it was cleansed of its vileness.