THE RETIREMENT OF SMITH
The first member of the staff of _Peaceful Moments_ to arrive at
the office on the following morning was Master Maloney. This sounds
like the beginning of a "Plod and Punctuality," or "How Great Fortunes
have been Made" story, but, as a matter of fact, Master Maloney, like
Mr. Bat Jarvis, was no early bird. Larks who rose in his neighborhood,
rose alone. He did not get up with them. He was supposed to be at the
office at nine o'clock. It was a point of honor with him, a sort of
daily declaration of independence, never to put in an appearance before
nine-thirty. On this particular morning he was punctual to the minute,
or half an hour late, whichever way you choose to look at it.
He had only whistled a few bars of "My Little Irish Rose," and had
barely got into the first page of his story of life on the prairie,
when Kid Brady appeared. The Kid had come to pay a farewell visit. He
had not yet begun training, and he was making the best of the short
time before such comforts should be forbidden by smoking a big black
cigar. Master Maloney eyed him admiringly. The Kid, unknown to that
gentleman himself, was Pugsy's ideal. He came from the Plains, and had,
indeed, once actually been a cowboy; he was a coming champion; and he
could smoke big black cigars. There was no trace of his official
well-what-is-it-now? air about Pugsy as he laid down his book and
prepared to converse.
"Say, Mr. Smith around anywhere, Pugsy?" asked the Kid.
"Naw, Mr. Brady. He ain't came yet," replied Master Maloney
respectfully.
"Late, ain't he?"
"Sure! He generally blows in before I do."
"Wonder what's keepin' him?"
As he spoke, John appeared. "Hello, Kid," he said. "Come to say
good-by?"
"Yep," said the Kid. "Seen Mr. Smith around anywhere, Mr. Maude?"
"Hasn't he come yet? I guess he'll be here soon. Hello, who's this?"
A small boy was standing at the door, holding a note.
"Mr. Maude?" he said. "Cop at Jefferson Market give me dis fer you."
"What!" He took the letter, and gave the boy a dime. "Why, it's from
Smith. Great Scott!"
It was apparent that the Kid was politely endeavoring to veil his
curiosity. Master Maloney had no such delicacy.
"What's in de letter, boss?" he enquired.
"The letter," said John slowly, "is from Mr. Smith. And it says that he
was sentenced this morning to thirty days on the Island for resisting
the police."
"He's de guy!" admitted Master Maloney approvingly.
"What's that?" said the Kid. "Mr. Smith been slugging cops! What's he
been doin' that for?"
"I must go and find out at once. It beats me."
It did not take John long to reach Jefferson Market, and by the
judicious expenditure of a few dollars he was enabled to obtain an
interview with Smith in a back room.
The editor of _Peaceful Moments_ was seated on a bench, looking
remarkably disheveled. There was a bruise on his forehead, just where
the hair began. He was, however, cheerful.
"Ah, John," he said. "You got my note all right, then?" John looked at
him, concerned.
"What on earth does it all mean?"
Smith heaved a regretful sigh.
"I fear," he said, "I have made precisely the blamed fool of myself
that Comrade Parker hoped I would."
"Parker!"
Smith nodded.
"I may be misjudging him, but I seem to see the hand of Comrade Parker
in this. We had a raid at my house last night, John. We were pulled."
"What on earth--?"
"Somebody--if it was not Comrade Parker it was some other citizen
dripping with public spirit--tipped the police off that certain sports
were running a pool-room in the house where I live."
On his departure from the _News_, Smith, from motives of economy,
had moved from his hotel in Washington Square and taken a furnished
room on Fourteenth Street.
"There actually was a pool-room there," he went on, "so possibly I am
wronging Comrade Parker in thinking that this was a scheme of his for
getting me out of the way. At any rate, somebody gave the tip, and at
about three o'clock this morning I was aroused from a dreamless slumber
by quite a considerable hammering at my door. There, standing on the
mat, were two policemen. Very cordially the honest fellows invited me
to go with them. A conveyance, it seemed, waited in the street without.
I disclaimed all connection with the bad gambling persons below, but
they replied that they were cleaning up the house, and, if I wished to
make any remarks, I had better make them to the magistrate. This seemed
reasonable. I said I would put on some clothes and come along. They
demurred. They said they couldn't wait about while I put on clothes. I
pointed out that sky-blue pajamas with old-rose frogs were not the
costume in which the editor of a great New York weekly paper should be
seen abroad in one of the world's greatest cities, but they assured
me--more by their manner than their words--that my misgivings were
groundless, so I yielded. These men, I told myself, have lived longer
in New York than I. They know what is done, and what is not done. I
will bow to their views. So I was starting to go with them like a lamb,
when one of them gave me a shove in the ribs with his night stick. And
it was here that I fancy I may have committed a slight error of
policy."
He smiled dreamily for a moment, then went on.
"I admit that the old Berserk blood of the Smiths boiled at that
juncture. I picked up a sleep-producer from the floor, as Comrade Brady
would say, and handed it to the big-stick merchant. He went down like a
sack of coal over the bookcase, and at that moment I rather fancy the
other gentleman must have got busy with his club. At any rate, somebody
suddenly loosed off some fifty thousand dollars' worth of fireworks,
and the next thing I knew was that the curtain had risen for the next
act on me, discovered sitting in a prison cell, with an out-size in
lumps on my forehead."
He sighed again.
"What _Peaceful Moments_ really needs," he said, "is a
_sitz-redacteur_. A _sitz-redacteur_, John, is a gentleman
employed by German newspapers with a taste for _lese-majeste_ to
go to prison whenever required in place of the real editor. The real
editor hints in his bright and snappy editorial, for instance, that the
Kaiser's mustache gives him bad dreams. The police force swoops down
in a body on the office of the journal, and are met by the
_sitz-redacteur_, who goes with them cheerfully, allowing the
editor to remain and sketch out plans for his next week's article
on the Crown Prince. We need a _sitz-redacteur_ on _Peaceful
Moments_ almost as much as a fighting editor. Not now, of course.
This has finished the thing. You'll have to close down the paper now."
"Close it down!" cried John. "You bet I won't."
"My dear old son," said Smith seriously, "what earthly reason have you
for going on with it? You only came in to help me, and I am no more. I
am gone like some beautiful flower that withers in the night. Where's
the sense of getting yourself beaten up then? Quit!"
John shook his head.
"I wouldn't quit now if you paid me."
"But--"
A policeman appeared at the door.
"Say, pal," he remarked to John, "you'll have to be fading away soon, I
guess. Give you three minutes more. Say it quick."
He retired. Smith looked at John.
"You won't quit?" he said.
"No."
Smith smiled.
"You're an all-wool sport, John," he said. "I don't suppose you know
how to spell quit. Well, then, if you are determined to stand by the
ship like Comrade Casabianca, I'll tell you an idea that came to me in
the watches of the night. If ever you want to get ideas, John, you
spend a night in one of these cells. They flock to you. I suppose I did
more profound thinking last night than I've ever done in my life. Well,
here's the idea. Act on it or not, as you please. I was thinking over
the whole business from soup to nuts, and it struck me that the
queerest part of it all is that whoever owns these Broster Street
tenements should care a Canadian dime whether we find out who he is or
not."
"Well, there's the publicity," began John.
"Tush!" said Smith. "And possibly bah! Do you suppose that the sort of
man who runs Broster Street is likely to care a darn about publicity?
What does it matter to him if the papers soak it to him for about two
days? He knows they'll drop him and go on to something else on the
third, and he knows he's broken no law. No, there's something more in
this business than that. Don't think that this bright boy wants to hush
us up simply because he is a sensitive plant who can't bear to think
that people should be cross with him. He has got some private reason
for wanting to lie low."
"Well, but what difference--?"
"Comrade, I'll tell you. It makes this difference: that the rents are
almost certainly collected by some confidential person belonging to his
own crowd, not by an ordinary collector. In other words, the collector
knows the name of the man he's collecting for. But for this little
misfortune of mine, I was going to suggest that we waylay that
collector, administer the Third Degree, and ask him who his boss is."
John uttered an exclamation.
"You're right! I'll do it."
"You think you can? Alone?"
"Sure! Don't you worry. I'll--"
The door opened and the policeman reappeared.
"Time's up. Slide, sonny."
John said good-by to Smith, and went out. He had a last glimpse of his
late editor, a sad smile on his face, telling the policeman what was
apparently a humorous story. Complete good will seemed to exist between
them. John consoled himself as he went away with the reflection that
Smith's was a temperament that would probably find a bright side even
to a thirty-days' visit to Blackwell's Island.
He walked thoughtfully back to the office. There was something lonely,
and yet wonderfully exhilarating, in the realization that he was now
alone and in sole charge of the campaign. It braced him. For the first
time in several weeks he felt positively light-hearted.