"You'll not use my name," he said, "because my family would be exceedingly
grieved over the notoriety the thing would bring them."
Fifty or sixty or seventy--it was hard to tell how old he was. He looked
like a panhandler and talked like a scholar. Life had knocked him out and
walked over him. There was no money in his pocket, no food in his stomach,
no hope in his heart. He was asking for a job--some kind of writing job.
His hands were trembling and his face twitched. Despair underlay his
words, but he kept it under. Hunger made his body jerked and his eyes
shine with an unmannerly eagerness. But his words remained suave. He
removed a pair of cracked nose-glasses and held them between his thumb and
forefinger and gestured politely with them. Hungry, dirty, hopeless, his
linen gone, his shoes torn, something inside his beaten frame remained
still intact. There was no future. But he had a past to live up to.
He was asking for a job. What kind of job he didn't know. But he could
write. He had been around the world. He was a cosmopolite and a rhymester
and a press agent and a journalist. He pulled himself together and his
eyes struggled hard to forget the hunger of his stomach.
"In the old days," he said, enunciating in the oracular manner of a day
gone by--"ah, I was talking with Jack London about it before he died. Dear
Jack! A great soul. A marvelous spirit. We were in the south seas
together. Yes, the old days were different. Erudition counted for
something. I was Buffalo Bill's first press agent. Also I worked for dear
P. T. Barnum. I was his publicity man.
"Doesn't the world seem to have changed, to you?" he asked. "I was talking
to George Ade about this very thing. Strange, isn't it? George and I are
old friends. Who? Dickie Davis of the Sun? Certainly--a charming fellow.
Stephen Crane? Genius, my friend, genius was his. That was the day when O.
Henry was in New York. There was quite a crowd of us. We used to
foregather in some comfortable grog shop and discuss. Ah, life and letters
were talked about a great deal in those days."
* * * * *
His voice had the sound of a man casually relating incidents of his past.
But his eyes continued to shine eagerly. And between sentences there were
curious pauses. The pauses asked something.
"A most curious thing occurred the other evening," he smiled. "I had to
pay for my oysters by writing a rhyme for the waiter." An anecdote by a
dilettante, a gracefully turned plea worthy of M'sieur Bruinrmell. "You
know, it grows more and more difficult to obtain employment. My wardrobe
is practically gone." He glanced with apparent amusement at his
weary-willie makeup. His hand moved tremblingly to his neck. "My collar is
soiled," he murmured, apologizing with eyes that managed to smile, "and
the other evening I lost my stick."
Then the hunger and the hopelessness of the man broke through the shell of
his manner. He needed a job, a job, a job! Something to do to get him food
and shelter. His fingers tried to place the cracked nose-glasses back in
position.
"I would--pardon me for mentioning this--I would much rather sit with a
man like you and discuss the phases of life and literature of interest to
both of us. But I would write almost anything. I have written a great
deal. And I have managed money. There was a time--" A look of pain came
into his eyes. This was being vulgar and not in line with the tradition
that his enunciation boasted.
"I have known a great many people. I don't desire to bore you with talk of
celebrities and all that. But I assure you, I have been somebody. Oh,
nothing important or perhaps very worth while. I dislike this sort of
thing, you know." Another smile twisted his lips. "But, when one is down
to the last--er--to the last farthing, so to speak, one swallows a bit of
his pride. That's more than an aphorism with me. To go on, I have handled
great sums of money. I have traveled all over the world, I have eaten and
spoken with men of genius all my life. My youth was a very interesting one
and--and perhaps we could go somewhere for dinner and--and I could tell
you things of writing men of the past that--that might appeal to you.
Marvelous fellows. There was O. Henry and London and Davis and Phillips
and Stevie Crane. I dislike imposing myself on you this way, but--if I
didn't think you would be interested in a discussion with a man who--who
admires the beautiful things of life and who has lived a rather varied
existence I would not--"
* * * * *
The cracked nose-glasses were back in place and he had stopped short.
Despair and hunger now were talking out of his eyes. They had come too
close to his words. They must never come into his words. That would be the
one defeat that would drive too deeply into him. Of the past, of the
easygoing, charmingly garrulous past, all that was left to this nomad of
letters was its manner. He could still sit in his rags as if he were
lounging in the salon of an ocean liner, still gesture with his
nose-glasses as if he were fixing the attention of a Richard Harding
Davis across a bottle of Chateau Yquem.
So he remained silent. Let his eyes and the twitching of his face betray
him. His words never would. His words would always be the well-groomed,
carefully modulated, nicely considerate words of a gentleman. He resumed:
"So you have nothing. Ah, that's rather--rather disturbing. Just a
moment--please. I don't mean to impose on you. Won't you sit down--so I
will feel more at ease? Thank you, sir. Perhaps there is something in the
way of a--of another kind of job. Anything about a theater, a newspaper
office, a magazine, a circus, an hotel. I know them all. And if you could
only keep an eye open for me. Thank you, sir. I am glad to see that men of
letters are still considerate of their fellow craftsmen. Ah, you would
have liked Jack London. Did you know him? You know, we live in an age of
jazz. Yes, sir, the tempo is fast. Life has lost its andante. Materialism
has triumphed. There is no longer room for the spirit to expand. Machines
are in the way. Noises invade the sanctity of meditative hours."
* * * * *
It was cold outside the cigar store. The man from yesterday stepped into
the street. He stood smiling for a moment and for the moment in the
courteous friendliness of his rheumy eyes, in the mannerly tilt of his
head there was the picture of a sophisticated gentleman of the world
nodding an adieu outside his favorite chophouse. Then he turned. The
mannerly tilt vanished. There was to be seen a man--fifty, sixty or
seventy, it was hard to tell how old--shuffling tiredly down the street,
his body huddled together and his shoulders shivering.