I
McAllister was out of sorts. All the afternoon he had sat in the club
window and watched the Christmas shoppers hurrying by with their
bundles. He thanked God he had no brats to buy moo-cows and bow-wows
for. The very nonchalance of these victims of a fate that had given them
families irritated him. McAllister was a clubman, pure and simple; that
is to say though neither simple nor pure, he was a clubman and nothing
more. He had occupied the same seat by the same window during the
greater part of his earthly existence, and they were the same seat and
window that his father had filled before him. His select and exclusive
circle called him "Chubby," and his five-and-forty years of terrapin and
cocktails had given him a graceful rotundity of person that did not
belie the name. They had also endowed him with a cheerful though
somewhat florid countenance, and a permanent sense of well-being.
As the afternoon wore on and the pedestrians became fewer, McAllister
sank deeper and deeper into gloom. The club was deserted. Everybody had
gone out of town to spend Christmas with someone else, and the
Winthrops, on whom he had counted for a certainty, had failed for some
reason to invite him. He had waited confidently until the last minute,
and now he was stranded, alone.
It began to snow softly, gently. McAllister threw himself disconsolately
into a leathern armchair by the smouldering logs on the six-foot hearth.
A servant in livery entered, pulled down the shades, and after touching
a button that threw a subdued radiance over the room, withdrew
noiselessly.
"Come back here, Peter!" growled McAllister. "Anybody in the club?"
"Only Mr. Tomlinson, sir."
McAllister swore under his breath.
"Yes, sir," replied Peter.
McAllister shot a quick glance at him.
"I didn't say anything. You may go."
This time Peter got almost to the door.
"Er--Peter; ask Mr. Tomlinson if he will dine with me."
Peter presently returned with the intelligence that Mr. Tomlinson would
be delighted.
"Of course," grumbled McAllister to himself. "No one ever knew Tomlinson
to refuse anything."
He ordered dinner, and then took up an evening paper in which an effort
had been made to conceal the absence of news by summarizing the
achievements of the past year. Staring head-lines invited his notice to
=A YEAR OF PROGRESS.=
=What the Tenement-House Commission Has Accomplished.=
=FURTHER NEED OF PRISON REFORM.=
He threw down the paper in disgust. This reform made him sick. Tenements
and prisons! Why were the papers always talking about tenements and
prisons? They were a great deal better than the people who lived in them
deserved. He recalled Wilkins, his valet, who had stolen his black pearl
scarf-pin. It increased his ill-humor. Hang Wilkins! The thief was
probably out by this time and wearing the pin. It had been a matter of
jest among his friends that the servant had looked not unlike his
master. McAllister winced at the thought.
"Dinner is served," said Peter.
An hour and a half later, Tomlinson and McAllister, having finished a
sumptuous repast, stared stupidly at each other across their liqueurs.
They were stuffed and bored. Tomlinson was a thin man who knew
everything positively. McAllister hated him. He always felt when in his
company like the woman who invariably answered her husband's remarks by
"'Tain't so! It's just the opposite!" Tomlinson was trying to make
conversation by repeating assertively what he had read in the evening
press.
"Now, our prisons," he announced authoritatively. "Why, it is
outrageous! The people are crowded in like cattle; the food is
loathsome. It's a disgrace to a civilized city!"
This was the last straw to McAllister.
"Look here," he snapped back at Tomlinson, who shrank behind his cigar
at the vehemence of the attack, "what do you know about it? I tell you
it's all rot! It's all politics! Our tenements are all right, and so are
our prisons. The law of supply and demand regulates the tenements; and
who pays for the prisons, I'd like to know? We pay for 'em, and the
scamps that rob us live in 'em for nothing. The Tombs is a great deal
better than most second-class hotels on the Continent. I _know_! I had a
valet once that-- Oh, what's the use! I'd be glad to spend Christmas in
no worse place. Reform! Stuff! Don't tell me!" He sank back purple in
the face.
[Illustration: "What do you know about it? I tell you it's all rot!"]
"Oh, of course--if you know!" Tomlinson hesitated politely, remembering
that McAllister had signed for the dinner.
"Well, I _do_ know," affirmed McAllister.