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TALES FROM BOHEMIA
By Robert Neilson Stephens
ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS--A MEMORY
One crisp evening early in March, 1887, I climbed the three flights of
rickety stairs to the fourth floor of the old “Press” building to begin
work on the “news desk.” Important as the telegraph department was
in making the newspaper, the desk was a crude piece of carpentry. My
companions of the blue pencil irreverently termed it “the shelf.” This
was my second night in the novel dignity of editorship. Though my rank
was the humblest, I appreciated the importance of a first step from “the
street.” An older man, the senior on the news desk, had preceded me. He
was engaged in a bantering conversation with a youth who lolled at such
ease as a well-worn, cane-bottomed screw-chair afforded. The older man
made an informal introduction, and I learned that the youth with pale
face and serene smile was “Mr. Stephens, private secretary to the
managing editor.” That information scarcely impressed me any more
than it would now after more than twenty years' experience of managing
editors and their private secretaries.
The bantering continued, and I learned that the youth cherished literary
aspirations, and that he performed certain work in connection with the
dramatic department for the managing editor, who kept theatrical news
and criticisms within his personal control.
Suddenly a chance remark broke the ice for a friendship between the
young man and me which was to last unbroken until his untimely death.
Stephens wrote the Isaac Pitman phonography! Here had I been for more
than three years wondering to find the shorthand writers of wide-awake
and progressive America floundering in what I conceived to be the
Serbonian bog of an archaic system of stenography. Unexpectedly a
most superior young man came within my ken who was a disciple of Isaac
Pitman. Furthermore, like myself, he was entirely self taught. No old
shorthand writer who can look back a quarter of a century on his own
youthful enthusiasm for the art can fail to appreciate what a bond of
sympathy this discovery constituted. From that night forward we were
chosen friends, confiding our ambitions to each other, discussing the
grave issues of life and death, settling the problems of literature.
Notwithstanding his more youthful appearance, my seniority in age
was but slight. Gradually “Bob,” as all his friends called him with
affectionate informality, was given opportunities to advance himself,
under the kindly yet firm guidance of the managing editor, Mr. Bradford
Merrill. That gentleman appreciated the distinct gifts of his young
protégé, journalistic and literary, and he fostered them wisely and
well. I remember perfectly the first criticism of an important play
which “Bob” was permitted to write unaided. It was Richard Mansfield's
initial appearance in Philadelphia as “Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde,” at the
Chestnut Street Theatre on Monday, October 3, 1887.
After the paper had gone to press, and while Mr. Merrill and a few of
the telegraph editors were partaking of a light lunch, the night editor,
the late R.E.A. Dorr, asked Mr. Merrill “how Stephens had made out.”
“He has written a very clever and very interesting criticism,” Mr.
Merrill replied. “I had to edit it somewhat, because he was inclined to
be Hugoesque and melodramatic in describing the action with very short
sentences. But I am very much pleased, indeed.”
That was the beginning of Bob's career as a dramatic critic, a career
in which he gained authority and in which his literary faculties, his
felicity of expression and soundness of judgment found adequate scope.
In the following two or three years the cultivation of the field of
dramatic criticism occupied his time to the temporary exclusion of his
ambition for creative work. He and I read independently; but our
tastes had much in common, though his preference was for imaginative
literature. Meanwhile I was writing short stories with plenty of plot,
some of which found their way into various magazines; but his taste lay
more in the line of the French short story writers who made an
incident the medium for portraying a character. Historical romance had
fascinations for me, but Alphonse Daudet attracted both of us to the
artistic possibilities that lay in selecting the romance of real life
for treatment in fiction as against the crude and repellent naturalism
of Zola and his school. This fact is not a little significant in view of
the turn toward historical romance which exercised all the activities of
Robert Neilson Stephens after the production of his play, “An Enemy to
the King,” by E.H. Sothern.
Still our intimacy had prepared me for the change. Through many a long
night after working hours we had wandered through the moonlit streets
until daybreak exchanging views freely and sturdily on historical
characters on the philosophy of history, on the character of Henry of
Navarre and his followers, and on the worthies of Elizabethan England,
in the literature of which we had immersed ourselves. Kipling had
recently burst meteor-like on the world, and Barrie raised his head with
a whimsical smile closely chasing a tear. Thomas Hardy was in the saddle
writing “Tess,” and in France Daudet was yet active though his prime was
past. Guy de Maupassant continued the production of his marvellous
short stories. These were the contemporary prose writers who engaged our
attention. A little later we hailed the appearance of Stanley J. Weyman
with “A Gentleman of France,” and the Conan Doyle of “The White
Company” and “Micah Clarke” rather than the creator of “Sherlock Holmes”
commended our admiration. We were by no means in accord on the younger
authors. Diversity of opinion stimulates critical discussion, however. I
had not yet become reconciled to Kipling, who provoked my resentment
by certain coarse flings at the Irish, but “Bob” hailed him with
whole-hearted enthusiasm.
We were not the only members of the staff with literary aspirations.
Others, like the late Andrew E. Watrous, had achievements of no mean
order in prose and verse. Still others were sustaining the traditions of
“The Press” as a newspaper office which throughout its history had
been a stepping stone to magazine work and other forms of literary
employment. Richard Harding Davis was on the paper and “Bob” Stephens
was one of the two men most intimately in his confidence regarding his
ambitions.
Finally Bob told me that “Dick” had taken him to his house and read to
him “A bully short story,” adding, “It's a corker.”
I inquired the nature of the story.
“Just about the 'Press' office,” Bob replied,
Among other particulars I asked the title.
“'Gallegher,'” said Bob.
Three years elapsed after our first acquaintance before Bob Stephens
began writing stories and sketches. The “Tales from Bohemia” collected
in this volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better
sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will
be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry
prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no
word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they
will explain themselves. “Bob” Stephens took his own environment, the
anecdotes he heard, the persons whom he met and the friends whom he
knew, and he treated them as the writers of short stories in France
twenty years ago treated their own Parisian environment. He made an
incident the means of illustrating a portrayal of character. Later he
was to construct elaborate plots for dramas and historical novels.
“Bohemianism” was but a brief episode in the life of “R. N. S.” It
ceased after his marriage. But his natural gaiety remained. Seldom was
his joyous disposition overcast, or his winning smile eclipsed. For six
months I was privileged to live in the house with his mother. If he
had inherited his literary predilections from his father,--a highly
respected educator of Huntington, Pa. from whose academy many eminent
professional men were graduated,--his gentleness, his cheerfulness, his
winning smile and the ingratiating qualities to which it was the key, as
surely came from his mother.
I remember a time when he was inordinately grave for several days
and pursued a tireless course of special reading through the office
encyclopaedias and some books he had borrowed. At last he drew aside the
veil of reserve which concealed his family affairs from even his closest
friends and inquired if I could direct him to any recent authority on
cancer. I divined the sad truth that his tenderly beloved mother was
suffering from the dread disease. That was the day before serums, and
nothing that he found to read in books or periodicals gave him a faint
hope that his dear one could be cured. Thenceforward, mother and
son awaited the inevitable end with uncomplaining patience which was
characteristic of both. His cheerful smile returned, and while the blow
of bereavement was impending practically all these “Tales from Bohemia”
were written.
To follow the career of “R.N.S.” and trace his development after he gave
up newspaper work in the fall of 1893 is not required in this place.
“Tales from Bohemia” will be found interesting in themselves, apart from
the fact that they illustrate another phase of the literary gift of
a young writer who contributed so materially to the entertainment of
playgoers and novel readers for a period of ten years after the work in
this book was all done.
J.O.G.D.
CONTENTS
I. THE ONLY GIRL HE EVER LOVED
II. A BIT OF MELODY
III. ON THE BRIDGE
IV. THE TRIUMPH OF MOGLEY
V. OUT OF HIS PAST
VI. THE NEW SIDE PARTNER
VII. THE NEEDY OUTSIDER
VIII. TIME AND THE TOMBSTONE
IX. HE BELIEVED THEM
X. A VAGRANT
XI. UNDER AN AWNING
XII. SHANDY'S REVENGE
XIII. THE WHISTLE
XIV. WHISKERS
XV. THE BAD BREAK OF TOBIT MCSTENGER
XVI. THE SCARS
XVII. “LA GITANA”
XVIII. TRANSITION
XIX. A MAN WHO WAS NO GOOD
XX. MR. THORNBERRY'S ELDORADO
XXI. AT THE STAGE DOOR
XXII. “POOR YORICK”
XXIII. COINCIDENCE
XXIV. NEWGAG THE COMEDIAN
XXV. AN OPERATIC EVENING
TALES FROM BOHEMIA
I. -- THE ONLY GIRL HE EVER LOVED
When Jack Morrow returned from the World's Fair, he found Philadelphia
thermometers registering 95. The next afternoon he boarded a Chestnut
Street car, got out at Front Street, hurried to the ferry station, and
caught a just departing boat for Camden, and on arriving at the other
side of the Delaware, made haste to find a seat in the well-filled
express train bound for Atlantic City.
While he was being whirled across the level surface of New Jersey, past
the cornfields and short stretches of green trees and restful cottage
towns, he thought of the pleasure in store for him--the meeting with the
young person whom he had gradually come to consider the loveliest girl
in the world. Having neglected to read the list of “arrivals” in the
newspapers, he knew not at what hotel she and her aunt were staying. But
he would soon make the rounds of the large beach hotels, at one of which
she was likely to be found.
She did not expect to see him. Therefore her first expression on
beholding him would betray her feelings toward him, whatever they were.
Should the indication be favourable, he would propose to her at the
first opportunity, on beach, boardwalk, hotel piazza, pavilion, yacht
or in the surf. Such were the meditations of Jack Morrow while the train
roared across New Jersey to the sea.
The first sign of the flat green meadows, the smooth waters of the
thoroughfare, the sails afar at the inlet and the long side of the
sea-city stretching out against the sky at the very end of the earth is
refreshing and exhilarating to any one. It gave a doubly keen enjoyment
to Jack Morrow.
“Within an hour, perhaps,” he mused, as the reviving odour of the salt
water touched his nostrils, “I shall see Edith.”
When with the crowd he had made his way out of the train, and traversed
the long platform at the Atlantic City station, ignoring the stentorian
solicitations of the 'bus drivers, he started walking toward the ocean
promenade, invited by the glimpse of sea at the far end of the avenue.
Thus he crossed that wide thoroughfare--Atlantic Avenue--with its
shops and trolley-cars; passed picturesque hotels and cottages; crossed
Pacific Avenue where carriages and dog-carts were being driven rapidly
between the rows of pretty summer edifices, and traversed the famously
long block that ends at the boardwalk and the strand.
He succeeded in getting a third-floor room on the ocean side of the
first hotel where he applied. He learned from the clerk that Edith was
not at this house. Sea air having revived his appetite, he decided to
dine before setting out in search of her.
When, after his meal, he reached the boardwalk, the electric lights had
already been turned on and the regular evening crowd of promenaders was
beginning to form. He strolled along now looking at the beach and the
sea, now at the boardwalk crowd where he might perhaps at any moment
behold the face of “the loveliest girl in the world.” He beheld instead,
as he approached the Tennessee pier, the face of his friend George
Haddon.
“Hello, old boy!” exclaimed Morrow, grasping his friend's hand. “What
are you doing here? I thought your affairs would keep you in New York
all summer.”
“So they would,” replied Haddon, in a tone and with a look whose
distress he made little effort to conceal. “But something happened.”
“Why, what on earth's the matter? You seem horribly downcast.”
Haddon was silent for a moment; then he said suddenly:
“I'll tell you all about it. I have to tell somebody or it will split
my head. But come out on the pier, away from the noise of that
merry-go-round organ.”
Neither spoke as the two young men passed through the concert pavilion
and dancing hall out to a quieter part of the long pier. They sat near
the railing and looked out over the sea, on which, as evening fell, the
rippling band of moonlight grew more and more luminous. They could see,
at the right, the long line of brilliant lights on the boardwalk, and
the increasing army of promenaders. Detached from the furthest end of
the line of boardwalk lights, shone those of distant Longport. Above
these, the sky had turned from heliotrope to hues dark and indefinable,
but indescribably beautiful. Down on the beach were only a few people,
strolling near the tide line, a carriage, a man on horseback, and three
frolicking dogs.
“It's simply this,” abruptly began Haddon. “Six weeks ago I was married
to--”
“Why, I never heard of it. Let me congrat--”
“No, don't, I was married to a comic opera singer, named Lulu Ray.
I don't suppose you've ever heard of her, for she was only recently
promoted from the chorus to fill small parts. We took a flat, and lived
happily on the whole, for a month, although with such small quarrels
as might be expected. Two weeks ago she went out and didn't come back.
Since then I haven't been able to find her in New York or at any of the
resorts along the Jersey coast. I suppose she was offended at something
I said during a quarrel that grew out of my insisting on our staying
in New York all summer. Knowing her liking for Atlantic City--she was a
Philadelphia girl before she went on the stage--I came here at once to
hunt her up and apologize and agree to her terms.”
“Well?”
“Well, I haven't found her. She's not at any hotel in Atlantic City. I'm
going back to New York to-morrow to get some clue as to where she is.”
“I suppose you're very fond of her still?”
“Yes; that's the trouble. And then, of course, a man doesn't like to
have a woman who bears his name going around the country alone, her
whereabouts unknown.”
Morrow was on the point of saying: “Or perhaps with some other man,”
but he checked himself. He was sufficiently mundane to refrain from
attempting to reason Haddon out of his affection for the fugitive, or
to advise him as to what to do. He knew that in merely letting Haddon
unburden on him the cause of anxiety, he had done all that Haddon would
expect from any friend.
He limited himself, therefore, to reminding Haddon that all men have
their annoyances in this life; to treating the woman's offence as light
and commonplace, and to cheering him up by making him join in seeing the
sights of the boardwalk.
They looked on at the pier hop, while Professor Willard's musicians
played popular tunes; returned to the boardwalk and watched the pretty
girls leaning against the wooden beasts on the merry-go-round while the
organ screamed forth, “Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow;” experienced
that not very illusive illusion known as “The Trip to Chicago;” were
borne aloft on an observation wheel; made the rapid transit of the
toboggan slide, visited the phonographs and heard a shrill reproduction
of “Molly and I and the Baby;” tried the slow and monotonous ride on
the “Figure Eight,” and the swift and varied one on the switchback. They
bought saltwater taffy and ate it as they passed down the boardwalk and
looked at the moonlight. Down on the Bowery-like part of the boardwalk
they devoured hot sausages, and in a long pavilion drank passable beer
and saw a fair variety show. Thence they left the boardwalk, walked to
Atlantic Avenue and mounted a car that bore them to Shauffler's, where
among light-hearted beer drinkers they heard the band play “Sousa's
Cadet March” and “After the Ball,” and so they arrived at midnight.
All this was beneficial to Haddon and pleasant enough in itself, but
it prevented Morrow that night from prosecuting his search for the
loveliest girl in the world. He postponed the search to the next day.
And when that time came, after Haddon had started for New York, occurred
an event that caused Morrow to postpone the search still further.
He had decided to go up the boardwalk on the chance of seeing Edith in
a pavilion or on the beach. If he should reach the vicinity of the
lighthouse without finding her, he would turn back and inquire at every
hotel near the beach until he should obtain news of her.
He had reached Pennsylvania Avenue when he was attracted by the white
tents that here dotted the wide beach. He went down the high flight
of steps from the boardwalk to rest awhile in the shade of one of the
tents.
Although it was not yet 11 o'clock, several people in bathing suits were
making for the sea. A little goat wagon with children aboard was passing
the tents, and after it came the cart of the “hokey-pokey” peddler,
drawn by a donkey that wore without complaint a decorated straw
bathing hat. Morrow, looking at the feet of the donkey, saw in the sand
something that shone in the sunlight. He picked it up and found that it
was a gold bracelet studded with diamonds.
He questioned every near-by person without finding the owner. He
therefore put the bracelet in his pocket, intending to advertise it.
Then he resumed his stroll up the boardwalk. He went past the lighthouse
and turned back.
He had reached the Tennessee Avenue pier without having found the
loveliest girl in the world. His eye caught a small card that had just
been tacked up at the pier entrance. Approaching it he read:
“Lost--On the beach between Virginia and South Carolina Avenues, a gold
bracelet with seven diamonds. A liberal reward will be paid for its
recovery at the ---- Hotel.”
The hotel named was the one at which Morrow was staying. He hurried
thither.
“Who lost the diamond bracelet?” he asked the clerk.
“That young lady standing near the elevator. Miss Hunt, I think her name
is,” said the clerk consulting the register. “Yes, that's it, she only
arrived last night.”
Morrow saw standing near the elevator door, a lithe, well-rounded girl
with brown hair and great gray eyes that were fixed on him. She was
in the regulation summer-girl attire--blue Eton suit, pink shirtwaist,
sailor hat, and russet shoes. He hastened to her.
“Miss Hunt, I have the honour to return your bracelet.”
She opened her lips and eyes with pleasurable surprise and reached
somewhat eagerly for the piece of jewelry.
“Thank you ever so much. I took a walk on the beach just after breakfast
and dropped it somewhere. It's too large.”
“I picked it up near Pennsylvania Avenue. It's a curious coincidence
that it should be found by some one stopping at the same hotel. But,
pardon me, you're going away without mentioning the reward.”
She looked at him with some surprise, until she discovered that he
was jesting. Then she smiled a smile that gave Morrow quite a pleasant
thrill, and said, with some tenderness of tone:
“Let the reward be what you please.”
“And that will be to do what you shall please to have me do.”
“Ah, that's nice. Then I accept your services at once. I am quite alone
here; haven't any acquaintances in the hotel. I want to go bathing and
I'm rather timid about going alone, although I'd made up my mind to do
so and was just going up after my bathing suit.”
“Then I am to have the happiness of escorting you into the surf.”
They went bathing together not far from where he had found the bracelet.
He discovered that she could swim as well as he; also that in her dark
blue bathing costume, with sailor collar and narrow white braid, she was
a most shapely person.
She laughed frequently while they were breasting the breakers; and
afterwards, as in their street attire they were returning on the
boardwalk, she chatted brightly with him, revealing a certain cleverness
in off-hand persiflage.
He took her into the tent behind the observation wheel to see the
Egyptian exhibition, and she was good enough to laugh at his jokes about
the mummies, although the mummies did not seem to interest her. Further
down the boardwalk they stopped at the Japanese exhibition, and on the
way out he caught himself saying that if it were possible, he would take
great pleasure in hauling her in a jinrikisha.
“I'll remember that promise and make you push me in a wheel-chair,” she
answered.
When they were back at the hotel, she turned suddenly and said:
“By the way, what's your name? Mine's Clara Hunt.”
He told her, and while she went up the elevator with her bathing suit,
he arranged with the head waiter to have himself seated at her table.
He learned from the clerk that she had arrived alone with a letter of
introduction from a former guest of the house, and intended to stay at
least a fortnight.
At luncheon he proposed that they should take a sail in the afternoon.
She said, with a smile:
“As it is you who invites me, I'll give up my nap and go.”
They rode in a 'bus to the Inlet, and after spending half an hour
drinking beer and listening to the band on the pavilion, they hired a
skipper to take them out in his catboat. Six miles out the boat pitched
considerably and Miss Hunt increased her hold on Morrow's admiration
by not becoming seasick. At his suggestion they cast out lines for
bluefish. She borrowed mittens from the captain and pulled in four fish
in quick succession.
“What an athletic woman you are,” said Morrow.
“Yes, indeed.”
“In fact, everything that's charming,” he continued.
She replied softly: “Don't say that unless you mean it. It pleases me
too much, coming from you.”
Morrow mused: “Here's a girl who is frank enough to say so when she
likes a fellow. It makes her all the more fascinating, too. Some women
would make me very tired throwing themselves at me this way. But it is
different with her.”
They gave the fish to the captain and returned from the Inlet by the
Atlantic Avenue trolley, just in time for dinner. She did not lament
her lack of opportunity to change her clothes for dinner, nor did she
complain about the coat of sunburn she had acquired.
In the evening, they sat together for a time on the pier, took a turn
together at one of the waltzes, although neither cared much for dancing
at this time of year, walked up the boardwalk and compared the moon with
the high beacon light of the lighthouse.
He bought her marshmallows at a confectioner's booth, a fan at a
Japanese store, and a queer oriental paper cutter at a Turkish bazaar.
They took two switchback rides, during which he was compelled to put his
arm around her. Finally, reluctant to end the evening, they stood for
some minutes leaning against the boardwalk railing, listening to the
moan of the sea and watching the shaft of moonlight stretching from
beach to horizon.
It was not until he was alone in his room that Morrow bethought of his
neglect of the loveliest girl in the world. And remorseful as he was, he
did not form any distinct intention of resuming his search for her the
next day. He rather congratulated himself on not having met her while he
was with this enchanting Clara Hunt.
And he passed next day also with the enchanting Clara Hunt. They sat on
the piazza together reading different parts of the same newspaper for
an hour after breakfast; went to the boardwalk and turned in at a
shuffle-board hall, where they spent another hour making the weights
slide along the sanded board and then took another ocean bath.
After luncheon they walked up the boardwalk to the iron pier.
Seeing the lifeboat there, rising and falling in the waves, Clara asked:
“Would the lifeguard take us in his boat for a while, I wonder?”
Morrow went down to the beach and shouted to the lifeguard, who was none
other than the robust and stentorian Captain Clark. The captain brought
the boat ashore and as there were no bathers in the water at this point,
he agreed to row the young people out to the end of the pier.
“This is a great place for brides and grooms this summer,” remarked the
captain in his frank and jocular way.
Clara looked at Morrow with a blush and a laugh. Morrow was pleased at
seeing that she seemed not displeased.
“We're not married,” said Morrow to the captain.
“Not yet, mebbe,” said the captain with one of his significant winks,
and then he gave vent to loud and long laughter.
That evening Morrow and Clara took the steamer trip from the Inlet
to Brigantine and the ride on the electric car along flat and sandy
Brigantine beach. On the return, they became very sentimental. They
decided to walk all the way from the Inlet down the boardwalk. He found
himself quite oblivious to the crowd of promenaders. The loveliest girl
in the world might have passed him a dozen times without attracting his
attention. He had eyes and ears for none but Clara Hunt.
And that night, far from reproaching himself for his conduct toward
the loveliest girl, etc., he hardly thought of her at all, more than
to wonder by what good fortune he had avoided meeting her. Some of the
people at their hotel made the same mistake regarding Morrow and Clara
as Captain Clark had made; the two were seen constantly together. Others
thought they were engaged.
Morrow spoke of this to her next morning as they were being whirled down
to Longport on a trolley car along miles of smooth beach and stunted
distorted pine trees. “I heard a woman on the piazza whisper that I was
your fiancé,” he said.
“Well, what if you were--I mean what if she did?”
At Longport they took the steamer for Ocean City. They rode through that
quiet place of trees and cottages on the electric car, returning to the
landing just in time to miss the 11.50 boat for Longport. They had to
wait an hour and a half and they were the only people there who were not
bored by the delay. They returned by way of Somers' Point.
While the boat was gliding through the sunlit waters of Great Egg
Harbour Inlet, Clara's hand happened to fall on Morrow's, which was
resting on the gunwale. She let her hand remain there. Morrow looked at
it, and then at her face. She smiled. When the Italian violin player on
the boat came that way, Morrow gave him a dollar. Alas for the loveliest
girl in the world!
They passed most of that evening in a boardwalk pavilion, ostensibly
watching the sea and the crowd. They went up the thoroughfare in a
catboat the next morning, and, strange as it seemed to them, were the
only people out who caught no fish. The captain winked at his mate, who
grinned.
In the afternoon, while Morrow and Clara stood on the boardwalk looking
down at the Salvation Army tent, along came that innocent eccentric
“Professor” Walters in bathing costume and with his swimming machine.
The tall, lean whiskered, loquacious “Professor” had made Morrow's
acquaintance in a former summer and now greeted him politely.
“How d'ye do?” said the “Professor.” “Glad to see you here. You turn up
every year.”
“You're still given to rhyming,” commented Morrow.
“Yes, I have a rhyme for every time, in pleasure or sorrow. Is this Mrs.
Morrow?”
“No.”
“You ought to be sorry she isn't,” remarked the “Professor,” taking his
departure.
Morrow and Clara walked on in silence. At last he said somewhat
nervously:
“Everybody thinks we're married. Why shouldn't we be?”
She answered softly, with downcast eyes:
“I would be willing if I were sure of one thing.”
“What's that?”
“That you have never loved any other woman. Have you?”
“How can you ask? Believe me, you are the only girl I have ever loved.”
That evening, after dinner, Morrow and Clara, the newly affianced, about
starting from the hotel to the boardwalk, were at the top of the hotel
steps when a man appeared at the bottom.
Morrow uttered a cry of recognition.
“Why, Haddon, old boy, I'm glad to see you. Let me introduce you to my
wife that is to be.”
Haddon stood still and stared. Clara, too, remained motionless. After a
moment, Haddon said very quietly:
“You're mistaken. Let me introduce you to my wife that is.”
Morrow looked at Clara. She turned her gray eyes fearlessly on Haddon.
“You, too, are mistaken,” she said. “I had a husband before you married
me. He's my husband still. He's doing a song and dance act in a variety
theatre in Chicago. I'm sorry about all this, Mr. Morrow. I really like
you. Good-bye.”
She ran back into the hotel and arranged to make her departure on an
early train next morning.
Haddon turned toward the boardwalk, and Morrow, quite dazed,
involuntarily followed him. After a period of silence, Morrow said:
“This is astonishing. A bigamist, and a would-be trigamist. She came
here the night before you left. How did you find out she was here?”
“I read it in the Atlantic City letter of _The Philadelphia Press_ that
one of the Comic Opera singers daily seen on the boardwalk is Miss Clara
Hunt, who is known to theatre-goers by her stage name, Lulu Ray. These
newspaper correspondents know some of the obscurest people. If I had
told you her real name, you would have known who she was in time to have
avoided being taken in by her.”
“Her having another husband lets you out.”
“Yes. I'm glad and sorry, for damn it, I was fond of the girl. Excuse me
awhile, old fellow. I want to go on the pier and think awhile.”
Haddon went out on the pier and looked down on the incoming waves and
thought awhile. He found it a disconsolate occupation, even with a cigar
to sweeten it. So he came back and mingled with the gay crowd on the
boardwalk and tried to forget her.
Morrow had no sooner left Haddon than he felt his arm touched. Looking
around, he saw the smiling face of the loveliest girl in the world.
“Well, by Jove, Edith,” he said. “At last I've found you!”
“Yes. I heard you were down here. You see, I've been up in town for the
last week. Gracious, but Philadelphia is hot! Here's Aunt Laura.”
Morrow spent the evening with Edith. One night a week later, he proposed
to her on the pier.
“I will say yes,” she replied, “if you can give me your assurance that
you've never been in love with any one else.”
“That's easily given. You know very well you're the only girl I've ever
loved.”
II. -- A BIT OF MELODY
[Footnote: Copyrighted by J. Brisbane Walker, and used by the courtesy
of the _Cosmopolitan Magazine_.]
It was twelve o'clock that Sunday night when, leaving the lodging-house
for a breath of winter air before going to bed, I met the two musicians
coming in, carrying under their arms their violins in cases. They
belonged to the orchestra at the ---- Theatre, and were returning from a
dress rehearsal of the new comic opera that was to be produced there on
the following night.
Schaaf, who entered the hallway in advance of the professor, responded
to my greeting in his customary gruff, almost suspicious manner, and
passed on, turning down the collar of his overcoat. His heavily bearded
face was as gloomy-looking as ever in the light of the single flickering
gaslight.
The professor, although by birth a compatriot of the other, was in
disposition his opposite. In his courteous, almost affectionate way, he
stopped to have a word with me about the coldness of the weather and the
danger of the icy pavements. “I'm t'ankful to be at last home,” he said,
showing his teeth with a cordial smile, as he removed the muffler from
his neck, which I thought nature had sufficiently protected with an
ample red beard. “Take my advice, my frient, tempt not de wedder. Stay
warm in de house and I play for you de music of de new opera.”
“Thanks for your solicitude,” I said, “but I must have my walk. Play
to your sombre friend, Schaaf, and see if you can soften him into
geniality. Good night.”
The professor, with his usual kindliness, deprecated my thrust at the
taciturnity of his countryman and confrère, with a gesture and a look
of reproach in his soft gray eyes, and we parted. I watched him until he
disappeared at the first turn of the dingy stairs.
As I passed up the street, where I was in constant peril of losing my
footing, I saw his windows grow feebly alight. He had ignited the gas in
his room, which was that of the professor's sinister friend Schaaf.
My regard for the professor was born of his invariable goodness of
heart. Never did I know him to speak an uncharitable word of any one,
while his practical generosity was far greater than expected of a second
violinist. When I commended his magnanimity he would say, with a smile:
“My frient, you mistake altogedder. I am de most selfish man. Charity
cofers a multitude of sins. I haf so many sins to cofer.”
We called him the professor because besides fulfilling his nightly and
matinée duties at the theatre, he gave piano lessons to a few pupils,
and because those of us who could remember his long German surname could
not pronounce it.
One proof of the professor's beneficence had been his rescue of his
friend Schaaf on a bench in Madison Square one day, a recent arrival
from Germany, muttering despondently to himself. The professor learned
that he had been unable to secure employment, and that his last cent had
departed the day before. The professor took him home, clothed him and
cared for him until eventually another second violin was needed in the
---- Theatre orchestra.
Schaaf was now on his feet, for he was apt at the making of tunes,
and he picked up a few dollars now and then as a composer of songs and
waltzes.
All of which has little to do, apparently, with my post-midnight walk
in that freezing weather. As I turned into Broadway, I was surprised to
collide with my friend the doctor.
“I came out for a stroll and a bit to eat,” I said. “Won't you join
me? I know a snug little place that keeps open till two o'clock, where
devilled crabs are as good as the broiled oyster.”
“With pleasure,” he replied, cordially, still holding my hand; “not for
your food, but for your society. But do you know what you did when you
ran against me at the corner? For a long time I've been trying to recall
a certain tune that I heard once. Three minutes ago, as I was walking
along, it came back to me, and I was whistling it when you came up. You
knocked it quite out of mind. I'm sorry, for interesting circumstances
connected with my first hearing of it make it desirable that I should
remember it.”
“I can never express my regret,” I said. “But you may be able to catch
it again. Where were you when it came back to you three minutes ago?”
“Two blocks away, passing a church. I think it was the shining of the
electric light upon the stained glass window that brought it back to
me, for on the night of the day when I first heard it in Paris a strong
light was falling upon the stained glass windows of the church opposite
the house in which I had apartments.”
“Perhaps, then,” I suggested, “the law of association may operate again
if you take the trouble to walk back and repass the church in the same
manner and the same state of mind, as nearly as you can resume them.”
“By Jove,” said the doctor, who likes experiments of this kind, “I'll
try it. Wait for me here.”
I stood at the corner while the doctor briskly retraced his steps. His
firmly built, comfortable-looking form passed rapidly away. Within five
minutes he was back, a triumphant smile lighting his face.
“Success!” he said. “I have it, although whether from chance or as a
result of repeating my impression of light falling on a church window
I can't say. Certainly, after all these years, the tune is again mine.
Listen.”
As we proceeded up the street the doctor whistled a few measures
composing a rather peculiar melody, expressive, it seemed to me, of
unrest. I never forget a tune I have once heard, and this one was soon
fixed in my memory.
“And the interesting circumstances under which you heard it?” I
interrogated. “Surely after the concern I've shown in the matter, you're
not going to deprive me of the story that goes with the tune?”
“There is no reason why I should. But I hope you will not circulate the
melody. It is the music that accompanies a tragedy.”
“Indeed? You have written one, then? It must be brief, as there isn't
much of the music.”
“I refer to a tragedy which actually occurred. Tragedies in real life
are not, as a rule, accompanied by music, and, to be accurate, in this
case music preceded the tragedy. Ten years ago, when I was living in
Paris, apartments adjoining mine were taken by a musician and his wife.
His name, as I learned afterward, was Heinrich Spellerberg, and he
came from Breslau. The wife, a very young and pretty creature, showed
herself, by her attire and manners, to be frivolous and vain, and
without having more than the slightest acquaintance with the pair, I
soon learned that she had no knowledge of or taste for music. He had
married her, I suppose, for her beauty, and had too late discovered the
incompatibility of their temperaments. But he loved her passionately
and jealously. One day I heard loud words between them, from which I
gathered unintentionally that something had aroused his jealousy. She
replied with laughter and taunts to his threats. The quarrel ended with
her abrupt departure from the room and from the house.
“He did not follow her, but sat down at the piano and began to play
in the manner of one who improvises. Correcting the melody that
first responded to his touch, modifying it at several repetitions, he
eventually gave out the form that I have just whistled.
“Evening came and the wife did not return. He continued to play that
strain over and over, into the night. I dropped my book, turned down my
lamp light, and stood at the window, looking at the church across the
way. Suddenly the music ceased. The wife had returned. 'Where did you
dine?' I heard him ask. I could not hear her reply, but the next speech
was plainly distinguished. 'You lie!' he said, in vehement tone of rage;
'you were with----.' I did not catch the name he mentioned, nor did I
know what she said in answer, or actually what happened. I heard only
a confused sound, which did not impress me at the time as indicating a
struggle, and which was followed by silence. I imagined that harmony or
a sullen truce had been restored in the household, and thought no more
about the affair. The next morning the wife was found dead, strangled.
The husband had disappeared, and has never, I believe, been heard of to
this day.”
We reached the restaurant as the doctor finished his story. How the
account had impressed me I need not tell. Seated in the warm café, with
appetizing viands and a bottle before us, I asked the doctor to tell me
again the husband's name.
“Heinrich Spellerberg.”
“And who had the woman been?”
“I never ascertained. She was a vain, insignificant, shallow little
blonde. The Paris newspapers could learn nothing as to her antecedents.
She, too, was German, but slight and delicate in physique.”
“You didn't save any of the newspapers giving accounts of the affair?”
“No. My evidence was printed, but they spelled my name wrong.”
“Do you remember the exact date of the murder?”
“Yes, because it was the birthday of a friend of mine. It was February
17, 187-. Twelve years ago! And that tune has been with me, off and
on, ever since--forgotten, most of the time; a few times recalled--as
to-night.”
“And the man, what did he look like?”
“Slim and of medium height. Very light complexion and eyes. His face
was entirely smooth. His hair, a bit flaxen in colour, was curly and
plentiful, especially about the back of his neck.”
“In your evidence did you say anything about the strain of music, which
was manifestly of the murderer's own composition?”
“No, it did not recur to me until later.”
“And nothing was said about it by anybody?”
“No one but myself knew anything about it--except the murderer; and
unless he afterward circulated it, he and you and I are the only men in
the world who have heard it.”
“But if he continued, wherever he went, to exercise his profession, he
doubtless made some use of that bit of melody. The tune is so odd--quite
too good for him to have wasted.”
“Still, neither of us has ever heard it, or anything like it. And if you
ever should come upon it, it would be interesting to trace the thing,
wouldn't it?”
“Rather.”
I began to whistle the air softly. Presently two handsome girls, with
jimp raiment and fearless demeanour, came in and took possession of an
adjacent table.
“What'll it be, Nell?”
“I'll take a dozen panned. I'm hungry enough to eat all the oysters that
ever came out of the sea. A rehearsal like that gives one an appetite.”
“A dozen panned, and lobster salad for me, and two bottles of beer,” was
the order of the first speaker to the waiter.
I recognized the faces as pertaining to the chorus of the opera company
at the ---- Theatre. I stopped whistling while I watched them.
Suddenly, like a delayed and multiplied echo of my own whistling, came
in a soft hum from one of the girls the notes of the doctor's tragically
associated strain of music.
The doctor and I exchanged glances. The girl stopped humming.
“I think that's the prettiest thing in the piece, Maude,” said she.
Undoubtedly it was the comic opera to be produced at the ---- Theatre to
which she alluded as “the piece.”
“Amazing,” I said to the doctor. “Millocker composed the piece she's
talking about. Millocker never killed a wife in Paris. Nor would he
steal bodily from another. Perhaps the thing has been interpolated by
the local producer. It doesn't sound quite like Millocker, anyhow. I
must see about this.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the Actors' Club, or a dozen other places, until I find Harry
Griffiths. He's one of the comedians in the company at the ---- Theatre,
and he has a leading part in that piece to-morrow night. He'll know
where that tune came from.”
“As you please,” said the amiable doctor. “But I must go home. You
can tell me the result of your investigation to-morrow. It may lead to
nothing, but it will be interesting pastime.”
“And again,” I said, putting on my overcoat, “it may lead to something.
I'll see you to-morrow. Good night.”
I found Griffiths at the Actors' Club, telling stories over a
mutton-chop and a bottle of champagne. When the opportunity came I drew
him aside.
“I have bet with a man about a certain air in the new piece. He says
it's in the original score, and I say it's introduced, because I don't
think Millocker did it. This is it,” and I whistled it.
“Quite right, my boy. It's not in the original. Miss Elton's part was
so small that she refused to play until the manager agreed to let her
fatten it up. So Weinmann composed that and put--”
“This Weinmann,” I interrupted, abruptly, “what do you know about him?
Who is he?”
“He's Gustav Weinmann, the new musical director. I don't know anything
about him. He's not been long in the country. The manager found him in
some small place in Germany last summer.”
“How old is he? Where does he live?”
“Somewhat in forty, I should say. I don't know where he stays. If you
want to see him, why don't you come to the theatre when he's there?”
“Good idea, this. Good night.”
I would look up this German musician who had come from an obscure German
town. I would go to him and bluntly say:
“Mr. Weinmann, I beg your pardon, but is it true, as some people say it
is, that your real name is Heinrich Spellerberg?”
Meanwhile there was nothing to do but go to bed.
All the way home the tune rang in my head. I whistled it softly as I
began to undress, until I heard the sound of the piano in the parlour
down-stairs. Few of us ever touched that superannuated instrument. The
only ones who ever did so intelligently were Schaaf and the professor.
The latter was wont to visit the piano at any hour of the night. We
all were used to his way, and we liked the subdued melodies, the dreamy
caprices, the vague, trembling harmonies that stole through the silent
house.
I never see moonlight stretching its soft glory athwart a darkened room
but I hear in fancy the infinitely gentle yet often thrilling strains
that used to float through the still night from the piano as its keys
took touch from the delicate white fingers of the professor.
Suddenly the musical summonings of the player assumed a familiar
aspect,--that of the tune which I had been singing in my own brain for
the past hour.
Then it occurred to me that the professor, being a second violin in
the orchestra at the ---- Theatre, would doubtless know more about the
antecedents of the new musical director than Griffiths had been able to
tell me. This was the more probable as the professor himself had come
from Germany.
I descended the stairs softly, traversed the hallway, and, looking
through the open door, beheld the professor at the piano.
The curtains of a window were drawn aside, and the moonlight swept
grandly in. It passed over a part of the piano, bathed the professor's
head in soft radiance, fell upon the carpet, and touched the base of
the opposite wall. Upon a sofa, half in light, half in shadow, reclined
Schaaf, who had fallen asleep listening while the professor played.
The professor's face was uplifted and calm. Rapture and pain--so often
mutual companions--were depicted upon it. I hesitated to break the
spell which he had woven for himself. After watching for some seconds,
however, I began quietly:
“Professor.”
The tune broke off with a jangling discord, and the player turned to
face me, smiling pleasantly.
“Pardon me,” I went on, advancing into the room and standing in the
moonshine that he might recognize me, “but I was attracted by the
air you were playing. They tell me that it isn't Millocker's, but was
composed by your new conductor at the ----”
The professor answered with a laugh:
“Ja! He got de honour of it. Honour is sheap. He buy dat. It doesn't
matter.”
“Ah, then it isn't his own. And he bought the tune? From whom?”
“Me.”
“You?”
“Ja. And I have many oder to gif sheap, too.”
“But where did you get it?”
“I make it.”
“When?”
“Long 'go. I forget. I have make so many. Dey go away from my mindt an'
come again back long time after.”
“Professor, what would you give me to tell you where and when you
composed that tune?”
He looked at me with a slightly bewildered expression. It was with an
effort that I continued, as I looked straight into his eyes:
“I will hazard a guess. Could it have been in Paris--one day twelve
years ago--”
“I neffer be in Paris,” he interrupted, with a start which shocked and
convinced me, slight evidence though it may seem. So I spoke on:
“What, never? Not even just that night--that 17th of February? Try to
recall it, Heinrich Spellerberg. You remember she came in late, and--who
would think that those soft white fingers had been strong enough?”
“Hush, my friendt! I not touch her! She kill herself--she try to hang
and she shoke her neck. No, no, to you I vill not lie! You speak all
true! Mein Gott! Vat vill you do?”
The man was on his knees. I thought of the circumstances, the persons
concerned, the high-strung, sensitive lover of music, the coarse,
derisive, perhaps faithless woman, and I replied quickly:
“What will I do? Nothing to-night. It's none of my business, anyhow.
I'll sleep over it and tell you in the morning.”
I left him alone.