night was distinguished by a decidedly novel and original embodiment
of Mephisto by Thomas Mogley, a trained and painstaking comedian. His
performance created an abundance of merriment, and it was the manifest
thought of the audience that a new type of burlesque comedian had been
discovered.”
All of which was literally true. And the dramatic editor laughed over it
later over his bottle of white label at the club.
By what power Mrs. Mogley managed to keep alive until morning I do not
know. The dull gray light was stealing into the little room through the
window as Mogley, leaning over the bed, held a fresh newspaper close
to her face. Her head was propped up by means of pillows. She laughed
through her tears. Her face was all gladness.
“A new--comedian--discovered,” she repeated. “Ah, Tom, at last! That is
what I lived for! I can die happy now. We've made a--great--hit--Tom--”
The voice ceased. There was a convulsion at her throat. Nothing stirred
in the room. From the street below came the sound of a passing car and a
boy's voice, “Morning papers.” Mogley was weeping.
The dead woman's hand clutched the paper. Her face wore a smile.
V. -- OUT OF HIS PAST
This is no fable; it is the hardest kind of fact. I met Craddock not
more than a week ago. His inebriety prevented his recognizing me.
What a joyous, hopeful man he was upon the day of his marriage! He
looked toward the future as upon a cloudless spring dawn one looks
forward to the day.
He had sown his wild oats and had already reaped a crop of knowledge.
“I have put the past behind me,” he said. And he thought it would stay
there.
He married one of the sweetest and best of women. The match was an ideal
one--exceptionally so. His wife's mother objected to it and moved away
on account of it. “That's a detail,” said Craddock.
There are details and details. The importance of any one of them depends
on circumstances.
Craddock had all the qualities and attributes requisite to make him a
son-in-law to the liking of his mother-in-law--lack of money.
So she went to live in Boston, maintained a chilly correspondence with
her daughter, and bided her time.
Craddock had had his old loves, a fact that he did not attempt to
conceal from his wife. She insisted upon his telling her about them,
although the narration put her into manifest vexation of mind. Such is
the way of young wives.
There was one love about which Craddock said less than about any of the
others, because it had encroached more upon his life than any of them.
It had nearly approached being a serious affair. He had a delicacy
concerning the mention of it, too, for he flattered himself that the
flame, although entirely extinguished upon his own side, yet smouldered
deep in the heart of the woman. Therefore, he spoke of that episode in
vague and general terms.
Strange as it seemed to Craddock, clear as it is to any student of men
and women, it was this amour that excited the most curiosity in the mind
of his wife.
“What was her name?” asked the latter.
“Agnes Darrell.”
“I don't think she has a pretty name, at all events.”
“Oh, that was only her stage name. I really don't remember what her real
name was.”
This was a judicious falsehood.
“Well, I'm sorry that you ever made love to actresses. I'm afraid I
can't think as much of you after knowing--”
“After knowing that the first sight of you drove the memory of all
actresses and other women in the world out of my head,” cried Craddock,
with a merry fervour that made his speech irresistible.
So they persisted in being extremely happy together for three years, to
the grinding chagrin of Craddock's mother-in-law in Boston.
One July Friday, Craddock's wife was at the seashore, while Craddock,
who ran down each Saturday to remain with her until Monday, was battling
with his work and the heat and the summer insects, in his office in the
city. Mrs. Craddock received her mail, two letters addressed to her at
the seaside, two forwarded from the city whither they had first come.
Of the latter one was a milliner's announcement of removal. The other
was in a large envelope, and the address was in a chirography unknown to
her. The large envelope contained a smaller one.
This second envelope was addressed to Miss Agnes Darrell, ---- Hotel,
Chicago, in the handwriting of Craddock.
The feelings of Craddock's wife are imaginable. She took from this
already opened second envelope the letter that it contained. It also was
in Craddock's penmanship. She succeeded in a semistupefied condition in
reading it to the end.
“May 13.
“My Dearest Agnes:--I have just a moment in which to tell you the old
story that one heart, thousands of miles east of you, beats for you
alone. With what joy do I anticipate the early ending of the season,
when, like young Lochinvar, you will come out of the West. I shall
contrive to be with you as often as possible this summer. With renewed
vows of my unalterable devotion, I must hastily say good night.
“Yours always,
“Jack.”
Any who seek a new emotion would ask for nothing more than Craddock's
wife then experienced. It was not until the first shock had given away
to a calm, stupendous indignation that she began to comment upon the
epistle in detail.
“May 13th--at that very time Jack was sighing at the thought of my being
away from him during the hot weather and telling me how he would miss
me. All deception! His heart at that very time was beating for her
alone. And he would contrive to see her as often as possible this
summer--during my absence!”
It was then that Craddock's wife learned the great value of pride
and anger as a compound antidote to overwhelming grief in certain
circumstances.
When Craddock, quite unarmed, rushed to meet her at the seashore upon
the next evening, she was en route for Boston.
In several ensuing years, Craddock's wife's mother took care that every
communication from him, every demand for an explanation, every piteous
plea for enlightenment, for one interview, should be ignored. The mother
sent the girl to relatives in Europe; and after Craddock had spent three
years and all the money that he had saved toward the buying of a house
for his wife and himself, in trying to cross her path that he might have
a moment's hearing, he came back home and went to the dogs.
He would have killed himself had not hope remained--the hope that some
chance turn of events would bring him face to face with her, that he
might know wherefore his punishment. He would have proudly resolved to
forget her, and he would have striven day and night to make a name that
some day would reach her ears whereever she might go, had he not felt
that some terrible mistake had taken her from him; time would eventually
rectify matters. As hope bade him live and as his inability to forget
her made it impossible for him to put his thoughts upon work, he became
a drunkard.
He might not have done so had he been you or I; but he was only
Craddock, and whether or not you find his offence beyond the extent of
palliation, the fact is that he drank himself penniless and entirely
beyond the power of his own will to resume respectability.
Naturally his friends abandoned him.
“Craddock is making a beast of himself,” said one who had formerly sat
at his table. “To give him money merely accelerates the process.”
“When a man loses all self-respect, how can he expect to retain the
sympathy of other people?” queried a second.
“I never thought much of a man who would go to the gutter on account of
a woman. It shows a lack of stamina,” observed a third.
All of which was true. But particular cases have exceptionally
aggravating circumstances. Special combinations may produce results
which, although seemingly under human control, are almost, if not quite,
inevitable.
One day Craddock's wife came back to him. In Paris she had made a
discovery. She had kept the letter from Jack to the actress in a box
that always accompanied her. Opening this box suddenly, her eye fell
upon the postmark, stamped upon the envelope. She had never noticed
this before. She knew that the date written above the letter itself was
incomplete, the year not being indicated. According to the postmark, the
year was 1875.
That was four years before Jack married her; two years before he first
saw her.
She had always supposed the sending of the letter to her to be the act
of some jealous rival of Jack's for the actress's affection. Now she
knew not to what it might have been attributable.
When she arrived at the hospital where Craddock was recovering from the
effects of an unconscious attempt at suicide, she was ten years older,
in fact, than when she had left him; twenty years older in appearance.
She took him home and has been trying to make a man of him. She
manifests toward him limitless patience and tenderness, and she
tolerates uncomplainingly his bi-weekly carousals. But she can afford
to, having come into possession of a small fortune at her mother's
recent death.
Craddock is amiably content with her. He cannot bring himself to regard
her as the beautiful young bride of his youth. So little remains of her
former charm, her former vivacity and girlishness, that it seems as if
Craddock's wife of other times had died.
A few days ago, I met at the Sheepshead Races a _passée_ actress who was
telling about the conquests of her early career.
“There was one young fellow awfully infatuated with me,” she said, “who
used to write me the sweetest letters. I kept them long after he stopped
caring for me, until he was married; then I destroyed them. I found one
short one, though, in an old handbag some years after, and, just for a
joke I mailed it to his wife at his old address. I don't suppose it ever
reached her, though, or he would have acknowledged it, for the sake of
old times. I wonder whatever became of Jack Craddock. People used to say
he had a bright future--I say, tell that messenger-boy to come here! I'm
going to put five on Tenny for this next race. And you'll lend me the
five, won't you?”
VI. -- THE NEW SIDE PARTNER
A chance in life is like worldly greatness--to which, indeed, it is
commonly a requisite preliminary. Some are born with it, some achieve
it, and some have it thrust upon them.
There is a youth who has had it thrust upon him. What he will do with it
remains to be seen. Know the story, which is true in every detail save
in two proper names:
The midnight train from New York, which crawls out of the Jersey City
ferry station at 12:25, is usually doleful, especially in the ordinary
cars. One who cannot sleep easily therein has a weary two or three
hours' time to Philadelphia. Almost any equally wakeful companion is
then a source of joy.
A girl of medium size, wearing a veil, and being rather carelessly
attired in dark clothes which fitted a charming figure, walked jauntily
up the aisle, saw that no seat was entirely vacant, and therefore, after
a hasty glance at me, sat down beside me.
Had not the two very young men in the seat behind us drunk too much
wine that night in New York, the girl and I might never have exchanged a
word. But the conversation of the youths was such as to cause between us
the intercommunication of smiles, and eventually of speeches.
Then casual observations about the fulness of the car, the time of the
train, and our respective destinations,--mine being Philadelphia,
hers being Baltimore, led to the revelation that she was a constant
traveller, because she was an actress. She had been a soubrette in
musical farce, but lately she had belonged to a variety and burlesque
company. She had gone upon the stage when she was thirteen, and she was
now twenty.
“What kind of an act do you do?” I asked, in the language of the variety
“profession.”
“Oh, I can do almost anything,” she said, in a tone of a self-possessed,
careless, and vivacious woman. “I sing well enough, and I can dance
anything, a skirt dance, a clog, a Mexican fandango, a Carmencita kind
of step, anything at all. I don't know when I ever learned to dance. I
didn't learn, it just came to me; but the best thing I do is whistling.
I'm not afraid of any man in the business when it's a case of whistling.
There's no fake about my whistle; it's the real thing. I can whistle any
sort of music that goes.”
“Your company appears in Baltimore this week?”
“Oh, no! I've left the company. You see, I've been off for six weeks on
account of illness, and now I'm going over to Baltimore to my father's
funeral. He is to be buried to-morrow. See, here's the telegram. I've
been having hard lines lately. I've not had any sleep for three days,
and I won't get to Baltimore till daylight. I want to start back to New
York to-morrow night, if I can raise the stuff. I had just enough money
to get a ticket to Baltimore, and now I'm dead broke.”
Then she laughed and got me to untie her veil. When it was removed, I
saw a frank young face with an abundance of soft brown hair. About the
light blue eyes were the marks of fatigue, and the colour of the cheeks
further confirmed her account of loss of sleep.
Her feet pattered softly upon the floor of the car.
“I'm doing a single shuffle,” she said, in explanation of the movement
of her feet. “If you could do one too, we might do a double.”
“Do you do your act alone on the stage?” I asked, “or are you one of a
team?”
“We're a team. My side partner's a man. It pays better that way. We
get $40 a week and transportation. I used to get only $12 except when
I stood around and posed, then I got $35 and had to pay my own railroad
fare. You can bet I have a good figure, when I get $35 for that alone!
I handle the money of the team and I divide it even between us. I don't
believe in the man getting nine-tenths of the stuff, do you? Besides,
I'm older than my partner is. I put him in the business.”
“How was that?”
“Oh, I picked him up on the street in New York. I saw that he had a good
voice and was a bright kid, so I took him for my partner.”
“But tell me how it came about.”
She was quite willing to do so. And the rumbling of the wheels, the rush
of the train over the night-swathed plains of New Jersey, accompanied
her voice. All the other passengers were sleeping. To the following
effect was her narrative:
At evening a crowd of boys had gathered at the corner of Broadway and
a down-town street. One of them--ragged, unkempt, but handsome--was
singing and dancing for the diversion of the others. That way came the
variety actress, then out of an engagement. She stopped, heard the boy
sing, and saw him dance. She pushed through the crowd to him.
“How did you learn to dance?” she asked.
“Didn't ever learn,” he said, with impudent sullenness.
“Who taught you to sing?”
“None o' yer business.”
“But who did teach you?”
“Nobody.”
“What's your name?”
“None of your business.”
“Will you come along with me into the restaurant over there?”
“No.”
But presently he was induced to go, although he continued to answer her
questions in the savage, distrustful manner of his class. They went into
a cheap eating-house and saloon, through the “Ladies' Entrance,” and
while they sat at a table there, she learned by means of resolute and
patient questions that the boy earned his living by blacking shoes now
and then, and that he did not know who his parents were, as he had been
“put” with a family whose ill-usage he had fled from to live in the
street. He began to melt under her manifestations of interest in him,
and with pretended reluctance he gave his promise to wash his face and
hands and to call upon her that evening at the theatrical boarding-house
on Twenty-seventh Street where she was living. Then she left him.
When he called, she took him to her room and induced him to allow her to
comb his hair. A deal of persuasion was necessary to this. Then she
took him out and bought him a cheap suit of clothes on the Bowery. A
half-hour later he was standing with her in the wings at Miner's Variety
Theatre. A man and woman were doing a song and dance upon the stage.
“Watch that man,” the actress said to the boy of the streets. “I want
you to do that sort of an act with me one of these days.”
When he had thus received his first lesson, she led him back to the
theatrical boarding-house, and in her room he showed her what ability he
had picked up as a singer and dancer. She secured a room for him in the
house, and she had the precaution to lock him in lest he should take
fright at his novel change of surroundings and flee in the night. When
she released him on the next morning she found him docile and cheerful.
She escorted him into the big dining-room to breakfast.
“Who's your friend, Lil?” asked a certain actor whose name is known from
Portland to Portland.
“He's my new side partner,” she said, looking at the boy, who was not in
the least abashed at the bold gaze of the negligently dressed soubrettes
and the chaffing comedians who sat at the tables.
Everybody laughed. “What can he do?” was the general question.
“Get out there and show them, young one,” she said, pointing to the
centre of the dining-room.
The boy obeyed without timidity. When he had sung and danced, there was
hilarious applause.
“Good for the kid,” said the well-known actor. “What are you going to do
with him, Lil?”
“I'm going to try to get an engagement for us together in Rose St.
Clair's Burlesque Company.”
“I'll help you,” said the actor. “I know Rose. I'll go and see her right
away, and you come there with the kid about 11 o'clock.”
When the girl and her protégé arrived at the boarding-house of the fat
manageress they found that the actor had so far kept his promise as to
have inveigled her into a condition of alcoholic amiability. She asked
them what they could do. Each one sang and danced, and the girl, who
also whistled, outlined to the manageress her idea of an “act” in which
the two should appear. There was a hitch when the question of salary
arose. The girl fixed upon $40. Rose thought that amount was too large.
Lil adhered to her terms, and was about to leave without having made
an agreement, when the manageress called her back, and a contract for a
three weeks' engagement was signed at once.
The period between that day and the beginning of the engagement,
which subsequently opened at Miner's Theatre, was spent by the girl
in coaching her protégé. He was a year younger than she, a fact which
tended to increase the influence that she promptly obtained over him.
His sullenness having been overcome, he became a devoted and apt
pupil. Having beheld himself in neat clothes and acquired habits
of cleanliness, he speedily developed into a handsome youth of soft
disposition and good behaviour.
The new song and dance “team” was successful. The boy quickly gained
applause, and especially did he easily win the liking of such women as
he met or appeared before. A new world was open to him. Naturally he
enjoyed the easy conquests that he made in the curious, careless circle
into which he had been brought.
He is still having his “fling.” But he has been from the first most
obedient and unquestioning to his benefactress. He goes nowhere, does
nothing, without previously obtaining permission from her.
She is proud of the advancement that he has accomplished already, and
she is determined to make him a conspicuous figure upon the stage.
What is it that actuates this girl in her endeavour to elevate this boy
in the world? What the mystery that brought to the gamin this guardian
angel in the form of a variety actress who mingles bright sayings with
lack of grammar, who tells Rabelaisian anecdotes in one minute and
philosophizes in slang about the issues of life the next?
“You're in love with him, aren't you?” I said, as the train plunged on
through the darkness.
“I don't know whether I am or not. He's just a kid, you know. I suppose
the proper end of such a romance is that we should marry. But then I
wouldn't be married to a man that I couldn't look up to.”
“But women don't invariably love that way. I'm sure you're in love with
the boy. Have you never thought as to whether you were or not?”
“Have I? I should smile! I thought of it even on the first night,
after I picked him up, when I locked him in his room. But I have always
regarded him in a sort of motherly way, although only a year older. It
seems kind of unnatural for me to love him as a woman loves a man. If he
was only older!”
“Ah, that wish is sure evidence that you love him!”
“One thing I do know is that, though he always obeys me, he doesn't care
as much for me as I do for him.”
“How do you know that?”
“He wouldn't think so much of other girls if he did. He doesn't look
upon me as a woman for him to fall in love with. He regards me as
an older sister. Why, he never even takes a girl to supper after the
performance without asking my permission.”
“And you give it?”
“Yes; but he never knows how I feel when I do.”
“And how do you feel then?”
“The first time he asked me, it was like a knife going through me. I
haven't got used to it yet.”
She paused for a time before adding:
“But, anyhow, he's going to make a name for himself some day. He has it
in him. I'm not the only one that thinks so. I'm trying now to get him
to go to a school of acting, but he thinks variety is good enough for
him. He'll get over that, though.”
She spoke so tenderly and yet so proudly of him, that I could not
without a pang of pity meditate upon the probable outcome of this
attachment, which, according to the logic of realists, will be the boy's
eventual success in life, long after he will have forgotten the hand
that lifted him out of the depth in which he first opened his eyes.
He knows nothing of his parentage. His benefactress once sought, by
means of Inspector Byrnes's penetrating eye, to pierce the clouds
surrounding his origin, but the inspector smiled at the hopelessness of
the attempt.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“I left him in New York,” she said. “I suppose he'll blow in all his
money as soon as he can possibly manage to do so.”
And she laughed and did another “shuffle” with her feet upon the floor
of the car.
VII. -- THE NEEDY OUTSIDER
There was animation at the Nocturnal Club at three o'clock in the
morning. The city reporters who had been dropping in since midnight were
now reinforced by telegraph editors, for the country editions of the
big dailies were already being rushed in light wagons over the sounding
stones to the railroad stations.
The cheery and urbane African--naturally called Delmonico by the
habitués of the Nocturnal Club--found his time crowded in serving
bottled beer, sandwiches, or boiled eggs to the groups around the
tables.
To a large group in the back room Fetterson related how he had once
missed the last car at the distant extremity of West Philadelphia, and,
failing to find a cab west of Broad Street, had walked fifty blocks
after midnight and had still succeeded in getting his report in the
second edition and thus making a “beat on the town.”
Then spoke up a needy outsider whom Fetterson had brought in at one
o'clock.
I neglected to mention Fetterson's penchant for queer company. It is
quite right that reporters know policemen, are on chaffing terms with
night cabmen, and have large acquaintance with pugilists and even
with “crooks.” But Fetterson picks up the most remarkable and
out-of-the-way--not to speak of out-at-elbows--specimens of mankind,
craft in distress on the sea of humanity. The needy outsider was his
latest acquisition.
It is enough to say of this destitute acquaintance of Fetterson's that
he was a ragged man needing a shave. In daylight, in the country, you
would have termed him a tramp. Hitherto he had sat in our group in
silence. When he opened his mouth to discourse, it was natural that he
should have a prompt and somewhat curious hearing.
“Speaking of walking,” he said, “I have walked a bit in my time. Mostly,
though, I've rode--on freight-cars. The longest straight tramp I ever
made was from Harrisburg to Philadelphia once when the trains weren't
running. The cold weather made walking unpleasant. But what do you think
of a woman--no tramp woman, either--starting from Pittsburg to walk to
Philadelphia?”
“Oh, there is a so-called actress who recently walked from San Francisco
to New York,” put in some one.