Wednesday, say, and you won't recognise this place. There'll be a rush
here such as there was when Oklahoma was opened. We have everything for
us--climate, temperature, water. Harry," he added in my ear, "look
around you. You are standing on the site of one of the grandest,
stateliest cities of civilisation."
That night the boy Carrington and I sat late in consultation while
Steele slept. "Nothing but force will do it," said the lad. "I know
him well, and I've tried it again and again. It's no use any other
way." So force it was.
How we got Steele back to San Diego I may not tell. Carrington is the
only other person who knows, and I'm sure he will say nothing. When
Steele found himself in the heart of a real city and began to look about
him, and take stock of his surroundings, the real collapse came. He is
in a sanitarium now somewhere in Illinois, and his wife and son see him
on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons from two till five. Steele will
never come out of that sanitarium, though he now realises that his
desert city was a myth, a creation of his own distorted wits. He's
sound enough on that point, but a strange inversion has taken place. It
is now upon all other subjects that he is insane.
_*The Dis-Associated Charities*_
There used to be a place in feudal Paris called the Court of Miracles,
and Mister Victor Hugo has told us all about it. This Court was a
quarter of the town where the beggars lived, and it was called "of the
miracles", because once across its boundaries the blind saw, the lame
walked and the poor cared not to have the gospel preached unto them.
San Francisco has its Court of Miracles too. It is a far cry thither,
for it lies on the other side of Chinatown and Dagotown, and blocks
beyond Luna's restaurant. It is in the valley between Telegraph Hill
and Russian Hill, and you must pass through it as you go down to Meigg's
Wharf where the Government tugs tie up.
One has elected to call it the Court of Miracles, but it is not a court,
and the days of miracles are over. It is a row of seven two-story
houses, one of them brick. The brick house is over a saloon kept by a
Kanaka woman and called "The Eiffel Tower." Here San Francisco's
beggars live and have their being. That is, a good many of them.
The doubled-up old man with the white beard and neck-handkerchief who
used to play upon a zither and the sympathies of the public on the
corner of Sutter street has moved out, and one can find no trace of him,
and Father Elphick, the white-headed vegetarian of Lotta's Fountain, is
dead. But plenty of the others are left. The neatly dressed fellow
with dark blue spectacles, who sings the _Marseillaise_, accompanying
himself upon an infinitesimal hand organ, is here; Mrs. McCleaverty is
here, and the old bare-headed man who sits on the street corner by the
Bohemian Club, after six o'clock in the evening and turns the crank of a
soundless organ, has here set up his everlasting rest.
The beggars of the Seven Houses are genuine miserables. Perhaps they
have an organisation and a president, I don't know. But I do know that
Leander and I came very near demoralising the whole lot of them.
More strictly speaking, it was Leander who did the deed, I merely looked
on and laughed, but Leander says that by laughing I lent him my immoral
support, and am therefore party to the act.
Leander and I had been dining at the "Red House," which is a wine-shop
that Gelett Burgess discovered in an alley not far from the county jail.
Leander and I had gone there because we like to sit at its whittled
tables and drink its _Vin Ordinaire_ (tres ordinaire) out of tin gill
measures; also we like its salad and its thick slices of bread that you
eat after you have rubbed them with an onion or a bit of garlic. We
always go there in evening dress in order to impress the Proletariat.
On this occasion after we had dined and had come out again into the gas
and gaiety of the Mexican quarter we caromed suddenly against Cluness.
Cluness is connected with some sort of a charitable institution that has
a house somewhere in the "Quarter." He says that he likes to alleviate
distress wherever he sees it; and that after all, the best thing in life
is to make some poor fellow happy for a few moments.
Leander and I had nothing better to do that evening so we went around
with Cluness, and watched him as he gave a month's rent to an infirm old
lady on Stockton street, a bundle of magazines to a whining old rascal
at the top of a nigger tenement, and some good advice to a Chinese girl
who didn't want to go to the Presbyterian Mission House.
"That's my motto," says he, as we came away from the Chinese girl,
"alleviate misery wherever you see it and try and make some poor fellow
happy for a few moments."
"Ah, yes," exclaimed this farceur Leander, sanctimoniously, while I
stared, "that's the only thing worth while," and he sighed and wagged
his head.
Cluness went on to tell us about a deserving case he had--we were going
there next--in fact, innocently enough, he described the Seven Houses to
us, never suspecting they were the beggar's headquarters. He said there
was a poor old paralytic woman lived there, who had developed an
appetite for creamed oysters.
"It's the only thing," said Cluness, "that she can keep on her stomach."
"She told you so?" asked Leander.
"Yes, yes."
"Well, she ought to know."
We arrived at the Seven Houses and Cluness paused before the tallest and
dirtiest.
"Here's where she lives; I'm going up for a few moments."
"Have a drink first," suggested Leander, fixing his eyes upon the saloon
under the brick house.
We three went in and sat down at one of the little round zinc
tables--painted to imitate marble--and the Kanaka woman herself brought
us our drinks. While we were drinking, one of the beggars came in. He
was an Indian, totally blind, and in the day time played a mouth-organ
on Grant Avenue near a fashionable department store.
"Tut, tut," said Cluness, "poor fellow, blind, you see, what a pity,
I'll give him a quarter."
"No, let me," exclaimed Leander.
As he spoke the door opened again and another blind man groped in. This
fellow I had seen often. He sold lavender in little envelopes on one of
the corners of Kearny street. He was a stout, smooth-faced chap and
always kept his chin in the air.
"What misery there is in this world," sighed Cluness as his eye fell
upon this latter, "one half the world don't know how--"
"Look, they know each other," said Leander. The lavender man had groped
his way to the Indian's table--evidently it was their especial
table--and the two had fallen a-talking. They ordered a sandwich apiece
and a small mug of beer.
"Let's do something for 'em," exclaimed Cluness, with a burst of
generosity. "Let's make 'em remember this night for years to come.
Look at 'em trying to be happy over a bit of dry bread and a pint of
flat beer. I'm going to give 'em a dollar each."
"No, no," protested Leander. "Let me fix it, I've more money than you.
Let me do a little good now and then. You don't want to hog all the
philanthropy, Cluness, _I'll_ give 'em something.
"It would be very noble and generous of you, indeed," cried Cluness,
"and you'll feel better for it, see if you don't. But I must go to my
paralytic. You fellows wait for me. I'll be down in twenty minutes."
I frowned at Leander when Cluness was gone. "Now what tom-foolery is it
this time?" said I.
"Tom-foolery," exclaimed Leander, blankly. "It's philanthropy. By Jove,
here's another chap with his lamps blown out. Look at him."
A third unfortunate, blind as the other two, had just approached the
Indian and the lavender man. The three were pals, one could see that at
half a glance. No doubt they met at this table every night for beer and
sandwiches. The last blind man was a Dutchman. I had seen him from
time to time on Market street, with a cigar-box tied to his waist and a
bunch of pencils in his fist.
"Eins!" called the Dutchman to the Kanaka, as he sat down with the
lavender man and the Indian. "Eins--mit a hem sendvidge."
"Excuse me," said Leander, coming up to their table.
What was it? Did those three beggars, their instinct trained by long
practice, recognise the alms-giver in the sound of Leander's voice, or
in the step. It is hard to say, but instantly each one of them dropped
the mildly convivial and assumed the humbly solicitous air, turning his
blind head towards Leander, listening intently. Leander took out his
purse and made a great jingling with his money. Now, I knew that
Leander had exactly fifteen dollars--no more, no less--fifteen dollars,
in three five-dollar gold pieces--not a penny of change. Could it be
possible that he was going to give a gold piece to the three beggars?
It was, evidently, for I heard him say:
"Excuse me. I've often passed you fellows on the street, in town, and I
guess I've always been too short of change, or in too much of a hurry to
remember you. But I'm going to make up for it now, if you'll permit me.
Here--" and he jingled his money, "here is a five dollar gold piece that
I'd like to have you spend between the three of you to-night, and drink
my health, and--and--have a good time, you know. Catch on?"
They caught on.
"May God bless you, young man!" exclaimed the old lavender man.
The Indian grunted expressively.
The Dutchman twisted about in his place and shouted in the direction of
the bar:
"Mek ut er bottle Billzner und er Gotha druffle, mit ein _im_-borted
Frankfooter bei der side on."
The Kanaka woman came up, and the Dutchman repeated his order. The
lavender man paused reflectively tapping his brow, then he delivered
himself: "A half spring chicken," he said with profound gravity, "rather
under done, and some chicory salad and a bottle of white wine--put the
bottle in a little warm water for about two minutes--and some lyonnaise
potatoes with onions, and--
"Donner wetter," shouted the Dutchman, "genuch!" smiting the table with
his fist.
The other subsided. The Kanaka woman turned to the Indian.
"Whiskey," he grunted, "plenty whiskey, big beefsteak, soh," and he
measured off a yard on the table.
"Leander," said I, when he rejoined me, "that was foolishness, you've
thrown away your five dollars and these fellows are going to waste it in
riotous living. You see the results of indiscriminate charity."
"I've _not_ thrown it away. Cluness would say that if it made them
happier according to their lights it was well invested. I hate the
charity that means only medicines, clean sheets, new shoes and sewerage.
Let 'em be happy in their own way." There could be no doubt that the
three blind men were happy. They loaded their table with spring
chickens, Gotha truffles, beefsteaks, and all manner of "alcoholic
beverages," till the zinc disappeared beneath the accumulation of plates
and bottles. They drank each other's health and they pledged that of
Leander, standing up. The Dutchman ordered: "Zwei Billzner more
alreatty." The lavender man drank his warmed white wine with gasps of
infinite delight, and after the second whiskey bottle had been opened,
the Indian began to say strange and terrible things in his own language.
Cluness came in and beamed on them.
"See how happy you've made them, Leander," he said gratefully. "They'll
always remember this night."
"They always will," said Leander solemnly.
"I've got to go though," said Cluness. I made as if to go with him but
Leander plucked my coat under the table. I caught his eye.
"I guess we two will stay," said I. Cluness left, thanking us again and
again.
"I don't know what it is," said I seriously to Leander, "but to-night
you seem to me to be too good to be wholesome."
"_I_," said Leander, blankly. "But I suppose I should expect to be
misjudged."
Just then the Kanaka woman came over to give us our check.
"This is on me," said Leander, but he was so slow in fumbling for his
purse that I was obliged, in all decency, to pay.
After she left _us_, the Kanaka went over to the blind men's table, and,
check-pad in hand, ran her eye over the truffles, beer, chicken,
beefsteak, wine and whiskey, and made out her check.
"Four dollars, six bits," she announced.
There was a silence, not one of the blind men moved.
"Watch now," said Leander.
"Four, six bits," repeated the Kanaka, her hand on her hip.
Still none of the blind men moved.
"Vail, den," cried the Dutchman, "vich von you two vellars has dose
money, pay oop. Fier thalers und sax beets."
"I haven't it," exclaimed the lavender man, "Jim has it," he added,
turning to the Indian.
"No have got, no have got," grunted the Indian. "_You_ have got, you or
Charley."
I looked at Leander.
"Now, what have you done?"
For answer Leander showed me three five dollar gold pieces in the palm
of his hand.
"Each one of those chaps thinks that one of the other two has the gold
piece. I just pretended to give it to one of 'em, jingled my coin, and
then put it back, I didn't give 'em a cent. Each one thought I had
given it to the other two. How could they tell, they were blind, don't
you see."
I reached for my hat.
"I'm going to get out of here."
Leander pulled me back.
"Not just yet, wait a few moments. Listen."
"Vail, vail," cried the Dutchman, beginning to get red. "You doand
vants to cheats Missus Amaloa, den berhaps--yes, Zhim," he cried to the
Indian, "pay oop, or ees ut _you_ den, Meest'r Paites, dat hab dose finf
thalers?"
"No have got," gurgled the Indian, swaying in his place as he canted the
neck of the whiskey bottle towards his lips.
"I thought you had the money," protested Mr. Bates, the lavender man,
"you or Jim."
"No have got," whooped the Indian, beginning to get angry. "Hug-gh!
_You_ got money. He give you money," and he turned his face towards the
Dutchman.
"That's what _I_ thought," asserted Mr. Bates.
"Tausend Teufels _no_," shouted the other. "I tell you _no_."
"_You, you,_" growled the Indian, plucking at Mr. Bates' coat sleeve,
"you have got."
"Yah, soh," cried the Dutchman, shaking his finger at the lavender man,
excitedly, "pay dose finf thalers, Meest'r Paites."
"Pay yourself," exclaimed the other, "I haven't touched them. I'll be
_any_ name, I'll be _any_ name if I've touched them."
"Well, I ain't going to wait here all night," shrilled the Kanaka woman
impatiently. The Dutchman shook his finger solemnly towards where he
thought the Indian was sitting.
"It's der Indyun. It's Zhim. Get ut vrom Zhim."
"Lie, lie," vociferated the Indian, "white man lie. No have got. _You_
hav got, or _you_."
"I'll turn my pockets inside out," exclaimed Mr. Bates.
"Schmarty," cried the Dutchman. "Can I _see_ dose pocket?"
"Thief, thief," exclaimed the Indian, shaking his long black hair. "You
steal money."
The other two turned on him savagely.
"There aint no man going to call me that."
"Vat he say, vait, und I vill his het mit der boddle demolisch. Who you
say dat to, _mee_, or Meest'r Bates?"
"Oh, you make me tired," cried the lavender man, "you two. _One_ of you
two, pay Missus Amaloa and quit fooling."
"Come on," cried the Kanaka, "pay up or I'll ring for the police."
"Vooling, vooling," shouted the Dutchman, dancing in his rage. "You
sheats Missus Amaloa und you gall dot vooling."
"_Who_ cheats," cried the other two simultaneously.
"Vail, how do _I_ know," yelled the Dutchman, purple to the eyes. "How
do _I_ know vich."
The Kanaka turned to Leander.
"Say, which of these fellows did you give that money to?"
Leander came up.
"Ah-h, _now_ we vill know," said the Dutchman.
Leander looked from one to the other. Then an expression of perplexity
came into his face. He scratched an ear.
"Well, I thought it was this German gentleman."
"_Vat!_"
"Only it seems to me I had the money in my left hand, and he, you see,
is on the right hand of the table. It might have been him, and then
again it might have been one of the other two gentlemen. It's so
difficult to remember. Wasn't it you," turning to Mr. Bates, "or no,
wasn't it _you_," to the Indian. "But it _couldn't_ have been the
Indian gentleman, and it couldn't have been Mr. Bates here, and yet I'm
sure it wasn't the German gentleman, and, however, I _must_ have given
it to one of the three. Didn't I lay the coin down on the table and go
away and leave it." Leander struck his forehead. "Yes, I think that's
what I did. I'm sorry," he said to the Kanaka, "that you are having any
trouble, it's some misunderstanding."
"Oh, I'll get it all right," returned the Kanaka, confidently. "Come
on, one of you fellows dig up."
Then the quarrel broke out afresh. The three blind men rose to their
feet, blackguarding and vilifying one another till the room echoed. Now
it was Mr. Bates and the Dutchman versus the Indian, now the Indian and
Dutchman versus Mr. Bates, now the Indian and Mr. Bates versus the
Dutchman. At every instant the combinations varied with kaleidoscopic
swiftness. They shouted, they danced, and they shook their fists
towards where they guessed each other's faces were. The Indian, who had
been drinking whiskey between intervals of the quarrel, suddenly began
to rail and howl in his own language, and at times even the Dutchman
lapsed into the vernacular. The Kanaka woman lost her wits altogether,
and declared that in three more minutes she would ring for the police.
Then all at once the Dutchman swung both fists around him and caught the
Indian a tremendous crack in the side of the head. The Indian vented an
ear-splitting war-whoop and began pounding Mr. Bates who stood next to
him. In the next instant the three were fighting all over the room.
They lost each other, they struck furious blows at the empty air, they
fell over tables and chairs, or suddenly came together with a dreadful
shock and terrible cries of rage. The Dutchman bumped against Leander
and before he could get away had smashed his silk hat down over his
ears. The noise of their shouting could have been heard a block.
"Thief, thief."
"Teef yourselluf, pay oop dose finf thalers."
"No have got, no have got."
And then the door swung in and four officers began rounding them up like
stampeded sheep. Not until he was in the wagon could the Dutchman
believe that it was not the Indian and Mr. Bates who had him by either
arm, and even in the wagon, as they were being driven to the precinct
station-house, the quarrel broke out from time to time.
As we heard the rattle of the patrol-wagon's wheels growing fainter over
the cobbles, we rose to go. The Kanaka stood with her hands on her hips
glaring at the zinc table with its remnants of truffle, chicken and
beefsteak and its empty bottles. Then she exclaimed, "And _I'm_ shy four
dollars and six bits."
On the following Saturday night Leander and I were coming from a Mexican
dinner at Luna's. Suddenly some one caught our arms from behind. It was
Cluness.
"I want to thank you fellows again," he exclaimed, "for your kindness to
those three blind chaps the other night. It was really good of you. I
believe they had five dollars to spend between them. It was really fine
of you, Leander."
"Oh, I don't mind five dollars," said Leander, "if it can make a poor
fellow any happier for a few moments. That's the only thing that's
worth while in this life."
"I'll bet you felt better and happier for doing it."
"Well, it did make me happy."
"Of course, and those three fellows will never forget that night."
"No, I guess they won't," said Leander.
_*Son of a Sheik*_
The smell of the warm slime on the Jeliffe River and the sweet, heavy
and sickening odour that exhaled into the unspeakable heat of the desert
air from the bunches of dead and scorched water-reeds are with me yet;
also the sight of the long stretch of dry mud bank, rising by shallow
and barely perceptible degrees to the edge of the desert sands, and thus
disclosed by the shrinkage of the Jeliffe during the hot months. The
mud banks were very broad and very black except where they touched the
desert; here the sand had sifted over them in light transparent
sprinklings. In rapidly drying under the sun of the Sahara, they had
cracked and warped into thousands of tiny concave cakes that looked, for
all the world, like little saucers in which Indian ink has been mixed.
(If you are an artist, as was Thevenot, you will the better understand
this.)
Then there was the reach of the desert that drew off on either hand and
rolled away, ever so gently, toward the place where the hollow sky
dropped out of sight behind the shimmering horizon, swelling grandly and
gradually like some mighty breast which, panting for breath in the
horrible heat, had risen in a final gasp and had then, in the midst of
it, suddenly stiffened and become rigid. On this colourless bosom of
the desert, where nothing stirred but the waxing light in the morning
and the waning light in the night, lay tumbled red and gray rocks, with
thin drifts of sand in their rifts and crevices and grey-green cacti
squatting or sprawling in their blue shadows. And there was nothing
more, nothing, nothing, except the appalling heat and the maddening
silence.
And in the midst of it all,--we.
Now "we" broadly and generally speaking, were the small right wing of
General Pawtrot's division of the African service; speaking less broadly
and less generally, "we" were the advance-guard of said division; and,
speaking in the narrowest and most particular sense, "we" were the party
of war-correspondents, specials, extras, etc., who were accompanying
said advance-guard of said wing of said army of said service for reasons
herein to be set forth.
As the long, black scow of the commissariat went crawling up the torpid
river with the advance-guard straggling along upon the right, "we" lay
upon the deck under the shadow of the scow's awning and talked and drank
seltzer.
I forget now what led up to it, but Ponscarme had said that the Arabs
were patriotic, when Bab Azzoun cut in and said something which I shall
repeat as soon as I have told you about Bab Azzoun himself.
Bab Azzoun had been born twenty-nine years before this time, at Tlemcen,
of Kabyle parents (his father was a sheik). He had been transplanted to
France at the age of ten, and had flourished there in a truly remarkable
manner. He had graduated fifth from the Polytechnique; he had written
books that had been "_couronne par l'Academie_"; he had become
naturalised; he had been prominent in politics (no one can cut a wide
swath in Paris in anything without hitting against _la politique_;) he
had occupied important positions in two embassies; he was a diplomat of
no mean qualities; he had influence; he dressed in faultless French
fashion; he had owned "Crusader"; he had lost money on him; he had
applied to the government for the office of "_Sous-chef-des
bureaux-Arabes dans l'Oran_," in order to recoup; he had obtained it; he
had come on with "us", and was now on this, his first visit to his
fatherland since his tenth year, on his way to his post.
And when Ponscarme had spoken thus about the patriotism of the Arabs,
Bab Azzoun made him answer: "The Arabs are not sufficiently educated to
be true patriots."
"Bah!" said Santander, "a man does not require to be educated in order
to be a patriot. And, indeed, the rudest nations have ever been the
most devotedly patriotic."
"Yes," said Bab Azzoun, "but it is a narrow and a very selfish
patriotism."
"I can't see that," put in Ponscarme; "a patriot is like an egg--he is
either good or bad. There is no such thing as a 'good enough egg,'
there is no such thing as a 'good enough patriot'--if a man is one at
all, he is a perfect one."