“Yes, I must have softening of the brain,” he grunted. “It’s all a
riddle-come-ree to me!”
“It is the same to me--and that’s why I can’t explain,” I told him,
frankly. “I hung onto myself all that time, wanting to do it, and then I
let go and did it!”
“About as you went to cutting up in Levant before you skipped out,” he
snapped.
Up to that time, not by word or look had he let me know that he had any
knowledge of why I had left my home town.
“Dod explained it to me in the letter he sent with you. But he had
excuses to give.”
I had to admire Captain Vose’s ability to keep his thoughts to himself,
as I remembered the placid countenance he showed to me when he had read
that letter.
“Now I reckon that Dod was prejudiced in your favor and that you had
been a young devil the folks wanted to boost out of town. Dod’s judgment
was never very good in the case of any critters who were willing to
cater to him. I don’t suppose you dare to go back up there?”
“I don’t want to go.” But all of a sudden a queer wave of homesickness
seemed to come swelling up in me and to choke me like water chokes the
throat of a dredge-pump. “I’m done with that town for good and all,” I
told him. “I got along all right while I was doing dirt as fast as
the rest of ’em, but when I tried to be decent they didn’t give me
a show!” I snapped my finger. “I wouldn’t give _that_ for anybody in
Levant!”
I knew I was lying and I think Jodrey Vose knew it, for he was a keen
old chap. He scowled at me and grunted.
“Got any money left after all the rake-helling you’ve been doing for a
year past?”
So he knew all about that, too!
“I’m fixed all right!” But I looked up at the ceiling of my room when
I said it, and I knew I was not fooling him. I ought to have had a bank
account, considering what I had been pulling down. I had all my capital
in my pocket--a roll about as big as my thumb. I had considerable of a
string of memories, such as they were, regarding money I had spent; I
had a brand-new diving dress, and, above all, queer as this may sound,
I had a specially new outfit which was my chief pride: a frock-coat and
pearl-gray trousers, waistcoat modestly fancy--my real tastes in that
direction having been gently suppressed by an honest tailor--and a
plug-hat whose shininess fairly put my eyes out. And up to that time I
had had no opportunity to wear that suit except in front of the mirror
in my hiding-place!
I had tested the tilt of that hat at a dozen different angles; I had
nearly broken my neck in efforts to see just how the coat-tails flared
in the back. With a chart as help, a card stuck in the side of the
mirror, I had practised tying a scarf in Ascot style until my staring
eyes watered and my fingers ached. Then I had walked back and forth,
trying to get the hang of a cane.
Again I suggest that this may sound queer. But it was only another
manifestation of that cheap streak in me, so I reckon. I was not
modeling my appearance on the looks of any real gentleman I had ever
seen; I had not bought that garb in order to appear at church or to
climb into better society. But from the time I was ten years old I had
nursed one special, hungry, despairing ambition. At the county fair I
saw “Diamond Dick” Shrady marshaling his painted beauties in front of
his tent, and, according to my notion, his rig-out was apparel which
shaded even the robes of royalty. I could not conceive higher height of
happiness than to own and wear for “every day” a suit like that.
Consider the lily--as I considered “Diamond Dick”! Then consider me as I
stood in front of that tent!
I had on brogan shoes which I had fresh-tallowed for the day. My
stockings were home-knit and bulged out in folds over the tops of my
shoes. But I was not so keenly self-conscious of my footwear as of the
rest of my outfit, because Levant boys wore brogans quite commonly. My
trousers were my special sore point, for even in Levant they had been
ridiculed. In the first place, the cloth was a glazy, stiff stuff; in
the second place, my good mother did not understand how to cut out a
boy’s pants. There was just as much fullness in the front as in
the seat. I kept denting in that fullness with my fists when I was
unobserved. I found that by stooping quite a bit when I walked or stood
I was able to keep the fullness caved in and less noticeable. It was a
wonder I did not become permanently humpbacked while I was wearing out
those pants. The legs of them were like twin stovepipes, and almost as
unyielding. They crackled at the knees when I sat down. Add to those
items of attire a hickory shirt, for which I had made a false bosom out
of a shingle painted white, a paper collar, and a butterfly bow made of
a gingham rag, a hard hat which was a paternal hand-me-down; they called
them “dips.” It was a good name. The hat was exactly the shape of the
bowl of a table-spoon.
As I leaned back and gaped up at that gorgeous stranger on the platform,
straightening myself and letting my forward fullness swell as it would,
there was born in me that unconquerable hankering--wild desire to be
dressed like that--sometime! To say to myself--sometime--“Now I am
dressed right! Everything about me is just as it should be!”
To base my ideas on the outfit “Diamond Dick” wore was probably evidence
of the cheap streak in me, I say, but when you consider me as I stood
there, and then consider the lily, is there not some excuse?
I confess with some shame that during my hiding in the city, while I was
tucked away in that boarding-house room, my chief regret was not that I
was out of a job, was not that I had battered the face of my employer,
but was because I could not go out and swell around the streets and the
amusement places wearing that suit and looking that picture of myself
which had been the ideal that lulled me to sleep every night during my
boyhood.
I was having some of those dreams while I sat there and gazed up at the
ceiling. At last a big dream had come true. I owned that suit and I knew
I looked mighty well in it. I had put in a good many hours in front of
the looking-glass making sure of that fact. But now that I owned it I
was getting none of the thrills and but little of the satisfaction I had
looked forward to. Realized ambitions in my case--and probably it’s
true in most cases--have always seemed to have a lot of discomforting
tag-ends tied to them. I was practically a prisoner in a dingy room, I
could not go out and sport around in my new regalia, and Jodrey Vose,
who had undertaken to make a man of me, was sitting across the table,
scowling at me with a great deal of disfavor.
“Have you taken up drinking along with the rest, young Sidney?”
“No, sir; and I never shall. I’m sure of that, sir.”
“What are you going to do next?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’d better go back to Levant.”
“I’ll never do that.”
“Dod writes that your uncle has been enlarging his business and is
making a lot of money and is going to run for town office. He must need
a chap like you and has probably forgotten any little trouble he might
have had with you.”
But I shook my head.
“You don’t expect me to do anything more for you, do you?”
Again I shook my head. That homesick feeling was swelling up once more.
“I hear that they are fitting out another Cocos Island expedition to
hunt for the Peru treasure-ship. You might be able to sign on there. But
it’s a fake job. There’s no sunken ship. However, you’ll get wages.”
“I believe I’ll try the Pacific coast, sir.”
He slid his forefinger back and forth slowly under his nose.
“It might do, son. I have thought of the same jump, myself. I have
waited now till I’m too old. What started me thinking about it some
years ago was the _Golden Gate_ proposition. What troubled me about
making up my mind was that some said the treasure had been got out
of her and others said there was some guesswork. Nobody seemed to be
willing to produce any proof that the treasure was still there. Looking
back, I can see now why all interested parties would naturally rather
have it thought that the treasure wasn’t there. But when a fellow like
me has his living to make he doesn’t want to take too many chances. And
the one job I did go on sickened me of treasure-hunting on somebody’s
guesswork.”
He was silent for a time.
“I am sorry you are in your scrape, young Sidney. You’re done for as a
diver in these parts for a time. Try the Pacific. I don’t say it’s a bad
idea.” He grinned at me. “If you recover the _Golden Gate_ treasure drop
me a postal card.”
Then he went away, making no more ado about the matter of our parting. I
was not surprised by that manner of leave-taking. I am a Yankee myself,
and I had found myself wishing that when he went he would walk off
without jawing me or coddling me.
I counted my money and sent out for some railroad folders and trailed my
finger across the map--and stayed right on in the city, week after week.
I don’t know exactly what I had lost--ambition or pluck or what it was!
But that was a spell in my life when I was a plumb, square loafer, and
rather enjoyed myself--reading cheap novels and playing solitaire in
the daytime, then getting in with some of the rest of the boarders
and playing poker evenings. In Levant we used to play for beans in
barn-chambers. I had a country boy’s shrewdness in that game, and the
city fellows did not get much of my money away from me; nor did I get
any particular amount of theirs.
However, the pastime did bring me into touch with some sporting
characters and with some queer characters, too. There were men who were
hiding the same as I was. The fact that I was under cover gave me open
sesame to their confidence. They talked a great deal, whiling away dull
hours in the day. Several were in the house where I was stopping, and
after a time I dared to go visiting around a bit evenings and went along
to other houses, in the locality.
It was all new to me, this “flash” side of fife, and I listened to their
stories with eyes and mouth open. I conceived an idea of writing out
these stories into a book, and after I got back into my room nights I
would jot down all I had heard, names and all. I had all the nicknames
of operators down pat--those names rather fascinated me. There were
names which were based on personal peculiarities or blemishes or system
of operating. I found out that a great many of the parties were linked,
either by relationship or by gang ties, and that the wise boys among the
crooks or the police officers could tell in many cases just what crowd
had operated, providing the identity of one man could be revealed. I
reckon I calculated in those times that I was going to make an exposé,
for I made many notes about the different coteries and their associates.
I will say at this point that I have no intention of writing such a
book, and I have gone into a bit of detail about the matter in order
that certain following activities of mine may be understood. Otherwise,
I might, later on, be thought to be advertising myself as one of those
know-it-all and do-it-all heroes of fiction instead of a plain and
ordinary chap who has been swayed by circumstance and governed by
accident in large measure.
But I did get a lot of fresh and lively information out of those chaps
with whom I was thrown in.
After a time they were not at all bashful about asking me if I wouldn’t
like a lay in some of their operations.
They frankly said that they had the best luck in country communities.
Understand that they proposed nothing except brace games! No
safe-breakers in that lot! They said I had an honest way about me that
would take well in the country districts.
My money was getting so low I listened with increasing interest. I
cannot say that I was tempted, exactly. But I was beginning to wonder
how I was ever going to make a go of it if I didn’t get some money. My
Pacific trip was all off by that time! My capital had shrunk below the
price of a ticket.
They told me that a regular village skinflint with lots of money was, in
most cases, a prime victim if the right bait was offered; with the right
bait he bit more easily than the more liberal kind of an individual,
because the skinflint was more crazy to make money fast and was already
used to getting high rates of interest for all money he let out. They
were making constant search for old chaps in country communities,
well-to-do men who would be tempted to grab at a rich chance or could
be induced to serve as decoys to pull in the neighbors, provided a
sufficient rake-off were offered.
There, too, was another thing which surprised me--that so often really
prominent men could be secured as decoys. The knaves I was training with
gave me a lot of stories of the kind; in most cases, so they said, the
men seemed to talk themselves into believing that they were offering the
neighbors an opportunity to make money.
If I had not been idle and very curious, and all the time wondering how
I could make a little money for myself, a lot of this would have gone
into one ear and out of the other.. But I was in the mood to take it
all in, and so, in that foolish belief that I could write a story, I set
down many names and many instances until I had well filled a sheaf of
papers which I sewed together into a sort of note-book.
There were various side-lines of the craft of cheaters where I was
allowed to be an observer. I watched one of the chaps make up his face
for a trip and learned about false beards attached by spirit gum. There
was a cute little mustache in his kit and I asked him to affix it to my
upper lip. He allowed me to keep it on when I asked permission.
I felt so much confidence in that alteration of my features that I went
directly to my room, put on that raiment of my yearning ambition, took
in hand my cane, and went forth into the open.
One who has remained long within-doors gets used to the confinement
after a time and the desire to go out is dulled; there are persons who
have voluntarily remained in bed in perfect health for years; but, once
the plunge outside is made, the desire for further liberty grows by what
it grasps in the blessedness of outdoors. I determined to be free from
then on and to test the quality of that freedom. It was astonishing what
confidence I felt in myself when I walked abroad in that rig, casting
side-glances at myself in store windows as I walked. It is amazing what
the right sort of clothes will do for a man’s grip and grit.
I went down to the docks and walked about, deliberately seeking to put
myself in the path of Anson C. Doughty. He did come face to face with
me after a time, looked at me with considerable interest, for plug-hats
were none too common in that locality, and passed on with bland
indifference. My transition was too much for him; I was the butterfly
that had emerged from the pupa of a diving-dress. After that I bestowed
no further thought on dangers to be apprehended from Anson C. Doughty.
I was more concerned with speculation on where my next meal was coming
from, for I was flat broke. I suppose that fact had something to do with
driving me out on the street; it was not wholly proud eagerness to show
myself in that suit of clothes.
All of a sudden I received direct proof that a plug-hat is occasionally
something to conjure by.
Perhaps it is on the principle that advertising pays; a man with slick,
silk headgear is supposed to be at least something which can be classed
under the title of “professor.” At any rate, I was hailed by that title
by a man who stood in a broad doorway. I stopped and he had something
interesting to say to me.