"But the men who wrote those papers didn't know my boy as I _Vignettes of Manhattan; Outlines in Local Color

Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was

produced from scanned images of public domain material

from the Google Print project.)

VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN

OUTLINES IN LOCAL COLOR

_Books by Brander Matthews_

These Many Years, Recollections of a New Yorker

BIOGRAPHIES

Shakspere as a Playwright

Moliere, His Life and His Works

ESSAYS AND CRITICISMS

The Principles of Playmaking

French Dramatists of the 19th Century

Pen and Ink, Essays on subjects of more or less

Importance

Aspects of Fiction, and other Essays

The Historical Novel, and other Essays

Parts of Speech, Essays on English

The Development of the Drama

Inquiries and Opinions

The American of the Future, and other Essays

Gateways to Literature, and other Essays

On Acting

A Book About the Theater

Essays on English

Vignettes of Manhattan; Outlines in Local Color

[Illustration: "PEOPLE WHO THRONGED THE FLOOR WERE WELLNIGH AS VARIOUS

AS THE PAINTINGS"]

VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN:

OUTLINES IN LOCAL COLOR

BRANDER MATTHEWS

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

W. C. BROWNELL

ILLUSTRATED BY

W. T. SMEDLEY

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1921

BRANDER MATTHEWS

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

THE SCRIBNER PRESS

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

_My dear Theodore,--You know--for we have talked it over often

enough--that I do not hold you to be a typical New-Yorker, since you

come of Dutch stock, and first saw the light here on Manhattan Island,

whereas the typical New-Yorker is born of New England parents, perhaps

somewhere west of the Alleghanies. You know, also, that often the

typical New-Yorker is not proud of the city of his choice, and not so

loyal to it as we could wish. He has no abiding concern for this

maligned and misunderstood town of ours; he does not thrill with pride

at the sight of its powerful and irregular profile as he comes back to

it across the broad river; nor is his heart lifted up with joy at the

sound of its increasing roar, so suggestive and so stimulating. But we

have a firm affection for New York, you and I, and a few besides; we

like it for what it is; and we love it for what we hope to see it._

_It is because of this common regard for our strange and many-sided city

that I am giving myself the pleasure of proffering to you this little

volume of vignettes. They are not stories really, I am afraid--not

sketches even, nor studies; they are, I think, just what I have called

them--vignettes. And then there are a dozen of them, one for every month in

the year, an urban calendar of times and seasons. Such as they are, I

beg that you will accept them in token of my friendship and esteem; and

that you will believe me, always,_

_Yours truly,_

BRANDER MATTHEWS

New York, _May_, 1894

_"When I came to my chamber I writ down these minutes; but was at a

loss what instruction I should propose to my readers from the

enumeration of so many insignificant matters and occurrences; and I

thought it of great use, if they could learn with me to keep their

minds open to gratification, and ready to receive it from anything

it meets with."_

--STEELE, _in "The Spectator," August 11, 1712_.

INTRODUCTION

Few volumes of short stories published a generation ago remain in print

to-day and fewer still either merit or would repay reprinting. But the

case is different with the two volumes published by Mr. Matthews in the

early nineties under respectively the title and subtitle now given to

their contents combined in one and made once more accessible to the

reading public. Whatever may be said of the progress made by current

literature in the interval, the public for it has augmented at least

correspondingly with the census, and it is permitted to hope that the

interest of this wider public in work of such exceptional authorship,

subject and quality has similarly increased. Mr. Matthews has himself a

wider public, amply earned, and I should say that interest in New York

has probably increased in pretty nearly equal measure with the change in

its character. Its cosmopolitanism has grown prodigiously, yet its

self-consciousness far from diminishing has distinctly deepened--if one

may properly speak of depth in connection with it. No doubt the

chameleon's changes, even shallower, quicken its sense of self.

Vignettes of Manhattan should therefore appeal to such actual local

pride and public spirit as we have, as well as to a historic interest

in a previous epoch of their subject's evolution--as the pace of the day

requires us to consider the aspect, character and manners of twenty-five

years ago, when Mr. Matthews had the idea of fixing these in the

framework of the short story. Besides, a good deal of the scent of those

roses survives.

So far as I know it was a unique idea. It was certainly a happy one.

Would it not be a pleasant thing if we had such series of analogous

authorship systematically celebrating London, Paris, not to say

Florence, Rome, Athens itself? Perhaps it was never attempted by any one

before because it was too difficult of execution. To the pure fictionist

it would necessitate irksome notation; the mere observer would hardly

perceive its fictional value. Mr. Matthews fortunately was at home in

both departments of writing. The result was that almost every essential

phase of New York life and character, belonging to every quarter of the

city, is veraciously pictured in these twenty-four proficient and

polished stories. Each is composed with attentive art to illustrate its

two-fold motive of interest as fiction and as portraiture. And the

whole, the collection, constitutes a dramatic panorama of the metropolis

a generation ago of great variety and point. "Little old New York" has

never had so thorough-going and so diverting a historiographer. Are

there any New York "types" omitted? I think of none. How did the author

come across some of them? How get some of them to sit for him? Unlike a

writer with a reporter's record he has never been, as it were, a prowler

among the precincts and purlieus of the town; yet clearly he knows his

Mulberry Bend material as well as that of Fifth Avenue, the studios as

well as the stage, the now extinct saloon as well as the still

flourishing Salvation Army barracks, and portrays Lazarus and Dives with

equal familiarity--our kind, too, of each and all. I suppose a writer

must have been born in New Orleans to have such a sharp sense of New

York, but it is true that he immigrated early.

Rich enough in material for plots and characters--in the right

hands--Mr. Matthews shows the metropolis to be in these twenty-four

stories, (though I wish he had also republished a volume of Manhattan

"Vistas" containing twelve more tales belonging to the same period). But

obviously to have forced the fictional note would have been to diminish

that of portraiture and accordingly to have minimized the motive of the

stories. In order to keep New York itself in the foreground the author's

personages are of necessity types--not individuals to be found anywhere.

And their stories are such as might have happened, since their author's

design is to convey an impression of what does happen. Their

representative qualities and circumstances and adventures are therefore

those that are emphasized. They are not for this reason less definitely

depicted, though they may be less elaborately realized. If they were

more highly complicated, however, their typical function would be

frustrated. New York itself would recede too far into the background. As

it is, Miss Marlenspuyk, for example, though a personally charming

silhouette, is chiefly differentiated for us by the characteristic

perfume of genuine Knickerbocker idiosyncrasy. Similarly of homely and

low-life figures for supplying which the author never seems to be at a

loss, any more than he is for supplying them with appropriate Manhattan

adventure--drama and dramatis personae, indeed, Manhattan to the core.

Among them all they certainly create the illusion of a very palpable

environment.

It was to be sure a little different from that which now surrounds us,

and furnished a different theme for treatment different from current

practice. Probably if ecstasies and excess, "psychoanalysis" and

external melodrama had in the nineties been invented, or been deemed

normal, Mr. Matthews would have picked his way through them, but in any

case to be veridical the Manhattan "picture" of those days had to be, by

contrast with ours, placidity itself. The crime-wave was unknown, the

daylight holdup unprecedented. There was an occasional murder mystery,

always more than a nine days' wonder; the public had not yet grown

callous. One of the stories records an assault with murderous intent.

There were more fires. Our author has a fire story. Suicide has always

been with us and we have here a rather notably well handled one--minus

the horror, which the fastidious artist must generally, one would think,

doubt his capacity to dwell on to advantage, just as the sensitive

painter leaves Niagaras and volcanic convulsions to Nature. But

incontestably the life here mirrored was quieter than ours and, being

"slower," was correspondingly fuller. People had time to devote to

living.

It is furthermore incidentally to be pointed out that the Vignettes have

a technical interest quite apart from that of their substance. Every one

nowadays is enormously interested in process. One might almost say there

was a "popular movement" of concern with the philosophy of technic. If

so, it could hardly be denied that Mr. Matthews was one of its pioneers.

Certainly of the philosophy of the short story he was the first analytic

and explicit exponent. Each of these tales is his theory in action, so

to say. Nor is it to be doubted, in the case of so ardently systematic a

temperament and such a talent for argument and organization, that this

was in each case definitely his design. He was not content to contend

but desired to demonstrate and we have here his "philosophy teaching by

example." Accordingly the skeleton, the structure, the framework and the

filling of each little tale produce an effect that at least is bound to

have the merit of having been intended. The hap-hazard and the

desultory are avoided not only altogether, but, to analysis, quite

obviously. For this reason indeed the Vignettes have also, I should

think, a certain text-book or "collateral reading" value in the populous

courses now offered by the Universities for the elevation of the

short-story-writing masses. Nothing, one would say, could better

inculcate by explicit example the measured and disciplined practice, the

ship-shape and organic result which--plus, of course, literary

talent--are the elementary excellences of this prevalent form of

literary expression.

"Introductions," too, I may add, are in fashion, and fashion is, as is

well known, inexorable. Otherwise I should not have been asked to write

one about the lighter work of an author who in virtue of a shelf-full of

books comprehending all varieties of literary activity--novels and

tales, biography, autobiography, history, linguistics, literary and

social criticism, the drama, versification and verse as well as prose,

even juvenile fiction--is widely recognized both at home and abroad as

one of the particularly representative men of letters of our time.

W. C. BROWNELL.

CONTENTS

VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN

PAGE

IN THE LITTLE CHURCH DOWN THE STREET 3

THE TWENTY-NINTH OF FEBRUARY 11

AT A PRIVATE VIEW 21

SPRING IN A SIDE STREET 35

A DECORATION-DAY REVERY 45

IN SEARCH OF LOCAL COLOR 57

BEFORE THE BREAK OF DAY 73

A MIDSUMMER MIDNIGHT 87

A VISTA IN CENTRAL PARK 107

THE SPEECH OF THE EVENING 117

A THANKSGIVING-DAY DINNER 131

IN THE MIDST OF LIFE 145

OUTLINES IN LOCAL COLOR

AN INTERVIEW WITH MISS MARLENSPUYK 161

A LETTER OF FAREWELL 175

A GLIMPSE OF THE UNDER WORLD 189

A WALL STREET WOOING 205

A SPRING FLOOD IN BROADWAY 225

THE VIGIL OF MCDOWELL SUTRO 241

AN IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 263

THE SOLO ORCHESTRA 277

THE REHEARSAL OF THE NEW PLAY 295

A CANDLE IN THE PLATE 323

MEN AND WOMEN AND HORSES 337

IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT 357

ILLUSTRATIONS

People who thronged the floor were wellnigh as various

as the paintings _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

Distracted by the crossing shouts of loud-voiced

men 48

Two slim Japanese gentlemen 108

Coming from church 134

"Winifred!" he cried 234

"The air was thick and heavy" 278

Explanations 340

She almost shivered, the place seemed to her so

cheerless 360

VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN

IN THE LITTLE CHURCH DOWN THE STREET

The little church stands back from the street, with a scrap of lawn on

either side of the path that winds from the iron gate to the church

door. On this chill January morning the snow lay a foot deep on the

grass-plots, with the water frozen out of it by the midnight wind. The

small fountain on one side was sheathed with ice; and where its tiny

spirtle fell a glittering stalagmite was rising rapidly, so the rotund

sparrows had difficulty in getting at their usual drinking-trough. The

sky was ashen, yet there was a hope that the sun might break out later

in the morning. A sharp breeze blew down the street from the river,

bearing with it, now and again, the tinkle of sleigh-bells from the

Avenue, only fifty yards away.

There was the customary crowd of curious idlers gathered about the gate

as the hearse drew up before it. The pall-bearers alighted from the

carriages which followed, and took up their positions on the sidewalk,

while the undertaker's assistants were lifting out the coffin. Then the

bareheaded and gray-haired rector came from out the church porch, and

went down to the gate to meet the funeral procession. He held the

prayer-book open in his hand, and when he came to the coffin he began to

read the solemn words of the order for the burial of the dead:

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth

in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and

believeth in me, shall never die."

Preceding the pall-bearers the rector led the way to the church, which

was already filled with the dead actor's comrades and with his friends,

and with mere strangers who had come out of curiosity, and to see

actresses by daylight and off the stage. The interior was dusky,

although the gas had been lighted here and there. The Christmas greens

still twined about the pillars, and still hung in heavy festoons from

the low arched roof. As the coffin passed slowly through the porch, the

rector spoke again:

"We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry

nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the

Name of the Lord."

Throughout the church there was a stir, and all heads were turned

towards the entrance. There were tears in the eyes of more than one man,

for the actor had been a favorite, and not a few women were weeping

silently. In a pew near the door were two young actresses who had been

in the same company with the dead man when he had made his first

appearance on the stage, only three years before; and now, possessed by

the emotion of the moment, these two sobbed aloud. By their side stood a

tall, handsome, fair-haired woman, evidently not an actress; she was

clad in simple black; she gave but a single glance at the coffin as it

passed up the aisle, half hidden by the heaped-up wreaths of flowers,

and then she stared straight before her, with a rigid face, but without

a tear in her eye.

Slowly the rector preceded the pall-bearers up the central aisle of the

church, while the vestured choir began the stately anthem:

"Lord, let me know my end, and the number of my days; that I may be

certified how long I have to live.

"Behold, thou hast made my days as it were a span long, and mine age is

even as nothing in respect of thee; and verily every man living is

altogether vanity."

It was for a young man that this solemn anthem was being sung--for a man

who had died in his twenty-fifth year, at the moment of his first

success, and when life opened temptingly before him. He bore a name

known in American history, and his friends had supposed that he would be

called to the bar, like his father and his grandfather before him. He

was a handsome young fellow, with a speaking eye and a rich, alluring

voice; and his father's friends saw in him a moving advocate. But the

year he was graduated from college his father had died, and his mother

also, and he was left alone in the world. As it happened, his father's

investments were ill-advised, and there was little or no income to be

hoped from them for years. In college he had been the foremost member of

the dramatic club, and in the summer vacations he had taken part in many

private theatricals. Perhaps it had always been his secret wish to

abandon the bar for the stage. While he was debating the course he

should take, chance threw in his way the offer of an engagement in the

company which supported a distinguished tragedian. He had accepted what

opportunity proffered, and it was not as a lawyer but as an actor that

he had made his living; it was as an actor that his funeral was now

being held at "the little church down the street."

While the choir had been singing the anthem, the coffin had been borne

to the chancel and set down before the rail, which was almost concealed

from sight by the flowers scattered about the steps and clustering at

the foot of the pulpit and in front of the reading-desk. The thick and

cloying perfume of the lilies was diffused throughout the church.

The rector had taken his place at the desk in the chancel to read the

appointed lesson, with its message of faith and love. There were sobs to

be heard when he declared that this mortal shall put on immortality.

"Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is

swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is

thy victory?"

There were those present--old friends of his boyhood, come from afar to

give the dead man the last greeting of affection--who knew how high had

been his hopes when he went upon the stage; and they knew also how hard

that first year had been, with the wearisome drudgery of his

apprenticeship, with the incessant travelling, with ambition baffled by

lack of opportunity. Some of them were aware how the second year of his

career in the theatre had seen a change in his fortunes, and how

discouragement had given place to confidence. There had been dissensions

in the company to which he belonged, and the tragedian had parted with

the actor who played the second parts. Here was a chance for the young

man, and he proved himself worthy of the good-fortune. No more youthful

and fiery Laertes had been seen for years, no more passionate Macduff,

no more artful and persuasive Mark Antony. He had the gifts of

nature--youth, and manly beauty, and the histrionic temperament; and he

had also the artistic intelligence which made the utmost out of his

endowment. Before the end of his second season on the stage he was

recognized as the most promising actor of his years. He had played Mark

Antony for the first time only twelve months before; and now he lay

there in his coffin, and the little church was filled with the actors

and actresses of New York who had come to bid him farewell.

When the rector had finished the reading of the lesson there was a hush

throughout the church. A faint jingle of sleigh-bells came floating down

from the Avenue.

A few straggling rays of sunshine filtered through the windows on the

right side of the little church, and stained with molten colors the

wood-work of the pews on the left. There was a movement among the

members of the vestured choir, and a large and stately woman took her

stand before the organ; she was the contralto of a great opera company,

and it was with skill and power and feeling that she sang "Rock of

Ages."

In a pew between the organ and the pulpit sat a slight, graceful,

dark-eyed and dark-haired woman, young still and charming always,

although the freshness had faded from her face. This was the celebrated

actress with whom the dead man had been acting only a week before. She

was the ideal Juliet--so the theatre-goers thought--and never before had

she been aided by so gallant and so ardent a Romeo. Never before had the

tragedy been produced with so much splendor, and with dramatic effect so

certain and so abundant. Never before had "Romeo and Juliet" been

performed for a hundred and fifty nights without interruption. And for

once the critics had been in accord with the public, so potent was the

glamour of youth and beauty and passion. It was a joy to all discerning

lovers of the drama to see characters so difficult interpreted so

adequately. Thus it was that the tragedy had been played for five months

to overflowing audiences; and its prosperity had been cut short only by

the death of the fiery wooer--of the Romeo who lay now in the coffin

before the chancel, while the Juliet, with the tears gliding down her

cheeks, sat there by the side of the middle-aged merchant she was soon

to marry. The young actor, to catch a glimpse of whom silly school-girls

would watch the stage door, and to whom foolish women sent baskets of

flowers, now lay cold in death, with lilies and lilacs in a heap over

his silent heart.

When the final notes of the contralto's rich and noble voice had died

away, the rector went on with the ritual:

"Man, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is

full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth

as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay."

The dead man had been the last of his line, and there were no near

kindred at the funeral. There was no mother there, no sister, no wife.

Friends there were, but none of his blood, none who bore his name. Yet

there was a shiver of sympathy as the tiny clods of clay rattled down

upon the coffin lid, and as the rector said "earth to earth, ashes to

ashes, dust to dust."

Then the service drew to an end swiftly, and the pall-bearers formed in

order once again, and the coffin was lifted and carried slowly down the

aisle.

As the sorrowful procession drew near to the open door and passed before

the pew where the tall fair-haired woman stood, stolid, with averted

head, and a stare fixed on the floor, one of the bearers stumbled, but

recovered himself at once. The woman had raised her hand, and she had

checked a cry of warning; but the coffin was borne before her steadily;

and they who bore it little guessed that they were carrying it past the

dry-eyed mother of the dead man's unborn child.

(1893.)

THE TWENTY-NINTH OF FEBRUARY

The Governor of the State and his secretary had just finished their

lunch in one of the private parlors of the hotel. The Governor lighted

his cigar and leaned back in his chair as the secretary went to the door

and admitted an old man who had been patrolling the corridor

impatiently.

"The Governor will see you now, Mr. Baxter," said the secretary.

The old man, tall, thin, and impetuous, strode past the secretary

without a word of thanks, and came straight to where the Governor was

sitting.

"At last!" he cried--"at last I've got a chance to talk to you face to

face. If you only knew how I have longed for this, you would have let me

in before."

"Take a seat, Mr. Baxter," said the Governor, kindly.

"Thank you, but I'd rather stand," replied the old man. "In fact, I'd

rather walk. I don't seem to be able to sit nor to stand when I get

a-talking about the boy. You know why I wanted to see you, I suppose?"

he inquired, suddenly, fixing the Governor with a penetrating stare.

"You wish to urge your son's pardon, I take it," the Governor answered;

"and I am ready to listen to you. I have all the papers here," and he

indicated a bundle of documents at his elbow. "I have just been reading

them."

"But the men who wrote those papers didn't know my boy as I know him,

and they can't tell you about him as I can tell you. He's in jail, and

he's been there nearly three years, and he's twenty-four years old

to-day--for to-day's his birthday--but he's only a boy for all that. He

isn't a man yet, to be judged as a man, and to take a man's punishment.

I can't tell you that he didn't shoot the fellow, for he did; but he did

it in his anger, and he was sorely tempted; and what's more, he did it

in self-defence. Oh, I know that wasn't brought out on the trial, but

just you read this," and he tore open his coat and pulled out a package

of papers; selecting one of them, he thrust it into the Governor's

hands. "That's from the man who sold Bowles a pistol and a knife on the

28th of February, the day before the fight. Then you read this too," and

he picked out a second letter, and gave that to the Governor with the

same impatient and imperious gesture. "That's from one of Bowles's

friends, the fellow who was with him just before the shot was fired. He

kept quiet at the trial, and said as little as he could. He knew that I

was sick a-bed, and so he held his peace. But I've been at him ever

since I got about again, and now I've pinned him down. And there's the

result; the truth must prevail in the end always. There, in that letter,

he says that Bowles had that pistol on his person on the morning of the

29th; and that if it wasn't found on the body, it was because Bowles

dropped it as he fell. The pistol was picked up that night under a plank

in the sidewalk. It was this same friend of Bowles's who found it then,

and he said nothing--the cur! Even at the trial he said nothing! But I

knew he had something to say, and at last I made him speak. He's telling

the truth now, and the whole truth. Read the letter and see if it isn't.

He hated my boy; and he said he wanted to see him swing; but I made him

write that letter. And if that isn't enough, I'll put him on the stand,

and I'll make him swear to every word of it."

The Governor adjusted his glasses, and began to read the letters thus

forcibly placed in his hands.

In his eagerness to be heard, the old man could not brook even this

delay, and as the Governor laid down the first letter, he broke forth

again: "To-day's his birthday, the first he's had since the shooting,

the first that he's ever spent away from me. He was born on the 29th of

February, and he has a birthday only once in four years; and it was just

four years ago to-day that he got into this scrape, and fired the shot

that caused us all this trouble. He was twenty years old that morning,

for he was born in 1864; that was the year when General Grant was

getting ready to smash Jeff Davis and the rebels; that's why we called

him Grant--out of gratitude for the saving of the country. Sometimes I

think it's a pity he hadn't been born twenty years before, so that he

could have died at Cold Harbor like a man, without ever having seen the

inside of a jail. But it was to be, I suppose. Our lives are laid out

for us, I suppose. Maybe a boy born on the 29th of February is different

from other boys; I don't know. He was loved more than most boys; I know

that well enough. I was raised on Cape Cod, and my father never gave me

a caress; though I guess he loved me, too, in his way. But I moved out

to Lake Erie when I was married, and out by the edge of the lake we

waited, my wife and I, for a man-child to be born to us. And we waited a

score of years and more; and when Grant came at last, he was our only

child. Both his sisters had died in their cradles. So he was the son of

our old age. Maybe we spoiled him. Surely we spared the rod. Why, we

loved him too much ever to say a hard word to him. In the main he was a

good boy, too--wild at times, and skittish--but always loving and easily

led. His mother had only to look, and he'd jump to serve her. So we let

him do as he pleased, and most generally he pleased us. Perhaps I gave

him too much rope; I've often thought so, now I see how near he came to

hanging himself. But he was a good boy, and devoted to his mother

always. And she loved him--oh! how she loved him!--more than she loved

her husband, I know, fond as she was of me."

Here the old man paused in his vehement speech, and turned away

abruptly.

"Is Mrs. Baxter with you here in the city?" the Governor asked, gently.

"Here--in the city?" cried the old man, facing about sharply. "She's at

home--in the cemetery! That's where she is. She drooped as soon as ever

he was arrested, but she bore up till the trial was over, hoping that he

might get off somehow, not believing that her boy could be found guilty.

But when he was sent off to Auburn to serve fifteen years for

manslaughter, why, then there wasn't anything left for her to live for

any longer, with all the joy of her life locked up in a stone cell. So

she took to her bed, and she died. She faded away; she had lost her

interest in life, and so she gave up. Now the boy's all I have, and I

want you to give him back to me. That's what I've come down here for.

That's what I've been pursuing you for these six months. The boy is all

I have. I want to see him back at the old home on the lake before I

die--and I can't live much longer, I guess. I'm seventy now, and for all

I look hale and hearty, there's something the matter with my heart, the

doctors say, and I may go out any time, like a candle in a gale of wind.

Well, give me back the boy, and I'm ready to die. Let me see him at home

once more, a free man, and I'll carry the good news to the old woman

whenever the call comes, and gladly."

He paused for a moment, and his impassioned speech had lost a little of

its fierce fire.

The Governor took up the second letter and began to read it. The

movement of the Governor's hand as he raised the paper aroused the old

man again.

"If the District Attorney had done his duty by the people of the State

it wouldn't have been left for me to wring the truth out of that coward

whose letter you are reading. Sometimes I half think this cur was at the

bottom of the whole thing. It was he who introduced Grant to the woman.

You know that the wedding was to have taken place that very night--the

night of the shooting? Yes, it all came out on the trial. Grant only had

one birthday in four years, as I've been telling you, and so he

persuaded the girl to set it as the wedding-day too. And he was just

twenty--a mere boy. It was no wonder they took advantage of him. If

you've read the report you can see how she deceived him. Even the

District Attorney admitted that, bitter as he was against the boy. Ah!

if I could only have been in court at the trial! If I had only been in

town the day when the boy discovered the truth, he wouldn't have shot

that villain, for I'd have done it myself."

"Then who would have come to me to ask for your pardon?" inquired the

Governor, smiling kindly. "I have read these letters, but they contain

nothing that is new to me, and--"

"Nothing new?" interrupted the old man, violently. "That letter shows

that Grant fired in self-defence, since the fellow had a pistol in his

hand. Isn't that something new?"

"Not to me, for the District Attorney--against whom you seem to have a

prejudice, Mr. Baxter--had already informed me of this."

"If you've been listening to him, I suppose there isn't much hope of my

getting what I'm after," the old man returned, hotly; "for no man ever

spoke more unfairly against another than that man did against my boy."

"You do him injustice," the Governor said, firmly. "He did his duty at

the trial in pressing for sentence, and he has done his duty now in

laying before me this newly discovered evidence. He has even gone

further; he has urged me to accede to your request for your son's

pardon."

"The District Attorney?" cried the old man in surprise.

"Yes," the Governor replied.

"Then his conscience has pricked him at last."

"And it is chiefly in consequence of his recommendation that I have

decided to pardon your son," the Governor continued.

"I don't care on whose urging it is, so long as it's done," the old man

rejoined. "When can the boy come out?" he asked, eagerly.

"I will let you bear the pardon to him," said the Governor, and he

unfolded one of the papers which lay on the table by his side and signed

it. "Here it is."

The old man seized the paper with a convulsive clutch. His knees

trembled as his eyes read the pardon swiftly.

The door of the parlor opened, and the secretary returned.

The old man grasped his hat. "Do you know when the next train leaves for

Auburn?" he inquired, hastily.

"There's one at four o'clock, I think," the secretary answered.

"I shall be in time," said the old man; and then, the pardon in his

twitching fingers, he left the parlor without another word. He passed

quickly through the corridors of the hotel, down the stairs, and out

into the street. When he reached the pavement he stood still for a

moment and bared his head, quite unconscious of the rain-storm which had

broken but a minute before.

A small boy came running to him across the street, crying, "Evening

papers--four o'clock _Gazette_!"

Seemingly the old man did not hear him.

"Terrible loss of life!" the newsboy shrilled out, as he moved away.

"Riot at Auburn! Attempted escape of the prisoners!"

Then a clutch of iron was fastened on the newsboy's arm, and the old man

towered above him, asking hoarsely: "What's that you say? A loss of

life in the prison at Auburn? Give me the paper!"

He seized it. On the first page was a despatch from Auburn stating that

there had been a rising of the convicts at the State-prison, which the

wardens had been able to repress after it had gained headway. The

prisoners had yielded and gone back to their cells only after the

wardens had fired on them, wounding half a dozen and killing the

ringleader, who had fought desperately. He was a young man from one of

the lake villages, sentenced to fifteen years for manslaughter; his name

was Grant Baxter.

As the old man read this, the paper slipped from his fingers, and he

fell on the sidewalk dead, still tightly grasping the pardon.

(1889.)

AT A PRIVATE VIEW

When the Spring Exhibition opened, March had thrown off its lion's skin,

and stood revealed as a lamb. There was no tang to the wind that swept

the swirling dust down the broad street; and the moonlight which

silvered the Renascence front of the building had no longer a wintry

chill. Flitting clouds were thickening, and threatened rain; but the

carriages, rolling up to the canvas tunnel which had been extemporized

across the sidewalk, brought many a pretty woman who had risked a spring

bonnet. Not a few of the ladies who had been bidden to the Private View

were in evening dress; and it was a brilliant throng which pressed down

the broad corridor, past the dressing-rooms, and into the first gallery,

where the President of the Society, surrounded by other artists of

renown, stood ready to receive them.

Beyond the first gallery, and up half a dozen steps, was a smaller

saloon, with a square room yet smaller to its right and to its left.

Still farther beyond, and up a few more steps, was the main gallery, a

splendid and stately hall, lofty and well proportioned, and worthy of

the many fine paintings which lined its walls two and three deep. In

the place of honor, facing the entrance, was Mr. Frederick Olyphant's

startling picture, "The Question of the Sphinx," which bore on its

simple frame the bit of paper declaring that it had received a silver

medal at the Salon of the summer before. In a corner was another

painting by the same artist, a portrait of his friend Mr. Laurence

Laughton; and balancing this, on the other side of a landscape called "A

Sunset at Onteora," was a portrait of Mr. Rupert de Ruyter, the poet, by

a young artist named Renwick Brashleigh, painted vigorously yet

sympathetically, and quite extinguishing the impressionistic "Girl in a

Hammock," which hung next to it. Here and there throughout the spacious

room there were statuettes and busts; one of the latter represented

Astroyd, the amusing comedian. Landscapes drenched with sunshine hung by

the side of wintry marines; and delicate studies of still life set off

purely decorative compositions painted almost in monochrome.

The people who thronged the floor were wellnigh as various as the

paintings which covered the walls. There were artists in plenty, men of

letters and men about town, women who lived for art and women who lived

for society, visitors of both sexes who came to see the exhibition, and

visitors of both sexes who came to be seen themselves. There were

art-students and art-critics, picture-buyers and picture-dealers, poets

and novelists, stock-brokers and clergymen. Among them were Mr. Robert

White, of the _Gotham Gazette_, and Mr. Harry Brackett, formerly

attached to that journal; Mr. Rupert de Ruyter, who could not be kept

away from his own portrait; Mr. Delancey Jones, the architect, with his

pretty wife; Mr. J. Warren Payn, the composer; Mr. and Mrs. Martin, of

Washington Square; and Miss Marlenspuyk, an old maid, who seemed to know

everybody and to be liked by everybody.

Miss Marlenspuyk lingered before Olyphant's portrait of Laurence

Laughton, whom she had known for years. She liked the picture until she

overheard two young art-students discussing it.

"It's a pity Olyphant hasn't any idea of color, isn't it?" observed one.

"Yes," assented the other; "and the head is hopelessly out of drawing."

"The man has a paintable face, too," the first rejoined. "I'd like to do

him myself."

"Olyphant's well enough for composition," the second returned, "but when

it comes to portraits, he simply isn't in it with Brashleigh. Seen his

two yet?"

"Whose?" inquired the first speaker.

"Brashleigh's," was the answer. "Biggest things here. And as different

as they make 'em. Best is a Wall Street man--Poole, I think, his name

is."

"I know," the first interrupted. "Cyrus Poole; he's president of a big

railroad somewhere out West. Lots of money. I wonder how Brashleigh got

the job?"

"Guess he did Rupert de Ruyter for nothing. You know De Ruyter wrote him

up in one of the magazines."

The two young art-students stood before the portrait a few seconds

longer, looking at it intently. Then they moved off, the first speaker

saying, "That head's out of drawing too."

It gave Miss Marlenspuyk something of a shock to learn that the heads of

two of her friends were out of drawing; she wondered how serious the

deformity might be; she felt for a moment almost as though she were

acquainted with two of the startlingly abnormal specimens of humanity

who are to be seen in dime museums. As these suggestions came to her one

after the other, she smiled gently.

"I don't wonder that you are laughing at that picture, Miss

Marlenspuyk," said a voice at her right. "It's no better than the

regulation 'Sunset on the Lake of Chromo,' that you can buy on Liberty

Street for five dollars, with a frame worth twice the money."

Miss Marlenspuyk turned, and recognized Mr. Robert White. She held out

her hand cordially.

"Is your wife here?" she asked.

"Harry Brackett is explaining the pictures to her," White answered. "He

doesn't know anything about art, but he is just as amusing as if he

did."

"I like Mr. Brackett," the old maid rejoined. "He's a little--well, a

little common, I fear; but then he is so quaint and so individual in his

views. And at my time of life I like to be amused."

"I know your fondness for a new sensation," White returned. "I believe

you wouldn't object to having the devil take you in to dinner."

"Why should I object?" responded Miss Marlenspuyk, bravely. "The devil

is a gentleman, they say; and besides, I should be so glad to get the