Finch keeps a hats-cleaned-by-electricity-while-you-wait establishment,
nine feet by twelve, in Third Avenue. Once a customer, you are always
his. I do not know his secret process, but every four days your hat
needs to be cleaned again.
Finch is a leathern, sallow, slow-footed man, between twenty and forty.
You would say he had been brought up a bushelman in Essex Street. When
business is slack he likes to talk, so I had my hat cleaned even oftener
than it deserved, hoping Finch might let me into some of the secrets of
the sweatshops.
One afternoon I dropped in and found Finch alone. He began to anoint my
headpiece de Panama with his mysterious fluid that attracted dust and
dirt like a magnet.
"They say the Indians weave 'em under water," said I, for a leader.
"Don't you believe it," said Finch. "No Indian or white man could stay
under water that long. Say, do you pay much attention to politics? I see
in the paper something about a law they've passed called 'the law of
supply and demand.'"
I explained to him as well as I could that the reference was to a
politico-economical law, and not to a legal statute.
"I didn't know," said Finch. "I heard a good deal about it a year or so
ago, but in a one-sided way."
"Yes," said I, "political orators use it a great deal. In fact, they
never give it a rest. I suppose you heard some of those cart-tail
fellows spouting on the subject over here on the east side."
"I heard it from a king," said Finch--"the white king of a tribe of
Indians in South America."
I was interested but not surprised. The big city is like a mother's knee
to many who have strayed far and found the roads rough beneath their
uncertain feet. At dusk they come home and sit upon the door-step.
I know a piano player in a cheap café who has shot lions in Africa,
a bell-boy who fought in the British army against the Zulus, an
express-driver whose left arm had been cracked like a lobster's claw for
a stew-pot of Patagonian cannibals when the boat of his rescuers hove in
sight. So a hat-cleaner who had been a friend of a king did not oppress
me.
"A new band?" asked Finch, with his dry, barren smile.
"Yes," said I, "and half an inch wider." I had had a new band five days
before.
"I meets a man one night," said Finch, beginning his story--"a man
brown as snuff, with money in every pocket, eating schweinerknuckel in
Schlagel's. That was two years ago, when I was a hose-cart driver for
No. 98. His discourse runs to the subject of gold. He says that certain
mountains in a country down South that he calls Gaudymala is full of it.
He says the Indians wash it out of the streams in plural quantities.
"'Oh, Geronimo!' says I. 'Indians! There's no Indians in the South,' I
tell him, 'except Elks, Maccabees, and the buyers for the fall dry-goods
trade. The Indians are all on the reservations,' says I.
"'I'm telling you this with reservations,' says he. 'They ain't Buffalo
Bill Indians; they're squattier and more pedigreed. They call 'em Inkers
and Aspics, and they was old inhabitants when Mazuma was King of Mexico.
They wash the gold out of the mountain streams,' says the brown man,
'and fill quills with it; and then they empty 'em into red jars till
they are full; and then they pack it in buckskin sacks of one arroba
each--an arroba is twenty-five pounds--and store it in a stone house,
with an engraving of a idol with marcelled hair, playing a flute, over
the door.'
"'How do they work off this unearth increment?' I asks.
"'They don't,' says the man. 'It's a case of "Ill fares the land with
the great deal of velocity where wealth accumulates and there ain't any
reciprocity."'
"After this man and me got through our conversation, which left him
dry of information, I shook hands with him and told him I was sorry I
couldn't believe him. And a month afterward I landed on the coast of
this Gaudymala with $1,300 that I had been saving up for five years. I
thought I knew what Indians liked, and I fixed myself accordingly. I
loaded down four pack-mules with red woollen blankets, wrought-iron
pails, jewelled side-combs for the ladies, glass necklaces, and
safety-razors. I hired a black mozo, who was supposed to be a
mule-driver and an interpreter too. It turned out that he could
interpret mules all right, but he drove the English language much too
hard. His name sounded like a Yale key when you push it in wrong side
up, but I called him McClintock, which was close to the noise.
"Well, this gold village was forty miles up in the mountains, and it
took us nine days to find it. But one afternoon McClintock led the other
mules and myself over a rawhide bridge stretched across a precipice five
thousand feet deep, it seemed to me. The hoofs of the beasts drummed
on it just like before George M. Cohan makes his first entrance on the
stage.
"This village was built of mud and stone, and had no streets. Some few
yellow-and-brown persons popped their heads out-of-doors, looking about
like Welsh rabbits with Worcester sauce on em. Out of the biggest house,
that had a kind of a porch around it, steps a big white man, red as a
beet in color, dressed in fine tanned deerskin clothes, with a gold
chain around his neck, smoking a cigar. I've seen United States Senators
of his style of features and build, also head-waiters and cops.
"He walks up and takes a look at us, while McClintock disembarks and
begins to interpret to the lead mule while he smokes a cigarette.
"'Hello, Buttinsky,' says the fine man to me. 'How did you get in the
game? I didn't see you buy any chips. Who gave you the keys of the
city?'
"'I'm a poor traveller,' says I. 'Especially mule-back. You'll excuse
me. Do you run a hack line or only a bluff?'
"'Segregate yourself from your pseudo-equine quadruped,' says he, 'and
come inside.'
"He raises a finger, and a villager runs up.
"'This man will take care of your outfit,' says he, 'and I'll take care
of you.'
"He leads me into the biggest house, and sets out the chairs and a kind
of a drink the color of milk. It was the finest room I ever saw. The
stone walls was hung all over with silk shawls, and there was red and
yellow rugs on the floor, and jars of red pottery and Angora goat skins,
and enough bamboo furniture to misfurnish half a dozen seaside cottages.
"'In the first place,' says the man, 'you want to know who I am. I'm
sole lessee and proprietor of this tribe of Indians. They call me the
Grand Yacuma, which is to say King or Main Finger of the bunch. I've
got more power here than a chargé d'affaires, a charge of dynamite, and
a charge account at Tiffany's combined. In fact, I'm the Big Stick,
with as many extra knots on it as there is on the record run of the
Lusitania. Oh, I read the papers now and then,' says he. 'Now, let's
hear your entitlements,' he goes on, 'and the meeting will be open.'
"'Well,' says I, 'I am known as one W. D. Finch. Occupation, capitalist.
Address, 541 East Thirty-second--'
"'New York,' chips in the Noble Grand. 'I know,' says he, grinning. 'It
ain't the first time you've seen it go down on the blotter. I can tell
by the way you hand it out. Well, explain "capitalist."'
"I tells this boss plain what I come for and how I come to came.
"'Gold-dust?' says he, looking as puzzled as a baby that's got a feather
stuck on its molasses finger. 'That's funny. This ain't a gold-mining
country. And you invested all your capital on a stranger's story?
Well, well! These Indians of mine--they are the last of the tribe of
Peches--are simple as children. They know nothing of the purchasing
power of gold. I'm afraid you've been imposed on,' says he.
"'Maybe so,' says I, 'but it sounded pretty straight to me.'
"'W. D.,' says the King, all of a sudden, 'I'll give you a square deal.
It ain't often I get to talk to a white man, and I'll give you a show
for your money. It may be these constituents of mine have a few grains
of gold-dust hid away in their clothes. To-morrow you may get out these
goods you've brought up and see if you can make any sales. Now, I'm
going to introduce myself unofficially. My name is Shane--Patrick Shane.
I own this tribe of Peche Indians by right of conquest--single handed
and unafraid. I drifted up here four years ago, and won 'em by my size
and complexion and nerve. I learned their language in six weeks--it's
easy: you simply emit a string of consonants as long as your breath
holds out and then point at what you're asking for.
"'I conquered 'em, spectacularly,' goes on King Shane, 'and then I went
at 'em with economical politics, law, sleight-of-hand, and a kind of New
England ethics and parsimony. Every Sunday, or as near as I can guess at
it, I preach to 'em in the council-house (I'm the council) on the law of
supply and demand. I praise supply and knock demand. I use the same text
every time. You wouldn't think, W. D.,' says Shane, 'that I had poetry
in me, would you?'
"'Well,' says I, 'I wouldn't know whether to call it poetry or not.'
"'Tennyson,' says Shane, 'furnishes the poetic gospel I preach. I always
considered him the boss poet. Here's the way the text goes:
"'"For, not to admire, if a man could learn it, were more
Than to walk all day like a Sultan of old in a garden of spice."
"'You see, I teach 'em to cut out demand--that supply is the main
thing. I teach 'em not to desire anything beyond their simplest needs.
A little mutton, a little cocoa, and a little fruit brought up from
the coast--that's all they want to make 'em happy. I've got 'em well
trained. They make their own clothes and hats out of a vegetable fibre
and straw, and they're a contented lot. It's a great thing,' winds up
Shane, 'to have made a people happy by the incultivation of such simple
institutions.'
"Well, the next day, with the King's permission, I has the McClintock
open up a couple of sacks of my goods in the little plaza of the
village. The Indians swarmed around by the hundred and looked the
bargain-counter over. I shook red blankets at 'em, flashed finger-rings
and ear-bobs, tried pearl necklaces and side-combs on the women, and a
line of red hosiery on the men. 'Twas no use. They looked on like hungry
graven images, but I never made a sale. I asked McClintock what was the
trouble. Mac yawned three or four times, rolled a cigarette, made one or
two confidential side remarks to a mule, and then condescended to inform
me that the people had no money.
"Just then up strolls King Patrick, big and red 'and royal as usual,
with the gold chain over his chest and his cigar in front of him.
"'How's business, W. D.?' he asks.
"'Fine,' says I. 'It's a bargain-day rush. I've got one more line of
goods to offer before I shut up shop. I'll try 'em with safety-razors.
I've got two gross that I bought at a fire sale.'
"Shane laughs till some kind of mameluke or private secretary he carries
with him has to hold him up.
"'O my sainted Aunt Jerusha!' says he, 'ain't you one of the Babes in
the Goods, W. D.? Don't you know that no Indians ever shave? They pull
out their whiskers instead.'
"'Well,' says I, 'that's just what these razors would do for 'em--they
wouldn't have any kick coming if they used 'em once.'
"Shane went away, and I could hear him laughing a block, if there had
been any block.
"'Tell 'em,' says I to McClintock, 'it ain't money I want--tell 'em I'll
take gold-dust. Tell 'em I'll allow 'em sixteen dollars an ounce for it
in trade. That's what I'm out for--the dust.'
"Mac interprets, and you'd have thought a squadron of cops had charged
the crowd to disperse it. Every uncle's nephew and aunt's niece of 'em
faded away inside of two minutes.
"At the royal palace that night me and the King talked it over.
"'They've got the dust hid out somewhere,' says I, 'or they wouldn't
have been so sensitive about it.'
"'They haven't,' says Shane. 'What's this gag you've got about gold?
You been reading Edward Allen Poe? They ain't got any gold.'
"'They put it in quills,' says I, 'and then they empty it in jars, and
then into sacks of twenty-five pounds each. I got it straight.'
"'W. D.,' says Shane, laughing and chewing his cigar, 'I don't often see
a white man, and I feel like putting you on. I don't think you'll get
away from here alive, anyhow, so I'm going to tell you. Come over here.'
"He draws aside a silk fibre curtain in a corner of the room and shows
me a pile of buckskin sacks.
"'Forty of 'em,' says Shane. 'One arroba in each one. In round numbers,
$220,000 worth of gold-dust you see there. It's all mine. It belongs
to the Grand Yacuma. They bring it all to me. Two hundred and twenty
thousand dollars--think of that, you glass-bead peddler,' says
Shane--'and all mine.'
"'Little good it does you,' says I, contemptuously and hatefully.
'And so you are the government depository of this gang of moneyless
money-makers? Don't you pay enough interest on it to enable one of your
depositors to buy an Augusta (Maine) Pullman carbon diamond worth $200
for $4.85?'
"'Listen,' says Patrick Shane, with the sweat coming out on his brow.
'I'm confidant with you, as you have, somehow, enlisted my regards. Did
you ever,' he says, 'feel the avoirdupois power of gold--not the troy
weight of it, but the sixteen-ounces-to-the-pound force of it?'
"'Never,' says I. 'I never take in any bad money.'
"Shane drops down on the floor and throws his arms over the sacks of
gold-dust.
"'I love it,' says he. 'I want to feel the touch of it day and night.
It's my pleasure in life. I come in this room, and I'm a king and a rich
man. I'll be a millionaire in another year. The pile's getting bigger
every month. I've got the whole tribe washing out the sands in the
creeks. I'm the happiest man in the world, W. D. I just want to be near
this gold, and know it's mine and it's increasing every day. Now, you
know,' says he, 'why my Indians wouldn't buy your goods. They can't.
They bring all the dust to me. I'm their king. I've taught 'em not to
desire or admire. You might as well shut up shop.'
"'I'll tell you what you are,' says I. 'You're a plain, contemptible
miser. You preach supply and you forget demand. Now, supply,' I goes
on, 'is never anything but supply. On the contrary,' says I, 'demand is
a much broader syllogism and assertion. Demand includes the rights of
our women and children, and charity and friendship, and even a little
begging on the street corners. They've both got to harmonize equally.
And I've got a few things up my commercial sleeve yet,' says I, 'that
may jostle your preconceived ideas of politics and economy.
"The next morning I had McClintock bring up another mule-load of goods
to the plaza and open it up. The people gathered around the same as
before.
"I got out the finest line of necklaces, bracelets, hair-combs, and
earrings that I carried, and had the women put 'em on. And then I played
trumps.
"Out of my last pack I opened up a half gross of hand-mirrors, with
solid tinfoil backs, and passed 'em around among the ladies. That was
the first introduction of looking-glasses among the Peche Indians.
"Shane walks by with his big laugh.
"'Business looking up any?' he asks.
"'It's looking at itself right now,' says I.
"By-and-by a kind of a murmur goes through the crowd. The women had
looked into the magic crystal and seen that they were beautiful, and was
confiding the secret to the men. The men seemed to be urging the lack
of money and the hard times just before the election, but their excuses
didn't go.
"Then was my time.
"I called McClintock away from an animated conversation with his mules
and told him to do some interpreting.
"'Tell 'em,' says I, 'that gold-dust will buy for them these befitting
ornaments for kings and queens of the earth. Tell 'em the yellow sand
they wash out of the waters for the High Sanctified Yacomay and Chop
Suey of the tribe will buy the precious jewels and charms that will make
them beautiful and preserve and pickle them from evil spirits. Tell 'em
the Pittsburgh banks are paying four per cent. interest on deposits
by mail, while this get-rich-frequently custodian of the public funds
ain't even paying attention. Keep telling 'em, Mac,' says I, 'to let the
gold-dust family do their work. Talk to 'em like a born anti-Bryanite,'
says I. 'Remind 'em that Tom Watson's gone back to Georgia,' says I.
"McClintock waves his hand affectionately at one of his mules, and then
hurls a few stickfuls of minion type at the mob of shoppers.
"A gutta-percha Indian man, with a lady hanging on his arm, with three
strings of my fish-scale jewelry and imitation marble beads around her
neck, stands up on a block of stone and makes a talk that sounds like
a man shaking dice in a box to fill aces and sixes.
"'He says,' says McClintock, 'that the people not know that gold-dust
will buy their things. The women very mad. The Grand Yacuma tell them
it no good but for keep to make bad spirits keep away.'
"'You can't keep bad spirits away from money,' says I.
"'They say,' goes on McClintock, 'the Yacuma fool them. They raise
plenty row.'
"'Going! Going!' says I. 'Gold-dust or cash takes the entire stock. The
dust weighed before you, and taken at sixteen dollars the ounce--the
highest price on the Gaudymala coast.'
"Then the crowd disperses all of a sudden, and I don't know what's up.
Mac and me packs away the hand-mirrors and jewelry they had handed back
to us, and we had the mules back to the corral they had set apart for
our garage.
"While we was there we hear great noises of shouting, and down across
the plaza runs Patrick Shane, hotfoot, with his clothes ripped half off,
and scratches on his face like a cat had fought him hard for every one
of its lives.
"'They're looting the treasury, W. D.,' he sings out. 'They're going to
kill me and you, too. Unlimber a couple of mules at once. We'll have to
make a get-away in a couple of minutes.'
"'They've found out,' says I,' the truth about the law of supply and
demand.'
"'It's the women, mostly,' says the King. 'And they used to admire me
so!'
"'They hadn't seen looking-glasses then,' says I.
"'They've got knives and hatchets,' says Shane; 'hurry!'
"'Take that roan mule,' says I. 'You and your law of supply! I'll ride
the dun, for he's two knots per hour the faster. The roan has a stiff
knee, but he may make it,' says I. 'If you'd included reciprocity in
your political platform I might have given you the dun,' says I.
"Shane and McClintock and me mounted our mules and rode across the
rawhide bridge just as the Peches reached the other side and began
firing stones and long knives at us. We cut the thongs that held up
our end of the bridge and headed for the coast."
A tall, bulky policeman came into Finch's shop at that moment and leaned
an elbow on the showcase. Finch nodded at him friendly.
"I heard down at Casey's," said the cop, in rumbling, husky tones, "that
there was going to be a picnic of the Hat-Cleaners' Union over at Bergen
Beach, Sunday. Is that right?"
"Sure," said Finch. "There'll be a dandy time."
"Gimme five tickets," said the cop, throwing a five-dollar bill on the
showcase.
"Why," said Finch, "ain't you going it a little too--"
"Go to h----!" said the cop. "You got 'em to sell, ain't you? Somebody's
got to buy 'em. Wish I could go along."