“Have you ever heard of Moy Sen?” he asked.
“Moy Sen; who is she?”
“Who is she? Were you born yesterday? There are three hundred and
twenty girls in ’Frisco, and they are as little like Moy Sen as the
earth is like the sun. Why, the viceroy of the Shang-tuan province
heard of her and sent an envoy with nothing to do but look at her and
if she was what they said she was, to bring her back even if it cost
him ten thousand taels.”
“Did he get her?”
“Can a child get a rainbow? She heard he was coming, so she dressed in
the clothes of a working boy and ran away to New York.” He stepped a
little closer and whispered: “She is here now.”
Then he cunningly told his story, and when he had finished he had made
it clearly understood for what purpose she was here, and added further
that being an utter stranger she had placed herself under his care.
“Now, if you care to see her I will take you.”
Nothing could be simpler--nor plainer.
In figuring up his profits--which were large--Yen Gow got into the
habit of multiplying them by two, and then mentally cursing himself
because he had not bought two slaves instead of one. With no conscience
and no morals, he was a thing of stone whose only thought was the easy
acquirement of money. If, by cutting off a finger or an ear from his
chattel he could have increased her value, he would have done it with
as little compunction as lopping off a chicken’s head.
When the money didn’t come in fast enough he took to beating her, and
it wasn’t long before the slim, brown body of the girl began to take
on bluish spots where the knots in the rope had struck and left their
imprint. She had never known there was such a thing in the world as
love, but she began to hate with a fierceness and vindictiveness that
any woman is capable of when she has been wronged, no matter of what
race or nationality she may be.
Revenge follows closely on the heels of a woman’s hate, and it is
always deadly. One woman can hate another woman and still smile on her
as if she was the dearest and best friend in the world, while she is
waiting to let go her poisoned shaft. But she has no smiles for the
man she hates any more than a cat will purr when it has just had an
encounter with a dog.
Many a night when the sightseeing crowds were going through Chinatown’s
streets the girl looked at her captor, and let her tapering hand slip
inside the loose fold of her silk blouse until it caressed the jade
handle of a long, thin and keen-edged blade. If he had known how near
death he was he would have put his back against the wall and pulled
out that big American revolver he always carried in his sash. But not
knowing he went along with his head up in the clouds.
Because her heart was the heart of a woman she stopped feeling for the
knife and set her mind on other things, such as any caged animal would
under the circumstances. It was finally concentrated on the key--that
slim piece of metal which he never let out of his keeping day or night.
It gave her courage to live the life she was leading, and the thought
spurred her on, for at last she had an object.
The long, lean, gray wolf of the prairies will follow its prey for
days. Hungry and thirsty and tired it will trail like a shadow, never
once deviating from the heels of its victim. Through snow, and rain,
and sleet, and wind, surmounting all obstacles it will stay until the
end, and the end to the wolf always means the feast.
Somewhere in the veins of this Chinese girl there must have been one
drop of wolf blood, for once she set her mind upon the possession
of that key she never wavered. It was before her night and day. She
planned a thousand ways to get it, but never one was right. She watched
him with furtive eyes, but for all the good it did, she might just as
well have been looking out of the window of the dreary brick wall of
the other building.
Once when he was sleeping she crept silently to his side and felt for
the inner pocket of his blouse. Slight as was her touch he must have
felt it, for he moved uneasily and she fluttered to the floor like a
leaf from a falling tree. She tried again, but with the same result.
But out of what seems certain failure often comes success.
“I am hungry; get me something to eat quick,” he demanded when he awoke
in the morning.
She started up and set about her work while he walked over to the table
to get his water pipe. As she passed back and forth from cupboard
to stove her glance fell upon the couch where he had slept, and for
one brief moment it seemed as though she was going to fall. A sudden
weakness came into her knees and it was with a great effort that she
kept from crying out, for there in plain view was the key. In an
instant she had it, and she had taken the first and easiest step to
freedom.
He smoked, then ate, then smoked again, but this last time it wasn’t
tobacco that soothed him--it was opium, and when at last his drowsy
eyes closed she was by the door pushing the key into the socket. It
turned the lock. Then she opened the door, passed out and locked it
on the outside. She ran down the steps as if she was pursued; out on
the street, when the thought of those white devils--those eaters of
human flesh--halted her in terror. But no one spoke to her and she was
reassured. Across the way she saw the sign of a temple, and she made
for it as a shipwrecked sailor makes for land. She went up one flight
of very dark and very dirty stairs and then saw a half-opened door. She
peeped in. The room was empty, but at the back were the images of the
gods she knew in China; before them was the shrine, and back of them
was the sacred place where no one dared go.
But nothing is sacred where terror is, and before ten seconds of time
had been ticked off by the clock on the wall she was nestling at the
heels of Kwon Guet, the God of Might, the safest spot in all the
quarter.
If you will notice when you visit a Chinese joss house you will observe
that there is nothing thin nor weak about the keeper. He looks like a
man who loves the good things of life and gets them, too. His life is
one of ease and he feasts like a nabob. When a Chinese wants a favor
from a joss he first sends offerings of food. These are put in fine
dishes and placed on the altar. Then he prays, and begs that this feast
be accepted in the same spirit in which it is sent. He may believe or
he may not believe that that thing of wood eats what he has left, but
the keeper knows and waxes fat. Many a time has he smacked his lips
over a sucking pig, roasted to a turn, and chickens are on his daily
bill of fare.
Two hours after the girl had gone through the open door the keeper
awoke. He yawned and then stretched himself, leisurely. He was in no
hurry, for he knew there was a breakfast awaiting for him on the altar,
and it was such a breakfast as a man of his distinction was entitled
to. He knew to a grain of rice what had been put there the night before
just as he had known it for years.
Presently he was ready and he sauntered out of his little room with no
unseemly haste. The wick in the vessel of olive oil was burning with a
steady glow and the faces of the gods were as placid and emotionless as
the day they left the carver’s shop in Pekin.
“Ai yei.”
He rubbed his eyes and stepped back a pace in alarm.
One of the dishes was empty. It was as bare and clean as the palm of
his hand. He ran back to the room in the rear and roughly woke his
assistant.
“You have eaten before me, you swine,” he shouted.
“Eaten?” queried the other. “I have not eaten since yesterday.”
“Come and look then.” Together they both went, and when they arrived at
the altar another dish had been taken.
The keeper looked up at the stolid countenance of Kwon Guet, saw a
shred of the white meat of a chicken and a grain of rice on his lower
lip, and then dropped face downward on the floor as if he had been shot.
He grovelled in abject terror while the assistant gazed at him with
wondering eyes, until he, too, looked up, saw the same sight, and then
he went down beside his master. There they both lay until combining
their courage, they crept fearfully backward beyond the range of the
vision of those green jade eyes.
“It is a curse,” whispered the keeper, and the other nodded his head,
too frightened to speak.
That was only the beginning, for as fast as the offerings were brought
they disappeared, and nothing was left but empty dishes. For eight days
this continued, and then, on the night of that day, the keeper, grown
bold, found the desire to see a god eat growing in his heart. So when
the lights in the shops had gone out and the noises in the street had
died down to whispers, he went out into the darkened temple and sat in
a corner with his back against the wall. The flickering lamps burned
dimly and cast long shadows across the bare floor and with solitude
came fear. He looked at the heaped-up dishes hungrily and then at the
joss, but the religion of his ancestors held him fast, and what might
have been nothing more nor less than a block of wood to another man of
another race was something to him that was endowed with the power to
pardon and punish or even cause instant death.
Suddenly there came to him a noise like a sigh, long-drawn out and
deep, and as he shrunk back still further in his corner he felt the
blood in his veins run cold. A dish moved and his lower jaw dropped as
though he had been stricken with death. Something seemed to wind itself
about that bit of crockery and drag it slowly in until it disappeared,
but there was no sound. His breath came in gasps and he felt as if he
would choke. Then he saw the dish replaced with the food gone. Those
same unseen hands took another one and still another, but he didn’t
see, for he had sagged down in a lifeless heap and terror had numbed
his senses. As he went over he groaned aloud, and there was a sudden
movement back of the altar which almost caused Kwon Guet to topple over.
At three o’clock in the morning Chuck Connors, with his hands thrust
deep in his trousers pockets, was walking along Mott street, homeward
bound, when a Chinese girl came running out of the joss house door. So
great was her speed that she almost collided with him.
“Ha, there, git onto yerself,” said Chuck, putting up his hands to fend
off an imaginary blow: “wot are yer tryin’ ter do--shoot de shoots?”
“Velly much aflaid,” said the girl, looking behind her.
“Well, wot de yer t’ink uv dat,” said Chuck, “Who’s chasin’ yer,
anyhow?” and he took a step toward the doorway.
But she wouldn’t have it that way, and taking hold of his arm she
almost dragged him away from the place. Chuck knows a little Chinese
and a lot of pidgin-English, and he managed to get some kind of a story
out of the girl, and then he took her home and put her in the care of
Mrs. Chuck until the morning. The next day she was taken to a mission
house in Brooklyn, where she stayed until one night when a sporty
laundryman smuggled her away to Savannah, Ga.
The joss-house keeper buys his grub now, and he’s looking a bit thin.
Incidentally he pays more attention to the temple than ever before.
So, you see, good comes out of everything.
[Illustration]
A COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION
The turn of a street corner, the going this way instead of that, the
casual introduction to a certain woman, and a thousand other things
often prove the turning point in life, sometimes for good and sometimes
for bad. To every man opportunity comes once at least. The successful
ones are those who have recognized their chance and taken prompt
advantage of it. But anyone can preach a sermon, and money doesn’t
always follow in the footsteps of education.
That will do for a starter to this story of a woman, a dinner and two
men. You will notice that the woman comes first, the dinner next, and
the men last, which is as it should be. Women should always be in the
lead, which fact will be more fully recognized when their ability and
genius become more generally understood and appreciated.
The dinner in this story changed the current of three lives so abruptly
that it almost became a tragedy, and if you like you can take this as
a moral, and beware of dinners, unless, of course, you are looking for
a change, in which event you can take this as a tip and dine with the
crowd early and often and see what happens.
[Illustration: There was disclosed the figure of a young woman rather
scantily clad]
The son of a wealthy Eastern brewer, born with a gold spoon in his
mouth, and taught to believe that the world was made for his especial
benefit, after blazing his way along the White Light thoroughfare for
a few years, and making a name for himself as a spender of rare
ability, took it suddenly into his head to reform. A good many hard
nights had brought out a crop of fine wrinkles at the corners of his
eyes, and high living had added several inches to his waist line. But
he was still good looking and ruddy cheeked, and there were a number of
charming ladies living on certain side streets who knew him well enough
to call him by his first name, and who were always glad to see him
whether he did the sucker trick of opening bad wine at $5 a throw or
not. In his mind the first step toward reformation meant marriage with
some nice respectable young woman who had been correctly brought up,
and whose family tree would bear investigation, and as his income was
somewhere in the neighborhood of $30,000 it wasn’t hard to find what he
wanted, for ninety-nine women out of a hundred would cheerfully fasten
themselves to a monstrosity if there was a bank book in the inside
pocket.
He picked out the girl he proposed to turn from a Miss into a Mrs.,
paid attention to her for thirty days without a break, then he proposed
and was accepted, and the date of the marriage was set for two months
later. It was a case of thirty and sixty days, with no discounts off.
It is usual in a case of this kind to give a farewell dinner to the
bunch, to have one last good drunk and then a laborious climb aboard
the water wagon until after the honeymoon. So he hunted up one of his
best friends and told him the glad news.
“Never again for me,” he said, “and all the Dotties and Lotties and
Totties can strike my name off their lists, for I’m going to marry,
old man, and settle down to business. But I’m going to have one big
blaze before I go, and I want you to get it up, for you can lay out a
dinner better than anyone I know, and besides, I’m going to have you
for my best man when I get hitched. Now go as far as you like and damn
the expense. Have a stag with all the good fellows there that we know,
and we’ll set off a few fireworks that will give them something to talk
about.”
The banquet room of a big hotel was engaged, and the French chef got
an order to lay out a spread that would make an old Roman feast look
like a Bowery beef stew. Then the enterprising best man, who was
something of a high roller himself, set his wits to work to devise a
novelty that would top anything in the banquet line ever seen in New
York after the lights were turned on. About fifty invitations went out,
and in response to them on one eventful Saturday night, half a hundred
dyed-in-the-wool sports, of the kind who buy diamond rings for little
ladies who dance well, settled themselves in very comfortable chairs,
and prepared to have the time of their lives and wish good luck to the
man who was going to become respectable. The dinner was only a side
issue, for it was to be nothing more nor less than one great drunk, and
that was understood from the start. So the wine flowed as freely as
water in the spring when the melting snows flood the brooks and swell
the rivers, and for every five men there was one waiter to see that no
one went thirsty. From ten until twelve the black-jacketed servitors
drew corks and filled glasses, and then the best man pulled himself to
his feet, propped himself between the arm of his chair and the table
and commanded order that he might be heard.
“There is a pudding coming,” he began, “and in view of the fact that
I invented it myself I would like to have you fellows sit up and take
notice.”
Then he motioned to the head waiter and sank back in his chair. Five
men, each one holding up his end of a platform about four feet square
on which was a monstrous concoction of pastry, staggered in. A vacant
place had been cleared on the table, and when it was placed in position
a yell went up from the crowd.
“I’ll take a slice off the top,” sang the bridegroom, as he waved a
glass of wine aloft.
“Cut it, Bill,” said the best man, and one of the waiters, grinning,
went at it with a huge carving knife. He slit it from top to bottom in
two places, and as the crust crumbled away half a dozen birds fluttered
out, and when the pastry cook’s creation was demolished there was
disclosed a young woman rather scantily draped and with a figure worth
missing a train for.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said, smiling, and then she stepped out.
People who make a study of such things will tell you for every man
in the world there is just one woman who belongs to him. They may be
thousands of miles apart, and it may so happen that they will never
meet, but the fact remains that they were intended for each other just
the same. He may marry and she may marry, but there will be no real,
true happiness until they live their lives together. When this girl,
trim and slim but shapely, stood on the table, the man who was going to
be married looked on her and knew then that there was no other woman
in the world for him--not even the one whom he had promised to marry.
The others stood up and cheered and applauded her, while he sat there
staring almost stupidly. Her bronze hair tumbled down over her bare
shoulders and her laughing eyes took in the scene.
“And who is the one who is going to be married?” she asked smilingly.
“I want to drink with him.”
“Get on your pins, old man, and drink with the lady,” called one, and
he obediently arose and held a glass of wine toward her.
“So you are the one?” she asked, looking him over critically. “Well,
here is that the woman you marry is as good a fellow as you look to be.”
That was at midnight.
When the clock struck two every guest was still in his place, and
seated in the lap of the man at the head of the table--the host, the
man who was to marry, become straightened out, and shake the crowd--was
the girl. He had one arm around her, and they were drinking out of the
same glass. Of course it wasn’t at all proper, but you see everything
goes at a bachelor’s dinner, and in view of the fact that this was
a last wild fling, apparently, it was all right. It was nobody’s
business, anyhow, for a man may do as he likes even if he is on the
verge of his own wedding.
“You will surely call,” she was saying between sips.
“Surely,” was the answer, “if you will allow me.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I will call anyhow.”
“Now you’re just the kind of a man I like,” she whispered. “But what
are you going to do after you’re married?”
“I don’t think I will marry,” he said; “at least I’ll not marry the
girl I intended. You and I are going to talk that over, because----”
“Why, I’ve only known you about two hours.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference if you’d only known me two minutes, it
would be just the same.”
“I suppose so, but you see a good many men have talked to me like that,
and promised me everything, but it’s always the same in the end. Men
say things that they mean at the time, but it doesn’t last.”
He was really in earnest, though he was drunk, and the next afternoon,
when he was sober enough to know what he was doing, he wrote a note
to his _fiancee_, telling her that he was sorry, but it was all off.
There were reasons, of course, but he couldn’t explain, and would she
kindly release him from his engagement, which had been entered into too
hastily, etc., etc. You know the old story.
In the end he got his freedom in a tear-stained letter, then he went
and threw a high-ball under his belt and squared away for the pudding
girl.
She was making about $40 a week and living at the rate of about $150,
it didn’t take a wise man to see that, and so he was on the moment he
looked over the ranch. But it cut no figure with him at all, for he was
too well satisfied to be bothered about a trifle like that, especially
at the start of the hunt, so he took things as they came and made the
best of them.
One night he was there, and they had become confidential.
“Who did it all?” he asked, as he waved his hand to take in the
elaborate furnishings of the room.
“So you have reached the curious stage?” she asked. “What do you want
to know for?”
“Because I think so well of you that I want to do all this sort of
thing myself. Who did it?”
She looked thoughtfully out of the window for a moment, and then, as if
she had suddenly made up her mind, she turned and said:
“Would it make any difference to you if you knew?”
“Not a bit.”
“Not even if it was someone whom you knew?”
“Not even then.”
When she told him the name it was that of his best friend, the one who
was going to be his best man at the wedding.
Here was a complication.
Now you can see what an apparently harmless dinner did.
It wasn’t very long ago, so it’s only a step down to the present day.
The Hungarian gypsy band in a big cafe uptown was playing its head off,
and every table was occupied. Over in one of the corners--a choice
position, by the way--at a table on which were half a dozen empty wine
bottles, sat two men and a woman. If you will look at them again you
will notice that their faces are very familiar. Yes, that’s right, it
is the pudding girl, the brewer’s son and the man who was going to be
next to the real one at the big show when two were made one and the
minister was paid double for working overtime. All three are a bit
unsteady, naturally, for the soldiers on the table tell the story,
consequently they are well primed for a scene of this kind.
The brewer’s son is talking to the other man, and the girl is playing a
listening part, and playing it well.
“You only think you love,” he says, “but all you have done is to spend
a few hundred dollars--or thousands, it makes no difference. You’d
spend it anyhow in some other way. I’ve broken off my marriage for her,
and that’s something. You’re a friend of mine and why don’t you let go?”
“That’s all right, and I agree to what you say. I haven’t the money I
once had, and I don’t think I can keep the pace up much longer, but I
don’t want to see Maud go up against it. She’s used to nice things.
Suppose the Governor turns on you and cuts you off, what are you going
to do then? You won’t have any more chance than I have. I know you’re
all right now, but Maud’s got to be taken care of, and if I can do
anything to put her on Easy Street I’ll do it.”
He reached for a half empty bottle and refilled his glass. He drank
slowly and when he had finished he went on.
“Have you got as much as $10,000?” he asked, abruptly.
“Easy that.”
“I mean ready money?”
“Yes, ready money.”
“Then I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You put $10,000 in the bank in Maud’s
name and I’ll quit, but you also got to promise me that you will look
after her and do everything for her that she wants. How about that,
Maudie, all right?”
As he spoke he patted her caressingly on the shoulder while the
brewer’s son, flushed to the roots of his hair with the wine he had
drank, dived into an inside pocket for his check book.
“Will you be the best man, Joe?”
“Best man for what?” the girl spoke for the first time.
“For our wedding, of course.”
“Not so you can pay any particular attention to it. You’ll have to
chloroform me to get me in front of a minister. I’m no Sunday-school
scholar, and no man can own me. I believe every woman should be
independent, and when a woman marries she not only sacrifices her
freedom, but herself. I like you both, and I’m glad to know that I’m
worth $10,000 to you,” and she nodded toward the brewer’s son. “For
that I’ll play fair with you, and if we ever agree to disagree we’ll
do it like two good fellows. Joe, don’t forget to come around and take
dinner with us once in a while, will you?”
P. S.--A story in a daily newspaper published later tells about the son
of a wealthy brewer committing suicide by shooting, in his home in a
town near New York. The cause for the rash act is not known. Strange
that it should be the man who was going to reform, but didn’t, isn’t it?
[Illustration]
THE END OF THE ROAD
They call them _demi mondaines_ and _nymphs du pave_ in Paris, and it
doesn’t sound so bad, but here a spade is called a spade with coarse
brutality and vice doesn’t receive even a very thin coating of veneer.