pervaded the sacred apartment; but on great occasions, when the sun was
allowed to penetrate the thirty-two tiny panes of glass in each window,
and a blaze was lighted in the fireplace, Miss Hollis would look in as
she went upstairs, and muse a moment over the pathetic little romance
of rags, the story of two lives worked into a bouquet of old-fashioned
posies, whose gay tints were brought out by a setting of somber threads.
Existence had gone so quietly in this remote corner of the world that
all its important events, babyhood, childhood, betrothal, marriage,
motherhood, with all their mysteries of love and life and death, were
chronicled in this narrow space not two yards square.
Diadema came in behind the little school-teacher one afternoon.
“I cal’late,” she said, “that being kep’ in a dark room, and never being
tread on, it will last longer ’n I do. If it does, Priscilla, you know
that white crape shawl of mine I wear to meetings hot Sundays: that would
make a second row of everlastings round the border. You could piece out
the linings good and smooth on the under side, draw in the white flowers,
and fill ’em round with black to set ’em off. The rug would be han’somer
than ever then, and the story—would be finished.”
CRESSY’S NEW-YEAR’S RENT
By Albert Lee
Fred Hallowell was sitting at his desk in the _Gazette_ office, looking
listlessly out into the City Hall Park, where the biting wind was
making the snowflakes dance madly around the leafless trees and in the
empty fountain, and he was almost wishing that there would be so few
assignments to cover as to allow him an afternoon indoors to write
“specials.” The storm was the worst of the season, and as this was the
last day of December, it looked as if the old year were going out with a
tumultuous train of sleet and snow. But if he had seriously entertained
any hopes of enjoying a quiet day, these were dispelled by an office-boy
who summoned him to the city desk.
“Good-morning, Mr. Hallowell,” said the city editor, cheerfully. “Here
is a clipping from an afternoon paper which says that a French family in
Houston Street has been dispossessed and is in want. Mr. Wilson called
my attention to it because he thinks, from the number given, the house
belongs to old Q. C. Baggold. We don’t like Baggold, you know, and if
you find he is treating his tenants unfairly we can let you have all the
space you want to show him up. At any rate, go over there and see what
the trouble is; there is not much going on to-day.”
Fred took the clipping and read it as he walked back to his desk. It was
very short—five or six lines only—and the facts stated were about as the
city editor had said. The young man got into his overcoat and wrapped
himself up warmly, and in a few moments was himself battling against the
little blizzard with the other pedestrians whom he had been watching in
the City Hall Park from the office windows.
When he reached Houston Street he travelled westward for several
blocks, until he came into a very poor district crowded with dingy
tenement-houses that leaned against one another in an uneven sort of way,
as if they were tired of the sad kind of life they had been witnessing
for so many years. The snow that had piled up on the window-sills and
over the copings seemed to brighten up the general aspect of the quarter,
because it filled in the cracks and chinks of material misery, and made
the buildings look at least temporarily picturesque, just as paint and
powder for a time may hide the traces of old age and sorrow. Fred found
the number 179 painted on a piece of tin that had become bent and rusty
from long service over a narrow doorway, and as he stood there comparing
it with the number given in his clipping, a little girl with a shawl
drawn tightly over her head and around her thin little shoulders came
out of the dark entrance and stopped on the door-sill for a moment,
surprised, no doubt, at the sight of the tall rosy-cheeked young man so
warmly clad in a big woollen overcoat that you could have wrapped her up
in several times, with goods left over to spare.
“Hello! little girl,” said Fred, quickly. “Does Mr. Cressy live here?”
The child stared for a few seconds at the stranger, and then she
answered, bashfully: “Yes, sir. But he has got to go away.”
“But he hasn’t gone yet?” continued Fred; and then noticing that the
child, in her short calico skirt, was shivering from the cold, and that
her feet were getting wet with the snow, he added, “Come inside a minute
and tell me where I can find Mr. Cressy.”
The two stepped into the dark narrow hallway that ran through the house
to the stairway in the rear, where a narrow window with a broken pane
let in just enough light to prove there was day outside. The little
girl leaned against the wall, and looked up at the reporter as if she
suspected him of having no good intentions toward the man for whom he was
inquiring. Very few strangers ever came into that house to do good, she
knew. Most of them came for money—rent money—and sometimes they came, as
a man had come for Mr. Cressy, to tell him he must go.
“What floor does he live on?” asked Fred.
“On the fifth floor, sir,” answered the child. “In the back, sir. But I
think he is really going away, sir.”
“Well, no matter about that,” said Fred, smiling. “I will go up and see
him. I hope he won’t have to go out in the storm. It is not good for
little girls to go out in the storm, either,” he added. “Does your mamma
know you are going out?”
“Oh, yes, sir! She has sent me to the Sisters to try to get some
medicine.”
“Is she sick?” asked Fred, quickly.
“Yes, sir,” continued the child.
“What floor does she live on? I will stop in and see her.”
“Oh, you’ll see her! She’s in the room, too.”
“Then you are Mr. Cressy’s little girl?”
“Yes, sir.”
So Fred patted her on the head and told her to hurry over to the Sisters
in Eleventh Street, and gave her ten cents to ride in the horse-cars; and
then he opened the door for her, and as soon as she had left he felt his
way back to the staircase and climbed to the fifth floor.
There he knocked upon a door, which was soon opened by a man apparently
forty years of age, a man of slightly foreign appearance, with a careworn
look, but with as honest a face as you could find anywhere.
“Is this Mr. Cressy?” asked Fred.
“Yes, my name’s Cressy,” replied the man. He spoke with so slight an
accent that it was hardly noticeable.
“I am a reporter from the _Gazette_,” continued Fred.
“Oh!” said the man. “Come in,” and as he spoke he looked somewhat
embarrassed and anxious, for this was doubtless the first time he had
had any dealings with a newspaper. Lying on a bed in an alcove was a
woman who looked very ill, and piled in a corner near the door were a
couple of boxes and a few pieces of furniture. The stove had not yet been
taken down, and some pale embers in it only just kept the chill off the
atmosphere. Fred took off his hat, and led the man across the room toward
the window.
“Have you been dispossessed?” he asked.
“Yes,” said the man; “we must leave to-night.”
“Why?” asked the reporter.
Cressy smiled in a ghastly sort of way.
“Because,” he replied—“because I have not a cent to my name, sir, and the
landlord has got it in for me—and I must go.”
“Who is your landlord?” asked the reporter.
“Baggold—Q. C. Baggold, the shoe-man.”
“How much do you owe?”
“Twenty dollars—two months’ rent.”
“Were you ever in arrears before?”
“Never.”
“What’s the trouble? Out of work?”
“Yes, sir, I have been. But I’ve got a job now, and I’ll have money on
the tenth of the month. But that is not it.”
“What is ‘it,’ then?” continued Fred.
“Well, I’ll tell you. I don’t want this in the paper, but I’ll tell you.
Baggold hates me. He knows the woman’s sick, and he takes advantage of my
owing him to drive me out. Do you want to know why? Well, I’ll tell you.
I worked for him for five years, sir, in his shoe-factory. He brought me
over from France to do the fine work. He had a lawsuit about six months
ago, and he offered me $500 to lie for him on the stand. I would not do
it, sir, and when they called me as a witness I told the truth, and that
settled the case, and Baggold had to pay $10,000, sir, for a sly game on
a contract. Then he sent me off, and I’ve been looking for a job, and
I’ve got behind, and I’m just getting up again, and here he is sending
me out into the snow! To-morrow is what we call at home, in France, the
_jour de l’an_—the day of the New Year, sir, and it is a fête. And the
little one, here, always looked forward to that day, sir, for a doll or
a few sweetmeats; but this time—I don’t think she’ll have a roof for her
little head! I have not a place in the world to go to, sir, but to the
police station, and there’s the woman on her back!”
Two big tears rolled down the man’s cheeks. Fred felt a lump rising in
his throat, and he knew that if he had had twenty dollars in his pocket
he would have given it to Cressy. But he did not have twenty dollars, so
he coughed vigorously, and put on his hat quickly, and said:
“Well, this is hard, Mr. Cressy. I’ll see what we can do. I must go up
town for a while, and then I’ll come back and see you. Don’t move out in
this storm till the last minute.”
As he rushed down the stairs he met the little girl coming back with a
big blue bottle of something with a yellow label on it. He stopped and
pulled a quarter out of his pocket, thrust it into the child’s hand, and
leaped on down the stairs, leaving the little girl more frightened than
surprised, as he dashed out into the snow.
He entered the first drug-store he came to and looked up Q. C. Baggold’s
address in the directory. It was nearly four o’clock, and he argued the
rich shoe-manufacturer would be at his home. The address given in the
directory was in a broad street in the fashionable quarter of the city.
Half an hour later Fred was pulling at Mr. Baggold’s door-bell. The
butler who answered the summons thought Mr. Baggold was in, and took
Fred’s card after showing the young man into the parlor. This was a large
elegantly furnished room filled with costly ornaments, almost any one of
which, if offered for sale, would have brought the amount of Cressy’s
debt, or much more.
Presently Mr. Baggold came into the room. He was a short man with a bald
head and a sharp nose, and his small eyes were fixed very close to one
another under a not very high forehead.
“I am a reporter from the _Gazette_,” began Fred at once. “I have called
to see you, Mr. Baggold, about this man Cressy whom you have ordered to
be dispossessed.”
“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Baggold, smiling. “My agent has told me something
about this matter, but I hardly think it is of sufficient importance to
be of interest to the readers of the _Gazette_.”
“The readers of the _Gazette_,” continued Fred “are always interested in
good deeds, Mr. Baggold, and especially when these are performed by rich
men. I came here hoping you would disavow the action of your agent, and
say that the Cressy’s might remain in the room.”
“Nonsense!” replied Mr. Baggold. “I cannot interfere with my agent. I pay
him to take care of my rents, and I can’t be looking after fellows who
won’t pay. This man Cressy is in arrears, and he must get out.”
“But his wife is sick,” argued Fred.
“Bah!” retorted the other. “That is an old excuse. These scoundrels try
all sorts of dodges to cheat a man whom they think has money.”
“This woman is actually sick, Mr. Baggold,” said Fred, severely, “and to
drive her out in a storm like this is positive cruelty.”
“Cressy has had two weeks to find other quarters, and to-morrow is the
first of the month. I can’t keep him any longer.”
“Yes, to-morrow is the great French fête-day, and you put Cressy in the
street.”
“My dear sir,” returned the rich man, “I cannot allow sentiment to
interfere with my business. If I did I should never collect rents in
Houston Street. And, as I told you before, I do not see that this
question is one to interest the public. It is purely a matter of my
private business.”
“Very true,” replied Fred; “but I don’t think it would look well in
print.”
This statement seemed to startle Mr. Baggold a little, and Fred thought
it made him feel uncomfortable. There was a brief silence, after which
the rich man said:
“It would depend entirely upon how you put it in print. To tell you the
truth, I am not at all in favor of these sensational articles that so
many newspapers publish nowadays. Reporters often jump at conclusions
before they are familiar with the facts of a case, and it makes things
disagreeable for all concerned. Now, if you will only listen to me, sir,
I think we can come to an understanding about this Cressy matter. I don’t
want anything about it to get into the papers—especially now. I have many
reasons, but I cannot give them to you. Yet I think we can come to an
understanding,” he repeated, as he looked at Fred and smiled.
“How?” asked the reporter.
“Well,” drawled Mr. Baggold, “there are some points that I may be able
to explain to you. Of course I don’t want to put you to any trouble for
nothing. If it is worth something to me not to have notoriety thrust upon
me, of course, on the other hand, it might be worth something to you to
cause the notoriety. But just excuse me a moment.”
Mr. Baggold arose hastily and stepped into a rear room, apparently his
library or study.
“H’m,” thought Fred to himself. “This old chap talks as though he were
going to offer me money. I’d just like to see him try! I’d give him
such a roasting as he has never had before! Some of these crooked old
millionaires think that sort of thing works with reporters, but I’ll show
him that it does not. I have never known a newspaper man yet that would
accept a bribe.”
And as Fred mused in this fashion, Mr. Baggold returned. He bore a long
yellow envelope in his hand.
“Here,” he said, “are some papers and other things that I should like
to have you look over before you write the article. I think they will
influence you in your opinion of the matter. I am sorry I cannot tell
you any more just now, but I have an appointment which I must keep.
Take these papers and look them over at your leisure, and if you find
later this evening that they are not satisfactory, I will talk with you
further. Good-afternoon, sir. I hope you will excuse me for the present.”
And so saying he handed the envelope to Fred, bowed pleasantly, and
left the room. Fred had been standing near the door, and so he put the
envelope in his pocket and went out. He walked a few blocks down the
street, and went into the large hotel on the corner in order to get out
of the storm and to find some quiet place where he might look over Mr.
Baggold’s documents. He was very curious to see what they could be. He
found a seat in a secluded corner of the office, and there tore open the
envelope. To his disgust, it contained three ten-dollar bills, and a
brief note, unsigned, which read,
“The accompanying papers will show you that the matter we spoke
of is not of sufficient importance to be published.”
Fred Hallowell was furious. This was the first time in his brief career
as a newspaper man that anything like this had happened to him. He grew
red in the face, his fingers twitched, and he felt as if he had never
before been so grossly insulted. As he sat in his chair, fuming and
wondering what he should do, Griggs, the fat and jolly political reporter
of the _Gazette_, came up to him and said, laughing,
“Well, you look as if you were plotting murder!”
“I am—almost!” exclaimed Fred, and then he told Griggs all about what had
happened.
Griggs listened patiently, and at the end he chuckled to himself, and
said: “Well, Hallowell, don’t waste any righteous wrath on any such stuff
as that Baggold. I’ll tell you how to get even with him.” And then he
talked for twenty minutes to the younger man.
At the end of the conference Fred smiled and buttoned his coat, and
hastened back to Cressy’s room in Houston Street. He found a Sister of
Charity there nursing the sick woman. Cressy came to the door, pale and
eager.
“Well?” he said nervously.
“Oh, it’s all right,” returned Fred, laughing. “I have just seen
Mr. Baggold. He said his agent was perfectly right in having you
dispossessed, because that was business; but when he heard what I had to
say, he gave me this money.” And here Fred handed out the thirty dollars.
“It is for you to pay the agent with, and then you can keep your room,
and you will have ten dollars besides.”
Cressy was speechless. The sick woman wept softly. The Sister said
something in Latin, and the little girl just looked; she did not
understand what it was all about.
“You see,” said Fred to Cressy, “I suppose Mr. Baggold does not want
his business to be interfered with by his sentiment.” And before Cressy
could reply the reporter had slipped out of the door, and in a moment was
hurrying down town to his office.
The next morning—New-Year’s morning—the _Gazette_ contained a pretty
little story of how a rich man, who had heard of the distress of a
tenant, put his hand in his own pocket and paid his tenant’s rent to
himself, so that the new year would begin well for him by having rents
coming in at the very opening of the twelvemonth.
“I’ll bet Baggold was surprised this morning when he read that,” gurgled
the genial Griggs; “but it will do him more good than ten columns of
abuse and exposure. So here’s a Happy New Year to him!”
MR. O’LEARY’S SECOND LOVE
By Charles Lever
The play over, O’Leary charged himself with the protection of madam,
while I enveloped Emily in her cashmere, and drew her arm within my
own. What my hand had to do with hers I know not; it remains one of the
unexplained difficulties of that eventful evening. I have, it is true,
a hazy recollection of pressing some very taper and delicately formed
fingers; and remember, too, the pain I felt next morning on awaking, by
the pressure of a too tight ring, which had, by some strange accident,
found its way to my finger, for which its size was but ill adapted.
“You will join us at supper, I hope,” said Mrs. Bingham, as Trevanion
handed her to her carriage. “Mr. Lorrequer, Mr. O’Leary, we shall expect
you.”
I was about to promise to do so, when Trevanion suddenly interrupted
me, saying that he had already accepted an invitation, which would,
unfortunately, prevent us; and having hastily wished the ladies
good-night, hurried me away so abruptly, that I had not a moment given
for even one parting look at the fair Emily.
“Why, Trevanion,” said I, “what invitation are you dreaming of? I, for
one, should have been delighted to have gone home with the Binghams.”
“So I perceive,” said Trevanion, gravely; “and it was for that precise
reason I so firmly refused what, individually, I should have been most
happy to accept.”
“Then pray have the goodness to explain.”
“It is easily done. You have already, in recounting your manifold
embarrassments, told me enough of these people, to let me see that they
intend you should marry among them; and, indeed, you have gone quite far
enough to encourage such an expectation. Your present excited state has
led you sufficiently far this evening, and I could not answer for your
not proposing in all form before the supper was over; therefore, I had
no other course open to me than positively to refuse Mrs. Bingham’s
invitation. But here we are now at the ‘Cadran rouge;’ we shall have our
lobster and a glass of Moselle, and then to bed, for we must not forget
that we are to be at St. Cloud by seven.”
“Ah! that is a good thought of yours about the lobsters,” said O’Leary;
“and now, as you understand these matters, just order supper, and let us
enjoy ourselves.”
With all the accustomed dispatch of a _restaurant_, a most appetizing
_petit souper_ made its speedy appearance; and although now perfectly
divested of the high excitement which had hitherto possessed me, my
spirits were excellent, and I never more relished our good fare and good
fellowship.
After a toast to the health of the fair Emily had been proposed and
drained by all three, Trevanion again explained how much more serious
difficulty would result from any false step in that quarter than from all
my other scrapes collectively.
This he represented so strongly, that for the first time I began to
perceive the train of ill consequences that must inevitably result,
and promised most faithfully to be guided by any counsel he might feel
disposed to give me.
“Ah! what a pity,” said O’Leary, “it is not my case. It’s very little
trouble it would cost any one to break off a match for me. I had always a
most peculiar talent for those things.”
“Indeed!” said Trevanion. “Pray, may we know your secret? for perhaps,
ere long, we may have occasion for its employment.”
“Tell it, by all means,” said I.
“If I do,” said O’Leary, “it will cost you a patient hearing; for my
experiences are connected with an episode in my early life, which,
although not very amusing, is certainly instructive.”
“Oh! by all means, let us hear it,” said Trevanion.
“Well, agreed,” said O’Leary; “only once for all, as what I am about to
confide is strictly confidential, you must promise never even to allude
to it hereafter in even the most remote manner, much less indulge in any
unseemly mirth at what I shall relate.”
Having pledged ourselves to secrecy and a becoming seriousness, O’Leary
began his story as follows:
“You may easily suppose,” began Mr. O’Leary, “that the unhappy
termination of my first passion served as a shield to me for a long time
against my unfortunate tendencies toward the fair, and such was really
the case. I never spoke to a young lady for three years after, without a
reeling in my head, so associated in my mind was love and sea-sickness.
However, at last, what will not time do? It was about four years from the
date of this adventure, when I became so oblivious of my former failure,
as again to tempt my fortune. My present choice, in every way unlike the
last, was a gay, lively girl, of great animal spirits, and a considerable
turn for raillery, that spared no one; the members of her own family
were not even sacred in her eyes; and her father, a reverend dean, as
frequently figured among the ludicrous as his neighbors.
“The Evershams had been very old friends of a rich aunt of mine, who
never, by the by, had condescended to notice me till I made their
acquaintance; but no sooner had I done so, than she sent for me, and gave
me to understand that in the event of my succeeding to the hand of Fanny
Eversham, I should be her heir and the possessor of about sixty thousand
pounds. She did not stop here; but by canvassing the dean in my favor,
speedily put the matter on a most favorable footing, and in less than two
months I was received as the accepted suitor of the fair Fanny, then one
of the reigning belles of Dublin.
“They lived at this time, about three miles from town, in a very pretty
country, where I used to pass all my mornings, and many of my evenings,
too, in a state of happiness that I should have considered perfect,
if it were not for two unhappy blots—one, the taste of my betrothed
for laughing at her friends; another, the diabolical propensity of my
intended father-in-law to talk politics; to the former I could submit;
but with the latter submission only made bad worse; for he invariably
drew up as I receded, dryly observing that with men who had no avowed
opinions, it was ill-agreeing; or that, with persons who kept their
politics as a school-boy does his pocket-money, never to spend, and
always ready to change, it was unpleasant to dispute. Such taunts as
these I submitted to, as well I might; secretly resolving, that as I now
knew the meaning of Whig and Tory, I’d contrive to spend my life, after
marriage, out of the worthy dean’s diocese.
“Time wore on, and at length, to my most pressing solicitations it was
conceded that a day for our marriage should be appointed. Not even the
unlucky termination of this my second love affair can deprive me of
the happy souvenir of the few weeks which were to intervene before our
destined union.