to behave at a party. I say it ain't on de level to be a feller's
guest, and den jump on him and spoil his dinner. See here, Mr.
Carpenter, I tell you vot I do. You be good and eat your grub, so it
don't git vasted, and I promise you, tomorrow I go and hunt up
strike headquarters, and give dem a check fer a tousand dollars, and
if de damn graftin' leaders don't hog it, dey all git someting to
eat. And vot's more, I send a check fer five tousand to de Russian
relief. Now ain't dat square? Vot you say?”
“What I say is, Mr. T-S, I cannot be the keeper of another man's
conscience. But I'll try to eat, so as not to be rude.”
And T-S grunted, and went back to his feeding; and the stranger made
a pretense of eating, and we did the same.
XVII
It happens that I was brought up in a highly conscientious family.
To my dear mother, and to her worthy sisters, there is nothing in
the world more painful than what they call a “scene”--unless
possibly it is what they call a “situation.” And here we had
certainly had a “scene,” and still had a “situation.” So I sat,
racking my brains to think of something safe to talk about. I
recalled that T-S had had pretty good success with his “Tale of Two
Cities” as a topic of conversation, so I began:
“Mr. Carpenter, the spectacle you are going to see this evening is
rather remarkable from the artistic point of view. One of the
greatest scenic artists of Paris has designed the set, and the best
judges consider it a real achievement, a landmark in moving picture
work.”
“Tell me about it,” said Carpenter; and I was grateful for his tone
of interest.
“Well, I don't know how much you know about picture making--”
“You had better explain everything.”
“Well, Mr. T-S has built a large set, representing a street scene in
Paris over a century ago. He has hired a thousand men--”
“Two tousand!” broke in T-S.
“In the advertisements?” I suggested, with a smile.
“No, no,” insisted the other. “Two tousand, really. In de
advertisements, five tousand.”
“Well,” said I, “these men wear costumes which T-S has had made for
them, and they pretend to be a mob. They have been practicing all
day, and by now they know what to do. There is a man with a
megaphone, shouting orders to them, and enormous lights playing upon
them, so that men with cameras can take pictures of the scene. It is
very vivid, and as a portrayal of history, is truly educational.”
“And when it is done--what becomes of the men?”
Utterly hopeless, you see! We were right back on the forbidden
ground! “How do you mean?” I evaded.
“I mean, how do they live?”
“Dey got deir five dollars, ain't dey?” It was T-S, of course.
“Yes, but that won' last very long, will it? What is the cost of
this dinner we are eating?”
The magnate of the movies looked to the speaker, and then burst into
a laugh. “Ho, ho, ho! Dat's a good vun!”
Said I, hastily: “Mr. T-S means that there are cheaper eating places
to be found.”
“Well,” said Carpenter, “why don't we find one?”
“It's no use, Billy. He thinks it's up to me to feed all de bums on
de lot. Is dat it, Mr. Carpenter?”
“I can't say, Mr. T-S; I don't know how many there are, and I don't
know how rich you are.”
“Vell, dey got five million out o' verks in this country now, and if
I vanted to bust myself, I could feed 'em vun day, maybe two. But
ven I got done, dey vouldn't be nobody to make pictures, and
somebody vould have to feed old Abey--or maybe me and Maw could go
back to carryin' pants in a push cart! If you tink I vouldn't like
to see all de hungry fed, you got me wrong, Mr. Carpenter; but vot I
learned is dis--if you stop fer all de misery you see in de vorld
about you, you vouldn't git novhere.”
“Well,” said Carpenter, “what difference would that make?”
The proprietor of Eternal City really wanted to make out the
processes of this abnormal mind. He wrinkled his brows, and thought
very hard over it.
“See here, Mr. Carpenter,” he began at last, “I tink you got hold o'
de wrong feller. I'm a verkin' man, de same as any mechanic on my
lot. I verked ever since I vas a liddle boy, and if I eat too much
now, maybe it's because I didn't get enough ven I vas liddle. And
maybe I got more money dan vot I got a right to, but I know dis--I
ain't never had enough to do half vot I vant to! But dere's plenty
fellers got ten times vot I got, and never done a stroke o' vork fer
it. Dey're de vuns y'oughter git after!”
Said Carpenter: “I would, if I knew how.”
“Dey's plenty of 'em right in dis room, I bet.” And Mary added: “Ask
Billy; he knows them all!”
“You flatter me, Mary,” I laughed.
“Ain't dey some of 'em here?” demanded T-S.
“Yes, that's true. There are some not far away, who are developing a
desire to meet Mr. Carpenter, unless I miss the signs.”
“Vere are dey at?” demanded T-S.
“I won't tell you that,” I laughed, “because you'd turn and stare
into their faces.”
“So he vould!” broke in Maw. “How often I gotta tell you, Abey? You
got no more manners dan if you vas a jimpanzy.”
“All right,” said the magnate, grinning good naturedly. “I'll keep
a-eatin' my dinner. Who is it?”
“It's Mrs. Parmelee Stebbins,” said I. “She boasts a salon, and has
to have what are called lions, and she's been watching Mr. Carpenter
out of the corner of her eye ever since he came into the
room--trying to figure out whether he's a lion, or only an actor. If
his skin were a bit dark, she would be sure he was an Eastern
potentate; as it, she's afraid he's of domestic origin, in which
case he's vulgar. The company he keeps is against him; but
still--Mrs. Stebbins has had my eye three times, hoping I would give
her a signal, I haven't given it, so she's about to leave.”
“Vell, she can go to hell!” said T-S, keeping his promise to devote
himself to his dinner. “I offered Parmelee Stebbins a tird share in
'De Pride o' Passion' fer a hunded tousand dollars, and de damn fool
turned me down, and de picture has made a million and a quarter
a'ready.”
“Well,” said I, “he's probably paying for it by sitting up late to
buy the city council on this new franchise grab of his; and so he
hasn't kept his date to dine with his expensive family at Prince's.
Here is Miss Lucinda Stebbins; she's engaged to Babcock, millionaire
sport and man about town, but he's taking part in a flying race over
the Rocky Mountains tonight, and so Lucinda feels bored, and she
knows the vaudeville show is going to be tiresome, but still she
doesn't want to meet any freaks. She has just said to her mother
that she can't see why a person in her mother's position can't be
content to meet proper people, but always has to be getting herself
into the newspapers with some new sort of nut.”
“My Gawd, Billy!” cried Maw. “You got a dictaphone on dem people?”
“No, but I know the type so well, I can tell by their looks. Lucinda
is thinking about their big new palace on Grand Avenue, and she
regards everyone outside her set as a burglar trying to break in.
And then there's Bertie Stebbins, who's thinking about a new style
of collar he saw advertised to-day, and how it would look on him,
and what impression it would make on his newest girl.”
It was Mary who spoke now: “I know that little toad. I've seen him
dancing at the Palace with Dorothy Doodles, or whatever her name
is.”
“Well,” said I, “Mrs. Stebbins runs the newer set--those who hunt
sensations, and make a splurge in the papers. It costs like smoke,
of course--” And suddenly I stopped. “Look out!” I whispered. “Here
she comes!”
XVIII
I heard Maw catch her breath, and I heard Maw's husband give a
grunt. Then I rose. “How are you, Billy?” gurgled a voice--one of
those voices made especially for social occasions. “Wretched boy,
why do you never come to see us?”
“I was coming to-morrow,” I said--for who could prove otherwise?
“Mrs. Stebbins, permit me to introduce Mrs. Tszchniczklefritszch.”
“Charmed to meet you, I'm sure,” said Mrs. Stebbins. “I've heard my
husband speak of your husband so often. How well you are looking,
Mrs.--”
She stopped; and Maw, knowing the terrors of her name, made haste to
say something agreeable. “Yes, ma'am; dis country agrees vit me
fine. Since I come here, I've rode and et, shoost rode and et.”
“And Mr. T-S,” said I.
“Howdydo, Mr. T-S?”
“Pretty good, ma'am,” said T-S. He had been caught with his mouth
full, and was making desperate efforts to swallow.
A singular thing is the power of class prestige! Here was Maw, a
good woman, according to her lights, who had worked hard all her
life, and had achieved a colossal and astounding success. She had
everything in the world that money could buy; her hair was done by
the best hair-dresser, her gown had been designed by the best
costumer, her rings and bracelets selected by the best jeweller; and
yet nothing was right, no power on earth could make it right, and
Maw knew it, and writhed the consciousness of it. And here was Mrs.
Parmelee Stebbins, who had never done a useful thing in all her
days--except you count the picking out of a rich husband; yet Mrs.
Stebbins was “right,” and Maw knew it, and in the presence of the
other woman she was in an utter panic, literally quivering in every
nerve. And here was old T-S, who, left to himself, might have really
meant what he said, that Mrs. Stebbins could go to hell; but because
he was married, and loved his wife, he too trembled, and gulped down
his food!
Mrs. Stebbins is one of those American matrons who do not allow
marriage and motherhood to make vulgar physical impressions upon
them. Her pale blue gown might have been worn by her daughter; her
cool grey eyes looked out through a face without a wrinkle from a
soul without a care. She was a patroness of art and intellect; but
never did she forget her fundamental duty, the enhancing of the
prestige of a family name. When she was introduced to a
screen-actress, she was gracious, but did not forget the difference
between an actress and a lady. When she was introduced to a strange
man who did not wear trousers, she took it quite as an everyday
matter, revealing no trace of vulgar human curiosity.
There came Bertie, full grown, but not yet out of the pimply stage,
and still conscious of the clothes which he had taken such pains to
get right. Bertie's sister remained in her seat, refusing naughtily
to be compromised by her mother's vagaries; but Bertie had a
purpose, and after I had introduced him round, I saw what he
wanted--Mary Magna! Bertie had a vision of himself as a sort of
sporting prince in this movie world. His social position would make
conquests easy; it was a sort of Christmas-tree, all a-glitter with
prizes.
I was standing near, and heard the beginning of their conversation.
“Oh, Miss Magna, I'm so pleased to meet you. I've heard so much
about you from Miss Dulles.”
“Miss Dulles?”
“Yes; Dorothy Dulles.”
“I'm sorry. I don't think I ever heard of her.”
“What? Dorothy Dulles, the screen actress?”
“No, I can't place her.”
“But--but she's a star!”
“Well, but you know, Mr. Stebbins--there are so many stars in the
heavens, and not all of them visible to the eye.”
I turned to Bertie's mamma. She had discovered that Carpenter looked
even more thrilling on a close view; he was not a stage figure, but
a really grave and impressive personality, exactly the thing to
thrill the ladies of the Higher Arts Club at their monthly luncheon,
and to reflect prestige upon his discoverer. So here she was,
inviting the party to share her box at the theatre; and here was T-S
explaining that it couldn't be done, he had got to see his French
revolution pictures took, dey had five tousand men hired to make a
mob. I noted that Mrs. Stebbins received the “advertising” figures
on the production!
The upshot of it was that the great lady consented to forget her box
at the theatre, and run out to the studios to see the mob scenes for
the “The Tale of Two Cities.” T-S hadn't quite finished his dinner,
but he waved his hand and said it was nuttin', he vouldn't keep Mrs.
Stebbins vaitin'. He beckoned the waiter, and signed his magic name
on the check, with a five-dollar bill on top for a tip. Mrs.
Stebbins collected her family and floated to the door, and our party
followed.
I expected another scene with the mob; but I found that the street
had been swept clear of everything but policemen and chauffeurs. I
knew that this must have meant rough work on the part of the
authorities, but I said nothing, and hoped that Carpenter would not
think of it. The Stebbins car drew up by the porte-cochere; and
suddenly I discovered why the wife of the street-car magnate was
known as a “social leader.” “Billy,” she said, “you come in our car,
and bring Mr. Carpenter; I have something to talk to you about.”
Just that easily, you see! She wanted something, so she asked for
it!
I took Carpenter by the arm and put him in. Bertie drove, the
chauffeur sitting in the seat beside him. “Beat you to it!” called
Bertie, with his invincible arrogance, and waved his hand to the
picture magnate as we rolled away.
XIX
As it happened, we made a poor start. Turning the corner into
Broadway, we found ourselves caught in the jam of the theatre
traffic, and our car was brought to a halt in front of the “Empire
Varieties.” If you have been on any Broadway between the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans, you can imagine the sight; the flaring electric
signs, the pictures of the head line artists, the people waiting to
buy tickets, and the crowds on the sidewalk pushing past. There was
one additional feature, a crowd of “rah-rah boys,” with yellow and
purple flags in their hands, and the glory of battle in their eyes.
As our car halted, the cheer-leader gave a signal, and a hundred
throats let out in unison:
“Rickety zim, rickety zam,
Brickety, stickety, slickety slam!
Wallybaloo! Billybazoo!
We are the boys for a hullabaloo--Western City!”
It sounded all the more deafening, because Bertie, in the front
seat, had joined in.
“Hello!” said I. “We must have won the ball-game!”
“You _bet_ we did!” said Bertie, in his voice of bursting
self-importance.
“Ball-game?” asked Carpenter.
“Foot-ball,” said I. “Western City played Union Tech today. Wonder
what the score was.”
The cheer leader seemed to take the words out of my mouth. Again the
hundred voices roared:
“What was the score?
Seventeen to four!
Who got it in the neck?
Union Tech!
Who took the kitty?
Western City!”
Then more waving of flags, and yells for our prize captain and our
agile quarter-back: “Rah, rah, rah, Jerry Wilson! Rah, rah, rah,
Harriman! Western City, Western City, Western City!
W-E-S-T-E-R-N-C-I-T-Y! Western City!”
You have heard college yells, no doubt, and can imagine the tempo of
these cries, the cumulative rush of the spelled out letters, the
booming roar at the end. The voice of Bertie beat back from the
wind-shield with devastating effect upon our ears; and then our car
rolled on, and the clamor died away, and I answered the questions of
Carpenter. “They are college boys. They have won a game with another
college, and are celebrating the victory.”
“But,” said the other, “how do they manage to shout all together
that way?”
“Oh, they've practiced that, of course.”
“You mean--they gather and practice making those noises?”
“Surely.”
“They make them in cold blood?”
I laughed. “Well, the blood of youth is seldom entirely cold. They
imagine the victory while they rehearse, no doubt.”
When Carpenter spoke again, it was half to himself. “You make your
children into mobs! You train them for it!”
“It really isn't that bad,” I replied. “It's all in good
temper--it's their play.”
“Yes, yes! But what is play but practice for reality? And how shall
love be learned in savage war-dances?”
They tell us that we have a new generation of young people since the
war; a generation which thinks for itself, and has its own way. I
was an advocate of this idea in the abstract, but I must admit that
I was startled by the concrete case which I now encountered. Bertie
suddenly looked round from his place in the driver's seat. “Say,” he
demanded, in a grating voice, “where was that guy raised?”
“Bertie _dear_!” cried his mother. “Don't be rude!”
“I'm not being rude,” replied the other. “I just want to know where
he got his nut ideas.”
“Bertie _dear_!” cried the mother, again; and you knew that for
eighteen or nineteen years she had been crying “Bertie _dear_!”--in
a tone in which rebuke was tempered by fatuous maternal admiration.
And all the time, Bertie had gone on doing what he pleased, knowing
that in her secret heart his mother was smiling with admiration of
his masterfulness, taking it as one more symptom of the greatness of
the Stebbins line. I could see him in early childhood, stamping
on the floor and commanding his governess to bring him a
handkerchief--and throwing his shoe at her when she delayed!
Presently it was Lucinda's turn. Lucinda, you understand, was in
revolt against the social indignity which her mother had inflicted
upon her. When Carpenter had entered the car, she had looked at him
once, with a deliberate stare, then lifted her chin, ignoring my
effort to introduce him to her. Since then she had sat silent, cold,
and proud. But now she spoke. “Mother, tell me, do we have to meet
those horrid fat old Jews again?”
Mrs. Stebbins wisely decided that this was not a good time to
explore the soul of a possible Eastern potentate. Instead, she
elected to talk for a minute or two about a lawn fete she was
planning to give next week for the benefit of the Polish relief.
“Poland is the World's Bulwark against Bolshevism,” she explained;
and then added: “Bertie _dear_, aren't you driving recklessly?”
Bertie turned his head. “Didn't you hear me tell that old sheeny I
was going to beat him to it?”
“But, Bertie _dear_, this street is crowded!”
“Well, let them look out for themselves!”
But a few seconds later it appeared as if the son and heir of the
Stebbins family had decided to take his mother's advice. The car
suddenly slowed up--so suddenly as to slide us out of our seats.
There was a grinding of brakes, and a bump of something under the
wheels; then a wild stream from the sidewalk, and a half-stifled cry
from the chauffeur. Mrs. Stebbins gasped, “Oh, my God!” and put her
hands over her face; and Lucinda exclaimed, in outraged irritation,
“Mamma!” Carpenter looked at me, puzzled, and asked, “What is the
matter?”
XX
The accident had happened in an ill-chosen neighborhood: one of
those crowded slum quarters, swarming with Mexicans and Italians and
other foreigners. Of course, that was the only neighborhood in which
it could have happened, because it is only there that children run
wild in the streets at night. There was one child under the front
wheels, crushed almost in half, so that you could not bear to look
at it, to say nothing of touching it; and there was another, struck
by the fender and knocked into the gutter. There was an old hag of a
woman standing by, with her hands lifted into the air, shrieking in
such a voice of mingled terror and fury as I had never heard in my
life before. It roused the whole quarter; there were people running
out of twenty houses, I think, before one of us could get out of the
car.
The first person out was Carpenter. He took one glance at the form
under the car, and saw there was no hope there; then he ran to the
child in the gutter and caught it into his arms. The poor people who
rushed to the scene found him sitting on the curb, gazing into the
pitiful, quivering little face, and whispering grief-stricken words.
There was a street-lamp near, so he could see the face of the child,
and the crowd could see him.
There came a woman, apparently the mother of the dead child. She saw
the form under the car, and gave a horrified scream, and fell into a
faint. There came a man, the father, no doubt, and other relatives;
there was a clamoring, frantic throng, swarming about the car and
about the victims. I went to Carpenter, and asked, “Is it dead?” He
answered, “It will live, I think.” Then, seeing that the crowd was
likely to stifle the little one, he rose. “Where does this child
live?” he asked, and some one pointed out the house, and he carried
his burden into it. I followed him, and it was fortunate that I did
so, because of the part I was able to play.
I saw him lay the child upon a couch, and put his hands upon its
forehead, and close his eyes, apparently in prayer. Then, noting the
clamor outside growing louder, I went to the door and looked out,
and found the Stebbins family in a frightful predicament. The mob
had dragged Bertie and the chauffeur outside the car, and were
yelling menaces and imprecations into their faces; poor Bertie was
shouting back, that it wasn't his fault, how could _he_ help it? But
they thought he might have helped coming into their quarter with his
big rich car; why couldn't he stay in his own part of the city, and
kill the children of the rich? A man hit him a blow in the face and
knocked him over; his mother shrieked, and leaped out to help him,
and half a dozen women flung themselves at her, and as many men at
the chauffeur. There was a pile of bricks lying handy, and no doubt
also knives in the pockets of these foreign men; I believe the
little party would have been torn to pieces, had it not occurred to
me to run into the house and summon Carpenter.
Why did I do it? I think because I had seen how the crowd gave way
before him with the child in his arms. Anyhow, I knew that I could
do nothing alone, and before I could find a policeman it might be
many times too late. I told Carpenter what was happening, and he
rose, and ran out to the street.
It was like magic, of course. To these poor foreigners, Catholics
most of them, he did not suggest a moving picture actor on location;
he suggested something serious and miraculous. He called to the
crowd, stretching out his arms, and they gave way before him, and he
walked into them, and when he got to the struggling group he held
his arms over them, and that was all there was to it.
Except, of course, that he made them a speech. Seeing that he was
saving Bertie Stebbins' life, it was no more than fair that he
should have his own way, and that a member of the younger generation
should listen in unprotesting silence to a discourse, the political
and sociological implications of which must have been very offensive
to him. And Bertie listened; I think he would not have made a sound,
even if he could have, after the crack in the face he had got.
“My people,” said Carpenter, “what good would it do you to kill
these wretches? The blood-suckers who drain the life of the poor are
not to be killed by blows. There are too many of them, and more of
them grow in place of those who die. And what is worse, if you kill
them, you destroy in yourselves that which makes you better than
they, which gives you the right to life. You destroy those virtues
of patience and charity, which are the jewels of the poor, and make
them princes in the kingdom of love. Let us guard our crown of pity,
and not acquire the vices of our oppressors. Let us grow in wisdom,
and find ways to put an end to the world's enslavement, without the
degradation of our own hearts. For so many ages we have been
patient, let us wait but a little longer, and find the true way! Oh,
my people, my beloved poor, not in violence, but in solidarity, in
brotherhood, lies the way! Let us bid the rich go on, to the sure
damnation which awaits them. Let us not soil our hands with their
blood!”
He spread out his arms again, majestically. “Stand back! Make way
for them!”
Not all the crowd understood the words, but enough of them did, and
set the example. In dead silence they withdrew from the sides and
front of the car. The body of the dead child had been dragged out of
the way and laid on the sidewalk, covered by a coat; and so
Carpenter said to the Stebbins family: “The road is clear before
you. Step in.” Half dazed, the four people obeyed, and again
Carpenter raised his voice. “Drinkers of human blood, devourers of
human bodies, go your way! Go forward to that doom which history
prepares for parasites!”
The engine began to purr, and the car began to move. There was a low
mutter from the crowd, a moan of fury and baffled desire; but not a
hand was lifted, and the car shot away, and disappeared down the
street, leaving Carpenter standing on the curb, making a Socialist
speech to a mob of greasers and dagoes.
XXI