THE STRANGE WORLD.
One night Harlson, with a great appetite, as usual,--for he had not
eaten since his scant breakfast,--went out to get his supper. It was
not dinner, for he never, at that time, dined. He had in his pocket
twenty cents. The next day he would get his usual weekly stipend. He
would spend fifteen cents, he thought, upon his supper, then return to
the office to sleep, and would have five cents remaining for the
morning meal. That would do to buy buns with, and he would endure what
stomach clamor might come until evening, when he would be a capitalist,
and riot in all he could eat, even though he doubled a cheap order.
So he reasoned, as he went down the garish street, and looked right and
left for some new restaurant, for he chanced to want a change. One's
love for cheap restaurants is not perpetual. A mild illuminated sign
over a small building attracted his attention. It had the aspect of
what would be cheap, but clean.
Harlson entered the place and found what he had looked for. There was
the small front room with scattered tables, the partition at the back,
reaching but half way to the ceiling, with the usual curtained door,
and there was no one in the room. He took a seat beside one of the
tables and there waited. He had not long to wait. The curtains parted
and a woman entered. The woman who came into the room was possibly
thirty-five years of age. She was strong of frame, though not uncouth,
and had keen, laughing gray eyes, heavy eyebrows and chestnut hair.
She was a half jaunty, buxom amazon, with a brazen, comrade look about
her, and was evidently the proprietress of the place. She came to
where Harlson was seated and asked him what he wished to eat. The
patron of this restaurant was studying the bill of fare intently. He
wanted to get what was, as Sam Weller says, "werry fillin," at the
price, and yet he had certain fancies. He looked up at the woman and
said, bluntly:
"I have only fifteen cents to spend. What would you advise for the
money?"
For the first time the eyes of the two met. Harlson was interested in
the fraction of a second. In the fraction of a second he knew that it
was not a restaurant pure and simple that he had entered, for he had
learned much already in the city. The woman who looked at him was not
merely the proprietress of a place where food was sold.
The woman did not answer at once. She was looking at the customer.
She pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down.
"Have you lived here long?" she said.
Harlson had been so isolated, that to have an inquiry made in relation
to his personal affairs seemed droll. It seemed something like
humanity again, as well.
He studied more closely the woman opposite. She did not convey any
idea of a creature of innate dishonesty or treacherous character. She
had the appearance of being a shrewd, merry, healthy sinner. He forgot
that she owed him an answer as he met her question:
"No, I have not lived here long, but I am as hungry as if I had lived
here for half a century. What shall I order?"
She looked at him curiously. His language was not of the kind she had
been accustomed to. She measured him from head to heel, while he noted
her examination and was amused, and showed it in his face. She
blushed, or rather flushed, and measured him again. Then she told him
what he should order most wisely for the sum he had named. He was
surprised at the quantity and quality of it.
The woman, meanwhile, had left him without further comment. As he was
ending his meal, she came in again and took the seat in front of him.
"You are hungry," she said.
"I was, decidedly. I'm not now."
She looked him over.
"You have spent only fifteen cents. What is the matter?"
He was surprised. He looked into her eyes and was perplexed. Why
should this woman ask him this question? But he could see nothing in
those eyes save a gray inquisition.
"I had only that much to spend to-night, that's all. Do you see
anything absurd about it?"
The woman was puzzled in turn. She looked into the man's face in a
fearless way enough, but did not know what to say. Then again came
that odd way of looking over him. Finally she broke out:
"You haven't any more money, and yet you put on airs. I like it."
"I am much obliged," said he.
"That isn't fair. You know what I mean. And you know already--you're
not a fool--what this place is. It is mine. The little restaurant in
front is but a part. Women come here--and men. Two women live here.
Did you think that?"
Harlson said he had inferred, since he came in, that the restaurant was
not a restaurant alone.
"It's a funny world," he said.
She was bothered. "I don't know what you mean about the world, and I
don't care. But I would like to know what your business is, and how
you are doing?"
"I am not doing well, and get hungry sometimes. Had it not been for
that I should not have come here to-night. But what is it to you?"
"Can't you see? Why am I talking to you?"
"I don't know."
She looked at him steadily again.
"What do you want?" was his inquiry.
"Where do you live?"
"I have no bed. I am in a lawyer's office. I can't afford a
boarding-house just now, and I sleep on the office floor."
"How do you like that?" she asked.
"I don't like it."
"Then why do you stay there?"
"Where else would I sleep? I have only so much a week."
"Would you like to stay here to-night?"
"Maybe. This is better than the office floor; at least I imagine it
is."
The curtains parted and there was a heavy step upon the floor. A man
came in. He stopped and looked at the couple grimly. He was a big man
whose cheeks had jowls and whose eyes were red. He had the air of a
bully. He seemed perfectly at ease and conscious of his status, and
the woman started, then looked up half anxiously and half defiantly.
The man spoke first:
"What are you doing here?"
"I am talking with this gentleman at the table."
"You mustn't talk with these fellows. Get out of here!" he said,
turning to Harlson.
Harlson was not really in a pleasant frame of mind; he had been too
hungry. It was not the occasion on which a flabby bully should have
thus addressed him. He did not answer the man, but turned to the woman.
"Is that your husband?" he asked.
"No."
"What is he, then?"
It was the intruder who answered, violently:
"She belongs to me, and you'd better get out of here."
"I don't belong to him! He has lived here, but I want to get away from
him! Now," turning recklessly to the man, "you may do what you please!"
The man paid little note to what the woman said. His attention was
bestowed upon Harlson.
"Look here, young fellow! Get out of this, and get out quick! You're
in the way!"
Now, upon this young man Harlson, during this conversation, had come a
certain increased ill humor. He was in no violent mood, as yet, but he
was not, as has been said, one for a big flabby brute to thus annoy.
He was quiet enough, though.
"I've come into a restaurant to get my supper."
The man's red face became redder still. "If you don't get out, I'll
throw you out!"
Harlson stood up. "I'll not go!" he said, and then the man rushed upon
him.
It was only a clean, quick blow, but there was no check nor parry to
mar its full effectiveness. The man plunged forward too confidently,
the blow caught him fairly in the face, on the fullness of the cheek,
just under the eye, and those bronzed knuckles cut in to the bone. It
was a wicked blow, and its force was great enough to hurl the whole
body back. The man whirled away under it, and he went toppling down,
with his arms thrown up wildly. As he fell, he pitched still further
back, in his effort to save himself, and his head struck the
wainscoting as he reached the floor. Blood gushed from his cut cheek.
It was a moment or two before he clambered slowly to his feet.
"Shall I hit you just once more?" was Harlson's query.
The man did not answer. The woman stood looking on curiously, but
saying nothing. Harlson waited for a time, then told his assailant to
go away; and the man picked up his hat and stumbled out upon the street.
The woman sat down again. It was some time before she spoke.
"You are strong, and will fight," she said.
"I had nothing else to do."
"Do you want to stay here?"
"It is better than the office floor."
"Will you stay here?"
He hesitated. It was a turning-point in his life, and he knew it.
There was something rather startling to him in it.
Then came the swift reflection: He wanted to know all of life. This
was the under-life, the under-current, of which reformers prate so much
and know so little. Why not be greater than they? Why not have been a
part of it, and in time to come speak knowingly? He was but a part of
this world, as accident had made it. He hoped if the world wagged well
to be a protector for certain weak ones. It was a world wherein
immediate brute force told. Well, he could supply that easily enough.
And what would he not learn? He would learn the city, the ignorance of
which had resulted in his being hungry--he, a young man college-bred,
and with some knowledge of Quintilian's crabbedness, or the equations
of X and Y in this or that or the Witch of Agnesi. And were not these
people part of the world, and was not this life something of which he
ought to know the very heart?
Still, there were relations of things to be considered. There were
people at home, and it would not do.
Then, just as he turned to refuge the woman who sat looking at him, the
curtains parted again and a face appeared. It was the face of a woman,
not of the world about him. It was some accident, some sinister,
unexampled happening, which had brought the face to the surroundings.
It gave to the wavering man a new idea of this world of shame and sin,
and it may have been the deciding ounce.