The Mayor of New York appointed the twenty-fifth of February for a
hearing in the City Hall, at which Lilienfeld and his attorneys, Brown
and Samuelson, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
were to present their arguments for and against the injunction
restraining Ingigerd Hahlström from dancing in public. Mrs. Lilienfeld
dressed Ingigerd up in "smart" clothes, put her in a cab, and in the
capacity of chaperone drove down to the City Hall with her. Frederick,
upon whose presence Ingigerd had insisted, had gone ahead in another cab
with Lilienfeld.
"This is the situation," Lilienfeld explained as they drove through the
length of the cold, grey, dreary city. "At present New York is in the
control of Tammany. At the last elections the Republicans were defeated.
Ilroy, the Mayor, is a Tammany man. The word Tammany is derived from an
Indian sachem, Tamenund, who figures in Cooper's Leather-stocking novels.
The party leaders have silly Indian names and titles. But don't be
deceived by all that romantic Indian nonsense. The members of Tammany
Hall are mighty practical. The Tammany tiger is an animal not to be
trifled with in the great New York sheepfold. I think we may feel pretty
sure, though not absolutely certain, of having the Tammany tiger, and
therefore the Mayor, with us in this matter. Mr. Garry is a Republican,
a deadly enemy of Tammany Hall, and it would give Ilroy the greatest
satisfaction to deal a neat little blow at him and that idiotic
institution, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. But
his term is nearly expired, and as he would like to be elected again, it
is politic for him to make a few concessions to the Republicans. Well,
we'll see. We have to wait and see."
The cab rolled down Lenox Avenue through Central Park and along Fifth
Avenue, past the Metropolitan Museum, the Lenox Library, the millionaire
residences, and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Below Fiftieth Street it turned
into Broadway, where Lilienfeld pointed out the buildings of interest,
Madison Square, and the Hoffman House, the gathering place of the
Democrats. Finally they reached the City Hall Park, in the centre of
which stands the City Hall, a marble structure with a cupola and a
portico. In the portico the gentlemen awaited the ladies.
While walking to and fro, Frederick suddenly felt someone tugging at his
coat. He turned and saw a pretty, stylishly dressed little girl.
"Why, Ella Liebling, where do you come from?"
Ella courtesied and said:
"I am out with Rosa. There she is."
Frederick turned and saw Rosa standing on the steps.
"Good morning, Doctor von Kammacher," she said.
Frederick introduced Ella to Mr. Lilienfeld. "Ella was in the shipwreck.
Here you have additional proof of the tremendous physical power of
resistance of the so-called weaker sex."
"Good morning, little girl. Is it really true that you were in that awful
shipwreck?"
"Yes, indeed," came the unabashed answer, spiced with a dash of
childishly coquettish pride, "and my brother was drowned."
"Oh, poor child," said Lilienfeld. His manner was abstracted. Evidently
his mind was on the speech he might be compelled to deliver before the
Mayor of New York. "Excuse me," he said suddenly to Frederick, and moved
a few steps away to make a hasty, nervous perusal of his notes, which he
had written on a slip of paper and had taken from his pocket.
"My mother was dead, too, but came back to life again."
"How's that? How's that?" asked Lilienfeld, raising his gold spectacles
slightly from his nose and peering at her from under them.
Frederick explained how they had had to work over Mrs. Liebling for
several hours before they succeeded in resuscitating her.
"If in this world honours were awarded according to merit," Frederick
added, "then that simple servant-girl there"--he pointed to Rosa--"ought
to receive greater honour as a hero of two worlds than Lafayette. She
performed miracles. She never thought of herself, but only of her
mistress, Mrs. Liebling, of the two children, and the rest of us."
Frederick went to Rosa and shook hands with her. When he inquired for
Mrs. Liebling, she turned red as a peony.
"Mrs. Liebling is very well," she said, and promptly burst into tears,
having been reminded of little Siegfried. When she dried her eyes, she
told Frederick that she and a German consul, without Mrs. Liebling, had
attended to all the formalities of the burial and that she had been the
only one to see the little corpse laid away in the Jewish cemetery.
"Oh, why did you stop trying to revive Siegfried so soon? I begged and
begged you to go on. There was still life in him. He would have come to,"
she wailed.
Here a stranger joined them. It was not until he was quite close that
Frederick recognised in the correctly clad man the valet of Arthur Stoss.
"Doctor von Kammacher," said Bulke, "Rosa cannot get it out of her mind.
Can't you make her understand that it isn't right always to be going over
and over such a thing and that she ought to forget it? It couldn't be
worse if she had lost a boy of her own. I want to tell you, Doctor von
Kammacher, Rosa and I are engaged to be married."
"You are certainly to be congratulated, Mr. Bulke. I am delighted to hear
it."
"As soon as I can get away from Mr. Stoss and Rosa can get away from Mrs.
Liebling, we are going back to Europe. Before I entered the navy, I was a
skilled butcher. My brother in Bremen wrote to me that there was a little
meat and sausage and steamer supply business to be had there. We both
have some money saved up. So why shouldn't we try it? You can't go on
working for strangers forever."
"I quite agree with you," said Frederick.
The marksman's valet held out his hand to Rosa, whispered "Mrs.
Liebling's coming," and left. The same instant Ella ran off calling,
"Mamma."
Mrs. Liebling was coming through the park, walking beside a gentleman.
From her costume, befitting the wife of a Russian prince of the royal
house, it was evident that she had already found the opportunity to
replace her wardrobe. Frederick shook hands with her and remembered the
mole under her left breast and several other marks on the lovely body,
which he had so ruthlessly worked like a machine to restore the breath
to it.
She introduced him to her companion, a dark, thick-set, elegantly dressed
man, who eyed Frederick with a suspicious, repellent expression.
"Curious," thought Frederick. "This microcephalous creature thinks I am
his enemy, whereas he ought to know what he owes me. There I toiled and
travailed and sweated to raise the dead. I considered myself a highly
moral instrument of Providence, and after all, I was working for nothing
but the pleasure of a sleek, consequential Don Juan."
Mrs. Liebling, who had already been in Boston and Washington, was
perfectly delighted with America.
"What do you think of the New York hotels? I am living at the Waldorf.
Aren't they magnificent? I have four rooms in the front. Such quiet,
such luxury, such beautiful pictures! You feel as if you were in the
Arabian Nights. Doctor von Kammacher, you positively must go to
Delmonico's. What has Berlin, or even Paris, to compare with it? You
can't find a restaurant like Delmonico's or hotels like New York hotels
in Europe."
"Possibly," said Frederick, quite dazed.
"Have you been in the Metropolitan Opera House yet?"
Mrs. Liebling continued to put similar lively interrogations, to which
she demanded small responses from Frederick, supplying most of the
answers herself.
He thought of Rosa and Siegfried and had time to inspect and reinspect
the signor's brand-new patent leather shoes, the straight creases down
his trousers, his watch chain, his diamond scarf pin, his monocle, his
high hat, and his expensive fur coat.
"What have you got to do with our famous tenor of the Metropolitan Opera
Company?" Lilienfeld asked Frederick, when he returned to the portico
with a "Whew!" of relief. Frederick did not understand, and Lilienfeld
repeated the same Italian name that Mrs. Liebling had mentioned in
introducing the signor to Frederick. He was astonished that Frederick did
not know what a world-renowned star this new friend of Mrs. Liebling's
was.