Georgia smiled a little woefully over the transparent intention of
Stevens' letter. He was so obviously trying to do her a great kindness
and disguise it as business by his talk of six per cent.
She knew that with young men and small sums interest rates lose their
meaning. Everybody would rather have a quarter down than a cent a year
forever. Any young hustler on a salary would rather have $270 cash
than an unsecured promise of $16 annually.
Oh, he was naïve and boyish as ever to think she wouldn't promptly
penetrate his little plan. She had always seen through his various
tricks and stratagems in regard to her from the very beginning. She
didn't remember one time when he had fooled her successfully. It was
like having a young son who hardly needs to talk to you at all, you can
read his mind so easily as it runs along from thing to thing.
She went to a newspaper office to answer one advertisement and insert
another. The one she answered was for "A rapid typist--beginners not
wanted. State name, experience, age, education." A blind address was
given. "Y 672," care of the paper. She wrote an appreciative account
of her talents, but was grieved to discover that Y 672 was none other
than the Eastern Life Assurance Company. Evidently Mr. Cleever was
going in for many changes.
Ten days later she was with a mail order house, in a huge reënforced
concrete block-like building, just across the river on the west side.
The roof of this enormous edifice, according to advertisement, covered
99 acres of floor space, or some such dimension. The firm didn't do a
retail business in Chicago, so everything was rough and ready. The
clerks worked in their shirt sleeves, usually blue ones. They were a
bigger, thicker-necked lot than the downtowners, and freer-tongued
before the women. She wasn't at all disconcerted, however, by any
amount of the "damns" and "hells."
She was described on the books of the company as "Stenographer; Class
A; Female; First six months' of employment; salary $12." The
understanding was that if she made good she would be promoted, and this
she promised herself to do, but didn't.
The advertisement which Georgia put in the paper was:
TO RENT--2667 Pearl Ave., beautiful double front room, near lake and
park; single gentleman; breakfast if desired; reasonable. Connor,
third flat.
Mrs. Talbot could not be brought to lowering caste by taking a roomer
until Georgia explained about her debt to Mason. This veered the older
woman's mind violently about, and she began immediately to figure if it
wouldn't be possible to squeeze in two persons instead of one--which
proposition Georgia promptly vetoed.
Jim acquiesced gloomily in the loss of the front room. He didn't see
why paying Stevens' interest at six per cent wouldn't satisfy the
nicest sense of honor. Six per cent was a good investment for anybody.
Lord knows he wished someone was paying it to him. He would feel
ashamed to have a visitor shown back to the dining room instead of
forward to the parlor.
Al alone contemplated the subject with equanimity. He dismissed it by
saying that it wouldn't get him anything one way or the other. To him
the parlor meant the place where the family gathered together after
supper to bore him. He'd rather sit in a back room and chin with the
crowd across a round, yellow, slippery table, or go across to Jonas'
and try to win a little beer money at Kelly pool. He seldom analyzed
his emotions; he simply knew it was fun to squat down by the
rectangular green cloth table, squint his eye, and sight his shot,
while the crowd watched him through the cigarette smoke, then to
straighten up decisively as if he had solved the problem, tip his hat
back, whistle through his teeth, chalk his cue and put the ball in.
Contrariwise it was darned little fun in the front room after supper.
The applicant for lodging with whom Georgia finally agreed on terms was
Mr. Cyrus Kane, copy reader on an afternoon newspaper. He was a
widower of forty-five, quiet, neat and regular pay. He never once had
a visitor to see him. He didn't kick.
But to balance all these excellent qualities was one major drawback:
his unalterable condition was that he should be served in bed with a
pot of black coffee at five o'clock each morning. He explained he had
to be at the office at six, and that he couldn't stir without coffee;
in fact, he said he was a regular caffein fiend. Georgia hesitated,
then added a dollar and a half to her price, which he accepted,
agreeing to pay $5.50 a week.
Mrs. Talbot paled a trifle when informed that she had been elected to
arise at 4:45 A.M. every day and set Mr. Kane's coffee on the gas ring
until it was hot enough to take in to him. But she agreed because she
felt that so she was helping to clear Georgia's honor. On the first
Sunday morning of this stay Mrs. Talbot missed the coffee because she
knew that Mr. Kane's paper didn't publish that day and supposed, or
anyway hoped, that he would sleep late. At six the whole family was
awakened by his loud mutterings to himself which percolated through the
flat.
"They agreed to bring my coffee at five; they _agreed_; and here it is
near seven and not a sign of it. _Not_ a _sign_ of it. ---- it. I'll
leave, yes by ---- I'll leave!" He thrashed about furiously in his
bed, turning over and over, and striking the pillow with clenched fists
in his rage.
Mrs. Talbot, in sack and skirt over her nightgown, stockingless, her
gray hair loose, went running in to him with his pot of steaming black
dope. He smiled cherubically when he saw her. It was the only trouble
they ever had with him.
On Mr. Kane's coming Jim had to clear out of the front room, so he went
to Georgia's.
That evening as she undressed rapidly in the light before his approving
eyes she had a sudden strange relieved feeling that after what she had
been through in the past few months a little more wouldn't greatly
matter one way or the other.
It would certainly be unpleasant to have Jim pawing her again, but she
had successfully postponed it much longer than she expected, so now she
had better be philosophical about it. As far as she could gather most
women obliged their husbands and not themselves in the frequency of
their embraces.
Why, therefore, excite her imagination and her sense of horror, and try
to make a tremendous hard luck story out of what after all was a
perfectly common and commonplace situation? Let her avoid it whenever
possible and accept it with calm equanimity when necessary.
It was rather ridiculous to think herself a shrinking victim of
masculine passion. She had borne this man a child, she was scarred
with life, a matron of nearly ten years standing.
"And I look every bit of it," she commented half aloud, as she stood
before the mirror slipping off her corset cover.
"What'd you say?" he asked, turning his eyes toward her. He was seated
on the bed stooping over, trying to undo a hard knotted shoe lace with
his blunt finger nails.
"I said hurry up--I'm sleepy."
"You just bet I will," he answered eagerly.
Not long after this domestic readjustment Jim was smoking, his wife
reading and his mother-in-law sewing in the dining room after supper
when the doorbell rang from the vestibule below. Georgia pressed the
opener and admitted Ed Miles, the boss of the ward, "the big fellow."
She wasn't a bit glad to see him. She thought that to keep Jim away
from politics and politicians was the only way to keep him away from
drinking.
The big fellow made a formal call. He sat on the edge of his chair,
his gray derby hat pushed under it, and constantly addressed Georgia as
ma'am. Although she mistrusted him every moment of his visit, she felt
the power of him, the brusque charm of his vitality, the humor of his
laugh.
When he rose to go he said good-bye politely to the women and then to
Jim, who could tell by the pressure of the big fellow's hand that he
wanted a word alone with him.
"I'll see you to the door, Ed," said Jim, and they walked out together.
Georgia noticed thankfully that her husband did not take his hat and
that he was wearing slippers.
"I want you to do me a little favor, Jim. You know we have our ward
club election the first Monday of the new year.
"Yes."
"Come around."
"I ain't a member of the club any more."
"I'll fix that--and your back dues, too."
"I promised my wife to keep out of politics."
"I don't blame her either. You were going some for a married man. But
the fact is, they're trying under cover to take the organization away
from us."
"I heard there was a little battle on."
"It's more than that. It goes deep. They've got backing. Now if my
friends throw me down--"
"You know damn well I wouldn't throw you down, Ed."
"If you don't come to the front when I need you, it's the same thing.
And I need you now. This is confidential, y'understand?"
"Sure."
"Because I wouldn't let it get out I was worried."
The two men were standing side by side on the front stoop in a stream
of arc light from the street lamp.
"I want your vote," said Miles, "for old sake's sake."
"I dassen't go into politics regular, Ed."
"I don't ask you to."
"But I might slip up to the ward meeting one night, just doing my duty
as a citizen."
"You're a good fellow, Jim." There was a trace of huskiness in the big
fellow's bass voice and Jim felt himself again moved by his old loyalty
to his leader. The two shook hands warmly, fervently, with the facile
emotions of politicians.
"One thing about me--I never quit on my friends when they need me."
There was a perceptible huskiness in Jim's voice also.
"I know it damn well," said the big fellow, throwing his arm about the
other's shoulder, "because you're a thoroughbred." He thrust his hand
into his side pocket and brought forth several dozen large glazed white
cards bearing the legend, "For President Fortieth Ward Club, Carl
Schroeder," with an oval half-tone of the fat-faced candidate.
"I don't know's I've got time to make any canvass, Ed," said Jim,
slipping the cards back and forth through his fingers. "So you're
running Carl, eh?"
The big fellow boomed a laugh. "You didn't know it--Reuben come to
town. Sure we're running Carl, and he said only this morning if he
could get you with him he'd walk in."