A year passed.
I had been painting along the Thames, lying in my punt, my face up to
the sky, or paddling in and out among the pond-lilies. I had idled, too,
on the lagoons of my beloved Venice, listening to Luigi crooning the
songs he loves so well, the soft air about me, the plash of my
gondolier's oar wrinkling the sheen of the silver sea. It had been a
very happy summer; full of color and life. The brush had worked easily,
the weather had lent a helping hand; all had been peace and quiet.
Ofttimes, when I was happiest, somehow Muffles's solitary figure rose
before me, the tears coursing down his cheeks, and with it that cold
silence--a silence which only a dead body brings to a house and which
ends only with its burial.
The week after I landed--it was in November, a day when the crows flew
in long wavy lines and the heavy white and gray clouds pressed close
upon the blue vista of the hills--I turned and crossed through the wood,
my feet sinking into the soft carpet of its dead leaves. Soon I caught a
glimpse of the chimneys of Shady Side thrust above the evergreens; a
curl of smoke was floating upward, filling the air with a filmy haze. At
this sign of life within, my heart gave a bound.
Muffles was still there!
When I swung back the gate and mounted the porch a feeling of
uncertainty came over me. The knocker was gone, and so was the sign. The
old-fashioned window-casings had been replaced by a modern door newly
painted and standing partly open. Perhaps Muffles had given up the bar
and was living here alone with his children.
I pushed open the door and stepped into the old-fashioned hall. This,
too, had undergone changes. The lantern was missing, and some modern
furniture stood against the walls. The bar where Bowser had dispensed
his beverages and from behind which he had brought his drawings had been
replaced by a long mahogany counter with marble top, the sideboard being
filled with cut glass and the more expensive appointments of a modern
establishment. The tables and chairs were also of mahogany; and a new
red carpet covered the floor. The proprietor was leaning against the
counter playing with his watch-chain--a short man with a bald head. A
few guests were sitting about, reading or smoking.
"What's become of Mulford," I asked; "Dick Mulford, who used to be
here?"
The man shook his head.
"Why, yes, you must have known him--some of his friends called him
Muffles."
The man continued to shake his head. Then he answered, carelessly:
"I've only been here six months--another man had it before me. He put
these fixtures in."
"Maybe you can tell me?"--and I turned to the bar-keeper.
"Guess he means the feller who blew in here first month we come," the
bar-keeper answered, addressing his remark to the proprietor. "He said
he'd been runnin' the place once."
"Oh, you mean that guy! Yes, I got it now," answered the proprietor,
with some animation, as if suddenly interested. "He come in the week we
opened--worst-lookin' bum you ever see--toes out of his shoes, coat all
torn. Said he had no money and asked for something to eat. Billy here
was goin' to fire him out when one of my customers said he knew him. I
don't let no man go hungry if I can help it, and so I sent him
downstairs and cook filled him up. After he had all he wanted to eat he
asked Billy if he might go upstairs into the front bedroom. I don't want
nobody prowlin' 'round--not that kind, anyhow--but he begged so I sent
Billy up with him. What did he do, Billy? You saw him." And he turned to
his assistant.
"Didn't do nothin' but just look in the door, he held on to the jamb and
I thought he was goin' to fall. Then he said he was much obliged, and
he walked downstairs again and out the door cryin' like a baby, and I
ain't seen him since."
Another year passed. To the picture of the man sitting alone in that
silent, desolate room was added the picture of the man leaning against
the jamb of the door, the tears streaming down his face. After this I
constantly caught myself peering into the faces of the tramps I would
meet in the street. Whenever I walked before the benches of Madison Park
or loitered along the shady paths of Union Square, I would stop, my eye
running over the rows of idle men reading the advertisements in the
morning papers or asleep on the seats. Often I would pause for a moment
as some tousled vagabond would pass me, hoping that I had found my
old-time friend, only to be disappointed. Once I met Bowser on his way
to his work, a roll of theatre-bills under his arm. He had gone back to
his trade and was working in a shop on Fourteenth Street. His account of
what had happened after the death of "the Missus" only confirmed my
fears. Muffles had gone on from bad to worse; the place had been sold
out by his partners; Muffles had become a drunkard, and, worse than all,
the indictment against him had been pressed for trial despite the
Captain's efforts, and he had been sent to the Island for a year for
receiving and hiding stolen goods. He had been offered his freedom by
the District Attorney if he would give up the names of the two men who
had stolen the silverware, but he said he'd rather "serve time than give
his pals away," and they sent him up. Some half-orphan asylum had taken
the children. One thing Bowser knew and he would "give it to me
straight," and he didn't care who heard it, and that was that there was
"a good many gospil sharps running church-mills that warn't half as
white as Dick Mulford--not by a d---- sight."
One morning I was trying to cross Broadway, dodging the trolleys that
swirled around the curves, when a man laid his hand on my arm with a
grip that hurt me.
It was Muffles!
Not a tramp; not a ragged, blear-eyed vagabond--older, more serious, the
laugh gone out of his eyes, the cheeks pale as if from long confinement.
Dressed in dark clothes, his face cleanshaven; linen neat, a plain black
tie--the hat worn straight, not slouched over his eyes with a rakish
cant as in the old days.
"My God! but I'm glad to see ye," he cried. "Come over in the Square and
let's sit down."
He was too excited to let me ask him any questions. It all poured out of
him in a torrent, his hand on my knee most of the time.
"Oh, but I had it tough! Been up for a year. You remember about it, the
time Pipes went bail. I didn't git none o' the swag; it warn't my job,
but I seed 'em through. But that warn't nothin'. It was de Missus what
killed me. Hadn't been for de kids I'd been off the dock many a time.
Fust month or two I didn't draw a sober breath. I couldn't stand it.
Soon's I'd come to I'd git to thinkin' agin and then it was all up wid
me. Then Pipes and de Sheriff went back on me and I didn't care. Bowser
stuck to me the longest. He got de kids took care of. He don't know I'm
out, or he'd turn up. I tried to find him, but nobody don't know where
he was a-workin'--none of de barrooms I've tried. Oh, but it was tough!
But it's all right now, d'ye hear? All right! I got a job up in Harlem,
see? I'm gittin' orders for coal." And he touched a long book that stuck
out of his breast-pocket. "And I've got a room near where I work. And I
tell ye another thing," and his hand sought mine, and a peculiar light
came into his eyes, "I got de kids wid me. You just oughter see de
boy--legs on him thick as your arm! I toll ye that's a comfort, and
don't you forgit it. And de little gal! Ain't like her mother?
what!--well, I should smile!"