of smoke. Then he said: "For a fellow who has had for a full year the
advantage of the education of the New York clubs, you are strangely
young. Let me see, you are nineteen or twenty now--yes. Well, that
perhaps accounts for it. It 's a pity you were n't born older. It 's a
pity most men are n't. They would n't have to take so much time and lose
so many good things learning. Now, Mr. Hamilton, let me tell you, and
you will pardon me for it, that you are a fool. Your case is n't half as
bad as that of nine-tenths of the fellows that hang around here. Now,
for instance, my father was hung."
Joe started and gave a gasp of horror.
"Oh, yes, but it was done with a very good rope and by the best citizens
of Texas, so it seems that I really ought to be very grateful to them
for the distinction they conferred upon my family, but I am not. I am
ungratefully sad. A man must be very high or very low to take the
sensible view of life that keeps him from being sad. I must confess that
I have aspired to the depths without ever being fully able to reach
them.
"Now look around a bit. See that little girl over there? That 's Viola.
Two years ago she wrenched up an iron stool from the floor of a
lunch-room, and killed another woman with it. She 's nineteen,--just
about your age, by the way. Well, she had friends with a certain amount
of pull. She got out of it, and no one thinks the worse of Viola. You
see, Hamilton, in this life we are all suffering from fever, and no one
edges away from the other because he finds him a little warm. It 's
dangerous when you 're not used to it; but once you go through the
parching process, you become inoculated against further contagion. Now,
there 's Barney over there, as decent a fellow as I know; but he has
been indicted twice for pocket-picking. A half-dozen fellows whom you
meet here every night have killed their man. Others have done worse
things for which you respect them less. Poor Wallace, who is just coming
in, and who looks like a jaunty ragpicker, came here about six months
ago with about two thousand dollars, the proceeds from the sale of a
house his father had left him. He 'll sleep in one of the club chairs
to-night, and not from choice. He spent his two thousand learning. But,
after all, it was a good investment. It was like buying an annuity. He
begins to know already how to live on others as they have lived on him.
The plucked bird's beak is sharpened for other's feathers. From now on
Wallace will live, eat, drink, and sleep at the expense of others, and
will forget to mourn his lost money. He will go on this way until,
broken and useless, the poor-house or the potter's field gets him. Oh,
it 's a fine, rich life, my lad. I know you 'll like it. I said you
would the first time I saw you. It has plenty of stir in it, and a man
never gets lonesome. Only the rich are lonesome. It 's only the
independent who depend upon others."
Sadness laughed a peculiar laugh, and there was a look in his terribly
bright eyes that made Joe creep. If he could only have understood all
that the man was saying to him, he might even yet have turned back. But
he did n't. He ordered another drink. The only effect that the talk of
Sadness had upon him was to make him feel wonderfully "in it." It gave
him a false bravery, and he mentally told himself that now he would not
be afraid to face Hattie.
He put out his hand to Sadness with a knowing look. "Thanks, Sadness,"
he said, "you 've helped me lots."
Sadness brushed the proffered hand away and sprung up. "You lie," he
cried, "I have n't; I was only fool enough to try;" and he turned
hastily away from the table.
Joe looked surprised at first, and then laughed at his friend's
retreating form. "Poor old fellow," he said, "drunk again. Must have had
something before he came in."
There was not a lie in all that Sadness had said either as to their
crime or their condition. He belonged to a peculiar class,--one that
grows larger and larger each year in New York and which has imitators in
every large city in this country. It is a set which lives, like the
leech, upon the blood of others,--that draws its life from the veins of
foolish men and immoral women, that prides itself upon its well-dressed
idleness and has no shame in its voluntary pauperism. Each member of the
class knows every other, his methods and his limitations, and their
loyalty one to another makes of them a great hulking, fashionably
uniformed fraternity of indolence. Some play the races a few months of
the year; others, quite as intermittently, gamble at "shoestring"
politics, and waver from party to party as time or their interests seem
to dictate. But mostly they are like the lilies of the field.
It was into this set that Sadness had sarcastically invited Joe, and
Joe felt honoured. He found that all of his former feelings had been
silly and quite out of place; that all he had learned in his earlier
years was false. It was very plain to him now that to want a good
reputation was the sign of unpardonable immaturity, and that dishonour
was the only real thing worth while. It made him feel better.
He was just rising bravely to swagger out to the theatre when Minty
Brown came in with one of the club-men he knew. He bowed and smiled, but
she appeared not to notice him at first, and when she did she nudged her
companion and laughed.
Suddenly his little courage began to ooze out, and he knew what she must
be saying to the fellow at her side, for he looked over at him and
grinned. Where now was the philosophy of Sadness? Evidently Minty had
not been brought under its educating influences, and thought about the
whole matter in the old, ignorant way. He began to think of it too.
Somehow old teachings and old traditions have an annoying way of coming
back upon us in the critical moments of life, although one has long ago
recognised how much truer and better some newer ways of thinking are.
But Joe would not allow Minty to shatter his dreams by bringing up these
old notions. She must be instructed.
He rose and went over to her table.
"Why, Minty," he said, offering his hand, "you ain't mad at me, are
you?"
"Go on away f'om hyeah," she said angrily; "I don't want none o'
thievin' Berry Hamilton's fambly to speak to me."
"Why, you were all right this evening."
"Yes, but jest out o' pity, an' you was nice 'cause you was afraid I 'd
tell on you. Go on now."
"Go on now," said Minty's young man; and he looked menacing.
Joe, what little self-respect he had gone, slunk out of the room and
needed several whiskeys in a neighbouring saloon to give him courage to
go to the theatre and wait for Hattie, who was playing in vaudeville
houses pending the opening of her company.
The closing act was just over when he reached the stage door. He was
there but a short time, when Hattie tripped out and took his arm. Her
face was bright and smiling, and there was no suggestion of disgust in
the dancing eyes she turned up to him. Evidently she had not heard, but
the thought gave him no particular pleasure, as it left him in suspense
as to how she would act when she should hear.
"Let 's go somewhere and get some supper," she said; "I 'm as hungry as
I can be. What are you looking so cut up about?"
"Oh, I ain't feelin' so very good."
"I hope you ain't lettin' that long-tongued Brown woman bother your
head, are you?"
His heart seemed to stand still. She did know, then.
"Do you know all about it?"
"Why, of course I do. You might know she 'd come to me first with her
story."
"And you still keep on speaking to me?"
"Now look here, Joe, if you 've been drinking, I 'll forgive you; if you
ain't, you go on and leave me. Say, what do you take me for? Do you
think I 'd throw down a friend because somebody else talked about him?
Well, you don't know Hat Sterling. When Minty told me that story, she
was back in my dressing-room, and I sent her out o' there a-flying, and
with a tongue-lashing that she won't forget for a month o' Sundays."
"I reckon that was the reason she jumped on me so hard at the club." He
chuckled. He had taken heart again. All that Sadness had said was true,
after all, and people thought no less of him. His joy was unbounded.
"So she jumped on you hard, did she? The cat!"
"Oh, she did n't say a thing to me."
"Well, Joe, it 's just like this. I ain't an angel, you know that, but I
do try to be square, and whenever I find a friend of mine down on his
luck, in his pocket-book or his feelings, why, I give him my flipper.
Why, old chap, I believe I like you better for the stiff upper lip you
've been keeping under all this."
"Why, Hattie," he broke out, unable any longer to control himself, "you
're--you 're----"
"Oh, I 'm just plain Hat Sterling, who won't throw down her friends. Now
come on and get something to eat. If that thing is at the club, we 'll
go there and show her just how much her talk amounted to. She thinks she
's the whole game, but I can spot her and then show her that she ain't
one, two, three."
When they reached the Banner, they found Minty still there. She tried on
the two the same tactics that she had employed so successfully upon Joe
alone. She nudged her companion and tittered. But she had another
person to deal with. Hattie Sterling stared at her coldly and
indifferently, and passed on by her to a seat. Joe proceeded to order
supper and other things in the nonchalant way that the woman had
enjoined upon him. Minty began to feel distinctly uncomfortable, but it
was her business not to be beaten. She laughed outright. Hattie did not
seem to hear her. She was beckoning Sadness to her side. He came and sat
down.
"Now look here," she said, "you can't have any supper because you have
n't reached the stage of magnificent hunger to make a meal palatable to
you. You 've got so used to being nearly starved that a meal don't taste
good to you under any other circumstances. You 're in on the drinks,
though. Your thirst is always available.--Jack," she called down the
long room to the bartender, "make it three.--Lean over here, I want to
talk to you. See that woman over there by the wall? No, not that
one,--the big light woman with Griggs. Well, she 's come here with a
story trying to throw Joe down, and I want you to help me do her."
"Oh, that 's the one that upset our young friend, is it?" said Sadness,
turning his mournful eyes upon Minty.
"That 's her. So you know about it, do you?"
"Yes, and I 'll help do her. She must n't touch one of the fraternity,
you know." He kept his eyes fixed upon the outsider until she squirmed.
She could not at all understand this serious conversation directed at
her. She wondered if she had gone too far and if they contemplated
putting her out. It made her uneasy.
Now, this same Miss Sterling had the faculty of attracting a good deal
of attention when she wished to. She brought it into play to-night, and
in ten minutes, aided by Sadness, she had a crowd of jolly people about
her table. When, as she would have expressed it, "everything was going
fat," she suddenly paused and, turning her eyes full upon Minty, said in
a voice loud enough for all to hear,--
"Say, boys, you 've heard that story about Joe, have n't you?"
They had.
"Well, that 's the one that told it; she 's come here to try to throw
him and me down. Is she going to do it?"
"Well, I guess not!" was the rousing reply, and every face turned
towards the now frightened Minty. She rose hastily and, getting her
skirts together, fled from the room, followed more leisurely by the
crestfallen Griggs. Hattie's laugh and "Thank you, fellows," followed
her out.
* * * * *
Matters were less easy for Joe's mother and sister than they were for
him. A week or more after this, Kitty found him and told him that
Minty's story had reached their employers and that they were out of
work.
"You see, Joe," she said sadly, "we 've took a flat since we moved from
Mis' Jones', and we had to furnish it. We 've got one lodger, a
race-horse man, an' he 's mighty nice to ma an' me, but that ain't
enough. Now we 've got to do something."
Joe was so smitten with sorrow that he gave her a dollar and promised to
speak about the matter to a friend of his.
He did speak about it to Hattie.
"You 've told me once or twice that your sister could sing. Bring her
down here to me, and if she can do anything, I 'll get her a place on
the stage," was Hattie's answer.
When Kitty heard it she was radiant, but her mother only shook her head
and said, "De las' hope, de las' hope."
XII
"ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE"
Kitty proved herself Joe's sister by falling desperately in love with
Hattie Sterling the first time they met. The actress was very gracious
to her, and called her "child" in a pretty, patronising way, and patted
her on the cheek.
"It 's a shame that Joe has n't brought you around before. We 've been
good friends for quite some time."
"He told me you an' him was right good friends."
Already Joe took on a new importance in his sister's eyes. He must be
quite a man, she thought, to be the friend of such a person as Miss
Sterling.
"So you think you want to go on the stage, do you?"
"Yes, 'm, I thought it might be right nice for me if I could."
"Joe, go out and get some beer for us, and then I 'll hear your sister
sing."
Miss Sterling talked as if she were a manager and had only to snap her
fingers to be obeyed. When Joe came back with the beer, Kitty drank a
glass. She did not like it, but she would not offend her hostess. After
this she sang, and Miss Sterling applauded her generously, although the
young girl's nervousness kept her from doing her best. The encouragement
helped her, and she did better as she became more at home.
"Why, child, you 've got a good voice. And, Joe, you 've been keeping
her shut up all this time. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
The young man had little to say. He had brought Kitty almost under a
protest, because he had no confidence in her ability and thought that
his "girl" would disillusion her. It did not please him now to find his
sister so fully under the limelight and himself "up stage."
Kitty was quite in a flutter of delight; not so much with the idea of
working as with the glamour of the work she might be allowed to do.
"I tell you, now," Hattie Sterling pursued, throwing a brightly
stockinged foot upon a chair, "your voice is too good for the chorus.
Gi' me a cigarette, Joe. Have one, Kitty?--I 'm goin' to call you Kitty.
It 's nice and homelike, and then we 've got to be great chums, you
know."
Kitty, unwilling to refuse anything from the sorceress, took her
cigarette and lighted it, but a few puffs set her off coughing.
"Tut, tut, Kitty, child, don't do it if you ain't used to it. You 'll
learn soon enough."
Joe wanted to kick his sister for having tried so delicate an art and
failed, for he had not yet lost all of his awe of Hattie.
"Now, what I was going to say," the lady resumed after several
contemplative puffs, "is that you 'll have to begin in the chorus any
way and work your way up. It would n't take long for you, with your
looks and voice, to put one of the 'up and ups' out o' the business.
Only hope it won't be me. I 've had people I 've helped try to do it
often enough."
She gave a laugh that had just a touch of bitterness in it, for she
began to recognise that although she had been on the stage only a short
time, she was no longer the all-conquering Hattie Sterling, in the first
freshness of her youth.
"Oh, I would n't want to push anybody out," Kit expostulated.
"Oh, never mind, you 'll soon get bravely over that feeling, and even if
you did n't it would n't matter much. The thing has to happen. Somebody
's got to go down. We don't last long in this life: it soon wears us
out, and when we 're worn out and sung out, danced out and played out,
the manager has no further use for us; so he reduces us to the ranks or
kicks us out entirely."
Joe here thought it time for him to put in a word. "Get out, Hat," he
said contemptuously; "you 're good for a dozen years yet."
She did n't deign to notice him, save so far as a sniff goes.
"Don't you let what I say scare you, though, Kitty. You 've got a good
chance, and maybe you 'll have more sense than I 've got, and at least
save money--while you 're in it. But let 's get off that. It makes me
sick. All you 've got to do is to come to the opera-house to-morrow and
I 'll introduce you to the manager. He 's a fool, but I think we can
make him do something for you."
"Oh, thank you, I 'll be around to-morrow, sure."
"Better come about ten o'clock. There 's a rehearsal to-morrow, and you
'll find him there. Of course, he 'll be pretty rough, he always is at
rehearsals, but he 'll take to you if he thinks there 's anything in you
and he can get it out."
Kitty felt herself dismissed and rose to go. Joe did not rise.
"I 'll see you later, Kit," he said; "I ain't goin' just yet. Say," he
added, when his sister was gone, "you 're a hot one. What do you want to
give her all that con for? She 'll never get in."
"Joe," said Hattie, "don't you get awful tired of being a jackass?
Sometimes I want to kiss you, and sometimes I feel as if I had to kick
you. I 'll compromise with you now by letting you bring me some more
beer. This got all stale while your sister was here. I saw she did n't
like it, and so I would n't drink any more for fear she 'd try to keep
up with me."
"Kit is a good deal of a jay yet," Joe remarked wisely.
"Oh, yes, this world is full of jays. Lots of 'em have seen enough to
make 'em wise, but they 're still jays, and don't know it. That 's the
worst of it. They go around thinking they 're it, when they ain't even
in the game. Go on and get the beer."
And Joe went, feeling vaguely that he had been sat upon.
Kit flew home with joyous heart to tell her mother of her good
prospects. She burst into the room, crying, "Oh, ma, ma, Miss Hattie
thinks I 'll do to go on the stage. Ain't it grand?"
She did not meet with the expected warmth of response from her mother.
"I do' know as it 'll be so gran'. F'om what I see of dem stage people
dey don't seem to 'mount to much. De way dem gals shows demse'ves is
right down bad to me. Is you goin' to dress lak dem we seen dat night?"
Kit hung her head.
"I guess I 'll have to."
"Well, ef you have to, I 'd ruther see you daid any day. Oh, Kit, my
little gal, don't do it, don't do it. Don't you go down lak yo' brothah
Joe. Joe 's gone."
"Why, ma, you don't understand. Joe 's somebody now. You ought to 've
heard how Miss Hattie talked about him. She said he 's been her friend
for a long while."
"Her frien', yes, an' his own inimy. You need n' pattern aftah dat gal,
Kit. She ruint Joe, an' she 's aftah you now."
"But nowadays everybody thinks stage people respectable up here."
"Maybe I 'm ol'-fashioned, but I can't believe in any ooman's ladyship
when she shows herse'f lak dem gals does. Oh, Kit, don't do it. Ain't
you seen enough? Don't you know enough already to stay away f'om dese
hyeah people? Dey don't want nothin' but to pull you down an' den laugh
at you w'en you 's dragged in de dust."
"You must n't feel that away, ma. I 'm doin' it to help you."
"I do' want no sich help. I 'd ruther starve."
Kit did not reply, but there was no yielding in her manner.
"Kit," her mother went on, "dey 's somep'n I ain't nevah tol' you dat I
'm goin' to tell you now. Mistah Gibson ust to come to Mis' Jones's lots
to see me befo' we moved hyeah, an' he 's been talkin' 'bout a good
many things to me." She hesitated. "He say dat I ain't noways ma'ied to
my po' husban', dat a pen'tentiary sentence is de same as a divo'ce, an'
if Be'y should live to git out, we 'd have to ma'y ag'in. I would n't
min' dat, Kit, but he say dat at Be'y's age dey ain't much chanst of his
livin' to git out, an' hyeah I 'll live all dis time alone, an' den have
no one to tek keer o' me w'en I git ol'. He wants me to ma'y him, Kit.
Kit, I love yo' fathah; he 's my only one. But Joe, he 's gone, an' ef
yo go, befo' Gawd I 'll tell Tawm Gibson yes."
The mother looked up to see just what effect her plea would have on her
daughter. She hoped that what she said would have the desired result.
But the girl turned around from fixing her neck-ribbon before the glass,
her face radiant. "Why, it 'll be splendid. He 's such a nice man, an'
race-horse men 'most always have money. Why don't you marry him, ma?
Then I 'd feel that you was safe an' settled, an' that you would n't be
lonesome when the show was out of town."
"You want me to ma'y him an' desert yo' po' pa?"
"I guess what he says is right, ma. I don't reckon we 'll ever see pa
again an' you got to do something. You got to live for yourself now."
Her mother dropped her head in her hands. "All right," she said, "I 'll
do it; I 'll ma'y him. I might as well go de way both my chillen 's
gone. Po' Be'y, po' Be'y. Ef you evah do come out, Gawd he'p you to baih
what you 'll fin'." And Mrs. Hamilton rose and tottered from the room,
as if the old age she anticipated had already come upon her.
Kit stood looking after her, fear and grief in her eyes. "Poor ma," she
said, "an' poor pa. But I know, an' I know it 's for the best."
On the next morning she was up early and practising hard for her
interview with the managing star of "Martin's Blackbirds."
When she arrived at the theatre, Hattie Sterling met her with frank
friendliness.
"I 'm glad you came early, Kitty," she remarked, "for maybe you can get
a chance to talk with Martin before he begins rehearsal and gets all
worked up. He 'll be a little less like a bear then. But even if you
don't see him before then, wait, and don't get scared if he tries to
bluff you. His bark is a good deal worse than his bite."
When Mr. Martin came in that morning, he had other ideas than that of
seeing applicants for places. His show must begin in two weeks, and it
was advertised to be larger and better than ever before, when really
nothing at all had been done for it. The promise of this advertisement
must be fulfilled. Mr. Martin was late, and was out of humour with every
one else on account of it. He came in hurried, fierce, and important.
"Mornin', Mr. Smith, mornin', Mrs. Jones. Ha, ladies and gentlemen, all
here?"
He shot every word out of his mouth as if the after-taste of it were
unpleasant to him. He walked among the chorus like an angry king among
his vassals, and his glance was a flash of insolent fire. From his head
to his feet he was the very epitome of self-sufficient, brutal conceit.
Kitty trembled as she noted the hush that fell on the people at his
entrance. She felt like rushing out of the room. She could never face
this terrible man. She trembled more as she found his eyes fixed upon
her.
"Who 's that?" he asked, disregarding her, as if she had been a stick or
a stone.
"Well, don't snap her head off. It 's a girl friend of mine that wants a
place," said Hattie. She was the only one who would brave Martin.
"Humph. Let her wait. I ain't got no time to hear any one now. Get
yourselves in line, you all who are on to that first chorus, while I 'm
getting into my sweat-shirt."
He disappeared behind a screen, whence he emerged arrayed, or only half
arrayed, in a thick absorbing shirt and a thin pair of woollen trousers.
Then the work began. The man was indefatigable. He was like the spirit
of energy. He was in every place about the stage at once, leading the
chorus, showing them steps, twisting some awkward girl into shape,
shouting, gesticulating, abusing the pianist.
"Now, now," he would shout, "the left foot on that beat. Bah, bah, stop!
You walk like a lot of tin soldiers. Are your joints rusty? Do you want
oil? Look here, Taylor, if I did n't know you, I 'd take you for a
truck. Pick up your feet, open your mouths, and move, move, move! Oh!"
and he would drop his head in despair. "And to think that I 've got to
do something with these things in two weeks--two weeks!" Then he would
turn to them again with a sudden reaccession of eagerness. "Now, at it
again, at it again! Hold that note, hold it! Now whirl, and on the left
foot. Stop that music, stop it! Miss Coster, you 'll learn that step in
about a thousand years, and I 've got nine hundred and ninety-nine years
and fifty weeks less time than that to spare. Come here and try that
step with me. Don't be afraid to move. Step like a chicken on a hot
griddle!" And some blushing girl would come forward and go through the
step alone before all the rest.
Kitty contemplated the scene with a mind equally divided between fear
and anger. What should she do if he should so speak to her? Like the
others, no doubt, smile sheepishly and obey him. But she did not like to
believe it. She felt that the independence which she had known from
babyhood would assert itself, and that she would talk back to him, even
as Hattie Sterling did. She felt scared and discouraged, but every now
and then her friend smiled encouragingly upon her across the ranks of
moving singers.
Finally, however, her thoughts were broken in upon by hearing Mr. Martin
cry: "Oh, quit, quit, and go rest yourselves, you ancient pieces of
hickory, and let me forget you for a minute before I go crazy. Where 's
that new girl now?"