"Then what are you asking me for?"
"Because you seem to have watched me--"
"I didn't watch you," she denied, indignantly. "The idea! You sure have
your nerve with you. I couldn't help seeing a guy that was right under
my eyes, could I? Besides which--"
"Yes? Besides which--?" I insisted.
She brought the words out with an air of chaffing embarrassment. "Well,
you weren't got up as you are now. Do you know it?"
As I reddened and stammered something about the war, she laid her hand
on my arm soothingly.
"There now! There now! That's all right. I never give any one away.
You can see for yourself that I can't have knocked about the world like
I've done without running up against this sort of thing a good many
times--"
"What sort of thing?"
"Oh, well, if you don't know I needn't tell you. But I'm your friend,
kid. That's all I want you to know. It's why I told you about myself.
I wanted you to see that we're all in the same boat. Harry Drinkwater's
your friend, too. He likes you. You stick by us and we'll stick by you
and see the thing through."
It was on my lips to say, "What thing?" but she rattled on again.
"Only you can't wear that sort of clothes and get away with it, kid. Do
you know it? Another fellow might, but you simply can't. It shows you
up at the first glance. The night you came on board you might just as
well have marched in carrying a blue silk banner. For Heaven's sake, if
you've got anything else in your kit go and put it on."
"I haven't."
"Haven't? What on earth have you done with all the swell things you
must have had? Burned 'em?"
The question was so direct, and the good-will behind it so evident, that
I felt I must give an answer. "Sold them."
"Got down to that, did you? What do you know? Poor little kid! Funny,
isn't it? A woman can carry that sort of thing off nine times out
often; but a fat-head of a man--"
She kept the sentence suspended while gazing over my shoulder. The lips
remained parted as in uttering the last word. I was about to turn to
see what so entranced her, when she said, in a tone of awe or joy, I was
not sure which:
"There's that poor little blind boy coming down the deck all by himself.
You'll excuse me, won't you, if I run and help him?"
So she ran.
*CHAPTER VI*
Beyond this point I had made no progress when we landed in New York. I
still knew myself as Jasper Soames. Miss Blair still suspected that I
was running away from justice. That I was running away from justice I
suspected myself, since how could I do otherwise? All the way up the
Bay I waited for that tap on my shoulder which I could almost have
welcomed for the reason that it would relieve me of some of my
embarrassments.
Those embarrassments had grown more entangling throughout the last days
of the voyage. The very good-will of the people about me increased the
complications in which I was finding myself involved. Every one asked a
different set of questions, the answers I gave being not always
compatible with each other. I didn't exactly lie; I only replied
wildly--trying to guard my secret till I could walk off the boat and
disappear from the ken of these kindly folk who did nothing but wish me
well.
I accomplished this feat, I am bound to confess, with little credit; but
credit was not my object. All I asked was the privilege of being alone,
with leisure to take stock of my small assets and reckon up the
possibilities before me. As it was incredible that a man such as I was
could be lost on the threshold of his home I needed all the faculties
that remained to me in order to think out the ways and means by which I
could be found.
So alone I found myself, though not without resorting to ruses of which
I was even then ashamed.
It was Miss Blair who scared me into them. Coming up to me on deck,
during the last afternoon on board, she said, casually:
"Going to stay awhile in New York?"
It was a renewal of the everlasting catechism, so I said, curtly:
"I dare say."
"Oh, don't be huffy! Looking for a job?"
"Later, perhaps; not at once."
In her smile, as her eye caught mine, there was a visible significance.
"You'll be a good kid, wont you? You'll--you'll keep on the level?"
I made a big effort on my own part, so as to see how she would take it.
"If I'm not nabbed going up the Bay."
"Oh, you won't be. It can't be as--as bad as all that. Even if it
was--" She left this sentiment for me to guess at while she went on.
"Where do you expect to stay?"
I was about to name one of New York's expensive hotels when it occurred
to me that she would burst out laughing at the announcement, she would
take it as a joke. I realized then that it struck me also as a joke.
It was incongruous not only with my appearance, but with my entire role
throughout the trip. I ended by replying that I hadn't made up my mind.
"Well, then, if you're looking for a place--"
"I can't say that I'm that."
"Or if you should be, I've given Harry Drinkwater a very good address."
It was only a rooming-house, she explained to me, but for active people
the more convenient for that, and with lots of good cafes in the
neighborhood. She told me of one in particular--Alfonso was the name of
the restaurateur--where one could get a very good dinner, with wine, for
seventy-five cents, and an adequate breakfast for forty. Moreover, Miss
Blair had long known the lady who kept the rooming-house in question, a
friend of her mother's she happened to be, and any one whom she, Lydia
Blair, sent with her recommendation would find the place O.K.
I was terrified. I didn't mean to go to this well-situated dwelling,
"rather far west" in Thirty-fifth Street; I only had visions of being
wafted there against my will. So much had happened in which my will had
not been consulted that I was afraid of the kindliest of intentions.
When at dinner that evening Miss Mulberry apologized across the table
for her coldness toward me during the trip, ascribing it to a
peculiarity of hers in never making gentlemen friends till sure they
were gentlemen, and offering me her permanent address, I resolved that
after that meal none of the whole group should catch another glimpse of
me.
For this reason I escaped to my cabin directly after dinner, packed my
humble belongings, and went to bed. When, toward eleven, Drinkwater
came down, putting the question, as he stumbled in, "'Sleep, Jasper?" I
replied with a faint snore. For the last two or three days he had been
scattering Jaspers throughout his sentences, and I only didn't ask him
to give up the practice because of knowing that with men of his class
familiarity is a habit. Besides, it would be all over in a few days, so
that I might as well take it patiently.
And yet I was sorry that it had to be so, for something had made me like
him. During the days of the equinoctial bad weather it had fallen to me
to steer him about the staggering ship, and one is naturally drawn to
anything helpless. Then, too, of all the men to whom I ever lent a hand
he was the most demonstrative. He had a boy's way of pawing you, of
sprawling over you, of giving your hand little twitches, or affectionate
squeezes to your arm. There was no liberty he wouldn't take; but when
he took them they didn't seem to be liberties. If I betrayed a hint of
annoyance he would pat me on any part of my person he happened to touch,
with some such soothing words as:
"There, there, poor 'ittle Jasper! Let him come to his muvverums and
have his 'ittle cry."
But I had to turn my back on him. There was no help for it. I
understood, however, that people in his class were less sensitive to
discourtesy than those in mine. They were used to it. True, he was
blind; but then it was not to be expected that I should look after every
blind man I happened to run against in traveling. Besides all this, I
had made up my mind what I meant to do, and refused to discuss it
further even with myself.
He was hoisting himself to the upper bunk when he made a second attempt
to draw me.
"You'll have people to meet you to-morrow morning?"
"Oh, I suppose so," I grunted, sleepily. "Some of 'em will be there." A
second or two having passed, I felt it necessary to add, "Same with you,
I suppose?"
He replied from overhead. "Sure! Two or three of the guys 'll be
jazzing round the dock. There'll be--a--Jack--and--a--Jim--and--a--well,
a pile of 'em." He was snuggling down into his pillow as he wound up
with a hearty, "Say, Jasper, I'll be--I'll be all right--I'll be
_fine_."
Deciding that I wouldn't call this bluff, I turned and went to sleep.
Up with dawn, I slipped out of the cabin before the blind man had
stirred. Early rising got its reward in a morning of silver tissue.
Silver tissue was flung over the Bay, woven into the air, and formed all
we could see of the sky. Taking my place as far toward the bow as I
could get, I watched till two straight lines forming a right angle
appeared against the mist, after which, magical, pearly, spiritual,
white in whiteness, tower in cloud, the great city began to show itself
through the haze, like something born of the Holy Ghost.
Having nothing to carry but my bag and suitcase, I was almost the first
on shore. So, too, I must have been the first of the passengers ready
to leave the dock. But two things detained me, just as I was going to
take my departure.
The first was fear. It came without warning--a fear of solitude, of the
city, of the danger of arrest, of the first steps to be taken. I was
like a sick man who hasn't realized how weak he is till getting out of
bed. I had picked up my bags after the custom-house officer had passed
them, to walk out of the pen under the letter S, when the thought of
what I was facing suddenly appalled me. Dropping my load to the dusty
floor, I sank on the nearest trunk.
I have read in some English book of reminiscences the confession of
dread on the part of a man released after fifteen years' imprisonment on
first going into the streets. The crowds, the horses, the drays, the
motors, the clamor and gang, struck him as horrific. For joining the
blatant, hideous procession already moving from the dock I was no more
equipped than Minerva would have been on the day when she sprang,
full-grown and fully armed, from her father's head.
Looking up the long lines of pens, I could see Miss Blair steering
Drinkwater from the gangway toward the letter D. I noticed his
movements as reluctant and terrified. The din I found appalling even
with the faculty of sight must have been menacing to him in his
darkness. He was still trying to take it with a laugh, but the merriment
had become frozen.
Seizing my two bags again, I ran up the line.
"Oh, you dear old kid!" Miss Blair exclaimed, as I came within speaking
distance, "I'm sure glad to see you. I was afraid you'd been--"
Knowing her suspicion, I cut in on her fear. "No; it didn't happen.
I--got off the boat all right. I--I've just been looking after my
things and ran back to see if there was anything I could do--"
"Bless you! There's everything you can do. Harry's been crying for you
like a baby for its nurse."
"Where is he?"
The words were his. Confused by the hub-bub, he was clawing in the
wrong direction, so that the grab with which he seized me was like that
of a strayed child on clutching a friendly hand.
In the end I was in a taxicab, bound for the rooming-house "rather far
west" in Thirty-fifth Street, with my charge by my side.
"Say, isn't this the grandest!"
The accent was so sincere that I laughed. We were out in the sunlight
by this time, plowing our way through the squalor.
"What's grand about it?"
"Oh, well, Miss Blair finding me that house to go to--and you going
along with me--and the doctor coming to see me to-morrow to talk about a
job--"
"What job?"
"Oh, some job. There'll be one. You'll see. I've got the darnedest
good luck a guy was ever born with--all except my name."
"What about the fellows you said would be jazzing around the dock to
meet you?"
I was sorry for that bit of cruelty before it had got into words. It
was one of the rare occasions on which I ever saw his honest pug-face
fall.
"Say, you didn't believe that, did you?"
"You said it."
"Oh, well, I say lots of things. Have to."
We jolted on till a block in the traffic enabled him to continue without
the difficulty of speaking against noise. "Look here! I'm going to
tell you something. It's--it's a secret."
"Then for Heaven's sake keep it."
"I want you to know it. I don't want to be your friend under false
pretenses."
It seemed to me an opportunity to clarify the situation. We were on
land. We were in New York. It was hardly fair to these good people to
let them think that our association could continue on the same terms as
at sea. Somewhere in the back of my strained mind was the fact that I
had formerly classed myself as a snob and had been proud of the
appellation. That is, I had been fastidious as to whom I should know
and whom I should not know. I had been an adept in the art of cutting
those who had been forced or had forced themselves upon me, and had
regarded this skill as an accomplishment. Finding myself on board ship,
and in a peculiar situation, I had carried myself as a gentleman should,
even toward Mr. Finnegan and Miss Mulberry.
That part had been relatively easy. It was more difficult to dispose of
the kindly interest of the Averills. He had made more than one approach
which I parried tactfully. Mrs. Averill had contented herself with
disquieting looks from her almond eyes, though one day she had stopped
me on deck with the condescending inquiries as to my health that one
puts to a friend's butler. Miss Averill had been more direct--sensible,
solicitous, and rich in a shy sympathy. One day, on entering the
saloon, I found her examining some rugs which a Persian passenger was
displaying in the interests of trade. Being called by her into council,
I helped her to choose between a Herati and a Sarouk, the very names of
which she had never heard. My connoisseurship impressed her. After that
she spoke to me frequently, and once recommended the employment bureau
of her Settlement, in case I were looking for work.
All this I had struggled with, sometimes irritated, sometimes grimly
amused, but always ill at ease. Now it was over. I should never see
the Averills again, and Drinkwater must be given to understand that he,
too, was an incident.
"My dear fellow, there are no pretenses. We simply met on board ship,
and because of your--your accident I'm seeing you to your door. That's
all. It doesn't constitute friendship."
"You bet it does," was his unexpected rejoinder. "I'm not that kind at
all. When a fellow's white with me, he's white. I'm not going to be
ashamed of him. If you ever want any one to hold the sponge for you,
Jasper--"