verses and sent them to a paper as my own, but I ask you, as one
gentleman talking to another, and inquiring for information, what is
there wrong in doing it? I say, _if_ I had done it, which I don't admit
I ever did, where's the harm?"
"Where's the harm?" cried the two visitors in chorus.
"Obtaining money under false pretences," said the editor, "is the harm
you do the publishers, and robbing another man of the work of his brain
and what credit belongs to him is the harm you do him, and telling a lie
is the least harm done. Such a contemptible foolish lie, too, that you
might have known would surely find you out in spite of the trouble you
took to--"
"I never asked you for any money," interrupted Mr. Aram, quietly.
"But we would have sent it to you, nevertheless," retorted the editor,
"if we had not discovered in time that the poems were stolen."
"Where would you have sent it?" asked Mr. Aram. "I never gave you a
right address, did I? I ask you, did I?"
The editor paused in some confusion, "Well, if you did not want the
money, what did you want?" he exclaimed. "I must say I should like to
know."
Mr. Aram rocked himself to and fro, and gazed at his two inquisitors
with troubled eyes. "I didn't see any harm in it then," he repeated. "I
don't see any harm in it now. I didn't ask you for any money. I sort of
thought," he said, confusedly, "that I should like to see my name in
print. I wanted my friends to see it. I'd have liked to have shown it
to--to--well, I'd like my wife to have seen it. She's interested in
literature and books and magazines and things like that. That was all I
wanted. That's why I did it."
The reporter looked up askance at the editor, as a prompter watches the
actor to see if he is ready to take his cue.
"How do I know that?" demanded the editor, sharply. He found it somewhat
difficult to be severe with this poet, for the man admitted so much so
readily, and would not defend himself. Had he only blustered and grown
angry and ordered them out, instead of sitting helplessly there rocking
to and fro and picking at the back of his hands, it would have made it
so much easier. "How do we know," repeated the editor, "that you did not
intend to wait until the poems had appeared, and then send us your real
address and ask for the money, saying that you had moved since you had
last written us?"
"Oh," protested Mr. Aram, "you know I never thought of that."
"I don't know anything of the sort," said the editor. "I only know that
you have forged and lied and tried to obtain money that doesn't belong
to you, and that I mean to make an example of you and frighten other men
from doing the same thing. No editor has read every poem that was ever
written, and there is no protection for him from such fellows as you,
and the only thing he can do when he does catch one of you is to make an
example of him. That's what I am going to do. I am going to make an
example of you. I am going to nail you up as people nail up dead crows
to frighten off the live ones. It is my intention to give this to the
papers to-night, and you know what they will do with it in the morning."
There was a long and most uncomfortable pause, and it is doubtful if the
editor did not feel it as much as did the man opposite him. The editor
turned to his friend for a glance of sympathy, or of disapproval even,
but that gentleman still sat bending forward with his eyes fixed on the
floor, while he tapped with the top of his cane against his teeth.
"You don't mean," said Mr. Aram, in a strangely different voice from
which he had last spoken, "that you would do that?"
"Yes, I do," blustered the editor. But even as he spoke he was conscious
of a sincere regret that he had not come alone. He could intuitively
feel Bronson mapping out the story in his mind and memorizing Aram's
every word, and taking mental notes of the framed certificates of high
membership in different military and masonic associations which hung
upon the walls. It had not been long since the editor was himself a
reporter, and he could see that it was as good a story as Bronson could
wish it to be. But he reiterated, "Yes, I mean to give it to the papers
to-night."
"But think," said Aram--"think, sir, who I am. You don't want to ruin me
for the rest of my life just for a matter of fifteen dollars, do you?
Fifteen dollars that no one has lost, either. If I'd embezzled a million
or so, or if I had robbed the city, well and good! I'd have taken big
risks for big money; but you are going to punish me just as hard,
because I tried to please my wife, as though I had robbed a mint. No one
has really been hurt," he pleaded; "the men who wrote the poems--they've
been paid for them; they've got all the credit for them they _can_ get.
You've not lost a cent. I've gained nothing by it; and yet you gentlemen
are going to give this thing to the papers, and, as you say, sir, we
know what they will make of it. What with my being my father's son, and
all that, my father is going to suffer. My family is going to suffer. It
will ruin me--"
The editor put the papers back into his pocket. If Bronson had not been
there he might possibly instead have handed them over to Mr. Aram, and
this story would never have been written. But he could not do that now.
Mr. Aram's affairs had become the property of the New York newspaper.
He turned to his friend doubtfully. "What do you think, Bronson?" he
asked.
At this sign of possible leniency Aram ceased in his rocking and sat
erect, with eyes wide open and fixed on Bronson's face. But the latter
trailed his stick over the rug beneath his feet and shrugged his
shoulders.
"Mr. Aram," he said, "might have thought of his family and his father
before he went into this business. It is rather late now. But," he
added, "I don't think it is a matter we can decide in any event. It
should be left to the firm."
"Yes," said the editor, hurriedly, glad of the excuse to temporize, "we
must leave it to the house." But he read Bronson's answer to mean that
he did not intend to let the plagiarist escape, and he knew that even
were Bronson willing to do so, there was still his City Editor to be
persuaded.
The two men rose and stood uncomfortably, shifting their hats in their
hands--and avoiding each other's eyes. Mr. Aram stood up also, and
seeing that his last chance had come, began again to plead desperately.
"What good would fifteen dollars do me?" he said, with a gesture of his
hands round the room. "I don't have to look for money as hard as that I
tell you," he reiterated, "it wasn't the money I wanted. I didn't mean
any harm. I didn't know it was wrong. I just wanted to please my
wife--that was all. My God, man, can't you see that you are punishing
me out of all proportion?"
The visitors walked towards the door, and he followed them, talking the
faster as they drew near to it. The scene had become an exceedingly
painful one, and they were anxious to bring it to a close.
The editor interrupted him. "We will let you know," he said, "what we
have decided to do by to-morrow morning."
"You mean," retorted the man, hopelessly and reproachfully, "that I will
read it in the Sunday papers."
Before the editor could answer they heard the door leading into the
apartment open and close, and some one stepping quickly across the hall
to the room in which they stood. The entrance to the room was hung with
a portière, and as the three men paused in silence this portière was
pushed back, and a young lady stood in the doorway, holding the curtains
apart with her two hands. She was smiling, and the smile lighted a face
that was inexpressibly bright and honest and true. Aram's face had been
lowered, but the eyes of the other two men were staring wide open
towards the unexpected figure, which seemed to bring a taste of fresh
pure air into the feverish atmosphere of the place. The girl stopped
uncertainly when she saw the two strangers, and bowed her head slightly
as the mistress of a house might welcome any one whom she found in her
drawing-room. She was entirely above and apart from her surroundings. It
was not only that she was exceedingly pretty, but that everything about
her, from her attitude to her cloth walking-dress, was significant of
good taste and high breeding.
She paused uncertainly, still smiling, and with her gloved hands holding
back the curtains and looking at Aram with eyes filled with a kind
confidence. She was apparently waiting for him to present his friends.
The editor made a sudden but irrevocable resolve. "If she is only a
chance visitor," he said to himself, "I will still expose him; but if
that woman in the doorway is his wife, I will push Bronson under the
elevated train, and the secret will die with me."
What Bronson's thoughts were he could not know, but he was conscious
that his friend had straightened his broad shoulders and was holding his
head erect.
Aram raised his face, but he did not look at the woman in the door. "In
a minute, dear," he said; "I am busy with these gentlemen."
The girl gave a little "oh" of apology, smiled at her husband's bent
head, inclined her own again slightly to the other men, and let the
portière close behind her. It had been as dramatic an entrance and exit
as the two visitors had ever seen upon the stage. It was as if Aram had
given a signal, and the only person who could help him had come in the
nick of time to plead for him. Aram, stupid as he appeared to be, had
evidently felt the effect his wife's appearance had made upon his
judges. He still kept his eyes fixed upon the floor, but he said, and
this time with more confidence in his tone:--
"It is not, gentlemen, as though I were an old man. I have so very long
to live--so long to try to live this down. Why, I am as young as you
are. How would you like to have a thing like this to carry with you till
you died?"
The editor still stood staring blankly at the curtains through which Mr.
Aram's good angel, for whom he had lied and cheated in order to gain
credit in her eyes, had disappeared. He pushed them aside with his
stick. "We will let you know to-morrow morning," he repeated, and the
two men passed out from the poet's presence, and on into the hall. They
descended the stairs in an uncomfortable silence, Bronson leading the
way, and the editor endeavoring to read his verdict by the back of his
head and shoulders.
At the foot of the steps he pulled his friend by the sleeve. "Bronson,"
he coaxed, "you are not going to use it, are you?"
Bronson turned on him savagely. "For Heaven's sake!" he protested, "what
do you think I am; did you _see_ her?"
So the New York ---- lost a very good story, and Bronson a large sum of
money for not writing it, and Mr. Aram was taught a lesson, and his
young wife's confidence in him remained unshaken. The editor and
reporter dined together that night, and over their cigars decided with
sudden terror that Mr. Aram might, in his ignorance of their good
intentions concerning him, blow out his brains, and for nothing. So they
despatched a messenger-boy up town in post-haste with a note saying that
"the firm" had decided to let the matter drop. Although, perhaps, it
would have been better to have given him one sleepless night at least.
That was three years ago, and since then Mr. Aram's father has fallen
out with Tammany, and has been retired from public service. Bronson has
been sent abroad to represent the United States at a foreign court, and
has asked the editor to write the story that he did not write, but with
such changes in the names of people and places that no one save Mr. Aram
may know who Mr. Aram really was and is.
This the editor has done, reporting what happened as faithfully as he
could, and in the hope that it will make an interesting story in spite
of the fact, and not on account of the fact, that it is a true one.
AN ASSISTED EMIGRANT
Guido stood on the curb-stone in Fourteenth Street, between Fifth Avenue
and Sixth Avenue, with a row of plaster figures drawn up on the sidewalk
in front of him. It was snowing, and they looked cold in consequence,
especially the Night and Morning. A line of men and boys stretched on
either side of Guido all along the curb-stone, with toys and dolls, and
guns that shot corks into the air with a loud report, and glittering
dressings for the Christmas trees. It was the day before Christmas. The
man who stood next in line to Guido had hideous black monkeys that
danced from the end of a rubber string. The man danced up and down too,
very much, so Guido thought, as the monkeys did, and stamped his feet on
the icy pavement, and shouted: "Here yer are, lady, for five cents. Take
them home to the children." There were hundreds and hundreds of ladies
and little girls crowding by all of the time; some of them were a
little cross and a little tired, as if Christmas shopping had told on
their nerves, but the greater number were happy-looking and warm, and
some stopped and laughed at the monkeys dancing on the rubber strings,
and at the man with the frost on his mustache, who jumped too, and
cried, "Only five cents, lady--nice Christmas presents for the
children."
Sometimes the ladies bought the monkeys, but no one looked at the cold
plaster figures of St. Joseph, and Diana, and Night and Morning, nor at
the heads of Mars and Minerva--not even at the figure of the Virgin,
with her two hands held out, which Guido pressed in his arms against his
breast.
Guido had been in New York city just one month. He was very young--so
young that he had never done anything at home but sit on the wharves and
watch the ships come in and out of the great harbor of Genoa. He never
had wished to depart with these ships when they sailed away, nor
wondered greatly as to where they went. He was content with the wharves
and with the narrow streets near by, and to look up from the bulkheads
at the sailors working in the rigging, and the 'long-shoremen rolling
the casks on board, or lowering great square boxes into the holds.
He would have liked, could he have had his way, to live so for the rest
of his life; but they would not let him have his way, and coaxed him on
a ship to go to the New World to meet his uncle. He was not a real
uncle, but only a make-believe one, to satisfy those who objected to
assisted immigrants, and who wished to be assured against having to
support Guido, and others like him. But they were not half so anxious to
keep Guido at home as he himself was to stay there.
The new uncle met him at Ellis Island, and embraced him affectionately,
and put him in an express wagon, and drove him with a great many more of
his countrymen to where Mulberry Street makes a bend and joins Hester.
And in the Bend Guido found thousands of his fellows sleeping twenty in
a room and over-crowded into the street: some who had but just arrived,
and others who had already learned to swear in English, and had their
street-cleaning badges and their peddler's licenses, to show that they
had not been overlooked by the kindly society of Tammany, which sees
that no free and independent voter shall go unrewarded.
New York affected Guido like a bad dream. It was cold and muddy, and
the snow when it fell turned to mud so quickly that Guido believed they
were one and the same. He did not dare to think of the place he know as
home. And the sight of the colored advertisements of the steamship lines
that hung in the windows of the Italian bankers hurt him as the sound of
traffic on the street cuts to the heart of a prisoner in the Tombs. Many
of his countrymen bade good-by to Mulberry Street and sailed away; but
they had grown rich through obeying the padrones, and working night and
morning sweeping the Avenue uptown, and by living on the refuse from the
scows at Canal Street. Guido never hoped to grow rich, and no one
stopped to buy his uncle's wares.
The electric lights came out, and still the crowd passed and thronged
before him, and the snow fell and left no mark on the white figures.
Guido was growing cold, and the bustle of the hurrying hundreds which
had entertained him earlier in the day had ceased to interest him, and
his amusement had given place to the fear that no one of them would ever
stop, and that he would return to his uncle empty-handed. He was hungry
now, as well as cold, and though there was not much rich food in the
Bend at any time, to-day he had had nothing of any quality to eat since
early morning. The man with the monkeys turned his head from time to
time, and spoke to him in a language that he could not understand;
although he saw that it was something amusing and well meant that the
man said, and so smiled back and nodded. He felt it to be quite a loss
when the man moved away.
Guido thought very slowly, but he at last began to feel a certain
contempt for the stiff statues and busts which no one wanted, and
buttoned the figure of the one of the woman with her arms held out,
inside of his jacket, and tucked his scarf in around it, so that it
might not be broken, and also that it might not bear the ignominy with
the others of being overlooked. Guido was a gentle, slow-thinking boy,
and could not have told you why he did this, but he knew that this
figure was of different clay from the others. He had seen it placed high
in the cathedrals at home, and he had been told that if you ask certain
things of it it will listen to you.
The women and children began to disappear from the crowd, and the
necessity of selling some of his wares impressed itself more urgently
upon him as the night grew darker and possible customers fewer. He
decided that he had taken up a bad position, and that instead of waiting
for customers to come to him, he ought to go seek for them. With this
purpose in his mind, he gathered the figures together upon his tray, and
resting it upon his shoulder, moved further along the street, to
Broadway, where the crowd was greater and the shops more brilliantly
lighted. He had good cause to be watchful, for the sidewalks were
slippery with ice, and the people rushed and hurried and brushed past
him without noticing the burden he carried on one shoulder. He wished
now that he knew some words of this new language, that he might call his
wares and challenge the notice of the passers-by, as did the other men
who shouted so continually and vehemently at the hurrying crowds. He did
not know what might happen if he failed to sell one of his statues; it
was a possibility so awful that he did not dare conceive of its
punishment. But he could do nothing, and so stood silent, dumbly
presenting his tray to the people near him.
His wanderings brought him to the corner of a street, and he started to
cross it, in the hope of better fortune in untried territory. There was
no need of his hurrying to do this, although a car was coming towards
him, so he stepped carefully but surely. But as he reached the middle of
the track a man came towards him from the opposite pavement; they met
and hesitated, and then both jumped to the same side, and the man's
shoulder struck the tray and threw the white figures flying to the
track, where the horses tramped over them on their way. Guido fell
backwards, frightened and shaken, and the car stopped, and the driver
and the conductor leaned out anxiously from each end.
There seemed to be hundreds of people all around Guido, and some of them
picked him up and asked him questions in a very loud voice, as though
that would make the language they spoke more intelligible. Two men took
him by each arm and talked with him in earnest tones, and punctuated
their questions by shaking him gently. He could not answer them, but
only sobbed, and beat his hands softly together, and looked about him
for a chance to escape. The conductor of the car jerked the strap
violently, and the car went on its way. Guido watched the conductor, as
he stood with his hands in his pockets looking back at him. Guido had a
confused idea that the people on the car might pay him for the plaster
figures which had been scattered in the slush and snow, so that the
heads and arms and legs lay on every side or were ground into heaps of
white powder. But when the car disappeared into the night he gave up
this hope, and pulling himself free from his captor, slipped through the
crowd and ran off into a side street. A man who had seen the accident
had been trying to take up a collection in the crowd, which had grown
less sympathetic and less numerous in consequence, and had gathered more
than the plaster casts were worth; but Guido did not know this, and when
they came to look for him he was gone, and the bareheaded gentleman,
with his hat full of coppers and dimes, was left in much embarrassment.
Guido walked to Washington Square, and sat down on a bench to rest, and
then curled over quickly, and stretching himself out at full length,
wept bitterly. When any one passed he held his breath and pretended to
be asleep. He did not know what he was to do or where he was to go.
Such a calamity as this had never entered into his calculations of the
evils which might overtake him, and it overwhelmed him utterly. A
policeman touched him with his nightstick, and spoke to him kindly
enough, but the boy only backed away from the man until he was out of
his reach, and then ran on again, slipping and stumbling on the ice and
snow. He ran to Christopher Street, through Greenwich Village, and on to
the wharves.
It was quite late, and he had recovered from his hunger, and only felt a
sick tired ache at his heart. His feet were heavy and numb, and he was
very sleepy. People passed him continually, and doors opened into
churches and into noisy glaring saloons and crowded shops, but it did
not seem possible to him that there could be any relief from any source
for the sorrow that had befallen him. It seemed too awful, and as
impossible to mend as it would be to bring the crushed plaster into
shape again. He considered dully that his uncle would miss him and wait
for him, and that his anger would increase with every moment of his
delay. He felt that he could never return to his uncle again.
Then he came to another park, opening into a square, with lighted
saloons on one side, and on the other great sheds, with ships lying
beside them, and the electric lights showing their spars and masts
against the sky. It had ceased snowing, but the air from the river was
piercing and cold, and swept through the wires overhead with a ceaseless
moaning. The numbness had crept from his feet up over the whole extent
of his little body, and he dropped upon a flight of steps back of a
sailors' boarding-house, and shoved his hands inside of his jacket for
possible warmth. His fingers touched the figure he had hidden there and
closed upon it lightly, and then his head dropped back against the wall,
and he fell into a heavy sleep. The night passed on and grew colder, and
the wind came across the ice-blocked river with shriller, sharper
blasts, but Guido did not hear it.
"Chuckey" Martin, who blacked boots in front of the corner saloon in
summer and swept out the bar-room in winter, came out through the family
entrance and dumped a pan of hot ashes into the snow-bank, and then
turned into the house with a shiver. He saw a mass of something lying
curled up on the steps of the next house, and remembered it after he had
closed the door of the family entrance behind him and shoved the pan
under the stove. He decided at last that it might be one of the saloon's
customers, or a stray sailor with loose change in his pockets, which he
would not miss when he awoke. So he went out again, and picking Guido
up, brought him in in his arms and laid him out on the floor.
There were over thirty men in the place; they had been celebrating the
coming of Christmas; and three of them pushed each other out of the way
in their eagerness to pour very bad brandy between Guido's teeth.
"Chuckey" Martin felt a sense of proprietorship in Guido, by the right
of discovery, and resented this, pushing them away, and protesting that
the thing to do was to rub his feet with snow.
A fat oily chief engineer of an Italian tramp steamer dropped on his
knees beside Guido and beat the boy's hands, and with unsteady fingers
tore open his scarf and jacket, and as he did this the figure of the
plaster Virgin with her hands stretched out looked up at him from its
bed on Guido's chest.