When he was sober the man always insisted that his name was Evans, but
in his cups he was accustomed to declare, in a boastful fashion, that
his name was not Evans at all. However, he never went farther than this,
and since none of us were particularly interested, we were satisfied to
call him Evans, or, more often, Bum, for short. He was the second
assistant janitor; and whereas, in some establishments, a janitor is a
man of power and place, it is not so in a newspaper office. In such
institutions, where great men are spoken of irreverently and by their
first names, a janitor is a man of no importance. How much less, then,
his second assistant. It was never a part of Evans's work, for example,
to sweep the floors. There is something lordly in the gesture of the
broom. But the janitor's first assistant attended to that; and Evans's
regular duties were more humble, not unconnected with such things as
cuspidors. There was no man so poor to do him honor; yet he had always a
certain loftiness of bearing. He was tall, rather above the average
height, with a long, thin, bony face like a horse, and an aristocratic
stoop about his neck and shoulders. His hands were slender; he walked in
a fashion that you might have called a shuffle, but which might also
have been characterized as a walk of indolent assurance. His eyes were
wash-blue, and his straggling mustache drooped at the corners.
Sober, he was a silent man, but when he had drunk he was apt to become
mysteriously loquacious. And he drank whenever the state of his credit
permitted. At such times he spoke of his antecedents in a lordly and
condescending fashion which we found amusing. "You call me Evans," he
would say. "That does well enough, to be sure. Quite so, and all that.
Evans! Hah!"
And then he would laugh, in a barking fashion that with his long, bony
countenance always suggested to me a coughing horse. But when he was
pressed for details, the man--though he might be weaving and blinking
with liquor--put a seal upon his lips. He said there were certain
families in one of the Midland Counties of England who would welcome him
home if he chose to go; but he never named them, and he never chose to
go, and we put him down for a liar by the book. All of us except
Sheener.
Sheener was a Jewish newsboy; that is to say, a representative of the
only thoroughbred people in the world. I have known Sheener for a good
many years, and he is worth knowing; also, the true tale of his life
might have inspired Scheherazade. A book must be made of Sheener some
day. For the present, it is enough to say that he had the enterprise
which adversity has taught his people; he had the humility which they
have learned by enduring insults they were powerless to resent, and he
had the courage and the heart which were his ancient heritage. And--the
man Evans had captured and enslaved his imagination.
He believed in Evans from the beginning. This may have been through a
native credulity which failed to manifest itself in his other dealings
with the world. I think it more probable that Evans and his pretensions
appealed to the love of romance native to Sheener. I think he enjoyed
believing, as we enjoy lending ourselves to the illusion of the theatre.
Whatever the explanation, a certain alliance developed between the two;
a something like friendship. I was one of those who laughed at Sheener's
credulity, but he told me, in his energetic fashion, that I was making a
mistake.
"You got that guy wrong," he would say. "He ain't always been a bum. A
guy with half an eye can see that. The way he talks, and the way he
walks, and all. There's class to him, I'm telling you. Class, bo."
"He walks like a splay-footed walrus, and he talks like a drunken old
hound," I told Sheener. "He's got you buffaloed, that's all."
"Pull in your horns; you're coming to a bridge," Sheener warned me.
"Don't be a goat all your life. He's a gent; that's what this guy is."
"Then I'm glad I'm a roughneck," I retorted; and Sheener shook his head.
"That's all right," he exclaimed. "That's all right. He ain't had it
easy, you know. Scrubbing spittoons is enough to take the polish off any
guy. I'm telling you he's there. Forty ways. You'll see, bo. You'll
see."
"I'm waiting," I said.
"Keep right on," Sheener advised me. "Keep right on. The old stuff is
there. It'll show. Take it from me."
I laughed at him. "If I get you," I said, "you're looking for something
along the line of 'Noblesse Oblige.' What?"
"Cut the comedy," he retorted. "I'm telling you, the old class is there.
You can't keep a fast horse in a poor man's stable."
"Blood will tell, eh?"
"Take it from me," said Sheener.
It will be perceived that Evans had in Sheener not only a disciple; he
had an advocate and a defender. And Sheener in these rôles was not to be
despised. I have said he was a newsboy; to put it more accurately, he
was in his early twenties, with forty years of experience behind him,
and with half the newsboys of the city obeying his commands and
worshiping him like a minor god. He had full charge of our city
circulation and was quite as important, and twice as valuable to the
paper, as any news editor could hope to be. In making a friend of him,
Evans had found an ally in the high places; and it became speedily
apparent that Sheener proposed to be more than a mere friend in name.
For instance, I learned one day that he was drawing Evans's wages for
him, and had appointed himself in some sort a steward for the other.
"That guy wouldn't ever save a cent," he told me when I questioned him.
"I give him enough to get soused on, and I stick five dollars in the
bank for him every week. I made him buy a new suit of clothes with it
last week. Say, you wouldn't know him if you run into him in his glad
rags."
"How does he like your running his affairs?" I asked.
"Like it?" Sheener echoed. "He don't have to like it. If he tries to
pull anything on me, I'll poke the old coot in the eye."
I doubt whether this was actually his method of dominating Evans. It is
more likely that he used a diplomacy which occasionally appeared in his
dealings with the world. Certainly the arrangement presently collapsed,
for Sheener confessed to me that he had given his savings back to Evans.
We were minus a second assistant janitor for a week as a consequence,
and when Evans tottered back to the office and would have gone to work I
told him he was through.
He took it meekly enough, but not Sheener. Sheener came to me with fire
in his eye.
"Sa-a-ay," he demanded, "what's coming off here, anyhow? What do you
think you're trying to pull?"
I asked him what he was talking about, and he said: "Evans says you've
given him the hook."
"That's right," I admitted. "He's through."
"He is not," Sheener told me flatly. "You can't fire that guy."
"Why not?"
"He's got to live, ain't he?"
I answered, somewhat glibly, that I did not see the necessity, but the
look that sprang at once into Sheener's eyes made me faintly ashamed of
myself, and I went on to urge that Evans was failing to do his work and
could deserve no consideration.
"That's all right," Sheener told me. "I didn't hear any kicks that his
work wasn't done while he was on this bat."
"Oh, I guess it got done all right. Some one had to do it. We can't pay
him for work that some one else does."
"Say, don't try to pull that stuff," Sheener protested. "As long as his
work is done, you ain't got any kick. This guy has got to have a job, or
he'll go bust, quick. It's all that keeps his feet on the ground. If he
didn't think he was earning his living, he'd go on the bum in a minute."
I was somewhat impatient with Sheener's insistence, but I was also
interested in this developing situation. "Who's going to do his work,
anyhow?" I demanded.
For the first time in our acquaintance I saw Sheener look confused.
"That's all right too," he told me. "It don't take any skin off your
back, long as it's done."
In the end I surrendered. Evans kept his job; and Sheener--I once caught
him in the act, to his vast embarrassment--did the janitor's work when
Evans was unfit for duty. Also Sheener loaned him money, small sums that
mounted into an interesting total; and furthermore I know that on one
occasion Sheener fought for him.
The man Evans went his pompous way, accepting Sheener's homage and
protection as a matter of right, and in the course of half a dozen years
I left the paper for other work, saw Sheener seldom, and Evans not at
all.
About ten o'clock one night in early summer I was wandering somewhat
aimlessly through the South End to see what I might see when I
encountered Sheener. He was running, and his dark face was twisted with
anxiety. When he saw me he stopped with an exclamation of relief, and I
asked him what the matter was.
"You remember old Bum Evans?" he asked, and added: "He's sick. I'm
looking for a doctor. The old guy is just about all in."
"You mean to say you're still looking out for that old tramp?" I
demanded.
"Sure, I am," he said hotly; "that old boy is there. He's got the stuff.
Him and me are pals." He was hurrying me along the street toward the
office of the doctor he sought. I asked where Evans was. "In my room,"
he told me. "I found him on the street. Last night. He was crazy. The D.
T.'s. I ain't been able to get away from him till now. He's asleep.
Wait. Here's where the doc hangs out."
Five minutes later the doctor and Sheener and I were retracing our steps
toward Sheener's lodging, and presently we crowded into the small room
where Evans lay on Sheener's bed. The man's muddy garments were on the
floor; he himself tossed and twisted feverishly under Sheener's
blankets. Sheener and the doctor bent over him, while I stood by. Evans
waked, under the touch of their hands, and waked to sanity. He was cold
sober and desperately sick.
When the doctor had done what could be done and gone on his way, Sheener
sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed the old man's head with a
tenderness of which I could not have believed the newsboy capable.
Evans's eyes were open; he watched the other, and at last he said
huskily:
"I say, you know, I'm a bit knocked up."
Sheener reassured him. "That's all right, bo," he said. "You hit the
hay. Sleep's the dose for you. I ain't going away."
Evans moved his head on the pillow, as though lie were nodding. "A bit
tight, wasn't it, what?" he asked.
"Say," Sheener agreed. "You said something, Bum. I thought you'd kick
off, sure."
The old man considered for a little, his lips twitching and shaking. "I
say, you know," he murmured at last. "Can't have that. Potter's Field,
and all that sort of business. Won't do. Sheener, when I do take the
jump, you write home for me. Pass the good word. You'll hear from them."