understood was that if Collins could get this great train robber into
the office of the _News_ _first_, it would take away so much of the
sheer necessity he would be put to of repeating all he had heard and
seen en route. For once there, other staff members would be able to
take the criminal in hand and with the aid of what Collins had to
report, extract such a tale as even Binns himself could not better. In
addition, it would be such a triumph of reporting--to go out and bring
your subject in!
“No, it’s not,” replied Binns truculently, “and I won’t do it. It’s all
right about Hill and Weaver. I know they’ll give me a picture if the
paper will let them, but I know the paper won’t let them, and besides,
you’re not doing it for that reason. I know what you want. You want to
be able to claim in the morning that you brought this man to the _News_
_first_. I know you.”
For a moment Collins appeared to be quieted by this, and half seemed to
abandon the project. He took it up again after a few moments, however,
seemingly in the most conciliatory spirit in the world, only now he
kept boring Binns with his eyes, a thing which he had never attempted
before.
“Aw, come on,” he repeated genially, looking Binns squarely in the
eyes. “What’s the use being small about this? You know you’ve got the
best of the story anyhow. And you’re goin’ to get a picture too, the
same as us. If you don’t, then we’ll have to go clear to your office or
send a man down to the jail. Think of the time it’ll take. What’s the
use of that? One picture’s as good as another. And you can’t take any
good pictures down there to-night, anyhow, and you know it.”
As he talked he held Binns’s eyes with his own, and all at once the
latter began to feel a curious wave of warmth, ease and uncertainty
or confusion creep over him in connection with all this. What was so
wrong with this proposition, anyhow, he began to ask himself, even
while inwardly something was telling him that it was all wrong and
that he was making a great mistake. For the first time in his life,
and especially in connection with so trying a situation, he began
to feel an odd sense of ease and comfort, or as if surrounded by a
cloud of something that was comfortable and soothing. This scheme of
Collins’s was not so bad after all, he thought. What was wrong with it?
Hill and Weaver were his friends. They would make a good picture and
give him one. Everything Collins was saying seemed true enough, only,
only---- For the first time since knowing him, and in spite of all his
opposition of this afternoon and before, Binns found himself not hating
his rival as violently as he had in the past, but feeling as though he
weren’t such an utterly bad sort after all. Curiously, though, he still
didn’t believe a word that Collins said, but----
“To the _News_, sure,” he found himself saying in a dumb, half-numb
or sensuously warm way. “That wouldn’t be so bad. It’s nearer. What’s
wrong with that? Hill or Weaver will make a good picture seven or eight
inches long, and then I can take it along,” only at the same time he
was thinking to himself, “I shouldn’t really do this. I shouldn’t
think it. He’ll claim the credit of having brought this man to the
_News_ office. He’s a big bluff, and I hate him. I’ll be making a big
mistake. The _Star_ or nothing--that’s what I should say. Let him come
down to the _Star_.”
In the meantime they were entering O----, the station of which now
appeared. By now, somehow, Collins had not only convinced the officers,
but the prisoner himself. Binns could even see the rural love of show
and parade a-gleam in their eyes, their respect for the _News_, the
larger paper, as opposed to the _Star_. The _Star_ might be all right,
but plainly the _News_ was the great place in the sight of these rurals
for such an exhibition as this. What a pity, he thought, that he had
ever left the _News_!
As he arose with the others to leave the train he said dully, “No, I
won’t come in on this. It’s all right if you want to bring him down to
the _Star_, or you can take him to police headquarters. But I’m not
going to let you do this. You hear now, don’t you?”
But outside, Collins laying hold of his arm in an amazingly genial
fashion, seemed to come nearer to him humanly than he had ever dreamed
was possible before.
“You come up with me to the _News_ now,” Collins kept saying, “and then
I’ll go down with you to the _Star_, see? We’ll just let Hill or Weaver
take one picture, and then we’ll go down to your place--you see?”
Although Mr. Binns did not see, he went. For the time, nothing
seemed important. If Collins had stayed by him he could possibly
have prevented his writing any story at all. Even as Binns dreamed,
Collins hailed a carriage, and the six of them crowded into it and were
forthwith whirled away to the door of the _News_ where, once they had
reached it and Collins, the detectives, and the bandit began hurrying
across the sidewalk to that familiar door which once had meant so much
to him, Binns suddenly awoke. What was it--the door? Or the temporary
distraction of Collins? At any rate, he awoke now and made a frantic
effort to retrieve himself.
“Wait!” he called. “Say, hold on! Stop! I won’t do this at all. I don’t
agree to this!” but now it was too late. In a trice the prisoner,
officers, Collins and even himself were up the two or three low
steps of the main entrance and into the hall, and then seeing the
hopelessness of it he paused as they entered the elevator and was left
to meditate on the inexplicability of the thing that had been done to
him.
What was it? How had this low brute succeeded in doing this to him? By
the Lord, he had succeeded in hypnotizing him, or something very much
like it. What had become, then, of his superior brain, his intellectual
force, in the face of this gross savage desire on the part of Collins
to win? It was unbelievable. Collins had beaten him, and that in a
field and at a task at which he deemed himself unusually superior.
“Great heavens!” he suddenly exclaimed to himself. “That’s what he’s
done, he’s beaten me at my own game! He’s taken the prisoner, whom I
really had in my own hands at one time, into the office of our great
rival, and now in the morning it will all be in the paper! And I
allowed him to do it! And I had him beaten, too! Why didn’t I kick him
off the train? Why didn’t I bribe the conductor to help me? I could
have. I was afraid of him, that’s what it is. And to-morrow there’ll
be a long editorial in the _News_ telling how this fellow was brought
first to the _News_ and photographed, and they’ll have his picture to
prove it. Oh, Lord, what shall I do? How am I to get out of this?”
Disconsolate and weary, he groaned and swore for blocks as he made
his way toward the office of the _Star_. How to break it to Waxby!
How to explain! The exact truth meant disgrace, possibly dismissal.
He couldn’t tell really, as he had hoped he might, how he had all
but prevented Collins from obtaining any interview. Waxby would have
sniffed at his weakness in a crisis, put him down as a failure.
Reaching the office, he told another kind of story which was but a
half truth. What he could and did say was that the police, being
temperamentally _en rapport_ with Collins, had worked with him and
against the _Star_; that in spite of anything he could do, these rural
officers and detectives had preferred to follow Collins rather than
himself, that the superior position of the _News_ had lured them, and
that against his final and fierce protest they had eventually gone in
there, since the _News_ was on the natural route to the jail, and the
_Star_ was not.
Now it was Waxby’s turn to rage, and he did--not at Binns, but at the
low dogs of police who were always favoring the _News_ at the expense
of the _Star_. They had done it in the past, as he well knew, when he
was city editor of the _News_. Then it had pleased him--but now----
“I’ll fix them!” he squeaked shrilly. “I’ll make them sweat. No more
favors from me, by----,” and rushing a photographer to the jail he had
various pictures made, excellent ones, for that matter--only, what
was the good? The fact that the _News_ had the honor of making the
first picture of this celebrity under its own roof, its own vine and
fig-tree, was galling. As a matter of fact, Waxby by now was blaming
himself for not having sent an artist along.
But to Binns the sad part was that Collins had him beaten, and that in
the face of his self-boasted superiority. In spite of the fact that he
might slave over the text, as he did, giving it, because of his despair
and chagrin, all his best touches, still, the next morning, there
on the front page of the _News_, was a large picture of the bandit
seated in the sanctum sanctorum of the _News_, entirely surrounded by
reporters and editors, and with a portion of the figure, although not
the head, of the publisher himself in the background. And over it all
in extra large type was the caption:
“LOAN TRAIN ROBBER VISITS OFFICE OF _NEWS_ TO PAY HIS RESPECTS” while
underneath, in italics, was a full account of how _willingly_ he had
visited the _News_ because of its immense commercial, moral and other
forms of superiority.
Was Binns beaten?
Well, rather!
And did he feel it?
He suffered tortures, not only for days, but for weeks and months,
absolute tortures. The very thought of Collins made him want to rise
and slay him.
“To think,” he said over and over to himself, “that a low dog like
Collins on whom I wouldn’t wipe my feet intellectually, as it were,
could do this to me! He hypnotized me, by George! He did! He can! Maybe
he could do it again! I wonder if he knows? Am I really the lesser and
this scum the greater? Do writers grow on trees?”
Sad thought.
And some weeks later, meeting his old enemy one day on the street, he
had the immense dissatisfaction of seeing the light of triumph and
contempt in his eyes. The latter was so bold now, and getting along so
well as a _reporter_, or “newspaper man,” that he had the hardihood to
leer, sniff and exclaim:
“These swell reporters! These high-priced ink-slingers! Say, who got
the best of the train robber story, huh?”
And Binns replied----
But never mind what Binns replied. It wouldn’t be fit to read, and no
publisher would print it anyhow.
OLD ROGAUM AND HIS THERESA
In all Bleecker Street was no more comfortable doorway than that of the
butcher Rogaum, even if the first floor was given over to meat market
purposes. It was to one side of the main entrance, which gave ingress
to the butcher shop, and from it led up a flight of steps, at least
five feet wide, to the living rooms above. A little portico stood out
in front of it, railed on either side, and within was a second or final
door, forming, with the outer or storm door, a little area, where Mrs.
Rogaum and her children frequently sat of a summer’s evening. The outer
door was never locked, owing to the inconvenience it would inflict on
Mr. Rogaum, who had no other way of getting upstairs. In winter, when
all had gone to bed, there had been cases in which belated travelers
had taken refuge there from the snow or sleet. One or two newsboys
occasionally slept there, until routed out by Officer Maguire, who,
seeing it half open one morning at two o’clock, took occasion to look
in. He jogged the newsboys sharply with his stick, and then, when they
were gone, tried the inner door, which was locked.
“You ought to keep that outer door locked, Rogaum,” he observed to the
phlegmatic butcher the next evening, as he was passing, “people might
get in. A couple o’ kids was sleepin’ in there last night.”
“Ach, dot iss no difference,” answered Rogaum pleasantly. “I haf der
inner door locked, yet. Let dem sleep. Dot iss no difference.”
“Better lock it,” said the officer, more to vindicate his authority
than anything else. “Something will happen there yet.”
The door was never locked, however, and now of a summer evening Mrs.
Rogaum and the children made pleasant use of its recess, watching
the route of street cars and occasionally belated trucks go by. The
children played on the sidewalk, all except the budding Theresa
(eighteen just turning), who, with one companion of the neighborhood,
the pretty Kenrihan girl, walked up and down the block, laughing,
glancing, watching the boys. Old Mrs. Kenrihan lived in the next
block, and there, sometimes, the two stopped. There, also, they
most frequently pretended to be when talking with the boys in the
intervening side street. Young “Connie” Almerting and George Goujon
were the bright particular mashers who held the attention of the
maidens in this block. These two made their acquaintance in the
customary bold, boyish way, and thereafter the girls had an urgent
desire to be out in the street together after eight, and to linger
where the boys could see and overtake them.
Old Mrs. Rogaum never knew. She was a particularly fat, old German
lady, completely dominated by her liege and portly lord, and at nine
o’clock regularly, as he had long ago deemed meet and fit, she was wont
to betake her way upward and so to bed. Old Rogaum himself, at that
hour, closed the market and went to his chamber.
Before that all the children were called sharply, once from the
doorstep below and once from the window above, only Mrs. Rogaum did it
first and Rogaum last. It had come, because of a shade of lenience, not
wholly apparent in the father’s nature, that the older of the children
needed two callings and sometimes three. Theresa, now that she had “got
in” with the Kenrihan maiden, needed that many calls and even more.
She was just at that age for which mere thoughtless, sensory life holds
its greatest charm. She loved to walk up and down in the as yet bright
street where were voices and laughter, and occasionally moonlight
streaming down. What a nuisance it was to be called at nine, anyhow.
Why should one have to go in then, anyhow. What old fogies her parents
were, wishing to go to bed so early. Mrs. Kenrihan was not so strict
with her daughter. It made her pettish when Rogaum insisted, calling
as he often did, in German, “Come you now,” in a very hoarse and
belligerent voice.
She came, eventually, frowning and wretched, all the moonlight calling
her, all the voices of the night urging her to come back. Her innate
opposition due to her urgent youth made her coming later and later,
however, until now, by August of this, her eighteenth year, it was
nearly ten when she entered, and Rogaum was almost invariably angry.
“I vill lock you oudt,” he declared, in strongly accented English,
while she tried to slip by him each time. “I vill show you. Du sollst
come ven I say, yet. Hear now.”
“I’ll not,” answered Theresa, but it was always under her breath.
Poor Mrs. Rogaum troubled at hearing the wrath in her husband’s voice.
It spoke of harder and fiercer times which had been with her. Still she
was not powerful enough in the family councils to put in a weighty
word. So Rogaum fumed unrestricted.
There were other nights, however, many of them, and now that the young
sparks of the neighborhood had enlisted the girls’ attention, it was
a more trying time than ever. Never did a street seem more beautiful.
Its shabby red walls, dusty pavements and protruding store steps and
iron railings seemed bits of the ornamental paraphernalia of heaven
itself. These lights, the cars, the moon, the street lamps! Theresa
had a tender eye for the dashing Almerting, a young idler and loafer
of the district, the son of a stationer farther up the street. What a
fine fellow he was, indeed! What a handsome nose and chin! What eyes!
What authority! His cigarette was always cocked at a high angle, in
her presence, and his hat had the least suggestion of being set to one
side. He had a shrewd way of winking one eye, taking her boldly by the
arm, hailing her as, “Hey, Pretty!” and was strong and athletic and
worked (when he worked) in a tobacco factory. His was a trade, indeed,
nearly acquired, as he said, and his jingling pockets attested that he
had money of his own. Altogether he was very captivating.
“Aw, whaddy ya want to go in for?” he used to say to her, tossing his
head gayly on one side to listen and holding her by the arm, as old
Rogaum called. “Tell him yuh didn’t hear.”
“No, I’ve got to go,” said the girl, who was soft and plump and fair--a
Rhine maiden type.
“Well, yuh don’t have to go just yet. Stay another minute. George, what
was that fellow’s name that tried to sass us the other day?”
“Theresa!” roared old Rogaum forcefully. “If you do not now come! Ve
vill see!”
“I’ve got to go,” repeated Theresa with a faint effort at starting.
“Can’t you hear? Don’t hold me. I haf to.”
“Aw, whaddy ya want to be such a coward for? Y’ don’t have to go. He
won’t do nothin’ tuh yuh. My old man was always hollerin’ like that up
tuh a coupla years ago. Let him holler! Say, kid, but yuh got sweet
eyes! They’re as blue! An’ your mouth----”
“Now stop! You hear me!” Theresa would protest softly, as, swiftly, he
would slip an arm about her waist and draw her to him, sometimes in a
vain, sometimes in a successful effort to kiss her.
As a rule she managed to interpose an elbow between her face and
his, but even then he would manage to touch an ear or a cheek or her
neck--sometimes her mouth, full and warm--before she would develop
sufficient energy to push him away and herself free. Then she would
protest mock earnestly or sometimes run away.
“Now, I’ll never speak to you any more, if that’s the way you’re going
to do. My father don’t allow me to kiss boys, anyhow,” and then she
would run, half ashamed, half smiling to herself as he would stare
after her, or if she lingered, develop a kind of anger and even rage.
“Aw, cut it! Whaddy ya want to be so shy for? Don’tcha like me? What’s
gettin’ into yuh, anyhow? Hey?”
In the meantime George Goujon and Myrtle Kenrihan, their companions,
might be sweeting and going through a similar contest, perhaps a
hundred feet up the street or near at hand. The quality of old Rogaum’s
voice would by now have become so raucous, however, that Theresa would
have lost all comfort in the scene and, becoming frightened, hurry
away. Then it was often that both Almerting and Goujon as well as
Myrtle Kenrihan would follow her to the corner, almost in sight of the
irate old butcher.
“Let him call,” young Almerting would insist, laying a final hold on
her soft white fingers and causing her to quiver thereby.
“Oh, no,” she would gasp nervously. “I can’t.”
“Well, go on, then,” he would say, and with a flip of his heel would
turn back, leaving Theresa to wonder whether she had alienated him
forever or no. Then she would hurry to her father’s door.
“Muss ich all my time spenden calling, mit you on de streeds oudt?” old
Rogaum would roar wrathfully, the while his fat hand would descend on
her back. “Take dot now. Vy don’d you come ven I call? In now. I vill
show you. Und come you yussed vunce more at dis time--ve vill see if I
am boss in my own house, aber! Komst du vun minute nach ten to-morrow
und you vill see vot you vill get. I vill der door lock. Du sollst
not in kommen. Mark! Oudt sollst du stayen--oudt!” and he would glare
wrathfully at her retreating figure.
Sometimes Theresa would whimper, sometimes cry or sulk. She almost
hated her father for his cruelty, “the big, fat, rough thing,” and just
because she wanted to stay out in the bright streets, too! Because he
was old and stout and wanted to go to bed at ten, he thought every one
else did. And outside was the dark sky with its stars, the street
lamps, the cars, the tinkle and laughter of eternal life!
“Oh!” she would sigh as she undressed and crawled into her small neat
bed. To think that she had to live like this all her days! At the
same time old Rogaum was angry and equally determined. It was not so
much that he imagined that his Theresa was in bad company as yet, but
he wished to forefend against possible danger. This was not a good
neighborhood by any means. The boys around here were tough. He wanted
Theresa to pick some nice sober youth from among the other Germans he
and his wife knew here and there--at the Lutheran Church, for instance.
Otherwise she shouldn’t marry. He knew she only walked from his shop
to the door of the Kenrihans and back again. Had not his wife told him
so? If he had thought upon what far pilgrimage her feet had already
ventured, or had even seen the dashing Almerting hanging near, then had
there been wrath indeed. As it was, his mind was more or less at ease.
On many, many evenings it was much the same. Sometimes she got in on
time, sometimes not, but more and more “Connie” Almerting claimed her
for his “steady,” and bought her ice-cream. In the range of the short
block and its confining corners it was all done, lingering by the
curbstone and strolling a half block either way in the side streets,
until she had offended seriously at home, and the threat was repeated
anew. He often tried to persuade her to go on picnics or outings of
various kinds, but this, somehow, was not to be thought of at her
age--at least with him. She knew her father would never endure the
thought, and never even had the courage to mention it, let alone run
away. Mere lingering with him at the adjacent street corners brought
stronger and stronger admonishments--even more blows and the threat
that she should not get in at all.
Well enough she meant to obey, but on one radiant night late in June
the time fled too fast. The moon was so bright, the air so soft. The
feel of far summer things was in the wind and even in this dusty
street. Theresa, in a newly starched white summer dress, had been
loitering up and down with Myrtle when as usual they encountered
Almerting and Goujon. Now it was ten, and the regular calls were
beginning.
“Aw, wait a minute,” said “Connie.” “Stand still. He won’t lock yuh
out.”
“But he will, though,” said Theresa. “You don’t know him.”
“Well, if he does, come on back to me. I’ll take care of yuh. I’ll be
here. But he won’t though. If you stayed out a little while he’d letcha
in all right. That’s the way my old man used to try to do me but it
didn’t work with me. I stayed out an’ he let me in, just the same.
Don’tcha let him kidja.” He jingled some loose change in his pocket.
Never in his life had he had a girl on his hands at any unseasonable
hour, but it was nice to talk big, and there was a club to which he
belonged, The Varick Street Roosters, and to which he had a key. It
would be closed and empty at this hour, and she could stay there until
morning, if need be or with Myrtle Kenrihan. He would take her there if
she insisted. There was a sinister grin on the youth’s face.
By now Theresa’s affections had carried her far. This youth with his
slim body, his delicate strong hands, his fine chin, straight mouth and
hard dark eyes--how wonderful he seemed! He was but nineteen to her
eighteen but cold, shrewd, daring. Yet how tender he seemed to her, how
well worth having! Always, when he kissed her now, she trembled in the
balance. There was something in the iron grasp of his fingers that went
through her like fire. His glance held hers at times when she could
scarcely endure it.
“I’ll wait, anyhow,” he insisted.
Longer and longer she lingered, but now for once no voice came.
She began to feel that something was wrong--a greater strain than if
old Rogaum’s voice had been filling the whole neighborhood.
“I’ve got to go,” she said.
“Gee, but you’re a coward, yuh are!” said he derisively. “What ’r yuh
always so scared about? He always says he’ll lock yuh out, but he never
does.”
“Yes, but he will,” she insisted nervously. “I think he has this time.
You don’t know him. He’s something awful when he gets real mad. Oh,
Connie, I must go!” For the sixth or seventh time she moved, and once
more he caught her arm and waist and tried to kiss her, but she slipped
away from him.
“Ah, yuh!” he exclaimed. “I wish he would lock yuh out!”
At her own doorstep she paused momentarily, more to soften her progress
than anything. The outer door was open as usual, but not the inner.
She tried it, but it would not give. It was locked! For a moment she
paused, cold fear racing over her body, and then knocked.
No answer.
Again she rattled the door, this time nervously, and was about to cry
out.
Still no answer.
At last she heard her father’s voice, hoarse and indifferent, not
addressed to her at all, but to her mother.
“Let her go, now,” it said savagely, from the front room where he
supposed she could not hear. “I vill her a lesson teach.”
“Hadn’t you better let her in now, yet?” pleaded Mrs. Rogaum faintly.