KNIGHT-ERRANTRY _À LA MODE_
If all good Americans go to Paris when they die, it may safely be
predicted that all the bad ones will be booked through to Coney Island.
So much may be inferred from the regularity and zeal with which the
Toughs, Hoboes, Bowery Boys, and other fearful wildfowl of the New York
proletariat, accompanied by the corresponding females of the species,
betake themselves every Sabbath by trolley-car or steamer to this haunt
of ancient peace (which, by the way, is not to all appearances an island
and harbours no conies).
Take Margate and Douglas and Blackpool, and pile them into an untidy
heap; throw in a dozen Fun-Cities from Olympia and half a score of
World's Fairs from the Agricultural Hall; add some of the less reputable
features of Earl's Court and Neuilly Fair; include a race-course of the
baser sort; case the whole in wood, and people it with sallow gentlemen
in striped jerseys and ladies answering exclusively to such names as
Hattie, Sadie, and Mamie, reared up apparently upon an exclusive diet of
peanuts and clam-chowder; keep the whole multitude duly controlled and
disciplined by a police force which, if appearances go for anything, has
been recruited entirely from the criminal classes; and you will be able
faintly to realise what Coney Island can do when it tries on a fine
Sunday in summer.
So thought Hughie Marrable. He had been wandering round the world for
nine years now; but not even a previous acquaintance with the Devil
Dancers of Ceylon, the unhallowed revels of Port Said, or the
refinements of a Central African Witch-Hunt (with full tom-tom
accompaniment), had quite prepared him for this. Still, it was part and
parcel of Life, and Life was what he had left England to see.
He had arrived in New York from San Francisco two days ago. But
let it not be imagined that he had been conveyed thither by any
Grand-Trunk-Ocean-to-Ocean-Limited, or other refinement of an effete
modernity. His transcontinental journey had occupied just three years.
Since the day on which he steamed through the Golden Gate on a
tramp-freighter from Yokohama he had been working his way eastward by
easy stages, acquiring experience (as Jimmy Marrable had directed) of
the manner in which the other half of the world lives. Incidentally he
had mixed cocktails behind a Nevada bar; learned to fire a revolver
without taking it out of his pocket; accompanied a freight train over
the Rockies in the capacity of assistant brakeman--his duties being
chiefly confined to standing by with a coupling-pin, to discourage the
enterprise of those gentlemen of the road who proposed to travel
without tickets; and once, in a Southern State, he had been privileged
to be present at that ennobling spectacle to which the brightest
nation on earth occasionally treats the representatives of an older
civilisation--the lynching of a negro.
In a few days Hughie would sail for England, on board the mighty Apulia.
It was not often that he travelled in such ostentatious luxury: the
primitive man in him leaned towards something damp and precarious on
board a sailing-ship or a collier; but he happened to know that the
Apulia intended going for the ocean record this trip; and since the
third engineer happened to be a friend of his, Hughie had decided that
four-and-a-half days and nights down among the humming turbines and the
spirits that controlled them would be cheap at the price of an
expensively upholstered state-room many decks above, in which he would
leave his baggage and occasionally sleep.
For all that he had cast a regretful eye only that very morning on a
battered little tramp-steamer which was loading up with cargo alongside
a wharf at Hoboken--due to sail for Europe, so a stevedore told him, in
about two days' time.
To-morrow he was to be taken yachting in New York harbour by an old P.
and O. acquaintance, whom he had faithfully "looked up," in accordance
with a two-year-old promise, at his city office that morning. In the
evening, at the invitation of an American actor to whom he had once been
of service in Calcutta, he was to dine at the Lambs' Club,--the New York
equivalent of the Garrick and Green Room, with a dash of the Eccentric
thrown in,--and the next day he was to pay a flying visit to Atlantic
City.
Meanwhile he was putting in a few off-hours at Coney Island. He had
watched the islanders bathing, had witnessed a display of highly--not to
say epileptically--Animated Pictures, had spent half-an-hour in an open
_café-chantant_, where a bevy of tired-looking girls in short skirts
pranced about with mechanical abandon at the back of the small stage,
shouting the chorus of a ditty which a wheezy lady (who looked like the
mother of all chorus-girls) was singing at the front; and had declined a
pressing invitation from the keeper of an Anatomical Museum to step
inside and "have a dollar's worth for a dime."
Finally he drifted into a small theatre, where a melodrama of distinctly
British flavour (seasoned to the Coney Island palate by a few distinctly
local interpolations) was unfolding itself to a closely packed and
hard-breathing audience.
To judge from the state of the atmosphere the entertainment had been in
progress for some time. As Hughie took his seat the curtain rose on a
moonlit military scene. Figures wrapped in great-coats sat round a
camp-fire on the audience's right hand, the only plainly recognisable
character being the Heroine, who, attired as a hospital nurse and
positively starred with red crosses, was sewing aloofly upon an erection
which looked like a sarcophagus, but was marked in plain figures
"Ambulence." A sentry, who from his gait Hughie took (rightly) to be the
Comic Man, was pacing up and down at the back.
Presently the guard was changed, with much saluting of a pattern unknown
at any War Office, and the Comic Man, released from duty, was called
upon to sing "that dear ole song you useter sing at 'ome." The cold
light of the moon having been temporarily replaced by broad daylight in
order to give the singer's facial expression full play, he obliged;
though why any one who had heard him sing the song before should have
asked him to sing it again passed Hughie's comprehension. Next a
drummer-boy (female) was called upon by the company, and after a great
exhibition of reluctance,--fully justified by her subsequent
performance,--gave vent to a patriotic ditty, in which the only
distinguishable rhymes were "Black Watch" and "Scotch."
These revels brought the Hero on to the stage. He was attired in
clerical dress and a cavalry helmet; and, sitting down beside the
Heroine upon the sarcophagus, he proceeded, oblivious of the presence of
the entire guard, who were huddled round the fire not more than five
feet away, to make her a proposal of marriage; quoting Scripture to some
purpose, and extorting a demure affirmative from the lady just before
the Comic Man, who had obviously been lamenting that the success of the
piece should be imperilled by such stuff as this, upset the soup-kettle,
and so gave a fresh turn to the proceedings.
All this time Hughie had been conscious of an increasing feeling of
curiosity as to the identity of the only member of the glee-party round
the fire who so far had made no contribution to the entertainment. He
darkly suspected him of being the Villain, though what the Villain
should be doing unrecognised at such a period of the play--it was about
the third act--was hard to understand. However, the mystery was now
cleared up by a French _vivandière_--by this time it was plain that the
scene was laid in the Crimea--who called upon the mysterious one, in the
accents of Stratford-atte-Bowe, for a song and dance. No reply being
forthcoming, the entire company (precipitately, but quite correctly, as
it happened) rose up and denounced the stranger as a Russian and a spy.
They had only themselves to blame for his presence, for apparently he
had strolled up and joined the party quite promiscuously; and no one had
thought, so far, of asking him who he was or even of addressing him.
The audience now sat up expectantly. But instead of taking the
spy prisoner and shooting him on sight, the guard hurried off
R.U.E.--possibly to bring up their big guns or find a policeman. These
deplorable tactics did not meet with the reward they deserved, for the
Villain, instead of bolting off L. as fast as he could, lingered upon
the stage to tell the audience that he had come back to have one more go
at the Hero. (Goodness knows how many he had had!) The Hero obligingly
appeared at that moment, and a section (whose numbers appeared to
increase as the play proceeded) of the audience shouted to the Villain
to cut in and do it _now_. But portentous trampings "off" announced the
return of the glee-party, and the Villain, finding that he could not
execute his perfectly justifiable design without considerable danger to
his own person, and was in fact in a particularly tight place himself,
suddenly appealed (with considerable "nerve," it seemed to Hughie) to
the Hero, as a Cleric, to save him. The Hero (who was evidently a fool
as well as a bore) immediately complied. "You must take upon you my
identity," he remarked. In a twinkling they had exchanged great-coats,
and the Villain was now by all the laws of Melodrama completely
disguised as the Hero. He dashed off L., just as a perfect avalanche of
people, who had been faithfully and increasingly marking time in the
wings, poured on to the stage R., and endeavoured almost to poke their
rifles into the Hero's breast. But just as a nervous female in the
audience, apprehensive about the sudden discharge of firearms,
convulsively gripped Hughie's left elbow, the Heroine dashed on from
nowhere, and taking her stand before the Hero--apparently she was the
only person upon the stage who recognised him--uttered these thrilling
but mysterious words: "You kennot far erpon ther Red Kerawss!"
Curtain, amid thunders of applause.
After a commendably short interval the curtain rose upon the next act.
The Hero was now discovered asleep (under what must have struck any
thoughtful member of the audience as highly compromising circumstances
for a clergyman) in the cottage of a stout lady in a very short skirt
and fur-topped boots; whom, from the fact that her opening soliloquy
commenced with the words, "Har, vell!" the audience rightly adjudged to
be a Russian. This lady, it was soon plain, was consumed by a secret
passion for the Hero. In fact she proclaimed it in such strident tones
that it was surprising that its object did not wake up.
This scene soon resolved itself into a series of determined efforts on
the part of the Villain to terminate the existence of the Hero--an
enterprise in which he by this time commanded the whole-hearted support
of the greater part of the audience. His first attempt was foiled by the
Comic Man, who entered singing "Keep the baby warm, Mother!" just as he
had crawled within striking distance of the unwakeable Hero. Muttering
curses, the unfortunate man announced his intention of retiring "to the
woods," pending another opportunity. But he had no luck. Just as the
Comic Man performed a humorous exit through the window, the stout
lady--most of the other characters, by the way, addressed her as
"Tinker": possibly her name was Katinka--came in through the door,
filled with the forebodings of what she called "loove." Her subsequent
course of action could certainly only have been condoned on the plea of
emotional insanity. She unceremoniously bundled the Hero out of
bed--fortunately he had gone there in his boots--and sent him off on a
transparent wild-goose chase to the "trenches." Then she got into bed
herself, and when the Villain came crawling back from "the woods,"
brandishing his knife in the limelight, the audience were treated to a
sort of up-to-date rendering of "Little Red Riding Hood," the part of
the Wolf being sustained by Katinka, and that of Red Riding Hood by the
now hopelessly demoralised Villain, who was once more chased back to his
arboreal lurking-place with the muzzle of a revolver in the small of his
back.
In the next and final act the Villain made a supreme effort. He began by
slaying the drummer-boy,--presumably to keep his hand in,--but on going
through his victim's pockets in search of certain "despatches" which
that youthful hero had undertaken to carry through the Russian
lines,--where to, heaven knows!--the unfortunate man discovered a
locket, which instantly revealed to him the surprising, but none the
less distressing, intelligence that he had slain his own son. His
anguish was pitiful to behold, and when the Hero came on and began to
rub it in by further excerpts from the Scriptures, the audience to a man
decided that if the Villain brought it off this time no jury would
convict, but that he would be bound over at the most. He certainly set
about the business with more gumption than usual. Waiting until the Hero
was well launched into "Secondly," with the limelight full in his eyes,
he once more produced the glittering knife. Suddenly the ubiquitous
Katinka dashed on, and in the most unsportsmanlike manner shot the
Villain in the small of the back, at a range of about eighteen inches.
He dropped dead across the body of his son (which must have hurt that
infant prodigy very much). All the other characters sidled on from the
wings and formed a grand concluding tableau, the Hero, egregious to the
last and entwined in a stained-glass attitude with the Hospital Nurse,
pronouncing a sort of benediction as the curtain fell.
"Doesn't this remind you of the Drama as it used to be dished up to the
undergraduates in the old Barn at Cambridge?" remarked a voice.
Hughie turned to the speaker. He found beside him a man of about thirty,
with a fair moustache, which half hid a weak but amiable mouth and a
receding chin. He was dressed in the thick blue shore-going garments of
the seaman, but he looked too slight for an A.B. and too clean for a
fireman.
"Deck-hand," said Hughie to himself. "Gentleman once--no, still!"
"Hallo!" he replied. "You seem to know me. Forgive me if I ought to know
you, but I can't fix you at present. Odd thing, too, because I don't
often forget a face."
"I was up at Cambridge in your time," said the man.
"Not Benedict's?"
"No--Trinity. I was sent down ultimately. But I knew you well by sight.
Often saw you in the boat, and so on. You're Marrable, aren't you?"
"Yes. Were you a rowing man?"
"No. I hunted with the Drag and rode at Cottenham--in those days." He
glanced philosophically at his present attire.
"Come and have something," said Hughie.
The man interested him. He might, of course, be a mere long-shore shark
on the make, or he might be what he looked--a good-hearted, well-born
waster--an incorrigible but contented failure. Anyhow, five minutes over
a friendly glass would probably settle the question.
"I wonder if it's possible to obtain a decent British drink in this
clam-ridden hole," Hughie continued.
"The nearest thing to a product of the British Empire that you'll get
here," said the man, "is Canadian whisky; and personally I would rather
drink nitric acid. We had better stick to lager. Come along: I know the
ropes."
Presently they found themselves in a German beer saloon, where a
stertorous Teuton supplied their needs.
"By the way," said the man, "I have the advantage of you. My name is
Allerton. Sorry I forgot!"
"Thanks," said Hughie, rather lamely. "Are you--living out here just
now?"
"No," said Allerton simply. "I'm a deck-hand on a tramp-steamer." He
spoke easily and freely, as one gentleman to another. He had realised at
a glance that he was not about to be made the victim of offensive
curiosity or misplaced charity. "She's lying at Hoboken, due out on
Tuesday, for Bordeaux."
"French boat?"
"No. American owned, under the British flag, by a fairly competent
rascal, too. This trip we are carrying a cargo of Californian wine of
sorts. We took it last week from a sailing barque that had brought it
round the Horn. She wanted to start back at once, so turned it over to
us cheap."
"And you're going to Bordeaux? What does your astute owner want to take
coals to Newcastle for?"
"Because everything that comes _out_ of Newcastle is labelled coal
whether it is coal or not. In other words, this poison will be carried
by us to Bordeaux, bottled and sealed, and shipped to England as fine
vintage Burgundy. John Bull will drink it and feel none the worse. I'm
told it's a paying trade."
"I wish I were going in your boat," said Hughie, rather regretfully.
"I'm booked by the Apulia."
"Well, look out for the Orinoco on your second day out."
"The Orinoco? I remember seeing her at Hoboken to-day, and wishing I
could make the trip on her."
"I doubt if you'd be of the same opinion after trying conclusions with
Mr. James Gates, our first 'greaser,'" replied Allerton. "Still, I don't
know," he continued, regarding Hughie's brawny form reflectively. "I
don't believe he could put the fear of death into you the way he does
into most of us. You've knocked about a bit in your time, I dare say,
only with more success than I. Perhaps you weren't born with holes in
_all_ your pockets."
"I say," said Hughie rather diffidently,--it is difficult to confer a
favour upon a man who is down without offending him,--"will you dine
with me? Or sup, as it's getting late?"
"I shall be charmed," said the deck-hand. "Shall I show you a place? I
know quite a comfortable establishment close by here."
Hughie said "Righto!" and presently they found themselves in the place
of entertainment selected by Allerton. Most of the room was occupied by
small tables, at which various couples were eating and drinking. At one
end was a platform, upon which an intermittent sort of variety
entertainment was in progress.
On the floor at the foot of the platform was a piano. At the piano sat a
girl, who accompanied the performers and bridged over the gaps in the
programme by selections from the less restrained works of American
Masters of Music. Not far from the stage an unhealthy-looking youth was
presiding over a bar. The atmosphere was something between that of a
smoking-concert, and Baker Street Station in the days of the old
Underground.
Allerton's lazy nonchalance lasted until the first course was set before
him by a smiling blackamoor, and then, with a half-apologetic aside to
his host on the subject of his last meal, he fell upon the fare in a
manner which brought very vividly home to Hughie's intelligence the
difference between an amateur casual like himself, with money enough in
his pocket to make it possible to knock off when he tired of the game,
and the genuine article. He was not hungry, having in fact dined a
couple of hours before; but he did his best by tactful pecking to
conceal the fact from his guest. Still, even after he had ordered some
wine and duly inspected the cork, he had a good deal of time to look
about him.
Presently his attention began to concentrate itself upon the girl at the
piano. She was sitting quite near him, and Hughie, always respectfully
appreciative where a pretty face was concerned,--his wanderings, though
they had made him more than ever a master of men, had done little to
eradicate his innate attitude of quiet, determined, and occasionally
quite undeserved reverence towards women,--had time to notice the
un-American freshness of her colouring, the regularity of her profile,
and the prettiness of her hair. He also observed that the foot which
rested upon the pedal of the piano was small and shapely. She was
quietly dressed, in a dark-blue serge skirt and a white silk blouse--or
"shirtwaist," to employ the mysterious local designation--with short
sleeves. She had round arms and good hands.
Hughie wondered what she was doing in a place like this, and,
young-man-like, felt vaguely unhappy on her behalf; but experienced a
truly British feeling of relief (mingled with slight disappointment) on
observing that she wore a wedding-ring. He waxed sentimental. Who was
her husband? he wondered. He hoped it was not the proprietor of the
establishment,--a greasy individual of Semitic appearance, who
occasionally found leisure, in the intervals between announcing the
"turns" and calling the attention of patrons to the exceptional
resources of the bar, to walk across the room and paw the girl
affectionately on the shoulder while giving her some direction as to the
music,--nor yet the scorbutic young man behind the bar.
His meditations were interrupted by Allerton.
"Marrable, eyes front! And fill up your glass. Hang it, drink fair!"
Hughie turned and regarded his guest. The greater part of a magnum of
vitriolic champagne had disappeared down that gentleman's throat. His
eye had brightened, and now twinkled facetiously as he surveyed first
Hughie and then the girl at the piano.
"_Une petite pièce de tout droit_--eh, what?" he remarked.
Hughie, beginning to understand why his companion was now swabbing decks
instead of ruling ancestral acres, nodded shortly.
Allerton noticed his host's momentary distance of manner, and leaned
across the table with an air of contrition.
"I'm afraid," he said apologetically, "that I'm getting most infernally
full. You see how it is with me, don't you? I'm that sort of bloke.
Always have been, from a nipper. Thash--That's why I'm here. It's a
pity. And the worst of it is," he added, in a sudden burst of candour,
"that I'm going to get much fuller. It's a long time since I tasted
this." He touched his glass. "It isn't served out on the Orinoco. Do
you--er--mind?"
Hughie, with a queer feeling of compassion, smiled reassuringly, and
ordered another bottle. If Allerton was about to get drunk, he should
get drunk like a gentleman for once in a way.
Then his attention reverted to the piano.
There had been a development. The girl was mechanically playing one of
the compositions of that delicate weaver of subtle harmonies, Mr. John
Philip Sousa; but she was not reading her music. Her eyelids were
resolutely lowered, as if she wished to avoid seeing something. The
reason resolved itself into a gentleman who was leaning over the front
of the piano, gazing amorously down upon the musician, and endeavouring,
with surprising success, to make himself heard above one of the
composer's most characteristic efforts.
Hughie looked him up and down. He was a big man, powerfully built,
with little pig's eyes set close together, and a ponderous and
vicious-looking lower jaw. Was _he_ her husband? wondered the deeply
interested Hughie. No: he was too obviously endeavouring to make himself
agreeable.
"Marrable, my son," suddenly interpolated the convivial but observant
Allerton, "you're cut out! No use bidding against that customer. Do you
know who he is?"
"No. Who?"
"That," replied the deck-hand with an air of almost proprietary pride,
"is Noddy Kinahan."
"Oh! And who may he be?"
"Gee! (Sorry! One picks up these rotten Yankee expressions somehow.) I
mean, I am surprised you haven't heard of him. He's rather a big man
here. In fact, to be explish--explicit,"--Mr. Allerton was fast arriving
at that stage of intoxication which cannot let well alone, but must
tempt Providence by dragging in unnecessarily hard words,--"he is my
employer."
"Anything else."
"Political boss of sorts. _Inter alia_--that's good! I'm glad I
remembered that. _Inter alia_ rhymes with Australia, doesn't it? We'll
make up a Limerick on it some time--let me see, where was I? Oh,
yesh--yes, I mean--_inter alia_, he owns the Orinoco and about a dozen
more mouldy old coffins; and very well he does out of them, too! Buys
them cheap, and--but excuse further details at present, ole man. To tell
you the truth I'm getting so screwed that I'm afraid of saying something
that in my calmer moments I shall subsequently regret. A cigar? I thank
you. You're a white man, Marrable. Chin chin!"
After this burst of discretion Mr. Allerton returned to the joint
worship of Bacchus and Vesta, the difficulty which he experienced in
keeping the lighted end of the cigar out of his mouth increasing as the
evening advanced, but leaving his cheerfulness unimpaired. His condition
was due not so much to the depths of his potations as to the shallowness
of his accommodation for the same; and strong-headed Hughie, as he
surveyed the weak chin and receding forehead on the other side of the
table, mused not altogether without envy upon the strange inequality of
that law of nature which decrees that what is a toothful for one man
shall be a skinful for another and an anæsthetic for a third.
He was recalled from these musings by the remembrance of the girl at the
piano, and turned to see what was happening now.
Mr. Noddy Kinahan was returning from an expedition to the bar, carrying
a bottle of champagne and a long tumbler. These accessories to
conviviality he placed on the top of the piano, and departed on a second
trip, returning shortly with a wine-glassful of brandy. The girl, though
she probably observed more of his movements than her low-drooping lashes
would seem to allow, made no sign, but continued to play the ragtime
tune with a mechanical precision which caused the tumbler on the top of
the piano to tread a lively and self-accompanied measure round its more
stolid and heavily weighted companion.
Mr. Kinahan next proceeded to pour himself out a tumblerful of
champagne, liberally lacing the foaming liquid with brandy. Then, with
an ingratiating gesture toward the shrinking girl, he proceeded to
swallow the mixture with every appearance of enjoyment.
"King's peg!" commented Hughie to himself. "Wonder how much of _that_ he
can stand? I'd back him against friend Allerton, though, if it
came--Hallo! The hound! This must stop!"
He half rose to his feet. Mr. Kinahan, having satisfied his present
needs, had refilled the tumbler with champagne, added the rest of the
brandy, and was now proffering the potion, in the self-same vessel which
he had just honoured with his own august lips, to the girl at the piano.
The girl turned crimson and shook her head, but kept on playing.
Noddy Kinahan was not accustomed to bestow favours in vain. He walked
round behind the piano, and, taking the girl firmly by the shoulders
with his left arm, held the sizzling tumbler to her lips. She uttered a
strangled cry, left off playing, and struggled frantically to seize the
glass with her hands.
Now Hughie Marrable had a healthy prejudice in favour of minding his own
business. He had witnessed scenes of this description before, and he
knew that, place and company considered, the girl at the piano was
probably not unaccustomed to accept refreshment at the hands of
gentlemen, even when the gentleman was half-drunk, the hands dirty, and
the refreshment (after allowing a generous discount for spillings)
sufficiently potent to deprive any ordinary woman, within ten minutes,
of any sort of control over her own actions or behaviour. Moreover,
Hughie had a truly British horror of a scene. _But_--
He was surprised to feel himself leap from his chair and bound toward
the piano. His surprise, however, was nothing to that experienced a
moment later by Mr. Noddy Kinahan, who, having succeeded in pinning the
desperately resisting girl's arms to her sides, was now endeavouring to
prise her lips open with the edge of the tumbler. But there are slips
even after the cup has reached the lip. Just as success appeared to be
about to crown Mr. Kinahan's hospitable efforts, a large and sinewy hand
shot over his right shoulder and snatched away the glass, which it threw
under the piano. Simultaneously an unseen force in the rear shook him
till his teeth rattled, and then, depressing his head to the level of
the keyboard, began to play a lively if staccato tune thereon with the
point of Mr. Kinahan's rubicund and fleshy nose.
These operations were more or less screened from the public view by the
body of the piano, which was an "upright" of the cottage variety. But
the sudden cessation of "The Washington Post" in favour of what sounded
like "The Cat's Polka" played by a baby with its feet, brought the
proprietor of the establishment hurrying across the room. He arrived
just in time to be present at the conclusion of a florid chromatic scale
of about four octaves, executed under the guidance of Hughie Marrable's
heavy hand by Mr. Kinahan's somewhat abraded nasal organ.
The instrumental part of the entertainment now terminated in favour of a
vocal interlude. Hughie released his grip of Mr. Noddy Kinahan's collar,
and stood back a pace waiting for a rush. He was confident that, given a
clear floor and no interference, he could offer his burly opponent a
lesson in manners which he would never forget.
But Mr. Kinahan, being a mover in high political altitudes, was not in
the habit of doing his own dirty work. He reviled his opponent, it is
true, in terms which an expert could not but have admitted were
masterly, but it was obvious to the unruffled Hughie that he was doing
so chiefly to keep his courage up and "save his face." There was a
cunning, calculating look in his piggy eyes which did not quite fit in
with the unrestrained _abandon_ of his utterances, and Hughie began to
realise that there are deeper schemes of retaliation than mere assault
and battery.
Once or twice Mr. Kinahan, in pausing for breath, turned and looked over
his shoulder toward the curious crowd which was gathering behind
him. Presently Hughie noticed a couple of "toughs" of the most
uncompromisingly villainous appearance advancing in a leisurely fashion
from a corner by the door, where they had been supping. They kept their
eyes on Kinahan, as if for an order. Evidently that great man never took
his walks abroad without his jackals.
Things were beginning to look serious. The Hebraic proprietor, half
crazy with fright at the gratuitous advertisement which the fracas was
conferring upon his establishment,--an advertisement which was receiving
a gratifying response from an influx of curious sightseers,--was
frantically begging people to go away. The girl, the source (as ever!)
of all the trouble, was still sitting on the music-stool, trembling like
a fluttered bird, with Hughie, feeling slightly self-conscious, standing
over her. In the middle distance, Mr. Allerton, gloriously oblivious to
the ephemeral and irrelevant disturbance around him, sat contentedly
before two empty bottles, endeavouring with erratic fingers to adorn the
lapel of his blue pea-jacket with a silver-plated fork (the property of
the establishment), upon which he had impaled a nodding banana of
pantomimic proportions.
Suddenly Hughie heard himself addressed in casual tones by some one
standing close behind him.
"Say, Johnny Bull, you'd best get out of here, right now. Skip! Those
two toughs of Noddy's won't touch you till they get the word, but when
they do you'll be sorry. Get out this way, by the side of the stage. It
leads around to the back door."
Having delivered himself of this undoubtedly sound piece of advice, the
unhealthy-looking young gentleman from behind the bar picked up the
champagne bottle and broken glass, and lounged back to his base of
operations.
Hughie, realising the wisdom of his words, and making a hasty note that
one should never judge even a mottle-faced bar-tender by his appearance,
reluctantly abandoned his half-projected scheme of hurling Noddy Kinahan
into the arms of his two sinister supporters and then knocking their
collective heads together, and turned to the small door behind him.
Suddenly he caught sight of the piano-girl. He paused and surveyed her
thoughtfully.
"You'd better come with me," he said.
Without a word, the girl rose and preceded him to the door. Hughie
opened it for her, and they both passed through and hurried down a
narrow passage, which gave direct into the alley at the back of the
establishment.
Once outside, Hughie took the girl's arm and fairly ran, never pausing
till they reached the brightly lighted sea-front. He had an idea that a
cheerful and crowded thoroughfare would prove more salubrious than
deserted and ill-lit byways.
Once clear of their late surroundings the two slackened pace, and Hughie
surveyed his charge with comical perplexity.
"Now what am I to do with _you_?" he inquired.
"Take me home," said the girl, sobbing.
Her pluck and fortitude, having brought her dry-eyed through the worst
of the conflict, had now taken their usual leave of absence, and she was
indulging very properly in a few reactionary and comforting tears.
"Where do you live?" asked Hughie.
"Brooklyn."
"That's a matter for a trolley-car. Come along."
He took her arm again, rather diffidently this time,--his old masculine
self-consciousness was returning,--and hurried off to what the Coney
Islanders call a "deepo." Here they ensconced themselves in the corner
of a fairly empty car, and started on their twenty-mile run, _viâ_
Sheepshead Bay and other delectable spots, to Brooklyn Bridge.
As soon as the car started, Hughie turned to his companion.
"Look here," he said bluntly. "I know a lady when I meet one. What were
you doing in that place at all? You are English, too."
"Yes. I can't blame you for wondering. I'll tell you. I come from
London. My father was a small schoolmaster in Sydenham. He--he was
unfortunate, and died three years ago, and I was left alone in the
world, with hardly two sixpences to rub together. Just as things were
looking none too promising for me, I met and married"--she flushed
proudly--"one of the best men that ever stepped--Dennis Maclear. He is
an electrical engineer. We came out here together to make our fortunes,
and settled in New York. We were beginning to do fairly well after a
long struggle, when one day Dennis crushed his left arm and leg in a
cog-wheel arrangement of some kind, and for three months he has not been
able even to get out of bed without help. Bad luck, wasn't it? He is
getting better slowly, and some day, the doctor says, he will be able to
get about again. But--well, savings don't last for ever, you know; so
I--"
"I see," said Hughie; "the upkeep of the establishment has devolved on
you in the meanwhile?"
"Yes. Piano-playing is about the only accomplishment I possess. A girl
friend of mine told me she was giving up her billet at old Bercotti's,
and asked if I would like it. She wouldn't recommend it to most girls,
she said, but perhaps it would suit me all right, being married. I took
it; but as you saw, my being married wasn't sufficient protection after
all."
She shuddered, for she was very young, and badly shaken; but presently
she smiled bravely.
"What did you get?" asked Hughie.
"Dollar a night."
"It's not much."
"It's better than starvation," said practical little Mrs. Maclear.
"And what are you going to do next?"
"I'm not going back to old Bercotti's again--that's flat."
"Can you get another berth?"
"Well, if there happens to be anybody in this simple and confiding
country who is willing to take on as accompanist or teacher a young
woman of shabby-genteel appearance, who is unable to mention a single
soul as a reference, and has no character to show from her former
employer--it ought to be easy!" said the girl.
Hughie regarded her reflectively.
"You take it well. I admire your pluck," he said.
"A married woman with a husband to keep has no time to worry about
pluck," replied Mrs. Maclear; "she just _has_ to do things. Besides, all
the pluck in the world can't save a woman when Noddy Kinahan is about.
If it hadn't been for you--by the way, would you mind telling me your
name? You know mine."
Hughie told her. Presently they left the trolley-car--_anglicè_,
electric-tram--and struck off down a street in Brooklyn. The girl turned
in at a doorway, and paused at the foot of a stair.
"Won't you come up and see my husband, Mr. Marrable?" she said. "It's
ten flights up, and we don't run to an elevator; but I know Dennis would
like to thank you himself."
Hughie had intended to refuse,--he hated being thanked as much as most
matter-of-fact people,--but, a flash of unusual insight revealing to him
the fact that the true object of the invitation was not to exhibit him
to the husband, but to enable this proud little lady to exhibit her
husband to him, he felt reassured, and allowed himself to be borne aloft
to the Maclear eyrie. Here a gigantic and impulsive son of Kerry, gaunt
and hollow-eyed through long bed-keeping, wrung his hand in a manner
which made him feel glad he was not a refractory terminal, what time
Mrs. Maclear, in a sort of up-to-date version of the song of Miriam,
described Hughie's glorious triumph over Noddy Kinahan, laying special
stress upon the ecstatic period during which Mr. Kinahan, at the
instance of Hughie, had enacted the part of a human pianola.
He left them at last, wondering in his heart, as he tramped home under
the stars to his hotel in West Forty-Second Street, what the plucky
couple were going to live on during the next two or three months. The
man was still practically a cripple,--he must have been badly
mangled,--and it is hard work fighting for time in a country whose
motto, as regards human as well as other machinery, is: "Never repair!
Scrap, and replace!"
Hughie had solved the problem to his satisfaction by the time he crossed
Brooklyn Bridge.
For the rest of the way home he thought of other things. A bachelor,
however ungregarious, is at heart a sentimental animal, and during his
walk Hughie was contemplating with his mind's eye the picture that he
had left behind him as he said good-night,--the picture of "a snug
little kingdom up ten pair of stairs," tenanted by a little community of
two, self-contained and self-sufficient, dauntless in the face of grim
want and utter friendlessness,--and, despite his own health and wealth,
he experienced a sudden feeling of envy for the crippled and impecunious
Dennis Maclear.
"I suppose," he mused to himself, "it doesn't really matter _how_ rotten
a time you have in this world so long as you have it in the right
company." Then he added, apparently as a sort of corollary: "By gad,
when I get home next week, I'll _stay_ there!"
But, however carefully (or carelessly) we handle the tiller on life's
voyage, it is the little casual currents and unexpected side winds that
really set our course for us. As Hughie rolled into bed that night he
reflected, rather regretfully, that the incident of that evening was
closed for ever. He had definitely cut himself off from the Maclears, at
any rate, for the very simple reason that he had just posted to them a
hundred one-dollar notes, as a temporary loan until their "ship came
in," carefully omitting to mention that his own was due to go out in
twenty-four hours, and giving no address for purposes of repayment.
But for all that, the incident had definitely altered his course for
him, or at any rate was destined to send him round by an alternative
route.