“I am quite upset, really I am. This is an iniquitous world--a world of
beastly sorrow and sin, by Jove!”
“What is the trouble now, Mr. Comstock?” I asked.
“Why, my dear lady, my dear old friend Beebe is lying dead, and I’m
trying to have him buried decently; but really I can’t get a soul
interested--the beastly cads. Ah, but it is a long story, my dear lady,
and I fear I will bore you. At any rate, if you will listen, I will tell
you a part of it. I shall be obliged to speak plainly, and, really, I
fear that you will not like to hear of such things.
“Beebe is not, or rather was not, an ordinary person. Poor old Beebe! He
was a poet, you know, and all that sort of a thing, and a perfect fiend
for sport, poor old chap! He came to the Isthmus in the ‘early days’ to
get away from his wife, who, I believe, was a perfect Tartar. She made
his life miserable, poor chap, by always enjoining economy upon him, and
bothering him about practical things. For a chap of his temperament,
she was not the right sort, you know. At first, poor old Beebe had a
good billet, and made a great deal of money--fifty pounds a month with
lodgings and coals. Fancy! Of course, being what you Americans call ‘a
good mixer’ (I used to think that a ‘mixer’ was American for barman), he
was very popular, and was apparently doing very nicely, until he met a
girl with whom he became enamored, and she, seemingly, took quite a
fancy to him. She was a fine musician, and, of her sort, rather pretty.”
“White?”
“Oh, dear, no. She was one of those brown-skinned charmers who make
chaps of every clime forget their home ties, their country, and, often
as not, their God. Well, as I said, poor old Beebe fell in love with
her, and right there began his downfall. The creature ruled him with a
rod of iron. He gave her all the money he could get. He actually gave
her diamonds, by Jove! and the Lord knows what else. Well, the hussy
wasn’t satisfied, but wanted more dinero, et cetera, and poor old Beebe
was at his wits’ end. Finally, she had the beastly cheek to threaten to
leave him for a bounder of a Frenchman who sold sausages, or something
of that sort. The wretched creature! In short, she bluffed the poor
chap, for he came to me one day and said that he could not bear the
thought of giving her up, and that if she wanted more money he would
try to get it for her. I advised him to give her up, but he left me,
shaking his head sadly.
“Well, Beebe visited all his friends in town, and ‘touched’ each one for
more or less, according to his salary. In this way he realized quite a
sum, which he gave to the girl, who immediately turned it over to the
beastly sausage chap, and began clamoring for more. Now, poor old Beebe
wrote to his friends in the States, and, although he hated to tell a lie
(truthful chap, Beebe), he, of course, had to say that he was ill. Well,
at any rate, he received quite a goodly sum from home. His wife was good
enough to send him twenty pounds. I presume she felt sorry for having
been so severe with him in the days that were gone. Now, Beebe took to
drinking harder (very fond of B. and S., was Beebe), and the girl left
him for the bounder. Also, his friends, at about this time, began to dun
him for the money he had borrowed. The poor fellow was simply bothered
to death, and drank more and more every day; and finally lost his
position. What, ill-luck? The poor chap had at last reached the lowest
depths of poverty and degradation, and would probably have died long ago
had he not fallen in with another girl. This one was a different sort.
Good-hearted, and all that, you know. Not a bit mercenary. She was as
faithful as a dog. Went out to work every day, and saw that he wanted
for nothing--even to several ‘nips’ each day, without which the poor
chap could now hardly live. Beebe didn’t take much interest in life,
however. I fancy he was grieving for the hussy, who had made such an ass
of him. My word! he used to steal off secretly at night to plead with
her.
“Well, he’s dead now, poor fellow, and there are none so poor as to do
him reverence; but he was a good sort, a very clever chap, and many the
Scotch we’ve had together. But I won’t moralize, my dear lady. He drank
more and more. Heaven knows where he got it. I believe there must be
some special Providence, whose business it is to see that the thirsty
never languish too long. Beebe began to neglect his personal appearance,
and, his liver being a little congested, his nose became a bit red. It
altered his looks horribly. I felt quite sorry for him. He had been
warned often enough by the district physicians (very humane chaps), but
poor Beebe took no notice, not caring, I presume. At last he got in the
habit of drinking some beastly stuff they sell in the Chino shops. Last
night he took an overdose of the poison. He died to-day at 12 o’clock. I
have been trying to get him an American flag for a winding sheet. Did I
get one? No, indeed, my dear lady. I have asked numbers of his former
friends, but not one of them seemed to care. They had no sympathy for
him, nor could they condone his mode of life, and its squalid ending.
But I am different, you know. I’ve been a devil of a fellow in my time,
even though I do come from a long line of clergymen. My word! we
Comstocks are the very devils. You see, Beebe’s motto is mine also: ‘As
we journey through life, let us live by the way,’ and I may add: ‘Never
put up the night’s share for the morning.’ I went to one of poor Beebe’s
friends, who just laughed, and said. ‘You’d better put the wench’s
petticoat on him for a shroud.’ Another one said he had too much respect
for the flag to ‘see that mutt’ wrapped in it. The brutes!
“Would you like to come with me and view the remains? Then we’d better
go right along, or those bounders will have buried the poor chap. You
will buy him a winding sheet? How good of you! Poor old Beebe would have
appreciated that.”
Beebe’s kind-hearted friend led me through many winding streets to a
most dismal neighborhood in that region of the city which, until lately,
had been known as the underworld; and in a dingy tenement above a Chino
shop I was shown the remains of “poor Beebe.” In a cheap, rough coffin,
laid upon boards stretched between two barrels, he looked very handsome
in his peacefulness. There was no evidence now of his nose ever having
been red. The hand of death had eliminated the disfigurement, which his
friend had so deplored. He was clothed in a striped shirt, with a collar
and red tie. Something white covered the lower part of his body. After a
minute I discerned that it was a woman’s voluminous petticoat. “Why!
what iniquity is this?” said Mr. Comstock, tugging at the unseemly
garment. “Why, Beebe would turn in his grave if he was buried in this!
My word! How he would laugh if he were here looking at some one else.
Beebe, old boy, you’re in a better world now--a world where you’ll be
understood,” he continued, as he divested the silent Beebe of the
objectionable covering.
Meantime, several persons came into the room and stood about as though
waiting for something to happen. There were several swagger black men in
long black coats, carrying tall hats, and some white men rather shabbily
dressed, very seedy and with very red noses--derelicts in this black
Sargasso Sea. One of the negroes brought a box and asked me to sit down,
but the black women looked upon me with evident displeasure, plainly
showing that they regarded me as an intruder, until a boy arrived with
the shroud for the dead man. Then they smiled upon me, and set to work
to prepare it. Now, a young man, who might have been Irish, came into
the room and asked for Comstock. “Here I am,” said the Englishman,
stepping forward, and bowing courteously. “What do you wish?” “‘Blinky’
says he ain’t got no American flag, but he sends you this, an’ he says
that it will be good enough, an’ too good for the likes o’ him.” So
saying, he threw down a green bundle into the lap of one of the women.
“My word! It’s an Irish flag!” exclaimed Comstock, “and Beebe had no use
whatever for the Irish. It was his only prejudice. What irony?”
Judging from Beebe’s face, there was no doubt but what he had descended
from a long line of New England ancestors, all of whom had a fine scorn,
doubtless, for everything Irish. The white shroud was now wrapped about
“poor Beebe,” and then, ye shades of the Pilgrim Fathers! the coffin was
draped in the folds of what once had been Erin’s glory.
“The harp that once through Tara’s halls,
The soul of music shed,”
quoted Mr. Comstock, as he arranged the folds so that the golden harp
would show in bold relief on Beebe’s breast. It was the only touch of
respectability in Beebe’s last earthly trappings; and a drop of Irish
stirred somewhere within me and burned hot at the thought that the flag
was considered of no better use than to cover the remains of an outcast,
who had disgraced his own flag.
A black clergyman now arriving, a hush fell upon the little gathering.
The black men tiptoed into positions behind the white mourners, who
tried their best to look solemn. The minister (“a blooming Dissenter,”
whispered Mr. Comstock to me), carrying a prayer-book and a Bible,
advanced in a most reverential manner. He opened the Bible and read as
follows:
“Malachi, fourth chapter, first verse: ‘For behold, the day cometh that
shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do
wickedness, shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them
up, saith the Lord of Hosts; that it shall leave them neither root nor
branch.’”
He then repeated the regular burial service. As he raised his eyes from
the prayer-book they fell upon a woman who hung over the silent form of
Beebe. In her arms she held a pretty, golden-haired child, whose wistful
blue eyes looked in wonderment at the motley group about her. “Who is
this?” asked the minister, closing the book and pointing to the child.
“This is the woman and child,” answered Mr. Comstock. “Do you mean his
wife?” “Well--so to speak, sah,” said the woman between her sobs. The
minister sighed, and continued with calmness: “I knew that this man had
died from drink, but I did not know that he had left this curse behind
him. All you white men and black women mark well what I am about to
say.” The white men looked uneasily at each other. The black ones
retreated to the background, while the women stared at the speaker with
mouths wide open. “Do you know,” said he “that the crime which this man
has committed cries to God for vengeance? Look at that beautiful,
golden-haired, blue-eyed child, who is fated to be an outcast on the
face of the earth. Think of what her future must be, with the Caucasian
in her veins running riot with the African! Oh, you white men and black
women who abide together in sin, and bring these innocent ones into the
world--the curse of God is upon you.”
Some of the white men turned pale at this, and several of the women sank
upon their knees and cried aloud for mercy. It appeared that “poor
Beebe” was not the only one who was married, “so to speak.”
“Let us pray,” said the minister. The men fell upon their knees and
echoed the words which fell from the lips of God’s anointed. While they
were praying, the black woman cried aloud, and I noticed with some
horror that her tears fell upon the golden head of the child. “May God
have mercy upon your soul,” said the minister, as the last of “poor
Beebe” was borne from the room. He appeared to be true to his calling
and to feel with intensity the enormity of that crime which, if not
checked, will eventually result in a widespread corruption of both
races. I came away. The last I saw of it was Mr. Comstock trudging
behind the hearse, which was now bearing “poor Beebe” to an unnamed
pauper’s grave marked only by a number.
* * * * *
Not long ago, during a conversation with Beebe’s faithful friend, he
confided in me that the clergyman’s religious sincerity had not only
caused him to alter his own mode of life, but had changed his ethical
view of Beebe’s conduct to his wife and friends and to his unfortunate
child.