inquired. "D' you shay 'home,' Toffski? Haven't you got any uzzer place
t' go? Wen a man'sh r'duced t' th' 'str--hic--remity 'f goin' home,
must be in dev'lish hard luck."
"Der vhy 've go home," said Bludoffski, "is dot I somedings haf I show
you."
"Ah. I shee. Za's diff'rent zing. You're goin' t'show me some-'zin',
eh?"
"Yah."
"Picshur? Hope 'taint pichshur, Koffski. I'm ord'narily very fon' of
art, but f'law needs good legs t' 'zamine picshur, an' I'm boun'ter
confesh my legsh not just 'dapted t'--"
"Nein."
"Eh?"
"It vasn't noddings like dot."
"'Taint china, is 't, Boffski? 'Taint Willow Pattern er Crown Derby er
zat sorter zing? T' tell truth, Boffski, I aint mush on china. Some
people go crashy at er shight er piece nicked china. My wife tol' me
zuzzer day she saw piece Crown Derby 'n' fainted dead way, 'n' r'fused
t' come to f'r half 'n hour. I said I'd give ton er Crown Derby for
bashket champagne 'n' she didn't speak to me rester 'zhe week. Jush
shows how shum people--"
"Nein!"
"Eh?"
"It vasn't shina."
"By zhove, you 'rouse my cur'os'ty, Woffski. If 'tain't picshur er
piece pottery, wha' deuce is't?"
"You shall see."
"Myst'ry! Well, I'm great boy f'r myst'ries. Hullo! Zis, zh' place?"
They had walked through Twenty-ninth Street, into Second Avenue, and had
reached the center of a gloomy and dismal block. Directly in front of
the gloomiest and most dismal house of all Bludoffski had suddenly
stopped, and in answer to Mr. O'Royster's exclamation, he drew from his
pocket a latch-key and opened the side door.
The entry was dark, but the glimmer of a light was visible at the end of
the hall. He did not speak, but motioned with his hand an invitation for
Mr. O'Royster to go in. It was accepted, not, however, without a slight
manifestation of reluctance. Mr. O'Royster's senses were somewhat
clouded, but the shadows of the entry were dark enough to impress even
him with a vague feeling of dread.
Bludoffski shut the door behind them carefully and drew a bolt or two.
Then he led the way down the hall toward the light. As they advanced
voices were heard, one louder than the rest, which broke out in rude
interruption, dying down into a sort of murmuring accompaniment.
When they reached the end of the hall Bludoffski opened another door and
they entered a large beer saloon. At a score of tables men were sitting,
many apparently of German birth. They were smoking pipes, drinking beer,
and listening to the hoarse voice of an orator standing in the furthest
corner of the room.
He was a little round man with little round eyes, a little round nose, a
little round stomach, and little round legs. Though very small in
person, his voice was formidable enough, and he appeared to be
astonishingly in earnest.
Bludoffski's entrance created a considerable stir. Several persons began
to applaud, and some said, "Bravo! bravo!" One sharp-visaged and angular
man with black finger-nails, spectacles, and a high tenor voice, cried
out with a burst of enthusiasm, "Hail! Dear apostle uf luf!" a sentiment
that brought out a general and spontaneous cheer. Mr. O'Royster,
apparently under the impression that he was the object of these
flattering attentions, bowed and smiled with the greatest cheerfulness
and murmured something about this being the proudest moment of his life.
He was on the point of addressing some remarks to the bartender, when
the little round orator cut in with an energy quite amazing.
[Illustration: "VE VILL SHTRIKE, MEIN PRUDERS!"]
"Der zoshul refolushun haf gome, my prudders!" he said. "Der bowder
vas all retty der match to be struck mit. Ve neet noddings but ter
stretch out mit der hant und der victory dake. Der gabitalist fool
himselluf. He say mit himselluf 'I haf der golt und der bower, hey?' He
von pig fool. He dinks you der fool vas, und der eye uf him he vinks
like der glown py der circus. But yust vait. Vait till der honest sons
uf doil rise by deir might oop und smite der blow vich gif liperty to
der millions!"
At this there was a wild outburst of applause and a chorus of hoarse
shouts: "Up mit der red flag!" "Strike now!" "Anarchy foreffer!"
"Ve vill shtrike, mine prudders," continued the little round orator,
growing very ardent and red in the face. "Ve vill no vait long. Ve vill
kill! Ve vill burn! Ve vill der togs uf var loose und ride to driumph in
der shariot uf fire. Ve vill deir housen pull down deir hets upoud, und
der street will run mit der foul plood uf der gabitalist!"
A mighty uproar arose at these gory suggestions, and would not be
subdued until all the glasses had been refilled and the enthusiasm that
had been aroused was quenched in beer.
Mr. O'Royster had listened to these proceedings with some misgivings. He
turned to his companion, who stood solemn and silent by his side, and
observed:
"D' I unnerstan' you t' say, Woffski, 't you 's goin' home?"
"Yah."
"Doncher zhink 's mos' time t' go?"
"Ve vas dere now."
"Home?"
"Yah."
"Can't say I'm pleased with your d'mestic surroundings, Boffski. Razzer
too mush noise f' man of my temp'ment. Guesh I'll haffer bid you
g'night, Boffski."
"Nein."
"Yesh, Boffski, mush go. Gotter 'gagement."
"Vait. I haf not show you yet--"
"T' tell truf, Moffski, I've seen 'nuff. 'F I wasser shee more, might
not sleep well. Might have nightmare. Don't shink 's good f' me t' shee
too much, ol' f'law."
"Listen."
The little round orator, refreshed and reinvigorated, began again.
"You must arm yoursellef, my prudders. You must haf guns und powder und
ball und--"
"Dynamite!" yelled several.
"Yah. Dot vas der drue veapon uf der zoshul refolushun. Dynamite! You
must plenty haf. Ve must avenge der murder uf our brudders in Shegaco.
Deir innocent plood gries ter heffen for revensh. A t'ousan' lifes vill
not der benalty bay. Der goundry must pe drench mit plood. Den vill
Anarchy reign subreme ofer de gabitalist vampire! Are you retty?"
The whole crowd rose in a body, banged their glasses viciously on the
tables in front of them and shouted: "Ve vas!"
"Den lose no time to rouse your frients. Vake up der laporing mans all
eferywhere. Gif dem blenty pomb und der sicnal vatch for, und ven it vas
gif shoot und kill und spare nopoddy! Der time for vorts vas gone. Now
der time vas for teets!"
"Loffski," whispered Mr. O'Royster, "really must 'scuse me, Loffski, but
's time er go. I have sorter feelin' 's if I's gettin' 'tossercated in
zhe eyes. Always know 's time er go when I have zat feelin'. F' I'd know
chure home 's in place like zis I'd asked you t' go t' mine where zere's
more r--hic--pose."
There was a door behind them near the bar, and Bludoffski, opening it,
motioned Mr. O'Royster to go in ahead. He obeyed, not without
reluctance, and the Anarchist followed. Two tables covered with papers,
a bed and several chairs were in the room, together with many little
jars, bits of gaspipe, lumps of sulphur, phosphorus and lead.
"Sit down," said Bludoffski.
Mr. O'Royster sat.
"I am an Anarchist," Bludoffski began.
"'S very nice," Mr. O'Royster replied. "I 's zhinkin' uzzer day 'bout
bein' Anarchis' m'self, but Mrs. O'Royster said she's 'fraid m' health
washn't good 'nuff f' such--hic--heavy work."
"You hear der vorts uf dot shbeaker und you see der faces uf der men.
Vat you t'ink it mean? Hey? It mean var upon der reech. It mean Nye
Yorick in ashes--"
"Wha's use? Don't seem t' me s' t' would pay. Of course, ol' f'law,
whatever you says, goes. But 't seems t' me--"
"You can safe all dot var. You can der means be uf pringing aboud der
reign uf anarchy mitout der shtrike uf von blow. Eferypody vill lif und
pe habby."
"Boffski," said Mr. O'Royster, after a pause, during which he seemed to
be making a violent effort to gather his intellectual forces. "Zere's no
doubt I'm 'tossercated in zhe eyes. W'en a man's eyes 'fected by
champagne, he's liter'ly no good. Talk to me 'bout zis t'mor', Woffski.
Subjec's too 'mportant to be d'scussed unner present conditions."
"Nein! nein! You can safe der vorlt uf you vill. Von vort from you vill
mean peace. Midoutdt dot vort oceans of plood vill be spill."
"Woffski, you ev'dently zhink I zhrunker'n I am. I'm some zhrunk,
Woffski, I know, _some_ zhrunk, but 'taint 's bad's you zhink."
"I vill sbeak more blain."
"Do, ol' f'law, 'f you please."
"It vas selfishness vot der vorld make pad. It was being ignorant und
selfish vot crime und bofferty pring to der many und vealth und ease to
der few. Der beoples tondt see dot. Tey tondt know vot Anarchy mean. It
vas all rest, all peace, nopoddy pad, no var, no bestilence. Dot is
Anarchy, hey?
"I haf my life gif to der cause uf Anarchy. I haf dravel der vorlt over
shbeaking, wriding, delling der beoples to make vay for der zoshul
refolushun. Uf dey vill not, ve must der reech kill. We must remofe dem
vich stand py der roat und stay der march of civilization. Some say
'Make haste! kill! kill!' I say, 'Nein, vait, gif der wretched beoples
some chance to be safe. Tell dem vot is Anarchy. Etjucade dem.'
"Vell, den, dey listen to me. Dey say, 'Ve bow der vill before uf Herr
Bludoffski, whose vordt vas goot. Ve vait. But how long? Ah, dat I can
not tell. But I have decide I make von appeal. I gif der vorlt von
chance to come ofer to Anarchy and be save. Ha! Se! I haf write a pook!
I haf say der pook inside all apout Anarchy. I haf tell der peauties of
der commune, vere no selfishness vas, no law, but efery man equal und
none petter as some udder. I haf describe it all. Nopody can dot pook
reat mitout he say ven he lay him down, 'I vil be an Anarchist.'"
Mr. Bludoffski had become intensely interested in his own remarks. He
picked his manuscripts from the table and caressed them lovingly.
"See," he said, "dere vas der pook vich make mankind brudders. I tell
you how you help. I vas poor. I haf no money. I lif on noddings, und dem
noddings I peg. Ven I see you und you dot money gif me, I say 'Dis man
he haf soul! He shall be save.' Den I say more as dot. I say he shall
join his hand mit me. He shall print him, den million copies, send him
de vorlt ofer, in all der lankviches, to all der peoples. Dink uf dot!
You shall be great Anarchist as I. Ve go down mit fame togedder!"
[Illustration: "HE HAF NO SOUL, NO HEART, NO MIND, NO NODDINGS."]
He paused for Mr. O'Royster's reply, trembling with fanatical
excitement. The reply was somewhat slow in coming. Mr. O'Royster, when
his companion began to talk, had leaned his head on his arm and closed
his eyes. He had preserved this attitude throughout the address and was
now breathing hard.
"Vell!" said Bludoffski, impatiently.
Mr. O'Royster drew a more resonant breath, long, deep and mellow.
"He sleep!" cried Bludoffski, in scornful fury. "Der tog! He sleep ven I
tell him--"
He sprang up, ran across the room and returned with a huge
carving-knife. "I vill kill him!" he cried, and, indeed, made start to
do it. But as suddenly he checked himself, tossed the knife on the
floor, muttering, "Bah, he not fit to kill," and opened the door into
the saloon. The Anarchist meeting had ended, but several persons were
still sitting around the tables, drinking beer. He called to two of
these, and said, in a tone of almost pitiful despair:
"Take dot man home. I not know who he vas. I not know vere he lif.
Somebotty fin' oud. Look his pockets insite. Ask der boleecemans. Do any
dings, but take him avay. He haf no soul, no mind, no heart, no
noddings!"
IV.
MAGGIE.
Wrapped in contemplation and but little else, probably because his stock
of contemplation largely exceeded his stock of else, Mr. Dootleby
wandered down the Bowery. Midnight sounded out from the spire in St.
Mark's Church just as Mr. Dootleby, having come from Broadway through
Astor Place, turned about at the Cooper Union.
There was a touch of melancholy in Mr. Dootleby's expression as he
looked down the big, brilliant Bowery, glowing with the light of a
hundred electric burners and myriads of gas-jets, and seething with
unnatural activity. He stopped a moment in the shadow thrown by the
booth of a coffee and cake vender, and looked attentively into the faces
of the throngs that passed him. He seemed to be thinking hard.
[Illustration: MR. DOOTLEBY.]
In truth, it is a suggestive place, is the Bowery. Day and night are all
the same to it. It never gets up and it never goes to bed. It never
takes a holiday. It never keeps Lent. It indulges in no sentiments. It
acknowl-edges no authority that bids it remember the Sabbath Day to
keep it holy. But from year's end to year's end it bubbles, and boils,
and seethes, and frets while the daylight lasts, and in the glare of its
brighter night it plunges headlong into carousal!
Mr. Dootleby had a great habit of walking at night, though he seldom
came down town so far as this. His apartments were in Harlem, and
usually, after he had taken his dinner and played a rubber of whist, he
found himself sufficiently exercised by a stroll as far as Forty-second
Street. But to-night he felt a trifle restless, and journeyed on.
Though his hair was nearly white and his face somewhat deeply furrowed,
Mr. Dootleby's tall heavy figure stood straight toward the zenith, and
moved with an ease and celerity that many a younger man had envied. With
his antecedents I am not entirely familiar, but they say he was always
eccentric. I, for my part, shall like him none the less for this. They
say he was rich once, but that he never knew how to take care of his
money, and what part of it he did not give away slipped off of its own
accord.
They say he was past fifty when he married, and his bride was a young
woman, and when they went off together he was as frisky as a young
fellow of twenty-three. Then, they say, she died, and after that he took
but little interest in things, spending his time chiefly in such amiable
pursuits as the entertainment of the children playing in Central Park,
and the writing of an occasional article for the scientific papers, on
"The Peculiar Behavior of Alloys."
Despite the dinginess of his costume, Mr. Dootleby was a handsome old
man, and he looked very out of place on the Bowery. Not that good looks
are wanting in the Bowery, for many a crownless Cleopatra mingles with
its crowds. But Mr. Dootleby, as he stood in the shadow of the
coffee-vender's booth, seemed to be the one kind of being necessarily
incongruous with the midnight Bowery spectacle.
Mr. Dootleby stood and looked for full twenty minutes. In some of the
faces that passed him he saw only a careless sensuality brightened by
the flush of excitement. Others, somewhat older, were full of brazen
coarseness, and others, older still, bore that pitiful look of hopeless
regret, quickly changing to one that says as plainly as can be that the
time for thinking and caring has gone. Upon many was stamped the brand
of inborn infamy, their only inheritance.
[Illustration: THE BOWERY NIGHT-SCENE.]
Some hunted souls went by, their manner jaded and hapless, their steps
nervous and irresolute, and their eyes sweeping the streets before them,
never resting, never closed. A few as they passed scowled at him--even
at him, as if there were not one in all this world upon whom they had
not declared war. Want had marked most of them with unmistakable lines,
and crossing these were often others telling that they knew no better
than they did.
Mr. Dootleby watched awhile and then went on, pausing occasionally at
the corners to peer through the dark side streets, up at the big
tenement-houses--those ugly nurseries of vice--from whose black shadows
came many of these that had been christened into crime. But in the
Bowery itself there was no gloomy spot. Light streamed from every
window, and flooded the pavements. The street-cars whirled along. Even
the bony creatures that drew them caught the spirit of this feverish
thoroughfare. From every other doorway, shielded by cloth or wicker
screens, came the sounds of twanging harps and scraping fiddles, the
click of glasses and the shrill chatter and laughter of discordant
voices.
Here and there, in front of a bewildering canvas, upon which, in the
gayest of gay colors, mountainous fat women, prodigious giants, scaly
mermaids, wild men from Zululand, living skeletons, and three-headed
girls were painted, stood clamorous gentlemen in tights, urgently
importuning passers-by to enter the establishments they represented,
whereof the glories and mysteries could be but too feebly told in words.
And upon the sidewalks all about him, swarms of itinerant musicians,
instantaneous photographers, dealers in bric-a-brac, toilet articles,
precious stones, soda water, and other needful and nutritious wares,
urged themselves upon Mr. Dootleby's attention.
He walked leisurely on, moralizing as he went, until he had passed
Chatham Square, and had got into the somberer district below. He turned
a corner somewhere, thinking to walk around the block and find his way
back into the Bowery. But the more corners he rounded the more he found
ever at his elbow, and the conviction began to make its way into his
mind that he had lost his bearings.
The block in which he was now wandering was quite dark and dismal, save
for a single gas-jet hanging almost hidden within a dirty globe, over
some steep steps that led into a cellar. Mr. Dootleby concluded to stop
there and ask his way. As he approached the cellar, he heard what seemed
to be cries of distress. They grew more distinct, and accompanying them
were the dull sounds of blows and the harsh accents of a man's voice,
evidently permeated with rage.
Mr. Dootleby ran down the steps and flung the door open, presenting his
eyes with a spectacle that made his blood run cold. The room was long
and narrow. At one end and near the door was a bar fitted up with a few
black bottles and broken tumblers, a keg or two of beer, and some boxes
of cigars. Along the walls stood a couple of benches, and further on
were half a dozen little rooms, partitioned from each other, all opening
into the bar-room. On the benches six girls were lolling about, dressed
in gaudy tights, and with them were three or four men. The room was hot
to suffocation, and the smell from the dim and dirty lamps that stood on
each end of the bar, together with the foul tobacco-smoke with which the
atmosphere was saturated, combined to make the place disgusting and
poisonous.
All these conditions Mr. Dootleby took in at his first glance, and his
second fell upon two figures in the center of the room, from whom had
proceded the noises he had heard. One was that of a girl cowering on her
knees and moaning in a voice from which reason had clearly departed. A
big, unconscionably brutal-looking man stood over her, holding her down
by her hair, which, braided in a single plait, was wound about his hand.
He had just thrown the stick upon the floor with which he had been
beating her, and was drawing from the stove a red-hot poker.
[Illustration: THE FELLOW WHEELED QUICKLY AROUND.]
Mr. Dootleby was not of an excitable temperament ordinarily, but his
senses were so affected by the horrors he saw and the pestilential air
he breathed that his head began to swim, and only by an especial draft
upon his resolution was he able to command himself. There was a pause
consequent upon his entrance, and his quick eyes made good use of it.
He saw that the girl had already been half murdered, and that her
assailant was a short, thick-set old man, with the eyes of a snake and
the neck of a bull. He saw that the men on the bench, all beastly
specimens, were contemplating her torture with an indifference that
would have shamed the grossest savage. Several of the women, too--the
older ones--were looking on with scarcely the sign of a protest in their
faces, and only one, a mere child, seemed to feel a genuine sense of
terror and sympathy.
Mr. Dootleby threw open his coat, tightened his grasp on his
walking-stick, and said, very quietly: "What are you doing?"
The fellow wheeled quickly around. He looked with intense malice at Mr.
Dootleby, and then shouted at one of the women, "Why didencher lock de
door like I toljer, you fool?"
Mr. Dootleby did not wait for either of these questions to be answered.
He sprang into action with all the agility and ferocity of a young
panther. The handle of his cane was a huge knob of carved ivory. He
brought it directly on the head of the ruffian in a blow of tremendous
force, and as the fellow staggered, Mr. Dootleby grasped the poker,
turning it so that its heated end touched his antagonist's arm. Of
course, the man loosened his hold, and in an instant more dropped upon
the floor. Then Mr. Dootleby, keenly alive to the necessity of improving
every second, caught the prostrate girl by the arm and threw her behind
him toward the open door. "Run for your life!" he said.
But she didn't run. She couldn't run, and while she was struggling to
get upon her feet, the fellow recovered himself and emitted a roar that
acted on her terrified soul as if it had been a blow. She fell
incontinently upon her back in a dead swoon.
Mr. Dootleby's situation was perilous. He had hoped by a sudden and
overwhelming attack to stun the man and get the girl out into the
street. But the man's quick recovery and the girl's exhaustion left him
in almost as bad a situation as ever, and he glanced apprehensively at
the party upon the benches.
They had scarcely stirred! One of the men, indeed, had risen, and was
standing with his hands in his pockets and something in the nature of an
amused smile upon his face. The others had so far shifted their
positions as to be the better able to see whatever went on, and only one
of them manifested the slightest desire to take a hand in the
proceedings. This was the little girl of twelve or fourteen. She was
intensely excited, and in the moment's pause that succeeded Mr.
Dootleby's onslaught she dashed across the room, and lifting the head of
the unconscious girl, rested it on her knee, and stroked it soothingly.
"Good for you, my child!" said Mr. Dootleby. "Try to bring her to."
The hideous old scoundrel, as he now turned again to confront Mr.
Dootleby, was more hideous than ever. Blood from the wound in his head
was trickling over his face, into which the fury of a legion of devils
was concentrated. "Sissy!" he bellowed, "go back to yer bench!"
"Don't do it, my child," said Mr. Dootleby. "You're all right. Run
outside if it gets too dangerous for you in here."
The fellow gathered himself together, evidently intending to dash past
Mr. Dootleby toward the bar beyond. But Mr. Dootleby lifted the poker
ominously. "Stand back!" he cried.
A slight chuckle came from the man who had risen from the bench. "Dey
don't seem ter be no flies on dis party, Pete!" he said, with a broad
grin.
Pete's answer was a scowl and an oath.
"W'y doncher come on, an' help me do him up?" he snorted.
"Wot ud be de use? I t'ink he kin get away wid you, Pete, an' I wanter
see de fun. He's chain lightnin', ole man, an' you better be sure of yer
holt."
"I'll give all dere is on him if you'll help, Dick!" said Pete.
Mr. Dootleby took his watch, his gold pencil, and a dollar or so in
change from his pockets, and tossed them toward Dick.
"That's all I've got," he said. "Now, let us alone."
Dick slid the coins in his pocket and carefully examined the gold watch.
"Dere's a good 'eal er sportin' blood in de old gen'l'man, Pete; a good
'eal er sportin' blood," he remarked, with the utmost cheerfulness.
"Bein' a sportin' man myself I ainter goin' back on a frien'."
"You're goin' back on your word fast enough!" said Pete bitterly.
"No, I aint. I toljer I wouldn't bodder you. I didn't guarantee nobody
else. You sed she was yourn, and you was goin' to make her promise to
quit young Swiggsy. I offered to match you five dollars agin de gurl,
an' I said if you was to win I wouldn't trouble you. You said if I
winned I could have her. All right. I lost, an' I give up my good money.
Den you went ter work wallopin' de gurl. You'd er kilt her if dis covey
hadn't er lit in. All right, dat wasn't no fault er mine. An' fur all
me, he kin stick dat blazin' iron clear down yer t'roat, an' I'll set
yere an' take it in widout winkin'."
Mr. Dootleby listened intently to this speech. It afforded him an
inkling of the situation.
"Is this girl your daughter?" he said.
Pete was in no humor to parley. He could only growl and swear. When he
had relieved himself without, enlightening Mr. Dootleby, Dick spoke
again.