been keepin' comp'ny wid young Swiggsy, an' she wont promise not ter.
Dat's de whole biznuss. De harder he walloped, de more she wouldn't
promise."
Mr. Dootleby felt in his arms the strength of a whole army corps. "Look
here," he said to Dick, "will you promise me fair play?"
"Dey wont nobody interfere widjer," Dick replied. "I'll be de empire,
an' I t'ink I kin referee a mill 'long er de bes'. Sail right in, ole
gent. The gurl stan's fer de di'mun' belt. If you knocks out yer man,
she's yourn. If he licks you, an' has any strength left, he kin go on
wid his wallopin'."
"Sissy's" soothing hand and the fresh air coming through the door had
brought back life into the girl's limp body. She was still weak and
prostrate, lying at full length on the floor, with her head supported
upon Sissy's shoulder.
She was a brilliant type of the ignorant and vicious population which
overflows the tenements in certain downtown districts and furnishes the
largest element in the city's criminal society. Her eyes were large, and
must have been, under better conditions, full of light and expression.
Even now, when great lumps, dark and burning with inflammation, stood
out upon her forehead, and heavy sashes of black circled her eyes, while
all the rest of her face was white and bloodless and cruelly distorted
with pain--even now there was a kind of beauty about her that gave her
rank above the class to which conditions, more forceful than laws,
condemned her.
Condemned? Yes, condemned; why not? What did she know of the science of
morals, of souls, or revelations, or higher laws? Who had ever mentioned
these things to her. What had she to do with questions of right and
wrong? What was right to her but gratification, or wrong but want? What
was passion but nature pent up, or crime but congested nature suddenly
set free?
She spoke a Christian tongue. She wore a Christian dress. Her heart
answered to the same emotions that quicken or deaden the beat of other
breasts. She had tears to shed, hopes to excite, passions to burn,
desires to gratify. Nature had denied her none of the faculties that
give beauty, and grace and dignity and sweetness to another. Even as she
lay stretched on the floor of a dive in the heart of a Christian city,
but remoter from influences that encourage the good and repress the bad
in her nature than if she were standing in the darkest jungle of
Africa--even there, degraded, ignorant, and infinitely wretched, she was
a martyr to the very virtues, truth and constancy, of which she knew the
least!
Some such reflections as these were flitting through Mr. Dootleby's mind
as he glanced down upon her, and then turned to his enraged antagonist,
who was standing ever alert for a chance to recover his victim.
"Look here," said Mr. Dootleby. "Let's come to terms about this affair.
You can see for yourself that the girl is half dead. You don't want to
kill her outright, I'm sure."
"'Tain't no biznuss of yourn if I do," the old man savagely replied.
"Maybe not. But cool off, now, and be reasonable. You'll be sorry enough
for what you've done already, and if you were to do more you'd have to
stand your trial for murder."
"'Twont be for murderin' her w'en I gits in de jug. But I'll murder you
if yer don't leave dis place right off."
"I'm not going to leave till I take her with me."
"Den you wont never leave alive."
Pete whipped a knife from his pocket and rushed at Mr. Dootleby,
intending to overwhelm him by a sudden and furious attack. The ivory
cane again came into action. It struck the muscular part of Pete's arm
just below the shoulder. The knife did not reach its destination, but it
inflicted an ugly wound in Mr. Dootleby's hand. Without noticing this,
he closed in on his foe, pouring all the resources of his powerful frame
into a dozen fierce and well-directed blows. The spectators upon the
benches, however indifferent while the brute had been maltreating a
defenseless girl, were now seized with a panic. Two of the men slunk out
into the street. The girls rushed to their rooms, threw on their coats
and street dresses, and escaped also. The battle continued for several
minutes, each man fighting, as he knew, for his life.
Pete was a great human beast. He was far stronger than Mr. Dootleby, but
not nearly so quick and dexterous. The blow on his right arm placed him
at a great disadvantage. Mr. Dootleby knew he could not fight long.
Every second drew heavily upon his vitality. But he made no useless
expenditure of his strength. His blows were intelligently directed
toward the accomplishment of a specific object in the disabling of his
enemy, and each of them did its appointed work. At last exposing himself
by a sudden lunge, Pete was thrown, and he did not rise. He was
unconscious.
So was Mr. Dootleby--almost. His head swam and he leaned heavily against
the wall for support. The blood was dripping from several ugly wounds,
but he revived as he heard Dick remark: "Dat was a beauterful mill. All
right. Bein' a sportin' man myself, I t'ink I knows a good mill w'en I
sees one. De di'mun' belt, ole man, is yourn. All right. Hello! W'y,
where's de trophy gone?"
Mr. Dootleby opened his one available eye, and saw that the only persons
in the room were himself, his beaten enemy, and Dick.
"What's this mean?" he cried. "You pledged your word on fair dealings."
Dick called on all the saints to witness that he did not know where the
girl had gone. "De whole crowd cleared out," he said, "w'en de hustlin'
begun. But she can'ter gone fur. I reckon if you go out in de street
you'll fin' her and de kid wot's helpin' her around somewheres. I'll
sponge off Pete, an' try ter patch up wot's lef' of him. All right."
Mr. Dootleby was not slow to act upon this suggestion. He bent over the
still prostrate Pete and tried to ascertain if his pulse was beating. It
not being immediately apparent whether it was or not, and Mr. Dootleby
not caring about it a great deal anyhow, he caught up his hat and coat
and hurried away.
Sissy was watching for him from behind a tree across the street, and she
came toward him running.
"Maggie's in de alley, sir, yonder by de lamp, layin' dere an' moanin',
an' I t'ink dey's sumpin' wrong wid her," said Sissy.
She led him to the spot beyond which they had not been able to escape,
where Maggie was lying with the light from the street lamp shining full
in her face. Her dress was torn at the neck, for she had not been
costumed as the others were, and the cold, wintry night-air was blowing
on her bare throat and breast. Her big eyes had lost their dimness, and
were blazing with a fire kindled by a wild imagination. Mr. Dootleby
took off his hat and knelt upon the alley stones, and threw his arms
around her shoulders, supporting her. She looked through him at some one
not present but beyond.
"I didn't do it, Swiggsy, an' he couldn't 'a' made me if he'd burned my
eyes out like he said he was goin' to!" she whispered faintly. "But he
used me rough, Swiggsy, an' I'm--just--a little--bit--tired."
"Good God in Heaven!" murmured Mr. Dootleby, "look upon this wavering
soul in Thy full compassion. She is tired, so very, very tired."
"And, Swiggsy, let's go somewheres where he can't fin' me, cause I'm
fearful of him. An' you'll get steady work, Swiggsy, tendin' bar, an'
then--"
She closed her eyes, and for several moments lay silent and still.
"Swiggsy--"
The sound was faint now, and Mr. Dootleby bent low to catch it.
"I suspicion something ails me in my side, an' I'm falling, falling,
falling---- Ketch me, Swiggsy, hold me--I'm honest wid you, don't you
know it. Tell me so, and say it loud, so's I can hear. I'll be good to
you when I get--rested."
[Illustration: STARS OF THE NIGHT, ARE YOU WATCHING HERE?]
The street is empty. Not a sound is heard. Not a footfall. Not a voice.
The world is sleeping, dreaming of its own ambitions. Stars of the
night, are you watching here?
"You said you t'ought I was pretty, Swiggsy, an' it made me so glad an'
happy, 'cause I wants you to think I'm pretty--ah! where are you going!
Come back! come back! come back! Don't leave me all alone, please,
please don't, for I'm falling again, fast, faster all the time, an' I'll
soon fall--"
She opened her eyes wide--wider than ever. She looked into Mr.
Dootleby's face and smiled. She lifted her hand and dropped it heavily
into his. Her head dropped on his shoulder. She had fallen--out of human
sight!
V.
THE HON. DOYLE O'MEAGHER.
At this particular moment the Hon. Doyle O'Meagher is a busy man.
Tammany Hall's nominating convention is shortly to be held, and Mr.
O'Meagher is putting the finishing touches upon the ticket which he has
decided that the convention shall adopt. The ticket, written down upon a
sheet of paper, is before him, together with a bottle of whisky and a
case of cigars, and the finishing touches consist of little pencil-marks
placed opposite the candidates' names, indicating that they have visited
Mr. O'Meagher and have duly paid over their several campaign
assessments--a preliminary formality which Mr. O'Meagher enforces with
strict impartiality. The amount of each assessment depends entirely upon
Mr. O'Meagher's sense of the fitness of things. To dispute Mr.
O'Meagher's sense in this particular is looked upon as treason and
rebellion. In the case of the Hon. Thraxton Wimples, the intended
candidate for the Supreme Court, the assessment is $20,000.
Mr. Wimples is a little man of profound learning and ancient lineage.
Mr. O'Meagher is a man of indifferent learning and no lineage to speak
of. Mr. Wimples's grandfather had signed the Declaration of
Independence, and had moved on three separate occasions that the
Continental Congress do now adjourn, while no reason whatever existed,
other than the one most obvious but least apt to occur to any one, for
supposing that Mr. O'Meagher had ever had a grandfather at all. And yet,
as Mr. Wimples, though on the threshold of great dignity and power,
walks into Mr. O'Meagher's presence, he find himself all of a tremble,
and glows and chills chase each other up and down his spinal column.
"Ah, Mr. O'Meagher," he says, "good-morning! Good-morning! Happy to see
you so--er--well. Charming day, so warm for the--er--season."
"Yes," says Mr. O'Meagher, "so it be."
"I received your notification of the high--er--honor, you propose to
confer on me."
"Yes," says Mr. O'Meagher, "you're the man for the place."
"So kind of you to--er--say so. You mentioned that the--er--assessment
was--"
"Twenty thousand dollars," says Mr. O'Meagher, with great promptness.
[Illustration: "JUST SO," SAYS MR. WIMPLES, "JUST SO."]
"Just so," says Mr. Wimples, "just so."
"And you've called to pay it," says Mr. O'Meagher, taking up his list
and his pencil. "I've been expecting you."
"Ah, yes, to be sure, of course. I was going to propose
a--er--settlement."
"A what?" says Mr. O'Meagher sharply.
Mr. Wimples mops his brow. "The fact is," he says, "I don't happen to
have so considerable a sum as $20,000 at the--er--moment, and I was
thinking of suggesting that I just pay you, say, $10,000 down, and give
you two--er--notes."
"'Twont do," says Mr. O'Meagher, shaking his head and fetching his
pencil down upon the table with a smart tap, "'twont do at all."
"Eh? Indorsed, you know, by--"
"Mr. Wimples, that $20,000 in hard cash must be in my hands by six
o'clock to-night, or your name goes off the ticket."
"O--er--Lud!" says Mr. Wimples, sadly.
"By six P. M."
"But, my dear Mr. O'Meagher--"
"Or your name goes off the ticket."
Mr. Wimples groaned, grasped the whisky bottle, poured out a copious
draught, tossed it down his throat, bowed meekly, and withdrew. In the
vestibule he met the Hon. Perfidius Ruse, the Mayor of the city, whose
term of office was about to expire, and as to whose renomination there
was going on a heated controversy. Mr. Ruse was a reformer. It was as a
reformer that he had been elected two years before. At that time Mr.
O'Meagher found himself menaced by a strange peril. It had been alleged
by jealous enemies that he was corrupt, and they called loudly for
reform. At first, Mr. O'Meagher experienced some difficulty in
understanding what was meant by corrupt and what by reform. His mission
in life, as he understood it, was to name the individuals who should
hold the city's offices and to control their official acts in the
interest of Tammany Hall, and he had great difficulty in comprehending
how it could be anybody's business that he had grown rich performing his
mission. But perceiving that a large and dangerous class of voters was
clamoring for a reformer, he concluded to humor it if he could find a
good safe reformer on whom he could rely. In this emergency he had
produced the Hon. Perfidius Ruse.
It cannot be said that Mr. O'Meagher regarded the Ruse experiment as
entirely satisfactory. Mr. Ruse had certainly reformed several things,
and with considerable adroitness and skill, but there were many who said
that his reforms had all been made with an eye single to the glory of
the Hon. Perfidius Ruse, and with a view to the establishment of a
personal influence hostile to the man who made him. The time had now
come for the test of strength. Concerning his ultimate intentions, the
Hon. Doyle O'Meagher was cold, silent, and reserved.
"How are you, Mr. Mayor?" said the crestfallen Mr. Wimples, as he came
upon the reformer in the vestibule. "Going up to see the--er--Boss?"
"I was thinking of it, yes. How's he feeling?"
"Ugly. He's in a dev'lish uncompromising--er--humor. If you were going
to ask anything of him I advise you to--er, not."
"Thank you. I only intend to suggest some matters in the interest of
reform."
"I wish you well. But--er--go slow."
Mr. O'Meagher did not rise to greet his distinguished visitor. He simply
drew a chair close to his own, poured out a glass of whisky, and said,
"Hello!"
"I thought I'd just drop in, Mr. O'Meagher," said the Mayor, "to say a
word or two about the situation. What are the probabilities?"
"As regards which?"
"H'm, well, the nominations?"
[Illustration: "WHO CAN TELL?" EJACULATED MR. O'MEAGHER.]
"Who can tell," ejaculated Mr. O'Meagher. "Who can tell? What is more
uncertain, Mr. Ruse, than the action of a nominating convention?"
"To be sure," responded Mr. Ruse. "What, indeed?" Whereupon each
statesman looked at the other out of the corners of his eyes.
"There's only one thing I care about," continued Mr. Ruse, "and that is
reform. If my successor is a reformer, I shall be satisfied."
"Make yourself easy," replied Mr. O'Meagher. "He'll be a reformer. I've
been paying some attention during the last two years to the education of
our people in the matter of reform. My success has been flattering. I
think I can truthfully say now that Tammany Hall has a reformer ready
for every salary paid by the city, and that there's no danger of our
stock of reformers giving out as long as the salaries last."
Mr. Ruse hesitated a moment, as if reflecting how he should take these
observations. Finally he laughed in a feeble way and said, "Good, yes,
very." Then he added, "But, speaking seriously, I do feel that my duty
to the public requires me to exert all the influence I have for the
protection of reform."
"I feel the same way," said Mr. O'Meagher, "exactly the same way. I'm
just boiling over with enthusiasm for reform."
"Then our sympathies and desires are common. Now, if I could feel sure
that I ought to run again in the interest of reform--"
"You've done so much already," Mr. O'Meagher hastily put in, "you've
sacrificed so heavily that I don't think it would be fair to ask it of
you."
"N-no," said the Mayor, dubiously, "I suppose it wouldn't, now, would
it?"
"Of course not."
"And yet I don't like to run away from the call, so to speak, of duty."
"Don't be worried about that."
"But I am worried, O'Meagher. I can't help it. By every mail I am
receiving hundreds of letters from the best citizens of New-York, urging
me to let my name be used. Deputations wait on me constantly with the
same request, and, as you know, they are going to hold a mass-meeting
to-morrow night, and they threaten to nominate me, whether or no. What
can I do? I tell them I don't want to run, that my private business has
already suffered by neglect, but they answer imploring me not to desert
the cause of reform just when it needs me most. It is very
embarrassing."
"Very," said Mr. O'Meagher. "It's astonishing how thoughtless people
are. But they wouldn't be so hard on you if they knew how you were
fixed."
"That's just it. They don't know, and I don't want to appear selfish."
Mr. O'Meagher coughed, not because he needed to cough, but for want of
something better to do.
"The Tammany ticket," Mr. Ruse continued, "will be hotly opposed this
year, and I'm bound to say that I don't think it is sufficiently
identified with reform. They tell me you are going to nominate Wimples
for the Supreme Court. Wimples is a good lawyer, but he has no reform
record. Neither has Colonel Bellows, whom you talk of for
District-Attorney. McBoodle for Sheriff does not appeal to reformers.
Bierbocker for Register might get the German vote, but how could
reformers support a common butcher? I don't know whom you think of for
my place, but it seems to me that there's only one way to save your
ticket from defeat and that is to indorse the candidate for Mayor
presented by the citizens' mass-meeting to-morrow night. That would make
success certain. The public would praise your noble fidelity to reform,
and you'd sweep the city! Think of it, Mr. O'Meagher! What a glorious,
what a golden opportunity!"
"My eyes are as wide open as the next man's for golden opportunities,
Mr. Ruse," replied Mr. O'Meagher. "But the question is, who will be
nominated."
"Well, 'hem! of course I can't definitely say. I'm trying to get them to
take some new man. But if they should insist on nominating me, I'm
afraid I'd have to--h'm, what--what do you think I'd have to do?"
"Well, being a pious man and a reformer, I should think you'd at least
have to pray over it."
The Hon. Perfidius Ruse gave a keen, quick glance at the Hon. Doyle
O'Meagher, and slightly frowned.
"I should certainly consider it with care," he said stiffly.
"So should I."
"Is that all you will say?"
"No, I'll say more," and he picked up the sheet of paper on which he had
written the names of the Tammany candidates. "Look here," he continued.
"This is my list of nominees. The space for the head of the ticket is
still blank. I have not told any one whom I mean to present for the
Mayoralty, but I will promise you now to insert there the name of the
man nominated by your Citizens' meeting to-morrow night."
"Whoever he may be?"
"Whoever he may be."
"And I may rely on that?"
[Illustration: "I SHOULD CERTAINLY CONSIDER IT WITH CARE," HE SAID
STIFFLY.]
"Did I ever tell you anything you couldn't rely on?"
"No."
"All right. Good-by."
They shook hands, and Mr. Ruse departed wearing an expansive smile. As
he left the room, Mr. O'Meagher smiled also and picked up his pen. "I
may as well fill in the name now," he said softly, "and save time," and
with great precision he proceeded to write: "For Mayor, the Hon. Doyle
O'Meagher. Assessed in the sum of--" but there he stopped. "We'll
consider that later," he said.
The personal history of the Hon. Doyle O'Meagher strikingly proves how
slight an influence is exerted in this young republic by social prestige
and vulgar wealth, and how inevitably certain are the rewards of virtue,
industry, and ability. I am credibly told that Mr. O'Meagher first
opened his eyes in a little ten by twelve earth cabin in the County
Kerry, Ireland, though I can not profess to have seen the cabin. Being
from his earliest youth of a reflective disposition, he became
impressed, when but a small lad, with the conviction that thirteen
people, three pigs, seven chickens, and five ducks formed too numerous a
population for a cabin of those dimensions. In the silent watches of the
night, with his head on a duck and a pig on his stomach, he had
frequently revolved this idea in his young but apt mind, and at last,
though not in any spirit of petulance, he formed the resolution which
gave shape and purpose to his later career.
He had communicated to his father his peculiar views about the crowded
condition of the cabin.
"Begob, Doyley, me bye," the old man had replied, "Oi've bin thinkin' o'
that. Whin the ould sow litters, Doyley, it's sore perplexhed we'll be
fer shlapin' room. Divil a wan o' me knows how fer to sarcumvint the
throuble widout we takes you, Doyley, an' the young pigs, an' shtrings
ye all up o' nights ferninst the wall."
Doyle waited developments with a heavy heart, and when they came and he
found that it required all the fingers on both his hands wherewith to
calculate their number, he took down his hat, dashed the unbidden tear
from his eyes, and made the best of his way to Queenstown.
The opportunity is not here afforded for an extended review of the
stages of progress by which Mr. O'Meagher, having landed in New York,
finally secured almost a sovereign influence in its municipal affairs,
and yet they are too interesting to justify their entire omission. He
first won a place in the hearts of the American people by discovering
to them his wonderful fistic attainments. From small and unnoted rings,
he steadily and grandly rose until the newspapers overflowed with the
details of his battles with the eminent Mr. Muldoon, with Four-Fingered
Jake, with the Canarsie Bantam, with Billy the Beat, and with other
equally distinguished gentlemen of equally portentous titles, and at
last none was to be found capable of withstanding the onslaught of the
aroused Mr. O'Meagher. When he went forth in dress-array, belts and
buckles and chains and plates of gold armored him from head to heel, and
diamonds as large as pigeons' eggs blazed resplendently from every
available nook and corner all over his muscular expanse.
Mr. O'Meagher's retirement from the ring was rendered inevitable by the
fact that no one would enter it with him, and he found himself compelled
to employ his talents in other fields of labor. Reduced to this
extremity, he resolved to go into politics, and as an earnest of this
intention he fitted up a new and gorgeous saloon. It was a novelty in
its way, with its tiled floors, its decorated walls, its costly and
beautiful paintings, its rare tapestries, its statues in bronze and
marble, its heavy, oaken bar, and its pyramid of the finest cut
glass--and when he threw it open to the public he celebrated the
occasion by formally accepting a Tammany nomination for Congress.
In the halls of the National Legislature, Mr. O'Meagher soon let it be
known that he cared not who made the country's laws, so long as a fair
proportion of his constituents were supplied with places and pensions,
and his aggressive and successful championship of this principle soon
won for him a proud position in the councils of his party. He was a
friend of the common people, and the commoner the people the friendlier
he was, until, having clearly established his claims to leadership, in
obedience to the summons of his organization, he gave himself up to the
management of its destinies.
It was as the Boss of Tammany Hall that Mr. Doyle O'Meagher's genius
attained its largest and highest development. Notwithstanding the
opposition of rival factions engaged in bitter competition with Tammany,
Mr. O'Meagher contrived to let out the offices at larger commission
rates than Tammany had ever received before. Under no previous Boss had
Tammany's heelers enjoyed such vast opportunities for "business." It was
all in vain that envious and less-gifted bosses sought to undermine and
depose him. Steadily and courageously he pursued his policy of reducing
the labor of self-government to individual citizens until he had placed
their taxes at a maximum and their trouble at a minimum. They had but to
pay, Mr. O'Meagher did all the piping and all the dancing too.
He was in capital humor now as he dropped the pen with which he had
written his own name as that of the Mayoralty candidate for whom he had
finally decided to throw his important influence, and when a boy entered
with the information that Major Tuff was below, the Hon. Doyle O'Meagher
was actually whistling.
"Tuff," he said. "Good, I'm wanting Tuff. Send Tuff up."