Peter Pape sighed a chestful of relief. They pulled on like ordinary
pants. But of course that was what they were expected to do. Weren't
they direct from the work room of the most expensive tailor he could
locate in Gotham? Even so, he had inserted his silk-socked toes into
their twin tunnels with some foreboding. They were different, these
long, straight leg-sheaths of his first full-dress suit.
There. The secret is out. Our East-exiled Westerner had followed advice.
Praying that news of his lapse never would wing back to Hellroaring, he
had submitted himself to measurements for a claw-hammer, known chiefly
by rumor on the range as a "swallow-tail." The result had been delivered
late that afternoon, one week since the signs of Broadway had directed
him aright. The suit had seemed in full possession of the dressing room
of his hotel suite when he had returned from his usual park-path sprint
on Polkadot, an event to-day distinguished by the whipcord riding
breeches of approved balloon cut which had displaced his goat-skin
chaps. Somehow it helped to fill an apartment which hitherto had felt
rather empty; with its air of sophistication suggested the next move in
the role for which it was the costume _de luxe_.
The trousers conquered in combat, Pape essayed to don the stiff-bosomed
shirt which, according to the diagram pinned on the wall picturing a
conventional gentleman ready for an evening out, must encase his chest.
His chief conclusion, after several preparatory moments, was that the
hiring of a valet was not adequate cause for a lynching with the first
handy rope. No. There were arguments pro valet which should stay the
hand of any one who ever had essayed to enter the costume _de luxe_ of
said conventional gentleman. What those patent plungers of his real
pearl studs couldn't and didn't do! With the contrariness of as many
mavericks, they preferred to puncture new holes in the immaculate linen,
rather than enter the eyelets of the shirt-maker's provision.
But we won't go into the matter. Other writers have done it so often and
so soulfully. The one best thing that may be remarked about such trials
of the spirit is that they have an end as well as a beginning. At last
and without totally wrecking the work of the launderer, Why-Not Pape's
famed will to win won. The shirt was harnessed; hooked-up; coupled.
Now came the test of tests for his patience and persistence--for his
tongue and other such equipment of the genus human for the exercise of
self-control. This was not trial by fire, although the flames of
suppression singed him, but by choking. Again he thought tolerantly of
valets; might have asked even the loan of m'lady's maid had he been
acquainted personally with any of his fair neighbors.
"They'd ought to sell block and tackle with every box of 'em," he
assured the ripe-tomato-colored cartoon of himself published in the
dresser mirror.
Smoothing out certain of his facial distortions, lest they become
muscularly rooted, to the ruin of his none too comely visage, he
retrieved a wandering son-of-a-button from beneath the radiator and
returned to the fray with a fresh strip of four-ply. When thrice he had
threatened out loud to tie on a bandanna and let it go at that, by some
slip or trick of his fingers he accomplished the impossible. His neck
protruded proudly from his first stiff collar since the Sunday dress-ups
of Lord Fauntleroy days--before the mother and father of faint but fond
memory had gone, literally and figuratively "West," leaving their orphan
to work the world "on his own."
Around the collar the chart entitled, "Proper Dress for Gents at All
Hours," dictated that he tie a narrow, white silk tie. Anticipating
difficulties here, he had ordered a dozen. And he needed most of them;
tried out one knot after another of his extensive repertoire; at last,
by throwing a modified diamond hitch, accomplished an effect which
gratified him, although probably no dress-tie had been treated quite
that way before.
His chortle of relief that he was at ordeal's end proved to be
premature. Peering coldly and pointedly at him from across the room,
their twin rows of pop-eyes perpendicularly placed, stood his patent
leathers. Clear through his arches he already had felt their
maliciousness and, as the worst of his trials, had left them to the
last. All too late he recalled the fact that brand new buttoned shoes
only meet across insteps and ankles by suasion of a hook, even as range
boots yield most readily to jacks. Prolific as had been the growth of
his toilet articles since a week ago, that small instrument of torture
was not yet a fruit thereof. Further delay ensued before response to the
order which he telephoned the desk for "one shoe-hooker--quick."
Peter Stansbury Pape had emerged from the West of his upgrowing and
self-making with two projects in view--one grave, one much less so. The
grave, when its time came, would involve a set-to in the street called
Wall with a certain earnest little group of shearers who, seeming to
take him for a woolly lamb, _almost_ had lifted his fleece. Animated by
a habit of keeping his accounts in life square, steady in his stand as
the mountain peaks that surrounded his home ranch, his courage fortified
against fear because he recognized it at first sight and refused to
yield to it, he was biding the right time to betake himself "down-town"
for the round-up reckoning. But of all that, more anon.
His "less so" was to learn life as it is lived along Gay Way, although
he had made no promise to himself to become a part thereof. A sincere
wish to explore the greatest Main Street on any map, whose denizens so
far had shown themselves elusive as outlaw broncs to a set-down puncher,
had moved him to acceptance of the suggestion of 'Donis Moore.
While awaiting the pleasure--or the pain--of the shoe-hook, he
considered the indifference of his reception at the Astor, a hotel
selected for its location "in the heart of things." In the heart of
things--in the thick of the fight--in the teeth of the wind--right there
was where Pape liked best to be. But the room-clerk had seemed
unimpressed by his demand for the most luxurious one-man apartment on
their floor plan. The cashier had eyed coldly the "herd" of New York
drafts which he had offered for "corralling" in the treasury of the
house. Clerks, elevator boys, even the dry-bar tenders had parried his
questions and comments with that indifferent civility which had made
this world, said to be the Real, seem false as compared with his hale
and hearty Out-West.
The reply to his first inquiry, anent hotel stable accommodations for
the intimate equine friend who, as a matter of course, had accompanied
him on an American Express Company ticket, had been more of a shock to
him than the height of Mt. Woolworth, first seen while ferrying the
Hudson. Mr. Astor's palace, he was told, had a garage of one-hundred-car
capacity, but no stable at all, not even stall space for one painted
pony. There were more rooms in the "one-man" suite than he knew how to
utilize in his rather deficient home life, but the idea of attempting to
smuggle Polkadot to the seventh landing, as suggested by the boast of a
more modern hostelry that it elevated automobiles to any floor, was
abandoned as likely to get them both put out. He had tramped many
side-street trails before he had found, near the river, the stable of a
contractor who still favored horses. Only this day had he learned of a
riding academy near the southern fringe of Central Park where the beast
might be boarded in style better suited to his importance in one
estimation at least.
It is a pleasure to state that money really didn't matter with Pape; in
any calculable probability, never would. That constitutional demand of
his--why not, why not?--had drilled into certain subterranean lakes
beneath the range on which his unsuspecting cattle had grazed for years;
had drilled until fonts of oleose gold had up-flowed. For months past
his oil royalties literally had swamped the county-seat bank. He had
been forced to divert the tide to Chicago and retain an attorney to
figure his income tax. Upon him--in the _now_, instead of the hazy,
hoped-for future--was the vacation time toward which he had toiled
physically through the days of the past and through the nights had
self-trained his mind with equal vigor.
The time had come. But the place--well, so far, America's Bagdad had
offered nothing approaching his expectations. Perhaps the fault had been
in his surface unfitness for the censorious gaze of the Bagdadians.
Perhaps clothes had unmade his outer man to folks too hurried to learn
his inner. However, thanks to the official Sage of Traffic Squad "B," he
now had remedied superficial defects.
In truth, any one fairly disposed who saw his descent of the Astor's
front steps, would have conceded that. Despite the vicissitudes of
preparation, the result was good. A tall, strong-built, free-swinging
young man came to a halt at curb's edge, a young man immaculately
arrayed, from silky top of hat to tips of glistening boots. His
attention, however, was not upon the impression which he might or might
not be making. Having done his best by himself, he was not interested in
casual applause. There was a strained eagerness in his eyes as, leaning
outward, he peered up The Way.
The night was cloudy, so that the overhead darkness of eight-thirty was
not discounted by any far-off moon or wan-winking stars. The sky looked
like a black velvet counter for the display of man-made jewelry--Edison
diamonds in vast array--those great, vulgar "cluster pieces" of Stage
Street.
And high above all others--largest, most brilliant, most vulgar,
perhaps--was a trinket transformed from some few bubbles of oil, the
latest acquisition of one Westerner.
There it was--_there it was_! Pape chortled aloud from the thrill of
first sight of it. Cryptic and steady it blazed, overtopping a
quick-change series of electric messages regarding the merits of divers
brands of underwear, chewing gum, pneumatic tires, corsets, automobiles,
hosiery, movies and such. His heart swelled from pride, his pulse
quickened and his mind lit as he viewed it. The while, his lips moved to
the words emblazoned within its frame of lurid, vari-colored roses.
WELCOME
TO OUR CITY
WHY-NOT PAPE
While yet he stood at the curb a limousine, doubtless theater-bound, was
halted in the traffic crush before him. He saw a bobbed, dark head,
bound by a pearl filet with an emerald drop, protrude; saw a pointing,
bejeweled finger; heard clearly the drawled comment:
"More likely, some new food for the fat, dar-rling. Remind me to tell
mother. She gained whole ounces on that last chaff she choked down. The
poor dear is losing her pep--starving worse than any Chinese baby that
ever----"
The heavy car was crawling on toward its next stop. But Pape was spared
any regrets in nearer diversion as he drifted along with the tide of
pavement passers. In slowing to keep off the heels of a couple ahead, he
eaves-dropped a woman's demand of her escort:
"Now what, do you imagine, _is_ Why-Not Pape? I do detest mysteries,
although I suppose they're the only way to get the public nowadays.
Personally, I haven't any use for women that won't tell their ages, have
you? I never read serial stories and simply can't stand those suppressed
men that some girls rave about. The reason you make a hit with me,
Jimmie, is because you're so frank, so natural, so sort of puppy-like.
Oh, don't bother getting sore! You know by this time that I----"
_What_ was Why-Not Pape, indeed? Soon as the analytical lady strayed
from the vital subject to that of her ingenuous companion, the author of
the latest Broadway riddle passed on, a breaker on the edge of the
down-sweeping tide of theater-goers, actor folk out of work and
inevitable window shoppers. Of the several he overheard querying the new
sign, none guessed--as none do in most real-life mysteries--that they
were jostling elbows with the quite palpable solution. His upward stare
attracted a direct remark from a pavement companion.
"You'll read the answer in the newspapers soon. Nobody nor nothing is
going to burn real money for long in that make-you-guess display."
Pape was startled. Would the press take him up--possibly in time pique
the public interest to such extent that he might need to blaze forth,
within his rose-border, answers to the questions he had raised? If so,
the coveted recognition might be considered won.
But he did not need to tell New York what or who he was, to congratulate
himself. None would have excuse hereafter to regard lightly an
introduction to Why-Not Pape. Even though inadvertently, already the
city was welcoming him.
His one regret anent the bought-and-paid-for greeting was that it did
not include the worthy Polkadot. He had considered a design of a
light-pricked figure of himself mounted, the horse done in natural
colors, only abandoning it when informed that black was not effective in
Edison bulbs. At that, the bronc shied at a glare and down in his horse
heart would not have liked such presentment had he seen and understood.
And the simpler conceit seemed to be attracting a sufficiency of
attention. As well it might--well it might! So Peter Pape assured
himself, beaming back and up at it. The Mayor's Committee for the
Entertainment of Distinguished Strangers couldn't have done better by
him. And any prima donna must have been pleased with that floral frame.