Miss Gittings had asked Joe if he would come on such and such a night,
and let a college professor question him about his “psychical”
experiences. There would be a few other friends present, she said. When
Joe had suggested that his clothes were hardly suitable for an evening
party, he had been met with silence and pained looks. He had not really
expected to get a new suit out of it; he had discovered before this that
these people, though they lived nice, were poor in the sense that they
had to look twice at every dollar. He had begun to ask himself if they
were worth bothering about; he hadn’t got anything out of it; but now he
decided that the chance of meeting their friends was worth one more
night of his time.
Joe conceived the idea of bracing Isador Cohen for a new suit on the
strength of his rise in society. Cohen kept the best-known secondhand
store in town on lower Sixth avenue, and Joe had had various dealings
with him. There were fine clothes in his store, too. So Joe had told his
story to Cohen, offering to prove it by letting Izzy see him go into the
Eleventh street house by the front door. Izzy took him up; and not only
did he see Joe admitted to the house; but a moment later he received a
greeting from Joe through the parlor window. Izzy subsequently allowed,
that Joe was a smart feller, and advanced him a suit, and all the
fixings. Joe picked out a neat blue cheviot of good quality, and was
fitted and sewed up on the spot. At Izzy’s they specialized in providing
a man with a quick change.
The party was for eight o’clock. Joe was the first to arrive. The ladies
of the house were greatly pleased with his improved appearance; but the
white-faced boy walked out of the room when Joe entered, and did not
appear again, until the other guests had come, and his Aunt went
up-stairs to fetch him. The college professor proved to be a young man,
tall; elegantly-dressed; and having a sort of childlike, wild eye. The
other guests were mostly elderly. They were all solemn. Joe had not the
slightest anxiety on the score of fooling them; because they obviously
wanted to be fooled; and expected it. He made out to be quiet and
bashful among the strangers. The white-faced boy was watching everything
he did with a sneering smile: he was on to Joe. What of it? Joe was on
to him, too.
Joe was reminded of a Broadway play by the way all the people sat and
stood around the drawing-room, talking in fancy voices with the idea of
letting each other know what fine people they were. Like kids at a
sidewalk game. It was funny to see full-grown men standing for it.
The last pair of guests drove up to the house in a handsome carriage
with two dummies on the outside seat, wearing tall hats with ornaments
at the sides, and dark green overcoats with silver buttons. Joe watched
them from the window. One dummy jumped down from his seat before the
carriage quite stopped, as if he was worked by clockwork, and ran around
behind the carriage to be ready to open the door. That’s what I call
style, thought Joe.
The entrance of this pair into the drawing-room changed the whole
atmosphere of the party. It was clear to Joe from the silky quality that
appeared in the attitude of everybody present, that these were not just
ordinary rich people, but something exceptional. The professor was
nowhere now. Seeing this, all Joe’s faculties sharpened. He recognized a
great opportunity. His whole nature went out to the new arrivals. He
became one great yearning; to get next! to get next! The other people in
the room ceased to exist for him.
The gentleman was a handsome, middle-aged man, somewhat soft in face and
body. He wore a fine dress suit; and sported a neat, pointed beard. His
expression was inclined to be sulky; his eyes gave nothing away. The
lady was a tall, spare, faded blonde; wearing an expensive, ugly green
silk dress, and a good deal of jewelry. She had a proud, sour look; and
took all the smiles and bows of the people present as her right; whereas
the gentleman was indifferent to them. Joe hung around them, hoping to
be taken notice of. He had not been brought to the attention of any of
the guests yet. The lady put up her glasses, and looked at him as if he
had been something in the menagerie; the gentleman took no notice of him
whatever.
Joe soon gave the lady up. She was not in his line at all. He
concentrated passionately on the gentleman. He surrendered himself,
that, by entering into this other nature, he might command it. By
degrees Joe became aware that the gentleman scorned spirits and
spiritualists: that he had been brought there against his will: that
rich though they might be, his wife had him tied fast to her strings:
that behind his grand front lurked a timid soul. He was an intensely
respectable party; his clothes; his expression; his whole bearing showed
how conscious he was of being respectable: and yet! . . . and yet! . . .
The sharpened Joe at certain moments perceived a pained roll to the
man’s eyeballs, such as you see sometimes in a horse. He had a trick of
wetting his lips with his tongue; and when he did so, Joe took note
between mustache and beard of how fleshy and dark those lips were. Joe
glanced at the sour-faced wife, and smiled inwardly. Hope dawned. With a
man so respectable as that, you’d have to be damn careful what you
_said_; but you could let him see things without saying them.
Oblivious to the clack of voices in the room, and the moving about, Joe,
quietly, with all the force of which he was capable, desired the
gentleman to look at him. Since the rich pair were the centers of
attraction in the room; everybody trying to bespeak their notice by word
or smile, his task was difficult. Joe was patient. It doesn’t matter how
long it takes, he said to himself; he must look at me in the end . . .
he _must_ look, because I want him to.
In the midst of a conversation with somebody else, the gentleman’s bored
glance suddenly swerved to Joe. Joe, outwardly the quiet, abashed boy,
let a world of meaning appear in his eyes for him alone. The gentleman
was startled; he hastily turned away his glance. He changed color;
puffed out his cheeks a little; twirled the ornament on his watch chain.
By and by his eyes came creeping back to Joe’s face, and found Joe’s
eyes waiting. The two pairs of eyes embraced, and were quickly cast
down. I’ve got him going! thought Joe exultantly.
Joe had heard the gentleman addressed as Mr. Gore. That suggested
nothing to him; Gore was a common enough name. But later, he heard the
lady call her husband Amasa, and when he put the two names together, a
great light broke on him. Amasa Gore! Joe had read plenty about _him_ in
the newspapers. One of the sons of Isaac Gore, with whose story every
boy of the streets was familiar. The smartest guy America had ever
produced; the little wizard of finance; the railroad wrecker; who used
to throw Wall street into a panic by holding up a finger; and who died
leaving a hundred million dollars. For an instant Joe’s heart failed him
at the bigness of the game he had cut out for himself; _Amasa Gore_! But
he stole another look into the gentleman’s face, and confidence came
winging back. He was only a man like any other. He was easy!
When the psychical part of the evening was introduced, Joe accommodated
himself to the wind from Mr. Gore’s quarter. If Mr. Gore had come there
expecting to give the laugh to the spiritualists, naturally he would be
put out if the show appeared to be a success.
So Joe turned tongue-tied and idiotic. He could relate no interesting
experiences; he boggled at answering the simplest questions. The ladies
of the house were astonished and shamed before their guests; the
professor was nonplussed; the white-faced boy in the background though
he had always mocked at the psychical experiences, looked at the
distressed faces of his Aunts and was angry. However, Joe cared nothing
about these people now. He saw that Mrs. Gore took the failure of the
exhibition as a personal affront to herself, and that her husband was
secretly pleased that she was cross. Joe was satisfied with the outcome.
The professor abruptly dropped his questioning, and the while company
plunged nervously into general conversation again. Joe saw that they
would have liked to kick him out, but they couldn’t, because it would
not have been high-toned. Instead, they all made out from that moment
that Joe was no longer present. That suited Joe very well. He remained
in an obscure corner between the end of the piano and the dining-room
door. At intervals Mr. Gore’s uneasy eyes crept to Joe’s face, and never
failed to find Joe’s eyes waiting.
There were great difficulties in Joe’s way. Mr. Gore was so respectable
and scary, he saw that it would be up to him to make all the running. In
the end his man might escape him out of sheer funk. It was necessary for
him to have a private word or two with Mr. Gore before the evening was
over; and how was that to be managed when the millionaire was
continually surrounded by admiring listeners, who obliged him to play
the respectable. That’s what’s the matter with him, thought Joe,
thinking of the pained roll to his eyeballs; there’s always people
watching him, and he never has a chance to be bad. Well . . . !
Refreshments were served. There was a blight upon the party, and while
it was still early, the ladies retired up-stairs to put on their wraps.
The gentlemen had left their hats and coats on the hall-rack, and they
stood in the hall talking, while they waited for the ladies. Besides Mr.
Gore and the Professor, there were two others. The boy who lived in the
house had disappeared. It was now or never with Joe. With a modest air
he made his way out between the gentlemen. He knew Mr. Gore would look
at him as he passed; and he did look. Joe gave him a speaking glance;
and letting himself out the door, waited on the stoop.
It worked. Mr. Gore presently came through the door behind him, and
glanced importantly below as if he had come out to make sure that his
carriage was waiting. He made a great business of cutting and lighting a
cigar; ignoring Joe. Joe smiled inwardly. He had but a precious second
or two; no time to beat around the bush.
“I couldn’t go on with that fool business after I seen you,” he
murmured. “I could see that you was on to that foolishness.”
“That was very, very wrong of you!” said Mr. Gore severely; “to deceive
those good ladies!”
“I never thought of the wrong of it until after I seen you,” said Joe,
making his eyes ask. “Then I was sorry all right. . . . It was them led
me into it. They liked to be fooled. And I’m only a poor boy.”
“Have you no employment?” asked Mr. Gore.
Joe shook his head.
“Um! . . . Ha!” said the millionaire.
“Will you give me a job?” whispered Joe.
Mr. Gore looked scared, and puffed out his cheeks. “Impossible!” he
said. “Ah . . . in my sort of business there is nothing suitable. . . .”
“Will you let me come to see you?”
“Impossible!”
“Oh, I don’t mean come to your house,” said Joe. “Of course the Madam
wouldn’t like a poor boy like me comin’ round. . . . But to your office
. . . ?”
“Quite impossible!” gasped the millionaire.
Joe heard the voices of the ladies within. He had but one more throw!
“If you was to walk home to get the air, like,” he whispered swiftly, “I
could catch up to you. And you could talk to me. If I only had a man
like you to tell me what to do . . . !”
Mr. Gore gave no sign. The door opened, and the rest came streaming out
on the stoop. Joe flattened himself against the balustrade, and watched.
There were polite good-byes. It seemed to be the general feeling that
the Gores must be allowed to get away first; and everybody else remained
on the stoop, while the millionaire handed his wife down, and the
footman opened the carriage door. Mr. Gore paused with a foot on the
step, as if he had just had an idea.
“. . . Er, my dear,” said he to his wife, “I am smoking. I will walk
home so that you may not be troubled by the fumes.”
Joe felt like God.
The footman closed the carriage door, and running around behind, climbed
up nimbly as the carriage started. The turnout clip-clopped briskly down
the street. Mr. Gore set off towards the Avenue, swinging his shoulders.
The long-legged young professor suddenly scampered down the steps. “Oh,
Mr. Gore, if you’re walking . . . !” he cried.
In his heart Joe cursed him.
Mr. Gore paused politely. There was a brief exchange on the sidewalk
which Joe could not hear. Then . . . the professor remained standing
where he was with a foolish look, and Mr. Gore walked on, swinging his
shoulders. Joe’s heart rebounded.