Produced by Al Haines
THE DEAVES AFFAIR
By HULBERT FOOTNER
AUTHOR OF
_"The Owl Taxi," "The Substitute Millionaire,"
"The Fur Bringers," "The Woman from Outside,"
"Thieves' Wit," etc._
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with George H. Doran Company
Printed in U. S. A.
COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
THE NOANKERS
KATHERINE FOREST
RUTH GREEN HARRIS
AND THE CHERUB WHO SITS UP ALOFT
W. SHERMAN POTTS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I A Penny Change
II A Rich Man's House
III Snooping
IV The New Lodger
V The Happy Little Family
VI The Little Fellow in Grey
VII Platonic Friendship
VIII Evan is Re-engaged
IX The Compact is Smashed
X Maud's Interest
XI The Steamboat _Ernestina_
XII Evan Loses a Round
XIII A Little Detective Work
XIV Number 11 Van Dorn Street
XV The Club House
XVI Back to Earth
XVII The _Ernestina_ Again
XVIII The Accident
XIX Four Visits from George Deaves
XX The Beginning of the Night
XXI Later that Night
XXII Towards Morning
XXIII Simeon Deaves Turns Philanthropist
XXIV Conclusion
Postscript
THE DEAVES AFFAIR
CHAPTER I
A PENNY CHANGE
Evan Weir's pipe was foul; he threw it down with an exclamation of
disgust. Its foulness was symbolic; everything was out of kilter. He
looked at the picture he had been painting for a week--rotten! It was
a still life; a broken jar and three books on a rag of Persian
embroidery. Picking up his pen-knife he deliberately cut the canvas
out of the stretcher, and setting a match to a corner of it, tossed it
in the empty stove. He paced up and down the room wondering what the
devil was the matter with him; he couldn't work; he couldn't read; his
friends bored him; life was as flat as beer dregs.
His attic studio was lighted by a dormer window at a height convenient
to receive his elbows on the sill. He came to a pause in that position
morosely staring out on Washington Square basking in the summer morning
sunshine. In some occult way the gilding on the green leaves stabbed
at his breast and accused him of futility.
"What the deuce am I doing up here in this dusty garret painting bad
pictures while the whole world is alive!" he thought.
He picked up his hat and went slowly down the three flights to the
street. At the corner of the square he turned down Macdougall street
into the Italian quarter.
This intimate thoroughfare was as crowded as a bee-hive. Happy, dirty,
big-eyed children played in the gutters while their obese mothers
squatted untidily on the stoops. No lack of the zest of life here. It
shamed the pedestrian without cheering him.
"They haven't much to live for," he thought, "and they're not
complaining. Why can't I take things as they come, as they do, without
searching my soul?"
It was a point of pride with Evan not to look like a denizen of
Washington Square. So his hair was cut, and his clothes like anybody's
else. He even went so far as to keep his hat brushed, his trousers
creased and his shoes polished. For the rest he was a vigorous,
deep-chested youth of middle height with rugged features and glowing
dark eyes. He had a self-contained, even a dogged look. Like all men
susceptible of deep feeling, he did not choose to wear his heart upon
his sleeve.
Half an hour later found him in that quaint corner of the island
bounded by Liberty street, Greenwich street and the river. It is
generally called the Syrian quarter, though shared by the Syrians with
immigrants of all nations, whose boarding-houses abound there,
convenient to the landing station. A feature of the neighbourhood is
the cheap clothing stores where the immigrants buy their first United
States suits. These suits hang swinging from the awnings like wasted
gallows birds. A hawk-eyed salesman lurks beneath; in other words the
"puller-in."
As Evan approached such a place in darkest Greenwich street a customer
issued forth of aspect so comical and strange that Evan was drawn out
of himself to regard him. It was a tall, lean old man who moved with a
factitious sprightliness. He was clearly no immigrant but a native of
these United States. He was wearing a hand-me-down which hung in weird
folds on his bones. The trousers lacked a good four inches of the
ground, and the sleeves revealed an inch of skinny wrist. The wearer
looked like a gawky school-boy with an old, old face. Yet he bore
himself with the conscious pride of one who wears a new suit. On his
head he wore a brownish straw hat which was a little too small for him,
and had seen three summers. As he walked along with his sprightly
shuffle, which did not get him over the ground very fast, his head
ceaselessly turned from side to side, and he continually looked over
his shoulder without seeming to see anything. His mouth was fixed in
the lines of a sly smile, which had nothing to do with the expression
of his eyes. This was furtive and anxious. His little grey eyes
searched in all the corners of the pavement like a rag-picker's eyes.
To Evan there was something familiar about the face, but he couldn't
quite place it.
The old man turned a corner into one of the little streets leading to
the river. Evan, bound nowhere in particular, and full of curiosity,
followed. There was something notable about the old figure in its
ridiculous habiliments; this was no common character. Under his arm he
carried a bundle wrapped in crumpled paper, which presumably contained
his discarded suit.
He stopped at a fruit-stand, and as Evan overtook him, was engaged in
scanning a tray of apples as if the fate of nations depended upon his
picking the best one at the price. The fruit-vendor regarded him with
a disgusted sneer. Evan loitered, and as the little comedy developed,
stopped outright to see it out.
The old man after an anxious period of indecision finally made his
choice. After having satisfied himself that there was no concealed
blemish in his apple he proffered a nickel in payment and extended a
trembling hand for the change. The Syrian dropped a penny in it, and
turned away with a suspiciously casual manner.
"Where's my other penny?" demanded the old man in a high-pitched,
creaking voice.
"What's the matter with you?" demanded the vendor with a wholly
disproportionate display of passion. "That's all you get."
The old man pointed an indignant forefinger to the ticket on the tray.
"Two for five!" he shrilled.
"That's right. Or four cents a piece," was the rejoinder.
"No you don't! Half of five is two and a half. You make half a cent
on the deal anyhow."
"Well, if y'ain't satisfied, gimme the penny and take another!" With
an unerring eye the vendor pounced on the smallest and knobbiest apple
in the tray and offered that.
The old man would have none of it. "Give me my other penny!" said he.
"That's all you get!"
"Give me my other penny or I'll call the police!"
"Yah! For a penny would you! You're a big man of business you are!
Call a cop, go on, and see what he'll say for a penny!" The vendor
passionately searched under a shelf, and producing a ticket marked "4c"
defiantly stuck that alongside the "2 for 5."
"No you don't!" cried the old man. "You can't raise the price on me
after I've bought!"
"One for four, two for five! I guess I charge what I like! I don't
have to charge half the price for one!"
"You're a robber!"
The vendor appealed to Heaven to witness that he was maligned. He
brandished a fist before the old man's nose. "You lie! You lie!" he
cried. "Get out of here. I don't want you by my stand!"
"Give me my penny!"
"Ain't no penny comin' to yeh!"
Evan was not the only grinning on-looker. A crowd collected out of
nowhere as crowds do. The anxious vendor had now not only to keep up
his end of the argument, but to watch his exposed stock as well. But
he showed no signs of giving in.
"Get out of here! I don't want you round me!" he cried.
"Give me my penny!"
"Ain't no penny comin' to yeh!"
They repeated it with incredible passion, over and over.
The crowd at first egged on both parties impartially:
"Go to it, men! A penny's a penny at that!"
"Don't let him jew you, old man. All them dagoes is robbers!"
"Soak him one, Tony, the tight-wad!"
"Sue him for the penny, Grandpa. I'll go witness for you."
"Aw, give him his penny, Mike. He needs a new lid." And so on.
"Gimme my penny!"
"Ain't no penny comin' to yeh!"
Finally the old man threw the apple back on the tray. "I won't deal
with you at all!" he cried. "You're a robber! Gimme my money back!"
"You bruised it!" cried the Syrian tragically. "I don't take back no
spoiled goods. Leave it lay at your own risk!"
"Gimme back my money!" cried the old man undaunted.
A grimy little hand slid out from the crowd and closed over the
disputed apple. In the flick of a whip it was gone, and no man could
say where. The crowd rocked with laughter.
The vendor shrugged. "Ain't my loss. It's his apple."
"Gimme my money back!" demanded the old man.
"Ah, what do you want, the apple and the money and the change too?"
The old man snapped the penny down on the glass top of the candy case.
"Gimme my nickel," he said like a bird with one note.
The vendor passionately snatched up the penny and cast it at his feet.
"Go to Hell with your penny!" he cried.
Someone put a foot on it and that likewise was seen no more.
"Gimme my nickel!" said the old man.
Suddenly a voice in the crowd was heard to say: "Gee! it's Simeon
Deaves!"
"Simeon Deaves, of course!" thought Evan. That old face was
continually in the newspapers.
Instantly the temper of the crowd changed. There was nobody who could
read English that was not acquainted with this man's reputation. A
chorus of imprecations was heard:
"Miser! Skinflint! Tight-wad! Robber!"
The sallies of the sidewalk wits were almost drowned in the mere cries
of rage:
"Tight-wad, did you say? His wad is ossified to him!"
"He wants to put that penny out at interest!"
"Say, the Jews go to school to him."
"He'd skin the cream offen a baby's bottle, he would."
The old man looked down and back at them snarling. Like a cowed
animal's, his gaze was fixed upon their feet. Fearful of blows to
follow, he turned around, and edging away from the stand got his back
against the wall of the building. His face was ashy, yet oddly the
mouth was still fixed in the unvarying lines of the sly smile. The
fruit vendor made haste to shut up his stand.
A flushed and burly Irishwoman stepped in advance of the crowd. She
looked Deaves up and down insultingly. "What kind of a man do you call
yourself?" she cried. "With all your millions locked up in the bank,
and dressed in a suit that my old man wouldn't sweep up manure in!
What are you doing down here anyhow? Go back up town where you
belong!" She shook a fist like a ham in his face. "Do you see that?
That's an honest hand that never filched a penny. For a word I'd plant
it in your ugly face, you Shylock! You penny-parer!"
A youth's voice cried out: "Come on, fellows, let him have it!"
The crowd suddenly swayed forward. No one could tell exactly what
happened. A raised clenched fist smashed the old man's hat over his
eyes. Deaves went down out of sight.
This was too much for Evan. After all the man was old and it was fifty
to one against him. His blood boiled, and the megrims were forgotten.
He rushed in on the old man's side, swinging his arms and shouting:
"Get back, you cowards! Give the old man a chance!"
The passionately indignant voice was more effective than the blows
against so many. The crowd drew back shamefacedly, revealing the old
man prone on the sidewalk, but not visibly injured. He was able to
scramble to his hands and knees as soon as they gave him room. Evan
helped him to his feet.
"Come on, I'll get you out of this," he said peremptorily. With his
flashing eyes he searched the faces of the crowd for eyes that dared to
withstand his, but none cared to.
He started to march the dazed old man smartly towards West street. It
was an uncomfortable moment when they were obliged to turn their backs
on the crowd. Evan expected another rush. But it did not come.
They had not taken ten steps when the old man pulled back. "M-my
bundle," he stammered. "I've lost my bundle."
Evan could not tell what the crowd might do. There was of course no
policeman to be expected in that forgotten little street. "Let your
bundle go!" he warned him. "Come on."
But the old man planted himself like a child with immovable obstinacy.
"My old clothes!" he said. "They're worth money! I'm not going to
give them up!"
Evan with an exasperated laugh went back. The crowd which had started
to follow backed off. The bundle lay where the old man had fallen. It
had come unwrapped and the deplorable garments were fully revealed.
Evan, gritting his teeth, stooped over and rolled them up. He knew
what a chance he was providing to the wits of the crowd.
"Old clo'! Old clo'!"
"Rags, bones, bottles! Any rags, bones, bottles!"
"Say, fella, what do you think you'll get out of it?"
"Aw, Simeon Deaves 'll give him his old clothes."
The envious note was clearly audible. Individuals in the crowd were
beginning to ask themselves now, why they hadn't had the wit to take
the old man's part, and earn his gratitude. Evan held himself in from
reply.
"What's the use," he thought. "Scum!"
Rejoining the old man he led him to the West street corner. Deaves had
had a bad shock, and he was still trembling all over, and stumbling
slightly in his walk. He betrayed no consciousness of gratitude
towards his rescuer. His mind was still running on the lost nickel.
"Robber! Outrage! Thieving scoundrel!" he was muttering.
They waited for a Belt line car. Another man waited alongside of them,
a quiet little youth in a grey suit whom Evan had seen as an onlooker
in the crowd.
When the car came the old man was still so shaky that it seemed to Evan
only the part of common humanity to accompany him. But on the step
Deaves turned sharply.
"You needn't come," he said. "I can take care of myself."
"That's all right," said Evan politely. "It's no inconvenience."
"I won't pay your fare," said Deaves.
Evan laughed. "I'll pay the fares," he said. To himself he thought:
"It's not often one has a chance of standing treat to a millionaire."
Deaves did allow Evan to pay the fares, and indeed seemed quite pleased
as if he had got the better of him in a deal. But something about Evan
disconcerted him. He continued to glance at him sideways out of his
restless, furtive little grey eyes. Finally he said:
"I'm not going to give you anything for coming with me."
"Don't expect it," said Evan.
"What are you coming for then?" Deaves demanded.
Evan laughed in an annoyed way. "Well, now that you put it to me, I
don't exactly know. I suppose I owe it to myself not to let an old man
fall down in the street."
Deaves thought over this quite a long while. Along with his shrewdness
there was something childish in the old man. "You're a good boy!" he
announced at last.
Evan appreciated that this was an immense concession. "Much obliged,"
he said dryly.
"Just the same, you needn't think you're going to get anything out of
me," the old man quickly added.
"I don't."
Having established this point to his satisfaction Deaves seemed
disposed to become friendly. "What are you doing out on the street in
the middle of the morning?" he asked.
"I might ask the same of you," returned Evan good-naturedly.
"I'm retired. I've a right to take my ease. But all young fellows
ought to be at work. Haven't you got any work to do?"
"I'm an artist."
"Pooh! Waste of time!"
Evan laughed. It was useless to get angry at the old boy.
"Why aren't you working at it now?" Deaves demanded to know.
"It wouldn't come to-day," said Evan.
"Stuff and nonsense! You'll never get on that way! Look at me!"
Evan did so, thinking: "I wouldn't be like you for all your millions!"
Deaves went on: "Keep everlastingly at it! That's my motto. That's
what's brought me to where I am to-day. I've retired now--though I
still have my irons in the fire--but when I was your age I worked early
and late. I didn't waste _my_ time fooling round like young men do.
No, sir! My only thought was how to turn everything to advantage. I
denied myself everything; lived on two bits a day, I did, and put my
savings to work. The cents and the dollars are good and willing little
servants if you make them work for you. I watched 'em grow and grow.
That was my young man's fun."
Evan looking at him thought: "You are an object-lesson all right, old
man, but not just the way you think."
The current of Deaves' thoughts changed. "You're a strong boy," he
said, with a glance at Evan's stout frame. He felt of his biceps
through the thin coat. "Hm!" he said scornfully. "I suppose you're
proud of your strength. I suppose you spend the best part of your days
exercising. Waste of time! Waste of time! A strong man never comes
to anything. They're simple, mostly. It's the head that counts! How
many of those ruffians did you knock down?"
"Not any," said Evan carelessly. "They ducked."
"Well, you're a good boy. You stick to me, and I'll show you something
better than messing in colours. I'll show you how to make money!"