“Oh, one gets used to going without drinks.”
“Do ye? I don’t. I’d take a drink of ’air-oil if anybody’d give me one.
I’d take a drink of ink. Anything that comes out of a bottle’d be better’n
nothink, after all this water from a jug.”
During the first few days at the club this was my usual state, not
of mind, but of sensation. During the next few days I passed into a
condition that I can best express as one of physical resignation. The
craving for drink was not less insistent, but it was more easily denied.
Since I couldn’t get it I could do without it, and not want to dash my
head against a stone. But after the words with Andrew Christian I have
just recorded I began to feel—oh, ever so slightly!—that Nature had a
realm of freedom and vigor in which there was no need of extraordinary
stimulants, and of which sunshine, air, and water might be taken as the
symbols. With the resting of my overexcited nerves and the response of a
body radically healthy to regular sleep and simple food, I began to feel,
at least at intervals, that water, air, and sunshine were the natural
elements to thrive on.
My first glance at Ralph Coningsby showed me a man who had thriven on
them. He was the type to whom most of us take at sight—the clean, fresh,
Anglo-Saxon type, blue-eyed and fair, whom you couldn’t do anything but
trust.
“God! how I should like to look like that!” I said to myself the minute I
saw him come in.
I knew by this time that at the big weekly meetings there were sometimes
friendly visitors whose touch with the club was more or less accidental.
I had no difficulty in putting this man down as one. He entered as if he
were at any ordinary gathering of friends, with a nod here, a handshake
there, and a few words with some one else. Then for a minute he stood,
letting his eyes search the room till they rested on me, where I stood in
a corner of the front sitting-room.
There was at once that livening of the glance that showed he had found
what he was looking for. Making his way through the groups that were
standing about, he came up and offered his hand.
“Your name’s Melbury, isn’t it? Mine’s Coningsby. I think you must be the
same Melbury who went to the Beaux Arts in the fall of the year in which
I left in the spring.”
“Oh, you’re that Coningsby? You used to know Bully Harris?”
“Rather! He and I lived together for a year in the Rue de Seine.”
“And he and I spent a year in the same house in the Rue Bonaparte.”
“And now he’s out in Red Wing, Minnesota, doing very well, I hear.”
“The last time I saw him was in London. We dined together at the
Piccadilly and did a theater.”
“And Tommy Runt? Do you ever hear of him?”
“Not since he went back to Melbourne; but that chap he was always about
with—Saunderson, wasn’t it?—he was killed in a motor accident near
Glasgow.”
“So I heard. Some one told me—Pickman, I think it was—an Englishman—but
you didn’t know Pickman, did you? He left the year I came, which must
have been three or four years before your time. By the way, why don’t we
sit down?”
In the process of sitting down I remembered my manners.
“Mr. Coningsby, won’t you let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. Lovey?”
Lovey was seated, nursing a knee and looking as wretched as a dog to
whom no one is paying the customary attention. He resented Coningsby’s
appearance; he resented a kind of talk which put me beyond his reach.
When Coningsby, who seated himself between us, had shaken hands and made
some kindly observation, Lovey replied, peevishly:
“I ain’t in ’ere for nothink but to save Slim.”
“That’s what the boys call me,” I laughed, in explanation.
Coningsby having duly commended this piece of self-sacrifice, we went on
with the reminiscences with which we had begun. It was the most ordinary
kind of breaking the ice between one man and another; but for me the
wonder of it was precisely in that fact. You have to be down and out to
know what it means when some one treats you as if you had never been
anything but up and in. There was not a shade in Coningsby’s manner, nor
an inflection in his tone, to hint at the fact that we hadn’t met at the
New Netherlands or any other first-class club. It was nothing, you will
say, but what any gentleman would be impelled to. Quite true! But again
let me say it, you would have to be in my place to know what it means to
be face to face with the man who is impelled to it.
We stopped talking, of course, when business began, Coningsby giving me
any necessary explanations in an undertone, and pointing out the notables
whom I didn’t already know by sight.
One of these was Colonel Straight, who with Andrew Christian had founded
the club. I don’t believe that he had ever been a colonel, but he looked
like one; neither can I swear that his real name was Straight, though it
suited him. In our world the sobriquet often clings closer to us, and
fits us more exactly, than anything given by inheritance or baptism.
Here was a man with a figure as straight as an arrow and a glance as
straight as a sunbeam. What else could his name have been? With one leg
slightly shorter than the other, as if he had been wounded in battle, a
magnificent white mustache, a magnificent fleece of white hair—he had all
the air not only of an old soldier, but of an old soldier in high command.
“You wouldn’t think, to look at him,” Coningsby whispered, “that he’s
only an old salesman for ready-made clothes.”
“No; he ought to be at the head of a regiment.”
“But the odd thing I notice about this club is that a man’s status and
occupation in the world outside seem to fall away from him as soon as he
passes the door. They become irrelevant. The only thing that counts is
what he is as a man; and even that doesn’t count for everything.”
“What does count for everything?” I asked, in some curiosity.
“That he’s a man at all.”
“That’s it exactly,” I agreed, heartily. “I hadn’t put it to myself in
that way; but I see that it’s what I’ve been conscious of.”
“As an instance of that you can take the friendship between Straight and
Christian. From the point of view of the outside world they’re of types
so diverse that you’d say that the difference precluded friendship of any
kind. You know what Christian is; but the colonel is hardly what you’d
call a man of education. Without being illiterate, he makes elementary
grammatical mistakes, and unusual ideas floor him. But to say that he and
Christian are like brothers hardly expresses it.”
I pondered on this as the meeting, with Christian in the chair, came to
order and the routine of business began.
When it grew uninteresting to people with no share in the management of
the club I got an opportunity to whisper, “You settled in New York?”
“I’m with Sterling Barry; the junior of the four partners.”
The reply seemed to strip from me the few rags of respectability with
which I had been trying to cover myself up. Had he gone on to say, “And I
saw you break into his house and steal his daughter’s trinkets,” I should
scarcely have felt myself more pitilessly exposed.
It was perhaps a proof of what the club had done for me that I no longer
regarded this crime with the same sang-froid as when I entered. Even on
the morning of my first talk with Andrew Christian I could have confessed
it more or less as I should have owned to a solecism in etiquette. During
the intervening ten days, however, I had so far reverted to my former
better self that the knowledge that I was the man who had crept into a
house and begun to rob it filled me with dismay.
I had to pretend that I didn’t want to interrupt the conducting of
business to conceal the fact that I was unable to reply.
“You’ve worked in New York, too?” he began again, when there was a chance
of speaking.
I had by this time so far recovered myself as to be able to tell him the
names of my various employers. I didn’t add that they had fired me one
after another because of my drinking-spells, since I supposed he would
take that for granted.
“Ever thought of Barry’s?”
“I brought a letter of introduction to him from McArdle, of Montreal; but
I never presented it.”
“Pity.”
“Yes, perhaps it was. But you see I didn’t like McArdle’s work, though I
studied under him. As I was afraid of getting into the same old rut, I
went to Pritchard.”
“What do you think of Barry’s things now?”
“Oh, I like them—though they’re not so severe as I should go in for
myself. The modern French is a little too florid, and he goes them one
better.”
“Just my feeling. I should like you to see a bit of work I’ve been doing
on my own; rather a big order—for me, that is—in which I’ve had to be as
American as the deuce, and yet keep to the best lines.”
“Like to,” I managed to whisper back as we heard Christian announce that
two new men were now to be admitted to the club.
I was interested in the ceremony, having by this time got on friendly
terms with both the piano-mover and the Scotchman, and learned something
of their history. With necessary divergences the general trend of these
tales was the same. Both were married men, both had children, in both
cases “the home was broken up”—the phrase had become classic in the club;
though in the one instance the wife had taken the children to her own
people, and in the other she was doing her best to support them herself.
Their names being called, there was a scraping of chairs, after which the
two men lumbered forward, each accompanied by his next friend. The office
of next friend, as I came to learn, was one of such responsibility as
to put a strain on anything like next friendship. The Scotchman’s next
friend was a barber, who, as part of his return for the club’s benefits
to himself, had that afternoon cut the hair of all of us inmates—nineteen
in number; while the piano-mover had as his sponsor the famous Beady
Lamont. The latter pair moved forward like two elephants, their tread
shaking the floor.
I shall not describe this initiation further than to say that everything
about it was simple, direct, and impressive. The four men being lined in
front of Mr. Christian’s desk, the spokesman for the authorities was old
Colonel Straight.
“The difference between this club and every other club,” he said, in
substance, “is that men goes to other clubs to amuse theirselves, and
here they come to fight. This club is an army. Any one who joins it joins
a corps. You two men who wants to come in with us ’ave got to remember
that up to now you’ve been on your own and independent; and now you’ll
be entering a company. Up to now, if you worked you worked for yourself;
if you loafed you loafed for yourself; if you was lounge lizards you
was lounge lizards on your own account and no one else’s; and if you
got drunk no one but you—leaving out your wife and children; though why
I leave them out God alone knows!—but if you got drunk no one but you
had to suffer. Now it’s going to be all different. You can’t get drunk
without hurting us, and we can’t get drunk without hurting you. T’other
way round—every bit of fight we put up helps you, and every bit of fight
you put up helps us.
“Now there’s lots of things I could say to you this evening; but the only
one I want to jam right home is this: You and us look at this thing from
different points of view. You come here hoping that we’re going to help
you to keep straight. That’s all right. So we are; and we’ll all be on
the job from this night forward. You won’t find us taking no vacation,
and your next friends here’ll worry you like your own consciences.
They’ll never leave you alone the minute you ain’t safe. You’ll hear ’em
promise to hunt for you if you go astray, and go down into the ditch with
you and pull you out. There’ll be no dive so deep that they won’t go
after you, and no kicks and curses that you can give ’em that they won’t
stand in order to haul you back. That’s all gospel true, as you’re going
to find out if you go back on your promises. But that ain’t the way the
rest of us—the hundred and fifty of us that you see here to-night—looks
at it at all. What we see ain’t two men we’re tumbling over each other
to help; we see two men that’s coming to help us. And, oh, men, you’d
better believe that we need your help! You look round and you see this
elegant house—and the beds—and the grub—and everything decent and
reg’lar—and you think how swell we’ve got ourselves fixed. But I tell
you, men, we’re fighting for our life—the whole hundred and fifty of us!
And another hundred and fifty that ain’t here! And another hundred and
fifty that’s scattered to the four winds of the earth; we’re fighting for
our life; we’re fighting with our back against the wall. We ain’t out of
danger because we’ve been a year or two years or five years in the club.
We’re never out of danger. We need every ounce of support that any one
can bring to us; and here you fellows come bringing it! You’re bringing
it, Colin MacPherson, and you’re bringing it, Tapley Toms; and there
ain’t a guy among us that isn’t glad and grateful. If you go back on your
own better selves you go back on us first of all; and if either of you
falls, you leave each one of us so much the weaker.”
That, with a funny story or two, was the gist of it; but delivered in
a low, richly vibrating voice, audible in every corner of the room and
addressed directly and earnestly to the two candidates, its effect was
not unlike that of Whitfield’s dying man preaching to dying men. All
the scarred, haunted faces, behind each of which there lurked memories
blacker than those of the madhouse, were turned toward the speaker
raptly. Knowledge of their own hearts and knowledge of his gave the words
a power and a value beyond anything they carried on the surface. The
red-hot experience of a hundred and fifty men was poured molten into the
minute, to give to the promises the two postulants were presently called
on to make a kind of iron vigor.
Those promises were simple. Colin MacPherson and Tapley Toms took the
total-abstinence pledge for a week, after which they would be asked to
renew it for similar periods till they felt strong enough to take it
for a month. They would remain as residents of the club till morally
re-established, but they would look for work, in which the club would
assist them, and send at least three-quarters of their earnings to their
wives. As soon as they were strong enough they would set up homes for
their families again, and try to atone for their failure in the mean
time. They would do their best to strengthen other members of the club,
and to live in peace with them. The religious question was shelved by
asking each man to give his word to reconnect himself with the church in
which he had been brought up.
The promises exacted of the next friends were, as became veterans, more
severe. They were to be guardians of the most zealous activity, and
shrink from no insult or injury in the exercise of their functions. If
their charges fell irretrievably away, their brothers in the club would
be sorry for them, even though the guilt would not be laid at their door.
When some twenty or thirty members had renewed their vows for a third or
fourth or fifth week, as the case happened to be, the meeting broke up
for refreshments.
It was during this finale to the evening that Coningsby brought up a
man somewhat of his own type, and yet different. He was different in
that, though of the same rank and age, he was tall and dark, and carried
himself with a slight stoop of the shoulders. An olive complexion touched
off with well-rounded black eyebrows and a neat black mustache made one
take him at first for a foreigner, while the dreaminess of the dark eyes
was melancholy and introspective, if not quite despondent.
“Melbury, I want you to know Doctor Cantyre, who holds the honorable
office of physician in ordinary to the club.”
Once more I was in conversation with a man of antecedents similar to
my own, and once more the breaking of the ice was that between men
accustomed to the same order of associations. In this case we found
them in Cantyre’s tourist recollections of Montreal and Quebec, and his
enjoyment of winter sports.
_CHAPTER VI_
There was nothing more than this to the meeting that night, but early the
next afternoon I was called to the telephone. As such a summons was rare
in the club, I went to the instrument in some trepidation.
“Hello! This is Frank Melbury.”
“This is Doctor Cantyre. You remember that we met last evening?”
“Oh, rather!”
“I’m motoring out in my runabout to see a patient who lives a few miles
up the river, and I want you to come along.”
The invitation, which would mean nothing to you but a yes or a no, struck
me almost speechless. There was first the pleasure of it. I have not
laid stress on the fact that the weather was sickeningly hot, because it
didn’t enter into our considerations. We were too deeply concerned with
other things to care much that the house was stifling; and yet stifling
it was. But more important than that was the fact that any one in the
world should want to show me this courtesy. Remember that I had been
beyond the reach of courtesies. A drink from some one who would expect
me to give him a drink in return was the utmost I had known in this
direction for months, and I might say for years.
Is it any wonder that in my reply I stammered and stuttered and nearly
sobbed?
“Oh, but, I say, I—I look too beastly for an expedition of—of that sort.
I’m awfully sorry, but—but I—well, you know how it is.”
“Oh, get out! You’ve got to have the air. I’m your doctor. I’m not going
to see you cooped up there day after day in weather like this. Besides,
I’m bringing along a couple of dust-coats—the roads will be dusty part of
the way—and we shall both be covered up. Expect me by half past two.”
As he put up the receiver without waiting for further protests, there was
nothing for me but submission.
“I’ve been ’ere as long as you ’ave,” Lovey complained when I told him of
my invitation, “and nobody don’t ask me to go hout in no automobiles.”
“Oh, but they will.”
He shook his head.
“Them swells’ll take you away, sonny. See if they don’t.”
“Not from you, Lovey.”
He grabbed me by the arm.
“Will you promise me that, Slim?”
“Yes, Lovey; I promise you.”
“And we’ll go on being buddies, even when the rich guys talks to you
about all them swell things?”
“Yes, Lovey. We’re buddies for life.”
With this Mizpah between us he released my arm and I was able to go and
make my preparations.
In spite of the heat and the fact that on a windless day there was no
dust to speak of, Cantyre was buttoned up in a dust-coat. It would have
seemed the last word in tact if he hadn’t gone further by pretending to
be occupied in doing something to the steering-wheel while I hid my seedy
blue serge in the long linen garment he handed me out. As even an old
golf-cap can look pretty decent, I was really like anybody else by the
time I had snuggled myself in by his side.
During the first mile or two of the way I could hardly listen to Cantyre,
to say nothing of making conversation. In spasmodic sentences between his
spells of attention to the traffic he told me of his patient and where
she lived; but as it was nothing I was obliged to register in my mind, I
could give myself to the wonder of the occasion, in awe at the miracle
which had restored me to something like my old place in the world at the
very moment when I seemed farthest away from it. Here I was, with not
a penny to my name and not two coats to my back, tooling along like a
gentleman with a gentleman, and as a man with his friend. Moreover, here
I was with a new revelation, a convincing revelation, of something I had
long since ceased to believe—that in this world there was such a thing as
active brotherly kindness.
I came out of these thoughts to find that we were following the avenue
with part of which I had made myself so familiar ten days before. I began
to ask myself if Cantyre had a motive in bringing me this way. The houses
were thinning out. Vacant lots became frequent. I noted the southern
limit of my pacings up and down on that strange midnight. Cantyre slowed
the pace perceptibly. My heart thumped. If he accused me of anything, I
was resolved to confess all.
As we passed one particular vacant lot, a tangle of nettle, fireweed, and
blue succory, I noticed that Cantyre’s gaze roamed round about it, to the
neglect of the machine. We had slowed down to perhaps ten miles an hour.
“Do you know whose house that is?” he asked, suddenly.
But I refused to betray myself before it was necessary.
“Whose?” I riposted.
“Sterling Barry, the architect’s.”
The machine almost stopped. He looked the façade up and down, saying, as
he did so: “It’s closed for the season. They left town a few days ago.
Barry’s bought the old Hornblower place at Rosyth, Long Island.”
To my relief, we sped on again; but I was not long in learning the motive
behind his interest.
Chiefly for the sake of not seeming dumb, I said, as we got into the
country, “You and Ralph Coningsby are by way of being great friends,
aren’t you?”
“No,” he replied, promptly. “I see him when I go to the club; not very
often elsewhere. I know his sister, Elsie Coningsby, better. Not that I
know her very well. She happens to be a great friend of—of a—of a great
friend—or, rather, some one who was a great friend—of mine. That’s all.”
So that was it!
I said, after we had spun along some few miles more, “Your name is
Stephen, isn’t it?”
“Yes. How did you know?”