The stranger skipped into step with Ray more lightly than would have
been expected from one of his years. He wore a soft felt hat over locks
of silken silver that were long enough to touch his beautiful white
beard. He wore it with an effect of intention, as if he knew it was out
of character with the city, but was so much in character with himself
that the city must be left to reconcile itself to the incongruity or
not, as it chose. For the same reason, apparently, his well-fitting
frock-coat was of broadcloth, instead of modern diagonal; a black silk
handkerchief tied in an easy knot at his throat strayed from under his
beard, which had the same waviness as his hair; he had black trousers,
and drab gaiters showing themselves above wide, low shoes. In his hands,
which he held behind him, he dangled a stick with an effect of leisure
and ease, enhanced somehow by the stoop he made towards the young
fellow’s lower stature, and by his refusal to lift his voice above a
certain pitch, whatever the uproar of the street about them. Ray
screamed out his words, but the stranger spoke in what seemed his wonted
tone, and left Ray to catch the words as he could.
“I didn’t think,” he said, after a moment, and with some misgiving,
that this stranger who had got into step with him might be some kind of
confidence man--“I didn’t think that fellow looked like a thief much.”
“You are a believer in physiognomy?” asked the stranger, with a
philosophic poise. He had himself a regular face, with gay eyes, and a
fine pearly tint; lips that must have been beautiful shaped his
branching mustache to a whimsical smile.
“No,” said Ray. “I wasn’t near enough to see his face. But he looked so
decent and quiet, and he behaved with so much dignity. Perhaps it was
his spectacles.”
“Glasses can do much,” said the stranger, “to redeem the human
countenance, even when worn as a protest against the presence of one’s
portrait in the rogues’ gallery. I don’t say you’re wrong; I’m only
afraid the chances are that you’ll never be proved right. I should
prefer to make a speculative approach to the facts on another plane. As
you suggest, he had a sage and dignified appearance; I observed it
myself; he had the effect--how shall I express it?--of some sort of
studious rustic. Say he was a belated farm youth, working his way
through a fresh-water college, who had great latent gifts of peculation,
such as might have won him a wide newspaper celebrity as a defaulter
later in life, and under more favorable conditions. He finds himself
alone in a great city for the first time, and is attracted by the
display of the trunk-dealer’s cellarway. The opportunity seems favorable
to the acquisition of a neat travelling-bag; perhaps he has never owned
one, or he wishes to present it to the object of his affections, or to a
sick mother; he may have had any respectable motive; but his outlook has
been so restricted that he cannot realize the difference between
stealing a travelling-bag and stealing, say, a street; though I believe
Mr. Sharp only bought Broadway of those who did not own it, and who sold
it low; but never mind, it may stand for an illustration. If this young
man had stolen a street, he would not have been arrested and handcuffed
in that disgraceful way and led off to the dungeon-keep of the Jefferson
Market Police Court--I presume that is the nearest prison, though I
won’t be quite positive--but he would have had to be attacked and
exposed a long time in the newspapers; and he would have had counsel,
and the case would have been fought from one tribunal to another, till
at last he wouldn’t have known whether he was a common criminal or a
public benefactor. The difficulty in his case is simply an inadequate
outlook.”
The philosophic stranger lifted his face and gazed round over Ray’s
head, but he came to a halt at the same time with the young fellow.
“Well, sir,” he said, with bland ceremony, “I must bid you good-morning.
As we go our several ways let us remember the day’s lesson, and when we
steal, always steal enough.”
He held out his hand, and Ray took it with a pleasure in his discourse
which he was wondering how he should express to him. He felt it due
himself to say something clever in return, but he could not think of
anything. “I’m sure I shall remember your interpretation of it,” was all
he could get out.
“Ah, well, don’t act upon that without due reflection,” the stranger
said; and he gave Ray’s hand a final and impressive downward shake.
“Dear me!” he added, for Ray made no sign of going on. “Are we both
stopping here--two spiders at the parlor of the same unsuspecting fly?
But perhaps you are merely a buyer, not a writer, of books? After you,
sir!”
The stranger promoted a little polite rivalry that ensued between them;
he ended it by passing one hand through the young man’s arm, and with
the other pressing open the door which they had both halted at, and
which bore on either jamb a rounded metallic plate with the sign, “H. C.
Chapley & Co., Publishers.” Within, he released Ray with a courteous
bow, as if willing to leave him now to his own devices. He went off to a
distant counter in the wide, low room, and occupied himself with the
books on it; Ray advanced and spoke to a clerk, who met him half-way. He
asked for Mr. Chapley, and the clerk said he was not down yet--he seldom
got down so early; but Mr. Brandreth would be in almost any minute now.
When Ray said he had a letter for the firm, and would wait if the clerk
pleased, the clerk asked if he would not take a chair in Mr. Brandreth’s
room.
Ray could not help thinking the civility shown him was for an imaginable
customer rather than a concealed author, but he accepted it all the
same, and sat looking out into the salesroom, with its counters of
books, and its shelves full of them around its walls, while he waited.
Chapley & Co. were of the few old-fashioned publishers who had remained
booksellers too, in a day when most publishers have ceased to be so.
They were jobbers as well as booksellers; they took orders and made
terms for public and private libraries; they had customers all over the
country who depended on them for advice and suggestion about
forth-coming books, and there were many booksellers in the smaller
cities who bought through them. The bookseller in Midland, who united
bookselling with a stationery and music business, was one of these, and
he had offered Ray a letter to them.
“If you ever want to get a book published,” he said, with a touch on the
quick that made the conscious author wince, “they’re your men.”
Ray knew their imprint and its relative value better than the Midland
bookseller, stationer, and music-dealer; and now, as he sat in the
junior partner’s neat little den, with the letter of introduction in his
hand, it seemed to him such a crazy thing to think of having his book
brought out by them that he decided not to say anything about it, but to
keep to that character of literary newspaper man which his friend gave
him in his rather florid letter. He had leisure enough to make this
decision and unmake it several times while he was waiting for Mr.
Brandreth to come. It was so early that, with all the delays Ray had
forced, it was still only a little after nine, and no one came in for a
quarter of an hour. The clerks stood about and chatted together. The
bookkeepers, in their high-railed enclosure, were opening their ledgers
under the shaded gas-burners that helped out the twilight there. Ray
could see his unknown street friend scanning the books on the upper
shelf and moving his person from side to side, and letting his cane rise
and fall behind him as if he were humming to himself and keeping time to
the tune.