"There is no essential incongruity between crime and
culture."
--_Oscar Wilde, "The Decay of Lying."_
It was five o'clock, Sunday afternoon, and the slanting sunbeams had
crawled across the bed and up the walls and vanished somehow into the
ceiling when Voltaire McCartney came to himself, kicked off the
patchwork quilt, elevated his torso upon one elbow and took an
observation out of the dingy window. The prospect of the Palisades to
the northwest was undimmed, for the wind was blowing fresh from the sea
and the smoke from the glucose factory on the Jersey side was making
straight up the river in a long, black horizontal bar, behind which the
horizon glowed in a brilliant, translucent mass of cloud. McCartney
swung his thin legs clear of the bed and fumbled with his left hand in
the pocket of a plaid waistcoat dangling from the iron post. The act was
unconscious, equivalent to the automatic groping for one's slippers
which perchance the reader's own well-regulated feet perform on similar
occasions. The pocket in question yielded a square of white tissue,
which the fingers deftly folded, transferred to the other hand, and then
filled with tobacco. Like others nourished upon stimulants and
narcotics, McCartney awoke _absolutely_, without a trace of drowsiness,
nervously ready to do the next thing, whatever that might chance to be.
His first act was to pull on his shoes, the second to slip his
suspenders over his rather narrow shoulders, and the third to light the
cigarette. Then he sauntered across the room to the window sill, upon
which slept profoundly a small tortoise-shell cat, and picked up a
pocket volume, well worn, which he shook open at a point designated by a
safety match. For several moments he devoured the page with his eyes,
his hollow face filled with peculiar exaltation. Then he expelled a
cloud of smoke sucked from the glowing end of his cigarette, tossed away
the butt, and thrust the book into his hip pocket.
"O would there were a heaven to hear!
O would there were a hell to fear!
Ah, welcome fire, eternal fire,
To burn forever and not tire!
"Better Ixion's whirling wheel,
And still at any cost to feel!
Dear Son of God, in mercy give
My soul to flames, but--let me _live_!"
He turned away from the window, and pale against the gaudy west his
profile shone drawn and haggard. Restlessly he filched his pocket for
another cigarette, and tossed himself wearily into a painted rocker. The
cat awakened, elongated herself in a prodigious and voluptuous yawn of
her whole body, dropped to the floor and leaped with a single spring
into her master's lap. He stroked her sadly.
"Isabeau! My poor Isabeau! I envy you--creature perfect in symmetry,
perfect in feeling!"
The cat rubbed her head against the buttons of his coat. McCartney
leaned back his head. The little room was bare of ornament or of
furniture other than the chair, save for a deal table at the foot of the
bed, bearing a litter of newspapers and yellow pad paper.
"I am discouraged by the street,
The pacing of monotonous feet!"
murmured the man in the rocker. The light died out above the Palisades;
the cat snuggled down between her master's legs.
"Dear Son of God, in mercy give
My soul to flames, but let me _live_!"
he added softly. Then he lifted the cat gently to the floor, threw on a
short, faded reefer coat, and opened the door.
"Well, Isabeau, it's time for us to go out and earn our supper!"
* * * * *
McCartney gazed solemnly down from the small rostrum upon which he was
standing at the end of the saloon without so much as a smile in answer
to the roar of appreciation with which his time-worn anecdote had been
received.
"Dot's goot!" shouted an abdominal "Dutchman," pounding the table with
his beer mug. "Gif us 'n odder!"
"Ya!" exclaimed his _confrère_. "Dot feller, he was a corker, eh?" He
put up his hands and making a trumpet of them bawled at McCartney:
"Here, kommen sie unt haf a glass bier mit us!"
Three teamsters, a card sharp, a porter, two cabbies, and a dozen
unclassables nodded their heads and stamped, while the bartender passed
up a foaming stein to the performer. McCartney blew off the froth, bowed
with easy grace to the assembled company, and drank. Then he descended
to the table occupied by the Germans.
"May you all have better luck than the gentleman in my story," he
remarked. "But I for one shall go straight to the other place. Heaven
for climate--hell for society, eh? Hoch der Kaiser!"
The Germans threw back their heads and laughed boisterously.
"Make that beer a sandwich, will you? Here, Bill, bring me a slice of
cold beef and a cheese sandwich!"
The bartender opened a small ice chest and produced the desired edibles,
to which variation in their offered hospitality the two interposed no
objection, being in fact somewhat in awe of their intellectual, if not
distinguished, guest. As McCartney ate he produced a handful of
transparent dice.
"Ever see any dice like those?" he asked, rolling them across the wet
table. The first German examined them with approval.
"Dose is pooty, eh?" he remarked to his neighbor. "I trow you for die
Schnapps, eh?"
McCartney watched them covetously as they emptied the leathern shaker,
solemnly counting the spots at the conclusion of each cast.
"Here, let me show you how," volunteered their guest. "Poker hands." He
rattled the dice and poured them forth. They came up indiscriminately.
"Not so goot, eh?" commented the German. "I'll trow you. I'll trow
ennyboty mit _clear_ dice. Venn dey ain't loated I can trow mit
ennyboty." He held them up to the light. "Dese is clear--goot."
"Three times for a dollar," said McCartney.
"So," answered the German. He threw carefully, and counted two sixes, an
ace, a three, and a five. He left in the sixes and threw the others.
This time he got an ace and two fives. Once more he put them back, but
accomplished no better result.
"Now, I'll show you," said McCartney, and emptied the shaker. The dice
tumbled upon the table to the tune of two aces, two deuces, and a five.
He put back the deuces and the five and threw another ace, a three, and
a five.
"I win," he remarked. "You don't know how!"
"Vat's dot? Don't know how, eh!" roared the other. "I trow you for fife
dollars, see? Gif me dose leetle dice." He threw with a heavy bang that
shook the table. This time he got two sixes, two aces, and a five, and
put back the latter. Securing another ace he leaned back and took a
heavy draught of beer. "Full house! Beat dat eef you can!"
McCartney tossed the dice carelessly upon the board for two fours, one
ace, and two fives. To the amazement of the Germans, he left in the ace
and returned the other four to the shaker. This time he got two more
aces. His last throw gave him another ace and a five.
"Zum teuffel!" growled the German, thrusting his hand into his pocket
and drawing forth a dirty wad of bills. "Here, take your money!" He
handed McCartney six dollars.
"Kind sirs, good night," remarked McCartney, thrusting the bills into
his waistcoat pocket and arising from his place. "I must betake me
hence. Experience is the only teacher. Let me advise you never to play
games of chance with strangers."
The two Germans stared at him stupidly.
"You don't understand? Permit me. You saw the dice were not loaded? Very
good! You examined them? Very good again. Your powers of observation are
uncultivated, merely. The stern mother of invention--that is to say
necessity--has obeyed the law of evolution. Three of the dice in my
pocket bear no even numbers. The information is well worth your six
dollars. Again, good night."
"Betrüger!" cried the loser of the six dollars, arising heavily and
upsetting his beer. "Dot feller skivinded us mit dice geloaded! _Sheet!
Sheet!_"
They blundered toward the side entrance, while McCartney side-stepped
into an adjacent portal. Long Acre Square gleamed from end to end. Above
him an electric display, momentarily vanishing and reappearing, heralded
the attributes of the cigar sacred to the Scottish bard. Peering through
the haze generated by the countless lights a few tiny stars repaid
diligent search. A scanty number of pedestrians was abroad. The pantheon
of delights shone silent save for an occasional clanging car. The
Germans passed in search of an officer, excitedly jabbering about the
"sheet," their angry expressions reverberating along the concrete,
fading gradually into the hum of the lower town.
Then slowly into view crept one of those anachronisms of the
metropolis--a huge, shaggy horse slowly stalking northward, dragging a
rickety express wagon whereon reposed a semisomnolent yokel. Hitched by
its shafts to the tail of the wagon trailed a decrepit brougham
(destined, probably, for country-depot service), behind this a
debilitated Stanhope buggy, followed by a dogcart, a phaeton, a
buckboard, with last of all a hoodless Victoria. This picturesquely
mournful procession of vanished respectability staggered hesitatingly
past our hero, who regarded it with vast amusement. To his fanciful
imagination it appeared like the fleshless vertebræ of a sea serpent
slowly writhing into the obscurity of the night. Occasionally one of the
component dorsals would strike an inequality in the pavement and start
upon a brief frolic of its own, swinging out of line at a tangent until
hauled back into place again by the pull of the shaggy horse. Sometimes
all started in different directions at one and the same time, and the
semblance to a skeleton snake was heightened--even the ominous rattle
was not wanting. The Victoria looked restful to McCartney, whose legs
were always tired.
"Why should we fret that others ride?
Perhaps dull care sits by their side,
And leaves us foot-men free!"
he hummed to himself, recollecting an old college glee.
"All the same that old bandbox looks not uncomfortable. How long is it
since I have used a cushion! Poverty makes a poor bedfellow!"
As the last equipage swung by, McCartney took a few steps in the same
direction and clambered in. He had become a "foot-man" in fact, but a
very undignified and luxurious one, who lay back with his feet crossed
against the box in front of him. Of all the lights on Broadway none
glowed so comfortingly for McCartney as the tip of his cigarette.
"My prayer is answered," he remarked softly to himself. "Thus do I
escape the 'monotonous feet.' Had I only Isabeau I should have attained
the height of human happiness--to have dined, to smoke, to ride on
cushions under the starlight, to have six dollars, and not to know
where one is going--a plethora of gifts. So I can spare Isabeau for the
nonce. Doubtless she would not particularly care for the delights of
locomotion."
Thus Voltaire sailed northward, noticed only by solitary policemen and
lonely wayfarers. Near Eightieth Street his eye caught the burning
circle of a clock pointing at half-past nine, and he stretched himself
and yawned again. They were passing the vestibule of an old church which
contrasted quaintly with the more ambitious modern architecture of the
neighborhood. From the interior floated out the gray unison of a hymn.
McCartney swung himself to the ground and listened while the skeleton
rattled up the avenue.
"Egad!" thought he, "yon prayerful folk are not troubled with my
disorder. Hell is for them what Jersey City is for me--a vital reality."
A woman, her head shrouded in a worn gray shawl, approached timidly and
stationed herself near the door. McCartney could see that she was
weeping and that she had a baby in her arms. He grumbled a bit to
himself at this business. It did not suit his fancy--his scheme. Having
planned a continuation of this night of comedy so auspiciously begun, he
disliked any incongruity.
"Broke?" he inquired without rising. The woman nodded.
"What's the matter?"
"Dan cleared out the flat and skipped yesterday afternoon. We've had
nothing to eat--me and the kid--all day."
"Let's look at your hands."
The woman held out a thin, rough, red hand. McCartney gave it a glance
and continued:
"What's your kid's name?"
"Catherine."
McCartney gazed at her intently.
"Look here, do you think those folks in there would help you?"
"I don't know. It's better than the Island."
"Don't try it," advised McCartney. "They'd think you were working some
game on 'em. Leave this graft to me."
The woman started back, half frightened, but McCartney's smile reassured
her.
"Here's yours on account." He handed her the five-dollar bill he had
secured from the Germans. "_I_ know how. _You_ don't. _You_ need it. _I_
don't." He waved aside her thanks. "Now go home, and, listen to me,
don't take Dan back--he's no good."
The woman hurried away, and with her departure silence fell again.
McCartney seated himself upon the curb and lit still another cigarette,
eying the door expectantly. Once he arose and dropped a piece of silver
into the poorbox inside the porch, listening intently to the loud rattle
it made in falling. It was clearly the sole occupant, for no answering
clink came in response.
"Alas for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun,"
softly murmured McCartney.
"You will be lonely in there all by yourself, little one. Here's a
brother to keep you company," said he, pushing in another.
The hymn ceased and the congregation began to pass out. McCartney
retired into the darkness of a corner, scrutinizing every face among the
worshipers. Last of all came a little old man scuffling along with the
aid of a cane. His snowy beard gave him an aspect singularly benign.
McCartney laughed to himself.
"Grandpapa, I trust we shall become better acquainted," he remarked
under his breath, as he followed the old fellow down the street.
* * * * *
The loud vibrations of the bell in the deserted rooms of the floor below
brought no immediate response, and instead of a brighter blaze of
hospitality, the light in the hall was hurriedly extinguished. McCartney
only pressed his thumb to the round receptacle of the bell the more
assiduously, repeating the process at varying intervals until the light
again illumined the door. A shadow hesitated upon the lace curtain, then
the door itself was slowly, doubtfully opened, and the old man shuffled
into the vestibule, peering suspiciously through the iron fretwork.
McCartney, without going too close--he knew well the dread of human
eyes, face to face--looked nonchalantly up and down the street,
realizing that he must give his quarry time to regain the
self-possession this midnight visit had shattered. After a pause the
bolt was shot and the door opened upon its chain.
"Was that you ringing? What do you want?"
"Yes, it was I who rang. I trust you'll excuse the lateness of my call.
It's imperative for me to see you."
"Who are you? And what do you want to see me about?"
"My name is Blake. Blake of the _Daily Dial_. It is a personal matter."
"Don't know you. Don't know any Blake. Don't read the _Dial_. What is
the personal matter?"
"For God's sake, sir, let me speak with you! It's a matter of life and
death. Don't deny me, sir. Hear me first."
The little old man closed the door a couple of inches.
"Want money, eh?"
"Help, sir. Only a word of sympathy. I've a dying child----"
"Can't you come round in the morning?"
"It will be too late then. I implore you to listen to me for only a few
moments. I've been waiting two hours upon the sidewalk for you to
return, and it's too late for me to go elsewhere."
The door opened sufficiently for the old man to thrust his face close to
the crack and inspect his visitor from head to heels. Evidently
McCartney's appearance and the manner of his speech had made an
impression which was now struggling with prudence and common sense. The
deacon, moreover, had a reputation to support. It would not do to turn
an applicant away who might be in dire extremity--and who might go
elsewhere and carry the tale with him.
"Won't a bed ticket do you, eh? And come in the morning?"
McCartney saw the vacillation in the other's mind.
"I'm sorry, but I must see you now, if at all. To-morrow might be too
late."
The owner of the house closed the door, unslipped the chain and
retreated inside the hall to the foot of the stairs, leaving the way
free for his visitor to follow. McCartney entered, hat in hand, and
shut the door behind him, catching at a glance the austerity of the
furniture and walls. To him every inch of the Brussels carpet, the
ponderous, polished walnut hatrack, the massive blue china stand with
its lonely umbrella and stout bamboo cane, and the heavily framed oil
copy of St. John spoke eloquently.
"I must ask your pardon again, sir, for disturbing you. But a man of
your character, as you have no doubt discovered, must suffer for the
sake of his reputation. I----"
McCartney swayed and seized a yellow-plush _portière_ for support. In a
moment he had regained control of himself--apparently.
"A touch of faintness. I haven't eaten since morning." He looked around
for a chair. The old man made a show of concern.
"Nothing to eat! Dear me! Well, well! Come in and sit down. Perhaps I
can find something."
Deacon Andrews led the way past the stairs and swung open the door to
the dining room. It had a musty smell, just a hint of the prison pen at
noon time, and McCartney shuddered. The old man disappeared into the
darkness, struck a sulphur match, a fact noted by his guest, and with
some difficulty lighted a gas jet in a grotesquely proportioned
chandelier. The gas, which had blazed up, he turned down to half its
original volume.
"There, sit down," said he, pointing to a mahogany chair shrouded in a
ticking cover, and settled himself in another on the opposite side of a
great desert of table. McCartney did as he was bidden, mentally
tabulating the additional facts offered to his observation by the
remainder of the room. There was evident the same bare vastness as in
the outer hall. Two more oils, one of mythological, the other of
religious purport, balanced each other over the wings of a huge black
carven sideboard. For the rest the yellow and brown wall paper repeated
itself interminably into the shadow.
"Feel better?" asked the deacon.
"Yes, much," answered McCartney. "I'm used to going without food. The
body can stand suffering better than the mind--and the heart."
"Let's try and fix up the body first," remarked the deacon, opening a
compartment beneath the sideboard. "Here, try some of these," and he
placed a plate of water biscuits upon the table.
McCartney essayed more or less successfully to eat one, while the old
man retreated into the pantry and, after a hollow ringing of water upon
an empty sink, returned with a thick tumbler of Croton.
"Good, eh? Nothing like plain flour food and Adam's ale! Now, what is it
you want to say? I must be getting to bed."
McCartney hastily swallowed the last of the biscuit and leaned forward.
"If I could be sure my dear wife and child could have this to-night, I
should be happy indeed. Oh, sir, poverty can be borne--but to see those
whom we love suffer and be powerless to help them--I can hardly address
myself to you, sir. I have never asked for charity before. I'm a
hard-working man. I had a good position, a little home of my own, and a
wife and child whom I loved devotedly. I care for nothing else in the
world. Then came the chance that ended so disastrously for us. I thought
it was the tide in my affairs, you know, that might lead on to fortune.
My wife was offered a position in a traveling company at sixteen
dollars a week, and they agreed to take me with them as press agent at
thirty-five--fifty dollars a week all told. Can you blame us?"
"I don't approve of play acting," said the deacon.
"Don't think the less of my wife for that. She meant it for the best."
McCartney's face worked and he brushed his eyes with the back of his
hand.
"Look here, what's the use wasting time," interrupted the deacon. "How
do I know who you are?"
"You have only my word, sir, that is true."
"What did you say you did for a living?"
"I'm a reporter. I live by my pen, sir, and I write articles on various
subjects for the newspapers. I have even written a very modest book. But
the modern public has crude taste in literature," sighed McCartney.
"Well, go on, now, and tell me about your trip or whatever it was," said
the deacon.
"I gave up for the time, as I said, the precarious livelihood of a space
writer. We sublet our rooms. I spent what little money I had saved upon
a costume for my wife, and we started out making one-night stands."
"What was the name of your play?" inquired the deacon abruptly.
"'The two Orphans,'" replied McCartney without hesitation. "We got along
well enough until we reached Rochester, and there the show broke
down--went to the wall. We were stranded, without a cent, in a
theatrical boarding house. My wife was taken down with pneumonia and
little Cathie----"
"Little what?" asked the deacon.
"Short for Catherine--caught the croup. We had nowhere to turn. I pawned
my watch to pay our board bill. We were sleeping in a single room--the
three of us. For days I tramped the streets of Rochester looking for
some work to do, but I was absolutely friendless and could find nothing.
My wife got a little better, but little Catherine seemed to grow worse.
I pawned my wife's wedding ring, all my clothes but those I have on,
even my baby's tiny little bracelet we bought for her on her second
birthday--O God, how I suffered! We talked it all over and decided that
as New York was the only place where I was known, I had better return
and earn enough money to send for them as soon as I could. The manager
let me use his pass back to the city. I reached here three days ago, but
I have found no work of any sort. Some of the press boys have shared
their meals with me, but for the moment I'm penniless. Meantime my wife
is lying sick in a strange household and my little girl may be dying!"
McCartney sobbed brokenly. "I'm at my last gasp. I've nowhere to sleep
to-night. No money to buy breakfast. I can't even pay for a postage
stamp to write to them!"
"What street did you stay in at Rochester?"
"1421 Maple Avenue," shot back McCartney. "I wish you could see my
little Catherine--she's such a tiny ball of sunshine. Every morning she
used to come and wake me, and say, 'Come, daddy, come to breaf-crust!'
She couldn't pronounce the word right--I hope she never will. She called
the little dog I gave her a fox 'terrial' dog. Some people say children
are all alike. If they could only see _her_--if she's still alive. Why
_I_ wouldn't give ten cents to live if I could only make sure Edith
would have enough to get along on and give Catherine a decent education.
I want that girl to grow up into a fine noble woman like her mother. And
to think the last time I saw her she was lying in a stuffy hall bedroom
in a third-class lodging house, her little forehead burning with fever,
with my poor sick wife stretched beside her, fearing to move lest she
should wake the child. She may be dead by this time, for I've had no
work for three days, and I've been able to send them nothing--nothing!
They may have been turned out into the streets, for the board bill was a
week overdue when I left them. Don't you see it drives me nearly mad?
I'm worse off a thousand times than if I stayed there with them.
Sometimes I think there can't be any God, for if there was He'd never
let me suffer so. And all for a little money--just because I can't pay
the fare back to my sick wife and dying baby--my poor, sweet, little
baby!"
McCartney's voice broke and he buried his haggard face on his arms. For
a moment or two neither spoke, then the deacon sighed deeply.
"You do seem to have had hard luck," he remarked awkwardly. McCartney
was still too overcome with emotion to reply.
"I reckon I'll have to break my rule and help you without references. I
don't believe in giving, as a rule, unless you know who you are giving
to."
He put his hand in his pocket.
"But I'll do it this time." He placed two quarters upon the table.
"There, half a dollar'll keep you nicely for a while. Of course, there's
no use sendin' money to Rochester. Your landlady can't turn sick folks
into the street, and if she does they can go to the hospital----"
He paused, startled by the look on McCartney's face, for the latter had
risen like an avenging angel, white and trembling. Pointing at the two
harmless coins, he cried:
"Is that your answer to the appeal of a starving man? Is that all your
religion has done for you? Is that how you obey your Lord's teachings?
'Cup of cold water' indeed! Cold water! Cold water! That's what you've
got instead of blood; you withered old epidermis! You miserable,
dried-up apology for a human being!" He paused for breath, sweeping the
room with indignant scorn.
"I know your kind! You old Christian Shylock! You bought those chromos
at an auction! You took that old sideboard for a debt--yes, a debt at
eighteen per cent interest. You don't pay a cent of taxes. You sing
psalms and bag your trousers with kneeling on the platforms at prayer
meetings and then loan out the church's money to yourself on worthless
securities. You're too mean to keep a cat, for the cost of her milk. You
read a penny newspaper and take books out of a circulating library. You
put a petticoat on these chairs so your miserly little body won't wear
out the seats."
The lean vagabond half shouted his anathema, the pallor of his face and
brow darkening red from the violence of his passion. It was the very
ecstasy of anger. Before it the little man with the white hair shrank
into himself, diminishing into his chair, seeking moral opportunity of
escape.
McCartney looked at the two coins contemptuously.
"Bah!" he exclaimed in disgust. "Half a dollar for a dying child and a
starving woman, to say nothing of a shelterless man!" He broke into a
mirthless laugh. "Allow me to return your generous answer to my
application for assistance. A code of morals of my own, which doubtless
you would not appreciate, compels me to restore what is obviously ten
times more precious to the donor than to the recipient."
He filliped the two coins across the table into the lap of his host, who
still crouched furtively with his head near the table.
"It makes me sick to look at you! Who could gaze without disgust upon
the spectacle of an ossified creature like yourself, creeping through
bare, deserted old age toward a grave mortgaged to the devil? Ugh! It is
the horridest spectacle I have seen in a month."
"You're mad!" muttered the old man with hoarse fearfulness.
"Sometimes, but not now!" retorted McCartney. "I'll hold my evening
session for Misers a moment longer. I pity you, Lord Pinhead Penurious!
I pity you that you should have gone through life, a small term of say
sixty years, in such stupidity. Sixty years of grubbing, of weighing
meat and adding figures, of watching the prices fools pay for stocks,
and how many days of _life_? How many good deeds? Oh, marvelous lack of
wit! What know you of real happiness? Let me introduce myself, since
you're so blind. What do you think I am, my good old Noddy Numbskull?"
"Crazy!" gasped the old man. "Do be quiet! Let me get you something more
to eat."
"A thief, at your service. Oh, don't start! I'll not carry away your
mahogany sideboard nor your bronze chandelier. I steal only to keep
myself in purse--to eat. You dig to add to the column of figures in your
pass book. I walk among the gods. My brain is worth twenty gray bags
like yours. I have thoughts and dreams in terms to you unintelligible. I
can live more in a week than haply you have done in the course of your
whole crawling existence. What do you know of the spirit? Behind your
altar sits a calf of gold. You grovel before it and slip out at the
bottom the shekels you drop in at the top. To you the moon will always
be made of green cheese, that 'orbed maiden with white fire laden'! Your
hands are callous from counting money, your brain is----"