A FOLLOW THROUGH BY EGGY
Might have been a wrong hunch, as it turned out; but for awhile there
what I wanted to do most was to take this Eggleston K. Ham, wad him up
in a neat little lump, and stuff him into the waste basket. I wouldn't
have been exertin' myself much, at that.
He's one of that kind, you know. Insignificant? Why, in full daylight
you almost had to look twice to see him--and then you'd be guessin'
whether it was a lath that had sprouted whiskers, or whiskers that was
tryin' to bud a man! Them and the thick, gold-rimmed glasses sure did
give him a comic, top-heavy look.
Course, we get all kinds in our buildin'; but when the lady voice
culturist on the top floor sublets her studio for the summer to this
freak I thought we'd gone from bad to worse. And she even has the nerve
to leave the key with me, sayin' Mr. Ham would call for it in the course
of a week or so.
[Illustration: He sidles up to the desk and proceeds to make some
throaty noises.]
We'd enjoyed about ten days of peace too, with no bloodcurdlin' sounds
floatin' down the light shaft, and I was hopin' maybe the subtenant had
renigged, when one mornin' the front office door opens easy, and in
slips this face herbage exhibit. It's no scattered, hillside crop,
either, but a full blown Vandyke. When he'd got through growin' the
alfalfa, though, his pep seemed to give out, and the rest of him was as
wispy as a schoolgirl.
He sidles up to the desk, where I have my heels elevated restful, and
proceeds to make some throaty noises behind his hand. I'm just readin'
how Tesreau pulled out of a bad hole in the seventh with two on bases;
but I breaks away long enough to glance over the top of the paper.
"Go on, shoot it," says I.
"I--I'm very sorry," says he, "but--but I am Mr. Ham."
"Never mind apologizin'," says I. "Maybe it ain't all your fault. After
the key, ain't you?"
"Yes, thank you," says he.
"Eggleston K., I suppose?" says I.
"Oh, yes," says he.
"Here you are, then, Eggy," says I, reachin' into a pigeonhole and
producin' it. "What's your instrument of torture, the xylophone?"
"I--I beg pardon?" says he.
"Come now," says I, "don't tell me you're a trombone fiend!"
"Oh, I see," says he. "No, no, I--I'm not a musician."
"Shake, Eggy!" says I, reachin' out my hand impulsive. "And I don't care
how many cubist pictures you paint up there so long as you ain't noisy
about it."
He fingers his soft hat nervous, smiles sort of embarrassed, and
remarks, "But--but I'm not an artist either, you know."
"Well, well!" says I. "Two misses, and still in the air. Is it anything
you can speak of in public?"
"Why," says he, "I--I've said very little about it, as a matter of fact,
but--but I am doing a little research work in--in anthropology."
"Good night!" says I. "Mixin' things up that's liable to blow the roof
off, ain't it?"
"Why, no," says he, starin' at me puzzled. "It's merely studying racial
characteristics, making comparisons, and so on. Incidentally, I--I'm
writing a book, I suppose."
"Oh!" says I. "Authoring? Well, there's no law against it, and ink is
cheap. Go to it, Eggy! Top floor, first door to your left."
And that seems to be the finish of the Ham incident. All was peaceful in
the light shaft,--no squeaky high C's, no tump-tump-tump on the piano:
just the faint tinkle of a typewriter bell now and then to remind us
that Eggy was still there. Once in awhile I'd pass him on the stairs,
and he'd nod bashful but friendly and then scuttle by like a rabbit.
"Must be a hot book he's writin'!" thinks I, and forgets his existence
until the next time.
The summer moseys along, me bein' busy with this and that, goin' and
comin' back, until here the other day when things is dullest Pinckney
calls up from the club and announces that he's got a new customer for
me, someone very special.
"Visitin' royalty, or what?" says I.
"Winthrop Hubbard," says he impressive.
"The guy that invented squash pie?" says I.
"No, no!" peeves Pinckney. "The son of Joshua Q. Hubbard, you know."
"I get you," says I. "The Boston cotton mill plute that come so near
bitin' a chunk out of the new tariff bill. But I thought he was
entertainin' the French Ambassador or someone at his Newport place?"
Well, he was; but this is only a flyin' trip. Seems Son Winthrop had
fin'ly been persuaded to begin his business career by bein' made first
vice president of the General Sales Company, that handled the export end
of the trust's affairs. So, right in the height of his season, he's had
to scratch his Horse Show entries, drop polo practice, and move into a
measly six-room suite in one of them new Fifth-ave. hotels, with three
hours of soul-wearin' officework ahead of him five days out of seven.
He'd been at the grind a month now, and Mother had worried so about his
health that Joshua Q. himself had come down to observe the awful
results. Meanwhile Josh had been listenin' to Pinckney boostin' the
Physical Culture Studio as the great restorer, and he'd been about
persuaded that Son ought to take on something of the kind.
"But he wants to see you first," says Pinckney. "You understand. They're
rather particular persons, the Hubbards,--fine old Plymouth stock, and
all that."
"Me too," says I. "I'm just as fussy as the next--old Ellis Island
stock, remember."
"Oh, bother!" says Pinckney. "Will you come up and meet him, or won't
you?"
It wa'n't reg'lar; but as long as he's a friend of Pinckney's I said I
would.
And, say, Joshua Q. looks the part, all right. One of these imposin',
dignified, well kept old sports, with pink cheeks, a long, straight
nose, and close-set, gray-blue eyes. They're the real crusty stuff,
after all, them Back Bay plutes. For one thing, most of 'em have been at
it longer. Take J. Q. Hubbard. Why, I expect he begun havin' his nails
manicured before he was ten, and has had his own man to lay out his
dinner clothes ever since he got into long pants.
Nothin' provincial about him, either. Takes his trip across every winter
reg'lar, and I suppose he's as much at home on Unter den Linden, or the
Place de Concord or Neva Prospect as he is on Tremont-st. And, sittin'
there sippin' his hock and seltzer, gazin' languid out on Fifth-ave., he
gives kind of a classy tone to one of the swellest clubs in New York.
There ain't any snobbish frills to him, though. He gets right down to
brass tacks.
"McCabe," says he, "what class of persons do you have as patrons."
"Why," says I, "mostly Wall Street men, with a sprinklin' of afternoon
tea Johnnies, such as Pinckney here."
"No objectionable persons, I trust?" says he.
"Any roughneck gets the quick dump," says I.
"Ah, I think I catch your meaning," says he, "and I've no doubt your
establishment can supply precisely what my son needs in the way of
exercise. I suppose, however, I'd best see for myself. May we go now?"
"Sure," says I. "No special visitin' days."
"Then I'll 'phone Winthrop to meet us there," says he.
Seems he couldn't get Son direct; but he leaves word at his office, and
then off we goes in Pinckney's limousine de luxe. It ain't often I worry
any about the outside looks of things at the joint; but somehow, with
this elegant old party comin' to inspect, I was kind of hopin' the
stairs had been swept and that Swifty Joe wouldn't have any of his Red
Hook friends callin' on him.
So I most gasps when we piles out in front of the studio and finds a mob
that extends from the curb to the front door. Not only that, but the
lower hall is crowded, and they line the stairs halfway up. And such a
bunch! Waps, Dagoes, Matzers, Syrians, all varieties.
"By Jove, though!" says Pinckney. "What's all this?"
"Looks like someone was openin' a sweatshop in the buildin', don't it!"
says I. "If that's so, here's where I break my lease."
"Really," says Mr. Hubbard, eyin' the crowd doubtful, "I hardly believe
I care to----"
"Ah, I'll clear 'em out in two shakes," says I. "Just follow after me.
Hey, you! _Heim gagen_. Mushong! Gangway, gangway!" and I motions
threatenin'. "Ah, beat it, you garlic destroyers!" I sings out. "Back up
there, and take your feet with you! Back, you fatheads!" and I sends one
caromin' to the right and another spinnin' to the left.
The best I could do, though, was to open a three-foot lane through 'em,
and there they stuck, lined up on either side like they was waitin' for
a parade. It was something like that too,--me leadin' the way, Pinckney
steerin' J. Q. by the arm. We'd got inside the doorway without a word
bein' said, when a bright-eyed Dago girl with a rainbow-tinted
handkerchief about her neck breaks the spell.
"Picture, Meester--take-a da picture?" says she pleadin'. With that the
others breaks loose. "Picture, Meester! Please-a, Meester? Picture,
picture!" They says it in all sorts of dialects, with all sorts of
variations, all beggin' for the same thing. "Picture, picture!" They
reaches out, grabbin' at our coat sleeves. Three of 'em had hold of J.
Q. at once when I whirls on 'em.
"Ah, ditch the chorus!" I yells at 'em. "What do you think this is,
anyway, a movie outfit? Get back there! Hands off, or I call the cops!"
It's strenuous work; but I manages to quiet 'em long enough for Pinckney
and Mr. Hubbard to get through and slip up to the studio. Then I tries
to shoo the bunch into the street; but they don't shoo for a cent. They
still demands to have their pictures taken.
"Say, you Carlotta, there!" says I, singlin' out the Dago girl. "Who
gave you this nutty picture hunch?"
"Why, Meester Hama," says she. "Nice-a man, Meester Hama."
"Is he?" says I. "Well, you wait here until I see him about this.
Wait--understand?" With that I skips upstairs, and explains the mystery
of our bein' mobbed. "It's a whiskered freak on the top floor they're
after," says I. "Swifty, run up and get that Ham and Eggs gent. I'm
yearnin' for speech with him. I don't know what this is all about; but
I'll soon see, and block any encores."
"Quite right," says Mr. Hubbard. "This is all extremely annoying. Such a
rabble!"
"Positively disgusting!" adds Pinckney. "A crowd of smelly foreigners!
Shorty, you should put a stop to this."
"Trust me," says I. "Ah, here we have the guilty party!" and in comes
Swifty towin' Eggleston K. by the collar. No wonder Eggy is some
agitated, after bein' hauled down two flights in that fashion!
"Well," says I, as Swifty stands him up in front of us. "Who are your
outside friends, and why?"
"My--my friends?" says he. "I--I don't understand. And I must protest,
you know, against this manner of----"
"Gwan!" says I. "I'm doin' all the protestin' here. And I want to know
what you mean by collectin' such a crowd of steerage junk that my
customers can't get in without bein' mobbed? Howled for us to take their
pictures, and mentioned your name."
"Oh! Pictures!" and Eggy seems to get the key. "Why, I--I'd forgotten."
"Can you beat that?" says I. "He'd forgotten! Well, they hadn't. But
what's the idea, anyway? Collectin' fam'ly portraits of prominent
gunmen, or what?"
"It--it's my way of getting material for my work," says Eggleston. "You
see, through some friends in a settlement house, I get to know these
people. I take snapshots of them for nothing. They like to send the
pictures back home, you know, and I can use some of them myself."
"In the book?" says I.
"Perhaps," says Eggy, blushin'. "I had promised a few of them to take
some studio pictures if they would come up to-day."
"And they didn't do a thing but bring all their friends," says I. "Must
be fifty of them down there. You'll have a thick book before you get
through."
"I beg pardon," puts in Mr. Hubbard, leanin' forward int'rested, "but
may I ask the nature of the book?"
"It--it's to be about our foreign-born citizens," says Eggy.
"Ah, I see!" says J. Q. "Pointing out the evils of unrestricted
immigration, I presume?"
"Well--er--not exactly," says Eggy.
"Then I should advise you to make it so," says Mr. Hubbard. "In fact, if
the subject were well handled, and the case put strongly enough to meet
my views, I think I could assure its immediate publication."
"Oh, would you?" says Eggleston, real eager. "But--but what are your
views as to our treatment of aliens?"
"My programme is quite simple," says Mr. Hubbard. "I would stop all
immigration at once, absolutely. Then I would deport all persons of
foreign birth who had not become citizens."
Eggy gasped. "But--but that would be unjust!" says he. "Why, it would be
monstrous! Surely, you are not in earnest?"
Mr. Hubbard's eyelids narrow, his jaw stiffens, and he emphasizes each
word by tappin' his knee. "I'd like to see it done to-morrow," says he.
"Check this flood of immigration, and you solve half of our economic and
industrial problems. Too long we have allowed this country to be a
general dumping ground for the scum of Europe. Everyone admits that."
"If you please," says Eggy, runnin' his fingers through his beard
nervous, "I could not agree to that. On the contrary, my theory is that
we owe a great deal of our progress and our success to the foreign
born."
"Oh, indeed!" remarks Mr. Hubbard, cold and sharp. "And you mean to try
to prove that in your book?"
"Something like that," admits Eggy.
"Then, Sir," goes on J. Q., "I must tell you that I consider you a most
mischievous, if not dangerous person, and I feel it my duty to
discourage such misdirected enterprise. Aren't you an instructor in
economics under Professor Hartnett?"
Eggy pleads guilty.
"I thought I recognized the name," says J. Q. "Well, Mr. Ham, I am
Joshua Q. Hubbard, and, as you may know, I happen to be one of the
governing board of that college; so I warn you now, if you insist on
publishing such a book as you have suggested, you may expect
consequences."
For a minute that seems to stun Eggleston. He stares at Mr. Hubbard,
blinkin' his eyes rapid and swallowin' hard. Then he appears to recover.
"But--but are you not somewhat prejudiced?" says he. "I think I could
show you, Sir, that these poor aliens----"
"Mr. Ham," says J. Q. decided, "I know exactly what I am talking about;
not from hearsay, but from actual experience. Hundreds of thousands of
dollars these wretched foreigners have cost me within the last few
years. Why, that last big strike cut dividends almost in half! And who
causes all the strikes, is at the bottom of all labor disturbances? The
foreign element. If I had my way, I'd call out the regular army and
drive every last one of them into the sea."
You'd most thought that would have squelched Eggy. I was lookin' for him
to back through the door on his hands and knees. But all he does is
stand there lookin' J. Q. Hubbard square in the eye and smilin' quiet.
"Yes, I've heard sentiments like that before," says he. "I presume, Mr.
Hubbard, that you know many of your mill operatives personally?"
"No," says J. Q., "and I have no desire to. I haven't been inside one of
our mills in fifteen years."
"I see," says Eggy. "You keep in touch with your employees
through--er--your bankbook? But is it fair to judge them as men and
women wholly on their ability to produce dividends for you?"
"As an employer of labor, what other test would you have me apply?" says
J. Q.
"Then you are classing them with machines," says Eggy.
"No," says Mr. Hubbard. "I can depend upon my looms not to go on
strike."
"But you own your looms," says Eggleston. "Your loom tenders are human
beings."
"When they mob strike breakers they behave more like wild animals, and
then you've got to treat 'em as such," raps back J. Q.
"Are you quite certain that the standards of humanity you set up are
just?" asks Eggy. "You know people are beginning to question your
absolute right to fix arbitrarily the hours and wages and conditions of
labor. They are suggesting that your mills produce tuberculosis as well
as cloth. They are showing that, in your eagerness for dividends, you
work women and children too long, and that you don't pay them a living
wage."
"Rot!" snorts J. Q. "These are all the mushy theories of
sentimentalists. What else are these foreigners good for?"
"Ah, there you get to it!" says Eggy. "Aren't they too valuable to be
ground up in your dusty mills? Can they not be made into useful
citizens?"
"No, they can't," snaps Mr. Hubbard. "It's been tried too often. Look at
the results. Who fill our jails? Foreigners! Who swarm in our filthy
city slums? Foreigners! They are the curse of this country. Look at the
wretched mob you have brought about your heels to-day, those outside
there. There's a sample."
"If you only would look and understand!" says Eggleston. "Won't
you--now? It will take only a little of your time, and I'll promise to
keep them in order. Oh, if you'd only let me!"
"Let you what?" demands J. Q., starin' puzzled.
"Introduce a few of them to you properly," says Eggy; "only four or
five. Come, a handful of simple-minded peasants can't hurt you. They're
poor, and ignorant, and not especially clean, I'll admit; but I'll keep
them at a proper distance. You see, I want to show you something about
them. Of course, you're afraid you'll lose your cherished
prejudices----"
"I'm afraid of nothing of the sort," breaks in Mr. Hubbard. "Go on. Have
'em up, if McCabe is willing."
"Eh?" says I. "Bring that mob up here?"
"Just a few," pleads Eggy, "and for ten minutes only."
"It might be sport," suggests Pinckney.
"I'll take a chance," says I. "We can disinfect afterwards."
Eggy dashes off, and after a lively jabberin' below comes back with his
selected specimens. Not a one looks as though he'd been over more'n a
year, and some are still wearin' the outlandish rigs they landed in.
Then Eggy begins introducin' 'em. And, say, you'd hardly know him for
the same bashful, wispy party that Swifty had dragged in a little while
before. Honest, as he warms to it, he sort of swells up and straightens,
he squares his shoulders, his voice rings out confident, and his eyes
behind the thick glasses are all aglow.
"We will dispense with names," says he; "but here is a native of Sicily.
He is about thirty-five years old, and he worked in the salt mines for
something like twelve cents a day from the time he was ten until he came
over here under contract to a padrone a few months ago. So you see his
possibilities for mental development have been limited. But his muscles
have been put to use in helping dig a new subway for us. We hope,
however, that in the future his latent talents may be brought out. That
being the case, he is possibly the grandfather of the man who in 1965
will write for us an American opera better than anything ever produced
by Verdi. Why not?"
We gawps at the grandfather of the musical genius of 1965 and grins.
He's a short, squatty, low-browed party with gold rings in his ears and
a smallpox-pitted face. He gazes doubtful at Eggleston durin' the talk,
and at the finish grins back at us. Likely he thought Eggy'd been makin'
a comic speech.
"An ingenious prophecy," says Mr. Hubbard; "but unfortunately all
Italians are not Verdis."
"Few have the chance to be," says Eggy. "That is what America should
mean to them,--opportunity. We shall benefit by giving it to them too.
Look at our famous bands: at least one-third Italians. Why, nine-tenths
of the music that delights us is made for us by the foreign born! Would
you drive all those into the sea?"
"Absurd!" says Mr. Hubbard. "I referred only to the lower classes, of
course. But let's get on. What next?"
Eggy looks over the line, picks out a square-jawed, bull-headed,
pie-faced Yon Yonson, with stupid, stary, skim-milk eyes, and leads him
to the front. "A direct descendant of the old Vikings," says he, "a
fellow countryman of the heroic Stefansson, of Amundsen. Just now he
works as a longshoreman. But give him a fair chance, and his son's son
will turn out to be the first Admiral of the Federal Fleet of Commerce
that is to be,--a fleet of swift government freighters that shall knit
closely together our ports with all the ports of the Seven Seas.
Gentlemen, I present to you the ancestor of an Admiral!"
Pinckney chuckles and nudges Mr. Hubbard. Yonson bats his stupid eyes
once or twice, and lets himself be pushed back.
"Go on," says J. Q., scowlin'. "I suppose you'll produce next the
grandfather of a genius who will head the National Pie Bureau of the
next century?"
"Not precisely," says Eggy, beckonin' up a black-haired, brown-eyed
Polish Jewess. "A potential grandmother this time. She helps an aunt who
conducts a little kosher delicatessen shop in a Hester-st. basement. Her
granddaughter is to organize the movement for communal dietetics, by
means of which our children's children are all to be fed on properly
cooked food, scientifically prepared, and delivered hot at a nominal
price. She will banish dyspepsia from the land, make obsolete the
household drudge, and eliminate the antique kitchen from twenty million
homes. Perhaps they will put up a statue in her memory."
"Humph!" snorts Mr. Hubbard. "Is that one of H. G. Wells' silly dreams?"
"You flatter me," says Eggy; "but you give me courage to venture still
further. Now we come to the Slav." He calls up a thin, peak-nosed,
wild-eyed gink who's wearin' a greasy waiter's coat and a coffee-stained
white shirt. "From a forty-cent table d'hôte restaurant," goes on
Eggleston. "An alert, quick-moving, deft-handed person--valuable
qualities, you will admit. Develop those in his grandson, give him the
training of a National Academy of Technical Arts, bring out the
repressed courage and self-confidence, and you will produce--well, let
us say, the Chief Pilot of the Aëro Transportation Department, the man
to whom Congress will vote an honorary pension for winning the first
Washington-to-Buenos Ayres race in a three-hundred-foot Lippmann
Stabilized quadroplane, carrying fifty passengers and two tons of mail
and baggage."
Mr. Hubbard gazes squint-eyed at the waiter and sniffs.
"Come, now, who knows?" insists Eggy. "These humble people whom you so
despise need only an opportunity. Can we afford to shut them out? Don't
we need them as much as they need us?"
"Mr. Ham," says J. Q., shuttin' his jaws grim, "my motto is, 'America
for Americans!'"
"And mine," says Eggy, facin' him defiant, "is 'Americans for America!'"
"You're a scatterbrained visionary!" snaps J. Q. "You and your potential
grandfather rubbish! What about the grandsons of good Americans? Do you
not reckon them in at all in your----"
"Whe-e-e-e! Whoop!" comes from the hall, the front office door is kicked
open joyous, and in comes a tall, light-haired, blue-eyed young gent,
with his face well pinked up and his hat on the back of his head. He's
arm in arm with a shrimpy, Frenchy lookin' party wearin' a silk lid and
a frock coat. They pushes unsteady through Eggy's illustrious ancestor
bunch and comes to parade rest in the center of the stage.
"Winthrop!" gasps Mr. Hubbard.
"Eh?" gasps the young gent, starin' round uncertain until he locates J.
Q. Then he makes a stab at straightenin' up. "'S a' right, Governor," he
goes on, "'s a' right. Been givin' lil' lu-luncheon to for'n
rep'sen'tives. Put 'em all out but An-Andorvski, and he's nothing but a
fish--deuced Russian fish. Eh, Droski?"
Believe me, with J. Q. Hubbard turnin' purple in the gills, and all them
cheap foreigners lookin' on bug-eyed, it wa'n't any humorous scene. With
the help of the waiter and the longshoreman they loads Winthrop and his
friend into a taxi, and Pinckney starts with 'em for the nearest Turkish
bath. The grandfather debate is adjourned for good.
I was talkin' it over with Swifty Joe, who, havin' been born in County
Kerry and brought up in South Brooklyn, is sore on foreigners of all
kinds. Course, he sides hearty with Mr. Hubbard.
"Ahr-r-r-chee!" says he. "That Hamand boob, stickin' up for the Waps and
Guineas, he--he's a nut, a last year's nut!"
"Hardly that, Swifty," says I. "A next year's nut, I should say."