Another would-be sooicide, eh! Here, Kid,” to a sharp gamin who does
errands and odd commissions for the house; “take this mut in where dey
kills ’em.”
The speaker is a loud young man, clad in garments of violence. The derby
tilted over eye, the black cigar jutting ceilingward at an agle of sixty
degrees, the figured shirt whereof a dominating dye is angry red, the
high collar and flash tie, with its cheap stone, all declare the Bowery.
As if to prove the proposition announced of his costume, the young man
is perched on a stool, the official ticket-seller of a Bowery theatre.
Mike Menares, whom the Bowery person alludes to as the “mut,” is a
square-shouldered boy of eighteen; handsome he is as Apollo, yet with a
slow, good-humored guilelessness of face. He has come on business
bent. That mighty pugilist, the Dublin Terror, is nightly on the stage,
offering two hundred dollars to any amateur among boxers who shall
remain before him four Queensberry rounds. Mike Menares, he of
the candidly innocent countenance, desires to proffer himself as a
sacrifice.
“Youse is just in time, sport,” remarks the brisk gamin to whom Mike has
been committed, as he pilots the guileless one to the stage door. “It’s
nine o’clock now, an’ d’ Terror goes on to do his bag-t’umpin’ turn at
ten. After that comes d’ knockin’ out, see! But say! if youse was tired
of livin’, why didn’t you jump in d’ East river? I’d try d’ river an’d’
morgue before I’d come here to be murdered be d’ Terror.”
Mike makes no retort to this, lacking lightness of temper. His gamin
conductor throws open the stage door and signals Mike to enter.
“Tell d’ butcher here’s another calf for him,” vouchsafes the gamin to
the stage-hands inside the door.
Let us go back four hours to a three-room tenement in Pitt Street. There
are two rooms and a little kennel of a kitchen. The furnishings are
rough and cheap and clean. The lady of the tenement, as the floors
declare, is a miracle of soap and water. And the lady is little Mollie
Lacy, aged eleven years.
The family of the Pitt Street tenement is made up of three. There is
Mike Menares, our hero; little Mollie; and, lastly, her brother Davy,
aged nine. Little Davy is lame. He fell on the tenement stairs four
years before and injured his hip. The hospital doctors took up the work
where the tenement stairs left off, and Davy came from his sick-bed
doomed to a crutch for life.
Mike Menares is half-brother of the younger ones. Nineteen years before,
Mike’s mother, Irish, with straw-colored hair and blue eyes, wedded one
Menares, a Spanish Jew. This fortunate Menares was a well-looking, tall
man; with hair black and stiffening in a natural pompadour. He kept a
tobacco stall underneath a stair in Park Row, and was accounted rich by
the awfully poor about him. He died, however, within the year following
Mike’s birth; and thus there was an end to the rather thoroughbred dark
Spanish Jew.
Mike’s mother essayed matrimony a second time. She selected as a partner
in this experiment a shiftless, idle, easy creature named David Lacy,
who would have been a plasterer had not his indolence defeated his
craft. Little Mollie, and Davy of the clattering crutch, occurred as a
kind of penalty of the nuptials.
Three years and a half before we encounter this mixed household, Lacy,
the worthless, sailed away on a China ship without notice or farewell.
Some say he was “shanghaied,” and some that he went of free will. Mrs.
Lacy adopted the former of the two theories.
“David Lacy, too idle to work ashore, assuredly would not go to sea
where work and fare are tenfold harder.”
Thus argued Mrs. Lacy. Still, a solution of Lacy’s reasons for becoming
a mariner late in life is not here important. He sailed and he never
returned; and as Mrs. Lacy perished of pneumonia the following winter,
they both may be permitted to quit this chronicle to be meddled with by
us no further.
Mike Menares had witnessed fifteen years when his mother died. As
suggested, he is a singularly handsome boy, and of an appearance likely
to impress. From his Conemara mother, he received a yellow head of hair.
Underneath are a pair of jet black brows, a hawkish nose, double rows
of strong white teeth, and deep soft black eyes, as honest as a hound’s,
the plain bestowal of his Jewish father.
Mike was driving a delivery wagon for the great grocers, Mark & Milford,
when his mother died. This brought six dollars a week. After the sad
going of his mother, Mike found a second situation where he might work
evenings, and thereby add six further dollars to that stipend from Mark
& Milford. This until the other day continued. On twelve dollars a week,
and with little Mollie--a notable housekeeper--to manage for the Pitt
Street tenement, the composite house of Menares and Lacy fared well.
Mike’s evening labors require a description. One Sarsfield O’Punch, an
expert of boxing and an athlete of some eminence, maintains a private
gymnasium on Fifty-ninth street. This personage is known to his patrons
as “Professor O’Punch.” Mike, well-builded and lithe, broad of shoulder,
deep of lung, lean of flank, a sort of half-grown Hercules, finds
congenial employ as aid to Professor O’Punch. Mike’s primal duty is to
box with those amateurs of the game who seek fistic enlightenment of
his patron, and who have been carried by that scientist into regions of
half-wisdom concerning the bruising art for which they moil. From eight
o’clock until eleven, Mike’s destiny sets him, one after the other,
before a full score of these would-be boxers, some small and some big,
some good and some bad, some weak and some strong, but all zealous to a
perspiring degree. These novices smite and spare not, and move with
all their skill and strength to pummel Mike. They have, be it said, but
indifferent success; for Mike, waxing expert among experts, side-steps
and blocks and stops and ducks and gets away; and his performances in
these defensive directions are the whisper of the school.
Now and then he softly puts a glove on some eager face, or over some
unguarded heart, or feather-like left-hooks some careless jaw, to the
end that the other understand a peril and fend against it. But Mike,
working lightly as a kitten, hurts no one; such being the private
commands of Professor O’Punch who knows that to pound a pupil is to lose
a pupil.
It is to be doubted if the easy-natured Mike is aware of his wonderful
strength of arm and body, or the cat-like quickness and certainty of
his blows. During these three years wherein he has been underling to
Professor O’Punch, Mike strikes but two hard blows. One evening several
of the followers of Professor O’Punch are determining their prowess on
a machine intended to register the force of a blow. Following each other
in a fashion of punching procession, these aspiring gymnasts, putting
their utmost into the swings, strike with all steam. Four hundred to
five hundred pounds says the register; this is vaunted as a vastly good
account.
Mike, with folded arms and stripped to ring costume--his official
robes--is looking on, a smile lighting his pleasant face. Mike is ever
interested and ever silent.
As the others smite, Mike beams with approval, but makes no comment. At
last one observes:
“Menares, how many pounds can you strike?”
“I don’t know,” replies Mike, in a surprised way, “I never tried.”
“Try now,” says the other; “I’ve a notion you could hit hard enough if
you cared to.”
The others second the speaker. Much and instant curiosity grows up as
to what Mike can do with his hands if he puts his soul into it. There
is not an amateur about but knows more of Mike than does the latter of
himself. They know him as one perfect of defensive boxing; also, they
recall the precise feather-like taps which Mike confers on the best of
their muster whenever he chooses; but none has a least of knowledge of
how bitterly hard Mike’s glove might be sent home should ever his heart
be given to the trial.
Being urged, Mike begins to rouse; he himself grows curious. It has
never come to him as a thought to make the experiment. The “punching
machine” has stood there as part of the paraphernalia of the gymnasium.
But to the fog-witted Mike, who comes to work for so many dollars a week
and who has not once considered himself in the light of a boxer, whether
excellent or the reverse, it held no particular attraction. It could
tell him no secrets he cares a stiver to hear.
Now, Mike for a first time feels moved to a bit of self-enlightenment.
Poising himself for the effort, Mike, with the quickness of light, sends
in a right-hand smash that all but topples the contrivance from its
base. For the moment the muscles of his back and leg knot and leap
in ropelike ridges; and then they as instantly sink away. The machine
registers eight hundred and ninety-one pounds.
The on-gazers draw a long breath. Then they turn their eyes on Mike,
whose regular outlines, with muscles retreated again into curves and
slopes and shimmering ripples, have no taint of the bruiser, and
whose handsome features, innocent of a faintest ferocity, recall some
beautiful statue rather than anything more viciously hard.
Mike’s second earnest blow comes off in this sort. He is homeward bound
from gymnasium work one frosty midnight. Not a block from his home,
three evil folk of the night are standing beneath an electric light.
Mike, unsuspicious, passes them. Instantly, one delivers a cut at Mike’s
head with a sandbag. Mike, warned by the shadow of uplifted arm, springs
forward out of reach, wheels, and then as the footpad blunders towards
him, Mike’s left hand, clenched and hammerlike, goes straight to his
face. Bone and teeth are broken with the shock of it; blood spurts, and
the footpad comes senseless to the pave. His ally, one of the other two,
grasps at Mike’s throat. His clutch slips on the stern muscles of the
athlete’s neck as if the neck were a column of brass. Mike seizes his
assailant’s arm with his right hand; there is a twist and a shriek;
the second robber rolls about with a dislocated fore-arm. The third,
unharmed, flies screeching with the fear of death upon him.
At full speed comes a policeman, warned of his duty by the howls of
anguish. He surveys the two on the ground; one still and quiet, the
other groaning and cursing with his twisted arm. The officer sends in an
ambulance call. Then he surveys with pleased intentness the regular face
of Mike, cool and unperturbed.
“An Irish Sheeny!” softly comments the officer to himself.
He is expert of faces, is the officer, and deduces Mike’s two-ply origin
from his yellow hair, dark eye and curved nose.
“You’re part Irish and part Jew,” observes the policeman.
“My mother was from Ireland,” answers Mike; “my father was a Spanish Jew
from Salamanca. I think that’s what they call it, although I was not old
enough when he died to remember much about him.”
“Irish crossed on Jew!” comments the officer, still in a mood of
thoughtful admiration. “It’s the best prize-ring strain in the world!”
The officer is in his dim way a patron of sport.
Mike thanks the other; for, while by no means clearly understanding, he
feels that a compliment is meant. Then Mike goes homeward to Mollie and
little Davy.
It is the twenty-third of December--two days before Christmas--when we
are first made friends of Mike Menares. About a month before, the little
family of three fell upon bad days. Mike was dismissed by the great
grocers, and the six dollars weekly from that quarter came to an end.
Mike’s delivery wagon was run down and crushed by a car; and, while Mike
was not to blame, the grocers have no time to discover a justice, and
Mike was told to go.
For mere food and light and fire, Mike’s other six Saturday dollars from
Professor O’Punch would with economy provide. But there is the rent on
New Year’s day! Also, and more near, is Christmas, with not a penny to
spare. It must perforce be a bare festival, this Christmas. It will be a
blow to little Davy of the crutch, who has talked only of Christmas for
two months past and gone.
Mike, as has been intimated, is dull and slow of brain. He has just
enough of education to be able to read and write. He owns no bad
habits--no habits at all, in fact; and the one great passion of his
simple heart is love without a limit for Mollie and little Davy. He
lives for them; the least of their desires is the great concern of
Mike’s life. Therefore, when his income shrinks from twelve dollars to
six, it creeps up on him and chills him as a loss to Mollie and Davy.
And peculiarly does this sorrowful business of a ruined Christmas for
Davy prey on poor Mike.
“You and I won’t mind,” says housewife Mollie, looking up in Mike’s face
with the sage dignity of her eleven years, “because we’re old enough to
understand; but I feel bad about little Davy. It’s the first real awful
Christmas we’ve ever had.”
Mollie is as bright and wise as Mike is dull. Seven years her senior,
still Mike has grown to believe in and rely altogether on Mollie as a
guide. He takes her commands without question, and does her will like
a slave. To Mollie goes every one of Mike’s dollars; it is Mollie who
disposes of them, while Mike never gives them a thought. They have been
devoted to the one purpose of Mike’s labors; they have gone to Mollie
and little Davy of the crutch; why, then, should Mike pursue them
further?
Following housewife Mollie’s regrets over a sad Christmas that was not
because of their poverty to be a Christmas, Mike sits solemnly by the
window looking out on the gathering gloom and hurrying holiday crowds of
Pitt Street. The folk are all poor; yet each seems able to do a bit for
Christmas. As they hurry by, with small bundles and parcels, and now
and then a basket from which protrude mayhap a turkey’s legs or other
symptom of the victory of Christmas, Mike, in the midst of his sluggish
amiabilities, discovers a sense of pain--a darkish thought of trouble.
And as if grief were to sharpen his wits, Mike has for almost a first
and last time an original idea. It is the thought natural enough, when
one reflects on Mike’s engagements, evening in and evening out, with
Professor O’Punch.
[Illustration: 0115]
That day Mike, in passing through the Bowery, read the two hundred
dollars offer of the selfconfident Terror. At that time Mike felt
nothing save wonder that so great a fortune might be the reward of so
small an effort. But it did not occur to him that he should try a tilt
with the Terror. In his present stress, however, and with the woe upon
him of a bad Christmas to dawn for little Davy, the notion marches
slowly into Mike’s intelligence. And it seems simple enough, too, now
Mike has thought of it; and with nothing further of pro or con, he
prepares himself for the enterprise.
For causes not clear to himself he says nothing to housewife Mollie of
his plans. But he alarms that little lady of the establishment’s few
sparse pots and kettles by declining to eat his supper. Mollie fears
Mike is ill. The latter, knowing by experience just as any animal might,
that with twelve minutes of violent exercise before him, he is better
without, while denying the imputation of illness, sticks to his
supperless resolve.
Then Mike goes into the rear room and dons blue tights, blue sleeveless
shirt, canvas trunks, and light shoes; his working costume. Over
these he draws trousers and a blue sweater; on top of all a heavy
double-breasted jacket. Thrusting his feet, light shoes and all, into
heavy snow-proof overshoes, and pulling on a bicycle cap, Mike is
arrayed for the street. Mollie knows of these several preparations, the
ring costume under the street clothes, but thinks naught of it, such
being Mike’s nightly custom as he departs for the academy of Professor
O’Punch. At the last moment, Mike kisses both Mollie and little Davy;
and then, with a sudden original enthusiasm, he says:
“I’ve been thinkin’, Mollie; mebby I can get some money. Mebby we’ll see
a good Christmas, after all.”
Mollie is dazed by the notion of Mike thinking; but she looks in
his face, with its honest eyes full of love for her and Davy, and as
beautiful as a god’s and as unsophisticated, and in spite of herself a
hope begins to live and lift up its head. Possibly Mike may get money;
and Christmas, and the rent, and many another matter then pinching the
baby housekeeper and of which she has made no mention to Mike, will be
met and considered.
“It’ll be nice if you should get money, Mike,” is all Mollie trusts
herself to say, as she returns Mike’s good-bye kiss.
When Mike gets into Pitt Street he moves slowly. There’s the crowd, for
one thing. Then, too, it’s over early for his contest with the Terror.
Mike prefers to arrive at the theatre just in time to strip and make
the required application for those two hundred dollars. It may appear
strange, but it never once occurs to Mike that he will not last the
demanded four rounds. But it seems such a weighty sum! Mike doubts if
the offer be earnest; hesitates with the fear that the management will
refuse to give him the money at the end.
“But surely,” decides Mike, “they will feel as though they ought to give
me something. I lose a dollar by not going to Professor O’Punch’s; they
must take account of that.”
Mike loiters along with much inborn ease of heart. Occasionally he
pauses to gaze into one of the cheap shop windows, ablaze and garish of
the season’s wares. There is no wind; the air has no point; but it is
snowing softly, persistently, flakes of a mighty size and softness.
Ten minutes before he arrives at that theatre which has been the scene
of the Terror’s triumphs, Mike enters a bakery whereof the proprietor, a
German, is known to him. Mike has no money but he feels no confusion for
that.
“John,” says Mike to the German; “I’ve got to spar a little to-night and
I want a big plate of soup.”
“Sure!” says John, leading the way to a rear room which thrives greasily
as a kind of restaurant. “And here, Mike,” goes on John, as the soup
arrives, “I’ll put a big drink of sherry in it. You will feel good
because of it, and the sherry and the hot soup will make you quick and
strong already.”
At the finish, Mike, with an eye of bland innocence--for he is certain
the theatre will give him something, even if it withhold the full two
hundred--tells John he will pay for the soup within the hour, when he
returns.
“That’s all right, Mike,” cries the good-natured baker, “any time will
do.”
“This w’y, me cove,” observes a person with a cockney accent, as the
sharp gamin delivers Mike, together with the message to the Terror, at
the stage door; “this w’y; ’ere’s a dressin’ room for you to shift
your togs.”
Later, when Mike’s outer husks are off and he stands arrayed for the
ring, this person, who is old and gray and wears a scarred and battered
visage, looks Mike over in approval:
“You seems an amazin’ bit of stuff, lad,” says this worthy man; “the
build of Tom Sayres at his best, but’eavier. I ’opes you’ll do this
Mick, but I’m afeared on it. You looks too pretty; an’ you ain’t got a
fightin’ face. How ’eavy be you, lad?”
“One hundred and eighty-one,” replies Mike, smiling on the Englishman
with his boy’s eyes.
“Can you spar a bit?” asks the other.
“Why, of course I can!” and Mike’s tones exhibit surprise.
“Well, laddy,” says the other; “don’t let this Dublin bloke rattle you.
’E’s a great blow’ard, I takes it, an’ will quit if he runs ag’in two
or three stiff ’uns. A score of years ago, I’d a-give ’im a stone
an’ done for ’im myself. I’m to be in your corner, laddy, an’ I trusts
you’ll not disgrace me.”
“Who are you?” asks Mike.
“Oh, me?” says the other; “I works for the theayter, laddy, an’, bein’
as ’ow I’m used to fightin’, I goes on to ’eel an’ ’andle the
amatoors as goes arter the Terror. It’s all square, laddy; I’ll be
be’ind you; an’ I’ll ’elp you to win those pennies if I sees a w’y.”
“I have also the honor,” shouts the loud master of ceremonies, “to
introduce to you Mike Men-ares, who will contend with the Dublin
Terror. Should he stay four rounds, Marquis of Queens-berry rules, the
management forfeits two hundred dollars to the said Menares.”
“What a model for my Jason,” says a thin shaving of a man who stands
as a spectator in the wings. He is an artist of note, and speaks to a
friend at his elbow. “What a model for my Jason! I will give him five
dollars an hour for three hours a day. What’s his name? Mike what?” The
battle is about to commence; the friend, tongue-tied of interest, makes
no reply.
The Dublin Terror is a rugged, powerful ruffian, with lumpy shoulders,
thick short neck, and a shock gorilla head. His little gray eyes are
lighted fiercely. His expression is as savagely bitter as Mike’s is
gentle. The creature, a fighter by nature, was born meaning harm to
other men.
There is a roped square, about eighteen feet each way, on the stage, in
which the gladiators will box. The floor is canvas made safe with rosin.
The master of cermonies, himself a pugilist of celebration, will act as
referee. The old battered man of White Chapel is in Mike’s corner.
Another gentleman, with face similarly marred, but with Seven Dials as
his nesting place, is posted opposite to befriend the Terror. There
is much buzz in the audience--a rude gathering, it is--and a deal of
sympathetic admiration and not a ray of hope for Mike in the eyes of
those present.
The Terror is replete of a riotous confidence and savage to begin. For
two nights, such is the awe of him engendered among local bruisers, no
one has presented himself for a meeting. This has made the Terror hungry
for a battle; he feels like a bear unfed. As he stands over from Mike
awaiting the call of “Time,” he looks formidable and forbidding, with
his knotted arms and mighty hands.
Mike lounges in his place, the perfection of the athlete and picture of
grace with power. His face, full of vacant amiability, shows pleased
and interested as he looks out on the crowded, rampant house. Mike has
rather the air of a spectator than a principal. The crowd does not shake
him; he is not disturbed by the situation. In a fashion, he has been
through the same thing every night, save Sunday, for three years. It
comes commonplace enough to Mike.
In a blurred way Mike resents the blood-eagerness which glows in the
eyes of his enemy; but he knows no fear. It serves to remind him,
however, that no restraints are laid upon him in favor of the brute
across the ring, and that he is at liberty to hit with what lust he
will.
“Time!” suddenly calls the referee.
Those who entertained a forbode of trouble ahead for Mike are agreeably
surprised. With the word “Time!” Mike springs into tremendous life like
a panther aroused. His dark eyes glow and gleam in a manner to daunt.
The Terror, a gallant headlong ruffian, throws himself upon Mike like a
tornado. For full two minutes his blows fall like a storm. It does not
seem of things possible that man could last through such a tempest.
But Mike lasts; more than that, every blow of the Terror is stopped or
avoided.
It runs off like a miracle to the onlookers, most of whom know somewhat
of self-defensive arts. That Mike makes no reprisals, essays no
counterhits, does not surprise. A cautious wisdom would teach him to
feel out and learn his man. Moreover, Mike is not there to attack; his
mere mission is to stay four rounds.
While spectators, with approving comment on Mike’s skill and quickness,
are reminding one another that Mike’s business is “simply to stay,” Mike
himself is coming to a different thought. He has grown disgusted rather
than enraged by the attacks of the Terror. His thrice-trained eye notes
each detail of what moves as a whirlwind to folk looking on; his arm and
foot provide automatically for his defense and without direct effort
of the brain. This leaves Mike’s mind, dull as it is, with nothing to
engage itself about save a contemplation of the Terror. In sluggish sort
Mike begins to hold a vast dislike for that furious person.
As this dislike commences to fire incipiently, he recalls the picture
of Mollie and little Davy of the crutch. Mike remembers that it is
after ten o’clock, and his two treasures must be deep in sleep. Then
he considers of Christmas, now but a day away; and of the money so
necessary to the full pleasure of his sleeping Mollie and little Davy.
As those home-visions come to Mike, and his antipathy to the Terror
mounting to its height, the grim impulse claims him to attack. Tigerlike
he steps back to get his distance; then he springs forward. It is too
quickly done for eye to follow. The Terror’s guard is opened by a feint;
and next like a flash Mike’s left shoots cleanly in. There is a sharp
“spank!” as the six-ounce glove finds the Terror’s jaw; that person goes
down like an oak that is felled. As he falls, Mike’s right starts with
a crash for the heart. But there is no need: Mike stops the full blow
midway--a feat without a mate in boxing. The Terror lies as one without
life.
“W’y didn’t you let ’im ’ave your right like you started, laddy?”
screams the old Cockney, as Mike walks towards his corner.
Mike laughs in his way of gentle, soft goodnature, and points where the
Terror, white and senseless, bleeds thinly at nose and ear.
“The left did it,” Mike replies.
Out of his eyes the hot light is already dying. He takes a deep, deep
breath, that arches his great breast and makes the muscles clutch and
climb like serpents; he stretches himself by extending his arms and
standing high on his toes. Meanwhile he beams pleasantly on his grizzled
adherent.
“It wasn’t much,” says Mike.
“You be the coolest cove, laddy!” retorts the other in a rapt whisper.
Then he towels deftly at the sweat on Mike’s forehead.
The decision has been given in Mike’s favor. And to his delight, without
argument or hesitation, the loud young man of the vociferous garb comes
behind the scenes and endows him with two hundred dollars.
“Say,” observes the loud young man, admiringly, “you ain’t no wonder, I
don’t t’ink!”
“But how did you come to do it, Mike?” asks the good-natured baker, as
Mike lingers over a midnight porterhouse at the latter’s restaurant.
“I had to, John,” says Mike, turning his innocent face on the other; “I
had to win Christmas money for Mollie and little Davy.”
“And what,” said the Sour Gentleman, “became of this Mike Menares?”
“I should suppose,” broke in the Red Nosed Gentleman, who had followed
the Jolly Doctor’s narrative with relish, “I should suppose now he posed
for the little sculptor’s Jason.”
“It is my belief he did,” observed the Jolly Doctor, with a twinkle,
“and in the end he became full partner of the bruiser, O’Punch, and
shared the profits of the gymnasium instead of taking a dollar a night
for his labors. His sister grew up and married, which, when one reflects
on the experience of her mother, shows she owned no little of her
brother’s courage.”
“Your story,” remarked the Red Nosed Gentleman to the Jolly Doctor, “and
the terrific blow which this Menares dealt the Dublin Terror brings to
mv mind a blow my father once struck.” This was a cue to the others and
one quickly seized on; the Red Nosed Gentleman was urged to give the
story of that paternal blow. First seeing to it that the stock of
burgundy at his elbow was ample, and freighting his own and the Jolly
Doctor’s glasses to the brim, the Red Nosed Gentleman coughed, cleared
his throat, and then gave us the tale of That Stolen Ace of Hearts.