Carroll, in the ensuing weeks, living alone with Charlotte, endured
a species of mental and spiritual torture which might have been
compared with the rack and wheel of the Inquisition. It seemed
to Arthur Carroll in those days as if torture was as truly one
of the elements incumbent upon man's existence as fire, water,
or air. He got an uncanny fancy that if it ceased he would cease.
He had all his life, except in violent stresses, that happy,
contented-with-the-sweet-of-the-moment temperament popularly supposed
to be a characteristic of the butterfly over the rose. But deprive
the butterfly of the rose and he might easily become a more tragic
thing than any in existence. Now Carroll was deprived of his rose, he
could get absolutely none of the sweets out of existence from whence
his own individuality manufactured its honey. Even Charlotte's
presence became an additional torment to him, dearly as he loved her
and as thoroughly as he realized what her coming back had done for
him, from what it had saved him. She had given him the impetus which
placed him back in his normal condition, but, back there, he suffered
even more, as a man will suffer less under a surgical operation
than when the influence of the anesthetics has ceased. There was
absolutely no ready money in the house during those weeks except the
sum which Charlotte's aunt had sent her, which was fast diminishing,
and a few scattering dollars, or rather, pennies, which Carroll
picked up in ways which almost unhinged his brain when he reflected
upon them afterwards. Whatever he had done before, the man tried in
those days every means to obtain an honest livelihood, except the one
which he knew was always open, and from which he shrank with such
repugnance that it seemed he could not even contemplate it and his
mind retain his balance. In his uneasy sleep at night he often had a
dream of that experience which had yielded him money, which might
yield him money again. He saw before him the sea of faces, of the
commonest American type, of the type whose praise and applause mean
always a certain disparagement. He saw his own face, his proud, white
face with the skin and lineaments of a proud family, stained into the
likeness of a despised race; he heard his own tongue forsaking the
pure English of his fathers for the soft thickness of the negro,
roaring the absurd sentimental songs; he saw his own stately limbs
contorted in the rollicking, barbaric dance--and awoke with a cold
sweat over him. He knew all the time that that was all was left to
him, but he snatched at everything. He could not obtain the
floor-walker position of which he had spoken to Anderson. He thought
that possibly his fine presence and urbane manner might recommend him
for a place of that sort, but it was already filled. He went to
several of the great department stores and inquired if there was a
vacancy. He felt that the superintendents to whom he applied regarded
his good points as he might have regarded the good points of a horse.
One of them told him that if he would give his address, he would be
given the preference whenever a vacancy occurred. Carroll knew that
he was mentally appraised as a promising person to direct ladies to
ribbon and muslin counters. He looked at another floor-walker
strutting up and down the aisle, and felt sure that he could do
better, and all this amused contempt for himself deepened and bored
its way into his very soul. He always asked himself, with the demand
of an unpitying judge, if he could not have done better for himself
if he had begun at once; if he had not at the first failure drifted
with no resistance, with the pleasant, easy, devil-may-careness which
was in his nature along with the sterner stuff which was now
upheaving and asserting itself, and taken what he could, how he
could. He had not, after all, had an absolutely unhappy home,
although it had been founded on the sands, and although that iron of
hatred of the man who had done him the wrong had been always in his
soul. The life he had led had been not one of active and voluntary
preying upon his fellow-men; it had been only the life of one who
must have the sweets of existence for himself and those he loved, and
he had gotten them, even if the flowers and the fruit hung over the
garden-walls of others. Now it suddenly seemed to him that he could
no longer do it, as he had done, even if the owners of the fruit and
flowers should be still unawares. Curiously enough, the old Pilgrim's
Progress which he had read as a child was very forcibly in his mind
in these days. He remembered the child that ate the fruit that hung
over the wall, and how the gripes, in consequence, seized him.
Something very like the conviction of sin was over the man, or,
rather, a complete consciousness of himself and his deeds, which is,
maybe, after all, the true meaning of the term. It was true that the
self-knowledge had seemed to come, perforce, because it was
temporarily out of his power to transgress farther; in other words,
because he was completely found out; but all the same, the knowledge
was there. He saw himself just as he was, had been--a great man
goaded on always by the small, never-ceasing prick of hatred, with
the sense of injury always stinging his soul, living as he chose,
having all that he could procure, utterly careless whether at the
expense and suffering of others or not. Now, for the first time, he
began to adjust himself in the place of others, and the adjusting
produced torment from the realization of their miseries, and worse
torment from realization of his own contemptibility. It really seemed
as if all positions which might have been in some keeping with the
man and his antecedents were absolutely out of his reach. Not a night
but he read the advertising columns until he was blind and dizzy.
Every morning he went to New York and hunted. The first morning he
had taken the train, he had actually to assure some of his watchful
creditors that he was going to return. Then all day he wandered about
the streets, making one of long lines of applicants for the vacant
positions. One morning he found himself in the line with William
Allbright. He recognized unmistakably the meek, bent back of the old
clerk three ahead of him in the line. A book-keeper had been
advertised for in a large wholesale house, and there were perhaps
forty applicants all awaiting their turn. His first impulse, when he
caught sight of his old clerk, was to leave the line himself; then
the nobility which was struggling for life within him asserted itself
and made him ashamed of his shame. He stood still with his head a
little higher, and moved on with the slowly moving line of men which
crawled towards the desk like a caterpillar. He saw Allbright turn
away rejected with a feeling of pity; the old man looked dejected.
Carroll reflected with a sensation of pride that at least he did not
owe him. He himself was rejected promptly after he had owned to his
age. The man four behind him was chosen. He was a very young man,
scarcely more than a boy, unless his looks belied him. He was
distinctly handsome, with the boy-doll style of beauty--curly, dark
hair, rosy cheeks, and a small, very carefully tended mustache. He
wore a very long and fashionable coat, and was evidently pleasantly
conscious of its flop around his ankles. His handsome face wore an
expression of pert triumph as he passed on into the inner office....
Carroll, who had lingered with an idle curiosity to ascertain who
was the successful applicant, heard a voice so near his ear that it
whistled. The voice was exceedingly bitter, even malignant.
"That's the way it goes, these times; that's the way it always goes,"
said the voice.
Carroll turned and gazed at the speaker, a man probably older than
himself; if not, he looked older, since his hair was quite white and
his carriage not so good.
"The employers nowadays are a pack of fools, a pack of fools!" said
the man. His long, rather handsome face, a face which should have
been mild in its natural state was twisted into a thousand sardonic
wrinkles. "A pack of fools!" he repeated. "Here they'll go and hire a
little whippersnapper like that every time, instead of a man who has
had experience and knows how to do the work, just because he's young.
Young! What's that? You'd think what they wanted was a man to keep
their books straight. I can keep books if I do say so, and that young
snip can't. Lord! He was in Avin & Mann's with me. Why, I tell you he
can't add up a column of figures three inches long straight, to save
his neck. The books will be in a pretty state. I'll give him just ten
days before they'll have to get an expert in to straighten out
things. Hope they will; serve 'em right. Here I am, can't get a job
to save my life, because my hair has turned and I've got a few more
years over my head, and I can keep books better than I ever could in
my life. Good Lord! You'd think it was what was inside a man's head
they'd be after, instead of the outside." He looked at Carroll.
"Guess I've got a little the advantage of you in age," he said, "but
I suppose that's the matter why you were given the cold shoulder."
"I shouldn't be surprised if you were right, sir," replied Carroll,
rather apathetically. He was going through all this without the
slightest hope, but only for the sake of feeling that he had done his
utmost before he took up with the alternative which so dismayed his
very soul. He himself looked old that morning. He had retained his
youthful appearance much longer than men usually do, but as he had
viewed his reflection in the glass that morning he had said to
himself that he at last was showing his years. His hair had turned
visibly gray in the last few weeks; lines had deepened; and not only
that, but the youthful fire had given place to the apathy and weary
resignation of age.
"But you look as if you could do more and better work in an hour than
that young bob-squirt could in a month," said the man at his side.
"Very likely," replied Carroll, indifferently.
"You don't seem to care much about it," the other man said. The two
had gone out of the building, and were walking slowly down the street.
"If they want young men, they do, I suppose," Carroll said.
"Been trying long?"
"Quite a time."
"Well, the employers are a set of G. D. fools!" said the other man.
An oath sounded horribly incongruous coming from his long, thin,
benevolent mouth.
"I don't see what you are going to do about it if they are," Carroll
replied, still with that odd patience. It seemed to him as if he was
getting a sort of fellow-feeling and intense personal knowledge of
his fellow-beings, which united him to them with ties stronger than
those of love. He felt as if he more than loved this rebellious
wretch beside him, as if he were one with him, only possessed of that
patience which gave him a certain power to aid him. "I suppose men
have the right to employ whom they choose," said Carroll. "If they
prefer young men who don't know how to do the work, to old men who
do, I suppose they have a right to engage them. And they may have
some show of reason for it. I don't see what can be done, anyway."
"I'll tell you what has got to be done, sir, and how we can help
ourselves," returned the other, with a ranting voice which made
people turn and stare at him. "I'll tell you. We've got to form a
union. There are unions for everything else. We have got to have a
union of older men qualified to work, who are shouldered out of it by
boys. Once that is done, we are all right. To-day in this country a
man can't hire whom he pleases in most things. The unions have put it
out of his power. The people have risen. We belong to a part of the
people who haven't risen. Now we must rise. Let us form a union, I
say. If they engage young men before us, there are ways of making
them smart for it, the employers as well as the employes. I tell you
that has got to be done."
Suddenly the men heard a laugh behind them. It was a woman's laugh,
shrill and not altogether pleasant--not the laugh of a young woman,
but the woman who came up with and immediately began to speak looked
quite young. She was undeniably pretty. Her blond pompadour drooped
coquettishly over one eye, her cheeks were pink, her face smooth, her
figure was really superb, and she was very well dressed, in a
tailor-made gown, smart furs, and a hat evidently of the
English-tailor make.
"Excuse me," she said, with perfect assurance, and yet with nothing
of offensive boldness, rather with an air of _camaraderie_, "but I
heard you talking, you two, and I thought I would give you a few
points. I don't know whether you know it or not, but I have recently
secured the position of cashier there, in Adkins & Somers's." She
motioned with one nicely gloved hand back towards the place they had
just left. "I got it in preference to about a dozen young girls,
too," she said, with triumph, "but I shouldn't have if--" She
hesitated a minute. The color on her cheeks deepened under the
floating veil, and there was, in consequence, a curious effect of two
shades of rose on her cheeks. "See here," she said, walking along
with them, "I don't know you two men from Adam, and I needn't take
the trouble, and if you don't like it you can lump it, but I'm going
to say something. I know I look young. I ain't fishing for a
compliment. I know it. I've got a looking-glass in a good light, and
I've got my eyes in my head, and, what's more, I'm spunky enough to
own it to myself if I don't look young; but I ain't young. I ain't
going to say how old I am, but I will say this much, I ain't young.
I've been married twice and I've had three children. My first husband
died, the second went off and left me. I've got a daughter fourteen
years old I'm keeping in school. She ain't going into a department
store, if I work my fingers to the bone." She said the last with a
fierce air that made her for a second really look younger. "Well,"
she went on. "I'll tell you, too. I had a good place for a number of
years, but the man died in September, and the man that took the
business put his sister in my place. Then I was out of a job. I
hadn't saved a cent, and I didn't know what I was going to do.
Mildred--that's my daughter--is big of her age and good-looking, and
she wanted to leave school and go to work, but I wouldn't let her.
Well, I studied up all the advertisements and I tried, and I couldn't
do a thing. Then I set my wits to work. I ain't one to give up in a
hurry; I never was. As I said before, I didn't have much money, but I
hire our little flat of a woman, and she's a good sort, and she's
willing to wait, and a month ago I took every cent I could raise and
I went through a course of treatment with a beauty-doctor. I had my
hair (it was turned some) dyed, and I was massaged until I felt like
a currant-bun, but I always had a good skin, and there was something
to work on, and I took my figure in hand; that wasn't very bad,
anyway, but I got new corsets, awful expensive ones, and had a tailor
suit made. I had to raise some money on a little jewelry I had, but I
made up my mind it was neck or nothing, and, sir, a month ago I got
that place in Adkins & Somers's at a thousand a year. They are good
men, too. You needn't think there's anything wrong." She looked at
them with an expression as if she was ready to spring at the
slightest intimation of distrust on their part. "It is only just that
people think they want young help and they are going to have it. I've
got the place and I'm in clover, and it's worth something looking so
much better, though it don't make much difference to me. All I care
about nowadays is my daughter."
The two men looked at the woman, Carroll with a courteous sympathy,
and the interest of an observer of human nature. She was of a
pronounced American type, coarse, vulgar, strident-voiced, smart,
with a shrewdly working brain and of an unimpeachable heart. She was
generosity and honesty itself, as she looked at the two men in a
similar strait to the one from which she had extricated herself.
The other man, who had a bitter, possibly a dangerous strain
developed by his misfortunes, laughed sardonically. "How long do you
think you can keep it up?" said he. "Hm?" Had he been less worn and
weary, and apparently even starved, his laugh and question would have
evoked a sharper response. As it was, the woman replied with the
utmost good-nature.
"Any old time," said she. "Lord! I ain't setting up for a kid. I
ain't fool enough to put on short skirts and pigtails, but I am
setting up for a young lady, and I can keep it up, anyhow. Lord! I
ain't so very old, anyhow. If I didn't look the way I do now, I
couldn't get a position, because they'd put me down for a
back-number; but I had something left for that beauty-doctor to work
on." Then she gazed critically at the two men. "It wouldn't take much
to make you into a regular dude," said she to Carroll. "You are
dressed to beat the band as it is. Say!" She gave him a confidential
wink.
"Well?" said Carroll.
"You are dressed most too well. It's all very well to look stylish,
to look as if you had been earning twenty-five hundred a year, but,
Lord! you look as if you had been getting ten! The bosses might be a
little afraid of you. They might say they didn't see how a man could
have dressed like you do, unless he had helped himself to some of the
firm's cash. See? I don't mean any offence. You look to me like a
real gentleman."
"Thank you," replied Carroll.
"If I was you I'd put on a pair of pants not quite so nicely creased,
and I'd sell that overcoat and get a good-style ready-made one. Your
chances would be a heap better--honest."
"Thank you," said Carroll, again. He was conscious of amusement and a
curious sense of a mental tonic from this loud-voiced, eagerly
helpful female.
"I'm right, you bet," said she. "But otherwise it wouldn't take much.
You go and have a little something put on your hair, and have your
face massaged a little, and if I was you I'd buy a red tie. You can
get a dandy red tie at Steele & Esterbrook's for a quarter. That one
you have on makes you look kinder pale. Then a red tie is younger.
Say, I'll tell you, if you would only have your mustache trimmed, and
wax the ends, it would make no end of difference."
"What are you going to do when you are asked how old you are? Lie?"
inquired the other man, in his bitter, sardonic voice.
This time the woman regarded him with slight indignation. "Say," said
she, "you'll never get a place if you don't act pleasanter. Places
ain't to be got that way, I can tell you. You've got to act as if
you'd eat nothin' but butter an' honey for a fortnight. If you feel
mad, you'd better keep it in your insides." Then she answered his
questions. "No, I ain't goin' to lie, and I ain't goin' to tell
anybody else to lie," said she. "Lying ain't my style. But it ain't
anybody's business how old you are, anyhow. I don't know what right a
man that I go to get a place from has got to ask how old I be. All he
has any right to know is whether I ain't too old to do my work. I
don't lie; no, siree. All I say is, and kinder laugh, 'Well, call it
twenty-five,' or you might call it thirty, and with some, again, you
might call it thirty-two or three. That ain't lyin' if I know what
lyin' is." As the woman spoke her face assumed precisely the
mischievous, challenging smile with which she had replied to similar
questions. Carroll laughed, and the other man also, although
grudgingly.
"Well," he said, "there's different ways of looking at a lie."
"It wouldn't be any manner of use for you to say you wouldn't see
twenty-eight again, no matter how much you got fixed up," the woman
retorted. "But I guess you can get something, if it ain't quite so
good. I have a gentleman friend who is over fifty and who said he was
thirty-seven, and he got a dandy place last week. But I tell you
you'll have to hustle more'n this other gentleman. You're bald, ain't
you?"
"I don't know what that has got to do with it," growled the man, and
he tried to quicken his pace; but she kept up with him.
"It's got a good deal to do with it," said she. "I know a place on
Sixth Avenue where you can get an elegant front-piece that nobody
could ever tell, for three dollars and forty-nine cents. Another
gentleman friend of mine--he's a sort of relation of mine; my sister
was his first wife--got one there. Yes, sir, you'll have to get one,
and you'll have to get your face massaged and your eyebrows blacked,
and, Lord! you'll have to have that beard shaved off and have a
mustache, if you get anything at all. Lord! you look as if you'd come
right out of the Old Testament. I don't see why you're wasting your
time hanging around offices for, without you see to that, first of
all. I should think your wife would tell you, but I suppose she's the
same sort. Now as for you," she added, turning again to Carroll, "if
you just get polished up a little bit--say, here's the card of my
beauty-doctor" (she produced a card from an ornate wrist-bag)--"you'll
look dandy."
Suddenly the woman, with a quick good-bye, turned to cross Broadway,
but her good-nature and sympathy had something fine and
inexhaustible, for even then she turned back to look encouragingly
upon the older, soured, bitter, ungrateful man with Carroll, and she
said: "You go 'long with him, and I guess you'll get a place, too.
Good-bye."
With that she was gone, passing as straight as if she owned an
unassailable right of way through the press of vehicles. Just as she
gained the opposite sidewalk a fire-engine thundered up.
"She had a close call from that," Carroll said. His face had altered.
He still looked amused.
"That woman couldn't get run over if she tried," said the other man.
"There ain't nothing made in the country that can run over her. It's
women like her that's keeping men out of the places that belong to
them by right."
"I am afraid there was some truth in her theory and her advice,"
Carroll said, laughing, and looking after the second engine clanging
through the scattering crowd.
"Well, I guess when I go to buying women's frizzes to wear to get a
place, she'll know it," said the other man. "Good lord! if it's the
outside of the head they want, why don't they get dummies and done
with it? I tell you what is needed is a new union."
Just at that moment they reached a restaurant from which came an odor
of soup. Carroll turned to his companion. "I am going in here to get
some lunch," he said. "I don't know what kind of a place it is, but
if you will go with me, I shall take pleasure in--"
But the man turned upon him fiercely. "I 'ain't got quite so low yet
that I have to eat at another man's expense," he said. "You needn't
think, because you wear a better coat than I do, that--" The man
stopped and nodded his head, speechless, and went on, and was out of
sight, but Carroll had seen tears in the angry eyes.
He went into the restaurant, took a seat at a table, and ordered a
bowl of tomato-soup. As he was sipping it he heard a voice pronounce
his name, and, glancing up, saw two pretty girls and a young man at a
near-by table. He recognized the young man as the one who had been
lately in his employ. About the girls he was not so sure, but he
thought they were the same who had come to Banbridge to plead for
their payment. They all bowed to him, and he returned the salutation.
They all had a severe and, at the same time, curious expression. One
of the girls whispered to the other, and although the words were not
audible, the sharp hiss reached Carroll's ears.
"Wonder what he's doing in this place," she said.
The other girl, the elder, craned her neck and observed what Carroll
was eating. "He hasn't got anything but a bowl of tomato-soup," she
replied.
"S'pose he's goin' through the whole bill," said the young man. The
three were themselves lunching frugally. One of the girls had also a
bowl of tomato-soup, the other a large piece of squash-pie. The young
man had a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee. Smoking was allowed in
the place, and the atmosphere was thick with cigarette smoke, and a
warm, greasy scent of boiling and frying. Carroll continued to eat
his soup. The three at the other table had nearly finished their
luncheons when he entered. Presently they rose and passed him. The
young man stopped. He paled a little. His old awe of Carroll was over
him. In spite of himself, the worshipful admiration he had had for
the man still influenced him. The poor young fellow, whose very
pertness and braggadocio were simple and childlike, really felt
towards the older man who had been his employer much as a faithful
retainer towards a feudal baron. His feeling towards him was
something between love and an enormous mental worship. His little,
ordinary soul seemed to flatten itself like an Oriental before his
emperor when he spoke to Carroll sipping his bowl of tomato-soup in
the cheap restaurant. He had, after all, that nobility of soul which
altered circumstances could not affect. He was just as deferential as
if Carroll had been seated at a table in Delmonico's, but the fact
remained that he was about to ask him again for his money. He was
horribly pressed. He had obtained another position in one of the
department stores, which paid him very little, and he was in debt,
while his clothes were in such a degree of shabbiness that they were
fairly precarious. The very night before he had sat up until midnight
mending a rent in his trousers, which he afterwards inked; and as for
his overcoat, he always removed that with a sleight-of-hand lest its
ragged lining become evident, and when ladies were about he put it on
in an agony lest his arms catch in the rents. He had even meditated
cutting out the lining altogether, although he had a cold. He was so
in debt that he had stopped eating breakfast; and the leaving off of
breakfast for other than hygienic reasons, and when it has not been
preceded by a heavy dinner the night before, is not conducive to
comfort. So he bent low over Carroll and asked him in a small voice
of the most delicate consideration, if he could let him have a little
on account.
Carroll had turned quite white when he approached him, but his regard
of him was unswerving. "It is impossible for me to-day, Mr. Day," he
replied, "but I assure you that you shall have every cent in the end."
The tears actually sprang into the young fellow's nervously winking
eyes. "It would be a great accommodation," he said, in the same low
tone.
"You shall have every cent as soon as I can possibly manage it,"
Carroll repeated.
"I have a position, but it does not pay me very much yet," said the
young fellow, "and--and--I am owing considerable, and--I need some
things."
His involuntary shrug of his narrow shoulders in his poor coat spoke
as loudly as words.
Carroll was directly conscious in an odd, angry, contemptuous sort of
fashion, and whether because of himself, or of that other man, or of
an overruling Providence, he would have been puzzled to say, of his
own outer garment of the finest cloth and most irreproachable make.
"As soon as I can manage it, every cent," he repeated, almost
mechanically, and took another sip of his soup. The young fellow's
winking eyes, full of tears, were putting him to an ignominious
torture.
The two girls had stood close behind the young man, waiting their
turns. Now the younger stepped forward, and she spoke quite audibly
in her high-pitched voice.
"Good-morning, Mr. Carroll," said she, with a strained pertness of
manner.
"Good-morning," Carroll returned, politely. He half arose from the
table.
The girl giggled nervously. Her pretty, even beautiful face, under
her crest of blond hair and the scoop of a bright red hat, paled and
flushed. "Oh, don't stop your luncheon," said she. "Go right on. I
just wanted to ask if you could possibly--"
"I am very sorry," Carroll replied, "but to-day it is impossible; but
in the end you shall not lose one dollar."
The girl pouted. Her beauty gave her some power of self-assertion,
although in reality she was of an exceedingly mild and gentle sort.
"That is very well," said she, "but how long do you think it will be
before we get to the end, Mr. Carroll?"
"I hope not very long," Carroll said, with a miserable patience.
"It had better not be very long," said she, and suddenly her high
voice pitched to tragedy. "If--if--I can't get another place that's
decent for a girl to take," said she, "and if I don't get what's
owing me before long, I shall either have to take one of them places
or get a dose." She said the last word with an indescribably hideous
significance. Her blue eyes seemed to blaze at Carroll.
Then the other girl pressed closer. "You needn't talk that way," said
she to the girl. "You know that I--"
"I ain't goin' to live on you," returned the other girl, violently.
People were beginning to look at the group.
"Now, you know, May," said the other girl, "my room is plenty big
enough for two, and I'm earning plenty to give you a bite till you
get a place yourself, and you know you may get that place you went to
see about yesterday."
"No, I won't," said May. "It seems to me it's pretty hard lines that
a poor girl can't get the money she's worked as hard for as I have."
The other girl pushed herself in front of May and spoke to Carroll,
and there was something womanly and beautiful in her face. "I have a
real good place," she said, in a low voice, and she enunciated like a
lady. "A real good place, and I'll look out for May till she gets
one, and I can wait until you are able to pay me."
"I will pay you all as soon as possible. I give you all my word I
will pay you in the end," said Carroll.
He seemed to see the three go out in a sort of dream. It did not
really seem to him that it was he, Arthur Carroll, who was sitting
there in that smoking, greasy atmosphere, before that table covered
with a stained cloth, over which the waiter had ostentatiously spread
a damp napkin, with that bowl of canned tomato-soup before him, and
that thick cup of coffee, with those three unhappy young creditors,
who had reviled and, worse than reviled, pitied him, passing out,
with the open glances of amused curiosity fastened upon him on every
side.
"Guess that dude is down on his luck," he heard a young man at his
left say.
"Guess he put the money he'd ought to have paid that young lady with
into his overcoat," his companion, a girl with a picture-hat, and a
wide lace collar over her coat, responded.
Carroll felt that he was overwhelmed, beaten, at bay before utter
ignominy. The thought flashed across him, as he tried to swallow some
more of the soup, that in some respects, if he had been a murderer or
a great bank defaulter with detectives on his track, the situation
would at least have been more endurable. The horrible pettiness of it
all, constituted the maddening sting of it. While he was thinking
this the girl they called May came flying back, her blond crest
bobbing, her cheeks blazing. She looked like a beautiful and
exceedingly vulgar little fury. She came close to Carroll, while the
other girl's voice was heard at the door pleading with her to come
back.
"I won't come back till I have said my say, so there!" she called
back. Then she addressed Carroll very loudly. She was transformed for
the time. Hysteria had her in its clutch. She was half-fed,
half-clothed, made desperate by repeated failures. There was also a
love affair in the background. She was, in reality, not so very far
removed from the carbolic-acid crisis. "I say," said she. "I say,
you! You'd better look out! You'd better pony up pretty quickly or
you'll get into trouble you don't count on. There was a man at the
office that morning after you quit, and if he should happen to walk
in here and see you, you'd have a policeman after you. You'd better
look out!"
Carroll felt his face flush hot. For the first time in his life he
was conscious of being actually down. He realized the sensation of
the under dog, and he realized his utter helplessness, his utter lack
of defence against this small, pretty girl who was attacking him.
Everybody in the place seemed listening. Some of the people at the
farther tables came nearer, other's were craning their necks. The
girl gave her head an indescribable toss, at once vicious,
coquettish, and triumphant. Her blond crest tossed, the scoop of her
red hat rocked.
"I thought I'd just tell you," said she. Then she marched, holding
her skirts tightly around her, with a disclosure of embroidered
ruffles and the contour of pretty hips, and there was a shout of
laughter in the place. Carroll pushed away his bowl of soup and
turned to a grinning waiter near him.
"My check," he said.
"I ain't your waiter," replied the man, insolently.
"Bring me my check for this soup and coffee," repeated Carroll, and
the man started. There was something in his look and tone that
commanded respect even in this absurdity. In reality, for the time,
he was almost a madman. His fixed idea reasserted itself. At that
moment, if it had been possible that his enemy, the man who had
precipitated all this upon him, could have entered the room, there
would have been murder done, and again for the moment his mind
overlapped on the wrong side of life, and the desire for death was
upon him. There was that in his face which hushed the laughter.
"They had better not hound that man much farther," one man at the
table on the right whispered to his companion, who nodded, with sharp
eyes on Carroll's face. They were both newspaper-men.
When Carroll had paid his bill and passed out, one of the men, young
and clean-shaven, pressed close to his side.
"Pardon me, sir," he said, "but if you would allow me to express my
regrets and sympathy--"
"No regrets nor sympathy are required, thank you, sir," replied
Carroll.
"If I could be of any assistance," persisted the man, who was short
in his weekly column and not easily daunted.
"No assistance is required, thank you, sir," replied Carroll.
The man retreated, and rejoined his companion at the table.
"Get anything out of him?" asked the other.
"No, but I can make something out of him, I guess."
"Poor devil!" said the other man.
"It might have paid to shadow him," said the first man, thoughtfully.
"I shouldn't wonder if he took a bee-line for a drug-store. He looked
desperate."
"Or perhaps the park. He looks like the sort that might have a pistol
around somewhere."
This man actually, after a second's reflection, left his luncheon and
hastened after Carroll, but he did not find him. Carroll had
recovered himself and had taken the Elevated up-town to answer
another advertisement. That was one for a book-keeper, and there was
also unsuccessful. Coming out, he stood on the corner, looking at his
list. He had written down nearly every want in the advertising
columns. Actually he had even thought of trying for a position as
coachman. He certainly could drive and could care for horses, and he
considered quite impartially that he might make a good appearance in
a livery on a fashionable turn-out. He had left now on his list only
two which he had not tried; one was for a superintendent to care for
a certain public building, a small museum. He had really a somewhat
better chance there, apparently, for he had at one time known one of
the trustees quite well. For that very reason he had put it off until
the last, for he dreaded meeting an old acquaintance, and, too, there
was a chance, though not a very good one, that the acquaintance might
work harm instead of advantage. Still, the trustee had been in Europe
for several years past, and the chances were that he would know
nothing derogatory to Carroll which would interfere with his
obtaining the position.
He reached the building, took the elevator to the floor on which was
situated the offices, and, curiously enough, the first person he saw,
on emerging from the elevator, was the man whom he knew, waiting to
ascend. The man, whose name was Fowler, recognized him at once, and
greeted him, but with constraint. Carroll immediately understood that
in some unforeseen way the news which travels in circles in this
small world had reached the other. He saw that he knew of his record
during the last years.
"I have not seen you for a number of years, Mr. Carroll," said Fowler.
"No," replied Carroll, trying to speak coolly, "but that is easily
accounted for; you have been abroad most of the time, living in
London, have you not?"
"Yes, for seven years," replied the other, "but now I am home in my
native land to end my days." Fowler was quite an elderly man, and
remarkably distinguished in appearance, clean-featured and
white-haired--indeed, he had cut quite a considerable figure in
certain circles on the other side. He was even taller than Carroll,
and portly in spite of the sharpness of his features.
"You are glad to be back in America?" Carroll said; he was almost
forgetting, for the moment, the object of his visit to the place. He
had years ago been on terms of social intimacy with this man.
"If I were not I would not say so," replied Fowler, with a diplomatic
smile. "I do not disparage my country nor give another the preference
in my speech, until I deliberately take out naturalization papers
elsewhere."
Carroll smiled.
"By-the-way," said Fowler, whose handsome face had hard lines
which appeared from time to time from beneath his polished
surface-urbanity, "I have not seen you for perhaps ten years, Mr.
Carroll, but I heard from you in an out-of-the-way place--that is, if
anything is out of the way in these days. It was in a little Arab
village in Egypt. I was going down the Nile with a party, and
something went wrong with the boat and we had to stop for repairs;
and there I found--quartered in a most amazing studio which he had
rigged up for himself out of a native hut and hung with things which
looked to me like nightmares, and making studies of the native
Egyptians--and I must say he seemed to be doing some fine work at
last--Evan Dodge."
Carroll understood then, perfectly, but he took it calmly. "I always
felt that Dodge had genuine ability," he said.
"He has the ability to strike twelve, but not to strike it often,"
said Fowler. "However, all his models in that place striking twelve
made it easier for him. His work was good, and I think it will be
heard from. He had some good tea, and a tea-kettle, and he made us a
cup, and we talked over the home news, Dodge and I and two other
gentlemen and three ladies of the party. You see, Dodge was
comparatively fresh from home. He had only been quartered there about
a month."
"Yes," said Carroll.
"He spoke of seeing you quite recently. He said he had had a studio
the summer before in Hillfield, where I believe you were living at
the time." Nothing could have excelled the smoothness and even
sweetness of Fowler's tone and manner; nothing could have excelled
the mercilessness of his blue eyes beneath rather heavy lids, and the
lines of his fine mouth.
"Yes, he did have a studio there," assented Carroll.
"I believe that is quite a picturesque country about there."
"Quite picturesque."
"Well, Dodge did not make a mistake going so far afield, though, for,
after all, his specialty is the human figure, and here it is only
trees that are not altered in their contour by the fashions. Yes, he
was doing some really fine work. There was one study of a child--"
"He made one very good thing in Hillfield," said Carroll, "a view
from the top of a sort of half-mountain there. I believe he sold it
for a large price."
"Well, I am glad of that," said Fowler. "Dodge has always been
hampered in that way. Yes, he told me all the news, and especially
mentioned having lived in the same village with you."
"Yes," said Carroll, with the dignity of a dauntless spirit on the
rack.
"I hope your wife and family are well," said Fowler, further.
"Quite well, thank you."
"Let me see--you are living in New York now?"
"No, I am at present in Banbridge."
"Banbridge?"
"In New Jersey."
"Let me see--your family consists of your wife and a daughter and
son?"
"Two daughters and a son. One daughter married, last September, Major
Arms."
"Arms? Oh, I know him. A fine man." Fowler regarded Carroll with a
slight show of respect. "But," he said, "I thought--Major Arms is
nearly quite your age, is he not?"
"He is much older than Ina, but she seemed very fond of him."
"Well, she has a fine man for a husband," said Fowler, still with the
air of respect. "Your son is quite a boy now?"
"He is only ten."
"Hardly more than a child."
"My wife and son and my sister are at present in Kentucky with my
wife's aunt, Miss Dunois; only my younger daughter is with me in
Banbridge."
"Catherine Dunois?"
"Yes."
"I used to know her very well. She was a beauty, with the spirit of a
duchess."
"The spirit still survives," said Carroll, smiling.
"She must be quite old."
"Nearly eighty."
The elevator going up stopped in response to a signal from Fowler. He
extended his hand. "Well, good-day," said Fowler. "I am glad we
chanced to meet."
"Well, it is a small world," replied Carroll, smiling. "The chances
for meeting are much better than they would be, say, in Mars."
"Much better, and for hearing, also. Good-day."
"Good-day."
Carroll saw the elevator with its open sides of filigree iron,
ascending, and the expression upon Fowler's calm, handsome face,
gazing backward at him, was unmistakable. It was even mocking.
Carroll touched the electric button of one of the downward elevators,
and was soon carried rapidly down to the street door. He felt, as he
gained the street, that he would rather starve to death than ask a
favor of Fowler. He did not ask for pity, or even sympathy, in his
downfall, but he did ask for recognition of it as a common accident
that might befall mankind, and a consequent passing by with at least
the toleration of indifference from those not actively concerned in
it; but in this man's face had been something like exultation, even
gloating, Carroll thought to himself, as he went down the street, in
the childish way that Eddy might have done, with a sort of wonder,
reflecting that he never in his life, that he could remember, had
done Fowler, even indirectly, a bad turn. He might easily have been
totally indifferent to his misfortunes, to his failings, but why
should they have pleased him?
Carroll walked rapidly along the street until he reached Broadway
again. It was a strange day; a sort of snow-fog was abroad. The air
was dense and white. Now and then a mist of sleet fell, and the
sidewalks were horribly treacherous. The children enjoyed it, and
there were many boys and a few girls with tossing hair sliding along
with cries of merriment.
Carroll thought of Eddy as one little fellow, who did not look unlike
him, fairly slid into his arms.
"Look out, my boy," Carroll said, good-humoredly, keeping him from
falling, and the little fellow raised his cap with a charming blush
and a "Beg your pardon, sir." A miserable home-sickness for them came
over Carroll as he passed on. He longed for the sight of his boy, or
his wife and Anna. He had grown, in a manner, accustomed to Ina being
away. There is something about marriage and the absence it causes
that brings one into the state of acquiescence concerning death. But
he longed for the others, and he thought of his poor little Charlotte
at home all day, and her loneliness. He looked at his watch, and
realized that he must hurry if he caught the train which would take
him to Banbridge at six o'clock. He had one more place on his list,
and that was far up-town. He crossed to the Elevated station and
boarded the first up-town train. What he was about to do was, in a
way, so monstrous, taking into consideration his antecedents, his
bringing-up, and all his forebears, that it had to his mind the
grotesqueness of a gargoyle on his house of life. He was now going to
apply for the last position on his list, that of a coachman for a
gentleman, presumably of wealth, in Harlem. The name was quite
unknown to him. It was German. He thought to himself in all
probability the owner was Jewish. This was absolutely his last
venture. He chose this as he would choose anything in preference to
the one which was always within reach. As the train sped along he
fell to thinking of himself in this position for which he was about
to apply. He imagined himself in livery sitting with a pair of sleek
bays well in hand. He reflected that at least he could do his work
well. He wondered idly about the questions he would be asked. He
considered suddenly that he must have a reference for a place of this
sort, and he tore a leaf out of his note-book, took out his
stylo-graphic pen, and scribbled a reference, signing his own name.
He reflected, as he did so, that it was odd that he, who had employed
so many doubtful methods to gain financial ends, should feel an
inward qualm at the proceeding. Still, he was somewhat amused at the
thought that Mr. A. Baumstein might write to him at Banbridge, and he
should in that case reply, repeating his own list of qualification
for the place. He wondered if they would ask if he were married, if
they would prefer him married, if he drank, if he would be forbidden
to smoke in the stables. He considered all the questions which he
should be likely to ask himself, in a similar case. He got a curious
feeling as if he were having an experience like Alice in Wonderland,
as if he were in reality going in at the back of his own experiences,
gaining the further side of his moon. He began to be almost impatient
to reach his station and see the outcome of it all. Strangely enough,
he never reflected on the good advice which the young woman that
morning had given him as to the undesirable gentility of his general
appearance. He never considered that as a drawback. When he reached
his station he got off the train, went down the stairs, crossed the
avenue, and up a block to the next street. When he found the number
of which he was in search he hesitated a second. He wondered at what
door he should apply. It manifestly could not be the front door. He
therefore went farther down the street and gained the one running
parallel, by which means he could reach the rear entrance of the
house. It had no basement entrance under the front door. It was a new
building, and quite pretentious, the most pretentious of a new and
pretentious block. He traversed the small back yard, bending his
stately head under a grove of servants' clothes which were swinging
whitely from a net-work of lines, and knocked on the door. His knock
was answered by a woman, presumably a cook, and she looked like a
Swede. Unaccountably to him, she started back with a look of alarm
and nearly closed the door, and inquired in good English, with a
little accent, what he wanted. Carroll raised his hat and explained.
"I saw an advertisement for a coachman," he said, briefly, "and I
have come to apply for the place if it is not already filled."
To his utter amazement the door was closed violently in his face, and
he distinctly heard the bolt shot. He was completely at a loss to
account for such a proceeding. He remained standing, staring at the
blank front of the door, and a light flashed across the room inside
and caused him to look at the windows. The light had been carried
into a room at the back, but he saw in the pale dimness of the
kitchen a group of women and one boy, and they were all staring out
at him. Then the boy started on a run across the room, and he heard a
door slam. Carroll waited. He could not imagine what it was all
about, and a feeling of desperation was coming over him. It seemed to
him that he must find something to do, that he could not go home
again. The position of coachman began to seem desirable to him.
Charlotte need not know what he was doing; no one need know. He had
resolved to give another name, and he would soon find another
position. This would be a makeshift. In this he could at least keep
himself to himself. He need associate with nothing except the horses,
and they were likely to be thorough-breds. It would not, after all,
be half so bad as some other things--guiding superb horses through
the streets and waiting at doors for his employers. To his mind, a
coachman--that is, a City coachman--wears always more or less of a
mask of stiff attention to duty. He could hide behind this mask. In
reality, Carroll was almost at the end of his strength. His pride had
suddenly become a forgotten thing. He was wretchedly worn out, and,
in fact, he was hungry, almost famished. He had eaten very little
lately, and poor Charlotte, in truth, knew little about cookery. He,
in reality, became for the time what in once sense he was
impersonating. He became a coachman in dire need of a job. Therefore
he waited. He reflected, while he waited, that if they did not hurry
he would miss his train and Charlotte would worry. In case he secured
the position she would certainly have to join the others in Kentucky;
there would be no other way, for he would be obliged to remain in the
City over night.
All at once the door before him was swung violently open and a
gentleman stood there. Carroll felt at once that he was Mr. A.
Baumstein.
"What do you want, sir?" inquired the gentleman, and his tone was
distinctly hostile, although he looked like a well-bred man, and it
seemed puzzling that he thus received an answer to his application.
"I saw your advertisement, sir--" Carroll began.
"My advertisement for what, pray?" repeated Mr. Baumstein.
"For a coachman," replied Carroll, "and I thought if you had not
already secured one--"
"Clear out, or I will call a policeman!" thundered Mr. Baumstein, and
again the door was slammed in his face.
Carroll then understood. A gentleman who would have been presentable
at the Waldorf-Astoria, at a gentleman's area door applying for a
position as coachman, was highly suspicious. He understood readily
how he would have looked at the matter had the cases been reversed.
He made his way out of the little yard, dodging the fluttering
banners of servants' clothes, and was conscious that his progress was
anxiously watched by peering eyes at the windows. He reflected that
undoubtedly that house would be doubly bolted and barred that night,
and he would not be surprised if a special policeman were summoned,
in view of the great probability that he was a gentleman burglar
spying out the land before he descended upon it in search of the
spoons and diamonds. Somehow the fancy tickled him to that extent
that he felt almost as hysterical as a woman. He laughed aloud, and
two men whom he met just then turned round and looked at him
suspiciously.
"Dopey, I guess," one said, audibly, to the other.
It was now in Carroll's mind to gain the Elevated as soon as
possible, and hurry down-town to his ferry and catch his train. He
consulted his watch, and saw that he had just about time, if there
were no delays. As he replaced his watch he remembered that he had,
besides his railroad book, very little money, only a little silver.
The helplessness of a cripple came over him. He recalled seeing a man
who had lost both his legs shuffling along on the sidewalk, with the
stumps bound with leather, carrying a little tray of lead-pencils
which nobody seemed to buy. He felt like that cripple. A man living
to-day in the heart of civilization, where money is in reality legs
and wings and hands, is nothing more than a torso without it, he
thought. He felt mutilated, unspeakably humiliated. It seemed more
out of his ability to get any honest employment than it had ever done
before. A number of laborers with their dinner-satchels, and their
pickaxes over their shoulders, passed him. They looked at him, as
they passed, with gloomy hostility. It was as if they accused him of
having something which of a right belonged to them. He fell to
wondering how he would figure in their ranks. He was no longer a very
young man. However, his muscles were still good and supple; it really
seemed to him that he might dig or pick away at rocks, as he had seen
men doing in that apparently aimless and hopeless and never-ending
fashion. He thought in such a case he should have to join the union,
and he really wondered if they would admit him, if he pawned his
clothes and should buy some poorer ones. He decided, passing himself
before himself in mental review, that he might be treated by the
leaders of a labor union very much as he had just been treated by Mr.
Baumstein at his area door. He also decided that men like those who
had just met him regard him with even worse suspicion and disfavor.
He remembered stories he had read of gentlemen, of students,
voluntarily joining the ranks of labor for the sake of information,
but it seemed somehow impossible when it was attempted in earnest.
Decidedly, his appearance was against him. He had the misfortune to
look too much like a man who did not need to dig to easily obtain, in
labor's parlance, a job to dig. Yet, while he thought of it, such was
the man's desperation, his rage against his odds of life, that it
seemed to him that a purely physical attack on the earth, to which he
was fastened by some indissoluble laws of nature which he could not
grasp, would be a welcome relief. He felt that with a heavy pick in
his hand he could strike savagely at the concrete rock, the ribs of
the earth, and almost enjoy himself. He felt that it would be like an
attack, although a futile and antlike one, at creation itself. All
this he thought idly, walking, even hurrying, along the slippery
pavement through the pale, sleety mist. He walked as rapidly as he
could, some of the time slipping, and recovering himself with a long
slide. He came to a block of new stone houses, divided from another
by a small space taken up by a little, old-fashioned, wooded
structure that might have been with propriety in Banbridge. He
noticed this, and the thought came to him that possibly it was the
property of some ancient and opinionated mortal who was either
holding it for higher prices or for the sake of some attachment or
grudge. And just as he reached it he saw coming from the opposite
direction his old book-keeper, William Allbright. Allbright, moving
with a due regard to the dangerous state of the pavement, had still
an alacrity of movement rather unusual to him. As he came nearer it
was plain to see that his soberly outlined face, long and
clean-shaven, was elated by something. He started when he recognized
Carroll, and stopped. Carroll felt, meeting him a sensation of
self-respect like a tonic. Here was at least one man to whom he owed
nothing, whom he had not injured. He held out his hand.
"How do you do, Mr. Allbright?" he said.
"Quite well, thank you, Mr. Carroll," replied Allbright, then his
delight, which makes a child of most men, could not be restrained.
"I have just secured a very good position in a wholesale
tea-house--Allen, Day & Co.," he said.
"That is good," said Carroll, echoing the other's enthusiasm. He
really felt a leap of joy in his soul because of the other's
good-fortune. He felt that in some way he himself needed to be
congratulated for his good-fortune, that he had been instrumental in
securing it. His face lit up. "I am delighted, Mr. Allbright," he
repeated.
"Yes, it is a very good thing for me," said Allbright, simply. "I was
beginning to get a little discouraged. I had saved a little, but I
did not like to spend it all, and I have my sister to take care of."
"I am very glad," Carroll said, still again.
Allbright then looked at him with a little attention, pushing, as it
were, his own self, intensified by joy, aside. "You are not looking
very well, Mr. Carroll," he said, deferentially, and yet with a
kindly concern.
"I am very well," said Carroll. Then he pulled out his watch again,
and Allbright noticed quickly that it was a dollar watch. He
remembered his suspicion. "I must hurry if I am to get my train,"
said Carroll. "You live here, Mr. Allbright?"
"Yes. I have lived here for twenty years."
"Well, I am very glad to hear of your good-fortune. Good-day, Mr.
Allbright."
Carroll had not advanced three paces from Allbright before his feet
glissaded on the thin glare of the pavement, he tried to recover
himself, and came down heavily, striking his head; then he knew no
more for some time.