MR. GEORGE TUTTLE, reclining at ease in his limousine, opened one eye
just enough to perceive that daylight had reached his part of the world,
then closed that eye, and murmured languidly. What he said, however, was
not, “Home, Parker,” or “To the club, Eugene;” this murmur of his was
not only languid but plaintive. A tear appeared upon the lower lid of
the eye that had opened, for it was a weak and drowsy eye, and after
hours of solid darkness the light fretted it. Moreover, the tear, as a
greeting to the new day, harmonized perfectly with Mr. Tuttle’s murmur,
which was so little more than a husky breathing that only an acute ear
close by could have caught it: “Oh, Gosh!” Then he turned partly over,
shifting his body so as to lie upon his left side among the shavings
that made his limousine such a comfortable bedroom.
After thousands of years of wrangling, economists still murder one
another to emphasize varying ideas of what constitutes the ownership of
anything; and some people (the most emphatic of all) maintain that
everybody owns everything, which is obviously the same as saying that
nobody owns anything, especially his own right hand. So it may be a
little hasty to speak of this limousine, in which Mr. Tuttle lay
finishing his night’s sleep, as belonging to him in particular; but he
was certainly the only person who had the use of it, and no other person
in the world believed himself to be its owner. A doubt better founded
may rest upon a definition of the word “limousine;” for Mr. Tuttle’s
limousine was not an automobile; it had no engine, no wheels, no
steering-gear; neither had it cushions nor glass; yet Mr. Tuttle thought
of it and spoke of it as his limousine, and took some pleasure in such
thinking and speaking.
Definitely, it was what is known as a “limousine body” in an extreme but
permanent state of incompletion. That is to say, the wooden parts of a
“limousine body” had been set up, put together on a “buck,” or trestle,
and then abandoned with apparently the same abruptness and finality that
marked the departure of the Pompeiian baker who hurried out of his
bakery and left his bread two thousand years in the oven. So sharply the
“post-war industrial depression” had struck the factory, that the
workmen seemed to have run for their lives from the place, leaving
everything behind them just as it happened to be at the moment of panic.
And then, one cold evening, eighteen months afterward, the excavator,
Tuttle, having dug within the neighbouring city dump-heap to no
profitable result, went to explore the desert spaces where once had been
the bustling industries, and found this body of a limousine, just as it
had been abandoned by the workmen fleeing from ruin. He furnished it
plainly with simple shavings and thus made a home.
His shelter was double, for this little house of his itself stood
indoors, under a roof that covered acres. When the watery eye of Mr.
Tuttle opened, it beheld a room vaster than any palace hall, and so
littered with unaccountable other automobile bodies in embryo that their
shapes grew vague and small in the distance. But nothing living was here
except himself; what leather had been in the great place was long since
devoured, and the rats had departed. A night-watchman, paid by the
receiver-in-bankruptcy, walked through the long shops once or twice a
night, swinging a flashlight; but he was unaware of the tenant, and
usually Mr. Tuttle, in slumber, was unaware of him.
The watery eye, having partly opened and then wholly closed, remained
closed for another hour. All round about, inside and outside the great
room, there was silence; for beyond these shops there were only other
shops and others and others, covering square miles, and all as still as
a village midnight. They were as quiet as that every day in the week;
but on weekdays the cautious Tuttle usually went out rather early,
because sometimes a clerk from the receiver’s office dawdled about the
place with a notebook. To-day was Sunday; no one would come; so he slept
as long as he could.
His reasons were excellent as reasons, though immoral at the
source;—that is to say, he should not have had such reasons. He was not
well, and sleep is healing; his reasons for sleeping were therefore
good: but he should not have been unwell; his indisposition was produced
by sin; he had broken the laws of his country and had drunk of illegal
liquor, atrocious in quality; his reasons for sleeping were therefore
bad. His sleep was not a good sleep.
From time to time little manifestations proved its gross character; he
lay among the shavings like a fat grampus basking in sea-foam, and he
breathed like one; but sometimes his mouth would be pushed upward in
misdirected expansions; his cheeks would distend, and then suddenly
collapse, after explosion. Lamentable sounds came from within his
corrugated throat, and from deeper tubes; a shoulder now and then jumped
suddenly; and his upper ear, long and soiled, frequently twitched enough
to move the curl of shaving that lay upon it. For a time one of his legs
trembled violently; then of its own free will and without waking him, it
bent and straightened repeatedly, using the motions of a leg that is
walking and confident that it is going somewhere. Having arrived at its
destination, it rested; whereupon its owner shivered, and, thinking he
pulled a blanket higher about his shoulders, raked a few more shavings
upon him. Finally, he woke, and, still keeping his eyes closed, stroked
his beard.
It was about six weeks old and no uncommon ornament with Mr. Tuttle; for
usually he wore either a beard or something on the way to become one; he
was indifferent which, though he might have taken pride in so much
originality in an over-razored age. His round and somewhat oily head,
decorated with this beard upon a face a little blurred by puffiness, was
a relic; the last survival of a type of head long ago gloriously
portrayed and set before a happy public by that adept in the most
perishable of the arts, William Hoey. Mr. Tuttle was heavier in body
than the blithe comedian’s creation, it is true; he was incomparably
slower in wit and lower in spirits, yet he might well enough have sat
for the portrait of an older brother of Mr. Hoey’s masterpiece, “Old
Hoss.”
Having stroked his beard with a fat and dingy hand, he uttered detached
guttural complaints in Elizabethan monosyllables, followed these with
sighing noises; then, at the instigation of some abdominal feeling of
horror, shuddered excessively, opened his eyes to a startled wideness
and abruptly sat up in his bed. To the interior of his bosky ear, just
then, was borne the faint religious sound of church bells chiming in a
steeple miles away in the centre of the city, and he was not pleased. An
expression of disfavour slightly altered the contours of his face; he
muttered defiantly, and decided to rise and go forth.
Nothing could have been simpler. The April night had been chilly, and he
had worn his shoes; no nightgear had to be exchanged for other
garments;—in fact no more was to be done than to step out of the
limousine. He did so, taking his greenish and too plastic “Derby” hat
with him; and immediately he stood forth upon the factory floor as well
equipped to face the public as ever. Thus, except for several
safety-pins, glinting too brightly where they might least have been
expected, he was a most excellent specimen of the protective coloration
exhibited by man; for man has this instinct, undoubtedly. On the bright
beaches by the sea, how gaily he conforms is to be noted by the dullest
observer; in the autumnal woods man goes dull green and dead leaf brown;
and in the smoky city all men, inside and out, are the colour of smoke.
Mr. Tuttle stood forth, the colour of the grimy asphalt streets on which
he lived; and if at any time he had chosen to rest in a gutter, no
extraneous tint would have hinted of his presence.
Not far from him was a faucet over a sink; and he went to it, but not
for the purpose of altering his appearance. Lacking more stimulating
liquid, it was the inner man that wanted water; and he set his mouth to
the faucet, drinking long, but not joyously. Then he went out to the
sunshine of that spring morning, with the whole world before him, and
his the choice of what to do with it.
He chose to walk toward the middle part of the city, the centre of
banking and trade; but he went slowly, his eye wandering over the
pavement; and so, before long, he decided to smoke. He was near the
great building of the railway station at the time, and, lighting what
was now his cigarette (for he had a match of his own) he leaned back
against a stone pilaster, smoked and gazed unfavourably upon the
taxicabs in the open square before the station.
As he stood thus, easing his weight against the stone and musing, he was
hailed by an acquaintance, a tall negro, unusually limber at the knees
and naïvely shabby in dress, but of amiable expression and soothing
manners.
“How do, Mist’ Tuttle,” he said genially, in a light tenor voice. “How
the worl’ treatin’ you vese days, Mist’ Tuttle? I hope evathing movin’
the ri’ way to please you nicely.”
Mr. Tuttle shook his head. “Yeh!” he returned sarcastically. “Seems like
it, don’t it! Look at ’em, I jest ast you! _Look_ at ’em!”
“Look at who?”
“At them taxicabs,” Mr. Tuttle replied, with sudden heat. “That’s a nice
sight fer decent people to haf to look at!” And he added, with rancour:
“On a Sunday, too!”
“Well, you take them taxicabs now,” the negro said, mildly
argumentative, “an’ what hurt they doin’ to nobody to jes’ look at ’em,
Mist’ Tuttle? I fine myse’f in some difficulty to git the point of what
you was a-settin’ you’se’f to point out, Mist’ Tuttle. What make you so
industrious ’gains’ them taxicabs?”
“I’ll tell you soon enough,” Mr. Tuttle said ominously. “I reckon if
they’s a man alive in this here world to-day, I’m the one ’t can tell
you jest exackly what I got against them taxicabs. In the first place,
take and look where the United States stood twenty years ago, when they
wasn’t any o’ them things, and then take and look where the United
States stands to-day, when it’s full of ’em! I don’t ast you to take my
word fer it; I only ast you to use your own eyes and take and look
around you and see where the United States stands to-day and what it’s
comin’ to!”
But the coloured man’s perplexity was not dispelled; he pushed back his
ancient soft hat in order to assist his brain, but found the organ still
unstimulated after adjacent friction, and said plaintively: “I cain’
seem to grasp jes’ whur you aiminin’ at. What you say the United States
comin’ to?”
“Why, nowhere at all!” Mr. Tuttle replied grimly. “This country’s be’n
all ruined up. You take and look at what’s left of it, and what’s the
use of it? I jest ast you the one simple question: What’s the use of it?
Just tell me that, Bojus.”
“You got me, Cap’n!” Bojus admitted. “I doe’ know what you aiminin’ to
say ’t all! What _do_ all them taxicabs do?”
“Do?” his friend repeated hotly. “Wha’d they do? You take and look at
this city. You know how many people it’s got in it?”
“No, I don’t, Mist’ Tuttle. Heap of ’em, though!”
“Heap? I sh’d say they was! They’s hunderds and hunderds and hunderds o’
thousands o’ men, women and chuldern in this city; you know that as well
as I do, Bojus. Well, with all the hunderds o’ thousands o’ men, women
and chuldern in this city, I ast you, how many livery-stables has this
city got in it?”
“Livvy-stables, Mist’ Tuttle? Lemme see. I ain’t made the observation of
no livvy-stable fer long time.”
Tuttle shook a soiled forefinger at him severely. “You ain’t answered my
question. Didn’t you hear me? I ast you the simple question: How many
livery-stables is they?”
“Well, I ain’t _see_ none lately; I guess I doe’ know, Cap’n.”
“Then I’ll tell you,” said Tuttle fiercely. “They ain’t _any_! What’s
more, I’ll bet twenty thousand dollars they ain’t five livery-stables
left in the whole United States! That’s a nice thing, ain’t it!”
Bojus looked at him inquiringly, still rather puzzled. “You interust
you’se’f in livvy-stables, Mist’ Tuttle?”
At this Mr. Tuttle looked deeply annoyed; then he thought better of it
and smiled tolerantly. “Listen here,” he said. “You listen, my friend,
and I’ll tell you something ’t’s worth any man’s while to try and
understand the this-and-that of it. I grew up in the livery-stable
business, and I guess if they’s a man alive to-day, why, I know more
about the livery-stable business than all the rest the men, women and
chuldern in this city put together.”
“Yes, suh. You own a livvy-stable one time, Mist’ Tuttle?”
“I didn’t exackly own one,” said the truthful Tuttle, “but that’s the
business I grew up in. I’m a horse man, and I like to sleep around a
horse. I drove a hack for the old B. P. Thomas Livery and Feed Company
more than twenty years, off and on;—off and on, I did. I was a horse
man all my life and I was in the horse business. I could go anywhere in
the United States and I didn’t haf to carry no money with me when I
travelled; I could go into any town on the map and make all the money
I’d care to handle. I’d never go to a boarding-house. What’s the use of
a hired room and all the useless fixin’s in it they stick you fer? No
man that’s got the gumption of a man wants to waste his money like that
when they’s a whole nice livery-stable to sleep in. You take some
people—women, most likely!—and they git finicky and say it makes you
kind of smell. ‘Oh, don’t come near _me_!’ they’ll say. Now, what kind
of talk is that? You take me, why, I _like_ to smell like a horse.”
“Yes, suh,” said Bojus. “Hoss smell ri’ pleasan’ smell.”
“Well, I should _say_ it is!” Mr. Tuttle agreed emphatically. “But you
take a taxicab, all you ever git a chance to smell, it’s burnt grease
and gasoline. Yes, sir, that’s what you got to smell of if you run one
o’ them things. Nice fer a man to carry around on him, ain’t it?” He
laughed briefly, in bitterness; and continued: “No, sir; the first time
I ever laid eyes on one, I hollered, ‘Git a horse!’ but if you was to
holler that at one of ’em to-day, the feller’d prob’ly answer, ‘Where’m
I goin’ to git one?’ I ain’t seen a horse I’d be willin’ to _call_ a
horse, not fer I don’t know how long!”
“No, suh,” Bojus assented. “I guess so. Man go look fer good hoss he
fine mighty fewness of ’em. I guess automobile put hoss out o’
business—an’ hoss man, too, Mist’ Tuttle.”
“Yes, sir, I guess it did! First four five years, when them things come
in, why, us men in the livery-stable business, we jest laughed at ’em.
Then, by and by, one or two stables begun keepin’ a few of ’em to hire.
Perty soon after that they all wanted ’em, and a man had to learn to run
one of ’em or he was liable to lose his livin’. They kep’ gittin’ worse
and worse—and then, my goodness! didn’t even the undertakers go and git
’em? ‘Well,’ I says, ‘I give up! _I_ give up!’ I says. ‘Men in this
business that’s young enough and ornery enough,’ I says, ‘why, they can
go ahead and learn to run them things. I can git along nice with a
horse,’ I says. ‘A horse knows what you say to him, but I ain’t goin’ to
try and talk to no engine!’”
He paused, frowning, and applied the flame of a match to the half-inch
of cigarette that still remained to him. “Them things ought to be
throwed in the ocean,” he said. “That’s what _I’d_ do with ’em!”
“You doe’ like no automobile?” Bojus inquired. “You take you’ enjoyment
some way else, I guess, Mist’ Tuttle.”
“There’s jest one simple question I want to ast you,” Mr. Tuttle said.
“S’pose a man’s been drinkin’ a little; well, he can git along with a
horse all right—like as not a horse’ll take him right on back home to
the stable—but where’s one o’ _them_ things liable to take him?”
“Jail,” Bojus suggested.
“Yes, sir, or right over the bank into some creek, maybe. I don’t want
nothin’ to do with ’em, and that’s what I says from the first. I don’t
want nothin’ to do with ’em, I says, and I’ve stuck to it.” Here he was
interrupted by a demand upon his attention, for his cigarette had become
too short to be held with the fingers; he inhaled a final breath of
smoke and tossed the tiny fragment away. “I own one of ’em, though,” he
said lightly.
At this the eyes of Bojus widened. “You own automobile, Mist’ Tuttle?”
“Yes, I got a limousine.”
“What!” Bojus cried, and stared the more incredulously. “You got a
limousine? Whur you got it?”
“I got it,” Mr. Tuttle replied coldly. “That’s enough fer me. I got it,
but I don’t go around in it none.”
“What you _do_ do with it?”
“I use it,” said Tuttle, with an air of reticence. “I got my own use fer
it. I don’t go showin’ off like some men.”
Bojus was doubtful, yet somewhat impressed, and his incredulous
expression lapsed to a vagueness. “No,” he said. “Mighty nice to ride
roun’ in, though. I doe’ know where evabody git all the money. Money
ain’t come knockin’ on Bojus’ do’ beggin’ ‘Lemme in, honey!’ No, suh;
the way money act with me, it act like it think I ain’ goin’ use it
right. Money act like I ain’t its lovin’ frien’!”
He laughed, and Mr. Tuttle smiled condescendingly. “Money don’t amount
to so much, Bojus,” he said. “Anybody can make money!”
“They _kin_?”
“Why, you take a thousand dollars,” said Tuttle; “and you take and put
it out at compound interest; jest leave it lay and go on about your
business—why, it’ll pile up and pile up, you can’t stop it. You know
how much it’d amount to in twenty-five years? More than a million
dollars.”
“Whur all that million dolluhs come from?”
“It comes from the poor,” said Mr. Tuttle solemnly. “That’s the way all
them rich men git their money, gougin’ the poor.”
“Well, suh,” Bojus inquired reasonably, “what about me? I like git rich,
too. Whur’s some poor I kin go gouge? I’m willin’ to do the gougin’ if I
kin git the money.”
“Money ain’t everything,” his friend reminded him. “Some day the people
o’ this country’s goin’ to raise and take all that money away from them
rich robbers. What _right_ they got to it? That’s what I want to know.
We’re goin’ to take it and divide it among the people that need it.”
Bojus laughed cheerfully. “Tell Bojus when you goin’ begin dividin’!
_He_ be on han’!”
“Why, anybody could have all the money he wants, any time,” Tuttle
continued, rather inconsistently. “Anybody could.”
“How anybody goin’ git it?”
“I didn’t say anybody _was_ goin’ to; I said anybody _could_.”
“How could?”
“Well, you take me,” said Tuttle. “John Rockafeller could drive right up
here now, if he wanted to. S’pose he did; s’pose he was to drive right
up to that curbstone there and s’pose he was to lean out and say, ‘Howdy
do, Mr. Tuttle. Git right in and set down, and let’s take a drive. Now,
how much money would you like me to hand you, Mr. Tuttle?’”
“Hoo-_oo_!” cried Bojus in high pleasure, for the sketch seemed
beautiful to him; so he amplified it. “‘How much money you be so kine as
to invite me to p’litely han’ ovuh to you?’ _Hoo!_ Jom B. Rockfelluh
take an’ ast _me_, I tell ’im, ‘Well, jes han’ me out six, sevvum,
eight, nine hunnud dolluhs; that’ll do fer _this_ week, but you come
’roun’ _nex’_ Sunday an’ ast me same. Don’t let me ketch you not comin’
roun’ every Sunday, now!’ _Hoo!_ I go Mist’ Rockfelluh’s house to
dinnuh; he say, ‘What dish I serve you p’litely, Mist’ Bojus?’ I say,
‘Please pass me that big gol’ dish o’ money an’ a scoop, so’s I kin fill
my soup-plate!’ Hoo-_oo_!” He laughed joyously; and then, with some
abruptness descended from these roseate heights and looked upon the
actual earth. “I reckon Jom B. Rockfelluh ain’ stedyin’ about how much
money you and me like to use, Mist’ Tuttle,” he concluded. “He ain’
comin’ roun’ _this_ Sunday, nohow!”
“No, and I didn’t say he was,” Mr. Tuttle protested. “I says he _could_,
and you certainly know enough to know he _could_, don’t you, Bojus?”
“Well,” said Bojus, “whyn’t he go on ahead an’ do it, then? If he kin do
it as well as not, what make him all time decide fer _not_? Res’ of us
willin’!”
“That’s jest the trouble,” Tuttle complained, with an air of reproof.
“You’re willin’ but you don’t use your brains.”
“Brains?” said Bojus, and laughed. “Brains ain’ goin’ make Bojus no
money. What I need is a good lawn-mo’. If I could take an’ buy me a nice
good lawn-mo’, I could make all the money I’m a-goin’ a need the
live-long summuh.”
“Lawn-mower?” his friend inquired. “You ain’t got no house and lot, have
you? What you want of a lawn-mower?”
“I awready got a rake,” Bojus explained. “If I had a lawn-mo’ I could
make th’ee, fo’, fi’ dolluhs a day. See that spring sun settin’ up there
a-gittin’ ready to shine so hot? She’s goin’ to bring up the grass
knee-high, honey, ’less somebody take a lawn-mo’ an’ cut it down. I kin
take a lawn-mo’ an’ walk ’long all vese resident’al streets; git a dozen
jobs a day if I kin do ’em. I truly would like to git me a nice good
lawn-mo’, but I ain’ got no money. I got a diamon’ ring, though. I give
a diamon’ ring fer a good lawn-mo’.”
“Diamon’ ring?” Mr. Tuttle inquired with some interest. “Le’ss see it.”
“Gran’ big diamon’ ring,” Bojus said, and held forth his right hand for
inspection. Upon the little finger appeared a gem of notable dimensions,
for it was a full quarter of an inch in width, but no one could have
called it lustrous; it sparkled not at all. Yet its dimness might have
been a temporary condition that cleaning would relieve, and what struck
Mr. Tuttle most unfavourably was the fact that it was set in a metal of
light colour.
“Why, it ain’t even gold,” he said. “That’s a perty pore sample of a
diamon’ ring I expect, Bojus. Nobody’d want to wear a diamon’ ring with
the ring part made o’ silver. Truth is, I never see no diamon’ ring jest
made o’ silver, before. Where’d you git it?”
“Al Joles.”
“Wha’d you give Al Joles fer it?”
“Nothin’,” said Bojus, and laughed. “Al Joles, he come to where my
cousin Mamie live, las’ Feb’uary an ’bo’de with ’er week or so, ’cause
he tryin’ keep ’way f’m jail. One day he say this city too hot; he got
to leave, an’ Mamie tuck an’ clean up after him an’ she foun’ this ring
in a crack behine the washstan’. Al Joles drop it an’ fergit it, I
reckon. He had _plenty_ rings!”
“I reckon!”
“Al Joles show Mamie fo’ watches an’ a whole big han’ful o’ diamon’ pins
and rings an’ chains. Say he got ’em in Chicago an’ he tuck ’em all with
him when he lit out. Mamie she say this ring worf fi’, six thousan’
dolluhs.”
“Then what fer’d she take and give it to you, Bojus?”
“She di’n’,” said Bojus. “She tuck an’ try to sell it to Hillum’s secon’
han’ joolry sto’ an’ Hillum say he won’ bargain fer it ’count its bein’
silvuh. So she trade it to me fer a nice watch chain. I like silvuh ring
well as gol’ ring. ’S the diamon’ counts: diamon’ worf fi’, six thousan’
dolluhs, I ain’ carin’ what jes’ the _ring_ part is.”
“Well, it’s right perty,” Tuttle observed, glancing at it with some
favour. “I don’t hardly expect you could trade it fer no lawn-mower,
though. I expect——” But at this moment a symptom of his indisposition
interrupted his remarks. A slight internal convulsion caused him to
shudder heavily; he fanned his suddenly bedewed forehead with his hat,
and seemed to eat an impalpable but distasteful food.
“You feel sick, Mist’ Tuttle?” Bojus inquired sympathetically, for his
companion’s appearance was a little disquieting. “You feel bad?”
“Well, I do,” Tuttle admitted feebly. “I eat a hambone yestiddy that up
and disagreed on me. I ain’t be’n feelin’ none too well all morning, if
the truth must be told. The fact is, what I need right now—and I need
it right bad,” he added—“it’s a little liquor.”
“Yes, suh; I guess so,” his friend agreed. “That’s somep’n ain’ goin’
hurt nobody. I be willin’ use a little myse’f.”
“You know where any is?”
“Don’t I!” the negro exclaimed. “I know whur plenty _is_, but the
trouble is: How you an’ me goin’ git it?”
“Where is it?”
“Ri’ dow’ my cousin Mamie’ celluh. My cousin Mamie’ celluh plum full o’
Whi’ Mule. Man say he goin’ buy it off her but ain’ show up with no
money. Early ’s mawn’ I say, ‘Mamie, gi’ me little nice smell o’ you’
nice whisky?’ No, suh! Take an’ fretten me with a brade-knife! Mad
’cause man ain’ paid ’er, I reckon.”
“Le’ss go on up there and ast her again,” Tuttle suggested. “She might
be feelin’ in a nicer temper by this time. Me bein’ sick, and it’s
Sunday and all, why, she ought to show some decency about it. Anyways,
it wouldn’t hurt anything to jest try.”
“No, suh, tha’s so, Mist’ Tuttle,” the negro agreed with ready
hopefulness. “If she say no, she say no; but if she say yes, we all fix
fine! Le’ss go!”
They went up the street, walking rather slowly, as Mr. Tuttle, though
eager, found his indisposition increased with any rapidity of movement;
then they turned down an alley, followed it to another alley, and at the
intersection of that with another, entered a smoke-coloured cottage of
small pretensions, though it still displayed in a front window the card
of a Red Cross subscriber to the “drive” of 1918.
“Mamie!” Bojus called, when they had closed the door behind them.
“Mamie!”
Then, as they heard the response to this call, both of them had the
warming sense of sunshine rushing over them: the world grew light and
bright and they perceived that luck did not always run against worthy
people. Mamie’s answer was not in words, yet it was a vocal sound and
human: somewhere within her something quickened to the call and
endeavoured to speak. Silently they opened the door of her bedroom and
looked upon her where she reposed.
She had consoled herself for her disappointment; she was peaceful
indeed; and the callers at once understood that for several hours, at
least, she could deny them nothing they would ask. They paused but a
moment to gaze, and then, without a word of comment upon their
incredible good fortune, they exchanged a single hurried glance, and
forthwith descended to the cellar.
An hour later they were singing there, in that cool dimness. They sang
of romantic love, of maternal sacrifices, of friendship; and this last
theme held them longest, for Tuttle prevailed upon his companion to join
him many, many times in a nineteenth century tribute to brotherly
affection. With their hands resting fondly upon each other’s shoulders,
they sang over and over:
Comrades, comrades, _ev_-er since we was boys,
Sharing each other’s sorrows, sharing each other’s joys,
Comrades when manhood was _daw_-ning——
Our own, our native land, somewhat generally lawless in mood of late,
has produced few illegal commodities more effective than the ferocious
liquid rich in fusel oil and known as White Mule. Given out of the
imaginative heart of a race that has a genius for naming things, this
perfect name tells everything of the pale liquor it so precisely labels.
The silence of the mule is there, the sinister inertia of his apparent
complete placidity as he stands in an interval of seeming patience;—for
this is the liquor as it rests in the bottle. And the mule’s sudden
utter violence is there, with a hospital cot as a never-remote
contingency for those who misunderstand.
Over-confidence in himself was not a failing of the experienced Tuttle;
and he well knew the potencies of the volcanic stuff with which he
dealt. His sincere desire was but to rid himself of the indisposition
and nervousness that depressed him, and he indulged himself to-day with
a lighter hand than usual. He wished to be at ease in body and mind, to
be happy and to remain happy; therefore he stopped at the convivial,
checking himself firmly, and took a little water. Not so the less
calculating Bojus who had nothing of the epicure about him. Half an hour
after the two friends had begun to sing “Comrades,” Bojus became
unmusical in execution, though his impression was that he still sang;
and a little later Mr. Tuttle found himself alone, so far as song,
conversation and companionship were concerned. Bojus still lived, but
had no animation.
His more cautious friend, on the contrary, felt life freshening within
him; his physical uncertainties had disappeared from his active
consciousness; he was a new man, and said so. “Hah!” he said with great
satisfaction and in a much stronger voice than he had dared to use
earlier in the day. “I’m a new man!” And he slapped himself on the
chest, repeatedly. Optimism came to him; he began to believe that he was
at the end of all his troubles, and he decided to return to the fresh
air, the sunshine and an interesting world. “Le’ss git outdoors and see
what all’s goin’ _on_!” he said heartily.
But first he took some precautions for the sake of friendship. Fearing
that all might not go well with Bojus if Mamie were the first to be
stirring and happened to look into her cellar, he went to the top of the
stairs and locked the door there upon the inside. Then he came down
again and once more proved his moderation by placing only one flask of
Mamie’s distillation in his pocket. He could have taken much more if he
wished, but he sometimes knew when to say no. In fact, he now said it
aloud and praised himself a little. “No! No, sir!” he said to some
applicant within him. “I know what’s good fer you and what ain’t. If you
take any more you’re liable to go make a hog of yourself again. Why,
jest look how you felt when you woke up this morning! I’m the man that
knows and I’m perty smart, too, if you ever happen to notice! You take
and let well enough alone.”
He gave a last glance at Bojus, a glance that lingered with some
interest upon the peculiar diamond ring; but he decided not to carry it
away with him, because Bojus might be overwhelmingly suspicious later.
“No, sir,” he said. “You come along now and let well enough alone. We
want to git out and see what’s goin’ on all over town!”
The inward pleader consented, he placed a box against the wall, mounted
it and showed a fine persistence in overcoming what appeared to be
impossibilities as he contrived to wriggle himself through a window
narrower than he was. Then, emerging worm-like upon a dirty brick path
beside the cottage, he arose brightly and went forth from that quarter
of the city.
It suited his new mood to associate himself now with all that was most
brilliant and prosperous; and so, at a briskish saunter he walked those
streets where stood fine houses in brave lawns. It was now an hour and
more after noon, the air was lively yet temperate in the sunshine, and
the wealth he saw in calm display about him invigorated him. Shining
cars passed by, proud ladies at ease within them; rich little children
played about neat nursemaids as they strolled the cement pavements;
haughty young men strode along, flashing their walking-sticks; noble big
dogs with sparkling collars galloped over the bright grass under tall
trees; and with all of this, Tuttle now felt himself congenial, and even
intimate. Moreover, he had the conviction that some charming and
dramatic adventure was about to befall him; it seemed to be just ahead.
The precise nature of this adventure remained indefinite in his
imagination for a time, but gradually the thought of eating (abhorrent
to him earlier in the day) again became pleasant, and he sketched some
little scenes climaxing in banquets. “One these here millionaires could
do it easy as not,” he said, speaking only in fancy and not vocally.
“One of ’em might jest as well as not look out his big window, see me,
and come down his walk and say, ‘Step right in, Mr. Tuttle. We got quite
a dinner-party to-day, but they’s always room fer you, Mr. Tuttle. Now
what’d you like to have to eat? Liver and chili and baked beans and ham
and eggs and a couple of ice-cold muskmelons? We can open three or four
cans o’ sardines fer you, too, if you’d like to have ’em. You only got
to say the word, Mr. Tuttle.’”
He began to regret Bojus’s diamond ring a little; perhaps he could have
traded it for a can of sardines at a negro restaurant he knew; but the
regret was a slight one; he worried himself little about obtaining food,
for people will always give it. However, he did not ask for it among the
millionaires, whose servants are sometimes cold-hearted; but turned into
an unpretentious cross-street and walked a little more slowly,
estimating the houses. He had not gone far when he began to smell his
dinner.
The odour came from the open front door of a neat white frame house in a
yard of fair size; and here, near the steps of the small veranda, a man
of sixty and his wife were discussing the progress of a row of tulips
about to bloom. Their clothes new-looking, decorous and worn with a
little unfamiliarity, told everybody that this man and his wife had been
to church; that they dined at two o’clock on Sunday, owned their house,
owned a burial lot in the cemetery, paid their bills, and had something
comfortable in a safety deposit box. Tuttle immediately walked into the
yard, took off his hat and addressed the wife.
“Lady,” he said, in a voice hoarser from too much singing than he would
have liked to make it, “Lady, I be’n out o’ work fer some time back. I
took sick, too, and I be’n in the hospital. What I reely wish to ast fer
is work, but the state of unemployment in this city is awful bad. I
don’t ast fer no money; all I want is a chance to work.”
“On Sunday?” she said reprovingly. “Of course there isn’t any work on
Sunday.”
Tuttle stepped a little closer to her—a mistake—and looked appealing.
“Then how’m I a-goin’ to git no nourishment?” he asked. “If you can’t
give me no work, I ain’t eat nothin’ at all since day before yestiddy
and I’d be truly thankful if you felt you could spare me a little
nourishment.”
But she moved back from him, her nostrils dilating slightly and her
expression unfavourable. “I’d be glad to give you all you want to eat,”
she said coldly, “but I think you’d better sign the pledge first.”
“Ma’am?” said Tuttle in plaintive astonishment.
“I think you’ve been drinking.”
“No, lady! No!”
“I’m sure you have. I don’t believe in doing anything for people that
drink; it doesn’t do them any good.”
“Lady——” Tuttle began, and he was about to continue his protest to
her, when her husband interfered.
“Run along!” he said, and tossed the applicant for nourishment a dime.
Tuttle looked sadly at the little round disk of silver as it lay shining
in his asphalt coloured palm; then he looked at the donor and murmured:
“I ast fer bread—and they give me a stone!”
“Go along!” said the man.
Tuttle went slowly, seeming to be bowed in thoughtful melancholy; he
went the more reluctantly because there was a hint of fried chicken on
the air; and before he reached the pavement a buxom fair woman, readily
guessed to be of Scandinavian descent, appeared in the doorway.
“Dinner’s served, Mrs. Pinney,” she called briskly.
Tuttle turned and looked at Mrs. Pinney with eloquence, but she shook
her head disapprovingly. “You ought to sign the pledge!” she said.
“Yes, lady,” he said, and abruptly turned away. He walked out into the
street, where a trolley car at that moment happened to stop for another
passenger, jumped on the step, waved his hand cordially, and continued
to wave it as the car went down the street.
“Well of _all_!” Mrs. Pinney exclaimed, dumfounded, but her husband
laughed aloud.
“That’s a good one!” he said. “Begged for ‘nourishment’ and when I gave
him a dime went off for a street-car ride! Come on in to dinner, ma; I
guess he’s passed out of our lives!”
Nothing was further from Mr. Tuttle’s purpose, however; and Mr. and Mrs.
Pinney had not finished their dinner, half an hour later, when he pushed
the bell-button in their small vestibule, and the buxom woman opened the
door, but not invitingly, for she made the aperture a narrow one when
she saw who stood before her.
“Howdydo,” he said affably. “Ole lady still here, isn’t she?”
“What you want?” the woman inquired.
“Jest ast her to look this over,” he said, and proffered a small
paper-bound Bible, open, with a card between the leaves. “I’ll wait
here,” he added serenely, as she closed the door.
She took the Bible to the dining-room, and handed it to Mrs. Pinney,
remarking, “That tramp’s back. He says to give you this. He’s waitin’.”
The Bible was marked with a rubber stamp: “Presented by Door of Hope
Rescue Mission 337 South Maryland Street,” and the card was a solemn
oath and pledge to refrain from intoxicants, thenceforth and forever. It
was dated that day, and signed, in ink still almost wet, “Arthur T. De
Morris.”
Mrs. Pinney stared at the pledge, at first frowningly, then with a
tendency toward a slight emotion; and without speaking she passed it to
her husband for inspection, whereupon he became incredulous enough to
laugh.
“That’s about the suddenest conversion on record, I guess!” he said.
“Used the dime to get down to the Door of Hope and back before our
dinner was over. It beats all!”
“You don’t think it could be genuine, Henry?”
“Well, no; not in twenty minutes.”
“It _could_ be—just possibly,” she said gently. “We never know when the
right word _may_ touch some poor fellow’s heart.”
“Now, ma,” he remonstrated, “don’t you go and get one of your spells of
religious vanity. That was about as tough an old soak as I ever saw, and
I’m afraid it’ll take more than one of your ‘right words’ to convert
him.”
“Still——” she said, and a gentle pride showed in her expression. “We
can’t tell. It seems a little quick, of course, but he may have been
just at the spiritual point for the right word to reach him. Anyhow, he
did go right away and get a pledge and sign it—and got a Bible, too. It
might be—I don’t say it probably is, but it just might be the beginning
of a new life for him, and it wouldn’t be right to discourage him.
Besides he must really be hungry: he’s proved that, anyhow.” She turned
to the woman in waiting. “Give him back the Bible and his card, Tilly,”
she said, “and take him out in the kitchen and let him have all he wants
to eat. Tell him to wait when he gets through; and you let me know; I’ll
come and talk to him. His name’s Mr. De Morris, Tilly, when you speak to
him.”
Tilly’s expression was not enthusiastic, but she obeyed the order,
conducted the convert to the kitchen and set excellent food before him
in great plenty; whereupon Mr. Tuttle, being not without gallantry, put
his hat on the floor beside his chair, and thanked her warmly before he
sat down. His appetite was now vigorous, and at first he gave all his
attention to the fried chicken, but before long he began to glance
appreciatively, now and then, at the handmaiden who had served him. She
was a well-shaped blonde person of thirty-five or so, tall, comely,
reliable looking, visibly energetic, and, like her kitchen, incredibly
clean. His glances failed to interest her, if she took note of them; and
presently she made evident her sense of a social gulf. She prepared a
plate for herself, placed it upon a table across the room from him and
sat there, with her profile toward him, apparently unconscious of his
presence.
“Plenty room at my table,” he suggested hospitably. “_I_ jest as soon
you eat over here.”
“No,” she said discouragingly.
Not abashed, but diplomatic, he was silent for a time, then he inquired
casually, “Do all the work here?”
“Yep.”
“Well, well,” he said. “You look too young fer sech a rough job. Don’t
they have nobody ’tend the furnace and cut the grass?”
“Did,” said Tilly. “Died last week.”
“Well, ain’t that too bad! Nice pleasant feller was he?”
“Coloured man,” said Tilly.
“You Swedish?” Tuttle inquired.
“No. My folks was.”
“Well sir, that’s funny,” Tuttle said genially, “I knowed they was
_some_p’n Swedish about you, because I always did like Swedish people. I
don’t know why, but I always did taken a kind o’ likin’ to Swedish
people, and Swedish people always taken kind of a likin’ to me. My ways
always seem to suit Swedish people—after we git well acquainted I mean.
The better Swedish people git acquainted with me the more they always
seem to taken a likin’ to me. I ast a Swedish man oncet why it was he
taken sech a likin’ to me and he says it was my ways. ‘It’s jest your
ways, George,’ he says. ‘It’s because Swedish people like them ways you
got, George,’ he says.” Here Tuttle laughed deprecatingly and added, “I
guess he must ’a’ be’n right, though.”
Tilly made no response; she did not even glance at him, but continued
gravely to eat her dinner. Then, presently, she said, without any
emphasis: “I thought your name was Arthur.”
“What?”
“That pledge you signed,” Tilly said, still not looking at him, but
going on with her dinner;—“ain’t it signed Arthur T. De Morris?”
For the moment Mr. Tuttle was a little demoralized, but he recovered
himself, coughed, and explained. “Yes, that’s my _name_,” he said. “But
you take the name George, now, it’s more kind of a nickname I have when
anybody gits real well acquainted with me like this Swedish man I was
tellin’ you about; and besides that, it was up in _Dee_-troit. Most
everybody I knowed up in _Dee_-troit, they most always called me George
fer a nickname like. You know anybody in _Dee_-troit?”
“No.”
“Married?” Tuttle inquired.
“No.”
“Never be’n?” he said.
“No.”
“Well, now, that’s too bad,” he said sympathetically. “It ain’t the
right way to live. I’m a widower myself, and I ain’t never be’n the same
man since I lost my first wife. She was an Irish lady from Chicago.” He
sighed; finished the slice of lemon pie Tilly had given him, and drank
what was left of his large cup of coffee, holding the protruding spoon
between two fingers to keep it out of his eye. He set the cup down,
gazed upon it with melancholy, then looked again at the unresponsive
Tilly.
She had charm for him; and his expression, not wholly lacking a kind of
wistfulness, left no doubt of it. No doubt, too, there fluttered a wing
of fancy somewhere in his head: some picture of what might-have-been
trembled across his mind’s-eye’s field of vision. For an instant he may
have imagined a fireside, with such a competent fair creature upon one
side of it, himself on the other, and merry children on the hearth-rug
between. Certainly he had a moment of sentiment and sweet longing.
“You ever think about gittin’ married again?” he said, rather
unfortunately.
“I told you I ain’t been married.”
“Excuse _me_!” he hastened to say. “I was thinkin’ about myself. I mean
when I says ‘again’ I was thinkin’ about myself. I mean I was astin’
you: You think about gittin’ married at all?”
“No.”
“I s’pose not,” he assented regretfully; and added in a gentle tone:
“Well, you’re a mighty fine-lookin’ woman; I never see no better build
than what you got on you.”
Tilly went out and came back with Mrs. Pinney, who mystified him with
her first words. “Well, De Morris?” she said.
“What?” he returned blankly, then luckily remembered, and said, “Oh,
yes, ma’am?”
“I _hope_ you meant it when you signed that pledge, De Morris.”
“Why, lady, of course I did,” he assured her warmly. “If the truth must
be told, I don’t never drink hardly at all, anyways. Now we got
prohibition you take a poor man out o’ work, why where’s _he_ goin’ to
git any liquor, lady? It’s only rich people that’s usually able to git
any reel good stew on, these days, if I’m allowable to used the
expression, so to speak. But that’s the unfairness of it, and it makes
poor people ready to break out most anytime. Not that it concerns me,
because I put all that behind me when I signed the pledge like you told
me to. If the truth must be told, I was goin’ to sign the pledge some
time back, but I kep’ kind o’ puttin’ it off. Well, lady, it’s done now,
and I’m thankful fer it.”
“I do hope so, I’m sure,” Mrs. Pinney said earnestly. “And I want to
help you; I’ll be glad to. You said you wanted some work.”
“Yes’m,” he said promptly, and if apprehension rose within him he kept
it from appearing upon the surface. Behind Mrs. Pinney stood Tilly,
looking straight at him with a frigid skepticism of which he was fully
conscious. “Yes’m. Any honest work I can turn my hand to, that’s all I
ast of anybody. I’d be glad to help wash the dishes if it’s what you had
in your mind, lady.”
“No. But if you’ll come back to-morrow morning about nine or ten
o’clock, I’ll give you two dollars for cutting the grass. It isn’t a
_very_ large yard, and you can get through by evening.”
“I ain’t got no lawn-mower, lady.”
“We have one in the cellar,” said Mrs. Pinney. “If you come back,
Tilly’ll have it on the back porch for you. That’s all to-day, De
Morris.”
“All right, lady. I thank you for your hospitillity and I’ll be back in
the morning,” he said, and as he turned toward the door he glanced aside
at Tilly and saw that her mouth quivered into the shape of a slight
smile—a knowing smile. “I will!” he said defiantly. “I’ll be back here
at ten o’clock to-morrow morning. You’ll see!”
But when the door closed behind him, Tilly laughed aloud—and was at
once reproved by her mistress. “We always ought to have faith that the
better side of people will conquer, Tilly. I really think he’ll come.”
“Yes’m, like that last one ’t said he was comin’ back, and stole the
knife and fork he ate with,” said Tilly, laughing again.
“But this one didn’t steal anything.”
“No’m, but he’ll never come back, to _work_,” said Tilly. “He said
‘You’ll see,’ and you will, but you won’t see _him_!”
They had a mild argument upon the point, and then Mrs. Pinney returned
to her husband, who was waiting for her to put on her Sunday wrap and
hat, and go with him to spend their weekly afternoon among the babies at
their son’s house. She found her husband to be strongly of Tilly’s
opinion, and when they came home that evening, she renewed the argument
with both of them; so that this mild and orderly little household was
slightly disturbed (a most uncommon thing in its even life) over the
question of the vagrant’s return. Thus, Mrs. Pinney prepared a little
triumph for herself;—at ten o’clock the next morning Tuttle opened the
door of Tilly’s bright kitchen and inquired:
“Where’s that lawn-mower?”
He was there. He had defeated the skeptic and proved himself a worthy
man, but at a price; for again he was far from well, and every movement
he made increased well-founded inward doubts of his constitution.
Unfortunately, he had taken his flask of White Mule to bed with him in
his limousine, and in that comfortable security moderation had seemed
useless to the verge of absurdity. The point of knowing when to say no
rests in the “when;” and when a man is already at home and safe in bed,
“Why, my Glory!” he had reasoned it, “Why, if they ever _is_ a time to
say yes, it must be then!” So he had said “Yes,” to the White Mule and
in the morning awoke feeling most perishable. Even then, as in the
night, from time to time he had vagrant thoughts of Tilly and her noble
build, of the white and shining kitchen, and of those disbelieving cool
blue eyes that seemed to triumph over him and indict him, accusing him
of things she appeared to think he would do if he had the chance. There
was something in her look that provoked him, as if she would stir his
conscience, and though his conscience disturbed him no more than a
baby’s disturbs a baby, he was indeed somewhat disquieted by that cold
look of hers. And so, when he had collected his mind a little, upon
waking, he muttered feebly. “I’ll show her!” Something strange and
forgotten worked faintly within him, fluttered a little; and so, walking
carefully, he kept his word and came to her door.
She looked at him in a startled way. Unquestionably he caused her to
feel something like an emotion, and she said not a word, but went
straightway and brought him the lawn-mower. He looked in her eyes as he
took it from her hand.
“You thought I wouldn’t come,” he said.
“Yes,” she admitted gravely.
“Well,” he said, and smiled affably, “you certainly got a fine build on
you!” And with that, pushing the lawn-mower before him, he went out to
his work, leaving her visibly not offended.
“You showed her!” he said to himself.
In the yard he looked thoughtfully upon the grass, which was rather long
and had not been cut since the spring had enlivened it to a new growing.
The lot seemed longer than it had the day before; he saw that it must be
two hundred feet from the street on which it fronted to the alley in the
rear; it was a hundred feet wide, at least, and except for the area
occupied by the house, which was of modest proportions, all of this was
grass. He sighed profoundly: “Oh, Gosh!” he mourned. But he meant to do
the work, and began it manfully.
With the mower rolling before him, reversed, the knives upward, he went
to the extreme front of the lot, turned the machine over, and, surveying
the prospect, decided to attack the lawn with long straight swathes,
running from the front clear through to the alley—though, even before
he began, the alley seemed far, far away. However, he turned up the
sleeves of his ancient coat an inch or two, and went at his task with a
good heart. That is to say, he started with a good heart, but the
lawn-mower was neither new nor sharp; the grass was tough, the sun hot,
and his sense of unwellness formidable. When he had gone ten feet, he
paused, wiped his forehead with a sleeve, and leaned upon the handle of
the mower in an attitude not devoid of pathos. But he was yet
determined; he thought of the blue eyes in the kitchen and resolved that
they should not grow scornful again. Once more he set the mower in
motion.
Mrs. Pinney heard the sound of it in her room upstairs, looked from the
window, and with earnest pleasure beheld the workman at his toil. Her
heart rejoiced her to have been the cause of a reformation, and
presently she went down to the kitchen to gloat gently over a defeated
antagonist in argument.
“Yes’m,” Tilly admitted meekly. “He fooled me.”
“You see I was right, Tilly. We always ought to have faith that the best
part of our natures will conquer.”
“Yes’m; it looks so.”
“Have we some buttermilk in the refrigerator, Tilly?”
“Yes’m.”
“Then I think you might have some ready for him, if he gets too hot. I
don’t think he looks very well and you might ask him if he’d like some.
You might ask him now, Tilly.”
“Now?” Tilly asked, and coloured a little. “You mean right now, Mrs.
Pinney?”
“Yes. It might do him good and help keep him strong for his work.”
“All right,” Tilly said, and turned toward the ice-box; but at a thought
she paused. “I don’t hear the lawn-mower,” she said. “It seems to me I
ain’t heard it since we began talking.”
“Perhaps he’s resting,” Mrs. Pinney suggested, but her voice trembled a
little with foreboding. “We might just go out and see.”
They went out and saw. Down the full length of the yard, from the street
to the alley, there was one long swathe of mowed grass; and but one,
though it was perfect. Particularly as the trail of a fugitive it was
perfect, and led straight to the alley, which, being paved with brick,
offered to the searchers the complete bafflement of a creek to the
bloodhound. A brick alley shows no trace of a reversed lawn-mower
hurrying over it—yet nothing was clearer than that such a hurrying must
have taken place. For Arthur T. De Morris was gone, and so was the
lawn-mower.
“Mr. Pinney’ll laugh at me I guess, too!” Mrs. Pinney said, swallowing,
as she stood with Tilly, staring at the complete vacancy of the brick
alley.
“Yes’m, he will,” said Tilly, and laughed again, a little harshly.
• • • • • • •
The fugitive, already some blocks distant, propelled the ravished mower
before him, and went so openly through the streets in the likeness of an
honest toiler seeking lawns to mow that he had to pause and decline
several offers, on his hurried way. He took note of these opportunities,
however, remembering the friend he was on his way to see, and, after
some difficulty, finding him in a negro pool-room, proffered him the
lawn-mower in exchange for five dollars, spot cash.
“I ain’ got it,” replied Bojus, flaccid upon a bench. “I ain’ feelin’
like cuttin’ nobody’s grass to-day, nohow, an’ besides I’m goin’ stay
right here till coas’ clear. Mamie ain’ foun’ out who make all her
trouble, ’cause I clim’ out the window whiles she was engage’ kickin’ on
celluh do’; but neighbours say she mighty s’picious who ’twas. I don’
need no lawn-mo’ in a pool-room.”
“Well, you ain’t goin’ to stay in no pool-room forever; you got to git
out and earn your livin’ some time,” Tuttle urged him. “Every man that’s
got the gumption of a man, he’s got to do that!” And upon Bojus’s
lifeless admission of the truth of this statement, the bargaining began.
It ended with Bojus’s becoming the proprietor of the lawn-mower and
Tuttle’s leaving the pool-room after taking possession of everything in
the world that Bojus owned except a hat, a coat, a pair of trousers, a
shirt, two old shoes and four safety-pins. The spoil consisted of
seventy-eight cents in money, half of a package of bent cigarettes, a
pair of dice, a “mouth-organ” and the peculiar diamond ring.
This latter Mr. Tuttle placed upon his little finger, and as he walked
along he regarded it with some pleasure; but he decided to part with it,
and carried it to a pawn-shop he knew, having had some acquaintance with
the proprietor in happier days.
He entered the place with a polite air, removing his hat and bowing, for
the shop was a prosperous one.
“Golly!” said the proprietor, who happened to be behind a counter,
instructing a new clerk. “I believe it’s old George the hackman.”
“That’s who, Mr. Breitman,” Tuttle responded. “Many’s the cold night I
yousta drive you all over town and——”
“Never mind, George,” the pawnbroker interrupted crisply. “You payin’ me
just a social call, or you got some business you want to do?”
“Business,” said Tuttle. “If the truth must be told, Mr. Breitman, I got
a diamon’ ring worth somewheres along about five or six thousand
dollars, I don’t know which.”
Breitman laughed, “Oh, you got a ring worth either five or six thousand,
you don’t know which, and you come in to ask me to settle it. Is that
it?”
“Yes. I don’t want to hock her; I jest want to git a notion if I ever do
decide to sell her.” He set the ring upon the glass counter before
Breitman. “Ain’t she a beauty?”
Breitman glanced at the ring and laughed, upon which the owner hastily
protested: “Oh, I know the ring part ain’t gold: you needn’t think I
don’t know that much! It’s the diamon’ I’m talkin’ about. Jest set your
eye on her.”
The pawnbroker set his eye on her—that is, he put on a pair of
spectacles, picked up the ring and looked at it carelessly, but after
his first glance his expression became more attentive. “So you say I
needn’t think you don’t know the ‘ring part’ ain’t gold, George? So you
knew it was platinum, did you?”
“Of course, I knowed it was plapmun,” Tuttle said promptly, rising to
the occasion, though he had never before heard of this metal. “I reckon
I know plapmun when I see it.”
“I think it’s worth about ten or twelve dollars,” Breitman said. “I’ll
give you twelve if you want to sell it.”
Eager acceptance rushed to Tuttle’s lips, but hung there unspoken as
caution checked him. He drew a deep breath and said huskily, “Why, you
can’t fool me on this here ring, Mr. Breitman. I ain’t worryin’ about
what I can git fer the plapmun part; all I want to know is how much I
ought ast fer the diamon’. I ain’t fixin’ to sell it to you; I’m fixin’
to sell it to somebody else.”
“Oh, so that’s it,” said Breitman, still looking at the ring. “Where’d
you get it?”
Tuttle laughed ingratiatingly. “It’s kind of funny,” he said, “how I got
that ring. Yet it’s all open and above-board, too. If the truth must be
told, it belonged to a lady-cousin o’ mine in Auburndale, Wisconsin, and
her aunt-by-marriage left it to her. Well, this here lady-cousin o’
mine, I was visitin’ her last summer, and she found I had a good claim
on the house and lot she was livin’ in, account of my never havin’
knowed that my grandfather—he was her grandfather, too—well, he never
left no will, and this house and lot come down to her, but I never made
no claim on it because I thought it had be’n willed to her till I found
out it hadn’t, when I went up there. Well, the long and short of it come
out like this: the house and lot’s worth about nine or ten thousand
dollars, but she didn’t have no money, so she handed me over this ring
to settle my claim. Name’s Mrs. Moscoe, Mrs. Wilbur N. Moscoe,
three-thirty-two South Liberty Street, Auburndale, Wisconsin.”
“I see,” Breitman said absently. “Just wait here a minute, George; I
ain’t going to steal it.” And, taking the ring with him, he went into a
room behind the shop, remaining there closeted long enough for Tuttle to
grow a little uneasy.
“Hay!” he called. “You ain’t tryin’ to eat that plapmun ring are you,
Mr. Breitman?”
Breitman appeared in the doorway. There was a glow in his eyes, and
although he concealed all other traces of a considerable excitement,
somehow Tuttle caught a vibration out of the air, and began to feel the
presence of Fortune. “Step in here and sit down, George,” the pawnbroker
said. “I wanted to look at this stone a little closer, and of course I
had to go over my lists and see if it was on any of ’em.”
“What lists?” Tuttle asked as he took a chair.
“From the police. Stolen goods.”
“Looky here! I told you how that ring come to me. My cousin ain’t no
crook. Her name’s Mrs. Wilbur N. Moscoe, South Liberty Street,
Auburnd——”
“Never mind,” Breitman interrupted. “_I_ ain’t sayin’ it ain’t so.
Anyway, this ring ain’t on any of the lists and——”
“I should say it ain’t!”
“Well, don’t get excited. Now look here, George”—Breitman seated
himself close to his client and spoke in a confidential tone—“George,
you know I always took a kind of interest in you, and I want to tell you
what you need. You ought to go get yourself all fixed up. You ought to
go to a barber’s and get your hair cut and your whiskers trimmed. Don’t
go to no cheap barber’s; go to a good one, and tell ’em to fix your
whiskers so’s you’ll have a Van Dyke——”
“A what?”
“A Van Dyke beard. It’s swell,” said Breitman. “Then you go get you a
fine pearl-gray Fedora hat, with a black band around it, and a light
overcoat, and some gray gloves with black stitching, and a nice cane and
a nobby suit o’ clo’es and some fancy top shoes——”
“Listen here!” Tuttle said hoarsely, and he set a shaking hand on the
other’s knee, “how much you willin’ to bid on my plapmun ring?”
“Don’t go so fast!” Breitman said, but his eyes were becoming more and
more luminous. He had the hope of a great bargain; yet feared that
Tuttle might have a fairly accurate idea of the value of the diamond.
“Hold your hosses a little, George! You don’t need so awful much to go
and get yourself fixed up like I’m tellin’ you, and you’ll have a lot o’
money left to go around and see high life with. I’ll send right over to
the bank and let you have it in cash, too, if you meet my views.”
“How much?” Tuttle gasped. “How much?”
Breitman looked at him shrewdly. “Well, I’m takin’ chances: the market
on stones is awful down these days, George. Your cousin must have fooled
you _bad_ when she talked about four or five thousand dollars! That’s
ridiculous!”
“How _much_?”
“Well, I’ll say!—I’ll say seven hundred and fifty dollars.”
Tuttle’s head swam. “Yes!” he gasped.
• • • • • • •
No doubt as he began that greatest period in his whole career, half an
hour later, he thought seriously of a pair of blue eyes in a white
kitchen;—seven hundred and fifty dollars, with a competent Swedish wife
to take care of it and perhaps set up a little shop that would keep her
husband out of mischief and busy—— But there the thought stopped short
and his expression became one of disillusion: the idea of orderliness
and energy and profit was not appetizing. He had seven hundred and fifty
dollars in his pocket; and Tuttle knew what romance could come to him
instantly at the bidding of this illimitable cash: he knew where the big
crap games were; he knew where the gay flats and lively ladies were; he
knew where the fine liquor gurgled—not White Mule; he knew how to find
the lights, the lights and the music!
Forthwith he approached that imperial orgy of one heaped and glorious
week, all of high-lights, that summit of his life to be remembered with
never-failing pride when he went back, after it was all over, to his
limousine and the shavings.
It was glorious straight through to the end, and the end was its perfect
climax: the most dazzling memory of all. He forgave automobiles, on that
last day, and in the afternoon he hired a splendid, red new open car,
with a curly-haired chauffeur to drive it. Then driving to a large
hardware store he spent eighteen dollars, out of his final fifty, upon
the best lawn-mower the store could offer him. He had it placed in the
car and drove away, smoking a long cigar in a long holder. Such was his
remarkable whim; and it marks him as an extraordinary man.
That nothing might be lacking, his destiny arranged that Mrs. Pinney was
superintending Tilly in the elimination of dandelions from the front
yard when the glittering equipage, to their surprise, stopped at the
gate. Seated beside the lawn-mower in the tonneau they beheld a superb
stranger, portly and of notable presence. His pearl-gray hat sat amiably
upon his head; the sleeves of his fawn-coloured overcoat ran pleasantly
down to pearl gloves; his Van Dyke beard, a little grizzled, conveyed an
impression of distinction not contradicted by a bagginess of the
eyelids; for it is strangely true that dissipation sometimes even adds
distinction to certain types of faces. All in all, here was a man who
might have recalled to a student of courts some aroma of the entourage
of the late King Edward at Hombourg. There was just that about him.
He alighted slowly—he might well have been credited with the gout—and
entering the yard, approached with a courteous air, being followed by
the chauffeur, who brought the lawn-mower.
“Good afternoon, lady and Tilly,” he said, in a voice unfortunately
hoarse; and he removed his pearl-gray hat with a dignified gesture.
They stared incredulously, not believing their eyes.
“I had a little trouble with your lawn-mower, so I up and got it fixed,”
he said. “It’s the same one. I took and got it painted up some.”
“Oh, me!” Tilly said, in a whisper. “Oh, me!” And she put her hand to
her heart.
He perceived that he dazzled her; that she felt deeply; and almost he
wished, just for this moment, to be sober. He was not—profoundly
not—yet he maintained his dignity and his balance throughout the
interview. “I thought you might need it again some day,” he said.
“Mis-ter De _Mor_-ris!” Mrs. Pinney cried, in awed recognition. “Why,
what on earth——”
“Nothin’,” he returned lightly. “Nothin’ at all.” He waved his hand to
the car. “One o’ my little automobiles,” he said.
With that he turned, and, preceded by the chauffeur, walked down the
path to the gate. Putting his whole mind upon it, he contrived to walk
without wavering; and at the gate, he paused and looked wistfully back
at Tilly. “You certainly got a good build on you,” he said.
Then beautifully and romantically he concluded this magnificent
gesture—this unsolvable mystery story that the Pinneys’ very
grandchildren were to tell in after years, and that kept Tilly a maiden
for many months in the hope of the miraculous stranger’s return—at
least to tell her who and what he was!
He climbed into the car, placed the long holder of the long cigar in his
mouth, and, as the silent wheels began to turn, he took off his hat
again and waved it to them graciously.
“I kept the pledge!” he said.