THE UPPER AND THE NETHER MILLSTONES
Out on the street once more, Ben Blair looked about him as one awakening
from a dream. From the darkened arch of a convenient doorway he watched
the endless passing throng with a dull sort of wonder. He was surprised
that the city should be awake at that late hour; and stepping out into
the light he held up his watch. The hands indicated a few minutes past
ten, and in surprise he carried the timepiece to his ear. Yes, it was
running, and must be correct. He had seemed to be up there on the
eleventh floor for hours; but as a matter of fact it had been only
minutes. Practically, the whole night was yet before him.
Slowly, in a listless way, he started to walk back to his hotel. Instead
of the night becoming cooler it had grown sultrier, and in places the
walk was fairly packed with human beings. More than once he had to turn
out of his way to pass the chattering groups. In so doing he was often
conscious that the flow of small talk suddenly ceased, and that, nudging
each other, the chatterers pointed his way. At first he looked about to
see what had attracted them, but he very soon realized that he himself
was the object of attention. Even here, cosmopolitan as were the
surroundings, he was a marked man, was recognized as a person from a
wholly different life; and his feeling of isolation deepened. He moved
on more swiftly.
The sidewalk in front of his hotel was fringed with a row of chairs, in
which sat guests in various stages of negligee costume. Nearly every man
was smoking, and the effect in the semi-darkness was like that of
footlights turned low. Steps and lobby were likewise crowded; but Ben
made his way straight to his room. One idea now possessed him. His
business was finished, and he wanted to be away. Turning on a light, he
found a railroad guide and ran down the columns of figures. There was no
late night train going West; he must wait until morning. Extinguishing
the light, he drew a chair to the open window and lit a cigar.
With physical inactivity, consciousness of his surroundings forced
themselves on his attention. Subdued, pulsating, penetrating, the murmur
of the great hotel came to his ears; the drone of indistinguishable
voices, the pattering footsteps of bell-boys and _habitués_, the purr of
the elevator as it moved from floor to floor, the click of the gate as
it stopped at his own level, the renewed monotone as it passed by.
Continuous, untiring, the sounds suggested the unthinking vitality of a
steam-engine or of a dynamo in a powerhouse. A mechanic by nature, as a
school-boy Ben had often induced Scotty to take him to the electric
light station, where he had watched the great machines with a
fascination bordering on awe, until fairly dragged away by the prosaic
Englishman. This feeling of his childhood recurred to him now with
irresistible force. The throb of the motor of human life was pulsating
in his ears; but added to it was something more, something elusive,
intangible, but all-powerful. The moment he had arrived within the city
limits he had felt the first trace of its presence. As he approached the
centre of congestion it had deepened, had become more and more a guiding
influence. Since then, by day or by night, wherever he went, augmenting
or diminishing, it was constantly with him. And it was not with him
alone. Every human being with whom he came in contact was likewise
consciously or unconsciously under the spell. The crowds he had passed
on the streets were unthinkingly answering its guidance. The trolley
cars echoed its voice. It was the spirit of unrest--a thing ubiquitous
and all-penetrating as the air that filled their lungs--a subtle
stimulant that they took in with every breath.
Ben Blair arose and put on his hat. He had been sitting only a few
minutes, but he felt that he could not longer bear the inactivity. To do
so meant to think; and thought was the thing that to-night he was
attempting to avoid. Moreover, for one of the few times in his life he
could remember he was desperately lonely. It seemed to him that nowhere
within a thousand miles was another of his own kind. Instinctively he
craved relief, and that alleviation could come in but one way,--through
physical activity. Again he sought the street.
To some persons a great relief from loneliness is found in mingling with
a crowd, even though it be of strangers; but Ben was not like these. His
desire was to be away as far as possible from the maddening drone.
Boarding a street car, he rode out into the residence section, clear to
the end of the loop; then, alighting, he started to walk back. A full
moon had arisen, and outside the shadow-blots of trees and buildings the
earth was all alight. The asphalt of the pavements and the cement of the
walks glistened white under its rays. Loth to sacrifice the comparative
out-of-door coolness for the heat within, practically every house had
its group on the doorsteps, or scattered upon the narrow lawns.
Accustomed to magnificent distances, to boundless miles of surrounding
country, to privacy absolute, Ben watched this scene with a return of
the old wonder,--the old feeling of isolation, of separateness. Side by
side, young men and women, obviously lovers, kept their places,
indifferent to his observation. Other couples, still more careless, sat
with circling arms and faces close together, returning his gaze
impassively. Nothing, apparently, in the complex gamut of human nature
was sacred to these folk. To the solitary spectator, the revelation was
more depressing than even the down-town unrest; and he hurried on.
Further ahead he came to the homes of the wealthy,--great piles of stone
and brick, that seemed more like hotels than residences. The forbidding
darkness of many of the houses testified that their owners were out of
town, at the seaside or among the mountains; but others were brilliantly
lighted from basement to roof. Before one a long line of carriages was
drawn up. Stiffly liveried footmen, impassive as automatons, waited the
erratic pleasure of their masters. A little group of spectators was
already gathered, and Ben likewise paused, observing the spectacle
curiously.
A social event of some sort was in progress. From some concealed place
came the music of a string orchestra. Every window of the great pile was
open for ventilation, and Ben could hear and see almost as plainly as
the guests themselves. For a time, deep, insistent, throbbing in
measured beat, came the drone of the 'cello, the wail of the clarionet,
and, faintly audible beneath, the rustle of moving feet. Then the music
ceased; and a few seconds later a throng of heated dancers swarmed
through the open doorway to the surrounding veranda, and simultaneously
a chatter broke forth. Fans, like gigantic butterfly wings, vibrated to
and fro. Skilful waiters, in black and white, glanced in and out.
Laughter, thoughtless and care-free, mingled in the general scene.
The music still, Ben Blair was about to move on, when suddenly a man and
a girl in the shadow of a window on the second floor caught and held his
attention. As far as he could see, they were alone. Evidently one or the
other of them knew the house intimately, and had deliberately sought the
place. From the veranda beneath, the flow of talk continued
uninterruptedly; but they gave it no attention. The spectator could
distinctly see the man as he leaned back in the light and spoke
earnestly. At times he gesticulated with rapid passionate motions, such
as one unconsciously uses when deeply absorbed. Now and again, with the
bodily motions that we have learned to connect with the French, his
shoulders were shrugged expressively. He was obviously talking against
time; for his every motion showed intense concentration. No spectator
could have mistaken the nature of his speech. Passion supreme, abandon
absolute, were here personified. As he spoke, he gradually leaned
farther forward toward the woman who listened. His face was no longer in
the light. Suddenly, at first low, as though coming from a distance,
increasing gradually until it throbbed into the steady beat of a waltz,
the music recommenced. It was the signal for action and for throwing off
restraint. The man leaned forward; his arm stretched out and closed
about the figure of the woman. His face pressed forward to meet hers,
again and again.
Not Ben alone, but a half-dozen other spectators had watched the scene.
An overdressed girl among the number tittered at the sight.
But Ben scarcely noticed. With the strength of insulted womanhood, the
girl had broken free, and now stood up full in the light. One look she
gave to the man, a look which should have withered him with its scorn;
then, gathering her skirts, she almost ran from the room.
Only a few seconds had the girl's face been clear of the shadow; yet it
had been long enough to permit recognition, and instantly liquid fire
flowed in the veins of Benjamin Blair. His breath came quick and short
as that of a runner passing under the wire, and his great jaw set. The
woman he had seen was Florence Baker.
With one motion he was upon the terrace leading toward the house.
Another second, and he would have been well upon his way, when a hand
grasped him from behind and drew him back. With a half-articulated
imprecation Ben turned--and stood fronting Scotty Baker. The
Englishman's face was very white. Behind the compound lenses his eyes
glowed in a way Ben had not thought possible; but his voice was steady
when he spoke.
"I saw too, Ben," he said, "and I understand. I know what you want to
do, and God knows I want to do the same thing myself; but it would do no
good; it would only make the matter worse." He looked at the younger man
fixedly, almost imploringly. His voice sank. "As you care for Florence,
Ben, go away. Don't make a scene that will do only harm. Leave her with
me. I came to take her home, and I'll do so at once." The speaker
paused, and his hand reached out and grasped the other's with a grip
unmistakable. "I appreciate your motive, my boy, and I honor it. I know
how you feel; and whatever I may have been in the past, from this time
on I am your friend. I am your friend now, when I ask you to go," and he
fairly forced his companion away.
Once outside the crowd, Ben halted. He gave the Englishman one long
look; his lips opened as if to speak; then, without a word, he moved
away.
There was no listlessness about him now. He was throbbing with repressed
energy, like a great engine with steam up. His feet tapped with the
regularity of clock-ticks over mile after mile of the city walks. He
longed for physical weariness, for sleep; but the day, with its manifold
mental exaltations and depressions, prevented. It seemed to him that he
could never sleep again, could never again be weary. He could only walk
on and on.
Down town again, he found the crowds smaller and the border of chairs in
front of his hotel largely empty. A few cigars still burned in the
half-light, but they were the last flicker of a conflagration now all
but extinguished. The restless throb of the human dynamo was lower and
more subdued. The street cars were practically empty. Instead of a
constant stream of vehicles, an occasional cab clattered past. The city
was preparing for its brief hours of fitful rest.
Straight on Ben walked, between the towering office buildings, beside
the now darkened department-store hives, past the giant wholesale
establishments and warehouses; until, quite unintentionally on his part,
and almost before he realized it, he found himself in another world,
another city, as distinct as though it were no part of the cosmopolitan
whole. Again he came upon throbbing life; but of quite another type.
Once more he met people in abundance, noisy, chattering human beings;
but more frequently than his own he now heard foreign tongues that he
did not understand, and did not even recognize. No longer were the
pedestrians well dressed or apparently prosperous. Instead, poverty and
squalor and filth were rampant. More loth even than the well-to-do of
the suburbs to go within doors, the swarming mass of humanity covered
the steps of the houses, and overflowed upon the sidewalk, even upon the
street itself. There were men, women, children; the lame, the halt, the
blind. The elders stared at the visitor, while the youngsters, secure
in numbers, guyed him to their hearts' content.
It was all as foreign to any previous experience of this countryman as
though he had come from a different planet. He had read of the city
slums as of Stanley's Central African negro tribes with unpronounceable
names; and he had thought of them in much the same way. To him they had
been something known to exist, but with which it was but remotely
probable he would ever come in contact. Now, without preparation or
premeditation, thrown face to face with the reality, it brought upon him
a sickening feeling, a sort of mental nausea. Ben was not a
philanthropist or a social reformer; the inspiring thought of the
inexhaustible field for usefulness therein presented had never occurred
to him. He wished chiefly to get away from the stench and ugliness; and,
turning down a cross street, he started to return.
The locality he now entered was more modern and better lighted than the
one he left behind. The decorated building fronts, with their dazzling
electric signs, partook of the characteristics of the inhabitants, who
seemed overdressed and vulgarly ostentatious. The gaudily trapped
saloons, _cafés_, and music halls, spoke a similar message. This was the
recreation spot of the people of the quarter; their land of lethe. So
near were the saloons and drinking gardens that from their open doorways
there came a pungent odor of beer. Every place had instrumental music of
some kind. Mandolins and guitars, in the hands of gentlemen of color,
were the favorites. Pianos of execrable tone, played by youths with
defective complexions, or by machinery, were a close second. Before one
place, a crowd blocked the sidewalk; and there Ben stopped. A vaudeville
performance was going on within--an invisible dialect comedian doing a
German stunt to the accompaniment of wooden clogs and disarranged verbs.
A barker in front, coatless, his collar loosened, a black string tie
dangling over an unclean shirt front, was temporarily taking a
much-needed rest. An electric sign overhead dyed his cheeks with
shifting colors--first red, then green, then white. Despite its veneer
of brazen effrontery, the face, with its great mouth and two days'
growth of beard, was haggard and weary looking. Ben mentally pictured,
with a feeling of compassion, other human beings doing their idiotic
"stunts" inside, sweltering in the foul air; and he wondered how, if an
atom of self-respect remained in their make-up, they could fail to
despise themselves.
But the comedian had subsided in a roar of applause, and again the
barker's hands were gesticulating wildly.
"Now's your time, ladies and gentlemen," he harangued. "It's continuous,
you know, and Madame--"
But Ben did not wait for more. Elbow first, he pushed into the crowd,
and as it instantly closed about him the odor of unclean bodies made him
fairly hold his breath.
Straight ahead, looking neither to right nor to left, went the
countryman; he turned the corner of the block, a corner without a light.
Suddenly, with an instinctive tightening of his breath, he drew back. He
had nearly stepped upon a man, dead drunk, stretched half in a darkened
doorway, half on the walk. The wretch's head was bent back over one of
the iron steps until it seemed as if he must choke, and he was snoring
heavily.
Not a policeman was in sight, and Ben, in great physical disgust,
carried the helpless hulk to one side, out of the way of pedestrians,
took off the tattered coat and rolled it into a pillow for the head, and
then moved on with the sound of the stertorous drunken breathing still
in his ears.
Still other experiences were in store for him. He made a half block
without further interruption; then he suddenly heard at his back a
frightened scream, and a young woman came running toward him, followed
at a distance by a roughly dressed man, the latter apparently the worse
for liquor. Blair stopped, and the girl coming up, caught him by the arm
imploringly.
"Help me, Mister, please!" she pleaded breathlessly. "He--Tom, back
there--insulted me. I--" A burst of hysterical tears interrupted the
confession.
Meanwhile, seeing the turn events had taken, the pursuer had likewise
stopped, and now he hesitated.
"All right," replied Ben. "Go ahead! I'll see that the fellow doesn't
trouble you again." And he started back.
But the girl's hand was again upon his arm. "No," she protested, "not
that way, please. He's my steady, Tom is, only to-night he's drank too
much, and--and--he doesn't realize what he's doing." The grip on his arm
tightened as she looked imploringly into his face. "Take me home,
please!" A catch was in her voice. "I'm afraid."
Ben hesitated. Even in the half-light the petitioner's face hinted
brazenly of cosmetics.
"Where do you live?" he asked shortly.
"Only a little way, less than a block, and it's the direction you're
going. Please take me!"
"Very well," said Blair, and they moved on, the girl still clinging to
him and sobbing at intervals. Before a dark three-story and basement
building, with a decidedly sinister aspect, she stopped and indicated a
stairway.
"This is the place."
"All right," responded Ben. "I guess you're safe now. Good-night!"
But she clung to him the tighter. "Come up with me," she insisted.
"We're only on the second floor, and I haven't thanked you yet. Really,
I'm so grateful! You don't know what it means to be a girl, and--and--"
Her feelings got the better of her again, and she paused to wipe her
eyes on her sleeve. "My mother will be so thankful too. She'd never
forgive me if I didn't bring you up. Please come!" and she led the way
up the darkened stair.
Again Ben hesitated. He did not in the least like the situation in which
circumstances had placed him. The prospect of the girl's mother, like
herself, scattering grateful tears upon him was not alluring; but it
seemed the part of a cad to refuse, and at last he followed.
His guide led him up a short flight of stairs and turned to the right,
down a dimly lighted hall. The ground-floor of the building was used for
store purposes. This second floor was evidently a series of apartments.
Lights from within the rooms crept over the curtained transoms. Voices
sounded; glasses clinked. A piano banged out ragtime like mad.
At the fourth door the girl stopped. "Thank you so much for coming," she
said. "Walk right in," and throwing open the door she fairly shoved the
visitor inside.
From out the semi-darkness, Ben now found himself in a well-lighted
room, and the change made him blink about him. Instead of the motherly
old lady in a frilled cap, whom he had expected to see, he found himself
in the company of a half-dozen coatless young men and under-dressed
women, lounging in questionable attitudes on chairs and sofas. At his
advent they all looked up. A sallow youth who had been operating the
piano turned in his seat and the music stopped. Not yet realizing the
trick that had been played upon him, Ben turned to look for his guide;
but she was nowhere in sight, and the door was closed. His eyes shifted
back and met a circle of amused faces, while a burst of mocking laughter
broke upon his ears.
Then for the first time he understood, and his face went white with
anger. Without a word he started to leave the room. But one of the women
was already at his side, her detaining hand upon his sleeve. "No, no,
honey!" she said, insinuatingly. "We're all good fellows! Stay awhile!"
Ben shook her off roughly. Her very touch was contaminating. But one of
the men had had time to get between him and the door; a sarcastic smile
was upon his face as he blocked the way.
"I guess it's on you, old man!" he bantered. "About a half-dozen quarts
will do for a starter!" He nodded to a pudgy old woman who was watching
interestedly from the background. "You heard the gent's order, mother!
Beer, and in a hurry! He looks dry and hot."
Again a gale of laughter broke forth; but Ben took no notice. He made
one step forward, until he was within arm's reach of the humorist.
"Step out of my way, please," he said evenly.
Had the man been alone he would have complied, and quickly. No human
being with eyes and intelligence could have misread the warning on Ben
Blair's countenance. He started to move, when the girl who had first
come forward turned the tide.
"Aw, Charley!" she goaded. "Is that all the nerve you've got!" and she
laughed ironically.
Instantly the man's face reddened, and he fell back into his first
position.
"Sorry I can't oblige you, pal," he said, "but you see it's agin de
house. Us blokes has got--"
The sentence was never completed. Ben's fist shot out and caught the
speaker fair on the point of his jaw, and he collapsed in his tracks.
For a second no one in the room stirred; then before Ben could open the
door, the other men were upon him. The women fled screaming to the
farthest corner of the room, where they huddled together like sheep.
Returning with the tray, the old woman realized an only too familiar
condition.
"Gentlemen!" she pleaded. "Gentlemen!"
But no one paid the slightest attention to her. Forced by sheer odds of
mass toward a corner, Ben's long arms were working like flails. Another
man fell, and was up again. The first one also was upon his feet now,
his face white, and a tiny stream of blood trickling from his bruised
jaw. A heavy beer-bottle flung by one of the women crashed on the wall
over the countryman's head, the contents spattering over him like rain.
One of the men had seized a chair and swung it high, to strike, with
murder in his eye. Attracted by the confusion, the other occupants of
the floor had rushed into the hall. The door was flung open and
instantly blocked with a mass of sinister menacing faces.
Until then, Ben had been silent as death, silent as one who realizes
that he is fighting for life against overwhelming odds. Now of a sudden
he leaped backward like a great cat, clear of all the others. From his
throat there issued a sound, the like of which not one of those who
listened had ever heard before, and which fairly lifted their hair--the
Indian war-whoop that the man had learned as a boy. With the old
instinctive motion, comparable in swiftness to nothing save the passage
of light, the cowboy's hands went to his hips, and as swiftly returned
with the muzzles of two great revolvers protruding like elongated index
fingers. With equal swiftness, his face had undergone a transformation.
His jaw was set and his blue eyes flashed like live coals.
"Stand back, little folks!" he ordered, while the twin weapons revolved
in circles of reflected flame about his trigger fingers. "You seem to
want a show, and you shall have it!" The whirling circles vanished. A
deep report fell upon the silence, and a gaudy vase on the mantle flew
into a thousand pieces. "Stand back, people, or you might get hurt!"
Awed into dumb helplessness, the spectators stared with widening eyes;
but the spectacle had only begun. Like the reports of giant
fire-crackers, only seconds apart, the great revolvers spoke. A nudely
suggestive cast in the corner followed the vase. A quaintly carved clock
paused in its measure of time, its hands chronicling the minute of
interruption. A decanter of whiskey burst spattering over a table. Two
bacchanalian pictures on the wall suddenly had yawning wounds in their
centre. The portrait of a queen of the footlights leaped into the air.
One of the beer-bottles, which the madame had placed on a convenient
table, popped as though it were champagne. Fragments of glass and
porcelain fell about like hail. The place was lighted by a tuft of three
big incandescent globes; and, last of all, one by one, they crashed into
atoms, and the room was in total darkness. Then silence fell, startling
in contrast to the late confusion, while the pungent odor of burnt
gunpowder intruded upon the nostrils.
For a moment there was inaction; then the assembly broke into motion. No
thought was there now of retaliation or revenge; only, as at a sudden
conflagration or a wreck, of individual safety and escape. The hallway
was cleared as if by magic. Within the room the men and women jostled
each other in the darkness, or jammed imprecating in the narrow doorway.
In a few seconds Ben was alone. Calmly he thrust the empty revolvers
back into his pockets and followed leisurely into the hall. There the
dim light revealed an empty space; but here and there a lock turned
gratingly, and from more than one room as he passed came the sound of
furniture being hastily drawn forward as a barricade.
No human being ever knew what occurred behind the locked door of Ben
Blair's room at the hotel that night. Those hours were buried as deep as
what took place in his mind during the months intervening between the
coming of Florence Baker to the city and his own decision to follow her.
By nature a solitary, he fought his battles alone and in silence. That
he never once touched his bed, the hotel maids could have testified the
next morning. As to the decision that followed those sleepless hours,
his own action gave a clue. He had left a call for an early train West,
and at daylight a tap sounded on his door, while a voice announced the
time.
"Yes," answered the guest; but he did not stir.
In a few minutes the tap was repeated more insistently. "You've only
time to make your train if you hurry," warned the voice.
For a moment Blair did not answer. Then he said: "I have decided not to
go."