 | Tales of the jazz age |  |
VIII
When Edith came out into the clear blue of the May
night she found the Avenue deserted. The windows of
the big shops were dark; over their doors were drawn
great iron masks until they were only shadowy tombs of
the late day's splendor. Glancing down toward Forty-second
Street she saw a commingled blur of lights from
the all-night restaurants. Over on Sixth Avenue the
elevated, a flare of fire, roared across the street between
the glimmering parallels of light at the station and
streaked along into the crisp dark. But at Forty-fourth
Street it was very quiet.
Pulling her cloak close about her Edith darted across
the Avenue. She started nervously as a solitary man
passed her and said in a hoarse whisper—"Where bound,
kiddo?" She was reminded of a night in her childhood
when she had walked around the block in her pajamas
and a dog had howled at her from a mystery-big back
yard.
In a minute she had reached her destination, a two-story,
comparatively old building on Forty-fourth, in
the upper window of which she thankfully detected a
wisp of light. It was bright enough outside for her to
make out the sign beside the window—the New York
Trumpet. She stepped inside a dark hall and after a
second saw the stairs in the corner.
Then she was in a long, low room furnished with many
desks and hung on all sides with file copies of newspapers.
There were only two occupants. They were
sitting at different ends of the room, each wearing a
green eye-shade and writing by a solitary desk light.
For a moment she stood uncertainly in the doorway,
and then both men turned around simultaneously and
she recognized her brother.
"Why, Edith!" He rose quickly and approached
her in surprise, removing his eye-shade. He was tall,
lean, and dark, with black, piercing eyes under very thick
glasses. They were far-away eyes that seemed always
fixed just over the head of the person to whom he was
talking.
He put his hands on her arms and kissed her cheek.
"What is it?" he repeated in some alarm.
"I was at a dance across at Delmonico's, Henry,"
she said excitedly, "and I couldn't resist tearing over
to see you."
"I'm glad you did." His alertness gave way quickly
to a habitual vagueness. "You oughtn't to be out
alone at night though, ought you?"
The man at the other end of the room had been looking
at them curiously, but at Henry's beckoning gesture
he approached. He was loosely fat with little twinkling
eyes, and, having removed his collar and tie, he gave
the impression of a Middle-Western farmer on a Sunday
afternoon.
"This is my sister," said Henry. "She dropped in to
see me."
"How do you do?" said the fat man, smiling. "My
name's Bartholomew, Miss Bradin. I know your
brother has forgotten it long ago."
Edith laughed politely.
"Well," he continued, "not exactly gorgeous quarters
we have here, are they?"
Edith looked around the room.
"They seem very nice," she replied. "Where do you
keep the bombs?"
"The bombs?" repeated Bartholomew, laughing.
"That's pretty good—the bombs. Did you hear her,
Henry? She wants to know where we keep the bombs.
Say, that's pretty good."
Edith swung herself onto a vacant desk and sat
seat beside her.
"Well," he asked, absent-mindedly, "how do you
like New York this trip?"
"Not bad. I'll be over at the Biltmore with the Hoyts
until Sunday. Can't you come to luncheon to-morrow?"
He thought a moment.
"I'm especially busy," he objected, "and I hate women
in groups."
"All right," she agreed, unruffled. "Let's you and
me have luncheon together."
"Very well."
"I'll call for you at twelve."
Bartholomew was obviously anxious to return to his
desk, but apparently considered that it would be rude
to leave without some parting pleasantry.
"Well"—he began awkwardly.
They both turned to him.
"Well, we—we had an exciting time earlier in the
evening."
The two men exchanged glances.
"You should have come earlier," continued Bartholomew,
somewhat encouraged. "We had a regular
vaudeville."
"Did you really?"
"A serenade," said Henry. "A lot of soldiers
gathered down there in the street and began to yell
at the sign."
"Why?" she demanded.
"Just a crowd," said Henry, abstractedly. "All
crowds have to howl. They didn't have anybody with
much initiative in the lead, or they'd probably have
forced their way in here and smashed things up."
"Yes," said Bartholomew, turning again to Edith,
"you should have been here."
He seemed to consider this a sufficient cue for withdrawal,
desk.
"Are the soldiers all set against the Socialists?" demanded
Edith of her brother. "I mean do they attack
you violently and all that?"
Henry replaced his eye-shade and yawned.
"The human race has come a long way," he said
casually, "but most of us are throw-backs; the soldiers
don't know what they want, or what they hate, or what
they like. They're used to acting in large bodies, and
they seem to have to make demonstrations. So it happens
to be against us. There've been riots all over the
city to-night. It's May Day, you see."
"Was the disturbance here pretty serious?"
"Not a bit," he said scornfully. "About twenty-five
of them stopped in the street about nine o'clock,
and began to bellow at the moon."
"Oh"— She changed the subject. "You're glad
to see me, Henry?"
"Why, sure."
"You don't seem to be."
"I am."
"I suppose you think I'm a—a waster. Sort of the
World's Worst Butterfly."
Henry laughed.
"Not at all. Have a good time while you're young.
Why? Do I seem like the priggish and earnest youth?"
"No—" She paused, "—but somehow I began
thinking how absolutely different the party I'm on is
from—from all your purposes. It seems sort of—of
incongruous, doesn't it?—me being at a party like that,
and you over here working for a thing that'll make
that sort of party impossible ever any more, if your
ideas work."
"I don't think of it that way. You're young, and
ahead—have a good time?"
Her feet, which had been idly swinging, stopped and
her voice dropped a note.
"I wish you'd—you'd come back to Harrisburg and
have a good time. Do you feel sure that you're on the
right track—"
"You're wearing beautiful stockings," he interrupted.
"What on earth are they?"
"They're embroidered," she replied, glancing down.
"Aren't they cunning?" She raised her skirts and
uncovered slim, silk-sheathed calves. "Or do you disapprove
of silk stockings?"
He seemed slightly exasperated, bent his dark eyes
on her piercingly.
"Are you trying to make me out as criticizing you in
any way, Edith?"
"Not at all—"
She paused. Bartholomew had uttered a grunt. She
turned and saw that he had left his desk and was standing
at the window.
"What is it?" demanded Henry.
"People," said Bartholomew, and then after an instant:
"Whole jam of them. They're coming from Sixth Avenue."
"People?"
The fat man pressed his nose to the pane.
"Soldiers, by God!" he said emphatically. "I had
an idea they'd come back."
Edith jumped to her feet, and running over joined
Bartholomew at the window.
"There's a lot of them!" she cried excitedly. "Come
here, Henry!"
Henry readjusted his shade, but kept his seat.
"Hadn't we better turn out the lights?" suggested
Bartholomew.
"No. They'll go away in a minute."
"They're not," said Edith, peering from the window.
"They're not even thinking of going away. There's
more of them coming. Look—there's a whole crowd
turning the corner of Sixth Avenue."
By the yellow glow and blue shadows of the street
lamp she could see that the sidewalk was crowded with
men. They were mostly in uniform, some sober, some
enthusiastically drunk, and over the whole swept an
incoherent clamor and shouting.
Henry rose, and going to the window exposed himself
as a long silhouette against the office lights. Immediately
the shouting became a steady yell, and a rattling
fusillade of small missiles, corners of tobacco plugs,
cigarette-boxes, and even pennies beat against the window.
The sounds of the racket now began floating up
the stairs as the folding doors revolved.
"They're coming up!" cried Bartholomew.
Edith turned anxiously to Henry.
"They're coming up, Henry."
From down-stairs in the lower hall their cries were
now quite audible.
"—God damn Socialists!"
"Pro-Germans! Boche-lovers!"
"Second floor, front! Come on!"
"We'll get the sons—"
The next five minutes passed in a dream. Edith was
conscious that the clamor burst suddenly upon the three
of them like a cloud of rain, that there was a thunder
of many feet on the stairs, that Henry had seized her
arm and drawn her back toward the rear of the office.
Then the door opened and an overflow of men were
forced into the room—not the leaders, but simply those
who happened to be in front.
"Hello, Bo!"
"Up late, ain't you?"
"You an' your girl. Damn you!"
She noticed that two very drunken soldiers had been
forced to the front, where they wobbled fatuously—one
of them was short and dark, the other was tall and
weak of chin.
Henry stepped forward and raised his hand.
"Friends!" he said.
The clamor faded into a momentary stillness, punctuated
with mutterings.
"Friends!" he repeated, his far-away eyes fixed over
the heads of the crowd, "you're injuring no one but
yourselves by breaking in here to-night. Do we look
like rich men? Do we look like Germans? I ask you
in all fairness—"
"Pipe down!"
"I'll say you do!"
"Say, who's your lady friend, buddy?"
A man in civilian clothes, who had been pawing over
a table, suddenly held up a newspaper.
"Here it is!" he shouted. "They wanted the Germans
to win the war!"
A new overflow from the stairs was shouldered in and
of a sudden the room was full of men all closing around
the pale little group at the back. Edith saw that the
tall soldier with the weak chin was still in front. The
short dark one had disappeared.
She edged slightly backward, stood close to the open
window, through which came a clear breath of cool
night air.
Then the room was a riot. She realized that the soldiers
were surging forward, glimpsed the fat man swinging
a chair over his head—instantly the lights went out,
and her ears were full of shouting and trampling and
hard breathing.
A figure flashed by her out of nowhere, tottered, was
edged sideways, and of a sudden disappeared helplessly
out through the open window with a frightened, fragmentary
cry that died staccato on the bosom of the
clamor. By the faint light streaming from the building
backing on the area Edith had a quick impression
that it had been the tall soldier with the weak chin.
Anger rose astonishingly in her. She swung her
arms wildly, edged blindly toward the thickest of the
scuffling. She heard grunts, curses, the muffled impact
of fists.
"Henry!" she called frantically, "Henry!"
Then, it was minutes later, she felt suddenly that
there were other figures in the room. She heard a
voice, deep, bullying, authoritative; she saw yellow
rays of light sweeping here and there in the fracas.
The cries became more scattered. The scuffling increased
and then stopped.
Suddenly the lights were on and the room was full
of policemen, clubbing left and right. The deep voice
boomed out:
"Here now! Here now! Here now!"
And then:
"Quiet down and get out! Here now!"
The room seemed to empty like a wash-bowl. A
policeman fast-grappled in the corner released his hold
on his soldier antagonist and started him with a shove
toward the door. The deep voice continued. Edith perceived
now that it came from a bull-necked police captain
standing near the door.
"Here now! This is no way! One of your own sojers
got shoved out of the back window an' killed hisself!"
"Henry!" called Edith, "Henry!"
She beat wildly with her fists on the back of the man
in front of her; she brushed between two others; fought,
shrieked, and beat her way to a very pale figure sitting
on the floor close to a desk.
"Henry," she cried passionately, "what's the matter?
What's the matter? Did they hurt you?"
His eyes were shut. He groaned and then looking up
said disgustedly—
"They broke my leg. My God, the fools!"
"Here now!" called the police captain. "Here now!
Here now!"
| Tales of the jazz age | |