 | Tales of the jazz age |  |
MAY DAY
THERE had been a war fought and won and the great
city of the conquering people was crossed with triumphal
arches and vivid with thrown flowers of white,
red, and rose. All through the long spring days the returning
soldiers marched up the chief highway behind
the strump of drums and the joyous, resonant wind of
the brasses, while merchants and clerks left their bickerings
and figurings and, crowding to the windows,
turned their white-bunched faces gravely upon the passing
battalions.
Never had there been such splendor in the great city,
for the victorious war had brought plenty in its train,
and the merchants had flocked thither from the South
and West with their households to taste of all the luscious
feasts and witness the lavish entertainments prepared—and
to buy for their women furs against the next
winter and bags of golden mesh and varicolored slippers
of silk and silver and rose satin and cloth of gold.
So gaily and noisily were the peace and prosperity
impending hymned by the scribes and poets of the conquering
people that more and more spenders had gathered
from the provinces to drink the wine of excitement,
and faster and faster did the merchants dispose of their
trinkets and slippers until they sent up a mighty cry
for more trinkets and more slippers in order that they
might give in barter what was demanded of them.
Some even of them flung up their hands helplessly,
shouting:
"Alas! I have no more slippers! and alas! I have no
what I shall do!"
But no one listened to their great outcry, for the
throngs were far too busy—day by day, the foot-soldiers
trod jauntily the highway and all exulted because the
young men returning were pure and brave, sound of
tooth and pink of cheek, and the young women of the
land were virgins and comely both of face and of figure.
So during all this time there were many adventures
that happened in the great city, and, of these, several—
or perhaps one—are here set down.
I
At nine o'clock on the morning of the first of May,
1919, a young man spoke to the room clerk at the Biltmore
Hotel, asking if Mr. Philip Dean were registered
there, and if so, could he be connected with Mr. Dean's
rooms. The inquirer was dressed in a well-cut, shabby
suit. He was small, slender, and darkly handsome;
his eyes were framed above with unusually long eyelashes
and below with the blue semicircle of ill health,
this latter effect heightened by an unnatural glow which
colored his face like a low, incessant fever.
Mr. Dean was staying there. The young man was
directed to a telephone at the side.
After a second his connection was made; a sleepy
voice hello'd from somewhere above.
"Mr. Dean?"—this very eagerly—"it's Gordon,
Phil. It's Gordon Sterrett. I'm down-stairs. I heard
you were in New York and I had a hunch you'd be here."
The sleepy voice became gradually enthusiastic. Well,
how was Gordy, old boy! Well, he certainly was surprised
and tickled! Would Gordy come right up, for
Pete's sake!
A few minutes later Philip Dean, dressed in blue silk
pajamas, opened his door and the two young men greeted
each other with a half-embarrassed exuberance. They
were both about twenty-four, Yale graduates of the year
before the war; but there the resemblance stopped
abruptly. Dean was blond, ruddy, and rugged under his
thin pajamas. Everything about him radiated fitness
and bodily comfort. He smiled frequently, showing
large and prominent teeth.
"I was going to look you up," he cried enthusiastically.
"I'm taking a couple of weeks off. If you'll sit
down a sec I'll be right with you. Going to take a
shower."
As he vanished into the bathroom his visitor's dark
eyes roved nervously around the room, resting for a
moment on a great English travelling bag in the corner
and on a family of thick silk shirts littered on the chairs
amid impressive neckties and soft woollen socks.
Gordon rose and, picking up one of the shirts, gave it
a minute examination. It was of very heavy silk, yellow,
with a pale blue stripe—and there were nearly a
dozen of them. He stared involuntarily at his own
shirt-cuffs—they were ragged and linty at the edges and
soiled to a faint gray. Dropping the silk shirt, he held
his coat-sleeves down and worked the frayed shirt-cuffs
up till they were out of sight. Then he went to the
mirror and looked at himself with listless, unhappy
interest. His tie, of former glory, was faded and thumbcreased—it
served no longer to hide the jagged buttonholes
of his collar. He thought, quite without amusement,
that only three years before he had received a
scattering vote in the senior elections at college for being
the best-dressed man in his class.
Dean emerged from the bathroom polishing his body.
"Saw an old friend of yours last night," he remarked.
to save my neck. That girl you brought up to New
Haven senior year."
Gordon started.
"Edith Bradin? That whom you mean?"
"'At's the one. Damn good looking. She's still
sort of a pretty doll—you know what I mean: as if you
touched her she'd smear."
He surveyed his shining self complacently in the
mirror, smiled faintly, exposing a section of teeth.
"She must be twenty-three anyway," he continued.
"Twenty-two last month," said Gordon absently.
"What? Oh, last month. Well, I imagine she's
down for the Gamma Psi dance. Did you know we're
having a Yale Gamma Psi dance to-night at Delmonico's?
You better come up, Gordy. Half of New
Haven'll probably be there. I can get you an invitation."
Draping himself reluctantly in fresh underwear, Dean
lit a cigarette and sat down by the open window, inspecting
his calves and knees under the morning sunshine
which poured into the room.
"Sit down, Gordy," he suggested, "and tell me all
about what you've been doing and what you're doing
now and everything."
Gordon collapsed unexpectedly upon the bed; lay
there inert and spiritless. His mouth, which habitually
dropped a little open when his face was in repose, became
suddenly helpless and pathetic.
"What's the matter?" asked Dean quickly.
"Oh, God!"
"What's the matter?"
"Every God damn thing in the world," he said miserably.
"I've absolutely gone to pieces, Phil. I'm all
in."
"Huh?"
"I'm all in." His voice was shaking.
Dean scrutinized him more closely with appraising
blue eyes.
"You certainly look all shot."
"I am. I've made a hell of a mess of everything."
He paused. "I'd better start at the beginning—or will
it bore you?"
"Not at all; go on." There was, however, a hesitant
note in Dean's voice. This trip East had been planned
for a holiday—to find Gordon Sterrett in trouble exasperated
him a little.
"Go on," he repeated, and then added half under his
breath, "Get it over with."
"Well," began Gordon unsteadily, "I got back from
France in February, went home to Harrisburg for a
month, and then came down to New York to get a job.
I got one—with an export company. They fired me
yesterday."
"Fired you?"
"I'm coming to that, Phil. I want to tell you frankly.
You're about the only man I can turn to in a matter like
this. You won't mind if I just tell you frankly, will
you, Phil?"
Dean stiffened a bit more. The pats he was bestowing
on his knees grew perfunctory. He felt vaguely that
he was being unfairly saddled with responsibility; he
was not even sure he wanted to be told. Though
never surprised at finding Gordon Sterrett in mild
difficulty, there was something in this present misery
that repelled him and hardened him, even though it
excited his curiosity.
"Go on."
"It's a girl."
"Hm." Dean resolved that nothing was going to
then he'd have to see less of Gordon.
"Her name is Jewel Hudson," went on the distressed
voice from the bed. "She used to be `pure,' I guess,
up to about a year ago. Lived here in New York—
poor family. Her people are dead now and she lives
with an old aunt. You see it was just about the time
I met her that everybody began to come back from
France in droves—and all I did was to welcome the
newly arrived and go on parties with 'em. That's the
way it started, Phil, just from being glad to see everybody
and having them glad to see me."
"You ought to've had more sense."
"I know," Gordon paused, and then continued listlessly.
"I'm on my own now, you know, and Phil, I
can't stand being poor. Then came this darn girl.
She sort of fell in love with me for a while and, though I
never intended to get so involved, I'd always seem to
run into her somewhere. You can imagine the sort
of work I was doing for those exporting people—of
course, I always intended to draw; do illustrating for
magazines; there's a pile of money in it."
"Why didn't you? You've got to buckle down if
you want to make good," suggested Dean with cold
formalism.
"I tried, a little, but my stuff's crude. I've got talent,
Phil; I can draw—but I just don't know how. I
ought to go to art school and I can't afford it. Well,
things came to a crisis about a week ago. Just as I
was down to about my last dollar this girl began bothering
me. She wants some money; claims she can make
trouble for me if she doesn't get it."
"Can she?"
"I'm afraid she can. That's one reason I lost my
job—she kept calling up the office all the time, and that
letter all written to send to my family. Oh, she's got
me, all right. I've got to have some money for her."
There was an awkward pause. Gordon lay very still,
his hands clenched by his side.
"I'm all in," he continued, his voice trembling. "I'm
half crazy, Phil. If I hadn't known you were coming
East, I think I'd have killed myself. I want you to
lend me three hundred dollars."
Dean's hands, which had been patting his bare ankles,
were suddenly quiet—and the curious uncertainty playing
between the two became taut and strained.
After a second Gordon continued:
"I've bled the family until I'm ashamed to ask for
another nickel."
Still Dean made no answer.
"Jewel says she's got to have two hundred dollars."
"Tell her where she can go."
"Yes, that sounds easy, but she's got a couple of
drunken letters I wrote her. Unfortunately she's not
at all the flabby sort of person you'd expect."
Dean made an expression of distaste.
"I can't stand that sort of woman. You ought to
have kept away."
"I know," admitted Gordon wearily.
"You've got to look at things as they are. If you
haven't got money you've got to work and stay away
from women."
"That's easy for you to say," began Gordon, his eyes
narrowing. "You've got all the money in the world."
"I most certainly have not. My family keep darn
close tab on what I spend. Just because I have a little
leeway I have to be extra careful not to abuse it."
He raised the blind and let in a further flood of sunshine.
"I'm no prig, Lord knows," he went on deliberately.
"I like pleasure—and I like a lot of it on a vacation
like this, but you're—you're in awful shape. I never
heard you talk just this way before. You seem to be
sort of bankrupt—morally as well as financially."
"Don't they usually go together?"
Dean shook his head impatiently.
"There's a regular aura about you that I don't understand.
It's a sort of evil."
"It's an air of worry and poverty and sleepless
nights," said Gordon, rather defiantly.
"I don't know."
"Oh, I admit I'm depressing. I depress myself. But,
my God, Phil, a week's rest and a new suit and some
ready money and I'd be like—like I was. Phil, I can
draw like a streak, and you know it. But half the time
I haven't had the money to buy decent drawing materials—and
I can't draw when I'm tired and discouraged
and all in. With a little ready money I can take
a few weeks off and get started."
"How do I know you wouldn't use it on some other
woman?"
"Why rub it in?" said Gordon quietly.
"I'm not rubbing it in. I hate to see you this way."
"Will you lend me the money, Phil?"
"I can't decide right off. That's a lot of money and
it'll be darn inconvenient for me."
"It'll be hell for me if you can't—I know I'm whining,
and it's all my own fault but—that doesn't change it."
"When could you pay it back?"
This was encouraging. Gordon considered. It was
probably wisest to be frank.
"Of course, I could promise to send it back next
month, but—I'd better say three months. Just as
soon as I start to sell drawings."
"How do I know you'll sell any drawings?"
A new hardness in Dean's voice sent a faint chill of
doubt over Gordon. Was it possible that he wouldn't
get the money?
"I supposed you had a little confidence in me."
"I did have—but when I see you like this I begin to
wonder."
"Do you suppose if I wasn't at the end of my rope
I'd come to you like this? Do you think I'm enjoying
it?" He broke off and bit his lip, feeling that he had
better subdue the rising anger in his voice. After all,
he was the suppliant.
"You seem to manage it pretty easily," said Dean
angrily. "You put me in the position where, if I don't
lend it to you, I'm a sucker—oh, yes, you do. And let
me tell you it's no easy thing for me to get hold of three
hundred dollars. My income isn't so big but that a
slice like that won't play the deuce with it."
He left his chair and began to dress, choosing his
clothes carefully. Gordon stretched out his arms and
clenched the edges of the bed, fighting back a desire
to cry out. His head was splitting and whirring,
his mouth was dry and bitter and he could feel the fever
in his blood resolving itself into innumerable regular
counts like a slow dripping from a roof.
Dean tied his tie precisely, brushed his eyebrows, and
removed a piece of tobacco from his teeth with solemnity.
Next he filled his cigarette case, tossed the empty box
thoughtfully into the waste basket, and settled the case
in his vest pocket.
"Had breakfast?" he demanded.
"No; I don't eat it any more."
"Well, we'll go out and have some. We'll decide
about that money later. I'm sick of the subject. I
came East to have a good time.
"Let's go over to the Yale Club," he continued
moodily, and then added with an implied reproof:
"You've given up your job. You've got nothing else
to do."
"I'd have a lot to do if I had a little money," said
Gordon pointedly.
"Oh, for Heaven's sake drop the subject for a while!
No point in glooming on my whole trip. Here, here's
some money."
He took a five-dollar bill from his wallet and tossed
it over to Gordon, who folded it carefully and put it
in his pocket. There was an added spot of color in
his cheeks, an added glow that was not fever. For
an instant before they turned to go out their eyes met
and in that instant each found something that made
him lower his own glance quickly. For in that instant
they quite suddenly and definitely hated each other.
II
Fifth Avenue and Forty-fourth Street swarmed with
the noon crowd. The wealthy, happy sun glittered in
transient gold through the thick windows of the smart
shops, lighting upon mesh bags and purses and strings
of pearls in gray velvet cases; upon gaudy feather fans of
many colors; upon the laces and silks of expensive
dresses; upon the bad paintings and the fine period
furniture in the elaborate show rooms of interior decorators.
Working-girls, in pairs and groups and swarms,
loitered by these windows, choosing their future boudoirs
from some resplendent display which included even a
man's silk pajamas laid domestically across the bed.
They stood in front of the jewelry stores and picked
and their platinum wrist watches, and then drifted on
to inspect the feather fans and opera cloaks; meanwhile
digesting the sandwiches and sundaes they had eaten
for lunch.
All through the crowd were men in uniform, sailors
from the great fleet anchored in the Hudson, soldiers
with divisional insignia from Massachusetts to California,
wanting fearfully to be noticed, and finding the
great city thoroughly fed up with soldiers unless they
were nicely massed into pretty formations and uncomfortable
under the weight of a pack and rifle.
Through this medley Dean and Gordon wandered;
the former interested, made alert by the display of humanity
at its frothiest and gaudiest; the latter reminded
of how often he had been one of the crowd, tired, casually
fed, overworked, and dissipated. To Dean the
struggle was significant, young, cheerful; to Gordon it
was dismal, meaningless, endless.
In the Yale Club they met a group of their former
classmates who greeted the visiting Dean vociferously.
Sitting in a semicircle of lounges and great chairs, they
had a highball all around.
Gordon found the conversation tiresome and interminable.
They lunched together en masse, warmed with
liquor as the afternoon began. They were all going to
the Gamma Psi dance that night—it promised to be the
best party since the war.
"Edith Bradin's coming," said some one to Gordon.
"Didn't she used to be an old flame of yours? Aren't
you both from Harrisburg?"
"Yes." He tried to change the subject. "I see her
brother occasionally. He's sort of a socialistic nut.
Runs a paper or something here in New York."
"Not like his gay sister, eh?" continued his eager
informant. "Well, she's coming to-night with a junior
named Peter Himmel."
Gordon was to meet Jewel Hudson at eight o'clock—
he had promised to have some money for her. Several
times he glanced nervously at his wrist watch. At four,
to his relief, Dean rose and announced that he was going
over to Rivers Brothers to buy some collars and ties.
But as they left the Club another of the party joined
them, to Gordon's great dismay. Dean was in a jovial
mood now, happy, expectant of the evening's party,
faintly hilarious. Over in Rivers' he chose a dozen
neckties, selecting each one after long consultations with
the other man. Did he think narrow ties were coming
back? And wasn't it a shame that Rivers couldn't
get any more Welsh Margotson collars? There never
was a collar like the "Covington."
Gordon was in something of a panic. He wanted
the money immediately. And he was now inspired
also with a vague idea of attending the Gamma Psi
dance. He wanted to see Edith—Edith whom he hadn't
met since one romantic night at the Harrisburg Country
Club just before he went to France. The affair had died,
drowned in the turmoil of the war and quite forgotten
in the arabesque of these three months, but a picture
of her, poignant, debonnaire, immersed in her own inconsequential
chatter, recurred to him unexpectedly
and brought a hundred memories with it. It was
Edith's face that he had cherished through college with
a sort of detached yet affectionate admiration. He
had loved to draw her—around his room had been a
dozen sketches of her—playing golf, swimming—he
could draw her pert, arresting profile with his eyes shut.
They left Rivers' at five-thirty and paused for a moment
on the sidewalk.
"Well," said Dean genially, "I'm all set now. Think
I'll go back to the hotel and get a shave, haircut, and
massage."
"Good enough," said the other man, "I think I'll
join you."
Gordon wondered if he was to be beaten after all.
With difficulty he restrained himself from turning to
the man and snarling out, "Go on away, damn you!"
In despair he suspected that perhaps Dean had spoken
to him, was keeping him along in order to avoid a dispute
about the money.
They went into the Biltmore—a Biltmore alive with
girls—mostly from the West and South, the stellar débutantes
of many cities gathered for the dance of a famous
fraternity of a famous university. But to Gordon
they were faces in a dream. He gathered together his
forces for a last appeal, was about to come out with he
knew not what, when Dean suddenly excused himself
to the other man and taking Gordon's arm led him
aside.
"Gordy," he said quickly, "I've thought the whole
thing over carefully and I've decided that I can't lend
you that money. I'd like to oblige you, but I don't
feel I ought to—it'd put a crimp in me for a month."
Gordon, watching him dully, wondered why he had
never before noticed how much those upper teeth projected.
"—I'm mighty sorry, Gordon," continued Dean,
"but that's the way it is."
He took out his wallet and deliberately counted out
seventy-five dollars in bills.
"Here," he said, holding them out, "here's seventy-five;
that makes eighty all together. That's all the
actual cash I have with me, besides what I'll actually
spend on the trip."
Gordon raised his clenched hand automatically,
opened it as though it were a tongs he was holding,
and clenched it again on the money.
"I'll see you at the dance," continued Dean. "I've
got to get along to the barber shop."
"So-long," said Gordon in a strained and husky
voice.
"So-long."
Dean began to smile, but seemed to change his mind.
He nodded briskly and disappeared.
But Gordon stood there, his handsome face awry
with distress, the roll of bills clenched tightly in his
hand. Then, blinded by sudden tears, he stumbled
clumsily down the Biltmore steps.
III
About nine o'clock of the same night two human
beings came out of a cheap restaurant in Sixth Avenue.
They were ugly, ill-nourished, devoid of all except the
very lowest form of intelligence, and without even that
animal exuberance that in itself brings color into life;
they were lately vermin-ridden, cold, and hungry in a
dirty town of a strange land; they were poor, friendless;
tossed as driftwood from their births, they would be
tossed as driftwood to their deaths. They were dressed
in the uniform of the United States Army, and on the
shoulder of each was the insignia of a drafted division
from New Jersey, landed three days before.
The taller of the two was named Carrol Key, a name
hinting that in his veins, however thinly diluted by
generations of degeneration, ran blood of some potentiality.
But one could stare endlessly at the long, chinless
face, the dull, watery eyes, and high cheek-bones,
without finding a suggestion of either ancestral worth
or native resourcefulness.
His companion was swart and bandy-legged, with
rat-eyes and a much-broken hooked nose. His defiant
air was obviously a pretense, a weapon of protection
borrowed from that world of snarl and snap, of physical
bluff and physical menace, in which he had always
lived. His name was Gus Rose.
Leaving the café they sauntered down Sixth Avenue,
wielding toothpicks with great gusto and complete detachment.
"Where to?" asked Rose, in a tone which implied
that he would not be surprised if Key suggested the
South Sea Islands.
"What you say we see if we can getta holda some
liquor?" Prohibition was not yet. The ginger in the
suggestion was caused by the law forbidding the selling
of liquor to soldiers.
Rose agreed enthusiastically.
"I got an idea," continued Key, after a moment's
thought, "I got a brother somewhere."
"In New York?"
"Yeah. He's an old fella." He meant that he was
an elder brother. "He's a waiter in a hash joint."
"Maybe he can get us some."
"I'll say he can!"
"B'lieve me, I'm goin' to get this darn uniform off
me to-morra. Never get me in it again, neither. I'm
goin' to get me some regular clothes."
"Say, maybe I'm not."
As their combined finances were something less than
five dollars, this intention can be taken largely as a
pleasant game of words, harmless and consoling. It
seemed to please both of them, however, for they reinforced
it with chuckling and mention of personages
high in biblical circles, adding such further emphasis
as "Oh, boy!" "You know!" and "I'll say so!" repeated
many times over.
The entire mental pabulum of these two men consisted
of an offended nasal comment extended through
the years upon the institution—army, business, or poorhouse—which
kept them alive, and toward their immediate
superior in that institution. Until that very
morning the institution had been the "government"
and the immediate superior had been the "Cap'n"—
from these two they had glided out and were now in the
vaguely uncomfortable state before they should adopt
their next bondage. They were uncertain, resentful,
and somewhat ill at ease. This they hid by pretending
an elaborate relief at being out of the army, and by
assuring each other that military discipline should never
again rule their stubborn, liberty-loving wills. Yet,
as a matter of fact, they would have felt more at home
in a prison than in this new-found and unquestionable
freedom.
Suddenly Key increased his gait. Rose, looking up
and following his glance, discovered a crowd that was
collecting fifty yards down the street. Key chuckled
and began to run in the direction of the crowd; Rose
thereupon also chuckled and his short bandy legs
twinkled beside the long, awkward strides of his companion.
Reaching the outskirts of the crowd they immediately
became an indistinguishable part of it. It was composed
of ragged civilians somewhat the worse for liquor,
and of soldiers representing many divisions and many
stages of sobriety, all clustered around a gesticulating
little Jew with long black whiskers, who was waving his
arms and delivering an excited but succinct harangue.
Key and Rose, having wedged themselves into the
approximate parquet, scrutinized him with acute suspicion,
as his words penetrated their common consciousness.
"—What have you got outa the war?" he was crying
fiercely. "Look arounja, look arounja! Are you rich?
Have you got a lot of money offered you?—no; you're
lucky if you're alive and got both your legs; you're
lucky if you came back an' find your wife ain't gone
off with some other fella that had the money to buy
himself out of the war! That's when you're lucky!
Who got anything out of it except J. P. Morgan an'
John D. Rockerfeller?"
At this point the little Jew's oration was interrupted
by the hostile impact of a fist upon the point of his
bearded chin and he toppled backward to a sprawl on
the pavement.
"God damn Bolsheviki!" cried the big soldier-blacksmith
who had delivered the blow. There was a
rumble of approval, the crowd closed in nearer.
The Jew staggered to his feet, and immediately went
down again before a half-dozen reaching-in fists. This
time he stayed down, breathing heavily, blood oozing
from his lip where it was cut within and without.
There was a riot of voices, and in a minute Rose and
Key found themselves flowing with the jumbled crowd
down Sixth Avenue under the leadership of a thin civilian
in a slouch hat and the brawny soldier who had summarily
ended the oration. The crowd had marvellously
swollen to formidable proportions and a stream of more
non-committal citizens followed it along the sidewalks
lending their moral support by intermittent huzzas.
"Where we goin'?" yelled Key to the man nearest
him.
His neighbor pointed up to the leader in the slouch
hat.
"That guy knows where there's a lot of 'em! We're
goin' to show 'em!"
"We're goin' to show 'em!" whispered Key delightedly
a man on the other side.
Down Sixth Avenue swept the procession, joined here
and there by soldiers and marines, and now and then by
civilians, who came up with the inevitable cry that
they were just out of the army themselves, as if presenting
it as a card of admission to a newly formed Sporting
and Amusement Club.
Then the procession swerved down a cross street and
headed for Fifth Avenue and the word filtered here and
there that they were bound for a Red meeting at Tolliver
Hall.
"Where is it?"
The question went up the line and a moment later
the answer floated back. Tolliver Hall was down on
Tenth Street. There was a bunch of other sojers who
was goin' to break it up and was down there now!
But Tenth Street had a faraway sound and at the
word a general groan went up and a score of the procession
dropped out. Among these were Rose and Key,
who slowed down to a saunter and let the more enthusiastic
sweep on by.
"I'd rather get some liquor," said Key as they halted
and made their way to the sidewalk amid cries of "Shell
hole!" and "Quitters!"
"Does your brother work around here?" asked Rose,
assuming the air of one passing from the superficial to
the eternal.
"He oughta," replied Key. "I ain't seen him for
a coupla years. I been out to Pennsylvania since.
Maybe he don't work at night anyhow. It's right along
here. He can get us some o'right if he ain't gone."
They found the place after a few minutes' patrol of
the street—a shoddy tablecloth restaurant between Fifth
Avenue and Broadway. Here Key went inside to inquire
"He ain't here no more," said Key emerging. "He's
a waiter up to Delmonico's."
Rose nodded wisely, as if he'd expected as much. One
should not be surprised at a capable man changing jobs
occasionally. He knew a waiter once—there ensued a
long conversation as they walked as to whether waiters
made more in actual wages than in tips—it was decided
that it depended on the social tone of the joint wherein
the waiter labored. After having given each other
vivid pictures of millionaires dining at Delmonico's
and throwing away fifty-dollar bills after their first
quart of champagne, both men thought privately of
becoming waiters. In fact, Key's narrow brow was secreting
a resolution to ask his brother to get him a
job.
"A waiter can drink up all the champagne those
fellas leave in bottles," suggested Rose with some relish,
and then added as an afterthought, "Oh, boy!"
By the time they reached Delmonico's it was half
past ten, and they were surprised to see a stream of taxis
driving up to the door one after the other and emitting
marvelous, hatless young ladies, each one attended by a
stiff young gentleman in evening clothes.
"It's a party," said Rose with some awe. "Maybe
we better not go in. He'll be busy."
"No, he won't. He'll be o'right."
After some hesitation they entered what appeared to
them to be the least elaborate door and, indecision
falling upon them immediately, stationed themselves
nervously in an inconspicuous corner of the small dining-room
in which they found themselves. They took
off their caps and held them in their hands. A cloud
of gloom fell upon them and both started when a
comet-like waiter who streaked across the floor and
vanished through another door on the other side.
There had been three of these lightning passages before
the seekers mustered the acumen to hail a waiter.
He turned, looked at them suspiciously, and then approached
with soft, catlike steps, as if prepared at any
moment to turn and flee.
"Say," began Key, "say, do you know my brother?
He's a waiter here."
"His name is Key," annotated Rose.
Yes, the waiter knew Key. He was up-stairs, he
thought. There was a big dance going on in the main
ballroom. He'd tell him.
Ten minutes later George Key appeared and greeted
his brother with the utmost suspicion; his first and
most natural thought being that he was going to be
asked for money.
George was tall and weak chinned, but there his resemblance
to his brother ceased. The waiter's eyes
were not dull, they were alert and twinkling, and his
manner was suave, in-door, and faintly superior. They
exchanged formalities. George was married and had
three children. He seemed fairly interested, but not
impressed by the news that Carrol had been abroad in
the army. This disappointed Carrol.
"George," said the younger brother, these amenities
having been disposed of, "we want to get some
booze, and they won't sell us none. Can you get
us some?"
George considered.
"Sure. Maybe I can. It may be half an hour,
though."
"All right," agreed Carrol, "we'll wait."
At this Rose started to sit down in a convenient chair,
but was hailed to his feet by the indignant George.
"Hey! Watch out, you! Can't sit down here!
This room's all set for a twelve o'clock banquet."
"I ain't goin' to hurt it," said Rose resentfully.
"I been through the delouser."
"Never mind," said George sternly, "if the head
waiter seen me here talkin' he'd romp all over me."
"Oh."
The mention of the head waiter was full explanation
to the other two; they fingered their overseas caps nervously
and waited for a suggestion.
"I tell you," said George, after a pause, "I got a
place you can wait; you just come here with me."
They followed him out the far door, through a deserted
pantry and up a pair of dark winding stairs,
emerging finally into a small room chiefly furnished by
piles of pails and stacks of scrubbing brushes, and illuminated
by a single dim electric light. There he left
them, after soliciting two dollars and agreeing to return
in half an hour with a quart of whiskey.
"George is makin' money, I bet," said Key gloomily
as he seated himself on an inverted pail. "I bet he's
making fifty dollars a week."
Rose nodded his head and spat.
"I bet he is, too."
"What'd he say the dance was of?"
"A lot of college fellas. Yale College."
They both nodded solemnly at each other.
"Wonder where that crowda sojers is now?"
"I don't know. I know that's too damn long to walk
for me."
"Me too. You don't catch me walkin' that far."
Ten minutes later restlessness seized them.
"I'm goin' to see what's out here," said Rose, stepping
cautiously toward the other door.
It was a swinging door of green baize and he pushed
it open a cautious inch.
"See anything?"
For answer Rose drew in his breath sharply.
"Doggone! Here's some liquor I'll say!"
"Liquor?"
Key joined Rose at the door, and I ked eagerly.
"I'll tell the world that's liquor," he aid, after a moment
of concentrated gazing.
It was a room about twice as large as the one they
were in—and in it was prepared a radi nt f a t of spirits.
There were long walls of alternating bottl s set along
two white covered tables; whiskey, gin, brandy, French
and Italian vermouths, and orange juice, not to mention
an array of syphons and two great empty pun h bowls.
The room was as yet uninhabited.
"It's for this dance they're just starting," whispered
Key; "hear the violins playin'? Say, boy, I wouldn't
mind havin' a dance."
They closed the door softly and exchanged a glance of
mutual comprehension. There was no need of feeling
each other out.
"I'd like to get my hands on a coupla those bottles,"
said Rose emphatically.
"Me too."
"Do you suppose we'd get seen?"
Key considered.
"Maybe we better wait till they start drinkin' 'em.
They got 'em all laid out now, and they know how many
of them there are."
They debated this point for several minutes. Rose
was all for getting his hands on a bottle now and tucking
it under his coat before any one came into the room.
Key, however, advocated caution. He was afraid he
might get his brother in trouble. If they waited till
some of the bottles were opened it'd be all right to take
fellas.
While they were still engaged in argument George
Key hurried through the room and, barely grunting at
them, disappeared by way of the green baize door. A
minute later they heard several corks pop, and then the
sound of cracking ice and splashing liquid. George was
mixing the punch.
The soldiers exchanged delighted grins.
"Oh, boy!" whispered Rose.
George reappeared.
"Just keep low, boys," he said quickly. "I'll have
your stuff for you in five minutes."
He disappeared through the door by which he had come.
As soon as his footsteps receded down the stairs, Rose,
after a cautious look, darted into the room of delights
and reappeared with a bottle in his hand.
"Here's what I say," he said, as they sat radiantly
digesting their first drink. "We'll wait till he comes up,
and we'll ask him if we can't just stay here and drink
what he brings us—see. We'll tell him we haven't got
any place to drink it—see. Then we can sneak in
there whenever there ain't nobody in that there room
and tuck a bottle under our coats. We'll have enough
to last us a coupla days—see?"
"Sure," agreed Rose enthusiastically. "Oh, boy!
And if we want to we can sell it to sojers any time we
want to."
They were silent for a moment thinking rosily of
this idea. Then Key reached up and unhooked the
collar of his O. D. coat.
"It's hot in here, ain't it?"
Rose agreed earnestly.
"Hot as hell."
IV
She was still quite angry when she came out of the
dressing-room and crossed the intervening parlor of politeness
that opened onto the hall—angry not so much
at the actual happening which was, after all, the merest
commonplace of her social existence, but because it
had occurred on this particular night. She had no
quarrel with herself. She had acted with that correct
mixture of dignity and reticent pity which she always
employed. She had succinctly and deftly snubbed
him.
It had happened when their taxi was leaving the Biltmore—hadn't
gone half a block. He had lifted his right
arm awkwardly—she was on his right side—and attempted
to settle it snugly around the crimson fur-trimmed
opera cloak she wore. This in itself had been
a mistake. It was inevitably more graceful for a young
man attempting to embrace a young lady of whose
acquiescence he was not certain, to first put his far arm
around her. It avoided that awkward movement of
raising the near arm.
His second faux pas was unconscious. She had spent
the afternoon at the hairdresser's; the idea of any calamity
overtaking her hair was extremely repugnant—
yet as Peter made his unfortunate attempt the point of
his elbow had just faintly brushed it. That was his
second faux pas. Two were quite enough.
He had begun to murmur. At the first murmur she
had decided that he was nothing but a college boy—
Edith was twenty-two, and anyhow, this dance, first
of its kind since the war, was reminding her, with the
accelerating rhythm of its associations, of something
else—of another dance and another man, a man for
whom her feelings had been little more than a sad-eyed,
love with her recollection of Gordon Sterrett.
So she came out of the dressing-room at Delmonico's
and stood for a second in the doorway looking over the
shoulders of a black dress in front of her at the groups
of Yale men who flitted like dignified black moths
around the head of the stairs. From the room she had
left drifted out the heavy fragrance left by the passage
to and fro of many scented young beauties—rich perfumes
and the fragile memory-laden dust of fragrant
powders. This odor drifting out acquired the tang of
cigarette smoke in the hall, and then settled sensuously
down the stairs and permeated the ballroom where the
Gamma Psi dance was to be held. It was an odor she
knew well, exciting, stimulating, restlessly sweet—the
odor of a fashionable dance.
She thought of her own appearance. Her bare arms
and shoulders were powdered to a creamy white. She
knew they looked very soft and would gleam like milk
against the black backs that were to silhouette them tonight.
The hairdressing had been a success; her reddish
mass of hair was piled and crushed and creased to
an arrogant marvel of mobile curves. Her lips were
finely made of deep carmine; the irises of her eyes were
delicate, breakable blue, like china eyes. She was a
complete, infinitely delicate, quite perfect thing of
beauty, flowing in an even line from a complex coiffure
to two small slim feet.
She thought of what she would say to-night at this
revel, faintly prestiged already by the sounds of high and
low laughter and slippered footsteps, and movements of
couples up and down the stairs. She would talk the
language she had talked for many years—her line—made
up of the current expressions, bits of journalese and college
slang strung together into an intrinsic whole, careless,
smiled faintly as she heard a girl sitting on the stairs
near her say: "You don't know the half of it, dearie!"
And as she smiled her anger melted for a moment,
and closing her eyes she drew in a deep breath of pleasure.
She dropped her arms to her side until they were
faintly touching the sleek sheath that covered and suggested
her figure. She had never felt her own softness
so much nor so enjoyed the whiteness of her own arms.
"I smell sweet," she said to herself simply, and then
came another thought—"I'm made for love."
She liked the sound of this and thought it again; then
in inevitable succession came her new-born riot of dreams
about Gordon. The twist of her imagination which, two
months before, had disclosed to her her unguessed
desire to see him again, seemed now to have been leading
up to this dance, this hour.
For all her sleek beauty, Edith was a grave, slow-thinking
girl. There was a streak in her of that same
desire to ponder, of that adolescent idealism that had
turned her brother socialist and pacifist. Henry Bradin
had left Cornell, where he had been an instructor in
economics, and had come to New York to pour the latest
cures for incurable evils into the columns of a radical
weekly newspaper.
Edith, less fatuously, would have been content to cure
Gordon Sterrett. There was a quality of weakness in
Gordon that she wanted to take care of; there was a
helplessness in him that she wanted to protect. And
she wanted someone she had known a long while, someone
who had loved her a long while. She was a little
tired; she wanted to get married. Out of a pile of letters,
half a dozen pictures and as many memories, and
this weariness, she had decided that next time she saw
Gordon their relations were going to be changed. She
was this evening. This was her evening. All evenings
were her evenings.
Then her thoughts were interrupted by a solemn
undergraduate with a hurt look and an air of strained
formality who presented himself before her and bowed
unusually low. It was the man she had come with,
Peter Himmel. He was tall and humorous, with horned-rimmed
glasses and an air of attractive whimsicality.
She suddenly rather disliked him—probably because he
had not succeeded in kissing her.
"Well," she began, "are you still furious at me?"
"Not at all."
She stepped forward and took his arm.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I don't know why I
snapped out that way. I'm in a bum humor to-night
for some strange reason. I'm sorry."
"S'all right," he mumbled, "don't mention it."
He felt disagreeably embarrassed. Was she rubbing
in the fact of his late failure?
"It was a mistake," she continued, on the same consciously
gentle key. "We'll both forget it." For this
he hated her.
A few minutes later they drifted out on the floor while
the dozen swaying, sighing members of the specially
hired jazz orchestra informed the crowded ballroom
that "if a saxophone and me are left alone why then two
is com-pan-ee!"
A man with a mustache cut in.
"Hello," he began reprovingly. "You don't remember
me."
"I can't just think of your name," she said lightly—
"and I know you so well."
"I met you up at—" His voice trailed disconsolately
off as a man with very fair hair cut in. Edith
to the inconnu.
The very fair man insisted on shaking hands enthusiastically.
She placed him as one of the numerous Jims
of her acquaintance—last name a mystery. She remembered
even that he had a peculiar rhythm in dancing
and found as they started that she was right.
"Going to be here long?" he breathed confidentially.
She leaned back and looked up at him.
"Couple of weeks."
"Where are you?"
"Biltmore. Call me up some day."
"I mean it," he assured her. "I will. We'll go to
tea."
"So do I—Do."
A dark man cut in with intense formality.
"You don't remember me, do you?" he said gravely.
"I should say I do. Your name's Harlan."
"No-ope. Barlow."
"Well, I knew there were two syllables anyway.
You're the boy that played the ukulele so well up at
Howard Marshall's house party.
"I played—but not—"
A man with prominent teeth cut in. Edith inhaled
a slight cloud of whiskey. She liked men to have had
something to drink; they were so much more cheerful,
and appreciative and complimentary—much easier to
talk to.
"My name's Dean, Philip Dean," he said cheerfully.
"You don't remember me, I know, but you used
to come up to New Haven with a fellow I roomed with
senior year, Gordon Sterrett."
Edith looked up quickly.
"Yes, I went up with him twice—to the Pump and
Slipper and the Junior prom."
"You've seen him, of course," said Dean carelessly.
"He's here to-night. I saw him just a minute ago."
Edith started. Yet she had felt quite sure he would
be here.
"Why, no, I haven't—"
A fat man with red hair cut in.
"Hello, Edith," he began.
"Why—hello there—"
She slipped, stumbled lightly.
"I'm sorry, dear," she murmured mechanically.
She had seen Gordon—Gordon very white and listless,
leaning against the side of a doorway, smoking and
looking into the ballroom. Edith could see that his
face was thin and wan—that the hand he raised to
his lips with a cigarette was trembling. They were
dancing quite close to him now.
"—They invite so darn many extra fellas that you—"
the short man was saying.
"Hello, Gordon," called Edith over her partner's
shoulder. Her heart was pounding wildly.
His large dark eyes were fixed on her. He took a
step in her direction. Her partner turned her away—
she heard his voice bleating—
"—but half the stags get lit and leave before long,
so—"
Then a low tone at her side.
"May I, please?"
She was dancing suddenly with Gordon; one of his
arms was around her; she felt it tighten spasmodically;
felt his hand on her back with the fingers spread. Her
hand holding the little lace handkerchief was crushed
in his.
"Why Gordon," she began breathlessly.
"Hello, Edith."
She slipped again—was tossed forward by her recovery
coat. She loved him—she knew she loved him—then
for a minute there was silence while a strange feeling
of uneasiness crept over her. Something was wrong.
Of a sudden her heart wrenched, and turned over as
she realized what it was. He was pitiful and wretched,
a little drunk, and miserably tired.
"Oh—" she cried involuntarily.
His eyes looked down at her. She saw suddenly that
they were blood-streaked and rolling uncontrollably.
"Gordon," she murmured, "we'll sit down; I want to
sit down."
They were nearly in mid-floor, but she had seen two
men start toward her from opposite sides of the room,
so she halted, seized Gordon's limp hand and led him
bumping through the crowd, her mouth tight shut, her
face a little pale under her rouge, her eyes trembling
with tears.
She found a place high up on the soft-carpeted stairs,
and he sat down heavily beside her.
"Well," he began, staring at her unsteadily, "I certainly
am glad to see you, Edith."
She looked at him without answering. The effect of
this on her was immeasurable. For years she had seen
men in various stages of intoxication, from uncles all
the way down to chauffeurs, and her feelings had varied
from amusement to disgust, but here for the first time
she was seized with a new feeling—an unutterable
horror.
"Gordon," she said accusingly and almost crying,
"you look like the devil."
He nodded. "I've had trouble, Edith."
"Trouble?"
"All sorts of trouble. Don't you say anything to the
family, but I'm all gone to pieces. I'm a mess, Edith."
His lower lip was sagging. He seemed scarcely to see
her.
"Can't you—can't you," she hesitated, "can't you
tell me about it, Gordon? You know I'm always interested
in you."
She bit her lip—she had intended to say something
stronger, but found at the end that she couldn't bring
it out.
Gordon shook his head dully. "I can't tell you.
You're a good woman. I can't tell a good woman the
story."
"Rot," she said, defiantly. "I think it's a perfect
insult to call any one a good woman in that way. It's a
slam. You've been drinking, Gordon."
"Thanks." He inclined his head gravely. "Thanks
for the information."
"Why do you drink?"
"Because I'm so damn miserable."
"Do you think drinking's going to make it any better?"
"What you doing—trying to reform me?"
"No; I'm trying to help you, Gordon. Can't you
tell me about it?"
"I'm in an awful mess. Best thing you can do is to
pretend not to know me."
"Why, Gordon?"
"I'm sorry I cut in on you—its unfair to you. You're
pure woman—and all that sort of thing. Here, I'll get
some one else to dance with you."
He rose clumsily to his feet, but she reached up and
pulled him down beside her on the stairs.
"Here, Gordon. You're ridiculous. You're hurting
me. You're acting like a—like a crazy man—"
"I admit it. I'm a little crazy. Something's wrong
with me, Edith. There's something left me. It
doesn't matter."
"It does, tell me."
"Just that. I was always queer—little bit different
from other boys. All right in college, but now it's all
wrong. Things have been snapping inside me for four
months like little hooks on a dress, and it's about to
come off when a few more hooks go. I'm very gradually
going loony."
He turned his eyes full on her and began to laugh,
and she shrank away from him.
"What is the matter?"
"Just me," he repeated. "I'm going loony. This
whole place is like a dream to me—this Delmonico's—"
As he talked she saw he had changed utterly. He
wasn't at all light and gay and careless—a great lethargy
and discouragement had come over him. Revulsion
seized her, followed by a faint, surprising boredom.
His voice seemed to come out of a great void.
"Edith," he said, "I used to think I was clever,
talented, an artist. Now I know I'm nothing.
Can't draw, Edith. Don't know why I'm telling you
this."
She nodded absently.
"I can't draw, I can't do anything. I'm poor as a
church mouse." He laughed, bitterly and rather too
loud. "I've become a damn beggar, a leech on my
friends. I'm a failure. I'm poor as hell."
Her distaste was growing. She barely nodded this
time, waiting for her first possible cue to rise.
Suddenly Gordon's eyes filled with tears.
"Edith," he said, turning to her with what was evidently
a strong effort at self-control, "I can't tell you
what it means to me to know there's one person left
who's interested in me."
He reached out and patted her hand, and involuntarily
she drew it away.
"It's mighty fine of you," he repeated.
"Well," she said slowly, looking him in the eye,
"any one's always glad to see an old friend—but I'm
sorry to see you like this, Gordon."
There was a pause while they looked at each other,
and the momentary eagerness in his eyes wavered. She
rose and stood looking at him, her face quite expressionless.
"Shall we dance?" she suggested, coolly.
—Love is fragile—she was thinking—but perhaps the
pieces are saved, the things that hovered on lips, that
might have been said. The new love words, the tendernesses
learned, are treasured up for the next lover.
V
Peter Himmel, escort to the lovely Edith, was unaccustomed
to being snubbed; having been snubbed, he
was hurt and embarrassed, and ashamed of himself. For
a matter of two months he had been on special delivery
terms with Edith Bradin, and knowing that the
one excuse and explanation of the special delivery letter
is its value in sentimental correspondence, he had believed
himself quite sure of his ground. He searched
in vain for any reason why she should have taken this
attitude in the matter of a simple kiss.
Therefore when he was cut in on by the man with the
mustache he went out into the hall and, making up a
sentence, said it over to himself several times. Considerably
deleted, this was it:
"Well, if any girl ever led a man on and then jolted
him, she did—and she has no kick coming if I go out and
get beautifully boiled."
So he walked through the supper room into a small
room adjoining it, which he had located earlier in the
large bowls of punch flanked by many bottles. He
took a seat beside the table which held the bottles.
At the second highball, boredom, disgust, the monotony
of time, the turbidity of events, sank into a vague
background before which glittering cobwebs formed.
Things became reconciled to themselves, things lay
quietly on their shelves; the troubles of the day arranged
themselves in trim formation and at his curt
wish of dismissal, marched off and disappeared. And
with the departure of worry came brilliant, permeating
symbolism. Edith became a flighty, negligible girl,
not to be worried over; rather to be laughed at. She
fitted like a figure of his own dream into the surface
world forming about him. He himself became in a
measure symbolic, a type of the continent bacchanal,
the brilliant dreamer at play.
Then the symbolic mood faded and as he sipped his
third highball his imagination yielded to the warm glow
and he lapsed into a state similar to floating on his
back in pleasant water. It was at this point that he
noticed that a green baize door near him was open
about two inches, and that through the aperture a pair
of eyes were watching him intently.
"Hm," murmured Peter calmly.
The green door closed—and then opened again—a
bare half inch this time.
"Peek-a-boo," murmured Peter.
The door remained stationary and then he became
aware of a series of tense intermittent whispers.
"One guy."
"What's he doin'?"
"He's sittin' lookin'."
"He better beat it off. We gotta get another li'l'
bottle."
Peter listened while the words filtered into his consciousness.
"Now this," he thought, "is most remarkable."
He was excited. He was jubilant. He felt that he
had stumbled upon a mystery. Affecting an elaborate
carelessness he arose and walked around the table—
then, turning quickly, pulled open the green door, precipitating
Private Rose into the room.
Peter bowed.
"How do you do?" he said.
Private Rose set one foot slightly in front of the other,
poised for fight, flight, or compromise.
"How do you do?" repeated Peter politely.
"I'm o'right."
"Can I offer you a drink?"
Private Rose looked at him searchingly, suspecting
possible sarcasm.
"O'right," he said finally.
Peter indicated a chair.
"Sit down."
"I got a friend," said Rose, "I got a friend in there."
He pointed to the green door.
"By all means let's have him in."
Peter crossed over, opened the door and welcomed in
Private Key, very suspicious and uncertain and guilty.
Chairs were found and the three took their seats around
the punch bowl. Peter gave them each a highball and
offered them a cigarette from his case. They accepted
both with some diffidence.
"Now," continued Peter easily, "may I ask why you
gentlemen prefer to lounge away your leisure hours in a
room which is chiefly furnished, as far as I can see, with
scrubbing brushes. And when the human race has progressed
to the stage where seventeen thousand chairs
are manufactured on every day except Sunday—" he
you tell me," went on Peter, "why you choose to rest
yourselves on articles intended for the transportation
of water from one place to another?"
At this point Rose contributed a grunt to the conversation.
"And lastly," finished Peter, "will you tell me why,
when you are in a building beautifully hung with enormous
candelabra, you prefer to spend these evening
hours under one anemic electric light?"
Rose looked at Key; Key looked at Rose. They
laughed; they laughed uproariously; they found it was
impossible to look at each other without laughing.
But they were not laughing with this man—they were
laughing at him. To them a man who talked after this
fashion was either raving drunk or raving crazy.
"You are Yale men, I presume," said Peter, finishing
his highball and preparing another.
They laughed again.
"Na-ah."
"So? I thought perhaps you might be members of
that lowly section of the university known as the Sheffield
Scientific School."
"Na-ah."
"Hm. Well, that's too bad. No doubt you are
Harvard men, anxious to preserve your incognito in
this—this paradise of violet blue, as the newspapers
say,"
"Na-ah," said Key scornfully, "we was just waitin'
for somebody."
"Ah," exclaimed Peter, rising and filling their glasses,
"very interestin'. Had a date with a scrublady, eh?"
They both denied this indignantly.
"It's all right," Peter reassured them, "don't apologize.
A scrublady's as good as any lady in the world.
skin.' "
"Sure," said Key, winking broadly at Rose.
"My case, for instance," continued Peter, finishing
his glass. "I got a girl up here that's spoiled. Spoildest
darn girl I ever saw. Refused to kiss me; no reason
whatsoever. Led me on deliberately to think sure I
want to kiss you and then plunk! Threw me over!
What's the younger generation comin' to?"
"Say tha's hard luck," said Key—"that's awful hard
luck."
"Oh, boy!" said Rose.
"Have another?" said Peter.
"We got in a sort of fight for a while," said Key after
a pause, "but it was too far away."
"A fight?—tha's stuff!" said Peter, seating himself
unsteadily. "Fight 'em all! I was in the army."
"This was with a Bolshevik fella."
"Tha's stuff!" exclaimed Peter, enthusiastic.
"That's what I say! Kill the Bolshevik! Exterminate
'em!"
"We're Americuns," said Rose, implying a sturdy,
defiant patriotism.
"Sure," said Peter. "Greatest race in the world!
We're all Americuns! Have another."
They had another.
VI
At one o'clock a special orchestra, special even in a
day of special orchestras, arrived at Delmonico's, and
its members, seating themselves arrogantly around the
piano, took up the burden of providing music for the
Gamma Psi Fraternity. They were headed by a famous
flute-player, distinguished throughout New York for
his feat of standing on his head and shimmying with
flute. During his performance the lights were extinguished
except for the spotlight on the flute-player and
another roving beam that threw flickering shadows and
changing kaleidoscopic colors over the massed dancers.
Edith had danced herself into that tired, dreamy
state habitual only with débutantes, a state equivalent
to the glow of a noble soul after several long highballs.
Her mind floated vaguely on the bosom of her music;
her partners changed with the unreality of phantoms
under the colorful shifting dusk, and to her present
coma it seemed as if days had passed since the dance
began. She had talked on many fragmentary subjects
with many men. She had been kissed once and made
love to six times. Earlier in the evening different undergraduates
had danced with her, but now, like all the
more popular girls there, she had her own entourage—
that is, half a dozen gallants had singled her out or
were alternating her charms with those of some other
chosen beauty; they cut in on her in regular, inevitable
succession.
Several times she had seen Gordon—he had been sitting
a long time on the stairway with his palm to his
head, his dull eyes fixed at an infinite speck on the floor
before him, very depressed, he looked, and quite drunk—
but Edith each time had averted her glance hurriedly.
All that seemed long ago; her mind was passive now,
her senses were lulled to trance-like sleep; only her feet
danced and her voice talked on in hazy sentimental
banter.
But Edith was not nearly so tired as to be incapable
of moral indignation when Peter Himmel cut in on her,
sublimely and happily drunk. She gasped and looked
up at him.
"Why, Peter!"
"I'm a li'l' stewed, Edith."
"Why, Peter, you're a peach, you are! Don't you
think it's a bum way of doing—when you're with me?"
Then she smiled unwillingly, for he was looking at
her with owlish sentimentality varied with a silly spasmodic
smile.
"Darlin' Edith," he began earnestly, "you know I
love you, don't you?"
"You tell it well."
"I love you—and I merely wanted you to kiss me,"
he added sadly.
His embarrassment, his shame, were both gone. She
was a mos' beautiful girl in whole worl'. Mos' beautiful
eyes, like stars above. He wanted to 'pologize—
firs', for presuming try to kiss her; second, for drinking
—but he'd been so discouraged 'cause he had thought
she was mad at him—
The red-fat man cut in, and looking up at Edith
smiled radiantly.
"Did you bring any one?" she asked.
No. The red-fat man was a stag.
"Well, would you mind—would it be an awful bother
for you to—to take me home to-night?" (this extreme
diffidence was a charming affectation on Edith's part—
she knew that the red-fat man would immediately dissolve
into a paroxysm of delight).
"Bother? Why, good Lord, I'd be darn glad to!
You know I'd be darn glad to."
"Thanks loads! You're awfully sweet."
She glanced at her wrist-watch. It was half-past one.
And, as she said "half-past one" to herself, it floated
vaguely into her mind that her brother had told her at
luncheon that he worked in the office of his newspaper
until after one-thirty every evening.
Edith turned suddenly to her current partner.
"What street is Delmonico's on, anyway?"
"Street? Oh, why Fifth Avenue, of course."
"I mean, what cross street?"
"Why—let's see—it's on Forty-fourth Street."
This verified what she had thought. Henry's office
must be across the street and just around the corner,
and it occurred to her immediately that she might slip
over for a moment and surprise him, float in on him, a
shimmering marvel in her new crimson opera cloak and
"cheer him up." It was exactly the sort of thing Edith
revelled in doing—an unconventional, jaunty thing.
The idea reached out and gripped at her imagination—
after an instant's hesitation she had decided.
"My hair is just about to tumble entirely down,"
she said pleasantly to her partner; "would you mind
if I go and fix it?"
"Not at all."
"You're a peach."
A few minutes later, wrapped in her crimson opera
cloak, she flitted down a side-stairs, her cheeks glowing
with excitement at her little adventure. She ran by a
couple who stood at the door—a weak-chinned waiter
and an over-rouged young lady, in hot dispute—and
opening the outer door stepped into the warm May
night.
VII
The over-rouged young lady followed her with a brief,
bitter glance—then turned again to the weak-chinned
waiter and took up her argument.
"You better go up and tell him I'm here," she said
defiantly, "or I'll go up myself."
"No, you don't!" said George sternly.
The girl smiled sardonically.
"Oh, I don't, don't I? Well, let me tell you I know
glad to take me out on a party, than you ever saw in
your whole life."
"Maybe so—"
"Maybe so," she interrupted. "Oh, it's all right for
any of 'em like that one that just ran out—God knows
where she went—it's all right for them that are asked
here to come or go as they like—but when I want to see
a friend they have some cheap, ham-slinging, bring-me-a-doughnut
waiter to stand here and keep me out."
"See here," said the elder Key indignantly, "I can't
lose my job. Maybe this fella you're talkin' about
doesn't want to see you."
"Oh, he wants to see me all right."
"Anyways, how could I find him in all that crowd?"
"Oh, he'll be there," she asserted confidently. "You
just ask anybody for Gordon Sterrett and they'll point
him out to you. They all know each other, those fellas."
She produced a mesh bag, and taking out a dollar
bill handed it to George.
"Here," she said, "here's a bribe. You find him and
give him my message. You tell him if he isn't here in
five minutes I'm coming up."
George shook his head pessimistically, considered
the question for a moment, wavered violently, and then
withdrew.
In less than the allotted time Gordon came down-stairs.
He was drunker than he had been earlier in the evening
and in a different way. The liquor seemed to have
hardened on him like a crust. He was heavy and lurching—almost
incoherent when he talked.
"'Lo, Jewel," he said thickly. "Came right away.
Jewel, I couldn't get that money. Tried my best."
"Money nothing!" she snapped. "You haven't been
near me for ten days. What's the matter?"
He shook his head slowly.
"Been very low, Jewel. Been sick."
"Why didn't you tell me if you were sick. I don't
care about the money that bad. I didn't start bothering
you about it at all until you began neglecting me."
Again he shook his head.
"Haven't been neglecting you. Not at all."
"Haven't! You haven't been near me for three
weeks, unless you been so drunk you didn't know what
you were doing."
"Been sick, Jewel," he repeated, turning his eyes
upon her wearily.
"You're well enough to come and play with your
society friends here all right. You told me you'd meet
me for dinner, and you said you'd have some money for
me. You didn't even bother to ring me up."
"I couldn't get any money."
"Haven't I just been saying that doesn't matter?
I wanted to see you, Gordon, but you seem to prefer
your somebody else."
He denied this bitterly.
"Then get your hat and come along," she suggested.
Gordon hesitated—and she came suddenly close to
him and slipped her arms around his neck.
"Come on with me, Gordon," she said in a half whisper.
"We'll go over to Devineries' and have a drink,
and then we can go up to my apartment."
"I can't, Jewel,—"
"You can," she said intensely.
"I'm sick as a dog!"
"Well, then, you oughtn't to stay here and dance."
With a glance around him in which relief and despair
were mingled, Gordon hesitated; then she suddenly
pulled him to her and kissed him with soft, pulpy lips.
"All right," he said heavily. "I'll get my hat.
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!"
IX
"Childs', Fifty-ninth Street," at eight o'clock of any
morning differs from its sisters by less than the width
of their marble tables or the degree of polish on the frying-pans.
You will see there a crowd of poor people
with sleep in the corners of their eyes, trying to look
straight before them at their food so as not to see the
other poor people. But Childs', Fifty-ninth, four hours
earlier is quite unlike any Childs' restaurant from Portland,
Oregon, to Portland, Maine. Within its pale but
sanitary walls one finds a noisy medley of chorus girls,
college boys, débutantes, rakes, filles de joie—a not unrepresentative
mixture of the gayest of Broadway, and
even of Fifth Avenue.
In the early morning of May the second it was unusually
full. Over the marble-topped tables were bent
the excited faces of flappers whose fathers owned individual
villages. They were eating buckwheat cakes
and scrambled eggs with relish and gusto, an accomplishment
that it would have been utterly impossible for
them to repeat in the same place four hours later.
Almost the entire crowd were from the Gamma Psi
from a midnight revue who sat at a side table and wished
they'd taken off a little more make-up after the show.
Here and there a drab, mouse-like figure, desperately
out of place, watched the butterflies with a weary,
puzzled curiosity. But the drab figure was the exception.
This was the morning after May Day, and celebration
was still in the air.
Gus Rose, sober but a little dazed, must be classed
as one of the drab figures. How he had got himself from
Forty-fourth Street to Fifty-ninth Street after the riot
was only a hazy half-memory. He had seen the body
of Carrol Key put in an ambulance and driven off, and
then he had started up town with two or three soldiers.
Somewhere between Forty-fourth Street and Fifty-ninth
Street the other soldiers had met some women
and disappeared. Rose had wandered to Columbus
Circle and chosen the gleaming lights of Childs' to
minister to his craving for coffee and doughnuts. He
walked in and sat down.
All around him floated airy, inconsequential chatter
and high-pitched laughter. At first he failed to understand,
but after a puzzled five minutes he realized that
this was the aftermath of some gay party. Here and
there a restless, hilarious young man wandered fraternally
and familiarly between the tables, shaking hands
indiscriminately and pausing occasionally for a facetious
chat, while excited waiters, bearing cakes and eggs
aloft, swore at him silently, and bumped him out of the
way. To Rose, seated at the most inconspicuous and
least crowded table, the whole scene was a colorful circus
of beauty and riotous pleasure.
He became gradually aware, after a few moments,
that the couple seated diagonally across from him, with
their backs to the crowd, were not the least interesting
dinner coat with a dishevelled tie and shirt swollen by
spillings of water and wine. His eyes, dim and bloodshot,
roved unnaturally from side to side. His breath
came short between his lips.
"He's been on a spree!" thought Rose.
The woman was almost if not quite sober. She was
pretty, with dark eyes and feverish high color, and she
kept her active eyes fixed on her companion with the
alertness of a hawk. From time to time she would lean
and whisper intently to him, and he would answer by
inclining his head heavily or by a particularly ghoulish
and repellent wink.
Rose scrutinized them dumbly for some minutes,
until the woman gave him a quick, resentful look; then
he shifted his gaze to two of the most conspicuously
hilarious of the promenaders who were on a protracted
circuit of the tables. To his surprise he recognized in
one of them the young man by whom he had been so
ludicrously entertained at Delmonico's. This started
him thinking of Key with a vague sentimentality, not
unmixed with awe. Key was dead. He had fallen
thirty-five feet and split his skull like a cracked cocoanut.
"He was a darn good guy," thought Rose mournfully.
"He was a darn good guy, o'right. That was
awful hard luck about him."
The two promenaders approached and started down
between Rose's table and the next, addressing friends
and strangers alike with jovial familiarity. Suddenly
Rose saw the fair-haired one with the prominent teeth
stop, look unsteadily at the man and girl opposite, and
then begin to move his head disapprovingly from side
to side.
The man with the blood-shot eyes looked up.
"Gordy," said the promenader with the prominent
teeth, "Gordy."
"Hello," said the man with the stained shirt thickly.
Prominent Teeth shook his finger pessimistically at
the pair, giving the woman a glance of aloof condemnation.
"What'd I tell you Gordy?"
Gordon stirred in his seat.
"Go to hell!" he said.
Dean continued to stand there shaking his finger.
The woman began to get angry.
"You go way!" she cried fiercely. "You're drunk,
that's what you are!"
"So's he," suggested Dean, staying the motion of his
finger and pointing it at Gordon.
Peter Himmel ambled up, owlish now and oratorically
inclined.
"Here now," he began as if called upon to deal with
some petty dispute between children. "Wha's all
trouble?"
"You take your friend away," said Jewel tartly.
"He's bothering us."
"What's at?"
"You heard me!" she said shrilly. "I said to take
your drunken friend away."
Her rising voice rang out above the clatter of the restaurant
and a waiter came hurrying up.
"You gotta be more quiet!"
"That fella's drunk," she cried. "He's insulting
us."
"Ah-ha, Gordy," persisted the accused. "What'd I
tell you." He turned to the waiter. "Gordy an' I
friends. Been tryin' help him, haven't I, Gordy?"
Gordy looked up.
"Help me? Hell, no!"
Jewel rose suddenly, and seizing Gordon's arm assisted
him to his feet.
"Come on, Gordy!" she said, leaning toward him and
speaking in a half whisper. "Let's us get out of here.
This fella's got a mean drunk on."
Gordon allowed himself to be urged to his feet and
started toward the door. Jewel turned for a second and
addressed the provoker of their flight.
"I know all about you!" she said fiercely. "Nice
friend, you are, I'll say. He told me about you."
Then she seized Gordon's arm, and together they
made their way through the curious crowd, paid their
check, and went out.
"You'll have to sit down," said the waiter to Peter
after they had gone.
"What's 'at? Sit down?"
"Yes—or get out."
Peter turned to Dean.
"Come on," he suggested. "Let's beat up this
waiter."
"All right."
They advanced toward him, their faces grown stern.
The waiter retreated.
Peter suddenly reached over to a plate on the table
beside him and picking up a handful of hash tossed it
into the air. It descended as a languid parabola in
snowflake effect on the heads of those near by.
"Hey! Ease up!"
"Put him out!"
"Sit down, Peter!"
"Cut out that stuff!"
Peter laughed and bowed.
"Thank you for your kind applause, ladies and gents.
If some one will lend me some more hash and a tall hat
we will go on with the act."
The bouncer bustled up.
"You've gotta get out!" he said to Peter.
"Hell, no!"
"He's my friend!" put in Dean indignantly.
A crowd of waiters were gathering. "Put him out!"
"Better go, Peter."
There was a short struggle and the two were edged
and pushed toward the door.
"I got a hat and a coat here!" cried Peter.
"Well, go get 'em and be spry about it!"
The bouncer released his hold on Peter, who, adopting
a ludicrous air of extreme cunning, rushed immediately
around to the other table, where he burst
into derisive laughter and thumbed his nose at the exasperated
waiters.
"Think I just better wait a l'il' longer," he announced.
The chase began. Four waiters were sent around one
way and four another. Dean caught hold of two of
them by the coat, and another struggle took place before
the pursuit of Peter could be resumed; he was
finally pinioned after overturning a sugar-bowl and several
cups of coffee. A fresh argument ensued at the
cashier's desk, where Peter attempted to buy another
dish of hash to take with him and throw at policemen.
But the commotion upon his exit proper was dwarfed
by another phenomenon which drew admiring glances
and a prolonged involuntary "Oh-h-h!" from every
person in the restaurant.
The great plate-glass front had turned to a deep
creamy blue, the color of a Maxfield Parrish moonlight—
a blue that seemed to press close upon the pane as if to
crowd its way into the restaurant. Dawn had come up
in Columbus Circle, magical, breathless dawn, silhouetting
the great statue of the immortal Christopher, and
mingling in a curious and uncanny manner with the
fading yellow electric light inside.
X
Mr. In and Mr. Out are not listed by the census-taker.
You will search for them in vain through the social
register or the births, marriages, and deaths, or the
grocer's credit list. Oblivion has swallowed them
and the testimony that they ever existed at all is vague
and shadowy, and inadmissible in a court of law. Yet
I have it upon the best authority that for a brief
space Mr. In and Mr. Out lived, breathed, answered
to their names and radiated vivid personalities of their
own.
During the brief span of their lives they walked in
their native garments down the great highway of a great
nation; were laughed at, sworn at, chased, and fled from.
Then they passed and were heard of no more.
They were already taking form dimly, when a taxicab
with the top open breezed down Broadway in the
faintest glimmer of May dawn. In this car sat the souls
of Mr. In and Mr. Out discussing with amazement the
blue light that had so precipitately colored the sky behind
the statue of Christopher Columbus, discussing
with bewilderment the old, gray faces of the early risers
which skimmed palely along the street like blown bits of
paper on a gray lake. They were agreed on all things,
from the absurdity of the bouncer in Childs' to the absurdity
of the business of life. They were dizzy with
the extreme maudlin happiness that the morning had
awakened in their glowing souls. Indeed, so fresh and
vigorous was their pleasure in living that they felt it
should be expressed by loud cries.
"Ye-ow-ow!" hooted Peter, making a megaphone
with his hands—and Dean joined in with a call that,
though equally significant and symbolic, derived its
resonance from its very inarticulateness.
"Yo-ho! Yea! Yoho! Yo-buba!"
Fifty-third Street was a bus with a dark, bobbed-hair
beauty atop; Fifty-second was a street cleaner who
dodged, escaped, and sent up a yell of, "Look where
you're aimin'!" in a pained and grieved voice. At
Fiftieth Street a group of men on a very white sidewalk
in front of a very white building turned to stare after
them, and shouted:
"Some party, boys!"
At Forty-ninth Street Peter turned to Dean. "Beautiful
morning," he said gravely, squinting up his owlish
eyes.
"Probably is."
"Go get some breakfast, hey?"
Dean agreed—with additions.
"Breakfast and liquor."
"Breakfast and liquor," repeated Peter, and they
looked at each other, nodding. "That's logical."
Then they both burst into loud laughter.
"Breakfast and liquor! Oh, gosh!"
"No such thing," announced Peter.
"Don't serve it? Ne'mind. We force 'em serve it.
Bring pressure bear."
"Bring logic bear."
The taxi cut suddenly off Broadway, sailed along a
cross street, and stopped in front of a heavy tomb-like
building in Fifth Avenue.
"What's idea?"
The taxi-driver informed them that this was Delmonico's.
This was somewhat puzzling. They were forced to
devote several minutes to intense concentration, for if
such an order had been given there must have been a
reason for it.
"Somep'm 'bouta coat," suggested the taxi-man.
That was it. Peter's overcoat and hat. He had left
from the taxi and strolled toward the entrance
arm in arm.
"Hey!" said the taxi-driver.
"Huh?"
"You better pay me."
They shook their heads in shocked negation.
"Later, not now—we give orders, you wait."
The taxi-driver objected; he wanted his money now.
With the scornful condescension of men exercising tremendous
self-control they paid him.
Inside Peter groped in vain through a dim, deserted
check-room in search of his coat and derby.
"Gone, I guess. Somebody stole it."
"Some Sheff student."
"All probability."
"Never mind," said Dean, nobly. "I'll leave mine
here too—then we'll both be dressed the same."
He removed his overcoat and hat and was hanging
them up when his roving glance was caught and held
magnetically by two large squares of cardboard tacked
to the two coat-room doors. The one on the left-hand
door bore the word "In" in big black letters, and the
one on the right-hand door flaunted the equally emphatic
word "Out."
"Look!" he exclaimed happily—
Peter's eyes followed his pointing finger.
"What?"
"Look at the signs. Let's take 'em."
"Good idea."
"Probably pair very rare an' valuable signs. Probably
come in handy."
Peter removed the left-hand sign from the door and
endeavored to conceal it about his person. The sign
being of considerable proportions, this was a matter of
air of dignified mystery he turned his back. After
an instant he wheeled dramatically around, and stretching
out his arms displayed himself to the admiring Dean.
He had inserted the sign in his vest, completely covering
his shirt front. In effect, the word "In" had been
painted upon his shirt in large black letters.
"Yoho!" cheered Dean. "Mister In."
He inserted his own sign in like manner.
"Mister Out!" he announced triumphantly. "Mr.
In meet Mr. Out."
They advanced and shook hands. Again laughter overcame
them and they rocked in a shaken spasm of mirth.
"Yoho!"
"We probably get a flock of breakfast."
"We'll go—go to the Commodore."
Arm in arm they sallied out the door, and turning
east in Forty-fourth Street set out for the Commodore.
As they came out a short dark soldier, very pale and
tired, who had been wandering listlessly along the sidewalk,
turned to look at them.
He started over as though to address them, but as
they immediately bent on him glances of withering unrecognition,
he waited until they had started unsteadily
down the street, and then followed at about forty paces,
chuckling to himself and saying "Oh, boy!" over and
over under his breath, in delighted, anticipatory tones.
Mr. In and Mr. Out were meanwhile exchanging pleasantries
concerning their future plans.
"We want liquor; we want breakfast. Neither without
the other. One and indivisible."
"We want both 'em!"
"Both 'em!"
It was quite light now, and passers-by began to bend
curious eyes on the pair. Obviously they were engaged
in a discussion, which afforded each of them intense
seize upon them so violently that, still with their arms
interlocked, they would bend nearly double.
Reaching the Commodore, they exchanged a few
spicy epigrams with the sleepy-eyed doorman, navigated
the revolving door with some difficulty, and then made
their way through a thinly populated but startled lobby
to the dining-room, where a puzzled waiter showed them
an obscure table in a corner. They studied the bill of
fare helplessly, telling over the items to each other in
puzzled mumbles.
"Don't see any liquor here," said Peter reproachfully.
The waiter became audible but unintelligible.
"Repeat," continued Peter, with patient tolerance,
"that there seems to be unexplained and quite distasteful
lack of liquor upon bill of fare."
"Here!" said Dean confidently, "let me handle him."
He turned to the waiter—"Bring us—bring us—" he
scanned the bill of fare anxiously. "Bring us a quart
of champagne and a—a—probably ham sandwich."
The waiter looked doubtful.
"Bring it!" roared Mr. In and Mr. Out in chorus.
The waiter coughed and disappeared. There was a
short wait during which they were subjected without
their knowledge to a careful scrutiny by the headwaiter.
Then the champagne arrived, and at the sight
of it Mr. In and Mr. Out became jubilant.
"Imagine their objecting to us having champagne for
breakfast—jus' imagine."
They both concentrated upon the vision of such an
awesome possibility, but the feat was too much for them.
It was impossible for their joint imaginations to conjure
up a world where any one might object to any one else
having champagne for breakfast. The waiter drew the
cork with an enormous pop—and their glasses immediately
foamed with pale yellow froth.
"Here's health, Mr. In."
"Here's same to you, Mr. Out."
The waiter withdrew; the minutes passed; the champagne
became low in the bottle.
"It's—it's mortifying," said Dean suddenly.
"Wha's mortifying?"
"The idea their objecting us having champagne
breakfast."
"Mortifying?" Peter considered. "Yes, tha's word
—mortifying."
Again they collapsed into laughter, howled, swayed,
rocked back and forth in their chairs, repeating the
word "mortifying" over and over to each other—each
repetition seeming to make it only more brilliantly absurd.
After a few more gorgeous minutes they decided on
another quart. Their anxious waiter consulted his immediate
superior, and this discreet person gave implicit
instructions that no more champagne should be served.
Their check was brought.
Five minutes later, arm in arm, they left the Commodore
and made their way through a curious, staring
crowd along Forty-second Street, and up Vanderbilt
Avenue to the Biltmore. There, with sudden cunning,
they rose to the occasion and traversed the lobby,
walking fast and standing unnaturally erect.
Once in the dining-room they repeated their performance.
They were torn between intermittent convulsive
laughter and sudden spasmodic discussions of politics,
college, and the sunny state of their dispositions. Their
watches told them that it was now nine o'clock, and a
dim idea was born in them that they were on a memorable
party, something that they would remember always.
They lingered over the second bottle. Either of them
had only to mention the word "mortifying" to send
whirring and shifting now; a curious lightness permeated
and rarefied the heavy air.
They paid their check and walked out into the lobby.
It was at this moment that the exterior doors revolved
for the thousandth time that morning, and admitted
into the lobby a very pale young beauty with dark circles
under her eyes, attired in a much-rumpled evening
dress. She was accompanied by a plain stout man,
obviously not an appropriate escort.
At the top of the stairs this couple encountered Mr.
In and Mr. Out.
"Edith," began Mr. In, stepping toward her hilariously
and making a sweeping bow, "darling, good morning."
The stout man glanced questioningly at Edith, as if
merely asking her permission to throw this man summarily
out of the way.
"'Scuse familiarity," added Peter, as an afterthought.
"Edith, good-morning."
He seized Dean's elbow and impelled him into the
foreground.
"Meet Mr. In, Edith, my bes' frien'. Inseparable.
Mr. In and Mr. Out."
Mr. Out advanced and bowed; in fact, he advanced so
far and bowed so low that he tipped slightly forward
and only kept his balance by placing a hand lightly on
Edith's shoulder.
"I'm Mr. Out, Edith," he mumbled pleasantly, "S'misterin
Misterout."
"'Smisterinanout," said Peter proudly.
But Edith stared straight by them, her eyes fixed on
some infinite speck in the gallery above her. She
nodded slightly to the stout man, who advanced bulllike
and with a sturdy brisk gesture pushed Mr. In and
walked.
But ten paces farther on Edith stopped again—stopped
and pointed to a short, dark soldier who was eying the
crowd in general, and the tableau of Mr. In and Mr. Out
in particular, with a sort of puzzled, spell-bound awe.
"There," cried Edith. "See there!"
Her voice rose, became somewhat shrill. Her pointing
finger shook slightly.
"There's the soldier who broke my brother's leg."
There were a dozen exclamations; a man in a cutaway
coat left his place near the desk and advanced alertly;
the stout person made a sort of lightning-like spring
toward the short, dark soldier, and then the lobby closed
around the little group and blotted them from the
sight of Mr. In and Mr. Out.
But to Mr. In and Mr. Out this event was merely a
particolored iridescent segment of a whirring, spinning
world.
They heard loud voices; they saw the stout man
spring; the picture suddenly blurred.
Then they were in an elevator bound skyward.
"What floor, please?" said the elevator man.
"Any floor," said Mr. In.
"Top floor," said Mr. Out.
"This is the top floor," said the elevator man.
"Have another floor put on," said Mr. Out.
"Higher," said Mr. In.
"Heaven," said Mr. Out.
XI
In a bedroom of a small hotel just off Sixth Avenue
Gordon Sterrett awoke with a pain in the back of his
head and a sick throbbing in all his veins. He looked at
a raw place on a large leather chair in the corner where
it had long been in use. He saw clothes, dishevelled,
rumpled clothes on the floor and he smelt stale cigarette
smoke and stale liquor. The windows were tight shut.
Outside the bright sunlight had thrown a dust-filled beam
across the sill—a beam broken by the head of the wide
wooden bed in which he had slept. He lay very quiet—
comatose, drugged, his eyes wide, his mind clicking
wildly like an unoiled machine.
It must have been thirty seconds after he perceived
the sunbeam with the dust on it and the rip on the large
leather chair that he had the sense of life close beside
him, and it was another thirty seconds after that before
that he realized that he was irrevocably married to
Jewel Hudson.
He went out half an hour later and bought a revolver
at a sporting goods store. Then he took a taxi to the
room where he had been living on East Twenty-seventh
Street, and, leaning across the table that held his drawing
materials, fired a cartridge into his head just behind the
temple.
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