Cosmopolitan 1909-02: Vol 46 Iss 3

Page 1

Page 2

ANS ‘ RS POLISHES. 7} MORGANS Say ) | . j Sy Ny : APOLIO| i Ay

Page 3

Ne Dominion By Harold Bolce ANKIND, groping its way, has faltered in the slow centuries; M but there has been no swerving in the earth’s diurnal swing. Civilizations have set, but the sun has not failed to reappear in the east. It comes as a perpetual new promise. Likewise, there is a Light that lighteth every man, and the path to that altar fire leads past no exclusive avenue. The first savage that kindled a fire beheld God in the burning bush. We try many religions and systems, it is true, and intone long litanies; then the Divine Man comes and sums up all faith and phi- losophy in a phrase. It transcends the formula of the schoolmen. In such a message the thought of the Infinite becomes articulate. All men know it to be true. It requires no scholarship to feel the divinity in the Sermon on the Mount or in the speech at Gettysburg. The disputant is silent in the presence of ultimate reality. There is need for no interpreter. There, at last, we find a moral law, and its authority is the signature of God. Beethoven set down notes that voice the beauty of deathless melody, but his genius simply absorbed elemental harmonies. He did not in- vent the laws of harmony; they existed when the morning stars sang together for joy. Euclid and Kepler worked out problems (and so does every clerk) by the aid of tables as fixed as fate. The laws of the spirit are similarly exact and permanent. They may be utilized, like multiplication and algebra. Poe in a wonderful essay shows that provision is made for all con- tingencies that arise or ever shall arise in the unseen world. Now we know in part, but we know that all things tend toward unity. Draper saw it in the intellectual epic of the Old World. Tennyson interpreted it in song. Islam learned the truth and swept half the world like a contagion. Yet there are heights to be won. The call of the spirit is away from our civilization to the Delectable Mountains. There is a Sinai in every soul. We are not a counterfeit creation. Man is made in the image, not the effigy, of God. He is ceasing, in the circles of the new philosophies, to demean himself as an immortal mendicant. Man is a creator, dowered with dominion. He can accept evil or he can choose the good. And in the exercise of that subtler wisdom he is already aflame with power. Through the assertion of law, Ingersoll’s dream of a world with health as the sole contagion is being realized. The potency in the consciousness that the spirit of man is divine volition is transfiguring the race. In the kingdom of heaven the twentieth century has dawned!

Page 4

Drawn by Will Foster THE MARQUIS SEATED HIMSELF IN AN EASY CHAIR, OPPOSITE HIS WIFE, AND PLACED ONE FOR HANNAWAY BETWEEN THE TWO. “GO ON,” HE SAID (“Passers-By,” page 329)

Page 5

Vol. XLVI (@SMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE FEBRUARY, 1909 Poe, The Weird Genius AN AUTHENTIC AND INTIMATE ACCOUNT OF THE PERSONALITY AND LIFE OF THE MOST TRAGIC FIGURE IN AMERICAN LITER- ARY HISTORY, WRITTEN BY A MEMBER OF HIS OWN FAMILY By Elisabeth Ellicott Poe ANUARY 10, 1909, is the cen- tenary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe. One hundred years have passed since that inauspicious advent of the literary wizard, the Poe cult is increasing, and scholars continue their study of his erratic life and his surpassing art. True, the Hall of Fame excluded him from its sacred walls. This action of the distinguished committee who selected the names is explained in the pithy verse of Father Tabb, the foremost Poe scholar of the country, who wrote, , Into the charnel Hall of Fame Only the dead should go, So write not there the living name Of Edgar Allan Poe. Destiny, the watcher and warder of human genius, was the tutelary angel through life of Edgar Allan Poe. Mercilessly decreed iso- lation fostered his genius while it made him miserably unhappy. Destiny went beyond COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY the grave and darkened his memory with the carpings and misrepresentations of envi- ous contemporaries. Griswold, the traitor, stabbed the dead Poe, and all his biographers have woefully misunderstood his character, both as man and as poet. With ‘ Bobbie” Burns, the noble minded feel that, notwith- standing ‘‘the rank is but the guinea’s stamp,” ‘a man ’s a man for a’ that.”’ But a dis- sertation on Edgar Allan Poe’s ancestry is permissible, because, to understand the man, account must be made of the romantic, the wild strains of race that made him genius mad and different from his fellows because greater than they. The name Poe, an American corruption of De Ja Poer or Le Poer, is an old Italian one from which the river Po took its name. In the eleventh century an adventurous baron of the house left Italy and settled for a time in Normandy, whence he journeyed to Eng- land, through Wales, and into Ireland, where he established a branch of the Poer house. 243

Page 6

244 Poe, The Weird Genius Descendants of this wanderer were found in Ireland in 1327. The name was then Le Poer, the Gallic form. The great civil war of this period, which devastated all Ire- land, was the outcome of a personal feud between Maurice of Desmond and Arnold Le Poer. Le Poer had offended Desmond by calling him a “‘rimester.”” In the fourteenth Drawn by William Oberhardt from a daguerreotype in ability that was to flower in Edgar Allan Poe. Arnold Le Poer was a hero as well as a critic. We next find him rescuing from im- pending execution as a witch the Lady Ger- aldine, who was a prisoner in a high tower. The lady’s head was saved. To-day a fac- simile of it adorns the Poe crest. Through the medieval period the Le Poers ion of Poe's family EDGAR ALLAN POE This is regarded as Poe’s best likeness century, as well as in the twentieth, lesser poets wished to be called poets. Although the rough Celtic song was crude to the Italian’s musical ear, Desmond deeply re- sented being told so. This is the first evi- dence of critical ability in the Poe family, an lived the quiet life of Irish gentry. They rose into prominence as defenders of Ireland at the invasion of Cromwell. This defense cost the house dear. Its fortunes and estates were re- lentlessly destroyed by the Protector and his followers.

Page 7

David Le Poer came to America with his parents about the middle of the eighteenth century. Pennsylvania was his -first stop, then Baltimore. There he became a first citizen and a prosperous merchant. His third child was David Poe, a flighty, bo- hemian law-student, who fell in love with and clandestinely married Elisabeth Arnold, an English actress of good family. For this act he was cast off, and he deserted Baltimore. A place was found for him in his wife’s com- pany, and he toured the country with it. Two children were born to the bohemian couple, and then 1809 drew near, the time when Edgar Allan Poe was to make his début. Where did this interesting event occur? A house in Norfolk, Virginia, is shown as his birthplace, Bostonians have assured me with awful emphasis that he was born in the Hub, but, as a matter of fact, Maryland, not Mas- sachusetts or Virginia, justly claims the weird singer of the night as her own. ‘To Balti- more belongs the right to call him son. “T came to America, not to view its sce- nery or to visit its cities, but to stand at the grave of its poet, Edgar Allan Poe,” said a distinguished English peer who visited Ameri- ca some years ago. A greater Poe landmark was near him, the birthplace of the author of “The Raven.” For January 19, 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was born in the city of Baltimore ELISABETH ARNOLD, THE MOTHER OF POE Elisabeth Ellicott Poe MARIA CLEMM, THE AUNT AND MOTHER- IN-LAW OF POE at No. 9 Front Street, then a theatrical board- ing-house kept bya Mrs. Beard, the remodeled structure of which building is still standing. Briefly summarized, the proofs of Poe’s Baltimore birth are as follows: The evidence of relatives; the fact that he was in Balti- more when two days old when Boston was a week’s coach-journey distant; the testimony of Mrs. Beard; his own statements in memo- randa prepared for Griswold and verbally given to other witnesses; the Encyclopedia Britannica, Allibone’s ‘Dictionary of Au- thors,” and all English biographers and school-records; the better informed Ameri- can biographers; the Baltimore Sun notice of his death, and the traditional record of his birthplace kept in the family. In Poe’s family the Front Street house, Bi altimore, has been pointed out as his birthplace from gen- eration to generation. The thin tracery of Edgar Allan Poe’s life is on many a street and house in Baltimore. It will not forget him. His mortal remains are cherished within its limits, his life story is a town legend and tradition. No monument to him, however, adorns any of its parks. In common with other American cities, Balti- more has too many soldiers to honor to re- member monumentally her poet son Near the city’s crowded center, the old

Page 8

246 Poe, The Weird Genius Holliday Street Theater is a ghost of the past. Gone are the glories of the famous old play- house. It is now the home of lurid melo- drama. Inside the theater, through the tawdry trappings of to-day, remnants of grandeur tell of yesterday’s spirit; for fifty years ago a noble player folk thronged its boards. The elder Booth, Edwin Forrest, Lucille Weston, and other famous Thespians held their magic sway. There, in the dim ago, stood young Elisabeth Ar- nold, afterward the mother of Edgar Allan Poe, bewitching Baltimore’s bravest and best by her divine art and personal in- imitable grace. It wasin Janu- ary, 1809, that, soul-sick with care and the ap- proaching ordeal of motherhood, she acted there last. Only when the birth of Ed- gar was immi- nent, most immi- nent, did she re- tire to the Front Street house. In that refuge, January 19, was born Edgar Poe, a child destined to poetry and misery. Front Street was then a street of stately old homes; now it is as ruined as the families that once gathered beneath their sheltering eaves. Now the un- dercurrent of the great city has congregated there. Of the intimate incident of the birth no record remains, but memory treasures the virtues of good Mrs. Beard, the Irish land- lady of the house, the good Samaritan who threw around the young mother her matronly protection. Edgar’s advent was premature, and Mrs. Beard hastily made wee garments for him. The next day the father obtained BIRTHPLACE OF POE, funds from relatives. On the second morn- ing Mrs. David Poe, Sr., paid a visit to her infant grandson. Her pity was aroused, and risking General Poe’s displeasure she took care of the family for six weeks. With swift touches here and there the childhood and boyhood of Edgar Allan Poe, in Richmond and in England, can be passed by. His mother died when he was not quite three years old, and he was adopted by Mr. John Allan, of Richmond, re- ceiving the name Edgar Allan in baptism. They were hap- py. care-free years, for he was just an ordinary boy, dreaming the long, long dreams of youth, dreaming of days when, from out the sheltered haven of child- hood, he was to journey ‘‘over the hills and far away.’’ Col- lege days at the University of Virginia, where he topped off his classics, and wanderings into Greece and Tur- key, all the while martial instincts slumbering in his blood, led up to the West Point days, the crucial point of his early manhood. It was _ inevitable that, despite his inclination toward the army, the West Point career of Poe should be a fail- ure. What! chain an eagle, the soaring soul of a poet, to the dull routine of a military school? Of course he broke all restraints, lampooned his teachers, and got expelled. He wanted to leave the army, and deliber- ately planned to bring about his expulsion. After he was expelled from West Point, Edgar returned to Richmond. He found some changes. His good foster-mother had BALTIMORE ——ae

Page 9

SSO ‘ a _— - . ia %r ee Ape N — a ’ RR ee > ini ae MRS. EMMA SHELTON, TO WHOM POE WAS SAID TO HAVE BEEN BETROTHED IN THE LAST YEAR OF HIS LIFE died and Mr. Allan had married again—a young wife. Edgar was no longer the prodi- gal son to be welcomed with the fatted calf. He was only an interloper. A little son had been born into the Allan household, and the poet foster-son was an alien. When he learned of this Edgar was too proud to be a burden longer. He left his Richmond home forever. Drawn by the mystic call of his native spot he went to Baltimore. Penni- less, friendless, his divine art his only asset, this petted, spoiled child of fortune was thrown on his own resources at last. Was there a good Samaritan in wait for him now, as Mrs. Beard had served him at his birth ? The “silent years,” the first three or four years that followed his estrangement from Mr. Allan have been called. If they were silent years their silence was of an eloquent nature. Never again did Poe know such peace and self-control as in those so-called “silent years.” They were spent in Balti- more and marked his first literary success, the coming of love, and his marriage. At last he knew his destiny. Through what misunder- standings and sorrows engulfed his life his forte was singing, his mission to sing those priceless, peans of exquisite sorrow in whose weird halunting music lingers immortality. ) lad 7 « 2 ’ i : i E a 4 2 ~ F VIRGINIA CLEMM, THE COUSIN AND WIFE OF POE, WHOM HE MARRIED IN 1834. SHE DIED IN 1847 To his father’s kinsfolk in Baltimore his thoughts had turned after the grudging wel- come given him by the new mistress of the Allan home. Would they do anything for him, the son of the man they had disowned because he loved Edgar’s gentle mother, that fair idol of his lonely, boyish dreams? No, he could not go to them. For her sake, he could not accept their reluctant charity. But one among those kinsfolk had been uniformly kind to the beautiful, stranger wife and kind to him as a little chap, and with her he had kept in touch. This was his aunt, Mrs. Maria Clemm, the half-sister of his father, herself estranged from her proud family through an unfortunate marriage. She lived humbly on Wilkes Street, now Eastern Avenue, in the upper portion of a frame dwelling, and there, by delicate needlework, she supported herself and a ten-year-old daughter, Virginia, a fragile, pretty child. It was on this door that Edgar knocked. It opened gladly and with a warm welcome for the homeless boy. He was given a back at- tic room under the eaves, but near to the birds that caroled their matins and evensongs. A change this from the luxurious home of Mr. Allan. But the poetic spirit was unfettered there and free to do its best. His attic was a 247

Page 10

248 Poe, The Weird Genius palace of liberty, while the Allan manor was a palace prison. Whosoever understands the poetic principle and temperament will know that Poe was much happier in his humble refuge than he was as the petted idol, the chained darling of his millionaire foster- father’s household. Nourished by love and appreciation, life in his second home began. Face to face with his ideals at last, Poe was free to work out his fancies, the music and the dreams of poetry. Poverty did not press him closely; it was kept at a distance by Mrs. Clemm, business manager and for a time the sole wage- earner of the little home. Mrs. Clemm, who died only a few years ago, an inmate of the Church Homein Bal- timore, has testified of Edgar Poe at this period, that he was a lovable lad, sober, in- dustrious, and home- loving. Virginia, her daughter, was re- garded in a purely brotherly manner by Edgar, although she was fast maturing into Southern early womanhood. It was in Baltimore that Poe’s first liter- ary success came. In the fall of 1833 the Saturday Visitor, a weekly literary jour- nal, announced that it would give a prize reward of $100 each for the best story and poem. John P. Ken- nedy, H. B. Latrobe, and Dr. James H. Miller were the judges of the contest. Edgar Poe determined to enter it, and submitted his “Tales of the Folio Club,” a series of fanci- ful imageries, for the prize prose story. He composed his noble ‘‘Coliseum” for the po- etry entry. Poe won the prose prize with “The MS. Found in a Bottle,” one of the “‘ Tales of the Folio Club.” One can imagine how his dark eyes glowed with pride as he rushed home, boylike, to tell ‘‘Muddie Clemm” and Vir- ginia the good news. And the caliber of the MRS. SARAH OSGOOD WHITMAN, PROBABLY THE REAL LOVE OF POE’S WANDERING LIFE man shines out in the fact that ‘“‘Muddie Clemm”’ has testified that he gave her the nundred dollars for necessities. None of that went for liquor, if he was a drunkard in his ater years. It was only the recognition of his genius Poe craved. All else to him was mere dross and vainglory. All was serene in the little household for a time. A friend had been won in John P. Kennedy, who afterward became postmaster- general under President Tyler. In many ways Kennedy, a bookworm and literary dilettante, assisted the struggling Poe. Baltimore _ society now tried to lionize Poe, but he had no thirst for social suc- cesses. His poverty was his good angel, and we find him de- clining invitations to balls and dinners. The family now moved to Amity Street, a better local- ity, and there Poe spent fourteen or fif- teen hours a day at his desk. Work chained him in Bal- timore, and he was not eager to leave, for astronger motive had crept into his life. With the budding of beautiful Virginia, Poe’s brotherly affec- tion had ripened into passionate love. On account of her ex- treme youth, she was not yet fourteen, Mrs. Clemm objected to their immediate marriage. So did other mem- bers of her family, but it was in vain. The two finally persuaded Mrs. Clemm to give her consent, and on September 22, 1834, they were married in Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, Baltimore, by the Rev. John Johns, afterward Bishop of Virginia. Soon after the marriage came an offer to be associate editor of the Southern Literary Mes- senger, a new literary venture just launched at Richmond. To Poe, the starveling of genius, the prospect of steady, remu aerative work came as a godsend, and he eagerly ac- cepted it. Sv the little family set out for 17 “Ah et Re

Page 11

ge Richmond. Baltimore, the city of - birth, love, and first success, Was left behind. It was a strange reentrance to Richmond. There the dreamful hours of boyhood, a petted boyhood, had been spent; there the wild oats of youth had been sown, and now Poe was returning to it as a hus- band, a worker, one of the cogs in the great wheel of life. But there were no lamentations over his changed fortunes. -Life- food was in Richmond in the chance to do his beloved poetry and earn a living at the same time. Such were the ‘‘silent years” of Poe. When one remembers Tennyson’s seven years in his cloister garden, meditating. the “immortal lyrics of “‘In Memoriam,” and Poe in his garret writing “The Coliseum” and “A: Gordon Pym,” how little does the strenuous priesthood of letters to-day accomplish! The world, at least the book-world, knows the wonderful work Poe did in Richmond as editor. of the Literary Messenger. The tiny Southern star grew into a_constellation of first magnitude. A favorable review in the Messenger meant success for a new book, and reputations were lost and made by its biting satire. The tale of carousals in Richmond is manifestly untrue. Column after column -| BALTIMORE HAUNTS. his personal ‘writings in the Messenger dis- prove this calumny. His post was faithfully filled and copy turned out with tremendous rapidity. His erratic nature must have sorely tried kindly A. M. White, the chief editor. Finally the inevitable occurred, and Mr. White and he quarreled. Poe was hard to deal with, for few understood him. THE WIDOW MEAGHER’S OYSTER-SHOP, ONE OF POE’S HERE ‘‘THE GOLD BUG”’ = WAS WRITTEN Elisabeth Ellicott Poe 249 But Poe was not dismissed from the Liter- ary. Messenger. He left entirely of his own voli- tion, driven from his haven of peace by the insistent call of fate and the murmuring ethereal voices that sang in his brain until they maddened him, until the fair temple of his senses was given over to them. On he wan- dered, an exile from his kind, the pariah of letters, the stone which the build- ers refused, but which _ has_ be- come the corner- stone of Ameri- can literature. New York was the next way station in the poet’s mad career. Thither his reputation had already preceded him, and he was made assistant editor of the New York Review. - It was a new publication, and under the direction of Poe it shone brightly in the galaxy of literary stars. Reviews, relentless and unsparing, discovered the real literati of the day. Ene- mies flourished about him. Poe did not notice them; he had his work to do, and he did it. The truth was to be told, and he fearlessly portrayed the type of literary timber prevalent at that day in New York. The Poe home in New York was on Car- mine Street. Those early New York days were happy ones, but happiness is ever a transient guest, and clouds soon arose. Writers, inferior to Poe, and yet with more business acumen, secured the literary plums and left him to do the hack work. It was but fate, for history shows that the mediocre do the work of the gifted while they disdainfully do mediocre work. Poe chafed under this rule. A hearing was what he wanted. He yearned to give of his 18

Page 12

By permission of Columbia University NOW IN THE LIBRARY best. The injustice burned into his soul. Tuned to the sweetest and the eter- nal songs, was he to be driven to hack work, as a slave to his galley? No wonder it maddened him, sensitive as he was; that it tortured his delicate na- ture, which was diseased with its own glory, poi- %soned with hatred of evil ‘Sand the ugly, mad, too, with the drear, the beauti- ful, the awesome pathos and the mysterious attrac- MANTEL FROM THE EIGHTY-FOURTH STREET HOUSE, OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Master said, ‘‘ Become as little children,” and by this sweet theology the transgressions of Po2 were partially redeemed, be- cause he kept to the last a child’s heart, kept the child-wonder of the why and wherefore of life. Almost six years were passed in the City of Brotherly Love, and then New York again drew the poet. For a short time he lived on Eighty-fourth Street, and then moved to Jand of children. :premium there. Driven by the irresist- ible Wanderlust, on he marched with wife, mother-in-law, and baggage. He sgon found work on Gyra- ham’s Magasine, a stilted periodical of the Godey’s Lady’s Book type. It was the way of manhood Poe was traveling then. God help him, for he still had the heart of a child, and the world does not easily forgive that. It is the crime un- pardonable. The 250 tion of death, with the grave and this world of shadows, this dream- He knew that men are but playthings of fate, children, mere chessmen on the board of eternity, to be pushed here and there, or taken off, as the fanciful will of the Master-Player directs. So Philadelphia was the next step in 1838. ‘Poe had heard that literary work was at a the ness, were there. want ? more. famous HOUSE ON EIGHTY-FOURTH STREET, NEW YORK, IN WHICH POE WROTE ‘‘THE RAVEN” cottage in Fordham. The cottage was small, but flowers grew about it, and birds and the music of wild things, with domestic peace and happi- What more could a poet In 1845 “‘ The Raven” began its im- mortal plaint, its eternal song of ‘ Never- ” It was signed with a pseudonym, but gradually its author became known. Then floods of praise swept over the des- erts of unapprecia- tion. Byron-like, Poe awoke from oblivion to find himself ~fa- mous. The world re- peated the questions Poe’s “‘ Raven’ asked and questioned, ‘“Who is this Poe, a new prophet of the world of poesy ?” Meanwhile Poe knelt by a dying wife. His ears were sealed to the cheering mul- titudes outside, he heard only the death- rattle in Virginia’s

Page 13

HOUSE ON CARMINE STREET. POF’S FIRST RESIDENCE IN NEW YORK throat. What were the praises of wolves who yesterday had clamored to devour him? What the smiles of friends too shortsighted to see he needed bread rather than praises? She was dying, his Annabel Lee, his child-love, his} Virginia. The world was forgotten as he knelt there. How the memory of his own words stung him—‘“‘ The most exquisite theme [ of poesy is a beautiful woman in death!” In his life-tragedy this master poem was to be sung. Poe rebelled. It was oversweet. He longed for the husks of life with her, not the death-poem of love and beauty without her. Life to him then was only Virginia, but the fates, who make men mad to stamp them great, were inexorable. She died. Fate ordained for Poe that all he loved should leave him, that by his art he should lift himself to the heights of heaven where they were. Her death was on January 30, 1847,and her last smile was for Edgar, her poet and prince. After her death the drinking so widely published began. To drown grief in wine, writing poetry madly the while, was his one aim. Again and again, in the two short years of life left to him, Edgar Poe returned to Baltimore. The city had a mystic attraction, and for days he would wander about it, hoping there to find renewed peace and joy. On one of these Baltimore visits he Wrote the world-famous poem, “The Bells.” Perhaps Mrs. Houghten had inspired him with the germ of the poem in New York, but the house where it was written in Baltimore still stands, a Elisabeth Ellicott Poe 251 mute testimony of its Baltimore birth. Tradi- tion treasures this story of ‘‘The Bells”: One winter night Poe had been to the public library and was walking home down Saint Paul’s Street. It was snowy, and sleigh-bells made merry music. Their lilt and swing got into his brain, and he searched his pockets for pencil and paper. He had none. Stores were closed, and meanwhile exquisite phrases were being lost. He rushed up the steps of Judge A. E. Giles’s residence, and rang the bell. The judge himself opened the door, and Poe requested paper and ink. The judge saw that he was a gentleman, invited him into{ the library, and courteously withdrew. After a time he looked in after his strange guest, only to find him gone; but there, lying on the table, were the first three stanzas of ‘‘The Bells,” which the judge afterward had framed and hung in his office. Another Baltimore haunt of Poe’s was the oyster-shop of ‘‘ Mother”? Meagher’s on Pratt Street near Hollingsford, where the prize story, “The Gold Bug,” was written on top of an oyster-barrel, with the noise of the shop about him. Poe was a favorite of the old Irish- woman’s, and he would often compose sonnets and couplets for her, mostly on topical sub- jects. Never poet, unless it was Frangois Villon, had stranger writing-table or office. It is to be feared that some of his sublime work was lost in the quaint shop of the gay Irish widow, who was kind to the poet in her rough, igno- rant way. The last scene of Poe’s life, as well as the first, was set in Baltimore. It is a scene of mystery, and few real authentic details of it THE POE COTTAGE, FORDHAM

Page 14

252 Poe, The Weird Genius are known. This much is clear, however: On the night of October 4, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe arrived in Baltimore from Richmond. He was going North to be married, and was last seen to alight from the Richmond train in Baltimore and go into a near-by saloon. What happened after that, in brief, was this: His drink was drugged under direction of a gang of plug-ugties and he was voted about the city next day in the elections as a repeater while still drugged. The plug-uglies were members of a secret political organization, and their lips were sealed. But a certain Passano of Ps society, in after years said that Edgar Poe was kept in his coop that night. After the plug- uglies had finished with the unfortunate man he was thrown carelessly into the street, left to die if he willed. There, as it chanced, one of Poe’s own relatives found him lying under the steps of the old Balti more Museum, at the corner of Baltimore and Calvert streets, in what appeared to be a drunken stupor. It was election night, and his first thought was that the indul- gence of the day had overcome the man. Pity for his condition caused him to look closer when, to his horror, he saw it was his cousin Edgar. A carriage was sum- moned, and Edgar was taken to the Wash- ington University Hospital, now the Church Home on North Broadway. For three days the doctors worked over him, but he never recovered sufficiently to give the details of his dreadful plight. The case was diagnosed as blood poisoning and exposure, combined with a weak heart. It proved fatal. On Sunday morning, Oc- tober 7, 1849, as the Angelus was ringing over the city, the soul of Edgar Poe passed, with the music of the bells, out into the surging sea of death. Followed to the end by attendant w destiny, his last words have been reported as, ‘Would to God some one would blow my damned brains out,”’ to be followed a mo- ment later by the prayer, “‘ Lord, have mercy on my poor soul.” : The following day a little funeral train went through the city of Baltimore. Few turned to gaze, yet it was the Monument City’s most gifted son going to a long rest. Nota bell tolled for him, except perhaps those bells of fancy he had immortalized. Reaching Westminster Churchyard, where his ances- tors were buried, he was placed in an open grave by the side of David Poe, his grandfather. The committal service was read by Rey. William Clemm, a distant relative of Virginia’s. He was followed to the grave by Mrs. Clemm and a few classmates, who in sorrow left him to his poet's rest. What more is there to be said? Death has rung down the curtain and ‘closed the book. When the Poe monument, the funds for which were raised by a band of Baltimore women, was dedicated in 1875, the poet’s re- mains, with those of POE’S GRAVE, WESTMINSTER CHURCHYARD, his wife and Mrs. BALTIMORE Clemm, were rein- terred beneath it. His monument stands in Westminster Church- vard. This is well. He sleeps better with those who loved him, in the city of his birth. The words Tennyson said of Poe are worthy to be repeated: ‘‘ How can so strange and fine a genius and so sad a life be ex- pressed and compressed into one line? Would it not be better to say of him simply, ‘Re- quiescat in pace’?” Well said, sweet English song-bird. That is all that does remain for us, to pray that he may rest in peace in Baltimore, the city of his heart. ast

Page 15

King Cotton's —— Retinue By Daniel g. Sully Editor's Note.— Daniel J. Sully, the author of the series of articles, of which’ this is the first, depicting the possibilities of cotton, the pitiful vassalage of the planter, and the destiny awaiting the United States and the cotton-grower, when we take advantage of our opportunity, has had a remarkable career in the record and romance of cotton. It was his mane market campaign that caused cotton to rise to 17} cents a pound in 1903, the cotton, when ighest point reached since the Civil War. Sully was its Premier, $450, 000 000 in gold was brought to this country During this actual reign of and formed the substructure of the enormous bull market which culminated in the spring of 1907. Then the South and the whole nation realized for the first time that the success of cotton and the advancement of civilization go hand in hand. MERICAN _cotton-planters, proprietors of the greatest gold-producing staple in the world, are poor. They are in practical servitude. It is a tragedy of contemporary life that they who produce for the world the commodity without which modern civ- ilization and industrial life could not proceed are themselves absolutely subservient and the poorest paid toilers in the United States. Intellectually the cotton- growers are surrounded and coerced by fac- tors which have no other purpose than to keep them in this -benighted vassalage. From this condition influences of a new American spirit must liberate them We smile at the @elestial shivering in the midst of coal-fields larger than the state of Pennsylvania. America’s attitude toward cotton is almost equally grotesque. On the southern rim of the United States, within an area of practically fourteen states, is grown eighty per cent. of the world’s supply of cot- ton. The remaining twenty per cent., grown in South America, India, and the Far East, is of an inferior quality and cannot compete with the cotton grown in the United Notwithstanding this enormous ad- States. vantage, the fact still remains that this heaven-sent boon, paradoxical though it may seem, does not enrich, but rather im- poverishes, the southland. This is a tale of commercial ineptitude. Our greatest asset is our greatest humilia- tion. Cotton is king, but it is a_ badly served monarch. Other nations, by far- sighted policy, intense activity, and com- mercial alertness, have overcome the tre- mendous advantage we have, and by beating down the price of “the raw product, and with cheap labor on looms and machinery for the manufacture of the finished product, now control the markets of the world. In the Orient, where we once had our share of trade, the market, to say the least, is slipping from us. It seems almost a travesty on American business methods that English and German manufacturers can go on the docks at Galveston and take our raw cotton, carry it to Europe in subsidized ships, weave it with cheap labor, retransport it to the United States, pay the customs duty, and undersell our home manufacturers. There is something wrong here, isn’t there ? Cotton is the clothing of the uncounted multitudes, and even those born to the purple depend upon cotton for much of their ap- pareling. King Cotton’s dominion is man- 233 £08

Page 16

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood A FEW OF THE FOUR MILLION BALES OF kind. America, therefore, producing, prac- tically alone, a commodity vital to civilized life and progress, has in that harvest the secret of incomparable wealth and_ power. It is not steel or lumber, kerosene or corn, that insures enduring leadership for the United States. Vast capital and dynamic genius have gone into the development of steel, yet this is transitory. The scepter. of steel must ultimately slip from our grasp. The iron-ore beds of the Lake Superior region are doomed. Experts have num- bered their years as less than a generation. Lumber cannot furnish a permanent founda- tion for our industrial preeminence. The forests are fast vanishing. Oil has contrib- uted one of the leading items to our export trade, and has multiplied incredibly the for- tunes of its managers; but the oil-wells can- not disgorge their illuminant forever. Be- sides, the Baku fields are ready to compete. Our corn and wheat before the end of many decades will be consumed at home. Ar- gentina, central Europe, and Manchuria produce these cereals in prodigal abundance. Even if our corn and wheat were the world’s sole sufficient supply, as in the case of our 254 COTTON THAT TEXAS RAISES EVERY YEAR cotton, the oversea nations could dispense with these staples, as some of them now do. Millions upon millions of Mongolians have not yet developed an appetite for anything save rice. But all of them are clad in cotton goods. An additional inch on the shirts worn by the Mongolians would mean one million bales of cotton, and this is the market that is slipping from us. COTTON MAKES AMERICA SUPREME AMONG NATIONS Thus it is cotton, and cotton alone, that can make America permanently unique and supreme among the nations. This fact makes grotesque the record of our unsuccess in selling finished cotton products across the sea. The only foreign customer that counted at all importantly in the totals of our export trade was China, and our market there has pitiably declined. England, Germany, and Japan are forcing our ships from the Pacific, just as they crowded them off the paths of the Atlantic. We should be carrying cargoes of cotton goods to all the ports of the earth. Instead of that the nations send here for eighty per cent. of their raw supply, manu-

Page 17

| facture it into all forms of commodities, out- sell us in all the world’s markets, and even successfully ship the manufactured goods back to the Americans who produce the raw supply. Switzerland, for example, which grows no cotton, whose mountains yield no coal for its factories, a country that has not an inch oj seacoast or a plank ajloat, sends to us, in the ships o} other‘ nations, more finished cotton goods than we export to all the coun- tries of Conti- nental Europe combined. America’s future, when she realizes her heritage and oppor- tunity in cot- ton,willeclipse anything that has been fore- told for this Republic. It is only within the last hun- dred years that cotton has conquered the world. The career of this plant has scarcely be- gun. The remarkable pace in. its progress to power is re- Daniel J. Sully Before Eli Whitney’s time it took a man in his home two years to separate one bale of cotton from the seed. The yield of cot- ton thus handicapped on its way to the wearer was unimportant. There had been cotton from remote antiquity. The mum- mies of Peru were wrapped in it. The an- cient Hindus wove it, and by some forgotten art the weav- ing was five thousand times finer than is to be found in any of the fabrics of modern times. Cotton was a sacred thread among the Brah- mans, and the theft of it a serious crime. In the gardens of Chinese temples at the present day a special variety of cotton- plant is found which is no- where else grown. From its yield the vestments of the Confucian priests are made. Great Brit- ain has made an organized - and scientific vealed by the 7 effort to raise quaint fact a supply that that in 1784 would make eight bags of her independ- American cot- ent of Ameri- ton were seized Before he invented the cotton-gin it took a man two years ca, for the by thecustoms authorities at Liverpool, the sage British verdict being that the importation was fraudulent, as so much cotton could not possibly be produc ed in one year in America! In Napoleon’s campaigns thousands of the wounded could have been saved had there been an adequate supply of cotton for bandages. to separate one bale of cotton from the seed statesmen of that empire foresee the possibilities of the day when Ameri- ca, rising to a recognition of her right, will manufacture her own cotton and sell it to the world. But Great Britain, with her grip upon all available areas, after many years of unsuccessful effort, has had to and must come continually to America for her supply.

Page 18

256 King Cotton's Impoverished Retinue The Standard Oil Company has made it possible to illumine millions of homes that otherwise would be in darkness, but this has been made practicable only through the cot- ton wick. When you are born they wrap you in cotton; when you die they bury you in a cotton shroud. Throughout life cotton is most constantly with man. It is his closest companion by day and keeps him comfortable at night. Cotton is spread upon his tables; it is in the upholstering of his chairs. If he takes a ride on the Flying Limited it is cotton waste in the wheel-boxes, through which lubricating-oil is fed to the running-gear, that insures a continuous trip. This is an electrical age, but without cotton insulation on the wires the might of elec- tricity would be a menace. COTTON AND THE PEACE OF THE WORLD Cotton has within itself, under the guiding hand of the country which produces it, the power to bring about ultimate world-peace. The United States, by prohibiting the ex- portation of raw cotton cargoes to England, Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland, could inflict hopeless industrial paralysis and financial panic upon those lands. The bal- ance of power is in our hands to a most re- markable degree, but we treat it with in- difference. One word from America that it would with- hold supplies of cotton would bring all Europe to terms of comity. In the meantime, and until we reach the realization of the potency of cotton, if na- tions continue to waste their substance (and their purchasing power) in war, cotton will continue to be found indispensable in con- flict. It is guncotton that hurls destruction through the ranks, and it is cotton that binds up the wounds of the fallen. The Japanese in their recent war, through an unrivaled system of surgery and hospital service, re- duced the death-rate of the wounded to an unprecedented minimum. Without cotton that would have been impossible. And it is in cotton khaki that the armies march. And they make their bivouacs under cotton tents. Cotton is indeed first in war, as it is first in peace! Now we are entering a new age, the age of aerial flight, and the aeroplane is a cotton chariot! On these wings of cotton we have begun to fly through the heavens at thirty and forty miles an hour, and the end is not yet. It is easy to forget, or at least to fail to keep in mind, that cotton cloth, the cloth of the civilized masses, without which they would become barbarians, is the product of a plant. Cloth grown from the soil! If by some botanical necromancy we could grow finished garments in the fields, and if these garments could be produced in like quanti- ties in no other part of the earth, every man would instantly realize that America pos- sessed a monopoly which would make all other nations our petitioners. Yet we have that monopoly as assured as it would be if we harvested clothing ready to wear, for if we ourselves produced the garments that we by our toil in the South enable Europe and Japan to manufacture, we would possess al- most an exclusive supply of the cloth and clothing already needed by at least one-half of the human race. Men cannot, if they would, again depend for their clothing upon the skins of wild ani- mals. These beasts have practically van- ished. Nor is there enough wilderness on the globe to furnish a range for the rearing of sufficient animals to provide garments of skins for mankind. The world of men and women is clothed to-day as never before. It is only within the last century, with cotton within the reach of the multitude, that the majority have been adequately clothed. The heroes of the Revolution were half clad and that half was rags. And it is one of the interesting ironies of history that during that period, when the problem of clothes. was supreme, both in America and abroad, Richard Arkwright, who invented the spinning-frame, and James Hargreaves, who invented the spinning- jenny, creations which were to change the history of the race, had their machines de- stroyed by the enraged and half-clad popu- lace, who feared the competition of these labor-saving devices. OUR NEW DESTINY We smile at the short-sighted folly of that day, and yet the progress in the use and manufacture of cotton will be as tremendous in the coming years as in the past. There is an actual kingship for cotton, not only com- mercially but politically; and this sover- eignty of cotton in America I believe to be at hand. We shall awake to our new destiny as a world-power and trading nation w hen we realize fully that the Southern section of our

Page 19

ALLL YY * CENTER OF C ES REPORTING Ba ” EA ISLAND COTTON UPLAND COTTON ONLY wy MISSOURF i ~ * ' YY Yj a ee ~---'= ex MAP SHOWING COTTON-PRODUCING AREA OF THE UNITED STATES COTTON 1907 PERCENTAGE CROWN IN CACM STATS

Page 20

. 258 King Cotton’s Impoverished Retinue Republic is virtually the exclusive source of a commodity absolutely indispensable to the myriads of mankind trom New York to Shanghai, from Nome to Montevideo, from London to the Cape. Less than one and a quarter million Americans, in fourteen states of this Union, hold in their hands the com- fort, the luxury, the destiny of mankind. An enormous profit is made somewhere in the progress of cotton to the consumer. Every year cot- ton goods to the value of nearly six billion dol lars are turned out from the 125,000,000 spindles in the world. But the poor farmer in the cotton-fields sees but a pitiful part of the mul- tiplying fortunes attending the migration of cot- ton goods around the earth. The Southerner sells raw cotton to Japan, and the mills at Osaka turn out prod- ucts that out- sell our goods in Shanghai and Canton; and the Japanese cotton- manufacturer, traveling in state to America, may wonder wherein One of the largest cotton-growers in the country. He has twelve thousand acres under cultivation in Jefferson County, Arkansas and _ frequently the half-fed Southern farmer —a vassal ten- ant—following his one mule in the furrow, has advanced in civilization over the only recently awakened pagan of the East. The ordinary grower of cotton cultivates twenty acres, producing one-half a bale to the acre. Unfortunately, in too great a ma- jority of cases he is a tenant farmer. Of his ten bales, the result of his year’s toil, five must go to the owner of the land. The working farmer, for his product, gets, we JOHN M. GRACIE will say, ten cents a pound or fifty dollars a bale, his twelve months of effort and ex- pense bringing him in a gross revenue of two hundred and fifty dollars. This is an insignificant total for the man who among others produces the commodity that controls the world. Out of that two hundred and fifty dollars he must provide for his family, himself, and his mule, and make _ provision for the ensuing times of planting and _ cultivating. Fully sixty-five per cent. of America’s cot- ton is produced by this strug- gling method. Up to 1903, when the great move- ment in cotton prices blessed the Southern in- dustry with the transforming gleam of pros- perity, ninety per cent. of our cotton crop was harvested in this same_ hopeless way. In 1898 I made my usual trip South. Those were dis- mal times in the land of cotton. It was a period of poverty and despair. Cotton was only five cents a pound sold below that price in the interior. The explanation of the spinner regarding this five-cent rate was that it was fixed by the laws of supply and demand. The Southern planter said that the cause of the ruinous rate was oppression. In my opinion it was neither. It was ignorance, ignorance on the part of the planter, because he did not realize his impregnable position in hav- ing a monopoly of the most valuable fruit of the soil, and because he did not assert his

Page 21

TYPICAL COTTON-PICKING SCENE rights. And ignorance on the part of the spinners and manufacturers, because they clung to the musty old idea that in buying their raw material at the lowest possible price and turning out finished products they were doing their full duty as business men. Lhis cotton selling at five cents was the same cotton that Lancashire had fought to get in ON A SOUTHERN PLANTATION 1864 at $1.90 a pound. It was the same cotton for which lives were risked in run- ning blockades in the Civil War. There ap- peared to be something the matter. On that trip I saw how discouragement had taken the nerve out of the farmers. Cottonseed was dumped out in_ heaps, beaten by rain, covered with sleet. Farms 259

Page 22

PRIVATE OFFICE OF DANIEL J. SULLY, MARKET CAMPAIGN were ill kept, with buildings and fences di- lapidated. If the time ever came, I thought, I should like to take a hand and put cotton where it belonged. I knew the face of that sodden landscape would change. Upon visiting Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1906, I was approached by a gentleman who wanted me to go out and look at a farm which was producing two and one-half bales of cotton to the acre. I thought the man was insane, or trying to lead me astray. Never- theless I went out to this farm, and much to my surprise I discovered that land which two years previously had been raising bumblebee cotton, or cotton which derives its name from the countryside legend that a bumblebee can sit on its hind legs and take the fruit from the boll, was now producing two and one-half bales to the acre. I learned that the overseer, who had been employed for his up-to-date methods and producing on this very land cotton that was yielding two and one-half bales to the acre, was doing it entirely on the basis of scientific farming and the selection of the best seed from the first pick of the crop. This is simply an illustration of what could 260 NEW YORK, FROM WHICH HIS GREAT WAS CARRIED ON happen if all the lands of the South were utilized to their best advantage. The South needs to be taught something about cotton. The planting and cultural methods are still crude. The handling and marketing of the cotton are atrocious. The splendid fleecy supply is carelessly picked. When it comes from the gins it is even badly cut by the saws, and the fiber is mixed with leaves and trash. The bales are imperfectly covered, and when traveling a long distance, as when sent to Europe, they are battered beyond description. The waste in planting, cultivating, ginning, handling, and marketing costs the South one hundred million dollars annually. This hundred million dollars could be the source of immense revenue jor cap- ital that would have the courage to invest in revolutionizing the crude existing methods in the cotton-jields. In whatever way we regard the crop of cot- ton we find features that are unconnected with any other harvest. The growing of cot- ton, alone of all plant life, does not exhaust the soil. This has been a mystery to science. “Land that has been planted in cotton for

Page 23

ft forty successive .years in Bolivar County Mississippi, ” says a Department of Agricul- ture report, ‘‘praduces just as well the last year as it did the first.” That being true, what prodigal results await the planter when to get greater harvest he begins scientifically to treat the soil undepleted through a genera- tion and more of ‘successive harvests! In all the years it has been in use there has not been a single improvement on the cotton-gin in- vented by Eli Whitney. Its ability lo tearand disfigure the fiber is justas it was when Whitney invented it. Cleaner work would mean :a saving of thou- sands, THE WORLD AGAINST THE COTTON-GROWER The whole world is com- bined against the Southern farmers to keep down the price of their product, and they must combine along similar lines of intellectual and progressive methods to meet and overcome this antagonism. Tenant farmers are under an enormous handicap, and the landowner knows that high prices mean ability on the part of the tenant to get out from under the yoke and become independent; this the land owner does not wish. The mill-owner and the weaver want cheap cotton. The Southern farmers must combine; must restrict their crop along the lines of actual supply and de- mand; must abandon their slipshod methods of farming and resort to scientific processes; must diversify their crops and must stand together. That is something I shall have more to say about later. J. W. ELDRIDGE His cotton-plantations at Hillhouse, Mississippi, are among the largest in the country cers, dividends Daniel J. Sully 261 In advancing new ideas regarding cotton we must expect to encountet the conservatism that has hindered progress in every line. After Whitney’s gin was patented and im- proved, and the production of cotton had risen to ten million pounds, the planters of America were stricken with fear that the market would be permanently overstocked. Gazing in astonishment at the output of a gin which could separate more cotton in a day than he could have done in a lifetime, one of the startled planters ex- claimed, “‘I have done with the cultivation of cotton; there’s enough in that gin-house_ to make stockings for all the people of America.” Until recent years the seed and stalks of the cotton were worse than a waste; they were in the way. To- day the seed formerly a nui- sance produces an income forthe farmer, pays the wages of many people employed in the world, the salaries of offi- ® on capital in- vested, fattens more than a million head of cattle for the market, and feeds three million of the younger generation of steers. More- over this cottonseed yields a revenue equal to sixty-five per cent. of all the commercial fertilizers sold in America. During the Civil War, when the port of New Orleans was blockaded, the export of cottonseed cake was prevented, and it was used for fuel in the Southern town. The hulls, at considerable effort and expense, were dumped on vacant areas in the suburbs. There were herds of cattle grazing in the

Page 24

lo KR neighborhood, and the owners, sharing an old prejudice that cotton-hulls were poisonous to cattle, employed a line of men to keep the herds away from the dangerous banquet. But the continued blockade made food-stuff scarce, and asa last resort the lean and hungry cattle were permitted to browse on the for- bidden hulls. The herds got fat! To-day, when the oil-mills of the South begin to disgorge hulls, stockmen buy cattle and send them to localities in the oil-mill neighborhood. Instead now of watching these cattle to pre- vent them from eating hulls, they are fenced in and given nothing else to eat. As many as five thou- sand cattle in one enclosure will be found eagerly eating out of troughs filled with cot- ton-hulls. Bar- rels of salt are left open, plenty of water is supplied, and everything done to enable the cattle to eat all they can of a product from which a few years ago men were employed to keep them Copyright, 1902, by Underwood & Underwood SPINNING-ROOM OF A GREAT AMERICAN COTTON-MILL King Cotton’s Impoverished Retinue Europe that one could buy a fox from Eng- land for a groat, and sell back the finished tail for a guilder! It seemed that the Englishman was doomed to go on forever in his fogs gath- ering wool, and after selling the raw material buy it back at a high price from the Flemish weavers. When England in its turn awoke to its op- portunities it attempted to assure its market in America, by keeping the colonies in a purely agricultural and pastoral state. And while we have, through protection and other causes, suc- ceeded in be- coming a great industrial em- pire, we have never fully thrown off the yoke of the thought that all England and Europe holds over us; viz., that we are incapable of manufacturing cotton goods for the world. As an allegory, the story of the fox and the tail now applies to America’s South in its re- lation with the cotton-buying nations. The Southern plan- ter to-day, with away. One hundred and four thousand spindles make up the equip- | few exceptions, The conser- vatism that has retarded the development of cotton itself has had a conspicuous effect in preventing Ameri- ca from keeping pace with the rest of the world in the manufacture of cotton goods. I refer to the quantity of goods purchased. There was a time when it was not believed possible that manufactured goods could come from the American colonies, and England sought to confirm that belief by political and commercial laws. It was a repetition of history. For ages England was under the yoke of dependence upon the manufactories of Flanders. It was a saying for centuries in ment of this room is an abject slave of the Old World. The only difference between the ryot of India and the Southern farmer in the furrow behind his mule is that one breathes the air of liberty. The Southern planter who has it in his power to combine with his neighbor and be come one of the industrial masters of the world is now so pitifully poor that he could make more money by going as an operative and humbly working in the mills—amills that could not exist without the cotton which the struggling planters grow. It is a pathetic and ironical jact that there is more money behind the spinning-jenny than behind the Southern mule! cy

Page 25

When the last great industrial revolution came it was not due to one but to many minds. Hargreaves and Arkwright, Jacquard and Whitney were practically contempo- raries, giving to cotton its great opportunity at the moment when the world was most in need of it. The utilization of coal had transferred industrv from the warm regions of the Medi- terranean, where men could work in scant at- tire, to the colder latitude of England and Germany. And America had come into its own. All the civilizations of ancient times had been compelled to shun the zone where ice formed and snow fell. The use of cotton for garments extended clothing to the masses and made it possible for them to center their civilization on far to the north, regardless of climate. heretofore only the few and the most venturesome had-moved permanently into latitudes where millions of human beings are now prosperous. When the world was, ready with the new civilization, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, we had a new fabric within the reach of the multitude. We cannot civilize a race without clothing it. . To-day the thirteen million bales of cotton converted into cloth turn Jout.on) a“ yards basis more than seventy-one billion: yards, valued at nearly six billion’ dollars. _Edward Atkinson has estimated that if all of the world’s inhabitants were cigilized, and_as a result were consumers of cotf6n, it would call for an annual crop of forty-two million bales of five hundred pounds each. a Assuming that by the time the Hottentot and the Igorrote became -fully civilized and called for cotton clothes, with all the other of the world’s tribesmen following suit, America rose to its opportunity as the universal pro- vider of cotton goods, and in so realizing turned its raw material into our own factories and sent out cotton cloth to be worked into garments by the nations, our factory trade in cotton cloth alone would amount to more than seventeen billion dollars per annum! That is vastly more than the value of the present total export of all commodities from all the countries of the world. Even if we possessed the present foreign trade in cotton goods woven from our raw supply, we would be in reality, as we are in patriotic speech, the sovereigns of mankind. It is interesting to note that the pioneers in the modern cotton era which has given this cloth to the poorest came from the lowlier ranks. Arkwright, who was a barber, and Daniel J. Sully 263 who left his trade to endow the world with its greatest industry—an industry that has clothed and civilized millions—had to borrow a suit of clothes once in his career in order to appear decently at the polls to vote. Draper calls attention to the fact that the social condition of Europe was transformed, “not by placemen and officers, to whom that continent had resigned its annals, whose effigies encumber the streets of cities, but to men in the lower walks of life.” Chemistry came to the service of mankind when genius had developed a new form of clothing for the people of the world. Draper does not hesitate to say that the discovery of the power of chlorin to bleach cotton cloth was one of the turning-points in history. At first this may appear to be extreme. But a moment’s reflection will show that any dis- covery or invention or legislation that removes a handicap from cotton, and gives it a new pace toward its ultimate dominion, marks the beginning of anepoch. The old-time process of bleaching by the agency of sun and air con- sumed from six to eight months, and an ex- tensive surface of the land had to be dedicated to this ancient method. Picture the impos- sibility of thus -bleaching the more than seventy-one billiontyards now turned out annually. What a prodigious and unthink- able task it would be to dedicate to outdoor bleaching-fields an extent of cotton cloths and yarns which, as now disgorged from the world’s mills, form every day and a half a streamer long enough to flutter its farther end against the moon, and which in a year would reach halfway to the sun! I have tried to point out the enormous im portance of cotton, to show the heaven- bestowed monopoly of it given to the United States and the criminal neglect of this op- portunity. Our trade is not paltry through our failure to produce goods of a grade as high as any turned out in the world. It is through our inability to get them to the world’s market at as low a cost as the European manufacturer does, which he is enabled to do through his low freight rates. In my next article I shall show the su- premacy of the English and Continental mer- chants, winners over their American com- petitors through advantages of cheap labor and cheap freight rates, and show how the finished product is returned to this country and sold here through leniency in custom-house appraisers that is significant, to say the least. After that I shall try to undertake a remedy.

Page 26

“HE LOOKS AS IF HE’D SEEN A GHOST,” SAID THE SCULPTOR, LAUGHING (‘The Delusion of Ralph Penwyn 79 18

Page 27

The Delusion of Ralph Penwyn By Julian Hawthorne Illustrated by Frank Snapp EN years ago Ralph Penwyn was still a very handsome man. For that matter, he was a little past thirty, but looked forty; his dark hair had begun to turn gray on the front part of his head, and there were lines of ma- turity in his face. His an- cestors were black Celts of Cornwall, and he had their tall, athletic frame, black, kindling eyes, and passionate, artistic temperament. He had studied art, and after visiting Europe had painted some good pictures. One of them, ‘‘The Profanation,” had been commended by the great Watts. ‘‘ About as compelling an imaginative thing,” he said of it, ‘as ever I saw.” I had not at that time seen it myself; but had been told that the composition centered about a female figure, beautiful and tragic. It was the last thing Ralph painted. “What we call a work of art,” said he, “‘is but a by-product. Art is a spiritual culture whose best conceptions are never brought down to the physical plane.” This may have been esoteric philosophy, or it may have been an excuse for indolence—of that intellectual kind that often accompanies great powers. Ralph had money and did not have to work. He got a volunteer commission and went through the Spanish War, performing conspicuous exploits; in all he did he was conspicuous, though indifferent. Instead of accepting promotion he resigned and went to India, and was not heard from for some years. He never told what he did there or what happened to him. Is there really a school or brotherhood of adepts in India? Is Yoga and all that sort of thing truth or a fairy-tale ? He returned unannounced to New York and took up his abode in one of the family heirlooms, an old brownstone house on Sec- 265 ond Avenue. He refitted and furnished it in accordance with his taste, and gave a few in- formal receptions, attended by a score of his friends—all men. He entertained us with some curious ‘“‘border-land” scientific ex- periments which would have been called magic a few years ago. For my own part, I thought I saw something in a crystal sphere which was not to be explained upon any scientific basis that I know of. But what is the use of being surprised at anything nowa- days? Hypnotism, incarnate or disincar- nate, accounts for everything. For the rest, we had good punch and cigars and very fetching music, coming and going like a breeze from another world; the mu- sicians were behind a screen—if there were any musicians! Ralph, as host, was genial but quieter than of old, and personally quite matter of fact+-perhaps from a motive of ar- tistic contrast to the entertainment. He told us interesting but credible things about his adventures abroad, and discussed art, litera- ture, politics, every-day matters. All the time I was thinking of the woman’s face I had imagined I saw in the crystal sphere. Had I met its possessor somewhere? Who? and where? I walked home that night with a famous sculptor (now dead) who knew Ralph more intimately than I did. ‘Did Ralph ever have a romance—anything with a woman in it?” I asked him. “A fellow of his strong masculine fiber naturally would have—and probably not more than one.” “Which would make up by its intensity for its uniqueness ?” ‘And by the tragedy of it—unless it hap- pened just right.” “His wasn’t just right ?” “T could give you no more than a guess; and I suppose it isn’t a thing one has any right to guess about.” That was all I got from the man of bronze and marble. 19

Page 28

266 The Delusion of Ralph Penwyn Next evening I made my regular weekly call on old Mrs. Montrose Capet. She was a patrician of Virginia, rich, exclusive,. fas- tidious, and, at seventy, a bit eccentric; to persons she liked, the best and kindest of women. One thing about her I had never quite approved—that sixth sense which she possessed in addition to the ordinary five; for I am not fond of the occult. Few per- sons then living, however, knew that she had the “faculty,” and our own intercourse had never looked in that direction. I sought her for her normal and unusual gifts of con- versation and human nature. I found her alone; the former queen of so- ciety had few familiars left now. Teapot and cups were ready on the Oriental stand in the little gold-room, as she called her boudoir. We were happy and cozy for ten minutes; then I noticed signs of uneasiness in her. She kept putting her hand to her forehead. ‘‘ Headache ?” “Not exactly,” she replied; “‘but you’ve been up to something. And you’ve brought it with you, the—what do you call it?—the aura, you know. Mercy, how strong!” She brushed her fingers across her eyes once or twice. ‘““H’m—yes—oh, yes! My dear boy, I really beg your pardon! Do.you want me to go on? or shall I switch it off?” I was polite enough to beg her not to switch it off, whatever it was. She brought the fingers of her right hand close together and pressed them to the center of her forehead; then she began a muttering, half to herself, half to me. ‘“‘It’s really so exceptional I must have a look at it. A handsome boy that! Oh, a studio, of course, and she’s his model. Well, he can certainly paint! But what a theme! Terrible! In earnest about it, too! Ah—h’m! What I expected. This will end badly. All his fault, but he’ll regret it. And she—oh, my heart! Oh!” Mrs. Capet’s hand dropped to her lap, and she leaned back in her chair. I felt rather embarrassed. ‘‘So it will end badly ?” I murmured. ““Eh? No, say no more about it. I’ve had quite enough. Mercy, what people! I advise you to cut his acquaintance. Ended? No, but it’s coming, and all India can’t pre- vent it. Have some more tea, my dear. What’s that ?” It was something on me, apparently, for her eyes—and especially her left eye, sud- denly grown preternaturally bright—were fixed upon a point just above my heart. I glanced down in that direction. I had gone to Ralph’s reception the night before in a Prince Albert coat—the thing be- ing informal—and had on the same garment now. He had presented to each of us a little memento; mine was a silver medallion with some Oriental device figured upon it in relief. I had stuck it in my left lapel but- tonhole, hardly examining it at the time, and forgetting all about it afterward. “The button? Anything wrong with it?” I queried. My admirable friend pointed at it with a finger that trembled a little. ‘‘The whole story is right there,” she said. ‘“‘No; I’ve had enough for to-day, I tell you! But if anything queer about that person turns up— and it will before long, too—you’ll find the explanation in that button, as you call it. And now,” she added, changing her tone, “please, like a good boy, take the thing out of your buttonhole and put it where I can’t see it; and then we’ll have one more cup of tea.”’ I may remark that my subsequent investi- gation of the physical attributes of my button did not supply me with grounds for suppos- ing that it had any other significance, as ac- counting for Mrs. Capet’s manifestations, than the fact of its having belonged to Ralph Penwyn; in other words, I had witnessed an illustration by her of what occultists call psychometrizing. The “aura” of his per- sonal equation, or of his character and adven- tures, had become attached to the material object, and had in some way revealed to her sixth sense this equation or what these ad- ventures were. At all events, the button turned out to be nothing more than a silver disk of antique design and workmanship, decorated with the effigy of some heathen deity squatting in the midst of an inscription in some Oriental language. I leave the fur- ther interpretation of the incident to those whose philosophical erudition qualifies them for the task. So far as I understood then, or have learned since, an ordinary bone shirt-stud, if it had previously belonged to Penwyn, would have served the purpose just as well. I cannot deny, though, that my spon- taneous speculativeness concerning Penwyn was a good deal stimulated by Mrs. Capet’s little séance. Her utterances, Orphic though aici Saari a aiieS

Page 29

4 9 % they had been, served to confirm my suspi- cion that he had been involved in some ro- mance, and indicated that it had been of a sinister sort. A studio, a beautiful model, a catastrophe—it was not difficult to fill in the gaps. He had used the model, doubtless, for the chief figure in his ‘‘ Profanation”’ pic- ture of some years before. This inference prompted in me a strong desire to see the picture, and my eagerness was inflamed by a very fantastic notion; to wit, that the face in.the picture would turn out to be identical with the one which I had imagined I saw in the crystal sphere. Fantastic, indeed, nay, irrational and ridiculous, such a notion was, and I was ashamed of it, but could not banish it. I was additionally preoccupied by the impression (already mentioned) that I had met somewhere the original of the specter of the sphere. For if the model for the picture and the original of the specter should prove to be one and the same, not only would Pen- wyn’s romance become extremely interesting, but I should feel that I was, in a manner, mixed up with it myself. A few days later I happened into the sculptor’s studio. He had discerned an idea buried in a great mass of clay, and was dig- ging it out with his customary quiet energy. “Glad you came in,” he said, continuing his work. ‘“‘What do you think of this Pen- wyn business ?” “T haven’t seen or heard of him since the other evening.” “‘He was in here yesterday. I feel uneasy about him. His experience in India did him no good. He talked of going back there. A man of his imagination and temperament can’t dabble in that sort of thing with im- punity. Between you and me, I think it’s affecting his mind. He spoke of being ‘ob- sessed by devils’ quite in a matter-of-course way, as I might of dyspepsia. He asked me to take charge of one of his pictures, and, if I did not hear from him to the contrary within a given time, to destroy it. It’s the finest painting he ever did. He seemed to fancy he was pursued by a fatal destiny—in some peril or other, physical or spiritual. And all the while he was as quiet as pos- sible, outwardly. I don’t like it at all. I shall get Harkness to look him over—with- out letting him suspect it, of course. Poor old Ralph!” After expressing my surprise, sympathy, and concern, I said: “What picture do you refer to? Has he taken up painting again ?” Julian Hawthorne | 267 ‘‘No; this is an old one. ‘Profanation,’ he calls it. I remember it made a sensation in Paris six or seven years back. Did you never see it? That’s it, in the corner, with the sheet over it.” I moved the sheet aside, and for the first time saw ‘‘ The Profanation.”’ It was a remarkable work, more, how- ever, as regards design than technical execu- tion. A beautiful young woman, in nuns’ garb, on the arm of a man in evening dress, stands at the entrance to a masked ball, and profiers to the gate-keeper a goblet of em- erald, richly carved, from which emanates a celestial luster. The Holy Grail in ex- change for an evening’s pleasure! The ex- pression in the three faces, and especially in hers, is wonderfully impressive. The smile on her lips has the pathos of innocent child- hood in it, but the sparkle in her eyes carries a hideous significance. The influence of the picture was so strong that it was some moments before I realized that the nun’s face was entirely different from that of the specter of the sphere. Just then I heard the sculptor say some- thing, and, supposing he had addressed me, I turned round. A lady had entered the studio; she was well known in New York society, and I was myself slightly acquainted with her. In fact, she was Mrs. Benton- Howard. As I turned toward them she greeted me by name, but I stared at her without responding. ‘‘He looks as if he’d seen a ghost,’ said the sculptor, laughing. “Something very like one,” I replied, pull- ing myself together. “Isn’t there a book called ‘Phantasms of the Living’? I saw your face the other night in one of those Japanese crystal balls, Mrs. Howard, but until this instant I hadn’t identified it.” “I’m living, I suppose,” said she. “Do you know Ralph Penwyn?” the sculptor asked her. “ Yes—at least, long ago I did. seen him since before the war.” She spoke without self-consciousness, but it must have been a matter of course to her that men should adore her; she was irre- sistibly lovely and, for a wonder, as good and wise as she was adorable to the senses. No portrait of her exists because, though every artist who saw her wanted to paint her, and several had induced her to sit, the re- sults of the efforts even of the best of them were such ridiculous caricatures that they I haven’t

Page 30

268 The Delusion of Ralph Penwyn were always rubbed out. “Nobody can paint her,” declared incomparable John, shaking his head over his own hopeless fail- ure. “She’s a spirit; I don’t half believe she has a body!” I took my leave—the lady and the sculptor had business together—but before I went I gave another long look at “The Profana- tion.” There was certainly not the slightest similarity between the nun on the canvas and the exquisite being known as Edith Benton- Howard. But Penwyn had known both women; one of them had met a tragic fate, and the other—well, her countenance had been conjured into Penwyn’s crystal. The more I mulled over it the keener grew my antipathy to the occult. About the middle of the winter season the Cadwaladers gave a masked ball at that im- mense palace of theirs on the upper avenue. The rooms were crowded, for the palace was new, and there was curiosity to see what it looked like. All the persons mentioned in this narrative were there, including even Mrs. Montrose Capet, looking surprisingly well and animated. It was her first social outing for ten years, and I wondered what had induced her to come. When Ralph Penwyn appeared I wondered more than ever. Except for his greetings to our hosts and nods of recognition to his acquaintances, Penwyn devoted himself almost exclusively to lovely Mrs. Benton-Howard; so pointedly, indeed, that it was generally noticed. It so happened that he wore a Faust costume, and she was Marguerite; so they paired off suit- ably. There was another Marguerite among the guests, but she kept on her mask and was not identified. The circumstance, how- ever, led to some misapprehensions charac- teristic of a masked ball. “They seem to be making up for the time lost in their acquaintance,” said I to the sculptor. “I’ve never seen Mrs. Howard more gracious.” “T’ve told her about him; she under- stands,” he replied. “She understands what?” “Harkness contrived to examine him without his suspecting it,” said the sculptor, in my ear. “He admits that the man is in- sane. He has delusions—there’s no doubt about it. There’s no great danger at pres- ent, but sooner or later he will have to be taken care of. Edith is humoring him, that’s all. He imagines they’re in love with each other, poor chap! I tried to prevent his coming here, but it was no use.”’ ‘“‘A man needn’t be insane to imagine he’s in love with Mrs. Howard,” I suggested. But the artist—a very serious-minded man —only shook his head and scratched his beard. Later in the evening I saw Faust and Marguerite pass toward the conservatory. He was talking to her with deep earnestness; she was listening with her head bent, and fingering the beautiful pearl necklace that she wore. He appeared in love, certainly, but otherwise sane enough. And if she were humoring him it seemed to me she was doing it very well. I strolled about till I found a place beside Mrs. Capet. “You have made everybody else jealous of the Cadwaladers,” I said. “They needn’t be,” she replied, with a smile. “I came to see the last scene of the romance. But the very last will not be here.” “I’m told Doctor Harkness regards the case as pathological; Penwyn is of unsound mind.” “Tt will be so given out at the inquest,” returned this appalling old lady. “But we know better. I do, at any rate.” “The inquest ?” “Wait till to-morrow,” she said, fixing that wonderful eye upon me. “You don’t mean that Mrs. Howard is in any danger, I hope?” “People of her sort are never in danger, but—well, you’ll see.” Penwyn and Mrs. Howard are not known to have been seen again at the ball, after passing into the conservatory together. It was said, however, that she and her hus- band (who had spent most of the evening playing cards with three other prosperous merchants in an up-stairs room of the pal- ace) had gone home together about one o’clock. There was another rumor to the effect that a man in the costume of Faust, accompanied by a lady dressed as Mar- guerite, had entered Penwyn’s carriage nearly at the same hour, and been driven south. There was still another report that Penwyn had gone away alone. All that we can be certain of, however, is the fact that Edith Howard was in her own house the next morning and that she appeared much shocked at the news that was brought to her there. The questionable period is that which in- ee 8 salltein ae satis

Page 31

wwe tervened between the moment Edith and Ralph disappeared in the conservatory and that when his carriage arrived at his house on Second Avenue. There is only one per- son who professes to know what took place during that interval. I am now to tell the story that came to me from that source. I do not vouch for its truth, nor shall I attempt to reproduce the exact words of the narrator. Take it, if you please, as a chapter from an ordinary tale of romance, in which the writer claims the conventional omniscience of the fiction-monger; and judge as to its verity ac- cording to your own attitude toward the facts and the mysteries of human life. As Ralph turned, just within the threshold of the conservatory, he observed that his companion had resumed her white-silk mask, with its veil falling below her chin. “Darling, why do you cover your face? We are alone here.” “Let it be so,” she whispered in reply. “There will be time enough afterward. . No, you must not kiss me yet. Be patient a little longer.” “You love me, Edith ?” “T love you. I have always lovedyou. I have never loved any other man. Can you say as much, Ralph?” “Until we met I never believed love pos- sible for me. But why should we talk like children?” he exclaimed passionately. “A man is not a boy—he has put away boyish things. I knew a woman long ago; she is dead. I have been a student, since then, in the school of the masters, and have created a new being in myself. The laws of dark- ness are abrogated in the kingdom of light. You and I are free; we make our own world.”’ “Have you no fear of that dead woman— no regret for her, even ?” “No, neither regret nor fear. I should have done her worse wrong in staying with her than I did in leaving her. It was better for her that her body should die than that our souls shouid destroy each other. What we called our love would have turned out to be the deadliest enmity.” “If she could speak now, do you think she would confirm your words?” whispered the other after a pause. “Let her speak, if she will—and can. 1 would agree to be bound by her verdict. But neither she nor anyone can come be- tween us, beloved. She has long since taken up her new life and forgotten me as I had forgotten her.” : Julian Hawthorne 269 “Can a woman who has died for love ot a man ever forget him?” “It was her error killed her, not her love. Oh, let us be done with this! It is our privi- lege and duty to live in the present, and the future. I have made everything ready. To- morrow we shall be on our way. There is a heaven on earth, and we will live in it.” She laid her hand over his heart, and her eyes met his through the holes of her mask. “Heaven or hell, I will follow you every- where,” she said. ‘There was a strangeness in her voice, and the hand that rested on him seemed to strike coldness through him. But he was too deeply impassioned to heed it. He led her to the rear entrance of the conservatory, and down a flight of stairs to a door on the side street. There he wrapped round her the domino that he carried on his arm, and they entered his carriage and were driven away. “At last!” he exclaimed, with passionate exuliation. “Never to be parted again!” she mur- mured, still with that strangeness in her tones. For a time they sat silent, her cold hand in his hot one. But as they approached the neighborhood of his home he turned to her. “ Off with the mask now—with all masks!” said he. “Give me the kiss that is my life —and my life to come!” “You will never forget me?” she said, holding him back for a moment. “ Never, never, never!” “Take me, then!” He raised his hands to remove the silken vizard, but it seemed to crumble away at his first contact; and, as he bent forward, his warm lover’s breath touched, not the soft pure cheeks of Edith Howard, but—to his madman’s stare—the grisly surface of a naked skull. That, too, disintegrated be- fore his eyes, the domino fell together, and a necklace of pearls dropped with a soft rattle to the floor of the carriage. Such is my rendering, derived from infor- mation communicated to me by Mrs. Capet several days after the catastrophe, of what took place in Penwyn’s carriage in the small hours of that winter morning; but inasmuch as its credibility depends solely upon our be- lief in the integrity of the old lady’s clair- voyant powers we need lose no time in pro- nouncing it apocryphal and absurd. A few facts, however, remain to be recorded. When the carriage arrived at Penwyn’s door he failed to alight; upon which, after a

Page 32

270 The Delusion of Ralph Penwyn few minutes, the coachman got down from his box and opened the door. He saw the figure of his master seated within; but ex- amination showed that he was dead, and that the hilt of a small dagger was sticking out of his breast. The blade had been driven through his heart. No one else was in the carriage, and the only rational infer- ence was the one which was made at the coroner’s inquest (additionally confirmed by the testimony of Doctor Harkness as to the dead man’s insanity), that he had committed suicide while in a state of unsound mind. It was also mentioned in the evidence (though no significance could be attached to it) that a woman’s domino was found gn the seat of the carriage, beside the body; and that a valuable pearl necklace lay on the floor. Moreover—and this was really odd —on the forehead of Penwyn’s body was branded or impressed a small circular mark or stamp, representing—so far as could be dis- cerned—the effigy of an Oriental deity, sur- rounded by what seemed to be a sentence in an unknown language. When I told Mrs. Capet about this she nod- ded, and muttered to herself something that sounded like “The seal of the brotherhood.” A few weeks later I got a note from the sculptor, asking me to come to the studio. “T wanted you to be a witness of my dis- charge of an obligation imposed upon me by our poor friend Penwyn,” he said, when I arrived. “This is the day which he ap- pointed for the destruction of his ‘ Profana- tion.’ It seems a pity to annihilate so fine a work, but I have it on my conscience, as it were, you know.” The picture had been taken out of its frame, and stood near a large brazier filled with glowing coals. I scrutinized for the last time, with a very eager interest, I must confess, the face of the nun in the picture. The mingling, in her smile, of the angel and the demon was still perceptible, but I fancied that the former had gained a little upon the latter since I saw the painting last. “Do you suppose the woman who posed for that figure could have had any connec- tion with Ralph’s insanity and death?” I asked. “My dear fellow! A model? What a wild idea!” he laughed. ‘Did you notice the second Marguerite at the Cadwaladers’ ball?” “T believe there were two, now you men- tion it,” said he. ‘Yes, Mrs. Howard and the other. A masquerade mystification, probably. Well, here goes for the burnt offering.” He cut the canvas from the stretcher, folded it up, and laid it upon the red-hot coals.. In a minute it was in flames. And just then Mrs. Howard came hastily into the studio. After a few commonplaces, her errand came out. ‘I know Mr. Penwyn had left his pic- ture of ‘The Profanation’ with you. I want to know whether it can be bought. If so, I would like to have it.” ‘“*My dear lady, you are too late,” replied the sculptor, waving a hand toward the brazier. ‘‘‘The Profanation,’ at Ralph’s request, has become fire and air, like the genius that produced it.” Her face was pale and her eyes dark as she watched the leaping and gradual subsi- dence of the flames. She twisted her flexible hands together. ‘‘It is gone, it is no more!” she murmured at last, as the canvas sank into ashes and became gray. ‘After all, perhaps that is best. There was something noble in his soul.” She bowed to us and went out. The sculptor glanced at me, elevated his eye- brows, scratched his beard, and ordered his servant to remove the brazier. FI a

Page 33

leaning finger. my one remaining man had been relentlessly driven to his last move. When Oram laughed the old war-map of wrinkles furrowed itself over his face in the lamplight, and the mill- hands all laughed with him. Their joy was so great that in losing the games I felt that I had won. “D’yer know what this here reminds me of, boys?’ said Oram, pulling at his perpetual pipe. “Why, it takes me back to old Seven- an’-a-Half ’bout the third year the flume was built an’ the com- pany commenced to slaughterin’ sugar-pine up this way. It was down to Seven-an’-a- Half that I used to skunk the bark off’n old Hank Deed till he mixed up a combina- tion that was a little too strong for me some- times, an’ then it got to be about hoss an’ hoss. I guess none o’ you new hands never ORNERED!” Sheets, the old over “That roar lumberman, the board under the bunk-house lamp and poking me in the ribs with his gnarled fore mi times hand-runnin’. Any other game you play?” been moving kings and men as though a cosmic duty compelled him, and On Indian Head By Bailey Millard Illustrated by F. B. Masters ed Oram - seen Hank. checker ikes five He had piece 0’ canyon. ORAM SHEETS Virgie was his dotter He was as husky a little sawed off lumber-herder as ever swung a picaroon. Tended flume at Seven-an’-a-Half until he slipped off the side plank on the Dead Pine trestle in the snow one day an’ broke his laig. An’ he kep’ on tendin’ quite some time after that, too, ’cause Virgie an’ I helped him out. jest about as neat a calico as ever come into the old 1 She had a soft, peachy face an’ big baby-blue eyes an’ stood nearly a head higher’n her dad. A lady from the bark to the heart-wood an’ back ag’in, or I’m a slab burner. “Everybody along the flume was in love with Virgie, but it didn’t do the rest of us no good, for Reddy Gor- don, a young feller who worked up at Skyland an’ who had a square chin an’ a keen gray eye an’ the kind o’ top- dressin’ what goes with his front name, was soft as sap-wood on Virgie, an’ he soon got the right 0” way. “When Virgie’s dad busted his laig she hustled him aboard a raft an’ run him down the flume to Doc Hodg- ers, at Big Tree Flat, in less’n no time. Of course she could ’a’ tellyphoned for Doc, but he’d ’a’ had to gone clean up to Skyland by the stage-road an’ then come down the flume to Seven-an’-a-Half, an’ that would ’a’ been choppin’ all aroun’ the tree instid o’ straight through it. 271

Page 34

‘*I USED TO GO DOWN NEARLY EVERY EVENIN’ AN’ TRY TO CHEER HIM UP WITH CHECKERS” “Wal, it was three weeks ’fore she got him back to Seven-an’-a-Half ag’in, an’ all that time I had two flume-stations to look out for, which kep’ me humpin’ like a crooked log down the skids. You see, I was on the job at Seven, an’ the work there was enough for one man, but I’d sure done anything for Hank an’ Virgie, an’ I wouldn’t listen to no talk o’ puttin’ in a man to take his place, ’cause they’d ’a’ lost wages. ““When they comes back aroun’ by Sky- land an’ down to their station in a fancy flume-boat the boys rigs up for ’em, an’ Hank’s layin’ out on a little mattress with Virgie fussin’ over him, she tells me she’s a-goin’ to flume-tendin’ till her dad gits on his laigs ag’in. I tries to git the idea out.o’ her head, but it’s stuck there like a lodged windfall, an’ I can’t do nothin’ only tell her I'll help her out, which I sure done. “Of course Reddy Gordon he comes down from Skyland Saturday nights an’? Sundays, an’ does what he can for her, hangin’ aroun’ an’ keepin’ a-tellin’ her not to work so hard an’ he’ll furnish a man, an’ all that; but Virgie she’s as independent as a owl on a limb, an’ none of us can do much for her. She sure has rough skiddin’ though. Talk 27? ale about a bear witl a sore head! Hank was the bear all right. I used to go down nearly every evenin’ an’ try to cheer him up with checkers ‘an’ give him somebody to cuss, which he done, rippin’ away like a buzz-saw through a fir-knot every time Virgie went into the kitchen or out onto the flume plat- form in front o’ the shack. She used to sit out there a hull lot in the evenin’ after her dishes was washed. Which I wipes ’em a good many times myself, ’specially when I comes down to supper; an’ while I was a-wipin’ I joshes her a heap about Reddy an’ when she’s a-goin’ to git married, an’ all that. “‘She’s a-sittin’ out there on the front plat- form one evenin’ watchin’ the flume pretty clost. I sure knows what for; she’s a-lookin’ out for a letter from Reddy. Her letters come by the old mail scheme. Whenever she sees ‘7$’ chalked on a shingle tacked to an upright stick come a-whiskin’ down amongst the lumber-strings she knows that there’s somethin’ from Reddy. ‘‘Wal, Hank he plumb cusses me out 0’ the house that night. Folks with busted laigs is allus bad enough, but he was the worst. So I comes out on the platform an’ sits in the doorway lookin’ over towards

Page 35

: Virgie. Which she was allus sure nice to look at, sittin’ there in her old reed rocker, pretendin’ to sew, but with her eyes scootin’ off up the flume every little while. I was thinkin’ about how hard the gal had to work an’ what a pity it was Reddy didn’t have money ’nough so they could git hitched right away. But she’s a mighty good flume- tender, all right. Only the week before she’d proved that by puttin’ out a grass-fire that was scorchin’ the timbers of Dead Pine trestle an’ would ’a’ burnt up the hull bridge if she hadn’t packed water by the dozens 0’ buck- ets an’ slung it on. That one thing made her ace-high with the hull outfit, an’ the soop- er’ntendent sent her a dozen silver spoons on ac- count of it— to housekeep with later. “*He’s sure fergot yeh to- day,’ says I, gittin’ up an’ walkin’ over towards her where she sits in the rocker, for the sun has gone down behind Old Baldy, an’ it’s gittin’ pretty nigh on to dark. ‘He sure don’t think much of yeh nohow,’ I says, joshin’-like. “She turns red as a snow-plant an’ tells me to stop teasin’, an’ I begins to say some- thin’ nice about Reddy—that he’s all right an’ a sure good boy when he’s sound asleep. An’ right in the middle of it she jumps up an’ bellers out: ““Oram! Oram! What’s that?’ “She’s still lookin’ up the flume, an’ she’s a- p’intin’ like a lady-actor in a play straight up at somethin’ funny that I don’t make out nohow. ‘*WHILE I WAS A-WIPIN’ I JOSHES HER A HEAP a on ABOUT REDDY”’ of its wettin’, Bailey Millard 273 ***What zs it?’ she bellers ag’in. “*Tt’s somethin’ tied onto a_ lumber- clamp,’ says I. ‘Jest a fool trick o’ the boys up to Five. They’re allus——’ “*No, it ain’t neither,’ says she. Then she jumps for’ard an’ lets out a whoop that’s enough to stop the mill. ‘It’s a child!’ she yells, ‘a little child, a-comin’ down with the lumber, an’ mebbe drownded, for all we know!’ An’ she grabs up her picaroon an’ makes up the platform to where the still water o’ the station begins. I follers her quick as if I was on greased skids, but I don’t git there before she’s hooked on to that clamp o’ lumber, dragged it over to the side, an’ yanked the kid out o’ the flume an’ onto the platform, where he lays like a little log, his clothes a-drippin’ an’ his arms an’ laigs limp as tamarack boughs. He had funny loose pink clothes an’ jet- black hair standin’ up stiff . as a clothes- brush in spite an’ ’fore she rolls him over an’ shows his round, pudgy face an’ his little peepin’, slanted-up eyes I knows it’s a Japanee kid all right; for if he was a Chinee, at that age he’d sure have a little teeny pigtail. “**Pore little chap!’ says she when she looks at his face, which is ca’m as a marble statue’s an’ eyes half shut. ‘Help me, Oram! What shall I do? Do yeh think he’s still alive? Why don’t yeh do somethin’ ?’ “Wal, you boys all knows I ain’t got no use for Japs, but when I sees that pore

Page 36

274 On Indian Head little brown kid with his clothes-brush hair an’ his little peep-eyes an’ his little hands hangin’ loose over the aidge o’ the flume, it’s Oram Sheets to the rescoo all right. “T grabs a-holt of him as though he’d been my own baby an’ packs him into the shack an’ lays him on the kitchen table, Virgie a-flutterin’ aroun’ like a hen after her chick; an’ together we rolls him over an’ over on the table, an’ punches him in the belly, an knocks him on the back, an’ pries open his mouth, an’ nearly yanks his wishbone loose tryin’ to git air into him. An’ all the while Hank is a-takin’ on like a donkey-injine, grouchin’ an’ growlin’ an’ lettin’ off steam like he has a thousand pounds to the square inch. ‘‘But bimeby Mr. Baby begins to git red in the face, an’ then he lets out a yell that shuts Hank up like a trap, an’ Virgie she laughs like she’s got the high-strikes. An’ after he’s bellered an’ bawled for a while we gits him out o’ his clothes, an’ Virgie she wads him up in one o’ her nice white night- gownds an’ tucks him into her bunk. “Tt’s about a week ’fore we finds out what’s happened. The’s a Jap wood- chopper died in his lone shack acrost from Six an’ leaves the boy all alone. The kid’s about three year old an’ the only other Jap aroun’ there, an’ he probably gits hungry an’ tries to git over on a plank to the station an’ the little feller falls into the flume an’ comes a-flyin’ down to Virgie. ““‘Which is a sure great providence,’ says she, ‘an’ I’m goin’ to keep him an’ be a mother to him.’ ‘“‘T hears her when she says this to Reddy, an’ I sees his face draw up like a wet boot by the fire, but he don’t say nothin’ ag’in’ her proposition for a good while an’ is still as soft as sawdust on her, though as time scoots past he gits jealouser an’ jealouser 0’ that kid. ‘“*Which it sure ain’t none to the good startin’ in with a family on yer hands no- how,’ he ’lows, ‘when yeh gits married... An’ as for a Jap family—wal, it’s more’n I’d ever try to saw off if I was rich as Rockefeller.’ ‘“‘He urges her to send the baby down to Big Tree Flat where the’s a big camp 0’ Japs, who’d be as glad as collie-dawgs to git him. Hank, who’s well enough to limp aroun’ now, he urges too, but you might as well try to move Old Baldy as to git Virgie Deed to give up that kid. “*He likes me so,’ she says, ‘an’ I’m learnin’ him to talk American, an’ he wouldn’t savvy Japanee any more, an’ they’d hate him an’ be cruel to him.’ ‘So she clung on to the kid like a log- chain, an’ they couldn’t break her loose no- how. Not as I blamed her none at first, cause he cert’n’y was about the cutest little Jap you ever see, with his round little face an’ his button-bright eyes, even if they was slantin’. Virgie made his clothes an’ cut ‘em all after the pattern o’ the duds he had on when he come floatin’ down the flume. Only one thing she done was kind o’ silly, an’ that was to keep the kid in white, with a thing on she calls a kimono. Of course the’ wasn’t much dirt aroun’ the platform the shack stood on, so he didn’t git s’iled up as much as most kids would. But she allus was the greatest gal for white—wore white dresses herself in summer nearly all the time. It made her look consid’able different from the other gals you’d see in the canyon. ‘“‘But she’s awful skeered the little cuss’ll fall into the flume or down onto the rocks, so she runs chicken-wire all aroun’ the aidge o’ the platform to herd him in with. Hank, whose leg is purty nigh well now, but still bothersome, cusses every time he steps over that chicken-wire; an’ when Reddy sees it he mighty near gives up. He sees she’s bound to keep the kid, an’ it gives him a rock-bot- tom grouch. He comes down from the mill one day, an’ he says to me: ‘Oram, you’re a sure slick exhorter, don’t yeh think yeh could argy that kid idea out o’ her head? D’ yeh know what she’s done? She’s gone an’ named that little Jap after me—or as near like me as she dast— she’s named him Tokio Gordon. Says she done that so’s we wouldn’t have to change his name after we was married.’ “He gives a big gasp when he says this, an’ the’s a sickish grin on his face. “Wal, I ’lows that is sure tough, an’ I promises to exhort a little about Tokio for his sake. But yeh might as well try to ex- hort with a twenty-foot band-saw as with Virgie about that kid. One trouble was that he was sick in his insides jest then, an’ it was a derned pore time to exhort, anyway. ‘That same night she rings me up to co-e down to Seven-an’-a-Half an’ see what I can do for Tokio. When I gits down there she’s purty nigh weepin’ over him, for his insides is gittin’ worse. Wal, I gives him a dose 0’ castor-ile an’ one thing an’ another, but it don’t do no good. An’ when I comes down

Page 37

next mornin’—which is Sunday an’ no lum- ber runnin’—an’ stays quite a while an’ the kid’s no better an’ she runs aroun’ all flus- tered up tryin’ to do things for him an’ I runs aroun’, too, after a while she gits mad at me for sayin’ somethin’ I oughtn’t to ’a’ said about how Japanee babies ought to be keered for by Japanee mothers, an’ she flares up an’ bellers out: “Nobody keers anything about my pore little sick Tokio but me. Pa’s took his gun an’ gone off huntin’, an’ though it’s Sunday Reddy ain’t here—he don’t come aroun’ no more —an’ now you are lightin’ in to me.’ “T’m jest goin’ to say I think I’m dead right an’ that the kid ought to be deeliv- ered over to a Jap- anee mother right away off, when she busts out a-cryin’ fit to stop the mill, an’ only lets up when the kid grabs a-holt of her finger an’ a awful look o’ pain comes into his little round face an’ his slant eyes gives a agonized squint like a pizened pup’s. “Oh! she groans out, ‘he’s got to have the doctor right away.’ ““All right,’ says I, ‘Vl ’phone down for Doc Hodgers.’ ““But he can’t drive from Big Tree Flat up to Skyland an’ then flume it down here ’fore ten or eleven to-night.’ “*That’s right,’ says I, ‘he sure can’t; but it’s the best we can do.’ “*No, it ain’t neither,’ says she; ‘I can take the baby down to Big Tree on a raft in less’n an hour.’ She looks at Tokio thought- ful-like. ‘Only it mightn’t be good for him, packin’ him aroun’ that way.’ No,’ says I; ‘it sure mightn’t.’ Wal, I tries to ’phone to Doc to git some Bailey **SHE RUNS CHICKEN-WIRE ALL AROUN’ THE AIDGE 0’ THE PLATFORM TO HERD HIM IN WITH” Millard 275 kind of advice out o’ him anyway, but they says at his office he’s out an’ won’t be back for a couple o’ hours. So I hangs aroun’ a while, ready to do anything I can, an’ bime- by Tokio he seems some better, an’ I walks back up to my station, sayin’ I'll be down ag’in ’fore night an’ see how the little feller is. “So I goes home thinkin’ it’s kind 0’ strange Reddy don’t show up at Seven-an’- a-Half but concludin’ from some remarks she lets fall that the’s been a quarrel be- tween ’em—the trou- ble bein’ over Tokio, as per usual. ‘Bout four o’clock I goes down to Seven- an’-a-Half ag’in. Seems strange an’ quiet aroun’ the place. Nobody an- swers my knock, so I goes in, an’ what d’yeh think? The’ ain’t nobody to home. On the table I sees a piece o’ paper, an’ on it it says to her pa that Tokio’s took awful sick an’ she’s goin’ down the flume with him to the doc- tor’s, expectin’ to git there by three o’clock. “*Wal,’ says I to myself, ‘if I had a dotter an’ she took up Japanee babies an’ was a-sp’ilin’ her purty face troublin’ over ’em an’ flyin’ down flumes with ’em to doctors an’ losin’ good chances to git married on account of ’em, an’ all that, J’d want to do somethin’.’ “‘T sets down kinder mad-like, but I ain’t much more’n got squatted ’fore the telly- phone rings like mad, an’ I goes an’ answers, an’ what d’yeh think? Nothin’ has hap- pened only the Lower Twin trestle has washed out in the middle, an’ it’s all hands for repairs. ‘Wal, the sitooation don’t strike me all to oncet, but no sooner has I banged the door o’ the shack behind me than it comes down A. ee Pr, ‘ BI 2 7 0

Page 38

276 On Indian Head on me like a fallin’ tree. ‘Jumpin’ wild- cats!’ says I. ‘Supposin’ Virgie got spilled through that hundred-foot trestle!’ The idea nearly freezes my blood. I runs back to the ’phone an’ calls up Nine, which, yeh know, is the station jest below the Lower Twin. “““Seen anything of a gal in a white dress on a raft with a baby?’ I yells, an’ when they says she ain’t gone by their station you could ’a’ knocked me down with a handful o’ saw- dust. For if she ain’t passed Nine like as not she’s gone through the trestle. I sure don’t lose no time callin’ up Eight, an’ they says she passed there half an hour ago, jest before the break was reported. “**Then,’ says I ‘to myself, ‘she’s went through the trestle all right onless she’s: took a picaroon along to hook on to the side with— which ain’t none likely, ’cause she’s in such a awful hurry.’ “Wal, if ever yeh seen a crazy man hustlin’ a raft into a flume an’ hikin’ down like the mill-tails o’ hell, that was me for sure; but I didn’t fergit my pica- roon. I flies by Eight like lightnin’ down a slippery-ellum tree, an’ in twenty minutes I’m acrost the Upper Twin an’ slingin’ along to- wards the Lower. No, I don’t ease her up none till I gits close to that blamed old Lower Twin, an’ I can see the break ahead an’ hear the water a-roarin’ down into the canyon. Then I hooks on to the side. I looks all aroun’ for Virgie, but I don’t see her. It’s mighty hard makin’ up my mind to it, but there’s one place I has to look yet, though I hardly dast, an’ that’s down over the aidge o’ the break. I gits out o’ the flume an’ walks along the side planks mighty skittish-like, ’cause I don’t

‘*l FLIES LIKE LIGHTNIN’ DOWN A SLIPPERY-ELLUM TREE” know how shaky the trestle may be down be- low, but at last I comes to the end o’ the break, which is about as bad as the big spill three years ago, only the’ ain’t no lumber runnin’, only gals an’ Japanee babies, an’ I looks down. ‘Gee whittaker! There lays Virgie’s raft down on a low shelf right at the river side, lodged in between two big nigger-heads an’ busted into shingle-bits. But I don’t see hide the baby. “They was washed into the river, no doubt,’ says I, ‘an’ by this time is all mashed to pieces down in Devil’s Gang- way.’ “But while I’m sayin’ it I don’t quite give up. The’s men acrost on the other side o’ the break, an’ I yells to them if the’s seen anything of a gal in white an’ a baby, an’ the’ ain’t; so I goes back along the side planks, lookin’ far an’ near, but I don’t see nothin’ o’ her. Jest as I gits to the end o’ the bridge I sees a hairpin lyin’ on a plank, an’ I picks it up an’ yells, _ ‘Glory!’ for then I knows she ain’t in the river. If it wasa safety- pin I’d ’a’ knowed the baby was safe, too; but it wasn’t. “Then purty soon I sees a little shoe-track, an’ I knows it’s Virgie’s, an’ then some more, leadin’ off down the gulch south o’ the flume, an’ I knows she’s makin’ for the toll-bridge an’ the road with the baby, packin’ him down to Big Tree an’ the doctor’s. ““<Tt’s a sure shame!’ says I. ‘A pore fee- male gal like that packin’ a great heavy Jap- anee kid three miles over a rough trail!’ ‘“‘So I hustles along like a scairt coyote to catch up with her, follerin’ along through the pines after her little feet-tracks; but after I nor hair o’ Virgie nor

Page 39

Sv goes bout half a mile along the trail I misses ‘em. ““No tracks in sight,’ says I, ‘an’ plenty o’ soft groun’ to make ’em in. Wal, if that there don’t take the bark off’n me!’ “Tm kind o’ puzzled-like an’ walks back lookin’ all aroun’ in the woods for a sign 0’ her, but don’t see none till I comes back to the last side gulch, an’ there’s the little feet- tracks all right, p’intin’ up the gulch. ““Tjog-gone my cats!’ says I. ‘She’s went an’ took the Injun Head trail for a short cut to the road, an’ it don’t lead nowheres after yeh gits past the old mine.’ That trail is sure rough an’ scramblin’, an’ when yeh gits past the old tunnel it runs along the brink o’ the river. Yeh goes towards the toll-bridge all right, but yeh’ve got to be a mountain- goat to git there. “But I’m after her sure lively, a-scootin’ down past the mine to take that chunky kid off her hands, which is sure tired by this time. It makes me mad to think o’ her the way I can picter her climbin’ up the ridges an’ through the bresh an’ along the rocky side-hill places with her arms a-achin’ an’ makin’ desprit-like for the doctor along a trail which leads nowheres. “Wal, I follers them little heel-tracks o’ hers up the steepest hill, climbin’ so fast it plumb blows me by the time I gits to the top. An’ through the roughest bresh— manzanita, bear-bresh, an’ chaparral. I knows I’m on her trail all right, ‘cause oncet in a while I sees a little scrap 0’ white lace- work or a shred o’ muslin hangin’ on to a sharp branch, an’ I groans when I thinks 0’ ‘I SOON SEES IT’S ALL MADE UP BETWEEN ’EM” the awful time she’s a-havin’. An’ then I begins to yell, an’ I yells: ‘Virgie! Virgie! Virgie!’ but the’ don’t no answer come back, only the echoes acrost the canyon. ‘* By this time the sun’s gone down an’ it’s gittin’ dark, an’ I comes out where I can look down off’n the derndest steep place into the river—which it ain’t far from Injun Head; yeh know the high rock what’s got the Injun face on it—an’ purty soon I comes to the tracks ag’in, but I loses ’em right at the big slide jest above the Head, ’bout the toughest place in the hull canyon if yer foot- in’ it. I scrambles along till I comes to that steep, wide slope o’ slippery granite—which it ought to be called the Devil’s Slide. It ain’t so dark but what I can see some scratches on the rock an’ some little specks o’ blood, an’ I makes up my mind it’s all off with Virgie—she’s slipped an’ gone down the slide an’ over the Head with the kid. Say, boys, it was—wal, did yeh ever see that slide ? ‘Of course I yells an’ yells, but all I hears is the echoes an’ the roar o’ that derned river down in the canyon. I was scairt stiff for a minute an’ a half. It was worse than the flume-break or anything, an’ I goes back along that crazy trail, cussin’ Japanee kids an’ gals in white dresses till yeh can’t rest. “T soon hits the toll-bridge trail ag’in an’ hikes it so hard I gits to the toll-house in less’n no time an’ rousts up the gate-keeper, which is sound asleep on his bench, an’ gits in to the tellyphone an’ calls up Reddy Gor- don, an’ he starts down lickety-split on hoss- back to help me find what’s left o’ Virgie. An’ I hustles up some other men from aroun’ 277

Page 40

278 - On Indian Head there. ‘I knows the’s goin’ to be a full moon *bout nine o’clock an’ we can do a lot 0’ lookin’ aroun’, though what we'll find I don’t even want to guess. “Reddy he rides his hoss to death gittin’ down that road from Skyland. I meets him up the road, an’ when he actooally knows what’s happened he’s ’bout as near locoed as any man I ever see—face as white as paper an’ tremblin’ all over. ““Oh, Virgie, Virgie, Virgie!’ is all he can say for a while. ‘““We was standin’ by the toll-house look- in’ up to Injun Head—which it ain’t more’n a quarter of a mile up there—when all of a sudden the moon perks up over the peaks, an’ Reddy he gives a yell. **¢Took-a there, Oram!’ he cries. ‘See that up there!’ He p’ints crazy-like to a white somethin’ flutterin’ in the wind jest at the aidge o’ the Head where it hangs down over the canyon. ‘It’s Virgie—she’s all right—jest fainted ‘or somethin’ up there. She’s all right, thank God! An’ all we got to do is to git some ropes an’ go up to the top o’ the slide an’ you let me down an’ I'll git her.’ An’ Tokio, too?’ says I. ““*Ves,’ says he, mighty good-natered-like, ‘Tokio, too.’ “Wal, we gits ropes from the toll-man, an’ we goes aroun’ an’ gits up there to the top o’ that slide, but when I lets Reddy down, what d’yeh think? That white somethin’ ain’t nothin’ more’n jest a skeert that she lets loose when she slides down the slide an’ gits mixed up with the manzanita bresh which is the hair on the Head. No, the’s no gal there, nor no kid nor nothin’ but that white skeert. ‘“Wal, we goes back mighty sad an’ sor- rowful-like to that toll-bridge to look along the river bank for her, but no sooner than we gits near there the toll-man yells out, “Mr. Sheets, yer wanted on the ’phone— they’ve been ringin’ up from Big Tree ever since yeh left.’ “T grabs up that ’phone an’ puts it to my ear, an’ what d’yeh think I hears? The sweetest music in all the world—Doc Hodg- ers’s voice a-callin’ from Big Tree sayin’ she’s there all right an’ the baby’s in his hands. Doc he rings me up ’cause the toll- man’s been talkin’ over the wire down to Big Tree tellin’ how we’re lookin’ for Virgie Deed on top o’ Injun Head. “Say! Don’t Reddy an’ me sing out for joy, an’ don’t we hike it down to Big Tree on the jump? When we gits to Doc Hodg- ers’s house we sees Virgie layin’ there on the sofy with a blanket aroun’ her an’ a wet rag on her forrid. Reddy he makes right straight for her an’ kneels down by her with one arm aroun’ her neck, an’ I soon sees-it’s all made up between ’em, kid or no kid. “Wal, I know it sounds like a sure big one, but that gal had actooallv slid down that slide an’ over into a side gully an’ made her way along down aroun’ the Head by a little wash nobody ever walked in before, an’ so on down to the toll-house. The toll-man had gone over to his cabin to supper, so she climbs over the locked gate an? makes acrost the bridge an’ straight down the road to Big Tree Flat, with the baby in her arms. It nearly takes all the sap out o’ her, but she done it. “Doc pulls the kid through all right, an’ when I sees him up to the weddin’, which comes off in the sooper’ntendent’s house in Skyland a month later, I hears him tellin’ about how Virgie stopped her raft right at the aidge o’ the break by diggin’ her sharp little heels into the flume planks an’ how she packed the kid over the trail to him. ““Tt’s women for grit, all right,’ says he, “specially where babies is consarned, no matter whether white, black, brown, red, or yaller.’ An’ I guess he knows. “Reddy took to minin’ after he got mar- ried, an’ made a good strike. Yes, they’re livin’ in style now down to Fresno. About Tokio? Oh, he’s in the mission. Yeh see, Virgie’s got two o’ her own now, an’ when that ongrateful Tokio, after all she’d done for him, got old enough to show her that Japs is Japs, by takin’ money out o’ her booreau-drawer on the sly, an’ all that kind o’ thing, she let him go. Yes, Japs is Japs, an’, as I tells yeh in the first place, I ain’t got no use for ’em.” i 4

Page 41

LTTE 5 Lubin es deh £6 AGI AE VIL. Owners of America "hh Bee By Arthur Brisbane N America one single man deals in meat every year to the ex- tent of two hundred . and twenty-five millions of dol- lars. He has one hundred millions invested in buildings and machinery for killing an- imals and feeding them to the people. Six days in every week, all through the year, in the great Armour slaugh- ter-houses in Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, East St. Louis, Fort Worth, and Sioux City, there is the dull blow of the hammer, the de- liberate, monotonous thrusting of long, sharp knives. Every blow and every thrust means an animal killed. In one year this King of Meat slaughters and sells: 4,845,307 hogs 1,653,259 cattle 1,912,486 sheep Almost nine million animals butchered in a year, by one butcher. Modern kings, like their primitive, terri- torial predecessors, have a passion for extend- ing their domains. Charles V reached out for new territory no more eagerly than our kings reach out for new business.) Armour is the world’s greatest butcher—he is also its greatest dealer in grain. The cost of meat is controlled largely by the cost of the grain that fattens cattle. Armour controls grain as he controls meat. All of the grain- elevators on the St. Paul and the Bur- lington roads are his, and in addition he owns four hundred small country grain-elevators. Apart from his enormous speculative activity in grain, which may amount to tens of millions of bushels yearly, Armour does a strictly ware- housing and merchandising business of 7,500,000 bushels of wheat, 20,000,000 bush- els of corn, and 13,000,000 bushels of oats. He has long trains of refrigerator-cars crawling all over this country, carrying meat, fruit, and vegetables protected by ice. The Armour refrigerator-car business for one year was, in the packing-house products 97,000 carloads, in the fruit-car department 746 carloads of fruit, berries, and vegetables. The farmer in all his works is the subject of Armour. If he raises hogs, cattle, or sheep they go to Armour. If he raises grain it goes to Armour’s elevators. If he grows fruit it travels in Armour’s cars and pays Armour tolls. Armour is one of to-day’s specialized kings. Men rule others in different ways in differ- ent ages. The ruled fight against their rulers, pro- claim, struggle, rebel, and still they are ruled. They denounce kings and put republics where kingdoms were before. But kings rule within the republics. Power changes its name and color, but it persists— the strong have it, use it, and leave it to their descendants, despite all the protests in thirty thousand years of spasmodic rebellion that stretch out behind us on this earth.

Page 42

THE CHICAGO STOCK-YARDS FIFTY YEARS AGO Men ruled others by individual brutal force—that was primitive, scarcely profitable. Men ruled by organized fighting energy— the weak slaved and paid for the privilege of shelter beneath weapons. Men were ruled through their superstitions, their “religion,” fear of dreams and fancies, ghosts and future punishment. That was ideal—for the rulers. They got everything in this life for plentiful promises and threats dealing with a life to come. Knowledge killed off that form of rulership. Between the old kings, familiar to childish minds, and the modern, greater kings now ruling America, the principal difference is this: The old kings were “ general practition- ers” in exploitation. Modern kings, like modern doctors, are specialists. The old king or duke or baron owned all of some certain tract of land. He owned the people on the land, and all that the people and the land could produce—or as much as he chose to take. The king of our day disdains ownership of land and of men—such ownership is cumber- some, full of troublesome detail, rebellion, disease, war, and worry. To-day’s special- ized king owns one or more of the land’s products. For his kingdom he has all that land and human energy combined can pro- duce in some one or more of life’s necessities. His soldiers are dollars, his diplomats, law- yers, legislators, and judges. Charles the Bold, of Burgundy, owned an entire territory—men, products, wars, all. He wore his life out and lost it fighting Louis 280 XI. Wonderfully like Charles the Bold and Louis XI in our day are the two rulers, Morgan and Rockefeller. If they should go to war, as modern kings sometimes do, the fight would be very much like that be- tween Charles and Louis. Rockefeller, the modern Louis, with the same physique and deep religious reliance, would probably bury Morgan in some hopeless battle. Morgan is King of Iron and Steel, having peacefully bought it of Carnegie, the Iron Kingdom’s builder—bought it with the peo- ple’s money, extracted by modern stock- watering methods. Rockefeller is King of Petroleum. The surface of the land does not interest him or Morgan. One wants the iron below the sur- face, the other wants the oil. Another wants the copper, another the forests that grow on the surface. Thus the kings divide among themselves vast products instead of vast ter- ritories, and the people work and produce and pay and get what is left—enough to keep them alive to work and produce indefinitely. It is a new specialized system in government and taxation, product of this age of special- ization. THE FOREST OF INDUSTRIAL FEUDALISM To write adequately about modern kings, and the modern system of industrial feudalism, would be an appallingly complex undertak- ing. Safety can be found only in generalities and disconnected short stories or descrip- tions. That phrase, “industrial feudalism,” by the way, is taken not from the modern 19

Page 43

EY ceEeecoeereemes abi an muck-rake lingo, but from the profound thought of Charles Fourier, the world’s great- est social prophet and philosopher, who de- scribed accurately, one hundred years ago, the industrial system of to-day, the feudalism of money with its kings and the lines of its development. We are actually living in the age of indus- trial feudalism, and a man cannot describe ac- curately the thing of which he is a part. Men of the best intentions, dealing with the con- ditions of their own day, are like men in the midst of a great forest trying to describe what they see. One studies a moss plant, one a bush, one a jumping = squir- rel, eating nuts that he hasn’t produced, one looks to the top of a single great tree with the light shining upon it, telling of things outside the forest. None is able to de- scribe that forest as a whole— much less to look upon it as a pass- ing feature in one of the geo- logical periods. Each man ex- plores the great forest of human life as best he can, and tells about his little corner of it. All kinds of gentlemen lately have been wandering about, each with his little type- writer, “discovering new things.” Upton Sinclair was the Christopher Colum- bus of that corner of the wood in which Mr. Armour lives, rules, and accumulates. Mr. Sinclair “discovered” abundantly. His cries, groans, lamentations, conclusions, are famous In passing history. Mr. Sinclair acted as a little girl does when she walks into the garden and finds a green slug eating her pet tomato vine. Such conduct on the part of the slug seems PHILIP D. ARMOUR, SR. resort. Arthur Brisbane 281 horrible and unbelievable to the little girl. And everything in the business of killing animals seemed horrible and. unbelievable to kind-hearted Sinclair, who is a poet, a vegetarian, and the gentlest of all gentle dreamers. Sinclair really discovered the slaughter- house. It was quite new to him. He saw for himself that men actually cut the throats of animals, let them bleed to death, haul them up by their hind legs, knock them on the head, cut them open, and later on eat them. He found that men en- gaged in this business are, naturally, some- times rough and brutalmen. He found that they drank and danced all night when they could, that their wives were the victims of brutal life, and of brutal poverty, espe- cially in child- birth. Sinclair discovered that the place in which eight or nine million ani- mals are disem- boweled in one year is not an absolutely tidy, sweet-smelling The squeals of the pigs and the patient resignation of the cattle were too much for him. Sinclair trampled up the grass in his little corner of “ The Jungle,” he came to believe sincerely that almost ninety per cent. of all sausages contain human fingers, and he found strange elements to share his well-meaning spiritual hysteria. Theodore Roosevelt, in real life, intensely ap- proves of killing things—he now finds the pos- sibility of killing animals in Africa more at- tractive than the possibility of solving bigger problems nearer home. Blood and slaughter delight the physical Theodore Roosevelt, but afflict the intellectual literary soul of Theodore 20

Page 44

282 Owners of America Roosevelt. When Mr. Roosevelt saw, in a book, the Sinclair vision in which a primi- tive immigrant gentleman travels through a slaughter-house to socialism he, Mr. Roose- velt, was as much excited as Sinclair. Soon Sinclair, Roosevelt, Reynolds, and others “sang together.”” Europe was officially no- tified, “ Don’t eat American food products— you might as well chew up your own fingers and toes.”’ It was a°gfand excitement while it lasted, and it cost the people of the United States all the people—a good many hundreds of millions of dollars in lost European trade. The bill is to be paid, and is being paid by all of the people. The farmers and the packers bore the loss at first. The farmers’ loss will be permanent; not so with the packers. Mod- ern kings, like ancient kings, have a way of making the people pay the piper. The people pay the cost of wars especially, includ- ing the wars that they wage against their own kings. And the people, through higher meat prices, are paying and will pay in full the losses brought upon the packers who saw their foreign trade melt like snow during the Theodore Roosevelt-Upton Sinclair war- dance. KING ARMOUR AND KING JOHN WIDELY DIFFERENT J. Ogden Armour is the ogre thatownsthe Sinclair jungle. To describe him without “the jaws that bite, the claws that catch”’ is to fly in the face of public opinion, yet King Armour must be presented without those at- tractions. Since he cannot be described as the most savage and dangerous of all ogres, perhaps the public will kindly be interested in his mild and inoffensive personality. A showman once, for lack of better material, persuaded his spectators to look kindly on “the smallest living giant.’’ Armour is one of the mildest living ogres. Those that like facts and are willing to dis- pense with ogres for the sake of truth will be interested in comparing the quiet, efficient king of to-day, dying peaceably in his bed, check- book by his side, with the noisy, inefh- cient king of other days, dying violently after a life of worry. Carlyle, in “ Past and Present,” describes briefly and well old King John of Magna Charta fame. At the same time he reminds all writers of their most solemn duty, which is to describe the thing that they see. These clear eyes of Neighbour Jocelin looked on the bodily presence of King John; the very John Sansterre, or Lackland, who signed Magna Charta afterwards in Runnymede. Lackland, with a great retinue, boarded once, for the matter of a fort- night, in St. Edmundsbury Convent; daily in the very eyesight, palpable to the very fingers of our Jocelin; O Jocelin, what did he say, what did he do; how looked he, lived he;—at the very least, what coat or breeches had he on? Jocelin is obsti- nately silent. Jocelin marks down what interests him; entirely deaf to us. With Jocelin’s eyes we discern almost nothing of John Lackland. “As through a glass . darkly, we with our own eyes and appliances, intensely looking, discern at most: A blustering, dissipated human figure, with a kind of blackguard quality air, in cramoisy velvet, or other uncertain texture, uncertain cut, with much plumage and fringing; amid numerous other hu- man figures of the like; riding abroad with hawks; talking noisy nonsense;—tearing out the bowels of St. Edmundsbury Convent (its larders namely and cellars) in the most ruinous way, by living at rack and manger there. Jocelin notes only, with a slight subacidity of manner, that the King’s Maj- esty, Dominus Rex, at departing, gave us thirteen sterlingii, one shilling and one penny, to say a mass tor him; and so departed,—like a shabby Lack- land as he was! “Thirteen pence sterling,’ this was what the Convent got from Lackland, for all the victuals he and his had made way with. We of course said our mass for him, having covenanted to do it,—but let impartial posterity judge with what degree of fervor! And in this manner vanishes King Lackland; traverses swiftly our strange intermittent magic- mirror, jingling the shabby thirteen pence merely; and rides with his hawks into Egyptian night again. King Armour has not yet vanished into the “Egyptian night” that will one day swallow him and the rest of us. Future Carlyles and present subjects of the meat-king may be grateful for a brief commonplace description of him. Kings, like machines, become less noisy as they become more efficient. King Armour wears no “cramoisy velvet” or plumage or fringing, he isn’t blustering or dissipated, horses and hounds do not interest him—as they are not fit to be canned. King Armour does not talk “noisy nonsense’’—he is never noisy. You meet Armour surrounded by three or four of his chief helpers. You pick out the quietest, least noticeable man of the group, and that one is J. Ogden Armour. He is forty- five years old, and looks like John R. Mc- Lean of W ashington and of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Mr. ‘Armour is rather a small man—a little bigger than Napoleon, about half the size of Bismarck. He has a very well developed head, almost circular in profile— an excellent thing for a modern king of in- dustry. The nearer the head’s shape ap- proac hes the circle the nearer the individual approaches perfect balance. Every bump on |

Page 45

Qh Hlmarcreratore fp: sr) (wre ie Bf rtcrnee LAE fe ASS Fe Me ae fff ie ayes Zz AttlrLate Ptneecl rfc » Deca ee Op faadt- Gettt F ail ys Ars Aion if “Gopbovcaae eee Ac Heeensas kage abs 2 ~ Culég L Tui bertrccti forraah Ae S84 Ea be Le tes 2S ey iy a ha A dees bsg AeLocehne oie 2 eo Creck, rrln tine gel pi yr jae Ree sala L? ticle - fecha Ayoece a nian za ete ip Sow Lex oe ~ safe Spee yo alin (Pee- a acing oe pret 2G Fa iyo = - AOE tens CA tit0- Le. oo geen arene yoo, a _g omatiio eck Lele 0 te gare | Ltath dc Atclee F Keeeew a SL Onfaiteinch Zh ~Auatl fe yor Gre / Eva pe Handed _- etki fe Sr fOrer ted) LS 42 ase % Kees Kew V2, (Fi0teat be. Mownex Lay “Las at BEE, oS tthir CL J fece be ipetnee

6 re a ee “7 he Cattle ¥f Ke Cnty Ertet at Ke dave of Me sabi dnacoa) Y meee acne We akbey Me Coc ladrres ie ahein ys fro. , me Lead $erw we? Grice and jeg Ob fiive Lae od ew Bag \ of defoylai if tay Aare 2eGd, Roigee Aeerlictiber jaa ee ae (GX + Fy 0 fre beck - = f =~ Sano gr Lee Keer" pot foor Geta Gt. ys bathe K Le Po ah / Oneal Of” Dorterdce1 Cad is neler G” yr BE ceerare cand £4, dé hg palez (Gnpesiy 4 Aawrteee f nB, Misti by Ke well, Comet ¥ fe foal ee Z + Aacfet touted Aate Z alt bs Mipelo, futgcat G the miffsiten 7 Goze “trrty 4 ELKt> fee, A beth, VI ae fA uth orcad rn 7 ed fhe Opitcctnr yor fer Lukerslea benefits 7 Geceel Bee i ae goo Aas for lereKs — hv wit hard hires fatorr Kawds + eat Ther Cesc My Gq Yuerk ARG h ei eet ese aeatZ aor Cc rapa 2 ”) 0 ee MEMORANDUM OF BUSINESS AGREEMENT BETWEEN PHILIP D, ARMOUR AND HIS FIRST PARTNER, FREDERICK B. MILES, MILWAUKEE, 1859

Page 46

THE the head means a corresponding weakness, as every mountain means a valley. If you have a head very nearly round, a section of an almost perfect circle from the bridge of the nose to the nape of the neck, you are apt to have mental strength without the weaknesses Such a that make your strength dangerous. head has Armour, and it indicates a prosper- ous career. His eyes are brown—a color often found in the eyes of hereditary kings. A king of the first generation usually has blue or gray eyes; the brow n eye can conserve and dev elop what the gray or the blue eye has created. Armour talks in a very low, quiet voice, and says nothing about himself if he can help it. He appears to attach great importance to the personal liking that his chief employees have for him. That liking is apparent. His dress is as simple as his talk. He would not look well in “cramoisy velvet.” He wears a suit of plain dark gray, with a short coat, and boots of brown leather. On one of his fingers there are two rings, set with small round green stones and small diamonds, and in his purple silk neck- tie is a small-sized pearl. These things are not conspicuous; you must look for them. He has wide shoulders, powerful lungs evidently; the lower part of his body appears less de- veloped—that comes perhaps from sitting .a great deal at his desk. He has worked steadily in the packing-house since his youth, working under his father’s direction until his father’s death. 284 ARMOUR PLANT, MILWAUKEE, IN 1871 A crown would look strangely out of place on the round, large, heavy head of this mod- ern beef-king. Instead of a crown, he has very thin hair on the top of his head—which is the usual crown of working Americans past forty. His face has a healthy color, that of a man who lives normally. His brown eyes are perhaps a little too close together. His mouth is firm. He lacks his father’s ex- traordinarily powerful chin, the fighting chin that won victory and pushed rivals to the wall. Some men appear to live on the out- side of themselves. They are aggressive, bristling, human show-windows. Others live within, quiet and concentrated. Armour is of the quiet, concentrated type. You are not surprised to learn that he has doubled the great kingdom that his father left him and annexed territory undreamed of by the father. Armour apparently doesn’t envy other men their greater bulk; at least, like Frederick the Great, he likes to have big men about him. Meeker, his boyhood friend, and one of his best managers to-day, is as big and powerful as Dan Hanna. Merritt, another manager, is cut on the lines of the men in the best Hart, Schaffner & Marx clothing advertise- ments, which, as everybody knows, are broad beyond all human reality. And Nelson of the beef department looks like Terry Mc- Govern, the famous prize-fighter, with his fierceness multiplied by two. P. D. Armour, founder of this kingdom of meat and grain, was a man of remarkable per- sonality and power—one of thirteen children.

Page 47

He went to the gold-fields of California in 1850, came back to Milwaukee and discov- ered in the meat business gold-mines un- dreamed of by the forty-niners. It is interesting to read the agreement made between P. D. Armour and F. B. Miles. Each agreed to put five hundred dollars into the meat business. That was the beginning of an enterprise for which one hundred and forty millions of dollars were recently offered in vain by gentlemen that wanted to duplicate the Steel Trust with a Meat Trust just as powerful. This country grows rapidly and wonder- fully, but its individual citizens and their prosperity grow more wonderfully still. In the year 1832, when Philip D. Armour was born, the appropriation made by the first session of Congress for the business of the United States was $16,657,669.89. To-day the annual budget of P. D. Armour’s son is more than twenty times as great as was the budget of the United States when P. D. Ar- mour was born. J. Ogden Armour is only one of the reigning American product kings. Yet his budget to-day is equal to one-half of the present budget of the United States. Who can deny that we have real kings in- side of this more or less real republic? And who can question the statement that these Arthur Brisbane 285 kings have every prospect of establishing their dynasties as firmly as that of any Bour- bon or Hapsburg ? Americans contemplating the early million- aires console themselves with the loose state- ment, “Oh, the fathers gather the money to- gether, and the sons scatter it, and no harm is done.” The fact is that the sons do noth- ing of the kind. The early fathers of this country, simple-minded gentlemen, imagined that they were solving the problem of he- reditary rule and power when they did away with titles and abolished primogeniture. They forgot to abolish human nature. Abolishing primogeniture accomplished nothing. To form an idea of the probable accumulation of American trust kingdoms in the future, consider the short career of King J. Ogden Armour, second of his line. Certainly the extraordinary extension of his domain is due largely to his own remarkable ability and concentration. It is due also to the power of money, of dollars, those patient soldiers bringing in interest, costing nothing for their keep. There were but three Armour plants when P. D. Armour died a short time ago. Now there are six Armour plants. The number of plants has been doubled by King Armour II, and the number of branch houses increased by one-third. GENERAL VIEW OF THE ARMOUR PLANT, CHICAGO, AT THE PRESENT DAY

Page 48

286 P. D. Armour was satisfied with America, as Philip was with Macedonia. But J. Og- den, like Philip’s son, looks upon the whole world as his natural kingdom. The exten sion of his operations all over the globe is re- markable. In this country his selling and distributing organization consists of two hundred and ninety branch houses, owned directly by him, and operated by salaried employees. Under their supervision are one hundred and twenty-five sub-branches. In England, Armour has seventeen sal- aried branch houses, he has five in South Africa, one in Cuba, one in Panama, three in Continental Europe. These are fed by one hundred and eighty-five _ sell- ing agents. To feed the world is King Armour’s modest ambi- tion. His forces are organized on plans that, ma- tured, would cover every food trade possibility in the world. When P. D. Ar- mour died he had manufactur ing plants in his fertilizer depart- ment only at Baltimore, Chi- cago, and Jack- sonville. His J. son has addi tional plants at Atlanta, East St. Louis, Fort Worth, Nash- ville, Sioux City, Los Angeles, Kansas City, New York, Savannah, Omaha, Buena Vista, Virginia; Augusta, Georgia; and Wilming- ton, North Carolina. Not alone the fruit and the grain, but the fertilizer, preceding the fruit and the grain, belongs to the Ar mour kingdom. P. D. Armour established’ his office at 205 La Salle Street, in Chicago, twenty-five years He moved in with an office force of ago. J. Ogden Armour completed his forty men. OGDEN ARMOUR President of Armour and Company Owners of America new office-building on the first of last May. He moved in there with an office force of twelve hundred men. A considerable change in twenty-five years. In that office-building is a great governmental combination, the home and foreign office and war-department of a modern king. It includes a staff of architects, chemists, buyers and sellers of all kinds, and a legal department, with nine lawyers work- ing under an efficient head. ‘Come on, you small producers, consumers, or Interstate Commerce Commissions, if you want to fight.” It should have been mentioned at the beginning of this article, to prevent disap- pointment and waste of time in reading, that this is not to be the usual delightful, daring and dash- ing flogging. No shivering, cringing money- king is to be dragged up to the magazine whipping-post and lashed re- morselessly while all the world cries “ Bravo!” That work has been done, well done; it would be ridiculous to do it over again badly. It has been done by Upton Sinclair in shrill, spirit- ual falsetto; by Lincoln Steffens in grumbling, rumbling bass; by Alfred Henry Lewis with Texan foam and fury; by Ray Stannard Baker with lawyer-like reportorial coolness; by Ida Tarbell with Lady Macbeth fury and Charlotte Corday devotion. Why do it all over again feebly ? The trouble in America, in the opinion of one humble American, is with the American citizens themselves. Men get just about the trust government that they deserve. When eighty millions of human beings, nearly all

Page 49

~~ eS able to read, use their ballots about as in- telligently and efficiently as a two-year-old child uses his little shovel, the best advice you can give such people is to grow up and jearn to use the ballot more efficiently. If the people don’t want monopolies they have the power to end those monopolies when they choose. If they don’t want private car lines they have the power to end them. Let them have their own re- frigerator- cars. My own, and probably from the modern mag- azine point of view trea- sonable, opin- ion is that these Ameri- can industrial kings, with all their vio- lations of law —innumer- able—with all their mo- nopoly, their absurd and often crimi- nal accumula- tions: of pub- lic wealth, are among the greatest public bene- factors in the whole of human history. They are showing the people how to do the things that the people must do for them- selves in future. The great industrial ruler who establishes unity in methods of produc- tion, manufacture, and distribution is a bene- factor of his country, as Louis XI was France’s great benefactor when he established unity of weights, of measures, and of govern- ment throughout French territory. The French would have been fools had they left Louis and his like in power forever. They learned from him, from his weaker descend- ants, and now they do for themselves in a real republic the things that Louis and Char- lemagne and Napoleon did for them. The Armours, the Rockefellers, all the great organizers of industry, are showing the people what can be done. They are well paid, as kings are always well paid. They are tyran- MRS. J. OGDEN ARMOUR Arthur Brisbane 287 nical after the fashion of kings—although mildly tyrannical. They do not string up peasants to the limbs of trees by thousands, or fine the wretched community unable to produce the murderers of a man dead of starvation. But the modern kings do commit their crimes. They do defy law, and hold them- selves above it. The best lawyers are theirs, and a good many of the judges. And their best and most useful judges are those that work sincere- ly on money’s side, with their heart in the work. The system of private car lines means monopoly and extor- tion. The public, inde- pendent ship- pers, and the railroad com- panies them- selves are the victims of a system based on tyranny and absolute might. When rebates were the fashion the Armour car lines and all the others got their rebates—an enormous advantage. King Armour and King Rockefeller, paying to the railroads tens of millions of dollars annually, can easily terrify. those roads, since they still live to some extent under the system of com- petition. When the direct rebate, the plain defiance of law, is discouraged, the private car gets its “ mileage.”” When Armour sends his private railroad car, carrying his products or the products of others, the railroads must pay him rent for that car, not only going with a load, but coming back empty. Rocke- feller, Armour, and all the other industrial kings get from the railroads in the shape of rent twenty-five per cent. on the cost of their cars, a sum for which the railroads could re- produce those cars once every four years, and in addition the shipper pays the high

Page 50

THE NEW ARMOUR COUNTRY HOUSE, rates. The shipper cannot have his own cars unless he himself belongs to the royal set, for the railroads would scarcely dare to handle the business of the little man for fear of offending the big. The right to own pri- vate car lines with the modern king is about the same as the old king’s right to coin money, and to mix alloy with it, which was his way of getting rent. When you ship a crate of peaches you are at the mercy of Armour or another owner of refrigerator cars. When you shipva letter that doesn’t happen. In the case of a letter, the private mail-car line is your line, and so far as letters go, you, the plain citizen, are Armour and Rockefeller. Think that over. When you, the public, get ready you can LAKE FOREST, ILLINOIS be Armour and Rockefeller in other direc- tions. Meanwhile blame yourselves, not Armour and Rockefeller. They are doing just about what ninety-nine and a half per cent. of the people in the country would do if they could. Ownership of the private car lines means discrimination and an undue advantage un- doubtedly. But it isn’t the only kind of dis- crimination, or undue advantage. The child born in the slums, half fed, feels the weight of discrimination and unequal opportunity when he comes to compete with the child com- fortably born, well fed and dressed, and well educated. The whole of life’s strug- gle is discrimination, unequal opportunity, and only increasing general intelligence will TOWN HOUSE OF J. OGDEN ARMOUR, MICHIGAN AVENUE, CHICAGO 288

Page 51

: . me level out inequalities and abolish discrim- ination. Meanwhile the American people may con- gratulate themselves upon the fact that their kings, their absolute rulers, are no worse. The extraordinary thing about them, the marvel- ous improvement, is this: The money that they get they put into new American enter- MRS. PHILIP D. ARMOUR, SR., prises. If Armour takes in ten million dollars of net profit it is absolutely certain that he puts more than nine million dollars back into new buildings, new enterprises, new employment of labor. When Carnegie, the Charles Mar- tel of the iron world, transforms his kingdom into bonds and money, he runs pitifully around the country begging people to accept it in the form of libraries or scientific institu- Arthur Brisbane 289 tions. The soldiers of the modern king are standing armies of workingmen, not armies of fighting idlers. Rockefeller’s millions and Armour’s millions are millions invested and reinvested in labor, in building, in adding to the actual visible wealth of this country. That wealth belongs to the country, and to the people of the country. It is subject to AND HER GRANDDAUGHTER LOLITA, ONLY CHILD OF J. OGDEN ARMOUR their disposition by taxation or otherwise. It is fortunate for the people that these kings, unlike the old kings, do not waste human labor with courts, retinues of servants, and organized dissipation, do not waste human life in wars, but use their energies simply along the line of organizing industry and in- creasing tangible wealth. It might be worse, with a people as supine as our own.

Page 52

290 Owners of America It is a fact, of course, that Armour does not really own this great world-wide butcher busi- ness. The stock-yards own him. He was born with the big load upon his back. He tells you quite simply: ‘I inherited this business, I did not create it. I have tried to do as well as I could with it. It just hap- pened that I had a smart father and a rich father. “T have made a great many mistakes. I expect to make many more. I try not tomake the same mistake twice. “‘Criticism has done good and will do more good. You can’t see from the inside, when you have lived in a business all your life, de- fects that others see from the outside. Some- times you see that criticism is unjust, when others think it just. But all kinds of criticism must be taken alike.” Armour impresses you as a man who tells what he believes to be the truth. He says that while the prices charged for beef by the various packers are practically the same, there is no combination or trust among them. He declares that conditions make the prices practically uniform. The packers all buy in the one market, competing against one another; they all pay about the same prices for beef, hogs, and sheep each day. And they calculate that the price of beef should be regulated in accordance with what it has cost to buy it on the hoof and to handle it. Armour received from one of his clerks, in the routine of business, and handed to the writer a complicated-looking sheet ruled crosswise and up and down in fifty places. At the head of this particular sheet it was shown that thirty-four steers had been bought from a certain individual, at the rate of eight dollars and twenty cents per hundred pounds, on the hoof. Following this statement came various items of labor, handling, rent, and so on, estimated at two dollars and seventy-five cents for each animal bought and slaugh- tered. Below was calculated the value of the various by-products, hair, hide, hoofs, etc. At the bottom of the sheet appeared the figures, $13.55, meaning that when the entire animal had been cut up and reduced to plain beef, its cost would average $13.55 per hun- dred pounds for the dressed beef. A great part of the carcass, the viscera, hoofs, and so on, is worth much less per pound than the price charged on the hoof, which brings up the average price per pound of the dressed beef. The prices of the meat, steaks and other choice cuts, are regulated by the demand. The whole carcass is cut up and priced in such a way as to make the average return to the packer $13.55 per hundredweight for the beef plus a very low percentage of profits. That is the Armour statement. It is further said that retail butchers con- trol the retail prices very largely. They buy a side of beef or a whole carcass, and regulate prices for choice cuts in accordance with tke character of their customers. When times are hard the prices of the choice cuts dimin- ish, and the inferior kinds increase in price. In so vast an industry, bigger than all the men that manage it, suggestions seem rather foolish coming from the outside. But there are some things, it would seem, that Armour and the other big packers could do easily, at once, and without unreasonable sacrifice. They might make the prices of beef to con- sumers uniform and reasonable by establish- ing their own retail shops or otherwise. Rockefeller, the oil-king, manages to force upon dealers a uniform retail price for kero- sene, and the public gets the benefit. The Sugar Trust has arranged to give all of the people sugar at uniform prices throughout the country. It ought to be possible to do the same with meat, at least with the staple cuts of meat. One other thing should be done at once, and without waiting for action by the packers it should be done by the legislature of the state. No women or children should, under any conditions, be permitted to witness the killing of the animals. It is a dreadful thing to see long lines of little boys and women and little girls walking through the slaughter- houses, watching the sticking of pigs, the stunning of steers, and all the horror of blood. The effect is brutalizing on the chil- dren, and for the mother of an unborn child to witness so horrible a spectacle is a shameful crime. . Some legislator in Illinois should start the movement to prevent this. The packers themselves would do it, but they say, “If we close up our slaughter-houses, or keep any part of the public out, we shall be accused of having things to hide.” The packers easily could do a few things to make their workmen more comfortable. For instance, at the noon hour, the men engaged in this horrible business naturally require some stimulant with their meal and must have it. You see hundreds of them with tin pails running long distances to saloons out-

Page 53

PRIVATE OFFICE OF THE LATE PHILIP D. ARMOUR, SR., CHICAGO, IN WHICH HIS GREAT WHEAT DEALS WERE ORGANIZED side the packing district, some of them almost amileaway. ‘There the vilest kind of beer is sold for more than twice what it is worth. There are any number of these saloons on the edge of the packing district. Why not es- tablish canteens for these men, and let them have good, pure beer, low in alcoholic percent- age, at cost or just enough above it to pay the cost of distribution? The United States gov- ernment, in deference to ignorant prejudiced suggestion, has abolished the canteen in the army. The packers might set a good ex- ample and rebuke official hypocrisy by open- ing their own canteens, giving their men good, pure, healthful beer close to their work at stated hours, instead of compelling them to run long distances for a bad and expensive product. It would seem possible also for the packers, for such a man as Armour especially, who has almost unlimited money at his command, to establish comfortable living-quarters for the men, or giye them a chance to own a home. Modern electric transportation would enable them to live at a considerable distance from their work. It would not be difficult for Mr. Armour to take up some tract of ground, build model low-priced houses and rent them at a low percentage, giving to the families of his men, away from the slaughter-house, such a life as would counteract the influence of constant killing and carving. A little of the spirit that D. O. Mills has shown so nobly in New York city would do a great deal to im- prove conditions for the slaughter-house workers. And they are entitled to the thanks of the great packers whom they have made rich, and to the sympathy of the public of whose meat-eating habit they are the victims. THE KINGDOM OF DEATH It is not pleasant, and it is fortunately not necessary, to speak in detail of the process of killing. Strangely enough, hundreds of men and women write about the slaughter-houses, and all their thoughts deal with such questions as: Is the meat clean, Is there a human finger in the sausage, Are the workmen happy, etc. Nobody appears to ask whether one set of two-legged conscious beings have a right to kill in one annual butchery nine millions of other conscious four-legged helpless beings. Nobody seems to care, except a few worthy 291

Page 54

292 sentimental vegetarians, about the rights of the animal, about the feature of murder in our daily living. It is a great kingdom of death over which Armour rules. There are huge buildings for killing, surrounded with pens in which the sheep, hogs, and cattle are confined, waiting for the fatal hour. In one place hogs i in thou- -sands are driven into pens. Below, hidden under a platform, there is a cracking of whips mingled with squealing and grunting. You look down and see a man, black from head to foot with mud, rushing about among the half- crazed swine. He has a huge blacksnake whip in his hand, with which he drives them to the narrow entrance that leads to their death. In the last pen there is a great revolv- ing wheel. Each hog is seized, and hooked by one hind leg. The turning wheel lifts him in the air, he is passed-on to a wheel that slides along a rail, and then comes one knife- thrust and death. The killing of the sheep, fortunately, i hidden; it is too pathetic for the sight even of modern civilization. The killing of the cattle is less noisy and shocking than that of the swine. The big, heavy, fattened steers walk slowly into pens. Heavy hammers stun them, and as a rule they bleed to death without re- gaining consciousness. But there is certainly room for improve- ment in the killing. And if the improve- ment can be made it should be made, if nec- essary, under compulsion. Out of every ten steers slaughtered one or more invariably re- quire more than one blow for the killing. This means suffering, and it is unnecessary. The spending of a very little extra money, two or three cents a carcass perhaps, and prob- ably less, would pay for the fitting on each head of an apparatus that would make the death-blow absolutely certain. Study of the animals as they go to their death would disturb the calm belief of the in- dividual who thinks that an animal has no soul, no real life, no thought. It is true thata great majority of the animals die stupidly and without resistance. Among the swine, whose shrill squealings answer the cracking whip and the upward turn of the fatal wheel, there appears to be, fortunately, little or no con- ception of what death and danger mean. It is not always so. One day the harmony of the ‘‘killing-bed” was vastly disturbed by one small black pig. Huge creatures, double the black pig’s size, were walking through the door, resisting only feebly as the chains were Owners of America put around their hind legs and they were jerked up to death. This little black pig had other ideas, another character. No hero in hu- man life ever fought more desperately for his life than did that small creature. As soon as he entered the fatal pen he dashed at the man in charge, flew at his legs, drove him out of the pen, finally climbed up over the backs of the other swine, jumped out of the pen himself, and dashed at the man with the long knife, who was engaged in “sticking” the pigs as they came toward him hanging head down- ward. Half a dozen men combined suc- ceeded in killing this rebellious, anarchistic disturber of the packing-house peace, and they killed him in not at all a scientific manner. If a human had made so plucky a fight for his life against such odds he would be talked of with admiration. The stock-yards butchers, men that should know, are firmly convinced that the different animals that come up to them for killing are as different in character as human beings are. Fortunately, however, they are all agreed that not one animal in ten thousand has any idea of his coming fate. Death is a surprise to them all, and therefore practically painless. Amid all this lowing, squealing, and strug- ling there arises constantly the thought: Nhat becomes of the life in those animals? What becomes of that consciousness which has animated them, protected them, and di- rected them? In what way is it different from the consciousness within the two- legged ani- mal that stands there covered with blood from head to foot, stabbing relentlessly each living creature_as it comes before him ? We know what becomes of the animals’ bodies. The tenderloin goes to the rich man’s house, the shin-bone to the poor man, the head to the immigrant from certain foreign lands, the tongue, prepared with spices, is sent often far away to India. The hide is made into boots, chauffeurs’ coats, harness. The bones are cut up into buttons that fasten the workmen’s shirts, or are changed into the foolish little things upon which babies chew when their teeth are coming. A part of the body makes pepsin for those that lack digestion, and the indigestible parts go to those that later on need the pepsin. In all directions the bodies are scattered, but what becomes of the nine millions of lives, the nine millions of separate conscious- nesses that Armour scatters into space every year, as he feeds the millions of thinking, meat-eating animals?

Page 55

The Romance Syndicate By Henry C. Rowland Illustrated by Gordon Grant Epitor’s Note.—Each chapter of “The Romance Syndicate” is a story complete in itself. six months. they return. happen to everybody if they will accept them. adventure and to pursue them. as true romantic adventure must provide an expensive dinner. The adventures of Dallas, Wayne, and Kongsvold have been meeting takes place on Christmas eve. printed in previous issues. IV THE VINDICATION OF DANGERFIELD pRe three men looked expect- ‘> antly toward their host, who threw out his hands with a gesture of despair. ‘‘Isn’t it life?” he demanded; ‘“‘the irony of fate? I advance a theory which you chaps ridi- cule but agree to test. In proof of my argument witness the ripping adventures to which we have just listened, while I my- self—— ” “Have you the cheek to tell us,” snapped Dallas, ‘that after getting us into all this trouble you have nothing to report?” Dangerfield shook his head, but his color heightened. ‘‘Nothing which contains any element of adventure,” he answered, ‘‘and very little romance. But if it will be any comfort to you I am quite willing to admit that I am hopelessly in love. ” There was a chorus of exclamations. “That comforts us a great deal,” said Wayne. ‘‘Let’s hear about it.” “There is very little to tell, except that I have seen the Only Woman. She was un- mistakable from first sight. Beyond that I know absolutely nothing about her. ” “Of course she is good to look at,” said Wayne. _ “She is the loveliest creature you ever saw in your life, but I don’t think it was her beauty that attracted me. I have looked at a , good many pretty women and never got Four fyiends, Dallas, Wayne, Kongsvold, and Dangerfield, students in Paris, are about to part for the space of On the eve of their going they wonder what adventures they will have to tell each other when Dallas says, ‘None; the age of romance is past.’ The four agree to watch for opportunities for romantic The man or men who can report nothing which the others will pass upon Dangerfield believes that adventures The agreement is carried out, and the bowled over. But about a month ago I hap- pened to be showing some friends through the Luxembourg; we were standing in front of that big canvas of Bastien-Lepage when something drew my eyes to the face of a girl who was going out. There was only that glance as she passed, but it seemed to me as if there were an alarm-clock tucked away under my ribs and it had suddenly gone off. Mind you, it wasn’t her beauty; it was something else, some call, some sympathy, something which made her belong to me. Since then I’ve raked Paris for her in vain.” ““You mean to say that you have never seen her since?” “Never; but her face is just as fresh in my memory as when I saw her six weeks ago. There she is.” He pointed to a recess in the wall of the studio. ‘‘I made that study to help to find her.” Wayne arose quickly, stepped across the room to the portrait, and brought it into the light. It was a charming face, in type strongly Celtic, with eyes of so dark a blue as to be almost black, a straight, little nose slightly tilted at the tip, a wide mouth, the upper lip lifted in the middle, and a com- plexion of such rich coloring as one seldom sees in a Frenchwoman. But the quality in the face which appealed at once to the men critically studying it was an exquisite sweet- ness of expression, a grace of soul which shone - through the winsome features with an inex- pressible charm. ‘“‘She’s pretty.’ ingly. ‘‘An ideal,” said Wayne doubtfully. Kongsvold shook his head. ‘“‘No,” he 293 ’ muttered Dallas grudg-

Page 56

294 said, “‘I think Will is right. This is the face of a true woman. She is very young, not more than nineteen. What a pity that you cannot find her!” “Wherever she is,” answered Dangerfield doggedly, ‘‘she is mine.” He placed the pic- ture back in its corner, then turned to his friends. ‘‘That’s all,” said he. ‘‘I lose. Let me see, what’s the forfeit—dinner at the de Paris, the play, and supper at Durand’s?” As he spoke the antique knocker on the studio door filled the spacious room with its clamor. The concierge entered and handed Dangerfield a note. “Tt was brought this minute by a valet de chambre, m’sieu’.” ““‘Woman’s handwriting,” commented the artist. ‘‘Don’t know it. Maybe this is the adventure. ” Dallas drew out his watch. still two minutes,” he observed. the adventure it lets you out.” Dangerfield ran quickly through the note, then glanced up with an expression of annoy- ance. ‘“‘Look here, you chaps, if this is a hoax I must say it’s rotten bad form. ” His three friends looked at him in surprise, then questioningly at one another. The artist saw at once that he had been unjust. “T beg your pardon,” said he, ‘‘but it’s very odd. I know Mrs. Cutting so slightly— by no means well enough to admit of this sort of a joke. Listen to this; it is dated at 340 Boulevard des Invalides, 11.30 P.M., and reads: “You have “Tf this is “DEAR MR. DANGERFIELD: Do you realize that you are acting in a very foolish and selfish manner ? Miss O’Connor has just told me of your decision, and although you are no doubt sincere in what you feel to be a prineiple involving your personal pride you should not forget that your action may cost your fiancée the loss of a handsome legacy. Miss O’Connor is too upset to write to you, and so I am taking this liberty. I shall not retire for another hour, and wish very much that you would take the time from your work to run in for a few moments and give me an opportunity to convince you of your mistake. ‘Very sincerely yours, ‘MINERVA CUTTING.’” The four men looked at one another in bewilderment. ‘““Do you know of any other Dangerfield ?” asked Dallas. Wayne clapped his thigh. ‘‘That’s it!” said he. ‘‘That explains something which puzzled me the other day. A chap said to me in the club, ‘I hear great things from the Beaux Arts people of your friend Danger- The Romance Syndicate field; I did not know that he went in for architecture.’ I told him that he must have got the wrong name, as you had already re- ceived your diploma from the Beaux Arts, in paint, and that you could not be in there any- way, as you were past thirty. There must be another Dangerfield. ” “That’s it,” said Dallas. ‘Mrs. Cutting has probably looked into her address-book and got your name by mistake. The envel- ope is addressed simply ‘Monsieur Dan- gerfield.’” “This note is pressing,” said Kongsvold. “Yes,” said Dallas. ‘‘You ought to let her know. Write a line, put it in the envel- ope with the note, and send it right around.” He walked to the window and looked out. ‘““My car is down there; give it to Cyprien.” But Dangerfield had risen to his feet and was flicking the cigar ashes off his shirt-front. ‘“‘That of course is the proper thing to do,” said he, ‘‘but you must not forget our com- pact. Iam the only one who has had no ad- venture, and this note is the first possible clue which has presented itself. I am going to take it around to Mrs. Cutting myself and apologize for having opened it.” ‘“‘That’s the spirit!” cried Wayne. your last chance.” “Listen!” said Kongsvold, raising his hand. “The bells of Notre Dame.” He stepped to the window, threw it open, and let in the frosty air and the distant medley of joyful chimes. “Merry Christmas!” cried Dangerfield. “Merry Christmas!”’ shouted the others. Wayne raised his glass. “ Here’s luck, old chap!” he cried to their host, who had slipped into his fur-lined overcoat and was passing his sleeve across his top hat. “ Here’s luck—and the true romance!” “Romance!” cried the others in chorus. Dangerfield had not far to go, and a few moments later the big car stopped in front of a walled garden within which stood the little private hdtel occupied by the Cuttings. Somewhat to his surprise the footman ushered “Tes “ him into a room where a cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth. A pretty woman in evening dress, who was reading in the glow of a standing lamp, looked up expectantly as he entered. On seeing Dangerfield she started to her feet with an exclamation of surprise, which was quickly followed by confusion. “Mr. Dangerfield!” she cried. “How very odd! I was expecting another man—that is”—she

Page 57

“SOMETHING DREW MY EYES TO A GIRL WHO WAS GOING OUT”

Page 58

296 blushed crimsonly—“I mean, you see, my husband is in England,and so— What in the world am I saying?” Her charming face was by this time like a peony, and she began to flounder with the utter confusion which comes to the woman of the world only when surprised in her innocence. “Oh, what will you think of me, Mr. Dangerfield! You see, I had just sent a note to another Mr. Dangerfield to say that I would wait up for him until one o’clock —how perfectly dreadful that sounds—but, you see, Mr. Dangerfield, it was because a friend of mine—I mean that as the man whom I was expecting is the fiancé of a girl who is stop- ping the night with me I did not wish her to know—oh, that sounds worse than ever! I believe I’ll have to tell you the whole story.” She paused,: so charming in her distress that for a moment Dangerfield remained in amused and malicious enjoyment of the situa- tion. Then chivalry compelled him to say: “T know some of it, Mrs. Cutting. I came here to apologize for having read this mysteri- ous note and to let you know that it had gone astray.” Mrs. Cutting looked, stared, then burst out laughing. “Was anything ever so absurd!” she cried. Her face recovered its gravity, and for a moment she regarded Dangerfield with a meditative air. “I have a good mind to tell you the whole story,” she said; “that is, if you care to hear it. Your arriving this way on Christmas at the stroke of twelve arouses my sense of fatalism. Perhaps you might even help us. It is all very romantic.” “T am pledged to the furtherance of true romance. ”’ “How nice that sounds! kismet. Very well, Mr. Dangerfield. all about ‘the P’ratie.’” “What is that?” “That is the most fascinating Irish girl that ever came from the old sod. We were in the convent together, and the American girls nicknamed her ‘the P’ratie.’ She’s been through the paint-school, and now she’s in the Beaux Arts, and her name is Kathleen O’Connor, and she’s a darling. ”’ “T plainly see that it is kismet.” “But she is engaged to the other Mr. Dan- gerfield. ”’ “T am sure that he is unworthy.” “You are right.” “ Perhaps I can cut him out.” Mrs. Cutting glanced with approval at the trim, aristocratic figure and thoroughbred face of the Englishman. “I wish you could, I am sure it is It is The Romance Syndicate Her uncle is Sir Cloyne He’s enor- but there is not time. Macroom of County Tyrone. ‘mously rich, a confirmed old bachelor, and therefore a crank. A year ago he told ‘the P’ratie’ that if she was married by this New- year’s day he would settle on her ten thousand pounds outright. He objects strongly to un- married girls—when one is his niece and fas- cinating and studying art in Paris.” “He is right. Does ‘the P’ratie’ agree with him?” “Enthusiastically. So much so that she has engaged herself to marry an earnest young man with ideals, who looks like a flamingo and says that he behaves like Saint Anthony.” “The former simplifies the latter.” “ Between ourselves, I don’t like him.” “T am surprised. Does ‘the P’ratie’?” “Not very much, but she’s determined to marry him. She admires his strength.” “In what way is it manifested, aside from his resisting these temptations which are thrust upon him?” “In a most exasperating manner. Sir Cloyne’s stipulation in giving ‘the P’ratie’ her dot is that her fiancé shall meet with his approval. This Mr. Dangerfield is a suffi- ciently creditable man in manner and ap- pearance, but he absolutely refuses to be ‘exhibited,’ as he calls it. We have just had a wire from Sir Cloyne to say that he is en route for the Riviera and will stop over one train in Paris to see his niece and meet her fiancé. Now the fiancé has got a kink and will not meet the old gentleman.” “He is a fool.” “He is worse. Don’t you think you could go to see him and make him listen to reason —on the mutual ground of being a fellow artist, a Beaux Arts man, and an English- man?” “Tam willing to try. He can no more than throw me out.” “He is not violent, and the poor" P’ratie’ would be so grateful. ”’ “H’m. Where is ‘the P’ratie’ now?” “Up-stairs. ” “Weeping?” “She has stopped and is eating chocolate truffettes and reading Gyp.”’ “Minnie,”’ called a rich, girlish voice from somewhere in the spectral heights, “I have a feeling that you are talking about me, and I’m coming down this minute. I’ve finished your improper book, which is no sort of readingat all for a jeune fille, and I’ve eaten all the trujjettes and fed the rest to Timbale, and 20

Page 59

‘*WHEREVER SHE IS,” ANSWERED DANGERFIELD DOGGEDLY, ‘*SHE IS MINE” tis a gay Christmas eve we’re having alto- gether!” “<The P’ratie,’’”’ said Mrs. Cutting, with a sigh. “Tell her to come down.” Mrs. Cutting walked to the door. “Come down, dear,” she called; “that is, if you are presentable. Mr. Will Dangerfield is here.” “And who is Mr. Will Dangerfield?” “No relation.” “Then I'll come down, though I’m not one bit presentable and my eyes are all red from— reading!” There was a frou-jrou of silken skirts, the glass doors swung open, and a charming figure appeared against the dark background. Dangerfield, waiting with a queer sense of breathless expectancy which puzzled him, felt the blood leap from his heart in a great warm wave. “‘My word!” he gasped, under his breath. “The Luxembourg lady!” The creamy lamplight, assisted by the tuddy glow from the hearth, revealed “the 297 P’ratie” as a young lady of much warmth of coloring, with delicious features and abun- dant black hair. She wore a loose tea-gown, fashioned like a kimono and of a pale-green tint. ‘“‘Kathleen dear,” said Mrs. Cutting, ‘‘let me present Mr. Dangerfield.” “The P’ratie” looked with interest at the young man, who recovered himself suffi- ciently to say, “Merry Christmas, Miss O’Connor!” She gave him a ravishing smile. ‘‘And the same to you, Mr. Dangerfield, and to you, Minnie darlin’. I’d quite forgot the blessed hour it is, what with all of this bother about Sir Cloyne and Albert and the rest. And_it’s in Notre Dame we ought to be this very minute and would be if only Jim were here— with perhaps a look into Paillard’s afterward! Oh, deary me, life is full of sorrow and suf- ferin’, now is it not, Mr. Dangerfield ?” “‘Kathleen,” said Mrs. Cutting, “I have told Mr. Dangerfield all about it.” “Have you now! ’Twas good of him to 99 listen, poor man! a

Page 60

298 “He is going to see Albert and try to talk him into some sense.” ‘Twill be an awful task, that,” said “‘the P’ratie.” “But do you think he will be at home?” asked Dangerfield. The curved upper lip of grew scornful. ‘‘No fear! You'll find the creature at work on his opera-house! ’Tis a possession. When last I saw him we sat for an hour on a bench in the Luxembourg Gar- dens, he sketching an entablature and I hold- ing the umbrella over the paper and wiggling my toes to keep them warm. When I was thinking he’d finished and we might slip into a patisserie for a cup of chocolate he suddenly thought of a design for a pediment. ‘I must get that on paper before I forget it,’ says he. “You don’t mind if I leave you, my dear? ’Tis very important.’ And off he bolted, leaving me perishing with cold and all boiling with rage. “‘He ought to be great some day.” “T’d rather he were agreeable this even- ing. And Christmas eve, too.’ “Tf Mr. Dangerfield i is going to see him he had better start,’’ said Mrs. Cutting, with decision. In a bewildered tangle of emotions the artist said good night, promising to return the fol- lowing day for luncheon, to which repast it was hoped he might be able to entice the re- calcitrant fiancé. Securing a cab he pres- ently alighted in front of one of the blatant, rococo apartment-houses which are growing like tumors in the vitals of Paris, and mount- ing in the automatic elevator to the fourth floor he pushed an electric bell. “‘ Entrez!” growled a harsh voice, and the artist entered. The room was large, bare, with dirty white panels in debased Louis. Seize, the swags of fruit holding layers of dust. The furniture was new, bad, and non- descript. Under a villainous chandelier, in the blaze of two incandescent lights, was a plain deal table on which a large sheet of drawing-paper was held by thumb-tacks. A man leaning on the table glanced at Dan- gerfield over his shoulder, without turning. The artist received a disagreeable shock. He had expected to find a callow, opinionated youth with a thin neck and eyes red-rimmed from toil. Instead he saw a person big of bone and long of limb, with a beak like an angry flamingo, the forehead of a genius, and eyes of a color and expression which indicated glacial ice. The architect stared at his guest, and as “the P’ratie” The Romance Syndicate though not finding the latter’s appearance trustworthy drew a loose sheet of drawing- paper over his plans. The artist observed the act and raised his eyebrows. ““Mr. Dangerfield?” he asked. The other grunted suspiciously. “‘T have come at the request of Mrs. Cut- ting and your fiancée, Miss O’Connor,”’ said the artist stiffly. ‘‘They asked me to look you up and try to persuade you to lunch with them at twelve, to-morrow. They are afraid that your treatment of Miss O’Con- nor’s uncle may cost her a large inheritance, and they want me to try to point out to you the injustice of such behavior.” There was a moment’s pause while the architect surveyed his guest with calculating eyes. ‘Quite so,” he croaked. ‘‘Well, get on then and point it out.” “Tt is hardly necessary,” said the artist coldly. ‘‘I have been under a false impres- sion. I had expected to find you a hot-headed youngster, but you appear to be a man who ought to know his own mind.” The assaying eyes rested upon him keenly. ‘‘Look here,” said the architect, ‘‘do I look like a man who would throw away ten thou- sand pounds out of sulkiness?” ‘You certainly do not.” ‘“‘No more Iam. This thing of being too proud to let the old toff inspect me is all rot. The trouble is, he knows me—by sight only. Silly affair; I was visiting some friends in Ireland who have the next property to his, last summer, and one day we scared his horses with a motor-car. He had a good look at me, and my face is not one that a man would forget, is it?” ‘“‘T would never forget it.” ‘‘No more would the old cock. That’s the reason I’m standing on my dignity.” “T see. You are very wise.” The pale eyes looked cunningly at the artist. ‘‘So if you want to help Miss O’Con- norand please Mrs. Cutting, to say nothing of doing a fellow countryman a good turn , “ Yes?” “Tsay. What is your name?” “‘Dangerfield. ” “No? Really?” The fishy features wore a look of suspicion. “That is my name. I am on Mrs. Cut- ting’s list, and it was through my getting a note from her intended for you that I came to be mixed up in this affair.” ““H’m. Wonder if we’re not possibly re- lated? Looks like fate, doesn’t it?’

Page 61

Henry C. Rowland ““MY FACE IS NOT ONE THAT A MAN WOULD FORGET, IS IT?” “Yes,” said the artist grimly. ‘‘It cer- tainly does.” “Well, then, if you really want to be of ser- vice all you’ve got to do is to go around there to-morrow and let Sir Cloyne think that you are Kathleen’s fiancé. Easy enough; he will never know the difference. When he gets back from the Riviera we will be married and in America. I’ve decided to start in over there—bigger field.” Dangerfield controlled his disgust with an extreme effort. “Isee,’’ he answered quietly. “But I am afraid that I could scarcely play your réle—I am such a poor actor.” He rose. “Oh, rubbish!” said the other harshly. “Easiest thing in the world! All you’ve got to do is to sit tight and keep mum. Or you might only look in and say how d’ye do and make some excuse and bolt again. What? That would fill the condition. He’s going on to-morrow night. I say, it’s not much to do for a friend, ye know.” “But we can scarcely The architect waved his bony hand. “I’m not speaking of myself. J have no claim on you, of course; but it’s a matter of only a few minutes, and it would save Kathleen a fortune. Otherwise the money will go to a lot of Fenian societies and the Lord knows what.” Dangerfield moved toward the door. The man was becoming every moment more re- pellent to him. “I’m afraid I’d make a ” 299 You see, my talents don’t run in that direction. You’d better make some excuse for yourself. I am going to lunch at Mrs. Cutting’s to-morrow, and I could scarcely sustain such a part for so long a time.” “No trouble about that. All you’d have to do would be to sit tight and let Kathleen - “She might not care to act either. I must really go now—later than I thought —engagement. Good night.” He stepped out of the door and hurried down to the street in a hot blast of anger and disgust. He felt that if he had been compelled to remain another moment he would have told the man exactly what he thought of him and his methods, and he did not wish a quar- rel, especially as the interview had been of his own seeking. On the side- walk he drew a deep breath. “What a brute!” he muttered to himself. “What an unspeakable bounder! What an inexpressible cad! B’r’r’rgh!” He returned to his studio to find that his friends had gone, so he went to bed and dreamed of aeroplanes, Bulgarian bandits, vikings, and angry flamingos. Naturally enough he did not dream at all of the one focal point of his waking thought, a red- cheeked Irish girl with a sweet mouth and starry eyes. Promptly at noon he presented himself at the Cuttings’ residence. The footman ushered him into a cheerful little Louis- Quinze salon, where he found the two ladies and a little old gentleman with a face like a wise gray ape, who was doing his best to absorb into his meager person all the warmth from a tiny fire of boulets. As Mrs. Cutting stepped forward to greet him it seemed to the artist that her pretty face was flushed and wore an expression of displeasure. He turned to bow to “the P’ratie’; the girl wore a heightened color and avoided meeting his eyes. Puzzled and annoyed, he turned to the old gentleman, who stepped forward briskly and gave his hand a strong and bony clasp. “And how do you do, sorr?” said Sir Cloyne, his shrewd eyes boring into the young man’s face. “A Merry Christmas to you and many, many happy returns of the day!” Touched by the warmth and sincerity of the greeting, the artist responded heartily. botch of it.

Page 62

300 Sir Cloyne’s next words, however, took him aback: “Kathleen tells me you’re an architect, Mr. Dangerfield. ’Tis a grrand thing, architecture, and arrt the same. Tis a foine combination of both will be made by the two of you.” Much startled, the artist was about to cor- rect this errorof identity when, glancing at “the P’ratie,” he caught a most peculiar expres- sion upon her face. ‘This was a combination of vexation, fright, and amusement, and then it suddenly occurred to him that the psycho- logical moment had passed and both ladies had permitted the mistake to pass unhin- dered. He looked toward Mrs. Cutting and observed that her expression of annoyance had increased. Sir Cloyne had turned to “the P’ratie”’ and was joking her in a manner peculiar to rich old bachelor uncles, but seeing that some- thing was amiss he changed the topic and began to talk about her painting. Danger- field, with a heart as heavy as lead, turned to his hostess. ‘The awful conviction was steal- ing over him that the two women, realizing on the instant the advantage to be derived from the deception, had determined to let it pass, and this idea smote him with the pain which is bound to come from the shattering of a fair ideal. But he could not understand their taking it for granted that he himself would consent to such a false position. Chilled, disillusioned, and resentful, he was saying a few cold commonplaces to Mrs. Cutting, who was listening. lifelessly, when “the P’ratie” interrupted. “I’m going to take uncle back to the studio to see the study I’ve done for you, Minnie,” said she, and without looking at Dangerfield led Sir Cloyne from the room. As soon as they were out of earshot Mrs. Cutting turned fiercely to the artist. “This is too horrid!”’ she said. go on! It’s positively indecent!” “Then why did you let it pass?” “T don’t know. He bullied us. Then when he said that you had consented I thought——” “What are you talking about? Who said that J consented to what?” Mrs. Cutting stared. “But he was here two hours ago and confessed to us his true reason for not wanting to meet Sir Cloyne and said that you and he had agreed on this plan.” “Oh! He did!” Dangerfield’s eyes began to glow. “And you and Miss O’Connor “It can’t The Romance Syndicate were willing to take the cad’s word that I would impersonate him?” “Do you mean that he deliberately lied to us?” Mrs. Cutting’s charming face was merely an expression of horrified indignation. “Of course he lied to you,” said Danger- field with contempt. “Why shouldn’t he? That’s his sort. He thought that exactly what has happened would happen—that I would find myself involved and then be obliged to see the thing through for Miss O’Connor’s sake. I really don’t know w rhether I am more disgusted with him or with you.’ Mrs. Cutting’s face grew very pale. ‘He —dominated us!” she burst out furiously. “‘But—but what shall we do now?” “‘ Madame est servie,” said the footman, from the doorway. “‘Leave it to me, play it out.” “You will play his part?” Cutting doubtfully. “No! Not by a hanged sight! Ill play my own.” The luncheon was a turmoil of strong but suppressed emotions. Mrs. Cutting, in a state of bewilderment which was a mixture of fright, anger, surprise, and hysterical amuse- ment, fell back upon the merest conven- tionalities. ‘‘The P’ratie” remained in a condition of smothered fury alternating with amazement at the audacity of her pseudo- fiancé. Sir Cloyne heartily enjoyed the de- licious French cooking and the witticisms of his prospective nephew, at which he roared with laughter, while Dangerfield himself soared in an exaltation of recklessness which was born of wounded amour propre and the temerity of his plan of campaign. Before the meal was over the old Irishman was so de- lighted with Dangerfield that he had abruptly changed all of his plans and decided to charter a big touring-car, in which he insisted that his niece and her fiancé should accom- pany him to Cannes, there to remain indefi- nitely, “‘He’s a foine, upstandin’ young man, your William, my dear,” said he to Kathleen,. as they returned to the salon. ‘‘He’sto hunt me up a good car to-morrow, and we'll all go away south together, will we not?” But “the P’ratie” only looked at the artist and thirsted for the hour of reckoning. She had not long to wait. A few minutes later, the old gentleman expressing a desire to see some of her husband’s work, Mrs. Cutting ” said Dangerfield. ‘“T’ll asked Mrs.

Page 63

took him to the studio. As soon as the door had closed behind them “‘the P’ratie” turned furiously to Dangerfield. “Tis an actor you should be, Mr. Danger- field, and not an artist,” said she. “But don’t you think you’ve gone a bit too far?” “T expect to go much farther before I have finished, Kathleen,” said he composedly. “How dare you call me by my given name, sir?” “How dared you pass me off as your fiancé?” “The P’ratie” grew crimson. ‘“‘But—but did you not your- self “No, of course I did not! You see, J hap- pen to be a gentleman, which this other Dan- gerfield is very far from being. He lied to you this morning. I told him last night that I would have nothing to do with it, so he laid a trap for me. I’m not at all surprised at that, but I am hurt that you should have thought me capable of such a trick.” For a full minute “the P’ratie” stared at him with her large dark-blue eyes and her pretty red mouth both generously open. ‘The scalawag! ” she cried, and burst into tears. The artist stepped to her side. ‘‘Don’t cry, Kathleen,” said he soothingly, and she checked her sobs. ‘‘You are a young girl, and this man has victimized you. He’s been victimizing you all along. He has talent and a strong personality, but he’s a cold-blooded, calculating serpent. ” She drew a small, embroidered handker- chief across her eyes and stole a glance at the fine, thoroughbred features of the man beside her. “For a long time I would not hear of it,” she murmured, “but the creature has such a persuadin’ way to him.” “He half hypnotized y you. I don’t believe that Sir Cloyne ever laid eyes on him, but he is a clever scoundrel and he knows that your Henry C. SEEING THAT SOMETHING CHANGED THE TOPIC Rowland 301 uncle would see at a glance that he is not a gentleman. You have had a very lucky escape, Kathleen.” “Faith, I think you are right, Mr. Da “Call me Will.” “The P’ratie” raised an _ astonished, tear-stained face. ‘Call you Wéill!” she cried. “And why, pray?” “‘Because you are engaged to me. “Engaged to you: She threw out both her pretty hands and turned all pink and white with astonished violet eyes flashing be- tween long, wet eye- lashes. Her pretty lips were aquiver. ‘‘What is that, Mr. Da ‘*Will,’’ corrected the artist. “Don’t you see, Kathleen, it is our only honorable way out of the mess? We have passed ourselves off to Sir Cloyne as_ being engaged, so now, to save ourselves from contemptible trickery, we must be engaged— not sham engaged, but actually so.” “The P’ratie” looked up at him wildly. ‘“‘But — but — there’s that — that — apache! Grrrrl” This last the most primitive ex- pression of rage. “We will break that off at once—you by let- ter and Iin person. Then to-morrow we will hunt up a car for Sir Cloyne and make our plans to go with him to the Riviera for 6 “Hush! Oh, whatever are you saying, Mr. Danger ie “will.” “Will, then!” she cried desperately. ‘How in the world am I to be engaged to a man whom I never saw until last night? Oh, shame upon me that I ever got myself in such a pickle, Mr. “Will. You must not forget, dear.” “What is that?” ‘The P’ratie” turned sharply, the danger-signals flying in her high- spirited face. yo? WAS AMISS HE

Page 64

302 ‘“‘Listen to me, Kathleen.” There was a note in the young man’s voice which caused “‘the P’ratie” to catch her breath and glance furtively over her shoulder. ‘‘There is a fate in all of this. More than six weeks ago I saw you one day in the Luxembourg, just for an instant as you were passing. Since then I have been able to think of nothing else. If you and Mrs. Cutting and your uncle will come this afternoon to tea in my studio I will show you a portrait of yourself which I painted from memory, and it is a better piece of work than anything I ever did from any number of sittings.” ‘*T he. P’ratie’’ turned to him a startled, fascinated face. “I wondered where it was we'd met.” “We met in the spirit, Kathleen, that day. Last night I was telling some friends about it, con- fessing that I was in love with a woman whom I knew nothing of and had never seen but once, and just as I had finished my story the concierge handed me Mrs. Cutting’s note. Don’t you think there is more than chance in all of that, dear?” “The P’ratie’’ looked away. A step sounded in the cor- ridor, and the door opened briskly. Sir Cloyne’s shrewd little eyes flitted quickly from the man to the girl. “There!” said he, in a gratified tone. “*Tis plain you’ve made it up, childer. That’s right. Life is too short and love too scarce to be sacrificin’ a minute of ayther.”’ But Mrs. Cutting looked at the two and threw up her hands with a hopeless little ges- ture of surrender. The day was one of such perfection as co- quettish Paris sometimes flashes in the gray face of the old year. A frosty rime lay on the wood-paved streets; the golden horses of the F. Le —T* RDO eran -——___—————_-7 ‘*YOU HAVE HAD A VERY LUCKY ESCAPE, KATHLEEN ”’ The Romance Syndicate Pont Alexandre III flamed against a sky the blue of which was softened by a tulle scarf of finest haze. Down the Seine the Eiffel Tower gleamed in its jacket of frost with the luster of chased silver, while the opposite towers of the Trocadéro loomed soft and misty through the cold but sun-kissed damp. It was one of those rare days of winter Paris, rich in atmosphere, high of tension, when the keynote of all activity is struck at least an octave higher than that of any other city in the world. “The P’ratie’s” cheeks were tingling and her eyes bright, as, snugly tucked in the little racing voi- turette, they skipped past the Grand Palais and_ turned into the Champs- Elysées. “Faith, but you are the perfect fiancé, Mist . “ Will.” “Will, then, to please you, as at this same moment you’re pleasing me. What a duck of a car, to be sure, and how well you handle it!” “‘“After we are married,’’ said Dangerfield, in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘we will make a tour and I will teach you how to drive.” “The P’ratie” gasped, too startled to as much as blush. “Whatever is this you are saying, Mist—Will? Married, is it?” “ People who are engaged,” said the artist, “very often wind up by getting married. It is taking an awful chance.” “But—but however could I “You leave it to me. You don’t need to do a thing.” “The P’ratie” did not answer. They reached the Etoile, passed around the Arc, and went skimming down the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. Suddenly “the P’ratie” gave a little cry of rapture. “?Tis like being really engaged, now is it not? I’ve often thought that it should be like this, but with—Albert.” ?

Page 65

“Don’t speak of him, Kathleen. I went to his studio yesterday,,and the concierge told me that he had left town. It is all quite plain. He has learned that Sir Cloyne is stopping over and thinks that I will keep up the de- ception for your sake. Ugh! Don’t let us talk about him.” An infatuated young man, a racing voiturette, and a dash through the keen winter sunshine do not offer the most suitable con- ditions for introspection, and the tingling sen- sibilities of “the P’ratie”’ were too fully occu- pied in mere feeling to turn to analysis. They flew through the Bois and held on toward St.- Germain. When they had entered the regal forest of Marly, Dangerfield turned into one of the long, empty aisles and stopped the motor. “Just a minute,” said he, reaching into the machinery with a spanner. He replaced the tool, then glanced at the girl’s glowing face. “Warm enough ?” “As warm as toast, thank you.” “ Happy ? ”? The color rushed into the girl’s face, but her features clouded. “’Tis—’tis heavenly, all of this, but— Oh, dear!” Dangerfield’s eyes kindled. “What, Kath- leen?” “There’s Uncle Cloyne.” “Don’t let that worry you, dear. I told him all about it last night when I took him back to his hotel.” P’ratie” “The looked scared. “You THE ‘‘T Sought Him’’ 303 never! And what did he say?” she asked. “ Nothing much, but I think he is laughing yet.” “Saints! What a man you are, to be sure! But then fe “That’s all, dear. You are engaged to me. There is only one detail which I may have overlooked.” “Not really!” There was a mocking tone in “the P’ratie’s” fresh voice. “I’m sur- prised now. And what may that be?” “You haven’t yet said you will marry me.” “How careless of me! But when did you ask me, sirr?”’ “Haven’t hadachance. Will you, dear?” She lifted her dimpled chin. “But what has that to do with it all?” Her eyes were laughing but very tender. The artist pulled the gauntlet from the little hand and took the hand in his. “ Will you marry me?” he asked, in quite a differ- ent tone. “The P’ratie’s’’ face softened, the blue eyes grew humid as she looked into his. Her lips quivered, but she could not speak. “Say yes, dearest.” “Yes, Mr. Da e “will.” “Yes, Will darlin’. The tears gushed into her blue eyes, and the next moment “the P’ratie”’ knew exactly how it feit to be really engaged, while Dangerfield had found the true romance. END ’ “IT Sought Him” By Helen A. Saxon I soucut Him in the broad and shining ways Where beauty makes her infinite appeal, In rainbow arches and swift clouds that steal Their flaming glory from the sunset blaze. I sought Him in the snowy peaks that raise Vast shoulders to the skies they half conceal, And in the marvels midnight hours reveal When circling worlds give Him unceasing praise. I found Him in the slums midst dust and mire Where passions breed and evil things are rife. I found Him shaping into something higher Dim suffering souls submerged in sin and strife, And fanning into flame each least desire That yearns aloft for purity of life.

Page 66

Just Like a Cat By Ellis Parker Butler Illustrated by Henry Raleigh 7 HEY were doing good work out back of the Westcote express office. The West- cote Land and Improvement Company was ripping the whole top off Seiler’s Hill and dumping it into the swampy meadow, and Mike Flannery liked to sit at the back door of the express ties; when there was nothing to do, and watch the endless string of wagons dump the soft clay and sand there. Already the swamp was a vast landscape of small hills and valleys of new, soft soil, and soon it would burst into streets and dwellings. That would mean more work, but Flannery did not care; the company had allowed him a helper already, and Flannery had hopes that by the time the swamp was populated Timmy would be of some use. He doubted it, but he had hopes. The four-thirty-two train had just pulled in, and Timmy had gone across to meet it with his hand-truck, and now he returned. He came lazily, pulling the cart behind him with one hand. He didn’t seem to care whether he ever got back to the office. Flannery’s quick blood rebelled. “Ts that all th’ faster ye can go?” he shouted. ‘Make haste! Make haste! ’Tis an ixpriss company ye are workin’ fer, an’ 304 nota cimitery. T”’ look at-ye wan w’u’d think ye was nawthin’ but a funeral!” “Sure I am,” said Timmy. ‘‘’Tis as ye have said it, Flannery; I’m th’ funeral.” Flannery stuck out his under jaw, and his eyes blazed. For nothing at all he would have let Timmy have a fist in the side of the head, but what was the use? There are some folks you can’t pound sense into, and Timmy was one of them. “What have ye got, then ?” asked Flannery. ““Nawthin’ but th’ corpse,” said Timmy impudently, and Flannery did do it. He swung his big right hand at the lad, and would have taught him something, but Tim- my wasn’t there. Hehaddodged. Flannery ground his teeth, and bent over the hand- truck. The next moment he straightened up and motioned to Timmy, who had stepped back from him, nearly half a block back. “Come back,” he said peacefully. ‘Come on back. This wan time I’ll do nawthin’ to ye. Come on back an’ lift th’ box into th’ office. But th’ next time——” Timmy came back, grinning. He took the box off the truck, carried it into the office, and set it on the floor. It was not a large box, nor heavy, just a small box with strips nailed across the top, and there was an Angora cat in it. It wasa fine, large Angora cat, but it was dead.

Page 67

Flannery looked at the tag that was nailed on the side of the box. ‘‘Ye’d betther git th’ wagon, Timmy,” he said slowly, “‘an’ pro- ceed with th’ funeral up t’ Missus Warman’s. This be no weather fer perishable goods t’ be lyin’ ’round th’ office. Quick speed is th’ motto av th’ Interurban Ixpriss Company whin th’ weather is eighty-four in th’ shade. An’, Timmy,” he called as the boy moved toward the door, ‘‘make no difficulty sh’u’d she insist on receiptin’ fer th’ goods as bein’ damaged. If nicissary take th’ receipt fer ‘Wan long-haired cat, damaged.’ But make haste. ’Tis in me mind that sh’u’d ye wait too long Missus Warman will not be receivin’ th’ consignment at all. She’s wan ay th’ par ticular kind, Timmy.” In half an hour Timmy was back. He came into the office lugging the box, and let it drop on the floor with a thud. Flannery looked up from his desk, where he was writ- ing. “She won’t take no damaged cats,”’ Timmy shortly. Mike Flannery laid his pen on his desk with almost painful slowness and precision. Slowly he slid off his chair, and slowly he picked up his cap and put it on hishead. He did not say a word. His brow was drawn into deep wrinkles, and his eyes glittered as he walked up to the box with almost super- naturally stately tread and picked it up. His lips were firmly set as he walked out of the office into the hot sun. Timmy watched him silently. In less than half an hour Mike Flannery came into the office again, quietly, and set the box silently on the floor. Noiselessly he hung up his cap on the nail above the big calendar back of the counter. He sank into said his chair and looked for a long while at the blank wall opposite him. ** An’ t’ think,” he said at last, like one still wrapped in a great blanket of surprise, ‘“‘t’ think she didn’t swear wan cuss th’ whole time! Thim ladies is wonderful folks! I wonder did she say th’ same t’ ye as she said t’ me, Timmy ?” ‘Sure she did,” said Timmy, grinning as usual. “Will ye think of that, now!” said Flan- nery with admiration. ‘‘’Tis a grand con- stitution she must be havin’, that lady. Twice in wan afternoon! I wonder could she say th’ same three times? ’Tis not possible.” He ran his hand across his forehead and sighed, and his eyes fell on the box. It was still where he had put it, but he seemed sur- prised to see it there. He had no recollection of anything after Mrs. Warman had begun to talk. He picked up his pen again. “Interurban Express Co., New York,” he wrote. ‘‘Consiny Mrs. Warman wont re- ciev cat way bill 23645 Hibbertand Jones con- sinor cat is He grinned and ran the end of the pen through his stubble of red hair. ““What is th’ swell worrd fer dead, Tim- my?” he asked. “I’m writin’ a letter t’ th’ swell clerks in New Yorrk that be’ always guyin’ me about me letters, an’ I’ll hand thim a swell worrd fer wance.” “‘ Deceased,” said Timmy, grinning. ‘°Tis not that wan I was thinkin’ of,” said Flannery, ‘‘but that wan will do. ’Tis a high-soundin’ worrd, deceased. ” He dipped his pen in the ink again. “cat is diseased,” he wrote. give disposal. Mike Flannery.” When the New York office of the Inter- 305 “Pleas

Page 68

306 urban Express Company received Flannery’s letter they called up Hibbert & Jones on the telephone. Hibbert & Jones was the big de- partment store, and it was among the Inter- urban’s best customers. When the Inter- urban could do it a favor it was policy to do so, and the clerk knew that sending a cat back and forth by rail was not the best thing for the cat, especially if the cat was diseased. “That cat,’”? said the manager of the live- animal department of Hibbert & Jones, “‘ was in good health when it left here, absolutely, so far as we know. If it was not it is none of our business. Mrs. Warman came in and picked the cat out from a dozen or more, and paid for it. It is her cat. It doesn’t interest us any more. And another thing: You gave us a receipt for that cat in good order; if it was damaged in transit it is none of our affair, is it?” ‘““Owner’s risk, ’’ said the Interurban clerk. “You know we only accept live animals for transportation at owner’s risk.” “That lets us out, then,” said the Hibbert & Jones clerk. ‘Mrs. Warman is the owner. Ring off, please.” Westcote is merely a suburb of New York, and mails are frequent, and Mike Flannery found a letter waiting for him when he opened the office the next morning. It was brief. It said: “‘Regarding cat, W. B. 23645, this was sent at owner’s risk, and Mrs. Warman seems to be the owner. Cat should be delivered to her. MR Pewee Se **SHE WON’T TAKE NO DAMAGED CATS,’’ SAID TIMMY SHORTLY Just Like a Cat We are writing her from this office, but in case she does not call for it immediately, you will keep it carefully in your office. You had bet- ter have a veterinary look at the cat. Feed it regularly.” Mike Flannery folded the letter slowly and looked down at the cat. ‘“‘Feed it!” he ex- claimed. ‘‘I wonder, now, was that a mis- print fer fumigate it, fer that is what it will be wantin’ mighty soon, if I know annything about deceased cats. I wonder do thim dudes in New Yorrk be thinkin’ th’ long-haired cat is only fainted, mebby? Do they think they see Mike Flannery sittin’ be th’ bedside av th’ cat, fannin’ it t’ bring it back t’ conscious- ness? Feed it! Niver in me life have I made a specialty av cats, long-haired or short- haired, an’ I do not be pretindin’ t’ be a pro- fissor av cats, but ’tis me sittled belief that whin a cat is as dead as that wan is it stops eatin’.” - He looked resentfully at the cat in the box. “*T wonder sh’u’d I put th’ late laminted out on th’ back porrch till th’ veterinary comes t’ take its pulse? I wonder what th’ ixpriss company wants a veterinary t’ butt into th’ thing fer annyhow ? Is it th’ custom nowadays t’ require a certificate av health fer every cat that’s as dead as that wan is before th’ funeral comes off? Sure, I do believe th’ ixpriss company has doubts av Mike Flan- nery’s ability t’ tell is a cat dead or no. Mebby ’tis thrue. Mebby so. But wan thing I’m dang sure av, an’ that is that sh’u’d the weather not turrn off t’ a cold wave by to- morry mornin’ ’twill take no coroner t’ know th’ cat is dead.” He opened the letter again and reread it. As he did so the scowl on his face increased. He held up the letter and slapped it with the back of his hand. “*Kape it carefully in your office,’” he read with scorn. ‘Sure! An’ what about Flannery? Does th’ man think I’m t’ sit side be side with th’ dead pussy cat an’ thry t’ worrk up me imagination t’ thinkin’ I’m sittin’ in a garden av tuberoses? ’Tis well enough t’ say kape it, but cats like thim does not kape very well. Th’ less said about th’ way they kapes th’ betther.” Timmy entered the office, and as he passed the box he sniffed the air in a manner that at once roused Flannery’s temper. “Sthop that!” he shouted. “I'll have none av yer foolin’ t’-day. What fer are ye puckerin’ up yer nose at th’ cat fer? There’s nawthin’ th’ matther with th’ cat. ’Tis as

Page 69

gee SENT Wy TNT NY | Mn \ \ ‘CAT IS DISEASED,’’ sound as a shillin’, an’ there’s no call fer ye t’ be sniffin’ ’round, Timmy, me lad! Go about yer worrk, an’ lave th’ cat alone. ’Twill kape—’twill kape a long time yet. Don’t be so previous, me lad. If ye want t’ sniff, there’ll be plinty av time by an’ by. Plinty av it.” “Ve ain’t goin’ t’ keep th’ cat, are ye?” asked Timmy with surprise. “Let be,” said Flannery softly, with a gentle downward motion of his hands. ‘Let be. If ’tis me opinion ’tw’u’d be best t’ kape th’ cat fer some time, I will kape it. Mike Flannery is th’ ixpriss agint av this office, Tim, me bye, an’ sh’u’d he be thinkin’ ’tw’u’d be best fer th’ intherists av th’ company t’ kape a cat that is no longer livin’, he will. There be manny things fer ye t’ learn, Timmy, before ye know th’ whole av th’ ixpriss business, an’ dead cats is wan av thim.” “G’wan!” said Timmy with a long-drawn vowel. ‘TI know a dead cat when I see one, now.” ““Mebby,” said Flannery shortly. ‘“‘Mebby. An’ mebby not. But do ye know where Doc Pomeroy hangs out? Go an’ fetch him.” As Timmy passed the box on the way out he looked at the cat with renewed interest. HE WROTE. O- Rd 27O rr - ‘* PLEAS GIVE DISPOSAL”’ He began to have a slight doubt that he might not know a dead cat when he saw one, after all, if Flannery was going to have a veterinary come to look at it. But the cat certainly looked dead—extremely dead. Doc Pomeroy was a tall, lank man with a slouch in his shoulders and a sad, hollow- cheeked face. His voice was the deepest and mournfullest bass. “‘ The boy says you want me to look at a cat,” he said in his hopeless tone. ‘‘Where’s the cat?” Flannery walked to the box and stood over it, and Doc Pomeroy stood at the other side. He did not even bend down to look at the cat. “That cat’s dead,” he said without emotion. ‘‘ Av course it is,” said Flannery. ‘“”T'was dead th’ firrst time I seen it.” ‘The boy said you wanted me to look at a cat,”’ said Doc Pomeroy. “Sure!” said Flannery. “Sure I did! That’s th’ cat. I wanted ye t’ see th’ cat. What might be yer opinion av it?” “What do you want me to do with the cat?” asked Doc Pomeroy. “Look at it,” said Flannery pleasantly. “‘Nawthin’ but look at it. ‘Thim is me orders. ‘Have a veterinary look at th’ cat,’ is what they says. An’ I can see be th’ look on ye 307

Page 70

308 that ’tis yer opinion ’tis a mighty dead cat.” “That cat,” said the veterinary slowly, “is as dead as it can be. A cat can’t be any deader than that one is.”’ “Tt cannot,’”? said Flannery positively. “But it can be longer dead.” “If I had a cat that had been dead longer than that cat has been dead,” said Doc Pomeroy as he moved away, ‘I wouldn’t have to see it to know it was dead. A cat that has been dead longer than that cat has been dead lets you know it. That cat will let you know it pretty quick, now.” “Thank ye,” said Flannery. “An’ ye have had a good look at it? Ye w’u’dn’t like t’ look at it again, mebby? Thim is me orders, t’ allow ixamination be th’ veterinary, an’ if *tw’u’d be anny comfort t’ ye I will draw up a chair so ye can look all ye want to.” The veterinary raised his sad eyes to Flan- nery’s face and let them rest there a moment. “Much obliged,” he said, but he did not look at the cat again. He went back to his head- quarters. That afternoon Flannery and Timmy began walking quickly when they passed the box, and toward evening, when Flannery had to make out his reports, he went out on the back porch and wrote them, using a chair- seat for a desk. One of his tasks was to write a letter to the New York office. ““W.B.23645,” he wrote, ‘the vetinnary has seen the cat, and its diseased all right. he says so. no sine of Mrs. Warman yet but ile keep the cat in the offis if you say so as long as icann stand it. but how cann i feed a diseased cat. i nevver fed a diseased cat yet. what do you feed cats lik that.” The next morning when Flannery reached the office he opened the front door, and im- mediately closed it with a bang and locked it. Timmy was late, as usual. Flannery stood a minute looking at the door, and then he sat down on the edge of the curb to wait for Timmy. The boy came along after a while, indolently as usual, but when he saw Flan- nery he quickened his pace a little. ““What’s th’ matter?” he asked. ‘‘ Locked out ?” Flannery stood up. He did not even say good morning. He ran his hand into his pocket and pulled out the key. ‘‘Timmy,” he said gently, almost lovingly, “I have busi- ness that takes me t’ th’ other side av town. I have th’ confidince in ye, Timmy, t’ let ye open up th’ office. fer ye.” ’*T will be good ixperience He cast his eye down the street, Just Like a Cat where the car line made a turn around the corner. The trolley wire was shaking. ‘Th’ way ye open up,” he said slowly, ‘‘is t’ push th’ key intogth’ keyhole. Push th’ key in, Timmy, an’ thin turrn it t’ th’ lift. Wait!” he called as Timmy turned. ‘’Tis impor- tant t’ turrn t’ th’ lift, not th’ right. An’ whin ye have th’ door open’”’—the car was rounding the corner, and Flannery stepped into the street—‘“‘whin ye have th’ door open—th’ door open”—the car was where he could touch it—‘‘take th’ cat out behint th’ office an’ bury it, an’ if ye don’t I’ll fire ye out av yer job. Mind that!” The car sped by, and Flannery swung aboard. Timmy watched it until it went out of sight around the next corner, and then he turned to the office door. He pushed the key in, and turned it to the left. When Flannery returned the cat was gone, and so was Timmy. The grocer next door handed Flannery the key, and Flannery’s face grew red with rage. He opened the door of the office, and fora moment he was sure the cat was not gone, but it was. Flannery could not see the box; it was gone. He threw open the back door and let the wind sweep through the office, and it blew a paper off the desk. Flannery picked it up and read it. It was from Timmy. ‘Mike Flannery, esquire,” it said. ‘‘ Take youre old job. Im tired of the express bisi- ness. Too much cats and missus Warmans in it. im going to New York to look fora decent job. I berried the cat for you but no more for me. youres truly.” Flannery smiled. The loss of Timmy did not bother him so long as the cat had gone also. He turned to the tasks of the day with a light heart. The afternoon mail brought him a letter from the New York office. ‘Regarding W.B. 23645,” it said, ‘“‘and in answer to yours of yesterday’s date. In our previous commu- nication we clearly requested you to have a veterinary look at the cat. We judge from your letter that you neglected to do this, as the veterinary would certainly have told you what to feed the cat. See the veterinary at once and ask him what to feed the cat. Then feed the cat what he tells you to feed it. We pre- sume it is not necessary for us to tell you to water the cat.” Flannery grinned. ‘An’ ain’t thim th’ jokers, now!” he exclaimed. “’Tis some smart bye must have his fun with ould Flan- nery! Goan’ see th’ veterinary! An’ ask him .

Page 71

Ellis Parker Butler what t’ feed th’ cat! ‘Good mornin’, Misther Pomeroy. Do ye remimber th’ dead cat ye looked at yisterday? ’Tis in a bad way th’ mornin’, sor. Tis far an’ away deader than it was yisterday. We had th’ funeral this mornin’. What w’u’d ye be advisin’ me t’ feed it fer a regular diet now?’ Oh, yis! I'll go t’ th’ veterinary—not!” He stared at the letter frowningly. An’ ’tis not nicessary t’ tell me t’ water th’ cat?” he said. ‘Oh, no, they’ll be trustin’ Flannery t’ water th’ cat. Flannery has loads av time. ’Tis no need fer him t’ spind his time doin’ th’ ixpriss business. ‘Git th’ sprinklin’-can, Flannery, an’ water th’ cat. Belike if ye water it well ye’ll be havin’ a fine flower-bed av long-haired cats out behint th’ office. Water th’ cat well, an’ plant it awn th’ sunny side av th’ house, an’ whin it sprouts transplant it t’ th’ shady side where it can run up th’ trillis. ’T will bloom hearty until cold weather, if watered plinty!’ Bechune thim an’ me ’tis me opinion th’ cat was kept too long t’ grow well anny more.” Mrs. Warman was very much surprised that afternoon to receive a letter from the ex- press company. As soon as she saw the name of the company in the corner of the envelope her face hardened. She had an intuition that this was to be another case where the ‘THAT CAT’S DEAD,” HE 309 suffering public was imposed upon by an overbearing corporation, and she did not mean to be the victim. She had refused the cat. Fond as she was of cats she had never liked them dead. She was through with that cat. She tore open the envelope. A woman never leaves an envelope unopened. The next moment she was more surprised than before. ‘‘Dear Madam,” said the letter. ‘‘Re- garding a certain cat sent to your address through our company by Hibbert & Jones of this city, while advising you of our entire freedom from responsibility in the matter, all animals being accepted by us at owner’s risk only, we beg to make the following communi- cation: The cat is now in storage at our ex- press office in Westcote, and is sick. A letter from our agent there leads us to believe that the cat may not receive the best of attention at his hands. In order that it may be properly fed and cared for we would suggest that you accept the cat from our hands, under pro- test if you wish, until you can arrange with Messrs. Hibbert & Jones as to the ownership. In asking you to take the cat in this way we have no other object in view than to stop the charges for storage and care, which are ac- cumulating, and to make sure that the cat is receiving good attention. We might say, SAID WITHOUT EMOTION

Page 72

310 Just Like a Cat however, that Hibbert & Jones assure us that the cat is your property, and therefore, until we have assurance to the contrary, we must look to you for all charges for transportation, storage, and care accruing while the cat is left with us. Yours very truly.” When she had read the letter Mrs. War- man’s emotions were extremely mixed. She felt an undying anger toward the express com- pany; she felt an entirely different and more personal anger toward the firm of Hibbert & Jones; but above all she felt a great surprise regarding the cat. If ever she had seen a cat that she thought was a thoroughly dead cat this was the cat. She had had many cats in her day, and she had always thought she knew a dead cat when she saw one, and now this dead cat was alive—ailing, perhaps, but alive. The more she considered it the less likely it seemed to her that she could have been mistaken about the deadness of that cat. It had been offered to her twice. The first time she saw it she knew it was dead, and the second time she saw it she knew it was, if anything, more dead than it had been the first time. The conclusion was obvious. A cat had been sent to her ina box. She had refused to receive a dead cat, and the express- men had taken the box away again. Now there was a live, but sick, cat in the box. She had her opinion of expressmen, express com- panies, and especially of the firm of Hibbert & Jones. This full opinion she sent to Hibbert & Jones by the next mail. The next morning Flannery was feeling fine. He whistled as he went to the nine- twenty train, and whistled as he came back to the office with his hand-truck full of pack- ages and the large express envelope with the red seals on the back snugly tucked in his inside pocket, but when he opened the envelope and read the first paper that fell out he stopped whistling. ‘“‘ Agent, Westcote,”’ said the letter. “Regarding W.B.23645, Hibbert & Jones, consignor of the cat you are holding in storage, advises us that the consignee claims cat you have is not the cat shipped by consignor. Return cat by first train to this office. If the cat is not strong enough to travel alone have veterinary accom- pany it. Yrs. truly, Interurban Ex- press Company, Per J.” At first a grin spread over the face of Flannery. ‘“‘‘ Not sthrong enough t’ travel alone’!”’ he said with a chuckle. “If iver there was a sthrong cat ’tis that wan be this time, an’ ’tw’u’d be a waste av ixpinse t’ hire a——”’ Suddenly his face sobered. He glanced out of the back door at the square mile of hummocky sand and clay. ““Return cat be firrst trrain t’ this of- fice,’”? he repeated blankly. He left his seat and went to the door and looked out. “Return th’ cat,” he said, and stepped out upon the edge of the soft, new soil. It was all alike in its recently dug appearance. ‘Th’ cat, return it,” he repeated, taking steps this way and that way, with his eyes on the clay at his feet. He walked here and there, but one place looked like the others. There was room for ten thousand cats, and one cat might have been buried in any one of ten thou- sand places. Flannery sighed. Orders were orders, and he went back to the office and locked the doors. He borrowed a coal-scoop from the grocer next door and went out and began to dig up the clay and sand. He dug steadily and grimly. Never, perhaps, in the history of the world had a man worked so hard to dig up a dead cat. Even in ancient Egypt, where the cat was a sacred animal, they did not dig them up when they had them planted. Quite the contrary: it was a crime to dig them up; and Flannery, as he dug, had a feeling that it would be almost a crime to dig CLOSED IT WITH A BANG AND LOCKED IT a — | — —-— fh = tr ee CO oe

Page 73

Ellis Parker Butler up this one. Never, perhaps, did a man dig so hard to find a thing he really did not care to have. Flannery dug all that morning. At lunch- time he stopped digging—and went without his lunch—long enough to deliver the pack- ages that had come on the early train. As he passed the station he saw a crowd of boys playing hockey with an old tomato-can, and he stopped. When he reached the office he was followed by sixteen boys. Some of them had spades, some of them had small fire- shovels, some had only pointed sticks, but all were ready to dig. He showed them where he had already dug. “Twinty-five cints apiece, annyhow,” he said, ‘‘an’ five dollars fer th’ lucky wan that finds it.” “All right,” said one. we are to dig for?” “Tis a cat,’ said Flannery, “‘a dead wan.” “Go on!” cried the boy sarcastically. “What is it we are to dig for?” “T can get you a dead cat, mister,’ another. ‘‘Our cat died.” “Twill not do,” said Flannery. ‘“’Tis a special cat I’m wantin’. Tis a long-haired cat, an’ ’twas dead a long time. Ye can’t mistake it whin ye come awn to it. If ye dig up a cat ye know no wan w’u’d want t’ have, that’s it.” The sixteen boys dug, and Flannery, in desperation, dug, but a square mile is a large plot of ground to dig over. No one, having observed that cat on the morning when Timmy planted it, would have believed it could be put in any place where it could not be instantly found again. It had seemed like a cat that would advertise itself. But that is just like a cat; it is always around when it isn’t needed, and when it is needed it can’t be found. Before the afternoon was half over the boys had tired of digging for a dead cat and had gone away, but Flannery kept at it until the sun went down. Then he looked to see how much of the plot was left to dig up. It was nearly all left. As he washed his hands before going to his boarding-house a messenger-boy handed him a telegram. Flan- nery tore it open with misgivings. “Cat has not .arrived. Must come on night train. Can accept no excuse,” it read. Flannery folded the telegram carefully and put it in his hip pocket. He washed his hands with more deliberate care than he had ever spent on them. He adjusted his coat most carefully on his back, and then walked “‘Now what is it ’ said THE NEXT MOMENT SHE WAS MORE SURPRISED THAN BEFORE with dignity to his boarding-house. He knew what would happen. There would be an inspector out from the head office in the morning. Flannery would probably have to look for a new job. In the morning he was up early, but he was still dignified. He did not put on his uni- form, but wore his holiday clothes, with the black tie with the red dots. An inspector is a hard man to face, but a man in his best clothes has more of a show against him. Flannery came to the office the back way; there was a possibility of the inspector’s being already at the front door. As he crossed the filled-in meadows he poked unhopefully at the soil here and there, but nothing came of it. But suddenly his eyes lighted on a figure that he knew, just turning out of the alley three buildings from the office. It was Timmy! Flannery had no chance at all. He ran, but how can a man run in his best clothes across soft, new soil when he is getting a bit too stout? And Timmy had seen him first. When Flannery reached the corner of the alley Timmy was gone, and with a sigh that was partly regret and partly breathlessness from his run Flannery turned into the main street. There was the inspector, sure enough, stand- ing on the curb. Flannery had lost some of

Page 74

312 his dignity, but he made up for it in anger. He more than made up for it in the heat he had run himself into. He was red in the face. He met the inspector with a glare of anger. “There be th’ key, if ’tis that ye’re wantin’, an’ ye may take it an’ welcome, fer no more will I be ixpriss agint fer a company that sinds long-haired cats dead in a box an’ orders me t’ kape thim throo th’ hot weather fer a fire- side companion an’ ready riferince av per- fumery. How t’ feed an’ water dead cats av th’ long-haired kind I may not know, an’ how t’ live with dead cats I may not know, but whin t’ bury dead cats I do know, an’ there be plinty av other jobs where a man is not ordered t’ dig up forty-siven acres t’ find a cat that was buried none too soon at that!” “What’s that?” said the inspector. that cat dead?” “ An’ what have I been tellin’ th’ dudes in th’ head office all th’ while?” asked Flannery with asperity. “What but that th’ late de- ceased dead cat was defunct an’ no more? An’ thim insultin’ an honest man with their ‘Have ye stholen th’ cat out av the box, Flan- nery, an’ put in an inferior short-haired cat?’ I want no more av thim! Here’s th’ key. Good day t’ ye!” “Hold on,” said the inspector, putting his hand on Flannery’s arm. ‘“ You don’t go yet. T’ll have a look at your cash and your accounts first. What you say about that cat may be true enough, but we have got to have proof of it. That wasavaluablecat,that was. It was an Angora cat, a real Angora cat. You’ve got to produce that cat before we are through with you.” “Ts After the Quarrel “Projuce th’ cat!” said Flannery angrily, “ Th’ cat is safe an’ sound in th’ back lot. | presint ye with th’ lot. If ’tis not enough fer ye, go awn an’ do th’ dirthy worrk ye have t?’do awn me. I'll dig no more fer th’ cat.” The inspector unlocked the door and en- tered the office. It was hot with the close heat of a room that has been locked up over- night. Just inside the door the inspector stopped and sniffed suspiciously. No express office should have smelled as that one smelled. “Wan minute!” cried Flannery, pulling away from the inspector’s grasp. “Wan minute! I have a hint there be a long-haired cat near by. Wance ye have been near wan av thim ye can niver misthake thim Angora cats. I w’u’d know th’ symbol av thim with me eyes shut. Tis a signal ye c’u’d tell in th’ darrk.”’ He hurried to the back door. The cat was there, all right. A little deader than it had been, perhaps, but it was there on the step, long hair and all. “Hurroo!” shouted Flannery. “An’ me thinkin’ I w’u’d niver see it again! Can ye smell th’ proof, Misther Inspictor? ’Tis good sthrong proof fer ye! An’ I sh’u’d have knowed it all th’ while. Angora cats I know not be th’ spicial species, an’ th’ long-haired breed av cats is not wan I have associated with much, an’ cats so dang dead as this wan I do not kape close in touch with, ginerally, but all cats have a grrand resimblance t’ cats. Look at this-wan, now. ’Tis just like a cat. It kem back.” After the Quarrel By Charles Hanson Towne WE leaped upon the battle-field, And struck our verbal blows, And neither you nor I would yield, Once friends, now deadly foes. We fought the fight, then o’er the grave Of that which we had slain We two clasped hands and strove to save Some shred of love—in vain! For the pale ghost of that we slew Rose up in all its might; You killed the faith I. had in you, I lost your trust that night. And Something stalks between us now: I look in your sad eyes, You see the wound upon my brow— Poor fools, who once were wise! 21

Page 75

MARIE LOHR, THE YOUNGEST LEADING WOMAN ON THE ENGLISH STAGE, AS MARGUERITE IN BEERBOHM TREE’S NEW PRODUCTION OF “FAUST”

Page 76

FT rex is) Ch 2 23 Ine Sar I by Rs A DS BLANCHE BATES AS ANNA, AND SCENE FROM W. J. HURLBUT’S NEW DRAMA, “THE FIGHTING HOPE”

Page 77

MARY BOLAND AS ETHEL JENNINGS, AND SCENE WITH JOHN DREW IN W. S. MAUGHAM’'S COMEDY, “JACK STRAW”

Page 78

MAYBELLE McKEON OF THE NEW YORK HIPPODROME CORPS DE BALLET

Page 79

v2 RYT Bes e iy iP art pO As al CONSUELO BAILEY, ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR MEMBERS OF THE FROHMAN COMPANIES

Page 80

AES of nc a ba SMe) (Go SeST LULU GLASER AS ROSETTE, AND SCENE WITH ROBERT DEMPSTER IN THE NEW VIENNESE OPERETTA, “MLLE. MISCHIEF,,

Page 81

1} mrt! Se UU) r Dy LOUISE GUNNING IN THE TITLE ROLE, AND SCENE FROM PIXLEY AND LUDERS’ NEW OPERETTA, “MARCELLE”

Page 82

|| ai I MAUDE ODELL AS MME. DE MORFONTAINE IN DE FLERS AND CAILLAVET’S DELIGHTFUL COMEDY, “LOVE WATCHES”

Page 83

| El ul H | \| L = Ep F 1 4 | Ie le ; MARJORIE WOOD, LEADING WOMAN WITH ROBERT EDESON IN “THE CALL OF THE NORTH”

Page 84

AIMEE EHRLICH AS THE LITTLE PRINCESS, AND SCENE FROM VICTOR HERBERT AND HARRY B, SMITH’S NEW EXTRAVAGANZA, “LITTLE NEMO”

Page 85

HARRIET WORTHINGTON AS CAROLINA LANGDON, AND SCENE FROM “A GENTLEMAN FROM MISSISSIPPI,” BY HARRISON RHODES AND THOMAS A. WISE

Page 86

CONSTANCE COLLIER, WHO PLAYS THE ROLE OF MADAME BRACHARD IN BERNSTEIN’S POWERFUL DRAMA, “SAMSON”

Page 87

“GIRLS” COMEDY. n x o & = Q a > < Oo Z Z 2 Q % °o oO < x g = = oF 0 a S ~ << J S oO Z n — ° x= = Q a gy ~% ca) Oo Z ~ 5

Page 88

ell , S = : ES iE Se HUMANE Ze gy) wg Se MAXINE ELLIOTT AS BETTINA DEAN, AND THE “SALOME” SCENE IN RACHEL CROTHERS’ PLAY, “MYSELF—BETTINA”

Page 89

= . Sn MABEL ROEBUCK AS THE PRINCESS FLAVIA, AND THE DUEL SCENE FROM JAMES K. HACKETT’S REVIVAL OF ‘“‘THE PRISONER OF ZENDA”

Page 90

Mi 3 ae ae bs eG / + : — oe oe Gir £7 Fy BN Gy, NU ea intd Photograph by Bangs ELIZABETH BRICE AS LOLA IN “MLLE. MISCHIEF”

Page 91

Passers-By By Anthony Partridge Illustrated (frontispiece) by Will Foster Synopsis: The Marquis of Ellingham, an English nobleman holding a high governmental position, had under the name of Philip Champion, a few years before the story opens, led a wild and criminal career in Paris, where he was at the head of a band of thieves and gamblers calling themselves the Black Foxes, with headquarters in a house in the Place Noire. He had married a widow of good family, Mme. de Lanson, who died shortly after and left him the care of her daughter, Christine. In the band was a man known as Marcel, in reality a French nobleman, and the uncle of Christine. The thieves rob a bank and obtain a large sum of money. The next night the house is raided by the police. All escape except Marcel, who is imprisoned. Christine is taken away by Ambrose Drake, a hunchback street musician who is devotedly attached to the girl’s family. With them goes Ellingham in disguise. It seems that the proceeds of the bank robbery had been concealed in Drake’s street-piano, but they do not know it. In the confusion of the raid and the escape Christine mistakes Ellingham for her uncle. Subsequently Drake tells her that her step- father has been sent to prison, and she forces him to accompany her in a search for Marcel in order that he may provide for them. This errand finally brings them to London. Here they encounter a young man, named Gilbert Hannaway, who, by mere chance and curiosity, happened to be at the gaming-tables of the Place Noire house when it was raided. He recognizes them, makes friends with Christine, and becomes much in- terested in her. Through him the girl meets Ellingham and discovers her mistake. The marquis takes his stepdaughter away from Drake and establishes her in luxury. The hunchback is inconsolable, but the girl refuses to return to her old life. Marcel escapes from prison and comes to England in search of the marquis andthe money. Others of the gang are on Ellingham’s trail. One named Anatoile Devache is found mys- teriously murdered in Christine’s apartment. Marcel and Pierre, another of the Black Foxes, find Drake, who arranges for them to see the marquis. At the interview it is disclosed that the latter is unaware that the money was in the piano on the night of the escape. It may be there yet. The two men seek it there, but are unsuccessful, and in a quarrel Marcel stabs Pierre. Jacques Leblun, a famous French detective, comes to London on the trail of the escaped Marcel. He does not rearrest him at once, for he hopes to learn the identity of the Philip Champion whom Marcel at his trial accused of being the leader of the Black Foxes. He sees Christine and Hannaway, who will give him no information. Ambrose goes to Christine and tells her that he has been left a large sum of money. He asks her to go away with him, and says that if she refuses he will seek out Leblun and put him on the track of Lord Ellingham. The girl, in despair at the prospective ruin of the nobleman’s career, gains Drake’s consent to wait until the next day for her answer. XXXI of the doors to the room, and yet, curiously enough, without turning his head or even m=zZoRONSIEUR JACQUES LE- looking away from the fire, he addressed the WY" BLUN was comfortably en- man who had entered from the hotel side and sconced in a large easy chair was making his way toward the door which drawn up before the fire in communicated with the private suites of the small- smoking-room ad- apartments. joining the bar of the Altona “How do you do, Mr. Hannaway?” he Hotel. He held in his hand - said. several half sheets of paper, Gilbert Hannaway stopped short. He the contents of which he had came slowly toward the fireplace, and for the been carefully reading, not, first time recognized the little man in the apparently, for the first time. One by one, easy chair. “Mr. Leblun!” he exclaimed. as he had finished with them, he laid them on Jacques Leblun nodded his head thought- his knee. Then, with a faint sigh, he tore fully. “Come and sit down for a few min- them into small pieces, and threw them utes,” he said. into the fire. From a case of curiously Gilbert Hannaway hesitated. Leblun chased silver he selected a cigarette, lit it, and turned toward him. His forehead was a began to smoke, very slowly and very thought- little wrinkled. Even as he spoke he stifled fully. His eyes, as usual, seemed half closed, a yawn. certainly his head was turned away from both “T am tired of your sad country, Mr. 329 Copyright, 1909, by The McClure Company B

Page 92

Passers-By Hannaway,” he said. “I have no friends here, and Iam lonely. In Paris, at this hour, I would be sitting in the Café de la Paix, and friends would come and go all the time, friends with whom I would speak for a mo- ment, or only grasp their hands perhaps, or give them a cheerful salutation. But here I am alone, and I am a man who loves company. Remember /’eniente cordiale. Be kind to the foreigner forced to sojourn for a few days among your fogs. Take a chair here, and talk with me.” Gilbert Hannaway divested himself of his overcoat, and drew an easy chair up to Le- blun’s side. “I was on my way to my rooms,” he said, “to indulge in the luxury, unknown in your cafés, of a cup of afternoon tea. If you will allow me I will take it with you. You have been destroying letters, I see. It is always rather a sad task.” Leblun smiled faintly. ‘There are things which are sadder,” he answered, “and one of them is to have to admit failure in anything one undertakes. Personally,” he continued, assuming a somewhat retrospective air, “I have not often had to confess myself beaten. This afternoon I am in that sad position. I think that before I go to bed to-night I shall ask that exceedingly assiduous waiter who ministers so cheerfully to our wants to bring me the Continental time-table. In short, I fear that there remains for me nothing but to look for a train back to my beloved Paris.” “You surprise me, Monsieur Leblun,” Hannaway admitted, with impassive face. “Failure is a thing which one has not learned to associate with your name. Nevertheless, if what you say is really the truth, I do not doubt but that you have run up against a problem impossible of solution.” Once more Leblun sighed. His eyes were still fixed upon those smoldering pieces of paper. “Frankly, my dear Monsieur Han- naway,” he said, “I believe that I have done all which an intelligent man could do. I have reconstructed my story. Listen to it for a moment with me. Ah! Your tea arrives, Isee. I trust that you find it in order. Per- mit me to drink your health in another cup of coffee.” He paid the waiter, and in a few moments they were once more alone. “T was speaking,” Leblun continued, “ of a reconstruction. All that is so simple. We see, flying from that scene of violence in the Place Noire a few years ago, three persons and a monkey. We see a man, the man whose identity we wish to solve, clad in the garb of a workman, pushing a street-piano, Hastening along by his side, we see the hunch- back to whom that musical instrument be- longs. On the other side of it walks a child— girl perhaps I should call her—who, only a few weeks before, had thrown in her lot with that hunchback, and was singing in the streets for her living. On the topof the piano, reclining in a basket, and rudely shaken, | fear, by the speed at which that barrow is being pushed, reposes the monkey Chicot. They turn the corner of the Place Noire, they are seen somewhere in the Rue Pigalle, there is a rumor that they pass through the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. After that, silence. Space swallows them up. They are gone.” Leblun ceased with a little sigh. Hanna- way produced his cigarette-case. ““You smoke, I see,’’ he remarked. ‘ Per- mit me.” He lit a cigarette, and leaned back in his chair. “Circumstances, as you know,” Leblun continued, ‘‘induced one to take once more an interest in that somewhat remarkable quartet. One comes to London. One fol- lows a fugitive, who should surely be as eager as I myself to discover these mysterious per- sons. The hunchback—well, that is easy. He reveals himself without the slightest trouble. One learns that from the moment he turned the corner of that square until to- day he has been to all appearances no better off for his little adventure. He has tramped the streets, he has thumped out his miserable attempt at music, he has lived and drunk and starved, being cold or warm according to the vagaries of those who are in the habit of dis- pensing copper coins to itinerant musicians. To conclude with the hunchback, it is only this very day that a sudden change comes over him. This morning, at an early hour, he presents himself in various establishments devoted to the clothing of those who need their clothes quickly and are not scrupulously particular as to fit. In other words, early this morning our friend Ambrose Drake, with money in both pockets, throws aside his rags and purchases for himself the outfit of a gentleman at large. Attired in such a fashion, he sallies out to pay a call upon a young lady.” Gilbert Hannaway turned his head slowly. It was not long since he had left Christine. This man was indeed wonderful. “So much for the hunchback,” Leblun continued. ‘Of the mysterious stranger, alas!

Page 93

Indeed, he seems to have yanished into space. We come to the girl. Here,” Leblun continued, “‘we must per- mit to ourselves the license of a little imagina- tion. We learn that for years the girl and the hunchback tramped side by dide along the highways and the byways of the Continent. They tramped through France, they tramped through Germany, they were heard of, even, in that home of all mendicants, the north of Italy. Then at last, not so long ago, they came to England. One hears of them in London. Things, apparently, have not gone well with them. Ambrose is in rags. The girl walks as one whose interest in life is finished, in soiled clothes, in gaping boots, broken-spirited, broken-hearted. And then, one day, presto, the magician’s wand! One looks again. One sees the girl in a handsome apartment, with carriages and motors, with her own French maid, clad in furs and silks and laces, a customer at the best shops, a per- son with apparently a limitless purse. One asks oneself, whence her prosperity ?” Leblun seemed to have fixed his attention upon one particular scrap of smoldering paper. ‘One is not kept long in doubt,” he went on. “One hears of the visits at her apart- ment of a mysterious gentleman. She is seen with him at luncheons and dinners. There is even talk of a trip to Paris. The truth is very soon apparent. How she first attracted him one cannot tell. She has her share of good looks. It may even have been pity. But we are able to assure ourselves with every certainty that the singing girl Christine has become the mistress of the Marquis of Ellingham.” “Tt is a damned lie!” dered out. Leblun turned his head swiftly. His hand flashed out. He was suddenly alert. ‘Then why,” he asked, ‘‘is she living upon the Mar- quis of Ellingham’s money? ‘Tell me that. You say that she is not his mistress, and you say it with conviction. ‘Then what remains?” one learns nothing. Hannaway thun- XXXII THE two men sat looking at each other for several breathless seconds. Hannaway felt all the angry impotence of a man caught in a trap. His face was still being raked by Leblun’s merciless eyes. He had betray ed the secret which he was so anxious to guard. Leblun had played with him as with a child. “So you deny my very natural inference ?” Anthony Partridge Leblun said, breaking the silence at last. “You believe that Mademoiselle de Lanson has some other claim upon Lord Ellingham ? It may be so. You may be right, my friend.” “T know nothing of the matter,” Hanna- way said slowly. “It was foolish of me to discuss it with you.” Leblun shrugged his shoulders. ‘“‘ Between comrades,” he said, ‘what does it matter? To talk is always interesting. It would astonish you to know it, my dear friend, but I am not at all sure that you have not sup- plied me*with the missing clue. By the by, have you any acquaintance with Lord Elling- ham?” ‘‘None,” Hannaway answered briefly. ‘A very interesting personality,” Leblun said. ‘I read his speeches always. A friend of France, too. It would be interesting to meet him.” Hannaway blun,” he said, noon.” “Tf you must go,’’ Leblun remarked Hannaway left the room, made a circuit of the building, and issued again into the court- yard. He called a hansom, and was driven at once to Cavendish Square. The major- domo of the household came forward to answer his eager inquiries. The marquis was not at home. He had lunched out. He was probably now at his club, or on his way down to the House. Hannaway stepped back into his hansom, and drove to Pall Mall. The doorkeeper of the club to which Lord Ellingham belonged showed him into a waiting-room. “Any card, sir?” he asked. “His lord- ship is in the reading-room, I believe.” “T have no card,’”’ Hannaway answered, “but if you will tell Lord Ellingham that my name is Hannaway and that I wish to see him on very important business, I think he will come.” Hannaway was left alone for almost ten minutes. He smoked one of the cigarettes with which the room was lavishly supplied, took up the papers one by one, and threw them down. Christine would never forgive him, he was sure of that. It was he who had betrayed thisman. Fool that he was, to have measured his wits for one second against the wits of Jacques Leblun! Lord Ellingham came in at last. rose to his feet. ‘“‘Mr. Le- “T will wish you good after- His man- ner was perfectly composed, and he showed no signs of hurry. in admiration. Hannaway looked at him The man must know that he

Page 94

332 was living on the brink of avolcano. Neither his face nor his manner showed any signs of it. He greeted his visitor civilly, and waited to hear what he had to say. “T have come,” Hannaway said quietly, “because I think you ought to be told of the presence in this country of a man named Jacques Leblun, and also the reason for his presence.” “T am perfectly well aware of it,” the mar- quis answered. “At the same time, I shall be happy to hear what you have to say.” “We need not play with words,# Hanna- way said.’ “We both know a little. We can both assume a little. Leblun came here to discover the man who escaped from the Place Noire on the night of the raid. You were that man, Lord Ellingham. It is you for whom Jacques Leblun is searching.” Lord Ellingham stood quite still. He made no sign. “Well,” he asked quietly, “have you come here totell me that? Or have you come here to tell me that you have already told Leblun?”’ “T had no thought of anything of the kind,” Hannaway exclaimed hastily. “But I want to explain to you something that has hap- pened. Leblun laid a trap for me, and I fell into it. He spoke of Mademoiselle de Lan- son. He spoke of her as a begger, and he spoke of her life to-day. He smiled, an irri- tating, maddening smile. Mademoiselle de Lanson had done well for herself; she had for her lover the Marquis of Ellingham. I told him that he lied. I was a fool—it was so obvious a trick. And when I flung the lie in his teeth all that he did was to smile. Then why, he asked, does the money of the Marquis of Ellingham provide luxury for Mademoiselle de Lanson? I could not an- swer. He knew that I could not answer.” Lord Ellingham was silent for several mo- ments. “I wonder,’ he remarked, “ how he ever got hold of my name at all!” “He traced Christine,” Hannaway said. “Then, of course, he searched for the ex- planation of her altered circumstances. His inquiries led him to you. Perhaps he was not absolutely certain that that explanation of his was not really the truth. At any rate, he tried it on me, and I fell.” “Does Mademoiselle de Lanson know this?” the marquis asked. “She doesnot, as yet,”” Hannaway answered. “ Keep it to yourself,” the marquis ordered. “Leblun may come and see me. At any rate, I shall be prepared.” Passers-By He looked at his visitor as though expect- ing him to go. Hannaway hesitated. “Tf I could be of any assistance, Lord Ellingham,” he suggested, almost timidly, Lord Ellingham shook his head. His face showed no signs of fear, or emotion of any sort. “Pray do not disturb yourself, Mr. Hannaway,” he said. “I need not, I know, mince words with you. If this thing has to come I must meet it. Afterward—well, it doesn’t much matter. You will excuse me, Iam sure. It is more than time that I was on my way down to the House.” The marquis, as was his daily custom, walked from his club toward the Houses of Parliament. Acquaintances whom he met, and whom he unfailingly recognized, noticed nothing altered in his demeanor, except, per- haps, a slight added graciousness, a smile more noticeable than usual. . Yet, indeed, he walked very much like a man in a dream. All the time that one terrible question seemed to be ringing in his ears. When would it be? How soon would the blow fall? Would he be allowed to reach the House, to make his speech, to take up the cudgels once more on behalf of his hard-pressed party? How soon? he asked himself. Would he be allowed to return home? Would he see his wife again? His face grew gray, and his lips quivered, as he thought for a moment of the shock this thing would be to her. There was no way to avoid it now. Leblun was on his track. Nothing in the world, to a past master like Leblun, was so easy as to bridge over the years, to trace his career back, step by step, to that terrible night when he fled from the Place Noire. He had no defense, there was no hole for escape. He was guilty. He was the man who should have suffered in prison, as Marcel had suffered. He was the man, indeed, whom the authorities had thought they were punishing. There was no hope, he told himself; nothing to do but to keep a brave face to the world, and perhaps— But that he must think of more seriously. The ethics of suicide had always interested him. Surely, if anyone was justified in escaping from life, he was. A beggar with a tray of matches touched him upon the arm. “Only one penny a box, sir. Buy a box, guvnor.” The marquis shook his head. The man still kept his place. They were passing a four-wheel cab, drawn up against the curb. The beggar leaned over his tray.

Page 95

Anthony “Step into that cab for one moment, sir,’ he muttered under his breath. “It is Soca who waits for you there.” The man glided away. Lord Ellingham turned involuntarily toward the cab. Inside was a furtive figure with black-rimmed eyes and ghastly face. It was Marcel, hiding among the cushions, afraid to look out, and yet eager to attract his attention. Lord Ellingham paused. After a moment’s hesita- tion he crossed the pavement and stepped into the cab. XXXIII THERE was a change. in Marcel which Lord Ellingham, surveying him critically, found somewhat surprising. He was well dressed, although his clothes were ready- made, and a certain elegance of bearing, for which in the old days he had been distin- guished, had reasserted itself. He was con- scious of his companion’s somewhat sur- prised scrutiny, and his lips parted in a smile. “My consideration for you, dear friend,”’ he said, “ has led me to take this unusual care with my person. I have decided to forget the untoward events of the last few days. I have decided to believe that I am free from pursuit, and that I am now téte-a-téte with a generous friend. It is the optimism of my race, you see—a quality worth cultivating.” “TI congratulate you,” Lord Ellingham said dryly. “I do not exactly know why I accepted your pressing invitation, but since I am here, perhaps you will tell me why you extended it to me.” . Willingly, ” Marcel answered. “This man is going to drive us slowly along the Em- bankment. I have engaged ‘him for half an hour. A portion of the time has elapsed already. First, then, I want to tell you that we have failed to discover those four million francs, or any trace of them.” “You and Pierre?” Lord Ellingham re- marked quietly. Marcel looked at him swiftly. “ Pierre and I,” he replied. “The money is not in the place where it was hidden. ‘The hunchback we find still a beggar upon the streets. The girl alone seems to have prospered.” “From which you conclude ?”’ Lord Elling- ham asked. “Tt is the girl who found the money, Marcel declared. “Listen. There is an- other reason for believing this. Anatoile you remember Anatoile—he too knew of the 333 Partridge four million francs. To whom did he go? He did not come to you. He did not waste time with the hunchback. He went to the girl, and in her rooms he was found, mur- dered.” Lord Ellingham frowned slightly. “Iam perfectly convinced,” he said, “that the girl knows nothing of the four million francs.” Marcel laughed hardly. “ My friend,” he said, “you were always easily deceived by women. Christine’s mother twisted you round her little finger. Christine herself, I have no doubt, could do the same. How else do you suppose she lives in luxury?” L ord Ellingham stopped him. ‘You for- ” he said, ‘ ‘that Christine is my step- She lives on an allowance from get daughter. me.” Marcel laughed Marquis,” he said, not be. Who cares? not a littie money, but a great deal. my share of that four million francs. it either from you or from her.” “Neither of us,” the marquis declared, “knows anything whatever of the money you speak of.” Marcel shrugged his shoulders. “I re- peat,” he said, “that there are four million francs to be accounted for. I hold you and her responsible. Half of that sum I demand. I demand it from you, and if you refuse it me I shall demand if from her. If you both re- fuse, if I see no chance of getting it, then I will earn my pardon. I will seek for Mr. Jacques Leblun. I will say to him: ‘Here is the man who can solve for you the mystery of that house in the Place Noire. I will prove to you that what I said when I was on trial was the truth.’” Lord Ellingham was thoughtful. He looked out of the window vat the great sluggish river. “I am not sure,” he said, “ whether it would pay me to buy your silence. There is the hunchback, too, who knows. He is a strange creature, and I think he has no love for me. Besides, between ourselves, I fancy - that my time is nearly up. Leblun is in this country even now, and I think he means to know the truth.” Marcel’s thin lips parted, showing his white teeth. It was a snarl of fear, of angry fear. “Leblun here!” he muttered. “If so, he came after me.”’ “In any case,” the marquis continued, “I do not see why I should beggar myself for nothing. I have had some years of life, life once more. “My dear “that may be, or it may Money I must have, I want I want

Page 96

334 that has been worth living. I think that I may as well make my bow to fate as grace- fully as possible.” “You talk like a fool,’’ Marcel declared. “You are in no real danger at all. There is no reason why you should not remain un- suspected all your days. The hunchback amounts to nothing. He is half mad, drunk most of the time. He counts for nothing. The girl will not betray you. There is no one else. Let me tell you, life in prison is a horrible thing.” “T have not the slightest intention,” the marquis said, “of experiencing it. ‘There are other ways.” Marcel shrugged his shoulders. ‘“ Death!” he said. “One speaks of it easily enough, but, after all, it is the end. revolver against my own temple, but the thought of the black gulf will make one’s hand tremble a little, my friend. One sees so quickly, one sees so much,” he added, lean- ing a little forward. “All the past horrors seem to loom up. All the dead men one has ever caught a glimpse of seem to lie, cold and ugly, before one’s vision. No more the wine, the kisses, and the sunshine, the flow of life in one’s veins. Death! Extinction! Ah!” His face was gray with fear. His com- panion looked at him curiously. “Prison life,” he said calmly, “has shaken your nerve, my dear Marcel.” “We talk like children,” Marcel declared suddenly. “I am not here to play with words. Will you give me money?” “T will not,” the marquis answered. “If I gave you any sum that I could afford, you would be back for more the moment it was spent. If I treat with you at all I hang a millstone around my own neck. I have burned my bridges. I have nothing to do with the past. I do not remember the house in the Place Noire, and you, you are a stranger. Tell your story to whom you please. My mind is made up.” “You are not serious?”’ Marcel whispered. “T am entirely serious,” Lord Ellingham answered. “I owe you nothing. There was never any comradeship between us. You were a bad lot from first to last. You ruined the life of the poor woman I was beguiled in- to marrying. I had courage, which you had not, but it was you who was responsible for all the wickedness, the real treacherous wick- edness, which went on in that cursed house. I hated you then. I despise you now. Go to the first policeman you find. Tell him all I have held a Passers-By you know. I am ready to meet whatever fate may have in store for me, at any time, Permit me,” he added, letting down the win- dow. “I am going to tell the cabman to stop.” Marcel sprang at him, but Lord Ellingham easily threw him away. Then, of its own accord, the cab stopped. The door was thrown open. Marcel glared wildly out. “Where are we?” he exclaimed. Lord Ellingham stepped from the cab and looked around him. Five or six policemen were close at hand. ‘Two inspectors were on either side of the vehicle. They were drawn up before a graystone building. “Why, I believe,’ Lord Ellingham re- marked, “that this is Scotland Yard.” Marcel was speechless for a moment. He allowed himself to be led from the cab. Be- fore he realized what had happened handcuffs were upon his wrists, and he was being led into the building. Suddenly he stopped. “This is your doing,” he shrieked, turning to Lord Ellingham. “This is a trap.” Lord Ellingham shook his head. “I can assure you,” he remarked pleasantly, “that I had not the faintest idea where we were.” “Tam arrested, amI?” Marcel cried out. “Then arrest him, too,” he added, pointing to where Lord Ellingham stood, calm and unruffled. “He may call himself what he chooses now, but five years ago he was a very different person. He is the man who escaped from the Place Noire with the hunchback and the girl. He was one of us, the boldest of us all. If I am to be taken back again he shall come too.” They tried to drag him away, but he pro- tested, shrieking, and trying to throw himself at Lord Ellingham. “Don’t you hear me?” he cried. “This is the truth I am telling you. The truth, I swear it! Don’t let him go.” The marquis turned to the chief inspector, who at once raised his hat. “I presume, Inspector,” he said, “that my being found in company with this person does not render me liable to arrest? I certainly did know him in Paris years ago. He is the Vicomte de Neuilly, and in those days he was a person whom everyone knew. He came to me to- day with a pitiable story, and I was induced to listen to him. If I am required for any purpose you will know where to find me.” “Certainly, my lord,” the man answered. “Will you allow one of my men to fetch you ahansom? He isa bad lot, I am afraid,” he

Page 97

Anthony Partridge added, motioning with his head to where at last Marcel was being dragged away. “I did hear, though, that he had been a gentle- man once.” 5 A hansom drove up, and Lord Ellingham stepped in. “The House of Lords,” he directed. “Tama little late. Please hurry.” XXXIV Tue marchioness, who was spending a dull evening at a very large reception, wel- comed her husband with a brilliant smile. “Positively, my dear Francis,” she declared, abruptly dismissing the little man who had been her escort, “you are the only reason- able person I have seen for hours. I never have been so bored. Please take me away.” “Exactly what I came to do,” he said. “Tt was nice of you,” she murmured. “There are two more places I ought to look in at before I go home, but I don’t feel in the least sociable. It is shockingly early, though, isn’t it?” “Tt is scarcely past eleven o’clock.” “We must do something,” she declared. “It is too absurd to go home.” He handed her down the broad steps, and a footman called their carriage. “T have an idea,” he said. “Let us go to one of the large supper restaurants.” “Delightful!” she exclaimed. “I have been wanting to go to the Altona for supper. I nearly went with Lord Hardington the other night. It will be far more piquant, dear, to go with you.” They carried out their program faithfully. It was not until they were seated at a small round table in a comfortable corner of the great restaurant and were watching, the mar- chioness with some amazement, the throngs of people who streamed in that she noticed anything unusual in his manner. “Why, my dear Francis,” she said, “ you are not well to-night. Your face looksdrawn, and your eyes are feverish. Did things go wrong in the House?” “Things went well enough,” he answered. “T am a little bothered, but it is a matter which has nothing to do with politics.” “T am sorry,” she answered. “Can you tell me about it?” He shook his head. “It is not worth while,” he said. “It is one of those little storms that sometimes blow across one’s life. They look formidable enough when the 335 clouds are gathering, but they pass—oh, yes, they pass.” She leaned across the table and laid her hand upon his arm. “Yet to-night,” she said, “I do not seem to understand you. I seem to feel a long way off.” “Perhaps,” he said, “it is because I, too, have been in a distant country. One’s thoughts play the truant in a strange man- ner sometimes. To-night, when I was sitting in my place, waiting to speak, instead of col- lecting my ideas on the subject of Morocco, I found myself thinking of the days when you and I were boy and girl together.” “Tt was a long time ago,” she murmured. “Tt was not so very long,” he answered, “not so long, indeed, but that sometimes the very days themselves seem to stand out, easily recognizable, even through the tangle of years. I remember the day when your father told me that the fourth son of an im- pecunious peer, penniless, and with none too good a reputation, was no match for his daughter. I remember our last walk to- gether across the park and up the Beacon; a clear October evening it was, with a snap in the air and a sky like crystal, a sky full of strange lights. We walked down the broad green path hand in hand, and the lights began to break out like little points of twinkling stars in the valley below. Your house, too, was all ablaze. Do you remember? It was the night they were expecting the man to whom you were to be married.” “T remember,” she answered, a little sadly. “I remember the day I left England,” he went on. “I was a little desperate just then, Margaret. I could not see into the future. I did not know that if I had only been con- tent to wait my time would come.” She touched his hand for a moment. “It has come,” she murmured. “Yes, it has come,” he answered, but with- out a smile, without any change in the set- tled gravity of his features. “It has come, but a little late, Margaret. I did not know then, or I should have left England in a dif- ferent spirit. I should have left undone many things. I lived a bad life, Margaret, in those days.” “Don’t!” she begged. “I do not want to hear about them. You were badly treated. You were disappointed. I think you were a little in love with me. What you did is wiped out. Think of it no more, please.” “There are stains,” he answered, “which nothing can wipe out. No,” he added has-

Page 98

336 tily, “don’t think that I am suffering from the pangs of a troublesome conscience. It is nc: that. But sometimes, Margaret, even the events themselves rise up and stretch out their hands toward my throat.” She looked at him fixedly. has happened,” she whispered. “Dear Margaret,” he answered, “some- thing may happen.” Neither of them spoke for several moments. People were passing their table. An officious maitre d’hétel was at his elbow with sugges- tions. They were both people with all the self-control of their order, a self-control which had become a habit of their lives. She looked around and criticized, kindly but hu- morously, some of their neighbors. She spoke of the music, the decorations, the perfume of the flowers. They were to all appearances a couple like all those others, well-bred, ap- preciative, interested, and yet a trifle bored. When they were alone, however, she leaned a little forward. “What is it, Francis?” she asked. “In Paris,” he answered slowly, “I had friends who were criminals. I was a crim- inal myself.” She laughed. “We all are,” she answered. “There is not a day that every one of us, in our thoughts, if not in our actions, does not offend against that marvelous code of laws by which we are surrounded.” He nodded. “Some of us,” he said, “escape. Ihave escaped until now. I want to prepare you just a little, Margaret. There is a chance that one of those ugly chapters may be reopened. There is a man in this country who is determined to bring home to me a deed, or a series of deeds, rather, for which I was certainly jointly responsible with others, and which were certainly offenses against the laws.” “You are sure,” she asked, “that it is not some one who is trying to blackmail you?” “T am sure,” he answered. “The man is above that. He is not to be bought. They say he is the cleverest detective in France.” She was not in the least daunted. She raised her glass and drank to him with a little nod. “My dear Francis,” she said, “there are hundreds of people who go through life with some such shadow dogging their foot- steps. It always seems worse than it is. Take my advice. Refuse to believe in it, refuse to believe that fate could be so cruel. At any rate, there is no need to poison the days or the hours that lie between. Forget “Something Passers-By it for a little while, at least. If it comes— well, we will meet it hand in hand. Our life is sometimes almost too absorbing. Let us try to forget that you are a great politician, a peer of England, and that I am your wife and a person of consequence in society. Then if it comes we can be primitive. We are man and woman together. We can at least be as brave as those others underneath.” He looked at her for several moments, and there was something in his eyes which brought the color to her cheeks, something which he never attempted to translate into words. He felt his heart beating with a new vigor. The shadows which had been leaning over him suddenly melted away. And when they sat in their carriage, on their way back to Cavendish Square, his arm went around her waist, and her lips sought his. “T wonder,” she whispered, “why you did not take me straight home to-night? We could have talked there.” He smiled at the recollection. “My dear Margaret,” he said, “I was a slave to my fears. I was afraid of finding some one wait- ing there for me.” “Foolish!” she murmured. He opened the door of the house in Caven- dish Square with his own latch-key. The lights were burning dimly in the hall, for it was almost one o’clock, but the hall-porter came hurrying to meet them. “Any letters or telegrams, Jameson?” the marquis asked. “There are none which Mr. Penton has not attended to, my lord,” was the respectful answer. “Only, about two hours ago, a gentleman called to see you. He said that his business was very important, and he has been allowed to wait for your coming.” The marquis did not answer for a moment. He was straightening his tie, which had been momentarily disarranged, and he turned away from the mirror with a smile. “Well,” he said, “I do not know who my late visitor may be, but I shall have an excuse for a cigarette. Our little supper was so delightful,” he added, “that I forgot even to smoke. Where is this person, Jameson?” “T showed him into the library, sir,” the man answered. The marquis turned to escort his wife to the foot of the stairs. She shook her head. “Why, no,” she said. “I am not inthe least sleepy. If you do not mind I will come and help you interview your late caller. Idon’t suppose his business is particularly private.”

Page 99

Anthony Partridge The marquis stood still for a moment. Then, with a little acquiescent bow, he mo- tioned for her to precede him toward the door which the man was already opening. XXXV Tue man who had been waiting rose with a little gesture of relief as the door was thrown open. He looked with some surprise toward the marchioness. The marquis was silent fora moment. This was not the man he had expected to see. It was necessary for him to rearrange his ideas. Gilbert Hannaway bowed, and _ turned toward him. “I hope you will pardon the liberty I have taken, Lord Ellingham,” he said, “in awaiting your return. I wished to see you upon a matter which is of great im- portance to me.” Lord Ellingham was acquiescent, almost urbane. “TI shall be very glad to hear what you have to say, Mr. Hannaway,” he said. “Permit me,” he added, turning toward his wife, “to present to you this gentleman. It is Mr. Gilbert Hannaway, the Marchioness of Ellingham.” Hannaway bowed low. “I must apologize again, Lady Ellingham,” he said, “for dis- turbing your husband so late. If you can spare him to me fora few minutes, though, I shall be very glad. I wish to consult him about a somewhat important matter.” The marchioness smiled very pleasantly. “Please don’t mind me a bit,” she said. “I am going to sit over there in the easy chair and wait for him.” Gilbert Hannaway looked from the mar- quis to his wife in some embarrassment. “If I may say so,” he began, “the business which I have with you, Lord Ellingham, is of a private nature.” “Mr. Hannaway,” the marquis said, “I have no secrets from my wife.” The marchioness smiled. ‘“ My husband,”’ she said, “has been indulging in a little ret-" rospection this evening. I am quite sure that he would like me to hear anything that you may have to say. And so far as you are concerned, I can assure you that I am a most discreet person.” Hannaway bowed. “If it is your wish, Lord Ellingham,” he said gravely, “there is no reason why I should not say what is in my mind before your wife. I have come to make something which to you may sound like an appeal. I have come at this hour of the 337 night because there is very little time to spare.” The marquis seated himself in an easy chair, opposite his wife, and placed one for Hannaway between the two. “Go on,” he said. “You are sure you will not smoke?” Hannaway shook his head. “Not at pres- ent, thank you,” he answered. “I want to talk to you, Lord Ellingham, about some- thing which happened in Paris nearly five years ago.” “T imagined so,”’ the marquis murmured. “Tt is very largely a personal matter, after all,” Hannaway continued, “which has brought me here. In those days I was a young man, with a love of adventure which led me into strange places more than once. It was this love of adventure which made me an habitué of the night cafés in Paris and a visitor at a certain house in the Place Noire, where I met you, Lord,Ellingham, more than once.” Lord Ellingham nodded. said. “T am not here,” Hannaway continued earnestly, “to speak of the things which went on in that house. They do not concern my present mission at all. It used to amuse me to imagine myself an inspired solver of mys- teries. I used to like to set myself imaginary tasks, to trace down imaginary criminals. It was only the outcome of my natural love of adventure; the fancy or hobby, or what- ever you like to call it, passed away. I am not here to-night to pose as a person who by chance has stumbled across a secret.” The marquis raised his eyebrows. “No?” he asked politely. “ You are aware, of course, that there is one close at hand?” “T am aware of it, Lord Ellingham,” Han- naway answered. “It is not my business. I am here neither to warn nor to intimidate you. I am here to crave a favor.” The marchioness leaned a little forward in her chair. “A favor?” her husband repeated, with knitted eyebrows. “I do not quite under- stand.” “There was a girl,”” Hannaway continued, “she was little more than a child, who when I first knew it was an inmate of the house in the Place Noire. For some reason, I am not sure why, but I think I can guess, she left it. She left it, penniless, except for a generous gift from you. She left it, I know, against your will, but feeling that from you, at any rate, she had never met with anything but “Go on,” he

Page 100

338 kindness. I used to watch her. I used to wonder what attraction there was in her somber dark eyes and her somewhat sullen bearing. But there was an attraction. Other people, as you know, felt it. She left that house—it was as well for her that she did— and she sang in the streets with a hunchback who came from the village where she was born, who had followed her to Paris, and who seems all his life to have borne for her a wonderful affection. I saw them occasionally in Paris. I often tried to renew my acquaint- ance with the girl.. Always she was cold and distant. She seemed to have a great distrust of my sex. Then came that fatal night when the police made their raid upon the house in the Place Noire. She and the hunchback were there, outside. He had many strange friends, and he had heard of what was com- ing. They had hastened up at the bidding of the Vicomte de Neuilly—the man Marcel, as he is now called—the girl’s uncle. There was some scheme by means of which he was to escape with them. You managed some- how to take his place. Sheltered by their presence, wheeling, in fact, their piano, you escaped. You passed down the little cobbled hill which led from the Place Noire, and you passed also out of that life. No one can be more sorry than I, Lord Ellingham, that you did not pass out of it forever.” “T am very much interested,” Lord Elling- ham murmured. “Please continue. If you had told me that you had come once more to warn me I could have understood your presence. But a favor?” “T am coming to that,”’ Gilbert Hannaway continued. “I was wounded that night, as perhaps you know, and it was some months before I was able to get about again. All the time I found myself thinking of that girl with the dark eyes and the strange, sad little face. When I was well I set myself to find them, and I failed. In whatever city I chanced to be I looked for them. At night, if I heard a piano in the streets, I hurried to the window. It was always the same—failure. I did not see the girl again until a few months ago.” “In London?” the marquis asked. “In London,” Hannaway assented. “I looked down from my rooms in the Altona Hotel, and I saw a melancholy trio in the passage below. I saw a hunchback thump- ing out miserable music, and I saw a girl standing with her hands behind her back, singing with lifeless despair. I was out there in a moment. It was they. The girl Passers-By at first did not recognize me. She was still the same, inaccessible, only to me far more fascinating. I felt my heart beat with a re. turn of all the emotion which I had felt years before. I knew that I had never forgotten her; she seemed somehow to have become a part of my life. As I talked to her I felt years younger, I felt again that the world of romance was a real pulsating thing. I made myself known, and for some reason or other she was alarmed. They tried to escape, I persisted, the hunchback stole round behind and struck me on the head. I was giddy for a few moments, and when I came to they had disappeared.” “Since then,” the marquis remarked, “I suppose you have met the young lady more frequently ?”’ “T saw her twice again,” Hannaway answered, “and then she disappeared with you in a carriage at Victoria Station. A few days later we came back from Paris on the same steamer. She was no longer a street singer. She was a creature of another world, the world to which I had felt all the time that she belonged. I made her acquaintance by chance. Since then there is a considerable interval which I need not enlarge upon, be- cause the facts are known, Lord Ellingham, to both of us. I discovered that the girl was your stepdaughter, that you had married her mother, Madame de Lanson, in Paris; that she was, indeed, the daughter of the woman who died in the house at the Place Noire a few weeks before the raid.” The marchioness shivered a little, but she did not speak. The marquis turned his head and looked toward her. She smiled, and nodded back at him. “The girl is your stepdaughter,” Hanna- way continued, “and directly you found her out, or rather she found you out, you of course provided for her. I had hoped that before now she would have become my wife.” The marquis raised his eyebrows. The corners of his mouth twitched with a faint smile. ‘My dear Mr. Hannaway,” he said, “if the favor which you are going to ask of me is my permission to pay your addresses to my stepdaughter, I can assure you that in all such matters her wishes are entirely mine.” Hannaway held out his hand. “Lord Ellingham,” he said, “it is not so simple a matter. You remember the hunchback of whom we have spoken?” “Quite well,” Lord Ellingham answered.

Page 101

Anthony Partridge “His devotion to Christine,” Hannaway said, “‘seems to be one of those strange and unaccountable passions which people who are in any way unusual, mentally or physically, seem to be most capable of. Practically since his boyhood he has given his life for her. He has kept her from want when he himself has been near starvation.” “T appreciate all that,” the marquis said, interrupting. “I will tell you something. So fearful was he lest they should be sepa- rated that he came to warn me that she was in England searching forme. I was, in fact, on the point of leaving England, when some other person brought us together.” “Tt was I,” Hannaway admitted. “I knew for whom she was searching, and I told her. You will not blame me for that? There was no reason why I should not tell her. Your secret I was guarding, although there was no reason whatever why I should not have cried out to the world that the Marquis of Ellingham had once been an habitué of a house of very evil repute, in a low quarter of Paris. I did not do that. I had no thought of doing it. I was even glad that you had been able to reestablish yourself in the world. Never a whisper passed my lips of the things I knew, nor did I in any way bring myself to your notice.” “Tt is quite true,” the marquis admitted. “But with the girl it was different, ”” Han- naway continued. “I saw her in want. I knew that she would never take anything from me. Naturally, having it in my power, I showed her how to find you.” “T have no word of complaint against your behavior, Mr. Hannaway,” the marquis said. “In fact, you have shown a considerable amount of forbearance.” “T want to return to the subject of the hunchback and his devotion,’ Hannaway continued. ‘What he suffered after their separation I can only imagine. Christine herself was a little cruel, but even when she did offer him the means to leave his miserable life he refused almost fiercely. Still he played his piano and dragged himself about London, living God knows how. All the time he was watching her. All the time, I fancy, things were smoldering in his mind. One knows nothing. One cannot even guess what such things may mean,” he con- tinued, dropping his voice a little, “but Ana- toile, the Frenchman, who came over most surely to rob her, was found dead in her rooms, and I alone know—a knowledge I have never shared with a single person—that that night Ambrose played his piano outside. I am very sure that he has been in communica- tion with those other Frenchmen, Marcel and Pierre. All the time there has been some- thing in his mind. He had given his life for Christine. In away it wasanepic. He had asked for nothing from her save her presence. She was not even kind to him. His life was one unending sacrifice for her. When she left him, do you think that a creature like that would accept his fate?” Hannaway paused. His listeners seemed deeply interested. “What can he do?” the marquis asked. “Tf he refuses money from Christine, and she has money to give him if he will accept it, what else can he ask?” “‘T have come to tell you what he does ask,” Hannaway said. ‘Only yesterday he came to Christine. He was dressed in new clothes. His piano he declared was smashed. He had been left a great sum of money. He announced himself a rich man. Then the things which had been smoldering in his mind broke forth. He told her that there was no life for him in which she did not share. He told her that unless she would consent to come back to him on any terms—to treat him like a dog if she wished, but to let him see her day by day—he would go to Jacques Leblun, who is here in London, and tell him the truth.” There was silence for several moments. The marquis seemed wrapped in thought. His wife was watching him earnestly. “This money,” Lord Ellingham said, ‘“‘where did it come from?” Hannaway shook his head. “I idea,” he said. “T think,” the marquis said, “‘that I can tell you. I think that it represents a sum of four million francs, which Marcel believed that I had.” “Four million francs?” Hannaway re peated. The marquis nodded. ‘It was hidden in the piano that night,” he said. “Marcel hid it there when he planned to escape.” have no The concluding instalment of ‘‘Passers-By’’ will appear in the next issue.

Page 102

WHAT IS REALLY KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT OF THE LOSS OF THE HAIR. THE CAUSES OF BALDNESS AND ITS PREVENTION. RULES OF HEALTH FOR THE HAIR ARE FEW AND SIMPLE By Woods Hutchinson, M.D. #”%E were all more cr less bald once and did not mind it much, yet the fear that we may be so again fills us with panic and haunts us like a nightmare. Weare sure that the loss of our locks will spoil our beauty, in spite of the unanimous testimony of those who knew us then that we were much better looking than we have ever been since. It is really curious how warmly attached we have become to our hair. The other earmarks of our ‘‘second childhood’”—the failing sight, the disappearing teeth, the shriveling muscles—we look forward to with comparative equanimity, or at least with res- ignation; but the thought of the loss of our hair stirs us to wild revolt at once. We may become old and feeble, but we will not be a guy! Gray hairs are dignified, poetic, even picturesque; but the bald pate, which glistens just as beautifully as they do and with a warmer, rosier tint, is a thing of horror which is tabooed in art and anathema in literature— save in the Sunday supplement. Yet, to the dispassionate eye, one is quite as much like a crown of glory as the other. The singular feature is that our eyes, our teeth, and our thews and sinews are of great possible utility and most vital importance to us, while our hair has been of no earthiy use, but rather a 340 constant source of care and responsibility. Think of the years that we have spent in brushing it, the nerve rack of keeping it “up,” the incubatorfuls of eggs that have been wasted in shampooing it, and the fortunes squandered upon hair-revivers, scalp-tonics, and beauty-parlors! Small wonder that the ascetics of every age, priest and puritan alike, have agreed upon one thing, that this useless and extravagantly expensive nimbus of ours should be cut short, or shaved off altogether. This brings us to the crux of the entire problem of baldness; namely, the human hair having no known utility in any degree commensurate with the amount of its devel- opment, we know neither what to do to ‘“‘exercise”’ it, so to speak, and in that way restore its vigor, nor how to modify its con- ditions so as to promote its growth in any special and effective way. Its positive dis- eases the recent progress of medical science has put largely under our control, provided the remedies be applied early enough. But we must frankly confess that in a considerable percentage of cases the tendency to prema- ture loss of the hair is something of which we know neither the cause nor the cure. The situation is far more encouraging than it was a couple of decades ago and may be roughly summed up to the effect that one- third of all cases of premature loss of the hair can be cured, one-third can be prevented from getting any worse, and one-third are almost

Page 103

unaffected by treatment. This is perhaps somewhat reminiscent of the ancient classi- fication of diseases of the skin under three heads: those that sulphur will cure, those that tar will cure, and those that the devil himself cannot cure. But it is the best that can be said at present. This, however, is significant of the general vagueness and inadequacy of our knowledge concerning baldness. In fact, we have not even succeeded in agreeing upon a definition of it. It is, of course, obviously divisible into two great classes—the natural or senile, which comes as one of the symptoms of approach- ing old age, and the unnatural or prema- ture. It is but natural that with declining years the hair of the head should waste and fall away, as do the other tissues of the body, notably the teeth and the epithelium of the special senses; but authorities are not agreed even as to what might be regarded as the normal time for this loss of hair to take place, some placing it as late as sixty years and others as early as thirty-five. It is a matter of individual peculiarity, like teeth, sight, and hearing; but, roughly speaking, the average man has a right to expect to keep his “thatch” unimpaired until forty-five, and little right to complain of the administration of the universe if it begins to “thin out” after fifty. INADEQUATE KNOWLEDGE OF BALDNESS We have no figures of any real value show- ing the actual prevalence of baldness in a community either as a whole or in different classes and sexes. Statements upon these points must be altogether in the nature of es- timates; and an estimate is based only upon the experience of the estimator. The records of our hospitals, even of those especially de- voted to diseases of the skin, at which one would naturally expect to find many such cases, give us no help whatever, inasmuch as a large percentage of the bald accept their condition with indifference or as a matter of course, and would never dream of going to a hospital or of consulting a physician in refer- ence to it; while the vast majority of those who do resent the condition and endeavor to cure it turn for relief to the advertisements and the beauty-parlors. So that we have ab- solutely no adequate data at hand from which to decide the question, first, whether baldness is increasing; and second, whether it is more common in the higher ranks of society than in the lower, or among brain-workers than among muscle-workers. Woods Hutchinson, M.D. 341 As usual, however, in matters where ac- curate knowledge is lacking, popular con- viction is abundant and has no doubts what- ever about the question. It is one of the commonplaces of every-day conversation to hear the statements that the hair and the teeth of civilized man are going to the dogs together, and that at the present rate the race will soon be both bald and toothless. There are few things more firmly held as articles of popular faith than the belief that there is some sort of antagonism between hair and brains, that the more highly the tissues inside the skull are developed the more likely are those upon its exterior to fade and disappear. I regret to disturb this latter conviction, be- cause it is one of the chief consolations of the baldheaded. ‘‘There are two things, sir, that you never saw—a red-headed nigger and a baldheaded fool!” Or as a friend of mine, whose head had come through his hair at an indecorously early age, explained it, ‘Tis the burning brain beneath.” There is, however, no valid and adequate evidence for this belief, and there are several straws which appear to point in the opposite direction. In the first place, while it seems probable, both upon a priori grounds and from such evidence as we possess, that baldness is some- what less common among savages who still regard long hair as an adornment among both sexes, and whose scalps are continuously ex- posed to the elements, the hair thus actually being of some functional use as a protection for the head, there can nevertheless be no question that from a very early stage of civili- zation, certainly from the dawn of literature, the term “‘baldhead” has been in common use as an expression of scorn and derision. More- over, the condition is referred to in the earliest proverbs of many literatures and races, al- ways as an undesirable, but by no means unusual, consummation. Then, too, wigs have been in common use all over the world from a very early stage of civilization. Much of their vogue must prob- ably be ascribed to ideas of ornamentation and ceremonial, the effect produced by them being considered more becoming and more dignified than that of the natural hair, as was still the case within the memory of our own grandparents. Yet the “digs” that have been made at them and at their wearers from a very early period (the joke, for instance, of the elderly beau with the curly, raven locks, whose wig is dragged from his head by the fish-hook of the irrepressible younger brother,

Page 104

342 is at least as old as Nebuchadnezzar) clearly indicate that, while originally used as addi- tional decorations, they quickly became adapted to concealing defects beneath. Of course fringes, switches, bangs, false fronts, and “‘rats” have formed a part of the toilet accessories of the gentler sex from the period of the pyramids. BALDNESS NOT MORE COMMON AMONG BRAIN-WORKERS The other belief, that baldness is more common among the brain-workers and in the upper or educated classes than in the lower, is equally devoid of substantial basis. Of course the records of any specialist in the dis- eases of the scalp would show that a vast ma- jority of those who consulted him on the con- dition of their hair were of the wealthier, and hence more highly educated, classes; but this is because these classes take this condi- tion most seriously and have money to spend on attempts at its cure. Similarly this same specialist will state that he has a larger per- centage of cases of baldness among his private patients than he has in his hospital clinics; but for the same reason this fact means noth- ing whatever as to the comparative frequency of the condition in these two social strata. Anyone, however, can assure himself by a few days’ observation that far from infrequently baldness occurs at an abnormally early age among farmers, day-laborers, sailors, fisher- men, and workingmen of all descriptions; though perhaps it is a trifle more common among those of sedentary occupations and among brain-workers. At all events we may console ourselves with the belief that there is no adequate basis for our fears that the hair of civilized man is doomed, or that baldness is increasing in any very marked degree, or that the conditions of civ- ilization are unfavorable to the health and vigor of the hair. One of the things that first led us to doubt the reality of this alleged increase of baldness was the utter worthlessness and inadequacy of most of the explanations which were ad- vanced to account for it. The common im- pression which associates our thinning locks with the wearing of unventilated and tight- fitting hats, for instance, was exploded long ago. The class of men who wear their hats most continuously are the outdoor laborers— farmers, fishermen, etc.—among whom bald- ness certainly is no more common than among indoor workers and city-dwellers. Ascribing Heads and Hair it to the pressure of the brim of the hard hat, whether derby or chimney-pot, upon the tem- poral arteries is little better than fiction, in- asmuch as these arteries do not supply the region of the scalp in which baldness first ap- pears. The alleged lack of ventilation from tight and almost water-proof materials is equally absurd, because the average city- dwelling male wears a hat for only two or three hours out of the twenty-four; and in its power of cutting off air and light and pro- ducing a sodden, ill-ventilated condition of the scalp a hat is not for a moment to be com- pared with the coiled mass of hair (to say nothing of the artificial additions thereto) worn for at least fourteen or sixteen hours out of the twenty-four by the gentler sex. Finally, while the head-gear of the civilized male is far from rationalized, yet for un- wholesomeness and uncleanliness it is not to be compared with the horrible coiffures, bon- nets, turbans, etc., worn by savage or semi- civilized men. As a matter of fact, never in the history of the race has the human scalp been kept in a cleaner, more wholesome, and more healthful condition than it is on the male head of the twentieth century. So, in- stead of dreading a further deterioration of the hair, we should upon a priori grounds expect a steady and continuous improvement in its health and vigor. LESS COMMON AMONG WOMEN THAN MEN Although there is still a plentiful lack of positive information upon the point, it is the opinion of most of those who are in a position to know that baldness is distinctly less com- mon among women than among men. Why this should be so is one of the mysteries that enshroud the gentler sex. If the ex- treme length of the hair and its consequent distance from the center of nutrition, the alleged drag upon the roots, and the preven- tion of proper ventilation and the cooling of the scalp count for anything, we should cer- tainly expect absence or failure of the hair to be far more common among women than among men. While it becomes any mere man to speak with the utmost caution and diffidence upon such a mysterious and de- ceptive subject, yet we will probably be safe in stating that at least three times as many men as women become bald, both pre- maturely and naturally. Scientific derma- tologists are practically agreed that, while a great many women consult them for real or imaginary thinning and loss of the hair, this

Page 105

thinning is far less common than among men, and that positive, absolute baldness of the billiard-ball type is decidedly rare among them. Curiously enough, there is also a dif- ference between the sexes as to the region in which this thinning and falling of the hair begins and chiefly occurs, in man this being almost invariably the vertex where the natu- ral whorl shows itself in the hair, or some portion of the crown of the head. In women it is the temples and hair-line above the fore- head. These regions are supplied by different arteries, but this gives us no light on the prob- lem, as there is no known or conceivable reason why the temporal arteries should first fail to nourish their region of the scalp in the female and the occipital and the frontal in the male. THE HAIR AS AN ORNAMENT The only explanation which has been offered is a somewhat curious and, at first sight, rather far-fetched one, and yet one which on biological grounds has considerable weight. This is based upon the universally recognized anthropological fact that the chief function of the human hair is not utility, but ornamentation. It belongs to the great group of what are known as the orna- mental, or secondary, sexual characters, such as the plumes and coloring of birds, the mane of the lion, the antlers of stags, etc. While it has a certain small degree of utility as a pro- tection for the crown of the head, it is per- fectly obvious that this function would have been just as effectually served by a short, thick mossy growth, not to exceed an inch or two in length. Moreover, in the process of development in length and consequent ca- pacity for ornamentation, it has, so to speak, deliberately got rid of the elements most im- portant for the purpose of protection against either wet or cold, and that is the so-called under fur, or pelage, which is present in the coat of almost every other hair-covered ani- mal, reaching the highest degree of develop- ment in such fur-bearers as the mink and the seal. Traces of this under coat or true fur appear upon the human scalp at an early stage of its development, but it is later lost completely in the course of the development of the immensely elongated permanent hair. It might also be noted incidentally that the hair of the human head is practically an en- tirely new development, like nothing else in the animal kingdom, so that its pedigree is a short one, and this may account in some de- gree for its marked instability. Woods Hutchinson, M.D. 343 That hair was regarded chiefly as an orna- ment by primitive races needs no argument from anyone who has the slightest familiarity with the manners and customs of any tribe of savages. Our Indian braves, for instance, spend no end of time in braiding and greasing their long black hair, and in deco- rating it with feathers, wampum, coins, and primitive jewelry of all sorts. Even such a highly civilized race as the Greeks, it will be remembered, combed and braided their long hair as a solemn, ceremonial preparation for battle. Indeed, it is not in the least necessary to go back to savagery for proof of the fact that our hair is regarded chiefly in the light of an ornament, for ninety-nine hundredths of the harm done by the most complete denudation of our scalps is the injury to our vanity and self-love. It is the abject fear of what we will look like and how the small boy upon the street will jeer at us, when we are bald and shiny, that spurs us to spend millions upon hair-tonics. Here, however, a marked difference be- tween the sexes comes in. While among savages and races in the earlier stages of civilization, as late indeed as the love-locks of the Cavaliers, man as well as woman prized and cultivated long tresses as a mark of beauty and of dignity, for many genera- tions now the majority of the sterner sex have thrown away such vanities and reduced themselves to a more or less ‘‘ crop head” con- dition—not, of course, because we think hair is more becoming when worn 8 la blacking- brush, but simply that we have abandoned in disgust all hope of competing with the gentler sex in the matter of beauty. Why we should have so tamely surrendered our birthright is one of the mysteries of the universe, for by all the rules of precedent and history we were en- titled to regard ourselves as the ornamental sex, as indeed is still the case almost every- where throughout the animal kingdom. However this may be, the upshot of the matter is that, we having for so many years scorned our birthright, and the human hair having become entirely ornamental and practically useless since the invention of hats and caps, our wise and parsimonious Mother Nature, with the rigid economy which distinguishes her, has turned to other and more profitable uses the energy which she formerly devoted to growing the male hair long and keeping it on, and we lift up our voices in dismay when we find ourselves bald before our time. While woman, who has

Page 106

344 never for a moment abandoned her claim to a wealth of hair as her principal crown of glory, has experienced the truth of the Scriptural prediction that unto her that hath shall be given. Practically, from a biological point of view, there is this great difference between the sexes: While baldness in a man is no especial addition to his beauty or attractiveness, it in no way interferes with his success in life, in- cluding the most important part of it from a racial point of view, the finding of an attrac- tive and desirable mate. On the other hand, the woman who in the spring or summer of life should become bald would have the great- est possible difficulty in finding a mate, or in keeping him afterward if she should secure him under false pretenses. So that, racially speaking, any hereditary tendency to prema- ture baldness in women would be apt to die out with great swiftness. It might almost be said that there is prac- tically no real danger of more than one woman in a thousand losing a larger percent- age of her hair than can be completely con- cealed by the kindly assistance of art; while on ninety-nine men out of a hundred who en- deavor to rethatch themselves and assume a juvenility if they have it not a wig is unmis- takably a wig, even at forty rods. HOPELESS THE OUTLOOK NOT But what consolation is there in this for the . bald and the near-bald? They are con- cerned About de ha’r dat isn’t dar An’ why de ha’r am missin’, as the darkies sing about the possum’s tail. Even if it be an evolutionary tendency, they want it stopped, if such a thing be possible. The outlook is not nearly so hopeless as might be supposed, although of course it is obvious that in a condition of whose causation we have so little accurate knowledge we cannot say much that is positive or definite in regard to its cure. Moreover, each individual case of baldness will depend very largely upon personal, in- dividual factors, such as heredity, life habits, and general nutrition, and these can be eluci- dated and dealt with only through a thorough and careful examination and study by a com- petent expert. Broadly and loosely, however, it may be stated that while a certain natural tendency, often hereditary, is at work in a large percentage of all cases of baldness, whether actually premature or merely exces- sive for the years attained, this tendency is Heads and Hair often markedly aggravated by certain indi- vidual or accidental conditions, the removal] of which will markedly check or even arrest the process altogether. Nature has not the slight- est sense of fair play, or the faintest scruple against hitting a man or a tissue, when he or it is down. Indeed, if there be any organ or region of the body whose vitality is lowered in any way, or which shows any tendency to de- cline, this is precisely the one that will suffer most heavily in any disturbance of the gen- eral health. Moreover, those tissues and structures, such as the hair, the nails, the teeth, and the skin, which are farthest from the center of circulation are, so to speak, like the outposts of an army, very likely to have their supplies cut off or their communica- tions interrupted. ‘This is one of the reasons for the familiar fact that the hair, even in those who show no special tendency to bald- ness, will fall out more rapidly than normal, lose its luster, and become thin and sparse in many different disturbances of the general health. In fevers, of course, it may be lost completely, but this form of baldness, for- tunately, is almost never permanent. The hair almost invariably grows in again and may even be improved by the accidental shedding, although in some cases its quality and thickness are permanently impaired. So that our dermatological experts find not a few cases of falling hair, particularly in women, which can be completely checked by correcting errors primarily of the digestion and secondarily of the liver and kidneys. In another considerable class the chief aggravation of the tendency comes from the invasion of the weakened scalp and dwindling hair-follicles by some form of bacillus or bacterium. Contrary to popular impression, however, these germs are comparatively seldom the primary or chief cause of baldness. The healthy hair has a surprising degree of re- sistance to bacterial and parasitic invasion. Indeed, in young life, it is seldom that even the most furious attacks of parasitic organ- isms produce more than temporary baldness. Some of these are both distressing and dis- gusting in their effects, and may even affect the general health through the suppurative processes which they set up in the scalp, yet they comparatively seldom produce even temporary loss of hair. The nearest ap- proach to this is that produced by the fa- miliar ringworm (Tinea) of early life. So that, while in a certain percentage of cases the prog- ress of the condition can be checked by the ap- 23

Page 107

plication of appropriate remedies to destroy the microbial organisms present, the in- discriminate application of strong antiseptics and germicides to the scalp is not only use- less, but may easily do more harm than good, as most of these are highly irritating to living tissues. In short, the main hope of stopping the ad- vance of baldness lies in the direction of im- proving the general health and vigor, while at the same time keeping the scalp and the hair in a clean, antiseptic, well-ventilated con- dition. Unfortunately, however, the re- wards of virtue are no more certain in this realm than in any other. Many a man who keeps his scalp as clean as a fresh-laundered table-cloth, and his bodily health in perfect condition, will still find himself the victim of an aggressive and progressive baldness. In- deed, the actual condition of the scalp and of the hair has very much less to do with the health of the latter than is popularly sup- posed. The bulbs of the roots of the hair go down completely through the skin and into the fatty layer which lies between it and the skull, and the thing that to the expert eye is really significant of the prospect as to progress or cure in a particular case is not the condi- tion, or color, or cleanliness of the scalp, but the thickness or thinness of this fatty layer which underlies it. So long as this is present and the scalp is freely movable over the skull, there is hope of restoring a reasonable grow th of hair; but when this has been absorbed and the shiny scalp sticks as closely to the skull as the cover on a baseball, the outlook is prac- tically hopeless. This, of course, shows at once the futility of most of the local applica- tions to and manipulations of the scalp, from which it suffers untold torments in those who are or imagine themselves to be becoming bald. Most of the remedies which are so confidently believed in and applied to the scalp have just about as much effect upon the vigor of the hair as they would have if rubbed upon the soles of the feet. No known local applications or manipulations are capable of increasing the thickness of the underlying fatty layer when once this has begun to melt away, though skilled and regu- lar massaging may help to prevent its wasting. The strongest and most powerful curative element of scalp-tonics and hair-restorers is their smell, and the next powerful is their color. Most of them are frauds, pure and simple, and produce no effect whatever ex- cept upon the imagination and the nostrils of Woods Hutchinson, M. D. their users. The most common constituent of them all is alcohol, and the next common probably ammonia or some aromatic oil or extract which has the double advantage of a powerful odor and of producing a mild sense of warmth and local irritation. All of this class are mild irritants to the skin and pro- duce a slight temporary reddening by an in- crease in the amount of blood circulating through the scalp; but this has about as much effect on the hair-bulbs as the beams of the harvest-moon have upon growing cab- bages. Such slight practical utility as they may have depends upon the vigor with which they are rubbed into the scalp and upon the extent to which they promote cleanliness by virtue of their power of dissolving fats or other substances which may clog the hair. This last effect, however, may be very easily overdone, inasmuch as the scalp, like the rest of the skin, to be perfectly healthy needs to be slightly oily or even greasy. And if it becomes dry and harsh it is much more likely to become diseased. It is hardly necessary to assure anyone of average intelligence or sense of humor that the outrageous claims made for many hair-tonics to “grow” hair five or six feet long are the purest of fairy- tales. Any girl or woman who happens to have an unusually luxuriant growth of hair can make a comfortable income by allowing herself to be photographed as an example of “after using,’ or more effectively yet by sit- ting in some shop-window and exhibiting herself as a living example of the virtues of Humbugine. PREVENTION, THE BEST CURE It may, of course, be attributable only to the stupidity and ignorance of the medical profession, but certain it js that we know absolutely no remedy of any sort or descrip- tion that we have been able to prove has the slightest direct effect in either increasing or checking the growth of the hair. The best cure, of course, is prevention. While we must frankly state that, for reasons already explained, it is by no means certain that pre- vention will always prevent, in a general way it is safe to say that those who keep them- selves in good general health by sensible diet, plenty of fresh air, and plenty of exercise, and who keep the hair clean, well brushed, and well ventilated, will have done all they can toward the prevention of baldness and will be decidedly less likely to suffer from it than if they neglected themselves. On the other 24

Page 108

346 hand, it must be ruefully admitted that many a dirty savage, whose rule of diet is to eat all he can as often as he can get it, and to starve as stoically as possible when he cannot, who never takes any exercise between meals if he can help it, who sleeps in the vilest and most cave-like of huts, and who continually rubs grease, ocher, and sticky pigments of all sorts into his hair and even fills it full of dust and wood-ashes to relieve the irritation of the parasites with which it swarms, has a per- fectly magnificent head of the glossiest and longest hair, which he never loses until it is lifted by the scalp-knife of his enemy. So don’t fuss with the scalp any more than is reasonable. RULES OF HEALTH FOR THE HAIR The rules of health for the hair, so far as we know them, are few and brief. Brush the hair thoroughly at least once a day, but let the scalp alone. Let the brushing be thor- ough and preferably with two brushes, which you may use as if you were currying a race- horse to get him into show condition. Keep the hair thoroughly clean in this way, and the scalp will largely take care of itself. Wash the hair as often as may be needed. for clean- liness, which, as a rule, for men will be once a week, and for women about half as often. Avoid using too strong Soaps, strong alkalies, such as ammonia and soda, and too hot water, as all of these take out too much of the natural lubricant, or oil, of the hair and leave it dry and harsh. As a rule, it is well to dry-clean the scalp as much as possible; and it is surprising how clean the hair and scalp can be kept just by thorough and regu- lar brushing and currying alone. The most important detail about the washing of the hair is that it should be rubbed or brushed until thoroughly dry. If this be done, in the short hair of men there is no objection to wet- ting it daily or even two or three times a day if desired. The risk in leaving it not perfectly dry is that the natural oil of the hair, when mixed with water, rapidly decomposes or fer- Heads and Hair ments, with the production of the all too famil- iar and none too pleasant sour or half rancid smell of badly kept hair. This condition both irritates the scalp and furnishes a fine culture-medium for germs which thereupon promptly sweep in and give rise to the com- monest form of dandruff or scaliness of the head. Particularly objectionable is the habit of wetting or “‘slicking” the hair in order to comb it, and avoiding the use of the brush altogether. The intelligently used brush is the best known hair-tonic. But when the vigor of the hair is beginning to fail, even this may be carried to an extreme and become injurious. While it is well to keep the scalp dry and well ventilated and exposed to both light and air, there does not appear to be any valid ground for the belief that going bareheaded, particularly in the sun, in any real way pro- motes the vigor of the hair. Indeed, so far as we know anything about the intentions of nature, the human head was never intended to be exposed to the direct rays of the sun at all. Asa shrewd old Hindu proverb puts it, “Only fools and Englishmen walk in the sun.” And experts are unanimous in de- claring that an excessive exposure of the already thinning hair to the direct rays of the sun will not only not check the process but often accelerate it. I have seen a good many bald heads exposed to the no-hat cure on both coasts of this continent, but I never yet have seen any crop produced thereon that was visible to the naked eye, except blisters. Like the shoe, the hat, while a good deal of a nui- sance in many ways and a frequent source of inconveniénce, discomfort, and absurd ex- travagance, is probably more helpful than harmful, not merely to the head, but to the hair. It should, of course, be kept within reasonable limits and made as soft, light, and porous as possible, but there does not appear to be any good reason for blaming the al- leged decadence of our hair upon our head- gear, however irrational and even absurd we may admit this to be at times.

Page 109

AN, WON pe Ay The Mother of Invention By Martha Wheeler 1 a low-ceilinged room on the fourth floor of a boarding-house Evelyn Dor- ington awoke from the uncertainties of troubled dreams to the reality of midsummer misery in New York. The temperature had hovered for days near the ninety mark, the humidity was excessive, and the mosquitos held high carnival. These minor misfor- tunes, however, counted little in comparison with the fact that when she went down to breakfast this morning she would find a board-bill which she had not the money to pay. Since her father’s death six months before Evelyn’s loss had, been rendered more poignant by delays in settling his small estate. Even when it was settled she wouldn’t have enough to live on, but some music-pupils had been promised for the winter, and she had been studying shorthand with the hope of fitting herself for a position as stenographer to tide over the summer months. Of late, through lack of money, she had been forced to discontinue lessons, but she practised faith- fully, haunted churches and public meetings to take down speeches in shorthand, and watched the advertising columns of the newspapers, the while she waited anxiously for her small patrimony. But she could wait no longer: something must be done at once. In all the world she had just seventy-nine cents that she could lay her hands on—and she owed ten dollars to the landlady. And so it was that as she seated herself at break- last and the woman opposite made her usual inquiry, “ What are you going to do to-day?” Evelyn, picking up the board-bill at her place, answered truthfully, “I do not know.” VO ih) Ky) TATE Le Ny} Wert — ea LAU SO a6 3 ee aS iseegeo ee eee me: nite After breakfast she again took an inventory of her possessions. Jewelry she had none. Her wardrobe was scanty, and even if mourn- ing garb were salable she needed every gown she owned. Books? Her father’s library was sacred in her eyes; not so her own school- books, and she at once resolved to dispose of them. In a second-hand shop that made a spe- cialty of school-books she called for the pro- THE APPARITION TRIPPED IN SMILINGLY 347

Page 110

‘*DON’T YOU KNOW, MAN, THAT THERE’S A LAW AGAINST LEAVING TRUNKS IN HALLS?”’ prietor and was ushered into an inner office where a young man in his shirt-sleeves blinked his eyes at the apparition that tripped in smil- ingly, looking as light-hearted as she did not feel. In the most rapid speech that Evelyn had ever listened to Ernest Graybling ex- plained that in the absence of his partner he was up to hisearsin work. What could he do for her. “You buy school-books ?”’ ““Why—yes.”’ He pushed his chair back and stared at the dusty disorder of his desk. “Tf they’re in good condition we do.” Evelyn, remembering her youthful habit of throwing arithmetics and algebras in corners when the answers would not come out right, also many series of scribbled insults begin- ning, “If my name you wish to see,” was silent. The man looked up. books?” She mentioned the address. “Oh, in Harlem? Well, later in the week when my partner gets back from his vacation and we have more office help—we’re short- handed here just now—I’ll send some one up to look at them.” “That won’t do,” gasped Evelyn. to be to-day.” “To-day ?” Graybling studied his cigar-tip. “Yes. The books are stored in a friend’s flat. She herself is out of town, and circum- stances are such that the books must be re- moved to-day. There’s absolutely nothing else to do.” She spoke with the conviction that an unpaid board-bill gives. Catching “Where are the “Tt has sight of a catalogue of prices she grasped at it 348 with the attitude of a drowning person toward a straw. “Why couldn’t I take this cata- logue and go on up to Harlem now, sort the books for you, and make out a list of prices all ready for you to go over with me later on? That will take very little of your time and— and you will come yourself?” she pleaded anxiously. “I shouldn’t like to trust a clerk.” The man gazed meditatively at the ceiling through the haze of his cigar. “It’s pretty hot to go ’way up to Harlem.” “There’s a beautiful breeze outside, and,” with a desperate plunge, “I should think it would do you good to get out of this stuffy office.” “T was thinking of you,” he murmured. “Whatever you say suits me.” “Then suppose I say eleven o’clock?” She leaned toward him, dropping her linked fingers in her lap. He whirled round in his revolving chair. “Oh, see here now, I really can’t get away till afternoon, and even if you are the greatest hustler I’ve seen in a month of Sundays you couldn’t get up there and sort the books by eleven. Why not make it half-past two? Then you can get your lunch. ” Get her lunch! Evelyn knew that she would have no food, for she would not go near the boarding-house again until she had the money to pay her board. Ten dollars seemed a very large sum just then, and in a tremulous voice she asked: “You'll be sure to come? You won’t lose the address ?”’ “Bless you, I’ll be there, though it looks like a wild-goose chase,” he laughed.

Page 111

A ORARRE? Evelyn laughed in her turn, and then, with one of those sudden flashes which were characteristic even when she was at her wits’ . end, she said, “I assure you there are only goats in Harlem. ” In the silence of the office Graybling watched her out of sight. Then he scratched reflectively his left ear. “ Well, I’m the goat all right,” he said. To Evelyn Dorington, studying Graybling & Hill’s catalogue in her friend’s Harlem flat, it was depressing to see how lightly second- hand school-books were esteemed, but she had listed enough volumes to pay the board- bill, according to her own reckoning, and was thinking that when she really had ten dollars in her hand she would mention carelessly that he might make an offer of a lump sum for the rest of them—for the reserves which she had at first decided to retain. On this fancy angry voices broke, and she opened the outside door. Graybling waved her back. “Just a moment if you please, Miss Dor- ington, till I wipe up the earth with this fool janitor. Don’t you know, man, that there’s a law against leaving trunks in halls? Here in the dark I stumbled over a brace of ’em, and it isn’t your fault that I didn’t break my leg.” The girl closed the door in haste, picked up pad and pencil, and took down his words inshorthand. Gray- bling was the most rapid speaker she had ever tried to fol- low. The janitor too had plenty of lan- guage with him, and she covered page after page with pot- hooks before quiet fell outside. Gray- bling, still nursing his bruises, exclaimed as she admitted him: “And you want me to pay good money to come up here and be_ half killed into the bar- gain? And on the hottest day of the summer, too,” he added with a smile which took the chill from: his words. “T’m so sorry, ” murmured Evelyn; “ but,’ brightening, ‘ ‘I have the books al! ready, and SHE COVERED PAGE AFTER PAGE WITH POT- HOOKS BEFORE QUIET FELL OUTSIDE Martha Wheeler 349 perhaps it will cure you to see what a good bargain you are going to make.” She pointed to three neat piles of books across the room and handed him a list that footed up $12.65. Graybling looked at it, then at the books, and whistled softly. Evelyn’s spirits fell. “You can compare the lists yourself,” she faltered. “I went by the catalogue, indeed I did.” “Yes, you went by it good and plenty,” he returned. “So far by it that we’ll have to call a halt and travel back again. Now, look at that!”” He pointed to a copy of Cesar’s “Commentaries” dejectedly divided, like all Gaul, into three parts. “And you had the nerve to ask twenty-five cents for that? Why, it isn’t worth a sou.” Evelyn brought out the price-list in triumph, but he met it with a triumph of his own. “ Do you call your copy ‘in good condition’? Why, the thing won’t hold together, and as for this author,”’ picking up a scientific volume, “he is down and out. His theories were dis- proved long ago.”” Then, examining another pile of books, “Mostly dead ones in this bunch,” he said. Finally, after rejecting more than half of the books she had selected and drawing on the reserves to fill their place, Graybling offered seven dollars for the greater portion of the library. Evelyn shook her head. “Seven dol- lars aren’t of any use tome. I want to get rid of the whole lot and not just the cream.” “Cream? Oh, Lord! Graybling laughed till he forgot the janitor. “I can’t use cream in my business, and I don’t want the rest of them. They’re not salable, I tell you.” Evelyn was desper- ate. “ What about by- products? Couldn’t you dispose of them to paper-mills? All books look alike to them, I understand.” “You understand a lot about it.” Gray- bling mockingly made her a low bow. “Well, I know that everything in this world is of use, only you are in a better posi-

Page 112

350 A Stranger tion than I to appreciate the advantages of a library like this. I want to get rid of it, or rather I don’t want to but must, and I con- sulted you as a capable middleman.” The “middleman” threw up his hands. “What a captain of industry you would have made! Now I don’t want this stuff, and I ought to be back in my office this minute, but out of respect for your sys- tem, which has the Bowery skinned a mile, I hereby offer you ten dollars for the lot.” ‘‘Done,” said Evelyn as she ac- cepted the proffered bill. “Yes, done good —stung!”’ mented Graybling, reaching for his hat. “What’s this?” He paused in his flight toward the door and picked up the pad of paper covered with pothooks. “That’s what you said to the janitor.” “Read it out loud.”’ She obeyed, and the man’s face shone. She turned to him in sur- prise. “Why, I thought you’d be ashamed,” she faltered, “when you heard just what you said.” “Ashamed? When you’re the first person I’ve seen who could get everything I said down cold and then read her notes like an in- telligent human being? I’m a hard man to follow.”” He gazed at her reproachfully. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a ste- nographer ?”’ “T’m not, but—but—I might be.” Graybling threw his hat down on the mantelpiece. “Now, you’re talking,” he ex- claimed. “My stenographer—she wasn’t much good, to be sure—got married yester- day, without giving me any notice. Will you take the job?” “Well, that depends on how much you will pay.” With ten dollars on hand, Evelyn’s spirits rose. “Icome high.” She tilted her head back to look at him as he leaned against the mantelpiece. ‘“ And you say yourself you are a hard man to follow.” Graybling rattled the keys in his pocket. “How much do you want ?” ‘“MOSTLY DEAD ONES IN THIS BUNCH,” com- Hperstig was on the knob. “Then I am sure of That is a long way off, and,” his eyes softened as they rested on her own, “and—a lot may happen be- fore then.” . “Twenty dollars a week to start with.” “That’s twice as much as we paid the last one.”’ : “You said yourself she wasn’t any good,” “You think you’ve got me dead to rights, don’t you? Well, it’s a bargain. When will you start in?” “To-morrow morning—only I must tell you that I may leave in No- vember, so don’t say I didn’t give you any notice. ”’ “You're not going to get married?” he asked in alarm. Evelyn thought of her much-be- frilled music-pupils. “Hardly,” she said. Graybling’s hand you until November. A Stranger By Ambrose Bierce A MAN stepped out of the darkness int the little illuminated circle about our failing camp-fire and seated himself upon a rock. “You are not the first to explore this re- gion,” he said gravely. Nobody controverted his statement; he was himself proof of its truth, for he was not of our party and must have been somewhere near when we camped. Moreover, he must have companions not far away; it was not a place where one would be living or traveling alone. For more than a week we had seen, besides ourselves and our animals, only such living things as rattlesnakes and horned toads. In an Arizona desert one does not long coexist with only such creatures as these; one must have pack animals, supplies, arms— an ‘‘outfit.” And all these imply com- rades. It was perhaps a doubt as to what manner of men this unceremonious stranger’s comrades might be, together with something hi acs LTTE AE. a

Page 113

Tact ol NS 5 AIM ai SO in his words interpretable as a challenge, that caused every man of our half-dozen “‘ gentle- men adventurers” to rise to a sitting posture and lay his hand upon a weapon—an act signifying, in that time and place, a policy of expectation. The stranger gave the matter no attention and began again to speak in the same deliberate, uninflected monotone in which he had delivered his first sentence. “Thirty years ago Ramon Gallegos, Wil- liam Shaw, George W. Kent, and Berry Davis, all of Tucson, crossed the Santa Catalina Mountains and traveled due | west, as nearly as the configura- tion of the coun- try permitted. We were pros- pecting, and it was our inten- tion, if we found nothing, to push through to the Gila at some point near the Big Bend, where we understood there was a set- tlement. We had a good out- fit, but no guide —just Ramon Gallegos, Wil- liam Shaw, George W. Kent, and Berry Davis.” The man re- peated the names slowly and distinctly, as if to fix them in the memories INTO THAT of his audience, every member of which was now attentively observing him, but with a slackened ap- prehension regarding his possible compan lions somewhere in the darkness that seemed to enclose us like a black wall. In the manner of this volunteer historian was no Suggestion of an unfriendly purpose. His act was rather that of a harmless lunatic than anenemy. We were not so new to the coun- try as not to know that the solitary life of many Drawings by Dan Sayre Groesbeck Ambrose Bierce ‘*DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF US WAS A NARROW OPENING. a plainsman had a tendency to develop eccen- tricities of conduct and character not always easily distinguishable from mental aberration. A man is like a tree: in a forest of his fellows he will grow as straight as his generic and in- dividual nature permits; alone in the open he yields to the deforming stresses and tortions that environ him. Some such thoughts were in my mind as I watched the man from the shadow of my hat, pulled low to shut out the firelight. A witless fellow, no doubt, but what could he be doing there in the heart of a desert ? Having under- taken to tell this story, I wish that I could describe the man’s ap- pearance; that would be a nat- ural thing to do. Unfortu- nately, and some- what strangely, I find myself unable to do so with any degree of confidence, for afterward no two of us agreed as to what he wore and how he looked; and when I try to set down my own impressions they elude me. Anyone can tell some kind of story: narration is one of the ele- mental powers of the race. But WE RAN”’ the talent for de- scription isa gift. Nobody having broken silence, the visitor went on to say: ‘‘ This country was not then what it is now. ‘There was not a ranch be- tween the Gila and the Gulf. There was a little game here and there in the mountains, and near the infrequent water-holes grass enough to keep our animals from starvation. If we should be so fortunate as to encounter no Indians we might get through. But within a week the purpose of the expedition

Page 114

A Stranger ‘* © WWADRE DE DIOS,’ HE SAID, ‘COMES NOW THE SOUL OF RAMON GALLEGOS’” had altered from discovery of wealth to pres- ervation of life. We had gone too far to go back, for what was ahead could be no worse than what was behind; so we pushed on, riding by night to avoid Indians and the in- tolerable heat, and concealing ourselves by day as best we could. Sometimes, having exhausted our supply of wild meat and emptied our casks, we were days without food or drink; then a water-hole, or a shallow pool in the bottom of an arroyo, so restored our strength and sanity that we were able to shoot some of the wild animals that sought it also. Sometimes it was a bear, sometimes an antelope, a coyote, a cougar—that was as God pleased, all were food. ‘‘Qne morning as we skirted a mountain range, seeking a practicable pass, we were attacked by a band of Apaches who had fol- lowed our trail up a gulch—it is not far from here. Knowing that they outnumbered us ten to one, they took none of their usual cowardly precautions, but dashed upon us at a gallop, firing and yelling. Fighting was out of the question; we urged our feeble animals up the gulch as far as there was foot- ing for a hoof, then threw ourselves out of our saddles and took to the chaparral on one of the slopes, abandoning our entire outfit to the enemy. But we retained our rifles, every man—Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. Kent, and Berry Davis.” ‘‘Same old crowd,” said the humorist of our party. He was an Eastern man, un- familiar with the decent observances of social intercourse. A gesture of disapproval from our leader silenced him, and the stranger proceeded with his tale: “The savages dismounted also, and some of them ran up the gulch beyond the point at which we had left it, cutting off further re- treat in that direction and forcing us on up ‘© FORGIVE US OUR SINS,’ SAID THEY”

Page 115

the side. Unfortunately the chaparral ex- tended only a short distance up the slope, and as we came into the open ground above we took the fire of a dozen rifles; but Apaches shoot badly when in a hurry, and God so willed it that none of us fell. Twenty yards up the slope, beyond the edge of the bush, were vertical cliffs, in which, directly in front of us, Was a narrow opening. Into that we ran, finding ourselves in a cavern about as large aS an or- dinary room in a house. Here, for a time, we were safe: a single man with a repeating rifle could defend the entrance against all the Apaches in the land. But against hunger and thirst we had no defense. Courage we still had, but hope was a memory. “Not one of those Indians did we after- ward see, but by the smoke and glare of their fires in the gulch we knew that by day and by night they watched with ready rifles in the edge of the bush—knew that if we made a sortie not a man of us would live to take two steps into the open. For three days, watching in turn, we held out before our suffering became insup- portable. Then—it was the morning of the fourth day—Ramon Gallegos said: “**Sefiores, I know not well of the good God and what please him. I have live without re- ligion, and I am not acquaint with that of you. Pardon, sefiores, if I shock you, but for me the time is come to beat the game of the Apache.’ : “He knelt upon the rock floor of the cave and pressed his pistol against his temple. ‘Madre de Dios,’ he said, ‘comes now the soul of Ramon Gallegos.’ ‘* AND YOU,’’ HE SHOUTED, Ambrose Bierce ‘ ‘‘ And so he left us—William Shaw, George W. Kent, and Berry Davis. “‘T was the leader: it was for me to speak. ‘He was a brave man,’ I said; ‘he knew when to die, and how. It is foolish to go mad from thirst and fall by Apache bullets, or be skinned alive—it is in bad taste. Let us join Ramon.’ “That is right,’ said William Shaw. ““*That is right,’ said George W. Kent. “T straight- ened the limbs of Ramon Gal- legos and put a handkerchief over his face. Then William Shaw said, ‘I should like to look like that— a little while.’ And George W. Kent said that he felt that way, too. ‘““*Tt shall be so,’ I said; ‘the red devils will wait a week. William Shaw and George W. Kent, draw and kneel.’ “They did so and I stood be- fore them. ‘AI- mighty God, our Father,’ said I. “*Almighty God, our Fa- ther,’ said Wil- liam Shaw and George W. Kent. ‘Forgive us our sins,’ said I. ‘Forgive us our sins,’ said they. ‘And receive our souls.’ ‘** And receive our souls.’ “** Amen!’ “** Amen!’ “T laid them beside Ramon Gallegos and covered their faces.” There was a quick commotion on the op- posite side of the camp-fire; one of our party had sprung to his feet, pistol in hand. “And you,” he shouted, ‘‘you dared to escape? You dare to be alive? You cowardly hound, I’ll send you to join them if I hang for it!” ‘ TO ESCAPE?” VC DARED

Page 116

354 The Birthright But with the leap of a panther the captain was upon him, grasping his wrist. ‘‘ Hold it in, Sam Yountsey, hold it in!” We were now all upon our feet, except the stranger, who sat motionless and apparently inattentive. Some one seized Yountsey’s other arm. “Captain,” I said, ‘‘there is something wrong here. This fellow is either a lunatic or merely a liar—just a plain every-day liar whom Yountsey has no call to kill. If this man was of that party it had five members, one of whom—probably himself—he has not named.” “Yes,” said the captain, releasing the in- surgent, who sat down, “there is something unusual. Years ago four dead bodies of white men, scalped and shamefully muti- lated, were found about the mouth of that cave. They are buried there; I have seen the graves—we shall all see them to-morrow.”’ The stranger rose, standing tall in the light of the expiring fire, which in our breathless attention to his story we had neglected to keep going. “There were four,” he said—‘Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. Kent, © and Berry Davis.” With this reiterated roll-call of the dead he walked into the darkness, and we saw him no more. At that moment one of our party, who had been on guard, strode in among us, rifle in hand and somewhat excited. ‘‘ Captain,” he said, ‘‘for the last half-hour three men have © been standing out there on the mesa.” He pointed in the direction taken by the stranger. “‘T could see them distinctly, for the moon is up, but as they had no guns and I had them covered with mine I thought it was their move. They have made none, but, damn it! they have got on to my nerves. ” “Go back to your post, and stay till you see them again,” said the captain. ‘‘ The rest of you lie down, or I’ll kick you all into the fire.” The sentinel obediently withdrew, swear- ing. As we were arranging our blankets the fiery Yountsey said, “‘T beg your pardon, Captain, but who the devil do you take them to be?” “Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, and George W. Kent.” “But how about Berry Davis? I ought to have plugged him.” “Quite needless; you couldn’t have made him any deader. Go to sleep.” The Birthright By Theodosia Garrison Gop made my soul for a singing thing, A thing to laugh and to play, Then gave me my stand in a weary land Where none keeps holiday. Above me ever the biting lash For the hand that fain would swerve, And the endless toil to deaden and soil The soul that needs must serve. But my birthright still is mine, is mine, And I shall not lose it quite, In this bitter mill that is never still The day long or the night. Yet I think God promised more than this When he made my soul alive, Than to sing my song when the task is long And laugh the while I strive.

Page 117

In Darkest Africa By Rudolph Dirks

Page 118

Page 119

Page 120

Page 121

HE MOST IMPORTANT ANNIVERSARY of the year will be the centenary of Abra- ham Lincoln’s birth, February 12, re- calling, as it does, the issues and incidents connected with the life and career of the greatest American of the nineteenth century. All of this will doubtless be much written about and from many points of view. The next issue of the CosMopoLITAN—ready February 1—will contain two features vastly distinguished from other material on the subject by their standpoint and treatment. President-elect Taft contributes a valuable estimate of Lincoln the Man, and Henry Watterson, probably the most prominent American now living who came into close contact with Mr. Lincoln, has written a re- markable appreciation of the Martyr Presi- dent. In the most reverent spirit Mr. Wat- terson approaches his subject. “With respect to Abraham Lincoln,” he writes in his introduction, “‘I, here, as a Southern man and a Confederate soldier, render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, even as I would render unto God the things that are God’s.” Carefully and judicially he takes up the issues that divided the North and the South, and shows how the course of him who received the brunt of the conflict -was ever marked by the highest sense of justice and far-reaching statesman- ship. Mr. Watterson’s words are a true message from the New South to the entire nation, and no patriotic American should fail to read what he has to say. There is a place for this article in the already voluminous lit- erature upon Lincoln. It will panied by a portrait never before reproduced and other interesting illustrations. NoT sO MANY YEARS AGO it might have been said that the American public had ab- solutely no knowledge of certain great works of art. The immortal masterpieces of paint- ing, sculpture, architecture, and poetry were familiar through pictures and printings, but not the sublime creations of musical genius. How many people would recognize a sym- phony by Beethoven, Mozart, or Schumann ? This lamentable condition of affairs is now greatly improved, thanks to extraordinary progress in the establishment of grand or- Magazine Shop-~ Talk be accom-: Charles Edward Russell describes this movement in a comprehensive article, “‘The Grand Or- chestras throughout the country. chestra in America,” in the March Cosmo- POLITAN. New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Pittsburg, St. Paul, Minneapolis, New Haven, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and Seattle are among the cities which possess permanent orchestras, and by visits of these organizations to other towns the opportunities of hearing symphonic music are now most widely given to the American public. Mr. Russell’s article will be accompanied by an interesting collection of pictures relating to the development of the orchestra in this country. Mr. SULLY’s article, ‘‘King Cotton’s Im- poverished Retinue,” in the present issue cannot help being profoundly interesting to every reader. What the monopoly of cotton- growing means to our nation, and how we neglect it, has never been so strongly put before. In the March Cosmopo.iran he will show how it is that cotton is exported and manufactured abroad, and how the re- turned finished product undersells the out- put of the American mills. And after that he is going to give the remedy for this state of affairs—one of the most vital economic matters before the country to-day. Don’t fail to read and ponder what Mr. Sully has to say. It means more than you think to the American nation. THE RETURN of our great fleet from its around-the-world voyage in February will be an event of much interest. Richard Barry, who accompanied the squadron for the Cos- MOPOLITAN, contributes to the March num- ber a lively descriptive article, ‘One Night with the Big Fleet,” splendidly illustrated by William R. Leigh. ‘“‘PassERS-By”’ is concluded in the March issue and will be directly followed with a re- markable new novel, ‘‘ Craighead,” by Her- bert Quick. The story will speak for itself. One has but to read the opening chapters to realize what an unusual treat is in store. We'll stake our guarantee for the most unique story of the coming year on that first instalment.

Page 122

Small Contributions By Ambrose Bierce The Writer Folk N BRANDING AS “FAKERS”’ such eminent personages as Sir Gilbert Parker, Jack London, Rex Beach, Rudyard Kipling, Richard Harding Davis, and others who “lay their scenes” in Canada, Mr. Arthur Stringer (who ives in Canada) seems to have effected a successful round-up. The roping and throwing are right neatly done, the smell of the burning flesh as- the iron executes its little prank is grateful to the nostril of the olfactor, and all is well except the smarting maverick. It is a good day’s work. In “THE WHEELS oF TIME” Mrs. Flor- ence Barclay has, it appears, pictured “two persons in love with each other”—a theme not new enough to take attention—one of whom “is really a great deal better than she seems.” Every woman is, I trust, that way, as Wagner’s music was said by the late Bill Nye to be “better than it sounds.” Still, if one is not looking for originality Mrs. Barclay’s book may be what one is looking for. ONE WEEK’S ouTPuT by a leading publish- ing house was twelve books; another pub- lished six in one day. There are fifty-two weeks in a year, and three hundred and sixty-five days. Now, suppose that we have thirty leading publishing houses and one of the other kind. If satisfied. with the factors of the problem, as given (somewhat distrust- fully), the person who “reads all the new books” can make his own calculation of the number that he reads. Ir Mr. THomas E. Watson would stop running for the presidency at briefer intervals and for longer periods, and give the time so saved to writing more such books as “ Water- loo,” he would reach the White House quite as soon and in better condition. It is a dis- tinct loss to literature that the space between him and Washington is his line of least re- luctance. 360 THE LATE JOSIAH FLynt’s autobiography, “My Life,” is of course largely devoted to the author’s study of the “underworld” as a spurious tramp—at least I suppose it is; it naturally would be. Flynt’s point of view was different from that of Jack London, who lived the under-life as one to the manner born, who dwelt among tramps because he be- longed among them, and who _ belongs among them yet. In one way Flynt had the advantage: he studied at the time when he saw; whereas London, until long after- ward, did not think of studying at all. He lived the life because it was congenial to his mind and heart, and left it only in obedience to the call of the pocket. So he observes with his memory and takes dictation from his bank-account. After all, it does not greatly matter what is written about tramps, except in the statutes and ordinances. Wiru A “ DevIL” in every third theater it is in course of nature that the literature of protest should be copious and clamorous. They are concerned for our morals, the authors of this hortatory flow: to go to the theater and learn that the devil is wicked will make us as wicked as the devil. I trow not. Barring actual, visible salacity, I think that the stage can do no harm. Its “lessons” amount to nothing; it is not a “teacher” of anything but acting. The mimetic “triumph of vice over virtue” per- suades no one to be vicious—nor vice versa. An audience seeing a play has no thought of what it “teaches”—does not think whether it teaches anything. That element of the entertainment is coldly furnished forth after- ward by the critics, winning the assent of in- difference—which assents to anything. On the whole, it seems that trepid writer folk might advantageously spare themselves much concern about public morals and. let the actor folk amuse us in pretty much their own way. Still, it would be something of a shock to the actor folk to learn that we are not looking to them for instruction in the art of being good. 24

Page 123

— 2 oe