 CHAPTER 7 The Caxton Dining Room Hal Fenton, met Bell Charmy in a second time, was entertained by two professional beauties, became a hero, and secured his car fare. John Fenton did not forebear Castica Glantz had himself in the narrow mirror as he descended the elevator. The gray tweed suit fitted him miraculously, and it bore the cut of a good tailor. The change of costume excited him deliciously. He felt ready now for a new adventure, ready to play a courageous part. He fingered the fine, soft wool with surreptitious delight. He set the brown derby hat at a careless angle on the back of his head. He flattered himself that he knew how to wear clothes and was not averse to showing himself in this spotless, well-pressed costume in the lobby of the hotel. Mrs. Elkhurst's narrative had steadied him, but he was still young and full of the joy of life. The touch of vanity in him only gave him a trace of boyishness. He plunged into the aromatic maze of feathers, silks, and furs that throng the lobby. With his head erect, he was as good as anybody. He wove jauntly in and out between the ladies and gentlemen in evening-dress that crowded the corridors, caught glimpses of merry diners, kindled to the strains of an orchestra, drinking in the atmosphere of wealth and pleasure. Then round a corner came Bel-Sharmian. It was as sudden as that. She gave him a quick look and paused. He got, as an impression of her, only two soft, hazel eyes glancing humorously at him, and the smooth shadows of black-linked spurs. He came to a stop to gaze at her, and she suddenly turned. I beg pardon, she said, but aren't you? Then she blushed vividly. Oh, I beg your pardon, she added hastily. I thought you were—someone else. She cast down her eyes, confused, and walked hurriedly away. John Fenton turned and stared after her, his heart beating. What new mystery was this that brought his dream girl to him, face to face, that made her pause, speak only to hasten away? For a moment he was inclined to start after her. But already she was lost in the crowd. He had a second time. Let his opportunity slip away from him. Who was she? For whom had she taken him? What had she wished to say? Bel-Sharmian. Too much excited by the encounter to enjoy the scene any longer. He went out the revolving door and turned west at 59th Street toward Columbus Circle, making for the subway. He was halfway across Seventh Avenue before his mind, wandering from Bel-Sharmian for an instant, lit upon the subject of car fare. Eagerly he went through the pockets of the gray tweed suit. Not a dime, nickel, or penny did he find. Nothing save a quill, toothpick, and a leaf from the wrapper of a wheeling stogie. He had dallyed too long at the plaza. Already the lady of the ruby necklace must have left for the train to Philadelphia. From 59th Street to Wall Street is five hard, weary miles. To walk it would take an hour and a half at least. If he could not think of some way to raise at least five cents, his adventure would conclude in nothing more exciting than a midnight tramp to a lonely bed there to vanish in misty dreams of what might have been. He turned down Seventh Avenue therefore, as wits working at the problem, keeping his eyes open the while for any possible answer to it which might casually approach him. But Seventh Avenue was almost free of wayfarers. A policeman regarded him with an icy eye. He passed a flushed youth, saying good-bye to a pretty girl with an eighty-five dollar hat. He passed a small hoard of waiting conductors and motormen at the car-barns. In none of these did he find the answer to his riddle. Passed the blinking electric signs heralding the glad fact that H&L corsets make the female form divine. Passed theatres just ready to belch forth their victims. John Fenton, betweeted and anxious, strolled. He was thinking, thinking. Not a bell sharmian or Mrs. Elkhurst now, not of the octaroon or the liars, but of the one elusive nickel he needed for car fare to carry him further on this Arabian night's entertainment. He came to the hotel Caxton and paused. Here he was at the center of New York's nightlife, the halfway station of Gay Rounders, one of the lighthouses of Longacre Square, one of the many palaces of oysters, lobsters, and champagne. Fenton was a sober enough youth. He knew this aspect of the metropolis mainly through the newspapers, but he was stimulated by feeling that he was now in the locus of lively things. In a minute a rush of theater goers was upon him, and he was swept along, hardly knowing why he entered the Caxton and stood in the lobby to devise some plan. He wondered how confidence men worked their games. He knew that in this part of the city clever wits were as good as ready money. How could he work it? But there was little need for Fenton's solicitude. Fate had him in hand that night, and there in the lobby of the hotel, two lovely ladies had already marked him for their own. They might have posed as night and day, so brilliantly were they contrasted. One was a sparkling brunette, black of hair and eye, red of cheek, vivacious, radiant, most gorgeously alive. The other was a super-blonde. Her hair, sportive in ringlets, charmingly careless, was shaded from gold to silver. Her eyes were violets. She was the sunny, langorous type, passive, yet more compelling than she of the dark, darkened eye. Fenton, at his first glance at her, knew that hundreds of men must have been inflamed by her beauty. In it there was little subtlety. It was a highwayman beauty. It cried, hands up. The other, the brunette, was, however, something more than pretty. One looked twice and found something new to admire. Her attraction had depths one longed to penetrate. They stood these two, attired in furs and feathers, silks and lace, waiting by the door of the dining-room, and looked at him. Fenton felt something extraordinary in their glance. It was suspiciously friendly. When they smiled and nodded at him he felt uncomfortable. Their beauty was something too dangerous, and he walked uneasily away. In a moment, however, a haul-boy overtook him. Fenton was informed that the two ladies wished to speak with him. So, amazed at the honour and wondering what new trick was now to be turned, he walked over to them and lifted the brown derby. The brunette's black eyes sparkled, and she showed her pretty teeth as she held out a white-gloved hand. Say, kid, you ain't going to cut an old friend, are you? Don't do anything like that. Fenton mumbled a kind of blurred apology. Why, I believe you don't remember me, she complained. The blond's lip curled in a faint smile. She shrugged her fur-clad shoulders and looked away. Where was it I saw you? said Fenton puzzled, fishing for some hint that would give him his cue. The brunette laughed merrily. The last time I see you, you was hanging to the ropes when Jack Ketchel was given the decision. No wonder you forgot me. The blonde looked dreamily off toward the theatre-office desk. She seemed to be in a world of her own. Fenton realised that the mistake was sincere. He had evidently been taken for some pugilist with whom the brunette had had a passing acquaintance. The question was, who was he? He searched his memory for the name of Jack Ketchel's unfortunate opponent. No answer. The only knowledge Fenton had of current fistic events was derived from the smart talk of a precocious office-boy at the drafting-room. Still, any port was good in a storm, and Fenton thought he might turn the mistake to his advantage in some way. Perhaps these two beauties would pilot him out of his straits. He grinned his best, therefore, and shifted his feet. So you was at the fight, he asked. Then it occurred to him that the part of pugilist needed more colour. He emulated the tough office-boy and his talk. Say, he said, getting into the swing of it. Say, was you wise to the fact that I fit them last three rounds with a broke thumb? Look at there! He held out his right hand, and wiggled the thumb trickily. The brunette felt a bit daintily. What you expect I could do with a pin like that, he asked triumphantly. I thought you was a little off your feed, the brunette said. I was overtrained. Too fine, said Fenton. Next time I'll get him, and I'll get him good. Then hoping to discover his name by the ruse, he asked. Say, give me a knock-down to your friend, Miss Peach Alamelba. The blonde, so designated, turned her head, and seemed to approach slowly, from miles away. Her smile was but a shadow, as she looked at him, as if for the first time conscious of his presence. Miss Diamond, said the brunette, shake hands with Wack Harrison, ex-Middlewhite champion of the U.S. She turned to Fenton. Is that right, Wack? Fenton was thus much relieved. He at least knew his name. How long he could maintain the impersonation was another matter. It was a parlous roll. The blonde, named Diamond, extended her fingers. Fenton thought it not out of character to squeeze them with a nutcracker grip. It might at least bring the yellow-haired girl to life. It did. Gee, she exclaimed, shaking her hand in pain. You must think you're shaking with Kilgore before a fight. That ain't no way to shake hands with a lady. She tossed up her head in scorn. That's right, said Fenton. But you see, when I do make connections with a wonder-worker like you, it's hard work breaking away from the clinch. I guessed you hypnotized me for fair. I ain't used to gold queens much. Sort of takes my breath away, and I act foolish. The blonde could not help smiling, and the ice was broken. Fenton began to wonder what the Brunette's name was, and how to find out. When Miss Diamond herself supplied the information, she elevated her golden eyebrows and said, Say, Millie, how about the eats? I'm all in. That's right, said the Brunette. Wack, we was just going in to dissect a lobster and do a little drown in the fizz. Won't you be among them present? Her black eyes tore through him. Fenton was conscious that everyone in the hotel lobby was staring at them. Sure thing, he said, and then added, Commandingly, that is, if you eat on me. Nothing like that in my family, said Millie Galey. I just drew my alimony. I'm just padded with greenbacks. None of that suffragette stuff, said Fenton sternly, keenly conscious that he could not pay for a postage stamp. Don't you get gay, boy-o? Don't you know I invited you? Be good now, and come on in. Well we'll settle it later, said Fenton, and threw all responsibility to the winds, leading the way to a table. He threw out his chest and his elbows as he walked, strutting as nearly like the pictures he had seen in puck as he could do it. Oh, if he had only listened more carefully to that office-boy. As they sat down, everyone in the restaurant turned to look at the party. Was it on account of the miraculous blonde? She would have attracted attention in a herd of angels. Was it on account of the saucily pretty brunette, the dainty devil in petticoats with her flashing eyes? No. Fenton realized, with a sudden pang of alarm, that they had turned to stare at Whack Harrison, the ex-Walterweight champion of America. The responsibility of his role almost overcame him. If he were to act the Pugilist, there might be deeds as well as words required. Who could tell what turn of the wheel might force him to make good with his fists? Such hero-worship as that with which the two ladies flattered him might be a bit too dangerous. He had never had a real out-and-out fight in his life. Lo, he had swaggered into the hotel full of cheek and confidence. Already the admiration he had so vicariously received had made him three parts a-coward. Would he have to make his exit in an ambulance? Say, Whack, said Millie, leaning to him confidentially. Do you know why I wanted to see you so bad? I'll put you wise. There's a fresh little crab out there in the lobby that's been getting too gay with us girls all together. Do you mind going out there a minute and stroking him just one jab for luck? Fenton's stomach flattened with fear. Miss Diamond turned her violet eyes upon him. He could scarcely bear to look at her. Hand him one for me, Mr. Harrison, she said dreamily, and smiled a bewitching smile. I won't have no appetite till I know he's good and lame. Who is he, Fenton inquired, trying to keep his knees from knocking together? That's him now, Millie pointed to a man standing in the narrow doorway. He had an evil face. Fenton estimated his weight at over two hundred pounds. It's Billy Presto, you know, Whack, lightning O'Donnell's sparring partner. Lord, you can eat him up. Don't be long, and she sped him to his doom with a flashing smile. Fenton rose and walked out, trembling all over. His only coherent idea was to make a quick escape. The cloakroom boy had taken his hat, but he would forgo that. He would escape out the side entrance. He had indeed already hurriedly started that way. When Mr. Presto approached him and slapped a heavy hand upon his shoulder. Hello, Whack, he said. How goes it? Have a cigar. Fenton's wits buzzed. Say, I was just looking for you, Presto, he said. There was a couple of swell skirts round here looking for you, a half an hour ago. Oh, is that so? Who were they? Presto was immediately intrigued. In a limousine car they were. A little one, and a bigger one. Nectarenes. Fenton improvised. Crazy to find you, but wouldn't tell their names. Said if I see you to say, they'd wait for you at the Cafe Martin, important. Fenton gazed with a fine air of candor at Billy Presto, but ready to jump away from his fist at the first sign of incredulity. The scheme worked. Thanks, old man. Bye-bye, I'll skip right down there, and Mr. Presto had gone. Fenton returned to the dining room a little faint and wobbly. Well, I threw a good scare into him, he explained as he sat down. I guess he won't try to do no more goo-goo work round here for one while. What do you want to eat, Millie? Oh, we've ordered. Millie looked at him admiringly. Say, you're a whiz, she commented. Now, if that guy over at that table there don't try any cute business on me, we can have supper. Where is he? Fenton demanded. Now, Millie, we don't want no fuss here, said Miss Diamond. Millie subsided, but was pleased. Fenton's appetite was gone. With every fond look his companions lavished upon him, he became more craven. Well, he must at least put on a front. He cuddled his brain from memories of the office boy's talk. When are you going to meet Jake Kilgore again? Millie asked him. Next month, I guess. Say, you leave it to me this time. I'm going to train on nitric acid and iron filings, and live rats. Take it from me, girl. I'll make him think of home and mother before the first round is over. When I unhook my right and connect with his dial, he'll act like a ferry boat with a boy captain in a smoky fog. Say, did you ever see a mogul locomotive run over a pin? That's me and Kilgore. I'm the choo-choo, see. Why, he'll be a royal steward plaid all over when I finish. At this moment the waiter, pouring Millie's champagne, hit the chair with his elbow, and the wine spilled in Millie's lap. She gave a cry of anger and began to mop her skirt with her napkin. Fenton turned pale. Must he kill the waiter? He jumped up and looked wildly about him, for an escape. Miss Diamond put a fairy hand upon his arm. Oh, don't make a fuss, Mr. Harrison, she besought. I'll smash him into a biscuit-tartone, he roared. Millie laughed. Oh, whack! Really it was my fault. Don't hurt him. Fenton heaved a sigh of relief, sat down, glowering. And the waiter made bold to approach and tender his apologetic services. It was a narrow escape. If I'd unloosed that larry-at-wallop of mine, said Fenton deliberately, glowering at the unfortunate waiter, I'd have cut his head off just like slicing an apple. But good Lord, what's the use of mutilating a swede? It would must me all up. He turned modestly to his oysters. My but your savage, murmured the blonde. And she looked at him in a dreamy rhapsody that made Fenton turn his eyes away, for fear of being hypnotized. Yes, she was too beautiful. She made him feel weak. A dozen admiring sentences rose to his lips. But he knew so well she had heard them all before, that he would not speak them. He turned to Millie, better able to compete with her sprightly smile. It stimulated him. She plied him with questions. She was curious as to everything connected with his supposititious profession. Between her catechism and Miss Diamond's ravishing smiles, Fenton found it hard to keep his head. His fictions grew wilder. He narrated impossible battles in the squared ring. He professed to know everyone they mentioned, and indulged in fanciful flights of biography. But all the while he was waiting for his bluff to be called. His exposure was momentarily imminent. He was aroused from these forebodings by the sight of a colossal man standing in the doorway, looking over the throng. He was a human mastodon with a sour and ugly look that made Fenton's flesh creep on his bones. The man's face was battered and crooked. He had the jaw of a bulldog. To Fenton's horror, he looked over at the ladies and scowled, meaningly. My God, said Milly, it's Jim. What'll we do? He'll be terrible jealous. Oh, whack! You will protect me, won't you? She laid her hand on Fenton's with a quick convulsive grasp. Even Miss Diamond awakened from her dreamy pose. He'll make a fuss, sure. Oh, Mr. Harrison, don't hit him. We'd better get away quick. Her eyes shot blue sparks now. She was wide awake and without coquetry. Fenton trembled. He half arose to fly, but was held by Milly's eager hand. The man stalked sullenly over to the table. See here what the devil does this mean, Milly. I thought you was a goon to eat with me. His voice thundered. All eyes in the room turned to him. Milly was too frightened to speak. So, for that matter, was Miss Fenton. Who is this little shrimp anyway, the stranger demanded? Say, young fellow, you'd better light out before I kick you out. Fenton jumped up and looked about, ready to dodge the first blow. What's that you called me, he demanded? With what belligerency he could muster? His heart was in his mouth. For God's sake, whack! Don't hit him. Don't make a scene. It was the violet-eyed blonde who screamed. Hit me, the big man, he jackulated. While I'll make mashed potatoes of him in three minutes, if he don't get out of here. Milly shrieked. Don't you touch him, Jim. He'll kill you if he turns himself loose. Why, it's whack, Harrison, you fool. The big man stared. At that minute a waiter came by with an armful of dishes, looking the other way. Smash! He charged full tilt into Fenton's back. Fenton fell forward toward Jim and put out his hands to save himself. At the same instant a fat German with a napkin tucked into his collar, who was stolidly cutting a dill pickle at the next table, punctured the rind and the juice gushed forth. The two accidents were exactly timed. Fenton's outstretched hands fell hard on the big man's chest, and a stream of brine hit Jim in the right eye. He stumbled, fell backward, wildly waving his hands. All over the room spectators shouted and rose to their feet to witness the fray. The head waiter came running up. Fenton too had fallen and fallen upon his prostrate foe. His companions mingled their shrieks with those of the crowd. Don't let him get at him, he'll murder him, the girls entreated. If he gets mad he'll beat him to pieces. He's whack, Harrison. Fenton hardly knew what had happened before three waiters pulled him off Jim's supine body. They raised him respectfully, however, anxiously protecting themselves from his rage. The head waiter came up to him and tried to calm Fenton down. Apologized, promised no further annoyance, protested his own regrets, and then majestically ordered the stranger to be removed from the room. Angry as a trapped gorilla, shouting out hideous oaths, Jim struggled against some seven or eight waiters and guests. The war raged all the way to the door of the dining-room, where the porters took a hand. There the house detective had already telephoned for the police. The lobby was filled with struggleers and profanity, till the law arrived and two stalwart officers hustled the unfortunate man into the patrol wagon. Then the guests who had left their tables to watch the riot returned, gossiping and laughing, to the café. Men stared at Fenton in awe. Ladies gazed at him and talked under their breaths. It took some time for the confusion to simmer down in order to be restored. All this while Fenton sat, proudly staring at vacancy with a forced smile upon his lips. The talk around him buzzed of uppercuts and hooks, punches, wallops, and knockouts. The blonde, timidly, put the question that was agitating the whole room. What was that punch you gave him, Mr. Harrison? She inquired, with the love-light in her melting violet eyes. Fenton considered it a leisure. Oh, that smash? That was a new one, my own invention. I call it the straight-arm double-dill jab. It's got the corkscrew to the solar plexus beaten to a whisper. You work it like this. And Fenton illustrated a complicated evolution, with his left fist directed against a champagne bottle. What are you doing now, Fenton asked, as the supper proceeded. So far he knew little of his companions. And if he was to get help from them, he must make haste. The girl in red, said Millie, ain't you been to see the show yet? Fenton confessed his ignorance of the play. I'm wearing twelve thousand dollars worth of costume, said Miss Diamond. Four changes. You ought to come. It was then Fenton disclosed the full depths of his innocence. What part do you play, he asked? The ladies screamed with mirth. Play a part. That's good. Say, whack. Do we look foolish enough to spend our time learning lines? With our shape? What's the use of being a perfect thirty-six? Forget it. You can always get girls to work for a living. We're clothes horses. Why, kid, do you really think we could keep motorcars? And wear genuine blue fox if we had to bark, mew, and bray when a dub-stage manager told us? Not on your mesotint. Oh, said Fenton edified. Then your showgirls. Professional beauties, murmured Miss Diamond. We're what men buy opera glasses for. But I had no idea showgirls got such good salaries. The girls looked at each other, shook their heads, and then smiled at their interlocutor. Millie padded Fenton's hand. Say, kid, you may be all right with your ring tactics, but you never ought to be caught thinking in public. When these ladies present. Eighteen a week is our regular pay. The rest is perquisites. Oh, I got a trade, too. Ever traveled on the subway? Miss Diamond added. I'm the lady with after-dinner gumdrops. On a three-sheet. That's right. Also, the PD's slick overshoes. And the oh, I want some beer. She yawned and tapped her red lips the while, as if she were playing a tune. I say, Millie, did you read in the paper where Janie Davis had made a horrible punch in London? Sure, she's starring. What do you think of that? Why, I knew her when she was an extra girl, too. She was a freak for fear. Did I ever tell you about her in Mansfield? Miss Diamond shook her head disinterestedly. But as Fenton politely professed a desire to hear, Millie took a final sip of champagne, and began the story. The girl who knew Mansfield. Yes, her real name was Jane Davis. Ain't that a scream? For heaven's sake, what's the use of going on the stage if you can't beat the label you had when you lived back in Baraboo? When I asked her about it, she only said, Why, that's my mother's name, and I guess if it's good enough for her, it's good enough for me. Then she looked at me with her big, hungry brown eyes, like a little kid on the corner, watching a hokey-pokey cart. She certainly was a queer one, never had no use for men, and not much for women either, at least not them and the company. She used to sit around in corners, watching the rehearsals, while the bunch was carrying on and having fun. She used to talk queer too, never was up to date at all, couldn't jolly up for a cent. Remember how we used to guy her for saying, Not having had, and were it not that. Why, she couldn't understand our slang half the time. Sort of country, you know, talked like a reading book. That was when we was in the Sinfire Company. My name then was Gloria Moyle, and I was just out of the bunch, in the chorus trying to get solid with the stage manager. Jane Davis was drawing twelve a week. She had one line in the third act. She lived with her mother in one room, way over on East Nineteenth Street. Well, say she was hard up all right. Believe me, she used to walk all over New York barefoot. Do you know what I mean? She had what looked like shoes, but they want nothing really but a pair of uppers. The souls were wore clear through, and so was her stockings. I give her an old pair of rubbers one day, and she wore them regular after that. The girls used to guy her about it something fierce. Hard up, you bet. Didn't I tell you her mother had rheumatic fever? That's right. The landlady put her out of the house once. She groaned so loud when she was took bad. A course it cost Jane about all she could hold out for doctors and medicines and all that. Twelve dollars don't go far. Nobody in the company ever thought Jane was anything more than a fool. You see, she was so queer, and she'd never make up to men or anything. She wasn't pretty, but Lord, she could have grafted all the free eggs she wanted, if she'd just thrown a grin or two round. Plenty of the boys would have staked her to an eat. But no, nothing doing with Janey. Strictly on the prim. She had straight black hair that she wore funny, not a blessed rat in it. A freak-style of her own. Say, it was a scream. She did have pretty hands, though. And that was a funny thing, too. She could almost talk with them. Her mouth was just like a baby's. Sort of trembling and changing all the time. Always different, you know how a kid's face works. No repose. All the same when Janey Davis got mad. Believe me, then she was a devil. She could just make the chills crawl up and down your back. But you'd never believe it to see her sitting in a corner reading a book. You could almost tell what the story was just by watching her face. Now what was I going to tell you? Oh yes, about Mansfield. Why, a gentleman friend of mine, Dusty McIntyre it was, him and me was pretty thick that year. He gave me a couple of seats for Mansfield at the New Amsterdam one day. He got him off one of the stage managers. You know how Mansfield used to carry around about 27 different varieties of them. Of course, I naturally didn't go much on that highbrow stuff like pure gint. And I was sore the past wasn't for the follies of 1907. But Janey was in the dressing room when I got a piece of a burnt match in my eye. And she took it out for me after everybody else wouldn't do it. And so I asked her, did she want to go? Say, you ought to seen that girl. She was as excited as if Rockefeller had asked her to get married. So we went. Believe me, I near went to sleep in the theatre. The show didn't have no ginger in it. Slow. Well, you take it from me. If that girl had just come into town from southwestern Missouri, she couldn't have acted more like a fool. She didn't hardly speak only just twice in the whole show. In the first act, you know, where pure gint comes on like a 14-year-old boy and lays down on the stage and kicks up his heels, Janey turned round and looks at me with her big brown eyes. And she whispers, who's that? I says, why, that's Mansfield, you little J. Oh, she says, I thought he was a man. Lord, how she stared. Then in a minute, what does she do but begin to cry? Can you beat it? There he was, as funny as a kitten with a catnip ball, doing kid stunts so you'd split laughing. And Janey, blubbering away for fairer. Didn't I tell you she was queer? I never got another word out of the girl, till the last act. You know, where they had that auction scene and Mansfield comes on as an old man. Then Janey asks me again, just like before, she says, Who's that? I says, ain't you got a program or what? That's Mansfield, of course. Who else would it be? Clyde Fitch? And then she begins to cry again, soft to herself. I sat and watched the tears drip down her face like a leaky hot water bag. She certainly was a fool. Well, we blew into Rikers to have a pistache soda, after the show, and I just asked her what she was crying at. She says, Oh, he made me see all sorts of things that want on the stage, at all. I thought I was somewhere else, she says. What do you think of that? What's the theatre for, anyway? It's to show the act to the author wants showed, and that's all. Ain't that right? But I couldn't make Janey see it that way. Would you think a yap like her could ever act? Well, next noon I run down to her room to get her to put a touch on a hat I'd just bought. I'd paid $18 for it. But it won't quite right. Janey had a way of pulling ribbons round so you'd swear a hat was just imported. Clever she was, too, in a way. Aught really to have been a milliner. Her mother was in bed as usual, groaning away something fierce, and Janey was writing on an old brown paper bag, ironed out flat. I offered to give her some paper, but no, she wouldn't never take nothing from nobody. I asked her what it was, and she looked up kind of queer, and she said she was writing a letter to Mr. Mansfield. Can you beat it? Mashed. And him, getting his thousands a week. What are you writing to him, I says? She smiled awful queer, and she says, I'm telling him something I'll bet nobody has ever told him before, she says. I know a lot of things about him nobody knows, she says. Well, that got me mad. Didn't she have a nerve? Nothing but an extra girl, practically, at twelve a week, and him a star. I was paralyzed. If you know all that, I says, it's a wonder you ain't starring yourself. And she says, There's another day coming, she says, and I'll have my chance yet. She made me sick. Just one line was all she had in the production, why she never even had her name on the program. Mine was in, with the butterflies and Patagonian peasants, and the Mary Marys, three times in all. You may not believe it, but about a week after that, she come into our dressing room and says, See here, I want to show you something. What do you think? She sure had a photograph of Richard Mansfield, with his name and some writing on it, too. What is it, Latin, I says? No, says Janie. It's French. I asked her what did it say, and she smiled and said, You wouldn't understand, Moyle, but it's something like, Look inside. Well, I certainly didn't understand, all right, nor I don't yet, and I doubt if she did. I suppose Mansfield only sent it to her just for a cod. Say it was funny, though. When you come to think of it, want it. Why Mansfield was a holy horror. Everybody knows that. Nobody could ever get along with him. Women or men. Why, his people used to leave him every week. He used to fire about twenty every night, and then take him back. What in the world do you figure he sent Janie that photo for? It beats me. Anyway, Janie was tickled to death with it. You'd think it was a doll. She used to carry it round with her all the time. One time Flora Dora Billingsgate found it and drawed a moustache on it with grease paint, and say, wasn't Janie mad? She snatched up a pair of scissors and went at flow like a Rocky Mountain Wildcat, and the girls had to pull her off. That was just before Janie was put into the cast. We never knew how she made that jump. Some said she had money left her, and bought the part. But I know better. Janie never had a scent in them days. I expect she wasn't quite as country as she looked, after all, and worked the manager. She couldn't act, anyway. Lord, didn't I know her when she was an extra woman? The idea. I guess I know something about the stage. Why, Janie actually had an idea that it didn't matter where you put your feet or your hands. Now anybody who's ever been to a dramatic school knows when you put out your right hand, you have to put out your right foot, and a lot of rules like that. And Janie couldn't read a line right to save herself. It sounded just like ordinary talking. It wasn't acting at all. And she knew no more about how to use her eyebrows than a cat. Oh, she paid for her promotion some way, you bet. That's always the way. Talent ain't no use whatever, compared to influence. The day she was given the part of Alfalfa in Sinfire, I came across her back near the property room. She had Mansfield's photo in her hand, and she was a-kissing it. Ain't that the limit? I was kind of mad to see a gawk like her put ahead, and I says to her, If you got to kiss him, why the devil don't you kiss him on the mouth? She just give me one scared look, and she says, Oh, Moel, she says, he's married. What do you know about that? Didn't I tell you she was a fool? She made me sick. What, are you stuck on him, I says? She says, If it hadn't been for him, I'd never have been promoted. Now you couldn't make me believe he had anything to do with it. I ain't so easy as all that. So I asked her what she meant. She was half laughing and half crying, and sort of silly. She says, I've learned how to look inside, she said. Can you beat it? She was foolish. Just naturally foolish. Hadn't never seen him off the stage. Well, it was about three weeks after that Janie's mother died. Janie was all broke up. Anybody'd expect she'd be glad to have it over with. Wouldn't you think it would have got on her nerves to have the old lady mewing like a tomcat every time her shoulder blade ached? She sure was an awful bother. I didn't see Janie. A stagehand, we called violets, told me. He had blue eyes and a broad grin. He must have been kind of stuck on her. He used to claim she could act. You know how those stagehands are. They think they know a lot. He had an awful nerve. But wait, he told me the funeral was going to be Sunday. But I'd just made a date with Dusty McIntyre to motor down to Luna Park. And so, of course, I couldn't go. At least I had no idea I could at the time. Dusty looked too good to me. So I just dropped Janie a postcard telling her I was sorry and all that, and if I could do anything, to let me know. That was on a Friday. After the matinee, next afternoon, Janie come round to see me, and she asked me would I lend her a quarter to pay for a telegram. Of course I told her I'd send it for her. I felt kind of sorry for the little mouse, and she handed it over. Oh, her mother was at a little cheap undertakers over on the east side. Well, when I read that wire, I nearly had a fit. Who do you think it was, too? Richard Mansfield. He was down at his country place in New London. It only said, mother died yesterday. Jane Davis. Wasn't she the crazy thing? She'd just got one photo out of him, and on the strength of that, she'd gone to work and took him right into the family. Of course I never sent it. I knew it wouldn't do at all. He'd have been wild. I told Violet's about it, though, and he said it was a nervy thing to do. I've often wondered since if he didn't send it himself, though, after all. We started out on Sunday, Dusty and me. About ten o'clock in his panard. I had one of them two-toned Violet auto veils and a yellow silk coat on. Just as we was half way over the Williamsburg Bridge, something happened to the car, and Dusty got out. I looked back, and I seen a funeral coming, and I got awful nervous. You know it's bad luck to have one overtake you. But I looked round. First come an open barouche, just crammed with flowers. I give you my word. If they was one dollar's worth, they was five hundred. They was fairly spilling into the road. After that was the tackiest hearse I ever see. Then come one solitary hack, that's all. Gee, it was the bummest funeral procession I ever seen. Just as the hack passed I saw Janey through the window, with a man setting side of her. I couldn't catch his face. Then they went by, and Dusty fixed his machine, and got in. I told him about it, and I says to him, Dusty, you got to follow that funeral wherever they go. We can run down to Luna Park later. There's certainly something doing, when Jane Davis has a hackload of flowers for her mother's funeral, and I want to see who's putting up for it. So we run along easy behind them. I thought, of course, it would be the potter's field for hers, cause Janey hadn't got any relations at all, only her mother. But no, where did they go, but out to Greenwood Cemetery, and turned in up to a lot under a big elm tree. Of course we couldn't take the car in, but we stopped where we could see who was there. First a man got out of the hack with a silk hat on. I couldn't make him out at first. Then come Janey. Will you believe it? She didn't wear black, and it was her own mother's funeral too. She had on the bum little blue suit she always wore. Want that disgraceful? She might have shown some respect, even if her mother had led her a life. Then the man turned round, and my God, I see it was Richard Mansfield. Say, can you beat it? Richard Mansfield in a Prince Albert coat and a top hat, with his arm round Janey Davis, like she was his own daughter. And I give you my word, he'd never seen her before that day. Well, I just sat there in gasp. Wouldn't you think that a man like Mansfield would be above, being there at a little miserable, two-cent funeral, with a girl nobody had ever heard of, too? I should think he'd have been ashamed of himself. If a man don't respect himself, who is going to respect him anyway? Well, that was queer enough. But when I see they didn't have no minister, I nearly died. And what do you think? When they had the coffin on the ground, side of the grave, I couldn't see that Janey was crying a bit. Mansfield took a little black book out of his pocket, and stood up straight at the head of the coffin, and begun to read. His voice was so loud and clear, we could almost hear it from where we were. I was almost ashamed of the profession by that time. But then I always did think Mansfield was a good deal of a bluff. Then Dusty says to me, Glow, I ain't never seen Mansfield act. I'm going to sneak up near there and get a good look at him and hear him. This is where I get an orchestra seat free. Well, I let him go, and I waited there in the car. Well, Dusty walked up near the lot. I could see him standing there listening. And after a while he drew up nearer. When they begun to lower the coffin into the grave, Dusty come walking back slow. I called out to him to hurry, for I was terrible afraid Janey'd spot me rubbering. In that yellow coat too. When he got a little nearer, I see the tears was just rolling down his cheeks. Dusty McIntyre was crying like a kid. Ain't that the limit? I asked him what in the world he was crying about, and he said it was something about his voice. Mansfield's voice. He got to him some way. I don't know. I guide him about it all the way to Luna Park. But somehow Dusty want like himself all day. That was in 1907. You know Mansfield died about six months after that. In September it was. Well, I met Jane Davis at an agency the week after he died. And what do you think? She was all in black. When I said something to her about Mansfield, she broke right down and cried. Now what do you know about that? A girl who wouldn't put on mourning, nor shed a tear for her own mother, had the nerve to rig out in black, for the swellest star in the business. I call her a thoroughbred snob. Fenton looked at the girl now with a revulsion of feeling. She no longer amused him and Miss Diamond seemed less beautiful. Already he had stayed too long, and yet his object had not been accomplished. Miss Diamond yawned again. Say, Millie, I got to get home, she said. Let's go. At that Millie called the waiter, hovering near, and asked for the check. He handed it to her. Fenton made a feeble protest, but she waved it aside and tossed him a gold-linked purse across the tablecloth. Fenton glanced at the bill, found it was nine forty, and took out a crisp new ten dollar bill. The waiter fled. There would be sixty cents changed, thought Fenton. Part of that he must have, and make his escape. He watched the waiter to the cashier's desk and saw him returning. He calculated the time to a second, and just as the man was within six feet of him, he called out, pointing to the door. Gosh, there's your friend back already. The girls turned and gazed. Fenton took the dime from the proffered plate, slipped it into his pocket, and handed Millie her purse. It was a victory. The waiter stood and stared contemptuously. What did Fenton care? Not a whit. Now to get away. The cloakroom boy brought him his hat, and as he waited for a tip, Fenton eagerly collugged the blonde. The three walked to the hotel lobby. Obsequious head waiters gazed at them in admiration. A buzz went through the corridor when Fenton, alias Whack Harrison, appeared. He was the hero of the place. He glanced at the clock. Both hands stood at eleven. He must hurry. Say you can take us home if you want, Whack. Millie's fond eyes shot sparks at him. All right, he said. Just wait till I get some cigarettes. He turned, walked to the cigar counter and beyond. Once out of sight, he ran for the side door. END OF CHAPTER VIII THE SUBWAY EXPRESS Concerning the philosophic theory of profanity as an art, and its practical application as a science, and the doings of Fenton's ex-master. With a grim smile upon his lips and a great strain off his mind, John Fenton emerged stealthily from the side entrance of the hotel Caxton, and walked rapidly toward Times Square. His adventure had been like a dream. Like a dream, it had been silly, but splendid. What he had been through that evening, since first he approached Times Square as he was approaching now. He had a dime in his pocket as he walked into the lobby of the Hotel Nickerbocker to collect his thoughts and lay his plans. Should he try again to get the octaroon on the telephone, and leave it to chance to get back from downtown? He sat down at a table and looked at his dime thoughtfully, then grimly decided to leave it to fate. Fate evidently had him in mind that night, so let come what would. Heads for precaution, and the saving of five cents for his return. Tails for communication with the octaroon, and luck. He tossed up the coin, and it fell tails up. So moat it be. He walked to a drugstore, and rang up the King William Hotel. Miss Green had registered, said the clerk, but did not answer. C'est la. The fates would provide, and with a smile on his lips, like a desperate traveller who casts himself into a stream without a forward, hoping to get to the other side safely. Fenton plunged into the subway, and took a local train to the Grand Central Station, where he transferred to a downtown express. He must get to the St. Paul Building. What he could accomplish there, how he could possibly recover the jewels, he had no idea. But once launched upon this adventurous M Prize, he was determined to see it through and make what fight he could. It worried him that he had to work in the dark, with no help or guidance, but he had no choice. There were only two passengers in the car he entered. One was a stout, man-o-war jackie considerably under the influence of a joyous shore-leave, and the other a globular puffy gentleman with a piratical moustache, which he seemed to be continually eating. Fenton sank into a reverie, and his thoughts wandered like a homing dove to Belcharmion. Who was she? What had she intended to say to him? What mysterious fate was bringing them continually together? Suddenly he awoke from his musing to find the train had stopped. He waited for several minutes, and it did not start. Local after local passed them by, with the exasperating way that locals have of beating the express when the track is blocked. He went forward to speak to the guard and found the door locked. There was some trouble ahead. The sailor began to swear. His impatience grew more and more profane. He would lose his ship. He would be rebuked. He didn't care so much for the money. But to think that he had to be at the mercy of a landlubber's hole in the ground. All this embellished with horrid adjectives. Fenton smiled and returned to his seat. The puffy gentleman came over and asked what was the matter. Fenton didn't know. Well, they had to make the best of it. The man-a-war's man became more and more abusive. Again the man with the fierce whiskers remarked. That one had to make the best of it. Nobody could hurry a subway train. One couldn't put a bur under its tail to make it jump, you know. When he was not chewing his moustache he was wiping it off with the flat of his hand. That Jackie can sure swear some, said Fenton, finally. Swear? Nonsense. Profanity is a fine art. That illiterate chap knows only the merest rudiments. Well, they're good Anglo-Saxon rudiments, anyway, Fenton said. Smiling at his friend's serious tone. Anglo-Saxon. It takes an Arab to really swear. You can get a real sensation in Semitic. We're afraid to really use English to its greatest effect. Queer, isn't it? How we are the domination of language. We have certain words that are arbitrarily considered vulgar. And we so-called civilized people have come to the point when the only way we know to emphasize our sentiments is by spicing them with impropriety. If that is the correct method, why the Spanish have done the best of all, the English come next, perhaps, especially the Elizabethan literature. Great power of invective they had. Look at John Webster. But Lord, think of the French and the Germans. Child's play, sir, mere child's play. How can an intelligent man consider he gains force by mentioning a pot of thunder or a sacred color, or calling upon the thunder and lightning? Oh, the secret of it is sacrilege, I fancy, said Fenton, willing to humor him. Men like to defy higher powers. It shows courage. Is thousand pots a higher power, the stranger replied? No, sir. The basis of all profanity is sound. The appeal is not to the mind, but to the ear. I defy you to name a single oath, modern or ancient, that is not euphonious, that doesn't have an oral magnificence. Wait a minute. We will probably have to stay here a while. I'll tell you a story to prove what I mean. There's one man in Brooklyn who has perfected profanity and made a science of it. Here we go now, said Fenton. I guess that was only a fuse blown out. I once knew a man, he began. The train had started, but the little man had already started also, and as station after station was slowly passed, he narrated his story. The affiliated non-cursors parade. Do you know, Brooklyn is one of the queerest places in the whole world. All sorts of strange, uncanny things happen. When you once cross the bridge, you're in a new world. Your brain changes. You begin to see things pink. I live in Brooklyn myself. In some ways it's as good as living abroad. I imagine Mars, when they have an election on, is something like the Borough of Brooklyn. They call it the City of Churches. Ha! I call it the City of Brainkinks. Nobody really knows anything definite about the town. Ask a cop how to get to Flatbush Park Terrace, and he doesn't know. Nobody knows. If you get there, you'll never find the way back. You wouldn't believe half the things that are true about Brooklyn. Ever hear of the Kings County Croquet Club? That meets at Prospect Park? I thought not. What did I tell you? What sane person would believe that there was a city in the United States that played croquet nowadays? Championship games, too. Ain't it awful? Why, there's a chess club that you can see working at the job in full daylight from the Brooklyn L. Believe me, some of these games last for years at a stretch, like a Chinese drama. Men grow old during a single gambit. Then there's the Flatbush Brides cooking class. Can you beat that? Think of the biscuits like your wife used to make. Why, Mr. I Know Human Beings over there, that sleep under violet glass all night to cure sore eyes. The banks fail regularly every year. They have a children's procession in May. Nobody knows what for. They sell real estate that's underwater, and you have to get a glass bottom boat to find your front yard. No, if you're a Brooklynite, when you come back from work at night, you have no idea what your wife's been elected to during the day. It's all one cooperative, coeducational madhouse. But the one craziest thing of all is the affiliated non-cursors. Ever heard of it? No? I thought not. Well, a lot of religious highbrows a few years ago formed this society to suppress swearing. Every member is pledged never to use a cuss word, and to frown on all blasphemy and sundry. Oh, when the Executive Committee gets into a good fat row, it's worth being present. They have to mix Volopik and Esperanto. Well, the president of the society this year is old Dr. Hop Bottom. What's the matter? Ever heard of him? An old yellow-skinned goat-bearded quack doctor. One of these psalm-singing skin flints, you know? This year he proposed a parade of the affiliated non-cursors, and the idea caught on great. It was a big show, but Brooklyn thought nothing of it. Why, over there, when the circus comes to town, they have to paint the elephants in scotch plaids and put side whiskers on the zebras before anyone will turn round and look. People in Brooklyn see too much woosly stuff every day to be surprised at anything. So the parade didn't attract much attention. At first. They had all the school children out, little girls in white muslin and blue ribbons, boys in pink sailor suits with little white flags, PDQYM, the social uplifters, the sons of Jehu, the ethical army, the ancient order of Gohevians, the mystic livers, the anti-dope fiends, the shoopum-poopum, and everything. Dr. Hopbottom certainly rounded up a good bunch of non-cursors. He had them in platoons with banners and badges and brass bands and decorated trays and marshals with batons, just like a regular procession of the native sons of the Golden West. He was at the head of the parade on a white horse, with a tall hat tied round with white ribbons, like Napoleon crossing the Delaware, solemn as the archangel Gabriel, pleased by the doctor was one broad voluptuous grin. He took off his hat right and left regular every block. So far so good! The parade was a great success, till it got to a given point down by the borough hall. Then came the big wind. There was an ex-sailor named Gil Hooligan, driving up a side street on a dray loaded with railroad iron, bingity bang slam smash rumble rattle zip clattery ding. You know how a load of steel rails can yelp when they're properly loaded on a truck. Gil Hooligan had four big black Persharons, and he had an idea he was operating an ancient Roman chariot, and the whole world had to get out of his way. He tried to drive smack through the middle of the procession, but the non-swering enthusiasts wouldn't have it. They sat tight. Then for a few minutes there was a sprightly duel of verbiage and diction. Gil Hooligan went at them with a thousand frenetic figures of speech, and the white ribbon purists came back with a lot of sterilized and highly perfumed talk on the other side of the question. Gil Hooligan got rather the best of it. Thittle-sticks and O'Bother and Mercy-Me had no show at all with the way he handled English. Why, he swung eighteen-syllabled oaths round by the tail, hitting right and left. But still, they didn't let him through. The little boys yelled O' Pickles, and the ladies attacked him with, ain't he horrid? Of course they couldn't go farther. Though for a little while several resignations from the society were momentarily expected. Gil Hooligan talked to them the way an army driver pets a mule. Yes, the gift of tongue certainly descended upon Gil Hooligan, till the air was a deep, exquisite magenta for miles around. You could actually smell his language. At last the news traveled from one Sunday school to another, clear up to the head of the procession where Dr. Hopbottom was straddling his stately steed. When he found out what was doing he turned that white horse and came back toward Burrow Hall at a wild bull gallop, the white ribbons streaming out from his top hat, and his whiskers flying. It was like General Sheridan, twenty miles away. It was like Paul Revere. It was like the ride from Ghent to Aix. You say you've heard of Dr. Hopbottom? Well then, you know what an ingenious old crank he is. Of course he doesn't swear. It's wicked. But he had long ago figured it out. Like I told you, what was the psychological motive for curses? Brainstorms have just got to happen sometimes, and what a man needs at such times is a good satisfactory bunch of exclamations to hurl into the mess. Being a scientific man, he knew not only the cause, but the remedy. So it was easy. He invented his own innocuous expletives whenever the time came. Well, he came galloping down toward the row. Gilhooligan's profanity carried for about thirteen city blocks, so that by the time the doctor got within range, he had his fires lighted and steam up. He reigned up and let out a stream of talk, something like this. What the hypo-phenyl-tribrompropionic hiatus is the purple matter here anyway. Why the syncopated Senegambian highball, don't you move on? What? A thousand voices answered. A thousand trembling hands pointed angrily to Gilhooligan. The doctor two-stepped his horse up to the Irishman. You get the deoxidized dalmatian out of the way here, you epigrammatic blastoderm. Do you hear? Gilhooligan broke loose again. I can't really quote his speech a-right. Shorn of its linguistic splendors it read something like, move your blankety-blank dashed line of unquotable objects open, and let me get through. You blank dash of an indescribable animal. I want to get by. The doctor then proceeded to get mad. He shook his fist at Gilhooligan and yelled, see here you clavo-deltoid compress-material gal-ravaging gonopterics. Do you think I'll take any of your pens, spermatic, post-eocene, retromorphose labifaction? You inebriant, heliometric, Holland shaker you? You giskaderm? You green-gilled sesquipedalian? If you give me any more of your cognominant, garguristic, fumentaceous benzaldehyde, I'll have you pragmatically arrested. I wish I could give Gilhooligan's answer, but I darent. If it were printed for use in the public schools, it would have to be printed almost exclusively in dashes and asterisks. But it made the doctor really angry. The members of the league held their breaths and gathered round in a circle now, knowing that the event of the evening was about to take place. A hush, the hop-bottom mouth got ready to act. The doctor shook his fist again and started in earnest. His voice began with calmness and deliberation, but soon rose high. It swept forth in a majestic declamation, full of all sorts of forte, staccato, and crescendo effects to the noble climax. See here, you slack-salted, transubstantiated, interdigital germarium. You rantipole sacrosiatic rock barnacle, you? If you give me any of your capran-tipoline perigastrular megalopteric jackatation, I'll make a lamella-branquillate-gymnomixine parabolic lapidopteroid out of you. What diacritical rite has a binomial oxapendactyl and valterous holoblastic rhizopod like you got with your trinoctial eustelaginous Westphalian holocaust, blocking up the teleostean way for any way. If you give me any more of your Lunarian snortomaniac hyperbolic pylorectomy, I'll skive you into a megalopteric diatomoriferous oxospore. You queasy Zoroastrian son of a helicopteric hypotraquilium, you? Shut your logarithmic epicycloidal mouth. You let this monopolitan, macrocosmic, helsiform procession go by and wait right here in the anegological street, and no more of your hedonistic primordial superverescence, you rectangular, quillet-eating vice-presidential amoeboid, either. Mr. Gil Hooligan slowly descended from his tray, approached Dr. Hoppbottom and took off his hat. I beg your pardon, sir, he said, weakly, but would you mind repeating them last three remarks? I didn't rightly hear. The doctor, with sweat dripping from his yellow cheeks, did it again, and then some. By the time he had finished, the dictionary was pretty well disemboweled. The crowd cheered. I beg your humble pardon, said Gil Hooligan, when the doctor had finished. I had no idea it was as bad as that. I take off my hat to you. Man and boy, I have followed the sea for forty years. I have been a Mississippi river pilot. I have run a whaler. I have been the mate of a cockroach, schooner, and I have black-birded all along the west coast of Africa. I know mules, and I know niggers, and how to coax them. But I see a plain seafaring man has no show with a doctor when it comes to exhibiting language in public. I'll say this for you. They ain't your beat for square-rigged, black-and-tan cursing in the Seven Seas, and I think that if this here society, what's running this here procession, can turn out graduates of the noble art of profanity like you are. I want to say this. Give me the pledge, and I'll sign it. I need some of your talk in my business. The doctor led the way amidst odd thousands to a great white drae decorated with lilies. There, upon a black walnut reading desk, was exhibited the Pledge Book, a huge brass-bound tome covered with white vellum. Gilhooligan mounted the drae, and with great effort and much chewing of his tongue he signed his name. A chorus of hurrahs was given, followed by the Chautauqua salute of waving white handkerchiefs. Then, after tying white ribbons to the tails of Gilhooligan's black horses, and pinning a pink satin badge two feet long on the breast of Gilhooligan's jumper, the procession parted in the middle. He drove his clanking truckload of railroad iron into the space, and Dr. Hop Bottom, victorious, galloped proudly back to the head of the line. Twenty little blue-eyed girls in white muslin were lifted up beside Gilhooligan the convert, and as the processions slowly started they set up in their childish treble their marching song. Angry words, O let them never, from the tongue unbridled slip. May the heart's best impulse ever, check them ere they soil the lip. Fenton laughed freely for the first time that eventful evening. His memory of Dr. Hop Bottom was still freshen up in his mind for him to picture the scene. What's the doctor up too lately, he inquired? Why, the last time I saw him, he told me he had some great scheme to make a thousand dollars easy, was the reply. It seems he's doing a little detective work on the side. The train now began to slow down, approaching a station. Fenton glanced out, saw the sign Wall Street, and rose to go. Detective work, he inquired hurriedly. What did he mean? He's looking after some lost boy, I believe. There's a big reward offered for him, and the train had already stopped. Fenton had no time to hear more, and the words bore no meaning for him. After he had run out, however, and had begun to ascend the stairs of the subway exit, the words came back like a retarded echo, a lost boy, a big reward, and he stopped suddenly, and began to think. Dr. Hop Bottom after a lost boy? Perhaps it was he himself. Fenton, the reappearance of Mangas O'Shay into his life, had already stirred up conjectures. If it were himself, what could it mean? Well, there seemed to be no answer. Of all the strange questions he had put to himself concerning this night's adventures, nothing as yet had any answer for him. He seemed destined to go from one mystery to another, blindfold. Of one thing, however, he was sure. The one mystery he most desired to have solved was the riddle, Who is Belsharmian? The Saint Paul Building, wherein John Fenton discovers a dead body, regains possession of certain jewels, and is besought to take the place of a titled imposter. His mind was busy with her as he walked down Broadway. Belsharmian. Surely she was worth conjecture. Belsharmian. The two glimpses he had had of her, the few words they had exchanged, had fanned the flames of fancy which her portrait had first ignited. Her whimsical face, her graceful expressive hands, her lithe, slim figure, something in the quality of her warm, fresh olive skin, made him feel actually weak when he thought of her. He confessed to himself that he was pretty far gone. Belsharmian. Belsharmian. He wanted her more than anything on earth, but meanwhile he had to go through what he had planned to do. A wild goose chase, no doubt, but he would follow it to a finish. He finally reached the entrance of the Saint Paul Building. A twenty-one-story pile of granite carved into Romanesque shapes, and had turned in to enter when he saw a man waiting in a doorway he had just passed. Fenton stopped and took a second look at him. A muscular man in a brown derby hat in a shepherd's plaid suit. There was no possible doubt of it. It was the same man he had first seen in Shuffle Hall with the outline of a revolver bulging from his hip pocket. It was the same man he had caught a quick glimpse of in the lobby of the Hotel Plaza. Here was another puzzle. Was he being followed? And if so, why? A mad night indeed. How would it end? He went in, struggling with his new problem, looked at the directory table on the wall, and found the name of Nallery and Company. Opposite was the number of the firm's office. One, three, seven, six. Only one of the three elevators was running. In the car a negro boy was sitting on a stool, reading Middlemarch. Fenton entered. Thirteenth floor, he said, and the boy reluctantly closed his book, slammed the door, and pulled back the controller. The elevator shot up. Round on the left said the boy, as Fenton emerged, and the car descended. Fenton walked round a corner of the car door and came point blank to a door painted with the name of Nallery and Company, Mining Brokers. There he knocked. He had no idea what he should do when the door was opened. He had made no plan. He would make up his mind what part to play as soon as the situation was found. Meanwhile, as he waited, he thought he heard a hurried sound of feet, the soft click of a closed door. He listened now more carefully. Still there was no answer. He knocked again, louder. All was silence. Then angry at the delay, wishing to bring matters to a crisis, he turned the handle, opened the door, and walked in. He found himself in a small office, part of which was shut off by a wooden railing. Behind this were a couple of roll-top desks, a letterpress, a typewriter, a filing cabinet, and other ordinary pieces of cheap office furniture. There was nobody there, however, and so seeing a door in one wall, marked private, Fenton went through the gate, strode up to it, and knocked with determination. Still no answer. He hesitated for a moment. It was carrying things rather far to force himself in this way, but he wanted to come to an end of the adventure as soon as possible. He knocked again. Then, impatient at the silence, boldly opened the door. He saw a carpeted room with a single roll-top desk and several chairs. Two of these were overturned and between them, supine on the floor, was the body of a man, lying in a puddle of blood. Fenton stood for a moment in the doorway, fascinated by the awfulness of it. He was unable to move. It seemed unreal, impossible, like a wild dream. His first impulse was to stifle his exclamation of alarm, shut the door, and make his escape as quietly and quickly as possible. Next, despite his sick feeling of horror, despite a dominant fancy that this thing was not, could not be true, came the realization that he should go to the rescue of the man and give him aid if it was not already too late. He forced his will to move his body, stepped forward and knelt beside the form. One look into those open, staring eyeballs told him that the man was dead. But, as he looked at the pale face more deliberately, the horror gave way to pathos. The dead man was wonderfully beautiful, picturesque, even poetic. By his crisp, curling hair, the finely molded features, the width of his forehead, the small, delicate moustache, the body might have been that of Edgar Allan Poe. The skin was as fair as a child's. The lips, sensitively parted, showed perfect teeth. The slender hands were like a woman's gracefully expressive in the relaxed gesture. All this would have prevented the corpse seeming dreadful, had not that oozing red spot upon the shirt front told a tale of murder. Fenton drew down the lids over the glassy eyeballs, with scarcely a feeling of revulsion, and then slowly arose, still held by the potent fascination of death. Then his eyes wandered about the room, and stopped at a gray ooze-leather bag some little distance from the body. He walked over to it and picked it up. He pulled it open and received a new sensation. The bag was crammed with jewels. For the second time that night he was in possession of the Brewster Collection. That fact decided him. Whatever had happened in this dreadful office, it was his plain duty to take the jewels and deliver them as he had promised. His own safety and theirs demanded that he make his escape without delay. There was no knowing when someone might come. It would be dangerous, disastrous, to be discovered there with the corpse. Butting the bag under his coat therefor, he gave one swift look at the dead man, and went into the outer office. Here he paused a moment to consider. It was improbable that any other exit and the front door of the building would, at this time of night, be open. The safest way, if indeed not the only way, would be to go boldly down the elevator as he had come up. He must take his chance at any rate. A glimpse into the mirror showed his face a deathly white. He took a towel from the wash-bowl and rubbed his cheeks violently till the color had returned. If he could only efface the horror in his heart as easily. The image in his eyes had faded, so that now the door was closed he could hardly believe that what he had seen was true. But a feeling of faintness warned him that the shock had gone deep. He waited a moment for his weakness to pass, then summoning all his resolution, left the office and rang the elevator bell. He scarcely dared look at the elevator boy as the car descended. The air seemed close and stifling. Without a glance to right or left he walked unsteadily out the great doorway. On the sidewalk the night breeze revived him, and he started to walk briskly north along Broadway. At each step his courage and his relief increased. He shook off his obsession, pacified his conscience, with the thought that there was nothing he could have done, and turned his thoughts to planning his next move in the curious game of chance, which he seemed destined to play that night. Here he was again with the Brewster treasure, but again without a scent in his pocket, and now still farther away than ever from his destination. As he walked along the canyon of high buildings, the clocks rang midnight. How was he to get uptown? He had not gone many blocks, deliberating this question. When he heard a motor car coming his way behind him, it was proceeding slowly, a chauffeur driving, and a gentleman muffled up in a pepper and salt coat in the tonneau. He was a little blond man of forty, with a patient, resigned look. A man with a pale, care-worn face and a lizard's chin. His mouth was slightly open. He had white eyebrows. All together his face betokened no great strength of will. He looked at Fenton anxiously as he passed, and turned to look again, almost as if he intended to speak. But didn't quite dare. Fenton grasped the possibility and hailed the car. Give me a lift uptown? He asked. The man looked him up and down. How far do you want to go? He asked, almost whining. Harlem, said Fenton. For some moments the man in the car stared without speaking. Fenton grew embarrassed. He wondered if the bag, concealed under his coat, showed too plainly. But the man finally changed his expression. A wan smile spread over his face, followed by an expression of timid resolution. I'll tell you what I'll do, he said. If you'll do me a small favor, it won't take more than half an hour. I'll send you up to Harlem in this car afterward, anywhere you want to go. What is the favor? asked Fenton. Get in here, and I'll tell you. Fenton opened the door and entered. The man who had invited him was so mild that there could be no great danger to the jewels. Go on home, Carl, said the stranger. But go slowly. I want time to talk to this gentleman. Then he turned to Fenton, stared at him anxiously for a few moments, and then asked. Can you act? What do you mean? I'm not an actor, of course. What I want you to do is to impersonate a Hungarian count for about ten minutes. Fenton gasped. Me? A count? In spite of the tremor he was still in, he laughed. Count Capricorni, the stranger explained. I've got to produce him at my house this night, and oh, if you would do it. I'll fit you out with a dress suit and a red ribbon, and introduce you to a few guests. As soon as that's over, you can be taken sick, cholera, infantum, gout, epilepsy, or housemaid's knee, anything you like, and then you can go up to Harlem. What do you say? Will you? Please? Are you talking in your sleep, or what? Fenton inquired. I'm trying to save my sister's reputation, that's all. Perhaps if you're incredulous I'd better give you a few details. The gentleman sighed. I think so too, Fenton replied. This seems to be my night in Arabia, and I might as well do it good. I've already crowded about sixty ordinary years' experience into six hours of this evening. Romance seems to have it in for me tonight. Well, I guess I can stand a little more of it. What's your line? Comedy? Tragedy? Fars? Musical drama? Or burlesque? Say, you're not crazy, are you? The stranger seemed anxious. No. Are you? Well, sometimes I think I am. I'm a fool, anyway. Perhaps I'd better tell you my story and let you decide. All right, said Fenton, leaning back in the cushions. The stranger folded his arms, scowling ludicrously, and began, My name is Stillwell Morgan. Fenton sat up and looked at him eagerly. Not THE Stillwell Morgan. Not the nephew of James Pierpont. No, not that one, the stranger replied sadly, and that's the whole story. It's a mighty short one, Fenton grunted. Oh, what I mean, said Morgan, is that that very natural mistake of yours is what's just got me into trouble. Everybody makes that mistake. And there at he proceeded to tell his tale. Count Capricorni. I have a sister named Marguerite Maganel Morgan. She's part angel, part vassar, and part darned fool. Being her only brother, of course, I adore her on six days of the week, and swear at her on the seventh. If you've ever had that kind of a sister, you know. Sisters either run you, or you run them. I'm not ashamed of admitting that Marguerite runs me. It saves a lot of trouble. Everybody seems to think I'm rich, because my name is Morgan. But I'm not. Oh, well, I make a fair income. Real estate. Wait, I'll give you my card. We live a plain, self-respecting life, uptown in an $85 apartment. That is, we did till a month ago. Ah, well, I wish we lived there now. We had a pretty good-sized bathroom where I could do my pulley weights, and we had a view of the Hudson, only about an inch of it, but I was satisfied. We had a Swedish maid, too. And on Thursdays Marguerite made a Welsh rabbit, where Welsh, you know, and I opened the beer. I never drink anything stronger than that. It doesn't agree with me. We were happy and contented. I was, anyway. All I want is to go to a good musical show once in a while, and wear slippers when I'm home. I never had much use for style. I hate those stiff, stand-up collars, for instance. I believe in comfort and bath robes and things. You know, good American habits with no nonsense about them. Marguerite goes in for the latest thing, but then she's ambitious. So she made me a velvet smoking jacket. I smoke three cigars a day, one after each meal. Well, last month Marguerite began to fret. She wasn't a bit interested in real estate or musical shows. I'm reading Gibbons' Decline and Fall this winter. And even that seemed to bore her. You see, she's higher spirited than I am, somehow. She likes a crowd. So to please her, I said we'd spend a week at Atlantic City, at a real swell hotel. She brightened up right away. I was glad of a week off, too. It would give me a chance to finish up the Decline and Fall. And perhaps I could start in on the anatomy of melancholy. I've never had time to read that. I took a small sweet. At first they thought we were a bridal couple, and I nearly died of mortification. But it was worse than that when I found the bellboys thought that we were THE stillwell morgans, the rich ones. I gave only dime tips, but that didn't seem to convince them. I suppose some rich people are stingy sometimes. Of course I told the clerk all about myself. But people stared at us so. I dreaded to go into the dining room. The second day after we arrived at the Buckingham Hotel, I met a nice-looking fellow in the billiard room while I was watching a game of pool. I don't often speak to strangers, but I was so lonesome with no business to do, that I offered him a ten-cent cigar. And afterwards we played a game of pool. Oh, not a regular game. I never tried that. It's a bit hard for a beginner. This was that game where you roll the balls from one corner. I beat the stranger two games. Nice fellow, I thought, affable, you know, interested in things. I didn't care much for women. Neither did he. We got on beautifully. After he left I asked the clerk who he was, and the clerk switched round the visitor's book and pointed to a name. Well I nearly fainted. Count Capricorni and Vallet, Budapest. There I had been laughing and joking, with a real live count. When I told Marg about it, she got awfully excited, sent for the manicure girl, and asked her all about the count. Then she interviewed the telephone girl and the chambermaid. Marg has a way of getting right at things. She's resourceful by Joe. She told me I must invite the count to dinner. But I said I'd never dare in the world. Now I knew who he was. I'd never seen Marg with men much. I usually go into my room and read when they come. They're so silly. She was a revelation to me now. The way she went at it. She got into my lap and began to fool with my hair, and teased me to introduce her to the count. I told her how the count had made fun of American women. And I guess that made her mad. When Marg gets her blood up, she's great. She said that I'd simply have to have him to dinner. I tried to get out of it, and then she began to cry. What can you do when a woman cries? I agreed to let her have her own way. Not that I blamed Marg much. If you'd seen the count, you would have been impressed. Anyone would. He looked just like a count. Sort of distinguished-looking, poetical kind of chap he was. Red forehead, brisk black curly hair, and a little bit of a moustache. Say, I'll tell you, he looked for all the world, like Edgar Allan Poe at twenty-five. What's the matter? He did, really. Slender hands like a woman's, and he used them in a foreign sort of way when he talked. Then he wore a soft black tie with his evening dress, and a broad ribbon on his glasses, and some kind of a little red button in his buttonhole. I liked him when I got better acquainted. I don't mind admitting it. I really did. Marg had only twenty-four hours to get up a costume. She sent six or seven telegrams to Faustine on Fifth Avenue, and had a hairdresser from Philadelphia. I had to buy a lot of orchids, and we got mother's pearls out of the safe deposit. It cost about four hundred dollars in all, but Marg was happy. The only thing was, I didn't have a dress-suit. Marg wanted me to hire one of a waiter, but I drew the line. I can be firm when I want to. I hate those hard shirts. The Count came up to our sitting-room, and Marg came in smelling of some sort of cologne she bought for four dollars a bottle. That was the first time she had ever had her hand kissed in the European fashion, except in private, theatricals, of course. But it didn't embarrass her one bit. She acted just as if they did it to her every day. Ain't women wonderful? We went down to dinner with me behind, and when we walked into the dining-room, there was a buzz that you could have heard to the boardwalk. You see, every girl in the hotel had been hot after the Count for a week, and he had never paid any attention to any of them. I was proud of Marg, then. Every woman there was hating her, like Mr.—and you know how that improves a woman's looks. The one they hate, I mean. The Count was languid and aristocratic, and talked to Marg all the time. I didn't have a chance to say much. Marg was awfully animated, though. When we went upstairs somehow, I felt in the way. So I took my decline in fall, and went into my room to read. I heard them laughing afterward, for an hour and a half. Then when he left, Marg came in to see me. She told me that she was dead in love with Count Capricorni. And what were we going to do? If he ever discovered we weren't these stillwell Margans, she was afraid he'd cut us, and she'd pine away and die. That was how the trouble began. You see, Marg wanted to entertain him in New York. But how could we invite him to our little flat? He'd scorn it. Marg said we'd have to move, and move quick. When Marg decides on a thing, I give up the fight. Just then Aunt Jane died, and we knew that she'd surely leave us some money. Marg figured on a hundred thousand or so. But I doubted it. On the strength of it, however, Marg began to make her plans. She went up to the city next day and rented a suite at Wicherly Court. Ever seen Wicherly Court? It's on Riverside Drive, a French Renaissance pile, Marg calls it, with an entrance hall that looks as if it was carved out of different kinds of colored soaps. There is a lot of plush and hallboys and bronze tables and fountains and things when you go in, and a marquee in front. You know the kind. One suite costs fifteen thousand dollars a year. Marg spent a day in those antique furniture dens on Fourth Avenue, and got in a lot of Sheraton stuff and Turkish rugs to take the nouveau riche look off. I didn't mind the expense so much, although I was sailing pretty close to the wind by this time. It was the style we had put on that I hated. Of course it wouldn't do for the Count Capricorni to find us living the bourgeois way we always had. So she got a lot of gowns. I thought they were awfully low-necked. And she made me get into a dress-suit when the clock struck six every night, whether we had company or not. I tried to learn to drink burgundy, but it's no use. I hate it. Then she got a butler. Ever tried to act natural with an English butler looking at you? You can't do it, unless you're a woman. You can't love it. It really seems to stiffen them up. But I always felt shriveled when he was in the room. The Count didn't like ordinary American cooking. So Marg got a chef. And I never had any appetite after that. That Swedish girl we used to have could make grand griddle cakes. But that was all over. We only had stewed-up stuff in little casseroles. And everything tasted of onions. Marg said she loved his cooking, but I noticed she didn't eat much. But then she was in love, I admit. The Count came several times a week. He seemed to like the place, though I thought by the way he talked it was nothing compared to his castles in Hungary. He used to sit and smoke cigarettes out of a mouthpiece six inches long and tell us about his family. He told us that he was going to come into a whole lot of money when he married. He showed us a little miniature of his mother and another of a young Countess his mother was trying to make him marry. That picture got Marg furious. She used to go and order a new hat and two or three new gowns after every time he showed it to her. Well, at the pace we were going, I didn't see how we could last. It was all I could do to pay running expenses. And I had to work downtown, almost every night, figuring on new deals to put us through. What with wages and tips and things, at Wittreley Court, I was at my wit's end. Marg said it didn't matter if she only married the Count, because then we'd all have plenty of money, but all the same it worried me. Of course Marg talked to folks about the Count and naturally all our friends got pretty curious to see him. She gave several tees, but somehow he never managed to come to any of them. The first time he sent word he was ill, the second he had to go out of town, the third time he promised to come but didn't, and so it went. Her girlfriends began to laugh at her, and then they got nasty. They said she was awfully stingy with her old Count, probably afraid that some of them would catch him. Some of them even said they didn't believe she had any Count at all. I was kept busy explaining about him and apologizing and everything. Marg felt dreadfully upset about it. Well one night she came into my room half crying and half laughing, and said that the Count had proposed to her, and she was going to marry him and be a countess, and wear a coronet, and live in a ruined castle just like in a storybook. Of course then I knew I was in for it. Her picture would be in the Sunday papers, and perhaps mine, and there'd be reporters in all sorts of things. It made me groan to think of it. Marg just loved it. She decided that she'd have to give a big reception to announce the engagement and introduce the Count. That would stop all gossip, and people would see that we were just as good as the Vanderbilt's and Gould's and Aster's, and wasn't I proud of my little sister? Well I was proud enough of her, but I shuddered when I thought of the expense and the publicity and the style we'd have to put on. I only hoped that after it was all over I could get a big sunny room somewhere near Forty Second Street, and wear my bathrobe and slippers every evening I didn't go to a show. So I went in for it. I sold my mother's pearls and got an automobile because the Count said Charlie cars and suppleys were vulgar. I mortgaged a little farm in Connecticut that had belonged to the family for a hundred years, and Marg hired a footman and a lady's maid and a valet for me. I used to send him on errands all the time to get rid of him, but her maid worked hard. The Count began to call me still well, and said, Americans weren't so bad after you knew them well. He also began to talk about my investing in Hungarian minds, and I considered it favorably until Aunt Jane's will was filed per probate. Marg and I were left $250 apiece, which I spent for garage expenses, and a portrait of her third husband, which Marg insisted on hanging up in the dining room. It was our ancestral portrait. The Count said he had him by dozens in his castles. We set today for the reception, and the Count promised on his honor he'd be there on time to meet all our friends. We invited about three hundred people, but all the week folks had been telephoning to Marg to ask couldn't they bring a friend or two, so that this afternoon, to be on the safe side, I telephoned the caterer to provide for seven hundred guests. Marg insisted on my hiring an empty suite below us for dancing, and got an orchestra and a whole lot of guilt chairs. I figured it out today that I was about thirty-seven thousand dollars in a whole up to date. The Count had come high, but Marg had to have him. And so long as she was happy and I could keep out of jail, I didn't care. Knowing that it was a love match and the Count wasn't after Marg's money, it didn't matter. I could stand it. That's the way it stood this morning. When I went downtown to my grind, florists all over the house, men nailing down canvas on the floors, footmen in everybody's way, a lot of extra maids and servants fussing about, and the caterers stewing things in the kitchen. I was glad to clear out and get down to my office where I could be quiet, worked like a Chinaman all day, and tried to forget we were marrying into the nobility. I was so nervous and excited, though, that I couldn't stand eating lunch in a restaurant where I would be likely to meet any of my friends. So I dropped into one of those little cheap quick lunch-ham and egg places under the Brooklyn Bridge. I ordered some weak tea and milk toast, and was trying to read the paper when I heard a voice that simply paralyzed me. It was behind a flimsy wooden partition in the kitchen, and it was yelling, Draw one, or something like that. Perhaps it was ham and over. Then a waiter in a dirty duck suit came out of the doorway, with about sixteen dishes balanced along his arm, and an apron on. It was the Count Capricorni. Yes, that's right, that miserable waiter was the man that about eighteen servants and six hundred guests were preparing for up at Wicherly Court, and I had spent something like thirty-seven thousand dollars so that he wouldn't be ashamed of Marguerite. Morgan stopped and smiled sadly. I don't think he saw me at all. He turned to put some things on a table, and I bolted without waiting for my lunch. You see how I'm fixed, don't you? I thought that if he did show up tonight so that we would get the reception over with, I could get rid of him tomorrow, but he didn't appear. Fenton shook his head. No, he answered, and I don't think you'll ever see him again. I guess he's done for, poor fellow. Morgan construed the remark according to his own lights, probably thinking that the Count had suspected that his real identity had been discovered. Fenton did not explain. He dared not say that he was virtually sure that the bogus Count Capricorni lay dead in an office on the thirteenth story of the St. Paul building. He wanted to forget what he had seen, at least until he had performed his duty. The reverie it threw him into was broken by Morgan. You see what I was up against. Must have been embarrassing, said Fenton. Embarrassing? Well, I guess. When eleven o'clock came and he hadn't come, I told Marguerite all about it, and she near went crazy. What are we going to do, she said, as if I knew. There we were again, without the guest of honor. Hamlet, with the Prince left out. The place was beginning to fill up, and everybody was asking questions. Well, what did you do? said Fenton, beginning to be amused. Marguerite was splendid. She took right hold of it. She told me that I had simply got to get somebody to impersonate the Count, or she would be disgraced forever. And meanwhile she'd tell everybody that the Count had been delayed in Washington, and would arrive at midnight. That would give me an hour to work it out. I confess I was frightened to death. I didn't like to deceive people. But what else could I do? Marguerite would be insane if I didn't save her reputation. Well the only person I could think of was Harold Ringrose, a college mate of mine. We often played Bazique together. He's a manufacturing chemist down on Vasey Street. I rung up his house, but they said he was downtown. I tried his office. No answer. There was nothing for me to do, but go down there and find him, and try to get him to play the part. I thought I could play the old friendship and family honor strong enough to induce him. He knows hardly anybody, and no one would ever suspect him. So I drove down there. There was a light in the sixth-story window. But I couldn't get any answer to the bell. And after I'd shouted as loud as I dared, a policeman told me to move on. So I drove back, not knowing what to do, till I met you. Morgan suddenly turned and grasped Benton's arm with both his hands. Do this for me. For heaven's sake, he exclaimed, and weakly burst into tears. God knows I never wanted all this fluff and feathers. He sobbed. I'm a simple man, with simple ways. I don't like fashion and footmen and things. I want to be let alone. Only Marguerite. Oh, brace up, old man, Fenton cried heartily. I'll save your face for you. Depend on me. It'll be a good joke on all these snobs. Is everything ready? Yes. Here we're almost home now. Home. God, I wish I'd never seen Wichreley Court. End of chapter 9