 Story 20. Only on the lower east side of New York do the houses of Capulet and Montague survive. There they do not fight by the book of arithmetic. If you but bite your thumb at an upholder of your opposing house, you have work cut out for your steel. On Broadway you may drag your man along a dozen blocks by his nose, and he will only bawl for the watch. But in the domain of the east side, Teebolts and Mercutios, you must observe the niceties of deportment to the wink of any eyelash and to an inch of elbow room at the bar when its patrons include foes of your house and kin. So when Eddie McManus, known to the Capulets as Cork McManus, drifted into Dutch mikes for a stein of beer, and came upon a bunch of Montague's making merry with the suds, he began to observe the strictest parliamentary rules. Courtesy forbade his leaving the saloon with his thirst unslaked. Caution steered him to a place at the bar where the mirror supplied the cognizance of the enemy's movements that his indifferent gaze seemed to disdain. Experience whispered to him that the finger of trouble would be busy among the chattering steins at Dutch mikes that night. Close by his side drew Brick Cleary, his Mercutio, companion of his perambulations. Thus they stood, four of the Mulberry Hill Gang and two of the Dry-Doc Gang, minding their peas and queues so solicitously that Dutch Mike kept one eye on his customers and the other on an open space beneath his bar in which it was his custom to seek safety whenever the ominous politeness of the rival associations congealed into the shapes of bullets and cold steel. But we have not to do with the wars of the Mulberry Hills and the Dry-Docs. We must to runes where, on the most blighted dead branch of the Tree of Life, a little pale orchid shall bloom. Overstrained etiquette at last gave way. It is not known who first overstepped the bounds of punctilio, but the consequences were immediate. Buck Malone of the Mulberry Hills, with a dewy-like swiftness, got an eight-inch gun swung round from his hurricane-deck, but McManus' simile must be the torpedo. He glided in under the guns and slipped a scant three inches of knife-blade between the ribs of the Mulberry Hill cruiser. Meanwhile, Brick Cleary, a devotee to strategy, had skimmed across the lunch counter and thrown the switch of the electrics, leaving the combat to be waged by the light of gunfire alone. Dutch Mike crawled from his haven and ran into the street, crying for the watch instead of for a Shakespeare, to immortalize the Sumerian shindy. The cop came and found a prostrate, bleeding Montague, supported by three distraite and reticent followers of the house. Faithful to the ethics of the gangs, no one knew whence the hurt came. There was no capulet to be seen. Browsmith there interrogatories, said Buck Malone to the officer. Sure, I know who done it. I always manages to get a bird's-eyed view of any guy that comes up and makes a showcase for a hardware store out of me. No, I'm not telling you his name. I'll settle within myself. Oh, wow, easy boys. Yes, I'll attend to his case myself. I'm not making any complaint. At midnight, McManus strolled around a pile of lumber near an east-side dock and lingered in the vicinity of a certain water-plug. Brick Cleary drifted casually to the tristing place, ten minutes later. He'll maybe not croak, said Brick, and he won't tell, of course. But Dutch Mike did. He told the police he was tired of having his place shot up. It's unhandy just now, because Tim Corrigan's in Europe for a week's end with Kings. He'll be back when the Kaiser Williams next Friday. You'll have to duck out a sight till then. Tim will fix it up all right for us when he comes back. This goes to explain why Cork McManus went into Runeys one night, and there looked upon the bright, stranger face of romance for the first time in his precarious career. Until Tim Corrigan should return from his jaunt among kings and princes, and hold up his big white finger in private offices, it was unsafe for Cork in any of the old haunts of his gang. So he lay, perdu, in the high, rear room of a Capulet, reading pink sporting sheets and cursing the slow paddle wheels of the Kaiser Wilhelm. It was on Thursday evening that Cork's seclusion became intolerable to him. Never a heart panted for water fountain, as he did for the cool touch of a drifting stein, for the firm security of a footrail in the hollow of his shoe and the quiet, hearty challenges of friendship and repartee, along and across the shining bars. But he must avoid the district where he was known. The cops were looking for him everywhere, for news was scarce, and the newspapers were harping again on the failure of the police to suppress the gangs. If they got him before Corrigan came back, the big white finger could not be uplifted. It would be too late then. But Corrigan would be home the next day. So he felt sure there would be small danger, in a little excursion that night, among the crass pleasures that represented life to him. At half-past twelve, McManus stood in a darkish, cross-town street, looking up at the name Roonies, picked out by incandescent lights against a signboard over a second-story window. He had heard of the place as a tough hangout. With its frequenters and its locality, he was unfamiliar. Guided by certain unerring indications common to all such resorts, he ascended the stairs and entered the large room over the café. Here were some twenty or thirty tables, at this time about half-filled with Roonies' guests. Waiters served drinks. At one end a human pianola with drug-a-dyes hammered the keys with automatic and furious unprecision. At merciful intervals a waiter would roar or squeak a song, songs full of Mr. Johnson's and Babe's and Coon's. Historical word guarantees of the genuineness of African melodies composed by red, waist-coated young gentlemen, natives of the cotton fields and rice swamps of West 28th Street. For one brief moment you must admire Rooney with me as he receives, seats, manipulates, and chaffs his guests. He is twenty-nine. He has Wellington's nose, Dante's chin, the cheekbones of an Iroquois, the smile of Talleyrand, Corbett's footwork, and the poise of an eleven-year-old Eastside Central Park Queen of the May. He is assisted by a lieutenant known as Frank, a pudgy, easy chap, swell-dressed, who goes among the tables seeing that doll care does not intrude. Now what is there about Rooney's to inspire all this pother? It is more respectable by daylight. Stout ladies with children and mittens and bundles and unpedigreed dogs drop up of afternoons for a stein in a chat. Even by gaslight the diversions are melancholy in the mouth, drink and ragtime, and an occasional surprise when the waiter swabs the suds from under your sticky glass. There is an answer. Transmigration! The soul of Sir Walter Raleigh has traveled from beneath his slashed doublet to a kindred home under Rooney's visible plaid waistcoat. Rooney's is twenty years ahead of the times. Rooney has removed the embargo. Rooney has spread his cloak upon the soggy crossing of public opinion, and any Elizabeth who treads upon it is as much a queen as another. Attend to the revelation of the secret. In Rooney's, ladies may smoke. McManus sat down at a vacant table. He paid for the glass of beer that he ordered, tilted his narrow-brimmed derby to the back of his brick-dust head, twined his feet among the rungs of his chair, and heaved a sigh of contentment. From the breathing spaces of his innermost soul. For this mud-honey was clarified sweetness to his taste. The sham gaiety. The hectic glow of counterfeit hospitality. The self-conscious, joyless laughter. The wine-born warmth. The loud music retrieving the hour from frequent wiles of awful and corroding silence. The presence of well-clothed and frank-eyed beneficiaries of Rooney's removal of the restrictions laid upon the weed. The familiar blended odors of soaked lemon peel, flat beer, and poe de Spagna. All these were mana to Cork McManus, hungry for his week in the desert of the Capulet's high rear room. A girl, alone, entered Rooney's, glanced around with leisurely swiftness, and sat opposite McManus at his table. Her eyes rested upon him for two seconds, in the look with which woman reconnoiters all men whom she for the first time confronts. In that space of time she will decide upon one of two things, either to scream for the police, or that she may marry him later on. Her brief inspection concluded, the girl laid on the table a worn red Morocco shopping bag with the inevitable top-gallant sail of frayed lace handkerchief flying from a corner of it. After she had ordered a small beer from the immediate waiter, she took from her bag a box of cigarettes, and lighted one with slightly exaggerated ease of manner. Then she looked again in the eyes of Cork McManus and smiled. Instantly the doom of each was sealed. The unqualified desire of a man to buy clothes and build fires for a woman for a whole lifetime, at first sight of her, is not uncommon among the humble portion of humanity that does not care for Bradstreet or coat of arms or Shaw's plays. Love, at first sight, has occurred a time or two in high life, but as a role, the extemporary mania is to be found among unsophisticated creatures, such as the dove, the blue-tailed ding-bat, and the ten-dollar-a-week clerk. Poets, subscribers to all fiction magazines, and shotchins take notice. With the exchange of the mysterious magnetic current, came to each of them the instant desire to lie, pretend, dazzle, and deceive, which is the worst thing about the hypocritical disorder known as love. Have another beer? suggested Cork. In his circle the phrase was considered to be a card, accompanied by a letter of introduction and references. No thanks, said the girl, raising her eyebrows and choosing her conventional words carefully. I merely dropped in for a slight refreshment. The cigarette between her fingers seemed to require explanation. My aunt is a Russian lady, she concluded, and we often have a post-perennial cigarette after dinner at home. Geez it, said Cork, whom society heirs oppressed. Your fingers are as yellow as mine. Say, said the girl, blazing upon him with low-voiced indignation. What do you think I am? Say, who do you think you are talking to? What? She was pretty to look at. Her eyes were big, brown, intrepid, and bright. Under her flat sailor hat, planted jauntily on one side, her crinkly, tawny hair parted, and was drawn back, low and massy, in a thick, pendant knot behind. The roundness of girlhood still lingered in her chin and neck, while her cheeks and fingers were thinning slightly. She looked upon the world with defiance, suspicion, and sullen wonder. Her smart, short tan coat was soiled and expensive. Two inches below her black dress dropped the lowest flounce of a heliotrope silk underskirt. Beg your pardon, said Cork, looking at her admiringly. I didn't mean anything. Sure, it's no harm to smoke, Maudi. Roonies, said the girl, softened at once by his amend, is the only place I know where a lady can smoke. Maybe it ain't a nice habit, but auntie lets us at home. And my name ain't Maudi, if you please. It's Ruby Delamere. That's a swell handle, said Cork approvingly. Mind's McManus. Cork, er, Eddie McManus. Oh, you can't help that, laughed Ruby. Don't apologize. Cork looked seriously at the big clock on Roonies' wall. The girl's ubiquitous eyes took in the movement. I know it's late, she said, reaching for her bag. But you know how you want to smoke when you want one. Ain't Roonies all right? I never saw anything wrong here. This is twice I've been in. I work in a book-bindery on Third Avenue. A lot of us girls have been working overtime three nights a week. And they won't let you smoke there, of course. I just dropped in here on my way home for a puff. Ain't it all right in here? If it ain't, I won't come any more. It's a little bit late for you to be out alone anywhere, said Cork. I'm not wise to this particular joint, but anyhow, you don't want to have your picture taken in it for a present to your Sunday school teacher. Have one more beer, and then say, I take you home. But I don't know you, said the girl, with fine scrupulosity. I don't accept the company of gentlemen I ain't acquainted with. My aunt would never allow that. Why? said Cork McMannus, pulling his ear. I'm the latest thing in suitings with side vents and bell skirt when it comes to escorting a lady. You bet you'll find me all right, Ruby, and I'll give you a tip as to who I am. My governor is one of the hottest cross buns of the Wall Street push. Morgan's cab horse casts a shoe every time the old man sticks his head out the window. Me? Well, I'm in training down the street. The old man's going to put a seat on the stock exchange in my stock in my next birthday. But it all sounds like a lemon to me. What I like is golf and yachting, and there are, well, say, a corking-fast ten-round bout between welterweights with walking gloves. I guess you can walk to the door with me, said the girl hesitatingly, but with a certain pleased flutter. Still, I never heard anything extra good about Wall Street brokers, or sports who go to prize fights, either. Ain't you got any other recommendations? I think you're the swellest looker I've had my lamps on in little old New York, said Cork, impressively. That'll be about enough of that now, ain't you the kidder? She modified her chiding words by a deep, long, beaming, smile-embellished look at her cavalier. We'll drink our beer before we go, huh? A waiter sang, the tobacco's smoke grew denser, drifting and rising in spirals, waves, tilted layers, cumulus clouds, cataracts, and suspended fogs, like some fifth element created from the ribs of the ancient fore. Laughter and chat grew louder, stimulated by Rooney's liquids and Rooney's gallant hospitality to Lady Nicotine. One o'clock struck. Downstairs there was a sound of closing and locking doors. Frank pulled down the green shades of the front windows carefully. Rooney went below in the dark hall and stood at the front door. His cigarette cached in the hollow of his hand. Henceforth, whoever might seek admittance must present a countenance familiar to Rooney's hawk's eye, the countenance of a true sport. Cork McManus and the book-bindery girl conversed absorbitly with their elbows on the table. Their glasses of beer were pushed to one side, scarcely touched, with the foam on them sunken to a thin white scum. Since the stroke of one, the stale pleasures of Rooney's had become renovated and spiced. Not by any addition to the list of distractions, but because from that moment the sweets became stolen ones. The flattest glass of beer acquired the tang of illegality. The mildest claret punch struck a knockout blow at law and order. The harmless and genial company became outlaws, defying authority and rule. For, after the stroke of one, in such places as Rooney's, where neither bed nor board is to be had, drink may not be set before the thirsty of the city of the four million. It is the law. Say, said Cork McManus, almost covering the table with his eloquent chest and elbows. Was that dead straight about you working in the book-bindery and living at home, and just happening in here, and all that spiel you gave me? Sure it was, answered the girl with spirit. Why, what do you think? Do you suppose I'd lie to you? Go down to the shop and ask him. I handed it to you on the level. On the dead level? said Cork. That's the way I want it, because—because what? I throw up my hands, said Cork. You got me going. You're the girl I've been looking for. Will you keep company with me, Ruby? Would you like me to, Eddie? Sure a thing, but I wanted a straight story about—about yourself, you know. When a fellow had a girl—a study girl—she's got to be all right, you know. She's got to be straight goods. You'll find I'll be straight goods, Eddie? Of course you will. I believe what you told me. What you can't blame me for wanting to find out. You don't see many girls smoking cigarettes in places like Rooney's after midnight that are like you. The girl flushed a little and lowered her eyes. I see that now, she said meekly. I didn't know how bad it looked. But I won't do it any more, and I'll go straight home every night and stay there, and I'll give up cigarettes if you say so, Eddie. I'll cut them out from this minute on. Cork's air became judicial, proprietary, condemnatory, yet sympathetic. A lady can smoke, he decided slowly, at times and places. Why? Because it's been a lady that helps her pull it off. I'm going to quit. There's nothing to it, said the girl. She flicked the stub of her cigarette to the floor. At times and places, repeated Cork, when I call round for you of evenings, we'll haunt out a dark bench in Stuyvesant Square and have a puff or two. But no more Rooney's at one o'clock, see? Eddie, do you really like me? The girl searched, his hard but frank features eagerly with anxious eyes. On the dead level. When are you coming to see me? Where I live. Thursday, day after tomorrow evening. That suit you? Fine. I'll be ready for you. Come about seven. Walk to the door with me tonight, and I'll show you where I live. Don't forget now. And don't you go to see any other girls before then, mister? I bet you will, though. On the dead level, said Cork, you make them all look like ragdolls to me. Honest you do. I know when I'm suited. On the dead level I do. Against the front door downstairs, repeated heavy blows were delivered. The loud crashes resounded in the room above. Only a trip hammer, or a policeman's foot, could have been the author of those sounds. Rooney jumped like a bullfrog to a corner of the room, turned off the electric lights, and hurried swiftly below. The room was left utterly dark except for the winking red glow of cigars and cigarettes. A second volley of crashes came up from the assaulted door. A little rustling murmuring panic moved among the besieged guests. Frank, cool, smooth, reassuring, could be seen in the rosy glow of the burning tobacco, going from table to table. All keep still, was his caution. Don't talk or make any noise. Everything will be all right. Now, don't feel the slightest alarm. We'll take care of you all. Ruby felt across the table until Cork's firm hand closed upon hers. Are you afraid, Eddie? She whispered. Are you afraid you'll get a free ride? Nothing done in a teeth-chatterin' line, said Cork. I guess Rooney's been slow with his envelope. Don't you worry, girly. I'll look out for you all right. Yet Mr. McManus's ease was only skin and muscle deep, with the police looking everywhere for Buck Malone's assailant, and with Corrigan still on the ocean wave. He felt that, to be caught in a police raid, would mean an ended career for him. He wished he had remained in the high rear room of the true Capulet, reading the pink extras. Rooney seemed to have opened the front door below and engaged the police in conference in the dark hall. The wordless, low growl of their voices came up the stairway. Frank made a wireless news station of himself at the upper door. Suddenly he closed the door, hurried to the extreme rear of the room, and lighted a dim gas jet. This way, everybody, he called sharply, in a hurry, but no noise, please. The guests crowded in confusion to the rear. Rooney's lieutenants swung open a panel in the wall, overlooking the backyard, revealing a ladder already placed for the escape. Down and out, everybody, he commanded. Ladies first, less talking, please, don't crowd. There's no danger. Among the last, Cork and Ruby waited their turn at the open panel. Suddenly she swept him aside, and clung to his arm, fiercely. Before we go out, she whispered in his ear. Before anything happens, tell me again, Eddie, do you really like me? On the dead level, said Cork, holding her close with one arm, when it comes to you, I'm all in. When they turned, they found they were lost, and in darkness. The last of the fleeing customers had descended. Halfway across the yard, they bore the ladder, stumbling, giggling, hurrying to place it against an adjoining low building over the roof of which their only route to safety. We may as well sit down, said Cork grimly. Maybe Rooney will stand the cops off, anyhow. They sat at a table, and their hands came together again. A number of men then entered the dark room, feeling their way about. One of them, Rooney himself, found the switch and turned on the electric light. The other man was a cop of the old regime, a big cop, a thick cop, a fuming abrupt cop, not a pretty cop. He went up to the pair at the table and sneered familiarly at the girl. What are you doing in here? he asked. Dropped in for a smoke, said Cork mildly. Had any drinks? Not later than one o'clock. Get out, quick, ordered the cop. Then, sit down, he countermanded. He took off Cork's hat roughly and scrutinized him shrewdly. Your name's McManus. Bad guess, said Cork. It's Peterson. Cork, McManus, or something like that, said the cop. You put a knife into a man in Dutch Mike's saloon a week ago. Ah, forget it! said Cork, who perceived a shade of doubt in the officer's tones. You've got my mug mixed with somebody else's. Have I? Well, you'll come to the station with me anyhow and be looked over. The description fits you, all right. The cop twisted his fingers under Cork's collar. Come on! he ordered roughly. Cork glanced at Ruby. She was pale, and her thin nostrils quivered. Her quick eye danced from one man's face to the other, as they spoke or moved. What hard luck! Cork was thinking, corrigan on the briny, and Ruby met and lost almost within an hour. Somebody at the police station would recognize him without a doubt. Hard luck! But suddenly the girl sprang up and hurled herself, with both arms extended, against the cop. His hold on Cork's collar was loosened, and he stumbled back two or three paces. Don't go so fast, McGuire. She cried in a shrill fury. Keep your hands off my man. You know me, and you know I'm giving you good advice. Don't you touch him again. He's not the guy you're looking for. I'll stand for that. See here, Fanny, said the cop, red and angry. I'll take you, too, if you don't look out. How do you know this ain't the man I want? What are you doing in here with him? How do I know? said the girl, flaming red and white by turns. Because I've known him a year. He's mine, ought and I to know. And what am I doing here with him? That's easy. She stooped low and reached down somewhere, into a swirl of flirted draperies, heliotrope and black. An elastic snapped. She threw on the table toward Cork, a folded wad of bills. The money slowly straightened itself with little leisurely jerks. Take that, Jimmy, and let's go. Said the girl. I'm declaring the usual dividends, McGuire. She said to the officer, you had your usual five-dollar graft at the usual corner at ten. A lie, said the cop, turning purple. You go on my beat again, and I'll arrest you every time I see you. No, you won't, said the girl, and I'll tell you why. Witnesses saw me give you the money tonight, and last week, too. I've been getting fixed for you. Cork put the wad of money carefully into his pocket, and said, Come on, Fanny, let's have some chop suey before we go home. Clear out, quick, both of you are all. The cop's bluster trailed away into inconsequentiality. At the corner of the street, the two halted. Cork handed back the money without a word. The girl took it and slipped it slowly into her handbag. Her expression was the same she had worn when she entered Rooney's that night. She looked upon the world with defiance, suspicion, and sullen wonder. I guess I might as well say goodbye here, she said, Dolly. You won't want to see me again, of course. Will you shake hands, Mr. McManus? I mightn't have got wise if you hadn't give the snap away, said Cork. Why did you do it? You'd have been pinched if I hadn't. That's why. Ain't that reason enough? Then she began to cry. Honest, Eddie, I was going to be the best girl in the world. I hated to be what I am. I hated men. I was almost ready to die when I saw you, and you seemed so different from everybody else. And when I found you liked me, too, why, I thought I'd make you believe I was good, and I was going to be good. When you asked to come to my house and see me, why, I'd have died rather than do anything wrong after that. But what's the use of talking about it? I'll say goodbye, if you will, Mr. McManus. Cork was pulling at his ear. I knifed Malone, said he. I was the one the cop wanted. Oh, that's all right, said the girl listlessly. It didn't make any difference about that. That was all hot air about Wall Street. I don't do nothing but hang out with a tough gang on the east side. That was all right, too, repeated the girl. It didn't make any difference. Cork straightened himself and pulled his hat down low. I could get a job at a Bryan's, he said aloud, but to himself. Goodbye, said the girl. Come on, said Cork, taking her arm. I know a place. Two blocks away he turned with her up the steps of a red brick house facing a little park. What house is this? she asked, drawing back. Why are you going in there? A street lamp shone brightly in front. There was a brass name-plate at one side of the closed front doors. Cork drew her firmly up the steps. Read that, said he. She looked at the name on the plate and gave a cry between a moan and a scream. No, no, Eddie. Oh, my God, no. I won't let you do that, not now. Let me go. You shan't do that. You can't. You mustn't. Not after you know. No, no. Come away, quick. Oh, my God. Please, Eddie, come. Half fainting she reeled and was caught in the bend of his arm. Cork's right hand felt for the electric button and pressed it long. Another cop. How quickly they sent trouble when trouble was on the wing. Came along, saw them, and ran up the steps. Here, what are you doing with that girl? he called gruffly. She'll be all right in a minute, said Cork. It's a straight deal. Reverend Jeremiah Jones read the cop from the door plate with true Detective Cunning. Correct, said Cork. On the dead level, we're going to get married. And of Story 20, past one at Rooney's, Story 21 of Strictly Business, More Stories of the Four Million by O. Henry. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Warren Coddy, Gurney, Illinois. Story 21, The Venturers. Let the story wreck itself on the spreading rails of the non-sequitur limited, if it will. First, you must take your seat in the observation-car, raison d'et, for one moment. It is for no longer than to consider a brief essay on the subject. Let us call it, What's Around the Corner? Omne Munda Sindhuas Partestivisum Est, Men Who Wear Rubbers and Pay Poll Taxes, and Men Who Discover New Continents. There are no more continents to discover, but by the time overshoes are out of date, and the poll has developed into an income tax, the other half will be paralleling the canals of Mars with Radium Railways. Fortune, Chance, and Adventure are given as synonymous in the dictionaries. To the knowing each has a different meaning. Fortune is a prize to be won. Adventure is the road to it. Chance is what may lurk in the shadows at the roadside. The face of Fortune is radiant and alluring. That of Adventure is flushed and heroic. The face of Chance is the beautiful countenance, perfect because vague and dream-born, that we see in our tea cups at breakfast, while we growl over our chops and toast. The Venturer is one who keeps his eye on the hedge-rows and wayside groves and meadows while he travels the road to Fortune. That is the difference between him and the Adventurer. Eating the forbidden fruit was the best record ever made by a Venturer. Trying to prove that it happened is the highest work of the Adventuresome. To be either is disturbing to the cosmogony of creation. So, as bracket-sawed and city-directored citizens, let us light our pipes, chide the children and the cat, arrange ourselves in the Willow Rocker under the flickering gas jet at the coolest window, and scan this little tale of two modern followers of Chance. Did you ever hear that story about the man from the west? asked Billinger in the little dark oak room to your left as you penetrate the interior of the Powhatan Club. Doubtless, said John Reginald Forster, rising and leaving the room. Forster got his straw hat. Straws will be in and maybe out again, long before this is printed, from the checkroom boy and walked out of the air, as Hamlet says. Billinger was used to having his stories insulted and would not mind. Forster was in his favorite mood and wanted to go away from anywhere. A man, in order to get on good terms with himself, must have his opinions corroborated and his moods matched by someone else. I had written that, quote, somebody, but an ADT boy who once took a telegram from me pointed out that I could save money by using the compound word. This is a vice versa case. Forster's favorite mood was that of greatly desiring to be a follower of Chance. He was a ventureer by nature, but convention, birth, tradition, and the narrowing influences of the tribe of Manhattan, had denied him full privilege. He had trodden all the main travel thoroughfares and many of the side roads that are supposed to relieve the tedium of life, but none had sufficed. The reason was that he knew what was to be found at the end of every street. He knew from experience and logic, almost precisely to what end, each digression from routine must lead. He found a depressing monotony in all the variations that the music of his sphere had grafted upon the tune of life. He had not learned that, although the world was made round, the circle has been squared, and that its true interest is to be in what's around the corner. Forster walked abroad aimlessly from the Powhatan, trying not to tax his judgment or his desire as to what streets he traveled. He would have been glad to lose his way if it were possible, but he had no hope of that. Adventure and fortune move at your beck and call in the greater city, but chance is oriental. She is a veiled lady in a sedan chair, protected by a special traffic squad of Dragonians. Crosstown, Uptown, and Downtown, you may move without seeing her. At the end of an hour's stroll, Forster stood on a corner of a broad, smooth avenue, looking disconsolently across it at a picturesque, old hotel, softly but brilliantly lit. Disconsolently, because he knew that he must dine, and dining in that hotel was no venture. It was one of his favorite caravan series, and so silent and swift would be the service, and so delicately choice the food, that he regretted the hunger that must be appeased by the dead perfection of the place's cuisine. Even the music there seemed to be always playing da capo. Fancy came to him that he would dine at some cheap, even dubious restaurant, lower down in the city, where the erratic chefs from all countries of the world spread their national cookery for the omnivorous American. Something might happen there, out of the routine. He might come upon a subject without a predicate, a road without an end, a question without an answer, a cause without an effect, a gulf stream in life's salt ocean. He had not dressed for evening, he wore a dark business suit that would not be questioned even where the waiter served the spaghetti in their shirt sleeves. So John Reginald Forster began to search his clothes for money, because the more cheaply you dine, the more surely must you pay. All of the thirteen pockets, large and small, of his business suit he explored carefully, and found not a penny. His bank book showed a balance of five figures to his credit in the old Ironside's Trust Company, but Forster became aware of a man nearby at his left hand, who was really regarding him with some amusement. He looked like any businessman of thirty or so, neatly dressed and standing in the attitude of one waiting for a streetcar. But there was no car-line on that avenue, so his proximity and unconcealed curiosity seemed to Forster to partake of the nature of a personal intrusion. But, as he was a consistent seeker after what's around the corner, instead of manifesting resentment, he only turned a half-embarrassed smile upon the other's grin of amusement. All in, asked the intruder, drawing nearer. Seemed so, says Forster. Now I thought there was a dollar in. Oh, I know, said the other man, with a laugh. But there wasn't. I've just been through the same process myself as I was coming around the corner. I found an upper vest pocket. I don't know how they got there. Exactly two pennies. You know what kind of a dinner exactly two pennies will buy. You haven't dined, then, asked Forster. I have not, but I would like to. Now I'll make you a proposition. You look like a man who would take up one. Your clothes look neat and respectable. Excuse personalities. I think mine will pass the scrutiny of a head-waiter also. Suppose we go over to that hotel and dine together. We will choose from the menu like millionaires. Or, if you prefer, like gentlemen in moderate circumstances, dining extravagantly for once. When we have finished, we will match with my two pennies to see which of us will stand the brunt of the house's displeasure and vengeance. My name is Ives. I think we have lived in the same station of life before our money took wings. You're on, said Forster, joyfully. Here was a venture at least within the borders of the mysterious country of chance. Anyhow, it promised something better than the stale infestivity of a tabal dihote. The two were soon seated at a corner table in the hotel dining-room. Ives chucked one of his pennies across the table to Forster. Match for which of us gives the order, he said. Forster lost. Ives laughed and began to name liquids in vines to the waiter with the absorbed, but calm deliberation of one who was to the menu born. Forster, listening, gave his admiring approval of the order. I am a man, said Ives, during the oysters, who has made a lifetime search after the to be continued in our next. I am not like the ordinary adventurer who strikes for a coveted prize. Nor yet am I like a gambler who knows he is either to win or lose a certain set stake. What I want is to encounter an adventure to which I can predict no conclusion. It is the breath of existence to me to dare fate in its blindest manifestations. The world has come to run so much by rote and gravitation that you can enter upon hardly any footpath of chance in which you do not find signboards informing you of what you may expect at its end. I am like the clerk in the circumlocution office, who always complained bitterly when any one came in to ask information. He wanted to know, you know. Was the kick he made to his fellow clerks? Well, I don't want to know. I don't want to reason. I don't want to guess. I want to bet my hand without seeing it. I understand, said Forster delightedly. I have often wanted the way I feel put into words. You've done it. I want to take chances on what's coming. Suppose we have a bottle of Moselle with the next course. Agreed, said Ives. I'm glad you catch my idea. It will increase the animosity of the house toward the loser. If it does not weary you, we will pursue the theme. Only a few times have I met a true adventurer, one who does not ask a schedule and map from fate when he begins a journey. But, as the world becomes more civilized and wiser, the more difficult it is to come upon an adventure, the end of which you cannot foresee. In the Elizabethan days you could assault the watch, ring knockers from doors, and have a jolly set to with the blades in any convenient angle of a wall, and get away with it. Nowadays, if you speak disrespectfully to a policeman, all that is left to the most romantic fancy is to conjecture in what particular police station he will land you. I know, I know, said Forster, nodding approval. I return to New York today, continued Ives, from a three years ramble around the globe. Things are not much better abroad than they are at home. The whole world seems to be overrun by conclusions. The only thing that interests me greatly is a premise. I've tried shooting big game in Africa. I know what an express rifle will do, at so many yards, and when an elephant or a rhinoceros falls to the bullet. I enjoy it about as much as I did, when I was kept in, after school, to do a sum in long division on the Blackboard. I know, I know, said Forster. There might be something in aeroplanes, went on Ives, reflectively. I've tried ballooning, but it seems to be merely a cut-and-dried affair of wind and ballast. Women, suggested Forster, with a smile. Three months ago, said Ives, I was pottering around in one of the bazaars in Constantinople. I noticed the lady, veiled, of course, but with a pair of especially fine eyes visible, who was examining some amber and pearl ornaments at one of the booths. With her was an attendant, a big nubian, as black as coal. After a while the attendant drew nearer to me by degrees, and slipped a scrap of paper into my hand. I looked at it when I got a chance. On it was scrawled hastily in pencil the arched gate of the Nightingale Garden at nine tonight. Does that appear to you to be an interesting premise, Mr. Forster? I made inquiries and learned that the Nightingale Garden was the property of an old Turk, a Grand Vizier or something of the sort. Of course, I prospected for the arched gate, and was there at nine. The same nubian attendant opened the gate promptly on time, and I went inside and sat on a bench by a perfumed fountain with the veiled lady. We had quite an extended chat. She was Myrtle Thompson, a lady journalist who was writing up the Turkish harems for a Chicago newspaper. She said she noticed the New York cut of my clothes in the bazaar, and wondered if I couldn't work something into the metropolitan papers about it. I see, said Forster. I see. I've canoeed through Canada, said Ives, down many rapids and over many falls, but I didn't seem to get what I wanted out of it because I knew there were only two possible outcomes. I would either go to the bottom or arrive at the sea level. I've played all games at cards, but the mathematicians have spoiled that sport by computing the percentages. I've made acquaintances on trains. I've answered advertisements. I've rung strange doorbells. I've taken every chance that presented itself. But there has always been the conventional ending, the logical conclusion to the premise. I know, repeated Forster. I've felt it all. But I've had few chances to take my chance at chances. Is there any life so devoid of impossibilities as life in this city? There seems to be a myriad of opportunities for testing the undeterminable. But not one in a thousand fails to land you where you expected it to stop. I wish the subways and streetcars disappointed one as seldom. The sun has risen, said Ives, on the Arabian nights. There are no more caliphs. The fisherman's vase is turned to a vacuum bottle, warranted to keep any genie boiling or frozen for forty-eight hours. Life moves by, wrote. Science has killed adventure. There are no more opportunities such as Columbus and the man who ate the first oyster had. The only certain thing is that there is nothing uncertain. Well, said Forster, my experience has been the limited one of a city-man. I haven't seen the world as you have, but it seems that we view it with the same opinion. But I tell you, I am grateful for even this little venture of ours into the borders of the half-hazard. There may be at least one breathless moment when the bill for the dinner is presented. Perhaps, after all, the pilgrims who travelled without script or purse found a keener taste to life, than did the knights of the round table, who rode abroad with the retinue and King Arthur's certified checks in the lining of their helmets. And now, if you've finished your coffee, suppose we match one of your insufficient coins for the impending blow of fate. What have I up? Heads, called Ives. Heads it is, said Forster, lifting his hand. I lose. We forgot to agree upon a plan for the winter to escape. I suggest that when the waiter comes you make a remark about telephoning to a friend. I will hold the fort and the dinner-check long enough for you to get your hat and be off. I thank you for an evening out of the ordinary, Mr. Ives, and wish we might have others. If my memory is not at fault, said Ives, laughing, the nearest police station is in McDougall Street. I have enjoyed the dinner too, let me assure you. Forster croaked his finger for the waiter. Victor, with a locomotive effort that seemed to owe more to pneumatics than to pedestrianism, glided to the table and laid the card face downward by the loser's cup. Forster took it up and added the figures with deliberate care. Ives leaned back comfortably in his chair. Excuse me, said Forster. But I thought you were going to ring grimes about that theater party for Thursday night. Had you forgotten about it? Oh! said Ives, settling himself more comfortably. I can do that later on. Get me a glass of water, waiter. Want to be in at the death, do you? asked Forster. I hope you don't object, said Ives, pleadingly. Never in my life have I seen a gentleman arrested in a public restaurant for swindling it out of a dinner. All right, said Forster calmly. You are entitled to see a Christian die in the arena as your post-cafe. Victor came with the glass of water and remained, with the disengaged air of an inexorable collector. Forster hesitated for fifteen seconds and then took a pencil from his pocket and scribbled his name on the dinner-check. The waiter bowed and took it away. The fact is, said Forster, with a little embarrassed laugh, I doubt whether I'm what they call a game sport, which means the same as a soldier of fortune. I'll have to make a confession. I've been dining at this hotel two or three times a week for more than a year. I always sign my checks. And then, with a note of appreciation in his voice, it was first rate of you to stay to see me through with it when you knew I had no money, and that you might be scooped in, too. I guess I'll confess, too, said Ives with a grin. I own the hotel. I don't run it, of course, but I always keep a suite on the third floor for my use when I happen to stray into town. He called a waiter and said, Is Mr. Gilmore still behind the desk? All right, tell him that Mr. Ives is here, and ask him to have my rooms made ready and aired. Another venture cut short by the inevitable, said Forster. Is there a conundrum without an answer in the next number? But let's hold to our subject just for a minute or two, if you will. It isn't often that I meet a man who understands the flaws I pick in existence. I am engaged to be married a month from today. I reserve comment, said Ives. Right, I am going to add to the assertion. I am devotedly fond of the lady, but I can't decide whether to show up at the church or make a sneak for Alaska. It's the same idea, you know, that we were discussing. It does for a fellow as far as possibilities are concerned. Everybody knows the routine. You get a kiss flavored with Ceylon tea after breakfast. You go to the office. You come back home and dress for dinner. Theater twice a week. Bills. Moping around most evenings trying to make conversation. A little quarrel occasionally. Maybe sometimes a big one. And a separation. Or else a settling down into a middle aged contentment, which is worst of all. I know, said Ives, nodding wisely. It's the dead certainty of the thing, went on Forster. That keeps me in doubt. There'll never more be anything around the corner. Nothing after the little church, said Ives. I know. Understand, said Forster, that I am in no doubt as to my feelings toward the lady. I may say that I love her truly and deeply. But there is something in the current that runs through my veins that cries out against any form of the calculable. I do not know what I want. But I know that I want it. I'm talking like an idiot, I suppose, but I'm sure of what I mean. I understand you, said Ives, with a slow smile. Well, I think I will be going up to my rooms now. If you would dine with me here one evening soon, Mr. Forster, I'd be glad. Thursday, suggested Forster. At seven, if it's convenient, answered Ives. Seven goes, assented Forster. At half-past eight, Ives got into a cab and was driven to a number in one of the correct West Seventies. His card admitted him to the reception room of an old-fashioned house into which the spirits of fortune, chance, and adventure had never dared to enter. On the walls were the whistler etchings, the steel engravings by, oh, what's his name, the still life paintings of the grapes and garden-truck, with the watermelon seed spilled on the table as natural as life, and the groin's head. It was a household. There was even brass and irons. On a table was an album, half Morocco, with oxidized silver protections on the corners of the lids, a clock on the mantle ticked loudly, with the warning click at five minutes to nine. Ives looked at it curiously, remembering a timepiece in his grandmother's home that gave such a warning. And then down the stairs and into the room came Mary Marsden. She was twenty-four, and I leave her to your imagination. But I must say this much, youth, and health, and simplicity, and courage, and greenish violet eyes are beautiful. And she had all these. She gave Ives her hand with the sweet cordiality of an old friendship. You can't think what a pleasure it is, she said, to have you drop in once every three years or so. For half an hour they talked. I confess that I cannot repeat the conversation. You will find it in books in the circulating library. When that part of it was over, Mary said, And did you find what you wanted while you were abroad? What I wanted, said Ives. Yes, you know you are always queer, even as a boy you wouldn't play marbles or baseball or any game with rules. You wanted to dive in water where you didn't know whether it was ten inches or ten feet deep. And when you grew up you were just the same. We've often talked about your peculiar ways. I suppose I am incorrigible, said Ives. I am opposed to the doctrine of predestination, to the rule of three, gravitation, taxation, and everything of the kind. Life has always seemed to me something like a serial story would be if they printed above each installment a synopsis of succeeding chapters. Mary laughed merrily. Bob Ames told us once, she said, Of a funny thing you did. It was when you and he were on a train in the south, and you got off at a town where you hadn't intended to stop, just because the breakman hung up a sign at the end of the car with the name of the next station on it. I remember, said Ives, that next station has been the thing I've always tried to get away from. I know it, said Mary. And you've been very foolish. I hope you didn't find what you wanted not to find, or get off at the station where there wasn't any, or whatever it was you expected wouldn't happen to you during the three years you've been away. There was something I wanted before I went away, said Ives. Mary looked in his eyes clearly, with a slight but perfectly sweet smile. There was, she said, You wanted me, and you could have had me as you very well know. Without replying, Ives let his gaze wander slowly about the room. There had been no change in it since last he had been in it three years before. He vividly recalled the thoughts that had been in his mind then. The contents of that room were as fixed, in their way, as the everlasting hills. No change would ever come there except the inevitable ones wrought by time and decay. That silver-mounted album would occupy that corner of that table. Those pictures would hang on the walls. Those chairs be found in their same places every morning, noon, and night, while the household hung together. The brass and irons were monuments to order and stability. Here and there were relics of a hundred years ago, which were still living mementos, and would be for many years to come. One going from, and coming back to that house, would never need to forecast or doubt. He would find what he left and leave what he found. The veiled lady, Chance, would never lift her hand to the knocker on the outer door. And before him sat the lady who belonged in the room, cool and sweet and unchangeable she was. She offered no surprises if one should pass his life with her, though she might grow white-haired and wrinkled. He would never perceive the change. Three years he had been away from her, and she was still waiting for him, as established and constant, as the house itself. He was sure that she had once cared for him. It was the knowledge that she would always do so that had driven him away. Thus his thoughts ran. I am going to be married soon, said Mary. On the next Thursday afternoon, Forster came hurriedly to Ives Hotel. Old man, said he, will have to put that dinner off for a year or so. I'm going abroad. The steamer sails at four. That was a great talk we had the other night, and it decided me. I'm going to knock around the world and get rid of that incubus that has been weighing on both you and me. The terrible dread of knowing what's going to happen. I've done one thing that hurts my conscience a little, but I know it's best for both of us. I've written to the lady to whom I was engaged and explained everything. Told her plainly why I was leaving, that the monotony of matrimony would never do for me. Don't you think I was right? It is not for me to say, answered Ives. Go ahead and shoot, elephants, if you think it will bring the element of chance into your life. We've got to decide these things for ourselves. But I tell you one thing, Forster. I've found the way. I've found out the biggest hazard in the world. A game of chance that never is concluded. A venture that may end in the highest heaven or the blackest pit. It will keep a man on edge until the clods fall on his coffin. Because he will never know. Not until his last day, and not then will he know. It is a voyage without a rudder or compass. And you must be captain and crew and keep watch, every day and night, yourself, with no one to relieve you. I have found the venture. Don't bother yourself about leaving Mary Marston, Forster. I married her yesterday at noon. End of Story Twenty-One. The Venturers. Story Twenty-Two of Strictly Business. More stories of the Four Million by O. Henry. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Warren Cotty, Gurney, Illinois. Story Twenty-Two, The Duel. The gods, lying beside their nectar on Limpus, and peeping over the edge of the cliff, perceive a difference in cities. Although it would seem that, to their vision, towns must appear as large or small anthills without special characteristics, yet it is not so. Studying the habits of ants from so great a height should be but a mild diversion when coupled with the soft drink that mythology tells us is their only solace. But, doubtless, they have amused themselves by the comparison of villages and towns, and it will be no news to them, nor perhaps to many mortals, that in one particularity New York stands unique among the cities of the world. This shall be the theme of a little story addressed to the man who sits smoking with his sabbath-slippered feet on another chair, and to the woman who snatches the paper for a moment, while boiling greens or a narcotized baby leaves her free. With these I love to sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings. New York City is inhabited by four million mysterious strangers, thus beating Bird Center by three millions and half a dozen nines. They came here in various ways and for many reasons. Hendrick Hudson, the art schools, green goods, the stork, the annual dressmakers convention, the Pennsylvania railroad, love of money, the stage, cheap excursion rates, brains, personal column ads, heavy walking shoes, ambition, freight trains—all these have had a hand in making up the population. But every man Jack, when he first sets foot on the stones of Manhattan, has got to fight. He has got to fight at once, until either he or his adversary wins. There is no resting between rounds, for there are no rounds. It is slugging from the first. It is a fight to a finish. Your opponent is the city. You must do battle with it from the time the ferry boat lands you on the island, until either it is yours or it has conquered you. It is the same whether you have a million in your pocket or only the price of a week's lodging. The battle is to decide whether you shall become a New Yorker or turn the rankest outlander in Philistine. You must be one or the other. You cannot remain neutral. You must be for or against, lover or enemy, bosom friend or outcast. And, oh, the city is a general in the ring. Not only by blows does it seek to subdue you, it woos you to its heart with the subtlety of a siren. It is a combination of Delilah, Green Chartreuse, Beethoven, Chlorelle, and John L. in his best days. In other cities you may wander and abide as a stranger man, as long as you please. You may live in Chicago until your hair whitens, and be a citizen and still prayt of beans if Boston mothered you, and without rebuke. You may become a civic pillar in any other town but Knickerbockers, and all the time publicly sneering at its buildings, comparing them with the architecture of Colonel Telfair's residence in Jackson, Mississippi, whence you hail, and you will not be set upon. But in New York you must be either a New Yorker or an invader of a modern Troy, concealed in the wooden horse of your conceited provincialism. And this dreary preamble is only to introduce to you the unimportant figures of William and Jack. They came out of the West together, where they had been friends. They came to dig their fortunes out of the big city. Father Knickerbocker met them at the ferry, giving one a right-hander on the nose, and the other an uppercut with his left, just to let them know that the fight was on. William was for business. Jack was for art. Both were young and ambitious, so they countered and clenched. I think they were from Nebraska, or possibly Missouri, or Minnesota. Anyhow they were out for success in scraps and scads, and they tackled the city like two locon-vars, with brass nocks, and a pool at the city hall. Four years afterward William and Jack met at luncheon. The businessman blew in like a March wind, and hurled his silk hat at a waiter, dropped into the chair that was pushed under him, seized the bill of fare, and had ordered, as far as cheese, before the artist had time to do more than nod. After the nod, a humorous smile came into his eyes. Billy, he said, You're done for. The city has gobbled you up. It has taken you and cut you to its pattern and stamped you with its brand. You are so nearly like ten thousand men I have seen today, that you couldn't be picked out from them if it weren't for your laundry-marks. Commembert, finished William. What's that? Oh, you've still got your hammer out for New York, have you? Well, little old Noisyville on the subway is good enough for me. It's giving me mine. And, say, I used to think the West was the whole round world, only slightly flattened at the poles whenever Brian ran. I used to yell myself hoarse about the free expense, and hang my hat on the horizon, and say cutting things into grocery to little soap drummers from the East. But I'd never seen New York, then, Jack. Me for it, from the rest-colors up. Sixth Avenue is the west to me now. Have you heard this fellow Caruso sing? The desert isle for him, I say, but my wife made me go. Give me May Erwin or E. S. Willard any time. Poor Billy, said the artist, delicately fingering a cigarette. You remember when we were on our way to the East, how we talked about this great, wonderful city, and how we meant to conquer it and never let it get the best of us? We were going to be just the same fellows we had always been, and never let it master us. It is down, you old man. You have changed from a maverick into a butterick. Don't see exactly what you are driving at, said William. I don't wear an alpaca coat with blue trousers and a seersucker vest on dress occasions, like I used to at home. You talk about being cut to a pattern. Well, ain't the pattern all right? When you're in Rome, you've got to do as the Degos do. This town seems to me to have other alleged metropolises skinned to flag stations. According to the railroad schedule I've got in mind, Chicago and St. Joe and Paris, France are asterisk stops, which means you wave a red flag and get on every other Tuesday. I'd like this little suburb of Territown on the Hudson. There's something or somebody doing all the time. I'm clearing eight thousand dollars a year selling automatic pumps, and I'm living like kings up. Why, yesterday I was introduced to John W. Gates. I took an auto ride with a wine agent's sister. I saw two men run over by a streetcar, and I seen Edna May play in the evening. Talk about the West, why, the other night I woke everybody up in the hotel hollering. I dreamed I was walking on a board sidewalk in Oskosh. What have you got against this town, Jack? There's only one thing in it that I don't care for, and that's a ferry boat. The artist gazed dreamily at the cartridge paper on the wall. This town, said he, is a leech. It drains the blood of the country. Whoever comes to it accepts a challenge to a duel. Abandoning the figure of the leech? It is a juggernaut, a mollach, a monster to which the innocence, the genius, and the beauty of the land must pay tribute. Hand to hand every newcomer must struggle with the Leviathan. You've lost, Billy. It shall never conquer me. I hate it, as one hates sin or pestilence, or the color work in a ten-cent magazine. I despise its very vastness and power. It has the poorest millionaires, the littlest great men, the lowest skyscrapers, the dolefulest pleasures of any town I ever saw. It has caught you, old man, but I will never run beside its chariot-wills. It glosses itself as the Chinaman glosses his callers. Give me the domestic finish. I could stand a town ruled by wealth, or one ruled by an aristocracy, but this is one controlled by its lowest ingredients. Claiming culture, it is the crudest. Asseverating its preeminence, it is the basest. Denying all outside values and virtue, it is the narrowest. Give me the pure and the open heart to the West Country. I would go back there tomorrow if I could. Don't you like this filet mignon? said William. Shucks now, what's the use to knock the town? It's the greatest ever. I couldn't sell one automatic pump between Harrisburg and Tommy O'Keefe Saloon in Sacramento, where I sell twenty here. And have you seen Sarah Bernhardt and Andrew Mack yet? The town's got you, Billy, said Jack. All right, said William. I'm going to buy a cottage on Lake Ronconcoma next summer. At midnight Jack raised his window and sat close to it. He caught his breath at what he saw, though he had seen and felt it a hundred times. Far below and around lay the city like a ragged purple dream. The irregular houses were like the broken exteriors of cliffs, lining deep gulches and winding streams. Some were mountainous, some lay in long desert canyons. Such was the background of the wonderful, cruel, enchanting, bewildering, fatal, great city. But into this background were cut myriads of brilliant parallelograms and circles and squares, through which glowed many colored lights. And out of the violet and purple depths ascended like the city's soul, sounds and odors and thrills that make up the civic body. There arose the breath of gaiety, unrestrained, of love, of hate, of all the passions that man can know. There below him lay all things, good or bad, that can be brought from the four corners of the earth, to instruct, please, thrill, enrich, despoil, elevate, cast down, nurture or kill. Thus the flavor of it came up to him and went into his blood. There was a knock on his door, a telegram had come for him. It came from the west, and these were its words. Come back and the answer will be yes, signed Dolly. He kept the boy waiting ten minutes, and then wrote the reply, quote, impossible to leave here at present, end quote. Then he sat at the window again, and let the city put its cup of mandragera to his lips again. After all, it isn't a story, but I wanted to know which of the heroes won the battle against the city. So I went to a very learned friend and laid the case before him. What he said was, please don't bother me, I have Christmas presents to buy. So there it rests, and you will have to decide for yourself. End of Story twenty-two, The Duel. Story twenty-three of Strictly Business. More stories of the Four Million, by O. Henry. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Warren Coddy, Gurney, Eleanor, Recording by Warren Coddy, Gurney, Illinois. Story twenty-three, What You Want. Night had fallen on that great and beautiful city known as Baghdad on the Subway, and with the night came the enchanted glamour that belongs not to Arabia alone. In different masquerade, the streets, bazaars, and bald houses of the Occidental City of Romance were filled with the same kind of folk that so much interested our interesting old friend, the late Mr. H. A. Rashid. They wore clothes eleven hundred years nearer to the latest styles than H. A. saw in old Baghdad, but they were about the same people underneath. With the eye of faith, you could have seen the little hunchback, Sinbad the sailor, Fitbad the tailor, the beautiful Persian, the one-eyed calendars, Alibaba and forty robbers on every block, and the barber and his six brothers, and all the old Arabian gang easily. But let us revenue to our lamb chops. Old Tom Crowley was a caliph. He had forty-two million dollars in preferred stocks and bonds with solid gold edges. In these times, to be called a caliph, you must have money. The old-style caliph business, as conducted by Mr. Rashid, is not safe. If you hold up a person nowadays in a bazaar, or a Turkish bath, or a side street, and inquire into his private and personal affairs, the police court will get you. Old Tom was tired of clubs, theaters, dinners, friends, music, money, and everything. That's what makes a caliph. You must get to despise everything that money can buy, and then go out and try to want something that you can't pay for. I'll take a little trot around town all by myself, thought Old Tom, and try if I can stir up anything new. Let's see, it seems I've read about a king or a court of giant or something at old times, who used to go about with false whiskers on, making Persian dates with folks he hadn't been introduced to. That don't listen like a bad idea. I certainly have got a case of humdrumness and fatigue on, for the ones I do know. That old cardiff used to pick up cases of trouble as he ran upon them and give them gold, sequence I think it was, and make them marry or got them good government jobs. Now, I'd like something of that sort. My money is as good as his was, even if the magazines do ask me every month where I got it. Yes, I guess I'll do a little cardiff business tonight and see how it goes. Plainly dressed, Old Tom Crowley left his Madison Avenue palace and walked westward and then south. As he stepped to the sidewalk, fate, who holds the ends of the strings in the central offices of all the enchanted cities, pulled a thread, and a young man, twenty blocks away, looked at a wall-clock and then put on his coat. James Turner worked in one of those little hat-cleaning establishments on Sixth Avenue in which a fire alarm rings when you push the door open and where they clean your hat while you wait, two days. James stood all day at an electric machine that turned hats around faster than the best brands of champagne ever could have done. Overlooking your mild impertinence in feeling a curiosity about the personal appearance of a stranger, I will give you a modified description of him. Weight 118, complexion hair and brain, light, height, five feet six, age about twenty three, dressed in a ten-dollar suit of greenish-blue surge, pockets containing two keys, and sixty-three cents in change. But do not misconjecture because this description sounds like a general alarm that James was either lost or a dead one. Alons. James stood all day at his work. His feet were tender and extremely susceptible to impositions being put upon or below them. All day long they burned and smarted, causing him much suffering and inconvenience. But he was earning twelve dollars per week, which he needed to support his feet, whether his feet would support him or not. James Turner had his own conception of what happiness was, just as you and I have ours. Your delight is to get about the world in yachts and motorcars and to hurl duckets at wild fowl. Mine is to smoke a pipe at evenfall and watch a badger, a rattlesnake, and an owl go into their common prairie home one by one. James Turner's idea of bliss was different, but it was his. He would go directly to his boarding-house when his day's work was done. After his supper of small steak, Bessemer potatoes, stewed, not stewed, apples, and infusion of chicory, he would ascend to his fifth floor back-hall room. Then he would take off his shoes and socks, place the soles of his burning feet against the cold bars of his iron bed, and read Clark Russell's Sea-Yarns. The delicious relief of the cool medal applied to his smarting souls was his nightly joy. His favorite novels, Never Pauled Upon Him, The Sea and the Adventures of its Navigators, were his sole intellectual passion. No millionaire was ever happier than James Turner taking his ease. When James left the hat-cleaning shop, he walked three blocks out of his way home to look over the goods of a second-hand bookstore. On the sidewalk stands he had more than once picked up a paper-covered volume of Clark Russell at half-price. While he was bending with a scholarly stoop over the marked-down miscellany of cast-off literature, Old Tom the Caliph sauntered by. His discerning eye, made keen by twenty years' experience in the manufacture of laundry soap, saved the wrappers. Recognized instantly the poor and discerning scholar, they were the object of his caliphonous mood. He descended the two shallow stone steps that led from the sidewalk, and addressed, without hesitation, the object of his designed munificence. His first words were no worse than salutatory and tentative. James Turner looked up coldly, with Sartor Risartus in one hand and a mad marriage in the other. Feed it! said he. I don't want to buy any coat-hangers or town-lots in Hankapoo, New Jersey. Run along now and play with your teddy bear. Young man, said the Caliph, ignoring the flippancy of the hat-cleaner, I observe that you are of a studious disposition. Learning is one of the finest things in the world. I never had any of it worth mentioning, but I admire to see it in others. I come from the West, where we imagine nothing but facts. Maybe I couldn't understand the poetry and illusions in them books you were picking over. But I'd like to see somebody else seem to know what they mean. I'm worth about forty million dollars and I'm getting richer every day. I made the height of it manufacturing Aunt Patty's silver soap. I invented the art of making it. I experimented for three years before I got just the right quantity of chloride of sodium solution and caustic potash mixture to curdle properly. And after I had taken some nine million dollars out of the soap business, I made the rest in corn and wheat futures. Now you seem to have the literary and scarlierly turn of character and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll pay for your education at the finest college in the world. I'll pay the expense of your rummaging over Europe and the art galleries and finally set you up in a good business. You needn't make it soap if you have any objections. I see by your clothes and frazzled necktie that you are mighty poor and you can't afford to turn down the offer. Well, when do you want to begin? The hat cleaner turned upon old Tom, the eye of the big city, which is an eye expressive of cold and justifiable suspicion. Of judgment suspended as high as Heyman was hung. Of self-preservation. Of challenge, curiosity, defiance, cynicism, and, strings as you may think it, of a childlike yearning for friendliness and fellowship that must be hidden when one walks among the stranger bands. For in new Baghdad one, in order to survive, must suspect whoever sits, dwells, drinks, rides, walks, or sleeps in the adjacent chair, house, booth, seat, path, or room. Say, Mike, said James Turner. What's your line anyway? Shoelaces. I'm not buying anything. You'd better put an egg in your shoe and beat it before incidents occur to you. You can't work off any fountain pens, gold spectacles you found on the street, or trust company's certificate house-clearings on me. Say, do I look like I'd climbed down one of them missing fire escapes at Helicon Hall? What's officiating you anyhow? Son, said the Caliph, in his most Harunish tones. As I said, I'm worth forty million dollars. I don't want to have it all put in my coffin when I die. I want to do some good with it. I've seen you handling over these here volumes of literature, and I thought I'd keep you. I've given the missionary society's two million dollars. But what did I get out of it? Nothing but a receipt from the Secretary. Now you are just the kind of young man I'd like to take up and see what money could make of him. Volumes of Clark Russell were hard to find that evening in the old bookshop, and James Turner's smarting and aching feet did not tend to improve his temper. Humble hat cleaner though he was, he had a spirit equal to any Caliph's. Say, old faker, he said angrily, be on your way. I don't know what your game is, unless you want change for a bogus forty million dollar bill. Well, I don't carry that much around with me, but I do carry a pretty fair left-handed punch that you'll get if you don't move on. You are a blamed impudent little gutter pup, said the Caliph. Then James delivered his self-praised punch. Old Tom seized him by the collar and kicked him thrice. The hat cleaner rallied and clinched. Two book stands were overturned, and the books sent flying. A copy came up, took an arm of each, and marched them to the nearest station house. Fighting and disorderly conduct, said the cop to the sergeant. Three hundred dollars bail, said the sergeant at once, asseveratingly and inquiringly. Sixty-three cents, said James Turner, with a harsh laugh. The Caliph searched his pockets and collected small bills and change amounting to four dollars. I am worth, he said, forty million dollars, but lock them up, ordered the sergeant. In his cell, James Turner laid himself on his cot, ruminating. Maybe he's got the money and maybe he ain't. But if he has or he ain't, what does he want to go round button into other folks' business for? When a man knows what he wants and can get it, it's the same as forty million dollars to him. Then an idea came to him that brought a pleased look to his face. He removed his socks, drew his cot close to the door, stretched himself out luxuriously, and placed his tortured feet against the cold bars of the cell door. Something hard and bulky under the blankets of his cot gave one shoulder discomfort. He reached under and drew out a paper-covered volume by Clark Russell called a sailor's sweetheart. He gave a great sigh of contentment. Presently to his cell came the doorman and said, Say, kid, that old gazabo that was pinched with you for scrapping seems to have been the goods after all. He phoned to his friends and he's out at the desk now with the roll of yellowbacks as big as a Pullman car pillow. He wants to bill you and for you to come out and see him. Tell him I ain't in, said James Turner. End of Story 23 What You Want End of Strictly Business More Stories of the Four Million by O. Henry