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Felix O'Day

by Francis Hopkinson Smith · English · Gutenberg #5229 · 528,983 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Felix O'Day

Author: Francis Hopkinson Smith


        
Release date: March 1, 2004 [eBook #5229]
                Most recently updated: March 8, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5229

Credits: Produced by Duncan Harrod, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FELIX O'DAY ***




Produced by Duncan Harrod







FELIX O'DAY

By F. Hopkinson Smith




Chapter I



Broadway on dry nights, or rather that part known as the Great White
Way, is a crowded thoroughfare, dominated by lofty buildings, the
sky-line studded with constellations of colored signs pencilled in fire.
Broadway on wet, rain-drenched nights is the fairy concourse of the
Wonder City of the World, its asphalt splashed with liquid jewels afloat
in molten gold.

Across this flood of frenzied brilliance surge hurrying mobs, dodging
the ceaseless traffic, trampling underfoot the wealth of the Indies,
striding through pools of quicksilver, leaping gutters filled to the
brim with melted rubies--horse, car, and man so many black silhouettes
against a tremulous sea of light.

Along this blinding whirl blaze the playhouses, their wide
portals aflame with crackling globes, toward which swarm bevies of
pleasure-seeking moths, their eyes dazzled by the glare. Some with heads
and throats bare dart from costly broughams, the mountings of their
sleek, rain-varnished horses glittering in the flash of the electric
lamps. Others spring from out street cabs. Many come by twos and threes,
their skirts held high. Still others form a line, its head lost in
a small side door. These are in drab and brown, with worsted shawls
tightly drawn across thin shoulders. Here, too, wedged in between shabby
men, the collars of their coats muffling their chins, their backs to the
grim policeman, stand keen-eyed newsboys and ragged street urchins, the
price of a gallery seat in their tightly closed fists.

Soon the swash and flow of light flooding the street and sidewalks
shines the clearer. Fewer dots and lumps of man, cab, and cart now cross
its surface. The crowd has begun to thin out. The doors of the theatres
are deserted; some flaunt signs of “Standing Room Only.” The cars still
follow their routes, lunging and pausing like huge beetles; but much of
the wheel traffic has melted, with only here and there a cab or truck
between which gold-splashed umbrellas pick a hazardous way.

With the breaking of the silent dawn, shadowed in a lonely archway or
on an abandoned doorstep the wet, bedraggled body of a hapless moth is
sometimes found, her iridescent wings flattened in the mud. Then for a
brief moment a cry of protest, or scorn, or pity goes up. The passers-by
raise their hands in anger, draw their skirts aside in horror, or kneel
in tenderness. It is the same the world over, and New York is no better
and, for that matter, no worse.


On one of these rain-drenched nights, some ten years or more ago, when
the streets were flooded with jewels, and the sky-line aflame, a man in
a slouch hat, a wet mackintosh clinging to his broad shoulders, stood
close to the entrance of one of the principal playhouses along this
Great White Way. He had kept his place since the doors were opened, his
hat-brim, pulled over his brow, his keen eye searching every face that
passed. To all appearances he was but an idle looker-on, attracted by
the beauty of the women, and yet during all that time he had not moved,
nor had he been in the way, nor had he been observed even by the door
man, the flap of the awning casting its shadow about him. Only once had
he strained forward, gazing intently, then again relaxed, settling into
his old position.

Not until the last couple had hurried by, breathless at being late, did
he refasten the top button of his mackintosh, move clear of the nook
which had sheltered him, and step out into the open.

For an instant he glanced about him, seemed to hesitate, as does a bit
of driftwood blocked in the current; then, with a sudden straightening
of his shoulders, he wheeled and threaded his way down-town.

At Herald Square, he mounted with an aimless air a flight of low steps,
peered though the windows, and listened to the crunch of the presses
chewing the cud of the day's news. When others crowded close he stepped
back to the sidewalk, raising his hat once in apology to an elderly dame
who, with head down, had brushed him with her umbrella.

By the time he reached 30th Street his steps had become slower. Again
he hesitated, and again with an aimless air turned to the left, the rain
still pelting his broad shoulders, his hat pulled closer to protect his
face. No lights or color pursued him here. The fronts of the houses were
shrouded in gloom; only a hall lantern now and then and the flare of
the lamps at the crossings, he alone and buffeting the storm--all others
behind closed doors. When Fourth Avenue was reached he lifted his head
for the first time. A lighted window had attracted his attention--a
wide, corner window filled with battered furniture, ill-assorted china,
and dented brass--one of those popular morgues that house the remains of
decayed respectability.

Pausing automatically, he glanced carelessly at the contents, and was
about to resume his way when he caught sight of a small card propped
against a broken pitcher. “Choice Articles Bought and Sold--Advances
Made.”

Suddenly he stopped. Something seemed to interest him. To make sure that
he had read the card aright, he bent closer. Evidently satisfied by his
scrutiny, he drew himself erect and moved toward the shop door as if
to enter. Through the glass he saw a man in shirt-sleeves, packing. The
sight of the man brought another change of mind, for he stepped back
and raised his head to a big sign over the front. His face now came into
view, with its well-modelled nose and square chin--the features of a
gentleman of both refinement and intelligence. A man of forty--perhaps
of forty-five--clean-shaven, a touch of gray about his temples, his eyes
shadowed by heavy brows from beneath which now and then came a flash
as brief and brilliant as an electric spark. He might have been a civil
engineer, or some scientist, or yet an officer on half pay.

“Otto Kling, 445 Fourth Avenue,” he repeated to himself, to make sure of
the name and location. Then, with the quick movement of a man suddenly
imbued with new purpose, he wheeled, leaped the overflowed gutter, and
walked rapidly until he reached 13th Street. Half-way down the block
he entered the shabby doorway of an old-fashioned house, mounted to the
third floor, stepped into a small, poorly furnished bedroom lighted by a
single gas-jet, and closed the door behind him. Lifting his wet hat
from his well-rounded head, with its smoothly brushed, closely trimmed
hair--a head that would have looked well in bronze--he raised the edge
of the bedclothes and from underneath the narrow cot dragged out a flat,
sole-leather trunk of English make. This he unlocked with a key fastened
to a steel chain, took out the tray, felt about among the contents, and
drew out a morocco-covered dressing-case, of good size and of evident
value, bearing on its top a silver plate inscribed with a monogram and
crest. The trunk was then relocked and shoved under the bed.

At this moment a knock startled him.

“Come in,” he called, covering the case with a corner of the cotton
quilt.

A bareheaded, coarse-featured woman with a black shawl about her
shoulders stood in the doorway. “I've come for my money,” she burst out,
too angry for preliminaries. “I'm gittin' tired of bein' put off. You're
two weeks behind.”

“Only two weeks? I was afraid it was worse, my dear madame,” he answered
calmly, a faint smile curling his thin lips. “You have a better head
for figures than I. But do not concern yourself. I will pay you in the
morning.”

“I've heard that before, and I'm gittin' sick of it. You'd 'a' been out
of here last week if my husband hadn't been laid up with a lame foot.”

“I am sorry to hear about the foot. That must be even worse than my
being behind with your rent.”

“Well, it's bad enough with all I got to put up with. Of course I don't
want to be ugly,” she went on, her fierceness dying out as she noticed
his unruffled calm, “but these rooms is about all we've got, and we
can't afford to take no chances.”

“Did you suppose I would let you?”

“Let me what?”

“Let you take chances. When I become convinced that I cannot pay you
what I owe you, I will give you notice in advance. I should be much more
unhappy over owing you such a debt than you could possibly be in not
getting your money.”

The answer, so unlike those to which she had been accustomed from other
delinquents, suddenly rekindled her anger. “Will some of them friends of
yours that never show up bring you the money?” she snapped back.

“Have you met any of them on the stairs?” he inquired blandly.

“No, nor nowhere else. You been here now goin' on three months, and
there ain't come a letter, nor nothin' by express, and no man, woman, or
child has asked for you. Kinder queer, don't you think?”

“Yes, I do think so; and I can hardly blame you. It IS suspicious--VERY
suspicious--alarmingly so,” he rejoined with an indulgent smile. Then
growing grave again: “That will do, madame. I will send for you when I
am ready. Do not lose any sleep and do not let your husband lose any. I
will shut the door myself.”

When the clatter of her rough shoes had ceased to echo on the stairs
he drew the dressing-case from its hiding-place, tucked it inside
his mackintosh, turned down the gas-jet, locked the door of the room,
retracing his steps until he stood once more in front of Kling's sign.
This time he went in.

“I am glad you are still open,” he began, shaking the wet from his coat.
“I hoped you would be. You are Mr. Kling, are you not?”

“Yes, dot is my name. Vot can I do for you?”

“I passed by your window a short time ago, and saw your card, stating
that advances were made on choice articles. Would this be of any use
to you?” He took the dressing-case from under his coat and handed it to
Kling. “I am not ready to sell it--not to sell it outright; you might,
perhaps, make me a small loan which would answer my purpose. Its value
is about sixty pounds--some three hundred dollars of your money. At
least, it cost that. It is one of Vickery's, of London, and it is almost
new.”

Kling glanced sharply at the intruder. “I don't keep open often so late
like dis. You must come in de morning.”

“Cannot you look at it now?”

Something in the stranger's manner appealed to the dealer. He lowered
his chin, adjusted his spectacles, and peered over their round silver
rims--a way with him when he was making up his mind.

“Vell, I don't mind. Let me see,” and opening the case he took out the
silver-topped bottles, placing them in a row on the counter behind
which he stood. “Yes, dot's a good vun,” he continued with a grunt
of approval. “Yes--dot's London, sure enough. Yes, I see Vickery's
name--whose initials is on dese bottles? And de arms--de lion and de
vings on him--dot come from somebody high up, ain't it? Vhere did you
get 'em?”

“That is of no moment. What I want to know is, will you either pay me a
fair price for it or loan me a fair sum on it?”

“Is it yours to sell?”

“It is.” There was no trace of resentment in his voice, nor did he show
the slightest irritation at being asked so pointed a question.

“Vell, I don't keep a pawn-shop. I got no license, and if I had I
vouldn't do it--too much trouble all de time. Poor vomans, dead-beats,
suckers, sneak-thieves--all kind of peoples you don't vant, to come in
the door vhen you have a pawn-shop.”

“Your sign said advances made.”

“Vich vun?”

“The one in the window, or I would not have troubled you.”

“Vell, dot means anyting you please. Sometimes I get olt granfadder
vatches dot vay, and olt Sheffield plate and tings vich olt families
sell vhen everybody is gone dead. Vy do you vant to give dis away? I
vouldn't, if I vas you. You don't look like a man vot is broke. I vill
put back de bottles. You take it home agin.”

“I would if I had any home to take it to. I am a stranger here and am
two weeks behind in the rent of my room.”

“Is dot so? Vell, dot is too bad. Two weeks behint and no home but a
room! I vouldn't think dot to look at you.”

“I would not either if I had the courage to look at myself in the glass.
Then you cannot help me?”

“I don't say dot I can't. Somebody may come in. I have lots of tings
belong to peoples, and ven other peoples come in, sometimes dey buy,
and sometimes dey don't. Sometimes only one day goes by, and sometimes a
whole year. You leave it vid me. I take care of it. Den I get my little
Masie--dat little girl of mine vot I call Beesvings--to polish up all de
bottles and make everyting look like new.”

“Then I will come in the morning?”

“Yes, but give me your name--someting might happen yet, and your
address. Here, write it on dis card.”

“No, that is unnecessary. I will take your word for it.”

“But vere can I find you?”

“I will find myself, thank you,” and he strode out into the rain.




Chapter II



In the days when Otto Kling's shop-windows attracted collectors in
search of curios and battered furniture, “The Avenue,” as its denizens
always called Fourth Avenue between Madison Square Garden and the
tunnel, was a little city in itself.

Almost all the needs of a greater one could be supplied by the stores
fronting its sidewalks. If tea, coffee, sugar, and similar stimulating
and soothing groceries were wanted, old Bundleton, on the corner above
Kling's, in a white apron and paper cuffs, weighed them out. If it were
butter or eggs, milk, cream, or curds, the Long Island Dairy--which was
really old man Heffern, his daughter Mary, and his boy Tom--had them
in a paper bag, or on your plate, or into your pitcher before you could
count your change. If it were a sirloin, or lamb-chops, or Philadelphia
chickens, or a Cincinnati ham, fat Porterfield, watched over from her
desk by fat Mrs. Porterfield, dumped them on a pair of glittering brass
scales and sent them home to your kitchen invitingly laid out in a flat
wicker basket. If it were fish--fresh, salt, smoked, or otherwise--to
say nothing of crabs, oysters, clams, and the exclusive and expensive
lobster--it was Codman, a few doors above Porterfield's, who had them on
ice, or in barrels, the varnished claws of the lobsters thrust out like
the hands of a drowning man.

Were it a question of drugs, there was Pestler, the apothecary, with his
four big green globes illuminated by four big gas-jets, the joy of the
children. A small fellow this Pestler, with a round head and up-brushed
hair set on a long, thin stem of a neck, the whole growing out of a pair
of narrow shoulders, quite like a tulip from a glass jar.

And then there were Jarvis, the spectacle man, and that canny Scotchman
Sanderson, the florist, who knew the difference between roses a week
old and roses a day old, and who had the rare gift of so mixing the
two vintages that hardly enough dead stock was left over for funerals
including those presided over by his fellow conspirator Digwell, the
undertaker, who lived over his mausoleum of a back room.

And, of course, there were the bakeshop emitting enticing smells, mostly
of currants and burnt sugar, and the hardware store, full of nails and
pocket-knives, and old Mr. Jacobs, the tailor, who sat cross-legged on
a wide table in a room down four stone steps from the sidewalk, and the
grog-shops--more's the pity--one on every corner save Kling's.

Hardly a trace is now left of any one of them, so sudden and
overwhelming has been the march of modern progress. Even the little
Peter Cooper House, picked up bodily by that worthy philanthropist and
set down here nearly a hundred years ago, is gone, and so are the row
of musty, red-bricked houses at the lower end of this Little City in
Itself. And so are the tenants of this musty old row, shady locksmiths
with a tendency toward skeleton keys; ingenious upholsterers who
indulged in paper-hanging on the sly; shoemakers who did half-soling and
heeling, their day's work set to dry on the window-sill, not to mention
those addicted to the use of the piano, banjo, or harp, as well as the
wig and dress makers who lightened the general gloom.

And with the disappearance of these old landmarks--and it all took place
within less than ten years--there disappeared, also, the old family life
of “The Avenue,” in which each home shared in the good-fellowship of the
whole, all of them contributing to that sane and sustaining stratum,
if we did but know it, of our civic structure--facts that but few New
Yorkers either recognize or value.


On the block below Kling's in those other days was the quaint Book
Shop owned by Tim Kelsey, the hunchback, a walking encyclopaedia of
knowledge, much of it as musty and out of date as most of his books;
while overtopping all else in importance, so far as this story is
concerned, was the shabby, old-fashioned two-story house known the town
over as the Express Office of John and Kitty Cleary, sporting above its
narrow street-door a swinging sign informing inquirers that trunks were
carried for twenty-five cents.

And not only trunks, but all of the movable furniture up and down the
avenue, and most of that from the adjacent regions, found their way
in and out of the Cleary wagons. Indeed Otto Kling's confidence in
Kitty--and Kitty was really the head of the concern--was so great that
he always refused to allow any of her rivals to carry his purchases
and sales, even at a reduced price, a temptation seldom resisted by the
economical Dutchman.

Nor did the friendly relations end here. Not only did Kitty's man Mike
hammer up at night the rusty iron shutters protecting Kling's side
window, clean away the snow before his store, and lend a hand in the
moving of extra-heavy pieces, but he was even known to wash the windows
and kindle a fire.

That Mike had delayed or entirely forgotten to hammer up these same iron
shutters when the stranger brought in the dressing-case accounted for
the fact of Otto Kling's shop having been kept open until so late. It
also accounted for the fact that when the same stranger appeared early
the next morning (Mike was tending the store) and made his way to where
the Irishman sat he found him conning the head-lines of the morning
paper. That worthy man-of-all-work, never having laid eyes on him
before, at once made a mental note of the intruder's well-cut English
clothes, heavy walking-shoes, and short brier-wood pipe, and, concluding
therefrom that he was a person of importance, stretched out his hand
toward the bell-rope in connection with the breakfast-room above, at the
same time saying with great urbanity: “Take a chair, or, if yer cold,
come up near the stove. Mr. Kling will be down in a minute. He's
up-stairs eatin' his breakfast with his little girl. I'm not his man or
I'd wait on ye meself. A little fresh, ain't it, after the wet night we
had?”

“I left a dressing-case here last night,” ventured the intruder.

Mike's chin went out with a quick movement, his face expressive of
supreme disgust at his mistake. “Oh, is it that? Somethin' ye had to
sell? Well, then, maybe you'd better call durin' the day.”

“No, I will wait--you need not ring. I have nothing else to do, and
Mr. Kling may have a great deal. I take it you are from the north of
Ireland, either Londonderry or near there. Am I right?”

“I'm from Lifford, within reach of it. How the divil did ye know?”

“I can tell from your brogue. How long have you been in this country?”

“About five years--going on six now. How long have you been here?”

“How long? Well--” Here he bent over the table against which he had been
leaning, selected a cup from a group of china, turned it upside down
in search of the mark, and then, as if he had momentarily forgotten
himself, answered slowly: “Oh, not long--a few months or so. You do not
object to my looking these over?” he asked, this time reversing a plate
and subjecting it to the same scrutiny.

“No, so ye don't let go of 'em. Fellow come in here last week and broke
a teapot foolin' wid it.”

The visitor, without replying, continued his cool examination of the
collection, consisting of articles of different makes and colors.
Presently, gathering up a pair of cups and saucers, he said: “These
should be in a glass case or in the safe. They are old Spode and very
rare. Ah, here is Mr. Kling! I have amused myself, sir, in looking over
part of your stock. You seem to have undervalued these cups and saucers.
They are very rare, and if you had a full set of them they would be
almost priceless. This is old Spode,” he continued, pointing to the
cipher on the bottom of each cup.

“Vell, I didn't tink dot ven I bought it.”

There was no greeting, no reference to their having met before. One
might have supposed that their last talk had been uninterrupted.

“It vas all in a lump, and der vas a soup tureen in de lot--I don't know
vot I did vid it. I tink dat's up-stairs. Mike, you go up and ask my
little girl Masie if she can find dot big tureen vich I bought from old
Mrs. Blobbs who keeps dot old-clothes place on Second Avenue. And you
vas sure about dis china?”

“Very sure.”

“How do you know?”

“From the mark.”

“Vot's it vorth?”

“The cups and saucers would bring about two pounds apiece in London. If
there were a full dozen they would bring a matter of fifteen or twenty
pounds--some hundred dollars of your money.”

Kling stepped nearer and peered intently at the stranger. “You give dot
for dem?”

The man's eyebrows narrowed. “I am not buying cups at present,” he
answered, with quiet dignity, “but they are worth what I tell you.

“And now tell me vot dis tureen is vorth?” he asked as Mike reappeared
and set it on the table, backing away with the remark that he'd go
now, Mrs. Cleary would be wantin' him. Kling moved the relic toward the
expert for closer examination.

“Don't trouble yourself, Mr. Kling; I can see it. All I can say is that
the old lady must have known better days and must have been terribly
poor to have parted with it. What, if I may ask, did you pay her for
this?”

“Two dollars. Vas it too much?” The stranger had suddenly become an
important personage.

“No--too little. It is old Lowestoft, and”--here he took the lid
from the dealer's hand--“yes, without a crack or blemish--yes, old
Lowestoft--worth, I should say, ten or more pounds. They are giving
large sums for these things in London. Perhaps you have not made a
specialty of china.”

Otto had now forgotten the tureen and was scrutinizing the speaker,
wondering what kind of a man he really was--this fellow who looked and
spoke like a person of position, knew the value of curios at sight, and
yet who had confessed the night before to being behind with his rent and
anxious to sell his belongings to keep off the street. Then the doubt,
universal in the minds of second-hand dealers, arose. “Come along vid
me and tell me some more. Vot is dot chair?” and he drew out a freshly
varnished relic of better days.

The man seized the chair by the back, canted it to see all sides of it,
and was about to give his decision when the laughter of a child and the
sharp, quick bark of a dog caused him to pause and raise his head. A
white fox-terrier with a clothes-pin tail, two scissored ears, and two
restless, shoe-button eyes, peering through button-hole lids, followed
by a little girl ten or twelve years of age, was regarding him
suspiciously.

“He won't hurt you,” cried the child. “Come back, you naughty Fudge!”

“I do not intend he shall,” said the man, reaching down and picking
the dog up bodily by the scruff of his neck. “What is the matter, old
fellow?” he continued, twisting the dog's head so that he could look
into his eyes. “Wanted to make a meal of me?--too bad. Your little
daughter, of course, Mr. Kling? A very good breed of dog, my dear young
lady--just a little nervous, and that is in his favor. Now, sir, make
your excuses to your mistress,” and he placed the terrier in her arms.

The child lifted her face toward his in delight. Most of the men whom
Fudge attacked either shrunk out of his way or replied to his attentions
with a kick.

“You love dogs, don't you, sir?” she asked. Fudge was now routing his
sharp nose under her chin as if in apology for his antics.

“I am afraid I do, and I am glad you do--they are sometimes the best
friends one has.”

“Yes,” broke in Kling, “and so am I glad. Dot dog is more as a brudder
to my Masie, ain't he, Beesvings? And now you run avay, dear, and play,
and take Fudge vid you and say 'Good morning' to Mrs. Cleary, and maybe
dot fool dog of Bobby's be home.” He stooped and kissed her, caressing
her cheek with his thumb and forefinger, as he pushed her toward the
door, and again turned to the stranger. “And now, vot about dot chair
you got in your hand?”

“Oh, the chair! I had forgotten that you had asked. Your little daughter
drove everything else out of my head. Let me have a closer look.” He
swung it round to get a nearer view.

“The legs--that is, three of them--are Chippendale. The back is a
nondescript of something--I cannot tell. Perhaps from some colonial
remnant.”

“Vot's it vorth?”

“Nothing, except to sit upon.”

Otto laughed--a gurgling, chuckling laugh, his pudgy nose wrinkling like
a rabbit's.

“Ain't dot funny!” and he rubbed his fat hands. “Dot's true. Yes, I
make it myselluf--and five oders, vich vas sold out of a lot of olt
furniture. I got two German men down-stairs puttin' in new legs and new
backs; dey can do anyting. Nobody but you find dot out. I guess you know
'bout dot china--I must look into dot. Maybe some mens on Fifth Avenue
buy dot china--dey never come in here because dey tink dey find only olt
furniture. And now about dot dressing-case. Don't you sell it. I find
somebody pay more as I can give, and you pay me for my trouble. I lend
you tventy--yes, I lend tventy-five dollars on it. Vill dot be enough?”

“That will be enough for a week, after I pay what I owe.”

“Vell, den, ven dot is gone ve tink out someting else, don't ve? I look
it all over last night. It is all right--no breaks anyvere. And dot
tventy-five only last you a veek! Vy is dot? Vot board do you pay?” His
interest in the visitor was increasing.

“Eight dollars with my meals, whenever my landlady is on time.”

“Eight dollars! Dot voman's robbin' you. Eight dollars! She is a skin!”

“It was the best I could do,” he replied simply.

“Vot does she give you?”

“A small bedroom, my coffee in the morning, and my dinner--both served
in my room on a tray.”

“Yes, I see; dot's it. She charge about tree dollars for de tray. I
find you someting better as dot. Kitty Cleary has a room--you don't know
Kitty? Vell, you ought to begin right avay. Dot's vun voman you don't
ever see again. She vas in here last night, after you left, looking for
her man Mike. She take you for five dollars a veek, maybe, and you get
good tings to eat and you get Kitty besides, and dot is vorth more
as ten dollars. She lives across de street--you can see one of her
vagons--dot big vite horse is hers, and she love dot horse as much as
she love her husband John and her boy Bobby, all but dot fool dog of
Bobby's, she don't love him. You go over dere and tell her I sent you.”

The stranger had relighted his pipe, and was watching the dealer
clutching nervously at his spectacles, pushing them far up on his
forehead, only to readjust them again on his nose. He had begun to
detect behind the fat, round face of the thrifty shopkeeper a certain
kindly quality. “And who may this remarkable lady be, this Mrs. Cleary?”
 he inquired.

“She ain't no lady. She is better as a hundert ladies--she is joost a
plain vomans who keeps a express office over dere--Cleary's Express. You
don't know it? Vell, dot's your fault. Dot's her boy Bobby outside
de door. He has been up vid his fadder to de Grand Central for some
sideboards and sofas I been buyin'. You vant to look at 'em ven dey
git unloaded. They joost ready to fall to pieces, and if I patch 'em up
nobody don't buy 'em. Vot I do is to leave 'em out on de sidewalk for a
veek or two and let de dirt and rain get on 'em, den somebody come along
and say: 'Dot is genuine. You can see right avay how olt dot is. Dot
is because de bottom is out of de sofas, and de back of de behind of de
sideboard is busted. So den I get fifty dollars more for repairin' my
own furniture. Ain't dot funny? And ven I send it home dey say: 'Oh,
ain't dot beautiful! You ought to have seen dot ven I bought it of old
Kling! You vouldn't give two dollars for it. All he did vas to scrape
it down and revarnish it--and now it is joost as good as new.' Ain't
dot funny? Vy, sometimes I have to holt on to my sides for fear dey vill
split vid my laughter, and my two German mens dey stuff dere fingers
in dere mouths so de customers can't hear. And all de backs new, and de
legs made outer udder legs, and de handles I get across at de hardvare
store! Oh, I tell you, it's funny! But you know all about it. Maybe you
vunce keep a place yourself?”

“No, never.”

“VOT!”

“No, I have never been in your line of trade.”

“Vell, how do you know so much?”

“I know very little, but I have always enjoyed such things.”

“Vell, dot's more funny yet. You vould make a lot of money if you did.
Ven you get someting for nudding you know it--I don't. You see dem--vot
you call 'em--Spodes--and dot tureen, dot--”

“Lowestoft?” suggested the stranger, adjusting the mouthpiece of his
pipe.

“Yes, dot Lowestoft. If you come in yesterday and say, 'Have you any olt
cups and saucers and olt soup tureens?' I say: 'Yes--help yourselluf.
Take your pick for tventy-five cents each for de cups and saucers.' You
see, I pay nudding and I get nudding. Dot give me an idea! How vould you
like to go round de store vid me and pick out de good vuns? Dot von't
take you long--vait a minute--I give you dat money.”

“I should not be of the slightest value, and if you are loaning me
the twenty-five dollars on any other basis than the worth of the
dressing-case, I would rather not take it.”

“Oh, I have finished vid de loan. Vot I say I say.” He thrust his hand
into a side pocket, from which he drew a flat wallet. “And dere is de
money. I give you a receipt for de case.”

“No, I do not want any receipt. I am quite willing you should keep it
until I can either pay this back or you can loan me some more on it.”

“Vell, den, I don't vant no receipt for de money. Here comes a customer.
Don't you go yet. I know her. She comes most every day. She only vants
to look around. Such a lot of peoples only vants to look around.
Dey don't know vat dey vant and you never have it. No, it ain't no
customer--it's Bobby.”

The door was burst open, and a boy in a blue jumper, his cap thrust so
far back on his head that it was a wonder it didn't fall off, cried out:

“Say! One of the sideboards is stuck on the iron railing and we can't
get it furrards or back. Them two weiss-beers ye got down-stairs can't
lift nothin' but full mugs. Send somebody to help.” And the door went to
with a bang.

Kling was about to call for assistance when Hans--one of the
maligned--shuffled in from the rear of the store, carrying a wooden
image very much in want of repair.

“Oh, dots awful good you brought dot! Set it here on dis chair--now you
go avay and help vid dem sideboards. See here vunce, mister. You see,
dey vas makin' de altar over new, and one of de mens come to me last
week and he says: 'Mister Kling, come vid me and buy vot ve don't vant.
De school is too small, and some of de children got no place to sit down
in. Ve got to sell sometings, and maybe now ve don't vant dem images.'
And so I buy dem two and some olt vestments dat my Masie make so good as
new, vid patches. Now, vot can I do vid dis--?”

Again the door was burst open, shutting off all possibility for
conversation. Bobby's voice had now reached the volume of a fog-horn.
“What do ye take us fur out here--lobsters? Dad and I can't wait all
day. He's got to go down to Lafayette Place for a trunk.”

Kling looked at his companion, as if to see what effect the talk had had
upon him, and broke out into a suffocating chuckle. “Dot's vot it is all
day long--don't you yonder I go crazy? First it is sideboards and den it
is vooden saints. Here you, Bobby! Come inside vunce! I vant to ask you
sometings.”

“Say the rest, Skeesicks,” returned the boy, eying the stranger.

“Has your mudder got empty dot room yet?”

“Yep--the shyster got to swearin', and the mother wouldn't stand for it
and she fired him. We ain't keepin' no house o' refuge nor no station
parlor fer bums. Holy Moses! look at the guy that's been robbin' a
church! And see the nose on him all busted! Have ye started them mugs?”

Kling cleared the air with his fat hands as the boy made for the door,
and turned to his visitor once more. “Dot boy make me deaf vid his noise
like a fire-engine! Now, vunce more. Vat shall I do vid dis image?”

“I give it up,” observed the stranger, passing his hand over the head
and down its side. “I am not very much on saints--wooden ones, I mean.
He seems a good deal out of place here. Why buy such things at all, and
why sell them? But that, of course, is not your point of view. I would
send it back to the good father, if I were you, and have him put it
behind the altar if he is ashamed to put it in front. Holy things belong
to holy places. But I am already taking up too much of your time. Thank
you very much for the money. It comes at an opportune moment. I shall
come in once in a while to see you and, if you are willing, to talk to
you.”

“But you don't say nudding about Kitty's room. Vait till--oh, dere you
are, you darlin' girl! You mind de store, Masie. Now you come vid me and
I show you de finest vomans you never see in your whole life!”




Chapter III



Kitty Cleary's wide sidewalk, littered with trunks, and her narrow,
choked-up office, its window hung with theatre bills and chowder-party
posters, all of which were in full view of Kling's doorway, was the
half-way house of any one who had five minutes to spare; it was inside
its walls that closer greetings awaited those who, even with the
thinnest of excuses, made bold to avail themselves of her hospitality.
Drivers from the livery-stable next door, where Kitty kept her own two
horses; the policeman on the beat; the night-watchman from the big store
on 28th Street, just off duty, or just going on; the newsman in the
early morning, who would use her benches on which to rearrange his
deliveries--all were welcome as long as they behaved themselves. When
they did not--and once or twice such a thing had occurred--she would
throw wide the door and, with a quick movement of her right thumb, order
them out, a look in her eye convincing the culprits at once that they
might better obey.

Never a day passed but there was a pot of coffee simmering away at the
back of the kitchen stove. Indeed, hot coffee was Kitty's standby. Many
a night when she was up late poring over her delivery book, getting
ready for the next day's work, a carriage or cab would drive into the
livery-stable next door, and she would send her husband out to bring in
the coachman.

“Half froze, he is, waitin' outside Sherry's or Delmonico's, and nobody
thinkin' of what he suffers. Go, git him, John, dear, and I'll stir up
the fire. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, dancin' till God knows
when--and here it is two o'clock and a string of cabs out in the cold.
Thank ye, John. In with ye, my lad, and get something to warm ye up,”
 and then the rosy-cheeked, deep-breasted, cheery little woman--she was
under forty--her eyes the brighter for her thought, would begin pulling
down cups and saucers from her dresser, making ready not only for the
“lad,” but for John and herself--and anybody else who happened to be
within call.

The hospitalities of her family sitting-room, opening out of the
kitchen, were reserved for her intimates. These she welcomed at any hour
of the day or night, from sunrise to sunset, and even as late as two in
the morning, if either business or pleasure necessitated such hours.

Tim Kelsey, the hunchback, often dropped in. Otto Kling, after Masie was
abed; Digwell, the undertaker, quite a jolly fellow during off hours;
Codman and Porterfield, with their respective wives; and, most welcome
of all, Father Cruse, of St. Barnabas's Church around the corner, the
trusted shepherd of “The Avenue”--a clear-skinned, well-built man,
barely forty, whose muscular body just filled his black cassock so that
it neither fell in folds nor wrinkled crosswise, and whose fresh, ruddy
face was an index of the humane, kindly, helpful life that he led. For
him Kitty could never do enough.

The office, sitting-room, and kitchen, however, were not all that
the expressman and his wife possessed in the way of accommodations.
Up-stairs were two front bedrooms, one occupied by John and Kitty,
and the other by their boy Bobby, while in the extreme rear, over the
kitchen, was a single room which was let to any respectable man who
could pay for it. These rooms were all reached by a staircase ascending
from a narrow hall entered by a separate street-door adjoining that
of the office. The door and staircase were convenient for the lodger
wishing to stumble up to bed without disturbing his hosts--an event,
however, that seldom happened, as Kitty was generally the last person
awake in her house.

The horses, as has been said, were kept in the livery-stable next
door--the brown mare, a recent purchase, and the old white horse, Jim,
the pride of Kitty's heart, in a special stall. The wagons were either
backed in the shed in the rear or left overnight close to the curb, with
chains on the hind wheels. This was contrary to regulations, and
would have been so considered but for the fact that the captain of
the precinct often got his coffee in Kitty's back kitchen, as did Tom
McGinniss, the big policeman, whose beat reached nearly to the tunnel,
both men soothing their consciences with the argument that Kitty's job
lasted so late and began so early, sometimes a couple of hours or so
before daylight, that it was not worth while to bother about her wagons,
when everybody else was in bed, or ought to be.

She was smoothing old Jim's neck, crooning over him, talking to him in
her motherly way, telling him what a ruffian he was and how ashamed
she was of him for getting the hair worn off under his collar, and he a
horse old enough to know better, Bobby's “Toodles,” an animated doormat
of a dog, sniffing at her skirt, when Otto and his friend hove in sight.

“The top of the mornin' to ye, Otto Kling, and ye never see a better
and a finer. And what can I do for ye?--for ye wouldn't be lavin' them
gimcracks of yours this time O'day unless there was somethin' up.”

“No, I don't got nudding you can do for me, Kitty. It's dis gentlemans
wants someting--and so I bring him over.”

“That's mighty kind of ye, Otto--wait till I get me book. Careful,
Mike.” The Irishman had just dumped a trunk on the sidewalk, ready to
be loaded on Jim's wagon. “And now,” continued his mistress, “go to the
office and bring me my order-book--where'll I go for your baggage, sir?”

“That is a matter I will talk about later.” He had taken her all in
with a rapid glance--her rosy, laughing face, her head covered by a
close-fitting hood, the warm shawl crossed over her full bosom and
knotted in the back, short skirt, stout shoes, and gray yarn stockings.

“I don't care where it is--Hoboken, Brooklyn--I'll get it. Why, we got a
trunk last week clear from Yonkers!”

“I haven't a doubt of it, my good woman”--he was still absorbed in the
contemplation of her perfect health and the air of breezy competency
flowing out from her, making even the morning air seem more
exhilarating--“but you may not want to go for my two trunks.”

“Why not?” She was serious now, her brows knitting, trying to solve his
meaning.

Kling shuffled up alongside. “It's de room he vants, Kitty. I been
tellin' him about it. Bobby says dot odder man skipped an' you don't got
nobody now.

“Skipped! I threw him out, me and John, for swearin' every time
he stubbed his toe on the stairs,” and up went her strong arms in
illustration. “And it isn't yer trunks, but me room. Who might ye be
wantin' it for?” She had begun to weigh him carefully in return. Up to
this moment he had been to her merely the mouthpiece of an order, to be
exchanged later for a card, or slip of paper, or a brass check. Now he
became a personality. She swept him from head to foot with one of her
“sizing-up” examinations, noticing the refinement and thoughtfulness of
his clean-shaven face, the white teeth, and the careful trimming of his
hair, and the way it grew down on his temples, forming a small quarter
whisker.

She noted, too, how the muscles of his face had been tightened as if
some effort at self-control had set them into a mask, the real man lying
behind his kindly eyes, despite the quick flash that escaped from them
now and then. The inspection over--and it had occupied some seconds of
time--she renewed the inquiry in a more searching tone, as if she had
not heard him aright at first. “And who did ye say wanted me room?”

“I wanted it.”

“Yes, but who for?”

“For myself.”

“What! To live in?”

“I hope so--I certainly do not want it to die in.” A quiet smile
trembled for an instant on his lips, momentarily lightening an
expression of extreme reserve.

“You won't do no dyin' if I can help it--but ye don't know what kind a
room it is. It's not mor'n twice as big as that wagon. And ye want it
for yourself? Well, ye don't look it!”

“I am sorry.”

“And it's only five dollars a week, and all ye want to eat--all we can
give ye.”

“I am glad it is not more. I may not be able to pay that for very long,
but I will pay the first week in advance, and I will pay the next one in
the same way and leave when my money is gone. Can I see the room?”

Again she studied him. This time it was the gray waistcoat, the
well-ironed shirt and collar, English scarf, and the blackthorn stick
which he carried balanced in the hollow of his arm. If he had been in
overalls she would not have hesitated an instant, but she saw that this
man was not of her class, nor of any other class about her. “I don't
know whether ye can or not,” came the frank reply. “I'm thinkin' about
it. You don't look as if ye were flat broke. If you're goin' to take me
room, I don't want to be watchin' ye, and I won't! Once we know ye're
clean and decent, ye can have the run of the place and welcome to it. We
had one dead-beat here last month, and that's enough. Out with it now!
How is it that a”--she hesitated an instant--“yes, a gentleman like you
wants to live over an express office and eat what we can give ye?”

He made a slight movement with his right hand in acknowledgment of the
class distinction and answered in a calm, straightforward way: “You
have put it quite correctly. I am, as you are pleased to state it, flat
broke--quite flat.”

“Well, then, how will ye pay me?” Her question, a certain curiosity
tinged by a growing interest in for all its directness, implied no
suspicion--but rather the man.

“I have just borrowed twenty-five dollars from Mr. Kling on something
which, for the present, I can do without.”

“Pawned it?”

“No, not exactly. Mr. Kling will explain.”

“It vas dot dressin'-case, Kitty, vat I showed you last night--de vun
vid dem bottles vid de silver tops--and dey are real--I found dot out
after you vent avay.”

Kitty's glance softened, and her voice fell to a sympathetic tone. “Oh,
that was yours, was it? I might have known I was right about ye when
I first see ye. Ye are a gentleman, unless ye are a thief, and I don't
belave that--nor nobody can make me belave it.”

Once more his hand was raised, and a smile flashed from his eyes and as
quickly died out.

“That is very good of you, Mrs. Cleary. No, I am not a thief. And now
about the room. Can I see it? But, before you answer, let me tell you
that I have only these twenty-five dollars on which I can lay my hands.
Some of this I owe to my landlady. The balance I am quite willing to
turn over to you, and when it is all gone I will move somewhere else.”
 He drew a silver watch from his pocket. “You must decide at once; it is
getting late and I must be moving on.”

Kitty squared herself, her hands on her hips--a favorite gesture when
her mind was fully made up--looked straight at the speaker as if to
reply, then suddenly catching sight of a strapping-looking fellow in
blue overalls, a trunk on one shoulder, a carpetbag in his hand, called
out: “John, dear, come here! I want ye. Here, Mike! You and Bobby get
that steamer baggage out on the sidewalk, and don't be slack about it,
for it goes to Hoboken, and there may be a block in the river and the
ferry-boats behind time. Wait, I'll lend ye a hand.”

“You'll lend nothing, Kitty Cleary! Get out of my way,” came her
husband's hearty answer. “Ye hurt yer back last week. There's men enough
round here to--stop it, I tell ye!” and he loosened her fingers from the
lifting-strap.

“I can hist the two of ye, John! Go along wid ye!”

“No, Kitty, darlin'--let go of it,” and with a twist of his hand and
lurch of his shoulder John shot the trunk over the edge of the wagon,
tossed the bag after it, and joined the group, the stranger absorbed in
watching the husband and wife.

“And now the trunk's in, what's it you want, Kitty?” asked John
squeezing her plump arm, as if in compensation for having had his way.

“John, dear, here's a gentleman who--what's your name?--ye haven't told
me, or if ye did I've forgot it.”

“Felix O'Day.”

“Then you're Irish?”

“I am afraid I am--at least, my ancestors were.”

“Afraid! Ye ought to be glad. I'm Irish, and so is my John here, and
Bobby, and Father Cruse, and Tom McGinniss, the policeman, and the
captain up at the station-house--we're all Irish, except Otto, who is
as Dutch as sauerkraut! But where was I? Oh, yes! Now, John, dear, this
gentleman is on his uppers, he says, and wants to hire our room and eat
what we can give him.”

The expressman, who stood six feet in his stockings, looked first at
his wife, then at Kling, and then at the applicant, and broke out into
a loud guffaw. “It's a joke, Kitty. Don't let 'em fool ye. Go on, Otto;
try it somewhere else! It's my busy day. Here, Mike!”

“You drop Mike and listen, John! It's no joke--not for Mr. O'Day. You
take him up-stairs and show him what we got, and down into the kitchen
and the sitting-room and out into the yard. Come, now; hurry! Go 'long
with him, Mr. O'Day, and come back to me when ye are through and tell me
what you think of it all. And, John, take Toodles with you and lock him
up. First thing I know I'll be tramplin' on him. Get out, you varmint!”

John grabbed the wad of matted hair midway between his floppy tail and
perpetually moist nose, controlled his own features into a semblance of
seriousness, and turned to O'Day. “This way, sir--I thought it was one
of Otto's jokes. The room is only about as big as half a box car, but
it's got runnin' water in the hall, and Kitty keeps it mighty clean. As
to the grub, it ain't what you are accustomed to, maybe, but it's what
we have ourselves, and neither of us is starvin', as ye can see,” and
he thumped his chest. “No, not the big door, sir; the little one. And
there's a key, too, for ye, when ye're out late--and ye will be out
late, or I miss my guess,” and out rolled another laugh.

Kitty looked after the two until they disappeared through the smaller
door, then turned and faced Kling. “I know just what's happened, Otto--a
baby a month old could see it all. That man is up against it for the
first time. He'd rather die than beg, and he'll keep on sellin' his
traps until there's nothin' left but the clothes he stands in. He may be
a duke, for all ye know, or maybe only a plain Irish gentleman come to
grief. Them bottles ye showed me last night had arms engraved on 'em,
and his initials. I noticed partic'lar, for I've seen them things
before. My father, when he was young, was second groom for a lord and
used to tell me about the silver in the house and the arms on the sides
of the carriages. What he's left home for the dear God only knows; but
it will come out, and when it does it won't be what anybody thinks. And
he's got a fine way wid him, and a clear look out of his eye, and I'll
bet ye he's tellin' the truth and all of it. Here they come now, and
I'm glad they've got rid of that rag baby of Bobby's.” She turned to her
husband. “And, John, dear, don't forget that sewing-machine--oh, yes, I
see, you've got it in the wagon--go on wid ye, then!--Well, Mr. O'Day,
how is it? Purty small and cramped, ain't it? And there's a chair
missin' that I took downstairs, which I'll put back. And there's a
cotton cover belongs to the table. Won't suit, will it?” and a shade of
disappointment crossed her face.

“The room will answer very well, Mrs. Cleary. I can see the work of your
deft hands in every corner. I have been living in one much larger, but
this is more like a home. And do I get my breakfast and dinner and the
room for the pound--I mean for the five dollars?”

“You do, and welcome, and somethin' in the middle of the day if ye
happen to be around and hungry.”

“And can I move in to-day?”

“Ye can.”

“Then I will go down and pay what I owe and see about getting my boxes.
And now, here is your money,” and he held out two five-dollar bills.

Kitty stretched her two hands far behind her back, her brown holland
over-apron curving inward with the movement. “I won't touch it; ye can
have the room and ye can keep your money. When I want it I'll ask fer
it. Now tell me where I can get your trunks. Mike will go fer 'em and
bring 'em back.”

A new, strange look shone out from the keen, searching eyes of O'Day.
His interest in the woman had deepened. “And you have no misgivings and
are sure you will get your rent?”

“Just as sure as I am that me name is Kitty Cleary, and that is not
altogether because you're an Irishman but because ye are a gentleman.”

This time O'Day made her a little bow, the lines of his face softening,
his eyes sparkling with sudden humor at her speech. He stepped forward,
called to the man who was still handling the luggage, and, in the tone
of one ordering his groom, said: “Here, Mike!--Did you say his name was
Mike?--Go, if you please, to this address, just below Union Square-I
will write it on a card--any time to-day after six o'clock. I will
meet you there and show you the trunks--there are two of them.” Then he
turned to Otto, still standing by, a silent and absorbed spectator.

“I have also to thank you, Mr. Kling. It was very kind of you, and I am
sure I shall be very happy here. After I am settled I shall come over
and see whether I can be of some service to you in going through your
stock. There may be some other things that are valuable which you have
mislaid. And then, again, I should like to see something more of your
little daughter--she is very lovable, and so is her dog.”

“Vell, vy don't you come now? Masie don't go to school to-day, and
I keep her in de shop. I been tinkin' since you and Kitty been
talkin'--Kitty don't make no mistakes: vot Kitty says goes. Look here,
Kitty, vun minute--come close vunce--I vant to speak to you.”

O'Day, who had been about to give a reason why he could not “come now,”
 and who had halted in his reply in order to hunt his pockets for a card
on which to write his address, hearing Kling's last words, withdrew to
the office in search of both paper and pencil.

“Now, see here, Kitty! Dot mans is a vunderful man--de most VUNDERFUL
man I have seen since I been in 445. You know dem cups and saucers vat
I bought off dot olt vomans who came up from Baltimore? Do you know dot
two of 'em is vorth more as ten dollars? He find dot out joost as soon
as he pick 'em up, and he find out about my chairs, and vich vas fakes
and vich vas goot. Vot you tink of my givin' him a job takin' my old
cups and my soup tureens and stuff and go sell 'em someveres? I don't
got nobody since dot tam fool of a Svede go avay. Vat you tink?”

“He can have my room--that's what I think! You heard what I said to him!
That's all the answer you'll get out of me, Otto Kling.”

“An' you don't tink dot he'd git avay vid de stuff und ve haf to hunt up
or down Second Avenue in the pawn-shops to git 'em back?”

“No, I don't!”

“Den, by golly, I take him on, und I gif him every veek vat he pay you
in board.”

Kitty broke into one of her derisive laughs. “YOU WILL! Ain't that good
of ye? Ye'll give him enough to starve on, that's what it is. Ye ought
to be ashamed of yourself, Otto Kling!”

“Vell, but I don't know vat he is vurth yet.”

“Well, then, tell him so, but don't cheat him out of everything but
his bare board; and that's what ye'd be doin'. Ye know he's pawnin'
his stuff; ye know ye got five times the worth of your money in the
dressing-case he give up to ye! See here, Otto! Before ye offer him that
five dollars a week ye better get on the other side of big John there,
where ye'll be safe, and holler it at him over them trunks, or ye'll
find yourself flat on your back.”

“All right, Kitty, all right! Don't git oxcited. I didn't mean nudding.
I do just vat you say. I gif him more. Oh! Here you are! Mr. O'Day, vud
you let me speak to you vun minute? Suppose dot I ask you to come into
my shop as a clerk, like, and pay you vat I can--of course, you are new
und it vill take some time, but I can pay sometings--vud you come?”

O'Day gave an involuntary start and from under his heavy brows there
shot a keen, questioning glance. “What would you want me to do?” he
asked evenly.

“Vell--vait on de customers, and look over de stock, and buy tings ven
dey come in.”

“You certainly cannot be serious, Mr. Kling. You know nothing about me.
I am an entire stranger and must continue to be. With the exception of
my landlady, who, if she knows my name, forgets it every time she comes
up for her rent, there is not a human being in New York to whom I could
apply for a reference. Are you accustomed to pick up strangers out of
the street and take them into your shops--and your homes?” he added,
smiling at Kitty, who had been following the conversation closely.

“But you is a different kind of a mans.”

No answer came. The man was lost in thought.

“Ye'd better think it over, sir,” said Kitty, laying a strong,
persuasive hand on his wrist. “It's near by, and ye can have your meals
early or late as ye plaze, and the work ain't hard. My Mike does the
liftin' and two big fat Dutchies helps.”

“But I know nothing about the business, Mrs. Cleary--nothing about any
business, for that matter. I should only be a disappointment to Mr.
Kling. I would rather keep his friendship and look elsewhere.”

Kitty relaxed her hold of his wrist. “Then ye have been lookin' for
work?” she asked. The inquiry sprang hot from her heart.

“I have not, so far, but I shall have to very soon.”

She threw back her head and faced the two men. “Ye'll look no further,
Mr. O'Day. You go over to Otto's and go to work; and it will be to-night
after you gets your things stowed away. And ye'll pay him ten dollars
a week, Otto, for the first month, and more the second if he earns it,
which he will. Now are ye all satisfied, or shall I say it over?”

“One moment, please, Mrs. Cleary. If I may interrupt,” he laughed, his
reserve broken through at last by the friendly interest shown by the
strangers about him, “and what will be the hours of my service?” Then,
turning to Otto: “Perhaps you, Mr. Kling, can best tell me.”

“Vot you mean?”

“How early must I come in the morning, and until how late must I stay at
night?”

The dealer hesitated, then answered slowly, “In de morning at eight
o'clock, and”--but, seeing a cloud cross O'Day's face, added: “Or maybe
haf past eight vill do.”

“And at night?”

“Vell--you can't tell. Sometimes it is more late as udder times--about
nine o'clock ven I have packing to do.”

O'Day shook his head.

“Vell, den, say eight o'clock.”

Again O'Day shook his head slowly and thoughtfully as if some
insurmountable obstacle had suddenly arisen before him. Then he said
firmly: “I am afraid I must decline your kind offer, Mr. Kling. The
latest I could stay on any evening is seven o'clock--some days I might
have to leave at six--certainly no later than half past. I suppose you
have dinner at seven, Mrs. Cleary?”

Kitty nodded. She was too interested in this new phase of the situation
to speak.

“Yes, seven would have to be the hour, Mr. Kling” said O'Day.

“Vell, make it seven o'clock, den.”

“And if,” he continued in a still more serious voice, “I should on
certain days--absent myself entirely, would that matter?”

Otto was being slowly driven into a corner, but he determined not to
flinch with Kitty standing by. “No, I tink I git along vid my little
Beesvings.”

O'Day studied the pavement for an instant, then looked into space as
if seeking to clear his mind of every conflicting thought, and said at
last, slowly and deliberately: “Very well. Then I will be with you in
the morning at nine o'clock. Now, good day, Mrs. Cleary. I know we will
get on very well together, and you, too, Mr. Kling. Thank you for your
confidence.” Then, turning to the Irishman: “Don't forget, Mike, that
the street-door is open and that I'm up two flights. You will find the
number on this card.”




Chapter IV



The customary scene took place when Felix, late that afternoon, handed
his landlady the overdue rent. Now that the two crisp bills which O'Day
owed her lay in her hand, she was ready to pass them back to him if the
full payment at all embarrassed him. Indeed, she had never had a more
quiet and decent lodger, and she hoped it didn't mean he was “goin'
away,” and, if she was rather sharp with him the night before, it was
because she had been “that nervous of late.”

But Felix, ignoring her overtures, only shook his head in a good-natured
way. He would begin packing at once, and the express wagon would be here
at six. She would know it by the white horse which the man was driving.
When his trunks were finished he would put them outside his bedroom
door, and please not to forget his mackintosh and leather hat-case which
he would leave inside the room.

So the packing began. First the sole-leather trunk, from which he had
taken the hapless dressing-case the night before, was pulled out and the
heavy black tin box hauled into position and unlocked. With the raising
of the scarred and dented top a mass of letters and papers came into
view, filling the box to the brim--some tied with red tape, others in
big envelopes. In a corner lay some photographs--one in a gilt frame,
the edge showing clear of the tissue-paper in which it was wrapped. This
he took out and studied long and earnestly, his lips tightly pressed
together. Retying the paper, he tucked them all back into place, turned
the key, shook the box to see that the lock held tight, picked it up
with one hand by its side handle, and, throwing open the door, deposited
it on the landing outside. Its leather companion was then placed beside
it, the hat-case crowning the whole.

Mike's voice was now heard in the narrow front hall. “How fur is it up,
mum? Oh, another flight! Begorra, it's as dark as a coal-hole and about
as dirty!” This was followed by: “Oh, is that you, sor? How many pieces
have you?”

“Only two, Mike; and the mackintosh and hat-case,” answered Felix, who
had watched him stumbling up the stairs until his red face was level
with the landing. “By the way, mind you don't lose the rubber coat, for,
although I never wear an overcoat, this comes in well when it rains.”

“I'll never take me eyes off it. I bet ye niver bought that down on the
Bowery from a Johnny-hand-me-down!”

“And, Mike!”

“Yes, sor?”

“Will you please say to Mrs. Cleary that I may not be in to-night before
eleven o'clock?”

“Eleven! Why that's the shank o' the evenin' for her, sor. If it was
twelve, or after, she'd be up.” Then he bent forward and whispered: “I
should think ye would be glad, sor, to get out of this rookery.”

Felix nodded in assent, waited until the leather trunk had been dumped
into the wagon, watched Mike remount the stairs until he had reached his
landing, helped him to load up the balance of his luggage--the tin
box on one shoulder, the coat over the other, the hat-case in the free
hand--and then walked back to his empty room. Here he made a thoughtful
survey of the dismal place in which he had spent so many months, picked
up his blackthorn stick, and, leaving the door ajar, walked slowly
down-stairs, his hand on the rail as a guide in the dark.

“And you aren't comin' back, sir?” remarked the landlady, who had
listened for his steps.

“That, madame, one never can tell.”

“Well, you are always welcome.”

“Thank you--good-by.”

“Good-by, sir; my husband's out or he would like to shake your hand.”

O'Day bowed slightly and stepped into the street, his stick under his
arm, his hands hooked behind his back. That he had no immediate purpose
in view was evident from the way he loitered along, stopping to look at
the store windows or to scrutinize the passing crowd, each person intent
on his or her special business. By the time he had reached Broadway the
upper floors of the business buildings were dark, but the windows of
the restaurants, cigar shops, and saloons had begun to blaze out and a
throng of pleasure seekers to replace that of the shoppers and workers.
This aspect of New York appealed to him most. There were fewer people
moving about the streets and in less of a hurry, and he could study them
the closer.

In a cheap restaurant off Union Square he ate a spare and inexpensive
meal, whiled away an hour over the free afternoon papers, went out to
watch an audience thronging into one of the smaller theatres, and then
boarded a down-town car. When he reached Trinity Church the clock was
striking, and, as he often did when here at this hour, he entered the
open gate and, making his way among the shadows sat down, on a flat
tomb. The gradual transition from the glare and rush of the up-town
streets to the sombre stillness of this ancient graveyard always seemed
to him like the shifting of films upon a screen, a replacement of the
city of the living by the city of the dead. High up in the gloom soared
the spire of the old church, its cross lost in shadows. Still
higher, their roofs melting into the dusky blue vault, rose the great
office-buildings, crowding close as if ready to pounce upon the small
space protected only by the sacred ashes of the dead.

For some time he sat motionless, listening to the muffled peals of the
organ. Then the humiliating events of the last twenty-four hours began
crowding in upon his memory: the insolent demands of his landlady; the
guarded questions of Kling when he inspected the dressing-case; the look
of doubt on both their faces and the changes wrought in their manner and
speech when they found he was able to pay his way. Suddenly something
which up to that moment he had held at bay gripped him.

“It was money, then, which counted,” he said to himself, forgetting for
the moment Kitty's refusal to take it. And if money were so necessary,
how long could he earn it? Kling would soon discover how useless he
was, and then the tin box, emptied of its contents and the last keepsake
pawned or sold, the end would come.

None of these anxieties had ever assailed him before. He had been like
a man walking in a dream, his gaze fixed on but one exit, regardless of
the dangers besetting his steps. Now the truth confronted him. He had
reached the limit of his resources. To hope for much from Kling was
idle. Such a situation could not last, nor could he count for long
either on the friendship or the sympathy of the big-hearted expressman's
wife. She had been absolutely sincere, and so had her husband, but that
made it all the more incumbent upon him to preserve his own independence
while still pursuing the one object of his life with undiminished
effort.

A flood of light from the suddenly opened church-door, followed by a
burst of pent-up melody, recalled him to himself. He waited until all
was dark again, rose to his feet, passed through the gate and, with a
brace of his shoulders and quickened step, walked on into Wall Street.

As he made his way along the deserted thoroughfare, where but a few
hours since the very air had been charged with a nervous energy whose
slightest vibration was felt the world over, the sombre stillness of
the ancient graveyard seemed to have followed him. Save for a private
watchman slowly tramping his round and an isolated foot-passenger
hurrying to the ferry, no soul but himself was stirring or awake except,
perhaps, behind some electric light in a lofty building where a janitor
was retiring or, lower down, some belated bookkeeper in search of an
error.

Leaving the grim row of tall columns guarding the front of the old
custom-house, he turned his steps in the direction of the docks, wheeled
sharply to the left, and continued up South Street until he stopped in
front of a ship-chandler's store.

Some one was at work inside, for the rays of a lantern shed their light
over piles of old cordage and heaps of rusty chains flanking the low
entrance.

Picking his way around some barrels of oil, he edged along a line of
boxes filled with ship's stuff until he reached an inside office, where,
beside a kerosene lamp placed on a small desk littered with papers, sat
a man in shirt-sleeves. At the sound of O'Day's step the occupant lifted
his head and peered out. The visitor passed through the doorway.

“Good evening, Carlin; I hoped you would still be up. I stopped on the
way down or I should have been here earlier.”

A man of sixty, with a ruddy, weather-beaten face set in a half-moon of
gray whiskers, the ends tied under his chin, sprang to his feet. “Ah!
Is that you, Mr. Felix? I been a-wonderin' where you been a-keepin'
yourself. Take this chair; it's more comfortable. I was thinkin' somehow
you might come in to-night, and so I took a shy at my bills to have
somethin' to do. I suppose”--he stopped, and in a whisper added: “I
suppose you haven't heard anything, have you?”

“No; have you?”

“Not a word,” answered the ship-chandler gravely.

“I thought perhaps you might have had a letter,” urged Felix.

“Not a line of any kind,” came the answer, followed by a sidewise
movement of the gray head, as if its owner had long since abandoned hope
from that quarter.

“Do you think anything is the matter?”

“Nothin', or I should 'a' 'eard. My notion is that Martha kep' on to
Toronto with that sick man she nursed on the steamer. Maybe she's got
work stiddy and isn't a-goin' to come back.”

“But she would have let you KNOW?” There was a ring of anxiety now,
tinged with a certain impatience.

“Perhaps she would, Mr. Felix, and perhaps she wouldn't. Since our
mother died Martha gets rather cocky sometimes. Likes to be her own boss
and earn her own living. I've often 'eard her say it before I left 'ome,
and she HAS earned it, I must say--and she's got to, same as all of us.
I suppose you been keepin' it up same as usual--trampin' and lookin'?”

“Yes.” This came as the mere stating of a fact.

“And I suppose there ain't nothin' new--no clew--nothin' you can
work on?” The speaker felt assured there was not, but it might be an
encouragement to suggest its possibility.

“No, not the slightest clew.”

“Better give it up, Mr. Felix, you're only wastin' your time. Be worse
maybe when you do come up agin it.” The ship-chandler was in earnest;
every intonation proved it.

O'Day arose from his seat and looked down at his companion. “That is
not my way, Carlin, nor is it yours; and I have known you since I was a
boy.”

“And you are goin' to keep it up, Mr. Felix?”

“Yes, until I know the end or reach my own.”

“Well, then, God's help go with ye!”

Into the shadows again--past long rows of silent warehouses, with here
and there a flickering gas-lamp--until he reached Dover Street. He had
still some work to do up-town, and Dover Street would furnish a short
cut along the abutment of the great bridge, and so on to the Elevated at
Franklin Square.

He was evidently familiar with its narrow, uneven sidewalk, for he swung
without hesitation into the gloom and, with hands hooked behind his
back, his stick held, as was his custom, close to his armpit, made his
way past its shambling hovels and warehouses. Now and then he would
pause, following with his eyes the curve of the great steel highway,
carried on the stone shoulders of successive arches, the sweep of its
lines marked by a procession of lights, its outstretched, interlocked
palms gripped close. The memory of certain streets in London came to
him--those near its own great bridges, especially the city dump at
Black-friars and the begrimed buildings hugging the stone knees of
London Bridge, choking up the snakelike alleys and byways leading to the
Embankment.

Crossing under the Elevated, he continued along the side of the giant
piers and wheeled into a dirt-choked, ill-smelling street, its distant
outlet a blaze of electric lights. It was now the dead hour of the
twenty-four--the hour before the despatch of the millions of journals,
damp from the presses. He was the only human being in sight.

Suddenly, when within a hundred feet of the end of the street, a figure
detached itself from a deserted doorway. Felix caught his stick from
under his armpit as the man held out a hand.

“Say, I want you to give me the price of a meal.”

Felix tightened his hold on the stick. The words had conveyed a threat.

“This is no place for you to beg. Step out where people can see you.”

“I'm hungry, mister.” He had now taken in the width of O'Day's shoulders
and the length of his forearm. He had also seen the stick.

Felix stepped back one pace and slipped his hand down the blackthorn.
“Move on, I tell you, where I can look you over--quick!--I mean it.”

“I ain't much to look at.” The threat was out of his voice now. “I
ain't eaten nothin' since yisterday, mister, and I got that out of a
ash-barrel. I'm up agin it hard. Can't you see I ain't lyin'? You
ain't never starved or you'd know. You ain't--” He wavered, his eyes
glittering, edged a step nearer, and with a quick lunge made a grab for
O'Day's watch.

Felix sidestepped with the agility of a cat, struck straight out
from the shoulder, and, with a twist of his fingers in the tramp's
neck-cloth, slammed him flat against the wall, where he crouched,
gasping for breath. “Oh, that's it, is it?” he said calmly, loosening
his hold.

The man raised both hands in supplication. “Don't kill me! Listen to
me--I ain't no thief--I'm desperate. When you didn't give me nothin'
and I got on to the watch--I got crazy. I'm glad I didn't git it. I been
a-walkin' the streets for two weeks lookin' for work. Last night I slep'
in a coal-bunker down by the docks, under the bridge, and I was goin'
there agin when you come along. I never tried to rob nobody before.
Don't run me in--let me go this time. Look into my face; you can see
for yourself I'm hungry! I'll never do it agin. Try me, won't you?” His
tears were choking him, the elbow of his ragged sleeve pressed to his
eyes.

Felix had listened without moving, trying to make up his mind, noting
the drawn, haggard face, the staring eyes and dry, fevered lips--all
evidences of either hunger or vice, he was uncertain which.

Then gradually, as the man's sobs continued, there stole over him
that strange sense of kinship in pain which comes to us at times when
confronted with another's agony. The differences between them--the rags
of the one and the well-brushed garments of the other, the fact that one
skulked with his misery in dark alleys while the other bore his on
the open highways--counted as nothing. He and this outcast were bound
together by the common need of those who find the struggle overwhelming.
Until that moment his own sufferings had absorbed him. Now the throb of
the world's pain came to him and sympathies long dormant began to stir.

“Straighten up and let me see your face,” he said at last, intent on
the tramp's abject misery. “Out here where the full light can fall on
it--that's right! Now tell me about yourself. How long have you been
like this?”

The man dragged himself to his feet.

“Ever since I lost my job.” The question had calmed him. There was a
note of hope in it.

“What work did you do?”

“I'm a plumber's helper.”

“Work stopped?”

“No, a strike--I wouldn't quit, and they fired me.”

“What happened then?”

“She went away.”

“Who went away?”

“My wife.”

“When?”

“About a month back.”

“Did you beat her?”

“No, there was another man.”

“Younger than you?”

“Yes.”

“How old was she?”

“Eighteen.”

“A girl, then.”

“Yes, if you put it that way. She was all I had.”

“Have you seen her since?”

“No, and I don't want to.”

These questions and answers had followed in rapid succession, Felix
searching for the truth and the man trying to give it as best he could.

With the last answer the man drew a step nearer and, in a voice which
was fast getting beyond his control, said: “You know now, don't you? You
can see it plain as day how long it takes to make a bum of a man when
he's up agin things like that. You--” He paused, listened intently, and
sprang back, hugging the wall. “What's that? Somebody comin'! My God!
It's a cop! Don't tell him--say you won't tell him--say it! SAY IT!”

Felix gripped his wrist. “Pull yourself together and keep still.”

The officer, who was idly swinging a club as if for companionship along
his lonely beat, stopped short. “Any trouble, sir?” he said as soon as
he had Felix's outline and bearing clear.

“No, thank you, officer. Only a friend of mine who needs a little
looking after. I'll take care of him.”

“All right, sir,” and he passed on down the narrow street.

The man gave a long breath and staggered against the wall. Felix caught
him by his trembling shoulders. “Now, brace up. The first thing you need
is something to eat. There is a restaurant at the corner. Come with me.”

“They won't let me in.”

“I'll take care of that.”

Felix entered first. “What is there hot this time of night, barkeeper?”

“Frankfurters and beans, boss.”

“Any coffee?”

“Sure.”

“Send a double portion of each to this table,” and he pulled out a
chair. “Here's a man who has missed his dinner. Is that enough?” and he
laid down a dollar bill--one Kling had given him.

“Forty cents change, boss.”

“Keep it, and see he gets all he wants. And now here,” he said to the
tramp, “is another dollar to keep you going,” and with a shift of his
stick to his left arm Felix turned on his heel, swung back the door, and
was lost in the throng.


Kitty was up and waiting for him when he lifted the hinged wooden flap
which provided an entrance for the privileged and, guided by the glow of
the kerosene lamp, turned the knob of her kitchen door. She was close to
the light, reading, the coffee-pot singing away on the stove, the aroma
of its contents filling the room.

“I hope I have not kept you up, Mrs. Cleary. You had my message by Mike,
did you not?” he asked in an apologetic tone.

“Yes, I got the message, and I got the trunks; they're up-stairs, and if
you had given Mike the keys I'd have 'em unpacked by this time and all
ready for you. As to my bein' up--I'm always up, and I got to be. John
and Mike is over to Weehawken, and Bobby's been to the circus and just
gone to bed, and I've been readin' the mornin' paper--about the only
time I get to read it. Will ye sit down and wait till John comes in?
Hold on 'til I get ye a cup of hot coffee and--”

“No, Mrs. Cleary. I will go to bed, if you do not mind.”

“Oh, but the coffee will put new life into ye, and--”

“Thanks, but it would be more likely to put it OUT of me if it kept me
awake. Can I reach my room this way or must I go outside?”

“Ye can go through this door--wait, I'll go wid ye and show ye about the
light and where ye'll find the water. It's dark on the stairs and ye may
stumble. I'll go on ahead and turn up the gas in the hall,” she called
back, as she mounted the steps and threw wide his room door. “Not much
of a place, is it? But ye can get plenty of fresh air, and the bed's not
bad. Ye can see for yourself,” and her stout fist sunk into its middle.
“And there's your trunks and tin chest, and the hat-box is beside the
wash-stand, and the waterproof coat's in the closet. We have breakfast
at seven o'clock, and ye'll eat down-stairs wid me and John. And now
good night to ye.”

Felix thanked her for her attention in his simple, straightforward way,
and, closing the door upon her, dropped into a chair.

The night's experience had been like a sudden awakening. His anxiety
over his dwindling finances and his disappointment over Carlin's news
had been put to flight by the suffering of the man who had tried to rob
him. There were depths, then, to which human suffering might drive a
man, depths he himself had never imagined or reached--horrible, deadly
depths, without light or hope, benumbing the best in a man, destroying
his purposes by slow, insidious stages.

He arose from his chair and began walking up and down the small room,
stopping now and then to inspect a bureau drawer or to readjust one of
the curtains shading the panes of glass. In the same absent-minded way
he drew out one of the trunks, unlocked it, paused now and then with
some garment in his hand only to awake again to consciousness and resume
his task, pushing the trunk back at last under the bed and continuing
his walk about the narrow room, always haunted by the tramp's haggard,
hopeless look.

Again he felt the mysterious sense of kinship in pain that wipes away
all distinctions. With it, too, there came suddenly another sense--that
of an overwhelming compassion out of which new purposes are born to
human souls.

The encounter, then, had been both a blessing and a warning. He would
now stand guard against the onslaught of his own sorrows while keeping
up the fight, and this with renewed vigor. He would earn money, too,
since this was so necessary, laboring with his hands, if need be; and he
would do it all with a wide-open heart.




Chapter V



If O'Day's presence was a welcome addition to Kitty's household, it
was nothing compared to the effect produced at Kling's. Long before the
month was out he had not only earned his entire wages five times over by
the changes he had wrought in the arrangement and classification of the
stock, but he had won the entire confidence of his employer. Otto had
surrendered when an old customer who had been in the habit of picking up
rare bits of china, Japanese curios, and carvings at his own value had
been confronted with the necessity of either paying Felix's price or
going away without it, O'Day having promptly quadrupled the price on a
piece of old Dresden, not only because the purchaser was compelled to
have it to complete his set but because the interview had shown that the
buyer was well aware he had obtained the former specimens at one-fourth
of their value.

And the same discernment was shown when he was purchasing old furniture,
brass, and so-called Sheffield plate to increase Otto's stock. If the
articles offered could still boast of either handle, leg, or back of
their original state and the price was fair, they were almost always
bought, but the line was drawn at the fraudulent and “plugged-up”
 sideboards and chairs with their legs shot full of genuine worm-holes;
ancient Oriental stuffs of the time of the early Persians (one year
out of a German loom), rare old English plate, or undoubted George
III silver, decorated with coats of arms or initials and showing those
precious little dents only produced by long service--the whole fresh
from a Connecticut factory. These never got past his scrutiny. While it
was true, as he had told Kling, that he knew very little in the way of
trade and commerce--nothing which would be of use to any one--he was
a never-failing expert when it came to what is generally known as
“antiques” and “bric-a-brac.”

Masie--Kling's only child--a slender, graceful little creature with a
wealth of gold-yellow hair flying about her pretty shoulders and a pair
of blue eyes in which were mirrored the skies of ten joyous springs,
had given her heart to him at once. She had never forgotten his gentle
treatment of her dog Fudge, whose attack that first morning Felix had
understood so well, lifting and putting the refractory animal back in
her arms instead of driving him off with a kick. Fudge, whose manners
were improving, had not forgotten either and was always under O'Day's
feet except when being fondled by the child.

Until Felix came she had had no other companions, some innate reserve
keeping her from romping with the children on the street, her sole
diversion, except when playing at home among her father's possessions or
making a visit to Kitty, being found in the books of fairy-tales which
the old hunchback, Tim Kelsey, had lent her. At first this natural
shyness had held her aloof even from O'Day, content only to watch his
face as he answered her childish appeals. But before the first week had
passed she had slipped her hand into his, and before the month was over
her arms were around his neck, her fresh, soft cheek against his own,
cuddling close as she poured out her heart in a continuous flow of
prattle and laughter, her father looking on in blank amazement.

For, while Kling loved her as most fathers love their motherless
daughters, Felix had seen at a glance that he was either too engrossed
in his business or too dense and unimaginative to understand so winning
a child. She was Masie, “dot little girl of mine dot don't got no
mudder,” or “Beesvings, who don't never be still,” but that was about as
far as his notice of her went, except sending her to school, seeing that
she was fed and clothed, and on such state occasions as Christmas, New
Year's, or birthdays, giving her meaningless little presents, which, in
most instances, were shut up in her bureau drawers, never to be looked
at again.

Kitty, who remembered the child's mother as a girl with a far-away look
in her eyes and a voice of surprising sweetness, always maintained that
it was a shame for Kling, who was many years her senior, to have married
the girl at all.

“Not, John, dear, that Otto isn't a decent man, as far as he goes,”
 she had once said to him, when the day's work was over and they were
discussing their neighbors, “and that honest, too, that he wouldn't get
away with a sample trunk weighing a ton if it was nailed fast to the
sidewalk, and a good friend of ours who wouldn't go back on us, and
never did. But that wife of his, John! If she wasn't as fine as the best
of em, then I miss my guess. She got it from that father of hers--the
clock-maker that never went out in the daytime, and hid himself in his
back shop. There was something I never understood about the two of 'em
and his killing himself when he did. Why, look at that little Masie!
Can't ye see she is no more Kling's daughter than she is mine? Ye can't
hatch out hummin'-birds by sittin' on ducks' eggs, and that's what's the
matter over at Otto's.”

“Well, whose eggs were they?” John had inquired, half asleep by the
stove, his tired legs outstretched, the evening paper dropping from his
hand.

“Oh, I don't say that they are not Kling's right enough, John. Masie is
his child, I know. But what I say is that the mother is stamped all over
the darling, and that Otto can't put a finger on any part and call it
his own.”

Whether Kitty were right or wrong regarding the mystery is no part of
our story, but certain it was that the soul of the unhappy young mother
looked through the daughter's eyes, that the sweetness of the child's
voice was hers, and the grace of every movement a direct inheritance
from one whose frail spirit had taken so early a flight.

To Felix this companionship, with the glimpses it gave him of a child's
heart, refreshed his own as a summer rain does a thirsty plant. Had she
been his daughter, or his little sister, or his niece, or grandchild, a
certain sense of responsibility on his part and of filial duty on hers
would have clouded their perfect union. He would have had matters of
education to insist upon--perhaps of clothing and hygiene. She would
have had her secrets--hidden paths on which she wandered alone--things
she could never tell to one in authority. As it was, bound together as
they were by only a mutual recognition, their joy in each other knew no
bounds. To Masie he was a refuge, some one who understood every thought
before she had uttered it; to O'Day she was a never-ending and warming
delight.

And so this man of forty-five folded his arms about this child of ten,
and held her close, the opening chalice of her budding girlhood widening
hourly at his touch--a sight to be reverenced by every man and never to
be forgotten by one privileged to behold it.

And with the intimacy which almost against his will held him to the
little shop, there stole into his life a certain content. Springs long
dried in his own nature bubbled again. He felt the sudden, refreshing
sense of those who, after pent-up suffering, find the quickening of new
life within.

Mike noticed the change in the cheery greetings and in the passages of
Irish wit with which the new clerk welcomed him whenever he appeared in
the store, and so did Kling, and even the two Dutchies when Felix would
drop into the cellar searching for what was still good enough to be made
over new. And so did Kitty and John and all at their home.

Masie alone noticed nothing. To her, “Uncle Felix,” as she now called
him, was always the same adorable and comprehending companion, forever
opening up to her new vistas of interest, never too busy to answer her
questions, never too preoccupied to explain the different objects he was
handling. If she were ever in the way, she was never made to feel it.
Instead, so gentle and considerate was he, that she grew to believe
herself his most valuable assistant, daily helping him to arrange the
various new acquisitions.

One morning in June when they were busy over a lot of small curios,
arranging bits of jade, odd silver watches, seals, and pinchbeck rings,
in a glass case that had been cleaned and revarnished, the door
opened and an old fellow strolled in--an odd-looking old fellow, with
snow-white hair and beard, wearing a black sombrero and a shirt cut very
low in the neck. But for a pair of kindly eyes, which looked out at you
from beneath the brim of the hat, he might have been mistaken for one
of the dwarfs in “Rip Van Winkle.” Fudge, having now been disciplined by
Felix, only sniffed at his trousers.

“I see an old gold frame in your window,” began the new customer. “Might
I measure it?”

“Which one, sir?” replied Felix. “There are half a dozen of them, I
believe.”

“Well; will you please come outside? And I will point it out. It is the
Florentine, there in the corner--perhaps a reproduction, but it looks to
me like the real thing.”

“It is a Florentine,” answered Felix. “There are two or three pictures
in the Uffizi with similar frames, if I recall them aright. Would you
like a look at it?”

“I don't want to trouble you to take it out,” said the old man
apologetically. “It might not do, and I can't afford to pay much for
it anyway. But I would like to measure it; I've got an Academy picture
which I think will just fit it, but you can't always tell. No, I
guess I'll let it go. It's all covered up, and you would have to move
everything to reach it.”

“No, I won't have to move a thing. Here, you bunch of sunshine! Squeeze
in there, Masie, dear, and let me know how wide and high that frame
is--the one next the glass. Take this rule.”

The child caught up the rule and, followed by Fudge, who liked nothing
so well as rummaging, crept among the jars, mirrors, and candelabra
crowding the window, her steps as true as those of a kitten. “Twenty
inches by thirty-one--no, thirty,” she laughed back, tucking her little
skirts closer to her shapely limbs so as to clear a tiny table set out
with cups and saucers.

“You're sure it's thirty?” repeated the painter.

“Yes, sir, thirty,” and she crept back and laid the rule in O'Day's
hand.

“Thank you, my dear young lady,” bowed the old gnome. “It is a pleasure
to be served by one so obliging and bright. And I am glad to tell you,”
 he added, turning to O'Day, “that it's a fit--an exact fit. I thought
I was about right. I carry things in my eye. I bought a head once in
Venice, about a foot square, and in Spain three months afterward, on my
way down the hill leading from the Alhambra to the town, there on a wall
outside a bric-a-brac shop hung a frame which I bought for ten francs,
and when I got to Paris and put them together, I'll be hanged if they
didn't fit as if they had been made for each other.”

“And I know the shop!” broke out Felix, to Masie's astonishment. “It's
just before you get to the small chapel on the left.”

“By cracky, you're right! How long since you were there?”

“Oh, some five years now.”

“Picking up things to sell here, I suppose. Spain used to be a great
place for furniture and stuffs; I've got a lot of them still--bought a
whole chest of embroideries once in Seville, or rather, at that hospital
where the big Murillo hangs. You must know that picture--Moses striking
water from the rock--best thing Murillo ever did.”

Felix remembered it, and he also remembered many of the important
pictures in the Prado, especially the great Velasquez and the two Goyas,
and that head of Ribera which hung on the line in the second gallery on
the right as you entered. And before the two enthusiasts were aware of
what was going on around them, Masie and Fudge had slipped off to dine
upstairs with her father, Felix and the garrulous old painter still
talking--renewing their memories with a gusto and delight unknown to the
old artist for years.

“And now about that frame!” the gnome at last found time to say. “I've
got so little money that I'd rather swap something for it, if you don't
mind. Come down and see my stuff! It's only in 10th Street--not twenty
minutes' walk. Maybe you can sell some of my things for me. And bring
that blessed little girl--she's the dearest, sweetest thing I've seen
for an age. Your daughter?”

Felix laughed gently. “No, I wish she were. She is Mr. Kling's child.”

“And your name?”

“O'Day.”

“Irish, of course--well, all the same, come down any morning this week.
My name is Ganger; I'm on the fourth floor--been there twenty-two years.
You'll have to walk up--we all do. Yes, I'll expect you.”

Kling, whom Felix consulted, began at once to demur. He knew all about
the building on 10th Street. More than one of his old frames--part of
the clearing-out sale of some Southern homestead, the portraits being
reserved because unsalable--had resumed their careers on the walls of
the Academy as guardians and protectors of masterpieces painted by the
denizens of this same old rattletrap, the Studio Building. Some of its
tenants, too, had had accounts with him--which had been running for
more than a year. Bridley, the marine painter; Manners, who took pupils;
Springlake, the landscapist; and half a dozen others had been in the
habit of dropping into his shop on the lookout for something good in
Dutch cabinets at half-price, or no price at all, until Felix, without
knowing where they had come from, had put an end to the practice.

“Got a fellow up to Kling's who looks as if he had been a college
athlete, and knows it all. Can't fool him for a cent,” was the talk now,
instead of “Keep at the old Dutchman and you may get it. He don't know
the difference between a Chippendale sideboard and a shelf rack from
Harlem. Wait for a rainy day and go in. He'll be feeling blue, and
you'll be sure to get it.”

Kling, therefore, when he heard some days later, of Felix's proposed
visit, began turning over his books, looking up several past-due
accounts. But Felix would have none of it.

“I'm going on a collecting tour, Mr. Kling, this lovely June morning,”
 he laughed, “but not for money. We will look after that later on. And
I will take Masie. Come, child, get your hat. Mr. Ganger wanted you to
come, and so do I. Call Hans, Mr. Kling, if the shop gets full. We will
be back in an hour.”

“Vell, you know best,” answered Kling in final surrender. “Ven it comes
to money, I know. You go 'long, little Beesvings. I mind de shop.”

“And I'll take Fudge,” the child cried, “and we'll stop at Gramercy
Park.”

Fudge was out first, scampering down the street and back again before
they had well closed the door, and Masie was as restless. “Oh, I'm just
as happy as I can be, Uncle Felix. You are always so good. I never had
any one to walk with until you came, except old Aunty Gossberger, and
she never let me look at anything.”

Days in June--joyous days with all nature brimful with laughter--days
when the air is a caress, the sky a film of pearl and silver, and the
eager mob of bud, blossom, and leaf, having burst their bonds, are
flaunting their glories, days like these are always to be remembered the
world over. But June days about Gramercy Park are to be marked in big
Red Letters upon the calendar of the year. For in Gramercy Park the
almanac goes to pieces.

Everything is ahead of time. When little counter-panes of snow are still
covering the baby crocuses away off in Central Park, down in Gramercy
their pink and yellow heads are popping up all over the enclosure. When
the big trees in Union Square are stretching their bare arms, making
ready to throw off the winter's sleep, every tiny branch in Gramercy
is wide awake and tingling with new life. When countless dry roots
in Madison Square are still slumbering under their blankets of straw,
dreading the hour when they must get up and go to work, hundreds of
tender green fingers in Gramercy are thrust out to the kindly sun,
pleading for a chance to be up and doing.

And the race keeps up, Gramercy still ahead, until the goal of summer
is won, and every blessed thing that could have burst into bloom has
settled down to enjoy the siesta of the hot season.

Masie was never tired of watching these changes, her wonder and delight
increasing as the season progressed.

In the earlier weeks there had been nothing but flower-beds covered with
unsightly clods, muffled shrubs, and bandaged vines. Then had come a
blaze of tulips, exhausting the palette. And then, but a short time
before--it seemed only yesterday--every stretch of brown grass had lost
its dull tints in a coat of fresh paint, on which the benches, newly
scrubbed, were set, and each foot of gravelled walks had been raked and
made ready for the little tots in new straw hats who were then trundling
their hoops and would soon be chasing their first butterflies.

And now, on this lovely June morning, summer had come--REAL SUMMER--for
a mob of merry roses were swarming up a trellis in a mad climb to reach
its top, the highest blossom waving its petals in triumph.

Felix waited until she had taken it all in, her face pressed between the
bars (only the privileged possessing a key are admitted to the gardens
within), Fudge scampering up and down, wild to get at the two gray
squirrels, which some vandal has since stolen, and then, remembering his
promise to Ganger, he called her to him and continued his walk.

But her morning outing was not over. He must take her to the
marble-cutter's yard, filled with all sorts of statues, urns, benches,
and columns, and show her again the ruts and grooves cut in the big
stone well-head, and tell her once more the story of how it had stood in
an old palace in Venice, where the streets were all water and everybody
went visiting in boats. And then she must stop at the florist's to see
whether he had any new ferns in his window, and have Felix again explain
the difference between the big and little ferns and why the palms had
such long leaves.

She was ready now for her visit to the two old painters, but this time
Felix lingered. He had caught sight of a garden wall in the rear of an
old house, and with his hand in hers had crossed the street to study
it the closer. The wall was surmounted by a solid, wrought-iron railing
into which some fifty years or more ago a gardener had twisted the
tendrils of a wistaria. The iron had cut deep, and so inseparable
was the embrace that human skill could not pull them apart without
destroying them both.

As he reached the sidewalk and got a clearer view of the vine, tracing
the weave of its interlaced branches and tendrils, Masie noticed that he
stopped suddenly and for a moment looked away, lost in deep thought. She
caught, too, the shadow that sometimes settled on his face, one she had
seen before and wondered over. But although her hand was still in his,
she kept silent until he spoke.

“Look, dear Masie,” he said at last, drawing her to him, “see what
happens to those who are forced into traps! It was the big knot that
held it back! And yet it grew on!”

Masie looked up into his thoughtful face. “Do you think the iron hurts
it, Uncle Felix?” she asked with a sigh.

“I shouldn't wonder; it would me,” he faltered.

“But it wasn't the vine's fault, was it?”

“Perhaps not. Maybe when it was planted nobody looked after it, nor
cared what might happen when it grew up. Poor wistaria! Come along,
darling!”


At last they turned into 10th Street, Fudge scurrying ahead to the very
door of the grim building, where a final dash brought him to Ganger's,
his nose having sniffed at every threshold they passed and into every
crack and corner of the three flights of stairs.

Felix's own nostrils were now dilating with pleasure. The odor of
varnish and turpentine had brought back some old memories--as perfumes
do for us all. A crumpled glove, a bunch of withered roses, the salt
breath of an outlying marsh, are often but so many fairy wands reviving
comedies and tragedies on which the curtains of forgetfulness have been
rung down these many years.

Something in the aroma of the place was recalling kindred spirits across
the sea, when the door was swung wide and Ganger in a big, hearty voice,
cried:

“Mr. O'Day, is it? Oh, I am glad! And that dear child, and--Hello! who
invited you, you restless little devil of a dog? Come in, all of you!
I've a model, but she doesn't care and neither do I. And this, Mr.
O'Day, is my old friend, Sam Dogger--and he's no relation of yours,
you imp!”--with a bob of his grizzled head at Fudge--“He's a
landscape-painter and a good one--one of those Hudson River fellows--and
would be a fine one if he would stick to it. Give me that hat and coat,
my chick-a-biddy, and I'll hang them up. And now here's a chair for you,
Mr. O'Day, and please get into it--and there's a jar full of tobacco,
and if you haven't got a pipe of your own you'll find a whole lot of
corncobs on the mantelpiece and you can help yourself.”

O'Day had stood smiling at the painter, Masie's hand fast in his, Fudge
tiptoeing softly about, divided between a sense of the strangeness of
the place and a certainty of mice behind the canvases. Felix knew the
old fellow's kind, and recognized the note of attempted gayety in the
voice--the bravado of the poor putting their best, sometimes their only,
foot foremost.

“No, I won't sit down--not yet,” he answered pleasantly; “I will look
around, if you will let me, and I will try one of your pipes before I
begin. What a jolly place you have here! Don't move”--this to the model,
a slip of a girl, her eyes muffled in a lace veil, one of Ganger's
Oriental costumes about her shoulders--“I am quite at home, my dear, and
if you have been a model any length of time you will know exactly what
that means.”

“Oh, she's my Fatima,” exclaimed Ganger. “Her real name is Jane Hoggson,
and her mother does my washing, but I call her Fatima for short. She can
stop work for the day. Get down off the platform, Jane Hoggson, and talk
to this dear little girl. You see, Mr. O'Day, now that the art of the
country has gone to the devil and nobody wants my masterpieces, I have
become an Eastern painter, fresh from Cairo, where I have lived for half
a century--principally on Turkish paste and pressed figs. My specialty
at present--they are all over my walls, as you can see--is dancing-girls
in silk tights or without them, just as the tobacco shops prefer. I
also do sheiks, muffled to their eyebrows in bath towels, and with
scimitars--like that one above the mantel. And very profitable, too;
MOST profitable, my dear sir. I get twenty doldars for a real odalisk
and fifteen for a bashi-bazouk. I can do one about every other day, and
I sell one about every other month. As for Sam Dogger here--Sam, what is
your specialty? I said landscapes, Sam, when Mr. O'Day came in, but you
may have changed since we have been talking.”

The wizened old gentleman thus addressed sidled nearer. He was ten years
younger than Ganger, but his thin, bloodless hands, watery eyes, their
lids edged with red, and bald head covered by a black velvet skull-cap
made him look that much older.

“Nat talks too much, Mr. O'Day,” he piped in a high-keyed voice. “I
often tell Nat that he's got a loose hinge in his mouth, and he ought to
screw it tight or it will choke him some day when he isn't watching. He!
He!” And a wheezy laugh filled the room.

“Shut up, you old sardine! You don't talk enough. If you did you'd
get along better. I'll tell you, Mr. O'Day, what Sam does. Sam's a
patcher-up--a 'puttier.' That's what he is. Sam can get more quality out
of a piece of sandpaper, a pot of varnish, and a little glue than any
man in the business. If you don't believe it, just bring in a fake
Romney, or a Gainsborough, or some old Spanish or Italian daub with the
corners knocked off where the signature once was, or a scrape down half
a cheek, or some smear of a head, with half the canvas bare, and put Sam
to work on it, and in a week or less out it comes just as it left the
master's easel--'Found by his widow after his death' or 'The property
of an English nobleman on whose walls it has hung for two centuries.'
By thunder! isn't it beautiful?” He chuckled. “Wonderful how these
bullfrogs of connoisseurs swallow the dealers' flies! And here am I,
who can paint any blamed thing from a hen-coop to a battle scene,
doing signs for tobacco shops; and there is Sam, who can do Corots and
Rousseaus and Daubignys by the yard, obliged to stick to a varnish pot
and a scraper! Damnable, isn't it? But we don't growl, do we, Sammy?
When Sammy has anything left over, he brings half of it down to me--he
lives on the floor above--and when I get a little ahead and Sammy is
behind, I send it up to him. We are the Siamese twins, Sammy and I,
aren't we, Sam? Where are you, anyway? Oh, he's after the dog, I see,
moving the canvases so the little beggar won't run a thumb-tack in his
paw. Sam can no more resist a dog, my dear Mr. O'Day, than a drunkard
can a rum-mill, can you, Sam?”

“At it again, are you, Nat?” wheezed the wizened old gentleman, dusting
his fingers as he reappeared from behind the canvases, his watery eyes
edged with a deeper red, due to his exertions. “Don't pay any attention
to him, Mr. O'Day. What he says isn't half true, and the half that
is true isn't worth listening to. Now tell me about that frame he's
ordered. He don't want it, and I've told him so. If you are willing to
lend it to him, he'll pay you for it when the picture is sold, which
will never be, and by that time he'll--”

“Dry up, you old varnish pot!” shouted Ganger, “how do you know I won't
pay for it?”

“Because your picture will never be hung--that's why!”

“Mr. Ganger did not want to buy it,” broke in Felix, between puffs from
one of his host's corn-cob pipes. “He wanted to exchange something for
it--'swap' he called it.”

“Oh, well,” wheezed Sam, “that's another thing. What were you going to
give him in return, Nat? Careful, now--there's not much left.”

“Oh, maybe some old stuff, Sammy. Move along, you blessed little
child--and you, too, Jane Hoggson! You're sitting on my Venetian
wedding-chest--real, too! I bought it forty years ago in Padua. There
are some old embroideries down in the bottom, or were, unless Sam has
been in here while I--Oh, no, here they are! Beg pardon, Sammy, for
suspecting you. There--what do you think of these?”

Felix bent over the pile of stuffs, which, under Ganger's continued
dumpings, was growing larger every minute--the last to see the light
being part of a priest's Cope and two chasubles.

“There--that is enough!” said Felix. “This chasuble alone is worth more
than the frame. We will put the Florentine frame at ten dollars and the
vestment at fifteen. What others have you, Mr. Ganger? There's a great
demand for these things when they are good, and these are good. Where
did you get them?”

“Worth more than the frame? Holy Moses!” whistled Ganger. “Why, I
thought you'd want all there was in the chest! And you say there are
people out of a lunatic asylum looking for rags like this?” And he held
up one end of the cope.

“Yes, many of them. To me, I must say, they are worth nothing, as I
don't like the idea of mixing up church and state. But Mr. Kling's
customers do, and if they choose to say their prayers before a chasuble
on a priest's back on Sunday and make a sofa cushion of it the next day,
that is their affair, not mine. And now, what else? You spoke of some
costumes this morning.”

“Yes, I did speak of my costumes, but I'm afraid they are too modern
for you--I make 'em up myself. Get up, Jane, and let Mr. O'Day see what
you've got on!”

Jane jumped to her feet, looking less Oriental than ever, her spangled
veil having dropped about her shoulders, her red hair and freckled face
now in full view.

“I think her dress is beautiful, Uncle Felix,” whispered Masie.

“Do you, sweetheart? Well, then, maybe I might better look again. What
else have you in the way of Costumes, Mr. Ganger?”

Dogger stepped up. “He hasn't got a single thing worth a cent; he buys
these pieces down in Elizabeth Street, out of push-carts, and Jane
Hoggson's mother sews them together. But, my deary”--here he laid
his hand on Masie's head--“would you like to see some REAL ONES,
all-gold-and-silver lace--and satin shoes--and big, high bonnets with
feathers?”

Masie clapped her hands in answer and began whirling about the room, her
way of telling everybody that she was too happy to keep still.

“Well, wait here; I won't be a minute.”

“Sam's fallen in love with her, too,” muttered Ganger, “and I don't
blame him. Come here, you darling, and let me talk to you. Do you know
you are the first little girl that's ever been inside this place for
ever--and ever and EVER--so long? Think of that, will you? Not one
single little girl since--Oh, well, I just can't remember--it's such
an awful long time. Dreadful, isn't it? Hear that old Sam stumbling
down-stairs! Now let's see what he brings you.”

Dogger's arms were full. “I've a silk dress,” he puffed, “and a ruffled
petticoat, and a great leghorn hat--and just look at these feathers, and
you never saw such a pair of slippers and silk stockings! And now let's
try 'em on!”

The child uttered a little scream of delight. “Oh, Uncle Felix! Isn't it
lovely? Can't I have them? Please, Uncle Felix!” she cried, both hands
around his shirt collar in supplication.

“Take 'em all, missy,” shouted Sam. Then, turning to Felix: “They
belonged to an actor who hired half of my studio and left them to pay
for his rent, which they didn't do, not by a long chalk, and--Oh,
here's another hat--and, oh, such a lovely old cloak! Yes, take 'em all,
missy--I'm glad to get rid of 'em--before Nat claps them on Jane and
goes in for Puritan maidens and Lady Gay Spankers. Oh, I know you, Nat!
I wouldn't trust you out of my sight! Take 'em along, I say.” He stopped
and turned toward Felix again.

“Couldn't you bring her down here once in a while, Mr. O'Day?” he
continued, a strange, pathetic note in his wheezing voice. “Just for
ten minutes, you know, when she's out with the dog, or walking with you.
Nobody ever comes up these stairs but tramps and book agents--even the
models steer clear. It would help a lot if you'd bring her. Wouldn't
you like to come, missy? What did you say her name was? Oh,
yes--Masie--well, my child, that's not what I'd call you; I'd call
you--well, I guess I wouldn't call you anything but just a dear, darling
little girl! Yes, that's just what I'd call you. And you are going to
let me give them to her, aren't you, Mr. O'Day?”

Felix grasped the old fellow's thin, dry hand in his own strong fingers.
For an instant a strange lump in his throat clogged his speech. “Of
course, I'll take the costumes, and many thanks for your wish to make
the child happy,” he answered at last. “I am rather foolish about Masie
myself; and may I tell you, Mr. Dogger, that you are a very fine old
gentleman, and that I am delighted to have made your acquaintance, and
that, if you will permit me I shall certainly come again?”

Dogger was about to reply when Masie, Looking up into the wizened face,
cried: “And may I put them on when I like, if I'm very, very--oh, so
VERY careful?”

“Yes, you buttercup, and you can wear them full of holes and do anything
else you please to them, and I won't care a mite.”

And then, with Jane Hoggson's help, he put on Masie's own hat and coat,
which Ganger had hung on an easel, and Masie called Fudge from his
mouse-hole, and Felix shook hands first with Nat and then with Sam, and
last of all with Jane, who looked at him askance out of one eye as she
bobbed him half a courtesy. And then everybody went out into the hall
and said good-by once more over the banisters, Felix with the bundle
under his arm, Masie throwing kisses to the two old gnomes craning their
necks over the banisters, Fudge barking every step of the way down the
stairs.




Chapter VI



The glimpse which Felix had caught of these two poor, unappreciated old
men, living contentedly from hand to mouth, gayly propping each other
up when one or the other weakened, had strangely affected him. If, as
he reasoned, such battered hulks, stranded these many years on the dry
sands of incompetency, with no outlook for themselves across the wide
sea over which their contemporaries were scudding with all sails set
before the wind of success--if these castaways, their past always with
them and their hoped-for future forever out of their reach, could laugh
and be merry, why should not he carry some of their spirit into his
relations with the people among whom his lot was now thrown?

That these people had all been more than good to him, and that he owed
them in return something more than common politeness now took possession
of his mind. Few such helping hands had ever been held out to him.
When they had been, the proffered palm had generally concealed a hidden
motive. Hereafter he would try to add what he could of his own to the
general fund of good-fellowship and good deeds.

He would continue his nightly search--and he had not missed a single
evening--but he would return earlier, so as to be able to spend an hour
reading to Masie before she went to bed, or with his other friends and
acquaintances of “The Avenue”--especially with Kitty and John. He had
been too unmindful of them, getting back to his lodgings at any hour of
the night, either to let himself in by his pass-key--all the lights out
and everybody asleep--or to find only Kitty or John, or both, at work
over their accounts or waiting up for Mike or Bobby or for one of their
wagons detained on some dock. And since Kling had raised his salary,
enabling him not only to recover his dressing-case, which then rested
on his mantel, but to take his meals wherever he happened to be at the
moment--he had seldom dined at home--a great relief in many ways to a
man of his tastes.

Kitty, though he did not know it, had demurred and had talked the matter
over with John, wondering whether she had neglected his comfort. When
she had questioned him, he had settled it with a pat on her shoulders.
“Just let me have my way this time, my dear Mrs. Cleary,” he had said
gently but firmly. “I am a bad boarder and cause you no end of trouble,
for I am never on time. And please keep the price as it is, for I don't
pay you half enough for all your goodness to me.”

Now under the impulse of his new resolution, and rather ashamed of his
former attitude in view of all her unremitting attentions, he resumed
his place at her table. Nor did he stop here. He taught her to broil a
chop over her coal fire by removing the stove lid--until then they had
been fried--and a new way with a rasher of bacon, using the carving-fork
instead of a pan. The clearing of the famous coffee-pot with an
egg--making the steaming mixture anew whenever wanted instead of letting
the dented old pot simmer away all day on the back of the stove--was
another innovation, making the evening meal just that much more
enjoyable, greatly to the delight of the hostess, who was prouder of her
boarder than of any other human being who had come into her life, except
John and Bobby.

These renewed intimacies opened his eyes to another phase of the life
about him, and he soon found himself growing daily more interested in
the sweet family relations of the small household.

“What do I care for what we haven't got,” Kitty said to him one night
when some economies in the small household were being discussed. “I'm
better off than half the women who stop at my door in their carriages.
I got two arms, and I can sleep eight hours when I get the chance, and
John loves me and so does Bobby and so does my big white horse Jim.
There ain't one of them women as knows what it is to work for her man
and him to work for her.” All the other married couples he had seen had
pulled apart, or lived apart--mentally, at least. These two seemed bound
together heart and soul.

More than once he contrived to stop at the Studio Building, where both
of the old fellows were almost always to be found sitting side by side,
and, picking them up bodily, he had set them down on hard chairs in a
rathskeller on Sixth Avenue, where they had all dined together, the old
fellows warmed up with two beers apiece. This done, he had escorted them
back, seen them safely up-stairs, and returned to his lodgings.

It was after one of these mild diversions that, before going to his
room, he pushed open the door of the Clearys' sitting-room with a cheery
“May I come in, Mistress Kitty?”

“Oh, but I'm glad to see ye!” was the joyous answer. “I was sayin' to
myself: 'Maybe ye'd come in before he went.' Here's Father Cruse I been
tellin' ye about--and, Father, here's Mr. O'Day that's livin' wid us.”

A full-chested man of forty, in a long black cassock, standing six feet
in his stockings, his face alight with the glow of a freshly kindled
pleasure, rose from his chair and held out his hand. “The introduction
should be quite unnecessary, Mr. O'Day,” he exclaimed in the full,
sonorous voice of a man accustomed to public speaking. “You seem to have
greatly attached these dear people to you, which in itself is enough,
for there are none better in my parish.”

Felix, who had been looking the speaker over, taking in his thoughtful
face, deep black eyes, and more especially the heavy black eyebrows that
lay straight above them, felt himself warmed by the hearty greeting and
touched by its sincerity. “I agree with you, Father, in your praise
of them,” he said as he grasped the priest's hand. “They have been
everything to me since my sojourn among them. And, if I am not mistaken,
you and I have something else in common. My people are from Limerick.”

“And mine from Cork,” laughed the priest as he waved his hand toward his
empty chair, adding: “Let me move it nearer the table.”

“No, I will take my old seat, if you do not mind. Please do not move,
Mr. Cleary; I am near enough.”

“And are you an importation, Father, like myself?” continued Felix,
shifting the rocker for a better view of the priest.

“No. I am only an Irishman by inheritance. I was brought up on the soil,
born down in Greenwich village--and a very queer old part of the town it
is. Strange to say, there are very few changes along its streets since
my boyhood. I found the other day the very slanting cellar door I used
to slide on when I was so high! Do you know Greenwich?”

He was sitting upright as he spoke, his hands hidden in the folds of his
black cassock, wondering meanwhile what was causing the deep lines on
the brow of this high-bred, courteous man, and the anxious look in the
deep-set eyes. As priest he had looked into many others, framed in the
side window of the confessional--the most wonderful of all schools for
studying human nature--but few like those of the man before him; eyes so
clear and sincere, yet shadowed by what the priest vaguely felt was some
overwhelming sorrow.

“Oh, yes, I know it as I know most of New York,” Felix was saying; “it
is close to Jefferson Market and full of small houses, where I should
think people could live very cheaply”; adding, with a sigh, “I have
walked a great deal about your city,” and as suddenly checked himself,
as if the mere statement might lead to discussion.

Kitty, who had been darning one of John's gray yarn stockings--the
needle was still between her thumb and forefinger--leaned forward.
“That's the matter with him, Father, and he'll never be happy until he
stops it,” she cried. “He don't do nothin' but tramp the streets until I
think he'd get that tired he'd go to sleep standin' up.”

Felix turned toward her. “And why not, Mrs. Cleary?” he asked with a
smile. “How can I learn anything about this great metropolis unless I
see it for myself?”

“But it's all Sunday and every night! I get that worried about ye
sometimes, I'm ready to cry. And ye won't listen to a thing I say! I
been waitin' for Father Cruse to get hold of ye, and I'm goin' to say
what's in my mind.” Here she looked appealingly to the priest. “Now, ye
just talk to him, Father, won't ye, please?”

The priest, laughing heartily, raised his protesting hands toward her.
“If he fails to heed you, Mrs. Cleary, he certainly won't listen to me.
What do you say for yourself, Mr. O'Day?”

Felix twisted his head until he could address his words more directly to
his hostess. “Please keep on scolding me, my dear Mrs. Cleary. I love
to hear you. But there is Father Cruse, why not sympathize with him?
He tramps to some purpose. I am only the Wandering Jew, who does it for
exercise.”

Kitty held the point of the darning-needle straight out toward Felix.
“But why must you do it Sundays, Mr. O'Day? That's what I want to know.”

“But Sunday is my holiday.”

“Yes, and there's early mass. Ye'd think he'd come, wouldn't ye,
Father?”

One of O'Day's low, murmuring laughs, that always sounded as if he had
grown unaccustomed to letting the whole of it pass his lips, filtered
through the room.

“You see what a heathen I am, Father,” he exclaimed. “But I am going to
turn over a new leaf. I shall honor myself by visiting St. Barnabas's
some day very soon, and shall sit in the front pew--or, perhaps, in
yours, Mrs. Cleary, if you will let me--now that I know who officiates,”
 and he inclined his head graciously toward the priest. “I hope the
service is not always in the morning!”

“Oh, no, we have a service very often at night, sometimes at eight
o'clock.”

“And how long does that last?”

“Perhaps an hour.”

“And so if I should come at eight and wait until you are free, you could
give me, perhaps, another hour of yourself?”

“Yes, and with the greatest pleasure. But why at those hours?” asked the
priest with some curiosity.

“Because I am very busy at other times. But I want to be quite frank. If
I come, it will not be because I need your service, but because I shall
want to see YOU. Your church is not my church, and never has been, but
your people--especially your priests--have always had my admiration
and respect. I have known many of your brethren in my time. One in
particular, who is now very old--a dear abbe, living in Paris. Heaven is
made up of just such saints.”

The priest clasped his hands together. “We have many such, sir,” he
replied solemnly. The acknowledgment came reverently, with a gleam that
shone from under the heavy brows.

Felix caught its brilliance, and the sense of a certain bigness in the
man passed through him. He had been prepared for his quiet, well-bred
dignity. All the priests he had known were thoroughbreds in their manner
and bearing; their self-imposed restraint, self-effacement, absence of
all unnecessary gesture, and modulated voices had made them so; but
the warmth of this one's underlying nature was as unexpected as it was
pleasurable.

“Yes, you have many such,” O'Day repeated simply after a slight pause
during which his thoughts seemed to have wandered afar. “And now tell
me,” he asked, rousing himself to renewed interest, “where your work
lies--your real work, I mean. The mass is your rest.”

The priest turned quickly. He wondered if there were a purpose behind
the question. “Oh, among my people,” he answered, the slow, even,
non-committal tones belying the eagerness of his gesture.

“Yes, I know; but go on. This is a great city--greater than I had ever
supposed--greater, in many ways, than London. The luxury and waste are
appalling; the misery is more appalling still. What sort of men and
women do you put your hands on?”

“Here are some of them,” answered the priest, his forefinger pointing to
Kitty and John.

“We could all of us do without churches and priests,” ventured Felix,
his eyes kindling, “if your parishioners were as good as these dear
people.”

“Well, there's Bobby,” laughed the priest, his face turned toward the
boy, who was sound asleep in his chair, Toodles, the door-mat of a dog,
sprawled at his feet.

“And are there no others, Father Cruse?”

The priest, now convinced of a hidden meaning in the insistent tones,
grew suddenly grave, and laid his hand on O'Day's knee. “Come and see
me some time, and I will tell you. My district runs from Fifth Avenue
to the East River, from the homes of the rich to the haunts of the poor,
and there is no form of vice and no depth of suffering the world over
that does not knock daily at my study door. Do not let us talk about it
here. Perhaps some day we may work together, if you are willing.”

Kitty, who had been listening, her heart throbbing with pride over
Felix, who had held his own with her beloved priest, and still
fearing that the talk would lead away from what was uppermost in her
mind--O'Day's welfare--now sprang from her chair before Felix could
reply. “Of course he'll come, Father, once he's seen ye.”

“Yes, I will,” answered Felix cordially. “And it will not be very
long either, Father. And now I must say good night. It has been a real
pleasure to meet you. You have been a most kindly grindstone to a very
dull and useless knife, and I am greatly sharpened up. After all, I
think we both agree that it is rather difficult to keep anything bright
very long unless you rub it against something still brighter and keener.
Thank you again, Father,” and with a pat of his fingers on Kitty's
shoulder as he passed, and a good night to John, he left the room on his
way to his chamber above.

Kitty waited until the sound of O'Day's footsteps told her that he had
reached the top of the stairs and then turned to the priest. “Well, what
do ye think of him? Have I told ye too much? Did ye ever know the beat
of a man like that, livin' in a place like this and eatin' at my table,
and never a word of complaint out o' him, and everybody lovin' him the
moment they clap their two eyes on him?”

The priest made no immediate answer. For some seconds he gazed into
the fire, then looked at John as if about to seek some further
enlightenment, but changing his mind faced Kitty. “Is his mail sent
here?”

“What? His letters?”

“Yes.”

“He don't have any--not one since he's been wid us.”

“Anybody come to see him?”

“Niver a soul.”

The priest ruminated for a moment more, and then said slowly, as if his
mind were made up: “It does not matter; somebody or something has hurt
him, and he has gone off to die by himself. In the old days such men
sought the monasteries; to-day they try to lose themselves in the
crowd.”

Again he ruminated, the delicate antennae of his hands meeting each
other at the tips.

“A most extraordinary case,” he said at last. “No malice, no
bitterness--yet eating his heart out. Pitiful, really; and the worst
thing about it is that you can't help him, for his secret will die with
him. Bring him to me sometime, and let me know before you come so I may
be at home.”

“You don't think there's anything crooked about him, Father, do you?”
 said John, who had sat tilted back against the wall and now brought the
front legs of his chair to the floor with a bang.

“What do you mean by crooked. John?” asked the priest.

“Well, he blew in here from nowheres, bringin' a couple of trunks and
a hat-box, and not much in 'em, from what Kitty says. And he might blow
out again some fine night, leavin' his own full of bricks, carting
off instead some I keep on storage for my customers, full of God knows
what!--but somethin' that's worth money, or they wouldn't have me take
care of 'em. There ain't nothin' to prevent him, for he's got the run
of the place day and night. And Kitty's that dead stuck on him she'll
believe anything he says.”

Kitty wheeled around in her seat, her big strong fist tightly clinched.
“Hold your tongue, John Cleary!” she cried indignantly. “I'd knock any
man down--I don't care how big he was--that would be a-sayin' that of ye
without somethin' to back it up, and that's what'll happen to ye if ye
don't mend your manners. Can't ye see, Father, that Mr. Felix O'Day is
the real thing, and no sham about him? I do, and Kling does, and so does
that darlin' Masie, and every man, woman, and child around here that can
get their hands on him or a word wid him. Shame on ye, John! Tell him
so, Father Cruse!”

The priest kept silent, waiting until the slight family squall--never
very long nor serious between John and Kitty--had spent itself.

“Well, I'm not sayin' anything against Mr. O'Day, Kitty,” broke in John.
“I'm only askin' for information. What do you think of him, Father?
What's he up to, anyhow? There ain't any of 'em can fool ye. I don't
want to watch him--I ain't got no time--and I won't if he's all right.”

The priest rose from his chair and stood looking down at Kitty, his
hands clasped behind his back. “You believe in him, do you not?”

“I do--up to the handle-and I don't care who knows it!”

“Then I would not worry, John Cleary, if I were you.”

“Well, what does she know about it, Father?”

“What every good woman always knows about every good man. And now I must
go.”




Chapter VII



As was to be expected, Kitty's first words to O'Day on the following
morning related to his meeting with Father Cruse. “Ye'll not find a
better man anywhere,” she had said to him, “and there ain't a trouble he
can't cure.”

Felix had smiled at her enthusiasm for her idol and comforted her by
saying that it had given him distinct pleasure to meet him, adding: “A
big man with a big soul, that priest of yours, Mistress Kitty. I begin
to see now why you and your husband lead such human lives. Yes--a fine
man.”

But no closer intimacy ensued, nor did he pursue the acquaintance--not
even on the following Sunday, when Kitty urged him, almost to
importunity, to go and hear the Father say mass. He was not ready
as yet, he said to himself, for friendships among men of his own
intellectual caliber. In the future he might decide otherwise. For the
present, at least, he meant to find whatever peace and comfort he could
among the simple people immediately around him--meagrely educated,
often strangely narrow-minded, but possessing qualities which every day
aroused in him a profounder admiration.

With the quick discernment of the man of the world--one to whom many
climes and many people were familiar--he had begun to discover for
himself that this great middle class was really the backbone of the
whole civil structure about him, its self-restraint, sanity, and
cleanliness marking the normal in the tide-gauge of the city's
activities; the hysteria of the rich and the despair of the poor being
the two extremes.

Here, as he repeatedly observed, were men absorbed in their several
humble occupations, proud of their successes, helpful of those who fell
by the wayside, good citizens and good friends, honest in their business
relations, each one going about his appointed task and leaving the other
fellow unmolested in his. Here, too, were women, good mothers to their
children and good wives to their husbands, untiring helpmates, regarding
their responsibilities as mutual, and untroubled as yet by thoughts of
their own individual identities or what their respective husbands owed
to them.

This was why, instead of renewing his acquaintance with Father Cruse,
he preferred to halt for a few minutes' talk with some one of Kitty's
neighbors--it might be the liveryman next door who had been forty years
on the Avenue, or one of the shopkeepers near by, most of whom were
welcome to Kitty's sitting-room and kitchen, and all of whom had shared
her coffee. Or it might be that he would call at Digwell's, whose
undertaker's shop was across the way and whose door was always open, the
gas burning as befitted one liable to be called upon at any hour of the
day or night; or perhaps he would pass the time of day with Pestler,
the druggist; or give ten minutes to Porterfield, listening to his talk
about the growing prices of meat.

Had you asked his former associates why a man of O'Day's intelligence
should have cultivated the acquaintance of an undertaker like Digwell,
for instance, whose face was a tombstone, his movements when on duty
those of a crow stepping across wet places in a cornfield, they would
have shaken their heads in disparaging wonder. Had you asked Felix he
would have answered with a smile: “Why to hear Digwell laugh!” And then,
warming to his subject, he would have told you what a very jolly person
Digwell really was, if you were fortunate enough to find him unoccupied
in his private den, way back in the rear of his shop. How he had
entertained him by the hour with anecdotes of his early life when he was
captain of a baseball team, and what fun he had gotten out of it, and
did still, when he could sneak away to help pack the benches.

Had you inquired about Pestler, the druggist, there would have followed
some such reply as: “Pestler? Did you say? Because Pestler is one of the
most surprising men I know. He has kept that same shop, he tells me,
for twenty-two years. Of course, he knows only a very little about
drugs--just enough to keep him out of the hands of the police--but then
none of you are aware, perhaps, that Pestler is also a student? You
might think, when you saw only the top of his fuzzy, half-bald head
sticking up above the wooden partition, that he was putting up a
prescription, but you would be wrong. What he is really doing, with the
aid of his microscope, is dissecting bugs, and pasting them on glass
slides for use in the public schools. And he plays the violin--and very
well, too! He often entertains me with his music.”

Sanderson, the florist, was another denizen who interested him. To look
at Sanderson tying ribbons on funeral wreaths, no one would ever have
supposed that there was rarely a first night at the opera at which
he was not present, paying for his ticket, too, and rather despising
Pestler, who got his theatre tickets free because he allowed the
managers the use of his windows for advertisements. Felix forgave even
his frozen roses whenever the Scotchman, having found a sympathetic
listener, launched out upon his earlier experiences among opera stars,
especially his acquaintance with Patti, whom he had known before
she became great and whom he always spoke of as devotees do of the
Madonna--with bated breath and a sigh of despair that he would never
hear her again.

Then, too, there was Codman. O'Day was always enthusiastic over Codman.
“I have taken a great fancy to that fishmonger, and a fine fellow he
is,” he said one night to Kitty and John. “His shop was shut when I
first called on him, but he was good enough to open it at my knock,
and I have just spent half an hour, and a very delightful half-hour,
watching him handle the sea food, as he calls it, in his big
refrigerator. I got a look, too, at his chest and his arms, and at
his pretty wife and children. She is really the best type of the two.
American, you say, both of them, and a fine pair they are, and he
tells me he pulled a surf-boat in your coast-guard when he was a lad of
twenty, then took up fishing, and then went into Fulton Market, helping
at a stall, and now he is up here with two delivery wagons and four
assistants and is a member of a fish union, whatever that is.
It's astonishing! And yet I have met him many a time pushing his
baby-carriage around the block.”

“Yes,” Kitty answered, putting on a shovel of coal, “and I'll lay ye a
wager, Mr. O'Day, that Polly Codman will be drivin' through Central Park
in her carriage before five years is out; and she deserves it, for there
ain't a finer woman from here to the Battery.”

“I am quite sure of it, Mistress Kitty. That is where the American comes
in--or, perhaps it is the New Yorker. I have not been here long enough
to find out.”

Of all these neighbors, however, it was Timothy Kelsey, the hunchback,
largely because of his misfortunes and especially because of his vivid
contrast to all the others, who appealed to him most. Tim, as has been
said, kept the second-hand book-shop, half-way down the block on the
opposite side of the street. He was but a year or two older than O'Day,
but you would never have supposed it had Tim not told you--and not then
unless you had looked close and followed the lines of care deep cut in
his face and the wrinkles that crowded close to his deep, hollowed-out
eyes. When he was a boy of two, his sister, a girl of six, had let him
drop to the sidewalk, and he had never since straightened his back. The
customary outlets by which fully equipped men earn their living having
been denied Tim, he had passed his boyhood days in one of the
small, down-town libraries cataloguing the books. With this came the
opportunity to attend the auction sales when some rare volume was to be
bid for, he representing the library. A small shop of his own followed
in the lower part of the town, and then the one a little below Kling's,
where he lived alone with only a caretaker to look after his wants.

Kelsey had arrived one morning shortly after Felix had entered Kling's
service, carrying a heavily bound book which he laid on a glass case
under Otto's nose. “Take a look at it, Otto,” he said, after pausing a
moment to get his breath, the volume being heavy. “There is more brass
than leather on the outside, and more paint than text on the inside. I
have two others from the same collection. It is in your line rather than
in mine, I take it. What do you think of it? Could you sell it?”

Kling dropped his glasses from his forehead to the bridge of his flat
nose. “Vell! Dot is a funny-looking book, Tim. Dot is awful old, you
know.”

“Yes, seventeenth century, I think,” replied Tim.

“Vot you tink, Mr. O'Day? Ain't dot a k'veer book? Oh, you don't have
met my new clerk, have you, Tim? Vell dot's funny, for he lives over at
Kitty's. Vell, dis is him--Mr. Felix O'Day. Tim Kelsey is an olt friend
of mine, Mr. O'Day. You must have seen dot k'veer shop vich falls down
into de cellar from de sidevalk--vell, dat's Tim's.”

Felix smiled good-naturedly, bowed to Kelsey, and taking the huge,
brass-bound volume in his hands, passed his fingers gently across the
leather and then over the heavy clamps, turning the book to the light
of the window so as to examine the chasing the closer. Tim, who had been
watching him, remarked the ease with which he handled the volume and the
care with which he ran his eye along the edges of the inside of the back
before paying the slightest attention to the quality of the vellum or
to the title-page.

“Did you say you thought it was seventeenth century, Mr. Kelsey?” Felix
asked thoughtfully.

“Yes, I should say so.”

“I would put it somewhat earlier. The binding is wholly tool-work, much
older than the brasses, which, I think, have been renewed--at least the
clamps--certainly one of them is of a later period. The vellum and
the illuminated text”--again he scrutinized the title-page, this
time turning a few of the inside leaves--“is before Gutenberg's
time. Handwork, of course, by some old monk. Very curious and very
interesting. And you say there are two others like this one?”

The hunchback, whose big, shaggy head reached but a very little above
the case over which the colloquy was taking place, stretched himself
upon his toes as if to see Felix the better. “You seem to know something
of books, sir,” he remarked in a surprised tone. “May I ask where you
picked it up?”

Again Felix smiled, a curious expression lurking around his thin lips--a
way with him when he intended to be non-committal. He was now more
interested in the speaker than in the object before him, especially in
the big dome head and sunken eyes, shaded by bushy eyebrows, the only
feature of the man which seemed to have had a chance to grow to its
normal size. He had caught, too, a certain high-pitched note, one of
suffering running through the hunchback's speech--often discernible
in those who have been robbed of their full physical strength and
completeness.

“Oh, I don't know, Mr. Kelsey. There are, as you know, but few old clamp
books like this in existence. There are some in the Bibliotheque in
Paris, and a good many in Spain. I remember handling one some years ago
in Cordova. When you have seen a fine example you are not apt to forget
it. Why do you sell it?”

Kelsey settled down upon his heels--the upper half of his misshapen body
telescoping the lower--and shoved both hands into his pockets. “I did
not come here to sell it”--there was a touch of irony in his voice--“I
came to find out whether Kling could sell it. Do you think YOU could?”

“I might, or I might not. Only a few people about here, so I understand,
can appreciate this sort of thing.”

“What is it worth?” He was still eying him closely. People who praised
his things were those who never wanted to buy.

“Not very much,” replied Felix.

“Oh, but I thought you said it was very rare?”

“So it is--almost too rare--and almost too old. If it had been done
fifty or more years later, on one of Gutenberg's presses, Quaritch might
give you two thousand pounds for it. Hand-work--which ought really to be
more valuable than machine-work--is worth pence, where the other sells
for pounds. One of Gutenberg's Bibles sold here a year ago for three
thousand guineas, so I am told. What are the other two like?”

“No difference--a clasp is gone from one. The other is--” He stopped,
his mien suddenly changing to one of marked respect, even to one of awe.
“Will you do me a favor, sir?”

“With pleasure”--again the same quiet smile. He had read the financial
workings of the bookseller's mind with infinite amusement and decided to
see more of him. “What can I do for you?”

“I want you to come over with me to my shop. You won't object, will you,
Otto? I won't keep him a minute.”

“Let me come a little later, sir, say about nine o'clock. I have work
here until six and an engagement, which is important, until nine. You
are open as late as that?”

“Oh, I am always open, or can be,” Kelsey answered. “What would I shut
up shop for except to keep out the rats--human and otherwise? I live in
my place, and, as I live alone, nobody ever disturbs me--nobody I want
to see--and I do want you, and want you very much. Well, then, come at
nine, and if the blinds are up, ring the bell.” And so the acquaintance
began.


And yet, interesting as he found these diversions with his neighbors,
there were moments when, despite his determination to be cheerful and to
add his quota to the general fund of good-fellowship, he had to summon
all his courage to prevent his spirit sinking to its lowest ebb. It was
then he would turn to the thing that lay nearest to hand, his work--work
often so irksome to him that, but for his sense both of obligation
and of justice to his employer and his love for Masie, he would have
abandoned it altogether.

A possible relief came when through the protests of a customer he
had begun to realize the clearer Kling's deficiencies and had, in
consequence, cast about for some plan of helping him to do a larger and
more remunerative business.

Several ways by which this could be accomplished were outlined in his
mind. The disorder everywhere apparent in the shop should first come to
an end. The present chaos of tables, chairs, bureaus, and sideboards,
heaped higgledy-piggledy one upon the other--the customers edging their
way between lanes of dusty furniture--must next be abolished. So must
the jumble of glass, china, curios, and lamps. This completed, color and
form would be considered, each taking its proper place in the general
scheme.

To accomplish these results, all the unsalable, useless, and ugly
furniture taking up valuable space must be carted away to some auction
room and sold for what it would bring. Light, air, and much-needed room
would then follow, and prices advanced to make up for the loss on the
“rattletrap” and the “rickety.” Stuffs which had been poked away in
worthless bureau drawers for years, as being too ragged even to show,
were next to be hauled out, patched, and darned, and then hung on the
bare white walls, concealing the dirt and the cracks.

And these improvements, strange to say--Kling being as obstinate as the
usual Dutch cabinetmaker, and as set in his ways--were finally carried
out; slowly at first, and with a rush later when every customer who
entered the door began by complimenting Otto on the improvement. Soon
the sales increased to such an extent and the stock became so depleted
that Kling was obliged to look around for articles of a better and
higher grade to take its place.

At this juncture a happy and unforeseen accident came to his aid. A
bric-a-brac dealer with a shop in Jersey City filled with some very
good English and Italian patterns and a fine assortment of European
gatherings--most of them rare, and all of them good--fell ill and was
ordered to Colorado for his health. His wife had insisted on going with
him, and thus the whole concern, including its good-will--worthless to
Kling--was offered to him at half its value.

O'Day spent the entire morning crawling in and out of the interstices
of the choked-up Jersey City shop; Masie, as his valuable assistant,
propped up with Fudge on a big table until he had finished. The next day
the bargain was made. Mike, Bobby, the two Dutchies, and both Kitty's
teams were then called in and the transfer began.

It was when this collection of things really worth having were being
moved into their new home under Felix's personal direction that Masie
announced to him an important event. They were on the second floor at
the time, overlooking Hans and Mike, who had just brought up-stairs the
first of the purchase, a huge, high-backed gilt chair, stately in its
proportions--Spanish, Felix thought--with a few renovations about the
arms and back, but a good specimen withal. The chair had evidently
excited her imagination, reminding her, perhaps, of some of the pictures
in Tim Kelsey's fairy books, for after looking at it for a moment she
began clapping her hands and whirling about the room.

“I've thought of such a lovely thing, Uncle Felix! Let's play kings and
queens! I will sit in this chair and will dress Fudge up like a page and
everybody will come up and courtesy, or I will be the fairy princess and
you will be my beauty prince, and--”

Felix, who was holding up the heavy end of a piece of tapestry while
the two men were clearing a place for it behind the chair, called out,
“When's all this to happen, Tootcoms?”--one of his pet names; he had a
dozen of them.

“Next Saturday.”

“Why next Saturday?”

“Because then I'm eleven years old, and you know that a great many fairy
princesses are never any older.”

Down went the tapestry. “Your birthday! You blessed little angel! Eleven
years old! My goodness, how time flies! Pretty soon you will be in long
dresses, with your hair in a knot on the top of your head. You never
told me a word about it!”

“No, but I do now. And I am just going to have a party--a real party.
And I am going to invite everybody, all the girls I know and all the
boys and all the old people.”

Felix had her beside him now, her fresh young cheek against his. “You
don't tell me! Well! I never heard anything like it! And what will your
father say?”

Her face fell. “Don't let's tell him! Let's have a surprise.”

Felix shook his head. “I am afraid we could never do that, unless we
locked him up in the cellar and did not give him a thing to eat until
everything was ready. Oh, just think how he would beg for mercy!”

Masie rubbed her cheek up and down that of Felix in disapproval. “No,
you wouldn't be so mean to poor Popsy.”

“Well, then, suppose--suppose--” and he held her teasingly from him
to note the effect of his words--“suppose we make him go away--way off
somewhere, to buy something--so far away that he could not come back
until the next day. How would that do?”

“No, that won't do--not a little bit! I've got a better plan. You go
right down-stairs this minute and tell him it's all fixed, and that I'm
going out this very afternoon to invite everybody myself.”

Felix made a wry fate. “Suppose he sends me about my business?”

“He won't. He thinks you are the most WONDERFUL man in the world--he
told Mr. Kelsey so; I heard him--and he won't refuse you anything--oh,
Uncle Felix”--both arms were around his neck now, always her last
argument--“I do so want a birthday party and I want it right here in
this room.”

Felix smoothed back the hair from her pleading eyes and kissed her
tenderly on the forehead. For a moment there was silence between them,
he continuing to smooth back her hair, she cuddling the tighter, her
usual way. She always let him think a while and it always came out
right. But he had made up his mind. It had been years since a birthday
of his own had been celebrated; nor had he ever helped, so far as he
could recollect, to celebrate the birthday of any child. Yes, Masie
should have her birthday, if he could bring it about, and it should be
the happiest of all her life.

Suddenly he rose, releasing his neck from her grasp, and ran his eyes
around the almost bare interior--the big chair being the only article,
so far, in place. “It will make a grand banquet hall, Masie,” he said,
as if speaking more to himself than to her. “Let me see!” He walked
half the length of the floor and began studying the walls and the bare
rafters of the ceiling. These last had once been yellow-washed, age and
dust having turned the kalsomine to an old-gold tint, reminding him of a
ceiling belonging to a Venetian palace.

“Yes,” he continued, with the same abstracted air, his head upturned,
“there's a good place for hanging a big lamp, if there is one in the new
lot, and there are spots where I can hang twenty or more smaller ones.
I will cover the side walls with stuffs and embroideries and put those
long Italian settees against--yes, Tweety-kins, it will come out all
right. It will make a splendid banquet hall! And after the party we will
leave it just so. Fine, my child! And I have an idea, too--a brilliant
idea. Hans, ask Mr. Kling to be good enough to come up here!”

With the surrender of her Uncle Felix, Masie resumed her spinning around
the room and kept it up until the father's bald head showed clear above
the top of the stairs.

“Masie has had one brilliant idea, Mr. Kling, and I have another. I will
tell you mine first.” It was wonderful how thoroughly he understood the
Dutchman.

“Vell, vot is it?” Otto had sniffed something unusual in the atmosphere
and was on the defensive. When there was only one to deal with he
sometimes had his way; never when they were leagued together.

“I propose,” continued O'Day, “to turn this whole floor into the sort
of a room one could live in--like many of the great halls I have seen
abroad--and I think we have enough material to make a success of it,
plenty of space in which to put everything where it belongs. Leave that
big chair where I have placed it, throw some rugs on the floor, nail the
stuffs and tapestries to the walls, fasten the brackets and sconces and
appliques on top of them, filled with candles, and hang the lanterns and
church lamps to the rafters. When I finish with it, you will have a room
to which your customers will flock.”

Kling, bewildered, followed the play of O'Day's fingers in the air as if
he were already placing the ornaments and hangings with which his mind
was filled.

“Vell, vot ve do vid de stuff dot's comin'--all dem sideboards and
chairs and de pig tables? Ve ain't got de space.”

“Half of them will go here, and the balance we will pile away on the
top floor. When these are sold then we'll bring down the others--always
keeping up the character of the room. That is my idea. What do you think
of it?”

The shopkeeper hesitated, his fat features twisted in calculation.
Every move of his new salesman had brought him in double his money. The
placing of his goods so that a customer would be compelled to crawl over
a table in order to see whether a chair had three whole legs or two,
dust and darkness helping, had always seemed to him one of the tricks of
the trade and not to be abandoned lightly.

“You mean dot ve valk 'round loose in de middle, and everyting is shoved
back de Vall behind, so you can see it all over?”

Felix smothered a smile. “Certainly, why not?”

“Vell, Mr. O'Day, I don't know.” Then, noticing the quickly drawn brows
of his clerk's face and the shadow of disappointment: “Of course, ve can
try it, and if it don't vork ve do it over, don't ve?”

Masie slipped her arm through O'Day's and began a joyous tattoo with her
foot. She knew now that Felix had carried the day.

“And now for Masie's idea, Mr. Kling.”

“Oh, dere is someting else, eh? I tought dere vould be ven you puts your
two noddles togedder--Vell, vot is dot all about, eh?”

“She is to have a birthday. She will be eleven years old next Saturday.”

“By Jeminy, yes, dot's so! I forgot dot, Masie. Yes, it comes on de
tventy-fust. Vy you don't tell me before, little Beesvings?”

“Yes, next Saturday; only four days off,” continued Felix, forging ahead
to avoid any side-tracking of his main theme. “And what are you going to
do for her? Not many more of them before she will be out of the window
like a bird, and off with somebody else.”

Otto ruminated. He loved his daughter, even if he did sometimes forget
her very existence. “Oh, I don't know. I guess ve buy her sometings
putty--vot you like to have, Beesvings? Or maybe you like to go to de
teater vid Auntie Gossburger. I get de tickets.”

The child disengaged her hand from O'Day's arm, pushed back her hair
and tiptoed to her father. “I want a party, Popsy--a real party,” she
whispered, tipping his chin back with her fingers, so he could look at
her through his spectacles--not over them, like an ogre.

“Vere you have it?” This came in a bewildered way, as if the pair had
the big ballroom at Delmonico's in the back of their heads.

“Here, in this very place,” broke in Felix, “after I get it in order.”

Kling, gently freeing himself from Masie's hold, stared at his clerk.
“Dot vill cost a lot of money, don't it?”

“No, I do not think so.”

“Vell, who is coming? De childer all around?”

“Everybody is coming--big, little, and middle-sized,” answered Felix.
The cat was all out of the bag now.

“Vell, dot's vot I said. You don't can get someting for nodding. You
must have blenty to eat and drink.”

“No. Some simple refreshment will do--sandwiches, cake, and some
ice-cream. I'll take care of that myself, if you'll permit me.”

“Vell, now stop a minute vunce--here is anudder idea. Suppose ve make
it a Dutch treat--everybody bring sometings. Ve had vun last vinter at
Budvick's, de upholsterer, ven he vas married tventy-five years. I give
de apples--more as half a peck.”

Felix broke into a hearty, ringing laugh--one of the few either Masie or
his employer had ever heard escape his lips.

“We will let you off without even the apples this time,” he said, when
he recovered himself. “They are not coming to get something to eat this
time. I will give them something better.”

“And you say everybody is comin'. Who is dot everybody?”

“Just leave it all to me, Mr. Kling. And give yourself no concern. I
am going to use everything we have: all our cups and saucers, no matter
whether they are Spode, Lowestoft, or Worcester; all the platters,
German beer mugs, candlesticks--even that rare old tablecloth
trimmed with church lace. This is an entertainment to be given by a
distinguished antiquary in honor of his lovely daughter”--and he bowed
to each in turn--“the whole conducted under the management of his junior
clerk, Mr. F. O'Day, who is very much at your service, sir.”




Chapter VIII



Bright and early the following morning Felix began work, and for the
next two days took entire charge of the room, walking up and down its
length, an absolute dictator, brooking no interference from any one.
When Mike's frowsy head or Hans's grimy hands appeared above the level
of the landing from the floor below, steadying with their chins some new
possession, it was either, “here, in the middle of the room, men!” or,
if it were big and cumbersome, “up-stairs, out of the way!” This had
gone on until the banquet hall was one conglomerate mass of mixed
chattels from the Jersey shop, Kling's old stock being stowed in some
other part of the building. Then began the picking out. First the
doubtful, but rich in color, tapestries, then the rugs--some fairly
good ones--stuffs, old and new, and every available rag which would
hold together were spread over the four walls and the front windows. The
heavier and more decorative pieces of furniture came next--among them
a huge wooden altar which had never been put together and which was now
backed close against the tapestries and hanging rugs in the centre of
the long wall. Two Venetian wedding-chests, low enough to sit upon, were
next placed in position, and between them three Spanish armchairs in
faded velvet and one in crinkly leather, held together by big Moorish
nails of brass. Above these chests and chairs were hung gilt brackets
holding church candles, Spanish mirrors so placed that the shortest
woman in the party could see her face, and big Italian disks of dull
metal. The walls were wonderful in their rich simplicity, and so was the
disposition of the furniture, Felix's skilful eye having preserved
the architectural proportions in both the selection and placing of the
several articles.

More wonderful than all else, however, was the great gold throne at the
end of the room, on which Masie was to sit and receive her guests and
which was none other than the big cardinal's chair, incrusted with
mouldy gilt, that had first inspired her with the idea of the party.
This was hoisted up bodily and placed on an auctioneer's platform which
Mike had found tilted back against the wall in the cellar. To hide its
dirt and cracks, rugs were laid, pieced out by a green drugget which
extended half across the floor, now swept of everything except two
refreshment tables.

Next came the ceiling. What Felix did to that ceiling, or rather what
that ceiling did for Felix, and how it looked when he was through with
it is to this very day a topic of discussion among the now scattered
inhabitants of “The Avenue.” Masie knew, and so did deaf Auntie
Gossburger, who often spent the day with the child. She, with Masie, had
been put in charge of the china and glass department, and when the
old woman had pulled up from the depths of a barrel first one red cup
without a handle and then a dozen or more, and had asked what they were
for, Felix had seized them with a cry of joy: “Oil cups! They fit on
the tops of these church lamps. I never expected to find these! Mike!
Go over to Mr. Pestler's and tell him to send me a small box of floating
night-tapers--the smallest he has. Now, Tootcums, you wait and see!”

And then the step-ladder was moved up, and Mike and one of the
Dutchies passed up the lamps to Felix, who drove the hooks into the
rafters--twenty-two of them--and then slid down to the floor, taking in
the general effect, only to clamber up again to lengthen this chain, or
shorten that, so that the whole ceiling, when the cups were filled and
the tapers lighted, would be a blaze of red stars hung in a firmament of
dull, yellow-washed gold.

The final touch came last. This was both a surprise and a discovery.
Hans had found it flattened out on the top of a big, circular table,
and was about to tear it loose when Felix, who let nothing escape
his vigilant eye, seized its metal handle, whereupon the mass sagged,
tilted, straightened, and then rounded out into a superb Chinese lantern
of yellow silk, decorated with black dragons, with only one tear in its
entire circumference, and that one Auntie Gossburger darned so skilfully
that nobody noticed the hole. This, Felix, after much consideration,
swung to the rafter immediately over the throne, so that its mellow
light should fall directly on the child's face.

Kling, while these preparations were in progress, was in a state of mind
bordering on the pathetic. Felix had made him promise not to come up
until the room was finished, but every few hours his head would be
thrust up over the edge of the stairs, his eyes screwed up in his fat
face, an expression of wonder, not unmixed with anxiety, flitting across
his countenance. Then he would back down-stairs, muttering to himself
all the time; his chief cause of complaint being the hiding of so many
things his customers might want to buy and the displaying of so many
others at which they might only want to look!

There was, however, even after the decorations seemed complete, a bare
corner to be filled with something neither too big, nor too small, nor
too insistent in color or form. Felix went twice over the stock, old
and new, twisted and turned, and was about to give up when he
suddenly called to Masie, his face lighting under the glow of a fresh
inspiration:

“I have it now! Come, Tootcums, with me! Mr. Sanderson will help us
out.” All of which came true; for Mr. Sanderson, ten minutes later,
had bent his head close to the child's lips to hear the better, and had
said: “Only two? Why, Masie, you can have the lot.” And that was how the
bare corner was filled with three great palms--the biggest he had in
his shop--and the grand salon of the Grande Duchesse Masie Beeswings de
Kling at last made ready for her guests.

This done, Felix made a final inspection of the room, adding a touch
here and there--shifting a piece of pottery or redraping the frayed end
of a square of tapestry--and finding that everything kept its place in
the general effect, without a single discordant note, drew Masie to a
seat beside him on one of the old Venetian chests. Here, with his arms
about the enthusiastic child, he laid bare the next and to him the most
important number on the programme.

And in this he wrought another upheaval, one almost as great as had
taken place in the room. The time-honored custom of all birthday parties
entailing upon the invited the giving of presents as proof of affection,
was not, he hinted gently, to be observed upon this occasion. “It is
Masie who is to give the presents,” he whispered, holding her closer,
“and not her guests.”

The child at first had protested. The long procession of guests coming
up to hand her their gifts, and her fun next day when looking them
over--knowing how queer some of them would be--had been part of her
joyful anticipation, but Felix would not yield.

“You see, Masie, darling,” he coaxed, “now that you are going to be a
real princess,” he was smoothing back her curls as he spoke, “you are
going to be so high up in the world that nobody will dare to give you
any presents. That is the way with all princesses. Kings and queens
are never given presents on their birthdays unless their permission is
asked, but, just because they ARE kings and queens, they give presents
to everybody else. And then again, Masie, dear, if you stop to think
about it, people really get a great deal more fun out of giving things
than they do of having things given to them.”

She succumbed, as she always did, when her “Uncle Felix,” with his voice
lowered to a whisper, his lips held close to her ear, either counselled
or chided her, and a new joy thrilled through her as he explained how
his plan was to be carried out.

Kling lifted up his hands in protest when he heard of O'Day's
innovation, but was overruled and bowled over before he had framed his
first sentence. It was the sentiment, Felix insisted, which was to be
considered, the good feeling behind the gift, not the cost of it. He and
Masie had worked it all out together, and please not to interfere.

But Kling did interfere, and right royally, too, when he found time to
think it over. Some one of the old German legends must have worked its
way through the dull crust of his brain, bringing back memories of his
childhood. Perhaps his conscience was pricked by his clerk's attitude.
Whatever the cause, certain it is that he crept up-stairs a few hours
before his house was to be thrown open to Masie's guests, and, finding
the banquet hall completely finished and nobody about, Felix and Masie
having gone out together to perfect some little detail connected with
the gifts, walked around in an aimless way, overwhelmed by the beauty
and charm of the interior as it lay before him in the afternoon light.

On his way down he met the deaf Gossburger coming up.

“Dot is awful nice!” he shouted. “I couldn't believe dot was possible!
Dot is a vunderful--VUNderful man! I don't see how dem rags and dot
stuff look like dot ven you get 'em togedder anodder vay. And now dere
is vun thing I don't got in my head yet: Vot is it about dese presents?”

The old woman recounted the details as best she could.

“And dot is all, is it, Auntie Gossburger? Only of pasteboard boxes
vid candies in 'em, and little pieces paper vid writings on 'em dot Mr.
O'Day makes? Is dot vot you mean?”

The old woman nodded.

Kling turned suddenly, went down-stairs with his head up and shoulders
back, called Hans to keep shop, and put on his hat.

When he returned an hour later, he was followed by a man carrying a big
box. This was placed behind Masie's throne and so concealed by a rug
that even Felix missed seeing it.


That everybody had accepted--everybody who had been invited--“big,
little, and middle-sized”--goes without saying. Masie had called at each
house herself, with Felix as cavalier--just as he had promised her. And
they had each and every one, immediately abandoned all other plans
for that particular night, promising to be there as early as could be
arranged, it being a Saturday and the shops on “The Avenue” open an hour
later than usual--an indulgence counterbalanced by the fact that next
day was Sunday and they could all sleep as long as they pleased.

And not only the neighbors, but Nat Ganger and Sam Dogger accepted.
Felix had gone down himself with Masie's message, and they both had said
they would come--Sam to be on hand half an hour before the appointed
hour of nine so as to serve as High Lord of the Robes, Masie having
determined that nobody but “dear old Mr. Dogger” should show her how to
put on the costume he had given her.

As for these two castaways, when they did enter the gorgeous room on the
eventful night they fairly bubbled over.

“Don't let old Kling touch it,” Ganger roared out as soon as he stepped
inside, before he had even said “How do you do?” to anybody. “Keep it as
an exhibit. Better still, send circulars up and down Fifth Avenue,
and open it up as a school--not one of 'em knows how to furnish their
houses. How the devil did you--Oh, I see! Just plain yellow-wash and the
reflected red light. Looks like a stained-glass window in a measly old
church. Where's Sam. Oh, behind that screen. Well come out here and look
at that ceiling!”

Sam didn't come out, and didn't intend to. He was busy with the child's
curls, which were bunched up in the fingers of one hand, while the other
was pressing the wide leghorn hat into the precise angle which would
become her most, the Gossburger standing by with the rest of the
costume, Masie's face a sunburst of happiness.

“And now the long skirt, Mrs. Bombagger, or whatever your name is.
That's it, over her head first and then down along the floor so she will
look as if she was grown up. And now the big ostrich-plume fan--a little
seedy, my dear, and yellow as a kite's foot, but nobody'll see it under
that big, yellow lantern. Now let me look at you! Nat, NAT! where are
you, you beggar, stop rummaging around that dead stuff and come behind
here and look at this live child! yes, right in here. Now look! Did you
ever in all your born days see anything half so pretty?” the outburst
ending with, “Scat, you little devil of a dog!” when Fudge gave a howl
at being stepped upon.

Masie, as she listened, plumed her head as a pigeon would preen its
feathers, stood up to see her train sweep the floor, sat down again to
watch the stained satin folds crumple themselves about her feet, and was
at last so overcome by it all that she threw her arms around Sam, to his
intense delight, and kissed him twice, and would have given Nat an equal
number had not Felix called to him that the guests were beginning to
arrive.

As to these guests, you could not have gotten their names on one side of
Kitty's order-book, nor on both sides, for that matter. There was brisk,
bustling Bundleton the grocer in a green necktie, white waistcoat,
and checked trousers, arm and arm with his thin wife in black silk and
mitts; there was Heffern the dairyman in funeral black, relieved by a
brown tie, and his daughter, in variegated muslin, accompanied by two
young men whom neither Kling nor Felix nor the Gossburger had ever
heard of or seen before, but who were heartily welcomed; there were fat
Porterfield the butcher in his every-day clothes, minus his apron, with
his two girls, aged ten and fourteen, their hair in pigtails tied
with blue ribbons; there were Mr. and Mrs. Codman, all in their best
“Sunday-go-to-meetings,” with their little daughter Polly, named after
the mother, pretty as a picture and a great friend of Masie--most
distinguished people were the Codmans, he looking like an alderman and
his wife the personification of good humor, her rosy cheeks matching the
tint of her husband's necktie.

There was Digwell the undertaker in his professional clothes, enlivened
by a white waistcoat and red scarf, quite beside himself with joy
because nobody had died or was likely to die so far as he had heard,
thus permitting him to “send dull care to the winds!”--his own way of
putting it. There was Pestler the druggist in an up-to-date dress suit
as good as anybody's--almost as good as the one Felix wore, and from
which, for the first time since he landed, he had shaken the creases.
There was Tim Kelsey, in the suit of clothes he wore every day, the only
difference being the high collar instead of the turned-down one, the
change giving him the appearance of a man with a bandaged neck, so
narrow were his poor shoulders and so big was the fine head overtopping
it. There were Mike and Bobby and the two Dutchies and Sanderson, who
came with his hands full of roses for Masie, and a score of others whose
names the scribe forgets, besides lots and lots of children of all sizes
and ages.

And there were Kitty and John--and they were both magnificent--at least
Kitty was--she being altogether resplendent in black alpaca finished off
by a fichu of white lace, her big, full-bosomed, robust body filling
it without a crease; and he in a new suit bought for the occasion, and
which fitted him everywhere except around the waist--a defect which
Kitty had made good by means of a well-concealed safety-pin in the back.

It was for Kitty that Felix had been on the lookout ever since the
guests began to arrive, and no sooner did her rosy, beaming face appear
behind that of her husband, than he pushed his way through the throng
to reach her side. “No, not out here, Mistress Kitty,” he cried. Had she
been of royal blood he could not have treated her with more distinction.
“You are to stand alongside of Masie when she comes in; the child has no
mother, and you must look after her.”

“No mother! Mr. O'Day! God rest your soul, she won't need to do without
one long, she's that lovely. There'll be plenty will want to mother, and
brother her, too, for that matter. My goodness, what a place ye made of
it! Look at them lamps, all fireworks up there, and that big chair! I
wonder who robbed a church to get it! Well--well---WELL! John! did
ye ever see the like? Otto, ye ought to rent this place out for a
chowder-party ball. Well, well, I NEVER!”

The comments of some of the others, while they voiced their complete
surprise, were less enthusiastic. Bundleton, after shaking hands with
Felix and Kitty, and then with Kling, dropped his wife and made a tour
of the room without uttering a sound of any kind until he reached Felix
again, when he remarked gravely: “I should think it would worry you some
to keep the moths out of this stuff,” and then passed on to tell Kling
he must look out “them lamps didn't spill and set things on fire.”

Porterfield, as was to be expected, was distinctly practical. “Awful lot
of truck when you get it all together, ain't it, Mr. O'Day? I was
just tellin' my wife that them two chairs up t'other side of the room
wouldn't last long in my parlor, they're that wabbly. But maybe these
Fifth Avenue folks don't do no sittin'--just keep 'em in a glass case to
look at.”

Pestler was more discerning. He had come across an iridescent glass jar,
and was edging around for an opportunity to ask Kling the price without
letting Felix overhear him--it being an occasion, he knew, in which Mr.
O'Day would feel offended if business were mentioned. “Might do to put
in my window, if it didn't cost too much,” he had begun, and as suddenly
stopped as he caught Felix's eyes fastened upon him.

There were others, however, whose delight could not be repressed. Tim
Kelsey, after the proper greetings were over, had wandered off down
the room, stopping to examine each article in its place on the walls.
Finally some pieces of old Delft caught his eye. He made a memorandum of
two in a little book he took from his inside pocket, and later on, when
a break in the surrounding conversation made it possible, remarked
to Felix: “They seem to get everything in the new Delft but the old
delicious glaze. On a wall it doesn't matter, but you don't feel like
putting real old Delft on a wall. I like to stroke it, as I would a
friend's hand.”

These inspections and comments over, and that peculiar timidity which
comes over certain classes lifted out of their customary environment and
doing their best to become accustomed to new surroundings having begun
to wear away under the tactful welcome of Felix, and the hour having
arrived for the grand ceremony of gift-giving, the throne was pushed
back, Masie called from behind her screen, and O'Day's wicker basket
filled with the presents was laid by the side of the big chair.

Kling and Kitty were now beckoned to and placed on the left of the
throne, Felix taking up his position on the right.

The stir on the platform caused by these arrangements soon attracted
everybody's attention and a sudden hush fell upon the room. What was
about to happen nobody knew, but something important, or Mr. O'Day would
not have stepped to its edge, nor would Otto have been so red in the
face, nor Kitty so radiant.

Felix raised his hand to command supreme silence.

“Masie wishes me,” he began in his low, even voice, “to tell you that
she has done her best to remember every one, and that she hopes nobody
has been forgotten. These little trifles she is about to give you are
not gifts, but just little mementos to express her thanks for your
kindness in coming to her first party. She bids me tell you, too, that
her love goes out to every one of you on this the happiest night of her
life and that she welcomes you all with her whole heart.”

He turned, stepped back a pace, made the radiant child a low bow, held
out his hand, and led her into full view of the audience, the rays of
the big lantern softening the tones of the quaint, picturesque costume
which concealed her slight figure, transforming the child of eleven into
the woman of eighteen.

For at least ten seconds, and that is a long period of time when your
heart is in your mouth and you are ready to explode with uncontrollable
delight, not a sound of any kind broke the silence, no handclap of
welcome, no murmur of applause; just plain, simple astonishment, the
kind that takes your breath away. That Kling's little girl stood before
them, nobody believed. O'Day had fooled them with this new vision, just
as he had bewitched them by the glamour of the decorated room. Only when
a few simple words of welcome fell from her lips were the flood-gates
opened. Then a shout went up which set the candles winking--a shout
only surpassed in volume and good cheer when Felix began handing up the
little packages from Masie's basket. And dainty little packages they
were, filled with all sorts of inexpensive souvenirs that she and Felix
(not much money between the two of them) had picked up at Baxter's
Toy Shop on Third Avenue, all suggested by some peculiarity of the
recipient, all kindly and good-natured, and each one enlivened by a
quotation or some original line in Felix's own handwriting.

During the whole delightful ceremony Otto had stood on the left of his
daughter, his heart thumping away, his face growing redder every minute,
his eyes intent on each guest elbowing a way through the crowd as Masie
handed them their gifts, noting the general happiness and the laughter
that followed the reading of the lines, wondering all the time why no
one was offended at the size and, to him, worthlessness of the several
offerings.

When it was all over and the basket empty, he jumped down from the
platform, his fat back bent in excitement, tossed aside the rug, lifted
the big box, placed it beside the gilt throne, and raised his puffy
hands to command attention: “Now listen, everybody! I got someting to
say. Beesvings don't have all dis to herselluf. Now it is my turn. Come
up closer so I get hold of you. Vait, and I git back on de platform.
Here, you olt frent of mine, Dan Porterfield, here is a new
butcher-knife sharpener for you, to sharpen your knives on ven you cuts
dem bifsteaks. And, Heffern, come close; here is a silver-plated skimmer
for dot cream you make, and a pig fan for your daughter. And Polly
Codman--git out of de way dere, and let Polly Codman come up!--here,
Polly, is a pair of gloves for you and a muffler for Codman, and here is
more gloves and neckties and--I got a lot more; I didn't got much time
and I bought dem all in a hurry--and dey are all from me and Masie and
don't you forgit dot. I ain't never been so happy as I am to-night,
and you vas awful good to come and see my little girl dot don't got no
mudder. And you must all tank Mr. O'Day for de great help he vas. Now
dot's all I got to say.”

He drew his hand across his eyes, made an awkward bow, and sat down.
Everybody gasped in amazement. Many of them had known him for years,
ever since he moved into “The Avenue”--twenty years, at least--but
nobody had ever seen him as he was to-night. That he had in his intended
generosity overlooked half of his friends made no difference. Those who
received something showed it for weeks afterward to everybody who came.
Those who had nothing forgave him in their delight over the good-will
he had shown to the others. Even Felix, who had been watching him soften
and thaw out under the warmth of the child's happiness, and who thought
he knew the man and his nature, was astounded, and showed it by grasping
for the first time his employer's hand, looking him in the eyes as he
said, “I owe you an apology, sir,” a proceeding Otto often pondered
over, its meaning wholly escaping him.

But the great surprise of the evening, in which even Felix had had no
share, was yet to come. He had carried out his promise to provide the
simple refreshments, and a table had been set apart for their serving.
The sandwiches made at the bakeshop a block below had already arrived
and been put in place, and he was about to announce supper, when he
became aware that a mysterious conference was being held near the top of
the stairs, in which Kitty, Polly Codman, and Heffern's daughter Mary,
were taking part. He had already noticed, with some discomfiture, the
absence of a number of male guests, half of them having left the room
without presenting themselves before Masie to bid her good night, and
was about to ask Kitty for an explanation, when a series of thumping
sounds reached his ear; something heavy was being rolled along the
floor beneath his feet. As the noise increased, Kitty and her beaming
coconspirators craned their necks over the banisters and a welcoming
roar went up. Bundleton's head now came into view, a wreath of smilax
wound loosely around his neck, followed by one of his men carrying a keg
of beer; another shouldering a sawhorse, a wooden mallet, and a wooden
spigot; and still a third with a basket of stone mugs.

“Come, folks and neighbors, everybody have a glass of beer with me!”
 shouted Bundleton.

Up went the sawhorse before you would wink your eye! Down went the keg
across its arms, the smilax around it! Bang went the bung! In went the
wooden spigot! And out flew the white froth!

Another roar now went up, accompanied by great clapping of hands. It
was Codman's head this time, a cook's cap resting on his ears, his hands
bearing a great dish athwart which lay a cold salmon that the baker
had cooked for him that morning. Close behind came Pestler with a tray
filled with boxes of candy, and next Sanderson with a flattish basket
piled high with carnations, each one tied as a boutonniere; and
Porterfield with a bunch of bananas; and so on and so on--each arrival
being received with fresh roars and shouts of welcoming approval. Last
of all came Kitty, her face one great, pervading, all-embracing laugh,
her own big coffee-pot filled to the brim and smoking hot on a waiter,
her boy Bobby following, loaded down with cups and saucers.

Supper over--and it was a mighty feast, with everybody waiting on
everybody else, Kitty busiest of all, filling each cup herself--Digwell
the undertaker, who had really been the life of the party, remarked in
a voice loud enough to be heard half-way across the room that it was a
pity there was no piano, as a party could not be a real party without
a dance. At this Kling, who was having a mug with Codman, rose from
his seat, stepped to the top of the stairs and, looking over the crowd,
called for four strong men, “right avay, k'vick!” Codman, Pestler, Mike,
and Digwell responded, and before anybody knew where they had gone,
or what it was all about, up came an old-fashioned spinet, which Kling
remembered had been hidden behind a Martha Washington bedstead on the
floor below.

“All together, men!” shouted Codman, and it was picked up bodily,
whirled into position, dusted off in a jiffy, and ready for use.

At this Pestler sprang to his feet, shouted he was coming back in a
minute, rushed to the stairway, went down three steps at a time, bolted
through the front door, across the street, up into his bedroom, and back
again, all in one breath, waving his violin triumphantly over his head
as he entered.

And then it was that the real fun began. And then it was that virtue had
its own reward, for not a living soul in the room could play a note on
the spinet except the tallest and spookiest and, to all appearances, the
stupidest of the two young men, whom the Heffern girl had brought and
who turned out to have once been the star pianist in some dance-hall
on the Bowery. And the scribe remarks, parenthetically and in all
seriousness, that the way that lank, pin-headed young man revived the
soul of that old, worn-out harpischord, digging into its ribs, kicking
at its knees with both feet, hand-massaging every one of the keys up,
down, and crossways, until the ancient fossil fairly rattled itself
loose with the joy of being alive once more, was altogether the most
astounding miracle he has ever had to record. And Pestler with his
violin was not far behind.

Everything had now broken loose.

At the first note, up jumped Kitty, caught John around the neck, and
went whirling around the room. At the second note, up jumped Codman,
made a dive for Polly, missed her in the mix-up and, grabbing Mrs.
Digwell instead, went sailing down the room as if he had done nothing
else all his life. At the third note, away went Sanderson and Bundleton,
Heffern, everybody but the two castaways and Tim Kelsey, who beat juba
on their knees, old Sam Dogger playing a tattoo all by himself with two
knife-handles and a plate. Some danced with their own wives; some
with anybody's wife or daughter or child--a grand hullabaloo, down the
middle, across, back, and up again, until everybody was exhausted
and fell in a heap into Felix's Spanish chairs, or on his Venetian
wedding-chests, or wherever else they could find resting-places in which
to catch their breaths.

And now comes the crowning touch of all--the last of the evening's
surprises, and one remembered the longest because of its simplicity and
its beauty!

When everybody was resting, out stepped Felix, the light of the overhead
candles falling on his pale, thoughtful face, white shirt-front, and
faultless suit of black which fitted his well-knit, handsome frame like
a glove, and with him the Grande Duchesse Masie de Kling, the child
bowing and smiling as she passed, the wide leghorn hat shading her
face from the light of the lanterns above, her long train caught,
woman-fashion, over her arm. Then, with a low word to the pin-headed
young man, followed by a downward wave of his palm to denote the time,
and the child's fingers firm in his own, Felix led her through an
old-fashioned, stately minuet, telling her in an undertone just what
steps to take.


It was Sunday morning before the merry party broke up and streamed out
through Kling's lower shop, and so on into the street. Everybody had had
the time of their lives. Such remarks as “Would ye have believed it
of Otto?” or, “Wasn't Masie the sweetest thing ye ever saw?” or, “Just
think of Mr. O'Day fixing up that old junk room the way he did--ye can't
beat him nowheres!” or, “Oh, I tell ye, Otto struck it rich when he took
him on!”, were heard on all sides.

So loud were the laughter and chatter, the good nights and good-bys,
that big Tom McGinniss moved over from the opposite curb.

“Halloo, John!” cried the policeman. “I thought I couldn't be mistaken.
And Kitty, that you with your coffee-pot? I just come up from Lexington
Avenue and heard the row, wondering what was up. Is it up-stairs ye
were? WHAT! Dutchy givin' a ball? Oh, ye can't mean it! No, thank ye,
Kitty, it will be too late for ye all--I'll drop in to-morrow night.
Well, take care of yourselves,” and he disappeared in the darkness.

Felix watched the throng disperse, bade Kitty and John good night, and,
turning sharply, directed his steps toward Madison Square. Here he sank
upon a bench, away from the glare of an overhead lamp. For some minutes
he sat without moving, his mind wholly absorbed with the events of the
preceding hours. The roar and crush of the room came back to him. He
caught again the light in Masie's eyes as she followed his lead in the
dance and the mob of happy faces crowding to her side, and then with a
shudder he confronted the gaunt sorrow that had hourly dogged his steps.
An overpowering sense of depression now took possession of him. Pushing
back his hat as if to give himself more air, he was about to resume his
walk when he became conscious that something had stirred at the far end
of the seat.

Straightening his broad shoulders, his quick, alert manner returning, he
moved nearer, his eyes searching the gloom. A newsboy, a little chap of
seven or eight, his papers under him, lay fast asleep.

For an instant he watched the rise and fall of the boy's breath,
adjusted the short, patched coat about the little fellow's knees, and
then slid back to his end of the bench.

“Same old grind,” he said to himself, “no home--no money--cold--maybe
hungry. Never too young to suffer--never too old to eat your heart out.
What a damnable world it is!”

Rising to his feet, he felt in his pocket for a coin, widened the pocket
of the waif's jacket, and slipped it in. The boy stirred, tightened his
grasp on his papers, and lay still.

Felix looked down at him for a moment, turned, and with lightened steps
continued his walk.

“Well, thank God,” he said as he neared “The Avenue,” “Masie was happy
one night in her life.”




Chapter IX



That the memories of Masie's birthday party should have been revived
again and again, and that the several incidents should have been
discussed for days thereafter--every eye growing the brighter in the
telling--was to have been expected. Kitty could talk of nothing
else. The beauty of the room; the charm of Masie's costume; Kling's
generosity; and last, O'Day's bearing and appearance as he led the child
through the stately dance, looking, as Kitty expressed it, “that fine
and handsome you would have thought he was a lord mayor,” were now her
daily topics of conversation.

Masie was equally enthusiastic, rushing down-stairs the next morning to
throw her arms around his neck with an “Oh, Uncle Felix, I never, NEVER,
NEVER was so happy in all my life!”

Kling was still more jubilant. The success of Masie's banquet room had
established him at once among bric-a-brac dealers as a competitor quite
out of the ordinary. His old customers came in flocks, walking about
with gasps of astonishment. Before the week was out, a masonic lodge had
bought the throne, a seaside resort the big Chinese lantern, and two of
the four Spanish chairs had found a home in a millionaire's library.

Moreover--and this was all the more remarkable in view of his early
training--a certain deference became apparent in the Dutchman's manner
not only toward Felix but toward his customers. He no longer received
them in his shirt-sleeves. He bought some new clothes and sported a
collar, necktie, and hat, duplicating those worn by Felix as near as his
memory served.

Still more remarkable were the changes wrought among the neighbors in
their attitude toward O'Day. Until then they had, in their independent
fashion, treated him like any of the other men who came in and out their
several stores, pleased with his interest in the business, but quickly
forgetting him as they became reabsorbed in the affairs of the day. Now,
as they told him what a good time they had had on the birthday, they
raised their hats. Porterfield went so far as to tell the radiant Kitty
that her boarder was a “Jim Dandy,” and that if she should lay her hands
on another to “trot him out.”

Kitty of course had expected these triumphs, but that it was she who had
made them possible, and that but for her own individual efforts Felix
might still be wandering around the streets in search of bed and board,
apparently never crossed her mind. He would have been just as splendid,
she said to herself, and just as much of a man no matter who had helped
and no matter where his feet had landed.

If O'Day were aware of the changes of public opinion going on around
him, there was nothing in either his manner or in his speech to show it.
When they complimented him on the way in which he had utilized Otto's
old stock, producing so wonderful an interior, he would remark quietly
that it was nothing to his credit. He had always loved such things; that
it came natural to some people to put things to rights, and that any one
could have done as much. It was only when some one alluded to Masie that
his face would light up. “Yes, charming, was she not? Such a wonderful
little lady, and so good!”

That which did please him--please him immensely--was the outcome of a
visit made some days after the party by old Nat Ganger.

“Regular Aladdin lamp,” Nat shouted, slamming Kling's door behind
him. “One rub, bang goes the rubbish, and up comes an Oriental palace.
Another rub and little devils swarm over the walls and ceilings and
begin hanging up stuffs and lamps. Another rub, and before you can wink
your eye, out steps a little princess, a million times prettier than any
Cinderella that ever lived. Wonderful! WONDERFUL!

“Where is the darling child anyway. Can't I see her? I got away from
Sam, telling him I was going to look up another frame for one of my
pictures. Here it is. All a lie, every bit of it. It's Sam's picture.
Not mine. I wrapped it up so he wouldn't know, but I came to see that
darling child all the same, for I've got a surprise for her. But first I
want you to see this picture. Here, wait until I untie this string.
It's one of Sam's Hudson Rivery things. Palisades and a steamboat in the
foreground, and an afternoon sky. Easy dodge, don't you see? Yellow sky
and purple hill, and short streak for the steamboat and its wake, and a
smear of white steam straggling behind. Sam does 'em as well as anybody.
Sometimes he puts in a pile or two in the foreground for a broken dock
and a rowboat with a lone fisherman squatting on the hind seat. Then
he asks five dollars more. Always get more you know for figures in a
landscape.”

He had unwrapped the canvas by this time, and was holding it to the
light of the window that Felix might see it better.

Felix studied it carefully, even to the cramped signature in the corner,
“Samuel Dogger, A. N. A.”; and with an appreciative smile said: “Very
good, I should say. Yes, very good.”

“Good! It's really very bad, and you know it. So do I. But you're too
much of a gentleman to say so. Can't be worse, really, but 'puttying up'
is down by the heels, and there hasn't been an old master from Flushing,
Long Island, or Weehawken, New Jersey, lugged up our stairs for a
month;--two months, really. We had one last week from a dealer down-town
which turned out to be genuine after Sam had looked it over. And, of
course, Sam wouldn't touch it and sent for the auctioneer and told him
so. And the beggar made Sam hunt for the signature and Sam found it
at the top of the canvas instead of at the bottom. One of the early
Dutchmen Sam said it was. Some kind of a Beck or a Koven. And would you
believe it, the very next day the fellow got a whacking price for it
from a collector up in one of the side streets near the Park. So Sam
has gone back to the early American school. This means that he's getting
down to his last five-dollar bill, and I want to tell you that I'm
not far from it myself. I'd have been dead broke if I hadn't sold
two Fatimas. One in pink pants and the other a flying angel in summer
clothes to fit an alcove in an up-town barroom over the cigar-stand.

“But my money isn't Sam's money,” he went on without pausing, “and Sam
won't touch a penny of it. Never does unless I fool him on the sly. And
I've come up here to fool him now, and fool him bad. I want you to hold
on to this bust--wait until I get it out of my pocket.” Here he pulled
out a small bronze, a head of Augustus, beautifully wrought.

“If you buy the picture, I'll throw in the ancient Roman,” and he laid
it on the counter.

“And I want you to write Sam a note, asking him if he can't look around
for one of his masterpieces, something say ten by fourteen; wanted for a
customer who only buys good things. That any little landscape with water
in it will do. Remember, don't leave out the water. Then Sam will come
thumping down-stairs with the note, and I'll be awfully astonished and
we'll talk it over, and I'll pull this out from under a pile of stuff
where I'll hide it as soon as I get home. Then I'll say: 'Well, I'm
going up-town and have Mr. O'Day look at it, and maybe it will suit him,
and that if it does, I'll make him pay fifty dollars for it.' How do you
think that will work?”

Felix, who had been looking into the old fellow's eyes, reading his mind
in their depths, seeing clear down into the heart beneath, now picked up
the bronze and began passing his hand over it.

“Very lovely,” he said at last, “and a marvellous paten. Where did you
get it?”

“Spoken like a gentleman and a man of honor, and this time you tell the
truth. It's just what you say--marvellous. I swapped a twenty by thirty
for it. Will you take it?”

Felix shook his head, a smile playing about his lips.

“I would if I wanted to be unfair. Here, take your bronze and leave the
picture. I will find a frame for it, and have one of the men give it a
coat of varnish.”

“And you'll write the note?”

“Is that necessary?”

“Of COURSE, it's necessary. You don't know Sam. He's as cunning as a
weasel and can get away before you know it. Got to fool him. I always
do. Told him more lies in one minute this morning than a horse can trot.
Will you write the note?”

Felix laughed. “Yes, just as soon as you go.”

“And you won't hold on to the bronze?”

“No, I won't hold on to the bronze.”

“And you can get fifty dollars for this unexampled work of art? That, of
course, is the ASKING price. Ten would do a whole lot of good.”

“I cannot say positively, but I will try.”

“All right. And now where's that darling child?”

A laugh rang out from the top of the stairs, the laugh of a child
overjoyed at meeting some one she loves, followed by “do you mean me?”

“Of course, I mean you, Toddlekins. Come down here and let me give you
a big hug. And I've got a message for you from that dried-up old fellow
with the shaggy head. He sent you his love--every bit of it, he said.
And he's found some more gewgaws he's going to bring up some day. Told
me that, too.”

Masie had reached the floor and was running toward him with her hands
extended, Fudge springing in front.

The old painter caught her up in his arms, lifting her off her little
feet, and as quickly setting her down, his eyes snapping, his whole face
aglow. The joy bottled up in the child seemed to have swept through him
like an electric current.

“And wasn't it a beautiful party?” she burst out when she found her
breath. “And wasn't Uncle Felix good to make it all for me?” She had
moved to O'Day's side and had slipped her hand in his.

“Yes, of course, it was,” roared Ganger. “Why, old Sam Dogger was so
excited when he went to bed, he didn't sleep a wink all night. He's
thought of nothing else but parties ever since. He's getting up one for
you. Told me so this morning.”

The child's eyes dilated.

“What sort of a party?”

“Oh, a dandy party, but it's not going to be at night. It's going to be
in the daytime. All out in the blessed sunshine and under the trees. And
everybody is going to be invited--everybody who belongs.”

The child's brow clouded. “Everybody who belongs? Why, can't Uncle Felix
come?”

“Certainly, he can come. He 'belongs.'”

“And--Fudge?”

“What, that little devil of a dog? Yes, he can come, if he promises
to behave himself,” and he shook his head at the culprit. “And all the
chippies can come. Lots of 'em, and perhaps a couple of robins, if they
haven't gone away south. And there's a big Newfoundland dog, or was
before he was stolen, that could have swallowed this gentleman down
at one gulp, but he won't now. HE 'belonged' and always has. And, of
course, you 'belong' and so does Sam and so do I. We go out every
other week and sit under these very same trees. Sam paints the branches
wiggling down in the water, and I do leaky boats. When I get the picture
home, I put Jane Hoggson fishin' in the stern.”

Masie rolled her eyes.

“And you don't take her with you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“'Cause she don't 'belong.' Great difference whether you belong or not.
Jane Hoggson couldn't 'belong' if she was to be born all over again.”

O'Day now joined in. He had been watching Masie, noting the lights and
shadows which swept over her face as the old painter chattered away.
He always welcomed any plan for giving her pleasure, and was blessing
Ganger in his heart for providing the diversion.

“And where is all this to take place, Mr. Ganger?” Felix asked at last.

“Up on the Bronx. A place you know nothing of and wouldn't believe a
word about if I should tell you--not 'til you see it yourself. It's as
full of birds and butterflies as England along the Thames, or one of
those ducky little streams out of Paris. And it only costs five cents to
get there and five cents to get back. And you won't be more than a few
hours away from your shop. Fine, I tell you, you'll never forget it.”

Again Felix broke in.

“I have not a doubt of it, but when is all this to take place?”

Ganger gave a little start and grew suddenly grave.

“Well, as to that, you see the day is not yet fixed, not precisely. In
a week maybe, or it may be two weeks. This is Sam's party, you know, and
he hasn't completed all his arrangements--that is, he hadn't completed
them when I left him this morning. And, of course, a lot has to be
done to make everything ready”--here he nodded at Masie--“for little
princesses and great ladies in plumes and satins. But it is certainly
coming off. Old Sam told me so, and he means every word of it. And he
was to let you know when. That's it, he was to LET YOU KNOW. That's
another thing he told me to tell you.”

The child's name was now called from the top of the stairs, and the
Gossburger's head craned itself over the hand-rail. Fudge opened with a
sharp bark, and Masie, with an air kiss to Ganger, raced up the steps,
the dog at her heels, shouting as she ran: “Tell Mr. Dogger I send him a
kiss, and I thank him ever so much, and won't he please come and see me
very soon.”

When she had disappeared, the old fellow leaned forward, gazed knowingly
at Felix, and in soft-pedal tones said:

“You see, Sam couldn't say EXACTLY when the party was to take place
because--well, because he hasn't heard a word about it, and won't until
I get back. It is my party, not Sam's, and I've got to break it to him
gently. And I've got to fool him about the party, make him think it's
his party, or he'll think I'm holding it over him because I've got a
little more money than he has, just as I intend to fool him about the
picture. I couldn't say, when you asked me, when the day was to be

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