A Man and His Money - Frederic Stewart Isham
A MAN AND HIS MONEY
_By_
FREDERIC S. ISHAM
_Author of_
Under the Rose, Half a Chance,
The Social Bucaneer, Etc.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
MAX J. SPERO
1912
A MAN AND HIS MONEY
CHAPTER I
THE COACH OF CONCORD
"Well? What can I do for you?"
The speaker--a scrubby little man--wheeled in the rickety office chair
to regard some one hesitating on his threshold. The tones were not
agreeable; the proprietor of the diminutive, run-down establishment,
"The St. Cecilia Music Emporium," was not, for certain well defined
reasons, in an amiable mood that morning. He had been about to reach
down for a little brown jug which reposed on the spot usually allotted
to the waste paper basket when the shadow of the new-comer fell
obtrusively, not to say offensively, upon him.
It was not a reassuring shadow; it seemed to spring from an
indeterminate personality. Mr. Kerry Mackintosh repeated his question
more bruskly; the shadow (obviously not a customer,--no one ever sought
Mr. Mackintosh's wares!) started; his face showed signs of a vacillating
purpose.
"A mistake! Beg pardon!" he murmured with exquisite politeness and began
to back out, when a somewhat brutal command on the other's part to "shut
that d---- door d---- quick, and not let any more d---- hot air out"
arrested the visitor's purpose. Instead of retreating, he advanced.
"I beg pardon, were you addressing me?" he asked. The half apologetic
look had quite vanished.
The other considered, muttered at length in an aggrieved tone something
about hot air escaping and coal six dollars a ton, and ended with: "What
do you want?"
"Work." The visitor's tone relapsed; it was now conspicuous for its want
of "success waves"; it seemed to imply a definite cognizance of
personal uselessness. He who had brightened a moment before now spoke
like an automaton. Mr. Mackintosh looked at him and his shabby garments.
He had a contempt for shabby garments--on others!
"Good day!" he said curtly.
But instead of going, the person coolly sat down. The proprietor of the
little shop glanced toward the door and half started from his chair.
Whereupon the visitor smiled; he had a charming smile in these moments
of calm equipoise, it gave one an impression of potential possibilities.
Mr. Mackintosh sank back into his chair.
"Too great a waste of energy!" he murmured, and having thus defined his
attitude, turned to a "proof" of new rag-time. This he surveyed
discontentedly; struck out a note here, jabbed in another there. The
stranger watched him at first casually. By sundry signs the caller's
fine resolution and assurance seemed slowly oozing from him; perhaps he
began to have doubts as to the correctness of his position, thus to
storm a man in his own castle, or office--even if it were such a
disreputable-appearing office!
He shifted his feet thoughtfully; a thin lock of dark hair drooped more
uncertainly over his brow; he got up. The composer dashed a blithe
flourish to the tail of a note.
"Hold on," he said. "What's your hurry?" Sarcastically.
"Didn't know I was in a hurry!" There was no attempted levity in his
tone,--he spoke rather listlessly, as one who had found the world, or
its problems, slightly wearisome. The composer-publisher now arose; a
new thought had suddenly assailed him.
"You say you are looking for work. Why did you drift in here?"
"The place looked small. Those big places have no end of applicants--"
"Shouldn't think that would phase you. With _your_ nerve!"
The visitor flushed. "I seem to have made rather a mess of it," he
confessed. "I usually do. Good day."
"A moment!" said Mr. Mackintosh. "One of my men"--he emphasized "one,"
as if their number were legion--"disappointed me this morning. I expect
he's in the lockup by this time. Have you got a voice?"
"A what?"
"Can you sing?"
"I really don't know; haven't ever tried, since"--a wonderful
retrospection in his tones--"since I was a little chap in church and
wore white robes."
"Huh!" ejaculated the proprietor of the Saint Cecilia shop. "Mama's
angel boy! That must have been a long time ago." The visitor did not
answer; he pushed back uncertainly the uncertain lock of dark hair and
seemed almost to have forgotten the object of his visit.
"Now see here"--Mr. Mackintosh's voice became purposeful, energetic; he
seated himself before a piano that looked as if it had led a hard
nomadic existence. "Now see here!" Striking a few chords. "Suppose you
try this stunt! _What's the Matter with Mother_? My own composition!
Kerry Mackintosh at his best! Now twitter away, if you've any of that
angel voice left!"
The piano rattled; the new-comer, with a certain faint whimsical smile
as if he appreciated the humor of his position, did "twitter away"; loud
sounds filled the place. Quality might be lacking but of quantity there
was a-plenty.
"Bully!" cried Mr. Mackintosh enthusiastically. "That'll start the tears
rolling. _What's the Matter with Mother_? Nothing's the matter with
mother. And if any one says there is--Will it go? With that voice?" He
clapped his hand on the other's shoulder. "Why, man, they could hear you
across Madison Square. You've a voice like an organ. Is it a 'go'?" he
demanded.
"I don't think I quite understand," said the new-comer patiently.
"You don't, eh? Look there!"
A covered wagon had at that moment stopped before the door. It was drawn
by a horse whose appearance, like that of the piano, spoke more
eloquently of services in the past than of hopeful promises for the
future. On the side of the vehicle appeared in large letters: "_What's
the Matter with Mother_? Latest Melodic Triumph by America's Greatest
Composer, Mr. Kerry Mackintosh." A little to the left of this
announcement was painted a harp, probably a reminder of the one Saint
Cecilia was supposed to have played. This sentimental symbol was
obviously intended to lend dignity and respectability to the otherwise
disreputable vehicle of concord and its steed without wings, waiting
patiently to be off--or to lie down and pay the debt of nature!
"Shall we try it again, angel voice?" asked Mr. Mackintosh, playing the
piano, or "biffing the ivories," as he called it.
"Drop it," returned the visitor, "that 'angel' dope."
"Oh, all right! Anything to oblige."
Before this vaguely apologetic reply, the new-comer once more relapsed
into thoughtfulness. His eye passed dubiously over the vehicle of
harmony; he began to take an interest in the front door as if again
inclined to "back out." Perhaps a wish that the horse _might_ lie down
and die at this moment (no doubt he would be glad to!) percolated
through the current of his thoughts. That would offer an easy solution
to the proposal he imagined would soon be forthcoming--that _was_
forthcoming--and accepted. Of course! What alternative remained? Needs
must when an empty pocket drives. Had he not learned the lesson--beggars
must not be choosers?
"And now," said Mr. Mackintosh with the air of a man who had cast from
his shoulders a distinct problem, "that does away with the necessity of
bailing the other chap out. What's your name?"
The visitor hesitated. "Horatio Heatherbloom."
The other looked at him keenly. "The right one," he said softly.
"You've got the only one you'll get," replied the caller, after an
interval.
Mr. Mackintosh bestowed upon him a knowing wink. "Sounds like a _nom de
plume_," he chuckled. "What was your line?"
"I don't understand."
"What did you serve time for? Shoplifting?"
"Oh, no," said the other calmly.
"Burglarizing?" With more respect in his tones.
"What do you think?" queried the caller in the same mild voice.
"Not ferocious-looking enough for that lay, I should have thought.
However, you can't always tell by appearances. Now, I wonder--"
"What?" observed Mr. Heatherbloom, after an interval of silence.
"Yes! By Jove!" Mr. Mackintosh was speaking to himself. "It might
work--it might add interest--" Mr. Heatherbloom waited patiently. "Would
you have any objections," earnestly, "to my making a little addenda to
the sign on the chariot of cadence? _What's the Matter with Mother_?
'The touching lyric, as interpreted by Horatio Heatherbloom, the
reformed burglar'?"
"I _should_ object," observed the caller.
"My boy--my boy! Don't be hasty. Take time to think. I'll go further;
I'll paint a few iron bars in front of the harp. Suggestive of a
prisoner in jail thinking of mother. Say 'yes'."
"No."
"Too bad!" murmured Mr. Mackintosh in disappointed but not altogether
convinced tones. "You could use another alias, you know. If you're
afraid the police might pipe your game and nab--"
"Drop it, or--"
"All right, Mr. Heatherbloom, or any other blooming name!" Recovering
his jocular manner. "It's not for me to inquire the 'why,' or care a rap
for the 'wherefore.' Ethics hasn't anything to do with the realm of
art."
As he spoke he reached under the desk and took out the jug. "Have some?"
extending the tumbler.
The thin lips of the other moved, his hand quickly extended but was
drawn as suddenly back. "Thanks, but I'm on the water wagon, old chap."
"Well, I'm not. Do you know you said that just like a gentleman--to the
manner born."
"A gentleman? A moment ago I was a reformed burglar."
"You might be both."
Mr. Heatherbloom looked into space; Mr. Mackintosh did not notice a
subtle change of expression. That latter gentleman's rapt gaze was
wholly absorbed by the half-tumblerful he held in mid air. But only for
a moment; the next, he was smacking his lips. "We'll have a bite to eat
and then go," he now said more cheerfully. "Ready for luncheon?"
"I could eat"
"Had anything to-day?"
"Maybe."
"And maybe, not!" Half jeeringly. "Why don't you say you've been
training down, taking the go-without-breakfast cure? Say, it must be
hell looking for a job when you've just 'got out'!"
"How do you know I just 'got out'?"
"You look it, and--there's a lot of reasons. Come on."
Half an hour or so later the covered wagon drove along Fourteenth
street. Near the curb, not far from the corner of Broadway, it separated
itself from the concourse of vehicles and stopped. Close by, nickel
palaces of amusement exhibited their yawning entrances, and into these
gilded maws floated, from the human current on the sidewalk, a stream of
men, women and children. Encamped at the edge of this eddy, Mr.
Mackintosh sounded on the nomadic piano, now ensconced within the coach
of concord, the first triumphal strains of the maternal tribute in
rag-time.
He and the conspiring instrument were concealed in the depths of the
vehicle from the gaze of the multitude, but Mr. Heatherbloom at the back
faced them on the little step which served as concert stage. There were
no limelights or stereopticon pictures to add to the illusion,--only the
disconcerting faces and the light of day. He never before knew how
bright the day could be but he continued to stand there, in spite of the
ludicrous and trying position. He sang, a certain daredevil light in
his eye now, a suspicion of a covert smile on his face. It might be
rather tragic--his position--but it was also a little funny.
His voice didn't sound any better out of doors than it did in; the
"angel" quality of the white-robed choir days had departed with the soul
of the boy. Perhaps Mr. Heatherbloom didn't really feel the pathos of
the selection; at any rate, those tears Mr. Mackintosh had prophesied
would be rolling down the cheeks of the listening multitude weren't
forthcoming. One or two onlookers even laughed.
"Pigs! Swine!" murmured the composer, now passing through the crowd with
copies of the song. He sold a few, not many; on the back step Mr.
Heatherbloom watched with faint sardonic interest.
"Have I earned my luncheon yet?" he asked the composer when that
aggrieved gentleman, jingling a few dimes, returned to the equipage of
melody.
"Haven't counted up," was the gruff reply. "Give 'em another verse! They
ain't accustomed to it yet. Once they git to know it, every boot-black
in town will be whistling that song. Don't I know? Didn't I write it?
Ain't they all had mothers?"
"Maybe they're all Topsies and 'just growed'," suggested Mr.
Heatherbloom.
"Patience!" muttered the other. "The public may be a little coy at
first, but once they git started they'll be fighting for copies. So
encore, my boy; hammer it into them. We'll get them; you see!"
But the person addressed didn't see, at least with Mr. Mackintosh's
clairvoyant vision. Mr. Heatherbloom's gaze wandering quizzically from
the little pool of mask-like faces had rested on a great shining
motor-car approaching--slowly, on account of the press of traffic. In
this wide luxurious vehicle reposed a young girl, slender, exquisite; at
her side sat a big, dark, distinguished-appearing man, with a closely
cropped black beard; a foreigner--most likely Russian.
The girl was as beautiful as the dainty orchids with which the superb
car was adorned, and which she, also, wore in her gown--yellow orchids,
tenderly fashioned but very insistent and bright. Upon this patrician
vision Mr. Heatherbloom had inadvertently looked, and the pathetic
plaint regarding "Mother" died on the wings of nothingness. With
unfilial respect he literally abandoned her and cast her to the winds.
His eyes gleamed as they rested on the girl; he seemed to lose himself
in reverie.
Did she, the vision in orchids, notice him? Perhaps! The chauffeur at
that moment increased the speed of the big car; but as it dashed past,
the crimson mouth of the beautiful girl tightened and hardened into a
straight line and those wonderful starlike eyes shone suddenly with a
light as hard as steel. Disdainful, contemptuous; albeit, perhaps,
passionate! Then she, orchids, shining car and all were whirled on.
Rattle! bang! went the iron-rimmed wheels of other rougher vehicles.
Bing! bang! sounded the piano like a soul in torment.
Horatio Heatherbloom stood motionless; then his figure swayed slightly.
He lifted the music, as if to shield his features from the others--his
many auditors; but they didn't mind that brief interruption; it afforded
a moment for that rough and ready dialogue which a gathering of this
kind finds to its liking.
"Give him a trokee! Anybody got a cough drop?"
"It's soothing syrup he wants."
"No; it's us wants that."
"What the devil--" Mr. Mackintosh looked out of the wagon.
Mr. Heatherbloom suddenly laughed, a forced reckless laugh. "Guess it
was the dampness. I'm like some artists--have to be careful where I
sing."
"Have a tablet, feller, do!" said a man in the audience.
Horatio looked him in the eye. "Maybe it's you want something."
The facetious one began to back away; he had seen that look before, the
steely glint that goes before battle.
"The chord now, if you please!" said Mr. Heatherbloom to the composer
in a still quiet voice.
Mr. Mackintosh hit viciously; Mr. Heatherbloom sang again; he did more
than that. He outdid himself; he employed bombast,--some thought it
pathos. He threw a tremolo into his voice; it passed for emotion. He
"caught 'em", in Mr. Mackintosh's parlance, and "caught 'em hard". Some
more people bought copies. The alert Mr. Mackintosh managed to gather in
about a dollar, and saw, in consequence, great fortune "coming his way"
at last; the clouds had a golden lining.
"Say, you're the pard I've been a-looking for!" he jubilantly told Mr.
Heatherbloom as they prepared to move on. "We'll make a beautiful team.
Isn't it a peach?"
"What?"
"That song. It made them look like a rainy day. Git up!" And Mr.
Mackintosh prodded the bony ribs of their steed.
Mr. Heatherbloom absent-mindedly gazed in the direction the big shining
motor had vanished.
CHAPTER II
VARYING FORTUNES
Mr. Heatherbloom's new-found employment proved but ephemeral. The next
day the sheriff took possession of the music emporium and all it
contained, including the nomadic piano and the now empty jug. The
contents of the last the composer-publisher took care to put beyond
reach of his many creditors whom he, in consequence, faced with a
seemingly care-free, if artificial, jocularity. Mr. Heatherbloom walked
soberly forth from the shop of concord.
He had but turned the corner of the street when into the now dissonant
"hole in the wall", amid the scene of wreck and disaster, stepped a tall
dark man, with a closely cropped beard, who spoke English with an accent
and who regarded the erstwhile proprietor and the minions of the law
with ill-concealed arrogance and disfavor.
"You have," he began in halting tones, "a young man here who sings on
the street like the minstrels of old, the--what you call
them?--troubadours."
"We _had_," corrected Mr. Mackintosh. "He has just 'jumped the coup,' or
rather been 'shooed out'."
The new-comer fastened his gaze upon the other; he had superb, almost
mesmeric eyes. "Will you kindly speak the language as I understand it?"
he said. And the other did, for there was that in the caller's manner
which compelled immediate compliance. Immovably he listened to the
composer-publisher's explanation.
"_Eh bien!"_ he said, his handsome, rather barbaric head high when Mr.
Mackintosh had concluded. "He is gone; it is well; I have fulfilled my
mission." And walking out, the imposing stranger hailed a taxi and
disappeared from the neighborhood.
Meanwhile Mr. Horatio Heatherbloom had walked slowly on; he was now
some distance from the one-time "emporium." Where should he go? His
fortunes had not been enhanced materially by his brief excursion into
the realms of melody; he had thirty cents in cash and a
"dollar-and-a-half appetite." An untidy place where they displayed a
bargain assortment of creature comforts attracted his gaze. He thought
of meals in the past--of caviar, a la Russe, three dollars and a half a
portion; peaches Melba, three francs each at the Cafe de Paris; truffled
capon from Normandy; duck after the manner of the incomparable Frederic.
About half a dozen peaches Melba would have appealed to him now; he
looked, instead, with the eyes of longing at a codfish ball. Oh,
glorious appetite, mocking recollections of hours of satiety!
Should he yield to temptation? He stopped; then prudence prevailed. The
day was yet too young to give way recklessly to casual gastronomic
allurements, so he stepped on again quickly, averting his head from shop
windows. Lest his caution and conservatism might give way, he started
to turn into a side street--but didn't.
Instead, he laughed slightly to himself. What! flee from an outpost of
time-worn celery? beat an inglorious retreat before a phalanx of
machine-made pies? He would look them (figuratively) in the eye. Having,
as it were, fairly stared out of countenance the bland pies and beamed
with stern contempt upon the "droopy," Preraphaelite celery, he went,
better satisfied, on his way. It is these little victories that count;
at that moment Mr. Heatherbloom marched on like a knight of old for
steadfastness of purpose. His lips veiled a covert smile, as if behind
the hard mask of life he saw something a little odd and whimsical,
appealing to some secret sense of humor that even hunger could not
wholly annihilate. The lock of hair seemed to droop rather pathetically
at that moment; his sensitive features were slightly pinched; his face
was pale. It would probably be paler before the day was over;
_n'importe!_ The future had to be met--for better, or worse. Multitudes
passed this way and that; an elevated went crashing by; devastating
influences seemed to surround him. His slender form stiffened.
When next he stopped it was to linger, not in front of an eating
establishment, but before a bulletin-board upon which was pasted a page
of newspaper "want ads" for "trained" men, in all walks of life.
"Trained" men? Hateful word! How often had he encountered it! Ah, here
was one advertisement without the "trained"; he devoured it eagerly. The
item, like an oasis in the desert of his general incapacity and
uselessness, exercised an odd fascination for him in spite of the
absolute impossibility of his professing to possess a fractional part of
those moral attributes demanded by the fair advertiser. She--a Miss Van
Rolsen--was seeking a paragon, not a person. Nevertheless, he resolved
to assail the apparently unassailable, and repaired to a certain
ultrafashionable neighborhood of the town.
Before a brownstone front that bore the number he sought, he paused a
moment, drew a deep breath and started to walk up the front steps. But
with a short laugh he came suddenly to a halt half-way up; looked over
the stone balustrade down at the other entrance below--the
tradesmen's--the butchers', the bakers', the candlestick makers'--and,
yes, the servants'--their way in!--his?
He went down the steps and walked on and away as a matter of course, but
once more stopped. He had done a good deal of going this way and that,
and then stopping, during the last few months. Things had to be worked
out, and sometimes his brain didn't seem to move very quickly.
To be worked out! He now surveyed the butchers' and the bakers' (and
yes, the servants') entrance with casual or philosophic interest from
the vantage point of the other side of the street. It wasn't different
from any other of the entrances of the kind but it held his gaze. Then
he walked across the street again and went in--or down. It didn't really
seem now such a bad kind of entrance when you came to investigate it, in
a high impersonal way; not half so bad as the subway, and people didn't
mind that.
Still Mr. Heatherbloom experienced a peculiar thrill when he put up his
thumb, pressed a button, and wondered what next would happen. Who
answered doors down here,--the maid--the cook--the laundress? He felt
himself to be very indistinct and vague standing there in the shadow,
and tried to assume a nonchalant bearing. He wondered just what bearing
_was_ proper under the circumstances; he cherished indistinct
recollections of having heard or read that the butcher's boy is usually
favored with a broadly defying and independent visage; that he comes in
whistling and goes forth swaggering. A cat-meat man he had once looked
upon from the upper lodge of front steps somewhere in the dim long ago,
had possessed a melancholy manner and countenance.
How should he comport himself; what should he say--when the inevitable
happened; when the time came to say something? How lead the conversation
by natural and easy stages to the purport of his visit? He rehearsed a
few sentences, then straightway forgot them. Why did they keep him
waiting so long? Did they always keep people as long as that--down here?
He put his thumb again--
"Well, what do you want?" The door had opened and a buxom female, arms
akimbo, regarded him. Mr. Heatherbloom repaid her gaze with interest; it
_was_ the cook, then, who acted as door tender of these regions
subterranean. He feared by her expression that he had interrupted her in
the preparation of some esculent delicacy, and with the fear was born a
parenthetical inquiry; he wondered what that delicacy might be? But
forbearing to inquire he stated his business.
"You'll be the thirteenth that's been 'turned down' to-day for that
job!" observed cook blandly. With which cheering assurance she consigned
him to some one else--a maid with a tipped-up nose--and presently he
found himself being "shown up"; that was the expression used.
The room into which he was ushered was a parlor. Absently he seated
himself. The maid tittered. He looked at her--or rather the tipped-up
nose, an attractive bit of anatomy. Saucy, provocative! Mr.
Heatherbloom's head tilted a little; he surveyed the detail with the
look of a connoisseur. She colored, went; but remained in the hall to
peer. There were many articles of virtu lying around--on tables or in
cabinets--and the caller's appearance was against him. He would bear
watching; he had the impudence--Just fancy his sitting there in a chair!
He was leaning back now as if he enjoyed that atmosphere of luxury;
surveying, too, the paintings and the bronzes with interest. But for no
good reason, thought the maid; then gave a start of surprise. The hand
of the suspicious-looking caller had lifted involuntarily to his breast
pocket; a mechanical movement such as a young gentleman might make who
was reaching for a cigarette case. Did he intend--actually intend
to--but the caller's hand fell; he sat forward suddenly on the edge of
his chair and seemed for the first time aware that his attitude partook
of the anomalous; for gathering up his shabby hat from the gorgeous
rug, he abruptly rose.
Just in time to confront, or be confronted by, an austere lady in stiff
satin or brocade and with bristling iron-gray hair! He noticed, however,
that unlike the maid, she had a very prominent nose--that _now_ sniffed!
"Good heavens! What a frightful odor of gasolene. Jane, where are my
salts?"
Jane rushed in; at the same time four or five dogs that had followed in
the lady's wake began to bark as if they, too, were echoing the plaint:
"What a frightful odor! Salts, Jane, salts!" And as they barked in many
keys, but always fortissimo, they ran frantically this way and that as
though chased by somebody, or something (perhaps the odor of gasolene),
or chasing one another in a mad outburst of canine exuberance.