Van Bibber and Others - Richard Harding Davis
But then he remembered overhearing Carstairs tell a brother-artist
that he had paid two thousand francs for it, and, though he did not
know how much a franc might be, two thousand of anything was too much
to wear around at a masquerade ball. But the thing haunted him. He was
sure if Miss Casey saw him in that suit she would never look at
Charlie Macklin again.
"They wouldn't be in the same town with me," said Hefty. "And I'd get
two of the prizes, sure."
He was in great perplexity, when good luck or bad luck settled it for
him.
"Burke," said Mr. Carstairs, "Mrs. Carstairs and I are going out of
town for New Year's Day, and will be gone until Sunday. Take a turn
through the rooms each night, will you? as well as the studio, and see
that everything is all right." That clinched the matter for Hefty. He
determined to go as far as the Palace Garden as the Marquis de
Neuville, and say nothing whatever to Mr. Carstairs about it.
Stuff McGovern, who drove a night-hawk and who was a particular
admirer of Hefty's, even though as a cabman he was in a higher social
scale than the driver of an ice-cart, agreed to carry Hefty and his
half-ton of armor to the Garden, and call for him when the ball was
over.
"Holee smoke!" gasped Mr. McGovern, as Hefty stumbled heavily across
the pavement with an overcoat over his armor and his helmet under his
arm. "Do you expect to do much dancing in that sheet-iron?"
"It's the looks of the thing I'm gambling on," said Hefty. "I look
like a locomoteeve when I get this stovepipe on me head."
Hefty put on his helmet in the cab and pulled down the visor, and when
he alighted the crowd around the door was too greatly awed to jeer,
but stood silent with breathless admiration. He had great difficulty
in mounting the somewhat steep flight of stairs which led to the
dancing-room, and considered gloomily that in the event of a fire he
would have a very small chance of getting out alive. He made so much
noise coming up that the committeemen thought some one was rolling
some one else down the stairs, and came out to see the fight. They
observed Hefty's approach with whispered awe and amazement.
"Wot are you?" asked the man at the door. "Youse needn't give your
real name," he explained, politely. "But you've got to give something
if youse are trying for a prize, see?"
"I'm the Black Knight," said Hefty in a hoarse voice, "the Marquis de
Newveal; and when it comes to scrappin' wid der perlice, I'm de best
in der business."
This last statement was entirely impromptu, and inspired by the
presence of Policeman McCluire, who, with several others, had been
detailed to keep order. McCluire took this challenge calmly, and
looked down and smiled at Hefty's feet.
"He looks like a stove on two legs," he said to the crowd. The crowd,
as a matter of policy, laughed.
"You'll look like a fool standing on his head in a snow-bank if you
talk impudent to me," said Hefty, epigrammatically, from behind the
barrier of his iron mask. What might have happened next did not
happen, because at that moment the music sounded for the grand march,
and Hefty and the policeman were swept apart by the crowd of Indians,
Mexicans, courtiers, negro minstrels, and clowns. Hefty stamped across
the waxed floor about as lightly as a safe could do it if a safe could
walk. He found Miss Casey after the march and disclosed his identity.
She promised not to tell, and was plainly delighted and flattered at
being seen with the distinct sensation of the ball. "Say, Hefty," she
said, "they just ain't in it with you. You'll take the two prizes
sure. How do I look?"
"Out o' sight," said Hefty. "Never saw you lookin' better."
"That's good," said Miss Casey, simply, and with a sigh of
satisfaction.
Hefty was undoubtedly a great success. The men came around him and
pawed him, and felt the dents in the armor, and tried the weight of it
by holding up one of his arms, and handled him generally as though he
were a freak in a museum. "Let 'em alone," said Hefty to Miss Casey,
"I'm not sayin' a word. Let the judges get on to the sensation I'm
a-makin,' and I'll walk off with the prizes. The crowd is wid me
sure."
At midnight the judges pounded on a table for order, and announced
that after much debate they gave the first prize to Miss Lizzie
Cannon, of Hester Street, for "having the most handsomest costume on
the floor, that of Columbia." The fact that Mr. "Buck" Masters, who
was one of the judges, and who was engaged to Miss Cannon, had said
that he would pound things out of the other judges if they gave the
prize elsewhere was not known, but the decision met with as general
satisfaction as could well be expected.
"The second prize," said the judges, "goes to the gent calling himself
the Black Knight--him in the iron leggings--and the other prize for
the most original costume goes to him, too." Half the crowd cheered at
this, and only one man hissed. Hefty, filled with joy and with the
anticipation of the elegance the ice-pitcher would lend to his flat
when he married Miss Casey, and how conveniently he could fill it,
turned on this gentleman and told him that only geese hissed.
The gentleman, who had spent much time on his costume, and who had
been assured by each judge on each occasion that evening when he had
treated him to beer that he would get the prize, told Hefty to go lie
down. It has never been explained just what horrible insult lies back
of this advice, but it is a very dangerous thing to tell a gentleman
to do. Hefty lifted one foot heavily and bore down on the disappointed
masker like an ironclad in a heavy sea. But before he could reach him
Policeman McCluire, mindful of the insult put upon him by this
stranger, sprang between them and said: "Here, now, no scrapping here;
get out of this," and shoved Hefty back with his hand. Hefty uttered a
mighty howl of wrath and long-cherished anger, and lurched forward,
but before he could reach his old-time enemy three policemen had him
around the arms and by the leg, and he was as effectually stopped as
though he had been chained to the floor.
"Let go o' me," said Hefty, wildly. "You're smotherin' me. Give me a
fair chance at him."
But they would not give him any sort of a chance. They rushed him down
the steep stairs, and while McCluire ran ahead two more pushed back
the crowd that had surged uncertainly forward to the rescue. If Hefty
had declared his identity the police would have had a very sad time of
it; but that he must not get Mr. Carstairs's two-thousand-franc suit
into trouble was all that filled Hefty's mind, and all that he wanted
was to escape. Three policemen walked with him down the street. They
said they knew where he lived, and that they were only going to take
him home. They said this because they were afraid the crowd would
interfere if it imagined Hefty was being led to the precinct
station-house.
But Hefty knew where he was going as soon as he turned the next corner
and was started off in the direction of the station-house. There was
still quite a small crowd at his heels, and Stuff McGovern was
driving along at the side anxious to help, but fearful to do anything,
as Hefty had told him not to let any one know who his fare had been
and that his incognito must be preserved.
The blood rushed to Hefty's head like hot liquor. To be arrested for
nothing, and by that thing McCluire, and to have the noble
coat-of-mail of the Marquis de Neuville locked up in a dirty cell and
probably ruined, and to lose his position with Carstairs, who had
always treated him so well, it was terrible! It could not be! He
looked through his visor; to the right and to the left a policeman
walked on each side of him with his hand on his iron sleeve, and
McCluire marched proudly before. The dim lamps of McGovern's
night-hawk shone at the side of the procession and showed the crowd
trailing on behind. Suddenly Hefty threw up his visor "Stuff," he
cried, "are youse with me?"
He did not wait for any answer, but swung back his two iron arms and
then brought them forward with a sweep on to the back of the necks of
the two policemen. They went down and forward as if a lamp-post had
fallen on them, but were up again in a second. But before they could
rise Hefty set his teeth, and with a gurgle of joy butted his iron
helmet into McCluire's back and sent him flying forward into a
snow-bank. Then he threw himself on him and buried him under three
hundred pounds of iron and flesh and blood, and beat him with his
mailed hand over the head and choked the snow and ice down into his
throat and nostrils.
"You'll club me again, will you?" he cried. "You'll send me to the
Island?" The two policemen were pounding him with their night-sticks
as effectually as though they were rapping on a door-step; and the
crowd, seeing this, fell on them from behind, led by Stuff McGovern
with his whip, and rolled them in the snow and tried to tear off their
coat-tails, which means money out of the policeman's own pocket for
repairs, and hurts more than broken ribs, as the Police Benefit
Society pays for them.
"Now then, boys, get me into a cab," cried Hefty. They lifted him in
and obligingly blew out the lights so that the police could not see
its number, and Stuff drove Hefty proudly home. "I guess I'm even with
that cop now," said Hefty as he stood at the door of the studio
building perspiring and happy; "but if them cops ever find out who the
Black Knight was, I'll go away for six months on the Island. I guess,"
he added, thoughtfully, "I'll have to give them two prizes up."
OUTSIDE THE PRISON
It was about ten o'clock on the night before Christmas, and very cold.
Christmas Eve is a very-much-occupied evening everywhere, in a
newspaper office especially so, and all of the twenty and odd
reporters were out that night on assignments, and Conway and Bronson
were the only two remaining in the local room. They were the very best
of friends, in the office and out of it; but as the city editor had
given Conway the Christmas-eve story to write instead of Bronson, the
latter was jealous, and their relations were strained. I use the word
"story" in the newspaper sense, where everything written for the paper
is a story, whether it is an obituary, or a reading notice, or a
dramatic criticism, or a descriptive account of the crowded streets
and the lighted shop-windows of a Christmas Eve. Conway had finished
his story quite half an hour before, and should have sent it out to be
mutilated by the blue pencil of a copy editor; but as the city editor
had twice appeared at the door of the local room, as though looking
for some one to send out on another assignment, both Conway and
Bronson kept on steadily writing against time, to keep him off until
some one else came in. Conway had written his concluding paragraph a
dozen times, and Bronson had conscientiously polished and repolished a
three-line "personal" he was writing, concerning a gentleman unknown
to fame, and who would remain unknown to fame until that paragraph
appeared in print.
The city editor blocked the door for the third time, and looked at
Bronson with a faint smile of sceptical appreciation.
"Is that very important?" he asked.
Bronson said, "Not very," doubtfully, as though he did not think his
opinion should be trusted on such a matter, and eyed the paragraph
with critical interest. Conway rushed his pencil over his paper, with
the tip of his tongue showing between his teeth, and became suddenly
absorbed.
"Well, then, if you are not _very_ busy," said the city editor, "I
wish you would go down to Moyamensing. They release that bank-robber
Quinn to-night, and it ought to make a good story. He was sentenced
for six years, I think, but he has been commuted for good conduct and
bad health. There was a preliminary story about it in the paper this
morning, and you can get all the facts from that. It's Christmas Eve,
and all that sort of thing, and you ought to be able to make something
of it."
There are certain stories written for a Philadelphia newspaper that
circle into print with the regularity of the seasons. There is the
"First Sunday in the Park," for example, which comes on the first warm
Sunday in the spring, and which is made up of a talk with a park
policeman who guesses at the number of people who have passed through
the gates that day, and announcements of the re-painting of the
boat-houses and the near approach of the open-air concerts. You end
this story with an allusion to the presence in the park of the
"wan-faced children of the tenement," and the worthy workingmen (if it
is a one-cent paper which the workingmen are likely to read), and tell
how they worshipped nature in the open air, instead of saying that in
place of going properly to church, they sat around in their
shirt-sleeves and scattered egg-shells and empty beer bottles and
greasy Sunday newspapers over the green grass for which the worthy men
who do not work pay taxes. Then there is the "Hottest Sunday in the
Park," which comes up a month later, when you increase the park
policeman's former guess by fifteen thousand, and give it a news value
by adding a list of the small boys drowned in bathing.
The "First Haul of Shad" in the Delaware is another reliable story, as
is also the first ice fit for skating in the park; and then there is
always the Thanksgiving story, when you ask the theatrical managers
what they have to be thankful for, and have them tell you, "For the
best season that this theatre has ever known, sir," and offer you a
pass for two; and there is the New Year's story when you interview
the local celebrities as to what they most want for the new year, and
turn their commonplace replies into something clever. There is also a
story on Christmas Day, and the one Conway had just written on the
street scenes of Christmas Eve. After you have written one of these
stories two or three times, you find it just as easy to write it in
the office as anywhere else. One gentleman of my acquaintance did this
most unsuccessfully. He wrote his Christmas-day story with the aid of
a directory and the file of a last year's paper. From the year-old
file he obtained the names of all the charitable institutions which
made a practice of giving their charges presents and Christmas trees,
and from the directory he drew the names of their presidents and
boards of directors; but as he was unfortunately lacking in religious
knowledge and a sense of humor, he included all the Jewish
institutions on the list, and they wrote to the paper and rather
objected to being represented as decorating Christmas trees, or in any
way celebrating that particular day. But of all stale, flat, and
unprofitable stories, this releasing of prisoners from Moyamensing was
the worst. It seemed to Bronson that they were always releasing
prisoners; he wondered how they possibly left themselves enough to
make a county prison worth while. And the city editor for some reason
always chose him to go down and see them come out. As they were
released at midnight, and never did anything of moment when they were
released but to immediately cross over to the nearest saloon with all
their disreputable friends who had gathered to meet them, it was
trying to one whose regard for the truth was at first unshaken, and
whose imagination at the last became exhausted. So, when Bronson heard
he had to release another prisoner in pathetic descriptive prose, he
lost heart and patience, and rebelled.
"Andy," he said, sadly and impressively, "if I have written that story
once, I have written it twenty times. I have described Moyamensing
with the moonlight falling on its walls; I have described it with the
walls shining in the rain; I have described it covered with the pure
white snow that falls on the just as well as on the criminal; and I
have made the bloodhounds in the jail-yard howl dismally--and there
are no bloodhounds, as you very well know; and I have made released
convicts declare their intention to lead a better and a purer life,
when they only said, 'If youse put anything in the paper about me,
I'll lay for you;' and I have made them fall on the necks of their
weeping wives, when they only asked, 'Did you bring me some tobacco?
I'm sick for a pipe;' and I will not write any more about it; and if I
do, I will do it here in the office, and that is all there is to it."
"Oh yes, I think you will," said the city editor, easily.
"Let some one else do it," Bronson pleaded--"some one who hasn't done
the thing to death, who will get a new point of view--" Conway, who
had stopped writing, and had been grinning at Bronson over the city
editor's back, grew suddenly grave and absorbed, and began to write
again with feverish industry. "Conway, now, he's great at that sort of
thing. He's--"
The city editor laid a clipping from the morning paper on the desk,
and took a roll of bills from his pocket.
"There's the preliminary story," he said. "Conway wrote it, and it
moved several good people to stop at the business office on their way
down-town and leave something for the released convict's Christmas
dinner. The story is a very good story, and impressed them," he went
on, counting out the bills as he spoke, "to the extent of fifty five
dollars. You take that and give it to him, and tell him to forget the
past, and keep to the narrow road, and leave jointed jimmies alone.
That money will give you an excuse for talking to him, and he may say
something grateful to the paper, and comment on its enterprise. Come,
now, get up. I've spoiled you two boys. You've been sulking all the
evening because Conway got that story, and now you are sulking because
you have got a better one. Think of it--getting out of prison after
four years, and on Christmas Eve! It's a beautiful story just as it
is. But," he added, grimly, "you'll try to improve on it, and grow
maudlin. I believe sometimes you'd turn a red light on the dying
gladiator."
The conscientiously industrious Conway, now that his fear of being
sent out again was at rest, laughed at this with conciliatory mirth,
and Bronson smiled sheepishly, and peace was restored between them.
But as Bronson capitulated, he tried to make conditions. "Can I take a
cab?" he asked.
The city editor looked at his watch. "Yes," he said; "you'd better;
it's late, and we go to press early to-night, remember."
"And can I send my stuff down by the driver and go home?" Bronson went
on. "I can write it up there, and leave the cab at Fifteenth Street,
near our house. I don't want to come all the way down-town again."
"No," said the chief; "the driver might lose it, or get drunk, or
something."
"Then can I take Gallegher with me to bring it back?" asked Bronson.
Gallegher was one of the office-boys.
The city editor stared at him grimly. "Wouldn't you like a
type-writer, and Conway to write the story for you, and a hot supper
sent after you?" he asked.
"No; Gallegher will do," Bronson said.
Gallegher had his overcoat on and a night-hawk at the door when
Bronson came down the stairs and stopped to light a cigar in the
hallway.
"Go to Moyamensing," said Gallegher to the driver.
Gallegher looked at the man to see if he would show himself
sufficiently human to express surprise at their visiting such a place
on such a night, but the man only gathered up his reins impassively,
and Gallegher stepped into the cab, with a feeling of disappointment
at having missed a point. He rubbed the frosted panes and looked out
with boyish interest at the passing holiday-makers. The pavements were
full of them and their bundles, and the street as well, with wavering
lines of medical students and clerks blowing joyfully on the horns,
and pushing through the crowd with one hand on the shoulder of the man
in front. The Christmas greens hung in long lines, and only stopped
where a street crossed, and the shop fronts were so brilliant that the
street was as light as day.
It was so light that Bronson could read the clipping the city editor
had given him.
"What is it we are going on?" asked Gallegher.
Gallegher enjoyed many privileges; they were given him principally, I
think, because if they had not been given him he would have taken
them. He was very young and small, but sturdily built, and he had a
general knowledge which was entertaining, except when he happened to
know more about anything than you did. It was impossible to force him
to respect your years, for he knew all about you, from the number of
lines that had been cut off your last story to the amount of your
very small salary; and there was an awful simplicity about him, and a
certain sympathy, or it may have been merely curiosity, which showed
itself towards every one with whom he came in contact. So when he
asked Bronson what he was going to do, Bronson read the clipping in
his hand aloud.
"'Henry Quinn,'" Bronson read, "'who was sentenced to six years in
Moyamensing Prison for the robbery of the Second National Bank at
Tacony, will be liberated to-night. His sentence has been commuted,
owing to good conduct and to the fact that for the last year he has
been in very ill health. Quinn was night watchman at the Tacony bank
at the time of the robbery, and, as was shown at the trial, was in
reality merely the tool of the robbers. He confessed to complicity in
the robbery, but disclaimed having any knowledge of the later
whereabouts of the money, which has never been recovered. This was his
first offence, and he had, up to the time of the robbery, borne a very
excellent reputation. Although but lately married, his married life
had been a most unhappy one, his friends claiming that his wife and
her mother were the most to blame. Quinn took to spending his evenings
away from home, and saw a great deal of a young woman who was supposed
to have been the direct cause of his dishonesty. He admitted, in fact,
that it was to get money to enable him to leave the country with her
that he agreed to assist the bank-robbers. The paper acknowledges the
receipt of ten dollars from M.J.C. to be given to Quinn on his
release, also two dollars from Cash and three from Mary."
Gallegher's comment on this was one of disdain. "There isn't much in
that," he said, "is there? Just a man that's done time once, and
they're letting him out. Now, if it was Kid McCoy, or Billy Porter, or
some one like that--eh?" Gallegher had as high a regard for a string
of aliases after a name as others have for a double line of K.C.B.'s
and C.S.L.'s, and a man who had offended but once was not worthy of
his consideration. "And you will work in those bloodhounds again, too,
I suppose," he said, gloomily.
The reporter pretended not to hear this, and to doze in the corner,
and Gallegher whistled softly to himself and twisted luxuriously on
the cushions. It was a half-hour later when Bronson awoke to find he
had dozed in all seriousness, as a sudden current of cold air cut in
his face, and he saw Gallegher standing with his hand on the open
door, with the gray wall of the prison rising behind him.
Moyamensing looks like a prison. It is solidly, awfully suggestive of
the sternness of its duty and of the hopelessness of its failing in
it. It stands like a great fortress of the Middle Ages in a quadrangle
of cheap brick and white dwelling-houses, and a few mean shops and
tawdry saloons. It has the towers of a fortress, the pillars of an
Egyptian temple; but more impressive than either of these is the
awful simplicity of the bare, uncompromising wall that shuts out the
prying eyes of the world and encloses those who are no longer of the
world. It is hard to imagine what effect it has on those who remain in
the houses about it. One would think they would sooner live
overlooking a graveyard than such a place, with its mystery and
hopelessness and unending silence, its hundreds of human inmates whom
no one can see or hear, but who, one feels, are there.
Bronson, as he looked up at the prison, familiar as it was to him,
admitted that he felt all this, by a frown and a slight shrug of the
shoulders. "You are to wait here until twelve," he said to the driver
of the nighthawk. "Don't go far away."
Bronson and the boy walked to an oyster-saloon that made one of the
line of houses facing the gates of the prison on the opposite side of
the street, and seated themselves at one of the tables from which
Bronson could see out towards the northern entrance of the jail. He
told Gallegher to eat something, so that the saloon-keeper would make
them welcome and allow them to remain, and Gallegher climbed up on a
high chair, and heard the man shout back his order to the kitchen with
a faint smile of anticipation. It was eleven o'clock, but it was even
then necessary to begin to watch, as there was a tradition in the
office that prisoners with influence were sometimes released before
their sentence was quite fulfilled, and Bronson eyed the "released
prisoners' gate" from across the top of his paper. The electric lights
before the prison showed every stone in its wall, and turned the icy
pavements into black mirrors of light. On a church steeple a block
away a round clock-face told the minutes, and Bronson wondered, if
they dragged so slowly to him, how tardily they must follow one
another to the men in the prison, who could not see the clock's face.
The office-boy finished his supper, and went out to explore the
neighborhood, and came back later to say that it was growing colder,
and that he had found the driver in a saloon, but that he was, to all
appearances, still sober. Bronson suggested that he had better
sacrifice himself once again and eat something for the good of the
house, and Gallegher assented listlessly, with the comment that one
"might as well be eatin' as doin' nothin'." He went out again
restlessly, and was gone for a quarter of an hour, and Bronson had
re-read the day's paper and the signs on the wall and the clipping he
had read before, and was thinking of going out to find him, when
Gallegher put his head and arm through the door and beckoned to him
from the outside. Bronson wrapped his coat up around his throat and
followed him leisurely to the street. Gallegher halted at the curb,
and pointed across to the figure of a woman pacing up and down in the
glare of the electric lights, and making a conspicuous shadow on the
white surface of the snow.