PART THREE
Immediatelyupon the closing of the Stock Exchange at noon on Saturday, Theodore Dodge came to Joe Kaplan’s office. Dodge was a stockbroker, who enjoyed the prestige of being known as the financial advisor, and representative on ’change of Cooper Gillett, present head of the famous old New York family. Joe was expecting a communication from that quarter. The Gillett millions had always been invested in New York real estate, but Cooper Gillett was interesting himself more and more in Wall street. Only a few people knew that it was Joe Kaplan who had introduced him to the excitements of that game.
Dodge plumped himself down, and without preamble said gloomily: “It closed two points higher.”
Joe nodded, good-humoredly. All the strings of this affair were safely in his hands, and he had only to jerk a finger here and there, to make things come about as he wished.
“Of course the stock began to show strength as soon as I stopped selling,” Dodge went on: “Everybody was watching me. I sent three messages to Cooper Gillett from the floor, and got no answer. Finally I left the floor, and went to his office. Keep and Shriver were with him. He was biting his nails in a blue funk. When I asked for additional orders to sell, he flew into a passion. ‘I’m already short forty thousand shares of the damned stock!’ he cried. ‘Suppose she jumps five points more? I should be seriously embarrassed!’
“We all laughed a little at this,” Dodge went on. “ ‘Seriously embarrassed’ sounded comic, coming from him. ‘How about the rest of us?’ said I. ‘We have all put every cent we possessed into this.’
“ ‘The more fools, you!’ he said.
“ ‘We followed you in,’ I reminded him.
“ ‘Yah! and now you look to me to get you out again!’ he snarled. ‘I must throw away a million maybe, to save your paltry thousands!’
“I gave it to him straight, then. ‘Look here,’ said I, ‘that’s not the point. Never mind what we stand to lose. I’m your broker, and I’m supposed to give you honest advice. Well, here it is! Everybody knows you can’t go into a deal like this, and stop half way. You might just as well stand on the corner, and pitch your money down a sewer opening. As soon as I stopped selling for you, the stock began to rise. When it becomes generally known that you have released the pressure on it, it will rebound like a rubber ball. It won’t be a question of five points rise then, but ten, and very likely twenty. You’ll lose half a million dollars, and become a laughing-stock. I’ll be ruined. . . .’
“ ‘On the other hand,’ I said, ‘if you see the thing through, youcan’tlose! This is simply a duel between you and the Mattisons of Chicago. Well, you’ve got more money and more credit than that crowd. As yet, you haven’t begun to touch your resources. You’re bound to beat them out in the end. . . . Now what are my instructions for the opening on Monday?’
“But he only sat there glowering and biting his fingers. I couldn’t get him up to the sticking-point. Your name was never mentioned, but we could all see that he wanted you to buck him up, and wouldn’t admit it. You must see him to-day, Kaplan, or we’ll all be in the soup. He’s going out of town over Sunday.”
“But I can’t see him unless he sends for me,” Joe objected. “If I go after him, he is bound to take the defensive, just as he did with you.”
“He’ll never send for you,” said Dodge gloomily, “because he’s ashamed to admit that a man as young as you has so much influence over him. . . . Couldn’t you run into him as if by accident?”
“What are his movements?”
“The four of us are lunching at Martin’s at one o’clock. After we’ve eaten, I’ll steer them into the café. Anybody could drop into the café.”
“But the three of you being there, he’d smell a rat for certain,” said Joe smiling.
“You could cover your tracks; you’re clever at that. . . . Youmustsee him before he goes out of town!”
“Well, look here,” said Joe. “I’ll drop into Martin’s with some other fellows, see? It will be up to you to make Cooper Gillett invite me to your table.”
“Sure!” said Dodge, vastly relieved.
“And here’s a piece of advice for you,” Joe went on. “Don’t give him an indigestion of the subject during lunch. On the other hand, you mustn’t enter into a conspiracy of silence either, orthatwill make him suspicious. If the subject comes up, speak your minds on it, and let it drop again. Never nag a millionaire. That’s my motto.”
Joe came into Martin’s by the Broadway entrance, at the heels of the two friends he had picked up for the occasion. On Saturday afternoons everybody who was anybody in New York desired to show themselves at Martin’s, and the café was crowded. Joe was aware, as he passed down the room, that many heads were turned to follow him. He knew that they were beginning to call him “the Boy Wonder of the Street” and his heart exulted. Already he had succeeded in getting his head well above the ruck of the town.
He and his friends sat themselves down at a table against the back wall. The friends had their instructions. The three put their heads close together as if they had serious business to discuss, or some delightful plot to lay. Joe seemed not to see Cooper Gillett and his party who were seated at a larger table in the center of the room. In addition to Dodge, Gillett had with him Judge Keep, one of his attorneys; and Eddie Shriver, a young relative of his wife’s.
Out of the tail of his eye, Joe perceived the eager resentment with which Gillett beheldhim. He could almost hear the millionaire say: “There’s the damned kid now! He don’t appear to be worrying!” There was no occasion for Dodge to exercise any diplomacy; for Gillett immediately dispatched Shriver to Joe’s table. Shriver was a good-looking young fellow with a blond beard, who did everything he was told.
“Mr. Gillett wants to speak to you,” he said to Joe.
Joe started with pleased surprise. “Hello, Eddie!” Looking eagerly beyond him, he waved his hands to his friends at the center table. Many people in the place were looking at them. “Meet Mr. Cummings and Mr. Underwood . . . Mr. Shriver. I’ll be with you in five minutes, Eddie. There are one or two things I have to settle with these gentlemen before they hustle for their train.”
Joe kept the multi-millionaire waiting a good quarter of an hour. Then, after bidding an ostentatious good-bye to his young friends, he strolled over. Joe found the atmosphere of Martin’s pleasantly stimulating. Before any of the quartet had a chance to speak, he said cheerfully:
“That was a nice little rise we had just before the close of the market.”
This diverted what Gillett was about to say. He looked disconcerted.
Joe occupied himself with a cigarette. “I hope you all sold while the selling was good,” he remarked.
“I’m already short forty thousand shares,” grumbled Gillett.
“The shorter you are, the more money you’ll make,” said Joe.
“How about Monday?”
“She’ll rise a couple of points more. Sell every share you can find a buyer for! . . . It wasn’t such a bad move to hold off for awhile. You’ll have a better market, Monday, because of it.”
An uncertain look came into Gillett’s red face. Joe caused his own face to look wooden. The stockbroker lowered his eyes. He could see that the current was already setting the other way.
“How about that item on the news ticker to-day?” asked Judge Keep. “It was stated that our new machine, wouldn’t work.”
“And it won’t either,” grumbled Shriver. “I can’t do anything with it.”
“I instigated that story,” said Joe, flicking the ash off his cigarette.
Gillett stared. “What the deuce for?” he demanded.
“To bring buyers for Mattison’s stock into the market,” said Joe. “We can’t continue to sell the stock short if there are no buyers. The thing was beginning to stagnate.”
“But we got all our publicity on that new machine. . . .”
“What of it?” said Joe. “They can’t take it away from us now. A new invention is news, but the failure of a new invention isn’t news. We’ll tap new sources of publicity.”
“But suppose I gave the order to sell, and Mattison’s stock still rises on Monday?” said Gillett.
“An hour or two after the opening she’ll flop,” said Joe casually.
“How do you know?”
Taking a paper from his pocket, he spread it out on the table. It was the page proof of a Sunday article for the newspapers, embellished with photographs. Joe, grinning, read out the headlines:
“Cooper Gillett buys another big factory! The young financier hot-foot on the trail of the trust!”
“Me, young?” said Gillett grinning, too.
“It endears you to the public,” said Joe.
“I didn’t buy the factory. I only have an option on it.”
“What’s in a word! It ’ll all be forgotten in a couple of days. . . . This will appear to-morrow in five of the biggest cities in the country. A whole page, see? It recapitulates the story of our other three factories. . . .”
“Which have never manufactured anything . . .” put in Shriver.
“The public doesn’t know that.”
“Good God! how much is this going to cost me?” asked Gillett, rapping the paper.
“Not a cent,” said Joe, grinning. “That’s the beauty of it. The magic name of Gillett is always news, see? It’s been accustomed to the front page for four generations. And what’s more, trust-busting is now the latest popular sport, and we got in just right. Mattison is the trust, and we’re the noble champions of the down-trodden common people! We’ve got him in a position where he can’t fight back. This story will send his stock off four or five points. That’ll give you a chance to cover, if you’re scared. As for me, I mean to hold on for a week longer, if I can string the banks along.
“Mattison’s not at the end of his rope yet. By straining his credit, he’ll be able to maintain his stock at a decent level for another week. I’ve got another story for next Sunday, and then he’ll be done. The bottom will fall out of the Trust. We’ll make a killing! When that happens, you must not be contented with covering, but buy! buy! buy! Spread your orders through a dozen houses.
“Mattison will have to come to us, then. We will ask for a million of their stock to cease hostilities. Technically, of course, he will be buying out our company. A million for our four junk factories which have never manufactured anything, and the good will of our business—it is to laugh! This, together with what you’ve bought on the market, will give you a controlling interest in the trust, and you will then be elected director and vice-president and the stock will jump twenty-five . . . forty points! Gee! what a killing!”
Gillett turned to Dodge. “Look here,” he said, “you wanted instructions for Monday. Dump a block of five thousand shares on the market at the opening; and go on selling as long as you can find takers. I don’t set any limit.”
Broad smiles surrounded the table. Only Joe looked indifferent.
An uncomfortable thought occurred to Gillett. “I say,” he objected, rubbing his lip; “when it comes out that I have sold out to the Trust, and been elected a vice-president, it’ll put me in a rotten light with the public.”
“Oh, it’ll all be forgotten in a week,” said Joe smoothly. “—By everybody except Mattison. We’ll give the public something else to think about if you like. . . . Look here, if you want to stand well with the public, I’ve got another scheme. . . .”
His three hearers leaned toward him.
“There’s been too many Trust Companies formed under the new banking law. Some of them are damned hard up for business. We’ll pick on one of them, and let it be quietly circulated around that it’s in a bad way, see? A bank is very sensitive to that sort of thing. We can pick up whatever stock comes into the market at a discount; and when our bank gets good and groggy—if there’s a run on it, so much the better; you can step forward and deposit a million in cash. Think of the publicity! They’d elect you president or anything else you were willing to take; and the stock would jump twenty-five points. You’d be hailed in the newspapers as the savior of the institution, and incidentally make a handsome profit, see? . . . It’s just as easy to work it one way as the other. . . .”
Business having been disposed of, the talk around the table slipped into undress. Joe, watchfully keeping all four of his auditors in play, made the running. He had diverse elements to deal with; for while Gillett and Dodge were frankly high livers, old Judge Keep was the pillar of some church or another; Eddie Shriver an easy-going young husband and father. Different as they were, they all yielded to Joe’s insinuating looseness. Joe had a smiling way of taking the worst for granted that the most prudish of men found difficult to withstand. He worked to bring a certain sly, sheepish grin into the faces of his hearers; and when that appeared, he knew they were his.
Secretly, Joe was weary of his present audience. They were too dull; too old; his power over them was too easy to exert; they made him feel like a second-rate performer. Glancing around the room to see who was looking at him, Joe perceived that a figure, vaguely familiar, had taken a seat at one of the small tables by the Twenty-Sixth street windows. It was that kid, Wilfred Pell, the white-faced kid; the kid with the funny look in his eyes.
Joe was immediately interested. That kid had always teased his interest; it was hard to say why, because it was a footless sort of kid; he cut no ice. But Joe had never been able to make him give in. There was a bad streak in him all right; it instantly responded to Joe’s suggestion; but the kid would not let himself go. Joe had never been able to make him look sheepish. Not that it mattered a damn; still . . . why hadn’t he been able to?
Now he looked as untidy as ever in his wrinkled, mouse-colored suit; it might almost have been the same suit he was wearing three years ago; and with much the same look in his eyes, but intensified by growing manliness; a sort of crazy, proud, hot look—whatwasthat look? If he felt like that, why the hell didn’t he let himself go? Obviously a damn fool; one of these, morbid, solitary kids; rotten! But Joe couldn’t dismiss him; there was something there that he couldn’t get.
Joe saw that Wilfred had been watching him, though he quickly turned away his eyes when Joe looked. No greeting passed between the two. Wilfred’s look made Joe purr with gratification. Funny, that this insignificant kid had that effect, when Cooper Gillett’s ill-concealed admiration only bored him. What a contrast between the two of them. There was he, Joe, handsome, elegantly-dressed; sitting as an equal with some of the best-known men in New York, telling them things: and there was that other kid, just the same age, untidy and sallow-cheeked, sitting alone and unregarded, looking out of place in the swell joint. And Wilfred showed that he felt the contrast. You could almost see him grind his teeth when he looked at Joe. The kid hated him, yet he was crazy about him in a way; while his mouth was ugly with a sneer, his eyes had a certain slavish look in them, that Joe was familiar enough with. Joe looked in one of the mirrors and plumed himself, aware that this would make the kid feel worse.
Joe now experienced a renewed zest in entertaining his table companions. As a careless youth to youths he related the surprising adventures of his hours of ease, making out that they were not at all surprising. When he wished to make a good impression, Joe never allowed himself to boast, but let it be assumed that the other man was quite as bold, shameless, insatiable and lucky as himself. His middle-aged listeners fawned upon him in gratified vanity. Joe never looked again, but was always conscious of the hot-eyed spectator in the background. Let the kid see how I can make the famous Cooper Gillett eat out of my hand, he thought.
“. . . She was dining with her husband at the next table. I had Millie with me. Millie and the husband were sitting back to back, and that left the peach, facing me, see? All through the meal she kept looking at me in a certain way; you know how they do. They love to do it when they’re with their husbands. It’s a slap in the old man’s eye; and they feel safe when he’s there. Don’t expect to be taken up. But they don’t usually do it when you’ve already got such a pretty girl as Millie with you. That suggested to me that the peach must be damn sure of her charms, and I was interested. Shewasa peach!
“Usually, Millie is a good-natured little thing; and I suggested that she follow the peach into the ladies’ cloak-room, and make a date with her for me. But for some reason she got up on her ear—you know how it is with women; and refused. So I shook her. I timed it so’s I came out on the sidewalk right behind the peach and her hubby. I marched up to her and raised my hat. Gosh! she near died. Didn’t know which way to turn. But she was game. She recovered herself, and introduced me to the old man as Mr. Smithers. He was jealous as Hell. That made it twice as much fun, of course; you know! An old clothes-bag like that, hadn’t any right to have such a pretty wife, anyhow.
“The old man had called a hansom, and she invited me to ride up-town with them—since I lived just around the corner from them, as she said. The old man made out to sit in the middle, but that just suited me, because he had to sit forward a little, and the peach and I were able to talk sign language behind his back. And all the way up-town I need hardly say, she was real affectionate to him, pulling his ear, and rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. Isn’t that like a woman? By God! if I ever get a wife, I’ll recognize the danger signals! And she told him all about me, see? thus providing me with my cues. Oh! she was a clever little devil! When we got up to their flat, she sent him out to the delicatessen for bottled beer. . . .”
When the party at the round table broke up, they passed close beside Wilfred’s table on their way to the Twenty-Sixth street door. Joe did not look at Wilfred; but was pleasantly aware of the look that the other cast upon him as he went by.
Outside, Joe’s friends boarded cabs for their several destinations. Gillett and Keep went off together. Joe was left alone with a spice of anger in his breast. These men were willing to let him flatter them; willing to let him make money for them; but they never asked him home. However, the feeling quickly passed. To Hell with it! thought Joe; when I’m ready, I’ll make my way into any house in New York!
For the moment he was at a loose end. He hesitated on the sidewalk. Where to find amusement? A recollection of that kid’s queer look came back to him. Turning, he went through the doors again.
On Saturdayafternoon, after a long prowl about the picturesque edges of Manhattan, Wilfred made his way to Martin’s café. This was a treat he could occasionally give himself. It was rather awful to enter the place alone, but once you got your legs under a table, you sank into a comfortable insignificance. And what a scene for the connoisseur of humanity! he thought. Martin’s was the center of New York life—not fashionable life, because that had moved up-town with Delmonico’s; but fashionable people hardly counted nowadays; the best-known writers, artists, actors; men of the hour in every walk of life, frequented Martin’s. And exquisite women! the flower of New York’s women; who cared what their social status might be?
Wilfred could not meet the eye of one of these delicate creatures, but in his mind he explored them through and through. In his mind he experienced the gallant way of dealing with them. Sometimes when he overheard snatches of conversation at near-by tables, he burned to tell the whining male for the honor of his sex, thatthatwas not the way!
On the present occasion when he looked about the rooms, he received an unpleasant shock upon beholding Joe Kaplan seated at a table in the vicinity, the center of a group of admiring older men. Oh Lord! can I never hope to escape him! thought Wilfred. The face of one of Joe’s companions struck familiarly on his sight; a face that had been reproduced in the newspapers; handsome, dusky, florid; blurred a little by self-indulgence. Cooper Gillett, of course. Itwouldbe a multi-millionaire, thought Wilfred, sneering.
He saw that Joe’s own style had improved very much. He had lost his too-sleek appearance. Joe, who was always learning, had discovered that the acme of good taste in men’s dress was expressed in an elegant carelessness. He was wearing a suit of grey homespun, obviously made by the most eminent of tailors. His tie was of a soft silk, cornflower blue; and he had a knot of ragged cornflowers stuck in his buttonhole. His hair lay on his head like a raven’s wing; his skin was as pink as a baby’s; the teeth he revealed in his frequent smiles were as gleaming and regular as a savage’s. What if his eyes were a little too close together? they sparkled with zest and good humor. Well, he could afford to be good-humored. He lived.
Twenty-three years old, and already at the top of the heap! A rich man, and the associate of rich men. He would never be obliged to grind his teeth in lonesomeness. That shameless smile of his would be devastating among women. Women loved to be yanked down from their pedestals, and quite right, too. How charming to yank them down. Half the desirable women in the place were looking at Joe now.
ButdoesJoe live? Wilfred asked himself. He has no feeling. That’s what makes him great. That’s what gives him such a power over everybody. He doesn’t care. That’s what gives him such a power over me—God damn him! I feel, and he does not. He lives his life, and I feel it for him, and curse my own impotence! It is feeling which makes me so ineffectual. Feelings . . . all kinds of feelings that lay hands on me and drag me back! Oh God! I wish I could be a soulless animal like Joe! . . . And yet . . . what’s the use of living a crowded life if you can’t realize it? After all, isn’t it more real to have the feeling than the substance . . . ? But down that path you soon begin to gibber! To hell with thought! I want the fleshpots!
He perceived that Joe was aware of him, though he gave no sign of recognition. A certain increased amplitude appeared in Joe’s style. Wilfred sneered. It’s nuts to him to have me looking at him, he thought; the fellow of good family who has come to nothing, gazing with sickly envy at the street Arab who has risen to affluence! By God! I will not look at him again!—But he could not help himself. His eyes were dragged back.
Meanwhile he sneered. Rotten little hooligan! He gets on because he’s got no conscience. If a decent man can’t get on in the world, so much the worse for the world! I don’t envy him his present company; millionaires and their hangers-on! Those fellows are dead inside; that’s why they like him. Even the warmth of a dung-heap is warmth! Scratch the pink skin and you’d find just a common, foul-minded Jew! Wilfred’s thoughts seared his breast. He looked away from Joe in a despairing effort to divert his mind; but the animated spectacle in which he had hitherto taken such pleasure, no longer had any meaning for him.
When Joe and his party arose to leave, their course took them out beside Wilfred’s table. Wilfred kept his eyes down until they had passed; then raised them to that hateful-enviable back. The tall grace of Joe’s slim figure, so perfectly turned-out—he had put on a black soft hat, just enough out of the ordinary to emphasize his stylishness; the confident poise of his head; it seemed almost more than Wilfred could bear. Oh God! how I hate him! he thought; he poisons my being! Meanwhile the under voice was whispering: If I could only be him!
As Joe went through the door, a girl sitting at the last table, glanced up at him through her lashes. Wilfred had already marked her; she was the prettiest girl in the room; fragile as tinted china; a flame burning in an egg-shell. She wore an amusing little seal-skin cape with a high collar; and a smart black hat elevated behind, and tilted over her adorable nose. A fatuous old man was sitting opposite her.
Instantly Wilfred’s burning fancy rearranged the scene. The girl was still sitting there with her inscrutable half-smile, but now Joe was opposite her all togged up to the nines, looking at her with insolent mastery. And Wilfred with money in his pocket, very well dressed, with that something in his air which showed that his grandfather had worn good clothes before him, came strolling in. As he passed their table, the girl raised her lovely speaking eyes. Their glances met and clung for an instant, and something passed between them that Joe would never know.
With ready self-possession, Wilfred turned to Joe, saying: “Hello, Kaplan, I didn’t recognize you.” Joe’s greeting was stiff; but Wilfred, coolly ignoring that, said something humorous that caused the girl to giggle deliciously. She looked at Joe in a way that he could not ignore, and he was obliged to murmur churlishly: “Mr. Pell . . . Miss Demarest.” (An assumed name of course; the enchanting and mysterious creature gave herself recklessly, while she looked for the man!) She offered Wilfred her drooping hand, not quite able to meet his eyes now, while she murmured: “Won’t you sit down for awhile?”
Wilfred spoke of real things with a simple humor that showed up the cheap facetiousness that passed current at Martin’s for what it was. A new look appeared in the girl’s beautiful eyes. As in a flash, she had perceived the great truth, revealed to but few women: that it is the shy, imaginative men who are really the delicious rakes at heart; while the showy, flaunting fellow, the professional lady-killer is cold and shallow. . . .
Wilfred suddenly caught sight of Joe in the flesh, coming towards him. It was like an icy douche. . . .
To his astonishment, Joe stopped at his table. He said with his disarming grin:
“Hello, Pell!”
Wilfred mumbled in reply.
“I didn’t speak to you before,” Joe went on, “because of that gang I was with. They’re gone now, thank God! and I can be myself.” He dropped into the chair opposite Wilfred. “What you drinking?Grenadine au Kirsch?Nothing but apple water! Have an absinthe with me.” He signalled a waiter. “Hey,garçon! Deux absinthes au sucre.”
Joe Kaplan speaking French! A yell of laughter inside Wilfred.
To have the effulgent Joe sitting opposite, attracting all eyes to their table, made Wilfred exquisitely conscious of the discrepancies of his own dress. Joe’s brilliant personality beat him to the earth; he hated himself for being so easily overcome. He couldn’t meet those hard bright eyes. He was full of indignation that Joe had presumed to sit down without waiting to be asked; and at the same time he was amazed that Joe deigned to notice him at all. Surely he could not be so insignificant as he seemed to himself if. . . . But vanity was slain by the hateful suggestion that it gratified Joe to sit there displaying the contrast between them to the assembled company.
How Wilfred writhed under that thought! Yet it would have been too ridiculous for him to get up and walk out of the place. He had not courage enough for that. He sat there, enduring it, until people forgetting them, looked elsewhere. Then curiosity began to burn in him, and he no longer wished to go. What a chance to learn the truth about Joe! If he could be induced to talk about himself; to reveal his commonness; it would destroy the absurd, splendid, evil creature of Wilfred’s imagination, and cure his envy.
“Funny how we always run into each other,” said Joe; “big as the town is! What you doing now?” He was only giving Wilfred half his attention; the black eyes were roving around.
“I work for the Exchange Trust,” said Wilfred.
“Oh, Amasa Gore’s bank. Did he put you in there? I haven’t seen Gore for near four years. How is the old stiff? . . . And Dobereiner? And Harry Bannerman?”
“I don’t know,” said Wilfred. “I never go there.”
“Still living with the Aunts?”
“No. I have my own place now.”
“That’s what a fellow wants, eh? When he grows up,” said Joe with a good-humored, and infinitely suggestive grin.
Wilfred stiffened his face; but in spite of himself, his breast warmed a little towards Joe. There was a sort of infernal bond between them. Wilfred was a profligate too—that is, he desired to be.
The bottle and glasses were brought, each glass with a little silver fountain placed on top, through which the water dripped on the sugar, alternately side and side, with a fairy tinkle. Wilfred watched the operation fascinated. He tingled with pleasure at the thought of drinking the dangerous stuff. As the sugared water mingled with it, the green liquor mantled and pearled.
“A whole lot has happened since those days,” Joe went on. “I’ve ceased to be a pimp, and have become a stockjobber. It’s considered more respectable, I understand. Anyhow, it’s more profitable. Already I’m rich, but not as rich as I shall be. Wall street is easy picking for me. I’ll tell you why. The fellows down there have got the name of being the smartest on earth, and they know it, and that makes them careless, see? They’re so accustomed to doing others, they forget that they may be done, in their turn. Another thing; Wall street has got a bad name, and they’re always scared of what people will say. They want to be both pirates and pillars of the church. I got an advantage over them, because I don’t give a damn what anybody says, as long as I can keep out of jail. What was I? Just a kid out of the East Side gutters. I had nothing to lose. I’m a realist, I am. I think things through.
“Besides, I got a sort of gift of reading men. I don’t know how it is, but when I’m talkin’ to a man, I always seem to know the bad things he’s thinking about, and is afraid to let on. Some men look good, and some look bad; but it don’t matter how good a manlooks, you can depend upon it, he’s got a secret badness in him, that he nurses. Everybody likes me because I’m so damn natural. Even the men I get the best of, come round. Morality is the curse of this country. Everybody is sick of it, really. That’s why an out and out bad actor like me becomes a sort of hero to everybody. You would never believe the things that respectable men tell me when they get a drink or two in them. It’s morality that perverts them. They feel they can let themselves go with me, because I got no morals. . . .”
Wilfred thought with a kind of enthusiasm: This is great stuff! I must remember it. He asked, shyly: “How about women?”
“Oh, women,” said Joe carelessly, “they’re a different proposition. I only know one thing about women, and that’s all that concerns me. . . . There’s no money to be made out of women. . . . I can tell you, though, women are a damn sight more natural than men.”
Wilfred, afire with curiosity, had not sufficient effrontery to question him further.
Joe held his glass up to the light. “I’m crazy about this green stuff! My favorite poison! Makes your blood sting as it runs. Makes you feel like a king! I don’t dare drink it when I got business on hand. Might do something reckless like telling a millionaire the truth.”
Wilfred was disappointed with his first taste of absinthe. It was as mild and insipid as anise-seed drops. He had drunk half his glass, and it had had no effect whatever. All at once, he realized that he was enjoying its effect, without his having been aware of its coming on. His heart was lifted up. All his faculties were sharpened. He found himself able to look Joe in the face. Oh, wonder-working spirit! I shall drink absinthe every Saturday afternoon, he resolved.
Wilfred looked at Joe. After all, he’s only a fellow like myself, he thought. He has his parts, and I have mine. He’s a trafficker and I’m an artist. Would I change? Not likely! I can see a damn sight further into him, than he can into me. He sees that I have a sort of grovelling admiration for him in my blood; what he does not see is, that I despise him in my mind. . . .
A second absinthe followed the first.
“It’s nice to have a fellow your own age that you can let go with,” said Joe. “I get pretty sick of playing bright-eyes all the time to those old dubs I got to work.”
“Haven’t you any friends?” asked Wilfred with a secret satisfaction.
“Friends?” said Joe. “Hundreds! But all older men than me. Got no time for young fellows. They just fool. I’m a business man. . . . But damn it all! I’m only twenty-three. I like to cut loose once in a while without thinking what I’m saying. There are women of course, but they don’t understand a man’s thoughts. I can talk to you. From the first I felt there was something . . . that you and I understood each other.”
Wilfred shivered internally. It’s true, he thought; but by God! I’ll never confess it to him! Rather to his surprise he found himself talking to Joe with an impartial air.
“I’ve always been interested in you. You’re an extraordinary fellow. You remind me of Adam; or of an artificial man that I read about, who was created by a great scientist, and let loose on the world. A perfectly-functioning man, with no hereditary influences to restrain him. It gives you a terrible advantage over the rest of us.”
“Say, what are you driving at?” said Joe with a hard stare.
Wilfred smiled to himself. Got under his skin that time! However, he did not wish to quarrel with the man, but to explore him. In order to divert him, he said: “I’d like to hear about your Wall street operations.”
Joe’s annoyance passed. “Ah, to hell with my operations!” he said. “This is out of business hours. . . . I’d like to get good and drunk over Sunday. Are you on?”
Wilfred was sharply arrested by desire. What a chance! After that Joe would have no mysteries for him! But of course, a power outside his control shook his head for him. He heard himself saying primly: “Sunday is my working day.”
Joe was not sufficiently interested to enquire what he meant. “That’s a good-looking wench over here at my left,” he said; “the one with the black hat tipped over her nose.”
Wilfred was willing to meet him on that ground. “Out o’ sight,” he agreed. “Wonderful looking girls come here.”
“They ought to be,” said Joe; “highest-priced in town . . . let’s get a couple. . .”
An icy hand was laid on Wilfred, chilling the absinthe-engendered warmth. In spite of himself, he could not quite command his face. Joe chuckled.
“It’s easy fixed,” he said. “All you got to do is slip a bill to the waiter. You don’t even have to do that, because François will get a rake-off from the girls later. He has a list of their telephone numbers, see? He calls them up, and in a few minutes a pair of them will breeze in and say: ‘Sosorry we were late!’ ”
Wilfred miserably shook his head.
“You don’t need to be afraid of them,” said Joe. “Just because they look like Duchesses. They wouldn’t be let in here if they didn’t. They’re just girls like any others. They’ll make it easy for you, when they see you’re green.”
This was bitter for Wilfred. “I’m not afraid of them,” he said quickly.
Joe laughed again. “Aw, come on,” he said.
“I’m not dressed. . . .”
“It don’t matter,” said Joe. “So long as you have the price.”
“But I haven’t,” said Wilfred desperately.
“Oh Hell!” said Joe. “I didn’t suppose you had. This is on me. . . . Look!” He produced a wallet from his breast pocket, and partly opening it, revealed a thick stuffing of crisp new yellow-backed bills. “That’s my Sunday money. I’ll go halves with you.”
“I . . . I couldn’t,” stammered Wilfred, grinding his teeth.
“Why not? Money means nothing to me. I mean spending money. It would be fun to give you a swell, expensive time for once. You look as if you needed it. Come on; to-morrow’s Sunday.”
Wilfred thought: This is not generosity, but merely the desire to shine at my expense. He was almost suffocated with wounded pride. He could not trust himself to speak; but merely shook his head again.
Joe was enjoying his discomfiture. “Haven’t you ever?” he asked, grinning.
“Sure!” lied Wilfred. “But I didn’t buy it.”
“Oh, sure!” said Joe. “Love. That’s all right, too. But there’s something about a pretty girl you never saw before, and never expect to see again . . . you don’t give a damn, and she don’t. . . . Look here, I’ll lend you the money. You can pay me back.” He held up a finger for François.
“You’ll have to entertain them by yourself,” warned Wilfred. “I won’t stay!”
“Oh, to Hell with it, then!” said Joe, disgruntled.
When the waiter came, Joe asked for their bill. Wilfred insisted on paying for half the drinks, taking care to conceal from Joe how thinly his wallet was lined. They left the café in silence. On the pavement outside, Joe signalled for a cab, and Wilfred stiffly bade him good-bye.
Joe, grinning sideways at Wilfred, caught hold of his arm. “Wait a minute, fellow!”
Wilfred read that grin perfectly. His thoughts were bitter.
“Come along with me,” Joe said. “I’m going up to see my girl—my steady girl I mean. Been going with her five years. Almost like an old married pair.”
“Sorry, I can’t,” said Wilfred. “Some other time. . . .”
“Aw, come on. This is just a social call. She’s a peach of a looker. She’ll put you at your ease. . . .”
Wilfred detached his arm. “Sorry, I can’t,” he said. “Good-bye.”
Joe, one foot on the step of the cab, called after him: “Say, Kid, it’s time you grew up!”
Wilfred walked away quickly. Joe’s parting shot rankled like a barbed dart. It was true! It was true! He had not yet become a man!
Joewas rich enough now, to come out into the open. He had lately taken two rooms high up in the newest building on lower Broadway. The marble entrance hall with its uniformed attendants, and its ranks of velvet-running elevators, was the most imposing in town. It gave Joe a standing with the public to have his name listed in the telephone book; moreover, it pleased him to have men twice his age coming to see him hat in hand, and talking humble. They never got anything out of him; for Joe dug up his own business in his own way. In the outer room were installed a shiny-haired clerk, and a crisply-laundered stenographer; Joe’s own room was furnished with waxed mahogany and a Bokhara rug. The windows looked out over the Upper Bay.
One morning, shortly after Joe had arrived at his office, the gentlemanly clerk (Joe would not have Jews about him; Jews around an office were too suggestive of sharp business) came in to say that an old woman wanted to see him.
“What have I got to do with old women?” asked Joe, with lifted eyebrows. “What sort of old woman?”
“A real poor old woman, Mr. Kaplan. I couldn’t get anything out of her. Just said she wanted to see you. She must have seen you come in. She was here before, this morning.”
“Even so, do I have to see her?” asked Joe with a hard look. He enjoyed putting the clerk out of countenance; a fair lad, prone to blush and to turn pale; the two of them were the same age.
“No, sir. Certainly not, sir. I’ll send her away.”
“Wait a minute,” said Joe harshly. A slight uneasiness had made itself felt. The old woman had seen him come in, the clerk said; that sounded as if she knew him. “Let her come in,” said Joe carelessly. “A beggar, I suppose.”
When his clerk opened the door a second time, Joe beheld his mother. Oh well, he had always expected it to happen sooner or later. He saw in a glance that the old woman was stupid with terror, and that he should have no trouble with her. So it was all right. The clerk was disposed to linger.
Joe helped himself to a cigarette from the silver box on his desk. To the clerk he said carelessly: “Call up Mr. Mitchell, and tell him I will see him here at eleven o’clock.”
The door closed; and mother and son were left looking at each other. Joe had the advantage, because the windows were at his back. He experienced no emotion at the sight of his mother. In eight years she had changed very much. That vigorous, peasant’s frame was broken. Her face which had once had the strength of apathy, looked sodden now. Her clothes . . . Ugh! Joe hoped she would not sit down on one of his chairs. She seemed incapable of speaking; and Joe felt no inclination to help her out. It was a settled maxim with him, to make the other party speak first. He lit his cigarette with the greatest deliberation, and holding the lighted match high above the ash receiver, let it flicker down.
Finally she stammered: “I seen the name and the address in a newspaper. . . . I come round to see if it was my Joe Kaplan. . . .”
“Did you tell anybody in this building your name?”
She shook her head. “I do’ want to make no trouble for you, Joe.”
“Whatdoyou want?”
“Well, Joe. . . .” Speech failed her. With a falling hand, she indicated herself—then him.
Joe regarded her thoughtfully; whistling between his teeth.
After a silence, she began again. “Well, Joe . . . your fat’er is sick. He’s got the consumption. He’s like to die on me any day. . . .”
“Isn’t that old geezer dead yet?” said Joe.
“It takes all I kin earn to buy him his medicine, and a bit for the two of us to eat. I can’t save the rent. The landlord has pasted a notice on the door.”
“Where’s Lulu?” asked Joe.
“She left home when she was seventeen. I ain’t seen her since.”
“Well, you can’t blame her.”
“I ain’t blamin’ her.”
“Was she good-lookin’?”
“Yes. . . . God help her!” murmured the woman.
“Oh, fudge!” said Joe. “. . . Where’s the boys?”
“On the streets. They come home sometimes. I feeds them—if I has it.”
“What do you want of me?”
“Well, Joe . . . we’re your folks. . . .”
“Cut it out!” said Joe with a gesture. “I’ve been told often enough that I’ve got no natural feelings. All right; I’m not going to make out to have any now. Home Sweet Home never meant nothing to me but a place to git away from. As for my father. . . . Gee! it made me sore even as a young kid to think that I sprung fromthat! The dirty, whining Jew! I’d do something handsome for you, if you could prove to me he wasn’t my father!”
“You wouldn’t want him to be buried in Potters’ Field. . . .”
“Why not? The main thing is to get him buried. A dead man rests just as comfortable in Potters’ Field as in Woodlawn!”
“But the disgrace of it. . . .”
“Aah! talk sense to me!” cried Joe, screwing up his face in irritation. “I’m a realist! Do you know what that means? You used to be one yourself. What’s come over you?”
“I do’ know what’s come over me,” she muttered, wiping a hand over her face. “I don’t think about nothing no more. Don’t see no use in it. . . . I just go along. . . .”
“Well, I’ve climbed out of that pigsty!” said Joe. “All by myself, I climbed out. I don’t owe nothing to you!”
Without another word she turned to go.
“Wait a minute!” cried Joe, exasperated. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do nottin’ for you. I just wanted to have it well understood you hadn’t no claim on me!”
She waited.
“I always been willing to help you out,” grumbled Joe. Something about the dirty, broken-spirited old woman seemed to make him so sore he couldn’t see straight. “Soon as I got money I went to Sussex street first-off, but you had moved away. One of the neighbors give me a number in Forsyth street, and I went there, but you had moved again, leaving no address. What more could I do?”
“We had to move often,” she murmured.
“Listen; I’m willing to keep you in comfort, on condition that you change your name, and keep away from me, see? Call yourself Cohen or Levy, or any common Jewish name. Go hire some nice clean rooms, and put in some new furniture. Get everything new, and just walk out of the mess you’re in and get a fresh start, see? Don’t tell anybody who knows you as Kaplan where you’re going. And if you want any comfort in your new life, you’d better not tell the boys.”
“Oh!” she stammered. “I couldn’t shake the boys, Joe! That wouldn’t be right, like.”
“Well, that’s up to you. As long as you have a dollar, they’ll bleed yeh!”
“I know . . . but when the old man goes, I’d be alone. . . .”
“All right. If the boys ever tried to make trouble for me, I’d know how to handle them. They can’t get money out of me by threatening to expose my past, because I brag about it, see? . . . As soon as you’re settled in your new rooms—Aw, take a regular nice flat with a kitchen and a bathroom and all; write to me under your new name, see? and send the address. I’ll fix it so’s a bank will send you forty dollars a week as long as either of you live. . . . I’ll give you the money now for the furniture and the first month’s rent.”
Over his desk he passed her a handful of crackling bills. The old woman drew back from them with a look of horror that made Joe laugh. “Here, take them,” he said. “They won’t burn yeh!”
“It’s . . . it’s too much!” she stammered. His harshness she had taken as a matter of course; his beneficence terrified her.
Joe laid the bills down on the edge of his desk. After a while she picked them up in tremulous hands. The old face began to work in an extraordinary manner. “Oh Joe . . .” she stammered. “Oh, Joe . . . !”
Joe ran a hand through his sleek hair. “For God’s sake, don’t turn on the waterworks here!” he said. “You never did that!”
“I’m broke, Joe!” she wailed. “I got no resistance no more!”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” cried Joe, striding up and down. “. . . For God’s sake when you get in your new place keep yourself clean! I suppose you’re too old to change your ways much, but you can keep clean! . . . Your face is dirty! . . .”
“Yes, Joe. . . . I gotta thank you, Joe.”
“Don’t make me laugh!” said Joe. “I’m no philanthropist! I want things fixed in a certain way between you and me, and I’m willing to pay for it. If you ever come around me again, the deal is off, see? Beat it now.”
But she lingered. She plucked up a little courage. “If you was to see the youngest, Joe. . . . He’s a smart kid. Something could be made of him. . . .”
“Then make it,” said Joe. “You’re his mutter. You’ve got money, now.”
“I t’ink he’s like you, Joe.”
“Useless!” said Joe, grinning. “You can’t touch my heart. . . . I couldn’t do nothing with a boy off the streets.”
“That’s what you was.”
“Exactly! And nobody couldn’t do nothing with me. I did it for meself!”
“Don’t you want to see the old man before he goes?”
“What for? When he was well the sight of him used to makemesick!”
“Well . . . good-bye, Joe. . . .”
“Easy with the Joes when you open the door!”
“I’ll be careful. When I write I’ll put Mr. Kaplan. . . .”
Thefour friends drifted out into the street from Ceccina’s. Linking arms, they paraded towards Sixth avenue, singing. Binks had to be put in the middle because he wobbled at the knees. Stanny and Jasper each had a good edge on, too. Jasper was gloriously released. Wilfred observed them enviously. I can drink like a fish, he thought, and it has no effect whatever!
They made a round of their favorite resorts; the Grapevine; Maria’s; Mould’s over on University Place. Wilfred tossed down more fiery potations than thevino de pastoof Ceccina’s. It only intensified his self-consciousness. I’ll never be able to carry it through! . . . Youshallgo through with it! He was ceaselessly plotting how he could shake his friends without exciting ribald comment. As they became really drunk that offered no difficulty. But how dear they became to him! How he hated to leave them! . . . I really ought not to leave them now. I’ve got the only cool head in the party. They might get into serious trouble. Some other night I’ll start out alone and . . . Come off! You’vegotto go through with it!
In the end he found himself alone without knowing exactly how it had come about. I must be getting drunk! he thought hopefully. But no! the surroundings were still bitten into his consciousness as with acid. The trees of Union Square, misshapen like rickety children, and tragic in the bareness of November; the ugly statue of Lincoln on the corner that he had passed a thousand times without ever seeing it; the green electric cars creeping like worms around the double curve; and that endless, dingy press of people that shuffled back and forth on the south side of Fourteenth street every night in the year. Such dulled and flaccid faces! Why were they deader than the faces on other streets? Why did they crowd together on the one sidewalk, leaving the other empty?
Wilfred went east on Fourteenth street. That stretch of Fourth avenue between Union Square and Cooper Square was devoted after nightfall to the traffic in which he was resolved to share. He turned into Fourth avenue with a wildly beating heart. It was not crowded here; just a few figures furtively veering and hauling on their way. The shop windows were dark, except those of the dazzling saloons on every corner.
Wilfred’s tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. How can I choose when I’m so shaky? he thought. What do you say to them at first, anyway? What a pitiful fool I should appear if I tried to address one with a thick tongue! I’ll never be able to go through with it! . . . Youshallgo through with it! Wilfred perceived a young woman approaching, with her eyes fixed on him. In blind panic he stopped, and made believe to be attracted by something in a shop window. It was a cobbler’s window, quite dark, with nothing in it but a row of run-over shoes to be mended.
An arm was slipped through Wilfred’s arm, and a voice murmured in his ear: “Hello, sweetheart!” Wilfred turned a pair of terrified eyes. She was not bad-looking; a Greek girl perhaps; dark and opulent. Her face was not painted. Her glance was fairly open—at least she had not the leer that Wilfred so dreaded. He felt himself like putty in her experienced hands, and was relieved. This is not as bad as I expected; he thought. A price was named, and certain conditions laid down. This part seemed very unreal.
The next thing Wilfred knew, he was being shepherded up a steep straight flight of stairs over a saloon. There was a red carpet on the stairs, sooty on the edges, and worn threadbare in the middle. At the top of the steps stood a desk; a dog-eared hotel register lay upon it. A young waiter appeared from somewhere; and collecting a dollar from Wilfred, shoved the register towards him to be signed. Wilfred wondered about the waiter. A fellow his own age. Though his white suit was much soiled, he was not uncomely, with his stiff blond hair sticking up on his crown like a schoolboy’s.
The waiter whisked them into a bedroom close at hand, and shut the door. Wilfred drew a long breath to steady himself. There he was alone in a bedroom with a woman he had never seen until five minutes before, and who was already preparing to reveal herself. How amazing! One swift glance around, and the common room was photographed on his brain forever. The cheap yellow bureau just inside the door, where Wilfred stood frozen, one hand resting upon it. He could see himself from the outside as if the eyes of his soul were suspended under the ceiling. Stretched across under the window, the bed, because there was no other possible place for it; in the corner behind Wilfred, the washstand; two chairs—all of the same ugly yellow wood. The bed was covered with a soiled white spread which still bore a significant impress in the middle. Wilfred wondered if the impress was still warm.
Wishing to do the thing in good style, he had ordered drinks; and they were now brought; cocktails with a red cherry in the bottom of each glass. Wilfred looked at the young waiter again. He put the tray on the bureau, and departed without looking at Wilfred. He had an extraordinarily inscrutable air; he had taught himself to see nothing; to give nothing away. What a queer job for a lad, popping in and out of the bedrooms! Wilfred wondered if he had ever been out in the country. How many rooms were there in the place? All occupied no doubt. He listened.
He indicated one of the drinks to his companion. He would not carry it to her, for fear of betraying the trembling of his hand.
“Much obliged, fella,” she said politely, “but I don’t indulge. Drink ’em both yourself. You kin understand if I drank with every fella, I’d be paralyzed before morning.”
Good God! thought Wilfred. “How many?” he asked involuntarily.
“Aah, fergit it!” she said, perfectly good-tempered. “What do you look at me like that for?”
Wilfred, abashed, schooled his eyes, and started slowly to undress. He had no feeling of shame; but only of strangeness.
His companion chattered away. She was rather a likeable sort. “It’s the drink that does for girls. So I keep away from it. The rest don’t do you no harm, if you take care of yourself. You kin depend upon me, fella. My name’s Angela. I ain’t been at this long. I started it so’s I could help me mutter out, and keep me young sister in school. She’s smart. We’re gonna send her to college. You’re a nice lookin’ fella. Is this the first time?”
“No,” said Wilfred quickly.
“Bet it is, though I kin tell. None of them wants to admit it. Well, you might do worse than begin wit’ me. You look somepin like my fella. He’s blond, too. But he’s got twenty pounds on you.”
Wilfred had heard that these girls always had a lover. That seemed strange to him.
“He’s a deckhand on the steamboatAlbertina. . . .”
I share with a deckhand! thought Wilfred.
“He gimme this ruby ring I wear. If you come to see me at my place I’ll show you his pitcher. Me and him’s gonna git married when I kin save enough to furnish wit’.”
Good God! thought Wilfred again. “Does he know?” he asked.
Angela’s big, good-humored face was momentarily disfigured by a scowl. “What the hell is it to you? . . . Aw, . . . fergit it! . . . What you look at me like that for? Come on.”
But Wilfred stood still. His feet were weighted down.
“What you waiting for? What’s the matter wit’ me, you look like that? Come on. . . .”
Wilfred went towards the bed like an automaton. He looked at her. After all there was nothing astounding in her unveiling. It was just a human body, the complement to his own; one was instinctively familiar with it. He recognized dispassionately that it was a generous, comely woman’s body, without blemish. He was reminded of fruitfulness; it was a body fit for Ceres, for Eve. What lovely, dimpling hollows! what a magical texture in woman’s skin!—But it didn’t seem to matter. What mattered terribly, and made him tremble, was the strangeness of the soul that inhabited this woman’s body, sending him such queer intimations through her eyes, all the while her tongue was so glib and matter-of-fact. Their bodies might press together as one, but their souls were sundered by an immensity of space. . . . How piteous!
“What you look at me like that for, fella?”
Once more Wilfred stood in front of the bureau with one hand upon it, his head lowered. Angela was busy in the corner behind him. He did not feel that anything of moment had happened to him. He was not changed. . . . Wasthatall? . . . But, no! He had failed; that’s what it meant. He was not human enough to take fire and burn in the beautiful human way. He was just a sort of figment of a man; an hallucination. He fulfilled himself only in imagination. Faced with reality, he dissolved. A dreadful fear gripped him. It was like falling through space. His hand tightened hard on the edge of the bureau, as if to convince himself that here was a real flesh and blood hand gripping palpable matter. . . . The edge of the bureau was blackened by many cigarette burns. The men who had laid those cigarettes down,theirbodies had burned!
The girl came, and passed an arm around his shoulders. “You’re a wonderful fella!” she murmured. “I like you.”
Oh, yes! thought Wilfred. Flattery is a part of her business.
On the hand that lay on the bureau, Wilfred sported an antique ring of no great value. She turned it round on his finger. “Give it to me for a keepsake, fella,” she whispered cajolingly.
Wilfred thought: She knows that normal men have a moment of tenderness now. But not me. I feel nothing. He shook his head, and drew away from her.
“Don’t you like me?”
“You’re all right!” said Wilfred.
She tried to wheedle more money out of him. Wilfred shook his head.
“Well, will you come to see me again?”
“Sure!” said Wilfred.
She slipped a card into his hand. “That’s my home address. It’s nicer there than these Raines Law joints. If you come in the afternoon I can give you more time. . . .”
Wilfred walked home, musing. His brain was active and cool. From a point at a little distance outside himself, he surveyed the scene in the hotel bedroom, and grinned. The girl’s attitude had been absolutely right of course. Matter-of-fact was the only thing to be under those circumstances. It was he, who had played the mountebank. . . . What comical little insects human beings were! . . . Well, it had been a richly humorous experience, and it had taught him a lot. He was glad it had happened. . . . But never again! Might as well make up his mind to it, that he was different in that respect from other men.
Inside the door of his own room, another mood was lying in wait for him. He loved that room; everything in it had been chosen by himself. It was on the ground floor at the back of what had been a fine dwelling in its day. There was a noble fireplace with a mantel of black marble. The fire, burning low, filled the room with comfortable warm shadows. Desire struck into Wilfred’s breast like a dagger.
Ah! if there was a dear girl waitingherefor me! he thought. One whose heart I knew, and who knew my heart! How sweet before the fire to take her in my arms and kiss her neck; to . . . .
Wilfred’s veins were full of molten fire then; his head whirled giddily. He burst out laughing. Here you are at your imaginings again . . . !