ENOCH CRANECHAPTER I
ENOCH CRANE
Joe Grimsby stood on the door-mat—a very shabby and badly worn door-mat, I must say—trying to fit his key into the tiny slit which, properly punctured, shot back the bolt which loosened the door, admitting him to the hallway leading to his apartment on the third floor of No. 99 Waverly Place.
“Somebody must have—no, here it is. Hello, Moses, is that you? I was just going to put my knee against it and——”
The old negro janitor bowed low.
“I wouldn’t do dat, sir; ’spec’ yo’ hand is a little unstiddy. You young gemmen gets dat way sometimes, ’specially when so much is goin’ on. Hold on till I turn up de gas. It gets dark so early, can’t find yo’ way up-stairs in de broad daylight, let alone de evenin’. I jes’ lighted a fire in yo’ room.”
“Bully for you, Moses. And don’t forget to come up-stairs when I ring. Mr. Atwater in yet?”
“No, sir; not as I knows on. Ain’t seen nuffin’ of him. ’Spec’ he’s a little mite how-come-you. I seen in de papers dat bofe on yo’ was at de big ball lastnight. Matilda was a-readin’ it out while I was a-brushin’ yo’ shoes.”
The young architect waved his hand in reply and mounted the stairs, his strong, well-knit frame filling the space between the wall and the banisters. He had mounted these same stairs in the small hours of the morning, but if he was at all fatigued by his night’s outing, there was no evidence of it in his movements. He was forging his way up, his coat thrown back, arms swinging loose, head erect, with a lifting power and spring that would have done credit to a trained athlete.
Only once did he pause, and that was when the door of Miss Ann’s apartment on the second floor was opened softly and the old lady’s fluffy gray head was thrust out. He had never met the dear woman, but he lifted his hat in a respectful salute, and brought his body to a standstill until she had closed the door again.
She, no doubt, misunderstood the sound of his tread, a curious mistake had she thought a moment, for no one of the occupants of 99—and there were a good many of them—had ever mounted the dingy stairs two steps at a time, humming a song between jumps, except the handsome, devil-may-care young architect. The others climbed and caught their breath. And climbed again and caught another breath. So did most of the visitors. As for her own invalid sister, Miss Jane, who shared with her the rooms behind this partly opened and gently closed door, the poor lady had no breath of any kind to catch, and so wheezed up one step at a time, her thin, bird-claw fingers clutchingthe hand-rail. It was she Miss Ann was waiting for, it being after five o’clock, and the day being particularly raw and uncomfortable, even for one in January.
He had reached his own door now, the one on the third floor—there was only one flight above it—and with the aid of a second key attached to his bunch made his way into the apartment.
The sight of his cosey sitting-room loosened up the bar of another song: the janitor’s fire was still blazing, and one of the three big piano-lamps with umbrella-shades Moses had lighted and turned down was sending a warm glow throughout the interior.
Joe tossed his hat on a low table, stripped off his overcoat and coat, pushed his arms into a brown velvet jacket which he took from a hook in his bedroom, and settled himself at his desk, an old-fashioned colonial affair, which had once stood in his grandfather’s home in his native town. Heaped up on a wide pad, the comers bound with silver clamps, was a pile of letters of various colors, shapes, and sizes.
These the young fellow smoothed out with a sweep of his hand, glancing hurriedly at the several handwritings, pulled out a drawer of the desk, opened a box of cigars, and selecting one with the greatest care, snipped its end with a cutter hung to his watch-chain. In the same measured way he drew a match along the under-side of the colonial, held the flame to the perfecto, and, after a puff or two to assure himself that it was in working order, proceeded leisurely to open his mail.
It is good to be young and good-looking and a favorite wherever you go. It is better yet to be good-natured, and well-born, and able to earn your living, and it is better still to so love the work by which you earn your daily bread that you count as nothing the many setbacks and difficulties which its pursuit entails.
Joe was all that; twenty-five, well-built, erect, strong of limb, well-dressed, even if sometimes a little bizarre in his outfit, more particularly in wide sombreros and low collars with loose ties; thoroughly content with his surroundings wherever they were, whether a student at the Beaux-Arts, living on the closest of allowances, or fighting his way in New York among his competitors; meeting each successive morning with a laugh and a song, and getting all the fun out of the remaining hours of which he was capable.
He had moved into these rooms but a fortnight before, and had at once proceeded to make himself as comfortable as his means and belongings would allow. His partner, Atwater, had come with him: there was the rent of the office to pay, and the wages of his two assistants, and they could save money by doubling up. With this in view, Joe had moved in some of the old furniture his father had left him, including the desk, and a set of shelves filled with books; had added a rare old Spanish sofa that had once stood in a hidalgo salon, to say nothing of the three or four easy chairs of the sofa-pillow-stuffed-armed variety, covered with chintz, that he had bought at an auction, and which had once graced his former quarters. Some small tableshad then been commandeered—two were now surmounted by big lamps; a rug thrown on the floor and another before the fire—good ones both, one being a Daghestan and the other a Bokhara; and the two young men proceeded to make themselves at home. The bedrooms, one Atwater’s and the other Joe’s, although simply furnished, were equally comfortable, and the bathroom all that it should be.
As to creature comforts, did not Moses bring them their breakfast, and did not his wife Matilda cook the same on her own stove in the basement in the rear? For their dinners, some one of the restaurants on 14th Street could always be counted upon, unless some Wall Street potentate, or one of his innumerable friends, or the mother of Joe’s last lady love—he had a fresh one every month—laid a cover at her table in his honor.
His one predominant ambition in life, as has been said, was to succeed in his profession. His uncle had achieved both riches and distinction as one of the leading architects of his time and, divining Joe’s talents, had sent him abroad to uphold the honor of the family, a kindness the young fellow never forgot, and an obligation which he determined to repay by showing himself worthy of the old man’s confidence. If he had any other yearning, it was, as has also been said, to have a good time every moment of the day and night while the developing process was going on. And the scribe, who knew him well, freely admits that he succeeded, not only in New York, but in Paris.
When a posse of gendarmes followed a group of students along the Boul Miche who were shouting at the top of their voices their disapprovals or approvals, it made very little difference which, of some new law in the Latin Quarter, Joe’s voice was invariably the loudest. When the room under the sidewalk at the Taverne was full, every seat occupied, and the whole place in an uproar, it was Joe who was leading the merriment.
When, upon the dispersal of the gay revellers from the Quart’z’Arts ball, the Champs-Elysées was made the background of a howling mob of bareskinned warriors of the Stone Age, Joe led the chorus, the only student in the group who was entirely sober, intemperance not being one of the ways in which he enjoyed himself.
It was, therefore, quite in keeping with his idea of what a normal life should be that, when he nailed up his shingle in his down-town office, and started in to earn a crust and a reputation, this same spirit of fun should have dominated his idle hours to the exclusion of everything else except the habit of falling in love with every pretty girl he met.
If the beautiful and accomplished and fabulously rich Mrs. A. had a ball, Joe invariably led the german. If there was a week-end party at Mrs. B.’s, Joe’s engagements were always consulted and a day fixed to suit him. They couldn’t help it really. There was an air about the young fellow that the women, both married and single, could not resist. The married ones generally counted on him to make their parties a success,but the single ones manœuvred so as to be within arm’s reach whenever Joe’s partner was tired out and he ready for another.
Should you have tried to solve the problem of this ever-increasing popularity and, in marshalling your facts, had gone over his personal attractions—his well-groomed figure, never so attractive as in a dress suit, clear brown eyes, perfect teeth shining through straight, well-modelled lips shaded by a brown mustache blending into a close-cut, pointed beard, and had compared these fetching attractions with those possessed by dozens of other young men you knew, you would be still at sea.
Old Mrs. Treadwell, who, when Joe had sprained his ankle, had kept him at her country-seat for a whole week, came nearest to the solution. “Never thinks of himself, that young fellow.” That’s it. Hasn’t an ego anywhere about him. Never has had. Always thinking of you, no matter who you are. And he is sanely polite. Treats an apple woman as if she were a duchess, and a duchess, whenever he runs across one, as first a woman—after that she can be anything she pleases.
This accounted in a measure for the number and quality of the several notes he was opening, one after another, his face lighting up or clouding as he perused their contents.