IN a few days occurred the Citizens' convention. A formidable array of men was there; business and professional men, leaders in the city's activities. It was an array which might well set the forces that controlled the city government to worrying. Moreover, real enthusiasm ruled the assemblage, and when Colonel Westlake, in a fiery nominating speech, named Theodore Packard, one of the city's leading merchants, for the mayoralty, thunderous demonstrations attested the temper of the delegates.
Under the aggressive leadership of Colonel Westlake, the Fusionists had taken time by the forelock and were first in the field with a strong ticket. Warm hopes were entertained for it this year. Republicans, who were greatly in the minority in the city, had taken the initiative in starting the Fusion movement, which was strengthened by the open avowal of some of the community's best known men, of Democratic allegiance, that they were done with Shaughnessy and his methods. The movement appeared to be gaining in force and bulk, like a snowball rolling down hill, as the hour approached for the Democratic convention, toward which all eyes were now turning.
There were indications that the entrenched, corruptforces which dominated the city were getting ready to invite their own destruction. Was it not Shaughnessy who held the whip hand, and was not Shaughnessy going crazy? Verily, it seemed so, and Shaughnessy, apparently drunk with the power invested in his acquired authority, seemed likely to exercise it to his own destruction. "The man is mad," remarked the leaders of the Citizens' movement, one to the other, and rubbed their hands. For Shaughnessy's candidate for the nomination, the man for whom, as he calmly stated, the convention would, at his word, vote as one man, was so notoriously inadequate, so miserably unfit, that the prospect of his nomination set a resentful growl to circulating even among many of the chosen delegates to the Democratic, otherwise the Shaughnessy, convention. Dare Shaughnessy, so cocksure of his evil hold upon the city, thrust such a candidate upon his party? Certain of Shaughnessy's supporters grumbled, while the leaders of the Citizens' movement ground their teeth and figuratively removed their coats.
True to his promise to Shaughnessy, on the occasion of that worthy's call upon the owner of the Courier, Colonel Westlake's paper was firing hot shot at the local boss. The effrontery and callous indifference to all considerations, save his own sweet will, which Shaughnessy was displaying in his choice of a candidate for the mayoralty, was dished up daily, in attractive and toothsome guise, for the Courier's readers. Westlake was certainly pounding Shaughnessy.
Meanwhile, strange whispers began circulating around the town, things that savored of disloyalty to Shaughnessy. The unpopularity of the candidate, whose fortuneshe had espoused, was evidently breeding a revolt among Shaughnessy's followers, of which he seemed strangely oblivious. At all events, he was wholly indifferent to it. To add seriousness to the situation, some of the boss' most trusted lieutenants had been heard to utter words that sounded strangely from the lips of faithful followers. These little seeds of dissension were sown cautiously, but they fell where they seemed sure to bring forth the fruit of contention. When ex-Alderman Goldberg, supposed to be retired from politics, the lanky Dick Peterson, and the moon-faced Willie Shute, men known to have been for years identified with Shaughnessy's interests, began treacherously knifing him, the Fusionists pricked up their ears and polished their eyeglasses. Might there not be a disastrous factional Democratic fight?
The day before the convention occurred there was a tense, growing expectancy through the city, a vague, intangible premonition of an unguessed something on the morrow. What is was to be nobody knew, but that there was a rift in the Shaughnessy lute,—or "loot," as one Fusionist wag expressed it,—was now plainly apparent to all parties. The existence of a plot against him was recognized, yet Shaughnessy made no sign. His insolent programme was known; he proposed on the morrow to thrust his preposterously unfit candidate for the mayoralty, together with a few other objectionable nominees for divers offices, down the throat of the convention. The programme of the opposition was not known, but Goldberg, Peterson and Shute, with others whose fidelity to the interests of the boss had hitherto been unquestioned, had been busy. They had towardthe end thrown off the pretense of secrecy and had declared the boss' programme to be suicidal to the chances of Democratic success. The array of malcontents grew larger and more formidable. It was increased by the well circulated report that Goldberg had tried to remonstrate with the boss and been freezingly turned down.
"The delegates won't stand for it, Shaughnessy," Goldberg had said. "It's out of all reason."
The sneer in Shaughnessy's reply had inflamed an army of hitherto faithful adherents against him. "The delegates will do as I dictate," he had said. "This convention, let me tell you, will name my ticket, and the kickers will be kicked out of the party."
Surely Shaughnessy was going mad. "I understand he said lately that he didn't intend to figure in local politics much longer," said Colonel Westlake one day to the Fusionist candidate for the mayoralty, Theodore Packard, though without apprising him of the circumstances under which the boss made that statement. "Well, do you know, I begin to believe this dissension in their ranks has been brewing for some time. 'When thieves fall out,' you know. I think he foresaw this scrap and is risking the issue on a last desperate game, which he is growing rather afraid of losing."
"Yes, but why is he espousing such a notorious ticket?" inquired Packard. "It seems to me that he is beaten in advance, with a handicap like that, and ought to have sense enough to know it."
"He probably had his programme laid out months ago," replied the Colonel, "when he felt more secure than he does now. His opponents are cunning. They playedfoxy Judas till the last moment, and then they began to knife him. It's a slick game. He can't back down now, he's got to stand by his guns. To knuckle would be a confession of weakness, and that would be fatal. It looks to me as if he had a Waterloo coming in his own camp. They've got something up their sleeve, depend upon it. I wish I knew what it was."
Decidedly, the ordinary expressionless face of Shaughnessy, could he have heard this conversation, would have been worth seeing.
The momentous autumn day, peaceful and delightful, was in strong contrast to the turbulent scene within the hall, just before the Democratic convention was called to order. The galleries were packed with a nervous crowd, ripe for anticipated excitement. That something big, not on the card, was about to happen, everyone was confident. And once and again the eyes of the massed, fitful throng of spectators searched out Shaughnessy, standing unobtrusively in a corner of the great hall, always surrounded by excited, gesticulating delegates. Shaughnessy was evidently saying little and his dead black eyes and ghastly face expressed less. Yet the thousands of eyes turned hungrily to him again and again, for the impression had gone forth that in some way the mute, mysterious boss was to be offered as a sacrifice, to the ends of treacherous associates, on the altar of his own unscrupulous ambition.
Micky O'Byrn, of the Courier, detailed to do the descriptive touches of the convention, viewed Shaughnessy curiously from his position at the rear of the hall. "He looks like his own funeral," thought Micky, "but then, that's chronic with him." His gaze wandered interestedlyover the mass of excited delegates swarming about the floor; his ears sought instinctively to gather something definite from the swelling babel of speech. Suddenly a low-toned voice sounded at his elbow in a communication evidently intended for a single ear, and that not Micky's. O'Byrn's rapid sidelong glance verified his supposition. It was Goldberg, speaking softly to a delegate.
"Tom Grady, he'll do the trick," said Goldberg, and the two moved away. Micky whistled softly. "Good move!" he remarked quietly to himself. "He'll take 'em by storm." For it was evident that it was Tom Grady, the city's youngest and most fiery Democratic orator, who was to nominate the opponent to Shaughnessy's man. But who was this opponent? Micky wrinkled his brows, and, like the crowd in the galleries and many of the delegates themselves, fell to speculating, for the extraordinary thing about the situation was that while everybody was sure an opponent would be produced, nobody knew who he would be.
But now the convention was rapped to order, and delegates and audience alike fell into uneasy silence. The roll was called, the credentials were handed in, and in due time the temporary chairman retired in favor of the permanent incumbent. His selection had been railroaded through before it dawned upon the gathering that he was one of Shaughnessy's strongest adherents. So the boss had scored one. Dave Mulhill could be relied upon to look after him.
With the chair's call for nominations the excitement increased. It had rather been expected that, at this critical point of his political fortunes, Shaughnessy woulddecide to speak for himself, though he had never done so. He did not, however, and his man, Dennis Burns, was placed in nomination by Charles Heferman, a young lawyer who had of late dulled a formerly bright reputation by known dealings with the gang that ruled the city. Heferman's effort was able, though no enthusiasm was evident. No one could have grown enthusiastic over Shaughnessy's candidate.
Heferman finished and sat down, amid a ripple of perfunctory applause that boded ill for the boss' prospects. At that moment Micky O'Byrn chanced to be looking across the hall straight at Shaughnessy. The sinister face was unmoved, but the black eyes, momentarily alight with unwonted fire, were fixed intently at a point about midway of the hall. In that instant Micky's keen vision beheld something that acted upon his intelligence like a galvanic battery, swiftly launching his wits upon previously unguessed channels of absorbing and profitable speculation.
"Next in order, nominations of President of the Council," announced Dave Mulhill from the chair, even before the faint applause which had greeted Heferman's speech had died away. The chairman's words produced an angry hubbub, and his evident reluctance to recognize a gentleman who was on his feet, demanding attention, had the effect of fanning the latent antagonism against the machine to a brighter blaze. Not until sundry groans and cries of "Gag!" and "Fair play!" were heard did Chairman Mulhill deign to recognize Hon. Thomas Grady, now known to all as the spokesman of the opposition.
Intense silence prevailed as Mr. Grady, recognizedalready as one of the leaders of the legislature, was reluctantly accorded the privilege of the floor. A silver tongue he had indeed, and a voice like the mellow, dulcet notes of an organ. Over six feet in height and with the bulk and carriage of a Viking, his handsome face flushed and his blue eyes alight with battle, he was a figure to command admiration. Added to these a splendid gift of oratory, the whole produced a combination of magnetic charm which they used to say was fairly hypnotizing to an audience.
The howl of delight with which the assemblage received the ironical acknowledgment of the speaker to the chairman, for the privilege of the floor, indicated its temper toward Shaughnessy. The words of the orator flowed on, gathering fire as he warmed to the subject of the hopes and prospects of the city Democracy. He warned them that it was a critical moment, that the Fusionists had nominated a strong ticket. "It is one that we must reckon with," he declared. "You and I, secure in the knowledge of the good our party has done our beloved municipality, will utterly disclaim the necessity for this absurdly mistaken movement on the part of our friends, the visionary enemy. But even if that enemy be composed of so many wild-eyed Don Quixotes, mounted on their hobbies and fighting windmills, yet, friends, the issue, however ridiculous, is here." He turned and looked straight at Shaughnessy. "Gentlemen, it is as yet unmet. This is not a moment for any false and perhaps fatal step. We owe it to ourselves to meet the enemy with a front that shall be utterly unassailable to his assaults."
Pausing imperturbably till the resultant applause haddied away, the orator proceeded, in glowing periods, to discourse of the sovereignty of the people, of their right to choose their leaders, of the moment which had now arrived to reaffirm their convictions and pursue the highest of party ideals. While the address continued some clever, covert digs at Shaughnessy, the speaker, after the manner of his suave tribe, avoided the quagmires of ugly suspicions and half-guessed corruption that had characterized his party's administration of affairs during recent years. With consummate tact he rather confined himself to broad generalities that fired the blood of his auditors and did not remind them of things that would chill enthusiasm. Mr. Grady urged them only to take the right step in time, to meet strength with strength,—this with another challenging look at Shaughnessy,—to enter the battle equipped for victory rather than defeat.
Now he was approaching the end of his discourse and had not named his candidate. They had hung upon every word, had drunk in the golden sentences that thrilled, that satisfied, yet did not reveal the name of the mysterious champion whose candidacy the orator was advocating. As he swung into his peroration, the piqued curiosity of the people had become almost pain. They were ripe for a shrieking chaos of enthusiasm, and he knew it. So, with gathered forces, with flashing eyes and voice that rang like a trumpet, he figuratively fired the powder train.
"And now," he cried, "you are awaiting the announcement of the man whose name among men is one to conjure with; the man, strong, able and of good repute, the man who is no man's man—" with a defiant gesturetoward Shaughnessy that awakened tremendous enthusiasm,—"the man whose nomination here today means victory. Gentlemen, it is with pleasure that I nominate for the mayoralty of this city a man known to you all for years, for years the trusted, honored servant of our people; a man of achievement, of renown, of probity, of independence, of superb ability; a man who, under God, will rule for righteousness' sake and wear no man's collar; in a word, that distinguished jurist and gentleman, Judge Rufus Atwell Boynton!"
A roar like many waters followed, a roar like thunderous, storm-driven breakers upon a lonely beach, a roar of exultation. Lulling for a moment, the deafening din broke out afresh, again and again, as if it would never cease. Men cheered till they could no longer cheer, but squawked like chickens; standing with empurpled faces, brandishing their arms, cackling strangely, with ludicrous effort and with distended, bloodshot eyes. The gavel fell in vain; only a cannonade could have been heard in that babel of sound. As soon as the noise abated, through sheer force of physical exhaustion, a vote was railroaded through, the hostile chairman being helpless before the fierce faces and voices of this mob, for such it had become under the electrifying lash of Grady's words. Judge Boynton was nominated by an overwhelming majority, even drawing from the forces pledged to the fortunes of the Shaughnessy candidate. The tumult broke out again.
It was suddenly stilled. O'Byrn, from his chair near the rear, saw a thin white hand raised deprecatingly, marked a sardonic white face and inscrutable eyes, whose owner silently demanded attention. It was yieldedwith a promptness that was uncanny. Then Shaughnessy, erect in the midst of his ward delegation, spoke. His thin voice with a cold, underlying sneer, cut the air like a knife, penetrating to every corner of the hall.
"The majority rules," said Shaughnessy. "It is customary, in similar case, to move a unanimous nomination. I so move." The deposed boss sat down. The resultant applause was rather faint. Shaughnessy had somehow chilled the enthusiasm.
To Micky O'Byrn, sitting with knitted brows as the other nominations, involving a complete demolition of the Shaughnessy ticket, were hurried through, there was food for much serious thought and conjecturing. He noted the new candidate as he was brought before the convention and introduced, amid great enthusiasm, by Hon. Thomas Grady. He was older than Micky had imagined and he seemed wearied, almost ill. Still, reflected O'Byrn,—as he listened to the candidate's short speech of appreciation and of assurances for the future, in the event of election,—it seemed strange that the Judge should not display more enthusiasm over an honor which had come to him so signally. Then he fell again to pondering, striving to put two and two together.
That the outcome seriously threatened the Fusionist movement was undeniable. In fact, that ticket was as good as defeated already, for it was robbed of an issue. Judge Boynton was a strong candidate, every whit as strong as Theodore Packard and in similar ways. Incredible as it might seem, Shaughnessy had been humiliated, practically kicked out by his party. But how had it happened? Micky frowned. "There's a niggersomewhere," he reflected, "if the coon could only be found."
At the close of the convention Micky was walking thoughtfully down the street toward the office. It was then dusk and the lamps were being lighted. Someone joined Micky and quietly fell into pace with him. O'Byrn glanced up. It was Slade.
"Funny thing that, over at the convention," remarked Micky. "I should have thought Shaughnessy was solid."
"Yes," answered Slade, placidly. "I should have naturally thought he was."
"Were you there?"
"You bet."
"Then tell me whether Shaughnessy gave Tom Grady the wink to spiel this afternoon," pursued Micky, "or is it my eyes?"
Slade looked at him keenly, then laughed quietly. "I'm sayin' nothing—yet," said he, "but your eyes seem O. K. to me."
HARKINS looked up from his loaded desk, glancing at the clock. It was after ten. The city editor frowned heavily and called to Fatty, who was just passing him on his way out.
"Stearns," he inquired, "have you seen O'Byrn? He has not reported, nor did he ask off for this evening."
"Perhaps he's sick, sir," nervously volunteered Fatty, who knew better but did not intend to give his co-worker away. "Seems to me he looked kind o' peaked yesterday."
"He could easily have sent word," doubtfully rejoined Harkins. "However, you might inquire and let me know. Or, if you see him, send him in here," and he turned to his desk.
Fatty went out. "Send him in here!" he chuckled grimly. "If he's stayed with that bunch he was with at six o'clock, Harkins would pass him on to the gold cure."
All the staff, save Harkins, knew it by this time. Micky, after a season of well doing that was protracted for him, had broken out again in one of his periodical sprees. It was not of the innocuous variety of indulgence that affords satiety in a single evening, leaving the victim remorseful and fortified against another lapsefor an indefinite time. Of such are the fortunate, who are immune from the wiles of a sleepless, diabolical appetite. With Micky it was different. To resist a craving which never really slumbered meant real effort and unceasing vigilance. To succumb meant usually an unrecking debauch of days, while the little red devil worked its sweet will with him, to finally leave him spent and shaken, a temporary sodden wreck. This was the grim enemy, coupled with an unreasoning love of roving, that had made him, rarely talented as he was, a shifting vagrant of the news. It had landed him, ragged and unkempt, at the door of the Courier office. Now it bade fair to cast him forth again, shipwrecked at this most prosperous point of his fortunes, to try once more a dreary, uncertain future, with the gibing ghosts of lost opportunities ever at his elbow; with the maddening memory of a forfeited love, the truest he would ever know, mocking him.
Fatty did not inquire for Micky at his lodgings, nor did he attempt to find him and give him Harkins' message. He omitted the first because he was well aware that Micky would not be found there for some time, the second because he did not care to meet O'Byrn and his crew, for fear that he would be drawn into the maelstrom. He knew Micky's insistence and Fatty was cautious. Thirdly, he felt assured that Harkins would be advised of the cause of Micky's absence in due time, and Stearns had no desire to figure as a bird of ill omen. So he went about his tasks and discreetly dodged places that might perchance hold the uproarious O'Byrn and his riotous cronies.
Fortune was against Stearns, however, for it ledhim, in quest of an elusive item, into the rotunda of the Palace hotel. He met his man there, hastily secured his story, and started out. The entrance to the wine room was at one side. There was the sound of revelry within.
As Stearns was about to pass out, the swinging doors of the wine room were flung open and there appeared, flushed and disheveled, the riotous O'Byrn. At sight of Fatty, who gasped and made a wild bolt to escape, Micky emitted a whoop of triumph and swooped down upon him. He captured him handily and despite his desperate struggles propelled him in headlong fashion into the wine room, for the Irishman was as wiry as he was slender. Stearns found himself in the center of a bibulous throng which included newspaper men, speedy young sports and a few odd bits of _débris_, picked up on the rising flood. They crowded about Fatty, some clamoring for introductions, some making facetious comment on the manner of his entrance, still others rendering him tribute in dubious song. For a moment the din was indescribable, while the "chemist" made ineffectual appeals for order. Then Micky managed to make himself heard above the babel in a demand for quiet.
"Fatness," said he, with a wave of his hand, "these are the Indians. Indians, this are Fatty. Fatty, the Indians are drunk. Indians, Fatty ain't drunk now but he must be made so. Does it go?" A chorus of affirmative yells made answer.
"Now, Fatty," continued O'Byrn earnestly, "in meeting this little wish of ours for your subsequent comfort, be a gentleman. Don't show a grasping spirit, like the two meanest men on record. Never heard of 'em? Well,one of 'em was asked by a friend to have a drink. Asked what he'd take he waited till the buyer had ordered a whisky and then says, 'Gimme two beers,' so as to get his ten cents' worth. Other one of 'em was worse 'n that. Friend asked him what he'd have, an' says he, 'If you don't mind, I'd rather have the money.' No, Indians, Fatty ain't like that. Ask him what he'll have, and the modesty of his demands would put those graspin' dubs to shame."
"Gee, Micky," gurgled Stearns, trying to squirm away, "I ain't got time, honest I ain't. I've got an assignment."
The crowd closed in, holding him securely. Micky mused with corrugated brow. Thus far the only evidences of his indulgence were an unusual sparkle of the eye, a crimsoned countenance and a bewildering flow of language.
"'Assignment,'" cogitated Micky, "what does that mean? Where have I heard that word? Let me forget before I remember already. Let us drink to forget. Vat iss, Fatty?"
Fatty gulped despairingly. There was no hope. "Birch beer," he murmured resignedly. There sounded a universal groan.
"Birch beer!" echoed O'Byrn, in a positive squeal. "I wonder if the mixer hasn't got some Mellin's food? Siphon some milk into him; do, the sweet thing! No, I'll tell you what you'll drink, Fatty. It'll be a Mamie Taylor, with me!"
There was unanimous approval registered in a strident roar. Despite Stearns' protest the "chemist" was urged to mix him a Mamie, Fatty finally becoming silencedin meek submission. Resolving to "shake the bunch" at the first favorable moment, he gazed doubtfully at the seductive mixture in his glass. Micky held up his Mamie and soliloquized.
"This Mamie is a jade," he remarked, with an air of finality that effectually settled the matter. "She's that smooth and insinuating, so agreeable, that it seems as if you could drink her all night, so you generally do. Plain whisky's more honest. It's got that old, shivery yah-yah taste to it that keeps warnin' you all the time to sidetrack, so you're apt to do it before you get telescoped by the D T's. But these blamed fancy flips are what play the devil with a fellow. They're come-ons, clear from champagne to ginger ale splits. They taste so pretty that the next is a necessity, and after that, in the pleasant salve to the palate, you lose count. Take Mamie here. She's the worst in the push. You can gauge your capacity in any other line except on her. She figures her own capacity and the figures always lie, as you realize next morning. Much is a sufficiency, always. More is a superfluperosity.
"In this connection, Mamie reminds me of a story of an old man up north who had slipped from grace for some years and never thought any more of the religious teachings of childhood till trouble switched in, though that's common enough. But along came a famine time and everyone was livin' on short commons. The old man was urged to make a family prayer for some of the necessities. He wasn't used to it and shied considerable, but it was need that egged him on. Well, he got started O. K. with 'O Lord, send us a bar'l o' pork. Send us a bar'l o' sugar. Send us a bar'l o'—o'—pepper—Oh,hell! that's too much pepper!' was the way he rang off.
"Now that's what I'll be sayin' about Mamie, too much of her, when I come to, but such is her infernal fascination that—" He broke off with a wild clutch at Fatty's receding coat tail. Stearns had seized the favorable moment to escape. He got out before Micky could catch him. As O'Byrn was about to shoot through the door in pursuit of him, it swung inward and a familiar figure confronted the little Irishman.
"Well, Micky," remarked Dick dryly, "don't you think you've had enough? Better come along."
For answer O'Byrn tried to drag Dick to the bar. "Come on, old man," he shouted. "Get in! There's Mamies to burn."
Dick had heard of his co-worker's outbreak and hurried from the office in quest of him, chancing to learn where he was. Micky had talked with him previously, regarding his weakness, and Dick knew what its uninterrupted continuance would mean.
"Come home, Micky," he urged, "before you get maudlin. Bunk in and get a good night's rest and you'll be all right for work tomorrow." He led Micky insistently out of the wine room, unmindful of the protests of O'Byrn's companions. They passed through the office to the street.
Micky had been quiet for a moment but now his libations reasserted their influence. He struggled with Dick, voicing sundry curses.
"What d' ye mean?" he demanded. "Let me go, I'm going back. Mind your own business, can't you?"
"Shut up!" growled Dick fiercely. "Can't you seepeople are looking at us? Close your face and come along like a gentleman, for, I tell you, you're going home!"
Then something happened. Before Micky's haggard eyes appeared mistily, taking swift and tangible substance, a girl's face, young and lovely, just now convulsed with horror. Then it was gone, leaving a leaden weight in Micky's breast, while the vapors rose sluggishly from his benumbed brain. Reason, shrinking and ashamed, looked out from his hot eyes. He braced defiantly though hopelessly.
"It's all right, Dick, I'll go home," he said in a strange low tone and they walked in silence down the street.
MICKY awoke late that morning with a persistent, painful throbbing in his head, fevered eyes and a parched throat. The symptoms held an arid familiarity which was swiftly allied with self contempt, as sleep yielded full place to awakened consciousness. For O'Byrn would never be calloused. As he once expressed it, his career was best epitomized in Ade's graphic epigram, "Life is a series of relapses and recoveries." The inherent manliness would always wage war against the little red devil that sought malevolently to wither it. It would be a pitifully checkered fight, but whatever the issue,—even should the world, which never understands, write him down a wreck at the end,—a few who knew him best, and understood, would know that Micky tried. Who will question, in a world where so many drift, that in the simple will to try lies victory?
Micky lay quiet for some moments after awaking, palms pressed to his burning temples, swollen eyes gazing sombrely up at the ceiling of his small, plainly furnished room. The hot sun poured in at the window, before which the shade had not been drawn. The boy, for he was scarcely more, wandered in dreary retrospect through a world of gray memories. How gray, howbleak, to be sure! At the very outset the recollection of a childhood saddened by the frequent sight of a woman in tears; a woman with a pale, worn face and eyes that held the inexpressible pathos of a forlorn hope deferred, his mother. His father, did the world still hold him? O'Byrn told himself fiercely that it could not be, that earth must long since have wearied of such anexcrescenceand cast it forth to annihilation.
To the woman with the pale, worn face and tired eyes, the woman who was now at rest, he owed his upbringing. From the time that he could not remember, when she and her baby were deserted by the husband and father, till the hour when she lay wasted in her final illness, she had toiled for the boy, to give him clothes, sustenance, schooling. Micky remembered with a dull ache at his heart how in the supreme hour the poor tired eyes had watched in vain for one who came not, how the wan lips had in delirium whispered a dishonored name. Then the end, and the ensuing picture of a little newsvender, led sobbing from the new-filled grave of the truest friend he would ever know.
And this other, the being who had left a frail weakling to bear the brunt alone, for what must the son thank him? For the inherited fiend's appetite that marred him, no more. The son well knew that the craving was the intensified replica of the father's crowning vice. He had learned, moreover, that the parent had deemed it a witty thing to ply the son with toddy while in his cradle. The son took to it with an avidity of grave presage, but which delighted the tippling parent. This was the heritage from his father, a heritage that held in fee wastes of black bog and hungry mire, with death squattinggrimly in the midst. Ah, what a goodly patrimony he had left, this absent one; what wealth indeed!
The boy in the bed winced as beneath the impact of a blow. He struck clenched hands together fiercely. "Oh, God!" he breathed, the tone combining the bitter venom of a curse with the agonized entreaty of a prayer.
A moment more he lay in silence, vague eyes fixed on a gray and resurrected past. He stirred uneasily. "Ah, well, this won't do!" he muttered, and flinging off the coverings he rolled off upon the floor. The sunlight dazzled his eyes and he blinked like a bat as he drew the shade. He swayed unsteadily for a moment, wincing as a sharp pain stabbed his throbbing head, dying in needle-like prickings just behind the eyes. With a discouraged groan he made his way to the wash stand, and emptying the pitcher into the bowl, plunged his fevered head into the refreshing contents and held it there. It was very pleasant, the coolness, and a brisk rubbing with a crash towel added decidedly to the relief. Dressing with shaking fingers, he was finally ready and left the house, blinking swollen eyes owlishly in the clear sunlight. He stopped at a restaurant just long enough to swallow a cupful of black coffee in order to neutralize a bevy of differing tastes that tenanted his mouth, vying in stale mustiness. Again he sought the open air, wandering aimlessly.
Clearly the coffee was not enough, for his head throbbed worse than before. Involuntarily he steadied it with one hand, to keep it on, while he put into Kelly's drug store for a bromo. Kelly's was popular with the boys. It was open nights and they could buy whisky in the back room, after all the other places were closed, andsecure bromo over the soda water fountain in the morning.
Micky absorbed his bromo in a gloomy, introspective mood. The bracer, as it is generally understood, he was minded this morning to avoid as if it had been a pestilence. He was wont to say that a bracer was to him but a limited stop-over, that he would be sure to be traveling again before noon. He had travelled far enough this trip, far enough to menace a future, which had never seemed so bright. Disquieting recollections gnawed at Micky's mind. A girl's face, eloquent with horror and disgust, seen as through a mist in the lighted street, confronted his shamed, wakened consciousness, while he writhed inwardly. And, too, his post with the Courier? Had he lost it? How much latitude would they extend to drunkards?
A drunkard! He shuddered at the repellent thought, yet what else was he? What else any man who allowed the infernal appetite to lure him from duty to be performed? Not once but many times had he, O'Byrn, fallen by this standard. Repeatedly had he been cast off, with the goal of reputation and success in sight, because of the little red devil, who journeyed with him the broad land over, making its hateful presence known at riotous intervals that resulted in swift changes and shifts of scene for the little Irishman. If, indeed, he had not lost his post with the Courier, it was due to the fortunate interruption of a spree that might otherwise have lasted a week. O'Byrn's soul went out in gratitude to Dick. Even though it should prove that he had lost both his place and his lady, it was a melancholy pleasure to Micky to have sobered so soon. Hethought with deep self-disgust of prior orgies; of wild days and wilder nights, piling deliriously upon each other while sleep was unknown, a stranger to be banished; when all things loomed distorted, unreal, through a red haze. So it would go until, with abused nature exhausted, he would sink into a sodden stupor. From this he would finally emerge a shaking wreck, with the blackest of memories and usually with the blankest of futures, for his job usually went with his spree. The latter was always of inconvenient length for the demands of a newspaper office.
Something of these horrors he had communicated to Dick some time before. "This thing has played the devil with me, Dick," he had said. "I want excitement. Drinking is a means to the end. Then, first I know, it's an end to my means. That and my infernal itch for shifting have made me a scoffing and a byword. If I could get chained down, and lost my thirst, I might make good. I've come near it a lot of times and then the cussed coupling would break and I'd go slidin' down the grade again. Then it would be the bumpers out. I guess it'll be that way till I'm backed onto the siding for good. But I'm headed right now, and, if you ever catch me toyin' with the lush, I want you to joyously jack my jeans clear to my lodgings. Knock me down, pick me up and knock me down again."
"That's all very well, Micky," Dick had replied with a remonstrating bellow of a laugh, "but I'm not enough of a pharisee for that, you know, for I'm no total abstainer myself."
"Yes, but you're about two-thirds of a one," replied the other. "You don't know what an appetite means.You drink, when you drink at all, for good fellowship, because someone asks you to. Left to yourself, you'd never think of it. If you ever take too much, it means you're on the water wagon for a number of months, because you dread the feeling of the morning after. You're one of those lucky devils that can monkey with the stuff for a lifetime and never acquire the faintest vestige of a thirst. Now as for me, I can't coquette with it. I have to walk sideways past a saloon with my face turned the other way, across the street to the undertaker's. I've simply got to let it alone. Why? Because a lot of hard jolts have taught me that it's a lot stronger than I am unless it's held down with both hands. Sometimes I can take a glass and let it alone, but oftener the first glass is only a drop in the bucket that starts a demand to annex the whole well. Then there's a roaring Rip Van Winkle that I come out of a week or two later to find my job miles behind and me countin' ties and waitin' for a freight. That's the worst of it, Dick," with a red flush of shame. "It's thinkin' that you're just as liable to fall asleep at the switch, when you're on duty. Now that's what I'm carrying over the country with me. That's what I'm fightin'. First one on top, then the other. But whichever way, Dick, it's hell!"
There had ensued a silence, broken by Dick's voice, unwontedly sober.
"The gold cure, Micky, did you ever try it?"
"No!" with vigor, "and I never will! If I can't stand I'll go down, but it'll be alone. If I can't weather it without that, why then me to the dip-house, that's all. No artificial vacations in mine!"
Which, if perhaps wrong-headed, at least bespoke a plenitude of grit.
Dick had remembered Micky's request to deliver him, if need be, from the fascinations of the grape, and had complied with it in spirit, if not in letter, the night previous. O'Byrn had been firmly torn from the bibulous bevy with which he had started that afternoon and been escorted home. And though the prospect was dismal enough to the boy who stood, hands in pockets, on the curb, staring moodily at the asphalt, he was glad that Dick had looked him up. It might have been worse.
How bad was it, anyway? Micky drew a long breath, squared his shoulders and started for the office.
MICKEY was not dismissed, though the city editor had a heart to heart talk with him. "We are not exactly sticklers for total abstinence here, O'Byrn," he said. "I am free to confess that I am ineligible to membership in the I. O. G. T. myself. But one thing the Courier does insist upon, which is that a man's indulgence must not be allowed to interfere with his work. I had important assignments for you last night and had to place them in other hands. Besides, we were short of men. When I accidentally learned, near press-time, of the real reason for your non-appearance, I was minded to let you go. But from what I learn I gather that it is something of a disease in your case. Cure yourself, my boy, for you're a good man and I've decided to give you another chance."
Micky stood quietly, his freckled face a queer study of mingled relief and misery. "It's more than I deserve, Mr. Harkins," he replied. "I'm a pup when I start drinkin'. You're right, it's a disease with me. I won't promise that it's a final attack, for I don't know, but I will promise," with meaning, "that you'll never have to jack me up for it again. If I can't hold on, why I'll quietly let go." He walked out.
Micky worked feverishly for a couple of days afterthat, his heart full of misgiving. His place was assured, true enough, but there was another matter, even more vital, which was rife with uncertainty. A girl's face, eloquent of horror and dismay, swam mistily before his eyes, as in the lighted street in front of the hotel when he was struggling with Glenwood. He closed his eyes with a shiver, but still saw the face, known for whose it was. Would she ever receive him, even nod to him again? Never, probably, and why should she? This was a new attitude for the ordinarily rollicking, independent O'Byrn. It remains for the lover to sound the nethermost depths of humility.
He watched his mail those two days with apprehensive eyes, fearing to receive a note which should administer his _coup de grace_. None came, and, as a natural sequence, his suspense increased. It is the axe suspended that the fowl fears; with its fall subsequent proceedings fail to interest the bird.
Finally there arrived O'Byrn's night off. It could be employed but in one way; he must become definitely acquainted with his fate. Behold him, with set teeth and an air of impending martyrdom, at the Muldoons' door at eight of the evening. It was a Friday evening, but Micky was desperate. He breathed hard for a moment, wavered, then rang the bell heroically. There was a soft stir inside, the door opened. It was dark in the hall. Micky leaned forward.
"Is that you, Maisie?" he breathed. "I—"
"Naw," piped a childish treble, "it ain't Maisie. It's her brudder, Terence."
"Sure," murmured Micky confusedly. "Would'veknown from your general cut, Terence, but I can't see you. Where's the folks?"
"All out, Mister Micky," rejoined the youngster, thrusting his tousled head out of the doorway to inspect the visitor. "Ain't no one to home but me."
"Where's Maisie?" Micky demanded in a tone which indicated that Terence would fill no particular gap as far as he was concerned.
"Out to a dance," grinned Terence. "Gone with Billy Ryan." Micky's brow darkened, while Terence's grin grew wider. Billy Ryan! The cavalier who left a Manhattan to go out for beers! Micky's mind swiftly reverted to the Ironworkers' ball, to which Ryan had brought the lady and from which O'Byrn had escorted her home. And now—in a brief second Micky gathered some luminous ideas in evolution. He pulled himself together.
"Say, Terence," he murmured, with a cajoling wink, "take this and don't speak of my havin' called, see?" Terence nodded solemnly and closed the door, richer by a quarter. Micky strode savagely away, rich in a fund of swift-risen jealousy and in an empty, aimless night off.
"Ryan!" he ruminated with a groan. "I could stand for most anyone else. But a soak like him! Blast it! Can't a girl get next to anything nowadays but what drinks?"
And indeed, in these degenerate days, with teetotalers well nigh outside her ken, many a maiden has had often ample occasion to ask herself that question.
The pot having apostrophized the kettle, Micky felt easier, though the thought of Ryan was productive ofinward profanity through all of that singularly tedious and empty evening.
There ensued a miserable week for Micky, though it was a fortunate one for the Courier. Misery produces a wide diversity of results, depending upon the makeup of the afflicted subject. The one it can render absolutely useless to the needs of the workaday grind. The other, beneath its bitter lash, becomes a human dynamo, plunging into the nepenthe of toil. Of such was Micky, and a nervously brilliant week was credited to him in consequence.
But though the course was eminently more beneficial to him and his endangered journalistic prospects than bootless brooding would have been, it was a sorry week for him. Moreover, it was an interminably long one. He would not have believed that such a week, filled with a restless whirl of work, could have passed so slowly. Conflicting emotions disquieted him, played pranks with an appetite for meals ordinarily as reliably fixed as sea tides, filled his days with a wan restlessness and troubled his sleep. For Micky, though the soft impeachment would have probably won from him a picturesque denial, was in love, and misery is a privilege of lovers.
He watched the mails and the postman. The latter never stopped and Micky anathematized him in his heart, also a privilege of lovers whenever thorns and nettles spring up in Arcady. It is curious, this universal mental arraignment of the postman for the non-delivery of matter never sent. Why, in all reason, should he be forced to figure as a buffer? Yet he is, and the rancor against him felt by the disappointed is all the more bitter because of the absolute necessity for its repression.One would acquire only merited ridicule and punishment for thrashing the postman, though one would often like to. One may only glare, and, if the postman notices it, he doesn't mind. He has grown cynical in service. So to revert, as the days passed so also did the postman; and Micky, while feeling quite murderous, simply glared.
Why didn't she write, and again, why should she? Micky writhed upon the twin horns of his dilemma. If she wrote, what in reason could she write except a definite sentence of banishment? If she did not write, what could the implied message naturally mean but the same? Oh, of course, he was out of it anyway. But in that case, what of Ryan? Was it possible that Ryan was considered preferable to him? When that query introduced itself Micky usually swore. Altogether it was a hard week.
On one thing, however, he was determined. The matter should be settled, once for all, on his next night off. Perhaps Terence had been indiscreet and revealed the secret of his previous fruitless call. Maisie might expect him on the following Friday night and be away. Well, he would fix that. So he arranged for Thursday night. A little cunning might insure at least an audience.
Behold him, then, on the fateful evening at the Muldoons' door, heroically despairing. A soft glow shone through the curtained parlor windows. Within he heard the soft chords of her little organ. She might have company, Ryan perhaps. O'Byrn clenched his teeth and rang the bell.
The organ was suddenly silent. To the boy waiting outside, the succeeding moment of suspense was filledwith a tumult of loud heart beats, with strange throbbings at the temples. Then the door slowly opened. "Who is there?" asked a voice.
He stepped inside without a word, laying his hat on the hall table. Forbiddingly silent, she gazed an instant into his face, glacial blue eyes searching his own hungry ones, her face so cold as to cause him an inward shiver. Then without speaking, she entered the little parlor, he following.
They sat far apart. Her manner increased the gap immeasurably. Micky felt dimly that speech would partake of the nature of transmission over a long-distance telephone to the Klondike. However, he cleared his throat with some diffidence. It was something of an odd sensation for him.
"You were playin'," he ventured.
"Yes," somewhat pointedly. "I was."
"Well," he continued, "don't let me interrupt you. I like music."
"Oh, do you?" indifferently. "Sorry, but the pieces I was playin' are new ones. I don't know 'em well enough to play 'em before company."
"So?" he continued, calmly ignoring the reiterated hint. "Well, try some of the old ones. They're good enough for me." He watched her face eagerly.
It did not relax. "I think I've forgotten the old ones, Mr. O'Byrn," she said slowly.
"But I haven't," somewhat wistfully. "And it was not so long ago."
"Not so long ago!" her blue eyes brightening. "Mr. O'Byrn, it was longer ago than you seem to think."
"Yes, I guess it was," dejectedly. "It's a long way from 'Micky' to 'Mister' after all."
The girl's lip curled. "It's your own fault." she retorted. Then with a sudden burst of hurt resentment, "I couldn't believe it at first," with an involuntary little shiver, "when I saw you that night. My brother was pretty mad, I can tell you, said I ought to shake you. Such a sight!"
"So your brother was with you," exclaimed Micky, half to himself. One maddening surmise had been set at rest. The thought of Ryan had haunted him of late.
"Yes, who did you think it was? Couldn't you see him?" with sarcasm.
"I'm afraid I couldn't," with a humility strange in him, "but I could see you, Maisie, and it sobered me."
"High time!" she flashed. "But then," with an impatient gesture, "It ain't pleasant to talk about, so cut it out. What did you come here for, anyway?"
He straightened. "To apologize, Maisie, that's all," he said simply. "Just that and to ask for another chance. Isha'n'twhine or excuse myself. Only this. They gave me another chance at the office. Do I get one here?"
She tapped the carpet with an impatient foot. Her eyes were downcast, her cheeks flushed. Micky watched her wistfully. Suddenly she stole a swift glance at him, her blue eyes brimming with tears.
"Oh," she burst out, a pitiful break in her voice, "if I hadn't seen you—that way. It nearly killed me. And every time I've thought of you since—I've seen you—like that! Oh, Micky—" Her voice was lost in sobs, stifled in her handkerchief.
He sprang from his chair, kneeling at her side, stroking her hair with trembling fingers, pouring out his soul in broken, incoherent words.
"I'm a beast, Maisie, a beast! Don't cry so—dear. It's always been so, it's what's done for me all my life. My mother's dead, thank God! She died before she knew. But my father," striking his clenched hand on the arm of her chair, "he's got it to answer for, wherever he is, living or dead! He was a devil, Maisie, and he made me one. He fed me the stuff when I was a baby and I took to it like milk; it was his cursed blood in me, I suppose. It's driven me from pillar to post, from a job to the gutter, time and again. It's been up one minute and down the next with me. Oh, I'm not fit to touch you, Maisie, I'm a dog to ask it, but I tell you that, if I play out the game alone, this thing will drive me to hell! Would you—stand by me, help me? It's always been stronger than I am, perhaps it always will be, but Maisie, I think I can beat it out, can be a man—with you!"
It was out at last, the sum of his passionate longing, poured out despairingly in a flood of wild unrecking words; without forethought, wrung from him by the sudden yearning born of the sight of the girl in tears. Now that it was over he remained silent a moment, still torn by his emotion and by hers. Then, slowly and fearfully, his stinging eyes sought her face. It was buried in her little hands. Tears trickled through her clasped fingers.
He rose heavily to his feet. What madness had possessed him, what presumption! He had asked her to marry—a drunkard. He laughed with bitter brevity.The sound brought the sight of a startled face with tear-wet eyes.
"Overlook it, Maisie," he asked desolately, as he turned away, "and good-by. I don't know how I came to do it—but you cried."
He was half way to the hall. There was a soft step behind him, a light touch upon his arm. He turned swiftly, the ghost of a wan hope in his haggard eyes.
"Ah, Micky," she whispered, with a smile whose tender memory would live for him in endless summer through autumn's falling leaves till winter's winding sheets,—"don't you—don't you know—why—I cried?"
MICKY told Dick about it one evening, for his heart was full. His engagement was a serious thing to him, and something like fear mingled with his hope of the future. He was deeply sensible of his past mistakes, but he knew himself too well to look to the coming days with unshrinking confidence. He hoped, very humbly; that was all.
Dick was sympathetic, he understood. His was one of those rare natures that invite, comprehend and respect confidences. "You know my record, Dick," Micky had said. "There isn't much in it of a domestic tinge. But just the same, when I happen to get a night off and sit in the little parlor with her, it seems—" with a queer little break in his voice,—"why Dick, it seems as if I had at last—got home!"
And Dick had wrung Micky's hand until it ached, and assured him in his deep bass voice, eloquent with fervent earnestness, that he was all right, and poor Micky had begun to hope that, after a long and checkered season, he was.
The city was now fully roused to the contest that was being waged for its control between the Fusionists and Democrats, and, as a natural sequence, they were busy in the newspaper offices. One thing was quite evident,however, which was that the unexpected _coup_ made by the opponents of Shaughnessy, at the Democratic convention, had rendered the chances of the Fusionist ticket dubious, to say the least. In fact, the Fusionists had been robbed, to a large extent, of their thunder. The spectacular repudiation of Shaughnessy by his own convention, the nomination of a man for the mayoralty against whom no word of civil or political taint had ever been breathed, had greatly lessened the Fusionists' chances of success. Where they had expected to be able to deal mighty blows, by pointing to the shameless effrontery of Shaughnessy in forcing a malodorous city ticket through his convention, they were now compelled to take another tack. The situation had been made the subject of an earnest conference between Colonel Westlake and the men controlling other pro-Fusionist newspapers directly after the Democratic convention and its surprising results.
So, in the assaults which the opposing newspapers, led by the Courier, were making upon the Democracy there was no hint of detraction of the Judge. How could there be? They contented themselves with the assumption that the respected and able jurist had been imposed upon. To be sure, Shaughnessy, having become notorious, had been sacrificed by his keen associates in their own interest. Should they be successful at the polls, the argument was made that Judge Boynton and some of his well meaning associates upon the ticket, despite their good intentions, would be powerless to cleanse the Augean stables because they would be prevented from so doing by forces within their own party.Fusion would furnish a new broom, guaranteed to sweep clean.
This was strong and logical reasoning, but there were signs that it was ineffective. There was a strong retort to be made, which was that the purifying movement in the Democracy had come from within. The leaders named were above suspicion; some of them were recognized bitter enemies of Shaughnessy. Men of influence who had joined the Fusionists, though Democrats, openly returned, holding that the necessity for Fusion no longer existed. As the Democrats had a natural ascendency in the city, the outlook for Fusion was on the whole growing rather depressing.
Following his humiliation in the convention, Shaughnessy had left the city for several days. Upon returning, he apparently took up the life of a recluse. He confined himself strictly to the affairs of his wholesale house, dividing his time equally between the office and his lodgings. He was no longer at headquarters, where the sight of him was once so familiar; he had apparently dropped all interest in politics, though nobody dared to ask him anything about it. When Shaughnessy first struck the town, said the old stagers, he was quite decently approachable, but he had ceased so to be for years past. It was noted, however, by some who chanced to meet him upon the street and glanced curiously at him, that he was ghastlier than ever, with sunken cheeks and dull eyes. He looked ill.
But there was one who had not ceased to regard Mr. Shaughnessy with suspicion, a suspicion that grew day by day, and that was Micky O'Byrn. When Shaughnessy left town after his rout, O'Byrn muttered, "Upto more deviltry. Wonder what it is now?" When he returned, and quietly forsook his old political haunts, Micky's sandy eyebrows were skeptically elevated and he murmured, "Underground! He'll come up somewhere." For Micky relied upon the evidence of his keen Irish eyes. Whether the act was committed through arrangement or involuntarily, Shaughnessy had winked. O'Byrn reasoned that winks by a man of Shaughnessy's calibre were not wasted. Curious that a "slick duck" like Grady, as Micky characterized that smooth orator, had required a wink. Perhaps he hadn't, perhaps Shaughnessy had simply grown over-anxious during the short interval between the speeches. Well, if Shaughnessy had grown unwittingly careless, that was his look-out, his and O'Byrn's. O'Byrn was looking out. He had said nothing and he was devoutly hopeful that he would have a chance to saw wood.
He was at Maisie's one evening, one of his customary "off-nights." These nights were coming to him of late as oases in the deserts of weeks. They had chatted, talked seriously of their plans, sung together to Maisie's accompaniment on the little organ, and now Micky regretfully rose, with a glance at his watch. "Well, girl," said he, "I've got to slide. It's gettin' late. Your pa'll be assistin' me."
She watched him with wistful blue eyes, loth that he leave, though she knew the hour beckoned his departure. He stood near the big lamp with its red shade, his queer features being mellowed, so to speak, in the ruddy glow. He grinned benignly at her as he reached for his coat. Anticipating him, she helped him into it.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed rebelliously, "isn't it theworst ever, this newspaper business! And a morning paper at that, with your hours turned wrong side out and a night off only once in an age! Micky, dear, why don't you get into something civilized?"
"You know, Maisie, the Constitution says all men were created equal," he observed soberly.
"Sure it does, but what's that got to do with it? What are you up to now?"
"Why, nothin'," he replied, an impish twinkle in his eye, "only it depends. One man may be as good as another, but it's up to him to prove it. A bunch of Socialist Democrats, in a town I was in once, put up a hostler for city judge against a couple of old lawyers on the regular tickets. Said a hostler was as good as a lawyer in this free country. True enough, in a limited sense. I know a lot of hostlers that are better hostlers than a lot of lawyers that are lawyers. I suppose you follow me? But, all the same, these fellows were lame in their argument for this reason. Their hostler candidate might have had horse sense to burn, but he hadn't read law. There's a lot of difference between horse sense and the law, Maisie. They finally took the hostler off and put a cobbler on, who came in last. Now don't strike me, Maisie, that last was accidental. Really, I didn't intend it."
"I should hope not!" with sincerity. "But I don't see what all this rigmarole has to do with what we are saying, or were. Have you lost your mind?"
"If ever I did, the finder would return it," he retorted whimsically. "It would make him dizzy. But to return to cases, what I said has got everything to do with what we said. Can't see it? Well, men may be created equalbut most of 'em never learn arithmetic. The fellow who does has got 'em stopped. He keeps on addin', while they—oh, they're just multiplyin' every minute. They're all around you, I'm one of 'em myself. The mathematical sharp, who made a specialty on finance and knows the idiosyncrasies of a dollar better than a mother knows her child, keeps on subtractin' the other fellows from their money. When it comes to the division, why they're all workin' for him. That's Rockefeller, and by the same token, that's me. We're the limit on the extremes. He's got everything and I'm livin' on the rest. I've got nothin' and he's got it. See?
"There's a happy medium, but it doesn't help the majority much, for most of us are on pay rolls. For instance, one man owns the Courier and the rest of us are working for him. If I changed to something else, I'd still be workin' for someone. Why? Because the only line in arithmetic in which I could make good was a sequence of ciphers with no bigger figure before it. You catch the point, don't you? It's due to the mercenary age. Nominally I'm free and equal. Actually I'm about a 'steenth of one per cent. See? But what's the dif'? What you need in this dizzy old world is philosophy. I've got it to burn, but Standard Oil can't scorch it. Here's a motto for you, Maisie, and you can paste it in that funny new jigger you call a hat. It'll keep you smilin' on wash day, and that's a test for a woman. It's just this: take it as it comes, and, if it doesn't come, don't take it."
He was gone, this queer little man-gamin of vagrant moods, shifting as the winds, yet for the most bubbling with reckless cheeriness. Humor was the predominantnote of his being. Its broad grace mellowed him; would keep him sound and sweet at heart, whatever the sum of the coming years. Did the winds blow fair or ill, he had within him the essence of logical living; a whimsical sense of proportion that enabled him to view himself impartially with all others, one of myriad puppets in the show. A success or a failure he might become, as the world judges, but until the end he would be too large for that littleness which is too often a hallmark of success, the littleness of petty vanity. So, with this greatest gift the Creator can give one of his children, the humorous sense of proportion that can make if need be a joke of futility, Micky would go on to the end, to success or failure; alike with heart uncankered and a laugh on his lips. There would never transpire a misanthropic Micky.
For a long time after O'Byrn's departure, Maisie sat still in the Morris chair, a pensive look on her pretty face, with vague eyes bent dreamily on the flaming wood in the tiny fireplace; for the nights had grown chill with the first presage of winter and the fenders glowed with warm hospitality on company nights. The busy flames licked the blackened slabs; hurrying over the charred, desolate spaces; leaping in triumph as a conquered fragment fell, under the espionage of a shower of scintillant sparks. The tongues of flame, with redoubled energy, again lapped the wood, eating into its vitals, withering its fibres with fiery breath, crumbling it piecemeal in a crematory of elemental ashes. At last, always working upward, the flames burst exultantly from scorched fissures in the topmost slab and curled in weird shapes above it; shapes that now approached a certain sane coherence; that again were indeterminate and distorted, vaguely writhing in a dimhaze, like one's future. Finally the fire, spending its force, dulled and died, the ruddy flames slowly paling like the fading roses of a summer sunset. Then there was the black, desolate end; all light extinguished save for the baleful, red-eyed glare of a few scattered embers, dying on the hearth. Maisie sat erect with a sudden start, stealing an apprehensive glance at the clock. With a long sigh and a little shiver, she rose slowly, extinguished the low-turned lamp and departed for bed.
Meanwhile, Micky, a red-eyed cigar in a corner of his mouth, had walked leisurely and thoughtfully toward the city. His hands thrust deep in his overcoat pockets, he strode unheedingly on, lost in a wistful reverie. What a flower was this little girl of his, to be sure! And he—what had he done to deserve her? A little self-examination is good for a man, especially if it be followed by a little proper self-disgust. O'Byrn walked on in singularly chastened mood. The past? Ah, it was done; why waste time in regrets when one is young? The present was of sunshine in a blue sky; the future—
O'Byrn's shoulders rose in a little, involuntary, uneasy shrug. He turned a corner just then and looked up. The next instant he had retired unobtrusively into a dark hallway, where he stood, staring across the street.
O'Byrn could scarcely have explained his definite impulse for doing this. It was simply the half-unconscious manifestation of the news instinct. Without any needed pause for reasoning, Micky's news faculty had connected two apparently irrelevant facts as significantly allied with each other, prompting him to remain in the hope of securing something worth while. The wholesale liquor establishment of Shaughnessy stood just across the street. Thecurtains of the office were drawn, but O'Byrn saw the reflection of a light behind them. Furthermore, the sound which had brought Micky to a realization of his surroundings, a moment before, was that of a carriage, which had been halted a little way up the dark street, the corner of which O'Byrn had just turned. So O'Byrn stood in the shadow, watching Shaughnessy's office.
He had not long to wait. A few moments and he beheld the corner of one of the office window shades drawn slightly to one side. Somebody was evidently looking out. Nobody was in sight, for the street was a quiet one and was deserted at that hour. The next moment the door was opened cautiously and a man emerged. Crossing the street swiftly he passed by O'Byrn so closely that the reporter could have touched him, and turned the corner. Then was soon audible the sound of receding wheels.
O'Byrn whistled softly as he resumed his walk toward the city. The light of the aroused news instinct was in his eyes. Here was something tangible, bearing out surmises that had seemed wild to himself. What need had Judge Boynton, the esteemed Democratic candidate for mayor, to be secretly in the office of the deposed boss, Shaughnessy? Deposed, indeed! Micky laughed softly, then clenched his hands.
"Oh, if I can only get onto it!" he breathed savagely. "Whew! Lord! Lord! What a story!"
Had Micky chanced to look around at that moment he might have seen a man following him, who, had O'Byrn known it, could have given him some interesting and definite pointers on that desired story. The man had emerged from around the corner of Shaughnessy's buildinga moment after Judge Boynton left and Micky had started down the street. Gaining the opposite side of the thoroughfare, the fellow, who had evidently been eavesdropping, followed O'Byrn, keeping some distance in the rear, until a point was reached where Micky turned to go toward the Courier office. The other man kept straight on.
A little later, as he had figured upon doing, Micky met some of the boys in a lunch room which they were wont to visit at that hour. Dick was there, and Mead and Fatty Stearns. The latter was talking.
"Gee!" exclaimed Fatty, breathlessly, while the expletive blew a formidable charge of bread crumbs toward the shrinking company, "but there'll be doin's this election! There'll be doin's! Watcha think, Micky?"
"I think you need an interpreter, Fatty, when you try to talk with your mouth full," replied O'Byrn. "Don't talk, Fatty. You sound like a dog that's trying to breathe in July; you do, really. One of those expectorating dogs."
"Gee! What's those?" demanded Fatty, helplessly. "Spitz!" replied Micky, and dodged a crust launched by the justly indignant Glenwood.
"Cheese it, fellows," put in Mead. "About this election. Fusion's got no chance now. JudgeBoynton'llwin in a walk."
"For how much?" in a flash. O'Byrn's hand was in his pocket.
"Well," remarked Mead, reflectively, "I'm not exactly lined with dough, but I'll put an X on it. Have to stipulate that it's a futurity, though; for, needless to say,I haven't as much as that in my clothes three days after pay day."
"Neither have I," laughed O'Byrn. "This diggin' down was a bluff. But I'll see your ten all right. This bum line of witnesses will take notice. Loser touches someone to pay the winner. All fine 'nd dandy."
Mead acquiesced, albeit with an implied something of uncertainty in his demeanor. The rotund Stearns voiced it in nervous words.
"Gee! Mead," he exclaimed, "you're a chump to bet your stuff on another fellow's game."
"Go die somewhere, Fatty," suggested Micky. "There's no game yet, but," with a queer grin at Mead, "there's going to be before this thing's over. Want to renig, Mead? Can if you want to."
"No!" indignantly rejoined Mead. "I'll see it through. If you really have something in your Irish sleeve, O'Byrn, I'll bet it's worth the money."
"Nothin' yet," murmured Micky, as they prepared to depart, "but I tell you, boys, that sleeve's a Christmas stockin' just now, and I'm gettin' eye-strain watchin' for Santa Claus."