The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe championThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The championAuthor: Charles Egbert CraddockIllustrator: Alice Barber StephensRelease date: September 17, 2024 [eBook #74435]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902Credits: Peter Becker, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHAMPION ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The championAuthor: Charles Egbert CraddockIllustrator: Alice Barber StephensRelease date: September 17, 2024 [eBook #74435]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902Credits: Peter Becker, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
Title: The champion
Author: Charles Egbert CraddockIllustrator: Alice Barber Stephens
Author: Charles Egbert Craddock
Illustrator: Alice Barber Stephens
Release date: September 17, 2024 [eBook #74435]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902
Credits: Peter Becker, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHAMPION ***
THE CHAMPIONBY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCKBOSTON AND NEW YORKHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANYThe Riverside Press, Cambridge1902COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY MARY N. MURFREEALL RIGHTS RESERVEDPublished September, 1902.
BY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK
BOSTON AND NEW YORKHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge1902
COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY MARY N. MURFREEALL RIGHTS RESERVEDPublished September, 1902.
"I CAN'T HIDE IT! I BURNT THE COPY."
"I CAN'T HIDE IT! I BURNT THE COPY."
"I CAN'T HIDE IT! I BURNT THE COPY."
CHAPTER I
The devil was looking out of the window. Yet the traffic in the streets was unchecked. The cable-cars whizzed past with a clanging clamor. Great rumbling vans laden with freight alternated with carriages rolling noiselessly on rubber-tired wheels. The sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians. Men and boys, ladies and little children, boldly came and went over the neighboring crossing, although they could plainly see the devil's head poking out of a high window in the newspaper building and hear the shrill tones of the devil's voice as he discoursed to his friend within.
For in fact this was not the old Enemy of Mankind, but a small imp—commonly known as a printer's devil—who by virtue of a beguiling chirp of "Copy!" served as a means of communication between the foreman of the composing-room and the editorial staff.
"That's wher' they set her up!" he said, pointing to the composing-room in an explanatory way, and with a paw copiously smeared with ink.
There were streaks of this commodity on his face also, although his functions had no concern with it. Still the devil is not the only fiend who dabbles in printer's ink without a call.
His friend, Peter Bateman, a heavy, thickset boy, with a broad, sullen, flushed face and a lowering eye, cast a glance at the cases visible through the open door from the hall.
"Wher' do the boss do the writin' at?" he asked, in a hoarse, wheezy voice.
The devil tossed his red head. "Boss don't hev ter write none!" he retorted arrogantly. "Foremanis whatwecall him—bes' printer in these 'ere Newnited States!"
"But wher' do the feller stay what hes ter write?" persisted Pete.
"Oh,—him?" responded the devil, disparagingly. "They puts him in a little 'rinktum,' they call it, all by himself.Heain't much force! He can't write a word if folks git ter gabblin' ter him. Why, sometimes when I jes' say 'Copee' ter him, he looks like he will go out of his mind! They hev ter hire a whole passel o' other fellers ter help himjes' do the writin'. They hev got a double row of desks for a lot of 'em in that long room. They are all orful slow. Sometimes I be kep' yappin' 'Copee' at 'em all day so I can't stay abed o' night—ef I eats toler'ble hearty,—but jes' keeps jumpin' out an' yappin' 'Copee' in my sleep, till my mother gits afeard I'll fetch the perlice with my noise."
He grinned at the recollection of these somnolent vagaries. Then in his self-assumed duties as cicerone to his friend, showing the plant of the daily newspaper, as the rooms were nearly deserted at this hour, he duly exhibited the type-setting machine, a comparatively new acquisition in this southwestern city, and not altogether popular in the composing-room, where much of the work was still done by hand.
"Itisa go, of course," said the devil discriminatingly, reflecting the sentiment of his elders, "but I tell you now, this machine ain't in it for speed an' percision with a reg'lar old-fashioned, gilt-edged, greased-lightning compositor like Bob Platt,—that's our foreman, ye know! That's the kind o' printer I'm goin' ter be,—ye kin bet yer hat!"
He hesitated and seemed a trifle out of countenance for a moment after he had said this. For when he had first been employed in the office, a raw little country lad, his admiration of the printer's craft had been so great, his ambition so exuberant, his ingenuous emulation so open that he had immediately announced his determination to be some day a champion compositor and stand preëminent at the case! The galley-boys and junior printers, of the variety called "cubs," would have been more or less than human had they failed to improve so promising an opportunity for fun. They guyed him unmercifully, and they called him "the Champion" so relentlessly that there was no one employed about the paper, from the engine-room to the "rinktum" (sanctum) of the editor-in-chief, who was unaware of the application of this proud designation. The little devil, Edward Macdonald by name, winced and wilted under the ridicule of his fellows, but it had no deterrent effect upon his determination and the great object of his ambition. He accounted it the chief feat of manual dexterity; and he thought the greatest sight the city could afford was the spectacle of Bob Platt swiftly distributing type, while the bits of metal rattled like a furious hail into their appropriate boxes. Even now he was volubly pitying Peter Bateman that he had never beheld this phenomenon, and possibly was fated never to witness it.
Then, with the enthusiasm of a predestined compositor, he declared, "I'd ruther stand at the case when I gits my growth than be the bigges' editor goin'!"
They presently sauntered out again into the dusky hall, dimly illumined by a flickering gas-jet here and there, for twilight was at hand, and leaned once more against the sill of the window.
"Them reporters hev the bes' time o' any o' the staff. Them men skeet around town till they are wore ter nothin' but eyes and lead pencil! They see everything!—always on the go! An' hev compliments o' the season all hours,—an' free passes ter the theaytre, lemme tell ye!"
An impressive silence ensued. Then a shadow crossed Ned's ink-streaked face, which was the paler because of the fading of his freckles, natural concomitant of his red hair, by reason of his indoor work.
"Now look at me!" the devil resumed in a tone calculated to invite contrast. "I hev ter stay cooped up 'ere half the day an' nigh all night, an' I work an' work, an' I pays all my wages over ter my mother; I never keep a cent for myself. I ain't grudgin' her nor my little sister neither—but ain't I goin' ter see inside a theaytre never no more?"
He thrust his hands into his empty pockets. His heart was swelling. He breathed hard. Suddenly Pete, his thin lips askew, his eyes narrowed to the merest slits, till it seemed surprising that so much slyness could look out thence, nodded his head again and again, till the motion seemed automatic, as if he were a queer bit of bobbing machinery.
"What d' ye mean by that?" cried Edward, observing him dubiously, mystified and in some sort offended by this enigmatic dumb show.
Pete's bullet head became stationary; pride and munificence were alike expressed in his features.
"Ikin give ye a free pass ter the theaytre," he declared with magnified importance. "I'm the boss,—an' don't ye forget it."
"Wha'—wha'—wha' say?" stuttered Ned excitedly.
Pete glanced apprehensively over his shoulder in the closing twilight. "D' ye know Gorham's theaytre?" he asked.
Edward nodded.
"It's got a window,—a back window,—what ain't more 'n eight feet off 'n the ground." Pete made this announcement in a mysterious gurgling whisper.
Edward stared.
"Ef ye'll boost me, I'll lean out an' reach down an' give ye a lift," Pete explained.
The devil stood aghast at this bold scheme.
"S'pose the play-actors war ter nab us?" he suggested in an appalled staccato.
Pete snapped scornful fingers in the air. "Then we'll be put out o' the door, an' that's the way the tony folks goes out what ain't obleeged to come in at the window."
Ned laughed in sympathy. The novelty of the adventure tempted him. Opportunity favored him. There was always a lull in the pressure of his duties at this hour. Much of the "copee" was already in type, and until the later dispatches should begin to come in the work of the office would not show that increasing momentum which was wont to culminate in the final rush of going to press. He knew that he could be back before he would be needed, and still see a good bit of the play. This certainty reënforced the longing for the lights and the crowd and the splendor of the scenic display. But something—an ill-defined something—held him back. He remembered afterward that, though so subtle a sensation, it was for the moment as strong as if a material hand had clutched him. It was not his habit of honesty, for just then he did not realize that this was stealing,—that in surreptitiously seeing the play he absolutely robbed the management of the price of his appropriate seat among the gallery gods. Perhaps it was the instinct of filial obedience.
"My mother can't abide for me ter go to the theaytre nohow," he reflected. "But some folks say that it is eddication for a boy. But my mother, she say from all she hears it's apter ter eddicate him ter be a hoodlum than anything else,—an' if a boy wants real eddication the Public School is yawnin' fur him."
He remembered this as he ran down the stairs beside Pete. He hesitated even at the street door.
"Come on—we're in for a orful bully time!" wheezed Pete. "Few folks kin go ter the theaytre this-a-way!"
Ned put his doubts behind him and started up the avenue. "Shucks!" he argued within himself, "a boy to suit my mother's notions couldn't ever have no fun an' see the sights and know what's goin' on. An' she hain't never had no schoolin' sca'cely, and has lived way back in the country mighty nigh all her life. She never was in a theaytre in her born days."
Night had come at last, but its black mantle, which elsewhere enveloped the world, was here torn into dun-colored fringes and spangled about with gas-jets and electric lights. Up and down the façades of distant buildings the illuminated windows shone like swarms of golden bees. The incandescent street lamps stretched in glittering files on either side of the ascending avenue, converging and converging till they seemed to meet in a rising planet in the limits of the far east. Above their brilliant ranks now and again swayed a central arc-light, displaying a splendid focus of intense white lustre, and flinging the luminous rays of its encircling aureola far into the surrounding darkness. Below were dimmer lights of yellow or blue which marked the progress of the cable cars. They crashed and banged as they passed. The imperative strokes of the gong sounded now and again to clear the way. The shriller bells jangled sharply. The passengers stood in the aisles packed like sardines, or clung to the platforms of the already crowded open grip-car.
"They are all goin' ter Gorham's," crowed Pete, rejoicing in the prospective crowds as if he had a share in the receipts.
Ned began to think it a fine thing too. He had all the afflatus of public amusement. To be one of a great joyful crowd seemed to him to multiply the pleasure by the multitude. His step grew light. He heard the light steps behind him. Everybody was going, and he was going too.
The theatre was well filled before they came in sight of the massive building. In front of it on the sidewalk was a gilded standard supporting a pyramid of gas-jets. A circle of boys sat beneath this with fans to sell, for the May weather was growing warm and the palm-leaf industry was looking up. The boys had besieged the crowd as it was entering the theatre, and now they waited to waylay the belated pleasure-seeker. At a distance the pyramid, with the circle of fluttering palm leaves beneath it, looked like some strange, gigantic, many-petaled flower.
Pete stopped short at the sight.
"Bust them fellers! We mustn't let on ter them."
"Naw, sir! Naw,sir!" exclaimed Ned, with emphasis.
Both turned at once from the broad avenue, scuttled hastily down a side street, then plunged into the mysterious darkness of an alley. In a moment they were under the back window of the theatre.
A mellow dim light from within showed that the sash was lifted. The tremulous wail of a violin drifted out to them. The orchestra had begun to tune their instruments. There was no time to lose. Ned turned hurriedly to Pete.
"Up with ye,—I'll boost."
To his surprise Pete drew back. His face was concealed by the darkness, and his hoarse voice was sunk to a husky mutter.
"Hey? wha' say?" demanded Ned.
Pete grew more intelligible.
"I hain't never been in there," he remonstrated, as if the adventure were altogether Ned's scheme. "I dunno wher' I might come out at. I might jump right inter a—a—hornet's nest."
"I say!" exclaimed Ned sarcastically. "But if you are weakening I'll go fust."
"Well,—I wuz thinkin' as much," muttered Pete.
Ned needed no boosting. The foundation of the building was of rough stone, and offered some hold for his fingers and feet. He was a light weight, even for his tender years, and as wiry and active as a cat. Up and up he went till his grimy, ink-streaked paws clutched the outer moulding of the window frame,—a scientific jerk, and his hands and knees were on the sill.
He paused to listen. He heard only the orchestra. The music was now in full swing. He peeped cautiously within, then drew back his head with a suddenness which almost precipitated him from the window.
"Is ennybody there?" gasped Pete, ready to run.
"Dunno!" panted Ned.
He peeped cautiously within once more. He was becoming accustomed to the dim light, and this time he saw distinctly close to the window a great gilded dragon, that had added to its ancient glories the triumph of frightening the devil almost out of his wits.
At this second glance Ned understood the nature of the object. He eyed it with less fear and increasing curiosity. He had seen nothing like this monster at the Zoo, which furnished all his knowledge of Natural History, and with antique myths his acquaintance was slight.
"Well,—I should smile!" he ejaculated, gravely staring.
The dragon was perennially smiling, with a wide pasteboard mouth, and some big pasteboard teeth.
Ned was in a strange world,—a great world of shams, where the trees were clots of green paint on immense canvas sheets stretched on tottering wooden frames, where hospitable castles had no substance, where mountain crags were trestles of various heights supporting spring mattresses, covered with dusty imitations of mosses and vines, on which desperate leaps might safely be made. There were ropes and pulleys, and windlasses, and drop-scenes, and swaying borders in the "flies" overhead in place of a firmament. There were squares here and there on the floor, which he knew were trapdoors, whence he had seen gnomes and elves spring up, when once there had been given a Christmas performance with free admission to working children.
Deep shadows gloomed on every hand, seeming the deeper because of the flood of light which irradiated the unseen region beyond the great "flats." No human creature was visible. Only one sound could now be heard,—a clear, resonant, tutored voice, reciting stately lines. Somehow the tones awed him.
He became aware in another moment that Pete was vaguely scuffling about the foundation of the building; he leaned far out of the window and stretched down both his arms.
"Hurry up, Pete," he adjured his friend; "they're just a-goin' it on the stage!"
Looking down, he thought the height of the window was considerably more than eight feet from the ground. Pete had a grievously foreshortened aspect. In fact he seemed little more than an old cap, bobbing about vivaciously on the paving-stones. These gyrations were in vain. Except during a spasmodic endeavor to walk up the wall like a fly which Pete called "climbing," he did not leave the earth at all, for he had not the fly's peculiar and special facilities. He was too clumsy to climb, too inactive, much too fat.
When he slid down for the last time, panting, bruised, exhausted, and almost ready to cry, Ned sought to encourage him to further exertions.
"Naw, sir!" replied Pete angrily. "I ain't goin' ter try it nare 'nother time,—break my neck along of your fool tricks the fust thing I know. Come down out of that window! I ain't a-goin' ter let ye see the play-actors if I can't. Come down!"
The printer's devil stared as he sat in the window.
"Ye mus' be sick!" he exclaimed eloquently. "I got in 'ere myself, an' 'ere I'm goin' ter stay."
"Naw, ye ain't!—naw, ye ain't!" The old soft cap nodded with malicious significance.
"Who is able ter take me out?—ye ain't, fur sure!" the devil retorted from his lofty perch.
The shapeless old cap emitted but one word. "Perlice."
Ned was silent for a moment. The old cap bobbed about very merrily, for Pete executed a double shuffle of derision and triumph.
"Perlice hes got nothin' ter do with me," Ned declared stoutly. "The theaytre folks would jes' put me outer doors,—an' they hes got ter ketch me fust." He wagged his red head as much as to say that this should be a tough job.
Pete still danced.
"Perlice will take ye ter the lock-up for beatin' fifty cents outer the theaytre folks."
The devil snapped his fingers.
The dance paused for the more serious business of argument. "An' for breakin' in the back window, an' mebbe stealin' di'monds an' fine fixin's outer the star's dressin'-room. I'm goin' ter the station right now with that tale," added the shameless Pete. "Come down out o' that there window or go ter jail,—you bet!"
He looked up anxiously. How he grudged the pleasure that he could not share!
Ned, although startled, surprised, and angry, perceived the net that circumstance was beginning to weave about him. But he would not listen to the counsels of prudence,—for when had he ever taken a dare? Besides, he hardly believed that Pete meant to make good his threat.
"They'll need something more than yer word, ye lyin' hoodlum!" he said, shaking his fist at the shabby old cap below. "Ef the perlice kin find a cobweb o' proof that I stole actor's di'monds I'll go ter jail without wunking a wink."
With this boast he sprang down and disappeared amidst the glooms within.
The clouds were parting before the rising moon. Its golden rays fell upon the empty window. The dragon looked out and grinned. Pete stood in baffled anger and astonishment listening to his friend's stealthy steps till the sound died away in the distance. Then settling his cap more firmly on his head, he ran swiftly down the alley, up the side street, and out upon the broad avenue.
CHAPTER II
Meantime Ned was timorously skulking about in that strange, unkempt, haggard world known as "behind the scenes." He realized that it was to him a foreign world, and he bore himself with the alert suspiciousness of an alien. He kept an anxious lookout for the red jackets of the scene-shifters, and whenever he saw them bespangling the gray shadows of those dreary canvas vistas he dodged dexterously behind other "flats" and into deeper glooms.
"I've got to keep my eye peeled or some o' them fellers will ketch me sure!" he said to himself.
Once down one of these aisles a sudden veritable scene showed at the end of the perspective, through a wide door opening upon a room tinted in green, the color being very keen amidst the dun shadows without and the brilliant artificial illumination within. There, seemingly lounging or waiting, were groups of men and women, richly and quaintly attired, but with a prosaic every-day pose and gesture and expression of countenance, the effect curiously at variance with the suggestions of the antique garb they wore. This incongruity was not perceptible in a figure that he descried suddenly approaching, clad in a gown of soft shimmering white silk as in everlasting youth and beauty,—so radiant, so poetic, so unreal an apparition to the boy that Ned, stopping to stare, lost all sense of his identity. She, who was to be Ophelia, catching a glimpse of his pale, wistful, astonished little face in the glooms, with its big dark eyes and curling red hair, as he stood as if rooted to the spot, cast a half-amused smile on him as she passed. Her maid was following at a distance with a shawl, and Ned, suddenly realizing his peril, hastily darted behind one of the tombstones which even now were placed in readiness, awaiting the graveyard scene, and then once more dodged from flat to flat and from trestle to trestle.
He hardly knew in what direction he was tending, till all at once a flood of light broke upon him and he stood in the wings. The broad spread of the stage lay before him,—gorgeous with the presence of royalty and soldiery, of lords and ladies, of jesters and pages,—the "counterfeit presentment" of the palaces of old, and of the splendid past. It was rounded by the dazzling crescent of the foot-lights that clasped this charmed sphere as the new moon clasps the old. There was a ceaseless shimmer above them, and through it he could see heads, heads, heads. The house was crowded from parquet to gallery. Now and then the audience broke into enthusiastic applause.
As Ned stood staring it did not occur to him that he was in the direct way of any actor going on or coming off the stage, until a sudden step sounded close at hand behind the wing. It was only an accident that he did not electrify audience and players by rushing out upon the stage, for the powers behind the scenes had far more terrors for him than public opinion. As he shrank back toward the wall, looking eagerly about him for a refuge, he stumbled against the oddly fashioned chair in which Hamlet had sat during the second scene of the first act, and which now by accident or design had been thrust aside here. The devil sprang upon the rich crimson velvet cushions, and the Prince of Denmark was none the wiser.
No one else was the wiser. The high arms of the chair shielded Ned from observation as the step drew near and passed,—others still came and went in quick succession. He had a full view of the stage. He was in no danger of discovery unless a special search should be made for him. He had the choicest opportunity for enjoyment—but somehow the zest was gone. His conscience had roused itself and laid hold upon him. Instead of following the incidents of the play enacted before him he was vainly striving to justify himself to that implacable inward monitor. This was not stealing, he stoutly asseverated. It was only a lark,—and all for fun! But conscience—even a small boy's conscience—is the most potent of all moral forces, and he suffered a poignant pang for every mill of the half dollar which was the price of his appropriate seat among the gallery gods.
When at last he resolutely tore his mind from this subject he could not apply it to the pleasure of the moment. He began to wonder if Pete would really make good his threat,—if Pete would dare to charge him with stealing from the dressing-rooms, and burglary and what not.
"There would have to be something stole fust, an' then they would have ter trace it ter me," he said to reassure himself, for he was a sharp boy, and amply conversant with this world's ways.
Despite his reasoning, however, he glanced over his shoulder ever and anon, expecting to see a big man in a blue uniform with a police officer's badge on his breast.
When a tall man in dark garments appeared suddenly close at hand he thought for a moment that his worst forebodings were realized. At a second glance he saw that this man was clad in black, not blue, and wore a high silk hat set far back on his light brown hair. He had a light brown beard, a florid face, and eager, excited blue eyes. He continually twirled his eye-glasses in his hand with a gesture so nervous that it made the devil nervous too, and when compelled to desist from this occupation by the necessity of placing the glasses upon the bridge of his sharp hooked nose, he utilized the interval by thrusting his hands into his pockets, where, judging by the sound, he restlessly rattled his silver change or bunch of keys. An alert, impulsive man, eager, unreasonable, and irritable, Ned thought him, and afterward the devil had cause to strengthen this opinion. The boy was near enough to hear his words, although spoken in a low tone, for he stood far back and well out of sight of the audience.
"Well—insurance now—the premium comes pretty heavy," the manager was saying, for this was Mr. Gorham, the manager and owner of the theatre.
"Has to be kept up, though,—no use kicking," replied a wiry, extremely thin, pallid, and wrinkled elderly gentleman who had joined the other. Ned guessed that this was an intimate personal friend of the manager, since their talk was of his private affairs.
And because of this fact it seemed very odd to the boy that a certain subordinate player awaiting his cue in the wings should evidently be eager to hear.
"Eavesdropper!" thought Ned, indignantly.
It seemed less heinous that he himself should overhear this conversation, since it was accidental on his part, and, at this time at least, he thought it meant nothing to him.
Ned eyed the actor narrowly, and did not like the man's looks. His attitude was very singular. He was almost behind one of the wings, and quite out of sight of the two friends. His face was very red, even beneath the rouge. He looked coarse and awkward in his gaudy costume, and leaned so heavily against the great frame of the scene that it tottered with his weight. He had a piece of ice in a towel which he continually applied to the back of his neck and the top of his head. He did this with the dexterity of an expert, but almost mechanically, for his eyes were fixed first on one speaker's face, then on the other's.
"Of course the insurance wants to be kept up," said the manager, frantically jingling the coin in his pocket. "Though," he added with an afterthought, "I don't see why—I've insured this building and the properties for fifteen years, and never had a loss by fire." He stroked his beard reflectively. "Wish I had now all the premiums I've paid in my time," he said almost piteously.
"When did the policy in the Rising Phœnix expire?" demanded his friend.
"To-day at noon. I refused to renew. I'm done with that agent, at all events!" His eyes flashed, and he twirled his eye-glasses with a fierce gesture. "Whatever I do, I'll have no more dealings withhim."
Mr. Gorham's expression changed suddenly to one of bland politeness as he bowed agreeably to a lady, who had been very dignified and stiffly splendid on the stage as the queen, and withal robustly youthful, but coming off she looked old and tired. She was so heavily whited and rouged that her facial expression was wholly lost, and her eyes seemed to be the only natural feature of her face, and to look out with a sort of forlorn reality above the simpering sham of her wreck of a countenance.
The elderly skeleton-like friend of the manager shook his bones together, so to speak, and then stepped forward with alacrity and offered his hand to the lady, greeting her as an old acquaintance. Somehow Ned resented his assured courtly manner, which might have graced a man of finer appearance and fresher youth. It seemed an assumption on his part. "Maybe he thinks very well of his bones," Ned speculated. "Does he suppose he is pretty?" Ugly though he was, the lady did not scorn him, but kindly told him about a new granddaughter she had, and showed him a telegram. She smiled, and nodded most benignly in receiving his polite congratulations, and then sailed on toward the green-room.
The subordinate actor at the wing suddenly dropped the towel and the lump of ice. He had caught his cue, and with a stiff, ungainly gait he strode upon the stage. The star had returned also, and with his reappearance the plaudits broke forth.
"There he is again!" exclaimed the manager enthusiastically. "He is playing in fine form to-night,—every inch the Prince of Denmark!"
Ned, too, was looking at the stage from his nook in the great man's chair behind the wing. The by-play behind the scenes had absorbed him hitherto, but he grew intensely interested when the star spoke to the actor who had lurked and listened in the wings. Hamlet seemed to be instructing him how to play a part, and in honest fact the subordinate had shown in a scene in the previous act that he stood in grievous need of such tuition.
"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise; I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it."
All at once was presented a strange, unexpected attraction, not set down in the bills. The four or five players to whom this is addressed are wont to receive it with bows of acquiescence, intelligent glances at each other and at their instructor to express comprehension, concurrence of opinion, and willingness. The actor who had lurked and listened had the rôle of the "first player," and was the spokesman of the party. He led these demonstrations with sufficient discretion, but when his cue was given he responded with a hoarse drunken thickness ornamented with an unmistakable hiccup.
"I'se warrant yer (hic) honor!"
His potations before he made his first appearance this evening had not been so deep as to intoxicate him, but he had since reinforced them heavily. He had sought to sober himself by a cold application to the head and neck before again "going on;" the heated air, however, and the excitement were fast doing away with its good effects.
Hamlet, striving to maintain his composure and self-possession in the presence of the audience, addressed the second long exhortation chiefly to the others. He could not have devised a worse expedient. The "first player," eager to assert his precedence among his fellows, and to impress the star with the conviction that he was perfectly sober and reliable, gave such prominence to his acquiescent dumb show that it became extravagant and uncouth, and before the lines of the admonition were concluded he was bowing about the stage like a clown.
There was a vague, suppressed titter in the parquet. A sharp, sibilant hiss swept down from the gallery. The other mock players, forgetting their appropriate pantomime, stood as still as if stricken into stone. The equilibrium of the great star was fairly shaken. There was a quiver singularly like stage fright in those clear melodious tones, but he gallantly persisted to the end, and gave the "first player" his cue.
"Reformed!" exclaimed the "first player" automatically,—he had forgotten every word of his lines but this. "We've reformed," he reiterated, "an'—an'—we ain't never goin' ter do it no more," he declared, leering facetiously at the audience.
"Come off! Come off!" insisted the frenzied stage manager, in a sepulchral undertone from behind the scenes.
But the sodden idiot advanced to the foot-lights beyond the reach of the sheltering curtain which would fain have gathered him in.
The star bowed with dignity and retired, and the "first player" began his explanation to the audience amidst a storm of hisses.
"Gen'elmen an' lad'es,—I meanlad'esan' gen'elmen," the gallant soul corrected himself,—"want ter make a little speege,—I forgot lines—(hic) prompter throws me the word,—but (hic) he's got no teeth, for I can't make him out,—go look at book,—boss is a-callin' me now,—make it all right,—(hic)—be back d'rec'ly."
The bell jangled eloquently for the curtain to fall.
"Let it down on him,—don't care if it kills him!" was heard in the frantic managerial tones from the wings.
The characteristically good-natured American audience burst into roars of laughter, and the curtain came down amidst a storm of sarcastic applause before, and not upon, the gravely bowing "first player."
The great star was with some difficulty beguiled into going on with the play. The uproarious audience was quieted—nay, melted—by the sight of the managerial distress and the terms of the heart-broken apology which was offered. The curtain was rung up; the performance recommenced at the entrance of Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern; and these preliminaries arranged, the stage manager, the manager of the theatre, his friend of the skeleton-like contour, the leader of the orchestra, a number of the minor members of the company, and a strong detachment of self-constituted "bosses" went in a different spirit to reckon with the author of all this woe.
Why nobody "nabbed" Ned was always a mystery to him afterward. Forgetting himself at the crisis he sprang boldly out of his chair and participated in the varied excitements ensuing behind the scenes as freely as if he owned the theatre. Perhaps he might not have been so eager to hear and see had he divined the influence that this incident would exert on his immediate future. He followed the "management" and the crowd of "supes," scene-shifters, call-boys, and "dead-heads" to the door of the dressing-room where the unlucky "first player" was to be called to account.
This personage had divested himself of his stage toggery and stood there in his every-day clothes, a coarse, slouching, red-faced man in a brownish suit and a checked shirt. Within the room another actor was hastily arraying himself in the gaudy attire which the "first player" had been accustomed to wear as the "Player King." The substitute was almost pathetic in his anxiety as he dressed himself, nervously repeating aloud the "lines" and giving not an instant's notice to the crowd of bystanders about the open door nor to the interview between the management and the "first player."
This was sufficiently stormy. The unfortunate "first player" got his walking-papers in no measured terms. Mr. Gorham took occasion to interject some very severe remarks, although the affair was really none of his business, the grievance lying between the manager of the company and the actor.
"It's none ofyourfuneral, anyhow," cried the goaded "first player" indignantly.
He snapped his fingers in Gorham's face, giving the high silk hat, which was always precariously perched on its owner's head, a fillip that sent it rolling on the floor among the crowd.
Gorham's arrogant and peremptory manners made him a very unpopular man. Nevertheless it might have been an accident—although it looked singularly like design—that the hat was in a moment trampled into a shapeless wreck by twoscore sturdy feet.
Even when under no provocation, he showed in every gesture how vehement and impulsive was his nature. Now, insulted in his own theatre, he shook off the slight restraints which he acknowledged. It suited his humor to consider the "first player's" demonstration as a blow. He looked positively tigerish as he sprung upon the actor. The energy of his wrath gave much "power to his elbow;" the blows that fell from his clenched fist had a wonderfully resonant compact sound,—it made Ned wince to think that a man's head and face received them. The "first player" could do little to defend himself. The crowd, that always turns to the successful side, lifted not a finger to aid or protect him.
And high above all the tumult the "Player King," putting on now his robes of state, and now his tinsel crown, daubing his grave anxious face with red and white, repeated his "lines" heedless of the commotion.
In less time than it can be told, the actor, fearfully beaten, was partly dragged and partly kicked to the back window, and there was thrust bodily forth. A heavy thud outside told of a heavy fall.
Manager Gorham turned from the window, wiping the blood from his hands upon his handkerchief, and looking about in sarcastic triumph at the crowd that had trampled upon his hat. Ned was astonished to observe that these men seemed to have forgotten their share in that little transaction, for several who had been most demonstrative in that expression of contempt spoke to Gorham now with earnest respectfulness, and in grave reprehension of the poor wretch whose sore bones lay out on the flagging in the alley. The manager gave a short, fierce, snort-like response, and as he turned abruptly he almost ran over Ned.
"Get out of my way, boy, or I'll kill you!" he exclaimed irritably.
Ned, roused to a realization of the situation, shrank back among the huge flats. It was only the general excitement which prevented his discovery. Gorham must have thought him one of the call-boys. Ned stole swiftly away from shadow to shadow, from flat to flat, till he reached his old retreat. He sprang into the chair and sat there panting, feeling much like a mouse regaining its hole after a perilous but successful tour of the pantry.
The stage was again before him, all glitter and splendor. The play of Hamlet—that subtlest delineation of the subtlest character ever conceived by the mind of man—was once more in its triumphal progress. The audience hung breathless on every word. Ned cared now for none of it. He was discouraged,—cast down. He was still young and ingenuous enough to be grieved by those contemptible phases of human nature exhibited in the manager, when he so brutally proved himself the master in his own house, in the truckling spirit of the crowd, in the degradation and coarse vice of the actor, the forlorn "first player." As to himself—he too was much to blame. He was pierced with a full realization of the wickedness of his presence here.
"My mother would call itstealin', an' nothin' shorter," he said, remembering her homely, direct phrase.
Then he had a vivid mental picture of her. He knew that again and again she was going down the long steep flights of stairs to the street door to peer into the dark thoroughfare, wondering at his continued absence, and trembling to think of the many temptations that lead a boy to crime in a great city.
Whatever may be the beneficial educational effects of seeing the play of Hamlet from the gallery, they are certainly lacking in a view stolen from the wings, with fifty cents heavy on the conscience, nothing at all on the stomach, a great and growing dread of discovery, and a morbid presentiment that something terrible is about to happen.
Was it not far better, Ned thought, to be at home, singing with his mother their simple songs about the Good Shepherd, according to their wont in those evenings when he was at leisure from the office? The kettle used to join in with a will and make the duet a trio; the fire would roar it into a chorus; the monkey-stove would get red hot with sheer good will; his mother's face, usually so pale, would glow like a rosy girl's; the two-year-old sister would babble her admiration of the kerosene lamp. And he would feel that, being the only son of his mother and she a widow, he occupied a highly responsible and dignified position, and that it behooved him to be frugal and steady and sensible, and hard-working like a man, for his father, a Scotch emigrant, in dying had left his family quite alone in this western country. Thus Ned would infuse his importance into his quavering alto as he sang, until it seemed, to him and his mother at least, as sonorous and as grand as the biggest double bass. Ah,—surely, surely better these gentle innocent joys than any stolen pleasures.
He began to think of trying to escape by the window at which he had entered. Then a frantic terror seized him. Was the man still lying there where he had been thrown? Ned had heard the heavy thud on the flagging of the alley,—had any one heard the man walk away? He had been severely beaten, and that, too, while intoxicated. He had been hurled out of the window,—a serious fall! Had he risen?—would he ever rise again?
Ned began to shiver. He concluded to await the close of the performance and follow the employees out of the side door,—there must surely be some such exit if only he knew where to find it.
He could not have explained why he was afraid to seek to escape by the window, but he said to himself that if the man had been killed by the fall he would not be the first to discover it. His own wrong-doing here to-night had made him sensitive to suspicion, for wrong-doing always fosters cowardice. A brave heart implies a clear conscience.
He strove to pacify his impatience as he waited.
"I was mighty sharp-set to come!" he said sarcastically.
Once or twice he gave a sudden start and sat upright on the crimson cushions of the great luxurious chair.
Once or twice shadows wavered across the brilliantly lighted stage,—he rubbed his eyes. The words he heard meant nothing; the figures he saw became grotesque, mingled, ill-defined. They were suddenly gone,—an interval,—an utter blank—
All was dark about him. He thought he was in bed at home. He strove to turn over,—his bed was too short,—too narrow. In amazement he began to feel about him,—there were soft velvet cushions beneath him,—heavy wood carving on either side. His heart sprang into his mouth. He had fallen asleep in Hamlet's chair. Actors and audience were gone,—he wondered that the stir of the crowd had failed to wake him. The theatre was dark and deserted, the doors were locked, and beneath the walls lay perhaps the body of a dead man.
He started up trembling at the thought. The moon's pallid light fell through one of the lofty windows above the gallery and quivered in ghostly fashion upon the stage where erstwhile the filial Dane had hearkened to the hollow voice of the spectre of a murdered sire. The white glimmer gave wan and wavering glimpses of the scenery of this strange mimic world. Mountains loomed up in the clare-obscure. A painted galleon on a painted ocean was bravely sailing away, bound for nowhere.
Suddenly—was that a moving shadow among the motionless shadows? Ned stared hard at it. There was no mistake. The moonlight showed an indistinct figure advancing stealthily down the stage.
Far, far away a great clock struck one. The single tone, as it invaded the silence, had a weird abruptness. It sent a chill through Ned's heart. A superstitious terror had laid hold upon him. With starting eyes fixed upon the apparition, he shrank softly back into his hiding place.
CHAPTER III
The apparition advanced a few paces down the centre of the stage. As it stood there in the fainting shimmer of the moonbeams, its head stretched forth as if it scented the dawn, Ned could hear nothing but the tumultuous beating of his own heart.
The figure paused thus only for a moment. Then it leaped into the air and cut a wiry caper.
To people more conversant with the traditional manners and customs of ghosts this might seem so gross a departure from spectral etiquette as to induce doubt of the genuineness of the manifestation. But to the boy the grotesque gesture seemed horribly uncanny. He sprang from his seat—his limbs failed him and he sank back; he sought to scream—not a sound came from his dry and parched lips.
"Ye're too drunk yit fur this biz, pard." A hoarse, half-suppressed voice issued from the wings.
A short, thickset, bow-legged man was emerging thence, and the figure on the stage turned to meet him.
"Pshaw!" said the tall apparition contemptuously. "I'm as sober as the bishop."
And what was this? A familiar voice; and now that Ned looked again, a familiar figure. No ghost,—only the sorry "first player," whom Ned had imagined as lying dead outside on the flagging of the alley.
"I mus' be gittin' weak in the upper story!" the boy said to himself.
He was so rejoiced to be freed from his superstitious terrors, so glad, too, to see the "first player" in full life and to know that no tragedy had that night been enacted under this roof save the tragedy of Hamlet, that he laughed slyly as he rested his chin on the high arm of the chair, and with merry eyes watched the men. He hardly cared to speculate upon the strange fact of their presence here at this hour. He was only waiting for them to be gone that he might make his escape at last.
"I don't want no mo' o' these crazy shines, though, ef ye do be so mighty sober," said the short man sulkily. "Somebody out there—the night watchman, mebbe—will hear ye trampling in 'ere, an' then wher' will we be?"
"A-scootin' up the alley," with a free gesture of his right arm. The "first player" was difficult to repress.
The surly, thickset man—Ned could not see his face, but his slouch, his voice, his manner were full of malignant intimations—evidently thought best to change his tone with his tipsy companion. He put down a five-gallon galvanized iron can that he had been carrying, and stared with an admirable imitation of surprise at the "first player."
"Why,—look-a-here, if ye jes' wanter have a little aggervation with the perlice an' skeer Gorham by lettin' him know that we hev broke into his theatre,I'mwith ye every time! He warn't mean enough, nohow, for the way that ye have laid off ter pay him back! He never done nothin' but kick ye like ye were a cur, an' beat ye half blind, an' fling ye out o' the window! 'Twould have been assault with intent ter kill if a pore man had done all that, but rich Gorham,—pshaw! that's nothin'. Jes' let's stir up a little fuss an' fetch the perlice,—ter skeerhim! Ho! Ho!Weain't afeared of the peelers. 'Ere goes the ballet."
He danced off in the moonlight, shaking his fingers in the air with wild gesticulations and kicking his short bandy legs high, right and left,—but softly, softly, as if he were shod with felt.
The "first player" stood for a moment bewildered by this wild scheme to scare the manager. Its absurdity seemed to sober him. He strode off suddenly after the dancing figure. A clutch stopped it.
"You fool," he said, with an oath, "I mean to burn the house to the ground, and you know it!"
"Well, warn't I agreeable,—if there's no insurance?" replied the bow-legged man.
"I tell you I heard from Gorham's own mouth that the policy expired yesterday at noon. He and the agent had a burst-up, and he wouldn't renew. I heard him tell that deadheaded crony of his; you know Gorham has got a tongue that is set on a pivot and wags at both ends."
The stocky, bandy-legged figure swayed back and forth with extravagant manifestations of delight. "That gets Gorham! I'd have been sorry for the Insurance Company if it wuz ter lose, ye know. Sorry fur true! I always had a soft place in my heart for a corporation—pore motherless thing!"
His prominent teeth gleamed,—it was as much a snarl as a smile.
"We are wastin' time," he said suddenly, with an air of returning to business. "Take this can o' kerosene an' empty it on the floor of the green-room, while I fix the other combustibles."
The "first player" stood amazed. "You blamed idiot!" he exclaimed, "there's oil enough on these canvases to send the whole place a-flaring like perdition."
The thickset man's fierceness returned.
"Who is killin' this cat," he snarled angrily,—"you or me? I had my grudge agin this theatre jes' a-dunnin' night an' day ter be paid, an' I promised ter help yeef I bossed the job; ain't that the trade?"
"The shortest way," muttered the "first player," yielding the point. He caught up the can and disappeared in the direction of the green-room.
The stocky figure on the stage was so suddenly joined by another that Ned rubbed his eyes, thinking he saw two where there was but one.
"I got the star's wardrobe out o' the dressin'-room," the newcomer said in an agitated whisper.
"Keep dark," said the thickset man,—he nodded toward the exit where the "first player" had disappeared. "He don't suspicion nothin'; he thinks there ain't a soul here but him an' me. He bargained that nothing should be took! He said that he ain't a thief, an' the goods would get us found out. Butyoujust make the haul anyhow,—but make it sly, for true."
The two rascals went through the dumb show of much merry scorn of the "first player's" stipulations.
"Our pals have tolled off the night watchman,—an' they're workin' at the safe now. Dynamite is the word,—it's a time lock, they think."
This was overwhelming to Ned, who had not dreamed that the receipts were kept in the theatre over night,—a considerable sum must have been realized from that crowded house.
The newcomer was starting off. The thickset scamp beckoned him back. "Did the star leave anything besides the rich costumes?"
"Left gloves."
The attitude of the stocky figure expressed disappointment.
"Left handkerchief."
The disappointment evidently deepened.
"Left studs on dressing-table—diamonds—very fine!"
The speaker disappeared, with a triumphant wave of the hand.
The bandy-legged rascal, inflated with the pride of the moment, strode down to the dark foot-lamps.
"The keerlessness of one man blesses the keerfullness of another," he declaimed, addressing the empty auditorium.
This was doubtless the finest presentation of a villain ever seen upon these boards, for this was the genuine article.
Whether a light suddenly sprang up in one corner of the building, whether Ned heard the crackling of burning timber and canvas, or whether these impressions were delusions of his own over-excited brain, he could never say. He was possessed by the fear of being burned alive in the intricacies of this place, knowing no door, and no window save the one at which he had entered.
This anxiety dominated even his terror of being discovered by these rascals, although he knew they would have wrung his neck without a moment's compunction to prevent him from blabbing. He sprang up and stole tremulously off through the darkness, striving to rouse his fainting memory and his instinct for locality, and to find the window. How many times he circled around the dusky labyrinth he never knew. All at once he felt a great lightening of his spirits, for he saw suddenly before him a black oblong space which he instantly discerned to be a door. Noiselessly, lightly, he sped to the aperture to find himself in the dark corridor of the building. This passage, of course, followed the direction of the wall of the semicircular auditorium, but this fact was not apparent to Ned, except as revealed gradually by the sense of touch, for no longer did he have even the faint light of the remote windows above the gallery, and the darkness was intense, almost total, indeed. Sometimes a vague glimmer came from doors a bit ajar, and giving upon the dim auditorium within, but these occurred at long intervals, and looking fearfully over his shoulder he could not distinguish the portal by which he had entered. It was gone,—vanished in the gloom! As he stood gazing back for this one landmark, which he had thought he might keep as guide, he heard a sound in the utter silence that made him quail,—a regular throbbing beat which he recognized presently as the plunging of his own heart. He must needs have courage, he reasoned within himself, as he leaned back faint and tremulous against the wall, or he would perish here like a rat in a trap.
He began now to press on swiftly, some orderly instinct of his nature soothed and his spirit quieted by the release from the chaos of unaccustomed objects which had confused him behind the scenes. The smooth corridor, the absence of all obstruction, the sense of progress, as if so conventional a passage must lead to some objective point of exit, some chance of escape, encouraged him. He had known little as to the usual construction of theatres, but rallying his faculties, his memory, his intuition, his observation, he began to appreciate where he was. The wall on his left hand, he reflected, must inclose those stores by which the greater frontage on the street was utilized; in their rear the immense semicircular auditorium of the theatre filled the space, for the shops were of a kind that required no great conveniences of storage,—he remembered them now, a florist's establishment, a tobacconist's stand, a photographer's gallery,—and most of the rooms of the upper stories were occupied as offices. Thus the lofty windows above the gallery gave the auditorium of the theatre its only source of ventilation and of light except, indeed, from artificial means. A door opened on the side street, and some windows were in the rear, and the house was provided with no other exit in front than a great door, at the end of a long, tunnel-like lobby, opening upon the broad avenue, which served for the admission and the dispersal of the audience.
Even while he was mentally recapitulating these points he became suddenly uncertain as to this unique source of light, for as he progressed the darkness about him had become visibly mitigated. It was dimness rather than obscurity now,—a medium dull indeed, but which permitted the discrimination of surrounding objects. Ned paused suspiciously. Silence reigned,—dead silence! No conflagration as yet! He asked himself if he could be approaching some door or window, some opportunity of exit hitherto unknown to him, for the corridor, the periphery, as it were, of the semicircular auditorium, was light enough now for him to distinguish the curving walls on either hand, the terra-cotta tints predominating in their frescoed panels, the darker terra-cotta tone of the carpet beneath his feet,—nay, as he came to the point of intersection with the lobby leading to the street door he saw the gilded frames of the portraits of famous actors on the walls, and recognized Booth, Barrett, McCullough, and Irving! The great door was fast shut—no hope thence. The little wicket of the barricade across the lobby, that served to hold back the press of the people from the ticket-taker, was ajar, and from the box-office, at one side, came a dim suffusion of light. He stood still with a wildly beating heart,—for he heard from an inner room beyond the office the sibilant, cautious tone of a half whisper, and now and again the metallic clink of some instrument dexterously handled. The thieves were still working at the safe,—and as yet it held fast!
It was instinct rather than a realized prudence that set the frightened boy scurrying like a rabbit away from that dangerous zone of light. Miscreants such as these, suddenly discovered in their nefarious job, would not hesitate at murder, more than at larceny and arson, and his bones in the midst of the débris of the great fire would never be found to tell his forlorn fate. But that the wall guided him from the foyer and along the corridor, he could not have regained the stage door; he hardly knew how he had reached it; he realized only that he was once more in the inextricable tangle of flats and wings and ropes and stage furniture behind the scenes, and wildly seeking the window at which he had gained entrance to this troublous episode in his life.
Still the moonbeams streamed through those lofty casements above the gallery and down upon the immaterial audience of thronging shadows in the place of the brilliant assemblage so lately vanished thence. With melancholy intimations, the white sheeny radiance sent vague, phantasmal gleams across the broad spread of the stage and along the dreary vistas of the wings, where the sham misery of imagination is wont to ape the real tragedy of life. Here the contrast with the utter darkness was so sharp, the setting for a single figure so conspicuous, that Ned scuttled hastily across the stage, himself like a wavering shadow, and plunged into the turmoil of confusion beyond, searching here and there and everywhere for the back window at which he had entered.
He had lost in a measure the self-control which he had hitherto staunchly maintained. He was awkward, clumsy, agitated. More than once he tangled his foot in a swaying rope; here and there he ran plumply against the huge canvas-covered frames, and set up a quivering totter along their great heights; he wondered that he did not scream outright when at last he fairly fell, plunging bodily into a mimic boat adjusted on rockers to simulate the tossing of the waves. Nevertheless, hearing the floor resound with the impact of his fall, he had the presence of mind to lie still at the bottom of the craft, listening and fearing that the noise might have roused the thieves to apprehension and a tour of discovery. This would doubtless have ensued, but fortunately for him another sound pervaded the theatre just at that moment, and overpowered the concussion of his fall,—a dull, low roar it was, then utter silence.
Ned knew that the safe had been forced at last, and that the explosion had served to avert the discovery of his presence through the crash of his noisy misadventure. He rose from the boat, trembling, weak, but animated with a new hope. The finding of the craft here intimated that he was near the wall, where it had doubtless been heedlessly thrust aside, for it had naught to do with the play of Hamlet, and the furnishings of the castle of Elsinore filled all the foreground. He must now be near the rear wall, where was the window at which he had entered.
Suddenly he saw before him the dim, wan square in the gloom. The next moment despair fell anew upon him. The sash was down, and secured by some patent device which he had never before seen, and which baffled his trembling fingers.
Then he did scream,—a shrill, muffled cry,—so unlike his sturdy boyish halloo that he hardly recognized his own voice. Somehow it rescued him from the torpor that was stealing over him. He knew that it would rouse those within to a danger of which they had not dreamed. In another moment he might be helpless in their hands.
Instantly he tore off his shoe. One blow with its heel, and the shivered glass was flying in every direction. Through the broken pane he hastily jumped, with the shoe still in his hand. He fell heavily to the ground, and lay crouching in the shadow close in to the wall.
He had indeed given the alarm. There were swift steps within, and then an agitated whispering at the window.
The men were evidently frightened at first, but soon sought to reassure themselves. It was nothing, they said,—the glass was doubtless broken by some accident; a passer-by might have thrown a stone, or perhaps a cracked pane had loosened and fallen out at this crucial moment. "I know that there hollerin' mus' have been a long way off yonder somewhers, anyhow," declared the thickset man. "It sounded sorter muffled an' far-like."
The "first player" seemed to acquiesce, and then silence ensued.
When Ned felt that he could breathe, he gathered up his sore bones and ran down the alley, up the side street, and out upon the broad, deserted avenue. The lamps were all out, municipal thrift trusting for illumination to the wavering moon. A blue light glimmering far up the dusky hill told him that the "owl car" had just passed. An hour or so must elapse before another would appear, for they ran at long intervals. He looked about for a policeman. He saw none. The city seemed dead. He was unfamiliar with this quarter of the town, but as he sped along he came within sight of a city square. There he knew, under the trees, were often tramps, spending the night on the benches,—sometimes loafers of a better class belated and sleeping off the effect of their potations. Doubtless some of them would know where was the nearest police station or fire-alarm. All that he had seen seemed now so like a dream that he wondered whether after all he were not mistaken, whether the "first player" could really intend to burn the theatre.
As he paused for breath he glanced back in the direction of the building and diagonally across the darkly massed trees of the square. The high steeple of the cathedral was purpling slowly in the dun-colored gloom. Its gilded cross sprang suddenly into view, emblazoned upon the night like a sign in the sky. The dense foliage of the square was outlined against an angry crimson glare in the distance, ever widening and ever deepening. Into its midst a yellow pennon of flame flaunted to the breeze. The heavy tones of a fire-bell smote the silence suddenly.
There was a movement under the trees. The loungers on the benches were waking. Far up dark intersecting streets came the swift footfalls of boys, who spring up mysteriously at any hour of the night or day, eager to crowd around a fire. There was too the heavy tread of unseen policemen striding through the gloom. The sharp gong of the hose-carriage clamoring in the distance cleared a pass-way for the swinging gallop of its white horses. As it flashed around the corner and whirled out of sight in a second it looked like the chariot and coursers of Phœbus called out on a false alarm of dawn. Two or three hoarse drunken voices were aimlessly calling "Fi-ah! Fi-ah!" and one small boy, excitedly tangling his suspenders as he sought to adjust them, ran along in the middle of the street ceaselessly vociferating, "Number Six is a-comin'!"
And sure enough here was Number Six cumbrously rocking and swaying up the street, a big, polished, glittering monster, leaving a glowing path of live coals behind it and emitting a cloud of the blackest smoke. The driver of the engine was whipping like mad; its horses were plunging and rearing, and straining every nerve and muscle; its guard of honor, all the boys in the ward, ran admiringly on either side. Ned joined them from force of habit, taking the way back to the burning theatre, dodging at the first crossing the sudden on-rush of the team of the hook-and-ladder truck.
The smoke had hidden the moon and stars. Its murky canopy overhung the massive building and the vast crowd, all illuminated by the angry red flames darting from roof and windows. The jets of water rose high in dusky, half-descried curves, and fell hissing into the conflagration within. There were many of these ill-defined arches spanning the grim panorama, for Number Nine was in the alley, two other engines stood in the side street, two were in front of the building, and still three others guarded the safety of the block above. The firemen in their helmets and uniforms, some enveloped in long rubber coats, were here, there, and everywhere. They might have seemed the weird spirits of the flame, seen through its writhings and contortions as if they were in its very midst. Presently word was passed about the crowd that their efforts were subduing the terrible element. Ned watched with painful anxiety their exertions. He remembered many a scene like this when he had reveled in the noise and excitement, when a fire had seemed only a grand spectacular display, its interest heightened by the commensurate danger and gallant courage of the firemen. Then he had had no thought of the loss which it represented, the distress, the men thrown out of employment, a great financial factor blotted from commercial progress.
Now, how feverishly he hoped that the building might be saved,—that the deep iniquity of which he had gained full knowledge by his own wrong-doing might be thwarted! He felt that he could hardly live carrying this secret, and yet he had already promised himself never to divulge it. He said to himself that he might not always be able to keep the curb on circumstance. His story might be doubted, or only half believed. He might draw suspicion on himself,—implicate himself in the crime of arson. That meant the Penitentiary,—and a long term. His narrative would be in part a confession. He had choused the management out of half a dollar,—and that was stealing! He must first impeach his own honesty, then ask to be believed when he accused others. And what might not these others say in contradiction and recrimination! Were they not as likely to be believed as he? Certainly a boy who stole could scarcely hope he would not be suspected of other crimes if there were any evidence against him. Ned dreaded too the malignity of the men,—if they were capable of firing the theatre they were capable of falsely accusing him. No!—no!—he would never tell that he had witnessed any drama on those boards save the tragedy of Hamlet.
Was the fire less than before? They said so. It seemed to him hotter, redder, fiercer. Before long he knew that the fight was hopeless. The west wall gave way. Through the great gaps the stage became visible. The flames were licking up first one and then another of the many heavy "sets." As the lurid glare was flung upon some representation of Alpine heights or moonlit lake, or grim castle battlements or bosky woodland scene,—idealized infinitely in its unique frame of wreathing flames,—the crowd gave it "hands," as an audience is wont to applaud some fine new manifestation of the scene-painter's art.
It seemed to Ned, knowing what he did, very melancholy. He shook his head, and his heart was heavy.
As he stood there a familiar face attracted his attention.
"Is that you, Tom?" he called out.
"Nothin' shorter," replied a stout, undersized boy, nodding a round bullet head, surmounted by an old gray cap.
"Wher' 's Pete?" demanded Ned, for this was Pete's brother.
"I s'posed he wuz along of you. I seen ye together after dark a-makin' off."
"Naw,—he hain't been with me sence." Ned hesitated.
A look of blank surprise was on Tom's face. "I made sure he wuz with you," he said. "Pete hain't been home this night."
CHAPTER IV
When Master Peter Bateman ran away after seeing his friend into the theatre and past the dragon he did not run far.
That curious, gigantic flower, with petals of fluttering palm leaves and pistil and stamens of pyramidal gas-jets, was still a-bloom in the darkness, and a friendly hail from beneath it arrested his steps.
"Hy're, Pete," sang out half a dozen boyish voices.
"Hev a smoke?" and a soggy stump of a cigar was extended with a grimy paw and a wide grin of invitation. This grin surrounded another stump of a cigar, which was all aglow and precariously held between the squirrel-teeth of a youngster of twelve.
"Sim Gray hes been round inquirin' after ye, Pete," added the boy. "He tole us if we seen ye ter tell ye ter wait fur him 'ere. He'll be 'long d'rec'ly."
This message obliterated for the moment Pete's recollection of his errand to the station.
"What's Sim Gray a-wantin' of me, I wonder?" he said, a trifle dubiously. For Pete, slippery and sly as he was, had often been a target for the practical jokes of a clique of bigger boys, of which Sim Gray was a prominent member. The simplicity incident to Pete's comparatively tender years was an odd contrast to the duplicity of his moral nature; and the tricky ignoramus, overreached and bamboozled, was a more amusing spectacle to these more knowing fellows than any honest "greeny" could furnish. But beyond making a fool of him they had done him no harm hitherto, and Pete was rather proud of being in request by a person of Sim Gray's inches and importance.
Pete sat down on the curbstone to wait, took the stump of cigar which had been gleaned from the dirty sidewalk, lighted it at the grinning monkey's beside him, and summoning all the strength of stomach for which boys are noted, tried hard to smoke it.
Sim Gray was one of those weak and wicked young fellows with a pocket full of money and a taste for low company, who are forever the prey of other young fellows not so weak, and yet more wicked. His father was very respectable, socially and financially, and more than once he had been obliged to strain this double respectability to the utmost to keep the name of this hopeful scion out of the police reports and the scion himself out of jail. The boy had reformed time and again. He had been sent away from home and kept under the strictest surveillance. Now, however, as he had been permitted to return, he was secretly associating with his former intimates, who sponged upon him and fleeced him as of yore, and stood ready to throw the blame upon him at the first approach of trouble. To him they seemed only lively, good-natured young fellows who knew the "ropes" and were "seeing life." The police understood them more accurately as young scamps, who had been often suspected of small crimes which generally could not be proved upon them; nevertheless more than one of the party had seen the inside of a jail. This fact reinforced Pete's hesitation to join them when Sim Gray and his friends came along, which they presently did.
Sim Gray was a spindling specimen of seventeen, with light, lank hair, big bloodshot light eyes, and a fawn-colored suit,—the coat much soiled with leaning against dirty bars.
He gave Pete a wink and a grimace as he passed, but he said nothing. It was one of the others who called out, "Come on, Pete,—we'll give ye a beer; Sim's goin' ter set 'em up."