Part 14

Old Jacob Spraggins came home at 9:30 P. M., in his motor car. The make of it you will have to surmise sorrowfully; I am giving you unsubsidized fiction; had it been a street car I could have told you its voltage and the number of wheels it had. Jacob called for his daughter; he had bought a ruby necklace for her, and wanted to hear her say what a kind, thoughtful, dear old dad he was.

There was a brief search in the house for her, and then came Annette, glowing with the pure flame of truth and loyalty well mixed with envy and histrionics.

“Oh, sir,” said she, wondering if she should kneel, “Miss Celia’s just this minute running away out of the side gate with a young man to be married. I couldn’t stop her, sir. They went in a cab.”

“What young man?” roared old Jacob.

“A millionaire, if you please, sir—a rich nobleman in disguise. He carries his money with him, and the red peppers and the onions was only to blind us, sir. He never did seem to take to me.”

Jacob rushed out in time to catch his car. The chauffeur had been delayed by trying to light a cigarette in the wind.

“Here, Gaston, or Mike, or whatever you call yourself, scoot around the corner quicker than blazes and see if you can see a cab. If you do, run it down.”

There was a cab in sight a block away. Gaston, or Mike, with his eyes half shut and his mind on his cigarette, picked up the trail, neatly crowded the cab to the curb and pocketed it.

“What t’ell you doin’?” yelled the cabman.

“Pa!” shrieked Celia.

“Grandfather’s remorseful friend’s agent!” said Thomas. “Wonder what’s on his conscience now.”

“A thousand thunders,” said Gaston, or Mike. “I have no other match.”

“Young man,” said old Jacob, severely, “how about that parlor maid you were engaged to?”

A couple of years afterward old Jacob went into the office of his private secretary.

“The Amalgamated Missionary Society solicits a contribution of $30,000 toward the conversion of the Koreans,” said the secretary.

“Pass ’em up,” said Jacob.

“The University of Plumville writes that its yearly endowment fund of $50,000 that you bestowed upon it is past due.”

“Tell ’em it’s been cut out.”

“The Scientific Society of Clam Cove, Long Island, asks for $10,000 to buy alcohol to preserve specimens.”

“Waste basket.”

“The Society for Providing Healthful Recreation for Working Girls wants $20,000 from you to lay out a golf course.”

“Tell ’em to see an undertaker.”

“Cut ’em all out,” went on Jacob. “I’ve quit being a good thing. I need every dollar I can scrape or save. I want you to write to the directors of every company that I’m interested in and recommend a 10 per cent. cut in salaries. And say—I noticed half a cake of soap lying in a corner of the hall as I came in. I want you to speak to the scrubwoman about waste. I’ve got no money to throw away. And say—we’ve got vinegar pretty well in hand, haven’t we?’

“The Globe Spice & Seasons Company,” said secretary, “controls the market at present.”

“Raise vinegar two cents a gallon. Notify all our branches.”

Suddenly Jacob Spraggins’s plump red face relaxed into a pulpy grin. He walked over to the secretary’s desk and showed a small red mark on his thick forefinger.

“Bit it,” he said, “darned if he didn’t, and he ain’t had the tooth three weeks—Jaky McLeod, my Celia’s kid. He’ll be worth a hundred millions by the time he’s twenty-one if I can pile it up for him.”

As he was leaving, old Jacob turned at the door, and said:

“Better make that vinegar raise three cents instead of two. I’ll be back in an hour and sign the letters.”

The true history of the Caliph Harun Al Rashid relates that toward the end of his reign he wearied of philanthropy, and caused to be beheaded all his former favorites and companions of his “Arabian Nights” rambles. Happy are we in these days of enlightenment, when the only death warrant the caliphs can serve on us is in the form of a tradesman’s bill.

XVIII THE GIRL AND THE HABIT

HABIT—a tendency or aptitude acquired by custom or frequent repetition.

The critics have assailed every source of inspiration save one. To that one we are driven for our moral theme. When we levied upon the masters of old they gleefully dug up the parallels to our columns. When we strove to set forth real life they reproached us for trying to imitate Henry George, George Washington, Washington Irving, and Irving Bacheller. We wrote of the West and the East, and they accused us of both Jesse and Henry James. We wrote from our heart—and they said something about a disordered liver. We took a text from Matthew or—er—yes, Deuteronomy, but the preachers were hammering away at the inspiration idea before we could get into type. So, driven to the wall, we go for our subject-matter to the reliable, old, moral, unassailable vade mecum—the unabridged dictionary.

Miss Merriam was cashier at Hinkle’s. Hinkle’s is one of the big downtown restaurants. It is in what the papers call the “financial district.” Each day from 12 o’clock to 2 Hinkle’s was full of hungry customers—messenger boys, stenographers, brokers, owners of mining stock, promoters, inventors with patents pending—and also people with money.

The cashiership at Hinkle’s was no sinecure. Hinkle egged and toasted and griddle-caked and coffeed a good many customers; and he lunched (as good a word as “dined”) many more. It might be said that Hinkle’s breakfast crowd was a contingent, but his luncheon patronage amounted to a horde.

Miss Merriam sat on a stool at a desk inclosed on three sides by a strong, high fencing of woven brass wire. Through an arched opening at the bottom you thrust your waiter’s check and the money, while your heart went pit-a-pat.

For Miss Merriam was lovely and capable. She could take 45 cents out of a $2 bill and refuse an offer of marriage before you could—Next!—lost your chance—please don’t shove. She could keep cool and collected while she collected your check, give you the correct change, win your heart, indicate the toothpick stand, and rate you to a quarter of a cent better than Bradstreet could to a thousand in less time than it takes to pepper an egg with one of Hinkle’s casters.

There is an old and dignified allusion to the “fierce light that beats upon a throne.” The light that beats upon the young lady cashier’s cage is also something fierce. The other fellow is responsible for the slang.

Every male patron of Hinkle’s, from the A. D. T. boys up to the curbstone brokers, adored Miss Merriam. When they paid their checks they wooed her with every wile known to Cupid’s art. Between the meshes of the brass railing went smiles, winks, compliments, tender vows, invitations to dinner, sighs, languishing looks and merry banter that was wafted pointedly back by the gifted Miss Merriam.

There is no coign of vantage more effective than the position of young lady cashier. She sits there, easily queen of the court of commerce; she is duchess of dollars and devoirs, countess of compliments and coin, leading lady of love and luncheon. You take from her a smile and a Canadian dime, and you go your way uncomplaining. You count the cheery word or two that she tosses you as misers count their treasures; and you pocket the change for a five uncomputed. Perhaps the brass-bound inaccessibility multiplies her charms—anyhow, she is a shirt-waisted angel, immaculate, trim, manicured, seductive, bright-eyed, ready, alert—Psyche, Circe, and Ate in one, separating you from your circulating medium after your sirloin medium.

The young men who broke bread at Hinkle’s never settled with the cashier without an exchange of badinage and open compliment. Many of them went to greater lengths and dropped promissory hints of theatre tickets and chocolates. The older men spoke plainly of orange blossoms, generally withering the tentative petals by after-allusions to Harlem flats. One broker, who had been squeezed by copper proposed to Miss Merriam more regularly than he ate.

During a brisk luncheon hour Miss Merriam’s conversation, while she took money for checks, would run something like this:

“Good morning, Mr. Haskins—sir?—it’s natural, thank you—don’t be quite so fresh . . . Hello, Johnny—ten, fifteen, twenty—chase along now or they’ll take the letters off your cap . . . Beg pardon—count it again, please—Oh, don’t mention it . . . Vaudeville?—thanks; not on your moving picture—I was to see Carter in Hedda Gabler on Wednesday night with Mr. Simmons . . . ’Scuse me, I thought that was a quarter . . . Twenty-five and seventy-five’s a dollar—got that ham-and-cabbage habit yet. I see, Billy . . . Who are you addressing?—say—you’ll get all that’s coming to you in a minute . . . Oh, fudge! Mr. Bassett—you’re always fooling—no—? Well, maybe I’ll marry you some day—three, four and sixty-five is five . . . Kindly keep them remarks to yourself, if you please . . . Ten cents?—’scuse me; the check calls for seventy—well, maybe it is a one instead of a seven . . . Oh, do you like it that way, Mr. Saunders?—some prefer a pomp; but they say this Cleo de Merody does suit refined features . . . and ten is fifty . . . Hike along there, buddy; don’t take this for a Coney Island ticket booth . . . Huh?—why, Macy’s—don’t it fit nice? Oh, no, it isn’t too cool—these light-weight fabrics is all the go this season . . . Come again, please—that’s the third time you’ve tried to—what?—forget it—that lead quarter is an old friend of mine . . . Sixty-five?—must have had your salary raised, Mr. Wilson . . . I seen you on Sixth Avenue Tuesday afternoon, Mr. De Forest—swell?—oh, my!—who is she? . . . What’s the matter with it?—why, it ain’t money—what?—Columbian half?—well, this ain’t South America . . . Yes, I like the mixed best—Friday?—awfully sorry, but I take my jiu-jitsu lesson on Friday—Thursday, then . . . Thanks—that’s sixteen times I’ve been told that this morning—I guess I must be beautiful . . . Cut that out, please—who do you think I am? . . . Why, Mr. Westbrook—do you really think so?—the idea!—one—eighty and twenty’s a dollar—thank you ever so much, but I don’t ever go automobile riding with gentlemen—your aunt?—well, that’s different—perhaps . . . Please don’t get fresh—your check was fifteen cents, I believe—kindly step aside and let . . . Hello, Ben—coming around Thursday evening?—there’s a gentleman going to send around a box of chocolates, and . . . forty and sixty is a dollar, and one is two . . .”

About the middle of one afternoon the dizzy goddess Vertigo—whose other name is Fortune—suddenly smote an old, wealthy and eccentric banker while he was walking past Hinkle’s, on his way to a street car. A wealthy and eccentric banker who rides in street cars is—move up, please; there are others.

A Samaritan, a Pharisee, a man and a policeman who were first on the spot lifted Banker McRamsey and carried him into Hinkle’s restaurant. When the aged but indestructible banker opened his eyes he saw a beautiful vision bending over him with a pitiful, tender smile, bathing his forehead with beef tea and chafing his hands with something frappé out of a chafing-dish. Mr. McRamsey sighed, lost a vest button, gazed with deep gratitude upon his fair preserveress, and then recovered consciousness.

To the Seaside Library all who are anticipating a romance! Banker McRamsey had an aged and respected wife, and his sentiments toward Miss Merriam were fatherly. He talked to her for half an hour with interest—not the kind that went with his talks during business hours. The next day he brought Mrs. McRamsey down to see her. The old couple were childless—they had only a married daughter living in Brooklyn.

To make a short story shorter, the beautiful cashier won the hearts of the good old couple. They came to Hinkle’s again and again; they invited her to their old-fashioned but splendid home in one of the East Seventies. Miss Merriam’s winning loveliness, her sweet frankness and impulsive heart took them by storm. They said a hundred times that Miss Merriam reminded them so much of their lost daughter. The Brooklyn matron, née Ramsey, had the figure of Buddha and a face like the ideal of an art photographer. Miss Merriam was a combination of curves, smiles, rose leaves, pearls, satin and hair-tonic posters. Enough of the fatuity of parents.

A month after the worthy couple became acquainted with Miss Merriam, she stood before Hinkle one afternoon and resigned her cashiership.

“They’re going to adopt me,” she told the bereft restaurateur. “They’re funny old people, but regular dears. And the swell home they have got! Say, Hinkle, there isn’t any use of talking—I’m on the à la carte to wear brown duds and goggles in a whiz wagon, or marry a duke at least. Still, I somehow hate to break out of the old cage. I’ve been cashiering so long I feel funny doing anything else. I’ll miss joshing the fellows awfully when they line up to pay for the buckwheats and. But I can’t let this chance slide. And they’re awfully good, Hinkle; I know I’ll have a swell time. You owe me nine-sixty-two and a half for the week. Cut out the half if it hurts you, Hinkle.”

And they did. Miss Merriam became Miss Rosa McRamsey. And she graced the transition. Beauty is only skin-deep, but the nerves lie very near to the skin. Nerve—but just here will you oblige by perusing again the quotation with which this story begins?

The McRamseys poured out money like domestic champagne to polish their adopted one. Milliners, dancing masters and private tutors got it. Miss—er—McRamsey was grateful, loving, and tried to forget Hinkle’s. To give ample credit to the adaptability of the American girl, Hinkle’s did fade from her memory and speech most of the time.

Not every one will remember when the Earl of Hitesbury came to East Seventy–––– Street, America. He was only a fair-to-medium earl, without debts, and he created little excitement. But you will surely remember the evening when the Daughters of Benevolence held their bazaar in the W––––f-A––––a Hotel. For you were there, and you wrote a note to Fannie on the hotel paper, and mailed it, just to show her that—you did not? Very well; that was the evening the baby was sick, of course.

At the bazaar the McRamseys were prominent. Miss Mer—er—McRamsey was exquisitely beautiful. The Earl of Hitesbury had been very attentive to her since he dropped in to have a look at America. At the charity bazaar the affair was supposed to be going to be pulled off to a finish. An earl is as good as a duke. Better. His standing may be lower, but his outstanding accounts are also lower.

Our ex-young-lady-cashier was assigned to a booth. She was expected to sell worthless articles to nobs and snobs at exorbitant prices. The proceeds of the bazaar were to be used for giving the poor children of the slums a Christmas din––––Say! did you ever wonder where they get the other 364?

Miss McRamsey—beautiful, palpitating, excited, charming, radiant—fluttered about in her booth. An imitation brass network, with a little arched opening, fenced her in.

Along came the Earl, assured, delicate, accurate, admiring—admiring greatly, and faced the open wicket.

“You look chawming, you know—’pon my word you do—my deah,” he said, beguilingly.

Miss McRamsey whirled around.

“Cut that joshing out,” she said, coolly and briskly. “Who do you think you are talking to? Your check, please. Oh, Lordy!—”

Patrons of the bazaar became aware of a commotion and pressed around a certain booth. The Earl of Hitesbury stood near by pulling a pale blond and puzzled whisker.

“Miss McRamsey has fainted,” some one explained.

XIX PROOF OF THE PUDDING

Spring winked a vitreous optic at Editor Westbrook of the _Minerva Magazine_, and deflected him from his course. He had lunched in his favorite corner of a Broadway hotel, and was returning to his office when his feet became entangled in the lure of the vernal coquette. Which is by way of saying that he turned eastward in Twenty-sixth Street, safely forded the spring freshet of vehicles in Fifth Avenue, and meandered along the walks of budding Madison Square.

The lenient air and the settings of the little park almost formed a pastoral; the color motif was green—the presiding shade at the creation of man and vegetation.

The callow grass between the walks was the color of verdigris, a poisonous green, reminiscent of the horde of derelict humans that had breathed upon the soil during the summer and autumn. The bursting tree buds looked strangely familiar to those who had botanized among the garnishings of the fish course of a forty-cent dinner. The sky above was of that pale aquamarine tint that ballroom poets rhyme with “true” and “Sue” and “coo.” The one natural and frank color visible was the ostensible green of the newly painted benches—a shade between the color of a pickled cucumber and that of a last year’s fast-black cravenette raincoat. But, to the city-bred eye of Editor Westbrook, the landscape appeared a masterpiece.

And now, whether you are of those who rush in, or of the gentle concourse that fears to tread, you must follow in a brief invasion of the editor’s mind.

Editor Westbrook’s spirit was contented and serene. The April number of the _Minerva_ had sold its entire edition before the tenth day of the month—a newsdealer in Keokuk had written that he could have sold fifty copies more if he had ’em. The owners of the magazine had raised his (the editor’s) salary; he had just installed in his home a jewel of a recently imported cook who was afraid of policemen; and the morning papers had published in full a speech he had made at a publishers’ banquet. Also there were echoing in his mind the jubilant notes of a splendid song that his charming young wife had sung to him before he left his up-town apartment that morning. She was taking enthusiastic interest in her music of late, practising early and diligently. When he had complimented her on the improvement in her voice she had fairly hugged him for joy at his praise. He felt, too, the benign, tonic medicament of the trained nurse, Spring, tripping softly adown the wards of the convalescent city.

While Editor Westbrook was sauntering between the rows of park benches (already filling with vagrants and the guardians of lawless childhood) he felt his sleeve grasped and held. Suspecting that he was about to be panhandled, he turned a cold and unprofitable face, and saw that his captor was—Dawe—Shackleford Dawe, dingy, almost ragged, the genteel scarcely visible in him through the deeper lines of the shabby.

While the editor is pulling himself out of his surprise, a flashlight biography of Dawe is offered.

He was a fiction writer, and one of Westbrook’s old acquaintances. At one time they might have called each other old friends. Dawe had some money in those days, and lived in a decent apartment house near Westbrook’s. The two families often went to theatres and dinners together. Mrs. Dawe and Mrs. Westbrook became “dearest” friends. Then one day a little tentacle of the octopus, just to amuse itself, ingurgitated Dawe’s capital, and he moved to the Gramercy Park neighborhood where one, for a few groats per week, may sit upon one’s trunk under eight-branched chandeliers and opposite Carrara marble mantels and watch the mice play upon the floor. Dawe thought to live by writing fiction. Now and then he sold a story. He submitted many to Westbrook. The _Minerva_ printed one or two of them; the rest were returned. Westbrook sent a careful and conscientious personal letter with each rejected manuscript, pointing out in detail his reasons for considering it unavailable. Editor Westbrook had his own clear conception of what constituted good fiction. So had Dawe. Mrs. Dawe was mainly concerned about the constituents of the scanty dishes of food that she managed to scrape together. One day Dawe had been spouting to her about the excellencies of certain French writers. At dinner they sat down to a dish that a hungry schoolboy could have encompassed at a gulp. Dawe commented.

“It’s Maupassant hash,” said Mrs. Dawe. “It may not be art, but I do wish you would do a five-course Marion Crawford serial with an Ella Wheeler Wilcox sonnet for dessert. I’m hungry.”

As far as this from success was Shackleford Dawe when he plucked Editor Westbrook’s sleeve in Madison Square. That was the first time the editor had seen Dawe in several months.

“Why, Shack, is this you?” said Westbrook, somewhat awkwardly, for the form of his phrase seemed to touch upon the other’s changed appearance.

“Sit down for a minute,” said Dawe, tugging at his sleeve. “This is my office. I can’t come to yours, looking as I do. Oh, sit down—you won’t be disgraced. Those half-plucked birds on the other benches will take you for a swell porch-climber. They won’t know you are only an editor.”

“Smoke, Shack?” said Editor Westbrook, sinking cautiously upon the virulent green bench. He always yielded gracefully when he did yield.

Dawe snapped at the cigar as a kingfisher darts at a sunperch, or a girl pecks at a chocolate cream.

“I have just—” began the editor.

“Oh, I know; don’t finish,” said Dawe. “Give me a match. You have just ten minutes to spare. How did you manage to get past my office-boy and invade my sanctum? There he goes now, throwing his club at a dog that couldn’t read the ‘Keep off the Grass’ signs.”

“How goes the writing?” asked the editor. “Look at me,” said Dawe, “for your answer. Now don’t put on that embarrassed, friendly-but-honest look and ask me why I don’t get a job as a wine agent or a cab driver. I’m in the fight to a finish. I know I can write good fiction and I’ll force you fellows to admit it yet. I’ll make you change the spelling of ‘regrets’ to ‘c-h-e-q-u-e’ before I’m done with you.”

Editor Westbrook gazed through his nose-glasses with a sweetly sorrowful, omniscient, sympathetic, skeptical expression—the copyrighted expression of the editor beleagured by the unavailable contributor.

“Have you read the last story I sent you—‘The Alarum of the Soul’?” asked Dawe.

“Carefully. I hesitated over that story, Shack, really I did. It had some good points. I was writing you a letter to send with it when it goes back to you. I regret—”

“Never mind the regrets,” said Dawe, grimly. “There’s neither salve nor sting in ’em any more. What I want to know is _why_. Come now; out with the good points first.”

“The story,” said Westbrook, deliberately, after a suppressed sigh, “is written around an almost original plot. Characterization—the best you have done. Construction—almost as good, except for a few weak joints which might be strengthened by a few changes and touches. It was a good story, except—”

“I can write English, can’t I?” interrupted Dawe.

“I have always told you,” said the editor, “that you had a style.”

“Then the trouble is—”