Part 9

"Short for Catherine--caught the croup. We had nowhere to turn. I pawned my watch to pay our board bill. We were sleeping in a single room--the three of us. For days I tramped the streets of Rochester looking for some work to do, but I was absolutely friendless and could find nothing. My wife got a little better, but little Catherine seemed to grow worse. I pawned my wife's wedding ring, all my clothes but those I have on, even my baby's tiny little bracelet we bought for her on her second birthday--O God, how I suffered! We talked it all over and decided that as New York was the only place where I was known, I had better return and earn enough money to send for them as soon as I could. The manager let me use his pass back to the city. I reached here three days ago, but I have found no work of any sort. Some of the press boys have shared their meals with me, but for the moment I'm penniless. Meantime my wife is lying sick in a strange household and my little girl may be dying!" McCartney sobbed brokenly. "I'm at my last gasp. I've nowhere to sleep to-night. No money to buy breakfast. I can't even pay for a postage stamp to write to them!"

"What street did you stay in at Rochester?"

"1421 Maple Avenue," shot back McCartney. "I wish you could see my little Catherine--she's such a tiny ball of sunshine. Every morning she used to come and wake me, and say, 'Come, daddy, come to breaf-crust!' She couldn't pronounce the word right--I hope she never will. She called the little dog I gave her a fox 'terrial' dog. Some people say children are all alike. If they could only see _her_--if she's still alive. Why _I_ wouldn't give ten cents to live if I could only make sure Edith would have enough to get along on and give Catherine a decent education. I want that girl to grow up into a fine noble woman like her mother. And to think the last time I saw her she was lying in a stuffy hall bedroom in a third-class lodging house, her little forehead burning with fever, with my poor sick wife stretched beside her, fearing to move lest she should wake the child. She may be dead by this time, for I've had no work for three days, and I've been able to send them nothing--nothing! They may have been turned out into the streets, for the board bill was a week overdue when I left them. Don't you see it drives me nearly mad? I'm worse off a thousand times than if I stayed there with them. Sometimes I think there can't be any God, for if there was He'd never let me suffer so. And all for a little money--just because I can't pay the fare back to my sick wife and dying baby--my poor, sweet, little baby!"

McCartney's voice broke and he buried his haggard face on his arms. For a moment or two neither spoke, then the deacon sighed deeply.

"You do seem to have had hard luck," he remarked awkwardly. McCartney was still too overcome with emotion to reply.

"I reckon I'll have to break my rule and help you without references. I don't believe in giving, as a rule, unless you know who you are giving to."

He put his hand in his pocket.

"But I'll do it this time." He placed two quarters upon the table.

"There, half a dollar'll keep you nicely for a while. Of course, there's no use sendin' money to Rochester. Your landlady can't turn sick folks into the street, and if she does they can go to the hospital----"

He paused, startled by the look on McCartney's face, for the latter had risen like an avenging angel, white and trembling. Pointing at the two harmless coins, he cried:

"Is that your answer to the appeal of a starving man? Is that all your religion has done for you? Is that how you obey your Lord's teachings? 'Cup of cold water' indeed! Cold water! Cold water! That's what you've got instead of blood; you withered old epidermis! You miserable, dried-up apology for a human being!" He paused for breath, sweeping the room with indignant scorn.

"I know your kind! You old Christian Shylock! You bought those chromos at an auction! You took that old sideboard for a debt--yes, a debt at eighteen per cent interest. You don't pay a cent of taxes. You sing psalms and bag your trousers with kneeling on the platforms at prayer meetings and then loan out the church's money to yourself on worthless securities. You're too mean to keep a cat, for the cost of her milk. You read a penny newspaper and take books out of a circulating library. You put a petticoat on these chairs so your miserly little body won't wear out the seats."

The lean vagabond half shouted his anathema, the pallor of his face and brow darkening red from the violence of his passion. It was the very ecstasy of anger. Before it the little man with the white hair shrank into himself, diminishing into his chair, seeking moral opportunity of escape.

McCartney looked at the two coins contemptuously.

"Bah!" he exclaimed in disgust. "Half a dollar for a dying child and a starving woman, to say nothing of a shelterless man!" He broke into a mirthless laugh. "Allow me to return your generous answer to my application for assistance. A code of morals of my own, which doubtless you would not appreciate, compels me to restore what is obviously ten times more precious to the donor than to the recipient."

He filliped the two coins across the table into the lap of his host, who still crouched furtively with his head near the table.

"It makes me sick to look at you! Who could gaze without disgust upon the spectacle of an ossified creature like yourself, creeping through bare, deserted old age toward a grave mortgaged to the devil? Ugh! It is the horridest spectacle I have seen in a month."

"You're mad!" muttered the old man with hoarse fearfulness.

"Sometimes, but not now!" retorted McCartney. "I'll hold my evening session for Misers a moment longer. I pity you, Lord Pinhead Penurious! I pity you that you should have gone through life, a small term of say sixty years, in such stupidity. Sixty years of grubbing, of weighing meat and adding figures, of watching the prices fools pay for stocks, and how many days of _life_? How many good deeds? Oh, marvelous lack of wit! What know you of real happiness? Let me introduce myself, since you're so blind. What do you think I am, my good old Noddy Numbskull?"

"Crazy!" gasped the old man. "Do be quiet! Let me get you something more to eat."

"A thief, at your service. Oh, don't start! I'll not carry away your mahogany sideboard nor your bronze chandelier. I steal only to keep myself in purse--to eat. You dig to add to the column of figures in your pass book. I walk among the gods. My brain is worth twenty gray bags like yours. I have thoughts and dreams in terms to you unintelligible. I can live more in a week than haply you have done in the course of your whole crawling existence. What do you know of the spirit? Behind your altar sits a calf of gold. You grovel before it and slip out at the bottom the shekels you drop in at the top. To you the moon will always be made of green cheese, that 'orbed maiden with white fire laden'! Your hands are callous from counting money, your brain is----"

The old fellow arose. "Leave my house! Get out of here!"

He was an absurd figure, not more than five feet high, in his black broadcloth suit and string tie, as he faced McCartney's blazing eyes, and the latter laughed at him.

"I will fast enough. But you see I'm having a sensation--_living_. I'm doing good. Oh, yes, I am. If not to you, at least to myself. Do you think I'll ever forget little 'Cathie'? God! How I could have loved a real child! And I've only a cat." He laughed again. "I don't blame you for thinking me crazy--even you. Come, now, wasn't my picture of the phthisic wife and moaning child worth a place on the line--I mean, wasn't it good, eh? Worth more than two beggarly quarters? It gave me a thrill--what I need--it'll keep me alive for another twenty-four hours, without this." He held up a nickel-plated hypodermic syringe. It shone in the gaslight, and the old man started back and held out his hands.

"Don't shoot!" he cried in senile terror.

"Carrion!" cried McCartney. "Why do I waste my time on you? Why? Because I'm in your debt. I owe you little Catherine. I shall never forget her. And you, you--you are her foster father! God forbid!"

The old man sat down resignedly at the extreme side of the table.

"By God, I pity you!" exclaimed the lean man. "Do you hear that? _I_ pity _you_--_I_!--a wretched, drugged, wilted, useless bundle of nerves twisted into the image of a man; a chap born with a silver spoon, with gifts, who tossed them all into the gutter--threw 'a pearl away richer than all his tribe'; a miserable creature who can't live without this" (he pressed the needles into his wrist), "and yet I wouldn't change with you! I'm more of a man than you. My very wants are sweeter than any joys your brutish senses can ever feel.

"O would there were a heaven to hear! O would there were a hell to fear! Dear Son of God, in mercy give My soul to flames, but let me live!

"You don't know what that means! Haven't the vaguest idea. You're a mummy. You'll be the same ten thousand years from now. I suppose you think I made it up, eh?

"I am discouraged by the street, The pacing of monotonous feet.

"That's all _you_ want. You couldn't understand anything else, and yet it's my torture, and my salvation!"

The glow came back into McCartney's eyes and he repeated:

"Yes, that picture of little Catherine was worth more than two quarters. It ought to have been good for twenty dollars. It's worth more than that to me."

McCartney's voice had grown strong and clear.

The old fellow looked at him sharply and changed his tone. He must get this madman out of his house. He must humor him.

"Come, come, that's all right. Cheer up! Why, I had a little girl of my own once."

McCartney pierced him through and through with swimming eyes.

"And her memory was only worth two miserable quarters? You lie, you wretched old man, you lie!"

The old fellow started back. The door banged. McCartney was gone.

THE MAN HUNT

I

_Note._--Action takes place about the year 1915.

Ralston strode briskly up Fifth Avenue, conscious all about him of the electric pressure of War. It was six o'clock--the hour when the hard outlines of the tops of office buildings and the prosaic steeples of contemporary religion, flushed with rose, and "fretted with golden fire," melt with a glow of unreality into the darkening blue. Here and there in the eastern sky tiny points trembled elusively, and a molten crescent followed him along the housetops, its pale disk growing each instant brighter.

Wheel traffic on the avenue, between the hours of nine and seven, had been suspended, and many pedestrians preferred the icy inequality of the street to the crowds upon the pavements. For the most part the movement was northward, meeting at the corners transverse streams of clerks and salesgirls jostling one another, arm in arm, down the side streets. Here and there could be seen an officer in service coat, with sword dangling beneath, and occasional knots of soldier boys in the uniform of the National Guard.

A little lad with an air of vast importance ran just ahead of Ralston, unlocking the bases of the electric lights and, in some mysterious way, turning them on. To his intense gratification he had succeeded in distancing his fellow across the way by half a block. Above the shuffle of feet could be heard the cries of the newsmen, "Extra! Extra! President calls for twenty new regiments! Latest extra! Twelfth to the front." These, clutching huge bundles of papers to their breasts, hurled themselves against the tide of humanity, appearing from all directions and sweeping down like vultures upon any individual wayfarer so unfortunate as to have his hand momentarily in his pocket. Their bundles quickly disappeared. Then they would run panting to the corners where the paper wagons were in waiting. It was a scene full of inspiration to Ralston, but it impressed him that, after all, the crowd seemed primarily interested in its own affairs--its business, its cold ears, its suppers.

For the newspapers the war had created a fierce, insatiable public maw. Circulations sprang by leaps into the millions. Extras followed one another by minutes. For the people in the shops it meant night work and longer hours; for society, something new to talk about; for the theaters, packed houses which roared at topical songs in which "war" rhymed with "bore," "rations" with "nations," "company" with "bump any," "foes" with "toes," "sword" with "board," and gloried in "Eddie" Foy and "Jo" Weber dressed as major generals. "Light Cavalry" and "Dixie" had superseded all other selections upon the musical programmes, and special rows of seats were reserved for "officers in uniform." The bars were jammed, traveling men sat in more thickly serried ranks than usual in the hotel windows, and Slosson's Billiard Parlors were lined with standing spectators. The commercial life of the city boiled over. Only the brokers came home early.

As Ralston entered Madison Square he found himself entangled in a dense throng wedged around an improvised scaffolding, upon which was displayed the electric-lighted bulletin of one of the big dailies. A man in a yellow-and-black-striped sweater was rapidly painting with a brush upon a blackboard in some white liquid the latest marching orders:

"_Twelfth Regiment leaves via Penn. R. R. to-morrow 7 A.M._"

"_Terrible Riots in Tokio._"

"_R. W. Ralston appointed Second Assistant Secretary of the Navy._"

As he fought his way through the crush he heard his name repeated on all sides, and a strange exaltation took possession of him. He had a curious desire to call out: "Yes. I'm Ralston! The Ralston up there! I'm he! That one! I'm Ralston!"

He felt like a prince suddenly called from seclusion to rule his people. He was going to do things which these garlic-breathing folk would spell out and marvel at. How often his name would flash across the square or play duskily upon the curtains at the theaters, linked with generals and "fighting" admirals. He laughed with the joy of it, that he, the settled-down man of the world, the hunter, the manager of estates, the student of literature, the lover of poetry, was going to play the popular hero.

He broke through the outer ring of the crowd and made for the park. A huge flag draped the porch of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The flush in the west had faded to a streaky white and the stars had sprung from behind their curtains. A white beam of light played steadily from the tower of the Garden into the north. When it should swing to the south actual hostilities would have commenced. All the windows in the office buildings gleamed with activity. As he looked back he could see the man in the sweater erasing his name with a sponge, and his heart sank with momentary disappointment. Some new thing was coming over the wires hot with the fire of war. At the same moment he heard up the avenue the faint tapping of drums and the shriek of the fifes.

A line of mounted police burst into the square. The throng in front of the bulletin board surged over to the park. Then with a clash of cymbals and a prolonged rattle from the drums a full band burst into "There'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night." The regimental flags came into view. In the light of the stars, in the dying of the day, in the moment of his exaltation, Ralston recognized the colors of his old regiment. Had he chosen he might have been marching at the head of his company even then. The crowd, cheering, forced him to the curb and into the street. With brimming eyes he doffed his hat and saluted the colors.

As he did so a sudden wild yell went up from the multitude. From one side of the square to the other reigned pandemonium. The very sound of the band was drowned in the uproar. From the top of the Flatiron Building a stream of rockets broke into the sky, and with a single movement the throng turned and gazed tensely at the Garden Tower, as the white shaft of light slowly swung into the south.

II

The little white house on East Twenty-fifth Street was ablaze with light as Ralston eagerly mounted the low stoop and pressed the bell. The visitor knocked the slush from his overshoes, slapped the left pocket of his coat as if to make certain that something was still safely there, stepped quickly across the threshold when the butler opened the door, handed the man his hat, threw off his fur coat upon an ebony chair, and only paused, and that but for a moment, at the entrance of the drawing-room. He was a tall, clean-built, brisk young man, thoroughly American in type, with an alert face, which, if not handsome, was nevertheless agreeable and attractive--a man, in a word, whom one would not hesitate to address upon the street, provided the question was pertinent and the information essential.

It was clear from his manner that he was no stranger, but to-day there were more women than usual at Miss Evarts's Monday afternoon, and the lights and chatter seemed a bit confusing to one whose mind was charged with the importance of a newly acquired responsibility. Miss Evarts was an old friend of his mother's, who, somewhat to his amused annoyance, took it upon herself to assume toward him a sort of sisterly attitude, which allowed her the privileges of relationship without prejudice to a certain degree of elderly sentiment. Attendance upon her selectly Bohemian gatherings was a duty which he performed when in town, with a regularity attributable less to a regard for Miss Evarts herself than to the fact that Ellen Ferguson was usually to be found there presiding over the tea table and ready for a brisk walk uptown afterwards.

"Ha! There he is now!" exclaimed a middle-aged man, with iron-gray hair and pointed mustaches, as the newcomer parted the _portières_.

The group about the warrior turned with one accord and stared, at present teacups, in his direction.

"Good afternoon, ladies and soldier," said Ralston. "I am the torchbearer of war. Firing has begun. The searchlight on the Garden is leveled south--like the lance of the horseman on the tower in Irving's 'Legend of the Arabian Astrologer.'"

The colonel set down his cup and pulled his mustaches with a heavy frown. He took pains to let it be seen that he was overcome with conflicting emotions--that stern duty summoned him from home and dear ones, but that his heart was throbbing to avenge his country's honor. They all looked toward him as if expecting a few appropriate remarks. The colonel's hands trembled, the veins upon his forehead swelled, and he seemed about to speak. Then he did.

"You don't say!" he remarked.

There was a sigh of disappointment from the ladies, and in the hiatus which followed Miss Evarts shook hands with Ralston and introduced him to the others as "the newly appointed secretary, you know." Which, or what of, she did not disclose.

"I always thought Ralston was cast for a topliner," continued the hostess, as he modestly evaded their congratulations.

"It's about time I left the chorus," answered her guest, adapting his language to Miss Evarts's open predilection for the footlights.

"Kicked your way up?" inquired, in a hoarse voice, a stout lady of stage traditions, who was clad in a wall-paper effect of gay brocade.

"My dear Mrs. Vokes, don't judge everybody by your own professional experience," remarked a young lady in brown, whose aquiline features were accounted "perfectly lovely" by a large suburban, theater-going public.

"Come! Come!" interrupted Miss Evarts loudly. "Miss Warren, order yourself more humbly before your betters."

The two popular favorites glared at one another defiantly.

"Well, in any event, Colonel Duer, he'll soon be giving you your sealed orders," said Miss Evarts, thus disposing of a situation which might have become awkward.

"Not unless the colonel gets a transfer. I'm steering the navy, not the army," laughed Ralston.

"The man behind!" murmured Mrs. Vokes.

Ralston bowed. "Very good, Mrs. Vokes," said he. "Yes, too far behind!"

"The navy, of course," Miss Evarts corrected herself, letting fall a lump of sugar and following it with an attenuated rivulet of cream. "Just a drop, as usual?"

"Did you read the President's proclamation?" asked a young girl in a gray picture hat. "Wasn't it splendid?"

"Mr. Ralston will probably write the next one," interjected another.

"No, only correct the proof," amended the hostess.

"And point it with 'Maxims'?" ventured the Vokes, now restored to complete good humor.

"Very sweet of you, Mrs. Vokes," said Ralston, recognizing the artificial dove of theatrical peace.

"You leave very soon, don't you, colonel?" asked Miss Evarts. "Is your kit-bag ready?"

"Yes, we leave by the Pennsylvania, at seven o'clock. The armory's a perfect bedlam. It looks as if every man in New York had collected all his worldly goods and chattels and dumped them on the tan bark," replied the colonel.

"The confusion must be something delightful. I suppose you have plenty of canned peaches?" inquired the brown girl innocently. "I understand that they are the staple food of heroes."

"They're certainly an indispensable stage property," admitted the colonel with something of an effort, recalling various evaporated valiants of the Cuban campaign.

During this profound discussion Ralston's eyes had been wandering from group to group, and at this moment the object of their search herself joined the party upon the other side of the table.

"Have another cup of tea, Ellen," urged Miss Evarts.

"I can't, positively, Aunt Bess," responded the girl; "I must go presently."

"How are things?" said the girl in brown, looking significantly at the colonel. "Have all your officers turned up?"

"Ye-es," he replied. "Constructively."

"Constructively?" persisted his inquisitor. "What a queer way to be present! Rather bad for an officer in a swell regiment to be dilatory, isn't it?"

"Every man has shown up," replied the rather nettled veteran, "except one, and he'll be along, all right."

"Oh, of course!" murmured the girl. "By the way, have you seen John Steadman? My cousin Fred, you know, is an officer in the same company, and he said last night at dinner that he hadn't seen him at the armory. Some one was mean enough to suggest that these ferocious military men aren't always 'warlike.'"

"There are no tin soldiers in my regiment," answered the colonel severely, turning for reënforcement to Mrs. Vokes.