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. "_Foreman_ is what _we_ call 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. _He_ ain'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 him _jes' 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.

"It _is_ a 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.

"_I_ kin 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.