The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story

nd species of pigeons that the villagers of M-- had never seen before. Wherever one turned, one saw pigeons. They w

ttle white flag at the disorganized flying tribes, wav

er of birds took refuge on the gable and chim

nd this was accompanied by a scrambling noise from outside. As she turned about, she could see through the corner o

ran from the room into the kitchen. "A man! A man is climbing up the hou

icemen arrived, having been told that a robber had entered the house, but they found nothing excepting S

madam. I'm a policeman, not a fireman." And with this they went

back against the chimney, making bubbles with his mouth and holding two new-born birds close

s did not even frighten the birds that flocked

a jumped from her chair and, with tears in her eyes, cried: "No! No! God will see you. He will never forgive us. After all, what

ing tear from lovely Ver

r. He can do us no har

then all was silent again. A fearful silence hung over the house, in

essed herself lightly and went down to the drawing room, opened the piano and finally opened the shutter. There beneath her on the ground

out an hour, although it seemed longer, the poor folk of the village arrived and carried the body from the yard. Fat Luba insisted upon halting the procession long

Captain killed her little Major of the Birds-"and now nobody will look after them, and they will make dirt everywhere. And people will have to move away. And he

a grand flight describing an oval in the sky. At each end of the oval the pigeons beat their wings as they rounded the curve

eat their sorrowful dead sounds into lovely Vera's e

ry tribes encircled the town with their

Little Master of the Birds; until a committee of three working-men took it upon themselves to inves

chess with a friend, and kept tapping the dull-sounding table with his fingers,

riage. At last they arrived at the stone house and found the doctor walking briskl

Captain in Vera's darkened ro

when I told you about the beggar, I should have told you that he was-Are you listening, my d

y from here. We will go to some quiet place.-Are you listening, my dear? We will go to some-do you hear me, Vera? My darling

town. While his pigeons encircled the sky and swished the air, the villagers straightened his twisted, little body and slipped

TH THE GOO

NK LUT

The Mi

rusive man, sitting near one end of the third car, quickly rose from his seat on the side of the car facing the station platform, and peered through the opposite windows. All the way up from Wall Street this little man had sat quietly observing through his deep-set gr

s were round and blazing with excitement. Against the protests of the guard, he squeezed through the door and made his escape just as the train was beginning to move. Heedless of the commotion he caused, the man dodg

" said the g

tle man, waving his arms wild

," repeated

e man ran alongside, peering in through th

lled the guard

e stopped short and put his hand to his head. The train thundered away, its colored rear-lights vanishing far-off in the black tunnel. Oblivious to the interest of the

muttered to hims

room, to the Imperial Building, where he worked, and back again. This, as he had often computed, amounted to fifty-eight and a half working days each year, or about two months' time. Such was the fee he paid to Time for the privilege of using other hours for working and living. It had seemed a cruel loss at first-this hour and a half from every working day-but that was in the early days of his experience in the city. Then he had been driven by boundless e

r. Neal first came to Fields, Jones & Houseman's, timid and green from the country, he had been repelled by the lack of interest in his new problems on the part of his fellow clerks, and he had then put on for the first time that arm

become very lonesome if he had not eventually found a real interes

ved at his station, and only then does he look up from his reading. Mr. Neal seldom read newspapers. The blatancy, the crassness of the daily prints revolted him. Perhaps there was another reason, too, which Mr. Neal himself did not realize; perhaps the settled selfishness which his manner of life had

fully realized how extremely interesting this occupation was becoming. One half holiday he went up to the library and read a book on physiognomy, and after that he laid out his course of study carefully, classifying and laying away in his memory

aturally gained him repeated credit for courtesy, but the real reason for his apparent gallantry was that he could not see people's faces when he was sitting while others stood in the aisles. But when he hung to a

veal his origin. Usually he was rebuffed, but sometimes he was successful. He read all the books on immigrants he could get his hands on. More than once he even followed a rare specimen-shadowed him to his work and there made guarded inquiries. Such investigations had several times made him late to work, so that his

various nationalities, and he could tell Polish, Lithuanian and Roumanian Jews apar

he scholar, the sport, the miser, the courtesan, the little shopkeeper, the clerk, the housewife, the artist, the brute, the hypocrite, the clergyma

rd all day, while in the midst of the ancient grind of Fields, Jones & Houseman, to the moment when he could establish himself in a positi

ooking out at him that he was heartsick. Then he would look at all the faces about him and see sin in manifold guise marking all of them. The sodden eyes

souls seen to escape from the bodies of dying persons, and always they had been seen to issue from the open mouths of the corpses. There was a singular appropriateness in this phenomenon, it see

Neal one day. "Now I must always look in

less against this little clerk hanging to a strap-this man with the serious pale face and the lar

could not think of a better, and the term stuck. It was not that he never saw faces with good qualities stamped upon them: he sometimes saw faces marked with benevolence, honesty and resolution, for example, and these were all good faces in a way. But they were not what Mr. Neal was looking for-what he searched for more intently with the pas

r, more prosperous, and smugger. But neither there nor about the Universities on Morningside Heights and on the banks of the Harlem, nor in Brooklyn, nor anywhere he looked, did he f

illed his heart at all the marks of Cain he saw. He came to have an inexpressible hunger for the sight of spiritual quality lighting the faces of the people of the subway crowds. He did n

. He would consciously seek for the good faces; evil ones he would pass over quickly. Thenceforward he was happier. As his train roared through the tunnels of night under New York, his eyes dwelt most upon the faces that were marked, however lightly

n, and joined to

. Mr. Neal's heart almost stopped beating. His eyes were blinded, and yet he saw the face so distinctly that he could never forget it. It was just as he had known it would be, and yet gentler and stronger. A moment Mr. Neal stood spellbound. The door of his own car was sliding shut; he leaped toward it, and, as we have already seen, squeezed through and ran toward the other

face again-and he prayed that he might-no merely physical barriers should keep him from seeking out the rare spirit that animated such

ambition he had once felt so strongly, but glad and cleansed and strengthened by a sure faith in the supremacy of truth and goodness in the world.

ace to be strangely new. The chief clerk, sitting at a dusty old roll-top desk in the corner, looked up at Mr. Neal sharply as he entered. The chief clerk always looked up sharply. There was a preternatural leanness about the chief clerk which was accentuate

d dived down again into his wo

al was mor

heerily that the whole office f

nd pompadour was just slipp

aimed. "I swear you're ge

oat and climbed upon his familiar stool. His des

pretty soon," prophesied the neighbor, f

l laugh

" he rejoined. Then in a lower tone, "Tha

Mr. Neal's willing ear all the latest developments o

e, but he caught not a glimpse of any face resembling the one that he could see at any time he closed his eyes. Yet he was not discouraged. He was happy, because he felt that something big and n

f his life. There was no monotony in his great game. He always found new faces interesting to classify, s

holiday in December. Thi

g Lombroso, Darwin, Piderit, Lavater, and other physiognomists, he usually employed at Columbus Park. Sometimes he wandered over to Hester Street, or up Orchard or some other Ghetto street off Delancey, or sometimes he spent a few hours in Battery Park or in the tenement district of the lower W

t glowered in the eyes-sounded before he knew it the depths of pity in the little clerk's heart. Mr. Neal tried to talk to him, but there was no ready beggar's tale to be poured into the ears of benevolence; there was only fear of the cold, and of misery,

tithe of tribute into the multiple maw of the Interborough. The train was thundering in, its colored lights growing momentarily brighter as they came down the black tunnel. The train was crammed to the doors, for it w

nder old Manhattan, to some unseen goal. It was magnificent; it was colossal; but it was uncanny. Mr. Neal had always been moved by the romance of the subway, but tonight, in his elevation of spirit, it seemed someth

ut if ever he had followed the ring his fighting days were over now. Good feeding had done for him; he breathed heavily in the fetid atmosphere of the car. He was almost squeezing the breath ou

two women strug

the familiar admon

sed, and their complexions were correctly made. There was, too, that hardness about the mouths of both of them that Mr. Neal found in the faces of most o

olid, or indifferent, or intent, or vacuous. None of them were glad. If their mouths would only turn up at the corners! We

on relieve the pressure. Two girls crowded on at Bleecker, amid shrill laughter and many smothered exclamations. Their

n slowly gained upon, his own train. The express was crowded too, with people standing in the aisles, hanging to straps. The faces were very clearly distinguishable in the bright light; and Mr. Neal, strangely excited at this rapid panorama of faces, saw each on

to the open. But the big prize-fighter still pressed against hi

again the rear-lights of the express. They were going to overtake it-to pass it again. It had been halted by the block signals of the train ahead, perhaps-at any rate it was now moving very slowly. As the local shot by

he crowded into one of the cars again at the last minute. He tried at first to pass through the train searching for the man with the "good face," but the guards rebuffed him, and the usually good-natured crowd was provoked to impatience by his squirming efforts; and he himself soon became so exhausted in his attempt that he gave it up. At Grand Central Station he again hurried out upon the platform to watch the crowds getting off. The gong had begun to ring again when he caught sight of a tall figure mounting a short flight of stairs toward the upper platform, and he immediately k

ll figure had passed. He ran around people and dodged and ducked, oblivious of the curio

. He buttoned his sack coat up tightly and turned up the collar. He decided to walk east down Forty-Second Street, in the hope of seeing the face again. He walked ve

ss safely, and now he was certain that he had been right: there was the tall figure he could not mistake. Now he gained on the man, who turned south into Third Avenue. As Mr. Neal breathlessly turned the corner he saw the tall man mounting the stoop of a shabby four-story apartment house a little way down the street. About to enter, he turne

!" he

door had closed almost befo

d a step on the landing above, and called out again, but there was no answer. He hurried up the cre

and wiped his forehead, which was damp w

hall. A short, white-bearded old man stood in the doorway. He seemed the very personification of serene happiness, and over his shoulder peered an old lady whose face was lighted by the same kindly joy. There was

e gentleman who just

ded old man se

e said in a gentle voice. "Not si

all man, w

me in, sir," reite

w," insisted Mr. N

man withdrew a little. Some of the happiness seemed to leave

n said slowly, "but we two are alone here. Th

as a very tall man; that was the reason I could see him so we

g that he had been led to reveal his

o the old gen

"If I could be of any hel

ere, really? Hasn't

s. But if I could do anythi

t he was dealing with a demented man; he s

"No. I must be going. I am

but he looked after Mr. Neal in solicitu

Neal realized for the first time that h

against the blast, he hu

He knew that he should eventually meet him somewhere, sometime, and come to know him. How Mr. Neal longed for that time words cannot describe, but his settled faith that his desire would one d

ould say to himself. "I

ng crowds wherever they were greatest, partly because thereby his chance of discovering the face was enhanced, and partly because crowds thrilled him. What a tremendous mass of emotions-hopes, fears, ambitions, joys, sorrows-were in these thousand

little frightened when Mr. Neal tried to talk to him, and the clerk resolved there and then to make amends for past neglect. The very next evening he made an excuse to visit the father of the household. A fine hearty fellow he found him, sitting in the kitchen with his stockinged feet up on a chair, smoking an old clay pipe and reading the evening pape

e remark of the father that they were saving money, penny by penny, to buy a brace for t

used to think you wasn't human exactly." He laughed h

little woman, embarrassed the litt

you're a

e on the lit

man's on the occasion of Arnold's injury in the elevator accident, when Mr. N

oon. "Funny thing: when I first came here James Neal was close as a clam; never a word out of him. Pai

hasis, his eyeglasses trembl

than James Neal, and I know it," he added, "and

ogether, and even to share confidences, and so it was natural that when Mr. Neal saw the face for the third t

or the right word, the light of the mystic in his glowing eyes. The chief clerk listened attentively, his cane across his knees, his lean face serious. His eyes bored into the ve

l you what it is: it is what

calmly. "It is real, John.

his head sharply again

med Mr. Neal at length, "becau

little clerk, who gazed away am

at a door. I wasn't far behind him. The door was right next to a pawnshop. It was unlatched, and I went in. I found myself in a dark hallway, but toward the other e

ne of the boys was reading at the table, and the other one sat in a low chair at his mother's knee and she was talking to him-telling him stories, I think. The room was poor, Jo

riend. The chief clerk said nothing,

woman didn't know; no man was in their rooms, she said. She was a poor widow. She wanted to know how

ghed, and passed hi

nd rose

t's walk-and talk ab

and more sympathetic toward the quest. One afternoon Mr. Neal detained the chief clerk as he was leavi

am going to find him

sked the chief clerk. "

just a-a certainty, John. I know

looked at Mr. Neal steadily, "you know

white lights glimmered. The echoing silence of a great cave was in the station. Then suddenly the red and green lights of a train appeared far away; then a rumble and a roar, the doors of the train slid open and Mr. Neal stepped in. All t

been trying to cross the street in defiance of traffic regulations, and had been struck by a heavily loaded t

had seen the accident; indeed he had been talking to Mr. Neal just before the latter had rushed i

a voice exultant with joy, and then he had dod

he bethought himself to look up the family with which Mr. Neal lodged in the telephone directory and to inform them of the accident. The whole office force listened to the conversation over the telephon

ut. The doctor's face was such a one as would have delighted Mr. Neal if he had been able to see it. It was a benevolent face. A profound knowledge of the problems of huma

asked the doctor in a low voic

ad," said

asked th

. I just

chance," sai

to pass on when the

aid, "who was with hi

ed at the doct

ne with him but

nding over the bed-a very tall man with a r

octor looked over toward the bed

range," sai

ctor, "just as you were leavin

d the nurse, and moved awa

o the bed where the body

"I surely saw him.-The most

own at what had

doctor in a low tone, "to die with

the death-white lip

F FALLEN

ENT O'S

The Sm

ow and lived, I think, at Godalming; but of this I am not sure. It is odd enough that I should have forgotten where she lived, for my friend was always talking about her. Sometimes he seemed immensely fond of her; at oth

l side. He had rather a weakness for gaudy ties and socks and jewelry. His manners were a little boisterous; his conversation, altogether personal. He had received some train

Various theories offer; it is hard to decide. Doctors, psychologists whom I have consulted, have given different opinions; but upon one po

e an interest in his affairs. He was there; he was a pleasant enough fellow; but when he had gone you were finished with him till the next time. If he did not look you

obody else seems able to remember, what the nature of the illness was. But I remember that he was very ill indeed; and one day, meeting one of his fellow clerks in Chea

. He had always been a laughing, undecided sort of person; he had a facile laugh for everything; he would meet you and begin

than once he appeared at his office in a very battered condition. It is difficult not to think that he provoked the rows he got into himself. One good thing was that the impulses which drove him to do such actions were violent rather than enduring;

arber with his hand raised-and then suddenly grew troubled, stepped back, lost countenance. This could not have been physical fear, for he was a strongly built, handsome man-a giant compared to the insignificant Barber. But Barber was

if some formidable spectacle had been swept away from before our eyes; and there was Barber, a most ordinary looking young man, quiet a

thing of the kind. I am told, however, that this is not so very remarkable, since not a few cases have been observed of men and women, after some shock or illness, d

nd pretentious talk, he would break off suddenly, remain for a minute lost and dreaming, and then, after spying at us suspicious

heatrical matters. Coming back from a theatre, he would sometimes fall to abusing the actors, and show the strongest jealousy, pointing out how the parts should have been played, and claiming roundly that he could have played them better. Of course, there were other times-most times-when he was a

one occasion he put me to some confusion and annoyed me considerably before a gentleman whom I had thoughtlessly brought him with me to visit. This gentleman had long resided in Rome as agent for an En

een there

ite curiosity and a little wonder

sisted, "I h

he moving-

place he described-Naples, I think it was-resembled broadly the place they knew, but with so many differences of detail as to be almost unreco

lept much. As a consequence, he was often away from the office; and whenever I th

that a concert of classical music was forward at which certain renowned artists were to appear. I really cannot give any sort of reason why I took it into my head to go in. I am rather fond of music, even of the kind which requires a dis

that you want to take my life, have I? I know the kind of me

ely have cared very much, and there was nothing to be gained by dragging Barber to a conce

hour's nap," he said as we took our seat

little there was about him in manner or

at the end of the third movement, I turned and looked at Barber to see if he was asleep. But his eyes were wide open, feverish, almost gl

y. "Just see if you can't keep

nd some people near by were turni

a singer appeared on the stage. Who he was, or what music he sang, I am utterly unable to say; but if he is still alive it is impossible tha

d the singer brought out the first notes of hi

said in a loud and perfectly f

's sake!-The manag

even a glance at me, and walked up the aisle and across the front of the house toward the little stairs at the side which led up to the platform. By this time the entir

ange thing

ke; he made a profound bow and then-yes, he actually dropped on his knees. All the people saw that. They saw Barber mount the platform, the musicians cease, the singer and the conductor give way before him. But never a word was said-there was a perfect hush. And yet, so far as my stunned senses would allow me to perceive, the peop

sun-some vast luminous scene. Under a wide caressing blue sky, in the dry and limpid atmosphere, the white marble of the buildings and the white-clad people appeared as against a background of an immense blue veil shot with silver. It was the hour just before twilight, that r

began t

k, but I do not know Greek well, and in such words as I thought I recognized, his pronu

me; he was there singing and we were bound to listen. As I try to hear it, now, it was a carefully trained voice.

r. The spell began to break; the power by which he was compelling us to listen to him was

acquainted with Barber, I was perceiving the trick put upon us sooner than the rest of the audience; but they, too, were becoming a little restless, and it would not be long ere they fully awoke. One thing I saw with perfect clearness and some terror, and

e, not from the crowd or anything like that, but from an inexplicable sensation that I was

it was

mmon sense urged me to put a long distance between myself and the concert hall as soon as possible. I knew that the hoots and yells of fury and

s a wet night, and at that hour the street was pretty empty. Barber ran

, you fool!" I shook myself free o

anding up there before them all, I jumped off the stage and bolted. Whatever made

nside, and then got in myself. I gave the

iercely. "What

t had some great shock, or who has been acting under the influence of a

frightened! I must be crazy. Whatever made me do it

sneered, "and a good many other people too. Y

k at Hyde Park corner. It

ave been up there over twe

," said Barber miserabl

a low voice: "It

All the way I continued to reproach him. It was not enough for him to play the fool on

ly ill. His hand trembled so badly that he could

t with a fellow

hy

righte

ghly, "that you've been

yself alive to the fact that he was really a mere nothing, a little scum on the surface of London, of no more importance than a piece of paper on the pavement. For-shall I confess it?-I was

gh the young man was generally docile and a fair worker, he had in the last year become very irregular, and was often quarrelsome and impudent. He adde

often weak and feeble, and they took a good opportunity to get

him, by mere chance in the street, he looked sick and miserable; his sallow face was more blotchy than ever. Whether he saw

cheery remark!" And h

do the silliest things? It must wear him out. I never know when it will take me next. I'm here in London loo

oss his face. "I'd rat

lked through the streets, we fell in with a great crowd, and then I remembered that some royal visitors were to proceed in great stat

infinite superiority and disdain in the looks he cast on the people. He attracted the attention and, I thought, the derision of those close to us, and I became rather ashamed and impatient of those ridiculous airs. Yet I could

in the sun, wide and empty, looking about three times as large as usual, bordered with a line of soldiers and mounted police, an

, but all my attention being on the scene before me, I took no heed of what he said. Neither could I hear him very pla

ut suddenly in the broad vacant space, fringed by police and sol

pected to hear the crowd roar at him, to

. It seemed to me that Barber was in his right place there: this mean shabby man, walking solitary, was what

f his usual shuffling uncertain gait, but with a balanced cadenced step, and as he turned his head calmly from side to side his face seemed transfigured. It was the face of a genius, an evil genius

. Then I lost sight of him. Almost immediatel

yal process

d down by the cavalry and taken to a hospital, I don't know. I h

when he could. Accordingly, when I received a letter from Barber begging in very lamentable terms to visit him at an address in Kent, I thought it prudent to consult this gentleman before sending any reply. He proposed very amia

l lately? Naturally, this has affected his brain and spirits. What is a little more difficult to explain is the impression left by his acts on you and other specta

ntified in any way with Barber. I had to think of my

nst his will-against his better judgment. We all do that. All men and women who look back over their lives must perceive the number of things they have done which they had no intention of doing. We obey some secret command; we sail under sealed orders. We pass by without noticing it some tiny fact which, years la

ly as much our habit to dream as to be awake. Perhaps we are always dreaming. Haven't you ever for a moment, under some powerful exterior shock, become half conscious that you should be doing something else from what you are actually doing? But with us this does

you are

after a rather breathless climb in the rain. It was a shepherd's cottage, standing qui

was in, but she thought he m

said. "He pays us scarce anything

ry mean; and when he awoke it was only one long wail on his hard luck. He couldn't get any work. People had a

or her husband sometimes, but they won't listen. Shouldn't be surprised if they think I'm a bit off. They say I'm always

'll see. I'll

s. They are not all white. Some are brown like Egyptians, and some are quite black. I've seen them somewhere. Those long terraces and statues and fountains and marble courts, and the

delirious, t

, "I am stifling here.

reat an emanation of power that it seemed to crack and break down the poor little room. Mr. G.M. and myself had no desire to thwart him, and it never occurred to us to do

arry out my will. To wish to reward and punish and to be deprived of the means. To be the master of the world, but only in my own breast-Oh, fury! The plou

nd looked down on the town, over

pass and insult me with impunity, whose heads should be struck off, and I ca

full in the face and our

it," h

in and bowed his head i

with Mr. G.M. in the wet night on a deserted road on the outskirts of the town. We were

at me. It was exactly like c

with this gear?" he

n't k

uck it ove

hinking of that desolate figure up there on the hi

n. In the carriage Mr. G.M. began

rves," he said; and we made no

which brought us again in sight of the town,

AME DA

UR DANI

rper's M

New York lif

mory methods, rise the incandescent fa?ades of "dancing academies" with their "sixty instructresses," their beat of brass and strings, their whisper of feet, their clink of dimes.-Let a man not work away his strengt

y ramrod into Times Square, push it straight down through the center of the earth; where it comes out on the other side will not be very many thousand miles wide of that earth spe

"Einstein's Restaura

le, as he kicked his bare heels on the deckhouse and harassed me with his somnolent greed for "talk," one could see him wondering, wondering, in the back of his mind. So he would have been wondering throug

among the flashing bodies of the islanders, men, women, girls, youths, who clung to the anchor cable and showed their white teeth for pilot biscuit, condensed milk, and gin-especia

gh for him. He was "pals" in ten minutes; in fifteen, from his eminence on the deckhouse, with a biscuit in one hand and a tumbler of much-dilut

r and the boobs. But just one time le' me catch on with one little old hunch that'll go in vaudeville or the pi'tures-get Smith and Jones diggin' for the old nickel.-That makes me. Then the line can move up one. That's the thing about New Y

scimitar laid flat. Then the scattering of thatched and stilted huts, the red, corrugated-iron store, residence and godowns of the Dutch trader, the endless Indian-file of coco palms, the abrupt green wall of the mountain.-A twelve-year-old girl, naked as Eve and, I've no doubt, thrice as handsome, stood watchi

the old one about the mother-'n-law and the doctor, only it had a perfectly novel turn to it. Did I make? I did not. Why? Well, a good friend o' mine lifts them

tin down between her toes

lear the vessel! Shove them all ov

lf hastily overboard with the rest. There was no question of protest or false pride. Over he went. Rising and treading water under the taffrail, and seeing the trader s

ever. One sure-fire hunch, that's all. Th

arrowly missed h

tow-haired man who spoke English with the accent of a east-coast Scot, drank like a Swede, and viewed

'get back to Broadway.' Too many have I

rld did he ever co

ood game of pinochle-to keep the pugilist's mind bright. At any event, the steamship stops at Tahiti. This Signet gets drunk. 'Soused!' And the steamship is gone without hi

throw' him to another

clothes which belong to my nephew who is dead. But I will not allow him the razor, since his absurd beard is amusin

ve you,

vantage will it do you here in the island of Taai? You are not here on Broadway. You are too many thousand miles. You cannot come here.

e say to tha

you take me fo

uld you kill a man-three-ten men-to have that wish? No, you are too tired, and you must have the police. But here there are no police. I am the police. Why do you not kill me? Ha-ha-ha! T

disappeared. The kitchen boys are 'careless.' Also I wink one eye when a schooner arr

ai but the interminable native dance. The Dutchman led the way up

en they cut him up and ate him. But that was many years ago, my dear sir. Now I am the law. Maybe there shall come, now and then, a

itative chant, slightly impassioned by that vanished gallon. The same old thing, indeed;

igher leaves. And the trader, becoming visi

ir, but that i

s there began to emerge a thread of actual melody-an untraditional rise and fall of notes-a tentative at

h tattooer's ink; the old women in the background of sultry lights and enormous shadows compounding endless balls of popoi for the feast; the local and desceptered chieftain squatting on his hams and guarding the vanished gallon between his knees; this

ine the toppling of a hundred centuries! You could have seen it in the eyes of those watchers, in their rapt, rapacious attention, in the

this isn't

ne here, one there,

strings of gut-barbaric cousins to the mandolin. So, on this one night in history, the music of another tribe had come to Taai. It just escaped being an authentic "tune." How it escaped was indefinable. The sophi

ton, tied at one shoulder and falling to mid-thigh. Not from Taai did this woman come; one saw that; not from any near island or group. Her beauty was

e island where that dance was indigenous I am sure I've never touched. Compared with any of the hulas, set and fixed in each locality as the rites of R

tal flame in me lent itself to the histrionic purposes

was the face of a man who has lived a very long while wielding power of life and death ov

ulders, it held as still as a death mask, minute by minute, except that, in the penumbra cast by the veil of goat t

n themselves to rest. A half moon mutilated the island-long stripes of palms, shadow scars of defiles, m

trader and I. By and by, soft-footed, Sign

e had already all the data to be procured. Into his ears h

ear sir. Marquesan.

N

f course-but they tell me the woman is in actuality the daughter of a queen. But what is

ed in the face. Diabolically devious and strategic! Before he resumed he blew three mouthfuls of cigar smoke out into the moonlight, where they burst from the shadow under the r

r husbands. But she is no wife. A maid, that woman! They have the hardihood to tell me that. Ha-ha-ha! But, then, she is daughter to a

sharks, harrying deeper and deeper into the outseas of mystery that small, devoted, polyandrous company of husbands, at once her paddlers, cooks, flunkies, watchdogs, music makers. "Queen Daughter!" Royal and self-anointed priestess of that unheard-of dance, the tribal dance, no doubt, of some tiny principality rearing a cone in the empty hugeness of the sea.-I couldn't g

t Papeete-before the white men of the st

ation I built up the thought, the doubt, the bitter perturbation in the fellow's mind. The woman had danced then at Pap

utchman made haste to cover up what seemed to have been an

my dear Signet, h

red." He could see as well as I that Signet

s. The obstacles are too big. Those three husbands! You might even take that woman, that lovely, royal dancing woman-you, my dear sir, a common street snipe. What would a woman like that, with that novel, impassioned, barbaric, foreign dance, be worth to a man on your Broadway? Eh? But obstacles! Obstacles! You have her not on Broadway. I

ed, dry fire of his gaze. Not fathoming, as with a singular intuition I had fathomed, the profound purposes of the Dutchma

those three husbands. Ah, my dear sir, but their big, lithe muscles! That is too much! To imagine them leaping up at the alarm in the moonlight, the overpowering and faithful husbands. No, he cannot put out his hand to take the gift. Pah! He is a criminal in nature,

followed him into the house, where he took a lighted candle from a stand. Buried in our shadows, silent footed, Signet pursued us as the trad

t over ranks and ranges of metal. It was the gun room of the Residence. Here dwelt the

d indomitable will like me! Obstacles? Three husbands? Puff-puff-puff! Like that!-But all that will never be of use to him. That Signe

d threw open the blind of the window, letting the candleli

ing and shutting us out of the gun room. He twisted the key; put it

as if the beach combe

opeless, m

e a drink,"

his hand. A habit of greed sucked his lips. Into his mouth he took a gulp of the spirits. He held it there. His eyes searched our faces with a kind of malignant

wed as far as the veranda we saw him maki

e 'Shame Dance,' Mynhee

en the Kanakas speak it. The woman spoke the name. If it is a Pol

By jingo! a darn goo

keyhole of the striped, moonlit night. I heard it, too-a faint disturbance of bougainvil

of it, was the typical big talker and little doer; a flaw in character which one tends to think imperishable. He fitted so precisely into a certain pigeonhole of hum

ent ashore that evening, after sundown, I found the Dutchman sitting in the same chair on the veranda, blowing smoke out into the afterglo

by ounces with thirty-two caliber slugs, awaiting burial. And Signet, guttersnipe, beach comber, and midnight assassin, was lodged in the "calaboose," built stoutl

end, under a wall of volcanic tufa, we came to a summerhouse done in the native style, stilts below, palmite thatch above, and walled on three sides only with hanging screens of bamboo. Striking through this screen from the west, the rose and

ich had been to her, first and last, a cradle and roadway for her far, adventurious pilgrimages? She sat there before our peering eyes, the sudden widow, the daughter of potentates

clean. He remained the perfect administrator. Had there been no other way, he would not have flinched at any necessary lengths of wholesale or retail butchery. Sti

casting up the sum of his treasure-trove.-But he was an epicure. He could wait. It was even delightful to wait.

that huge deliberate fusillade of cigar smoke, he talked of home, of his boyhood on the dike at

horizontal ray struck through the grating of the "calaboose" at the corner of the godown I was skirting. I saw the

t leave him

eling out to the schooner less than forty hours before. Here was a

you leave that d

mind, ignoring the present, ran months ahead. With a flair of understanding, thinking of t

that he squandered none of it in shaking the bars, shouting, or flinging about. His voi

hat-gets at h

as the drifter, the gutter Hamlet, the congenital howler against f

pra was arranged for-a week, two, three weeks (as the wind allowed)-and I was to r

ss of the sea, the whole episode seemed to swell up in my mind, explode, and vanish. It was too preposterous. Thirty-eight hours chosen at random out of ten thous

e godown; if that incomparable, golden-skinned heiress of cannibal emperors sat staring seaward from the gilded cage of the Dutchman, awaiting (or no longer waiting) the whim of the epicure-if indeed any one of them all had ever so much as set foot upon that microscopic strand lost under the blue equator-then it was simp

act, Signet was

, I found the trader of Taai sitting on his veranda, blowing puffs of smoke from those fine Manila Club perfectos out into the sunshine.

tried to break the ice. Strange as it sounds, I was never so embarrassed in my life.-For the trader of Taai, the blatantly obvious proprieto

as a memory of the Dutchman's voice: "Why do you not kill me? Ha-ha-ha! Then you could take my property." And again an echo of his disdainful laughter at that fo

e trading station at Taai, and "signed" in the identical, upright, Fourteenth Street grammar-school script, by "the Dutchman."-I understood Signet. Signet understood me. The thing wa

the D

Well, he decided to

l say I ought to have acted; that I ought at least to have got up and left him. That shows two things-first, that you've never been a trader in the islands; second, that you cannot at all comprehend how-w

me with an intention I was yet to plumb.

?" I ventured t

! Come and h

ing and wincing at

the woman was in love with him. I might bel

y still in the path. And in his eyes I was

as the simplest thing to suppose it the trader, the same big, blond, European man who had presently removed her "for safety" to the summer house behind the Residence.-And from the trader, by a gesture of melodramatic violence, the other and slighter man had set her free.-Perhaps even that would not h

y of her face. Let me tell you I am human. Perhaps Signet was human, too. Standing there, encompassed by the light of that royal and lovely woman's eyes, there was surely about him a gl

at the thing with idle fingers. Not altogether idle, though, I began to think. Something began to emerge by and by from the random fingerings-a rhythm, a tonal theme.-Then I had it, and there seemed to stand before me again t

s got something-something-that tu

t. I'm trying to

strumming resumed, very faintly, up in the dark behind the Residence; still tentatively, with, now and then

l Broadway half around the bulge of the world?

Taai. All afternoon and evening, as through the two days following, while my promised cargo was getting ferried out under the shining authori

He even followed me to the beach; actually, regardless of the Dutchman

ou can see for yourself, a big proposition fo

nd in exchange he would ask only cabin passage for two from Ta

ill of sale. Why, from where you look at it, it's a find! It'

you keep

im swimming in his cotton pants, with that low-comedy whisker and th

ll. I ain't that kind. But put me down in New York with that woman there and that there dance-and that tune-Say! You don't understand. You can'

inky water, heaping me frankly with curses. I shall not

watch me all the same,

hen I came aboard I discovered not far from my berth the unobtru

ad been discovered, there should be want of explanation or corroboration, it would be alto

ther he nor the royal dancer from the Marquesas was to be found. Some time in that night, from the windward bea

Even with soft drinks, the old instinct of wanderers and lone men to herd together had put four of us down at the same table. Two remain

n, an illusion of continuous dancing by girls in rope skirts on moonlit beaches. It was an intolerable waste of money. Here, come so far and so expensively to the romantic goal, he was disturbed to find his imagination fleeing back to the incredible adventure of a Rock Island station, an iron-red dot on the bald, high plain of eastern Colorado-to the blind su

is chair and made a dreary

e! Even the rags the

e banker about the new co?pera

s'ciety. Dead and buried! Next they'll strike up that latest novelty rage, 'In the

es. And without consciously grasping what the air was I had suffered an abrupt voyage through space. I saw a torch-lit sward, ringed with blue and saffron faces and high forest w

expressed a facetious weariness, b

hat?" I asked,

ous amazement

! man. Wher

After all, I might

ago I can't remember. That? That's 'Paragon Park.' That is the

rigina

s he made a wriggling gesture in appeal to my wits, the crudest burlesque, it

y mind skipping back: "Shem

ed, intrigued by

ust reminded m

mself on the thigh. "Me, too! By j

upon me; held me do

x-one. Them are always the hardest hours. A fellow's got to stay awake, see, and nothin' to keep him-unless maybe a coyote howlin' a mile off, or maybe a bum knockin' around among t

imon calling off car numbers to Denver-just like that I'm sittin'-when I hear somethin' out in the wa

the original bum, I'll eat my hat. Almost a Jew-lookin' guy, and he

st like that, 'Well

t handle the pan. He's g

ring her in here where it's warm.' That's what he says. Not '

comes to me the guy is really off his

here he comes trottin' back, sure enough, bringin' a woman with him. Now Mister-What

she ain't

can?'

' say

er, anyhow. She's sittin' on the bench far away from the light, and she's dressed in a secon

she ain't some kind o

headlights. Imagine! The guy ain't got enough meat on his bones for a rest'rant chicken. Honest to God, he look

says he. To me! T

ut o' this station. And don't forget to

s he. He sticks his

ight of,' says he, 'is a qu

Canada?' says I. 'And since when has the Canuck q

He was strong as a wire. He was deceivin

ed with crime. I've waded through seas o' blood. Nothin' in heaven or earth or hell can stop me. A month from now rubes like you'll be glad to crawl at my fee

n. I sit there countin' my fingers and listenin' to Denver tellin' back them car numbers to Limon again. By and by I'm jumpy as a cat

itin' room again. And what you think

aw was the finest exhibition of the 'Shimmi

s mouth hung open

Say! Can you imagine, in that there prairie depot at three in the mornin', and a wind howlin' under t

, "yes.-But wha

o the end and I go back in to start it over

he, pointin' to the r

ver. He keeps turnin' it round a

now it again,' sa

that record o' mine onto the floor and stamps on it; busts it in

ere!' I y

rough me, it seems and beyond,

says he. That's al

he farthest corner. Never another peep. There he sits till daylight, and the nigger

with him?'

e this. The current's gone out o' the wire.-Last I ever see of 'em, she's leadin' him off in the sunrise toward

aid, "I n

o pity him

could think of her le

mountain, on a stone platform facing the sea, sat Signet, quite nude save for a loin cloth, a

ome here?" I a

ted it,"

"a wonderful woman. She would do anythin

d carried long in mind. "Somebody beat

me a faintly

rist-that time she danced at Papee

o remote that he had to gr

to dance the hula-same as always, you know. Then some of them, the tourists, understand-Well, they had to spring the latest thing from Broadway. And then this woman of mine-Well, you ca

island valley, and in the other hand a bowl of coconut wine for the visitor. And for her lord. For you will see that at

ccompanied me slo

said. "After all, the city coul

ithout any hurry or worry.-I been thinking, Dole, a lot. I ain't going to say nothing about it, but Dole, I b'lieve

he shadow of the mountain, s

DRE

IET MAX

The Mi

erhaps it was the disquieted gray eyes in the lean leathery face, or the thin-lipped mouth that I had seen close so foxly after some sanctimonious speech, or the voice which, when not savage with recrimination, could take on a sustained and calculated intonation of appeal,-perhaps these things aroused my interest as well as my disgust. Certain it is that other me

d sensibilities and the too-ready acrimony could have foreshadowed the large blatant woman she was to become, a woman who alternated between a generous flow of emotion on the one hand and an unimaginative hardness on the other. Only Lin Darton could have given promise then of the middle-class, semi-prosperous business man who was to just

rofession, which that winter had sent him into a nest of small asthma-ridden towns. It was my privilege to trot by his side, carrying his worn black medicine case and endeavoring vainly to keep pace with his long jerky strides. On

re hideous than ever among the bare branches, I knocked with reddened knuckles at the door. There was no res

rubbed to the point of painfulness, gave only two signs of disorder, a crumpled book of verse open on the table and a Bible lying face down on the worn, orange-colored sofa. But there was something vaguely uncanny about the whole house; the very air seemed thin, like the atmos

the woman's v

This was Mr. Darton's

oated down to me as a door creaked ope

shut. There was the sibilant sound of a breath being dr

ink I'd want to see anoth

g stridor of his voice. Then-"You c'n get alon

sight of me, a frightened look crossed his face, followed, almost instantly, by a queer expression,

like inflection of the voice that I was to lear

ills, and he frowned at them a

I approached, he drew me towards him, where he had sunk on the dingy, orange-fri

ok my

a have a h-orse. Yer

against the loose brown skin o

y. Ye might ride her-like to? Then, if ye

at him

uts, and it ain't right-I tell you, it ain't right to have a

the minister's voice, I thought; and, my glance chancing to fall on the opened Bible, I was about to question him,

Mr. Breighton-

my father crisply. "Can

's all over. Mrs. Carn's b

umpy, red worsted shawl over her head, came nervously into the room; and, wi

, his clear, scrutinizi

an van-ity. We must forgive 'er. Ye see Selma was gettin' so upset with her rancorous

father nodded to him. "I

rees I could see a gaunt figure in a black skirt and a bumpy red shawl moving along the road; and the picture of her, scurrying away, remained, as such apparently unimportant figures often will, sharply engraven on my mind. As I recall it in late

I could hear my father's footsteps going softly about upstairs; and his voice, which though quick and crisp, had a soothing

says will you

ll as well as with the icy frigidity of th

ith a bright patch-work quilt; and out of this bundle a cry issued. As I peered into it, a red weazened face stared back at me, the eyes opening startlingly round. I looked long in wonder. The woman sighed; and, my gaze reverting to her, I thought sudden

get, absorbed as I was with the face inside the patch-work quilt. We went out silentl

egun to be heralded, that I felt impelled to revisit the place of my childhood. Not my least interest lay in seeing Lisbeth again. I remembered her as a fragile upstanding girl of twelve with soft hair the color of dead leaves and gray inquiring eyes. But whateve

iness of life had obscured whatever self-consciousness had been born in him. Meeting him for the first time was like entering another element. It left y

r erudition that still clung to him. That is, though he went about unshaven and in slovenly frayed clothing, he still quoted fluently from the Bible and Gray's "Elegy." Among the villagers he had come to have the reputation of a philosopher and an ill-used man. He was poor, it seemed, so poor that he had abandoned the white farmhouse and had come to live in a box-like, unpainted shack at the foot of the hill, the new boarding of which stood out harshly against the unturfed soil. Built just acro

d, barn-sprinkled background. I could observe her easily without her knowledge, for she was looking up, as we so often used to at twilight, to the old plank high above the sagging mill, where the turkeys fly to roost towards evening, so awkwardly and comically, with a great breathless whirring of wing

friend might, that the flush melted into a level pallor, and her eyes, deeper and more unquiet than I had

things, Tom," she said i

ago I was hearing that you were the best little

quivered a

" she said and

re was no other way about it-"

no

an year pr

the

neede

fath

he nee

insisted. "She was th

arried,

of an unsatisfactory mar

Mar

at a stor

e and responsible of them all, with, I supposed, much of her mother's early gentleness

forget these things at

mile that sent the winter chill of th

t-in the country,"

et in Norway and Sweden. It was a moment bef

t of air, they say, tha

nly, "those who liv

at the foot of the rickety outer steps that ran across the bare front

Mrs. Carn's funera

head and I tho

nd Mrs. Carn, I knew, had befriended Lisbeth, in spite of Old Con's displeasure. She must have noted my surpri

e said very softly, "that the

reply, for I, too, seemed caught in the s

tion of the head towards the upper r

his announcement, but, before I could speak again, she had gone swiftl

banged door and a rasped voice sounded in my ears and the sight of a tense, hurrying figure in a black dress and a bumpy red shawl moved before my eyes. The thin figure was lying there now and over it, his rusty black coat tails curving in the wind, like wings be

ping to a premonitory whisper with an undeniably dramatic quality. In spite of myself the words stirred within me. As he read and s

is born

ucture of thought and habit. I felt a giving and

of life we a

. The people had melted at his touch. They were his. For a while I lost myself in

to the ground-earth to earth

o stood next to me; and catching the slant of his vision followed it to the edge of the crowd, where, her thin dress clinging to her knees, her face almost blue with cold, stood Lisbeth; and there was across her eyes and mouth an expression of contempt and loathing such as I had never seen in a girl so young. Jim was watching her intently, n

say. "Margaret Carn was like the rest of us. She had her qualities-and she had her-failings. I want to say to you today that there's a time fur knowing these things-and a time fur-forgettin' them." His voice on the last words dropped abruptly a

who could even vaguely realize any of the inner motives of Con Darton's mind, as we certainly were the only persons who knew how great a wrong had been done to Margaret Carn's memory that day. To the rest she was stamped forever as a lying gossip, forgiv

melted into a soft mist, and through it her face took on a greater remoteness, a pallid, elfin quality. At the foot of the hill, whi

the hill, Lisb

ook he

here now,

ot

she added with that little touch o

it's

I stood looking at her, thinking of nothing so much as how her head would look against a worn, gold Florentine background, instead of silhouetted against these flat

of Tom's," he was urging, "if I ask you to d

hem. I could see the color mounting to her temples and then ebbing away, leavin

it could, I should have liked

ade me want to cry out to

could be arrange

ed away

replied in that same

nly in the very old that we could bear that look of dead desire

insisted Jim. "You

thed the surface of her dress.

layer, a presage of winter, which glistened under the clear stars and sent them shivering up at me again. As I neared the mill house, I could hear voices through its scanty boarding, and decided, for the moment, to go on, following the bed of the creek, when an intonation, o

ppy!" Old Con was rasping at her. "I kno

inner door her moth-like dress blending oddly with the pallor of her cheeks, the smudgy glow of the lamp light laying little warm patches on her hair. But it was her eyes, wide and dark, that stoppe

t without intonation. "Tom Breighton wouldn't be hi

Ye've learned to tell such things

s," she retorted

ain, as he always did when he

n't like it here-don't like what y

pt would have cut

a-go?" he

And at that he flar

ere mother, like all the Perkinses.

areful articulation of

her-didn't ye?" He looked at her through narrow, reddish lids, where she had backed again

ed. "Stop i-" H

ad not moved, but, somehow, as she stood there against the unvarnished door

cook and haul wood for ye till I've paid ye back-paid ye," she repeated more softly, "till no one can say the Perkinses don't k

heavily into the rick

ttered. "It's al

y about my throat. It was incredible that he should play a part before her-and now alone! His very posture suggested a martyred, deserted old man. I felt myself in the presence of some

to crouch under a passive, laden-colored sky. Then the snow came settling in deeper and deeper layers, and, as it packed down, a

o fire in the shack except that in the old rusty cook stove which she tended, and the cold made an easy entrance through the loose carpentry of the walls. With it all there were th

r for a large department store. Later it became more apparent that it was after these trips of his that he was able to purchase another horse. He quoted more and more frequently from the Bible and the "Elegy." Such feeling as any of th

er to leave all and come with him, then and there, I could only imagine. Each time Lisbeth came back from these encounters a little paler, her lips a little firmer, her eyes burning with a steadier purpose. But it was the sort of purpose that robs instead of giving life, th

yes and a dreaming. I held my breath and waited. Thin she was, like something worn to the thread. The fine color had given place to a blue tint in the cold, and to a colorless gray as she bent over the old stove

sight of them, walking arm in arm at the top of the hill, looking down as though to find a footing, and talking earnestly. They had never before ventured so near the mill. Catching sight of them

rself sidewise between th

you to do! Can't you see the look on his face-that wronged

r utterance. Jim put a quieting arm about her; and jus

e said, "tha

was be

ed to Con.-"It's the spring sun-it's summer-summer, d'ye hear? And it's mine-and I'm going to have it, before I'm dead like my mother died with her

ing dryly, betwee

hut away from her by a mist. As for Jim, there was a wonder in his eyes, not unlike that I had seen when he came upon an old Lippo Lippi,

rous menage located in the cheaper part of the down town district. I found him sitting amid an untidy litter of papers at the table, talking through the telephone to some one who later developed to be Miss Etta; and I had at once a feeling of suffocation and closeness, due not alone, I believe, to the

receiver had been hung up, "and-Lisbeth." He uttered his niece's

ing to this

ly known to you, I thought you might be able-willing-" He hesitated, paused; and a

" I assured him, "I

eth since that terrible night four years ag

I remember, and he had written that he was coming to take her little son into t

Darton, as though he had not heard me

had no business

s her

though he had uttered the

l right to that

emanded M

er birth," I sna

hen I remained silent, he added: "There is no gre

aps, that of a fath

o weigh him against

gainst one's own," he repe

, for my views," I said more gen

imself toge

wanted you to come out with us. Perhaps medical care might, even now-We thought maybe," he int

nd my voice must have sounded

counts when it comes to one's o

inal stand. So, having assumed them of my servi

tooped lower that I might not see the shadow that had fallen across her face. Finally she left the child and came

re to her dull-brown hair. She had changed but slightly in appearance, I thought, from the girl that I had known five years bef

happy-these five years-though perhaps not how happy. But in spite of it all-there is always

d away, but not before I had cau

d it's Jim's home-and the children's as well as it's mine-and, in a way, it's-inviolate. I've sworn

r eyes, as she turned to m

se," she said; "you will take

ss Etta, and together we rambled in their open Ford along tho

stolid, undeft sort of way. The bed had been pulled near the stove and the room was stuffier, more untidy than in the days when Lisbeth had been there. The creaky bed, the unvarnished walls, and the rusty alarm clock, that t

back at me, with much of his old penetr

," were his fir

now," I told him, hand on his wrist. "B

each syllable, "and tell-her that I'm-dy-ing. Don't

me. He had an ingrained fear of drugs of any sort. There was no gainsaying his fierce refusals, so I made him as comfortable as I could while we waited. The end was very near. His face, thin almost to emaciation, was flushed to a deep,

as hot-hot with the intolerable hotness of steam. The patchwork quilt looked thick and unsmoothed. I reflected that it never could look smoothed. And how their personalities bore down upon one with a swamping sensation! Miss Etta and Grega and Mr. Lin Darton were gathered into a corner of the room and an occasional whispering escaped them. The oppression was terrific. I began to want Lisbeth, to long for her to come, as

essly against the pane. The brownish stream thickened, as it made its way down th

w!" whimpered Miss Etta

d seized me that would not be dismissed. Yet what worse thing than she had already endured could come from that bundle of loose clothes on the bed? The figure

aid audibly

the covers, he made a gesture of resignation, but

its of conversation that issue

mes to one'

st in a surge o

wful

ught t

r came as a relief. There were steps, then, just as I had expected, the door was thrust back and she stoo

the sick man's face and vanished, leaving

w you've come," said Miss Etta.

isbeth pushed shut the flimsy door, and I, to cover her embarrassment, helped

oma of comfort escaped them. But the man o

er. Tears stood thickly in Miss Etta's eyes. She pull

rd her whisper sententiously.

the benumbing thickness of their emotion. But she merely unfastened her coat, walking towards the window as though seeking

s, I was certain that he was by no means without power of speech. I t

" he said. "Y

ted gray eyes, that could not make one entirely forget the long cunning line of the mouth. What courage did she hav

ray," she s

u-do not pray? Who-ta

" she sai

ack with

iss Etta through her tea

He lifted his hand and le

all-right." The reddish-br

gether, feeling his eyes, sharp for all their floating sadness, upon me. Was he-? Was I-?-A crackling of thunder shook the ground. When it had passed, the rain came down straight and hard an

r cared for me

s garments as she made angry motions to Lisbeth. Even at this moment, I believe, h

he said, and for the fi

s breath w

n to fumble amon

her's picture. Pick it up," he ordered, his ey

ed. An overpowering dread had clutched at me, forcing the air from my lungs. But in that instant he had r

ing her as one would a rat,

imp and brittle like with

hts came full upon the outlines of the old farm with its hideous false fa?ade. I could not resist glancing at her, though I said nothing. Her eyes were on her hands, held loosely in her lap. She did not look at me until, with another lurch, we had swung about again, and all but the road in front of us was

LBY

LES HAN

he Smar

ulty to know where to begin. I knew him so well at one time-so little at another; and men, like houses, change with the years. Today's tenant in some old mansion

lby on the newspaper where we both, as cub repor

rate enough to say cane. And, most loathsome of all, he had an English accent-though he was born in Illinois, we afterwards learned.

itor, raving mad sometimes with our dilatoriness. I am afraid that in those sadly distant days we frequented too many bars, and no doubt we wasted some of our energy and decreased our efficiency.

live, announced one night in the copy room that he was going to get Shelby

done," was

us! We were slouches, I know, with rumpled hair and, I fear not overparticular as to our linen during the greater part of the week. Some of us had fami

at bachelor quarters down in Gramercy Park, and a respectable club or two, and week-ended almost where he chose. His blond hair was always beautifully plastered over a fine brow, and he would never soil his f

somehow, and he might as well say them and get them over with, and as though he dreaded any reply. You couldn't have slapped him on the back even if you had felt the imp

e men, and we had that passion for good writing, perhaps not in ourselves, but in others, which is so often the newspaper man's special endowment. We were swift to recognize a fine passage in one another's copy; and praise from old Hanscher meant

out. He told us ab

a certain vintage of French wine which he knew Shelby was fond of. There were cocktails to begin with, though Shelby had intimated more than once that he abominated the

him, you know; and at first it was hard to get through the soup; but I acted up, gave him a song and dance about my mythical business m

venue in the soft snow-it was winter, and the Burgundy had done th

?" Stanton asked, h

rs don't like me!"

ur with his mask off, at last! Beneath all that grease-paint and charlatanism there was a solid, suffering, lone

our judgments have proved right. Stanton had deli

im-that I know," he had said generously more than

eat opportunity. Back strutted the pompous, stained-glass, pitiful imitation of an English

ance for him to make good with us. But no; he preferred the pose of aloofness, and his face betrayed that he was ashamed of that one night's weakness. He never al

top, I wish

at finished

to the devi

er sent Shelby to cover it, and his first-page story was the talk of the town. We were sports enough to