THERE had been a war fought and
won and the great city of the
conquering people was crossed
with triumphal arches and vivid with
thrown flowers of white, red, and
rose. All through the long spring
days the returning soldiers
marched up the chief highway behind
the strump of drums and the
joyous, resonant wind of the brasses,
while merchants and clerks left
their bickerings and figurings and,
crowding to the windows, turned
their white-bunched faces gravely
upon the passing battalions.
Never had there been such
splendor in the great city, for the vic-
torious war had brought plenty in
its train, and the merchants had
flocked thither from the South and
West with their households to
taste of all the luscious feasts
and witness the lavish entertainments
prepared and to buy for their
women furs against the next winter
and bags of golden mesh and
varicolored slippers of silk and silver
and rose satin and cloth of gold.
So gaily and noisily were the
peace and prosperity impending
hymned by the scribes and poets
of the conquering people that more
and more spenders had gathered
from the provinces to drink the
wine of excitement, and faster
and faster did the merchants dispose
of their trinkets and slippers
until they sent up a mighty cry for
more trinkets and more slippers
in order that they might give in
barter what was demanded of them.
Some even of them flung up their
hands helplessly, shouting :
"Alas ! I have no more
slippers 1 and alas ! I have no more trinkets I
May Heaven help me, for I know
not what I shall do ! "
But no one listened to their
great outcry, for the throngs were far
too busy day by day, the
foot-soldiers trod jauntily the highway
and all exulted because the young
men returning were pure and
brave, sound of tooth and pink of
cheek, and the young women of the
land were virgins and comely both
of face and of figure.
So during all this time there
were many adventures that happened
in the great city, and, of these,
several or perhaps one are here
set down.
At nine o'clock on the morning of
the first of May, 1919, a young
man spoke to the room clerk at
the Biltmore Hotel, asking if Mr,
Philip Dean were registered
there, and if so, could he be connected
with Mr. Dean's rooms. The
inquirer was dressed in a well-cut f
shabby suit. He was small,
slender, and darkly handsome ; his eyes
were framed above with unusually
long eyelashes and below with the:
blue semicircle of ill health,
this latter effect heightened by an un-
natural glow which colored his
face like a low, incessant fever.
Mr. Dean was staying there. The
young man was directed to a
telephone at the side.
After a second his connection was
made; a sleepy voice hello'd
from somewhere above.
"Mr. Dean?" this very
eagerly "it's Gordon, Phil. It's Gordon
Sterrett. I'm down-stairs. I
heard you were in New York and I had
a hunch you'd be here."
The sleepy voice became gradually
enthusiastic. Well, how was
Gordy, old boy ! Well, he
certainly was surprised and tickled ! Would
Gordy come right up, for Pete's
sake !
A few minutes later Philip Dean,
dressed in blue silk pajamas,
opened his door and the two young
men greeted each other with a
half-embarrassed exuberance. They
were both about twenty-four,
Yale graduates of the year before
the war ; but there the resemblance
stopped abruptly. Dean was blond,
ruddy, and rugged under his thin
pajamas. Everything about him
radiated fitness and bodily comfort.
He smiled frequently, showing
large and prominent teeth.
"I was going to look you
up," he cried enthusiastically. "I'm tak-
ing a couple of weeks off. If
you'll sit down a sec I'll be right with
you. Going to take a
shower."
As he vanished into the bathroom
his visitor's dark eyes roved
nervously around the room,
resting for a moment on a great English
travelling bag in the corner and
on a family of thick silk shirts lit-
tered on the chairs amid
impressive neckties and soft woollen socks.
Gordon rose and, picking up one
of the shirts, gave it a minute
examination. It was of very heavy
silk, yellow with a pale blue
stripe and there were nearly a
dozen of them. He stared involun-
tarily at his own shirt-cuffs
they were ragged and linty at the edges
and soiled to a faint gray.
Dropping the silk shirt, he held his coat-
sleeves down and worked the
frayed shirt-cuffs up till they were out
of sight. Then he went to the
mirror and looked at himself with list-
less, unhappy interest. His tie,
of former glory, was faded and
thumb-creased it served no longer
to hide the jagged buttonholes of
his collar. He thought, quite
without amusement, that only three
years before he had received a
scattering vote in the senior elections
at college for being the
best-dressed man in his class.
Dean emerged from the bathroom
polishing his body.
"Saw an old friend of yours
last night," he remarked.
"Passed her in the lobby and
couldn't think of her name to save my
neck. That girl you brought up to
New Haven senior year."
Gordon started.
"Edith Bradin? That whom you
mean?"
'At's the one. Damn good looking. She's still
sort of a pretty
doll you know what I mean : as if
you touched her she'd smear."
He surveyed his shining self
complacently in the mirror, smiled
faintly, exposing a section of
teeth.
"She must be twenty-three
anyway," he continued.
"Twenty-two last
month," said Gordon absently.
"What ? Oh, last month.
Well, I imagine she's down for the Gamma
Psi dance. Did you know we're
having a Yale Gamma Psi dance
to-night at Delmonico's? You
better come up, Gordy. Half of New
Haven'll probably be there. I can
get you an ; r-' x ation."
Draping himself reluctantly in
fresh underwear, Dean lit a ciga-
rette and sat down by the open
window, inspecting his calves and
knees under the morning sunshine
which poured into the room.
"Sit down, Gordy," he
suggested, "and tell me all about what
you've been doing and what you're
doing now and everything."
Gordon collapsed unexpectedly
upon the bed ; lay there inert and
spiritless. His mouth, which
habitually dropped a little open when
his face was in repose, became
suddenly helpless and pathetic.
"What's the matter?"
asked Dean quickly.
"Oh, God!"
"What's the matter?"
"Every God damn thing in the
world," he said miserably. "I've
absolutely gone to pieces, Phil.
I'm all in."
"Huh?"
"I'm all in." His voice
was shaking.
Dean scrutinized him more closely
with appraising blue eyes.
"You certainly look all
shot."
"I am. I've made a hell of
mess of everything." He paused. "I'd
better start at the beginning or
will it bore you?"
"Not at all ; go on."
There was, however, a hesitant note in Dean's
voice. This trip East had been
planned for a holiday to find Gordon
Sterrett in trouble exasperated
him a little.
"Go on," he repeated,
and then added half under his breath, "Get
it over with."
"Weil," began Gordon
unsteadily, "I got back from France in
February, went home to Harrisburg
for a month, and then came
down to New York to get a job. I
got one with an export company.
They fired me yesterday."
"Fired you?"
"I'm coming to that, Phil. I
want to tell you frankly. You're about
the only man I can turn to in a
matter like this. You won't mind if
I just tell you frankly, will
you, Phil?"
Dean stiffened a bit more. The
pats he was bestowing on his knees
grew perfunctory. He felt vaguely
that he was being unfairly saddled
with responsibility; he was not
even sure he wanted to be told.
Though never surprised at finding
Gordon Sterrett in mild difficulty,
there was something in this
present misery that repelled him and
hardened him, even though it
excited his curiosity.
"Go on."
"It's a girl."
"Hm." Dean resolved
that nothing was going to spoil his trip. If
Gordon was going to be
depressing, then he'd have to see less of
Gordon.
"Her name is Jewel
Hudson," went on the distressed voice from
the bed. "She used to be
'pure/ I guess, up to about a year ago. Lived
here in New York poor family. Her
people are dead now and she
lives with an old aunt. You see
it was just about the time I met her
that everybody began to come back
from France in droves and all
I did was to welcome the newly
arrived and go on parties with 'em.
That's the way it started, Phil,
just from being glad to see everybody
and having them glad to see
me."
"You ought to've had more
sense."
"I know," Gordon
paused, and then continued listlessly. "I'm on
my own now, you know, and Phil, I
can't stand being poor. Then
came this darn girl. She sort of
fell in love with me for a while and,
though I never intended to get so
involved, I'd always seem to run
into her somewhere. You can
imagine the sort of work I was doing for
those exporting people of course,
I always intended to draw; do
illustrating for magazines ;
there's a pile of money in it."
"Why didn't you ? You've got
to buckle down if you want to make
good," suggested Dean with
cold formalism.
"I tried, a little, but my
stuff's crude. I've got talent, Phil ; I can
draw but I just don't know how. I
ought to go to art school and I
can't afford it. Well, things
came to a crisis about a week ago. Just
as I was down to about my last
dollar this girl began bothering me.
She wants some money ; claims she
can make trouble for me if she
doesn't get it."
"Can she?"
"I'm afraid she can. That's
one reason I lost my job she kept
calling up the office all the
time, and that was sort of the last straw
down there. She's got a letter
all written to send to my family. Oh,
she's got me, all right. I've got
to have some money for her."
There was an awkward pause.
Gordon lay very still, his hands
clenched by his side.
"I'm all in," he
continued, his voice trembling. "I'm half crazy,
Phil. If I hadn't known you were
coming East, I think I'd have
killed myself. I want you to lend
me three hundred dollars."
Dean's hands, which had been
patting his bare ankles, were sud-
denly quiet and the curious
uncertainty playing between the two
became taut and strained.
After a second Gordon continued :
"I've bled the family until
I'm ashamed to ask for another nickel."
Still Dean made no answer.
"Jewel says she's got to
have two hundred dollars."
"Tell her where she can
go."
"Yes, that sounds easy, but
she's got a couple of drunken letters I
wrote her. Unfortunately she's
not at all the flabby sort of person
you'd expect."
Dean made an expression of
distaste.
"I can't stand that sort of
woman. You ought to have kept away."
"I know," admitted
Gordon wearily.
"You've got to look at
things as they are. If you haven't got money
you've got to work and stay away
from women."
"That's easy for you to
say," began Gordon, his eyes narrowing.
"You've got all the money in
the world."
"I most certainly have not.
My family keep darn close tab on what
I spend. Just because I have a
little leeway I have to be extra care-
ful not to abuse it."
He raised the blind and let in a
further flood of sunshine.
"I'm no prig, Lord
knows," he went on deliberately. "I like
pleasure and I like a lot of it
on a vacation like this r but you're
you're in awful shape. I never
heard you talk just this way before.
You seem to be sort of bankrupt
morally as well as financially."
"Don't they usually go
together?"
Dean shook his head impatiently.
"There's a regular aura
about you that I don't understand. It's a
sort of evil."
"It's an air of worry and
poverty and sleepless nights," said Gor-
don, rather defiantly.
"I don't know."
"Oh, I admit I'm depressing.
I depress myself. But, my God, Phil,
a week's rest and a new suit and
some ready money and I'd be like
like I was. Phil, I can draw like
a streak, and you know it. But half
the time I haven't had the money
to buy decent drawing materials
and I can't draw when I'm tired
and discouraged and all in. With
a little ready money I can take a
few weeks off and get started."
"How do I know you wouldn't
use it on some other woman?"
"Why rub it in?" said Gordon
quietly.
"I'm not rubbing it in. I
hate to see you this way."
"Will you lend me the money,
Phil?"
"I can't decide right off.
That's a lot of money and it'll be darn
inconvenient for me."
"It'll be hell for me if you
can't I know I'm whining, and it's all
my own fault but that doesn't
change it."
"When could you pay it
back?"
This was encouraging. Gordon
considered. It was probably wisest
to be frank.
"Of course, I could promise
to send it back next month, but I'd
better say three months. Just as
soon as I start to sell drawings."
"How do I know you'll sell
any drawings?"
A new hardness in Dean's voice
sent a faint chill of doubt over
Gordon. Was it possible that he
wouldn't get the money?
"I supposed you had a little
confidence in me."
"I did have but when I see
you like this I begin to wonder."
"Do you suppose if I wasn't
at the end of my rope I'd come to
you like this? Do you think I'm
enjoying it?" He broke off and bit
his lip, feeling that he had
better subdue the rising anger in his voice.
After all, he was the suppliant.
"You seem to manage it
pretty easily," said Dean angrily. "You
put me in the position where, if
I don't lend it to you, I'm a sucker
oh, yes, you do. And let me tell
you it's no easy thing for me to get
hold of three hundred dollars. My
income isn't so big but that a
slice like that won't play the
deuce with it."
He left his chair and began to
dress, choosing his clothes care-
fully. Gordon stretched out his
arms and clenched the edges of the
bed, fighting back a desire to
cry out. His head was splitting and
whirring, his mouth was dry and
bitter and he could feel the fever
in his blood resolving itself
into innumerable regular counts like a
slow dripping from a roof.
Dean tied his tie precisely,
brushed his eyebrows, and removed a
piece of tobacco from his teeth
with solemnity. Next he filled his
cigarette case, tossed the empty
box thoughtfully into the waste
basket, and settled the case in
his vest pocket.
"Had breakfast?" he demanded.
"No ; I don't eat it any
more."
"Well, we'll go out and have
some. We'll decide about that money
later. I'm sick of the subject. I
came East to have a good time.
"Let's go over to the Yale
Club," he continued moodily, and then
added with an implied reproof:
"You've given up your job. You've
got nothing else to do."
"I'd have a lot to do if I
had a little money," said Gordon
pointedly.
"Oh, for Heaven's sake drop
the subject for a while ! No point in
glooming on my whole trip. Here,
here's some money."
He took a five-dollar bill from
his wallet and tossed it over to
Gordon, who folded it carefully
and put it in his pocket. There was
an added spot of color in his
cheeks, an added glow that was not
fever. For an instant before they
turned to go out their eyes met and
in that instant each found
something that made him lower his own
glance quickly. For in that
instant they quite suddenly and definitely
hated each other.
II
Fifth Avenue and Forty-fourth
Street swarmed with the noon
crowd. The wealthy, happy sun
glittered in transient gold through
the thick windows of the smart
shops, lighting upon mesh bags and
purses and strings of pearls in
gray velvet cases ; upon gaudy feather
fans of many colors ; upon the laces
and silks of expensive dresses ;
upon the bad paintings and the
fine period furniture in the elaborate
show rooms of interior
decorators.
Working-girls, in pairs and
groups and swarms, loitered by the
windows, choosing their future
boudoirs from some resplendent dis-
play which included even a man's
silk pajamas laid domestically
across the bed. They stood in
front of the jewelry stores and picked
out their engagement rings, and
their wedding rings and their plati-
num wrist watches, and then drifted
on to inspect the feather fans
and opera cloaks ; meanwhile
digesting the sandwiches and sundaes
they had eaten for lunch.
All through the crowd were men in
uniform, sailors from the great
fleet anchored in the Hudson,
soldiers with divisional insignia from
Massachusetts to California
wanting fearfully to be noticed, and
finding the great city thoroughly
fed up with soldiers unless they
were nicely massed into pretty
formations and uncomfortable under
the weight of a pack and rifle.
Through this medley Dean and
Gordon wandered; the former
interested, made alert by the
display of humanity at its frothiest
and gaudiest ; the latter
reminded of how often he had been one of
the crowd, tired, casually fed,
overworked, and dissipated. To Dean
the struggle was significant,
young, cheerful; to Gordon it was
dismal, meaningless, endless.
In the Yale Club they met a group
of their former classmates who
greeted the visiting Dean
vociferously. Sitting in a semicircle of
lounges and great chairs, they
had a highball all around.
Gordon found the conversation
tiresome and interminable. They
lunched together en masse, warmed
with liquor as the afternoon be-
gan. They were all going to the
Gamma Psi dance that night it
promised to be the best party
since the war.
"Edith Bradin's
coming," said some one to Gordon. "Didn't she
used to be an old flame of yours?
Aren't you both from Harris-
burg?"
"Yes." He tried to
change the subject. "I see her brother occa-
sionally. He's sort of a
socialistic nut. Runs a paper or something
here in New York."
"Not like his gay sister,
eh?" continued his eager informant.
"Well, she's coming to-night
with a junior named Peter Himmell."
Gordon was to meet Jewel Hudson
at eight o'clock he had prom-
ised to have some money for her.
Several times he glanced nervously
at his wrist watch. At four, to
his relief, Dean rose and announced
that he was going over to Rivers
Brothers to buy some collars and
ties. But as they left the Club
another of the party joined them, to
Gordon's great dismay. Dean was
in a jovial mood now, happy, ex-
pectant of the evening's party,
faintly hilarious. Over in Rivers' he
chose a dozen neckties, selecting
each one after long consultations
with the other man. Did he think
narrow ties were coming back?
And wasn't it a shame that Rivers
couldn't get any more Welsh
Margotson collars? There never
was a collar like the "Covington."
Gordon was in something of a
panic. He wanted the money imme-
diately. And he was now inspired
also with a vague idea of attend-
ing the Gamma Psi dance. He
wanted to see Edith Edith whom he
hadn't met since one romantic
night at the Harrisburg Country Club
just before he went to France.
The affair had died, drowned in the
turmoil of the war and quite
forgotten in the arabesque of these three
months, but a picture of her,
poignant, debonnaire, immersed in her
own inconsequential chatter,
recurred to him unexpectedly and
brought a hundred memories with
it. It was Edith's face that he had
cherished through college with a
sort of detached yet affectionate
admiration. He had loved to draw
her around his room had been a
dozen sketches of her playing
golf, swimming he could draw her
pert, arresting profile with his
eyes shut.
They left Rivers' at five-thirty
and paused for a moment on the
sidewalk.
"Well," said Dean
genially, "I'm all set now. Think I'll go back
to the hotel and get a shave,
haircut, and massage."
"Good enough," said the
other man, "I think I'll join you."
Gordon wondered if he was to be
beaten after all. With difficulty
he restrained himself from
turning to the man and snarling out, "Go
on away, damn you ! " In
despair he suspected that perhaps Dean had
spoken to him, was keeping him
along in order to avoid a dispute
about the money.
They went into the Biltmore a
Biltmore alive with girls mostly
from the West and South, the
stellar debutantes of many cities
gathered for the dance of a
famous fraternity of a famous university.
But to Gordon they were faces in
a dream. He gathered together his
forces for a last appeal, was
about to come out with he knew not
what, when Dean suddenly excused
himself to the other man and
taking Gordon's arm led him
aside.
"Gordy," he said
quickly, "I've thought the whole thing over care-
fully and I've decided that I
can't lend you that money. I'd like to
oblige you, but I don't feel I
ought to it'd put a crimp in me for a
month."
Gordon, watching him dully,
wondered why he had never before
noticed how much those upper
teeth projected.
" I'm mighty sorry,
Gordon," continued Dean, "but that's the
way it is."
He took out his wallet and deliberately
counted out seventy-five
dollars in bills.
"Here," he said,
holding them out, "here's seventy-five ; that makes
eighty all together. That's all
the actual cash I have with me, besides
what I'll actually spend on the
trip."
Gordon raised his clenched hand
automatically, opened it as though
it were a tongs he was holding,
and clenched it again on the money.
"I'll see you at the
dance," continued Dean. "I've got to get along
to the barber shop."
"So-long," said Gordon
in a strained and husky voice.
"So-long."
Dean began to smile, but seemed
to change his mind. He nodded
briskly and disappeared.
But Gordon stood there, his
handsome face awry with distress, the
roll of bills clenched tightly in
his hand. Then, blinded by sudden
tears, he stumbled clumsily down
the Biltmore steps.
Ill
About nine o'clock of the same
night two human beings came out
of a cheap restaurant in Sixth
Avenue. They were ugly, ill-nourished,
devoid of all except the very
lowest form of intelligence, and with-
out even that animal exuberance
that in itself brings color into life ;
they were lately vermin-ridden,
cold, and hungry in a dirty town of
a strange land ; they were poor,
friendless ; tossed as driftwood from
their births, they would be
tossed as driftwood to their deaths. They
were dressed in the uniform of
the United States Army, and on the
shoulder of each was the insignia
of a drafted division from New
Jersey, landed three days before.
The taller of the two was named
Carrol Key, a name hinting that
in his veins, however thinly
diluted by generations of degeneration,
ran blood of some potentiality.
But one could stare endlessly at the
long, chinless face, the dull,
watery eyes, and high cheek-bones, with-
out finding a suggestion of
either ancestral worth or native resource-
fulness.
His companion was swart and
bandy-legged, with rat-eyes and a
much-broken hooked nose. His
defiant air was obviously a pretense,
a weapon of protection borrowed
from that world of snarl and snap,
of physical bluff and physical
menace, in which he had always lived.
His name was Gus Rose.
Leaving the cafe they sauntered
down Sixth Avenue, wielding
toothpicks with great gusto and
complete detachment.
"Where to ?" asked
Rose, in a tone which implied that he would not
be surprised if Key suggested the
South Sea Islands.
"What you say we see if we
can getta holda some liquor?" Pro-
hibition was not yet. The ginger
in the suggestion was caused by the
law forbidding the selling of
liquor to soldiers.
Rose agreed enthusiastically.
"I got an idea,"
continued Key, after a moment's thought, "I got a
brother somewhere."
"In New York?"
"Yeah. He's an old
fella." He meant that he was an elder brother.
"He's a waiter in a hash
joint."
"Maybe he can get us
some."
"I'll say he can!"
"B'lieve me, I'm goin' to
get this darn uniform off me to-morra.
Never get me in it again,
neither. I'm goin' to get me some regular
clothes."
"Say, maybe I'm not."
As their combined finances were
something less than five dollars,
this intention can be taken
largely as a pleasant game of words, harm-
less and consoling. It seemed to
please both of them, however, for
they reinforced it with chuckling
and mention of personages high in
biblical circles, adding such
further emphasis as "Oh, boy!" "You
know ! " and "I'll say
so ! " repeated many times over.
The entire mental pabulum of
these two men consisted of an
offended nasal comment extended
through the years upon the institu^
tion army, business, or poorhouse
which kept them alive, and
toward their immediate superior
in that institution. Until that very
morning the institution had been
the "government" and the immedi-
ate superior had been the
"Cap'n" from these two they had glided
out and were now in the vaguely
uncomfortable state before they
should adopt their next bondage.
They were uncertain, resentful, and
somewhat ill at ease. This they
hid by pretending an elaborate relict
at being out of the army, and by
assuring each other that military
discipline should never again
rule their stubborn, liberty-loving wills,
Yet, as a matter of fact, they
would have felt more at home in a
prison than in this new-found and
unquestionable freedom.
Suddenly Key increased his gait.
Rose, looking up and following
his glance, discovered a crowd
that was collecting fifty yards down
the street. Key chuckled and
began to run in the direction
crowd; Rose thereupon also
chuckled and his short bandy
twinkled beside the long, awkward
strides of his companion.
Reaching the outskirts of the
crowd they immediately became an
indistinguishable part of it. It
was composed of ragged civilians
somewhat the worse for liquor,
and of soldiers representing many
divisions and many stages of
sobriety, all clustered around a gesticu-
lating little Jew with long black
whiskers, who was waving his arms
and delivering an excited but
succinct harangue. Key and Rose, hav-
ing wedged themselves into the
approximate parquet, scrutinized him
with acute suspicion, as his
words penetrated their common con-
sciousness.
" What have you got outa the
war ?" he was crying fiercely. "Look
arounja, look arounja! Are you
rich? Have you got a lot of money
offered you? no; you're lucky if
you're alive and got both your
legs ; you're lucky if you came
back an' find your wife ain't gone off
with some other fella that had
the money to buy himself out of the
war ! That's when you're lucky !
Who got anything out of it except
J. P. Morgan an' John D.
Rockerfeller?"
At this point the little Jew's
oration was interrupted by the hostile
impact of a fist upon the point
of his bearded chin and he toppled
backward to a sprawl on the
pavement.
"God damn Bolsheviki !"
cried the big soldier-blacksmith who had
delivered the blow. There was a
rumble of approval, the crowd closed
in nearer.
The Jew staggered to his feet,
and immediately went down again
before a half-dozen reaching-in
fists. This time he stayed down,
breathing heavily, blood oozing
from his lip where it was cut within
and without.
There was a riot of voices, and
in a minute Rose and Key found
themselves flowing with the
jumbled crowd down Sixth Avenue under
the leadership of a thin civilian
in a slouch hat and the brawny sol-
dier who had summarily ended the
oration. The crowd had marvel-
ously swollen to formidable
proportions and a stream of more non-
committal citizens followed it
along the sidewalks lending their moral
support by intermittent huzzas.
"Where we goin'?"
yelled Key to the man nearest him.
His neighbor pointed up to the
leader in the slouch hat.
"That guy knows where
there's a lot of 'em! We're goin' to
show 'em ! "
"We're goin' to show
'em!" whispered Key delightedly to Rose,
who repeated the phrase
rapturously to a man on the other side.
Down Sixth Avenue swept the
procession, joined here and there by
soldiers and marines, and now and
then by civilians, who came up
with the inevitable cry that they
were just out of the army them-
selves, as if presenting it as a
card of admission to a newly formed
Sporting and Amusement Club.
Then the procession swerved down
a cross street and headed for
Fifth Avenue and the word
filtered here and there that they were
bound for a Red meeting at
Tolliver Hall.
"Where is it?"
The question went up the line and
a moment later the answer
floated back. Tolliver Hall was
down on Tenth Street. There was a
bunch of other sojers who was
goin' to break it up and was down there
now!
But Tenth Street had a faraway
sound and at the word a general
groan went up and a score of the
procession dropped out. Among
these were Rose and Key, who
slowed down to a saunter and let
the more enthusiastic sweep on
by.
"I'd rather get some
liquor," said Key as they halted and made
their way to the sidewalk amid
cries of "Shell hole ! " and "Quitters ! "
"Does your brother work
around here?" asked Rose, assuming the
air of one passing from the
superficial to the eternal.
"He oughta," replied
Key. "I ain't seen him for a coupla years. I
been out to Pennsylvania since.
Maybe he don't work at night any-
how. It's right along here. He
can get us some o'right if he ain't
gone."
They found the place after a few
minutes' patrol of the street a
shoddy tablecloth restaurant
between Fifth Avenue and Broadway.
Here Key went inside to inquire
for his brother George, while Rose
waited on the sidewalk.
"He ain't here no
more," said Key emerging. "He's a waiter up to
Delmonico's."
Rose nodded wisely, as if he'd
expected as much. One should not
be surprised at a capable man
changing jobs occasionally. He knew
a waiter once there ensued a long
conversation as they walked as
to whether waiters made more in
actual wages than in tips it was
decided that it depended on the
social tone of the joint wherein the
waiter labored. After having
given each other vivid pictures of mil-
lionaires dining at Delmonico's
and throwing away fifty-dollar bills
after their first quart of
champagne, both men thought privately of
becoming waiters. In fact, Key's
narrow brow was secreting a resolu-
tion to ask his brother to get him
a job.
"A waiter can drink up all
the champagne those fellas leave in
bottles," suggested Rose
with some relish, and then added as an after-
thought, "Oh, boy I "
By the time they reached
Delmonico's it was half past ten, and
they were surprised to see a
stream of taxis driving up to the door
one after the other and emitting
marvelous, hatless young ladies, each
one attended by a stiff young
gentleman in evening clothes.
"It's a party," said
Rose with some awe. "Maybe we better not go
in. He'll be busy."
"No, he won't. He'll be
o'right."
After some hesitation they
entered what appeared to them to be
the least elaborate door and,
indecision falling upon them immedi-
ately, stationed themselves
nervously in an inconspicuous corner of
the small dining-room in which
they found themselves. They took
off their caps and held them in
their hands. A cloud of gloom fell
upon them and both started when a
door at one end of the room
crashed open, emitting a
comet-like waiter who streaked across the
floor and vanished through
another door on the other side.
There had been three of these
lightning passages before the seekers
mustered the acumen to hail a
waiter. He turned, looked at them sus-
piciously, and then approached
with soft, catlike steps, as if pre-
pared at any moment to turn and
flee.
"Say," began Key,
"say, do you know my brother? He's a waiter
here."
"His name is Key,"
annotated Rose.
Yes, the waiter knew Key. He was
up-stairs, he thought. There was
a big dance going on in the main
ballroom. He'd tell him.
Ten minutes later George Key
appeared and greeted his brother
with the utmost suspicion ; his
first and most natural thought being
that he was going to be asked for
money.
George was tall and weak chinned,
but there his resemblance to
his brother ceased. The waiter's
eyes were not dull, they were alert
and twinkling, and his manner was
suave, in-door, and faintly
superior. They exchanged
formalities. George was married and had
three children. He seemed fairly
interested, but not impressed by
the news that Carrol had been
abroad in the army. This disappointed
Carrol.
"George," said the
younger brother, these amenities having been
disposed of, "we want to get
some booze, and they won't sell us none.
Can you get us some ?"
George considered.
"Sure. Maybe I can. It may
be half an hour, though."
"All right," agreed
Carrol, "well wait."
At this Rose started to sit down
in a convenient chair, but was
hailed to his feet by the
indignant George.
"Hey! Watch out, you! Can't
sit down here! This room's all set
for a twelve o'clock
banquet."
"I ain't goin' to hurt
it," said Rose resentfully. "I been through
the delouser."
"Never mind," said
George sternly, "if the head waiter seen me
here talkin' he'd romp all over
me."
"Oh."
The mention of the head waiter
was full explanation to the other
two; they fingered their overseas
caps nervously and waited for a
suggestion.
"I tell you," said
George, after a pause, "I got a place you can
wait ; you just come here with me."
They followed him out the far
door, through a deserted pantry and
up a pair ot dark winding stairs,
emerging finally into a small room
chietty turnished by piles of
pails and stacks of scrubbing brusnes,
and illuminated by a single dim
electric light. There he left them,
after soliciting two dollars and
agreeing to return in half an hour
with a quart of whiskey.
"George is makin' money, I
bet," said Key gloomily as he seated
himself on an inverted pail.
"I bet he's making fifty dollars a week."
Rose nodded his head and spat.
"I bet he is, too."
"What'd he say the dance was
of?"
"A lot of college fellas.
Yale College."
They both nodded solemnly at each
other.
"Wonder where that crowda
sojers is now?"
"I don't know. I know that's
too damn long to walk for me."
"Me too. You don't catch me
walkin' that far."
Ten minutes later restlessness
seized them.
"I'm goin' to see what's out
here," said Rose, stepping cautiously
toward the other door.
It was a swinging door of green
baize and he pushed it open a
cautious inch.
"See anything?"
For answer Rose drew in his
breath sharply.
"Doggone! Here's some liquor
I'll say!"
"Liquor?"
Key joined Rose at the door, and
looked eagerly.
"I'll tell the world that's
liquor," he said, after a moment of con-
centrated gazing.
It was a room about twice as
large as the one they were in and in
it was prepared a radiant feast
of spirits. There were long walls of
alternating bottles set along two
white covered tables ; whiskey, gin,
brandy, French and Italian
vermouths, and orange juice, not to men-
tion an array of syphons and two
great empty punch bowls. The
room was as yet uninhabited.
"It's for this dance they're
just starting," whispered Key ; "hear
the violins playin'? Say, boy, I
wouldn't mind havin' a dance."
They closed the door softly and
exchanged a glance of mutual
comprehension. There was no need
of feeling each other out.
"I'd like to get my hands on
a coupla those bottles," said Rose
emphatically.
"Me too."
"Do you suppose we'd get
seen?"
Key considered.
"Maybe we better wait till
they start drinkin' 'em. They got 'em
all laid out now, and they know
how many of them there are."
They debated this point for several
minutes. Rose was all for get-
ting his hands on a bottle now
and tucking it under his coat before
any one came into the room. Key,
however, advocated caution. He
was afraid he might get his
brother in trouble. If they waited till
some of the bottles were opened it'd
be all right to take one, and
everybody'd think it was one of
the college fellas.
While they were still engaged in
argument George Key hurried
through the room and, barely
grunting at them, disappeared by way
of the green baize door. A minute
later they heard several corks pop,
and then the sound of crackling
ice and splashing liquid. George was
mixing the punch.
The soldiers exchanged delighted
grins.
"Oh, boy ! " whispered
Rose.
George reappeared.
"Just keep low, boys,"
he said quickly. "I'll have your stuff for you
in five minutes."
He disappeared through the door
by which he had come.
As soon as his footsteps receded
down the stairs, Rose, after a
cautious look, darted into the
room of delights and reappeared with
a bottle in his hand.
"Here's what I say," he
said, as they sat radiantly digesting their
first drink. "We'll wait
till he comes up, and we'll ask him if we
can't just stay here and drink
what he brings us see. We'll tell him
we haven't got any place to drink
it see. Then we can sneak in
there whenever there ain't nobody
in that there room and tuck a
bottle under our coats. We'll
have enough to last us a coupla days
see?"
"Sure," agreed Rose
enthusiastically. "Oh, boy ! And if we want to
we can sell it to sojers any time
we want to."
They were silent for a moment
thinking rosily of this idea. Then
Key reached up and unhooked the
collar of his O. D. coat.
"It's hot in here, ain't
it?"
Rose agreed earnestly.
"Hot as hell."
IV
She was still quite angry when
she came out of the dressing-room
and crossed the intervening
parlor of politeness that opened onto the
hall angry not so much at the
actual happening which was, after
all, the merest commonpleace of
her social existence, but because it
had occurred on this particular
night. She had no quarrel with her-
self. She had acted with that
correct mixture of dignity and reticent
pity which she always employed.
She had succinctly and deftly
snubbed him.
It had happened when their taxi
was leaving the Biltmore hadn't
gone half a block. He had lifted
his right arm awkwardly she was
on his right side and attempted
to settle it snugly around the crim-
son fur-trimmed opera cloak she
wore. This in itself had been a mis-
take. It was inevitably more
graceful for a young man attempting
to embrace a young lady of whose
acquiescence he was not certain, to
first put his far arm around her.
It avoided that awkward movement
of raising the near arm.
His second faux pas was
unconscious. She had spent the afternoon
at the hairdresser's; the idea of
any calamity overtaking her hair
was extremely repugnant yet as
Peter made his unfortunate attempt
the point of his elbow had just
faintly brushed it. That was his
second faux pas. Two were quite
enough.
He had begun to murmur. At the
first murmur she had decided
that he was nothing but a college
boy Edith was twenty-two, and
anyhow, this dance, first of its
kind since the war, was reminding
her, with the accelerating rhythm
of its associations, of something
else of another dance and another
man, a man for whom her feel-
ings had been little more than a
sad-eyed, adolescent mooniness.
Edith Bradin was falling in love
with her recollection of Gordon
Sterrett.
So she came out of the
dressing-room at Delmonico's and stood
for a second in the doorway
looking over the shoulders of a black
dress in front of her at the
groups of Yale men who flitted like dig-
nified black moths around the
head of the stairs. From the room she
had left drifted out the heavy
fragrance left by the passage to and
fro of many scented young
beauties rich perfumes and the fragile
memory-laden dust of fragrant
powders. This odor drifting out ac-
quired the tang of cigarette smoke
in the hall, and then settled sensu-
ously down the stairs and
permeated the ballroom where the Gamma
Psi dance was to be held. It was
an odor she knew well, exciting,
stimulating, restlessly sweet the
odor of a fashionable dance.
She thought of her own
appearance. Her bare arms and shoulders
were powdered to a creamy white.
She knew they looked very soft
and would gleam like milk against
the black backs that were to
silhouette them tonight. The hairdressing
had been a success; her
reddish mass of hair was piled
and crushed and creased to an arro-
gant marvel of mobile curves. Her
lips were finely made of deep
carmine; the irises of her eyes
were delicate, breakable blue, like
china eyes. She was a complete,
infinitely delicate, quite perfect
thing of beauty, flowing in an
even line from a complex coiffure to
two small slim feet.
She thought of what she would say
to-night at this revel, faintly
presaged already by the sounds of
high and low laughter and slip-
pered footsteps, and movements of
couples up and down the stairs.
She would talk the language she
had talked for many years her
line made up of the current
expressions, bits of journalese and col-
lege slang strung together into
an intrinsic whole, careless, faintly
provocative, delicately
sentimental. She smiled faintly as she heard a
girl sitting on the stairs near
her say : "You don't know the half of
it, dearie 1 "
And as she smiled her anger
melted for a moment, and closing her
eyes she drew in a deep breath of
pleasure. She dropped her arms to
her side until they were faintly
touching the sleek sheath that covered
and suggested her figure. She had
never felt her own softness so
much nor so enjoyed the whiteness
of her own arms.
"I smell sweet," she
said to herself simply, and then came another
thought "I'm made for
love."
She liked the sound of this and
thought it again ; then in inevitable
succession came her new-born riot
of dreams about Gordon. The
twist of her imagination which,
two months before, had disclosed to
her her unguessed desire to see
him again, seemed now to have been
leading up to this dance, this
hour.
For all her sleek beauty, Edith
was a grave, slow-thinking girl.
There was a streak in her of that
same desire to ponder, of that
adolescent idealism that had
turned her brother socialist and pacifist.
Henry Bradin had left Cornell,
where he had been an instructor in
economics, and had come to New
York to pour the latest cures for
incurable evils into the columns
of a radical weekly newspaper.
Edith, less fatuously, would have
been content to cure Gordon
Sterrett. There was a quality of
weakness in Gordon that she wanted
to take care of ; there was a
helplessness in him that she wanted to
protect. And she wanted someone
she had known a long while, some-
one who had loved her a long
while. She was a little tired ; she wanted
to get married. Out of a pile of
letters, half a dozen pictures and as
many memories, and this
weariness, she had decided that next time
she saw Gordon their relations
were going to be changed. She would
say something that would change
them. There was this evening. This
was her evening. All evenings
were her evenings.
Then her thoughts were
interrupted by a solemn undergraduate
with a hurt look and an air of
strained formality who presented him-
self before her and bowed
unusually low. It was the man she had
come with, Peter Himmel. He was
tall and humorous, with horned-
rimmed glasses and an air of
attractive whimsicality. She suddenly
rather disliked him probably
because he had not succeeded in kiss-
ing her.
"Well/' she began, "are
you still furious at me?"
"Not at all."
She stepped forward and took his
arm.
"I'm sorry," she said
softly. "I don't know why I snapped out that
way. I'm in a bum humor to-night
for some strange reason. I'm
sorry."
"S 7 all right," he
mumbled, "don't mention it."
He felt disagreeably embarrassed.
Was she rubbing in the fact of
his late failure ?
"It was a mistake," she
continued, on the same consciously gentle
key. "We'll both forget
it." For this he hated her.
A few minutes later they drifted
out on the floor while the dozen
swaying, sighing members of the
specially hired jazz orchestra in-
formed the crowded ballroom that
"if a saxophone and me are left
alone why then two is com-pan-ee
! "
A man with a mustache cut in.
"Hello," he began
reprovingly. "You don't remember me."
"I can't just think of your
name," she said lightly "and I know
you so well."
"I met you up at " His
voice trailed disconsolately off as a man
with very fair hair cut in. Edith
murmured a conventional "Thanks,
loads cut in later," to the
inconnu.
The very fair man insisted on
shaking hands enthusiastically. She
placed him as one of the numerous
Jims of her acquaintance last
name a mystery. She remembered
even that he had a peculiar rhythm
in dancing and found as they
started that she was right.
"Going to be here
long?" he breathed confidentially.
She leaned back and looked up at
him.
"Couple of weeks."
"Where are you?"
"Biltmore. Call me up some
day."
"I mean it," he assured
her. "I will. We'll go to tea."
"So do I Do."
A dark man cut in with intense
formality.
"You don't remember me, do
you?" he said gravely.
"I should say I do. Your
name's Harlan."
"No-ope. Barlow."
"Well, I knew there were two
syllables anyway. You're the boy
that played the ukulele so well
up at Howard Marshall's house party."
"I played but not "
A man with prominent teeth cut
in. Edith inhaled a slight cloud of
whiskey. She liked men to have had
something to drink ; they were
so much more cheerful, and
appreciative and complimentary much
easier to talk to.
"My name's Dean, Philip
Dean," he said cheerfully. "You don't
remember me, I know, but you used
to come up to New Haven with
a fellow I roomed with senior
year, Gordon Sterrett."
Edith looked up quickly.
“Yes, I went up with him twice to
the Pump and Slipper and the
Junior prom."
"You've seen him, of
course," said Dean carelessly. "He's here to-
night. I saw him just a minute ago."
Edith started. Yet she had felt
quite sure he would be here.
"Why, no, I haven't "
A fat man with red hair cut in.
"Hello, Edith," he
began.
"Why hello there "
She slipped, stumbled lightly.
"I'm sorry, dear," she
murmured mechanically.
She had seen Gordon Gordon very
white and listless, leaning
against the side of a doorway,
smoking and looking into the ball-
room. Edith could see that his
face was thin and wan that the hand
he raised to his lips with a
cigarette was trembling. They were danc-
ing quite close to him now.
" They invite so darn many
extra fellas that you " the short
man was saying.
"Hello, Gordon," called
Edith over her partner's shoulder. Her
heart was pounding wildly.
His large dark eyes were fixed on
her. He took a step in her direc-
tion. Her partner turned her away
she heard his voice bleating
" but half the stags get lit
and leave before long, so "
Then a low tone at her side.
"May I, please?"
She was dancing suddenly with
Gordon; one of his arms was
around her ; she felt it tighten
spasmodically ; felt his hand on her
back with the fingers spread. Her
hand holding the little lace hand-
kerchief was crushed in his.
"Why Gordon," she began
breathlessly.
"Hello, Edith."
She slipped again was tossed
forward by her recovery until her
face touched the black cloth of
his dinner coat. She loved him she
knew she loved him then for a
minute there was silence while a
strange feeling of uneasiness
crept over her. Something was wrong.
Of a sudden her heart wrenched,
and turned over as she realized
what it was. He was pitiful and
wretched, a little drunk, and miser-
ably tired.
"Oh " she cried
involuntarily.
His eyes looked down at her. She
saw suddenly that they were
blood-streaked and rolling
uncontrollably.
"Gordon," she murmured,
"we'll sit down, I want to sit down."
They were nearly in mid-floor,
but she had seen two men start
toward her from opposite sides of
the room, so she halted, seized
Gordon's limp hand and led him
bumping through the crowd, her
mouth tight shut, her face a
little pale under her rouge, her eyes
trembling with tears.
She found a place high up on the
soft-carpeted stairs, and he sat
down heavily beside her.
"Well," he began,
staring at her unsteadily, "I certainly am glad
to see you, Edith."
She looked at him without
answering. The effect of this on her
was immeasurable. For years she
had seen men in various stages of
intoxication, from uncles all the
way down to chauffeurs, and her
feelings had varied from
amusement to disgust, but here for the
first time she was seized with a
new feeling an unutterable
horror.
"Gordon," she said
accusingly and almost crying, "you look like
the devil."
He nodded. "I've had
trouble, Edith."
"Trouble?"
"All sorts of trouble. Don't
you say anything to the family, but I'm
all gone to pieces. I'm a mess,
Edith."
His lower lip was sagging. He
seemed scarcely to see her.
"Can't you can't you,"
she hesitated, "can't you tell me about it,
Gordon? You know I'm always
interested in you."
She bit her lip she had intended
to say something stronger, but
found at the end that she
couldn't bring it out.
Gordon shook his head dully.
"I can't tell you. You're a good
woman. I can't tell a good woman
the story."
"Rot," she said,
defiantly. "I think it's a perfect insult to call any
one a good woman in that way.
It's a slam. You've been drinking,
Gordon."
"Thanks." He inclined
his head gravely. "Thanks for the informa-
tion."
"Why do you drink?"
"Because I'm so damn
miserable."
"Do you think drinking's
going to make it any better?"
"What you doing trying to
reform me?"
"No ; I'm trying to help
you, Gordon. Can't you tell me about it?"
"I'm in an awful mess. Best
thing you can do is to pretend not to
know me."
"Why, Gordon?"
"I'm sorry I cut in on you
it's unfair to you. You're pure woman
and all that sort of thing. Here,
I'll get some one else to dance with
you."
He rose clumsily to his feet, but
she reached up and pulled him
down beside her on the stairs.
"Here, Gordon. You're
ridiculous. You're hurting me. You're acting
like a like a crazy man "
"I admit it. I'm a little
crazy. Something's wrong with me, Edith.
There's something left me. It
doesn't matter."
"It does, tell me."
"Just that. I was always
queer little bit different from other boys.
All right in college, but now
it's all wrong. Things have been snapping
inside me for four months like little
hooks on a dress, and it's about
to come off when a few more hooks
go. I'm very gradually going
loony."
He turned his eyes full on her
and began to laugh, and she shrank
away from him.
"What is the matter?"
"Just me," he repeated.
"I'm going loony. This whole place is like
a dream to me this Delmonico's
"
As he talked she saw he had
changed utterly. He wasn't at all light
and gay and careless a great
lethargy and discouragement had come
over him. Revulsion seized her,
followed by a faint, surprising bore-
dom. His voice seemed to come out
of a great void.
"Edith," he said,
"I used to think I was clever, talented, an artist.
Now I know I'm nothing. Can't
draw, Edith. Don't know why I'm
telling you this."
She nodded absently.
"I can't draw, I can't do
anything. I'm poor as a church mouse."
He laughed, bitterly and rather
too loud. "I've become a damn beg-
gar, a leech on my friends. I'm a
failure. I'm poor as hell."
Her distaste was growing. She
barely nodded this time, waiting
for her first possible cue to
rise.
Suddenly Gordon's eyes filled
with tears.
"Edith," he said,
turning to her with what was evidently a strong
effort at self-control, "I
can't tell you what it means to me to know
there's one person left who's
interested in me."
He reached out and patted her
hand, and involuntarily she drew
it away.
"It's mighty fine of
you," he repeated.
"Well," she said
slowly, looking him in the eye, "any one's always
glad to see an old friend but I'm
sorry to see you like this, Gordon."
There was a pause while they
looked at each other, and the
momentary eagerness in his eyes
wavered. She rose and stood look-
ing at him, her face quite
expressionless.
"Shall we dance?" she
suggested, coolly.
Love is fragile she was thinking
but perhaps the pieces are
saved, the things that hovered on
lips, that might have been said.
The new love words, the
tendernesses learned, are treasured up for
the next lover.
Peter Himmel, escort to the
lovely Edith, was unaccustomed to
being snubbed ; having been
snubbed, he was hurt and embarrassed,
and ashamed of himself. For a
matter of two months he had been on
special delivery terms with Edith
Bradin and knowing that the one
excuse and explanation of the
special delivery letter is its value in
sentimental correspondence, he
had believed himself quite sure of his
ground. He searched in vain for
any reason why she should have taken
this attitude in the matter of a
simple kiss.
Therefore when he was cut in on by
the man with the mustache he
went out into the hall and,
making up a sentence, said it over to
himself several times.
Considerably deleted, this was it :
"Well, if any girl ever led
a man on and then jolted him, she did
and she has no kick coming if I
go out and get beautifully
boiled."
So he walked through the supper
room into a small room adjoining
it, which he had located earlier
in the evening. It was a room in which
there were several large bowls of
punch flanked by many bottles. He
took a seat beside the table which
held the bottles.
At the second highball, boredom,
disgust, the monotony of time,
the turbidity of events, sank
into a vague background before which
glittering cobwebs formed. Things
became reconciled to themselves,
things lay quietly on their shelves
; the troubles of the day arranged
themselves in trim formation and
at his curt wish of dismissal,
inarched off and disappeared. And
with the departure of worry came
brilliant, permeating symbolism.
Edith became a flighty, negligible
girl, not to be worried over ;
rather to be laughed at. She fitted like
a figure of his own dream into
the surface world forming about him.
He himself became in a measure
symbolic, a type of the continent
bacchanal, the brilliant dreamer
at play.
Then the symbolic mood faded and
as he sipped his third highball
his imagination yielded to the
warm glow and he lapsed into a state
similar to floating on his back
in pleasant water. It was at this point
that he noticed that a green
baize door near him was open about two
inches, and that through the
aperture a pair of eyes were watching him
intently.
"Hm," murmured Peter
calmly.
The green door closed and then
opened again a bare half inch
this time.
" Peek-a-boo," murmured
Peter.
The door remained stationary and
then he became aware of a
series of tense intermittent
whispers.
"One guy."
"What's he doin'?"
"He's sittin' lookin'."
"He better beat it off. We
gotta get another li'P bottle."
Peter listened while the words
filtered into his consciousness.
"Now this," he thought,
"is most remarkable."
He was excited. He was jubilant.
He felt that he had stumbled
upon a mystery. Affecting an
elaborate carelessness he arose and
walked around the table then,
turning quickly, pulled open the
green door, precipitating Private
Rose into the room.
Peter bowed.
"How do you do?" he
said.
Private Rose set one foot
slightly in front of the other, poised for
fight, flight, or compromise.
"How do you do?"
repeated Peter politely.
"I'm o'right."
"Can I offer you a
drink?"
Private Rose looked at him
searchingly, suspecting possible sar-
casm.
"O'right," he said
finally.
Peter indicated a chair.
"Sit down."
"I got a friend," said
Rose, "I got a friend in there." He pointed
to the green door.
"By all means let's have him
in."
Peter crossed over, opened the
door and welcomed in Private Key,
very suspicious and uncertain and
guilty. Chairs were found and the
three took their seats around the
punch bowl. Peter gave them each
a highball and offered them a
cigarette from his case. They accepted
both with some diffidence.
"Now," continued Peter
easily, "may I ask why you gentlemen
prefer to lounge away your
leisure hours in a room which is chiefly
furnished, as far as I can see,
with scrubbing brushes. And when the
human race has progressed to the
stage where seventeen thousand
chairs are manufactured on every
day except Sunday " he paused.
Rose and Key regarded him
vacantly. "Will you tell me," went on
Peter, "why you choose to
rest yourselves on articles intended for the
transportation of water from one
place to another?"
At this point Rose contributed a
grunt to the conversation.
"And lastly," finished
Peter, "will you tell me why, when you are
in a building beautifully hung
with enormous candelabra, you prefer
to spend these evening hours
under one anemic electric light?"
Rose looked at Key; Key looked at
Rose. They laughed; they
laughed uproariously ; they found
it was impossible to look at each
other without laughing. But they
were not laughing with this man
they were laughing at him. To
them a man who talked after this
fashion was either raving drunk
or raving crazy.
"You are Yale men, I
presume," said Peter, finishing his highball
and preparing another.
They laughed again.
"Na-ah."
"So? I thought perhaps you
might be members of that lowly sec-
tion of the university known as
the Sheffield Scientific School."
"Na-ah."
"Hm. Well, that's too bad.
No doubt you are Harvard men, anxious
to preserve your incognito in
this this paradise of violet blue, as
the newspapers say."
"Na-ah," said Key
scornfully, "we was just waitin' for somebody."
"Ah," exclaimed Peter,
rising and filling their glasses, "very inter-
estin'. Had a date with a
scrublady, eh ?"
They both denied this
indignantly.
"It's all right," Peter
reassured them, "don't apologize. A scrub-
lady's as good as any lady in the
world. Kipling says 'Any lady and
Judy O'Grady under the skin.'
"
"Sure," said Key,
winking broadly at Rose.
"My case, for
instance," continued Peter, finishing his glass. "I
got a girl up there that's
spoiled. Spoildest darn girl I ever saw. Re-
fused to kiss me ; no reason
whatsoever. Led me on deliberately to
think sure I want to kiss you and
then plunk! Threw me over!
What's the younger generation
comin' to?"
"Say tha's hard luck,"
said Key "that's awful hard luck."
"Oh boy! "said Rose.
"Have another?" said
Peter.
"We got in a sort of fight
for a while," said Key after a pause, "but
it was too far away."
"A fight? tha's stuff!"
said Peter, seating himself unsteadily.
"Fight 'em all ! I was in
the army."
"This was with a Bolshevik
fella."
"Tha's stuff ! "
exclaimed Peter, enthusiastic. "That's what I say !
Kill the Bolshevik ! Exterminate
'em ! "
"We're Americuns," said
Rose, implying a sturdy, defiant
patriotism.
"Sure," said Peter.
"Greatest race in the world! We're all Ameri-
cuns ! Have another."
They had another.
VI
At one o'clock a special
orchestra, special even in a day of special
orchestras, arrived at
Delmonico's, and its members, seating them-
selves arrogantly around the
piano, took up the burden of providing
music for the Gamma Psi
Fraternity. They were headed by a famous
flute-player, distinguished
throughout New York for his feat of stand-
ing on his head and shimmying
with his shoulders while he played
the latest jazz on his flute.
During his performance the lights were
extinguished except for the
spotlight on the flute-player and another
roving beam that threw flickering
shadows and changing kaleido-
scopic colors over the massed
dancers.
Edith had danced herself into
that tired, dreamy state habitual
only with debutantes, a state
equivalent to the glow of a noble soul
after several long highballs. Her
mind floated vaguely on the bosom
of her music ; her partners
changed with the unreality of phantoms
under the colorful shifting dusk,
and to her present coma it seemed
as if days had passed since the
dance began. She had talked on many
fragmentary subects with many
men. She had been kissed once and
made love to six times. Earlier
in the evening different undergradu-
ates had danced with her, but
now, like all the more popular girls
there, she had her own entourage
that is, half a dozen gallants had
singled her out or were
alternating her charms with those of some
other chosen beauty; they cut in
on her in regular, inevitable suc-
cession.
Several times she had seen Gordon
he had been sitting a long
time on the stairway with his
palm to his head, his dull eyes fixed
at an infinite speck on the floor
before him, very depressed, he looked,
and quite drunk but Edith each
time had averted her glance hur-
riedly. All that seemed long ago
; her mind was passive now, her senses
were lulled to trance-like sleep
; only her feet danced and her voice
talked on in hazy sentimental
banter.
But Edith was not nearly so tired
as to be incapable of moral in-
dignation when Peter Himmel cut
in on her, sublimely and happily
drunk. She gasped and looked up
at him.
"Why, Peter!"
"I'm a HT stewed,
Edith."
"Why, Peter, you're a peach,
you are! Don't you think it's a bum
way of doing when you're with
me?"
Then she smiled unwillingly, for
he was looking at her with owlish
sentimentality varied with a
silly spasmodic smile.
"Darlin' Edith," he
began earnestly, "you know I love you, don't
you?"
"You tell it well."
"I love you and I merely
wanted you to kiss me," he added sadly.
His embarrassment, his shame,
were both gone. She was a mos'
beautiful girl in whole worl'.
Mos' beautiful eyes, like stars above.
He wanted to 'pologize firs', for
presuming try to kiss her ; second,
for drinking but he'd been so
discouraged 'cause he had thought
she was mad at him
The red-fat man cut in, and
looking up at Edith smiled radiantly.
"Did you bring any
one?" she asked.
No. The red-fat man was a stag.
"Well, would you mind would
it be an awful bother for you to
to take me home to-night?"
(this extreme diffidence was a charming
affectation on Edith's part she
knew that the red-fat man would
immediately dissolve into a
paroxysm of delight).
"Bother? Why, good Lord, I'd
be darn glad to! You know I'd be
darn glad to."
"Thanks loads \ You're
awfully sweet."
She glanced at her wrist-watch.
It was half-past one. And, as she
said "half-past one" to
herself, it floated vaguely into her mind that
her brother had told her at
luncheon that he worked in the office of
his newspaper until after
one-thirty every evening.
Edith turned suddenly to her
current partner.
"What street is Delmonico's
on, anyway?"
"Street? Oh, why Fifth
Avenue, of course."
"I mean, what cross
street?"
"Why let's see it's on Forty-fourth
Street."
This verified what she had
thought. Henry's office must be across
the street and just around the
corner, and it occurred to her imme-
diately that she might slip over
for a moment and surprise him, float
in on him, a shimmering marvel in
her new crimson opera cloak and
"cheer him up." It was
exactly the sort of thing Edith revelled in
doing an unconventional, jaunty
thing. The idea reached out and
gripped at her imagination after
an instant's hesitation she had
decided.
"My hair is just about to
tumble entirely down," she said pleas-
antly to her partner; "would
you mind if I go and fix it?"
"Not at all."
"You're a peach."
A few minutes later, wrapped in
her crimson opera cloak, she
flitted down a side-stairs, her
cheeks glowing with excitement at her
little adventure. She ran by a
couple who stood at the door a weak-
chinned waiter and an over-rouged
young lady, in hot dispute and
opening the outer door stepped
into the warm May night.
VII
The over-rouged young lady
followed her with a brief, bitter glance
then turned again to the
weak-chinned waiter and took up her
argument.
"You better go up and tell
him I'm here," she said defiantly, "or
I'll go up myself."
"No, you don't ! " said
George sternly.
The girl smiled sardonically.
"Oh, I don't, don't I? Well,
let me tell you I know more college
fellas and more of 'em know me,
and are glad to take me out on a
party, than you ever saw in your
whole life."
"Maybe so "
"Maybe so," she
interrupted. "Oh, it's all right for any of 'em like
that one that just ran out God
knows where she went it's all right
for them that are asked here to
come or go as they like but when
I want to see a friend they have
some cheap, ham-slinging, bring-me-
a-doughnut waiter to stand here
and keep me out."
"See here," said the
elder Key indignantly, "I can't lose my job.
Maybe this fella you're talkin'
about doesn't want to see you."
"Oh, he wants to see me all
right."
"Anyway, how could I find
him in all that crowd?"
"Oh, hell be there,"
she asserted confidently. "You just ask any-
body for Gordon Sterrett and
they'll point him out to you. They all
know each other, those
fellas."
She produced a mesh bag, and
taking out a dollar bill handed it
to George.
"Here," she said,
"here's a bribe. You find him and give him my
message. You tell him if he isn't
here in five minutes I'm coming up."
George shook his head
pessimistically, considered the question for
a moment, wavered violently, and
then withdrew.
In less than the allotted time
Gordon came down-stairs. He was
drunker than he had been earlier
in the evening and in a different
way. The liquor seemed to have
hardened on him like a crust. He was
heavy and lurching almost
incoherent when he talked.
" 'Lo, Jewel," he said
thickly. "Came right away. Jewel, I couldn't
get that money. Tried my
best."
"Money nothing!" she
snapped. "You haven't been near me for
ten days. What's the
matter?"
He shook his head slowly.
"Been very low, Jewel. Been
sick."
"Why didn't you tell me if
you were sick. I don't care about the
money that bad. I didn't start
bothering you about it at all until you
began neglecting me."
Again he shook his head.
"Haven't been neglecting
you. Not at all."
"Haven't 1 You haven't been
near me for three weeks, unless you
been so drunk you didn't know
what you were doing."
"Been sick, Jewel," he
repeated, turning his eyes upon her wearily.
"You're well enough to come
and play with your society friends
here all right. You told me you'd
meet me for dinner, and you said
you'd have some money for me. You
didn't even bother to ring
me up."
"I couldn't get any
money."
"Haven't I just been saying
that doesn't matter? I wanted to see
you, Gordon, but you seem to prefer
your somebody else."
He denied this bitterly.
"Then get your hat and come
along," she suggested.
Gordon hesitated and she came
suddenly close to him and
slipped her arms around his neck.
"Come on with me,
Gordon," she said in a half whisper. "We'll go
over to Devineries' and have a
drink, and then we can go up to my
apartment."
"I can't, Jewel, "
"You can," she said
intensely.
"I'm sick as a dog!"
"Well, then, you oughtn't to
stay here and dance."
With a glance around him in which
relief and despair were min-
gled, Gordon hesitated; then she
suddenly pulled him to her and
kissed him with soft, pulpy lips.
"All right," he said
heavily. "I'll get my hat."
VIII
When Edith came out into the
clear blue of the May night she
found the Avenue deserted. The
windows of the big shops were
dark ; over their doors were
drawn great iron masks until they were
only shadowy tombs of the late
day's splendor. Glancing down
toward Forty-second Street she
saw a commingled blur of lights
from the all-night restaurants.
Over on Sixth Avenue the elevated,
a flare of fire, roared across
the street between the glimmering
parallels of light at the station
and streaked along into the crisp
dark. But at Forty-fourth Street
it was very quiet.
Pulling her cloak close about her
Edith darted across the Avenue.
She started nervously as a
solitary man passed her and said in a
hoarse whisper "Where bound,
kiddo?" She was reminded of a
night in her childhood when she
had walked around the block in
her pajamas and a dog had howled
at her from a mystery-big back
yard.
In a minute she had reached her
destination, a two-story, com-
paratively old building on
Forty-fourth, in the upper windows of
which she thankfully detected a
wisp of light. It was bright enough
outside for her to make out the
sign beside the window the New
York Trumpet. She stepped inside
a dark hall and after a second
saw the stairs in the corner.
Then she was in a long, low room
furnished with many desks and
hung on all sides with file
copies of newspapers. There were only
two occupants. They were sitting
at different ends of the room,
each wearing a green eye-shade
and writing by a solitary desk
light.
For a moment she stood
uncertainly in the doorway, and then
both men turned around
simultaneously and she recognized her
brother.
"Why, Edith!" He rose
quickly and approached her in surprise,
removing his eye-shade. He was
tall, lean, and dark, with black,
piercing eyes under very thick
glasses. They were far-away eyes
that seemed always fixed just
over the head of the person to whom
he was talking.
He put his hands on her arms and
kissed her cheek.
"What is it?" he
repeated in some alarm.
"I was at a dance across at
Delmonico's, Henry," she said ex-
citedly, "and I couldn't
resist tearing over to see you."
"I'm glad you did." His
alertness gave way quickly to a habitual
vagueness. "You oughtn't to
be out alone at night though, ought
you?"
The man at the other end of the
room had been looking at them
curiously, but at Henry's
beckoning gesture he approached. He was
loosely fat with little twinkling
eyes, and, having removed his collar
and tie, he gave the impression
of a Middle- Western farmer on a
Sunday afternoon.
"This is my sister,"
said Henry. "She dropped in to see me."
"How do you do?" said
the fat man, smiling. "My name's Bar-
tholomew, Miss Bradin. I know
your brother has forgotten it long
ago."
Edith laughed politely.
"Well," he continued,
"not exactly gorgeous quarters we have
here, are they?"
Edith looked around the room.
"They seem very nice,"
she replied. "Where do you keep the
bombs?"
"The bombs?" repeated
Bartholomew, laughing. "That's pretty
good the bombs. Did you hear her,
Henry? She wants to know
where we keep the bombs. Say,
that's pretty good."
Edith swung herself around onto a
vacant desk and sat dangling
her feet over the edge. Her
brother took a seat beside her.
"Well," he asked,
absent-mindedly, "how do you like New York
this trip?"
"Not bad. I'll be over at
the Biltmore with the Hoyts until Sun-
day. Can't you come to luncheon
to-morrow?"
He thought a moment.
"I'm especially busy,"
he objected, "and I hate women in groups."
"All right," she
agreed, unruffled. "Let's you and me have luncheon
together."
"Very well."
"I'll call for you at
twelve."
Bartholomew was obviously anxious
to return to his desk, but
apparently considered that it
would be rude to leave without some
parting pleasantry.
"Well" he began awkwardly.
They both turned to him.
"Well, we we had an exciting
time earlier in the evening."
The two men exchanged glances.
"You should have come
earlier," continued Bartholomew, some-
what encouraged. "We had a
regular vaudeville."
"Did you really?"
"A serenade," said
Henry. "A lot of soldiers gathered down there
in the street and began to yell
at the sign."
"Why?" she demanded.
"Just a crowd," said
Henry, abstractedly. "All crowds have to
howl. They didn't have anybody with
much initiative in the lead,
or they'd probably have forced
their way in here and smashed
things up."
"Yes," said Bartholomew,
turning again to Edith, "you should
have been here."
He seemed to consider this a
sufficient cue for withdrawal, for he
turned abruptly and went back to
his desk.
"Are the soldiers all set
against the Socialists?" demanded Edith
of her brother. "I mean do
they attack you violently and all
that?"
Henry replaced his eye-shade and
yawned.
"The human race has come a
long way," he said casually, "but
most of us are throw-backs ; the
soldiers don't know what they want,
or what they hate, or what they
like. They're used to acting in large
bodies, and they seem to have to
make demonstrations. So it hap-
pens to be against us. There've
been riots all over the city to-night.
It's May Day, you see."
"Was the disturbance here
pretty serious?"
"Not a bit," he said
scornfully. "About twenty-five of them
stopped in the street about nine
o'clock, and began to bellow at the
moon."
"Oh" She changed the subject.
"You're glad to see me, Henry?"
"Why, sure."
"You don't seem to be."
"I am."
"I suppose you think I'm a a
waster. Sort of the World's Worst
Butterfly."
Henry laughed.
"Not at all. Have a good
time while you're young. Why? Do I
seem like the priggish and
earnest youth?"
"No " She paused,
" but somehow I began thinking how abso-
lutely different the party I'm on
is from from all your purposes.
It seems sort of of incongruous,
doesn't it? me being at a party
like that, and you over here
working for a thing that'll make that
sort of party impossible ever any
more, if your ideas work."
"I don't think of it that
way. You're young, and you're acting
just as you were brought up to
act. Go ahead have a good time."
Her feet, which had been idly
swinging, stopped and her voice
dropped a note.
"I wish you'd you'd come
back to Harrisburg and have a good
time. Do you feel sure that
you're on the right track "
"You're wearing beautiful
stockings," he interrupted. "What on
earth are they?"
"They're embroidered,"
she replied, glancing down. "Aren't they
cunning?" She raised her
skirts and uncovered slim, silk-sheathed
calves. "Or do you
disapprove of silk stockings?"
He seemed slightly exasperated,
bent his dark eyes on her pierc-
ingly.
"Are you trying to make me
out as criticizing you in any way,
Edith?"
"Not at all "
She paused. Bartholomew had
uttered a grunt. She turned and
saw that he had left his desk and
was standing at the window.
"What is it?" demanded
Henry.
"People," said
Bartholomew, and then after an instant: "Whole
jam of them. They're coming from
Sixth Avenue."
"People."
The fat man pressed his nose to
the pane.
"Soldiers, by God 1 "
he said emphatically. "I had an idea they'd
come back."
Edith jumped to her feet, and
running over joined Bartholomew
at the window.
"There's a lot of them !
" she cried excitedly. "Come here, Henry ! "
Henry readjusted his shade, but
kept his seat.
"Hadn't we better turn out
the lights?" suggested Bartholomew.
"No. They'll go away in a
minute."
"They're not," said
Edith, peering from the window. "They're not
even thinking of going away.
There's more of them coming. Look
there's a whole crowd turning the
corner of Sixth Avenue."
By the yellow glow and blue shadows
of the street lamp she could
see that the sidewalk was crowded
with men. They were mostly in
uniform, some sober, some
enthusiastically drunk, and over the
whole swept an incoherent clamor
and shouting.
Henry rose, and going to the
window exposed himself as a long
silhouette against the office
lights. Immediately the shouting became
a steady yell, and a rattling
fusillade of small missiles, corners of
tobacco plugs, cigarette-boxes,
and even pennies beat against the
window. The sounds of the racket
now began floating up the stairs
as the folding doors revolved.
"They're coming up ! "
cried Bartholomew.
Edith turned anxiously to Henry.
"They're coming up,
Henry."
From down-stairs in the lower
hall their cries were now quite
audible.
"God damn Socialists !
"
"Pro-Germans! Boche-lovers !
"
"Second floor, front! Come
on!"
"We'll get the sons "
The next five minutes passed in a
dream. Edith was conscious
that the clamor burst suddenly
upon the three of them like a cloud
of rain, that there was a thunder
of many feet on the stairs, that
Henry had seized her arm and
drawn her back toward the rear of
the office. Then the door opened
and an overflow of men were forced
into the room not the leaders,
but simply those who happened to
be in front.
"Hello, Bo!"
"Up late, ain't you?"
"You an' your girl. Damn
you!"
She noticed that two very drunken
soldiers had been forced to
the front, where they wobbled fatuously
one of them was short
and dark, the other was tall and
weak of chin.
Henry stepped forward and raised
his hand.
"Friends!" he said.
The clamor faded into a momentary
stillness, punctuated with
mutterings.
"Friends!" he repeated,
his far-away eyes fixed over the heads of
the crowd, "you're injuring
no one but yourselves by breaking in
here to-night. Do we look like
rich men ? Do we look like Germans ?
I ask you in all fairness "
"Pipe down!"
"I'll say you do ! "
"Say, who's your lady
friend, buddy?"
A man in civiliai clothes, who
had been pawing over a table, sud-
denly held up a newspaper.
"Here it is!" he
shouted. "They wanted the Germans to win
the war ! "
A new overflow from the stairs
was shouldered in and of a sud-
den the room was full of men all
closing around the pale little group
at the back. Edith saw that the
tall soldier with the weak chin was
still in front. The short dark
one had disappeared.
She edged slightly backward,
stood close to the open window,
through which came a clear breath
of cool night air.
Then the room was a riot. She
realized that the soldiers were
surging forward, glimpsed the fat
man swinging a chair over his
head instantly the lights went
out, and she felt the push of warm
bodies under rough cloth, and her
ears were full of shouting and
trampling and hard breathing.
A figure flashed by her out of
nowhere, tottered, was edged side-
ways, and of a sudden disappeared
helplessly out through the open
window with a frightened,
fragmentary cry that died staccato on
the bosom of the clamor. By the
faint light streaming from the
building backing on the area
Edith had a quick impression that it
had been the tall soldier with
the weak chin.
Anger rose astonishingly in her.
She swung her arms wildly, edged
blindly toward the thickest of
the scuffling. She heard grunts, curses,
the muffled impact of fists.
"Henry!" she called
frantically, "Henry!"
Then, it was minutes later, she
felt suddenly that there were
other figures in the room. She
heard a voice, deep, bullying, authori-
tative ; she saw yellow rays of
light sweeping here and there in the
fracas. The cries became more
scattered. The scuffling increased and
then stopped.
Suddenly the lights were on and the
room was full of policemen,
clubbing left and right. The deep
voice boomed out :
"Here now ! Here now ! Here
now ! "
And then : "Quiet down and
get out ! Here now ! "
The room seemed to empty like a
wash-bowl. A policeman fast-
grappled in the corner released
his hold on his soldier antagonist
and started him with a shove
toward the door. The deep voice con-
tinued. Edith perceived now that
it came from a bull-necked police
captain standing near the door.
"Here now ! This is no way !
One of your own sojers got shoved
out of the back window an' killed
hisself ! "
"Henry!" called Edith,
"Henry!"
She beat wildly with her fists on
the back of the man in front of
her ; she brushed between two
others ; fought, shrieked, and beat her
way to a very pale figure sitting
on the floor close to a desk.
"Henry," she cried
passionately, "what's the matter? What's the
matter? Did they hurt you?"
His eyes were shut. He groaned
and then looking up said dis-
gustedly
"They broke my leg. My God,
the fools ! "
"Here BOW!" called the
police captain. "Here now! Here now!"
IX
"Childs', Fifty-ninth
Street," at eight o'clock of any morning
differs from its sisters by less
than the width of their marble tables
or the degree of polish on the
frying-pans. You will see there a
crowd of poor people with sleep
in the corners of their eyes, trying
to look straight before them at
their food so as not to see the other
poor people. But Childs',
Fifty-ninth, four hours earlier is quite
unlike any Childs' restaurant
from Portland, Oregon, to Portland,
Maine. Within its pale but
sanitary walls one finds a noisy medley
of chorus girls, college boys,
debutantes, rakes, filles de joie a not
unrepresentative mixture of the
gayest of Broadway, and even of
Fifth Avenue.
In the early morning of May the
second it was unusually full.
Over the marble-topped tables
were bent the excited faces of flappers
whose fathers owned individual
villages. They were eating buck-
wheat cakes and scrambled eggs
with relish and gusto, an accom-
plishment that it would have been
utterly impossible for them to
repeat in the same place four
hours later.
Almost the entire crowd were from
the Gamma Psi dance at
Delmonico's except for several
chorus girls from a midnight revue
who sat at a side table and
wished they'd taken off a little more
make-up after the show. Here and
there a drab, mouse-like figure,
desperately out of place, watched
the butterflies with a weary,
puzzled curiosity. But the drab
figure was the exception. This was
the morning after May Day, and
celebration was still in the air.
Gus Rose, sober but a little
dazed, must be classed as one of the
drab figures. How he had got
himself from Forty-fourth Street to
Fifty-ninth Street after the riot
was only a hazy half-memory. He
had seen the body of Carrol Key
put in an ambulance and driven
off, and then he had started up
town with two or three soldiers.
Somewhere between Forty-fourth
Street and Fifty-ninth Street the
other soldiers had met some women
and disappeared. Rose had wan-
dered to Columbus Circle and
chosen the gleaming lights of Childs'
to minister to his craving for
coffee and doughnuts. He walked in
and sat down.
All around him floated airy,
inconsequential chatter and high-
pitched laughter. At first he
failed to understand, but after a
puzzled five minutes he realized
that this was the aftermath of some
gay party. Here and there a
restless, hilarious young man wandered
fraternally and familiarly
between the tables, shaking hands indis-
criminately and pausing
occasionally for a facetious chat, while
excited waiters, bearing cakes
and eggs aloft, swore at him silently,
and bumped him out of the way. To
Rose, seated at the most incon-
spicuous and least crowded table,
the whole scene was a colorful
circus of beauty and riotous
pleasure.
He became gradually aware, after
a few moments, that the couple
seated diagonally across from
him, with their backs to the crowd,
were not the least interesting
pair in the room. The man was drunk.
He wore a dinner coat with a
dishevelled tie and shirt swollen by
spillings of water and wine. His
eyes, dim and bloodshot, roved
unnaturally from side to side.
His breath came short between
his lips.
"He's been on a spree!"
thought Rose.
The woman was almost if not quite
sober. She was pretty, with
dark eyes and feverish high
color, and she kept her active eyes fixed
on her companion with the
alertness of a hawk. From time to time
she would lean and whisper
intently to him, and he would answer
by inclining his head heavily or
by a particularly ghoulish and
repellent wink.
Rose scrutinized them dumbly for
some minutes, until the woman
gave him a quick, resentful look;
then he shifted his gaze to two
of the most conspicuously
hilarious of the promenaders who were
on a protracted circuit of the
tables. To his surprise he recognized
in one of them the young man by
whom he had been so ludicrously
entertained at Delmonico's. This
started him thinking of Key with
a vague sentimentality, not unmixed
with awe. Key was dead. He
had fallen thirty-five feet and
split his skull like a cracked cocoa-
nut.
"He was a darn good
guy," thought Rose mournfully. "He was a
darn good guy, o'right. That was
awful hard luck about him."
The two promenaders approached
and started down between
Rose's table and the next,
addressing friends and strangers alike
with jovial familiarity. Suddenly
Rose saw the fair-haired one with
the prominent teeth stop, look
unsteadily at the man and girl oppo-
site, and then begin to move his
head disapprovingly from side
to side.
The man with the blood-shot eyes
looked up.
"Gordy," said the
promenader with the prominent teeth, "Gordy."
"Hello," said the man
with the stained shirt thickly.
Prominent Teeth shook his finger
pessimistically at the pair, giv-
ing the woman a glance of aloof
condemnation.
"What'd I tell you
Gordy?"
Gordon stirred in his seat.
"Go to hell! "he said.
Dean continued to stand there
shaking his finger. The woman
began to get angry.
"You go away!" she
cried fiercely. "You're drunk, that's what
you are ! "
"So's he," suggested
Dean, staying the motion of his finger and
pointing it at Gordon.
Peter Himmel ambled up, owlish
now and oratorically inclined.
"Here now," he began as
if called upon to deal with some petty
dispute between children.
"Wha's all trouble?"
"You take your friend
away," said Jewel tartly. "He's bother-
ing us."
"What's 'at?"
"You heard me!" she said
shrilly. "I said to take your drunken
friend away."
Her rising voice rang out above
the clatter of the restaurant and
a waiter came hurrying up.
"You gotta be more quiet !
"
"That fella's drunk,"
she cried. "He's insulting us."
"Ah-ha, Gordy," persisted
the accused. "What'd I tell you." He
turned to the waiter. "Gordy
an' I friends. Been tryin' help him,
haven't I, Gordy?"
Gordy looked up.
"Help me? Hell, no!"
Jewel rose suddenly, and seizing
Gordon's arm assisted him to
his feet.
"Come on, Gordy ! " she
said, leaning toward him and speaking in
a half whisper. "Let's us
get out of here. This fella's got a mean
drunk on."
Gordon allowed himself to be
urged to his feet and started toward
the door. Jewel turned for a
second and addressed the provoker
of their flight.
"I know all about you !
" she said fiercely. "Nice friend, you are,
I'll say. He told me about
you."
Then she seized Gordon's arm, and
together they made their way
through the curious crowd, paid
their check, and went out.
"You'll have to sit
down," said the waiter to Peter after they
had gone.
"What's 'at? Sit down?"
"Yes or get out."
Peter turned to Dean.
"Come on," he
suggested. "Let's beat up this waiter."
"All right."
They advanced toward him, their
faces grown stern. The waiter
retreated.
Peter suddenly reached over to a
plate on the table beside him
and picking up a handful of hash
tossed it into the air. It descended
as a languid parabola in
snowflake effect on the heads of those
near by.
"Hey! Easeuoi"
"Put him out!'
"Sit down, Peter!"
"Cut out that stuff!"
Peter laughed and bowed.
"Thank you for your kind
applause, ladies and gents. If some one
will lend me some more hash and a
tall hat we will go on with the
act."
The bouncer hustled up.
"You've gotta get out !
" he said to Peter.
"Hell, no!"
"He's my friend!" put
in Dean indignantly.
A crowd of waiters were
gathering. "Put him out!"
"Better go, Peter."
There was a short struggle and
the two were edged and pushed
toward the door.
"I got a hat and a coat
here!" cried Peter.
"Well, go get 'em and be
spry about it ! "
The bouncer released his hold on
Peter, who, adopting a ludicrous
air of extreme cunning, rushed
immediately around to the other
table, where he burst into
derisive laughter and thumbed his nose
at the exasperated waiters.
"Think I just better wait a
1'iP longer," he announced.
The chase began. Four waiters
were sent around one way and
four another. Dean caught hold of
two of them by the coat, and
another struggle took place
before the pursuit of Peter could be
resumed ; he was finally pinioned
after overturning a sugar-bowl and
several cups of coffee. A fresh
argument ensued at the cashier's desk,
where Peter attempted to buy
another dish of hash to take with him
and throw at policemen.
But the commotion upon his exit
proper was dwarfed by another
phenomenon which drew admiring
glances and a prolonged involun-
tary "Oh-h-h ! " from
every person in the restaurant.
The great plate-glass front had
turned to a deep creamy blue, the
color of a Maxfield Parrish
moonlight a blue that seemed to press
close upon the pane as if to
crowd its way into the restaurant. Dawn
had come up in Columbus Circle,
magical, breathless dawn, silhou-
etting the great statue of the
immortal Christopher, and mingling
in a curious and uncanny manner
with the fading yellow electric
light inside.
Mr. In and Mr. Out are not listed
by the census-taker. You will
search for them in vain through
the social register or the births,
marriages, and deaths, or the
grocer's credit list. Oblivion has swal-
lowed them and the testimony that
they ever existed at all is vague
and shadowy, and inadmissible in
a court of law. Yet I have it upon
the best authority that for a
brief space Mr. In and Mr. Out lived,
breathed, answered to their names
and radiated vivid personalities
of their own.
During the brief span of their
lives they walked in their native
garments down the great highway
of a great nation ; were laughed
at, sworn at, chased, and fled
from. Then they passed and were
heard of no more.
They were already taking form
dimly, when a taxicab with the
top open breezed down Broadway in
the faintest glimmer of May
dawn. In this car sat the souls
of Mr. In and Mr. Out discussing
with amazement the blue light
that had so precipitately colored the
sky behind the statue of
Christopher Columbus, discussing with
bewilderment the old, gray faces
of the early risers which skimmed
palely along the street like
blown bits of paper on a gray lake. They
were agreed on all things, from
the absurdity of the bouncer in
Childs' to the absurdity of the
business of life. They were dizzy with
the extreme maudlin happiness
that the morning had awakened in
their glowing souls. Indeed, so
fresh and vigorous was their pleasure
in living that they felt it
should be expressed by loud cries.
"Ye-ow-ow ! " hooted
Peter, making a megaphone with his hands
and Dean joined in with a call
that, though equally significant and
symbolic, derived its resonance
from its very inarticulateness.
"Yo-ho! Yea! Yoho!
Yo-buba!"
Fifty-third Street was a bus with
a dark, bobbed-hair beauty
atop; Fifty-second was a street
cleaner who dodged, escaped, and
sent up a yell of, "Look
where you're aiminM" in a pained and
grieved voice. At Fiftieth Street
a group of men on a very white
sidewalk in front of a very white
building turned to stare after
them, and shouted :
"Some party, boys ! "
At Forty-ninth Street Peter
turned to Dean. "Beautiful morning,"
he said gravely, squinting up his
owlish eyes.
"Probably is."
"Go get some breakfast,
hey?"
Dean agreed with additions.
"Breakfast and liquor."
"Breakfast and liquor,"
repeated Peter, and they looked at each
other, nodding. "That's
logical."
Then they both burst into loud
laughter.
"Breakfast and liquor! Oh,
gosh!"
"No such thing,"
announced Peter.
"Don't serve it? Ne'mind. We
force 'em serve it. Bring pressure
bear."
"Bring logic bear."
The taxi cut suddenly off
Broadway, sailed along a cross street,
and stopped in front of a heavy
tomb-like building in Fifth Avenue.
"What's idea?"
The taxi-driver informed them that
this was Delmonico's.
This was somewhat puzzling. They
were forced to devote several
minutes to intense concentration,
for if such an order had been given
there must have been a reason for
it.
"Somep'm 'bouta coat,"
suggested the taxi-man.
That was it. Peter's overcoat and
hat. He had left them at Del-
monico's. Having decided this,
they disembarked from the taxi and
strolled toward the entrance arm
in arm.
"Hey!" said the
taxi-driver.
"Huh?"
"You better pay me."
They shook their heads in shocked
negation.
"Later, not now we give
orders, you wait."
The taxi-driver objected; he
wanted his money now. With the
scornful condescension of men
exercising tremendous self-control
they paid him.
Inside Peter groped in vain
through a dim, deserted check-room
in search of his coat and derby.
"Gone, I guess. Somebody
stole it."
"Some Sheff student."
"All probability."
"Never mind," said
Dean, nobly. "I'll leave mine here too then
we'll both be dressed the
same."
He removed his overcoat and hat
and was hanging them up when
his roving glance was caught and
held magnetically by two large
squares of cardboard tacked to
the two coat-room doors. The one on
the left-hand door bore the word
"In" in big black letters, and the
one on the right-hand door
flaunted the equally emphatic word
"Out."
"Look ! " he exclaimed
happily
Peter's eyes followed his
pointing finger.
"What?"
"Look at the signs. Let's
take 'em."
"Good idea."
"Probably pair very rare an'
valuable signs. Probably come in
handy."
Peter removed the left-hand sign
from the door and endeavored
to conceal it about his person.
The sign being of considerable pro-
portions, this was a matter of
some difficulty. An idea flung itself at
him, and with an air of dignified
mystery he turned his back. After
an instant he wheeled
dramatically around, and stretching out his
arms displayed himself to the
admiring Dean. He had inserted the
sign in his vest, completely
covering his shirt front. In effect, the
word "In" had been
painted upon his shirt in large black letters.
"Yoho ! " cheered Dean.
"Mister In."
He inserted his own sign in like
manner.
"Mister Out!" he
announced triumphantly. "Mr. In meet Mr.
Out."
They advanced and shook hands.
Again laughter overcame them
and they rocked in a shaken spasm
of mirth.
"Yoho!"
"We probably get a flock of
breakfast."
"We'll go go to the
Commodore."
Arm in arm they sallied out the
door, and turning east in Forty-
fourth Street set out for the
Commodore.
As they came out a short dark soldier,
very pale and tired, who
had been wandering listlessly
along the sidewalk, turned to look
at them.
He started over as though to
address them, but as they imme-
diately bent on him glances of
withering unrecognition, he waited
until they had started unsteadily
down the street, and then fol-
lowed at about forty paces,
chuckling to himself and saying, "Oh,
boy!" over and over under
his breath, in delighted, anticipatory
tones.
Mr. In and Mr. Out were meanwhile
exchanging pleasantries con-
cerning their future plans.
"We want liquor ; we want
breakfast. Neither without the other.
One and indivisible."
"We want both 'em ! "
"Both 'em!"
It was quite light now, and
passers-by began to bend curious
eyes on the pair. Obviously they
were engaged in a discussion, which
afforded each of them intense
amusement, for occasionally a fit of
laughter would seize upon them so
violently that, still with their
arms interlocked, they would bend
nearly double.
Reaching the Commodore, they
exchanged a few spicy epigrams
with the sleepy-eyed doorman,
navigated the revolving door with
some difficulty, and then made
their way through a thinly populated
but startled lobby to the
dining-room, where a puzzled waiter
showed them an obscure table in a
corner. They studied the bill of
fare helplessly, telling over the
items to each other in puzzled
mumbles.
"Don't see any liquor
here," said Peter reproachfully.
The waiter became audible but
unintelligible.
"Repeat," continued
Peter, with patient tolerance, "that there
seems to be unexplained and quite
distasteful lack of liquor upon
bill of fare."
"Here ! " said Dean
confidently, "let me handle him." He turned
to the waiter "Bring us
bring us " he scanned the bill of fare
anxiously. "Bring us a quart
of champagne and a a probably
ham sandwich."
The waiter looked doubtful.
"Bring it!" roared Mr.
In and Mr. Out in chorus.
The waiter coughed and
disappeared. There was a short wait dur-
ing which they were subjected
without their knowledge to a careful
scrutiny by the headwaiter. Then
the champagne arrived, and at the
sight of it Mr. In and Mr. Out
became jubilant.
"Imagine their objecting to
us having champagne for breakfast
jus' imagine."
They both concentrated upon the
vision of such an awesome pos-
sibility, but the feat was too
much for them. It was impossible for
their joint imaginations to
conjure up a world where any one might
object to any one else having
champagne for breakfast. The waiter
drew the cork with an enormous
pop and their glasses immediately
foamed with pale yellow froth.
"Here's health, Mr.
In."
"Here's the same to you, Mr.
Out."
The waiter withdrew; the minutes
passed; the champagne be-
came low in the bottle.
"It's it's mortifying,"
said Dean suddenly.
"Wha's mortifying?"
"The idea their objecting us
having champagne breakfast."
"Mortifying?" Peter
considered. "Yes, tha's word mortifying."
Again they collapsed into
laughter, howled, swayed, rocked back
and forth in their chairs,
repeating the word "mortifying" over and
over to each other each
repetition seeming to make it only more
brilliantly absurd.
After a few more gorgeous minutes
they decided on another quart.
Their anxious waiter consulted
his immediate superior, and this
discreet person gave implicit
instructions that no more champagne
should be served. Their check was
brought.
Five minutes later, arm in arm,
they left the Commodore and
made their way through a curious,
staring crowd along Forty-second
Street, and up Vanderbilt Avenue
to the Biltmore. There, with sud-
den cunning, they rose to the
occasion and traversed the lobby, walk-
ing fast and standing unnaturally
erect.
Once in the dining-room they
repeated their performance. They
were torn between intermittent
convulsive laughter and sudden spas-
modic discussions of politics,
college, and the sunny state of their
dispositions. Their watches told
them that it was now nine o'clock,
and a dim idea was born in them
that they were on a memorable
party, something that they would
remember always. They lingered
over the second bottle. Either of
them had only to mention the word
"mortifying" to send
them both into riotous gasps. The dining-room
was whirring and shifting now ; a
curious lightness permeated and
rarefied the heavy air.
They paid their check and walked
out into the lobby.
It was at this moment that the
exterior doors revolved for the
thousandth time that morning, and
admitted into the lobby a very
pale young beauty with dark
circles under her eyes, attired in a
much-rumpled evening dress. She
was accompanied by a plain stout
man, obviously not an appropriate
escort.
At the top of the stairs this
couple encountered Mr. In and
Mr. Out.
"Edith," began Mr. In,
stepping toward her hilariously and mak-
ing a sweeping bow,
"darling, good morning."
The stout man glanced
questioningly at Edith, as if merely asking
her permission to throw this man
summarily out of the way.
" 'Scuse familiarity,"
added Peter, as an afterthought. "Edith,
good-morning."
He seized Dean's elbow and
impelled him into the foreground.
"Meet Mr. In, Edith, my bes'
frien'. Inseparable. Mr. In and
Mr. Out."
Mr. Out advanced and bowed; in
fact, he advanced so far and
bowed so low that he tipped
slightly forward and only kept his bal-
ance by placing a hand lightly on
Edith's shoulder.
"I'm Mr. Out, Edith,"
he mumbled pleasantly, "S'misterin Mister-
out."
" 'Smisterinanout,"
said Peter proudly.
But Edith stared straight by them,
her eyes fixed on some infinite
speck in the gallery above her.
She nodded slightly to the stout man,
who advanced bull-like and with a
sturdy brisk gesture pushed
Mr. In and Mr. Out to either
side. Through this alley he and Edith
walked.
But ten paces farther on Edith
stopped again stopped and
pointed to a short, dark soldier
who was eyeing the crowd in gen-
eral, and the tableau of Mr. In
and Mr. Out in particular, with a
sort of puzzled, spell-bound awe.
"There," cried Edith.
"See there ! "
Her voice rose, became somewhat
shrill. Her pointing finger shook
slightly.
"There's the soldier who
broke my brother's leg."
There were a dozen exclamations ;
a man in a cutaway coat left
his place near the desk and
advanced alertly ; the stout person made
a sort of lightning-like spring
toward the short, dark soldier, and
then the lobby closed around the
little group and blotted them from
the sight of Mr. In and Mr. Out.
But to Mr. In and Mr. Out this
event was merely a particolored
iridescent segment of a whirring,
spinning world.
They heard loud voices ; they saw
the stout man spring ; the pic-
ture suddenly blurred.
Then they were in an elevator
bound skyward.
"What floor, please ?"
said the elevator man.
"Any floor," said Mr.
In.
"Top floor," said Mr.
Out.
"This is the top
floor," said the elevator man.
"Have another floor put
on," said Mr. Out.
"Higher," said Mr. In.
"Heaven," said Mr. Out.
XI
In a bedroom of a small hotel
just off Sixth Avenue Gordon
Sterrett awoke with a pain in the
back of his head and a sick
throbbing in all his veins. He
looked at the dusky gray shadows in
the corners of the room and at a
raw place on a large leather chair
in the corner where it had long
been in use. He saw clothes, di-
shevelled, rumpled clothes on the
floor and he smelt stale cigarette
smoke and stale liquor. The
windows were tight shut. Outside the
bright sunlight had thrown a
dust-filled beam across the sill a
beam broken by the head of the
wide wooden bed in which he had
slept. He lay very quiet comatose,
drugged, his eyes wide, his mind
clicking wildly like an unoiled
machine.
It must have been thirty seconds
after he perceived the sunbeam
with the dust on it and the rip
on the large leather chair that he had
the sense of life close beside him,
and it was another thirty seconds
after that before he realized he
was irrevocably married to Jewel
Hudson.
He went out half an hour later
and bought a revolver at a sport-
ing goods store. Then he took a
taxi to the room where he had been
living on East Twenty-seventh
Street, and, leaning across the table
that held his drawing materials,
fired a cartridge into his head just
behind the temple.