IF You BELIEVE IT,
Irs So
BY
PERLEY POORE SHEEHAN
ILLUSTRATED BY
ADA WILLIAMSON and PAUL STAHR
New York
THE H. K. FLY COMPANY
Publishers
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
COPYBIGHT, 1919, BT
THE H. K. FLY COMPANY
TO
A. W. S.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Lost Money . 9
II. As Among Friends 16
III. Into the Night 25
IV. The Book of Revelation 32
V. Remission 39
VI. Near Chatham Square 45
VII. The Big Idea 51
VIII. Testimental 56
IX. "Sky-blue" 62
X. Sniffing the Asphodel 68
XI. Spring 76
XII. "Flowery Harbor" 82
XIII. As Seen and Overheard 88
XIV. Mr. Richard Davies 94,
XV. Up the Street _ 100
XVI. Against All Comers 107
XVII. The Peace Angel 113
XVIII. The Touch Divine .120
XIX. Bound Hand and Foot 126
XX. Partners 132
XXI. " Welcome to Our City " 138
XXII. Justice: That's All 145
XXIII. The Quality of Mercy 150
XXIV. Small Voices 155
XXV. Friend Emerson 160
XXVI. The Beating Heart 166
XXVII. Eye to Eye 173
CONTENTS—CONTINUED
CHAPTER PAGE
XXVIII. Us Two 181
XXIX. Starlight and Graft 187
XXX. High Praise 193
XXXI. Compensations «. 198
XXXII. Positive and Negative 203
XXXIII. Alvah Listens 211
XXXIV. Into the Depths 217
XXXV. The High Tower 224
XXXVI. Pardon 230
XXXVII. "The Old Homestead" 236
XXXVIII. Hesitations 242
XXXIX. Acid and Alkali 248
XL. "I am the Printing-Press" 253
XLI. Faith and Mortgages 259
XLII. Far Thunder 265
XLIII. Lightning 271
XLIV. Before the Storm 276
XLV. Shelter 281
XLVI. The Guiding Light 287
XLVII. Armageddon 292
XLVIII. "This Is My Friend" 297
XLIX. Face to Face 304
L. Skin for Skin _.310
LI. Tooth and Claw 315
LII. The Return of the Shade 321
LIII. The Last Believer 328
LIV. The Dawn of Glory 334
LV. Epilogue 340
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"He's the finest man in the world," the girl flamed
from the midst of her trouble .... Frontispiece
"Honest and on the level, how long do you think it's
goin' to be before you all get yours?" ... 53
"But, Chicky," said the old man; "I wasn't tryin'
to hornswaggle you. Hain't I said all along we
were splitting fifty fifty?" . .... . . . 311
IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
CHAPTER I
LOST MONEY
LATE afternoon, and the usual ebb and flow, back
wash and cross-currents of humanity in the Grand
Central Station. The complication was rendered still
more complex by the thousands of commuters leaving
for their homes in the suburbs, by yet thousands of
other suburbanites arriving for a dinner in town and
an evening at the theater. A muffled hubbub filled the
place, somewhat like that one hears in a concert hall
when a big orchestra is settling into place — all the
instruments more or less in tune, yet emitting different
notes, some of them high and some of them low, some
of them tiny and shrill and some of them hugely vibrant.
"Kiss Mabel for me and tett her "
"Ah'll Jcerry yo9 beggage."
"Great guns! We've missed—
"There now, I'll be back."
And then a diversion, not very loud, not very notice
able in that vast concourse:
"My money! It's gone! I — I've lost my money."
9
10 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Not much louder and not much more noticeable,
say, than the crushing of a Stradivarius would have
been; but a disaster of equal import, to judge by the
quality of the speaker's voice and the appearance of
the victim himself.
He was an elderly man, still broad and powerful, yet
with shoulders manifestly stooped with years of hard
work. He had a rugged, kindly face, in which there
were soft tints of pink and brown; clear, blue eyes, in
which, even now, there was more of kindly innocence
than consternation. For the rest, he was very clean,
freshly shaved, and dressed in his Sunday clothes.
He had been carrying a large but not very full valise
of imitation black leather. He had placed this on the
polished stone floor at his feet while he used both hands
to search his pockets. He stood right in the middle of
one of the main drifts of mixed humanity hurrying to
and from the trains.
"What will mother say? She told me to be keerful !"
Perhaps a hundred — two hundred — pedestrians
passed him by, no more conscious of his existence than
they would have been of any other obstacle to be auto
matically avoided.
Then, an undersized messenger-boy paused and
looked at him with detached interest. Two Hunkies,
outward-bound for a labor-camp and still with an hour
or so to wait, also decided to become spectators. Three
small children, with eyes like robins, lingering on their
way to the drinking-fountain, forgot their thirst. This
was the audience that the old man addressed.
LOST MONEY 11
"I wouldn't mind it so much — I suppose whoever finds
it will bring it back — but it wasn't really ours."
He was panting as lie said it. He had pushed back
his broad-brimmed, soft felt hat, and a fine sweat was
already making his white hair stick to his temples.
There was no mistaking his desperation, yet he sought
to cover this with a smile.
"Yuh'd better look out," said the messenger-boy,
with a lurch of sly wisdom, "er they'll be swipin' yer
grip."
Even this small nucleus of a crowd, however, had
now been sufficient to attract others from the shuttling
throngs — commuters still with a minute to spare, a
porter or two, prospective diners, idlers, they that had
just said good-by to friends.
In the midst of this growing crowd the old man still
stood there stricken, a little dazed, taking account
of his pockets. He had a big, clean handkerchief in
one of his hands, and this was constantly getting into
his way. He worked a large, old-fashioned snap-purse
from a trouser-pocket and opened this and peered into
it and then forgot to put it back.
The crowd, enthralled, began to vocalize :
" 'Smatter, pop?"
"What's he advertising
"Somebuddy's gypped his roll."
"You should worry. Come on 'r we'll miss the five
ten:9
A special policeman, soft-spoken, smooth as oil, came
through the crowd without visible effort, and reached
the old man's side.
12 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"What appears to be the trouble?"
While the old man explained, the man in uniform
made a slight signal to a regular policeman who was
drawing near.
"Come on now," said the regular cop, as he began
to shoo the crowd away. "Move along. They ain't
nothin' happened. Come on, now. Move — al-long!"
And the crowd was drifting into motion again, its
interest already on other things.
"Did you see what the Reds done in the third?"
"Yeh, she's beginning to talk. Says: 'Dada!
Dada!' "
"Oscar win "
"But, my Gawd, Lows, she's not over seventeen!'9
The old man looked at the two policemen, the special
and the regular.
"Mother — Martha — she's my wife," he recommenced,
breathlessly, apologetically, with contrition and grief,
"she 'lowed I'd better have it sewed in my pocket. She's
generally right."
Had he received a bullet through the chest he would
have looked like that — breast heaving, the color drain
ing from his face, his mild eyes those of one who con
fronts the ultimate catastrophe. He made a mighty
effort to pull himself together. He touched his tem
ples with the wadded handkerchief. He was grasping
for familiar realities to hold him up.
"Mr. Dale — he's the president of our bank — told me
I'd— better let him send a draft."
He was speaking only with the utmost difficulty.
"Mother — she thought so, too — only — she wanted
LOST MONEY 13
me to see New York — again. Been working pretty
steady. Hadn't seen the place for thirty years."
By one of those peculiar shifts in the human whirl
pool of the railroad terminus, the recent vortex where
they stood was now almost completely quiet. Over
there, fresh passengers and clinging friends were hud
dling for the departure of a great express. Nearer,
an iron gate opened and at once, like the waters of a
sluice, the people flowed away in yet another current.
"Maybe you got it in your hip-pocket,rj said the
regular policeman with practical sympathy.
The old man made another examination, fumbling,
hopeless, yet thorough.
"I got my purse," he said. "It ain't that — but
the wallet."
The wallet, it appeared, was old ; one that his daugh
ter had given him years ago. He spoke of this daugh
ter as "our little girl." No, it didn't have his name
on it, but he'd recognize it anywhere — about eight
inches long by four wide, and the leather used to be
red, but now was a sort of shiny brown. He could
have told it blindfolded, he had handled it so much. He
could almost recognize it by its smell — like old, blind
Rex, a worn-out, ancient dog of his back home.
The special officer disappeared in the direction of
the train-shed. The policeman was taking notes.
Of all those who had been lingering there — the typ
ical New York crowd, amateurs of emotion — only two
remained. One was the messenger-boy who had origin
ally discovered the sensation. Mere profundity of
thought, rather than an active interest, seemed to be
U IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
holding him. It wouldn't have been so easy to guess
what held the other onlooker there.
He was a strangely handsome youth, this other — a
little too handsome, almost, with classic features, large,
dark eyes, a general expression of alert but brooding
intelligence ; only, a closer look revealed a certain
unwholesomeness about him, such as comes to both men
and plants that lack sufficient sunshine. So it was with
his clothes — almost too elegant, and yet, if scrutinized,
showing a certain note of cheap luxury and underlying
shabbiness.
This youth strolled away a dozen steps. He came
back again. He took casual note of others who came
and went. And sometimes this was with an all-but-
imperceptible start, as if he recognized them, or saw
something about them that pricked his interest. But,
again and again, his attention reverted to the old
man who had lost his money.
The special policeman returned from the train-shed,
reporting the result of an inquiry: "I guess it's a
larceny, all right."
"Guess we'd better go with him to the desk, Bill," the
regular policeman proposed.
"I don't yet," the old man gasped miserably, "see
how it happened."
"Happens every day," the special replied with Stoic
philosophy. "Don't it, Joe? This way, sir. First,
you'll want to make a complaint."
"Yes, and sometimes twice a day if not oftener," Joe
cheerfully averred.
LOST MONEY 15
"Hey, youse's fergittin' yer grip," the young mes
senger called out.
"Well, just see!"
The old man took the grip from the boy's hand, but
immediately set it down again. Once more he opened
the ancient purse that had been spared him. He, trem
bling, opened this. He sought a coin. The messen
ger's lethargic face assumed an expression of astute
expectancy.
"Here's a nickel for you, bub. I suppose I really
should give you more."
The messenger was not averse, but the law inter
vened.
"Gwan, now ; beat it," Joe advised ; and the messen
ger skipped away — not intoxicated, precisely, but mol
lified.
The two officers and he who had lost his money — his
broad old shoulders a trifle more bent than ever —
started off in the direction of the precinct police-sta
tion. The young man — he of the dark eyes — appeared
to hesitate. He came to a decision.
He started in pursuit.
CHAPTER II
AS AMONG FRIENDS
"ELEVEN hundred dollars, Mr. Officer," the old man
was saying to the chubby-faced lieutenant back of the
high desk. The official bent and wrote, his face shin
ing redly in the electric light. From the midst of his
labors he rumbled.
"Name?"
"Ezra Wood."
"Address?"
"Rosebloom — this State. We've lived there, mother,
and me, for nigh onto sixty years."
"Was it before, or after, you got off the train "
"After, I reckon ; right after, Mr. Officer. You see,
I was sort of thinking about the folks at home, and
what my wife said about me being keerful. I touched
the wallet in my pocket. It was there. She says to
me something about New York not being like Rose-
bloom ; but we're all born of women, have our trou
bles "
"Notice any one specially who might Ve taken it?"
"Done what, sir?"
"Why, took your roll "
"You mean — I was robbed?"
He'd taken off his hat as soon as he entered the
16
AS AMONG FRIENDS 17
high bare room of the police-station, and he stood there
now uncovered — his silky, white hair stirring a little in
the draft of the place, his benignant face graven deep
with lines of pain and patience and simple goodness.
The official light shone down upon him, covering him
with a halo. And such a different picture did he
make from those usually presented by the strangers
who stood before this unholy judgment-seat, that most
of the policemen who passed through the room paused
there to listen.
Anyway, it was at an hour when there wasn't much
to do — a new detail just gone on duty, the old platoon
coming in. It was to the room at large, and those
who listened there, as much as to the lieutenant back
of the high desk, that the old man addressed himself
when he next spoke. He had raised his face. There
was a new calm and a new courage there.
"I suppose it's all for the best,'* he labored. He
had a fleeting breath of hope. "Maybe it wasn't stolen
after all. I've always been kind of absent-minded about
letting things lay around. Maybe some one will find
it — give it back."
"Maybe," droned the lieutenant, with the flicker of
an eyelid at those who were standing by. "We're go
ing to try to find it for you, cap; but they said it,
all right, all right, when they told you that this burg
ain't no Rosebloom. The train and the whole platform
over there at the depot has been searched, and you can
bet your life, after what you've said, your roll ain't
among the stuff they find. If it was, we'd have heard
about it before this. The depot staff's all right.
18 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
They've got to be. We got 'em trained. YouVe bee*
rolled by a dip — had your pocket picked."
"You must know, Mr. Officer."
"I'll get this report down to headquarters" — and
he passed the thing he had written to a sergeant — "and
if your crook's to be got they'll get him."
"I'd hate to think I had something to do with send
ing any one to the lockup."
"That's where he'll go," the lieutenant laughed.
"Say, if he's lucky, that guy'll get only about fifteen
years."
"But we don't know how he was tempted. Perhaps
he was hungry, and old, was driven to it."
Some half-dozen policemen were in the room by this
time. The old man's presence and the lieutenant's
indulgent mood had relaxed discipline just a trifle.
There was a gurgle of derision. One of the policemen
turned to the dark-eyed youth who had lingered near.
"Ain't he a sketch ?" the policeman inquired. "Don't
want to do nothing now to the gink that nicked him."
The youth of the dark eyes smiled. He knew many
policemen. But he didn't speak. He brooded. He
watched. He listened.
"Fergit it," the lieutenant was advising, jovially.
"It wasn't no old geezer turned this trick. This is the
work of some fresh young boy. The big town keeps
turnin' 'em out faster 'n we can trim 'em. Of course,
sooner or later, we make the pinch."
"A young man?"
"Sure! They're the only kind that can work New
York ; and even they slip up — and then, good night f
AS AMONG FRIENDS 19
"I don't believe that I could send a boy to prison —
right at the beginning of his career — to break his
mother's heart."
"Well, what do they do when they catch a crook up
in your part of the world?"
"There be none. No, sir! Not in Rosebloom. We
raise our boys and girls to be God-fearing citizens, up
there. Oh, the boys'll take a few apples, now and
then; but that ain't stealing. And I suppose the girls
are about like all other girls — poor little, innocent
things. But nobody locks their doors up there. Every
one trusts every one else — lends a hand in case of
misfortune."
"Say," the lieutenant exclaimed, with an eye on his
audience, "if I ever got located in a burg like that,
believe me, I'd stick ! What did you leave it for, with
all that money?"
"It was foolish of me," the old man answered, gently.
"But that money was owing on a mortgage for nigh
two-score years. Mother and I borrowed it from old
Major Higginbotham at the time our little girl took
sick. And then, when the first mortgage ran out at
about the time the old major died, and we weren't in a
position to clear it off, why, we renewed it with the
major's son — that's Mr. Edgar Higginbotham — and
he's been carrying it ever since. I wanted to see him
- — tell him how much mother and I appreciate his kind
ness. You see, hard as we'd try, we weren't always
quite ready to meet the payments. Our little girl died
— a beautiful and saintly creature — when she was bare
ly thirty. But the Lord's been good to us. He has.
20 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
We've done better these past six years — put by more'n
a thousand dollars. This eleven hundred dollars was
the last we owed."
He halted in what he was saying. He stood there
with his mouth open as if he wanted to say something
more.
"Now what do you know about that?" the policeman
in the back of the room whispered hoarsely to the dark-
eyed youth.
"Some yarn!" the youth answered from the corner
of his mouth.
It was a barely audible whisper that came from Ezra
Wood:
"Stand fast in the faith ! Stand fast in the faith !
I will, O Lord; but — will Martha be able to bear it?"
"You don't want to take it so hard," said the lieuten
ant with kindly intent. "Why, somebody's gettin'
theirs every time the clock ticks, here in New York."
He turned a leaf of the official blotter. He read :
" 'Mamie Martin, white, eleven, run over by brewery-
truck, both legs -fractured, internal injuries. Bettevue.'
" 'Gus Pemberton — and so forth — lacerations — prob
ably blinded.9
" 'Max Mendelbaum, attempted suicide, ar
rested '
' 'Body unidentified girl '
"Get me?" the lieutenant demanded. "That sort of
stuff day in and day out, every day in the year, Sun
days and all."
"The Lord have pity on us all!" said Ezra Wood,
bracing himself like a soldier shaking his pack into
AS AMONG FRIENDS 21
place. "In my own trouble I forgot about the trouble
of others."
"That's all right," said the lieutenant. "You got
your troubles, all right. So's every one else that
goes up against this town. Y' understand? Unless
they're tough like an elephant, which a lot of 'em are,
or strong like hairy gorillas, or slick like the snakes
in the zoo — they all get theirs! Either that, or
you've got a brain on you like Thomas A. Edison, or
a good thing, like me old friend, John D. Get me?
Because, if you ain't, sooner or later, this big town's
going to eat you alive."
"The Lord have pity on us all!" Ezra Wood re
peated. "I suppose my loss is nothing — only — only,
you see "
"Uncle," the lieutenant said, more softly, with a
burst of unprofessional sympathy, "if I was you, I'd
go and get something to eat and then lay me down
for a good night's sleep. There ain't nothing you can
do. Leave it to us. Cheer up. Say, we'll have the
commissioner himself on the job. If your roll's to be
got, we'll get it. Won't we, boys?"
"Surest thing you know."
"We're wit' you, lute."
"I can't tell you how I appreciate your kindness,"
said Mr. Wood. "I told mother — Martha — that's my
wife — we've been married nigh onto fifty years — that
folks down here were no different from our folks up in
Rosebloom. I wish that you gentlemen — any of you
— could pay us a visit some time. We'd give you a
royal welcome."
22 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Get that?" whispered the policeman in the back
of the room. "Peeled of all he's got sooner'n he can get
out of the depot, and yet he comes back wit* an all-
round invite to pay him a visit."
The youth of the dark eyes appeared to be too
absorbed to answer. He was listening, one would have
said, with a sort of fascination.
"You're all to the good," the lieutenant averred.
And he so far forgot official dignity as to come around
from the other side of the desk. "Now doncha weaken.
We're on the job."
"And I appreciate your advice. I'm still a little
dazed. Let's see. I've got three dollars — minus a
nickel — and my return ticket home. Maybe you can
recommend some modest sort of place where I could
get a room."
The lieutenant meditated, but not for long.
"Tim," he said, "you got to pass the Boone House.
Suppose you show cap, here, where it is. You can get
a room there for a dollar," he enlightened Ezra Wood ;
"and sleep hearty, without fear of nobody going
through your clothes." He had an afterthought. "Of
course," he added, "there ain't no bath goes with the
room."
"That's all right," said old Mr. Wood; "I took a
bath before I come."
"And in the mean time," the lieutenant added, "if
anything breaks, I'll let you know."
"The Lord bless you, Mr. Officer," said Ezra Wood,
"and all you gentlemen. You know the old saying:
'No kind thing was ever done in vain.' " He turned
AS AMONG FRIENDS 2$
again to the lieutenant and gripped the officer's out
stretched hand. "And I hope you'll thank the commis
sioner for me. You tell him how sorry I am to give
him this extra trouble. Only, you see, we'd worked
so hard for that money, and skimped, and strove, and
we'd waited so long for this time to come, and thinking
we could sort of let up a little, and not have anything
more to worry about-; "
"I getcha," the lieutenant murmured.
"And now New York's taken it. New York! New
York!" It was almost a sob, but the cry was soft.
"You're right. New York lives on what it takes from
the country. And its fodder ain't only the wheat and
the corn and the fruit that we send to it, either; but
our faith and our hopes ! — our dreams and our children !
Where'd you come from ?" he suddenly demanded, whirl
ing on the lieutenant.
"Galway, Ireland !"
"And you?"
"Three Rivers, Michigan."
"And you?"
"Iowa."
He flamed his questions at the various policemen
standing there, and they answered him.
"And you?"
His eyes for a moment gleamed into those of the
strange youth who had followed him here from the
station.
"I was born here," the young man said.
"What are you doing? What are your dreams?
24 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
What are your ideals? What is this town doing to
you?"
'Hie old man didn't await an answer. After a
fashion the questions had been answered as soon as
asked by the boy's silence and the look in the boy's
face.
"That's it," Ezra Wood intoned with a soft but
surprising intensity. "That's it. That's what New
York does — takes a little dream, or an ambition, or
an ideal — from Galway, or Michigan, or Iowa — and
breaks its legs! Lacerates and blinds The body
of an unidentified girl ! Fresh young boys ! — flung into
the hopper of asylums and prisons! 'Tain't mere
money I am grieving for. Only — only "
"Twas all he had!"
"Only, when it was lost — taken from me — stolen —
those 'leven hundred dollars that were our sweat and
our blood; but, most of all, her sweat and her blood,
and she a helpin' every one that needed help, and com-
fortin' the afflicted " He broke off. "I forget
myself," he said with dignity. "You'll not forget to
thank the commissioner."
CHAPTER III
INTO THE NIGHT
EVEN at this early hour there was something grue
some in the quality of the night. The day had held
a promise of spring, but now the wind had shifted
around to the northeast, bringing with it a dampness
and a chill. The poorest of the city's workers were
hurrying home — the men and women, and the girls, who
work on through to six and half-past six in the shops
and factories.
There is a lightness and a joy about a good many
of those workers who leave their tasks at five. They
still have a residue of strength and gaiety. Those who
quit at half-past five are always duller, sadder, with
still less power to react from the drudgery just ended.
But those who quit their jobs still later are the utterly
forlorn, the utterly fatigued.
These flowed eastward now a black and turgid cur
rent. The current gave tongue and spoke with all the
languages of the world, but through the babble there
was always an undertone of weariness.
"Is it always like this?" asked Ezra Wood.
"It is at this hour," said Tim, the policeman who
himself was almost as gray and old as the man from
Rosebloom. " 'Tis what the lieutenant said it was —
a slaughter-house for body and soul.'*
25
26 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"You've stood it, friend," said Ezra Wood.
"I have," said Tim, "by the grace of God!"
The Boone House was a little old-fashioned hotel
on one of the side streets just off Third Avenue.
There was a plate-glass window to either side of its
sooty entrance. One of these revealed the office and
sitting-room, where sad gentlemen, respectable but
homeless, sometimes sat. The other window, partly
curtained, was that of the once almost-famous Boone
House restaurant, which still did a fairly good occa
sional trade. But, despite the vicissitudes that had
come to the old hotel, it looked good to Ezra Wood,
and his heart warmed again in gratitude to the friendly
police.
"I thank you, sir," he said, shaking hands with the
old officer who had shown him the way; "and I hope
you'll tell the lieutenant not to worry too much if
he is unable to recover the money."
Officer Tim looked at the other gravely for a dozen
seconds.
"I'll tell him," he said. "And I've got a feeling
that 'twill be all right with you, most likely in some
way we can't foresee."
Himself like a strange fish in the home-flowing cur
rent of workers, that youth with the dark eyes who
had already followed the old man of Rosebloom to the
police-station had set out to follow him again. He
also noticed the chill and the darkness of the night.
For that matter, he noticed also — as if he were seeing
it now for the first time — the heavily undulating drift
INTO THE NIGHT 27
of workers. Their voices reached him — Yiddish and
Greek, Italian, Slovak, and Hun — but he found that
he was translating all this into the things he had
heard the lieutenant and the old man say:
"Even they slip up — and then good night!"
"The Lord have pity on us all!"
"This big town's going to eat you alive"
He kept Ezra Wood and the policeman in sight, al
though he knew that there was no necessity for doing
this. He knew where they were going. Only, he
seemed to derive some benefit from the mere spectacle
of the old man. After a manner, he was like a boy who
follows a circus parade — fascinated, getting visions of
a world unknown, yet conscious all the time that he's
going to get home late for supper.
He turned into the splotched illumination of Third
Avenue not far behind the two old men. He paused.
He stared for a moment into a pawn-broker's window.
Overhead, an Elevated train thundered on its way to
Harlem. The surface-cars screeched. The crowds
flowed by on foot. He started to follow again.
He was at the office-window of the Boone House
when the policeman was recommending the citizen of
Rosebloom to the clerk, and tarrying there for a few
more words.
The old man had taken off his hat again, his white
hair shining through the dimness.
"Good night !" the youth exclaimed under his breath,
and he was off in the direction of Third Avenue, going
fast, at first, then more slowly, more slowly yet, until
he came to an indecisive halt. What was the matter
28 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
with him? What was biting him anyway? "Good
night," he murmured again — like a sesame against the
spell that was holding him. But instead of wavering
forward he wavered back.
The next time that he looked into the front win
dows of the Boone House he saw that the old man
was eating his supper in the restaurant. It occurred
to the youth that he himself was hungry. Why not
eat here? He lingered at the entrance. He again
walked away swiftly, but dwindled off to a standstill.
He had to eat ! He was ravenous.
There was an oyster-booth on the corner of the
avenue, and presently he had given his order here
for a couple of sandwiches. But scarcely had he taken
a bite out of the first sandwich than he found that
he wasn't so hungry after all. He paused to think
and forgot to chew. He wished he hadn't ordered
anything at all.
While he stood there, an old, old woman, dressed
in black and very dirty, crept up with the unction
of a hungry cat.
"Have a sandwich?" said the youth.
A slow smile came into her puckered face. Her
breathless voice had an echo of sweetness in it.
"It's been a long time," she said, "since a young
gentleman's invited me to dine."
She was still smiling as she hid the proffered sand
wich under her shawl.
"Here's a buck to go with it," said the youth.
She accepted the dollar with the same smiling suavity
and rewarded him with the gleam in her rheumy old
INTO THE NIGHT 29
eyes. And she was telling him something again — an
intimate confession of sorts that called for an occa
sional grimace of modesty on her highly informed old
mask. But he didn't hear her — for two reasons. One
reason was that the Elevated trains and the screeching
cars made a din that smothered her voice. The other
reason was that, louder yet, came the lieutenant's
words :
"They aU get theirs!"
Like this old dame, like so many others he had
known, like a projection of himself in the no-distant
future.
The old lady was still mumbling autobiographical
bits — with the oysterman for audience now; only, the
oysterman, having heard many old ladies like this hold
forth on similar themes, was not listening particularly
—when the youth started off down Third Avenue.
He went as far as the next corner. He stopped
there to let an auto pass — and found himself unable
to go on — his impulse gone — invisible hands upon him
to turn him back once more in the direction he had
come.
"Suppose I telephone!"
He meditated this. He knew that there wasn't a
chance in a million of the old man's going out. Yes,
this was the idea. Maybe, like that, he'd raise the
curse that had put the nippers on him.
There was a cheap little tobacco-shop, a few doors
away, with a blue telephone sign on its window.
"But what'll I say?"
He entered the place. He bought a package of
30 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
cigarettes. He took his time about lighting one of
these. With an impulsive, clinching movement, he
turned to the telephone-book and opened it.
" 'Boone — Boone House' — and I'm a nut !"
He squared his flat and shapely shoulders. He
arched his neck, pulled in his chin. He strode on out
of the place, and, at the door, almost bumped into
the old lady of the oyster-booth. She peered up at him.
Perhaps she didn't recognize him at all, but she smiled
at him, graciously, with the echo of an ancient gracious-
ness.
And what was that the old man had said about —
"No kind act "
He bit his cigarette in two. He hurled it to the
sidewalk. This was certainly fierce. And here he
was, once more, in the street that had called him.
Ezra Wood had gone up to his room in the Boone
House. It was a large room, as New York hotel rooms
go. It was on the third floor, with a certain air of
faded splendor about it — and if he could have a room
like this for a dollar, possibly he might have got a
room that was good enough for fifty cents; but he
didn't like to ask, now that they had taken the trouble
to give him this one. And, besides, there was no telling
when he would receive a visitor from headquarters —
perhaps from the commissioner himself.
He would have liked to go to bed at once, but he
scarcely dared. He wondered how long he ought to
wait up.
The room was in the rear, with two windows in it
INTO THE NIGHT 31
that commanded a dim vista of neighboring yards
and the backs of houses, and the glimmering lights
of these; and the human noises that came from them
— of speech, and laughter, and squabbling quarrels —
all fretted the strings of his homesick heart with a
heavy hand.
He had taken off his boots and his coat, and drawn
one of the squashy old chairs up to a window he had
opened. And he seated himself there — smelling the
night, hearing its strange squeals and thunders, yet
battling himself betimes to overcome the mounting
tumult in his breast. The thing to do, he argued,
was to be brave and strong, to "stand fast in the
faith."
But he moaned: "Oh, God Almighty!"
His mind came reeling back to a consciousness of
present things.
Some one was knocking at the door.
CHAPTER IV
THE BOOK OF REVELATION
"COME in, sir! Come right in!" said Ezra Wood.
"I was sort of expecting you. Although I don't look
it," he added, apologetically, with reference to his un
dress.
He could see that the young man in the hall was not
a member of the hotel-staff, although the light was
dim, for the stranger wore a hat — one of those velours
hats, with the brim pulled down on one side. The
light in the hall was dim, and the hat further shaded
the stranger's face, all of which gave him a certain air
of mystery. But detectives were men of mystery. The
touch of mystery was heightened by the stranger's
reticence. He appeared to be in no hurry to come in.
There, for a fleeting moment or so, he seemed to be
on the point of betaking himself away.
"Be you waiting for some one else?" Mr. Wood
inquired.
The Boone House was not one of those hotels which
announce the arrival of visitors. There was no way
of telling whether there was one or two.
What was that the stranger said? It was a sibilant
whisper at the best, inarticulate. Anyway, he was
inside; and, once inside, he lost no time. While Mr.
32
THE BOOK OF REVELATION S3
Wood was still closing the door, with patient effort,
for the lock was somewhat out of order, the stranger
went swiftly to the window that was closed and drew
the blind, then went with equal speed, smoothly, without
noise, to the window that was open. There he paused
for a pair of seconds, close to it, but a little to one
side, looking out. Then he closed the window and
lowered the shade.
All this in the time that it had taken the elder man
to close and latch the door.
"Did you come from the commissioner, or did the
lieutenant ask you to come?" Mr. Wood inquired. "In
any case, I'm glad to see you. Won't you make your
self comfortable?" And he motioned to a chair.
As yet, both of them were standing; and, like that,
they certainly made a very striking contrast — old Ezra
Wood, his white hair uncovered and slightly ruffled,
his bent old frame loosely clad in black, except for his
white shirt-sleeves and his gray, home-knitted socks;
and then this stranger — slender, dark, shabbily dapper
from his velours hat on down to his pointed, light-tan,
cloth-top shoes. He still wore his hat. From under
it his dark eyes gleamed.
Mr. Wood was willing that his guest should take
his own time about speaking. He was eager to put the
young man at ease. He pulled a heavy old gold watch
from his vest-pocket and carefully opened it — not
noticing the visitor's glance of avid interest.
"What's the time?" the young man asked.
"It is now — just eight o'clock."
"I didn't know it was so late."
34 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
He spoke like a man who has but a moment to
stay.
"That's the hour," said Mr. Wood with calm de
cision. "This watch is a marine-chronometer. My
uncle sailed his ship thrice around the globe and no
end of times to China and back with this to go by."
"What's it worth?"
'''It's priceless to me because of him who owned it —
Reminds me of him, true-running, never-failing, a mas
terpiece of gold and steel. Let's see! The store price?
Oh, maybe five hundred — maybe six hundred dollars.
Like to look at it?" He undid the watch from its
guard. He passed it over. "Sit down! Sit down!"
The stranger slid down to the edge of a chair. HP
put his hat on the floor. He had taken the watch and
he studied it — while Ezra Wood benignantly studied
him. The benignant gaze did not falter when the
youth suddenly shifted his eyes, but not his position,
<and saw that he was being observed.
"You're sort of young, my boy, for police work,"
said Ezra Wood. "Don't it keep you out a good
deal at night?"
"Sure!"
^"How do you like it?"
'"I can't kick."
"You certainly have some agreeable associates. How
'does your mother like it?"
"What?"
*'Your work."
'"Whose mother? My mother?"
•"Yes."
THE BOOK OF REVELATION 35
"I ain't got no mother. My mother's dead."
"Ahr
"Here, take your watch back. What you want to
do — lose it — like you lost your roll?"
"Son" — it was a question that had been storming
the mind and heart of old Ezra Wood ever since he
heard the knock at the door — "have you brought me
any word?"
The youth hesitated. He flashed a smile. He
scowled a look of annoyance.
"Say," he demanded, in a husky whisper, "what do
you suppose I come here for?"
Ezra Wood didn't appear to notice the irony of the
question. He accepted it as a blow to his immediate
hopes. He was resigned. He was calm. He took
a brief interval for a mental and moral readjustment.
"I was hopin'," he said, stress of emotion causing him
to be less careful of his speech than usual, "I was
hopin'," he repeated. He was the homesick old farmer
bewildered amid strange surroundings. From not very
far away came the shaking roar of an Elevated train.
A phonograph scraped shockingly at a Sousa master
piece. Beyond the zone of back yards a man and a
woman howled at each other in a frenzy of hate. There
was a crash of glass, a shriek, then comparative
silence. "I'm sorry you've lost your mother," he con
cluded.
If the youth himself felt any sorrow, he gave no sign
of it. Anyway, his mind was elsewhere.
"What do you suppose I come here for?" he re
peated.
36 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"There was only one thing that could have brought
you."
"You're gettin' wise."
There was another pause for reflection. The old
man must have noticed the closed windows, the drawn
blinds. In his mental survey of the hotel he must
have perceived how easily any stranger could have
gained access to his door as this one had done.
"Son,'* said Ezra Wood, blandly, kindly, "you seem
to be unhappy about something or other. You seem to
be holding something back. I don't want you to feel
put out on my account. It ain't the first time that
I've sort of had to fall back on the Lord for strength
and consolation. He'll take care of us, mother and
me. He always has. Now, maybe it's something that's
happened to you. I'm an old man; but, lah! I ain't
forgotten the days of my own youth — wild days-
mad days — days when I let the devil get the better of
my judgment. Is your father living?"
~"Naw!"
"Be you all alone?"
"Sure!"
"If it ain't asking too much, what church do you
go to?"
«Who—me?"
"Well, never mind. I suppose the Lord's every
where — here in New York the same's up in Rosebloom.
That's what made me think you brought me some
word. Funny; ain't it? But I've noticed it time and
again — when something or other had happened that
seemed just a leetle more'n I could stand — I'd get a
THE BOOK OF REVELATION 37
sudden feeling of relief, comforting, consoling, and
I'd know that things were straightening out. Ever
have that happen to you?"
"I got to beat it," said the youth. "I got a date.
I didn't know it was so late. I just wanted to see
if you was here."
"What did you say your name was?"
"Harris."
"What's your first name?"
"Charley."
"Charley Harris, eh? Well, Charley, I don't want
to be keeping you, but I'm mighty glad you called.
I'm an old man. I was feeling pretty lonely. Son,
are you quite sure I can't help you in some way
or other? What appears to be ailin' you?"
The youth had seized his hat and risen to his feet.
The old man remained seated. He gave the boy a
glance. Then, deliberately, thoughtfully, took his
watch from his pocket again and slowly began to wind
it.
A keen observer might have noticed a slight, lurch
ing movement on the part of the visitor. His dark
eyes had gone to the timepiece with that same avid
flicker of desire that had been there before. But all
this was very fleeting, barely perceptible.
"I just wanted to see if you was here," he repeated.
"Most of the folks are in bed by this time back
home," the old man mused. "Another day done —
crickets chirpin', wind in the trees, night smellin' of
dew and early bloom. I suppose it was thinkin' of all
that, and then what the officer said over to the statiqn-
38 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
house about what's goin' on here in this great city>
that made me realize our blessings."
He was still speaking like that, absorbed, as the
youth silently, stealthily crossed the room in the direc
tion of the door. The old man hadn't noticed him.
The visitor's movements were as light and swift as
a shadow's. He put his hand on the knob. But there
he paused.
CHAPTER V
REMISSION
HE turned and looked back of him. He could see
nothing of the old man but a crown of white hair
above the shabby back of an antiquated easy chair.
The visitor drew something- from the breast-pocket
of his elegant but somewhat soiled coat. He thrust
it back again.
He silently opened the door, as silently closed it
again.
Pie looked around him.
Almost within reach of his hand there was a small
marble-topped table of a design once fashionable. The
only thing on this was a dusty little coverlet of white
cotton.
With a movement so deft and lightning-quick that
it would have served a sleight-of-hand performer m
carrying through his most difficult illusion, the visitor
had taken something once more from his breast-pocket
and hidden it under the coverlet.
Even so, he was none too quick. The old man
had turned, was peering over at him.
Had the old man seen anything the visitor didnt
want him to see? It was hard to tell. Most likely
he had not. Mr. Wood got up from his chair — bent*
rugged, absorbed. He came over to the young man*
39
40 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Will I see you again?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"Fd like to see you again. I sort of feel as if you
and I were neighbors."
"When V you pullin' out?"
"I suppose it will be to-morrow. It hurts me,
but I'll have to see Mr. Higginbotham. Did they tell
you about it? He's "
"Yeh! I got all that."
The visitor gave a quick glance, unobserved, at the
marble-topped table.
"It hurts me, but I'll have to tell him what's hap
pened."
"Was the money for him ?"
"Yes."
"Ain't he one of those rich guys ?"
"I believe his father left him quite a bit of money."
, "Well, what did he need this for?"
"He may not have needed it, but it was his."
"You wouldn't have got no benefit from it?" And
the visitor shifted his position somewhat away from
the door.
The old man let one of his hard and twisted hands
rest on the marble-topped table. His fingers toyed
with the dusty coverlet.
"Only the benefit of a debt paid," he answered
sweetly.
"And now I suppose you think that the gun who
copped your leather owes you something."
"Do you?"
The youth who had given his name as Charley
REMISSION 41
Harris turned abruptly to the door. His sudden
movement had disarranged the table-cover.
"I'm not thinkin'," he flung back savagely. "To hell
with thinkin'. It costs too much."
He was putting something back into his pocket —
into the inside pocket of his somewhat shabby but
stylish coat. And, in spite of all his manifest embar
rassment and indecision, his movements had remained
as swift and baffling as those of a wild animal at
bay. He would have been out of the door right
then — and that the end of the episode — but the crazy
old latch refused to function properly.
The delay was sufficient to permit the old man to
react from his surprise.
"Charley !»
The word was an appeal. At the same time it was
something of a command, full of quiet dignity, also
with a friendly but perfect authority. It seemed to
penetrate the back of the boy at the door and fasten
him as surely as a harpoon would have done. The youth
turned. He did this slowly. He slued around and
stood there panting slightly, like one utterly exhausted.
"What?" he gasped.
The old man merely contemplated him.
"What do you want?" the youth repeated.
"To help you."
"I don't — know what you mean."
"You're young," said Ezra Wood, softly. "You're
struggli»% boy. You're strugglin' 'twixt right and
wrong."
"Where do you get that?"
4« IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"I can see it in your eyes. Boy and man, I've seen
God's critters struggle like that. I've struggled like
that myself — wrestled through the night. If ye look
for it, the Almighty's 'most always there ready to lend
a hand."
The words were gently, calmly spoken, yet with a
certain thrill of exaltation in them.
The dark eyes of the youth glowed steadily as if
they were unable to leave the other's face. The boy
was breathing deeply. He slowly returned his right
hand to the inside pocket of his coat. He let it rest
on the contents of the pocket.
As one who watches for the manifestations of some
terrible and tragic phenomenon, he drew from the
pocket that thing he had recently hidden under the
table-cover. The thing was an old wallet, shiny and
brown.
There was a moment of silence. More than a mo
ment. There, for almost a minute, silence was dripping
about the two of them like something palpable — like
rain.
"Mine !" breathed Ezra Wood, with an intake of his
breath.
The visitor held it out to him — did this weakly, as if
all his, so to speak, feline strength and speed had de
serted him. His own face was going as white as the
old man's face had been over there in the railway-
station. His life was concentrated in his eyes. With
out haste, without other apparent excitement than that
shown by his visibly shaking hand, Ezra Wood re
ceived the thing he had lost.
REMISSION 46
"Count it !"
The old man slowly opened the wallet. There were
eleven bank-notes in it, each for one hundred dollars.
"So you were from headquarters, after all," the old
man said softly.
"Sure !"
There was nothing to indicate that the symbolism of
this occurred to either of them.
"And you were tempted."
"What do you think! It was easy money .**
"Even our Lord Jesus was tempted."
"I got to beat it. If I don't — say, what d'yuh
mean — shakin' a wad like that in a fellah's face if
yuh don't want him to nick yuh — handin' him a ticker
'at's good for another five hundred?"
"Are you in such need?"
"Sure!"
"Will you take what you need? Charley, I had a
son, but he was born in the country, he had his parents
— unworthy — but he had our love. I know now — I
had forgotten — that the country is a protection — that
it's sweet, and tender, and pure. There are some, I
suppose, that can live without it. Our boy couldn't.
If he'd stayed in the country we might have saved him.
But here, not even our love, nor his early training,
were enough. He wasn't strong, and if you're not
strong "
"Yuh got it right — 'strong like a hairy gorilla* — "
"The city's not the place for you. Just think!
Spring is here — the apple-orchards all drifted with
white, and the birds — bluebirds and redbirds, robins
44 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, ITS SO
and finches — swelling their little breasts with song —
and the meadows getting deeper and deeper with grass
—and, by and by, the grass will be just filled with
wild strawberries. All this under a sky that would
make you understand why men call it heaven — blue
and friendly — only a few fleecy clouds to serve as
ships for your dreams.
"And after spring, the summer's there; with every
day 'most a hundred years long, each year a happy
lifetime — sunshine, and a smell of mint, of hay and
apples, and the big woods there to give you coolness
and shade, a spring to drink from, a brook making
music, and at last a sunset proclaiming the glory of
God, and the stars His long-suffering mercy.
"Son, were you ever in the country in the autumn?
"That's the time of the harvest — crops coming in,
pumpkins in the corn, stock all fat and slick for the
county fair, plenty for every one, folks laying in their
supplies for the winter. And I've always loyed the
winters — burning hickory, parching corn, smoke-house
perfuming the valley with a smell of new bacon. But,
no — it wa'n't this that has always made me love the
winter so. I loved it for the big, clean winds and the
miles of untrodden snow, for the sparkly nights when
every star might be the star of Bethlehem ; and I loved
it for the kitchen stove, where Martha and I have
always sat on winter nights and sort of had our little
children back.
"But it's spring in the country now. Can't you
sort of hear it calling? I can :
to me, all ye that are heavy laden!' 9
CHAPTER VI
NEAE CHATHAM SQUAEE
IN the meantime, New York's change of weather had
culminated in a sleety rain, and the city had become,
more than ever, a place of disconcerting contrast —
of mortuary black and garish color ; of dripping trees
in haunted parks and juggernaut traiHc in howling
streets ; of shivering poor in places that were damp and
dark, and of blatant luxury in places that were warm
and brMliant.
Moreover, it was Wednesday — with here and there,
in somfeer neighborhoods, an oasis of yeUow light where
a church presented its mild invitation to prayer-meet
ing.
But, unless all signs failed, the devil also was keeping
open h©use — dirty and discreet, sinister and cordial-
there where the rear doors of saloons were open, and
where the scarlet lobbies of obscure hotels insinuated
secrecy and welcome, and Oriental restaurants, stealthy
clubs, throbbing dance-halls, and noisy but secretive
flats, al] offered forgetfulncss and mystery.
Night, for much of the world; but the day was
just beginning for a certain saloon, especially in the
back room thereof.
45
46 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Where's Chick?"
"Ain't seen him. What'll you have?"
"Hello, there, Solly!"
" *Lo, Phil! Have a drink."
"Watchures?"
"Me? I'm takin' a little old-fashioned mixed."
"That's good enough for me."
"Two mixed ales, Eddie. Seen Chick?"
Outside and overhead, an Elevated train squealed
through its thunder as it rounded the curve in Chatham
Square.
"Came here to see him myself," said Phil, glancing
about the back room of the Commodore. He was a
well-favored youth, engaging, vicious. Both he and
Solly were better dressed than the other male customers
present. Phil shot the next question at Sollj from
the corner of his mouth: "Goin' to join the mob?"
"Whose— Chick's?"
Solly was a cherub, pink, two hundred pounds. The
other gave him a glance of cynical amusement. Solly
was so used to playing the part of dull innocence that
he couldn't drop it even among friends. But a glint
of hard wisdom flickered for an instant in Solly's baby-
blue eyes. It was answer enough.
"Here's luck," said Phil, picking up one of the
glasses that Eddie placed on their table.
"Drink hearty!"
Over the receding thunder of the Elevated train and
the maudlin racket of the room, they could hear a
thump of tambourines and then a crescendo chorus:
NEAR CHATHAM SQUARE 4?
"At the cross, at the cross,
Where I fir-rest saw the light."
At the door to the dark hallway leading to the street
appeared a slim young girl with brilliant eyes and other
indications of consumption about her delicate and
pretty face. She was dressed in black. Her brown
hair was waved plainly down over her ears in that
style once made famous by Cleo de Merode. And her
hat might have, almost, belonged to one of those singers
out there in the army of salvation.
She advanced to the table where Solly and Phil were
seated.
"My God !" she said. "What a night !"
"Hello, Belle!" said SoUy. "Hello, Irene!" said
Phil.
But there was no disagreement when they asked her
to sit down, state her wishes in the matter of refresh
ment. The girl herself seemed to attach no importance
at first to the fact that they had called her by different
names. The barkeep came forward, swinging his
shoulders like a boxer feinting for a lead.
"Hello, Eddie !" she greeted him.
"Hello, Blanche!"
"Say, you boys call me Myrtle after this, will you?"
The girl reflected. "Rock-and-rye, Eddie!" And she
added : "I want to change my luck. Where's Chick ?"
"Maybe he's been pinched," Phil suggested with a
grin.
"Him?" cried Myrtle. "The bull ain't been born
that'll get anything on Chick."
48 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Many a good man's got his," mused Solly, pa
ternal.
"I wonder where he is," said the girl.
"Out enjoyin' a stroll," said Phil, he being a hu
morist.
"He's planning some new riot," Solly averred.
Solly was right.
The youth of the dark eyes had torn himself away
rather abruptly from the old gentleman in the Boone
House. He had done this with the instinctive panic
of a man who finds himself at grips with a power that
he cannot comprehend. He had never read the story
of Jacob and the Strange Man, and the wrestling-
match that lasted till dawn, but he was feeling a good
deal as Jacob must have felt.
Why should be have lost his nerve in this old man's
presence?
No, it wasn't a matter of nerve. He had kept
his nerve, all right, or he couldn't have followed the
old man to the police-station, stuck around during
all that followed.
Why hadn't he been able to make his getaway when
there was nothing to stop him? Why did he come
over here to the Boone House right at the time when
a flick from headquarters was due to show up? Since
he had shown up, how camcj it that he hadn't palmed the
old geezer's watch?
That was the way his thoughts ran.
But back of these superficial riddles there remained
NEAR CHATHAM SQUARE 41)
an instinctive, unshaken knowledge to the effect that
some great change had occurred in his life, that he
would never hereafter be the same. Again like Jacob
— only this boy didn't know it — his thigh was out of
joint, but he was blessed.
Beyond the door at which he still lingered, he could
still see — with the eye of his mind — the old man he
had just left, could see him in his shirt-sleeves and
his stocking feet, an innocent, bewildered old hick,
absolutely helpless, a child in need of a guardian.
"A poor old rube!"
That was what he was trying to tell himself.
But all the time that he was trying to tell himself
this there was another voice that shamed him, that
presented to him this man in there in the semblance
of no man he had ever seen before — bigger than most
men, white and shining, with power to do with other
men as he willed.
The same voice was telling him that he would never
see this white and shining giant in there again, but
that this would make no difference.
He had been thrown, and thrown hard. There would
be a limp in his make-up forever more.
But he had been blessed!
He never did quite know how he got out into the
street again. He was so absorbed in wondering what
had happened to him that it was only some time later
that he noticed the sleety rain, the mortuary black
and the garish color of the New York he had always
known — remembered that he had a date with friends.
50 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Far down-town, where Park Row and the Bowery
meet — like a rowdy old beau and a beldame with a past
— the young man of the dark eyes left the Elevated
train that had brought him south. He was shaken.
He was muttering to himself.
"Comin' down fer a card of hop," was the com
ment of a gateman who saw him pass.
But he felt as if he had been drugged already, if
the truth were known. So much to think about! Yet
thought almost impossible!
Still he was thinking, thinking, with such intensity
that he passed them by and noticed them not — the
slippered Chinamen, the coal-stained men of the sea, the
befuddled women, the lurking gangsters. The sleet
smote him. He merely lowered his head.
He entered the "family-entrance" of the Commodore.
He also paused at that door where the girl in black had
stood a while ago.
"And there's Chick now!" said Myrtle.
CHAPTER VII
THE BIG IDEA
CHICK came over to the table where his friends were
seated, slid the vacant chair into position, dropped
into it. Since that first glance from the other side
of the room he hadn't looked at his friends. During
most of the conversation that followed, his eyes were
elsewhere. There was no special occasion for it, per
haps, but hardly at any time would his voice have car
ried beyond the table.
As for his friends, neither Solly nor Phil had given
him more than a shifty glance. But Myrtle looked
at him, frankly, openly, except when he happened to
look at her. Neither did they speak loudly.
"Hello!" said Chick.
"How's the boy?" Solly wanted to know.
"Watcha been pullin'?" Phil demanded. "Been here
an hour."
Eddie, the bartender, came up, rolling his shoulders.
He had a smile for Chick, a scowl for a noisy cus
tomer at another table.
"Ask 'em what they want," said Chick. "Bring me
a schooner-glass of milk with a couple of eggs in it."
He slanted a look at Myrtle. "Coughin* again, ain't-
51
52 IP YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
cha, kid? Bring a glass of milk for her, Eddie, but
make it hot."
"Gotcha," said Eddie, and sidled away.
" 'Smatter with the boy?" asked Solly.
"Needs some booze to cheer him up," Phil volun
teered.
"Wait till he's had his breakfast," Myrtle recom
mended, without reference to the hour. "Can't you
see that he hasn't had anything to eat? You'd be that
way, too, if you'd just got up."
"You got me wrong," said Chick. "All of you."
"What's the answer?"
"Nothin's the matter with me. I don't need no
booze. I didn't just get up. I've just been doin' a
little thinkin', that's all. I got a big idea."
"If it's like that last big idea of yours when we
worked the wine-agents' ball," said Solly, "come
across.'*
"Nothin' doin' along that line."
"Another mill in Madison Square?" guessed Phil.
"Wait'll he's had his breakfast."
"I'm goin' to hand it straight to you three," saJd
Chick. "You've treated me straight. You're about
the only ones that ever did. You're the only pals I
have."
He paused. An aged drunk was squabbling with
himself in a corner. Strained through the windows of
the place, between the intermittent rumble and roar
of Elevated trains, there came the discordant, nasal
whine of a Chinese flageolet.
'
I
Honest, and on the level, how long do you think it is goin' to be before you al
get yours f'
THE BIG IDEA 53
"Honest and on the level, how long do you think
it's goin' to be before you all get yours?"
It was as if all sounds stopped. The effect of
Chick's question was silence. The silence was absolute,
so far as the four at the table were concerned. Solly
took out a cigar, bit the end from it, spat out the
end, struck a match, then looked at Chick through the
bobbing flame as he lighted up. Phil gave Chick a
lingering look from the corner of his eyes; his thin
mouth went cruel. Myrtle stared wide-eyed, startled, a
little frightened.
Solly was the first to recover himself.
"Oh, I don't know," he said. "Maybe I'll retire,
or something ; start a saloon ; go over and live in
England or France. I will, when I get the big stake."
"What's bitin* yuh?" asked Phil.
Chick stuck to his line of thought.
"Where's Silver Smith? Joliet! Roscoe Flynn,
who stalled for him? Up the river! Where's Curly,
and Clivvers, and Big Jones ; Mary Mack, and Boston
Sue? Ask the island or the morgue."
"My God, Chick, don't!" said Myrtle.
"You get it, kid," said Chick.
"They was thrown by their crooked pals,'* said
Phil. "Either that, or the old stuff got >em, or the
snow."
"You ain't comparing yourself, Chick, with that
bunch of rummies, are you? Not to mention ourselves."
"They were all as good as any, in their day."
"But not like you!"
"Not in one respect. They stayed too long."
54 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"And they didn't have the chances you got," said
Solly. "Why, boy "
"You make me sick," Chick broke in. "Chances !
Chances! What chances did I ever have? Brought
up by a wood-merchant — learned how to swipe every
thing I could get my hands on before I was ten years
old; taken on by Blodgett, the Dutch house man, and
almost got beaten to death; and would have been if
Muscowsky hadn't taken me to help him work the
lofts ; and after Muscowsky, the Hessian, for stores ;
and after the Hessian, young Billy Gin, for store-win
dows; and after Billy Gin, Old Doc, the cleverest dip
of 'em all.
"Chances!
"I've had my luck — in not getting mine — when the
bull dropped Blodgett from the roof, or when Muscow
sky was shot. Where's the Hessian? Twenty stretches.
Billy Gin? Makin' faces in a straight- jacket! Old
Doc ? Dead at thirty-three !
"I've never had no chances. Has any one worked
harder than me ? Has any one tried to play straighter
with his pals? Haven't I left the booze alone?" He
gave Myrtle a look that made her drop her eyes.
"Haven't I been straight and fair in other ways?
Have I ever broke trainin' — always been able to do
my turn in the ring as a stall at havin' a profession?
And what's the result of it all? I'm broke. This old
town's broke me. You got to have a thinker on you
like Thomas A. Edison or a good thing like Rockefeller
— get me? Or tough like an elephant, or strong like
THE BIG IDEA 55
a monk, or slick like a snake, and then some — get me?
Or this old town'll eat you alive !"
Solly dropped a slow wink at Phil, and Phil grinned
cruelly.
"Eat your breakfast, Chick," Myrtle urged.
"Drink hearty !" said Solly, lifting his glass.
"Lookin' atcha," said Phil.
There was another comparative lull in the noises of
the night. The aged bacchanal in the corner was
mumbling now. As the youth of the dark eyes looked
at him, perhaps there was a dissolving away of the
coarser colors and the coarser lines until, under the
same sort of white hair that he had seen once before,
this night, there appeared a milder, kindlier face. He
flashed his eyes at Solly.
Solly grinned. He hadn't liked Chick's talk, but
he was getting his cherubic humor back.
"If it was any one but the boy," he said, "I'd back me
guess that he'd got a green pill. It's the weather that's
got to you, my boy. Let Eddie put a finger of rum in
the slop."
"Leave him alone," said Myrtle.
"I've talked to you fair and on the level," said
Chick. "There's the big auto meet down at the bay
next week. I suppose you boys'll be there."
"With bells on," said Phil.
"And what's the big idea?" asked Sol.
"Oh, nothin' very much," said Chick, but his voice
quivered. "I'm quitting. That's all ! I'm blowin' the
game!"
CHAPTER VIII
TESTIMENTAL
IP there had been an effect of silence following Chick's
words a little while before, his words now were in the
nature of a sputtering fuse preliminary to an explosion.
Nothing deadly. Something in the way of fireworks.
Solly let out a guffaw.
Phil stiffly turned his head for another sidelong
glance, derisive, his thin mouth expanded in a snake-
like grin.
Myrtle rested her elbows on the table, her chin on
her hands, her wide eyes staring, the fine vapor of the
drink in front of her slowly exhausting itself like
some tenuous, disappearing hope.
That was all for a while. The Chinese musician
played. There was the sound of a brief but vigorous
encounter between two belligerent thugs in the street.
Through the odorous air, of the room there crept an
added aroma of chop-suey and incense.
"I'm blowin* the game," Chick repeated in a whisper,
and his fashion of saying it indicated that he said what
he did for his own enlightenment as much as that of
the others. Also there was an implication that he was
surprised by the declaration as much as any one ; yet,
that he understood it perfectly, that it was the result
56
TESTIMENTAL 57
of all his hard thinking — groping; thought which at
the time had seemed to be blind.
"Yuh talk about me having chances," he said with
soft but passionate intensity. "No guy's ever had a
chance unless he got started right. There's only one
place where yuh can get started right — there's only one
place where most of us can keep right — get me? And
that's out in the country."
"He's wisin* up," said Phil, "to what I tells him
about Saratoga and French Lick."
Chick did not reply. He hadn't even heard. To
one who could have understood, his dark eyes would
have told the tale — eyes that saw a vision. The sordid
walls of the back room had disappeared — blue paint,
dirty plaster, fly-blown lithographs of prize-fighters,
burlesque queens, and once-famous horses; these had
disappeared, and in their place was a melting prospect
of apple-orchards white with bloom, then a sunset, then
a wide sky, silent, fiery and nebulous with the billion
stars. Perhaps, even, the mingled reek of beer and
tobacco, chop-suey and incense, yielded to a cleaner
breath. Most of the visions that men have are atavis
tic, have nothing to do with present experience.
"What do you know about the country?" Solly
asked.
"NothinV
"What do yuh think it is — just a sort of zoo full
of hicks waitin' to be trimmed?"
"I never been outside of New York City in my life,"
said Chick, absorbed. He faced them, a little sullen,
ready to fight. "But I know I'm goin'. That's all.
58 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
We're the rubes and the hicks — if yuh come down to
it — us guys that stick around here in the slums waitin'
for the cell-block, or the island, or the morgue. Get
me? I gives you the dope. This big town eats yuh
alive."
"Chick's lost his noive," Phil grinned. "He's made a
bad play. It's trun a scare into him."
''Guess again," Chick countered, with a subdued but
deadly menace that was to put Philly out of the argu
ment for a while. "I put one over to-day at the Grand
Central 'at 'd made you swell out your chest for the
rest of your natural. I'm out in the train-shed — see?
— with a local comin' in. I pipes one of these rubes
comin' down the steps. Bulls and specials all around
— smoke-porters swarmin' — not a chance in a million to
make the getaway. And I touches the rube — for — one
— thousand — bones !"
"For the love of Mike !"
"My Gawd!"
"Me lost my nerve ? Fergit it ! I listens in when the
hick makes his squeal — I tails him to the house — I gets
my hunch — I hands him back his roll — I'm through !"
"Do you mean to say, my boy," Solly inquired, "that
you nicked the jay for a thousand?"
"One thousand one hundred."
"And you make your getaway?"
"Clean."
"An' 'en you hand it to him back?"
"You heard me."
Solly looked at Phil. "You get your other gueas,
all right. Chick ain't lost his nerve nor nothin'. Say,
TESTIMENTAL 59
it'd take the nerve of a dentist to pull a thing like
that — then tell it!"
"Yuh fat gonef "
Myrtle interposed.
"Say, ain't Solly the limit? Neither him nor Phil's
got a brain for anything higher'n a ham sandwich.
I'll go to the country with you, Chick, if you want
me to. The doctor says I ought to go."
Chick looked at the girl. She tried to brazen him
out, but there was a shade of wistfulness about her.
She wavered. She shrank.
"You're all right, Myrtle," he said to her, almost
as if there was no one else there to hear. "Yuh got
your faults, but yuh got a heart, and y' ain't dead
from the neck up. And, so far's I know, you're still
as straight as they make 'em. Keep that way, kid.
Do you know what I'm goin' to do for you? I'm
goin' to take you up to the Penn Depot and give yuh
a shove 'at'll put yuh in Denver. Ain't that the place
the doctor said?"
"Yes, but "
"I'm goin' to stake yuh. That's all for you. If yuh
ever think about me again, just sort of pull for me,
kid, because I'll be needin' it, maybe, more'n you."
The little speech, and the simple, mortal directness
of Chick's mood, impressed the other two men. Solly
was moved to further speech, but he was subdued.
"The boy ain't sore at his old pal!"
For a moment, however, Chick ignored him. Chick
was still addressing Myrtle, ostensibly, although Myrtle
was apparently letting her interest waver. Myrtle, it
60 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
seemed, had got something in her eye and was having
trouble to extract it.
"You're going to do what I tell yuh, kid. Go out
West where the cowboys are. A year from now, and
yuh can put it over on this here Daughter of the
Gods. Get me? And some nice young feller's going
to pick you out and find he's got a winner. Cut out
the guys like me and Solly and Phil. You know—
the wise ones! — so damn wise they can't see what's
comin' to 'em even when they get the straight tip."
Solly was sober, but he was cynical.
"So it's the old reform!" he droned, tongueing his
cigar and taking Chick in with narrowed eyes.
"What yuh got against it?"
"Nothing! Nothing!" Solly's voice registered
weary patience. "Only, what's the use of your takin'
to the bushes? Get a political job here in New York
like a lot o' others."
"Yeh — and keep on bein' a crook — like them !'* But
Chick could see that his friend was sincere. "I want
to get away from the crooks and the crooked stuff be
fore it gets me," he explained with desperate persistence.
"I want to get out where the apples grow, and the
little birds are red and blue and know how to sing. Get
me? And where the people are so honest that they
don't have to lock their doors at night. Why, say !
Here in New York a guy can't get into his own house
without a bunch of pass-keys, and every other guy
you meet in the street is a bull or a gun, or somethin'.
How do yuh expect a feller to keep straight when he's
up against no thin' but bull-con and flimflam, rough-
TESTIMENTAL 61!
house and fakes, sniffs and smokes, creepers and — ah,
what's the use ! Yuh know what I mean !"
"If yuh mean," said Solly, "that your rubes are a
bunch of plaster angels with wings on their backs, some
body's been handin' yuh the wrong line o* dope. I
know. I was born in the country myself. And for all
your dirty, low-down crooks, Chicky, gimme your hick
crook — skinnin' each other out of peanuts ; hookin'
pennies from old women ; sousin' on the sly ; takin' dirty
money with both mitts on week-days and wearin* white
neckties on Sunday."
"That ain't the kind I'm goin' up against," said
Chick m his slightly stifled voice.
"Where are you goin' to, then?" Solly inquired.
"The moon?"
"No, I ain't goin' to the moon," Chick replied with a
dogged grip on his vision or his hunch. "But I'm goin''
back — get me? 'Way back!"
"And who is this," came a paternal voice, "who
speaks ©f going back — 'way back?"
CHAPTER IX
"GRANDPA !" Solly almost sobbed.
To judge by Solly's accent, and the expression in
Solly's cherubic face, the newcomer really was some
cherished relative — ancient and beloved — one whose
presence was a gift from Heaven almost too good to
be true.
" 'Way Hack ! 'Way back !" And he solemnly wagged
his head.
He would have been a remarkable personage in any
place of assembly, but most of all in the back room
of the Commodore.
Phil was the next to recognize him. Into Phil's
cynical but well-favored countenance there came a
touch of amazement, also of respect flavored with awe.
"Sky-blue!" breathed Phil.
At the pronouncement of that fabulous name Chick
turned.
His first impression was of a cascade of white whis
kers, then of black broadcloth and a gold chain. It
was only an instant later that he met the friendly
twinkle of a pair of the brightest and keenest eyes
his own eyes had ever met. They belonged to a man
who couldn't have been much less than seventj. His
62
"SKY-BLUE" 63
ministerial and hoary benevolence was rather empha
sized by the fact that he wore a peculiar hat — shaped
like a plug hat, but of stiff, black felt — and that his
necktie, when it could be seen, which wasn't often
on account of his whiskers, was a particularly flat,
black Ascot. The tie was, however, ornamented with
a jet-and-gold scarf pin big enough to serve a lady
for a brooch.
"Sit down," begged Solly, getting to his feet.
But Eddie, the bar-boy, had his eye on the new
arrival. In Eddie's face also there was a look of
happy surprise. At the slightest gesture from the
old gentleman, indicating that he was willing to join
the party, Eddie had stepped forward swiftly with a
chair, held this in place while the patriarch seated
himself.
Eddie breathed his willingness to be of further use:
"What kin I bring yuh, bishop?"
The bishop reflected, with an alert appliance of
thought.
"Bring me" — he paused, then pronounced the rest
of it like a scientist stating a complex theorem — "a
cocktail containing two parts Bacardi rum. Hold on,
now! You tell him who it's for, and tell him that I
don't want lemon but lime, and that he's to put the
lime and the sugar in before the rum. Hold on !"
He reflected, benevolently. He thrust a finger and
thumb into the pocket of his well-filled vest. He
thoughtfully extracted a fifty-cent piece.
"Well, go on," he said. "I'll see how you get me
64 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
that order filled before — no, here ! You give me forty
cents. Quick !"
He didn't have to speak twice. He picked up the
four wet dimes Eddie had left in exchange for the larger
coin which Eddie had seized in his rush for the bar.
Then the bishop looked around at his table companions.
He smiled. He blandly winked.
"I bet," he said, complacently, "that's the first phony
coin Eddie's took in for quite a spell. Solly, my child,
I haven't seen you since you was a little shaver selling
lemonade at the Muzee." He cast an indulgent glance
toward Phil and Myrtle. But it was to Chick that
he addressed himself with kindly interest: "Was you
thinking of leaving New York?"
Chick was momentarily embarrassed, but Solly an
swered for him.
"You ought to 'a' been here, grandpa. The boy
here's a little sour on the game — hands us a line of
dope about how everybody gets it in the neck if they
stick around too long. Say, it was in my mind to
ask him how about you. Nobody ever got nothing on
you; did they, grandpa? You ain't got any kick at
how the world's been treatin' you ; have you, grandpa ?"
The bishop was placid, but before he could formulate
his answer Phil contributed to the conversation.
"The old reform-bug's bit him."
Myrtle turned on him.
"You should worry," she flared.
"Yeh," Solly mocked, as the humor of the situation
got the better of him ; "says he ain't never had a chance
because he wasn't raised up a rube. He ought to know
"SKY-BLUE" 65
somethin' about rubes like you do ; oughtn't he, grand
pa?"
"Was you aiming to go out in the country, son?"
"Yes."
Chick answered softly, still embarrassed somewhat.
It was all right for Solly to play the familiar with
this old man, but there was something about him, as
there is apt to be about any celebrity that one sees
for the first time, to cause the mind to recoil for a better
look. "Sky-Blue!" "The Bishop!" There were a
dozen other war names that belonged to this patriarch.
His fame extended from coast to coast. This, Chick
knew, but only in a general way. Now, here was the
great man himself — looking at him, taking a sympa
thetic interest in his plans.
Solly also diverted his interest to Chick.
"Say," he whispered from the side of his mouth,
"they ain't a bull in the world that'd dream o' hangin'
anything on grandpa !"
Before the interesting colloquy could develop further,
Eddie came back with the bishop's beverage on a
sloppy tray. In Eddie's face was a look of consterna
tion carefully held in check. Eddie set the drink on the
table and tentatively drew out the half-dollar the elder
had given him. But Eddie's opportunity to put in a
claim was deferred.
The bishop lifted the glass. He smelled it. He took
a copious swallow. He appeared to masticate the
liquid before it got down. He turned to Eddie with a
glint of rage so subdued and deadly and cold that even
Eddie winced.
66 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Git me the bottle !" the bishop commanded.
Eddie disappeared. He was almost instantly back,
bringing the bottle with him. Sky-Blue took this and
studied it patiently.
"It's Bacardi," he pronounced with mild surprise.
He pulled the cork. He decanted enough of the
liquor into his glass to make up for the swallow lie
had taken. He turned to Eddie.
"Leave it here," he said. "I'll settle with you later."
Eddie withdrew, but only as far as the next table,
which happened to be empty. There he paused long
enough to bounce his coin a couple of times on the
table-top.
The bishop refreshed himself with another swallow.
He was mellow. He was suave. He slowly wagged
his head. He watched, with a glint of kindly but
detached interest, while Eddie, responsive to an inspira
tion, slipped the bad coin into the return change of
a tipsy customer on the other side of the room. Then,
once again he addressed the group:
"The country's good. I've always found it pleas
ant." He went reminiscent. "My first wife was a
country girl — wooed her and wen her out in Missouri. "
"Was she " Solly began. He hesitated, possibly
for fear of committing an indelicacy.
But Sky-Blue, abstracted, nodded his head.
"Yes, that was her who later posed as the Princess
Clementine or something up in Duluth."
"Whatever became of her?"
"I don't know," the bishop drawled.
"Ain't she "
"SKY-BLUE" 67
"No; she divorced me, or I divorced her — I don't
remember which. The lawyers could tell you. There's
a bunch of rascals for you. I never could get the
straight of it. But, speaking about the country. I
was addressing a grange out in North Dakota not
more than two weeks ago. And — blooie, but it was
cold!" He drained his glass and, absent-mindedly,
filled it up again, this time with the Bacardi straight.
"And I spoke of the blessings of the country. One
of the most successful sermons I've got !"
"One of the what?" gasped Solly.
The bishop eyed him musingly.
"Solly, my child," he said, "you always was a
materialist."
Myrtle dared speak. "I was tellin' him the same
thing. I'm leaving for the country myself."
"A good idea," Sky-Blue averred, taking her in with
his bright and kindly eyes. "Oh, the great country !
It's so rich in sympathy ! Just let a bank president
out there, or somebody, know that you are a young
widder, genteel, and in reduced circumstances, and not
knowing which way to turn next ! Oh, this great and
generous land !" He turned once more to Chick. "But
you go alone, my son," he said gently. "What line
of reform was you aiming to manipulate?"
CHAPTER X
SNIFFING THE ASPHODEL
POSSIBLY for the first time in his life, Chick was let
ting his embarrassment get the better of him. He was
on strange ground. That was the trouble. But his
courage came to his rescue. He dared tell the truth
even to Sky-Blue.
"It ain't no line," he said. "I'm goin' straight.
That's all. I got a hunch that I can do it, too, but
only out in the country."
Neither Chick nor the bishop paid any attention to
Solly's snort of laughter nor Phil's reptilian smile.
Chick was looking at the bishop, and the bishop was
looking at his glass. He meditatively filled this from
the bottle again. He was about to raise the glass when
he halted his movement with a look of consternation.
"Where are my manners?" he exclaimed, apologet
ically.
He summoned Eddie with a finger.
"Why don't you take the orders of this lady and
these gentlemen?" he demanded reprovingly. "Bring
them — bring them — let's see — a bottle of your best
Catawba wine." He dismissed Eddie and momentarily
gave his attention to Myrtle. "I'm going to ask them
to make you a package of an extra bottle of that for
68
SNIFFING THE ASPHODEL 69
you to take away with you, and I want you to listen
to what I say. You take your bottle of Catawba wine
and open it and put in about a dozen tenpenny nails —
wrought nails — don't let them give you cut nails —
wrought nails! — and then cork your bottle and let it
stand for about a fortnight — a month would be better.
Got that? Catawba wine and then your wrought nails !"
"Yes," said Myrtle at a loss.
"Then, what's she to do with it, grandpa?'* Solly
inquired. "Poison the banker?"
The bishop ignored him.
"A dear old soul out in Juniata, Pennsylvania, gave
me that prescription," he said. "She had a daughter
that looked something like you, only she wasn't so
good looking, and I asked her, says I: 'How comes it
that Angelica,' says I, 'who used to be so slim and
white now looks like one of those corn-fed girls,' says
I, 'like they raise 'em where I come from,* I says, 'out
Cincinnati way ?' "
"Do you come from Cincinnati?" asked Myrtle.
"Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't," said the
bishop. "It all depends. Well, as I was telling you,
the dear old soul, she says, says she : 'I'm giving An
gelica a tonic,' and she tells me about that. So you
needn't be afraid of it doing you any harm, my child.
I've given the prescription to five thousand people if
I've given it to one; and all I ever got out of it was
a case of whisky from a liquor-house; but it did them
all good. Wine and iron! Nature's gift to suffering
man!"
70 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"You must do a lot of good," said Myrtle, to show
her gratitude.
The bishop emptied his glass. He made an atro
cious face, as the stuff went down, but he filled his
glass again.
"Solly," he said, "it's nothing to me, but suppose
you propose the smokes. You're looking fairly pros
perous."
"Gotcha," said Solly, and he playfully displayed a
small roll of bills. "Here, Eddie, take their orders
for the smokes."
The bishop was in a reverie as he saw Solly's money.
"You was sayin' " Solly suggested when Eddie
had gone.
"Oh, yes," said the bishop. But any one could have
seen that it was still several seconds before he fully re
covered his line of thought. "As I was saying, that's
the advice I'd give to any young man. Why stay
around where all the sinners flee to, when you can go to
a sweeter, purer clime, where the lambs ain't all grew
horns and whiskers yet nor learned how to eat tin
cans?"
"There's as many suckers here in New York, grand
pa, as there are billy-goats," laughed Sol; "or nanny-
goats either."
"Tell it to Sweeny," countered the bishop promptly.
He drained his glass, gathering philosophical force.
"You'll make a success of this reform business, my
son," he said, smiling at Chick. "You believe in good
ness. That's the secret of success." He laughed in
his beard. "Oh, this sweet, sweet appeal to benign flap-
SNIFFING THE ASPHODEL 71
doodle and mellifluous balderdash! But you must be
sincere. You must believe it yourself. Be good and
you'll be happy. Oh, how I suffered before I learned
the truth. Let us spread the truth to others not so
fortunate as us. Let us carry the sweetness of this
broad land to the besotted unfortunates of the wicked
Babylon, to the end that they also, brothers and sisters,
may be blessed like us and sniff the asphodel!"
"He's gettin' a little stewed," breathed Solly.
To Chick it seemed that there was a gleam of alert
intelligence in Sky-Blue's eye, notwithstanding the
ground for Solly's judgment. And the bishop himself
followed with the wise suggestion that they all be go
ing their several ways. Myrtle had her package of
wine. There was nothing more especially pressing
either to do or to talk about.
"Solly, my child," said the bishop, with a trembling
note in his voice that hadn't been there before, "I'm get
ting too old to trust myself, but I can trust you. Eddie,
here, is waiting to get back at me on account of that
little joke I played on him. We'll fool him again.
You settle and let me know how much it is. You
wouldn't lie to me about it. Would you, Solly?"
"What do you think?"
They went out on to the sidewalk, leaving Sollj to
follow.
The rain had stopped, but the night had continued to
be damp and unseasonably cool. Crowded up into a
dismal but more or less sheltered corner of the bar
room entrance they saw a little slum girl with an
72 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
armful of untidy flowers which she had evidently been
trying to sell. It was the bishop who saw her first.
'Well, well, well!" he exclaimed. "What have we
here?"
The little girl looked up at him. She had a smile in
her hollow eyes. She tried to repeat the formula of
her salesmanship. Her lips moved, but her voice was
inaudible.
The bishop thrust his fingers into various pockets.
He turned to Phil.
"She says her flowers are worth two dollars,"
he announced, with cheerful sympathy, all trace of
weakness now having disappeared. "Slip the little lady
two dollars — until I settle with Sol."
Phil was obedient to the higher law.
"There's your two dollars," said the bishop play
fully to the child. "Now you're free to go home.
Where'd you say it was?" He bowed his patriarchal
head until his ear was on a level with the little girl's
lips. "Ah, Cherry Street ! I shall have the honor of
sending you there in a cab."
And Chick remembered vaguely some tradition as
to why this old man had been called Sky-Blue. It was
because he was always doing things like this.
He saw the bishop summon the night-hawk cabby,
put the little maid into the vehicle — no, he wouldn't take
her flowers ; they had been rained on enough to freshen
them up, and the weather was cool, so that she could
sell them all to-morrow — and saw him give the cabman
a bill with a request that the cabman keep the change.
The bishop was in a softer mood than erer when
SNIFFING THE ASPHODEL 73
he returned from the little adventure. He was smiling,
but his eye was a little moist. He ignored Phil with
a slight hint of asperity. He seemed to be drawn
to Chick.
"See how little it costs to be kind — to spread a little
sweetness on our pathway through the world, as the
poet says."
"It looks to me like it sets you back quite a bit,"
said Chick.
Sky-Blue dropped his voice to a confidential tone.
"I'm going to let Phil keep that two dollars to his
credit," he said ; "and the child will get home in safety
— in safety and happiness — poor little sparrow, even
if that was a punk dollar bill I handed over to the jehu."
Solly came out and joined his friends.
"It was eight fifty, grandpa," he announced.
"What was?" the bishop inquired with polite in
terest.
"The drinks ; and I had to let out a roar to keep it
that low."
"Well, you were always good at that, Solly, when it
came to paying for anything. But I don't quite under
stand. I'm getting a little old. What's it all about?
You'll have to make yourself clear."
"You owes me eight fifty," said Solly. "Is that
clear?"
"Solly, my child," said Sky-Blue, with sincere re
gret, "I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you've
been a little fresh all evening, calling me 'grandpa*
and everything. Now, let us have an end of this non-
74 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
He turned to Chick.
"And that's the way of the world," he said, linking
his arm into that of the younger man. "There is a
scheme in things. Come on, Solly, and you, Phil. I'm
taking you all to supper. Don't be afraid. I have
a friend who will pay for it, and maybe show you
how to get a little stake. I knew you'd smile at that.
Good money ! Bad money ! We all get our share of
each, and what we get we pass along. You're right.
Go where the good money is — 'way back!"
"Way back! 'Way back!"
For a long time after he was alone that night.
Chick's mind was in confusion, a jumble of the words
and the phrases he had heard this day — from the lieu
tenant of police, from the old man who had been his
victim and his master, from his friends, from Sky-
Blue; a jumble of fragmentary pictures also — of the
back room of the Commodore, of a hill white with
bloom, of Solly's fat face, mocking but not unkind;
Phil's face, friendly but cruel; Myrtle's face, oddly
transfigured, as he had seen her last at the Pennsyl
vania Station when he bade her good-by; the face of
Ezra Wood ; the bishop's !
But through all this double confusion, like the sound
of a bell through the noises of a street came the echo :
" 'Way lack! 'Way back!"
He didn't know where he was going. It didn't mat
ter very much. The whole of America lay to the north
and west and south of him. He had given Myrtle about
all the money that he had, and he had a vague idea
SNIFFING THE ASPHODEL 75
that this was going to bring him luck. The pawn
shops would open at 7 A.M. — an hour fixed by the
police. Then he would pawn all he had. It wouldn't
yield him much, but it would be sufficient to carry him
far from New York, far from the only life he had ever
known, far from all the people he had ever known.
There, for a time, he regretted it a little that he
hadn't talked this thing over with old Ezra Wood. Or,
suppose that he himself went to Rosebloom.
No, everything that had thus far entered into his
life he would put behind him. New York had mauled
him, shaken him down, begun to eat him alive. He could
see it now.
He would begin all over again — like an innocent
babe among other innocents — 'way back!
CHAPTER XI
SPRING
THE whole country was busy about something. It
was an activity which paralleled and confirmed an
activity within himself. The idea kept coming back
to him wherever he went, and the further he went the
stronger the idea grew.
He went to the westward, slowly, by easy stages,
without any particular design. The big towns made
no appeal to him whatsoever. It was the open country
and the villages that ensnared his interest, set up a
vibration in his own heart that was in perfect accord
with the vast but muted tremolo of the cosmic orchestra.
The opening note of a new composition — a new sym
phonic poem.
Not all of a man's feelings are reduced to speech.
And for much of the time Chick's moods were wordless.
But all this was what he felt.
There was an underlying strain of philosophy and
poetry in his nature which he had always known existed
there. The wizard touch of old Ezra Wood had
identified it for him. That was all. What Chick saw
with his eyes translated itself largely in the words that
the old man had used in speaking of the country. There
76
SPRING 77
was that wider sense, however, that had nothing to do
with merely physical sensation.
"God's own country!"
The familiar phrase of a sometimes cheap and tawdry
patriotism took on a wider meaning1 and expressed
somewhat this feeling of harmony. And he drew on
other sources of expression — songs and sentiments that
had been planted in his heart 'way back in school-days.
He was not without education. No child of the New
York streets is.
My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free.
It was as if the seeds of a new growth had been
planted there — in some seer October, or in the dark
of some winter now past — and that these were now
springing up, covering everything with green, delivering
a promise of blossom and future harvest.
Chance, as much as anything, carried him a little to
the south as well as west — right toward the heart of the
country; or, if not its heart, at least its lungs — a
corpuscle going back in the veins of the body politic to
be revivified, although he didn't think of it that way.
Only that feeling that he was a part of some great
scheme persisted and made itself clear.
His course led him down through the Delaware Water
Gap, which is a region of wooded hills, carpeted valleys,
glimmering rivers and misty cascades. He had told the
truth when he said that he had never been out of
New York. Even New York he had never seen as
some people see it. New York was that screaming
78 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
monster where it was mostly night, where the skj was
frontiered by high roofs and smoke-stacks, or shut out
altogether by the "L."
There were times when Chick was telling himself that
he had never seen the sky before — not since some dimly
remembered past. You can't see the sky when your
business keeps your eyes on the things of the street.
Nor had he ever seen the earth before. The sidewalks,
the granite pavements, the asphalt, the slippery mosaics
and soiled carpets that his feet had hitherto trod — these
were not the earth.
He had been gone from New York for almost a
month. This particular night he had slept in the
open. He hadn't slept very much, but this was not due
to any lack of comfort. Discomfort could never keep
him awake. He had slept in all sorts of places, and
this place was better than any of them — under the low
boughs of a purple beech, where the grass none the less
grew fine and long, springy and thick, on the rim of
a wide valley that stretched away into hazy nothing
ness, as if this were the end of the world.
He had found this place at sunset, when he was
traveling on foot, decided, this time, to test the new
world of his discovery to the utmost. He had passed
many a night in New York City "out in the open" —
"flying the banner," as they called it, back there; and
what would it be like to "fly the banner" here in the
country? Now he had tried it, and he felt, as he had
never felt before, that he finally belonged to the open
places. He had been initiated. No longer was the
SPRING 79
country holding out on him. He knew the days. He
knew the nights.
At sunset, though, the whole valley had been so
flooded with red and golden light, especially straight
ahead of him, that many of the details of it had es
caped him. After that, it was the purpling twilight,
getting so thick that it floated the eyes of his head and
the eyes of his mind right up to where the stars were
coming out.
It was not until the dawn that he saw that there was
a town in the valley. It looked almost like his mental
picture of Rosebloom, the place old Ezra Wood came
from. He would have to see this town.
He took his time about his toilet.
It may have been the result of his night in the open
air, but there was a picnic-feeling in his heart — a feel
ing that engulfed him and permeated all things that
this was a holiday. There was a hint of happy ad
venture about it, as well. The birds were singing
about him as he washed himself in the rock wash-bowl
of a tiny brook. The birds were celebrating some
thing which was about to come to pass. He changed
his linen. He scrupulously brushed his clothes. He
polished his shoes with strands of grass.
"Be you a stranger in these parts?"
He turned and saw an old, old man at the top of a
tussocky slope. And, for all any one could have
judged from the appearance of him, the old man had
been there all the time, just like an old stump, or one
of those shy, wild creatures which know how to emerge
80 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
from a hiding-place and then rest silent and motionless
for hours.
"I sure be," the New Yorker replied. "And where
do you come from ?"
"Well now," said the ancient, "since you've asked
me, I ain't a goin' to tell you no lie. I just come from
the medder back there that Uncle Newt Parker stoled
from Henry Smith in 1882. Hold on, now. I don't
want to tell no lie. It wa'n't in 1882, neither. It was
in 1883. Yes, sir. It were in the fall of the year,
1883."
All the time that the ancient was saying this, he
kept his eyes gimleting the distance, as an aid to ab
struse thought.
"Live there?"
The native swung his small eyes on Chick with a
start.
"Where — the medder?"
"Yeh."
The ancient once more let his sight go into the far
places.
"Now, if you'd asked me in the first place where I
lived and not where I come from, I'd 'a' told you right
out. A fair answer fer a fair question. That's my
motto. That's what I was tellin' one of these here In
dian doctors who went through here last fall and
wanted to know if I ever suffered from chilblains. A
fair answer fer a fair question. Stranger, do you see
that town over there?"
"Yes. Is that where you live?"
SPRING 81
"Hold your horses. Hold your horses. I ain't
goin' to lie to you. I lived there once."
"What's the name of it?"
"Well, if they ain't changed it since I been there,
the name of that town over there, since you been ask
ing me, stranger, is St. Clair."
CHAPTER XII
"FLOWERY HARBOR"
RIGHT where St. Clair and the open country merged,
there was a large old frame house in a large old gar
den. Both showed signs of decay. There were gaps
in the white paling fence. The fruit and decorative
trees had all grown into black and scrawny old age.
There was a dry fountain — also white originally —
wherein a badly scarred infant throttled a swan. As
for the house, it could have known neither paint nor
carpentry for twenty years at least.
Yet the whole place still radiated a certain mellow
dignity, even a certain homely beauty — honeysuckle
running over the fence; a hundred varieties of flower
ing weeds and bushes drifting perfume and color else
where; wrens, robins, and martins contributing their
note of cheerfulness and life.
And that well-known truth that any man's home is in
the nature of a portrait of himself was amply exempli
fied in the present instance, when Colonel Evan Williams
appeared through the front door of the mansion.
He always called it a mansion.
For the colonel — call him that ; every one else did —
likewise suggested a sort of decorative decay. And he
was garbed in raiment singularly suggestive, to any
82
"FLOWERY HARBOR" 83
one with a grain of imagination, of the same state of
affair*. He and his clothes were equally well suited
to each other. There was nothing sordid about them —
nothing that wasn't dignified, yet homelike and
friendlj.
The colonel had a red face and a white mustache —
one of those antebellum mustaches, very heavy, that
descend far below the chin. He had a droopy blue
eye that was at once belligerent and jovial. His whole
face was jovial, albeit dignified — especially his nose,
which was inclined to be pendulous and was certainly
more highly colored than the rest of his countenance.
He must have been a man of splendid presence in his
day. In fact, there was still ample evidence of this,
but now he was inclined to sag a little, was a trifle
heayy on his feet — just like this old house of his.
He stood there at the top of the broad stoop like an
honored heirloom from another generation. He wore
a black slouch hat. He carried a gnarled, black
cane.
He appeared to be waiting for something, or to have
fallen into a reverie — you couldn't have told which,
from his drooping, thoughtful immobility. Then, with
a surprising hint of alertness, he cocked his head and
listened.
From somewhere in the back of the house there
sounded forth a girl's clear, strong soprano :
"He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never sound retreat ;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on !"
84 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Dear child! Sweet child!" the colonel murmured.
"If I could only spare you this!"
But there was an unmistakable craftiness about his
movements, and of judgment matured through bitter re
flection, in what followed. He was sentimental, but
no sentimentality could master him.
From the tail pocket of his frayed Prince Albert
he brought a rectangle of pasteboard. He had thought
of everything. It wasn't for nothing that he had
been reckoned one of the leading young lawyers of
the South. There was even a loop of string through
a hole in the pasteboard convenient for its suspension
on the old bell-pull. He hung the card in place.
He did this to the rousing chorus:
"Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!"
Still standing there, he drew a handkerchief, also
from a tail pocket — there were two of these pock
ets and each appeared to be big enough to bin a
sack of meal. He wiped his eyes. He blew his nose.
He returned the handkerchief to its place and brought
out, in turn, something that might have been a
flask.
"Medicine, sir ! — by my physician's order ! — the only
prescription you could induce a physician himself to
take!"
He kept his back turned while he tilted his head.
He cleared his throat. He returned the thing that
might have been a flask to the storage place at the
"FLOWERY HARBOR" 85
rear. He straightened up. He turned and marched
with becoming dignity down the decrepit steps.
And all who would might read that here in the man
sion there was a
ROOM TO LET.
It was the right and beautiful thing. You could tell
it bj the colonel's walk. Dignified, thoughtful, his
coat-tails swinging rhythmically, he passed on down the
garden walk to the unhinged front gate. He passed
on up the street.
It wasn't much of a street — just a sort of country
lane, formalized to some extent by other fences far
ther on and occasional bits of sidewalk. But such
houses as there may have been were mostly hidden by
trees and shrubbery.
A bluebird sang. There was a flash of red where
a cardinal passed. The whole country roundabout,
and, for that matter, the town itself except for two
or three church steeples, was smothered in bloom of
sorts — drifts of white and pink, where the apples or the
dogwoods, the peaches or the Judas-trees, were calling
to the bees. The bees and the birds — and that as yet
invisible girl — furnished about all the sound there was
— a world, therefore, set to music.
In spite of all this predicated solitude, the colonel's
sortie and his subsequent movements had, none the less,
been duly noticed — duly and severely noticed.
From the hedge of Osage orange, on the other side
of the street, a pair of eyes had studied him with all
86 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
the alert intelligence of a squirrel's. And these were
the eyes of Mrs. Meckley, who lived over there — in a
little cottage as carefully concealed and, you might say,
as arboreal, as any squirrel's house. A professional
widow, Mrs. Meckley — perpetually lonely, according
to what she herself always said, yet given to close
observation, and numerous calls.
"Room to let!" she cried to herself when she made
out the colonel's sign. "The old reprobate! The old
miser I"
She would have departed then to spread the tidings,
only, with a twinge of exquisite excitement, she saw
that her news budget was in a fair way of becoming
duly amplified.
"He's goin' in!"
This second comment was inspired by the sight of
a stranger — an event in itself sufficient to enrich any
day. The stranger had come into the street from the
direction of the open country. And yet there was a
certain citified air about him — as there usually was
about strangers, after they had been measured and
weighed by local standards.
The stranger carried a dress-suit case. His clothes
were rather badly worn and in need of pressing; still
there was an impression of nattiness about them — from
his velours hat, with the brim turned down on one side,
right on to his light-tan, cloth-topped shoes.
Mrs. Meckley saw him pause at the sagging gate,
saw him look after the retreating form of the colonel
as if half persuaded to run after him, then drop his
"FLOWERY HARBOR" 87
glance at a faded little plank at the side of the gate
which proclaimed that this was
FLOWERY HARBOR.
"By crickety," whispered Mrs. Meckley, becoming
profane in her excitement ; "he's goin' in !"
She wasn't mistaken.
Moreover, there was an odd suggestion of romance
not only in the stranger's youth and the fashion in
which he was dressed, but also in the way he appeared
to be impressed by all he heard and saw.
Just a vague impression that came to Mrs. Meckley,
something which hadn't escaped her bright and squirrel-
like eyes — her whole face and even her body were squir
rel-like — and yet something that she didn't wholly com
prehend.
CHAPTER XIII
AS SEEN AND OVERHEARD
ALVAH MORLEY, singing as she scrubbed the kitchen,
heard the door-bell ring — which wasn't surprising, in
view of the fact that the bell was mounted on a spiral
spring against the kitchen wall and was designed to be
heard throughout the house. She stopped short in the
middle of a "hallelujah." She sat back on her heels
and looked at the bell with the most perfect astonish
ment, as at a phenomenon that had never occurred
before.
But her astonishment held her for only a second or
two.
While the bell was still jangling she scrambled to her
feet, and untied the apron that enveloped her.
She was nineteen or so, slim, plain rather than
pretty, with straw-colored hair and not very rich in
color otherwise — still with a measure of that beauty
which always goes with youth and flushed excitement.
She looked down at her skimpy, blue calico dress.
It was clean at any rate. Her black shoes and stock
ings were passable. They were, for this time of day
when folks were supposed to be working, anyway.
But who could be ringing the door-bell at this hour?
She ran over to a corner of the kitchen where there
88
AS SEEN AND OVERHEARD 89
were a towel and a small looking-glass and other toilet
accessories. She jerked some water into an enameled
basin from a half-filled bucket. She rinsed her hands
and smoothed her hair, all with a nervous energy so
speedy that she had completed the operation by the
time that the old bell was just quivering back into
silence.
Around in front, the stranger who had rung the bell
stood there at the top of the rickety stoop and pa
tiently waited. He knew that there was some one
home. There had been the song of the girl. He knew
that his ring had been heard. He had heard it him
self — and the song had stopped. And he didn't even
wonder what the girl looked like. Nor did he greatly
care.
So there was a room to let in Flowery Harbor!
Some name ! And that old gent with nerve enough to
take a swig on his front door-step and still swing his
coat-tails like that would most likely be the landlord.
Say, this old man was human!
He stood there like that with the smell of honey
suckle in his nose and the echo of the girl's voice still
in his ears and a propitious impression of the colonel
on the surface of his brain.
He felt the first subtle creep of a hunch he had been
waiting for.
"I — I — beg your pardon!'*
He turned.
Some instinct of caution — or some other instinct less
easily defined — had sent Alvah to scurrying around the
side of the house through the garden instead of through
90 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
the gloomy interior of the house itself. She stood there
now at the corner of the building — there where the
mossy brick path passed under a tunnel more or less
well defined of clematis, syringa and lilac.
"How do you do?" said the stranger.
He had set his suit-case down. He jerked his right
hand to his hat, but he left the hat in place. This was
no lady standing over there. This was nothing but
a kid.
"How do you do?" said the kid, plainly at a loss.
"Is your mother in?"
"No, sir."
"I came to see about the room. Maybe you can tell
me about it."
"What room?"
"Say, do you live here?"
"My home is in Bangor, Maine."
"Well, do you work here, then? I want to find out
about this here room."
"There's nobody home."
"You said it! No, honestly! Ain't nobody here?"
All this was just nuts and candy for old Mrs. Meek-
ley across the way. She could get most of the con
versation by straining a lot, and she was straining.
"The girl's a flirt," she passed judgment. "She
ought to be switched."
"Only me," Alvah was saying.
Despite the sagacious deduction of Mrs. Meckley
from what had already transpired, Alvah had an ap
pearance of timidity — of timidity touched with doubt
and not a little fear, as if she were not quite certain
AS SEEN AND OVERHEARD 91
but that she was in the presence of some one slightly
deranged. She was reassured to some extent, however,
by the stranger's next move.
He calmly seated himself on the none-too-solid rail
ing of the stoop.
"Good night !" he exclaimed, in spite of the manifest
morning. "When are you expecting the old gent
back?"
"He was going to the post-office. He won't be long."
"Birdie's there with the goods this time, anyway.
All right, Birdie. I'll wait."
Greek to Alvah; but nothing unpleasant about it.
Now that the stranger wasn't looking at her, she could
look at him. She discovered that he wasn't hard to
look at. His face rather fascinated her. He cer
tainly had wonderful eyes. His voice and his lan
guage were unmistakably American, but he looked like
a- foreigner.
She dared advance a step.
As she did so, she saw that there was something sus
pended on the bell-pull. She advanced some more.
The next time that the stranger looked at her he saw
that she was standing as if hypnotized, staring at the
announcement that here there was a room to let. There
was a touch of drama in her appearance that did not
escape him — the unaffected pose of her slight frame,
her hands folded against her meager breast ; and he no
ticed, without exactly appraising them, the fine line of
her cheek and chin, the whiteness and nobility of her
forehead. All this, nevertheless, with a touch of con-
92 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
descension on his part — as an older and wiser person
annoyed by the persistent ignorance of a dull child.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"That sign — it isn't so — some one put it there for
a joke."
"I guess you got another think," he said, without dis
courtesy. "I see the old gent hangin' it up himself not
ten minutes ago."
"My uncle?"
"Gee, it takes a long time to get it across. Sure!
The old gent that just came out of here. What's the
matter?"
The girl had continued to stare at the sign, with
scarcely another glance for the visitor. But now she
looked at him, squarely, the while a warmer coloring
came into her face and a shadowy brightness into her
hitherto rather cool, gray eyes.
"You are certain you saw my uncle put that sign
there?"
"Sure ! That's what I'm tellin' you— takes it out of
his pocket and hangs it up just before he beats it up
the street. I ain't stringin' you."
"But, oh, he didn't mean it."
She was no longer afraid of the stranger. She ran
lightly up the stoop. She took the sign from the place
where it hung, hid the letters of it against her breast.
"What's the idea?" the young man inquired, softly,
with a direct invitation to confidence. "What's wrong?
Ain't he got a right to rent a room if he wants to? Is
the place so overcrowded? Has everybody got too
much coin? Or don't he own the house? Or what?"
AS SEEN AND OVERHEARD 93
The questions merely bewildered the girl. At the
same time it was evident that most of them went home.
"You don't understand," she answered, appealingly.
"You said it."
"My uncle's not always himself."
The confession hurt her ; still, some sort of explana
tion was in order.
"You mean he's sort of hittin* up the booze?"
Her troubled eyes were her only answer. It was
affirmation enough.
"You don't want to let that worry you, Mabel "
"My name is Alvah — Alvah Morley."
"Glad to meet you, Alvah. That's what I'm tellin'
you. The old gent looked all to the good to me."
"He's the finest man in the world," the girl flamed
from the midst of her trouble. "Only, there are times
like the present when he does things that he wouldn't
do — if — only "
"Look " the stranger began.
Hnt there came a diversion. The girl, with an ex-
clamation^o^^mingled relief and consternation, ran
down the steps> She was out of the gate. She had
seen her unck coming back from the post-office.
All this was as good as a play to Mrs. Meckley, orer
there behind her screen of Osage orange.
CHAPTER XIV
MR. RICHARD DA VIES
THE youth on the stoop had had a moment of hesita
tion. He came down the steps, however, and met the
girl and the old gentleman half-way to the gate.
"Ah!" the old gentleman exclaimed.
"I see the sign. I come in. I ring the bell "
"I told him " the girl began.
"Sir, I have the honor"; and the old gentleman, re
moving his hat and thrusting his stick under his arm,
offered his hand.
There was a suggestion in the move that "got to"
the stranger, as he himself would have said — got to
him in a pleasant sort of way. The stranger had also
pulled his hat, had taken the proffered hand, had done
this with a quick but not ungraceful bow.
"Permit me to introduce myself," said the elder, "al
though that may not be necessary. I am rather widely
known. Perhaps you have heard of the Williamses.
We've had a fairly active part in the history of our
country."
"Sure ! Everybody's heard about the — Williamses."
"I am Evan Williams."
"Glad to meet you, colonel."
"Ah! I see that you are familiar with my honorary
title."
04
MR. RICHARD DA VIES 95
"Sure!" replied the young man, who didn't under
stand.
"And may I be so bold as to ask you to refresh my
memory? It seems to me that we have met."
"I don't believe so, colonel."
"Your name is?"
There was a perceptible pause.
"My name?"
They were still locking hands in the original grasp.
Their eyes had met.
"Davies," the young man answered.
"A splendid name ! One that makes you doubly wel
come, sir. I dare say the Williamses and the Davies
were fighting side by side long centuries ago."
"I'll take your word for it."
"And your Christian name, if I may ask?"
"Richard !"
"Richard Davies! Why, sir! Is it possible? You
are doubtless a descendant of that celebrated Bishop
Richard Davies — do you recall? — whom Queen Eliza
beth called her 'second St. David.' "
"You may be right, at that."
"For you are Cymric. Pardon the personality, but
I could tell it by your appearance even if it were not
for your fine old Cambrian name."
"Do I get the room?"
"I shall be delighted. Let us inspect the premises,
Mr. Davies."
"Uncle!"
Colonel Williams turned to his niece with mellow good
humor.
96 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"What will the neighbors say?" she demanded, con
fused.
"Say! A most stirring event! A Davies become
a guest in the house of a Williams ! A Celtic reunion !
Didn't I tell you all the time that it would be well
with us if we accepted a lodger or two ? Come in, sir !
We'll seal our acquaintance as gentlemen should !" He
made a pawing movement with his hand to assure him
self that his flask was in the old familiar place. " 'Tis
none too early in the morn to touch the lyre!'*
There was space enough in the Williams mansion
for many guests.
Beyond the front door there was a broad hall, high
and long, up two sides of which ran a flight of steps to
the second floor. Four large rooms opened off the hall.
"On the left, the drawing-room," said the colonel,
while Alvah Morley looked on, wide-eyed, shrinking,
yet with a touch of rebellion in her attitude. "On the
right, the library. Back of the drawing-room, our
parlor or living-room, and opposite that, the dining-
room. I regret the absence of servants, and my in
ability to keep the place up."
"It looks good to me," breathed Mr. Richard Davies.
"As soon as I can get the estate settled — the estate
of my brother, Abner, sir, to which I have devoted,
not unwillingly, the best years of my life, I shall pro
ceed to the refurnishing of the house."
"It looks good to me,'* the one-time Chick repeated.
He was glad now that he had given his one and only
true name to the old gentleman. The hall reared its
gloomy grandeur about him. There were no carpets
MR. RICHARD DA VIES 97
on the floor. The paper on the wall was stained by
time and leakage, for it was evident that the roof of
the mansion was no longer at its best. But there was a
solemnity about this acceptance of him in a home like
this that at once weighed upon him and lifted him up.
The place not only looked good to him; it looked al
most too good.
"There's only one thing, colonel," he broke out softly,
as soon as the girl had disappeared into the cavernous
shadows at the rear of the hall ; "you haven't said any
thing about the price."
"Of what, sir?"
"The room."
"My dear sir, you are my guest as long as you care
to remain. I am honored."
"Oh, say!"
"Not a word, sir!"
The colonel also had noticed the retirement of his
niece. He cast a further glance to assure himself that
they were alone. He brought his flask from its hiding-
place. He uncorked it, elaborately wiped its gullet
with his hand.
"As our ancestors did under Rhodri Mawr !" he in
vited.
"Not for mine ! I'm on the wagon."
"You mean?"
"Thanks ! I'm leavin' it alone."
"Sir, I honor you. But, thirty years ago, my physi
cian — it was "
"Look out," the younger man whispered. "There's
the young lady !"
98 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
The colonel cleared his throat and put the bottle
away.
It was to a bedroom on the second floor that Mr.
Richard Davies eventually carried his suit-case — a
room that was larger than the back room of the Com
modore, near Chatham Square ; and there were windows
in it that gave both on the old garden and on the far
country beyond.
"It looks good to me," said the lodger.
Looked good to him? It all looked so good that it
almost hurt. This was the thing he had come out to
find. Lonely? Sure! Ever since he had left New
York. But he wasn't going to weaken. Not yet!
Maybe, after a while he'd duck. Maybe! Why not
con himself along? Maybe, after a while, he'd just
naturally get sick of trying to make a living by selling
soap, or other things, and nick some rube for his roll —
for keeps, this time!
And then, right then, from the combination of all
the things that were coming to him through the open
window — sky and earth, air and bird-song — came some
thing that recalled old Ezra Wood, not as a rube, but
as a white and shining giant who had exerted a strange
influence over him.
It was almost as if he could hear that good old
man speak again:
"The Lord have pity on us all!"
"Every day 'most a hundred years long, each year a happy
lifetime."
"If he'd stayed in the country we might have saved him"
MR. RICHARD DA VIES 99
"Ah, hell !" he said. "This is fierce ! I wonder what
Phil and Solly are pullin' to-day? And old Sky-Blue?
And Myrtle?"
'Way back?
Say! This was it. 'Way back a million miles!
And he had become Mr. Richard Davies. He was
glad that he had laid that name aside and kept it clean
— laid it aside so many years ago that he could hardly
remember when ; but he did remember, indistinctly, the
dark-eyed woman who had been his mother, and, more
indistinctly yet, mistily, the gray specter who had been
his father ; the specter of a distinguished man who had
been Mr. Richard Davies also. Then the night of flame
and smoke wherein his parents disappeared. They
must have been living in a poor neighborhood. Old
Denny, the wood-merchant, had become his foster-par
ent, and that was when he was eight years old.
"Mr. Davies!"
The girl was calling him.
He stepped over to the door so swiftly, and opened
it so deftly, that it frightened her.
"My uncle wants to know," she recited, "if you will
do us the honor of taking tea with us."
"Sure ! Much obliged."
"It'll be at about dark," she said. "Uncle likes to
eat his supper by candle-light."
"Tell him I'll be there, and much obliged."
He stood there at his door and watched her go
away, a pale shape disappearing in the shadows to
ward the back of the upper hall. Now that he thought
of it, he somehow or other felt sorry for this kid.
CHAPTER XV
UP THE STREET
BUT, also, he felt sorry for himself. He couldn't help
it. There was something about this very room that
recalled that vaguely remembered home of his child
hood when his parents were still alive — bare walls with
broken plaster, no carpet on the floor, a somewhat
caved-in bed in the corner of the room. There was
even something reminiscent in the flowers, the greenery,
and the bird-song.
He guessed the truth.
There was a geranium on the window-sill of that
earlier home. A neighbor had a canary in a cage.
He pulled off his shoes. He partly undressed him
self. He cast a longing gaze at the bed. It seemed
to him that he hadn't slept since leaving the old town
back there, and he always did prefer sleeping in the
daytime. A dreaminess drew him. He wasn't hungry.
He had eaten a hearty meal not much more than an
hour ago, at a farmer's house, a mile or so back along
the road, and the farmer had refused to take a cent
for his hospitality. None the less, memory of this meal
brought up a hundred souvenirs of savory Chinese and
Italian dishes in the city he had left. Wouldn't it be
100
UP THE STREET 101
great, after all, to wake up and find a dish of chow-
mein at his side?
He crawled onto the bed and let himself go.
He slept the afternoon away. And, instantly, when
he awoke, there flashed into his thought a clear and
concise record of the girl of this house, and of the
colonel, her uncle, and of the house itself. The record
brought with it a little mental groan. What was he
that he should thus let them think that he was their
equal? That he should take a room in this house of
theirs? Set himself up as the son, or the grandson,
or something, of a bishop?
The only answer to these questions was a pang of
homesickness so poignant that he could have wept.
Then he listened to the silence, and the silence weighed
upon him as the earth might weigh upon the chest of a
man buried alive. There for a minute or so the silence
was absolute. Not even a bird twittered. Not a wheel
turned. No one spoke.
"I got to get back," he whispered. "I'll stick it out
a day or so longer. But I got to get back !"
He crept over to the window in his bare feet and
looked down into the garden. He saw Alvah Morley
down there. She was picking flowers. He saw that
she had changed her dress. He wondered why. And
he noticed that she wasn't such a kid as he had be
lieved her to be. More like a school-teacher she was —
a white cotton dress, fresh and crinkly from the wash,
her straw-colored hair drawn back in a smooth knot
and ornamented with a blue silk ribbon.
What if she knew the sort of life he had led !
102 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
He wondered where her uncle was. The colonel
might hit up the booze, but he was none the less the
gentleman. "What am I to rub elbows with him?
Even if I am Mr. Richard Davies !" And wasn't the
colonel a prince when it came to speaking English?
He was !
"My uncle hasn't come home yet," said the girl, as
he came down-stairs after a while. "I suppose that
we shall have to wait for him — unless you're in a
hurry."
"Me in a hurry? Say, what do you do around here
at night?"
"After supper we talk — sometimes — and sometimes I
try to play the organ, only it's not in very good condi
tion. Sometimes I read to uncle. Sometimes he reads
to me."
There was almost always that provisional sometimes
in all she said. As she spoke, moreover, she turned,
now with acute expectancy, again with lingering pa
tience, to look in the direction whence she expected her
uncle to appear.
"Where's he gone — the post-office again?"
"He can't have gone to the post-office," said the
girl, "for St. Clair only gets one mail a day, and that's
the first thing in the morning."
The sun had gone down. It was getting so dark that
Mrs. Meckley, from behind her screen of Osage orange,
could not make out much any more but two dim figures,
one of them pale and one of them dark, seated on the
steps of the stoop across the way.
"Scandalous, I call it," she repeated — repeated it
UP THE STREET 103
over and over, always as if with the lurking hope that
the phrase would serve as an incantation to bring some
thing scandalous about.
The crickets had been singing since a long time —
a chirring pulsation of sound, as if it were the sound
of a mill which itself was manufacturing the material
of the night. Now and then a frog croaked in. And,
across the deepening blue where the stars were begin
ning to shimmer, a few bats zigzagged, reeled, wavered
swiftly out of sight.
"Do you want me to go and find out where he is ?"
Davies asked.
The girl shook her head.
"Aren't you afraid somethin' might 'a' happened to
him?"
She sat motionless. It was so dark by this time that
he could not see her expression. If she had answered,
he had not heard.
"What are those queer little chippies scootin' around
up there?"
Her voice reached him, strangled.
"Those are bats."
The conversation lapsed.
"Say," he exclaimed at last; "I don't want you to
think I'm fresh, or trying to butt in; understand?
But I sort of feel that the colonel's a friend of mine;
see? And I'm going out to look for him."
"Will you?" she panted. "Oh, if I were a man !"
"I'm a man! What's the answer?"
The clairvoyance of the strain she was under helped
her to understand.
104 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"There's a place — you go up this street to the sec
ond corner, and then you turn to your left until you
come to the last building on the left. I'm sure he's
there."
"I'll just tell him you're sort of waiting."
"He may not want to come home."
"They never do. But, say " He started to
explain that he had been handling booze-fighters all
his life, both friend and foe, but he checked himself.
The girl wouldn't understand. He wound up by won
dering where he had left his hat.
She brought it to him.
"Don't weaken," he said. "Keep a stiff upper lip."
"I will," she whispered.
But say, he wondered, what could it be like when the
girl was all alone and the old gent out on a spree like
this. He could see it all. The colonel had begun to
get his spree properly started early in the day —
maybe the night before, as it usually happened.
One thing was sure. He himself was feeling uncom
monly fit. Apart from the fact that he was a little
hungry, he had never felt in better shape in his life.
This training out in the country was sure the real thing.
His wind was perfect. His muscles had suppled up
and hardened. The long sleep of the afternoon had
ironed out his nerves. It was a pity that there wasn't
a mill on with an open challenge. Say, feeling like
this, he could just about lick anything between welter
and light-heavy.
He was so absorbed in his thought, and the general
fragrant quality of the night, that he barely noticed
UP THE STREET 105
what there was to be seen of this town he had stumbled
into. Not much to be seen, anyway — a few lighted
windows dimly visible through black bushes and trees, a
smelly grocery store dimly lit by a kerosene-lamp, a
white church closed and dark, more houses in the midst
of yards, then a barber-shop, and this was the second
corner the girl had mentioned.
He turned to the left.
It was the supper-hour, evidently, and every one in
doors. He didn't meet a soul. Say, if the yeggs ever
did discover this burg, it would be good-night-nurse for
the local bank or anything else they'd want to crack.
But the air was sure all right.
He breathed deeply. He was feeling so good that
he shadow-boxed a little. He may have been Welsh,
as the colonel had declared him to be. And the Welsh
have the reputation of being a mystic race.
Was there some divine urge in all this^spontaneous,
unconscious preparation? And preparation for what,
if not for some sort of a combat as Richard Davies —
his right name — just now in his heart had hankered
for?
He had just come in sight of what must have been
the place the girl had mentioned, the last building up
this street, brilliantly lighted as compared with the
rest of the town by a number of oil-lamps with reflec
tors. A road-house or hotel, apparently well-patron
ized, with a dozen muddy autos and farm-wagons
parked along its front. But what Davies particularly
noticed was that there was a row in progress at that
end of the building devoted to its bar.
106 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
He could hear the squabble of voices and laughter.
He could catch a fleeting effect of shadows on the
window — shadows that moved rapidly. He felt an in
stant surge of something almost like happiness, at first.
This was the life. Say, this was almost like the Bow
ery. And he started to run.
But he was still a dozen yards from the door of the
barroom when the nature of the thing that was hap
pening struck him full tilt, stopped him and stopped
his breath.
A familiar figure was being hustled through the
door. That was the colonel they were flinging out, as
Davies saw.
The colonel was flung out. He stumbled. He fell.
He rolled.
"Oh!" A quick intake of the breath; and Davies
felt as if he himself had been fouled — kicked — hit be
low the belt!
CHAPTER XVI
AGAINST ALL COMERS
THE colonel's slouch hat and his cane followed him —
followed him so fast that they were in the dirt of the
road at the colonel's side even before Davies himself
got there.
He was enough of the fighter, both instinctive and
trained, not to lose his temper. Anyway, it wasn't
anger that was actuating him yet so much as sorrow.
In that spectacle of the old man thrown into the street
he saw the wreck of a lot of things — of pride and edu
cation, and of the affectionate hopes of that girl —
that poor little kid — who was waiting now, all dressed
up in her picnic clothes, back there in the big old
house.
He was at the old man's side before the colonel him
self could make a movement of recovery.
"Are you hurt?"
"Alvah!"
"This ain't Alvah. This is your old friend, Dick.
Gimme your hand. What did those bums do 'to you?"
He wasn't asking the question for information pre
cisely. He had seen well enough what had been done
to the colonel. But he had to say something while he
107
108 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
was getting the colonel to his feet — had to do it to stifle
his own mind if for no other reason.
The door of the barroom was becoming jammed by
those who wanted to get the most out of the spectacle.
Some had been pushed out of the door even, by friends
behind who were struggling to get a better view. Most
of the spectators were convulsed. This was the fun
niest thing they had seen for a long time. Gus sure
had landed the colonel on his ear. But had you seen
the colonel try to fight back? This would be a good
lesson for the old rummy. Him talking about his
honor! — and fighting duels! Some one should have
landed him on his ear before.
Davies heard all this. The colonel must have heard
it, too. The colonel was meek and humiliated. He
wasn't greatly hurt in a physical way. None the less
he had become the tottering old man. He hadn't been
so drunk after all, or perhaps the misadventure had
sobered him. Anyway, he cast a look of such utter
chagrin, shame, weakness, appealing despair at this one
last friend he had left in the world, that Davies felt
something crack inside his heart.
He turned and walked straight over toward the
group at the barroom door. He was so calm, and
smooth, and swift that no one could have suspected
what was up. Besides, Davies wasn't looking at any
one in particular. His dark eyes were off at a slant.
Still, he could see everything.
He saw the two nearest members of the jovial mob.
They were both big men as to weight and stature.
Both were laughing.
AGAINST ALL COMERS 109
"Go on and laugh !" Davies advised.
He swung with his right and gave a straight-arm
jolt with his left. The right landed on whiskers and
a jaw. The left went on and on into the region of a
solar plexus, but finally stopped against a weight so
heavy that it was all he could do to push it over.
At that, he still had time and strength to shove an
open-handed jab into another grinning face and jerk
his elbow up under the chin of some one else.
"Laugh, you bunch of mutts!"
"He's hit the commissioner! Kill him!"
"Git out o9 my way!"
"Grab him., boys! Get him! Look out! You're
walk-in' on Mr. Crane!"
"Fit learn you to rough-hou$e, yuli stiffs!"
"Look out, ding-dern ye! Help!"
But it was not until he was in the barroom itself that
Davies clearly perceived what he had come to seek.
There was already a movement among those who had
lingered at the bar to join the riot at the door. Davies
had an eye for these. He sized them up en masse. He
saw that they could have made up the average bar
room crowd almost anywhere — in New York as much as
in any village — riffraff, heavy respectables, light
weight sports and weaklings. But it was not for these
that his attention was predestined.
He saw the bulking form of a man dressed in dirty
white, bullet-headed, thick in the neck, making his
way around the end of the bar, and he needed no label
at all to tell him that this was the original victor in
the fight with the colonel.
110 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Everything had been going so fast that there had
been no time as yet for readjustments.
They were still jostling each other over at the door
trying to get a line on what had happened. Those at
the bar were only sure of one thing, thus far, and that
was that the colonel had been thrown out on his neck.
Gus had told them so. And Gus himself may have
thought that this fresh throb of excitement back of
him was merely some sort of a fresh demonstration
of enthusiasm for the prowess he had shown.
Then the lightning struck.
It was blinding at first — dazzling — making it hard
to see just what had happened.
But Gus seemed to know. Rough-house, as he him
self would have said, was his middle name. Nature had
endowed him with the thews and the constitution of
a bull, yet he had passed his life in saloons — in labor-
camps and mill-towns, in the black valleys of Penn
sylvania, along the waterfronts of Boston, Clereland,
San Francisco.
"Loofc out!"
Some one at the bar had that much sense.
Gus ducked. He turned a little to see that a stran
ger had entered the bar, and that the stranger was
out for blood. Why hadn't some one tipped him off
that the colonel had a son or something — somebody
who was likely to come back? The slob had almost
pasted him one while his back was turned.
But Gus was equal to the occasion — or thought that
he was. He slid his bulk back of the bar, still crouch
ing, conscious that on occasions like this somebody
AGAINST ALL COMERS 111
was likely to shoot. He hoped that the mirror wouldn't
be smashed. Still, it was better to have a smashed mir
ror than a bullet through the neck.
While all this was glancing through his elemental
mind, his big paw had nevertheless shot out in the direc
tion of his bung-starter — a slender mallet of heavy
wood and a weapon as he had been trained to.
But he didn't get the chance to use it.
That enemy of his also knew something about bar
room tactics — knew that there was apt to be an arsenal
of sorts behind the wet counter. Say, this was just
like a gang-fight, only he would have to be the gang
all by himself.
And Davies took a short cut in an effort to reach the
arsenal first. He slid right over the bar and landed
on his feet. The next moment he had his two hands
locked on the big barkeep's throat and was pushing
him back toward the open.
It was desperate work — a welterweight against a
heavy and no room to manoeuver about in.
Gus flailed and kicked.
"I show you!"
"Will yuh?"
There was a crash of glass jangling down from a
polished pyramid of glasses that had stood on the
shelf back of the bar, and a trickle of red from the
side of Gus's face.
And there they were in the open.
They stood there, face to face, a couple of yards
between them, in the middle of the barroom — sawdust
IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
on the floor, a drift of blue tobacco-smoke in the air,
a subsidence of racket and confusion about them.
In the midst of it all, Davies heard a number of
voices :
"Rush him!"
"Git the marshal!"
"Git a gun! Git a roper
It was evident that he wasn't going to have very
much time to do whatever he had to do. A look of
pain came into his face. He grabbed his left shoulder
with his hand, lurched a little. A feint!
Gus rushed him, believing the stranger already hurt.
As he did so, however, Davies sidestepped and met
him with a left hook to the chin. Then he heaved all
his strength and weight into another right swing for
the big man's neck. He landed.
Something whirled past Davies's head and smashed
itself against the wall. Then the mob was invading
the ring.
"Missed him! Rush him! Help! Help! 'K'out, er
tfll be hittin' Gust"
Davies's mind flashed him a picture of something
like this that had happened before — a mill in a frowzy
little fighting club, and the favorite getting the worst
of it, and then the riot, with himself and his seconds
fighting against such odds as these.
CHAPTER XVII
THE PEACE ANGEL
HE did now what he did then. He zigzagged, too
shifty and quick for anything to hit him except by
accident. He didn't have far to go. And he had a
chair. Just in time to wallop it down on the back
of Gus's neck and shoulders, and the chair collapsed.
So did Gus — for the moment he did — sprawled right on
in the direction he had been going, legs spraddling,
hands out.
Here is the thing that stamped itself on Davies's
mind:
Gus was falling just as the colonel had fallen. Yea,
bo, Gus had got his !
A long way of stating — and yet the only way to
state it — the concept of an instant.
And then the crowd, as much as Davies himself, was
aware that the collapsed chair was a very dangerous
weapon — more dangerous than it was before it col
lapsed., for Davies had jerked it apart.
He flung the back of it like a whirling boomerang,
and, before he heard the shattering of the mirror —
if he heard it at all — he had jerked the solid seat
of the chair straight into the welter of shapes in
front of him. What he did with the rest of the chair
113
114 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
he never did exactly know. But there he was, at last,
with a leg of the thing in his hand — and also the pain
ful but certain knowledge in his brain that the next
step might be murder.
He was ready for it. There are times when no man
can turn back. This was one of them.
There was a momentary truce, at any rate.
"The next of youse guys," he panted, "who makes
a false move — gets this!"
There was sufficient inspiration for a truce, es
pecially on the part of the crowd — this stranger
standing there like a black panther at bay, Gus
sprawled on the floor, three or four other friends and
neighbors scattered about bruised and bleeding, the
big bar-mirror splintered, glasses smashed, all this as
the swift sequence of a little low comedy natural to
the ejection of an undesirable old customer.
But the truce couldn't possibly, in the nature of
things, last very long. Another explosion was bound
to follow. And one did.
Only it wasn't the kind they had looked for.
Davies saw it first. His attention had to be every
where. The attention of the others was concentrated
on him only.
He saw old Colonel Evan Williams coming in through
the outer door, which was open. He saw that the
colonel was not alone — saw that he was accompanied
by Alvah Morley, his niece — and that Alvah, still in
her picnic dress and without a hat, her straw-colored
hair tied with a blue ribbon, was very stiff and very
white. She was just like a dead girl who had come
.THE PEACE ANGEL 115
to life and come walking into this place to make men
feel ashamed of themselves.
She came accompanied by music, so far as Davics
was concerned. In the tomblike silence that wallowed
over everything1 and everybody like a descent of noise
less water, he could hear a fine, remote, phonographic
record of that song she had sung in the morning:
"Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!"
She stared about her, whitely. She saw Davies,
spoke to him with all emotion repressed:
"I am sorry that I let you come for my uncle. I
waited a while, then thought that I had better come my
self.'*
She was making a simple explanation. Her voice
was cold and clear, soft yet penetrating.
Some one bawled:
"You'd do better to keep him hum."
The girl gave a slow glance in the direction the
voice came from, and silence descended again. Once
more she turned to Davies.
"Go on!" he adjured. "It's all right. Take the
colonel home ! I'll 'tend to this mob !"
All the time that he spoke — and his sentences came
out sharp and fast — he scattered his glances over the
others in the room. Some were looking at the girl.
Some looked at him. There was a tremor of suspended
action. Peril in the air.
Yellow light. Sawdust floor, with Gus sprawled in
116 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
the center of it. Bar in the background. A stupid,
bewildered crowd.
Tragedy ! Drama !
Say, was this the village of St. Clair or the big
man-eating, soul-mauling city whence he had fled? It
was a thought that frightened him, right then and there,
in the midst of all this excitement.
The crowd scuffled and muttered.
"Serves 9m right!"
"Who right?"
"Gust"
"The colonel /"
"What's happened?"
"What's 'at she says?'9
"Qwt jwsltin'."
And then, Davies, thinking that he saw a movement
to crowd the girl, jumped forward with his stick.
"Git back !" he grated, "er I'll send yuhs all to hell!"
There was a brief stampede which gave him elbow
room. Yet the crowd was growing, swelled by fresh
arrivals from other parts of the building and the street
outside.
"This gentleman is my friend," the colonel cried.
"Take him out," Davies told the girl.
She eyed the crowd. She looked at him. All this
was transpiring in lurid moments. The girl had put
out her hand to his arm. There may have been some
slight hint that she was losing her splendid grip on
herself.
"I found him outside," she said. "He was trying to
THE PEACE ANGEL 117
get in. He wouldn't go without you. Are you ready
to leave?"
Davies, still ready for action, eyed the crowd.
"Sure!"
Some one else spoke up.
"He don't leave here except he's dead er grin' to
jati!"
Again the girl turned.
"You needn't hide, Sam Bosely ! I suppose your
folks will be glad to know you were here drinking
again when you swore you wouldn't, and that on your
bended knees."
"I did not," snarled Sam.
But there were cries of "Shut up!" and "Get out
of the way."
A number of the citizens were salving the fallen
barkeeper. In the midst of their efforts, Gus — under
his own power, so to speak — got up as far as a sitting
position.
"Bring him some whisky!"
Gus let out a roar: "Nobody go behind that bar
but me."
He moaned and rocked. He felt the back of his
head.
The girl was letting her cool eyes focus on face
after face. Some of the men she looked at backed
away and made ready to depart.
"Beat it," said Davies. "This is my scrap. I
don't need any help."
"This is my battle, sir," the colonel broke in.
There may have been those present who thought that
118 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
this was a signal for a resumption of the comedy. It
was about time for a reaction. And they were right in
a way, but not altogether. The colonel had broken
away from his niece. He was completely sobered.
That was evident. He stood there solidly, with his
feet wide apart, his gnarled cane gripped in one hand,
his slouch hat in the other.
But again the girl interposed.
"I know you all," she said. "If you do anything
to this young man you'll all be there as witnesses —
you, Mr. Snow, with your sister-in-law as a character
witness; and you, Hank Purvy, expecting to marry a
woman whose husband's not dead yet ; and you, Caspar
Clark, after breaking your mother's heart."
" 'Tam't so!"
"She's got ye, Harik!"
"Ye'er a liar!"
But the girl's quiet voice dominated the other voices.
"Your license goes" — she was facing Gus, who was
still staggered, but able to stand — "if it takes the rest
of my life."
"My God !" bellowed Gus. "As if I ain't got trouble
enough."
"Close yer yip," said a tough young farmer, shifting
his eyes from the girl to Gus. "Close yer yip, yuh big
fat ferriner. If yuh don't "
The girl turned coldly to her uncle and Davies.
"Come on," she said, "we'll go."
They went.
They left the barroom without haste, and not a
word or a hand was raised to stay them. Davies even
THE PEACE ANGEL 119
lingered a moment. It was to speak a word to the
tough young farmer. Just one word :
"Thanks!"
But the young farmer was even too tough for such
brief amenities. He looked away. And Davies, smil
ing slightly, but still with that chair-leg in his hand
in case of emergency, followed the colonel and his niece
out into the night.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE TOUCH DIVINE
THEY walked in silence, and they walked slowly, until
they were well beyond the zone of light and sound
that encompassed the hotel. At first, the colonel was
between Davies and the girl. They were supporting
him, for he still tottered. He was like one who would
have collapsed, and would have done so willingly,
were it not for the strength they were lending him.
"Richard," said the colonel, weakly.
"Yes, sir."
"I trust that you were not hurt."
"They never touched me."
"They were cowards," breathed the girl with sup
pressed tumult.
"Not cowards," the colonel protested. "They de
fied me. But they were not gentlemen. They took me
unawares."
"If it hadn't been for you folks," Davies declared
with ebbing passion, "I would have just about croaked
a couple of those yahoos and taken my chance at the
chair."
"I beg pardon," said the colonel. He explained:
"I'm a little deaf in my right ear, Richard. Let me
walk on the other side of you." They shifted their
120
THE TOUCH DIVINE 121
positions, and Davies was next to the girl. "You be
haved with the utmost gallantry," the colonel pursued.
"You showed your Welsh descent. 'Twas thus they
fought — your ancestors and mine — under Rhodri Mawr
and Owen Glendower."
"They were easy."
"Easy for one who bears the name of Richard Da-
vies. Blood will tell. One gentleman like you is al
ways worth a score from the mob."
Davies was silent. Should he speak up — tell them
who he was and where he came from ? What sort of a
life he had lived? Who his associates had been? Why
not? He couldn't go on fooling a friend. And this
old man was his friend. It made him feel ashamed of
himself. Why not come right out and tell the colonel
all about it, then make a getaway?
While he was thus debating with himself, and the
colonel was talking on and on, in an effort to cover
up the awkwardness of the situation and conceal his
own confusion, something happened that held Davies
silent, caused a faint tremor to run through him — to
run through him body and soul, so he himself would
have confessed had he been given to that form of
speech.
And yet it was nothing much, this thing that had
happened.
At first it was a mere touch on his arm.
"My father and mother passed out when I was pretty
young," he had begun.
And then Alvah had taken his arm. The light and
slender curve of her palm was about his elbow. At first
IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
he thought that this was a mere gesture of impulse.
Then the pressure, although still light, became fixed
and real.
"It is a pity, Richard," the colonel said. 'They
would have been proud of you."
Davies could not tear his attention away from the
feel of the girl's light hand. She trusted him as much
as the colonel did. That was clear. Should he let
her also know that he had been a crook all his life, one
of the most expert pickpockets — if he did say it him
self! — that even New York had known? But right
on top of this question came some fierce assertion
from his heart that she was right in trusting him, that
he was to be trusted.
It was still early, but the dark village lay somnolent
about them. The maple-trees that lined the path and
the vines and bushes — rose and honeysuckle, syringa
and lilac — that filled the dewy front yards transformed
the street into a temple, dusky, mysterious, where
miracles might be performed. All this impressed itself
on Davies somewhat like the charge of a spiritual mob.
Should he prove himself any less of a fighter in the
presence of this mob than he had in the presence of that
other ?
He deliberately looked at the girl, although his
glance was brief. He wondered how he could have
thought of her as a kid. He couldn't even think of
her as a woman — not in the terms of womanhood such as
he had always known.
Tall, slender, dimly white, a look of pain and grief
THE TOUCH DIVINE
and desire on her face, all these veiled to some extent
by a dominant courage.
"My parents also died when I was young," she said.
And her eyes met Richard's. Only for a second, and
yet for a long time after he was looking ahead again
he could recall the look.
"I've lived a pretty hard life," he said.
This time, Alvah did press his arm. There was no
mistaking it. Nor was there any mistaking of the
meaning of it.
"Brace up!" was what the pressure said.
All this time the colonel was speaking, but his words
had become a monologue with himself for audience. As
for Davies, he walked alone with this girl at his side.
It was almost as if she herself did not exist — not as
an earthly entity — so far as Davies was concerned.
What if his friends and pals back in New York could
see him now? Wouldn't they laugh? They would.
They'd wonder what he was up to. They wouldn't
understand. They wouldn't understand that the touch
of this clean and decent hand on his arm was something
wonderful and strange.
Perhaps the street had become a temple where mir
acles could be wrought. Inwardly, Davies was panting.
It was with a stress of emotion which he did not
analyze.
As soon as he could, he went up to his room with
the small brass lamp that the girl told him would be
his. He closed the door. He found that there were
wooden shutters at the window, still more or less ef
fective despite the absence of numerous slats. He closed
124 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
the shutters. He put the lamp on the floor and
brought out his suit-case from where he had shoved it
under the bed.
There was some spare linen and a few toilet articles
in the suit-case, not much. Its principal contents com
prised about half a hundred cakes of soap in small and
savory packages of polished and gaily printed paper.
This thing of being a soap-agent had struck him
as just a trifle better than anything else when he was
getting away from New York. A former friend had
given him the tip, long ago, that a soap-agent's path
led to pleasure and profit, should he ever care to
disappear from the big town for any length of time.
Only the motive had been different from those his
friend had implied. He had been starting clean, and
soap meant cleanliness. And soap was something that
he could talk about, urge folks to use. It was some
thing that he liked and was fond of using himself.
He looked at the supply on hand.
Should he take it with him, or should he leave it?
It was heavy. Word was likely to be sent for miles
around, to the marshals and constables, the sheriffs
and small-town police, to be on the lookout for a soap-
agent who had roughed things in St. Clair. And yet,
if he left his soap behind, wouldn't he be bidding
good-by right then to this new life of his? Wouldn't
he? And how long would it be before he was back at
the old trade again ? Easy money !
Again, in imagination, he could feel the touch of
Alvah Morley's hand on his arm. Say, that was
THE TOUCH DIVINE 125
what he was running away from. And yet he would
take it with him. It would be there always.
Yep!
Just when he was going to gyp somebody's leather,
there would come that touch on his arm and he would
lose his nerve.
CHAPTER XIX
BOUND HAND AND FOOT
HE closed the suit-case and strapped it. He took
a bill-fold from his hip-pocket and from this extracted
a five-dollar bill. He put the lamp on the decrepit
night-table and the bill under the lamp where the girl
would be sure to find it. He blew out the light. He
picked up his heavy suit-case and made his way -silently
out into the hall. He hated to leave like this. He
would have liked to say good-by. But what was the
use? His conscience was clear. The five would cover
everything.
He was half-way down the stairs on his way to the
front door, moving with all the caution he could master,
when a sound of movement and voices made him halt
and hold his breath.
The colonel and the girl were down there. He had
believed them to be in their rooms, possibly asleep.
They hadn't even come upstairs. At least, the colo
nel hadn't. From the girl's first words it was evident
that she had been looking for the colonel, had just
found him.
"You mustn't stay there in the dark," she said
gently. "Come, now. Go to bed — and sleep. To
morrow you will be feeling better."
126
BOUND HAND AND FOOT 127
The colonel's response was an indistinct murmur.
Alvah was carrying a lamp. She and the colonel ap
peared from the back parlor. They paused at the foot
of the opposite flight of the double stairway. They
were so close that Davies did not dare to move one
way or the other. At least, he was in comparative
darkness. As for Alvah and her uncle, they had the
light of the lamp in their eyes.
"I am overwhelmed," the colonel confessed.
He looked it. He was flabby. Shriveled would be
the better word. Ten years had been added to his
age. He was a man not yet recovered from a deadly
sickness. His voice had that sort of feebleness about
it that betokens a lack of breath.
"You shouldn't be overwhelmed," Alvah chided as
she might have spoken to a misguided child.
"Alvah!"
"Yes, uncle, dear."
"I must tell you."
"What?"
"I tried to keep it from you."
Alvah put down her lamp on one of the upper steps.
"You mean about there being no more money left?"
she demanded softly. She even tried to put a playful
note into the words. She put out her two hands and
took her uncle's hands in hers. "I know. I knew it
the moment I saw the sign you put out. I was merely
a little slow to believe."
"It is all gone."
"I can work, earn enough for both of us."
"The drink was my ruination."
128 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"And then," Alvah hurried on, still with that as
sumption of consoling1 lightness — "and then, the sign
did serve a good purpose."
"I muddled on, expecting the lightning somehow to
strike/'
"And didn't it?" Alvah drew her uncle down to a
place on the steps. She seated herself at his feet. She
smiled up into his face wistfully. "What better good
fortune could have befallen us than to have Mr. Davies
come when he did? We'll put out the sign again."
The old man awoke from his depression.
"Mr. Davies ! God bless the boy !"
Davies, standing on the steps across the hall, felt a
little creep of goose-flesh on his body. It was as if
some one had tickled him. He cursed himself — without
the use of words — for being where he was. He wanted
to speak, but he couldn't speak. It was impossible for
him to move.
"Could we want a better lodger?"
"He was a friend to me. He was a son. But now
he'll be leaving us. It is only right that he should.
It is what I should advise him to do. He was a son
to me, and I have driven him away."
"Nonsense! Do you think that he's the sort who
runs away?"
"No; he's as brave as a lion."
"What then?"
"He is a gentleman. I have disgraced him."
"He knows you're sorry. There's no disgrace.
Fight on! Isn't that the motto you've been following
all these years you've been here in St. Clair trying to
BOUND HAND AND FOOT 129
settle up Uncle Abner's estate? Haven't you told me
that that was what the Welsh — what the Cymry — did
under Rhodri Mawr ? — and what Stonewall Jackson did
during the 'seven days' ? Don't you suppose — don't you
suppose," she demanded, while her voice fell to little
more than a thrilling whisper, "that there's a Higher
Power that knows all about your needs ? Who can tell
but that it was that Higher Power who sent Mr.
Davies here."
Da vies heard all this. And he had the time to
meditate it, too. For there was a long silence, and in
this the girl's words reechoed.
"Aye ! He came as one sent by the Lord. To-night
I stood at Armageddon, and it was as if I had been
among the spirits of devils, and they were gathered
to the battle of God Almighty, His day. And Richard
came to me, Alvah — came to me like one of the seven
angels bearing the vials of the wrath of God."
The colonel was running into a mystic mood.
"He taught them a lesson," said Alvah. "It was
a lesson they needed. It was a lesson that they'll never
forget."
"God moves in a mysterious way. I little thought,
when I saw Mr. Davies this morning, that — no, I did
know it. Something told me the moment that I saw
his face that here was a friend, that here was some one
destined to play a part in the lives perhaps of both
of us. What is that the Good Book says? 'Be not
forgetful to entertain strangers' — it all comes back to
me — 'for thereby some have entertained angels un-
ISO IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Again the silence settled down. Again Davies found
liimself as in a state of suspended animation. He felt
as a spirit might feel when hovering over the dead body
that had belonged to it during the earthly incarnation.
There was one choked voice speaking from the si
lence: "They've got me wrong!"
But there was another voice, small and clear : "Why
Why not be the thing they were believing him to
It was as if he stood on the edge of a measureless
gulf and contemplated the possibility of flight.
"Did you notice," the girl asked, "how they were all
afraid to move or speak as we went away?" It was a
mere whisper, a question not calling for an answer.
""They were afraid."
The colonel had dropped his head forward and rested
it in his hands. The girl did not disturb his reflection.
She sat motionless and looked off into the shadows.
The lamplight shone down on the two of them and
made a picture that slowly burned itself into Richard
Davies's memory. What was he that he should be
treated to a picture like this? What right had he
to look at it?
He stood there, flattened against the wall, and he
"was like some one or some thing that has been anni
hilated.
Who was this they had talked about? It couldn't
3be himself, although they had used his name ; and this
Ho mere sobriquet of the streets, either, but the name
Kis father had borne before him.
He looked back on his immediate past, but the one
BOUND HAND AND FOOT 131
big fact that stuck out of it — like a peak from a cloud
— was the girl's hand on his arm. She had shown then
the sort of faith that she had in him. It wasn't the old
Chick whose arm she had taken. It was the arm
of some one named Mr. Richard Davies. Yet, who was
this Mr. Richard Davies ?
"Me!"
"JVo; it cMt you."
"But it will be."
For, as yet, he was still annihilated in every respect
except that of his fluttering, disrupted thought. His
mouth was open.
Then the colonel straightened up. He spoke to the
girl, but he did not look at her. He also peered off
into the shadows.
"Alvah, you are right. Altogether right. But most
right in keeping your faith in the Power that sent us
this friend in need. The Lord was watching over me,
even while I was writing that card. It was He who
brought Mr. Davies to our door."
The girl put out her hand and caressed his face.
As the colonel slowly turned his head and looked at
her, Davies could see the grief and contrition in the
old man's eyes. It recalled the look he had seen in the
face of old Ezra Wood, and it summoned to his own
heart the same vague hunger — the same white awe —
that had been there that night in the Boone House.
"Alvah," the colonel said, "let's you and me — get
down on our knees — here and now — and thank Him
for sending us such a friend and gentleman — as Mr.
Davies."
CHAPTER XX
PAETNERS
DA VIES fled.
He went up the stairs taking his suit-case with him.
But he went like a ghost, making no more noise than
a shadow. Perhaps he wouldn't have cared so very
much if he had made a noise. There are crises in the
lives of every one when the ordinary conventions — and
even the ordinary decencies, so called — count for noth
ing. And this was one of them.
He reached the room he had deserted only a few
minutes before. He went in. He closed the door
behind him. He dropped his suit-case on the floor.
He wilted back against the door and stood there, men
tally haggard if not physically haggard, and stared un-
seeingly into the gloom.
But he was not altogether bereft of vision.
Only what he saw was the series of pictures he had
brought back with him from the hall, chiefly the last
picture of all, wherein an old man and a young girl
were kneeling side by side humbly thanking God for
sending them such a friend as Mr. Richard Davies.
By and by, Davies recovered possession of himself
to such an extent that he picked up his suit-case and
thrust it back into the place from which he had taken
132
PARTNERS 133
it. He relighted the lamp. Several times he paced the
length of the room. He stepped over to the door,
finally, and opened it wide. It was not long before
the thing happened which he had expected.
There was a knock at the side of the door, and there
was the voice of Colonel Williams asking him if he had
not yet retired.
"Come in," Davies invited.
The colonel came in. He said something about the
possible desirability of extra covers for the bed, the
unseasonable coolness of the night. Davies smiled upon
him, thrust forward the single chair in the room, which
was near the bed. He held the chair while the colonel
eased his weight into it. Then Davies seated himself
on the bed.
"The covers and everything are all right, colonel.
But I'm glad you came. I was wanting to talk to you."
For the first time since the colonel had entered the
room, their eyes met and held.
"Richard, I have come to apologize."
"No apologies are needed — not from you."
"As one gentleman to another "
"Wait a minute, colonel."
Davies was still smiling, but there was a whiteness
in his smile, as he himself could feel. What he could
not feel, perhaps, was how deeply brilliant his dark
eyes burned in the yellow twilight made by the little
lamp. The colonel, looking at him, must have had a
vision of mystic warriors on Welsh battle-fields. But
the colonel waited.
"I've got to tell you something," Davies went on.
134. IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"My parents were all right. I believe they were. I
know they were. See? But I've spent most of my life
among grafters and thieves." He lurched out the rest
of it hurriedly. "I was one myself."
The old colonel wasn't looking at him any longer.
He hadn't shifted his eyes, precisely. It was rather
a change of focus. The colonel was looking, mistily,
through him and beyond him. His old face — misty
eyes, droopy nose, white and monumental mustache —
had become a portrait of earthly wisdom. It was a
very human face, humorous and sad. The colonel had
made a slight gesture with his hand. Otherwise he did
not express himself. But Davies was finding it easier
to go on than he may have expected.
"It was the easy money that made it seem so good
to me," he said. "Easy money, even when I was a
little shaver and could swipe a tool or something from
a new building or a sidewalk where I was supposed to
be collecting firewood. A trip to John the Junkman,
and there you were ! And there were two or three times
when I thought that I was going straight, but it was
easy money that always switched me back — in a phony
gambling-house — where I put down a ten and saw it
turn into fifty, and I left the fifty and saw it run to
a thousand. But I never went back. I was always
too wise for that. I would never get caught. And it
was like that when I brushed up against a young swell
in the Polo Grounds and almost everything he had
dropped right out of his pocket into mine. Easy
money ! Easy money !"
The colonel nodded his head slowly several times, and
PARTNERS 135
at the end of a nod, with his head lowered, he kept it
that way and remained motionless.
"Until at last," said Davies, "I did take a tumble
to what it all meant and what it was all leading to.
"You never get anything for nothing. You've got
to pay the price for everything you get. I saw it
right. I saw it whole.
"And if I didn't want to pay the price like all the
other thieves and grafters — or almost all — it was me
for the country where I could work it out — some
thing of what I owed — or all of it, even — square my
self — you understand — out here in the country where?
the decent people live, and you don't have to lock your
doors at night, and where every other person that you
meet ain't a grafter or a crook."
"I understand," the colonel murmured, and he slowly
tugged at his silvery mustache as a preliminary to fur
ther expression of his own. "I understand."
"I wanted to tell you this," Davies continued, hist
voice going smaller. "I may be sticking around here
for a while, you know, just to see how things turn out.
But I couldn't do it and let you folks go on believing
that I was something that I ain't."
His diminishing voice came to a rather abrupt pause-*
as if he had suddenly discovered that he had said every-,
thing that he had to say.
The colonel was looking at him again — out of the?
top of his eyes.
"I understand, Richard," the colonel announced.,
"I've known all along what you were. What you've:
136 IP YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
been telling me has merely confirmed my first judgment
of you."
"You knew "
The colonel slowly reached for something that made
a weight in the tail-pocket of his coat. It was some
thing that did not come easily. It required consider
able time and effort to extract it. When it did come,
it revealed itself as the colonel's flask. There was still
a finger or so of whisky in it. The colonel held the
flask up where it would catch the light. He slowly
rocked the liquor back and forth.
There, for an interval, Davies may have been expect
ing the colonel to pull the cork, invite him again to take
a drink. There would have been nothing surprising
about such an action. In the world Davies came from
this was the usual climax to an emotional passage.
But the colonel, still with the flask in his hand, got
thoughtfully to his feet.
" — knew that you were sent," he murmured.
He trudged over to one of the shuttered windows
opening on the garden. He pushed a shutter open.
Davies, watching him, saw the colonel uncork the
flask and empty its contents into the outer darkness.
He saw the old man remain there, apparently absorbed
in thought for yet a moment or so longer, then toss
the flask away.
A midnight funeral!
The flask fell into a bed of pansies that Alvah Morley
had been cultivating down there ever since her advent
in the old house. The pansies grew lush, and were gen
erous with their flowers — purple and soft and faintly
PARTNERS 137
fragrant. There can be no earthly record of what
the pansies thought when the bottle arrived among
them. But they accepted it without protest, received
it tenderly — gladly, one would be tempted to believe
— the expiatory sacrifice of some fragile human
flower !
Pansies for thoughts !
The colonel remained for a rather long time at the
window, letting the breeze of the night blow in upon
him. It stirred his white mustache and the folds of
his coat.
When he turned, there was a different look in his
face. His expression conveyed an appearance of en
lightenment, of added wisdom — a wisdom no less hu
man than was habitual to him, but not quite so ter
restrial perhaps. He smiled gently at the youth who
was watching him.
He put out his hand.
Wondering a little, yet touched with understand
ing, thrilled not a little with some quiver of relief that
was almost joy, Richard Davies got up and seized the
colonel's hand.
"My boy," said the colonel, amy boy "
"I was afraid "
"A man need never fear any one but himself."
"I couldn't let you believe "
"A man is not hurt by lies, sir, but by the truth;
and the truth won't hurt him when he's right. God
bless you — and good night!"
CHAPTER XXI
"WELCOME TO OUR CITY"
THERE may have been something in that aphorism of
the colonel's about the truth being salutary so long
as a man was right.
The news of what had happened at the hotel the
night before had spread. This news alone would have
been enough to make Davies a person of note in St.
Clair — one to be considered and looked up to, especially
by the ladies of the town; and, far from being hurt
by the inevitable untruths stitched onto the fabric of
fact, these added details merely increased his renown.
But Davies wasn't caring very much what people
said, either one way or the other. "A man is injured
not by lies, sir, but by the truth ! And the truth won't
hurt him when he's right." That was good enough for
him. And he prepared to set forth on his day's work.
So did Mrs. Meckley.
Mrs. Meckley had gone to bed late and had risen
early. She had done this with a pleasant conscious
ness of duty. Some one had to keep St. Clair posted
as to the doings across the street. It was barely nine
o'clock when she sallied forth. She had already caught
a distant glimpse of her neighbor, Mrs. Sanders, trowel-
138
"WELCOME TO OUR CITY" 139
ing bulbs in her front yard a hundred yards farther
on toward the center of town.
"I just saw that young man," Mrs. Meckley began.
"Who? The one that kicked up the rumpus last
night at the hotel?" Mrs. Sanders turned to the black
earth and scooped out another bulb.
"What say?"
"Thought everybody in town knew about it by this
time."
"I just saw him saying good-by," Mrs. Meckley per
sisted weakly.
"Better say good-by. I reckon he's about done his
share."
"You mean flirting "
"Serves *em right, guzzlin' an' smokin'!"
Mrs. Meckley thought she saw a lead. She dropped
her voice, narrowed her eyes.
"There was a light in his window till after midnight,"
she tempted.
But Mrs. Sanders hadn't wasted all her ammuni
tion, not by a jugful. She gathered up her bulbs
in a small box, made a straining effort, and got to her
feet.
"I'm talkin' about Deacon Crane and County Com
missioner Miller gettin* their faces smacked, and that
little squirt of an Ed Hall — I should think his mother
would go out with a new silk dress on every week —
gettin' his lip split; not to speak of the riffraff that
usually does hang around the saloon, all gettin' a
tannin'."
"Milly Sanders!"
140 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Learn 'em a lesson. They ought to 'a' knowed he
was the colonel's adopted son."
It wasn't long before Mrs. Meckley discovered that
she was in a hurry — that she was already late, in
fact — on an errand that would take her further on
her way. Even so, she wasn't quick enough. She
saw that she was behind her schedule the moment her
eyes lit on the faces of the Beverly sisters. They
also had the news.
Only, this time, Mrs. Meckley wasn't unprepared.
She whispered something into the somewhat wilted ears
of the sisters.
"But he hasn't ever been married," said the elder
Miss Beverly.
"That's what I'm telling you," said Mrs. Meckley,
and she whispered again. "And I think it's just scan
dalous, the old reprobate aiming to marry off the girl
like this to his own son. Well, good-by, both of you.
I got to be trotting along."
She trotted, and the Beverly sisters decided that
they would go out in the back garden to see whether
Mrs. Mintner was still at her curtain frames.
"I don't see why she persists in calling the judge
a reprobate," said the younger Miss Beverly with a
touch of malice.
"No," said the elder, with perfect understanding.
"She's been setting her cap for Colonel Williams long
enough, goodness knows !"
"And he never would look at her," said the younger
Miss Beverly, pinking up.
Meantime, Mr. Richard Davies, with that aphorism
"WELCOME TO OUR CITY" 141
of the colonel's in mind and conscious that he had come
off first best in the proceedings of the night before
whatever might be said about it, started out to see
what sort of an impression he could make on the town
as a soap-agent. He remembered the instructions that
had been handed to him on a printed card at the soap-
headquarters in Greenwich Street:
Work every house.
If they look poor, remember the poor are easy.
If they look rich, tell them so, and they'll fall.
He had his suit-case with the half-hundred cakes in
it, also a deck of business-cards. His first try was the
house right across the street — a little house back of a
high hedge; but no one was home and he had to leave
a card.
The next house he tried was up the street, where a
woman was digging bulbs.
"Good morning," he said. "Harvesting your
onions?"
The woman looked up from her work, recognized him
as the town's latest arrival. She smiled as she said:
"These were early tulips."
"I know you don't need it," he said amiably; "but
I'm introducing the new Saporino line of Mexican mys
tery soaps. The name sounds rather bunk ; but they
really are good soaps ; use them myself."
He gave Mrs. Sanders the help of his hand. She was
old enough to compliment him frankly:
"You're a good advertisement."
Any one would have been justified in saying as much.
IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
He was clean, immaculate, even though he was a little
shabby.
"Well, you see," he confessed, "I love this soap so
much I feel as if I was doing folks a favor by letting
them have it — twenty-five a cake and better than a
novel or a play."
"He ain't the bruiser they were makin' him out to
be," said Mrs. Sanders, looking after him.
He had made the sale.
He could have cleaned out his entire stock to the
Beverly sisters. He knew that he could, the moment
that they pounced upon him with their eyes. It was
evident that he had been well advertised. The ruction
at the hotel had been a good thing after all.
The elder of the two addressed him from the porch :
"Good morning, Mr. Williams."
"What's that?"
"Aren't you Colonel Williams's— er "
Davies got a portion of her meaning.
"No relation," he smiled. "I wish I was. I'm intro
ducing the Saporino line "
And he recited his familiar patter.
"Isn't it rather expensive?"
"Use ordinary soap to get the rough dirt off, al
though we recommend our customers to use the Sapo
rino line exclusively. Ah, go on, and take a dozen cakes.
Two bits per ! I could tell right away that you ladies
had been to New York and knew all about the Sapo
rino line "
With Mrs. Meckley as an advance agent, his fame
was reaching into quarters where it hadn't reached
"WELCOME TO OUR CITY" 143
before. But Davies was cautious. It was almost too
good to be true, this glad-hand welcome he was get
ting wherever he went. He scented something in the
air. Nor was he very long in finding out that he was
right, and what the danger was.
He had just sold his last cake of soap when he saw a
familiar figure sauntering along the maple-shaded
street. It was that tough young farmer who had
threatened to give Gus a wallop on his own account the
night before.
Davies was glad to see him. He was tired of talk
ing to women. He strolled up to meet him.
"Hello," he said.
"Hello," and the young farmer, with a shrewd glance,
backed up to lean against the fence.
"Come and have a cigar with me," Davies invited.
"Don't care if I do."
There was a small cigar and candy store across the
street.
"Give us a couple of your best cigars," said Davies
to the alert but unshaven young merchant behind the
counter.
"Nickel straight," said the merchant, taking two
cigars from a box in the glass case.
And his eyes were as keen as a hawk's until he had
his dime.
"Here comes the bus for Pleas antville," the farmer
remarked softly and casually when they were outside
again.
"Let her come," said Davies, only mildly interested.
"I guess this town will hold me for a while."
144 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
The other snorted softly.
"It'll hold you longer'n you think, if you don't
watch out."
"On account of what happened at the hotel?"
"That's what started it. But nobody wants nothing
done about that for fear of gettin' drug into court
themselves, like Miss Morley said. But they've got the
constable primed up to run you in for sellin' without a
license."
He shot a swift glance up the street toward the
center of town. His voice speeded up a notch.
"And here he comes now !"
CHAPTER XXII
His first instinct was to run away. Without looking
particularly he could see that his chances for flight
were good. The street was loosely gardened to left and
right. The open country at no place was far away
• — meadows, flowing cornfields, patches of wood. His
suit-case was empty. There would be no great loss
if he abandoned it. He had always hated the pros
pect of jail. Now, with a splurge of feeling, he knew
that he was hating it more than ever — even though
it should mean but a day or two — on such a feeble
charge as peddling soap without a license.
His mind was working fast.
The constable, moreover, was taking his time.
Davies flashingly reviewed his previous life, the
change that had come into it — and that change par
ticularly which he had experienced since his arrival
at Flowery Harbor.
It helped him to check his instinct to run. It helped
him to check that other instinct, which was to bluff
— play the indignant, assume the role of injured in
nocence, threaten reprisals in a political way.
"What are ybu going to do about it?" the young
farmer asked.
145
146 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Square myself," Davies replied. "So long!
Thanks!"
Davies met the constable at the side of a low fence
fringing a garden. Beyond the garden was a lane.
There was another lane just across the way, and this
ran off down a slope between other garden fences
to a willowy hollow. There was still a good chance
to get away, but all the time Davies was getting a
better grip on himself.
He and the man of the law surveyed each other.
The constable was a man of middle age — a trifle fat,
a trifle dirty, but keen-eyed and efficient. He was
chewing tobacco. He slowly masticated. He spat to
one side. His eyes came back to Davies's eyes.
"I reckon," he said, without other preliminaries,
"you know who I am."
"You're the constable."
The other squinted down at a nickel-plated badge on
the lapel of his coat. He burnished it with his sleeve.
"And you're the young feller," he said, as if an
nouncing a happy surprise, "who's been sellin' inside
the corporate limits without a license. I guess I'll
have to ask you to step along with me."
"I'm ready."
"You seem to take it sort of cool."
"Why shouldn't I? I haven't been doing anything
wrong. I didn't know I had to have a license."
"Ignorance of the law ain't no defense," the con
stable recited.
"I'm willing to get a license."
JUSTICE: THAT'S ALL 147
"I suppose so," said the constable, with a flash of
malice, "now that the crime has been committed.'*
The constable was still leisurely. There was an air
about him of preoccupation, of not having said all that
he had to say. And Davies noticed this.
"What do you think I'd better do about it?"
"That's for the squire to say, although he do gen
erally follow my recommend."
"And what's that?"
"The lock-up." He snapped out the words. "It
largely depends on what I say — and on what you might
call public sentiment."
"With no chance to get off with a fine?"
The constable slanted a meaning look at Davies.
He casually glanced up and down the all but deserted
street.
"Now you're beginning to say somethin'," he mused.
Again he shot a look at Davies.
"Well, come along," he said. "We'll be gettin' off
to the lock-up."
"Have a cigar," said Davies.
"Don't mind if I do."
He took the cigar that the prisoner offered and bit
the end from it. Davies held a match for him.
"Do you mean that I might get off all right with a
fine?"
"How much money you got?"
"I don't know; but it ought to be enough."
The constable lowered his voice, spoke a little more
quickly than he had spoken hitherto.
"I ain't one of these here officers that won't listen
148 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
to reason," he averred with a touch of nervous eager
ness. "I'm broad-minded enough, if it comes to that.
Got to be, b' heck! I got a family." He wasn't al
together hardened. He appeared to be a little discon
certed. He ran on, with a trace of nervous laughter.
"Some folks went through here just the other day,
bustin' the speed-limits in one of these here big purple
cars, and they'd been goin' on like that yet if I hadn't
nabbed them, and the feller who was steerin', he says to
me, just like that, says he: 'Be you one of these here
officers that won't listen to reason?' 'How so?' says
I. 'Why,* says he, 'if you ain't,' says he, 'mebbe you'll
let me pay the fine right here and now,' says he."
"How much was the fine?" Davies inquired.
"In his particular case, it was a five-dollar bill."
"Can't I pay my fine right here?"
"Not right here," the constable whispered, "unless
you're mighty keerful about it."
"I'll be careful."
Davies was as good as his word. He cast a cautious
look about him. He turned his face to the fence and
deftly drew his billfold. He counted out five one-dollar
bills. But the constable was not so cautious. At any
rate, the sight of the stranger's money seemed to in
terest him more than any chance of some one discover
ing his method of executing the law. His keen eyes
counted the five bills as Davies counted them, and also
took note of all the other money in the fold.
"I reckon," he breathed, "that your fine will be just
twice that much."
"You ought to go to some bigger town," said Davies
JUSTICE: THAT'S ALL 149
briefly, after the transfer had been made. But he kept
his temper. "How do I know that they won't make
trouble for me when I go to get my license even now?"
The constable was in high good humor.
"I guess you needn't worry about that," he said.
"Just let on like nothings happened. Keep your mouth
shut, and nothin's goin' to hurt you. Catch the four
seventeen."
"But I want to be all on the square," said Davies.
"I expect to stay here a while. I'm not going out on
the four seventeen."
"Oh, you're not!"
"You've let your cigar go out," said Davies. He
lit a fresh match. "And you've let some ashes fall on
your coat." He brushed the constable's collar lightly
while that officer was busy with the match and the gift
cigar. "Can't you go around to the town hall with
me and tell them there that I'm all right?"
"I'm sorry," said the officer; "but it's just about my
dinner-time."
They sauntered along together for perhaps a dis
tance of fifty paces, and all this time there was a sort
of buzzing in Davies's brain. Then, what was that
the colonel had said about men being hurt by the truth,
unless they happened to be right? Davies eyed the
constable. .
"I thought," he said carelessly, "that you had a
badge."
CHAPTER XXIII
THE QUALITY OF MERCY
"Miss TESSIE," said the constable, about a quarter of
an hour later, "this young1 man's a friend of mine, Mr.
Richard Davies, recently of New York, and he wants
a license to sell goods in St. Clair. I reckon you can fix
him out all right."
"Indeed I can,'* said Miss Tessie.
She was a blond creature of a sort which can be
adequately described only by the use of the phrase
"magnificently developed." At the dinner hour — midday
in St. Clair — she was about the only one left in the
town hall, and, with nothing else to do, she had re
marked the advent of the constable and the dark-eyed
stranger with a flutter of interest.
"Thanks," said Davies. He had turned to the con
stable and thrust out his hand.
As the constable's hand took Davies's, the officer felt
the smooth surface of his lost badge against the palm
of his hand. He mastered his astonishment to some
extent.
"I told you you'd find your badge as soon as you'd
square me here in the town hall," Davies whispered.
"Are you and me going to be friends from now on?"
Perhaps the constable understood precisely what had
150
THE QUALITY OF MERCY 151
happened. Possibly he guessed that this stranger had
deftly relieved him of his badge back there in the street
when presumably brushing the ashes from his coat.
But it isn't likely. It didn't matter very much. The
man of the law had his ten dollars in his pocket and
now he had his badge as well. He was in a softened
mood. He looked at the New Yorker, and over his face
came the expression of an upright friend.
"Count on me," said the constable. "I ain't afraid
of these local politicians. I've just been elected, and
my job's still got two years to run." The constable
again addressed himself to the young lady beyond the
office railing. "I'll leave you young folks together,"
he declared.
Davies's own attention had become riveted on Miss
Tessie. He believed, and it may have been true, that
he had never seen any creature more beautiful. Her
smile was so frank and inviting, moreover, that he
made no attempt to conceal his admiration.
"Why do you look at me like that?" she softly in
quired.
"Can you blame me?" he breathed. "I could keep
right on looking at you forever, Miss Tessie."
"My name is Miss Wingate, thank you."
"You could call me Sweeny, if you wanted to."
"I thought Mr. Winch said you were Mr. Richard
Davies."
"Dick, for short."
"I think you're awful," she said, "to tease a poor,
innocent, little country girl like that."
152 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Rosy cheeks and a shiny eye," Davies quoted.
"Shiny nose, you mean," she countered.
She had a little purse with a mirror in the top of
it, and she looked at herself in this. Quite unabashed,
she dusted her nose with a small powder-puff.
"Anyway," he said, "I'm glad to meet you."
The noon-hour was quiet in St. Clair — no traffic
to speak of in the several streets, every one gone home
to dinner with the exception of a few loafers here and
there, a few somnolent clerks in the stores, Miss Tessie
Wingate the sole tenant of the town hall against such
time as Simp Fisher, the village auditor, should come
back chewing his tooth-pick. The girl had surren
dered her smooth pink fingers to Davies's hand and
allowed them to linger there.
For an eternal moment Davies had a rather giddy
feeling that this was New York, and that a spell had
fallen upon the world, and that he and this girl were
the only ones left awake in it. Her voice came to him
on an accompaniment of bird-music; it was like a vo
calization of the warm and fragrant lazy air that
drifted in through the open windows.
"What can I be thinking of, and you such a terrible
person !"
"Why, terrible?"
"The way you cleaned out the hotel barroom, last
night."
"So you know about it, too?"
"Of course I do. The whole town knows about it."
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry ! I think it's wonderful."
THE QUALITY OF MERCY 15*
She engulfed him in a look from her large, blue eyes.
"You're the wonderful thing," he asserted sincerely.
"How many other girls have you told that to?"
"None."
"I've always been just dying to go to New York."
"Don't."
"It must be awfully exciting."
"Just like it is for a chicken getting the ax."
Miss Tessie jerked her hand away suddenly.
A tall young man, exceedingly thin, lightly dressed,
his straw hat on the back of his head as if to relieve
the pressure on his bulging and scantily thatched fore
head, strolled into the room with an air of belonging
there. He had a thin mustache, and this only partly
concealed the difficult trick he was performing of turn
ing a toothpick, end over end, with lips and tongue
unaided by his hands.
He had no look for the others there as he slouched
through the gate in the railing, nor did Miss Wingate
have more than a glance for him. He slumped into a
chair beside a desk, propped up his feet and began to
file his nails.
Miss Wingate busied herself with the stamped paper
Davies had come to get and then handed it over to
him with a languishing smile.
"Who's your friend?" he whispered.
The girl shrugged and sniffed. But she called out:
"Oh, Simp! I'd like to have you meet Mr. Davies,
the gentleman from New York."
Simp lowered his feet. He pocketed his knife. He
took his tooth-pick from his mouth and examined it
154 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
before tossing it away. He got up and came forward
with a certain regretfulness.
It was not until then that Davies recognized him.
It was Simp's chin that had got in the way of his
elbow the night before at the tavern door.
"Oh, how do you do?" said Mr. Fisher languidly,
and he put out a limp hand.
"No hard feelings," said Davies.
The other did not answer. He permitted a vague
smile to drift across his features. He retired to his
place behind the desk.
The girl made a slight grimace.
"He's enthusiastic like a dead eel," Davies com
mented softly. He responded to the girl's smile.
"Good-by— Tessie!"
"Good-by—Dick!"
"We'll see each other again.'*
She waved him a plump and shapely palm as he
passed through the door.
CHAPTER XXIV
SMAI/L VOICES
HER smile went with him out into the street. The
town was no longer quite what it was before. Something
had been added to it — a friendliness, a hue of tender
ness. It was something that at once emboldened him
and yet softened him. Suppose he went over to the
hotel and ate his dinner there, just to show them what
sort of a man he was ! But a milder inspiration pos
sessed him as he was about to pass a butcher-shop. He
went in.
"Give me a couple of pounds of pork-chops," he
ordered.
Even the butcher appeared to know who he was.
The butcher was all flustered attention. He disap
peared into his ice-box. He cut the meat with nervous
haste.
"What else?"
"What have you got?"
"Potatoes."
"Sure!" — and he indicated one of the measures that
the man held up.
The meat, the potatoes, the butcher himself — all
these also had become the notes of a symphony of pink
and white. Those were her colors. Tessie's ! Her
155
156 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
throat and her nose and her wrists were white. Her
lips and her cheeks and her finger-tips were pink. Even
her dress had been pink and white.
"What else?"
"What do I need?"
"Maybe some lard."
"All right."
"How much?"
"A couple of pounds."
It was sweet — this preliminary training for the fam
ily life. He stowed away the things he had purchased
in his now empty suit-case, paid his bill and went out
once more into the shady fragrance of the maple-trees.
The noon lull still lasted. The town was still.
Overhead was a sky that appeared to be bluer than any
sky he had hitherto seen. And there were a few white
clouds adrift up there, just like the clouds that Ezra
Wood had mentioned — ships to bring dreams in from
distant ports, or to carry other dreams away — away
into the blue.
In the stillness, a hen in some neighboring back yard
fluted her melancholy intention to set ; there was a tiny
squabble of sparrows in the eaves of the nearest house ;
there came the faint nasal drone of a woman's voice,
singing some old song to the time of a recurrent creak
as she rocked her baby to sleep.
Davies stopped where he was and breathed deeply
a couple of times, alert yet brooding.
There was a foundation-smell of sun-warmed vegita-
tion, heavy and tepid and sweet; but over this was a
fabric of other smells — of new milk, of fried meat, of
SMALL VOICES 1§T
fresh earth — which made no less an appeal to his in
nermost nature.
And then, some lurking thought unfolded itself and
was suddenly in full flower.
All this was what he had come to seek. It was a
homing instinct that had brought him. There wa»
something in all this that was native to him. He wasn't
meant for Chatham Square, for the back room of the
Commodore, for the roaring Bowery, for the cell-block
or the hospital bed.
No man was.
These were his people — the old colonel and the col
onel's niece, and, most of all, Tessie — Tessie Win-
gate!
He stood there and heard a huckster in some distant
part of the village wailing unintelligibly the things that
he had for sale ; from a bit of woodland beyond a field
there came the thud of an ax followed by a rustling
crunch of falling branches ; a school-bell softly clanged.
And these things were music to his ears. At the far
end of the street he saw the colonel appear at his gate
and peer in his direction, and he knew that the colonel
was waiting for him.
"We took the liberty," said the colonel, "of holding
dinner for you, Richard."
It may have been a matter of mood, but it seemed
to Davies that the colonel was tremulous, glad almost
beyond words to see him, as if he had been fearing that
the guest might not come at all.
"I'm sorry I kept you waiting," Davies said. *1
stopped to buy a couple of things."
158 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"We thought you'd like to try our boiled greens.
It's getting a little late for dandelions, but the poke
and the purslane are in their prime."
"Pork chops," Davies announced, indicating his suit
case.
The colonel was a little hard of hearing. "I don't
know whether you've ever tried sassafras tea."
"The old grip's full of spuds."
"If you'd like to go to your room, I'll tell Alvah
"I ought to see her myself. I'm afraid this lard
will run away on me.'*
"I trust you met no further unpleasantness."
"Me ! I met some of the finest people in the world."
He stopped. Either the colonel or Alvah had once
more hung the "Room to Let" sign on the door-pull.
Davies looked at it. An impulse stirred within him and
he obeyed it without pausing to question the meaning
of it. He walke4 up the steps of the stoop. He took
the sign from its place. He carefully tore it into four
pieces, put the pieces into his pocket.
The colonel was just back of him.
"We thought " the colonel began.
He was embarrassed under the younger man's glance,
although Davies's look was one of friendly assurance
"You're not going to need that sign any more."
"Richard!"
"I'm here to stay."
From the back of the house came a lilt of music :
"Sail on, sail on, O Ship of State."
SMALL VOICES 159
He and the colonel entered the wide front door of
the mansion side by side, and there, with the door
closed behind them, the colonel turned and put his hands
on Da,vies's shoulders.
"Richard," he faltered.
"Cheer up, colonel!"
"What have you done?"
There were tears in the old gentleman's eyes. His
jaw sagged a little under his ante-bellum mustache.
"You're not sore, are you, colonel?"
"You are even as Barnabas," said the colonel
hoarsely; "Barnabas, the son of consolation."
CHAPTER XXV
FRIEND EMERSON
ALVAH also must have been impressed to some extent,
but she had a care about how she showed it. A deepen
ing of the light in her eye, a trace of extra color about
her jaw and throat, a certain restriction and stiff
ness of movement as she took the things from the suit
case — and that was all.
"If you care to wait for about half an hour longer,"
she said, "I can give you a dinner worth waiting for."
"How about it, Richard?"
"Fine!"
And that was all, for the present; only, before very
long, Richard heard the girl singing again. The words
came to him, remote, yet distinct, from the kitchen :
"Sail on, sail on, O Ship of State;
Sail on, O Union, strong and great.
Humanity with all its fears,
With all its hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate."
The words and music and the voice of the girl com
bined to strengthen the hitherto unexpressed yearning
that was in his heart. He wished he had the power of
speech. Not his kind of speech. The colonel's kind.
Or her kind — Tessie Wingate's!
160
FRIEND EMERSON 161
He strolled into that room that the colonel had told
him was the library, and he saw that a good part of its
walls were covered with books. There must have been
a thousand of them, two thousand, a dazzling number.
What could any one do with such a lot of books as these
— especially when they were old, as most of these
books appeared to be, with nothing in them, and no
body but a junk-dealer ready to make an offer for
them?
The presence of so many books nevertheless stirred
his reverence. There was almost something about
them that frightened him.
He went over and carefully pulled a volume from its
place.
"Emerson's Essays." He opened it. He read:
« 'Trust thyself.' " "
What followed, confused him; but it didn't greatly
matter. It was as if he had asked ah1 this assembled
wisdom here, as represented by these stacks of books,
the riddle of this new life that was unfolding before him,
and that a clear voice had given him answer.
"I'm on, Emerson," he said. " 'Trust thyself!' "
There was a peculiar fascination in this access to wis
dom. What wouldn't he know if he could read these
books ?
Through the silence of his reverie the girl's voice
reached him again:
"Our hearts and hopes, our ways, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears."
With the book still in his hand he turned to find the
colonel at the door. The colonel was in his shirt-
162 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
sleeves, but he carried a garment over his arm, and
this proved to be a coat.
"I wanted to honor the occasion," he said — he was
a trifle breathless, apparently as a result of some re
cent effort and also, possibly, on account of a touch
of excitement— "I wanted to honor the occasion by
putting this on." And he held the coat up with his two
hands in front of him and regarded it with a mingled
affection and regret.
It was a handsome coat, with lines of dignity and
grace even when thus shown at a disadvantage. The
color of it was a dark blue, but it had cuffs and collar
of black velvet. The design of it was what may be
called a heavy cutaway.
"What the French would call un frac de ceremonie"
the colonel elucidated.
"Want me to help you on with it?"
"If you would be so kind."
It took something of an effort from the two of them
to get the colonel into it. The coat was heavy and it
was stiff. Even after the colonel did get it on, the
coat adhered to the lines of some nobler mold. The
velvet collar reared aloft and back. There was a
swanlike line of beauty down the back. The waist of it
swept in with a suggestion of slenderness, then swept
out again.
"Some coat!"
"It was a perfect fit when I last had it on," the
colonel said gently. "It was made for me by certainly
the best tailor in Mobile."
FRIEND EMERSON
He slowly turned, looking down at himself, trying
to get a proper idea of how the coat looked on him.
"Swell!" said Davies.
<CI wore this when I pleaded my most celebrated
case," said the colonel ; "my essential line of argument
being that while the cardinal principles of justice are
immutable, there is, of necessity, a flux in those meth
ods by which that justice is administered."
"Sure; that's right," Davies agreed.
"It had to do with a fine point of constitutional
law ; my contention being that while assuming a distinc
tive Federal jurisprudence of paramount authority
there should not, however, be such inflexibility of in
terpretation."
"Sure," said Richard.
"You perceive my attitude."
"The coat looks all right on you at that."
"And then," said the colonel wistfully, as he re
turned to the original theme, "why, I received word of
my brother Abner's death. We had not seen each other
for years. He had made little Alvah his sole legatee.
She was the only child of a cousin since dead. She is
an orphan. But still he had appointed me sole execu
tor. It seemed like a goodly estate at first. But the
claims against it were so many — chiefly made by Ab
ner's fellow-townsmen here in St. Clair."
"They seem to have got about all there was."
"Alas ! I struggled on — have been struggling on
ever since. No sooner were one lot of claims settled
than fresh ones came up."
164 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Enough to drive any one to drink," said Davies.
"I became discouraged, Richard. Be it said to my
shame, I did become discouraged. I became care
less."
"The coat looks great."
The oolonel again made a slight gesture of depreca
tion. He looked down to the left and to the right.
He pulled the tails around and examined them, let them
go again. He was thoughtful, reminiscent.
"You see," said the colonel, "I was of a somewhat
different presence then — of different habit. Mobile has
always been celebrated for its manhood, combining all
the strength and romance — and honor, I trust — of the
old South."
He finished his inspection and drew himself up.
There for a moment he had almost adjusted himself
to the original lines of the coat — a fleeting illusion —
the illusion of a fine, upstanding gentleman, broad of
chest, narrow of hip, proud of carriage, tall, com
manding, full of grace.
But the effort was too much.
There he was the shaken old man again — a little too
round in the shoulders, a trifle loose about the paunch.
He cast a look of chagrin at his companion. He
made a little gesture with his hands, explanatory, re
gretful, and yet with an air of one who still dares to
hope.
"It looks great on you, honest," said Davies. "You
know what my old friend, Bill Emerson, says : 'Trust
yourself!'"
FRIEND EMERSON 165
"Ah, Emerson," the colonel cried, as if he had heard
one more echo awakened out of his past. He quoted :
"I am owner of the sphere,
Of the seven stars and the solar year,
Of Caesar's hand, and Plato's brain,
Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakespeare's strain."
CHAPTER XXVI
THE BEATING HEAET
FOE some ume now, St. Clair had been experiencing
the tremors of a new sort of excitement. First of all,
there had been a generous distribution of hand-bills in
the front yards of the community announcing the ad
vent of the illustrious Professor Culbertson, of London,
England, who would deliver his famous series of lec
tures on "The Beating Heart." Then there had ap
peared a two column article in the St. Clair Weekly
Messenger reciting anecdotes about the great man.
The same issue of the paper contained a large display
advertisement :
CULBERTSON
(of London, England)
•'THE BEATING HEART"
He was a celebrated divine who had traveled exten
sively in all parts of the world. Presidents and kings
had delighted to honor him. He was perhaps one of
the most gifted orators America had been permitted
to hear since the time of Henry Clay. His vast tal
ents and renown, however, had never won him away
166
THE BEATING HEART 167
from what he himself was delighted to call "the little
deeds of simple kindness." The great cities never
ceased to clamor for him ; there were a dozen universi
ties, lay and theological, who were bidding against each
other to secure him as president. But the two out
standing truths of Culbertson's career were these:
He hated money.
He loved the humble village.
Not that Culbertson regarded St. Clair as a village.
In his correspondence with Mayor Jones, the great
man referred to St. Clair as a spiritual and intellectual
center about which he had heard numerous reports and
which he had long desired to visit.
It was with the full approval, therefore, of prac
tically every one in town that Mayor Jones offered to
Professor Culbertson the free use of the town hall, eve
nings, for as long as he should elect to stay.
The great man arrived.
This was Thursday, and his first lecture was not to
be delivered until the following evening. He was weary
with much travel; but all he wanted was a little rest.
He had intended to go to the hotel, and he had listened
with kindly patience while a number of the local leaders
in social reform, having met him at the depot, explained
that the hotel was a den of the demon rum. A number
of these leaders had offered him the hospitality of their
own homes — Mrs. Meckley, braving the danger of scan
dalous tongues; the Beverly sisters doing likewise;
Mrs. Crane and the deacon, the latter chastened by
what had happened at the hotel after Gus had thrown
the colonel out.
168 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
The great man had surveyed his prospective hosts.
"The hotel needs my influence more than you," he
had answered meekly.
It was the colonel who had reported the illustrious
one's arrival and what had happened at the station.
"I don't blame him for preferring the hotel," said
Alvah, with a casual touch of acid.
"Maybe the demon's a friend of his," Davies sug
gested.
The colonel smiled, but slowly shook his head.
"Have you seen him, Richard?"
"Not yet. Frank Tine, the insurance agent, has
kept me out in the country every day for almost a
week, now, looking up prospects for him. Maybe I'll
swing in on this line altogether — chuck the soap — al
though I love the soap. What does Brother Culbert-
son look like?"
"A great and good man," the colonel answered, with
a touch of reverence ; "a man grown white in the service.
I felt drawn to him even before I learned that we had
many friends in common."
"Where?"
"Mobile. He loves the old town — which I myself
hold so dear— has been a frequent visitor there."
"How did you get that?"
"He told me — as soon as he found out that I came
from there. In fact, I didn't have to tell him. Ex
traordinary! He saw me standing at a distance on
the station platform, and he came right over to me,
called me by name. 'Is this not' — I quote him ver
batim — 'Colonel Evan Williams, formerly of Mobile ?' '
THE BEATING HEART 169
"Some one must have piped him off."
"Possibly."
Alvah spoke up:
"I think it would be wonderful if Richard should
become a great insurance manager. I somehow prefer
it to soap."
But the colonel was not to be diverted.
"A great and a good man," he repeated softly, with
his mind still on Professor Culbertson. "I have long
been eager to hear a bit of old-fashioned eloquence.
St. Clair is singularly destitute of orators. Why, in
any town of this size further south, you'll find a Cal-
houn — or a group of Calhouns — everywhere — I was go
ing to say everywhere they dispense good liquor. But
there is no good liquor, of course. It will be a great
joy to listen to an orator of his eminence."
"He ought to run for President," said Davies.
"Our country could do worse."
"I never heard of him," said Alvah blankly.
"We must attend his opening lecture," the colonel
averred. "It is a long time since I heard a bit of real
eloquence."
"I think I'll wait for some night when it isn't so
crowded," Alvah opined.
"Richard will go with me. Won't you, Richard ?"
The colonel spoke as a man might who had set his
feet to a new road and is not yet quite sure of himself.
Richard regarded the old man with affection.
" 'The Beating Heart' sounds good to me," he de
clared.
It was evident that there was going to be a crowd,
170 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
all right. The lecture was not to begin until eight
o'clock ; but, from all appearances, St. Clair had supped
early, and it was evident that the council chamber,
where the lecture was to be given, would be packed long
before the slated hour. Culbertson, it seemed, had ap
pealed to the local undertaker to supply extra chairs,
and not only the council chamber but the adjoining
halls and stairways were likewise destined to house their
throngs.
The drift was already running strong by sundown.
"And it looks to me," said Davies, "like we're going
to stand unless you've made reservations."
"I dare say we'll find room, Richard," the colonel
answered with dignity.
The colonel had on his Mobile coat. He wouldn't
have walked fast in it, even if he could have done so.
That coat hadn't been made to walk fast in. A stately
stroll was its concomitant,
Alvah had taken considerable time to work it well
down around the colonel's neck and shoulders at the
time they were starting out. That was one reason
they were now already a little late. But, as the}'
walked along the street the coat kept on escaping more
and more into the mold of its pristine elegance — swell
ing chest, swanlike back — leaving the colonel of the
present day to get along in it the best he could.
"How does it look on me, Richard?"
"Great, Colonel!" Davies replied. "All I'm hoping
is that you'll get a good seat."
But in this hope he seemed doomed to disappoint
ment.
THE BEATING HEART 171
The town hall was already so jammed by the time
they got there that there wasn't even standing-room
on the front steps.
"I bet," said Davies softly, "I could work my way
through this mob at that."
There was an invitation in the proposal, but the
colonel was dignified. He held to Richard's arm.
His disappointment was so obvious and keen, how
ever, that something would have to be done or Davies
would never be able to forgive himself. It was com
ing along toward eight o'clock. In a few minutes the
lecture would begin, and then it was certain no inter
ruptions would be permitted on any grounds.
It was at this juncture that Fate came to their aid.
Fate wore the not unwelcome guise of Tessie Wingate.
She was alone. She appeared to be looking about for
some one.
"Hey, Tessie," Richard called.
"Hello, Dickie!"
She dropped a bashful and richly dimpled smile on
the colonel's account when she saw that Davies was
not alone.
"Say, isn't there a back stairs or something to the
old dump?" he inquired with playful seriousness. "I've
just got to have a place for the colonel here if I have
to knock the house down."
"Why, certainly — since it's you," she answered.
She led them to the back of the building, and there,
with a key of her own, she opened an unlighted door.
Just inside, there was a narrow stairway running to
the council-chamber on the second floor. Through an
172 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
open door at the top of the stairs there came a flood of
yellow light and the surf-sounds of a crowd.
"The professor just went up this way himself not
ten minutes ago," she informed them.
Just then there was a rising splurge of sound as the
crowd began to clap its hands. The lecture was about
to begin. The colonel had murmured his thanks with
nervous haste and was already climbing the stairs.
Davies paused where he was, as Tessie lingered.
They looked at each other through the twilight of the
dirty little landing where they stood.
"It's me that's got 'The Beating Heart,' " he whis
pered.
He slipped his arms about her. He flashed his lips
to hers.
CHAPTER XXVII
EYE TO EYE
"BROTHERS and sisters "
Hidden behind the door of the upper landing there
were two campstools, possibly put there by Tessie her
self for purposes of her own, and this fed the little
flame in Davies's heart as he got them out and opened
them.
"It's begun," the colonel whispered tremulously.
A false alarm.
Davies had given the colonel the best place, where
the colonel could command a partial view of the speak
er's platform. Where Davies sat, he could not see the
speaker at all, merely a fringe of the elect who had been
invited to places at the speaker's side — Mayor Jones,
sallow, sardonic and shifty, playing up by this means
to the church element who had been down on him rather
for permitting certain doings at the hotel ; Mrs. Jones,
large-boned, a dressed-up cook but with social ambi
tions ; the Beverly sisters, refined, intellectual, and pro
prietary, as became the great man's hostesses at dinner
this night ; Mrs. Meckley, with a touch of extra dressi
ness, all wormwood and honey.
"We have with us to-night "
A voice that was deliberate, nasal and high.
173
174 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Deacon Crane,"" whispered the colonel, composing
himself to wait but not to listen.
Davies though could scarcely hear anything save
the riot in his heart and brain. His eye went o-ut to
those on the platform and beyond to the shimmer of
lamplit faces that represented a portion of the dense
crowd assembled there; yet he saw them not.
"I kissed her on the lips," he told himself. "I didn't
intend to do it. You did, you mutt ! I did not. And
she held her lips to mine."
"Let us, therefore, brothers and sisters "
The deacon was still at it. The colonel was nodding
with his eyes closed, a look of grim patience on his
face. A scuffling of feet in the back of the hall. A
titter of laughter. A general sli!
"She was soft like a pillow," Davies was telling him
self. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. She
liked it as much as I did. Yeh! Taking advantage
of a country girl. You lie. You're the same old
crook. But I hope to marry her!"
" — have the honor to inter juce "
There was a clamorous outburst of applause that
lasted a full two minutes. There were strands of ap
plause fringing out even after that, especially from
those on the platform — the Beverly s, Mrs. Meckley.
And the colonel also was clapping his hands — clapping
his hands for Culbertson, of London, England, who
had been to Mobile and loved the old town. Davies
himself forgot his amorous and ethical meditations for
the moment, sought to see the speaker; but he could
see nothing but the agitated pool of hands and faces.
EYE TO EYE 175
"My friends "
This time, a voice that was sonorous, rich and warm.
"I see a young mother, down there, with a dear little
baby in her arms, and they're a leetle bit crowded.
Could one of you neighbors sort of move over "
It was evident that Culbertson had won his crowd.
There was another little ripple of hand-clapping, a sub
dued flutter of sympathy and admiration. Then the
speaker's voice was all that could be heard in the other
wise perfect silence:
"Before I go on, I just must say a word about the
joy I feel at being in the midst of a gathering such
as this. I wasn't feeling very good; like Abraham,
an old man and full of years ; but I no sooner set m}^
foot on this platform than I got your message — yours,
sister, and yours, brother — of sweetness and of
strength "
Davies, only moderately interested, saw the door at
the bottom of the narrow stairway open. Even before
he could distinguish who the late arrivals were he was
pricked to something like tumult by a suppressed gig
gle and a whispered expostulation.
That was Tessie Wingate down there.
He leaned back, so that he would be in the shadow.
He did this in obedience to instinct. He didn't want
to embarrass Tessie, and instinct told him that she
would be embarrassed if she discovered that he was
watching her. The instinct was right most likely.
Tessie was not alone. A young man followed her
through the door, vaguely tall and handsome but a
stranger. Tessie had given a glance up the stairs to-
176 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
ward the lighted door at the top. The lower door
had been closed at once by the stranger.
"The dirty mutt!"
Davies, despite the shadowy darkness of the lower
landing, had seen the stranger down there embracing
the girl.
"And oh, let us be tender!"
Culbertson was getting into his stride.
Tessie had fought herself momentarily free.
"She didn't want him to do it," panted Davies to
himself. '
He sat there with his ears, every now and then, bring
ing him fragments of the message that Culbertson, the
illustrious, was delivering to the good people of St.
Clair. But, most of the time, his ears were engrossed
with the warring sentiments that were voicing them
selves inside his brain. All the time, his eyes were on
those two shadowy shapes at the bottom of the dark
stairs.
And yet there were lapses in his mental vision, too —
times when a third figure, also shadowy, obtruded itself
on his thoughts ; and this was the apparition of the girl
who had taken his arm that night of the battle in the
hotel. He saw her cool and straight and brave, felt
the touch of her hand, light but strong and reassuring :
Alvah Morley.
Culbertson's voice came to him as through a wall,
thickly :
"And lo ! it is the gift of love that maketh the world
go round, precious love that meeteth the needs of our
souls. Meat for your hunger, salve for your wounds."
EYE TO EYE 177
But the jealousy that tormented Davies made him
deaf to the lofty strain of the orator.
This also was love — the thing1 that was biting1 him
ROW.
He almost wished that he had never left New York.
His mind glanced back to the last meeting in the back
room of the Commodore. There was the cherubic
Solly, the snaky mouthed Phil, tremulous Myrtle. But
the blurred picture was dominated most by old Sky-
Blue, the bishop. Was the old man right in his mock
ery of goodness ? Or was Ezra Wood right in putting
goodness over all?
"Old Ezra Wood was right," declared his heart, and
they were like words spoken by a trumpet, could such
a thing have been possible.
Said Culbertson :
"Are not angels chiefly female?"
"Yeh, when hounds like you down there keep out,"
said Davies.
While it was evident, though, that Tessie had done
her best to repulse the stranger, she had none the less
consented to sit down at his side on one of the lower
steps.
"Love. Sweet mystery! Oh, lovely love!"
Only fragments of the lecture were reaching Davies.
"If I had that country Jake by the gizzard," he said
to himself, "I'd make his eyes pop out."
He had seen the stranger slip his arm about Tes-
sie's waist and leave it there.
There was a warm outbreak of applause from the
crowd in the hall. It rose with cumulative force, abun-
178 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
dant and well-sustained. The colonel took advantage
of the interruption to turn and look at his companion.
The colonel was moved. He put a hand on Davies's
knee.
"A beautiful sentiment," the colonel whispered,
"It sure was," Davies agreed.
There was no doubt but that Tessie was ill at ease.
Davies could tell that from the way she kept turning
to glance up the stairs. Still, she was in no position
to protect herself, although Davies bitterly wished that
she would.
"What do you want her to do?" he asked himself;
"make a disturbance with all these people around? — •
ruin her reputation?"
"The Beating Heart makes little children of us all."
That was the trouble with Tessie. How could you
expect a. girl like her to have any knowledge of the
world? She was as pure and innocent as a chicken just
out of the egg — in a world that was filled with hawks
and snakes.
"Love between us. Let us all love."
Davies dimly saw the stranger at the bottom of the
steps merge his head with Tessie's.
It seemed to Davies a long, long time afterwards
that he was awakened from his apathy. Tessie and
her stranger-friend had gone some time ago, and after
that the world had settled into muffled gloom and
silence. So far as he was concerned it had. But there
was a final ripping outburst of applause, then a lull,
then the voice of Culbertson:
EYE TO EYE 171)
"Come forward and clasp my hand."
After that, the applause was breaking again, and
there was a surge of movement.
The colonel turned.
"It was magnificent, Richard."
"It sure was."
"Let us go in and clasp his hand," the colonel pro
posed.
Davies was willing. Nothing mattered very much.
Had the colonel proposed that they jump from a win
dow, Davies would have agreed.
He followed the colonel through the door and on to
the platform. The place was swarming. Culbertson,
it seemed, had left the platform, however, had descended
to the level of the floor where he would be more access
ible to the horde.
It was slow business.
They had to form in line and move along inch by inch,
with long intervals of waiting. At last, however, the
illustrious one was just ahead. Davies couldn't see
him yet, but he could hear his warm and sonorous voice :
"God bless you, brother!" "I noticed you, sister."
Had he ever heard that voice before?
He wasn't sure. He didn't give the question much
thought. It was hardly a question. He was too much
preoccupied with what had happened out there in the
stairway — both to himself and to the vaguely handsome
unknown.
And then, all of a sudden, so to speak, there he was
lookiag into a pair of keen eyes. The eyes were the
180 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
pivotal points of a white cascade of whiskers and hair.
Professor Culbertson!
They recognized each other.
Culbertson was the bishop. Culbertson was old Sky-
Blue.
CHAPTER XXVIII
US TWO
CULBERTSON had taken Davies's hand in his own and
was holding it.
Their eyes had similarly interlocked, so to speak,
Culbertsori was smiling — smiling with his brilliant little
eyes, principally, for not much of his face was visible
through his beard. Davies stared.
Culbertson spoke:
"What did you say your name was ?"
"Davies — Richard Davies."
"Oh, my dear young friend !'* He was beaming.
He glibly lied : "Yes, I got your request. I will speak
a word with you in private."
The colonel had turned. He was tremulous with
pleasure, proud and delighted.
"He bears a great name, Professor Culbertson.
You are doubtless familiar with it."
"Yes! Yes, indeed! The grea-a-a-t Richard
Davies !"
"Who translated the Bible into the Cymric."
Culbertson, still holding Davies's hand, was enjoying
the situation to the utmost. There was no doubt
about that. His smile had extended until it was visi
ble through his beard. He was like Santa Glaus before
181
182 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
a particularly good child. The rest of the crowd was
jamming1 up with added smiles for the colonel and the
colonel's friend whom the great man so signally hon
ored.
"Well, well, well," droned Santa Claus. "And there
is, to be sure, a family resemblance. Tarry here until
I have spoken a word to these other dear friends.
Don't go awat. Here are a couple of chairs right
back of me."
Davies and the colonel sat down, with Culbertson
right in front of them. They could hear his voice,
gentle, mellifluous:
"God bless you, sister."
"Brother Smith ! Ah, yes ! Brother Smith !"
But all the time a fine observer could have told that
he was keeping half an eye on his friends to the rear.
Once, the great man turned and glowed at the colonel
and asked him if he had had a letter recently from
Mobile — it was clear that Sky;Blue suffered from no
loss of memory — but the professor's glance, amused
and keen, had been for Davies.
"You didn't tell me," whispered the colonel, without
resentment.
"What?"
"That you and he had been in communication."
Davies didn't know what to say.
He didn't know what to say, for that matter, even
when he and Sky-Blue and the colonel were leaving the
place together. The great man had gently, almost
affectionately, dismissed the last of his admirers —
even the Beverly sisters. He came right out and said
US TWO 183
that his dear young friend Richard had expressed a
need for him and that he was never too tired to grant
such a request. And Davies could see that this was
strengthening his own position with the townspeople,
and the colonel's as well. But Davies was silent, ill at
ease.
The three of them walked slowly down the street
together, the colonel and the professor doing most of
the talking. For quite a while they were still in the
homeward drift from the hall, and Culbertson was still
interrupted rather frequently by those who wished to
bid him good night, invite him to dinner, inquire into
the length of his stay. For all these inquiries he had
a gentle and affectionate word.
It struck Davies, though, that even now Sky-Blue
was chiefly occupied in getting such information from
the colonel as would help to check up any story that
Davies himself might tell later on.
"Yes, yes ! Descendant of the great Welsh Saint !"
Sky-Blue could enjoy a joke as much as any one. He
squeezed Davies's arm. "How lovely it would be —
how splendid it would be — if he himself should become a
minister of the Gospel ! When did you say it was that
your brother Abner died?"
Davies wasn't listening to what the colonel said.
"As I remember him," said old Sky-Blue, "he was
a man of splendid qualities — qualities that endeared
him to all who knew him. Did you say that he left con
siderable property?'*
Davies was in something of a panic for a while. It
was not a panic of fear in any sense. It was a panic
184 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
of resentment. As he looked back on it, this whole
night thus far had been a panic of resentment. Sky-
Blue's presence was a catastrophe — a plague that had
fallen upon him just when it seemed as if he was getting
this new life of his well under way.
"Ah, yes !" Sky-Blue was saying, "and his niece was
the sole heiress! Alvah Morley! How old did you
say Alvah was?"
They lingered for a while at the colonel's front gate,
the three of them did; and the great Professor Cul-
bertson there disclosed to the colonel a purpose to tarry
in St. Clair for an indefinite period. The goodness of
St. Clair had already taken a strong hold on the pro
fessor's heart. He was weary. He was like Abraham,
an old man and full of years.
"I'm sorry," said the colonel, with a touch of ner
vousness, "that I can't offer you anything."
Culbertson gave a slight start. He lifted his right
hand, palm outward. But he slanted a glance at
Davies through the blue darkness, and Davies could
see that the old reprobate was smiling through his
beard.
"I'll ask your young friend Richard to guide me to
my abode," he said weakly. "Good night, colonel."
But scarcely had the colonel gone before Sky-Blue's
weakness left him.
"Chick!" he breathed. "Damn my eyes if it ain't
Chick!"
"Don't call me that."
"Richard!"
"Yes!"
US TWO 185
"Descended from Saint Richard!"
Sky-Blue softly laughed. From his left pocket he
extracted what appeared to be a silver spectacle case.
He opened this and carefully wadded up a generous
chew of fine-cut tobacco which he stowed into the cavern
beyond his beard.
"Let's get away from here," Davies said. "They'll
hear you."
"Not that way," said Sky-Blue, as Davies started
back in the direction of the town. "Ain't there some
place where we can sit down together for a while and
make ourselves at home?" He forked his beard and
spat between his fingers. "I got a quart of the best
malt whisky you ever tasted back there in my grip at
the hotel," he said ; "but as I recollect you don't drink."
"That's right."
"You're a bright one !"
It was the professor who led the way out along the
road toward the open country beyond the Flowery
Harbor. The professor seemed to be perfectly at home
in the country, even at night. When they had gone
far enough he cast about for a place where they could
sit down. But he was averse to sticking too close to
the road.
"You're a bright one, Chick. You can't be too care
ful in our business."
"What do you mean, 'our business'?"
"Now, there you go."
"You got me wrong. I'm on the level."
"Tell it to Sweeny." The professor was jovial.
186 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
After a while they were seated on an overturned
wagon-body back of a hay-rick.
"So you got yourself right up to where you're be
lieving it yourself," laughed Sky-Blue softly. "Well,
you're right. You're right. That's the only way to
make others believe it." He forked his beard and spat
between his fingers. "I wish I had a leetle drop of that
malt," he ruminated. "It's the best liquor that ever
tickled your gullet. When do you reckon you're go
ing to marry the colonel's niece?"
CHAPTER XXIX
STARLIGHT AND GRAFT
"I WASN'T reckonin' anything about it," said Davies,
with a hint of asperity.
"O-ho! You wasn't reckonin' anything about it!
Seems to me you've improved your language a whole
lot too. You're a slick one. You always were a slick
one. I don't know of a soul I'd rather have met up
with. So you're straight?"
"Trying to be."
"Well, then, who's putting up for you?"
"No one."
"You ain't living on air."
"I'm working for a living."
"What line?"
"For a wliile I was selling soap. Now I'm digging
up insurance prospects for a fellow here in town named
Tine."
"Prank Tine."
"You've met him?"
"No, but I reckon I will. I hear he is one of these
fellows that'd bet his own grandmother on a pair of
deuces." Sky-Blue glanced up. "What a beautiful
night !"
187
188 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Davies watched him as he laid his coat aside, took
off a shoe.
"You seem to be well posted."
"Middling ! Middling ! If I thought you really was
working for this here Tine, and didn't know that you
was a damn-sight slicker'n he was, I'd tell you to
look out for him as a second-class crook. Are you
and him working together?'*
"I teU you I'm on the level," said Davies. "That
stuff I was telling you the last time I saw you in New
York was straight. I've quit the game. How do you
know so much about folks here in St. Clair?"
''Well, since it's you, I bought the sucker-list of old
Doc Turnbull who's been selling Indian remedies in this
town for the past seven years, and incidentally taking
away such odd change as he could pick up in the poker
game over at the hotel. Doc didn't need the list any
more."
"Dead?"
"Doing time out in South Dakota." He smiled up
into the darkness. "What's the nature of this insur
ance work you say you're doing?"
"I drive around the country with the horse and
buggy, find out where there's a good prospect, put
Tine next, and he splits the commission with me."
"And Tine hasn't skun you yet?"
"He owes me quite a little."
Sky-Blue laughed.
"Well, anyway," he said, "you ain't losing your
time."
"In what way?"
STARLIGHT AND GRAFT 189
"Well, you're getting a lot of useful information.
There's old doc's sucker-list, for example. It ain't
what it should be — not in a great many particulars.
No sucker-list ever is, until I get through with them.
Why, take the case of your old friend, the colonel, for
instance."
"Yes; what about him?"
"That's the point. What's he worth?"
"His weight in gold."
"Flapdoodle ! How much money has he got?"
"I don't know."
"No, I suppose not ! Doc Turnbull's got him down
as a sort of original brand of miser with half a million
tucked away. I don't want to crab your game, Chicky ;
but was that what you was after?"
"Of course not."
"I don't want you to misunderstand. I don't think
you do, or will. You've seen a little of my work, and
you've probably heard about it more. I've retired
from active practice, you might say — become what
you might ca-11 an authority. They've come to count
on me — doctors, ministers, lawyers, inventors, publish
ers. Why, a sucker-list like that of poor old Doc
Turnbull is, you might say, nothing but raw material
for me. I'll take a list like that, for St. Clair, for
example, and by the time I get through with it there
won't be an electric institoot, or a college of quacks,
or a fake magazine, or a phony charity plant — not in
God's own country, nor Canada — no, nor in England,
or Sweden — that won't pay me five hundred dollars
for it any day — and maybe two or three of them buy-
190 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
ing the same list at the same time. But I'm getting
old. I'm getting old."
Old Sky-Blue took his sock from his unshod foot.
He rested the foot happily on the turf and wriggled
his toes. He had removed his hat, and now he lifted
his face with its misty white drift of beard and mane.
He might have been the prophet David ready to raise
his voice in song:
I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the
righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.
"Bishop,'* said Davies, "honestly, when I heard you
spiel to-night, and saw how all the folks fell for you, I
was thinking that maybe you were on the square your
self."
"I am on the square.'*
"Well, then, what are you driving at?"
"I never diddled the law in my life," said Sky-Blue,
still in a sort of ecstasy as he contemplated the night.
"Making folks feel good ! That's my line. And if that
ain't being on the square, why, I'd like to know what
you call it, Chicky. And that's why I'm going to off er
you the biggest chance any boy ever had. I'm going
to make a man out of you. I'm going to treat you like
a son — make you rich — make j^ou famous "
"I'm much obliged, but "
"Wait a minute. I ain't through yet. When I saw
you in the town hall to-night, you all alone, and fresh
and innocent right off the Bowery, and trying to work
this town all by yourself, why, my heart just cried for
you. It did. It was all I could do to keep from
STARLIGHT AND GRAFT 191
bursting out right in front of all those tin-horn hypo
crites and slobbering old hens and taking you to my
bosom."
"Well, I was surprised to see you too."
"Listen, Chicky," and the bishop came back to earth
and dropped his voice. "Fm going to show you how
much I think of you. You're right. Never go in for
this hanky-panky, mealy-mouthed, psalm-singing line
of pious graft unless you've got the gall to put it over
even on your friends. Me, I'm gettin* a leetle old — a
leetle slack. I like my comforts — my chaw of tobac-
cer, my occasional bend. You — you're different.
Here you are, sittin' here now, solemn as a sexton,
lettin' on even to old Sky-Blue that you're straight."
"I am."
"Right enough! Now, what I'm drivin' at is this:
I expect the sucker-list for this town, as annotated
and brought up to date, will be worth one thousand
bucks at least. I can get almost that much from a
new spirit-photo concern alone. Then, if I decide to
do so — as I think maybe I will — and stay around here
like it was my headquarters for maybe two or three
months or so — I ought to be able to stick the good
people for three or four thousand more on behalf of the
Beating Heart Seminary which I'm expectin* to found
in Wichita."
"What's the answer?"
"The answer's this, Rollo: Grandpa's gain* to let
you in on the graft."
"I think I'd better be getting back to the house,"
192 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
said Davies. "I'm afraid the folks will be sitting up
for me."
"Well, well, well!" purred the bishop.
He proceeded to pull on his sock and his shoes, while
Davies waited for him. Sky-Blue was talking to him
self. And it sounded gentle and ironical and disquiet
ing to Davies, although he couldn't catch much of what
the bishop said — not even when the elder had taken
him by the arm and started back with him in the direc
tion from which they had come.
Davies was silent. He was oppressed by a sense of
foreboding. This became acute as he saw that the
colonel had waited for him — that the colonel and Alvah
were both sitting on the stoop.
"Is that the niece?" Sky-Blue whispered.
"Yes."
"Well, well, well," the bishop droned.
CHAPTER XXX
HIGH PRAISE
"I'VE just been having a talk with our dear boy Rich
ard," the bishop was saying, a little later; and he
slipped his arm around Davies's shoulder and patted
him with paternal affection.
"Well, we think a lot of Richard," the colonel
averred.
It was easy to see that the colonel was as moved as
if the great man had praised an actual son of the house.
At the sight of Professor Culbertson and Davies re
turning from their walk the colonel had hurried down to
the gate. He was now followed, somewhat timidly, by
Alvah. Old Sky-Blue had an eye for the girl as she
approached through the blue transparency of the night.
All girls may appear beautiful seen through such a
veil.
With his hands still patting Davies on the shoulder,
Sky-Blue spoke again:
"And this is the dear niece ! Yes, yes ! Richard has
spoken to me about her."
"You're a liar," stormed Davies in his heart, but he
made no sound.
Alvah came forward with her eyes on the great man,
but she had shot one glance in Richard's direction.
193
194 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
What could Richard have been saying about her ? She
acknowledged her uncle's introduction. She put out
her hand, and Sky-Blue took it. He not only took it ;
he held on to it. He not only held on to it ; he gently
patted it.
"Dear child!"
"Uncle has spoken about you," she faltered; and
it seemed to Davies that he could see her flush with
embarrassment.
"Dear child !"
"Ah, let go her hand," said Davies in his heart.
"Spoken about you very enthusiastically," Alvah
completed what she had started out to say.
"And wasn't you there yourself?" the bishop asked
her, with gentle reproof.
"No."
"You should have come with Richard. Richard
would have brought you. Wouldn't you, Richard?"
And he finally released his hold on Alvah to em
brace dear Richard again. Richard was silent.
"There is nothing," said the colonel, "nothing! —
that we could ask Richard to do that he wouldn't do."
The colonel was speaking with genuine emotion.
"Won't you come in and sit down for a while? It is
still early."
Davies's heart sank. He heard Sky-Blue saying
something about the sweet influences of affection and
family life. He distrusted the bishop savagely, and
never so much as at this present moment.
"Our home is humble," the colonel apologized.
"Love maketh marble halls," Sky-Blue intoned. He
HIGH PRAISE 195
was through the gate and had taken Alvah's arm for
support.
Even so, Davies, from the rear, could see that the
bearded elder was alert to all that he saw, was only
too glad to make a closer acquaintance with the house.
Sky-Blue was deftly supplementing the questions he
had already asked the colonel concerning the owner
ship of the property, Alvah answering him with simple
frankness.
"So all this will be yours, some day?"
"If there's anything left of it."
"Well, well, well! And St. Clair is growing."
"Three new families in the last month. And there's
Mr. Davies."
"Yes, yes ! There's Mr. Davies."
Alvah ran into the dark house and brought out
a cushion for the great man, and Professor Culbertson
settled down on this as if he intended to remain the
rest of the night. Perhaps this was his intention.
"I was just telling Richard, but a moment ago,"
he related, "what a jewel of a blessing had been con
ferred upon him — merited! merited! — to be thus
adopted into a home circle like that of Colonel Evan
Williams."
"Now ! Now !" the colonel protested modestly.
"One of the proudest names of the South! 'Why,' I
says to him, 'you may well be descended from a saint
— as you are,' I says to him; 'but where would even
a saint be,' I says to him, 'if your saint had to live in
the tainted atmosphere' — I believe that's the phrase
I used. Ain't it, Richard? Well, never mind, 'If
196 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
your saint had to live,' I says to him, 'in the pes
tiferous — yea, and insectiferous' — I believe in a little
modest merriment — 'hotel I'm in instead of this noble
'n godly home?'"
"You're very " the colonel began.
"And Richard — God bless the boy ! — he speaks right
up, and he says to me, 'Dr. Culbertson' — manly like,
inspired to the grea-a-a-t lesson of service and loving
kindness ; 'Dr. Culbertson,' he says, 'won't you please
to take my room?' he says. 'Here in this house,' he
says ; 'even if I have to sleep on the door-mat,' he says ;
'like your faithful servant — yea, verily, like unto a
faithful servant of the Beating Heart — which I am,'
he says. And oh-h-h, brother ! — oh-h-h, sister ! — when
I heard these words — issue from the wa-a-rm and vi-ber-
ant soul of him who spake them, I knew that my mission
to this town was blessed, especially with a dear good
home like this."
"Why, I hardly dare " the colonel began.
"I told Richard I would accept."
"You didn't " Davies tried to speak.
" — a great honor," the colonel was saying. "But
for one who has been entertained by royalty "
"None more royal!" shouted old Sky-Blue with
authority. "None more royal than Colonel Evan
Williams!" And he brought his heel down hard on
Davies's toes in the dark of the stoop. "My beloved
Richard," he said, with a shaking voice, "I wish you'd
step around to the hotel and have them send my things
around."
"But it's too late," Davies gritted.
HIGH PRAISE 197
"Oh, just my grip will do. Not a word, colonel!
Anything that's good enough for you, and for your
dear niece — Alvah? — is that not her name? — yes,
I recollect it now; so Richard called her — and a dear,
beautiful name it is! What was I saying? Oh, yes!
And Richard ! Richard !"
"What?"
"Peradventure, you can find some good soul to aid
you with the trunk. And should the hotel people —
they're good, hearty folks, but simple — demand their
due, let them have it ! Let them have it ! Give them
whatever they ask. Trust begetteth trust. That has
been my motto for fifty year. Yes, I think that you
had better get all my things around — get them around
to-night."
"How much is that bill going to be — about?" Davies
inquired.
But apparently no one heard his question except
Alvah, and she gave him an appealing look through
the gloaming that sent him, troubled, on the errand to
the hotel.
He had gone possibly only half a hundred yards
up the street, however, when he heard a light rush as
of some winged thing back of him. And there was
Alvah coming to join him.
CHAPTER XXXI
COMPENSATIONS
SOMETHING in the way he turned to meet her made
her hesitate while she was still several feet away from
him.
"What do you want?" he asked.
He was still under the domination of the ire old
Sky-Blue had put into him.
"Professor Culbertson," she faltered, "he thought
that I'd better go with you. I mentioned — that you
weren't on the best of terms — with the people at the
hotel."
Davies was silent. He was swallowing his resentment,
but he was finding it hard to get it down.
"That's all right," he said brokenly.
Alvah, reassured, came close. The expression in her
face was one of such bright innocence that he was in
despair of a method by which he could properly express
himself — express his anger, his anxiety.
"Isn't he wonderful?" Alvah said.
"Who?"
"Professor Culbertson."
Silence.
"And he thinks you are so wonderful."
"Uhuh!"
198
COMPENSATIONS 199
They walked along for a space with the silent path
under their feet and the damp and fragrant darkness
pushing them closer together.
"What's the matter?" Alvah queried. Her voice was
small.
"Nothing."
"Don't you want me to come with you?"
"Sure ; that's all right."
She must have been encouraged. A gossamer weight
came out of the darkness and rested on his arm — like
a bird on a branch — and that was her hand. The
touch of it recalled poignantly to Davies that first night
of his in St. Clair. He felt somewhat as if a jagged
hole had been shot through the fabric of this new life
he had been spinning. Was this the hand of a mender ?
He felt as if it might be. What was that thing old
Bill Emerson had to say about compensations ?
Alvah's voice was still smaller when she spoke again :
"Don't be blue."
Said Davies: "Say, if any of those Indians around
at the hotel get fresh with me to-night, I'll just about
butcher the whole bunch."
"Professor Culbertson must have known," she re
plied. "That was why he sent me. I'm glad he did
— and I'm glad I came — even if you didn't want me to
— on your account. He loves you. He loves you as
much as Uncle Evan does. Isn't the path dark!"
Davies meditated: This wasn't the only path that
was dark.
"When you're in a dark place like this," said Alvah,
200 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"and you can't see where you are putting your feet, do
you know what to do?"
"No."
"Don't try to see the ground at all. Just look up
and you'll see an opening between the trees. See?"
"Yes."
"And your feet will unconsciously keep the path."
The girl was right. Looking up, Davies could see
an irregular rift of starry sky between the overhanging
blackness of the maple-trees. He marveled a little at
her country-craft. With his face turned upward his feet
went forward without uncertainty, kept to the proper
path. Some voice inside of him insistently repeated:
"When you're in the dark look up."
It was only gradually that the purport of the mes
sage penetrated to his outer consciousness.
"You're right," he said; and there was no longer
any hardness in his voice.
Instantly — although she herself might not have been
aware of it — Alvah responded to his softened mood.
She said that she loved the night — loved the stars —
loved the smell of the sleeping flowers — loved the
whispering trees — loved dear old Professor Culbertson.
What could Davies say? Nothing! Worse than
nothing.
"Don't you?" she thrilled.
"What?"
"Just love dear old Professor Culbertson."
"Sure."
"What did you tell him about me?"
"Oh, I just said that you were a nice girl."
COMPENSATIONS 201
"And what did he say?"
"Well, you see he had to take my word for it.'*
There was a long pause, then Alvah spoke with some
slight vibrancy of an almost sacred enthusiasm.
"I think he will have a wonderful influence on uncle
— as you have had. Oh, I'm so grateful ! It was so
hard for uncle when he was deprived of all associa
tion with his equals."
"I'm not his equal."
Her only immediate answer was to look up at him
— a glance which he felt rather than saw ; and the feel
ing of it was a tiny flood of warmth which began
at his jaw and trickled down over his shoulder and
penetrated to his heart. Without premeditation he
reached over and touched the hand on his arm.
"You're the equal of any man in the world," she
retorted stoutly, with perfect conviction.
It was a detached judgment, abstruse, impersonal.
"Ill tell you this," he responded. "You're the equal
— and you're more than the equal — of any girl in the
world. You're all to the good. If it wasn't for you,
and girls like you, we'd all be on the blink, and this
country certainly would be on the blink."
Alvah meditated this declaration — did this reverent
ly, as any one could have told by her voice when she
spoke again.
"Oh, I should be so glad if what you say were
so."
"It is so."
"I mean about being of some use in the world — of
some use to America. And that's the world; isn't it?
202 IP YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
— the world of so many thousands and hundreds of
thousands who've never had a chance yet to live here —
but look forward to it almost like those of us who are
here look forward to heaven. I think it's wonderful to
be an American. Don't you? And, just think! — we're
America — you and I — and Uncle Evan — and dear Pro
fessor Culbertson, even if he does come from London,
England! When you think of it, doesn't it just make
you want to be great and noble, and generous and
brave?"
"I never thought of it," Davies murmured.
"Oh, I wish "
But it expanded so — whatever it was that Alvah
wished — expanded so that it escaped the confinement of
words — became a breath that was of the essence of the
night — infinite, limpid, fragrant and pure. And it
was just as if a breath of wind had filled the sails of a
spirit ship in which Davies suddenly found himself —
a buoyant spirit bark that rose with him out and up
from the nether darkness.
CHAPTER XXXII
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE
DA VIES sat in his room that night after his return
from the hotel and gave himself over to thought. He
did some of the hardest thinking in his whole career.
"To be, or not to be ?" as the colonel said.
Was it all worth while? In the vernacular that still
served him in much of his private reflection: Should
he blow the game, or should he stick it out?
The house had long been quiet.
The colonel, with genuine, old-fashioned hospitality,
had put the illustrious Culbertson to bed in his own
chamber and had sought quarters for himself elsewhere.
The colonel gone, Davies had lingered to see old Sky-
Blue feverishly unstrap his biggest grip and take from
it that quart of pure malt he had mentioned. But he
had merely glanced at this, shaken his head fondly.
"You're still there," he had said, addressing the
bottle ; "but you'll have to wait 1"
And he hid the bottle more carefully than it had
been hidden.
"The bill was six-ninety," Davies had said.
"What bill?"
"The hotel bill."
"And you paid it?"
203
204 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Sure I paid it — to get your baggage."
Old Sky-Blue had tried to squirm out of it, defer
discussion until the morning. He was tired. He was
an old man. And, finally, he had got peevish, lost his
temper. Anyway, he hadn't paid.
Davies asked himself: Was it fair? Was it? — that
this old specter should thus come out of the past to
haunt him and blackmail him?
That past!
With a little wave of despair Davies saw again, with
the eyes of his soul, that supreme picture of the colonel
and the colonel's niece at the foot of the stairs when
they had knelt there and thanked the Almighty for
having sent him, Davies, as some sort of an angelic
messenger.
Absurd, of course! But the absurdity of it was a
beautiful thing that Davies knew now he had been
nursing in his heart.
With tragic comprehension, he saw that he had been
aspiring to become some such creature as the colonel
and Alvah had believed him to be. A difficult role!
One that had caused him to discipline himself — heart
and brain, eye and tongue — as he had never disciplined
himself before. And he had believed that he might suc
ceed.
He blew out his light. He went over and sat on the
sill of the open window. The perfume of the dark gar
den went up like invisible incense. The branches of the
trees pointed upward.
" When you are in the dark, look up."
"Alvah," he whispered.
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE 203
She was everything that Sky-Blue was not. He pic
tured the two of them — physically, mentally, spiritual
ly ; and he saw them reduced to terms of power expressi
ble in two possible careers that lay ahead of him:
Sky-Blue, with his offer of partnership — easy money
• — no risk — nothing rough ! Why not ? Hadn't Sky-
Blue lived almost a hundred years? Hadn't he kept out
of jail? Traveled wherever he wanted to? Had a
good time? Wasn't he honored by all who knew him,
crooks and suckers alike? Wasn't it the bishop's
specialty to make folks feel good ? And what was tbere
so crooked about that? Anyway, what was there to
gain by sticking to the country? What had life here
in St. Clair done for the colonel, Deacon Crane, Simp
Fisher, Tessie Wingate?
Then Alvah — somehow the incarnation of a patriotic
song ! — that was Alvah ! — part hymn, part chant of vic
tory ! — of victory after battle ! She was America —
an America that was clean and vigorous and daring —
an America of drums and fluttering banners ! So would
his America be if he followed her, though he followed
her only in the spirit. And wasn't this something better
than easy money? Wasn't it better to fight the fair
fight — and let the best man win — than to get the prize
through a fake or a foul?
Old Sky-Blue was on one side of him. Alvah Morley
was on the other. They were like contending spirits —
one the black and blood-red devil's advocate ; the other,
a winged seraph.
And he walked between them.
Where was Tessie Wingate in this drama of his life?
£06 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Nowhere. So much for her. She didn't count at all.
He saw it now. The whole sum and substance of his
life was reduced to a single choice, and this choice was
not as one between Alvah and some other girl. It was
a choice between Alvah and Sky-Blue. To put it other
wise: It was a choice between such nights as this one
— cool, sweet, majestic, silent, and grand; and such
other nights as he had known back there in New York.
Now that he thought of it, most of his preceding life
had been but a series of nights — nights in the squalor
and thunder of lower Manhattan; summer and winter
nights, differentiated mostly in the quality of human
wretchedness, violence, and vice ; nights in the fighting-
clubs, heavy with smoke and the effluvia of unwashed
mobs ; nights in the billiard-parlors, the dance-halls,
and the back rooms of saloons ; nights in the blaring
and blatant open of streets and squares, filled with
peril and murderous brutalities, with serpent cunning
and tigerish greed.
It all brought back to him that night of his interview
with Ezra Wood, and he was seeing the old farmer
again, not as some one who had been bewildered and
helpless, but some one who was as a white and shining
giant with power to shape the destinies of men — some
one who was seated up there now, looking down upon
him as he walked and wavered with the devil's advocate
on one side of him and the seraph on the other.
Could there be any doubt as to the one to which
he would cast his choice?
But although it is given to every man, now and
then, as it was given to Richard Davies this night, to
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE 207
go up in the observation-plane of the spirit, so to
speak, to get a bird's-eye view of the various roads that
lay ahead, it is difficult to retain this clarity of vision
when the flier comes back ta earth.
So Davies found it.
Sitting there on his window-sill, the problem had be
come just that: Which — Sky-Blue or Alvah?
And no later than the following morning, here was
old Sky-Blue himself, apparently urging him to the side
of the angels. Sky-Blue had followed Davies to the gate
where they could talk together a bit in private out
of hearing of Alvah and the colonel. The bishop had
been all honey and butter during breakfast, especially
when addressing Davies. And the elder still had his
arm about the youth now, when they came to the gate.
There the bishop breathed a terrible oath.
"Why don't you smile at me?" he demanded; "show
a little affection — play the game? Damn me if I ever
saw such an ungrateful purp ! How long do you think
I can go on stallin' about you lovin* me and me lovin'
you and all the rest of the bunk if you don't play up
to me?"
"I'm not playing a game," Davies whispered fiercely.
"Never mind the gas," the bishop adjured.
"If you were a younger man," said Davies, "I'd soak
you one."
"Oh, you would!"
And the bishop patted him on the shoulder for the
benefit of those who might be looking.
"Maybe I will, anyway," said Davies, as his muscles
contracted.
208 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"You've got a lot to learn," said Sky-Blue patiently,
looking up at the morning. "You've got a lot to learn.
Sing Sing, Joliet, Danemora, San Quentin — they're full
of boys that were just a leetle like you."
"You ain't got nothin* on me."
"No, no!"
"Then what you beefin' about?"
"I was merely thinkin' how nice it would be if I in
vited Solly and Phil to come and join us, out here.
The colonel's got plenty of room. And there's Billy
Gin. You and him worked together. I understand
they've turned him out of Matteawan as cured, although
I dare say he also needs a breath of country air."
The morning was one of matchless beauty, of soft
sounds and sparkling fragrance. Solly, Phil, Billy Gin !
The back room of the Commodore! A padded cell in
the great hospital-prison for the criminal insane ! And
the morning had become permeated with a taint of
deadly poison.
"To hell with you!"
Davies's voice was soft, but it was swift and grim.
"Chicky!"
The bishop's voice quavered, indicating a change of
heart.
"Don't call me that."
"Richard!"
"What? Talk quick. I got to be beating it. I've
got my work to do."
"I'm an old man," said the bishop, with a manifest
effort to speak righteously. "I've been drawn to you
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE
as I was never drawn to any one. I'm all alone in the
world."
"Go on."
"At this moment I have nothing in my heart but
admiration and affection for you. As God is my wit
ness, my boy, I want you to be happy, I want you to
succeed. I'm not long for this world. I'll have enough
to answer for, when I stand up there in front of the
Judgment Seat, and they call my name, and I answer,
'Here,' and the angels are singin' sweet and low."
Davies shot a side glance at the bishop. He wasn't
surprised at what he saw. The old man was still look
ing up. There were tears in his eyes.
"Well, what are you cryin' about?" Davies inquired.
"You started the rough stuff."
"It's your ingratitude," Sky-Blue answered with an
effort.
"Where do you get that?"
"Just when I've been smoothin' everything for your
weddin'."
"My what?"
"Your weddin', Richard. Why, I've got little Alvah
crazy about you, when you might have been stallin*
around till you was as gray as I am. I was talkin'
to her again this morning while you was still asleep."
"For the love of "
"Yes, yes. I know what you would say. You didn't
know about the colonel having that snug little fortune
tucked away. You've already told me all about that.
You didn't know that the colonel was apt to croak
before long and leave all he's got to the little maid.
210 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Pretty soft ! Pretty soft for you, Richard ! But why
do you try to crab my game when I ain't crabbin'
yours — when I'm doin* all I can to push your game
along? Ain't we friends? Ain't it right that we should
love each other?"
Davies took thought.
This was no time for recrimination ; no time for an
emotional outbreak of any kind.
He spoke calmly:
"The colonel hasn't got a sou-marquee to his name."
"Are you sure of that?" Sky-Blue demanded with
equal calm.
"Absolutely."
"Then," said Sky-Blue, with a touch of bewilderment,
"what are you playin' up to him so for?"
Before Davies could answer this perfectly natural
question, Alvah came skipping down the path from the
house. She merely wanted to ask whether or not Dick
would be home for dinner ; and he told her that he would
not — that he would be out in the country all day.
But there they stood, side by side, just as he had
visioned them the night before — old Sky-Blue and Alvah
— the devil's advocate and the seraph — and the devil's
advocate had been urging him to take the seraph for a
bride.
CHAPTER XXXIII
A1.VAH LISTENS
THEY lingered for1 a while at the gate, the girl and the
illustrious Professor Culbertson, as Davies went off
down the verdant street.
"A fine young man," breathed the professor. He
turned and looked at Alvah. He solemnly repeated his
judgment: "A fine young man. But headstrong! But
headstrong! Do you know what's been ailing him to
make him act so sort of sullen with me?"
"I hadn't noticed it," replied Alvah brightly.
"I have, and it's hurt me. But he'll get over it, dear
boy ; and it will merely increase that bond of love which
unites us so strongly already. Headstrong! But lov
able!"
"What was it?"
"It was this," Sky-Blue answered, ready to testify
to the whole truth and all the details thereof. "As you
probably know, I am aimin' to crown my life's work by
foundin' the Beating Heart Seminary — out in Wichita
— where my dear sister resides — a wonderful woman,
and a godly — and the inspiration of my life. Oh-h-h,
how she has sustained me when some dear one was un
grateful! But that is the penalty of good deeds, my
child. Ingratitude! I am old. I am poor. But there!"
211
IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Sky-Blue used his handkerchief.
"You were telling me about Richard," Alvah shyly
reminded him.
"Well, I was tellin' him what I am tellin' you. I
mentioned the Beating Heart Seminary. I mentioned
it as the dream of my declinin' days. I mentioned that
I intended to give ten or a dozen lectures here in this
dear community — free gratis and without price — and
then if the good souls wanted to give somethin' toward
the Beating Heart Seminary — you've heard about it,
read about it in the public prints. No? Well, you're
young. I can remedy that."
"Hadn't he heard about it either?"
"Who?"
She colored slightly under Sky-Blue's twinkling gaze.
"Richard."
"Well, I'll tell you, just as I was tellin' him. Law
yers, doctors, ministers, bankers — they've all been a
waitin' and a prayin' for me to speak the word. But
I've refused to speak the word. They've come to me
with their love-offerings, and their fees, and their collec
tions, and their bank-books, and have cast these at
my feet. Oh-h-h, the response! But I'd say: 'No!
Take back your money! Give it to the institoots and
colleges that depend on such as you! The Beating
Heart,' I'd say 'will be a monument to them as have been
denied these grea-a-t channels of eely-mo-sinary out-
pourin'. No, no ! Take back your money !' '
"And what did Richard say to that?"
"Well, I was sayin' to him how I was confmin' dona
tions to such dear souls as we have here in St. Clair — to
ALVAH LISTENS
you, sweet child, and peradventure to your uncle — and
Richard speaks up, manly like, and he says, says he:
'Professor Culbertson, I want to do my share/ I just
looked at him, and he kind of blushed. 'Fifty dollars,'
he says. 'What for?' I asked. He wriggles. 'Put it
down in her name,' he says. 'Whose name ?* He looks
away. And whose name do you suppose he whispered ?"
Sky-Blue reached out and gently tweaked Alvah's
ear.
"Maybe he didn't want you to tell me this," said Al-
vah, slightly stifled.
"He didn't, but I told him that I would," Sky-Blue
announced benevolently. He chuckled to himself.
"That's what got him peeved. You see, he thinks
that your uncle is poor!"
"There's Uncle Evan now," said Alvah breathlessly,
and she skipped away.
"I thought so ! I thought so !" Sky-Blue communed
acutely with himself, after she was gone. "When it
comes to gettin' a line on the old man's money, she
stalls just like Chick did."
He waved a fraternal hand to Colonel Williams who
had just come around the corner of the house. The
colonel was going to the post-office, and was possibly
hoping to make the trip accompanied by his eminent
guest. The colonel had on his Mobile coat. There
was a certain suggestion of wealth and well-being about
him. There was no denying it.
"He's rich, all right," Sky-Blue muttered complac
ently.
But Alvah was speeding up the path like a bird. She
IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
kissed her uncle lightly on the cheek as she passed him.
She disappeared into the house. There she came to
a fluttering halt, in the dusky hall.
She was loved. Richard loved her.
She loved. She loved Richard.
And the formula of her life, of the world, and of God
and his angels, was reduced to this — no, expanded into
this.
Oh, what if he should tell her so, and what if she
should tell him so ! Would it ever come to that? Would
there ever be — could there ever be — in this life such
a degree of delicious intimacy between them, that they
could speak to each other freely of this sacred theme?
Oh, Richard ! Oh, dear Uncle Evan, who had brought
Richard into her life! Oh, dear, dear Professor Cul-
bertson who had revealed to her this majestic advent!
She went up the stairs to her room on the second
floor. The furniture in it was sparse and decrepit, but
faintly pretty, rather touching, covered with chintz.
There was a good mirror though. She went to it. She
looked at her reflection as at the reflection of some
one she had never seen before.
There must have been some sort of a transformation
— a hint of transfiguration. Mounting color, eyes of
a depth and a brightness, lips that were parted and
pink — yet all this contributory to an expression that
was a balance of joy and pain.
And joy and pain were what she felt.
She couldn't understand it at all. Why should her
heart have ached when all creation was a swirl of glad
ness ?
ALVAH LISTENS 215
Perhaps her hair was drawn back a bit too severely
from her forehead. Her forehead was a little too high
anyway. She loosened her hair. She fluffed it forward.
Atrocious ! She tried it again. That was better. A
wave to one side.
To have seen her, one would have been justified in
the belief that she had been engaged in labors like this
for years.
While she was leaning forward, without the slightest
premonition of what was to follow, she discovered that
there was a tear in her eye. She smiled at it. She
brushed it away. But there was another to take its
place.
Suddenly, there was no holding them back at all,
those tears ; and the aching in her heart had mounted
to her throat. And she fairly tottered to her little
chintz-covered bed and threw herself upon it, curled
up and face down, and wishing that she could die like
that before the world could show itself to be something
less killingly glad.
It may have been half an hour later when she heard
her uncle and his illustrious guest return from their
stroll to the post-office. They established themselves on
the front stoop, chatting with the dignified confratern
ity of their age and sex.
She ran down to the library and looked out at them.
Then she saw Mrs. Meckley come across the street,
fond but embarrassed. And Mrs. Meckley was bearing
a covered dish. She skittered up the path.
"I thought you'd like to taste my custard!" cried
Mrs. Meckley.
216 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Wasn't the whole world changed? Wasn't the whole
world better for the presence of dear old Professor
Culbertson?
Alvah went out, and Mrs. Meckley smiled at her as
Alvah took the dish. Sky-Blue had moved over and
invited the sister to sit down, and Sister Meckley was
in a tremor of happiness.
"I can only stay a moment," she said, very agitated.
And Mrs. Meckley hadn't visited them for years. And
Mrs. Meckley hadn't been there fifteen minutes before
Judge Berry's aristocratic wife drove up in her four-
seated phaeton to invite the colonel and the professor
for a ride.
Wasn't everything just wonderful?
CHAPTER XXXIV
INTO THE DEPTHS
BUT Davies himself went away from the colonel's
Flowery Harbor with a peculiar conflict of joy and
grief going on inside of him — a sort of laboring aspira
tion, as if his spirit were a pigeon with a pebble tied
to its foot. There was a parallel to this in the very
atmosphere — stainless and sparkling as to its physical
aspect, yet shot through with that taint of poison old
Sky-Blue, like a wicked alchemist, had put there.
He tried to doctor himself, doctor the atmosphere —
tried to free his spiritual pigeon from the weight that
held it down. He tried to do this with argument.
Was there anything in the world to cause him dis
tress? Was there? Wasn't his New York record clean
so far as the law was concerned? Wasn't Sky-Blue
merely bluffing in his talk about Sing Sing and other
prisons ? Wouldn't the ancient crook have as much to
fear as any one from an incursion of Solly and Phil
and their like?
And he himself, Richard Davies, wasn't he living
strictly on the level? Wasn't he beginning to make
both money and reputation for himself? Wasn't he
keeping himself as clean as the soap which he continued
to sell? And wasn't his new line of insurance work
217
218 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
causing him to meet all manner of good people ? Weren't
they accepting him more and more as one of themselves
and teaching him betimes their manners, their speech,
and their habits of thought?
He could render a satisfactory answer to all these
questions — could do this with certainty and without
equivocation.
But his trouble remained.
Something happened that made it worse.
He hadn't gone very far before he saw his old friend,
Constable Winch, lounging about a corner, and the
constable had the appearance of waiting for him. The
constable grinned at Davies, but back of the grin there
was a lurking something that Davies didn't like; and,
there for a moment or two, Davies caught a miasmic
gust of disquiet that was almost fear. Had the bishop
been dropping remarks elsewhere? Had the constable
been hearing things?
"Hello!" drawled Winch.
"Hello! How are you?'*
"Fair to middling. Understand Professor Culbert-
son's stoppin' down to your place ?"
"Yes."
"Friend of yours?"
Davies reflected. Maybe the constable had heard
something about the bishop. The reflection didn't take
very long. Well, if that were the case, he wasn't going
to desert the old man.
"Yes, he's a friend of mine,'* he replied.
The constable delivered himself of a slight snort of
satisfaction. So much was settled. He was now ready
INTO THE DEPTHS 219
to proceed to the next stage of the campaign he had
in mind. He drawled the preliminary bombardment in
a high nasal.
"I was wonderin' if you couldn't lend me a five-spot ?"
"Lend you five dollars ?"
"That's about the size of it."
"What the matter — they been holding up your pay?'*
The constable didn't answer immediately.
It may have been just imagination, but it struck
Davies that the thing lurking behind the surface of the
constable's mien and speech became definitely a menace
• — -at least a threat.
"No, I can't say that they been holdin' up my pay,"
he answered. "I was a little short. Thought you
might oblige me."
"I'm short myself," said Davies.
"Thought maybe you wouldn't want me to talk to
Professor Culbertson. Understand he's got a high
opinion of you. Like all of us ! Like all of us !"
"Talk to him about what?"
The constable disguised his real meaning with an
artificial laugh. He was keeping his eyes averted.
"About your sellin* soap without a license and then
sneakin' my badge. But shucks ! I don't give a dern.
Only, since we was friends and, as the old sayin' says,
one good turn deserves another."
"I can let you have a two," said Davies.
He wanted to be alone with his thoughts. That peb
ble on the pigeon's foot had become a rock. The con
stable had slipped immediately into a state of stable
equipoise. He was at peace. His eyes were alert and
220 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
eager as he kept them on Davies's pocket-hand. Davies
passed over the money.
"You ought to be in a larger town," said Davies
coolly. "You're wasting your talents on a little place
like this."
"Why, yes," said Winch. "One of these automobile
fellers told me the same thing no later'n yesterday."
He took a second thought. "Say," he demanded, "you
wasn't intendin' no double meanin' in that remark of
yours, was you?"
"No."
"Wasn't meanin' that I was like some of these here
slick New York constables you hear about?"
"Not on your life!"
"Because," said Winch, "I just heard somethin' con-
cernin' you — thought maybe you'd like to hear."
"What was it?"
"I ain't sure I got a legal right to tell."
"Something connected with the law?"
"Not yet," said the constable with a side-long glance
of his sly and bright little eyes. "Not yet, but it's
goin' to be."
Davies mentally held his breath. He was in a mood
to believe almost anything. And yet, even then his
curiosity was not centered so much on what the con
stable might be driving at as to the proper answer of
that question which had obsessed him more or less ever
since his arrival in St. Clair: Should he go, or should
lie remain? Should he run, or should he fight?
Anyway, the alternative of a quick disappearance
INTO THE DEPTHS 221
from St. Clair encouraged him to express some of the
bitterness, at least, that was in his heart.
"Say !" he exclaimed. "What in the "
He paused, but his flash was so savage that the con
stable was at once intent to mollify him.
"Simp Fisher," he whispered, "he's goin' to sue you."
"What for?"
"Criminal damages."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Why, Simp's been havin* tooth trouble ever since
you h'isted him one in the jaw, and now he's got a
lawyer — maybe you've see him — handsome young fel
low who's runnin' around with Tessie Wingate. You
see, Simp was sort of jealous of the lawyer, I guess —
been aimin* to win Tessie for himself — Simp's got a
rich uncle over near Dartown — stands to come in for
a right smart lot of money some day — so Tessie to
sort of bring the lawyer — Peebles — that's his name —
Harold Peebles — to sort of bring Peebles and Simp
together and keep everything smooth and pleasant got
Simp to give Harold this case — and Harold, he says
he's goin' to press it because — it ain't none of my busi
ness, you understand, and I'm just tellin' you this out
of pure friendship you might say — because some one
told Harold that they saw you kiss Tessie Wingate at
the bottom of the steps over there in the town hall."
"I'll paste Harold one, too," Davies announced with
decision.
The constable laughed.
"Better not," he said. "They're tricky— these law
yers. Why, they wouldn't give a dern if you did smack
222 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
their chops if they thought they could get a case
against ye. No sense of pride. No sense of honor."
It was Davies's turn to laugh. He laughed bit
terly.
Wasn't the whole world pretty small and contempt
ible? Why should a fellow try to make himself any
different?
He gave his mood free rein.
The scales had fallen from his eyes, and he was see
ing the truth — seeing it naked and ugly — a grinning
skeleton disinterred from all earthly experience. The
earth was a graveyard. He saw it now. It was a
graveyard in which he himself had buried deeds, and
thoughts, and dreams. And now these were rising up
to squeak and gibber.
A fellow was an idiot to fight against a phantom host
like that.
He had no heart at all, either for his soap or his in
surance. Instead of going to the livery stable, there
fore, he ambled out into the country on foot, not car
ing very much where he went — just so long as he could
be by himself, away from the curse of human society.
But his bad luck followed him.
Along toward noon, when he was feeling hungry and
when, also, he was beginning to get about his fill of soli
tude, he applied at a farmhouse for dinner.
The house was far back from any road, and the
farmer and his wife were both elderly and strange.
But they invited him in. It was not until then that he
discovered they were the parents of a gangling, half-
INTO THE DEPTHS
witted son. And the half-wit grinned at him like one
of those gibbering ghosts become incarnate.
Eventually free of the farmhouse, Davies struck
back in the direction of St. Clair.
His bitterness had turned to quiet grief by this time.
He had come to his decision. It had been foolish of
him not to have come to this decision before. Still,
it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. But the decision
was this:
He would return to New York.
Yes ; he would go back there and warn any other mis
guided youth — Phil, for instance — against the folly of
seeking better surroundings elsewhere than right where
he was. Himself he would plunge into fresh whirlpools
of wickedness — taking risks he had never taken before,
taking no more count of the generous impulses that
had been his, and not caring what happened to him.
Prison itself would be a relief after the rottenness of
the outside world. Perhaps, even, he would do some
thing that would bring him to "the chair" — and that
would be best of all.
He came into a familiar road near St. Clair. He
turned into a thicket where he knew there was a spring
— a spring which Alvah Morley had shown him just a
couple of days ago. And he would have drawn back.
For there was Alvah herself.
But Alvah had seen him, too — recognized him, with
startled joy.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE HIGH TOWEB
"HELLO !" he said. "What are you doing 'way out
here?"
She answered him with a little wilting movement,
looked back at the clear water of the spring.
"Had a drink?" he asked.
"I wasn't thirsty," she answered. "I just felt home
sick for the spring. You — see, I used to come here
when I was a little girl."
"A thousand years ago!'*
"When my mother was still alive."
She rinsed a rusty can, filled it, passed it to him, and
he drank.
They were silent.
Davies was glad to see the girl, but not particularly
so. He was still as much engrossed by his personal
distemper as he was by her presence — more so, possibly.
He was only indifferently aware that she may also have
been bearing an invisible pack of care, her moods and
manners were so often sober. And, for a while, she
seemed to be under the spell of that melancholy allusion
she had made to her mother. Davies had heard from
the colonel that Alvah's mother was a gracious lady,
beautiful and young at the time cf her death.
224
THE HIGH TOWER 225
But in the midst of the somewhat aimless musings
that possessed him, Alvah turned slightly, still more
slightly smiled. It was an odd smile — one that made
him ask:
"What's the matter?"
"I was thinking — thinking about that fifty dollars
you wanted to subscribe to the Beating Heart Semi
nary."
"I didn't "
She shook her head fondly, still smiled slightly.
"Professor Culbertson told me all about it," she in
formed him, gently. "I hope you won't deny it. I
was very proud. I haven't so very much to cheer me
up."
"What did he tell you?"
Bit by bit he got the information from her — the pur
port and a little more besides — of that conversation
of the morning. He said :
"Professor Culbertson shouldn't deceive you like
that. I'm going away."
"You — are — going away, Richard?"
"Yes."
Not a sign from either of them to indicate all that
this may have meant in the lives of both of them.
"When?"
"Now."
"You were returning home for that?"
"That — and partly because I'd lost heart."
"There's no train till to-morrow."
"I'll walk."
226 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Good-by, Richard."
And she offered him her hand.
"Aren't you going to walk home with me?" he asked.
She looked away. He spoke again:
"I expected to see you at the house." He took her
hand.
"Ill go back to the house with you,'* she said kindly,
but without another apparent emotion. "I will, if you
want me to."
"Where were you going?"
"Up the hill."
She waved her hand to the slope that here swelled
up from the road — a rounded hill, chiefly in pasture,
with its grass cropped short, but tufted here and there
with gnarled bouquets of stunted trees.
"What's up there?"
An explanatory gesture that explained nothing.
'Til go with you."
He didn't quite understand it, this mood of hers. He
may have guessed that she was sorry to hear that he
was going away, but she hadn't made the situation worse
by protestations. He felt a little disquieted. But
it was on her account. In the presence of her calm
any troubles he himself may have had seemed trivial.
She hadn't spoken.
"Do you care if I go with you?"
"I'd be glad," she said.
They went up out of the hollow of the spring and the
low valley of the road. The hill was bold, and the
country, for miles around, was open. And the air was
of a purity that rendered even small details brilliant
THE HIGH TOWER 227
and distinct far away — black and white cattle in a field ;
two men at work on an unfinished bridge over the river,
at what seemed a tremendous distance below ; St. Clair
in the distance, with the three church-steeples, and the
school-house cupola, and Judge Berry's new water-
tank, all sticking up so vividly among the trees that
one could almost have counted the nail-holes.
Like that, the earth was brilliant mosaic, composed
of a million details, each detail sharply defined, strik
ingly colored.
Half-way to the swelling crest they paused and
looked.
"How different the earth and the sky !" said Alvah.
"All blue," said Davies, his face uplifted.
"Except for those few white clouds."
"And the earth looks little and the sky looks big,'*
said Davies.
They walked on and on, mounting steadily higher,
and in a great silence that was merely touched up by,
so to speak, the high-lights of silence — a song spar
row's trill, very remote ; and, remoter yet, the intermit
tent tinkle of a cow-bell; and, from the greatest dis
tance of all, the echo of those last oddly detached
words of theirs.
For, as yet, neither had spoken his or her thought;
and they knew this; and they were anxious for such
speech to begin yet afraid to set it going.
At last, they were over the last slope, and there they
were as if on the top of an observatory. It might
as well have been Pikes Peak — for any limit to their
range of vision. There was a dizzy expanse. There
<W8 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
was a sense of flight. They sat down on an ancient,
fallen trunk, bleached white by time.
They looked away, they were silent — each vividly con
scious of the other's presence.
"I'm glad I met you," said Davies at last.
It was in his heart to tell Alvah why he had made up
his mind to go away, but he had difficulty in finding the
words. Somehow, it seemed to him that those troubles
of his — so great and burdensome a little while ago —
had vanished into nothingness — like the recent mosaic
of the earth — nothing visible here but the infinite blue.
He looked at her. She still had her profile to him, and
what he saw dismissed from his mind utterly even the
remaining vapors of what he had started out to say.
There was an impact against his consciousness as the
thought lodged there that Alvah was beautiful.
Hitherto, he had considered her merely as good, as
brave, as admirable from a fraternal point of view.
But now, forgetful of his wonder, he found himself con
sidering her delicate refinement of brow and nose, of
chin and throat; that commingling of sadness and hu
mor in her gray eyes and curving lips that suggested
more than anything her relationship with the colonel.
Most of all, though, he noticed her marble-white temple
gleaming through a web of hair such as he had never
noticed about her before.
The temple spoke to him, like something endowed
with a voice, and this voice to be registered only by the
ears of his innermost being.
Davies was Welsh ; and they say the Welsh are mys
tics.
THE HIGH TOWER 239
"Here resides wisdom,'* said the voice; "and here
resides purity ; and here resides courage and vision, con
stancy, and faith. All these, and more, reside beyond
the white wall of this girl's temple, gossamered with
its filaments of gold."
"My God !" said Davies, with reverence, bending the
knees of his soul — but otherwise making neither sound
rior movement ; "and she once put her hand on my arm
— told me I was the equal of any man !"
Alvah spoke :
"And I'm glad that I met you."
"I'm not so sure that I'm going away," he blurted.
"Alvah!"
She turned to look at him. She drew slightly back.
But he leaned forward.
"Richard f What's the matter?"
"Don't you know?"
His face was slightly forward. His dark eyes
glowed up at her. He had dropped his hat on the
grass, and Alvah noticed that his brow was damp. She
worked a small handkerchief from her sleeve and started
to touch his forehead.
He put his arms about her. He was fearful of using
his strength, she was so slender, so unprepared.
Her temple was close to his lips.
He barely touched the fine strands of hair that cov
ered it, but his lips remained there, second after sec
ond, while the silence took on life, as though it were
shot through and through with tiny floating strands of
music.
CHAPTER XXXVI
PARDON
BUT gradually — not too gradually — swiftly enough
— these strands of music were underlaid with a booming
strain of remorse. Here came the ghost-march out of
his past and the specters had a brass-band. There
was even a ghost of Tessie Wingate there — the girl he
had kissed not twenty-four hours ago. She loomed as
large as the ghost of Solly, the ghost of Phil, of Billy
Gin, of old Sky-Blue.
He spoke rapidly — pressed for time — as one in dan
ger of being overtaken by the advancing army. '
"Alvah!"
"Dick!"
"I love you."
"I guessed — I knew."
"But I haven't any right."
"Oh, Dick, to love is everybody's right."
"But I'm bad — have been bad — am bad yet. My
God!"
He kissed her on the lips, briefly, with awe beating
its wings about the two of them. She drew away from
him, startled, yet tender.
"You're not bad," she chided.
"I am. I've got to tell "
230
PARDON
"Don't tell me anything. The past doesn't matter."
"I'm worried."
"Leave that to women."
She succumbed again to the look in his eyes, the
movement of his hands. This time, he clung to her a
little longer. She was giving him a strength, by this
mere contact with her, as a young mother might give
strength and nourishment — for body and soul — to a
child.
The booming of the ghost-army was no longer so
loud. Davies was at least able to think.
There was a taste on his lips and a fragrance about
himself that recalled to his mind some concept of a
shriven sinner. Yet, how could he be shriven if he
hadn't confessed? Desperately eager he was to keep
this new thing he had discovered in the world — that he
was ! And for that very reason was he desperately
afraid to lose this prize — lose it on a foul.
Alvah looked at him. He looked at her.
Their sight intermingled in a twisted column of white
flame that went straight upward.
Then Davies, without thought, without premedita
tion, went down on one knee and his face was on Al-
vah's knees, there where she sat on the white old log.
And there was nothing in the least self-conscious about
it. Just reverent, and chivalrous — that is what it was ;
as any one with imagination could have told — by the
silence of the earth, the purity of the sky, and the look
in Alvah Morley's face.
She held his hands. She stroked his hair. Once,
she leaned over until he was enveloped in the warmth
IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
of her breath and her bosom and he felt a yet lighter
touch on the top of his head.
He went into a species of sleep — the sweetest, most
wonderful sort of sleep — if sleep it could be called —
that he had ever known. Anyway, it was an abeyance
of all ordinary physical sensation and of ordinary
thought. At the same time, it was an awakening of finer
senses — like the senses of some finer, nobler body only
just now stirred to consciousness — as of some new
Adam coming out of the earth, in response to the fiat
of Creation — and this Adam not yet fallen — still of the
substance and in the image of God.
A great calm possessed him.
This did not leave him even after he opened his eyes
and so to speak, reentered the body and the sphere to
which he was habituated.
They had this top of the world all to themselves.
They were as much alone, for the time being, as Adam
and Eve could have been in the Garden of Eden. And
now Davies, like the father of men, looked at Alvah
as at some one and something that had been expired
from his very soul — an incarnation of all that he had
ever aspired to in the matter of cleanliness, honor,
beauty, faith.
"Without you," he said softly, "I'll go to hell. No !
I'd be already there."
She lowered her head.
"Go to sleep again," she whispered. "Go to sleep
again with your head on my knees. Wait, I'll sit down
on the grass with my back to the log."
"It's heaven with you," he said.
PARDON 233
"Shut your eyes. I won't let anything hurt you."
"First— first »
And again the wide and sparkling sky of the hill-top
was filled with those floating strands of music. Davies
could hear them. And he listened and listened and
heard no sound at all of that grisly ghost-procession
which had passed this way before.
Among the thousand thoughts and wide fractions of
vision that displaced each other like a pageantry in
his stimulated brain there was one particularly which
impressed itself on his memory and imagination.
It was this :
Alvah possessed the power of making the country
everything that Ezra Wood had indicated it to be. Al
vah possessed the power to make the whole world like
that. For him she did. With her to give him dominion
over the haunts, the pitfalls, the passions and the frail
ties of his personal history and constitution, the whole
world could become the world of Ezra Wood:
" — sweet, and tender, and pure. All this under a
sky that would make you understand why men catt it
heaven — and at last a sunset proclaiming the glory of
God, and the stars His long-suffering mercy."
But there was no delusion in all this. His mind was
too clear for that. There was going to be work ahead,
and struggle ahead, and suffering, too, whatever the
course he should elect.
Only, all the time that he was lying there on the
short turf — face up, a sense of Alvah's hovering pres
ence about him like a magical, transparent tent — he was
conscious that he was still drawing in that strength
IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
and nourishment which would render him fit to encoun
ter whatever he might be called upon to go up against.
He didn't even mind it when he was aware that Alvah
was telling him what a great and good man she con
sidered Professor Culbertson to be — a trifle ungram-
matical at times, but so innocent, so old-fashioned, so
unworldly! He was listening to her; but not to her
words ; the music of her voice was enough.
He had the playful, uplifting fancy that a girl could
look at any man — himself, for instance — and simply by
doing so actually transform him into the being of her
conception.
Ah, Alvah! Ah, Dick!
Is this not of the very essence of all miracles?
And Davies took her finger-tips and touched them
to his forehead and held them there while he desired
himself to be transformed — desired himself to be that
which she alone in all the world perceived him to be.
Then, presently, he was visioning again ; while Alvah,
from the upper air, let fall about him as lightly as the
notes of a lark the words of a song that helped him
with his vision :
"All up and down de whole creation,
Sadly I roam,
Still longing for de old plantation,
And for the old folks at home."
He knew of a place like that. Wouldn't it be great
if he should marry Alvah and settle down? Wouldn't
it, though?
He harbored the vision; yet said nothing about it
PARDON 235
even to Alvah. First he was going to have to find out
about the thing, make his dispositions. And the idea
as yet appeared almost too preposterously great.
But what if he could suddenly offer Alvah such a
home!
CHAPTER XXXVII
"THE OLD HOMESTEAD"
THE home of his vision was a farm less than two
miles out from St. Clair, which he had frequently passed
in his drives about the country in search of insurance
prospects — a broad meadow fringing the pike, a shady
door-yard beyond this, reached by a private road and
an old house in it half hidden by the trees ; back of the
house a number of barns, and back of the barns a
wooded hill with a couple of roundly sloping fields on
the flank of it.
He had always mentally labeled it "The Old Home
stead!"
And it had always struck a sorrowful note from the
heart of him when he read the sign on the meadow-
fence announcing that the place was for sale.
Without having attached any importance to the in
formation, he recollected now that he had picked up
quite a little information about the property — here
and there, among farmers and the villagers, he couldn't
have told where. The place had belonged, or still be
longed, to a family named Slocum — a family which had
once been numerous and influential and properly rich,
but which now had disappeared. He had heard other
things — that the ground was poor, that the house was
236
"THE OLD HOMESTEAD" 237
in bad repair. And there had been something about
the title — "They'll never get the title straightened out"
something like that.
But none of this information was more than a pass
ing shadow on the vision — scarcely a shadow at all. It
gave the place an added touch of glamour.
More than that !
If no one else wanted the property, it would be all the
easier for him to get it for himself — something that he
scarcely could have aspired to had everything been in
shipshape order and of a nature to appeal to those
with more money to spend.
What did he care about the quality of the land? He
wasn't going to be a farmer, anyway. And what did
it matter to him if the house did possess a leaky roof?
He would very shortly have the old place fixed up-to-
date.
No; it was just the looks of the place that appealed
to him — had appealed to him all along even before he
had dreamed of acquiring such a home for himself —
for such a wife!
The place, moreover, couldn't be so terribly dear.
Few of the farmers he met on his rounds appeared to
be rich. They were men who worked — chewed straws
when they talked — wore muddy boots — complained of
hard times. And yet, they had homes that differed
only in degree from this place on which he found himself
suddenly setting his heart.
It was two or three days later when Zeb Ricketts, in
charge of the all-but-abandoned Slocum farm, saw
238 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Davies drawing near along the St. Clair Pike. Zeb
recognized the horse and buggy Davies used long be
fore it would have been possible for any one without a
telescope to have recognized Davies himself.
Zeb dropped a rake and put his elbows on the fence.
"That insurance feller's startin' out early," he said
to himself. "Must have a special case."
Zeb talked to himself mostly, for he was all alone on
the farm. Talking to himself was more satisfactory
than talking to the one horse, the one cow, and the dozen
or so fowls left on the place. The horse was crowbait
and had the heaves. The cow was dry, slightly crazy,
and as wild as a chipmunk. The hens were diligent
egg-hiders.
"Bet he's goin* to drive over as far as Miilville," lie
said. "Bet he's goin* to eat his dinner in the tavern
over there."
And he fell into a melancholic reverie. He had been
to Miilville once — one Fourth of July — and Miilville
was across the line, in the next county — like going
abroad for Zeb. He wished that something would turn
up so that he could travel again.
Then his reverie came to an abrupt end.
"By jiminy!" he exclaimed. "He's turnin' in."
He rapidly deduced that it couldn't be insurance
business that was bringing the visitor. He was correct.
Davies drove slowly up the private lane, came to a stop
not far from where Zeb stood.
"Good morning !" said Davies.
Zeb smiled at him for a long moment before answer-
"THE OLD HOMESTEAD" 239
ing. Zeb was cordial enough, but he was cautious. He
wasn't going to commit himself.
"I read the sign on the fence," said Davies.
"Which one?"
"That the place was for sale."
"You might have meant the patent medicine signs,"
said Zeb, unbending a bit. "The feller that put 'em
there hired that same rig you got from Jellison's."
"The place is for sale, isn't it?"
"I guess the feller'd be a liar who said it wasn't."
"Who's in charge?"
"Well, I'll tell you," said Zeb, keeping Davies fixed
with his glittering eye ; "since you ask me, young fel
low, why, it's me."
Davies got down, taking his time about it. His trips
about the country had made him used to all sorts of
people and their ways. He hitched his horse to an iron
ring in the bark of the tree. He came over and
squatted in the grass. Zeb, meantime, had seated him
self on the stump of a tree which, in times remote, had
been whitewashed for decorative purposes.
"Had many offers?" Davies asked.
This was bargaining, and Zeb was at home.
"Not more'n two or three a day."
"I think you're lying," said Davies in his heart.
Aloud : "Then, I suppose, there's no use in my wasting
your time."
Zeb eyed the stranger keenly. And all the time he
was doing so two lines of thought were squirming in his
brain. One was that this stranger was a greenhorn
with plenty of money. The other twin-serpent of
240 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
thought was that it would be sweet to travel again.
But he concealed the contents of his brain with subtle
speech.
"If it was anybody but you," he said "maybe they
wouldn't be any use." And he began to swing his leg.
"Why do you make an exception in my case?"
"Got my reasons."
"What are your reasons ?"
"Maybe it's because we've got the same friend," said
Zeb.
"Who is that?"
"Professor Culbertson," said Zeb. "I'm like you.
I'm a follower of the Beatin' Heart."
There for a moment it was in Davies's heart to deny
the allegation, but it merely made him smile.
He looked about him. Here in the door-yard the
uncut grass was lush and deep even in the shade of
the walnuts and the honey-locusts. The house looked
even better than it did from the road. Run down?
Yes. But roomy, deeply porched, homelike. Under
that porch he could put up a hammock for Alvah to
swing in. Here on this stump he could easily put a
box of red geraniums.
"How much do you think the place is worth?" he
asked.
Zeb was keen again.
"Cash or credit?"
"I expect to pay something down," said Davies, "and
then pay the rest in installments."
Zeb went a trifle breathless.
"THE OLD HOMESTEAD"
"Was you expectin' to pay somethin* down right
off?"
"I wasn't," said Davies; "but I could, if it were
necessary."
"You'd have the live stock for security," urged Zeb.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
HESITATIONS
BUT now that the matter of terms had come up,
Davies began to be assailed by vague misgivings — some
hint from his soul, perhaps, that his path to happiness
wasn't going to be so simple as all that. He had a
hundred dollars. He hesitated. Zeb wanted three
hundred dollars down. Zeb kept talking about the im
minence of other and better offers. At the same time
Zeb couldn't forget the fact that both he and Davies
were friends of Professor Culbertsori. Zeb was walk
ing into town every time the great man spoke. The
upshot of the matter was that Davies finally paid his
hundred dollars for a thirty-day option on the place.
Why not? Why these vague misgivings?
Misgivings and anticipations were using his hearh
for a battle-field all the rest of the day as he drove
about the country in quest of new business. He was
going to have to get a lot of new business. If he
wanted to make his option good at the end of the thirty
days he would have to come across with another two
hundred. Could he do this? Of course he could — if
Frank Tine, the insurance agent, did his part. But
would Frank Tine do his part ? Sure he would.
None the less, his misgivings won another skirmish.
242
HESITATIONS
He flashed up a mental portrait of his employer —
broad of jaw bait gimlet-nosed, affable, yet with a cer
tain something in his eyes. And Frank had certainly
been sitting in pretty steadily of late at that poker
game over at the hotel.
"Forget it," Davies adjured himself.
On another day he got Colonel Williams to drive with
him over to the county seat to inquire into the titles
of the Slocum place. There was nothing radically
wrong in that respect. He had taken the colonel into
his confidence to some extent — had mentioned to the
colonel the possibility of his buying this farm. And
the colonel was moved.
"How much more would you be moved," said Dick
to himself, but in thought, addressing the colonel —
"how much more would you be moved if you knew that
I was buying this for Alvah?"
Perhaps the colonel did suspect.
"I know of nothing," said the colonel, "that will so
help a young man to self-respect as the acquisition of
a bit of property that he has earned himself."
Just a generalization; nothing personal.
"I'd hate to get a piece of property," said Dick,
"and then get bilked out of it."
Colonel Williams allowed himself a flight to a higher
philosophical plane. He smiled with his eyes. He
stroked his white, ante-bellum mustache. They were
seated in the buggy at the time, jogging along through
a mild and pleasant country. The colonel was looking
straight ahead, yet with that obvious alertness of
thought that meant he was aware of all things.
244 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Yes," he said, "a fair degree of caution is always
advisable in business matters. But work — just work —
is the essential thing. As Emerson says, 'no effort is
ever lost.' No one can rob you except yourself. Even
should you work hard and earn money to pay for a
farm, and did pay for it, and then found that, through
some mistake or trickery, both farm and money were
lost to you, still you'd be the possessor of the equiva
lent, and more than the equivalent, of what had been
taken from you."
"How about the other fellow?" asked Dick.
"What other fellow?"
"The one who put over the crooked business and
copped the farm?"
"He'd have to pay," replied the colonel, gently and
sagely. "It would become a debt — a debt bearing in
terest. The longer he deferred payment the higher the
interest would become. He'd have his soul in pawn.
If he persisted in non-payment he'd lose his soul."
The debt!
The phrase found lodgment in Davies's innermost
consciousness.
He himself had a debt to pay. That wasn't easy
money that had come to him during his years in New
York. The so-called easy money, at its best, was a
loan. And all the time the interest had been piling
up — there in the devil's pawn-shop — where he had
pledged his soul.
And he couldn't ask Alvah Morley to marry him —
could he? — until he had paid off this debt of his, princi
pal and interest, got his soul back again.
HESITATIONS 245
He had half intended to broach this matter to the
colonel, tell the colonel that he was in love with Alvah ;
but now the very certainty that the colonel would re
gard him with favor tied Davies's tongue.
"A great truth," the colonel was saying; "a truth to
heal and comfort all of us in times of grief and trouble.
We lose our earthly possessions; we take our talents
into some happy valley of the spirit and live like a king.
We lose some one who was very dear and, from that
time on, she — or he — is with us all the time. I knew
a young man who lost his eyes. He recovered the
power of a different sort of vision — you could tell it
by the expression of his face. Perhaps you've noticed
it — that placid expression the blind have."
Davies heard; but it was only with the surface of
his hearing, so to speak. His inner hearing was still
vibrant to the beat of that earlier phrase :
"The debt! The debt!"
Was it a part of the payment that he should tell the
colonel just what manner of man was this Professor
Culbertson the colonel had taken into his home?"
But the colonel was speaking again.
"The same thing is true of those who rob cities,"
Dick heard him say; and it was just as if the colonel
had read his thought — just as if the colonel did have
old Sky-Blue in mind. "The debt's the same — one
that they will have to pay — one that will admit of no
default. I often think of this when I read about the
political grafters and all the other sorts of grafters
who wouldn't stoop to rob an individual but who ap-
246 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
patently see no wrong in robbing a community. For
them also 'the wages of sin is death.' "
"That's right," said Dick.
"It doesn't mitigate their deed," the colonel said,
"in that the community may not be harmed, any more
than an individual is harmed through being the victim
of a theft or a chicanery."
"I follow you," said Dick ; but it is doubtful whether
he did or not.
"Why, I remember," said the colonel, "the instance of
a certain impostor who once went about a certain sec
tion of the South in the guise of a religious zealot. A
thoroughly bad man, you will say ; one who made mock
of sacred things in order to satisfy his private greed.
But not even he, in the last analysis, can be said to
have injured the community. He stirred dormant emo
tions that were better awake — quickened generous im
pulses which might otherwise have never been quick
ened at all."
"That's Sky-Blue," said Richard to himself.
And he decided that he'd better not say anything
about the old crook — not just yet.
"A benign Providence," said the colonel, "seems to
have arranged all things to its own ends — even the ap
parent crookedness and brutalities of the world — driv
ing the individual, or the town, or the nation to look
less and less to material and more and more to spiritual
values."
"This is the old Southerner talking," said Davics to
himself. "Or is he taking a shot at Sky-Blue after
all?"
HESITATIONS £4-7
In any case, all that the colonel said, more or less,
entered into his make-up — just like something that he
had eaten, and digested, and made a part of himself.
And this made him love not only the colonel all th •'-.
more, but Alvah, and even Sky-Blue — made him look
with greater tranquillity on Frank Tine, and St. Clair,
and on the world in general; aware that all that hap
pened to him might be for the better in the long run,
anyway.
It was just as well for him, perhaps, that he did get
this increment of strength and wisdom from the colonel.
The time drew near when he was going to need it.
CHAPTER XXXIX
ACID AND ALKALI
THERE'S an old rule. Almost every one has noticed
it. It keeps turning up in the lives of all sorte of
men, from Moses down. The rule is this:
Just as soon as a man, or a woman, or an angel,
reaches some high point of moral supremacy, just so
soon the dark forces begin their game of bringing the
climber down.
Davies didn't codify the rule. He may not have
recognized it. But the rule was making itself felt none
the less.
In the first place, he had a lot of trouble and lost
a lot of time trying to get Frank Tine where he could
speak to him in private and at length. Frank cer
tainly was keen on the poker festival over at the hotel.
But Davies finally cornered his chief in a little room
that served them both as office.
"I've paid a hundred down," Davies explained ; "and
promised to pay two hundred in thirty days. That's
three weeks from now."
"What's the price?" asked Tine.
"Fifteen hundred in all."
"I understand the title's no good."
24S
ACID AND ALKALI
"The title's all right," said Dick. "I've had it
looked into."
"And if you don't show up with that two hundred —
what was the date?"
"Three weeks from to-day."
"What will happen?"
"I'll lose my option, that's all," said Dick. His
dark eyes noted a spot on Tine's none-too-tidy coat.
"You ought to use some of this cleansing soap. I
carry it with me. Let me show you."
"Still sticking to the soap," said Tine; but his
thought was elsewhere. His usually shifty eyes were
steady, turned inward.
Davies had come back with the office towel from the
washstand in the closet. He had moistened a corner of
it. He applied this to the spot on Tine's coat.
"Stick to it," he said, "because, somehow, I like it —
clean, smells good, like to use it myself."
"You keep yourself spick and span, all right," the
insurance man complimented him. But his thoughts
were still elsewhere. They ranged out to that farm
this odd assistant of his had taken steps to acquire.
For, like most insurance men, Tine was also a real es
tate agent. He should have had that Slocum property
in mind — would have had it in mind if the poker game
hadn't been running so strong over at the hotel. "How
does the place look?"
"Great!" said Davies. "Run down — that's how I
got it so cheap; but just a little money spent on it,
and it'll be a regular home."
Tine spoke to himself :
250 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Harold Peebles wants a place like that. He's a
sucker with plenty of money. I could put it over on
him."
"I just wanted to remind you," said Davies, good-
naturedly, as he finished his task. "There, that spot's
gone! Just wanted to remind you so you'd be there
with the commissions when the new business comes
rolling in."
"Because," said Tine, with an inverted smile, "if you
don't show up with your old two hundred "
"I lose my hundred and my option," Davies repeated,
cheerfully.
It may have occurred to him that he was taking a
pretty big chance in thus putting himself virtually at
the mercy of a small-town gambler like Frank Tine.
But he was in the mood for taking chances. Wasn't
it true, anyway, that not Frank Tine nor any one
could do anything to injure him? No one could do
that but himself.
But he was barely at the bottom of the dusty stairs
leading to the street before he met Simp Fisher. It
struck Davies that Simp's expression had even more
of sheepish suffering in it than of evil. He felt sorry
for Simp — felt a friendship for him.
"Hello!" said Davies.
"Hello!" said Simp.
"Understand you're framing up a suit against me."
Simp ran a careful hand over his jaw. He looked
across the sunlit street, glanced at a couple of farm
ers who were tying up their teams on the hither side.
"It ain't an ill-will suit," he averred nervously. "Doc
ACID AND ALKALI 251
Flenner says I've been injured for life. I ain't hardlj
been able to eat on that jaw for two weeks."
"Maybe you got a piece of toothpick stuck in it."
«No, sir!"
"What's doc say it is?"
"Dock ain't sayin'. He's countin' on gettin' called
as an expert. His bill's high enough as it is."
"How much?"
"Twelve dollars," said Simp, with an increase of
nerves. "You settle that, and I'll call the suit. We'll
get even with that dern Peebles."
Davies's first impulse was to laugh at Simp and tell
him to go to the devil, but the impulse faded almost at
the moment of its inception. Down the street, in a
lofty old buggy drawn by his skeleton nag with the
heaves, came Zeb Ricketts. And Zeb was all dressed
up — new clothes, new hat, new celluloid collar that
glistened, new buggy-whip. An emissary from the Old
Homestead, a mentor of new responsibilities. Davies
couldn't go into that new home of his with the curse of
a law-suit hanging over him; and, suddenly, that im
pulse of his was altogether reversed.
"Shake hands on it, Simp," he said.
Simp had a lurch of delight strange in one injured
for life.
"And tell Doc Flenner to send the bill to me," said
Davies, gravely. "I'm sorry you got your face in my
way."
Simp grinned.
Not even when, later that day, Constable Winch spied
him from afar and hailed him with amiable intent would
252 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Davies allow himself to be shaken in the new strength
he was building up.
"Could you loan me a couple of dollars?" the con
stable whispered with great haste. "I could let you
have it right back."
Davies sighed.
"Sure."
"You couldn't make it a five?" the constable sug
gested.
"Two's the limit," Davies replied.
"Because," said Winch, "I just heard somethin' that
might interest you."
"Which is?"
"You know that Zeb Ricketts, don't you? I under
stand him to say a while ago, when he was over to the
Red Trunk Clothing Store, as how you'd paid him some
money on the Slocum place."
"Well, what of it?"
"Well, later on, I see Zeb and Frank Tine whisperin'
together back of Jellison's livery 'n' feed stable.
Nothin' wrong. Only thought you'd like to know."
Davies was vaguely disquieted by the news that
Winch had given him, inconsequential though this on
the surface appeared to be. But he fought the feel
ing off.
There for a while he was even trying to stifle his
knowledge of old Sky-Blue and of what sort of a work
old Sky-Blue was engaged upon. What was that
theory about folks being good if you would onlj be
lieve them to be good?
But as to that, things were coming to a head.
CHAPTER XL
"i AM THE PRINTING-PRESS"
HE had got home from the country late one night,
when, after putting up his horse at Jellison's, his route
took him past the Messenger office, and he was both sur
prised and pleased to see that there was a light shin
ing from beyond the partition separating the mechani
cal end of the Messenger plant from the business and
editorial department. Davies wanted some cards
printed; and, unless he put in his order now, he knew
that he would be forgetting it again. So he tried the
front door; the door was locked. He went around to
the back of the building, and he could hear some one in
there running a foot-press. It was useless to knock.
Whoever was running the press would be deafened by
his own noise. So Davies entered the place.
And there was Sky-Blue himself — coat off, all alone,
treading away at the foot-press, feeding in the sheets
and pulling them out printed — a picture of happy in
dustry.
"Well! Well! Well!" the bishop laughed, so soon
as he had seen who the intruder was.
He had instantly stopped the running of the press.
He utilized the intermission now to straighten some
of the sheets he had printed. He had put on an old
253
254 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
pair of spectacles which he seldom used. These were
resting on the end of his nose, and he now looked
through them, tilting his head back to do so, the better
to admire his handiwork.
"Didn't know I was a printer; did you, Chicky?"
"No!"
"Well, I'll have to learn you that, too," said the
bishop, "some time when you and me are shut of this
damn hole."
"I'm not aiming to get shut of it," said Davies, with
intensity.
But the bishop ignored him.
"There are always times," he went on, sagely, as he
continued to examine his work, "when knowledge like
this comes in handy. Oh-h, the power of printer's ink !
Oh-h, the mar-r-velous invention of the printing-press !
There are suckers who wouldn't believe the Bible if
it was writ by hand, but who'll swaller anything you
want 'em to if it's printed."
"How does it come you're doing all this hard work
yourself?" Davies asked.
"That's something else," said Sky-Blue, reverently.
"Oh-h, the poor people that got ketched through not
knowin' how to do things for themselves! My heart
bleeds for 'em, Chicky ! My heart bleeds for 'em."
"Well, what have you been printing?" Davies asked.
"Something crooked?"
"Oh, there you go!" cried Sky-Blue with sudden
temper. "There you go ! Me here breakin' my back !
You comin' in with your lily-white hands and your
"I AM THE PRINTING-PRESS" 255
brassy cheek! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!
But you ain't !"
And for a long time the old man was so touchy at
Davies's slur on his character that he would hardly
talk at all. But it evolved that he had borrowed the
Messenger's job department merely to recall the days
of his youth — "an old man's whim" — and had seized
the occasion to run off a number of things : professional
cards, letterheads, excerpts of letters from famous peo
ple. Some of these letters began "Dear Professor,"
and two began "Dear Culbertson," but the more fa
miliar form was reserved for the Archbishop of Can
terbury and the King of Sweden.
Sky-Blue went over these things with pride and he
gradually softened. Finally, he said:
"I'm glad you come in. You don't deserve it, but I
had you in mind all the time I was doin' this last job
o' work. It's comin' along to the time, Chicky, when
you and me are goin' to do the grand vamoose."
Davies was silent.
"Don't you want to hear about it?" asked Sky-
Blue.
"Sure."
"Then, why don't you show it, instead of acting like
an ungrateful purp?"
"Gee, you're touchy to-night," said Davies. "Go on,
tell me all about it. I'm listening."
"I'm getting ready to make the biggest killin* of
my career," said the bishop, with returning indulgence,
"and I'm goin' to let you in on it. Listen! IVe
pulled off a hundred of these: Number — date-line —
256 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
then, 'St. Clair City Bank, Pay to the order of B. N.
Culbertson, foundation Beating Heart Seminary* —
line for the amount, line for the signature."
"These are checks!" Davies exclaimed.
"Checks they be, Hollo!"
"You can't get folks to sign those."
"Can't I?" The Bishop laughed. "Watch me —
•watch me and learn ! This was what I was talkin' about.
Oh-h, my poor Richard! When you see the good
people of St. Clair signin' these like they was some
sort of a pledge, and me pinnin' a pure white ribbon
on each dear soul, and the little children singin' Sun
day-school songs "
His voice choked up, and there were tears in his
eyes.
"They're as good as gold," he whispered, mastering
his emotions. "I'll cash every damn penny of 'em
if it cleans out the bank. And I'm splittin' it with
you. Before they wake up we'll be in California."
"Count me out," said Davies.
The bishop let out a roar:
"What?"
"You can count me out!"
Sky-Blue's mouth was open. Words failed him.
For a moment or two, they did. When he finally
spoke, his voice was soft and reasonable. But the un
dercurrent of it was stiff.
"By Jupiter, Chicky!" he said. "Are you goin' to
go on play-actin' until I leave you out of my plans?
Are jou? Or are you goin' to be as open and above-
"I AM THE PRINTING-PRESS" 257
board and honor-bright as I am? Are you entirely
lackin' in sincerity? Answer me, yes or no."
"I'm a handing it to you straight," said Davies.
"Oh, you are!"
"Yes, I am."
"Well, then, let me tell you something; since you're
so smart. What you said about that old fossil, Colo
nel Williams, not havin' a cent turns out to be the
truth."
"I know it's the truth — have known it all along."
"Oh, you did!"
The bishop was ironical, but it was plain he was
somewhat shaken. He stuck to his guns, however.
"And I suppose you knew," he continued, "that he
and the whole damn passel of you was goin' to be
thrown out of that house before long!"
Davies didn't know that, and his face showed it.
«O-ho!" crooned Sky-Blue.
"Where'd you get that?" Davies asked.
"Now, you're askin'," the bishop replied with benevo
lent triumph. "Regular college-boy, but has to fall
back on o-l-l-d Professor Culbertson!" He chuckled.
"Well, I'll tell you. I ain't like you. By deserts, I'd
keep you guessin' like you tryin' to keep me guessin'.
But you're young. You got a lot to learn."
"Who's going to throw them out?" Davies de
manded.
"And you've been workin' with him !"
"Frank Tine?"
"By jings! Guessed it at last!"
"Do you mean it?"
258 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Sure, I mean it ! He owns all the mortgages, don't
he? Goin* to foreclose! Nothin* strange about that,
is there, Chicky? Or didn't they never do such things
where you come from?"
CHAPTER XLI
FAITH AND MOETGAGES
THEEE fell another period of silence between them.
Davies saw it now — or believed that he saw it. All
that beautiful philosophy that the colonel had been
giving him on their ride to the county-seat was the
colonel's own swan-song. That was what it was. The
colonel had spoken with death in his heart — full knowl
edge of this impending catastrophe. Yet not a word,
not a hint, had he dropped to call attention to his
trouble.
"I thought I'd fetch him," said Sky-Blue aloud to
himself.
But Davies ignored the taunt. For the present he
did. His mind was running back once more to that
scene at the bottom of the stairs. He remembered
now. How could he have forgotten ? The colonel had
spoken then about having exhausted his money. Or
it may have been Alvah's money. In any case, nothing
could have come in since then except the modest
amounts that he himself had pressed upon the colonel
from time to time in lieu of regular payment for board
and lodgings.
For the matter of that, the situation had grown
worse since the illustrious Culbertson had come there
259
260 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
to roost. Culbertson paid no rent. And Culbertson's
appetite ran to chops and other high-priced viands
such times as he was not invited out.
"I thought I'd fetch him," Sky-Blue repeated.
The elder was laughing softly to himself as he went
about the work of distributing the type he had set. He
did this with a skill and a speed that fascinated Davies
even in the midst of the anger he felt.
"Who told you Tyne was going to foreclose?" Da-
vies inquired at last.
"Oh, my! Oh, my!" laughed the bishop.
"It's nothing to joke about," said Davies, briefly.
Sky-Blue turned from his work. He went serious,
went a little tender. His voice was shaky and sympa
thetic.
"Frank's a crook, Chicky," he said, "as I have al
ready warned you. He's got to clean up somehow,
and square up, and he knows it, or he'll be havm' one
of these here incorruptible insurance-inspectors drop-
pin' in to tell him all about the s-a-a-cred rights of
the widders and the orphans."
"Good Lord!"
"Terrible, aint it?"
"Yes; it is terrible."
"Especially," said the elder, "when, like as not,
they'll pinch you, too. I warned you against associ-
atin* with a crook."
Davies steadied himself.
"I'm not thinking of that," he said. "My con
science is clear." He ignored the old man's smile.
"I'm thinking about what may happen to the colonel
FAITH AND MORTGAGES 261
and — and Alvah — if they have to leave that house."
"Well, now, maybe they won't have to leave it."
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe I can induce Brother Tine not to foreclose."
"Can you?"
"I can," said the bishop ; "but, by the Lord Harry,
I won't if you keep on playin' the milksop !"
"I'm not playing the milksop!"
"There! There! Forgive me, Richard! I spoke
before I thought." He let his voice tremble. "Rich
ard, are you absolutely devoid of all the finer senti
ments? Don't you know the meanin' of the word af
fection? Can't you understand the workin's of the
heart of a lonely old man like me?"
Davies was silent. It was a moment or two before
Sky-Blue got up steam to continue.
"You don't want to see me stay in this place till I
rot; do you, Richard? No more than I want to see
you waste your young life here. What is there here?
They don't know how to season their food. Fried
rumpsteak! Fried taters! Fried sinkers! Everything
fried ! — fried or boiled ! My stomach's givin' out, Rich
ard. And the trouble is I don't dare take a sip of li
quor! It's killin' me, Richard. You don't want to
see old Sky-Blue die for want of a mouthful of fittin'
whisky ; do you, Richard ?" He almost cried. "Why,"
he concluded, "I can't even get a chaw of proper fine-
cut."
Davies remained silent. He would have to work —
that was all — work harder even than he had expected
to work — earn not only enough money to insure that
IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
payment which he himself was going to have to make to
put through his deal for the Old Homestead, but
enough, as well, to induce Tine to carry over the mort
gages.
Work!
Work to pay a debt!
He couldn't kick. So he told himself. He had this
coming to him. But would it — could it — all turn out
all right?
In the meantime the bishop was continuing his lamen
tations.
"I been keepin* Lent fer quite a long time now,
Chicky. You got to hand it to old Sky-Blue fer that.
There ain't too many comforts fer a man of my years.
A dram! A chaw! Decent victuals! I been doin*
without *em all, Chicky. And you can't say I haven't
worked."
"I'm thinking about the colonel," Davies announced,
with a note of solemnity.
"And little Alvah," quivered the bishop, mockingly.
"Yes, and Alvah!"
"Well, you're wastin' your time."
"How so?"
"Are you deef, Richard? Or have you lost your
memory? Or perhaps you think I was lyin* to you
just now."
"I had forgotten how poor they were."
"I was fooled, too," the bishop admitted. "I was
fooled, too — same as you was. First off, I admit, I
didn't know what to think. But I sort of had my sus
picions. Well, one afternoon when Alvah and the colo-
FAITH AND MORTGAGES 263
nel was out to the cemetery, and you was away, I went
over the colonel's private papers.'*
"You damned old scoundrel!" Davies ejaculated.
The bishop gave him a glance of surprise, but wasn't
otherwise affected.
"It was dirty, I admit," he confessed, without shame.
"But it had to be done. I owed it to you, Chicky. I
don't expect your gratitude. But I was doin* it on
your account."
"On my account?"
"On your account. 'Here's Richard,' I says, 'think-
in' that, anyway,' I says, 'he's goin' to get this here
house and lot by marryin' the niece ; and the first thing
you know,' I says, 'he's goin' to find himself spliced
up' — oh, I did it myself when I was your age ! I ain't
makin' sport of you ! — 'spliced up,' I says, 'with a wife
who's like to be a sticker and not even this old ram
shackle dump to make her worth while.*"
Davies would have broken in on the discourse, but
no words would have expressed what he felt. The
bishop, anyway, wasn't paying any attention to him.
He spied an old corncob pipe that some printer had
left at the top of the case. The bishop took this, saw
that there was half a load in it under the ashes. He
lit it, took a puff or two. But it wasn't to his liking,
and he put the pipe back.
The interlude was sufficient to give Davies a chance
to master himself, call on his philosophy.
"Bishop," he said, "I'm going to tell you something.
You may not be able to understand it, but I'll tell you,
anyway."
264 IP YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Shoot."
"I haven't asked her yet, but if— if Alvsh— would
marry me I'd be only too proud, too happy."
"But why?"
"You ought to know. You talk about it enough."
"What's that?"
"Love!"
The bishop was dazed.
"Good God!" he choked; "you make me look like an
amateur.'*
CHAPTER XLII
FAR THUNDER.
THE weather was changing from fair to unsettled.
It was hot. It was humid. Day after day the sun
rode brazen through a blackish mist. From time to
time the sound of distant thunder came rolling from
points beyond the horizon, now to the south, now to
the north, again from the east or from the west. All
this premonitory of an approaching storm.
Conditions were not quite normal. A storm was
needed to clear the atmosphere.
And, as so often happens, these weather conditions
found, if not their reflection, at least their reflex in
the spirit of the people. Something was coming off —
something that would clear the atmosphere.
This was so with St. Clair in general.
There was no doubt about it — Professor Culbertson,
of London, England, had got under the skin of the
town. Long ago, the council chamber in the town hall
had proved insufficient to accommodate the crowd. So
he had been granted the use of the Odd Fellows* Hall —
a place with a reputation for size. The little boys of
the town would brag about it: "We got the biggest
meetin'-place in the county, we have!" And now the
illustrious Culbertson was holding his meetings there;
and filling it, too.
265
266 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Sniffing the Asphodel! Oh-h-h, how they iap it
up!"
And the bishop had taken to the curing of disease
by "laying on of hands."
That was one of the purposes of the Beating Heart
Seminary — to cure all manner of aches, tooth, heart,
and soul. He was going to have room in the semi
nary for just so many. Not pupils, but disciples ! And
he was getting disciples fast. Disciples of the Beating
Heart! Non-sectarian! No worthy seeker to be
turned away for reasons of age or sex !
"That always fetches them," said old Sky-Blue ; "no
worthy seeker turned away for reasons of age or sex !"
Then Culbertson had let it be known to his faithful
that Wichita wasn't going to get the seminary after
all. No! After prayerful consideration, and after
consultation with that dear sister of his who lived out
+here, he had decided that — as a mark of gratitude —
and love — he'd establish the seminary right here in St.
Clair.
To Colonel Williams and Alvah he made an even
more disconcerting promise. He told them that they
needn't let the mortgage on the Flowery Harbor worry
them any more. He was going to buy the Flowery
Harbor himself and make this the seminary. It was
a plan that he had worked out with his dear young
friend Richard. Yes ! Richard was occupying himself
with the purchase of another home for them. But
this was to be a surprise. They mustn't say anything
about it until Richard sprang it on them himself.
And Davies could tell that there was something afoot
FAR THUNDER 267
— something that he couldn't understand; could tell it
by the magic softness in Alvah's eyes whenever her
eyes met his.
Fifty times it was in his heart and on his lips to tell
her that he could never live again without her, that
he loved her so he would surely die unless she became
his wife. But he held back. He hadn't won his right
to her yet. He was still in the midst of battle. No !
He was on the eve of battle. And this battle was to
determine, once and forever, the future course of his
life.
Those distant thunderings that daily came out of the
brazen sky had as much a personal meaning for himself
— his inner, intuitive self — as if he were a commanding
general and these the rumbling of a hostile artillery.
Nor were his misgivings wholly intuitive. They had
a basis, in fact.
Frank Tine was showing himself to be increasingly
shifty, hard to locate, difficult to cooperate with.
One day Davies brought into town a rich old farmer
who was ready to take out three different policies for
goodly amounts, and Tine failed to appear at the of
fice at the hour when he said he would be there. And
Davies waited just so long, then went over to the hotel,
went up-stairs to the room where the poker game was in
progress, forced his way in.
Frank was sitting in, just as Davies knew he would
be — room rather dark, crowded but quiet, three tables
going.
"I'll see you,*' said Frank to the man who had been
bidding against him. The man was a foreigner, locally
268 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
known as Jason, a professional, white but burly, venom
ous-eyed, a friend of Gus, in charge of the "kitty."
"Three aces," said Jason.
"And I'll see you," said Dick, touching Tine on the
shoulder.
"You're buttin' in,'* snarled Jason.
There came back to Davies a whiff of poison straight
out of one of those old joints he had known in lower
Manhattan. He went right around the table to where
Jason sat, shoved a marble-hard fist under his nose.
"Say, you stiff," he gritted, "do you want this in
the puss?''
Jason didn't, and the incident closed by Davies
bringing Tine back to the office.
But things couldn't go on like this — not indefinitely.
And there was the way Zeb Ricketts was acting.
There was something about Zeb that Davies couldn't
fathom. Zeb was still the same old rube on the surface
— sly, cautious but amiable. A little too amiable!
That was it. And also given to disappearances. Not
so eager as he should have been to talk about the com
ing transfer of the place.
Then Frank Tine disappeared.
It was the last day but one that the option had to
run.
Davies kept his nerve. He had more than enough
money coming to him to meet his payment. Frank
would show up, give him the promised check. There
was plenty of time to pass this through the bank — four
hours — it was now only eleven.
But Tine wasn't to be located anywhere — not at his
FAR THUNDER
office, nor at his boarding house, nor at the hotel. At
none of these places had he been seen even — not since
the night before.
"You ain't the only one that's lookin' for him," said
Constable Winch. "There's "a stranger been inquirin'
for him."
"What sort of a stranger?"
"A slick one — slick!" The constable whispered:
"If you ask me, he looks like one of these here insur
ance inspectors."
But Davies was too distraught to listen.
Each moment dragged. Yet the hours were wearing
away. And all this time it was as if some great weight
was suspended over himself, and St. Clair, and the
world, ready to come crushing down.
The weather had something to do with this, no doubt
— hotter, stuffier, an increase of humidity, recurrent
thunder from the west and south, an occasional scat
ter of drops, large and warm, as if the sky itself were
sweating up there.
Three o'clock came, and still no Tine.
Davies imagined the desperate measure of writing out
a check and carrying this out to Zeb Ricketts.
"I'll get Tine before to-morrow morning," he said
to himself, "and make him shell out what he owes me
if I have to kill him."
He prepared the check. He called for his rig at
Jellison's. He headed for the Old Homestead. And
all the time he was doing this he was telling himself
that everything was all right, that it was bound to be
all right, that Luck couldn't take a fall out of a fel-
270 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
low who had been trying as hard as he had to do the
right thing, live straight, make good.
It was almost as if Alvah were there at his shoulder
whispering to him, telling him to brace up.
But while he was still a quarter of a mile or more
away from the farm he could see that there was some
thing doing — could see a couple of strange wagons in
the yard, men moving about. That must be Zeb mak
ing ready for the transfer, moving out the last of his
personal effects.
But the first person he recognized when he came
driving up the private lane from the pike was Peebles,
Harold Peebles — Tessie Wingate's latest flame — that
handsome lawyer who was to have engineered Simp
Fisher *s suit for damages.
What was he doing there ?
And the worst of it was that Peebles merely gave
Davies a look of semi-polite inquiry, not untouched by
a certain insolence, such as any landholder is apt to
turn on a trespasser.
As for Zeb Ricketts, Zeb was nowhere to be seen.
Davies's heart began to pound.
CHAPTER XLIII
LIGHTNING
"WHERE'S Zeb?" asked Davies.
"Wto?"
"Zeb Ricketts."
Peebles was distant. He was cold.
"Mr. Ricketts?"
"Yes."
"I ioa't know."
Peebles discovered that his advice was needed by one
of the workmen nearer the house. Davies looked at
these workmen — two painters, a carpenter. They ap
peared to expect their orders from Harold. Davies
got out and hitched his horse. His heart had ceased
to pound. His heart was standing still.
"Oh, Peebles," he called; and he was afraid that his
voice would betray him.
"In a moment," Harold answered him.
Dairies breathed deep. Finally, the handsome lawyer
turned aad hailed him.
"Well, what is it?"
"I want to speak to you," Davies replied.
"Go ahead."
"In prirate."
As luck would have it, there was a sharp patter of
271
272 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
rain. It sent the painters and the carpenter to scurry
ing around to the back of the house, brought Harold
and Davies together on the porch. That porch!
Where, in fancy, Davies had seen Alvah swing!
"Say," Davies exclaimed, softly; "just what's the
idea? What do you think you're doing here?"
Possibly Peebles was influenced by the fact that
Davies's verbal assault had been so softly spoken that
the workmen could not hear and that hence he had no
witnesses. He also elected to speak softly.
"Why, I own the place."
"You own the place !"
"Perfectly."
"Not yet you don't."
"Surely, you are mistaken."
"I've still got an option on the place, and it runs to
six, and I've got the money to complete the pay
ment "
He was stretching the facts a little. But it didn't
matter. He could sense the adamant back of Harold's
putty prettiness, and the adamant was not of Harold's
own. It was the adamant of law and circumstance and
of the ordinance of God. And this, Davies was saying
to himself — or some inner voice was saying for him —
was a part of the debt that he owed to society. This
was a punishment that had come upon him.
"Very strange." Peebles was saying.
And there wasn't the slightest perturbation in the
fellow's voice. Peebles was a lawyer.
"I'm giving it to you straight," said Davies.
"No doubt."
LIGHTNING
"And where do you come in?"
"Precisely where you say you come in — only, in
stead of an option, I have purchased the place out
right, from the Slocum heirs, through Mr. Ricketts,
Mr. Tine acting as my agent."
There was no doubt about the truth of all this.
There had been plenty of collateral evidence — enough
to have warned him had he not been so infatuated with
what else had been going on. And Peebles, who was
not hard-hearted, read collapse in Davies's eyes, and
possibly thought to put him out of his misery with a
coup de grace.
"You haven't got a leg to stand on," he blurted.
"You lie !" cried Davies.
Peebles got the danger-signal an instant too late.
He had started to run. But Davies had seized him by
both lapels of his coat, held him powerless. There
was a momentary pause. It was long enough for the
New Yorker to get back this power of thought.
"In here for you," he said, "where there won't be any
witnesses."
And he shoved the lawyer against the front door with
such force that the door gave and they stumbled into
the front parlor of the house — twilit, musty, with old
haircloth furniture and crayon portraits glowering at
them out of the gloom.
"What do you want?" Peebles panted.
"I want to talk to you."
"This is an assault."
"So is this !"
And Davies shook him.
274 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Peebles, floundering, found his hand in contact with
one of those pink conch-shells once popular as orna
ments, sharp-edged, weighing about a pound. An ugly
weapon. He tried to use it. But Davies knocked the
thing from Peebles's hand, hurled Peebles, crashing,
into an old haircloth armchair. There Peebles sat.
There was a quaver of lightning.
In the flickering illumination the crayon portraits
showed themselves ugly and dark, placid and solemn —
Aunt Polly Slocum, her hair in a net, breastpin as big
as a saucer; Uncle Norman, chin-whiskers, slightly
cross-eyed; Little Sammy, preternaturally old. They
were all looking down at the scene like mourners at a
funeral.
It was a funeral.
For Richard Davies it was. His own!
But he made an effort, brought himself back to life
again. He contemplated Peebles.
"Tell me about it," he ordered.
"It was Frank Tine," said Peebles. "He told me
that it would be all right — that you weren't going to
make your option good.
"So he knew about my option?"
"Yes."
"What was the rush?"
"Frank was in a hurry. He wanted the money."
"Where is he?"
"I don't know. The last I saw him was late last
night."
"AndZebRicketts?"
"I don't know."
LIGHTNING 275
Davies took a step in advance. He put out a finger
and thrust up Peebles's chin.
"Look me in the eye," he said. "Tell me what you
do know."
"I was in a hurry, too," said Peebles. "I promised
this place to Tessie Wingate. She was mad when she
heard you were likely to get it."
"Tessie Wingate ! What has she got to do with it?"
"We're getting married — to-morrow."
There was a sharper flash of lightning, a bang of
splitting thunder.
"It must have struck something," said Peebles, try
ing to get back to normal.
"It's me that's been struck," said Davies in his
heart.
But his mind also curiously sought the normal — a
shipwrecked sailor pulling for the shore. He thought
of his horse out there without shelter. Yes. He'd
better get it under a shed, or be getting back to town.
CHAPTER XLIV
BEFORE THE STORM
THERE had been a slight gust of rain, but this had
stopped. The storm held off, rumbling, quivering.
The atmosphere was heavier than ever. With a quick
ened pace that needed no whip, the old horse swung
into the road that led back to town.
Davies wasn't organizing his thought into words, but
he was undoubtedly praying for light. And light was
to be vouchsafed him. To some extent it was.
Just as he neared the railroad line the gates went
down and he heard the four-twenty-three local climb
ing the hill out of St. Clair. He idly watched the train
draw near. There was nothing to do but wait. The
engine was old. The train was a composite of freight
and passenger cars. There for a while it looked as if
the old locomotive would never be able to top the grade
at all.
"That's me," Davies reflected. "I'm pulling a load
like that. It's breaking my back."
And he found himself panting and straining, trying
to help the engine along. It was going to mean some
thing to him if the train got over the rise. If the loco
motive got away with it, why, so would he. The out
fit couldn't have been making more than three miles an
276
BEFORE THE STORM 277
hour. It crossed the pike — first the locomotive, then
a dozen milk-cars, then a carload of squealing pigs,
then the smoker.
Just as the smoker was half-way past, he caught the
gleam of a celluloid collar inside an open window. And
that was Zeb Ricketts in there, all dressed up, smok
ing a cigar, outward bound.
The thing smote Davies ; but not in the way it would
have smitten him earlier in his career — not in the way
that he himself would have expected five minutes ago,
perhaps.
"Easy money!"
Yea, Lord! That was a picture of easy money he
had seen. Zeb was a fool. But there were others in
the world.
The light was still with him, the mental bedazzle-
ment, as the remainder of the train rumbled past. And
he scarcely noticed that the cars were going at a faster
pace, that the old locomotive had topped the grade.
What he noticed was that a new Ford had been held
up by the gates on the other side of the track, and that
there was also some one in this car whom he recognized.
It was Tessie Wingate. She so absorbed his attention
that he had no eyes at all for Tessie's companion — he
who drove — whoever that might be.
Should he say something to her?
Should he call out something cutting and ironical
about that new home of hers?
But before he could make up his mind, the gates
swung up and the little automobile gave a jump. It
278 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
was past him. Then it had come to a sudden stop, and
Davies was hearing his name.
"Dick!"
That was Tessie. She had nerve. What did she
want ? He pulled up his horse and looked back. Tes
sie had risen from her seat, was standing up.
"Hello !" said Davies.
"I want you to congratulate me," she called out to
him.
"What on?"
"My marriage."
"Oh !"
"You're the first I've told."
"You're a little slow, Tessie," he said, without un-
kindness. "I've just seen Harold."
"Harold!"
A look of amused embarrassment swept oyer Tessie's
plump features. But she had hardly echoed the name
of the lawyer before the driver of the car stretched
his neck and also looked around. It was Simp Fisher,
disguised with goggles and cap.
"Congratulate me, too," he called. "It's an elope
ment, and I'm the lucky man."
The Ford sprang away.
Was Harold destined to see them pass?
"I should worry," said Davies. But it occurred to
him that this might be the day of sorrows for others
than himself.
This occurred to him again and with an increased
weight when he finally drove up to the curb in front of
the two-story brick building where Frank Tine had his
BEFORE THE STORM
office. Constable Winch, who evidently had been wait
ing for him there, jumped across the sidewalk before he
could leave the buggy.
"Drive off with me," said Winch, in low, excited
tones.
"What for?"
"Tell you when we're away from here."
"Tell me here."
"Can't."
"What do you want?" Dick demanded, brutally.
"Want to make another touch?"
Winch ignored the aspersion.
"He's skipped. I'm warning you."
"Who's skipped?"
"Tine — and none too soon. You know what I told
you."
So Tine had skipped. He could believe the story
easily enough. He should have seen it all in advance.
He had been sufficiently warned. He considered a mo
ment.
"Don't lose no time," said Winch. "I've throwed him
off your trail. I'll go with you — tell you the rest as
we go along."
"Thrown who off my trail?"
"That slick stranger I was tellin' you about."
"Ah, go on!" said Davies, and he got out of the
buggy, hitched his horse.
All the time that he was doing it the constable was
flustering around him like a hen with a single chick.
"You're crazy," said Winch. "He's up there in the
office now, mad as a hornet at lettin* Tine give him the
280 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
slip. Insurance inspector. Power to arrest. He'll
throw all the blame on you."
Davies turned on Winch.
"What do you think I am?" he demanded. "A
crook?"
He shouldered the constable to one side, without
apology, and started for the door of the hallway.
There he paused again, had a glance for the brooding
storm. The weather was hotter than ever, more oppres
sive. All the smile and lure of nature had gone out
of it. God, but he was homesick just then for the city
of his youth !
CHAPTER XLV
SHELTER
"DON'T mind if I go up with you, do you?" the con
stable asked, with a touch of nerves.
It was clear that Winch was peeved a little, just a
trifle hurt at Davies's cool reception of his news, es
pecially of his hint at flight ; but Mr. Winch was stand
ing on his dignity — as one must who has done all that
one can in difficult circumstances.
"No, I don't mind," said Davies.
He was beyond the stage of minding anything very
much. So he felt at that particular moment. But he
wondered somewhat at the present interest of the con
stable. That Winch should have warned him to flee
was comprehensible enough. Had he accepted the warn
ing, Winch would have regarded this as the legitimate
occasion for another touch. That was all. And he
would have stood absolved of those former so-called
loans as well. Sufficient inspiration all this for Winch,
God bless his honest heart! But what could Winch
be up to now?
Winch reached the top of the stairs first. He threw
open the office door.
"Well, inspector," he announced; "here's your
man!"
281
282 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Davies paused.
But before he could find any words to express the
newly awakened sentiments that were bubbling inside
of him, a cheery voice was booming from the interior
of the room inviting them both to enter.
Davies saw a large man — exceedingly large — a fat
man with a round face — occupying the chair which
had been Frank Tine's.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Davies ; I am Mr. Marsh."
Mr. Marsh's face may have been round, but it was
strong like his voice. There was something of the tur
tle in his look, and yet something of the bulldog, and
more than a hint of the characteristic tenacity of both
these brutes. But his eyes were sympathetic, intelli
gent, steady.
"Ahem!" — this from Constable Winch.
" Just a moment," suggested Mr. Marsh, diverting his
good-natured gaze to the constable. "You asked me
a little while ago if there was anything in it for you
if you brought in Mr. Davies. There is. Read Section
299 of the Revised Statutes, making it a felony for a
state or county officer to solicit a bribe. That's all."
And Mr. Marsh kept his good-natured gaze on Mr.
Winch as the latter, with his cap in his hand, tiptoed
out of the room.
It was close on to eight o'clock when Davies left the
big man, and by this time Davies knew a number of
things — but nothing very much, as he had to admit.
At Mr. Marsh's invitation, they had supped to
gether at the hotel. Mr. Marsh had vouchsafed the in
formation that he was not the inspector Mr. Winch
SHELTER 283
had believed him to be, but he was the general agent
for the district. And there his information about him
self had just about come to an end apart from a few
general impressions — married, several children, an in
difference to food, an appetite for facts.
Davies was the one who furnished the information.
"Turned me wrong-side out," he said, after he had
bade Mr. Marsh good night. He spoke to the night:
"Turned me wrong-side out !"
And he was a little humiliated, a little sick, very
down-spirited. A fine man of the world! A slick cus
tomer, forsooth ! The events of the day had begun their
sure reaction. Yea, bo! He had come all the way
back here to the bushes so that the jay-hawkers could
batten on him, play him for a rube ! Him marry Alvah
Morley? Why, he wasn't fit to marry a Chink!
There was a deadly practical side, moreover, to these
reflections of his concerning Alvah.
Now that there was no immediate danger of the
mortgage being foreclosed on the Flowery Harbor, and
a fair chance — call it that — of old Sky-Blue buying the
place for some purpose or other, wasn't it so that
perhaps Alvah would be better off if he were out of
the way? Had he any right to hang around and com
promise the girl's future, and take advantage of her
innocence and her ignorance of the world, now that she
and her uncle were no longer, so to speak, dependent
on him?
These breedings became all the more insistent when
he arrived at the house and found it deserted. Of
course! Every one was around at the Odd Fellows'
284 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Hall. They were all crazy about Sky-Blue. All of
them were.
And this was the way of the world.
Here was he himself, Richard Davies. He had come
to St. Clair and attempted to lead the honest life. And
how had St. Clair treated him? It had knifed him,
thrown him down, turned him wrong-side out, done to
him as much as New York had ever done to any man,
and more.
On the other hand, there was old Sky-Blue, as
crooked as a dog's hind leg, thinking of graft and
dreaming of graft, working for his own pocket all the
time, laughing at those who believed in him, calling
them suckers! And how had St. Clair treated him?
It had gone wild over him, clasped him to its bosom,
wept over him, stood ready to give him everything it
had!
"The whole world's like that," said Dick.
He let the truth sink in.
"You'd better go down to the river and drown your
self," he said; and he meant it.
But should he?
Wouldn't it be better, after all, if he fell in with old
Sky-Blue, accepted the bishop's offer of partnership,
resumed for himself the career of graft? Why not?
The world wouldn't mind. The world would think all
the better of him for it. The world had proved this,
not once but a thousand times; not only here in St.
Clair, but back in old New York.
He had been walking, he hadn't noticed where; so
SHFXTER 285
engrossed in his bitterness and dejection that he was
oblivious to all that was passing about him.
Then, all at once, there came a gust of wind. There
followed instantly a blinding flash of lightning right
ahead of him, this followed so instantly by a burst of
thunder that the double blow blinded and deafened him,
almost knocked him from his feet.
As he groped, he saw one of the big maple trees, just
ahead of him, sag lopsidedly to a fall, and he knew
that he had escaped death by the fraction of a minute.
But no sooner had this concept and its incidental
lessons come reeling into his brain before he was de
luged with rain — a sheeted downpour — and he was mak
ing a jump for an open door. Any port in a storm,
and here was a door that was wide open and well-lighted.
He was in the place before he recognized it.
He was in the lobby of the Odd Fellows* Hall, and
the doors of the hall itself were open. He could see that
the hall was packed, that there were a good many peo
ple who had been unable to secure seats. There was
a clapping of hands, a ripple of muffled laughter and
talk.
Old Sky-Blue never did let his meetings fall into sad
ness for any length of time. Right on top of some
sad story or other he'd crack a joke and have every
one wiping away his tears and laughing at the same
time. And that was what he was doing now, no doubt.
The dirty old hypocrite ! But Davies felt a tug of
interest in spite of himself.
And just then there followed a surprise.
- One of the volunteer ushers of the place — one of Pro-
286 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
fessor Culbertson's devoted young disciples — had seen
Davies, had jumped for him.
"They've been holding a place for you," the young
man said.
"Who?'*
"Every one," he grinned, gladly. "You're wanted up
among the professor's friends."
Why not?
Davies braced himself.
He followed the usher around through a side aisle and
up through the shimmer and the smell of the crowd
and the flickering gas. The convocation began to sing
the second verse of a hymn :
"Brighten the corner — where you areP*
And Davies caught a slant of old Sky-Blue smiling
down at him with an expression intended to convey dot
ing affection — and perhaps the look, at that, was sin
cere, Lord pity the old fraud ! Also he saw the colonel,
up on the platform, filling almost, if not quite, the
majesty of his Mobile coat; then, at the colonel's side,
Alvah, meditative, but suddenly aware of him, and, at
Alvah's side, the vacant chair.
CHAPTER XLVI
THE GUIDING LIGHT
OLD Sky-Blue, otherwise Professor Culbertson, had
worked the town up to the psychological moment for a
grand and glorious harvest. There was no doubt of
that. The singing over, there was a long pause, very
effective, and then a rippling murmur of breath and
clothing, and a number of voices, well distributed
throughout the hall, calling for the Chautauqua salute,
so that, by the time old Sky-Blue stood up there beam
ing through his snowy whiskers the whole congregation
was a flutter of handkerchiefs. Nor did Sky-Blue try
to stop them. Not he! He let them wave and he
beamed and beamed.
It was only when he saw that folks were getting a lit
tle tired, and that the salute was becoming a little
forced, that he raised his arms above his head. And
he stood like that for perhaps half a minute — as strik
ing an imitation of a sure-enough prophet as one would
care to see anywhere — until the hall was still and silent
again.
Not until then were folks permitted to discover how
deeply moved he had been all along. He lowered his
arms and dug around until he discovered his own hand-
287
288 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
kerchief, and he had to use it for almost another full
minute before he was able to control his voice.
Even then his voice was frail and shaky for a time.
"If I was to obey the feelings in my heart," he said.
Then he stopped. There was a pitcher of water and a
glass tumbler on a small table at his side. He looked at
this. He poured a little water into the glass. The
crowd watched him with rapt attention while he drank.
"If I was to obey the feelings in my heart '*
"Quit your stallin'," said Davies in silence.
He and Alvah were seated very close together. Every
one was crowded. The platform was packed. Looking
down, Davies saw Alvah's hand close to his own. Some
impulse made him extend his little finger. She received
it in a smooth grasp. Life wasn't so terrible.
"Oh-h-h!" chanted old Sky-Blue, getting into his
stride, "the blessin's of affection. Verily was it writ
that an affectionate nature is like unto a well-spring in
a thirsty land."
"You said a mouthful, then," smiled Davies.
"Let us extend these blessin's," Culbertson rhapso
dized. "Let us make this community a center of affec
tion, where the weary pilgrims along life's dry 'n* dusty
highways can quaff a little sweetness ere they lay
them down."
And every now and then old Sky-Blue let his brilliant
little eyes flicker into Davies's eyes, and Davies could
see that the old man was smiling back of his beard.
"You're a skin," said Davies silently.
But Culbertson was rapidly approaching the main
object of this particular meeting:
THE GUIDING LIGHT 289
"No, it ain't the moneys, my beloved. A leetle affec
tion and the sign and the symbol thereof as represented
by your blessed names on these blanks." He used his
handkerchief again. "I will have already gone to the
h-h-eavenly shore, but when other eyes 'n mine behold
these tokens they will say: 'Oh-h-h, how they loved
him! See him! Culbertson! In his white raiment!
Lookin' back from the Golden Bank * "
"It's another bank you're thinkin' about, you old
stiff,'* said Davies in his heart.
"The moneys V comin' from elsewheres, beloved!
Pledges from you ! Nothin* but pledges ! Pledges to
seal our love in heaven 'n* to be paid solely 'n love
amongst ourselves on earth! For the moneys'll be
comin' from the ministers 'n' the college presidents *n'
the captains of industry 'n' the Governors of States 'n'
a-a-11 those other leaders in this gr-e-at 'n* gul-orious
Ian' who've been beggin9 fer a share in 'stablishin' the
Beating Heart."
The old man gushed words and tears. He was fairly
slopping over with sentimentality. And there for a
time he almost had Davies himself hypnotized. Davies
was conscious of the currents of feeling that were
already swirling into the main channel of the bishop's
discourse — trickles from unstable hearts and minds.
But he glanced at Alvah, found her radiant and cool.
She had the subtle expression of a girl who looks in
one direction with her physical eyes and elsewhere with
her mind's eye.
Davies discovered that his hat wasn't properly placed
290 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
under his chair; and, by bending low to adjust it, was
able to brush Alvah's hand with his lips.
How sensitive were his lips!
There for a second or two all the finely developed,
highly evolved sense-organisms of the human race, mil
lions of years old, were merged again into that parent
sense which through the ages became specialized into
sight and hearing, taste and smell; and this parent
sense was concentrated and epitomized in that fraction
of lip-tegument which was in contact with Alvah's hand.
It was either less than a kiss or more than a kiss —
in the ordinary sense of the word.
For, right there in the crowded hall, with all those
other more or less highly evolved human animals herded
close about him, and with the gas-jets flickering, and
old Sky-Blue mouthing his platitudes, Davies's soul took
flight. It was like a flight which had its beginning
from the original resting-place of souls — back in the
Eozoic abyss where life began ; then curved swiftly up
and around the mounting spiral through shales and
gravels, caves and cabins, pyramids, cathedrals — wher
ever the ego had groped for its mate ; and on beyond
all present experience into a higher realm where men
and women were garbed more gorgeously than butter
flies and lived like gods.
Davies straightened up. To all appearances nothing
had happened. But the conviction was singing in his
brain that he had passed the crisis of his life.
Besides, the weather had changed. That sharp and
terrific thunderstorm had cleared the air. It was still
raining, but gently. Even here in the hall the atmo-
THE GUIDING LIGHT
sphere was less acrid and sultry. Every now and then
from some open window there came in a surge of ozone
bringing with it the cool fragrance of wet trees and
gardens.
There had been a fairly long hiatus in the bishop's
address so far as Davies was concerned — and possibly
so far as Alvah also was concerned ; but Sky-Blue still
harped on the "Song of Songs," mouthing the word,
rolling it over and over on his tongue:
"Love!"
"You know a lot about it," said Davies, with fierce
but silent irony.
Love and money !
Davies cast a quick glance back over his immediate
past.
Was it possible that only a few brief minutes ago he
had been harboring the idea of surrendering himself to
this vile old man? Better would it have been to have
given himself over to that other impulse and to have
drowned himself ! What had become of his doubts — his
weakness — his fears — his bitterness?
Gone!
Love had driven them away. His love! Alvah's
love ! A love that was infinite !
"Oh, God Almighty !" breathed Davies.
And he was looking at old Sky-Blue again with the
knowledge in his heart that here was one who sinned
against the Holy Ghost and that it was his, Richard
Davies's, duty to destroy him.
CHAPTER XLVII
ARMAGEDDON
BUT how was he going to do this ? He was all alone
— all alone except for Alvah — and Alvah was unwarned.
"Just sign fer all you can," old Sky-Blue was in
toning gently ; "an 'en, when I go out to announce my
resolution to the world, I can say: 'Behold! Behold!
Of such be the faithful of St. Clair ! They didn't do this
because of the ten per cent profit — nor the twenty per
cent, or thirty per cent. Nay ! Nay !' Though verily
the profits will wax exceeding great — as I can tell you
now, my beloved, they will — fer, lo ! it has been granted
unto me like a vision, and I saw the marble halls and
the gilded domes even as of a new Jerusalem, and lo !
the name thereof was the Seminary of the Beating
Heart, and lo ! I looked again and they that entered
in and they that issued forth did wear fine raiment and
rode in goodly autos."
"He's leading up to the touch," said Davies in his
heart.
It was so.
The bishop was calling up his ushers. One of the
first was that preternaturally glad but pale young man
who had ushered Davies to the platform. And the
292
ARMAGEDDON 293
bishop was giving them sheafs of those blank checks
which he himself had set up and run off over at the
Messenger office ; also bunches of folders containing his
recommendations from the King of Sweden and others
— these for any strangers who happened to be present.
And Davies saw, not without a flash of consternation,
that in accordance with some prearranged plan the
outer doors had been closed so that no one could escape,
even should the rain stop.
Then Sky-Blue nodded at the St. Clair Male Quartet,
and the quartet banged straight into one of those old
revival jingles that anybody can follow, no one can
resist :
"It's the old-time religion,
It's the old-time 'eligion,
It's the old-time 'eligion,
And it's good enough fer me!"
It wasn't a dozen seconds before every one was sing
ing it, and a lot of people were stamping their feet
as well.
Ushers scattering. Hysteria mounting. Old Sky-
Blue waving his arms and shouting a note or two him
self.
But in the midst of all this excitment Sky-Blue re
mained the master of both himself and the situation.
He saw a little old woman down in front of the plat
form. Davies saw her, too. She was not only little
and old, but she was manifestly poor — dressed in black,
a little old black bonnet on her head, a threadbare dress
of black alpaca, manifestly her Sunday clothes.
IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Sky-Blue read the signal in her devoted eyes. He
reached down. Others aiding, he had her on the plat
form. She was nervous, a little frightened, but borne
up by her faith.
She said something that was inaudible to others in
the din, but Sky-Blue bent his ear to listen.
He straightened up. He shouted:
"God bless you, sister !"
There was a slight lull in the music and shouting.
Sky-Blue bent his ear again, again straightened up
and howled:
«Fer all she's got! That's the way to talk! She's
signin' fer all she's got !"
He listened again, again proclaimed the tidings:
"Eighty-three dollars!"
Davies felt a glow of white heat in his breast that
was almost killing him.
"You dirty old scum !" his mind roared.
But what could" he do? Should he rise in his place
and shout from his throat what his mind was dictating?
This and all the rest? That here was a hypocrite —
here was a fraud — here was a robber of the poor?
But old Sky-Blue, with his arm about the humble
little sister in black, was singing again. He was laugh
ing. He turned and gave Davies a look as if to say:
"I'll showyuh!"
The Pollyanna young man forced his way up to the
platform and delivered a verbal message.
And old Sky-Blue, who was dancing a little by this
time, did a couple of more jumps and shouted at the
top of his lungs and waved his arms for silence.
ARMAGEDDON 295
"No money!" he howled. "No money! Brother
Hitchcock here's just been tellin* me how some of you
dear ones been offerin* him dimes and quarters. That's
all right fer you dear ones that ain't got a bank
account, and it's all right fer the blessed little chil
dren, and I'm goin' to ask Brother Hitchcock to
register these sums so's no tithe ner jitney be un
recorded in the Golden Book. But let those of us who
can, put down our names and our pledges."
Here one of the ushers cried out from the back
of the hall :
"Judge Berry9 s down fer two hundred!"
There was an outburst of handclapping ; but Sky-
Blue called for a cheer, and the auditorium rocked.
And the quartet, which had begun on "Old Black
Joe," switched to "Dixie," and this also kept the cheer
ing going along for a while — long enough; for now
others were trying to get their names into the cheering-
line.
"Mrs. Melva MeUisli down fer a hundred!'9
"Seventy-five for Brother Cole!"
"Ed Brock, eighty!"
With considerable difficulty old Sky-Blue succeeded in
getting himself heard again, although he had to shout
at first to do it.
"Don't misunderstand," he yelled. "Don't misunder
stand! If you can't sign the pledges give what you
got ! Go to it, boys !"
This last to the quartet.
And the riot broke loose again, ushers working like
296 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
sin, sporadic cheers drowning the music, this brother
and that brother or Sister So-and-So, who hadn't
spoken to each other for years, perhaps, now shaking
hands and singing in unison and smiling at each other
through their tears.
Davies's agony increased.
Was he going to let Sky-Blue get away with this —
rob the whole town ?
"Look out ! Look out !" he wanted to yell. "Those
are checks that you're signing. Checks, you rubes!
He's going to cash 'em ! He's told me so ! He's a
fake!"
What if he should yell this ? Would they believe him ?
Would Alvah think he was crazy.
Sky-Blue waltzed over and stroked his shoulder.
It was at that moment that Davies felt his blood
stand still in his veins ; felt the slow, cringing contrac
tion of his muscles as he started to rise. The time had
come. The bell of fate had begun to ring. He couldn't
stand this. If he did he would be as bad as the bishop.
And worse! For perhaps the bishop didn't know any
better.
It seemed to Davies that he could already feel the
people looking at him ; feel the multitudinous focus of
the thousand eyes, although as yet he hadn't moved an
inch.
Then he was suddenly aware that it wasn't at him
self the people looked, but at Colonel Evan Williams.
The colonel himself had risen, was waiting to make
himself heard.
CHAPTER XL VIII
OLD Sky-Blue righted himself and bawled :
"Brother Williams ! Let us listen to Brother Wil
liams !"
And there was just the barest suggestion — for Davies
there was, at least — just the barest suggestion that the
bishop was nervous; up against something that he
wasn't perfectly sure about.
And there was that in the colonel's appearance to
give any one pause, especially if that person happened
to have a troubled conscience or any reason for such.
The colonel was calm. He was self-possessed. And
yet, also, he was somewhat out of himself and above
himself — filling his Mobile coat perfectly, looking as
he might have looked twenty or thirty years ago, ex
cept for his white hair and mustache, eye sagacious,
florid, handsome.
Alvah was gazing at him. So was Davies. So grad
ually was every one else as the hall went silent.
"My friends," said Colonel Williams, "I feel that
I cannot let this occasion pass without giving my tes
timony."
His voice was soft, yet vibrant, sonorous. It car
ried.
297
298 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Old Sky-Blue had subsided into the chair the colonel
had vacated, he having seated the little old woman in
black in his own armchair — which was too big for her;
and Sky-Blue sat there with a happy smile on his face,
wondering what was coming off, and now and then pat
ting Alvah's hand to show every one how happy he was
and how his heart was overflowing with love.
"Testimony in the old religious sense," the colonel
said. "Testimony as we used it in the revivals of our
Old South ! This, although the evidence is in, although
the judgment be already recorded by the Judge on
High ! We've all been witnesses. We've witnessed once
more the ancient miracle of Grace."
Sky-Blue was still a trifle up in the air, as the saying
is ; but he was game. He clapped his hands and said :
"Amen!" And this started a flutter of applause.
The colonel turned and took a leisurely look at Sky-
Blue.
"What's comin' off?" Davies demanded of his soul.
The colonel said :
"Thanks to you, sir !"
He turned once more to face the audience, his voice
thrilled:
"Thanks to him ! Thanks to the rare spirit and bold
of him to whom we have listened with such reverence
in this hall, our friend, our benefactor, our saintly
leader, the Rev. Dr. Culbertson !"
The applause started up again. It did this almost
where it had left off, with much handclapping and some
cries of "Amen" and "True ! True !" But it gave a
sudden jump and was twice as loud, twice as vociferous
"THIS IS MY FRIEND" 299
— cries of "Good for the colonel!" "Hallelujah!"
" 'Ray for Dr. Culbertson !" Then it gave yet another
jump and became a baby ovation.
"He's makin' it worse," said Davies to himself, and
it was just as if a fist was pounding at his chest.
Sky-Blue was satisfied now. He waved an arm as a
signal for the crowd to let the colonel continue. The
colonel was watching the crowd, however, with all the
ready strategy of the trained orator. He waited until
the silence was practically complete, then intense, abso
lute. He adapted his voice to the silence, spoke softly :
"Gratitude is greatest when it is personal. Out of
the full heart I speak. You are my neighbors. You
have been patient. You have seen me fall. You have
seen the forces of destruction cloud my sky like hungry
eagles. But where are the eagles now ? Gone ! Gone 1
Thank God the sky is clear again."
"God bless you, brother," droned the bishop.
And there were a few other cries, slightly hysterical :
"Hallelu j ah !" "Praise the Lord !"
"Cut it out," Davies implored in his heart. "You
don't know what you're doing."
But the colonel had all the appearance of one who
does know what he is about.
He roared the next few words :
"Am I alone?"
Cries of "No ! No !" and some laughter.
"Am I alone?" the colonel demanded again. "In the
regeneration of my unworthy self we have seen but the
passing shadow of the greater fact, the regeneration of
our city. St. Clair ! As he himself so eloquently has
800 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
put it, thou art already a well-spring in the desert, St.
Clair ! Beautiful thou wert ! Yea, more beautiful than
any other city in the State of equal population !"
More applause.
"Think then what it will be when this dream of our
doctor is realized, home of an institution unique in the
annals of the world, the visible promise of that city of
the new Jerusalem — prepared as a bride adorned for
her husband — her light like unto a stone most precious
— and filled with the glory and the honor of the na
tions."
All the time that the colonel was speaking the ushers
were on the job of getting fresh subscriptions. Even
in those moments of tense silence their eyes were alert.
At each outburst of applause they were seizing the occa
sion to convert the enthusiasm into something tangible.
Davies's distress grew.
By degrees the congregation was fusing into an even
greater degree of fervor than it had shown when old
Sky-Blue himself was holding forth. It was coming
along toward ecstasy as the colonel swung into his per
oration, a personal tribute to Culbertson, but couched
in the language of the Wise One :
"'His mouth is most sweet: Yea, he is altogether
lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O
daughters of Jerusalem !' "
And then, in the midst of the cheering and hand-
clapping and incipient song, old Sky-Blue jumped for
ward with streaming eyes and clasped the colonel in his
arms and called for a song. But while he was doing all
this he still had sufficient presence of mind to shout :
"THIS IS MY FRIEND" 301
"Sign your pledges, friends ! Er give what you can !
Let us make this day a day of glory !"
The quartet had taken its cue from the colonel's
speech, was shooting out the chorus of that other re
vival song:
"Oh, I'll meet you in the city of the new Jerooz-olum !"
It became a roar as the congregation joined in. The
ushers were now working like mad, taking money and
checks. An old farmer had clambered to the platform.
He and Sky-Blue had to howl at each other to make
themselves heard.
"/ want to go down for fifty dollars!"
"Did you say eighty?"
"But I ain't got a pen"
"Use mine."
And Davies saw the bishop thrust his fountain pen
smoothly into the old man's hand. Davies was in a riot
of emotion. He didn't know what to do. The colonel's
speech had made matters worse, a hundred times worse.
What sort of a chance did he have to denounce the
bishop now ? Would it all wind up by his being forced
to murder the bishop? Would such a murder be justi
fied?
Alvah looked at him. She was radiant.
It couldn't have been Alvah's thought, therefore,
that came to him — came to him like a flash of inspira
tion, of that rarer thing called illumination ; but it was
something which came to him from the girl's purity and
innocence none the less; that perception, once vague,
now clear, that old Sky-Blue was evil, was Satan.
302 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
Should he falter in the presence of this Prince of
Darkness — lie down before him — when he alone of all
the others there was armed to destroy him utterly?
Once more he trembled to the rise.
But now, as that other time, Colonel Evan Williams
intervened. The colonel had called for order, com
manded silence.
"I wish to put a motion," the colonel shouted.
Culbertson was supporting him — doing this right
heartily now that he was certain of the colonel's mo
tives.
Davies didn't get all that followed. All that he
could see, all that he could think about was that the
town was stripping itself, signing pledges, each pledge
a personal check to Culbertson, otherwise Sky-Blue, to
say nothing of all the actual cash that was rolling in.
He barely heard what the colonel was saying about
Dr. Culbertson being advanced in years ; that he should
therefore be relieved of wearisome detail.
Then he got it: his own name.
The colonel had spoken about that other and younger
friend of his whom the whole town was glad to honor.
"Mr. Richard Dawes!"
And there was plenty of applause at that as well.
And then the colonel was calling upon them to elect
him by acclamation — elect him by a rising vote — which
the congregation did, surging up to its feet before the
question was fairly put; elect Mr. Richard Davies, se
cretary and treasurer, and custodian of all the funds,
of the Beating Heart Seminary.
"THIS IS MY FRIEND" 303
Davies heard all this a good deal as if he were in a
trance. He was in a trance. He was until old Sky-
Blue himself was falling upon him, calling him by name :
"Oh, my beloved Richard !"
CHAPTER XLIX
FACE TO FACE
"LET the old man rave !" he communed with himself.
"I've got him ! I've got him !"
Sky-Blue whispered :
"Pretty slick! You put it over great!"
But it was as if another whisper came to Davies :
"You prayed in your "heart. Your prayer is amr
swered. You called for "help. You've got it.9*
All this, while Sky-Blue was still cavorting about him
— patting him on the shoulder, shouting out his joy and
his felicitations. Verily, verily, was virtue its own re
ward.
"Begin it now," said Richard.
"What?" Sky-Blue asked.
"Pass it over — the check the old farmer gave you."
"Yea! Yea !" shouted the bishop. "All pledges and
moneys to Brother Davies !" And he passed over the
paper Davies had mentioned.
The ushers crowded in.
Davies bade a swift good night to Alvah. She glowed
at him with love and admiration — a look that he was
never to forget. He squeezed Colonel William's hand.
Their eyes met. Did the colonel suspect what had come
to pass? Had he foreseen it, engineered it?
304
FACE TO FACE 305
But the crowd was flowing strong by this time —
others crowding up to congratulate him, to pass over
their checks and money. He disposed of the water-
jug and the glass. The wealth piled up and covered
the table-top— St. Clair's donation to the Beating
Heart.
It was a long, long time before the hall was emptied.
It wouldn't have been emptied at all, perhaps — not be
fore morning — if old Sky-Blue hadn't taken to shooing
his well-wishers out into the night. He had to shepherd
them out, establishing himself down near the door, where
he could bless them and get rid of them at the same time.
Sky-Blue was moist and tremulous. Any one could
have told that this was indeed — just as he said it was —
the most beautiful day of his life.
Pie called a good many of the sisters by their first
names. He kissed a good many of the girl children —
did this fondly and with tears in his eyes — especially
when the ages of these shaded up around eighteen.
"Is this little Effie?"
And little Effie blushing, forsooth, with all the
warmth of her hundred and fifty pounds of corn-fed,
buxom health.
"God bless you, sister. Did you get a receipt?"
Davies was grateful for the delay. He had his work
cut out for him, and he didn't want to be interfered
with for a while.
In spite of the bishop's expressed preference for
checks instead of cash — thus insuring a vastly greater
donation doubtless than could have been yielded by any
ordinary collection — still there was cash galore —
306 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
pounds and pounds of it, chiefly in pennies and nickels
and dimes ; yet with a fair weight, also, of fifty-cent
pieces and silver dollars. All this had to be counted.
An awful job!
Not only counted, but made to balance with the pen
ciled memoranda turned in by the various ushers.
But he was something of the natural cashier. He
went about the task with something of the neatness
that characterized his dress, the speed that was such an
asset in a fight. And this was a fight. He separated
the coins and stacked them. This was a poker-game,
and he was stacking his chips. He arranged the paper
and the checks, folding each one of them lengthwise and
getting them perfectly even, as he had seen the big
bookmakers in times past prepare their rolls at the
track.
The amount ran into the thousands — those pledges as
good as cash, each pledge a personal check to Sky-Blue
— Balaam N. Culbertson — payable by the local bank.
He had plenty of time.
He knew that he was going to have plenty of time.
He worked with the knowledge that he had something
or some one now on his side. He had no nerves ; he was
cool, perfectly confident.
He stowed the stuff away with method and care —
bills in this pocket, checks in this. He had a large,
clean, linen handkerchief. He put the coin into this
and knotted it up, then hid it where he could have it
safe and not be embarrassed by its weight. For, while
he was confident, there was no telling what might hap
pen.
FACE TO FACE 307
So the town had elected him secretary and treasurer
and custodian of funds ! Had elected him by acclama
tion ! This when he had believed the whole world to be
against him !
He looked up finally to see the bishop in the act of
shooing the last of his beloved out of the door. At
last no one remained but the janitor. The janitor also
Sky-Blue embraced. He had the man turn out all the
lights except that of the reading-lamp on the platform.
Then Sky-Blue dismissed this brother with a blessing,
told him that he and Richard would tarry for a while,
and would see that everything was closed up properly
when they left.
So Sky-Blue eventually saw the janitor through the
door also, and locked the door behind him.
Then Sky-Blue came striding up the aisle, delighted
but very important, rubbing his hands and inclined to
lord it over Davies in a friendly sort of way.
"We've done it!" he exclaimed. "We've done it!
Damn my white hairs if we ain't done it this time!
Done it right ! Did you get the applause ! Oh, Chick !
Let this learn you ! Old Sky-Blue ain't such a has-been
as you thought he was! Is he? What are the fig-
gers?"
Davies told him.
Sky-Blue rolled his eyes heavenward, brought his
fingers into contact over his stomach and twirled his
thumbs. But he didn't hold the tableau long. Sud
denly he was all nervousness and greed.
"Fork it over," he said. "Fork it over, so's I can
fondle it."
308 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
He noticed the expression in Davies's face — saw
something there that he didn't comprehend, didn't quite
like.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"Nothing," said Richard dryly. "Nothing— yet !"
"Oh, now, look here," the bishop ejaculated. "Don't
go and spoil an occasion like this by a case of sulks.
Don't, Chicky, I beg of you. Why, I'm as proud of
you as I can be. You did your part noble — if you do
know it yourself," he teased. "Seriously, my boy, your
work to-night's confirmed everything I've ever thought
of you, planned fer you. It was a surprise to old Sky-
Blue himself. It was. I confess that, there for a
moment, I was gettin' a little leary. It was too
good. It was comin' too easy. I've seen it happen
before. It's just at such times as this that some
body begins to suspect — spills the beans — some rube
lawyer, some jay banker er country cop."
"That's right," said Dick dryly, with his eyes on
the old man.
The bishop was convulsed with reminiscent laughter.
"And you had me guessin'. You did. When the
old colonel got up and began his spiel I could 'a'
beaned him. 'Drat his old soul,' I says; 'may he
drop down dead,' I says. And here he was leadin' right
up to the gran'-stan' play 'at pulled the wool over all
of their eyes." He put these pleasantries behind him.
"Well," he said, "now fer the big split. Le's begin
with the cash. Where is it? Where'd you put it?"
He had begun to rub his hands again. He was in a
tremor of eagerness and greed.
FACE TO FACE 309
"I got it," said Dick.
"I know you got it. Hurry up. Come across."
Davies eyed the bishop. Davies had gone a little
white, but he was very cool, steady. He measured
his words.
"I'm not going to come across," he announced.
"You're not in on this. You don't get a bean."
CHAPTER L
SKIN FOR SKIN
"I DON'T quite get you," said the bishop. "I appear
to be a little deef. Say that again."
"You heard me."
"Methinks you was crackin' a joke."
His words were jocular; not so the tone of his voice.
"I was cracking no joke," said Richard. "I meant
what I said, and I'll tell you again: you don't get a
cent of this money. It isn't yours. It belongs to the
people who shelled it out. They've entrusted it to
my care. And I'm going to care for it. Is that
clear?"
"So that's your game !"
"There is no game about it."
"Can it!" barked the bishop.
"I was as much surprised as any one when the
colonel sprang that nomination."
"Fork out that chink."
"And maybe the colonel isn't such a fool as you
seem to take him to be. He was a fine lawyer in his
day."
The bishop was occupied in drawing up a chair. He
was doing this with nervous haste.
"Damn the colonel," he muttered over his shoulder.
310
'But Cliicky," said the old man, "I wasn't tryin' tr> horns-waggle you.
along we were splitting fifty fifty?"
Hain't I said al
SKIN FOR SKIN 311
But when he had fully turned and was seated, and
his eyes met Davies's eyes, all those preliminary mis
givings and hatreds aroused by what he had originally
seen in Davies's face must have returned to him quad
rupled. It steadied him — like the old war-horse that
he was on the eve of battle. He took a chew of
tobacco.
"Maybe the colonel had the situation sized up bet
ter than you think," said Davies, speaking steadily.
"YouVe talked all along about me having so much
to learn. Maybe I'm not the only one. Maybe you've
got something to learn yourself."
The bishop forked his beard and looked around for
a receptacle. Not discovering any, he arose and
stalked very solemnly over to a back window which
was open — all this merely to give him time to think.
But Davies watched him narrowly. He saw the old
man let his hand rest for a moment on an iron weight
that was there to hold one of the inside shutters in
place. He saw the bishop's furtive glance. The
bishop came back unarmed.
"I'm talking straight," Davies announced somberly.
The bishop thought he saw a lead.
"But Chicky," he said; "I wasn't tryin' to horn-
swaggle you. So help me God! Hain't I said all
along we were splittin' fifty-fifty ?"
"Yes!"
"Well, then, what you stallin' for? Come across!
Give me a feel."
"You don't get a feel," said Davies; "nor a
smell!"
312 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
The bishop's face underwent a terrible change. It
was just as if he had been griped by the first spasm
of some frightful pain — something that killed the good
in him and showed him up black and horrible.
He emitted a blasphemous epithet, smooth but
barbed.
Then he got his reason back.
"Still foolin'," he gurgled.
"Yes," said Davies; "I am not!"
"Sort of tryin'meout!"
"I've tried you out," said Davies. "This is where
you get off. You're canned. You're leaving town."
The old man's distress was such, there for a while,
that Davies expected to see him collapse utterly. He
did collapse to some extent — exactly like a prize
fighter who has received a jolt on the solar-plexus.
His face went ashen. He looked a little cross-eyed.
His condition was such that Davies felt sorry for him.
"You oughtn't to take it so hard," he said. "You're
getting old, bishop. Why don't you straighten up be
fore you die? You don't want to go to hell. No
man does. Just see what a good impression you've
made on the people of this town! Isn't that worth
something? Don't you value their esteem?"
The bishop tried to speak, but he was still para
lyzed.
"Why," Davies continued, "there's nothing in the
world equal to a good reputation — to having a lot of
friends — to having folks look up to you, honor you,
love you. When I said that you had a lot to learn
I didn't mean anything bad. You've got brains.
SKIN FOR SKIN 318
You're one of the brainiest men I ever stacked up
against. Honest ! And you have a heart, too. You're
not one of these ordinary crooks like they pinch or
send to the chair. I bet you never killed any one in
your life, unless you had to. I thought a lot of you
the very first night I ever saw you."
The bishop partly recovered. He put a feeble
hand into the breast-pocket of his frock-coat and
brought out two badly worn documents of legal aspect.
"I done this for you," he murmured.
It was always a sign that his emotion was genuine
when he slipped up on his English.
Davies took the documents and examined them, but
he wasn't sufficiently used to such things to make
out the nature of them right away. Sky-Blue, per
ceiving this, enlightened him:
"Mortgages !"
"What on?"
"The colonel's property."
"Where did you get them?"
"Tine."
"Frank Tine!"
"Blackmailed him," said the bishop weakly.
"You scared him so he's jumped the town," said
Davies.
. "Made him surrender the mortgages to me — was
going to hand 'em over to the colonel as canceled."
Davies had a moment of indecision, and Sky-Blue
profited by this to recover the documents. He was
beginning to be himself again. The blood was re
turning to his face and, doubtless, to his brain.
314* IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"But I won't," he said, "if you don't play square.
I'll make the colonel and that niece of his wish to
God Frank Tine still had these mortgages. That's
what I'll do. I ain't going to let him and you double-
cross me like an old sucker. You can bet your sweet,
young life I ain't."
"The colonel hasn't got anything to do with this,"
said Davies.
"Bah!"
"He thinks as much of you as he does of me."
"He'll think a damn sight less of you when I get
through with you. Are you still nursin' the idea you
can hog this money for yourself?"
"I wasn't aiming to hog it for myself."
"What then?"
"I'm going to give it back."
"What?"
"Just what I said. I'm going to turn back both
the cash and the checks — as far as possible — to the
people who gave them."
"Oh, you are!"
"Yes."
"Well, you just keep your mouth shut and your ears
open for a minute while I tell you somethin'. You
try it. You just try it ! I've been mighty patient witli
you. I've stood an awful lot of your sass and your
brass. You thought you was cute, didn't you? Didn't
know you was makin' a monkey of yourself? Shut up !
I'm talkin'."
CHAPTER LI
TOOTH AND CLAW
DAVJES made a move to rise, but Sky-Blue delivered
himself of such a murderous supplication that Davies
kept his place. There was momentary silence, deep,
broken only by the slow drip of water from the trees
and the chirr of crickets.
"I'll give you another chance," said the bishop. His
voice was terrible — throaty, not very loud, yet taking
a lot of breath, like the purring hiss of a puff-adder
or an alligator. "I'll give you another chance. But
this will be an end of the foolin', you rat. What are
you grinnin' about? I'll make you grin. You'll grin
out of the other side of your face when I throw you
in. Once more, come across !"
Davies never moved. He merely looked with all his
eyes. But he was alert, watchful, just about ready
to go.
"You won't?"
"No."
"You won't, won't you? You'll' look slick in your
college clothes — doin' the lock-step. It'll be the
wolves fer you. I'll frame you — hidin' here in the
country. The New York bulls won't do a thing to you
when they get their hooks on you. I'll hang enough
315
616 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
crimes on you to send you away for life. Damn you,
111 send you to the chair fer killin' a cop."
Davies must have known that these were not idle
threats. In the world he came from many a man —
many a boy — was believed to have disappeared beyond
the doors of Elmira, Auburn, Sing Sing, on a trumped-
up charge, "railroaded," convicted of another man's
crime, the victim of perjured testimony and a private
vengeance. And if any one could work such a vengeance
Sky-Blue could, with his cunning, his place of power
in the underworld.
But, curiously, Davies felt no fear — felt only a keen
excitement, a species of elation. It was as if he were
conscious of that power that had already come to his
aid — conscious that the power was still there ready
to back him up again.
He did smile. It was a smile that was chiefly located
though in his glowing eyes.
"You throw me to the wolves?" he said. "Maybe
you will! But if you do you'll go with me, and it'll
be with a fang in every string of your meat. Now you
shut up. You've had your say. Why, you dirty old
man ! Taking money from poor old women dressed in
black! Spewing your guff about love and religion!
I could take these two hands and jerk your whiskers
out! Tear you to pieces like a rotten rag! And you
got the nerve to sit there and talk about railroading
me? I'm only sparing you because you're old, and
because you're licked, and because you're up against
something that even now you can't understand."
TOOTH AND CLAW 317
Sky-Blue had a movement — not very much of a
movement, but desperate — to regain the ascendency.
It was hopeless.
Davies arose from his chair like one moved by a
force not his own. He stood over Sky-Blue and looked
down at him. And the bishop looked up at Davies.
The bishop's mouth was open. He appeared not to
breathe.
"You're canned," said Davies. "You're going out
of town. I told you once. I tell you again. I'm let
ting you go. You ought to go on a rail, in your skin,
and your skin dolled up with tar and feathers. That's
what would happen to you if I put the town wise.
Culbertson! Balaam N. Culbertson! Founder of the
Beating Heart! How old are you?"
"Seventy!"
"God pity you!"
"Chick !" It was a whisper.
"No more 'Chick !' " said Davies without passion.
"Chick's dead. Remember that when you get back to
New York. You won't hurt me. You can't. No man
can. I've got a hold of something I can cling to.
Influence! I've got a friend."
There was a quality about him while he stood there
and while he was saying this that seemed to be taking
all the strength and hostility right out of Sky-Blue —
bleeding him, leaving him increasingly weak and helpless.
He was still rigid — the bishop was — but he was im
potent. Still, he attempted another threat:
"You'll— be sorry!"
But it sounded childish. It was futile.
318 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"There are three trains going out of St. Clair to
morrow," said Davies, transferring his thought to the
subject with a mental effort. "The first is that milk-
train that leaves at four-ten. You don't want to take
'that. You're tired. You want a little sleep — a little
time to think things over. There's that other slow
one — the local — to-morrow afternoon. I don't think
you'd better wait for that. I'm going to get busy
on this new job of mine to-morrow. Things might
happen. I guess you'd better take the mail-train in
the morning, eight-forty-five. Is it understood ?"
"I'll— take it."
"And you think I'll still be sorry?"
Sky-Blue merely wagged his head.
"Sorry !" Davies breathed. "Let me tell you some
thing. I'm going home to-night for the first good
sleep I've had since you showed up — going home with
out a load on my heart — going to hit the hay in peace.
You needn't stick around to say good-by. I'll be get
ting up a little -late. You'll be gone when I wake up.
Go on and beat it! You need the rest."
He kept his eye on Sky-Blue as Sky-Blue got to his
feet. For a moment or so the bishop stood there as if
he expected to say something. He finally turned, how
ever, and made his way, Davies still watching him,
down the aisle, through the door, out into the night.
Davies, taking his time about it, recovered his im
provised bag of coin from where he had hidden it. He
turned out the light of the reading-lamp. He also
started to leave.
But midway through the darkened auditorium he
TOOTH AND CLAW 319
stopped — stopped short, lifted his face, looked as a man
looks who suddenly finds himself in the presence of
something great and unfamiliar.
So it was with him.
This flimsy hall had become a temple. The outer
doors were open, and through the broad casement of
them the night came in, soft, and mysterious, and
holy. The place had become like a temple of Egypt,
and what had just happened there become a rite — one
of those rites of magic and wonder which have marked
the recurrent dawns of the world after periods of dark
ness.
After that, Davies walked more slowly.
He came down to the sill of his temple, and he stood
there as a priest might have done. There was an
elation and a gratitude about him that made him
shine, and which was neither of his body nor his mind,
but of his spirit, flooding outward from the center of his
being and transmuting him into a perfect harmony with
the night and all the elements thereof — the damp, the
perfume, the purple depths, the tender brilliance of the
newly shining stars.
That was right.
There was nothing that could hurt him now.
He betook himself along the paths to the Flowery
Harbor — looking up, as Alvah had told him to do. But
the way seemed neither long nor dark nor lonely.
Only he did recognize that something had been lack
ing — some complete fulfilment — when he came within
sight of his destination and saw that some one had
320 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
put a light in the window. Alvah ! And he knew that
she had been waiting up for him.
He quickened his steps.
He saw her pale form hovering at the gate.
CHAPTER LII
THE RETURN OF THE SHADE
SHE said something about having been worried about
him. But she was still under the influence of the excite
ment and the enthusiasm she had brought back with
her from the meeting. But all her emotion was for
him. She thought it was wonderful. She thought that
everything was wonderful — and Davies was inclined to
agree with her.
"Where's Dr. Culbertson?" she asked.
"I thought he had come home," said Davies.
"No."
"Then he's just walking around," said Davies.
"Thinking ! All men have moments when they feel like
thinking."
This answer seemed to satisfy Alvah. Anyway, it
was apparent that her thought could not easily re
main away for any length of time from Davies and all
that concerned him.
"Are you sleepy?" he asked.
"I feel as if I could never sleep again."
"I'm not sleepy either," he said. "Come on around
to the pump. I want to wash the feel of all this
money from my hands. I'll let you pump for me."
"What a lot of it !" she exclaimed, as she took his
321
IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"He was meditating — meditating on the wonderful
things that happened to-night."
"Right again."
"And praying — praying for the whole world to be
good and kind."
Davies swung her lightly backward in his arms. He
looked down into her face — looked a long, long time.
But he had no word to say; no word, that is, which
could be considered germane to the immediate con
versation.
As a matter of fact, old Sky-Blue had been letting
himself go in meditation. He was still meditating when
the sun came up.
He required little sleep, anyway; but even if this
hadn't been the nature of him, still his brain most
likely would have kept on scampering around — testing
the wires, scratching at the planks, gnawing, prying,
with the insatiable unrest and curiosity of a ferret in a
cage.
His brain also was taking in something that it could
not solve.
What was this old Chicky up to, anyway? What was
the colonel up to? What was this game of theirs?
Why hadn't Chick come across for a fifty-fifty split
when it was dead certain that they couldn't do better
than that if they didn't have him, Culbertson, there to
help them? Anyway, what could Chick mean by throw
ing him over — with his long record of success — for a
pal like Colonel Williams when, as every one knew,
THE RETURN OF THE SHADE 325
the colonel had allowed himself to be robbed since time
out of mind?
Aha! Maybe that was it! Maybe Chick wanted a
pal who would be easy ! And yet, this hypothesis didn't
solve the riddle either.
Why should Chick be so sure of himself in this mat
ter of chasing him, Culbertson, out of town?
It was characteristic that Sky-Blue's attitude toward
this part of the enigma was one neither of anger nor
of injured pride. It was merely one more angle to
the riddle — that was all — an intellectual problem.
Now, now, now!
What could Chicky and the colonel be up to?
They were smart. They were clever. He gave
them credit for that. They had let him go on and
on and play their game for them right on up to the
moment of the big getaway. Then thej had stepped in
and given him the double-cross.
"And that," said Sky-Blue to himself, "was some
thing I never expected to get handed to me. Nope!
In all the years I've been handin* it to others this is
the first time any one ever done me a job like that."
He padded over to his grip and got out a fresh
package of fine-cut. With this he solaced himself, took
a fresh grip on the problem. He eased his clothes,
took off his socks.
Well, he was ready to admit that they were a pair
of deep ones — either that, or a pair of monumental
fools. No; not fools. The bishop knew men. Chick
was no fool. And neither was the colonel. If the col
onel was a fool the colonel would have gummed things
326 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
when it came to swinging in Chicky as custodian of
the funds. That was genius.
The bishop sat there by the open window of his
room and nourished his indefatigable brain with re
peated administrations of fine-cut tobacco — while the
darkness melted, and the world turned heliotrope and
pink, and the waking birds chirped and trilled, and a
morning zephyr threw back the covers of dew and per
fume from the flowers, and a few little rosy clouds went
dancing out of sight, naked but prettily modest; he
sat there in the presence of this pageant and schemed
and studied and softly swore and tried again to fathom
the mystery of Chick and the colonel, but especially of
Chick.
What had spoiled the boy?
Once the best, and the cleanest, and the soberest,
and the least-likely-to-be-nabbed pickpocket in New
York, and now out here in this jerk-water village.
Was it the girl?
Sky-Blue believed not. True, he had seen more than
one bright, young man ruin himself for the sake of
a skirt. But Chick had never been that kind. He
had studied the lad from a distance, kept track of him
as he would have kept track of a son.
And, just then, while he was thinking of Alvah, he
heard various soft sounds from the back of the house
that told him the girl was astir.
Maybe she was in this game. But he believed not.
He recalled how she had been a little cold to him at
first, had thawed to him only gradually. She wasn't
the emotional sort. But she was the kind who when
THE RETURN OF THE SHADE 327
once put stays put. Anyway, it wouldn't hurt him
to find out.
Alvah, with the kitchen fire just fairly started,
looked up to see Professor Culbertson standing in the
door.
CHAPTER LIU
THE LAST BELIEVER
"On, good morning !" she cried. "I hope that I didn't
wake you up. I think the others are still sleeping."
"She ain't wise to nothing," said the bishop in his
heart.
He spoke up with the air of a sufferer.
"Alvah!"
"Yes?"
"Alvah ! Give me a mouthful of coffee."
"Is there anything I have in the world I wouldn't
give you?" Alvah cried with unmistakable generosity.
"She's like Molly, my second wife," the bishop com
muned with himself. "Couldn't learn her to lie in a
thousand years. Good though ! Good in her way !"
He accepted Alvah's pleasant invitation that he take
his coffee here in the kitchen with her instead of wait
ing for it in the lonely dining-room. And presently she
had served him on the kitchen table, she sitting opposite
him and devouring him with affectionate eyes.
"I've so been wanting to speak to you alone," she
said, after a while.
"Now it's comin'," said Sky-Blue to himself.
But it wasn't — nothing that he expected.
"I've felt so grateful to you," she said. "You've
328
THE LAST BELIEVER 329
been such a wonderful influence in my life, and the lives
of all of us — uncle's, and — and Richard's — not to
speak of all St. Clair."
Her voice was so warm, her cheek so sympathetic,
here eyes so moist, that Sky-Blue played up to her.
"Dear child!"
She refilled the cup he held out to her with a trem
bling hand. He noticed, as a younger man might have
noticed such things, the pretty, pink dress she had on,
the velvet tan of her bare forearms, the creamy warmth
and smoothness of her throat. But with an older per
ception he also noticed how good the coffee was, how
fresh the butter, how good her home-made bread.
It made him sigh aloud.
"You're not suffering!" she cried.
"A little rheumatism."
"You shouldn't have stayed out so late." She
blushed. "We saw you come in."
"We ?"
"Richard and I. We were in the garden. I wanted
to speak to you, but — Richard wouldn't let me. He's
so thoughtful!"
"My child," said the bishop in his heart, "you are
spoofing me." Aloud he said : "Oh, yes ! No one will
ever accuse Richard of not being thoughtful."
Alvah stepped over lightly to the stove where the
kettle was sputtering. She moved it back. She made
such a picture of domestic beauty standing there —
slender, efficient, a little flushed with the heat, that
Sky-Blue again thought of his vanished Molly. Where
330 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
was she now? Kalamazoo, the last time he had heard
of her; and still living single. Was the time coming
when he'd be willing to go back into double harness
again? Molly would take him back. She was that
kind. Maybe he'd look her up — if his luck didn't
change.
"What was you saying?" he inquired.
"I'm almost ashamed to tell you how late we did stay
out there."
"I'm an old, old man," he assured her.
"I think you're wonderful. I don't mind telling
you — oh, I must tell you. I want to tell you every
thing."
"For God's sake do," Sky-Blue recited in his brain.
He spoke aloud. "Yes, yes! If it's something about
Richard, you can speak to me openly. I love the
boy."
His voice shook. He saw that he was on the right
track. So he let his voice shake yet more, and he even
managed a little moisture in his own eyes. He re
peated :
"I love the boy."
"You guessed "
"Say on!"
"That I love him too."
"Piffle," the bishop said to himself. "Dear child,"
he droned.
"It was something that he told me."
"O-ho !" in silence. "Alvah, pass me the butter. You
know you can talk right out to me. My sweet little
granddaughters always do."
THE LAST BELIEVER 331
"You have granddaughters?"
"Seven," the bishop lied. "Goon! What did Dicky
say?"
"Something terrible."
"A-about me?"
"Of course not. About himself !"
"Oh!"
"He told me— no, I can't!"
If this kept up she could never keep back her tears.
"Bring your chair around here," he coaxed, "and
set here beside me. Dear child ! Sweet child !"
And she had no sooner done so than he had his arm
about her shoulders and was stroking her head, the
while he looked skyward with a satisfied air.
"He told me," Alvah whispered, "that he had led
a terrible life in New York — had been brought up to
steal things ever since he was a little boy — and that
an old man had spoken to him — opened his eyes — made
him yearn to lead a good life, and a clean life, be born
again, as the Bible says."
There was more of it.
"Did — did Dicky say — who the old man was?" Sky-
Blue inquired with his shaky voice as he smiled at the
ceiling.
"You, Professor Culbertson?"
"Yes, yes ! It was me."
"Then it was true !"
The bishop began to play the game as he saw it now.
He had noticed the clock. He had only forty-five min
utes to spare if he was to catch the mail-train, and that
he had decided to do.
IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"Oh," he said. "You mean it was true about him
hookin' things. Tut! Tut! He may have stolen a
few marbles from some little playmate, or a banana
from a push-cart — though I doubt it. I doubt it.
He always was a sensitive child — overreligious — calling
it murder if he killed a fly."
"But he said "
"I know! I know! Told me the same thing! Ro
mantic ! Great imagination ! Why, child, I carried
him in these arms when he was baptized. I watched
him grow up — the dreamy, poetical child — dressed in
black velvet — lace collars and cuffs "
"He told me they had been so poor!" exclaimed
Alvah.
"Well, yes ! Compared to the Carnegies and Rocke
fellers I suppose you would call 'em that. y But one of
the finest old families in New York — brass knocker on
the door, old furniture, old servants. Lost it, though,
in the grea-a-at panic ten or 'leven years ago, and
there for a while Richard supported his parents — kept
on till they died."
Alvah was moved to tears — happy tears, wistful
tears; but she said that she wouldn't have minded it
anyway, even if the story were true, only, only, and
so on.
"Why, I remember when he was in our Sunday-
school," old Sky-Blue resumed. But he broke off: "By
crickety, I almost forgot "
"What?"
"I have to leave on the eight forty-five."
"Going away?"
THE LAST BELIEVER 333
"Only fer a day 'r two." They were both on their
feet. He began patting his pockets. "Now, where
did I put it ?" He looked at her blankly. "Have you
seen my purse? Bank ain't open. Don't need much.
But — will the railroad trust me, do you suppose?"
"You old dear," Alvah laughed. "Let me lend you
what I have."
She was off. She was back again.
"It's only seventeen dollars," she said. "Seventeen
dollars and thirty-five cents. I've been saving "
She blushed.
"Well, well!" he said, as he took the money. "Let
Santa Claus try to make it grow fer you."
CHAPTER LIV
THE DAWN OF GIXJRY
THE day when old Sky-Blue, otherwise the bishop^
otherwise "Professor Culbertson, the illustrious, of
London, England," disappeared from St. Clair was
to remain always one of the most notable in Richard
Davies's career — one of the happiest, most beautiful,
most promising days of all days.
It began that way.
It was late when he awoke, and he opened his eyes
with a feeling of well-nigh inexpressible peace and
thanksgiving. So it sometimes happens when one has
slept profoundly and well, and the sleeper's soul has
emerged — as it may be imagined to do after a tranquil
death; and the sleeper finally awakens with some dim
knowledge of this higher and better life, although he
may recollect no single detail of it.
The weather was bright but dulcet, reviving instant
ly some feeling within him originally stirred to life by
old Ezra Wood. And now Davies did think of that
old man with a tremor of gratitude — seeing him again
not as a superannuated farmer, but as a master, or an
angel, or a spirit, straight from the center of all
things.
This general impression of a world made over was
334
THE DAWN OF GLORY 335
strengthened when he came downstairs and happened
upon Alvah in the hall. He saw a light and a tender
ness in her eyes that was quite other than any light or
tenderness he had seen there before.
It was something that caused him to take her in his
arms as naturally, and yet as supernaturally, as if
she had belonged there always. They whispered some
thing about love and beauty.
But words were unnecessary. The whole universe was
a word, and the word embraced all these ultimate things
which, as they comprehended, were all the same thing
anyway — truth, law, beauty, love, faith, knowledge.
All facts were as clear and fragrant as the air.
Later on, when Colonel Williams appeared, he was
merely another element in this cosmic harmony.
The colonel was quiet, dignified, but gracious.
Somehow he appeared at once older yet less feeble;
just a shade less human, it may be, and yet very much
the grand old man. He struck an odd chord in Davies's
brain. For the first time since they had known each
other, the colonel was reminding Davies — vaguely, in
no definable way — of Ezra Wood in his mystical as
pect. It was something that pleased him, deepened
his love for the colonel, deep as this affection had
already begun to be.
"Culbertson's gone," said Davies.
He had waited until Alvah was out of hearing.
"And the Lord liveth!" the colonel exclaimed enig
matically.
For that matter, there was nothing very revealing
336 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
in the way that they smiled at each other, except as
an indication of mutual understanding.
"And now," said Dick, "I'll have to dope out a plan
to return the proceeds of last night's collection. The
checks will be easy. It's going to be the deuce, though,
to return those nickels and pennies."
"Let the matter rest in abeyance," the colonel sug
gested, "until I see what can be done about it. Per
haps our friends may be willing to devote the fund to
a new high-school, or a hospital." He added, irrele
vantly perhaps : "There generally is a lack of com
munity spirit in a place like this until the devil shows
himself in person."
Mr. Marsh, the general agent of the insurance com
pany, was already in the office recently occupied by
Frank Tine when Davies got there. Mr. Marsh was
businesslike, but he was cordial.
He went into all sorts of details concerning the
business, both local and abroad, and wound up by
declaring that it was his purpose to put Davies in
charge of the St. Clair agency forthwith if Davies
felt the call.
Did he feel the call? Did he?
With a chance, not only comparatively, but literally,
to roll in wealth — run his own automobile — out through
the country year after year — not only in search of new
business, but in the accumulation of a larger and larger
share of life!
There was a brightness in his eyes as he and Mr.
Marsh shook hands on the proposition. It may have
been this that caused the older man to say:
THE DAWN OF GLORY 337
"You'll make good. For an insurance man, you
know, has to be called just as much as a preacher does."
It was a prophecy. It was a hallowing touch, more
over.
And no man, as Davies subsequently reflected, can
ever be very good at his job, whatever that job may
be, unless he feels that in doing it he is doing something
in the nature of a preacher's work.
He announced the good news when he went home at
noon, and the little dinner, with just the three of them
there, was in the nature of a stately banquet — a repast
with music and love, both music and love furnished
magically out of the atmosphere.
When it was over, and the colonel had retired for his
nap, Dick and Alvah went together out into the garden
where their talking wouldn't disturb him. But as a
matter of fact their voices wouldn't have disturbed a
wren, although Davies had so much to say.
He said most of this under the grape-arbor in the
back yard, where they were as remote and embowered
as they would have been on a desert island.
"Oh, Alvah, when are we to be married?"
"Whenever you say."
And Dick, explaining how he was going to make all
the money in the world, and fix up this old place and
make a paradise of it for the colonel for so long as
the colonel should live. They left themselves out of
this part of it altogether, as was natural; any place
and every place was paradise for them, just then, what
ever the state of disrepair.
But this home-making element of the new dispensa-
338 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
tion underwent an unexpected development in the course
of the afternoon.
This was when Davies received a visit from Harold
Peebles — that handsome lawyer who had bought the old
homestead in a hurry as a nesting-place for himself and
Tessie Fisher, nee Wingate. Harold's mood was one
of resignation underlaid with a sort of cynical melan
choly. He had heard the news — about Tessie and
Simp. He was willing to get rid of the Old Homestead
at a sacrifice.
Dick's vision spread, enhanced by those earlier visions
of his, only now made clear and logical.
He would want a country home. He would have a
car. He would always crave a farm — if it were only
to raise rocks and views, dreams and yet other visions.
He closed the bargain, and found that he had done
better than he would have done if Frank Tine had not
played him false. This became, incidentally, another
germ of reason in his new philosophy — that no one can
really injure any one else; that no one can injure any
one but himself; and that, therefore, if a man be aU
right, everything does eventually turn out to be for
the good.
It was a philosophy with a general application —
•which is the test of any philosophy ; with an application
for the whole town. For, after all, didn't St. Clair
profit by old Sky-Blue's visit? It did. It lost the
Beating Heart Seminary, it is true, but it gained the
new hospital.
For the matter of that, the town was richer in com
mon sense, as well; was always a little steadier after
THE DAWN OF GLORY
that, not so ready to fall at the feet of the first plati
tudinous quack to come along, swallow the first spiritual
cure-all to be shoved under its nose.
Which was something* to be grateful for.
Because, after all, just as every American is Amer
ica — as Alvah put it — wasn't it so in an even greater
degree, that St. Clair likewise was America?
But all this is of the more or less nebulous future.
The more immediate facts are that, almost overnight,
Davies became St. Glair's man-of-the-hour — the story
having spread as to how he had defied the so-called Cul-
bertson and driven the old reprobate from the town;
and that Davies and Alvah did marry and live happily
forever afterward — however hard it is to make a state
ment like that without getting accused of plagiarism.
Drive through St. Clair to-day and you'll see the
name of Richard Davies spread in gilt letters across
the front of a business block. And then, if you keep
on out through town and along the Dartown Pike you'll
see the Old Homestead — reconstructed, with a hint of
luxurious well-being about it, but none the less unmis
takably, still the Old Homestead.
CHAPTER LV
EPELOGUE
CAME a gusty, sleety night to lower Manhattan — the
Elevated rumbling, and the surface cars clanging and
shrieking — clanging and shrieking no louder, however,
than the garish lights and howling blacknesses of Chat
ham Square.
A corner of the pit !
That was what this part of the big town was on
such a night.
And like shadows of the pit, all of them damned, a
good many of the people thereabouts came and went —
frail children, as unreactive to misery as kittens ; older
boys and girls, blunted to present pains by their first
heady sniffs at an opiate future; and boys and girls
older yet, body weary, soul weary, but forbidden to die,
thus keeping up the legend of a punishment eternal.
Outside that smoky and smelly saloon which was
known as the Commodore, a Salvation Army man, bare
headed, rapt of face and utterance, scattered riches
more precious than pearls ; but those who were headed
for the Commodore passed him by as if he had been sell
ing peanuts.
The Commodore had gone down-hill.
There had been a murder in the back room of it, and
340
EPILOGUE 341
a couple of girls had drunk carbolic acid there, and
the place had been raided a number of times by the
police.
Still, there were always — or yet — a number of old-
timers who kept returning ever and anon, like bloated,
frowzy flies.
Unclean ! Unclean ! But dear to the blow-fly heart !
Phil came sneaking in, like a lean cat — no longer so
spick and span — shooting the drops of water from his
soiled raiment as a cat would twitch water from its fur.
He spied his old friend Solly at a table and slunk
over to join him.
Solly hadn't seen Phil for a long time. Solly was
just back from a two months' trip out into the wilds.
But if Solly had gone for his health his time must have
been wasted. He was still fat, but he wasn't cherubic
any more. He was very white, flabby. He had a dis
tressing habit of twitching his hands, rubbing his
knuckles against his nose.
About the only sign of a greeting that passed between
them was when Solly made a sign to Eddie, the bar-boy ;
and presently Eddie came back with two ponies of
whisky on his tray.
And Eddie stood right there, too, until he had re
ceived his money. Not a word.
They shot the stuff into them.
"Hear you been in stir," said Solly.
"Nuttin' but thirty days," said Phil with contempt.
"What 'd you pull in the West?"
"Nothin' but a pair of cold feet," Solly confessed
342 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
without shame. "The bulls was houndin' me all the
while I was there. I was sick. I'm sick yet."
This made Phil grin.
"You've lost your noive," he affirmed.
Solly pawed at his nose with the movement of a rabbit
washing its face.
"I never had a fair deal," he complained.
"I thought you was goin' to come back with Belle,"
Phil sneered.
"Who— Blanche?"
"Yes ; Myrtle— the kid that Chick sent out West—
before he blew the town."
"Fergit it!" Solly ejaculated. "She's runnin' a res
taurant in Colorado Springs, and makin' good."
"Why didn't you cop her out?"
"Who — me — her marry me? Say, when she feels
like goin' double she'll take her pick. She's lookin'
great, coinin' money, straight as a gut."
"Didn't you talk to her?"
"Once; but all she'd talk about was Chick. Said
she owed him a debt. Wanted to know where he was,
what name he was usin', said anyway she was sure he
was makin' good. Remember when we was all here to
gether last time — right here at this very table — Chick,
Sky-Blue "
There was a shaky voice from just behind them:
"Eddie ! Eddie ! Ask these gentlemen what they will
have."
And there was old Sky-Blue himself.
"Grandpa!" cried Solly with a shadow of his old
form.
EPILOGUE 343
But Phil grinned at the old man without reverence.
He did kick out a chair for the newcomer, though, and
in this the bishop seated himself with a creak and a
groan. Sky-Blue was aging fast. When old men like
him do let go, it's apt to be like that — no spiritual
reserves to draw upon. He had lost weight. His beard
showed neglect.
He announced weakly that he had come to say good-
by. He was leaving shortly for Kalamazoo.
But he was the same old Sky-Blue in some respects.
He bull-dozed Eddie in the process of ordering refresh
ments; he cursed Eddie away when Eddie sought to
hang around until he got his pay.
"What was that you was sayin' about Chick?" he
inquired.
"We wasn't sayin'," Solly replied. "I said that
Myrtle was askin' about him out in Colorado Springs.
I don't know anything more about him than I do about
the man in the moon."
"Well, you never was an intellectual giant, Solly,"
said the bishop, with leisurely judgment. "Your friends
would tell you the same thing — if you had any left."
Phil laughed. Sky-Blue eyed him.
"What was you doin' on the island?" the bishop
queried. "Makin* brushes?"
"Naw!"
"Well, maybe you will the next time," said old Sky-
Blue. "Be patient. It won't be long."
Solly sought to recover the spirit of sociability. He
was fairly successful. He said that Myrtle had set
him to thinking of Chick — thinking of Chick.
344 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
"And well you might be," the bishop affirmed. "I've
been doin' it myself."
He meditated. There was a stamp of melancholy on
his face even after he had got the ultimate drop of his
liquor into him. But he gradually recovered himself
as the medicine began to work, became more of the
old Sky-Blue than ever.
He made Eddie call the proprietor, and he intimated
to the proprietor that it would be good for the pro
prietor's soul and also his business to furnish a bottle.
But as he did this he slipped a folded bill — very old
and greasy and honest-feeling — into the proprietor's
hand, so that the proprietor did just as Sky-Blue re
quested him to do.
"It was the last one I had left," said the bishop when
he was alone with his friends. "The last work of poor
John Schmidt, and now Schmidty's doin' time for the
rest of his natural. Well, that's the way it goes !"
He started to refill Solly's glass with a trembling
hand. He thought better of it. He filled his own glass
and drank it off.
"Where'd you shove all them other Smitty queer bills
you had ?" Phil inquired with blunt cynicism.
"Well, I'll tell you," said the bishop, enjoying the
liquor that still adhered to his mustache. "Most of it
I got rid of up there in this here town of St. Clair I
was tellin' you about. They run me out of town. Oh,
they done it proper. They run me out of town. But
I tell you. I kept my eye on the clock until it was
just forty-five minutes ahead of train-time, and then I
stuck it to 'em. I changed one of them bills in every
EPILOGUE 345
store in town — candy stores, cigar stores, sody-water
fountains, newspaper stand; I even slipped in quite
a few on private parties — mostly widders and old maids
— while I was tellin' *em good-by.
" 'God bless you, sister. Can you change a ten?'
"And them runnin' to me with their good money and
the tears in their eyes I"
Sky-Blue laughed at the recollection.
It may have been that Solly was still a little peeved
at the way the bishop had just passed him up in the
matter of another drink. Again, Solly may have been
afflicted with that exalted moral sense common to in
valids.
"Why, you old crook," he said, "you ought to go to
the chair for deceiving women like that."
"They didn't lose anything," the bishop rejoined
with a flash of righteous indignation. "They didn't lose
anything !'*
"How didn't they lose anything?"
"Why, they'll be still shovin' them counterfeits
around among themselves till the cows come home,"
said the bishop. "One in the collection-plate ! Another
to the butcher's little square-head! Why, them bills
will be legal tender in that town, fer a hundred years —
nobody willin' to beef for fear of not bein' able to
pass the phony bill on to the next one."
"And Chick's still there?" sneered Phil.
"He's there," said the bishop, with sudden gravity
and enlightenement. "He's there. Solid, too! Solid
as the Rock of Gibraltar! Tried to frighten him a
little! Tried to blackmail him! Had no more chance
346 IF YOU BELIEVE IT, IT'S SO
'n if he was the President of this grea-a-a-t country of
ours !"
As Sky-Blue tossed off yet another drink he was
swinging rapidly into his old familiar stride.
"Oh-h-h, it all goes to show !" he proclaimed. "Here
was our Chicky up there, a pullin' the s-a-a-me line o'
dope as I been a pullin' fer these past fifty year. 'Be
good and you'll be happy/ 'Oh-h-h, the m-a-a-r-vulous
power of pious twaddle!' And now, just see him! Be
hold, he is rich! He sets with the mighty! Solid as
the Rock of Gibraltar!"
Solly and Phil were listening to Sky-Blue in a species
of trance. It was a quality possessed by the bishop.
He could command an attention like that even in the
back room of the Commodore.
Finally Solly spoke.
"Well, how do you explain," he demanded seriously,
"that he got away with it and you didn't?"
Sky-Blue reflected.
"A fair question," he adjudged. "A fair question
calling for a fair answer.'*
He fortified himself with yet another drink. He
smacked his lips. He formulated his thought.
"Well, I'll tell you," said he. "The difference was
this: Chick, he believed it, and I didn't." An unex
pected tear dropped into his beard. A far-away look
came into his eyes. "Oh-h-h, my dear young friends,"
he intoned, "remember this ! Remember this as you go
through life : If you believe it, it's so !"
THE END
BOSTON BLAGKIE
BY
JACK BOYLE
ILLUSTRATED BY
W. H. D. KOERNER
New York
THE H. K. FLY COMPANY
Publishers
BOSTON BLACKE
CHAPTER I
BOSTON BLACKIE!
BOSTON BLACKIE ... in the archives of a
hundred detective bureaus the name, invariably
followed by a question mark, was pencilled
after the records of unsolved safe-robberies of un
equalled daring and skill.
The constantly recurring interrogation point was
proof of the uncanny shrewdness and prevision of a
crook who pitted his wits against those of organized
society and gambled his all on the result of the game
he played — for it was in the spirit of a man playing
a vitally engrossing game against incalculable odds
that Boston Blackie lived the life of crookdom. The
question mark meant that the police suspected his
guilt — even thought they knew it — but had no proof.
The name, Boston Blackie, was an anathema at the
annual convention of police chiefs. The continually
growing list of exploits attributed to him left them
raging impotently at his incomparable audacity. He
neither looked, worked nor lived as experience taught
them a crook should. Traps innumerable had been
laid for him without result. Always, it seemed, an
intuitive foreknowledge of what the police would do
guided him to safety. In short, Boston Blackie, safe-
9
ID BOSTON BLACKIE
cracker de luxe, was the great enigma of the harried,
savagely incensed guardians of property rights.
Though detectives never guessed it, the secret of
Boston Blackie's invulnerability lay in his mental atti
tude toward the law and those paid to uphold it. In
his own mind he was not a criminal but a combatant.
He had declared war upon Society and, if defeated,
was ready to pay the penalty it inflicted. Undefeated,
he felt the world could not hold a grudge against him.
The laws of the statute books he discarded as mere
"scraps of paper." He saw himself not as a law
breaker but as a law-upholder, for he lived under the
rigid mandates of a crook-world code that he held
more sacred than life itself. A guilty conscience proves
the downfall of most prison inmates. Blackie, his
conscience clear, played the game winningly with the
zest of a school-boy and the joy of a gambler con
fidently risking great stakes.
Boston Blackie was no roystering cabaret habitue
squandering the proceeds of his exploits in night-life
dissipation. University trained and with a natural
predilection for good literature, his pleasures were
those of a gentleman of independent means with a
mental trend toward the humanitarian problems of
the day. His home was his place of recreation and
in that home, sharing joyously the perils and pleasures
of his strangely ordered life was Mary, his wife —
Boston Blackie's Mary to the crook-world that looked
up to them with unfeigned adulation as the chief ex
ponents of its queerly warped creed.
BOSTON BLACKIE 1 1
Mary was Boston Blackie's best loved pal and sole
confidant. She alone knew all he did and why, and,
knowing, she joined in his exploits with the whole-
heartedness of unquestioning love. Together they
played; together they worked and always they were
happy in good fortune or evil. A strange couple, so
unusual in thought and life and habit that detectives,
judging them by other crooks, were forever at sea.
Seated in their cozy apartment in San Francisco
which for the time was their home Blackie suddenly
dropped the current volume on mysticism which he
had been reading and looked across the room to Mary,
busy with an intricate piece of embroidery.
"We need a bit of excitement, Mary," he said
with the unconcerned air of a husband about to sug
gest an evening at the theatre. "We'll take the Wil-
merding jewel collection tonight. "
"I'll drive your car myself if you're going out
there," she answered with the faintest trace of wom
anly anxiety in her voice.
"Well, then, that's settled."
Boston Blackie resumed his reading and Mary her
embroidery.
CHAPTER II
BOSTON BLACKIE'S LITTLE PAL
THE room was faintly illumined by the intermit
tent flame of a wood-fire slowly dying on the
hearth of an open grate. The house was silent
dark, seemingly deserted. Outside, the dripping San
Francisco fog clung to everything in the heavy im
penetrable folds that isolated the residence from its
neighbors as though it stood alone in an otherwise
empty world.
Inside the handsomely furnished living-room, and
opposite the fire which now and then leaped up and
cast his shadow in grotesque shapes against the ceiling,
stood a man intently studying the paneled walls — a
man with a white handkerchief masking his face and
a coat that sagged under the weight of the gun slung
ready for instant use beneath one of its lapels.
The man was Boston Blackie. Concealed behind
the oaken panels he inspected so painstakingly was a
safe in which lay the Wilmerding jewels — a famous
collection.
For two generations San Franciscans had eyed
them with envy. Handed down from mother to
daughter they had played their part in the social
warfare of the city of the Golden Gate for half a
century. And Blackie was there to make them his
own.
12
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