Part 35 (2/2)

”Cut it out!” laughed Ted, that being his idea of modern American slang.

He was fascinated by these crisp phrases, but he was ten years or so behind the times, and he sometimes startled his hearers by an exhibition of slang so old as to be almost new. It was all the more startling in contrast with his conversational English, which was as carefully correct as a born German's.

As for the rest, it was plain that he was interested, but unhappy. He practiced for hours daily. He often took Mizzi to the park and came back storming about the dirt, the noise, the haste, the rudeness, the crowds, the mismanagement of the entire city. Dummheit, he called it. They profaned the lake. They allowed the people to trample the gra.s.s. They threw papers and banana skins about. And they wasted! His years in Germany had taught him to regard all these things as sacrilege, and the last as downright criminal. He was lonesome for his Germany. That was plain. He hated it, and loved it, much as he hated and loved the woman who had so nearly spoiled his life. The maelstrom known as the southwest corner of State and Madison streets appalled him.

”Gott!” he exclaimed. ”Es ist unglaublich! Aber ganz unglaublich! Ich werde bald veruckt.” He somehow lapsed into German when excited.

f.a.n.n.y took him to the Haynes-Cooper plant one day, and it left him dazed, and incredulous. She quoted millions at him. He was not interested. He looked at the office workers, the mail-room girls, and shook his head, dumbly. They were using bicycles now, with a bundle rack in the front, in the vast stock rooms, and the roller skates had been discarded as too slow. The stock boys skimmed around corners on these lightweight bicycles, up one aisle, and down the next, s.n.a.t.c.hing bundles out of bins, shooting bundles into bins, as expertly as players in a gymkhana.

Theodore saw the uncanny rapidity with which the letter-opening machines did their work. He watched the great presses that turned out the catalogue--the catalogue whose message meant millions; he sat in Fenger's office and stared at the etchings, and said, ”Certainly,” with politeness, when Fenger excused himself in the midst of a conversation to pick up the telephone receiver and talk to their shoe factory in Maine. He ended up finally in f.a.n.n.y's office, no longer a dingy and undesirable corner, but a quietly brisk center that sent out vibrations over the entire plant. Slosson, incidentally, was no longer of the infants' wear. He had been transferred to a subordinate position in the grocery section.

”Well,” said f.a.n.n.y, seating herself at her desk, and smiling radiantly upon her brother. ”Well, what do you think of us?”

And then Theodore Brandeis, the careless, the selfish, the blind, said a most amazing thing.

”f.a.n.n.y, I'll work. I'll soon get some of these millions that are lying about everywhere in this country. And then I'll take you out of this. I promise you.”

f.a.n.n.y stared at him, a picture of ludicrous astonishment.

”Why, you talk as if you were--sorry for me!”

”I am, dear. G.o.d knows I am. I'll make it up to you, somehow.”

It was the first time in all her das.h.i.+ng and successful career that f.a.n.n.y Brandeis had felt the sting of pity. She resented it, hotly. And from Theodore, the groper, the--”But at any rate,” something within her said, ”he has always been true to himself.”

Theodore's manager arrived in September, on a Holland boat, on which he had been obliged to share a stuffy inside cabin with three others. Kurt Stein was German born, but American bred, and he had the American love of luxurious travel. He was still testy when he reached Chicago and his charge.

”How goes the work?” he demanded at once, of Theodore. He eyed him sharply. ”That's better. You have lost some of the look you had when you left Wien. The ladies would have liked that look, here in America. But it is bad for the work.”

He took f.a.n.n.y aside before he left. His face was serious. It was plain that he was disturbed. ”That woman,” he began. ”Pardon me, Mrs.

Brandeis. She came to me. She says she is starving. She is alone there, in Vienna. Her--well, she is alone. The war is everywhere. They say it will last for years. She wept and pleaded with me to take her here.”

”No!” cried f.a.n.n.y. ”Don't let him hear it. He mustn't know. He----”

”Yes, I know. She is a paradox, that woman. I tell you, she almost prevailed on me. There is something about her; something that repels and compels.” That struck him as being a very fine phrase indeed, and he repeated it appreciatively.

”I'll send her money, somehow,” said f.a.n.n.y.

”Yes. But they say that money is not reaching them over there. I don't know what becomes of it. It vanishes.” He turned to leave. ”Oh, a message for you. On my boat was Schabelitz. It looks very much as if his great fortune, the acc.u.mulation of years, would be swept away by this war. Already they are tramping up and down his lands in Poland. His money--much of it--is invested in great hotels in Poland and Russia, and they are using them for barracks and hospitals.”

”Schabelitz! You mean a message for Theodore? From him? That's wonderful.”

”For Theodore, and for you, too.”

”For me! I made a picture of him once when I was a little girl. I didn't see him again for years. Then I heard him play. It was on his last tour here. I wanted to speak to him. But I was afraid. And my face was red with weeping.”

”He remembers you. And he means to see Theodore and you. He can do much for Theodore in this country, and I think he will. His message for you was this: 'Tell her I still have the picture that she made of me, with the jack-in-the-box in my hand, and that look on my face. Tell her I have often wondered about that little girl in the red cap and the black curls. I've wondered if she went on, catching that look back of people's faces. If she did, she should be more famous than her brother.”'

”He said that! About me!”

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