Part 21 (1/2)
I remember one face and figure, faultless and complete,--modestly yet most becomingly dressed,--indeed, a figure that Compte-Calix might have taken for one of his exquisite studies, which, between seven and eight A. M. pa.s.sed through Eleventh Street, between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. So exceptionally fine was her carriage, so chaste and virginal her presence, and so refined and even spiritual her features, that, as a literary man, I would have been justified in taking her for the heroine of a society novel. Indeed, I had already woven a little romance about her, when one morning she overtook me, accompanied by another girl--pretty, but of a different type--with whom she was earnestly conversing. As the two pa.s.sed me, there fell from her faultless lips the following astounding sentence: ”And I told him, if he didn't like it he might lump it, and he traveled off on his left ear, you bet!” Heaven knows what indiscretion this speech saved me from; but the reader will understand what a sting the pain of rejection might have added to it by the above formula.
The ”morning-c.o.c.ktail” men come next in my experience of early rising.
I used to take my early cup of coffee in the cafe of a certain fas.h.i.+onable restaurant that had a bar attached. I could not help noticing that, unlike the usual social libations of my countrymen, the act of taking a morning c.o.c.ktail was a solitary one. In the course of my experience I cannot recall the fact of two men taking an ante-breakfast c.o.c.ktail together. On the contrary, I have observed the male animal rush savagely at the bar, demand his drink of the bar-keeper, swallow it, and hasten from the scene of his early debauchery, or else take it in a languid, perfunctory manner, which, I think, must have been insulting to the bar-keeper. I have observed two men, whom I had seen drinking amicably together the preceding night, standing gloomily at the opposite corners of the bar, evidently trying not to see each other and making the matter a confidential one with the bar-keeper. I have seen even a thin disguise of simplicity a.s.sumed. I remember an elderly gentleman, of most respectable exterior, who used to enter the cafe as if he had strayed there accidentally. After looking around carefully, and yet unostentatiously, he would walk to the bar, and, with an air of affected carelessness, state that ”not feeling well this morning, he guessed he would take--well, he would leave it to the bar-keeper.” The bar-keeper invariably gave him a stiff brandy c.o.c.ktail. When the old gentleman had done this half a dozen times, I think I lost faith in him. I tried afterwards to glean from the bar-keeper some facts regarding those experiences, but I am proud to say that he was honorably reticent. Indeed, I think it may be said truthfully that there is no record of a bar-keeper who has been ”interviewed.” Clergymen and doctors have, but it is well for the weakness of humanity that the line should be drawn somewhere.
And this reminds me that one distressing phase of early rising is the incongruous and unpleasant contact of the preceding night. The social yesterday is not fairly over before nine A. M. to-day, and there is always a humorous, sometimes a pathetic, lapping over the edges. I remember one morning at six o'clock to have been overtaken by a carriage that drew up beside me. I recognized the coachman, who touched his hat apologetically, as if he wished me to understand that he was not at all responsible for the condition of his master, and I went to the door of the carriage. I was astonished to find two young friends of mine, in correct evening dress, reclining on each other's shoulders and sleeping the sleep of the justly inebriated. I stated this fact to the coachman. Not a muscle of his well-trained face answered to my smile. But he said: ”You see, sir, we've been out all night, and more than four blocks below they saw you, and wanted me to hail you, but you know you stopped to speak to a gentleman, and so I sorter lingered, and I drove round the block once or twice, and I guess I've got 'em quiet again.” I looked in the carriage door once more on these sons of Belial. They were sleeping quite unconsciously. A bouttonniere in the lappel of the younger one's coat had shed its leaves, which were scattered over him with a ridiculous suggestion of the ”Babes in the Wood,” and I closed the carriage door softly. ”I suppose I'd better take 'em home, sir?” queried the coachman, gravely.
”Well, yes, John, perhaps you had.”
There is another picture in my early rising experience that I wish was as simply and honestly ludicrous. It was at a time when the moral sentiment of the metropolis, expressed through ordinance and special legislation, had declared itself against a certain form of ”variety”
entertainment, and had, as usual, proceeded against the performers, and not the people who encouraged them. I remember, one frosty morning, to have encountered in Was.h.i.+ngton Park my honest friend Sergeant X. and Roundsman 9999 conveying a party of these derelicts to the station.
One of the women, evidently, had not had time to change her apparel, and had thinly disguised the flowing robe and loose cestus of Venus under a ragged ”waterproof”; while the other, who had doubtless posed for Mercury, hid her shapely tights in a plaid shawl, and changed her winged sandals for a pair of ”arctics.” Their rouged faces were streaked and stained with tears. The man who was with them, the male of their species, had but hastily washed himself of his Ethiopian presentment, and was still black behind the ears; while an exaggerated s.h.i.+rt collar and frilled s.h.i.+rt made his occasional indignant profanity irresistibly ludicrous. So they fared on over the glittering snow, against the rosy sunlight of the square, the gray front of the University building, with a few twittering sparrows in the foreground, beside the two policemen, quiet and impa.s.sive as fate. I could not help thinking of the distinguished A., the most fas.h.i.+onable B., the wealthy and respectable C., the sentimental D., and the man of the world E., who were present at the performance, whose distinguished patronage had called it into life, and who were then resting quietly in their beds, while these haggard servants of their pleasaunce were haled over the snow to punishment and ignominy.
Let me finish by recalling one brighter picture of that same season.
It was early; so early that the cross of Grace Church had, when I looked up, just caught the morning sun, and for a moment flamed like a crusader's symbol. And then the grace and glory of that exquisite spire became slowly visible. Fret by fret the sunlight stole slowly down, quivering and dropping from each, until at last the whole church beamed in rosy radiance. Up and down the long avenue the street lay in shadow; by some strange trick of the atmosphere the sun seemed to have sought out only that graceful structure for its blessing. And then there was a dull rumble. It was the first omnibus,--the first throb in the great artery of the reviving city. I looked up. The church was again in shadow.
WITH THE ENTREES
”Once, when I was a pirate--!”
The speaker was an elderly gentleman in correct evening dress, the room a tasteful one, the company of infinite respectability, the locality at once fas.h.i.+onable and exclusive, the occasion an unexceptionable dinner.
To this should be added that the speaker was also the host.
With these conditions self-evident, all that good breeding could do was to receive the statement with a vague smile that might pa.s.s for good-humored incredulity or courteous acceptation of a simple fact.
Indeed, I think we all rather tried to convey the impression that our host, when he WAS a pirate,--if he ever really was one,--was all that a self-respecting pirate should be, and never violated the canons of good society. This idea was, to some extent, crystallized by the youngest Miss Jones in the exclamation, ”Oh, how nice!”
”It was, of course, many years ago, when I was quite a lad.”
We all murmured ”Certainly,” as if piracy were a natural expression of the exuberance of youth.
”I ought, perhaps, explain the circ.u.mstances that led me into this way of life.”
Here Legrande, a courteous attache of the Patagonian legation, interposed in French and an excess of politeness, ”that it was not of a necessity,” a statement to which his English neighbor hurriedly responded, ”Oui, oui.”
”There ess a boke,” he continued, in a well-bred, rapid whisper, ”from Captain Canot,--a Frenchman,--most eenteresting--he was--oh, a fine man of education--and what you call a 'slavair,'” but here he was quietly nudged into respectful silence.
”I ran away from home,” continued our host. He paused, and then added, appealingly, to the two distinguished foreigners present: ”I do not know if I can make you understand that this is a peculiarly American predilection. The exodus of the younger males of an American family against the parents' wishes does not, with us, necessarily carry any obloquy with it. To the average American the prospect of fortune and a better condition lies OUTSIDE of his home; with you the home means the estate, the succession of honors or t.i.tles, the surety that the conditions of life shall all be kept intact. With us the children who do not expect, and generally succeed in improving the fortunes of the house, are marked exceptions. Do I make myself clear?”
The French-Patagonian attache thought it was ”charming and progressif.”
The Baron Von Pretzel thought he had noticed a movement of that kind in Germany, which was expressed in a single word of seventeen syllables.
Viscount Piccadilly said to his neighbor: ”That, you know now, the younger sons, don't you see, go to Australia, you know in some beastly trade--stock-raising or sheep--you know; but, by Jove! them fellahs--”
”My father always treated me well,” continued our host. ”I shared equally with my brothers the privileges and limitations of our New England home. Nevertheless, I ran away and went to sea--”
”To see--what?” asked Legrande.
”Aller sur mer,” said his neighbor, hastily.