Part 14 (2/2)

The youth locked his derby and his shoes in the mummy case near him and then lay down with his old and familiar coat around his shoulders. A blanket he handled gingerly, drawing it over part of the coat. The cot was leather covered and cold as melting snow. The youth was obliged to s.h.i.+ver for some time on this affair, which was like a slab. Presently, however, his chill gave him peace, and during this period of leisure from it he turned his head to stare at his friend, the a.s.sa.s.sin, whom he could dimly discern where he lay sprawled on a cot in the abandon of a man filled with drink. He was snoring with incredible vigor. His wet hair and beard dimly glistened and his inflamed nose shone with subdued l.u.s.ter like a red light in a fog.

Within reach of the youth's hand was one who lay with yellow breast and shoulders bare to the cold drafts. One arm hung over the side of the cot and the fingers lay full length upon the wet cement floor of the room. Beneath the inky brows could be seen the eyes of the man exposed by the partly opened lids. To the youth it seemed that he and this corpse-like being were exchanging a prolonged stare and that the other threatened with his eyes. He drew back, watching this neighbor from the shadows of his blanket edge. The man did not move once through the night, but lay in this stillness as of death, like a body stretched out, expectant of the surgeon's knife.

Men Lay Like The Dead.

And all through the room could be seen the tawny hues of naked flesh, limbs thrust into the darkness, projecting beyond the cots; upreared knees; arms hanging, long and thin, over the cot edges. For the most part they were statuesque, carven, dead. With the curious lockers standing all about like tombstones there was a strange effect of a graveyard, where bodies were merely flung.

Yet occasionally could be seen limbs wildly tossing in fantastic nightmare gestures, accompanied by guttural cries, grunts, oaths. And there was one fellow off in a gloomy corner, who in his dreams was oppressed by some frightful calamity, for of a sudden he began to utter long wails that went almost like yells from a hound, echoing wailfully and weird through this chill place of tombstones, where men lay like the dead.

The sound, in its high piercing beginnings that dwindled to final melancholy moans, expressed a red and grim tragedy of the unfathomable possibilities of the man's dreams. But to the youth these were not merely the shrieks of a vision pierced man. They were an utterance of the meaning of the room and its occupants. It was to him the protest of the wretch who feels the touch of the imperturbably granite wheels and who then cries with an impersonal eloquence, with a strength not from him, giving voice to the wail of a whole section, a cla.s.s, a people. This, weaving into the young man's brain and mingling with his views of these vast and somber shadows that like mighty black fingers curled around the naked bodies, made the young man so that he did not sleep, but lay carving biographies for these men from his meager experience. At times the fellow in the corner howled in a writhing agony of his imaginations.

Then Morning Came.

Finally a long lance point of gray light shot through the dusty panes of the window. Without, the young man could see roofs drearily white in the dawning. The point of light yellowed and grew brighter, until the golden rays of the morning sun came in bravely and strong. They touched with radiant color the form of a small, fat man, who snored in stuttering fas.h.i.+on. His round and s.h.i.+ny bald head glowed suddenly with the valor of a decoration. He sat up, blinked at the sun, swore fretfully and pulled his blanket over the ornamental splendors of his head.

The youth contentedly watched this rout of the mystic shadows before the bright spears of the sun and presently he slumbered. When he awoke he heard the voice of the a.s.sa.s.sin raised in valiant curses. Putting up his head he perceived his comrade seated on the side of the cot engaged in scratching his neck with long finger nails that rasped like files.

”Hullyaw Jee dis is a new breed. They've got can openers on their feet,” he continued in a violent tirade. Jee dis is a new breed. They've got can openers on their feet,” he continued in a violent tirade.

The young man hastily unlocked his closet and took out his clothes. As he sat on the side of the cot, lacing his shoes, he glanced about and saw that daylight had made the room comparatively commonplace and uninteresting. The men, whose faces seemed stolid, serene or absent, were engaged in dressing, while a great crackle of bantering conversation arose.

A few were parading in unconcerned nakedness. Here and there were men of brawn, whose skins shone clear and ruddy. They took splendid poses, standing ma.s.sively, like chiefs. When they had dressed in their ungainly garments there was an extraordinary change. They then showed b.u.mps and deficiencies of all kinds.

There were others who exhibited many deformities. Shoulders were slanting, b.u.mped, pulled this way and pulled that way. And notable among these latter men was the little fat man who had refused to allow his head to be glorified. His pudgy form, builded like a pear, bustled to and fro, while he swore in fishwife fas.h.i.+on. It appeared that some article of his apparel had vanished.

The young man, attired speedily, went to his friend, the a.s.sa.s.sin. At first the latter looked dazed at the sight of the youth. This face seemed to be appealing to him through the cloud wastes of his memory. He scratched his neck and reflected. At last he grinned, a broad smile gradually spreading until his countenance was a round illumination. ”h.e.l.lo, Willie,” he cried, cheerily.

”h.e.l.lo,” said the young man. ”Are yeh ready t' fly?”

”Sure.” The a.s.sa.s.sin tied his shoe carefully with some twine and came ambling.

When he reached the street the young man experienced no sudden relief from unholy atmospheres. He had forgotten all about them, and had been breathing naturally and with no sensation of discomfort or distress.

He was thinking of these things as he walked along the street, when he was suddenly startled by feeling the a.s.sa.s.sin's hand, trembling with excitement, clutching his arm, and when the a.s.sa.s.sin spoke, his voice went into quavers from a supreme agitation.

”I'll be hully, bloomin' blowed, if there wasn't a feller with a nights.h.i.+rt on up there in that joint!”

The youth was bewildered for a moment, but presently he turned to smile indulgently at the a.s.sa.s.sin's humor.

”Oh, you're a d-liar,” he merely said.

Whereupon the a.s.sa.s.sin began to gesture extravagantly and take oath by strange G.o.ds. He frantically placed himself at the mercy of remarkable fates if his tale were not true. ”Yes, he did! I cross m'heart thousan' times!” he protested, and at the time his eyes were large with amazement, his mouth wrinkled in unnatural glee. ”Yessir! A nights.h.i.+rt! A hully white nights.h.i.+rt!”

”You lie!”

”Nosir! I hope ter die b'fore I kin git anudder ball if there wasn't a jay wid a hully, bloomin' white nights.h.i.+rt!”

His face was filled with the infinite wonder of it. ”A hully white nights.h.i.+rt,” he continually repeated.

The young man saw the dark entrance to a bas.e.m.e.nt restaurant. There was a sign which read, ”No mystery about our hash,” and there were other age stained and world battered legends which told him that the place was within his means. He stopped before it and spoke to the a.s.sa.s.sin. ”I guess I'll git somethin' t' eat.”

Breakfast.

At this the a.s.sa.s.sin, for some reason, appeared to be quite embarra.s.sed. He gazed at the seductive front of the eating place for a moment. Then he started slowly up the street. ”Well, goodby, Willie,” he said, bravely.

For an instant the youth studied the departing figure. Then he called out, ”Hol' on a minnet.” As they came together he spoke in a certain fierce way, as if he feared that the other could think him to be weak. ”Look-a-here, if yeh wanta git some breakfas' I'll lend yeh three cents t' do it with. But say, look-a-here, you've gota git out an' hustle. I ain't goin' t' support yeh, or I'll go broke b'fore night. I ain't no millionaire.”

”I take me oath, Willie,” said the a.s.sa.s.sin, earnestly, ”th' on'y thing I really needs is a ball. Me t'roat feels like a fryin' pan. But as I can't git a ball, why, th' next bes' thing is breakfast, an' if yeh do that fer me, b' gawd, I'd say yeh was th' whitest lad I ever see.”

They spent a few moments in dexterous exchanges of phrases, in which they each protested that the other was, as the a.s.sa.s.sin had originally said, a ”respecter'ble gentlem'n.” And they concluded with mutual a.s.surances that they were the souls of intelligence and virtue. Then they went into the restaurant.

There was a long counter, dimly lighted from hidden sources. Two or three men in soiled white ap.r.o.ns rushed here and there.

A Retrospect.

The youth bought a bowl of coffee for two cents and a roll for one cent. The a.s.sa.s.sin purchased the same. The bowls were webbed with brown seams, and the tin spoons wore an air of having emerged from the first pyramid. Upon them were black, moss like encrustations of age, and they were bent and scarred from the attacks of long forgotten teeth. But over their repast the wanderers waxed warm and mellow. The a.s.sa.s.sin grew affable as the hot mixture went soothingly down his parched throat, and the young man felt courage flow in his veins.

Memories began to throng in on the a.s.sa.s.sin, and he brought forth long tales, intricate, incoherent, delivered with a chattering swiftness as from an old woman. ”-great job out'n Orange. Boss keep yeh hustlin', though, all time. I was there three days, and then I went an' ask'im t' lend me a dollar. 'G-g-go ter the devil,' he ses, an' I lose me job.”

-”South no good. d.a.m.n n.i.g.g.e.rs work for twenty-five an' thirty cents a day. Run white man out. Good grub, though. Easy livin'”

-”Yas; useter work little in Toledo, raftin' logs. Make two or three dollars er day in the spring. Lived high. Cold as ice, though, in the winter”- ”I was raised in northern N'York. O-o-o-oh, yeh jest oughto live there. No beer ner whisky, though, way off in the woods. But all th' good hot grub yeh can eat., B'gawd, I hung around there long as I could till th' ol' man fired me. 'Git t'h.e.l.l outa here, yeh wuthless skunk, git t'h.e.l.l outa here an' go die,' he ses. 'You're a fine father,' I ses, 'you are,' an' I quit 'im.”

As they were pa.s.sing from the dim eating place they encountered an old man who was trying to steal forth with a tiny package of food, but a tall man with an indomitable mustache stood dragon fas.h.i.+on, barring the way of escape. They heard the old man raise a plaintive protest. ”Ah, you always want to know what I take out, and you never see that I usually bring a package in here from my place of business.”

The Life of a King.

As the wanderers trudged slowly along Park row, the a.s.sa.s.sin began to expand and grow blithe. ”B'gawd, we've been livin' like kings,” he said, smacking appreciative lips.

”Look out or we'll have t' pay fer it t' night,” said the youth, with gloomy warning.

But the a.s.sa.s.sin refused to turn his gaze toward the future. He went with a limping step, into which he injected a suggestion of lamblike gambols. His mouth was wreathed in a red grin.

In the City Hall Park the two wanderers sat down in the little circle of benches sanctified by traditions of their cla.s.s. They huddled in their old garments, slumbrously conscious of the march of the hours which for them had no meaning.

The people of the street hurrying hither and thither made a blend of black figures, changing, yet frieze like. They walked in their good clothes as upon important missions, giving no gaze to the two wanderers seated upon the benches. They expressed to the young man his infinite distance from all that he valued. Social position, comfort, the pleasures of living, were unconquerable kingdoms. He felt a sudden awe.

And in the background a mult.i.tude of buildings, of pitiless hues and sternly high, were to him emblematic of a nation forcing its regal head into the clouds, throwing no downward glances; in the sublimity of its aspirations ignoring the wretches who may flounder at its feet. The roar of the city in his ear was to him the confusion of strange tongues, babbling heedlessly; it was the clink of coin, the voice of the city's hopes which were to him no hopes.

He confessed himself an outcast, and his eyes from under the lowered rim of his hat began to glance guiltily, wearing the criminal expression that comes with certain convictions.

”Well,” said the friend, ”did you discover his point of view?”

”I don't know that I did,” replied the young man; ”but at any rate I think mine own has undergone a considerable alteration.”

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