Part 9 (1/2)
When I first ca-writer of the day and was the cause ofestablished hi so coe in so troubled a commercial sea I was very much afraid of New York, but with him here it seemed not so bad The firm of which he was a part had a floor or two in an old residence turned office building, as so many are in New York, in Twentieth Street very close to Broadway, and here, during the summer months (1894-7) when the various theatrical road-companies, one of which he was always a part, had returned for the closed season, he was to be found aiding his concern in the reception and care of possible applicants for songs and attracting by his personality such virtuosi of the vaudeville and coe as were likely to make the instrumental publications of his firm a success
I may as well say here that he had no more business skill than a fly At the same time, he was in no wise sycophantic where either wealth, power or fae of sorts, and was The matic and self-centered in any field were likely to be the butt of his humor, and he could imitate so many phases of character so cleverly that he was the life of any idle pleasure-seeking party anywhere To this day I recall his characterization of an old Irish washerwo down the law; lean, gloomy, out-at-elbows actors of the Hay skinflint haggling over a dollar, and alith a skill for titillating the risibilities which is vivid to me even to this day
Other butts of his huro and the Hebrew And how he could is in writing, the facial expression, the intonation, the gestures; these are not things of words Perhaps I can best indicate the direction of his ht as ere on our way to a theater there stood on a nearby corner in the cold a blindout a little tin cup into which the coins of the charitably inclined were supposed to be dropped At once my brother noticed hi, the pathos of poverty as opposed to so gay a scene, the street with its hurrying theater crowds At the sah his sy or the ill-used of fate was overwhel his intended charity with a touch of the ridiculous
”Got any pennies?” he de over to an outdoor candystand he exchanged a quarter for pennies, then ca, should begin a newwas of no i attention to him, was to interpolate a ”Thank you” after each coin dropped in his cup and between the words of the song, regardless It was this little idiosyncrasy which evidently had attractedquite close, his pennies in his hand, he waited until the singer had resu each tio about as follows:
”Da-a-'ling” (Clink!--”Thank you!”) ”I a o-o-o-ld” (Clink!--”Thank you!”), ”Silve-e-r--” (Clink!--”Thank you!”) ”threads ao-o-o-ld--”
(Clink! ”Thank you!”) ”shi+ne upon my-y” (Clink!--”Thank you!”) ”bro-o-ow toda-a-y” (Clink!--”Thank you!”), ”Life is--” (Clink!--”Thank you!”) ”fading fast a-a-wa-a-ay” (Clink!--”Thank you!”)--and so on ad infinituar himself seemed to hesitate a little and waver, only so solemn was his role of want and despair that of course he dared not but had to go on until the last penny was in, and until he was sayingA passer-by noticing it had begun to ”Ha!”, at which others joined in,speci with his song and thanks, emptied the coins into his hand and with an indescribably wry expression, half-uncertainty and half s as you keep putting pennies in, I suppose God bless you!”
My brother ca and content
However, it is not as a hu-writer or publisher that I wish to portray him, but as an odd, lovable personality, possessed of soand peculiar and almost indescribable traits Of all characters in fiction he perhaps ests Jack Falstaff, with his love of woood nature and sy characteristic, even h the latter was always present One enerosity and out-of-hand charity, which contained no least thought of return or reward I recall that once there was a boy who had been reared in one of the towns in which we had once lived who had never had a chance in his youth, educationally or in any other way, and, having turned out ”bad” and sunk to the level of a bank robber, had been detected in connection with three othera bank, the watchman of which was subsequently killed in the melee and escape Of all four criht
So one of my brother's senti that he had known Paul wrote hi forth his life history and that now he had no ood brother was alive to the pathos of it He showed the letter to ested a lawyer, of course, one of those brilliant legal friends of his--always he had enthusiastic adht take the case for little or nothing There was the leader of Ta a friend of Paul's There was the Governor himself to whoht be addressed, and with sos he did, and ), saw the warden and told him the story of the boy's life, then went to the boy, or ave hih influential friends and permitted to tell the tale
There was much delay, a reprieve, a commutation of the death penalty to life irateful for that, so pleased You would have thought at the time that it was his own life that had been spared
”Good heavens!” I jested ”You'd think you'd done thehirinned--an unbelievably provoking smile ”He'd better be dead, wouldn't he? Well, I'll write and ask hi hi to the rescue of a ”down and out” actor who had been highly successful and apparently not very syaudy clan that wastes its substance, or so it see old and entirely discarded and forgotten, he was in need of sympathy and aid By some chance he knew Paul, or Paul had known him, and now because of the former's obvious prosperity--he was much in the papers at the time--he had appealed to him The man lived with a sister in a wretched little town far out on Long Island On receiving his appeal Paul seee in a little lofty ro for the sake of companionshi+p, so one dreary November afternoon ent, saw the pantaloon, who did not ie and misery for he still had a few of his theatricalaway I said, ”Paul, why should you be the goat in every case?” for I had noted ever since I had been in New York, which was several years then, that he was a victim of many such importunities If it was not theof a deceased friend who needed a ton of coal or a sack of flour, or the reckless, headstrong boy of parents too poor to save him from a term in jail or the reforher powers for clemency, or a wastrel actor or actress ”down and out” and unable to ”get back to New York” and requiring his or her railroad fare wired prepaid, it was the dead wastrel actor or actress who needed a coffin and a decent form of burial
”Well, you kno it is, Thee” (he nearly always addressedas you're up and around and have money, everybody's your friend But once you're down and out no one wants to see you any ly he was always sad over those who had once been prosperous but ere now old and forgotten
Sos conveyed as much
”Quite so,” I complained, rather brashly, I suppose, ”but why didn't he save a little money when he had it? He made as much as you'll ever make” The man had been a star ”He had plenty of it, didn't he? Why should he come to you?”
”Well, you kno it is, Thee,” he explained in the kindliest andand healthy like that you don't think I kno it is; I'm that way myself We all have a little of it in us I have; you have And anyhow youth's the tiood of it, isn't it? Of course when you're old you can't expect h I'd like to help some of these old people” His eyes at such ti a sick or injured child than those of alife
”But, Paul,” I insisted on another occasion when he had just wired twenty-five dollars soardly as fearsoht of a poverty-stricken old age for myself and him--why, I don't knoas by no means incoive it to every Toanization, and you're not called upon to feed and clothe and bury all the wasters who happen to cross your path
If you were down and out how many do you suppose would help you?”
”Well, you know,” and his voice and ely those of mother, the same wonder, the sa charity and tenderness of heart, ”I can't say I haven't got it, can I?”
He was at the height of his success at the ti so hard on people? We're all likely to get that way You don't knohat pulls people down so to be happy Remember how poor ere and how mamma and papa used to worry” Often these references totears to his eyes ”I can't stand to see people suffer, that's all, not if I have anything,” and his eyes gloeetly ”And, after all,” he added apologetically, ”the little I give isn't et so much out of me They don't come to me every day”
Another time--one Christmas Eve it hen I was comparatively new to New York (my second or third year), I was a little uncertain what to do, having no connections outside of Paul and two sisters, one of as then out of the city The other, owing to various difficulties of her own and a teement from us--more our fault than hers--was therefore not available The rather drab state into which she had allowed her marital affections to lead her was the main reason that kept us apart At any rate I felt that I could not, or rather would not, go there At the sa to so house of which azine which I was editing), ere also estranged, nothing very deep really--a te of distance and indifference
So I had no place to go except to my room, which was in a poor part of the town, or out to dine where best I ht I had not seen my brother in three or four days, but after I had strolled a block or two up Broadway I encountered hiht that he had kept an eye on , in short, to see what I would do As usual he was , Thee?” he called cheerfully