Part 20 (2/2)
”In the first place,” he remarked, ”you have no business to speak of Miss Fern as my inamorata; and in the second you will pay her more than ten per cent. or you won't get the book to print.”
At this, Mr. Gouger, after the manner of all publishers and their agents, proceeded to show to Mr. Weil that it was perfectly impossible to pay another cent more than the figure he had named; and before he had finished he agreed to see the firm and get the amount raised considerably, provided the sales should exceed five thousand copies. In short, Mr. Weil secured a very respectable contract for a new author, and one that was sure to please Miss Fern, if she was in the least degree reasonable.
”I wish you would hurry up Roseleaf,” remarked Gouger, when this matter was disposed of. ”When will you take him down into the depths and let him see that side of life?”
”I have arranged a journey for to-morrow night,” said Weil. ”We shall go to Isaac Leveson's and make an evening of it. Unless things are different there from usual, he will lay the foundation for all the wickedness he needs to put into his story.”
The critic nodded approval.
”He will probably have a Jew in it, then--a modernized f.a.gan.”
”Yes,” said Weil. ”And a negro. A tall, well-built negro, who has a white man for his slave!”
CHAPTER XII.
DINING AT ISAAC'S.
On the following day, when s.h.i.+rley Roseleaf presented himself at the Hoffman House, he found Mr. Weil awaiting him in a state of great good nature.
”Go home and make yourself ready for a dive into the infernal regions,”
he said, merrily. ”I am going to take you to a place where the devil spends his vacation, and show you a set of women as different from those you have lately met as chalk is from indigo. Be here at nine o'clock this evening, prepared for the descent.”
A vision of subterranean pa.s.sages crossed the mind of the listener, and he thought of tall boots and a tarpaulin.
”How shall I dress--roughly, I suppose?” he inquired.
”Certainly not. Put on your swallow tail, and white tie. Vice in these days wears its best garments. You cannot tell a gambler from a clergyman by his attire. Dress exactly as if you were going to the swellest party on Fifth Avenue. The only addition to your toilet will be a revolver, if you happen to have one handy. If you do not, I have several and will lend you one.”
If he expected to startle the young man he was in error. Roseleaf merely nodded and said he would take one of the weapons owned by Mr. Weil.
”We shall not use them--there are a thousand chances to one,” said Archie. ”New York is like Montana. You remember what the resident said to the tenderfoot, 'You may be a long time without wantin' a we'p'n in these parts, but when you do you'll want it d--d sudden.'”
When Roseleaf returned, the hands of his watch indicated the time at which he had been asked to make his appearance, but Mr. Weil did not take him immediately to the point of destination. Instead he walked over to a variety theatre that was then in operation on Twenty-third street, and after spending a short time in the auditorium guided the young man into the ”wineroom.” Here the ladies of the ballet were in the habit of going when off the stage, for the sake of entertaining the patrons with their light and frivolous conversation, and inducing them if possible, to invest in champagne at five dollars the bottle.
Archie was, it appeared, not unknown to the throng that filled this place, for his name was spoken by several of both s.e.xes as soon as he entered. He nodded coolly to those who addressed him, and took a seat at a table with his companion. With a shake of his head he declined the offers of two or three fairies of the ballet to share the table, and ordered a bottle of Mumm with the evident intention of drinking it alone with his friend.
Roseleaf slowly sipped the sparkling beverage. He was cautioned in a whisper to drink but one gla.s.s, as it was necessary that he should keep a perfectly clear head. Weil remarked in an undertone that he had only ordered the wine as an excuse for remaining a few minutes.
”I call this 'the slaughter house,'” he added, in a voice still lower.
”Girls are brought here to be murdered. Not to have their throats cut,”
he explained, ”but to be killed just as surely, if more slowly. I have seen them come here for the first time, with good health s.h.i.+ning out of their rosy cheeks, delighted at the unwonted excitement and the amount of attention the frequenters of the place bestowed. I have watched them growing steadily paler, having recourse to rouge, the eyes getting dimmer, the voice growing harsher, the temper becoming more variable.
And then--other fresh faces came in their stead. There are killed, on an average, twenty girls a year here, I should say; killed to satisfy the appet.i.tes of men, as beeves are killed in Chicago, but not so mercifully.”
The novelist looked into the faces that were nearest to him and thought he could discern the various grades of which his friend spoke--the new, the older, the ones whose turn to give way to others would soon come.
All of them were drinking. Most had on the stage dresses they had just worn or were about to wear in the performance. Some had finished their parts and were enveloped in street clothes, ready to take their departure with the first male who asked them. And they were drinking, drinking, either in little sips or in feverish gulps, as they would at a later day, when the five-dollar wine would be replaced by five cent beer or perhaps the drainings of a keg on the sidewalk.
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