Part 5

"Same way. Just chucks around cheerfulness to everybody who wants it, and 'most everybody does. As to ready money, there's hardly one of his rich friends in the Street who hasn't a Jack Stirling account on his books. And they are always lucky, for what they buy for Jack Stirling is sure to go up. Got to be a superstition, really. I know one broker who sent him over three thousand dollars last fall--made it for him out of a rise in some coal stock. Wrote him a note and told him he still had two thousand dollars to his credit on his books, which he would hold as a stake to make another turn on next time he saw a sure thing in sight. I was with Jack when he opened the letter. What do you think he did? He pulled out his bureau drawer, found a slip of paper containing a list of his debts, sat down and wrote out a check for each one of his creditors and enclosed them in the most charming little notes with marginal sketches--some in water-color--which every man of them preserves now as souvenirs. I've got one framed in my studio--regular little Fortuny--and the check is framed in with it. Never cashed it and never will. The Rajah, I tell you, old man, is very punctilious about his debts, no matter how small they are. Gave me fifteen shillings last time I went to Cairo to pay some duffer that lived up a street back of Shepheard's, a red-faced Englishman who had helped Jack out of a hole the year before, and who would have pensioned the Rajah for life if he could have induced him to pass the rest of his years with him. And he only saw him for two days! That's the funny thing about Jack. He never forgets his creditors, and his creditors never forget him. I'll tell you about this old Cairo lobster--that's what he looked like--red and claw-y.

"When I found him he was stretched in a chair trying to cool off; he didn't even have the decency to get on his feet.

"'Who?' he snapped out. Just as if I had been a book agent.

"'Mr. John Stirling of New York.'

"'Owes _me_ fifteen shillings?'

"'That's what he said, and here it is,' and I handed him the silver.

"'Young man,' he says, glowering at me, 'I don't know what your game is, but I'll tell you right here you can't play it on me. Never heard of _Mister_-John-Stirling-of-New-York in my life. So you can put your money back.' I wasn't going to be whipped by the old shell-fish, and then I didn't like the way he spoke of Jack. I knew he was the right man, for Jack doesn't make mistakes--not about things like that. So I went at him on another tack.

"'Weren't you up at Philæ two years ago in a dahabieh?'

"'Yes.'

"'And didn't you meet four or five young Americans who came up on the steamer, and who got into a scrape over their fare?'

"'I might--I can't recollect everybody I meet--don't want to--half of 'em--' All this time I was standing, remember.

"'And didn't you--' I was going on to say, but he jumped from his chair and was fumbling about a bookcase.

"'Ah, here it is!' he cried out. 'Here's a book of photographs of a whole raft of young fellows I met up the Nile on that trip. Most of 'em owed me something and still do. Pick out the man now you say owes me fifteen shillings and wants to pay it.'

"'There he is--one of those three.'

"The old fellow adjusted his glasses.

"'The Rajah! That man! Know him? Best lad I ever met in my life. I'm damned if I take his money, and you can go home and tell him so.' He did, though, and I sat with him until three o'clock in the morning talking about Jack, and I had all I could do getting away from him then. Wanted me to move in next day bag and baggage, and stay a month with him. He wasn't so bad when I came to know him, if he was red and claw-y."

I again devoted my thoughts to the dinner--what I could spare from the remarkable personage Marny had been discussing, and who still sat within a few tables of us. My friend's story had opened up a new view of life, one that I had never expected to see personified in any one man. The old-fashioned rules by which I had been brought up--the rules of "An eye for an eye," and "Earn thy bread by the sweat of thy brow," etc.--seemed to have lost their meaning. The Rajah's method, it seemed to me, if persisted in, might help solve the new problem of the day--"the joy of living"--always a colossal joke with me. I determined to know something more of this lazy apostle in a dress suit who dispensed sweetness and light at some other fellow's expense.

"Why do you call him 'The Rajah,' Marny?" I asked.

"Oh, he got that in India. A lot of people like that old lobster in Cairo don't know him by any other name."

"What did he do in India?"

"Nothing in particular--just kept on being himself--just as he does everywhere."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, I got it from Ashburton, a member of the Alpine Club in London. But everybody knows the story--wonder you haven't heard it. You ought to come out of your hole, old man, and see what's going on in the world. You live up in that den of yours, and the procession goes by and you don't even hear the band. You ought to know Jack--he'd do you a lot of good," and Marny looked at me curiously--as a physician would, who, when he prescribes for you, tells you only one-half of your ailment.

I did not interrupt my friend--I wasn't getting thousands for a child's head, and twice that price for the mother in green silk and diamonds. And I couldn't afford to hang out my window and watch any kind of procession, figurative or otherwise. Nor could I afford to exchange dinners with John Stirling.

"Do you want me to tell you about that time the Rajah had in India? Well, move your glass this way," and my host picked up the '84. "Ashburton," continued Marny, and he filled my glass to the brim, "is one of those globe-trotters who does mountain-tops for exercise. He knows the Andes as well as he does the glaciers in Switzerland; has been up the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, and every other snow-capped peak within reach, and so he thought he'd try the Himalayas. You know how these Englishmen are--the rich ones. At twenty-five a good many of them have exhausted life. Some shoot tigers, some fit out caravans and cross deserts, some get lost in African jungles, and some come here and go out West for big game; anything that will keep them from being bored to death before they are thirty-five years of age. Ashburton was that kind.

"He had only been home ten days--he had spent two years in Yucatan looking up Toltec ruins--when this Himalaya trip got into his head. Question was, whom could he get to go with him, for these fellows hate to be alone. Some of the men he wanted hadn't returned from their own wild-goose chases; others couldn't get away--one was running for Parliament, I think--and so Ashburton, cursing his luck, had about made up his mind to try it alone, when he ran across Jack one day in the club.

"'Hello, Stirling! Thought you'd sailed for America.'

"'No,' said Jack, 'I go next week. What are you doing here? Thought you had gone to India.'

"'Can't get anybody to go with me,' answered Ashburton.

"'Where do you go first?'

"'To Calcutta by steamer, and then strike in and up to the foot-hills.'

"'For how long?'

"'About a year. Come with me like a decent man.'

"'Can't. Only got money enough to get home, and I don't like climbing.'

"'Money hasn't got anything to do with it--you go as my guest. As to climbing, you won't have to climb an inch. I'll leave you at the foot-hills in a bungalow, with somebody to take care of you, and you can stay there until I come back.'

"'How long will you be climbing?'

"'About two months.'

"'When do you start?'

"'To-morrow, at daylight.'

"'All right, I'll be on board.'

"Going out, Jack got up charades and all sorts of performances; rescued a man overboard, striking the water about as soon as the man did, and holding on to him until the lifeboat reached them; studied navigation and took observations every day until he learned how; started a school for the children--there were a dozen on board--and told them fairy tales by the hour; and by the time the steamer reached Calcutta every man, woman, and child had fallen in love with him. One old Maharajah, who was on board, took such a fancy to him that he insisted on Jack's spending a year with him, and there came near being a precious row when he refused, which of course he had to do, being Ashburton's guest.

"When the two got to where Jack was to camp out and wait for Ashburton's return from his climb--it was a little spot called Bungpore--the Englishman fitted up a place just as he said he would; left two men to look after him--one to cook and the other to wait on him--fell on Jack's neck, for he hated the worst kind to leave him, and disappeared into the brush with his retainers--or whatever he did disappear into and with--I never climbed the Himalayas, and so I'm a little hazy over these details. And that's the last Ashburton saw of Jack until he returned two months later."

Marny emptied his glass, flicked the ashes from his cigarette, beckoned to the waiter, and gave him an order for a second bottle of '84. During the break in the story I made another critical examination of the hero, as he sat surrounded by his guests, his face beaming, the light falling on his immaculate shirt-front. I noted the size of his arm and the depth of his chest, and his lithe, muscular thighs. I noticed, too, how quickly he gained his feet when welcoming a friend, who had just stopped at his table. I understood now how the drowning sailor came to be saved.

The wine matter settled, Marny took some fresh cigarettes from his silver case, passed one to me, and held a match to both in turn. Between the puffs I again brought the talk back to the man who now interested me intensely. I was afraid we would be interrupted and I have to wait before finding out why his friend was called the "Rajah."

"I should think he would have gone with him instead of staying behind and living off his bounty," I ventured.

"Yes--I know you would, old man, but Jack thought differently, not being built along your lines. You've got to know him--I tell you, he'll do you a lot of good. Stirling saw that, if he went, it would only double Ashburton's expense account, and so he squatted down to wait with just money enough to get along those two months, and not another cent. Told Ashburton he wanted to learn Hindustanee, and he couldn't do it if he was sliding down glaciers and getting his feet wet--it would keep him from studying."

"And was Stirling waiting for him when Ashburton came back?"

"Waiting for him! Well, I guess! First thing Ashburton ran up against was one of the blackamoors he had hired to take care of Jack. When he had left the fellow he was clothed in a full suit of yellow dust with a rag around his loins. Now he was gotten up in a red turban and pajamas trimmed with gewgaws. The blackamoor prostrated himself and began kotowing backward toward a marquee erected on a little knoll under some trees and surrounded by elephants in gorgeous trappings. 'The Rajah of Bungpore'--that was Jack--'had sent him,' he said, 'to conduct his Royal Highness into the presence of his illustrious master!'

"When Ashburton reached the door of the marquee and peered in, he saw Jack lying back on an Oriental couch at the other end smoking the pipe of the country--whatever that was--and surrounded by a collection of Hottentots of various sizes and colors, who fell on their foreheads every time Jack crooked his finger. At his feet knelt two Hindoo merchants displaying their wares--pearls, ivories, precious stones, arms, porcelains--stuffs of a quality and price, Ashburton told me, that took his breath away. Jack kept on--he made out he didn't see Ashburton--his slaves bearing the purchases away and depositing them on a low inlaid table--teakwood, I guess--in one corner of the marquee, while a confidential Lord of the Treasury took the coin of the realm from a bag or gourd--or whatever he did take it from--and paid the shot.

"When the audience was over, Jack waved everybody outside with a commanding gesture, and still lolling on his rugs--or maybe his tiger skins--told his Grand Vizier to conduct the strange man to his august presence. Then Jack rose from this throne, dismissed the Grand Vizier, and fell into Ashburton's arms roaring with laughter."

"And Ashburton had to foot the bills, I suppose," I blurted out. It is astonishing how suspicious and mean a man gets sometimes who mixes as little as I do with what Marny calls "the swim."

"Ashburton foot the bills! Not much! Listen, you six by nine! Stirling hadn't been alone more than a week when along comes the Maharajah he had met on the steamer. He lived up in that part of the country, and one of his private detectives had told him that somebody was camping out on his lot. Down he came in a white heat, with a bag of bow-strings and a squad of the 'Finest' in pink trousers and spears. I get these details all wrong, old man--they might have been in frock-coats for all I know or care--but what I'm after is the Oriental atmosphere--a sort of property background with my principal figure high up on the canvas--and one costume is as good as another.

"When the old Maharajah found out it was Jack instead of some squatter, he fell all over himself with joy. Wanted to take him up to his marble palace, open up everything, unlock a harem, trot out a half-dozen chorus girls in bangles and mosquito-net bloomers, and do a lot of comfortable things for him. But Jack said No. He was put here to stay, and here he was going to stay if he had to call out every man in his army. The old fellow saw the joke and said all right, here he _should_ stay; and before night he had moved down a tent, and a bodyguard, and an elephant or two for local color, so as to make it real Oriental for Jack, and the next day he sent him down a bag of gold, and servants, and a cook. Every pedler who appeared after that he passed along to Jack, and before Ashburton turned up Stirling had a collection of curios worth a fortune. One-half of them he gave to Ashburton and the other half be brought home to his friends. That inlaid elephant's tusk hanging up in my studio is one of them--you remember it."

As Marny finished, one of the waiters who had been serving Stirling and his guests approached our table under the direction of the Rajah's finger, and, bending over Marny, whispered something in his ear. He had the cashier's slip in his hand and Stirling's visiting card.

Marny laid the bill beside his plate, glanced at the card with a laugh, his face lighting up, and then passed it to me. It read as follows: "Not a red and no credit. Sign it for Jack."

Marny raised his eyes, nodded his head at Stirling, kissed his finger-tips at him, fished up his gold chain, slid out a pencil dangling at its end, wrote his name across the slip, and said in a whisper to the waiter: "Take this to the manager and have him charge it to my account."

When we had finished our dinner and were passing out abreast of Stirling's table, the Rajah rose to his feet, his guests all standing about him, their glasses in their hands--Riggs's whiskers stood straight, he was so happy--and, waving his own glass toward my host, said: "Gentlemen, I give you Marny, the Master, the Velasquez of modern times!"

* * * * * * *

Some weeks later I called at Marny's studio. He was out. On the easel stood a full-length portrait of Riggs, the millionaire, his thin, hatchet-shaped face and white whiskers in high relief against a dark background. Scattered about the room were smaller heads bearing a strong resemblance to the great president. Jack had evidently corralled the entire family--and all out of that dinner at Sherry's.

I shut the door of Marny's studio softly behind me, tiptoed downstairs, dropped into a restaurant under the sidewalk, and dined alone.

Marny is right. The only way to hear the band is to keep up with the procession.

My philosophy is a failure.

THE SOLDO OF THE CASTELLANI

The Via Garibaldi is astir to-day. From the Ponte Veneta Marina, next the caffè of the same name--it is but a step--to the big iron gates of the Public Gardens, is a moving throng of Venetians, their chatter filling the soft September air. Flags are waving--all kinds of flags, and of all colors; gay lanterns of quaint patterns are festooned from window to window; old velvets and rare stuffs, some in rags and tatters, so often have they been used, stream out from the balconies crowded with pretty Venetians shading their faces with their parasols as they watch the crowds below. In and out of this mass of holiday-makers move the pedlers crying their wares, some selling figs, their scales of polished brass jingling as they walk; some with gay handkerchiefs and scarfs draped about their trays; here and there one stands beside a tripod holding a big earthen dish filled with _fulpi_--miniature devil-fish about as big as a toad--so ugly that no man, however hungry, except, perhaps, a Venetian, dares swallow one with his eyes open.

Along this stretch of waving flags, gay-colored lanterns, and joyous people, are two places where the throngs are thickest. One is the Caffè Veneta Marina, its door within a cigarette's toss of the first step of the curving bridge of the same name, and the other is the Caffè Beneto, a smaller caffè farther down the wide street--wide for Venice. The Caffè Veneta Marina contains but a single room level with the street, and on gala days its tables and chairs are pushed quite out upon the marble flags. The Caffè Beneto runs through to the waters of the Grand Canal and opens on a veranda fitted with a short flight of steps at which the gondolas often land their passengers.

These two caffès are the headquarters of two opposing factions of gondoliers, enemies for centuries, since the founding of their guild, in fact--the Nicolletti, whose caps in the old days were black, and the Castellani, whose caps were red. The first were publicans, renowned for their prowess with the oar, but rough and outspoken, boastful in victory, bitter in defeat. The second were aristocrats, serving the Doge and often of great service to the State--men distinguished for their courtesy as well as for their courage. These attributes have followed these two guilds down to the present day.

Every year when the leaves of the sycamores in the Public Gardens fade into brown gold, and the great dome of the Salute, glistening like a huge pink pearl, looms above the soft September haze that blurs the water line, these two guilds--the Nicolletti and Castellani--meet in combat, each producing its best oarsmen.

To-day the course is from the wall of the Public Gardens to the Lido and back. Young Francesco Portera, the idol of the shipyards, a big-boned Venetian, short-armed and strong, is to row for the Nicolletti, and Luigi Zanaletto, a man near twice his age, for the Castellani.

For days there has been no other talk than this gondola race. Never in any September has the betting run so high. So great is the interest in the contest that every morning for a week the line of people at the Monte di Pietà--the Government pawn shop--has extended out into the great corridor of the Palazzo, every arm and pocket filled with clothing, jewels, knick-knacks, everything the owners can and cannot spare, to be pawned in exchange for the money needed to bet on this race.

There is good cause for this unusual excitement. While Luigi is known as the successful winner of the four annual races preceding this one, carrying the flag of the Castellani to victory against all comers, and each year a new contestant, many of his enemies insist that the pace has told on him; that despite his great reach of arm and sinewy legs, his strength, by reason of his age--they are all old at forty in Venice (except the Castellani)--is failing, and that for him to win this fifth and last race would be more than any guild could expect, glorious as would be the result. Others, more knowing, argued that while Francesco had an arm like a blacksmith and could strike a blow that would fell an ox, he lacked that refinement of training which made the ideal oarsman; that it was not so much the size or quality of the muscles as it was the man who used them; that blood and brains were more than brute force.

Still another feature added zest and interest to the race, especially to members of the opposing guilds. There was an unwritten law of Venice that no man of either guild could win more than five races in succession--a foolish law, many thought, for no oarsman had accomplished it. This done, the victor retired on his laurels. Ever after he became _Primo_--the envied of his craft, the well-beloved of all the women of his quarter, young and old alike. Should Luigi Zanaletto win this fifth race, no Nicolletti could show their faces for very shame on the Piazza. For weeks thereafter they would be made the butt of the good-natured badinage of the populace. If, however, Luigi should lose this fifth and last race, the spell would be broken and some champion of the Nicolletti--perhaps this very Francesco, with the initiative of this race, might gain succeeding victories and so the Nicolletti regain the ground they had lost through Luigi's former prowess.

Those of his guild, however, those who knew and loved Luigi, had no such misgivings as to the outcome. They lost no sleep over his expected defeat. As their champion stepped from his gondola this beautiful September morning, laying his oar along its side, and mounted the marble steps of the landing opposite the Caffè Veneta Marina, those who got close enough to note his superb condition only added to their wagers. Six feet and an inch, straight, with willowy arms strengthened by steel cords tied in knots above the elbows, hauled taut along the wrists and anchored in the hands--grips of steel, these hands, with thumbs and forefingers strong as the jaws of a vice (he wields and guides his oar with these); waist like a woman's, the ribs outlined through the cross-barred boating shirt; back and stomach in-curved, laced and clamped by a red sash; thighs and calves of lapped leather; shoulders a beam of wood--square, hard, unyielding; neck an upward sweep tanned to a ruddy brown, ending in a mass of black hair, curly as a dog's and as strong and glistening.

And his face! Stop some morning before the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, and look up into the face of the great Colleoni as he sits bestride his bronze horse, and ask the noble soldier to doff his helmet. Then follow the firm lines of the mouth, the wide brow, strong nose, and iron chin. Add to this a skin bronzed to copper by the sun, a pair of laughing eyes, and an out-pointed mustache, and you have Luigi.

And the air of the man! Only gondoliers, of all serving-men, have this humble fearlessness of manner--a manner which combines the dignity of the patrician with the humility of the servant. It is their calling which marks the difference. Small as is the gondola among all water craft, the gondolier is yet its master, free to come and free to go. The wide stretch of the sea is his--not another's: a sea hemmed about by the palaces of ancestors who for ten centuries dominated the globe.

* * * * * * *

But Luigi is still standing on the marble steps of the landing opposite the Caffè Veneta Marina this lovely September day, doffing his cap to the admiring throng, just as Colleoni would have doffed his, and with equal grace. Not the red cap of his guild--that has been laid aside for two centuries--but his wide straw hat, with his colors wound about it.