Part 7

“'Mary,' he says to the old woman with a grin, 'that's quite a lot of money for little Lem Singleton to be carrying around in his pocket, isn't it?' “'It is that, Lemuel,' said the old lady, 'and I should think you'd be afraid of leaving it out of the bank.'

“'Well, Mary,' says the old man, 'I kind o' like to have it around me all the time--uh--huh! a little bit where I can put my hands on it, all the time. I used to carry gold; but I gave that up; it's too heavy, for what it's worth. But I like it, Mary; I used to look at that gold and say to myself, “Well, there's one thing you got, Lem Singleton, they never thought you'd get when you left home! And they aren't going to take it away from you, either!” It was a long time before I could make paper seem as real to me as gold. But it does now.'

“And what does the old bird do but take it out of his pocket again and crinkle it through his fingers and smooth it out again and pet it and do everything but kiss it. Larry and I stood looking at him with our eyes sticking out, and he looked at us and laughed. It came to me all of a sudden that he liked to come where we servants were because he could pull that kind of thing in front of us, but that he was sort of lost among the swell-society bunch because he didn't dare pull it there and didn't feel so rich among them.

“'My God, Larry,' I said, when we were outside the house, 'did you notice how much kale the old man had there?'

“'Uh-huh,' said Larry. 'Mother always cooks a lot for him.'

“'Wake up, Stupid,' I said. 'I don't mean cabbage. I mean money. There must have been nearly two hundred thousand dollars in that roll!'

“'He always has around one hundred thousand dollars on him, at least,' says Larry. 'And I've seen him flash as high as a quarter of a million.'

“'Well,' I says, 'something ought to be done about it.'

“'What do you mean, Ed?' says he.

“'Oh, nothing,' I said.

“We walked over to get the L train downtown, saying nothing, and then finally Larry remarked: “'Electricity is a great thing, Ed.'

“'I never said it wasn't,' says I.

“'It's a great thing,' says Larry, 'but when you sit on it, sit on it right. For instance, I'd a darned sight rather sit in one of these electric trains than in that electric chair up at Sing Sing.'

“'Who said anything about an electric chair?' I asked him.

“'Nobody said anything,' says Larry, 'but you're thinking so darned loud I can get you.'

“'Piffle, peanuts and petrification,' I said. 'Take care of your own thoughts, and I'll skim the fat off of mine myself.'

“Well, as I said, after that we got better acquainted, the old man and I. I paid more attention to him. He interested me more. I've always been interested in science of all kinds, and the year I spent in Jake Hergsheimer's house I cut the leaves of a lot of books in his library and gave them the once over. I was always interested in psychology, even before the word got to be a headliner in the Sunday supplements, and I took a good deal of pleasure that winter trying to get inside of Old Man Singleton's mind. I must say, I never got very far in, at that. My general conclusion at the end is what it was at the beginning--his fad is kale.

“And he loved to show it, you could see that. Not that he pulled it every time he happened to be at one of our parties. Often he would drop in that winter from some swell social event at one of the big houses uptown, where he had been a guest, and eat some of old Mary's chow, and never intimate by word or look that he had all that kale on him. And then again he'd come among us, diked out in the soup and fish, and flash the roll, for no other reason that I know except he enjoyed seeing us get the blind staggers, which we always did. And then he'd fuss with it and pet it and go into a dream over it, and wake up again and grin and talk about life with old Mary. And they agreed about life; you never heard two more moral persons exchange views. It was sometimes as good as a Sunday-school to listen to them for half an hour.

“One night, when they had been gassing for a while, they sort of got my goat, and I said to him:

“'Mr. Singleton, does it ever strike you as a little peculiar that you should have so much money and so many other people, such as myself, none at all?'

“'No, Ed,' he says. 'No, it doesn't. That's the Lord's way, Ed! Money is given as a sacred trust by the Lord to them that are best fitted to have and to hold.'

“'Meaning,' I asked him, 'that if you were ever to let loose of any of it, it might work harm in the world?'

“He chewed over that for quite a while, as if he saw something personal in it, and he gave me a ten-dollar bill for a Christmas present. He isn't as stingy as some people say he is; he just looks so stingy that if he was the most liberal man on earth he would get the reputation of being stingy.

“The lady's maid that I used to go to the opera with quit me a little while after Christmas. She and I were walking around the promenade between the acts one night at the Metropolitan and Larry was with us, when a fellow stopped Larry and spoke to him. I could see the guy looking at the girl and me as he and Larry talked. Later, Larry told me that it was one of Jake Hergsheimer's friends, and he had been a little bit surprised to see Larry at the opera all diked out, and he had wanted to know who the girl was.

“Well, anyhow, she never went to the opera with me after that; but a few weeks later I saw her at a cabaret with Jake's friend. It was a grief to me; but I got into some real trouble, or let it get into me, about the same time, and that helped take the sting off. I had once been married--but there's no use going into all that. Anyhow, when the marriage kind o' wore off, my own folks took my wife's side of the case and she went to live with them. My old dad was sick, and they needed money, and my wife wrote to me that she was willing to let bygones be bygones and accept some money from me, and that my parents felt the same way, and there was a kid, too, that my folks were bringing up.

“Well, I was desperate for some way to get hold of some cash and send to them. In the end, I took one of Jake Hergsheimer's silver vases and hocked it and sent the money, and got it out of hock two or three months later; but in the meantime there was a spell when I was so hard pressed it looked to me like I would actually have to do something dishonest to get that money.

“One night, before Jake Hergsheimer came to my rescue and lent me that silver vase, if you want to call it that, I was sitting alone in the house thinking what a failure in life I was, and how rotten it was to have a wife and kid and parents all set against me, and drinking some of Jake's good booze, and getting more and more low in my mind, when there came a ring at the front doorbell. The butler was out, and old Mary was asleep way up in the top of the house, at the back, and wouldn't hear.

“'I'll bet,' I said to myself, 'that's Old Man Singleton nosing around for his cabbage.' And I made up my mind I wouldn't let him in--he could ring till he froze to death on the front steps, and I wouldn't. It was a blustery, snowy January night, with new snow over the old ice underneath, and I says to myself, 'It's a wonder the old coot don't slip down and bust some of those big New England bones of his. And I wouldn't care much if he did.'

“But he kept on ringing, and finally I thought I'd better go and let him in. I didn't have any ulterior notions when I went up the stairs from the servants' dining room and made for the front door. But the minute I clapped eyes on him I thought of all that kale in his pocket.

“I opened the front door, but outside of that was an iron grille. It had a number of fastenings, but the final one was a short, heavy iron bar that lay in two sockets, one on each side of the opening.

“I lifted the bar and swung the grille open.

“'Ha! Hum!' said he, and sneezed. 'It's you, Ed, is it?'

“And, snuffing and sneezing, he passed in front of me.

“And as he passed by me that bar said something to my hand. And the hand raised up. It wasn't any of my doings, it was all the hand and the bar. It raised up, that bar did, right behind the old man's head. He stopped just outside the front door and flapped his big bony feet on a rug that was there, to get the snow off his shoes, and while he flapped and sneezed that bar was right over the old man's brain-box.

“'Well,' I said to myself, 'here is your chance to be an honest man and a prosperous man, reunited with your wife and your kid and your folks at home, and not have to borrow anything from Jake Hergsheimer's collection--just one little tap on the old man's head, and down he goes, and he's got anywhere from one hundred thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in his clothes.'

“'Yes,' said myself to me, 'one little tap, and maybe you kill him. What then? The electric chair, huh?'

“'Hell!' I said to myself. 'Take a chance! The old man has so much money that what he has in his pocket means nothing to him one way or another. Larry's gone till morning, and the old woman won't wake for a long time. It means a little bit of a headache for Old Lemuel here, and it means your chance to lead an honest life hereafter and be a useful citizen and take care of those you have been neglecting.'

“'Yes,' said myself to me, 'it's more moral to do it, and make your life over, but you never have been one for morality in the past. Besides, you'd kill him.'

“And I might have killed him, boss. I wasn't sure of it then, but I've been sure of it since then. I was that strung up that I would have hit too hard.

“And yet, I might _not_ have done so! I might have hit him just enough to put him out and make my get-away, and I might have led an honest life since then.

“But at the moment I couldn't do it. I saw, all of a sudden, something funny. I saw the old man stamping his feet and getting the snow off, and I thought of him as a dead man, and I says to myself: 'How damned funny for a dead man to stamp the snow off his feet!' And I laughed.

“'Heh? Heh? What did you say, Ed?' says the old man, and turns around.

“I dropped the iron bar to my side, and that dead man came up out of the grave.

“'Nothing, Mr. Singleton,' I said. 'I was just going to say, go on in, and I'll get a brush and clean the snow off of you.'

“I said I saved his life from a man one time. Well, I was the man I saved his life from.

“He went on in, and I barred the grille and locked the door, and we went on down to the dining room. I was shaking, and still I wasn't easy in my mind. I told him there wasn't anybody home but me, and he said he'd take a drop of Jake's brandy. And while I was opening a bottle of it for him, what does he do but pull out that billfolder.

“'For God's sake, Mr. Singleton,' I said, turning weak and sitting down in a chair all of a sudden, 'put that money up.'

“He sat there and sipped his brandy and talked, but I didn't hear what he was saying. I just looked at him, and kept saying to myself, should I have done it? Or should I have let him go by?

“Boss, that was nearly ten years ago, and I've been asking myself that question from time to time ever since. Should I have done it? Was it moral to refuse that chance to make my life over again? You know me, kid. You know some of me, at least. You know I don't hold much by morals. If I was to tell you how I got that bullet under my kneecap, you'd know me better than _you_ do. If I had hit him just right and made my get-away, I would have led a different life.

“And I wouldn't now be 'waiting for my death sentence. For that's practically what this prohibition thing means to me. I can't work at anything but this. And this is through with. And I'm through with. I'm a bum from now on. There's no use kidding myself; I'm a bum.

“And yet, often, I'm glad I didn't do it.”

Ed brooded in silence for a while.

And then I said, “It's strange he didn't know you.”

“It's been ten years,” said Ed, “and you saw that the old man's got to the doddering stage. He likely wouldn't know his own children if he didn't see them every day or two.”

“I suppose,” I said, “that the old man feels he is ending his days in a very satisfactory manner--the national prohibition thing triumphant, and all that.”

“How do you mean?” asked Ed.

“Don't you know?” I said. “Why, Old Man Singleton, it is said, helped to finance the fight, and used his money and his influence on other big money all over the country in getting next to doubtful politicians and putting the thing through the state legislatures. I don't mean there was anything crooked about it anywhere, but he was one of the bunch that represented organized power, and put the stunt across while the liquor interests were still saying national prohibition could never come.”

“The hell he did!” said Ed. “I didn't know he was mixed up with it. I never saw him take a drink, now that I remember, except the brandy on the night I saved his life.”

“Old Man Singleton,” I said, “is credited with having had more to do with it than any other one person, by those who are on the inside.”

“The old coot!” said Ed. And then added wryly: “I hope he gets as stiff in his knee joint as I am and lives forever! He's made a bum of me!”

It was three or four weeks after my talk with Ed that I read in the papers of a peculiar accident of which Old Man Singleton had been the victim. A head of cabbage, he said, had fallen out of a tree and hit him on his own head one evening as he was walking alone in Central Park. He had been dazed by the blow for a moment; and when he regained his feet a considerable sum of money which he had been carrying was gone. He was sure that he had been struck by a head of cabbage, for a head of cabbage lay on the pathway near him when he was helped to his feet. He did not pretend to be able to say how a head of cabbage could have gotten into one of the park trees.

The police discredited his story, pointing out that likely the old man, who was near-sighted, had blundered against a tree in the dusk and struck his head. The head of cabbage, they told the reporters, could have had nothing to do with it; it could not have come into contact with his head at all, unless, indeed, some one had put it into a sack and swung it on him like a bludgeon; and this, the police said, was too absurd to be considered. For why should a crook use a head of cabbage, when the same results might have been attained with the more usual blackjack, stick or fist?

Old Man Singleton was not badly hurt; and as regarded the loss of the money, he never said, nor did his family ever say, just how large the sum was. Mr. Singleton had the vague impression that after the cabbage fell out of the tree and hit him he had been helped to his feet by a man who limped and who said to him: “Kale is given to them that can best use it, to have and to hold.”

He did not accuse this person, who disappeared before he was thoroughly himself again, of having found the money which had evidently dropped from his pocket when the cabbage fell from the tree and hit him, but he was suspicious, and he thought the police were taking the matter too lightly; he criticized the police in an interview given to the papers. The police pointed out the irrelevance of the alleged words of the alleged person who limped, and intimated that Mr. Singleton was irrational and should be kept at home evenings; as far as they were concerned, the incident was closed.

But I got another slant at it, as Ed might have said. Last winter I was talking at my club with a friend just back from Cuba, where the rum is red and joy is unconfined.

“I met a friend of yours,” he said, “by the name of Ed down there, who is running a barroom and seems to be quite a sport in his way. Sent his regards to you. Must have made it pay--seems to have all kinds of money. Named his barroom 'The Second Thought.' Asked him why. He said nobody knew but himself, and he was keeping it a secret--though you might guess. Wants you to come down. Sent you a message. Let's see: what was it? Oh, yes! Cryptic! Very cryptic! Wrote it down--here it is: '_Kale! Kale! The gang's all here_.' Make anything out of it? I can't.”

I could, though I didn't tell him what. But I shall not visit Ed in Cuba; I consider him an immoral person.

VII--Bubbles

I

|Tommy Hawkins was not so sober that you could tell it on him. Certainly his friend Jack Dobson, calling on him one dreary winter evening--an evening of that winter before John Barleycorn cried maudlin tears into his glass and kissed America good-by--would never have guessed it from Tommy's occupation. Presenting himself at Tommy's door and finding it unlocked, Jack had gone on in. A languid splashing guided him to the bathroom. In the tub sat Tommy with the water up to his shoulders, blowing soap bubbles.

“You darned old fool!” said Jack. “Aren't you ever going to grow up, Tommy?”

“Nope,” said Tommy placidly. “What for?” Sitting on a chair close by the bathtub was a shallow silver dish with a cake of soap and some reddish-colored suds in it. Tommy had bought the dish to give some one for a wedding present, and then had forgotten to send it.

“What makes the suds red?” asked Jack.

“I poured a lot of that nose-and-throat spray stuff into it,” explained Tommy. “It makes them prettier. Look!”

As a pipe he was using a piece of hollow brass curtain rod six or eight inches long and of about the diameter of a fat lead pencil. He soused this thing in the reddish suds and manufactured a bubble with elaborate care. With a graceful gesture of his wet arm he gently waved the rod until the bubble detached itself. It floated in the air for a moment, and the thin, reddish integument caught the light from the electric globe and gave forth a brief answering flash as of fire. Then the bubble suddenly and whimsically dashed itself against the wall and was no more, leaving a faint, damp, reddish trace upon the white plaster.

“Air current caught it,” elucidated Tommy with the air of a circus proprietor showing off pet elephants. In his most facetious moments Tommy was wont to hide his childish soul beneath an exterior of serious dignity. “This old dump is full of air currents. They come in round the windows, come in round the doors, come right in through the walls. Damned annoying, too, for a scientist making experiments with bubbles--starts a bubble and never knows which way it's going to jump. I'm gonna complain to the management of this hotel.”

“You're going to come out of that bathtub and get into your duds,” said Jack. “That water's getting cool now, and between cold water and air currents you'll have pneumonia the first thing you know--you poor silly fish, you.”

“Speaking of fish,” said Tommy elliptically, “there's a bottle of cocktails on the mantel in the room there. Forgot it for a moment. Don't want to be inhospitable, but don't drink all of it.”

“It's all gone,” said Dobson a moment later.

“So?” said Tommy in surprise. “That's the way with cocktails. Here one minute and gone the next--like bubbles. Bubbles! Life's like that, Jack!” He made another bubble with great solemnity, watched it float and dart and burst. “Pouf!” he said. “Bubbles! Bubbles! Life's like that!”

“You're an original philosopher, you are,” said Jack, seizing him by the shoulders. “You're about as original as a valentine. Douse yourself with cold water and rub yourself down and dress. Come out of it, kid, or you'll be sick.”

“If I get sick,” said Tommy, obeying, nevertheless, “I won't have to go to work to-morrow.”

“Why aren't you working to-day?” asked his friend, working on him with a coarse towel.

“Day off,” said Tommy.

“Day off!” rejoined Dobson. “Since when has the _Morning Despatch_ been giving two days off a week to its reporters? You had your day off Tuesday, and this is Thursday.”

“Is it?” said Tommy. “I always get Tuesday and Thursday mixed. Both begin with a T. Hey, Jack, how's that? Both begin with a T! End with a tea party! Good line, hey, Jack? Tuesday and Thursday both begin with a T and end with a tea party. I'm gonna write a play round that, Jack. Broadway success! Letters a foot high! Royalties for both of us! I won't forget you, Jack! You suggested the idea for the plot, Jack. Drag you out in front of the curtain with me when I make my speech. 'Author! Author!' yells the crowd. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' says I, 'here is the obscure and humble person who set in motion the train of thought that led to my writing this masterpiece. Such as he is, I introduce him to you.'”

“Shut up!” said Jack, and continued to lacerate Tommy's hide with the rough towel. “Hold still! Now go and get into your clothes.” And as Tommy began to dress he regarded that person darkly. “You're a brilliant wag, you are! It's a shame the way the copy readers down on the _Despatch_ keep your best things out of print, you splattering supermudhen of journalism, you! You'll wake up some morning without any more job than a kaiser.” And as Tommy threaded himself into the mystic maze of his garments Mr. Dobson continued to look at him and mutter disgustedly, “Bubbles!”

Not that he was afraid that Tommy would actually lose his job. If it had been possible for Tommy to lose his job that must have happened years before. But Tommy wrote a certain joyous type of story better than any other person in New York, and his facetiousness got him out of as many scrapes as it got him into. He was thirty years old. At ninety he would still be experimenting with the visible world in a spirit of random eagerness, joshing everything in it, including himself. He looked exactly like the young gentleman pictured in a widely disseminated collar advertisement. He enjoyed looking that way, and occasionally he enjoyed talking as if he were exactly that kind of person. He loved to turn his ironic levity against the character he seemed to be, much as the mad wags who grace the column of F. P. A. delight in getting their sayings across accompanied by a gentle satirical fillip at all mad waggery.

“Speaking of bubbles,” he suddenly chuckled as he carefully adjusted his tie in the collar that looked exactly like the one in the advertisement, “there's an old party in the next room that takes 'em more seriously than you do, Jack.”

The old downtown hotel in which Tommy lived had once been a known and noted hostelry, and persons from Plumville, Pennsylvania, Griffin, Georgia, and Galva, Illinois, still stopped there when in New York, because their fathers and mothers had stopped there on their wedding journeys perhaps. It was not such a very long way from the Eden Musee, when there was an Eden Musee. Tommy's room had once formed part of a suite. The bathroom which adjoined it had belonged jointly to another room in the suite. But now these two rooms were always let separately. Still, however, the bathroom was a joint affair. When Tommy wished to bathe he must first insure privacy by hooking on the inside the door that led into the bathroom from the chamber beyond.

“Old party in the next room?” questioned Jack.