Part 9

The harangue was news to the poor girl, and the humor of it made her smile as she stepped forward to bow to the waiting throng. Each man raised his glass to toast the celebrity, when a harsh voice somewhere among the drinkers said: “Well, I’ll be gorldurned if it ain’t Vere de Vere, from Mixed Ale Lizzie’s place in N’Yawlins.”

Vere de Vere heard the ominous words, and felt a faintness overpower her, but, with that spirit for which men had admired, she seized her violin and played, while her cheeks flamed and her eyes sparkled, “Lead, Kindly Light, Lead Thou Me On.”

“She’s mad, all right,” said a maudlin voice in the crowd.

“That makes a feller think of things that Gawd has to do with,” spoke up another.

A hush fell upon the assembly, and the black waiters stood still and bowed their heads. The bartender, an old tropical tramp, used his towel to wipe his teardrops from the marble. The last time he had heard that hymn it was being sung at the funeral of his wife away back on the farm in Missouri. There were many wet eyes as the girl frantically played to the finish. Then, with one wild bound, she rushed through the reeking saloon, out into the street to a nearby park, where she sat down and cried it out.

No one spoke after she had left the barroom, but one by one the men tiptoed out, leaving unfinished glasses on the tables behind them. At nine o’clock the place was deserted and the doors were closed. Habitues, who came too late, said to one another, “I wonder what’s the matter with ‘Blinkey’s’ place. He advertised a lady orchestra and a big night to-night.”

“Say, ain’t he the liar, though?”

“Well, he ain’t doin’ business, that’s a cinch. Wonder what’s up.”

One man remained in “Blinkey’s” place; it was the informer. He told the manager all he knew of the violinist; it was, that he had seen her in a disreputable house in New Orleans.

“You’re a pretty rotten specimen of manhood to go giving her away like that,” said “Blinkey.” “If you had any sense you might have known that she was trying to do right, the poor little devil. ’Twas a rotten deal to hand out to me; spoiled a good night’s business, an’ made a liar of me.”

“But half of ’em didn’t hear what I said,” protested the offender.

“No,” said “Blinkey,” “they didn’t hear you, but she did, an’ she played that to get ’em to thinkin’ of their pasts as she was made to remember hers. I bet every man of ’em left off livin’ right soon after the last time they heard that played; I know I did. ’Twas when poor Maggie died, Gawd rest her soul! There’s ginger in that girl; there’s soul an’ feelin’ in her, an’ pride. I had to coax her to come in, an’ she said somethin’ about wantin’ to lead a good life.”

“That’s the way in this darned old world,” put in the bartender. “Step a little bit askew, an’ down you go; but, when you try to buck up, some gink comes along that hain’t got sense enough to get in when it rains, an’ he blows on you an’ every one’ll believe him, an’ you either get in jail or into a crooked poker game. I know; I been there. That girl’ll either commit suicide or go back to the life that she’s been tryin’ to git away from now.”

“Yes,” said “Blinkey,” shaking his head. “An’ I’ll have it all on my soul, and Gawd knows I have enough to answer for now. I’ll get out of this business, by heck; I will.”

“Well, I guess I’ll be goin’,” said the informer. “I’m fed up on moralizin’. I’m sorry I squealed on the merry widow. Good-night, boys. I guess you’re troublin’ more about it than she is.”

“Say! you didn’t tell any of ’em on the q. t., did you?” asked “Blinkey,” anxiously.

“A couple of ’em, but they were too darned drunk to remember,” the informer replied.

“Well, say! you’d better tell them fellers to-morrow night that you made a mistake; that she ain’t the one you thought she was,” said “Blinkey,” in a persuasive tone.

“If I think of it,” said the informer, as he walked leisurely through the doorway with the air and manner of one with nothing to regret.

“All the fire in purgatory wouldn’t clean up that feller’s soul,” said the bartender, as the door closed behind the man.

“That mut ain’t got no soul. ‘Lead, Kindly Light,’ wasn’t wrote for such spawn as him. I guess I’ll take a ride out into the savannahs to get a breath of Gawd’s pure air, for, I’ll tell you what, the stink of this booze joint is gittin’ on my nerves,” said “Blinkey,” in disgust.

On the following day Vere de Vere looked for work, but failed to find it, and at night she went back to the barroom and played, without looking at the drinkers. When her violin solo was finished she sought a remote corner of the balcony and hid herself behind the other players.

“That girl is afraid of us fellers,” said a man, laughing.

“It takes some nerve for a young lady like her to play in a place like this for a bunch of roughnecks like us,” said another man, in a kindly tone.

“Better lookout, girl, you’ll lose your virtue here among us fellers,” said the informer of the night before, in a high-pitched voice. This coarse jest was greeted with roars of laughter.

“Put that mut out!” shouted “Blinkey” to the negro attendants, “an’ if he puts up a kick, call in the ‘spiggotty’ police and tell ’em that he’s a crook, and let ’em put the guy in jail.”

The informer was led to the street, but it was too late. The habitues of “Blinkey’s” place knew that the pretty violinist had led a disreputable life in a low resort in New Orleans. Several of the less hardened didn’t believe the story, and one young business man of Colon was very much in love with her and said that he would marry her; so now it was rumored that there was going to be a wedding, and that free drinks were to be served gratis on that night at “Blinkey’s” place.

The story of Vere de Vere became generally known and was freely discussed, even in that quarter of the city known as “the district.” The rumor reached the ears of a woman of ill-repute who had designs upon Vere de Vere’s lover. Jealousy is a destructive element, when it takes root, in the most respectable bosom, and surely, when in force in the disordered mind of an outcast woman, it must be doubly dangerous. This one, it seems, had known Vere de Vere in New Orleans, and there was an old score that she was anxious to settle, so she circulated a horrible story of the girl’s past, which not only shocked Vere de Vere’s lover, but the hardest characters at “Blinkey’s” place.

All this greatly distressed poor Vere de Vere, for it seems there are depths of degradation to which some women of the underworld refuse to sink, and there are crimes so abhorrent as to shock even their paralyzed sense of morality.

“I shall see that girl,” said poor Vere de Vere. “I used to know her, and she was not a bad-hearted person.” So, while her companions went to “Blinkey’s” place as usual, she made her way to the house of her slanderer. When she entered, the wretched woman came toward her, staggering and hiccoughing; she was followed by a negro porter.

“Beat her up,” she shouted, “she’s trying to take my man from me.”

The negro advanced threateningly, and the defenceless girl, seeing a be-ribboned dagger hanging on the wall above her head, seized it. The negro, in a sudden frenzy, threw the drunken woman upon the weapon, and in a moment she fell to the floor fatally injured.

“It is the curse,” said Vere de Vere, as she rushed from the house. Her white dress was spattered with blood, and, unconsciously, she held the dagger clutched tightly in one hand while she ran through the streets of Colon to “Blinkey’s” place.

“What in the name of God have you been doin’, kid?” asked “Blinkey,” as he took the blood-stained dagger from her hand.

“It is the curse,” she moaned; and “Blinkey” afterward said that the hurt look in the girl’s eyes made him feel ill. To the bewilderment of the awe-struck drinkers, Vere de Vere took her violin in her blood-stained hands and played “Dixie.” Amid a tumult of applause the police came in and tore her from her violin.

“And the sins of the parents shall be visited upon the children,” said the girl, as she was led to the street, where a hooting mob stood ready to offer her indignities.

So the last descendant of a great cavalier leads the life of a malefactor among negroes in the penitentiary at Panama, and the curse written in the life-blood of the poor gypsy boy has had its fulfillment.

AN AWFUL MYSTERY.

The Fairfaxes were married at Trinity Church, Boston, and the Bishop of Boston performed the ceremony. The Governor of Massachusetts gave the bride away, and there was no one present at the affair but Mayflower descendants and a few noblemen from Europe, who came by way of Washington to grace the affair.

The Boston newspapers were filled to overflowing with accounts of the wedding, a description of the presents and the life history of the contracting parties. They told in detail the genealogy of both the bride and groom.

The bride was an heiress in a moderate way, but the groom, who was an F. F. V., was poor, so that he positively refused to have his wife touch a penny of the money she inherited. “I am going to work,” said he to the relatives and friends of the bride. “I have secured a position as a clerk on the Panama Canal, and we shall sail to-morrow.”

“Bravo!” said every one.

Mrs. Fairfax packed her costly wedding presents away and stored them among other family treasures in the attic of her great-aunt in Cambridge, and with only about twelve trunks of dainty clothing and household things she departed with her wedded love.

She was a graduate of Wellesley College, and she had, in addition, studied domestic economy, so she gave out for publication that she intended doing her own housework on the Canal Zone.

“A sensible and model woman,” said the newspapers. Mothers talked about the model Mrs. Fairfax to their daughters, in the hope that it would influence their own futures; so, you see, gentle reader, what a heroine Mrs. Fairfax was in her native city.

Among Mrs. Fairfax’s wedding presents was one of such a kind as to preclude all possibility of its being left at home in the attic on Brattle street, so a ticket was purchased for it and, attached to a silver chain, this present was led by Mrs. Fairfax to the Pullman palace car which was to convey the newlyweds to New York, from which they embarked for Colon. “Ferdinand De Lesseps” was the name of the present. It was the finest of bull terriers, and Mrs. Fairfax was almost as proud of it as she was of her new husband.

On the ship there were, from the Fairfax point of view, a strange assortment of persons who did not speak the English language as it was spoken in the world to which the pair belonged, but who, strange to say, considered themselves as good, if not better, than the young couple.

It is needless to say that both had led a most sheltered life, and their knowledge of common people was limited to persons of the domestic servant class and railroad porters. Being just out of college, they, of course, knew it all, and did not see that a wider experience was being thrust upon them. They were very exclusive, and before the ship arrived at port they had shown such antipathy for their fellow-passengers that they were anything but popular.

When the ship docked there was no one to meet them, although Mr. Fairfax had sent a wireless message to the man who was to give him information regarding his new position in some office or other on the Zone.

They were, therefore, obliged to find a room for themselves on a dingy street in Panama, and in a house where many negroes lived. No one appeared to know that the blooded ones had arrived.

After many weeks of disgusting hardships, through the influence of Mr. Fairfax’s boss, a vulgar, unlettered man who had been a simple carpenter in Boston, the young couple were assigned to two non-housekeeping rooms in one corner of a big house occupied by a Swedish family named Svenska, and, although Mr. Svenska had only been in the United States long enough to acquire a knowledge of railroading and citizenship papers, his privileges and wages far exceeded those of Mr. Fairfax, who was a descendant of a cavalier who had signed the Declaration of Independence.

It was the proud boast of the Swedish lady that she had landed at Ellis Island in her bare feet five years before, and when Mrs. Fairfax was a sweet undergraduate, shining as a drawing-room butterfly, Mrs. Svenska was dusting drawing-rooms.

Now, she kept a hired girl, and had A No. 1 furniture, while Mrs. Fairfax had the sort that was specially brought to the Isthmus for clerks who received only $100 a month.

The Svenska wash was always hanging on the front porch, and the mangy cur dog of the Svenskas was ever seeking social intercourse with the blooded terrier of the Fairfaxes.

Mr. and Mrs. Svenska always addressed Mrs. Fairfax as Mrs. Penpusher--a term which Mrs. F. could not understand.

Being a newcomer and unsophisticated, Mrs. Fairfax decided to move into the pretty cottage across the way, which had been vacant since her arrival. Accordingly, one day she started for the Quartermaster’s office to arrange for a transfer. The Quartermaster, however, saw her coming, and very prudently withdrew, leaving his assistant to deal with her. This gentleman, after hearing Mrs. Fairfax’s complaints and request for new quarters, indignantly replied: “You ain’t got no kick coming. Why, them quarters you want belong to two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar men. They ain’t for no one-hundred-dollar people.”

“Why, what do you mean?” said poor Mrs. Fairfax, aghast. “I shall see that you are reported for your insolence. My husband’s grandfather was a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”

“That don’t cut no ice down here,” was the reply. “If he was the son of the Colonel himself, he wouldn’t get them quarters with his salary. You’re in the same house now with a high-priced man, so I don’t see what yer kickin’ about.”

“It is evident you don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mrs. Fairfax in bewilderment. “Why, the people who occupy the other part of the house are common--positively vulgar. I must get another house; I cannot live there. I shall come again when the Quartermaster is in.”

So, without even a good-afternoon, she hurried home to find that “Prosit,” Svenska’s dog, had picked a quarrel with “Ferdinand De Lesseps,” the Boston terrier. In the combat the plebian “Prosit,” having no fine sense of honor nor any regard for the rules of war, had treacherously nipped off “Ferdinand’s” tail. “Ferdinand,” though a courageous beast, could not bear this indignity, so had left the field in possession of his vulgar antagonist. Then, too, Mrs. Svenska’s much-patched clothing was hanging, as usual, on the porch. There was an array of socks of huge dimensions, hickory shirts and piebald khaki trousers, all of which greatly offended the aesthetic taste of the dainty Mrs. Fairfax. So she sought Mrs. Svenska, and requested that lady to take her clothing from the line and to chain up that brute “Prosit.” “I beg pardon,” began Mrs. Fairfax, when her neighbor appeared at the door, “that dog of yours has bitten off my dog Ferdinand’s’ tail.”

“Veil,” answered Mrs. Svenska, “dat bane a gude yob. My Oscar, he bane pay two dollar gold to a faller in Sout’ Brooklyn fer trimmin’ up our own bulldog’s tail. Such dogs ain’t in style mid tails. Anyhow, vy you not stay home an’ mind yer dog? You ain’t got no bizness in dese quarters--your man is nuttin’ but a penpusher mit a hundred dollars, and my Oscar, he make two hundred, an’ you tink you are better as we are.”

As Mrs. Svenska finished speaking she shook her fist in Mrs. Fairfax’s face, which belligerent gesture so frightened the latter that she rushed from the door and fell on her own doorstep in a dead faint. This, of course, attracted the attention of a passer-by, and soon a curious crowd assembled. In the crowd there chanced to be one of that slick class of individuals known as “gumshoe” men. He stood and looked on and said nothing, but what he thought would fill a big book. Mrs. Svenska did not appear to make an explanation, and no one in the crowd made a move to help the unfortunate woman. The “gumshoe” man pulled a little notebook from his inside pocket and jotted down the following: “Woman found on doorstep of House No. ---- in stupefied condition * * *.”

Now, the district physician put in an appearance, and in a few minutes Mrs. Fairfax had revived sufficiently to sit up and take notice. Her first thought was of her poor maimed dog, and she said, with what voice she could muster: “Oh, where did he go?”

“Who?” said the “gumshoe” man, stepping forward eagerly.

“‘Ferdinand,’” weakly replied the poor woman, sinking down upon the step and bursting into sobs.

The physician, with a sad expression on his face, ordered an officer to escort Mrs. Fairfax to her rooms, and the “gumshoe” man wrote: “Drugged by some one named ‘Ferdinand’--a lover, probably--drinking together. Husband, clerk--decent fellow. Mystery here--woman needs watching--got no friends among the women--keeps to herself.”

Carefully tucking his little book in the inside pocket, near his heart (for there is nothing dearer to these gentry than to get “something on” a married woman), he joined the policeman as the latter came from the house, shaking his head mysteriously.

All this had its due effect on the bystanders, and each one went on his or her way with an idea that Mrs. Fairfax had some awful secret. Each man cautioned his wife to have nothing to do with her, because she had a sweetheart unknown to her husband--a guy named “Ferdinand,” an Eyetalian or a dago of some kind. So, as a matter of course, the village people went out of their way and took special pains not only to shun Mrs. Fairfax, but to let her see that she was being shunned. The “gumshoe” man’s notes were now being put into circulation through the medium of one of his confidants, a notorious male gossip whose calling took him almost daily to every village on the line. This mode of disseminating slander is equalled, perhaps, only by the New York yellow journals.

Meantime Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax took their evening walks together, happily unconscious of the awful slander that threatened to engulf them. Mrs. Svenska kept “Prosit” chained up, so that he could not play with the Fairfax dog, fearing that people would think that she was friendly with Mrs. Fairfax. The Quartermaster’s assistant held his head high, in a way which plainly said, “Nothin’ doin’,” when the lady went to the office for anything. Even the dusky commissary attendants tossed their woolly heads when she gave them an order. Then a rumor was started that Mr. Fairfax was not married to Mrs. Fairfax. This story gained in popularity from day to day, and at last assumed such truthful proportions that an agent was sent out to investigate the matter. This gentleman’s name was Gilhooly, a descendant, so ’tis said, of one of the royal lines of Erin. He was a native of Boston.

He started his investigation with the knowledge that he was to hunt down a cultivated woman. After a couple of weeks Gilhooly sent his notebook to the great tribunal of justice. Were you so fortunate as to get a glimpse of this little book the following might attract your eye:

“Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax are married, all right, tho’ you’d never think it from the loving way they live. When Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax are at home they hold hands and they read Shakespeare and Thomas a Kempis. When Mr. Fairfax ain’t at home Mrs. Fairfax does her housework, except the washin’ and scrubbin’, which ain’t in her line. When she ain’t doin’ her housework she’s paintin’ pictures and writin’ for college papers. The lad ‘Ferdinand’ is not a dago, at all, but an ugly brute of a Boston bull terrier with a pedigree. He loves his mistress, and it was on account of Svenska’s ‘mutt’ havin’ chewed off his tail that the ruction started. Let them that are without fault throw the first stone. So, I guess it is up to the Colonel himself to set matters right.”

A NIGHT OFF.

I see by the papers that the government of the ‘Land of the free and home of the brave’ has made another law. It is that no contract be given for government work to any firm that compels its employes to work more than eight hours a day, an’ the government has turned down a shipbuildin’ firm’s bid on the two new battleships because the firm didn’t have the eight-hour law in force in its shipyard. Now, wouldn’t that jar you, when right here on this government job there’s five hundred men that work from twelve to sixteen hours a day an’ never get a cent of overtime pay, not even a ‘thank you’?

“Who are the twelve-and sixteen-hour men? We are. I’m one of ’em. Am I a steam-shovel man? No; not on your life. If I was I’d be curlin’ my mustache an’ polishin’ my finger-nails right now. But, instead of that, I’m hustlin’ into the mess hall to swallow a bite of cold grub before they shut the doors for the night. It’s now three hours after knockin’-off time. I’m a marine engineer, an’ I’ve seen as much of this terrestrial globe as any man of my age on this job, an’ I can say with conviction that this is the blamedest job for workin’ overtime that I ever struck, or ever expect to strike.

“You say that you thought we all worked eight hours down here. Not the floating equipment, no, m’am; but, say! a more intelligent or finer bunch of fellows never struck the Isthmus than they are. Why, some of ’em are veterans of the Spanish-American War. They done the work that got the glory for Dewey an’ that beauty Hobson, when the petted darlin’s of the Commission--the steam-shovel men, the shop guys and the like--were milkin’ cows an’ feedin’ hens down on the farm. But, wait, we’ll come in handy again some day, maybe right here, where we’re sweatin’ away from four to six hours a day for nothin’. Here in Balboa we ain’t got no more gumption than a bunch of dog-robbers. Why, in Cristobal, they have formed an association to fight for back pay for overtime since the Canal started, an’ for an eight-hour day.

“A committee of ten of ‘the boys’ waited upon a bunch of hayseeds that were down here lookin’ around an’ botherin’ the Colonel. ’Twas last fall an’ they stopped at the Tivoli. The Colonel attended the meetin’ himself, an’ showed the fellers that he was with them for a square deal. He’s always on deck when there’s need of justice, the Colonel is. Well, anyhow, old Uncle Joe was in the gang from the U. S. A., smilin’ from ear to ear an’ smokin’ a big cigar that made him look top heavy. He told ‘the boys’ that he was feelin’ fine; that he was gittin’ to be a bit overfed, an’ that he was just pinin’ to do something for the floating equipment of the Canal Commission; but when a couple of ‘the boys’ told him that they had nearly $9,000 for back pay comin’ to ’em his face froze, the cigar fell from his lips an’ he looked as if he was goin’ to drop dead. I was there lookin’ on an’ takin’ it all in.

“I attended the association supper at Cristobal after that, an’, say! it was some feast. It looked more like a meetin’ of the floating equipment of the New York Yacht Club than it did of the overworked and underpaid live ones of the Isthmian Canal Commission. Every man was dressed to kill in correct evening togs except me, but, of course, I didn’t count, bein’ from Balboa, an’ not bein’ a member, nohow. Anyway, I enjoyed myself an’ drunk it all in. Did I get drunk? Yes, I think I did get drunk. A saint would have got drunk there. The first sight that met the eye on entering the hall was--what do you think? Twelve barrels of beer all packed in ice an’ ready to quench thirst. There was all kinds of whiskies and wines, and even champagne.