Chapter 2

HATCH: Yes, there are clerks and shopkeepers working behind a counter twenty-four hours a day, but they don't make ten thousand a year, and no one ever hears of THEM. There's no FAME in their job.

ALICE: Fame! Oh, how interesting. Are you--a celebrity?

HATCH: I'm quite as well known as I care to be. Now, tomorrow, all the papers will be talking about this. There'll be columns about us three. No one will know we are the ones they're talking about--

REDDY: I hope not.

HATCH: But the men in our profession will know. And they'll say, "That was a neat job of So-and-so's last night." That's fame. Why, we've got a reputation from one end of this country to the other.

HARRY: That's right! There's some of us just as well known as--Mister-- Santos--Dumont.

REDDY: And we fly just as high, too.

ALICE: (to HATCH) I suppose YOU--I suppose you're quite a FAMOUS burglar?

REDDY: Him? Why, he's as well known as Billy the Kid.

ALICE: Billy the kid, really! He sounds SO attractive. But I'm afraid--I don't think--that I ever heard of HIM.

REDDY: Never heard of Billy the Kid? What do you think of that?

HATCH: Well, then, I'm as well known as "Brace" Phillips, the Manhattan Bank robber.

REDDY: SURE he is.

HATCH: Don't tell me you never heard of him?

ALICE: I'm afraid not.

HATCH: Why, he's a head-liner. He's as well known as George Post. Coppy Farrell? Billy Porter?

ALICE: No. There you are. Now, you claim there is fame in this profession, and you have named five men who are at the top of it, and I've never heard of one of them. And I read the papers, too.

REDDY: Well, there's OTHER ladies who have heard of us. Real ladies. When I was doing my last bit in jail, I got a thousand letters from ladies asking for me photograph, and offering to marry me.

ALICE: Really? Well, that only proves that men--AS HUSBANDS--are more desirable in jail than out. (To HATCH) No, it's a poor life.

HATCH: It's a poor life you people lead with us to worry you. There's seventy millions of you in the United States, and only a few of us, and yet we keep you guessing all the year round. Why, we're the last thing you think of at night when you lock the doors, we're the first thing you think of in the morning when you feel for the silver basket. We're just a few up against seventy millions. I tell you there's fame and big money and a free life in my business.

ALICE: Yes, it's a free life until you go to jail. It's this way. You're barbarians, and there's no place for you in a civilized community-- except in jail. Everybody is working against you. Every city has its police force; almost every house nowadays has a private watchman. And if we want to raise a hue and cry after you, there are the newspapers, and the telegraph, and the telephone (nods at telephone) and the cables all over the--

HATCH: (Grimly) Thank you. One moment, please. (Throws open overcoat, showing that it is lined with burglars' jimmies, chisels, and augers..)

ALICE: My! What an interesting coat. It looks like a tool chest. Just the coat for an automobile trip.

HATCH: Harry, cut those telephone wires. (Hands barbed-wire cutter to HARRY. To ALICE) Thank you for reminding me.

ALICE: Oh, not at all. You've nothing to thank me for. (HARRY goes to telephone. To HARRY) Don't make a noise doing that. Don't wake my mother. (To HATCH) She's nervous, and she's ill, and if you wake her, or frighten her, I'll keep the police after you until every one of you is in jail.

HATCH: You won't keep after us very far when I've tied you up. Bring me those curtain cords, Harry.

ALICE: Oh, really, that's too ridiculous. (Listens apprehensively)

HATCH: Sorry I had to bust up your still alarm, but after we go, we can't have you chatting with the police. If you hadn't so kindly given me a tip about the telephone, I might have gone off and clean forgot that.

(HARRY takes curtain cords from window curtains.)

REDDY: I'm afraid pretty polly talked too much that time. We ain't all stupid.

ALICE: No, so I see, so I see. It was careless of me. But everybody you call upon may not be so careless.

HATCH: Well, I've won out for twenty years. I've never been in jail.

ALICE: Don't worry. You're young. I told you you looked young. Your time is coming. In these days there's no room for burglars. You belong to the days of stage-coaches. You're old-fashioned now. You're trying to fight civilization, that's what you're trying to do. You may keep ahead for a time, but in a long race I'll back civilization to win.

HATCH: Is that so? Well, Miss Civilization, you've had your say, and I hope you feel better. (To HARRY) Give me that silk muffler of yours. (To ALICE) If civilization is going to help you, it's got to hurry.

ALICE: You don't mean to say you really are going to gag me?

HATCH: I am.

ALICE: My! But I shall look silly. (With her face turned right she listens apprehensively.)

HARRY: (Coming down with curtain cords, and taking muffler from his pocket) I've got the stuff in this muffler.

HATCH: Well, give me that, too. (Shows inside coat pocket) I'll put it in the safe.

(HARRY places muffler on table, exposing jewelry.)

HATCH: (begins placing the ornaments one at a time in his pocket. To ALICE.) What is it? What did you hear?

ALICE: I--I thought I heard my mother moving about.

HATCH: Well, she'd better not move about.

ALICE: (Fiercely) You'd better not wake her. (Sees the jewels.) Oh! Look at the "graft," or is it "swag?" Which is it?

HATCH: (To HARRY) Cover em up; cover it up.

(HARRY tries to hide the jewels with one hand, while he passes a lady's watch to HATCH.)

HARRY: (to ALICE) That's YOUR watch. I'm sorry it has to go.

ALICE: I'm not. It's the first time it ever did go. And, oh, thank you for taking that big brooch. It's a gift of father's, so I had to wear it, but it's so unbecoming. (She listens covertly.)

HATCH: Put your hat on them. Cover them up. (HARRY partly covers jewels with his hat.

HATCH lifts a diamond necklace.)

ALICE: I suppose you know your own business--but THAT IS PASTE.

HATCH: Do you want to be gagged NOW?

ALICE: Pardon me, of course you know what you want. (Notices another necklace.) Oh, that Mrs. Warren's necklace! So you called on her, too, did you? Isn't she attractive!

REDDY: We didn't ask for the lady of the house. They ain't always as sociable as you are.

ALICE: Well, that's her necklace. You got that at the house on the hill with the red roof--the house has the red roof, not the hill. (She recognizes, with an exclamation, a gold locket and chain which HATCH is about to place in his pocket.) Oh! That's Mrs. Lowell's locket! How could you! (She snatches locket from HATCH, and clasps it in both hands. She rises indignantly.) How dared you take that!

HATCH: Put that down!

ALICE: (wildly and rapidly) No, I will not. Do you know what that means to that woman? She cares more for that than for anything in this world. Her husband used to wear this. (Points.) That's a lock of their child's hair. The child's dead, and the husband's dead, and that's all she has left of either of them. And you TOOK it, YOU BRUTES!

REDDY: Of course we took it. Why does she wear it where everybody can see it?

HATCH: (savagely) Keep quiet, you fool.

ALICE: She WORE it? You took it--FROM HER?

HATCH: We didn't hurt her. We only frightened her a bit. (Angrily.) And we'll frighten you before we're done with you, Miss Civilization!

ALICE: (defiantly, her voice rising) Frighten me! You--you with your faces covered! You're not men enough. You're afraid to even steal from men. You rob WOMEN when they're alone--at night. (Holds up locket.) Try to take that from me!

VOICE: (calling) Alice--Alice!

ALICE: Mother! Oh, I forgot, I forgot. (The burglars rise and move toward her menacingly.) Please, please keep quiet. For God's sake, don't--let--her--know!

VOICE: Alice, what's wrong? Who are you talking to?

(ALICE runs to the curtains, with one hand held out to the burglars, entreating silence.)

ALICE: I'm--I'm talking to James, the coachman. One of the horses is ill. Don't come down, mother. Don't come down. Go back to bed. He's going now, right away. He came for some medicine. It's all right. Good night, mother.

VOICE: Can't I help?

ALICE: (Vehemently) No, no. Good night, mother.

VOICE: Good night.

HATCH: (fiercely, to HARRY) That's enough of this! We can't leave here with the whole house awake. And there's a coachman, too. She'll wake him next. He'll have the whole damned village after us. (To ALICE) That woman upstairs and you have got to have your tongues stopped.

ALICE: (standing in front of curtains) You try to go near that woman! She's ill, she's feeble, she's my-- mother! You dare to touch her.

HATCH: Get out of my way.

ALICE: She's ill, you cowards. It will kill her. You'll have to kill me before you get through this door.

HATCH: (savagely) Well, then, if it comes to that--

(Three locomotive whistles are heard from just outside the house. ALICE throws up her hands hysterically.)

ALICE: Ah! At last! They've come. They've come!

HATCH: (fiercely) They've come! What is it? What does that mean?

(REDDY runs to window and opens the shutters.)

ALICE: (jubilantly) It means--it means that twenty men are crossing that lawn. It means that while you sat drinking there, Civilization was racing toward you at seventy miles an hour!

HATCH: Damnation! We're trapped. Get to the wagon--quick! No. Leave the girl alone. We've no time for that. Drop that stuff. That way. That way.

REDDY: (at window) No. Get back! Get back! It's too late. There's hundreds of them out there.

HATCH: (running to centre door) Out here! This way! Quick!

ALICE: (mockingly) Yes, come! You don't dare come this way NOW!

(She drags open the curtains, disclosing CAPTAIN LUCAS and two other policemen. For an instant they stand, covering the burglars with revolvers. REDDY runs to window. He is seized by an entering crowd of men in the oil-stained blue jeans of engineers and brakemen.)

CAPTAIN LUCAS: Hold up your hands, all of you! I guess I know you. (With his left hand he tears off HATCH'S mask.) "Joe" Hatch--at last. (Pulls off HARRY'S mask.) And Harry Hayes. I thought so. And that's--the "Kid." The whole gang. (To the police.) Good work, boys. (To ALICE) My congratulations, Miss Gardner. They're the worst lot in the country. You're a brave young lady. You ought--

ALICE: (speaking with an effort and swaying slightly) Hush, please. Don't--don't alarm my mother. Mother's not as strong as--as I am.

(Her eyes close, and she faints across the arm of the Chief of Police as the CURTAIN FALLS.)

End of Project Gutenberg's Miss Civilization, by Richard Harding Davis