Part 5

It had been our custom to spend the major part of the night drinking and carousing after the close of business. But on the morning succeeding the pup's arrival, I thought it best to go to my room at once, as he might have upset things or caused other damage. That is what I tried to make myself believe--a rather difficult feat in view of the pup's enormous bulk and ferocity--not caring to interpret my feelings. I opened the door of my attic room and peeped in. The little fellow was curled upon the blanket and did not wake until I stood beside him. Then he lifted his little nose, recognized me, and went off again into the land of canine dreams.

As I was burdened with the dog, I could not let him starve. Therefore, my neighbors had the wonderful, daily spectacle before them of seeing me, the champion rough and tumble fighter of the city, go to the grocery store on the corner and buy three cents' worth of milk and sundry other delicacies suitable to my room-mate. Had they taken it good-naturedly, I would have felt ashamed and the pup would have fared badly in his nursing, but my neighbors sneered and smiled at my unusual proceeding which did seem rather incongruous, and, mainly to spite them and give them a chance to break their amused silence, did I persist in playing my new part, that of care-taker and nurse to his royal highness, the dog.

I became used to him, after a fashion, and, though showering very little affection on the pup, he seemed to be supremely happy in my company. We had been together for some time before I was sure of our relative positions. Always finding him asleep on my return from the saloon, I was surprised to hear him move about, one morning, as I was inserting the key in the lock. I opened the door, and before me danced the pup in a veritable frenzy of delight at beholding me. This not being a psychological essay, only a plain, true story, I shall not attempt to analyze, but will tell you straight facts in a straight way.

It was a new, a bewildering sensation to me to perceive a living being to be so pleased at my appearance. It was a new, a strange welcome, perhaps not entirely unselfish, because milk and good things to eat generally came with me, but, still, much purer and more sincere than, the greeting "hello" or loud-mouthed invitation to drink vouchsafed me by ribald companions.

I had not yet softened, at least, did not realize it, or would not admit it, but in occasional, unobserved moments, a sporadic, spontaneous dropping of the hard outer shell would come to me and I would not deny it until my "manhood" whispered to me: "Why, what is the matter with you? Are you not ashamed of giving way to your feelings? You are a man, a great, big, tough man, and not supposed to have any softer emotions. Get yourself together and be again a worthy member of your class!"

I must have been in one of these softer moods on the morning when the pup gave his first outspoken recognition. Why I did it, I do not know, but I lifted the little fellow to my arms and sat down on the bed. To us two a critical moment had come and it was best to make the most of it.

"Do you like me, pup?" I asked in all seriousness.

Bless me, if that little thing did not try to bark an emphatic "Yes!" Oh, it was no deep-toned growl or snarl. It was the pup's first effort in the barking line, and it sounded very much like a compound of whine and grunt. But I understood and we settled down to talk the matter over.

I realized that the pup was entitled to be named, and that matter was first in order.

"See here, pup; you and I are very plain and ordinary people, and it wouldn't do to give you a 'high-toned' name. Now, what do you say to 'Bill'?--just plain 'Bill'?"

The motion was speedily passed, and then Bill and I went to discuss other questions.

"Bill, you and I aren't overburdened with friends. If you and I were to die at the same moment, not even a cock or crow would croak a requiem for us. Now, I am going to make you a proposition. You're friendless, and so am I; you're ugly and so am I; you belong to the most unintelligent class of your kind and so do I; why not establish a partnership between us?"

Bill had sat, watching my lips and looking as wise as a sphinx, until I asked the question. He answered in the affirmative, without a moment's hesitation.

"I'm glad you like my proposition, Bill. Now you and I are going to live our own life, without regard for others. We're going to stick to each other, Bill; we're going to be loyal to each other, and, though we do not amount to much in the world, to each other we must be the best of our class. We're going to be true friends."

I took Bill's paw, and, there and then, we sealed the compact, which was never broken.

Our relationship being founded on this basis, I spent a good deal of my spare time in the room, which until Bill's arrival, had been nothing but my sleeping place. Soon the bare walls and the dilapidated condition of the furniture began to grate on me and, slowly, I improved our _home_. I bought a few pictures from a peddler, purchased two plaster casts from an Italian, and even employed a glazier to put our window in good shape. Bill and I took pride in our home, and thought it the very acme of coziness. You see, neither one of us had ever known a real home.

But dogs, as well as men, need exercise, and, in the afternoon, attired in our best--Bill with his glittering collar, on which the proceeds of a whole night had been expended--we took our walk along the avenue. He was beautifully ugly, and the usual pleasant witticisms, such as, "Which is the dog?" were often inflicted upon us. But we didn't mind, being a well-established firm of partners, who could afford to overlook the comments of mere outsiders.

In the midst of our prosperity came an unexpected break. A reform wave swept over the city and closed most of the "resorts." The loss of my position left us in a badly crippled financial condition.

Bill and I had lived in a style befitting two celebrities. Porterhouse steaks, fine chops, and cutlets had been frequent items on our bills of fare. The drop was sudden and emphatic. Stews, fried liver, and hash took the place of the former substantial meals, and our constitutions did not thrive very well. It did not even stop at that, for, ere long, we were regular _habitues_ of the free-lunch counters. It often almost broke my heart to see my Bill, well bred and blooded, feed on the scraps thrown to him from a lunch counter. But there was a dog for you! Instead of turning his nose up at it, or eating it with growl and disgust, Bill would devour the pickled tripe or corned beef with a well-feigned relish. Between the mouthfuls his glance would seek mine and he would say, quite plainly: "Don't worry on my account. I'm getting along very nicely on sour tripe. In fact, it is a favorite dish of mine."

You poor, soulless Bill, of whom many men; with souls, could learn a lesson in grit and pluck!

During that spell of idleness our hours in the room were less cheerful than before. I must confess that my "blues" were inspired by material cares, and not by any regrets or self-reproaches; but, whatever the cause, they were sitting oppressively on me, and I often found myself in an atmosphere of the most ultra indigo. It did not take Bill very long to understand these moods, and, by right of his partnership, he took a hand in dispelling them.

He would place himself directly in front of me, and stare at me with unflinching gaze. Not noticing any effect of his hypnotic suggestions, he would go further, and place his paw on my knee, with a little pleading whine. Having awakened my attention, he would put himself into proper oratorical pose and loosen the flood-gates of his rhetoric.

"Say, Kil, I gave you credit for more sense and courage. Here you are, sitting with your hands in your lap, and bemoaning a fate which is largely of your own making. Besides--excuse me for being so brutally frank--you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Big and strong, you live in idleness, and now you kick because you are down and out and deprived of your despicable means of livelihood. Owen Kildare, brace up and be a man. You are not friendless. I am here. True, I'm only a dog, a soulless brute, but I'm your Bill, and we're going to stick until we both win out!"

You will not offend me by calling me a silly fool for putting these words into Bill's mouth. Perhaps I err greatly in believing that Bill was not without influence over me, or that I could understand him; perhaps it was all imagination, but, if it was--and I doubt it--it was good, because, no matter what it may be, whether imagination, inspiration or aspiration, if it leads up and not down, it cannot be too highly appreciated.

There were times when Bill's speech was either less convincing or my period of blues more pronounced than usual, and then he would resort to more drastic measures. He undertook to prove by the most vivid object lesson that a buoyancy of spirits is the first essential. Dogs, when gay and playful, run and romp. Bill made believe he was gay, and romped and raced and ran. If you will take note of the fact that the exact measurements of the room were fifteen by twelve feet, you can easily imagine the difficulties opposing Bill's exercise. Snorting and puffing, he would cavort about the narrow precincts, now running into a bedpost, now bumping against the shaky washstand. But he always accomplished his object, because, before his collapse from his exertions, he never failed to put me into a paroxysm of laughter. No "blues" could ever withstand Bill's method.

Still, he was but a brute--a poor, dumb brute.

*KNIGHTS ERRANT.*

*CHAPTER VIII.*

*KNIGHTS ERRANT.*

An episode, which occurred about this time, took me into latitudes and scenes never before dreamed of by me.

As near as I can figure it, the event happened in March, 1893. I admit that in view of the seriousness of the incident my indefiniteness seems strange, but it is typical of my class.

Since I have moved in different spheres I have often wondered at this and tried to explain it to myself. No other explanation seems to be at hand except that this disregard of dates, of time and place is a characteristic of the world Bohemian, whether on the Bowery or in the Tenderloin. Recently I had an illustration of this.

In preparing a story, treating of a certain phase of Bowery life for a newspaper, I bethought myself of a man, who had been closely connected with the very occurrence I intended to mention. I sent for him and he came to my house, willing to tell me all he could remember. He recalled it all and graphically described every detail.

At last I asked him to tell me the year and month in which it had happened. That caused an immediate halt in the narrative and many minutes were spent in serious reflection. It was of no avail. We fixed the date of it to be in "about" such and such a year, and such and such a month, but it was impossible to accurately settle the year and month.

And this in view of the fact that the occurrence had been a cold-blooded murder, that my informant had been an eye-witness of it and had spent several months in the House of Detention.

Why others are so careless of dates I do not know and it is not to the point here, but I do know that in the life of the East Side, every existence is so crammed full of reality that even the most important occurrences are only of temporary moment. There, events are dated by events.

Ask a fellow of the Bowery when he had lost his father or mother, and he will very likely answer:

"Oh, about five or six years ago."

If you insist on a more precise answer, he will scratch his head, ponder for a while, and then: "Let's see! Yes, the old man died about two months after I came from the penitentiary on my last bit, and that was somewhere in 1891."

I was playing my now familiar role of bouncer at "Fatty Flynn's," an ex-convict, who was running a dance hall and dive at 34 Bond street. It was only a few doors from the Bowery and enjoyed a great vogue among the transient sightseers, traversing the Bowery in search of "good times."

On the night in question, two Princeton students, arrayed in yellow and black mufflers and wearing the insignia of their fraternity, visited the dance hall in the course of their lark. It was rather early for that sort of thing, the place was half-empty, and I, to do the honors of the establishment and also to speed their "buying," stepped over to the two young men for a "jollying" chat.

They were very young, had a considerable amount of money, and seemed flattered by my mark of distinction.

We spoke about "sporting" life in general and they asked me concerning several dives which were the most notorious of the day. As I had worked in every dive of notoriety, it was not a difficult matter for me to give all desired information. This seemed to invite their hunger for knowledge and they invited me to make the third in their party and to spend the night in going from dive to dive. This, by the way, this unofficial guide-business is another way in which the man, who has to live by his wits, turns many an "honest" dollar.

I could not accept the invitation as they held out no financial inducement and, that not forthcoming, I felt myself in duty bound to stick to my post and employer. However, it was a rainy night, business was slow and my chances for making any "extra" money very slim, and I entrusted one of my favorite waiters with the diplomatic mission of "boosting my game" with the two students. Moved by their curiosity and the skillful strategy of my emissary they made me an offer which was far more than I had expected, but which was nevertheless declined by me, until my persistent refusal to utilize my services in their behalf screwed their bid up to a figure, which I could not conscientiously decline.

I made my excuses to "Fatty" Flynn, and, that done, we started out on our expedition of studying social conditions and evil. Measured by dive time-standards, we had started out too early. It was only nine o'clock and the "fun" in the dives hardly ever began before midnight. Still, thanks to my knowing guidance, we found quite a number of dance halls where we could spend the intervening hours to the profit of the respective proprietors.

One thing, which soon disgusted me with my two charges, was that they were unable to stand much drink. I warned them against too much indulgence, as that would incapacitate them for the pleasures to come, but youth is proverbially obstinate and they went their whooping way rejoicing.

After having left the "Golden Horn," a well-known dance hall in East Thirteenth street, we walked down Third avenue as far as Twelfth street, where they insisted on going into a gin-mill, which shed its garish radiance across our path. It was not a regulation dive and only known as the rendezvous of a gang of tough fellows, who made that part of the thoroughfare none too safe for passing strangers. From this it should not be supposed that they were unkempt in appearance. Quite the reverse, they were rather well-dressed.

We happened to drop into the place at a most inopportune moment. A crowd of these fellows were at the bar spending lavishly the proceeds of some successfully worked "trick." They were very hilarious; so were my proteges, and I was kept constantly on the alert to prevent friction between the hilarious majority and minority. It was not my policy to become embroiled in any useless rows and I entreated the students to continue on our way downtown. But they were not in a condition to listen to reasoning and, attracted by several unclean stories told by members of the other faction, began to treat the "house" and intermingle with them.

There seemed to be no immediate prospect of any disturbance, and I permitted myself to leave the room for a few minutes. On my return the scene had completely changed. The crowd had closed around the students and were threatening them. I learned afterward that one of the students had taken umbrage at the rough familiarity of one of the gang and had attempted to hit him. The situation seemed critical, but not dangerous, and I was about to smooth matters, when my eye caught the reflection of some suspiciously glittering object. It was a knife in the hand of the tough offended and only partly concealed by the sleeve of the coat.

He was sneaking around the crowd to get beside his intended prey and had almost reached him when I decided to interfere. I had not measured my distance well, for just as I jumped between the two men, the knife was on its downward path and found the fulfillment of its mission in my neck.

A three-inch cut, a tenth part of an inch from the jugular vein, is not exactly the sort of souvenir one cares to take with him from an evening dedicated to "fun" and "good times." And when it confines one to the hospital for several weeks, it becomes a decided bore. All this was recognized by my new found friend, the student, who had been the indirect cause of my disfigurement, and having in the meantime, been expelled from his college for some wild escapade, he decided to show his gratitude to me, for what he was pleased to call "having saved his life," by taking me abroad.

"You are not educated. Travel is the greatest educator, therefore, I will show you the world."

It did not require much coaxing to accept the proposition, and after arranging for a boarding-place for my good, old Bill, we started out to see the world.

The next six months were and are like a dream to me. I was perfectly willing to have the world shown to me, but am inclined to believe that I had a rather imperfect demonstrator. To be quite candid, I doubted if my fellow-traveler was any more familiar with the world at large than I was.

At any rate, after a hurried and zig-zagged jaunt through Europe, we landed in Algiers with a fearfully shrunken cost capital. The cafes of that African Paris certainly broadened my education.

An expected remittance from home failed to arrive and my partner fell into a trance of deep and pondering thought. The conclusion of it was that we, by decree of my "college chum," were forthwith appointed adventurers, soldiers of fortunes, dare-devils and anything else that could make us believe our miserable, stranded condition was the stepping stone to great, chivalrous deeds to come. We enlisted in the Legion of Strangers.

But chivalry loses half of its charm when it comes in red trousers, blue jacket and on the back of a bony Rosinante, carrying you through stretches and stretches of glowing, burning sand. In short, the life of an African trooper, banished into the interior and subsisting on food as foreign to a Bowery stomach as the jargon spoken by his messmates, had absolutely no charm for me.

I am not very good at disguising my moods and emotions, and that I was homesick, that my heart, in spite of the excitement of the occasional skirmishes, yearned for my old Bowery, became apparent to my brother in misery. Then, a stranger coincidence, it also cropped out that my partner would much prefer to be on Broadway or Fifth avenue than in the dreary stockade of Degh-del-ker.

Alas, then, the railroad system of that part of Africa was hardly in existence, and even if it had been, it would not have been advisable for us to take berths of civilization, as the government foolishly wanted to retain our valuable service. History informs me that, shortly after our departure the garrison of Degh-del-ker had several disastrous encounters with some of the rebellious tribes, which would have probably resulted differently had we two lent our arms and strength to the cause of the tri-colored flag.

I mention this merely for the purpose of explaining the delicacy with which I have related this experience. Neither my friend nor myself have the slightest intention of becoming the unfortunate causes for international complications between our own country and France, for having bereft the latter of two such valiant warriors as ourselves.

We of the Bowery love colors and I had often had a potent wish that I could show myself in all the glory of my gaudy raiment to the gang of my old, beloved street. A Bowery boy in blue coat and red trousers, with clanking sabre by his side, I would have made the hit of my life if appearing thus attired in my favorite haunts. However, this pleasure was denied to me.

We managed to procure less stunning costumes and successfully besting the sentinels, started on our march for the coast.

It was a fearful trip. For six long weeks we plodded on through blinding sand and blistering heat, carefully avoiding all native villages and, yet, often saved from perishing just in the nick of time by tribesmen, who found us in helpless state in hiding places.

From the coast we shovelled our way across the Mediterranean in the boiler-room of the good ship St. Helene. It was suffocating work, and time and again, we were hauled up from the regions of below, thrown on the deck, and revived by streams of cold water.

At last, we steamed into the harbor of Marseilles, where we expected to find a letter of credit. It was there and we both fell on our knees in the most sincere thanksgiving ever offered.

Nothing more can be told in relation to this episode, excepting that we both felt we had been sufficiently educated by seeing the world and that we were urgently needed at home.

We lost no time in getting there.

*A PLAYER OF MANY PARTS.*

*CHAPTER IX.*

*A PLAYER OF MANY PARTS.*

You will easily believe me when I tell you that my very first task on coming home was to look up my good, old pal, my Bill.

His temporary home was a stable. The owner of it was an old acquaintance of mine and I was satisfied that Bill had been well treated during my absence. But how I had longed for him!

In Europe and Africa I had seen dogs of purest breed and best pedigree, but, to me, they were only as mongrels when compared to my Bill, my loyal boy. There had not been a day in our travels, when I had not asked myself the question: "I wonder what Bill is doing just now?"

And here I was home and rushing up to meet my pal.

The owner of the stable met me at the door and congratulated me on my safe return. Then he grew serious and began: "See, here, Kil, whatever we could do for Bill, we did, but there's something the matter with him. He's off his feed and not half the lively dog he used to be."

I did not wait to hear any more, but went to look for Bill. Up in the hayloft I caught a glimpse of him. On a bale, nearest to the dilapidated window, there lay my Bill, the picture of loneliness. He looked right straight in front of him and never shifted his eyes.

I stood and watched him for a few minutes, then, stepping behind a post, whispered: "Bill."

One ear went up, the eyes blinked once or twice, but otherwise he remained unchanged. He was afraid to trust his sense.

Again I whispered: "Bill, Oh Bill," and then hid myself.

I did not hear him move, but when I peeped out from my hiding place I found the gaze of his true eyes upon me and, with a whine and cry, my Bill and I were partners once again.

What a meeting that was I cannot describe to you, and, were I to attempt it, you would laugh at our silliness. Still, I think that some of you would not laugh and you will need no description of the scene.

That night saw Bill and me back in our ramshackle attic, and we sat up late into the morning exchanging experiences.

Divedom was still flourishing. The reform movement had subsided after the election, and things grew livelier every day. In spite of my ocean voyage and change of scene, my health was not very good, and it took considerable time to eliminate all traces of my African adventure.