Part 13

Here was a picture strong enough to turn the head of any woman, much less a Syrian straight from peasant stock, brought into the world by accident, with a face like a Madonna and with a supple, pliant figure that made men turn around and look after her. A girl who had known what privation and hardship was, and who came of a race where women were born to be servants and made to wait on men, the masters. Her beauty had brought her nothing and now it had suddenly become an asset, a stock in trade of so great value that for the rest of her life she would know neither work, nor care, nor trouble. The blood rushing through her veins made her dizzy and her head fell forward as her eyes half closed. One brown arm crept up and around the neck of this strong, broad-shouldered American, and it kept her from falling to the floor in the excess of her emotion. He felt her going, and picking her up, carried her to the big armchair over in the corner, where she cuddled up like a rabbit. She was clasping and unclasping her fingers nervously as he stood looking at her and her half-closed eyes never once met his.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, bending over. “Can I do anything for you?”

“No,” she whispered; “I was only thinking of my brother.”

“You don’t want to mind him; he’s all right wherever he is.”

“Not that, but he might not want--he might not like you to--to love me,” and she looked up at him.

“We’ll take care of your brother all right. Because he is your brother I will do what I can for him. Why, I will----”

The voice of the Jap came from the other room just as Jimmy was settling himself on the edge of the big chair, and had his arm around the Syrian’s neck.

“No,” it said, “you wait; I see.”

There was an angry voice raised in expostulation, and then before the man could move the brother came bounding through the parted curtains. He paused for just one brief moment and then shrieked:

“Dekka.” He said something else, too, but it was in his own language and only the woman understood, but whatever it was it made her shrink still lower in her seat and cover her face with her hands. He was on Jimmy like a cat, and three times, even though the frightened Jap was trying to pull him off, he cut, and each cut was across the bridge of the nose, and the knife blade went as true and sure to the mark as though it was in the hands of a surgeon on a patient who was under ether. Then with one firm grip on the wrist of the girl he dragged her to the door and out, while the faithful Yama was using the silk scarfs--the ones which had just been bought--trying to staunch the flow of blood.

And that’s the story.

And the moral of it is that every man should stick to his own race and his own blood, Caucasian to Caucasian and Oriental to Oriental, for there are some things in this world that don’t mix any more than oil and water.

THE REJUVENATION OF PATSY

We’ll just take in a fight to-night for a change. I’ve had you Down the Line, over on the East Side, in the wine joints, behind the scenes, and in half a dozen of the so-called swell restaurants, and all the time there have been all kinds of punching matches going on in a dozen different halls, “Clubs,” they are called, just to sidestep the stern arm of the law, but what difference does it make to a good sport so long as the men are well matched and they are willing to mix it at all times?

Three rounds are the limit, but there is a lot doing between bell and bell--enough to make even the most seasoned ringster sit up and look around as if to say:

“Now here is some punching that does a man’s heart good--it seems like old times, when----.” You know the rest about the days of long ago, and if you listen to him he will hand you a line of talk that will put you away for the count.

You may talk as you like about all the sports you know, but after all there is nothing like a good go with the gloves between a pair who know their business, and there are few men who have any red blood in their veins who will not go a long ways to see a slugfest. Of course you’ll always find up against some bar a bunch of dead ones who will stretch their arms and say:

“Not for mine; I’ve seen all I want to see, and I wouldn’t go around the corner to get a ringside seat at a go between Roosevelt and Kaiser Wilhelm.”

There’s a screw loose somewhere in these fellows, or else they are drying of dry rot and don’t know it. Nine out of ten of them are bigger around the waist than they are around the chest, and they invariably talk loud.

There’s a little club that I know of where you can get a great run for your money, and we will go there.

It’s a case of come early and avoid the rush, for when the gong rings for the first bout there is only standing room left and that is at a premium because the prices are low. The manager doesn’t have to bother his head about making matches because the “talent” comes to him, and it often happens that the men who furnish the preliminaries are picked from out of the audience. These three-round affairs have done a lot to bring out a bunch of new ones; any young fellow who knows any part of the game can go on and get a try-out. He earns a few dollars and if he proves to be good, he is boosted along the line.

There is a mixed crowd on hand to-night, and you can expect a good card. In one of the ringside seats is the district attorney, a man who loves a fair fight in or out of the ring. Further up are a few brokers who have thought it worth while to come down here for one night, anyhow. It is safe to say that every class in life is represented, the man who is worth a million rubs elbows with the ten-dollar-a-week clerk and they fraternize as freely as though they were chums.

“This Abe Attell is a clever boy, but they say he hasn’t the punch,” ventures the clerk.

“Yes, I saw him recently and he made that big fellow look like a cart horse,” returns the man of money.

The fellow who paid one-tenth of his weekly stipend to join the club for that one night, which, by the way, is the system employed to evade the law on the subject, pulls out a cigarette, and asks:

“Can I trouble you for a light?”

“No trouble at all,” comes the cheerful answer, and a glowing perfecto, which cost not less than thirty-five cents, is handed over.

That miscellaneous crowd is welded into one solid mass by the masonry of sport, even though individual opinions are retained, and the opinion of a seasoned ring-goer is set hard and deep as the rock of Gibraltar.

The smoke is wafted back and forth like the tidal currents of the sea and the exertions of a hundred devotees of nicotine are adding to it every moment. An interminable buzz of voices fills the big room, and there is fight in the very air.

“I tell you the old man could lick O’Brien any day he wanted to; he’s got the punch and he can stand the gaff, ain’t that enough?” This in a strident voice from the cheaper seats, and it was answered at once by an argument that was apparently deemed irrefutable:

“Why didn’t he do it?”

Near the door is a fight bug whom no one ever heard of, and who is interesting simply because he is a freak. He is voluble, emphatic and vainglorious.

“I kin beat Britt an’ he knows it, an’ dat’s the reason he won’t give me a chanst. He’d be a pipe fer me, ‘cos I’d infight him, an’ he couldn’t stand my body punchin’. Dere’s where I’m great--on dose body blows. I challenged him three times an’ he never paid no attention to me. He’s afraid uv me, dat’s what he is. I kin beat ’em all if dey’ll only cum to me.”

“You couldn’t beat a carpet,” shouts a wit, and the bug is temporarily squelched.

The noise of the voices is suddenly emphasized--the first pair are coming and the show is on. Into the ring they climb from opposite corners, principals and seconds, and then, more leisurely, as befits the dignity of his exalted position, comes the announcer. They all have the same speech, which has been doing duty for generations, and this one is no different from the rest:

“A little order, please, gentlemen, and stop smoking while the bouts are on.” But no one ever pays any attention to that last. “These two boys,” he calls them by name, “both members of this club,” another neat little scheme to evade the law, “will box three rounds for scientific points only. Keep a little order, please, because if you make a noise the bouts will be stopped. The men will box straight Marquis of Queensberry rules. All ready, boys.”

He waves his hands toward the corners, and then backs through the ropes conscious of a duty well performed. The gloves, a bit too big for the majority of the onlookers, have in the meantime been adjusted, the referee calls “Time,” they step to the center, shake hands and get down to work. Sparring doesn’t go in bouts of such short duration, so it’s a case of mix it from the start. Here is a sturdy little Italian against a good, fast and clever Irish lad. The good-natured grin of the former is never relaxed for a moment as he wades in, taking a punch to give one. This fellow is fighting his way out of debt, and he’s well on the road to financial freedom now. Last year he figured in more than one star fight and he looked like a money-maker. He took care of his end of the purse every time, but on one of his Southern trips he fell in with a girl that he grew to think pretty well of, and it wasn’t long before she became the custodian of his coin. When the bank roll was big enough to suit her, she blew with another boy and left this one broke. That’s the reason he’s putting the gloves on and going three hard rounds for a ten spot now. The Irish boy is punching him at will and counting up the points every time they come together, but there is steam behind those blows of the Italian, and it isn’t hard to predict the result if they were to go ten rounds instead of three. At the finish they are furiously mixing it in a corner, and the gong rings its notification more than once before they break away, shake hands, the Italian still smiling, and climb out to make way for the next pair.

The boys are put on as fast as they can bring them in the ring, and the bouts are all good ones. Finally there is only one more to come, and it is that for which the crowd has been waiting.

Before the announcer can do his next stunt half a hundred hands--gloved and ungloved--are coming together in applause. The cue came when a trim built, muscular little fellow, whose condition is not too good, slips through the ropes. He smiles cordially at the crowd and nods his head jerkily in response to the reception.

“I take pleasure in introducing Patsy Haley,” begins the announcer, but he is stopped by the applause which breaks out again, and he fails to get in that saving clause about the “club member” business. As if Patsy needed any introduction to that crowd of sports, young or old, who have seen him fight when he was at his best. How can they ever forget the wonderful cleverness he used to show? Don’t you remember when he fought Terry McGovern before the Lenox Athletic Club in 1899? It was all Patsy up to the eighteenth round, and even the wonderful Terry couldn’t find him until then, when he landed the crashing punch that gave him the big end of the purse. Is it any wonder that they applaud him? He’s too wise for the best of them for three rounds even to-day, for he can stall and get away with as little effort as a kid makes when he goes up against a nursing bottle. He hits when and where he likes and how he likes, but he has no punch, as the youngster who is up against him soon finds out, and so he wades in to do a little execution with a wild, swinging right, but the glove never gets within three inches of Patsy’s smiling face. It is jab, jab, jab with the old-timer, and the crowd roars its approval, while the Kid’s seconds keep calling to him in stage whispers which can be heard all over the house, to--

“Mix it there, Kid, one punch will do him.”

Their advice is good, but the bewildered, dazed kid, not hurt a bit, but simply made dizzy by those lightning-like feints, followed by taps that push his head back and throw him off his balance, can’t make good. He rushes, swinging as he comes in, but he finds himself breasting the ropes, and he turns only to get a straight left square on the point of the nose.

It’s very discouraging work for a novice. You see, he’s evidently been figuring on going into the ring and putting this old-timer away and then getting his name and picture in the sporting papers. It’s a hundred to one that he’s been in training, and he’s had it all framed up with his trainer just how he was going to do the trick. It seemed very easy in that stable, or loft, or wherever it was that he had his punching bag and skipping rope, and he was told there was no harm in a dozen of Patsy’s punches rolled into one. He knows that now, but that merciless, pitiless jab is enough to worry anyone, and besides, his arms are beginning to ache with the effort of swinging and hitting nothing.

“Close in, Kid; close in.”

They are calling to him again and he makes another rush. He is going to try to knock the smile off that face this time. He puts all his effort in the blow and lets go. He misses, and the force of it brings him to his knees as the bell rings for the end of the first round.

He takes his seat and he knows that those yells are not for him.

His seconds and counsellors are there as quickly as he is, and while he is being fanned, and rubbed and sprayed, he is also being advised how to do it next time. Over in the other corner Patsy is talking laughingly with some ringside friends.

“You’re as fast as ever, son,” says one. “How are you feeling?”

That is always the proper thing to ask a man who is in the ring--that is, when you’ve nothing else to say. I’ll bet no man ever went in the ring who wasn’t asked that question at least a dozen times. It seems to be sort of a stock query, just as every rube considers it his bounden duty to ask an actor who plays his town:

“Where do you go from here?” As if it made any difference to him where the actor went, but he feels he has to say something, so he says that.

The gong rings, and they’re at it again. The Kid has a new set of tactics now, and he proceeds to put them into execution, so as soon as he leaves his chair he starts on a run for his opponent. He’s going after him this time, sure enough. Out goes the left and around goes the right. The right gets Patsy just behind the ear and shakes him up a bit.

“Go after him; you’ve got him,” call out the seconds. He thinks so, too, and he draws back when the versatile Patsy slips into a clinch.

“Break there; break now,” calls the referee. The Kid is pushed away and his antagonist dances back out of reach, not showing the slightest evidence of distress. Truly this is no cinch. Again and again an attempt is made to land that finishing punch, but each time it fails to connect, and when it does land it doesn’t seem to land in the right place. In a mixup his chance comes again, and he rips up a right to the stomach so hard that the old-timer grunts. That gives him a little courage and after the break he rushes again, but the jaw that he aimed for is not there. His nose is beginning to get a bit sore when the bell rings with rather a welcome sound.

Lacking the punch this “vet” seems to be all right for three rounds. He’s a bit winded, to be sure, but who wouldn’t be under the circumstances? It’s good, anyhow, to see him with the mitts on once more. It makes a fellow think of old times. I am just about to become reminiscent when the gong rings again.

“Shake hands and windup,” says the referee.

The padded fists meet for an instant, the Kid steps back one pace and then lunges forward. He comes in with a jab, and he catches Haley squarely on the mouth with his left. Aha, he has landed. He pulls his right back to follow it up, but in that fraction of a second his chance has gone, for he’s up against a ring general. Two more futile rushes and then he tried again. This time he misses with the left, but starting his right without pulling back, he catches his man on the jaw just in front of the ear. He feels the blow land and then he starts in with rights and lefts, but shifty Patsy steps inside of them and they go around his neck. In a frenzy the Kid pushes him away, but for his trouble he gets another jab on that sore nose that brings the moisture to his eyes.

“Make him fight, Kid,” bawls the trainer; “go after him.”

He might as well go after a dancing sunbeam as to go after the elusive, shifty, smiling Patsy, who is stalling and jabbing the third round away, and when the final gong rings he is still going after him with nothing doing. There is bitterness in his heart, but it doesn’t last, for when they shake hands, the little fellow who made many a good one in his day look like a draught horse, remarks:

“You’re all right, Kid, and you’ll beat a lot of them some day.”

A CASE OF KNOCKOUT DROPS

In a back room of a place just off Broadway sat a good-looking brunette--you will notice all these girls of mine are good looking--and three young fellows of the kind known to the police as “cadets.” There was nothing unusual about this room except that it was better furnished than you would have expected, and it had expensive oil paintings on the walls. Besides, it was carpeted. All this would mean higher-priced drinks if not a better service.

It was a drinking place where women might come with their escorts and feel reasonably safe from intrusion, and midnight was its busiest hour. Just now was the calm which precedes the storm, and there were not enough guests to induce the waiters to cease their gossiping and loafing in the big room outside.

The woman who sat there at the little round table was a common type; you can see her like wherever you go, especially at night. When the sun has gone down and the lights are bright, she flutters out of some cave-like dwelling like a new kind of butterfly, with the instincts of the moth, in that she flutters only at night, and in her veins runs the blood of a hunter, for she is ever on the trail.

This one is pretty in a negative sort of way. Her features are regular, her teeth are white and strong, and her eyes are bright and have expression, but if you will look close you will notice a hard glance there. It is neither merciful nor kind.

She has emotions, but they are hardly worth considering, for they are of the baser sort.

She has nerve, daring, courage and calmness, and because her life has been a constant warfare she fears nothing. She may dread the touch of a policeman’s hand and the command to “Come on,” but she doesn’t fear it. There is a difference, you know, between the words of fear and dread.

It is unfortunate that she was born to be what she is.

Her first adventure in life was when she became infatuated with the glitter of the arena, and with a girl companion of her own age took up with a couple of clowns attached to a circus. But she soon found the difference between the dressing tents and reserved seats and headed for the nearest big city.

“There ain’t a case note among the four of us,” remarks one of the men. “I think we’re a bunch of shines. The first thing you know we’ll have to go out and look for jobs.”

The girl was drumming idly on the table with her fingers.

“You’re the strongest one of the lot, what’s the matter with you making a start?” said another to the one who had just spoken.

“I’d look nice getting up with the milk wagons, wouldn’t I?”

The girl stopped her drumming and glanced up.

“You can leave me out of all this argument,” she remarked, “for I don’t figure. No more Broadway for mine after ten o’clock to-night, and it’s a case of good-by for you, too, Jack.”

“I suppose that’s another one of your funny jokes,” said Jack, “but I don’t like those kind of stories, so you can cut it out.”

“No funny story about it at all,” she went on, in that even, monotonous way which is particularly aggravating. “I’m tired of this way of living, and I’m tired of being a coaling station, and I know when I got enough.”

“Where are you going?”

She had resumed her drumming and paid no attention.

“Who are you going with?”

“That’s none of your damned business.”

He leaned forward and taking her by the wrist gave her a vicious pull toward him.

“I suppose it’s that guy from the country?”

“Well, what if it is?” she said defiantly, and then, as if she had suddenly made up her mind, she went on, talking rapidly, as a woman will do when she is under a nervous strain:

“He’s going to do what you never thought of doing--he’s going to marry me and make me decent--if it ain’t too late. He’s going to meet me here at ten o’clock and we’re going to jump to the Coast. He’s got the coin, for he’s sold out his farm. He’s going to take me out there, and he says we are going to begin all over again; that I’ll have a good chance, for nobody will know where I came from. What do I get here? Nothing. If I’m sick I can go to the hospital or die in my room like a rat in a garret. I haven’t a friend in the world who would do anything for me on the level and for pure friendship’s sake. If I was to grow old to-morrow, I couldn’t get enough to buy a cup of coffee, and of all the good fellows I know there is only one who would walk across the street to do anything for me just because he liked me. You’re broke now, and you are wondering how you are going to get money, but you know down in your heart that you’re expecting me to get it for you. You’ve got a long wait, for I’ll not get it. I’m through, and that settles it.”

“So you’ve been meeting this fellow on the quiet, have you?” asked the one who was called Jack.

“No, I haven’t seen him for five years.”

“Don’t think you can kid me; how have you been framing things up then if you haven’t been meeting him?”

She gazed at him steadily for a moment as if she were shaping her course, and then she said:

“Well, I’ll just put you right for once. I suppose you’ve heard of the mail. Well, I’ve been getting letters from him, and here,” pulling one from a little handbag she carried, “is the last one.”

With a quick, deft movement he snatched it from her hand and opened it. At the first line he laughed loudly.

“He’s nutty, all right--he must have it bad. Listen to him:”

He began to read.

MY DEAR LITTLE GIRL:--I have just received your letter, and the world looks different to me already. I don’t want you to tell me any more about yourself, for I don’t want to know any more. We have nothing to do with the past now, it is only the future which concerns us and that will be what we make it. I have sold the old farm, so we have $12,000 to start with, and I shall be in New York at the place you suggest and on time to the minute, so you can look for me. Don’t bother about baggage or any of your personal belongings, for all we will want is a minister. After that we can talk things over. I hate to leave the old place, but it makes no difference now that I’m going to have you.

Yours always, JOE.

He handed the letter back to her.

“Little girl, you’re all right after all, ain’t she, fellows? Landed a guy with $12,000 in cold coin, and he’ll have the goods on him, too, I suppose. We won’t do a thing but take that bank roll away and send him back to the farm again.”

Then he turned to the girl.

“How’s the best way to do it? Give him the peter? Maybe it will be best to take him up to the room and wait till he gets asleep. It’s your job, Maude, so we’ll do as you say. It’s only nine o’clock, and we’ve got an hour yet to frame it up.”

She was looking at him with horror in her face.

“You’re wrong,” she cried, “he’s not to be trimmed. He’s going to marry me and we are going away. There’s no job about this, and I want you to leave him alone.”