Part 7

Two scantily furnished rooms was the best they ever knew, and in those two rooms the wife who talked broken English with a Limerick accent died, but not until she had left a blonde baby girl with the fair complexion of that dashing lieutenant.

As she grew up, the public school gave her an education, and when she was old enough she got work in an office. She was the belle of the ward, and that old longshoreman father was very proud of her. But before that she had one little adventure that is really worth a story by itself, and it shows the kind of a girl she is. She had a little love affair with a sailor on one of Uncle Sam’s warships, and when he was ordered to Cuba she took it into her head to go along. It was arranged that she was to take the name and place of a fellow who was about to desert. She came near getting away with the trick, and as it was she lasted for ten days before she was found. Then, after a brief interview with the commanding officer, she was put ashore when harbor was reached, and enough money was given her to get back to New York.

It was a clean case of throwback to the army ancestor, and the resemblance was so great that she might have been his sister. She held her head high, as became that one strain of good blood, good enough to stiffen her pride, but not good enough to shape her morals, for the taint was there in its full strength.

The elderly business man who employed her began flirting with her mildly, and he wound up by falling desperately in love, and so hard was he hit that at the end of six months she was installed in a handsome apartment at which he was a constant visitor. He took the one step that always leads to another, so that by the time twelve months had been rolled off on the calendar he had made her home his home, much to the detriment of his own respected domicile.

So great was the fascination of those black eyes that this sedate old gentleman forgot he ever had a home other than the one she was in; a wife, or even children. She became so necessary to his existence that she became a part of his life.

She might have walked this primrose path to the end had he not died. If he had lived there would have been no need for this story.

When he took that long, last journey her income came to an abrupt end and she was cast on her own resources with not even her longshoreman daddy to stand by and encourage her.

All this, you understand, is not a matter of fancy. It is, for the most part, court and police records.

She took up with a young fellow of about her own age who had about as little prospects as she had, and with the rent paid for three months in advance and just enough ready money to keep them going that long, they cast care to the winds and proceeded to enjoy themselves. One night, when the funds were getting to a low ebb, she, while ransacking a desk for a mislaid letter, found a half-used check-book which had belonged to her elderly protector.

“I could sign his name better than he could himself,” she remarked, “and I’ve done it, too.”

“Do you think we could swing one of them now?” said the man, sitting up straight as the inspiration came to him.

“Why, that’s absurd; he’s dead.”

“I know he’s dead all right. But fill one out for $75 and I’ll see what I can do with it.”

It was an easy trick for her, and in a moment she had handed him the paper.

“If I lay this, little girl,” he remarked as he went out, “we’re on the sunny side of Easy street for the rest of our lives.”

That heritage of brain stood her in good stead while he was away, and before he had returned she evolved a scheme that was worthy of a better cause.

It was this:

She would send him out to rob a letter box; they would open the mail thus stolen and search it for checks. She would copy the signature, make note of the bank, get blank checks of that institution and then commit the forgery.

It was almost too easy and the keynote of its success lay in its simplicity.

Of course, the laying of the spurious paper required nerve, but of what use is a man if he hasn’t nerve? When he came back unsuccessful, she explained her scheme, and they at once proceeded to put it in operation. With wire, to which was fastened an adhesive mixture, he prepared for the robbery of the mail boxes while she awaited results.

It has been told time and again how it worked and they themselves have admitted that their income rarely fell below $100 a day when they cared to work.

But at the end of every ready-money proposition of that kind there is a trap. Sometimes the road is very long and the final tragedy is averted for a considerable period, but whether long or short it is bound to come sooner or later.

The girl had grown to be a pastmaster of the art of forging signatures and success in getting the money had made the man bold. He began to be less cautious and the finish came so sure and sudden that it almost stunned him.

He was cleverly harvested by the police, who at once set out to get more than enough evidence to convict, for they looked upon him as the most dangerous of criminals. A spotter was sent out with instructions to ingratiate himself with the girl and, if possible, get a line on just the kind of work that had been done, and their second interview was very interesting.

“You take Billy’s place for a while,” she said to him, “and we’ll get enough money to get him out.”

“How?” asked the man.

“How? Are you stupid? Billy didn’t do anything but lay the paper. I filled out the checks every time. Didn’t you know that? It’s all my scheme. Billy only helped me and did as I told him. But he’s too nice a fellow to go up the river for a thing like this.”

It seems strange that with all her astuteness she should have given her hand away to a comparative stranger, but you must bear in mind that her side partner and confederate had been snatched away from her and she felt the need of some one to whom she could talk and in whom she could confide.

There is where she made a mistake, but it happened that it wasn’t a fatal one.

Bear in mind that she gave her hand away and told all she knew, and in that telling there was enough to convict her half a dozen times over. But she was game to the last ditch.

“I’m very sorry,” remarked her supposed confederate to her one evening, “but I’ll have to arrest you. _I’m_ an officer, you know.”

“I always ought to be guided by my first impressions,” she retorted. “I had an idea you were wrong when I first met you and if I had stuck to that you would have known nothing.”

“That’s right; but as it is I’ll have to take you down to headquarters.”

He acted as if it was a job he didn’t relish very much, and if the truth were told he would have let her make a getaway of it if he had dared.

In the prison she was popular as soon as she stepped inside the gates, and there was no one who would believe that a girl with a face like that would be guilty of harming anyone, much less being a confirmed and expert forger.

So the trial was called.

She treated it as a joke, and was by far the most composed person in the room. Her partner, to his credit, swore that he was the one who had done all of the robbing of the mail boxes, and all of the forging of checks, and he even went so far as to imitate several signatures, but that was offset by the evidence of the detective.

It was an easy matter to convict him, and he stood facing a term in prison.

Her trial was merely a bit of comedy in which she played the star part, and when the last scene had dropped she was bowing her thanks to the judge, the jury, the lawyers and the spectators, and smiling all the while like a girl with a new doll on Christmas morning. The red was in her cheeks and there was a look of roguery in her black eyes, and she sailed out of the courtroom amid a perfect shower of congratulations.

And it was all for one strain of blood.

Father an Irish stevedore, mother a Slav peasant whom centuries of oppression had made apathetic, grandmother also a Slav, and grandfather a German noble. She had gone back one generation to get that criminal taint, and she may have gone back further than that to get the good strain that made the whole world smile with her when she smiled and turn enemies into friends.

FROM THE WOODS TO BROADWAY

Jane her name was--plain Jane--but she wasn’t plain by any means. She was far from that. She could smoke a cigarette, drink a bottle of wine, and wear a Paquin gown with grace, and in these three things a woman has a chance to show what she is and what she can do. For my part I would consider them a test, just the same as performing certain mathematical calculations, and showing a proficiency in geography are tests in civil service examinations. There is nothing that gives a woman so much poise and self-confidence as smoking a cigarette daintily. It gives her a chance to think, you see, and appear unconcerned, and it is an ambush behind which she may hide in time of trouble.

This particular Jane had all the vices and charms that a young woman who is known to the crowd by her first name ought to have, or might be supposed to have. Men who were introduced to her found themselves calling her Jane inside of the hour, and that was because of her genius, for there are a lot of women in this world whose baptismal name no man would ever dare to use, even though they had been acquainted for years.

There is just as much difference in women as there is in drinks. It isn’t necessary to go into details on that subject, for every good hard drinker knows the different sensations of the different brands the morning after.

Jane blew into the big-city with a West wind, a dress suit case, on one end of which were the initials of her right name, and the drummer of a wholesale lace house who had caught her eye and won her regard by giving her some of his samples.

Your attention is called to the fact that a drummer’s existence is a cinch, especially if he has samples that he can afford to give away.

This one had a mustache that curled at the ends, a bank roll that looked like a toy balloon into which a kid had stuck a pin--which was Jane’s fault--and a nerve which was a little bit harder than Harveyized steel. He used the nerve in his business, and besides, it came in handy so far as Jane was concerned because he had a wife in Harlem. He planted Jane in a furnished flat, where he paid the rent for two weeks. Then because he had a champagne taste and a beer purse, he went to a pal of his who was a stage manager on Broadway and got the lady a job carrying a spear and wearing pale pink tights in a spectacular show that was about to be produced.

He was sitting in her front room warming his shins at the steam heat when he broke the news to her, and this is the way he did it. You sports can take a tip from this so you can see how it is done, for no man can ever foretell when he will be called on to produce the same line of talk.

“Do you know,” he began, “that you are the best fellow in the world and that the more I see of you the more I like you?”

“Do you?” asked Jane, simply, for she was nothing more nor less than a country girl. “I am very glad of that, but you know the rent was due yesterday and it hasn’t been paid yet.”

“Now,” he went on, ignoring the touch, “I know you well enough to know that you would like to be independent and make your own way in the world. I want to see you where you will be in a position to support yourself, and so I have arranged with a man who is under obligations to me to give you a chance and put you in the chorus of the ‘Ice King.’ You’ll get $15 a week at the start and then you’ll be jumped to $18. After that it’s up to you whether or not you come to the front and get the real good money with the yellowbacks.”

“But I have never been on the stage,” she said.

“Don’t I know that, and haven’t I fixed it? You’ll be broken in all right and all you have to do is as you are told and you’ll get your money every Monday night.”

So it was that the girl from Peapack, N. J., became independent and self-supporting, and was able before long to send a hundred-dollar note to the folks at home, for whom she still had a deep regard. You see, it is only the girls who save their money who can do that sort of thing.

When the young fellows around town wanted to see a show, some one would suggest that they go up and see Jane, and although she hadn’t a line to speak nor a note to sing, they would line up in the front row as if she was a star. It didn’t take the manager of the show very long to find out that Jane could draw like a porous plaster and then he jumped her salary up to $25.

With that she went to a fashionable hair dresser and paid $200 to have her hair turned from chestnut blonde to a hue of a stick of pale molasses taffy, the kind you get for five cents a throw, which sticks in your teeth and plays the deuce with the filling.

Girls of Jane’s kind are like boxers, in that their prosperity is manifested outwardly without delay. The aspiring young knuckle-duster, as soon as he wins a prominent battle, will at once hie himself off and blow in a chunk of the purse on a silk hat, patent leather shoes, a frock coat and a cane. With the balance he will annex a diamond, then he immediately becomes the real thing.

A girl has no use for frock coats and canes, but she goes strong on hair, so her loose coin goes for a gallon of bleach strong enough to change the faith of a Hindoo fakir, and that is the strongest thing in the world, except, perhaps, an African after a hard day’s work in the slaughter house.

She had a flat on Central Park, South--that’s wrong, it was an apartment, because she paid over $1,000 a year for it, whereas flats only cost about $40 a month-and she entertained the bunch with cozy little wine dinners that would make a man leave his happy home in a minute.

She was still getting her $25 a week, you know.

Then she tore the drummer’s name out of her address book, for he was a back number who had shown a decided tendency to cold feet.

She described him to the butler, and said that if he ever put in an appearance he was to be dismissed with the single word:

“Skiddoo.”

“I don’t understand,” said the butler, whose previous job had been on Fifth avenue. “What does Skiddoo mean?”

“It doesn’t make any difference whether you understand or not, just you say it to him and he will know, and that’s enough.”

And all that night this cheese sandwich with the side whiskers kept repeating the word to himself so he wouldn’t forget it, and he wrote it down on his cuff. He also traced it out on a card that he stuck in behind the hat rack in the hall. In his heart and soul he thought it was some foreign word which meant that the lady wasn’t at home or didn’t care to be disturbed.

That’s the worst of being a butler instead of Chuck Connors.

The traveling man with the immaculate gall had reached the worrying stage because the girl was doing so well and he had been pushed off the track. If she had stuck to her little furnished flat and the cheap togs he would have gone on his way whistling a merry tune, just as all men do. But she was on the high wave and sipping the cream off the top, and he thought there ought to be an armchair waiting for him by the fireplace of her new ranch, which was very natural, for all men are cast in the same identical mould. They don’t care for what they have, and are always hunting for something that’s hard to get.

If you look like the goods you’ll have them all going, but as soon as you tell your hard luck story you’ll get the sandbag where it will do the most good.

One night, after the show, Jane and a bunch of the merry-merry with money to spend, or burn, or throw away, was in the front room playing dollar limit poker, when the drummer, with a choice collection of high balls stowed away under his vest, and in a fit condition to either fight or cry, came up in the elevator. He had overdrawn his salary and was prepared to buy wine, if necessary, and he was dressed like a man whose credit is good at the best clothing store in town.

He held his thumb against the electric button for a moment, and because the butler was busy with a sauterne cup, very choice, being of the Barton and Guestier vintage of ’84, the kind Smithy always orders when he wants to be real flossy, the maid turned the knob and came face to face with him.

He made his little spiel, shoved in and stood in the hall on one foot waiting for the glad hand and the happy cry that he felt sure was coming.

“What’s his name? Who is he? Why don’t you get his card?” he heard Jane say. Then the maid came back.

“Will you please give me your card?”

“That won’t be necessary,” he remarked airily. “Just tell her Harry is here and she will know.”

He heard the maid telling her little story and then Jane’s silver tones floated out to him.

“What, that lobster? How did he get in? He must have had a shoe horn, and I suppose it will take a load of dynamite to get him out.” Then something else and all the girls laughed.

He pulled himself together and walked to where the voice came from.

The heat of the room was beginning to affect the cargo he was carrying and he hit both sides of the wall about eight times before he got to the door. He pulled the curtains aside and looked in on the game.

“Just thought I’d call,” he said, grinning.

“Well, didn’t I always tell you that you had bad thoughts?” she asked.

“Thought you’d be glad to see me,” he went on.

“Still thinking?” she queried. “I’ll see that raise and raise you back ten more.”

“I wouldn’t mind taking a hand if you’ll play fair.” Just then the butler came in with the drinks.

“Henderson,” remarked Jane without even so much as looking up, “what was that word I taught you--do you remember it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, what was it?”

“Skid-doo, ma’am.”

“Very good. Now turn around and say it to that man.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He turned slowly and with great dignity to the drummer who was bracing himself up against the door, and commanded:

“Skid-doo, sir.”

“So _I’m_ to be fired, eh?”

“Say it again, James; it may be some minutes before it takes effect.”

“Skid-doo, sir.”

“Suppose I don’t go?”

There was no answer to that, but Jane hadn’t been in New York a whole year without being on to her job, and she was able to face any proposition that ever came over the hills.

“Get me a piece of rope, James.”

“Yes, ma’am,” and away he went, just a bit faster than usual, wondering, no doubt, what the eccentric and erratic mistress of his was going to do next. He got the rope all right and returned with it in short order, because this seemed to be a case where haste was necessary, even at the expense of dignity. She took it from him and walking over to the drummer, said, as she deftly passed it around him.

“You had me on a string once, Harry, and now I’m going to get you on a rope.”

“Stop your kidding and be nice, Jane,” he spoke up, trying to look upon the whole thing as a joke, but while he was expostulating she had knotted the rope around both his arms and signalled to the butler to help her. “I want him tied over there,” she said, pointing to the piano, and before he knew it he was seated on the floor with his back up against a slab of mahogany, being held by the servant while Jane was making knots like a sailor.

When the job was done the game was resumed and nobody in the room paid the slightest bit of attention to him. He threatened and begged and finally he swore, and then Jane poured a glass of ice water over his head to cool him off.

“I always thought you had a mean disposition,” she remarked, “and now I know it.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for me,” he shouted.

“No, nor you wouldn’t be there if it hadn’t been for me,” she retorted.

For three solid hours he was kept trussed up like a fowl ready for the oven, and at the end of that time the game came to an end.

“I’m going to bed now,” said Jane, “and in half an hour the butler will come in and untie you. He will help you to your feet and when he says skiddoo to you I hope you will understand what he means. Good night.”

For thirty minutes the clock ticked monotonously and the back of the man on the floor was beginning to ache horribly. At last the silvery chime announced the half hour and then Henderson stepped softly in.

One by one he untied the fastenings and it was a tough job in view of the fact that a woman had made them. After that he helped the visitor to his feet. He assisted him on with his coat, handed him his hat, and together they walked, without either saying a word, to the hall door. The butler swung it solemnly open, slowly waved his hand, bowed deeply from the hips and said:

“Skid-doo, sir.”

“Go to hell,” came back the answer, as Harry shot down the stairs.

“How did he take it?” asked Jane the next morning.

“He took it all right, ma’am, but he was very uncivil, ma’am.”

THE WHIMS OF CURVES

The fellows who buy wine and eat terrapin at their midnight lunches--I ought to say dinners--had found a new attraction, and for a brief while she was the idol of the hour. But the trouble with these idols is that they don’t last, and the finish as a rule is very disheartening, and in many cases pathetic.

Of course, every once in a while a wise one will come to the front who will do a little bookkeeping with herself, and when the smoke of battle will have cleared away she finds she has enough to tell everybody to go to blazes if she cares to be rude.

But that is the exception rather than the rule. Quick money, you know, is like a dream, in that it only lasts while you are asleep. You think you are in a mansion, and when the knock comes on the door you discover that you are in the same old hall bedroom, and realize that you have to get up just as you have been doing all your life, and work ten hours a day--or eight, as the case may be--in order to get enough money to pay what you owe.

The girl that all the bloods were buying dinners and flowers for came from the West not so very long ago, and she didn’t leave any of her good looks behind her, either. She hit the town with a dress suit case, a good complexion and a taking way with the boys, and that’s all the capital any skirt wearer needs in Gotham if she is only introduced to the right crowd of spenders and keeps away from the pikers who have their bank rolls lashed to the mast or bottled up so tight that when they do release a bill it smells like an Egyptian mummy which has been packed in a vault since the time of Pharaoh.

This lady hit the trail which led to the show houses. She had no idea that she was an Adelina Patti or a Sarah Bernhardt, but she knew she could carry a spear as good as any old-timer, and she was prepared to make good.

“Got a job for me?” she asked the first stage manager she happened to run across.

He looked her over and then remarked casually:

“I don’t think so, for all the star parts are given out for the season, but you might go over and see Frohman and ask him if you can’t understudy Maude Adams.”

“Don’t strain your voice on my account,” she said, by way of a come-back. “I’m looking for about $18 a week in the line-up, and when it comes to tights, I guess there ain’t any of them who has anything on me. You had me flagged for a Sis Hopkins, but you want to throw some sand on the track because you’re sliding. I don’t sit up at night reading Romeo and Juliet, and where I come from they think Shakespeare is a new kind of breakfast food. Can you get busy now?”

“I guess I’ll have to if I want to get rid of you.”

“Well, you’re learning, and that’s a good sign.”

So after he had looked her over again very carefully, he concluded she’d do for the chorus for a starter anyhow.