Chapter 4

“I understand, Mr. Mogley. It's very late, but I'll see what I can do.”

Mogley passed out, walking down the five flights of stairs to the street, forgetful of the elevator.

The dramatic editor looked at his watch. “Half-past twelve,” he said; then, to a man at another desk:

“Jack, I can't come just yet. I'll meet you at the club. Order devilled crabs and a bottle of Bass for me.”

He ran up-stairs to the night editor. “Mr. Dorney, have you the theatre proofs? I'd like to make a change in one of the theatre notices.”

“Too late for the first edition, my boy. Is it important?”

“Yes, an exceptional case. I'll deem it a personal favour.”

“All right. I'll get it in the city edition. Here are the proofs.”

“Let's see,” mused the dramatic editor, looking over the wet proofs. “Who covered the ---- Theatre to-night? Some one in the city department. I suppose he 'roasted' Gugley, or whatever his name is. Ah, here it is.”

And he read on the proof:

“The revival of an ancient burlesque on 'Faust' at the ---- Theatre last night was without any noteworthy feature save the pitiful performance of the part of Mephisto by a doleful gentleman named Thomas Mogley, who showed not the faintest of humour and who was tremendously guyed by a turbulent audience. Mr. Mogley was temporarily taking the place of William Renshaw, a funmaker of more advanced methods, who will appear in the rôle to-night. There are some pretty girls and agile dancers in the company.”

Which the dramatic editor changed to read as follows:

“The revival of a familiar burlesque on 'Faust' at the ---- Theatre last night was distinguished by a decidedly novel and original embodiment of Mephisto by Thomas Mogley, a trained and painstaking comedian. His performance created an abundance of merriment, and it was the manifest thought of the audience that a new type of burlesque comedian had been discovered.”

All of which was literally true. And the dramatic editor laughed over it later over his bottle of white label at the club.

By what power Mrs. Mogley managed to keep alive until morning I do not know. The dull gray light was stealing into the little room through the window as Mogley, leaning over the bed, held a fresh newspaper close to her face. Her head was propped up by means of pillows. She laughed through her tears. Her face was all gladness.

“A new--comedian--discovered,” she repeated. “Ah, Tom, at last! That is what I lived for! I can die happy now. We've made a--great--hit--Tom--”

The voice ceased. There was a convulsion at her throat. Nothing stirred in the room. From the street below came the sound of a passing car and a boy's voice, “Morning papers.” Mogley was weeping.

The dead woman's hand clutched the paper. Her face wore a smile.

V. -- OUT OF HIS PAST

This is no fable; it is the hardest kind of fact. I met Craddock not more than a week ago. His inebriety prevented his recognizing me.

What a joyous, hopeful man he was upon the day of his marriage! He looked toward the future as upon a cloudless spring dawn one looks forward to the day.

He had sown his wild oats and had already reaped a crop of knowledge. “I have put the past behind me,” he said. And he thought it would stay there.

He married one of the sweetest and best of women. The match was an ideal one--exceptionally so. His wife's mother objected to it and moved away on account of it. “That's a detail,” said Craddock.

There are details and details. The importance of any one of them depends on circumstances.

Craddock had all the qualities and attributes requisite to make him a son-in-law to the liking of his mother-in-law--lack of money.

So she went to live in Boston, maintained a chilly correspondence with her daughter, and bided her time.

Craddock had had his old loves, a fact that he did not attempt to conceal from his wife. She insisted upon his telling her about them, although the narration put her into manifest vexation of mind. Such is the way of young wives.

There was one love about which Craddock said less than about any of the others, because it had encroached more upon his life than any of them. It had nearly approached being a serious affair. He had a delicacy concerning the mention of it, too, for he flattered himself that the flame, although entirely extinguished upon his own side, yet smouldered deep in the heart of the woman. Therefore, he spoke of that episode in vague and general terms.

Strange as it seemed to Craddock, clear as it is to any student of men and women, it was this amour that excited the most curiosity in the mind of his wife.

“What was her name?” asked the latter.

“Agnes Darrell.”

“I don't think she has a pretty name, at all events.”

“Oh, that was only her stage name. I really don't remember what her real name was.”

This was a judicious falsehood.

“Well, I'm sorry that you ever made love to actresses. I'm afraid I can't think as much of you after knowing--”

“After knowing that the first sight of you drove the memory of all actresses and other women in the world out of my head,” cried Craddock, with a merry fervour that made his speech irresistible.

So they persisted in being extremely happy together for three years, to the grinding chagrin of Craddock's mother-in-law in Boston.

One July Friday, Craddock's wife was at the seashore, while Craddock, who ran down each Saturday to remain with her until Monday, was battling with his work and the heat and the summer insects, in his office in the city. Mrs. Craddock received her mail, two letters addressed to her at the seaside, two forwarded from the city whither they had first come.

Of the latter one was a milliner's announcement of removal. The other was in a large envelope, and the address was in a chirography unknown to her. The large envelope contained a smaller one.

This second envelope was addressed to Miss Agnes Darrell, ---- Hotel, Chicago, in the handwriting of Craddock.

The feelings of Craddock's wife are imaginable. She took from this already opened second envelope the letter that it contained. It also was in Craddock's penmanship. She succeeded in a semistupefied condition in reading it to the end.

“May 13.

“My Dearest Agnes:--I have just a moment in which to tell you the old story that one heart, thousands of miles east of you, beats for you alone. With what joy do I anticipate the early ending of the season, when, like young Lochinvar, you will come out of the West. I shall contrive to be with you as often as possible this summer. With renewed vows of my unalterable devotion, I must hastily say good night.

“Yours always,

“Jack.”

Any who seek a new emotion would ask for nothing more than Craddock's wife then experienced. It was not until the first shock had given away to a calm, stupendous indignation that she began to comment upon the epistle in detail.

“May 13th--at that very time Jack was sighing at the thought of my being away from him during the hot weather and telling me how he would miss me. All deception! His heart at that very time was beating for her alone. And he would contrive to see her as often as possible this summer--during my absence!”

It was then that Craddock's wife learned the great value of pride and anger as a compound antidote to overwhelming grief in certain circumstances.

When Craddock, quite unarmed, rushed to meet her at the seashore upon the next evening, she was en route for Boston.

In several ensuing years, Craddock's wife's mother took care that every communication from him, every demand for an explanation, every piteous plea for enlightenment, for one interview, should be ignored. The mother sent the girl to relatives in Europe; and after Craddock had spent three years and all the money that he had saved toward the buying of a house for his wife and himself, in trying to cross her path that he might have a moment's hearing, he came back home and went to the dogs.

He would have killed himself had not hope remained--the hope that some chance turn of events would bring him face to face with her, that he might know wherefore his punishment. He would have proudly resolved to forget her, and he would have striven day and night to make a name that some day would reach her ears whereever she might go, had he not felt that some terrible mistake had taken her from him; time would eventually rectify matters. As hope bade him live and as his inability to forget her made it impossible for him to put his thoughts upon work, he became a drunkard.

He might not have done so had he been you or I; but he was only Craddock, and whether or not you find his offence beyond the extent of palliation, the fact is that he drank himself penniless and entirely beyond the power of his own will to resume respectability.

Naturally his friends abandoned him.

“Craddock is making a beast of himself,” said one who had formerly sat at his table. “To give him money merely accelerates the process.”

“When a man loses all self-respect, how can he expect to retain the sympathy of other people?” queried a second.

“I never thought much of a man who would go to the gutter on account of a woman. It shows a lack of stamina,” observed a third.

All of which was true. But particular cases have exceptionally aggravating circumstances. Special combinations may produce results which, although seemingly under human control, are almost, if not quite, inevitable.

One day Craddock's wife came back to him. In Paris she had made a discovery. She had kept the letter from Jack to the actress in a box that always accompanied her. Opening this box suddenly, her eye fell upon the postmark, stamped upon the envelope. She had never noticed this before. She knew that the date written above the letter itself was incomplete, the year not being indicated. According to the postmark, the year was 1875.

That was four years before Jack married her; two years before he first saw her.

She had always supposed the sending of the letter to her to be the act of some jealous rival of Jack's for the actress's affection. Now she knew not to what it might have been attributable.

When she arrived at the hospital where Craddock was recovering from the effects of an unconscious attempt at suicide, she was ten years older, in fact, than when she had left him; twenty years older in appearance. She took him home and has been trying to make a man of him. She manifests toward him limitless patience and tenderness, and she tolerates uncomplainingly his bi-weekly carousals. But she can afford to, having come into possession of a small fortune at her mother's recent death.

Craddock is amiably content with her. He cannot bring himself to regard her as the beautiful young bride of his youth. So little remains of her former charm, her former vivacity and girlishness, that it seems as if Craddock's wife of other times had died.

A few days ago, I met at the Sheepshead Races a _passée_ actress who was telling about the conquests of her early career.

“There was one young fellow awfully infatuated with me,” she said, “who used to write me the sweetest letters. I kept them long after he stopped caring for me, until he was married; then I destroyed them. I found one short one, though, in an old handbag some years after, and, just for a joke I mailed it to his wife at his old address. I don't suppose it ever reached her, though, or he would have acknowledged it, for the sake of old times. I wonder whatever became of Jack Craddock. People used to say he had a bright future--I say, tell that messenger-boy to come here! I'm going to put five on Tenny for this next race. And you'll lend me the five, won't you?”

VI. -- THE NEW SIDE PARTNER

A chance in life is like worldly greatness--to which, indeed, it is commonly a requisite preliminary. Some are born with it, some achieve it, and some have it thrust upon them.

There is a youth who has had it thrust upon him. What he will do with it remains to be seen. Know the story, which is true in every detail save in two proper names:

The midnight train from New York, which crawls out of the Jersey City ferry station at 12:25, is usually doleful, especially in the ordinary cars. One who cannot sleep easily therein has a weary two or three hours' time to Philadelphia. Almost any equally wakeful companion is then a source of joy.

A girl of medium size, wearing a veil, and being rather carelessly attired in dark clothes which fitted a charming figure, walked jauntily up the aisle, saw that no seat was entirely vacant, and therefore, after a hasty glance at me, sat down beside me.

Had not the two very young men in the seat behind us drunk too much wine that night in New York, the girl and I might never have exchanged a word. But the conversation of the youths was such as to cause between us the intercommunication of smiles, and eventually of speeches.

Then casual observations about the fulness of the car, the time of the train, and our respective destinations,--mine being Philadelphia, hers being Baltimore, led to the revelation that she was a constant traveller, because she was an actress. She had been a soubrette in musical farce, but lately she had belonged to a variety and burlesque company. She had gone upon the stage when she was thirteen, and she was now twenty.

“What kind of an act do you do?” I asked, in the language of the variety “profession.”

“Oh, I can do almost anything,” she said, in a tone of a self-possessed, careless, and vivacious woman. “I sing well enough, and I can dance anything, a skirt dance, a clog, a Mexican fandango, a Carmencita kind of step, anything at all. I don't know when I ever learned to dance. I didn't learn, it just came to me; but the best thing I do is whistling. I'm not afraid of any man in the business when it's a case of whistling. There's no fake about my whistle; it's the real thing. I can whistle any sort of music that goes.”

“Your company appears in Baltimore this week?”

“Oh, no! I've left the company. You see, I've been off for six weeks on account of illness, and now I'm going over to Baltimore to my father's funeral. He is to be buried to-morrow. See, here's the telegram. I've been having hard lines lately. I've not had any sleep for three days, and I won't get to Baltimore till daylight. I want to start back to New York to-morrow night, if I can raise the stuff. I had just enough money to get a ticket to Baltimore, and now I'm dead broke.”

Then she laughed and got me to untie her veil. When it was removed, I saw a frank young face with an abundance of soft brown hair. About the light blue eyes were the marks of fatigue, and the colour of the cheeks further confirmed her account of loss of sleep.

Her feet pattered softly upon the floor of the car.

“I'm doing a single shuffle,” she said, in explanation of the movement of her feet. “If you could do one too, we might do a double.”

“Do you do your act alone on the stage?” I asked, “or are you one of a team?”

“We're a team. My side partner's a man. It pays better that way. We get $40 a week and transportation. I used to get only $12 except when I stood around and posed, then I got $35 and had to pay my own railroad fare. You can bet I have a good figure, when I get $35 for that alone! I handle the money of the team and I divide it even between us. I don't believe in the man getting nine-tenths of the stuff, do you? Besides, I'm older than my partner is. I put him in the business.”

“How was that?”

“Oh, I picked him up on the street in New York. I saw that he had a good voice and was a bright kid, so I took him for my partner.”

“But tell me how it came about.”

She was quite willing to do so. And the rumbling of the wheels, the rush of the train over the night-swathed plains of New Jersey, accompanied her voice. All the other passengers were sleeping. To the following effect was her narrative:

At evening a crowd of boys had gathered at the corner of Broadway and a down-town street. One of them--ragged, unkempt, but handsome--was singing and dancing for the diversion of the others. That way came the variety actress, then out of an engagement. She stopped, heard the boy sing, and saw him dance. She pushed through the crowd to him.

“How did you learn to dance?” she asked.

“Didn't ever learn,” he said, with impudent sullenness.

“Who taught you to sing?”

“None o' yer business.”

“But who did teach you?”

“Nobody.”

“What's your name?”

“None of your business.”

“Will you come along with me into the restaurant over there?”

“No.”

But presently he was induced to go, although he continued to answer her questions in the savage, distrustful manner of his class. They went into a cheap eating-house and saloon, through the “Ladies' Entrance,” and while they sat at a table there, she learned by means of resolute and patient questions that the boy earned his living by blacking shoes now and then, and that he did not know who his parents were, as he had been “put” with a family whose ill-usage he had fled from to live in the street. He began to melt under her manifestations of interest in him, and with pretended reluctance he gave his promise to wash his face and hands and to call upon her that evening at the theatrical boarding-house on Twenty-seventh Street where she was living. Then she left him.

When he called, she took him to her room and induced him to allow her to comb his hair. A deal of persuasion was necessary to this. Then she took him out and bought him a cheap suit of clothes on the Bowery. A half-hour later he was standing with her in the wings at Miner's Variety Theatre. A man and woman were doing a song and dance upon the stage.

“Watch that man,” the actress said to the boy of the streets. “I want you to do that sort of an act with me one of these days.”

When he had thus received his first lesson, she led him back to the theatrical boarding-house, and in her room he showed her what ability he had picked up as a singer and dancer. She secured a room for him in the house, and she had the precaution to lock him in lest he should take fright at his novel change of surroundings and flee in the night. When she released him on the next morning she found him docile and cheerful.

She escorted him into the big dining-room to breakfast.

“Who's your friend, Lil?” asked a certain actor whose name is known from Portland to Portland.

“He's my new side partner,” she said, looking at the boy, who was not in the least abashed at the bold gaze of the negligently dressed soubrettes and the chaffing comedians who sat at the tables.

Everybody laughed. “What can he do?” was the general question.

“Get out there and show them, young one,” she said, pointing to the centre of the dining-room.

The boy obeyed without timidity. When he had sung and danced, there was hilarious applause.

“Good for the kid,” said the well-known actor. “What are you going to do with him, Lil?”

“I'm going to try to get an engagement for us together in Rose St. Clair's Burlesque Company.”

“I'll help you,” said the actor. “I know Rose. I'll go and see her right away, and you come there with the kid about 11 o'clock.”

When the girl and her protégé arrived at the boarding-house of the fat manageress they found that the actor had so far kept his promise as to have inveigled her into a condition of alcoholic amiability. She asked them what they could do. Each one sang and danced, and the girl, who also whistled, outlined to the manageress her idea of an “act” in which the two should appear. There was a hitch when the question of salary arose. The girl fixed upon $40. Rose thought that amount was too large. Lil adhered to her terms, and was about to leave without having made an agreement, when the manageress called her back, and a contract for a three weeks' engagement was signed at once.

The period between that day and the beginning of the engagement, which subsequently opened at Miner's Theatre, was spent by the girl in coaching her protégé. He was a year younger than she, a fact which tended to increase the influence that she promptly obtained over him. His sullenness having been overcome, he became a devoted and apt pupil. Having beheld himself in neat clothes and acquired habits of cleanliness, he speedily developed into a handsome youth of soft disposition and good behaviour.

The new song and dance “team” was successful. The boy quickly gained applause, and especially did he easily win the liking of such women as he met or appeared before. A new world was open to him. Naturally he enjoyed the easy conquests that he made in the curious, careless circle into which he had been brought.

He is still having his “fling.” But he has been from the first most obedient and unquestioning to his benefactress. He goes nowhere, does nothing, without previously obtaining permission from her.

She is proud of the advancement that he has accomplished already, and she is determined to make him a conspicuous figure upon the stage.

What is it that actuates this girl in her endeavour to elevate this boy in the world? What the mystery that brought to the gamin this guardian angel in the form of a variety actress who mingles bright sayings with lack of grammar, who tells Rabelaisian anecdotes in one minute and philosophizes in slang about the issues of life the next?

“You're in love with him, aren't you?” I said, as the train plunged on through the darkness.

“I don't know whether I am or not. He's just a kid, you know. I suppose the proper end of such a romance is that we should marry. But then I wouldn't be married to a man that I couldn't look up to.”

“But women don't invariably love that way. I'm sure you're in love with the boy. Have you never thought as to whether you were or not?”

“Have I? I should smile! I thought of it even on the first night, after I picked him up, when I locked him in his room. But I have always regarded him in a sort of motherly way, although only a year older. It seems kind of unnatural for me to love him as a woman loves a man. If he was only older!”

“Ah, that wish is sure evidence that you love him!”

“One thing I do know is that, though he always obeys me, he doesn't care as much for me as I do for him.”

“How do you know that?”

“He wouldn't think so much of other girls if he did. He doesn't look upon me as a woman for him to fall in love with. He regards me as an older sister. Why, he never even takes a girl to supper after the performance without asking my permission.”

“And you give it?”

“Yes; but he never knows how I feel when I do.”

“And how do you feel then?”

“The first time he asked me, it was like a knife going through me. I haven't got used to it yet.”

She paused for a time before adding:

“But, anyhow, he's going to make a name for himself some day. He has it in him. I'm not the only one that thinks so. I'm trying now to get him to go to a school of acting, but he thinks variety is good enough for him. He'll get over that, though.”

She spoke so tenderly and yet so proudly of him, that I could not without a pang of pity meditate upon the probable outcome of this attachment, which, according to the logic of realists, will be the boy's eventual success in life, long after he will have forgotten the hand that lifted him out of the depth in which he first opened his eyes.

He knows nothing of his parentage. His benefactress once sought, by means of Inspector Byrnes's penetrating eye, to pierce the clouds surrounding his origin, but the inspector smiled at the hopelessness of the attempt.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“I left him in New York,” she said. “I suppose he'll blow in all his money as soon as he can possibly manage to do so.”

And she laughed and did another “shuffle” with her feet upon the floor of the car.

VII. -- THE NEEDY OUTSIDER