Chapter 30

IN THE MEANTIME.

In spite of nine months’ hard work on the two Commissions, it is not to be supposed that Peter’s time was thus entirely monopolized. If one spends but seven hours of the twenty-four in sleep, and but two more on meals, there is considerable remaining time, and even so slow a worker as Peter found spare hours not merely for society and saloons, but for what else he chose to undertake.

Socially he had an evening with Miss De Voe, just before she left the city for the summer; a dinner with Mr. Pell, who seemed to have taken a liking to Peter; a call on Lispenard; another on Le Grand; and a family meal at the Rivingtons, where he was made much of in return for his aid to Ray.

In the saloons he worked hard over the coming primary, and spent evenings as well on doorsteps in the district, talking over objects and candidates. In the same cause, he saw much of Costell, Green, Gallagher, Schlurger and many other party men of greater or less note in the city’s politics. He had become a recognized quantity in the control of the district, and the various ward factions tried hard to gain his support. When the primary met, the proceedings, if exciting, were never for a moment doubtful, for Gallagher, Peter, Moriarty and Blunkers had been able to agree on both programme and candidates. An attempt had been made to “turn down” Schlurger, but Peter had opposed it, and had carried his point, to the great gratitude of the silent, honest German. What was more important to him, this had all been done without exciting hard feelings.

“Stirling’s a reasonable fellow,” Gallagher told Costell, not knowing how much Peter was seeing of the big leader, “and he isn’t dead set on carrying his own schemes. We’ve never had so little talk of mutiny and sulking as we have had this paring. Moriarty and Blunkers swear by him. It’s queer. They’ve always been on opposite sides till now.”

When the weather became pleasant, Peter took up his “angle” visitings again, though not with quite the former regularity. Yet he rarely let a week pass without having spent a couple of evenings there. The spontaneous welcome accorded him was payment enough for the time, let alone the pleasure and enjoyment he derived from the imps. There was little that could raise Peter in their estimation, but they understood very well that he had become a man of vast importance, as it seemed to them. They had sharp little minds and ears, and had caught what the “district” said and thought of Peter.

“Cheese it, the cop, Tim,” cried an urchin one evening to another, who was about to “play ball.”

“Cheese it yerself. He won’t dare tech me,” shouted Tim, “so long as Mister Peter’s here.”

That speech alone showed the magnitude of his position in their eyes. He was now not merely, “friends wid de perlice;” he was held in fear by that awesome body!

“If I was as big as him,” said one, “I’d fire all the peelers.”

“Wouldn’t that be dandy!” cried another.

He won their hearts still further by something he did in midsummer. Blunkers had asked him to attend what brilliant posters throughout that part of the city announced as:

HO FOR THE SEA-SHORE!

SIXTH ANNUAL

CLAM BAKE

OF THE

PATRICK N. BLUNKERS’S ASSOCIATION.

When Peter asked, he found that it was to consist of a barge party (tickets fifty cents) to a bit of sand not far away from the city, with music, clams, bathing and dancing included in the price of the ticket, and unlimited beer for those who could afford that beverage.

“The beer just pays for it,” Blunkers explained. “I don’t give um whisky cause some —— cusses don’t drink like as dey orter.” Then catching a look in Peter’s face, he laughed rather shamefacedly. “I forgits,” he explained. “Yer see I’m so da—” he checked himself—“I swears widout knowin’ it.”

“I shall be very glad to go,” said Peter.

“Dat’s bully,” said Blunkers. Then he added anxiously: “Dere’s somethin’ else, too, since yer goin’. Ginerally some feller makes a speech. Yer wouldn’t want to do it dis time, would yer?”

“What do they talk about?”

“Just what dey—” Blunkers swallowed a word, nearly choking in so doing, and ended “please.”

“Yes. I shall be glad to talk, if you don’t mind my taking a dull subject?”

“Yer just talk what yer want. We’ll listen.”

After Peter had thought it over for a day, he went to Blunkers’s gin palace.

“Look here,” he said. “Would it be possible to hire one more barge, and take the children free? I’ll pay for the boat, and for the extra food, if they won’t be in the way.”

“I’m damned if yer do,” shouted Blunkers. “Yer don’t pay for nothinks, but der childers shall go, or my name ain’t Blunkers.”

And go they did, Blunkers making no secret of the fact that it was Peter’s idea. So every child who went, nearly wild with delight, felt that the sail, the sand, the sea, and the big feed, was all owed to Peter.

It was rather an amusing experience to Peter. He found many of his party friends in the district, not excluding such men as Gallagher, Kennedy and others of the more prominent rank. He made himself very pleasant to those whom he knew, chatting with them on the trip down. He went into the water with the men and boys, and though there were many good swimmers, Peter’s country and river training made it possible for him to give even the “wharf rats,” a point or two in the way of water feats. Then came the regulation clam-bake, after which Peter talked about the tenement-house question for twenty minutes. The speech was very different from what they expected, and rather disappointed them all. However, he won back their good opinions in closing, for he ended with a very pleasant “thank you,” to Blunkers, so neatly worded, and containing such a thoroughly apt local joke, that it put all in a good humor, and gave them something to tell their neighbors, on their return home. The advantage of seldom joking is that people remember the joke, and it gets repeated. Peter almost got the reputation of a wit on that one joke, merely because it came after a serious harangue, and happened to be quotable. Blunkers was so pleased with the end of the speech that he got Peter to write it out, and to this day the “thank you” part of the address, in Peter’s neat handwriting, handsomely framed, is to be seen in Blunkers’s saloon.

Peter also did a little writing this summer. He had gone to see three or four of the reporters, whom he had met in “the case,” to get them to write up the Food and Tenement subjects, wishing thereby to stir up public feeling. He was successful to a certain degree, and they not merely wrote articles themselves, but printed three or four which Peter wrote. In two cases, he was introduced to “staff” writers, and even wrote an editorial, for which he was paid fifteen dollars. This money was all he received for the time spent, but he was not working for shekels. All the men told him to let them know when he had more “stories” for them, and promised him assistance when the reports should go in to the legislature.

Peter visited his mother as usual during August. Before going, he called on Dr. Plumb, and after an evening with him, went to two tenements in the district. As the result of these calls, he carried three children with him when he went home. Rather pale, thin little waifs. It is a serious matter to charge any one with so grave a crime as changling, but Peter laid himself open to it, for when he came back, after two weeks, he returned very different children to the parents. The fact that they did not prosecute for the substitution only proves how little the really poor care for their offspring.

But this was not his only summering. He spent four days with the Costells, as well as two afternoons later, thoroughly enjoying, not merely the long, silent drives over the country behind the fast horses, but the pottering round the flower-garden with Mrs. Costell. He had been reading up a little on flowers and gardening, and he was glad to swap his theoretical for her practical knowledge. Candor compels the statement that he enjoyed the long hours stretched on the turf, or sitting idly on the veranda, puffing Mr. Costell’s good Havanas.

Twice Mr. Bohlmann stopped at Peter’s office of a Saturday and took him out to stay over Sunday at his villa in one of the Oranges. The family all liked Peter and did not hesitate to show it. Mr. Bohlmann told him:

“I sbend about dree dousand a year on law und law-babers. Misder Dummer id does for me, but ven he does nod any longer it do, I gifts id you.”

On the second visit Mrs. Bohlmann said:

“I tell my good man that with all the law-business he has, he must get a lawyer for a son-in-law.”

Peter had not heard Mrs. Bohlmann say to her husband the evening before, as they were prinking for dinner:

“Have you told Mr. Stirling about your law business?”

Nor Mr. Bohlmann’s prompt:

“Yah. I dells him der last dime.”

Yet Peter wondered if there were any connection between the two statements. He liked the two girls. They were nice-looking, sweet, sincere women. He knew that Mr. Bohlmann was ranked as a millionaire already, and was growing richer fast. Yet—Peter needed no blank walls.

During this summer, Peter had a little more law practice. A small grocer in one of the tenements came to him about a row with his landlord. Peter heard him through, and then said: “I don’t see that you have any case; but if you will leave it to me to do as I think best, I’ll try if I can do something,” and the man agreeing, Peter went to see the landlord, a retail tobacconist up-town.

“I don’t think my client has any legal grounds,” he told the landlord, “but he thinks that he has, and the case does seem a little hard. Such material repairs could not have been foreseen when the lease was made.”

The tobacconist was rather obstinate at first. Finally he said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll contribute one hundred dollars towards the repairs, if you’ll make a tenant named Podds in the same building pay his rent; or dispossess him if he doesn’t, so that it shan’t cost me anything.”

Peter agreed, and went to see the tenant in arrears. He found that the man had a bad rheumatism and consequently was unable to work. The wife was doing what she could, and even the children had been sent on the streets to sell papers, or by other means, to earn what they could. They also owed a doctor and the above-mentioned grocer. Peter went back to the landlord and told him the story.

“Yes,” he said, “it’s a hard case, I know, but, Mr. Stirling, I owe a mortgage on the place, and the interest falls due in September. I’m out four months’ rent, and really can’t afford any more.” So Peter took thirty-two dollars from his “Trustee” fund, and sent it to the tobacconist. “I have deducted eight dollars for collection,” he wrote. Then he saw his first client, and told him of his landlord’s concession.

“How much do I owe you?” inquired the grocer.

“The Podds tell me they owe you sixteen dollars.”

“Yes. I shan’t get it.”

“My fee is twenty-five. Mark off their bill and give me the balance.”

The grocer smiled cheerfully. He had charged the Podds roundly for their credit, taking his chance of pay, and now got it paid in an equivalent of cash. He gave the nine dollars with alacrity.

Peter took it upstairs and gave it to Mrs. Podds. “If things look up with you later,” he said, “you can pay it back. If not, don’t trouble about it. Ill look in in a couple of weeks to see how things are going.”

When this somewhat complicated matter was ended, he wrote about it to his mother:

“Many such cases would bankrupt me. As it is, my fund is dwindling faster than I like to see, though every lessening of it means a lessening of real trouble to some one. I should like to tell Miss De Voe what good her money has done already, but fear she would not understand why I told her. It has enabled me to do so much that otherwise I could not have afforded. There is only one hundred and seventy-six dollars left. Most of it though, is merely loaned and perhaps will be repaid. Anyway, I shall have nearly six hundred dollars for my work as secretary of the Food Commission, and I shall give half of it to this fund.”