Part 9

"Whin I was took on the cops, as I say, they was no graduatin' exercises like a young ladies' siminary. The comish--it was auld Malachi Bannon--looked ye square in the eye and said, 'Young fella, ye're about to go forth and riprisint the majesty of the law. Whin on juty be clane and sober and raisonably honest. Keep a civil tongue in your head for ivrybody, even Republicans. Get to know your precinct like a book. Don't borrow trouble. But above all, rimimber this: a cop can do a lot of queer things and square himself wid me afterward, but there's one sin no cop can square--the sin of runnin' away whin needed. Go to your post.'"

Little Peter nodded his head.

They paced along in silence for a time. Then Peter asked,

"Jawn----"

"What, Pether?"

"Jawn, where is the Tropic of Capricorn?"

Officer Gaffney wrinkled his grey eyebrows quizzically.

"The Tropic of Whichicorn?" he inquired.

"The Tropic of Capricorn," repeated Peter.

"Pether," said Officer Gaffney, dubiously, scratching his head with the tip of his night-stick, "I disrimimber but I think--I think, mind ye, it's in the Bronx."

They continued their leisurely progress.

"'Tis a quiet beat, this," observed Officer Gaffney. "Quiet but responsible. Rich folks lives in these houses, Pether, and that draws crooks, sometimes. But mostly it's as quiet as a Sunday in Dooleyville." He laughed deep in his chest.

"It makes me think," he said, "of Tommie Toohy, him that's a lieutinant now over in Canarsie. 'Tis a lesson ye'd do well to mind, Pether."

Peter signified that he was all ears.

"He had the cop bug worse than you, even, Pether," said the veteran.

Peter flushed beneath his freckles.

"Yis, he had it bad, this Tommie Toohy," pursued Officer Gaffney. "He was crazy to be a cop as soon as he could walk. I never seen a happier man in me life than Toohy the day he swaggers out of the station-house to go on post up in the twenty-ninth precinct. In thim days there was nawthin' up there but rows of little cottages wid stoops on thim; nawthin but dacint, respictable folks lived there and they always give that beat to a recruity because it was so quiet. Well, Toohy goes on juty at six o'clock in the evenin', puffed up wid importance and polishing his shield every minute or two. 'Tis a short beat--up one side of Garden Avenue and down on the other side. Toohy paces up and down, swingin' his night-stick and lookin' hard and suspicious at every man, woman or child that passes him. He was just bustin' to show his authority. But nawthin' happened. Toohy paced up and back, up and back, up and back. It gets to be eight o'clock. Nawthin happens. Toohy can stand it no longer. He spies an auld man sittin' on his stoop, peacefully smokin' his evenin' pipe. Toohy goes up to the old fellow and glares at him.

"'What are you doin' there?' says Toohy.

"'Nawthin,' says the auld man.

"'Well,' says Toohy, wid a stern scowl, shakin' his night-stick at the scared auld gazabo, 'You go in the house.'"

Peter chuckled.

"But Toohy lived to make a good cop for all that," finished the veteran. "Wid all his recruity monkey-shines, he never ran away whin needed."

"I wonder could he bound Bolivia," said Peter Mullaney.

"I'll bet he could," said Officer Gaffney, "if it was in his precinct."

Late next afternoon, Peter sat gnawing his knuckles in a corner of the police schoolroom. All morning he had battled with the examination in general education. It had not been as hard as he had feared, but he was worried nevertheless. So much was at stake.

He was quivering all over when he was summoned to the office of the Commissioner, and his quivering grew as he saw the rigid face of Commissioner Kondorman, and read no ray of hope there. Papers were strewn over the official desk. Kondorman looked up, frowned.

"Mullaney," he said, bluntly, "you've failed."

"F-failed?" quavered Peter.

"Yes. In general education. I told you if you made excellent marks we'd overlook your deficiency in height. Your paper"--he tapped it with his finger--"isn't bad. But it isn't good. You fell down hard on question seventeen."

"Question seventeen?"

"Yes. The question is, 'Where is the Tropic of Capricorn?' And your answer is"--the Commissioner paused before he pronounced the damning words--"'The Tropic of Capricon is in the Bronx.'"

Peter gulped, blinked, opened and shut his fists, twisted his cap in his hands, a picture of abject misery. The Commissioner's voice was crisp and final.

"That's all, Mullaney. Sorry. Turn in your uniform at once. Well?"

Peter had started away, had stopped and was facing the commissioner.

"Commissioner," he begged----

"That will do," snapped the Commissioner. "I gave you your chance; you understood the conditions."

"It--it isn't that," fumbled out Peter Mullaney, "but--but wouldn't you please let me go out on post once more with Officer Gaffney?"

"I don't see what good that would do," said Commissioner Kondorman, gruffly.

Tears were in Peter's eyes.

"You see--you see----" he got out with an effort, "it would be my last chance to wear the uniform--and I--wanted--somebody--to--see--me--in--it--just--once."

The Commissioner stroked his chin reflectively.

"Were you scheduled to go out on post for instruction," he asked, "if you passed your examination?"

"Yes, sir. From eight to eleven."

The Commissioner thought a moment.

"Well," he said, "I'll let you go. It won't alter the case any, of course. You're through, here. Turn in your uniform by eleven thirty, sure."

Peter mumbled his thanks, and went out of the office with shoulders that drooped as if he were carrying a safe on them.

* * * * *

It was with heavy steps and a heavier heart that little Peter Mullaney, by the side of his mentor, passed the corner where Judy McNulty stood proudly waiting for him. He saluted her gravely with two fingers to his visor--police officers never bow--and kept his eyes straight ahead. He did not have the heart to stop, to speak to her, to tell her what had happened to him. He hadn't even told Officer Gaffney. He stalked along in bitter silence; his eyes were fixed on his shoes, the stout, shiny police shoes he had bought to wear at his graduation, the shoes he was to have worn when he stepped up to the Commissioner and received his shield, with head erect and a high heart. His empty hands hung heavily at his sides; there was no baton of authority in them; there never would be. Beneath the place his silver shield would never cover now was a cold numbness.

* * * * *

"Damn the Tropic of Capricorn," came from between clenched teeth, "Damn the Tropic of Capricorn."

Gaffney's quick ears heard him.

"Still thinkin' about the Tropic of Capricorn?" he asked, not knowing that the words made Peter wince. "Well, me bye, 'twill do no harm to know where it is. I'm not denyin' that it's a gran' thing for a cop to be a scholar. But just the same 'tis me firm belief that a man may be able to tell the difference bechune a begonia and a petunia, he may be able to tell where the--now--Tropic of Unicorn is, he may know who wrote "In the Sweet Bye and Bye," and who invented the sprinklin' cart, he may be able to tell the population of Peking and Pann Yann, but he ain't a cop at all if he iver runs away whin needed. Ye can stake your shield on that, me bye."

His shield? Peter dug his nails into the palm of his hand. Blind hate against the Commissioner, against the whole department, flared up in him. He'd strip the uniform off on the spot, he'd hurl it into the gutter, he'd----

Officer Gaffney had stopped short. A woman was coming through the night, running. As she panted up to them in the quiet, deserted street, the two men saw that she was a middle-aged woman in a wrapper, and that she was white with fright.

"Burglars," she gasped.

"Where?" rapped out Officer Gaffney.

"Number 97."

"Be calm, ma'am. What makes ye think they're burglars?"

"I heard them.... Moving around.... In the drawing room.... Upstairs."

"Who are you?" asked the old policeman, imperturbably.

"Mrs. Finn--caretaker. The family is away."

"Pether," said Officer Gaffney, "you stay here and mind the beat like a good bucko, while I stroll down to ninety-sivin wid Mrs. Finn."

"Let me come too, Jawn," cried Peter.

Gaffney laid his big hand on little Peter's chest.

"'Tis probably a cat movin' around," he said softly so that Mrs. Finn could not hear. "Lonely wimmin is always hearin' things. Besides me ambitious but diminootive frind, if they was yeggs what good could ye do wid no stick and no gun? You stay here on the corner like I'm tellin' you and I'll be back in ten minutes by the clock."

* * * * *

Peter Mullaney waited on the corner. He saw the bulky figure of Officer Gaffney proceed at a dignified but rapid waddle down the block, followed by the smaller, more agitated figure of the woman. He saw Officer Gaffney go into the basement entrance, and he saw Mrs. Finn hesitate, then timidly follow. He waited. A long minute passed. Another. Another. Then the scream of a woman hit his ears. He saw Mrs. Finn dart from the house, wringing her hands, screaming. He sprinted down to her.

"They've kilt him," screamed the woman. "Oh, they've kilt the officer."

"Who? Tell me. Quick!"

"The yeggs," she wailed. "There's two of them. The officer went upstairs. They shot him. He rolled down. Don't go in. They'll shoot you. Send for help."

Peter stood still. He was not thinking of the yeggs, or of Gaffney. He was hearing Kondorman ask, "Where is the Tropic of Capricorn?" He was hearing Kondorman say, "You've failed." Something had him tight. Something was asking him, "Why go in that house? Why risk your life? You're not a cop. You'll never be a cop. They threw you out. They made a fool of you for a trifle."

Peter started back from the open door; he looked down; the street light fell on the brass buttons of his uniform; the words of the old policeman darted across his brain: "A cop never runs away when needed."

He caught his breath and plunged into the house. At the foot of the stairs leading up to the second floor he saw by the street light that came through the opened door, the sprawling form of a big man; the light glanced from the silver badge on his broad chest. Peter bent over hastily.

"Is it you, Pether?" breathed Gaffney, with difficulty. "They got me. Got me good. Wan of thim knocked me gun from me hand and the other plugged me. Through the chist. I'm done for, Pether. I can't breathe. Stop, Pether, stop!"

The veteran tried to struggle to his feet, but sank back, holding fiercely to Peter's leg.

"Let me go, Jawn. Let me go," whispered Peter hoarsely.

"They'll murder you, Pether. It's two men to wan,--and they're armed."

"Let me go in, I tell you, Jawn. Let me go. A good cop never runs--you said it yourself--let me go----"

Slowly the grip on Peter's leg relaxed; the dimming eyes of the wounded man had suddenly grown very bright.

"Ye're right, me little bucko," he said faintly. "Ye'll be a credit to the foorce, Pether." And then the light died out of his eyes and the hand that had grasped Peter fell limp to the floor.

Peter was up the stairs that led to the second floor in three swift, wary jumps. He heard a skurry of footsteps in the back of the house. Dashing a potted fern from its slender wooden stand, he grasped the end of the stand, and swinging it like a baseball bat, he pushed through velvet curtains into a large room. There was enough light there from the moon for him to see two black figures prying desperately at a door. They wheeled as he entered. Bending low he hurled himself at them as he had done when playing football on a back lot. There was a flash so near that it burned his face; he felt a sharp fork of pain cross his head as if his scalp had been slashed by a red-hot knife. With all the force in his taut body he swung the stand at the nearest man; it caught the man across the face and he went down with a broken, guttural cry. A second and a third shot from the revolver of the other man roared in Peter's ears. Still crouching, Peter dived through the darkness at the knees of the man with the gun; together they went to the floor in a cursing, grunting tangle.

The burglar struggled to jab down the butt of his revolver on the head of the small man who had fastened himself to him with the death grip of a mongoose on a cobra. They thrashed about the room. Peter had gotten a hold on the man's pistol wrist and he held to it while the man with his free hand rained blow after blow on the defenseless face and bleeding head of the little man. As they fought in the darkness, the burglar with a sudden violent wrench tore loose the clinging Peter, and hurled him against a table, which crashed to the floor with the impact of Peter's one hundred and thirty pounds of muscle and bone.

As Peter hurtled back, his arms shot out mechanically to break his fall; one groping hand closed on a heavy iron candle-stick that had stood on the table. He was up in a flash, the candle-stick in his hand. His eyes were blinded by the blood from his wound; he dashed the blood away with his coat-sleeve. With a short, sharp motion he hurled the candle-stick at his opponent's head, outlined against a window, not six feet away. At the moment the missile flew from Peter's hand, the yegg steadied himself and fired. Then he reeled to the floor as the candle-stick's heavy base struck him between the eyes.

For the ghost of a second, Peter Mullaney stood swaying; then his hands clawed at the place on his chest where his shield might have been as if his heart had caught fire and he wished to tear it out of himself; then, quite gently, he crumpled to the floor, and there was the quiet of night in the room.

* * * * *

As little Peter Mullaney lay in the hospital trying to see through his bandages the flowers Judy McNulty had brought him, he heard the voice of the doctor saying:

"Here he is. Nasty chest wound. We almost lost him. He didn't seem to care much whether he pulled through or not. Was delirious for hours. Kept muttering something about the Tropic of Capricorn. But I think he'll come through all right now. You just can't kill one of these tough little micks."

Peering through his bandages, Peter Mullaney saw the square shoulders and stern face of Commissioner Kondorman.

"Good morning, Mullaney," the Commissioner said, in his formal official voice. "I'm glad to hear that you're going to get better."

"Thank you, Commissioner," murmured Peter, watching him with wondering eyes.

Commissioner Kondorman felt round in an inside pocket and brought out a small box from which he carefully took something that glittered in the morning sunlight. Bending over the bed, he pinned it on the night-shirt of Peter Mullaney. Peter felt it; stopped breathing; felt it again; slowly pulled it out so that he could look at it.

"It was Officer John Gaffney's," said the Commissioner, and his voice was trying hard to be official and formal, but it was getting husky. "He was a brave officer. I wanted another brave officer to have his shield."

"But, Commissioner," cried Peter, winking very hard with both eyes, for they were blurring, "haven't you made a mistake? You must have got the wrong man. Don't you remember? I'm the one that said the Tropic of Capricorn is in the Bronx!"

"Officer Mullaney," said Commissioner Kondorman in an odd voice, "if a cop like you says the Tropic of Capricorn is in the Bronx, then, by the lord Harry, that's where the Tropic of Capricorn is."

VIII: _Mr. Braddy's Bottle_

§1

"This," said Mr. William Lum solemnly, "is the very las' bottle of this stuff in these United States!"

It was a dramatic moment. He held it aloft with the pride and tender care of a recent parent exhibiting a first-born child. Mr. Hugh Braddy emitted a long, low whistle, expressive of the awe due the occasion.

"You don't tell me!" he said.

"Yes, siree! There ain't another bottle of this wonderful old hooch left anywhere. Not anywhere. A man couldn't get one like it for love nor money. Not for love nor money." He paused to regard the bottle fondly. "Nor anything else," he added suddenly.

Mr. Braddy beamed fatly. His moon face--like a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound Kewpie's--wore a look of pride and responsibility. It was his bottle.

"You don't tell me!" he said.

"Yes, siree. Must be all of thirty years old, if it's a day. Mebbe forty. Mebbe fifty. Why, that stuff is worth a dollar a sniff, if it's worth a jit. And you not a drinking man! Wadda pity! Wadda pity!"

There was a shade of envy in Mr. Lum's tone, for Mr. Lum was, or had been, a drinking man; yet Fate, ever perverse, had decreed that Mr. Braddy, teetotaler, should find the ancient bottle while poking about in the cellar of his very modest new house--rented--in that part of Long Island City where small, wooden cottages break out in clusters, here and there, in a species of municipal measles.

Mr. Braddy, on finding the treasure, had immediately summoned Mr. Lum from his larger and more pretentious house near by, as one who would be able to appraise the find, and he and Mr. Lum now stood on the very spot in the cellar where, beneath a pile of old window blinds, the venerable liquor had been found. Mr. Braddy, it was plain, thought very highly of Mr. Lum's opinions, and that great man was good-naturedly tolerant of the more placid and adipose Mr. Braddy, who was known--behind his back--in the rug department of the Great Store as "Ole Hippopotamus." Not that he would have resented it, had the veriest cash boy called him by this uncomplimentary but descriptive nickname to his face, for Mr. Braddy was the sort of person who never resents anything.

"Y'know, Mr. Lum," he remarked, crinkling his pink brow in philosophic thought, "sometimes I wish I had been a drinking man. I never minded if a man took a drink. Not that I had any patience with these here booze fighters. No. Enough is enough, I always say. But if a fella wanted to take a drink, outside of business hours, of course, or go off on a spree once in a while--well, I never saw no harm in it. I often wished I could do it myself."

"Well, why the dooce didn't you?" inquired Mr. Lum.

"As a matter of solid fact, I was scared to. That's the truth. I was always scared I'd get pinched or fall down a manhole or something. You see, I never did have much nerve." This was an unusual burst of confidence on the part of Mr. Braddy, who, since he had moved into Mr. Lum's neighborhood a month before, had played a listening rôle in his conferences with Mr. Lum, who was a thin, waspy man of forty-four, in ambush behind a fierce pair of mustachios. Mr. Braddy, essence of diffidence that he was, had confined his remarks to "You don't tell me!" or, occasionally, "Ain't it the truth?" in the manner of a Greek chorus.

* * * * *

Now inspired, perhaps, by the discovery that he was the owner of a priceless bottle of spirits, he unbosomed himself to Mr. Lum. Mr. Lum made answer.

"Scared to drink? Scared of anything? Bosh! Tommyrot! Everybody's got nerve. Only some don't use it," said Mr. Lum, who owned a book called "The Power House in Man's Mind," and who subscribed for, and quoted from, a pamphlet for successful men, called "I Can and I Will."

"Mebbe," said Mr. Braddy. "But the first and only time I took a drink I got a bad scare. When I was a young feller, just starting in the rugs in the Great Store, I went out with the gang one night, and, just to be smart, I orders beer. Them was the days when beer was a nickel for a stein a foot tall. The minute I taste the stuff I feel uncomfortable. I don't dare not drink it, for fear the gang would give me the laugh. So I ups and drinks it, every drop, although it tastes worse and worse. Well, sir, that beer made me sicker than a dog. I haven't tried any drink stronger than malted milk since. And that was all of twenty years ago. It wasn't that I thought a little drinking a sin. I was just scared; that's all. Some of the other fellows in the rugs drank--till they passed a law against it. Why, I once seen Charley Freedman sell a party a genuine, expensive Bergamo rug for two dollars and a half when he was pickled. But when he was sober there wasn't a better salesman in the rugs."

Mr. Lum offered no comment; he was weighing the cob-webbed bottle in his hand, and holding it to the light in a vain attempt to peer through the golden-brown fluid. Mr. Braddy went on:

"I guess I was born timid. I dunno. I wanted to join a lodge, but I was scared of the 'nitiation. I wanted to move out to Jersey, but I didn't. Why, all by life I've wanted to take a Turkish bath; but somehow, every time I got to the door of the place I got cold feet and backed out. I wanted a raise, too, and by golly, between us, I believe they'd give it to me; but I keep putting off asking for it and putting off and putting off----"

"I was like that--once," put in Mr. Lum. "But it don't pay. I'd still be selling shoes in the Great Store--and looking at thousands of feet every day and saying thousands of times, 'Yes, madam, this is a three-A, and very smart, too,' when it is really a six-D and looks like hell on her. No wonder I took a drink or two in those days."

He set down the bottle and flared up with a sudden, fierce bristling of his mustaches.

"And now they have to come along and take a man's liquor away from him--drat 'em! What did our boys fight for? Liberty, I say. And then, after being mowed down in France, they come home to find the country dry! It ain't fair, I say. Of course, don't think for a minute that I mind losing the licker. Not me. I always could take it or leave it alone. But what I hate is having them say a man can't drink this and he can't drink that. They'll be getting after our smokes, next. I read in the paper last night a piece that asked something that's been on my mind a long time: 'Whither are we drifting?'"

"I dunno," said Mr. Braddy.

"You'd think," went on Mr. Lum, not heeding, as a sense of oppression and injustice surged through him, "that liquor harmed men. As if it harmed anybody but the drunkards! Liquor never hurt a successful man; no, siree. Look at me!"

Mr. Braddy looked. He had heard Mr. Lum make the speech that customarily followed this remark a number of times, but it never failed to interest him.

"Look at me!" said Mr. Lum, slapping his chest. "Buyer in the shoes in the Great Store, and that ain't so worse, if I do say it myself. That's what nerve did. What if I did used to get a snootful now and then? I had the self-confidence, and that did the trick. When old man Briggs croaked, I heard that the big boss was looking around outside the store for a man to take his place as buyer in the shoes. So I goes right to the boss, and I says, 'Look here, Mr. Berger, I been in the shoes eighteen years, and I know shoes from A to Z, and back again. I can fill Briggs' shoes,' I says. And that gets him laughing, although I didn't mean it that way, for I don't think humor has any place in business.

"'Well,' he says, 'you certainly got confidence in yourself. I'll see what you can do in Briggs' job. It will pay forty a week.' I knew old Briggs was getting more than forty, and I could see that Berger needed me, so I spins on him and I laughs in his face. 'Forty popcorn balls!' I says to him. 'Sixty is the least that job's worth, and you know it.' Well, to make a long story short, he comes through with sixty!"