Part 2

Tootles shared the studio, which was a curiosity in itself, and a sort of refuge for indigent artists, transient reporters and just plain-a-day human beings, with Mr. Flick Wilder, who numbered among his activities (without tarrying overlong in any) journalism, all grades of publicity and press-work, advance agent, and odd theatrical jobs, special stories, and occasionally minor editorial positions, briefly held. As he aspired to a liberal position in the literary world--and by liberal, he understood a position in which he should originate the ideas that others were laboriously to execute--he had decided to take up as a steady profession (steady being used in a relative sense) the occupation of joke-smith, or joke-cracker, as he himself termed it, as one which necessitated only a trifling expense in the shape of a note-book, developed the memory, and made the companionship of witty associates a lucrative necessity. He pounded out the pun ordinary by the dozen for the comic weeklies at fifty cents an item. He dressed up anecdotes skimmed from current journalism, and fitted them to celebrities, a process which he termed “developing the property.” He seasoned English humor with the pepper of American wit. He tagged an inscription to a cartoon and supplied ideas for others _ad libitum_, and occasionally, by astutely padding two lines into a paragraph or a paragraph into a section, realized the colossal sum of five dollars. Daily contemplation of all things in their humorous possibilities had settled upon him a fixed gravity, a sort of distant look in the eyes, of seeking to determine whether the last man had uttered anything of value, and where others broke into laughter, he resorted to his note-book. He had seen many sides of New York in the periodic lapses which kept him constantly in search of a new profession. He had even been a dog-catcher during a week of financial stringency, when he was seeking to earn his fare from Chattanooga back to the metropolis, but he never referred to this except in moments of full confession. He had a play and a novel which he intended to complete. In tribute to this literary productivity, he liked to refer to himself as “Literature,” while addressing Tootles as “Art.”

Their association had come about six months previously, in a quite accidental manner. Tootles, who was of extravagant tastes, was immersed in a fit of hard work, in an effort to catch up with the rent, which, though only thirty dollars a month, was beyond his powers of concentration. He was at his easel, finishing up a series of commercial sketches depicting certain Olympian young men, beautiful as men are not, lolling on the seashore in the new spring styles of Wimpfheimer & Goldfinch’s twenty-five-dollar suits--a degradation which he endured against the day when the galleries of the world should contend for his masterpieces, on the practical theory that it not only kept the landlord in good humor but gave the artist himself exceptional opportunities in the matter of his own wardrobe.

The door was open, and he was aware that something unusual was taking place along the hall--from the intermittent sounds which rolled down, of loud and angry conversation--when there abruptly entered the room, and by the same token his own immediate existence, Mr. Flick Wilder, a sandy-haired, freckled Westerner, with a watery eye and an impudent tilt to his nose, a heavy, thirsty underlip, about thirty, of middle height but so abnormally thin that he appeared back-bone _et præterea nihil_.

“Hello, kid!” said Mr. Wilder, with a friendly though suspiciously enthusiastic greeting.

“Hello, you human hatpin,” Tootles immediately retorted. “What’s your line of goods?”

“Did I hear you ask me in?” said Wilder affably.

“No agents need apply,” said Tootles, in warning. “However, can you lend me five?”

From long contact, he had adopted a defensive formula: In case of doubt, touch the other man first.

“I can,” said the other, accepting this as an invitation to enter.

Tootles eyed him through the narrowing slits of his eyes and repeated sternly,

“Come now; what’s your line of goods?”

“I have a camel,” said the other, in an easy, matter-of-fact tone.

“A _what_?”

“A camel.”

“I don’t want any toys.”

“It’s a real camel.”

“Thanks. I’m only interested in getting goats,” said Tootles sarcastically.

Whereupon, to his amazement, his visitor immediately drew out a memorandum-book, reflected a moment, nodded, and jotted down a note. Then he said:

“Want you to ride it.”

“Oh, you do, eh?”

“And if ten dollars means anything to you, kiddo--look this over.”

Whereupon he took two five-dollar bills from a sizeable roll and flaunted them conspicuously on the table. The aspect of ready money had always a convincing effect upon Tootles. Still, the thing was too absurd. He looked at Wilder, and then went to the door and looked out suddenly, suspecting a hoax. He came back warily, forgetting his English accent, which he had laboriously imitated in admiration of a certain vaudeville hero.

“Say, what kind of a game is this?”

“Money talks, doesn’t it?”

“A camel!”

“You don’t believe I’ve got a camel, do you?” said Wilder, with a hypnotic stare. “Come here.”

They went to the window and craned out. Below, in the street, surrounded by a swarm of newsboys, was indubitably a camel. Up to this moment, Tootles had remained incredulous. Now he began to feel a rising excitement. He scented trouble, and if there was anything he went to naturally, with enthusiasm, it was trouble. He liked to be in it, and he particularly liked to lead others therein.

“How about the cops,” he said, at once.

Wilder exhibited a permit.

“It’s a publicity dodge--see!” he explained. “New show at Coney. If I can make Times Square at five o’clock, a bunch of the boys are primed up for a big story.”

“Why don’t you ride him yourself,” said Tootles, in a last objection.

“I can’t. I’m too sober,” said Flick, with a discouraged shake of his head, as though to convey the idea that the day had been too short.

They descended to the sidewalk.

“How’ll I get up?” said Tootles, craning his neck.

This was a puzzler. Wilder reflected.

“I had a trained slave who could make him kneel,” he explained, “but I lost Abu over on Ninth Avenue--the drunken rascal!”

Finally they maneuvered Elsie against the side of a truck, and Tootles scrambled into place, amid the jeers of the neighborhood. Wilder placed himself courageously at the head, with the leading-strap, and they started. Unfortunately it was only four o’clock, and he did not wish to reach his rendezvous before five, and, in a luckless moment, decided to cross the park and explore the East Side. This, too, might have resulted without accident, had not Flick, whose sense of geography was becoming misty, happened to remember Abu, and stopped at each saloon to conduct a personal search, despite the frantic remonstrances of Tootles, who did not relish these moments of lonely and lofty splendor. Elsie, the camel, however, was of a sociable, man-loving nature, and no harm might have come, had not Wilder, whose sobriety was perceptibly being cured, remembered, as a humane man with an investigating turn of mind, that Elsie must be getting thirsty, and offered her a can of foaming beer.

The consequence was that the camel suddenly awoke and assumed the direction of the party, heading due east (with an instinct, perhaps, toward the fatherland) at an accelerated pace, despite Tootles’ objurgations and Flick’s frantic efforts to head her off. The rest was a painful memory--a weird, reeling flight of excited tenements, balking horses, swearing policemen, and a sudden entangling plunge into an Italian wedding, in which camel, bride, coupés, and guests became fantastically intermingled, while Tootles, hanging to the top of a providential lamp-post, saw Flick, Elsie, the policemen and wedding-party rolling away in a whirling mist.

A week later, Flick Wilder reappeared, having beaten his way back from Buffalo, where he had landed, he knew not how and asked shelter, while he made certain cautious inquiries as to the fate of Elsie and the propriety of a public reappearance.

From this hectic beginning, they became fast chums. Tootles, who never touched a drop, unconsciously exercised a sobering influence over Mr. Flick Wilder, gradually leading him into the paths of ambition while following him through a series of incredible escapades. Lonely, each in his own struggling beginning, they found a divine measure of comradeship in their exuberant youth, dreaming away at night under the stars that came down to them through the open skylight; Tootles of fame and masterpieces; Flick of more worldly ambitions, of rolling down the avenue, not on camels but in glaring limousines, of being saluted obsequiously by precipitate head waiters conducting him through luxurious restaurants where beautiful women with diamonds in their hair sent him imploring glances. But as these dreams, though immensely satisfying to the inner needs, had the one serious defect of not being discountable, the rent loomed over them like the sword of Damocles, compelling them, much as the outer world called to their curiosity and love of adventure, to the cruel necessity of doing a certain amount of work--menial, brutalizing periods, which set upon them in the closing week of the month, with consequent scurrying to editorial offices.

During the free, happy weeks, Tootles dreamed and dabbled at painting, executing lurid portraits of Belle Shaler and Pansy Hartmann, models who roomed together down the hall, and who, under promise of possessing these treasures of art, agreed to sit for him at special rates, payable at some radiant future date. Occasionally Tootles wandered into the studios of artists in the Sixty-seventh Street district for such crumbs of knowledge as they good-humoredly threw him. The truth is, he had unusual talent but too much youth. Occasionally, too, Flick Wilder, impressed with his serious view of life, would get out his copybooks, sharpen his pencil and prepare to think.

The studio was a capacious one, arranged in compromise between Flick’s yearning for splendor and Tootles’ feeling for the decorative in art. At first glance, it looked like a theatrical storehouse, from which parentage most of its furnishings had found their way, so that one versed in dramatic necrology would have fancied himself on the reef of last season’s plays. The studio was lit by two windows on the street and a great, slanting skylight overhead. On one side was a huge back drop depicting a sunset in the Grand Cañon, while on the other was a bucolic view of southern plantations, secured from a broken-down troupe of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” for a price between two and three dollars. The introduction of these novel effects in mural decoration, a relic of Flick Wilder’s friendship with a convivial property-man, was at first strenuously opposed by Tootles, who, however, ceded his position when Flick pertinently pointed out, first, that the bare walls were in a shocking state and could not be replastered unless one month’s rent could be guaranteed in advance, and, second, that the scenery would serve as invaluable backgrounds for the production of Wimpfheimer & Goldfinch’s pastorales.

In a back corner, four property spears, from a popular failure of “Julius Cæsar,” upheld a yellowish-green silk curtain which, when parted, disclosed two bunks, one above the other, for greater economy of space--Tootles occupying the more exposed position in deference to Flick’s uncertain habits.

The opposite corner by the windows was consecrated to Art, paint-boxes, easel, and canvases; while the home of Literature was a damaged roll-top desk from the first act of a deceased melodrama, with easy refuge at hand in a second-hand easy chair and a divan with the front spring still in good order. Another sofa and a hanging couch burned with pipe-ashes were known as the guest-rooms, while the studio was artfully divided into zones by three pseudo-Japanese screens, red, yellow, and violet, which swore at everything else and at themselves. Behind one was the bathroom, so-called as a compliment to the presence of a wash-basin and running water. A second screen, with memories of “Zaza,” concealed the culinary preparations when, indeed, there was anything in the larder to conceal; while behind a third was a wardrobe containing Tootles’ multiple suits, which had come to him in part payment (dress suits excepted) of his services to the house of Wimpfheimer & Goldfinch.

All the electric bulbs were concealed in varicolored globes representing several varieties of the fish and animal kingdom and capable of flooding the studio with red, blue, or green tints, while perched in the high, dusky corners of the ceiling were two cast-iron owls so wired that Flick, from his couch, could cause four yellowish eyes to spring out of the darkness. Finally, the pride of the floor, where it dominated gorgeously the collection of vagrant mats, was a genuine if moldy bear-rug, with which Flick had unaccountably made his appearance one night, insisting that it had attacked him without warning. Tootles was considerably worried, but a closer inspection of the animal convinced him that Flick had more probably rescued it from an ash-can than carried it off by any act of grand larceny. Consequently he set to work with enthusiasm to restore it to some of its original ferocity, and with the aid of odd scraps of furs succeeded in reconstructing a semblance of a body, but one of such unusual colors that it might have passed as a specie of the Go-to-fro--that mythological animal which has the left leg shorter than the right in order that it may run around a hill the faster.

In the hallway was a large sign inscribed:

PEDDLERS, BOOK AGENTS AND CREDITORS CROSS THIS LINE AT THEIR PERIL. SAVAGE DOG ON PREMISES

Around the studio others signs announced:

GUESTS STAYING FOR BREAKFAST PROVIDE THEIR OWN COFFEE AND WILL BE CHARGED FOR THE USE OF THE TOWEL.

By the door, a practical inspiration of Tootles, was a collection-box bearing a large placard:

KIDDER & WILDER’S 25c LODGINGS FOR TRANSIENT BACHELORS ONLY THIS IS NOT A CARNEGIE FOUNDATION. COME ONCE AND BE OUR GUEST COME AGAIN AND CONTRIBUTE COME OFTEN, THE RENT IS HIGH.

III

Flick Wilder was stretched on his back on the shadowy couch, hands under his head, legs crossed, and one foot pointed toward the skylight, against which the reflections of the opposite hotel cast a blurred glamour.

“Hello; you here?” said Tootles, in surprise.

“Mostly.”

“Sober?”

“Alas!”

“What are you mooning there on your back for?” said Tootles, turning on the pink and yellow lights.

“I’m laughing over a new joke,” said Wilder, in anything but an hilarious tone.

“Good Lord, Flick,” said Tootles, stopping short: “don’t tell me you are in the glums, too?”

“Who’re you talking to?” said Wilder, as though the question deserved no answer.

“Fellow down the hall.”

“The high-life gink who is moving into the corner studio?”

“No; O’Leary--fellow next to Lady Vere De Vere,” said Tootles, thus characterizing Miss Inga Sonderson, who had impressed him with her haughty aloofness.

“Oh!” Wilder slowly drew himself up and looked inquiringly at Tootles. “What time?”

“Dinner-time, naturally.”

“Art,” said Wilder severely, “there are some sacred words which you ought to respect.”

“I was just thinking how lovely it would be to sit down before a large, juicy beefsteak,” said Tootles incorrigibly. “You know the kind, browned on the outside, rare inside, melting in the mouth.”

Wilder flung a slipper across the room that missed Tootles’ head and clattered among the paint-brushes.

“Well, Literature, supposing there is an ice-box, is there anything in it?”

“You’re forgetting your English accent, Tootles,” said Wilder, as he bustled, whistling, over to the window-box.

“My word--so I am!” said Tootles, following and peering over his shoulder.

Wilder drew forth half a bottle of milk, an open tin of potted ham and several portions of bread.

“The sardines,” he said, “are for our Christmas dinner.”

“Don’t let’s overeat,” said Tootles seriously, trying to coax forth a smile. “Flick, the stomach must be empty when the brain is full.”

They sat down at the table, facing each other.

“What! No finger-bowls?” said Tootles facetiously, drumming a march on the table.

“Art, it’s no use,” said Wilder, shaking his head. “It’s a bum night. Damn Christmas anyhow!”

“Ah, but wait until Santa Claus comes,” said Tootles brightly.

At this moment, as though in answer, there came two sharp raps on the door that set the glass to rattling.

“Who’s that?” said Wilder, startled at the coincidence.

“Santa Claus,” said Tootles. “Well, come in if you’re good looking.”

The door opened immediately, and King O’Leary’s broad shoulders loomed out of the dusk. He stood there in his flannel shirt and loose tie, at ease from a long acquaintance with the freemasonry of men, peering in at the oddities of the studio, which seemed to amuse him immensely. Then he saluted, with the curious, fluttering salute of the English private, and exclaimed:

“Hello, neighbors! Am I butting in?”

“Not at all,” said Tootles cheerily. “What can we do for you?” He waved a hand toward Wilder, adding: “My collaborator, the Hope of Literature, Mr. Flick Wilder.”

“Glad to know you,” said the new arrival, shaking hands heartily, as though he were indeed delighted at the opportunity. “My name’s O’Leary.” And he added, grinning expectantly, “What do you collaborate in?”

“In the studio, of course,” said Tootles. “I pay the rent, and he occupies it.”

Wilder at once transferred this to his memorandum-book with an appreciative nod.

“Gentlemen, this place has sort of gotten on my nerves to-night,” said O’Leary, by way of explanation. “Christmas usually does, whether I’m in Singapore, Manila, or hoofing it up the Roo Royale. If I’m butting in, kick me out, but if you fellows have got it as bad as I have, what do you say to pooling our misery and grubbing together. It strikes me that’s better than chewing the cud in our corners.”

Wilder looked at Tootles, who said with gravity, in his best English manner:

“Your idea interests me strangely; but the fact is--well, we’ve been out so much in society lately that we thought we’d enjoy a quiet little supper at home--” King O’Leary glanced at the table; perceiving which, Tootles hastened to add, “No, that isn’t for the canary; that is just the _hors d’œuvres_.”

“Strapped?”

“That is a vulgar way of expressing the same idea.”

“Stranger treats the crowd,” said O’Leary with an easy authority. “That’s the rule of the game wherever I have played. I’m asking you. Happen to have a little swelling in the pocket just at present. When it’s empty, which will be soon enough, why--your turn. How about it, neighbors? Suppose we look each other over and size it up?”

Half an hour later they deployed from the Arcade and set out for Healy’s, grimly determined on revelry and the conquest of the glums. Unfortunately, the Christmas crowds were still about them, homeward bound.

“They might get home at a decent hour,” said Flick, indignantly.

“No turkeys to-night,” said Tootles. “I’m against it. My word! The thought of all those birds, plucked and skinned, thousands and thousands”--he reflected a moment--“no, hundreds of thousands--think of it--hundreds of thousands of turkeys!”

“Confound them, they look happy,” said Flick, blowing the snow from his nostrils. “Well, anyhow, they’ll all be ill to-morrow!”

King O’Leary squared his shoulders and looked straight ahead, but he found a moment, as they were crossing the newsboys at the subway, to slip surreptitiously a shiny quarter into the fist of a pursuing urchin.

“No public stuff,” he said, as he entered by the bar entrance. “A quiet corner where men can lounge and spin a yarn as they like. Here’s a seat. Shove in.” He glanced at the rough-hewn crowd by the rail, and said grimly: “Mighty grateful to you fellows. Suppose I’d have had to pick up with one of those guys.”

They slipped into a padded nook with high backs, tucked away from the whirl of mirrors and the regimented bottles beyond the black, curved backs, and derbies pushed over the ears.

“What’ll it be?”

“No turkey,” said Tootles.

“And no cranberry sauce,” added Flick.

“No, no--forget all that!”

But at this moment, as though the spirit of the holiday were bent on pursuing them like a tantalizing imp, a stableman, affably inclined, saluted the room in his departure.

“Well, and good luck to youse all. A foine Christmas!”

“How about a steak?” said Tootles hastily.

“That hits me, and we’ll have it planked,” said O’Leary.

“Better look at the tax,” said Flick, in a burst of friendliness.

“Rot! We’ll make a night of it!” said King O’Leary, with the gesture of a millionaire toward Schnapps, the veteran waiter, who grinned down at them from his gobbler head.

“My word! If I ordered that, they’d make me show the goods,” said Tootles, in admiration. “Have you found a gold mine?”

“Hardly that.”

“Been away quite a bit, haven’t you?”

“Yep; just back.” He paused, and noting the curiosity written on the faces of his guests, said: “Suppose it’s up to me to give an account of myself.” Schnapps was back with a bottle. O’Leary poured out his glass of whisky, taking it neat, with a look of surprise at Tootles’ refusal. “Water-wagon? Always have been? Well, don’t know but what you have the advantage. Will say this, though, cottoned right up to you, boy, over there in that elevator. You got the first laugh out of me in a long blue day, and that’s more than I thought any one could do. Here’s to you! Kind of reckon we’ll hit it off. You’ll find me a different sort day after to-morrow--right there with the repartee and the jollying stuff. How!” He emptied the glass and pushed it away. “I say, we might as well start fair. I’m apt to get pretty down--not violent--just down. Savvy?”

“I’ve handled them before,” said Tootles cheerily, with a glance of tribute to Flick. “Go as far as you like. This is free soil.”

“What made you turn around there in the hall and wish me luck?” said King O’Leary slowly.

“Don’t know. Kind of felt how you felt, I suppose.”

“You hit it, all right. But that’s something we won’t talk about. Well, lads, I suppose you’re curious about me, same as I am about you. If I were to tell you all the scrapes I’ve been in and out of in thirty-seven years, we’d be sitting here at Easter. If any one should ask me what I did, suppose I’d have to answer--just circulate.

“That’s what I’ve been doing--for I’ve been doing everything, and some of it is worth the telling, as you’ll hear if we get to chumming. If you ask me what I like, I’d rather beat the box than eat. Don’t know anything about it, but just can’t help playing--natural ear. When I get short of funds, I wander in anywhere, café or vaudeville, and whip up the old pianner--All right, Schnapps, don’t annoy the bottle--Trouble with me, I suppose is, I got to roaming early. A habit now. Am never long in one spot before something comes tugging around at my shirt sleeve and I get to dreaming of fast expresses, or sailing into blue seas, or Piccadilly on Saturday night, or the little dog-sleds up in Alasky or something far-off and similar. Times there are when I think I’ve come to the point of driving a stake. Suppose it’ll strike me some time. I ain’t quite as restless as I used to be, but just at present, why, say--if you were to suggest skipping down to Coentes Slip and shipping for Honolulu or Madagascar, I’d beat you to it.”