Part 4

Belle Shaler was a noted character in the art circles in New York, through which she roamed slangy, cheeky, outswearing a man, flying occasionally into the temper of a fishwife, but with the biggest heart in the world--a female gamin, up out of the slums, always ready to wage battle against injustice or for misfortune, speaking her mind brusquely, a terror to pretense and hypocrites; a jewel of a model, with lithe, slender limbs and delicate curves, despite her sandy hair bobbed short and the upturned urchin’s nose, defiant and satirical. She made herself at home wherever she pleased, carrying the gossip of the profession, welcomed everywhere, in the studios of celebrated illustrators on the West Side, in the lofts of sculptors on the top floor of Healy’s, or rambling through the outer regions of Washington Square and Greenwich Village always ready for a spree, brimming over with vitality and a cocky summons to the world to amuse her.

Pansy was of opposite type, soft-eyed, soft-spoken and gentle, without Belle’s beauty of limb, but like a dark and velvety flower, with her soft, oval, blushing face and Oriental eyes which seemed to crowd her eyelids;--all feminine, a virtue by which she had made a deep and disquieting mark on the impressionable heart of Tootles. She knew little of her own life. She had been a model as a child, with blurred memories of older and harsher beings about her who had long since faded away. She had an archness in her smile, and one eyebrow noticeably uplifted, in a manner so strikingly like the baron’s that every one commented on it. Indeed, she might easily have passed for his daughter, nor could he have treated her with more deference, punctiliously surrounding her with formality, always leaving the door open with ostentation when she came to visit him. She was very fond of the aristocratic, lonely old man with an impulsive kindliness which was deep in her nature.

Between their room and the abode of Art and Literature was the home of Ludovic Schneibel, a dentist by necessity, with offices on the third floor, but with a spiritual yearning toward art, literature, and music, and, in particular, the company of artists. He was a squatty, fiery-headed and fiery-worded Swiss-American, in the forties, lame in one leg, and given to velvet coats and flowing neckties. He executed fearful compositions of Alpine storms over leaden lakes with large rainbows in the background, being indeed without any talent but the love of painting, yet selling his canvases to the large department-stores to set off their stock of gilt frames. He worked at night and during holidays, singing unmusically sentimental ballads, with occasional outbursts of yodeling whenever the creative fit was strong. He was a lovable, social tramp, and any rascal in long hair with the requisite jargon could reach his sympathies and his pocketbook. Everything to him was an enthusiasm; Tootles vowed he could go into a paroxysm over a cold potato.

Down the hall, at the extreme back, in the little studio next to King O’Leary’s, was a Miss Inga Sonderson, of whom the Arcade knew as little as they did of Mr. Aristide Jean-Marie Cornelius (if indeed that were his true name, which no one believed). Belle Shaler had posed for her several times--she did posters, covers, and decorative sketches--and had a peaceful memory of filmy coverings and hangings, harmonies in gray and green like the brooding sea, neat couches and window boxes of pungent and bright flowers. She seemed twenty-four or twenty-five--possibly a year or so older--repressed and contemplative--as one who, contrary to the ordinary prejudice, never used conversation to think out loud.

Her body was like a youth’s, firm and supple, and when she moved, the eye went to the hip immediately as a center of grace--of that flowing grace which one sees in the poised female figures on Grecian friezes. Her hair, which was a profound black with the depth in it of a forest pool, had certain blue, furtive gleams which perhaps only an artist would have noticed. She wore it braided and drawn over her forehead in a Swedish coil, rather severe in movement. The face was fragile, unusually dark, with the darkness of the Northlander, and two things were remarkable in it--the eyes and the upper lip, which was unusually sensitive and the first to quiver with any strong emotion which was elsewhere repressed. The eyes were the blue of cold, open waters, with a mist of gray--like a curtain drawn across her soul, beyond which no one, not even the man who came to love her, ever penetrated. She dressed in simple lines and quiet tones, dark blues and black, with only a broad lace collar and cuffs in neat relief. She appeared haughty; Tootles, who, as well as Flick, had been romantically attracted, referred to her as “Lady Vere de Vere.” As a matter of fact, she was not haughty at all, and utterly unaristocratic, as Belle Shaler, that ardent social anarchist, admitted herself. She was simply self-sufficient. Whatever her antecedents, she spoke English naturally, as though she had been born to it, with a low, rather guttural, but pleasant note, curiously soothing; and yet she might have been a waif from a distant Scandinavian region of encroaching night and wan, midnight days. Despite their curiosity, no one would have dreamed of questioning her, not even Belle Shaler, who was unaccountably silent under the sea-blue eyes which looked out at her as though through a mist.

Opposite this room, at the back corner, was the show studio of the Arcade. A genius now passed into society had inhabited it, and the tradition remained. Yet it had had an unlucky history. Those who had held it had not held it long, and the last occupant, a friend of Inga Sonderson’s, Champeno, a young sculptor of great promise, had disappeared under a cloud, leaving his furniture in forfeit. For a month it had stood empty, until several days before the opening of this story, when the rumor went around that it had been let to an artist by the name of Dangerfield, and the curiosity of the Arcade was further excited by the appearance of numerous packing boxes of unusual size, suggesting furniture _de luxe_.

This was the situation on the sixth floor back among these social stragglers enclosed in narrow prisons of their own choosing, secretly yearning for each other’s company, when on Christmas day, invitations issued jointly by Mr. St. George Kidder, Mr. Flick Wilder, and Mr. King O’Leary fell among them like carnival bombs.

V

There was only one thing in life that bothered Tootles greatly, and that was the getting out of bed in the morning. It was high noon by a shaft of sunlight that beat persistently on his Wellingtonian nose, when he finally determined to try the influence of mind over matter according to a method all his own.

“I see myself skipping gracefully over to the wash-basin,” he said aloud.

The Mind was attentive, but Matter did not bulge. He decided to modify the test.

“I see myself standing proudly on my own feet by the side of my bed.”

Still no result.

“I see one of my legs thrust from the covers,” he persisted, in the line of the best psychopathic suggestion. Immediately, one lavender pajama emerged. “I see both of my legs out. I see myself raising myself to a sitting position,” he continued triumphantly, and, suiting the action to the word, he sat bolt upright. At the same moment, King O’Leary rose to a sitting position. They confronted each other thus drowsily a moment, and then smiled, and the smile seemed to descend over the accidental meeting with the binding cement of friendship.

“Well, Santa Claus, how are you?” said Tootles, with the superior cruelty of the teetotaler.

King O’Leary made a wry face, and ran his hand nervously through his hair.

“Was I pretty bad last night?”

“My boy, I thought you were charming,” said Tootles, encouragingly, “particularly when you put me to bed and hung up my stocking. Mother couldn’t have done it more gently.”

“Good Lord, I don’t get that way once in a dog’s age!” said King O’Leary, rather ashamed; and he asked, nervously: “Did I get to shooting off my mouth?”

“You talked,” said Tootles, descending, “but you kept a tight lip. You said nothing you didn’t want to, old cockywax.”

This seemed to reassure O’Leary. He rose, shaking himself together, and his glance fell on the three suspended socks bulging grotesquely.

“Did I do that?” he said, with a wan smile.

“Don’t you remember playing Santa Claus up and down the hall?”

“No; but I remember something about riding miles and miles in an elevator.”

Flick Wilder now began to return, talking violently and flopping about in the last stages of a nightmare.

“Whoa there! Catch him! Hold on to him! Don’t let go of him--head off that camel!”

“Wake up!” said Tootles, shaking him. “Where do you think you are?”

“Where’s Sassafras?” said Flick frantically, betwixt the dream and the reality. “Good Lord, I thought that elevator had broken loose--riding him down Broadway, when he turned into Elsie, the camel!”

He stared at King O’Leary a moment in confusion, and then a light dawned.

“Oh, hello! Well, King, you’re the real guy. How are you?”

“Fine,” said King O’Leary, as cheerfully as such answers are given the morning after.

“Art, you may start the coffee,” said Flick, yawning. “What’s that--oranges?”

“You don’t remember decorating the hall?” said Tootles, lighting the percolator.

“I do,” said Flick, whose memory was remarkable. He added sternly: “King, the infant has stolen our Christmas presents--presents we gave the floor. All our kind intentions are beaten by this son of a thief.”

“I may have taken away the Christmas presents,” said Tootles unfeelingly, “but I was thinking of Christmas breakfast, likewise Christmas lunch and Christmas dinner.”

King O’Leary immediately, with an air of great apprehension, dove into his clothes, while they awaited the result of the search with increasing anxiety.

O’Leary straightened up, displaying a last remaining handful of small coin.

“Shake yourself,” said Flick, alarmed.

“You fed one greenback to a cab-horse down at the Café Boulevard,” said Tootles, trying to be helpful.

“Seventy-nine cents,” said King O’Leary ruefully.

“You can buy a lot of peanuts for that,” said Flick, “and, believe me, peanuts are nourishing.”

“Beans are cheap, so is macaroni,” said Tootles, considering. “We might get three twenty-five-cent lunches at Brannigan’s bar.” By this, O’Leary understood that he was definitely adopted by virtue of the axiom of what was his was theirs. “Brannigan’s a friend of mine. Might stretch it a little if I offered to paint his portrait. What did you give Sassafras?”

“Fifty cents, of course.”

“Every time you got into the elevator?”

“By Jove, that’s so.”

“Great system of yours, Flick. Sassafras has got six of it. Of course, we might murder Sassafras,” said Tootles unfeelingly. “Never mind; there’s the stockings. They’re full of nuts.”

O’Leary went to them and emptied them on the table, perceiving the letter for the first time. He took it up, looking at it suspiciously.

“I don’t like these things,” he said, frowning.

“Neither do I,” said Tootles. “They send you a bill nowadays like a billet-doux.”

Flick began to repeat, doubtfully.

“Bill--billet-doux; billet-doux--bill.”

“What are you doing now?” said Tootles, perceiving Flick resorting to his note-book.

“I might work up that elevator story,” said Wilder, who had abandoned the pun. “There’s a meal in that.”

“Yes; but that’s to-morrow,” said Tootles.

“Kick me,” said O’Leary, all at once, staring at the open letter.

“Perfectly willing to, but why?” said Tootles, approaching.

“Kick me--bite me--stick a pin in me,” said O’Leary wildly.

“Wish it was that fellow Drinkwater,” said Tootles, who availed himself, however, of the first alternative.

“Then I am awake,” said O’Leary solemnly. “Listen.”

Perceiving that something startling had happened, they gathered around while O’Leary read:

South Washington, Oklahoma.

KING O’LEARY.

DEAR SIR:

By the will of your second cousin, Halloran O’Leary, deceased October last, I am directed to transmit to each of the beneficiaries so as to reach them on Christmas day exactly, the sum of one thousand dollars ($1000), which I enclose.

Sincerely yours, MCDAVITT & COURTNEY, Attorneys.

“Let me read it,” said Flick, while Tootles gazed anxiously at King O’Leary, in doubt as to the effect on his heart. Then they all sat down and looked at each other.

“Say something,” said Flick angrily, at last.

“I feel like praying,” said Tootles weakly. “I believe I’ll believe in Santa Claus.”

They examined the letter again, passing it from hand to hand, turning it over and over in a sort of stupefaction, without finding a flaw. Even the draft was at sight on a New York bank.

“King,” said Flick reverently, “never let me hear you curse Christmas again.”

“Never again.” He gazed at the check overwhelmed. “My Lord, how can we ever spend that money!”

“Art and Literature will help you,” said Tootles cheerfully.

The problem was a terrific one. They all sat down to think again.

“Boys, we’ve brought each other luck,” said King O’Leary, with a sudden glow. “Here’s my proposition: If you like me as I like you, I’ll move my old tune-box in to-night and pay a year’s rent.”

Flick and Tootles first shook his hand with emotion, giving him, so to speak, the accolade, and then protested.

“You’re one of us, but nix on that rent idea. I’m firmly against that,” said Tootles. “Suppose we went up in smoke?”

“But how the deuce, then, are we to get away with it?” said King O’Leary, frowning. “If I invest it, some one else will get it. By golly, this time I’m going to have a run for my money! We must do the thing up in a big way--one grand splash. We might move over to the St. Regis and take the bridal suite.”

Flick was visibly impressed at this possibility of entering society, but Tootles turned the idea aside with the suggestion of a superior craftiness.

“And after it’s gone, what good will it do you? No, no; spend it where it will leave grateful memories,” he said wisely. “Keep it right around the block.”

“Them’s is wise words,” said Flick, yielding at once. “Tootles, you lack a heart, but you’re wise. It’s a wonder, though, you didn’t gum it all by stealing those oranges.”

“Pooh! I’m not superstitious,” said Tootles, while King O’Leary was still immersed in the distressing problem of how to get rid of the perplexing windfall.

“I am,” said Flick, “for let me tell you right now that this is the reward of virtue, _my_ virtue. You needn’t throw up your hands. It’s what comes of having a kind heart. Yes, even toward elevators--always remember the milk of human kindness,” continued Flick, looking at Tootles reproachfully.

“Right you are,” said King O’Leary, with conviction, for his faith was of the simplest. And suddenly he exploded: “Flick, you’ve found it. By golly, son, I’ll tell you now how we’ll start to crack that check!”

“How?”

“We’ll have a Christmas of our own--a tree with presents for every one, and a Christmas dinner with a turkey and a pig--yes, sir, a roast pig!” His eyes began to snap as he enlarged upon his idea. “Boys, we’ll have them in, every lonely mother’s son of them--daughters, too! We’ll have an orchestra and decorate the studio--By jingo, we’ll give the old place the greatest shebang these regions have ever known!”

“King O’Leary,” said Tootles rapturously, “tell me the truth--_are_ you Santa Claus?”

* * * * *

An hour later there was deposited at the door of each room along the hall, to the amazement of each occupant, the following card, jointly composed and decorated with Christmas designs by Tootles, in which a tree, a turkey, and a roast pig disported:

WHY BE GLUM? GET TOGETHER AND SWAT THAT GROUCH! MR. ST. GEORGE KIDDER, MR. FLICK WILDER, AND MR. KING O’LEARY INVITE YOU TO A LITTLE CHRISTMAS OF THEIR OWN ONE GLITTERING, GUZZLING GORGE, including a monster TURKEY and a genuine roast PIG, prepared absolutely regardless of expense. CHRISTMAS DINNER AT 7 CHRISTMAS TREE AT 9. CHRISTMAS DANCE AT 10.

MR. FLICK WILDER will carve the roast pig; MR. KING O’LEARY will tickle the ivories; MR. ST. GEORGE KIDDER will amuse.

COME AND ENJOY YOURSELVES STAY AWAY AND BE DAMNED.

R. S. V. P.

VI

During the afternoon King O’Leary performed wonders. Healy’s, through the mediation of that friend of struggling artists, Pat (blessed be his memory along with Abou Ben Adhem and the Good Samaritan!) had agreed to hold the check and even to advance a hundred dollars cash in consideration of the magnificent order for the evening. Tootles, who was left in charge of the studio as the Committee on Decorations, beheld in successive stages of amazement the arrival of a Christmas tree, followed by two urchins staggering under wreaths with trailing red ribbons and green garlands sufficient to decorate a theater, an immense clump of mistletoe, which he immediately suspended to the snout of the Chinese dragon; and while he was yet in the throes of apprehension that King O’Leary’s thousand dollars had been dissipated, a brigade of waiters arrived, who built up, as though by magic, a table capable of seating a score. On top of this followed two florists (one evidently having proven incapable of filling King O’Leary’s desires), who further transformed the studio with potted flowers and palms and left a moist, tissue-filled box redolent with _boutonnières_.

By five o’clock acceptances had come in from every one except Drinkwater and Inga Sonderson--and also Dangerfield, who, however, had probably not yet moved in. At six, Flick and King O’Leary, returning laden with presents, stopped at the door with exclamations of wonder at the miracle they themselves had wrought. The studio had disappeared under the verdant arbor, while a wonderful spangled tree rose like a fairy dream, in one corner. In the center the snowy white spread of the table, sparkling with silver and the glass that snuggled among the green decorations, seemed prepared for a ducal banquet in some sylvan hunting-lodge.

At seven o’clock the guests arrived: Mr. and Mrs. Teagan, who had been especially and strategically invited--Mr. Teagan very dignified and stiff in dinner coat and fat black tie; Mrs. Teagan, rustling good naturedly and beaming forth from a gorgeous pink-satin ball gown with black stomacher--Millie Brewster in blue frock cut properly high and loaded with flounce on flounce of ancient lace; the baron in the evening suit which he wore to Delmonico’s, blue-velvet collar and brass-buttoned vest, with a cut of black-satin ribbon across the frilled shirt; Miss Quirley in a marvelous black-lace gown over a pink silk foundation, with dainty wristlets; Schneibel in green-velvet smoking-jacket and red tie of a totally different hue from his hair; Belle Shaler and Pansy Hartmann in evening gowns, popular editions of the latest styles, presented to them by illustrators in search of heroines of high society; while Tootles, who did the honors, moved among them like a dancing master, more English than ever in a snug dinner coat, with his chin reposing on a high white stockade. Flick had dressed for the evening by the simple expedient of adding a _boutonnière_ to his faithful (the expression is his) ruddy chestnut suit, eclipsing King O’Leary, who remained the roving democrat that he was. Finally, Myrtle Popper arrived the last, on a calculated entrance, towering in mauve, loaded with brooches and sparklers and distilling perfume.

Once gathered, a certain unease unaccountably fell over the party. Mr. and Mrs. Teagan stood alone, clinging to each other, as Schneibel roamed about, admiring the back drops which he believed the work of Tootles. Miss Quirley looked so frightened when the baron tried to open a conversation, while Myrtle Popper and Millie Brewster looked each other over with such visible amazement that King O’Leary, fearing the party was going on the rocks, cried,

“Every one find his place at the table.”

A moment later each guest was gazing in wonder, first at a large portion of caviar ingeniously reposing among clusters of chopped onions, eggs, and lemons, and, second, at the following menu:

FIRST ANNUAL DINNER MENU Caviar Celery Olives Salted Almonds Turtle Soup Oysters on the Half-Shell Vermont Turkey with Cranberry Sauce Roast Pig with Fried Apples Baked Sweet Potatoes Mashed Potatoes Succotash Lobster Salad Plum Pudding Pistache Ice-cream Angel Cake Demi-tasse

Schneibel and Millie were visibly alarmed at the spectacle of the caviar, while the rest of the party, before the magnitude of the task before them, seemed struck dumb, perceiving which, King O’Leary rose and spoke as follows:

“Friends: You have noticed, I suppose, at the head of the menu, that this is the first annual feed. Now, I’m not much on a speech, and this ain’t a speech. We’re here to get together. That’s my motto: If you’ve got a gold mine or a tooth-ache--get together! Let some one else share it. Sort of struck me that we had as much right to a Christmas of our own as some one else--this is the answer. If any one doesn’t like anything here, or anything goes wrong--blame me. As for me, I hope you’ll like me, as I have made up my mind to like you. And after seeing a lot of this old world, I reckon one of us is just as good as another, and if I brought you together, why--”

Here he stopped suddenly, fidgeted, and sat down, amid immense applause.

In ten minutes the party was off at top speed, every one laughing and rattling on in a high voice, utterly regardless of whether any one was listening or not, as though each had been released from solitary confinement and had to talk for the month of repression endured. The first shyness wore off. They gazed gratefully at King O’Leary and then at each other, wondering why they had kept apart so long, so utterly happy that, at times, they stopped and caught their breaths. To attempt to give an adequate idea of this mixed conflict is impossible. The room rang with such remarks as these:

“I’m going to eat that lobster salad if I die for it.”

“Tootles, where did you find him--he’s wonderful!”

“Waiter--hist, waiter--a little more of that there pig, and a bit of the bark!”

“Teagan, you’re all right--here’s to you!”

“Get out of my plate, you dog! Oh, you wanted to help me to some succotash? Well, why didn’t you say so?”

“Whache think o’ the swell that’s movin’ in at the corner? Didche ask him to the party?”

“Say, I’ll tell you one thing.”

“What?”

“He’s got a real fur coat--real fur.”

“Did you ask him?”

“Sorry he’s not moved in yet.”

“Sure he is. Didn’t Pansy get a squint in his studio? He came in to-day,” said Belle.

“Who else didn’t come?” said Myrtle Popper (who had vowed to eat lobster), looking at King O’Leary from her smiling green eyes.

“Drinkwater and the girl at the end.”

“Oh, _her_!”

“Lady Vere de Vere.”

“Sonderson’s all right,” said Belle Shaler loudly. “What’s wrong? Couldn’t she see you?”

Tootles, who had placed himself next to Pansy, who looked unusually fragrant, indignantly defended himself amid shouts of laughter. And they had just risen joyously, when the door opened and Drinkwater’s high face and roving eyes appeared.