Chapter 1

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TIN-TYPES

TAKEN IN

THE STREETS OF NEW YORK

_A SERIES OF STORIES AND SKETCHES PORTRAYING MANY SINGULAR PHASES OF METROPOLITAN LIFE_

BY

LEMUEL ELY QUIGG

_With Fifty-three Illustrations by Harry Beard_

NEW YORK: CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE

COPYRIGHT,

1890,

By O. M. DUNHAM,

_All rights reserved._

Press W. L. Mershon & Co., Rahway, N. J.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. MR. RICKETTY, 1

II. MR. JAYRES, 20

III. BLUDOFFSKI, 43

IV. MAGGIE, 65

V. THE HON. DOYLE O'MEAGHER, 87

VI. THE SAME (_concluded_), 107

VII. MR. GALLIVANT, 126

VIII. TULITZ, 148

IX. MR. MCCAFFERTY, 170

X. MR. MADDLEDOCK, 189

XI. MR. WRANGLER, 211

XII. MR. CINCH, 242

XIII. GRANDMOTHER CRUNCHER, 271

TIN-TYPES.

I.

MR. RICKETTY.

Mr. Ricketty is composed of angles. From his high silk hat worn into dulness, through his black frock coat worn into brightness, along each leg of his broad-checked trowsers worn into rustiness, down into his flat, multi-patched boots, he is a long series of unrelieved angles.

Tipped on the back of his head, but well down over it, he wears an antique high hat, which has assumed that patient, resigned expression occasionally to be observed in the face of some venerable mule, which, having long and hopelessly struggled to free herself of a despicable bondage, at last bows submissively to the inevitable and trudges bravely on till she dies in her tracks.

Everything about Mr. Ricketty, indeed, appears to have an individual expression. His heavily lined, indented brow comes out in a sharp angle over his snappy black eyes, which, sunk far within their sockets, look just like black beans in an elsewise empty eggshell.

His nose is sharp, thin, pendent, and exceedingly ample in its proportions, and it comes inquiringly out from his face as if employed by the rest of his features as a sort of picket sentinel.

It is that uncommonly knowing nose to which the prudent observer of Mr. Ricketty would give his closest attention. He would look at the acute interior angle which it formed at the eyes, and think it much too acute to be pleasant and much too interior to be pretty. He would look at the obtuse exterior angle which it formed on its bridge, and wonder how any humane parent could have permitted such a development to grow before his very eyes when by one quick and dexterous strike with a flat-iron it might have been remedied. He would look at the angle of incidence made by the sun's rays on one side of his nose and then at the angle of reflection on the other, and find himself lost in amazement that anything so thin could produce so dark a shadow.

It is a most uncomfortable nose. It had a way of hanging protectingly over his heavy dark-brown mustache, which, in its turn, hangs protectingly over his thin, wide lips, so as to make it disagreeably certain that they can open and shut, laugh, snap, and sneer without any one being the wiser.

Upon lines almost parallel with those of his nose, his sharp chin extends out and down, fitting by means of another angle upon his long neck, wherein his Adam's apple, like the corner of a cube, wanders up and down at random. Under his side-whiskers the outlines of his square jaws are faintly to be traced, holding in position a pair of hollow cheeks that end directly under his eyes in a little knob of ruddy flesh.

Mr. Ricketty is walking along the Bowery. His step is light and easy, and an air pervades him betokening peace and serenity of mind. In one hand he carries a short rattan stick, which he twirls in his fingers carelessly. His little black eyes travel further and faster than his legs, and rove up and down and across the Bowery ceaselessly. He stops in front of a building devoted, according to the signs spread numerously about it, to a variety of trade.

The fifth floor is occupied by a photographer, the fourth by a dealer in picture frames, the third and the second are let out for offices. Over the first hangs the gilded symbol of the three balls and the further information, lettered on a signboard, "Isaac Buxbaum, Money to Loan." The basement is given over to a restaurant-keeper whose identity is fixed by the testimony of another signboard, bearing the two words, "Butter-cake Bob's." Mr. Ricketty's little black eyes wander for an instant up and down the front of the building, and then he trips lightly down the basement steps into the restaurant.

A score or more of small tables fastened securely to the floor--for many, as Bob often said, "comes here deep in liquor an' can't tell a white-pine table from a black felt hat"--were disposed about the room at measured distances from each other, equipped with four short-legged stools, a set of casters, and a jar of sugar, all so firmly fixed as to baffle both cupidity and nervousness. On walls, posts, and pillars were hung a number of allusions to the variety and excellence of Bob's larder.

It was represented that coffee and cakes could be obtained for the trifling sum of ten cents, that corned-beef hash was a specialty, and that as for Bob's chicken soup it was the best in the Bowery. Apparently attracted by this statement, Mr. Ricketty sat down, and intimated to a large young man who presented himself that he was willing to try the chicken soup together with a cup of coffee.

The young man lifted his head and shouted vociferously toward the ceiling, "Chicken in de bowl, draw one!"

"My friend," said Mr. Ricketty, "what a noble pair of lungs you've got and what a fine quality of voice."

The young man grinned cheerfully.

"I am tempted to lavish a cigar on you," continued Mr. Ricketty, "in token of my regard for those lungs. A cigar represents to me a large amount of capital, but it shall all be yours if you'll just step upstairs and see if my old friend, Ike Buxbaum, is in."

"He aint in," said the waiter.

"How do you know?"

"I jist seen him goin' down de street."

"Who runs his business when he adjourns to the street."

"Dunno. Guess it's his wife."

"Aha! the beauteous Becky?"

"I dunno; I've seen a woman in dere."

"You're sure Ike has gone off, are you?"

"Didn't I say I seen him?"

"True. I am answered. My friend, there's the cigar. There, too, are the fifteen cents wherewith to pay for my frugal luncheon. Look upon the luncheon when it comes as yours. I bethink me of an immediate engagement," and rising abruptly Mr. Ricketty hastened out of the restaurant into the street.

He glanced quickly through the pawnshop window and made out the figure of a woman standing within among the shadows. He adjusted his hat to his head and a winsome smile to his countenance, and entered.

"Good-morning!" he said, breezily, to the young woman who came forward, "where's Ike?"

"Gone out," she answered, looking him over carefully.

"Tut, tut, tut," said Mr. Ricketty, as if utterly annoyed and disappointed. "That's too bad. Will he be gone long?"

"All the morning."

"Will he now? Well, I'll call again," and Mr. Ricketty started for the door. He stopped when he had gone a step or two, however, and, wheeling about, looked earnestly at Becky.

"Let me see," he said, "you must be Ike's wife. You must be the fair and radiant Becky. There's no doubt of it, not the least, now, is there?"

"Well, what if there aint?" said Becky, coolly.

"Why if there aint you ought to know me. You ought to have heard Ike speaking of his friend Ricketty. You ought to have heard him telling of what a good-for-nothing old fool I am. If you are Becky, then you and I are old friends."

"S'posin' we be," said Becky, "what then?"

"To be sure," Mr. Ricketty replied, "what then? Then, Becky, fair daughter of Israel, I've a treasure for you. I always lay my treasure at the feet of my friends. This may not be wise; it may not be the way to grow rich; but it is Steve Ricketty's way, and he can't help it. I have a treasure here now for you. It has taken months of suffering and sorrow to induce me to part with it. Around it cluster memories of other and brighter days. Look!"

Mr. Ricketty produced a string of large and beautiful pearls. They were evidently of the very finest quality, and Becky's black eyes sparkled as she caught their radiance.

"See," said Mr. Ricketty, "see the bedazzling heirloom. Full oft, sweet Jewess, have I held it to my bosom, have I bedewed it with my tears--"

"Oh, yes," interrupted Becky, with a satirical smile, "that's what's made the colors so fine, I suppose."

"Becky, do not taunt me," Mr. Ricketty answered, reproachfully. "This is a sad hour to me. What'll you give for it?"

"Where did it come from?" asked Becky, shrewdly. "We like to know what we're doing when we buy pearl necklaces at retail."

"It was my mother's," replied Mr. Ricketty, touching his handkerchief to his eyes. "When she breathed her last she placed these pearls about my neck. 'Stephen,' she said, 'keep them for my sake.'"

Becky hesitated. Not that she was at all impressed with this story of how the necklace came into Mr. Ricketty's possession. She was fully alive to the risk she ran in entering into any bargain with gentlemen of Mr. Ricketty's appearance, but the luster of the pearls burned in Becky's eyes.

"Well," she said, with a vast assumption of indifference, "I'll give you fifty dollars for them."

Mr. Ricketty cast forth at her one long, scornful look and then started to go out.

"Oh, well," she called after him, "I'll be liberal. I'll make it a hundred."

"No, Becky, you wont. You'll not get that glorious relic for the price of a champagne supper. I will die. I will take my pearls and go and jump off the bridge, and together we'll float with the turning tide out into the blue sea. Adieu, Rebecca, so beautiful and yet so cold, adieu! How could Heaven have made thy face so fair, thine eyes so full of light, thy ruddy lips so merry, but thy heart so hard! I press thy hand for the last time, fair Rebecca--"

"Well, I like that," cried Becky; "seeing that it's the first. You're very gay for a man of your years, and you'd best keep your fine words for them that wants 'em,--_I_ don't"; and Becky withdrew her hand, detaining, however, the pearls within it.

Becky was not ill-favored. Her black, silky hair, as fine as a Skye terrier's, curled around a comely head. Her complexion was soft and dark, and her figure light and easy in its movement. These peculiarities, together with her way of fondling the pearls, did not escape Mr. Ricketty's calculating observation.

"Becky," he began blandly.

"Who told you to call me 'Becky'?" she angrily demanded.

"Daughter of Canaan, lend me thine ear, itself as fair as any of these gems of the Southern Sea."

"Oh, come off!" said Becky.

"It has cost me many pangs to bring these jewels here--"

"And you're going to sell them at so much the pang, I s'pose."

"For hours together have I walked up and down the Bowery, trying to rouse my feeble courage. But when I would stop under the three golden balls, I seemed to see a sneer on every passer's lips. They were all saying, 'There goes Steve Ricketty, about to sell his fond mother's pearls.' The thought choked me, Becky, it burned my filial heart."

"Don't seem as if it did your cheek no harm," observed Becky dryly.

"But when I saw your face through the window there, so beautiful and sympathetic, I said to myself, 'There is a true woman. She will feel for me and my grief.' Suppose we make it two hundred and fifty. Come, Becky, the pearls are yours for two hundred and fifty."

"I wont."

"Am I deceived? No, no, it can't be true. I will not believe--"

"I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you two hundred to get rid of you."

Mr. Ricketty picked up a little hand-glass that lay upon the counter and placed it before her face.

"Look there," he said, "and tell me what it is that makes Rebecca so heartless. Not those lustrous eyes, so frank and warm; not that--"

"Oh, now, stop that."

"Not that sensitive, shapely nose--"

"Well, I thank goodness it's got no such bulge on it as yours."

"Not those refined lips, arched like the love-god's bow and many times as dangerous; not those cheeks--those soft peach-tinted cheeks, telling in dainty blushes--"

"Oh, six bright stars!"

"Of a soul pure as a sunbeam--"

"Now, I want you to stop and go 'way. I wont take your old pearls at any price."

"Not that brow--that fair, enameled brow--nor yet that creamy throat. Think, sweet Becky, just how these pearls would look clasped with their diamond catch about that creamy throat. I fear to show you lest their luster pale. But yet, I will! See!" and catching up the jewels he threw them about her neck and held the glass steadily before her.

Becky looked. It was evidently not a new idea to Becky. She had all along been considering just the situation Mr. Ricketty proposed, and when he finally dropped the pearls and struck an attitude of profound admiration, Becky snatched the prize from her neck, slid it into a drawer under the counter, and drew a leather purse from the safe behind her. She had begun to count out the money, when a figure passing the window caught her eye.

"There!" she said sharply. "You've been bothering me so long that Ike's come back, and we've got to go through a scene. Two hundred and fifty dollars! It'll break Ike's heart."

Mr. Ricketty snatched the pocket-book from her hands, coolly extracted bills to the amount of two hundred and fifty dollars, returned the book, and whipped out his handkerchief. As the Jew entered he beheld a man leaning against his counter holding a wad of greenbacks in his hand and sobbing violently.

Apparently summoning all his resolution, Mr. Ricketty dried his eyes and fervently grasped the money-lender's hand.

"Ikey, my boy," he said, "I leave my all with you. I go from your door, Ikey, like one who treads alone some banquet hall deserted. I have sold you my birthright, dear boy, for a mess of pottage--a mere mess of pottage--a paltry two hundred and fifty dollars."

Ikey turned pale. "Pecky!" he cried, "who vas der fool mans und vat he means apoudt der dwo huntered und feefty tollars, hey?"

"Well may you call me a fool, Ikey; I can't deny it. I can't even lift my voice in protest. No man in his sober senses would have sold that necklace of glorious gems for such a miserable pittance. Here, Ikey, take back your money and give me my pearls."

He held out the greenbacks with one hand, while with the other he placed his handkerchief to his eyes, of which with great dexterity he reserved a considerable corner for the purposes of observation. At the same time, Becky, well knowing that she had bought the pearls for a sum which, though probably more than her husband would have consented to give, was still far less than their value, handed him the necklace.

The pawnbroker looked from money to jewels and from jewels to money with an expression of curiously mingled grief and greed. Finally, taking Ricketty by the coat-tails, he dragged him towards the door, saying, "I nefer go pack by anydings vat mine vife does, meester, but ven you haf shewels some more, yust coom along ven I vas der shtore py mineselluf, hey?"

Mr. Ricketty shook his hand effusively. "I will, Ikey, I will. These women are very unsatisfactory to deal with. Au revoir, Ikey! Au revoir, madam!" and bowing with the utmost urbanity to the genial Becky, he strode into the street.

It was easy to see, as Mr. Ricketty wandered aimlessly down the Bowery, that his humor was entirely amiable. The knobs of ruddy flesh under his twinkling black eyes were encircled by a set of merry wrinkles, and his mustache had expanded far across his face.

He had gone as far as Canal Street, and was just about to turn the corner, when he heard a low, chirping sort of whistle. All in a second his face changed its expression. The merry wrinkles melted and his mustache drew itself compactly together. But he did not turn his head or alter his gait. He walked on for several steps until he heard the whistle again, and this time its tone was sharp. He stopped, wheeled around, and encountered two men.

One of these was a darkly tinted, strongly built man, with big brown eyes, tremendous arms, and an oppressive manner. To him Mr. Ricketty at once addressed himself.

"Ah, my dear Inspector!" he cried gayly. "I'm amazingly happy to see you. You're looking so well and hearty."

"Yes, Steve," replied the darkly tinted man, "I'm feeling fairly well, Steve, and how is it with you?"

"So, so."

"I haven't happened to meet you recently, Steve."

"Well, no, Inspector. I've been West, but my brother's death--"

"I never knew you had a brother, Steve?"

"Oh, yes, Inspector; and a charming fellow he was. He died last week and--"

"Was he honest, Steve?"

"As honest as a quart measure."

"And did he tell the truth?"

"Like a sun-dial."

"Then it's an almighty pity he died, for you need that kind of man in your family, Steve."

Mr. Ricketty closed one of his little black eyes, and drew down the ends of his mustache, but beyond this indirect method of communicating his thoughts he made no reply to this observation.

"I suppose you're not contemplating a very long stay in the city, Steve?" suggested the Inspector.

"N--n--no," said Mr. Ricketty.

"You seem in doubt?"

"No, I guess I'll return to the West this afternoon."

"Well, on the whole, I shouldn't wonder if that wouldn't be best. Your brother's estate can be settled up, I fancy, without you?"

"It aint very large."

"Well, then, good-by, Steve, and, mind now, this afternoon."

"All right, Inspector; good-by!"

As Mr. Ricketty disappeared down Canal Street, the inspector of police turned to his friend and said: "That fellow was a clergyman once, and they say he used to preach brilliant sermons."

II.

MR. JAYRES.

Bootsey Biggs was a Boy. From the topmost hair of his shocky head to the nethermost sole of his tough little feet, Bootsey Biggs was a Boy. Bootsey was on his way to business. He had come to his tenement home in Cherry Street, just below Franklin Square, to partake of his noonday meal. He had climbed five flights of tenement-house stairs, equal to about thirty flights of civilized stairs, and procuring the key of his mother's room from Mrs. Maguinness, who lived in the third room beyond, where it was always left when Mrs. Biggs went out to get her papers, he had entered within the four walls that he called his home.

Spread upon the little pine table that stood in one corner was his luncheon all ready for him, and after clambering into the big dry-goods box originally purchased for a coal-bin, but converted under the stress of a recent emergency into the baby's crib, and after kissing and poking and mauling and squeezing the poor little baby into a mild convulsion, Bootsey had gone heartily at work upon his luncheon.

He was now satisfied. His stomach was full of boiled cabbage, and his soul was full of peace. He clambered back into the dry-goods box and renewed his guileless operations on the baby. By all odds the baby was the most astonishing thing that had ever come under Bootsey's observation, and the only time during which Bootsey was afforded a fair and uninterrupted opportunity of examining the baby was that period of the day which Mr. Jayres, Bootsey's employer, was wont to term "the noonday hour."

Long before Bootsey came home for his luncheon, Mrs. Biggs was off for her stand in front of "The Sun" building, where she conducted a large and, let us hope, a lucrative business in the afternoon newspapers, so that Bootsey and the baby were left to enjoy the fulness of each other's society alone and undisturbed.

To Bootsey's mind the baby presented a great variety of psychological and other problems. He wondered what could be the mental operation that caused it to kink its nose in that amazing manner, why it should manifest such a persistent desire to swallow its fist, what could be the particular woe and grievance that suddenly possessed its little soul and moved it to pucker up its mouth and yell as though it saw nothing but despair as its earthly portion?

Bootsey had debated these and similar questions until two beats upon the clock warned him that, even upon the most liberal calculation, the noonday hour must be looked upon as gone. Then he rolled the baby up in one corner of the box and started back to the office.

It was Mr. Absalom Jayres's office to which Bootsey's way tended, and a peculiarity about it that had impressed both Mr. Jayres and Bootsey was that Bootsey could perform a given distance of which it was the starting-point in at least one-tenth the time required to perform the same distance of which it was the destination. This was odd, but true.

After taking leave of the baby and locking it in, all snugly smothered at the bottom of its dry-goods box, Bootsey delivered the key of the room to Mrs. Maguinness and descended into the court. Here he found two other boys involved in a difficulty. Things had gone so far that Bootsey saw it would be a waste of time to try to ascertain the merits of the controversy--his only and obvious duty being to hasten the crisis.

"Hi! Shunks!" he cried, "O'll betcher Jakey kin lick ye!"

The rapidity with which this remark was followed by offensive movements on Shunks's part proved how admirably it had been judged.

"Kin he!" screamed Shunks. "He's nawfin' but a Sheeny two-fer!"

Jakey needed no further provocation, and with great dexterity he crowded his fists into Shunks's eyes, deposited his head in Shunks's stomach, and was making a meritorious effort to climb upon Shunks's shoulders, when a lordly embodiment of the law's majesty hove gracefully into sight. Bootsey yelled a shrill warning, and himself set the example of flight.

While passing under the Brooklyn Bridge Bootsey met a couple of Chinamen, and moved by a sudden inspiration he grabbed the cue of one of them, and both he and the Chinaman precipitately sat down. Bootsey recovered quickly and in a voice quivering with rage he demanded to know what the Chinaman had done that for. A large crowd immediately assembled and lent its interest to the solution of this question. It was in vain that the Chinaman protested innocence of any aggressive act or thought. The crowd's sympathies were with Bootsey, and when he insisted that the Mongol had tangled him up in his pig-tail, the aroused populace with great difficulty restrained its desire to demolish the amazed heathens. At last, however, they were permitted to go, followed by a rabble of urchins, and Bootsey proceeded on his way to the office.