Chapter 3

"Razzer hard name t' pronounce, but easy one t' 'member. Glad 'tain't Dobbins. 'F zenny sing I hate, 's name like Dobb'ns, 'r Wobb'ns, 'r Wigg'ns. Some-pin highly unconventional in name of Bludoffski. Mr. Bludoffski, kindly 'cept 'shurances of my--rhic!--gard!"

Mr. Bludoffski executed a facial maneuver intended possibly for a smile. It excited Mr. O'Royster's attention directly.

"Doffski!" he said, stopping shortly and balancing himself on his legs, "are you sure you're feelin' quite well?"

"Yah, puty vell."

"Zere's no great sorrer gnawin' chure vitals, is zere, Moffski?"

"I vas all ride."

"Not sufferin' f'om any mad r'gret, 'r misplaced love, 'rensing zat kind, eh, Woffski?"

"No."

"Feeling jush sames' ushyal?"

"Yah."

"Zen 'sall right. Don't 'pol'gize, 's all right. Zere was somepin' 'n you're looksh made me shink p'raps yu's feeling trifle in'sposed. I am, an' didn't know but what you might be same way. You may've noticed 't I'm jush trifle--er, well, some people ud shay zhrunk, Toffski--rude 'n' dish'gree'ble people dshay zhrunk. P'raps zere 'bout half right, Woffski, but it's zhrude way of putting it. Now, zhen, I want t'ask you queshun. I ask ash frien'. Look 't me carefully and shay, on y'r honor, Loffski, where d'you shin' I'm mos' largely 'tossicated?"

"In der legs," replied Mr. Bludoffski, promptly.

"Shank you. 'S very kind. 'T may not be alt'gesser dignified to be 'tossicated in zhe legs, but 's far besser'n if 'twas in zhe eyes. 'Spise a man 'at looks drunk in's eyes. Pos'ively 'sgusting!"

They had now reached Twenty-third Street, and following his companion's lead, O'Royster crossed unsteadily into Madison Square and through one of the park walks. Presently he halted.

"By zhe way, Woffski," he said, "do you know where we're goin'?"

"Yah."

"Well, zat's what I call lucky. I'm free t' confesh I haven't gotter shingle idea. But 'f you know, 's all right. W'en a man feels himself slightly 'tossicated, 's nozzin' like bein' in comp'ny of f'law 'at knows where 's goin'. 'Parts a highly 'gree'ble feelin' 'f conf'dence. Don't wanter 'splay any 'pert'nent cur'osity, Boffski, but p'raps 's no harm in askin' where 'tis 'at you know you're goin'?"

"Home."

An expression of disgust crossed Mr. O'Royster's face. "Home?" he inquired. "D' you shay 'home,' Toffski? Haven't you got any uzzer place t' go? Wen a man'sh r'duced t' th' 'str--hic--remity 'f goin' home, must be in dev'lish hard luck."

"Der vhy 've go home," said Bludoffski, "is dot I somedings haf I show you."

"Ah. I shee. Za's diff'rent zing. You're goin' t'show me some-'zin', eh?"

"Yah."

"Picshur? Hope 'taint pichshur, Koffski. I'm ord'narily very fon' of art, but f'law needs good legs t' 'zamine picshur, an' I'm boun'ter confesh my legsh not just 'dapted t'--"

"Nein."

"Eh?"

"It vasn't noddings like dot."

"'Taint china, is 't, Boffski? 'Taint Willow Pattern er Crown Derby er zat sorter zing? T' tell truth, Boffski, I aint mush on china. Some people go crashy at er shight er piece nicked china. My wife tol' me zuzzer day she saw piece Crown Derby 'n' fainted dead way, 'n' r'fused t' come to f'r half 'n hour. I said I'd give ton er Crown Derby for bashket champagne 'n' she didn't speak to me rester 'zhe week. Jush shows how shum people--"

"Nein!"

"Eh?"

"It vasn't shina."

"By zhove, you 'rouse my cur'os'ty, Woffski. If 'tain't picshur er piece pottery, wha' deuce is't?"

"You shall see."

"Myst'ry! Well, I'm great boy f'r myst'ries. Hullo! Zis, zh' place?"

They had walked through Twenty-ninth Street, into Second Avenue, and had reached the center of a gloomy and dismal block. Directly in front of the gloomiest and most dismal house of all Bludoffski had suddenly stopped, and in answer to Mr. O'Royster's exclamation, he drew from his pocket a latch-key and opened the side door.

The entry was dark, but the glimmer of a light was visible at the end of the hall. He did not speak, but motioned with his hand an invitation for Mr. O'Royster to go in. It was accepted, not, however, without a slight manifestation of reluctance. Mr. O'Royster's senses were somewhat clouded, but the shadows of the entry were dark enough to impress even him with a vague feeling of dread.

Bludoffski shut the door behind them carefully and drew a bolt or two. Then he led the way down the hall toward the light. As they advanced voices were heard, one louder than the rest, which broke out in rude interruption, dying down into a sort of murmuring accompaniment.

When they reached the end of the hall Bludoffski opened another door and they entered a large beer saloon. At a score of tables men were sitting, many apparently of German birth. They were smoking pipes, drinking beer, and listening to the hoarse voice of an orator standing in the furthest corner of the room.

He was a little round man with little round eyes, a little round nose, a little round stomach, and little round legs. Though very small in person, his voice was formidable enough, and he appeared to be astonishingly in earnest.

Bludoffski's entrance created a considerable stir. Several persons began to applaud, and some said, "Bravo! bravo!" One sharp-visaged and angular man with black finger-nails, spectacles, and a high tenor voice, cried out with a burst of enthusiasm, "Hail! Dear apostle uf luf!" a sentiment that brought out a general and spontaneous cheer. Mr. O'Royster, apparently under the impression that he was the object of these flattering attentions, bowed and smiled with the greatest cheerfulness and murmured something about this being the proudest moment of his life. He was on the point of addressing some remarks to the bartender, when the little round orator cut in with an energy quite amazing.

"Der zoshul refolushun haf gome, my prudders!" he said. "Der bowder vas all retty der match to be struck mit. Ve neet noddings but ter stretch out mit der hant und der victory dake. Der gabitalist fool himselluf. He say mit himselluf 'I haf der golt und der bower, hey?' He von pig fool. He dinks you der fool vas, und der eye uf him he vinks like der glown py der circus. But yust vait. Vait till der honest sons uf doil rise by deir might oop und smite der blow vich gif liperty to der millions!"

At this there was a wild outburst of applause and a chorus of hoarse shouts: "Up mit der red flag!" "Strike now!" "Anarchy foreffer!"

"Ve vill shtrike, mine prudders," continued the little round orator, growing very ardent and red in the face. "Ve vill no vait long. Ve vill kill! Ve vill burn! Ve vill der togs uf var loose und ride to driumph in der shariot uf fire. Ve vill deir housen pull down deir hets upoud, und der street will run mit der foul plood uf der gabitalist!"

A mighty uproar arose at these gory suggestions, and would not be subdued until all the glasses had been refilled and the enthusiasm that had been aroused was quenched in beer.

Mr. O'Royster had listened to these proceedings with some misgivings. He turned to his companion, who stood solemn and silent by his side, and observed:

"D' I unnerstan' you t' say, Woffski, 't you 's goin' home?"

"Yah."

"Doncher zhink 's mos' time t' go?"

"Ve vas dere now."

"Home?"

"Yah."

"Can't say I'm pleased with your d'mestic surroundings, Boffski. Razzer too mush noise f' man of my temp'ment. Guesh I'll haffer bid you g'night, Boffski."

"Nein."

"Yesh, Boffski, mush go. Gotter 'gagement."

"Vait. I haf not show you yet--"

"T' tell truf, Moffski, I've seen 'nuff. 'F I wasser shee more, might not sleep well. Might have nightmare. Don't shink 's good f' me t' shee too much, ol' f'law."

"Listen."

The little round orator, refreshed and reinvigorated, began again.

"You must arm yoursellef, my prudders. You must haf guns und powder und ball und--"

"Dynamite!" yelled several.

"Yah. Dot vas der drue veapon uf der zoshul refolushun. Dynamite! You must plenty haf. Ve must avenge der murder uf our brudders in Shegaco. Deir innocent plood gries ter heffen for revensh. A t'ousan' lifes vill not der benalty bay. Der goundry must pe drench mit plood. Den vill Anarchy reign subreme ofer de gabitalist vampire! Are you retty?"

The whole crowd rose in a body, banged their glasses viciously on the tables in front of them and shouted: "Ve vas!"

"Den lose no time to rouse your frients. Vake up der laporing mans all eferywhere. Gif dem blenty pomb und der sicnal vatch for, und ven it vas gif shoot und kill und spare nopoddy! Der time for vorts vas gone. Now der time vas for teets!"

"Loffski," whispered Mr. O'Royster, "really must 'scuse me, Loffski, but 's time er go. I have sorter feelin' 's if I's gettin' 'tossercated in zhe eyes. Always know 's time er go when I have zat feelin'. F' I'd know chure home 's in place like zis I'd asked you t' go t' mine where zere's more r--hic--pose."

There was a door behind them near the bar, and Bludoffski, opening it, motioned Mr. O'Royster to go in ahead. He obeyed, not without reluctance, and the Anarchist followed. Two tables covered with papers, a bed and several chairs were in the room, together with many little jars, bits of gaspipe, lumps of sulphur, phosphorus and lead.

"Sit down," said Bludoffski.

Mr. O'Royster sat.

"I am an Anarchist," Bludoffski began.

"'S very nice," Mr. O'Royster replied. "I 's zhinkin' uzzer day 'bout bein' Anarchis' m'self, but Mrs. O'Royster said she's 'fraid m' health washn't good 'nuff f' such--hic--heavy work."

"You hear der vorts uf dot shbeaker und you see der faces uf der men. Vat you t'ink it mean? Hey? It mean var upon der reech. It mean Nye Yorick in ashes--"

"Wha's use? Don't seem t' me s' t' would pay. Of course, ol' f'law, whatever you says, goes. But 't seems t' me--"

"You can safe all dot var. You can der means be uf pringing aboud der reign uf anarchy mitout der shtrike uf von blow. Eferypody vill lif und pe habby."

"Boffski," said Mr. O'Royster, after a pause, during which he seemed to be making a violent effort to gather his intellectual forces. "Zere's no doubt I'm 'tossercated in zhe eyes. W'en a man's eyes 'fected by champagne, he's liter'ly no good. Talk to me 'bout zis t'mor', Woffski. Subjec's too 'mportant to be d'scussed unner present conditions."

"Nein! nein! You can safe der vorlt uf you vill. Von vort from you vill mean peace. Midoutdt dot vort oceans of plood vill be spill."

"Woffski, you ev'dently zhink I zhrunker'n I am. I'm some zhrunk, Woffski, I know, _some_ zhrunk, but 'taint 's bad's you zhink."

"I vill sbeak more blain."

"Do, ol' f'law, 'f you please."

"It vas selfishness vot der vorld make pad. It was being ignorant und selfish vot crime und bofferty pring to der many und vealth und ease to der few. Der beoples tondt see dot. Tey tondt know vot Anarchy mean. It vas all rest, all peace, nopoddy pad, no var, no bestilence. Dot is Anarchy, hey?

"I haf my life gif to der cause uf Anarchy. I haf dravel der vorlt over shbeaking, wriding, delling der beoples to make vay for der zoshul refolushun. Uf dey vill not, ve must der reech kill. We must remofe dem vich stand py der roat und stay der march of civilization. Some say 'Make haste! kill! kill!' I say, 'Nein, vait, gif der wretched beoples some chance to be safe. Tell dem vot is Anarchy. Etjucade dem.'

"Vell, den, dey listen to me. Dey say, 'Ve bow der vill before uf Herr Bludoffski, whose vordt vas goot. Ve vait. But how long? Ah, dat I can not tell. But I have decide I make von appeal. I gif der vorlt von chance to come ofer to Anarchy and be save. Ha! Se! I haf write a pook! I haf say der pook inside all apout Anarchy. I haf tell der peauties of der commune, vere no selfishness vas, no law, but efery man equal und none petter as some udder. I haf describe it all. Nopody can dot pook reat mitout he say ven he lay him down, 'I vil be an Anarchist.'"

Mr. Bludoffski had become intensely interested in his own remarks. He picked his manuscripts from the table and caressed them lovingly.

"See," he said, "dere vas der pook vich make mankind brudders. I tell you how you help. I vas poor. I haf no money. I lif on noddings, und dem noddings I peg. Ven I see you und you dot money gif me, I say 'Dis man he haf soul! He shall be save.' Den I say more as dot. I say he shall join his hand mit me. He shall print him, den million copies, send him de vorlt ofer, in all der lankviches, to all der peoples. Dink uf dot! You shall be great Anarchist as I. Ve go down mit fame togedder!"

He paused for Mr. O'Royster's reply, trembling with fanatical excitement. The reply was somewhat slow in coming. Mr. O'Royster, when his companion began to talk, had leaned his head on his arm and closed his eyes. He had preserved this attitude throughout the address and was now breathing hard.

"Vell!" said Bludoffski, impatiently.

Mr. O'Royster drew a more resonant breath, long, deep and mellow.

"He sleep!" cried Bludoffski, in scornful fury. "Der tog! He sleep ven I tell him--"

He sprang up, ran across the room and returned with a huge carving-knife. "I vill kill him!" he cried, and, indeed, made start to do it. But as suddenly he checked himself, tossed the knife on the floor, muttering, "Bah, he not fit to kill," and opened the door into the saloon. The Anarchist meeting had ended, but several persons were still sitting around the tables, drinking beer. He called to two of these, and said, in a tone of almost pitiful despair:

"Take dot man home. I not know who he vas. I not know vere he lif. Somebotty fin' oud. Look his pockets insite. Ask der boleecemans. Do any dings, but take him avay. He haf no soul, no mind, no heart, no noddings!"

IV.

MAGGIE.

Wrapped in contemplation and but little else, probably because his stock of contemplation largely exceeded his stock of else, Mr. Dootleby wandered down the Bowery. Midnight sounded out from the spire in St. Mark's Church just as Mr. Dootleby, having come from Broadway through Astor Place, turned about at the Cooper Union.

There was a touch of melancholy in Mr. Dootleby's expression as he looked down the big, brilliant Bowery, glowing with the light of a hundred electric burners and myriads of gas-jets, and seething with unnatural activity. He stopped a moment in the shadow thrown by the booth of a coffee and cake vender, and looked attentively into the faces of the throngs that passed him. He seemed to be thinking hard.

In truth, it is a suggestive place, is the Bowery. Day and night are all the same to it. It never gets up and it never goes to bed. It never takes a holiday. It never keeps Lent. It indulges in no sentiments. It acknowl-edges no authority that bids it remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. But from year's end to year's end it bubbles, and boils, and seethes, and frets while the daylight lasts, and in the glare of its brighter night it plunges headlong into carousal!

Mr. Dootleby had a great habit of walking at night, though he seldom came down town so far as this. His apartments were in Harlem, and usually, after he had taken his dinner and played a rubber of whist, he found himself sufficiently exercised by a stroll as far as Forty-second Street. But to-night he felt a trifle restless, and journeyed on.

Though his hair was nearly white and his face somewhat deeply furrowed, Mr. Dootleby's tall heavy figure stood straight toward the zenith, and moved with an ease and celerity that many a younger man had envied. With his antecedents I am not entirely familiar, but they say he was always eccentric. I, for my part, shall like him none the less for this. They say he was rich once, but that he never knew how to take care of his money, and what part of it he did not give away slipped off of its own accord.

They say he was past fifty when he married, and his bride was a young woman, and when they went off together he was as frisky as a young fellow of twenty-three. Then, they say, she died, and after that he took but little interest in things, spending his time chiefly in such amiable pursuits as the entertainment of the children playing in Central Park, and the writing of an occasional article for the scientific papers, on "The Peculiar Behavior of Alloys."

Despite the dinginess of his costume, Mr. Dootleby was a handsome old man, and he looked very out of place on the Bowery. Not that good looks are wanting in the Bowery, for many a crownless Cleopatra mingles with its crowds. But Mr. Dootleby, as he stood in the shadow of the coffee-vender's booth, seemed to be the one kind of being necessarily incongruous with the midnight Bowery spectacle.

Mr. Dootleby stood and looked for full twenty minutes. In some of the faces that passed him he saw only a careless sensuality brightened by the flush of excitement. Others, somewhat older, were full of brazen coarseness, and others, older still, bore that pitiful look of hopeless regret, quickly changing to one that says as plainly as can be that the time for thinking and caring has gone. Upon many was stamped the brand of inborn infamy, their only inheritance.

Some hunted souls went by, their manner jaded and hapless, their steps nervous and irresolute, and their eyes sweeping the streets before them, never resting, never closed. A few as they passed scowled at him--even at him, as if there were not one in all this world upon whom they had not declared war. Want had marked most of them with unmistakable lines, and crossing these were often others telling that they knew no better than they did.

Mr. Dootleby watched awhile and then went on, pausing occasionally at the corners to peer through the dark side streets, up at the big tenement-houses--those ugly nurseries of vice--from whose black shadows came many of these that had been christened into crime. But in the Bowery itself there was no gloomy spot. Light streamed from every window, and flooded the pavements. The street-cars whirled along. Even the bony creatures that drew them caught the spirit of this feverish thoroughfare. From every other doorway, shielded by cloth or wicker screens, came the sounds of twanging harps and scraping fiddles, the click of glasses and the shrill chatter and laughter of discordant voices.

Here and there, in front of a bewildering canvas, upon which, in the gayest of gay colors, mountainous fat women, prodigious giants, scaly mermaids, wild men from Zululand, living skeletons, and three-headed girls were painted, stood clamorous gentlemen in tights, urgently importuning passers-by to enter the establishments they represented, whereof the glories and mysteries could be but too feebly told in words. And upon the sidewalks all about him, swarms of itinerant musicians, instantaneous photographers, dealers in bric-a-brac, toilet articles, precious stones, soda water, and other needful and nutritious wares, urged themselves upon Mr. Dootleby's attention.

He walked leisurely on, moralizing as he went, until he had passed Chatham Square, and had got into the somberer district below. He turned a corner somewhere, thinking to walk around the block and find his way back into the Bowery. But the more corners he rounded the more he found ever at his elbow, and the conviction began to make its way into his mind that he had lost his bearings.

The block in which he was now wandering was quite dark and dismal, save for a single gas-jet hanging almost hidden within a dirty globe, over some steep steps that led into a cellar. Mr. Dootleby concluded to stop there and ask his way. As he approached the cellar, he heard what seemed to be cries of distress. They grew more distinct, and accompanying them were the dull sounds of blows and the harsh accents of a man's voice, evidently permeated with rage.

Mr. Dootleby ran down the steps and flung the door open, presenting his eyes with a spectacle that made his blood run cold. The room was long and narrow. At one end and near the door was a bar fitted up with a few black bottles and broken tumblers, a keg or two of beer, and some boxes of cigars. Along the walls stood a couple of benches, and further on were half a dozen little rooms, partitioned from each other, all opening into the bar-room. On the benches six girls were lolling about, dressed in gaudy tights, and with them were three or four men. The room was hot to suffocation, and the smell from the dim and dirty lamps that stood on each end of the bar, together with the foul tobacco-smoke with which the atmosphere was saturated, combined to make the place disgusting and poisonous.

All these conditions Mr. Dootleby took in at his first glance, and his second fell upon two figures in the center of the room, from whom had proceded the noises he had heard. One was that of a girl cowering on her knees and moaning in a voice from which reason had clearly departed. A big, unconscionably brutal-looking man stood over her, holding her down by her hair, which, braided in a single plait, was wound about his hand. He had just thrown the stick upon the floor with which he had been beating her, and was drawing from the stove a red-hot poker.

Mr. Dootleby was not of an excitable temperament ordinarily, but his senses were so affected by the horrors he saw and the pestilential air he breathed that his head began to swim, and only by an especial draft upon his resolution was he able to command himself. There was a pause consequent upon his entrance, and his quick eyes made good use of it.

He saw that the girl had already been half murdered, and that her assailant was a short, thick-set old man, with the eyes of a snake and the neck of a bull. He saw that the men on the bench, all beastly specimens, were contemplating her torture with an indifference that would have shamed the grossest savage. Several of the women, too--the older ones--were looking on with scarcely the sign of a protest in their faces, and only one, a mere child, seemed to feel a genuine sense of terror and sympathy.

Mr. Dootleby threw open his coat, tightened his grasp on his walking-stick, and said, very quietly: "What are you doing?"

The fellow wheeled quickly around. He looked with intense malice at Mr. Dootleby, and then shouted at one of the women, "Why didencher lock de door like I toljer, you fool?"

Mr. Dootleby did not wait for either of these questions to be answered. He sprang into action with all the agility and ferocity of a young panther. The handle of his cane was a huge knob of carved ivory. He brought it directly on the head of the ruffian in a blow of tremendous force, and as the fellow staggered, Mr. Dootleby grasped the poker, turning it so that its heated end touched his antagonist's arm. Of course, the man loosened his hold, and in an instant more dropped upon the floor. Then Mr. Dootleby, keenly alive to the necessity of improving every second, caught the prostrate girl by the arm and threw her behind him toward the open door. "Run for your life!" he said.

But she didn't run. She couldn't run, and while she was struggling to get upon her feet, the fellow recovered himself and emitted a roar that acted on her terrified soul as if it had been a blow. She fell incontinently upon her back in a dead swoon.

Mr. Dootleby's situation was perilous. He had hoped by a sudden and overwhelming attack to stun the man and get the girl out into the street. But the man's quick recovery and the girl's exhaustion left him in almost as bad a situation as ever, and he glanced apprehensively at the party upon the benches.