THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 FREDERIC THOMAS BLANCHARD
 
 '
 
 PLANTATION 
 EDITION 
 
 * 
 
 VOLUME XV
 
 " But you must not come in. 
 
 faff 172
 
 THE NOVELS, STORIES, 
 SKETCHES AND POEMS OF 
 THOMAS NELSON PAGE v 
 
 JOHN MARVEL 
 ASSISTANT 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NEW YORK * * * * 1909
 
 Copyright, 1900, by 
 CHARLES SCBIBNEB'S SONS 
 
 All Right* Retentd
 
 TO 
 
 Those loved ones whose never failing 
 sympathy has led me all these years 
 
 1014147
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. MY FIRST FAILURE 3 
 
 II. THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 8 
 
 III. THE FIGHT 21 
 
 IV. DELILAH ,33 
 
 V. THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE 45 
 
 VI. THE METEOR ..... t 55 
 
 VII. THE HEGIRA . . . 69 
 
 VIII. PADAN-ARAM 84 
 
 IX. I PITCH MY TENT 104 
 
 X. A NEW GIRL 127 
 
 XI. ELEANOR LEIGH 140 
 
 XII. JOHN MARVEL 169 
 
 XIII. MR. LEIGH 180 
 
 XIV. MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 189 
 
 XV. THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 212 
 
 vii
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CNAPTXK **0 
 
 XVI. THE SHADOW OF SHAM 229 
 
 XVII. THE GULF 243 
 
 XVI1L THE DRUMMER 264 
 
 XIX. RE-ENTER PECK 279 
 
 XX. MY FIRST CLIENT 301 
 
 XXI. THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 318 
 
 XX1L THE PREACHER 337 
 
 riii
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "BUT YOU MUST NOT COME IN" Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PACK 
 
 "HI1 WHAT YOU DO1N'?" HE STAMMERED 76 
 
 "TO PLY YOUR OLD TRADE?" I ASKED 272
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 I 
 
 MY FIRST FAILURE 
 
 T SHALL feel at liberty to tell my story in my 
 own way; rambling along at my own gait; 
 now going from point to point; now tearing 
 ahead ; now stopping to rest or to ruminate, and 
 even straying from the path whenever I think a 
 digression will be for my own enjoyment. 
 
 I shall begin with my college career, a period to 
 which I look back now with a pleasure wholly in 
 commensurate with what I achieved in it; which 
 I find due to the friends I made and to the mem 
 ories I garnered there in a time when I possessed 
 the unprized treasures of youth: spirits, hope, 
 and abounding conceit. As these memories, with 
 the courage (to use a mild term) that a college 
 background gives, are about all that I got out of 
 my life there, I shall dwell on them only enough 
 to introduce two or three friends and one enemy, 
 who played later a very considerable part in my 
 life. 
 
 3
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 My family was an old and distinguished one; 
 that is, it could be traced back about two hundred 
 years, and several of my ancestors had accom 
 plished enough to be known in the history of the 
 State a fact of which I was so proud that I was 
 quite satisfied at college to rest on their achieve 
 ments, and felt no need to add to its distinction 
 by any labors of my own. 
 
 We had formerly been well off; we had, indeed, 
 at one time prior to the Revolutionary War owned 
 large estates a time to which I was so fond of re 
 ferring when I first went to college that one of my 
 acquaintances, named Peck, an envious fellow^ 
 observed one day that I thought I had inherited 
 all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of 
 them. My childhood was spent on an old planta 
 tion, so far removed from anything that I have 
 since known that it might almost have been in 
 another planet. 
 
 It happened that I was the only child of my 
 parents who survived, the others having been car 
 ried off in early childhood by a scourge of scarlet 
 fever, to which circumstance, as I look back, I 
 now know was due my mother's sadness of ex 
 pression when my father was not present. I was 
 thus subjected to the perils and great misfortune 
 of being an only child, among them that of think- 
 
 4
 
 MY FIRST FAILURE 
 
 ing the sun rises and sets for his especial benefit. 
 I must say that both my father and mother tried 
 faithfully to do their part to counteract this dan 
 ger, and they not only believed firmly in, but 
 acted consistently on, the Solomonic doctrine 
 that to spare the rod is to spoil the child. My 
 father, I must say, was more lenient, and I think 
 gladly evaded the obligation as interpreted by my 
 mother, declaring that Solomon, like a good many 
 other persons, was much wiser in speech than in 
 practice. He was fond of quoting the custom of 
 the ancient Scythians, who trained their youth to 
 ride, to shoot, and to speak the truth. And hi 
 this last particular he was inexorable. t 
 
 Among my chief intimates as a small boy was 
 a little darkey named "Jeams." Jeams was the 
 grandson of one of our old servants Uncle Ralph 
 Woodson. Jeams, who was a few years my senior, 
 was a sharp-witted boy, as black as a piece of old 
 mahogany, and had a head so hard that he could 
 butt a plank off a fence. Naturally he and I be 
 came cronies, and he picked up information on 
 various subjects so readily that I found him 
 equally agreeable and useful. 
 
 My father was admirably adapted to the condi 
 tions that had created such a character, but as 
 unsuited to the new conditions that succeeded 
 
 5
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 the collapse of the old life as a shorn lamb would 
 be to the untempered wind of winter. He was a 
 Whig and an aristocrat of the strongest type, and 
 though in practice he was the kindest and most 
 liberal of men, he always maintained that a gen 
 tleman was the choicest fruit of civilization; a 
 standard, I may say, in which the personal element 
 counted with him far more than family connec 
 tion. "A king can make a nobleman, sir," he used 
 to say; "but it takes Jehovah to make a gentle 
 man." When the war came, though he was op 
 posed to " Locofocoism " as he termed it, he en 
 listed as a private as soon as the State seceded, 
 and fought through the war, rising to be a major 
 and surrendering at Appomattox. When the war 
 closed, he shut himself up on his estate, accepting 
 the situation without moroseness, and consoling 
 himself with a philosophy much more misan 
 thropic in expression than in practice. 
 
 My father's slender patrimony had been swept 
 away by the war, but, being a scholar himself, 
 and having a high idea of classical learning and 
 a good estimate of my abilities in which latter 
 view I entirely agreed with him he managed by 
 much stinting to send me to college out of the 
 fragments of his establishment. I admired greatly 
 certain principles which were stamped in him as 
 
 6
 
 MY FIRST FAILURE 
 
 firmly as a fossil is embedded in the solid rock; 
 but I fear I had a certain contempt for what ap 
 peared to me his inadequacy to the new state of 
 things, and I secretly plumed myself on my supe 
 riority to him in all practical affairs. Without the 
 least appreciation of the sacrifices he was making 
 to send me to college, I was an idle dog and 
 plunged into the amusements of the gay set that 
 set whose powers begin below their foreheads in 
 which I became a member and aspired to be a 
 leader. 
 
 My first episode at college brought me some 
 eclat.
 
 n 
 
 THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 T ARRIVED rather late and the terra had al- 
 ready begun, so that all the desirable rooms 
 had been taken. I was told that I would either 
 have to room out of college or take quarters with a 
 young man by the name of Wolffert like myself, 
 a freshman. I naturally chose the latter. On 
 reaching my quarters, I found my new comrade 
 to be an affable, gentlemanly fellow, and very nice 
 looking. Indeed, his broad brow, with curling 
 brown hair above it; his dark eyes, deep and lumi 
 nous; a nose the least bit too large and inclin 
 ing to be aquiline ; a well-cut mouth with mobile, 
 sensitive lips, and a finely chiselled jaw, gave him 
 an unusual face, if not one of distinction. He was 
 evidently bent on making himself agreeable to me, 
 and as he had read an extraordinary amount for 
 a lad of his age and I, who had also read some, was 
 lonely, we had passed a pleasant evening when 
 he mentioned casually a fact which sent my heart 
 down into my boots. He was a Jew. This, then, 
 
 8
 
 THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 accounted for the ridge of his well-carved nose, 
 and the curl of his soft brown hair. I tried to be 
 as frank and easy as I had been before, but it was 
 a failure. He saw my surprise as I saw his disap 
 pointment a coolness took the place of the 
 warmth that had been growing up between us for 
 several hours, and we passed a stiff evening. He 
 had already had one room-mate. 
 
 Next day, I found a former acquaintance who 
 offered to take me into his apartment, and that 
 afternoon, having watched for my opportunity, 
 I took advantage of my room-mate's absence and 
 moved out, leaving a short note saying that I had 
 discovered an old friend who was very desirous 
 that I should share his quarters. When I next 
 met Wolffert he was so stiff that, although I felt 
 sorry for him and was ready to be as civil as I 
 might, our acquaintance thereafter became merely 
 nominal. I saw, in fact, little of him during the 
 next months, for he soon forged far ahead of me. 
 There was, indeed, no one in his class who pos 
 sessed his acquirements or his ability. I used to 
 see him for a while standing in his doorway look 
 ing wistfully out at the groups of students gathered 
 under the trees, or walking alone, like Isaac in the 
 fields, and until I formed my own set, I would 
 have gone and joined him or have asked him to 
 
 9
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 join us but for his rebuff. I knew that he was 
 lonely; for I soon discovered that the cold shoul 
 der was being given to him by most of the stu 
 dents. I could not, however, but feel that it 
 served him right for the "airs" he put on with 
 me. That he made a brilliant exhibition in his 
 classes and was easily the cleverest man in the class 
 did not affect our attitude toward him; perhaps 
 it only aggravated the case. Why should he be 
 able to make easily a demonstration at the black 
 board that the cleverest of us only bungled 
 through? One day, however, we learned that the 
 Jew had a room-mate. Bets were freely taken 
 that he would not stick, but he stuck for it was 
 John Marvel. Not that any of us knew what John 
 Marvel was; for even I, who, except Wolffert, 
 came to know him best, did not divine until many 
 years later what a nugget of unwrought gold that 
 homely, shy, awkward John Marvel was! 
 
 It appeared that Wolffert had a harder time 
 than any of us dreamed of. 
 
 He had come to the institution against the ad 
 vice of his father, and for a singular reason: he 
 thought it the most liberal institution of learning 
 in the country! Little he knew of the narrow 
 ness of youth! His mind was so receptive that 
 all that passed through it was instantly appro- 
 
 10
 
 THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 priated. Like a plant, he drew sustenance from 
 the atmosphere about him and transmuted what 
 was impalpable to us to forms of beauty. He 
 was even then a man of independent thought; a 
 dreamer who peopled the earth with ideals, and 
 saw beneath the stony surface of the commonplace 
 the ideals and principles that were to reconstruct 
 and resurrect the world. An admirer of the Law 
 in its ideal conception, he reprobated, with the 
 fury of the Baptist, the generation that had be 
 littled and cramped it to an instrument of torture 
 of the human mind, and looked to the millennial 
 coming of universal brotherhood and freedom. 
 
 His father was a leading man in his city; one 
 who, by his native ability and the dynamic force 
 that seems to be a characteristic of the race, had 
 risen from poverty to the position of chief mer 
 chant and capitalist of the town in which he 
 lived. He had been elected mayor in a time of 
 stress; but his popularity among the citizens 
 generally had cost him, as I learned later, some 
 thing among his own people. The breadth of his 
 views had not been approved by them. 
 
 The abilities that in the father had taken this 
 direction of the mingling of the practical and the 
 theoretical had, in the son, taken the form I have 
 stated. He was an idealist: a poet and a dreamer. 
 
 11
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 The boy from the first had discovered powers 
 that had given his father the keenest delight, not 
 unmingled with a little misgiving. As he grew 
 up among the best class of boys in his town, and 
 became conscious that he was not one of them, 
 his enquiring and aspiring mind began early to 
 seek the reasons for the difference. Why should 
 he be held a little apart from them? He was a 
 Jew. Yes, but why should a Jew be held apart? 
 They talked about their families. Why, his fam 
 ily could trace back for two thousand and more 
 years to princes and kings. They had a different 
 religion. But he saw other boys with different 
 religions going and playing together. They were 
 Christians, and believed in Christ, while the Jew, 
 etc. This puzzled him till he found that some of 
 them a few did not hold the same views of 
 Christ with the others. Then he began to study 
 for himself, boy as he was, the history of Christ, 
 and out of it came questions that his father could 
 not answer and was angry that he should put to 
 him. He went to a young Rabbi who told him 
 that Christ was a good man, but mistaken in His 
 claims. 
 
 So, the boy drifted a little apart from his own 
 people, and more and more he studied the 
 questions that arose in his mind, and more and 
 
 12
 
 THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 more he suffered; but more and more he grew 
 strong. 
 
 The father, too proud of his son's independence 
 to coerce him by an order which might have 
 been a law to him, had, nevertheless, thrown 
 him on his own resources and cut him down to 
 the lowest figure on which he could live, confident 
 that his own opinions would be justified and his 
 son return home. 
 
 Wolffert's first experience very nearly justified 
 this conviction. The fact that a Jew had come 
 and taken one of the old apartments spread 
 through the college with amazing rapidity and 
 created a sensation. Not that there had not been 
 Jews there before, for there had been a number 
 there at one time or another. But they were 
 members of families of distinction, who had been 
 known for generations as bearing their part in 
 all the appointments of life, and had consorted 
 with other folk on an absolute equality; so that 
 there was little or nothing to distinguish them 
 as Israelites except their name. If they were 
 Israelites, it was an accident and played no larger 
 part in their views than if they had been Scotch or 
 French. But here was a man who proclaimed 
 himself a Jew; who proposed that it should be 
 known, and evidently meant to assert his rights 
 
 13
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 and peculiarities on all occasions. The result was 
 that he was subjected to a species of persecution 
 which only the young Anglo-Saxon, the most 
 brutal of all animals, could have devised. 
 
 As college filled rapidly, it soon became neces 
 sary to double up, that is, put two men in one 
 apartment. The first student assigned to live 
 with Wolffert was Peck, a sedate and cool young 
 man like myself, from the country, and like 
 myself, very short of funds. Peck would not 
 have minded rooming with a Jew, or, for that 
 matter, with the Devil, if he had thought he could 
 get anything out of him; for he had few preju 
 dices, and when it came to calculation, he was the 
 multiplication-table. But Peck had his way to 
 make, and he coolly decided that a Jew was likely 
 to make him bear his full part of the expenses 
 which he never had any mind to do. So he looked 
 around, and within forty-eight hours moved to a 
 place out of college where he got reduced board 
 on the ground of belonging to some peculiar set 
 of religionists, of which I am convinced he had 
 never heard till he learned of the landlady's 
 idiosyncrasy. 
 
 I had incurred Peck's lasting enmity though 
 I did not know it at the time by a witticism at 
 his expense. We had never taken to each other 
 
 14
 
 THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 from the first, and one evening, when some one was 
 talking about Wolffert, Peck joined in and said 
 that that institution was no place for any Jew. I 
 said, "Listen to Peck sniff. Peck, how did you 
 get in?" This raised a laugh. Peck, I am sure, 
 had never read " Martin Chuzzlewit"; but I am 
 equally sure he read it afterward, for he never for 
 gave me. 
 
 Then came my turn and desertion which I have 
 described. And then, after that interval of lone 
 liness, appeared John Marvel. 
 
 Wolffert, who was one of the most social men I 
 ever knew, was sitting in his room meditating on 
 the strange fate that had made him an outcast 
 among the men whom he had come there to study 
 and know. This was my interpretation of his 
 thoughts: he would probably have said he was 
 thinking of the strange prejudices of the human 
 race prejudices to which he had been in some 
 sort a victim all his life, as his race had been all 
 through the ages. He was steeped in loneliness, 
 and as, in the mellow October afternoon, the 
 sound of good-fellowship floated in at his window 
 from the lawn outside, he grew more and more 
 dejected. One evening it culminated. He even 
 thought of writing to his father that he would 
 come home and go into his office and accept the 
 
 15
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 position that meant wealth and luxury and power. 
 Just then there was a step outside, and some one 
 stopped, and after a moment knocked at the 
 door. Wolffert rose and opened it and stood 
 facing a new student a florid, round-faced, 
 round-bodied, bow-legged, blue-eyed, awkward 
 lad of about his own age. 
 
 "Is this number ?" demanded the new 
 comer, peering curiously at the dingy door and 
 half shyly looking up at the occupant. 
 
 "It is. Why?" Wolffert spoke abruptly. 
 
 "Well, I have been assigned to this apartment 
 by the Proctor. I am a new student and have 
 just come. My name is Marvel John Marvel." 
 Wolffert put his arms across the doorway and 
 stood in the middle of it. 
 
 "Well, I want to tell you before you come in 
 that I am a Jew. You are welcome not to come, 
 but if you come I want you to stay." Perhaps 
 the other's astonishment contained a query, for 
 he went on hotly: 
 
 "I have had two men come here already and 
 both of them left after one day. The first said 
 he got cheaper board, which was a legitimate ex 
 cuse, if true; the other said he had found an 
 old friend who wanted him. I am convinced that 
 he lied and that the only reason he left was that 
 
 16
 
 THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 I am a Jew. And now you can come in or not, as 
 you please, but if you come you must stay." He 
 was looking down in John Marvel's eyes with a 
 gaze that had the concentrated bitterness of 
 generations in it, and the latter met it with a 
 gravity that deepened into pity. 
 
 "I will come in and I will stay; Jesus was a 
 Jew," said the man on the lower step. 
 
 "I do not know Him," said the other bitterly. 
 
 "But you will. I know Him." 
 
 Wolffert's arms fell and John Marvel entered 
 and stayed. 
 
 That evening the two men went to the supper 
 hall together. Their table was near mine and 
 they were the observed of all observers. The 
 one curious thing was that John Marvel was 
 studying for the ministry. It lent zest to the 
 jokes that were made on this incongruous pairing, 
 and jests, more or less insipid, were made on the 
 Law and the Prophets; the lying down together 
 of the lion and the lamb, etc. 
 
 It was a curious mating the light-haired, 
 moon-faced, slow-witted Saxon, and the dark, 
 keen Jew with his intellectual face and his deep- 
 burning eyes in which glowed the misery and 
 mystery of the ages. 
 
 John Marvel soon became well known; for he 
 17
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 was one of the slowest men in the college. With 
 his amusing awkwardness he would have become 
 a butt except for his imperturbable good-humor. 
 As it was, he was for a time a sort of object of 
 ridicule to many of us myself among the num 
 ber and we had many laughs at him. He would 
 disappear on Saturday night and not turn up 
 again till Monday morning, dusty and dishevelled. 
 And many jests were made at his expense. One 
 said that Marvel was practising preaching in the 
 mountains with a view to becoming a second De 
 mosthenes; another suggested that, if so, the 
 mountains would probably get up and run into 
 the sea. 
 
 When, however, it was discovered later that 
 he had a Sunday-school in the mountains, and 
 walked twelve miles out and twelve miles back, 
 most of the gibers, except the inveterate humor 
 ists like myself, were silent. 
 
 This fact came out by chance. Marvel disap 
 peared from college one day and remained away 
 for two or three weeks. Wolffert either could not 
 or would not give any account of him. When 
 Marvel returned, he looked worn and ill, as if he 
 had been starving, and almost immediately he 
 was taken ill and went to the infirmary with a 
 case of fever. Here he was so ill that the doctors 
 
 18
 
 THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 quarantined him and no one saw him except the 
 nurse old Mrs. Denny, a wrinkled and bald- 
 headed, old, fat woman, something between a 
 lightwood knot and an angel and Wolffert. 
 
 Wolffert moved down and took up his quarters 
 in the infirmary it was suggested, with a view 
 to converting Marvel to Judaism and here he 
 stayed. The nursing never appeared to make any 
 difference in Wolffert's preparation for his classes; 
 for when he came back he still stood easily first. 
 But poor Marvel never caught up again, and was 
 even more hopelessly lost in the befogged region 
 at the bottom of the class than ever before. 
 When called on to recite, his brow would pucker 
 and he would perspire and stammer until the 
 class would be in ill-suppressed convulsions, all 
 the more enjoyable because of Leo Wolffert's 
 agonizing over his wretchedness. Then Marvel, 
 excused by the professor, would sit down and 
 mop his brow and beam quite as if he had made 
 a wonderful performance (which indeed he had), 
 while Wolffert's thin face would grow whiter, his 
 nostrils quiver, and his deep eyes burn like coals. 
 
 One day a spare, rusty man with a frowzy beard, 
 and a lank, stooping woman strolled into the col 
 lege grounds, and after wandering around aim 
 lessly for a time, asked for Mr. Marvel. Each of 
 
 19
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 them carried a basket. They were directed to his 
 room and remained with him some time, and when 
 they left, he walked some distance with them. 
 
 It was at first rumored and then generally re 
 ported that they were Marvel's father and mother. 
 It became known later that they were a couple of 
 poor mountaineers named Shiflett, whose child 
 John Marvel had nursed when it had the fever. 
 They had just learned of his illness and had come 
 down to bring him some chickens and other things 
 which they thought he might need. 
 
 This incident, with the knowledge of Marvel's 
 devotion, made some impression on us, and gained 
 for Marvel, and incidentally for Wolffert, some 
 sort of respect. 
 
 20
 
 Ill 
 
 THE FIGHT 
 
 A LL this time I was about as far aloof from 
 ^* Marvel and Wolffert as I was from any one 
 in the college. 
 
 I rather liked Marvel, partly because he ap 
 peared to like me and I helped him in his Latin, 
 and partly because Peck sniffed at him, and Peck 
 I cordially disliked for his cold-blooded selfishness 
 and his plodding way. 
 
 I was strong and active and fairly good-looking, 
 though by no means so handsome as I fancied 
 myself when I passed the large plate-glass win 
 dows in the stores; I was conceited, but not arro 
 gant except to my family and those I esteemed 
 my inferiors; was a good poker-player; was open- 
 handed enough, for it cost me nothing; and was 
 inclined to be kind by nature. 
 
 I had, moreover, several accomplishments which 
 led to a certain measure of popularity. I had a 
 retentive memory, and could get up a recitation 
 with little trouble; though I forgot about as 
 quickly as I learned. I could pick a little on a 
 
 21
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 banjo; could spout fluently what sounded like a 
 good speech if one did not listen to me; could 
 write what, some one has said, looked at a distance 
 like poetry and, thanks to my father, could both 
 fence and read Latin. These accomplishments 
 served to bring me into the best set in college, and, 
 in time, to undo me. For there is nothing more 
 dangerous to a young man than an exceptional 
 social accomplishment. A tenor voice is almost 
 as perilous as a taste for drink; and to play the 
 guitar, about as seductive as to play poker. 
 
 I was soon to know Wolffert better. He and 
 Marvel, after their work became known, had 
 been admitted rather more within the circle, 
 though they were still kept near the perimeter. 
 And thus, as the spring came on, when we all 
 assembled on pleasant afternoons under the big 
 trees that shaded the green slopes above the ath 
 letic field, even Wolffert and Marvel were apt to 
 join us. I would long ago have made friends with 
 Wolffert, as some others had done since he distin 
 guished himself; for I had been ashamed of my 
 poltroonery in leaving him; but, though he was 
 affable enough with others, he always treated me 
 with such marked reserve that I had finally aban 
 doned my charitable effort to be on easy terms 
 with him. 
 
 22
 
 THE FIGHT 
 
 One spring afternoon we were all loafing under 
 the trees, many of us stretched out on the grass. 
 I had just saved a game of baseball by driving a 
 ball that brought in three men from the bases, 
 and I was surrounded by quite a group. Marvel, 
 who was as strong as an ox, was second-baseman 
 on the other nine and had missed the ball as the 
 centre-fielder threw it wildly. Something was 
 said I do not recall what and I raised a laugh 
 at Marvel's expense, in which he joined heartily. 
 Then a discussion began on the merits in which 
 Wolffert joined. I started it, but as Wolff ert 
 appeared excited, I drew out and left it to my 
 friends. 
 
 Presently, at something Wolffert said, I turned 
 to a friend, Sam Pleasants, and said in a half- 
 aside, with a sneer: "He did not see it; Sam, 
 you " I nodded my head, meaning, "You ex 
 plain it." 
 
 Suddenly, Wolffert rose to his feet and, without 
 a word of warning, poured out on me such a torrent 
 of abuse as I never heard before or since. His 
 least epithet was a deadly insult. It was out of 
 a clear sky, and for a moment my breath was 
 quite taken away. I sprang to my feet and, with 
 a roar of rage, made a rush for him. But he was 
 ready, and with a step to one side, planted a 
 
 23
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 straight blow on my jaw that, catching me unpre 
 pared, sent me full length on my back. I was up 
 in a second and made another rush for him, only 
 to be caught in the same way and sent down again. 
 
 When I rose the second time, I was cooler. 
 I knew then that I was in for it. Those blows 
 were a boxer's. They came straight from the 
 shoulder and were as quick as lightning, with 
 every ounce of the giver's weight behind them. 
 By this time, however, the crowd had interfered. 
 This was no place for a fight, they said. The pro 
 fessors would come on us. Several were holding 
 me and as many more had Wolffert ; among them 
 John Marvel, who could have lifted him in his 
 strong arms and held him as a baby. Marvel was 
 pleading with him with tears in his eyes. Wolffert 
 was cool enough now, but he took no heed of his 
 friend's entreaties. Standing quite still, with the 
 blaze in his eyes all the more vivid because of the 
 pallor of his face, he was looking over his friend's 
 head and was cursing me with all the eloquence of 
 a rich vocabulary. So far as he was concerned, 
 there might not have been another man but my 
 self within a mile. 
 
 In a moment an agreement was made by which 
 we were to adjourn to a retired spot and fight it 
 out. Something that he said led some one to sug- 
 
 24
 
 THE FIGHT 
 
 gest that we settle it with pistols. It was Peck's 
 voice. Wolffert sprang at it. "I will, if I can 
 get any gentleman to represent me," he said with 
 a bitter sneer, casting his flashing, scornful eyes 
 around on the crowd. "I have only one friend 
 and I will not ask him to do it." 
 
 "I will represent you," said Peck, who had his 
 own reasons for the offer. 
 
 "All right. When and where?" said I. 
 
 /'Now, and in the railway cut beyond the 
 wood," said Wolffert. 
 
 We retired to two rooms in a neighboring 
 dormitory to arrange matters. Peck and another 
 volunteer represented Wolffert, and Sam Pleas- 
 ants and Harry Houston were my seconds. I 
 had expected that some attempt at reconciliation 
 would be made; but there was no suggestion of 
 it. I never saw such cold-blooded young ruffians 
 as all our seconds were, and when Peck came to 
 close the final cartel he had an air between that 
 of a butcher and an undertaker. He looked at 
 me exactly as a butcher does at a fatted calf. 
 He positively licked his chops. I did not want 
 to shoot Wolffert, but I could cheerfully have 
 murdered Peck. While, however, the arrange 
 ments were being made by our friends, I had had 
 a chance for some reflection and I had used it. I 
 
 25
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 knew that Wolffert did not like me. He had no 
 reason to do so, for I had not only left him, but 
 had been cold and distant with him. Still, I 
 had always treated him civilly, and had spoken 
 of him respectfully, which was more than Peck 
 had always done. Yet, here, without the least 
 provocation, he had insulted me grossly. I knew 
 there must be some misunderstanding, and I de 
 termined on my "own hook" to find out what 
 it was. Fortune favored me. Just then Wolffert 
 opened the door. He had gone to his own room 
 for a few moments and, on his return, mistook the 
 number and opened the wrong door. Seeing his 
 error, he drew back with an apology, and was 
 just closing the door when I called him. 
 
 "Wolffert! Come in here a moment. I want 
 to speak to you alone." 
 
 He re-entered and closed the door; standing 
 stiff and silent. 
 
 "Wolffert, there has been some mistake, and I 
 want to know what it is." He made not the 
 least sign that he heard, except a flash, deep in 
 his eyes, like a streak of lightning in a far-off cloud. 
 
 "I am ready to fight you in any way you wish," 
 I went on. "But I want to know what the 
 trouble is. Why did you insult me out of a clear 
 sky? What had I done?" 
 
 26
 
 THE FIGHT 
 
 "Everything." 
 
 "What? Specify. What was it?" 
 
 ' ' You have made my life Hell all of you ! " His 
 face worked, and he made a wild sweep with his arm 
 and brought it back to his side with clenched fist. 
 
 "But I?" 
 
 "You were the head. You have all done it. 
 You have treated me as an outcast a Jew! You 
 have given me credit for nothing, because I was 
 a Jew. I could have stood the personal contempt 
 and insult, and I have tried to stand it; but I will 
 put up with it no longer. It is appointed once 
 for a man to die, and I can die in no better cause 
 than for my people." 
 
 He was gasping with suppressed emotion, and I 
 was beginning to gasp also but for a different 
 reason. He went on : 
 
 "You thought I was a coward because I was 
 a Jew, and because I wanted peace treated me 
 as a poltroon because I was a Jew. And I made 
 up my mind to stop it. So this evening my 
 chance came. That is all." 
 
 "But what have I done?" 
 
 "Nothing more than you have always done; 
 treated the Jew with contempt. But they were 
 all there, and I chose you as the leader when you 
 said that about the Jew." 
 
 27
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "I said nothing about a Jew. Here, wait! 
 Did you think I insulted you as a Jew this after 
 noon?" I had risen and walked over in front of 
 him. 
 
 "Yes." He bowed. 
 
 "Well, I did not." 
 
 "You did you said to Sam Pleasants that I 
 was a 'damned Jew/ ' 
 
 "What! I never said a word like it yes, I did 
 I said to Sam Pleasants, that you did not see 
 the play, and said, 'Sam, you ' meaning, you, 
 tell him. Wait. Let me think a moment. 
 Wolffert, I owe you an apology, and will make it. 
 I know there are some who will think I do it be 
 cause I am afraid to fight. But I do not care. I 
 am not, and I will fight Peck if he says so. If 
 you will come with me, I will make you a public 
 apology, and then if you want to fight still, I will 
 meet you." 
 
 He suddenly threw his right arm up across his 
 face, and, turning his back on me, leaned on it 
 against the door, his whole person shaken with 
 sobs. 
 
 I walked up close to him and laid my hand on 
 his shoulder, helplessly. 
 
 "Calm yourself," I began, but could think of 
 nothing else to say. 
 
 28
 
 THE FIGHT 
 
 He shook for a moment and then, turning, with 
 his left arm still across his face, he held out his 
 right hand, and I took it. 
 
 "I do not want you to do that. All I want is 
 decent treatment ordinary civility," he faltered 
 between his sobs. Then he turned back and 
 leaned against the door, for he could scarcely 
 stand. And so standing, he made the most 
 forcible, the most eloquent, and the most burning 
 defence of his people I have ever heard. 
 
 "They have civilized the world," he declared, 
 "and what have they gotten from it but brutal 
 barbarism. They gave you your laws and your 
 literature, your morality and your religion even 
 your Christ; and you have violated every law, 
 human and divine, in their oppression. You 
 invaded our land, ravaged our country, and 
 scattered us over the face of the earth, trying 
 to destroy our very name and Nation. But the 
 God of Israel was our refuge and consolation. 
 You crucified Jesus and then visited it on us. 
 You have perpetuated an act of age-long hypoc 
 risy, and have, in the name of the Prince of Peace, 
 brutalized over his people. The cross was your 
 means of punishment no Jew ever used it. 
 But if we had crucified him it would have been 
 in the name of Law and Order; your crucifixion 
 
 29
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 was in the name of Contempt; and you have 
 crucified a whole people through the ages the 
 one people who have ever stood for the one God; 
 who have stood for Morality and for Peace. A 
 Jew! Yes, I am a Jew. I thank the God of 
 Israel that I am. For as he saved the world in 
 the past, so he will save it in the future." 
 
 This was only a part of it, and not the best 
 part; but it gave me a new insight into his mind. 
 
 When he was through I was ready. I had 
 reached my decision. 
 
 "I will go with you," I said, "not on your ac 
 count, but on my own, and make my statement 
 before the whole crowd. They are still on the hill. 
 Then, if any one wants to fight, he can get it. I 
 will fight Peck." 
 
 He repeated that he did not want me to do 
 this, and he would not go; which was as well, for 
 I might not have been able to say so much in his 
 presence. So I went alone with my seconds, 
 whom I immediately sought. 
 
 I found the latter working over a cartel at a 
 table in the next room, and I walked in. They 
 looked as solemn as owls, but I broke them up in 
 a moment. 
 
 "You can stop this infernal foolishness. I have 
 apologized to Wolffert. I have treated him like 
 
 30
 
 THE FIGHT 
 
 a pig, and so have you. And I have told him so, 
 and now I am going out to tell the other fellows." 
 
 Their astonishment was unbounded and, at 
 least, one of the group was sincerely disappointed. 
 I saw Peck's face fall at my words and then he 
 elevated his nose and gave a little sniff. 
 
 "Well, it did not come from our side," he said 
 in a half undertone with a sneer. 
 
 I suddenly exploded. His cold face was so evil. 
 
 "No, it did not. I made it freely and frankly, 
 and I am going to make it publicly. But if you 
 are disappointed, I want to tell you that you can 
 have a little affair on your own account. And in 
 order that there may be no want of pretext, I 
 wish to tell you that I believe you have been tell 
 ing lies on me, and I consider you a damned, 
 sneaking hypocrite." 
 
 There was a commotion, of course, and the 
 others all jumped in between us. And when it 
 was over, I walked out. Three minutes later I 
 was on the hill among the crowd, which now 
 numbered several hundred, for they were all wait 
 ing to learn the result; and, standing on a bench, 
 I told them what I had said to Wolffert and how I 
 felt I owed him a public apology, not for one 
 insult, but for a hundred. There was a silence 
 for a second, and then such a cheer broke out as 
 
 31
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 I never got any other time in my life! Cheers for 
 Wolffert, cheers for Marvel, and even cheers for 
 me. And then a freckled youth with a big mouth 
 and a blue, merry eye broke the tension by saying: 
 
 "All bets are off and we sha'n't have a holiday 
 to-morrow at all." The reprobates had been bet 
 ting on which of us would fall, and had been 
 banking on a possible holiday. 
 
 Quite a crowd went to Wolffert's room to make 
 atonement for any possible slight they had put 
 on him; but he was nowhere to be found. But 
 that night he and Marvel sat at our table and al 
 ways sat there afterward. He illustrated George 
 Borrow's observation that good manners and a 
 knowledge of boxing will take one through the 
 world. 
 
 32
 
 IV 
 
 DELILAH 
 
 IV/TY career at college promised at one time 
 after that to be almost creditable, but it 
 ended in nothing. I was not a good student, 
 because, I flattered myself, I was too good a 
 fellow. I loved pleasure too much to apply my 
 self to work, and was too self-indulgent to deny 
 myself anything. I despised the plodding ways 
 of cold-blooded creatures like Peck even more 
 than I did the dulness of John Marvel. Why 
 should I delve at Latin and Greek and mathe 
 matics when I had all the poets and novelists ? I 
 was sure that when the time came I could read up 
 and easily overtake and surpass the tortoise-like 
 monotony of Peck's plodding. I now and then had 
 an uneasy realization that Peck was developing, 
 and that John Marvel, to whom I used to read 
 Latin, had somehow come to understand the lan 
 guage better than I. However, this was only an 
 occasional awakening, and the idea was too un 
 pleasant for me to harbor it long. Meantime, I 
 would enjoy myself and prepare to bear off the 
 
 33
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 more shining honors of the orator and society- 
 medallist. 
 
 At the very end I did, indeed, arouse myself, 
 for I had a new incentive. I fell in love. Toward 
 the mid-session holiday the place always filled up 
 with pretty girls. Usually they came just after 
 "the exams " ; but occasionally some of them came 
 a little in advance: those who were bent on con 
 quest. At such times, only cold anchorites like 
 Marvel, or calculating machines like Peck, stuck 
 to their books. Among the fair visitants this year 
 was one whose reputation for beauty had already 
 preceded her: Miss Lilian Poole. She was the 
 daughter of a banker in the capital of the State, 
 and by all accounts was a tearing belle. She had 
 created a sensation at the Mardi Gras the year 
 before, and one who could do that must be a 
 beauty. She was reported more beautiful than 
 Isabelle Henderson, the noted beauty of the Cres 
 cent city, whom she was said to resemble. Cer 
 tainly, she was not lacking in either looks or 
 intelligence ; for those who had caught a glimpse 
 of her declared her a Goddess. I immediately 
 determined that I would become her cavalier for 
 the occasion. And I so announced to the dozen 
 or more fellows who composed our set. They 
 laughed at me. 
 
 34
 
 DELILAH 
 
 "Why, you do not know her." 
 
 "But I shall know her." 
 
 "You are not on speaking terms with Professor 
 Sterner" the Professor of Mathematics at whose 
 house she was stopping. The Professor, a log 
 arithmic machine, and I had had a falling out not 
 long before. He had called on me for a recita 
 tion, one morning after a dance, and I had said, 
 "I am not prepared, sir." 
 
 "You never are prepared," he said, which the 
 class appeared to think amusing. He glanced 
 over the room. 
 
 "Mr. Peck." 
 
 Peck, also, had been at the dance the night 
 before, though he said he had a headache, and 
 caused much amusement by his gambols and an 
 tics, which were like those of a cow; I therefore 
 expected him to say, "unprepared" also. But 
 not so. 
 
 "I was unwell last night, sir." 
 
 "Ah! Well, I am glad, at least, that you have 
 some sort of a legitimate excuse." 
 
 I flamed out and rose to my feet. 
 
 "Are you alluding to me, sir?" 
 
 ' ' Take your seat, sir. I deny your right to ques 
 tion me." 
 
 "I will not take my seat. I do not propose to 
 35
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 sit still and be insulted. I demand an answer to 
 my question." 
 
 "Take your seat, I say. I will report you to the 
 Faculty," he shouted. 
 
 "Then you will have to do so very quickly; for 
 I shall report you immediately." And with that 
 I stalked out of the room. The Faculty met that 
 afternoon and I laid my complaint before them, 
 and as the students, knowing the inside facts, took 
 my side, the Faculty held that the Professor com 
 mitted the first breach and reprimanded us both. 
 I was well satisfied after I had met and cut the 
 Professor publicly. 
 
 I now acknowledge the untowardness of the 
 situation; but when the boys laughed, I pooh- 
 poohed it. 
 
 "I do not speak to old Sterner, but I will speak 
 to her the first time I meet her." 
 
 "I will bet you do not," cried Sam Pleasants. 
 
 "Supper for the crowd," chimed in several. 
 They were always as ready to bet as their long 
 haired ancestors were in the German forests, where 
 they bet themselves away, and kept their faith, 
 to the amazement of a Roman gentleman, who 
 wrote, " istam vacant fidem." 
 
 We were all in a room, the windows of which 
 looked across the lawn toward the pillared portico 
 
 36
 
 DELILAH 
 
 of Professor Sterner's house, and some of the boys 
 were gazing over toward the mansion that shel 
 tered the subject of our thoughts. And as it hap 
 pened, at that moment, the door opened and out 
 stepped the young lady herself, in a smart walking 
 costume, topped by a large hat with a great, 
 drooping, beguiling, white ostrich feather. An 
 exclamation drew us all to the window. 
 
 " There she is now!" Without doubt, that was 
 she, 
 
 " Jo ve ! What a stunner ! ' ' 
 
 "She is alone. There is your chance." 
 
 "Yes, this is the first time you have seen her; 
 now stop jawing and play ball." 
 
 "Or pay up." 
 
 "Yes, supper for the crowd: porterhouse steak, 
 chicken, and waffles to end with." 
 
 So they nagged me, one and all. 
 
 "Done," I said, "I will do it now." 
 
 "You have never seen her before?" 
 
 ' l Never. ' ' I was arranging my tie and brushing 
 my hair. 
 
 "You swear it?" 
 
 But I hurried out of the door and slammed it 
 behind me. 
 
 I turned down the walk that led across the cam 
 pus to the point whither Miss Poole was directing 
 
 37
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 her steps, and I took a gait that I judged should 
 meet her at the intersection of the walks. I was 
 doing some hard thinking, for I knew the window 
 behind me was crowded with derisive faces. 
 
 As I approached her I cast my eye at her, and 
 a glance nearly overthrew my resolution. She 
 was, indeed, a charming picture as she advanced, 
 though I caught little more than a general impres 
 sion of a slim, straight, statuesque figure, a pink 
 face, surmounted by a profusion of light hair, 
 under a big hat with white feathers, and a pair of 
 bluish eyes. I glanced away, but not before she 
 had caught my eye. Just then a whistle sounded 
 behind me, and my nerve returned. I suddenly 
 quickened my pace, and held out my hand. 
 
 "Why, how do you do?" I exclaimed with well- 
 feigned surprise and pleasure, plumping myself 
 directly in front of her. She paused; looked at 
 me, hesitated, and then drew back slightly. 
 
 "I think , I You have made a mistake, I 
 think." 
 
 "Why, do you not remember Henry Glave? Is 
 this not Miss Belle Henderson?" I asked in a mys 
 tified way. 
 
 "No, I am not Miss Henderson." 
 
 "Oh! I beg your pardon I thought " I began. 
 Then, as I moved back a little, I added, "Then you 
 
 38
 
 DELILAH 
 
 must be Miss Lilian Poole ; for there cannot be more 
 than two like you on earth. I beg your pardon." 
 
 I backed away. 
 
 "I am," she said. Her mounting color showed 
 that she was at least not angry, and she gave 
 proof of it. 
 
 "Can you tell me? Is not that the way to Dr. 
 Davis's house?" 
 
 "Yes I will show you which it is." My man 
 ner had become most respectful. 
 
 "Oh! Don't trouble yourself, I beg you." 
 
 "It is not the least trouble," I said sincerely, 
 and it was the only truth I had told. I walked 
 back a few steps, hat in hand, pointing eagerly to 
 the house. And as I left, I said, "I hope you will 
 pardon my stupid mistake." 
 
 "Oh! I do not think it stupid. She is a 
 beauty." 
 
 "/ think so." I bowed low. I saw the color 
 rise again as I turned away, much pleased with 
 myself, and yet a good deal ashamed, too. 
 
 When I returned to "the lair," as we termed 
 Sam Pleasants's room, the boys seized me. They 
 were like howling dervishes. But I had grown 
 serious. I was very much ashamed of myself. 
 And I did the only decent thing I could I lied, or 
 as good as lied. 
 
 39
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "I will give the supper if you will stop this yell 
 ing. Do you suppose I would make a bet about 
 a girl I did not know?" 
 
 This took the spirit out of the thing, and only 
 one of them knew the truth. Marvel, who was 
 present, looked at me seriously, and that night 
 said to me half sadly, 
 
 "You ought not to have done that." 
 
 "What? I know it. It was an ungentlemanly 
 thing." 
 
 "I do not mean that. You ought not to have 
 told a story afterward." 
 
 How he knew it I never knew. 
 
 But I had gotten caught in my own mesh. I 
 had walked into the little parlor without any in 
 vitation, and I was soon hopelessly entangled in 
 the web at which I had hitherto scoffed. I fell 
 violently in love. 
 
 I soon overcame the little difficulty that stood 
 in my way. And, indeed, I think Miss Lilian 
 Poole rather helped me out about this. I did not 
 allow grass to grow under my feet, or any impres 
 sion I had made to become effaced. I quickly 
 became acquainted with my Diana-like young 
 lady; that is, to speak more exactly, I got myself 
 presented to her, for my complete acquaintance 
 with her was of later date, when I had spent all the 
 
 40
 
 DELILAH 
 
 little patrimony I had. I saw immediately that 
 she knew the story of the wager, though she did 
 not at that time refer to it, and so far as I could 
 tell, she did not resent it. She, at least, gave no 
 sign of it. I asked her to allow me to escort her to 
 a German, but she had an engagement. 
 
 "Who is it?" I inquired rather enviously. 
 
 She had a curious expression in her eyes 
 which, by the way, were a cool blue or gray, I 
 never could be sure which, and at times looked 
 rather like steel. 
 
 She hesitated a moment and her little mouth 
 drew in somewhat closely. 
 
 "Mr. Peck." Her voice was a singular instru 
 ment. It had so great a compass and possessed 
 some notes that affected me strangely; but it also 
 could be without the least expression. So it was 
 now when she said, "Mr. Peck," but she colored 
 slightly, as I burst out laughing. 
 
 "Peck! Pecksniff? Did you ever see him 
 dance? I should as soon have thought of your 
 dancing with a clothes-horse." 
 
 She appeared somewhat troubled. 
 
 "Does he dance so badly as that? He told me 
 he danced." 
 
 "So he does like this." I gave an imitation of 
 Peck's gyrations, in which I was so earnest that I 
 
 41
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 knocked over a table and broke a fine lamp, to my 
 great consternation. 
 
 "Well, you are realistic," observed Miss Poole, 
 calmly, who struck me as not so much concerned 
 at my misfortune as I might have expected. 
 When, however, she saw how really troubled I 
 was, she was more sympathetic. 
 
 "Perhaps, if we go out, they will not know who 
 did it," she observed. 
 
 "Well, no, I could not do that," I said, thinking 
 of Peck, and then as her expression did not change, 
 I fired a shot that I meant to tell. "Peck would 
 do that sort of thing. / shall tell them." 
 
 To this she made no reply. She only looked 
 inscrutably pretty. But it often came back 
 to me afterward how calmly and quite as a mat 
 ter of course she suggested my concealing the 
 accident, and I wondered if she thought I was 
 a liar. 
 
 She had a countenance that I once thought one 
 of the most beautiful in the world; but which 
 changed rarely. Its only variations were from an 
 infantile beauty to a statuesque firmness. 
 
 Yet that girl, with her rather set expression and 
 infantile face, her wide open, round eyes and pink 
 prettiness, was as deep as a well, and an artesian 
 well at that. 
 
 42
 
 DELILAH 
 
 I soon distanced all rivals. Peck was quickly 
 disposed of; though, with his nagging persistence, 
 he still held on. This bored me exceedingly and 
 her too, if I could judge by her ridicule of him and 
 her sarcasm, which he somehow appeared too 
 stupid to see. He succumbed, however, to my 
 mimicry of his dancing; for I was a good mimic, 
 and Peck, in a very high collar and with very 
 short trousers on his dumpy legs, was really a fair 
 mark. Miss Poole was by no means indifferent 
 to public opinion, and a shaft of satire could pene 
 trate her mail of complacency. So when she re 
 turned later to the classic shades of the university, 
 as she did a number of times for Germans, and 
 other social functions, I made a good deal of hay. 
 A phrase of Peck's, apropos of this, stuck in my 
 memory. Some one it was, I think, Leo Wolf- 
 fert said that I appeared to be making hay, and 
 Peck said, "Yes, I would be eating it some day." 
 I often wondered afterward how he stumbled on 
 the witticism. 
 
 Those visits of my tall young dulcinea cost me 
 dear in the sequel. While the other fellows were 
 boning I was lounging in the drawing-room chatter 
 ing nonsense or in the shade of the big trees in 
 some secluded nook, writing her very warm poems 
 of the character which Horace says is hated both 
 
 43
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 of gods and men. Several of these poems were 
 published in the college magazine. The constant 
 allusions to her physical charms caused Peck to 
 say that I evidently considered Miss Poole to be 
 "composed wholly of eyes and hair." His obser 
 vation that a man was a fool to write silly verses 
 to a girl he loved, because it gave her a wrong idea 
 of her charms, I, at the time, set down to sheer 
 envy, for Peck could not turn a rhyme ; but since 
 I have discovered that, for a practical person like 
 Peck, it has a foundation of truth. 
 
 44
 
 THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE 
 
 A/TEANTIME, my studies if any part of my 
 desultory occupation could be so termed 
 suffered undeniably. My appearance at the class 
 room door with a cigarette, which I flung away 
 just in time not to carry it into the room, together 
 with my chronic excuse of being "unprepared," 
 moved the dryest of my professors to the witticism 
 that I "divided my time between a smoke and a 
 flame." It was only as the finals drew near that I 
 began to appreciate that I would have the least 
 trouble in "making my tickets," as the phrase 
 went. Sam Pleasants, Leo Wolffert, and my other 
 friends had begun to be anxious for me for some 
 time before and both Wolffert and John Marvel 
 had come to me and suggested my working, at 
 least, a little : Wolffert with delicacy and warmth ; 
 John Marvel with that awkward bluntness with 
 which he always went at anything. I felt per 
 fectly easy in my mind then and met their en 
 treaties scornfully. 
 
 45
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "Why, I did well enough at the Intermediates," 
 I said. 
 
 "Yes, but," said John Marvel, "Delilah was not 
 here then 
 
 I was conscious, even though I liked the refer 
 ence to Samson, of being a little angered; but 
 John Marvel looked so innocent and so hopelessly 
 friendly that I passed it by with a laugh and paid 
 Miss Poole more attention than ever. 
 
 The Debater's Medal had for a long time been, in 
 the general estimation, as good as accorded me; 
 for I was a fluent and, I personally thought, elo 
 quent speaker, and had some reading. But when 
 Wolffert entered the debate, his speeches so far 
 outshone mine that I knew at once that I was beat. 
 They appeared not so much prepared for show, as 
 mine were, as to come from a storehouse of reading 
 and reflection. Wolffert, who had begun to speak 
 without any design of entering the contest for 
 the Medal, would generously have retired, but I 
 would not hear of that. I called Peck to account 
 for a speech which I had heard of his making : that 
 "the contest was between a Jew and a jug"; but 
 he denied making it, so I lost even that satisfaction. 
 
 I worked for the Magazine Medal; but my 
 "poems" to "Cynthia" and "To Felicia," and 
 my fanciful sketches, though they were thought 
 
 46
 
 THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE 
 
 fine by our set, did not, in the estimation of the 
 judges, equal the serious and solemn essays on 
 Julius Caesar and Alexander Hamilton, to which 
 the prize was awarded. At least, the author of 
 those essays had worked over them like a dog, 
 and in the maturer light of experience, I think he 
 earned the prizes. 
 
 I worked hard at least, at the last, for my law 
 degree, and every one was sure I would win as 
 sure as that Peck would lose; but Peck scraped 
 through while mine was held up because the night 
 before the degrees were posted I insisted on prov 
 ing to the professor who had my fate in his hands, 
 and whom I casually ran into, that a "gentleman 
 drunk was a gentleman sober," the idea having 
 been suggested to my muddled brain by my having 
 just been good-natured enough to put to bed Peck. 
 I finally got the degree, but not until I had been 
 through many tribulations, one of which was the 
 sudden frost in Miss Poole's manner to me. That 
 girl was like autumn weather. She could be as 
 warm as summer one minute and the next the 
 thermometer would drop below the freezing point. 
 I remember I was her escort the evening of the 
 Final Ball. She looked like Juno with the flowers 
 I had gone out in the country to get for her from 
 an old garden that I knew. Her face was very 
 
 47
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 high bred and her pose majestic. I was immensely 
 proud of her and of myself as her escort and as 
 Peck stalked in with a new and ill-fitting suit of 
 "store-clothes" on, I fancy I put on my toppiest 
 air. But Peck had a shaft and he came there to 
 shoot it. As he passed near us, he said in a loud 
 voice to some one, "The B. L. list is posted." 
 
 "Are you through?" demanded the other. 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "Anybody failed 't we expected to get through? " 
 
 ' ' J T depends on who you expected to get through. 
 Glave's not on it." 
 
 His shaft came home. I grew cold for a minute 
 and then recovered myself. I saw my partner's 
 face change. I raised my head and danced on 
 apparently gayer than ever, though my heart was 
 lead. And she played her part well, too. But a 
 few minutes later when Peck strutted up, a de 
 cided cock to his bullet head, I heard her, as I 
 turned away, congratulate him on his success. 
 
 I slipped out and went over to the bulletin-board 
 where the degree-men were posted, and sure enough 
 I was not among them. A curious crowd was still 
 standing about and they stopped talking as I came 
 up, so I knew they had been talking about me. I 
 must say that all showed concern, and sympathy 
 was written on every face. It was, at least, sweet 
 
 48
 
 THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE 
 
 to know that they all considered it a cursed shame, 
 and set my failure down to hostility on the part of 
 one of the professors. I was determined that no 
 one should know how hard hit I was, and I carried 
 my head high till the ball was out, and was so 
 lofty with Miss Poole that she was mystified into 
 being very receptive. I do not know what might 
 have happened that night if it had not been for 
 old John Marvel. I learned afterward that I was 
 pretty wild. He found me when I was wildly 
 denouncing the law professor who had failed to 
 put me through in some minor course, and was 
 vowing that I would smash in his door and force 
 my diploma from him. I might have been crazy 
 enough to attempt it had not old John gotten hold 
 of me. He and Wolff ert put me to bed and stayed 
 with me till I was sober. And sober enough I was 
 next day. 
 
 As I have said, I received my diploma finally; 
 but I lost all the prestige and pleasure of receiv 
 ing it along with my class, and I passed through 
 some of the bitterest hours that a young man can 
 know. 
 
 Among my friends at college I might say 
 among my warmest friends was my old crony 
 " Jeams," or, as he spoke of himself to those whom 
 he did not regard as his social equals, or whom he 
 
 49
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 wanted to amuse himself with, "Mister Wood- 
 son"; a little later changed to "Professor Wood- 
 son," as more dignified and consonant with the 
 managing class of the institution. When I left 
 for college he followed me, after a brief interval, 
 and first appeared as a waiter at the college 
 boarding-house where I boarded, having used my 
 name as a reference, though at home he had never 
 been nearer the dining-room than the stable. 
 Here he was promptly turned out, and thereupon 
 became a hanger-on of mine and a "Factotum" 
 for me and my friends. 
 
 He was now a tall, slim fellow, with broad 
 shoulders and the muscles of Atlas almost but 
 not quite black and with a laugh that would have 
 wiled Cerberus.. He had the shrewdness of a wild 
 animal, and was as imitative as a monkey, and 
 this faculty had inspired and enabled him to pick 
 up all sorts of acquirements, ranging from reading 
 and writing to sleight-of-hand tricks, for which he 
 showed a remarkable aptitude. Moreover, he had 
 plenty of physical courage, and only needed to 
 be backed by some one, on whom he relied, to do 
 anything. 
 
 I was naturally attached to him and put up with 
 his rascalities, though they often taxed me sorely, 
 while he, on his part, was so sincerely attached to 
 
 50
 
 THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE 
 
 me, that I believe he would have committed any 
 crime at my bidding. 
 
 He considered my old clothes his property, and 
 what was far more inconvenient, considered him 
 self the judge of the exact condition and moment 
 when they should pass from my possession to his. 
 
 He was a handsome rascal, and took at times 
 such pride in his appearance that, as he was about 
 my size, I had often to exercise a close watch on 
 my meagre wardrobe. He had not only good, but 
 really distinguished manners, and, like many of 
 his race, prided himself on his manners. Thus, 
 on an occasion when he passed Peck at college, 
 and touched his hat to him, a civility which Peck 
 ignored, Wolff ert said to him, "Jeams, Mr. Peck 
 don't appear to recognize you." 
 
 "Oh! yes," said Jeams, "he recognizes me, but 
 he don't recognize what's due from one gent'man 
 to another." 
 
 "Are you going to keep on touching your hat 
 to him?" asked Wolffert. 
 
 "Oh, yes, suh," said Jeams; "I takes keer o' my 
 manners, and lets him take keer o' hisn'." 
 
 Such was "Jeams," my "body servant," as he 
 styled himself, on occasions when he had an eye to 
 some article of my apparel or stood in especial 
 need of a donation. 
 
 51
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 He hated Peck with as much violence as his 
 easy-going nature was capable of, and had no lik 
 ing for Wolfifert. The fact that the latter was a 
 Jew and yet my friend, staggered him, though he 
 put up with him for my sake, and on the night of 
 my fight with Wolfifert, I think he would, had he 
 had a chance, have murdered him, as I am sure he 
 would have murdered the professor who threw me 
 on my degree. He got much fuller than I got that 
 night, and his real grief and shame were among the 
 heaviest burdens I had to bear. 
 
 Miss Poole returned home the next afternoon 
 after the delivery of the diplomas, and I heard that 
 Peck went ofif on the same train with her. 
 
 I expected some sympathy from the girl for 
 whom my devotion had cost me so much ; but she 
 was as cool and sedate over my failure as if it had 
 been Peck's. 
 
 All she said was, "Why did not you win the 
 honors?" 
 
 "Because I did not work enough for them." 
 
 "Why did not you work more?" 
 
 I came near saying, "Because I was fooling 
 around you"; but I simply said, "Because I was 
 so certain of winning them." 
 
 ' ' You showed rather bad judgment." That was 
 all the sympathy I received from her. 
 
 52
 
 THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE 
 
 The old law professor when he took leave of me 
 said and I remember said it gravely "Mr. Glave, 
 you have the burden of too many gifts to carry." 
 
 I was pleased by the speech and showed it. He 
 looked at me keenly from under his bushy eye 
 brows. "I commend to you the fable of the hare 
 and the tortoise. We shall hear of Peck." 
 
 I wondered how he knew I was thinking of 
 Peck with his common face, hard eyes, and stumpy 
 
 :< You shall hear of me, too," I declared with 
 some haughtiness. 
 
 He only smiled politely and made no answer. 
 
 Nettled, I asked arrogantly, "Don't you think I 
 have more sense more intellect than Peck?" 
 
 ' ' More intellect yes much more. More 
 sense? No. Remember the fable. 'There are 
 ways that you know not and paths that you 
 have not tried.' ' 
 
 "Oh! that fable it is as old as " 
 
 ' ' Humanity," he said. " ' To scorn delights and 
 live laborious days.' You will never do that 
 Peck will." 
 
 I left him, angry and uncomfortable. 
 
 I had rather looked forward to going to the West 
 to a near cousin of my father's, who, if report were 
 true, had made a fortune as a lawyer and an in- 
 
 53
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 vestor in a Western city. He and my father had 
 been boys together, but my cousin had gone West, 
 and when the war came he had taken the other 
 side. My father, however, always retained his re 
 spect for him and spoke of him with affection. He 
 had been to my home during my early college life 
 a big, stolid, strong-faced man, silent and cold, 
 but watchful and clear-minded and had ap 
 peared to take quite a fancy to me. 
 
 "When he gets through," he had said to my 
 father, "send him out to me. That is the place 
 for brains and ambition, and I will see what is in 
 him for you." 
 
 Now that I had failed, I could not write to him ; 
 but as he had made a memorandum of my gradua 
 tion year, and as he had written my father several 
 times, I rather expected he would open the way 
 for me. But no letter came. So I was content to 
 go to the capital of the State. 
 
 54
 
 VI 
 
 THE METEOR 
 
 T AM convinced now that as parents are the 
 most unselfish creatures, children are the 
 veriest brutes on earth. I was too self-absorbed 
 to think of my kind father, who had sacrificed 
 everything to give me opportunities which I had 
 thrown under the feet of Lilian Poole and who 
 now consoled and encouraged me without a word 
 of censure. Though I was deeply grieved at the 
 loss of my parents, I did not know until years 
 afterward what an elemental and life-long calam 
 ity that loss was. 
 
 My father appeared as much pleased with my 
 single success as if I had brought him home the 
 honors which I had been boasting I would show 
 him. He gave me only two or three bits of advice 
 before I left home. ' ' Be careful with other people's 
 money and keep out of debt," he said. "Also, 
 have no dealings with a rascal, no matter how 
 tightly you think you can tie him up." And his 
 
 55
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 final counsel was, "Marry a lady and do not marry 
 a fool." 
 
 I wondered if he were thinking of Lilian Poole. 
 
 However, I had not the least doubt in my mind 
 about winning success both with her and with that 
 even more jealous Mistress The Law. In fact, 
 I quite meant to revolutionize things by the mete 
 oric character of my career. 
 
 I started out well. I took a good office fronting 
 on the street in one of the best office-buildings 
 an extravagance I could not afford. Peck had 
 a little dark hole on the other side of the hall. 
 He made a half proposal to share my office with 
 me, but I could not stand that. I, however, told 
 him that he was welcome to use my office and 
 books as much as he pleased, and he soon made 
 himself so much at home in my office that I think 
 he rather fell into the habit of thinking my clients 
 his own. 
 
 Before I knew many people I worked hard; 
 read law and a great deal of other literature. But 
 this did not last long, for I was social and made 
 acquaintances easily. Moreover, I soon began to 
 get cases; though they were too small to satisfy 
 me quite below my abilities, I thought. So, un 
 less they promised me a chance of speaking before 
 a jury, I turned them over to Peck, who would 
 
 56
 
 THE METEOR 
 
 bone at them and work like a horse, though I often 
 had to hunt up the law for him, a labor I never 
 knew him to acknowledge. 
 
 At first I used to correspond with both John 
 Marvel and Wolffert; but gradually I left their 
 letters unanswered. John, who had gone West, 
 was too full of his country parish to interest me, 
 and Wolffert's abstractions were too altruistic for 
 me. 
 
 Meantime, I was getting on swimmingly. I was 
 taken into the best social set in the city, and was 
 soon quite a favorite among them. I was made 
 a member of all the germans as well as of the best 
 club in town; was welcomed in the poker-game 
 of "the best fellows" in town, and was invited out 
 so much that I really had no time to do much 
 else than enjoy my social success. But the chief 
 of the many infallible proofs I had was my restora 
 tion to Lilian Poole's favor. Since I was become 
 a sort of toast with those whose opinion she valued 
 highly, she was more cordial to me than ever, 
 and I was ready enough to let by-gones be by 
 gones and dangle around the handsomest girl in 
 the State, daughter of a man who was president 
 of a big bank and director of a half-dozen corpora 
 tions. I was with her a great deal. In fact, 
 before my second winter was out, my name was 
 
 57
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 coupled with hers by all of our set and many not 
 in our set. And about three evenings every week 
 I was to be found basking in her somewhat steady 
 smile, either at some dance or other social enter 
 tainment; strolling with her in the dusk on our 
 
 way home from the fashionable promenade of 
 
 Street which, for some reason, she always liked, 
 though I would often have preferred some quieter 
 walk or lounging on her plush-covered sofa in her 
 back drawing-room. I should have liked it better 
 had Peck taken the hint that most of my other 
 friends had taken and kept away from her house 
 on those evenings which by a tacit consent of 
 nearly every one were left for my visits. But 
 Peck, who now professed a great friendship for 
 me, must take to coming on precisely the evenings 
 I had selected for my calls. He never wore a 
 collar that fitted him, and his boots were never 
 blacked. Miss Lilian used to laugh at him and 
 call him "the burr" indeed, so much that I more 
 than once told her, that while I was not an ad 
 mirer of Peck myself, I thought the fact that he 
 was really in love with her ought to secure him 
 immunity from her sarcasm. We had quite a 
 stiff quarrel over the matter, and I told her what 
 our old law professor had said of Peck. 
 I had rather thought that, possibly, Mr. Poole, 
 58
 
 THE METEOR 
 
 knowing of the growing relation of intimacy be 
 tween myself and his daughter, would throw a 
 little of his law business my way ; but he never did. 
 He did, in fact, once consult me at his own house 
 about some extensive interests that he owned and 
 represented together in a railway in a Western 
 city; but though I took the trouble to hunt up 
 the matter and send him a brief on the point 
 carefully prepared, he did not employ me, and 
 evidently considered that I had acted only as a 
 friend. It was in this investigation that I first 
 heard of the name Argand and also of the P. D. 
 and B. D. RR. Co. I heard long afterward that 
 he said I had too many interests to suit him; that 
 he wanted a lawyer to give him all his intellect, 
 and not squander it on politics, literature, sport, 
 and he did not know what besides. This was a 
 dig at my rising aspirations in each of these fields. 
 For I used to write now regularly for the news 
 papers, and had one or two articles accepted by a 
 leading monthly magazine a success on which 
 even Peck congratulated me, though he said that, 
 as for him, he preferred the law to any other 
 entertainment. My newspaper work attracted 
 sufficient attention to inspire me with the idea of 
 running for Congress, and I began to set my traps 
 and lay my triggers for that. 
 
 59
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 Success appeared to wait for me, and my begin 
 ning was "meteoric." 
 
 Meteoric beginnings are fatal. The meteor soon 
 fades into outer darkness the outer darkness of 
 the infinite abyss. I took it for success and pre 
 sumed accordingly, and finally I came down. I 
 played my game too carelessly. I began to 
 speculate just a little at first; but more largely 
 after awhile. There I appeared to find my proper 
 field; for I made money almost immediately, and 
 I spent it freely, and, after I had made a few 
 thousands, I was regarded with respect by my 
 little circle. 
 
 I began to make money so much more easily 
 by this means than I had ever done by the law that 
 I no longer thought it worth while to stay in my 
 office, as I had done at first, but spent my time, 
 in a flock of other lambs, in front of a blackboard 
 in a broker's office, figuring on chances which had 
 already been decided in brokers' offices five hun 
 dred miles away. Thus, though I worked up well 
 the cases I had, and was fairly successful with 
 them, I found my clients in time drifting away 
 to other men not half as clever as I was, who had 
 no other aim than to be lawyers. Peck got some 
 of my clients. Indeed, one of my clients, in 
 warning me against speculating, which, he said, 
 
 60
 
 THE METEOR 
 
 ruined more young men than faro and drink 
 together, told me he had learned of my habit 
 through Peck. Peck was always in his office or 
 mine. I had made some reputation, however, as 
 a speaker, and as I had taken an active part in 
 politics and had many friends, I stood a good 
 chance for the commonwealth's attorneyship ; but 
 I had determined to fly higher: I wanted to go to 
 Congress. 
 
 I kept a pair of horses now, since I was so suc 
 cessful, and used to hunt in the season with other 
 gay pleasure-lovers, or spend my afternoons riding 
 with Miss Poole, who used to look well on horse 
 back. We often passed Peck plodding along 
 alone, stolid and solemn, " taking his constitu 
 tional," he said. I remember once as we passed 
 him I recalled what the old professor had said of 
 him, and I added that I would not be as dull as 
 Peck for a fortune. "Do you know," said Miss 
 Poole, suddenly, "I do not think him so dull; he 
 has improved." Peck sat me out a few nights 
 after this, and next day I nearly insulted him; but 
 he was too dull to see it. 
 
 I knew my young lady was ambitious ; so I de 
 termined to please her, and, chucking up the fight 
 for the attorneyship, I told her I was going to 
 Congress, and began to work for it. I was prom- 
 
 61
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 ised the support of so many politicians that I 
 felt absolutely sure of the nomination. 
 
 Peck told me flatly that I did not stand the 
 ghost of a show, and began to figure. Peck was 
 always figuring. He advised me to stand for the 
 attorneyship, and said I might get it if I really 
 tried. I knew better, however, and I knew Peck, 
 too, so I started in. To make a fight I wanted 
 money, and it happened that a little trip I had 
 taken in the summer, when I was making a sort 
 of a splurge, together with an unlooked-for and 
 wholly inexplicable adverse turn in the market 
 had taken all my cash. So, to make it up, I went 
 into the biggest deal I ever tried. What was the 
 use of fooling about a few score dollars a point 
 when I could easily make it a thousand? I would 
 no longer play at the shilling table. I had a 
 " dead-open-and-shut thing" of it. I had gotten 
 inside information of a huge railroad deal quietly 
 planned, and was let in as a great favor by influ 
 ential friends, who were close friends of men who 
 were manipulating the market, and especially the 
 P. D. and B. D., a North-western road which had 
 been reorganized some years before. Mr. Poole 
 had some interest in it and this made me feel 
 quite safe as to the deal. I knew they were stak 
 ing their fortunes on it. I was so sure about it 
 
 62
 
 THE METEOR 
 
 that I even advised Peck, for whom I had some 
 gratitude on account of his advice about the at- 
 torneyship, to let me put him in for a little. But 
 he declined. He said he had other use for his 
 money, and had made it a rule not to speculate. 
 I told him he was a fool, and I borrowed all I could 
 and went in. 
 
 It was the most perfectly managed affair I ever 
 saw. We our friends carried the stock up to a 
 point that was undreamed of, and money was too 
 valuable to pay debts with, even had my creditors 
 wanted it, which they did not, now that I had 
 recouped and was again on the crest of the wave. 
 I was rich and was doubling up in a pyramid, 
 when one of those things happened that does not 
 occur once in ten million times and cannot be 
 guarded against ! We were just prepared to dump 
 the whole business, when our chief backer, as he 
 was on his way in his carriage to close the deal, 
 was struck by lightning! I was struck by the 
 same bolt. In twenty minutes I was in debt 
 twenty thousand dollars. Telegrams and notices 
 for margin began to pour in on me again within 
 the hour. None of them bothered me so much, 
 however, as a bank notice that I had overchecked 
 an account in which I had a sum of a few hundred 
 dollars belonging to a client of mine an old 
 
 63
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 widowed lady, Mrs. Upshur, who had brought it 
 to me to invest for her, and who trusted me. She 
 had been robbed by her last agent and this was 
 really all that was left her. I remembered how 
 she had insisted on my keeping it. for her against 
 the final attack of the wolf, she had said. "But 
 suppose I should spend it," I had said jesting. 
 "Fm not afraid of your spending it, but of myself 
 I want so many things. If I couldn't trust you, 
 I'd give up." And now it was gone. It came to 
 me that if I should die at that moment she would 
 think I had robbed her, and would have a right 
 to think so. I swear that at the thought I stag 
 gered, and since then I have always known how 
 a thief must sometimes feel. It decided me, how 
 ever. I made up my mind that second that I 
 would never again buy another share of stock on a 
 margin as long as I lived, and I wrote telegrams 
 ordering every broker I had to sell me out and 
 send me my accounts, and I mortgaged my old 
 home for all I could get. I figured that I wanted 
 just one hundred dollars more than I had. I 
 walked across the hall into Peck's little dark 
 office. He was poring over a brief. I said, 
 "Peck, I am broke." 
 
 "What? I am sorry to hear it but I am not sur 
 prised." He was perfectly cool, but did look sorry. 
 
 64
 
 THE METEOR 
 
 "Peck," I went on, "I saw you pricing a watch 
 the other day. Here is one I gave three hundred 
 dollars for." I showed him a fine chronometer 
 repeater I had bought in my flush time. 
 
 "I can't give over a hundred dollars for a 
 watch," he said. 
 
 "How much will you give me for this?" 
 
 "You mean with the chain?" 
 
 "Yes" I had not meant with the chain, but I 
 thought of old Mrs. Upshur. 
 
 "I can't give over a hundred." 
 
 "Take it," and I handed it to him and he gave 
 me a hundred-dollar bill, which I took with the 
 interest and handed, myself, to my old lady, 
 whom I advised to let Peck invest for her on a 
 mortgage. This he did, and I heard afterward 
 netted her six per cent. for a time. 
 
 That evening I went to see Lilian Poole. I 
 had made up my mind quickly what to do. That 
 stroke of lightning had showed me everything just 
 as it was, in its ghastliest detail. If she accepted 
 me, I would begin to work in earnest, and if she 
 would wait, as soon as I could pay my debts, I 
 would be ready; if not, then ! However, I 
 walked right in and made a clean breast of it, 
 and I told her up and down that if she would 
 marry me I would win. I shall never forget the 
 
 65
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 picture as she stood by the heavy marble mantel 
 in her father's rich drawing-room, tall and uncom 
 promising and very handsome. She might have 
 been marble herself, like the mantel, she was so 
 cold, and I, suddenly aroused by the shock, was on 
 fire with resolve and fierce hunger for sympathy. 
 She did not hesitate a moment; and I walked out. 
 She had given me a deep wound. I saw the sun 
 rise in the streets. 
 
 Within two weeks I had made all my arrange 
 ments; had closed up my affairs; given up every 
 thing in the world I had; executed my notes to 
 my creditors and told them they were not worth 
 a cent unless I lived, in which case they would 
 be worth principal and interest; sold my law 
 books to Peck for a price which made his eyes 
 glisten, had given him my office for the unexpired 
 term, and was gone to the West. 
 
 The night before I left I called to see the young 
 lady again a piece of weakness. But I hated to 
 give up. 
 
 She looked unusually handsome. 
 
 I believe if she had said a word or had looked 
 sweet at me I might have stayed, and I know I 
 should have remained in love with her. But she 
 did neither. When I told her I was going away, 
 she said "Where?" That was every word in 
 
 66
 
 THE METEOR 
 
 just such a tone as if she had met me on the 
 corner, and I had said I was going to walk. 
 She was standing by the mantel with her shape 
 ly arm resting lightly on the marble. I said, 
 "God only knows, but somewhere far enough 
 away." 
 
 "When are you coming back?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 "Oh, yes, you will," she said coolly, arranging a 
 bracelet, so coolly that it stung me like a serpent 
 and brought me on my feet. 
 
 "I'll be! No, I will not," I said. "Good- 
 by." 
 
 "Good-by." She gave me her hand and it was 
 as cool as her voice. 
 
 "Good-by." And mine was as cold as if I were 
 dead. I swear, I believe sometimes I did die 
 right there before her and that a new man took 
 my place within me. At any rate my love for 
 her died, slain by the ice in her heart; and the 
 foolish fribble I was passed into a man of res 
 olution. 
 
 As I walked out of her gate, I met Peck going 
 in, and I did not care. I did not even hate him. 
 I remember that his collar was up to his ears. I 
 heard afterward that she accepted him that same 
 week. For some inexplicable reason I thought of 
 
 67
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 John Marvel as I walked home. I suddenly ap 
 peared nearer to him than I had done since I left 
 college, and I regretted not having answered his 
 simple, affectionate letters. 
 I started West that night.
 
 VII 
 
 THE HEGIRA 
 
 TN my manage was a bull-terrier puppy brin- 
 * died, bow-legged, and bold at least, Jeams 
 declared Dix to be a bull pup of purest blood 
 when he sold him to me for five dollars and a suit 
 of clothes that had cost sixty. I found later that 
 he had given a quarter for him to a negro stable- 
 boy who had been sent to dispose of him. Like 
 the American people he was of many strains; 
 but, like the American people, he proved to have 
 good stuff in him, and he had the soul of a lion. 
 One eye was bleared, a memento of some early and 
 indiscreet insolence to some decisive-clawed cat; 
 his ears had been crookedly clipped and one perked 
 out, the other in, and his tail had been badly 
 bobbed; but was as expressive as the immortal 
 Rab's eloquent stump. He feared and followed 
 Jeams, but he adored me. And to be adored by 
 woman or dog is something for any man to show 
 at the last day. To lie and blink at me by the 
 hour was his chief occupation. To crawl up and 
 
 69
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 lick my hand, or failing that, my boot, was his 
 heaven. 
 
 I always felt that, with all my faults, which none 
 knew like myself, there must be some basic good 
 in me to inspire so devoted a love. 
 
 When I determined to leave for the West the 
 night of my final break with Lilian Poole, in my 
 selfishness I forgot Dix ; but when I reached home 
 that night, sobered and solitary, there was Dix 
 with his earnest, adoring gaze, his shrewd eye 
 fixed on me, and his friendly twist of the back. 
 His joy at my mere presence consoled me and gave 
 me spirit, though it did not affect my decision. 
 
 Jeams, who had followed me from college, at 
 times hung around my office, carried Miss Poole 
 my notes and flowers and, in the hour of my 
 prosperity, blossomed out in a gorgeousness of 
 apparel that partly accounted for my heavy 
 expense account, as well as for the rapid disap 
 pearance of the little private stock I occasionally 
 kept or tried to keep in a deceptive-looking desk 
 which I used as a sideboard for myself and friends. 
 He usually wore an old suit of mine, in which he 
 looked surprisingly well, but on occasions he wore 
 a long-tailed coat, a red necktie, and a large soft, 
 light hat which, cocked on the side of his head, 
 gave him the air of an Indian potentate. I think 
 
 70
 
 THE HEGIRA 
 
 he considered himself in some sort a partner. He 
 always referred to me and my business as "us" 
 and "our" business, and, on some one's asking 
 him derisively if he were a partner of mine, he 
 replied, "Oh, no, sir, only what you might term a 
 minor connectee of the Captain." He was, how 
 ever, a very useful fellow, being ready to do any 
 thing in the world I ordered, except when he was 
 tight or had some piece of rascality on foot 
 occasions by no means rare. He wore, at election 
 time, a large and flaming badge announcing that 
 he was something in his party the opposite 
 party to mine; but I have reason to believe that 
 when I was in politics he perjured himself freely 
 and committed other crimes against the purity of 
 the ballot on which economists declare all Repre 
 sentative Government is founded. One of my ar 
 dent friends once informed me that he thought I 
 ought not to allow Jeams to wear that badge it 
 was insulting me openly. I told him that he was 
 a fool, that I was so afraid Jeams would insist 
 on my wearing one, too, I was quite willing to 
 compromise. In fact, I had gotten rather de 
 pendent on him. Then he and I held such iden 
 tical views as to Peck, not to mention some other 
 mutual acquaintances, and Jeams could show his 
 contempt in such delightfully insolent ways. 
 
 71
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 I had intimated to Jeams some time before, im 
 mediately after my first serious reverse in the 
 stock market, that I was no longer as flush as I 
 had been, and that unless affairs looked up I 
 might move on to fresh pastures or, possibly, 
 I put it, to a wider field for the exercise of my 
 powers; whereupon he promptly indicated his in 
 tention to accompany me and share my fortune. 
 But I must say, he showed plainly his belief that 
 it was a richer pasture which I was contemplating 
 moving into, and he viewed the prospect with a 
 satisfaction much like that of a cat which, in the 
 act of lapping milk, has cream set before it. The 
 only thing that puzzled him was that he could not 
 understand why I wanted more than I had. He 
 said so plainly. 
 
 " What you want to go 'way for, Cap'n? Whyn't 
 you stay where you is ? You done beat 'em all 
 evy one of 'em 
 
 "Oh! no, I haven't." 
 
 "Go 'way f'om here you is an' you know you 
 is dthat's the reason you carry yo' head so high." 
 (He little knew the true reason.) "An' if you 
 hadn't, all you got to do is to walk in yonder up 
 yonder "(with a toss of his head in the direction of 
 Miss Poole's home), "an' hang up yo' hat, and den 
 you ain'gotnuthin' to do but jus' write yo' checks." 
 
 72
 
 THE HEGIRA 
 
 I laughed at Jeams's idea of the situation, and 
 of old Poole's son-in-law's position. But it was 
 rather a bitterer laugh than he suspected. To 
 soothe my conscience and also to draw him out, I 
 said, though I did not then really think it possible : 
 
 "Why, she's going to marry Peck." 
 
 Jeams turned around and actually spat out his 
 disgust. 
 
 ' ' What, dthat man ! " Then, as he looked at me 
 to assure himself that I was jesting, and finding 
 a shade less amusement in my countenance than 
 he had expected, he uttered a wise speech. 
 
 "Well, I tell you, Cap'n if dthat man gits her 
 he ought to have her, 'cause he done win her an' 
 you ain' know how to play de game. You done 
 discard de wrong card." 
 
 I acknowledged in my heart that he had hit the 
 mark, and I laughed a little less bitterly, which 
 he felt as did Dix, lying against my foot which 
 he suddenly licked twice. 
 
 "An' I'll tell you another thing you's well rid 
 of her. Ef she likes dthat man bes', let him have 
 her, and you git another one. Der's plenty mo', 
 jes' as good and better, too, and you'll meek her 
 sorry some day. Dthat's de way I does. If dey 
 wants somebody else, I let's 'em have 'em. It's 
 better to let 'em have 'em befo' than after." 
 
 73
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 When Jeams walked out of my room, he had on 
 a suit which I had not had three months, and a 
 better suit than I was able to buy again in as many 
 years. But he had paid me well for it. I had in 
 mind his wise saying when I faced Lilian Poole 
 without a cent on earth, with all gone except my 
 new-born resolution and offered her only myself, 
 and as I walked out of her gate I consoled myself 
 with Jeams's wisdom. 
 
 When I left Miss Poole I walked straight home, 
 and having let nobody know, I spent the evening 
 packing up and destroying old letters and papers 
 and odds and ends; among them, all of Lilian 
 Poole's letters and other trash. At first, I found 
 myself tending to reading over and keeping a few 
 letters and knickknacks; but as I glanced over 
 the letters and found how stiff, measured, and 
 vacant her letters were as compared with my 
 burning epistles, in which I had poured out my 
 heart, my wrath rose, and I consigned them all 
 to the flames, whose heat was the only warmth 
 they had ever known. 
 
 I was in the midst of this sombre occupation, 
 with no companion but my angry reflections and 
 no witness but Dix, who was plainly aware that 
 something unusual was going on, and showed his 
 intense anxiety in the only method that dull 
 
 74
 
 THE HEGIRA 
 
 humanity has yet learned to catalogue as Dog- 
 talk: by moving around, wagging his stump of a 
 twist-tail, and making odd, uneasy sounds and 
 movements. His evident anxiety about me pres 
 ently attracted my attention, and I began to think 
 what I should do with him. I knew old Mrs. 
 Upshur would take and care for him as she would 
 for anything of mine; but Dix, though the best 
 tempered of canines, had his standards, which he 
 lived up to like a gentleman, and he brooked no 
 insolence from his inferiors or equals and admitted 
 no superiors. Moreover, he needed out-door exer 
 cise as all sound creatures do, and this poor, old 
 decrepit Mrs. Upshur could not give him. I dis 
 carded for one reason or another my many ac 
 quaintances, and gradually Jeams took precedence 
 in my mind and held it against all reasoning. He 
 was drunken and worthless he would possibly, 
 at times, neglect Dix, and at others, would 
 certainly testify his pride in him and prove his 
 confidence by making him fight; but he adored the 
 dog and he feared me somewhat. As I wavered 
 there was a knock and Jeams walked in. He was 
 dressed in my long frock coat and his large, gray 
 hat was on the back of his head a sure sign that 
 he was tight, even had not his dishevelled collar 
 and necktie and his perspiring countenance given 
 
 75
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 evidence of his condition. As he stood in the 
 door, his hand went up to his hat; but at sight of 
 the room, he dropped it before he could reach 
 the hat and simply stared at me in blank amaze 
 ment. 
 
 "Hi! What you doin'?" he stammered. 
 
 "Packing up." 
 
 "Where you goin'?" 
 
 "Going away." 
 
 "When you comin' back?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 "What! Well, damned if I ain' gwine wid you, 
 then." 
 
 The tone was so sincere and he was evidently 
 so much in earnest that a lump sprang into my 
 throat. I turned away to keep him from seeing 
 that I was moved, and it was to keep him still 
 from finding it out that I turned on him with well- 
 feigned savageness as he entered the room. 
 
 "You look like going with me, don't you! You 
 drunken scoundrel! Take your hat off, sir" for 
 in his confusion he had wholly forgotten his man 
 ners. They now came back to him. 
 
 "Ixcuse me Cap'n" (with a low bow). "Ix- 
 cuse me, suh. I al'ays removes my hat in the 
 presence of the ladies and sech distinguished 
 
 gent'mens as yourself, suh; but, Cap'n ' 
 
 76
 
 "Hi! What you doin'?" he stammered.
 
 THE HEGIRA . 
 
 "Drunken rascal!" I muttered, still to hide my 
 feeling. 
 
 "Cap'n I ain' drunk I'll swear I ain' had a 
 drink not in He paused for an appropriate 
 term and gave it up. " Not in I'll swear on a 
 stack of Bibles as as high as Gen'l Washin's 
 monument you bring it heah is you got a 
 Bible? You smell my breath!" 
 
 " Smell your breath! I can't smell anything 
 but your breath. Open that window!" 
 
 "Yes, suh," and the window was meanderingly 
 approached, but not reached, for he staggered 
 slightly and caught on a chair. 
 
 "Cap'n, I ain' had a drink for a year I'll swear 
 to dthat. I'll prove it to you. I ain' had a cent 
 to buy one wid in a month I was jus' comin' roun 1 
 to ast you to gi' me one jus' to git de dust out o' 
 my throat." 
 
 "Dust! Clean those things up there and get 
 some dust in your throat." 
 
 "Yes, suh yes, suh Cap'n" insinuatingly, 
 as his eye fell on Dix, who was standing looking 
 attentively first at me and then at Jeams, com 
 pletely mystified by my tone, but ready to take a 
 hand if there was anyneed for him. "Cap'n " 
 
 "Well, what is it? What do you want now?" 
 
 "Will you lend me a hundred?" 
 
 77
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "A hundred dollars?" 
 
 "Yes, suh you see 
 
 "No. I'll give you a hundred licks if you don't 
 get to work and clean up that floor." 
 
 "Cap'n yes, suh I'm gwine to clean 't up 
 but, Cap'n " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "I'll let you in jes' len' me ten or five or 
 jes' one dollar hit's a cinch Lord ! I can meek 
 ten for one jist as easy dee don' know him dee 
 think he ain' nuthing but a cur dawg dat's what 
 I told 'em. And I'll meek you all de money in the 
 worP I will dat." 
 
 "What are you talking about?" 
 
 "Well, you see, hit's dthis away I wouldn't 
 bother you if dat yaller bar-keeper nigger hadn' 
 
 clean me up wid them d d loaded bones of hisn 
 
 jis' stole it from me yes, suh jis' 
 
 "Cleaned you up? When?" 
 
 "Dthis very evenin' I had seventeen dollars 
 right in my pocket, heah. You ax Mr. Wills if 
 I didn't. He seen me have it I had jes' got it, 
 too- 
 
 "You liar you just now told me you hadn't 
 had a cent in a month, and now you say you had 
 seventeen dollars this evening." Jeams reared 
 himself up. 
 
 78
 
 THE HEGIRA 
 
 "I toll you dthat?" He was now steadying 
 himself with great gravity and trying to keep his 
 eyes fixed on me. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "No, sir. I never toll you dthat in this worF! 
 'Cause 'twould a been a lie and I wouldn' tell you 
 a lie for nuthin' on earth I never had no seven 
 teen dollars." 
 
 "I know you didn't I know that's true, unless 
 you stole it; but you said 
 
 "No, sir what I said was dthat if you'd len' 
 me seventeen dollars I'd take Dix there and kill 
 any dawg dthat yaller nigger up yonder in the 
 Raleigh Hotel could trot out I didn' keer what 
 he was and I said I'd give you a hundred 
 dollars out of the skads I picked up dthat's 
 what I said, and you got it wrong." 
 
 "You'll do what?" 
 
 "You see, hit's this away dthat big-moufed, 
 corn-fed yaller nigger he was allowin' dthat Mr. 
 Mulligan had a dawg could chaw up any dawg 
 dis side o' torment, and I 'lowed him a ten dthat 
 
 I had one 's could lick h 1 out o' any Mulligan 
 
 or Mulligan's dawg top o' groun' V dthat you'd 
 len' me th' ten to put up." 
 
 "Well, you've lost one ten anyway I won't 
 lend you a cent, and if I catch you fighting Dix, I'll 
 
 79
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 give you the worst lambing you ever had since 
 Justice John had you skinned for stealing those 
 chickens." 
 
 Jeams threw up his eyes in reprobation. 
 
 "Now, Cap'n you know I never stole dem 
 stags dthat old jestice he jes' sentenced me 'cause 
 you was my counsel an' cause ' I was a nigger an' 
 had'n had a chance at me befo' I bet if I'd give' 
 him half de money 'stead o' payin' you, he'd a' let 
 me off mighty quick." 
 
 "Pay me! you never paid me a cent in your 
 life." ' 
 
 "Well, I promised to pay you, didn' I? An' 
 ain' dthat de same thin'?" 
 
 "Not by a big sight " 
 
 " Dthat 's de way gent'mens does." 
 
 "Oh! do they?" 
 
 Jeams came back to the main theme. 
 
 "Mr. Hen, ain' you gwine let me have dem ten 
 dollars, sho' 'nough? Hit's jes' like pickin' money 
 up in de road: Dix kin kill dat dawg befo' you 
 ken say Jack Roberson." 
 
 "Jeams," I said, "look at me!" 
 
 "Yes, suh, I'm lookin'," and he was. 
 
 "I am going away to-night 
 
 "Well, I'm gwine width you, I ain' gwine stay 
 heah by myself after you and Dix is gone." 
 
 80
 
 THE HEGIRA 
 
 "No, you can't do that. I don't know yet 
 exactly where I am going, I have not yet decided. 
 I am going West to a big city." 
 
 "Dthat's where I want to go " interrupted 
 Jeams. 
 
 "And when I get settled I'll send for Dix I'm 
 going to leave him with you." 
 
 "Yes, suh, I'll teck keer of him sure. I'll 
 match him against any dawg in dthis town he 
 can kill dthat dawg of dthat yaller nigger's " 
 
 "No, if you put him in a fight, I'll kill you the 
 first time I see you d'you hear? " 
 
 "Yes, suh I ain' gwine put him in no fight. 
 But ef he gits in a fight you know he's a mighty 
 high-spirited dawg he don' like dawgs to come 
 nosin' roun' him. Hit sort o' aggravates him. 
 An' ef he should ?" 
 
 "I'll whip you as sure as you live " 
 
 "Jes'ef he should?" 
 
 "Yes if you let him." 
 
 "No, suh, I ain' gwine let him. You lef him 
 wid me." 
 
 And though I knew that he was lying, I was 
 content to leave the dog with him; for I was 
 obliged to leave him with some one, and I knew he 
 loved this dog, and hoped my threat would, at least, 
 keep him from anything that might hurt him. 
 
 81
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 I drifted out to the Club later and casually 
 dropped the information that I was going away. 
 I do not think it made much impression on my 
 friends there in fact, I hardly think they took 
 the information seriously. They were a kindly 
 lot, but took life and me lightly. 
 
 When I left town at midnight the rain was 
 pouring down, and there was no one at the dreary 
 station to see me off but Jeams and Dix, and as 
 the train pulled out I stood on the platform to say 
 good-by to Jeams, who was waving his right hand 
 sadly, while with the other he gripped the collar 
 of the dejected Dix who, with his eyes on me, 
 struggled spasmodically and viciously. 
 
 Suddenly Dix turned on his captor with a snarl 
 and snap which startled Jeams so that he let him 
 go, then whirling about, he tore after the train, 
 which was just beginning to quicken its speed. 
 He had to rush over ties and switch-rods, but he 
 caught up and made a spring for the step. He 
 made good his footing, but Jeams was running 
 and waving wildly and, with his voice in my ears, 
 I pushed the dog off with my foot and saw him 
 roll over between the tracks. Nothing daunted, 
 however, he picked himself up, and with another 
 rush sprang again for the step. This time only 
 his forefeet caught and he hung on by them for 
 
 82
 
 THE HEGIRA 
 
 a second, then began to slip inch by inch he was 
 slipping off as I stood watching him, when, under 
 an impulse, fearing that he might be killed, I 
 hastily, and with a sudden something in my 
 throat, reached down and caught him just in time 
 to pull him up, and taking him in my arms I bore 
 him into the car. I confess that, as I felt him 
 licking my hands, a warmer feeling than I had had 
 for some time came around my heart, which had 
 been like a lump of ice during these last days, and 
 I was glad no one was near by who knew me. I 
 made up my mind that, come what might, I would 
 hold on to my one faithful friend. 
 
 83
 
 VIII 
 
 PADAN-ARAM 
 
 T FIRST went to the town in which lived the rel- 
 ative, the cousin of my father's whom I have 
 mentioned. It was a bustling, busy city and he 
 was reputed the head of the Bar in his State a 
 man of large interests and influence. I knew my 
 father's regard for him. I think it was this and 
 his promise about me that made me go to him 
 now. I thought he might help me, at least with 
 advice; for I had his name. 
 
 I left my trunk and Dix at the hotel and called 
 on him at his large office. In my loneliness, I 
 was full of a new-born feeling of affection for this 
 sole kinsman. I thought, perhaps, he might possi 
 bly even make me an offer to remain with him and 
 eventually succeed to his practice. I had not seen 
 him two seconds, however, before I knew this was 
 folly. When I had sent in my name by an ob 
 trusive eyed office-boy I was kept waiting for 
 some time in the outer office, where the office-boy 
 loudly munched an apple, and a couple of clerks 
 whispered to each other with their eyes on the 
 
 84
 
 PADAN-ARAM 
 
 private office door. And when I was ushered in 
 he gave me a single keen look as I entered, and 
 went on writing without asking me to sit down, 
 and I would not sit without an invitation. When 
 he had finished he looked up, and nodded his head 
 with a sort of jerk toward a chair. He was a large 
 man with a large head, short gray hair, a strong 
 nose, a heavy chin, and gray eyes close together, 
 without the kindliness either of age or of youth. 
 I took a step toward him and in some embar 
 rassment began to speak rapidly. I called him 
 "Cousin," for blood had always counted for a 
 great deal with us, and I had often heard my 
 father speak of him with pride. But his sharp 
 look stopped me. 
 
 "Take a seat," he said, more in a tone of com 
 mand than of invitation, and called me "Mister." 
 It was like plunging me into a colder atmosphere. 
 I did not sit down, but I was so far into my sen 
 tence I could not well stop. So I went on and 
 asked him what he thought of my settling there, 
 growing more and more embarrassed and hot with 
 every word. 
 
 "Have you any money?" he asked shortly. 
 
 "Not a cent." 
 
 "Well, I have none to lend you. You need not 
 count on me. I would advise " But I did not 
 
 85
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 wait for him to finish. I had got hold of myself 
 and was self-possessed enough now. 
 
 "I did not ask you to lend me any money, 
 either," I said, straightening myself up. "I did 
 ask you to give me some advice; but now I do not 
 
 want that or anything else you have, d n you ! 
 
 I made a mistake in coming to you, for I am abun 
 dantly able to take care of myself." 
 
 Of course, I know now that he had something on 
 his side. He supposed me a weak, worthless dog, 
 if not a " dead-beat." But I was so angry with 
 him I could not help saying what I did. I stalked 
 out and slammed the door behind me with a bang 
 that made the glass in the sash rattle; and the 
 two or three young men, busy in the outer office, 
 looked up in wonder. I went straight to the 
 hotel and took the train to the biggest city my 
 money would get me to. I thought a big city 
 offered the best chances for me, and, at least, 
 would hide me. I think the fact that I had once 
 written a brief for Mr. Poole in the matter of his 
 interest in car lines there influenced me in my 
 selection. 
 
 I travelled that night and the next day and the 
 night following, and partly because my money 
 was running low and partly on Dix's account, I 
 rode in a day-coach. The first night and day 
 
 86
 
 PADAN-ARAM 
 
 passed well enough, but the second night I was 
 tired and dusty and lonely. 
 
 On the train that night I spent some serious 
 hours. Disappointment is the mother of depres 
 sion and the grandmother of reflection. I took 
 stock of myself and tried to peer into the dim 
 and misty future, and it was gloomy work. Only 
 one who has started out with the world in fee, 
 and after throwing it away in sheer recklessness 
 of folly, suddenly hauls up to find himself bank 
 rupt of all he had spurned in his pride: a 
 homeless and friendless wanderer on the face of 
 the earth, may imagine what I went through. I 
 learned that night what the exile feels; I dimly 
 felt what the outcast experiences. And I was 
 sensible that I had brought it all on myself. 
 I had wantonly wasted all my substance in riot 
 ous living and I had no father to return to 
 nothing, not even swine to keep in a strange 
 land. I faced myself on the train that night, 
 and the effigy I gazed on I admitted to be a fool. 
 
 The train, stuffy and hot, lagged and jolted and 
 stopped, and still I was conscious of only that 
 soul-shifting process of self-facing. The image of 
 Peck, the tortoise, haunted me. At times I dozed 
 or even slept very soundly; though doubled up 
 like a jack-knife, as I was, I could not efface my- 
 
 87
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 self even in my sleep. But when I waked, there 
 was still myself grim, lonely, homeless haunt 
 ing me like a stabbed corpse chained to my side. 
 
 I was recalled to myself at last by the whimper 
 ing of children packed in a seat across the aisle 
 from me. They had all piled in together the first 
 night somewhere with much excitement. They 
 were now hungry and frowzy and wretched. 
 There were five of them, red-cheeked and dirty; 
 complaining to their mother who, worn and be 
 draggled herself, yet never lost patience with one 
 or raised her voice above the soothing pitch in all 
 her consoling. 
 
 At first I was annoyed by them; then I was 
 amused; then I wondered at her, and at last, I 
 almost envied her, so lonely was I and so content 
 was she with her little brood. 
 
 Hitched on to the train the second night was a 
 private car, said to be that of some one connected 
 with a vice-president of the road. The name of 
 the official, which I learned later, was the same as 
 that of an old college friend of my father's, and I 
 had often heard my father mention him as his 
 successful rival with his first sweetheart, and he 
 used to tease my mother by recalling the charms 
 of Kitty MacKenzie, the young lady in question, 
 whose red golden hair he declared the most beauti- 
 
 88
 
 PADAN-ARAM 
 
 ful hair that ever crowned a mortal head while 
 my mother, I remember, insisted that her hair 
 was merely carroty, and that her beauty, though 
 undeniable, was distinctly of the milkmaid order 
 a shaft which was well aimed, for my mother's 
 beauty was of the delicate, aristocratic type. The 
 fact was that Mr. Leigh had been a suitor of hers 
 before my father met her, and having been dis 
 carded by her, had consoled himself with the 
 pretty girl, to whom my father had been attentive 
 before he met and fell "head over heels in love" 
 with a new star at a college ball. 
 
 Mr. Leigh, I knew, had gone West, and grown 
 up to be a banker, and I wondered vaguely if by 
 any chance he could be the same person. 
 
 The train should have reached my destination in 
 time for breakfast, and we had all looked forward 
 to it and made our arrangements accordingly. 
 The engine, however, which had been put on 
 somewhere during the night, had " given out," 
 and we were not only some hours late, but were no 
 longer able to keep steadily even the snail's pace 
 at which we had been crawling all night. The 
 final stop came on a long upgrade in a stretch of 
 broken country sparsely settled, and though once 
 heavily wooded, now almost denuded. Here the 
 engine, after a last futile, gasping effort, finally 
 
 89
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 gave up, and the engineer descended for the 
 dozenth time to see "what he could do about it." 
 To make matters worse, the water in our car had 
 given out, and though we had been passing streams 
 a li ttle before, there was no water in sight where we 
 stopped. It soon became known that we should 
 have to wait until a brakeman could walk to the 
 nearest telegraph station, miles off, and have an 
 other engine despatched to our aid from a town 
 thirty or more miles away. So long as there had 
 been hope of keeping on, however faint, there 
 had been measurable content, and the grumbling 
 which had been heard at intervals all the latter 
 part of the night had been sporadic and subdued ; 
 but now when the last hope was gone, and it was 
 known that we were at last "stuck" for good, 
 there was an outbreak of ill-humor from the men, 
 though the women in the car still kept silent, 
 partly subdued by their dishevelled condition and 
 partly because they were content for once, while 
 listening to the men. Now and then a man who 
 had been forward would come back into the car, 
 and address some one present, or speak to the en 
 tire car, and in the silence that fell every one 
 listened until he had delivered himself. But no 
 one had yet given a satisfactory explanation of the 
 delay. 
 
 90
 
 PADAN-ARAM 
 
 At last a man who sat near me gave an ex 
 planation. "The engine lost time because it had 
 too heavy a load. It's a heavy train, anyway, 
 and they put a private car on and the engine could 
 not pull it, that's all that's the matter." He spoke 
 with the finality of a judge, and sat back in his 
 seat, and we all knew that he had hit the mark, 
 and given the true cause. Henceforward he was 
 regarded with respect. He really knew things. 
 I insensibly took note of him. He was a middle- 
 sized, plain-looking man with bright eyes and a 
 firm mouth. Whether by a coincidence or not, 
 just at that moment something appeared to have 
 given way in the car: babies began to cry; chil 
 dren to fret, and the elders to fume and grumble. 
 In a short time every one in the car was abusing 
 the railroad and its management. Their incon- 
 siderateness, their indifference to the comfort of 
 their passengers. 
 
 "They pay no more attention to us and take no 
 more care of us than if we were so many cattle," 
 growled a man. "I couldn't get a single berth 
 last night." He was a big, sour-looking fellow, 
 who wore patent-leather shoes on his large feet 
 and a silk hat, now much rubbed and a dirty 
 silk handkerchief was tucked in his soiled collar, 
 and in his soiled shirt front showed a suppositi- 
 
 91
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 tious diamond. He was, as I learned later, named 
 Wringman, and was a labor-leader of some note. 
 
 "Not as much as of cattle for, at least, they 
 water them," said another; "they care nothing 
 about our comfort." 
 
 "Unless they ride in a Pullman," interjected the 
 man near me, who had explained the situation. 
 
 The woman with the five children suddenly 
 turned. "And that's true, too," she said, with a 
 glance of appreciation at him and a sudden flash 
 of hate at the big man with the diamond. Off 
 and on all night the children had, between naps, 
 begged for water, and the mother had trudged 
 back and forth with the patience of an Egyptian 
 water-carrier, but now the water had given out, 
 and the younger ones had been whimpering be 
 cause they were hungry. 
 
 I went forward, and about the engine, where I 
 stood for a time, looking on while we waited, I 
 heard further criticism of the road, but along a 
 different line, from the trainmen. 
 
 "Well, I'll have to stand it," said one of them, 
 the engineer, a man past middle-age. "No more 
 strikes for me. That one on the C. B. and B. D. 
 taught me a lesson. I was pretty well fixed then 
 had a nice house and lot 'most paid for in the 
 Building Company, and the furniture all paid for, 
 
 92
 
 PADAN-ARAM 
 
 except a few instalments, and it all went. I 
 thought we'd 'a' starved that winter and my 
 wife's been sick ever since." 
 
 "I know," said his friend, "but if they cut down 
 we've got to fight. I'm willin' to starve to beat 
 
 'em." 
 
 "You may be; but you ain't got little children 
 and a sick wife." 
 
 A little later I saw the flashily dressed man with 
 the dirty handkerchief talking to him, and insist 
 ing that they should fight the company. "We'll 
 bring 'em to their knees," he said, with many 
 oaths. The engineer kept silence, the younger 
 man assented warmly. 
 
 I went back to my car. Presently matters grew 
 so bad in the car that my sympathies for the chil 
 dren were aroused, and I determined to see if I 
 could not ameliorate the conditions somewhat. I 
 went back to the Pullman car to see if there was 
 any chance of buying some food, but the haggard 
 looking porter said there was nothing on the car. 
 "They usually go in to breakfast," he explained. 
 My only chance would be the private car behind. 
 So, after I had been forward and ascertained that 
 we would not get away for at least an hour more, I 
 went back and offered to look after the older chil 
 dren of the little family. "I am going to take my 
 
 93
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 dog for a run; I'll take the little folks too." The 
 mother with a baby in her arms and a child, 
 hardly more than a baby, tugging at her, looked 
 unutterably tired, and was most grateful to me. 
 I took the older children and went down the bank, 
 and turning back, began to pick the straggling 
 wild flowers beside the track. As we passed the 
 private car, the door opened, and the cook tossed 
 a waiterful of scraps out on the ground on which 
 both Dixie and the children threw themselves. 
 But, though there was plenty of bread, it had all 
 been ruined by being in the slop-water; so Dixie 
 was soon left in undisturbed possession. 
 
 A little beyond the end of the train we came on 
 a young girl engaged in the same occupation as 
 ourselves. Her back was toward us, but her 
 figure was straight and supple, and her motions 
 easy and full of spring. The sight of the young 
 lady so fresh and cool, with the morning sun 
 shining on a thick coil of shining hair, quite re 1 
 vived me. I drew near to get a good look at her 
 and also to be within shot of a chance to speak to 
 her should opportunity offer. If I were a novelist 
 trying to describe her I should say that she was 
 standing just at the foot of a bank with a clump 
 of green bushes behind her, her arms full of flowers 
 which she had gathered. For all these were there, 
 
 94
 
 PADAN-ARAM 
 
 and might have been created there for her, so 
 harmonious were they with the fresh young face 
 above them and the pliant form which clasped 
 them. I might further have likened her to Pros 
 erpine with her young arms full of blossoms 
 from Sicilian meads; for she resembled her in 
 other ways than in embracing flowers and breath 
 ing fragrance as she stood in the morning light. 
 But truth to tell, it was only later that I thought 
 of these. The first impression I received, as it 
 will be the last, was of her eyes. Dimples, and 
 snow-white teeth; changing expression where 
 light and shadow played, with every varying feel 
 ing, and where color came and went like roses 
 thrown on lilies, and lilies on roses, all came to me 
 later on. But that was in another phase. Her 
 eyes were what I saw at first, and never since have 
 I seen the morning or the evening star swimming 
 in rosy light but they have come back to me. I 
 remember I wore a blue suit and had on an old 
 yachting cap, which I had gotten once when on a 
 short cruise with a friend. I was feeling quite 
 pleased with myself. She suddenly turned. 
 
 "Are you the brakeman?" 
 
 "No, I am not." I could scarcely help laugh 
 ing at my sudden fall. "But perhaps I can serve 
 you?" I added. 
 
 95
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "Oh! I beg pardon! No, I thank you. I only 
 wanted to ask However, it is nothing." 
 
 Dix had, on being let out, and satisfying him 
 self that I was coming along, made a wild dash 
 down the bank and alongside the train, and now 
 on his return rush, catching sight of the young 
 lady in her fresh frock, without waiting for the 
 formality of an introduction, he made a dash for 
 her and sprang up on her as if he had known her 
 all his life. I called to him, but it was too late, 
 and before I could stop him, he was up telling her 
 what after my first look at her I should have 
 liked to tell her myself: what a sweet charming 
 creature we thought her. 
 
 Dixie had no scruples of false pride inculcated 
 by a foolish convention of so-called society. He 
 liked her and said so, and she liked him for it, 
 while I was glad to shine for a moment in the re 
 flected glory of being his master. 
 
 "What a fine dog!" she exclaimed as she patted 
 him, addressing the children, who, with soiled 
 clothes and tousled heads, were gazing at the 
 spick-and-span apparition in open-mouthed won 
 der. "How I envy you such a dog." 
 
 "He ain't ours, he belongs to him," said the 
 child, pointing to me, as I stooped at a little dis 
 tance pretending to pull blossoms while I listened. 
 
 96
 
 PADAN-ARAM 
 
 "Oh! Who is he? Is he your father?" My 
 face was averted. 
 
 "Oh, no. We don't know who he is; he just 
 took us so." 
 
 "Took you so?" 
 
 "You see," explained the next older one, "our 
 mother, she's got the baby and Janet, and the 
 gentleman, he said he would take us and get 
 some wild flowers, because we hadn't had any 
 breakfast, and that dog But the dog was 
 forgotten on the instant. 
 
 "Have not had any breakfast!" exclaimed the 
 young lady with astonishment. 
 
 "No; you see, we had some bread last night, 
 but that's given out. She ate the last piece last 
 night " (she pointed at the smallest child) 
 "and we were so hungry; she cried, and Mamma 
 cried, and that gentleman 
 
 By this time I had turned and I now stepped 
 forward. I confess that, as I turned, wrath was 
 in my heart, but at sight of that horrified face, in 
 its sympathy, my anger died away. 
 
 "Oh! and to think what I wasted! How did it 
 happen?" 
 
 "The train was late and they had expected to 
 get in to breakfast, but the engine gave out," I 
 explained. 
 
 97
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "And they have not had any breakfast?" 
 
 "No one on the train." 
 
 "You see," chimed in the oldest girl, glad to be 
 able to add information, "the train's heavy any 
 way, and they put a private car on, and it was 
 more than the engine could pull; that's all that's 
 the matter." 
 
 The young lady turned to me. 
 
 "Do you mean that our car has caused all this 
 trouble?" 
 
 I nodded. "I don't know about 'all,' but it 
 helped." 
 
 "You poor little dears!" she said, rushing to 
 the children, "come with me." And, taking the 
 youngest child by the hand, she hurried to the 
 rear steps of the car, with the others close behind, 
 while Dixie, who appeared to know what was in 
 store, walked close beside her knee, as much as to 
 say, "Don't leave me out." 
 
 As the train stood on an embankment, the step 
 was too high for her to climb up, so I offered to 
 put the children up on the top step for her. Then 
 came the difficulty of her getting up herself. 
 She called the porter, but the door was shut and 
 there was no answer. 
 
 "Let me help you up, too," I said. "Here, you 
 can reach the rail, and step in my hand and spring 
 
 98
 
 PADAN-ARAM 
 
 up. I can help you perfectly well as though 
 you were mounting a horse/' I added, seeing her 
 hesitate. And, without giving her time to think, 
 I stooped and lifted her to the step. As she 
 sprang up, the door opened, and a portly lady, 
 richly dressed and with several diamond rings on, 
 came out on the platform. She gazed on the 
 little group with astonishment. 
 
 ' ' Why, Eleanor, what is this? Who are these? " 
 
 "They are some poor children, Aunt, who have 
 had no breakfast, and I am going to give them 
 some." 
 
 "Why, they can't come in here, my dear. 
 Those dirty little brats come in our car! It is 
 impossible, my dear." 
 
 "Oh, no, it is not, Aunty," said the young girl 
 with a laugh, "they have had no breakfast." 
 
 "Give them food, my dear, if you please, but I 
 beg you not to bring them into this car. Look 
 how dirty they are ! Why, they might give us all 
 some terrible disease!" 
 
 But Miss Eleanor had closed her ears to the 
 plump lady's expostulations, and was arranging 
 with a surly servant for something to eat for the 
 children. And just then the question of their in 
 vasion of the car was settled by the train's starting. 
 I undertook to run forward alongside the car, but 
 
 99
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 seeing an open ravine ahead spanned by a trestle, 
 and that the train was quickening its speed, I 
 caught Dixie and threw him up on the rear plat 
 form, and then swung myself up after him. The 
 rear door was still unlocked, so I opened it to pass 
 through the car. Just inside the elderly lady was 
 sitting back in an arm-chair with a novel in her 
 lap, though she was engaged at the moment in 
 softly polishing her nails. She stopped long 
 enough to raise her jewelled lorgnette and take a 
 shot at me through it. 
 
 "Are you the brakeman?" she called. 
 
 "No, Madame," I said grimly, thinking, "Well, 
 I must have a brakeman's air to-day." 
 
 "Oh! Will you ring that bell?" 
 
 "Certainly." I rang and, passing on, was met 
 by the porter coming to answer the bell. 
 
 "This is a private car," he said shortly, blocking 
 my way. 
 
 "I know it." I looked him in the eye. 
 
 "You can't go th'oo this car." 
 
 "Oh! yes, I can. I have got to go through it. 
 Move out of my way." 
 
 My tone and manner impressed him sufficiently, 
 and he surlily moved aside, muttering to himself; 
 and I passed on, just conscious that the stout lady 
 had posted herself at the opening of the passage- 
 
 100
 
 PADAN-ARAM 
 
 way behind, and had beckoned to the porter, who 
 sprang toward her with alacrity. As I passed 
 through the open saloon, the young lady was en 
 gaged in supplying my little charges with large 
 plates of bread and butter, while a grinning cook, 
 in his white apron and cap, was bringing a yet 
 further supply. She turned and smiled to me as 
 I passed. 
 
 "Won't you have something, too? It is a very 
 poor apology for a breakfast ; for we had finished 
 and cleared away, but if " 
 
 "These little tots don't appear to think so," I 
 said, my ill-humor evaporating under her smile. 
 
 "Well, won't you have something?" 
 
 I declined this in my best Chesterfieldian man 
 ner, alleging that I must go ahead and tell their 
 mother what a good fairy they had found. 
 
 "Oh! it is nothing. To think of these poor lit 
 tle things being kept without breakfast all morn 
 ing. My father will be very much disturbed to 
 find that this car has caused the delay." 
 
 "Not if he is like his sister," I thought to my 
 self, but I only bowed, and said, "I will come back 
 in a little while, and get them for their mother." 
 To which she replied that she would send them to 
 their mother by the porter, thereby cutting off a 
 chance which I had promised myself of possibly 
 
 101
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 getting another glimpse of her. But the sight of 
 myself at this moment in a mirror hastened my 
 departure. A large smudge of black was across 
 my face, evidently from a hand of one of the 
 children. The prints of the fingers in black were 
 plain on my cheek, while a broad smear ran across 
 my nose. No wonder they thought me a brake- 
 man. 
 
 As I reached the front door of the car I found it 
 locked and I could not open it. At the same 
 moment the porter appeared behind me. 
 
 "Ef you'll git out of my way, I'll open it," he 
 said in a tone so insolent that my gorge rose. 
 
 I stood aside and, still muttering to himself, he 
 unlocked the door, and with his hand on the knob, 
 stood aside for me to pass. As I passed I turned 
 to look for Dixie, who was following me, and I 
 caught the words, "Ise tired o' po' white folks 
 and dogs in my car." At the same moment Dixie 
 passed and he gave him a kick, which drew a little 
 yelp of surprise from him. My blood suddenly 
 boiled. The door was still open and, quick as 
 light, I caught the porter by the collar and with 
 a yank jerked him out on the platform. The door 
 slammed to as he came, and I had him to myself. 
 With my hand still on his throat I gave him a 
 shake that made his teeth rattle. 
 
 102
 
 PADAN-ARAM 
 
 "You black scoundrel," I said furiously. "I 
 have a good mind to fling you off this train, and 
 break your neck." The negro's face was ashy. 
 
 "Indeed, boss," he said, "I didn' mean no harm 
 in the world by what I said. If I had known you 
 was one of dese gentlemens, I'd 'a' never said a 
 word; no suh, that I wouldn'. An' I wouldn' 
 'a' tetched your dorg for nuthin', no suh." 
 
 "Well, I'll teach you something," I said. "I'll 
 teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head, at 
 least." 
 
 "Yes, suh, yes, suh," he said, "I always is, I 
 always tries to be, I just didn' know; no suh, I 
 axes your pardon. I didn' mean nuthin' in the 
 worl'." 
 
 "Now go in there and learn to behave yourself 
 in the future," I said. 
 
 "Yes, suh, I will." And, with another bow, 
 and a side look at Dix, who was now growling 
 ominously, he let himself in at the door and I 
 passed on forward. 
 
 103
 
 IX 
 
 I PITCH MY TENT 
 
 1 l\7'HEN, a little later, my small charges were 
 brought back to their mother (to whom I 
 had explained their absence), it was by the young 
 lady herself, and I never saw a more graceful pict 
 ure than that young girl, in her fresh travelling 
 costume, convoying those children down the car 
 aisle. Her greeting of the tired mother was a 
 refreshment, and a minute after she had gone the 
 mother offered me a part of a substantial supply 
 of sandwiches which she had brought her, so that 
 I found myself not quite so much in sympathy as 
 before with the criticism of the road that was now 
 being freely bandied about the car, and which ap 
 peared to have made all the passengers as one. 
 
 Not long after this we dropped the private car 
 at a station and proceeded on without it. We had, 
 however, not gone far when we stopped and were 
 run into a siding and again waited, and after a 
 time, a train whizzed by us a special train with 
 but two private cars on it. It was going at a 
 clipping rate, but it did not run so fast that we did 
 
 104
 
 I PITCH MY TENT 
 
 not recognize the private car we had dropped some 
 way back, and it soon became known through 
 out our train that we had been side-tracked to 
 let a special with private cars have the right of 
 way. I confess that my gorge rose at this, and 
 when the man in front of me declared that we 
 were the most patient people on earth to give 
 public franchises, pay for travelling on trains run 
 by virtue of them, and then stand being shoved 
 aside and inconvenienced out of all reason to 
 allow a lot of bloated dead-heads to go ahead of 
 us in their special trains, I chimed in with him 
 heartily. 
 
 "Well, the road belongs to them, don't it?" 
 enquired a thin man with a wheezing voice. 
 "That was Canter's private train, and he took on 
 the Argand car at that station back there." 
 
 "'They own the road!' How do they own it? 
 How did they get it?" demanded the first speaker 
 warmly. 
 
 "Why, you know how they got it. They got it 
 in the panic that is, they got the controlling 
 interest." 
 
 "Yes, and then ran the stock down till they had 
 got control and then reorganized and cut out those 
 that wouldn't sell or couldn't the widows and 
 orphans and infants that's the way they got it." 
 
 105
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "Well, the court upheld it." 
 
 "Yes, under the law they had had made them 
 selves to suit themselves. You know how 'twas! 
 You were there when 'twas done and saw how 
 they flung their money around or rather the 
 Argand money for I don't believe Canter and 
 his set own the stock at all. I'll bet a thousand 
 dollars that every share is up as collateral in old 
 Argand's bank." 
 
 "Oh! Well, it's all the same thing. They 
 stand in together. They run the bank the bank 
 lends money; they buy the stock and put it up 
 for the loan, and then run the road." 
 
 "And us," chipped in the other, for they had 
 now gotten into a high good-humor with each 
 other; "they get our franchises and our money, 
 and then side-track us without breakfast while 
 they go sailing by in cars that they call theirs, 
 but which we pay for. I do think we are the 
 biggest fools!" 
 
 "That's socialistic!" said his friend again. 
 "You've been reading that fellow's articles in the 
 Sunday papers. What's his name?" 
 
 "No, I've been thinking. I don't care what it 
 is, it's the truth, and I'm tired of it." 
 
 "They say he's a Jew," interrupted the for 
 mer. 
 
 106
 
 I PITCH MY TENT 
 
 "I don't care what he is, it's the truth/' as 
 serted the other doggedly. 
 
 "Well, I rather think it is," agreed his friend; 
 "but then, I'm hungry, and there isn't even any 
 water on the car." 
 
 "And they guzzle champagne!" sneered the 
 other, "which we pay for," he added. 
 
 "You're a stockholder?" 
 
 "Yes, in a small way; but I might as well own 
 stock in a paving company to Hell. My father 
 helped to build this road and used to take great 
 pride in it. They used to give the stockholders 
 then a free ride once a year to the annual meeting, 
 and it made them all feel as if they owned the 
 road." 
 
 "But now they give free passes not to the 
 stockholders, but to the legislators and the judges." 
 
 "It pays better," said his friend, and they both 
 laughed. It appeared, indeed, rather a good joke 
 to them or, at least, there was nothing which 
 they could do about it, so they might as well take 
 it good-humoredly. 
 
 By this time I had learned that my neighbor 
 with the five children was the wife of a man 
 named McNeil, who was a journeyman machinist, 
 but had been thrown out of work by a strike in 
 another city, and, after waiting around for months, 
 
 107
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 had gone North to find employment, and having 
 at last gotten it, had now sent for them to come on. 
 She had not seen him for months, and she was 
 looking forward to it now with a happiness that 
 was quite touching. Even the discomforts of the 
 night could not dull her joy in the anticipation of 
 meeting her husband and she constantly en- 
 heartened her droopy little brood with the pros 
 pect of soon seeing their "dear Daddy." 
 
 Finally after midday we arrived. 
 
 I shall never forget the sight and smells of that 
 station, if I live to be a thousand years old. It 
 seemed to me a sort of temporary resting-place for 
 lost souls and I was one of them. Had Dante 
 known it, he must have pictured it, with its reek 
 and grime. The procession of tired, bedraggled 
 travellers that streamed in through the black 
 gateways to meet worn watchers with wan smiles 
 on their tired faces, or to look anxiously and in 
 vain for friends who had not come, or else who 
 had come and gone. And outside the roar of the 
 grimy current that swept through the black street. 
 
 I had no one to look for; so, after helping my 
 neighbor and her frowsy little brood off, I saun 
 tered along with Dix at my heel, feeling about as 
 lonely as a man can feel on this populated earth. 
 After gazing about and refusing sternly to meet 
 
 108
 
 I PITCH MY TENT 
 
 the eye of any of the numerous cabmen who 
 wildly waved their whips toward me, shout 
 ing: "Kebsuh kebsuh keb keb keb?" with 
 wearying iteration, I had about made up my 
 mind to take the least noisy of them, when I be 
 came conscious that my fellow-traveller, Mrs. 
 McNeil with her little clan, was passing out of the 
 station unescorted and was looking about in a 
 sort of lost way. On my speaking to her, her face 
 brightened for a moment, but clouded again in 
 stantly, as she said, "Oh! sir, he's gone! He 
 came to meet me this morning ; but the train was 
 late and he couldn't wait or he'd lose his job, so he 
 had to go, and the kind man at the gate told me 
 he left the message for me. But however shall I 
 get there with all the children, for I haven't a cent 
 left!" 
 
 The tears welled up in her eyes as she came 
 to her sad little confession. And I said, "Oh! 
 Well, I think we can manage it somehow. You 
 have his address?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, sir, I have it here," and she pulled out 
 an empty little pocket-book from the breast of her 
 worn frock, and while she gave the baby to the 
 eldest girl to hold, tremblingly opened the purse. 
 In it was only a crumpled letter and, besides this, 
 a key these were all. She opened the letter ten- 
 
 109
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 derly and handed it to me. I read the address 
 and fastened it in my memory. 
 
 "Now," I said, "we'll straighten this out 
 directly." I turned and called a hackman. "I 
 want a carriage." 
 
 There was a rush, but I was firm and insisted on 
 a hack. However, as none was to be had, I was 
 fain to content myself with a one-horse cab of 
 much greater age than dimension. 
 
 Bundling them in and directing the driver to go 
 around and get the trunk from the baggage-room, 
 I mounted beside him and took Dix between my 
 feet and one of the children in my arms, and thus 
 made my entry into the city of my future home. 
 My loneliness had somehow disappeared. 
 
 My prote"geVs destination turned out to be a 
 long way off, quite in one of the suburbs of the 
 city, where working people had their little homes 
 a region I was to become better acquainted with 
 later. As we began to pass bakeries and cook- 
 shops, the children began once more to clamor to 
 their mother for something to eat, on which the 
 poor thing tried to quiet them with promises of 
 what they should have when they reached home. 
 But I could perceive that her heart was low within 
 her, and I stopped at a cook-shop and bought a 
 liberal allowance of bread and jam and cookies, on 
 
 110
 
 I PITCH MY TENT 
 
 which the young things fell to like famished wolves, 
 while their mother overwhelmed me with blessings. 
 
 We had not gone far, and were still in the centre 
 of the city, when a handsome open carriage drove 
 by us, and as it passed, there sat in it the young 
 lady I had seen on the train, with a pleasant look 
 ing elderly man, whom I conjectured to be her 
 father, and who appeared in a very good-humor 
 with her or himself. As I was gazing at them, 
 her eyes fell full into mine, and after a half- 
 moment's mystification, she recognized me as I 
 lifted my hat, and her face lit up with a pleasant 
 smile of recognition. I found my feelings divided 
 between pleasure at her sweet return of my bow 
 and chagrin that she should find me hi such a 
 predicament; for I knew what a ridiculous figure 
 I must cut with the dog between my feet and a 
 frowsy child, thickly smeared with jam, in my 
 arms. In fact, I could see that the girl was talk 
 ing and laughing spiritedly with her father, evi 
 dently about us. I confess to a feeling of shame 
 at the figure I must cut, and I wondered if she 
 would not think I had lied to her in saying that I 
 had never met them before. I did not know that 
 the smile had been for Dix. 
 
 When we reached, after a good hour's drive, the 
 little street for which we were bound, I found my 
 
 111
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 forecast fairly correct. The dingy little house, on 
 which was the rusted number given Mrs. McNeil 
 in her husband's letter, was shut up and bore no 
 evidence of having been opened, except a small 
 flower-pot with a sprig of green in it in a dusty, 
 shutterless window. It was the sort of house 
 that is a stove in summer and an ice-box in the 
 winter. And there was a whole street of them. 
 After we had knocked several times and I had 
 tried to peep over the fence at the end of the street, 
 the door of an adjoining tenement opened, and a 
 slatternly, middle-aged woman peeped out. 
 
 "Are you Mrs. McNeil?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, here's your key. Your man told me to 
 tell you 't if you came while he was at work, you'd 
 find something to eat in the back room 't he'H 
 cooked this mornin' before he went to work. The 
 train was late, he said, and he couldn't wait ; but 
 he'd be home to-night, and he'd bring some coal 
 when he came. What a fine lot o' children you 
 have. They ought to keep you in cinders and 
 wood. I wish I had some as big as that; but mine 
 are all little. My two eldest died of scarlet fever 
 two years ago. Drainage, they said." 
 
 She had come out and unlocked the door and 
 was now turning away. 
 
 112
 
 I PITCH MY TENT 
 
 "I think your man had some one to take the up 
 stairs front room; but he didn't come you'll 
 have to get some one to do it and you double up. 
 The Argand Estate charges such rent, we all have 
 to do that. Well, if I can help you, I'm right here." 
 
 I was struck by her kindness to the forlorn 
 stranger, and the latter's touching recognition of 
 it, expressed more in looks and in tone than in 
 words. 
 
 Having helped them into the house, which was 
 substantially empty, only one room having even 
 a pretence of furniture in it, and that merely a 
 bed, a mattress, and a broken stove, I gave the 
 poor woman a little of my slender stock of money, 
 and left her murmuring her thanks and assurances 
 that I had already done too much for them. In 
 fact, I had done nothing. 
 
 As my finances were very low, I determined to 
 find a boarding-house instead of wasting them at 
 a hotel. I accordingly stopped at a sizable house 
 which I recognized as a boarding-house on a street 
 in a neighborhood which might, from the old 
 houses with their handsome doors and windows, 
 have once been fashionable, though fashion had 
 long since taken its flight to a newer and gaudier 
 part of the town, and the mansions were now 
 
 113
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 giving place to shops and small grocers' markets. 
 A wide door with a fan-shaped transom gave it 
 dignity. A large wistaria vine coiled up to the 
 top o f a somewhat dilapidated porch with classi 
 cal pillars lent it distinction. The landlady, Mrs. 
 Kale, a pleasant-looking, kindly woman, offered 
 me a small back room on reasonable terms, it 
 being, as she said, the dull season; and, having 
 arranged for Dix in a dingy little livery stable 
 near by, I took it " temporarily," till I could look 
 around. 
 
 I found the company somewhat nondescript 
 ranging all the way from old ladies with false 
 fronts and cracked voices to uppish young travel 
 ling men and their rather sad-looking wives. 
 
 Among the boarders, the two who interested me 
 most were two elderly ladies, sisters, whose ac 
 quaintance I made the day after my arrival. 
 They did not take their meals at the common 
 table, but, as I understood, in their own apartment 
 in the third story. They were a quaint and 
 pathetic pair, very meagre, very shabby, and 
 manifestly very poor. There was an air of mystery 
 about them, and Mrs. Kale treated them with a 
 respect which she paid to no others of her varie 
 gated household. They occasionally honored the 
 sitting-room with their presence on Sunday even- 
 
 114
 
 I PITCH MY TENT 
 
 ings, by Mrs. Kale's especial invitation, and I was 
 much diverted with them. They were known as 
 the Miss Tippses; but Mrs. Kale always spoke of 
 them as "Miss Pansy" and "Miss Pinky." It 
 seems that she had known them in her youth, 
 "back East." 
 
 My acquaintance with the two old ladies at this 
 time was entirely accidental. The morning after 
 my arrival, as I started out to look around for an 
 office, and also to take Dix for a walk, as well as 
 to take a look at the city, I fell in with two quaint- 
 looking old women who slipped out of the door 
 just ahead of me, one of them slightly lame, and 
 each with a large bundle in her arms. They were 
 dressed in rusty black, and each wore a veil, which 
 quite concealed her features. But as they limped 
 along, engaged in an animated conversation, their 
 voices were so refined as to arrest my attention, 
 and I was guilty of the impropriety of listening 
 to them, partly out of sheer idleness, and partly 
 because I wanted to know something of my board 
 ing-house and of my fellow boarders. They were 
 talking about a ball of the night before, an account 
 of which they had read in the papers, or rather, as 
 I learned, in a copy of a paper which they had bor 
 rowed, and they were as much interested in it as 
 if they had been there themselves. ' ' Oh, wouldn't 
 
 115
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 you have liked to see it?" said one. "It must 
 have been beautiful. I should have liked to see 
 
 Miss '' (I could not catch the name). "She 
 
 must have been exquisite in chiffon and lace. 
 She is so lovely anyhow. I did not know she had 
 returned." 
 
 "I wonder Mr. did not tell us." Again I 
 
 failed to hear the name. 
 
 "For a very good reason, I suppose. He did 
 not know." 
 
 "He is dead in love with her." 
 
 "Oh, you are so romantic!" said the other, 
 whom I took from her figure and her feebleness 
 to be the elder of the two. 
 
 "No; but any one can tell that at a glance." 
 
 "What a pity he could not marry her. Then 
 we should be sure to see her as a bride." 
 
 The other laughed. "What an idea! We have 
 nothing fit to go even to the church in." 
 
 "Why, we could go in the gallery. Oh, this 
 bundle is so heavy! I don't believe I can ever 
 get there to-day." 
 
 "Oh, yes, you can. Now come on. Don't give 
 up. Here, rest it on the fence a moment." 
 
 As the lame one attempted to lift the bundle to 
 rest it on the fence, it slipped to the ground, and 
 she gave a little exclamation of fear. 
 
 116
 
 I PITCH MY TENT 
 
 "Oh, dear! suppose it should get soiled!" 
 I stepped forward and lifted it for her, and to 
 my surprise found it very heavy. Then, as they 
 thanked me, it occurred to me to offer to carry the 
 bundle for them to the street car for which I sup 
 posed them bound. There was a little demur, and 
 I added, "I am at Mrs. Kale's also. I have just 
 come." This appeared to relieve one of them at 
 least, but the other said, "Oh, but we are not 
 to the street car. We don't ride in street 
 
 cars." 
 
 "Yes; it is so unhealthy," said the younger one. 
 "People catch all sorts of diseases on the car." 
 
 Thinking them rather airy, I was about to hand 
 the bundle back, but as I was going their way I 
 offered to carry the bundles for both of them as 
 far as I was going. This proved to be quite 
 twenty blocks, for I could not in decency return 
 the bundles. So we went on together, I feeling at 
 heart rather ashamed to be lugging two large 
 bundles through the streets for two very shabby- 
 looking old women whose names I did not know. 
 We soon, however, began to talk, and I drew out 
 from them a good deal about Mrs. Kale and her 
 kindness. Also, that they had seen much better 
 days, to which one of them particularly was very 
 fond of referring. It seemed that they had lived 
 
 117
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 East they carefully guarded the exact place 
 and had once had interests in a railroad which 
 their father had built and largely owned. They 
 were manifestly anxious to make this clearly under 
 stood. After his death they had lived on their 
 dividends, until, on a sudden, the dividends had 
 stopped. They found that the railroad with 
 which their road connected had passed into new 
 hands had been " bought up" by a great syndi 
 cate, their lawyer had informed them, and re 
 fused any longer to make traffic arrangements 
 with the road. This had destroyed the value of 
 their property, but they had refused to sell their 
 holdings at the low price offered "As we prob 
 ably ought to have done," sighed one of them. 
 
 "Not at all ! I am glad we didn't," asserted the 
 other. 
 
 "Well, sister, we got nothing we lost every 
 thing, didn't we?" 
 
 "I don't know. I am only glad that we held 
 out. That man knows that he robbed us." 
 
 "Well, that doesn't help us." 
 
 "Yes, it does. It helps me to know that he 
 knows it." 
 
 "Who was it?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, there was a syndicate. I only know the 
 names of two of them a man named Argand, and 
 
 118
 
 I PITCH MY TENT 
 
 a man named Canter. And our lawyer was named 
 McSheen." 
 
 Argand was a name which I recalled in connec 
 tion with Mr. Poole's interest in the railways in 
 the case I have mentioned. 
 
 "Well, you held on to your stock. You have 
 it now, then?" I foresaw a possible law-case 
 against Argand, and wondered if he was the owner 
 of the Argand Estate, which I had already heard 
 of twice since my arrival. 
 
 "No," said one of them, "they bought up the 
 stock of all the other people, and then they did 
 something which cut us out entirely. What was 
 it they did, sister? " 
 
 "Reorganized." 
 
 "And then we came on here to see about it, and 
 spent everything else that we had in trying to get 
 it back, but we lost our case. And since then " 
 
 "Well, sister, we are keeping the gentleman. 
 Thank you very much," said the younger of the 
 two quickly, to which her sister added her thanks 
 as well. I insisted at first on going further with 
 them, but seeing that they were evidently anxious 
 to be rid of me, I gave them their bundles and 
 passed on. 
 
 Among the boarders one of those I found most 
 interesting was a young man named Kalender, 
 
 119
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 by whom I sat at the first meal after my arrival, 
 and with whom I struck up an acquaintance. He 
 was a reporter for a morning paper of very ad 
 vanced methods, and he was pre-eminently a 
 person fitted for his position : a cocky youth with 
 a long, keen nose and a bullet head covered with 
 rather wiry, black hair, heavy black brows over 
 keen black eyes, and an ugly mouth with rather 
 small yellowish teeth. He had as absolute con 
 fidence in himself as any youth I ever met, and he 
 either had, or made a good pretence of having, an 
 intimate knowledge of not only all the public 
 affairs of the city, but of the private affairs of every 
 one in the city. Before we had finished smoking 
 our cigarettes he had given me what he termed 
 "the lay out" of the entire community, and by his 
 account it was "the rottenest - - town in the 
 universe" a view I subsequently had reason to 
 rectify and he proposed to get out of it as soon 
 as he could and go to New York, which, to his 
 mind, was the only town worth living in in the 
 country (he having, as I learned later, lived there 
 just three weeks). 
 
 His paper, he said frankly, paid only for sen 
 sational articles, and was just then "jumping on 
 a lot of the high-flyers, because that paid," but 
 "they" gave him a latitude to write up whatever 
 
 120
 
 I PITCH MY TENT 
 
 he pleased, because they knew he could dress up 
 anything from a murder to a missionary meet 
 ing. " Oh ! it don't matter what you write about," 
 said he airily, "so you know how to do it"- 
 a bit of criticism suggestive of a better-known 
 critic. 
 
 I was much impressed by his extraordinary and 
 extensive experience. In the course of our con 
 versation I mentioned casually the episode of the 
 delayed train and the private car. 
 
 "The Argands' car, you say?" 
 
 I told him that that was what some one had 
 said. 
 
 "That would make a good story," he declared. 
 "I think I'll write that up I'd have all the babies 
 dying and the mothers fainting and an accident 
 just barely averted by a little girl waving a red 
 shawl, see while the Argand car dashed by with a 
 party eating and drinking and throwing cham 
 pagne bottles out of the window. But I've got to 
 go and see the Mayor to ascertain why he ap 
 pointed the new city comptroller, and then I've 
 got to drop by the theatre and give the new play 
 a roast so I'll hardly have time to roast those 
 Argands and Leighs, though I'd like to do it to 
 teach them not to refuse me round-trip passes 
 next time I ask for them. I tell you what you do," 
 
 121
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 he added, modestly, "you write it up you say 
 you have written for the press?" 
 
 "Oh! yes, very often and for the magazines. 
 I have had stories published in 
 
 "Well, that's all right." (Kalender was not a 
 good listener.) "I'll look it over and touch it up 
 put the fire in it and polish it off. You write it 
 up, say about a column. I can cut it down all 
 right and I'll call by here for it about eleven, 
 after the theatre." 
 
 It was a cool request coolly made; but I was 
 fool enough to accede to it. I felt much aggrieved 
 over the treatment of us by the railway company, 
 and was not sorry to air my grievance at the same 
 time that I secured a possible opening. I accord 
 ingly spent all the afternoon writing my account 
 of the inconvenience and distress occasioned the 
 travelling public by the inconsiderateness of the 
 railway management, discussing, by the way, the 
 fundamental principle of ownership in quasi-public 
 corporations, and showing that all rights which 
 they claimed were derived from the people. I 
 mentioned no names and veiled my allusions ; but 
 I paid a tribute to the kind heart of the Angel of 
 Mercy who succored the children. I spent some 
 hours at my composition and took much pride in 
 it when completed. Then, as I had not been out at 
 
 122
 
 I PITCH MY TENT 
 
 all to see the town, I addressed the envelope in 
 which I had placed my story to Mr. Kalender, and 
 leaving it for him, walked out into the wilderness. 
 
 On my return the paper was gone. 
 
 Next morning I picked up one paper after 
 another, but did not at first find my contribution. 
 An account of a grand ball the night before, at 
 which an extraordinary display of wealth must 
 have been made, was given the prominent place 
 in most of them. But as I did not know the per 
 sons whose costumes were described with such 
 Byzantine richness of vocabulary, I passed it by. 
 The only thing referring to a railway journey was 
 a column article, in a sensational sheet called The 
 Trumpet, headed, BRUTALITY OF MILLION 
 AIRE BANKER. RAILWAY PRESIDENT 
 STARVES POOR PASSENGERS. There under 
 these glaring headlines, I at last discovered my 
 article, so distorted and mutilated as to be scarcely 
 recognizable. The main facts of the delay and its 
 cause were there as I wrote them. My discussion 
 of derivative rights was retained. But the motive 
 was boldly declared to be brutal hatred of the 
 poor. And to make it worse, the names of both 
 Mr. Leigh and Mrs. Argand were given as having 
 been present in person, gloating over the misery 
 they had caused, while a young lady, whose name 
 
 123
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 was not given, had thrown scraps out of the win 
 dow for starving children and dogs to scramble for. 
 
 To say that I was angry expresses but a small 
 part of the truth. The allusion to the young lady 
 had made my blood boil. What would she think 
 if she should know I had had a hand in that paper? 
 I waited at red heat for my young man, and had 
 he appeared before I cooled down, he would have 
 paid for the liberty he took with me. When he 
 did appear, however, he was so innocent of having 
 offended me that I could scarcely bear to attack 
 him. 
 
 "Well, did you see our story?" he asked gayly. 
 
 "Yes your story I saw ' 
 
 "Well, I had to do a little to it to make it go," 
 he said condescendingly, "but you did very well 
 you'll learn." 
 
 "Thank you. I don't want to learn that," I said 
 hotly ; " I never saw anything so butchered. There 
 was not the slightest foundation for all that rot- 
 it was made up out of whole cloth." I was boiling 
 about Miss Leigh. 
 
 "Pooh-pooh! My dear boy, you'll never make 
 an editor. I never fake an interview," he said 
 virtuously. "Lots of fellows do; but I don't. But 
 if a man will give me two lines, I can give him two 
 columns and good ones, too. Why, we had two 
 
 124
 
 I PITCH MY TENT 
 
 extras what with that and the grand ball last 
 night. The newsboys are crying it all over town." 
 
 "I don't care if they are. I don't want to be 
 an editor if one has to tell such atrocious lies as 
 that. But I don't believe editors have to do that, 
 and I know reputable editors don't. Why, you 
 have named a man who was a hundred miles 
 away." 
 
 He simply laughed. 
 
 "Well, I'm quite willing to get the credit of that 
 paper. That's business. We're trying to break 
 down the Leigh interests, and the Argands are 
 mixed up with 'em. Coll McSheen was in the 
 office last night. He's counsel for the Argands, 
 but you don't know Coll McSheen?" 
 
 "I do not," I said shortly. 
 
 "He's deep. You know you write better than 
 you talk," he added patronizingly. "I tell you 
 what I'll do if you'll write me every day on some 
 live topic ' 
 
 "I'll never write you a line again on any topic, 
 alive or dead, unless you die yourself, when I'll 
 write that you are the biggest liar I ever saw 
 except my Jeams." 
 
 I had expected he would resent my words, but 
 he did not. He only laughed, and said, "That's 
 a good line. Write on that." 
 
 125
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 I learned later that he had a slight raise of 
 salary on the paper he palmed off as his. I could 
 only console myself with the hope that Miss Leigh 
 would not see the article. 
 
 But Miss Leigh did see the appreciation of her 
 father in the writing of which I had had a hand, 
 and it cost me many a dark hour of sad repining. 
 
 126
 
 X 
 
 A NEW GIRL 
 
 HPHIS is how the young lady heard of it. Miss 
 Leigh had been at home but an hour or two 
 and had only had time to change her travelling 
 costume for a suit of light blue with a blue hat to 
 match, which was very becoming to her, and order 
 the carriage to drive down and get her father, 
 when a visitor was announced: Miss Milly Mc- 
 Sheen, an old schoolmate and next moment 
 a rather large, flamboyant girl of about Miss 
 Leigh's own age or possibly a year or two older, 
 bounced into the room as if she had been shot in 
 out of one of those medieval engines which flung 
 men into walled towns. 
 
 She began to talk volubly even before she was 
 actually in the room; she talked all through her 
 energetic if hasty embrace of her friend, and all 
 the time she was loosening the somewhat com 
 plicated fastening of a dotted veil which, while it 
 obscured, added a certain charm to a round, 
 florid, commonplace, but good-humored face in 
 which smiled two round, shallow blue eyes. 
 
 127
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "Well, my dear," she began while yet outside 
 the door, "I thought you never were coming back! 
 Never! And I believe if I hadn't finally made up 
 my mind to get you back you would have stayed 
 forever in that nasty, stuck-up city of Brotherly 
 Love." 
 
 Miss Leigh a little airily observed that that title 
 applied to Philadelphia, and she had only passed 
 through Philadelphia on a train one night. 
 
 "Oh! well, it was some kind of love, I'll be 
 bound, and some one's else brother, too, that kept 
 you away so long." 
 
 "No, it was not not even some one else's 
 brother," replied Miss Leigh. 
 
 "Oh! for Heaven's sake, don't tell me that's 
 wrong. Why, I've been practising that all 
 summer. It sounds so grammatical so New 
 Yorkish." 
 
 "I can't help it. It may be New Yorkish, but it 
 isn't grammatical," said Miss Leigh. "But I never 
 expected to get back earlier. My aunt had to look 
 into some of her affairs in the East and had to 
 settle some matters with a lawyer down South, 
 a friend of my father's an old gentleman who 
 used to be one of her husband's partners and is 
 her trustee or something, and I had to wait till 
 they got matters settled." 
 
 128
 
 A NEW GIRL 
 
 "Well, I'm glad you are here in time. I was so 
 afraid you wouldn't be, that I got pa to telegraph 
 and have your car put on the president's special 
 train that was coming through and had the right 
 of way. I told him that I didn't see that because 
 your father had resigned from the directory was 
 any reason why you shouldn't be brought on the 
 train." 
 
 "Were we indebted to you for that attention?" 
 Eleanor Leigh's voice had a tone of half incredu 
 lity. 
 
 "Yep I am the power behind the throne just 
 at present. Pa and old Mr. Canter have buried 
 the hatchet and are as thick as thieves since their 
 new deal, and Jim Canter told me his car was 
 coming through on a special. Oh! you ought to 
 hear him the way he says, My car, and throws his 
 chest out! So I said I wanted him to find out 
 where you were on the road on what train, I 
 mean and pick you up, and he said he would." 
 
 "Oh! I see," said Miss Leigh, looking somewhat 
 annoyed. 
 
 "He did, didn't he?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, you know Jim Canter is a very promising 
 young man, much more so than he is a fulfiller. 
 
 What are you so serious about? You look as " 
 
 129
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "Nothing only I don't wish to be beholden to 
 I was just wondering what right we have to 
 stop trains full of people who have paid for their 
 tickets and 
 
 "What!" exclaimed the other girl in astonish 
 ment, "what right? Why, our fathers are direc 
 tors, aren't they at least, my father is and own 
 a block of the stock that controls ?" 
 
 "Yes; but all these people who pay and 
 who had no breakfast?" 
 
 "Oh! don't you worry about them they'll get 
 along somehow and if they pay they'll look out 
 for themselves without your doing it. My way is 
 to make all I can out of them and enjoy it while 
 I can that's what pa says." 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Leigh acquiescingly, "but I'm 
 not sure that it's right." 
 
 "You've been reading that man's articles," de 
 clared Miss McSheen. "I know I have, too 
 everybody has all the girls. I am a socialist 
 aren't they terribly striking ? He's so good-look 
 ing. Pa says he's a Jew and an anarchist, and 
 ought to be in jail." 
 
 "Are you speaking of Mr. Wolffert?" 
 
 "Yes, of course. Now you need not make 
 out you don't know him ; because they say 
 
 "Yes, I know him very well," said Miss Leigh, 
 
 130
 
 A NEW GIRL 
 
 so stiffly that her guest paused and changed her 
 tone. 
 
 "Well, anyhow, my dear, you are just in time. 
 We are going to have the biggest thing we've ever 
 had in this town. I've almost died laughing over 
 it already." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "Wait. I'm going to tell you all about it. You 
 know it was all my idea. Harriet Minturn claims 
 the whole credit for it now that I've made it go 
 says she first suggested it; and I assure you, my 
 dear, she never opened her head about it till I 
 had all the girls wild about it, and had arranged 
 for the costumes and had gotten the count to 
 promise " 
 
 "What is it?" interrupted her hostess again, 
 laughing. 
 
 "Wait, my dear, I'm going to tell you all about 
 it. The count's a socialist, too. He says he is 
 but you mustn't tell that; he told me in the 
 strictest confidence. Well, the count's to go as 
 courtier of the court of what's the name of 
 that old king or emperor, or whatever he was, 
 that conquered that country you know what I 
 mean " 
 
 "No, indeed, I do not and I haven't the least 
 idea what you are talking about." 
 
 131
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "Oh! pshaw! I know perfectly well, and you 
 do, too. The count bet me I'd forget it and I bet 
 him a gold cigar-holder I wouldn't what is his 
 name? Won't the count look handsome with lace 
 ruffles and gold braid all over his chest and coat- 
 tails, and a cocked hat ? He's been showing me 
 the way they dance in his country. I almost died 
 laughing over it only it makes me so dizzy, they 
 never reverse just whirl and whirl and whirl. 
 You know he's a real count? Yes, my father's 
 taken the trouble to hunt that up. He said he 
 
 wasn't 'going to let a d d dago come around 
 
 me without anybody knowing who or what he is.' 
 Ain't that like pa?" 
 
 "I I don't think I ever met your father," 
 said Eleanor stiffly. 
 
 "Oh! that's a fact. Well, 'tis 'tis just exactly 
 like him. As soon as the count began to come 
 around our house a good deal I mean, really, 
 quite a good deal you understand?" said 
 the girl, tossing her blonde head, "what must 
 pa do but go to work and hunt him up. He 
 thinks Jim Canter is a winner, but I tell him 
 Jimmy's bespoke." She looked at her hostess 
 archly. 
 
 "What did he find out?" inquired Miss Leigh 
 coldly, "and how did he do it?" 
 
 132
 
 A NEW GIRL 
 
 "Why, he just ran him down," explained the 
 girl easily, "just as he does anybody he wants to 
 know about put a man on him, you know." 
 
 "Oh! I see." Miss Leigh froze up a little; but 
 the other girl did not notice it. 
 
 "Only this one was somebody on the other side, 
 of course, and he found out that he's all right. 
 He's a real count. He's the third son of Count 
 Pushkin, who was let me see a counsellor of his 
 emperor, the Emperor of Sweden." 
 
 "I didn't know they had an emperor in Sweden. 
 He's a new one." 
 
 "Haven't they? Oh! well, maybe it was the 
 King of Sweden, or the Emperor of Russia I 
 don't know they are all alike to me. I never 
 could keep them apart, even at Miss de Pense's. 
 I only know he's a real count, and I won a hundred 
 dollars from pa on a bet that he was. And he 
 hated to pay it! He bet that he was a cook or a 
 barber. And I bet he wasn't. And, oh! you know 
 it's an awfully good joke on him for he was a 
 waiter in New York for a while." 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 "A waiter oh, just for a little while after he 
 came over before his remittances arrived. But 
 I made pa pay up, because he said cook or barber. 
 I put it in this hat, see, ain't it a wonder?" She 
 
 133
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 turned herself around before a mirror and admired 
 her hat which was, indeed, as Miss Leigh was 
 forced to admit, "a wonder." 
 
 " You know it's just like the hat Gabrielle Light- 
 foot wears in the 'Star of the Harem' when she 
 comes in in the balloon. I got her to let me copy 
 it exactly." 
 
 "You did? How did you manage that?" 
 
 "Why, you see, Jimmy Canter knows her, and 
 he asked Harriet and me to supper to meet her, 
 and I declare she nearly made me die laughing 
 you know she's a real sweet girl Jimmy says 
 she 
 
 "Who chaperoned you?" asked Miss Leigh, as 
 she began to put on her gloves. 
 
 "Chaperon? My dear, that's where the fun 
 came in we didn't have any chaperon. I pre 
 tended that Harriet and the count were married 
 and called her countess, and she was so flattered 
 at being given the title that she was pleased to 
 death though you know, she's really dead hi 
 love with Jimmy Canter, and he hardly looks at 
 her. If he's in love with any one except Mr. 
 James Canter, Jr. it's with some one else I 
 know." She nodded her head knowingly. 
 
 "I'm afraid I have to go now," said Miss Leigh, 
 "my father expects me to come for him." She 
 
 134
 
 A NEW GIRL 
 
 glanced at a jewelled watch. She had stiffened 
 up slightly. 
 
 "Well, of course, you'll come?" 
 
 " To what?" 
 
 "To our ball that's what it is, you know, 
 though it's for a charity, and we make others pay 
 for it. Why shouldn't they? I haven't decided 
 yet what charity. Harriet wants it to be for a 
 home for cats. You'd know she'd want that now, 
 wouldn't you? She'll be in there herself some 
 day. But I'm not going to let it go for anything 
 she wants. She's claiming now that she got it up, 
 and I'm just going to show her who did. I'm 
 thinking of giving it to that young preacher you 
 met in the country two years ago and got so inter 
 ested in 't you got Doctor Capon to bring him here 
 as his assistant." 
 
 "You couldn't give it to a better cause," said 
 Miss Leigh. "I wonder how he is coming on?" 
 
 "I guess you know all right. But pa says," 
 pursued Miss McSheen without heeding further 
 the interruption, "we are ruining the poor, and 
 the reason they won't work is that we are always 
 giving them money. You know they're striking 
 on our lines some of them. I haven't decided 
 yet what to give it to. Oh! you ought to see the 
 doctor. He's the gayest of the gay. He came to 
 
 135
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 see me the other day. It almost made me die 
 laughing. You know he's dead in love with your 
 aunt. I used to think it was you; but pa says 
 I'm always thinking everybody is in love with you 
 even the count but he says However 
 
 "I'll tell you what!" said Miss Leigh suddenly, 
 "I'll come to the ball if you'll give the proceeds to 
 Mr. Marvel for his poor people." 
 
 "Done! See there! what did I tell you! I 
 thought you weren't so pious for nothing all on 
 a sudden " 
 
 "Milly, you're a goose," said Miss Leigh, pick 
 ing up her sunshade. 
 
 "I'm a wise one, though what was it our 
 teacher used to tell us about the geese giving the 
 alarm somewhere? But I don't care. I'm the 
 treasurer and pay the bills. Pa says the man 
 that holds the bag gets the swag. Bring your 
 father. We'll get something grand out of him. 
 He always gives to everything. I'll call him up 
 and tell him to be sure and come. You know 
 they've landed the deal. Pa says every one of 
 them has made a pile. Your father might have 
 made it, too, if he'd come in, but I think he was 
 fighting them or something, I don't quite under 
 stand it anyhow it's all done now, and I'm go 
 ing to hold pa up for the pearl necklace he prom- 
 
 136
 
 A NEW GIRL 
 
 ised to give me. There's a perfect beauty at Setter 
 & Stoneberg's, only seventeen thousand, and I 
 believe they'll take ten if it's planked down in cold 
 cash. Pa says the way to get a man is to put down 
 the cold cash before him and let him fasten his eye 
 on it. If he's a Jew he says he'll never let it go. 
 I tell him by the same token he must be a Jew 
 himself; because he holds on to all the money he 
 ever lays his eye on." 
 
 "Can I take you down-town anywhere?" in 
 quired Miss Leigh, in a rather neutral voice. 
 
 "No, my dear, just let me fix my hat. I have 
 to go the other way. In fact, I told the count 
 that I was going up to the park for a little spin, 
 and he asked if he couldn't come along. I didn't 
 want him, of course men are so in the way in 
 the morning, don't you think so? Is that quite 
 right?" She gave her head a toss to test the 
 steadiness of her hat. 
 
 "Quite," said Miss Leigh. 
 
 "Well, good-by. I'll count on you then. Oh! 
 I tell you among the entertainments, the count 
 is going to perform some wonderful sleight-of- 
 hand tricks, with cards. My dear, he's a magi 
 cian! He can do anything with cards. Heavens! 
 it's after one. The count good-by good-by." 
 
 And as Miss Leigh entered her victoria the 
 137
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 young lady rushed off, up the street, straining her 
 eyes in the direction of the park. 
 
 That night "the ball," as Miss McSheen called 
 it, came off and was a huge success, as was duly 
 chronicled in all the morning papers next day 
 with an elaboration of description of millinery in 
 exact proportion to the degree of prominence of 
 the wearer in the particular circle in which the 
 editor or his reporter moved or aspired to move. 
 Mrs. Argand stood first hi "wine-colored velvet, 
 priceless lace," of the sort that reporters of the 
 female sex deem dearest, and "diamonds and ru 
 bies" that would have staggered Sindbad, the 
 sailor. Miss McSheen ran her a close second, in 
 "rose-colored satin, and sapphires," spoken of as 
 "priceless heirlooms." Miss Leigh shone lower 
 down in "chiffon, lace, and pearls of great price." 
 So they went columnsful, all priceless, all beauti 
 ful, all superlative, till superlatives were exhausted 
 and the imagination of the reporters ran riot in an 
 excess of tawdry color and English. 
 
 Among the men especially lauded were, first, 
 a certain Mr. James Canter, son and partner of 
 "the famous Mr. Canter, the capitalist and finan 
 cier," who gave promise of rivalling his father in 
 his "notorious ability," and, secondly, a Count 
 Pushkin, the "distinguished scion of a noble house 
 
 138
 
 A NEW GIRL 
 
 of international reputation who was honoring the 
 city with his distinguished presence, and was 
 generally credited with having led captive the 
 heart of one of the city's fairest and wealthiest 
 daughters." So ran the record. And having 
 nothing to do, I read that morning the account 
 and dwelt on the only name I recognized, the 
 young lady of the white chiffon and pearls, and 
 wondered who the men were whose names stood 
 next to hers. 
 
 139
 
 XI 
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 TV/T ISS LEIGH also read the papers that morn- 
 ing and with much amusement till in one of 
 them the most sensational of all the morning 
 journals she came on an article which first made 
 her heart stop beating and then set it to racing 
 with sheer anger. To think that such a slander 
 could be uttered! She would have liked to make 
 mince-meat of that editor. He was always attack 
 ing her father. 
 
 A little later she began to think of the rest of 
 the article! What was the truth? Did they have 
 the right to stop the train and hold it back? This 
 sort of thing was what a writer whom she knew 
 denied in a series of papers which a friend of hers, 
 a young clergyman who worked among the poor, 
 had sent her and which the press generally was 
 denouncing. 
 
 She had for some time been reading these pa 
 pers that had been appearing in the press periodi 
 cally. They were written by a person who was 
 
 140
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 generally spoken of as "a Jew," but who wrote 
 with a pen which had the point of a rapier, and 
 whose sentences ate into the steely plate of arti 
 ficial convention like an acid. One of the things 
 he had said had stuck in her memory. "As the 
 remains of animalculse of past ages furnish, when 
 compressed in almost infinite numbers, the lime- 
 food on which the bone and muscle of the present 
 race of cattle in limestone regions are built up, so 
 the present big-boned race of the wealthy class 
 live on the multitudinous class of the poor." 
 
 The summer before she had met the writer of 
 these articles and he had made an impression on 
 her which had not been effaced. She had not 
 analyzed her feelings to ascertain how far this 
 impression was due to his classical face, his deep, 
 luminous eyes, and his impassioned manner, yet 
 certain it is that all of these had struck her. 
 
 Perhaps, I should give just here a little more of 
 Miss Eleanor Leigh's history as I came to know 
 of it later on. How I came to know of it may or 
 may not be divulged later. But, at least, I learned 
 it. She was the daughter of a gentleman who, 
 until she came and began to tyrannize over him, 
 gave up all of his time and talents to building up 
 enterprises of magnitude and amassing a fortune. 
 He had showed abilities and ambition at college 
 
 141
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "back East," where he came from, and when he 
 first struck for the West and started out in life, it 
 was in a region and amid surroundings which were 
 just becoming of more than local importance, as 
 they a little later grew, under the guidance of men 
 of action like himself, to be of more than sectional 
 importance. The new West as it was then had 
 called to him imperiously and he had responded. 
 Flinging himself into the current which was just 
 beginning to take on force, he soon became one of 
 the pilots of the development which, changing a 
 vast region where roamed Indians and buffalo 
 into a land of cities and railways, shortly made its 
 mark on the nation and, indeed, on the world, 
 and he was before long swept quite away by it, 
 leaving behind all the intellectual ambitions and 
 dreams he had ever cherished, and giving himself 
 up soul and body to the pleasure he got out of his 
 success as an organizer and administrator of large 
 enterprises. Wealth at first was important to him, 
 then it became, if not unimportant, at least of 
 secondary importance to the power he possessed. 
 Then it became of importance again indeed of 
 supreme importance; for the power he wielded 
 was now dependent on wealth and great wealth. 
 His associates were all men of large interests, and 
 only one with similar interests could lead them. 
 
 142
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 New conditions had come about of late and new 
 methods which he could neither employ nor con 
 tend against successfully. 
 
 As he looked back on it later it appeared a 
 feverish dream through which he had passed. Its 
 rewards were undeniable : luxury, reputation, and 
 power beyond anything he had ever conceived of. 
 Yet what had he not sacrificed for them! Every 
 thing that he had once held up before his mind 
 as a noble ambition: study, reading, association 
 with the great and noble of all time ; art and love 
 of art ; appreciation of all except wealth that men 
 have striven for through the ages; friendship 
 domestic joy everything except riches and the 
 power they bring. For as he thought over his past 
 in his growing loneliness he found himself com 
 pelled to admit that he had sacrificed all the rest. 
 He had married a woman he loved and admired. 
 He had given her wealth and luxury instead of 
 himself, and she had pined and died before he 
 awakened to the tragic fact. He had grieved for 
 her, but he could not conceal from himself the 
 brutal fact that she had ceased years before to be 
 to him as necessary as his business. She had left 
 him one child. Two others had died in infancy, 
 and he had mourned for them and sympathized 
 with her; but he never knew for years, and until 
 
 143
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 too late, how stricken she had been over their loss. 
 The child she had left him had in some way taken 
 hold on him and had held it even against himself. 
 She had so much of himself in her that he himself 
 could see the resemblance: his natural kindness, 
 his good impulses, his wilfulness, his resolution 
 and ambition to lead and to succeed in all he 
 undertook. 
 
 Even from the earliest days when she was left 
 to him, Mr. Leigh was made aware by Eleanor 
 that he had something out of the ordinary to deal 
 with. The arrangement by which, on the death 
 of her mother, she was taken by her half-aunt, Mrs. 
 Argand, to be cared for, "because the poor child 
 needed a mother to look after her," fell through 
 promptly when the little thing who had rebelled 
 at the plan appeared, dusty and dishevelled but 
 triumphant, in her father's home that first even 
 ing, as he was preparing, after leaving his office, 
 to go and see her. It was doubtless an auspicious 
 moment for the little rebel ; for her father was at 
 the instant steeped in grief and loneliness and 
 self-reproach. He had worked like fury all day to 
 try to forget his loss; but his return home to 
 his empty house had torn open his wounds afresh, 
 and the echoing of his solitary footfall on the stair 
 and in the vacant rooms had almost driven him to 
 
 144
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 despair. Every spot every turn was a red-hot 
 brand on the fresh wound. No man had loved his 
 wife more; but he awoke now when too late to the 
 torturing fact that he had left her much alone. 
 He had worked for her, leaving the enjoyment to 
 the future; and she had died before the future 
 came, in that desolate present which was to be 
 linked forever to the irretrievable past. It was at 
 this moment that he heard a familiar step outside 
 his door. His heart almost stopped to listen. It 
 could not be Eleanor she was safe at her aunt's, 
 blocks away, awaiting the fulfilment of his prom 
 ise to come to see her and it was now dark. 
 Could it be a delusion? His over- wrought brain 
 might have fancied it. Next second the door 
 burst open, and in rushed Eleanor with a cry 
 "Oh, papa!" 
 
 "Why, Nelly! How did you come ?" 
 "Slipped out and ran away! You did not come 
 and I could not stay." 
 
 When the emotion of the first greeting was over, 
 Mr. Leigh, under the strong sense of what he 
 deemed his duty to the child, and also to the dear 
 dead which had led him at first to make the 
 sacrifice of yielding to his sister-in-law's urgency, 
 began to explain to the little girl the impropriety 
 of her action, and the importance of her returning 
 
 145
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 to her aunt, when she had been so kind. But he 
 found it a difficult task. Mr. Leigh believed in 
 discipline. He had been brought up in a rigid 
 school, and he knew it made for character; but it 
 was uphill work with the little girl's arms clasped 
 about his neck and her hot, tear-streaked little 
 face pressed close to his as she pleaded and met his 
 arguments with a promptness and an aptness 
 which astonished him. Moreover, she had a strong 
 advocate in his own heart, and from the first mo 
 ment when she had burst in on his heart-breaking 
 loneliness he had felt that he could not let her go 
 again if she were unhappy. 
 
 "She would not go back," she asserted defiantly. 
 "She hated her aunt, anyhow she was a hateful 
 old woman who scolded her servants, and sent 
 her up-stairs to her supper." 
 
 When to this her father promptly replied that 
 she must go back, and he would take her, she as 
 promptly changed her note. t 
 
 "Very well, she would go back; he need not 
 come with her; but she would die." 
 
 "Oh, no, you will not die. You will soon grow 
 very fond of her." 
 
 "Then I shall grow very worldly, like her," said 
 Miss Precocity. 
 
 "What makes you think that?" 
 146
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 "Because she is a worldly old woman and you 
 said so yourself." 
 
 ' ' I said so ! When? " demanded her father, with 
 a guilty feeling of vague recollection. 
 
 ''To mamma once when mamma said some 
 thing against her husband, you said that, and 
 mamma said you ought not to say that about her 
 sister and you said she was only her half-sister, 
 anyhow, and not a bit like her and now you want 
 to send me back to her as if I were only your half- 
 child." 
 
 The father smiled sadly enough as he drew the 
 anxious little face close to his own. 
 
 "Oh, no you are all mine, and my all. I only 
 want to do what is right." 
 
 "Mamma wants me to stay with you so it 
 must be right." 
 
 The present tense used by the child struck the 
 father to the heart. 
 
 "What makes you think that?" he asked with a 
 sigh. The little girl was quick to catch at the 
 new hope. 
 
 "She told me so the day before she died, when I 
 was in the room with her; she said you would be 
 lonely, and I must be a comfort to you." 
 
 Mr. Leigh gave a gasp that was almost a groan, 
 and the child flung her arms about his neck. 
 
 147
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "And I sha'n't leave you, my all-papa, unless 
 you drive me; I promised mamma I would stay 
 and take care of you, and I will. And you won't 
 make me will you? For I am your all-daughter. 
 You won't, will you?" 
 
 "No, d d if I do!" said the father, catching 
 
 her to his heart, and trying to smother the oath 
 as it burst from his lips. 
 
 As soon as she had quieted down, he went to her 
 aunt's to make the necessary explanation. He 
 found it not the easiest task, for the good lady had 
 her own ideas and had formed her plans, and the 
 change was a blow to her amour propre. It was, 
 in fact, the beginning of the breach between Mr. 
 Leigh and his sister-in-law which led eventually to 
 the antagonism between them. 
 
 "You are going to spoil that child to death!" 
 exclaimed the affronted lady. This Mr. Leigh 
 denied, though in his heart he thought it possible. 
 It was not a pleasant interview, for Mrs. Argand 
 was deeply offended. But Mr. Leigh felt that it 
 was well worth the cost when, on his return home, 
 he was greeted by a cry of joy from the top of the 
 stair where the little girl sat in her dressing gown 
 awaiting him. And when with a cry of joy she 
 came rushing down, Cinderella-like, dropping her 
 slipper in her excitement, and flung herself into 
 
 148
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 his arms, he knew that life had begun for him 
 anew. 
 
 Mr. Leigh was quite aware of the truth of Mrs. 
 Argand's prophecy; but he enjoyed the spoiling 
 of his daughter, which she had foretold, and he 
 enjoyed equally the small tyrannies which the 
 cliild exercised over him, and also the develop 
 ment of her mind as the budding years passed. 
 
 "Papa," she said one day, when she had asked 
 him to take her somewhere, and he had pleaded 
 "business," "why do you go to the office so 
 much?" 
 
 "I have to work to make money for my daugh 
 ter," said her father, stating the first reason that 
 suggested itself. 
 
 "Are you not rich enough now?" 
 
 "Well, I don't know that I am, with a young 
 lady growing up on my hands," said her father, 
 smiling. 
 
 "Am I very expensive?" she asked with a 
 sudden little expression of gravity coming over 
 her face. 
 
 "No, that you are not, my dear and if you 
 were, there is no pleasure on earth to me like giv 
 ing it to you. That is one of my chief reasons for 
 working so steadily, though there are others." 
 
 "I have plenty of money," said Eleanor. 
 149
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "Then you are happier than most people, who 
 don't know when they have plenty." 
 
 "Yes you see, all I have to do when I want 
 anything is to go into a store and ask for it, and 
 tell them I am your daughter, and they let me 
 have it at once." 
 
 "Oh, ho!" said her father, laughing, "so that is 
 the way you buy things, is it? No wonder you 
 have plenty. Well, you'd better come to me and 
 ask for what you want." 
 
 "I think the other is the easier way, and as you 
 say you like to give it to me, I don't see that it 
 makes any difference." 
 
 Mr. Leigh decided that he had better explain 
 the difference. 
 
 "I hate rich people," said Eleanor suddenly. 
 "They are so vulgar." 
 
 "For example?" enquired her father, looking 
 with some amusement at the girl whose face had 
 suddenly taken on an expression of severe prig- 
 gishness. 
 
 "Oh! Aunt Sophia and Milly McSheen. They 
 are always talking about their money." 
 
 Mr. Leigh's eyes were twinkling. 
 
 "You must not talk that way about your Aunt 
 Sophia she is very fond of you." 
 
 "She is always nagging at me correcting me." 
 
 150
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 "She wants you to grow up to be a fine woman." 
 
 "Like her?" said Miss Eleanor pertly. 
 
 Mr. Leigh felt that it was wise to check this line 
 of criticism, and he now spoke seriously. 
 
 "You must not be so critical of your aunt. She 
 is really very fond of you and she was your 
 mother's half-sister. You must respect her and 
 love her." 
 
 "I love her, but I don't like her. She and Milly 
 McSheen are just alike always boasting of what 
 they have, and do, and running down what others 
 have, and do." 
 
 "Oh, well, it takes a great many people to make 
 a world," said Mr. Leigh indulgently. Eleanor felt 
 a want of sympathy and made another bid for it. 
 
 "Milly McSheen says that her father is going to 
 be the richest man in this town." 
 
 "Ah! who is talking about money now?" said 
 Mr. Leigh, laughing. 
 
 "I am not i am merely saying what she said." 
 
 "You must not tell the silly things your friends 
 say." 
 
 "No only to you I thought you said I must 
 tell you everything. But, of course, if you don't 
 wish me to I won't." 
 
 Mr. Leigh laughed and took her on his knee. 
 He was not quite sure whether she was serious or 
 
 151
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 was only laughing at him, but, as he began to 
 explain, she burst into a peal of merriment over 
 her victory. 
 
 In appearance she was like her mother, only he 
 thought her fairer as fair as he had thought her 
 mother in the days of his first devotion ; and her 
 deeper eyes and firmer features were an added 
 beauty; the well-rounded chin was his own. Her 
 eyes, deep with unfathomable depths, and mouth, 
 firm even with its delicate beauty, had come from 
 some ancestor or ancestress who in some genera 
 tion past had faced life in its most exacting form 
 with undaunted resolution, and, haply, had faced 
 death with equal calm for some belief that now 
 would scarcely have given an hour's questioning. 
 So, when she grew each year, developing new powers 
 and charm and constancy, he began to find a new 
 interest in life, and to make her more his companion 
 and confidante than he had ever made her mother. 
 He left his business oftener to see her than he had 
 left it to see her mother; he took her oftener with 
 him on his trips, and took more trips, that he 
 might have her company. She sat at the head of 
 his table, and filled her place with an ability that 
 was at once his astonishment and his pride. 
 
 At one time, as she changed from a mere child 
 to a young girl, he had thought of marrying again, 
 
 152
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 rather with a view to giving her a guide and coun 
 sellor than for any other purpose. Her stormi- 
 ness, however, at the mere suggestion, and much 
 more, her real grief, had led him to defer the plan 
 from time to time, until now she was a young lady, 
 and he could see for himself that she needed 
 neither chaperon nor counsellor. He sometimes 
 smiled to think what the consequences would have 
 been had he taken to wife the soft, kindly, rather 
 commonplace lady whom he had once thought of 
 as his daughter's guardian. A domestic fowl in 
 the clutches of a young eagle would have had an 
 easier time. 
 
 One phase alone in her development had puz 
 zled and baffled him. She had gone off one spring 
 to a country neighborhood in another State, where 
 she had some old relatives on her mother's side. 
 Mr. Leigh had been called to Europe on business, 
 and she had remained there until well into the 
 summer. When she returned she was not the 
 same. Some change had taken place in her. She 
 had gone away a rollicking, gay, pleasure-loving, 
 and rather selfish young girl he was obliged to 
 admit that she was both wilful and self-indulgent. 
 Even his affection for her could not blind his eyes 
 to this, and at times it had given him much con 
 cern, for at times there was a clash in which, if he 
 
 153
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 came off victor, he felt it was at a perilous price 
 that, possibly, of a strain on her obedience. She 
 returned a full-grown woman, thoughtful and 
 self-sacrificing and with an aim he was glad it 
 was not a mission and as her aim was to be use 
 ful, and she began with him, he accepted it with 
 contentment. She talked freely of her visit; 
 spoke warmly, and, indeed, enthusiastically, of 
 those she had met there. Among these were a 
 young country preacher and a friend of his, a 
 young Jew. But, though she spoke of both with 
 respect, the praise she accorded them was so equal 
 that he dismissed from his mind the possibility that 
 she could have been seriously taken with either of 
 them. Possibly, the Jew was the one she was 
 most enthusiastic over, but she spoke of him too 
 openly to cause her father disquietude. Besides, 
 he was a Jew. 
 
 The preacher she plainly respected most highly, 
 yet her account of his appearance was too humor 
 ous to admit a serious feeling for him, even though 
 she had gotten him called to be one of Doctor 
 Capon's assistants. 
 
 What had happened was that the girl, who had 
 only "lain in the lilies and fed on the roses of 
 life," had suddenly been dropped in an out-of- 
 the-way corner hi a country neighborhood in an 
 
 154
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 old State, where there were neither lilies nor roses 
 of the metaphorical kind, though a sufficiency of 
 the real and natural kind, with which nature in 
 compensatory mood atones to those who have of 
 the metaphorical sort but thistles and brambles 
 and flinty soil. 
 
 When she first landed there, after the very first 
 excitement of being thrown into a wholly new 
 situation, among strangers whom, though her 
 relatives, she had always regarded much as she 
 had regarded geographical places in distant lands, 
 was over, she found herself, as it were, at a loss 
 for occupation. Everything was so quiet and 
 calm. She felt lost and somewhat bored. But 
 after a little time she found occupation in small 
 things, as on looking closely she discovered 
 beauties in nature which her first glance had 
 failed to catch. The people appeared so novel, so 
 simple, so wholly different from all whom she had 
 known; the excitements and amusements and 
 interests of her life in the city, or at summer 
 watering-places, or in travelling, were not only 
 unknown to them as unknown as if they were in 
 another planet but were matters of absolute in 
 difference. Their interest was in their neighbors, 
 in the small happenings about them; and occur 
 rences an hundred miles away were as distant to 
 
 155
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 them as though they had taken place in another 
 era. Among the few notabilities in this rural com 
 munity was a young clergyman whom she always 
 heard spoken of with respect as much respect, 
 indeed, as if he had been a bishop. What "Mr. 
 Marvel thought" and what he said was referred 
 to, or was quoted as something to be considered 
 so much so that she had insensibly formed a 
 picture in her own mind of a quite remarkable 
 looking and impressive person. When, at last, she 
 met John Marvel, what was her amusement to 
 discover, in place of her young Antinous, a stout, 
 strapping young fellow, with rather bristly hair, 
 very near-sighted and awkward, and exceedingly 
 shy, a person as far from a man of the world as 
 a stout, country-bred cart-horse would be from 
 a sleek trick-pony. His timidity in her presence 
 caused her endless amusement, and for lack of 
 some better diversion and partly to scandalize 
 her staid kinswomen, she set herself to tease him 
 in every way that her fertile brain could devise. 
 
 Visiting the young clergyman at the time, was 
 a friend who came much nearer being in appear 
 ance what Eleanor had imagined John Marvel to 
 be: a dark, slender young man with a classical 
 face, but that its lines were stronger and more 
 deeply graven, and unforgettable eyes. He had 
 
 156
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 just come to visit Mr. Marvel and to get a needed 
 rest, John Marvel said. He had been a worker 
 among the poor, and his views were so different 
 from any that Eleanor Leigh had ever heard as to 
 appear almost shocking. He was an educated 
 man, yet he had lived and worked as an artisan. 
 He was a gentleman, yet he denounced vehemently 
 the conditions which produced the upper class. 
 But an even greater surprise awaited her when 
 he announced that he was a Jew. 
 
 When John Marvel brought his friend to see 
 Miss Eleanor Leigh, the first impression that she 
 received was one of pleasure. He was so striking 
 and unusual looking with deep, burning eyes 
 under dark brows. Then she was not sure that 
 she liked him, she even thought she was sensible 
 of a sort of repulsion. She had a feeling as if he 
 were weighing her in his mind and, not approving 
 of her, treated her at times with indifference, at 
 times with a certain disdain. She was conscious 
 of an antagonism as Wolffert showed scorn of 
 conditions and things which she had been brought 
 up to believe almost as much a necessary part of 
 life as air and light. She promptly began to argue 
 with him, but when she found that he usually had 
 the best of the argument, she became more care 
 ful how she opened herself to his attack. He 
 
 157
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 aroused in her the feeling of opposition. His scorn 
 of the money-making spirit of the day led her to 
 defend what she secretly held in contempt. And 
 once when he had been inveighing against com 
 mercialism that set up Gods of Brass to worship, 
 and declared that it was the old story of Nebu 
 chadnezzar over again and was the forerunner 
 to brotherhood with the beasts of the field, she 
 wheeled on him, declaring that it was "only peo 
 ple who had no power to make money who held 
 such views." 
 
 "Do you think that I could not make money if 
 I wished to do so?" said Wolffert quietly, with an 
 amused light in his eyes as they rested on her 
 with an expression which was certainly not hos 
 tile; for her eagerness had brought warm blood 
 to her cheeks and her eyes were sparkling with 
 the glow of contention. 
 
 "Yes, if you were able you would be as rich as 
 a Jew." 
 
 A yet more amused look came into Wolffert's 
 eyes. 
 
 "Are all Jews rich?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes all who are capable you know they 
 
 are." 
 
 "No, for I am a Jew and I am not rich," said 
 Wolffert. 
 
 158
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 "What! You! You a- Oh, I beg your 
 pardon! I " she blushed deeply. 
 
 "Pray don't apologize don't imagine that I 
 am offended. Would you be offended if I charged 
 you with coming from a race of poets and philoso 
 phers and scientists of a race that had given the 
 world its literature and its religion?" 
 
 She burst out laughing. 
 
 "No; but I was such a fool pray forgive me." 
 She held out her hand and Wolffert took it and 
 pressed it firmly and this was the beginning of 
 their friendship. 
 
 Wolffert walked home slowly that evening, that 
 is, across the fields to the little farmhouse where 
 John Marvel lived. He had food for thought. 
 
 When Eleanor Leigh saw John Marvel a few 
 days later she told him of her conversation and 
 the speech she had made to his friend. "You 
 know," said John, "that he is rich or could be, if 
 he chose to go home. His father is very rich." 
 
 "He is a new Jew to me," said Eleanor Leigh; 
 "he is quite different from the typical Jew." 
 
 "I wonder if there is a typical Jew," questioned 
 John to himself, and this set Eleanor wondering 
 too. 
 
 But Eleanor Leigh found other causes for won 
 der in Wolffert besides the salient fact of his race 
 
 159
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 which she had mentioned to her cousins, and they 
 forced upon her the consciousness that she would 
 have to readjust her ideas of many things as she 
 had been compelled to do in regard to the appear 
 ance and aims of this singular people. Her idea 
 of the Israelites had always been curiously con 
 noted with hooked noses, foreign speech of a far 
 from refined type, and a persistent pursuit of 
 shekels by ways generally devious and largely 
 devoted to shops containing articles more or less 
 discarded by other people. Here she found a cul 
 tivated gentleman with features, if not wholly 
 classical, at least more regular and refined than 
 those of most young men of her acquaintance; 
 speech so cultivated as to be quite distinguished, 
 and an air and manner so easy and gracious as to 
 suggest to her complete knowledge of the great 
 world. No matter what subject was discussed 
 between them, he knew about it more than any 
 one else, and always threw light on it which gave 
 a new interest for her. He had a knowledge of 
 the literature and art, not only of the ancients, 
 but of most modern nations, and he talked to her 
 of things of which she had never so much as heard. 
 He had not only travelled extensively in Europe, 
 but had travelled in a way to give him an intimate 
 knowledge not merely of the countries, but of the 
 
 160
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 people and customs of the countries which no one 
 she had ever met possessed. He had crossed in 
 the steerage of ocean-liners more than once and 
 had stoked across both to England and the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 "But what made you do it?" she asked. "Did 
 not you find it terrible?" 
 
 "Yes pretty bad." Wolffert was at the mo 
 ment showing her how tea was made in certain 
 provinces along the Caspian Sea which he had 
 visited not long before. "About as bad as it 
 could be." 
 
 "Then what made you do it?" 
 
 "Well, I saved money by it, too." 
 
 What the other reason was she did not press him 
 to give. She only thought, "That is the Jew of it." 
 But after she had seen more of him she discovered 
 that the other reason was that he might learn by 
 personal experience what the condition was in the 
 emigrant ships and the holes where the stokers 
 lived down deep amid the coal-bunkers and the 
 roaring furnaces, and further, that he might know 
 the people themselves. Incidentally, he had 
 learned there and elsewhere Italian and Russian, 
 with the strange Hebraic faculty of absorbing 
 whatever he came in touch with, but he thought 
 no more of knowing that than of knowing Yiddish. 
 
 161
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 It was this study of conditions that finally gave 
 her the key to his design in life, for it developed 
 as their acquaintance grew that this clear-headed, 
 cultivated, thoughtful man held strange views as 
 to the ordinary things of life, the things which she 
 had always accepted as as fundamental and un 
 changeable as the solid earth or the vaguely com 
 prehended but wholly accepted revolution of the 
 spheres. In fact, he held that the conditions of 
 modern life, the relations of people in mass, which 
 she had somehow always considered as almost 
 perfect and, indeed, divinely established, were 
 absolutely outworn and fundamentally unright 
 eous and unjust. She at first did not take him 
 seriously. She could not. To find a pleasant 
 and, indeed, rather eloquent-spoken young man 
 denounce as wicked and vile usurpation the es 
 tablishment of competitive enterprises, and the 
 accumulation of capital by captains of industry, 
 appeared to her almost impious. Yet, there he 
 sat with burning eyes and thrilling voice denounc 
 ing the very things she had always considered 
 most commendable. "Why, that is socialism, 
 isn't it?" she asked, feeling that if she could con 
 vict him of this somewhat vaguely comprehended 
 term she would prove her old foundations un 
 shaken. 
 
 162
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 Wolffert smiled. He was very good-looking 
 when he smiled. "No, not exactly if it is, it 
 is only an elementary and individual kind of 
 socialism; but it is socialism so far as it is based 
 on a profound desire to reconstruct society and to 
 place it on a natural and equitable social founda 
 tion where every one shall have a chance to work 
 and to reap the fruit of such work." 
 
 "What is socialism?" she demanded suddenly. 
 
 "It is not what you mean by the term," he 
 laughed. "It is not taking the property of those 
 who have worked for it and giving to those who 
 neither have worked nor will work that is what 
 you have in mind." 
 
 "Precisely," she nodded. 
 
 "It is at least, the socialism I mean the 
 application of the same method of general order 
 by the people at large to labor and the product 
 of labor: property that is now employed hi 
 government. The reconstruction of the present 
 methods so that all should participate both in the 
 labor, and in the product." He went on to pict 
 ure glowingly the consequences of this Utopian 
 scheme when all men should work and all should 
 reap. But though he made it appear easy enough 
 to him, Eleanor Leigh's practical little head saw 
 the difficulties and the flaws much more readily 
 
 163
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 than the perfect result which he appeared to find 
 so certain. 
 
 "You cannot reconstruct human nature," she 
 protested, "and when you shall have gotten your 
 system thoroughly under way, those who have 
 gotten in positions of power will use their advan 
 tage for their own benefit, and then you will still 
 have to begin all over again." But Wolffert was 
 certain of the result and pointed out the work of 
 his friend John Marvel as a proof of his theory. 
 
 While, at first, the broad-shouldered young 
 clergyman fled from her presence with a precipita 
 tion which was laughable, it was not long before 
 he appeared to have steeled himself sufficiently 
 against her shafts of good-natured persiflage to be 
 able to tolerate her presence, and before a great 
 while had passed, her friends began to tease her 
 on the fact that wherever she went Mr. Marvel 
 was pretty sure to appear. One of her old cousins, 
 half-rallyingly and half-warningly, cautioned her 
 against going too far with the young man, saying, 
 "Mr. Marvel, my dear, is too good a man for you 
 to amuse yourself with, and then fling away. 
 What is simply the diversion of an hour for you, 
 may become a matter of real gravity with him. 
 He is already deeply interested in you and unless 
 
 you are interested in him 
 
 164
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 "Why, I am interested in him," declared the 
 girl, laughing. "Why, he tells me of all the old 
 sick women and cats in the parish, and I have an 
 engagement to go around with him and see some 
 old women to-morrow. You ought to see some 
 that we went to visit the other day!" 
 
 - "I know, my dear, but you must not make fun 
 of his work. He is happy in it and is accomplish 
 ing a great deal of good, and if you should get him 
 dissatisfied " 
 
 "Oh, no, indeed; I gave him some money last 
 week for a poor family to get some clothes so that 
 they could come to church. They were named 
 Banyan. They live near the mines. The whole 
 family were to be christened next Sunday, and 
 what do you suppose they did? As soon as they 
 got the clothes they went last Sunday to a big 
 baptizing and were all immersed! I was teasing 
 him about that when you heard me laughing at 
 him." 
 
 "The wretches!" exclaimed her cousin. "To 
 think of their deceiving him so!" 
 
 "I know," said the girl. "But I think he 
 minded the deception much more than the other. 
 Though I charged him with being disappointed 
 at not getting them into his fold, really, I don't 
 think he minded it a bit. At least, he said he 
 
 165
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 would much rather they had gone where they 
 would be happy." 
 
 "Now, Mr. Marvel's friend, Mr. Wolffert, is a 
 different matter. He appears quite able to take 
 care of himself." 
 
 "Quite," said Miss Leigh dryly. 
 
 "But, my dear," said her cousin, lowering her 
 voice, "they say he is a Jew." 
 
 "He is," said Eleanor. 
 
 "You know it?" 
 
 "Yes, he told me so himself." 
 
 "Told you himself! Why, I thought! How 
 did he come to tell you?" 
 
 "Why, I don't know. We were talking and I 
 said something foolish about the Jews about 
 some one being 'as rich and stingy as a Jew/ and 
 he smiled and said, 'Are all Jews rich and stingy? ' 
 And I said, 'If they have a chance,' and he said, 
 'Not always. I am a Jew and I am not rich.' 
 Well, I thought he was fooling, just teasing me 
 so I went on, and do you know he is not only a 
 Jew, but Mr. Marvel says he is rich, only he does 
 not claim his money because he is a socialist. 
 Mr. Marvel says he could go home to-morrow and 
 his father would take him and lavish money on 
 him; but he works works all the time among the 
 poor." 
 
 166
 
 ELEANOR LEIGH 
 
 "Well, I must say I always liked him," said her 
 cousin. 
 
 "But he isn't such good fun to tease as Mr. Mar 
 vel he is too intense. Mr. Marvel does get so 
 red and unhappy-looking when he is teased." 
 
 "Well, you have no right to tease him. He is 
 a clergyman and should be treated with respect. 
 You wouldn't dare to tease your rector in town 
 the great Doctor What is his name? " 
 
 "Oh! wouldn't I? Doctor Bartholomew Capon. 
 Why, he is one of the greatest beaux in town. 
 He's always running around to see some girl 
 ogling them with his big blue eyes." 
 
 "Eleanor!" exclaimed her cousin reprovingly. 
 
 "Why, he'd marry any one of the Canter girls 
 who would have him, or Aunt Sophia, or " 
 
 "Eleanor, don't be profane." 
 
 The old lady looked so shocked that the girl ran 
 over and kissed her, with a laugh. 
 
 "Why, I've told him so." 
 
 "Told him? You haven't!" 
 
 "Yes, I have. I told him so when he tried to 
 marry me. Then he tried Aunt Sophia." 
 
 "What! Eleanor, you are incorrigible. You 
 really are. But do tell me about it. Did he 
 really court you? Why, he's old enough to be 
 your " 
 
 167
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "Grandfather," interrupted the girl. "That's 
 what I told him, substantially." 
 
 "Served him right, too. But he must be a fine 
 preacher from what my old friend, Pansy Tipps, 
 once wrote me. Did you ever meet Pansy Tipps? 
 She and her sister live in your city. They went 
 there years ago to press a claim they had to a large 
 fortune left them by their father, Colonel Tipps, 
 who used to be a very rich man, but left his affairs 
 somewhat complicated, I gather from what Pansy 
 writes me, or did write, for she does not write very 
 often now. I wish you'd go and see them when 
 you go back." 
 
 "I will," said Eleanor. "Where do they live?" 
 
 "At a Mrs. Kale's she keeps a boarding-house 
 I don't know the exact location, and mislaid 
 Pansy's letter a year or more ago, but you will 
 have no difficulty in finding it. It must be in the 
 fashionable quarter and I should think any one 
 could tell you where she lives." 
 
 "I will find her," said Eleanor, laughing. 
 
 168
 
 XII 
 
 JOHN MARVEL 
 
 , a little later, a scourge of diphtheria 
 broke out in a little mining camp not far 
 from the home of Miss Leigh's relatives and she 
 learned that John Marvel spent all his time nurs 
 ing the sick and relieving their necessities as far 
 as possible, she awakened to a realization of the 
 truth of what her cousin had said, that under his 
 awkward exterior lay a mine of true gold. 
 
 Day by day reports came of the spread of the 
 deadly pestilence, making inroads in every fam 
 ily, baffling the skill and outstripping the utmost 
 efforts of the local physician; day by day the 
 rumor came that wherever illness appeared there 
 was John Marvel. 
 
 One afternoon Miss Leigh, who had ridden over 
 in the direction of the mining village to try and 
 get some information about the young clergyman, 
 who, a rumor said, had been stricken himself the 
 day before, came on him suddenly in a by-path 
 among the hills. At sight of her he stopped and 
 
 169
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 held up his hand in warning, and at the warning 
 she reined in her horse. 
 
 "Don't come nearer," he called to her. 
 
 "What is the matter?" she asked. "How are 
 you?" For even at that distance perhaps, some 
 fifty paces she could see that he looked wretch 
 edly worn and wan. 
 
 "Oh, I'm doing very well," he replied. "How 
 are you? You must not come this way! Turn 
 back!" 
 
 She began to rein her horse around and then, 
 on a sudden, as his arm fell to his side, and, step 
 ping a little out of the path, he leaned against a 
 tree, the whole situation struck her. Wheeling 
 her horse back, she rode straight up to him though 
 he stiffened up and waved her back. 
 
 "You are ill," she said. 
 
 "Oh, no. I am not ill, I am only a bit tired; 
 that is all. You must not come this way go 
 back!" 
 
 "But why?" she persisted, sitting now close 
 above him. 
 
 "Because because there is sickness here. A 
 family there is down." He nodded back toward 
 the curve around which he had just come. "The 
 Banyan family are all ill, and I am just going for 
 help." 
 
 170
 
 JOHN MARVEL 
 
 "I will go I, at least, can do that. What 
 help? What do you want?" 
 
 She had tightened the rein on her horse and 
 turned his head back. 
 
 "Everything. The mother and three children 
 are all down; the father died a few days ago. 
 Send the doctor and anything that you can find 
 food clothing medicine some one to nurse 
 them if you can find her. It is the only 
 chance." 
 
 "I will." She hesitated a moment and looked 
 down at him, as if about to speak, but he waved 
 her off. "Go, you must not stay longer." 
 
 He had moved around so that the wind, instead 
 of blowing from him toward her, blew from the 
 other side of her. 
 
 A moment later Eleanor Leigh was galloping 
 for life down the steep bridle-path. It was a 
 breakneck gait, and the path was rough enough 
 to be perilous, but she did not heed it. It was the 
 first time in all her life that she had been conscious 
 that she could be of real use. She felt that she was 
 galloping in a new world. From house to house 
 she rode, but though all were sympathetic, there 
 was no one to go. Those who might have gone, 
 were elsewhere or were dead. The doctor was 
 away from home attending at other bedsides and, 
 
 171
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 by the account given, had been working night and 
 day until he could scarcely stand. Riding to the 
 nearest telegraph station, the girl sent a despatch 
 to a doctor whom she knew in the city where she 
 lived, begging him to come or to send some one 
 on the first train and saying that he would be 
 met and that she would meet all his expenses. 
 Then she sat down and wrote a note to her 
 cousin. And two hours later, just as the dusk 
 was falling, she rode up to the door of a country 
 cabin back among the hills. As she softly pushed 
 open the door, with her arm full of bundles, a 
 form rose from the side of a bed and stood before 
 her in the dusk of the room. 
 
 "My God! you must not come in here. Why 
 have you come here?" 
 
 "To help you," said the girl. 
 
 "But you must not come in. Go out. You 
 must," said John Marvel. 
 
 "No, I have come to stay. I could not live if 
 I did not stay now." She pushed her way in. 
 "Here are some things I have brought. I have 
 telegraphed for a doctor." 
 
 It was long before she could satisfy John 
 Marvel, but she stayed, and all that night she 
 worked with him over the sick and the dying. 
 All that night they two strove to hold Death at 
 
 172
 
 JOHN MARVEL 
 
 bay, across those wretched beds. Once, indeed, 
 he had struck past their guard and snatched a 
 life ; but they had driven him back and saved the 
 others. Ere morning came one of the children had 
 passed away; but the mother and the other chil 
 dren survived; and Eleanor Leigh knew that 
 John Marvel, now on his knees, now leaning over 
 the bed administering stimulants, had saved them. 
 
 As Eleanor Leigh stepped out into the morning 
 light, she looked on a new earth, as fair as if it 
 had just been created, and it was a new Eleanor 
 Leigh who gazed upon it. The tinsel of frivolity 
 had shrivelled and perished in the fire of that 
 night. Sham had laid bare its shallow face and 
 fled away. Life had taken on reality. She had 
 seen a man, and thenceforth only a man could 
 command her. 
 
 The physician came duly, sent up by the one 
 she had telegraphed to; rode over to the Banyan 
 house, and later to the village, where he pro 
 nounced the disease diphtheria and the cause 
 probably defective drainage and consequent im 
 pregnation of the water supply; wrote a prescrip 
 tion, commended the country doctor, returned 
 home, and duly charged nearly half as much as 
 the country doctor got in a year, which Miss 
 Leigh duly paid with thoughts of John Marvel. 
 
 173
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 This was what made the change in the girl which 
 her father had noted. 
 
 No novelist can give all of a hero's or a heroine's 
 life. He must take some especial phase and de 
 velop his characters along that line, otherwise he 
 would soon overload his boat and swamp his 
 reader's patience. He is happy who having 
 selected his path of action does not wear out the 
 reader in asking him to follow even this one line. 
 Thus, it is possible to give only a part of Miss 
 Eleanor Leigh's relation to life, and naturally the 
 part selected is that which had also its relation to 
 John Marvel. 
 
 If it be supposed by any one that Miss Eleanor 
 Leigh devoted her entire time and thought to 
 working among the poor he is greatly mistaken. 
 John Marvel and Leo Wolffert did this ; but Miss 
 Leigh was far from living the consecrated life. 
 She only made it a part of her life, that is all, and 
 possibly this was the best for her to do. The 
 glimpse which she got at the death-bed in the 
 Banyan cottage that night when she went to help 
 John Marvel fight death, tore the veil from her 
 eyes and gave her a revelation of a life of which 
 she had never dreamed till then, though it lay all 
 about her in its tragic nakedness; but while it 
 gave her pause and inspired her with a sincere 
 
 174
 
 JOHN MARVEL 
 
 wish to help the poor or, possibly, to help John 
 Marvel and Leo Wolffert, it did not change her 
 nature or make her a missionary. An impulse, 
 whatever its ultimate action, does not revolution 
 ize. She still retained the love of pleasure natural 
 to all young creatures. The young tree shoots up 
 by nature into the sun. She still took part in the 
 gay life about her, and, if possible, found a 
 greater zest in it for the consciousness that she 
 had widened her horizon and discovered more in 
 terests outside of the glittering little brazen circle 
 in which her orbit had been hitherto confined. 
 She had immediately on returning home inter 
 ested herself to secure for John Marvel an invi 
 tation from Dr. Capon, her rector, to become one 
 of his assistants and take charge of an outlying 
 chapel which he had built in the poorest district 
 of the town, moved thereto by a commendable 
 feeling that the poor should have the gospel 
 preached to them and that his church should not 
 allow all the honors to go to other churches, par 
 ticularly that of Rome. Dr. Capon prided himself 
 and was highly esteemed by his fellows that is, 
 the upper officials, clergy, and laity alike on his 
 ability to obtain from his people the funds needed 
 to extend what was known as "the work of the 
 Parish," by which was signified mainly the con- 
 
 175
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 struction of buildings, additions thereto, embel 
 lishments thereof, and stated services therein, and 
 incidentally, work among the poor for whom the 
 buildings were supposed to have been planned. 
 The buildings having all been erected and paid 
 for and due report and laudation thereof having 
 been made, it was found rather more difficult to 
 fill them than had been previously anticipated. 
 And it was set down somewhat to the perversity 
 of the poor that they refused the general invi 
 tation extended them to come and be labelled and 
 patronized with words and smiles quite as unctu 
 ous as benignant. 
 
 Dr. Capon had not the reputation of getting 
 on quite comfortably with his assistants. The ex 
 actions of his type of success had made him a busi 
 ness man. As his power of organization increased, 
 spirituality dwindled. He dealt more with the 
 rich and less with the poor. He had the reputa 
 tion of being somewhat exacting in his demands 
 on them, and of having a somewhat overween 
 ing sense of his own importance and authority. 
 Bright young men either declined altogether his 
 suggestions of the whiteness of the harvest in the 
 purlieus of the city, or, having been led into 
 accepting positions under him, soon left him for 
 some country parish or less imposing curacy an 
 
 176
 
 JOHN MARVEL 
 
 exotic word which the doctor himself had had 
 something to do with importing from over seas. 
 It thus happened that his chapel recently built for 
 the poor with funds elicited from Dr. Capon's 
 wealthy parishioners was vacant when Miss 
 Eleanor Leigh consulted the reverend doctor as 
 to a good church for a peculiarly good young 
 clergyman, and the doctor being at that time in 
 his second mourning and likewise in that state of 
 receptivity incident to clerical widowers of a year 
 and a half's standing, yielded readily to his fair 
 parishioner's solicitations, and the position was 
 tendered to John Marvel and after some hesitation 
 was accepted his chief motive being that his old 
 friend Wolffert was there doing a work in which he 
 had greatly interested him. If the fact that Miss 
 Eleanor Leigh also lived in that city influenced 
 him, it would simply prove that John Marvel, 
 like the rest of humanity, was only mortal. The 
 tender was made without the usual prelimi 
 nary examination of the young man by the 
 doctor, so impressed had he been by the young 
 girl's enthusiastic accounts of John Marvel's work 
 and influence among the poor. Thus it was that, 
 when John Marvel finally presented himself, the 
 doctor was more than surprised at his appearance 
 he was, indeed, almost shocked. 
 
 177
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 The doctor was not only fond of his own ap 
 pearance which was certainly that of a gentle 
 man and a very well-fed and clerical-looking one 
 as well but he took especial pride in having 
 his assistants also good-looking and clerical. He 
 loved to march in processional and recessional at 
 the end of a stately procession with two or three 
 fine-looking young priests marching before him. 
 It had a solemnizing effect it made the church 
 appear something important. It linked him with 
 the historic and Apostolic Church of the ages. 
 With the swelling organ pouring forth its strains 
 to soar and die among the groined arches above 
 him, he sometimes felt as he glanced along the sur- 
 pliced line before him as if he were borne away, 
 and had any one cried to him from the side he 
 might almost have been able to heal with his 
 blessing. But this short, broad, bow-legged, 
 near-sighted man in his shabby, ill-fitting clothes! 
 Why, it would never do to have him about him! 
 He would mar the whole harmony of the scene. 
 If it had not been too late and if the young man 
 had not had such a potent influence behind him, 
 the doctor might have suggested some difficulties 
 in the way of carrying through the arrangements 
 he had proposed; but though Mrs. Argand and 
 her brother-in-law were understood to have had 
 
 178
 
 JOHN MARVEL 
 
 some differences over certain business matters, 
 she was very fond of her niece and she was the 
 wealthiest woman who came to his church. The 
 doctor reflected, therefore, that he need not have 
 the awkward young man about him much; and 
 when a little later it appeared that this gawky 
 young man was filling his chapel and neighbor 
 hood-house, poor-club and night-schools and was 
 sending in reports which showed that real work 
 was being done, the doctor was well satisfied to 
 let him remain so well, indeed, that he never 
 invited him to his house socially, but only held 
 official relations with him. The report that among 
 John Marvel's chief assistants in the work of or 
 ganizing his poor-clubs and night-school was a 
 Jew socialist disturbed the doctor slightly, but he 
 reflected that when one showed such notable re 
 sults it was in a way necessary to employ many 
 curious agencies, and, after all, the association 
 with Jews in secular affairs was a matter of taste. 
 
 179
 
 XIII 
 
 MR. LEIGH 
 
 , to recur to the period of my arrival in 
 the West the day after Miss Leigh's return 
 home her father paid her the unusual honor of 
 leaving his office to take lunch with her. 
 
 Her mind was full of the subject of the paper 
 she had read in the press that morning, giving a 
 lurid picture of the inconvenience and distress 
 entailed on the passengers and scoring the man 
 agement of the company for permitting what was 
 claimed to be "so gross a breach of the rights of 
 the public." 
 
 Ordinarily, she would have passed it over with 
 indifference a shrug of her white shoulders and a 
 stamp of her little foot would have been all the 
 tribute she would have paid to it. But of late she 
 had begun to think. 
 
 It had never before been brought so clearly to 
 the notice of the girl how her own pleasures not 
 the natural but the created pleasures of which 
 she was quite as fond as other healthy girls of her 
 age and class, were almost exclusively at the ex- 
 
 180
 
 MR. LEIGH 
 
 pense of the class she had been accustomed to 
 regard with a general sort of vague sympathy as 
 "the Poor." 
 
 The attack on her father and herself enraged 
 her; but, as she cooled down, a feeling deeper than 
 mere anger at an injustice took possession of her 
 mind. 
 
 To find that she herself had, in a way, been the 
 occasion of the distress to women and children, 
 startled her and left in her mind a feeling of un 
 easiness to which she had hitherto been a stranger. 
 
 " Father," she began, "did you see that dreadful 
 article in The Trumpet this morning?" 
 
 Mr. Leigh, without looking up, adopted the 
 natural line of special pleading, although he knew 
 perfectly well instantly the article to which she 
 referred. 
 
 "What article?" he asked. 
 
 "That story about our having delayed the pas 
 senger train with women and children on it and 
 then having side-tracked them without breakfast, 
 in order to give our car the right of way." 
 
 " Oh ! yes. I believe I saw that. I see so many 
 ridiculous things in the newspapers, I pay no 
 attention to them." 
 
 "But, father, that was a terrible arraignment," 
 said the girl. 
 
 181
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "Of whom?" asked Mr. Leigh, with a little 
 twinkle in his eye. 
 
 "Why, of you, of Aunt Sophia, of " 
 
 "Of me!" 
 
 "Yes, and of me of everybody connected with 
 the road." 
 
 "Not of you, my dear," said Mr. Leigh, with the 
 light of affection warming up his rather cold face. 
 "Surely no one, even the anarchistic writers of the 
 anarchistic press, could imagine anything to say 
 against you." 
 
 "Yes, of me, too, though not by name, perhaps; 
 but I was there and I was in a way the cause of 
 the trouble, because the car was sent after me and 
 Aunt Sophia, and I feel terribly guilty about it." 
 
 "Guilty of what, my dear?" smiled her father. 
 "Of simply using your own property in a way 
 satisfactory to you?" 
 
 "That is just it, father; that is the point which 
 the writer raises. Is it our own property?" 
 
 "It certainly is, my love. Property that I have 
 paid for my associates and I and which I con 
 trol, or did control, in conjunction with the other 
 owners, and propose to control to suit myself and 
 them so long as we have the controlling interest, 
 every socialistic writer, speaker, and striker to the 
 contrary notwithstanding." 
 
 182
 
 MR. LEIGH 
 
 "Well," said the girl, "that sounds all right. 
 It looks as if you ought to be able to do what you 
 like with your own; but, do you know, father, I 
 am not sure that it is our own. That is just the 
 point he says 
 
 ' ' Oh, nonsense ! " said her father lightly. ' ' Don't 
 let this Jew go and fill your clear little head with 
 such foolishness as that. Enjoy life while you 
 can. Make your mind easy, and get all the use 
 you can out of what I have amassed for you. 
 I only hope you may have as much pleasure in 
 using it as I have had in providing it." 
 
 The banker gazed over at his daughter half 
 quizzically, half seriously, took out a cigar, 
 and began to clip the end leisurely. The girl 
 laughed. She knew that he had something on 
 his mind. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" she asked, smiling. 
 
 He gave a laugh. "Don't go and imagine that 
 because that Jew can write he is any the less a 
 don't go and confound him and his work. It is 
 the easiest thing in the world to pick flaws to 
 find the defects in any system. The difficult thing 
 is constructive work." 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Did that foreigner go down there while you 
 were there?" 
 
 183
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "The count?" 
 
 "The no-count." 
 
 "No, of course not. Where did you get such an 
 idea?" 
 
 He lighted his cigar with a look of relief, put it 
 in his mouth, and sat back in his chair. 
 
 "Don't let your Aunt Sophia go and make a 
 fool of you. She is a very good business woman, 
 but you know she is not exactly Solomon, and 
 she is stark mad about titles. When you marry, 
 marry a man." 
 
 "Mr. Canter, for example?" laughed the girl. 
 "He is Aunt Sophia's second choice. She is 
 always talking about his money." 
 
 "She is always talking about somebody's 
 money, generally her own. But before I'd let that 
 fellow have you I'd kill him with my own hand. 
 He's the worst young man I know. Why, if I 
 could tell you half yes, one-tenth, of the things 
 I have heard about him But I can't tell you 
 only don't go and let anybody pull the wool over 
 your eyes." 
 
 "No fear of that," said the girl. 
 
 "No, I don't know that there is. I think 
 you've got a pretty clear little head on your 
 shoulders. But when any one gets gets why, 
 gets her feelings enlisted you can't just count on 
 
 184
 
 MR. LEIGH 
 
 her, you know. And with your Aunt Sophy ding- 
 donging at you and flinging her sleek count and 
 her gilded fools at you, it takes a good head to 
 resist her." 
 
 The girl reassured him with a smile of appre 
 ciation. 
 
 ' "I don't know where she got that from," con 
 tinued her father. "It must have been that out 
 side strain, the Prenders. Your mother did not 
 have a trace of it in her. I never saw two half- 
 sisters so different. She'd have married anybody 
 on earth she cared for and when she married me 
 I had nothing in the world except what my father 
 chose to give me and no very great expectations. 
 She had a rich fellow from the South tagging after 
 her & big plantation and lots of slaves and all 
 that, and your Aunt Sophy was all for her marry 
 ing him a good chap, too a gentleman and all 
 that; but she turned him down and took me. 
 And I made my own way. What I have I made 
 afterward by hard work till I got a good start, 
 and then it came easy enough. The trouble since 
 has been to keep others from stealing it from me 
 and that's more trouble than to make it, I can 
 tell you what between strikers, gamblers, coun- 
 cilmen, and other knaves, I have a hard time to 
 hold on to what I have." 
 
 185
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "I know you have to work very hard," said the 
 girl, her eyes on him full of affection. "Why, this 
 is the first time I've had you up to lunch with me 
 in months. I felt as much honored as if it had 
 been the King of England." 
 
 "That's it I have to stay down there to keep 
 the robbers from running off with my pile. That 
 young fellow thought he'd get a little swipe at it, 
 but I taught him a thing or two. He's a plunger. 
 His only idea is to make good by doubling up- 
 all right if the market's rising and you can double. 
 But it's a dangerous game, especially if one tries 
 to recoup at the faro table." 
 
 "Does he play faro?" asked the girl. 
 
 "He plays everything, mainly Merry H 1. I 
 beg your pardon I didn't mean to say that 
 before you, but he does. And if his father didn't 
 come to his rescue and plank up every time he 
 goes broke, he'd have been in the bankrupt court 
 or jail and that's where he'll wind up yet if 
 he don't look out." 
 
 "I don't believe you like him," laughed the girl. 
 
 "Oh! yes, I do. I like him well enough he is 
 amusing rather, he is gay, careless, impudent- 
 he's the main conduit through which I extract 
 money from old Prender's coffers. He never 
 spends anything unless you pay him two gold 
 
 186
 
 MR. LEIGH 
 
 dollars down for one paper one on the spot. But 
 I want him to keep away from you, that's all; 
 I suppose I've got to lose you some time, but I'll 
 be hanged if I want to give you up to a black 
 guard a gambler a rou a lib a d d black 
 guard like that." 
 
 "Well, you will never have that to do," said the 
 girl; "I promise you that." 
 
 "How is the strike coming on?" asked his 
 daughter. "When I went away it was just 
 threatening, and I read in the papers that the 
 negotiations failed and the men were ordered out; 
 but I haven't seen much about it in the papers 
 since, though I have looked." 
 
 "Oh! Yes it's going on, over on the other 
 lines across town, in a desultory sort of way," 
 said her father wearily "the fools! They won't 
 listen to any reason." 
 
 "Poor people!" sighed the girl. "Why did they 
 go out?" 
 
 "Poor fools!" said Mr. Leigh warmly; "they 
 walked out for nothing more than they always 
 have had." 
 
 "I saw that they had some cause; what was it?" 
 
 "Oh! they've always some cause. If they 
 didn't have one they'd make it. Now they are 
 talking of extending it over our lines." 
 
 187
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "Our lines! Why?" 
 
 "Heaven knows. We've done everything they 
 demanded in reason. They talk about a sym 
 pathetic strike. I hear that a fellow has come on 
 to bring it about. Poor fools!" 
 
 The girl gave him a smile of affection as he 
 pushed back his chair. And leaning over her as 
 he walked toward the door, he gave her a kiss of 
 mingled pride and affection. But when he had left 
 the room she sat still for some moments, looking 
 straight ahead of her, her brow slightly puckered 
 with thought which evidently was not wholly 
 pleasant, and then with a sweeping motion of her 
 hand she pushed her chair back, and, as she arose 
 from the table, said: "I wish I knew what is 
 right!" That moment a new resolution entered 
 her mind, and, ringing the bell for the servant, she 
 ordered her carriage. 
 
 188
 
 XIV 
 
 MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 
 
 OHE drove first to Dr. Capon's church and, 
 going around, walked in at the side door near 
 the east end, where the robing rooms and the rec 
 tor's study were. She remembered to have seen 
 on a door somewhere there a sign on which was 
 painted in gilded letters the fact that the rector's 
 office hours were from 12 to 1 on Mondays, 
 Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and this was Thursday. 
 The hour, however, was now nearly three, and she 
 had called only on a chance of catching him, a 
 chance which a stout and gloomy-looking verger, 
 who appeared from somewhere at her foot-fall, 
 told her at first was lost; but when he recognized 
 her, he changed his air, grew quite interested, and 
 said he would see if the doctor was in. He had 
 been there he knew after lunch, but he might have 
 left. He entered and closed the door softly be 
 hind him, leaving the girl in the gloom, but a mo 
 ment later he returned and showed her in. The 
 rector, with a smile of unfeigned pleasure on his 
 
 189
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 face, was standing just beside a handsome mahog 
 any writing desk, near a window, awaiting her 
 entry, and he greeted her with cordiality. 
 
 "Oh! my dear young lady, come in. I was just 
 about going off, and I'm glad I happened to have 
 lingered a little getting ready to launch a new 
 year-book." He laid his fingers on a batch of 
 printer's proof lying on the desk beside a stock 
 bulletin. "I was just thinking what a bore it is, 
 and lo! it turned into a blessing like Balaam's 
 curse. What can I do for you?" The rector's 
 large blue eyes rested on his comely parishioner 
 with a spark in them that was not from any spirit 
 ual fire. 
 
 "Well, I don't know," said the girl doubtfully. 
 
 "I see you were at the grand ball, or whatever 
 it was last night, and I was so delighted to see that 
 it was for a charitable object and the particular 
 object which I saw." 
 
 "Yes, it is for Mr. Marvel's work out among the 
 poor," said Miss Leigh. The rector's expression 
 changed slightly. 
 
 "Oh! yes, that is our work. You know that is 
 our chapel. I built it. The ball must have been 
 a great success. It was the first knowledge I had 
 that you and your dear aunt had returned." His 
 voice had a tone of faint reproach in it. 
 
 190
 
 MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 
 
 "Yes, we returned yesterday. I wish the papers 
 would leave me alone," she added. 
 
 " Ah! my dear young lady, there are many who 
 would give a great deal to be chronicled by the 
 public prints as you are. The morning and even 
 ing star is always mentioned while the little 
 asteroids go unnoticed." 
 
 "Well, I don't know about that," said the girl, 
 "but I do wish the papers would let me alone 
 and my father too." 
 
 "Oh! yes, to be sure. I did not know what 
 you were referring to. That was an outrageous 
 attack. So utterly unfounded, too, absolutely 
 untrue. Such scurrilous attacks deserve the 
 reprobation of all thinking men." 
 
 "The trouble is that the attack was untrue; 
 but the story was not unfounded." 
 
 "What! What do you mean?" The clergy 
 man's face wore a puzzled expression. 
 
 "That our car was hitched on to the train " 
 
 "And why shouldn't it be, my dear young lady? 
 Doesn't the road belong to your father, at least 
 to your family and those whom they represent?" 
 
 "I don't know that it does, and that is one 
 reason why I have come to see you." 
 
 "Of course it does. You will have to go to a 
 lawyer to ascertain the exact status of the title; 
 
 191
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 but I have always understood it does. Why, 
 your aunt, Mrs. Argand, owns thousands of shares, 
 doesn't she, and your father?" A grave sus 
 picion suddenly flitted across his mind relative to 
 a rumor he had heard of heavy losses by Mr. 
 Leigh and large gains by Mr. Canter, the president 
 of the road, and his associates who, according to 
 this rumor, were hostile to Mr. Leigh. 
 
 "I don't know, but even if they do, I am not 
 sure that that makes them owners. Did you read 
 that article?" 
 
 "No well, not all of it I glanced over a part 
 of it, enough to see that it was very scurrilous, 
 that's all. The head-lines were simply atrocious. 
 The article itself was not so wickedly " 
 
 "I should like to do some work among the poor," 
 said the girl irrelevantly. 
 
 "Why, certainly just what we need the ear 
 nest interest and assistance of just such persons 
 as yourself, of your class; the good, earnest, repre 
 sentatives of the upper class. If we had all like 
 you there would be no cry from Macedonia." 
 
 "Well, how can I go about it?" demanded the 
 girl, rather cutting in on the rector's voluble reply. 
 
 "Why, you can teach in the Sunday-school 
 we have a class of nice girls, ladies, you know, a 
 very small one and I could make my superinten- 
 
 192
 
 MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 
 
 dent arrange for Miss for the lady who now has 
 them to take another class one of the orphan 
 classes." 
 
 "No, I don't mean that kind of thing. If I 
 taught at all I should like to try my hand at the 
 orphan class myself." 
 
 "Well, that could be easily arranged " began 
 the rector; but his visitor kept on without heeding 
 him. 
 
 "Only I should want to give them all different 
 hats and dresses. I can't bear to see all those 
 poor little things dressed exactly in the same way 
 sad, drab or gray frocks, all cut by the same 
 pattern and the same hats, year in and year 
 out." 
 
 "Why, they have new hats every year," ex 
 postulated the rector. 
 
 "I mean the same kind of hat. Tall and short; 
 stout and thin; slim or pudgy; they all wear the 
 same horrible, round hats I can't bear to look 
 at them. I vow I'd give them all a different hat 
 for Christmas." 
 
 "Oh! my dear, you can't do that you would 
 spoil them and it's against the regulations. You 
 must remember that these children are orphans!" 
 
 "Being orphans is bad enough," declared the 
 girl, "but those hats are worse. Well, I can't 
 
 193
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 teach them, but I might try some other poor 
 class." 
 
 "Why, let me see. The fact is that we haven't 
 any" he was speaking slowly, casting his mind 
 over his field "very poor people in this church. 
 There used to be a number; but they don't come 
 any more. They must have moved out of the 
 neighborhood. I must make my assistant look 
 them up." 
 
 "You have no poor, then?" 
 
 "Not in this congregation. The fact is this 
 church is not very well suited to them. They 
 don't mix with our people. You see our class of 
 people of course, we are doing a great work 
 among the poor, our chapels we have three, one 
 of them, indeed, is a church and larger than many 
 independent churches. Another has given me 
 some anxiety, but the third is doing quite a re 
 markable work among the working people out in 
 the east end that under my assistant, the young 
 man you interested yourself so much in last year 
 and which your ball committee was good 
 enough to consider in selecting the object of its 
 benevolence." 
 
 "Yes, I know Mr. Marvel. I will go out 
 there." 
 
 "Oh! my dear, you couldn't go out there!" 
 194
 
 MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 
 
 "Why not? I want to see him." 
 
 "Why, it is away out on the edge of the city 
 what you might call the jumping-off place 
 among manufactories and railroad shops." 
 
 "Yes, I know. I have been out there." 
 
 "You have why, it is away out. It is on I 
 don't recall the name of the street. It's away 
 out. I know it's near the street-car terminus that 
 your family own. It's a very pretty chapel in 
 deed. Don't you think so? It is natural that 
 you should take an interest in it, as your aunt, 
 Mrs. Argand, helped us to build it. She gave the 
 largest contribution toward it. I don't know 
 what we should do without charitable women like 
 her." 
 
 "Yes, I know. And Mr. Marvel is coming on 
 well?" 
 
 A change came over the face of the rector. "Oh, 
 very well rather an ungainly fellow and very 
 slow, but doing a very good work for our parish. 
 I have been wanting to get the Bishop to go there 
 all this year as there are a number of candidates 
 for me to present; but he has been so busy and I 
 have been so busy 
 
 "I will go there," said Miss Leigh, rising. 
 
 "I don't think you will like it," urged the 
 rector. "It is a very bad part of the town 
 
 195
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 almost dangerous, indeed filled with working 
 people and others of that sort, and I don't suppose 
 a carriage ever " 
 
 "I will go in the street cars," said the girl. 
 
 "The street cars! Yes, you could go that way, 
 but why not come here and let me assign you a 
 class?" 
 
 "I wish to work among the poor." 
 
 "The happy poor!" said the rector, smiling. 
 "Why not come and help me in my work who 
 need you so much?" His voice had changed 
 suddenly and he attempted to possess himself of 
 the gloved hand that rested on his table, but it 
 was suddenly withdrawn. 
 
 "I thought we had settled that finally last year," 
 said Miss Leigh firmly. 
 
 "Ah, yes; but the heart is not so easily regu 
 lated." ' 
 
 "Oh! yes, yours is. Why don't you try Aunt 
 Sophia again? " 
 
 "Try again? who?" The rector was mani 
 festly somewhat embarrassed. 
 
 "Why, Aunt Sophia 'the evening star,'" said 
 Miss Leigh, laughing. 
 
 "Who says ? Did she say I had ah 
 addressed her?" 
 
 "No I got it from you. Come on now " 
 
 196
 
 MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 
 
 "Which way are you going? That is just my 
 way. May I have the pleasure of driving up with 
 you? I must go and see your aunt and welcome 
 her back. One moment." He had shown the 
 young lady out of the door. He now turned back 
 and folding up the stock bulletin placed it carefully 
 in his pocket. 
 
 As the carriage with its smart team turned into 
 one of the broader streets, two young men were 
 standing in a window of a large building highly 
 decorated, looking idly out on the street. They 
 had just been talking of the threatened strike 
 which the newspapers were discussing, as to which 
 they held similar views. 
 
 "I tell you what is the matter with those 
 scoundrels," said the elder of the two, a large, 
 pampered young fellow; "they need cold steel 
 they ought to be made to work." 
 
 "How would that suit us?" laughed the other. 
 
 "We don't have to." 
 
 "Hello ! What's old Bart after? " observed the 
 first one. 
 
 "Shekels," said the other, and yawned. 
 
 "After her he's taking notice." 
 
 "Oh! no; he's wedded to the tape goes into 
 the Grand five times a day and reads the tape." 
 
 "Bet you, he courts her." 
 197
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "How'll you prove it?" 
 
 "Ask her." 
 
 "Bet you you daren't ask her." 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 "What you like." 
 
 "I don't want to win your money." 
 
 "Don't you? Then hand me back that little 
 fifteen hundred you picked up from me last week." 
 
 "That was square, but this is a certainty." 
 
 "I'd chance it bet you a thousand, Jim, you 
 daren't ask her to her face if old Bart isn't courting 
 her and hasn't asked her to marry him." 
 
 "Oh! that's different. You want to make me 
 put up and then make my bet for me. I tell you 
 what I'll bet that she's the only girl I know I 
 wouldn't ask that." 
 
 "That may be. Now, I tell you what I'll bet 
 that you want a drink ring the bell." 
 
 "That's a certainty, too," laughed his friend, 
 and they turned and sank wearily in deep chairs 
 till a drink should give them energy to start a 
 fresh discussion. 
 
 Having put down the Rev. Bartholomew at the 
 door of her aunt's imposing mansion, Eleanor 
 Leigh, after a moment of indecision, directed her 
 coachman to drive to a certain street in the sec 
 tion known as "downtown," and there she stopped 
 
 198
 
 MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 
 
 at a pleasant-looking old house, and jumping out 
 of the carriage, ran up the worn stone steps and 
 rang the bell. It was a street that had once been 
 fashionable, as the ample, well-built houses and 
 the good doors and windows testified. But that 
 fickle jade, Fashion, had long since taken her 
 flight to other and more pretentious sections, and 
 shops, loan-offices, and small grocers' markets had 
 long engulfed the mansions of the last generation. 
 Had any gauge of the decadence of the quarter 
 been needed it might have been found in the 
 scornful air of Miss Leigh's stout coachman as he 
 sat on his box. He looked unutterably disgusted, 
 and his chin was almost as high as the chins of his 
 tightly reined up horses. 
 
 Miss Leigh asked of the rather slatternly girl 
 who came to the door, if the Miss Tippses were in, 
 and if so, would they see her. When the maid 
 went to see if they were at home, Miss Leigh was 
 shown into a large and very dark room with 
 chairs of many patterns, all old, placed about in it, 
 a horsehair sofa on one side, a marble-topped table 
 in the centre; an upright piano on the other side, 
 and on a small table a large piece of white coral 
 under a glass cover. Where the fireplace had 
 once been, a large register now stood grating off 
 the heat that might try in vain to escape through it. 
 
 199
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 Presently the maid returned. "Miss Pansy" 
 was in, and would the lady please walk up ? It 
 was in the third story, back, at the top of the 
 stairs. Miss Leigh ran up and tapped on the 
 door, waited and tapped again. Then, as there 
 was no answer, she opened the door cautiously 
 and peeped in. It was a small hall-room, bare of 
 furniture except two chairs, a sewing-machine, a 
 table on which was an ironing-board at which at 
 the moment stood a little old lady with a forehead 
 so high as to be almost bald. She was clad in a 
 rusty black skirt, a loose morning sacque of blue 
 cotton, and she wore loose bedroom slippers. 
 Her sleeves were rolled up, and her arms were thin 
 and skinny. She held a flat-iron in her hand, 
 with which she had evidently been ironing a 
 white under-garment which lay on the board, 
 and another one was on a little gas-stove which 
 stood near a stationary wash-stand. As Miss 
 Leigh opened the door, the old lady gave a little 
 exclamation of dismay and her hand went in 
 voluntarily to her throat. 
 
 "Oh! I beg your pardon!" said the girl, starting 
 to retire and close the door; "I thought the ser 
 vant told me 
 
 By this time the other had recovered herself. 
 
 "Oh! come in, won't you?" she said, with a 
 
 200
 
 MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 
 
 smile and in a voice singularly soft and refined. 
 "My sister will be ready to receive you in a 
 moment. I was only a little startled. The fact 
 is," she said laughing, "I thought the door was 
 bolted; but sometimes the bolt does not go quite 
 in. My sister Won't you take a chair? Let 
 me remove those things." She took up the pile 
 of under-garments that was on one chair and 
 placed it on top of a pile of dishes and other things 
 on the other. 
 
 "Oh! I am so sorry," protested the girl, who 
 observed that she was concealing the dishes; "I 
 was sure the girl told me it was the door at the 
 head of the stairs." 
 
 "She is the stupidest creature that girl. I 
 must really get my sister to speak to Mrs. Kale 
 about her. I would, except that I am afraid the 
 poor thing might lose her place. There is another 
 door just off the little passage that she probably 
 meant." 
 
 "Yes probably. It was I that was stupid." 
 
 "Oh! no, not at all. You must excuse the dis 
 order you find. The fact is, this is our work 
 room, and we were just I was just doing a little 
 ironing to get these things finished. When your 
 card was brought up well, we both were and as 
 my sister is so much quicker, she ran to get ready, 
 
 201
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 and I thought I would just finish this when I was 
 at it, and you would excuse me." 
 
 "Oh! I am so sorry. I wouldn't for anything 
 have interrupted you," repeated the girl, observ 
 ing how all the time she was trying unobtrusively 
 to arrange her poor attire, rolling down her sleeves 
 and smoothing her darned skirt, all the while with 
 a furtive glance of her eye toward the door. 
 
 "Oh! my dear, I wouldn't have had you turned 
 away for anything in the world. My sister would 
 be desolee. We have a better room than this, 
 where we usually receive our visitors. You will 
 see what a nice room it is. We can't very well 
 afford to have two rooms; but this is too small 
 for us to live in comfortably, and we have to keep 
 it because it has a stationary wash-stand with hot 
 water, which enables us to do our laundering." 
 
 "Yes, I see," murmured Miss Leigh softly. 
 
 "You see, we earn our living by making under 
 clothes for for a firm 
 
 "I see, and what nice work you do." She was 
 handling a garment softly. 
 
 "Yes, my sister does beautiful work; and I 
 used to do pretty well, too; but I am troubled a 
 little with my eyes lately. The light isn't very 
 good at night and the gas is so expensive. I 
 don't see quite as well as I used to do." 
 
 202
 
 MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 
 
 "How much can you do?" asked her visitor, 
 who had been making a mental calculation. 
 
 "Why, I It is hard to tell. I do the coarser 
 work and my sister does the finishing; then she 
 usually launders and I iron when I am able. I 
 suffer with rheumatism so that I can't help her 
 very much." 
 
 "I hope you make them pay you well for it," 
 blurted out the girl. 
 
 "Why, we used to get a very good price. We 
 got till recently seven cents apiece, but now it has 
 been cut down that was for everything, launder 
 ing and ironing, too. We are glad to get that." 
 
 "How on earth do you manage to live on it?" 
 
 "Oh! we live very well very well, indeed," 
 said the little lady cheerfully. "Mrs. Kale is very 
 good to us. She lets us have the rooms cheaper 
 than she would any one else. You see she used 
 to know us when we lived back in the East. Her 
 father was a clerk in our father's office, and her 
 mother went to school with us. Then when we 
 lost everything and were turned out, we found we 
 had to make our own living and we came here to 
 see about our case, and she found we were here 
 and that's the way we came to be here. But 
 don't you let my sister know I told you about the 
 sewing," she said, dropping her voice, as a brisk 
 
 203
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 step was heard outside the door. "Ah! here she 
 is now!" as at the moment the door opened and a 
 brisk little old lady, almost the counterpart of her 
 sister, except that she might have been ten years 
 her junior, that is, sixty instead of seventy years 
 of age, tripped into the room. 
 
 "Oh! my dear Miss Leigh, how good of you to 
 come all the way out here to call on us! Sister, 
 what in the world are you doing? Why will you 
 do this? I can't keep her from amusing herself!" 
 (This with a shake of the head and a comical ap 
 peal for sympathy from her visitor.) "Won't you 
 walk into our sitting-room? Now, sister, do go 
 and make yourself presentable. You know she 
 will slave over all sorts of queer things. She 
 really loves sewing and ironing. I'm quite 
 ashamed to have you come into this pig-sty. 
 Walk in, won't you?" And she led the way into 
 a larger room adjoining the work-room, leaving 
 Miss Leigh in doubt which was the more pathetic, 
 the little old lady still delving over the ironing- 
 board, making no pretence to conceal their pov 
 erty, or the other hi her poor "best," trying to 
 conceal the straits in which they were fallen. 
 
 Eleanor had observed that the older sister's 
 gaze had constantly rested on the rose she wore, 
 and as they were going out, the latter called her 
 
 204
 
 MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 
 
 sister's attention to it. She said, she thought it 
 possibly the most beautiful rose she had ever seen. 
 
 "Won't you have it?" said Eleanor, and un 
 pinned it. 
 
 "Oh! no, indeed, I wouldn't deprive you of it 
 for anything. It is just where it ought to be." 
 
 Eleanor persisted, and finally overcame both her 
 reluctance and her sister's objection. 
 
 She was struck with the caressing way in which 
 she took and held it, pressing it against her 
 withered cheek. 
 
 "Sister, don't you remember the Giant-of- 
 Battles we used to have in our garden at Rose- 
 bank? This reminds me of it so its fragrance is 
 just the same." 
 
 "Yes. We used to have a great many roses," 
 explained the younger sister, as she led the way 
 into the next room as if she were asking Eleanor 
 into a palace, though this room was almost as bare 
 of furniture as the other, the chief difference being 
 an upright case which was manifestly a folding- 
 bed, and a table on which were a score of books, 
 and a few old daguerrotypes. 
 
 "Your friend, Mr. Marvel, was here the other 
 day. What a nice young man he is." 
 
 "Yes," said Eleanor. "I am going out to see 
 him. Where has he moved to? " Miss Pansy said 
 
 205
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 she did not know the street; but her sister had the 
 address. She would go and see. When she came 
 back, she went over and opened the old Bible 
 lying on the table. "Here is where we keep the 
 addresses of those we especially value," she said, 
 smiling. "Oh! here it is. When he was here the 
 other day, he brought us a treat; a whole half- 
 dozen oranges; won't you let me prepare you one? 
 They are so delicious." 
 
 Eleanor, who had been holding a bank-note 
 clutched in her hand, thanked her with a smile, 
 but said she must go. She walked across the 
 room, and took up the Bible casually, and when 
 she laid it down it gaped a little in a new place. 
 
 "Oh, you know we have had quite an advent 
 ure," said Miss Pansy. 
 
 "An adventure? Tell me about it." 
 
 "Why, you must know there is a young man 
 here I am sure must be some one in disguise. He 
 is so well, not exactly handsome, but really dis 
 tinguished looking, and he knows all about rail 
 roads and things like that." 
 
 "You'd better look out for him," said Miss 
 Leigh. 
 
 "Oh, do you think so? My sister and I were 
 thinking of consulting him about our affairs our 
 railroad case, you know." 
 
 206
 
 MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 
 
 "Oh! Well, what do you know about him?" 
 
 "Nothing yet. You see, he has just come; but 
 he joined us on the street this morning when we 
 were going out just shopping and offered to 
 take our bundles just two little bundles we had 
 in our hands, and was so polite. My dear, he has 
 quite the grand air!" 
 
 "Oh, I see. Well, that does not necessarily 
 make him a safe adviser. Why not let me ask 
 my father about your matter? He is a railroad 
 man, and could tell you in a minute all about it." 
 
 "Oh, could you? That would be so kind in 
 you." 
 
 "But you must tell me the name of the road in 
 which you had the stock." 
 
 "Oh, my dear. I don't know that I can do 
 that. I only know that it was the Transcon 
 tinental and something and something else. I 
 know that much, because it was only about sixty 
 miles long, and we used to say that the name was 
 longer than the road. My father used to say that 
 it would some day be a link in a transcontinental 
 chain that's where it got its name, you know." 
 
 "Well, look out for your prince in disguise," 
 said the girl, smiling as she rose to take her leave. 
 
 That evening at dinner, after Eleanor had given 
 her father an account of her day, with which she 
 
 207
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 always beguiled him, including a description of 
 her visit to the two old ladies, she suddenly asked, 
 " Father, what railroad was it that used to be 
 known as the 'Transcontinental Something and 
 Something'?" 
 
 "The what?" 
 
 "The 'Transcontinental Something and Some 
 thing Else'? It was about sixty miles long and 
 was bought up by some bigger road and reorgan 
 ized." 
 
 "I suppose you mean the 'Transcontinental, 
 Northwestern and Great Iron Range Road.' 
 That about meets the condition you mention. 
 What do you know about it?" 
 
 "Was it reorganized?" 
 
 "Yes; about twenty years ago and again about 
 ten years ago. I never quite understood the last 
 reorganization. Mr. Argand had it done and 
 bought up most of the stock." 
 
 "Was any one squeezed out?" 
 
 "Sure always are in such cases. That is the 
 object of a reorganization partly. Why are you 
 so interested in it?" Mr. Leigh's countenance 
 wore an amused look. 
 
 "I have two friends old ladies who lost 
 
 
 
 everything they had in it." 
 "I guess it wasn't much. What is their name? " 
 208
 
 MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 
 
 "It was all they had. They are named Tipps." 
 
 Mr. Leigh's expression changed from amusement 
 to seriousness. "Tipps Tipps?" he repeated rem- 
 iniscently. "Bassett Tipps? I wonder if they 
 were connected with Bassett Tipps?" 
 
 "They were his daughters that was their 
 father's name. I remember now, Miss Pansy told 
 me once." 
 
 "You don't say so! Why, I used to know 
 Colonel Tipps when he was the big man of this 
 region. He commanded this department before 
 I came out here to live, and the old settlers thought 
 he was as great a man as General Washington. 
 He gave old Argand his start. He built that 
 road, was, in fact, a man of remarkable fore 
 sight, and if he had not been killed Argand was 
 his agent and general factotum They didn't 
 come into the reorganization, I guess?" 
 
 "That's it they did not and now they want 
 to get their interest back." 
 
 "Well, tell them to save their money," said Mr. 
 Leigh. "It's gone they can't get it back." 
 
 "They want you to get it back for them." 
 
 "Me!" exclaimed Mr. Leigh. "They want me 
 to get it back! Oh, ho ho! They'd better go 
 after your Aunt Sophia and Canter." 
 
 "Yes; I told them you would." 
 209
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "You did?" Mr. Leigh's eyes once more lit up 
 with amusement. 
 
 "Yes; you see they were robbed of every cent 
 they had in the world, and they have not a cent 
 left." 
 
 "Oh! no, they were not robbed. Everything 
 was properly done and absolutely regular, as I 
 remember. It must have been. I think there 
 was some sort of claim presented afterward by the 
 Tipps Estate which was turned down. Let me 
 see; McSheen had the claim, and he gave it up 
 that was when? Let me see. He became counsel 
 for your Uncle Argand in what year was it? 
 you were a baby it must have been eighteen 
 years ago." 
 
 "That was nineteen years ago, sir. I am now 
 twenty," said his daughter, sitting up with a very 
 grand air. 
 
 The father's eyes lit up with pride and affection 
 as he gazed at the trim, straight figure and the 
 glowing face. 
 
 "You were just a little baby so big." He 
 measured a space of about two dpan with his 
 hands. "That was your size then, for I know I 
 thought your Uncle Argand might have made me 
 counsel instead of McSheen. But he didn't. 
 And that was McSheen's start." 
 
 210
 
 MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 
 
 "He sold out," said the girl with decision. 
 
 "Oh, no I don't think he would do that. He 
 is a lawyer." 
 
 "Yes, he would. He's a horrid, old, disrepu 
 table rascal. I've always thought it, and now I 
 know it. And I want you to get my old ladies' 
 interest back for them." 
 
 "I can't do that. No one can. It's too long 
 ago. If they ever had a claim it's all barred 
 long ago." 
 
 "It oughtn't to be if it was stolen," persisted 
 his daughter, "and it was." 
 
 211
 
 XV 
 
 THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 
 
 TTAVING decided that Mrs. Kale's did not 
 present the best advantages, I determined 
 to move to more suitable quarters. I chose a 
 boarding-house, partly by accident and partly 
 because it was in a semi-fashionable quarter 
 which I liked, and I paid Mrs. Starling, the land 
 lady, a decisive person, two weeks' board in ad 
 vance, so as to have that long a lease at any rate, 
 and a point from which to take my bearings. I 
 had learned of the place through Kalender, who was 
 deeply enamoured of Miss Starling, a Byzantine- 
 hued young lady, and who regarded the house 
 somewhat as Adam is assumed to have regarded 
 Eden after his banishment. Mrs. Starling was, in 
 this case, the angel of the flaming sword. She 
 had higher ambitions for Miss Starling. 
 
 I had less than forty dollars left, and fifteen of 
 that was borrowed next day by a fellow-boarder 
 named Pushkin, who occupied the big front room 
 adjoining my little back hall-room, and who had 
 "forgotten to draw any money out of bank," he 
 
 212
 
 THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 
 
 said, but would "return it the next day at dinner 
 time," a matter he also forgot. I was particularly 
 struck with him. not because he had a title and was 
 much kotowed to by our landlady and her boarders 
 especially the ladies as because I recalled his 
 name in juxtaposition with Miss Leigh's in the 
 flamboyant account of the ball the night after I 
 arrived. 
 
 I was now ensconced in a little pigeon-hole of 
 an office in a big building near the court-house, 
 where, with a table, two chairs, and a dozen books, 
 I had opened what I called my "law office," with 
 out a client or an acquaintance, but with abun 
 dant hopes. 
 
 I found the old principle on which I had been 
 reared set at naught, and that life in its entirety 
 was a vast struggle based on selfishness. 
 
 I was happy enough at first, and it was well I 
 was. It was a long time before I was happy again. 
 Having in mind Miss Leigh, I wrote and secured a 
 few letters of introduction; but they were from 
 people who did not care anything for me to people 
 who did not care anything about them semi- 
 fashionable folk, mainly known in social circles, 
 and I had no money to throw away on society. 
 One, indeed, a friend of mine had gotten for me 
 from Mr. Poole to a man of high standing both in 
 
 213
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 business and social circles, the president of a 
 manufacturing company, with which, as I learned 
 later, Mr. Poole had formerly some connection. 
 This gentleman's name was Leigh, and I wondered 
 if he were the same person who had been posted 
 by Kalender at the head of my story of the de 
 layed train. I thought of presenting the letter. 
 It, however, was so guarded that I thought it 
 would not do me the least good, and, besides, I 
 did not wish to owe anything to Lilian Poole 's 
 father, for I felt sure his influence had always been 
 against me, and I was still too sore to be willing 
 to accept a favor at his hands. 
 
 It was well I did not present it, for Mr. Poole, 
 with well-considered and characteristic prudence, 
 had written a private letter restricting the former 
 letter to mere social purposes, and had intimated 
 that I had been a failure in my profession and was 
 inclined to speculate. This character he had ob 
 tained, as I subsequently learned, from Peck. 
 
 The new conditions with which I was confronted 
 had a singular effect on me. I was accustomed 
 to a life where every one knew me and I knew, 
 if not every one, at least something good or bad 
 about every one. 
 
 Here I might have committed anything short of 
 murder or suicide without comment, and might 
 
 214
 
 THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 
 
 have committed both without any one outside of 
 the reporters and the police and Dix caring a 
 straw about it. 
 
 I felt peculiarly lonely because I was inclined 
 to be social and preferred to associate with the 
 first man I met on the street to being alone. In 
 fact, I have always accounted it one of my chief 
 blessings that I could find pleasure and entertain 
 ment for a half-hour in the company of any man 
 in the world except a fool or a man of fashion, as 
 the old writers used to speak of them, or as we call 
 them now, members of the smart set. 
 
 The first things that struck me as I stepped out 
 into the thronged streets of the city were the 
 throngs that hurried, hurried, hurried along, like 
 a torrent pouring through a defile, never stopping 
 nor pausing only flowing on, intent on but one 
 thing getting along. Their faces, undistinguished 
 and indistinguishable in the crowd, were not eager 
 but anxious. There was no rest, and no room for 
 rest, more than in the rapids of Niagara. It was 
 the bourgeoisie at flood, strong, turgid, and in 
 mass, ponderant; but inextinguishably common. 
 As I stood among them, yet not of them, I could 
 not but remark how like they were in mass and 
 how not merely all distinction but all individuality 
 perished in the mixing. I recalled a speech that 
 
 215
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 my father had once made. "I prefer country 
 men," he said, "to city men. The latter are as 
 like as their coats. The ready-made-clothing 
 house is a great civilizer, but also a great leveller. 
 Like the common school of which you boast, it 
 may uplift the mass, but it levels it destroys all 
 distinction." 
 
 This came home to me now. 
 
 I had a proof of its truth, and, I may add, of the 
 effect of urban influences not long after I launched 
 on the restless sea of city life. I was passing one 
 day along a street filled with houses, some much 
 finer than others, when my way was blocked by 
 a child's funeral in front of a small but neat house 
 beside one much more pretentious. The white 
 hearse stood at the door and the little white coffin 
 with a few flowers on it was just about to be 
 borne out as I came up. A child's funeral has 
 always appealed to me peculiarly. It seems so 
 sad to have died on the threshold before even 
 opening the door. It appeared to me suddenly 
 to have brought me near to my kind. And I 
 stopped in front of the adjoining house to wait till 
 the sorrowing little cortege had entered the car 
 riage which followed behind the hearse. A num 
 ber of other persons had done the same thing. At 
 this moment, the door of the larger house next 
 
 216
 
 THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 
 
 door opened, and a woman, youngish and well 
 dressed, appeared and stood on her steps waiting 
 for her carriage which stood at some little distance. 
 
 As I was standing near her, I turned and asked 
 her in an undertone : 
 
 "Can you tell me whose funeral this is?" 
 
 "No, I cannot," she said, so sharply that I took 
 a good look at her as she stood trying to button a 
 tight glove. 
 
 "Oh! I thought, perhaps, you knew as they are 
 your next-door neighbors." 
 
 "Well, I do not. It's no concern of mine," she 
 said shortly. She beckoned to her carriage across 
 the way. The coachman who had been looking at 
 the funeral caught sight of her and with a start 
 wheeled his horses around to draw up. The num 
 ber of persons, however, who had stopped like 
 myself prevented his coming up to her door, which 
 appeared to annoy the lady. 
 
 "Can't you move these people on?" she de 
 manded angrily of a stout officer who stood like 
 the rest of us, looking on. 
 
 "It's a funeral," he said briefly. 
 
 "Well, I know it is. I don't expect you to in 
 terfere with that. It's these idlers and curiosity 
 mongers who block the way that I want moved to 
 clear a way for my carriage. And if you can't do 
 
 217
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 it, I'll ask Mr. McSheen to put a man on this beat 
 who can. As it happens I am going there now." 
 Insolence could go no farther. 
 
 "Let that carriage come up here, will you?" 
 said the officer without changing his expression. 
 "Drive up, lad," he beckoned to the coachman 
 who came as near as he could. 
 
 "To Mrs. McSheen's," said the lady in a voice 
 evidently intended for the officer to hear, "and 
 next time don't stand across the street staring at 
 what you have no business with, but keep your 
 eyes open so that you won't keep me waiting half 
 an hour beckoning to you." She entered the 
 carriage and drove off, making a new attack on 
 her glove to close it over a pudgy wrist. I 
 glanced at the coachman as she closed the door 
 and I saw an angry gleam flash in his eye. And 
 when I turned to the officer he was following the 
 carriage with a look of hate. I suddenly felt 
 drawn to them both, and the old fight between the 
 People and the Bourgeoisie suddenly took shape 
 before me, and I found where my sympathies lay. 
 At this moment the officer turned and I caught 
 his eye and held it. It was hard and angry at 
 first, but as he gave me a keen second glance, he 
 saw something in my face and his eye softened. 
 
 "Who is Mr. McSheen?" I asked. 
 218
 
 THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 
 
 "The next mayor," he said briefly. 
 
 "Oh!" I took out my card under an impulse 
 and scribbled my office address on it and handed 
 it to him. "If you have any trouble about this 
 let me know." 
 
 He took it and turning it slowly gazed at it, at 
 first with a puzzled look. Then as he saw the 
 address his expression changed. 
 
 He opened his coat and put it carefully in his 
 pocket. 
 
 "Thank you, sir," he said finally. 
 
 I turned away with the consciousness that I 
 had had a new light thrown on life, and had found 
 it more selfish than I had dreamed. I had begun 
 with high hopes. It was, indeed, ever my nature 
 to be hopeful, being healthy and strong and in 
 the prime of vigorous youth. I was always rich 
 when at my poorest, only my heavy freighted 
 ship had not come in. I knew that though the 
 larder was lean and storms were beating furiously 
 off the coast, somewhere, beating her way against 
 the contrary winds, the argosy was slowly making 
 headway, and some day I should find her moored 
 beside my pier and see her stores unladen at my 
 feet. The stress and storm of the struggle were 
 not unwelcome to me. I was always a good 
 fighter when aroused; but I was lazy and too in- 
 
 219
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 dolent to get aroused. Now, however, I was wide 
 awake. The greatness of the city stirred my 
 pulses. Its blackness and its force aroused my 
 sleeping powers, and as I stepped into the surf and 
 felt the rush of the tides as they swept about and 
 by me, I felt as a fair swimmer might who steps 
 for the first time in a fierce current and feels it 
 clutch his limbs and draw him in. I was not 
 afraid, only awakened and alive to the struggle 
 before me, and my senses thrilled as I plunged 
 and rose to catch my breath and face the vast 
 unknown. Later on I found that the chief dan 
 ger I had not counted on : the benumbing of the 
 senses, the slow process under which spirit, energy, 
 courage, and even hope finally die. 
 
 One who has never had the experience of start 
 ing in a big city alone, without a connection of 
 any kind, cannot conceive what it means: the 
 loneliness utter as in a desert the waiting 
 the terrible waiting being obliged to sit day 
 after day and just wait for business to come, 
 watching your small funds ooze out drop by drop, 
 seeing men pass your door and enter others' 
 offices and never one turn in at yours, till your 
 spirit sinks lower and lower and your heart dies 
 within you. One who has not felt it does not 
 know what it is to be out of work and not able to 
 
 220
 
 THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 
 
 get it. The rich and fat and sleek the safe and 
 secure what know they of want ? Want, not of 
 money, but of work : the only capital of the honest 
 and industrious poor! It is the spectre that 
 ever haunts the poor. It makes the world look 
 as though the whole system of society were out of 
 joint as if all men were in conspiracy against 
 you as if God had forgotten you. I found men 
 in a harder case than mine men in multitude, 
 with wives and children, the babe perishing at 
 the mother's withered breast, the children dying 
 for food, staggering along the streets seeking 
 work in vain, while wealth in a glittering flood 
 poured through the streets in which they per 
 ished. This bitter knowledge I came to learn 
 day after day till I grew almost to hate mankind. 
 The next step is war against society. Not all who 
 wage it hate the men they fight. It is the cause 
 they hate. There I sat day after day, full of 
 hope and eagerness and now that my conceit 
 was somewhat knocked out of me with not only 
 abundant ability, but the stern resolve to transact 
 any business which might be entrusted to me, and 
 just rotted to despair. No wonder men go to the 
 devil, and enlist to fight the whole establishment 
 of organized society. I almost went. When I 
 look back at it now it seems like a miracle that I 
 
 221
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 did not go wholly. Pride saved me. It sur 
 vived long after hope died. Sometimes, I even 
 thought of the pistol I had in my trunk. But I 
 had made up my mind to live and win. There, 
 too, came in Pride. I could not bear to think of 
 Lilian Poole and Peck. How she would con 
 gratulate herself and how Peck would gloat! 
 No, I could not give him that satisfaction. Peck 
 did me a good turn there. A strong enmity, well 
 based, is not always without good results; but 
 Peck should not smear my memory with pre 
 tended pity. So I starved, but held on. When 
 I got so that I could endure it no longer, I used to 
 go out and walk up and down the streets some 
 times the fashionable streets and look at the 
 handsome residences and the fine carriages and 
 automobiles flashing by and the handsomely 
 dressed people passing, and recall that I was as 
 good as they in my heart, I thought, better. 
 Some of them with kind faces I used to fancy my 
 friends; but that they did not know I was in 
 town. This conceit helped me. And at times I 
 used to fancy that I lived in a particular house, 
 and owned a particular team: thus living for a 
 brief moment like a child in "making pictures." 
 A house is sometimes personal and well-nigh 
 human to me. It appears to have qualities al- 
 
 222
 
 THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 
 
 most human and to express them on its face: 
 kindness, hostility, arrogance, breadth or narrow 
 ness, and brutal selfishness are often graven on 
 its front. I have often felt that I could tell from 
 the outside of a house the characteristics of the 
 people within. Arrogance, ignorance, want of 
 tact, pretentiousness and display, spoke from 
 every massy doorway and gaudy decoration with 
 a loudness which would have shocked a savage. 
 This being so, what characters some of the 
 wealthy people of our cities must have! It must 
 be one of the compensations of the poor that the 
 houses of the rich are often so hideous and un- 
 homelike. 
 
 The mansion I selected finally as mine was a 
 light stone mansion, simple in its style, but charm 
 ing in its proportions; not one of the largest, but 
 certainly one of the prettiest in the whole city. 
 Amid a waste of splendid vulgarity it was almost 
 perfect in its harmonious architectural design and 
 lines, and had a sunny, homelike look. It stood 
 in an ample lot with sun and air all around it, 
 and grass and flowers about it. Our fathers used 
 to say, " seated," which has a more established 
 and restful sound. It looked a home of refine 
 ment and ease. Its stable was set back some 
 distance behind and a little to one side, so that I 
 
 223
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 could see that it was of the same stone with the 
 mansion and just enough of the same general 
 style to indicate that it belonged to the mansion, 
 and the teams that came out of it were the nattiest 
 and daintiest in the city. 
 
 One day as I was walking, trying to divert my 
 self from my loneliness, a brougham rolled out of 
 this stable with a pair of airy, prancing bays, 
 shining like satin, and drew up to the carriage- 
 block a little before me, and a young lady came out 
 of the house as I passed by. My heart gave a 
 leap, for it was the girl I had seen on the train. 
 I took her in, rather than scanned her as she 
 tripped down the stone steps, and she glanced at 
 me for a second as if she thought I might be an 
 acquaintance. She made as she stood there one 
 of the loveliest pictures I had ever laid eyes on: 
 her trim, slim figure, exquisitely dressed, in the 
 quietest way; soft, living brown hair, brushed 
 back from a white, broad forehead; beautiful, 
 speaking eyes under nearly straight brows; and 
 a mouth neither too big for beauty nor too 
 small for character; all set off by a big black 
 hat with rich plumes that made a background for 
 what I thought the loveliest face I had ever seen. 
 
 Something pleasant had evidently just hap 
 pened within ; for she came out of the door smiling, 
 
 224
 
 THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 
 
 and I observed at the same moment her eyes and 
 her dimples. I wondered that people did not 
 always smile: that smile suddenly lit up every 
 thing for me. I forgot my loneliness, my want 
 of success, myself. Her hands were full of parcels 
 as she came down the steps, and just as I passed 
 the wind lifted the paper from one a bunch of 
 flowers, and in trying to recover it she dropped 
 another and it rolled down to my feet. I picked 
 it up and handed it to her. It was a ball, one of 
 those big, squashy, rubber balls with painted 
 rings around it, that are given to small children 
 because they cannot do anything with them. She 
 thanked me sweetly and was turning to her car 
 riage, when, under a sudden impulse, I stepped to 
 the door, just as I should have done at home, and, 
 lifting my hat, said, "I beg your pardon, but 
 mayn't I open your door for you?" 
 
 She bowed, looking, perhaps, just the least 
 shade surprised. But, having handed her in, I 
 was afraid of embarrassing her, and was backing 
 away and passing on when she thanked me again 
 very graciously. Again I lifted my hat and again 
 got a look into her deep eyes. As the carriage 
 rolled off, she was leaning back in it, and I felt 
 her eyes upon me from under the shade of that 
 big hat with a pleasant look, but I had assumed 
 
 225
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 an unconscious air, and even stopped and picked 
 up, as though carelessly, a couple of violets she 
 had dropped as she crossed the sidewalk; and 
 after a sniff of their fragrance, dropped them into 
 my pocket-book, because they reminded me of the 
 past and because I hated to see them lie on the 
 hard pavement to be crushed by passing feet. 
 The book was empty enough otherwise, but some 
 how I did not mind it so much after the violets 
 were there. 
 
 "Who lives in that house?" I asked of an 
 officer. 
 
 "Mr. Leigh, the banker and big west-side street 
 car man runs all the lines out that way all the 
 Argand Estate don't run," he added. He waved 
 his arm to include a circle that might take in half 
 the town or half the world. "The big house 
 in the middle of the block is Mrs. Argand's 
 the great philanthropist, you know. Everybody 
 knows her." I did not, but I did not care; I 
 knew all I wanted to know I knew who Miss 
 Leigh was. I reflected with some concern that 
 this was the name of the vice-president of the 
 railway whom I had attacked through Kalender 
 and of the man to whom Mr. Poole's perfunctory 
 letter was addressed. I went back to my office 
 in better spirits, and, having no brief to work on, 
 
 226
 
 THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 
 
 even wrote a poem about the violets about her 
 leaving a track of violets behind her. 
 
 I was drawn to that street a number of times 
 afterward, but I saw her no more. 
 
 I don't believe that love often comes at first 
 sight; but that it may come thus, or at least, at 
 second sight, I have my own case to prove. It 
 may be that my empty heart, bruised and lonely 
 in that great city, was waiting with open door for 
 any guest bold enough to walk in and claim posses 
 sion. It may be that that young lady with her" 
 pleasant smile, her high-bred face and kindly air, 
 crossing my path in that stranger-thronged wil 
 derness, was led by Providence; it may be that 
 her grace and charm were those I had pictured 
 long in the Heavenward dreams of youth and but 
 now found. However it was, I went home in love 
 with an ideal whose outward semblance was the 
 girl with the children's toys truly in love with 
 her. And the vision of Lilian Poole never came 
 to me again in any guise that could discomfort 
 me. From this time the vision that haunted me 
 and led me on was of a sweet-eyed girl who dim 
 pled as she smiled, and dropped her violets. The 
 picture of Lilian Poole, standing by the marble 
 mantel in her plush-upholstered parlor, adjusting 
 her bracelet so as to set off her not too small wrist, 
 
 227
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 while I faced my fate, flitted before my mind, but 
 she was a ghost to me, and my heart warmed as 
 I thought of the lady of the violets and the chil 
 dren's toys. 
 
 228
 
 XVI 
 
 THE SHADOW OF SHAM 
 
 T SOON changed back to my first boarding- 
 house. After my two weeks were out for 
 which I had prepaid, I went to my landlady, Mrs. 
 Starling, a tall, thin woman with high cheek 
 bones, a cold eye, and a close mouth, and told her 
 frankly I could not pay any more in advance, and 
 that, though I would certainly pay her within a 
 short time, it might not be convenient for me to 
 pay her by the week, and I left it with her whether 
 she would keep me on these terms. She did not 
 hesitate a second. Her first duty was to herself 
 and family, she said, by which she meant her 
 daughter, "Miss Starling," as she always spoke of 
 her, but whom the irreverent portion of the board 
 ers whom I associated with always spoke of as 
 "Birdy," a young woman who dressed much in 
 yellow, perhaps because it matched her blon- 
 dined hair, played vehemently on the piano, and 
 entertained the young men who boarded there. 
 "Besides," she "wanted the room for a dressing- 
 
 229
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 room for a gentleman who wished a whole 
 suite," she added, with what I thought a little 
 undue stress on the word "gentleman," as the 
 "gentleman" in question was the person who had 
 borrowed my money from me and never returned 
 it: Count Pushkin, who occupied the big room 
 next my little one. He had, as I learned, cut 
 quite a dash in town for a while, living at one of 
 the most fashionable hotels, and driving a cart 
 and tandem, and paying assiduous attention to a 
 young heiress in the city, daughter of a manufac 
 turer and street-car magnate ; but latterly he had 
 taken a room at Mrs. Starling's, "in order," he 
 gave out, "that he might be quiet for a time," as 
 a duke or duchess or something I am not sure 
 he did not say a king who was his relative, had 
 died in Europe. He had taken the greater part 
 of the boarding-house by storm, for he was a tall, 
 showy-looking fellow, and would have been hand 
 some but for a hard and shifty eye. And I found 
 myself in a pitiful minority in my aversion to him, 
 which, however, after a while, gained some re 
 cruits among the young men, one of them, my 
 young reporter, Kalender, who had moved there 
 from Mrs. Kale's. 
 
 The boarding-house keeper's daughter was 
 desperately in love with Pushkin, and, with her 
 
 230
 
 THE SHADOW OF SHAM 
 
 mother's able assistance, was making a dead set 
 for him, which partiality the count was using for 
 what it was worth, hardly attempting meantime 
 to disguise his amusement at them. He sang 
 enough to be passable, though his voice was, like 
 his eye, hard and cold; and he used to sing duets 
 with Miss Starling : the method by which, accord 
 ing to a vivacious young Jew, named Isadore 
 Ringarten, who lived in the house, he paid his 
 board. I never knew how he acquired his infor 
 mation, but he was positive. 
 
 "I vish," said Isadore, "I could pay my board 
 in vind vith a little song. Now, I can sing so 
 the count he would give me all he is vorth to sing 
 so like I sing; but I am not a count efen on this 
 side." 
 
 However this was, Pushkin paid the girl enough 
 attention to turn the poor thing's head, and made 
 her treat harshly my reporter, Kalender, who was 
 deeply in love with her, and spent all his salary on 
 her for flowers, and lavished theatre tickets on her. 
 
 The evening before I left I had to call Pushkin 
 down, who had been drinking a little, and I must 
 say, when I called, he came promptly. It was 
 after dinner in "the smoking-room," as the apart 
 ment was called, and he began to ridicule poor 
 Victoria cruelly, saying she had told him her hair 
 
 231
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 was yellow like that of the girls of his own coun 
 try, and he had told her, no, that hers was 
 natural, while theirs was always dyed, and she 
 swallowed it. 
 
 "She is in loaf mit me. She swallow whatefer 
 I gif her " he laughed. The others laughed, 
 too. But I did not. I thought of Lilian Poole 
 and Peck. Perhaps I was thinking of my money, 
 and I know I thought of the account of the ball 
 which took place the day I arrived. I told him 
 what I thought of his ridiculing a girl he flattered 
 so to her face. He turned on me, his eyes snap 
 ping, his face flushed, but his manner cool and his 
 voice level. 
 
 "Ha, ah! Are you in loaf mit her, too, like 
 poor Kalender, who spent all hees moneys on her, 
 and what she laugh at to make me amused? I 
 gif her to you, den. I too not want her I haf 
 had her, you can take her." 
 
 He made a gesture as if tossing something con 
 temptuously into my arms, and put his cigarette 
 back in his teeth and drew a long breath. There 
 were none but men present, and some of them had 
 stopped laughing and were looking grave. 
 
 "No, I am not in love with her," I said quietly, 
 standing up. "I only will not allow you to speak 
 so of any lady in my presence that is all." I 
 
 232
 
 THE SHADOW OF SHAM 
 
 was thinking of a girl who lived in a sunny house, 
 and had once taken a lot of little dirty-faced chil 
 dren to feed them, and once had smiled into my 
 eyes. I only knew her name, but her violets were 
 in my pocket near my heart. I was perfectly 
 calm in my manner and my face had whitened, 
 and he mistook it, for he blurted out: 
 
 "Oh! I vill nod? I vill nod speaks hi your 
 presence? You vill gif me one little lesson? You 
 who know te vorl so veil. I tank you, Millot!" 
 
 He bowed low before me, spreading out his 
 arms, and some of the others tittered. It en 
 couraged him and he straightened up and stepped 
 in front of me. 
 
 "I vill tell you vat I vill does," he proceeded. "I 
 vill say vat I tarn please before you about any 
 bodies." He paused and cast about for something 
 which would prove his boast. "Tere is nod a 
 woman in tis town or in America, py tarn! that 
 vill nod gif herself to fon title to me if I hax her, 
 and say, 'tank you, Count.' Ha, ah?" He bent 
 his body forward and stuck his face almost into 
 mine with a gesture as insulting as he could make 
 it, and as I stepped back a pace to get a firm stand, 
 he stuck out his tongue and wagged his head in 
 derision. The next second he had turned almost 
 a somersault. I had taken boxing lessons since 
 
 233
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 Wolffert thrashed me. I saw the bottom of his 
 boots. He was at precisely the right distance for 
 me and I caught him fairly in the mouth. His 
 head struck the floor and he lay so still that for a 
 few moments I thought I had killed him. But 
 after a little he came to and began to rise. 
 
 "Get up," I said, "and apologize to these gen 
 tlemen and to me." I caught him and dragged 
 him to his feet and faced him around. 
 
 "You haf insulted me. I vill see about tis," 
 he spluttered, turning away. But I caught him 
 with a grip on his shoulder and steadied him. 
 The others were all on my side now; but I did 
 not see them, I saw only him. 
 
 "Apologize, or I will fling you out of the win 
 dow." He apologized. 
 
 The affair passed. The count explained his 
 bruises by some story that he had been run down 
 by a bicycle, to which I learned he afterward 
 added a little fiction about having stopped a run 
 away and having saved some one. But I had 
 left before this little touch occurred to him. Mrs. 
 Starling must have had some idea of the collision, 
 though not of the original cause ; for she was very 
 decided in the expression of her wishes to have 
 possession of "the dressing-room" that night for 
 the "gentleman," and I yielded possession. 
 
 234
 
 THE SHADOW OF SHAM 
 
 The curious thing about it was that one reason 
 I could not pay Mrs. Starling again in advance 
 was that he still had my money which he had 
 borrowed the day after I had arrived. 
 
 From Mrs. Starling's I went back to my old 
 boarding-house, kept by Mrs. Kale, as a much 
 cheaper one, in a much poorer neighborhood, where 
 I was not asked to pay in advance, but paid at the 
 end of the month by pawning my scarf-pins and 
 shirt studs, and gradually everything else I had. 
 
 I was brought up to go to church, my people 
 having all been earnest Christians and devoted 
 church people ; but in my college years I had gone 
 through the usual conceited phase of callow agnos 
 ticism; and partly from this intellectual juvenile 
 disease and partly from self-indulgence, I had al 
 lowed the habit to drop into desuetude, and later, 
 during my first years at the bar, I had been gradu 
 ally dropping it altogether. My conscience, how 
 ever, was never quite easy about it. My mother 
 used to say that the promise as to training up a 
 child in the way he should go was not to be ful 
 filled in youth but in age, and as my years ad 
 vanced, I began to find that the training of child 
 hood counted for more and more. Lilian Poole, 
 however, had no more religion than a cat. She 
 wished to be comfortable and to follow the general 
 
 235
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 habit of the feline class to which she belonged. 
 She went to the Episcopal Church because it was 
 fashionable, and whenever she had half an excuse 
 she stayed away from church unless it were on a 
 new-bonnet Sunday, like Easter or some such an 
 occasion, when she made up by the lowness of her 
 genuflections and the apparent devoutness of her 
 demeanor for all omissions. I must confess that I 
 was very easily influenced by her at that time, and 
 was quite as ready to absent myself from church 
 as she was, though I should have had a much 
 deeper feeling for her if she had not violated what 
 I esteemed a canon of life, that women, at least, 
 should profess religion, and if she had not pre 
 tended to have questionings herself as to mat 
 ters as far beyond her intellect as the Copernican 
 system or Kepler's laws. I remember quoting to 
 her once Dr. Johnson's reply to Boswell, when the 
 latter asked if Poole, the actor, were not an atheist : 
 "Yes, sir, as a dog is an atheist; he has not 
 thought on the matter at all." 
 
 "Dr. Samuel Johnson?" she asked. "You 
 mean the one who wrote the Dictionary?" and I 
 saw that she was so pleased with her literary 
 knowledge hi knowing his name that she never 
 gave a thought to the matter that we were dis 
 cussing, so let it drop. 
 
 236
 
 THE SHADOW OF SHAM 
 
 As David said, that in his trouble he called upon 
 the Lord, so now, in my solitude and poverty, I 
 began once more to think on serious things, and 
 when Sunday came I would dress up and go to 
 church, partly in obedience to the feeling I speak 
 of, and partly to be associated with people well 
 dressed and good mannered, or passably so. The 
 church I selected was a large stone edifice, St. 
 
 's, with a gilded cross on its somewhat 
 
 stumpy spire, toward which I saw a richly clad 
 congregation wending their way Sunday morning. 
 
 The rector, as was stated in gilded letters on a 
 large sign, was the Rev. Dr. Bartholomew Capon. 
 I cannot say that the congregation were especially 
 refined looking or particularly cordial; in fact, 
 they were very far from cordial, and the solemn 
 verger to whom I spoke, after turning a deaf ear 
 to my request for a seat, took occasion, as soon as 
 he had bowed and scraped a richly dressed, stout 
 lady up the aisle, to look me over on the sly, not 
 omitting my shoes, before he allowed me to take 
 a seat in one of the rear pews. 
 
 The preacher "The Rector," as he spoke of 
 himself in the notices, when he occasionally waived 
 the rather frequent first personal pronoun was a 
 middle-aged gentleman with a florid complexion, 
 a sonorous voice, a comfortable round person, 
 
 237
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 and fair hands of which he was far from ashamed; 
 for he had what, but for my reverence for the 
 cloth, I should call a trick of using his hand with 
 a voluminous, fine cambric handkerchief held 
 loosely in it. His face was self-contained rather 
 than strong, and handsome rather than pleasing. 
 He was so good-looking that it set me on reflecting 
 what relation looks bear to the rectorship of large 
 and fashionable churches; for, as I recalled it, 
 nearly all the rectors of such churches were men of 
 looks, and it came to me that when Sir Roger de 
 Coverley requested his old college friend to send 
 him down a chaplain, he desired him to find out a 
 man rather of plain sense than much learning, of 
 a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable temper, and, 
 if possible, a man who knew something of back 
 gammon. His sermon was altogether a second 
 ary consideration, for he could always read one of 
 the Bishop of St. Asaph's or Dr. South's or Dr. 
 Tillotson's. Possibly, it is something of the same 
 feeling that subordinates the sermons to the looks 
 of rectors of fashionable churches. However, I 
 did not have long to reflect on that idea, for my 
 thoughts were given a new and permanently differ 
 ent, not to say pleasanter, direction, by the sudden 
 appearance of a trim figure, clad in a gray suit 
 and large gray hat, which, as it moved up the 
 
 238
 
 THE SHADOW OF SHAM 
 
 aisle, quite eclipsed for me "the priest and all the 
 people." I was struck, first, by the easy grace 
 with which the young girl moved. But, before 
 she had turned into her pew and I caught sight of 
 her face under the large hat which had hidden it, 
 I knew it was my young lady, Miss Leigh, whom 
 I had helped up on the train and afterward into 
 her carriage. It is not too much to say that the 
 Rev. Dr. Capon secured that moment a new per 
 manent member of his congregation. Before the 
 service was over, however, I had been solemnized 
 by her simple and unaffected devoutness, and 
 when, in one of the chants, I caught a clear liquid 
 note perfectly sweet and birdlike, I felt as though 
 I had made a new and charming discovery. 
 
 The rector gave a number of notices from which 
 I felt the church must be one of the great forces 
 of the city for work among the poor, yet, when I 
 glanced around, I could not see a poor person in 
 the pews except myself and two old ladies in 
 rusty black, who had been seated near the door. 
 I was struck by the interest shown in the notices 
 by my young lady of the large hat, from whose 
 shapely little head with its well-coiled brown hair 
 my eyes did not long stray. 
 
 "I have," he said, "in addition to the notable 
 work already mentioned, carried on, through my 
 
 239
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 assistant in charge, the work of St. Andrew's 
 chapel with gratifying success. This work has 
 reached, and I am glad to be able to say, is reach 
 ing more than ever before, the great ignorant 
 class that swarms hi our midst, and exhibits a 
 tendency to unrest that is most disturbing. This 
 is the class which causes most of the uneasiness 
 felt in the minds of the thoughtful." 
 
 I observed that he did not mention the name 
 of "the assistant in charge," and my sympathy 
 rather went out to the nameless priest, doing 
 his work without the reward of even being men 
 tioned. 
 
 As to the sermon, I can only say that it was 
 twenty minutes long, and appeared aimed ex 
 clusively at the sins of Esau (whom I had al 
 ways esteemed a quite decent sort of fellow), 
 rather than at those of the doctor's congregation, 
 whom he appeared to have a higher opinion of 
 than of the Patriarchs. I recall the text: "Seek 
 ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things 
 shall be added unto you." He made it very 
 plain that to be pious and prudent was the best 
 way to secure wealth. He held up a worldly 
 motive and guaranteed a worldly reward. Such 
 a sermon as that would have eased the most un 
 easy conscience in Christendom. 
 
 240
 
 THE SHADOW OF SHAM 
 
 When the congregation came out I dawdled in 
 the aisle until my young lady passed, when I 
 feasted my eyes on her face and finely curved 
 cheek, straight nose, and soft eyes veiled under 
 their long lashes. My two old ladies in black were 
 waiting in the end of a pew and, as I observed by 
 their smiles when she approached, waiting like 
 myself to see her. I had already recognized 
 them as the old ladies of the bundles, whom I had 
 once helped on the street. How I envied them 
 the smile and cordial greeting they received in 
 return! I made the observation then, which I 
 have often had confirmed since, that tenderness 
 to the aged, like that to the very young, is the 
 mark of a gentle nature. 
 
 I heard them say, "We know who has done the 
 work out at the chapel," and she replied, "Oh! 
 no, you must not think that. My poor work has 
 been nothing. Your friend has done it all, and I 
 think that the doctor ought to have said so," to 
 which they assented warmly, and I did the same, 
 though I did not know their friend's name. 
 
 As I had nowhere to go in particular, I strolled 
 slowly up the street, and then walked back again. 
 And as I neared the church, I met the rector who 
 had just left his robing-room. He was a fine- 
 looking man on the street as well as in the chancel, 
 
 241
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 and I was prompted to speak to him, and say 
 that I had just heard him preach. He was, how 
 ever, too impatient at my accosting him and so 
 manifestly suspicious that I quickly regretted my 
 impulse. His "Well, what is it?" was so prompt 
 on his lips and his suspicion of me was so clear in 
 his cold bluish eyes, that I drew myself up and 
 replied: "Oh! nothing. I was only going to say 
 that I had just heard you preach that's all." 
 
 "Oh! Ah! Well, I'm much obliged. I'm 
 very glad if I've helped you." He pulled out his 
 watch. 
 
 "Helped me! You haven't," I said dryly and 
 turned away. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, as I strolled along 
 the street lonely and forlorn, I saw him hurrying 
 up the steps of the large house which had been 
 pointed out to me as Mrs. Argand's, the great 
 philanthropist. 
 
 242
 
 XVII 
 
 THE GULP 
 
 A S I saw more of the city, its vastness, its 
 ** might, and its inhumanity grew on me. It 
 was a world in itself, a world constructed on lines 
 as different from that in which I had lived as if 
 smaller cities I had known as if it had been Baby- 
 it had been Mars; a city as different from the 
 Ion or Nineveh. The contrasts were as great as 
 they could have been in the capitals Sardana- 
 palus built. Structures so vast that they must 
 have dwarfed the towers of Sardis so rich and 
 splendid that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon 
 must have been outshone reared their stupen 
 dous bulk into the smoky air and cast into per 
 petual shade all that lay near them. Hard 
 beside their towering mass lay a region filled with 
 the wretched tenements of the poor, and a little 
 further off the houses of the well-to-do. And 
 there was not a greater contrast between the 
 vastness of the one and the pitiful squalor of 
 the other than between the life of the owners 
 
 243
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 of the former and that of the denizens of the 
 closely packed tenements which dwindled in their 
 shadow. Splendor and squalor were divided 
 often only by a brick wall. The roar of the tide 
 that swept through the teeming streets drowned 
 the cry of wretchedness, and only the wretched 
 knew how loud it was. I had never seen such 
 wealth, and I had never dreamed of such poverty. 
 
 The vulgar make the parade; the refined pass 
 so quietly as scarcely to be observed. The vul 
 garity of the display of riches began to oppress 
 me. I discovered later the great store of refine 
 ment, goodness, and sweetness that was hidden in 
 the homes alike of an element of the wealthy, the 
 merely well-to-do, and the poor. But for a time 
 it was all eclipsed by the glare of the vulgar and 
 irresponsible rich. Arrogance, discontent, hard 
 ness, vulgarity, were stamped in many faces, and 
 spoke in every movement of many of those I saw, 
 even of the most richly dressed. 
 
 I think it was more the vulgarity and insolence 
 of those I saw decked in the regalia of wealth than 
 anything else than even my own poverty that 
 changed my views and turned me for a time from 
 my easy indifference as to social conditions tow 
 ard a recognition that those conditions are ridicu 
 lously antiquated, a bent I have never quite 
 
 244
 
 THE GULF 
 
 got over, though I was later drawn back to a 
 more conservative point of view than, under the 
 hatred of sham and the spur of want, I was driven 
 to occupy for some time. They have no tradi 
 tions and no ideals. They know no standard but 
 wealth, and possess no ability to display it but 
 through parade. They feel it necessary to prove 
 their novel position by continual assertion. 
 They think that wealth has exempted them from 
 decency. They mistake civility for servility and 
 rudeness for gentility. Their best effort is only 
 a counterfeit, a poor imitation of what they 
 imagine to be the manners of the upper class 
 abroad whose indifferent manners they ape. 
 
 "Misery loves company," and when I wanted 
 comfort I left the section of splendor and display, 
 of riotous extravagance and glittering wealth, 
 and went to those poorer than myself; a practice 
 I can commend from experience. 
 
 When J got so desperate that I could not stand 
 it any longer, and was afraid I might fall down 
 dead or do myself violence, I used to turn my steps 
 in another direction and walk through the poorer 
 part of the city not the worst part where there 
 was nothing but dirt and squalor and filth: that 
 sickened me, and I had never had much sym 
 pathy with the class that lived there. They al- 
 
 245
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 ways appeared contented enough with their sur 
 roundings and rather to enjoy themselves in 
 their own way. And not the successful work 
 man's quarter. There was an assurance and 
 assumption there that offended me. The assump 
 tion bred of sudden success, no matter in what 
 class, is everywhere equally vulgar after its kind. 
 It was the part of the city where the people were 
 respectable, but where they could just hold on 
 with all their struggling and striving, that I used 
 to go into; the part where there were patches, not 
 rags; and sometimes an effort to keep down the 
 dirt, and where a bit of a plant in a little pot or a 
 little cheap ornament in a window told of the 
 spark of sentiment that could yet live amid the 
 poverty and hardness about it. They always 
 place them in the windows, partly, no doubt, to 
 get the light, and partly, perhaps, to show passers- 
 by that there is something within better than 
 might be looked for next door. These people on 
 their holidays always make toward the open 
 country; they try to get away from their robuster, 
 more successful brothers, and get back near to 
 Nature the old mother that cares nothing for 
 success; and repays only according to the love 
 her children bear her. Here I often walked as I 
 grew more wretched. 
 
 246
 
 THE GULF 
 
 In this section I used to see people with whom 
 I felt in touch: a man with the badgered look in 
 his eye that made me know that he was at bay; 
 or a woman with that resigned air which hopeless 
 struggling stamps in the face and binds on the 
 shoulders. These drew me nearer to my kind, 
 and made me feel that there were others in a 
 harder case than I, and gave me a desire to help 
 them. I came to know some of them by sight 
 and the houses in which they lived, and some 
 times I spoke to them and exchanged a word or 
 two, and the effort to take a cheerful view with 
 them helped me, and sent me back to my little 
 lonely cubby-hole cheered and in some sort com 
 forted and resolute to hold out a little longer. 
 But it was hungry work. 
 
 This element composed the great body of the 
 population, but deep down below them lay a yet 
 lower element weltering in an infinite and hope 
 less misery to which even the poor class I speak 
 of were alien. They were generically spoken of 
 at times as the criminal classes. They were not 
 this at all, though among them were many 
 criminals driven to crime by necessity because 
 there was no means for them to subsist, no pos 
 sible means nor hope outside of their casual and 
 occasional violation of the statute law by which 
 
 247
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 they secure enough for empty bellies and freezing 
 bodies merely to keep alive. They live among 
 and on the poor, and one of the bitterest trials of 
 poverty is the continual presence and preying of 
 these parasites who like other vermin pursue 
 them and cannot be kept off. Their only com 
 mon crime is desperate, infinite poverty poverty 
 beyond hope, for they have nothing not work, 
 nor the hope of work not even the power to 
 work, if it should be offered them. As the well- 
 to-do look with anxiety to the loss of their prop 
 erty and the consequent sinking to some lower 
 plane of moderate poverty, so the poor look with 
 shuddering or, at last, with despair to sinking into 
 the slough of this hopeless state for which there is 
 no name, because none has been devised adequate 
 to describe its desperate misery. Often but a block 
 or even but a wall divides the reeking slum where 
 they creep and fester and rot, from the broad, 
 well-lighted, smooth-paved avenue where irre 
 sponsible wealth goes clattering by in its wild 
 orgy of extravagance and reckless mirth. The 
 eye of the mangy and starving wolf from his 
 thicket gleams dully at the glittering pageant of 
 heartless irresponsibility and waste. Should the 
 pack ever find a leader bold enough to spring, 
 what will be the end? 
 
 248
 
 THE GULF 
 
 At present they are hungry enough, but they 
 have not organized; they are not yet a hunting 
 pack, but only scattered bands, slinking about 
 hungrily, fighting and preying on each other, the 
 larger bands with the bolder leaders driving off 
 the weaker and unorganized. But let them all 
 organize once and the end will not be yet. 
 
 Day after day I saw my last few dollars leak 
 away, and, though I replenished my thin purse 
 at times by pawning everything pawnable I had, 
 yet this, too, gradually oozed away. Fortunately 
 I had plenty of clothes, which I had bought in 
 my flush days, so I could still make a respectable 
 appearance. 
 
 As money got low all sorts of schemes used to 
 present themselves to me to replenish my pocket. 
 One was to go out as a laborer on the streets, 
 clean bricks, or do anything. I was not lazy. 
 I would have walked around the world for a case. 
 I do not think I was ashamed of it, for I knew it 
 was respectable, but I was afraid some one I 
 knew might pass by; I was afraid that Pushkin 
 or Mrs. Starling might see me, and yes, that that 
 young girl from the colonial house might recog 
 nize me. I had often thought of her violets since 
 I had dropped them into my pocket-book. And 
 now, when this idea came to me, I took them out 
 
 249
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 and looked at them. They still retained a faint 
 fragrance. What would be the result if she 
 should pass by and see me cleaning bricks me a 
 laborer, and Pushkin the thoughts came to 
 gether should see me? I would win on my own 
 line if it took me all my life. 
 
 The idea of Pushkin suggested another plan. 
 Why not gamble? Gambling was gentlemanly 
 at least, gentlemen gambled. But did they play 
 for a living? I had gambled a little myself in the 
 past; played poker, and, like most men, prided 
 myself on my game, though I generally lost in the 
 long run ; and when I was making good resolutions 
 after my failure, I had made up my mind never to 
 play again anywhere. And I had always held 
 to the opinion that, as soon as a man played for 
 his living, he crossed the line and ceased to be a 
 gentleman. Now, however, it began to appear 
 to me as if this were the only plan by which I 
 could make anything, and as if I should have a 
 good excuse for breaking my resolution. I re 
 sisted the temptation for some time; but one 
 night, when I had pawned nearly everything and 
 had only three or four dollars left, I went out, and 
 after a long but half-hearted battle gave up, as 
 such are always lost, and turned into a street 
 across an alley from my office where I knew there 
 
 250
 
 THE GULF 
 
 was a gambling place over a saloon kept by one 
 Mick Raffity. I went boldly up the stairs. Even 
 as I mounted them I felt a sort of exhilaration. I 
 stopped at the door and my old resolution not to 
 play again stirred and struggled a little. I caught 
 it, however, with a sort of grip almost physical, 
 and gave it a shake till it was quiet. I knew I 
 should win. The blaze of light within cheered 
 me, and, without hesitating an instant, I walked 
 across the room to where a crowd stood watching 
 the play of some one seated at a table. It was 
 a large and richly decorated room, with a few 
 rather daring pictures on the walls and much 
 gilding about the ceiling. The hot air, heavy with 
 tobacco smoke and fumes of one kind and another, 
 met me in a blast as I entered, and involuntarily 
 I thought of a sweat-shop I had once seen in my 
 earlier days. But the sensation passed and left 
 me warm and exhilarated. As I passed along, a 
 man looked at me and half nodded. I knew he 
 was the proprietor. I made my way in and 
 caught the dealer's expressionless eye, and taking 
 out a note as carelessly as if my pockets were 
 stuffed with them, I glanced over the board to 
 select my bet. At one end of the table sat the 
 large, heavy-browed middle-aged man I had run 
 into one night on the stairway leading from the 
 
 251
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 alley to the building where I had my office. He 
 was somewhat tipsy and evidently in bad luck, 
 for he was heated and was betting wildly. Near 
 by sat a big, sour-looking fellow, flashily dressed, 
 whom I recognized as having been one of my 
 fellow-travellers on the side-tracked train, the one 
 who had talked to the trainmen of their wrongs. 
 He still wore his paste diamonds, his silk hat, and 
 patent-leather shoes. But I took little notice of 
 these. Casually, as I dropped my note, my eye 
 fell on the player at the middle of the table. He 
 was surrounded by stacks of chips. As I looked 
 he raked in a new pile ; at least a hundred dollars, 
 and he never changed a particle. He was calmer 
 than the dealer before him. He was in evening 
 dress and success had given him quite an air. I 
 caught up my note without knowing it and fell 
 back behind a group of young men who had just 
 come up. Curious things happen sometimes. I 
 found my note doubled up in my hand when I got 
 out of doors, a quarter of an hour later. All I 
 remember is my revulsion at seeing that gambler 
 sitting there raking in money so calmly, with my 
 money for his stake in his pocket, and I turned 
 out for him : an adventurer who said all American 
 women were at his bidding. It recalled to me the 
 girl I had seen on the train and had handed, later, 
 
 252
 
 THE GULF 
 
 into her carriage, and the good resolutions I had 
 formed. And it strung me up like wine. I felt 
 that I was a coward to have come there and as 
 bad as Pushkin. 
 
 Just as I turned to leave the place a party of 
 young fellows entered the room. They had come 
 from a dinner at Mr. Leigh's, as I understood from 
 their talk, and were "going on" to a dance unless 
 the luck should run to suit them. They were in 
 high spirits, "Mr. Leigh's champagne" having 
 done its work, and they were evidently habitue's 
 of the place, and good patrons, I judged, from the 
 obsequious respect paid them by the attendants. 
 The leader of them was a large, rather good-looking 
 young fellow, but with marks of dissipation on a 
 face without a line of refinement in it. The others 
 all seemed to be his followers. They greeted 
 familiarly and by name the eager attendants who 
 rushed forward to take their coats, and the leader 
 asked them casually who was in to-night. 
 
 "The count's here, I think, sir," said one 
 whom they called Billy. 
 
 "The count! Coll McSheen's staked him again," 
 said the young leader. "And he swore to me he'd 
 never let him have another cent, with oaths 
 enough to damn him deeper than he will be 
 damned anyhow. Come on, I'll skin him clean." 
 
 253
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 I lingered for a moment to see him "skin" 
 Pushkin. 
 
 They sauntered up to the table and, after a 
 greeting to the count, began to toss bills on the 
 board as though they grew on trees. The least 
 of them would have kept me going for months. 
 I had never seen money handled so before and it 
 staggered me. 
 
 "Who is that young man?" I asked of a man 
 near me, nodding toward the leader. "He must 
 be pretty rich." 
 
 "Rich! You bet. He's Jim Canter. Got all his 
 daddy's money and going to get all the Argand 
 and Leigh piles some day. He'll need it, too," 
 added my informant. 
 
 "I should think so." I recalled his name in 
 connection with Miss Leigh's name in the account 
 of the ball, and I was feeling a little bitter. 
 
 "Why, he'd just as lief try to corner water as 
 to bet a hundred dollar bill on a card. This is 
 just play to him. He'd give all he'd win to-night 
 to any one of his women." 
 
 "His women?" 
 
 "Yes. He's one of the real upper class." 
 
 "The upper class! " So this was the idea of the 
 upper class held by this man and his kind! My 
 soul revolted at the thought of this man standing 
 
 254
 
 THE GULF 
 
 as the type of our upper class, and I was turning 
 away when Pushkin shoved back his chair. As 
 I turned he looked up and I saw him start, though 
 I did not catch his glance. The dealer saw him, 
 too, and as he looked at me I caught his eye. He 
 motioned to me, but I took no notice. As I 
 walked out the man near the door spoke to me. 
 "There's supper in the next room." 
 "Thank you. I don't want it." 
 "Come in again. Better luck to-morrow." 
 "For you, I hope," I said, and I saw his mysti 
 fication. 
 
 I had of late been having an uncomfortable 
 thought which was beginning to worry me. The 
 idea of doing away with myself had suggested it 
 self to me from time to time. I do not mean that 
 I ever thought I should really do it; for when I 
 reflected seriously, I knew I should not. In the 
 first place, I was afraid; and in the next place, I 
 never gave up the belief that I should some day 
 achieve success. When I analyzed my feelings 
 I found that the true name for my unhappiness 
 was egotism. But the idea would come up to me 
 and now began to pester me. I had a pistol 
 which I could never bring myself to pawn, though 
 nearly everything else was pledged. I put the 
 pistol away; but this did not help matters; it 
 
 255
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 looked like cowardice. So that evening I had 
 taken the pistol out and put it into my pocket 
 when I went into the street. If I could only 
 catch some burglar breaking into a bank, or some 
 ruffian beating a woman, or some scoundrel com 
 mitting any crime, it would attract attention, 
 and I might get work. I often used to think 
 thus, but nothing ever happened, and I knew 
 nothing would happen that evening when I walked 
 out of the gambling house. So presently the 
 pistol began to be in my way, and my mind went 
 to working again on the ease with which I could 
 go to my office and lock myself in. Still I kept 
 on, and presently I found myself near the river, 
 a black stream that I had often thought of as 
 the Styx. It was as black and silent now, as it 
 slipped on in the darkness, as the River of Death. 
 I was sauntering along, chewing the cud of 
 fancy, wholly bitter and sinking lower and lower 
 every step in the slough of despond, working over 
 what would come if I should suddenly chuck up 
 the whole business and get out of life pondering 
 how I should destroy all marks by which there 
 could be any possibility of identification, when 
 the current of my thoughts, if that moody train 
 of dismal reflection could be dignified with such a 
 name, was turned aside by a small incident. As 
 
 256
 
 THE GULF 
 
 I wandered on in the darkness, the figure of a 
 woman standing a shadow in the shadow at a 
 corner of an alley arrested my attention. Even 
 in the gloom the attitude of dejection was such as 
 to strike me, and I saw or felt, I know not which, 
 that her eyes were on me, and that in some dim, 
 distant way they contained an appeal. I saw 
 that she was young, and in the dusk the oval 
 outline of a face that might have both refinement 
 and beauty challenged my attention. Was she a 
 beggar or only an unhappy outcast, waiting in the 
 darkness for the sad reward which evil chance 
 might fling to her wretchedness? I put my hand 
 in my pocket, thinking that she might beg of me, 
 and I would give her a small portion of my slender 
 store, but she said nothing and I passed on. 
 After a little, however, still thinking of her de 
 jected air and with a sudden sympathy for her 
 wretchedness, I turned back. She was still 
 standing where I left her. I passed slowly by her, 
 but she said nothing, though I felt again that her 
 eyes were on me. Then my curiosity or possibly, 
 I may say, my interest, being aroused, I turned 
 again and walked by her. 
 
 "Why so sad to-night?" I said, with words 
 which might have appeared flippant, but in a 
 tone which she instantly recognized for sympathy. 
 
 257
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 She turned half away and said nothing and I 
 stood silent watching her, for her face must once 
 have been almost beautiful, though it was now 
 sadly marred, and an ugly scar across her eye and 
 cheek, as if it might have come from the slash of 
 a razor, made that side drawn and distorted. 
 
 "Do you want money?" 
 
 She slowly shook her head without looking at 
 me. 
 
 "What is it, then? Maybe, I can help you?" 
 
 She turned slowly and looked at me with such 
 indescribable hopelessness in her face that my 
 heart went out to her. 
 
 "No, I'm past help now." 
 
 "Oh, no, you're not." My spirits rose with the 
 words, and I felt suddenly as if I had risen out of 
 the slough which had been engulfing me, and as 
 though I had gotten my feet on a firm place where 
 I could reach out a hand to help this despairing 
 and sinking sister. 
 
 "Yes, past help now." 
 
 "Come and walk with me." And as she did 
 not stir, I took her hand and drew it through my 
 arm and gently led her forward along the street. 
 I had a strange feeling as I walked along. I 
 somehow felt as though I had escaped from some 
 thing which had been dragging me down. It was 
 
 258
 
 THE GULF 
 
 a strange walk and a strange and tragic story that 
 she told me of having left her home in the coun 
 try, inspired by the desire to do something and 
 be something more than she was, a simple farmer's 
 daughter in another State, with some little edu 
 cation such as the country schools could give; 
 of having secured a position in a big shop where, 
 for a small sum, she worked all day and learned 
 to see and love fine clothes and beautiful things; 
 of having fallen in with one or two gay com 
 panions in this and other shops who wore the fine 
 clothes and had the beautiful things she admired; 
 of having been put forward because she was pretty 
 and polite ; and then of having met a young man, 
 well dressed and with fine manners; of having 
 fallen in love with him and of having accepted 
 his attentions and his gifts; and then, of having 
 been led astray by him; and then of such an 
 act of base betrayal as, had I not had it sub 
 stantiated afterward in every horrid detail, I 
 should never have believed. I had known some 
 thing of the wickedness of men and the evil of an 
 uncontrolled life in the city, where the vilest pas 
 sions of the heart are given play, but I had never 
 dreamed of anything so revolting as the story 
 this girl told me that night. She had been delib 
 erately and with malice aforethought lured not 
 
 259
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 only to her destruction but to a life of slavery 
 so vile as to be unbelievable. The man who had 
 secured her heart used his power over her to seize 
 and sell her into a slavery for which there is no 
 name which could be used on the printed page. 
 Here, stricken by the horror of her situation, she 
 had attempted to escape from her captors, but 
 had been bodily beaten into submission. Then 
 she had made a wild dash for liberty and had 
 been seized and slashed with a knife until she fell 
 under her wounds and her life was in imminent 
 danger. 
 
 From this time she gave up and became the 
 slave of the woman of the house: "Smooth Ally," 
 she said they called her; but she would not give 
 me her name or her address. She would have 
 her killed, she feared, if she did so. Here she 
 gradually had yielded to her fate and had lived 
 in company with her other slaves, some willing, 
 some as unwilling as herself, until finally her place 
 was needed for one more useful to her owner, 
 when she had been handed on from one owner to 
 another, always sinking in the scale lower and 
 lower, until at last she had been turned into the 
 street with her choice limited only to the river or 
 the gutter. Long before she had finished her 
 story I had made up my mind that life still held 
 
 260
 
 THE GULF 
 
 for me something which I might do, however 
 poor and useless I knew myself to be. The only 
 person I could think of who might help her was 
 Miss Leigh. How could I reach her? Could I 
 write her of this poor creature? She could not go 
 back to her home, she said, for she knew that they 
 had heard of her life, and they were "good and 
 Christian people." She used to write to and hear 
 from them, but it had been two years and more 
 since she had written or heard now. Still she 
 gave me what she said was her father's address 
 in another State, and I told her I would find out 
 how they felt about her and would let her know. 
 I gave her a part of what I had. It was very 
 little, and I have often wished since then that I 
 had had the courage to give her all. 
 
 I was walking on with her, trying to think of 
 some place where she might find a shelter and be 
 taken care of until her friends could be informed 
 where she was, when, in one of the streets in front 
 of a bar-room, we heard mingled laughter and 
 singing and found a group of young men, ruffians 
 and loafers, standing on the sidewalk, laughing at 
 the singers who stood in the street. As we drew 
 near, I saw that the latter were a small group of 
 the Salvation Army, and it appeared to me a 
 providence. Here were some who might help 
 
 261
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 her. At the moment that we approached they 
 ended the dirge-like hymn they had been singing, 
 and kneeling down in the street one of them offered 
 a prayer, after which a woman handed around 
 something like a tambourine, asking for a collec 
 tion. The jeers that she encountered might have 
 daunted a much bolder spirit than mine, and as 
 each man either put in or pretended to put some 
 thing in, one a cent, another a button or a cigarette 
 stump, she responded, "Thank you and God bless 
 you." I was ashamed to make an appeal to them 
 there for the poor girl, so I walked with her a 
 little further on and waited until the blue-clad 
 detachment came along and their tormentors re 
 tired to warm themselves, without and within, in 
 the saloon in front of which they had been stand 
 ing. I accosted the woman who had taken up 
 the collection and asked her if she could take care 
 of a poor girl who needed help badly, and I was 
 struck by the kindness with which she turned and, 
 after a moment's glance, held out her hand to the 
 girl. 
 
 "Come with us," she said, "and we will take 
 you where you will find friends." 
 
 Even then the young woman appeared too 
 frightened to accept her invitation. She clung to 
 me and seemed to rely upon me, asking me to go 
 
 262
 
 THE GULF 
 
 with her, but partly from shame and partly from 
 what may possibly have been a better motive, I 
 told her my way led elsewhere, and, after per 
 suasion, she went with the Salvationists, and I 
 walked home happier than I had been in some 
 time. 
 
 I even took some steps to call public attention 
 to the horrible story the poor Magdalen had told 
 me of her frightful experience, and actually wrote 
 it up ; but when I took it to a paper the one that 
 had published my first article I was given to 
 understand that the account was quite incredible. 
 The editor, a fox-faced man of middle age, with 
 whom my paper secured me the honor of an inter 
 view, informed me that the story was an old one, 
 and that they had investigated it thoroughly, 
 and found it without the slightest foundation. 
 If I wanted further proof of this, he said, he would 
 refer me to Mr. Collis McSheen, one of the leading 
 lawyers in the city, who had conducted the inves 
 tigation. 
 
 263
 
 xvm 
 
 THE DBUMMER 
 
 T BELIEVE Mrs. Kale would have let me stay 
 on free almost indefinitely; for she was a 
 kind-hearted soul, much imposed on by her 
 boarders. But I had been playing the gentle 
 man there, and I could not bring myself to come 
 down in her esteem. I really did not know 
 whether I should be able to continue to pay her; 
 so when my time was up, I moved again, to my 
 landlady's great surprise, and she thought me 
 stuck up and ungrateful, and was a little hurt 
 over it, when, in fact, I only did not want to cheat 
 her, and was moving out to the poorest part of 
 the city, to a little house on which I had observed, 
 one afternoon during one of my strolls, the notice 
 of a room for rent at a dollar a week. I think a 
 rose-bush carefully trained over the door decided 
 me to take it. It gave me a bit of home-feeling. 
 The violet, of course, is in color and delicacy the 
 half-ethereal emblem of the tenderest sentiment 
 of the heart. "The violets all withered when my 
 
 264
 
 THE DRUMMER 
 
 father died," sighed poor Ophelia. And next to 
 violets, a rose-bush, growing in the sun and dew 
 has ever stood to me for the purest sentiment that 
 the heart can hold. 
 
 I heard shortly afterward of the engagement of 
 Miss Lilian Poole to the man she used to laugh at ; 
 but after a single wave of mortification that Peck 
 should have won where I had lost, I did not mind 
 it. I went out to look at the sunny house with the 
 trees and the rose-bushes about it and wonder 
 how I could meet Miss Leigh. 
 
 The room I took when I left Mrs. Kale's was 
 only a cupboard some nine feet by six in the little 
 house I have mentioned; but it was spotlessly 
 clean, like the kind-looking, stout, blue-eyed 
 Teuton woman who, with skirt tucked up, came 
 to the door when I applied for lodging, and, as 
 the price was nearer my figure than any other I 
 had seen, I closed with Mrs. Loewen, and the 
 afternoon I left Mrs. Kale's sent my trunk over 
 in advance. It held the entire accumulation of 
 my life. There was something about the place 
 and the woman that attracted me. As poor as 
 the house was, it was beyond the squalid quarter 
 and well out in the edge of the city, with a bit of 
 grass before it, and there were not only plants in 
 the windows well cared for, but there was even a 
 
 265
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 rose-bush beside the door making a feeble attempt 
 to clamber over it with the aid of strings and straps 
 carefully adjusted. 
 
 The only question my landlady asked me was 
 whether I was a musician, and when I told her no, 
 but that I was very fond of music, she appeared 
 satisfied. Her husband, she said, was a drummer. 
 
 I asked if I might bring my dog, and she 
 assented even to this. 
 
 "Elsa was fond of animals," she said. 
 
 When I bade good-by to Mrs. Kale and my 
 friends at the boarding-house, I was pleased at 
 the real regret they showed at my leaving. Miss 
 Pansy and Miss Pinky came down to the drawing- 
 room in their "best" to say good-by; Miss Pinky 
 with her "scratch" quite straight. And Miss 
 Pansy said if they ever went back home she hoped 
 very much that I would honor them by coming to 
 see them, while Miss Pinky, with a more practical 
 turn, hoped I would come and see them "there 
 and you may even bring your dog with you," she 
 added, with what I knew was a proof of real 
 friendship. I promised faithfully to come, for I 
 was touched by the kindness of the two old ladies 
 who, like myself, had slipped from the sphere in 
 which they had belonged, and I was rather grim 
 at the reflection that they had been brought there 
 
 266
 
 THE DRUMMER 
 
 by others, while I had no one to blame but 
 myself a solemn fact I was just beginning to 
 face. 
 
 When I walked out of the house I was in a 
 rather low state of mind. I felt that it was the 
 last day when I could make any pretension to 
 being a gentleman. I had been slipping down, 
 down, and now I was very near the bottom. So 
 I wandered on in the street with Dix at my heels 
 and my pistol in my pocket. 
 
 Just then a notice of a concert, placarded on a 
 wall, caught my eye, and I gave myself a shake 
 together as an unmitigated ass, and determined 
 suddenly that I needed some amusement and that 
 a better use for the pistol would be to sell it and 
 go to the concert. I would, at least, be a gentle 
 man once more, and then to-morrow I could start 
 afresh. So I hunted up a pawnshop and raising 
 from the villain who kept it a few dollars on my 
 pistol, had a good supper and then took Dix home 
 and went to the symphony. As it happened, I 
 got one of the best seats in the house. It was a 
 revelation to me a revolution in my thoughts 
 and feelings: the great audience, gay with silks 
 and flowers and jewels, filling up all the space 
 about and above me rising up to the very top of 
 the vast auditorium. I did not have time at first 
 
 267
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 to observe them, I only felt them; for just as I 
 entered the Director came out and the audience 
 applauded. It exhilarated me like wine; I felt 
 as if it had been myself they were applauding. 
 Then the music began: The "Tannhauser Over 
 ture." It caught me up and bore me away: 
 knighthood and glory and love were all about 
 me; the splendor of the contest; the struggle in 
 which a false step, a cowardly weakness might 
 fling away the world; the reward that awaited the 
 victor, and the curse if he gave way, till I found 
 myself dazzled, amazed, and borne down by 
 the deluge of harmonious sound and could do 
 nothing but lie drifting at the mercy of the 
 whelming tide, and watch, half-drowned, what 
 ever object caught my eye. The first thing I 
 took in was the tall old Drummer who towered 
 above the great bank of dark bodies with sway 
 ing arms. Still and solemn he appeared out of 
 the mist, and seemed like some landmark which I 
 must hold on to if I would not be swept away. 
 No one appeared to pay much attention to him, 
 and he appeared oblivious of all but his drums. 
 Now he leant over them and listened to their 
 throbbing, now he beat as if the whole world de 
 pended on it. I held on to him and felt somehow 
 as if he were the one to whom the Director looked 
 
 268
 
 THE DRUMMER 
 
 the centre of all the music and pomp and 
 mystery, and I must keep him in sight. 
 
 I don't know much of what came on the pro 
 gramme after that; for I was awakened by the 
 storm of applause which followed and during the 
 intermission I looked about at the audience around 
 me. They filled the house from floor to roof, 
 every seat was occupied, and the boxes looked 
 like banks of flowers. All the faces were strange 
 to me, though, and I was beginning to feel lonely 
 again, and was turning to my old Drummer, when, 
 sweeping the boxes, my eye fell on a girl who 
 caught me at once. She was sitting a little for 
 ward looking across toward the orchestra with so 
 serious an expression on her lovely face that I felt 
 drawn to her even before I took in that she was 
 the girl I had seen on the train and whom I had 
 handed into her carriage. As I gazed at her this 
 came to me and with it such a warm feeling 
 about my heart as I had not had in a long time. 
 I looked at the men about her, one of whom was 
 the good-looking clergyman, Dr. Capon, and the 
 next instant all my blood was boiling there, 
 bending down over her, talking into her ear, so 
 close to her that she had to sit forward to escape 
 his polluting touch, was the gambler whom I had 
 heard say not three weeks before that every 
 
 269
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 American girl was open to a proposal from him. 
 I don't know really what happened after that. 
 I only remember wishing I had my pistol back 
 and being glad that I had pawned it, not sold it; 
 for I made up my mind anew in that theatre that 
 night to live and succeed, and preserve that girl 
 from that adventurer. When the concert was 
 over I watched the direction they took, and made 
 my way through the crowd to the exit by which 
 they would go into the foyer. There I waited 
 and presently they came along. She was sur 
 rounded by a little party and was laughing 
 heartily over something one of them had just said, 
 and was looking, in the rich pink wrap which en 
 veloped her, like a rich pink rosebud. I was 
 gazing at her intently, and caught her eye, and, 
 no doubt struck by my look of recognition, she 
 bowed. She had not really thought of me, she 
 was still thinking of what had been said, and it 
 was only a casual bow to some one in a crowd 
 who knows you and catches your eye; but it was 
 a bow, and it was a smiling one, and again that 
 warm feeling surged about my heart which had 
 come when I met her on the street. The next 
 second that fellow came along. He was taller 
 than most of the crowd, and well dressed; was 
 really a handsome enough fellow but for his cold 
 
 270
 
 THE DRUMMER 
 
 eyes and hard look. The eyes were too bold and 
 the chin not bold enough. He was walking be 
 side a large, blondish girl with shallow blue eyes, 
 who appeared much pleased with herself or with 
 him, but at the moment he was bowing his adieux 
 to her while she was manifestly trying to hold on 
 to him. 
 
 "I don't think you are nice a bit," I heard her 
 say, petulantly, as they came up to me. "You 
 have not taken the least notice of me to-night." 
 
 This he evidently repudiated, for she pouted 
 and smiled up at him. "Well, then, I'll excuse 
 you this time, but you needn't be running after 
 her. She won't " 
 
 I did not hear the rest. I was thinking of the 
 girl before me. 
 
 He was looking over the heads of the people 
 before him, and the next moment was elbowing 
 his way to overtake my young lady. Close to 
 him in the crowd, as he came on, stood Mrs. 
 Starling's daughter, painted, and in her best 
 finery, and I saw her imploring eyes fastened on 
 him eagerly. He glanced at her and she bowed 
 with a gratified light dawning in her face. I saw 
 his face harden. He cut her dead. Poor girl! 
 I saw her pain and the look of disappointment as 
 she furtively followed him with her eyes. He 
 
 271
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 pushed on after my young lady. But I was ahead 
 of him. Just before he reached her, I slipped in, 
 and when he attempted to push by I stood firm 
 before him. 
 
 "Beg pardon," he said, trying to put me aside 
 to step ahead of me. I turned my head and over 
 my shoulder looked him in the face. 
 
 "I beg your pardon." 
 
 "Oh!" he said. "How do? Let me by." 
 
 "To ply your old trade?" I asked, looking into 
 his eyes, over my shoulder. 
 
 "Ah!" I saw the rage come into his face and 
 he swore some foreign oath. He put his hand on 
 my shoulder to push me aside; but I half turned 
 and looked him straight in the eyes and his grasp 
 relaxed. He had felt my grip once and he knew 
 I was not afraid of him, and thought I was a fool. 
 And his hand fell. 
 
 I walked in front of him and kept him back 
 until the party with my young lady in it had passed 
 quite out of the door, and then I let him by. For 
 that evening, at least, I had protected her. 
 
 I walked to my lodging with a feeling of more 
 content than I had had in a long time. My 
 heart had a home though I had none. It was as 
 if the shell in which I had been cramped so long 
 were broken and I should at last step out into a 
 
 272
 
 "To ply your old trade?" I asked.
 
 THE DRUMMER 
 
 new world. I had a definite aim, and one higher 
 than I ever had had before. I was in love with 
 that girl and I made up my mind to win her. 
 As I walked along through the gradually empty 
 ing streets my old professor's words came to me. 
 They had been verified. I reviewed my past life 
 and saw as clearly as if in a mirror my failures and 
 false steps. I had moped and sulked with the 
 world; I had sat in my cubby-hole of an office 
 with all my talents as deeply buried as if I had 
 been under the mounds of Troy, and had expected 
 men to unearth me as though I had been treasure. 
 It may appear to some that I exaggerated my 
 feeling for a girl whom I scarcely knew at all. 
 But love is the least conventional of passions; 
 his victory the most unexpected and unaccount 
 able. He may steal into the heart like a thief or 
 burst in like a robber. The zephyr is not so 
 wooing, the hurricane not so furious. Samson 
 and Hercules lose their strength in his presence 
 and, shorn of their power, surrender at discretion. 
 Mightier than Achilles, wilier than Ulysses, he 
 leads them both captive, and, behind them in his 
 train, the long line of captains whom Petrarch 
 has catalogued as his helpless slaves. Why should 
 it then be thought strange that a poor, weak, 
 foolish, lonely young man should fall before him 
 
 273
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 at his first onset! I confess, I thought it foolish, 
 and yet so weak was I that I welcomed the arrow 
 that pierced my heart, and as I sauntered home 
 ward through the emptying streets, I hugged to 
 my breast the joy that I loved once more. 
 
 As I was on the point of ringing the door-bell 
 there was a heavy step behind me, and there was 
 my old Drummer coming along. He turned in 
 at the little gate. And I explained that I was 
 his new lodger and had been to hear him play. 
 
 "Ah! You mean to hear the orchestra?" 
 
 "No, I don't. I meant, to hear you I went 
 to the concert, but I enjoyed you most." 
 
 "Ah!" he chuckled at the flattery, and let me 
 in, and taking a survey of me, invited me to come 
 and have a bit of supper with him, which I ac 
 cepted. His wife came in and waited on us, and 
 he told her what I had said, with pleasure, and 
 she laughed over it and rallied him and accepted 
 it, and accepted me instantly as an old friend. 
 It gave me a new feeling. 
 
 A few minutes later there was another arrival. 
 A knock on the street door, and the mother, 
 smiling and winking at her husband, went and 
 let in the new-comers: a plump, round-cheeked 
 girl, the mingled likeness of her two parents, with 
 red cheeks, blue eyes, smooth flaxen hair, and that 
 
 274
 
 THE DRUMMER 
 
 heifer-like look of shyness and content which 
 Teuton maidens have, and behind her a strapping- 1 
 looking young fellow with powerful shoulders, 
 and a neck cased in a net of muscles, a clear pink 
 skin and blue eyes, and with a roll in his gait 
 partly the effect of his iron muscles and partly of 
 mere bashfulness. I was introduced and the first 
 thing the mother did was to repeat delightedly 
 the compliment I had paid the father. It had 
 gone home, and the simple way the white teeth 
 shone around that little circle and the pride the 
 whole family took in this poor bit of praise, told 
 their simplicity and warmed my heart. The 
 father and mother were evidently pleased with 
 their daughter's young man for the mother con 
 stantly rallied the daughter about Otto and Otto 
 about her, drawing the father in with sly looks 
 and knowing tosses of her head, and occasionally 
 glancing at me to see if I too took in the situation. 
 Although I did not yet know a word of their 
 language, I could understand perfectly what she 
 was saying, and I never passed an evening that 
 gave me a better idea of family happiness, or 
 greater satisfaction. When I went up to my 
 little room I seemed, somehow, to have gotten 
 into a world of reality and content: a new 
 world. 
 
 275
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 I awaked in a new world the one I had reached 
 the night before : the land of hope and content 
 and when I came down-stairs I was as fresh as a 
 shriven soul, and I walked out into the street with 
 Dix at my heel, as though I owned the earth. 
 
 The morning was as perfect as though God had 
 just created light. The sky was as blue and the 
 atmosphere as clear as though the rain that had 
 fallen had washed away with the smoke all im 
 purity whatsoever, and scoured the floor of 
 Heaven afresh. 
 
 Elsa, with her chequered skirt turned back and 
 a white apron about her comely figure, was sing 
 ing as she polished the outer steps, before going 
 to her work in a box factory, and the sun was 
 shining upon her bare head with its smooth hair, 
 and upon the little rose-bush by the door, turn 
 ing the rain-drops that still hung on it into jewels. 
 She stopped and petted Dix, who had followed 
 me down-stairs, and Dix, who, like his master, 
 loved to be petted by a pretty woman, laid back 
 his ears and rubbed his head against her. And, 
 an hour later, a group of little muddy boys with 
 their books in their hands had been beguiled by a 
 broad puddle on their way to school and were 
 wading in the mud and laughing over the spatters 
 and splotches they were getting on their clothes 
 
 276
 
 THE DRUMMER 
 
 and ruddy faces. As I watched them, one who 
 had been squeezed out of the fun and stood on 
 the sidewalk looking on and laughing, suddenly 
 seized with fear or envy shouted that if they did 
 "not come on, Mith Thelly would keep them in"; 
 and, stricken with a sudden panic, the whole flock 
 of little sand-pipers started off and ran as hard 
 as their dumpy legs would carry them around the 
 corner. I seemed to be emancipated. 
 
 I made my breakfast on a one-cent loaf of 
 bread, taking a little street which, even in that 
 section, was a back street, to eat it in, and for 
 butter amused myself watching a lot of little 
 children (among the last of whom I recognized 
 my muddy boys, who must have found another 
 puddle) lagging in at the door of a small old frame 
 building, which I knew must be their school, 
 though I could not understand why it should be 
 in such a shanty when all the public schools I 
 had seen were the most palatial structures. 
 
 I took the trouble to go by that day and look 
 at the house on the corner. It was as sunny as 
 ever. And when on my way back to my office I 
 passed Miss Leigh, the central figure of a group 
 of fresh-looking girls, I felt that the half-shy 
 smile of recognition which she gave me was a 
 shaft of light to draw my hopes to something 
 
 277
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 better than I had known. Dix was with me, and 
 he promptly picked out his friend and received 
 from her a greeting which, curiously enough, 
 raised my hopes out of all reason. I began to 
 feel that the dog was a link between us. 
 
 278
 
 XIX 
 
 RE-ENTER PECK 
 
 TT happened that the building in which I had 
 taken an office bore a somewhat questionable 
 reputation. I had selected it because it was 
 cheap, and it was too late when I discovered its 
 character. I had no money to move. The 
 lawyers in it were a nondescript lot criminal 
 practitioners, straw-bail givers, haunters of police 
 courts, etc. ; and the other occupants were as bad 
 adventurers with wild-cat schemes, ticket- 
 scalpers, cranks, visionaries with fads, frauds, 
 gamblers, and thieves in one field or another, 
 with doubtless a good sprinkling of honest men 
 among them. 
 
 It was an old building and rather out of the line 
 of the best growth of the city, but in a convenient 
 and crowded section. The lower floor was occu 
 pied with bucket-shops and ticket-scalpers' of 
 fices, on the street; and at the back, in a sort of 
 annex on an alley, was a saloon known as Mick 
 Raffity's; the owner being a solid, double-jointed 
 son of Erin, with blue eyes as keen as tacks; and 
 
 279
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 over this saloon was the gambling house where I 
 had been saved by finding Pushkin. 
 
 On the second floor, the best offices were a suite 
 occupied by a lawyer named McSheen, a person 
 of considerable distinction, after its own kind, 
 as was the shark created with other fish of the 
 sea after its kind; a lawyer of unusual shrewd 
 ness, a keen political boss, and a successful busi 
 ness man. I had, as happened, rented a cubby 
 hole looking out on a narrow well opposite the 
 rear room of his suite. 
 
 Collis McSheen was a large, brawny man with a 
 broad face, a big nose, blue eyes, grizzled black 
 hair, a tight mouth, and a coarse fist. He would 
 have turned the scales at two hundred, and he 
 walked with a step as light as a sick-nurse's. The 
 first time I ever saw him was when I ran into him 
 suddenly in a winding, unswept back stairway 
 that came down on an alley from the floor below 
 mine and was used mainly by those in a hurry, 
 and I was conscious even in the dim light that he 
 gave me a look of great keenness. As he appeared 
 in a hurry I gave way to him, with a "Beg par 
 don" for my unintentional jostle, to which he 
 made no reply except a grunt. I, however, took 
 a good look at him as he passed along under a 
 street lamp, with his firm yet noiseless step as 
 
 280
 
 RE-ENTER PECK 
 
 noiseless as a cat's and the heavy neck and bulk 
 gave me a sense of his brute strength, which I never 
 lost afterward. I soon came to know that he was 
 a successful jury-lawyer with a gift of eloquence, 
 and a knack of insinuation, and that he was 
 among the most potent of the political bosses of 
 the city, with a power of manipulation unequalled 
 by any politician in the community. He had 
 good manners and a ready smile. He was the 
 attorney or legal agent for a number of wealthy 
 concerns, among them the Argand Estate, and had 
 amassed a fortune. He was also "the legal ad 
 viser" of one of the afternoon papers, the Trumpet, 
 in which, as I learned later, he held, though it was 
 not generally known, a large and potent interest. 
 He was now looming up as the chief candidate of 
 the popular party for mayor, an office which he 
 expected to secure a few months later. He was 
 interested in a part of the street-car system of the 
 city, that part in which "the Argand Estate" 
 held the controlling interest, and which was, to 
 some extent, the rival system of that known as 
 the "West Line," in which Mr. Leigh held a large 
 interest. I mention these facts because, detached 
 as they appear, they have a strong bearing on my 
 subsequent relation to McSheen, and a certain 
 bearing on my whole future. But, on occasion 
 
 281
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 he was as ready for his own purposes to attack 
 these interests secretly as those opposed to them. 
 He always played his own hand. To quote 
 Kalender, "he was deep." 
 
 My first real meeting with him gave me an im 
 pression of him which I was never able to divest 
 myself of. I was in my little dark cupboard of 
 an office very lonely and reading hard to keep my 
 mind occupied with some other subject than my 
 self, when the door half opened quietly, with or 
 without a preliminary knock, I never could tell 
 which, and a large man insinuated himself in at 
 it and, after one keen look, smiled at me. I re 
 called afterward how catlike his entrance was. 
 But at the moment I was occupied in gauging him. 
 Still smiling he moved noiselessly around and took 
 his stand with his back to the one window. 
 
 "You are Mr. Glave?" he smiled. "Glad to 
 see you?" He had not quite gotten rid of the 
 interrogation. 
 
 I expressed my appreciation of his good-will and 
 with, I felt, even more sincerity than his; for I 
 was glad to see any one. 
 
 "Always pleased to see young lawyers spe 
 cially bright ones." Here I smiled with pleasure 
 that he should so admirably have "sized me up," 
 as the saying goes. 
 
 282
 
 RE-ENTER PECK 
 
 "You are a lawyer also?" I hazarded. 
 
 "Yes. Yes. I see you are studious. I always 
 like that in a young man gives him breadth 
 scope." 
 
 I assented and explained that I had been in 
 politics a little also, all of which he appeared to 
 think in my favor. And so it went on till he knew 
 nearly all about me. In fact, I became quite 
 communicative. It had been so long since I had 
 had a lawyer to talk with. I found him to be a 
 remarkably well-informed man, and with agree 
 able, rather insinuating manners. He knew 
 something of books too, and he made, I could not 
 tell whether consciously or unconsciously, a num 
 ber of literary allusions. One of them I recall. 
 It was a Spanish proverb, he said: "The judge is 
 a big man, but give your presents to the clerk." 
 
 "Well, you'll do well here if you start right. 
 The tortoise beats the hare, you know every 
 time ev-ery time." 
 
 I started, so apt was the allusion. I wondered 
 if he could ever have known Peck. 
 
 "Yes, I know that. That's what I mean to 
 do," I said. 
 
 "Get in with the right sort of folks, then when 
 there's any sweeping done you'll be on the side 
 of the handle." He was moving around toward 
 
 283
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 the door and was looking out of the window 
 reflecting. 
 
 "I have a letter to a gentleman named Leigh," 
 I said. "I have not yet presented it." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 I turned and glanced at him casually and was 
 struck with the singular change that had come 
 over his face. It was as if he had suddenly drawn 
 a fine mask over it. His eyes were calmly fixed on 
 me, yet I could hardly have said that they saw 
 me. His countenance was absolutely expression 
 less. I have seen the same detached look in a 
 big cat's eyes as he gazed through his bars and 
 through the crowd before him to the far jungle, 
 ocean spaces away. It gave me a sudden shiver 
 and I may have shown that I was startled, but, 
 as I looked, the mask disappeared before my eyes 
 and he was smiling as before. 
 
 "Got a pretty daughter?" he said with a 
 manner which offended me, I could hardly tell 
 why. 
 
 "I believe so; but I do not know her." I was 
 angry with myself for blushing, and it was plain 
 that he saw it and did not believe me. 
 
 "You know a man 't calls himself Count Push 
 kin?" 
 
 "Yes, I know him." 
 
 284
 
 RE-ENTER PECK 
 
 "He knows her and she knows him." 
 "Does she? I know nothing about that." 
 "Kind o' makin' a set for him, they say?" 
 "Is she? I hardly think it likely, if she knows 
 him," I said coldly. I wondered with what ma 
 lignant intuition he had read my thoughts. 
 
 *'0h! A good many people do that. They 
 like the sound. It gives 'em power." 
 "Power!" 
 
 "Yes. Power's a pretty good thing to have. 
 You can " He looked out of the window and 
 licked his lips in a sort of reverie. He suddenly 
 opened and closed his hand with a gesture of 
 crushing. "Power and money go together?" 
 And still smiling, with a farewell nod, he noise 
 lessly withdrew and closed the door. 
 
 When he was gone I was conscious of a feeling 
 of intense relief, and also of intense antagonism 
 a feeling I had never had for but one man be 
 fore Peck : a feeling which I never got rid of. 
 
 One evening a little later I missed Dix. He 
 usually came home even when he strayed off, 
 which was not often, unless as happened he went 
 with Elsa, for whom he had conceived a great 
 fondness, and who loved and petted him in return. 
 It had come to be a great bond between the girl 
 and me, and I think the whole family liked me the 
 
 285
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 better for the dog's love of the daughter. But 
 this evening he did not appear; I knew he was not 
 with Elsa, for I remembered he had been in my 
 office during the afternoon, and in consequence I 
 spent an unhappy night. All sorts of visions 
 floated before my mind, from the prize-ring to the 
 vivisection table. I rather inclined to the former; 
 for I knew his powerful chest and loins and his 
 scarred shoulders would commend him to the 
 fancy. I thought I remembered that he had gone 
 out of my office just before I left and had gone 
 down the steps which led to the alley I have men 
 tioned. This he sometimes did. I recalled that 
 I was thinking of Miss Eleanor Leigh and had not 
 seen or thought of him between the office and my 
 home. 
 
 I was so disturbed about him by bedtime that 
 I went out to hunt for him and returned to my 
 office by the same street I had walked through in 
 the afternoon. When I reached the building in 
 which my office was, I turned into the alley I have 
 mentioned and went up the back stairway. It 
 was now after midnight and it was as black as 
 pitch. When I reached my office, thinking that I 
 might by a bare possibility have locked him in, 
 I opened the door and walked in, closing it softly 
 behind me. The window looked out on the well 
 
 286
 
 RE-ENTER PECK 
 
 left for light and air, and was open, and as I 
 opened the door a light was reflected through the 
 window on my wall. I stepped up to close the 
 window and, accidentally looking across the narrow 
 well to see where the light came from, discovered 
 that it was in the back office of Coll McSheen, in 
 which were seated Mr. McSheen and the sour- 
 looking man I had seen on the train with the silk 
 hat and the paste diamond studs, and of all per 
 sons in the world, Peck ! The name Leigh caught 
 my ear and I involuntarily stopped without being 
 aware that I was listening. As I looked the door 
 opened and a man I recognized as the janitor of 
 the building entered and with him a negro waiter, 
 bearing two bottles of champagne and three glasses. 
 For a moment I felt as though I had been dream 
 ing. For the negro was Jeams. I saw the recog 
 nition between him and Peck, and Jeams's white 
 teeth shone as Peck talked about him. I heard 
 him say: 
 
 "No, suh, I don' know nuthin' 't all about him. 
 I'se got to look out for myself. Yes, suh, got a 
 good place an' I'm gwine to keep it!" 
 
 He had opened the bottles and poured out the 
 wine, and McSheen gave him a note big enough to 
 make him bow very low and thank him volubly. 
 When he had withdrawn Peck said: 
 
 287
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "You've got to look out for that rascal. He's 
 an awfully smart scoundrel." 
 
 "Oh! I'll own him, body and soul," said 
 McSheen. 
 
 "I wouldn't have him around me." 
 
 ' ' Don't worry he won't fool me. If he does " 
 He opened and closed his fist with the gesture I 
 had seen him use the first day he paid me a visit. 
 
 "Well, let's to business," he said when they had 
 drained their glasses. He looked at the other men. 
 "What do you say, Wringman?" 
 
 "You pay me the money and I'll bring the 
 strike all right," said the Labor-leader, "and I'll 
 deliver the vote, too. In ten days there won't be 
 a wheel turning on his road. I'll order every man 
 out that wears a West Line cap or handles a West 
 Line tool." 
 
 The "West Line"! This was what the street 
 car line was called which ran out into the poor sec 
 tion of the city where I lived, which Mr. Leigh 
 controlled. 
 
 "That's all right. I'll keep my part. D n 
 
 him! I want to break him. I'll show him who 
 runs this town. With his d d airs." 
 
 "That's it," said Peck, leaning forward. "It's 
 your road or his. That's the way I figure it." 
 He rubbed his hands with satisfaction. "I am 
 
 288
 
 RE-ENTER PECK 
 
 with you, my friends. You can count on the 
 Poole interest backing you." 
 
 "You'll keep the police off?" said the Labor- 
 leader. 
 
 "Will I? Watch 'em!" McSheen poured out 
 another glass, and offered the bottle to Peck, who 
 declined it. 
 
 "Then it's all right. Well, you'd better make 
 a cash payment down at the start," said the 
 Labor-leader. 
 
 McSheen swore. "Do you think I have a bank 
 in my office, or am a faro dealer, that I can put up 
 a pile like that at midnight? Besides, I've always 
 heard there's two bad paymasters the one that 
 don't pay at all and the one 't pays in advance. 
 You deliver the goods." 
 
 "Oh! Come off," said the other. "If you 
 ain't a faro dealer, you own a bank and you've 
 a barkeeper. Mick's got it down-stairs, if you 
 ain't. So put up, or you'll want money sure 
 enough. I know what that strike's worth to you." 
 
 McSheen rose and at that moment I became 
 aware of the impropriety of what I was doing, for 
 I had been absolutely absorbed watching Peck, 
 and I moved back, as I did so knocking over a 
 chair. At the sound the light was instantly ex 
 tinguished and I left my office and hurried down 
 
 289
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 the stairs, wondering when the blow was to fall. 
 
 The afternoon following my surprise of the 
 conference in McSheen's back room, there was a 
 knock at my door and Peck walked into my office. 
 I was surprised to see what a man-of-fashion air 
 he had donned. He appeared really glad to see 
 me and was so cordial that I almost forgot my 
 first feeling of shame that he should find me in 
 such manifestly straitened circumstances, espe 
 cially as he began to talk vaguely of a large case he 
 had come out to look after, and I thought he was 
 on the verge of asking me to represent his client. 
 
 "You know we own considerable interests out 
 here both in the surface lines and in the P. D. & 
 B. D.," he said airily. 
 
 "No, I did not know you did. I remember that 
 Mr. Poole once talked to me about some outstand 
 ing interests in the P. D. & B. D., and I made some 
 little investigation at the time; I came to the 
 conclusion that his interest had lapsed; but he 
 never employed me." 
 
 "Yes, that's a part of the interests I speak of. 
 Mr. Poole is a very careful man." 
 
 "Very. Well, you see I have learned my 
 lesson. I have learned economy, at least," I 
 laughed in reply to his question of how I was 
 getting along in my new home. He took as he 
 
 290
 
 RE-ENTER PECK 
 
 asked it an appraising glance at the poor little 
 office. 
 
 "A very important lesson to learn," he said 
 sententiously. "I am glad I learned it early." 
 He was so smug that I could not help saying: 
 
 "You were always economical?" 
 
 "Yes, I hope so. I always mean to be. You 
 get much work?" 
 
 "No, not much yet; still, you know, I always 
 had a knack of getting business," I said. "My 
 trouble was that I used to disdain small things 
 and I let others attend to them. I know better 
 than that now. I don't think I have any right 
 to complain." 
 
 "Oh I suppose you have to put in night work, 
 too, then?" he added, after a pause. 
 
 This then was the meaning of his call. He 
 wished to know whether I had seen him in Coll 
 McSheen's office the night before. He had de 
 livered himself into my hands. So, I answered 
 lightly. 
 
 "Oh! yes, sometimes." 
 
 I had led him up to the point and I knew now 
 he was afraid to take a step further. He sheered 
 off. 
 
 "Well, tell me something," he said, "if you 
 don't mind. Do you know Mr. Leigh?" 
 
 291
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "What Mr. Leigh?" 
 
 "Mr. Walter Leigh, the banker." 
 
 "I don't mind telling you at all that I do not." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 I thought he was going to offer me a case; but 
 Peck was economical . He already had one lawyer. 
 
 "I had a letter of introduction to him from Mr. 
 Poole," I said. "But you can say to Mr. Poole 
 that I never presented it." 
 
 "Oh! Ah! Well I'll tell him." 
 
 "Do." 
 
 "Do you know Mr. McSheen?" 
 
 I nodded "Yes." 
 
 "Do you know him well?" 
 
 "Does any one know him well?" I parried. 
 
 "He has an office in this building?" 
 
 I could not, for the life of me, tell whether this 
 was an affirmation or a question. So I merely 
 nodded, which answered in either case. But I 
 was pining to say to him, "Peck, why don't you 
 come out with it and ask me plainly what I know 
 of your conference the other night?" However, 
 I did not. I had learned to play a close game. 
 
 "Oh! I saw your nigger, Jeams ah the 
 other day." 
 
 "Did you? Where is he?" I wanted to find 
 him, and asked innocently enough. 
 
 292
 
 RE-ENTER PECK 
 
 "Back at home." 
 
 "How is he getting on?" 
 
 "Pretty well, I believe. He's a big rascal." 
 
 "Yes, but a pleasant one, and an open one." 
 
 Peck suddenly rose. "Well, I must be going. 
 I have an engagement which I must keep." At 
 the door he paused. "By the way, Mrs. Peck 
 begged to be remembered to you." 
 
 He had a way of blinking, like a terrapin 
 slowly. He did so now. 
 
 He did not mean his tone to be insolent only to 
 be insolent himself but it was. 
 
 "I'm very much obliged to her. Remember 
 me to her." 
 
 That afternoon I strolled out, hoping to get a 
 glimpse of Miss Leigh. I did so, but Peck was 
 riding in a carriage with her and her father. So 
 he won the last trick, after all. But the rubber 
 was not over. I was glad that they did not see 
 me, and I returned to my office filled with rage and 
 determined to unmask Peck the first chance I 
 should have, not because he was a trickster and a 
 liar, but because he was applying his trickiness 
 in the direction of Miss Leigh. 
 
 That night the weather changed and it turned 
 off cold. I remember it from a small circum 
 stance. The wind appeared to me to have shifted 
 
 293
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 when Miss Leigh's carriage drove out of sight with 
 Peck in it. I went home and had bad dreams. 
 What was Peck doing with the Leighs? Could I 
 have been mistaken in thinking he and McSheen 
 had been talking of Mr. Leigh in their conference? 
 For some time there had been trouble on the 
 street-car lines of the city and a number of small 
 strikes had taken place on a system of lines run 
 ning across the city and to some extent in com 
 petition with the West Line, which Mr. Leigh had 
 an interest in. According to the press the West 
 Line, which ran out into a new section, was grow 
 ing steadily while the other line was falling back. 
 Could it be that McSheen was endeavoring to 
 secure possession of the West Line? This, too, 
 had been intimated, and Canter, one of the richest 
 men of the town, was said to be behind him. 
 What should I do under the circumstances? 
 Would Peck tell Miss Leigh any lies about me? 
 All these suggestions pestered me and, with the 
 loss of Dix, kept me awake, so that next morning 
 I was in rather a bad humor. 
 
 In my walk through the poorer quarter on my 
 way to my office I used to see a great deal of the 
 children, and it struck me that one of the saddest 
 effects of poverty the dire poverty of the slum 
 was the debasement of the children. Cruelty ap- 
 
 294
 
 RE-ENTER PECK 
 
 pears to be the natural instinct of the young as 
 they begin to gain in strength. But among the 
 well-to-do and the well-brought-up of all classes 
 it is kept in abeyance and is trained out. But in 
 the class I speak of at a certain age it appears to 
 flower out into absolute brutality. It was the 
 chief drawback to my sojourn in this quarter, for 
 I am very fond of children, and the effect of pov 
 erty on the children was the saddest part of my 
 surroundings. To avoid the ruder element, I used 
 to walk of a morning through the little back street 
 where I had discovered that morning the little 
 school for very small children, and I made the ac 
 quaintance of a number of the children who attend 
 ed the school. One little girl in particular interested 
 me. She was the poorest clad of any, but her 
 cheeks were like apples and her chubby wrists 
 were the worst chapped of all; and with her 
 sometimes was a little crippled girl, who walked 
 with a crutch, whom she generally led by the 
 hand in the most motherly way, so small that 
 it was a wonder how she could walk, much more 
 study. 
 
 My little girls and I got to that point of intimacy 
 where they would talk to me, and Dix had made 
 friends with them and used to walk beside them 
 as we went along. 
 
 295
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 The older girl's first name was Janet, but she 
 spoke with a lisp, and I could not make out her 
 name with a certainty. Her father had been out 
 of work, she said, but now was a driver, and her 
 teacher was "Mith Thellen." The little cripple's 
 name was "Sissy" Sissy Talman. This was all 
 the information I could get out of her. "Mith 
 Thellen" was evidently her goddess. 
 
 On the cool, crisp morning after the turn in the 
 weather, I started out rather earlier than usual 
 intending to hunt for Dix and also to look up 
 Jeams. I bought a copy of the Trumpet and was 
 astonished to read an account of trouble among the 
 employees of the West Lane, for I had not seen the 
 least sign of it. The piece went on further to in 
 timate that Mr. Leigh had been much embarrassed 
 by his extension of his line out into a thinly popu 
 lated district and that a strike, which was quite 
 sure to come, might prove very disastrous to him. 
 I somehow felt very angry at the reference to 
 Mr. Leigh and was furious with myself for hav 
 ing written for the Trumpet. I walked around 
 through the street where the school was, though 
 without any definite idea whatever, as it was too 
 early for the children. As I passed by the school 
 the door was wide open, and I stopped and looked 
 in. The fire was not yet made. The stove was 
 
 296
 
 RE-ENTER PECK 
 
 open ; the door of the cellar, opening outside, was 
 also open, and at the moment a young woman 
 the teacher or some one else was backing up the 
 steps out of the cellar lugging a heavy coal-scuttle. 
 One hand, and a very small one, was supporting 
 her against the side of the wall, helping her push 
 herself up. I stepped forward with a vague pity 
 for any woman having to lift such a weight. 
 
 " Won't you let me help you?" I asked. 
 
 "Thank you, I believe I can manage it." And 
 she pulled the scuttle to the top, where she planted 
 it, and turned with quite an air of triumph. It 
 was she ! my young lady of the sunny house : Miss 
 Leigh ! I had not recognized her at all. Her face 
 was all aglow and her eyes were filled with light 
 at a difficulty overcome. I do not know what my 
 face showed; but unless it expressed conflicting 
 emotions, it belied my feelings. I was equally 
 astonished, delighted, and embarrassed. I hast 
 ened to say something which might put her at her 
 ease and at the same time prove a plea for myself, 
 and open the way to further conversation. 
 
 "I was on my way to my law-office, and seeing a 
 lady struggling with so heavy a burden, I had hoped 
 I might have the privilege of assisting her as I 
 should want any other gentleman to do to my sis 
 ter in a similar case." I meant if I had had a sister. 
 
 297
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 She thanked me calmly; in fact, very calmly. 
 
 "I do it every morning; but this morning, as it 
 is the first cold weather, I piled it a little too high ; 
 that is all." She looked toward the door and 
 made a movement. 
 
 I wanted to say I would gladly come and lift 
 it for her every morning; that I could carry all 
 her burdens for her. But I was almost afraid 
 even to ask permission again to carry it that 
 morning. As, however, she had given me a peg, 
 I seized it. 
 
 "Well, at least, let me carry it this morning," I 
 said, and without waiting for an answer or even 
 venturing to look at her, I caught up the bucket 
 and swung it into the house, when seeing the 
 sticks all laid in the stove, and wishing to do her 
 further service, without asking her anything 
 more, I poured half the scuttleful into the stove. 
 
 "I used to be able to make a fire, when I lived 
 in my old home," I said tentatively; then as I saw 
 a smile coming into her face, I added: "But I'm 
 afraid to try an exhibition of my skill after such 
 boasting," and without waiting further, I backed 
 out, bringing with me only a confused apparition 
 of an angel lifting a coal-scuttle. 
 
 I do not remember how I reached my office 
 that day, whether I walked the stone pavements 
 
 298
 
 RE-ENTER PECK 
 
 through the prosaic streets or trod on rosy clouds. 
 There were no prosaic streets for me that day. I 
 wondered if the article I had seen in the paper had 
 any foundation. Could Mr. Leigh have lost his 
 fortune? Was this the reason she taught school? 
 I had observed how simply she was dressed, and I 
 thrilled to think that I might be able to rescue her 
 from this drudgery. 
 
 The beggars who crossed my path that morning 
 were fortunate. I gave them all my change, even 
 relieving the necessities of several thirsty im 
 postors who beset my way, declaring with un 
 blushing, sodden faces that they had not had a 
 mouthful for days. 
 
 I walked past the little school-house that night 
 and lingered at the closed gate, finding a charm 
 in the spot. The little plain house had suddenly 
 become a shrine. It seemed as if she might be 
 hovering near. 
 
 The next morning I passed through the same 
 street, and peeped in at the open door. There she 
 was, bending over the open stove in which she had 
 already lighted her fire, little knowing of the 
 flame she had kindled in my heart. How I 
 cursed myself for being too late to meet her. 
 And yet, perhaps, I should have been afraid to 
 speak to her; for as she turned toward the door, 
 
 299
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 I started on with pumping heart in quite a fright 
 lest she should detect me looking in. 
 
 I walked by her old home Sunday afternoon. 
 Flowers bloomed at the windows. As I was 
 turning away, Count Pushkin came out of the 
 door and down the steps. As he turned away 
 from the step his habitual simper changed into 
 a scowl; and a furious joy came into my heart. 
 Something had gone wrong with him within there. 
 I wished I had been near enough to have crossed 
 his path to smile in his face; but I was too dis 
 tant, and he passed on with clenched fist and 
 black brow. 
 
 After this my regular walk was through the 
 street of the baby-school, and when I was so 
 fortunate as to meet Miss Leigh she bowed and 
 smiled to me, though only as a passing acquaint 
 ance, whilst I on my part began to plan how I 
 should secure an introduction to her. Her smile 
 was sunshine enough for a day, but I wanted the 
 right to bask in it and I meant to devise a plan. 
 After what I had told Peck, I could not present 
 my letter; I must find some other means. It 
 came in an unexpected way, and through the 
 last person I should have imagined as my sponsor. 
 
 300
 
 XX 
 
 MY FIRST CLIENT 
 
 "DUT to revert to the morning when I made 
 Miss Leigh's fire for her. I hunted for Dix 
 all day, but without success, and was so busy 
 about it that I did not have time to begin my 
 search for Jeams. That evening, as it was rain 
 ing hard, I treated myself to the unwonted lux 
 ury of a ride home on a street-car. The streets 
 were greasy with a thick, black paste of mud, and 
 the smoke was down on our heads in a dark slop. 
 Like Petrarch, my thoughts were on Laura, and I 
 was repining at the rain mainly because it pre 
 vented the possibility of a glimpse of Miss Leigh on 
 the street: a chance I was ever on the watch for. 
 I boarded an open car just after it started and 
 just before it ran through a short subway. The 
 next moment a man who had run after the car 
 sprang on the step beside me, and, losing his foot 
 ing, he would probably have fallen and might 
 have been crushed between the car and the edge 
 of the tunnel, which we at that moment were 
 entering, had I not had the good fortune, being on 
 
 301
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 the outer seat, to catch him and hold him up. 
 Even as it was, his coat was torn and my elbow 
 was badly bruised against the pillar at the en 
 trance. I, however, pulled him over across my 
 knees and held him until we had gone through the 
 subway, when I made room for him on the seat 
 beside me. 
 
 "That was a close call, my friend," I said. 
 "Don't try that sort of thing too often." 
 
 "It was, indeed the closest I ever had, and I 
 have had some pretty close ones before. If you 
 had not caught me, I would have been in the 
 morgue to-morrow morning." 
 
 This I rather repudiated, but as the sequel 
 showed, the idea appeared to have become fixed 
 in his mind. We had some little talk together and 
 I discovered that, like myself, he had come out 
 West to better his fortune, and as he was dressed 
 very plainly, I assumed that, like myself, he had 
 fallen on rather hard times, and I expressed 
 sympathy. "Where have I seen you before?" I 
 asked him. 
 
 "On the train once coming from the East." 
 
 "Oh! yes." I remembered now. He was the 
 man who knew things. 
 
 "You know Mr. McSheen?" he asked irrele 
 vantly. 
 
 302
 
 MY FIRST CLIENT 
 
 "Yes slightly. I have an office in the same 
 building." 
 
 I wondered how he knew that I knew him. 
 
 "Yes. Well, you want to look out for him. 
 Don't let him fool you. He's deep. What's 
 that running down your sleeve? Why, it's 
 blood! Where did it come from?" He looked 
 much concerned. 
 
 "From my arm, I reckon. I hurt it a little 
 back there, but it is nothing." 
 
 He refused to be satisfied with my explanation 
 and insisted strongly on my getting off and going 
 with him to see a doctor. I laughed at the idea. 
 
 "Why, I haven't any money to pay a doctor," 
 I said. 
 
 "It won't cost you a cent. He is a friend of 
 mine and as good a surgeon as any in the city. 
 He's straight knows his business. You come 
 along." 
 
 So, finding that my sleeve was quite soaked 
 with blood, I yielded and went with him to the 
 office of his friend, a young doctor named Traumer, 
 who lived in a part of the town bordering on the 
 working people's section, which, fortunately, was 
 not far from where we got off the car. Also, 
 fortunately, we found him at home. He was a 
 slim young fellow with a quiet, self-assured man- 
 
 303
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 nor and a clean-cut face, lighted by a pair of 
 frank, blue eyes. 
 
 "Doc," said my conductor, "here's a friend of 
 mine who wants a little patching up." 
 
 "That's the way with most friends of yours, 
 Bill," said the doctor, who had given me a single 
 keen look. "What's the matter with him? Shot? 
 Or have the pickets been after him? " 
 
 "No, he's got his arm smashed saving a man's 
 life." 
 
 "What! Well, let's have a look at it. He 
 doesn't look very bad." He helped me off with 
 my coat and, as he glanced at the sleeve, gave a 
 little exclamation. 
 
 "Hello!" 
 
 "Whose life did he save?" he asked, as he 
 was binding up the arm. "That's partly a 
 mash." 
 
 "Mine." 
 
 "Oh! I see." He went to work and soon had 
 me bandaged up. "Well, he's all right now. 
 What were you doing?" he asked as he put on the 
 last touches. 
 
 "Jumping on a car." 
 
 "Ah!" The doctor was manifestly amused. 
 "You observe that our friend is laconic?" he said 
 tome. 
 
 304
 
 MY FIRST CLIENT 
 
 "What's that?" asked the other. "Don't 
 prejudice him against me. He don't know any 
 thing against me yet and that's more than some 
 folks can say." 
 
 "Who was on that car that you were following? " 
 asked the doctor, with a side glance at my friend. 
 The latter did not change his expression a particle. 
 
 "Doc, did you ever hear what the parrot said 
 to herself after she had sicked the dog on, and the 
 dog not seeing anything but her, jumped on her?" 
 
 "No what?" 
 
 "'Polly, you talk too d d much." 
 
 The doctor chuckled and changed the subject. 
 "What's your labor-friend, Wringman, doing 
 now? What did he come back here for?" 
 
 "Same old thing dodging work." 
 
 "He seems to me to work other people pretty 
 well." 
 
 The other nodded acquiescingly. 
 
 "He's on a new line now. McSheen's got him. 
 Yes, he has," as the doctor looked incredulous. 
 
 "What's he after? Who's he working for?" 
 
 "Same person Coll McSheen. Pretty busy, 
 too. Mr. Glave there knows him already." 
 
 ' ' Glave ! Glave ! ' ' repeated the doctor . " Where 
 did I hear your name? Oh, yes! Do you know 
 a preacher named John Marvel?" 
 
 305
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "John Marvel! Why, yes. I went to college 
 with him. I knew him well." 
 
 "You knew a good man then." 
 
 "He is that," said the other promptly. "If 
 there were more like him I'd be out of a job." 
 
 "You know Miss Leigh, too?" 
 
 "What Miss Leigh?" My heart warmed at the 
 name and I forgot all about Marvel. How did he 
 know that I knew her? 
 
 "'The Angel of the Lost Children.'" 
 
 "'The Angel '? Miss Eleanor Leigh?" Then 
 as he nodded "Slightly." My heart was now 
 quite warm. "Who called her so?" 
 
 "She said she knew you. I looked after some 
 of her friends for her." 
 
 "Who called her the 'Angel of the Lost Chil 
 dren'?" 
 
 "A friend of mine Leo Wolff ert, who works in 
 the slums a writer. She's always finding and 
 helping some one who is lost, body or soul." 
 
 "Leo Wolffert ! Do you know him? " 
 
 "I guess we all know him, don't we, Doc?" put 
 in the other man. "And so do some of the big 
 ones." 
 
 "Rather." 
 
 "And the lady, too she's a good one, too," he 
 added. 
 
 306
 
 MY FIRST CLIENT 
 
 I was so much interested in this part of the con 
 versation that I forgot at the moment to ask the 
 doctor where he had known John Marvel and 
 Wolffert. 
 
 I, however, asked him what I owed him, and he 
 replied : 
 
 "Not a cent. Any of Langton's friends here or 
 John Marvel's friends, or (after a pause) Miss 
 Leigh's friends may command me. I am only too 
 glad to be able to serve them. It's the only way 
 I can help." 
 
 "That's what I told him," said my friend, 
 whose name I heard for the first time. "I told 
 him you weren't one of these Jew doctors that 
 appraise a man as soon as he puts his nose in the 
 door and skin him clean." 
 
 "I am a Jew, but I hope I am not one of that 
 kind." 
 
 "No; but there are plenty of 'em." 
 
 I came away feeling that I had made two friends 
 well worth making. They were real men. 
 
 When I parted from my friend he took out of 
 his pocket-book a card. "For my friends," he 
 said, as he handed it to me. When I got to the 
 light I read: 
 
 "Wm. Langton, Private Detective." 
 
 It was not until long afterward that I knew that 
 307
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 the man he was following when he sprang on the 
 car and I saved him was myself, and that I owed 
 the attention to my kinsman and to Mr. Leigh, 
 to whom Peck had given a rather sad account of 
 me. My kinsman had asked him to ascertain 
 how I lived. 
 
 I called on my new friend, Langton, earlier 
 than he had expected. In my distress about Dix 
 I consulted him the very next day and he under 
 took to get him back. I told him I had not a 
 cent to pay him with at present, but some day I 
 should have it and then 
 
 "You'll never owe me a cent as long as you 
 live," he said. "Besides, I'd like to find that dog. 
 I remember him. He's a good one. You say 
 you used the back stairway at times, opening on 
 the alley near Mick Raffity's?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He looked away out of the window with a 
 placid expression. 
 
 "I wouldn't go down that way too often at 
 night," he said presently. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Oh! I don't know. You might stumble and 
 break your neck. One or two men have done it." 
 
 "Oh! I'll be careful," I laughed. "I'm pretty 
 sure-footed." 
 
 308
 
 MY FIRST CLIENT 
 
 "You need to be there. You say your dog's 
 a good fighter?" 
 
 "He's a paladin. Can whip any dog I ever 
 saw. I never fought him, but I had a negro boy 
 who used to take him off till I stopped him." 
 
 "Well, I'll find him that is, I'll find where he 
 went." 
 
 I thanked him and strolled over across town to 
 try to get a glimpse of the "Angel of the Lost 
 Children." I saw her in a carriage with another 
 young girl, and as I gazed at her she suddenly 
 turned her eyes and looked straight at me, 
 quite as if she had expected to see me, and the 
 smile she gave me, though only that which a 
 pleasant thought wings, lighted my heart for a 
 week. 
 
 A day or two later my detective friend dropped 
 into my office. 
 
 "Well, I have found him." His face showed 
 that placid expression which, with him, meant 
 deep satisfaction. "The police have him are 
 holding him in a case, but you can identify and 
 get him. He was in the hands of a negro dog- 
 stealer and they got him in a raid. They pulled 
 one of the toughest joints in town when there was 
 a fight going on and pinched a full load. The 
 nigger was among them. He put up a pretty 
 
 309
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 stiff fight and they had to hammer him good 
 before they quieted him. He'll go down for 
 ninety days sure. He was a fighter, they said 
 butted men right and left." 
 
 "I'm glad they hammered him you're sure 
 it'sDix?" 
 
 "Sure; he claimed the dog; said he'd raised 
 him. But it didn't go. I knew he'd stolen him 
 because he said he knew you." 
 
 "Knew me a negro? What did he say his 
 name was?" 
 
 "They told me let me see Professor Jeams 
 something." 
 
 "Not Woodson?" 
 
 "Yes, that's it." 
 
 "Well, for once in his life he told the truth. He 
 sold me the dog. You say he's in jail? I must go 
 and get him out." 
 
 "You'll find it hard work. Fighting the police 
 is a serious crime in this city. A man had better 
 steal, rob, or kill anybody else than fight an 
 officer." 
 
 "Who has most pull down there?" 
 
 "Well, Coll McSheen has considerable. He 
 runs the police. He may be next mayor." 
 
 I determined, of course, to go at once and see 
 what I could do to get Jeams out of his trouble. I 
 
 310
 
 MY FIRST CLIENT 
 
 found him in the common ward among the tough 
 est criminals in the jail a massive and forbidding- 
 looking structure to get into which appeared for 
 a time almost as difficult as to get out. But on 
 expressing my wish to be accorded an interview 
 with him, I was referred from one official to 
 another, until, with my back to the wall, I came 
 to a heavy, bloated, ill-looking creature who went 
 by the name of Sergeant Byle. I preferred my 
 request to him. I might as well have undertaken 
 to argue with the stone images which were rudely 
 carved as caryatides beside the entrance. He 
 simply puffed his big black cigar in silence, shook 
 his head, and looked away from me; and my 
 urging had no other effect than to bring a snicker 
 of amusement from a couple of dog-faced shysters 
 who had entered and, with a nod to him, had sunk 
 into greasy chairs. 
 
 "Who do you know here?" 
 
 A name suddenly occurred to me, and I used it. 
 
 "Among others, I know Mr. McSheen," and as 
 I saw his countenance fall, I added, "and he is 
 enough for the present." I looked him sternly 
 in the eye. 
 
 He got up out of his seat and actually walked 
 across the room, opened a cupboard and took out 
 a key, then rang a bell. 
 
 311
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "Why didn't you say you were a friend of his?" 
 he asked surlily. "A friend of Mr. McSheen can 
 see any one he wants here." 
 
 I have discovered that civility will answer with 
 nine-tenths or even nineteen-twentieths of the 
 world, but there is a class of intractable brutes 
 who yield only to force and who are influenced 
 only by fear, and of them was this sodden ruffian. 
 He led the way now subserviently enough, growl 
 ing from time to time some explanation, which I 
 took to be his method of apologizing. When, 
 after going through a number of corridors, which 
 were fairly clean and well ventilated, we came at 
 length to the ward where my unfortunate client 
 was confined, the atmosphere was wholly different : 
 hot and fetid and intolerable. The air struck me 
 like a blast from some infernal region, and behind 
 the grating which shut off the miscreants within 
 from even the modified freedom of the outer 
 court was a mass of humanity of all ages, foul 
 enough in appearance to have come from hell. 
 
 At the call of the turnkey, there was some in 
 terest manifested in their evil faces and some of 
 them shouted back, repeating the name of Jim 
 Woodson; some half derisively, others with more 
 kindliness. At length, out of the mob emerged 
 poor Jeams, but, like Lucifer, oh, how changed! 
 
 312
 
 MY FIRST CLIENT 
 
 His head was bandaged with an old cloth, soiled 
 and stained; his mien was dejected, and his face 
 was swollen and bruised. At sight of me, how 
 ever, he suddenly gave a cry, and springing for 
 ward tried to thrust his hands through the bars 
 of the grating to grasp mine. "Lord, God!" he 
 exclaimed. "If it ain't de captain. Glory be to 
 God! Marse Hen, I knowed you'd come, if you 
 jes' heard 'bout me. Git me out of dis, fur de 
 Lord's sake. Dis is de wuss place I ever has been 
 in in my life. Dey done beat me up and put 
 handcuffs on me, and chain me, and fling me in de 
 patrol-wagon, and lock me up and sweat me, and 
 put me through the third degree, till I thought if de 
 Lord didn't take mercy 'pon me, I would be gone 
 for sho'. Can't you git me out o' dis right away? " 
 
 I explained the impossibility of doing this im 
 mediately, but assured him that he would soon be 
 gotten out and that I would look after his case 
 and see that he got justice. 
 
 "Yes, sir, that is what I want jestice I don't 
 ax nothin' but jestice." 
 
 "How did you get here?" I demanded. And 
 even in his misery, I could not help being amused 
 to see his countenance fall. 
 
 "Dey fetched me here in de patrol-wagon," he 
 said evasively. 
 
 313
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "I know that. I mean, for what?" 
 
 "Well, dey say, Captain, dat I wus desorderly 
 an' drunk, but you know I don' drink nothin'." 
 
 "I know you do, you fool," I said, with some 
 exasperation. "I have no doubt you were what 
 they say, but what I mean is, where is Dix and 
 how did you get hold of him?" 
 
 "Well, you see, Marse Hen, it's dis way," 
 said Jeams falteringly. "I come here huntin' fur 
 you and I couldn' fin' you anywheres, so then I 
 got a place, and while I wus lookin' roun' fur you 
 one day, I come 'pon Dix, an' as he wus lost, jes' 
 like you wus, an' he didn't know where you wus, 
 an' you didn't know where he wus, I tuk him 
 along to tek care of him till I could fin' you." 
 
 "And incidentally to fight him?" I said. 
 
 Again Jeams's countenance fell. "No, sir, that 
 I didn't," he declared stoutly. "Does you think 
 I'd fight dat dog after what you toP me?" 
 
 "Yes, I do. I know you did, so stop lying 
 about it and tell me where he is, or I will leave you 
 in here to rot till they send you down to the rock- 
 pile or the penitentiary." 
 
 "Yes, sir; yes, sir, I will. Fur God's sake, don' 
 do dat, Marse Hen. Jes' git me out o' here an' I 
 will tell you everything; but I'll swear I didn't 
 fight him; he jes' got into a fight so, and then jist 
 
 314
 
 MY FIRST CLIENT 
 
 as he bed licked de stuffin out of dat Barkeep 
 
 Gallagin's dog, them d d policemen come in 
 
 an' hammered me over the head because I didn't 
 want them to rake in de skads and tek Dix 'way 
 from me." 
 
 I could not help laughing at his contradictions. 
 
 "Well, where is he now?" 
 
 "I'll swear, Marse Hen, I don' know. You ax 
 the police. I jes' know he ain't in here, but dey 
 knows where he is. I prays night and day no 
 harm won't happen to him, because dat dog can 
 beat ary dog in this sinful town. I jes' wish you 
 had seen him." 
 
 As the turnkey was now showing signs of im 
 patience, I cut Jeams short, thereby saving him 
 the sin of more lies, and with a promise that I 
 would get him bailed out if I could, I came away. 
 
 The turnkey had assured me on the way that he 
 would find and return me my dog, and was so 
 sincere in his declaration that nothing would give 
 him more pleasure than to do this for any friend 
 of Mr. McSheen's, that I made the concession of 
 allowing him to use his efforts in this direction. 
 But I heard nothing more of him. 
 
 With the aid of my friend, the detective, I soon 
 learned the names of the police officers who had 
 arrested Jeams, and was enabled to get from them 
 
 315
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 the particulars of the trouble which caused his 
 arrest. 
 
 It seemed that, by one of the strange and for 
 tuitous circumstances which so often occur in life, 
 Jeams had come across Dix just outside of the 
 building in which was my law office, and being 
 then in his glory, he had taken the dog into the 
 bar-room of Mick Raffity, where he had on arrival 
 in town secured a place, to see what chance there 
 might be of making a match with Dix. The 
 match was duly arranged and came off the follow 
 ing night in a resort not far from Raffity's saloon, 
 and Dix won the fight. Just at this moment, 
 however, the police made a raid, pulled the place 
 and arrested as many of the crowd as could not 
 escape, and held on to as many of those as were 
 without requisite influence to secure their prompt 
 discharge. In the course of the operation, Jeams 
 got soundly hammered, though I could not tell 
 whether it was for being drunk or for engaging 
 in a scrimmage with the police. Jeams declared 
 privately that it was to prevent his taking down 
 the money. 
 
 When the trial came off, I had prepared myself 
 fully, but I feel confident that nothing would have 
 availed to secure Jeams's acquittal except for two 
 circumstances: One was that I succeeded in 
 
 316
 
 MY FIRST CLIENT 
 
 enlisting the interest of Mr. McSheen, who for 
 some reason of his own showed a disposition to be 
 particularly civil and complacent toward me at 
 that time so civil indeed that I quite reproached 
 myself for having conceived a dislike of him. 
 Through his intervention, as I learned later, the 
 most damaging witness against my client sud 
 denly became exceedingly friendly to him and on 
 the witness-stand failed to remember any cir 
 cumstance of importance which could injure him, 
 and finally declared his inability to identify him. 
 The result was that Jeams was acquitted, and 
 when he was so informed, he arose and made a 
 speech to the Court and the Jury which would 
 certainly fix him in their memory forever. In 
 the course of it, he declared that I was the greatest 
 lawyer that had ever lived in the world, and I had 
 to stop him for fear, in his ebullient enthusiasm, 
 he might add also that Dix was the greatest dog 
 that ever lived. 
 
 317
 
 XXI 
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 
 
 OTILL, I had not got Dix back, and I meant to 
 find him if possible! It was several days 
 before I could get on the trace of him, and when 
 I undertook to get the dog I found an unexpected 
 difficulty in the way. I was sent from one office 
 to another until my patience was almost ex 
 hausted, and finally when I thought I had, at last, 
 run him down, I was informed that the dog was 
 dead. The gapped-tooth official, with a pewter 
 badge on his breast as his only insignia of official 
 rank, on my pressing the matter, gave me a cir 
 cumstantial account of the manner in which the 
 dog came to his death. He had attempted, he 
 said, to get through the gate, and it had slammed 
 to on him accidentally, and, being very heavy, 
 had broken his neck. 
 
 I had given Dix up for lost and was in a very 
 low state of mind, in which Jeams sympathized 
 with me deeply, though possibly for a different 
 reason. He declared that we had "lost a dog as 
 
 318
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 
 
 could win a ten-dollar bill any day he could get 
 a man to put it up." 
 
 "Cap'n, you jes' ought to V seen the way he 
 chawed up that barkeep Gallagin's dog! I was 
 jes' gittin' ready to rake in de pile when dem per- 
 lice jumped in an' hammered me. We done los' 
 dat dog, Cap'n you an' I got to go to work," he 
 added with a rueful look. 
 
 It did look so, indeed. A few days later, a 
 letter from him announced that he had gotten a 
 place and would call on me "before long." As he 
 gave no address, I assumed that his " place" was 
 in some bar-room, and I was much disturbed 
 about him. One day, not long after, Dix dashed 
 into my office and nearly ate me up in his joy. 
 I really did not know until he came back how dear 
 he was to me. It was as if he had risen from the 
 dead. I took him up in my arms and hugged him 
 as if I had been a boy. He wore a fine new collar 
 with a monogram on it which I could not decipher. 
 Next day, as I turned into the alley at the back 
 of the building on which opened Mick Raffity's 
 saloon, with a view to running up to my office by 
 the back way, I found Dix in the clutches of a 
 man who was holding on to him, notwithstanding 
 his effort to escape. He was a short, stout fellow 
 with a surly face. At my appearance Dix re- 
 
 319
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 peated the manoeuvres by which he had escaped 
 from Jeams the day I left him behind me back 
 East, and was soon at my side. 
 
 I strode up to the man. 
 
 "What are you doing with my dog?" I de 
 manded angrily. 
 
 "He'sMr. McSheen'sdog." 
 
 "He's nothing of the kind. He's my dog and I 
 brought him here with me." 
 
 "I guess I know whose dog he is," he said in 
 solently. "He got him from Dick Gallagin." 
 
 Gallagin! That was the name of the man who 
 had put up a dog to fight Dix. A light began to 
 break on me. 
 
 "I guess you don't know anything of the kind, 
 unless you know he's mine. He never heard 
 of Gallagin. I brought him here when I came 
 and he was stolen from me not long ago and 
 I've just got him back. Shut up, Dix!" for 
 Dix was beginning to growl and was ready for 
 war. 
 
 The fellow mumbled something and satisfied 
 me that he was laboring under a misapprehension, 
 so I explained a little further, and he turned and 
 went into Rajfity's saloon. Next day, however, 
 there was a knock at my door, and before I could 
 call to the person to come in, McSheen himself 
 
 320
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 
 
 stood in the door. The knock itself was loud and 
 insolent, and McSheen was glowering and mani 
 festly ready for trouble. 
 
 "I hear you have a dog here that belongs to me," 
 he began. 
 
 "Well, you have heard wrong I have not." 
 
 "Well to my daughter. It is the same thing." 
 
 "No, I haven't a dog that belongs to your 
 daughter?" 
 
 "Yes, a dog that belongs to my daughter. 
 Where is he?" 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know. I wasn't aware that 
 you had a daughter, and I have no dog of hers or 
 any one else except my own." 
 
 "Oh! That don't go, young man trot him 
 out." 
 
 At this moment, Dix walked out from under 
 my desk where he had been lying, and standing 
 beside me, gave a low, deep growl. 
 
 "Why, that's the dog now." 
 
 I was angry, but I was quiet, and I got up and 
 walked over toward him. 
 
 "Tell me what you are talking about," I said. 
 
 "I'm talking about that dog. My daughter 
 owns him and I've come for him." 
 
 "Well, you can't get this dog," I said, "because 
 he's mine." 
 
 321
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "Oh! he is, is he?" 
 
 "Yes, I brought him here with me when I 
 came. I've had him since he was a puppy." 
 
 "Oh! you did!" 
 
 1 ' Yes, I did. Go back there, Dix, and lie do wn ! " 
 for Dix, with the hair up on his broad back and a 
 wicked look in his eye, was growling his low, 
 ominous bass that meant war. At the word, 
 however, he went back to his corner and lay 
 down, his eye watchful and uneasy. His prompt 
 obedience seemed to stagger Mr. McSheen, for 
 he condescended to make his first attempt at an 
 explanation. 
 
 "Well, a man brought him and sold him to my 
 daughter two months ago." 
 
 "I know he stole him." 
 
 "I don't know anything about that. She paid 
 for him fair and square $50.00, and she's fond of 
 the dog, and I want him." 
 
 "I'm sorry, for I can't part with him." 
 
 "You'd sell him, I guess?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "If I put up enough?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Say, see here." He put his hand in his pocket. 
 "I helped you out about that nigger of yours, and 
 I want the dog. I'll give you $50.00 for the dog 
 
 322
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 
 
 more than he's worth and that makes one hun 
 dred he's cost." 
 
 "He's not for sale I won't sell him." 
 
 "Well, I'll make it a hundred." A hundred 
 dollars! The money seemed a fortune to me; but 
 I could not sell Dix. 
 
 "No. I tell you the dog is not for sale. I 
 won't sell him." 
 
 "What is your price, anyhow?" demanded 
 McSheen. ' ' I tell you I want the dog. I promised 
 my daughter to get the dog back." 
 
 "Mr. McSheen, I have told you the dog is not 
 for sale I will not sell him at any price." 
 
 He suddenly flared up. 
 
 "Oh! You won't! Well, I'll tell you that I'll 
 have that dog and you'll sell him too." 
 
 "I will not." 
 
 "We'll see. You think you're a pretty big man, 
 but I'll show you who's bigger in this town you 
 or Coll McSheen. I helped you once and you 
 haven't sense enough to appreciate it. You look 
 out for me, young man." He turned slowly with 
 his scowling eye on me. 
 
 "I will." 
 
 "You'd better. When I lay my hand on you, 
 you'll think an earthquake's hit you." 
 
 "Well, get out of my office now," I said. 
 323
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "Oh! I'm going now, but wait." 
 
 He walked out, and I was left with the knowl 
 edge that I had one powerful enemy. 
 
 I was soon to know Mr. Collis McSheen better, 
 as he was also to know me better. 
 
 A few days after this I was walking along and 
 about to enter my office when a man accosted me 
 at the entrance and asked if I could tell him of a 
 good lawyer. 
 
 I told him I was one myself, though I had the 
 grace to add that there were many more, and I 
 named several of the leading firms in the city. 
 
 "Well, I guess you'll do. I was looking for you. 
 You are the one she sent me to," he said doubt 
 fully, when I had told him my name. He was a 
 weather-beaten little Scotchman, very poor and 
 hard up ; but there was something in his air that 
 dignified him. He had a definite aim, and a 
 definite wrong to be righted. The story he told 
 me was a pitiful one. He had been in this coun 
 try several years and had a place in a locomotive- 
 shop somewhere East, and so long as he had had 
 work, had saved money. But they "had been 
 ordered out," he said, and after waiting around 
 finding that the strike had failed, he had come on 
 here and had -gotten a place in a boiler-shop, but 
 they "had been ordered out" again, "just as I 
 
 324
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 
 
 got my wife and children on and was getting sort 
 of fixed up," he added. Then he had resigned 
 from the Union and had got another place, but a 
 man he had had trouble with back East was "one 
 of the big men up here now," and he had had him 
 turned out because he did not "belong to the 
 Union." He was willing to join the Union now, 
 but "Wringman had had him turned down." 
 Then he had gotten a place as a driver. But he 
 had been ill and had lost his place, and since then 
 he had not been able to get work, "though the 
 preacher had tried to help him." He did not 
 seem to complain of this loss of his place. 
 
 "The wagon had to run," he said, but he and 
 his wife, too, had been ill, and the baby had died 
 and the expenses of the burial had been "some 
 thing." He appeared to take it as a sort of ulti 
 mate decree not to be complained of only stated. 
 He mentioned it simply by way of explanation, 
 and spoke as if it were a mere matter of Fate. 
 And, indeed, to the poor, sickness often has the 
 finality of Fate. During their illness they had 
 sold nearly all their furniture to live on and pay 
 rent. Now he was in arrears ; his wife was in bed, 
 his children sick, and his landlord had levied on 
 his furniture that remained for the rent. At the 
 last gasp he had come to see a lawyer. 
 
 325
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "I know I owe the rent," he said, "but the beds 
 won't pay it and the loan company's got all the 
 rest." 
 
 I advised him that the property levied on was 
 not subject to levy; but suggested his going to his 
 landlord and laying the case before him. 
 
 "If he has any bowels of compassion what 
 ever " I began, but he interrupted me. 
 
 "That's what the preacher said." But his 
 landlord was "the Argand Estate," he added in a 
 hopeless tone. He only knew the agent. He had 
 been to him and so had the preacher; but he said 
 he could do nothing the rent must be paid 
 "the Argand Estate had to be kept up, or it 
 couldn't do all the good it did " so he was going 
 to turn them out next day. 
 
 He had been to one or two lawyers, he said; but 
 they wouldn't take the case against the Argand 
 Estate, and then the lady had sent him to me. 
 
 "What lady?" 
 
 "The lady who teaches the little school Miss 
 Leigh she teaches my Janet." 
 
 McNeil's name had at first made no impression 
 on me, but the mention of Miss Leigh, "the Argand 
 Estate," and of Wringman brought up an associa 
 tion. "McNeil? McNeil?" I said. "Did you 
 have five children; and did your wife bring them 
 
 326
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 
 
 on here some months ago when the train was 
 late, one day?" 
 
 " Yes, sorr; that's the way it was." 
 "Well, I will keep you in longer than to 
 morrow," I said. And I did. But Justice is too 
 expensive a luxury for the poor. "Law is law," 
 but it was made by landlords. I won his case for 
 him and got his furniture released; I scored the 
 Argand agent, an icy-faced gentleman, named 
 Gillis, "of high character," as the Argand coun 
 sel, Mr. McSheen, indignantly declared, and inci 
 dentally "the Argand Estate," in terms which 
 made me more reputation than I knew of at the 
 time. 
 
 The case was a reasonably simple one, for my 
 client was entitled to a poor debtor's exemption 
 of a few household articles of primary need, and 
 he had not half of what he could have claimed 
 under his exemption. It appeared, however, that 
 in the lease, which was in the regular form used 
 by the Argand Estate, all exemptions were 
 waived, and also that it was the regular practice 
 of the estate to enforce the waiver, and it was 
 alleged at the trial that this practice had always 
 been sustained. It was the fact that this was the 
 customary lease and that a principle was involved 
 which brought Mr. McSheen into the case, as he 
 
 327
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 stated, for a client who was the largest landlord in 
 the city. And it was the fact that Miss Leigh 
 had recommended me and that McSheen was in 
 the case that made me put forth all my powers 
 on it. 
 
 On the stand the Argand agent, Gillis, who, it 
 appeared, had begun as an office-boy in the office 
 of Mr. Argand and had then become his private 
 secretary, from which he had risen to wealth and 
 position, a fact I had learned from Kalender, 
 was foolish enough to say that the case was gotten 
 up by an unknown young lawyer out of spite 
 against the Argand Estate and that it was simply 
 an instance of "the eternal attacks on wealth"; 
 that, in fact, there were "only two sides, the man 
 with the dress-coat and the man without." 
 
 "You began poor. When did you change your 
 coat?" I asked. 
 
 The laugh was raised on him and he got angry. 
 After that I had the case. I was unknown, but 
 Gillis was better known than I thought, and the 
 hardship on my client was too plain. I led him 
 on into a tangle of admissions, tied him up, and 
 cross-examined him till the perspiration ran off 
 his icy forehead. I got the jury and won the case. 
 But, notwithstanding my success, my client was 
 ruined. He was put out of the house, of course, 
 
 328
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 
 
 and though I had saved for him his beds, every 
 article he possessed soon went for food. The laws 
 established for the very protection of the poor 
 destroy their credit and injure them. He could 
 not give security for rent, and but for a fellow 
 workman named Simms taking him into his 
 house, and the kindness of the man he had spoken 
 of as "the preacher," his children would have had 
 to go to the workhouse or a worse place. 
 
 McNeil's case was the beginning of my practice, 
 and in a little while I found myself counsel for 
 many of the drivers in our section of the city. 
 
 Among those whom this case brought me in 
 touch with was a young lawyer, who, a little later, 
 became the attorney for the Government. My 
 interest in him was quickened by the discovery 
 that he was related to Mr. Leigh, a fact he men 
 tioned somewhat irrelevantly. He was present 
 during the trial and on its conclusion came up and 
 congratulated me on my success against what he 
 termed "the most powerful combination for evil 
 in the city. They bid fair," he said, "to control 
 not only the city, but the State, and are the more 
 dangerous because they are entrenched behind the 
 support of ignorant honesty. But you must look 
 out for McSheen." As he stood near Coll McSheen, 
 I caught the latter's eye fixed on us with that 
 
 329
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 curious malevolent expression which cast a sort 
 of mask over his face. 
 
 I had not hunted up John Marvel after learning 
 of his presence in the city, partly because I 
 thought he would not be congenial and partly 
 because, having left several affectionate letters 
 from him unanswered during my prosperity, I 
 was ashamed to seek him now in my tribulation. 
 But Fate decided for me. We think of our ab 
 sent friend and lo! a letter from him is handed to 
 us before we have forgotten the circumstance. 
 We fancy that a man in the street is an acquaint 
 ance; he comes nearer and we discover our mis 
 take, only to meet the person we thought of, on 
 the next corner. We cross seas and run into our 
 next-door neighbor in a crowded thoroughfare. 
 In fact, the instances of coincidence are so numer 
 ous and so strange that one can hardly repel the 
 inference that there is some sort of law governing 
 them. 
 
 I indulged in this reflection when, a morning or 
 two later, as I was recalling my carelessness in not 
 looking up John Marvel and Wolffert, there was 
 a tap on the door and a spare, well-built, dark- 
 bearded man, neatly but plainly dressed, walked 
 in. His hat shaded his face, and partly concealed 
 
 330
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 
 
 his eyes; but as he smiled and spoke, I recog 
 nized him. 
 
 "Wolffert! I was just thinking of you." 
 
 He looked much older than I expected, and 
 than, I thought, I myself looked; his face was 
 lined and his hair had a few strands of silver at 
 the temples; his eyes were deeper than ever, and 
 he appeared rather worn. But he had developed 
 surprisingly since we had parted at College. His 
 manner was full of energy. In fact, as he talked 
 he almost blazed at times. And I was conscious 
 of a strange kind of power in him that attracted 
 and carried me along with him, even to the dulling 
 of my judgment. He had been away, he said, and 
 had only just returned, and had heard of my suc 
 cess in ''defeating the Argand Estate Combina 
 tion"; and he had come to congratulate me. It 
 was the first victory any one had ever been able 
 to win against them. 
 
 "But I did not defeat any combination," I said. 
 "I only defeated Collis McSheen in his effort to 
 take my client's bed and turn him and his children 
 out in the street without a blanket." 
 
 "There is the Combination, all the same," he 
 asserted. "They have the Law and the Gospel 
 both in the combine. They make and administer 
 the one and then preach the other to bind on men's 
 
 331
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 shoulders burdens, grievous to be borne, that they 
 themselves do not touch with so much as a finger." 
 
 "But I don't understand," I persisted; for I saw 
 that he labored under much suppressed feeling, 
 and I wondered what had embittered him. ' ' Collis 
 McSheen I know, for I have had some experience 
 of him; and Gillis, the agent, was a cool proposi 
 tion; but the Argand Estate? Why, McSheen 
 strung out a list of charities that the Argand 
 Estate supported that staggered me. I only 
 could not understand why they support a man 
 like McSheen." 
 
 "The Argand Estate support charities! Yes, 
 a score of them all listed and every dollar is 
 blood, wrung from the hearts and souls of others 
 and there are many Argands." 
 
 "How do you mean?" For he was showing a 
 sudden passion which I did not understand. He 
 swept on without heeding my question. 
 
 "Why, their houses are the worst in the city; 
 their tenements the poorest for the rent charged; 
 their manufactories the greatest sweatshops; 
 their corporate enterprises all at the cost of the 
 working-class, and, to crown it all, they sustain 
 and support the worst villains in this city, who 
 live on the bodies and souls of the ignorant and 
 the wretched." 
 
 332
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 
 
 "Whom do you mean? I don't understand." 
 
 "Why, do you suppose the Coll McSheens and 
 Gillises and their kind could subsist unless the 
 Argands and Capons of the Time supported them? 
 They have grown so bold now that they threaten 
 even their social superiors they must rule alone ! 
 They destroy all who do not surrender at dis 
 cretion." 
 
 "Who? How?" I asked, as he paused, evi 
 dently following a train of reflection, while his 
 eyes glowed. 
 
 "Why, ah! even a man like Mr. Leigh, who 
 though the product of an erroneous system is, at 
 least, a broad man and a just one." 
 
 "Is he? I do not know him. Tell me about 
 him." For I was suddenly interested. 
 
 Then he told me of Mr. Leigh and his work 
 in trying to secure better service for the pub 
 lic, better tenements better conditions gen* 
 erally. 
 
 "But they have defeated him," he said bitterly. 
 "They turned him out of his directorship or, at 
 least, he got out and are fighting him at every 
 turn. They will destroy him, if possible. They 
 almost have him beat now. Well, it is nothing to 
 me," he added with a shrug of his shoulders and 
 a sort of denial of the self-made suggestion. "He 
 
 333
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 is but an individual victim of a rotten system 
 that must go." 
 
 My mind had drifted to the conference which I 
 had witnessed in McSheen's office not long before, 
 when suddenly Wolffert said : 
 
 "Your old friend, Peck, appears to have gotten 
 up. I judge he is very successful after his kind." 
 
 "Yes, it would seem so," I said dryly, with a 
 sudden fleeting across my mind of a scene from the 
 past, in which not Peck figured, but one who now 
 bore his name ; and a slightly acrid taste came in 
 my mouth at the recollection. ' ' Well, up or down, 
 he is the same," I added. 
 
 "He is a serpent," said Wolffert. "You re 
 member how he tried to make us kill each other?" 
 
 "Yes, and what a fool I made of myself." 
 
 "No, no. He was at the bottom of it. He 
 used to come and tell me all the things you said 
 and didn't say. He made a sore spot in my heart 
 and kept it raw. He's still the same reptile." 
 
 "Have you seen him?" I asked. He leaned 
 back and rested his eyes on me. 
 
 "Yes, he took the trouble to hunt me up a day 
 or two ago, and for some reason went over the 
 whole thing again. What's McSheen to him?" 
 
 "I shall break his neck some day, yet," I ob 
 served quietly. 
 
 334
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 
 
 "You know I write," he said explanatorily. 
 "He wanted me to write something about you." 
 
 "About me?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What a deep-dyed scoundrel he is!" 
 
 "Yes, he wanted to enlist me on the McSheen 
 side, but '' his eyes twinkled. "Where do you 
 go to church?" he suddenly asked me. 
 
 I told him, and I thought he smiled possibly at 
 what I feared was a little flush in my face. 
 
 "To 'St. Mammon's'! Why don't you go to 
 hear John Marvel? He is the real thing." 
 
 "John Marvel? Where is he?" 
 
 "Not far from where you say you live. He 
 preaches out there to the poor." 
 
 "In a chapel?" I enquired. 
 
 "Everywhere where he is," said Wolffert, 
 quietly. 
 
 "What sort of a preacher is he?" 
 
 "The best on earth, not with words, but with 
 deeds. His life is his best sermon." 
 
 I told him frankly why I had not gone, though 
 I was ashamed, for we had grown confidential in 
 our talk. But Wolff ert assured me that John 
 Marvel would never think of anything but the 
 happiness of meeting me again. 
 
 "He is a friend whom God gives to a man once 
 335
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 in his lifetime," he said, as he took his leave. 
 "Cherish such an one. His love surpasseth the 
 love of women." 
 
 "Has he improved?" I asked. 
 
 A little spark flashed in Wolff ert's eyes. "He 
 did not need to improve. He has only ripened. 
 God endowed him with a heart big enough to em 
 brace all humanity except " he added, with a 
 twinkle in his eye, "the Jew." 
 
 "I do not believe that." 
 
 "By the way, I have a friend who tells me she 
 has met you. Your dog appears to have made 
 quite an impression on her." 
 
 "Who is she?" 
 
 "Miss Leigh, the daughter of the gentleman we 
 were talking about." 
 
 "Oh! yes a fine girl I think,"! said with a 
 casual air to conceal my real interest. 
 
 "I should say so! She is the real thing," he 
 exclaimed. "She told me you put out her fire 
 for her. She teaches the waifs and strays." 
 
 "Put out her fire! Was ever such ingratitude! 
 I made her fire for her. Tell me what she said." 
 
 But Wolffert was gone, with a smile on his face. 
 
 336
 
 XXII 
 
 THE PREACHER 
 
 , "the preacher" whom my client, McNeil, 
 and my poor neighbors talked of was no other 
 than John Marvel! I felt that he must have 
 changed a good deal since I knew him. But 
 decency, as well as curiosity, required that I go 
 te see him. Accordingly, although I had of late 
 gone to church only to see a certain worshipper, 
 I one evening sauntered over toward the little 
 rusty-looking chapel, where I understood he 
 preached. To my surprise, the chapel was quite 
 full, and to my far greater surprise, old John 
 proved to be an inspiring preacher. Like Wolf- 
 fert, he had developed. When he came to preach, 
 though his sermon was mainly hortatory and 
 what I should have expected of him, his earnest 
 ness and directness held his congregation, and I 
 must say he was far more impressive than I should 
 have imagined he could be. His sermon was as 
 far from the cut-and-dried discourse I was used 
 to hear, as life is from death. 
 
 337
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 He spoke without notes and directly from his 
 heart. His text, "Come unto me, all ye that labor 
 and are heavy-laden." He made it out to be a 
 positive promise of rest for the weary in body, 
 mind and soul, given by One not only able to help 
 but longing to do so: a pitying Father, who saw 
 His tired children struggling under their burdens 
 and yearned toward them. The great Physician 
 was reaching out His hands to them, longing to 
 heal them, if they but received Him ; if they but 
 followed Him. To be converted meant to turn 
 from what they knew to be evil and try to live as 
 they felt He lived. He had come to bring the 
 gospel to the poor. He had been poor as poor 
 as they. He knew their sorrows and privations 
 and weakness ; and their sins, however black they 
 were. All He asked was that they trust Him, 
 and try to follow Him, forgetting self and helping 
 others. Do not be afraid to trust Him, or de 
 spair if He does not make Himself known to 
 you. He is with you even until the end and 
 often as much when you do not feel it as when 
 you do. 
 
 God appeared very real to him, and also to his 
 hearers, who hung on his words as simple as they 
 were. I felt a seriousness which I had long been 
 a stranger to. He appeared to be talking to me, 
 
 338
 
 THE PREACHER 
 
 and I set it down to tenderness for old John Mar 
 vel himself, rather than to his subject. 
 
 When the service was over, he came down the 
 aisle speaking to the congregation, many of whom 
 he appeared to know by name, and whose con 
 cerns he also knew intimately. And as the chil 
 dren crowded around him with smiles of friendli 
 ness, I thought of the village preacher with the 
 children following, "with endearing wile." 
 
 His words were always words of cheer. 
 
 "Ah! Mrs. Tarns! Your boy got his place, 
 didn't he? 
 
 "Mrs. Williams, your little girl is all right 
 again? 
 
 "Well, Mrs. McNeil" (to a rusty, thinly clad 
 woman who sat with her back to me), "so your 
 husband won his case, after all? His lawyer was 
 an old friend of mine." 
 
 I had sat far back, as the church was full when 
 I entered, and was waiting for him to get through 
 with his congregation before making myself 
 known to him ; so, though he was now quite close 
 to me, he did not recognize me until I spoke to 
 him. As I mentioned his name, he turned. 
 
 "Why, Henry Glave!" Then he took me in 
 his arms, bodily, and lifting me from the ground 
 hugged me there before the entire remnant of his 
 
 339
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 congregation who yet remained in the church. 
 I never had a warmer greeting. I felt as if I 
 were the prodigal son, and, although it was em 
 barrassing, I was conscious that instant that he 
 had lifted me out of my old life and taken me 
 to his heart. It was as if he had set me down 
 on a higher level hi a better and purer atmos 
 phere. 
 
 I went home with him that night to his little 
 room in a house even smaller and poorer than 
 that in which I had my room where he lived, as 
 I found, because he knew the pittance he paid was 
 a boon to the poor family who sublet the room. 
 But as small and inconvenient as the room was, 
 I felt that it was a haven for a tired and storm- 
 tossed spirit, and the few books it contained gave 
 it an air of being a home. Before I left it I was 
 conscious that I was in a new phase of life. Some 
 thing made me feel that John Marvel's room was 
 not only a home but a sanctuary. 
 
 We sat late that night and talked of many 
 things, and though old John had not improved in 
 quickness, I was surprised, when I came to think 
 over our evening, how much he knew of people 
 poor people. It seemed to me that he lived 
 nearer to them than possibly any one I had known. 
 He had organized a sort of settlement among 
 
 340
 
 THE PREACHER 
 
 them, and his chief helpers were Wolffert and a 
 Catholic priest, a dear devoted old fellow, Father 
 Tapp, whom I afterward met, who always spoke 
 of John Marvel as his "Heretick brother," and 
 never without a smile in his eye. Here he helped 
 the poor, the sick and the outcast; got places for 
 those out of work, and encouraged those who were 
 despairing. I discovered that he was really try 
 ing to put into practical execution the lessons he 
 taught out of the Bible, and though I told him he 
 would soon come to grief doing that, he said he 
 thought the command was too plain to be dis 
 obeyed. Did I suppose that the Master would 
 have commanded, "Love your enemies," and, 
 "Turn the other cheek," if He had not meant it? 
 "Well," I said, "the Church goes for teaching that 
 theoretically, I admit; but it does not do it in 
 practice I know of no body of men more ready 
 to assert their rights, and which strikes back with 
 more vehemence when assailed." 
 
 "Ah! but that is the weakness of poor, fallible, 
 weak man," he sighed. "'We know the good, 
 but oft the ill pursue/ if we could but live up to 
 our ideals, then, indeed, we might have Christ's 
 kingdom to come. Suppose we could get all to 
 obey the injunction, 'Sell all thou hast and give 
 to the poor,' what a world we should have!" 
 
 341
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 "It would be filled with paupers and dead beats," 
 I declared, scouting the idea. " Enterprise would 
 cease, a dead stagnation would result, and the 
 industrious and thrifty would be the prey of the 
 worthless and the idle." 
 
 "Not if all men could attain the ideal." 
 
 "No, but there is just the rub; they cannot 
 you leave out human nature. Selfishness is in 
 grained in man it has been the mainspring 
 which has driven the race to advance." 
 
 He shook his head. "The grace of God is 
 sufficient for all," he said. "The mother-love has 
 some part in the advance made, and that is not 
 selfish. Thank God! There are many rich noble 
 men and women, who are not selfish and who do 
 God's service on earth out of sheer loving kindness, 
 spend their money and themselves in His work." 
 
 "No doubt, but here in this city? 
 
 "Yes, in this city thousands of them. Why, 
 where do we get the money from to run our place 
 with?" 
 
 "From the Argand Estate?" I hazarded. 
 
 "Yes, even from the Argand Estate we get some. 
 But men like Mr. Leigh are those who support us 
 and women like ah But beyond all those 
 who give money are those who give themselves. 
 They bring the spiritual blessing of their presence, 
 
 342
 
 THE PREACHER 
 
 and teach the true lesson of divine sympathy. 
 One such person is worth many who only give 
 money." 
 
 "Who, for instance?" 
 
 "Why ah Miss Leigh for example." 
 
 I could scarcely believe my senses. Miss Leigh! 
 "Do you know Miss Leigh? What Miss Leigh are 
 you speaking of?" I hurriedly asked to cover my 
 own confusion, for John had grown red and I 
 knew instinctively that it was she there could be 
 but one. 
 
 "Miss Eleanor Leigh yes, I know her she 
 ah teaches in my Sunday-school." John's old 
 trick of stammering had come back. 
 
 Teaching in his Sunday-school! And I not 
 know her! That instant John secured a new 
 teacher. But he went on quickly, not divining 
 the joy in my heart, or the pious resolve I was 
 forming. "She is one of the good people who 
 holds her wealth as a trust for the Master's poor 
 she comes over every Sunday afternoon all the 
 way from her home and teaches a class." 
 
 Next Sunday at three P. M. a hypocrite of my 
 name sat on a bench in John's little church, pre 
 tending to teach nine little ruffians whose only 
 concern was their shoes which they continually 
 measured with each other, while out of the corner 
 
 343
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 of my eye I watched a slender figure bending, 
 with what I thought wonderful grace, over a 
 pew full of little girls on the other side of the 
 church intent on their curls or bangs. 
 
 The lesson brought in that bald-headed and 
 somewhat unfeeling prophet, who called forth 
 from the wood the savage and voracious she-bears 
 to devour the crowd of children who ran after him 
 and made rude observations on his personal ap 
 pearance, and before I was through, my sym 
 pathies had largely shifted from the unfortunate 
 youngsters to the victim of their annoyance. 
 Still I made up my mind to stick if John would 
 let me, and the slim and flower-like teacher of 
 the fidgety class across the aisle continued to 
 attend. 
 
 I dismissed my class rather abruptly, I fear, on 
 observing that the little girls had suddenly risen 
 and were following their teacher toward the door 
 with almost as much eagerness as I felt to escort 
 her. When I discovered that she was only going 
 to unite them with another class, it was too late 
 to recall my pupils, who at the first opportunity 
 had made for the door, almost as swiftly as 
 though the she-bears were after them. 
 
 When the Sunday-school broke up, the young 
 lady waited around, and I took pains to go up 
 
 344
 
 THE PREACHER 
 
 and speak to her, and received a very gracious 
 smile and word of appreciation at my efforts with 
 the " Botany Bay Class/' as my boys were termed, 
 which quite rewarded me for my work. Her eyes, 
 with their pleasant light, lit up the whole place 
 for me. Just then John Marvel came out and it 
 was the first time I ever regretted his appearance. 
 The smile she gave him and the cordiality of her 
 manneiv filled me with sudden and unreasoning 
 jealousy. It was evident that she had waited to 
 see him, and old John's face bore a look of such 
 happiness that he almost looked handsome. As 
 for her as I came out I felt quite dazed. On the 
 street whom should I meet but Wolffert " simply 
 passing by," but when I asked him to take a walk, 
 he muttered something about having "to see 
 John." He was well dressed and looked unusually 
 handsome. Yet when John appeared, still talk 
 ing earnestly with Miss Leigh, I instantly saw by 
 his face and the direction of his eye that the John 
 he wanted to see wore an adorable hat and a 
 quiet, but dainty tailor-made suit and had a face 
 as lovely as a rose. 
 
 I was in such a humor that I flung off down the 
 street, swearing that every man I knew was in 
 love with her, and it was not until ten o'clock 
 that night, when I went to John's whither I was 
 
 345
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 drawn by an irresistible desire to talk about her 
 and find out how matters stood between them 
 and he told me that she had asked where I had 
 gone, that I got over my temper. 
 
 "Why, what made you run off so?" he in 
 quired. 
 
 "When?" I knew perfectly what he meant. 
 
 "Immediately after we let out." 
 
 "My dear fellow, I was through, and besides I 
 thought you had pleasanter company." I said 
 this with my eyes on his face to see him suddenly 
 redden. But he answered, with a naturalness 
 which put me to shame : 
 
 "Yes, Miss Leigh has been trying to get a place 
 for a poor man your client by the way and then 
 she was talking to me about a little entertainment 
 for the children and their parents, too. She is 
 always trying to do something for them. And 
 she was sorry not to get a chance to speak further 
 to you. She said you had helped her about her 
 fire and she had never thanked you." 
 
 It is surprising how quickly the sun can burst 
 from the thickest clouds for a man in love. I 
 suddenly wondered that Miss Leigh among her 
 good works did not continually ask about me and 
 send me messages. It made me so happy. 
 
 "What became of Wolffert?" I inquired. 
 346
 
 THE PREACHER 
 
 "I think he walked home with her. He had 
 something to talk with her about. They are great 
 friends, you know. She helps Wolffert in his 
 work." 
 
 "Bang!" went the clouds together again like a 
 clap of thunder. The idea of Wolffert being in 
 love with her! I could tolerate the thought of 
 John Marvel being so, but Wolffert was such a 
 handsome fellow, so clever and attractive, and so 
 full of enthusiasm. It would never do. Why, 
 she might easily enough imagine herself in love 
 with him. I suddenly wondered if Wolffert was 
 not the cause of her interest in settlement work. 
 
 "Wolffert is very fond of her I found him 
 hanging around the door as we came out," I 
 hazarded. 
 
 "Oh! yes, they are great friends. He is an in 
 spiration to her, she says and Wolffert thinks she 
 is an angel as she is. Why, if you knew the 
 things she does and makes others do!" 
 
 If John Marvel had known with what a red-hot 
 iron he was searing my heart, he would have de 
 sisted; but good, blind soul, he was on his hobby 
 and he went on at full speed, telling me what 
 good deeds she had performed how she had 
 fetched him to the city; and how she had built 
 up his church for him had started and run his 
 
 347
 
 JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 
 
 school for the waifs coming over from her beau 
 tiful home in all weathers to make up the fire her 
 self and have the place warm and comfortable 
 for the little ones how she looked after the sick 
 organized charities for them and spent her 
 money in their behalf. "They call her the angel 
 of the lost children," he said, "and well they may." 
 
 "Who does?" I asked suspiciously, recalling 
 the title. "Wolffert, I suppose." 
 
 "Why, all my people I think Wolffert first 
 christened her so and they have taken it up." 
 
 "Confound Wolffert!" I thought. "Wolffert's 
 in love with her," I said. 
 
 "Wolffert in love with her! Why!" I saw 
 that I had suggested the idea for the first time 
 but it had found a lodgment in his mind. "Oh! 
 no, he is not," he declared, but rather arguing than 
 asserting it. "They are only great friends they 
 work together and have many things in common 
 Wolffert will never marry he is wedded to his 
 ideal." 
 
 "And her name is Eleanor Leigh only he is not 
 wedded to her yet." And I added in my heart, 
 "He will never be if I can beat him." 
 
 "Yes certainly, in a way as she is mine," 
 said John, still thinking. 
 
 "And you are too!" I said. 
 348
 
 THE PREACHER 
 
 "I? In love with?" He did not mention 
 her name. It may have been that he felt it too 
 sacred. But he gave a sort of gasp. "The glow 
 worm may worship the star, but it is at a long dis 
 tance, and it knows that it can never reach it." 
 
 I hope it may be forgiven to lovers not to have 
 been frank with their rivals. His humility touched 
 me. I wanted to tell John that I thought he 
 might stand a chance, but I was not unselfish 
 enough, as he would have been in my place. All 
 I was brave enough to do was to say, "John, you 
 are far above the glow-worm; you give far more 
 light than you know, and the star knows and 
 appreciates it." 
 
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