H. E. WOODS
 
 GOD'S MAN
 
 A Novel 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE BRONSON-HOWARD 
 
 ILLUSTRATED INITIALS BY 
 
 WILL VAWTER 
 
 O27 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT 1915 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 BRAUNWORTH k CO. 
 BOOKBINDERS AND PRIN1 
 BROOKLYN. N. Y.
 
 To 
 
 HEWITT HANSON HOWLAND 
 
 The Second Father of 
 this Book 
 
 2136520
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. BEGINNINGS 1 
 
 I. Genesis. II. The Fighting L'Hommedieus. 
 
 II. THE CHEVYING OF QUIWEKS 8 
 
 I. Our Musketeers at College. II. And Why They 
 Chevied Quivvers. 
 
 III. HAVRE DE GRACE 22 
 
 Our Musketeers at Home. 
 
 IV. ARISTOCRATS 34 
 
 I. Squire Hartogensis Receives a Proposition. II. 
 The Attic in Gramercy Park. III. The Costly Miss 
 Caton. IV. How She Lost One Musketeer. V. How 
 She Won Another. 
 
 V. CATASTBOPHE 59 
 
 I. How the Honorable John Waldemar Taught His 
 Son to Be Honorable, Too Introducing Miss Bobbie 
 Beulah. II. Bobbie's Little Supper Party. 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 I. ARNOLD'S ADVENTURES IN PLUNDEBLAND .... 79 
 I. Little One and Velvet Voice. II. The Trunk That 
 Would Hold Three Men. III. Why Hans Chasserton. 
 Wore a Straw Hat in January. 
 
 II. SONS OF SUBTEBBANEA 108 
 
 I. Sonetchka Visits Mother Mybus. II. The Ungodly 
 Horde. III. Hans Chasserton Takes up Residence at 
 the Yew Tree Inn. IV. Old Mitt-and-a-Half. V. The 
 Cagey Kid "Turns Square." 
 
 III. How ARNOLD GOT OUT OF JAIL 13? 
 
 I.He Meets Nietzsche in Motley. II. Flarrity's Court 
 
 BOOK III 
 
 I. THE PINK KIMONO 159 
 
 I. Arnold Investigates Along New Lines. II. The 
 Pink Kimono Hangs in Beeckman Place. 
 
 II. CONSPIRACY DE Lux 168 
 
 Arnold Becomes a Good Business Man. 
 
 III. THE GAY LIFE 181 
 
 I. At Rocamora's Restaurant II. On the Threshold 
 of Subterranea. III. The Attic Has Hope of Arnold. 
 IV. Arnold Gives Up Velvet Voice and Hears of an 
 Old Friend.
 
 CONTENTS Continued 
 BOOK IV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTEB 
 
 I. IN WHICH ARNOLD GETS A CHEQUE 221 
 
 And Comes Home Again. 
 
 II. NO-MAN'S LAND *** 
 
 Arnold Meets a Philosopher. 
 
 III. CONTBABAND 245 
 
 Enter Captain Danny of the "Cormorant." 
 
 IV. THE HAPPENINGS OF A SINGLE DAY 254 
 
 I. Quentin Quiwers Benefactor. II. On Forty- 
 seventh Street. III. What Arnold Heard in His Al- 
 cove. IV. In Which Velvet Voice Does Not Wait for 
 Arnold to Cast Her Off. V. Concerning Dulness ia 
 the Coffee Trade. VI. The Pink Kimono Comes Back 
 to Beeckman Place. 
 
 BOOK V 
 
 I. THE BLOW FALLS 307 
 
 I. "Van Vhroon, Coffee." II. Arnold Gives Up th 
 Fight. 
 II. REBELLION 325 
 
 The Inn Claims Arnold for Its Own. 
 
 BOOK VI 
 
 I. THB VIKING SHIP 341 
 
 I. She Goes. II. Arnold Stays. III. On the Spanish 
 Main. 
 
 II. THE WIRELESS MESSAGE 353 
 
 Pink Turns Philosopher. 
 
 III. DENOUNCED 370 
 
 I. Outside the Pale. II. Detective McKiss Has a 
 Caller. 
 
 BOOK VII 
 
 I. THE NIGHT OP THE SEVENTEENTH 389 
 
 I. "Onward, Christian Soldiers." II. Marching as to 
 War. III. The Awakening of Mr. McKiss. IV. The 
 Shots in the Dark. V. Hartogensis Hall Again. 
 
 II. THE HUE AND CRY 437 
 
 I. Arnold Returns. II. Arnold Escapes. III. Arnold 
 Despairs. IV. Arnold Learns Why. 
 
 III. WRECK ASHORE 468 
 
 Arnold's Decision Ratified.
 
 GOD'S MAN
 
 BOOK I
 
 GOD'S MAN 
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 BEGINNINGS 
 I. GENESIS 
 
 T ALL began with what ? Who 
 knows? The expulsion of our 
 ** Three Musketeers after the 
 - chevying of Quivvers? Quen- 
 i tin Quivvers he called himself, 
 , although the Lord (and every- 
 body else) knows that was not 
 his name. The "Q" "Peter 
 . Q. Quiwers" was the way his 
 .' name was entered at Old 
 Bang's College stood for 
 "Quimby." But there was an 
 ancient/ clam-digger in Q's 
 native village, an ape-like 
 little brown man. And he was Quimby, too. Young Quiv- 
 vers did not wish people to think he was "related to him" 
 chiefly because he was. . . . 
 
 There, there! Quivvers needs too much explanation to 
 begin with him. 
 
 Did it begin with the arrival of Ivan, the moujik, the 
 boyar to be? Ivan Vladimirovitch John, son of Walde-
 
 2 God's Man 
 
 mar the Honorable John Waldemar, as he was some day to 
 be called. . . . 
 
 But, you see? It takes too long to explain how all that 
 could happen. 
 
 Suppose we go back a century to the days when Jan Har- 
 togensis and Amalia, his wife, served their patrons at the 
 Yew Tree Inn, in old Greenwich, Manhattan gold-laced, 
 cocked-hatted patrons, snowy-wigged, club-queued patroons, 
 many of them. 
 
 Patroons ! 
 
 Such as the Van Vhroons, for instance. Van Vhroon 
 Manor gave the Lane its name, then. And swords would 
 have left silken sheaths had any gentleman (in wine, of 
 course) had the hardihood to suggest, as a bare possibility, 
 that a daughter of that house might some day be allied with 
 a son of those peasant Hartogensisi. And these honest sons 
 of Jan and Amalia would have used their beer-mallets on any 
 one who dared suggest that their Inn might some day become 
 a place where stolen goods were bought and sold. 
 
 And yet ... all this, in good time, was to come to 
 
 And yet again Mother Mybus, then a fresh-faced Eussian 
 girl, wandering the old Bowery. Lacking male relatives with 
 swords to defend her reputation against base insinuations, it 
 is probable that she would have used her fists had she been 
 told that she would preside over that same pawn-shop, and 
 that furtive folk would some day submit to her ap- 
 praisals. . .. . 
 
 Yet that came to pass also, as you shall hear. . . . 
 
 Ah, after all, is there any beginning but one? "In the 
 beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth/' The 
 history of any man is the history of the world. No matter 
 where we begin, we must always go back, always explain, that 
 it was thus and so this man was made. And had it been 
 otherwise there would be no evil nor good in him. There 
 is no beginning and there is no end.
 
 Beginnings 3 
 
 II. THE FIGHTIXG L'HOMMEDIEUS 
 
 Although, as we have hazarded, there is but one actual 
 beginning, that is quite a different matter from the first 
 definite beginning. In the case of this chronicle of Arnold 
 L'Hommedieu, his life and loves, and other matters important 
 to him, the latter would seem to be a certain hot and dusty 
 day on the field of Ascalon, nearly a thousand years ago, when 
 there was conferred upon a certain Knight-Hospitaller, Sir 
 Lucas of St. John, the Norman-French equivalent of sur- 
 name "L'Hommedieu" meaning "God's Man." 
 
 This same Sir Lucas, a few years later, fled the Preceptory 
 of the Knights of Jerusalem; having broken his monkish 
 vows and married her whose importuning caused him to do 
 so. For he was not one who could wax fat and wealthy in 
 sin ; his conscience would not let him. And, although his sin 
 need never have found him out, it was enough for him that 
 it had found him. 
 
 So he set a lifelong penance on himself and chained the 
 woman's lips with a terrible oath never to reveal his birth, 
 his titles or his former pretensions. . . . Eeaching the 
 trades-town of Dijon, he who had nearly been Grand Master 
 of all the Knights-Hospitallers became a common Armorer 
 to noblesse and commonesse alike, and was thereafter simple 
 "Maitre Lucas." 
 
 So well did he and his indifferently good dame keep his 
 secret that all their children ever found to connect them with 
 the past was a vellum screed concealed between the moldy 
 leather lining and the steel links of the chain-mail he had 
 worn while winning the very honors the screed commemo- 
 rated. It seemed that, for rescuing some Royal Princeling 
 from Saracen battleaxes, "our trusty and well-beloved Sir 
 Lucas . . . sans surname of birth relinquished when tak- 
 ing his vows" . . . should henceforward be known by that 
 "higher one" (here we arbitrarily curtail certain Gallic ety-
 
 4 God's Man 
 
 mology and Norman spelling), "Le Homme De Dieu"- 
 L'Hommedieu. 
 
 Failing another name they would much have preferred 
 one which connected them with some ancient family his 
 sons and daughters adopted this one. But for all the fine 
 gound of it, the world in general heard no more of the L'Hom- 
 medieus until a certain Etienne L'Hommedieu, three cen- 
 turies later he who had also been consecrated to Holy 
 Church duplicated his ancestor's iconoclasm and, afterward, 
 many of his deeds of valor. 
 
 But a new religion had come into being since Lucas, and 
 Etienne did not go back to his father's shop after taking a 
 wife, but into the ranks of the Huguenots, carrying a Bible in 
 one hand, a sword in the other as did many in those grim 
 days; and when Harry V)f Navarre became a good Catholic 
 King, went off to the Low Countries to become a leader of 
 insurgent Dutch, and, when there was no more fighting, came 
 to the New World and helped build New Amsterdam. But 
 certain religious differences with the Dutch clergy made him 
 eager to go where he might be the sole authority on points 
 of worship so he asked for his first reward in return for many 
 services to the Eepublic and the religion, requesting a grant 
 of land wherever he might choose to settle; then sent to 
 France for any sturdy Huguenot burgesses of Dijon who 
 wished to be assured against persecution when Navarre no 
 longer ruled France. Meanwhile he began, methodically and 
 tirelessly, to search the country roundabout Manhattan 
 Island. 
 
 He discovered Havre de Grace by accident, his boat having 
 been blown across the Sound while exploring what was after- 
 ward called the Connecticut Shore; and, driven by contrary 
 winds, made the first secure haven he could find. 
 
 The next morning, when the early sunlight lay ruddy over 
 the pine-clad slopes of his harbor he knelt and gave thanks 
 for God's wise decision. The spot selected by his Creator 
 as he piously and somewhat egotistically believed was a wide
 
 Beginnings 5 
 
 harbor, half a mile across, shaped somewhat like a bottle, its 
 neck jumping distance across. On all sides the slopes rose 
 to a height of a hundred feet or more, guaranteeing health- 
 ful air and no plagues of insects. The soil was fertile, a 
 wilderness of vegetation; and was irrigated by a stream that 
 wound in and out above, then dashed down in a crystal tor- 
 rent, icy cold, a useful force to be harnessed to a future flour 
 mill. Dolphins leaped and sported showing silver stomachs 
 in the sun, flocks of red-billed green-necked ducks flew low 
 over the marshes and gray geese fished with them in amity, 
 while crows rose over fields of golden corn, their well-filled 
 black bellies purpling in the sun. Jeweled herons, too, fish- 
 hawks and many gulls flew in circles over the shining water, 
 finding food everywhere and, ashore, he could see the breath- 
 ing places of clams, and strewn along the beach, oyster shells 
 and lobster-paws washed colorless by the tide. Over the 
 dazzling sand a turtle ambled leisurely, as is the custom of 
 turtles. 
 
 There were Indians near by, the planters of the corn, a 
 small tribe and a peaceful one, and with these the Chevalier 
 L'Hommedieu made a solemn pact. 
 
 The Indians were to retain the left bank of the harbor, 
 where the golden corn gleamed. Although, for safety's sake, 
 lest other and alien spirits be drawn by the success of his 
 colony, the Chevalier had all that land included in his grant 
 from the Dutch Eepublic. The village of Havre de Grace 
 was built on the right bank; its wharves, docks and public 
 buildings on the lowlands at the harbor-head, the lowland 
 that afterward held the principal streets of the town after 
 the English accession. 
 
 And on the high ground arose the Church of the Cross, 
 bearing the L'Hommedieu arms on stained glass especially 
 done by Amsterdam artists. There the Chevalier gave out 
 the Word of God without conflict with theologians, Dutch, 
 French, or otherwise. There, and elsewhere in the town, his 
 word was law, and. though the English came, the Established
 
 6 God's Man 
 
 Church never. The English found the L'Hommedieu con- 
 ception of the gospel sufficiently satisfying. 
 
 A L'Hommedieu has preached from that pulpit ever 
 since. The eldest son, most frequently the only one he who 
 toils all day with his hands and half the night with his brains 
 is not prolific of progeny. In one thing all the L'Hom- 
 medieus were unique. The Chevalier had laid down, among 
 other family laws, the chief one. No wages, no gifts, were 
 to be taken for preaching the Word. That must be done for 
 the love of God, the love of man. 
 
 "Payment doth stultify the truth, inasmuch as one depend- 
 ent upon the good will of others is prudently tongue-tied 
 when those who richly endow him shall fail in their duty to 
 their fellows. Though the Word has said that a rich man 
 may not enter His kingdom, many do seek so to enter paying 
 His clerk to suppress reports of their wrongdoing. 
 
 "And so I say to you, sons and grandsons (until this issue 
 of my loins falter and fail), you may be free for God only 
 when you are free of men. Till diligently the soil left you, 
 tend tenderly God's creatures of the barn and stable, bring 
 forth the fruits of His land in plenty, so that you may take 
 His pay from His hands. 
 
 "And when there is more than enough, it is His word that 
 there are others who have less than enough, and it is your duty 
 to seek and find them and give with both hands, overflow- 
 ing." . . . 
 
 So runs a literal translation of a half -page of the worn old 
 sheepskin, the home-made sloe-berry ink faded, the clerkly 
 Latin only to be guessed at, else the whole document, lordly 
 but loving, fierce but tender, warlike yet only for peace, should 
 here be given. Such a screed only a Prince of Men could 
 have written, let alone lived. That had been the Chevalier's 
 way. He might have been the first and the greatest of the 
 patroons, those lordly landholders, rivaling any Duke of his 
 native land. But it was too little for one who had ruled over
 
 Beginnings 7 
 
 many Kingdoms in the souls of men, and who meant that his 
 descendants should do likewise. 
 
 So the largest portion of his land became the township's 
 the common property of all. Every one of his friends and 
 followers received patents from him for farms almost as large 
 as his own, the extra portion set aside in his name being for 
 the upkeep of the Church and for charity. As soon, as they 
 could afford a Town clerk the Chevalier filed with him docu- 
 ments that would secure to each his little property, and espe- 
 cially the Indians who had trusted him, against the greed of 
 future white men. 
 
 So, as something of Sir Lucas had been born, again in 
 Etienne, so was that something born in Arnold nearly three 
 hundred years later, that something that made men hold 
 Bibles in one hand, swords in the other; that something that 
 had cut down heathens at Ascalon and another sort of heathen 
 in the defeats of the Guises and the Alvas. 
 
 Arnold L'Hommedieu was to learn on less glorious battle- 
 fields, however, men had grown meaner since the Chevalier, 
 dealing blows with dishonest weapons, with what, until 
 stricken, one could not know for weapons at all. 
 
 And to learn these things Arnold must know disgrace the 
 martyrdom of civilization ; must be crucified, too, and be, not 
 a noble sight to move hearts, but a mock in the mouths of 
 men; crucified between thieves, to find them, like Barabbas, 
 nobler souls than those respected ones who had condemned 
 them. 
 
 And that is the story I will now begin to tell.
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 THE CHEVYING OF QUIVVEKS 
 I. OUR MUSKETEERS AT COLLEGE 
 
 E nearly began with Quivvers 
 and his chevying before; and, 
 in a way, it would have been 
 right to do so ; for that chevying 
 was the first episode in the life 
 of Arnold L'Hommedieu that 
 seriously concerns this history. 
 Had it not been for pasty 
 Quivvers and his sly ugly ways, 
 Arnold L'Hommedieu would 
 have followed his forefathers 
 as rector of the little gray- 
 lichened church aflame with 
 red sage; and would have striven, in all things, to have done 
 as they did. Instead, through this same despicable Quivvers, 
 he was to become . . . 
 
 Enough of that! What was he? That is what is before 
 us now. 
 
 Well, truth to tell, in appearance he was much like other 
 youngsters of his sort; just such another as any one of the 
 boys one sees at St. Paul's or Dartmouth or the smaller New 
 England colleges. He was clean and wholesome, if a trifle too 
 inflexible and lacking in humor, perhaps ; but that can be for- 
 given a youth who strove to live up to a standard of honor 
 almost impossible nowadays. Arnold was even less mischievous
 
 The Chevying of Quivvers 9 
 
 than other boys of his kind are apt to be ; mischievousness and 
 a sense of boyish dignity ill-comport together. Besides, he 
 must remember that, some day, he would be the Eeverend 
 Arnold. He owed it to that some-day-to-be Eeverend to do 
 nothing to jeopardize his some-day-to-be Keverend influence. 
 He must find things a boy could do that would serve as out- 
 lets for his essentially and normally boyish nature, yet would 
 in no way tarnish a Eeverend's 'scutcheon. 
 
 And he found them. Particularly one. 
 
 Although he had never been known to begin a battle, he had 
 more sanguinary encounters to his credit than most boys had 
 to their discredit. It was to Arnold that maltreated urchins 
 ran, digging knuckles into eyes already sufficiently grimy to 
 keep up a flow of tears, tangible evidence of the brutal oppres- 
 sion for which they sought a redress they never failed to get. 
 There was a glad light in Arnold's eyes once his much-too- 
 much-in-evidence conscience was satisfied; the light that was 
 in Sir Lucas' at Ascalon when he yielded-not-an-inch to I- 
 don't-know-how-many Saracens and saved the Fat Prince and 
 the Fatter Bishop. 
 
 Arnold had the strength of a well-knit boy who is neither 
 too tall nor too broad, and whose mind and body grow to- 
 gether, neither at the expense of either; so that he was able 
 to make the best use of his strength. He would spend hours, 
 for instance, hardening the back of his hand against the barn- 
 door if somebody told him (as somebody did) that the Jap- 
 anese jiu-jitsu men could strike a more terrible blow with that 
 member flattened, than could their American rivals with said 
 member enfisted. 
 
 And, having hardened it, he would go forth casually, pre- 
 tending to himself it was for the sheer pleasure of walking; 
 but hoping, nevertheless, that something would happen which 
 would satisfy his conscience sufficiently to allow him to test 
 the worth of the jiu-jitsu theory. 
 
 Like all boys with the ability to enforce their commands, 
 just or unjust, Arnold rejoiced in, and at times was pestered
 
 10 God's Man 
 
 by, a variety of henchmen; a sufficient number to insure the 
 future Reverend a congregation should other sources fail. By 
 the time we begin to make his acquaintance in the flesh he had 
 left the great majority of these behind. Only two had re- 
 mained loyal enough, or competent enough, or of good enough 
 address, or with parents who had money enough, to follow him 
 to Old King's College, where we glimpse him for part of a day, 
 Hie week before he and they were expelled. 
 
 It was loyalty in the case of Archie Hartogensis, who had 
 long yearned for Yale ; where that patrician, by instinct, the 
 good Squire Benjamin Hartogensis, Justice of the Peace, 
 country gentleman, and son of many tavern-keeping Harto- 
 gensisi conveniently forgot, would willingly have sent him; 
 since there he would have met the sons of many other patri- 
 cians, with or without patrician ancestors. 
 
 It was loyalty in the case of Hugo "Waldemar, son of that 
 other patrician, the former peasant Ivan Yladimirovitch, now 
 known as "the Honnible Johnnie" in that bailiwick that had 
 sent him to the Legislature. For Hugo had a certain curiosity 
 concerning physics and chemistry which might have led to 
 something had it not been clearly impracticable for a future 
 Reverend to prepare for his Reverendship by attending the 
 Boston Tech. And, if not so clearly, it was quite as imprac- 
 ticable for his present Reverendship's purse to pay the price 
 of his son's admittance into the ranks of the "Little Brothers 
 of the Rich." So no Yale for Arnold, either. 
 
 Besides, there was the L'Hommedieu tradition there had 
 been a L'Hommedieu at Old King James' (the "Old" was 
 silent then), since some incensed Jacobites founded that Uni- 
 versity to compete with the Usurpers' memorial, "William 
 and Mary's " ; that is to say, some time early in the eighteenth 
 century. Ever since each L'Hommedieu had been gladdened 
 in turn by the proximity of the old Parsonage to such a first- 
 rate seat of theological learning. . . . Even Arnold in- 
 sisted it was first-rate. 
 
 And perhaps it was. It was small though, and the aristo-
 
 The Chevying of Quivvers 11 
 
 crats of New Amsterdam lineage, whose forefathers were not 
 allowed to enter their sons there because they were beneath 
 the rank of an "Esquire," now turned up their noses at it 
 and found it "cheap," too. But folk of an inquiring turn 
 of mind might have noticed that a number of text-books used 
 in the Greek and Latin courses of other colleges and uni- 
 versities bore on their title-pages "B. A.'s" and "L.L. D.'s" 
 obtained at King James'. And its "Head/* an "M. A., 
 Oxon," was esteemed the best classical scholar in America, 
 
 He said he preferred King James' because it gave him the 
 most leisure for his own studies, and because the little village 
 of Cyprus, in which it was ensconced, was like a bit of Old 
 England. Indeed, there were in Cyprus besides King James' 
 many other Jacobean buildings in twilight gray. 
 
 II. AND WHY THEY CHEVIED QUIVVERS 
 
 It was in their last year at Old King's, and after 
 three terms of studies earnestly pursued for Arnold had 
 welded his own and his friends' future careers into a most 
 harmonious whole that an alien intruded himself upon our 
 little community of three. No one of them was ever again 
 heard to credit the theory of "Free Will." 
 
 For they could in no way be blamed, justly, for what they 
 did. Although two of the three fathers cared no whit for 
 that, and for long after blamed them readily and stormily and 
 incessantly, and visited their wrath upon them. Only the 
 Reverend Jorian, Arnold's father, sympathized. Yet his 
 hopes for his son were those most sorely crushed. But he 
 could see that the act by which they terminated their college 
 careers was one as unselfish and as devoted as any that had 
 hitherto made him proud to be the father of one, and the 
 foster-father of our other two, Musketeers. 
 
 Jorian L'Hommedieu, himself, the gentlest and most for- 
 bearing of men, found it hard not to hate the slimy reptile 
 who had dragged his soiling person across the well-planned
 
 12 God's Man 
 
 futures of "his boys/' Afterward he was to understand that 
 they were destined, and particularly Arnold, for higher pur- 
 poses than remaining quietly in their birthplace. 
 
 But enough of that now. All in good time. Let us con- 
 sider the noisome one. Nor blame him too much, remember- 
 ing the kind of parents he had. (The kind we need waste 
 no time over.) Also remembering that the pendulum must 
 swing far to the left if it would go far to the right ; and that 
 certain future good could not have been had Quivvers not 
 been evil. 
 
 And he was evil, right enough; born crooked, withal an 
 artful oily beggar, with a trick of getting your confidence 
 and betraying it, which in school and college is called "sneak- 
 ing" and, in modern business in which Quiwers afterward 
 shone "smart." 
 
 He early discovered opportunity for this smartness when 
 he found that many of his fellow students took small financial 
 interests in the horse-racing that then flourished in many 
 parks around and about Xew York City. And there was a 
 galoon, as near the bounds of Old King's as laws and regula- 
 tions permitted, where bets were transmitted by telephone to 
 a large pool-room in town. Quivvers could see no reason why 
 the saloonkeeper should enjoy this royal privilege exclusively, 
 so he opened negotiations with another and larger pool-room, 
 becoming its official, but secret, agent in the college ; and soon 
 had profitably outdistanced his rival, the saloonkeeper too 
 profitably by far. 
 
 The scheme was a simple one and would have won him 
 plaudits in that tricky business world, where, afterward, he 
 figured. It was to circulate tips on horses that had not a 
 ghost of show and, receiving the money, pocket instead of 
 betting it, taking the one chance in a hundred that the horses 
 would win. 
 
 Trouble had come for the Three Musketeers when "The 
 Jinx" took a desperate chance with his last ten dollars ; 
 "Jinx" for obvious reasons; the boy had never had any luck
 
 The Chevying of Quivvers 13 
 
 at anything, although there was nothing on which he would 
 not bet football, baseball, cricket, even alien and distant 
 polo matches. Quivvers had more of The Jinx's money than 
 that of any dozen others; and The Jinx a pale harassed 
 little freshman was facing permanent withdrawal from col- 
 lege life and incarceration in his father's shoe factory, "to 
 begin at the bottom," the lowest of unskilled labor, if his 
 father received any more overdue tradesmen's bills. And 
 beginning with the New Year, then only a week off, many 
 such bills would be presented him, for Quivvers had a purse 
 more than usually swollen with the allowances of Jinx's father 
 that should have gone to tailor, hatter and bookseller. 
 
 Jinxy must have been desperate, any one could see that, 
 when he would take a forty-to-one chance on a horse of whom 
 nothing more favorable was known than that he had once 
 given a surprising performance on a rainy day. "Poor Jinx's 
 laying that 'sawbuck' the track'll be muddy," Archie had said, 
 shaking his head at sight of the drawn harried face. 
 
 It was pretty generally agreed that poor Jinxy had the 
 proverbial snowball's chance college boys are not brilliant at 
 metaphor. Arnold, particularly, was sorry to lose him. 
 Jinxy, while not a pal in the sense of Archie Hartogensis 
 or Hugo, was his one literary sympathizer, as opposed to all 
 those others of the college weekly, who worshiped at utilita- 
 rian shrines in literature or else sat at the feet of the cynics. 
 The first wanted to learn how best to turn words into dollars, 
 the second how to achieve reputations at the expense of in- 
 ferior souls. 
 
 Arnold and The Jinx alone, of all the youths who wrote 
 for The Green Bag as the Old King's College weekly was 
 called sought, in Arnold's phrase, "to express the true in 
 terms of the beautiful." And, though Arnold's stuff had the 
 most truth, Jinxy's had a beauty more easily recognized, 
 the beauty that comes from love and a close study of the clas- 
 sics. Vergil's Bucolics, Homer, Ovid, Aristophanes, Aris- 
 totle, Plato, Xenophon, Caesar, Petronius, Marcus Aurelius
 
 14 God's Man 
 
 these were not schoolbooks to The Jinx, but more delightful 
 than Arabian Nights' Entertainments. He would sooner find 
 lyrical English for them than read the most enthralling ro- 
 mance. Where the son of a middle-class manufacturer of 
 boots and shoes developed such tastes is food for the students 
 of heredity, but here he was, the born classical scholar. To 
 take him away from his books was not only to deprive the 
 world of future critical studies of value but of English ver- 
 sions of great beauty as well work that the world could 
 hardly afford to lose, in order to gain an impecunious race- 
 track follower, a spendthrift, a gambler. For certainly The 
 Jinx would follow one strong leaning or the other ; he would 
 work in no shoe factory. 
 
 For the first time in his life Arnold had watched witli 
 anxious interest for the results of a race, trudging into town 
 with the sad-eyed Jinx and his fellow Musketeers. And 
 for the first time, when the results went up on The Echo 
 bulletin board, did he feel the necessity for loud congratula- 
 tions. The weather at Latonia had been as though it real- 
 ized the grave issue that depended on its satisfactory, or un- 
 satisfactory, behavior, and the undistinguished forty-to-one 
 shot, cheered by favorable surroundings, had romped past the 
 Judges with the other contestants behind her. Jinxy was 
 saved to the glory of classical literature, and swore in tearful 
 tones, to take his second breath as God-given forgiveness; to 
 bet BO more. For Arnold, now that things were no longer 
 awry, had delivered himself plainly of the choice The Jinx 
 must make. 
 
 "It's either doing the work you like best all your life, or 
 spending your time with people who think Vergil is a foreign 
 name for a very young girl. . . . What a pity a fine ani- 
 mal like the horse should have such rotten press agents. And, 
 look here, Jinxy, do you know my definition of what they call 
 a 'sucker?' A man who plays another man's game. The 
 bookmakers' wives wear diamonds, the Casino at Monte Carlo 
 builds marble palaces and pays the King five million a year
 
 The Chevying of Quivvers 15 
 
 they don't do that by losing, do they? There's only one 
 successful way to gamble own the game. And your game 
 is understanding words, not figures. You've pulled out this 
 once " 
 
 But had he ? "My luck. Thought it was too good to be 
 true for me," The Jinx had said wearily, viewing a gray 
 prospect of a life where a love of Latin and Literature was 
 unknown. For profusely apologetic Quivvers told him he 
 hadn't had the heart to throw away the last money the poor 
 Jinxy had, and there it was the original ten. It happened 
 in the Three Musketeers' study, where, after searching the 
 college for him, strong-armed Hugo had escorted the apolo- 
 gist, grimly. 
 
 "Wanted me to bring the ten. Said he hadn't the heart," 
 exclaimed Hugo, with increasing grimness. He, good-na- 
 tured, simple one though he was, had nevertheless the de- 
 cided conviction that something was radically wrong. To 
 find Quivvers in chapel, of all places he who boasted openly 
 of an intimate acquaintance with the works of Ingersoll and 
 Paine, and who felt he had thoroughly demolished the Chris- 
 tian religion by proving that the whale's small throat would 
 have prevented his swallowing Jonah to find this heretic 
 staring raptly at a stained glass Madonna after Botticelli 
 he in whose room hung the sort of chromos given away as 
 prizes for cigarette coupons; such things were suspicious. 
 And, after turning over abstract suspicion and gazing pro- 
 foundly at its bottom, Hugo had concluded, with no respect 
 to the cunning of Quivvers, that the young gentleman had 
 done such an obviously clumsy bit of cheating as to retain 
 three hundred and ninety dollars of Jinxy's winnings. And 
 he said so. 
 
 "Fork out. Come on," he said, shaking Quivvers. "Fork." 
 The pseudo betting-commissioner emitted a snarl of annoy- 
 ance at the heaviness of his captor's hand. 
 
 "You ought to be thrown out of some very high window, 
 on to some very hard rocks no, sharp nails no, stinging
 
 16 God's Man 
 
 nettles," said Archie Hartogensis excitedly. "I give you my 
 word, I never heard of such a crook as you, Quiwers. Xot 
 in all history is there such a slimy snake." 
 
 Arnold, of them all, said nothing, but surveyed Quiwers 
 quietly with speculative gray eyes. More than the stolid hut 
 active giant of a Hugo, or the excitable blond Archie, this 
 Athos of the Musketeers realized what Quiwers had done, 
 and knowing how vile and little he was (for all his scrubbed 
 cleanliness and six feet of height), failed to find any words 
 that would express his opinions. Arnold knew, had Jinxy 
 won and Quivvers held it back, the pool-room first must make 
 the bet good ; second, discharge its agent ; and, though he had 
 always despised the fellow, he gave him credit for too much 
 intelligence to involve himself in so patent a swindle. It was 
 so easy to find a record of the bet. 
 
 !N"o, there was another solution, and Arnold found the truth, 
 as always, by surveying all possibilities and eliminating each 
 one not impregnable. His three friends knew his method? : 
 he had worked out too many intricate problems in mathe- 
 matics for them all, had solved too many of their personal 
 problems in just that quiet staring way of his; but the si- 
 lence frightened Quivvers. 
 
 "See here, old pal," the latter said to The Jinx, forcing 
 confidence into his tones. He had a pleasing voice and, his 
 vicious mouth hidden by a small mustache a la mode, a 
 pleasant face. He took Jinxy's hand. "I'd sooner dive off 
 the clock-tower into a bathtub full of vitriol than have this 
 happen. But I'm your pal you know that your pal. If I 
 hadn't been your pal I'd have let that money. But I was 
 going to add a 'twenty to it and take up a subscription among 
 the other fellows. I'll add a fifty now." Seeing that The 
 Jinx a trustful person and grateful for the smallest favor 
 was beginning to regard him as a benefactor, he turned to 
 fields more difficult to conquer. "How much can vou eive 
 Arch?" 
 
 Archie. resoonrHng to the sincerity of Quivvere' or>en self-
 
 The Chevying of Quivvers 17 ' 
 
 blaming countenance, veered immediately. "Of all the nerve 
 I ever heard of in the whole world, yours is the worst ; taking 
 it on yourself to decide ahout betting somebody else's 
 money " He paused, wondering how much debt he dared 
 incur. Quivvers had turned the tables, put him in the 
 wrong. He could not afford to be less generous, but, finan- 
 cially, he could not afford to be generous at all. His attitude 
 influenced Hugo, whose brain was not in proportion to his 
 giant-like body, although his heart was. Perhaps he had 
 wronged poor Quivvers. There he had been sitting witli 
 awed face, contemplating a sacred picture, and he, Hugo, had 
 laid sacrilegious hands on him, when perhaps Quivvers was 
 meditating devotionally and learning to abjure the heresies 
 of Messrs. Paine and Ingersoll. The superstition of the Rus- 
 sian peasant from which Hugo was only a generation re- 
 moved smote him heavily. 
 
 "I'm sorry, Pete," he muttered. "We all make mistakes. 
 I'll put up a hundred. I'm sorry." 
 
 "You needn't be," said Arnold abruptly. "Lock the door. 
 Give me the key. Now, Quivvers " 
 
 No hope here for appeals with sentimental ism, bluff hearti- 
 ness, fake friendship, to this creature of intellect. Arnold 
 had pondered and now he understood. "He didn't bet that 
 money, boys. He told the truth." 
 
 Arnold paused. But Quivvers knew better than to take 
 heart. 
 
 "He wouldn't have returned it, though, if the horse had 
 lost" said Arnold coldly. "That's how he's bought all those 
 new clothes and stickpins and study fixings. He never has 
 laid that sort of bet. Just put the money in his pocket. 
 Well, that was all right, up to to-day. The pool-rooms would 
 have got the money anyway. But the pool-rooms would have 
 paid when their judgment was wrong. He took the place of 
 the pool-room. So he owes Jinxy his bet." 
 
 From his hasty, incoherent jumble of reasseverated friend- 
 ship for all, especially Arnold "the last man in the world I'd
 
 18 God's Man 
 
 thought could think such a thing" Arnold realized Quivvers 
 had not the remotest intention of fulfilling his obligation ; and 
 although he saw trouble foreshadowed for all of them, Arnold 
 could, for the life of him, do nothing lees. Not for nothing 
 had they been called the Three Musketeers. Coming up 
 together from Havre de Grace school under Arnold's leader- 
 ship, they had fought, shoulder to shoulder, against sopho- 
 more and junior oppression; not content with winning free- 
 dom for themselves, they had chastised the bullies of other 
 helpless freshmen, inflicting severe punishment, upsetting 
 all Old King's classic traditions, and given back to many 
 their lost self-respect. "One for all and all for one" had 
 been their juvenile oath in the Hartogensis barn when they 
 were but entering their 'teens, and since those childish the- 
 atricals Arnold had held them to it. 
 
 They had brought a new idea into the college, an idea that 
 is always new, although it was really novel only when our 
 primitive fathers, the cave men, rose superior to the beasts by 
 believing in it. Bullying of freshmen, save surreptitiously, 
 had ceased since the Three Musketeers came to Old King's 
 though, since it is student ethics not to carry tales to mas- 
 ters, they had their hands full. "The strong should protect 
 the weak," Arnold had told Archie and Hugo, long since back 
 in Havre de Grace, when they hung spellbound to his tales 
 of bygone knightly prowess. He was never to be a preacher, 
 in the local sense, as the Eeverend Jorian, his father, fondly 
 imagined he would be; but one can not come of a long line 
 of parsons ten of them for grandfathers and not have 
 preaching in one's very veins. 
 
 And this was his sort of preaching the militant church- 
 man's, that of those old Knights of St. John and of Jerusa- 
 lem; Knights-Hospitallers, Knights of Malta. He was an 
 atavism; he was in fact just what the first known L'Hom- 
 medieu had been before a maid had broken his vows. Six 
 hundred years ago that, yet Arnold might have sat for his
 
 The Chevying of Quivvers 19 
 
 picture when lie told Hugo to hold Quivvers while Archie 
 went through his pockets. 
 
 Any quantity of crumpled bills were found, despite Quiv- 
 vers' kicks and threats and pleas of probity. But not enough. 
 "Take his jewelry," said Arnold. 
 
 The pawnshops were still open, and Archie sped to town in 
 Uncle Jabez's ancient hack, while Hugo sat guard over Quiv- 
 vers, ominous now, for he, too, had been betrayed and must 
 watch himself like a hawk lest "the oily beggar come it over 
 him again"; while The Jinx, alarmed by the sullen silence 
 into which Quivvers had fallen, protested that it did not 
 matter. 
 
 It was dusk when Archie returned, and Arnold looked up 
 from the translation at which he had been working steadily, 
 apparently unaware of Quivvers, to whom he had not spoken 
 since his request had been refused. But he spoke to him now, 
 after counting the money Archie had brought. 
 
 "Still ninety short," he said. "Wasn't there a cheque-book, 
 Hugo? Give him a pen. A cheque for the balance, Quiv- 
 vers, and if you stop it you'll be sorry." 
 
 He should have taken alarm at the meekness with which 
 Quivvers complied. "To you?" he had asked humbly. Ar- 
 nold nodded ; he was afraid The Jinx might not cash it.. "And 
 now, may I go?" asked the vanquished one, rising. Arnold 
 nodded and Hugo opened the door. 
 
 An hour later they were all in the President's study, the 
 cheque stared up at them accusingly from his blotter; be- 
 hind him Quivvers with the air of an outraged citizen. He 
 accused them of forcing him to give up money highway rob- 
 bery. Nothing was said of reasons save that they claimed, 
 unjustly, that h3 owed it. The point was, they had used 
 force. He showed the red marks of Hugo's huge moujik 
 paws. And the cheque had been in Arnold's pocket where 
 Quivvers had told the President it would be, and it was in 
 Arnold's name. Quivvers had known they could not cash
 
 20 God's Man 
 
 it until morning; had thought, too, that they could explain 
 only by betraying Jinxy's activities in betting, a misde- 
 meanor also punishable by expulsion. Quivvers knew our 
 three would willingly suffer almost anything if they could 
 go free only at Jinxy's expense; would suffer it even though 
 such silence would put him, their hateful enemy, in like dis- 
 grace. 
 
 Not strangely, but like all mean souls, he did not admire 
 them for this; and while despising them as idiots, lunatics, 
 "suckers," congratulated himself on his own acumen. 
 
 But he had underrated Arnold, who was not the sort to 
 suffer unjustly and give no punishment in return. Quivvers 
 had probably ruined a career to which the Eeverend Jorian 
 had trained Arnold's thoughts since childhood a career that 
 was the duty of every eldest son of the L'Hommedieus. Ex- 
 pulsion meant he could never take his place in the pulpit at 
 Havre de Grace, a L'Hommedieu pulpit for more than two 
 centuries ; and all because it was vastly more important than 
 he should retain his honor, protect his friends. But Quiv- 
 vers should not remain to do any gloating, to flourish by 
 evil. 
 
 Arnold faced the troubled President, and, since he could be 
 no more thoroughly expelled for two crimes than for one, he 
 spoke freely, in answer to a request for particulars as to the 
 debt. 
 
 "It was a bet on a horse-race," he said in a voice that 
 showed he spoke reluctantly. "Quivvers is the agent of a 
 pool-room Long Tom Kelly's telephone him if you don't 
 believe me, sir." 
 
 "We bet with him, too," said Archie, following Arnold's 
 lead, shoulder to shoulder as always "Waldemar and I. He 
 cheated us, sir. L'Hommedieu got the cheque for the lot." 
 
 "Yes, sir," agreed Hugo dutifully, and nodding darkly at 
 Quiwers, who was clutching at the back of the chair. 
 
 Quivvers had not expected this; curiously enough, he did 
 not think they might use his own weapons against him, and
 
 The Chevying of Quivvers 21 
 
 the fact that none of the three had ever placed a bet with him 
 had made him think he was secure, knowing they would in- 
 troduce no other names. 
 
 "So I'll keep the cheque, if you don't mind, sir," said Ar- 
 nold, withdrawing it from under the President's felspar paper- 
 weight. "It's ours, really it is, sir, and I know you must ask 
 us to resign for the betting if for nothing else, so we may as 
 well have this. We may need it." 
 
 That was Arnold L'Hommedieu fixity of purpose, calm, 
 unswerving loyalty to friends, championship of the weak 
 and hatred for vile and cunning strength that misused power. 
 
 The next day the President announced after prayers that 
 three students had found themselves forced to resign; and 
 that, he was sorry to say, he had found it necessary to expel 
 a fourth, Mr. P Q. Quivvers.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 HAVRE DE GRACE 
 OUK MUSKETEERS AT HOME 
 
 HE Snow Queen honored Long 
 Island with a visit on the day 
 of the boys' return home, and 
 the two hills which sheltered 
 Havre de Grace, harbor and 
 town, were hung and draped 
 with white velvet. Monsieur 
 Jacque Frost had not been idle 
 either; cedar berries were pow- 
 dered with glistening dust, pine 
 needles glittered like little up- 
 turned spears, and he had hung 
 silver-bright swords and shim- 
 mering daggers wherever there 
 were eaves or bushes to support them. 
 
 When the three boys met half an hour before sunset a 
 ghostly moon was beginning to give to these weapons from 
 winter's workshop some of the sheen of steel itself. And 
 with the setting of the sun gray ghosts galloped around Havre 
 de Grace chimneys, galloped and galloped until the wind 
 whisked them off to disappear among those elf -hills that mor- 
 tals call sand dunes. 
 
 "Of course, it had to go and snow and make us hate to 
 leave as much as possible. It couldn't have been rainy and 
 dismal and generally rotten. Oh, no !" 
 Thus Archie.
 
 Havre de Grace 23 
 
 Equally in character, Arnold said nothing. 
 
 "He ought to be thrown out of some very high window on to 
 some very hard rocks," said Archie Hartogensis excitedly. 
 "I give you my word I never heard of such a mucker as 
 Quivvers." 
 
 And still Arnold said nothing, but surveyed the other two 
 with speculative gray eyes. Yet he realized more than either 
 what this Quivvers had done to them. Of the trio he would 
 lose the most. 
 
 "It's a dear old place all right," he said, finally. 
 
 "The best ever," added excitable Archie. 
 
 "And anybody who says it isn't ought to get spectacles," 
 from Hugo. 
 
 "A pair like yours ?" interrupted Arnold, smiling. 
 
 Hugo grinned sheepishly, as always when stirred to emo- 
 tion he was unable to express or even understand. It was 
 indeed a dear old place! Almost the best ever; for once 
 nothing but such as Archie's exaggerations sufficed. 
 
 "Just think if it hadn't been for Quivvers we'd have in- 
 herited all that" 
 
 Archie scowled and deliberately turned his back as, the 
 northeast wind waxing with the waning of the afternoon, the 
 mist was half lifted from Harbor Hill across the way, reveal- 
 ing rectangular and hexagonal blocks of white, black-spotted 
 Noah's ark houses, clustered above and below the spire of 
 L'Hommedieu Church. 
 
 "All that? Don't be absurd, Archie," said Arnold, hoping" 
 to have Archie's wrath turned on him and away from their 
 misfortune. 
 
 "All sure! And you know it. And it would have been 
 like one inheriting it you ! 'Three souls with but a single 
 thought/ " 
 
 "Don't be sentimental, Archie," said Arnold, and led the 
 way down the slope by what was, at best, a goat's path. 
 
 "Now if you'd said three heads with but a single thought," 
 said Hugo solemnly.
 
 24 God's Man 
 
 "Three right at that everything that amounts to any- 
 thing is a sort of Trinity," conceded Archie. He was a great 
 one at metaphysics, the only science that requires no exact- 
 
 'Don't he blasphemous, Archie," said Arnold, using the 
 same expression but with a far different intonation. Arnold's 
 reverence was the inheritance of many centuries. 
 
 Hugo saw a storm gathering and interposed: "My Gov- 
 ernor won't even send me to the Boston Tech. no Tech. at 
 all. And that settles me. It was right enough at Old King's 
 
 exclusive ! But now I've got to go to another 'gentleman's 
 
 college/ The Governor's so crazy for me to be a 'gentle- 
 man' as if I wasn't one." 
 
 "All fathers are crazy," said Archie sullenly, and for the 
 thousandth time that week. 
 
 "My Governor says he's made the money. Let me make 
 the family." 
 
 Archie's sneer threatened to become a continuous perform- 
 ance. "Oh, I know! Family!" 
 
 "Don't be nasty, Archie," said Arnold, who had regained 
 his good temper, and was determined Archie should find his 
 again, too. "Come on, you two. " 
 
 They walked down to the shore and seated themselves in 
 Parson L'Hommedieu's power boat. 
 
 "He wants house parties, like he reads about in novels; 
 with long skinny women in low-necked dresses and garden 
 hats, playing bridge, and Van Doosens, Van Susans and vis- 
 iting Dukes or Earls or Counts, dressed up in Norfolk jackets 
 and blazers. Hugo's job is to marry a girl who knows that 
 sort by their first names." 
 
 "And I don't feel comfortable with that sort," continued 
 Hugo, taking the tiller. "The only girl I ever wanted to 
 marry was " 
 
 Arnold desisted from his attempts to set the great iron 
 wheel in motion. "Haven't I told you," he began ominously, 
 "that"
 
 Havre de Grace 25 
 
 "Well, can I help it?" asked Hugo desperately. "I just 
 ean't get her out of my head.'' 
 
 Up in the belfry of L'Hommedieu Church a little light was 
 swung out and up until it hung beneath the very highest 
 point the great gold cross. Or rather, they could not tell 
 whether they saw the belfry light first or whether it was the 
 row of little lights below that seemed to burst through gray 
 walls and ivy. And then the old Dutch bell rang out its cen- 
 turies-old reminder that the hour of evening prayer was fast 
 approaching. 
 
 "How it'll all end, God knows !" said Arnold despondently. 
 
 It was as if the earth had opened and had swallowed up all 
 the things that made living on it worth while. And the 
 precious quality of all he was to lose was never more appar- 
 ent than on such an evening as this, when the falling snow 
 was whitest and the setting sun reddest. 
 
 "You've just got to get it out of your head," said Arnold 
 somberly; "just as I've got to get the Parsonage out of my 
 head, and go to New York and get a job. Father put it up 
 to -me. Asked me if I didn't think the story of my being 
 expelled wouldn't grow and grow and be distorted : 
 
 "You just bet it would," shrilled Archie ; "this town's full 
 of the rottenest, most envious " 
 
 "Precisely," Arnold clipped Archie's superlatives short. 
 "And wouldn't all that growing and distortion hurt my in- 
 fluence as a parson ? I had to say 'Yes/ Especially in these 
 days when the number of moving-picture houses that used to 
 be churches is only equaled by the number of garages that 
 used to be . . . Something like that's what he said." 
 
 Hugo nodded and looked drearily out to sea. 
 
 "You know how hard it is to get people to go to church any- 
 way," Arnold went on; "and how they come to ours because 
 no one could ever say anything against our characters. ]STo 
 matter if what we three did was right or not, people will have 
 their nasty little scandals and if the person amounts to any- 
 thing, or has had a good character up to then, so much the
 
 26 God's Man 
 
 worse. . . . Why, before we know it, we'll hear that 
 we were forced to resign for some unspeakably rotten thing 
 that we wouldn't even whisper about among ourselves " 
 
 "They'd better not," interrupted Archie fiercely. 
 
 "Oh, rot !" Arnold cut some possible heroics short. "Who 
 can keep people from talking? And all those mill-hands of 
 your father's, Hugo ! You know how they're always saying 
 about you: 'He's no better than we are.' And how your 
 father has done everything to square their resentment about 
 you leaving public schools for private. And how a lot of 
 these rats around here love to say rotten things about us be- 
 cause we licked their sons for being little rats. And, then, 
 there's your father, Arch ! . . . Js T o use pretending peo- 
 ple like his English squire ways ; and making his tenants and 
 workmen tip their hats to him and call him Squire, . . . 
 and all that! And, since he's become Justice of the Peace, 
 a lot more people hate him for sending them up to the Eiver- 
 head jail. Just think all those things over for a minute, 
 and why, before we got back home to-day Paul heard it 
 whispered around High School that we'd had a chorus-girl 
 supper party in our rooms. And got caught at it! And 
 were only allowed to resign because our fathers had so much 
 influence. Know how that was said ?" 
 
 He expelled an angry breath, then imitated a whining woman : 
 
 "Of course, if they'd been poor young fellows, they'd have 
 been disgraced. But of course Parson's son . . . And 
 Squire's son . . . And Honnible Johnnie's son . . ." 
 
 "Yes," said Hugo ruefully; "and it's because they're say- 
 ing things like that and the Governor's afraid of losing their 
 nasty grubby votes that I'm being sent away from old 
 Havre, too. Otherwise I might 'a' been allowed to stay and 
 fuss with my chemicals over at the 'Works.' He's so proud 
 of that 'Honnible Johnnie' thing that he wouldn't lose for me 
 or fifty like me. And he's got his eye on Congress now. 
 Being a regular certificated Johnnie of an 'Honorable' . . ."
 
 Havre de Grace 27 
 
 He, too, breathed contempt. For all his fraternizing with 
 his father's mill-hands. And Arnold's politeness and genu- 
 ine concern for the welfare of his father's parishioners; and 
 Archie's good-natured liking for "Squire's" dependents; the 
 three were intensely intolerant of any concessions made to the 
 ignorant and prejudiced. They meant to conduct themselves 
 with kindness and firmness allied; giving them "not what 
 they want but what's good for them." Alas ! for youth's 
 golden dream of government; that never-to-be-attained 
 benevolent autocracy that looks so incredibly easy and is so 
 impossibly hard. 
 
 ". . . But why is your Governor sending you away, 
 Arch, when he's so dead set against public opinion . . . 
 that's the mystery to me " 
 
 Archie's opinion of the "mystery" was thereupon given 
 with a certain amount of profane and, necessarily in Archie's 
 case, excited embellishment. 
 
 "I'm not to go back to any college. I'm to be put to work 
 with the old-fashionedest old frump that ever wore an out- 
 of-date frock-coat. And act like a prize Sunday-school Eollo 
 every day in the week, for if I get sent back by this old boy 
 that father of mine, who loves money better than the Lord 
 loves the Jews, 'ull just heave me through a different window 
 every time I try to crawl back home. It's the old boy I'm 
 named for old Uncle Archie Van Vhroon old school old 
 fool -old manners old business old house old neighbor- 
 hood old everything the oldest old man in New York 
 and proud of it. And if I don't act like I love everything 
 that's old and hate everything that's new, he'll leave his 
 money to some old home for old chumps with old names in- 
 stead of leaving it to his old godson and nephew. 'Cause 
 I'll ~be old all right by the time I've stood him six months. 
 My hair 'ull be so white it'll make Longfellow's look like Ed- 
 gar Allan Poe's. And I'll have white whiskers, too. Won't take 
 any interest in shaving or anything. Grow 'em all over. Look
 
 28 God's Man 
 
 like a couple of features peeking out of an iceberg, island 
 entirely surrounded by hair. . . ." 
 
 He might have gone on with his tirade, working himself 
 into a new fury every minute, if Arnold had not said, quietly, 
 that at least they could be together in New York. At this 
 Archie's dolefulness took wings. Hitting himself on the 
 chest, a habit he had when extraordinarily glad, mad, or 
 sad, he shook Arnold's hand violently. 
 
 "I guess somebody 'ull have something on us, hey?" he 
 cackled shrilly. "Shows, dinners on Broadway, see the 
 sights, hear the sounds, go to prize-fights and belong to a 
 regular bang-up club. I'd rather be a paving-stone in New 
 York than a diamond anywhere else. It's the only life in the 
 world. You're in the primary class when you're away from 
 it. Hey?" 
 
 He struck Arnold a tremendous smack between the shoul- 
 der-blades, then beat on his chest with both fists and did a 
 little dance. 
 
 "I suppose you could run around with a girl and nobody 
 would know anything about it in New York, couldn't you, 
 Arnold?" asked Hugo hesitantly. "I I think maybe I'll 
 cut college altogether and go with you two " 
 
 Arnold groaned, "That girl again? Haven't I told you 
 time and time again that she was just using you? . . . 
 What's this about your going to New York, Archie ?" 
 
 Archie answered him with a scowl. "Shipping business. 
 Me in business! Can't you see me? Me, that hates figures 
 and hates offices, and has always been looking forward to all 
 this." He waved his arm around, scowling again. "That 
 father of mine's just the craziest old bonehead in the world. 
 I could make our place pay; make the best paying farm on 
 Long Island out of it best in New York best in the world. 
 And all that geology and soils and crop bulletins I've studied 
 know more about scientific agriculture than any farmer on 
 earth, I do. And all wasted. You know what I could do 
 with Exmoor here and how I love it "
 
 Havre de Grace 29 
 
 ("Exmoor" was Squires Hartogensis' equivalent for what 
 was known in Sussex County as Mantauket Hill, acquired by 
 him with, the proceeds of two centuries of inn-keeping.) 
 
 There was no need for Archie to exaggerate now or to beat 
 himself into a fury ; there was a catch in his voice, and, had 
 they been women, he would have sobbed on Arnold's shoulder ; 
 and Arnold would have sobbed with him, and Hugo would 
 have blubbered in his big clumsy way. Did they know what 
 Archie could do with Exmoor (alias Indian Hill) ? Did 
 Archie know what Arnold could do with the L'Hommedieu 
 church-school? Did Archie and Arnold both know what 
 Hugo could do with those smoky ugly works of his father's 
 down there, a blot on the town? Had a night ever passed 
 since their last year of High School when they weren't plan- 
 ning under Arnold's leadership the things they would do 
 to make Havre de Grace the model of its kind ? 
 
 But what was the use talking about that now? They had 
 lost their hold on Havre de Grace, every one; as each gained 
 from the gloomy speeches of the others, Archie's elation being 
 short-lived when he saw that New York meant to Arnold 
 nothing less than imprisonment. 
 
 "To be where you can't have horses and trees and green 
 fields and things," said Arnold. His thin face was distorted 
 as he spoke, and he clenched and unclenched his slender 
 hands. 
 
 "Do you have to go?" asked Hugo wistfully. "I'll stay 
 here if you do." A statement Archie did not resent, for there 
 could be no choice between him and their leader. 
 
 "What else can I do ?" asked Arnold bitterly. "That swine, 
 Quivvers, has done for me, right enough. I can't be a par- 
 son with all my parishioners whispering we were kicked out 
 of college for some stinking, huahed-up scandal. I told you 
 father put it up to me. He wanted me to go abroad on a 
 trip and decide, and whatever I thought was right would be 
 right to him. And Paul broke down (good little beggar he 
 is, shows it, doesn't he?) Broke down; yes, sir. And all
 
 30 God's Man 
 
 because he'll get my place, church, farm, the old house 
 everything. There's not enough for two." 
 
 "And you decided to give up everything ?" asked Archie 
 in awe. 
 
 "What else could I Jo?" returned Arnold querulously. 
 "The church is the main thing making people believe. And 
 it helps some in these days, when nobody can say a word 
 against the pastor, when he uses his own money to run the 
 place and pays his own salary. Other churches lose their 
 congregations nowadays; the preachers preach to half-empty 
 pews; but we don't and never have. You don't think I'd 
 take chances with a heritage like that, do you ? Xo. Paul's 
 all right ; studies hard, too. It's for the best, I guess." 
 
 "Well, not wishing Paul any misfortune," said Archie in 
 his high excited voice, "but he can't ever take the place of 
 about the best pal I ever heard of. Hey, Hugo ?" 
 
 Hugo nodded and put his heavy hand on Arnold's shoulder. 
 
 "No use saying it's for the best, Arnold," Archie went on. 
 "It's just the most disastrous thing ever happened, that's what 
 it is." 
 
 Arnold smiled. "Don't take yourself so seriously, Archie," 
 he advised. 
 
 "I'm not," returned Archie hotly; "I'm taking you seri- 
 ously and what you were trainin' us to do. Look at this town 
 now. We could hardly wait to get through school to begin. 
 You've said it yourself a million times. Used to be God's 
 country, now it's God-forsaken." 
 
 "I never said 'God's Country,' " Arnold defended hotly. 
 
 "With these factories going up all the time, because we've 
 got water power," Archie continued, ignoring him, "and the 
 boys and girls leavin* the farms and the fishin' and huntin' 
 where they were healthy, and had healthy children, and going 
 to work in the factories just to get a lot of ready-made clothes 
 and cheap junk, and loaf around picture shows and joints at 
 night, and call themselves 'as good as anybody' 'cause they
 
 Havre de Grace 31 
 
 don't have to wear overalls and get their hands dirty. And 
 as for children when they do let themselves have 'em 
 sickly pale hrats no good to themselves or anybody. Breed- 
 ing .a regular slave race. We'd have stopped that, we three ; 
 have run factories decently or run 'em out. With your pull 
 as pastor and mine as the Squire's son and Hugo's as son of 
 the owner of the biggest factory of all. It only takes a few 
 big men to turn such a trick. And we'd have turned it all 
 right. Wasn't that what we were working for, and thinkin' 
 about all the time? Don't pull that stuff about it all bein' 
 for the best. To hell with Paul. What does he matter in a 
 case like this? It's the worst thing ever happened in the 
 whole world." 
 
 You are not to suppose that the sociology and economics in 
 Archie's speech were his own; they were the result of many 
 such speeches by Arnold in the past, which had sunk in and 
 become a part of his two companions, until they were as eager 
 as boys for a new game, to stanch the tide that threatened to 
 inundate their township with broken-down laborers and ill- 
 begotten children. 
 
 Arnold had worked out, and was still working at it in de- 
 tail when the expulsion came, a comprehensive scheme of 
 militancy in local politics, which, with his father's congrega- 
 tion back of him and the hundreds of tenants on Squire 
 Hartogensis' estate, and factory-hands in the Waldemar fac- 
 tory would have made the three masters of local affairs, and, 
 when they had proved their unselfishness and capabilities, 
 masters of county politics as well. 
 
 "Gets dark early these days, doesn't it?" muttered Hugo, 
 and cursed himself for his inability to express either his right 
 to love whom he chose, or the emotions that stirred in him at 
 such sights as sunrise and sunset. 
 
 The long stretch of harbor was alight, and as they drew 
 nearer it the low-roofed, gray-lichened Parsonage seemed 
 aflame with its red sage. Another stroke of the big motor,
 
 32 God's Man 
 
 another sweep or so, and they were floating amid that vast 
 blackness, the shadows cast by the dark green, mass, the an- 
 cient wood of the L'Hommedieus. 
 
 Arnold pushed down the switch and the thumping of the 
 motor ceased so suddenly they could hardly believe that there 
 had also been a cessation of movement. 
 
 Evening had come almost as suddenly. The clusters of red 
 sage above were black now black velvet. There was neither 
 moon nor stars, and the fog sifted down like snow across the 
 path of the setting sun. 
 
 "Reminds me of that sunset over there Wolverhampton " 
 said Archie, awed. "When we saw Carol, last remember?" 
 
 "You never give us a chance to forget/' returned Arnold, 
 smiling. 
 
 "You don't need any," retorted Archie. "You were around 
 there as much as I was tell the truth, now " 
 
 Arnold hesitated, but kept silent. Archie, however, took 
 no advantage of his silent admission. His eyes were turned 
 Wolverhampton way. And Hugo's toward Manhattan. And 
 Arnold's . . . ? 
 
 He was staring over there at the ancient wood of the 
 L'Hommedieus, through which Carol came to greet him, 
 Caving a filmy scarf. And then it seemed that they met, and 
 he tried to force on her another scarf, less filmy, less beautiful, 
 in itself; but one that, when it brushed the near-by boughs 
 and floated up to meet the overhead branches, caused them, all 
 wintry as they were, to burst into white blossoms, each one a 
 bell that rang out golden chimes. 
 
 Just what all this meant he had not the slightest idea, nor 
 was he able to remember it in detail a second later ; it passed, 
 as dreams do sleeping or waking, leaving only an impression, 
 an uncomfortable impression. 
 
 Archie saw Carol, too, out there in Sunset Land, saw her 
 where he had seen her last at Wolverhampton (Wolf Inlet 
 before the Brooks-Catons bought it and built there). And 
 she was running, too. But because the Hartogensisi were a
 
 Havre de Grace 3,3 
 
 family that had never heard any chimes except the chink of 
 cash and because they had ceased to beat their women-folk 
 before discovering how to evoke their respect instead of pro- 
 voke their fear Carol did not come to Archie as to Arnold, 
 but seemed to flee him shyly. 
 
 Seemed, indeed! 
 
 But Archie was as little likely to know this as Hugo was 
 to know that the face of Miss Beulah Eoberts Bobbie 
 Beulah, Merry Whirl Company, No. 2 the face that he saw 
 out there, was not so modest as the moss-violet, or so pale and 
 pretty as the water-lily she seemed to him. . . . 
 
 As is the custom with men when their work has failed them, 
 or when they think it has, the thoughts of our Three Mus- 
 keteers had turned to man's other heritage: woman. To 
 Arnold, they were fascinating countries unexplored, to Archie 
 and to Hugo, strange shrines in far-off lands. . . .
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 ARISTOCRATS 
 I. SQUIRE HARTOGENSIS RECEIVES A PROPOSITION 
 
 HILE their sons were recov- 
 ering from their sentimental 
 debauch, and were landing on 
 the other side of the Harbor to 
 climb the steep hill to L'Hom- 
 medieu Parsonage, the son of 
 many centuries of tavern-keep- 
 ing Hartogensisi sat with the 
 son of many centuries of earth- 
 tilling peasants, in the for- 
 mer's stately mahogany and 
 teakwood dining-room at Har- 
 togensis Hall. John Waldemar 
 sat enthroned in a massive chair at the foot of the table, filled 
 with a genuine admiration for the aristocratic air and gentle 
 appearance of his host, who, in a chair equally massive, sat at 
 the head, a footman in livery passing dishes, a butler with 
 metal buttons on a striped waistcoat, cooling the wine. 
 
 The "Honnible Johnnie" was agreeing with the Squire as 
 to the insolence of Havre de Gracians. He, more than Har- 
 togensis, had suffered from these temerarious townsmen. At 
 least there were many who respected the Squire, owner of so 
 much land, landlord of so many citizens. But the "Honnible 
 Johnnie" must depend for his political support on the ig-
 
 Aristocrats 35 
 
 norant and illiterate; to gain their good-will he must keep 
 alive a hearty pretense of equality. 
 
 Actually it was no more than half-pretense. For all hia 
 sins, he had at least the quality of camaraderie. But just now 
 it pleased the Boss to agree with the aristocratic Squire; he 
 had need of the Squire in the near future, and wanted to pre- 
 pare the way for a "proposition" of which you are soon to hear. 
 
 "The idear," he made remark. "A fellow like me that's 
 got big properties and employs hundreds of men here and in 
 the city has got to stand for that kind of stuff if he wants to 
 be elected. Actually send his own son away from home. It 
 jest shows you, Squire, what a state the country's in when a 
 man of my position's got to act that way to get votes. 'Lots 
 of times/ I says to myself, 'I'd like to be the Squire, who 
 treats 'em like they oughta be treated.' But it's different with 
 you, Squire. Your old man left you money, you're an inde- 
 pendent coMntTj- gentleman. My boy Hugo 'ull be the same 
 and so 'ull I, when I get through with politics. But jest now 
 I can't afford it. There's a lot of army-contracts Bureaus 
 of Medicine and Surgery and what-not that've been promised 
 me if I get my seat in the House. And Department of Agri- 
 culture chemical contracts . . . and lots of others, too. 
 What's more, these here Federal snoopers won't be investi- 
 gatin' my books and shipments, and all that part of the busi- 
 ness I've built up from the time I was a pedler. One of the 
 biggest parts of my business 'ull go to smash under these new 
 laws they're considering, unless I get into Congress. I never 
 told you, did I, partner ?" 
 
 The wine seemed to be warning him to indiscretion; but, 
 actually, it was not. 
 
 "Told me what?" asked Hartogensis refilling the glasses. 
 Waldemar took the churchwarden clay extended him. To 
 look at them, rosy-gilled and rubicund, with the accessories 
 of long pipes, port wine in crystal decanters, the long witch- 
 faces of the candles on the long mahogany, the dark wain- 
 scoted walls hung with ancient oils and eighteenth-century
 
 36 God's Man 
 
 sporting prints, was to imagine an English country-house, a 
 hunting squire of parts and a Corinthian neighbor. 
 
 "How I got my start/' returned Waldemar jovially. "I 
 wouldn't tell it to nobody but you, Squire. To tell the truth, 
 I wouldn't V told it to you. For a long time I was afraid 
 you wasn't a good fellow; you know, broadminded." 
 
 He held the bowl of churchwarden pipe over one of the 
 candles, and the tobacco alight, beamed jovially. "Nothing 
 like a good warm fire and tobacco and drink handy and look- 
 ing back on the days when you was on the outside looking in. 
 Say, Squire, many's the time I used to stand tiptoe and rubber 
 into some of them old houses around Washington Square and 
 lower Fifth Avenue that was the swell neighborhood then. 
 Which you oughta know, being one of the old families. 
 
 "Yes, sir" he added, having waited for the Squire to con- 
 firm these ancestral antecedents. "And I always said when 
 I got money, I'd have a house like that with an open fire and 
 all. . . . Well, I got 'em, all right." 
 
 The wine lifted its voice and contradicted his approving 
 note. Waldemar took another glass of port. 
 
 "Great idear, these long pipes; makes a cool sweet smoke, 
 as they say in the 'ads/ . . . But like I was telling you 
 as to how I got my start. Peddling little pill-boxes. Quarter 
 the boz ; and they didn't cost me more'n a nickel. Some profit, 
 hey? I saved enough in five years to buy out an old drug- 
 store man who was retiring, hired a drug-clerk with a diploma 
 for twelve a week, and went around to my customers telling 
 'em to come to my drug-store. I wouldn't sell 'em what they 
 wanted less'n they bought other stuff offn me said I was 
 afraid of the police. Built up a great business thataway. Got 
 to be known all over town. Kept open all night, used to sleep 
 under the counter. Believe me, partner, I deserve all 7 got. 
 It just shows you what opportunities there is in America for 
 a young fellar who'll work. Yes, and save, and not have 
 women and bad habits. I never drunk, I never smoked, I
 
 Aristocrats 37 
 
 never even had a girl, until I was way past thirty. And as 
 for the stuff in the little pill-boxes . . . ." 
 
 He winked "I saw too much of what that done to my cus- 
 tomers. But if I didn't sell it some one else would, wouldn't 
 they? But if you asked these Socialists and Anarchists and 
 winners to do what I done, how many would do it? The 
 country's all right, say I, it's the people in it that ain't any 
 good. This here Socialism now . . ." 
 
 He spat in disgust. 
 
 "They'd keep a man from building up a legitimate busi- 
 ness ! What's the use of working and scringing and saving if 
 you ain't allowed to make good ? Makes me sick." 
 
 The Squire had listened in some distaste, but he was re- 
 strained from showing any sign of it by a most unwelcome 
 memory of his childhood at the Yew Tree Inn, which, fallen 
 somewhat in the*quality of its customers, had been partly 
 dependent on its side-door trade, where negroes and the 
 poorer whites were accommodated with inferior beer and rot- 
 gut whisky. 
 
 "As I see it," he said, exorcising this memory, "those who 
 amount to anything will raise themselves. Those who won't 
 don't deserve any pity. Life has changed since the old days. 
 To-day every one has equal opportunity. If they don't take 
 advantage of it, are we to blame? Shall we be responsible? 
 I wouldn't mind if they were like they were in my grand- 
 father's day respectful to their superiors, and all. But if 
 they won't be, they can go to the devil. That's my way of 
 looking at it. And they'd better beware how they alienate the 
 sympathy of the better classes. In fifty years more we'll be 
 in a position to compel their deference again as in my grand- 
 father's day." 
 
 He had conveniently forgotten that his grandfather had 
 been one of the most deferential. 
 
 "N"o doubt they've forgotten that only a few hundred years 
 ago they wore iron-collars around their necks with the name
 
 38 God's Man 
 
 of their masters on 'em. We were sorry for them, though, and 
 took the collars off. And look how they've behaved! Look 
 at the French Revolution ! There's gratitude for you." 
 
 It might have been imagined that, the iron-collar stage hav- 
 ing survived in Eussia until the day of Waldemar's grand- 
 father (who had worn one), the Honnible Johnnie might have 
 been moved to remonstrance. But he, like the Squire, had a 
 convenient memory. He nodded emphatically. 
 
 "As I see it, life's a game with certain rules for playing it," 
 he said. "Then there's three kinds of players them that's 
 afraid to take a chance, them that takes a chance and loses, 
 them that takes a chance and wins. The first kind don't 
 amount to shucks they're like sheep let people shear 'em 
 and brand 'em and just keep yelling 'Baa-a, baa-a.' The sec- 
 ond kind's got nerve all right but not brains. They try to 
 get up but only get in jail. The third kind does a lot of the 
 things the second kind does, but they figure things out. And 
 the second kind call that luck. It ain't luck, Squire, it's 
 brains. The ones that get caught ain't got any brains, 
 thaf s all. You got to learn how to play the game according 
 to the rules. What's the rules ? The Law. Before I bought 
 my first place, that little Seventh Avenue drug-store, I went 
 to see my Alderman and got him to go partners with me. He 
 even put up part of the money. I knew there was a hundred 
 per cent, profit in the business, but I didn't try to hog it all. 
 There was the Law and the Law had to be looked after. An- 
 other fellow tried the same game and got raided. Why ? Be- 
 cause he gave policemen money. That's bribery, and bribery 
 don't pay. Mine was a legitimate business deal." 
 
 Whether or not this unethical unbosoming was ingenuous 
 or ingenious, no mere historian may say. It is possible, as 
 others have observed even from antiquity, that he whose 
 major occupation is delusion may in time come to delude him- 
 self. This particular self-deluder then leaned back and took 
 more port with an almost devout air. 
 
 "Now that other fellow Simoney was his name," he ex-
 
 Aristocrats 39 
 
 plained further, "he braced me for a dollar only the other 
 day. And he had a bigger drug-store than mine and a durned 
 sight better, too. But he didn't study the game, didn't learn 
 the rules. And all the good it did him was five years or some- 
 thing when one of these here Uplifts got after him. He's 
 working for me now, taking orders from East Side doctors. 
 . . . They do a great drug business, those kikes, and it's 
 getting so they have to do it with me. There's quite a trade 
 in laudanum since the police started shaking down the hop- 
 joints so much. The 'White Stuff's* on the up-and-up too. 
 We got together the other day, Justus and old Urquhart and 
 some of the rest of us wholesalers, and skyrocketed it (mor- 
 phine, you know). Just doubled prices. We used to get sev- 
 enty-five cents for a hundred cubes of the unrefined, ninety- 
 five for the same in pressed hypo tablets, half-grains, that is. 
 We raised it to a dollar and a half the cubes, two dollars the 
 tablets. . . ." 
 
 He laughed with the pleasure of one who is attaining his ob- 
 ject, for a greedy look had come into the Squire's eyes. 
 
 "There was plenty of kicks," Waldemar agreed, in answer 
 to a question, "but I notice sales keep right on mountin' up. 
 Why, I had to take on another workman in our instrument- 
 branch which, between you and me, ain't nothing but the 
 artillery branch. Guns, you know." 
 
 He laughed boisterously this time. The greedy look on the 
 Squire's face had given way to one of curiosity. 
 
 " 'Arms and ammunition' that's my little joke," Walde- 
 mar explained. "Morphine and cocaine are ammunition; 
 'guns' that is, 'hypos', hypodermic syringes arms. Course 
 we bluff at making other instruments; I've got a case full of 
 probes and bougies and tweezers and scalpels and pretty nearly 
 everything else in the surgical line. But we never make 'em. 
 I should say not. 'Get the money' that's my motter. 
 And there's no money in professional instruments not 
 enough sold and too much competition. But when these here 
 drug-habits started getting good, I see the demand for a good
 
 40 God's Man 
 
 cheap syringe coming not the four-dollar solid piston kind 
 the doctors use, but one to sell at a dollar and give a profit." 
 
 The Squire asked another question. Waldemar disagreed 
 scornfully. 
 
 "The four-dollar one naw ! no profit a tall ! Xot a tall ! 
 Has to be heavy and solid to get the suction and keep the air- 
 bubbles out. But here's 'nother of my idears ! jest put 
 some gooey stuff in the barrel and you get the suction as good 
 as the solid syringe. . . . One of these here Socialist 
 workmen quit me on account of it, though; said the gooey 
 stuff meant pumping poison and disease right inter the blood. 
 Sich ignorance! As if the drug injection wasn't strong 
 enough to kill anything else. . . ." 
 
 He waved his relighted pipe with a triumphant air, and 
 as he approached the business of the evening his enthusiasm 
 was contagious. 
 
 "And then the biggest of all and growing every day 
 cocaine. "Why, down South in the Prohibition states where 
 they've closed the saloons and where these niggers and poor 
 whites 'uve been in the habit of getting drunk every Sattiday 
 night, we jest can't supply the demand. I'll have to run up 
 another shack here in a year or so and take over a bigger 
 building in the city or build one with warehouses to suit. 
 Building 'ud be better if I was there with the cash. And 
 that's where you come in sometime, Squire, if you're looking 
 for a forty per cent, business investment. All I ask you is, run 
 up to town with me some day and look over my books. If 
 that don't convince you, you'd think Gov'ment bonds was a 
 gamble. And don't forget that where other fellars have to 
 walk an egg-shell tight-rope, I'll be walking on Uncle Sam's 
 private wall. And, what's more, I'll be walking with the 
 people who run things in this country although they need 
 every vote in Washington to do it with, which is where my 
 drag will come in. So if ever there was a safe game, you've 
 jest been interduced to it, and you'll never be interduced to
 
 Aristocrats 41 
 
 another like it if you live to be a million. . . . Say, you 
 cert'ny do look like that uncle of yours, Squire." 
 
 He nodded toward a portrait that hung above. It was part 
 of the "Honnible Johnnie's" system of "jollying," knowing as 
 he did that the Squire fancied a resemblance to his own 
 bulbous nose, in that somewhat swollen pictured feature an 
 "uncle," the Squire said, but did not add that the avuncular 
 relationship came through his wife. Having been unduly 
 eager to copy the "uncle's" ante-bellum attire, Benjamin had 
 only succeeded in ^achieving an appearance that smacked of a 
 commercial interest in equine affairs. The frilled shirt, the 
 studs, the spreading bow, the waistcoat cut so low that it 
 might have served with evening attire, the braided tail-coat 
 and wide trousers all helped to give him the appearance of 
 a prosperous bookmaker, the sort seen at Newmarket and 
 Epsom Downs. 
 
 "I looked over your Greenwich village property the other 
 day, that Yew Tree Inn. That's why I wrote you," said Wal- 
 demar. With irritating calm, he again filled his church- 
 warden and again smiled. "When I see what a ramshackle 
 old tenement's wasting a fine piece of property for a manufac- 
 turer that don't want to advertise, I jest have to laugh, that's 
 all. Why, you've even got the right to put 'No thoroughfare' 
 on the entrance to the little alley; I looked up the deeds at 
 the County Clerk's. All of which is fine business in these 
 days of Uplifts hiring private detectives to snoop around and 
 bribe drivers and watch wagons loading and read addresses 
 on packages. Our wagons could load in that there Rupert 
 Court and with 'No thoroughfare' and a couple of gates to the 
 Passage, no strangers could get in. When I started thinkin' 
 of my new building, I thought I'd look over your property 
 first, partner, and then I knew I didn't need to look no far- 
 ther. If ever there was a place made to order for what I 
 want . . . Why, what's the matter, Squire? . . ." 
 
 For the ruby red of the Squire's nose had spread to his
 
 42 God's Man 
 
 other features; he choked, coughed, spat under Waldemar's 
 alarmed ministrations; and an ear placed close to his mouth 
 could only distinguish the damning of Jamesby, his rental 
 agent. 
 
 . . . 'Don't ring," was added, as the Honnible Johnnie 
 reached for the bell. "It's nothing only I signed a 
 three years' lease yesterday with a woman named Mybus. 
 A damned dirty pawnbroker, too." 
 
 "Oh, is that all?" said Waldemar, relieved. "That's all 
 right, Squire. Won't want to begin building until after then 
 if we do, what's a few dollars to buy 'em off. . . . 
 Cheer up, partner. . . ." 
 
 He experienced a strange joy in being able so to address the 
 aristocratic Squire. And in knowing it would not be resented. 
 
 "No hurry, partner," he added for the sheer pleasure of 
 the repetition. "Well, I've got to leave you now. Back to 
 town to-morrow early, takin' that young cub of mine to lick 
 into shape. After getting fired from college, he's got the 
 nerve to talk about marryin' some chorus-girl. . . . M ar- 
 ryin' her, mind you ! . . . Times has changed since I was 
 a boy." 
 
 Shaking his head sadly, over the depravity of more modern 
 youths, he went his way. 
 
 II. THE ATTIC IN GRAMEECY PARK 
 
 As to the results of that talk with Hugo, you will presently 
 hear enough; more than enough, possibly. But since Arnold 
 is our principal concern, and it had been arranged secretly 
 between them that he and Archie should occupy a joint 
 "apartment," if such a thing could be obtained for the amount 
 of rent-money allowed them, it appears to be our first duty 
 to follow them to the city and to see how they fared. 
 
 They were fortunate enough to find the place for the price, 
 and through the last person on earth ! Archie's father. And
 
 Aristocrats 43 
 
 just the place ! An attic in Gramercy Park whose eaves 
 swallows had not forgotten; nay, nor whose chimney-pots, of 
 which there were half a dozen braces. The house had been 
 erected in those "spacious" days when no room was complete 
 without a fireplace. 
 
 It had been a great establishment in its time, that house ; 
 and a great family had nested there, too, during one stage 
 of its flight up-town Archie's mother's family the Van 
 Vhroons. They had left a broken winged Van Vhroon behind 
 there when they soared Plaza-ward, a collateral Van Vhroon 
 with chinchilla-like side whiskers and an old-world spring- 
 collar and broad black satin stock-tie. To him, Benjamin 
 Hartogensis owed his membership in a certain superior club : 
 and during the days of Mrs. Benjamin's decline and fall this 
 Van Vhroon had been a useful substitute when her husband 
 declined to accompany her on her search after health. Hence, 
 Benjamin had "accommodated" him several times, grumbling 
 outwardly, but inwardly congratulating himself with the 
 thought that the prices of Manhattan real estate were on the 
 upgrade. 
 
 So sure had he been of this that when the mortgage-interest 
 went unpaid Benjamin allowed his impecunious relative to 
 remain unforeclosured. He would soon die, anyway, and 
 then a semi-advertised sheriff's sale could be arranged that 
 would give the mortgagee the whole property. And now, 
 thanks to his father's foresight, Archie could occupy "cham- 
 bers" there, and would have a socially-impeccable old gentle- 
 man to take him into exclusive houses. 
 
 A moderate rental was arranged on paper to be de- 
 ducted on paper from the unpaid interest on the mort- 
 gage. And go our Two came into possession of a rambling 
 set of low-roofed and oaken raftered rooms, with diamond- 
 paned dormers, and elm trees hiding them from the sight of 
 passers-by and permitting their occupants to see over the 
 roofs of the city to where that radiant Madison Square Clock- 
 Tower told the time to the darkest hour of the night, and
 
 44 God's Man 
 
 the Metropolitan search-light sought out other sections and 
 lighted them up intermittently. 
 
 And for company, they had always the chirping sparrows 
 and, most times, the gurgling swallows, too. And set into 
 niches by their three fireplaces were stores of books, old books, 
 mostly, and rare: "Gulliver" in little fat duo-decimos and 
 Dickens and G. P. E. James and Lytton in squatty three- 
 volume sets, and Byron and Shakespeare and Shelley in long 
 thin double-paged quartos . . . and so-on down to 
 Golden Gems of Thought by "A Lady" and The Language, 
 of Love, or the Flowers' Secrets Revealed by "A Gentle- 
 woman" (in reduced circumstances who revealed said secrets 
 only to send her little sons to school so the publisher said, 
 anyhow). 
 
 Such as these latter Arnold weeded out of his shelves and 
 put on Archie's, for Archie never read anything anyhow and he 
 liked these better, for the bindings were the newest and fresh- 
 est-looking. Arnold brought up many books of his own and 
 added shelves over their "study" fireplace, and, ransacking 
 the unused lower rooms, by permission, found many more 
 volumes worthy of a place on them, so that soon the books 
 overflowed into his own room and shelves must be added 
 there too. He was absolutely happy among these treasures 
 of his (treasures unknown to-day), Chateaubriand's Indians 
 and those serious romances of Hans Andersen's that have 
 been forgotten and Harrison Ainsworth, complete, in one 
 hundred and twenty little volumes with the original drawings 
 odd, creepy things by Cruikshank and others and a host 
 more that have left the early Victorian era so rich in our 
 regrets and remembrances. 
 
 And original black-letter volumes: The Little Geste of 
 Robin Hood, for instance. And an old Dutch edition of 
 Lessing, with the English translation on opposite pages. And 
 even (Ehlenschlager and Holberg and other learned and in- 
 structive fireside-reading of dead days. . . . Everything, 
 in fact, to delight the bookman and bibliomaniac down to
 
 Aristocrats 45 
 
 The Golden Ass of Apuleius in half a dozen adaptations. 
 In fact all the book-accumulations of the Van Vhroons since 
 settling in their first home on the Bouwerie that flowery 
 fragrant-smelling Bower that is now otherwise odoriferous 
 our ill-smelling Bowery. 
 
 All this accumulation had been left behind. It was lug- 
 gage too heavy for the last stage of the Van Vhroon flight. 
 The possession of all that learning would have held them 
 back from further flights. In the days when Arnold came to 
 New York town, books were the last things in the world to 
 help one to attain its heights. 
 
 Arnold would have willingly forgotten all about that noisy 
 dollar-getting world outside, that half-civilized wholly un- 
 educated mob that jostled and swore and exuded unpleasant 
 odors in Subway and on Elevated among whom the slogan, 
 "I'm as Good as You Are," had been translated into overt 
 acts of exceeding and obtrusive offensiveness. 
 
 Thus Arnold thought, anyhow. He had yet to learn that 
 one can not afford to be the perfect esthete at the start; one 
 misses too much. Just as Archie would have done well to 
 avoid being the "compleat snob," assisted by his father's 
 blood and by Miss Carol Caton, whose acquaintance we are 
 gradually approaching. 
 
 But for one troubling conscience, Arnold would have spent 
 his days sunken deep in soft padded leather and how soft 
 century-old padded leather can be! feet upon a hearth- 
 hassock, eyes on the sea-coal fire that lit up the German 
 forest and wood-cutter's hut at the back of the iron grate. 
 Or turned toward the windows where through the elm trees 
 one saw the chimney-pots of the old quarter and fancied 
 oneself in Dickens' London. Aa one did also when looking 
 downward at the quaint iron railings and gates and grass- 
 plots and the gnarled trees of old Gramercy Park, and the 
 old-fashioned Kensington-like houses over Irving Place way. 
 Or staring up at the rafters, smoky with many fires, or at the 
 well-ordered shelves of books and the firelight on the brass
 
 46 God's Man 
 
 candle-sticks and the brass bowls over the window-seats, the 
 sunlight on the green and crimson of their geraniums. 
 
 It was all so old-world-like. 
 
 All would have been well but for that same unruly con- 
 science that bade him seek work and cease to be a drain on 
 the none-too-well-filled family purse. So, daily, he Park- 
 Row-ed himself, and forced visiting cards on bored office- 
 boys. He found that City Editors were far more important 
 than Emperors. On his way home he dropped off at Union 
 Square or thereabouts, and found that Magazine Moguls were 
 less important but equally unaware of the importance of a 
 L'Hommedieu. Finally arriving home in time for tea, and 
 just about to be transported back to Book-Land, when in 
 would come Archie, free from his uncle's office and noisily 
 transform himself into a "young society man" by means of a 
 frock-coat, a silk topper and immaculate gloves. And would 
 as noisily demand a similar transformation of Arnold. 
 
 Sometimes Arnold would sigh and comply. And sometimes 
 he would sigh and not comply. But always, he would comply 
 and not sigh, when Archie suggested calling on Carol Caton. 
 That is, at first. Afterward, he was neither to sigh nor to 
 comply, only to pretend to snore. 
 
 The reason therefor, you are about to hear. 
 
 III. THE COSTLY Miss CATON 
 
 She lived behind the ivy-covered walls of a certain Murray 
 Hill corner, "barely existed/' rather, during a season that 
 barely recognized her existence. The corner opposite her 
 sheltered the second-best private art collection in the world. 
 Its famous owner had made it so iince the time he decided 
 hs would rather be known as a patron of the arti than a 
 money king in a day when every Lucky Little Rabbit was a 
 "financier." 
 
 Our Rabbit "Good Old Rabbit" was Carol's pet name for 
 her father was not christened "Henry Brooks-Caton" any
 
 Aristocrats 47 
 
 more than his wife was "Winchelsea." His name, out of the 
 corn country, appears signed to various cheques (hence we 
 believe in it) as "Henry Z. Kay ton." . . . And over that 
 "Z" let us "draw a veil." Let us make a deep impenetrable 
 mystery of it, and pass on to the former Minnie Brooks. 
 
 Minnie ! "Winnie ! ! Winchelsea ! ! ! "Old-English-family, 
 yon-know" I "Younger-Son" ! ! "Poor-Papa" ! ! ! That is her 
 history, and it is all-the space she deserves. . . . She had 
 married Henry Z. when he was an honest, hard-working in- 
 vestor in the Middle West. And of this plaster-of-Paris she 
 had created a dishonest, whisker-tearing, harder-working 
 Stock-Gambler who lived entirely on his Luck. 
 
 His old Luck. 
 
 He knew that some day he was going to "draw it too fine," 
 hence knew that the day was not far distant when his wonder- 
 ful wife would never forgive him his bankruptcy. So, for 
 fear she would suspect, he never dared hint that she ceasp 
 unnecessary extravagances. 
 
 Unnecessary? She would have thought you just a plain 
 fool if you said so. Had she not managed, by not being 
 "cheap" (so she fondly believed) in affiliating herself with a 
 "Movement" that carried her into the "smartest" circles. She 
 had tried all the "Movements" when she heard that smart 
 women belonged to them: Christian Science, the Esoterics, 
 the Socialists many more. 
 
 It was not until militant Suffrage came along that she man- 
 aged to get recognizing nods from Mrs. "Van" and her sister, 
 Mrs."0.," to have the newspapers refer to her as "one of the 
 smartest young matrons," although she was not really a 
 "young" matron at all Carol was eighteen. Her mother had 
 spent most of the years of Carol's life knocking assiduously 
 at golden doors ; at forty just managing to get a boot-toe in- 
 side them. 
 
 Unnecessary? Extravagance? "Was there any price too 
 high for entering the Kingdom of Heaven ? 
 
 During those busy days she had not had time to train Carol
 
 48 God's Man 
 
 into the perfect snob ; but, her social position assured, so long 
 as she could contribute largely to the Militants, she started 
 to finish what the boarding-schools had only begun; started 
 about the time our Musketeers came up to town. 
 
 After Arnold and Archie had called the first time, re- 
 splendent in their new tail-coats and shining top-hats, Mrs. 
 Brooks-Caton, after receiving information as to their identity, 
 gave her daughter Lession No. 807, from that handy guide to 
 Social Distinction, "Snobs : and How to Be Them." 
 
 "That's all very well for the country, where one can know 
 anybody," she said severely, "but in town one is judged by 
 one's associates, Carol, dear. I should imagine the best 
 thing one can do under such circumstances is for one to be 
 out when such people call." She had lately acquired the 
 word "one" as a pronoun, and had fallen desperately in love 
 with it. 
 
 Carol answered in that tired, superior way so popular at 
 the boarding-school that she was jolly glad to be so judged 
 in the present case. "Archie's a nephew of Mrs. Jack Van 
 Vhroon. Your Mrs. Van and Mrs. 0. aren't everything. 
 They never get to Mrs. Jack's small affairs, only the crushes" 
 a distinction making all the difference ! For far beyond 
 the little inclosed deer park of superiority where these two 
 ladies ruled were the high spiked walls of a Forbidden City, 
 the captain of the guard thereof being Mrs. Jacob Van 
 Vhroon, who had been known to refuse an introduction to a 
 Duchess originally from the Middle West. 
 
 So Archie became a petted guest at the Murray Hill house, 
 and, although Mrs. Jacob Van Vhroon, herself, would have 
 felt more honored by a visit from the eldest son of the house 
 of L'Hommedieu than by the intimate acquaintance of Mrs. 
 "Van" and Mrs. "0.," the L'Hommedieus had never married 
 among Manhattan patroons and had no collateral branches 
 with names familiar to Mrs. Brooks-Caton. So Carol found 
 things decidedly uncomfortable when Arnold called alone. 
 Seldom was it that Mrs. Brooks-Caton did not intrude, in-
 
 Aristocrats 49 
 
 sisting on carrying off Carol to fulfil some pressing engage- 
 ment of which the girl had, hitherto, no sort of knowledge, 
 or else she would remain and ask Arnold disconcerting ques- 
 tions about the doings of fashionable folk whom he did not 
 know. 
 
 Not disconcerting to him *to Carol. She would flush and 
 make other and awkward conversation, although Arnold re- 
 mained quite composed and smiling, replying either that "he 
 had never heard of 'him' or 'her"' or that "he could 
 hardly avoid seeing in the newspapers that some such per- 
 sonwhom he could never quite understand why they fussed 
 BO much about had sailed for the Mediterranean/' 
 
 One could hardly yield Mrs. Brooks-Caton separate vic- 
 tories at these rencontres; but one who has been armor-proof 
 against the smiles and snubs of women whom the society re- 
 porters delight to chronicle, is serene and calm under the 
 satire of a "nobody"; so when Arnold pressed her for infor- 
 mation "who in the world was that Charlie Dewitt anyway ? 
 Had he discovered some famous anesthetic to relieve pain, or 
 written a great book, or painted a wonderful picture, or 
 financed his country's panics, or what?" 
 
 Mrs. Brooks-Caton's superior smile would imply he had 
 done nothing so vulgar. Evidently Mr. I/Hommedieu 
 didn't know the DeWitts of Westchester. 
 
 IV. How SHE LOST ONE MUSKETEER 
 
 All of which, plus some equally offensive mendacity over 
 the telephone, and more of the same whenever he called, had 
 the effect of cooling Arnold's affection for Carol. She must 
 have concealed about her somewhere some of the traits that 
 were so large a part of her mother. And once married and 
 able to lay aside the mask, these would cause her husband to 
 repent, daily, a sorry bargain. 
 
 So Mrs. Brooks-Caton drove him away. As he grew to 
 know her better his imagination began to play tricks on him,
 
 50 God's Man 
 
 and he could not look on Carol's pretty flufferies and flower- 
 ILke prettiness without seeing behind them the mother's 
 shadow; while Carol's little affectations of superiority and 
 that tired manner fondly believed to be aristocratic 
 at the boarding-school exasperated him beyond belief. 
 
 One day he told her so. During their quarrel he did some 
 more plain speaking and, as he enumerated to her the man- 
 nerisms and characteristics he disliked, he discovered, sud- 
 denly, and equally to his surprise, that his love for her, by 
 the light of which he had gone to bed each night and risen 
 each morning, needed a post-mortem. Leaving the Murray 
 Hill house that afternoon, he decided never to enter it again, 
 no matter how often she might write or telephone. Both 
 things he was quite sure she would do, if he, himself, did 
 neither. 
 
 "Let Archie have her," he said angrily. It was the first 
 unkind thought he had ever had of his friend. Later he 
 proved to have repented it; for, one night of the same week, 
 he brought up the subject artfully, and, no longer in love, 
 spoke of Carol with clear vision. 
 
 "We saw the best of her down there all right. She didn't 
 have the time to be a snob then, too busy swimming, canoeing, 
 playing tennis and golf. 'No mother to guide her* to bother 
 her about social position and her own importance. She'd be 
 a nice girl, Carol would, if she were with nice people, in nice 
 places ; but breathing that poisoned air of her mother's lizard 
 friends" 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and lighted his pipe over their 
 shaded study lamp. "Lizards what d'you mean, lizards?" 
 demanded the offended Archie. 
 
 "Don't you remember when we used to climb up our wire 
 ladder at the cave, drying out on the ledge after a swim. 
 Well, when there weren't any boats passing or porpoises swim- 
 ming or birds flying I used to watch those funny little lizards 
 that looked like moving emeralds with black pearls set in
 
 Aristocrats 51 
 
 them jewels they were jewels with their bright green backs 
 and living black eyes and legs carved by Lalique in Paris 
 after Chippendale designs " 
 
 "Well," interrupted Archie impatiently, "what've they got 
 to do with" 
 
 "They used to try to climb up that slippery rock wall," 
 went on Arnold reminiscently, "that wall as green as them- 
 selves, all oozy with wet. And they'd get up a little way 
 and smack ! down they'd flop. But did that phase them ? 
 They wouldn't even wait to get their breath before they took 
 another spring and fastened their four little Chippendale 
 legs in that ooze, and, this time, they'd go slower, and get 
 higher. But soon they'd flop again and harder, too. Maybe 
 they'd hurt themselves a little this time, and wait a minute, 
 basking in the sun ; but pretty soon they'd be off a third time 
 and a fourth and a fifth. Sometimes they wouldn't go 
 four feet in a whole afternoon, but they kept trying. I used 
 to wonder what there was up at the top of that wall that made 
 them so eager to get there; so, one day, you remember, we 
 went reconnoitering I didn't tell you why said there was 
 an eagle's nest up there or something to get you excited." 
 
 "Well, of all the fool things in the world," ejaculated 
 Archie; "of all the fool things that's the worst getting all 
 bruised up for nothing." 
 
 "It wasn't for nothing," returned Arnold, "knowledge of 
 anything important enough to make a whole tribe of lizards 
 spend their lives trying to get it that's worth knowing. You 
 remember what was at the top there ?" 
 
 "Why some kind of purple flower, wasn't there? Didn't 
 Hugo start to pick some and you stopped him said they were 
 poison ?" 
 
 "Purple poison," returned Arnold, nodding. "Beautiful 
 but poisonous just to remind people that beauty isn't every- 
 thing and isn't always to be trusted. No fragrance -noth- 
 ing yet I saw one little lizard make the top of the cliff while
 
 52 God's Man 
 
 we were there come dragging his tired little body over to 
 those flowers couldn't wait had to get into that purple 
 poison and die." 
 
 He stopped smoking, laying aside his pipe as though it 
 were suddenly distasteful to him. 
 
 "What fools I thought those lizards were. How glad I 
 was we were above such foolishness as spending our whole 
 lives in flopping and bumping and hurting ourselves just to 
 wallow in purple poison. . . . But I'm not so sure 
 we're so darned superior nowadays. There's Carol. She 
 doesn't think of anything except who was at the Opera, and 
 is it worth while getting Horse Show Clothes when the people 
 spend so much time looking at the horses? (By the way, 
 wouldn't you like to find a newspaper head-writer strong- 
 minded enough to resist saying, 'The Horse Is King 5 that 
 week ?) Or whether papa's allowance for mother's reception 
 will permit having a couple of minor opera singers or pian- 
 ists or fiddlers 'oblige/ Or how shall she treat that girl who 
 went to school with her and who still insists on calling, even 
 since her father's had the bad taste to lose everything and she 
 wears last year's clothes and, really, can a swell like Carol 
 afford to be seen taking tea with her at a place like the Ro- 
 tunda ? She's likely to find any number of eligible men there, 
 you know!" 
 
 Archie, who had growled several times, now had the cour- 
 age to interrupt, decisively: 
 
 "Cut it out, Arnold," he said; "call her mother a 'lizard' 
 and her friends 'lizards,' but let her alone. . . ." He 
 paused, breathing hard. "I I mean it, old boy," he finally 
 summarized, miserable under Arnold's gaze. "You had your 
 chance, the same as I, and if well if " 
 
 He had meant to conclude with something to the effect 
 that if she preferred Archie to Arnold, it fooled nobody for 
 the fox to say the grapes were sour, with the addenda that, 
 among well-bred foxes, it was fairly average bad taste to 
 criticize such grapes. But Arnold's gray eyes and steady
 
 Aristocrats 53 
 
 level gaze were especially disconcerting to any one about to 
 impute dishonorable motives to him, so Archie did not finish. 
 Arnold deflected the conversation to other fields. It wai 
 worse than useless to continue it then. 
 
 V. How SHE WON ANOTHER 
 
 It proved useless also on all future occasions, particularly 
 as Carol, soon after she realized that Arnold did not intend to 
 answer her letters, or to be at home, officially, when she tele- 
 phoned, wrote a cold little note, demanding the return of 
 anything in her handwriting that might be in his possession, 
 sending with this letter a neat package containing his briefer 
 screeds. Others, which contained some fairly good verse 
 written in her honor, she retained, claiming to have burnt 
 them. 
 
 Later, from some unguarded hints Archie let fall, Carol 
 suspected Arnold of sharing his depreciation of her, and so 
 showed the verse to young Mr. Hartogensis. Proving how 
 deeply infatuated her detractor had been and how sorry she 
 had been they could not remain "just friends/' She felt se- 
 cure, from Arnold's faithful compliance with her request that 
 he had no proof to the contrary. But she did not know the 
 L'Hommedieu notion of honor if she imagined Arnold would 
 have betrayed a woman's confidence for any purpose so petty 
 as to prove something against her. 
 
 So Archie put down Arnold's occasional anxious attempts 
 to break Carol's hold as mere examples of human weakness. 
 He was sorry to see them in his erstwhile leader, but they 
 were natural, considering the heart-hurt that went with the 
 loss of so great a treasure. And he was more inclined to 
 pardon it since it had been because of him that the treasure 
 had been lost. 
 
 Such is our egotism, we men. We like to believe that the 
 woman who has chosen us has refused, or might have refused, 
 others who seem far more brilliant, far more important and
 
 54 God's Man 
 
 worth while. "Seem," we repeat. It takes a clever woman 
 like Carol to discover that we, ourselves, though scorning to 
 make a show of honest worth, are really the better men, after 
 all ; and, partly for that cleverness, we love her. It is seldom 
 we can love any woman truly who does not make us love our- 
 selves more if that is possible. 
 
 Archie was one in whom it was. 
 
 For instance, Archie had never believed he had any talent 
 for financiering until Carol persuaded him that he had, and 
 thus did her share to bring about that calamity which was 
 partly due to the coming of Arnold to Eupert Passage. 
 Carol's chief reason for believing in this latent ability within 
 Archie was the very low opinion she had of "The Good Old 
 Rabbit," as she called her worthy father, a pale little person 
 with fragments of mustache and beard that looked as if he 
 went to a toy terrier to have them worried instead of to a 
 barber to have them trimmed. He wore drooping eye- 
 glasses, too, and, since his business kept him too occupied to 
 remove his hat often, was bald on the part the hat covered. 
 He was, in fact, one of the type that cartoonists use as models 
 for "The Common People." 
 
 Yet this competent Rabbit, when ordered by its master, 
 Mrs. Brooks-Caton, had the ability to retrieve out of that 
 muddy stream called Wall Street costly articles and sums of 
 great value. And this was financiering. 
 
 What The Eabbit could do, then, anybody could certainly 
 the man of her choice man ? Archie was just twenty-one 
 whom, some day, if an unofficial engagement was any sign, 
 she expected to marry. But, before that could come to pass, 
 he must be able to "support her in the style to which she was 
 accustomed." Wicked, wicked phrase! Why, pray, should 
 a youngster, just beginning, be able to do what an oldster, 
 nearly ending, had only recently succeeded in doing? And 
 yet it was "un-American," "unmanly" for such a youngster to 
 accept any assistance from his wife's father, or, if she had 
 money herself, worse to use hers. She might graciously re-
 
 Aristocrats 55 
 
 lieve him of her Bats and clothes, but the expensive apart- 
 ment, the servants, the motor and all the rest it was "manly" 
 for him to provide. 
 
 These are lessons the modern middle-class American 
 woman has been implanting in men's minds until the men, 
 as is their custom, believe them original masculine opinions, 
 and are ashamed to be caught without them. And, by infer- 
 ence, Carol was asking Archie if he held them when she in- 
 sisted on his talent for financiering. He must do something 
 better than sit on a high stool on his Uncle Van Vhroon's 
 dock, superintending cargo-loading and unloading, mustn't 
 he? That is, unless his father . . . 
 
 Archie laughed. 
 
 "Every bit of income goes into Exmoor, girlie," he said. 
 "And that'll be all the better for us, some day. But he doesn't 
 think a man ought to be married until he's past thirty just 
 because he didn't himself. And even if he didn't get angry, 
 he'd think what Uncle Archie pays me and the income from 
 my mother's money ought to be enough. Course he don't 
 know. New York was different in his time a regular vil- 
 lage." 
 
 "That's what I meant you could use as capital your 
 mother's money," said Carol hurriedly. 
 
 She did not even admit the possibility of an income from 
 a mere ten thousand being of the slightest assistance to them, 
 when a decent rag cost more than a fourth of said income, 
 even at six per cent. 
 
 "I know The Good Old Rabbit started with a jolly sight 
 less. As capital," she insisted again, "as capital it's quite 
 all right quite a Godsend. The Street will do the rest. 
 Just watch it. Not the ordinary things, but those new ones 
 just starting that will pay for capital that's how The Rabbit 
 got ahead. Four hundred and fifty per cent, one of his in- 
 vestments paid." 
 
 And, indeed, such had been the case. The Rabbit had been 
 a clerk in a western shoe store, when an honest prospector (the
 
 56 God's Man 
 
 last of an extinct race) had stumped into town from the 
 mountains, put an advertisement in the newspaper and 
 awaited the assistance of Capital in purchasing machinery to 
 unearth the vast quantities of copper he had discovered. And 
 Capital had come in such driblets as the late Zachariah Kay- 
 ton's insurance money. Later, for his few thousands, The 
 Rabbit had many hundred to show. Such luck had never 
 been repeated, but having larger capital, he did not need such 
 large percentages. However, always, he had profited hugely 
 by assisting in the births of new ventures mines, inventions, 
 provincial trolley lines, "jerkwater" railroads. 
 
 But autre temps, autre mceurs. "Big Business" looked 
 after such things nowadays, hence his declension as a finan- 
 cier and the bulk of his former fortune was drifting through 
 the fog-bank of distress and toward the rocks of bankruptcy. 
 
 Except in those rare cases where exploiters of new but 
 worthy ventures were inexperienced, large returns for small 
 capital were swindles; and Big Business was glad of it. It 
 taught the middle class to thank Heaven for kindly places 
 called banks which would care tenderly for inexperienced 
 money, and even philanthropically pay a few per cent, of 
 what that money made when properly and sanely invested. 
 
 Of course, Carol could not know of these dangerous reefs 
 in the business world. During the times her mother was in 
 Europe and The Eabbit dared open his timid mouth without 
 fear of correction before servants, he partook immoderately 
 of wine at dinner, boldly ordered his butler to cut courses 
 and fetch him a rare sirloin or something of the sort that 
 could be grilled, "and plenty of it;" and then sat in his chair 
 (head of the family, as should be), admired by Carol, the 
 butler and the maid who served at table, all of whom listened 
 entranced to the modern fairy-tale of Cinderellus, the shoe 
 clerk, the African or rather the Rocky Mountain magi- 
 cian, the haughty shoe store proprietor, and what Cinderellus 
 "said to him, he says." Of other Aladdin-like increases in 
 fortune : the aeroplane that started in an Ohio woodshed, end-
 
 Aristocrats 57 
 
 ing in the palace of a King ; the headache cure in the little 
 brown bottle that made a drug clerk a millionaire in a twelve- 
 month; and other wonders of the Eight Investment at the 
 Eight Time. 
 
 It was such a night when she had Archie to dine that he 
 might hear these modern fairy-tales. He listened, his eyes 
 alight, and saw, not the tapestried walls of the Brooks-Caton 
 home, but a smaller edition, his own, and Carol sitting across 
 from him, and The Good Old Eabbit, with another and 
 equally thrilling yarn added to his repertoire the rapid rise 
 of Archibald Hartogensis, Esquire (once only an assistant in 
 a shipping office), to Place, Power and an Apartment Off the 
 Park. 
 
 "Why, I've been wasting my life," he said to Carol, when 
 they lounged, alone, in the Japanese room, with coffee and 
 cigarettes. 
 
 Carol nodded. "That's what I wanted you to see," she 
 said. "I thought when you heard The Eabbit " 
 
 Soon they were in the midst of discussions as to the rela- 
 tive merit of fumed oak and Circassian walnut, white "cot- 
 tage" boudoir furniture (Archie was not so indelicate as to 
 say "bedroom") and mahogany. Of course, in mahogany, 
 you got four-posters, and those quaint glass knobs and tall- 
 boys, and many another interesting individual piece; but 
 with the "Trianon" you could string along the wall, by 
 lengthy rose-colored cords, the "most divine" Watteau 
 prints. . . . 
 
 And, that these purposes might be fulfilled, and the smaller 
 edition of the Murray Hill house made a reality, Archie be- 
 gan to take financial papers and to consult with The Good 
 Old Eabbit concerning Large Eeturns for Small Investments. 
 
 Beading the morning paper regarding the exposure of some 
 get-rich-quick swindle, one wonders what hypnotic power was 
 used to get victims to invest. It was seZ/-hypnosis such aa 
 Archie's; the belief that, somewhere, are philanthropists wait- 
 ing eagerly to make large fortunes for small strangers. These
 
 58 God's Man 
 
 philanthropists do not need to seek the strangers. They have 
 only to advertise and they come, already persuadsd. 
 
 It was inevitable that Archie, in his present frame of mind, 
 should fall a victim to the advertisement that finally "wrought 
 his ruin," or that blinded him that he might, eventually, see. 
 
 Its immediate result was to separate him from Arnold. To 
 save interminable taxicabs, he said, he must be nearer 
 Canary's and "the club," nearer than Gramercy Park, any- 
 how. Arnold preferred to remain. Gramercy had the old- 
 world atmosphere he loved; Ms club was there. Besides, his 
 income would not run to Canary's bachelor apartments, or 
 others of the same sort along the Avenue. Xeither would 
 Archie's income. . . . But, in view of the Eight In- 
 vestment soon to appear at the Right Time, the "dower- 
 right" of the late Gretchen V.-V. Hartogensis was a Fortu- 
 natus purse, into which one might dip and dip without caus- 
 ing any perceptible shrinkage. 
 
 Arnold prided himself on not mentioning money when writ- 
 ing home. He had lived at his father's expense for several 
 months while awaiting a vacancy, and now, although actually 
 on The Argus, the city editor was paying him a beginner's 
 wage too little to afford the society of Archie's friends or 
 of Hugo's either. . . . 
 
 Which reminds us that a certain catastrophe is close at 
 hand for us. Several years must elapse before Arnold is 
 to be involved; but they were years that brought no radical 
 change in his condition. That he should soon acquire some 
 reputation as a reporter was as eventual as that Archie should 
 answer that certain advertisement and that Miss Bobbie Beu- 
 lah should give a certain little supper party.
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 CATASTROPHE 
 
 I. How THE HONORABLE JOHN WALDEMAE TAUGHT His SON 
 
 TO BE HONORABLE, TOO INTRODUCING MlSS 
 
 BOBBIE BEULAH 
 
 HE was working you how many 
 times must I tell you ?" 
 
 Thus Arnold once, as you 
 have heard thus Arnold inter- 
 minably, before and after. 
 
 The back of Hugo's watch 
 held a snapshot of a laughing 
 dimpled girl with short soubret- 
 tish hair, Miss Bobbie Beulah; 
 at their meeting one of the 
 "ponies" in "The Merry World" 
 company, playing the "one- 
 nighters," Cyprus among them 
 county seat and seat of Old 
 King's College besides. It was a bad show under shoestring 
 management, to the members of which salaries were uncertain 
 and so was booking. 
 
 Hugo had been the good angel for whom girls in such com- 
 panies pray. Miss Bobbie had ceased to be a "Merry Worlder," 
 the Cyprian engagement once concluded. After having been 
 Hugo'g guest at the Sussex Arms for the better part of the 
 following week, he had arranged for her to return to the City 
 of Engagements solvent; had restored to her that solvency
 
 60 God's Man 
 
 several times since ; had taken cognizance of her necessity for 
 outfitting, and for singing and dancing lessons, only demand- 
 ing that she obey his command not renew an engagement 
 with a wildcat company. 
 
 Miss Bobbie had been a faithful correspondent, but, mostly, 
 her literary efforts were devoted to the making of requests for 
 money. Eventually Hugo would have discovered this; life 
 at Old King's and his leader's proclivities presenting few 
 opportunities for visiting New York. But the expulsion had 
 come at a time when Miss Bobbie had been gone from him 
 only a month or more, and his desire was heightened by mem- 
 ory. Had Arnold known of the correspondence and the 
 loans he would have used all his powers to persuade Hugo to 
 remain at Havre de Grace. 
 
 "She was working you; how many times must I tell you?" 
 he would repeat again and again. "Not that I blame the 
 poor little thing. . . ." 
 
 Arnold had been of the party once when Hugo and Archie 
 took Miss Bobbie and others to dine in a private room at the 
 Arms. 
 
 "She's had a hard time, I guess. I didn't mind your help- 
 ing her; help her all you like. But don't fall in love with 
 her. You're just a pocketbook to her, Hugo. She doesn't 
 know whether you're good-looking or not; your bank-book 
 hides your face. And she doesn't know you've got the big- 
 gest heart in the world as Archie would say she just thinks 
 she's clever enough to get money out of you. That's one of 
 the ways the poor take it out of the rich breaking their 
 hearts when they only mean to break their pocketbooks." 
 
 But Miss Bobbie had considerable natural ability at chica- 
 nery; and as Hugo had not spared expense, and as she had 
 procured a Garden engagement, and as a girl who dresses 
 with those young ladies who drive through Central Park in 
 limousines "loaned" by their dear friends has nothing to 
 learn about ways and means in the matter of artifice, Miss 
 Bobbie with a tinted veil was the ideal American girl as per
 
 Catastrophe 61 
 
 the magazine covers. And when Hugo saw her again and was 
 assured of this incomparable creature's eternal affection, he 
 had assured her that his was equally everlasting. 
 
 And had come back home, expelled, to add insult to in- 
 jury in his father's eyes. 
 
 How could his son be so many objectionable and otherwise 
 unattractive sorts of idiots? No, not his son. HIS son. 
 His, always his. He then, with the native cunning that had 
 made the son of a serf an American millionaire, had taken 
 steps to insure the protection of his property. 
 
 He had the acumen not to forbid Hugo any further ac- 
 quaintance with the lady, for that, he knew, would have the 
 same effect as an authorization. No ! He advised his son 
 to a cynical end, an end, however, which the average respect- 
 able father would have approved as the wisest course; al- 
 though how they reconcile such view-points with their avowals 
 of sturdy Christianity, it is difficult to understand. 
 
 "What a precious green one you are, to be sure, Hugo," he 
 said, laughing, and clapping his son on the back. (It was the 
 same night that he had outlined his life's history to the 
 Squire.) "But I was that way myself at your age. There 
 was a little singer at the Salammbo, in St. Petersburg what 
 they call a caffy chantong a music-hall. I was gone on this 
 little singer. Nothing would do but we must be married, 
 right bang, slap off. And my Dad, he come to me just like 
 I'm doing now; he laffed laffed, he did; yes, Hugo, that's 
 what he did. And he said: 'Look here, son, before you 
 asked this here little lady to be your wife did you well, did 
 you'" 
 
 Waldemar winked prodigiously, slyly, wickedly, like a 
 smoking-room satyr. It was typical of his kind that he did 
 not have the courage actually to put his sinister innuendo 
 into words. Was he not of the sort that buys, eagerly, porno- 
 graphic Parisian papers, scans them with many chuckles and, 
 between France and America, tosses them overboard? And, 
 if interviewed at the dock, says something impressive about
 
 62 God's Man 
 
 the superior morality of the Anglo-Saxon? With which 
 they have most often no racial connection. 
 
 He went over the story of the imaginary little Salammbo 
 chanteuse several times that evening, and many times after, 
 embroidering it, dwelling upon its lesson which was that he 
 soon tired of her after taking sage parental counsel and was 
 indeed glad he had a wise father, who had restrained him, 
 with clearer understanding, from tying himself, for life, to 
 a wretched existence. 
 
 "Boys will be boys," he said. "I was huming. I expect 
 you to be huming. I expect every man to be huming. All 
 I ask is decency. Respectability, that's the keynote of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race; that's made her what she is. And she 
 asks that, and only that, from every Anglo-Saxon." 
 
 He had a bad habit of intruding bits of his public speeches 
 into his private conversation. 
 
 "She says: 'I recognize this here humanity of yours, but 
 I say a man must learn to be respectable if he wants to be 
 huming. Look at these here French. That's what a man 
 gets for bein' huming without bein' respectable. See ?' " 
 
 Hugo spent a wretched month or so after returning to 
 Xew York to grace a desk in the office of the Waldemar Man- 
 ufacturing Company. Then, one night, he drank too heavily, 
 and Miss Bobbie had to do some hard thinking. Here were 
 the Crossways and she must choose. She did not blame 
 Hugo. It was her fight with his father. Hugo was only 
 a pawn, pushed forward by her, back by him. She had her 
 chance, that night, to win a move. Hugo was passionately 
 desiring her to get into his waiting taxi and drive to the min- 
 ister's. But, to-morrow, it would be Waldemar's move, and 
 her pay at the Garden would just cover the rent and a few 
 minor expenses. She had a friend who had married against 
 the will of a rich father-in-law, and with her young husband, 
 unused to the idea of earning money, had lived in a furnished 
 room and cooked their principal meals over the gas and in a 
 chafing-dish, until the youngster fell in with "the gang" and
 
 Catastrophe 63 
 
 was now "steering" members of his former clubs to gambling- 
 houses, receiving the "stew per eent." Bobbie had heard of 
 other such cases. 
 
 One often wonders, when momentous decisions must be 
 made instantly, that so brief a time is sufficient to review 
 details, the recital of which would consume hours. Bobbie 
 saw her pretty furniture under the hammer as poor Eosie's 
 had been; saw the beggarly price people were willing to pay 
 for second-hand electrics "as good as new," saw the possibility 
 of "road" tours again saw other disagreeable things, many 
 of them. Yet, if she refused marriage she must be his 
 mistress ; else, sooner or later, he would drift away. 
 
 She was wise in the wisdom of necessity, was Bobbie. And 
 she wrenched victory from defeat. Yield she must, but, 
 yielding, lose none of his respect; that was her problem, as 
 she hung, apparently limp and half-fainting in his arms; a 
 problem easily enough solved in the case of one so simple- 
 minded as Hugo. 
 
 There is an argument, supposed to be exceedingly artful, 
 which every youngster imagines he, alone, has achieved. Bob- 
 bie had often jeered at it when impassioned young men had 
 attempted persuasion with it. It had not persuaded her in 
 the least, but it was just the thing to impress Hugo. 
 
 "We can't, we can't," she wailed. "It would be wicked. 
 He'd never forgive you, and I'd never forgive myself. Sup- 
 pose he died without forgiving you. Then you'd hate me. 
 Oh, don't say you wouldn't after a while you'd hate me. 
 We're married anyhow, dearest one. He, nor anybody else, 
 can't change that; we're married in the sight of Heaven." 
 (Yes, she even dared that !) "I'll never love any one else, and 
 you won't either, will you, dear? And, maybe, some day, 
 when he sees he can't make you love anybody else, maybe 
 then he'll see that there are marriages that don't have to be 
 made in churches. 'After all, could a priest mumbling a few 
 words make us love one another more' " 
 
 The last was word for word as she had heard it from at
 
 64 God's Man 
 
 least two youngsters and one middle-aged man, who had 
 started late as a Don Juan. But it was novel to Hugo, to 
 whom the deception of women was alien. He broke down, 
 kissed her hand, and said she shouldn't sacrifice herself; 
 and 
 
 But to quote his respectable and highly original father, 
 after all, Hugo was "miming." 
 
 II. BOBBIE'S LITTLE SUPPER PARTY 
 
 So long as Miss Beulah Roberts had looked forward to 
 being Mrs. Hugo "Waldemar some day, she had so ordered 
 her existence that, when she should be fulfilling matronly 
 duties, no reminiscences of indiscretions would be possible to 
 envious women and other carping critics. Such favors as 
 she had received at Hugo's hands had been received, inwardly, 
 with gratitude, which had prevented any extravagant re- 
 quests. (The electric had been an unexpected Christma? 
 gift, Hugo's own idea, kept secret.) 
 
 The gratitude also prevented her from saving anything at 
 Hugo's expense; even the twenty-five dollars of weekly wage 
 was expended. She avoided the class of girls who flouted 
 conventions, and who let it be known, flagrantly, that their 
 salaries were only "taxi-cab fares"; avoided restaurants, too, 
 where such girls, and those who paid their expenses, were the 
 chief attractions. 
 
 She was a simple child of nature a country girl who be- 
 lieved in the great American myth of social equality. A girl 
 had only to keep her good name and not get talked about, and 
 she was "the equal of any one." Bobbie plumed herself on 
 her superiority to "those society dames" who smoked cigar- 
 ettes publicly, and who had started a scandalous fashion in 
 divorces. Eeally, marriage meant nothing to them at all. 
 
 Now, marriage was the one thing reverenced by Miss Bob- 
 bie. Her people had been Roman Catholics for centuries, 
 and, once it was plain to her that Hugo desired marriage, she
 
 Catastrophe 65 
 
 had honestly gone to work to fit herself for that sacred state. 
 Not only did she eschew acquaintances of doubtful repute, 
 but she endeavored to purge her speech of slang and sole- 
 cisms generally, to avoid late hours and to cease to look upon 
 Hugo merely as a dispensation of Providence for getting her 
 bills paid. 
 
 A wiser man than John Waldemar or one who loved hu- 
 manity better than empty honors would have perceived, in her 
 efforts, a commendable spirit which would have resulted in a 
 wife not to be disdained. 
 
 But all that was changed now. Hugo's gifts were no 
 longer favors, and she must smother the reproaches of a con- 
 science that hitherto had found in monthly confession to 
 Father Eyan, and in fulfilling his small penances, all neces- 
 sary solace. She dared not go to the worthy Father now, 
 so denied an anodyne, she sought a stimulant. 
 
 Since there was to be no marriage with Hugo or anybody 
 else, she had still the idea that a compromised girl was doomed 
 never to bear "an honest man's name" no acquaintances 
 could contaminate her; so the girls she had once avoided she 
 now sought. One ever seeks for bosom friends, those with 
 whom one can be perfectly honest; and with the "home- 
 cooking" girls, those who earned a living by chorus work, as 
 they would have by sewing or selling ribbons, or those ambi- 
 tious young ladies who were in vocal training, or went to 
 schools of expression while doing chorus work for experience, 
 her former chums in the company Bobbie had to tell too 
 many tall tales about her recently deceased uncle in the West, 
 whose will had given each member of her family a small 
 competence; too often had she contradicted herself on de- 
 tails. 
 
 It was inevitable that she should come to avoid them and 
 seek those who had no horror of Hugo's place in her life; 
 should come to despise them finally as "softies," "sillies," 
 who did not have the sense to take the good things as they 
 were offered.
 
 66 God's Man 
 
 In tHe new mode of life that came to pass through the ad- 
 vice of these more sophisticated ladies Hugo's allowance was 
 severely taxed to pay the bills. Such young persons never by 
 any chance walked if a taxicab was anywhere in evidence; 
 nor were there more than one or two places on the Avenue 
 sufficiently expensive to gain the approbation for frocks and 
 hats. They "dressed" after six o'clock as punctiliously as if 
 they were to dine at a Plaza palace and frowned on male 
 friends who did not do the same. They lived in luxurious 
 apartments, furnished exquisitely by giving a certain "lady 
 decorator" carte blanche to procure tapestries of the cor- 
 rectly faded sort, real rugs from the actual Orient, pictures 
 by painters of some reputation, and "period" furniture; and 
 they counted that night lost when, after the theater, they did 
 not show off a new gown in some smart supper-place, or give 
 an affair of their own in a private dining-room, or at their 
 own apartments. 
 
 One autumn night Bobbie gave her first supper party one 
 that was to christen the new and expensive flat in "Devon- 
 shire Mansions." Information of it was telephoned in to 
 the city editor of The Argus by one of those anonymous 
 persons called "tipsters," who earn some sort of a living by 
 betraying their friends' secrets. This one gave full details 
 of Bobbie's party and her guests ; and the news came in time 
 to send a reporter to investigate. The bargain was that the 
 story should be "exclusive" for the first edition, which went 
 out of town; the tip would not be telephoned again except 
 for later editions of the other Democratic papers, and the 
 cheque was to be sent pay-day to John Jones Smith, Poste 
 Restante. 
 
 Hanging up the receiver, the city editor looked around for 
 the best man in the "shop" to detail on so important a "story." 
 Arnold L'Hommedieu was in the act of resuming his dress 
 coat, having returned early from the German Theater in 
 Irving Place to write his review of the first performance in
 
 Catastrophe 67 
 
 America of a Wedekind one-acter. Arnold's knowledge of 
 German made his visits to the Irving Place Theater frequent ; 
 just as his knowledge of music sent him paradoxically, pes- 
 simists would claim to light operas and revues. 
 
 But The Argus permitted no man an exclusive specialty, 
 and, though ordinarily Arnold would have gone home after 
 writing his criticism, he felt no resentment when the city 
 editor called his name across the crowded noisy room. 
 
 "Story for the first edition," said the city editor, thrusting 
 the telephoned notes in Arnold's hand. "As much as you 
 can write and take chances on setting it. I'll hold a column 
 anyhow double score head double-leaded lead. Pay some 
 phone girl extra to send it in while you write it. It needs a 
 good man to get over the delicate parts. It's a great story, 
 L'Hommedieu. Means our party 'ull carry that county." 
 He gave him two twenty-dollar bills. "Don't spare any ex- 
 pense and rush ! It's only exclusive for the first edition. 
 Rush !" 
 
 It could not have been said that he spoke the last word; 
 he exploded it. Arnold flew down the stairs. Not until he 
 was in a subway express thundering on its way up-town did 
 he glance at the sheet of folded "copy" paper. Then he 
 started so violently that he was thrown heavily against one of 
 those eternally vigilant and suspicious women who take even 
 such an untoward accident as evidence of the general deprav- 
 ity of the male sex. 
 
 Arnold stared helplessly at the paper, then began bitterly 
 to swear in tune with the thunder of the express. Why had 
 he not looked at the paper and told the city editor that the 
 man was one of his best friends, and what he asked impossible, 
 for the brief notes included the names of John Waldemar, 
 Hugo and Bobbie Beulah. 
 
 The Honnible Johnnie was both Republican and the "Re- 
 form" Candidate this time. The Democratic Machine had 
 been allowing loose road-houses and similarly disguised
 
 68 God's Man 
 
 brothels to flourish in Sussex County as long as they showed 
 a commendable and patriotic desire to assist the Machine to 
 rule the people reasonably. 
 
 The Republicans had interested the pulpit, but another 
 sort than that presided over by Jorian L'Hommedieu; this 
 being a subject that would provide sensational sermons to 
 attract congregations back from the moving-picture shows. 
 Stump speakers had reminded citizens of Sodom and Gomor- 
 rah, and had urged the killing of the canker-worm that would 
 destroy that morality for which the Anglo-Saxon race was 
 famous most of this being line for line from some of Mr. 
 Waldemar's famous public speeches. 
 
 One did not need to be a newspaper reporter to realize the 
 significance of the remaining notes: "His son is giving a 
 chorus-girl supper party to his girl Devonshire Mansions. 
 Has rooms in East 38th Street, but never uses them. Get 
 the Devonshire elevator man and the door man (both places) 
 to confirm this. Then get a look at the supper party on 
 some pretext even if they kick you out afterward. . . ." 
 
 Why hadn't he read this in the office? The city editor 
 would have understood and sympathized when he explained 
 how dear a friend Hugo was. Well, he would do the next 
 best thing. He would telephone from Fourteenth Street, BO 
 that only the few minutes of the journey were wasted. 
 
 The express grated and screeched to a stop and Arnold 
 plunged out of subterranea, searching a public telephone. But 
 as he reached it he realized there would be no difference in 
 the results, whether he wrote the story or another. The 
 scandal would ruin the chances of Waldemar's election just 
 as surely; the father, justly violent, might drown Hugo; cut 
 him off poor Hugo, who, since his chemicals had been taken 
 away before he had mastered them, had not the faintest trace 
 of ability to support himself. For the moment Arnold's 
 Puritan conscience was torn between duty to his paper and 
 to his friend ; but not for long. It would not harm the paper 
 not to print the story ; it would ruin his friend.
 
 Catastrophe 69 
 
 He hailed a taxi driver and promised him an extra tip for 
 speed. 
 
 Arriving at Devonshire Mansions one of those huge piles 
 of ornamental stucco, with Parian marble and atrocious "art" 
 in the lobby, and many manufactured palms, all beloved by 
 the ostentatious Manhattanese he was admitted by a boy in 
 a uniform and buttons that would have done credit to a Eear- 
 Admiral, levitated skyward by another and admitted to a 
 rosy-papered apartment by Hugo's valet, Tompkins. Hugo, 
 pushing into the hall at the sound of the bell, gave an in- 
 articulate cry of joy; for never before had Arnold consented 
 thus to honor such fetes. Before he could explain that his 
 taste had suffered no relapse, Hugo's huge paws impelled him 
 violently toward an open doorway. Bobbie, standing on the 
 table in a mock reverential attitude, about to rechristen in a 
 costly vintage, a young man whose patrician features gave 
 rise to the suspicion that it would be difficult to improve on 
 his hereditary patronymic, jumped down, echoing Hugo's 
 boisterous welcome. Whereupon the entire party of young 
 men and women, all in evening dress that bore the marks of 
 superior shops and some imagination, kept up the reputation 
 for originality, for which such parties are famous, by gather- 
 ing around the newcomer, glasses upraised, and chanting lus- 
 tily and unmelodiously : "For he's a jolly good fellow " oft 
 repeated; a statement that did great credit to their penetra- 
 tion, for Arnold's face was as glum as possible ; during which 
 entertainment Hugo, as host, hastily poured half a pint of 
 wine on the floor in the process of getting half a gill into a 
 glass that, willy nilly, must be thrust into Arnold's hand. 
 Several of the wilder spirits whereupon hoisted Arnold on 
 the table, demanding some a speech, the majority a song; the 
 hired negro entertainers obliging with a pot-pourri of popular 
 tunes, signaling encouragement and requesting selection. 
 
 Had Arnold followed his inclinations he would have hurled 
 his wine into Hugo's eyes and broken the glass on his head. 
 There came to his mind among other unpleasant things some
 
 70 God's Man 
 
 remembrance of a Persian revel, and a handwriting large 
 upon the wall. He swayed and teetered on the flimsy table, 
 trying to dismount, but the laughing throng prevented, young 
 Colin Rhynshinder holding his knees. "Speech," demanded 
 thickly this heir to an ancient name; "Speech. Gotta have 
 speech. He's a jolly good fel-low, and jolly good fellows 
 gotta make speeches." 
 
 And, all the while, those reporters from the other papers 
 were getting ready to make a descent, unallied with sentiment, 
 upon a worse scene than Arnold had suspected. More than 
 the usual number of wine-glasses had been broken, more than 
 the average number of girls had had their hair disordered by 
 the clumsy embraces of men not sober, more torn dresses were 
 pinned up after having been trodden on by turkey-trotters, 
 and the glass tops of center-tables and mantel were a mass of 
 smoldering cigars and cigarettes, tossed down without being 
 extinguished a foul reek. Altogether, just the sort of local 
 color necessary to a highly successful newspaper "story" of 
 Little Sons of the Eich and chorus-girls. 
 
 "A speech? All right!" said Arnold bitterly. "All right" 
 he shouted, for only shouting was in order. "I'll make a 
 speech " 
 
 "He sees he's gotta make speech," cried young Colin, 
 delighted. "Hurray. One two three and a tiger." 
 They welcomed an excuse to make more entrancing noises, 
 and Arnold, inwardly groaning, wondered if there might be 
 reporters in hiding across the street ; if so, those shouts were 
 enough proof to print the story. 
 
 "You wanted a speech," he began. 
 
 "Yes, yes," said young Colin gravely. "Aye, aye, sir." 
 
 "Listen," said Arnold sharply, "keep still." 
 
 "Silence for the reverend gentleman," said a girl, laughing 
 shrilly, believing this humor. "Amen," said another in the 
 deep bass which had gained her a wholly false reputation as 
 a mimic. 
 
 "Listen; listen!" clamored Arnold. "Everybody's got to
 
 Catastrophe 71 
 
 go quick and quietly. Don't take taxis in front of the house 
 here ; telephone for them to be sent two blocks down. Hurry, 
 get your things, get out. And quiet quiet. There's a story 
 out about this party ; reporters 'ull be here in half an hour 
 any minute. And if all of you don't want to see your names 
 in the papers to-morrow morning hurry. You don't under- 
 stand!" This in reply to a question from the now half-sober 
 Rhynshinder as to what business of newspapers was a private 
 party. It was plain most of the others, too, regarded Arnold's 
 speech as a joke in poor taste "You don't understand? 
 Well, isn't Hugo's father running on a Reform Ticket? 
 To reform what ? All-night turkey-trotting road-houses ! 
 Get the point? He'll lose the election if you keep going on 
 ten minutes longer." 
 
 Rhynshinder, now completely sober, mentally, although his 
 body refused radical measures, turned to the others, sketching 
 rapidly what was not clear to them. "We've gotta blow 
 quick. Come on, Hetty. Good night, everybody. You 
 know my things, don't you, Tompkins ?" 
 
 "This way, sir," said Hugo's valet, leading them off to a 
 bedroom pressed into service as a cloak-room. 
 
 "No noise remember/' Arnold called after them. But it 
 was unnecessary to warn Rhynshinder; he had something to 
 lose himself from any such story a rich wife, for instance, 
 the only hope of his creditors and his one wish was now, 
 that he had not been inspired to imitate the "humor" of some 
 royal foreigner, said to have used a dancer's slipper for a 
 drinking cup. This shoe had been Hetty's and she now reso- 
 lutely refused to limp, "like a broken-legged duck." 
 
 "If you'd get shoes your size a little champagne wouldn't 
 hurt 'em," he snarled. 
 
 Arnold dashed into Bobbie's dressing-room, returning with 
 a pair of patent pumps. "Oh, they're much too large" ob- 
 jected Miss Hetty, a statement to which Miss Bobbie took 
 instant umbrage, a feminine word-battle ensuing, only broken 
 short by Rhynshinder crying aloud to Heaven in exasperation
 
 72 God's Man 
 
 and pushing his lady to the door, Hetty carrying the pumps 
 gingerly between jeweled fingers. 
 
 Meanwhile, Arnold, urging on the others, had cleared the 
 room, and, assisted by Tompkins and the maid, was hastily re- 
 storing it to an appearance of order, paying no sort of atten- 
 tion to those emerging dressed for the street. These insisted 
 on dallying, even at such a time, annoying the worried Hugo 
 and Bobbie with the conventional banalities regarding the 
 pleasant evening spent. It was not until the hall lock had 
 snapped on the last of them that Arnold spoke again. 
 
 "How much cash have you ?" He took the roll of crumpled 
 bills Hugo produced. "Now go and get the elevator man and 
 the hall porter." This to Tompkins, who hastened off; "A 
 fine mess you've landed in, my boy. I'd like to know which 
 of those friends gets his living by telephoning scandal to 
 newspapers. Go put on your night-dress, Bobbie. You, 
 Hugo, get back to your rooms and divide this between your 
 elevator man and hall porter." He had halved the roll and 
 now thrust half forward. "I'll attend to them, here. While 
 they're up, walk down and out." 
 
 "But the money the cash what's it for?" stammered 
 Hugo heavily. 
 
 "Oh, thickhead !" returned Arnold wearily. "So they'll tell 
 the reporters you're never there at night, of course. That's 
 what you want them to know, don't you ? You might add, 
 gratis, that you're seldom sober and beat your father when in 
 drink. All that sort of thing helps a man to be elected." 
 As some comprehension came to Hugo's tired eyes Arnold 
 heard Tompkins in the hall and pushed Hugo into the dining- 
 room. "Step out when they come in," he added, sliding the 
 folding-doors; and, then, under the escort of Tompkins, the 
 two Rear- Admirals entered, their hands heavy with the weight 
 of the gold braid on their caps. 
 
 "There'll be some reporters here soon," Arnold told them 
 succinctly. "They'll ask you if there was a party here to-
 
 Catastrophe 73 
 
 night, who was in it, and whether Mr, Hugo Waldemar 
 doesn't live here ? You'll look amazed. Look as though you 
 think they're crazy. They'll offer you money, but not this 
 much." He dangled the remaining bank-notes, allowing close 
 inspection ; "And this is what you'll get if there's nothing in 
 the papers to-morrow. If there is, what the reporters give 
 you will have to support you until you get new uniforms, for 
 you'll lose those you're wearing now when Miss Beulah moves 
 out, explaining to the agent that it's because the servants talk 
 too much. . . ." 
 
 They began, as do all professional bribe-takers, with re- 
 proachful asseverations of their high integrity. Arnold cut 
 them short. "Then you never heard of Mr. Waldemar 
 wouldn't know him if you saw him ?" 
 
 "He never comes here on our shift," said the larger Kear- 
 Admiral a Vice-Admiral, this one. "The night shift," he 
 added slyly, but with an open candid glance. Arnold 
 laughed grimly, was then ashamed. Why, unless they were 
 tipped, should these men care what happened to the wasteful, 
 noisy, often insulting people of the White Light Social Eegis- 
 ter ? No doubt these tips were bestowed, unselfishly enough, 
 on their children, for whom they hoped, at no distant date, to 
 provide a better playground than the New York streets, where, 
 daily, they were exposed to the danger of just such people's 
 motor-cars. "Very well," he said briefly, but not unkindly. 
 "See to it." 
 
 So, when another reporter came later, asking for Miss 
 Beulah, as though she was in the habit of receiving him at a 
 late hour, Rear-Admiral No. 2 bore him skyward and Miss 
 Beulah's maid, rubbing her eyes and holding together her 
 dressing-gown, said her mistress could see nobody. 
 
 "It was as quiet as Woodlawn Cemetery : no lights, nothing. 
 And the elevator man hadn't seen anybody go up there to-night 
 not even after I showed hifti a ten-spot. Somebody's been 
 stringing us." Thus spoke the delegate of the district re-
 
 74 God's Man 
 
 porters, returning to his comrades, waiting in their favorite 
 cafe. 
 
 "Sure: we know that," said another looking up from his 
 poker-hand the delegate who had gone to Hugo's apartments : 
 "Waldemar's in bed with a toothache and he's always there 
 at night. Nobody but a spiteful dame could have phoned in 
 a foolish tip like that." 
 
 But the city editor of Arnold's paper knew better, for next 
 day a letter from the tipster explained how Arnold's machina- 
 tions had made his tip miscarry; and Arnold, after making 
 sure there was none within earshot, made no effort to deny 
 this. "He was one of my two best friends, Mr. Chapin," he ex- 
 plained simply; "to print that story meant to ruin him for 
 life." .And he repeated the argument with which he had 
 convinced himself. "It didn't hurt the paper not to print it 
 and it would have ruined him." 
 
 Chapin looked at him grimly. "Of course, you know you're 
 fired," he said. 
 
 Arnold bowed. 
 
 "But don't go out under the impression that you're any 
 martyr. Unless Benedict Arnold and Judas were martyrs. If 
 we'd printed that story, we might have kept that unscrupulous 
 rascal out of Congress again another one who gets fat on 
 misery and degradation. You've elected him." 
 
 But Arnold, recalling the bluff jolly face of John Waldemar, 
 his charities and his church-going, put down this statement to 
 partisan prejudice. 
 
 "And more than that to show you what I think of a 
 man who'd do what you did," said the city editor, rising 
 from his chair, "I'll blacklist you in every decent newspaper 
 shop. We don't get the goods on many fat rascals, and we 
 can't take any chances having our work destroyed by having 
 Little Brothers of the Eich for reporters. Go and work for 
 your friends, the Waldemar kind: you'll never work for a 
 decent sheet again. . . ."
 
 Catastrophe 75 
 
 All of which Arnold found to be true enough when next 
 day, next week, and next month, he hunted for another berth. 
 
 "If he'd give them the gaff he'd just as soon do it to us," 
 argued city editors, for his guilt had been represented un- 
 fairly, the narrators considering as negligible the story of the 
 "best friend," and telling the tale from the standpoint that 
 young Waldemar was wealthy and how he ha.d made it worth 
 young L'Hommedieu's while. 
 
 It was soon after he left The Argus that Arnold moved 
 from his comfortable rooms near Gramercy Park, one collat- 
 eral Van Vhroon informing the other, when Archie asked for 
 information almost a week later, that he imagined young 
 L'Hommedieu was a sad dog: running away from a girl like 
 that. . . . 
 
 "Like what?" Archie's eyes did not twinkle as they might 
 have done in the case of any other man whose engagement 
 in gallantry had had undesired results. . . . Arnold was 
 . . . Arnold. 
 
 Whereupon the older collateral Van Vhroon described a 
 certain "splendid girl" and described Carol accurately. Carol 
 it was, right enough: Arnold having returned some signed 
 and otherwise inscribed photographs found in a trunk, long 
 unused. . . . And, although Archie had picked out the 
 apartment they were to occupy . . . 
 
 Fortunately, Archie's estimation of Carol's charms was as 
 inaccurate as his belief in her integrity hence the other's de- 
 scription meant nothing to him. "Sold his things, shipped 
 his books home and skipped, leaving no address. . . ." 
 
 At The Argus they refused to hear any mention of Ar- 
 nold's name. It was then that Archie, hearing about Hugo, 
 began to realize why. Hugo's loudly advertised suicidal in- 
 tentions failed to alter the situation: Arnold was not to be 
 found. 
 
 They would never have thought to look for him in those 
 depths of Manhattan to which he was to descend, and from
 
 76 God's Man 
 
 which he was to emerge some six months later, sick of soul 
 and body: ready to become that rebel against the laws the 
 I/Honunedieus had upheld for half a millennium, that noto- 
 rious rebel he was soon to be. 
 Which is also the story of Annie Eunice Chasserton. 
 
 END OF BOOK I
 
 BOOK II
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 ARNOLD'S ADVENTURES IN PLUNDERLAND 
 I. LITTLE ONE AND VELVET VOICE 
 
 OME centuries later (so it 
 seemed), on a certain night in 
 January, Arnold awoke in an- 
 other room than that one in 
 which he had gone to sleep. 
 But, inside hall rooms in Man- 
 hattan being almost identical, 
 he did not immediately realize 
 this. Beside the Hotel Tippe- 
 canoe's similarity was not con- 
 fined to shape and size but 
 included contour and content 
 dark gray bed and bedding 
 white to optimists only; chair 
 in collapse, trunk in contempt or shrunken suit-case. And 
 "bureau" ... 
 
 Were an historian always an artist ordered about by an 
 orderly conscience, he would begin and end with that bureau. 
 Serried with scratches and Saturn-ringed by wet tumblers 
 whose economy of size betrayed the saturnine liquid spilt, just 
 as surely as the sizes of certain concurrent circles went to 
 show that tea or coffee had splashed out of certain cups or 
 over certain saucers ... the "bureaus" of inside hall 
 rooms in Manhattan are records as plain as the pikestaff of the 
 amateur symbolist.
 
 80 God's Man 
 
 In the case of the room in which Arnold found himself, 
 Rome of the hideousness of this material realism was hidden 
 by a bureau cover of corrugated burlap: the super-cardinal 
 color-scheme of which was ameliorated in its turn by some 
 semi-silver somethings which as obviously as the semi-satin 
 skirt protruding from beneath the semi-circular protection 
 of a semi-silken wall-cloth he had never owned. . . . 
 
 But the single window here was as cobweb-festooned as his 
 own; was otherwise as opaque; the grime of twice yesterday's 
 ten thousand days having settled there. 
 
 Arnold observed also that the single jet was as short and 
 as slender and as lacking in ambition as his own. Minimum 
 burners had failed the management until the installation of 
 gasometers like toy banks and as greedy of dimes, dimes 
 yielded just as grudgingly. . . . No ! this jet had even 
 less altitude. . . . Then he noticed that its superlative 
 dimness was due to a small saucepan . . . that dragon 
 which, until the onslaught of St. George of the Gasometer, ate 
 up all the profits of those who rented rooms to impecunious 
 light-housekeepers. . . . 
 
 Arnold's gaze swiveled toward the only unexamined angle 
 of the room. And there sat two girls, their backs toward him ; 
 from their position evidently hugging the "radiator" ! a po- 
 sition indicating either childlike faith, or powerful imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 Arnold knew too much about this monster to find in the 
 girls' juxtaposition any explanation of what he continued to 
 consider a rather remarkable and remarkably cheeky intrusion. 
 ... It was half an hour before it occurred to him that 
 if he aroused himself from his apathetic abandon, he might 
 connect effect with cause by a process no more complex than 
 listening to their whispered conversation. So far, this had 
 been but a confused buzzing. He opened his eyes. 
 
 The smaller of the two was leaning forward, a tiny hand 
 on the other's knee. "Zen w'at you do, zen, girl?" 
 
 "Then/' replied the other, her tone tired: "well, then, I
 
 Plunder land 81 
 
 thought I'd move to a cheaper place so's not to be broke 
 next time/' 
 
 The sympathetic quality of her voice, its velvety richness, 
 or throatiness, seemed to say that displays of emotion were 
 prevented by a strong effort. This odd voice affected Arnold 
 curiously. One of his sort in his weakened state is free of 
 bodily cravings and quick to visualize. . . . (Which is 
 possibly why decadence grew out of impressionism both orig- 
 inally accidental.) 
 
 This particular impression if pictured would have resulted 
 in a slim necked, crinoline girl fingering a harpsichord, a 
 China bowl of powdered blue blue roses a blue room . . . 
 drawing-room . . . Jacobean ... its old damask and 
 dim faded, Chinois tapestries . . . like those of a certain 
 L'Hommedieu guest chamber. The picture vanished however 
 Before Arnold could master its details. 
 
 The Little One was speaking again. 
 
 "Zot ees good? Leev like beggars-woman? Zot is 'appy, 
 hein? Oh, joyful. Look, girl. Eef a man 'e own a motor-car 
 w'at break down from too much 'ard work must zhe chauf- 
 feur 'e save 'is money to pay? You just like zat: you work 
 too 'ard for 'im : zen you break down zen 'im what owns the 
 machine let 'im pay ze doctor bills. . . . Your lofely 
 eyes, red too. But w'at zey care ? Nuzzings ! . . ." 
 
 She spoke with many spreadings of the palms, jerkings of 
 the head, elevations of the shoulders. In her mischief incar- 
 nate became repressed energy, standing she seemed perpetually 
 balanced insecurely for a spring; sitting she oscillated like a 
 rubber ball on an inclined plane. . . . Closing his eyes 
 Arnold thought of a squirrel first listening, then up and away. 
 . . . Opening them again he became aware of an excep- 
 tional, if artificial, daintiness : her hair was abundant but art- 
 fully coifed to suit her small head and add to her height, her 
 cherry-colored kimono, a miracle of cleanliness (and in such 
 a house!) was so closely belted it seemed form-fitting. Thus 
 she sat, the soles of her slim pitter-patter foreign shoes rested
 
 82 God's Man 
 
 on the radiator and tipped back the rickety chair at a danger- 
 ous angle. / 
 
 "Jus' like zat," she repeated, with the gesture of an equi- 
 librist who has just achieved some difficult feat, or of a 
 philosopher having acquitted himself satisfactorily of some 
 knotty problem. , 
 
 "He couldn't afford it, poor man," returned Velvet Voice. 
 "Racing overtime to keep one jump ahead of the bankruptcy 
 court. And the rent he pays for that tiny top-story loft! 
 Small ones like him have to take on contracts that are simply 
 awful. The work's just got to be done in so many days. Why 
 our wages for two days behind take every cent of his profit. 
 And for three days! Forfeit! Pay them, mind you. His 
 month and our month all for nothing. Worse than that: it 
 loses him money. But . . " 
 
 She laughed sympathetically. "But, nowadays, when it 
 looks like he'll have to forfeit, we go on strike " 
 
 The Little One's back stiffened, as though the temptation to 
 prefer charges of mendacity was restrained with difficulty. 
 Her face, which Arnold could not see, must have betrayed her. 
 
 "It's true!" Velvet Voice laughed again. "The poor have 
 to stick together. And he's poor, all right. . . . You see, 
 if we strike, there's no forfeit. Strikes are in all contracts. 
 We've 'struck' twice just to help him. He doesn't make any- 
 thing off of us." 
 
 "Oo izzit zen?" inquired the Little One, as if humoring the 
 illogic of a child. "You zink he mus' to get take zose con- 
 tracks." 
 
 "He can't get the decent ones not many. They go to the 
 big fellows. We only get the left-overs, the coarse cheap work 
 the big firms don't want. And I've heard the little fellows tell 
 Simonski that if they have to pay him decent prices, they'll 
 have to shut up shop. And it's so. He explained it to me." 
 
 "You talk foolish I never 'ear nobody so foolish. You 
 work for nuzzing. You say 'e work for nuzzing. And now
 
 Plunderland 83 
 
 ze shops don't make nuzzing. Nobody. Zat is impossible; 
 not?" 
 
 "The little stores have to sell too cheap to make much 
 profit," explained Velvet Voice. "They're almost as poor as 
 we are, those little fellows. If they don't," she added, antici- 
 pating the question, "everybody goes to the big ones." 
 
 "Zen zey ge-getze money," said the little foreigner trium- 
 phantly. "Rein ?" The other nodded. "Zen zey can pay. You 
 go work for zem, girl. Zere you are. Jus' like zat." 
 
 "They get it all," responded the other bitterly. 
 
 "Zen zey can pay. You work for zem. Zere you are. Jus* 
 like zat" " 
 
 "But they don't have to. The others can't, so they won't. 
 If you don't like it, find some other place. There isn't any. 
 So there you are. Just like that " 
 
 She imitated the Little One mischievously, but her gaiety 
 was only momentary. 
 
 "You can't tell me anything about working in New York. 
 Big department stores, little specialty places, big manufac- 
 tories and sweatshops I've tried them all. And I like some 
 so-called sweatshops best where you don't have to keep up 
 any front; where they don't expect you to spend all you make 
 on clothes. That's the crudest part about the big ones. When 
 some investigation starts, they say : 'If they wouldn't put it all 
 on their lacks!' . . . And they'll fire you if you don't. 
 Come to work looking shabby and they'll say : 'Nix with that 
 "poor working girl, God defend her" stuff. That's why we 
 pay you extra so's to look decent/ Oh, it's a scream !" 
 
 She threw back her head and, despite her velvet voice, 
 laughed unmelodiously. 
 
 "Eet eez f onny becauze you are not gay, girl ? Because you 
 do not lif? And all for nuzzings. Zat eez fonny!" 
 
 "Sure it's funny." Velvet Voice was still laughing harshly. 
 Then rising to stir the simmering contents of the saucepan: 
 "Go up to Central Park some Sunday and see the cars and
 
 84 God's Man 
 
 carriages, and look at the men in 'em who get our money. 
 There they sit and their chauffeurs and coachmen are always 
 ten times better-looking. And there they sit their bosses. 
 Little fussy side-whiskers, little round stomachs, or little flat 
 chests, trying to look important. Then the woman alongside 
 says something. Watch 'em jump like pet cats being stroked 
 or patted on the head. . . . And there the women sit 
 their bosses. Then look at them. Such fool clothes ! Silks 
 and satins and velvets and crepes for out-of-doors! And 
 always made some fool way dressmakers call 'smart/ And 
 they look all wrong and out of place in them, because most of 
 'em were born to scrub floors. And the way they try to look 
 proud and haughty ! And not knowing how, the very people 
 they're trying to make good with just laugh and sneer at 
 them. *Look !' I heard some society woman say, one of those 
 tailor-made ones with a single-quill hat; one that looked 
 'right* one Sunday in a crush. 'How hideous, Molly!' she 
 says : 'And the creature's diamonds ! Some bookmaker's wife, 
 I suppose.' The other says something worse than that, much 
 worse." 
 
 The velvet voice held that quality one associates with a 
 woman's heightened color. "And the common one wasn't 
 either thing they thought. She was the wife of a man with 
 the biggest shirt-waist factory in town: two thousand girls. 
 And all working their heads off for that fat woman to put on 
 fool-clothes and fool-jewelry and be laughed at. You can't 
 do anything but laugh." She arose and stirred the contents 
 of the saucepan again. 
 
 "I wouldn't," the Little One returned fiercely. "I wouldn't 
 not; net" 
 
 "What would you do?" 
 
 The question was asked languidly, with no hope of any help- 
 ful answer. To Arnold it seemed that Velvet Voice had made 
 an exhaustive study of her personal problem, without discov- 
 ering the angle of successful vision, therefore mistrusted any 
 cursory solutions. Arnold once had interviewed a life convict;
 
 Plunderland 85 
 
 her attitude was similar: her prison, the world; her chances 
 of escape, save one, the same. 
 
 The Little One had suddenly toppled her rickety chair back. 
 Bang ! One tiny hand was now extended dramatically. But 
 her confidence died before she spoke; such was the other's 
 steady gaze, and her words, when they came, were not dra- 
 matic at all. 
 
 "Zere are ways," she answered shortly. But her attitude 
 seemed to indicate that one needed education before one might 
 understand. . . . But: "Oh, plenty ways," was all she 
 added, aloud. 
 
 "I know one" said Velvet Voice. "It doesn't appeal to me. 
 I'm not saying I'm better than anybody, but to have drunken 
 men paw you; and fools dirtying themselves ... to 
 drink hard to forget how rotten you are. . . . And are 
 you any better off? Instead of working for rabbit-men and 
 donkey-men and nice little dog-men, you work for nasty little 
 fox-men and wolf-men and hyena-men policemen and poli- 
 ticians and " 
 
 She spoiled what should have been a profitable lesson in 
 Anglo-Saxon alliteration for the little alien, finishing lamely : 
 ". . . don't you know!" And the attitude of the angry 
 Little One added emphatically, this time, that she did. 
 
 "Girl ! You don't zink zat me Sonetchka zat I am like 
 zat no ?" Arnold saw her in profile now ; nostrils quivering, 
 lips trembling, eyes snapping. "Girl! you don't zink zat 
 I am like zat ?" 
 
 "Why, no," returned Velvet Voice, startled. "You didn't 
 think " Her interpolator as though electrically shocked, 
 leaped across and into her arms, crying and clinging like a 
 helpless child, then shaking herself like a pet animal after 
 handling. It was plain she lacked either humor, or its 
 equivalent, logic ; else could she have resumed the role of pro- 
 tector and adviser while Velvet Voice continued her soothing 
 pressure of one tiny hand. 
 
 "You can use my rooms, girl you sleep wiz me," said the
 
 86 God's Man 
 
 Little One peremptorily. "I 'ave air an' light and I 'ave 
 traveling stove alcool. We cook nice brikfas', Jiein? I tell 
 you," she said suddenly, with that air of solving problems that 
 sat upon her so grotesquely, "I hate to cook brikfas'. You 
 be my cook : I pay wiz ze brikfas'. Say jus' like zat 'Yes, 
 my dear.' Say it, girl." 
 
 She caught Velvet Voice's hand. "Yes, my dear," said 
 Velvet Voice with comic obedience. 
 
 "Well, you come, come," urged the Little One. "Come, 
 girl. Sleep." 
 
 "Leave your door on the latch : I'll come when I've fed him 
 this." She removed the saucepan from the gas and poured its 
 contents into a little white pitcher. 
 
 "Poor man," said the Little One, and he knew she was 
 standing over him. "Poor, poor mdlczech " ('mahlchick' 
 the word sounded to Arnold who wondered in what language 
 it had a meaning). "Eet is good zat you skr-skr-skr-skrim 
 and I come to 'elp you, girl!" It was evident she used the 
 word "girl" as a term of affection. "Newer you carry 'im 
 yourself. Too 'eavy. 'E was more 'eavier not soon ago, too," 
 she added, touching Arnold's thin drawn cheeks with the 
 pointed tip of a glittering pink finger-nail. "Sometime I see 
 zem like zat in the Ghetto, poor schnorrers." Her pity was 
 cut short by a prodigious yawn : "Oh I aw come soon, 
 girl" and took herself off still yawning and covering her 
 mouth with the little paw of the pink pointed nails for 
 such a little mouth needed rest after accomplishing what 
 would have altered all history had it been done at the Tower of 
 Babel. 
 
 As the door closed, Arnold felt a gentle tugging at the sleeve 
 of his shirt (he had sold his last pair of pajamas, one of a 
 dozen silken frogged things, Hugo's Christmas-a-year gift). 
 The tugging, though gentle, was insistent as was the velvet 
 voice that kept inquiring if he heard. He opened his eyes. 
 
 She had velvety eyes, too : oval face with an old ivory pallor, 
 aoft dark eyes, eyes almost oblique, eyes almost as Oriental as
 
 "* Plunderland 87 
 
 tier oval face. Away from the Little One, her height did not 
 by many inches equal his own five feet ten: only the other's 
 excessive smallness and her own excessive slenderness had made 
 her seem so tall. 
 
 Arnold was a match for her there ; it would be difficult for 
 any feminine slenderness to match the thinness of five months 
 of scanty nourishment, capped by four weeks of sickness. 
 
 "How did I get here?" he asked. "Or you? . . ." 
 
 "Drink this," she said. 
 
 "But," he began. 
 
 "Drink first," she insisted. 
 
 It seemed that the saucepan contained a combination of 
 oyster-liquor and milk : grateful warming nourishment for one 
 who had fasted so long. With an effort he remembered his 
 manners. Well for him he did : the shock though he drank 
 slowly was severe enough to force him to desist until a sud- 
 den burning pain should subside. 
 
 Perspiration sprang from every pore and lay like powdered 
 cocaine crystals on his forehead ; but with the peacock egotism 
 of the male when in the presence of any female who stirs, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, his sense of sex, Arnold locked his 
 eyes and set his teeth. Weakness by the mere fact of her 
 presence had become humiliating. And how bitterly he re- 
 sented the proof that concealment had failed, when she began, 
 openly, to pity him. 
 
 "Poor boy," said Velvet Voice, enjoying her mothering im- 
 mensely. "No wonder." 
 
 "ISTo wonder what?" Arnold asked, opening his eyes, with 
 a great effort of will, smiling. She did not answer, so he 
 harked back to Sonetchka's fragmentary speech. 
 
 "You and she carried me in here," he wondered aloud. 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I suppose I'd have been annoyed if you'd done the same 
 for me" to his further wonderment, she was actually apolo- 
 getic; "I don't' blame you for being angry. . . , They say 
 only cowards commit suicide."
 
 88 God's Man 
 
 Once more the laugh that submerged the velvetiness. "Nat- 
 urally that's said by those who don't know. Cowards ? Night 
 after night I've got out the whole apparatus, yes, and turned 
 it on and waited. And then I've leaped up and turned it out. 
 Even with everything to gain and nothing to lose, there's that 
 blank leap. Now if I only believed in something, why, I'd 
 take a chance on Hell being better than this for me anyway. 
 But that blank leap into nowhere ? ... I suppose a 
 person's got to be sick, or in pain, or facing some horrible to- 
 morrow. . . . Mine's just monotonous misery, and, being 
 sane and all that, I keep thinking that there's always a chance : 
 I've got one chance, anyhow that 'one chance' is what keeps 
 our wretched noses to the grind, I suppose. Why, when I saw 
 you lying there, I said to myself: 'I guess he lost his last 
 chance/ But it was pain, wasn't it ?" 
 
 Much of what she said was almost incomprehensible to Ar- 
 nold. But she did not seem to mind his silence. Her talk with 
 the Little One had loosened the reserve of a year without 
 confidantes. And there was much she could tell a fellow- 
 suicide, much she could never have brought herself to tell any 
 one else. 
 
 As she talked on, Arnold realized why she so considered 
 him and shuddered ! 
 
 It was a night of storm and snow and while he slept some 
 vagrant gust must have extinguished his flickering gas. She 
 had noticed the odor, one so overpowering as to diffuse itself 
 widely . . . and knowing gas to be the favorite lethal 
 weapon of the poor, had investigated. 
 
 She told him about it, and of how her scream had brought 
 Sonetchka's acquaintance and assistance. . . . "Don't 
 pretend to thank me," she said, contemptuously interrupting 
 some such stumbling attempt. 
 
 "I shouldn't thank you. But you wouldn't have the chance 
 with me. You didn't even lock your door. Anyhow, your 
 way's foolish takes hours and hours. If you'd had this "
 
 Plunder-land 89 
 
 She reached under his pillow and brought out a coil of in- 
 sulated rubber piping : but where an attachment for a movable 
 gas-fixture should have been was a nursing nipple for some 
 Brobdingnagian baby. 
 
 "My idea, that," she tried to say flippantly. "Think I could 
 get a patent on it? It would make things so much easier for 
 poor people, wouldn't it ? My ! but it's hard to grip that hose 
 with your teeth and say 'prunes and prisms' with your lips, 
 at the same time." 
 
 Arnold shuddered at such sinister information, especially 
 as it was patently the result of personal experience. 
 
 "How about advertising it?" continued the girl in the same 
 grimly satirical vein: "Comme c'est! Are you Hungry? 
 111? Miserable? Trouble's But a Bubble. Buy our 'Beauty.' 
 . . . No Poor Man Can Beat It! ... Don't you 
 love it?" 
 
 Arnold's original idea of undeceiving her, vanished 
 her belief in his attempted suicide was his strongest hold on 
 her imagination. And heredity was too much for him he 
 became "the" L'Hommedieu again. The strong may be tem- 
 porarily vanquished, but let others than himself need their 
 strength . . . and the world's knee was on their necks 
 as so much thistle-down . . . Velvet Voice's life was too 
 precious to be wasted. 
 
 Yet Arnold had seemed powerless before poverty. Ship- 
 ping-clerk for wholesale "notions," salesman of Ninth Avenue 
 shoes, conductor for Brooklyn commuters, section boss, time- 
 keeper for a lumber man, bookkeeper for a grocer he had 
 filled a mort of the many badly paying places open to the semi- 
 skilled. And had filled them well. . . . But such as 
 would keep him fed and half-decently clad did so at the ex- 
 pense of his soul. Unfit for heavy unimaginative labor, it 
 stripped the flesh from his bones, sent him home staggering 
 and into a stupor, not to sleep. 
 
 From this he would awaken early, back aching, hands smart-
 
 90 God's Man 
 
 ing, bloodshot sunken eyes. Highly-bred racehorses die when 
 put to dragging drays. 
 
 "Theorists talk learnedly of the immense amount of pro- 
 teids a dime will buy, demonstrate irrefragably that ten dol- 
 lars a week will keep a man in the pink of condition. Let 
 them try to be clean and well-fed as well as useful on that 
 sum. Professor Blank who voiced the economic conclusions 
 printed in yesterday's ' Argus' is probably paid by pluto- 
 cratic endowments . . . that the coming generation may 
 be as ignorantly merciless as is this one. 
 
 "The worst of it all is that it needn't be so: that it does no 
 one any good that it should be so. . . ." 
 
 "Old Subscriber" Arnold had sent this to his former "shop" 
 a few days before. The indignation was fiercer now with 
 the knowledge of this girl's plight. . . . Seeing color 
 flooding his cheeks, she considered it safe to leave him. 
 
 "No talk/' sfye said; "sleep and rest see you in the 
 morning." 
 
 Unheeding his protests, she extinguished the gas and went 
 out, but immediately returned, fumbling for something. 
 Thinking it her purse, Arnold was hurt. But then came the 
 noise of something flopping, and he understood \ 
 
 The rubber-hose! Apparently she did not encourage its 
 use in others. 
 
 II. THE TBUNK THAT WOULD HOLD THREE MEN 
 
 Velvet Voice had reported for work long before Arnold 
 awoke. The Little One, having taken her place, brought in 
 an affair of nickeled steel, compact but complicated, poured 
 in alcohol, . . . managed, deftly, mysteriously, a break- 
 fast of grilled bacon, poached eggs and toast; coffee from 
 another engine, a pair of elliptical half-globes that, when the 
 water boiled, reversed automatically, fragrant steam signaling 
 with their little spout.
 
 Plunderland 91 
 
 "Russian," she said proudly, observing his interest. 
 
 "I don't know how to thank you " he began. . . . 
 
 She interrupted with a wave of a little hand back 
 dropped the kimono folds revealing a dimpled elbow 
 miracle another kimono from Miss Cherry-Pink of the pre- 
 vious night; neither the sort of garment worn by the poor. 
 What was she doing in such a hotel? What . . . who, 
 was she? "Russian!" "Sonetchka" . . . people called 
 her she told him, while he ate. 
 
 " 'Sonetchka/ 'e say" she went rattling on, telling of some 
 rich man who had loved her " 'Sonetchka : I loof you. I zink 
 you are jus' loofly. I worsheep you, Sonetchka:' 'So?' I say 
 (jus' like zat) . 'So ? Zat is 'ow mooch I care whezzer you zink 
 I am loofly.' . . . 'E was 'ansom zat barin, too. . . . 
 Those ozzer stupid little pig girls zink I am crazee. My 
 muzzer she beat me. But still I say 'Zat for your barin/ 
 I run away, zen. . . . You look like J im. 'E was fine- 
 looking man, 'im." 
 
 "A baron?" asked Arnold. 
 
 "Net net not baron barin zat means not mouzik, not 
 peasant, zhentleman. . . . But eat. Finish. 
 How you feel now?" 
 
 "I think I'll get up," said Arnold. She nodded, pleased. 
 "And I will ge-fix ze room for 'er. She nice, hein?" She 
 had a way of mixing up her languages, using scraps of any 
 that suited her peculiar pronunciation. She came forward 
 and helped Arnold to rise. He was surprised at the steely 
 strength of her diminutive wrists. 
 
 "I am str r ong, me !" she affirmed, flattered by his ex- 
 pression. "Zat come from 'ard work Ven I run away: w*en 
 I was so 'igh jus' like zat." 
 
 The complete rest of the night, the quart of warm oyster- 
 milk, the plentiful breakfast, all seemed to have exorcised 
 Arnold's demon ; the kindness and sympathy of the two girls 
 had exiled his hopeless apathy. ... He meant to see that
 
 92 God's Man 
 
 Velvet Voice never carried out her threat. But, to do that, he 
 must better her condition. 
 
 In the old days, dressing before bathing would have made 
 Arnold uncomfortable all day. Indeed, it was only recently 
 that this costly luxury (cleanliness is a luxury, professors' 
 pratings or no), had ceased to consume a large percentage of 
 his pay. Gradually, as ill-health and enforced holidays sep- 
 arated him from clean tubs and perpetual hot water, acquaint- 
 ing him with cloudy zinc and colonies of rectilinear khaki- 
 coats resident therein, Arnold learned to sponge instead of 
 bathe. This morning, he went to work at it, weak though he 
 was, as though to make up for previous derelictions . . . 
 attired himself carefully, brushing his one decent suit, hitherto 
 used only when applying for positions. It was Avenue tailor- 
 ing and had not lost its distinction of cut. Long since he had 
 come to the wearing of the usual collars; but several of his 
 unusual neckties still showed smart and costly above the waist- 
 coat. His hat, soft brown camel's hair, was indestructible. 
 
 He was welcomed with surprise and approval by Sonetchka. 
 She, with Turkish toweling and photogravures cut from cur- 
 rent magazines, had transformed Velvet Voice's dingy room 
 into one with some pretensions as a human habitation, while 
 the gas-light was mellowed by a shade contrived from tissue- 
 paper and cardboard. . . . She was still busy, stitching 
 away at more toweling which was to hide the dubious bed- 
 spread. 
 
 Arnold's admiration for the metamorphosed room equaled 
 Sonia's for his changed appearance. Neither expressed ad- 
 miration orally, however for a third person was suddenly 
 added to their company : a boy who stared vacantly from the 
 wide-flung door. 
 
 He was neatly, though cheaply, dressed: black suit, black 
 tie, black shoes; but also a round straw hat, telescope va- 
 riety, and outside, snow. Not because of poverty: the hat 
 was new, not a last summer's hat that had weathered 
 the seasons, since. Nor did its wearer have the abashed air
 
 Plunder-land 93 
 
 of one conscious of oddity of apparel, but lounged in the 
 doorway searching the room as if for some familiar face. He 
 gave no sign of having seen either of its present occupants. 
 
 'Ton want to see somebody?" Arnold asked him. 
 
 He turned and viewed Arnold, letting his gaze travel over 
 the expensive tie, the snug coat shoulders, the hair smooth 
 and glossy from much hard brushing; and, as he looked, 
 scowled fiercely: the scowl repeated after a careful scrutiny 
 of Sonetchka. 
 
 "I want Annie Eunice/' he said. "I'll fix her. Locked me 
 up, she did. And it was all nice and greasy. Oil everywhere. 
 And oats. Especially oats. I hate oats." 
 
 He spoke rapidly and passionately, coming forward with 
 hands clenched. As he came, Sonetchka arose in alarm and 
 the newcomer, observing the trunk on which she had been 
 seated, lost all evidences of anger and chuckled hugely. 
 
 'Trunk," he said. "Trunk. Tee-hee," and he * giggled: 
 then he drew his arm through Arnold's and addressed him 
 confidentially : "I've got a trunk. Hold three men. Paid three 
 hundred dollars for it. Got a little bunk in it and every- 
 thing. Going to sail to England in it, get away from this 
 goddam country. It's fast, too. I'll show that son-of-a-gun 
 Lipton. I'm an American, I am. Thousands for defense 
 but not one cent for tribute." He laughed in an unmistakably 
 silly way, adding : 
 
 "Damn America. What's it ever done for me? Shut me 
 up with oil everywhere. And knowing how I hate oats ! I'll 
 show 'em. Got a cigarette ?" 
 
 Although the question was addressed to Arnold, Sonetchka, 
 who had now a look of horrified understanding, extended a 
 box of thin Eussian ones. The man with the straw hat took 
 one, thoughtfully, scrutinizing it with the utmost care. 
 
 "Have to be careful," he said. "They try every way to poi- 
 son me. But I'll fool 'em. Tee-hee," he giggled. "I'll fool 
 'em. I've got a lot of poison myself. Paid three hundred 
 dollars for it. Going to drop it in the reservoir. And all
 
 94 God's Man 
 
 the birds were singing in my old New Hampshire home. Thou- 
 sands for defense but not a cent for tribute." 
 
 He resumed his thoughtful mien and, patting the trunk with 
 an air of intelligence bestowing patronage upon worth, he 
 seated himself on it. 
 
 "I'll put a mast right here," he said, inspecting it. "With 
 sails. Then lie down and smoke cigarettes all the way over. 
 Three hundred dollars' worth I've got in that trunk. Yes, 
 sir, bought 'em in London yesterday." 
 
 He produced a thick roll of bills: looked then at the two 
 strangers and giggled, and with a sharp glance of mistrust, 
 replaced them in his pocket. 
 
 "You jus' give zat to me zat money now! right now," 
 said Sonetchka, meeting his eye. She thrust out her hand. 
 "Put it zere. Eight zere." His eyes fell before her steady 
 gaze. She repeated her command, stepping nearer as she 
 spoke. 
 
 "It's mine," he whimpered. "They gave it to me for writ- 
 ing my name. Write your name and we'll give you three 
 hundred dollars." He pointed to Arnold. "He said it." 
 
 "Yes," said Arnold, realizing that some good reason lay 
 back of Sonetchka's treatment of this unfortunate. "But I 
 said you were to bring it here and give it to this lady, 
 didn't I?" 
 
 "Thousands for defense but not a cent for tribute," said the 
 boy, slowly drawing out the money and reluctantly surren- 
 dering it. Sonetchka returned him a single bill. 
 
 "Zere's one t'ousand dollar becauze you obey," she said, ten- 
 dering the "ace" with a gracious air. "You ze eet is good 
 to obey. Eh?" 
 
 "I can buy a new trunk with a thousand," he said greedily. 
 "Hold ten men. Go a thousand miles a day. You can have 
 this. You sail to England in it. It's a good trunk. Go 
 quick and beat that old son-of-a-gun Lipton. I'm going to 
 race Barney Oldfield in my new one." He crossed to the door.
 
 Plunder-land 95 
 
 "So long," he said : "I've got to hurry or I won't catch him. 
 He's got a thousand miles start of me." 
 
 "Wait," she ordered : "I go weez you. You wait. I dress." 
 She motioned Arnold out as the man in the straw hat re- 
 turned. 
 
 "Why does he have to go?" asked the latter suspiciously. 
 "Maybe he'll phone Oldfield and he'll get an aeroplane and 
 beat me" 
 
 "Zen we will, too," she returned soothingly. "A beeg 
 hairoplane begger zan zis 'ole 'otel " At which he giggled 
 again and, taking a second cigarette, seated himself, thought- 
 ful of his coming victory, on his discarded International Cup 
 racer. 
 
 Before Arnold could ask a question Sonetchka had begun to 
 explain. " 'E's ? er brozzer," she said. 
 
 "What?" asked Arnold, not recognizing this queer jumble 
 of lacking aspirates and reinforced sibilants. 
 
 " 'Er brozzer," replied the Little One, dabbing at her eyes. 
 
 "Brother?" gasped Arnold. "Hers?" Sonetchka nodded 
 and opened the door to her own room. 
 
 Here all evidences of a cheap hotel disappeared. Arnold 
 saw silver candelabra with embroidered shades, mantel orna- 
 ments in bronze and marble, an oblong leather cigarette-box, 
 nail-studded . . . articles of hammered brass. Beyond 
 was a bed canopied and hung with rose-colored draperies. The 
 rooms were enormous sitting-room and bedroom: once part 
 of the Presidential suite, afterward familiar to the fashionable 
 overflow from the Brevoort House, a few blocks to the west 
 but farther than Africa now. 
 
 A small white dog leaped up, barking sleepily at the stran- 
 ger. 
 
 "My baby-dog," cried Sonetchka passionately, and hugged 
 it tight. "Wazzums? well w'at a baby." Thus intermit- 
 tently addressing it "dolly-dog" and "angel-child" she ex- 
 plained the case of Velvet Voice to the doubly amazed Arnold.
 
 96 God's Man 
 
 III. WHY HANS CHASSERTON WORE A STEAW HAT IN 
 JANUARY 
 
 Half an hour later, at his offices in lower Broadway, "Our 
 Mr. Krafft," of Cleyne, Thurndyke, Martinseft and Krafft, 
 glanced at the written slip a volcanic Arnold had sent in and, 
 having little conception of the relations existing between the 
 orthography and phonetics of any name that appeared "for- 
 eign," he coughed discreetly, as who should say the poor fel- 
 low was responsible for having an outlandish French name, 
 of being other than an "Amurrican" citizen. If Mr. Krafft 
 had been born with any such family name, he would have 
 been known as Lommeydoo. 
 
 "I came to talk to you about a boy named Hans Chasser- 
 ton," said Arnold, and grimly watched the smile fade from 
 the Krafftian face. So large were the offices of the firm, so 
 many the employees, so numerous the partners, Arnold had 
 hardly dare hope to meet immediately the one whom, with 
 all his being, he yearned to do an injury. Yet Mr. Krafft's 
 neat little face, pale with guilty knowledge for Arnold had 
 the psychic quality of impressing, for the moment at least, his 
 own moral standards on others his neat little hands nerv- 
 ously toying with his neat little bow-tie: these things con- 
 vinced Arnold that this was the very gentleman that So- 
 netchka's story had sent him, headlong, in boiling rage, to find. 
 
 "I do not care to discuss the matter," said Mr. Krafft, his 
 eyes turning longingly toward his ivory push-button, between 
 which and Mr. Krafft stood the young man, whose eyes gave 
 Mr. Krafft plainly to understand he was in for some ugly 
 moments. 
 
 "After all," said Arnold unpleasantly, "it's no great won- 
 der I should have met the very man I wished to see. Your 
 name is lowest down on the sign. Doubtless your nature is 
 like your name. And so you are given the low-down work 
 to do; unknowns like myself and young Chasserton help you 
 keep your place," he added in a rising tone, as the lawyer
 
 Plunder-land 97 
 
 seemed about to saunter easily toward his desk. Mr. Krafft 
 had taken that position by the window to be engaged in star- 
 ing forth abstractedly when his unknown client entered; it 
 was impressive not to be aware at first of the presence of un- 
 known clients. Now he wished he had been content merely 
 to sit at his desk and rustle papers. 
 
 "Two orphans, Hans Anderson Chasserton and Annie 
 Eunice Chasserton. Point Number one ; orphans, Mr. Krafft, 
 Annie Eunice fourteen, Hans twelve. She didn't send him 
 out as bundle-boy or cash-boy. He had been going to the 
 Polytechnic when her father died, and she used the insurance 
 money to keep him there while she worked. In factories 
 till her eyes went back on her, in stores until the doctor told 
 her to look out for varicose veins, standing on her feet all 
 day. Then back to the factories again, and so on. It went 
 on that way until the boy graduated from the Polytechnic and 
 spent a year in the Nonpareil Motor-Car shops. Then they 
 gave him a job demonstrating " 
 
 "Mr. Lommeydoo," said Mr. Krafft, edging toward his 
 push-button, "you are either the biggest lunatic in New York 
 or the " under Arnold's eyes he failed to recall a second 
 superlative. Some eyes can be very ugly when they choose. 
 
 "I shouldn't speak of lunatics if I were you," said Arnold 
 softly. "And keep your place." Entirely voluntarily this 
 time Mr. Krafft stepped farther away from the push-button. 
 
 "Where was I?" Arnold asked; "oh, yes! young Hans got 
 a fifteen-a-week job demonstrating new cars. Five and ten- 
 dollar tips when he showed some purchasers how to run 'em. 
 . . . Then he and his sister made a deal for a little house 
 one of those model cottages. Paid so much a month 
 'why pay rent?' you know. Ten miles out in the country. 
 She kept house. No more stores or sweatshops home. Then 
 enter Apple-Booster, enter Snake, enter Eat your client, Mr. 
 Krafft." 
 
 Arnold was no longer red-hot: he was white-hot. "Eve 
 thought pretty well of the serpent, too, history tells us. Well,
 
 98 God's Man 
 
 when your client bought that Nonpareil six-cylinder-sixty 
 made especially for him, wasn't it? and Hans was to show 
 him how to run it, and got a week's vacation for it, Eve's ser- 
 pent was nowhere; even that last day when he was running 
 it himself, and she, his sister, had heard Hans beg him not 
 to drive too fast. 'At eighty miles an hour any little acci- 
 dent's fatal,' Hans said. But when they started off down 
 the Motor Parkway, I guess your client told Hans to shut up. 
 Then the puncture. Even then she was grateful because he 
 had had Hans taken to a private hospital she didn't know it 
 had to be private : and promised if he was permanently dis- 
 abled he'd have a life pension. Then he goes off to the 
 other side and leaves it all to you, I guess, and she had to let 
 the model cottage go. Couldn't keep up the payments and 
 all their savings had gone into the first instalments. Nearly 
 a thousand dollars. Back to the stores and sweatshops for 
 her. But she kidded herself along: it was only till Hans 
 came out. Then he could get his old job back, or keep your 
 place, Mr. Krafft, don't let me have to tell you again if he 
 was disabled, there was that pension. She gave your client 
 credit for not knowing she had lost the house and was back 
 sweating: that she didn't even have enough spare cash for a 
 trip up to that White Mountains sanitarium. But with your 
 client so kind about the private hospital and the sanitarium, 
 she felt sure it was all right." 
 
 He paused, surveying Mr. Krafft malignantly. "Anyhow, 
 his lawyer told her right along, up to a few weeks ago, every- 
 thing would be arranged. And that's just the joke. Every- 
 thing was. What makes the joke twice as funny is that her 
 eyes have gone back on her again ; and she can't stick in the 
 shop. So what would be more shriekingly farcical than her 
 meeting this brother who is going to save her, wearing a straw 
 hat in the winter and talking about sailing across the ocean in 
 a trunk that holds three men." 
 
 Mr. Krafft's collar seemed to be choking him : a prophetic 
 collar, this. He avoided Arnold's eyes, but the avatar of the
 
 Plunderland 99 
 
 fighting L'Hommedieus had pocketed his Bible to have both 
 hands free for battle. "Well/' he asked in the ugly fighting 
 voice of his breed; "Well?" He thrust forward a hand palm 
 outward, forcing up Mr. Krafft's neat little dimpled chin, so 
 that the neat little eyes were forced to meet his. "Well ?" 
 
 "The matter has been arranged/' said Mr. Krafft miserably, 
 sure this answer, although legally flawless, would not be ac- 
 ceptable to a high-handed bloody-minded young pirate. Van- 
 ished all his eager little pride at having compassed a neat bit 
 of chicanery for which his senior partners had praised him 
 without stint, for which a large fee was forthcoming. So 
 strong was Arnold's domination that Mr. Krafft saw his neat 
 little legal trick for the cheap cowardly business it was. 
 
 "The matter has been arranged?" asked Arnold, speaking 
 lower as his fear of himself grew. "You send the boy off 
 where his sister can't see him, she might get suspicious and 
 consult a lawyer. Send him to some out-of-the-way place 
 where they perform illegal operations, I suppose; where 
 women go when they are supposed to be in Europe nobody 
 but doctors that ought to be disqualified would stand by this 
 damnable fraud. Is that what you would call arranging ?" 
 
 His talent for analysis had supplied the missing and ne- 
 farious details. It had not been difficult after hearing So- 
 netchka repeat Annie Eunice's confidences of the night be- 
 fore: although they might have seemed hazy to an average 
 auditor. Arnold thought at that time, before he learned who 
 the man was whose carelessness had been responsible for Hans' 
 condition, that this man would have been willing to do the 
 decent thing had not these lawyers, greedy for fees, advised 
 otherwise. After hearing Sonetchka's story, Arnold had real- 
 ized the significance of that three hundred dollars that had 
 somehow stuck in the boy's witless brain. No doubt they had 
 his signature to a quitclaim an absolute release. In his 
 present condition, three hundred dollars was a gigantic for- 
 tune. But, for the release to be binding, the medicos at the 
 sanitarium must be ready, if called on, to testify to the abso-
 
 100 God's Man' 
 
 lute sanity of Hans when he signed it otherwise all this 
 trickery was for nothing. Arnold realized that Krafft had not 
 omitted to secure himself on this point: therefore, his shot 
 as to the character of the place, had been only the result of 
 logic. Its accuracy was evidenced by Mr. Krafft's astonished 
 start. Had Chasserton's sister suspected; had some one in- 
 vestigated ? Arnold followed up his logic. 
 
 "How long has he been out of the place ? A month ? Two 
 months? Or did you date the quitclaim a month ahead 
 and take a notary in with you. If you didn't you never al- 
 lowed that boy to come to her directly he left there. She 
 could take him to any physician and have him declared insane. 
 And, then, it wouldn't make any difference how your shady 
 sanitarium doctors testified. But, of course, if he signed that 
 quitclaim a month ago, he could have had another accident 
 for which your client wasn't responsible. Or, after he left 
 your place, perfectly 0. K., some low-minded lawyer like your- 
 self might put him up to pretend to be insane : to blackmail 
 your client " 
 
 "Exactly," said Mr. Krafft ; but he put a high-backed chair 
 between him and Arnold before he said it. "Exactly. He was 
 quite sane when he left Doctor Brydges' admirable institu- 
 tion: too well established for your libels to affect it. Doctor 
 Brydges has the testimonials of many prominent people." 
 
 Arnold gripped the back of Krafft's protecting chair. "So 
 I'm a blackmailer, am I? And the boy's insanity assumed? 
 I just wanted to get your line of defense, you little rat " 
 
 With a sudden kick, he cleared the chair from his path ; and, 
 springing at Krafft, locked both hands around that gentleman's 
 neat little neck. But for the gurgling of the man held at 
 arm's length, only the roar of Wall Street jackals consuming 
 dead lions and lambs, bulls and bears planning other killings, 
 hyenas astir in anticipation; the customary noises of Man- 
 hattan's Monte Carlo was to be heard in the room. For the 
 moment his old strength seemed to return to Arnold. His 
 muscles had not gone soft in his illness; only the energy to
 
 Plunderland 101 
 
 use them had been at low ebb. Now, the motor of his will at 
 high tension again, he was happily confident of his power: 
 the great human machine was as competent as ever. He 
 laughed gladly, fiercely, as he flung Mr. Krafft into a chair. 
 
 "Well, put it that way blackmail," he said, then waited 
 until Krafft should finish choking, spluttering, spitting. "The 
 law's on your side keep it. With no money and no pull, 
 what's the use of the law to anybody. Anyhow, you've got a 
 good legal case. That blackmail idea was immense, for both 
 of us." He waited again, smiling grimly at the fancy that had 
 seized him. When he went on analyzing in his usual fashion 
 it was only to convince himself, to watch Krafft's face to test 
 the accuracy of his analyses. "They had to pass a law in 
 France that people who got run over should go to jail. That's 
 the only way they could keep the hospitals from being over- 
 crowded. So many people threw themselves under motor- 
 cars. Great for damages; and what was a broken leg or 
 amputated arm if they could quit work for the rest of their 
 lives ? So when they weren't lucky enough to lose their limbs 
 or something, their lawyers your kind hit on that insanity 
 dodge; got doctors to teach 'em how people act who go crazy 
 from blows on the head " 
 
 He looked up. "I'm boring you. You're well aware of all 
 that; I can see you in court now, you and your associates, 
 quoting all the authorities for it, all the precedents. You'll 
 wait of course until you get the right Judge. Then you'll 
 call on him to help you put a stop to this criminal perjury. 
 'That man is no more insane than I am,' you'll shout to the 
 jury. And the poor little sheep on the jury 'ull look at Hans 
 Chasserton as if he were Black Bart or Jesse James; and if 
 they have automobiles themselves they'll think their chauffeur 
 might get hurt and try the same trick some day, and most 
 of the others 'ull think of that girl their wives don't know 
 about. She might try this blackmail trick if they get tired 
 of her and quit. You know you can always get a favorable 
 verdict when you shout 'Blackmail/ Almost everybody's got
 
 102 God's Man 
 
 something to conceal and everybody's afraid some day they'll 
 have to pay somebody to keep it quiet. Blackmail ! that was 
 an inspiration. I'm much obliged." 
 
 Arnold's voice had increased in bitterness; the corners of 
 his mouth were turned down. "Call up your bank," he added 
 suddenly. "Have 'em send a messenger with five thousand 
 in small bills tens, twenties, fifties, no larger. And have 
 him hurry your bank's near here I suppose." As Krafft 
 gave him no answer, he went on. "Tell your telephone girl 
 to send him right in when he comes." 
 
 "Are you crazy ?" Krafft almost shouted. 
 
 "Keep quiet," said Arnold fiercely; "shout like that again 
 and I'll choke the life out of you. You do what I say." 
 
 "I can't sign the firm's name alone another member has 
 to sign too," whined Krafft eagerly, too eagerly. Arnold 
 pulled out from under some volumes in yellow calf, a large 
 square cheque-book. Flipping it open he viewed the signature 
 of the firm stamped on each cheque, the line below preceded 
 by the word "per" and sufficiently wide for but one other 
 name. Arnold, his thumb pressed against one of these forms, 
 delivered the book to its owner. 
 
 "Liar," he said briefly. "Now do what I told you. Here's 
 the telephone." He lifted and handed it, the long cord reach- 
 ing to the window. He was aware of the ivory push-button. 
 
 For a moment, Mr. Krafft held the heavy instrument as a 
 child holds a strange toy. When he had seemed to solve the 
 reason for its existence, his bearing was too cowed and abject 
 to arouse suspicion in Arnold, who was never to be accused of 
 holding too high an opinion of the average human's intelli- 
 gence. But, having little conception of the deification of mere 
 money, he was yet to learn that the stupidest of men may suc- 
 ceed in collecting vast quantities of wealth, just as the early 
 Christian martyrs gladly suffered death in the arena; wealth- 
 worship being the only live religion to-day because it is the only 
 one people are willing to die for. Mr. Krafft's religion threat- 
 ened, every ounce of him responded to a stirring call to arms :
 
 Plunder-land 103 
 
 nis brain became a dynamo fed by the force of thousands of 
 fiercely throbbing nerve ganglions; and a thought-process 
 that, as he was possessed of limited mental endowments, would 
 have consumed an ordinary hour, eventuated in the one silent 
 moment before he asked for a telephone number. 
 
 "Five-two-seven-eight? is that you Mr. Terence this 
 is Mr. Krafft of Cleyne, Thurndyke, Martinseft and Krafft 
 tell the cashier to send over five thousand dollars in small 
 bills tens, twenties and fifties nothing larger a client 
 here wants them. If you haven't them, get them somewhere 
 else and bring them over here yourself I must have them im- 
 mediately. Very important. Don't trust a messenger. It's 
 too easy to run off with such money. It can't be identified, 
 you see. Hurry. Good-by." He slammed down the receiver 
 before Mr. Terence had an opportunity of replying with a 
 single word: Mr. Krafft had spoken with too feverish a ra- 
 pidity. 
 
 "I'm sure there isn't five thousand there/' he whined again, 
 reverting to his former manner as he accepted the pen Arnold 
 had inked and handed him. Eesting a corner of his cheque- 
 book on the window-sill he wrote a date in neat Spencerian, 
 filled another blank to "Cash" ; paused at the third. But let 
 there be no further secret made of it : the controversy that fol- 
 lowed was but the result of a cunning plan to keep the mind 
 of the bloody-minded young pirate so occupied that he might 
 not cogitate on the double meaning of the neat little telephone 
 message ; even though, to the man at the other end of the wire, 
 no bank-clerk as you rightly suspect it had been vague to 
 the point of misunderstanding: Mr. Terence, Agency De- 
 tective, had, in fact, been divided when he received it between 
 suspicions of drunkenness and dementia. 
 
 "Hadn't I best leave the amount blank in case he doesn't 
 bring quite five thousand? All our cheques are in sequence. 
 If we destroy one, it makes trouble in our bookkeeping. You 
 understand " Mr. Krafft was surpassing himself as a 
 creature of intellect.
 
 104 God's Man 
 
 The telephone bell rang. Arnold came closer and faced 
 him across the top of the instrument. "No, I can't see any- 
 body just now/' Mr. Krafft answered his telephone girl. "Ex- 
 cept one person. Send him right in. Mr. Terence from the 
 Bank." 
 
 Again he cut off an earnest effort to promote absolute un- 
 derstanding. "Mr. Terence from the Bank" the girl two 
 rooms away asked to the empty air ; but her question was soon 
 answered in the person of Mr. Terence himself. Followed by 
 two others as rosy-gilled as himself, he leaped from an express- 
 elevator into the reception-room. "Oh, you," said she of the 
 switchboard. 
 
 "Krafft's in his reg'lar office, miss?" asked the rosy-gilled 
 one addressed, breathing heavily. 
 
 "And he said " she began ; but again she finished to empti- 
 ness. The three were racing along the private hall. In his 
 room, Mr. Krafft, having filled in the third blank with the 
 amount demanded, was whining out a request for a receipt to 
 show his client. "Otherwise it's a dead loss," said the neat 
 little man humbly. 
 
 But in a space of time too brief to have a designation in 
 our chronological measurements he was neither neat nor hum- 
 ble, nor yet little. He had climbed on a chair when Terence 
 and Company burst down the unlocked door the method of 
 turning the knob being too simple for the mental processes 
 of police detectives and, as they threw themselves upon the 
 bloody-minded pirate, Mr. Krafft disheveled his scanty top- 
 knot by scratching gleefully, as a dog flea-questing vengef ully. 
 
 Followed overturning of furniture, smashing of inkwells 
 and paste-pots. The head of one of the rosy-gills struck a 
 brass-bound table corner as he staggered back from the first 
 blow of the fighting L'Hommedieu ; who, himself, went 
 through the lower pane of a window one of those with but 
 two panes, an upper and a lower ; so that, as the glass crashed 
 down to the pavement, half his body hung in space. But it 
 was not as an applicant for one of Mr. Carnegie's life-saving
 
 Plunder-land 105 
 
 medals that Mr. Terence tackled his legs, bringing him back 
 to more solid support, but for the pleasure of driving him into 
 some book-cases and adding several pounds of shattered glass 
 to the general debris. Nor did Arnold misinterpret his mo- 
 tives but swung lustily and flattened out half of Mr. Terence 
 on an oak center table, where he lay like an unruly corpse in 
 a dissecting room. Then Arnold became the gyrating center 
 of a Catherine wheel of arms and legs, all three rosy-gills fas- 
 tening on him like beagles on a cornered fox, all three crash- 
 ing down, wildly struggling. 
 
 Mr. Terence was the first to disengage himself from this 
 dusty and irregular pyramid ; and, swearing wildly, he kicked 
 Arnold's head viciously but accurately. As pain faded into 
 unconsciousness, Arnold could hear the once neat little man 
 chanting on his own cunning. 
 
 "You can let him be a minute, now," said Mr. Terence, his 
 gills rosier than ever ; and, pantingly introduced the others to 
 Krafft: "Lieutenant Wiley, Sergeant Kirstenbaum, Central 
 Office just happened to be in the office when you phoned." 
 
 They always "just happened" there. Although "front-office 
 dicks," less prosperous souls circulated envious rumors that 
 they used official time and civic expense accounts to add to 
 the exchequer of that firm; also recommended it on all pos- 
 sible occasions to distressed citizens, accrediting to it attributes 
 of persistent and successful sleuthing not to be found in those 
 on the pay-rolls of the municipality. 
 
 But now was the time for despised municipal powers to be 
 asserted and the puffing Lieutenant asked what was the 
 charge? The topknot smoothed out, the chant of cave-man 
 cunning ceased, and Mr. Krafft, a neat little lawyer once more, 
 considered. Best not refer to the Chasserton case lest a note 
 of sympathy be struck in the public press before the charge of 
 blackmail made that impossible. "Assault with intent to kill," 
 he finally evolved. "The ruffian threatened if I didn't get him 
 five thousand . . ." Enraged at the thought of his humilia- 
 tion, Mr. Krafft gave the senseless body a second kick, then
 
 106 God's Man 
 
 hurried the actual story to give his cunning stratagem in de- 
 tail. "Neat dodge, telephoning you, Bank, eh ? And the way 
 I put it. Ha ! Ha ! I knew if you didn't quite understand, 
 you'd investigate. Unidentified bills. Client. Ha! Ha!" 
 
 "7 tipped him," said Kirstenbaum sullenly. He had come 
 into forcible contact with the brass-bound corner, and was 
 feeling a lump the size of an apple ; "They thought you was 
 drunk or crazy." 
 
 "Then it's assault with intent to kill, intimidation, and at- 
 tempted grand larceny, eh?" said Terence hurriedly. "He 
 ought to get life for that a fifteen-years' stretch anyhow. 
 Well, let's get him up out of that, or some silk-stocking re- 
 former 'ull be writing letters to the Mayor about police bru- 
 tality." 
 
 Behind a screen was a stationary wash-hand basin where 
 he drew water, emptying it on Arnold, to the intense amuse- 
 ment of clerks and office-boys; even of the other members 
 of the firm, all of whom were crowded together at the door 
 while Krafft explained excitedly. Three dousings, one hot, 
 arousing Arnold's consciousness, he was hustled to his feet, 
 into the elevator, and down to a surface car. Here Terence 
 left them. 
 
 The Desk-Lieutenant at Police Headquarters entered the 
 charge and seemed about to speak concerning disposition, when 
 Arnold's captors winked, and the Lieutenant was content with 
 ordering him into custody. 
 
 So his few personal possessions were removed; he was 
 pushed down a flight of stairs, and up a cell-corridor. His 
 small dark cell contained a plank stretched from wall to wall, 
 a water tap, a toilet. Not until then did Wiley and Kirsten- 
 baum deem it safe to leave him. 
 
 "Dangerous guy, that," he heard one say, as they retraced 
 their way. "Look at my head. Keep an eye on him." 
 
 "Whafs the idea?" asked the Lieutenant, when they re- 
 turned. 
 
 Kirstenbaum scowled. "Don't quite understand it myself,
 
 Plunder-land 107 
 
 yet. uoing back now to see the complainant. We wanted 
 to git him behind the bars first. Dangerous guy, that look 
 at my head." He indicated the apple lump. 
 
 "Well," said the Lieutenant, "if they go through with these 
 charges . . ." He squinted along the blotter and ad- 
 dressed his comrade of the high desk. "Ten years, eh?" 
 
 The Sergeant also squinted. "Unless he gits away with that 
 first offender racket I ain't never seen his mug in the Hall 
 of Fame." 
 
 "Listen," said Wiley contemptuously, "listen: he's goin' to 
 be chased. There ain't a tree high enough for him to 
 climb. . . ." 
 
 Down in his cell, the descendant of the fighting L'Homme- 
 dieus he who had planned to be a power for good in the 
 land, to rectify abuses, to be a terror to evil-doers: he who 
 had scorned to apply to friends for aid in so small a matter 
 as the conquest of New York: he who was now a mass of 
 aches and bruises lay, face-downward, on his rough plank 
 ' vanquished.
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 SONS OP SUBTEKKANEA 
 
 I. SONETCHKA VlSITS MOTHER MTBUS 
 
 V EN"OLD had left Sonetchka early 
 in the morning. She waited un- 
 til Velvet Voice was due to re- 
 turn before she took matters into 
 her own little hands: Annie 
 Eunice must not be allowed to 
 see her brother until something 
 more hopeful had been arranged. 
 Sonetchka did not know about 
 the rubber hose, but she was an 
 impressionist in emotions and 
 often as accurate intuitively as was Arnold analytically : 
 so was conscious of her new friend's utter hopelessness 
 with regard to everything except Hans. On him she had in- 
 sisted pathetically. Even if he was injured, there was the 
 pension; and that, she had told Sonetchka the night before, 
 would realize her vision a little patch of truck-farm land, 
 eastern shore of Maryland: the pension eked out by straw- 
 berries and Anne Arundel tomatoes for Baltimore- Washington 
 markets. Thus in time, they could build themselves a house : 
 at first they would be content with any sort of rough shanty. 
 She could work if Hans was disabled. All they needed was 
 the small capital necessary for a start and to tida them over 
 until profits began.
 
 Sons of Subterranea 109 
 
 Meanwhile, as the day wore on, Hans Anderson Chasserton 
 had bought, in imagination, every conceivable article that one 
 thousand dollars could buy. As pitiful as was his case, So- 
 netchka had laughed many times at his ridiculous parodies of 
 sense. Sometimes, in his wanderings, he achieved a piece of 
 perfect nonsense that would have pleased the lovers of Lear 
 and Carroll. He was an entertaining madman and harmless. 
 
 "Come," said Sonetchka, giving up hope of Arnold's return. 
 "We go 'ome, now." 
 
 "But Annie Eunice ?" he asked, ceasing his play with the 
 little white dog. "I've got letters for her. Like a flock of 
 birds. All white and everything. You throw them up and 
 they come down flying like white geese. Letters. For Miss 
 Annie Eunice Chasserton, Hotel Tippecanoe. Letters. One 
 thousand letters. See? I hid 'em so they couldn't take 'em 
 away. Look." 
 
 He removed his coat, chuckling, and, tearing some threads 
 of the lining, a cascade of envelopes rippled out. He threw 
 a handful up in the air. "Like white geese they come down," 
 he said delighted. "I hid 'em. I'm smart, I am. I'll fool 
 'em all." Sonetchka picked up some of the envelopes. On 
 each, inscribed carefully, was his sister's name and address. 
 But all were empty: fifty envelopes and not a letter. She 
 could see Hans in his captivity, carefully addressing, then 
 hiding them away from the sight of his keepers. Tears sprang 
 to her eyes. 
 
 "Come," she said, patting his hands. "Here : put on this," 
 and she fetched from a closet a man's great coat, tearing off 
 price and size tags. "She 'as gone. Wen she come back, she 
 come and get you. We go 'ome now. Come." 
 
 She caught up the little white dog, kissing and fondling it 
 extravagantly, and murmuring endearments in her native 
 tongue. Then she placed it in a rose-pink basket that matched 
 the canopy draperies of her bed, and shook a warning finger. 
 The dog closed its eyes and played dead. Hans followed her 
 out, trotting obediently alongside her. He had been trotting
 
 110 God's Man 
 
 alongside her all day ; at different times she had tired of wait- 
 ing, had penned a message for Arnold, and had taken Hans 
 forth; first to a lunch-room, again to the moving-pictures, a 
 third time to wander around in the maze of old New York 
 streets of which Astor Place is the center. The Hotel Tippe- 
 canoe was just around the corner from it, on that forgotten 
 Manhattan thoroughfare almost "no thoroughfare" nowa- 
 days Lafayette Street. 
 
 This time they turned west along Eighth Street, past the 
 mansions of the one-time great, now the sweatshops of such 
 as Simonski, for trousers, vest and shirtwaist-making; past 
 the Brevoort House, its old face rejuvenated with white 
 paint. . . . 
 
 "Washington Square was a thing of beauty and mystery 
 against that winter sky of blue, its trees silver-laced and inter- 
 woven with the flakes and festoonery of the Snow-Queen. Huge 
 crystal balls of light, like iridescent fruits of the night, illumi- 
 nated its ice and snow until the old Square shone like some 
 Russian winter palace. Over it all Judson's cross, the highest 
 ornament on the highest Christmas tree, seemed lowered from 
 the very sky. Hans wished to climb the tree and get the cross 
 to give to the Little One to wear. 
 
 "You come," Sonetchka said severely. 
 
 Abashed, Hans trotted on. They passed Jefferson Market, 
 and its old police court where Arnold, almost at that moment, 
 was being arraigned. 
 
 Then it seemed that they disappeared, like folk in a fairy- 
 tale. Ninety-nine passers-by would have failed to observe the 
 entrance to Eupert Court, that narrow arched passageway set 
 in between a tobacconist's and his aunt's penny-shop. The 
 passageway was slippery with ice. Some primal instinct that 
 had survived both boyhood and loss of reason, stirred in Hans, 
 producing some Pyle-like pictures. . . . 
 
 An old hexagonal lantern, mounted on a post, and kept 
 alight by Mother Mybus the lamplighter of the district had 
 long forgotten it illumined the frozen flagstones and picked
 
 Sons of Subterranca 111 
 
 out the three golden apples over the doorway. Sonetchka 
 entered the shop-door, pressing a button that silenced the bell. 
 A high-collared young Hebrew, ideal of "dressy" Fourteenth 
 Street men, greeted her warmly but with respect. 
 
 "Ain't seen you since George Washington died/' he said: 
 adding benevolently: "say I heard a scream the other night. 
 A 'comic' downta K. & P.'s ses: 'I didn't know he was sick.' 
 . . . Going in ?" 
 
 "No, I come 'ere jus' to see you, you so 'andsome," she re- 
 torted, rebuking him. Then in more gracious tones : "I wish 
 you would look hafter my fren' 'ere " she indicated Hans, 
 interested in the show-case, and tapped her head significantly ; 
 then stooped and disappeared by a rabbit-hutch door beneath 
 the counter. 
 
 II. THE UNGODLY HORDE 
 
 Mother Mybus' was a business that required neither pub- 
 licity nor casual patronage. That street-strollers were un- 
 aware of her presence up the narrow passageway, that thus 
 she failed to find a market for many remarkable bargains, that 
 their tickets were soon flyblown, failed to disturb Mother's se- 
 renity. Hers was a soul that yearned for no intrusions. When 
 she heard a stranger's step follow the hideous tintinnabulation 
 of her special shop-bell, she peered out from behind her iron 
 grill in positive annoyance. No hostess, mindful of a reputa- 
 tion for exclusiveness, could have been more upset at alien in- 
 trusion. Mr. Hartogensis' notions of English exclusiveness 
 were simply nowhere. 
 
 Her guests knew better than to annoy Mother by allowing 
 the shop-bell to ring. They pressed a button as Sonia did, 
 one out of ordinary sight, and passed in noiselessly on rub- 
 ber-heeled boots. Then Mother minded no more than the 
 flies that buzzed about her flowers. She sat silent with her 
 knitting before what had once been the Yew Tree kitchen- 
 fire : a huge space of red tiles and red bricks, in summer filled
 
 112 God's Man 
 
 with pots and tubs and boxes for, since Mother had come 
 to Rupert Court, she had remembered that, in her native RUP- 
 sia, flowers bloomed in the spring and many might be kept 
 alive all year. 
 
 On the other side of the fireplace, also in line with the iron 
 grill, there sat at all seasons, one as thin as Mother was fat, 
 as screwed and scrawny of face as she was round and placid, 
 a fellow who was her age and looked her father's; one who 
 wore spectacles of expensive black tortoise-shell. It was her 
 one mania to help him pretend he was not quite blind. 
 
 He would often call out wrongly, that some man was wear- 
 ing a red tie, or some woman a purple dress, and woe to the 
 uninitiated who dared to correct him, or do other than echo 
 Mother's admiring assurance that it was wonderful how 
 Nikko's sight was returning; soon he would be as able to see 
 as you or me. 
 
 Nikko had been her sweetheart in Petersburg, and when 
 the Autocracy had broken up his hand printing-press and he 
 was sent to the quicksilver mines, for such iconoclastic state- 
 ments as those of the Brotherhood of Man, Mother had heard 
 of it, and had sent after him a man who had reason to know 
 the horrors of convict labor and who was expert in escapes. 
 This one had found that bribes are as adequate in Siberia, as 
 elsewhere, and police as easy to hoodwink. 
 
 But he had brought back a blind Nikko a condition not 
 unusual to the miners of mercury, yet this fat, wicked old 
 woman was so illogical as to regard it as a special persecu- 
 tion and to use it as an added excuse for her depredations 
 on a sane and upright state. 
 
 But, because Nikko might not allow himself to be sup- 
 ported without protest, she pretended there was some income 
 derived from the sale of those works of his, no longer of the 
 Brotherhood of Man, but the Efficiency of Rebellion. These 
 he wrote laboriously, tracing his lines by means of a narrow 
 band of rubber slipped along the page, and of each pamphlet 
 Mother had a few bound in tooled calf with raised gold let-
 
 Sons of Subterranea 113 
 
 ters, so that he could appraise them with thin approving 
 fingers. The remainder of the pamphlets, unbound, were 
 sent out to a private mailing list, to which he was always 
 adding new names. The printing of Nikko's work cost 
 Mother the proceeds of many remarkable burglaries. But 
 she was recompensed by the forceful effects of Nikko's propa- 
 ganda. There was no burglary, or pickpocketing, or crime 
 only War. Once begun, he would preach excitedly : 
 
 "They take our labor and our time " 
 
 "Not mine," Pink, the Cagey Kid, interrupted on first 
 hearing this. "I take theirs." It was purely a technical 
 joke. This "Kid" specialized in watches "soupers," he 
 called them. 
 
 But Nikko never heeded interruptions; "and they build 
 palaces with our blood and bones. It takes a dozen chil- 
 dren's lives each year for the upkeep of one of their mis- 
 tresses " 
 
 "Ah," said the Phony Kid, "that shows they don't know 
 women. I've grabbed many a dame like that and never give 
 her nothing but a punch in the jaw. They don't know every- 
 thing, them rich guys." 
 
 But when a man has lost his eyes for a Cause he can only 
 win, or die; so Nikko had no sense of humor, a handicap to 
 people in deadly earnest anyhow. In the end he prevailed 
 over lighter spirits. His similes took hold of their imagina- 
 tions ; rebels against authority are always imaginative. They 
 liked hearing themselves called "Eebels," their activities 
 "War." It pleased them to know that, all along without 
 being aware of it, they were setting good examples to the sub- 
 merged seventh. 
 
 "They throw away the wealth of the world with both hands, 
 wealth we helped to make, and they offer us, not our half or 
 our quarter, or even our tenth they offer us only enough to 
 keep us alive, so that we can go on working for them. And 
 I say that every man who rejects their unfair bargain does a 
 noble thing "
 
 114 God's Man 
 
 "Pink, you're noble," said the Phony Kid. 
 
 "So're you, Beau," replied the Cagey Kid. And they shook 
 hands and embraced. 
 
 "We are two jolly noblemen, we are because we're noble," 
 they sang cheerily. 
 
 "Why are we noble, Nick?" asked Pink. 
 
 The "Pink" was Pink because he took a devilish pleasure 
 in causing Pinkerton race-track detectives to "look more than 
 usually silly" to quote him by abstracting their watches on 
 all possible occasions; and he was "Cagey" and "Kid" also 
 for the reason that he had never been arrested and was juven- 
 ile of appearance. 
 
 "I ask you, Nikko Nikkovitch, I ask you, as one nobleman 
 to another, why are we noble?" 
 
 "Children," Nikko would say wearily. He passed a with- 
 ered hand over a troubled forehead. Mother Mybus frowned 
 and the two youths looked serious. 
 
 "I wasn't joking, Mr. Nikko," said Pink with the air of a 
 dutiful and eager scholar. "I merely wisht to know why was 
 it, that was all." 
 
 "They offer us you him all our class wages to be 
 their bondmen. Only enough that we may marry; marry 
 and bring other slaves into the world. No joy, no light, no 
 laughter. Children though you are, you knew their offer was 
 unfair and you refused it. You became Eebels, and if every 
 one of your class would do the same, the Masters would make 
 other laws, fairer laws laws that if they dare to prevent you 
 stealing, they must make their McKisses cease stealing. Steal- 
 ing, no matter what name they give it, for 'you own the law/ 
 say the Rebels. 'Very well, we reject it. We will make our 
 own laws until you make better ones.' Do you understand ?" 
 
 They did not, precisely, for Nikko's was book-English; but 
 the Phony Kid was moved to contemplation. "I dunno as 
 I ever thought much about it before, but I guess you're right, 
 Mr. Nikko." 
 
 He considered his own case, his father in the mills, too
 
 Sons of Subterranea 115 
 
 weary when he came home to do anything but fall into a 
 heavy sleep after dinner, except on Saturday night, when he 
 came home drunk and laughing and told funny stories and 
 sometimes took them into the gallery of a theater. "Beau" 
 his mother, poor, fluttering creature, with a penny-novelty 
 habit, had christened him "Beau-lieu" had liked his father 
 better when he was drunk. . . . 
 
 "Come on up to the Attic, sucker," said Pink, breaking in 
 upon his own and his partner's gloom. "Nothing like Li-un 
 for plottin' against the Common Enemy. . . ." 
 
 "It grows slowly but surely," said the blind man; and, 
 until Sonia came that night, meditated and massaged more 
 of the mercury out of his thin wrists than he had for many 
 silver moons. 
 
 III. HANS CHASSEETON TAKES UP RESIDENCE AT THE 
 YEW TREE INN 
 
 It was not a room to invite suspicion, that old Inn kitchen, 
 with its shining flagstones, oak doors, huge fireplace .with 
 hissing teapot on the hob and sleek cat snoozing on warm 
 tiles, decorated with domestic scenes from Dutch life, as was 
 its Delft-blue china in an overhead rack; and in the broad 
 belly of its bay-window its panes opaque for a far different 
 reason than those of the Tippecanoe red geraniums in green 
 window-boxes. Nor were the old people other than types 
 of an admirable and irreproachable family life, until one saw 
 Mother's eyes those of some ancient but very wicked mouse. 
 
 She was in her accustomed place on one side of the fire- 
 place, Nikko on the other. There was no light except that 
 of the leaping red flames, and neither Nikko nor Mother 
 turned when Sonetchka entered. Too many passed through 
 for Mother to show interest, and Nikko for all his expensive 
 tortoise-shell spectacles might look all he liked. . . . 
 
 But because Mother prided herself on a certain technical 
 virtue the technique of which, after being revised by every
 
 116 God's Man 
 
 technician, from Adam to Aristotle, had been abandoned in 
 despair few females were "in right" at the Inn. And Nikko 
 needed no spectacles for one with so light, so 'ladylike" a 
 footfall. 
 
 "The Little One," he called joyfully. Mother dropped her 
 knitting; and, not only an ancient but an enceinte mouse 
 when afoot, waddled to and pawed Sonetchka as such a rodent 
 might paw another and dutiful and younger bringer of suc- 
 culence. . . . 
 
 "It is ihou, Naughty One," she chuckled. . . . So- 
 netchka, answering both, added endearments surprisingly 
 American compared with Nikko's sonorous Slavonic. Mother 
 fetched her own comfortable chair, knelt and, wheezing, un- 
 laced little fur-lined, fur-topped storm-boots and rubbed little 
 silk-stockinged feet ; Sonetchka seeming to accept these offices 
 as her right. 
 
 "Naughty, wicked Little One," excoriated Mother; "who 
 hast caused thy batushka and thy mama to grieve as for one 
 lost lamb ! Three weeks since we saw this Ungrateful Little 
 Animal, eh, Alexandrovitch ? . . . Would thou wert mine, 
 and how I would knout thee, Most Mischievous of Little 
 Frogs." 
 
 Sonetchka laughed. Mother was her dearest Mama Petra 
 Borisovna, she averred and Nikko, who had also begun to 
 scold, was her darling Papa and Saint Nicholas. .' . . 
 And Mother, mollified, shod the Cinderella feet in red-heeled, 
 ruby-studded dancing slippers, a pair that had attracted the 
 Inn's attention while dancing their owner into what the sen- 
 sational "Sundays" called "society." And Sonia uncoiled 
 Mother's mighty masses of Indian-red hair an especial pride 
 beseeching the while certain esteemed Slavonic Saints to 
 verify her statement that Mama Petra was little more than a 
 "Little One" herself. 
 
 "If Nicholas Alexandrovitch could only see thee," she sup- 
 plemented, stroking and releasing in its loose abundance each
 
 Sons of Subterranea 117 
 
 heavy braid until the kneeling fat woman was enveloped in a 
 mantle that, as the mane of some roan mare, might have had 
 points. . . . But no Sonia becomes a Sonetchka, nor any 
 Bona, Bonita without possessing what is more important than 
 physical beauty. And this Sonia saw what Mother wanted 
 her to see. 
 
 "He would be proud, that Father Nikko, that latushka. 
 Eh, son of Alexander's son ?" 
 
 "He sees, that Alexandrovitch," said Mother, with sudden 
 asperity. "And better each day, eh, Mkovita? Last Saint's 
 day it is my good fortune to observe the most powerful lenses. 
 And so I send our Mr. Pink to that Fifth Avenue shop and 
 the frames are the real shell of the best turtle, taken from a 
 pair awaiting their adjustment to some gilt-edged boyar. Al- 
 ready he paid fifty roubles. In my girl days fifty roubles was 
 riches. It would be strange indeed if Alexandrovitch saw no 
 more clearly with a moujilc's fortune on his nose. . . ." 
 
 "Always I know when something quite bright dazzles me," 
 confirmed this cunning and mentally sound-sighted son of 
 Alexander, who, from acquiescing in Mother's hallucination 
 of his improving sight, had found a chance for perpetual com- 
 pliment. Also had grown to believe that he saw what he 
 ought to see. These were his seventh spectacles. Master 
 Pink had taken an unnecessary risk in adding another pair 
 of frames. But Pink's was the usual zeal of the artist. 
 And to snatch the spectacles of a Sir Hubert of the Street 
 after they had rested on his nearly nose. . . . 
 
 "Very bright thou hearest and I spoke no word of hav- 
 ing unloosened thy hair. And does it not shine very bright, 
 as Alexandrovitch says?" . . . 
 
 Mother leaned over and kissed the Little One as if she had 
 been responsible for a novel miracle. Yet, Mother knew that 
 Nikko knew that little Sonia could not resist the temptation 
 of unloosening that hair, so that she might coil and recoil it 
 in odd and bizarre coiffures. Thus employed, standing be-
 
 118 God's Man 
 
 hind Mother, who had resumed her seat, Sonetchka explained 
 her absence ; and that she explained in Slavonic explains the 
 absence of slang and massacres of Murray. 
 
 "Such disgrace ! I am arrested in Delaney's by a common 
 store detective, me the Little One ! to be arrested by a com- 
 mon store detective, and to beg and pray and weep to the 
 owner; I shall not forget that humiliation, never! I told 
 him, oh, such lies anything the good God put into my little 
 head. Not even did I conceive I was to be sent to jail. I 
 told him that I only feared that my worthy mother and father 
 should expire from shock. Once, in France (I was a little 
 French girl) my parents had been rich and, oh, how I was 
 dressed ; oh, so beautiful ! But, here, they were poor and I 
 could not dress, oh, so beautiful! (And I shed tears, and 
 loud!) So I stole and oh, sir, this is the first time. Oh, 
 sir, if you knew how I wanted beautiful things, oh, so much ! 
 . . . The owner that good old man he looked close at 
 me and sent away the store detective. 'My dear, you do not 
 need to steal/ he said. And with his hair so nearly white, 
 he told me we must be very careful when we met for fear of 
 the scandal of meeting his grandchildren, no doubt. He 
 took me to a restaurant private room, and there he made love. 
 But I was innocent, and, oh ! so much afraid ! He said I 
 would soon learn to love any one who would be so good to 
 me c tee-mid leetle w'ite birrd/ . . ." 
 
 She ceased her Slavic speech to mimic other throatily 
 tender metaphors, marred by a gradual and ghoulish thicken- 
 ing of lips not hers. It was remarkable that her thin, 
 straight little lower lip and short, rosy, curved upper could 
 reproduce such sickening sounds. . . . "And who would 
 not be kind to me? Next day, when we met, I would be 
 wearing, oh ! such a beautiful ring. And he kissed me good 
 night whether I willed or not. And so I took his watch. 
 Jus' like zat." 
 
 She relapsed into English again, and, burrowing into a 
 huge white-fox pillow-muff, produced many mysteries in
 
 Sons of Subterranea 119 
 
 white tissue paper, one of which was solved when Sonia, 
 scorning Nikko's spectacles, unwrapped a watch the thinness 
 of a soda-wafer. 
 
 "Fifty little roubles! Bah! Five thousand, zis! Zat 
 for your Mr. P-i-n-k !" snapping little jeweled fingers and 
 plunking out the "Pink" with the sound of pistol-shot and 
 exit of projectile. . . . One unversed in that most ob- 
 vious and persistent paradox, a woman's use of words to con- 
 ceal her meaning, might have imagined Master Pink "in 
 Dutch," to quote him. 
 
 Nikko's forefinger flew furiously across his knee. He was 
 taking long notes for his next pamphlet on capitalist infamy. 
 His black finger-nail seemed a stylus ; at any rate such panto- 
 mime performances were somehow transferred from cuticle 
 to cerebellum. 
 
 "Good nobly done," was his scowling comment. "Thou 
 wert always my best of rebels. . . ." 
 
 "But Sonia Yictorona was to explain her absence of these 
 three weeks, . . ." Mother reminded him mildly. No 
 chance for satiating curiosity if Nikko began inveighing 
 against modern Bluebeards. . . . Yet her tone conceded 
 him the right of decision. 
 
 "It was Mordkin," said the Little One, with an air of hav- 
 ing satisfied both listeners. She wanted to polish up on 
 Nikko's "peculiar" political economics; needed to if ever she 
 was to effect Velvet Voice's conversion to her own creed. 
 
 Mother wrung her hands. 
 
 "Thy love for dancing," she wailed; "I knew it could not 
 be good. And now you love a dancer. When you could not 
 love one of my boys !" 
 
 The Little One laughed, then was as grave as she had been 
 
 gay- 
 
 "My dog " she said, "that dear darling of mine, my own 
 treasure, his mama's little friend, the dearest in the whole 
 world. Always I come at eight. I feed him. That night 
 the old one kept me to know where I live. And that Mordkin
 
 120 God's Man 
 
 he screams and cries his little self into fits. Two whole 
 hours he screams. When I come I must have in a doc- 
 tor. . . . That night I dream grandmama's spirit comes 
 and whispers : 'Once fallen, luck gone. Steal again, no es- 
 cape !' And I dream I am in prison and my darling Mord- 
 kin cry himself dead, and I am a murderess never to be for- 
 given by Father God, and I wake up and see my little white 
 darling with his little black nose so sweet, and his little red 
 tongue so cute, peeping out, and I promise him I don't steal 
 no more, not once more, but be good girl. . . ." At least 
 that is the nearest literal translation of her breathless nar- 
 rative. 
 
 "Just like zat," she concluded, dropping into English 
 again. 
 
 She spoke with intense seriousness, and the little white 
 dog's death agonies revived in retrospect the original emotion 
 reproduced, she wept noisily. Neither of the older folk con- 
 tradicted her. Mother Mybus was Slavic, hence supersti- 
 tious; and Nikko, the mystic, called his superstition symbol- 
 ism. But . . . 
 
 . "She soon forgets and goes back again," thought Mother, 
 knowing Sonetchka's love for expensive clothes. But to con- 
 tradict her spiritual protector was to invite ill-luck. As for 
 Nikko, he was busy endeavoring to symbolize the little white 
 dog. 
 
 "Then I move my things to a cheap hotel, so the money 
 will last a hotel where I live once when I am very poor. I 
 do not even bring you the last things I steal tapestries and 
 candlesticks and furs. . . . Instead I use them to fix up 
 the ugly cheap rooms. I think and think and think and then 
 grandmama come again and says: 'Go be a dancer on the 
 stage, for you can dance so well/ Those three weeks I look 
 around to be a dancer. They say 'Chorus/ I say, 'Net!' 
 . . . I find plenty places to-morrow, next week, next 
 month. It is not about that I come about, but for my 
 friend"
 
 Sons of Subterranea 121 
 
 She told them of Annie Eunice and Hans. Nikko arose 
 and stumped the room, thumping his rubber-tipped walking- 
 stick violently, and deciding that the great revolution Bhould 
 be several years sooner. Mr. Krafft^ client should pay dearly 
 for these wrongs done the Chassertons. Then Mother Mybus 
 sat stolidly, only wishing Nikko would not excite himself 
 over everybody; her sympathies were for her friends; nor was 
 she above profiting by the bitter need of business acquaint- 
 ances afoul of "the common enemy." These sentiments and 
 actions, however, she concealed painstakingly from Nikko. 
 
 "And so I have brought the boy here to thee." Sonetchka, 
 finishing her story, became affectionate again, with "thee's" 
 and "thou's." "Many times have I heard Mama Petra 
 Borisovna desire a man-servant, deaf and dumb like in Africa, 
 one who could understand nothing, tell nothing. This Hans 
 will be such a one. He understands nothing; he can tell 
 nothing, and if you say he will be seized and sent away again 
 he will not dare venture out-of-doors. It will relieve thee of 
 much housework, little mother. To think that thou, a rich 
 woman, must labor and sweat with pail and bucket and mop. 
 And so many rooms, too n 
 
 "They clean their own rooms, many of them," said Mother 
 hesitantly. "It is not so much work." 
 
 Nikko broke in sharply upon her. One would never have 
 imagined from their respective attitudes that the business 
 and the money were Mother's and that Nikko existed by her 
 generosity. He spoke with all authority. 
 
 "We will take the boy, Petra Borisovna," he said sternly. 
 "Why do you suppose the good Father allows you to wax rich 
 if not to aid His injured ones ? It is well, too, to have such 
 an unfortunate in the house. The sight of him, and the 
 knowledge of his wrongs, will make the boys braver and 
 more daring; will encourage them to go farther, and what is 
 mos't to you, to more profitable business." 
 
 Mother's eyes brightened. Nikko was always right. So- 
 netchka, needing no more than such a look, opened the low
 
 122 God's Man 
 
 rabbit-hutch door and told the high-collared shopman to send 
 in her friend. 
 
 "Zis ees your 'ome, 'Ontz," she said, shaking a finger at 
 the friend when he appeared. "Zere ees Muzzer and zat is 
 Farzzer. Zey will make you 'appy and you will do w*at zey 
 say, ju' like zat. Kees your muzzer, 'Ontz ; kees your f arzzer." 
 
 Bashfully, finger to his mouth, the boy advanced, pushed 
 by Sonia, and touched each forehead with dry lips. Nikko 
 caught his hand, patted it, welcoming him, reassuring him. 
 
 The boy's eyes brightened. "Following in father's foot- 
 steps, following my dear old dad," he said affectionately. 
 "And everything was like you want it. Yes. Peas and 
 sweet-peas and green corn and tomatoes. And a honey- 
 suckle vine. And all the boys they say to me, good-day 
 to me, hurray to me. . . . See this coat you wouldn't 
 think it cost a thousand dollars. Yes." 
 
 "Sit down, boy," said Nikko, peering at him helplessly. 
 "Sit down." He pushed forward his hassock with a slip- 
 pered foot. The boy seated, the old man quieted him with 
 a hand on his shoulder, and Hans, soon silent, watched the 
 fire. Sonia yawned, stretched her arms, debated a question. 
 
 "You want that you should go up to the Attic, eh ?" asked 
 Mother slyly, surmising accurately. 
 
 Sonetchka's scornful snort served to negative this, . . . 
 until Mother added : "All the boys they are there now, never 
 so many at one time. Good business to-day, never better. 
 . . . Mister Pink, him, too." 
 
 "Wat I care for your Pinks?" asked Sonetchka, again 
 scornfully. Both unconsciously relapsed into English when 
 they discussed matters involving the untranslatable jargon of 
 subterranea. 
 
 Mother choked a laugh, forbearing to irritate the returned 
 prodigal, and Sonia presently reconsidered. "Oh, well," she 
 said, rising. "Oh, well, . . . and moved off toward 
 the stairway and Apricott's Attic.
 
 Sons of Subterranea 123 
 
 At the foot of the attic stairs she gave three short rings and 
 three long ones. A huge door, sheathed in sheet iron, swung 
 outward automatically by a mechanism used in those cheaper 
 Manhattan flats that have neither hall-porters nor elevators, 
 and a pair of morose eyes regarded the ringer. 
 
 IV. OLD MITT-AND-A-HALF 
 
 The swallows' nests were just under the eaves ; here was the 
 attic where Jan Hartogensis and Amalia had slept; where, 
 now, only the most trusted of Mother's customers were al- 
 lowed. If Mother's room of the grille was a select and ex- 
 clusive club, this was the Holy of Holies. . . . 
 
 It was in charge of Enoch Apricott, ascetic, with a face 
 like some melancholy King of Diamonds, for his eyebrows 
 drew down his forehead into a V-shape, an equilateral tri- 
 angle, their articulation its apex. Such another was the 
 lower part of his face one to delight a Cubist a broader tri- 
 angle this, with the chin for its point, a chin like Punchi- 
 nello's, the line joining his high cheek-bones, its base a 
 line that crossed heavy, sunken, discontented eyes. Above 
 the chin were bloodless, almost fleshless, lips. Ascetic? It 
 was the face of a Jesuit. 
 
 No woman had ever entered his life ; no woman ever should, 
 he swore. It was a part of his religion, and a stern and stead- 
 fast adherence to religion was necessary to one whose fore- 
 bears foreswore all else to worship in their own way; who, 
 ever since, had sacrificed most of the joy of this life for one 
 more enduring hereafter. Yet their descendant kept a ren- 
 dezvous for thieves; and, a disciple of Swedenborg, justified 
 himself. The Lord was forging in the fire of His wrath the 
 Mighty Flail to sweep clear the Unjust Kings and Wicked 
 Princes. These men who gathered in the Attic were the 
 Scourge of Locusts, the Pest of Flies, appointed by the Lord 
 to Devour and to Sting, pending the time when Pomp and
 
 124 God's Man 
 
 Pride should rise to its height and the Mighty Flail should 
 descend. 
 
 Enoch Apricott. The foreman at the Garryowen shops 
 could have told you that such a one had for fifteen years been on 
 his pay-roll, beginning as apprentice, finishing as expert ma- 
 chinist at seven dollars and fifty cents per diem ; diligent, ear- 
 nest and careful ; and, at the lunch-hour annoying fellow work- 
 men by expounding hidden meanings in Revelations and other 
 Apocryphal "Books." "Mitt-and-a-Half ' by the underworld 
 dictionary, "mitt" a hand, "half" differing from no other half. 
 But Enoch had lost three fingers of his right hand, so that "a 
 half" was a slight euphemism. That same foreman would 
 have sworn that Enoch lost those missing ones through rep- 
 rehensible carelessness, this conflicting slightly with his gen- 
 eral statement of "diligent, earnest and careful." One does 
 not remain foreman at the Garryowen by giving testimony in 
 law-courts that will result in heavy damages to be paid by the 
 defendant; so, when called upon as a witness, the foreman 
 failed to remember that he had recommended the machine 
 which was to snatch away Apricott's expertness, be "scrapped" 
 and a new one installed on which the belt would not slip. 
 The superintendent, who had forwarded the recommendation 
 urgently advising it, suffered from a similar lapse of memory. 
 So Apricott went out to find work suitable to a man with only 
 a hand and two-fifths, while the Garryowen Company con- 
 tinued paying twenty per cent, dividends and a large salary 
 to the learned corporation counsel who helped save them from 
 the necessity of paying damages to disabled workmen. 
 
 It was then Apricott began to believe in the Mighty Flail, 
 the Unjust Kings and the Wicked Princes, among whom he 
 would have numbered, had he known, Benjamin Hartogensis, 
 Esquire, the distinguished country-gentleman who owned a 
 large block of Garryowen stock, the entire price for which he 
 was not to pay until his son, Archie, began to frequent Enoch's 
 Attic.
 
 Sons of Subterranea 125 
 
 Apricott had not come to Attic-keeping all at once. He 
 had yet to eat up his savings while he discovered how little 
 work was actually suited to a hand and two-fifths. It was 
 only Mother Mybus who found any good reason for the exist- 
 ence of one with missing fingers. He had come in to pawn 
 his most precious possession, to which he had held the longest 
 a huge watch-chain, some sort of emblem of high standing 
 in a Machinists' Secret Order. Her assistant had returned 
 to her to have it appraised, interrupting an earnest conversa- 
 tion with a gentleman renowned for daring but lacking skill. 
 If only she had some one to send with him, some one expert 
 at locks and safes. 
 
 So Enoch's charm worked wonders and he came to believe 
 in the Swarms of Locusts and Pests of Flies. And he de- 
 veloped inventiveness, under the whiplash of revengeful de- 
 sire, inventiveness hitherto given over to discovering hidden 
 meanings in Apocryphal Books; so that, soon, Mother found 
 him too valuable a man to risk in actual service and kept him 
 about her to give her plans practicality, to advise and counsel 
 the unskilful, and, also, since she found her Horde was going 
 into mixed society to get what was now provided in her Attic, 
 and as mixed society contained informers and weaklings, she 
 fitted up the Attic and added Apricott as a lure the great 
 Apricott, who knew more about safes and locks than the men 
 who made them. 
 
 His were the morose eyes, from behind the huge door and 
 through a Judas-hole, that regarded Sonetchka and became 
 reassuring, nay, grimly joyful when turned in the other direc- 
 tion. Old Mitt-and-a-Half had regretted the desertion of so 
 clever a thief as little Sonia the Pest of Flies had lost one 
 of its sharpest Stingers, the Scourge of Locusts one of its 
 greediest Devourers. . . . Therefore when he announced 
 her return to her brother Flies and Locusts it was with a 
 geniality alien to his cloudy creed. 
 
 Two men leaped up from recumbent positions, one to re-
 
 126 r God's Man 
 
 slime his hitherto discarded trousers. The room held nean> 
 a dozen others, in groups of twos and threes, all reclining 
 around little lamps set on filigreed trays. 
 
 The two men to rise were, strictly speaking, not men at 
 all only the Phony Kid and his companion, Pink, the Cagey. 
 The latter, reconsidering, resumed his attitude of Oriental 
 ease, taking on in addition an air of studious indifference. 
 What, after all, did the arrival of any mere "gun moll," no 
 matter how proficient in her profession or attractive in her 
 person, mean in his young life, he would like to know? And 
 as Sonia entered he seemed to be slumbering. 
 
 V. THE CAGEY KID "TURNS SQUARE" 
 
 Sonia was no stranger here; any possible existing doubts 
 were banished by the sight of the Phony Kid catching both 
 her small hands, drawing her to him despite her struggling, 
 until severely smacked for it. "Fresh thing," she said, " J ow 
 are you, Beau " and shook hands with the Phony one; also 
 with Apricott and the others, lazy of greeting but glad to see 
 her. Mostly they were a young lot; "Bouge" and "Noir," 
 Sally Surrey's assistants in bank-breaking (Sally was not 
 there), hardly older than the two Kids; Edwin Moneypenny^s 
 "Canary" boys so called because they frequented that fash- 
 ionable restaurant and seemed at home there. Only two had 
 passed thirty Moneypenny himself, a distinguished-looking, 
 elderly gentleman, with French moustachios and a Southern 
 Colonel's goatee; and Doctor "Tack," a burly Bavarian, with 
 Heidelberg scars. ... It was apparent from their greet- 
 ings, even Hastings, the proscribed outlaw, being genial, that 
 the Little One enjoyed their trust and good will. 
 
 But, after the habit of those who use opium, taking little 
 general interest in womenkind, having greeted her, they re- 
 sumed their even low-toned conversation, no voice being 
 raised for fear of those who lay on the next bunk. It was an 
 interesting scene, holding something of the fascination of the
 
 Sons of Subterranea 127 
 
 East; the dim lanterns swinging high among the rafters seen 
 through clouds of drifting heavy smoke, faces here and there 
 limned by the lamps little rafts of light on a sea of smoky 
 darkness. 
 
 "You want I should cook for you ?" asked Sonia, returning 
 from her visiting. Having no corsets to incommode her, she 
 kicked off her tiny pumps and climbed to the right side of the 
 bunk, which Beau abandoned in her favor, lying down on 
 the other side, his head pillowed on Pink's hip. Pink lay 
 just across from Sonia, so that, when she looked up, their 
 eyes met. A pile of pillows, common to both boys, raised 
 their heads above the lamp's level. 
 
 Sonia, with a woman's dainty deftness in small matters, 
 dug out the chocolate-colored opium from a little white jar, 
 a "toey," cooking it over a steady flame of peanut-oil. It 
 bubbled and squeaked and gave out a smell like toasting choco- 
 late. Then she took up the long bamboo pipe, to which, 
 midway along its length, a stone bowl was attached; in this 
 she finished her complicated "cooking," kneading the sticky 
 mass with a long steel needle, a "yen-hok." It changed from 
 golden to dark brown, as the poisonous substances escaped in 
 greasy gases and vaporous moisture; and she broke it into- 
 "pills" the size of small peas, reheated one of them, rolled it 
 into conical shape and thrust it into the little round hole in 
 the center of the bowl. It flattened. Quickly she extracted 
 and re-rolled it into a tight little cylinder. This, again re- 
 heated and attached to the little hole, was ready for con- 
 sumption. 
 
 She reversed the pipe, handing it to Beau, so that the little 
 cylinder was directly above the flame. Beau put the mouth- 
 piece to his lips and the opium, disintegrating into semi- 
 liquid form again, leaped through the little hole, becoming 
 thick blue smoke, as he exhaled it in thin lacy clouds that 
 drifted upward to add atmosphere to their private solar sys- 
 tem, of which the lanterns were twin suns. Sonetchka took 
 back the pipe, and, telling of her little white dog and her new
 
 128 God's Man 
 
 resolve, prepared a second pill, which also she handed to 
 Beau, a procedure that aroused the Cagey one's ire. 
 
 "Say : I'm just as welcome here as I would he in the street : 
 don't miss one if you can that the idea ?" he asked. "That's 
 what you get for letting a skirt lay around with you, anyway. 
 Everything harmonious then bingo ! in drops a dame and 
 everything^ crabbed. That's why I let Lily King out. Jeal- 
 ousy? She wrote the book. Tough habit in a woman. Why 
 if I so much as said there was a good-looking woman on a 
 moving-picture screen . . . Hey ! smoke that pill,, Beau, 
 and I'll wear out the stem on your nut. . . ." 
 
 He snatched away the pipe as it went to his friend for the 
 third time, snatching also the cooking-needle and smoking 
 without assistance. "You'll lie over with your friend, Miss 
 Sonia Americanski Russki Jealousoscovitch, if you don't take 
 off your blinders and notice little Pink's among those present 
 see?" 
 
 Sonetchka gave him a cool impersonal nod as though this 
 speech first made her aware of his presence. Really, the 
 Cagey Kid commanded her intense admiration, but he had a 
 reputation for holding women lightly because of his repeated 
 successes, and she had sworn her admiration of him should 
 never be revealed. 
 
 "I had a tumble, myself," he said, handing back the pipe 
 and referring to her narrow escape. "I was hustling the 
 match with Joe Deane, and we took a big Swede from Min- 
 neapolis for the works. Well, when I pull the finish on him 
 about going back after the fellow who skinned us, it sounds 
 pretty good to him, but he don't tip me only follows in case I 
 need assistance, see? me not jerry. Well, when I meet Joe, 
 at Cleary's corner, Joe spots the Swede corning, and offices 
 me to pull some rough stuff. So I starts calling him divers 
 kinds of sons-of-what-you-call-'ems, and then we sparred for a 
 clinch. At which the Swede unloads a cannon, and gits Joe 
 in the currency kick. A big green harness-bull sees the shoot- 
 ing and drops off'n a passing short and, jest my luck, mitts
 
 Sons of Subterranea 129 
 
 me, while I'm trying to help Joe with his game leg. The 
 Swede beats it, and the big lying copper's gotta make good 
 for the pinch, so he swears he seen me pull the gat. That 
 gets me held over night without bail, Joe to the hospital ; and, 
 next morning, I'm in the line-up and the Chief tells the dicks 
 to pick me up anywheres they see me loitering and jest bring 
 me in on suspicion. Course I let Mother know and she had 
 a mouthpiece there with the fall money; and he passed the 
 word to Fourteenth Street to forgit the case, but the Chief 
 can't call these coppers up in a body and tell them to forgit 
 it too many dicks stooling for the D. A. So, with a lot of 
 heavy-headed goose-feet on my trail, I'm gunna lay low till 
 they forget my mug." 
 
 "Wat you do ?" asked Sonetchka, forgetting her recent in- 
 difference. 
 
 "He's got a job playing planner in the new room they're 
 opening up-stairs at Sydenham's next Monday night," said 
 Beau eagerly, Pink being occupied. "You know how nuts all 
 these society skirts is about honkatonk stuff, don't you? 
 cabarets, they call 'em turkey-trots and todolos and grizzly- 
 bears and tangos. Pink starts to bang the box the other night 
 in deary's, and one of the head fellows at Sydenham's hap- 
 pened to drop in, and said Pink's playing was the darb jest 
 the local-color touch they needed. . . ." 
 
 Pink, finishing his pill, broke in apologizing for considering 
 any form of employment sanctioned by the law: "Course, I 
 didn't think of taking it, then, but after I got this tumble " 
 
 "You oughta thank your rabbit's foot," said the Phony Kid, 
 who was always willing to sacrifice the spectacular for the 
 easy : "Nothing to do but put on the thirteen-and-the-odd and 
 set around with the other performers, all dolled up like reg- 
 ular spenders and have your chuck and your drinks on the 
 house and get paid for it, while it's costing the suckers the 
 entire B. R. Wish I could glom a dame who could dance. 
 I'd get a job there, myself I wrote the book about trotting 
 when it wasn't no farther north than Chatham Square."
 
 130 God's Man 
 
 "Wat about me?" asked Sonia eagerly. "Me I am a 
 danseuse extraordinaire. Zat is my meedle name. I dance 
 wiz you, Beau, zen some managers see us and give us somesing 
 beeg. Eh?" 
 
 "Some idea," said Pink approvingly. "You can git the job 
 all right. They still want some rough honkatonk workers 
 who kin wear evening clothes. And a guy to wear a powdered 
 wig and silk pants and open the doors, and a telephone-girl 
 a good-looker. The old geezer that hired me told me so the 
 other night. I told Beau to hunt up a skirt before, but you 
 know these hop-heads always putting things off " 
 
 "Well, I ain't on the blacklist like you, sucker," said Beau 
 shortly. "I kin still hustle. I won't starve if I don't grab 
 the job. But if Sonny here means business " 
 
 "Don't never trust no dame for nothing," said Pink sen- 
 tentiously. "If she happens to wake up wrongside Monda' 
 morning, she'd put a shieve into you just for amusement. 
 That's why I canned Blonde Aileen. She wasn't fit for a dog 
 to associate with in the morning." 
 
 "You an' your 'ussies," said Sonetchka fiercely, again trans- 
 ferring her attentions exclusively to Beau, less endowed with 
 a lurid past. "You come weez me to my 'otel," she said to 
 him, "an* you can 'are somesing I kep' for you. Eet will be 
 'andy w*en you wear your dress-suit " Eeally, she had been 
 keeping this article, a fur-coat, for Pink; but his auto- 
 biographical references always enraged her, a fact that both- 
 ered Pink not at all, for he had found the surest way to win 
 new girls was to have been greatly desired of others in the 
 past. 
 
 "Hetty Hamilton, too," he went on, referring to one whose 
 name now blazed high over vaudeville theaters : who had been 
 carried to popularity by the new craze for dances once con- 
 fined to the underworld ; "she jest worried me to death, that 
 Hamilton. I had to swing on her right from my heel every 
 two or three days. No other way of living with her, there 
 wasn't. Every now and then she jest woke up, saying to her-
 
 Sons of Subterranea 131 
 
 self: 'This is the day I'll have a good time making him feel 
 miserable:' and she'd contradict me even if I said burning 
 beings had two legs and two arms and five fingers and five 
 toes. 'Some haven't/ she'd say, jest as though they was fash- 
 ions in such things : 'some have more, some have less. You 
 don't know everything/ Honest ! And if I let her get away 
 with that and then I happened to remark: 'Ain't it funny 
 how everybody has to die some day, and nobody ever comes 
 back* jest something to make conversation and get her out 
 of her sulks why, she'd up and say : 'Everybody don't !' 'Don't 
 what?' I'd say. 'Don't die,' she'd say. 'Don't talk foolish,' 
 I'd say. 'Who's talking foolish,' she'd say; 'no more foolish 
 than you. You don't know everything.' 'Listen, broad,' I'd 
 say, then, 'you got your roasting clothes on to-day and you 
 better take 'em off quick or I'll slam you one in the kisser, 
 see' ^cause burning nature has its limits. 'You would,' she'd 
 say: 'I'd like to see the man 'ud lay a finger on me ' And 
 no matter how many times I done it, she'd pull the same thing 
 next time, 'I'd jest like to see the fellow that would' that's 
 all she'd say, jest aching for it, and if she didn't get it then 
 she'd go on, nasty. 'He wouldn't live long to tell people about 
 it,' she'd say. 'What would you do ?' I'd say, nasty too, then. 
 'I'd put powdered glass in his beer, that's what I'd do,' she'd 
 say: 'I'd wait till he fell asleep and I'd cut his heart out, 
 that's what I'd do. I'd' But by that time, I'd V done it, 
 and I'd start packing my things. Jest about the time I got 
 'em all packed, she'd come over and put her arms around me 
 and cry and ask was her papa goin' to leave his poor little 
 thing jest because she had a headache and felt bad " 
 
 "Softy," said the infuriated Sonia, 'Vat womans ! Those 
 'ussies. I'd like to see ze man w*at would strike me " 
 
 "That's what they all say," returned Pink wearily. "If 
 horses ran to form like women, Beau, I'd be a regular Eocke- 
 feller. And then when they get it they say: *Well, you 
 wouldn't dare do it again.' And when you do, they say : 'I'd 
 like to see some other man do what you did.' And that's the
 
 132 God's Man 
 
 way they go. While, really, they're as proud as Punch. I re- 
 member one day, I give Edna Garry an eye like a sunset, red, 
 green and yellow. And when she went into the Owl to have 
 the drug-clerk paint it and he says : 'What's the matter, run 
 into the elevator-shaft?' she says, 'Huh! I guess not! The 
 sweetest thing in the world give me that.' He told me " 
 
 "Oh, you make me seeck," said Sonia excitedly. "You never 
 'ave no nice womans. All 'ussies. Zaf s nuzzing w*at zey 
 say" 
 
 "That's what they all say about one another, too," said Pink 
 in a bored tone. "Lily'd always say Blonde Aileen was a 
 tramp, and Aileen said Hetty was a tramp, and Edna said 
 Aileen was a well, I won't use her exact words, and now 
 Sonia says Edna was a hussy. That's the way it goes." 
 
 "Doan' you put me een weez your tramps," cried Sonia in 
 irate emotional tones. "Doan' you zeenk, Meester Cagey Keed, 
 zat Sonia fall for you. No. Net. Not one time. Jus' like 
 zat. Nevar. I 'ate you." 
 
 "I'll get you yet, though," returned Pink, smiling aggra- 
 vatingly. "They always start hating me. I can tell the signs. 
 Gee! I wonder why those fellas that write books always pull 
 that sucker stuff about women bein' hard to understand. If 
 I had a dollar for every mistake I've made about woman, I 
 couldn't buy the hair on a Mexican hairless dog. I on'y wish 
 there wasn't nothing harder than telling what a woman was 
 gunna do next that's all." 
 
 "Well, 'ere's one you can't tell nuzzing about," said Sonia, 
 stifling her rage. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I can," answered Pink, "you're gunna try to make 
 me think you're stuck on Beau. What you're gunna give him 
 you was saving for me. See ? I'm jerry." And he laughed 
 at her encrimsoned face. 
 
 "You " spluttered Sonia, and then was silent. An almost 
 unconquerable desire to seize his blond hair and pall it hard 
 lay hold of her. "Conzeited sing," she said, defeated : "some 
 day you get in lofe wiz some girl w'at is somesing and zen
 
 Sons of Subterranea 133 
 
 you see she laugh at you. 'Wat zat,' she say, 'zat funny 
 little mans/ Pooh! "Ere, Beau." 
 
 Then there was silence for a long period; but presently 
 conversation along less personal lines began; and, soon, all 
 three were discussing the possibilities of their new employ- 
 ment. 
 
 "You kin grab .many a live one dancing in cabarets," said 
 Beau reminiscently. "If they kin get the head waiter to bring 
 'em over to you, you kin bet the works that guy'll buy wine. 
 But jest you always order a different kind from his. Make 
 it two pints 'stead of a quart : and have yours f rappe. With 
 a towel around the bottle yours can't be tumbled for cider 
 fizz. There's two-fifty difference in the price and you git 
 it, see? to encourage business the house's profit's on his'n. 
 Course you don't have to drink the stuff : the waiter 'ull fix it 
 go's you pour it out when the guy ain't looking. I know a 
 cabaret girl pulls down ten dollars a night jest in brass-checks. 
 And nothing wrong: her fella wouldn't stand for it. You 
 don't half to know the guy outside. Less'n you managed to 
 git a good live one. Then you might jolly him and make up a 
 party after you're through. Show him the sights. You, me, 
 Pink, and some other wise girl, maybe. End up in your 
 apartment for a little bridge-party. By that time he'd be so 
 lit up an old-time Mississippi river-boat cheater could clean 
 him, let alone a couple smart young grifts like us. Split 
 it three ways, with some luck-money to the other girl. . . ." 
 
 "Fine," approved Pink. "You donno 'any little gal that's 
 a nice little gal/ do you? Good-looker with a nice Vice. Cause 
 I told you they want one at the telephone there. Swell job 
 it is, too. Wear clothes jest like the others, and the switch- 
 board is all done up fancy like a cottage piano and the 
 booths made like those old sit-on chairs " 
 
 "See-dan," interrupted Beau, "see-dan, sucker, see-dan f" 
 
 "Well, those old chairs women used to ride in, two men 
 in the shafts that's the way the phone booths are, anyhow, 
 and, inside, all pink roses and everything. And when you see
 
 134 God's Man 
 
 the girl sitting at the switchboard, and the chairs and all, 
 it's just like you go in some swell droring-room, with a society 
 dame sitting at her piano. You can't even see it's a switch- 
 board less'n you get behind her. That's why they want a 
 swell looker. And nobody 'ud dare slip her less'n a quarter 
 tip : not to an outfit like that. Better not tip at all. Some 
 place, believe me. Got 'em all skinned. Why, the waiters has 
 to wear satin knee-pants and silk stockings and long chains 
 around their necks, jest like in Monte Carlo, or some such 
 joint . . ." 
 
 An idea seized Sonia. Her black eyes snapping, she in- 
 terrupted with a question as to when the place would open. 
 "Monday, didn't I tell you?" replied Pink, "and then they 
 got-" 
 
 "Next Monday?" she broke in again: he nodded im- 
 patiently. "And zees is Toosda," she ruminated : "say, Pink, 
 w'at you zink? could a girl learn w'at to do zere in seex 
 days? I J ave a fren, a lofely girl, Pink jus' like zat oh, 
 lofely, I gif you my word. An' I got some lofely drezzes, too, 
 zat I boost from Vagen'als an' Zunday's beautiful. I gif zem 
 to 'er jus' 'er size, zirty-seex. You zink she learns to be 
 telephone girl in seex days " 
 
 "The point is," Pink reminded her, "is she a reg'lar looker ? 
 No chips, you know. None of your chewing gum bradies " 
 Sonia plunged indignantly into a defense of Velvet Voice's 
 charm. "Why, then," said Pink, "I guess that's the ducket. 
 Fine for us, too, 'cause she could tip us off to what she hears 
 over the phone, and that might net us many a piece of 
 change, knowing who's who and what they've got to lose if 
 anybody heard of them cutting up high- jinks. It's always 
 useful in case of a holler about bein' cheated. And it might 
 get us a piece of money for a sorta refined 'badger' oh, 
 nothing coarse, nothing rough, nothing not classy," he pro- 
 tested, "that ain't our way, Beau's and mine. Strictly class 
 hey, Mitt-and-a-Half ?" 
 
 Enoch Apricott, who had seated himself on a corner of the
 
 Sons of Subterranea: 135 
 
 bunk, pressed down the tobacco in his workman's cutty-pipe 
 with the remaining fingers of his maimed hand, and grinned 
 sourly. "Hand it to them the same way they hand it to us," 
 he said harshly. "I've always told you boys that. Go after 
 the respectable ones. They're the worst. The kind that can't 
 squeal because they're ornaments to some little Jersey com- 
 munity. And around there they's deacons and vestrymen. 
 . . . The Lord drives the money-changers out of His 
 temple, His ways are difficult of understanding . . ." He 
 often went off into these Biblical paraphrases seeming for the 
 moment to forget his audience entirely. "And go after the 
 rich men's sons," he went on savagely, "the ones that spend 
 the money they minted outa human flesh and blood. Sting 
 'em. Sting 'em. The Swarms of Locusts and the Pests of 
 Flies. Make the Kings pay through the Princes that's the 
 law: 'the sons of the father . . .'" 
 
 Again he sat, staring abstractedly, his pipe-embers smol- 
 dering no more darkly than his deeply-set eyes. And then he 
 tapped Sonia on her thin little shoulder. 
 
 "Don't ever get sentimental over rich young men. Don't 
 feel sorry for taking their last dollar. Kemember, you are 
 an Instrument " He thrust the hand of the missing fingers 
 almost between her eyes. "That about paid for some woman's 
 champagne bath. Take all you can gei> give nothing make 
 'em pay." 
 
 He arose abruptly and walked off to his corner, to put on 
 his iron-bound spectacles and to work on some improvements 
 to various burglars' tools. Silently and swiftly he worked, 
 except at rare moments, when he would raise his eyes, sur- 
 veying his gathered guests, and laughing discordantly. "The 
 Swarm of Locusts : the Pest of Plies," he would mutter. 
 
 "He's nuts," said Pink in a low voice ; "jest plain nuts. But 
 at that, he has some good ideas. The business of getting senti- 
 mental over suckers makes my neck tired. 'I just can't take 
 his last dollar/ Helen Darling used to say, lie's been so good 
 to me/ 'Listen, you poor imbecile broad/ I used to say to
 
 136 God's Man 
 
 her. 'They don't mind taking our last dollar, do they, with 
 their trusts and everything? Course he's been good to you, 
 'cause he wants to get you,' I'd say. 'And when he does get 
 you, he'll drop you any minute he sees another dame he wants. 
 So you make hay while the sun shines and clean him for the 
 works.' But she always was a sucker broad, she wouldn't 
 listen, went to live with him, told him she loved him not his 
 dough, and he canned her in five months, and grabbed Cleo 
 Darcy who won't let him in unless he's carrying part of Grif- 
 fony's front window in his mitt and who keeps him waiting 
 in theater lobbies while she has dinner with her fella who 
 hasn't got a nickel. And yet the sucker is wild about 
 her . . ." He went on with similar instances until Sonia 
 interrupted. 
 
 "I want that you come weez me to meet my fren," she said, 
 having cleaned the "toey" and risen. "We have dinner to- 
 gezzer, ze four of us, hein ? Zen I dress her up in zose clothes 
 from Vagen'als and Zunda/s, an' we go to zee ze restaurant 
 man about ze jhob, jus' like zat." 
 
 They acceded and got into their street attire. 
 
 On the following Monday, at the opening of Sydenham's 
 "Cafe de Paris Cabaret," Annie Eunice Chasserton made her 
 entrance before the footlights of Advertisement Alley.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 HOW ARNOLD GOT OUT OF JAIL 
 I. HE MEETS NIETZSCHE IN MOTLEY 
 
 T TWO o'clock on the afternoon 
 of Arnold's arrest the door to his 
 cell was flung open and another 
 offender was pushed in so vio- 
 lently that he fell to the floor. 
 He arose, and to Arnold's aston- 
 ishment whistled cheerfully a 
 peculiar man this, although out- 
 wardly distinguished chiefly by 
 an elaborate jewel of a collar- 
 stud, which served as a sort of 
 permanent substitute for necktie. 
 Its owner had too young a face 
 for his bald head and his comfortable round paunch; it was 
 as though a boy's features peeped from a casing of false-face 
 and padded body. His trousers were too tight for his little 
 fat legs and his ancient cutaway coat, parted at the tails to 
 show a patch in their seat, heightened their appearance to 
 riding breeches. 
 
 Having surveyed his new quarters with the air of one who 
 has been shown into the royal suite of a fashionable hotel, 
 having nodded cheerily to Arnold as to an old friend, the 
 newcomer fished into his pockets and produced from a cigar- 
 ette-box the stump of a cigar, which he thrust into a paper 
 holder, all the while whistling in a shrill key, using his teeth 
 for cadenza effects.
 
 138 God's Man 
 
 "Oh, chuck it," groaned an English voice from a near-by 
 cell ; "chuck it, will you ?" 
 
 The newcomer shook his head mournfully. "Let a little 
 sunshine in, brother," he called back, "don't think you've got 
 to be miserable 'cause you're in jail. . . ." 
 
 Receiving fierce remonstrance, he shrugged his shoulders 
 and leaned back luxuriously with each puff of his cigar, eyes 
 closed in blissful anticipation, inhaling so deeply that very 
 little smoke was disgorged. "Jail's the only place to really 
 enjoy a good cigar. You can give your whole mind to it," 
 he suddenly confided in Arnold. "A man actually .threw this 
 angel-filled, Heaven-wrapped cigar away half-smoked. When 
 I need good cigars," he added, after a pause, as one who, 
 after deep reflection, is transmitting a matchless secret, "I 
 go hang around the Murray Hill or North Washington Square 
 section at tea time. It don't do for gentlemen to go calling 
 on a lady armed to the teeth. So I get a fifty-cent smoke 
 for the price of one of these here paper holders a trey for a 
 jitney less'n two cents per smoke. They know cigars on 
 Murray Hill. Fifth Avenue's apt to take people's words 
 too busy coining to git educated, poor devils." 
 
 Arnold, head on palm and slanted elbow, stared. Evi- 
 dently, this oddity was not essaying humor. Wondering 
 about him, Arnold momentarily forgot he was a tragic figure, 
 and only sneered faintly. 
 
 "Not educated up to the joys of jail, eh? Sure," returned 
 the newcomer, the sneer unnoticed; "while regular fellows 
 are young they have a hell of a time chippy-chasing glorious 
 jags Saturday nights with the ladies down the line." He 
 smacked his lips as one whose tongue was rolling delicious 
 morsels. "Those millionaire fellows save, instead. The 
 other fellows learn about women and whisky and good times 
 they don't even know the women they married for money, or 
 that could do the housework and save. When they get their 
 millions at forty or fifty what use are they, not knowing how 
 to enjoy life? I'm sorry for 'em. I've lived every second
 
 How Arnold Got Out of Jail 139 
 
 and I haven't done any work to speak of either except work I 
 liked/' 
 
 "With the result? . . ." suggested Arnold in gentle 
 ellipsis. 
 
 The other waited until he had tranquilly blown out some 
 few final strands of smoke, then said philosophically : "Well, 
 it's winter. Jail in winter if I ain't been lucky enough to 
 get down South with the birds. . . ." Here he shrugged 
 his shoulders, suggesting worse alternatives. "It was to get 
 railroad fare to Mexico that I got myself jammed in here. A 
 six-er, I suppose. Well, it'll be spring then. Saves going 
 South anyway; and I hate railroad traveling. The worst is 
 always the best if you know the answer. . . ." 
 
 In the cell next door the self-appointed censor seemed to 
 be sobbing. "Just loves misery," commented the censored 
 one. "Tried to hang himself to his cell-door with his neck- 
 tie, but it broke so they were saying up-stairs. Shows there's 
 some good in cheap neckties. . . ." 
 
 "You don't believe in suicide, then ?" asked Arnold ; "when 
 a man's got nothing to live for ?" He was regarded in aston- 
 ishment. 
 
 "Ever in the country in springtime? Trout just hopping 
 out of the streams begging to be caught? Or summer nights 
 when watermelons just bust their bellies in the moonlight and 
 their natural protectors is asleep? Or down around the 
 marshes in the fall when the ducks fly so low you can hit 'em 
 with a rock and get a roast one, chestnuts lying plentiful all 
 around on the side ? Or along the Long Island shore, where 
 you can unhitch a boat and sneak a lobster out of a trap some- 
 body's kindly^et for you ?" 
 
 It was Arnold who groaned this time. "You're from Long 
 Island?" asked the motley man. "Well, I needn't say any 
 more about that lobster stuff; you know. . . . I've trav- 
 eled into every country in the world, son, and I ain't et haff 
 the good things yet, nor drunk half the different brews nor 
 won't neither, even if I had a beard I could use for a fishing-
 
 140 God's Man 
 
 line. Say, that just makes me sick a man killing himself 
 when he's at an age when he ain't even et all the food of his 
 own country let alone others. And what fur? "Women? 
 Always a dozen to every man a hundred to every regular 
 guy. Broke? Think of the new things you get to eat and 
 drink chasin' around new countries trying to get solvent 
 again. And the different kinds of women. . . . Sui- 
 cide? Just plain anarchy of the brain-box. Change your 
 woman, change your job. Change your country. Change 
 your luck. But don't try changing your life until you know 
 what you're drawing to. It's bum poker." 
 
 Arnold laughed, rose, stretched himself, and as he came 
 out of his dark corner surveyed his cell-mate plainly for the 
 first time, the light from the outside corridor falling full on 
 their faces. Both immediately began to stare, began those 
 instinctive efforts of recollection semi-familiar features in- 
 voluntarily impel. And Arnold remembered. A few years 
 before Christmas holidays a man minding fences and pig 
 pens in a manner so desultory and deliberate that two fingers 
 were frost-bitten; the work he was to have done, had not the 
 frost-bite intervened, a return for Christmas cheer and an 
 old overcoat. He had grown stouter since then and he no 
 longer wore the parson's overcoat. Arnold wondered now 
 if there had ever been a frost-bite, for this was the sort of 
 man to lie awake planning how to escape any obligations that 
 involved labor. But how had he made his fingers seem 
 purply blue ? 
 
 "You know me?" asked the suspected one. '"Let's see you 
 full face, son;" and, seeing it, guffawed loudly, heightening 
 Arnold's wonder as to how the deceiving color had been 
 achieved. 
 
 "Oh, stow it," groaned their neighbor plaintively. 
 
 "He loves it, loves it, goodness how he loves it," reflected Mr. 
 Quinn, for it was by that name he introduced himself to Ar- 
 nold, after explaining his curiosity concerning the frost-bite 
 stage-effect by offering to instruct him with a piece of cor-
 
 How Arnold Got Out of Jail 141 
 
 rugated cord and any one of Arnold's fingers. Arnold took 
 his word for it. 
 
 "Quinn Harley Quinn christened Harvey but with one 
 little change of letter, now much more suitable/' Mr. Quinn 
 continued. "And so you're in jail." He chuckled, forgot the 
 lover of misery, and whistled again. "And that's very apt, 
 too/' he added after a few bars. "'This is no place for a 
 minister's son.'" He added a few bars different but equally 
 execrable. " 'Breaking the News to Father* is that one," he 
 explained. "Sad little bit but it's got to be done, eh?" 
 
 "No," said Arnold shortly; "do me a favor and forget all 
 about Long Island. I don't intend my family name to be 
 disgraced " 
 
 Mr. Quinn lay back, still chuckling. "You might come 
 right out of a book with that speech," he averred. "And Con- 
 gressman Waldemar a neighbor of yours ? I see his son over 
 to your house that day, don't I ? Though I don't know then 
 who he is, not until I do some odd jobs over to his dad's place. 
 . . . My fingers got well down in the valley : different 
 air and what leavings from the dinners! patey-boy-grass 
 and mushrooms and good God lemme forget it now. . . . 
 I see that Waldemar boy plenty times when I'm opening cab- 
 doors up around Times Square. Some spender he is. I'd 
 like to eat where he does. Ain't you let him know ?" 
 
 Arnold maintained a sullen silence. Since this man had 
 come into the cell, all tragedy had fled. Face downward on 
 the plank, unjustly persecuted and broken of spirit, the last 
 of the L'Hommedieus had at least the gloomy satisfaction of 
 knowing he was the principal figure in a great tragedy : could 
 picture himself condemned still unjustly serving his term 
 a silent saturnine figure wrapped in impenetrable mystery : for 
 the end of his term visiting Monte Cristo vengeances on his 
 persecutors. Now, in the astonished question of the motley 
 man's "Ain't you let him know" Arnold realized his anach- 
 ronistic conduct. This was a game played with marked cards ; 
 the more you marked and could use the greater your sue-
 
 142 God's Man 
 
 cess. What else had Mr. Krafft's client used to escape paying 
 his debt for Hans Chasserton's lost wits: to protect himself 
 from the righteous assaults of wronged men : John Waldemar 
 to escape notoriety through Bobbie's little supper party ? His 
 own friendship for Hugo had marked that card and saved 
 Waldemar Senior the election. 
 
 "Marked cards!" he said aloud, "that's about what this 
 whole game is, isn't it ? With a pull, I can get out. Without 
 one, you can stay in. . . ." 
 
 Mr. Quinn chuckled. "That's the book way of putting it," 
 he agreed: "but there's not much fun about 'marked cards' 
 and there's a whole lot of fun about life ... a regular 
 Bowery mellerdram when you're young, but a burlesque-show 
 after you've blown the froth off the beer. . . . Have you 
 got two dollars ?" he interpolated suddenly. 
 
 Seeing from Arnold's face that he had, he set up an im- 
 mediate loud bawling, which was answered, louder, as the 
 hall man hurried down swearing. Hypnotized by the man's 
 assertion, Arnold, by the time the official appeared, had en- 
 abled Mr. Quinn to thrust one dollar in his hand. 
 
 "You get Mr. Waldemar young Mr. Waldemar Congress- 
 man Waldemar's son on the phone/' said Quinn importantly. 
 "He's probably at his office the Waldemar office you'll find 
 it in the phone book and if you hurry, you'll get the other 
 caser." He held up the second bill tantalizingly. "One of 
 his best friends in trouble down here say and he's to come 
 hoppin' one of his best friends, don't forget. No names " 
 
 "Marked cards again?" asked Arnold gloomily, remember- 
 ing the push and the harshness of the now almost servile hur- 
 rying jailer. 
 
 "Value received," corrected Mr. Quinn : "do men work for 
 wages or for love ? Maybe they oughta work for love ; but 
 they don't. . . . That's the only game: value received. 
 The world's always trying to make you give 'value received'; 
 your part's to make 'em think they got it." 
 
 "Not value received. Double and treble and quadruple
 
 How Arnold Got Out of Jail 143 
 
 value/' returned Arnold. "And for that, they a few men 
 who've got the game cornered they kindly permit you to 
 live and work for them " 
 
 "That's where your smartness comes in," returned Mr. 
 Quinn, chuckling. "Don't work unless you get paid what's 
 right. They can't make you. There's the open country, so 
 mild you can sleep outdoors even up here six months in the 
 year; and then you do a little work and get a ticket South for 
 the other six. Food? There's always food at farmhouses 
 for a Union veteran with his missing arm slipped under his 
 undershirt, due to a Rebel cannon-ball or for a little wood- 
 chopping if you want a bed and breakfast when the weather's 
 nasty or there's the barn. Steady honest work poor but 
 proud? you can have my part of it cheerful. Meanwhile 
 look around you for a rough chance that's worth risking seven 
 years in an itchy gray suit. I've had thousands in my time 
 out of country post-offices. Blew 'em in on booze and women, 
 but had a great time while it lasted. Course they nail you 
 sometimes : like this time and for small potatoes too, but 
 that's the part of the game 'at makes things lively. You're 
 dead right about it being a game; the greatest in the world. 
 Trouble with most people, they think it's either a picnic or a 
 funeral. Take those titmice down in the ghettos and slums. 
 Their own fault for staying there. Let 'em have sense enough 
 to see nobody can make 'em stay, nobody can make 'em work. 
 Take to the road be hoboes, yeggs, anything but being so 
 poor and so proud and so honest they spend all their lives 
 working hard for shed and doughnut money. . . . And 
 if the farmers won't give 'em meals, loot the henhouses and 
 the orchards and truck-gardens; get together in a bunch and 
 hold up some small village or, if they must be city-folk, 
 then when they're out of a job, heave a brick through a win- 
 dow and say : 'I did it. Now put me in jail and feed and clothe 
 me.' That's what I do when things are awful tough; and if 
 everybody was like me, the big gees who're running the game 
 'ud soon get sore on building jails and supporting half the
 
 144 God's Man 
 
 population in 'em, and they'd make it more tempting-like 
 for them to work they'd have to give 'em something better 
 than the minimum dough and the maximum sweat. Cause 
 the big gees 'ud have to support their families if they didn't. 
 . . . People's own fault for being titmice. 'Poor but re- 
 spectable;' 'work their fingers to the bone sooner'n go to the 
 workhouse/ 'sooner die than go to jail.' All right. Such 
 saps deserve all they get no sympathy coming. They won't 
 learn the game, so they gotta be taught. Then they all start 
 at once. The} r 're learning now fast. More young fellows 
 going in for being yeggs and grafters, more girls going on the 
 town all good business." He chuckled and licked his lips. 
 "We'll have one of those revolutions here, soon. Glory be ! 
 I only hope I'm alive for it. That 'ud be worth living for. Ha ! 
 Ha !" He went off into fits of laughter. "In the shuffle when 
 the present bosses lose their jobs and their heads I might 
 grab one of their jobs myself. I know how to talk biggity 
 and that's the main thing with the mob. I can see 'ern now 
 knockin' casks of fine old wines open with axes up there on 
 Fifth Avenue, sitting with their arms around swell women's 
 waists after they've croaked the women's husbands and lis- 
 tening to me talk by torchlight. Me with the swellest lady 
 of the lot. Can't you see her ?" 
 
 His face had lit up with such sensuous pleasure that Arnold 
 turned away in disgust ; yet, looking again, he saw it was only 
 the sensuousness of the wild animal; the man's rotund face 
 had no evil in it. This was his conception of the game. He 
 did not complain of the thorns, therefore why should he not 
 have the roses ? ... It was the face of a Faun, a Satyr, 
 a reversion to Phallic days. 
 
 "So that's your idea," he said finally, forcing the recalci- 
 trant disgust. "ISTo love for your fellow men " 
 
 "No bosh," returned Mr. Quinn. "The game always has 
 been played that way, it's being played that way now. Any 
 common girl that's extra pretty, the bosses get, nowadays, 
 don't they ? Well, just turn the tables on 'em. That's fair,
 
 How Arnold Got Out of Jail 145 
 
 eh? It ought to happened long ago if the titmice had any 
 get up and go about ? em." 
 
 II. JUSTICE FLARRITY'S COURT 
 
 He ceased abruptly at the sound of many footsteps; in 
 another minute, he, Arnold, the young Englishman next door, 
 various other cell-mates, had been pushed up-stairs into a long 
 low room where stood a camera, a man behind it. 
 
 "Here, you!" said one of the plain clothes men in charge, 
 pushing forward the Englishman who, thoroughly miserable, 
 sat and stood, in a dull apathetic daze while photographs (to 
 be labeled "suspect" until the prisoner should be convicted 
 and more comprehensively photographed under the Bertillon 
 system) were made . . . the other men also, until it came 
 to the turn of Quinn, who protested mightily, speaking of a 
 citizen's rights. 
 
 "Say you bum," shouted the burliest of the policemen, 
 and buffeted him, staggering, into a chair. Quinn rose im- 
 mediately, turning his back on the machine and facing the 
 man who had struck him, surveyed him steadily, searchingly. 
 
 "I'll get you some day for that," he said, then to Arnold : 
 "They've got no right to make us guilty. We're innocent till 
 a judge and jury decide. I ain't going to have a picture 
 hounding me all over the earth. Not me." 
 
 "Nor I," said Arnold, his heart beating high, his breath 
 coming short. "Let's see you make us," he added boldly. 
 
 "I told you," said Kirstenbaum, reminded of his apple-lump 
 and feeling it solicitously he and Wiley were there with the 
 others : "I told you, dangerous guy. . . . I'll fix you, mis- 
 ter, when you come up before the Judge," he added fiercely, 
 taking a stride toward Arnold. "I guess these 'ull look none 
 too well anyhow " He snapped a pair of steel handcuffs on 
 Arnold's wrists in that moment and position, the photogra- 
 pher snapped him. 
 
 "How do you like that?" asked Wiley, palm out, pushing
 
 146 God's Man 
 
 Arnold's head against the wall ; "you tramp, you bum. I on'y 
 wish I had you alone in a cell for one minute. . . ." Arnold 
 stumbled under his pushes and would have lashed out savagely 
 with his boot-toe, had not Quinn restrained him. 
 
 "They're looking for that to beat you up and say it was 
 self-defense," he warned. His own captor scowled. 
 
 "Go on, you/' he said, digging at him with his elbow until 
 Quinn stumbled too. This detective carried tangible evidence 
 against him, various tools with which Quinn had, at the insti- 
 gation of a cafe keeper, endeavored to adjust the meter of a 
 beer-pump, so that the great corporation supplying electricity 
 would be mulcted of half profits. These exhibits he thrust 
 beneath the Quinnian nose when the party was seated in the 
 prison omnibus, adding vindictive prophecies as to their "send- 
 ing up" powers. 
 
 "Not at all," returned Mr. Quinn with an air of great 
 purity: "the pump was out of whack. Some lawless indi- 
 vidual had done just that shocking thing you refer to, and 7 
 was trying to undo his villainy. The new owner of that cafe 
 is an honest man he's too stupid to be anything else," he 
 added with a grin. The pale young Englishman stared at 
 him sadly. 
 
 "Don't say that, my dear fellow," he urged; "I wish I'd 
 never been sent to this blasted country. You get so accustomed 
 to hearing things like that said, and reading about dishonesty 
 and hearing it called 'clever business' that you begin to believe 
 it ... this bloody America. . . ." 
 
 His captor, born in Limerick, interrupted with patriotic 
 profanity. "We don't want none of the like of yees nohow, 
 dirty Englishmen " 
 
 "Oh, the English, the English, they don't amount to much," 
 eang Mr. Quinn cheerily: "but they're a damn sight better 
 than the Irish." 
 
 "Shut it, you," growled the man from Limerick; but Mr. 
 Quinn, greatly pleased with the effect produced, continued, 
 with an air of profound contempt:
 
 How Arnold Got Out of Jail 147 
 
 "The Irish, what were they when they was free ? A lot of 
 savages always scrapping. A king a rich guy with a potato 
 patch and two pigs. And a thousand English come over and 
 licked all the kings and all the potato patches and all the 
 pigs human and otherwise. A thousand Englishmen ! I'm 
 Irish and that's what I got against my parents giving me 
 such a lousy start. A thousand Englishmen. . . ." 
 
 "Witt you cut it out ?" asked the infuriated Limericker. 
 
 "And then/' continued Mr. Quinn, shaking his head in 
 sorrow, "then the Irish come to New York and it's never been 
 fit for anything but pigs since. 'Everywhere the Irish go, 
 it's trouble, trouble, trouble,' " he sang in a high clear tenor. 
 "Irish! if I'd been born a Hunky or a Ginny, or even a 
 Yiddisher boy but Irish ! ! " 
 
 This time his discourse was terminated by a blow on the 
 jaw. "I'll learn ye, ye scut," breathed Limerick heavily, re- 
 verting to his aboriginal brogue. "Now tell the Judge why 
 I hit ye, his name's Flarrity." 
 
 Quinn turned to Arnold, holding his injured jaw. " Think 
 it'll be much trouble for Congressman Waldemar to separate 
 one Harp from one job ?" he asked. " Did you say Flarrity, 
 copper ? " Arnold had been on the verge of a protest it was 
 evident Quinn assumed Hugo's father was to have him re- 
 leased too. But this business of marked cards meant help 
 your friends, hurt your enemies, let the rest go : Quinn had 
 been his friend, had roused him from despair, had known how 
 to reach Hugo. He owed him a debt. 
 
 The wagon rattled up to the rear of Jefferson Market, the 
 prisoners pushed into the "bull-pen" a huge square room, a 
 stone-floor filthy with tobacco juice, no seats, one side open 
 to the gaze of privileged persons reporters, friends of the 
 court, political visitors, shyster lawyers "counsel." Some 
 of these latter came to the iron lattice calling various names 
 taken from the police blotters, names that promised a prob-
 
 148 God's Man 
 
 able fee: Arnold's pseudonym of Arthur Lomerdoo Mr. 
 Krafft, who had lost Arnold's slip in the office fight, had 
 given it from memory among them. Mr. Quinn's also; 
 several more, to which a few responded. 
 
 "That hall man didn't dare say anything," whispered 
 Quinn, "but he nodded to me when he got a chance, and I 
 slipped him the other caser on the sly. He'll not tell your 
 friend where we are. Don't bother with these swine." 
 
 "Hats off in the court. Silence ! Silence !" they heard 
 from outside. The bull-pen commanded a sectional view of 
 the court: high desks where sat clerks and other officials, a 
 low one for stenographer and newspaper men. The vacant 
 chair in the center was filled by a man, apparently lacking 
 nothing in intelligence, in the black gown of the judiciary. 
 His coming had been the signal for the gate-man to proclaim 
 his own importance along with that of the court autocrat. 
 
 Flarrity, the descendant of Ir;sh parents, had received his 
 appointment through a connection his family had enjoyed; 
 had, in fact, been sent to law-school, where he had bravely 
 qualified for the bar, for the sole purpose of filling this judi- 
 cial position. Once appointed, Flarrity had been faithful, 
 and he seemed to take mild delight in delivering highly moral 
 lectures to the prisoners brought before him. A shrewd 
 faculty for judging cases rigidly on their merits made him 
 appear, to the average spectator, painfully just, but there 
 was hardly a case brought before him that did not appeal to 
 his sentimental or emotional side. 
 
 The young Englishman was the first to come before him 
 on this afternoon of ours : the purloiner of a cheque sent in 
 payment of a moribund account long since crossed off his 
 employer's books; this offense mitigated by a year of scru- 
 pulous honesty when he might have stolen a hundred times 
 the amount of the cheque; but, the writer of the cheque 
 turning up, had forced this prosecution. The young English- 
 man told a itory of a girl in serious trouble through him,
 
 How Arnold Got Out of Jail 149 
 
 no money for doctors' bills temptation too great just the 
 sort of story to stir Flarrity immensely. 
 
 "You are not ameliorating your offense by confessing con- 
 nivance of other criminal offenses," he said judicially. "Had 
 you been a decent man you would have married the girl 
 instead of taking advantage of her weakness, after you got 
 her into trouble anyhow. But your sort shifts the respon- 
 sibility and says you are justified by necessity in taking other 
 people's money. What an excuse ! It is as if this court had 
 killed its clerk and complained it did so to kill a fly on the 
 clerk's nose." 
 
 The Puritan prosecutor nodded approvingly, but the man 
 of misery, after being adjured to answer the unanswerable, 
 only muttered some nonsense about receiving wages too small 
 to marry on; the girl, a cloak model, needing hers for the 
 family support, her father earning too little to send the other 
 children to school. "And she'd seen too much of bringing 
 children into the world without enough money to bring them 
 up decently and give them half a chance," he said, moved 
 to sudden bitter self-forgetfulness of his present position: 
 "besides she'd lose her job if she had a child. . . ." 
 
 "Enough," interrupted Flarrity as an actor on a cue and 
 at a climax. "This court, sir, will teach you not to shirk 
 your responsibilities or to blame others. Held for the Grand 
 Jury. Two thousand ball." 
 
 Before the next name was read out, a man went through 
 the gate and engaged in whispered conversation with the 
 Justice. Some dim remembrance persisted in Arnold, he 
 could not tell why; but, when his supposed name was called 
 and he was led into the light of the crowded court room, and 
 saw the man more clearly he wondered if this man was not 
 one of those who had stepped back to give him passage from 
 Krafft's office. 
 
 The case proceeded in the regular way, the Justice asking 
 a question now and then, Arnold replying rather gruffly but
 
 150 God's Man 
 
 with clearness and conviction. Evidently Flarrity was im- 
 pressed. 
 
 "Certain personal matters should never be brought into 
 legal circles," he said. "This court is a believer in the good 
 old Anglo-Saxon fashion of settling some personal differences 
 with the fists. Some officers of the law are over-zealous, now 
 and then, and I think this case an instance in point. The 
 case is dismissed.'"' 
 
 "Oh, Arnold, old pal; Arnold," Hugo Waldemar whis- 
 pered, "if you knew how I've missed you, how I hunted you. 
 It's all right now, isn't it?" And at Arnold's acquiescence, 
 he tried to hurry him down the aisle. "My car's outside. 
 Let's get out of this." 
 
 "Wait," Arnold whispered back. "Can you help me with 
 a friend who is in trouble?" And so they sat in the front 
 row while Quinn was remanded, after which Hugo signed his 
 bail-bond and Arnold said, when they met in the outside 
 corridor : 
 
 "No ticket South, mind you. Hand over the price of it. 
 Who's 3 r our father's lawyer, Hugo? Send this fellow down 
 to see him. Now, mind, Quinn, this case is not to be settled 
 by your running away and leaving Mr. Waldemar to pay the 
 bill." 
 
 "Listen," said Mr. Quinn, with deep feeling, "any time I 
 throw down a pal." Emotion overcame him : he shook 
 Arnold's hand, then Hugo's, and giving his dented derby 
 a defiant and jaunty slap, he marched off. Sooner spend the 
 night in the streets than confess to Arnold those two yellow 
 bills were his entire capital, incurring the suspicion of mis- 
 trusting his benefactor. "There's a swell free lunch down 
 on Courtlandt Street if it ain't closed by the time I walk 
 there," said Mr. Quinn, taking in two holes of his belt. That 
 article, mildewed and rotten through much exposure to night 
 and morning dew, fell apart. 
 
 "A good thing too," said this incurable optimist. "I've
 
 How Arnold Got Out of Jail 151 
 
 been hurting my stomach pulling that belt so tight. Maybe 
 I'll get suspenders now." 
 
 So casting aside the remnants of the belt he proceeded on 
 his long walk in the best of spirits, whistling as he went. 
 
 E3TD OF BOOI II
 
 BOOK III
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 THE PINK KIMONO 
 I. ARNOLD INVESTIGATES ALONG NEW LINES 
 
 'T IS certain that the former peas- 
 ant, Ivan Vladimirovitch, knew 
 nothing of the phenomenon that 
 any act, evil or good, is a stone 
 flung into the Lake of Life, that, 
 sinking, sends out circles which 
 spread until they intersect other 
 circles, and still other circles, until 
 they intersect all circles; until all 
 life is better or worse for that one 
 act. No, he knew nothing of this, 
 nor did he realize that his circle had 
 already broadened out to sweep within it the circle of Arnold 
 L'Hommedieu. He had been properly grateful for Arnold's 
 aid in winning him the election as told by a contrite Hugo 
 was willing to draw on the privileges banked by Fourteenth 
 Street contributions; was willing to ameliorate Arnold's 
 blacklisting by Park Row, and, agreeably to Hugo's sugges- 
 tion, to make a place for him in the Waldemar office. 
 
 "You need a private secretary, Gov.," Hugo had said on 
 the night of Arnold's release; "a fellow you can trust as you 
 do yourself. Who oan act for you when you're away. Who 
 can see people- ticklish people and rub 'em right side up 
 a grentJeman. . . ."
 
 160 God's Man 
 
 Mr. "Waldemar saw the justice of this. A great believer 
 in personal justice was the Honorable Mr. Waldemar, as are 
 all such honorable gents. He had robbed Arnold of one job 
 no matter how inadvertently or unintentionally, and he should 
 therefore find him another. Moreover. . . . 
 
 "It ain't even charity, my boy," he said, hugely pleased at 
 this opportunity of combining duty with necessity. "If what 
 I'm thinking of goes through, I'll have to have somebody to 
 trust. And there's not one at my office with the intelligence. 
 They'd be faithful enough. But they'd talk. It's too 
 big. . . . 
 
 He had been planning it out for months; ever since the 
 Honorable Xoaks de Xoailles, the Member for a Louisiana 
 Bayou district had confided a secret necessity, and suggested 
 a personal favor. The terror on the Honorable Noaks' face 
 had set in motion the ponderous machinery of the Waldemar 
 vrits. . . . Koaks, Benjamin Hartogensis and some busi- 
 ness associates with ready cash were soon to meet at Walde- 
 mar House. The clerical work involved memoranda concern- 
 ing ways and means ; private books of expenditures and profits 
 would have been too much for Hugo vet secrecy was nine- 
 tenths of their capital. . . . 
 
 He had decided on Archie Hartogensis. Then he heard 
 that Archie was speculating, and no speculator in need of 
 ready money could be trusted. Young L'Hommedieu came 
 at the right moment. Bound to him by ties of gratitude, 
 Arnold could be trusted; and Arnold's intellectual prowess 
 was assured. 
 
 Therefore, when he engaged Arnold as private secretary he 
 advanced him a sufficient sum to rehabilitate himself. 
 
 "Pay it back when convenient," he said heartily. "I like 
 you, my boy. I like Hugo to be with you. I like your 
 father. I want you to feel I'm your friend. Your salary 'ull 
 be fifty a week. And, say, take the day off ; to-morrow, too, if 
 you like." 
 
 "Your Governor is a ~brick" Arnold told Huge emphat-
 
 The Pink Kimono 161 
 
 ically. Hugo was waiting in the outer office, his car outside. 
 Mr. Quinn was seated with the driver a resplendent Mr. 
 Quinn in ready-made, tawny tweeds, smoking his first whole 
 cigar in a year, and suggesting residential districts out-of- 
 the-way, quaint, reasonable. He had tramped over the city 
 and knew its every possibility. 
 
 "For a young gentleman like you, there's Beeckman Place. 
 Like a corner of London, it is. Just a quiet little run of a 
 block, back yards right down to the river with landing stages 
 to hook up a boat. And the East Eiver at night red and 
 green lights on boats and barges. And all sorts of ships. 
 And the lights of Long Island winking at you. You forget 
 you're in New York, so you do. ... There's a house for 
 rent there furnished and all, and you could get it for the 
 price of a flat anywhere else. But New York people don't 
 know about enjoying life. . . . We'd be very contented 
 there, you and me, Mr. Arnold " 
 
 Arnold looked at him and laughed ; laughed long and loud. 
 He had acquired this man, evidently, as folk acquire stray 
 dogs and cats, who follow so trustfully one can not shut the 
 door in their faces. 
 
 "You mean you'll forget your celebrated principles and do 
 the housework?" he asked, still laughing. 
 
 ". . . And can I cook Virginia ham and eggs a' morn- 
 ing?" asked Mr. Quinn, with sparkling eyes, ". . . and 
 planked shad? Can I? Say. . . ." 
 
 They drove across town to Beeckman Place, an odd corner, 
 like London, as he said ; on the extreme eastern shore of the 
 Island Arnold, like many others, had hardly realized New 
 York was an island a street of plain, quiet, brownstone 
 fronts, with elm trees in a little center square surrounded by 
 iron rails and old-fashioned wrought-iron lamp-posts with oil- 
 lamps. Several scientists lived there, Mr. Quinn informed 
 Arnold. He had clone odd jobs for both ; the wives of a num- 
 ber of sea-captains ; they who owned a large motor-boat among 
 them; some maiden ladies of ancient middle-class families,
 
 162 God's Man 
 
 who had inherited their houses; the widow of that Capfoi 
 Withers who had gone down with the Euiasi&n, . . . 
 others with histories more or less allied with the sea. It was 
 the house of a retired rigging-maker, recently deceased, a 
 Londoner, who liked to believe he was in Wapping Old Stairs, 
 his birthplace, that was for rent now. 
 
 They had picked up Miss Bobbie Beulah at the old Lafay- 
 ette, where she had waited Hugo's return, and she was wildly 
 enthusiastic over the print curtains, the cretonne hangings, 
 the old prints on the walls. Otherwise, the house had some 
 relation to a ship, was furnished with various nautical furni- 
 ture that had been originally intended for space-economy, 
 leaving wide blank stretches that corresponded with the 
 lofty ceilings. But it was the view from the rear windows 
 that decided Arnold. 
 
 A patch of ground, green in summer and dotted with roses, 
 geraniums, hydrangeas, asters and nasturtiums, now covered 
 with straw and manure, ran its sloping way, along with an 
 asphalt walk, down to a stone breakwater, where was cut a 
 flight of steps directly to the river, the bottom ones green and 
 slimy at low tide. Boats were moored by iron rings near 
 most of these, the rear of each house being a duplicate of this 
 one. And, spread before them, was the life of the river 
 tugs and ferry-boats scudding and hooting, heavy barges pass- 
 ing under spidery bridges, great ocean-going steamers, sailing 
 viraf t in tow what not ? with the green hills of Long Island 
 dim in the distance. 
 
 "Oh, you absolutely must. It's too deevy. Think of the 
 top-hole parties you can give. "What a ripper ! Topping. 
 Something most terribly awful will happen to you if you 
 don't. . . ." Thus Bobbie. While Arnold saw himself 
 seated in one of the broad bay-windows writing cynical com- 
 mentaries on life. Strange that he could have thought of 
 being cynical with so much beauty before him; but to be 
 cynical was his ambition just then. 
 
 "Guess I'm a rotten picker, eh? And all for seventy-five
 
 The Pink Kimono 163 
 
 a month. It's like finding that much a month," exclaimed Mr. 
 Quinn. He saw himself seated in a lower but quite as broad 
 window, smoking whole cigars and sending passing ships to 
 visit any enjoyable countries he desired to remember. 
 
 A qualm smote Arnold. He could not afford even at his 
 generous wages so much rent with heat and lighting addi- 
 tional. But this unwelcome intruder he dismissed angrily. 
 He would deny himself no pleasure hereafter. If he had not 
 enough money, let others pay. He was through considering 
 his duties as a citizen and such rot. He had done all that 
 and what had he got for it? Jail. While, for violating 
 those duties, he was out of jail and about to hire a house. His 
 friends and himself, ... let the others go hang. 
 
 "I'll take it, Quinn," he said. "And, say, Bobbie, let's 
 have a party to open it a house-warming ! You know a lot 
 of jolly girls, eh ? Pick a pretty one for me and ask her how 
 she'd like me to keep a regular room for her." He laughed 
 recklessly. He'd enjoy life while he had the chance ; all that 
 foolishness he had mucked around with before let other fools 
 try that. For him, one of Bobbie's pretty show-girl friends, 
 . . . a pink kimono hanging in the room next door, 
 . . . her wearing it sometimes with the coffee percolator 
 between them on fine sunny mornings. That was life. . . . 
 If fifty dollars a week was too little, he'd find a way to get 
 more. A clever fellow like himself could get money easily 
 enough in a town where half the fools were rich. To hell 
 with all that foolishness about being given brains to help 
 make a better world. . . . 
 
 He laughed again, zestful of life. "Tell you what, Bobbie, 
 we'll get Archie " There had been a stag reunion of the 
 Three Musketeers the night before. "He's going stale over 
 that girl of his. We'll get him and you get two of your pret- 
 tiest friends, and we'll have a regular time a real time. 
 Pick out one for me who isn't ^booked solid' anywhere. Then 
 we'll repeat the operation when I move in here. What say ?" 
 
 He thought of the pink kimono again and his cheeks took
 
 164 God's Man 
 
 on its color. And at the same moment pink kimono ! the 
 Little One Velvet Voice. . . . 
 
 "You're not attending," said Bobbie in severe raillery, and 
 with that nice new enunciation she picked up since she had 
 become a lady queer, hurried, jumbled, choking, affected 
 mannerisms learned from provincial English actors, who pre- 
 tend to portray sporting aristocrats "I was telling you about 
 Alberta Arden. . . . Bertie, dear old girl, top-hole she 
 is; perfectly ripping. . . . She'll buck you up a bit; 
 you need it, old dear. You'd get on like billy-o " 
 
 Arnold looked at her in amazement. ISTo wonder these 
 American chorus-girls married English lords. Hugo had had 
 her in training just a year or so and here she was talking 
 what he took for the jargon of St. James. 
 
 "Why don't you go back to the stage, Bobbie?" Arnold 
 asked quite honestly. She, so occupied in her pose, failed to 
 see the connection, assuring him radiantly that she intended 
 to. Would be in rehearsal shortly ; a real part. At which an 
 harassed look came to Hugo's face and he hurried the talk 
 back to her soubrette friend who was to meet Arnold that 
 night if she was free. 
 
 Free ! The word took on a different significance applied 
 to his neighbor of the Hotel Tippecanoe. Free? At the 
 machine now, her eyes strained and red. The hanging pink 
 kimono suddenly ceased to be desirable; his proposed party 
 lacked interest. Who shall say what would have happened 
 had she not left the Tippecanoe on the previous night, she and 
 her friend, Miss Smith "the little lady foreign," the clerk 
 explained. "No, they didn't give no address." "Was there 
 a man with them a young fellow?" "Two on 'em swell 
 dressers gay birds." The clerk winked. "Spenders, too. 
 Gi' me a good cigar, I kin tell you. . . ." 
 
 Something heavy smote Arnold somewhere. He dragged 
 himself up the creaking stairs and packed listlessly. The 
 door to Velvet Voice's room was unlocked. How dirty it 
 was! He couldn't blame her. So the other had been a
 
 The Pink Kimono 165 
 
 wrong one, after all. lie had suspected it; those ki- 
 monos. . . . 
 
 Again he saw the pink one hanging in the Beeckman Place 
 house. "Hell," he said aloud. "She's dead right dead 
 right." But the word "dead" had an ugly sound. Then, as 
 he stood at her open door, suit-case in hand, he saw some torn 
 and twisted pieces of rubber hose on the floor the giant nip- 
 ple split. He noted dully, as people do when the mind is too 
 stunned for thought and occupies itself with registering, me- 
 chanically, infinitesimal details, that the black rubber had a 
 red lining. . . . 
 
 It was to have been his persuasions that would cause her 
 to destroy that. Instead it had been a gay bird's, a swell 
 dresser's, a spender's, a giver of good cigars, under whose 
 escort she had departed to something better than this any- 
 how. And because he was now at the cynical stage, there 
 seemed only one solution. 
 
 "She did damn' right," he said, aloud again, "damn 
 right." 
 
 "What did you say the girl's name was, Bobbie ?" he asked 
 as he rejoined the waiting motor-party. "Bertie! that's 
 rather a jolly name, what?" He was mimicking, but only 
 Hugo noticed it. 
 
 "Top-hole," agreed Bobbie serenely. 
 
 "But has she got a pink kimono that's what 7 want to 
 know. If she hasn't, let's stop at Van Alstyne's and buy her 
 one, right now. Until a pink kimono hangs in Beeckman 
 Place it'll never be home, sweet home, to me " 
 
 Mr. Quinn, drowsing on the driver's seat, smiled an ap- 
 proving satyr's smile, and thought of the plump-armed aris- 
 tocrat whose waist he would encircle during the American 
 Commune. And then he tried to fit Arnold's last words to 
 various popular tunes. 
 
 "You fancy yourself, don't you? Doesn't he fancy him- 
 self, Hugo ? You men are all alike. . . ." 
 
 Of such fresh original observations, delivered in just such
 
 166 God's Man 
 
 affected voices, was the speech of Arnold's female friends 
 composed for some time to come. 
 
 II. THE KIMONO HANGS IN BEECKMAN PLACE 
 
 It is as well we do not spy on him for the week that fol- 
 lowed, when he came face to face with the possibilities of his 
 nature along lines he had never investigated save on sudden 
 imperative impulses, which had heen regretted too bitterly to 
 allow frequent recurrences. But, then, in school and college, 
 he was to have heen a parson; his every act must be calcu- 
 lated, not as Arnold's, but as the future incumbent's of the 
 family pulpit. So he had forced an ascetism to amaze Sir 
 Lucas or the Chevalier Etienne, sons of freer sexual ages. 
 And, after the crash, his K"ew York days had been devoted, 
 outside working hours, to the companionship of books of 
 lofty ideals, to preparatory scribbling for the great work he 
 was to do making a better world. 
 
 But in that first week of his new life he ran riot ; the pink 
 kimono hung where he had wished there had been no diffi- 
 culty about that. For the first time he had devoted his mind 
 altogether to the conquest of a woman and had the fierce joy 
 of realizing it was in his power, quite without love on his 
 part, to have a girl, beautiful and desired, cling about his 
 neck with passionate endearments and reproaches for loving 
 her too little, knowing meanwhile that other men provided 
 for her as Hugo for Bobbie, being rewarded only with tolera- 
 tion. 
 
 "She'll do for herself with old Gayton if she don't watch 
 out," Bobbie had said. "Hasn't seen the old rotter since she 
 met you. It's a rotten shame, Arnold, if you don't care " 
 
 "Oh, I care well enough," he had responded indifferently; 
 and Bobbie had vented a vexed little laugh. How could Bertie 
 go on- being her chum if old Gayton ceased to be Bertie's har- 
 vest-moon ? 
 
 It had been with the utmost difficulty that Arnold had per-
 
 The Pink Kimono 167 
 
 suaded this girl she could not come down to Havre de Grace 
 for the week-end of Waldemar's convention, putting up at a 
 hotel. "Hotel/' he had laughed; "at the Inn every bellboy 
 calls me by my first name; they work as a favor to the pro- 
 prietor they call him 'Henry.' Can you imagine me daring 
 to come up to your room? and my dad the pastor of the 
 church yes, and granddad and great-granddad. Now, 
 don't start that 'This is no Place for a Minister's Son' " 
 
 "They're always the biggest devils ministers' sons," de- 
 clared the tear-stained beauty. "Oh, Arnold, you haven't got 
 a sweetheart down there? Promise me you won't go to see 
 her if you have. Swear you won't. Oh, but what's the use 
 of swearing. I couldn't believe you. Oh, why did I have 
 to fall in love with you and be miserable all my life " 
 
 Proving that a rollicking life has its reckonings also. She 
 kept him so long that the Waldemar car came near to starting 
 without him. The Honorable Noaks de Noailles was in it, 
 huddled up in a fur coat and traveling rugs, in anticipation 
 of the bitter winter-trip. Mr. Hartogensis was to come over 
 when they arrived, and the other future investors nonenti- 
 ties, Urquhart and Albee and Arthurs would catch the four 
 o'clock express.
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 CONSPIEACY DE LUX 
 
 AKNOLD BECOMES A GOOD BUSINESS MAN 
 
 ITHIN the city limits the giant 
 car traveled at a discreet law- 
 abiding pace, but after crossing 
 the great bridge and passing 
 through Long Island City se- 
 cure in heavy non-skidding tires 
 the car ceased to be a car and 
 became a purple comet, yet giv- 
 ing its occupants so little shock 
 that they played cards at a fold- 
 ing table. 
 
 Before Arnold realized it they 
 had come within sight of fa- 
 miliar hills and houses and were passing down the deep 
 ravine that led into his native town. Lordly, snow-capped 
 heights rising on either side of him, and there just ahead 
 was "Harbor View/' old Miss Eastknicky's place, where 
 often his mother had taken him for tea ; where he had cinna- 
 mon buns, but, better still, could view a panorama of earth 
 and sky "The End of the World" which in later years he 
 knew for the Connecticut shore. 
 
 What is that strange flavor that childhood gives to the 
 merest commonplaces; that strange ineradicable flavor that 
 is a lifelong remembrance when we recall trifling incidents 
 of childhood days? And how we try to rediscover that
 
 Conspiracy De Lux 169 
 
 fragrance ; but it is not to be had even in our triumphs ; the 
 time and money we spend to duplicate it, knowing it lies 
 ever behind, but assuring ourselves it is over the next 
 hill. . . . 
 
 This fragrance of remembrance poured upon Arnold now 
 with such an unimportant reminiscence as old Miss East- 
 knicky's cinnamon buns and the far-off sailing ships entering 
 the narrow harbor channel every one pirates, or returning 
 with musk-scented cargoes from Oriental adventures. . . . 
 
 "If I couldn't play a flush better than that, . . ." the 
 senior Waldemar reproved jovially. But Arnold laid down 
 his cards. "Tired of playing," his excuse. He wanted to 
 sit back and watch the snow fly under their wheels and breathe 
 that fantastic fragrance. . . . There was the great 
 swing of the road and the little chalet-like house pierced with 
 Revolutionary bullets, . . . soon the L'Hommedieu 
 cross could be seen atop the tallest trees. 
 
 If he could only go on afoot, trudge homeward through 
 the heavy snowfall ! The comfortable electric-heat of the 
 car became suddenly distasteful to him, remembering those 
 long voyages of exploration in snow-time; the colder he got 
 the more the great fire at home would overjoy him; when, 
 sprawled with a book, he would read until supper-time, his 
 mother knitting near by, or making her boys shirts, their 
 father emerging from his study as it darkened outside to 
 read the New York morning paper the mail had just brought, 
 and to speak on affairs of the day and the lesson of the news- 
 paper. . . . His present companions had been painted 
 in many of those talks, prophetically recognized from the 
 trend of public opinion. 
 
 "... A new governing class, growing in power, a class 
 made possible by treating money as merchandise without 
 "business honor or any conception of rich men's duty to the 
 country. Our kind of people the inheritors of honor must 
 work all the harder to make every man realize the claim every 
 human being has upon the gifts of God, and if one has more
 
 170 God's Man 
 
 than one's share, to give with both hands. "We must make 
 the new class realize real happiness can never come from self- 
 gratification in the end. . . " 
 
 Well, the dear old dad had been wrong ; but as Harbor and 
 Sound swung into view and the centuries-old cross of his 
 family's crest shone in the snow-glare, Arnold wished his 
 father were right; for, somehow, the fragrance was fading. 
 There was only snow and hills and houses, . . . and so he was 
 glad when the car panted up Sycamore Hill and under the 
 porte-cochere of Waldemar House, where one was in New 
 York again, a man-servant to attend him to his room, to lay 
 out his evening clothes and appurtenances, to draw his bath. 
 The bedroom might have been one in a superior Avenue. 
 hotel ; only the drifting snow on the oaks, whose gnarled arms 
 seemed grasping at the windows, reminded one New York 
 was miles away, . . . and the shining harbor lights 
 winking through the snow, and once the approach of the Con- 
 necticut passenger-boat, swinging broadside on like a glimpse 
 of elf-land in the snowstorm, its lighted port-holes above and 
 below decks crowded with little black people. How he had 
 watched for that elf-ship those winter nights long past, 
 crouched breathless in the library bay-window, peering 
 through a toy telescope, sweeping the Sound about the Green 
 Sands Light for the big boat to appear, crawling like a lumi- 
 nous beetle out of black depths and distances. 
 
 He threw open his window, undressed as he was, breathing 
 the snowy piney air, and thrusting out his head for the sight 
 of that very bay-window; to shock his attendant into horror 
 regarding his health. So he resumed his dressing, donning 
 a perfect dinner-coat from Hugo's tailor, the most expensive 
 tailor in New York. 
 
 In the long, low, Gobelin-tapestried dining-hall he saw that 
 the nonentities had arrived Urquhart, Albee and Arthurs 
 monotonous duplicates of one another, with stiff single-stud 
 shirts, square white waistcoats, loose dress-coats, untidy, life- 
 less hair what there was of it ; barring them from the leaping
 
 Conspiracy De Lux 171 
 
 log-fire the portly, red-faced Hartogensis in his velvet waist- 
 coat and amethyst buttons, and the tall Lonisianian, De Noail- 
 les, in a sloping-shouldered, high-collared dress-coat and nar- 
 row tight trousers ancient aristocrats by comparison. Walde- 
 mar was a compromise ; his clothes and linen were impeccable, 
 but his neckwear was badly tied, his hair was in a cow-lick. 
 Arnold suddenly felt the superiority that perfect groom- 
 ing gives; answered monosyllabically weather prophecies 
 from the nonentities, who, it appeared later, were slightly 
 nervous concerning the nature of certain dishes and the sil- 
 verware that would not insult their purpose. And so they 
 passed by those dishes that presented the most perplexing 
 problems. Would they, free citizens, betray to those in the 
 livery of servitude their lack of security in negotiating por- 
 tions from platter to plate ? It was plain they were starving 
 in the midst of plenty. Arnold wondered what Waldemar 
 wanted with such proofs of the social inequality of men. He 
 had imagined none was invited to Waldemar House who could 
 not further their host socially. It appeared these were whole- 
 sale druggists from near-by cities ; Urquhart, an elder of the 
 Presbyterian church, very strict about not taking wine ; Albee 
 wearing an Epworth League button in his dress-coatdoubt- 
 less it was seldom in use except for such activities; Arthurs, 
 a little, spry sprat, Baltimore Alderman and Unitarian. 
 These affiliations, convictions and details were disclosed as 
 they talked ; all three men were of the limited mentalities that 
 can discuss only personal affairs. Arnold was amused to 
 discover that the Presbyterian and the Dutch Eeformed gen- 
 tlemen regarded the Unitarian as little better than an atheist ; 
 while De Noailles, a Catholic, whispered scornfully to Arnold 
 of '^bourgeois beliefs." What would the lot of them think 
 of the L'Hommedieus who had acknowledged no church, were 
 ordained only by the head of the family? The form seemed 
 to be the important thing in the religion of Waldemar's 
 guests, with Waldemar, too, as a heavy contributor to the ex- 
 penses of the most fashionable Avenue church hence, like
 
 172 God's Man 
 
 Squire Hartogensis, and for the same reason, a devout Epis- 
 copalian. . . . Later, when Arnold heard the reason for 
 the gathering it seemed a most sinister, satiric thing that 
 they should have wrangled about religion on this of all nights. 
 
 A footman served the coffee in the library an acre of un- 
 handled volumes, whose rich tooling was the key-panel of a 
 general color-scheme of purple. A butler poured ancient 
 liqueur brandy as one administering a sacred rite. Walde- 
 mar rose after the servants' departure and locked the doors. 
 Squire Hartogensis was speaking on the difference between 
 these decadent days and those when a man would have been 
 kicked out of his father's club for applying recent principles 
 to business as then practised. Waldemar waved all this 
 aside. 
 
 "jSTobody but me and De Noailles knows why this meeting's 
 called, do they? No, nor'd never guess. Jones bring you 
 paper and pencils ?" This last to Arnold, who nodded. The 
 others shook their heads, one of the nonentities adding in 
 guileful pleasantry that he had heard there was money in it, 
 and that was good enough for J. A. 
 
 "Money !" said Waldemar enthusiastically. "Say. . . . 
 Enough to satisfy Morgan! It's so big and I'm so busy 
 . . . that you're declared in " he nodded to the nonenti- 
 ties. "Mr. de Noailles gave me the idea; the Squire's my 
 friend and neighbor and I thought he might like to turn the 
 ready into three hundred per cent. . . . I'm putting all 
 my ready in; so's Mr. de Noailles " 
 
 "Three hundred per cent.," gasped a nonentity. "Why, 
 that's gambling. . . ." The objection had a religious 
 flavor, but it was really the risk that appalled him. The 
 other nonentities, also of this mind, nodded approval. 
 
 "Gambling," jeered Mr. Waldemar jovially. "You'd call 
 it gambling to put your money in a savings bank; it might 
 fail. This can't even do that. Inside information, gentle- 
 men, that's it. Wall Street tips come from Congress some- 
 times. This is one tip the Street don't get. Won't be public
 
 Conspiracy De Lux 173 
 
 in two months. Then we that is Congress, 'ur goin' to 
 pass some Anti- Opium Laws, smoking-opium. A good, safe, 
 pop-lar-administration measure. Eespectable people who use 
 it, thousands of 'em, 'ud be afraid to let anybody know; those 
 that ain't respectable what's it matter how much they kick? 
 And the Chinamen, who sell most of it, ain't got any votes. 
 . . . The Administration's been a little too easy on the 
 big businesses and they got to put something over that looks 
 moral as hell, but that don't offend nobody and this is it. 
 . . . Ko more smoking-opium to be brought in or made 
 here neither." 
 
 "Damned hypoquits," exploded the irascible De Noailles. 
 "Catch 'em pass such a law about whisky that does a thousand 
 times moah ha'hm than hop does. . . ." He was fur- 
 ther aroused by dissenting murmurs. "I say it does, suh," 
 he reiterated to Hartogensis, who had murmured the loudest. 
 "But the big whisky people are rich and respected, leading 
 citizen, by Goahd! And ev'eybody drinks it in high-class 
 clubs and bahs. And all the district leaders own saloons or 
 get a piece of the profits somehow. Imagine, a large glass 
 for five cents. Rank poison that rots out yoah guts; wuhss 
 than that sends men out to scrap and murder, to beat up 
 wives and chillen. Look at police coht records; see if most 
 muhders don't come from drunks. . . . Drunks from 
 what ? Whisky !" 
 
 He threw out an orator's hand and went on in hoarse 
 anger: "But the United States Government only bahs ab- 
 sinthe. No moah absinthe to be imported. Why? Deadly 
 drug, they say. But the real reason's that it's made in France 
 and Italy and Switzehland and drunk by people whose votes 
 don't count ; so it isn't sufficiently profitable to the politicians 
 who keep saloons to make protesting wuth while. That's the 
 soht of mohality we throw to the refohmers hypoquits, too, 
 most of 'em. What a country ruled by crazy people all try- 
 ing to hide something by pointing fingers at the next fel- 
 low. . . . And now hop."
 
 174 God's Man 
 
 He paused to light a cigarette, glaring at the nonentities, 
 whom he took to typify the mob he hated; De Noailles, de- 
 scendant of French aristocrats. 
 
 "Why, just look at the effects of drink. Ef yoah doan' 
 want to punch somebody's nose, or split open his haid, yoah 
 go crazy after women, any kind of women. Half those on 
 the street 'ud be back scrubbing fioahs if whisky was ruled 
 out. But hop makes yoah quiet, reflective, philosophical; 
 yoah wouldn't care if all the women died. Of co'se ef you 
 eat it as mo'phine or laudanum or hehoin or codeine it has 
 bad effects, but even then not one-tenth what whisky has. 
 The scientific way to take it without any ill effect, ef yoah use 
 it in moderation, is smoking it. Fiah destroys the dangerous 
 gases, a sort of filteh arrangement catches the heavy mineral 
 residuum that would huht the stomach. . . . It's a sure 
 anodyne for consumption and heart-disease. Why, the doc- 
 tors gave me up and my Chinese servant saved me. Twenty- 
 five years ago that was, and all that time Ah've smoked." 
 
 The three nonentities drew away from him. Arthurs' weak 
 little mouth tightened, Urquhart's grim Presbyterian eyes 
 narrowed, Albee looked his pious horror. Squire Hartogen- 
 sis cleared his throat as though to make a protest, on behalf 
 of his class, against any such confessions. A gentleman 
 should keep his personal affairs to himself. All of which 
 the thin hawk-faced Southerner noted with grim amusement. 
 
 "During that time," he continued triumphantly, "Ah have 
 won a position higheh than that of any one heah ; have made 
 a name that everybody down South knows. Ah've been in 
 Congress twelve yeahs. And when Ah went to a great spe- 
 cialist recently he didn't even detect tubercle germs, said 
 physically Ah was sound. . . . And that's the stuff this 
 hypoquitical govehment of ouhs is going to bah out. . . . 
 Ah smoked half an houh befoah dinneh. Do Ah look crazy 
 or dreamy? No! All those lies about wild dreams were 
 invented by doctohs to scare people away from it. Eead De- 
 Quincey you doan' git any dreams unless yoah take too much.
 
 Conspiracy De Lux 175 
 
 Why, if you took opium away from the doctors they'd be 
 helpless to cuah pain cocaine doesn't half fill the bill. . . . 
 And look at the distinguished men who've used it DeQuin- 
 cey, Wilberforce, Coleridge, Wilkie Collins Ah could name a 
 hundred. Yes, and theah's millions nobody knows about. Do 
 you realize moah white men use it than Chinese ? And that's 
 wheah ouh scheme comes in. ... Mistuh Waldemah 
 will tell you about it." 
 
 He sat down. Waldemar arose before the startled listen- 
 ers could recover. 
 
 "More white men than Chinese you heard the Honorable 
 Mr. de Noailles. And most of them right here in the United 
 States. Over two million, gentlemen. Now, what are they 
 going to do about their law the law that makes it a crime 
 to import it? Of course, a lot will be smuggled in. Men 
 will always take chances for a three-hundred-per-cent. profit 
 four and five hundred per cent, on small smuggling deals. 
 But the smuggled stuff won'l be enough not near a thou- 
 sandth enough. So it 'ull be manufactured here from the 
 crude gum the kind I import in bales and sell to you, Jus- 
 tus." He addressed Arthurs from Baltimore. "You, Eaton 
 and Andrew," the nonentities from Philadelphia and Pitts- 
 burg. 
 
 "But," added De Noailles, reminding him, "the congres- 
 sional committee on this bill put on a devilish ingenious 
 dodger, making it illegal foah any gum opium to pass through 
 the Customs without being fuhst drenched in oil oil easily 
 removed by the processes you gentlemen use to make yoah 
 mo'phine, codeine and hehoin tablets, but vehy destructive to 
 smoking-opium, becahse it leaves a vehy disagreeable taste 
 and makes it extra inflammable. So that the gum opium 
 impohted afteh the passage of this law will make an infehioh 
 smoking brand." 
 
 Waldemar nodded. "Now, I wonder if you understand our 
 plan ? The passage of this bill will kite the price of smoking- 
 opium. A an of it used to sell for five dollars five dollars
 
 176 God's Man 
 
 for less than a pound. When the factories in China were 
 closed" 
 
 <r Which was to please the Japs, who don't want Chinese to 
 be gentle and peaceful like opium makes them, but to be ready 
 to fight/' inserted De Xoailles rapidly. 
 
 "Why, the price went up," Waldemar continued. "And 
 after this bill is passed and becomes a law it'll go up to forty 
 the can, retail; finally settle around thirty. And there's our 
 three hundred per cent. We buy up all the gum opium we 
 can get now I" 
 
 "But the makking of the smokking-oppium we knaw 
 nawthing of that" said Andrew Urquhart anxiously in his 
 harsh Yankee-Scotch. He was glad now he had advanced no 
 religious scruples against trafficking in the drug. His com- 
 panion nonentities assented greedily, hoping the difficulty 
 would be removed. Such a simple, obvious and easy money- 
 making scheme had never before come within their ken. 
 
 "We don't need to," answered Waldemar, winking. "What's 
 more, we don't want to. To have it in your possession is 
 illegal. We might be raided, our stuff might be seized. Any- 
 how, we'd have to pay rake-offs to those who could seize it 
 police and customs-people." He winked again prodigiously. 
 "You wouldn't suggest we break the law, Andrew?" 
 
 The Scotch Presbyterian blushed and blustered and the 
 Unitarian and the Dutch Reformed man hid their greedy 
 smiles and waited. 
 
 "They will attend to that/' said De Koailles, impatient at 
 Waldemar's cunning glances and roguish look; "the people 
 who buy from us the people who sell to the smokehs them- 
 selves the private manufacturehs the keepehs of smoking- 
 dens. They know how. All we do is sell it to them: have 
 a few such wukking for us in every city and privately spread- 
 ing the news, making sales on commission. We need only to 
 insist that the people we sell it to regularly have lettah-heads 
 printed 'Thomas Jones, M. D.,' or 'Doctah Smith' like the 
 peddlehs of mo'phin and cocaine have printed, Waldemah
 
 Conspiracy De Lux 177 
 
 tells me, to protect him and you when yoah sell them 
 stuff. . . ." 
 
 The three nonentities frowned. Their religion taught them 
 to believe in those letter-heads not to imagine that their 
 brothers would stoop to such low deceit. They were sorry 
 Waldemar did not believe, too. "Oh, I dare say many of them 
 are doctors," said Albee stiffly. The other nonentities agreed 
 warmly that there was no doubt many were. "And how can 
 we tell the false ones?" asked Arthurs pathetically. Arnold 
 could hardly resist the temptation to remind them that lists 
 of qualified physicians were published ; but he remembered in 
 time he was the employee of the man who wished to gain their 
 support, and so was silent. Let the affair be conducted in the 
 usual hypocritical way. Once solitary, before these piDars 
 of the church were abed that night, each would have persuaded 
 himself he was actually saving souls. Arnold's bitterness 
 against average respectability waxed as he watched them, and 
 he had heard that ancient Scottish fraud say before dinner 
 that he was deep in the secretarial work of a Vice Crusade ! 
 Such regret as Arnold had for that unregenerate week just 
 past regret stirred by the sight of familiar places and by 
 the proximity of father and family church was rapidly 
 erased as the night's business drew to an end. 
 
 He calculated estimates, added up theoretical figures, made 
 notes of ways and means, did the necessary clerical work of a 
 meeting where large sums were pledged and shares and prob- 
 able divisions of profits must be set down ; did all these things 
 without comment, as mechanically as any adding machine. 
 It was as well none of the partners had pyschic gifts; par- 
 ticularly none of the nonentities. . . . Submit as he 
 might in action, Arnold was never to yield anything but con- 
 tempt for rascals, no matter how high their places ; and to sit 
 there calmly and hear Benjamin Hartogensis, Esquire, and 
 the three nonentities persuaded that they might do this thing, 
 yet remain substantial copes and cornices of rectitude, was a 
 nasty draft, nastier when one must pretend it was pleasant.
 
 178 God's Man 
 
 Squire Hartogensis, even, had the wit to answer his own 
 objections for fear others would find them too difficult ; though 
 sighing as usual for the good old days. In his father's club 
 men who went in for such a thing as this would be expelled 
 undoubtedly. But, then, these were not days like those ; one 
 could not stem the mighty current of commerce. "No doubt 
 when I leave my cash balances with my Trust Company they 
 do not hesitate to invest them for their own profit in ventures 
 less to my taste than this one. . . ." 
 
 "If you depositors only knew how your money was in- 
 vested," said the Honorable Noaks de Noailles significantly, 
 as one well aware of shocking details humanity would not 
 permit him to relate. . . . The nonentities grasped 
 eagerly at this. They invested their profits like simple 
 godly men; they did not make their wealth a stench in the 
 nostrils, a bad example to the rising generation, with wine- 
 suppers, gambling, Scarlet Women, Babylonish lechery gen- 
 erally, as might those intrusted with their capital on interest. 
 They had heard of those Trust Company officials and young 
 bankers. . . . At least, their money went to promote god- 
 liness and right living. They were "forward-looking" men ! 
 
 "They're saving souls already," Arnold thought in savage 
 dismay, suppressing himself with difficulty. They pledged 
 themselves soon after that. John Waldemar, ISToaks de 
 Noailles, Benjamin Hartogensis, Andrew Urquhart, Eaton 
 Albee, Justus Arthurs 
 
 "And A. L'Hommedieu, please," said Arnold, rising. Wal- 
 demar rose too and stared at him. So successfully had Ar- 
 nold played machine that his employer had forgotten he, too, 
 might have human cupidity. 
 
 "I don't understand," said Waldemar. 
 
 "I merely wish to invest my modest share," Arnold an- 
 swered. "One thousand, gentlemen. Think how much bet- 
 ter it is to have no one know our affairs except those finan- 
 cially interested. Have I your permission ?" 
 
 R was a bold thing to do, but it was in line with the night's
 
 Conspiracy De Lux 179 
 
 proceedings. A hold-up, nothing less, for John Waldemar 
 knew Arnold had no thousand to invest in anything. "So 
 this was his gratitude," was Waldemar's first angry thought; 
 then he grinned. The boy was playing good poker; he had 
 made no private demands upon him, his friend, only upon the 
 company upon them all ! Shrewd business ! His opinion 
 of Arnold was heightened. 
 
 "Put it down, partner," he guffawed heartily. "Partners 
 all ! You have only to send your checks to-morrow and we'll 
 begin scattering orders. India, China, Ceylon, Burma in all 
 our names. Deliveries to each except our last young part- 
 ner. Mr. de Noailles has his warehouses, too tobacco ware- 
 houses. But the tobacco won't kick. Time enough to or- 
 ganize our selling force when the stuff comes. ... A 
 dock-and-doris all around to our success " And he began 
 to fill the glasses. 
 
 "It'll no be saidd of Andre Urquhart that he everr touched 
 a drapp of the stuff," persisted the Scottish fraud stubbornly 
 when Waldemar tried all persuasions to get him to add native 
 to his Scotch soda. At which Eaton Albee, a prop of the 
 temperance societies of Philadelphia, weakly acquiesced and 
 set down his own glass. But the other nonentity, a secret 
 drinker, derived too much that was exquisite in sensual pleas- 
 ure at this excuse to give way to his failing in public. His 
 weak eyes watered with anticipated pleasure; he only feared 
 his looks would betray him. So he drank with pretended 
 amateurishness, making a wry face and anxiously scanning 
 for possible suspicion the eyes of his brother wholesalers. In 
 the face of his remark that it was nasty stuff there was noth- 
 ing for a youthful cynic to do but refill his glass and drink 
 slowly, smacking his lips. De Noailles regarded his action 
 sourly. 
 
 "Only a nightcap," said Arnold, moved to apology. . . . 
 
 "More harm in what you just took than in all I 
 smoke in a day," said De Noailles, then yawned jaw-break- 
 ingly, reminded that he needed his night-cap. He said good
 
 180 God's Man 
 
 night and hastened off, the nonentities following, Waldemar 
 seeing Hartogensis to the door. The Squire had avoided 
 scrupulously the inclusion of Arnold in his general good 
 night. 
 
 "In my father's day," he said to Waldemar outside, "a 
 young man like L'Hommedieu "would have found himself 
 persona non grata with men of honor. The customs of to-day 
 forbid my cutting him, hut there is enough left of my father 
 in me that refuses, at least, to shake him by the hand." 
 
 "I'll take your note for three months, partner," said Walde- 
 mar, returning to the library and finding Arnold there. Part 
 of the former moujilc's success had been in making ugly 
 things graceful, and he knew Arnold had lingered to discuss 
 that thousand dollars he did not have. Waldemar clapped 
 his shoulder heartily. "I don't forget my friends," he added. 
 Which slightly shamed Arnold as -to his ruse. 
 
 "You see, . . ." he began to explain. 
 
 'That's all right, my lad," said Waldemar. "It was good 
 business. Good night." 
 
 Arnold had begun to capitalize his clevernesa.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 THE GAY LIFE 
 I. AT ROCAMORA'S RESTAURANT 
 
 THE weeks and months that 
 |ff followed Arnold became one of the 
 Silk-Hat brigade, those noble New 
 Yorkers who spend their nights 
 endeavoring to lift our restaurants 
 to the appearance of Parisian ones, 
 our theaters to the appearance of 
 London ones, to companion whom 
 has arisen a race of young women, 
 ex-convent girls, who might have 
 been debutantes but preferred the 
 stage ! 
 
 The resulting society resembles the real thing so closely 
 that, when those others who had admittance to Newport's 
 Holy of Holies came to dance at the supper-places, it was 
 difficult to tell the varieties apart. 
 
 Carol Caton differed in no salient respect from Bobbie 
 Beulah or Bertie Arden. It was the business of both to 
 crack the whip over their males, to urge them to further 
 efforts to pay large bills for lingerie and the latest modes gen- 
 erally; and for jewelry, motor-cars, theater -boxes, foreign 
 travel. Both "loved" to dance until daybreak, to parade the 
 Avenue in automobiles. Both talked vivaciously during per- 
 formances of the "adored" pianola and phonograph ragtime. 
 Neither read much of anything, unless some one had a vogue,
 
 182 God's Man 
 
 except fiction with bon-bon wrappers and contents to match; 
 attending Shavian or Maeterlinckian performances for the 
 same reason that took them to the Opera the "best people" 
 would be there. 
 
 "The only difference between you is that until your kind 
 wears wedding-rings, you aren't allowed the freedom of the 
 city/' said Arnold to Carol one night in Eocamora's. When 
 she desired a tango a smart young matron Mrs. Bruce Pick- 
 ens with a habit of divorces and none for babies, accom- 
 panied her as chaperon. Her husband was a South Carolina 
 Pickens, which guaranteed her as a social cicerone; but he 
 was generally South attending to the family cotton-mills, so 
 his wife was glad to chaperon one who gave her an excuse to 
 visit the supper-places. Archie Hartogensis paid the bills. 
 Arnold's remark on wedding-rings was made while Archie 
 and Mrs. Pickens taxicabed twenty blocks south to procure 
 that lady's special brand of cigarettes. 
 
 "I've heard about you, Arnold," replied Carol in deep 
 sorrow. "I don't expect you to have any respect for women 
 any more. I never expected you to talk like that not you." 
 
 "And I never expected to see you in Eocamora's at mid- 
 night either, wearing a skirt so tight that when you dance 
 every bald-headed ruffian or young rascal can see every curve 
 of your body " 
 
 She interrupted him with an angry protest, but he disre- 
 garded it. "Don't be prudish in words and risque in action, 
 Carol they don't go together. What else did you wear the 
 dress for?" 
 
 "If s the style," she retorted angrily, "as you'd see if you 
 looked in the smart shops once in a while. What have / to 
 do with it?" 
 
 "You have to wear it," he returned, "and you have a mir- 
 ror. And you know if you stand with a strong light back of 
 you . . /' 
 
 Her lips compressed. "If you say another word about it 
 I'll get up and walk right out of this restaurant," was her
 
 The Gay Life 183 
 
 ultimatum. "That's a man for you. If the right sort of 
 women dress like dowdies, they go hunt up some fast one 
 who wears the last word. And if they're in style, they're 
 indecent. Not another word." 
 
 Arnold smiled. "I'm not blaming you for doing your best 
 to make men crazy about you," he said coolly, "only I resent 
 your criticism of my friends just because they're doing the 
 same. You dress alike and think alike and live alike 
 except that you're in the Social Register and they're only 
 in the telephone book. You happen to be lucky enough 
 to have fathers and husbands who work overtime to buy 
 you new clothes and jewelry, which their fathers and hus- 
 bands can't; so they get other people to pay their bills. I'd 
 like to know where the difference lies. . . ." 
 
 Carol's eyes were snapping. "If you can't see any differ- 
 ence between a well much as I hate the word a lady and 
 a a" 
 
 "Say it in French/' Arnold suggested. "That's one of a 
 lady's pet hypocrisies to pretend a French word is better 
 bred than an English one a lady and a cocotte, eh? Yes, 
 but these friends of mine aren't cocottes. Bobbie has been 
 with Hugo two years. It's as long as Mrs. Pickens, your 
 friend, was with her first husband. As long as a good many 
 of your friends are with their first or second or third hus- 
 bands I'm not criticizing; I'm only trying to find out the 
 neat of this wonderful superiority. . . ." 
 
 Carol shut her eyes and clenched her teeth to avoid an- 
 swering his exasperating smile in the angry words that sug- 
 gested themselves to her. 
 
 ". . . Just as I'd like to find the difference between 
 the average Wall Street broker and Jim Deering, who keeps 
 a pool-room a gambling-house around the corner. Or be- 
 tween what Archie's doing and backing a long-shot to 
 win. ... If you're really fond of Archie, Carol, you 
 shouldn't let him do that wild-cat speculating. Look at the 
 boy ! He's aged ten years in ten months."
 
 184 God's Man 
 
 Archie and Mrs. Pickens had returned with her cigarettes. 
 The wistful eager look of a pet animal was an habitual one 
 in his eyes nowadays, and that Mrs. Pickens should thank him 
 only carelessly for the immense amount of trouble to which 
 he had been to oblige her seemed to him all he should expect. 
 Between them, Mrs. Brooks-Caton and Carol had trained him 
 well, thought Arnold, who imagined Archie was beginning to 
 take on a growing resemblance to The Good Old Rabbit, 
 Carol's father. Arnold wondered if, when they were married, 
 Carol wouldn't call him her "good old" something or other. 
 
 "We were just talking about you, Arch," he said when 
 the party became a quartet again. "I've offended Carol by 
 telling her she shouldn't allow you to wild-cat that you're 
 getting old before your time " 
 
 "Dear old boy," Mrs. Pickens interrupted languidly, "you 
 still smell of the country. You're half-civilized quite. 
 What's a youngster to do in New York with no money and 
 expensive appetites? It's either buck the double-0, play the 
 big game, or be a piker and commute, carry parcels and have 
 Swedish servant-girls. Have you told Carol it's her duty to 
 educate Scandinavians in cookery?" 
 
 "Why not?" asked Arnold. "If that's so terrible com- 
 muting. And the best servants are those you catch at Ellis 
 Island and train yourself. But, of course, neither you nor 
 Carol know enough to train servants in anything. Your 
 educations 've been neglected." He smiled with aggravating 
 irony. 
 
 "Hark at him, Carol," said her chaperon in amused tol- 
 erance. ''Smells of the country? He positively reeks of it. 
 We've mislaid all those middle-class ideas, you dear old- 
 fashioned thing. They belong to the age of bustles and crino- 
 lines." 
 
 "On the contrary," replied Arnold : "it's middle-class to ob- 
 ject to them. All the old aristocrats pride themselves on know- 
 ing things better than their servants. It's only the American 
 and Gaiety girls marrying into the aristocracy who
 
 The Gay Life 185 
 
 have your ideas, you dear new-fashioned thing. And that's 
 just what I was saying to Carol : what's the difference between 
 the average engaged society girl, nowadays, and the show-girl 
 with a banker friend? They dress alike, talk alike, think 
 alike" 
 
 "This passes a joke, Mr. L'Hommedieu," said Mrs. Pick- 
 ens coldly. 
 
 " and act alike the moment anybody dares to tell them 
 the truth about themselves," finished Arnold, rising to go. 
 "While the first attribute of aristocracy is plain speech, I 
 didn't start to offend anybody. I was just anxious for 
 Archie" 
 
 "Leave me out of it," said that young gentleman hastily. 
 "Personally, I think you can say the rudest things in the 
 world, Arnold. Nobody ever heard of such a thing in all his- 
 tory comparin' ladies with chorus-girls " 
 
 "And, moreover," added Mrs. Pickens lazily, recovering her 
 pose, "one should like to know where our young friend got 
 all his information about the aristocracy, Archie " 
 
 "One learns from one's parents, usually," returned Arnold, 
 roughly mimicking her tone a habit of his, this mimicry, 
 which had enraged both Bobbie and Bertie. "If one doesn't, 
 one usually doesn't learn. . . ." He took himself off with 
 that, conscious he had been bad-mannered, regretting it the 
 next moment. But he was the sort who must have excuses for 
 conduct: now he had allied himself with the Bobbie and Ber- 
 tie sort, he must convince himself no better were to be found. 
 
 Besides, he was angry on Archie's account: these women 
 taking for granted all his favors. Archie could not afford ex- 
 pensive supper parties, theater-boxes, ten to twenty-dollar taxi- 
 cab bills all of which they had had that evening -had on 
 many previous evenings. Among people assured of their BO- 
 cial position, a young engaged couple often dispensed with a 
 chaperon for theaters and luncheons and teas, at least; b*t 
 Mrs. Brooks-Caton was a Median law giver with her insistence 
 on this "smart" appendage, playing duenna herself whenever
 
 186 God's Man 
 
 she had nothing of more importance. Archie's weekly pay 
 as his uncle's assistant must be swallowed up in one affair like 
 this one of to-night ; and with this sort of life, and one or two 
 reverses in speculation, his mother's legacy would vanish. But 
 Arnold knew Archie too well to think he would give Carol up. 
 It was in the boy's extreme nature to do something desperate. 
 This worried Arnold more than he would admit, in his new 
 character of cynic. 
 
 He tried Quinn's remedial whistling, but found it a hollow 
 fraud as an anodyne. It was a dull night for Arnold. . . . 
 Bertie, Bobbie and Hugo away at the American premiere of 
 the London comedy, The Stirrup-Cup, in which both girls 
 had prominent parts, Bertie because she was clever at imper- 
 sonating slangy horsy female types; Bobbie he more than 
 suspected because Hugo had put money in the show. Ar- 
 nold's own duties at the office had kept him away from 
 Rochester, the scene of the opening the shipments of gum 
 from Burma had come in on the Southern Pacific boat from 
 New Orleans the night before, transhipped from the Los An- 
 geles Limited and the Pacific Mail Altraria and Arnold, 
 in sole charge, had his hands full hundreds of orders had 
 been received on the bare whisper of the promised supply 
 the underworld wireless had been working amazingly. . . . 
 So, for the first time in several months, he had free evenings. 
 
 Arnold was just beginning to know New York. Although 
 he had spent more than a year as a reporter on The Argus, 
 his literary gifts had been recognized there, as it had been a 
 chain of pleasant assignments among the best people the best, 
 literally: interviews with curators of museums, celebrities of 
 scientific or sociological fame, visits to private theatrical per- 
 formances of Greek plays, open air Shakespearean revivals, 
 concerts, symphonies, opera performances out of the beaten 
 track special, editorial page, Sunday "stuff." 
 
 He had known of the misery of the poor : had, in the ab- 
 stract, enthusiastically desired to end it; but, after his six 
 months among the under dogs, he knew now how unnecessary
 
 The Gay Life 187 
 
 tnat misery was. And he had been virtuously irate over 
 stories he had heard of the prodigal waste of money along 
 Broadway. But he had never imagined that the misery of 
 the poor gave their oppressors such paltry results. 
 
 He could forgive the ancient Greeks their helots because 
 of the philosophy, literature and architecture that system 
 helped give the world: the Caesars their bloody conquests for 
 the sake of the great Roman law, which had taught the world 
 unity and justice in government: the Eenaissance tyrants 
 their cruelties for their Sandro Botticellis the Catholic 
 Church its Inquisition for its encouragement of learning and 
 art. . . . But what excuse had these spenders along 
 Broadway for the thousand and one crimes perpetrated against 
 the Annie Eunices and Hans Chassertons, the helpless folk 
 who must live as in a windowless cellar, not knowing there is 
 sunlight in the world "crawling up drainpipes until they die" 
 hadn't "Wells said ? And what was the rest of it ? 
 
 "It isn't as though they had something to show for the 
 waste they make of us. They are ugly and cowardly and 
 mean." . . . He remembered it all now, Masterman's tirade 
 to Kipps. His cheeks burned What did they have to show? 
 
 Women he had gone into that to-night. 
 
 Art he grinned painfully at ugly piled up Broadway, the 
 beauty of a winter's night, pale scimitar moon and moonlight 
 blue of sky desecrated by electric advertisements, a huddled 
 mass of varying heights and architecture, the blank walls 
 next a pure Ionic building flattened out with hideous porno- 
 graphic show-posters. 
 
 Increased good taste a mass of men in ugly clothes made 
 to hang on wires, having no relation to the beauty of the 
 human body, ugly lumps of dusty hard black felt on their 
 heads. 
 
 Increased learning and education crowded under a sky- 
 scraper a theater bearing the name of a Bowery Waldemar 
 who had found millions in cheap salacious melodrama. *. , . 
 A second crowded to the doors by exhibiting women in various
 
 188 God's Man 
 
 stages of nudity; a third above which bla2ed in letters five 
 feet high, the name of a girl who had caused a great man 
 to be murdered, a little one to be tried for his life. 
 
 While, on side streets, artists who had gained proficiency in 
 the work of great playwrights, acted to handsful of eager 
 sympathetic people who had little more than the price of their 
 seats : great paintings hung unobserved and un-understood in 
 the museums ; literature was hidden by bon-bon trade-goods ; 
 great men, unless they prostituted their talents and took or- 
 ders from their inferiors, ate in dairy-lunches and boarding- 
 houses; while, back on the Great Lane again, the ticket- 
 speculator who insulted the timid into paying double prices, 
 ordered champagne for his fat greasy womenfolk. 
 
 Gamblers and brainless victims, prostitutes and college- 
 boys, stock-brokers and rural investors, actresses and "angels" 
 all the head-hunters and heart-breakers and pigeons for the 
 plucking. And all bought champagne, champagne that few 
 wanted and that those few should not have had. 
 
 Arnold entered Sydenham's. He had heard of the new 
 cabaret up-stairs but when his party had wanted seats it had 
 always been crowded. Perhaps, to-night, alone, they could 
 crowd him in. He could not have explained why he went ; we 
 are all creatures of habit and he had been living that sort 
 of life for some months. 
 
 The head waiter shook his head in dignified reproof at the 
 temerity of an unknown person expecting to be seated without 
 a previous reservation. Arnold sighed and reached for his 
 pocket ; but, at that moment, a small whirlwind of pink chiffon 
 loosed itself from a male dancer's arms and, turning several 
 circles, bumped the breath from the head waiter and resolved 
 into the Little One, flushed and radiant, a hand on Arnold's 
 arm. 
 
 "Wat you tell zhis shentleman, Luigi?".she demanded. 
 "Wat you say no place ? I gif you my word, Luigi, eef you 
 doan' put in a little tiny table jus* like zat I go walk out 
 of zhis 'ole and go to Cafe Abbaye. Now w'at?"
 
 The Gay Life 189 
 
 But Luigi had already acknowledged defeat and sent an 
 omnibus boy to cover a low serving stand, Sonetchka rattling 
 out reproaches and questions meanwhile, and Arnold hasten- 
 ing to explain. The omnibus returned to remind Luigi of the 
 previous requisitioning of that "table." 
 
 "Zhis fool Broadway," continued Sonetchka in despair. 
 "Zhey sit out zere half ze night to enjoy zemselves one hour " 
 She pointed to a row of waiting people who were glaring 
 wickedly at the favored Arnold. "Well, zen, rules or no rules, 
 he sit at ze entertainers' table. Tell ze proprietor he doan' 
 like it, lump it. He doan' lump it get anuzzer dancer. Come 
 you." 
 
 Only Pink and Beau sat at this particular table, so So- 
 netchka could speak freely and she dashed rapidly into a rep- 
 etition of Arnold's account of his treatment at the hands of 
 the law. She was violently angry. But Pink only shrugged 
 his shoulders, and spoke in polite scorn. 
 
 "Anybody would think you'd just come to the Big Town 
 the way you take it, Sonny." (He was careful to use good 
 English in the presence of a stranger.) "What did you ex- 
 pect the lawyer to kiss him and the judge to ask him to 
 have a drink ? Those fellows all work together. Hit one of 
 'em and you hit the bunch. They're at the steering-wheel 
 and they've got gats guns for anybody who tries to stop 
 their car what difference does it make if a few common 
 people get run over and killed, it's get out of the way or take 
 your chances. . . . But the idea an}'body trying to stop 
 'em " He turned to Arnold. "It's lucky you had friends 
 with a pull or you'd be on the inside looking out making 
 little ones out of big ones, old sport " The strain of good 
 English for a long speech was too much for him, and after 
 surveying and judging Arnold, he thought it safe to relapse 
 into normal expression. 
 
 "How did she act when she saw her brother ?" asked Arnold 
 anxiously. 
 
 Sonetchka winked. "She nev-ver see 'im. I got 'im weez
 
 190 God's Man 
 
 friends. She think he got ze money and run away. Zat ee 
 better zan she see him as he is, hein?" 
 
 Gazing at the two youths in modish dress-clothes save 
 for certain eccentricities in the shape of jet buttons and silk 
 cord with their highly polished finger-nails and hair that 
 seemed to have been subjected to the same process, Arnold's 
 heart leaped. "Was, it you you three who took her away 
 from the hotel?" 
 
 Sonetchka and Beau took the floor again at the beckoning 
 of the acting manager and Pink answered him in the affirm- 
 ative. A curious lightness took hold of Arnold. "A quart of 
 Paul Eoger, waiter," he said, "four glasses. . . . How 
 long before we four can get away to ourselves a few hours ? 
 I'll wait." 
 
 Pink, who wished Sonia had been more explicit as to the 
 stranger's views on the question of property, wondered if 
 Arnold had been a gentleman in hard luck then, or a grafter 
 in good luck now. 
 
 He determined to investigate and began, somewhat ob- 
 scurely, it seemed, with a tirade against those in high places; 
 the rich and the powerful, against the law and the courts, 
 the judges and the juries, the police and all who stand for 
 authority, and ending his hands raised and clinched ''While 
 we, we're nothing but a lot of cowardly rats to stand for it." 
 
 Arnold nodded assent. "That's just it," he said. "A lot of 
 sheep, not rats ; rats are braver than we are. "We let people do 
 things to us because somebody says it's legal. As a matter of 
 fact, all our laws ought to be pitched into the fire, and a new 
 bunch made that fit modern conditions. The people who run 
 things do anything they like with the law, use it as a club to 
 make the other people work hard for them." 
 
 "They never did it for me," chuckled Pink, gloating. "I 
 was on from the start. I guess I got next the day old Ogle- 
 thorpe visited our school. They'd been teaching us honesty 
 was the best policy and we, like a lot of saps, believed it.
 
 The Gay Life 191 
 
 When our Superintendent told us Oglethorpe was coming to 
 spiel us Commencement Day, I thought it was the bunk. Fd 
 read what the papers said about that big yegg-thief and child- 
 murderer with those poor kids working in his mines. But 
 the Superintendent ! ! you'd a thought he'd be on his belly any 
 minute asking Oglethorpe to kindly wipe his hoofs on him if 
 he'd thought his clothes were clean enough. And the other 
 teachers ! simperin' and going on like he was God Almighty. 
 . . . And the old yegg had the nerve to look us thousand 
 kids in the eye and tell us to be square and straight and we'd 
 be successful him that cheated at marbles I bet when he was 
 our age and sneaked to the teacher if somebody licked him for 
 it. ... The Lord give him his success as a reward for 
 never missing Sunday-school and church and Epworth League 
 in forty years. . . . And all those little suckers and those 
 big stews of teachers jest gaped at him as if to say 'How true' 
 oh, my God ! that made me sick. I never went back next 
 year started shooting craps and hanging around pool-rooms 
 instead. . . . Grow up and be a nice kid, huh ? and get 
 a good job running errands for three per, then in a few years 
 be a clerk at six, and end up at fifty getting twenty- five; 
 they'd run my dad out of business, so I couldn't have the store, 
 and at sixty get fired and git the workhouse, less'n I had some 
 kids to support me. . . . Not me; not on your life. 
 ... I played that old yegg's game, instead in my petty- 
 larceny way." 
 
 Sonetchka and Beau had rejoined them during this speech, 
 and they nodded emphatic assent. "Yes, a lot of us guys are 
 getting on," confirmed Beau. "I got a father worked ten 
 hours a day all his life and now I'm supporting him. I didn't 
 go into the mills like he wanted me to because I didn't see the 
 sense of working like a dog jest for the privilege of eating 
 Irish stew five times a week and getting drunk every Saturday 
 night to forget what a hell of a thing life was." 
 
 "And me," Sonetchka put in, "when I come over here J, was
 
 192 God's Man 
 
 maid to a lady fourteen hours on iny feet, me. Zen I make 
 flowers for 'ats. No good. Ze lady I work for, she lie around 
 all day until her 'usband come 'ome, zen she get me to pull 
 her fat waist togezzer and zey go to theaters and restaurants 
 and I sit 'ome waiting to undress 'er. She fire me because 
 I go out one night to pictures and get caught in Subway acci- 
 dent and she undress 'erself. In ze factory, I work nine hours 
 and 'are to take work 'ome and work nights to get enough to 
 eat. And, sometimes w'en I walk Broadway, I see womans 
 not so pretty nor smart as me come out of beautiful restau- 
 rants and theaters and step into taxicabs and limouzines. 
 And I zink about that lazee fat womans I lace up when I am 
 maid. little fool Sonetehka,' I say to myself. 'You go 
 throw yourself in river if you not smart enough to live soft, 
 too.' And zen, when ze man what own ze factory start make 
 love to me, I doan' say, 'Go way ; don't dare you touch me/ 
 I make believe I like 'im touch me, I get him give me 
 pretty clothes, I get him lend me money I promise every- 
 sing and zen, when I get what I want, I doan' give nuzzing. 
 And once I get pretty clothes and some money from 'im; I 
 find plenty more mens. And I learn tricks. And I live like 
 ladee too nice and soft." 
 
 She laughed and showed her little teeth. "I teach 'er, too 
 Annie Eunice. I saj r doan' be big fools. You 'ave to play 
 tricks you 'ave to fool people. So she smile and smile in- 
 stead of looking 'ard and 'arsh, and man zink when she go out 
 wiz zem she fall for zem. And zey give her big tips dollar, 
 'keep ze change' and when drunk men throw down ten dol- 
 lars one day I say, 'Doan' give change.' And I make her zat 
 she doan', and now many drunk men throw down money and 
 doan' get change and uzzer men forget how much and she say, 
 ' 'Ere's your change,' and give zem dollar change for five dol- 
 lar and all zat sort of sing." 
 
 "She's a smart girl, all right," approved Beau. Arnold
 
 The Gay Life 193 
 
 winced. But what difference between Beau's "smart girl" 
 and Waldemar's "good business" between Arnold's hold-up 
 and her "hold-out"? Yet, he hated to think of her at such 
 tricks. Some reflection of his thoughts must have shown in 
 his eyes. 
 
 "W'ich you t'ink best?" asked Sonetchka, indignantly ob- 
 serving this, "be cripple or go blin'? You make me seeck. 
 Wat you do zat so 'onest ?" 
 
 "I'll bet," said Pink in an assured tone, "that he's doing 
 the public himself if he'd on'y own up. I'd like to see any- 
 body be honest nowadays unless he's very lucky in these big- 
 time cities anyhow that is, and live decent." 
 
 "That's what I've been thinking for a couple of months," 
 returned Arnold reflectively. "Even in the newspaper busi- 
 ness we had to print ads for quack medicines, lying real- 
 estate, rotten personals and had to keep ugly stories about 
 department stores out of the news or they'd take their ads 
 out and had to wink at Tammany because it was Democratic. 
 But my city editor got mighty virtuous when I kept something 
 out for a Republican candidate that's how I lost my job and 
 landed where you found me, Miss Sonetchka/' 
 
 "And you're, back pencil-pushing now ?" asked Pink, who 
 had not been confidential from any love of sociological discus- 
 sion. This well-groomed, good-looking fellow could assist 
 him in his line if he chose. 
 
 Arnold told of his present occupation. "About that you're 
 certainly right," he said. "I guess "Waldemar's responsible 
 for more drug fiends than any place in the city. The way 
 they sell it wholesale to these little pedlers. . . . John 
 Waldemar's a Congressman and a millionaire. A few months 
 ago I wouldn't have taken a job there, but now it was either 
 slaving or starving " 
 
 "Waldemar's " said Pink slowly. 
 
 He had been sunk in deep abstraction. Now he raised his
 
 194 God's Man 
 
 head. "I got you Waldemar's- don't yon remember, Beau 
 old Mitt-and-a-Half talking?" The 'light of recognition 
 came to Beau. He leaned eagerly forward : 
 
 '"Whafs this whisper ahout gitting all the gum you want 
 at Waldemar's?" 
 
 Arnold needed no glossary this time. "Why?" he asked 
 grimly, pulling down his shirt-cuff; "can I book your order?" 
 
 "Wait a minute/' returned Pink, as, the orchestra retiring 
 for a rest, his turn at entertaining came. "Beau, phone Mitt- 
 and-a-Half and Mother. You know what they said the other 
 night. . . ." 
 
 "Tell Miss Chasserton I'm waiting for her to get off duty, 
 too," added Arnold; but Sonia, evidently considering it her 
 right to impart this news, had hurried ahead ; so that Arnold 
 was left alone, listening to the rapid staccato rag-time that 
 the Cagey Kid began to "beat outa the box/' as he phrased it. 
 
 Pink's piano-playing suggested Hogarthian pictures full- 
 breasted, short-skirted, ox-eyed females, garish color, loud 
 drunken laughter. Pink's was only a slight improvement on 
 the sort of performance for which such places kept on hand 
 unhealthy-looking youths with cheap Virginia cigarettes per- 
 manently attached to their lower lips, glasses of beer within 
 easy reach, a hypodermic syringe in their hip pockets, or a 
 "lay-out" in the basement, and a friend who asked, "Dearie, 
 won't you stake the Professor?" 
 
 But those were low dives. This was Sydenham's ! There 
 were jungle-beasts; here was Bandar-log with thin features 
 and slender shapely bodies. . . . Yet their faces lighted 
 up with the same barbaric emotions that had inspired such 
 tunes, their bodies swayed to the same sensuous rhythm. 
 
 "This is Madman's Lane," thought Arnold soberly. 
 
 There was a girl barely sixteen, not of the Blue Book crowd, 
 truly their conventions did save a girl for supper-places 
 until she had been a debutante and they did insist on the
 
 The Gay Life 195 
 
 shallow safeguard of chaperons but of decent folk; probably 
 a daughter to a prosperous tradesman or head bookkeeper; 
 and there she danced, a tigerish sensuousness in her half- 
 closed eyes and in those of her almost equally youthful 
 partner. The end of that evening was as plain as if they had 
 shouted their intentions aloud. 
 
 As this couple swayed past Arnold he could hear them sing- 
 ing softly the words to Pink's tune. This was the lad who 
 had requested it, the words being quite familiar to everybody ; 
 published in this same city that had jailed the performers of 
 the work of one of the world's greatest playwrights. 
 
 "But it put the blame for immorality where it belongs," 
 thought Arnold ; "and that's the last thing hypocrites want 
 things called by their right names. Give them the off-color 
 suggestion and the snicker up the sleeve. . . ." 
 
 Pink plunged on with his brothel classics ; his next a great 
 favorite in scarlet society. . . . One who knew could 
 imagine Pink sliding out the words from that corner of the 
 mouth that held the cigarette. 
 
 "Frankie and Johnnie were sweethearts. . . ." 
 
 The sixteen-year-old girl and her escort seemed to know 
 that one, too, although the rest of it was too unsightly to 
 permit of publication. Arnold tried to forget the possibility 
 of her pupilage in such knowledge, and, turning, observed 
 another girl scarcely older, posing in imitation of a former 
 "parlor girl," now a vaudeville star and tempting an in- 
 genuous-looking youth, her partner. 
 
 Could that woman of forty-five, wife of a celebrated cor- 
 poration-lawyer, easily recognized from her many published 
 photographs, realize the sort of stuff to which she was danc- 
 ing? How would she like the words printed with her name 
 in Sunday's "society" column ? . . . 
 
 He saw her join a party where, disregarding the champagne 
 a the table, another woman in a daring Doueet gown was
 
 196 God's Man 
 
 drinking whisky pegs and lighting fresh cigarettes on the 
 butts of those consumed. 
 
 "Why should he notice all this to-night, when it had been 
 going on all around him since he began patronizing cabarets ? 
 Bertie did the same thing with her cigarettes a sort of end- 
 less chain. There was no good pretending. He knew well 
 enough Velvet Voice. He resented her presence among 
 such people, Blue Books and ancestry or no. . . . 
 
 Pink dashed into another song suggested by a youth with 
 vivid jewelry. Observing the attention of the patrons, he 
 motioned to certain other young Semites, who began to shout 
 hoarsely for the author of that sensational turkey-trot, "I 
 Don't Want to Be Loved, Just Like Me in a Regular Way." 
 
 It appeared, curiously enough, that the motioner was he. 
 He bowed and was popularly supposed to blush. 
 
 "Song song/' shouted the "boosters," their horny hands 
 colliding with the sound of pistol-shots undesired publicity. 
 But Pink and the cafe manager were to be observed urging 
 the famous youth to consider his duty to the public, the homy- 
 handed ones posing as simple melody-loving private citizens. 
 
 The song was sung. It suggested that if a "spoony Coney" 
 railroad could only have a tunnel fifty miles long, . . . 
 "my favorite child's name is Matilda," and it was sung with 
 all possible grins and shrugs. The boosters joined in at the 
 second chorus. By the fourth repetition wine-flushed youths 
 shouted it with loud laughs and arch glances at their female 
 companions and emphasizing its most suggestive line. 
 
 Leaving them to their chorus, celebrated composer and 
 "boosters" went their way further to advertise genius, and 
 Beau and Sonetchka returned to give another "refined terp- 
 sichorean" entertainment born on the Barbary Coast.
 
 The Gay Life 197 
 
 II. ON THE THRESHOLD OF SUBTERRANEA 
 
 ". . . And you like it?" Arnold asked, frowning. Vel- 
 vet Voice nodded with a certain defiant gaiety. "My God !" 
 he commented "my God!" but a "my God" of helpless 
 scorn no drama in it. 
 
 "Why not?" she wished to know. 
 
 "You mustn't mind her," said Pink tolerantly. "All these 
 dames are the same when they first hit the bright lights. 
 They go plumb dotty. They're only women, you know," he 
 added tolerantly, as if that explained any folly. 
 
 "And you you smart, Jiein you big smart fellow know 
 everything ?" asked Sonetchka. 
 
 "If you don't know that, you don't know anything," an- 
 swered Pink. "Forty million times over I tell you what a 
 lucky little skirt you are to have me take the trouble to wise 
 you up. I dunno what I do it for, I'm sure " 
 
 The restaurant in which they were having supper was as 
 different as possible from the "Cafe de Paris" quiet after 
 Sydenham's noise, and for good reasons its patrons having 
 learned it was wiser to communicate their sort of conversa- 
 tion in guarded tones that did not reach any not concerned. 
 It was Chinese, the cleanly kitchen in full sight, with its 
 polished copper-pans and brightly shining stove, the res- 
 taurant walls hung with tasseled scrolls and Japanese prints 
 of whiskered ogres and oblique-eyed angels. Most of its fre- 
 quenters, quietly but expensively dressed, and seemingly above 
 the average intelligence, had been pointed out to Arnold and 
 Velvet Voice as well-known specialists in check-raising, wire- 
 less wire-tapping, "the match," "the pay-off" and cards one 
 extremely pretty girl as having been arrested fourteen times 
 and never convicted.
 
 198 God's Man 
 
 "Just give her a jury a heavy-headed jury and she's as 
 safe as if she was in God's hip pocket," Pink had said, proud 
 of the intimacy her greeting of him had implied. "One smart 
 little girl, go bet your shirt." 
 
 "Smart," sniffed Sonetchka, "smart womens don't get ar- 
 rested fourteen times I never get arrested, me." 
 
 "You never had no big ideas no ambition," explained 
 Pink. Arnold had cut in with Velvet Voice to prevent an 
 embittered answer. 
 
 "In a way," Pink went on, referring to the limitations of 
 Velvet Voice (and of women generally), "in a way, women 
 never git more'n haff wise. I've had 'em all all kinds and 
 they'll always fall for the front the show-off the clothes 
 and the lights and people gettin' an eyeful of their new hat 
 the admiration stuff. They like restaurants and theaters and 
 crowds because they think one hundred and one out of a hun- 
 dred men are wishing they knew them, and then go home and 
 look at their wives or girls and say, 'Oh, hell,' sure ! So they 
 do better on the stage than men think just standin' there 
 not sayin' nothing is giving a thousand guys a treat and mak- 
 ing a thousand dames wish they had their taste in dress, and 
 go home and copy their hat." 
 
 "Oh, shut up," said the infuriated Sonia, reaching for the 
 nearest missile; and Pink masked prudence by loud laughter 
 and the lighting of a cigarette. 
 
 "No wonder the little girl likes it," Beau began to explain, 
 winking at Velvet Voice; "who wouldn't, with a little ten- 
 thousand-dollar go-cart sent around every afternoon to ride 
 her around again, Willie. Special flower-shop running just 
 to keep her in roses, too didn't notice those American beau- 
 ties on her switchboard? She's got a special room full 
 home. And pipe the hock-rock on the pinky " Arnold 
 glanced as Beau pointed and saw on her hand a marquise, a 
 pure white triangle edged by tiny flat rubies. Velvet Voice 
 smiled, almost, it seemed, purred. 
 
 "Name of Spedden," Beau elucidated. "And I guess she
 
 The Gay Life 199 
 
 don't hate him any, 'cause when we offered to let him into a 
 little friendly game she put in the saxi." 
 
 "Why should I risk having him suspect my friends cheat 
 at cards?" asked Velvet Voice indignantly. "You couldn't 
 win as much in a night as he'd give me freely if I asked 
 him." At which Pink interrupted with a roar. "Our little 
 Eunice Elsie in the Great City ho ! ha ! hee ! Rich, ain't 
 it, boy?" he asked Arnold. 
 
 "Why shouldn't I have a good time like everybody else?" 
 demanded Velvet Voice angrily. "Didn't I put in ten years 
 not knowing any better ? . . . And if you could see what 
 taps on my switchboard with dimes and tries to tell me to get 
 numbers for 'em like they heard some actress say, 'Home, 
 James.' . . . Am I going to take impudence from 
 dressed-up minxes all my life? It isn't as though people 
 respected you more, knowing you could get all the clothes 
 you wanted, but prefer to work. They just think you're a 
 plain fool. And I shouldn't wonder if they're right. It's 
 a girl's own fault if she gets overworked and starved in fac- 
 tories and stores. We've got no right to be there. There's 
 only one business we're cut out for, and that's men." 
 
 Several times Arnold had been at the point where he felt 
 he must interrupt savagely, but now she had stated her case, 
 he wondered what he should say. All his remonstrances 
 would sound Sunday-schoolish in such a place, among such 
 people ; and, moreover, how they would disagree with the new 
 set of ideas he had himself adopted ! 
 
 It was only convention that yearned for speech. The old 
 order: man to do as he pleases, women to do as he pleases, 
 too; and if he pleases for her to attain some standard of in- 
 credible virtue she must pretend to be attaining it. Recog- 
 nizing this unfairness, Arnold saw that he should desire noth- 
 ing of her he did not himself approve; and Quinn's scornful 
 "poor but honest" recurred to him and his own acceptance of 
 the negative. . . . Nevertheless, he did not want her to 
 accept rich men's favors. It was all so highly perplexing he
 
 200 God's Man 
 
 did not remonstrate at all, but left it to the indefatigable 
 Pink. 
 
 "T hat's all right, Annie Eunice," said that young gentle- 
 man, "you got the right idea all right and the wrong one, too. 
 Get all you can out of these rich fellows, but don't double-up 
 with none permanently. They ain't our breed any more'n 
 cats are dogs. They're our natural-born enemies everything 
 they think is jest opposite what we think. Get his money 
 all you can and then hand him his hat." 
 
 Velvet Voice went crimson. "If you're suggesting " she 
 began. 
 
 "Now, ain't that like a little sucker broad ?" asked Pink 
 wearily; "willing to marry a rich guy for his dough and 
 divorce him soon's ever she gits the chance, but sore at the 
 idea of cutting out the ring stuff anything so long's it looks 
 respectable. Jest as you said" he nodded to Arnold "a 
 lot of sheep willing to let people do anything to 'em 'cause 
 somebody says it's legal. She hates the sight of him, but 
 she tries to kid us she don't so's she can kid herself marriages 
 are made in Heaven. Let's not talk any more about it. This 
 sucker stuff makes my neck tired." 
 
 This Cagey Kid seldom misjudged his man. He had been 
 living by judging men and women some few years, and 
 though Arnold's talk was not theirs, Pink had recognized a 
 common hatred of hypocrisy and love for rebellion in the last 
 of the L'Hommedieus instincts that were surely driving him 
 to a life not unlike their own. So Pink had admitted him 
 into his confidences, for he had an instinctive feeling Arnold 
 was to be a highly profitable adviser in those higher forms of 
 larceny to which Pink's ambitious soul yearned. Besides, 
 there was the matter on which Beau had telephoned. 
 
 "Tell him what Mother and old Mitt-and-a-Half said," he 
 directed his friends. Beau glanced discreetly at Velvet Voice. 
 "You don't need to mention what he's jerry to that hand 
 him the proposition." 
 
 "A friend of ours I'll write the name," and having done
 
 The Gay Life 201 
 
 so, he crumpled up the Japanese crepe-paper napkin and 
 pocketed it, "wants a thousand pounds. To make the other 
 stuff you know and peddle it by the can. The more gum, 
 the more profit so he'll make it worth your while a dollar 
 on the pound to you, and 'ull be 'round to-morrow and give 
 it to you, if it's all right. Don't forgit the name. You 
 oughtn't to it's funny enough." 
 
 "What a game that's going to be after they put the lid on 
 next week," said Pink, his eyes sparkling. "Some chance 
 for the big money there if a man has a little capital. The 
 Customs'll look fine trying to keep it out all along the Cana- 
 dian border, the Mexican border, and the East and West 
 coasts what a chance ! And there'll be thousands at it. 
 Think how few of those little cans it takes to make a thousand 
 dollars thirty or forty at the new price that's all. I got 
 haff a mind to take a chance myself with that kind of 
 profit " 
 
 "Some game, all right," agreed Beau, his face also alight. 
 As for Arnold, he was thinking of the enormous profits the 
 Waldemar company would make on their new deal even he 
 with his little thousand stood to quadruple it. If only he 
 had more invested ! Suddenly he turned and saw that Velvet 
 Voice was regarding him queerly, wistfully, in a way that 
 hinted to Arnold that she might not consider any millionaire 
 if he were able to give her even one-hundredth the things Mr. 
 Spedden could. 
 
 He must begin to make money; he had wasted enough time, 
 and without money the things one wanted one never got. 
 Pink's suggestion of smuggling in the stuff, the high profits, 
 fascinated him. He was in debt for a good half of his win- 
 nings, but this thousand dollars Enoch Apricott would give 
 as a bonus for a thousand pounds Mother Mybus, really, as 
 he was to know would nearly repair that damage. If he 
 could reinvest at the same figures a can and a half came 
 from a pound even at thirty dollars the can, he would be on 
 the road to wealth. Then more like investments and more
 
 202 God's Man 
 
 and he could return to Havre de Grace, buy a farm he knew 
 of and be a country gentleman. He salved his conscience by 
 explaining to it that any harm he might do now he would 
 more than repair then ; go to Congress to follow Waldemar ; 
 stand for good government in local politics, protective meas- 
 ures against more factory-building . . . what not ? 
 
 "It isn't a man's fault going wrong in these big cities," he 
 said aloud, wanting the corroboration of others to administer 
 the final opiate to that stubborn conscience; "how can he do 
 anything else unless he wants to see the unscrupulous and 
 ignorant get everything, and himself pushed and hustled 
 about by the very damn fools he's trying to help. The only 
 thing to do is to get money enough to get out thaf s the one 
 excuse a decent fellow has for being here. . . ." 
 
 "Hear, hear/' applauded Cagey and Phony Kids. Velvet 
 Voice was silent, viewing him as if she, too, would like to 
 remonstrate, but realizing that her own proceedings did not 
 justify it. 
 
 "I on'y wish I was big womans," said Sonetchka greedily. 
 "I go make trips to Canada and Mexico and bring back cans 
 hid in my clothes. But me zey see a lump as big as a 
 peanut . . . too bad." 
 
 III. THE ATTIC HAS HOPE OF ARNOLD 
 
 "That young feller is all right," said Pink to Mother 
 Mybus, Nikko and Apricott later that night, Mother and 
 Nikko having lumbered up to the Attic to hear the gossip of 
 the baker's dozen there gathered; "he oughta be pie for you, 
 Mother, once we git him hooked. He's got class not jest 
 clothes and small-talk like me and Beau but real class. You 
 oughta hear him spiel Xick, you and Mitt-and-a-Haff 'ur 
 in the cripples' class. . . ." 
 
 He repeated, in the vernacular, some of Arnold's revolu- 
 tionary propaganda. Nikko rubbed his moist hands stealth- 
 ily. "They ain't clever," he said, "not clever, no ! these pig
 
 The Gay Life 203 
 
 plutocrats. Not even taking care that such smart young 
 fellows of their own class don't join with us. . . ." 
 
 "Which is what we need leaders," growled Enoch Apri- 
 cott. "Leaders just that kind. They don't listen to us 
 watch the difference in the army between the officer out of 
 the ranks and the gentleman born. The soldiers stand for 
 anything the gentleman orders and growl at the simplest 
 ones the other gives. . . . We've got to get the gentle- 
 men, too. They'll teach the flies to sting sting hard, gentle- 
 men will." 
 
 "But steadily, slowly, it grows," chuckled Mkko, polishing 
 his useless spectacles, one of his many little subterfuges for 
 pleasing Mother. "It grows big, and when gentlemen join, 
 the appointed time's shortened by many years. . . . How 
 can we make him our friend, young Pink one of us grad- 
 ually, gently?" 
 
 "You don't bring him here, mind you, Mr. Pink, nor Mr. 
 Beau not until you're sure of him," warned Mother, fon- 
 dling her huge tabby-cat. "What he do to get poor drink 
 cards girls ?" 
 
 Pink shook his head. "Eeg'lar guy, this," he said scorn- 
 fully, "reg'lar guys don't fall for sucker games, . . . 
 though he's stuck on young Lipton's sister over there." He 
 nodded toward Hans Chasserton, sitting cross-legged beside 
 the bunk where Doctor Tack was lying. A childlike curiosity 
 concerning the smokers' activities had developed in him and 
 he could watch them unblinkingly by the hour, seemingly 
 fascinated. He did not identify himself by Pink's descrip- 
 tion. 
 
 "And there's another one oughtta come in handy some day 
 her," said Beau. "You oughta see how she gets away with 
 the soup-and-fish effects there ain't a dressier dame along 
 the Lane. If her and him ever started working with us we'd 
 buy the City Hall for a branch office. . . . But I told 
 you how she put in the knock when we offered her fifty-fifty 
 to let us take that Spedden guy?"
 
 204 God's Man 
 
 "Still, she likes him" Pink averred. "Arnold she's just 
 dead sore on those ten years she put in sweating and she'll 
 join us out some day when this Spedden makes a bad break. 
 Jest now he's playing safe; getting her used to taxig every 
 afternoon and charge accounts for clothes and swell kipping 
 at cut rates in the shed he owns. "When he thinks she jest 
 can't breathe without a maid to help her, he'll say, ain't he 
 got something coming from her? No man with a face like 
 his'n never got into a bank as no philanthropist, less'n he 
 kicked his way in with a jimmy. . . . And then she'll 
 call on us how kin she git back at him, and we'll show her." 
 He grinned. 
 
 "And once she's been shown and sees how easy it is, she'll 
 fall easier next time," supplemented Beau. "The same way 
 with him Arnold." 
 
 "I've got a place like this yes," they heard Hans Chasser- 
 ton chuckle shrilly, drowning Mother's comment. "Better'n 
 this, though. Thousand Chinamen fanning a thousand 
 gals. Bought it off a big Chink with specs like his'n." He 
 indicated ISTikko. "Ye-es. Wanted me to go to China and 
 run the King's car, but Mr. Quivvers give me a thousand not 
 to. Ye-es. Oh, ye-es. Didn't see my sister when you was 
 out, did you ? I got her name written down here. I'll show 
 it to you." He drew nearer the bull-necked Heidelberg doc- 
 tor of the sword-slashed face, showing him with an air of 
 mystery a dirty envelope, on which Annie Eunice's full name 
 was written. "Ain't she pretty?" asked Hans, touching the 
 name. 
 
 "Sit down and keep still," commanded Apricott harshly, 
 and the innocent-eyed Hans obeyed, trembling. "What did 
 he say about the gum this Arnold young fellow? Did 
 Mother's dollar a pound fetch him ?" Beau explained. Apri- 
 cott was to have official physician's paper printed in five 
 names "Doctor Cagey Kid, Doctor Phony Kid, Doctor Mitt- 
 and-a-Haff, Mrs. Doctor Mother Mybus, Herr Doctor Nick 
 Vitchovitchski any monakers you like, but different ad-
 
 The Gay Life 205 
 
 dresses. Write for two hundred pounds each. They can't take 
 a chance letting anybody have more than that." Apricott's 
 face fell. To what five addresses could he trust having the 
 precious stuff sent? His expression interpreted hy Pink, it 
 was explained that this was but a subterfuge. The thousand 
 pounds would be shipped directly to the Inn. "Those phony 
 letter-heads are only for the Federal gees examining their 
 books. . . ." 
 
 "If your Arnold will do that, he will do more," said Nikko, 
 writing furiously with his forefinger a horoscope of Arnold's 
 future; "slowly, surely. Only the excuse is needed. Make 
 friends with him, young Pink, but steadily, certainly; do not 
 shock him. Gradually, cautiously. The dose of poison that 
 kills can be spread over the hours and save. Mother is a 
 woman, I am blind, Apricott was in slavery too long to lead 
 and all the while the business grows the rebellion grows 
 silently, slowly. Apricott has it; only leaders are needed; 
 those in the enemy's confidence. As your Arnold is. If you 
 need money to spend entertaining him, Mother will give it 
 eh, Catherine Borisovna?" 
 
 And Mother, behind her closed eyes seeing a greater busi- 
 ness, a monopoly in theft, one so strong it could crush compe- 
 tition, yet allow her to doze by the fire while one greater than 
 she fulfilled her dreams, was willing it should be called a re- 
 bellion or anything else, so long as it accomplished those 
 results. 
 
 "I was smoking myself," came in Hans' high shrill voice 
 again. "Old Lipton was with us. Ye-es. Oh, ye-es. On 
 board his yacht I was. A thousand cans and forty pipes. 
 Eich, ain't he, to have all that ? I drove Mr. Quivvers' motor- 
 boat over to London yestiddy, too. The King was out, and 
 we had to be back for supper. Everything was all greasy and 
 I give the car plenty of oats. But I says to Mr. Quiwers, 
 always treat a car with kindness. I hate oats. . . ." 
 
 "Funny how he gits all those things mixed up oats! 
 They must V fed him on oatmeal up at that joint, I guess.
 
 206 God's Man 
 
 And this guy Quivvers going abroad; and him telling him 
 before the accident to treat the car right. ... I wonder 
 what he means, though, when he pulls that 'everything was 
 greasy' stuff." 
 
 "Salve and stuff on his broken nut, half-wit," explained 
 Pink with the air of one imparting polite information. "And 
 the Lipton part's easy enough his one idea was to own a cat- 
 boat and sail it around; they come from down Chesapeake 
 Bay, him and Annie Eunice. . . . Poor sucker! What 
 a rat that fellow Quivvers is. I'd like to get an eyeful of 
 him once. I'd bend a paving-stone over his beezer. . . ." 
 He was going on to further extreme measures, but Apricott 
 broke in upon him excitedly. 
 
 "Better than that. Sting him. Do what he done. Take 
 him. Trim him. Hey?" He laughed in his dry, noiseless 
 way. Nikko nodded and put a hand on Pink's knee. 
 
 "That's for your Mr. Arnold," said Mother hoarsely. "Eh, 
 my Nicholas," she added in Slavonic. "He loves this girl. 
 Would he not be glad to harm those who harmed her ?" 
 
 "You see my children," said Nikko, nodding and inter- 
 preting, "this man Quivvers comes some day to your res- 
 taurant all New York comes there. And Catherine Boris- 
 ovna means that you will have your Miss Eunice and your 
 Mr. Arnold both to help you then." 
 
 "And then drain him. Suck him dry." Apricott beat 
 his hands together savagely. "No trash about not taking his 
 last dollar. His sort take ours. . . ." 
 
 "Yes, yes, we heard all that before," interrupted Pink, irri- 
 tated, "but I'll hand it to you for your first idea. Taking 
 him's better than beating him up hurts more. . . ." 
 
 "And when your Arnold's helped you once, and sees how 
 much is to gain, . . ." Mother licked her lips, too. "No 
 difficulty after that. And he'll think up better things for 
 you and Mr. Beau to do, Mr. Pink. . . . He'll be one 
 of us then and he can be brought here. I'll give you each 
 something handsome out of stock the day that hap-
 
 The Gay Life 207 
 
 pens. . . ." And she waddled off down-stairs before she 
 could be committed to anything more definite. 
 
 "Guess she's right at that," said Beau, yawning, "but mean- 
 while I've been talked out of about ten pills 'at belong to me. 
 So jest you knock off serving yourself, sucker, and remember 
 you're among friends." 
 
 IV. ARNOLD GIVES UP VELVET VOICE AND HEARS or AN OLD 
 FRIEND 
 
 Word reached Arnold every day in the shape of sixteen-page 
 letters of The Stirrup-Cup, which, for several reasons 
 one. that Bobbie ruined a leading part had received no very 
 enthusiastic encomiums up state and in the Massachusetts 
 manufacturing towns where it was now playing. But theaters 
 must be filled at any cost in days of warring syndicates, and 
 so long as Messrs. King and Apelheimer had a young man 
 responsible for company losses the theater managers must 
 stand theirs or go dark for the week. And, as New York 
 needed attractions also, a crowd composed of Messrs. K. and 
 G. Marko, the booking-agents, the owner of the Atlantic thea- 
 ter and two bright young writers caught young and put on 
 salary and at dramatic carpentry and repairing, had recently, 
 viewed the production, criticized, censored and left the writers 
 behind to correct. It appeared their first suggestion had 
 been to cut down Bobbie's part, since she was incapable of 
 interpreting it correctly, but Bobbie had made Hugo threaten 
 to withdraw if this were done. 
 
 "Which is extremely foolish of her," Bertie wrote, "because 
 Hugo is losing pots of money; and if we were only shaped 
 up we might make a hit at the Atlantic and get back what 
 he's lost and more besides. . . ." But of the sixteen 
 pages daily there were very few devoted to the show, many to 
 accusations of misconduct with other women and despairing 
 reiterations of undying love. "Why, I never see anybody but 
 Hugo and Bobbie, and I have no end of friends in all the
 
 208 God's Man 
 
 cities where we're trouping; and they'd be only too glad to 
 have me out to dinner and supper and take me automobiling 
 and send me candy and flowers and all that; and not stop 
 with candy and flowers either. Why, one young chap in this 
 rery town, whose father left him a fur-store, wanted to give 
 me a sable coat a sable one, mind you, down to my heels. 
 And I suppose you know, since old Gayton came up to 
 Rochester for the opening and I locked my door on him, no 
 check. And he never missed a week for over two years, no 
 matter where I was. So little Bertie will have to give up 
 her cute little flat and sell her car ; even if the play's a hit the 
 car will have to go. But don't tliink I care, dearest boy. So 
 long as I know you're mine, and mine only, I'd live in a hut 
 and scrub floors. . . ." 
 
 Which had the effect of making Arnold highly uncom- 
 fortable. The chains were tightening, those strongest chains 
 forged by the weakest hands, by absolute submission, by un- 
 asking self-sacrifice. Alberta Arden (what her real name 
 was nobody knew) had met, for the first time in her experi- 
 ence with men, one whom she loved deeply, and "there is no 
 difference in women when that happens," wrote Arnold in his 
 diary about this time; "they want nothing except the man 
 they love. But they do not pursue him as artlessly as their 
 sacrifices seem to suggest. They know sacrifices are their 
 strongest hold upon him; if they could come to him in rags, 
 without a place to sleep or the money to buy a meal, and prove 
 conclusively that all this destitution had been incurred for his 
 sake, they would do so gladly, for they know any average hon- 
 orable man with a conscience would be their bound and help- 
 less slave forever after. . . ." 
 
 As may be seen from this Arnold was uneasy. He was 
 beginning to understand that he was in love with Velvet 
 Voice, and yet curious as it may seem to the uninitiated he 
 would read Bertie's insane protestations of savage devotion 
 with a sort of half -ashamed pride, taking up one of her numer- 
 ous photographs afterward and looking at her pictured beau-
 
 The Gay Life 209 
 
 ties hair, eyes, neck, lithe and supple form with a quick- 
 ening heart. It heightened his belief in himself to realize 
 that this girl, so madly desired by many, loved him blindly. 
 Thus, when hurt by the refusal of Velvet Voice to accompany 
 him in preference to the Spedden person, he would, on his 
 return to Beeckman Place, gaze long and lovingly at Bertie's 
 pictures and wish her home again. When she returned she 
 should live at Beeckman Place. 
 
 But when Velvet Voice denied Spedden, Arnold would lie 
 awake half the night wondering how he could write grace- 
 fully the scoundrelly hint that it was better not to neglect any 
 good friends, and wasn't it more sensible to make her peace 
 with old Gayton that the weekly check might once more ar- 
 rive ? But, though he had trained himself to a good style in 
 prose, he could never find the right words in which to write 
 this; so it went unsaid and he faced his shaving mirror of 
 mornings and called himself a coward and a blackguard. 
 
 Another thing that combined to worry him, with Archie's 
 speculation, was the draining of Hugo's bank-account; and 
 the fact that women were responsible for both these things 
 gave him a fancied justification for ill-treating Bertie, for 
 coolly refusing to give her his confidence as to how he spent 
 his time nor any assurance of continued devotion. Which 
 made Bertie miserable and increased her mad passion for 
 him. 
 
 He was slipping away fast from Archie and Hugo, whose 
 slavish subservience to their women was the sort of thing for 
 which Arnold's new friends had the largest amount of scorn. 
 Even Mr. Quinn, at home, commenting on the comedies of 
 the daily newspaper he found only comedy, especially in 
 suicides and murders on account of women : "Haff-civilized, 
 that's what I call such men," this sage would pronounce. 
 "With a dozen females to every regular man." 
 
 Arnold was living now in the first stages of rebellion, 
 which gave him a vast contempt for the world at large, a 
 frame of mind that had made Sir Lucas a fighting monk,
 
 210 God's Man 
 
 had driven the Chevalier Etienne into the ranks of the Hugue- 
 not clergy; which, had his family remained in France for 
 Revolutionary days, would have made of Arnold a Jacobin, 
 a minor Voltaire or a Tom Paine with a splendid but youth- 
 ful "Age of Reason." But religion no longer a live issue in 
 these days, he must seek other outlets for rebellion; and so 
 found it among those who were turning the tables by preying 
 on the rich. He even forgave Bobbie for her treatment of 
 Hugo. If Waldemar, Senior, had permitted their marriage 
 she would have been a devoted mother by now. 
 
 "There is a period between puberty and maternity during 
 which women commit most of their cruelties," he wrote, 
 apropos of this, "during which they give men most of their 
 misery. Something is missing and they seek it in all forms 
 of excesses, in unchecked passion, in useless extrava- 
 gance. . . . The obvious cure for which is for the man 
 who loves them to see that they have a child." But he never 
 allowed himself to think of a child for Bertie the bonds 
 would be unbreakable then. And, every night, he was up- 
 stairs at Sydenham's, leaning over the switchboard and urging 
 Velvet Voice to throw off Spedden forever. 
 
 It was plain the girl was sorely tempted. Arnold did not 
 doubt she cared for him. And when he was with her her 
 icy resolution melted into water. She was saved only by the 
 appearance of G. Alexander Spedden himself, a great bulk of 
 a man, a mine-owner and promoter, who had at the sight of 
 her an eager hungry look. And more and more, in the pri- 
 vacy of her own thoughts and conversation with Sonetchka, 
 she realized that her one safety, where Arnold was concerned, 
 was to bring Spedden to the point of proposing marriage as 
 swiftly as possible. 
 
 "Wat he do for you, this Arnold ?" Sonetchka would ask. 
 "He got f eef ty dollar week and w'at chance for much more ? 
 Zen some day he maybe lose his jhob same as when we meet 
 him, and zen w'at? Doan' you get enough to be poor once? 
 You want more? Zis million-dollar man he marry you and
 
 The Gay Life 211 
 
 give you beautiful home and money and everything. Zen you 
 can see your Arnold jus' ze same he be your sweet'eart " 
 
 "Stop, Sonetchka," commanded Velvet Voice, her eyes 
 blazing. "You think I would do a thing like that!" 
 
 The Little One shrugged her shoulders. "All ze big people 
 zey do kings and queens and million-dollar people and 
 banns in my country; zey doan' marry for loof zey know 
 loof how long he last? Zey marry for nice 'ome and plenty 
 money. Even peasant people, if zey have little land, zey 
 marry some one have little land, too ; zen more land, zen more 
 next time till the family gets rich. Doan' you be beeg fool." 
 
 The suggestion that this arrangement was general had per- 
 sisted with Velvet Voice, and one night, when Arnold was 
 more importunate than ever, she voiced it. What had he 
 to give a wife ? How could he have what he wanted and give 
 her anything? . . . Whereupon Arnold had stormed 
 out of Sydenham's and home, where he wrote Bertie a sur- 
 prisingly affectionate letter. She didn't think about what he 
 could give her; she just gave herself, gave up everything and 
 only asked for love. Well, she should have it, poor girl. 
 Velvet Voice had proved herself base metal; and here, for 
 weeks, his comparison had been unfavorable to poor Bertie, 
 when she was really the superior. 
 
 And the next night he telephoned Pink and Beau he would 
 be at the Chinese Eestaurant, but that he was not coming to 
 Sydenham's again. 
 
 "Good idea," said Pink when they met, "why waste your 
 money in a sucker joint?" Then, mindful of Mother's ad- 
 vice and deeming the time ripe, "I'll take you to a place where 
 you can have some real fun. Just the gang and their girls. 
 It's due to-morrow nigbt a blow-off one girl's giving who's 
 going across the big ditch Europe. She and her fellow's 
 just grabbed themselves some important dough. . . . She 
 got one of these respectable married millionaires to write her 
 crazy letters saying he'd frame up on his wife to get a di- 
 vorce the rat was gunna have his chauffeur- swear he took
 
 212 God's Man 
 
 her to assignation-Houses; fine guy what? Well, this girl's 
 fellow was wise and asked for a hundred grands to get the 
 letters back, but this gee had the nerve to yell 'blackmail' and 
 had him pinched " 
 
 "Blackmail," said Arnold, "is a poor man's attempt to 
 make a rich one pay for being a blackguard. "When a rich 
 one makes a poor one pay it's justice or the law taking its 
 course, or protecting the community against criminals." 
 
 "Well," grinned Pink, "this girl's fellow was no boob. He 
 knew that kind of gee always hollered for the law; so while 
 he was in a cell downta the 'Front Office,' he got word to his 
 girl to go to the gee's wife the wife could git a divorce and 
 big money on the strength of those letters, and would, too, 
 after reading how her husband wanted to make a tramp out 
 of her to the whole world. And, sure thing, soon's the wife 
 see one of the letters was the goods she said she'd give the 
 girl what her fellow told her to ask for. And then she sent 
 for her lawyer and when he said that one-third of all her hus- 
 band had would be a romp home to git with those letters, she 
 had her junk sent down to a guy who lends to rich people and 
 he give her the hundred thousand dollars on it diamond 
 tararas and stomach thingmajigs and strings of pearls as long 
 as an East Side clothes-line, Nellie says they were Nellie 
 Noonan's the girl you musta seen her in these here Broad- 
 way shows hiding behind a spear. Some swell-looking dame 
 she is, too ; but it jest shows swell looks ain't nothing without 
 brains. Until she met this fellow of hers she was dubbing 
 around with wine-agents and young stock-brokers and all 
 that kind that thinks they're Simon Legree if they pay the 
 board-bill. This fellow of hers, when she gets stuck on him, 
 says to her : 'Can all that stuff ; you're on'y gitting a common 
 rep. "Wait till one comes along who kin throw Wall Street 
 'round his head jest for exercise; play him to marry you/ 
 Well, she done it. She cut out the all-night life and lived OH 
 her little thirty per, and what her feller made and see what 
 happened. ... It takes a man every time even in a
 
 The Gay Life 213 
 
 woman's own business. ... I pulled that one on Edna 
 Garry when we were doubled-up, and she comes back at me 
 with some high-brow stuff about great women writers she 
 was educated, that Garry dame and of course then I was 
 over my head. But next day I go overta the Astor Libr'y 
 and asks for some books about great women writers and 
 blamed if most every one of them ain't wearing men's mon- 
 akers George Eliot, George Sand, . . . bunch more, 
 and when I read about 'em I see they ain't women at all, 
 men's brains disguised in women's figgers. . . . And 
 didn't I wallop that Garry dame for making me waste my time 
 rooting around with sucker stuff." 
 
 "Oh, say, Pink," protested Arnold, up in arms : "a sucker's 
 one who plays somebody else's game, and you're being the 
 sucker now. Some of the greatest men ever lived have written 
 books. Don't talk like that. . . ." 
 
 ""Well, I wish you'd put me wise, then," said Pink wistfully. 
 "Every time I pick up one of these here magazines or new 
 books, I jest naturally seem to encounter a lot of junk. Every- 
 thing dead wrong: stuff pulled 'ud make a dog sick. One 
 writer I was steered on to as one of the big fellows of to-day 
 tells about a gee who goes nutty on five pills of hop and it 
 takes twenty-five for any feeling at all that's jest an example ; 
 but how kin I believe the rest of the story's true when one 
 thing's wrong. . . . Same whenever I read about grifters 
 or guns always this 'master cracksman' stuff, kin take the 
 Bank of England, but when it comes to blasting an ordinary 
 box I could kick my way into in my stocking feet, I read some- 
 thing like this: 'The burglar leaped lightly over the garden 
 wall' when he would have sprung the lock of the gate and 
 took no chances ; 'ten minutes later, he was kneeling before the 
 open safe . . / kneeling before the open safe^ ain't that 
 rich? How'd he get in the house ? the writer guy don't 
 know. How was he jerry to where the pete was the writer, 
 ain't there with a single idea. How'd the pete get open-^-elec- 
 tric drill? carbon pencil? was th 'burglar' 'cracksman?
 
 214 God's Man 
 
 as those suckers call 'em a tip-top peter-man, a house-sneak, 
 or a rough yegg working with soup and blanket don't ask 
 that 'underworld' writer. Underworld ! " he was breathless 
 with scorn "don't talk to me about books . . . And 
 even when they're writing jest ornery mush, they step all over 
 themselves I never read about one woman in the magazines 
 that wasn't jest a cut-out paper-doll. There was one I see 
 on'y a few days ago. She's supposed to be nuts over a guy, but 
 when she finds out he fell for forging a cheque once, she turns 
 him down cold, sends him away forever, and realizes she really 
 loves some Willie-boy who never fell for nothing more desprit 
 than the Y. M. C. A. Why, that dame 'ud have loved the 
 scratch-man all the more for having took a long chance. . . . 
 Them skirts is got no respeck fer law even the highest tip- 
 toppers. They encourage a man to the rough stuff don't 
 tell me! . . ." 
 
 "You're talking about magazines they're different," ex- 
 plained Arnold; "they're run to get big circulations so they 
 can charge high for advertising, and they have to print stuff 
 that will please the public and writers must live, you know, 
 and mighty few men have a big enough reputation to write 
 what they like and make the public like it, too. I'll write 
 down a list of the few like that, so you won't pick any more 
 'junk/ And a list of real books ; there are some. But it's just 
 like everything else when the ignorant and uneducated rule, 
 just like a woman goes on the streets because she can't get 
 pretty clothes and hats and good things to eat unless she does. 
 . . . If those White Slavery muckers would only try to 
 remember that instead of listening to girls who've quarreled 
 with their men and want to revenge themselves by getting 
 them into jail. . . . But blaming White Slavers relieves 
 the uneasy consciences of the rich." 
 
 He smiled sourly: he had profited by Pink's confidences. 
 The hitherto silent Beau, always absorbed when Arnold ex- 
 plained anything, added, scowling: 
 
 "And what d'you suppose they think when those Sunday
 
 The Gay Life 215 
 
 yallers tell about that little French dame or some other woman 
 who's got her start that way : there's always pages about them 
 and how many hock-rocks they've got and how they spend 
 more than the President gits jest on makin' a swell front. So 
 the working-girl, if she's got the nut of a field mouse, jest 
 says to herself : 'Say why be a sap ? To hell with hard work 
 and hall rooms me for Broadway.' " 
 
 Arnold blazed up again. "And people that've good homes 
 and never did a real day's work, speak about 'em as if they 
 were animals in a zoo; but when they get on the stage, pay 
 double prices to see them. It's the same with writers, Pink. 
 A man who knows anything about the world can't read one 
 novel in a hundred without laughing himself to death. . . ." 
 
 He paused, out of breath and a trifle vexed : he had expected 
 applause. He understood their attitude better when Pink ex- 
 plained they had heard much the same tirade from Nellie 
 Noonan's "fellow," "one of those writer fellows, a cracker- 
 jack," but unable to exist unless catering to cheap and vulgar 
 tastes. 
 
 "Which he says be damned if he will and trained Nellie to 
 go after the big money instead. He sure had to wise her up 
 some to get that old gee to put his fist to those frame-up let- 
 ters. Some guy! you and him 'ull get on like a pair of 
 Siamese twins. . . ." 
 
 "I'll be glad to know him and wish him success," said Ar- 
 nold warmly. 
 
 "He's got that already," returned Pink. "Success? Ain't 
 he got that hundred thousand ? Why can't we think up some 
 sich big money racket, brother?" he asked boldly, a hand on 
 Arnold's arm, winking at Beau unperceived. 
 
 "I wonder," Arnold returned thoughtfully, with half-closed 
 eyes. With a hundred thousand, he need have no fear of 
 Spedden might marry Velvet Voice. . . . But, immedi- 
 ately hardening, why should he want to marry any such mer- 
 cenary woman? 
 
 "Eh?" asked Pink; "how about it, pal? Set your think-
 
 216 God's Man 
 
 box going and dope out a way for three smart young fellows 
 to grab a chunk of perfectly good green stuff " 
 
 "I'd. even be willing to split ten thousand for a starter " 
 Beau winked this time, and laughed. "But straight goods 
 Pink and me's decided notta take no more rough chances till 
 something big breaks. It ain't worth going to the house-gow 
 for petty-larceny pickings ; let Mother howl her head off, hey, 
 Beau?" 
 
 But Beau's eyes were still on Arnold. "Think you're on the 
 trail of the big idea?" he asked solicitously; for he had noted 
 Arnold's eyes light up at the recent suggestion. Arnold an- 
 swered him slowly, thoughtfully, as one still considering. 
 
 "What it is, exactly, would be hard to say. But I've got a feel- 
 ing the big money's in this and that you and a lot more are in 
 on it. ... Strangely enough, I keep dreaming about the 
 place I come from the harbor there. Last night I dreamed 
 about being on a ship just outside it. And that's got some- 
 thing to do with the idea you've just woke up again, I suppose, 
 and is just about as clear." 
 
 "Not smuggling hop ?" asked Pink, acutely recalling a pre- 
 vious prophecy of the vistas this inhibition opened up. 
 
 Arnold nodded, an eager troubled look in his eyes ; such as ani- 
 mals have at earnest efforts of recollection. "But that's noth- 
 ing, in itself, just the smuggling," he said quickly: "I seem 
 sometimes to be just on the verge of grasping just what I do 
 mean just before I go to sleep or when I'm half -awake. And 
 then it leaves me. But it's there not any petty personal thing, 
 either something big ... Oh, well," he added, shrug- 
 ging and rising, "it'll come some day. Shall we go ? " 
 
 When they parted outside, Pink reminded him of his en- 
 gagement for the following night the place Fifty-eighth 
 Street one of those mushroom hotels to be found on every 
 side-street off Tenderloin Broadway. 
 
 "And ask for Mr. Jouncer's party," said Beau. "Dan Joun- 
 cer's Nellie's fellow." 
 
 Dan Jouncer ! Arnold repeated the name as he boarded
 
 The Gay Life 217 
 
 his cross-town car. Jouncer ! Daniel Eadie Jouncer ! to be 
 sure and at the remembrance Arnold's stick struck the car- 
 floor as it fell from a numbed hand. That defenseless boy 
 that harmless sweet-tempered little school-fellow whose battles 
 he had fought. . . . 
 
 Dan Jouncer was "The Jinx." 
 
 END OF BOK III
 
 BOOK IV
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 IN WHICH ARNOLD GETS A CHEQUE 
 AND COMES HOME AGAIN 
 
 RNOLD did not go to The Jinz'i 
 party. The thought of that mild- 
 mannered youth in business as a 
 blackmailer was one blow too 
 many. He was stricken with a 
 sudden fear; he saw that he was 
 teetering on the edge of a quag, 
 into which he would soon slip and 
 be engulfed by the mud of easy 
 morals. For one sudden numb- 
 ing moment, his thoughts had 
 been stripped of sophistries; no 
 matter what the cause, these en- 
 tertaining companions of his were thieves; the atmosphere in 
 which he was spending most of his spare moments was one 
 where robbery, swindling, chicanery of all sorts, were the 
 topics of ordinary conversation. At the Chinese restaurant, 
 all those well-dressed men and women were lawbreakers of 
 some kind, or else contemptible parasites. No matter that 
 poverty and the viciousness of the upper classes were respon- 
 sible ; that was a good enough excuse for the weak. One who 
 was strong could not afford to urge it it was too con- 
 temptible. . . . Strong? He had been very strong 
 when he lay penniless in the Hotel Tippecanoe; helpless in
 
 222 God's Man 
 
 jail. Had not the arm of wealth and power been outstretched 
 in aid, his address would be Sing-Sing Prison. . . . 
 
 He thrust such unwelcome thoughts from him. It had 
 been his own fault ; he had been quixotic ; what right had one 
 with his advantages to go forth friendless? Part of the 
 strength of the strong people lay in friendships and affilia- 
 tions inherited, just as was property or wealth. To discard 
 them was as if a medieval knight discarded horse and armor. 
 Now he was on horseback again, he must take care not to be 
 dragged down by foolish sympathy for those less fortunate. 
 He could best aid them by staying where he was. 
 
 To his horror, he realized he was thinking along lines of 
 self-deception similar to those with which Waldemar, Senior, 
 and Benjamin Hartogensis tricked their consciences; one 
 through ignorance, the other hypocritically. What was his 
 life now that it was so superior to Pink's, Beau's or Sonia's? 
 The selling of a forbidden drug; an artful circumvention of 
 the law. In what way was that superior? 
 
 He shook his fists in rage and despair. Was there no way 
 of circumventing this closing net of circumstance, the net that 
 had already meshed Hugo and Archie Hugo the cavalier of a 
 chorus-girl; Archie the slave of a selfish woman; himself a 
 tool of dishonesty and greed. 
 
 A sort of helpless desperation crushed him. Had it been 
 their fault they were expelled from college and herded to the 
 city ? Once there, had it been the desire of any one to fall to 
 low estate ? What perverse wind of destiny was driving their 
 frail barks direct for the jagged reefs of disgrace and self- 
 destruction ? for to Arnold, as to all very young men, suicide 
 seemed the necessary concomitant of a lost reputation. 
 
 Was he to blame because they called him untrustworthy and 
 unscrupulous in newspaper offices ? What could he have done ? 
 Other work, honest work he had tried that once ... as 
 a result the Hotel Tippecanoe and the jail. 
 
 For two nights after Pink had told him of The Jinx, Ar- 
 nold remained alone in his rooms. By midnight of the sec-
 
 In Which Arnold Gets a Cheque 223 
 
 ond he had come to the consideration of various methods of 
 suicide. It might as well come now as later. What use to go 
 through any more of life the slave of baser men, misery on 
 all sides of him and he unable to lend a hand? In Arnold 
 L'Hommedieu, strive as he might to drown it, the blood of 
 centuries of parsons the spirit of the fighting monk and the 
 militant Huguenot was not to be denied. He must battle 
 against evil, he must fight for the helpless, else be eternally 
 miserable. And, being miserable, chafing in impotency, there 
 seemed no reason for existence. 
 
 It was during these considerations that he remembered the 
 rubber tube. Velvet Voice ! another bitter memory this girl 
 who must have gaudy clothes and motor-cars. Again wild 
 with rage, he denied that there was a possible chance he might 
 love such a frail worthless thing. Poor Bertie was far her 
 superior. . . . Yet it was not until he had received 
 Bertie's wire in the midst of these meditations that he began 
 to have sensible thoughts. The Stirrup-Cup company would 
 head for New York on the following night, so the wire read. 
 She would soon be here in this very room. How could he 
 caress her again, answer her affectionately, day after day pre- 
 tend to care ? 
 
 There is no simile more true of man in the grip of adverse 
 circumstances than that of the fly in the fast-spinning web of 
 the spider no matter how he may struggle or where turn 
 another spinneret throws another strand in his way. Bertie ! 
 he had not considered realistically what her return meant. 
 It drove out all thoughts of suicide. Thus the drowning man 
 forgets weariness at the sight of an oncoming shark. He fell 
 asleep over this new problem, and awoke with it. 
 
 When he arrived gloomy and dispirited at the office that 
 morning, he found a cheque from John Waldemar for his 
 share in the syndicate's winnings, the accompanying letter in- 
 forming him that his chief and others of a Congressional Com- 
 mittee were to go West that day on an investigation of certain 
 plans for the preservation and propagation of the few remain-
 
 224 God's Man 
 
 ing American bison. The cheque was larger by a fifth than 
 Arnold had anticipated; and, after paying hie debts, and 
 counting in the thousand he had received from Enoch Apri- 
 cott, he had, all told, a matter of some thirty-five hundred 
 dollars. 
 
 And, as the lightning flash of The Jinx's degradation had 
 shown all things hopeless, there came now a second flash that 
 showed the way of escape. This money would enable him to 
 avoid Bertie, forget Velvet Voice, leave his new-found com- 
 panions, rid himself of his uncongenial occupation. Back in 
 Havre de Grace, where were honest folk and simple friend- 
 ships, he would write down what he had seen and learned; 
 would help awaken his slumbering countrymen to their im- 
 minent danger. 
 
 "I'm going away for a few days I'm I'm ill," he told the 
 general manager of the Waldemar warehouses. "If any one 
 comes on personal business postpone it until "Waldemar gets 
 back. He'll only be gone a week or so " 
 
 "So he says," returned the other; "where are you going, 
 Mr. L'Hommedieu?" 
 
 And Arnold replied, keeping the joyousness from his tones 
 only with an effort : "To Havre de Grace home !" 
 
 He would break the news in a letter to Waldemar; Harvey 
 Quinn could dispose of the Beeckman Street lease and join 
 him afterward. He knew of a little cottage he could secure, 
 high on a bluff overlooking the sand-dunes and Havre de 
 Grace breakwater. Here he could watch the homing ducks and 
 sea-gulls, see the ships, almost the Connecticut shore. When 
 Quinn came, he would take that cottage, knock in a great 
 bow-window like that at the Beeckman Place houst and there 
 he would write ! 
 
 But he said nothing of all this to Quinn ; indeed could not 
 hurry that person fast enough over packing his bags, lest 
 something happen to keep him a prisoner in a city grown sud- 
 denly a dungeon. Quinn endured the hurrying philosoph- 
 ically, nor asked questions; although something of moment
 
 In Which Arnold Gets a Cheque 225 
 
 was brewing he knew : his quasi-master had never before had 
 those bright shining eyes and eager lips. 
 
 By the time the Long Island ferry-boat left Manhattan, 
 Arnold's excitement had brought tears to his eyes. A great 
 thankfulness was in his heart; that of the convict who has 
 won his release. When the train had passed through Jamaica, 
 the last stronghold of the enemy, and fields and forests slid 
 by the car windows, he strained his eyes as might a slum-child 
 on its first outing. 
 
 At Havre de Grace station, his father telegraphed for 
 waited in the ancient family phaeton, old Julius, snowy of 
 wool, at the reins just as always when Arnold came home for 
 holidays and vacations. Back of the weather-beaten railway 
 offices, fields of early spring flowers, white and yellow and 
 pink, stretched away to meet the forests. Honest homely faces 
 looked up at him from under shabby hats. Even the hideous 
 clap-boarded eating-house on one corner, the dingy saloon on 
 the other, failed to destroy his illusion that here all things 
 were beautiful. His father's face how serene his mild blue 
 eyes, how fresh and unwrinkled his skin, despite his sixty 
 years. 
 
 And then, as they passed old Miss Eastnicky's Harbor View, 
 the sunset on Havre de Grace Harbor, with its rainbow arch 
 of flaming salmon, against which the slim straight masts of 
 sailing ships and a single gull poised above the light-house 
 were etched in the delicate tracery of a thousand growing 
 shadows. 
 
 "Wonderful wonderful wonderful," breathed Arnold. 
 "How could I have stayed away so long, father?" The old 
 man, to whom such glories were part of his daily life, only 
 smiled tolerantly. "But I'm back now," Arnold added ; "back 
 to stay. If I'd had any doubts, all this would have decided it." 
 He waved toward the lofty green-thatched hills that encom- 
 passed the Harbor, little white houses clinging to their sides ; 
 the masts and spars of shipping below. "I never knew how 
 much it meant to me."
 
 226 God's Man 
 
 Afar out to sea, heading for the narrow channel, came the 
 Connecticut boat carrying the night-mail, the smoke from its 
 funnels drifting toward the early glimmering harbor light. 
 "Do you remember how I used to watch for that, father?" 
 asked Arnold eagerly. "Did you keep my old brass telescope ? 
 Remember how many sermons I copied out for you to get that ? 
 Eemember how I used to lie in the big window waiting to see 
 the boat coming, so I could run down to the wharf and get 
 your evening paper before anybody else got there ?" 
 
 The old man laid his hand on his son's shoulder, then 
 gripped it with a sudden tremor of affection : he did not trust 
 himself to speak. 
 
 And, as they went on jogging behind Julius' charge 
 equally ancient with himself and the phaeton old dappled 
 Joris, to whom whip or spur had been strangers during all her 
 twenty years men raised their hats to the Reverend Jorian 
 L'Hommedieu, and, gravely, he returned their salutes in kind. 
 
 Just as they were about to turn into Parson's Lane, the be- 
 ginning of the L'Hommedieu property, a sweatered youth of 
 his own age, his hair crisp, curly and light, hatless few of 
 the younger men wore headgear here except as protection from, 
 the cold stepped to the pony's head and spoke to Arnold's 
 father concerning his motor-boat on which it appeared he had 
 been working the boat that carried the Reverend Jorian to 
 his distant parishioners at Green Sands, on the other side of 
 the Harbor. This was one of the mechanics at some garage, 
 Arnold judged from his speech; which was to the effect that 
 his afternoon's work had not remedied the engine's failure 
 to do its duty. 
 
 "And, of course, I can come to-morrow morning and worrk 
 on it," the youth admitted ruefully; "but I hate to run up 
 any more time on you, Parson, without doin' any good. I 
 suspect there's watter in her tank ; so if you don't have to use 
 the boatt to-morrow, I'll come 'round after hours Saturday's 
 a half-holiday and look her over on my own time. . . . 
 I'd like to, sir. You've paid for enough time that hasn't done
 
 In Which Arnold Gets a Cheque 227 
 
 you any good. Why, hello, Arnold," he added, his eyes better- 
 trained to the fading light. And Arnold shook hands with 
 an old public-schoolmate, the mathematician and draftsman 
 of his class. 
 
 "And where would you find that in New York?" asked Ar- 
 nold when the youth had gone off whistling. 
 
 "New York ehem ! yes," his father replied, in his 
 usual abstracted manner. "He has no right to give me 
 his time that way I must find him some suitable pres- 
 ent. . . . He could have gone there," he went on, 
 without the slightest idea he was not being perfectly 
 clear, "and the people who make the motor-cars Inker- 
 mann's agent for wanted him as demonstrator and sales- 
 man. Some rich man stopping at the Inn wanted him, too 
 to take charge he had four cars and an electric, Tony told 
 me. Lots of offers, that lad has had ! But he stays with Ink- 
 ermann. Seems to enjoy pottering around machinery. And 
 though always complaining about the lack of amusement, of 
 nights, he stays. A good boy, Tony a great friend of Paul's." 
 
 That was something like democracy, when a mechanic could 
 be a "great friend" of the heir to the L'Hommedieus when 
 he could do the Parson a favor, and call his eldest son "Ar- 
 nold," all without an idea he was being unusual. Arnold 
 smiled grimly at the realkation that some of the snobbery of 
 Carol Caton's set had been absorbed by him. Why shouldn't 
 any self-respecting, educated, self-supporting man be Paul's 
 friend and call his eldest brother "Arnold" ? Was it because 
 he wore a sweater and shapeless trousers and Arnold a suit 
 from that expensive Avenue tailor? 
 
 He was beginning to understand why things were going 
 awry with Americans in the big cities. They had abjured 
 the duties of democracy without achieving the obligations of 
 aristocracy. They had lost admiration for the man who re- 
 spected himself too much to take money he had not earned; 
 and were giving it to him who respected himself so little that 
 he was proud of never having earned it.
 
 228 God's Man 
 
 But he had no time for ethics and metaphysics just then : 
 there were too many keen sensations to be felt the sight of 
 the familiar playgrounds of his youth, the centuries-old house 
 with the moss-covered slate roof that sloped over the long low 
 windows of the first floor, and from which the dormers of the 
 attic story peeped out; the last rays of the sunset finding a 
 thousand sparkling shooting-star jewels in their diamond- 
 panes. And, on the long fiat slab of slate that had been worn 
 glassy smooth by the feet of the many generations of L'Hom- 
 medieus who had used it for a doorstep, Paul L'Hommedieu, 
 his arm linked in his mother's, stood shading his eyes and 
 watching for them. 
 
 "Oh, my loy!" the small, spry and generally cheerful old 
 lady cried as she put her arms around her eldest son. It 
 was hard to imagine that she and her husband were three- 
 score. A life free of worries (save only Arnold in these later 
 years) and complete absorption in congenial work, had left 
 both younger than many who lacked a score of their years. 
 Only the sobriety of Mrs. I/Hommedieu's black satin dress, 
 the stiffness of her petticoat, and the lace-cap that she wore 
 because she "thought it fitting at my age," gave any hint that 
 she was past the middle period of life while the Eeverend 
 Jorian had looked the same for so many years that he had 
 imagined it "due his years" to grow beard and side-whiskers 
 that would disguise his youthful appearance. . . . Paul 
 was destined to be another like him his face cherubic, his 
 figure chubby, he seemed hardly due to leave grammar-school. 
 
 "Where have you kept yourself?" he asked, as he linked his 
 arm with his brother's an affectionate habit and took him 
 off to his old room. It had been kept as though he still had 
 residence there : his boyhood books Ballantynes, Castlemons, 
 Kingstons, Oliver Optics, Hans Andersen, Arabian Nights, 
 Tom Brown merry men all, a crew of genial ghosts, that sud- 
 denly people the room, crowding upon him with jovial grins 
 and reminding him how ungrateful he had been to think the 
 ( wo rid a poor place when they had had so many happy times
 
 In Which Arnold Gets a Cheque 229 
 
 together on those long winter nights before the fire, through 
 those long summer days in the sweet-smelling hay-loft. Ar- 
 nold hardly heard what his brother was saying. 
 
 ". . . Why, it's been your first trip in two years 
 . . . You don't know how father and mother were cut up 
 about it. Caught her crying, lots of times and you know 
 she's not one for that. And father sits and stares, doesn't an- 
 swer you which isn't like him. . . " 
 
 "Oh, I know it I've been a filthy brute." Arnold closed his 
 eyes and spoke wearily. If they ever knew he had been within 
 a mile of the place and had not even stopped ! "What a 
 brute," he added fiercely. 
 
 His bat, his telescope, his fishing-rods, his birch-bark canoe 
 swung up among the rafters, even his battered old school- 
 books all were exactly as he had left them : the pictures he had 
 cut from magazines were still tacked to the whitewashed walls ; 
 and, hanging over one, the sling-shot fork he had cut from 
 the elm whose branches still encroached upon the windows. 
 And there was his twenty-two caliber rifle and his ducking- 
 gun, the especial pride and joy of his grammar-school days. 
 
 "But I'm back, Paul," he said finally, choking down an un- 
 manly something in his throat. "Back to stay. Not to rob 
 you, kid ; no, no ! To write! To write what I learned while I 
 was a selfish brute. ... It all came over me like a shot 
 this morning and here I am to stay." 
 
 He seized Paul in a bear-hug that even that youth's chub- 
 biness found inimical to the safety of his bones: then dealt 
 him a heavy buffet in the small of the back, and toppled him 
 on the patchwork quilt of the bed, where he was affec- 
 tionately pummeled. Finally he was forced to defend him- 
 self, and a lively scuffle ensued during which chairs were 
 upset, water from the washstand basin was spilled, and a 
 table of books was overturned endangering the plaster of the 
 sitting-room below. From which escapade Arnold emerged 
 minus the years that had separated him from his younger 
 brother, and they answered the dinner-bell by racing each
 
 230 God's Man 
 
 other down the broad winding stairs, half-sliding, half-scam- 
 pering: then regardless of the maternal lace cap, black silk 
 and stiff petticoat, which should have awed him by their dig- 
 nity, Arnold lifted the little woman high in air and while he 
 held her, kissed her. 
 
 "Oh, Arnold, you bad "boy," she protested, quite as of old; 
 and Belinda, wife of Julius, looked on grinning, and the 
 Eeverend Jorian's laugh was almost boisterous. 
 
 "He hasn't changed, Mother," said Paul, with a ridiculous 
 attempt to put into his young voice the toleration of age for 
 youth. 
 
 "No, he hasn't" said she with pretended severity; "the 
 harum-scarum thing he is. Sit down and eat your tea-cakes, 
 sir, or they'll be cold. . . ." 
 
 She, herself, could take nothing, so full was her heart, so 
 full would her eyes have been had she at any moment allowed 
 her vigilance to relax. Nor could the elder L'Hommedieu 
 find his appetite. Instead, both aided and abetted their eldest 
 son in stuffing himself with those delicacies of which, in 
 younger days, he had protested never had he had enough. Be- 
 sides the hot tea-cakes, there were those toothsome crullers and 
 jam doughnuts that weighed a little less than nothing at all, 
 and that nobody but Belinda could make; various spiced pre- 
 serves peaches, damsons, yellow tomatoes; grape and crab- 
 apple jams ; crisp brook-trout caught only that afternoon and 
 browned with bacon ; enormous thin slices of sugar-cured ham 
 the curing a secret of Julius' smoke-house down by the 
 brook; large strawberries grown under glass by the Reverend 
 Jorian himself and served with cream but an hour divorced 
 from Belinda's namesake, the spotted Alderney that was to be 
 heard giving vent to various rumbling "moos" outside as she, 
 with the others, noisily advertised their dining in the near-by 
 barn. 
 
 Arnold, accustomed to the spare measured "portions" of 
 restaurants, swore he had no room for any of the huge joint 
 of browned beef that Belinda, of the continual grin, entrusted
 
 In Which Arnold Gets a Cheque 231 
 
 to Julius to carve. But when he saw the rare red of slices that 
 curled off under the knife and splashed into their own rich 
 juice, he found room for several; was again recalcitrant and 
 again recalled his refusal when his mother's silver knife slid 
 through the crust of a pumpkin pie as though cutting butter. 
 So, that, finally, the mental helplessness of the overfed seized 
 him, and he slid down in his chair and leaned back to hear 
 the others talk of homelike things as of old, to listen to the 
 crackling of a fire that leaped high in its home of bright blue 
 tiles lighting up the history of Holland pictured thereon, 
 pricking up his ears to the weird crooning of the night-wind 
 that swept up from the Harbor to rock the treetops that waved 
 over the house of the L'Hommedieus. And when the moon 
 rose, church spire and gilded cross were flooded with light as 
 though their good friend of centuries, the Moon, knew, and 
 wished to be remembered to the little boy who had once 
 waited and watched each night for his coming; but whom it 
 had been unable to find over there in the city among so many 
 people who did not care whether it shone or not, so seldom 
 did they lift up their eyes from the mud in which they lived.
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 NO-MAN'S LAND 
 
 ARNOLD MEETS A PHILOSOPHER 
 
 ATE on the following evening, Ar- 
 nold leaned on his oars while the 
 gray crept up out of the rolling 
 waters, and spread over earth 
 and sky. It had been foggy all 
 
 y; DOW the f S- banks were 
 hiding town and harbor; but 
 
 Arnold was oblivious to the signs 
 .that, in other times, would have 
 told him old Mother Gary was 
 brewing broth for her chickens 
 out there on her mysterious 
 island in the gray sea. He was 
 sunk in a sort of rapt retrospec- 
 tion. He was seeing what wise men have seen from the be- 
 ginning of time : that the evil of man is but a small ill-smelling 
 tallow-dip beside the glory of his inheritance. He came out 
 of his meditations with a start. Not seeing the boat in the 
 mantle of fog, there had swept across his bows, almost brush- 
 ing his face with their wings, a brace of green-necked, red- 
 footed ducks, in hasty retreat for the shore to join the nesting 
 army in the caves of the cliffs. As he looked after them in 
 their low-lying flight close to the rising wave-tops, he heard, 
 squawking their plaintive "peet-peet," a pair of sea-gulls cir- 
 cling high above him.
 
 No-Man's Land 233 
 
 Eecalled to a realization of the gathering storm by these 
 weather-wise dwellers in the air-currents, Arnold began to 
 row in the direction of the narrow bottle-neck of Havre de 
 Grace Harbor ; but a heavy wind had arisen and was capping 
 the waves with white. Moreover, the fog had now grown thick 
 as a Scotchman's porridge and he caught only a glimpse of 
 the blue-black lines of breakwater that indicated the channel 
 and against which the heavy seas were now dashing them- 
 selves into thousands of bits of seething white spray; while 
 heavy draperies of sea-mist slowly descended and wrapped 
 them with the color of sky and water. It was now as though 
 he and his boat had been lifted from sea to sky and were float- 
 ing on heavy banks of cloud. An immensity of grayness 
 stretched about him on all sides hiding all things. The heavy 
 mist muffled the waves so that the long oily swells carried him 
 high into the air without warning, twisting the boat out of 
 its course, no matter how furiously he might paddle. He lost 
 all sense of direction; and when the long searching rays of 
 the channel light were blunted by the surrounding grayness 
 into a blurred incandescence like a light behind a thick and 
 misty window-pane, he saw that his instinct had played him 
 false and that he had been rowing toward Green Sands, the 
 stronger light from which now shot through the fog-banks 
 like a flaming zigzag of heat lightning. But only for a mo- 
 ment: then, Havre de Grace light seemed to have been ex- 
 tinguished and that of Green Sands reduced to pale green 
 mistiness. Meanwhile, the waves rose high sea-horses shak- 
 ing white manes threateningly or came at him in great green 
 rollers sweeping up and over his light craft, or waltzing with 
 it as might a giant with a feather, its direction wholly at the 
 will of the rapid sweeping current. Useless to attempt to turn 
 her now and row against such obstacles with all his strength 
 it was doubtful if he could keep even the position he held. 
 
 He shipped his oars. Fortunately the tide was going high, 
 the current was bearing him shoreward not to Havre de 
 Grace Harbor, truly, nor to Green Sands, either, but to that
 
 234 God's Man 
 
 long peninmila that stretched between them, a No-Man's Land 
 of dunes and hummocks sand 'links' of Scotland unten- 
 anted, unclaimed by any, a treacherous coast of shoals and 
 rocks, currents and low tides; a coast that fishers, oystermen 
 and pilots gave the widest possible berth. Cut off from, the 
 mainland, at high tide, by water rushing through a wide gully 
 of waving rushes, it was a favorite playground for Arnold and 
 other young adventurers in youth, for there, half-covered by 
 the drifting sand of more than a hundred years, was a spa- 
 cious single-roomed hut built of sturdy ships timbers oak 
 and spruce, a tradition among the boys of Havre de Grace 
 being that it had been built by treasure-burying pirates, per- 
 haps even the summering place of the infamous Kidd. . . . 
 He thought of this hut now : it would keep him dry until 
 the storm blew over, and there was always enough driftwood 
 on the shore to build a fire. So, when the current rapidly bore 
 him in that direction, he gave it no resistance although he 
 blamed himself for not waiting until Tony should have re- 
 paired his father's boat, the motor of which could bid cur- 
 rents defiance. Then suddenly one great roller carried the 
 boat high and dashed it down again to crunch its keel and 
 grind its bottom against stones and sand. Arnold leaped out, 
 painter in hand, into a foot or so of seething white scum and 
 dragged the boat beyond the reach of the next discharge of 
 heavy sea artillery. Artillery, indeed, for the breakers now 
 pounded the beach with the sound and fury of a park of great 
 guns, and the howling wind came through the sea-mist like a 
 charge of shrapnel and grapeshot, whipping up particles of 
 spray that stung Arnold's eyes until they blinked, smarted 
 and wept; that raised red marks on his cheeks. It required 
 some fortitude to persist in dragging the boat beyond high- 
 water mark, after which he stumbled through the fog in what 
 he took to be the direction of the old hut a difficult progress 
 with guch a retarding foothold as wet sand, his feet slipping 
 occasionally as the undermined ground above the burrows of 
 rabbits and moles gave way beneath his weight. Once he
 
 No-Man's Land 235 
 
 caught his foot in a snake-hole, stumbling and falling face 
 downward; another time he kicked his way through a flock of 
 frightened white gulls, hundreds and hundreds huddled in 
 the shadow of scrub pines and gorse-bushes, not seeing them 
 until they rose, their cold wet wings beating against his face, 
 the mother-birds fiercely fighting for their young. This 
 turned him from his path, so that he passed in a circle around 
 the hut and found himself slipping on the gravelly shore again. 
 Starting back patiently, he stumbled into a sand-pit and fell 
 upon something that scurried away a rabbit probably; and 
 had he not turned to attempt to follow it through the fog 
 with his eyes, he would have gone off at a tangent from the 
 hut that was so near all the while. But, as he looked after the 
 rabbit, he saw another misty patch of light, yellow, this one, 
 and near some fisherman, no doubt, driven ashore like him- 
 self, had sought shelter in the hut. So he pushed on toward 
 the light and came, to his surprise, to panes of glass behind 
 which it shone, but he was too wet and cold to wonder long 
 how the glass came there, only tapped on it with his seal-ring, 
 hallooing loudly the while. Immediately the door was opened 
 and so suddenly that Arnold fell on all fours, in the glare of 
 a roaring fire of driftwood. Eising, he began to warm him- 
 self : that was more important than troubling to examine his 
 host, although he mumbled some conventional thanks, and 
 apologized before slipping off his high-laced ducking-boots 
 to dry his stockinged feet. 
 
 The man of the hut drew up another chair and sat down 
 beside him a handsome man with features vaguely familiar, 
 tanned and weather-beaten, his eyes not remarkable for size or 
 color, but deeply set and holding some strange hidden quality 
 that, unconsciously, demanded respectful attention. His dress 
 was simple : a closely fitting jersey-jacket, knickerbockers but- 
 toned over heavy stockings, all of soft gray wool, while he had 
 evidently just discarded the wet hip-boots that stood near the 
 fire for a pair of worn dress-pumps. 
 
 He had been giving Arnold careful scrutiny while both sat
 
 236 God's Man 
 
 silent, scrutiny few could have accomplished without the ef- 
 fect of offensive suspicion, or vulgar curiosity. 
 
 When he spoke his voice held some quality as vaguely dis- 
 quieting as that in his eyes. "Very remarkable head, young 
 man. Wonder if you have ever done anything with it ?" And, 
 again, despite the apparent rudeness, Arnold felt he had noth- 
 ing to resent, so only smiled and replied that he doubted he 
 had, but intended he should. Then he surveyed the hut. A 
 list to starboard, effect of a century's wind and piling sand, 
 had been corrected: the walls were now entirely hidden by 
 shelves of well-bound books. On the upper shelves framed 
 prints stood slanted against the oak rafters. Some of these 
 Arnold recognized for photographic portraits of famous icon- 
 oclasts, Shaw, "Wells, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Bjornson and lesser 
 lights, Synge, Symonds and Strindberg all Arnold's own 
 particular Deities. He said as much. 
 
 "You're that rare animal a man who can think, then," 
 was his host's comment. "For which I am duly thankful. Ex- 
 pected an evening of boredom. Happened before. Current 
 circles this peninsula, and drives people ashore stormy days. 
 Had a dozen guests since I came here : one for a week. That 
 was during the blizzard two years ago. He drove me mad. 
 Told me about every blizzard he'd ever heard of, or his grand- 
 father, or his great grandfather, or his friends, or that he'd 
 read about or dreamed about. Spent the rest of the time 
 wondering what the boys were doing in Havre de Grace House 
 bar-room. Jim was playing pool with Bill and giving him 
 twenty balls, and Pete was taking his fourth drink, and Jack 
 was talking politics, and, at home, his wife was just about 
 putting the boy to sleep in all the time he was here he never 
 uttered a sentence that showed even the intelligence of a 
 marsh-rabbit. ... If he'd stayed here a day longer I'd 
 have picked a quarrel with him just to escape any more of his 
 imbecile good nature " 
 
 The kettle hissed on the hob, interrupting him : he removed 
 it and infused tea leaves, then brushed off, with a long han-
 
 No-Man's Land 237 
 
 died fork, the ashes that covered some potatoes buried in the 
 glowing embers of the hearth. Satisfied with their appear- 
 ance, he cleansed the fork, sliced several pieces of bacon from 
 a flitch that hung from a rafter, and began broiling them, 
 and as he did so he answered Arnold's questions. 
 
 It appeared that the State had owned the peninsula and 
 that he had bought it for next to nothing. He had discovered 
 it years before while cruising the coast and had thought it 
 then the ideal spot for a hermitage. Not that an occasional 
 intelligent guest was not welcome, but he was not likely to 
 meet many strangers whose conversation might be worth the 
 trouble of entertaining them. As he talked the familiarity 
 of his features grew upon Arnold until he could no longer 
 restrain his curiosity. 
 
 "I've seen you somewhere, surely," he said at length, busy- 
 ing himself at his host's request, removing the roasted pota- 
 toes from their fiery bed. He was not answered; the man 
 professed not to have heard him, even when he repeated his 
 quasi-question as they sat down to dinner together. His 
 cheeks burning, Arnold hastened to turn the talk to those 
 writers whose works lined the walls. But his own ambition 
 to emulate them which presently came out, was met by a 
 shake of the head. 
 
 "A pity," said his host briefly. "Too many writers, tee 
 few thinkers. Those early writers, who worked for love and 
 the spreading of knowledge, if they could see the trash that 
 pours from printing-houses to-day, they'd be sorry they hadn't 
 left making books to monks. When each letter was made by 
 hand few worthless books got made. And books were beyond 
 any who didn't desire learning mighty earnestly. Of course, 
 the mob had its tale-tellers and minstrels, but their stuff 
 couldn't reach any farther than the sound of their voices. 
 But now every fool can get his foolishness printed and mil- 
 lions of people can read it and confirm their conceit of them- 
 selves. So don't write unless you must." 
 
 "I must, then," said Arnold seriously.
 
 238 pod's Man 
 
 "Then," returned his new acquaintance, "you should love 
 the truth heyond women or wealth or fame. You should be 
 content to have fools laugh and jeer at you, and rich illiterates 
 and unscrupulous rascals spit in your face and call you 'mad/ 
 'insane/ 'an anarchist/ Don't expect respect, or love, or 
 friendship. You will be a very lonely man such as I am." 
 
 His voice was careless and matter-of-fact and betrayed no 
 feeling; his loneliness did not seem to weigh on him. "That 
 is," he continued, "if you would find the truth and write the 
 truth. Solitude is necessary for that. One must be alone 
 much of the time to puzzle out the mysteries of love and life 
 and death. There should be no room in your heart for the 
 love of a woman, or the desire for riches, or the hope of fame. 
 The truth will swallow them all up. ... And it's too 
 soon for you to think of giving up all those things which seem 
 precious as life itself to youth. One must first have lived 
 them all, which you are too young to have done. Go out and 
 live. Then come back and write. You can't live and write 
 at the same time." 
 
 For the moment his eyes were lit by something that gave 
 Arnold vague alarm ; which, perceived in some uncanny fash- 
 ion, for Arnold was sure he had not shown his feelings, the 
 man made his eyes somber again and his laugh a harsh jarring 
 one. "What nonsense I'm talking nonsense to you. Now, 
 you want the women to say, 'How clever/ And the tame 
 critics to say, 'What masterly technique/ and the publishers 
 to put out your book in a gaudy wrapper like that on a box of 
 candy the monk's frock and the warrior's armor traded for 
 the gaudy dress of the public panderer. And a hack will 
 dramatize it and a 'perfectly sweet' actress will play in it for 
 'two hundred nights in New York/ . . ." 
 
 He pushed back his chair and strode across the hut to stare 
 out at the driving spray and sleet, in the wildness of which 
 he seemed to find kinship. There was silence, Arnold sur- 
 veying the bare room with its hard pallet-bed, its rough 
 chairs and table, its absence of luxuries. Was this bearded
 
 No-Man's Land 239 
 
 stranger with the odd disquieting eyes some famous icono- 
 clast, such as those whose works crowded the walls? That 
 would account for the vague familiarity of his face. 
 
 He filled a long clay pipe and offered Arnold another. He 
 had become calm, self -detached. "You don't helieve me? 
 You do understand life? You know the whys and where- 
 fores ? You have a philosophy that will explain the .world's 
 apparent paradoxes and inconsistencies?" Arnold stared at 
 him, suddenly alarmed. "I see that you don't and haven't," 
 continued his mentor; "the lines coming in your forehead 
 show bewilderment, and around your eyes fear, about your 
 mouth bitterness. You have seen things out there" he 
 waved his hand in the direction of the cities "and you are 
 anxious to put them down that other people may be horrified, 
 too. Don't ! Life holds enough misery without books being 
 written about it, ... unless the things you saw have 
 taught you how misery may be mitigated. Which they have 
 not by the troubled look that just came into your eyes. . . . 
 Therefore, go out and learn more. You haven't seen enough. 
 It took forty years to teach me. What do you know ? Only 
 that life is not what copy-books and Sunday-schools taught 
 you. That, when men and women get to a great city where 
 they are free of watching neighbors they often lose even the 
 semblance of virtue. . . . But how does that help any- 
 body ? The cities must be peopled. Where is the error, then ? 
 Who is to blame ? You don't know." 
 
 He drew on his pipe ; he was quite placid now. "You will 
 know, though," he said presently ; "men with heads like yours 
 are put into the world to know and to teach. But the head 
 must gain many hard bumps first. Then . . ." He 
 paused and crossed to the window. "It is clearing," he said ; 
 "you will be able to go soon." Once more he was without 
 offense even as the author of so inhospitable a speech. 
 
 "Won't you tell me your name, sir?" asked Arnold, hi& 
 voice respectful. 
 
 "Any name will do," the man responded. "They call me
 
 240 God's Man 
 
 Tobinson around here. It is as good as any other to figure 
 on tax-reports, and that's the only use I have for a name. 
 We should all have numbers, not names. Then all this striv- 
 ing to impress the public with the superiority of a certain 
 arrangement of letters would cease and much destructive 
 waste of energy would be eliminated. . . . Yes, the stars 
 are coming out. You won't have any difficulty in getting 
 home now." 
 
 Arnold followed his pointing finger and saw clear and 
 bright a dark blue belt of sky set with many pointed jewels of 
 light, while the darkness in one place seemed thrust forth on 
 either side and a misty patch, larger and brighter than any 
 dozen light-house lamps, was shining through the moon. He 
 began drawing on his boots, his mind in a turmoil of dissat- 
 isfaction, curiosity, wounded pride. But for the moment this 
 was dissipated by the man speaking again. 
 
 "Whenever you can't decide for yourself and want me to 
 decide for you, come again," he said. Arnold hesitated. 
 Should he confide in his inhospitable host the fact that he did 
 not intend to take his advice? that he would remain and 
 write, regardless of the other's dictum? This fellow under- 
 rated him because of his youth. He did not know, youth or 
 no, that Arnold's experiences were those most elderly men 
 never had. As for women had he not given up both Bertie 
 and Velvet Voice? He crowded out and crushed down the 
 sudden yearning for Velvet Voice that always came with the 
 thought of her. Was she dining somewhere at this very mo- 
 ment with the unspeakable Spedden? 
 
 "With all due respect to you," said Arnold, "I think I 
 know best about my particular situation. If I'd stayed any 
 longer in New York I'd have ended up like most of them my 
 age do. That is, if they aren't born to the purple. I'd gone 
 far enough as it was : taken money I would have spit on when 
 I first struck town. And the only excuse for taking it is to try 
 to make myself a better man with it. Put it that way : even
 
 No-Man's Land 241 
 
 if my writing won't be valuable to anybody else, it will be to 
 me/' 
 
 The man who was called Tobinson shook his head. "You're 
 dodging the issue. You're running away from the fight. 
 You'll never forgive yourself if you give up before you've 
 learned the answer to the Big Problem Why? And you 
 won't learn that down here." 
 
 "Then I don't want to know it," retorted Arnold, his anger 
 stirred. "Why? You may well say it. Why do the hypo- 
 crites and the ignorant and the rascals hold most of the 
 power? Why is everything good in life, in business, in poli- 
 tics, in literature, in art, subordinated to the desire of a few 
 thousands to get more money? Why are the fools raised up 
 and the wise men kicked down ? the selfish rewarded and the 
 unselfish beaten? . . ." 
 
 "That is just it why ' interrupted the other coolly : "You 
 don't know. That's why I advise you to go back and find out, 
 not moon away your brains down here worrying over it " 
 
 "You are here, aren't you ?" asked Arnold savagely. 
 
 "I know the answer," was Tobinson's quiet reply. "There's 
 no 'why* about it to me. I lived forty years in the fighting 
 and found out, and now I'm going to try to use my knowledge 
 to help keep the ignorant from making more mistakes. I may 
 influence a few hundred thinkers who will influence a few 
 hundred more and the ball will grow and grow. But what 
 can you do? Just increase the despair and befuddlement of 
 the average man by pointing out wrongdoing that you can't 
 tell him how to stop. Everybody knows there's too much 
 misery and injustice in life do you know the result of giving 
 the public the details? It merely gives them an excuse for 
 being crooked themselves. Everybody else is doing it why 
 not I ? That's all the good that comes of exposure without en- 
 lightenment. And the answer is not in your eyes. If it were, 
 they would be confident and serene. For me there is no 
 'Why/ " 
 
 "No?" asked Arnold sardonically: "then maybe you can
 
 242 God's Man 
 
 tell me why two of my friends and myself who had intended 
 to live decent lives and be some help to our fellows why we 
 have been forced into shoddy practises and shady lives ? For 
 exposing a rascal, I was expelled from college. For shielding 
 a friend, I was reduced to the worst kind of poverty. For 
 trying to get justice for a helpless woman, I got into jail. By 
 using influence with the most corrupt kind of politicians I 
 got out. To get back to my former kind of life, I had to ac- 
 cept a position with a man who is a wholesale poisoner. To 
 get the little money I've saved, I had to blackmail my em- 
 ployer. . . . And with my two friends matters are much 
 the same the things they are doing were forced on them as 
 they were forced on me. Why? Why? Xo, I don't know 
 the answer and I don't want to, if I have to be entirely de- 
 stroyed to learn it." 
 
 "The answer is perfectly plain," returned the other gravely. 
 "But there's no use telling you now you wouldn't believe, nor 
 understand. But think on this, and apply it to yourself and 
 your friends. "We are not so free as we think. A gigantic 
 Purpose is behind all we are forced to do a Purpose that 
 has never abated, never despaired, never relaxed, never been 
 unsuccessful in the end. For all those who can read between 
 the lines, the world's history is only the fulfilment of that 
 Purpose. And knowing something of It, knowing It wastes 
 no energy, I'll tell you something. You haven't had all those 
 bitter experiences merely to come down here and live out the 
 rest of your life with an unanswered question in your eyes. 
 My advice was needless. You will go back." 
 
 "To-night," said Arnold defiantly, "I write to resign my 
 position and lease my house " But, nevertheless, he was 
 chilled by the man's assurance, by his steady gaze that now 
 held something of compassion. 
 
 "Such men as you and I we are the sacrifices," he said, so 
 low Arnold hardly heard him he seemed to be looking past 
 the walls of the hut into strange wild voids. "Our youth, our 
 hopes, our loves they all go to learn the answer whether we
 
 No-Man's Land 243 
 
 will it or not. The Cross is the symbol of that sacrifice. Our 
 lives are lost that others may be saved; our identities merged 
 into the Purpose. And the Eesurrection is the symbol of the 
 answer: only after we have been crucified can we know that 
 all has not been lost. All has been gained." He started to 
 his feet, his eyes alight. "And then and then only can we 
 teach." 
 
 He caught at Arnold's shoulders and stared at him steadily. 
 "I knew you were one of us when I first saw that head of yours. 
 Do you think I'd have wasted time on a mere scribbler? It's 
 not writing with us : it's teaching. The world can only know 
 from us. Writing is nothing : scribble and be damned. That's 
 what I'd have said to your tale-writer, your stylist, your 
 scholar. . . . But you when you write, it must be with 
 your life's blood. And your time hasn't come yet nor your 
 Calvary!" 
 
 His intensity chilled; it was as if the hands on Arnold's 
 shoulders were tons of ice. The boy sank into a chair, still 
 staring into the unfathomable eyes that blazed with strange 
 fires, hinted at strange secrets. And, for the first time, began 
 to understand dimly that his way through the shades of the 
 unknown jungle called Life was lit by some dancing will-o'- 
 the-wisp that must be followed, even though it led through the 
 pit of destruction. But it lead through. . . . 
 
 His mentor had sunk into an abstraction even more pro- 
 found, hardly seeming to hear the younger man stammer out 
 his good-by. And though Arnold repeated it several times, 
 this strange fellow only nodded, staring vacantly. So Arnold 
 strode off toward his boat, stumbling through the wet sand 
 again. The new stars were spangling the deep blue arch, the 
 ladder to the moon lay lightly upon the smooth waters. Near 
 the land a crow, rising toward the trees, was etched in the 
 frosted light; in which Havre de Grace far beyond, with its 
 outlying clusters of white houses on the harbor slopes, seemed 
 like a Mediterranean town of Roman days built on hills of 
 silver olive trees. A fearsome sense of all this beauty caused
 
 244 God's Man 
 
 Arnold to gulp : to realize how far a man must yet go to make 
 himself worthy of his inheritance. 
 
 Moodily he threw his strength into thrusting down his boat 
 from high-water mark, into getting afloat on the shining mir- 
 ror-like water. His oars, as they washed it, set up little trails 
 of phosphorescent flame. . . . 
 
 It was not until he had left the peninsula well behind, that 
 he heard a halloo from the shore, and turning saw on the 
 shelving shingle of the shore white as the whitest of bones, the 
 elongated shadow of a man, its head decapitated by the rising 
 tide behind it the stranger calling: 
 
 "Remember call on me when you need me." The cer- 
 tainty of his tone chilled Arnold again. Xeither answering 
 nor giving any sign he had heard, he bent his back at his 
 rowing, to put between him and this disquieting one all pos- 
 sible distance. But look back he must, and, in that light, he 
 could see when a mile had been covered that the black figure 
 still stood on the white sands. It was not until he had 
 rounded Havre de Grace Harbor that he lost sight of it.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 CONTRABAND 
 ENTER CAPTAIN DANNY OF THE "CORMORANT" 
 
 T WAS in the late afternoon of 
 
 the same da y that Arn ld met the 
 
 philosopher of the peninsula thai 
 Harbor Inn the shelter of those 
 who came by sea gained another 
 patron, a bronzed sea-faring man, 
 'with teeth as white as his skin was 
 dark, and a small flat head, its 
 shape not unlike that of a diamond- 
 back terrapin's; small of body, too, 
 but with as distended a chest and 
 as swaggering a gait as though he 
 were six feet tall : a sailor by every 
 known mark; although he came by land, on the Havre de 
 Grace Express as the natives somewhat egotistically denom- 
 inated the one fast North Shore train. Alighting, this per- 
 son took his place in the ancient tally-ho, to drive which had 
 once been an aristocratic pastime. 
 
 The stranger seated himself beside the driver, a tanned and 
 grizzled old coachman, with many marks that at once betray 
 a follower of the sea. He introduced himself to the stranger 
 as Captain Sallust of the S. S. Oak City; which, in sum- 
 mer, plied between the Long Island and the Connecticut
 
 246 God's Man 
 
 shores. He owned both steamer and bus, taking his driver's 
 place occasionally for want of other occupation. 
 
 "Are you now, mate?" returned the other, seemingly dis- 
 appointed. "I thought from the cut of you, you were at the 
 old trade, so I did. But there's not a many of us left, Captain. 
 Drumm, my name is, Dan Drumm, captain of the finest clipper- 
 ship that ever weathered a sou'wester off Hatteras. One of 
 the Van Vhroon coffee clippers, so she is. Ever hear of her? 
 she's made some records for fast sailing." The other cap- 
 tain (neither of them had a captain's ticket, Drumm a first 
 mate's, Sallust only a pilot's) responded with some polite 
 mendacities, which seemed to gratify his fellow seaman. 
 
 "And you're thinking of dockin' her here in Port?" he 
 asked, growing enthusiastic in praise of a certain dockyard 
 owned and controlled by his sons and relatives. But it was 
 time wasted the stranger shook his head. He was looking for 
 a gentleman his owner wanted him to see about some ship- 
 ments. A Mr. Lommydoo. Did Captain Sallust know him? 
 
 "Lommydoo? LommyJer/' corrected Captain Sallust in- 
 structively. "Do I know north if I look at the compass ? You 
 can't steer a course in these waters without runnin' a Lommy- 
 der down. 0' course, there's the Parson, and then there's 
 Doctor Will, and Lawyer John, and Judge Lommyder, that's 
 J. P., and there's Billy, that's in with my son in . . ." He 
 remembered his enthusiastic and seemingly unprejudiced 
 praise of the dockyard and checked himself. "You couldn't 
 toss a biscuit anywhere between here and the Harbor, and not 
 hit a Lommyder," he concluded. Captain Drumm explained 
 that the one he sought was a resident of Manhattan, home for 
 a visit. 
 
 "Parson's son, Arnold, I guess he means," said the man who 
 was holding the horses, now that all passengers had disem- 
 barked save the stranger. "He's home : I see him last night." 
 Captain Sallust frowned on his officious assistant, and pointed 
 toward the spire of the L'Hommedieu church, aloft the hill.
 
 Contraband 247 
 
 "They'll jest be setting down to supper, I reckon," he said. 
 "So you better wait less'n you know 'em pretty well. Steer 
 for the Harbor Inn, friend. They have grub there that suits 
 a shell-back." 
 
 "Which again was not pure disinterestedness for the captain 
 received a commission on all passengers sent there from boat 
 or coach. 
 
 At the Inn Captain Daniel Drumm, learning there was no 
 train back that night, engaged a room in which many other 
 captains had slept ; and, having finished his supper in the tap- 
 room, which bore all possible resemblance to a ship's, cabin, 
 barring its size and its great log fire, he set out for L'Hom- 
 medieu's house to be rewarded for his steep climb in the 
 wind and rain that had come up since his supper, only by the 
 information that the gentleman he sought had not yet returned 
 from a trip out in the Sound. This information was given 
 by the Parson himself, who cast troubled looks at the weather. 
 Captain Drumm declined the offer to wait the communica- 
 tion he had come to make was not one to be heard by a Par- 
 son and stumbled out into darkness and storm again, leaving 
 the request that, when the son of the house returned, he should 
 seek out his visitor at his Inn. It was a most important mat- 
 ter that could not wait until the morrow. 
 
 "It would be a fine piece of sail-making if that young man 
 got grabbed by Davy Jones after I took this trouble for him," 
 grumbled the maritime gentleman. "A fine piece of keel-lay- 
 ing that would be, wouldn't it? And it's a dirty night. I'll 
 lay he'll not be far from shore, though. . . ." 
 
 With which he consoled himself as he picked his way back 
 to the narrow little lane where of the two hexagonal lanterns 
 swinging before the Inn one had lost its light from the wind. 
 The disagreeable nature of the night had kept the usual 
 crowd of old cronies from venturing out to their favorite tap- 
 room; so the captain, after changing his shoes for carpet 
 slippers borrowed from the landlord, disposed himself in a
 
 248 God's Man 
 
 high-backed chair inside the great bricked fireplace, and finally 
 fell asleep. 
 
 It was close to eleven when he was awakened by the land- 
 lord, who was about to extinguish the lights and lock up for 
 the night. The captain was voicing his disappointment when 
 the beamed oak door swung open from the street, and Arnold 
 entered. Captain Danny saw him, but so juvenile was his 
 appearance in golf trousers, soft rolling collar and plaid cap, 
 that the captain failed to identify him with that important 
 agent of a great firm whose absence from Nevr York had ne- 
 cessitated this journey into the outlands. The host, however, 
 showed the late visitor that deference due a L'Hommedieu, 
 lord of the soil (as was his inherited English way) and pointed 
 out the drowsy Danny, whom Arnold regarded questioningly. 
 Coming on top of the peninsula philosopher's prophecy, the 
 news that some one from New York had been inquiring for 
 him had increased that sense of fatality that had laid hold of 
 him in the little hut: so Arnold had hastened out again, not 
 waiting to change his damp clothes. 
 
 Captain Danny could not repress altogether the look of dis- 
 appointment that Arnold's youth had caused a parson's son 
 was bad enough; that meant foolish scruples to overcome; 
 but a mere boy could he be trusted with a secret likely to 
 cost Captain Danny property and liberty ? Yet, from the ac- 
 counts received such business as he had must be transacted 
 either with Mr. Waldemar or his confidential secretary, Mr. 
 L'Hommedieu. 
 
 "How d'you do, sir?" He gave Arnold an ingratiating smile. 
 "I'm very glad to see you, sir, so I am : Drumm, Dan Drumm's 
 my name, Captain Danny they call me, and the fact is, I am 
 Captain of the Cormorant coffee clipper, Mr. Lommydoo. 
 Ever hear of her she's made record runs between here and 
 Eio. A fine ship, Mr. Lommydoo, as fine as ever had her 
 keel laid in this land of the free which means the finest in 
 the world."
 
 Contraband 249 
 
 "Go awn," put in the landlord unpatriotically, reverting to 
 his grandfather's view-points : "the best boats come out of the 
 Clyde everybody knows that as knows anything." 
 
 "Not to contradict you any, mate/' returned Captain Danny 
 with a velvety snarl, "but this here conversation happens to be 
 private, so it does, and you'll oblige me by sheering off to the 
 windward, if you ain't any objections. ... I come from 
 your office, Mr. Lommydoo. Your boy tells me you've steered 
 for home, so I follows you. And here I am, begging this here 
 fresh-water gent's pardon for venturing to request privacy jest 
 because I pay for it." 
 
 The landlord, who had grown rosier of gills since the first 
 intimation of his intrusion, now advanced, choking with the 
 intention of ordering forth from his inheritance this impu- 
 dent stranger. But Arnold laid a pacifying hand on his 
 arm, and the two were left alone with the great smolder- 
 ing logs, the Inn being now shuttered and lightless along its 
 lower floor. When the landlord's last footstep resounded on 
 the creaking stairway, Captain Danny wasted no further time. 
 
 "I've got two hundred cans to sell the pure stuff," said he 
 rapidly, "for which I want twenty dollars gold apiece and I'd 
 like the money right away, sir." This information, transmitted 
 in a thrilling whisper, failed to stir Arnold. 
 
 "You'll have to wait until Mr. Waldemar gets back from 
 the West," he returned. ... 
 
 "Now, mister," pleaded the other feverishly, "don't tell me 
 that. That would be a fine piece of docking, that would. Dan- 
 iel Drumm's as sharp as a steel trap, a regular old gray-whis- 
 kered water-rat. I got friends in Yucatan that's done busi- 
 ness with you, mister, and thaf s got cheques with A. L. H. 
 signed on 'em under owner's name. And these here friends 
 they says : 'Go hunt up A. L. H. and if you find his name's 
 Lommydoo don't be surprised none/ And I ain't, 'cause I'm 
 a regular old shark for never being surprised none. And if I 
 gets a cheque for four thousand dollars signed A. L. H., don't
 
 250 God's Man 
 
 you be surprised aan* if you gits a present fra an u 
 admirer, juet like barlyque queens get bookay* : Me T* he 
 winked. 
 
 "I don't know any one in Yucatan," said Arnold, becoming 
 tense and suspicious, and lying coolly. The government might 
 have wind of the syndicate's operations and have sent this 
 man to offer him the interdicted smoking-opium ; it would 
 prove their traffic was illegal if he accepted it. 
 
 "Not Don Guillerme Gomey Pereira?" asked Captain 
 Danny with a decided Latin-American accent. "Takes my 
 meals on his hacienda homeward bound from Rio: ginseng, 
 he grows, which is in demand among the New York Chinks. 
 A little private venture of my own." He winked so pro- 
 digiously this time that Arnold was quite sure this particular 
 ginseng was a euphemism for the forbidden pen-yen. "This 
 time," Captain Danny went on, "he says to me the Don does : 
 'Danielo, my boy,' he says, 'you do like I done and do business 
 with A. L. H. Shipped him two hundredweight of gum I 
 did and got my cheque prompt, and I'd ship him something 
 what's in that warehouse over there,' says he speaking Span- 
 ish he was, of course, and dignified like all those Dons, but 
 may I drop dead at my wheel or fall out of my crows-nest 
 next trip if it don't mean just what I'm telling you. And 
 then he steers me over his poppy fields and there's a big shack 
 with a lot of peons stirrin' and pourin' and cookin' and sweat- 
 in', and a big Manchu Chink, six foot three with a pair of big 
 horn spectacles on him, bossing the job. 'Tell el capitano 
 where you worked one time,' says the Don, and the Chink an- 
 swers in English as good as what I talk myself: *Li-un fac- 
 tory, Shanghai' not Fak-Lung : Li-un" Danny interpolated 
 triumphantly. "Then the Chink says : 'I make 'urn all same 
 Li-un here. You smoke?' ^No,' I told the heathen devil. 
 'Too bad, I show you better/ he says; and takes us into his 
 own hut where there's a pipe and lies down and cooks him- 
 self a pill. 'Smoke?' says he, holding it under my nose. And 
 then I says : 'Danny, here's the real thing, so it is. Thousands
 
 Contraband 251 
 
 would like to be in your shoes, so they would.' "Well, the long 
 and short of it's this, Mr. Lommydoo: just when the Senor 
 Don's got a fortune in hop, the United States up and passes 
 that law about no pen-yen being brought in. Which is a fine 
 piece of sail-making. And the Senor's got to sell it to those 
 that've got the nerve to dodge United States Customs sharks. 
 Old Danny done it : he's a long-nosed ferret when it comes to 
 dodging. And here's two hundred cans of pure Li-un offered 
 at half of what you kin git for it. I could peddle it myself, 
 but there's Custom spies all over Chinatown and they might 
 keel-haul me before I unshipped a quarter of my cargo. With 
 your crew and discipline and no suspicion, you ought to git 
 fifty a can for it, so you ought." 
 
 "I ought to," said Arnold mechanically. 
 
 "So you ought," agreed Captain Danny eagerly. "Why 
 what's the matter, Mr. Lommydoo ?" 
 
 The use of the personal pronoun had electrified Arnold. His 
 eyes shone, his hands trembled, his body shook. "You didn't 
 tell anybody at the office what you came to see me about ?" he 
 demanded fiercely, clutching at the old fellow's knee. A look 
 of scorn answered him. Arnold breathed free. Why not a 
 personal deal? This came as no response to an order from 
 Waldemar: he had ordered only gum. This was a windfall 
 into his own lap. He saw now by seizing on such lucky 
 chances as this how men made fortunes. Waldemar was away. 
 Arnold could utilize the warehouse force to ship the stuff to 
 various people whom he knew would be eager to receive it. 
 That is, if Enoch Apricott and his patron, Mother Mybus, 
 would not want the lot which, in all probability, they would. 
 He knew, from the tales of Pink and Beau, that Apricott sold 
 the inferior stuff of his own manufacture for thirty dollars the 
 can. This would bring at least a third more, therefore Apri" 
 cott should be willing to pay twenty-five at least five thou- 
 sand dollars. . . . 
 
 "Give me half a dozen of the cans to examine to-morrow 
 and I'll give you my cheque for three thousand if I find them
 
 252 God's Man 
 
 right/' Arnold said, recovering his composure. A wail from 
 Captain Danny rent the air. Mr. Lommydoo would get more 
 than double that. . . . Sooner would he take chances and 
 peddle it himself. It was a fine piece of marlin-spiking, so 
 it was. 
 
 "Then good night/' said Arnold, rising. He had learned 
 well the role of business man since his Waldemar employment : 
 had chaffered with too many buyers and sellers not to know 
 the tricks of the game. 
 
 "And a lick and a promise for all my risk and trouble?" 
 whined the diminutive captain : "that's a fine piece of " 
 
 "Don't be absurd," returned Arnold in a weary tone. "You 
 never paid that Mexican more than six or seven dollars apiece. 
 And did you pay duty ? or freight ? ]STo ! Then you're 
 doubling your money. I'm not even doing that. . . . 
 Take it or leave it." His heart was bounding high: this sly 
 little seaman would not refuse. 
 
 "The way that Senor Don spoke to me of Mr. A. L. H., I 
 never thought he'd drive a Scotch-Jew's trade with a poor 
 simple old sailor man," grumbled the apparently grieved and 
 disappointed mariner. 
 
 "Well?" asked Arnold sharply. 
 
 "All right, I give in," said Captain Danny. "Thirty-five 
 hundred !" 
 
 Arnold turned away and reached the door. "Thirty-two- 
 fifty/' screamed the other, catching his arm: and, when Ar- 
 nold threw off his hold: "Have it your own way, sir. But 
 it's a fine piece of " 
 
 "Of what ?" demanded Arnold, and Captain Danny grinned. 
 
 "Have a cigar, sir," he said soothingly; "best they make on 
 the Yucatan coast, which is to Cuba like a captain to a 
 cabin-boy." 
 
 "There's a train to-morrow at eight-ten," said Arnold, the 
 cigar directing attention to this information on a wall time- 
 table. "I'll meet you at the station. Be prompt, now, because
 
 Contraband 253 
 
 I want to get the business over, and be back here by night- 
 fall." 
 
 He spoke defiantly, as though the peninsula philosopher 
 heard him. How little that pretended sage knew, after all, 
 with his Purposes, and Sacrifices, and Whys and what nots ! 
 Here, like a ripe apple, there was about to fall into his hands 
 sufficient extra money for more than another year of uninter- 
 rupted work at Havre de Grace. By the time five thousand 
 was spent, he could have won honor and respect with what 
 he had to write. He wished the philosopher were here to wit- 
 ness his triumph he and his "fights/' . . . 
 
 "I'll be there, don't you never fear, Mr. A. L. H.," said the 
 owner of contraband. "You can go to sleep on that: you 
 kin set your alarm-clock by Captain Danny. Good night, sir, 
 and all the harm I wish you is that you sleep like a sailor on 
 watch when the mate's groggy good night, Mr. Lommydoo." 
 
 And after Arnold had gone, the sailor-man soliloquized: 
 "Think you've done something clever, I suppose. And I'd 
 been glad to git twenty-five hundred." On which he grinned 
 delightedly and sought the ancient room where so many cap- 
 tains had slept before him.
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 THE HAPPENINGS OF A SINGLE DAY 
 
 I. QUBNTIN QUIVVERS BENEFACTOR 
 
 IFTY-SIX thousand, six hun- 
 dred dollars, net profit," repeated 
 Mr. Peter Quimby Quivvers, the 
 "P. Quentin" of his own manu- 
 facture whose name did not in 
 y way figure upon the station- 
 ery, or in the gold lettering on 
 1 1 doors and windows, of the "In- 
 stantaneous Boiler Company, Lim- 
 ited/' in the private office of which 
 he sat undoubted master. Its 
 vice-president, general manager 
 and secretary, Mr. Mink, had just completed the balancing of 
 its actual cash-book for Mr. Quivvers' benefit although in the 
 outer office the ostensible one was on view for stockholders 
 and investors, showing a considerable net loss. 
 
 "Fifty-six thousand profit," Mr. Quiwers again repeated; 
 whistled long and loud, then smiled, patting Mr. Mink's 
 shoulder. "Pretty, soft for Minky, eh ? a dub who was play- 
 ing paper-weight to a park bench a year ago. The five thou- 
 sand that's coming to you 'ull put you so firmly on your pins 
 an ice-wagon couldn't knock you off again." 
 
 But Mr. Mink only scowled his dislike for his patron. "That 
 kind of money's got the curse of God on it," he said sourly.
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 255 
 
 "I don't expect any luck with nay bit of it, I tell you that. 
 It'll be a lucky thing for me if something don't happen to the 
 kid or friend wife for mixing into a thing like this. . . ." 
 He continued in a like strain to the great amusement of his 
 benefactor, who whistled in gentle forgiveness as though 
 humoring an amiable lunatic. 
 
 But one type of man uses the expression "friend wife." One 
 passes a thousand Mr. Minks at the noon hour when from 
 skyscraper rabbit-warrens multitudinous rabbits come forth, 
 and nibble in crowded lunch-rooms, shedding office-coats of 
 alpaca, paper cuff-guards like gauntlets without gloves, green 
 eye-shades daylight being as rare in the warrens of the hu- 
 man rabbits as in their animal prototypes. Thus is the clerk 
 type developed: entry-clerk, bill-clerk, file-clerk, bond-clerk, 
 stenographic clerk, copying clerk all manner of clerks; as 
 similar in appearance as in tastes and opinions or lack of 
 them. As great businesses become gigantic machines, creative 
 skill and initiative become concentrated in the lords of the 
 dynamos : the rabbits do but oil wheels and keep belts in order. 
 
 Such an oiler and order-keeper, then, was Mr. Mink. You 
 might pass him in the rabbit swarm multi-million times yet see 
 him not, so colorless was he, as characterless as a drink of 
 water and as necessary. Yet, as human rabbits do, he imag- 
 ined he had a "strong" face, "not handsome but strong," as 
 Mrs. Rabbit had learned to say to friends and neighbors and 
 to expect in response : "Like my Ed" or "Hen" or "Willie." 
 And because each rabbit has found one person who thinks him 
 a strong man, each Mrs. Rabbit is loved devotedly despite 
 eternal bickering : this indeed, constituting their chief, almost 
 their only, relaxation. Dear to the rabbits is that bit of dog- 
 gerel that enables them to exchange knowing grins and, 
 when drinking, to shout with wild laughter : "My wife's gone 
 to the country, hooray Hoo Ray;" but each is lonely when 
 she does seek the sylvan solitudes taking "the children with 
 her;" and she is sure to be welcomed back with frantic en- 
 dearments.
 
 256 God's Man 
 
 The reference of Mr. Quivvers to the park bench was not 
 totally justified. . . . Mr. Mink had, indeed, to sat a 
 year since, and had seen Quivvers loom up in the apparent role 
 of angel of light. But a perfectly good hall-room held Mr. 
 Mink's inherited hair-trunk containing his Sunday clothes and 
 stiff shirts; and enough was in his pockets for said hall-room 
 to go on holding them for a week or so longer. But then there 
 would be an ignominious return to Parsonville and a pitiful 
 plea for his old place in the Emporium. Wags and wits would 
 refer for the remainder of his life to "that city fellow, Paul 
 Mink/' howling with glee. He had left Parsonville in some 
 pomp to take a place secured for him by the correspondence 
 school that had taught him stenography. 
 
 But his lack of fundamentals had rendered his proficiency 
 in pot-hooks a useless accomplishment : his spelling and punc- 
 tuation made the value of his speed negligible. . . . And 
 the correspondence school had to fulfil their promises to other 
 graduates: they had done what they promised, he could ex- 
 pect no more. . . . Then the usual story of a man of 
 minor value engaged in competition with a whole city-full. He 
 complained luck had not been with him, until Quivvers who 
 had Mink's acquaintance from the days when Quivvers sold 
 scented soap "on the road" began to portray the before men- 
 tioned angel. 
 
 To Quivvers, Mink's very defects were abnormal virtues. 
 Out of the wise East comes the saying that most difficult of 
 all is to find an honest partner for a swindle : it might well 
 have been written impossible save when honesty is in direct 
 relation to density. Even now, when the cataclysm was upon 
 him, Mr. Mink sought to convince himself that, actually, the 
 angel of light had also been deceived, endeavored to explain 
 away the duplicate cash-books. . . . "You give me your 
 word you thought Mr. Marchanter's invention was on the 
 level?" he now asked. An affirmation would greatly assist 
 in his moral whitewashing. 
 
 Mr. Marchanter was the president and secretary of the com-
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 257 
 
 pany, the inventor of the Instantaneous Boiler, a device that 
 when attached to a spigot and to an electric plug, yielded 
 boiling water within the minute. Mr. Quiwers had found the 
 capital to form a limited corporation to market his dear 
 friend's patent; Marchanter, president, and Mink, treasurer, 
 holding all the other offices. Quantities of stock had been sold. 
 For a brief period, the article had been manufactured and, for 
 one month, had been widely advertised. There was no doubt 
 it could do precisely what it claimed: the demonstrations 
 proved it. Electrical and mechanical engineers had examined 
 the network of tiny wires within each metal cap, pronouncing 
 the invention excellent; and the brief advertising campaign 
 had showered Instantaneous Boilers in all sections where hot 
 water was a luxury: in districts where farmhouses had been 
 built before the days of plumbing; even among city-dwellers 
 who let fires lapse of nights. Many were bought in hospitals 
 and in other places where drinking water is boiled. Its suc- 
 cess was complete. 
 
 Then the electric bills came in, and it was discovered that 
 the Instantaneous Boiler was almost as costly in upkeep as was 
 a motor-car. The actual cost of one fluid drachm of water 
 boiled by Instantaneous methods was almost equal to the same 
 amount of radium. Only the companies of electric power sup- 
 ply had a good word for the inventor ... so that indig- 
 nant letters had begun to reach the company's offices, enraged 
 owners of Instantaneous Boilers resident in Manhattan and its 
 environs made violent calls on its inventor, whose artistic 
 temperament was so annoyed, after a week or more of such 
 insults, that he had decamped to all appearances for Eu- 
 rope, taking with him one-half the cash on hand: claiming 
 this as his share in the letter he left behind. 
 
 As a matter of fact Mr. Marchanter was no inventor at all. 
 Mr. Quiwers had long since discovered that by studying the 
 reports of the Patent Office, he could find many impractical 
 patents that could be purchased for next to nothing. In this 
 way he came to know all manner of inventors, some of whom
 
 258 God's Man 
 
 often brought him their models before sending them to be 
 registered. The Instantaneous Boiler had come to him in 
 this way, and he had bought the sole rights for a small sum, 
 which would permit that crack-brained enthusiast, its origi- 
 nator, to continue work on his masterpiece an aluminum 
 motor for aeroplanes. 
 
 So, "My dear Mink," said Mr. Quivvers, shaking his head, 
 "I am surprised as you that Marchanter's invention has not 
 been a gold-mine for all of us. . . ." But he said it 
 negligently, flippantly. No longer under the necessity of 
 humoring this nonentity, Quivvers was deriving some amuse- 
 ment from his qualms of conscience. 
 
 "I don't believe you," said Mink, suddenly moved to wrath. 
 "And I don't intend to do what you say at all. My good 
 name is involved. I won't be thought a cheat and a ras- 
 cal. I" 
 
 "Your good name?" murmured Mr. Quivvers, smiling 
 broadly. "Why, whoever heard of you, Mink? Quite a 
 clever little clown, ain't you? Go on, you scalawag!" And 
 he nudged him with an elegant elbow. 
 
 "You meant to cheat all along," continued Mink wildly. 
 "That's why you wouldn't have your name mentioned in con- 
 nection with the Instantaneous you and your brokerage 
 firm not being allowed to float stocks and sell 'em, too. . . . 
 And listen, I'll put the police on to that villain Marchanter. 
 They'll get him before he gets to Europe. I'll see the people 
 who invested in any stock my name is mixed up with get a 
 square deal. I " 
 
 "Quit it, old pal," commanded Quivvers, rising. "Quit it 
 and behave. You can't do it any more than I can dive off 
 the Singer Building into a bottle of ink. Behave yourself, you 
 little rascal." And he grinned at Mr. Mink. "Don't you 
 know when you signed that cheque with Marchanter for the 
 twenty-five thousand that you were aiding and abetting a fel- 
 ony ? Why did you sign it ?" 
 
 <<Why," faltered Mr. Mink, "why, he said it was for ex-
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 259 
 
 penses of installing machinery for our factory, and I called 
 you up on the phone and you said it was all right. . . ." 
 
 "Did you have any witnesses to that call ?" Quivvers was 
 still grinning. He knew very well only Marchanter had been 
 present. 
 
 "So you see," he summed up for the benumbed Mink, "you 
 see you're just a little comedian, 'cause only a comedian would 
 send for the police to arrest himself. ... If you hadn't 
 put your name to that cheque along with Marchanter's he 
 couldn't have gone off with the goods. The court would 
 probably compel you to give up the part he gave you for 
 helping him. Swindle the company, would you? Ah, you 
 little laughing rascal, you " Mr. Mink interrupted with 
 a flow of profane protestations. 
 
 "7 know, old pal," acknowledged Mr. Quivvers; "but the 
 court won't. As for mixing me into it, not a chance. All 
 the papers you've got to show prove I was one of the come- 
 ons ; bought stock myself " 
 
 "Yes, and sold it before you sold any of the company's," 
 returned Mink bitterly. "Got it for next to nothing and 
 used our advertising to sell it at par. Why, you must have 
 made a fortune out of this swindle." 
 
 "And you, dear old pal, how about your salary? About 
 five times what you ever got or ever will get. And five thou- 
 sand, five more than you'd ever saved. So considering the 
 amount of brains invested, you're five times better off than 
 me. . . . Stop that blubbering and hire yourself out 
 with a circus where your talents as a clown ? ull be worth a 
 fortune to you " 
 
 For Mink had put his head between his hands and was 
 endeavoring to conceal evidences of internal conflict and con- 
 sternation. "A dark wet cell for yours," Quivvers went on; 
 "never nobody to talk to and bugs running around the floor 
 that never were in any encyclopedia. Think of being alone 
 with all kinds of bugs. Not alone. You'd have a cell-mate 
 a cockroach you could put a saddle on."
 
 260 God's Man 
 
 He laughed so heartily that he must put up a fleshy jeweled 
 hand to a thick throat to loosen his collar; for Master Quiv- 
 vers had become bulky since his college days. Then he 
 pushed the telephone receiver toward Mink. "Go on, phone 
 the police, why don't you? Marchanter's getting ten min- 
 utes' more start of you." 
 
 He gazed idly out of the window at the forest of shaft- 
 like buildings below; coolly he awaited his companion's com- 
 posure. "As it is," he went on when that person's short sobs 
 no longer annoyed him, "you go home to Parsonville, set up 
 a little place of your own; have everybody imagining you 
 made a monkey out of old Manhattan ; had it jumping through 
 that. . . . The wife 'ull think you're a hero, you get to 
 be one of Parsonville's leading lodge-members and teach your 
 children to bless the name of your best friend, P. Quentin 
 Quivvers, Esquire. Get me, old scout? . . . Now we'd 
 better have a dress-rehearsal of what you'll tell the stock- 
 holders at the meeting. I'll leave six thousand for cash on 
 hand wouldn't do to make a clean sweep. The remainder, 
 the authentic cash-book shows, was paid out for experimental 
 purposes and new machinery. The bills are all 0. K. " he 
 touched a bundle of receipts from the Columbia Iron and 
 Molding Company, organized under the presidency of other 
 men of straw in Quivvers' employ, their offices occupying one 
 small room in an inexpensive building. "And you've got the 
 lease on our proposed factory " (This was a ramshackle 
 building on a piece of waste land, bought up by Quivvers six 
 months' advance rental from the Instantaneous Boiler Com- 
 pany immediately indemnifying him.) "Then there's the 
 office furniture and safe and the boilers on hand, all assets. 
 Be sure and list everything down to the fountain-pens to 
 prove you, the vice-president and treasurer, are a strictly 
 honest man, and meanwhile be kind enough to add your name 
 to this perfectly good blank cheque Marchanter left with me 
 some time ago lest we be embarrassed by his leave-taking." 
 He grinned again. "It's dated two months ago. I give you
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 261 
 
 my cheque for your five thousand, old pal, when you put your 
 neat little John Hancock along with March's." 
 
 Mr. Mink took the extended pen and traced his name, not 
 raising his dull eyes, and Mr. Quivvers, after scrutinizing it, 
 made a calculation and directed him to fill in the cheque for 
 the company's balance less the six thousand cash to be left 
 to the creditors. "And here's your cheque, my little clown," 
 he said in the winning tone of a friend of humanity. "Xow, 
 I should advise you to set everything in order and notify the 
 stockholders of the terribly sad news. It's the only thing left 
 for an honorable man to do." 
 
 Quivvers, as he spoke, was glancing at the list of those same 
 stockholders; and, his gaze fixed on the name of Archibald 
 Hartogensis, laughed aloud. "I'd sooner see his there than 
 any ten others," he said, "sooner than anybody's else except 
 that big burly Hugo, or that white rat, Arnold L'Hommedieu. 
 Three smart fellows !" he snarled. ... It was seldom 
 he permitted his face to assume any save a jovial humorous 
 expression, had long schooled his features to that end. Well 
 that he had, for, as he gloated over Archie's rage when he 
 should discover his great loss he was by far the largest 
 stockholder Quivvers snapped his teeth savagely, and his 
 heavy chin hung in ugly folds over his high collar, his small 
 sharp eyes narrowed, his whole appearance was one to fear 
 and to distrust. 
 
 Presently he aroused himself from this pleasant carnival of 
 gratified spite. "Come on, Minky," he said, struggling back 
 to his usual air of amused contempt, "I must rehearse you 
 in what you've got to say to them. Your cue's the honest 
 man grieved and hurt at false human nature. You've been 
 victimized along with them. Lucky you've got the kind of 
 face grafters pick out to sell the Flatiron Building to. ... 
 Now, suppose I'm the stockholders and you're going to break 
 the bad news. I'll storm and rave and ask furious questions 
 and you'll storm and rave and answer them. Now get what 
 you call your brain ready. I'm going to begin. . . ."
 
 262 God's Man 
 
 All through the afternoon they continued, actor and stage- 
 director. And before he went Mr. Quivvers dictated the let- 
 ter Mr. Mink was to send out, and Mr. Mink took it down 
 rapidly and incorrectly. After which Mr. Quivvers slipped 
 into his bell-shaped frock overcoat, on one sleeve of which 
 swung his walking-stick, and taking from a gold case, mono- 
 gramed in diamonds, a fifty-cent cigar, lighted it and called 
 for a taxi to drive him to his club, where, as P. Quentin Quiv- 
 vers, dealer in unlisted securities, bucket-shop" keeper in the 
 parlance of the curb, he had the admiration and esteem of 
 many minor lights of the stage, to whom his appearance was 
 the equivalent of a good dinner, washed down by a respectably 
 aged wine. 
 
 Conscious of his worthiness, he smiled pleasantly upon a 
 newsboy, giving him a dollar for a paper, the boy's perfervid 
 thanks and those of the taxicab driver, whom he bade keep a 
 quantity of change, absolving his conscience from any sins; 
 indeed, giving him the pleasant feeling of a philanthropist. 
 Besides had he not been generous to Marchanter and poor 
 little Minky had saved both, in fact, from an untimely end, 
 restoring them, solvent, to their overjoyed families. But he 
 did not expect gratitude. This world was an unappreciative 
 sort of place the consciousness of having done good must 
 suffice. 
 
 He entered his west of Sixth Avenue Club, cheery and 
 bright, hailing all within sight cordially, inviting them to 
 refreshment, bringing more joy into the world. How could 
 any accuse him of being a power for evil? Yet if Minky 
 ever broke down. . . . He took a number of drinks to 
 banish the unpleasant thought. 
 
 II. ON FOETT- SEVENTH STREET 
 
 At about the time Mr. Mink was having his first portent of 
 bankruptcy Arnold, a package under his arm, accompanied by 
 the Phony one whom he had uprooted from his bed at that
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 263 
 
 unseemly hour which most of the world called noon and Pink 
 "midnight" made his way across Broadway toward a street 
 in the upper forties. Since taking on the duties of dancer at 
 Sydenham's Cafe de Paris Cabaret, Pink and Beau, no longer 
 needing a place where they could at any moment seek safety in 
 seclusion, had removed themselves from the Yew Tree Inn, 
 and from the indignant contempt of Mother Mybus. So that 
 when Arnold appeared at the small apartment hotel where 
 they were in residence and in bed, Pink had frowned on the 
 idea of going below Fourteenth Street to test the quality of 
 Captain Danny's sample, having no mind for Mother's cun- 
 ning arguments regarding the chances for wealth he had de- 
 liberately abandoned in turning "square." If he refused to 
 listen the vials of wrath would be outpoured upon him for an 
 ingrate, an upstart puppy this from Mother. For a traitor, 
 a condemned Judas this from Nikko; and a pestilential 
 coward this from Old Mitt-and-a-Half. . . . These re- 
 proaches would be redoubled because he had also led Beau 
 and Sonetchka astray, according to the Inn's light, robbing 
 Nikko's "rebellion" of two sturdy soldiers, and even worse, 
 decreasing Mother's revenues. 
 
 At first the Sydenham employment had seemed to the Inn 
 but a subterfuge that would for the moment deceive the police, 
 furnishing as it did evidence of lawful occupation. As for 
 Sonetchka and Beau being free to choose the Inn had not 
 imagined that they could endure for long the dulness of hon- 
 est pursuits theirs was a mere divertisement. 
 
 But it had not proved so. The novelty of sleeping of 
 nights without fear of the law, of awakening of mornings 
 facing no necessity of taking new chances which, for all they 
 knew would put them to bed in a cell this had not worn off. 
 
 "I tell you a guy's got a nut of pure ivory when he's a 
 grift," Pink concluded, explaining this to Arnold; "that is, 
 if he kin grab himself shed and doughnut sugar by a regular 
 job that don't ask a man to be a nigger slave. . . . 'Cause 
 grifting ain't what it used to be. Fourteenth Street's got
 
 264 God's Man 
 
 protection down to a system a regular underworld tariff on 
 larceny. What's more, it's got stools and coppers keeping 
 tab on you and knowing how much you snatch to the last jit. 
 It's getting like bringing junk from Yurrup. You'd sooner 
 give it up than pay the duty. I was jest a little sucker to 
 keep on the gun when there was jobs like this one laying 
 around loose. I'm wise to the layout now. Getting dough 
 is like playing cards. If they catch you cheating they not 
 only take what you've won away but kick you out of the game 
 besides. The thing to do is to find out some way of beating 
 the game. Same way with the law. It's a game. You bluff 
 around it somehow and that's 'good poker.' Like that Walde- 
 mar you work for, buying up all the pen-yen and not selling 
 it unless you've got a doctor's letter-head. . . . Catch me 
 working for coppers and politicians any more. Which is sure 
 what you do when you grift. You take the chances and they 
 git the dough. Not in your Uncle Pink's. . . . That's 
 why I'm passing Mother up. This place I'm taking you is 
 where I smoke nowadays one great joint, believe me and 
 the fellow who runs it has a brother who's got about a thou- 
 sand votes in his pocket, the best bunch of 'colonists' and 're- 
 peaters' in New York. So he ain't troubled none by nobody 
 even asking for their 'envelope' Saturday nights, and the 
 captain 'ud as soon think of pulling a church. . . . Here 
 we are." 
 
 The entrance was not impressive. It was one of a row of 
 high brownstone fronts in one of those neighborhoods once 
 occupied by small merchants, head salesmen, superintendents 
 of factories, . . . others enjoying a comfortable affluence. 
 But since the day of modern apartment-houses and their many 
 inducements these abandoned villages have become the lairs 
 of lodging-house keepers, and interspersed among them are 
 places even more decorous in appearance, their shades never 
 admitting the sunlight. These yield a rich revenue to the 
 collectors of "protection" houses of chance and houses of 
 greater chances still ; occasionally among them such a one as
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 265 
 
 that to which Arnold was now admitted once the Chinese 
 attendant had peered through a corner of one of the glass 
 panels and had seen him in company with Master Pink. 
 
 "By the bye/' that inquisitive young person had inquired 
 while they awaited the answering of the bell, "you say you've 
 picked up some real Li-un? Gee!" And he smacked hia 
 lips. "I'll soon tell you though if you did you've got 
 Christopher Columbus lashed to the mast. There won't be 
 enough of it left in a year to make a polo-cap for a flea. 
 . . . How'd you gi get it?" The opening of the door 
 had postponed the explanation, and Pink now led Arnold up 
 the soft-carpeted stairs. "There ain't many places like this 
 left, go bet your shirt on that, boy," he explained. "Though 
 the town used to be full of them twenty years back, the old- 
 timers tell me. Nowadays it's one guy in a one hall-room with 
 one layout, one customer at a time. Since this new law you 
 can gi-get say, kick me in the pants every time I start pull- 
 ing that rough-neck pronounciation, will you ? I'm trying to 
 learn to talk the way you educated ginks do there's only 
 small potatoes for the fellow that crooly massacrees the Eng- 
 lish langwitch the way I done. Did, I mean. . . . Since 
 this new law you can get a two-years' bit at the least jest fa 
 just for selling the stuff. And if they catch you making it, 
 they throw the book at you and tell you to add up the sen- 
 tences. ... So the only people who've got the nerve are 
 those that're so broke most of the time they haven't got a 
 bean. As for fitting up a joint like this, nobody 'ud dare do 
 it that didn't have a pull as long as an East Side clothes- 
 line. . . . The down-stairs floor is a kind of a Chink res- 
 taurant strictly private for the people who come here. You 
 get awful hungry after smoking, and thirsty, too. The sec- 
 ond floor's the joint and the private rooms. There're some 
 swell people come here, you bet. The third floor's private 
 rooms, too, and the fourth's where the Chinks sleep he won't 
 have anybody but Chinks, thinks they're the greatest people 
 on earth don't know a thing they hadn't ought to know when
 
 266 God's Man 
 
 people start asking questions. He don't HT hartgot a 
 swell flat on the Drive, they tell me, and his wife rides around 
 in the prettiest little runabout you ever laid eyes on. It's all 
 right, Sam." 
 
 Pink had knocked on a door at the head of the stairs, the 
 Chinese who had admitted them to the house having vanished. 
 Arnold now heard a faint rattle which, had he been better 
 informed on such matters, he would have known for the clos- 
 ing of a tiny shutter, their presence having been already an- 
 nounced. When they stepped upon the last stone but one 
 they rang a bell, the attachment of which lay under the car- 
 peting; thus they were viewed before they knocked. Such 
 precautions were necessary, even to one with extraordinary 
 political influence, in a city that swarmed with societies for 
 the prevention of this, that and the other, whose agents were 
 everywhere in search of evidence and whose activities and 
 accusations reaching the newspapers necessitated the closing 
 of such places to save the Police Department's "face," which 
 meant a week or so without business. 
 
 The ante-room to which another Chinese now admitted 
 them was fitted up plainly like a physician's or dentist's, 
 magazines scattered on a center-table. At an open escritoire 
 in a corner sat the proprietor in consultation with his Boy 
 Number One, checking up the sales of the previous night, 
 calculating profits, piles of silver and bills before them. Boy 
 Number One, a neat little person in blue serge, black tie, low- 
 cut patent-leather shoes, immaculate collar and cuffs, was 
 running swift fingers over the strung beads of his counting- 
 box, the ancient abacus, which seemed to give results much 
 quicker than the proprietor's double-entry bookkeeping, the 
 Chinese announcing his totals first. With his queue deleted 
 and his thick blue-black hair parted and brushed into glossy 
 smoothness, he seemed in that dim light to resemble more 
 nearly a Portuguese, a Sicilian or a swarthy Greek. 
 
 The Chinese who had opened the door and who, like all the 
 other minor servants, wore the long blue cotton robe, tight-
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 267 
 
 ankled breeches and felt shoes of his native land, signed the 
 visitors to wait, and the proprietor nodded and grunted at 
 Pink but went on with his work. He was an English Jew, 
 fair-haired, fair-skinned, with no Hebraic features, only an 
 Oriental something of sensual eyes and lips. He was attired 
 as are thousands of prosperous members of that vague com- 
 pany that lies between lower and upper middle class, which 
 betrays its origin by wearing the sort of clothes shown in shop- 
 windows, which never happens until the upper class have 
 ceased to wear them. Mr. Clabber's collar and tie were too 
 stiffly correct, his waistcoat too low (it would have been too 
 high if that happened to be current), his jewelry too florid 
 several solitaire diamonds adorned his fingers, a huge tri- 
 angular one his tie, while he wore buttoned patent-leather 
 boots with attention-compelling tops of light lavender kid. 
 His face seemed very youthful and guiltless for one in such a 
 trade, and his manner, when he laid down his pen and nodded 
 to his head servant, was one of frank friendship. 
 
 "Mr. Clabber, Mr. L'Hommedieu," said Pink, his phonetics 
 of Arnold's surname defying any printed reproduction. "Mr. 
 L'Hommedieu's got some of the real stuff under his arm there. 
 He wants to give it a try-out and I told him your boy, Tom 
 Lee, could give him the real dope on it. Mind if he lies down 
 with us a while ?" And as Pink was a steady customer and, 
 moreover, brought others, Mr. Clabber assented. But he 
 scoffed at the genuineness of the article. 
 
 "Weal stuff thay, you make me laff. What d'you mean, 
 you lost your dawg! I've got the on'y weal stuff peddled 
 here nowadays ; bought up evwy can I could get my hands on 
 when I see this famine coming. You got bats in your belfwy, 
 Pink ; you got wheels in you head. Hey, Tom ?" Boy Num- 
 ber One nodded a grinning assent. 
 
 "I didn't say it was real," put in Arnold, annoyed. "I only 
 said I was told so. If it is, I've got the chance to buy all I 
 want of it pretty cheap " 
 
 "That's enough to prove it ain't Li-rm," interrupted the
 
 268 'God's Man 
 
 lisping proprietor. "If it wath weal stuff it wouldn't go 
 cheap. They thell it for fifty dollarth a can " 
 
 "Would you give fifty ?" asked Arnold quickly. 
 
 The lisping man was visibly disconcerted. "I I got 
 plenty/' he stammered. "I I couldn't make no profits if I 
 paid that much. Even my customerth wouldn't pay it, and 
 I've got the swellest in town. Pink can tell you. . . . 
 Some of them might pay for pure stuff, but I'd lose half my 
 twade. ... I tell you what, though," he added, as he 
 thought that perhaps the stranger might have fallen upon 
 such treasure after all, "I pay as much as anybody elseth give 
 you and I take all you got if it'sth Li-un. But it ain't! 
 Hey, Tom?" Boy Number One again gave grinning assent, 
 this time from within the folding-doors that shut off the ante- 
 room from the divan. He had removed his coat and waist- 
 coat and was lying on one of the bunks built close to the 
 wall; there was a number of these in two tiers not unlike 
 Pullman berths, but wide enough to accommodate two people 
 lying full length with a space that would have served a third 
 between them, this for the filigreed tray which held the various 
 articles necessary for preparing the opium. 
 
 It was both too early and too late for customers, the last of 
 the night's crew always leaving before noon, the afternoon 
 rush seldom beginning until close upon tea-time. So that the 
 place was empty ; even most of the Chinese "cooks" were still 
 asleep in the attic. This main room had swallowed up a 
 former drawing-room and library, and had evidently been 
 furnished by an Oriental in imitation of similar places in 
 China, Japan and India. No heavy draperies or curtains of 
 cloth caught the smell and held it, no carpets, no rugs; on 
 the floor a clean rice-matting, to the bunks hangings of some 
 woodenish, fibrous stuff painted in gay colors ; while the head- 
 rests were piles of round mats; the folded bunk covers alone 
 were of woven stuff, something like Turkish toweling. 
 
 The room was lit dimly by strings of Chinese lanterns, in 
 which low-powered electric arcs were concealed ; very gay Ian.-
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 269 
 
 terns shaped like the lily and the lotus, the dragon and the 
 hawk, especial importations of Boy Number One. On the 
 walls were tacked many long strips of red paper covered with 
 Chinese idiographs. Tabourets of teak and tall kakalmono 
 jars for spent cigarettes were scattered about. There was no 
 other furniture. Hence, the room gave that sense of cleanli- 
 ness and spaciousness usual to Chinese houses. Without ex- 
 pense an effect was achieved that no amount of money could 
 have increased; one suddenly felt and smelt the East, and 
 New York seemed very far away. 
 
 "Lie down," Pink directed Arnold. He had removed coat 
 and collar, resting his head on the pile of mats. "Come on. 
 I want to enjoy this if it's Li-un ; I don't want to have to turn 
 my head around to you every minute. It kills the effect, 
 moving all the time. Come on. Take your collar off, too, 
 and put your head right above my hip and sorta curl up your 
 yams. That's the trick " and Arnold lay watching the deft 
 swift fingers of Boy Number One as he dipped into one of 
 Captain Danny's cans with a long, thin cooking needle, stir- 
 ring and kneading and drawing up the golden stuff that was 
 like sirup both in appearance and odor. 
 
 It was not evident whether Boy Number One was pleased 
 or disappointed ; his placid yellow face gave no hint ; but both 
 Pink and Clabber, who sat on a tabouret near by, watched 
 
 "Bubbles like Li-un," Pink asserted. 
 
 "They all bubble," returned Clabber shortly, but, as the 
 Chinese took some on the point of the yen-hok and began to 
 toast it over the filigreed lamp, Clabber sniffed as appreci- 
 atively as did Pink. 
 
 "Belony all some good Li-un smell," asserted Boy Number 
 One, despite his master's frown, which he did not look up to 
 see. The cooking continued. The first draw at the pipe 
 was taken by the cook, who inhaled and exhaled it with satis- 
 faction. "Him all light," he asserted as he blew out the final 
 lacy cloud. "Li-un all light." Now he looked up and for
 
 270 God's Man 
 
 the first time saw Clabber's portentous frown. "Well 
 mebbe " he began, but Pink, suspicious, turned swiftly and 
 he, too, saw the frown. 
 
 "Oh, forget it, Midge," he growled. "Don't pull any 
 of that stuff to try and git it cheaper. Tom said it was 
 the goods the first time, and you can't get away with it. 
 Tom knows too much about the scammish to make any 
 mistakes." He took the pipe and smoked. "Well, I should 
 say," he continued. "Like candy, it is. Gee! What a 
 difference. And you call that stuff of yours Li-un, Midge. 
 A pound of Li-un to a pound of seconds, you mean. You 
 might save the good stuff for the private rooms, but you don't 
 give us any like this down here." He silenced the diminu- 
 tive Jew with a: "Well, bring out some of your stuff and 
 let me smoke it pill for pill with this. I'll gamble you don't 
 dare." 
 
 Mr. Clabber fell into whining. "Well, what you expect, 
 Pink?" he asked, spreading his palms. "You wouldn't pay 
 Li-un pricesth. And if I give you lessth you don't come no 
 more. . . . But don't you say nothink to your friends, 
 Pink, and I give you Li-un for yourself. You hear, Tom ?" 
 Tom grinned. "And you sure this is Li-un, Tom?" Tom 
 grinned again rather uneasily. 
 
 "Go on, tell him," urged Pink, and Clabber nodded. 
 
 "Him Li-un all light," said Tom. "All same Shanghai. 
 Plenty good, master. You buy." 
 
 "I give you thirty a can for hundred cans," said Clabber 
 quickly. "Cash down on the nail." 
 
 "Why, you little burglar," protested Pink, "didn't you just 
 say it was worth fifty ?" 
 
 "I saidth" emphasized Clabber, "that they thell it for 
 fifty retail. And look at the money tied up look at the 
 wisks look at ewything," he finished with a flourish. 
 "Three thousand, Mister, and a good bargainth for you, too. 
 Cash on delivery. Cash."
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 271 
 
 "Thirty-five and done," said Arnold. "No haggling 
 thirty-five does it. I could say forty-five and come down to 
 that, but I don't work that way thirty-five ; take or leave it." 
 His heart was thumping madly. Here was a vast increase on 
 what he had expected ; he would more than double his money. 
 
 But the lisping proprietor said he could not believe that 
 any one would have the temerity to ask forty-five hundred; 
 that was absurd. Even four thousand ; as for thirty-five hun- 
 dred, Arnold might get it in some places, but he could not 
 afford it, so he could do just what he pleased. But Pink 
 moved his knee gently and Arnold only shrugged his shoul- 
 ders. Yet still Mr. Clabber talked on of interest forfeited, of 
 the likelihood of Federal government intervention and prob- 
 able confiscation of his stock. . . 1 Why, even if they 
 changed captains in this district it was ruin for him. Al- 
 most, he shed tears upon his unfeeling listener. 
 
 "We won't haggle, like you saidth," he concluded; "split 
 the differenceth thirty-two-fifty and not a centh more." 
 
 "Very well, Mr. Clabber," rejoined Arnold. "I'm not ask- 
 ing you to take it. There are too many want this sort of 
 stuff. . . ." And Clabber capitulated. 
 
 "When'll you bring it ?" he asked. Arnold thought, prob- 
 ably, to-morrow. "Telephone me first," said the lisping man, 
 "and I'll go to the bank. But I've got the wight to pick out 
 half a dozenth cans and open them before I pay!" Arnold 
 nodded and Clabber retired to his ante-room jubilant. At 
 the prices he charged for small amounts he stood to gain 
 much by the transaction ; and so Pink told Arnold. 
 
 "But so would anybody else who had the dough to take a 
 hundred cans off your hands." He eyed the Chinese un- 
 easily, then fished up a thick gold-plated pencil by a trousers 
 pocket chain, discovered an old letter in a hip-pocket and 
 wrote a question as to how Arnold had secured so large an 
 amount of stuff, and couldn't he get in on it? Which Arnold 
 promised to explain when they were alone.
 
 272 God's Man 
 
 "Here, hire, Tom Lee," said Pink, scowling as that amiable 
 Oriental took advantage of his position as chef to accommo- 
 date himself with another long draw. 
 
 "Don't catcham ploper Li-un many time/' explained Tom. 
 "All same Shanghai when I smokum. Velly much 'bliged," 
 and he nodded suave thanks to Arnold, helping himself to 
 more of his property. "All same Shanghai," he said again, 
 sighing. "How much you sellum one can to poor China boy, 
 hey, master ?" 
 
 "Why," said Arnold, "you and my friend can have this can 
 between you three-quarters to him." He had been moved 
 to this generosity by the look of wistful desire on Boy dumber 
 One's face. He realized that with such the matter of smoking 
 was less of a luxury than a necessity, and that such stuff as 
 this once tasted, it was like asking a man to return to a diet 
 of boiled bones after an existence on excellent marrows. As 
 for Pink, he was too much elated by this unexpected gift to 
 quarrel with sharing it, and a look of doglike respect came 
 into Boy Number One's eyes. 
 
 "Mebbe you like tly youself , master ?" he asked. "I cookum 
 velly fine, you see; velly small, too." He held out the pipe 
 to Arnold enticingly. 
 
 "Go on, Sir Eeginal Yere de Voo," Pink urged. "You 
 oughta try it once, anyhow, if you're going to peddle it. 
 How 5 !! you ever know the goods from the bunk ? Just get a 
 taste of that and nobody 'ull ever be able to pass the phony 
 article on you. You can't tell jest just from the smell. 
 Go on." And, as the pipe was prodding him in the chest, 
 Arnold took it. 
 
 When one desires, or is curious, any excuse will serve, and 
 Pink's seemed well put. Captain Danny might have a con- 
 signment of bad stuff with only a few picked cans for sam- 
 ples. He must test it to-morrow himself. 
 
 "You're sure it it won't " he began, and Tom Lee's 
 grin returned. 
 
 "Won't give you a horrible habit if you smoke it once?"
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 273 
 
 jeered Pink. "Why, sure ! You'll wake up to-morrow clutch- 
 ing the sheets and shrieking for the deadly drug, and if some 
 kind friends don't bring it to you in ten minutes you'll just 
 die for want of it and you'll see green elephants and purple 
 rats I see 'em now. . . . And you'll hear the little gold- 
 fish singing Home, Sweet Home. . . . Sure ! it's terrible 
 stuff." But Arnold had already permitted the Chinese boy to 
 steer the bowl over the flame and now drew on the mouth- 
 piece as he had seen Pink do. 
 
 He lay back, surprised despite Pink's jeers, that he felt 
 nothing. NOT had there been any effort or strangling in in- 
 haling the smoke; thick, it was mild, far milder than the 
 cigarette that he hastily lit to banish the taste, which, though 
 not nauseous, yet in its sweetish way was reminiscent of medi- 
 cine. . . . And then silence fell, while the Chinese boy 
 passed the long bamboo stem from one to the other. Arnold 
 handled it more than a dozen times before it achieved any 
 result. 
 
 Then he felt constrained to talk. To his surprise he had 
 some difficulty in keeping back the tale of Captain Danny 
 and his Yucatan treasure-trove. A burning conviction that 
 these two men were his best friends and that he was justified 
 in telling them anything overpowered him. And he told them 
 of almost everything else. Of his bitter dislike of New 
 York, his retirement to his birthplace, his determination to 
 devote the remainder of his life to the writing of books that 
 would benefit the world. Never had he loved his fellow men 
 so dearly; never had he throbbed so indignantly to their 
 wrongs. A great desire to be known for a philanthropist was 
 upon him. How could he help this deserving Chinese, for 
 instance ? In his mind he reached the heights of self-abnega- 
 tion and understood the lonely philosopher of No-Man's Land 
 who talked of wealth and fame so contemptuously. Arnold 
 spoke to his companions of this man as one speaks of a na- 
 tional hero. 
 
 And still the rush of ideas came so rapidly his speech could
 
 274 God's Man 
 
 not keep pace with them. He lay back and closed his eyes. 
 The tenor of his thought changed from sentimental to prac- 
 tical. He forgot he was in New York for only a day. He 
 saw the possibilities of Captain Danny's treasure-trove. They 
 were unlimited. The next time Danny sailed he, Arnold, 
 would entrust him with some of the profits of this deal, which 
 would mean many more thousands when more stuff was 
 brought back and sold. And so on voyage after voyage 
 until he became rich. . . . 
 
 And then he remembered his dreams, the ship standing off 
 Havre de Grace Harbor, and in a flash came a gay and gor- 
 geous venture not a shoddy bit of personal smuggling, with 
 minor profits each voyage, but one memorable voyage that 
 would win everything. He would give up the entire present 
 profits and borrow more from Hugo and from Archie. Hugo 
 had plenty and would be glad to lend for the sake of the debt 
 he owed him; Archie was always speculating and would be 
 eager for a fifty-per-cent. profit. Let in a few others, Enoch 
 Apricott and this Clabber, who knew how and where to sell it, 
 retail. That, then, was the significance of his dream. The 
 ship should stand off Havre de Grace Harbor some night and 
 he and his partners should tranship the cargo to a smaller 
 boat and carry it ashore; the Cormorant could then pro- 
 ceed on its journey next morning into New York Harbor. 
 
 As for chances of detection, it could be done at night. 
 Captain Danny himself should promise each one of his men 
 a bonus for keeping his mouth shut. Anyway, they would 
 never know who received the stuff, so even if they talked they 
 could prove nothing against anybody but Captain Danny, 
 who would be well enough paid as a partner to run the risk. 
 As for revenue-cutters! Arnold knew the habits of those 
 coast-guard folk. They cruised off that part of the Island 
 for a few hours once a week, and usually on schedule time; 
 and there was no Port Officer at Havre de Grace any more. 
 Besides the town was almost hidden by the high hills that pro- 
 tected the Harbor and between Green Sands and Havre de
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 275 
 
 Grace was that No-Man's Land where only the unknown 
 philosopher dwelt all others were miles from the shore 
 there were only ducks and wild geese and sea-gulls and por- 
 poises to look on ; and the keepers of the two lights, five miles 
 apart, always slept from dinner until dawn save when they 
 must attend to the fog-bells. And if it was foggy they could 
 see nothing anyhow. ... As for passing ships, after the 
 Connecticut night-mail none passed within miles of the 
 Island; those bound for Boston or New York keeping to the 
 Connecticut shore, twenty miles away. ... In fact an 
 objection had only to be propounded to be answered instantly 
 and favorably. He wondered that more smuggling was not 
 done. Perhaps it was; naturally, he would not know; smug- 
 glers did not advertise their successes. 
 
 Now he saw why it was that those tales were told of opium 
 giving dreams of wealth. It sharpened the brain, as De 
 Noailles had said ; showed men chances they were too indolent 
 and ambitionless to grasp. . . . He could understand 
 that indolent part of it, too. As he lay there, his eyes closed, 
 it was as if the whole world came to him, its picked inhab- 
 itants performing for his benefit. He saw things clearly, yet 
 not cynically ; felt rather as a father to naughty children. 
 
 With these thoughts his benevolence returned, granting ex- 
 cuses for broken laws and such. With wealth what a power 
 of good he could be; independent of timid publishers who 
 feared not to make profit on his burning books ; of "practical" 
 politicians who would not help him in his work of reforma- 
 tion, fearing loss of perquisites his money could beat their 
 campaign funds. . . . Yet, withal, he seemed to dream 
 practically ; it was as if two souls were within him, one bring- 
 ing forward all possible objections. What the Musketeers 
 had planned in college should yet take place they would be 
 without their Aramis, true; Carol Caton held Archie too 
 firmly but he could coax Hugo down to help him, he felt 
 sure. 
 
 And so his thoughts raced on until, exhausted, Arnold
 
 276 God's Man 
 
 dozed, while Tom Lee continued steadily to feed the insatiable 
 Pink. 
 
 III. WHAT ARNOLD HEABD IN His ALCOVE 
 
 His reflections, added to his slumber, had consumed most 
 of the afternoon; the patrons of Mr. Clabber had long since 
 begun to gather, as more normal folk (though Clabber's peo- 
 ple would have claimed the opposite) were beginning to gather 
 for tea. Nor must it be imagined that Mr. Clabber's people 
 in any radical wise lacked resemblance to the tea-drinkers. It 
 was the profession of a majority of these Clabberites to make 
 their presences personable. Chiefly the difference between 
 them and the tea-drinkers was in the matter of ostentation; 
 each emphasized different details. There was a greater dis- 
 play of jewelry here where the other sort kept jewelry for spe- 
 cial occasions. Here with the men was too much insistence 
 upon silken haberdashery, watch-fobs, solitaires. 
 
 But all were quiet vocally if not sartorially. Clabber ad- 
 mitted no others twice. Besides, his prices, including an 
 assurance of safety and the amount of exclusiveness one was 
 willing to pay for, were too high for any who were not of 
 Subterranea's aristocracy. As for the others, theatrical folk 
 and such, this being what the tea-drinkers would have called 
 the "smartest" of its sort, was the Mecca of many with names 
 long and favorably known to the public, some of whom, com- 
 ing late and unable to secure private rooms, were so imbued 
 with the unconscious freemasonry their habit entailed that 
 they took places in the common room. Peeping through the 
 gaps in his fiber-curtains, Arnold saw a woman take her place 
 in a bunk opposite him, a woman whose name blazed every 
 night in electric letters; her escort, through frequently pub- 
 lished photographs, was almost as widely known. Upon these 
 Boy Number One, who had long left Arnold and Pink, was 
 dancing an eager and apologetic attendance. 
 
 "You see ? . . ." whispered Pink in a strained but tri- 
 umphal whisper. . . .
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 277 
 
 Almost before the famous pair had drawn their curtains a 
 slender girl in an ultra-fashionable costume appeared ; follow- 
 ing her a youth, in clothes he fondly imagined to be of aristo- 
 cratic English lineage, was roundly denouncing Clabber, who 
 stood apologetically near by, for a lack of more extended 
 accommodations. 
 
 "Every time I come here and tell people they can get abso- 
 lute privacy you're on hand with a stall. What've you got 
 in those private rooms ? Bank-presidents ? Bank burglars 
 more likely. Never again do I patronize this joint if I got 
 to take a stall, hear me ? Swell when steady customers like 
 me have to . . ." 
 
 "Look who's here/' came from behind a pair of curtains, 
 and the girl instinctively reached up to cover a face already 
 heavily veiled. "Why didn't you tip us His Nobs was coming, 
 Clabber, and we'd all be standing in a row singing God Save 
 the Queen. Oh, mercy!" 
 
 "Eich, ain't it, boy ?" Pink whispered to Arnold. "What's 
 good enough for a couple of Broadway princes don't suit that 
 Little Joker that 'ud need assistance to roll a peanut. . . . 
 I knew him when he couldn't get the ham and eggs out of 
 hock, the shrimp ! . . ." 
 
 The shrimp was now disclaiming bitterly any intention of 
 compelling any "lady friend he brought there" to mount any 
 ladder to any upper bunk the only vacant one being that just 
 above Arnold's. But here the cause of the shrimp's solicitude 
 proved more tractable than he and surmounted the elevation 
 by way of a pair of sliding steps that a Chinese servant had 
 brought. 
 
 "Burglars are polished gentlemen compared to a heel like 
 that," murmured Pink. "Know what he is, don't you ? He's 
 got all the earmarks little head and little hat, a coffee-cup 
 ? ud make a sunbonnet for him. Ssh ! Listen !" But there 
 was no sound from the bunk above. The lamp once alight, 
 the youth, having discarded the upper portion of his near- 
 English attire, was too occupied in putting an end to the ter-
 
 278 God's Man 
 
 rific yawns that were racking him, the protests of a body de- 
 prived too long of its daily drug. 
 
 "Be still, can't you?" they heard him snarl between two 
 gigantic gapes. 
 
 "You'll hear something rich if you go on listening," Pink 
 murmured into Arnold's ear. "Wait till Petty Boy starts 
 bullying that skirt. Why do these frails fall for such a louse ? 
 He gets the finest, too. Women with swell clothes and apart- 
 ments and automobiles half-a-dozen on the string all the 
 time. And, all together, they don't ever seem to let him 
 have enough to blow to a round of drinks or a card of stuff. 
 He wouldn't give the Lord a prayer." 
 
 Ordinarily disgust would have clouded Arnold's eyes; as 
 it was he was only amused; it seemed but a corollary of the 
 universal militancy that such men as Petty Boy should exist. 
 The women on whom they preyed in turn preyed on rich men, 
 who preyed upon poor men, who begot sons who preyed on the 
 women again. And if he was to be shocked at Petty Boy he 
 must be shocked by the whole system, and he had not the time. 
 "Fleas have smaller fleas to bite 'em, and so proceed ad in- 
 finitum," he quoted more or less correctly. 
 
 "Well?" they heard the girl above say. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," was the sulky reply. "I've told you a 
 dozen things to do, but you won't do ? em." 
 
 "I tell you, Artie, he hasn't got the money," fretfully. In- 
 stinctively Arnold bristled the voice was familiar. 
 
 "He'll do everything he can, but he's already doing that," 
 she continued in the same petulant tone. "And now this 
 beastly, rotten old show's taken every last penny his father 
 will give. . . ." 
 
 "There you go," cut in the man, "cheap chippy vanity. 
 Whoever told you you could act? Just slipped a cool ten 
 thousand to some canny kikes. Easy money. You ought to 
 have your head examined and get that nest of titmice taken 
 out of it. . . . His father's got plenty of sugar, though,
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 279 
 
 hey?" There followed some exasperated reply, the truth of 
 which the man hastened to admit. "That's all right. He's 
 the heir, ain't he? He can raise all kinds of dough on his 
 prospects. Some of these Jews down-town make a business 
 of that. Fifty and a hundred per cent, stuff. But what does 
 he care if he'll get millions'! . . . You do what I say. 
 Tell him either he's got to marry you or settle something on 
 you so's the best years of your life won't be wasted like a lot 
 of your friends' were all that kind of rag-time. It always 
 goes with suckers. If he don't do one or the other you'll walk 
 out of his door never to return. That 'walk out the door 
 never to return' is a sure-fire. Wonder if they think you'd 
 walk out the window or down the dumbwaiter if you didn't 
 put that 'door' in? . . ." 
 
 "Dear old boy," the girl began, and at the affected manner- 
 ism Arnold started, suspicions confirmed. 
 
 "Chop the dear old Piccadilly stuff," growled the man. 
 "You're among friends where you can tell your right name. 
 You have to do enough of that stalling when you're outa your 
 class don't pull it here." Again an indistinguishable reply. 
 Then, "Don't answer me back like that, you little tramp, or 
 you'll be wearing a heavy veil for a week after I get through 
 with you. Don't get me mixed up with those Fifth Avenue 
 saps. And don't start cracking you'd like to see the man 
 who'd lift a hand to you, 'cause if you do you'll get your wish 
 all right. . . ." 
 
 A long silence followed, broken only by occasional sobs, 
 then: 
 
 "Artie, how can you be so brutal when you know how much 
 I love you " A growl. "I'll do whatever you say." 
 
 "That's right, then." He seemed suddenly to regain his 
 good humor. 
 
 "Let's go," whispered Arnold. "I've had enough of this." 
 Now, indeed, was he sick at heart. Boy Number One, whose 
 lynx-like ears caught the sound of their going, hurried after
 
 280 God's Man 
 
 them, promising to keep intact Pink's share of Arnold's gift 
 after weighing out his own. "How much we owe you, 
 Midge?" asked Pink. 
 
 "Well," lisped the little man, "I'm not sure I oughtn't 
 ,chargeth you as much as if you thmoked my stuff; you took 
 up valuableth room. But half-priceth then," he hastened 
 to add, noting a stormy look. As Arnold opened the door he 
 reminded him he was to telephone before he came next day 
 to deliver his merchandise that the cash might be ready. 
 Arnold nodded. It was the old Arnold again; self-interest 
 swallowed by unselfish concern when affairs were not as they 
 should be with one closely allied. For a long cross-town 
 block his teeth were set, his hat pulled savagely over scowling 
 brows. 
 
 "What's on your mind?" demanded Pink, as they reached 
 Broadway. "You look as happy as a cripple at the cross. 
 Old Colonel R E. Morse sittin' on the shoulder? Was it a 
 wicked little rascal to dally with the Oriental Pleasure? Or 
 is the Common Enemy the law on your trail ?" 
 
 Arnold settled his hat at a more usual angle, but the scowl 
 remained unaltered. "What would you do if the fellow those 
 two were talking about happened to be your friend?" he 
 asked suddenly, at which Master Pink whistled shrilly. 
 
 "A pal," he asked. "He is. Well " and considered. "Badly 
 stuck?" he asked again. 
 
 "Thinks the sun rises and sets in her," said Arnold with an 
 oath. 
 
 "Then don't you mix in," advised Pink solemnly. "I re- 
 member when I was doubled up with Helen Darling, she tells 
 me the Harmony Kid's gal girl (I beat you to it) was 
 running around under cover with Pewee Pratt. Har- 
 mony's girl musta fell for his looks, jes just like this 
 skirt for he hadn't anything else. But when I hears 
 it I run bellering to Harmony and he mitts me and says; 
 he thanks Gawd he's got one pal. Then he takes a shieve 
 out of a drawer and says he's going to furnish s.ome hospital
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 281 
 
 with a lot of nice liuming organs heart and liver and every- 
 thing. Well, I grapples with him and grabs the shieve away 
 and cut a gash in my pants that cost me the price of a new 
 set of scenery. And I stick around with him all that night, 
 gettin' him so soused that when he wakes up next day his 
 head 'ull hurt too much for to go carving up anybody. Stood 
 me back a sawbuck doing it, for that Kid's only started after 
 he's drunk up the Hudson and took the East Eiver for a 
 chaser. . . . Counting the new clothes, I'm out a couple 
 weeks' profit. . . . Well, when he gets over his headache 
 the girl sees him and explains everything, and the next time 
 he sees me he looks up to see what kind of weather we're going 
 to have. And now he tells everybody I got him loaded and 
 lifted his souper he lost his watch somewhere that night. 
 Me cross a friend! Gee! You keep out of any sich mix- 
 ups, Lord Montmorency de Villyers. Take a tip from a gink 
 who has played 'em through." 
 
 "It's a pretty selfish tip," returned Arnold sourly. 
 
 "Trouble with you," commented Pink, "you keep thinking 
 how things ought to be instead of how they are. This friend of 
 yours is probably a damn sight happier with this frail than 
 either of us could be with a dame 'cause we know too much. . . . 
 Say, I was standing shivering on a street corner last winter, 
 me and Beau, not a bean to get the ham-an'-eggs outa hock, 
 not even to grab a short and trolley ourselves down to Moth- 
 er's. Ten above zero, too. And along comes a guy in a 
 regular bang-up sleigh, the nicest kind of a sable collar to his 
 coat, and a piece of ice in his tie that made Tiffany's front 
 window look like a hardware exhibit. But Beau and me had 
 beat him out of half-a-century at the 'match' one night when 
 he was drunk, a month before. So that little sap Beau says : 
 'Look at that little sucker! Sucker! Poor sucker! nice 
 and warm and rich and riding, and us wise guys nice and 
 cold and poor and walking. . . .' Don't be so sorry for 
 those 'suckers.' Gi' me that lad's money and any skirt that 
 can get away with it can trim me out of it ; if they don't I'll
 
 282 God's Man 
 
 give it to them. The proudest day of my life's gunna be 
 when all the dames along this Lane point me out as a good 
 thing. Them's my sentiments, as the poet says, Sir Marquis 
 de Mortimer Montague. . . ." 
 
 But as they parted, Pink to go in the direction of his hotel 
 to change into his "uniform," as he called his dress-clothes, 
 he added one proviso : "Course it's up to you to see he don't 
 fall for that Petty Boy's frame-up. Kinda suggest to him 
 it's a bad business to let women have much cash. I never let 
 any girl I was doubled up with have more'n half a dollar at a 
 time. A dame with a whole dollar's too damn' independent. 
 Or else she comes home with some truck she bought 'cause it 
 was marked down two cents a skirt figures if she buys a 
 thing at one dollar and ninety-eight cents instead of two dol- 
 lars she's saved a dollar. They oughtn't to be trusted with 
 dough at all." And so saying, went his way. 
 
 IV. IN WHICH VELVET VOICE DOES NOT WAIT FOR ARNOLD 
 TO CAST HER OFF 
 
 After Pink had left him Arnold, moody and wrathful, 
 backed against an angle of a great theater that' covered a 
 Broadway block and watched the street pass into the exclusive 
 possession of the sex he was engaged in hating. 
 
 "Surely this is Madman's Lane Madwomen's, rather," he 
 swore sulkily, several toilettes more than usually blatant hav- 
 ing offended him beyond reason, one a sheath-skirt with nar- 
 row-shouldered, tight-hipped coat, a bright purple ensemble, 
 the hat pulled so low that even its owner's mouth was in 
 shadow as she hobbled along on stilt-like heels, waddling side- 
 wise, in lame duck fashion. Another, . . . but to re- 
 member the absurdities would be to catalogue as many as 
 Homer's ships, that endless number. And, worst of all, these 
 displays of costly cloths, silks, satins and millinery seldom 
 served their object. Their men-folk had been bankrupted to 
 prosper modistes, tailors and milliners, who forced upon weak-
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 283 
 
 minded women fashions so radical, so bifurcated and trun- 
 cated, biased and diagonaled, as to serve only for the current 
 cut to endeavor to remake them in accordance with new 
 edicts was to take apart a number of small bits that would 
 serve no purpose other than a crazy-quilt. 
 
 This technical trickery, however, was not what enraged Ar- 
 nold. It was that these styles suited only one woman in a 
 score, the majority appealing to only one's sense of humor 
 tight skirts on stout women, slashed skirts on angular ones, 
 small hats on bucket-like heads, large hats on tiny bird-like 
 ones, high-heeled slippers bent sidewise from carrying double 
 weight, short-vamped shoes on squat broad feet that, far from 
 disguising their size, only gave them the appearance of tor- 
 tured bunions yearning to burst through. Verily the birds 
 and the silkworms had been slaughtered in vain, and men 
 worked overtime to no purpose. 
 
 "The waste of it all/' Arnold thought bitterly. "Men like 
 Archie Hartogensis worrying themselves sick to buy things 
 that, nine times out of ten, don't even have the excuse of 
 pleasing the eye. . . . And the self-sufficiency of these 
 women !" 
 
 He turned away in the direction of a cab-stand. But he 
 paused before reaching it: he was at that stage where he felt 
 he must vent his ill-humor with the world on some one de- 
 serving verbal castigation what use to go to Beeckman Place 
 and waste rhetoric on Harley Quinn, the original of all 
 misogynists: to him Arnold's opinions would be those of one 
 just graduated from kindergarten. . . . Some guilty one 
 was wanted, to whom his words would be insulting icono- 
 clasms. . . . And, so bitter was he, the thought of Vel- 
 vet Voice produced no softening effect. . . .He strode 
 back toward Eighth Avenue, between which and upper Long- 
 acre, on several streets, new apartments had replaced the 
 brownstone fronts. 
 
 Here then that Mecca of the Broadway habitant, a furnished 
 apartment, sitting- and bedrooms, kitchenette and bath, in
 
 284 God's Man 
 
 one of them Velvet Voice and the Little One with their dolls- 
 housekeeping. 
 
 Arnold could hardly wait for the slowly rising elevator. Her 
 door was opened by a maid in the sort of cap and apron once 
 chiefly associated with musical-comedy but transferred to real 
 life by the actresses therein. Their wearer, who seemed too 
 dainty to be of practical use, announced Arnold in a thin af- 
 fected voice, and showed him into the sitting-room. He had 
 never visited the place before. N"ow he saw, everywhere, the 
 hand of the obnoxious Spedden heavily gilded picture 
 frames surrounding mediocre landscapes, hunting-scenes and 
 still-life, tapestry hangings to doors and windows, white fur- 
 niture of the Trianon sort, all commonplace but expensive 
 and on mantel, tables, and on the top of the little white cot- 
 tage-piano, a profusion of bric-a-brac and numberless photo- 
 graphs in silver and silver-gilt frames. On the music-rack 
 an ambitious composition by a Eussian symphonist one no 
 one could execute without years of study. Part of her pose, 
 he supposed. 
 
 The heavy scent of many cut flowers, an odorous semi- 
 decay, hung over and weighed down his spirit with its sickly 
 sweetness. Flowers were everywhere: in long stemmed Bo- 
 hemian glasses, in high slender holders of chased silver, in 
 bowls of china and cut-glass, and banked up and beribboned 
 were pots and wicker-baskets of them hiding the fireplace. No 
 taste was displayed in their indiscriminate arrangement, so 
 that for all their individual beauty, the effect produced was, 
 to the sensitive, much like the striking of rich but false 
 chords. And Velvet Voice, entering, seemed like one of her 
 own hardy chaste Northern roses set amidst sickly but luxu- 
 riant hothouse growths, a nymph of the greenwood, in the 
 artificial fragrance of an Oriental harem. For she was in a 
 heavy rich robe of quilted silk that was shot with golden 
 traceries and with silver threaded dragons, her feet in red- 
 heeled gilt-toed Turkish slippers, her hair, fresh from the 
 ministrations of her maid a masterpiece of artifice, trimmed
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 285 
 
 and crowned by false curls, and raised and interwoven with 
 false switches. He noticed, angrily, that she, too, had come 
 to the use of rouge : a hasty dab of it on either cheek only ac- 
 centuated the pallor that was the result of nights spent in 
 tobacco-fouled air and days of sleep in a bedroom, shut off 
 from light by drawn blinds and heavy draperies. 
 
 Yet, despite his anger, the old thrill returned at the sight 
 of her: that unaccountable thrill that was not passion and 
 therein lay its strength. Alberta Arden appealed far more to 
 him physically, with her long sinuous lines and dark fringed 
 eyes, half-closed at the sight of him. With this Velvet Voice 
 it was some cursed obsession, he told himself angrily : her soft 
 voice welcoming him, he could not but answer tenderly. What 
 was it, this love? hypnotism? What absurd nonsense to 
 attempt to explain it as mere passion. Why, if this were 
 Bertie, they would have flown immediately into each other's 
 arms; he would have clung to her, his eager lips on hers. 
 But, afterward, there was nothing. Through this girl's eyes 
 he saw visions, dreamed conquests, was lifted upward and 
 onward, damn her. 
 
 "I'm glad you finally decided to come/' she said. No word 
 of their quarrel, of his determination never to see her again. 
 Maybe she thought that was all nonsense: that he was unable 
 to live without sight of her, and would accept any terms 
 would even take Spedden seriously. The thought drove out 
 the welling tenderness : he would show her what a real man 
 was like. 
 
 "I was going to write you," she went on. ... Fool! 
 why hadn't he waited: she would have capitulated. (Thus 
 his traitor heart against his masterful head. ) "Yes, I wanted 
 you to understand, and show you're a true friend by coming to 
 my wedding. It will be just a small affair." 
 
 Numbed by the shock though he was, his sense of humor 
 caught the readiness with which these women acquired the 
 "good form" patter "only a small affair" and a few months 
 before working in a factory ! "just a few friends." There it
 
 286 God's Man 
 
 was again : the society novelists' jargon "You'll come, won't 
 you?" . . . And then, in shrill alarm : "What's the mat- 
 ter with you, Arnold. . . . Don't touch me you forget 
 yourself " Still quoting from the novels. 
 
 He had risen with a white awful face, and had caught her 
 wrists, hurting them sorely. Then he grinned, a ghastly sort 
 of grin it was ; and slowly but with irresistible pressure, drew 
 her to him until their eyes met : when, releasing her wrists, he 
 forced back her head, and kissed her cold tightly-closed lips. 
 His own were colder, tighter: the action had nothing of the 
 caress in it. It was merely one of ownership ; of one who, hav- 
 ing his property, could use it at his will. Then he pushed her 
 away. She caught at the little white piano for support, and 
 stared at him with frightened eyes. 
 
 "You are going to get married, my dear," he said savagely. 
 "I'm ready. Take off that trash you've got on, put on your 
 street clothes, and come on. I've stood all the foolishness 
 from you I'm going to. I've got a little money and we'll get 
 married now right now. D'you hear, Eunice? . . . 
 Well, aren't you going to do what I tell you to?" 
 
 He paused, the look in his eyes was just as terrifying, but 
 it no longer seemed to discompose the girl. 
 
 "You've been drinking," she said contemptuously. 'TTou 
 wouldn't act this way if you hadn't been. What right have 
 you ? I've got my chance to be somebody and nobody's going 
 to take it away from me. What do you know about being 
 poor? Six months. Is that ten years? I've got to have a 
 lot of pleasure to make up for that. D'you think you or any 
 other man can take the place of Paris clothes and motor-cars 
 and servants to wait on you day and night, and everything 
 made pleasant for you? Give all that up for love? Not be- 
 fore you've had it, had the pleasure that goes with it. ... 
 I tell you I want to live! I want to see the world, all the 
 wonderful places and people and cities and boulevards and 
 everything! I want to be somebody: to know the big people of 
 the world and have the little people respectful to me. I want to
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 287 
 
 sit in opera-boxes and wear clothes and jewels that'll make peo- 
 ple stare. I want to lie back in my motor-car and watch peo- 
 ple get out of the way. I want all the things I've never had. 
 I want everything" she made a wide sweep of her hand 
 "money can buy. And, my dear boy" she was at the 
 novels again now, the bored duchess manner "do you really 
 think the difference between you and Mr. Spedden is worth 
 giving up all those things? If you do, you must be insane. 
 'Money can't buy love/ you hear all the fools say. Who wants 
 love when they can have everything else : one hasn't time for 
 it. When the time comes, I dare say love will come with it. 
 Apply then, my dear Arnold. At present, I'm not to let." 
 
 She made him a low curtesy, her eyes satirical. "That cave- 
 man display of yours was quite well done, though," she added. 
 "It gave me a real thrill. I wanted for a moment to let my- 
 self go. If it's any consolation to you, Arnold, believe me 
 I'd sooner marry you with half of Spedden's money, even a 
 quarter, I guess. But can't you understand? if anybody 
 can you ought to, considering what poverty drove you to " 
 She was referring to the suicide she supposed he had at- 
 tempted : he had never thought to undeceive her. "Remem- 
 ber, I would have done the same thing in a few days only I 
 knew how better than you." He remembered the rubber-tube 
 with its red lining, that evidence of cold-blooded preparation 
 that had made him shudder, and he recognized in her voice 
 the same note she had used then. And the sudden fire that 
 had flared up into savagery gave its last flicker at the realiza- 
 tion of a determination just as coldly logical, just as in- 
 capable of being shaken, as that one of yesteryear. 
 
 Something in his despairing look softened her. She crossed 
 to him, sat on the arm of his chair, caressed his hair. "Ar- 
 nold, dear," she said softly. "In the struggle to support me, 
 to give me what you want the woman you love to have, you'd 
 have to give up all you want yourself. You wouldn't be a 
 clever boy any more, you wouldn't be able to make your mark. 
 You'd just be a married man, with hard work to keep up the
 
 288 God's Man 
 
 life-insurance and pay the doctor for bringing your children 
 into the world. And you'd hate me in a year or so for ruin- 
 ing your career. All this talk about love, Arnold, is childish- 
 ness : pure childishness. One woman's not much different from 
 another after you get used to having her around. That idea 
 of the 'only one' it's been responsible for half the trouble in 
 the world: hatred and jealousy and murder. It's always the 
 toy that's hardest to get that looks the prettiest, dear Arnold. 
 . . . "We're such a young country. I've been reading lots 
 lately and I'm beginning to understand human nature better. 
 The older races marry their boys and girls before they see one 
 another and they have more happy marriages than we do. 
 It's all a question of suitability, indeed it is: that's what 
 brings happiness in marriage. Marry and have your romance 
 afterward, the French say your romances but marriage's 
 an important business matter. You want to be sure your 
 partner's bringing her share into the firm and what would 
 I bring you ? You couldn't let me go on taking tips as a tele- 
 phone girl and jollying men to get them. And, to support 
 me, you'd have to give up the things that make you happy. 
 . . . Can't you see?" 
 
 He had never loved her more than then, but he nodded. 
 
 fr When does it take place ?" he asked, his coolness surprising 
 him. 
 
 She shook her head. "I'm hoping he'll let me go abroad 
 first and get a sort of polishing-off in one of those French 
 convents where the rich Americans go to mix with the Eng- 
 lish girls and learn their tricky ways of talking and all the 
 little mannerisms a fashionable woman ought to know. . . . 
 For I'm going to be a very fashionable woman, Arnold, dear, 
 and it's all up to me I must get rid of that kind of talk, by 
 the way not *up to me' but well I can't think of anything 
 else I mean I'll have to do all the work because he's one of 
 those self-made millionaires who wears ready-made clothes and 
 can't talk about anything except things that bore fashionable 
 people. , . . How I've studied them and their ways and
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 289 
 
 their talk since I've been at Sydenham's. ... So I hope 
 he'll let me do that first. Then we can be married abroad and 
 I'll know some smart girls and they'll come to the wedding 
 with their people, and it will amount to something instead 
 of being a vulgar newspaper story about 'Western Millionaire 
 Marries Telephone Girl.' A thing like that would take years 
 to get over. I hope I can make him see it my way. Less 
 than a year's all I ask for. ... I think" she meditated 
 "that I'll try that trick of saying : 'If you don't love me 
 enough to wait a year for me, here's your ring* that gen- 
 erally works, I'm told. But, one way or another, I'm leaving 
 America in a week. So, if he insists, I'll be married next 
 Monday, the day before the Chartic sails I'm booked on 
 her" 
 
 Arnold never remembered how he made his adieux and got 
 to the street. He was conscious of answering questions, of 
 breaking these long speeches of hers with appropriate com- 
 ments and suggestions: but he remembered none of them. 
 Only there danced before him an ugly picture of the un- 
 speakable Spedden bursting out of a smart morning-coat and 
 white gloves, a lily-of-the-valley in his straining buttonhole, 
 a pair of perspiring red ears he had never before seen ears 
 perspire. And opposite Spedden was Annie Eunice . . . 
 while, like a drowsy honey-glutted bee, a fashionable rector 
 in smart priestly garb intoned a service, each syllable a liv- 
 ing horror, implying as it did unalienable possession of her 
 by that red-eared minotaur. . . . 
 
 But the effect of Captain Danny's drug had spent itself 
 now, leaving him weak ; for the thoughts and impressions of 
 many hours had been crowded into two, and the hours follow- 
 ing must be bankrupt. A profound listlessness had set in even 
 while the girl still spoke : now he no longer saw even the pic- 
 ture at the altar. He was conscious only of a desire to rest: 
 he wished he were in Havre de Grace, where no sound save 
 the waves' lullaby reached his little whitewashed bedroom. 
 , . . But it was almost as still at Beeckman Place.
 
 290 God's Man 
 
 "I feel a little faint/' he had said, without apology, cutting 
 her short as she spoke of her coming journey. <r Would you 
 telephone Quinn that I'm coming home East Eiver 200 it 
 is and then ask the office to get a taxicab. . . ." His 
 voice sounded far away ; he was almost on the point of looking 
 around to see who had entered the room. A surging, as of a 
 great sea, sounded in his ears. The shock of her announcement, 
 of his own violent outbreak, of her cool planning which de- 
 stroyed the last vestige of his hope, added to his angry con- 
 cern for Hugo caused by the whispering in the alcove all 
 combined to wear off the drug effect quickly, and leave him 
 almost inert. 
 
 She gave a little cry of alarm. "Arnold, dear boy" but 
 he repulsed her feebly : he did not want one to touch him who 
 could so calmly consider an alliance with that red-eared mon- 
 ster. He was again puzzled that he could ever have desired 
 her. He remembered he had come there to make an end be- 
 tween them forever. "Just as well she did it," he muttered 
 gruffly but in an exhausted tone, "or I'd have done it myself." 
 He was not conscious of the absurdity of this from one who 
 had so recently turned Berserker for love of her. 
 
 "Dear, dear, dear boy," she murmured distractedly, and be- 
 gan to bathe his forehead with some pungent preparation, di- 
 recting the musical-comedy maid to do the telephoning he 
 had requested. Her fingers, the necessity for hard labor over, 
 seemed to have gained the velvet qualities of her voice. But 
 Arnold accepted the purely physical pleasure of the contact: 
 it kindled no flame. And still she murmured over him like 
 a mother over a favorite child, hurt through some maternal 
 remissness. In a dull apathetic way, Arnold had a feeling 
 that, if he were to urge his helplessness as strongly as he had 
 urged his strength, her remorse would force consent, for all 
 logic flies from a woman who has been made to feel. And, 
 at this moment, Velvet Voice was stirred to her depths. Off 
 guard, the genuine affection she had for him rose up, almost 
 .overpowering her. Her fingers moved slower, rested longer
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 291 
 
 upon his skin. What soft skin he had for a man, not moist 
 and sticky like Spedden's, nor unpleasantly dry like other men's 
 soft but firm, and so white and clear . . . and warm. 
 A desire to voice soft cooing endearments almost choked her: 
 a tenderness that strained tears to her eyes swept over her. 
 . . . To inspire love in a woman is to combine the fear 
 of a faithful dog with the maternal desire to cradle and to 
 rock. To win a woman wholly one must be both master and 
 child : master enough to cause her to thrill at his touch, child 
 enough to rest helpless upon her breast. Both of these Arnold 
 had been in that hour. And so it was the moment for him 
 to stretch up his hands, drawing her down until his head was 
 pillowed upon her. But he was too tired to want anything. 
 
 Then, so complex is life, so many the strings, so tiny the 
 keys the telephone rang, and she, who might not have waited 
 for his desire but have acted on her own, must answer it. 
 And, at the mention of the waiting cab, Arnold was on his 
 feet, bidding her good-by, was evidently eager to depart. 
 
 Long after he had gone, she lay in the gathering dusk, 
 hating the heavy odor of the dying flowers, clasping tightly a 
 soft pillow of eiderdown. Once the maid thought she heard 
 her moan. 
 
 V. CONCERNING DULNESS IN THE COFFEE TRADE 
 
 To Mr. Quinn christened Harvey, from which the pre- 
 penultimate letter had been deleted and in its stead one sub- 
 stituted that carried out his grotesque humor in nomenclature 
 the countries, counties and cities of his wanderings, ex- 
 isted only as names for various local dishes, delectable or 
 otherwise. He only regretted that from his occasional funds 
 there must be deducted the price of clothes sufficiently pre- 
 sentable to admit him to the restaurants where these dainties, 
 with suitable liquid accessories, flourished at their best. 
 Therefore, the anxious Captain Danny having arrived be- 
 fore his time and speaking of Yucatan, Mr. Quinn was
 
 292 God's Man 
 
 moved to execute some masterpieces of frijohs, chili con 
 carne, and some weird dulce compounded with citron sirup, 
 rum and flour paste, the ingredients for most of which he des- 
 patched the willing Danny some fourteen blocks: therefore 
 was as crestfallen as a painter rejected of Academy or Salon 
 when Arnold merely sampled these achievements of artistry 
 and put down knife, fork and spoon. 
 
 <r Women ?" diagnosed Mr. Quinn accurately and disgustedly 
 for Captain Danny's benefit : he knew his quasi-master neither 
 heeded nor heard him when in downcast moods which were 
 often lately. "Just loves misery, the boss does eats it alive. 
 If he hasn't it for breakfast, he keeps it on ice for dinner. 
 Misery's always fresh in this house. ... If it's women, 
 boss, I see the prettiest little peach down to the corner. I 
 was hoping you'd be back, so's I could get your word to buy 
 some candles we need 'em case the electric lights blow out 
 some day. Not that they're going to but why take chances, 
 and anyway I gotta have an excuse for speaking to her. She 
 works behind the counter in that lamp store over on Elm 
 Street. Never let a woman think you go outa your way to 
 meet her : it swells her all up. She gets to think too durned 
 well of herself. This one's the flirty kind and would fall for 
 a fellow like you easy. . . . I see her give the eye to one 
 of those jacks-in-unifonn visiting this hyer captain's widow 
 next door I was going to make a play for her myself, but " 
 and he sighed but struggled nobly to preserve an appearance 
 of having done so only because short of breath "anything to 
 get you out of the dumps, boss. Think of all the things you've 
 got to be glad of. Anywhere you look. You don't look like 
 him for instance" indicating Captain Danny "or me, and 
 can grab all the females that you want. Fellows that look 
 like us 'uve got some reason to look grumpy. We gotta pick 
 them that'll have us. Why, if I thought all I had to do would 
 be to walk around the corner and get that girl in the lamp 
 store, I'd sing little songs all the time until they locked me 
 up"
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 293 
 
 But noticing that Arnold's chin was sinking lower on his 
 collar, he despaired and clattered off with the dishes. Captain 
 Danny, thinking of roseate Fourteenth Street and time wasted 
 that might be profitably employed in laying the corner-stone 
 of a magnificent edifice of intoxication, coughed deprecatorily ; 
 hemmed and hawed, and, with an apologetic gesture, touched 
 Arnold's arm. "Found the stuff A No. 1, didn't you, Mr. 
 A. L. H. ?" he asked a little tremulously. "Don't tell me no, 
 'cause that would be a fine piece of sail-making if you didn't, 
 after all that greaser Don and his Chink said swore, by Jim- 
 miny. Hard on an old shell-back that sweated blood to lay 
 up savings for a safe harbor and good docking after the last 
 cruise. Swing the couple of 'em up in my own rigging if 
 they steered me wrong, so I would, Mr. A. L. H." And the 
 little brown turtle face looked uncommonly fierce, like that 
 of a diminutive pirate who made up in ferocity for what he 
 lacked in size. "Even if I swing myself up afterward. What 
 'ud I do in my old age when nobody 'ud give me a ship?" 
 He would have gone on indefinitely had not Arnold stopped 
 him by calling Quinn to fetch his cheque-book; at which the 
 bronzed face lit up and the flexible turtle neck drew back into 
 the huge white turnover collar that in the city was evidently 
 his concession to fashion, along with a suit of hard shiny cloth 
 so stiff that it seemed to be cut from the same wood-fiber that 
 Clabber used for curtains. 
 
 "I'll post-date it a day," Arnold explained, when he had 
 sent Quinn back to his kitchen. "You can't cash it until 
 "Wednesday, I mean." And as a perplexed frown came to 
 Captain Danny's face, "The stuff we opened was first-rate. 
 "We're going to select half-a-dozen more to try out to-morrow, 
 and if they're the same, don't bother about your cheque not 
 being cashed Wednesday." Captain Danny's face cleared. 
 "If they're inferior, we'll have to make another deal. That's 
 fair, isn't it? You don't need cash right this minute, do 
 you ?" 
 
 "No, sir; no, Mr. A. L. H.," returned Captain Danny,
 
 294 God's Man 
 
 bridling. "No, sir; a captain's wages at the end of a cruise 
 don't leave him precisely a derelict, no, sir. ... As for 
 the stuff, if one can was A No. 1, they'll all be the same or the 
 Cormorant's a low-down freighter. And God knows she's 
 beat all records for clipper-ships. Did I tell you about her 
 run from Eio when the owner, old Mr. Archibald, was aboard ? 
 . . ." He went maundering on while Arnold wrote the 
 cheque and filled in the stub. "There," he said, cutting him 
 short, and Captain Danny rose to go. 
 
 "By the way," asked Arnold. "When does the Cormorant 
 go out again?" The question seemed involuntary, a mere 
 piece of politeness, that would atone for lack of interest in his 
 story. At least so Arnold told himself. That foolish plan 
 which in all its comprehensive details had flashed upon him 
 at Clabber's had nothing to do with it he should say not. 
 Yet he had an uneasy consciousness that, after all, it might. 
 "Nonsense," he said aloud. 
 
 "No, sir ; not nonsense, though it sounds so to say the finest 
 clipper-built ship afloat 'ull be idle for months," protested Cap- 
 tain Danny, and Arnold saw that the sailor had been answer- 
 ing his question. "The firm has just got more Eio in its 
 warehouses than it has orders for and till it sells half it's got 
 anyway, what's the sense of loading up with more which is 
 a fine piece of keel-hauling as I said myself to old Mr. Archi- 
 bald, Esquire, my owner a fine piece of barratry and mutiny, 
 says I, when the firm of A. V. V. & Co., oldest in the coffee 
 trade, ain't even got one ship afloat for the two others is 
 hired out to Mastersons, guano trade. But not the Cor- 
 morant. Mr. A. V. V., Esquire, ain't going to have the finest 
 clipper-ship afloat stunk up by guano, not him, not if she gets 
 barnacles on her bottom as big as a bunch of bananas. And, 
 showing what it is to work for gentlemen, he gi'es me half -pay 
 all the time she's idle sooner'n lose his oldest skipper. . . . 
 'Cause I was in the trade when the coffee clipper fleet outa 
 Baltimore the Leverings and the Stewarts and all them old- 
 time merchantses was as big as the IT. S. Navy. We had
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 295 
 
 times them days, Mr. A. L. H., owners betting almost as much 
 as what their cargo was worth on what their skippers and 
 ships could do, and the skippers getting bonuses every time 
 they won a bet. I was apprentice then, and I thought when 
 I got to be skipper I'd be regular rich. But steamers got to 
 sell too cheap since then. Nasty dirty boats all covered with 
 soot, they are, the kind in the coffee trade ; old worn-out scrap- 
 engines. And as my old captain always said, 'Dirty ship, 
 dirty cargo/ You ought to see the Cormorant. Eat your 
 dinner off her deck any time. Cleanliness, says I to my boys, 
 is next to godliness, leastwise so they say, but I ain't sure for 
 a sailorman that churches got holystoning beat much at 
 that. . . ." 
 
 Arnold heard very little of these reminiscences and opin- 
 ions. His mind's eye held a picture of the peninsula philoso- 
 pher talking of his Fights and Purposes. . . . Was it 
 truth after all, or was it only coincidence that things were 
 being made so fatally easy for him to do what he knew he 
 should not do ? And yet why not ? If it was written that 
 he should do this, what was the use to struggle ? Some fresh 
 exigency would arise to compel him if he were not content to 
 obey. "Who was he to say that it was evil if circumstances so 
 persistently drove him to its execution ? ... He roused 
 himself to hear the last of Danny's harangue. 
 
 "You think she could be hired, then?" he asked idly. The 
 sailor burst into an eulogy of his ship calculated to strengthen 
 any wavering idea of such hire. "I was just thinking," Ar- 
 nold remarked, as though the matter was of small moment, 
 "that if Don Gomez had much of such stuff as I tried to-day 
 it would be worth a fortune if it was brought to New York 
 by a man who was willing to take big chances for big profits," 
 he added meaningly. "No need to tell the owners what for. 
 Or you might say let's see that I was going down there 
 for some newspaper that wanted to investigate the truth of 
 the revolution we hear is coming off. ... I don't say 
 I've got any intention of doing it, but you might cable Don
 
 296 God's Man 
 
 Gomez in some words the telegraph people wouldn't under- 
 stand and ask him how much he could have ready, working 
 day and night shifts, in the next month or so. And you 
 might find out how much the Cormorant could be hired for, 
 cost of running her down there and back, and how much 
 would have to be paid your men to keep quiet. I'll pay any 
 expenses you go to to give me these figures. . . . But, 
 mind, I don't say I'd ever do it. I'd have to lay it before 
 some capitalists. Just see you don't let it out, that's all, or 
 I wouldn't touch it with fire-tongs. ... By the bye, Mr. 
 Van Vhroon's nephew you know him?" He cut short 
 Captain Danny's usual verbosity. "He's one of my best 
 friends. That's all the reference you need." Another fa- 
 tally easy detail, he thought grimly. "And, mind you, a 
 newspaper cruise. No mention of the Waldemar Company or 
 my connection with it, understand ? Just a newspaper man 
 on a trip of investigation " 
 
 Captain Danny's small turtle neck was lengthening and 
 contracting, his little eyes gleamed and glittered, his hands 
 trembled. "It's a fortune, sir," he managed to breathe ; "the 
 easiest fortune ever was made since they dug gold out in Cali- 
 fornia. If you're thinking of it, you go on thinking, take my 
 word. It's a chance I'd take myself if I had the scads; I 
 often thought of it. It 'ud put old Mr. A. V. V., Esquire, on 
 his feet if he'd listen to me and do it, but he's one of the old- 
 fashioned sort old school, he is," said Captain Danny pity- 
 ingly. "Sich ideas don't get you nowhere nowadays. Which 
 is why he's going to shut up shop one of these here fine days 
 and file his petition, so he is. Wouldn't listen to his best 
 friend a fine piece of sail-making, that is. ... I'm glad 
 you're known to young Mr. Archie, 'cause old Mr. A. V. V., 
 Esquire, might think I'd gone somewhere else with my scheme 
 if you was a stranger to him. . . . But," and his face 
 became suddenly overcast, "he knows you're at Waldemar's, 
 don't he ? That settles it, Mr. A. L. H. He wouldn't hire 
 you the Cormorant if it saved him from bankruptcy, not the
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 297 
 
 old gentleman. . . . " Captain Danny sank down, dispir- 
 ited. 
 
 "He doesn't know me at all," said Arnold wearily. If only 
 he did ; if something would only intervene to make the project 
 impossible, to lessen this damning feeling of being propelled 
 from behind. "And I'll see that his nephew doesn't tell him. 
 But cable Don Gomez first see if it's worth while. That's 
 all, Captain. I'm very tired. Good night." 
 
 When his visitor was gone he sat a long time before the 
 fire, watching it intently yet seeing neither coal nor flame, 
 instead only the scornfully wise face of the peninsula philoso- 
 pher, as he told him one did not suffer so much only to moon 
 away his life with an unanswered question in his eyes. "Why ?" 
 And he had replied he did not wish to know. But it had been 
 a lie; he wanted to know more than he wanted wealth or 
 women or fame. Why why why why was he driving to- 
 ward the rocks of cynicism and crime? Or was it cynicism? 
 Perhaps it was truth. Was it crime? Crime was only a 
 word; like morals, as many wise men had said, a matter of 
 geography. Was it not rather that he should acquire wealth, 
 he who would use it so well, who thus would be enabled to 
 help the weak in their losing battle against the strong ? 
 
 He thrust these sophistries from him angrily they were 
 the Hartogensis brand, a type of hypocrisy, grown all too fa- 
 miliar of late. . . . The strong must always be the vic- 
 tors. It was they who must be helped, must be taught that 
 happiness did not lie on the side of selfishness. The weak 
 the rabble must first become strong before they could be 
 taught anything. They were only what they were because 
 they feared; give them power and they were more merciless 
 than the strong as are a pack of wolves than a single lordly 
 lion. If the lions could only be taught to help instead of 
 harm, not for any moral reason but because that way led to 
 the most and best in life. When strong men learned this, 
 then, like the Crusader Lucas and the Chevalier Etienne, 
 things happened that were worth while.
 
 298 God's Man 
 
 Their faces looked up at him out of the fire. For all the 
 Crusader's cap of chain-male and the Chevalier's steel bonnet, 
 they seemed singularly kind and singularly like his own. He 
 thrilled at the thought. And there was the name L'Homme- 
 dieu "God's Man." That was the answer. Evil was piled 
 in his way that he might conquer it. And the figures of his 
 childhood's Pilgrim's Progress, creatures of quaint eighteenth- 
 century wood-cuts, peopled the flames. 
 
 "Christian" had obstacles to surmount, battles to fight, foes 
 to slay, that weaker souls might pass in safety. That was 
 indeed the answer. . . . Christian. . . . "God's 
 Man" God's Knight God's Chevalier. And what was 
 their descendant? 
 
 Picked out in the blue gases and deep reds of the grate, he 
 saw a prisoner in clanking chains. Leering evil shapes were 
 about him and foul spawn were at his feet. Glaring up at 
 him from dark desperate eyes, a monstrous ogre with a 
 knotted club sat ready to fell him to earth should he cease to 
 observe the filth at his feet for he had only to look overhead 
 to see a way of escape, and just beyond the shepherds of the 
 Delectable Mountains. . . . "Christian in the Power of 
 Giant Despair," the old wood-cut had been captioned. In- 
 stinctively Arnold squared his shoulders. Quinn, entering at 
 the sound of his chair grating back, was gratified at the sight 
 of his smiling face. 
 
 "Remember when you worked for my Dad or rather got 
 first aid to the injured? How'd you like to live down there 
 all the time there instead of here ? Matter to you, Quinny ?" 
 
 "With ducks flying so thick you can bring 'em down with 
 a bean-shooter and sturgeon and black bass and all kinds of 
 small fish hopping around as sassy and as many as May- 
 flies, and reed-birds in clouds and snipses and quailses in 
 armies and as many lobster-pots as there is buoys in the har- 
 bor that somebuddy set to save you trouble ! Matter ! And 
 beds so soft the oysters get as fat and juicy as oranges, and
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 299 
 
 bushels of clams and shell-fish at every low-tide. And but 
 what's the use? It only makes me hungry. Matter! I 
 should say it does matter. Why, I was willing to work to 
 stick around your place. Didn't I do odd jobs at Waldemar'a 
 after I left you? But after that the floating population 
 seemed to ha' grabbed every other job and after I got so tired 
 havin' my right arm so numb from being tied up 'cause I lost 
 it in the war and was therefore deserving of free pie, I quit. 
 . . . But that's my ideas of dying and goin' to Heaven, 
 Boss. I dare you to turn me loose among all that food. I'll 
 bet you if anybody ever stayed to our house a week they'd 
 bust right out laughing every time anybody ever talked about 
 the Caffy de Parry or Mr. Plaza's. I dare and double-dare 
 you." 
 
 "You're on," said Arnold, still smiling, and held out his 
 hand. 
 
 What a fool he had been to pay any attention to that non- 
 sense of the peninsula philosopher. Down there, with a 
 beneficent Nature outside and absorbing work within, life was 
 as it should be. He had been back here less than a day and 
 was reduced to melancholy brooding already, had taken opium, 
 had hatched a nefarious scheme while under its influence, had 
 learned of Hugo's regrettable waste of affection, Bobbie 
 Beulah's cheap infatuation and pitiful treachery, had been 
 enraged by a street full of painted, half-dressed peafowl 
 women, had seen the girl he loved turn sordid and mer- 
 cenary. . . . 
 
 Fight? What was there to fight up here? These people 
 were unredeemable. Let them go the way they liked. If he 
 remained too long among them he would be the same. His 
 message was to others than these. . . . 
 
 <f Yes to-morrow night," he told Quinn. "See that trunk 
 the Captain brought? Make two equal -consignments of 
 what's in it. Mark one for <M. Clabber, 47th Street/ the 
 other for 'E. Apricott, Rupert Passage.' Use a couple of
 
 300 God's Man 
 
 those grocery boxes in the cellar. Be sure and nail 'em up 
 tight. . . . I'm going back home to-morrow. You can 
 come as soon as you arrange everything here." 
 
 VI. THE PINK KIMONO COMES BACK TO BEECKMAN PLACE 
 
 His foot was light upon the stair as he bounded up to his 
 room. The very thought of Havre de Grace was like opening 
 a window in a close room and seeing the smoke and the vapors 
 incontinently driven forth. He would get Clabber's money in 
 the early afternoon; but, before that, he would have closed 
 with Enoch Apricott for the balance of the stuff. He knew 
 from Pink and Beau that were the bargain worth the trouble 
 Mother Mybus could raise any reasonable amount of cash on 
 demand. If he got less from her than from Clabber well 
 the Clabber sale was a stroke of luck, anyway. . . . And 
 he could be aboard the Havre de Grace Express and home in 
 time for dinner. 
 
 As he stumbled about on the upper landing, fumbling for 
 the hall gas, a pungent odor attracted his attention. Bertie's 
 favorite perfume. How it lingered. And that reminded 
 him he must have Quinn pack her things, notably her silver 
 toilet-set a mark of progress, that set a present from her 
 first admirer. At her own place she had a gold one, Gayton's 
 donation. Poor Bertie ! He would write and explain. Per- 
 haps "old Gayton" could be won back if Arnold made her 
 understand how hopeless their affair was. ... He hated 
 himself for such thoughts. It was another proof of Manhat- 
 tan's ill influence that he could calmly think of her in the 
 arms of a man she hated. But, after all, why blink matters ? 
 What was' the difference between Velvet Voice marrying 
 Spedden and Bertie accepting Gayton's "protection"? She 
 would soon begin the little battles of her craft again, sending 
 him away, seeing him only when her bank-account was in 
 jeopardy. Perhaps, if Gayton really cared for her and Bertie 
 was clever, she could arrange it so that he would settle some-
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 301 
 
 thing on her. Arnold would arrange for some one to suggest 
 this. Pink, for instance. Maybe she might find consolation 
 in Pink. Then ghe might have both money and love. 
 
 Arnold laughed. Then his eyes hardened. A nice set of 
 thoughts, truly ! A year before he would have seen no com- 
 edy in Pink's oblique view-point, indeed would have scorned 
 such an acquaintance. But it was difficult to scorn Pink 
 when he knew his outlook, actions, avocations and occupa- 
 tions were but the result of example and environment. He 
 had seen life so lived, had neither created nor desired, only 
 accepted it. And his quaint, vivid, often picturesque speech 
 denoted such accurate observation and felicity of expression 
 that, had he had the proper training, these gifts might have 
 made him a "star-reporter," a highly-paid writer of adver- 
 tisements, even of fiction. It was not by choice he was what 
 he was. How gladly he had availed himself of the oppor- 
 tunity to "turn square," even though the reward was less. 
 
 There was that confounded puzzle, that iniquitous philoso- 
 pher's why why why. And of all the "why's" why could 
 not he cease from troubling himself about other people's af- 
 fairs ? ... He smiled grimly ; that was easily answered. 
 That was his work, his future. His brow wrinkled again; 
 once more the unanswered question was in his eyes, and he 
 was struggling against a belief in what the philosopher had 
 prophesied. . . . Joy fled him, and he felt it fleeing. 
 Was this sort of thing to go on forever ? In that case small 
 pleasure was in store for him, home or anywhere. . . . 
 
 A sound in the next room startled him. Eecollecting he 
 had failed to direct Quinn to call him early, he was about to 
 lift his voice for his retainer, when the sound was repeated. 
 It was as though some one dropped a shoe from a bedside. 
 And then he knew that Bertie had entered with her latch-key 
 while he had sat before the fire. He knew he should be 
 alarmed and angry, should lock his door; at any sign of 
 intrusion should make bold to say what he had intended to 
 write.
 
 302 God's Man 
 
 But such is human nature he was conscious of far differ- 
 ent emotions. Nor was he angry that it should be so. He 
 remembered only that Bertie was very, very pretty, very, very 
 much desired, and that she loved him very, very much. All 
 of which, coming on Velvet Voice's rejection of him, rilled him 
 with a fierce satisfaction. To his qualms of disturbed con- 
 science he made angry replies. Had he sought Bertie out? 
 Would it not be brutal to reject her without warning after her 
 long absence, just when she thought to give him a pleasant 
 surprise? Was he stone that he could endure the sound of 
 sobbing all night? Had he given her the latch-key; had she 
 not had it made herself ? 
 
 At the third sound, that of a window opening, he found 
 himself trembling. A pleasurable tremor it was, too, and it 
 brought him to his feet and took him toward the door. He 
 was hardly conscious of his actions ; he submitted them to the 
 approval of neither brain nor conscience. His exit into the 
 hall was almost involuntary. Then came the opening of her 
 door, the quick closing of it, behind him. ... At the 
 sight of the room's many little feminine touches his trembling 
 became violent, his voice, when he tried to find it, was simply 
 nowhere. 
 
 The little fringed pink shades of the candles on her dress- 
 ing table threw the light downward on her polished silver 
 brushes, on her cut-glass bottles. How little a woman's touch 
 changes a room, yet how much. The cretonne hangings to 
 the windows, the soft furry mat on the floor by the bed, the 
 lace doily under another pink-handed candle on the night- 
 table, and in its light her long jeweled bar-pin, her rings, her 
 golden vanity-case and mesh-bag studded with brilliants, the 
 gold baby-pins that had fastened her blouse, all lay in a 
 sparkling, shiny mass all was as before, and over all the 
 delicate odor of iris, so much her own particular perfume that 
 it was a part of her. . . . Everything as before. She 
 might never have gone away. . . . 
 
 A curious sense of the naturalness of the situation gave him
 
 The Happenings of a Single Day 303 
 
 no chance to think. He was soothed and lulled by habit, 
 habit the traitor that bids the brain not bother about matters 
 unworthy its attention ; and, while it rests, infringes upon its 
 prerogatives. Unconsciously, then, Arnold's eyes sought a 
 familiar object that was missing the pink kimono that 
 should hang on the closet door. Slowly he turned and saw 
 her wrapped in its filmy folds. What a beautiful thing she 
 was! so soft and appealing, what a childish neck and shoul- 
 ders, with just the faintest indication of shoulder-blades under 
 her rosy flesh, flesh that seemed so alive ; even her hands not 
 like the cold, unresponsive hands of most women, the result 
 of calculating hearts that beat out just enough blood for prac- 
 tical purposes. She was warm, vivid, like a tropical flower 
 on a long slender stem. 
 
 Later that night he was puzzled to know what persuasions 
 she had used to break down his defenses. What had brought 
 this affair back to where it had been when she went away ? He 
 could remember nothing; could not tell, even, how he had 
 persuaded himself. He had thought it would be brutal to 
 lock his door against her he recalled that. But between 
 such a negative and the affirmative of kisses and caresses there 
 was only a blank. . . . 
 
 Actually when their eyes met she had put out two small 
 fluttering hands, and he had come forward to take them just 
 as he had always done. And then the scent of the iris be- 
 came mingled with another, subtler and sweeter that "per- 
 fume of her presence" one reads of. It overpowered Arnold, 
 as always. He drew her to him and breathed her deeply, the 
 soft lace and diaphanous silk of the pink kimono pressed 
 against his face. 
 
 And then she seemed to be seized by a sudden wildness. It 
 thrilled him and warmed the lips and arms that held her. It 
 was wonderful to know that she was fragile and that he waa 
 crushing her in his fierce embrace. 
 
 "You still love me, Arnold? You haven't been untrue to 
 me ? Oh, Arnold ! Have you ?" The loose sleeves of the
 
 304 God's Man 
 
 kimono fell back from her soft arms as they wound them- 
 selves around his neck. And he lied his voice thick, his 
 eyes humid. 
 
 "I love you," he choked out; "I love you. What did you 
 want to go away for ? I've wanted you so much. ... So 
 much. . . ." 
 
 That had been it, he told himself with heart beating high. 
 If she had not gone Velvet Voice wouldn't have mattered. It 
 was the same thing, only he had been a sentimental ass, had 
 called it by sanctified names. Yes, he loved Bertie ! The 
 word meant just this and nothing more. It meant thoughts 
 of soft fragrant arms, of a beautiful body dimly outlined 
 through sweet-smelling silks and lace; it meant eyes half- 
 closed, cheeks blazing high, and burning red lips to kiss and 
 kiss again. . . . 
 
 END OF BOOK IT
 
 BOOK V
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 THE BLOW FALLS 
 
 I. "VAN VHBOON", COFFEE" 
 
 THE two rivers that Manhattan 
 separates and which it allows 
 to meet only when both have 
 reached the open sea, one is 
 spanned by networks of cob- 
 webby steel, over which fly trol- 
 leys, motor-propelled vehicles 
 and wagons, on their way to 
 Long Island. Both are crowded 
 with ferries crowded with peo- 
 ple, and ships crowded with car- 
 goes, ships leaving or reaching 
 the many piers and docks 
 docks that, near the coast line's 
 
 center, are as gigantic as the great ocean greyhounds whose 
 kennels they are ; docks that grow smaller as the river rushes 
 on toward the sea, for nearer the Battery and almost in sight 
 of a certain satiric Statue are the homes of the older ships 
 built in those days when Americans actually pretended to 
 enjoy wasting a week or more of valuable time crossing so 
 stupid an arrangement as an ocean. 
 
 Down among these antiquated devices of commerce lay the 
 Cormorant, "coffee clipper," her slim masts slanting toward 
 her stern, like the very latest thing in transatlantic liners' 
 funnels; indeed, so scanty of beam was she, so sharp of bow
 
 308 God's Man 
 
 hollowed out toward the water line, and so elliptical of stern, 
 as to appear remarkably and jauntily long. She had been 
 the pride of her Philadelphia yard at her launching, and al- 
 though that dated back a quarter of a century, she still re- 
 mained the latest model of her type. Since then she had 
 been hauled into dry dock many times; she had been given 
 a new keel and a new bottom; her plates had been renewed; 
 while as for masts, sails, spars, rigging and gear in general, 
 their name was, if not legion, at least cohort. 
 
 Below decks it would have been the same, but, as for ex- 
 ample, her main-cabin had been originally finished in bird's- 
 eye maple, with "skeleton linings" of the best Bessemer steel, 
 its "lunatic" owner as Archibald Van Vhroon was called by 
 a newer type of merchant had found little excuse for expend- 
 iture here. Nevertheless, he had installed some recent plumb- 
 ing to remove an odor usual and expected by all who sailed 
 in such ships. Save only for a lack of modern heating, officers 
 and crew might have found no more comfortable quarters in 
 the greyhounds themselves; indeed, less so, for her quarters 
 were never crowded ; and, as for heat, there was a fire-place in 
 the main-cabin for officers, and the galley-fire served suffi- 
 ciently for the crew. 
 
 Altogether, she was the pride of old Archibald's heart; 
 never was he happier than when he was on the pier watching 
 her warp in or stand out, returning from or going on that 
 cause which she had covered times without number. Until 
 recently she had had company; as near as the nineties there 
 had been four clippers in the Van Vhroon fleet, one or two 
 of which were always in the slips. But they had been sold 
 or hired out now and the extra slip (there were two to the 
 Van Vhroon establishment) had been leased to another firm 
 that sent out a large number of barges on the Long Island 
 trade. One of them lay there now, ready to be towed away, 
 her decks heaped up with coal and wood. Her huge clumsy 
 build, stem and stern alike, her dirty, coal-covered strips of 
 deck, were the greatest possible contrast to the slim, clean
 
 The Blow Falls 309 
 
 Cormorant, with her holystoned decks and polished brass- 
 work shining in the sun. 
 
 The Van Vhroon establishment, besides the long broad 
 pier and the two harbor slips, consisted of a large, rambling 
 wooden structure that rose over the pier archway and ex- 
 tended half-way down toward the green water-stained piles, 
 roofing half the pier. In the old days this covered space had 
 usually been crowded; on one side of the iron truck-tracks 
 consignments just unshipped and waiting to be warehoused, 
 on the other bales and boxes marked in packing ink for deliv- 
 ery within the city or to be sent out North and South, by 
 train or boat. One side led into the warehouses, the other 
 into the offices. On the lower floor of this latter was the 
 Captain's room, where those officers and their mates and 
 boatswains might gather over their pipes and their drinks; 
 back of this a larger room for the crews. Above, reached by 
 a dark and narrow flight of stairs resembling a companion- 
 way, was what old Mr. Archibald insisted on calling his 
 "counting-room." It had once held a dozen clerks on high- 
 stools, separate cages for head-bookkeeper and cashier. Lead- 
 ing off this and facing the river the counting-room itself was 
 dark and lighted by green-shaded fixtures were two smaller 
 rooms, one utilized for correspondence, containing a stenog- 
 rapher, a file clerk and Mr. Archibald's private secretary 
 who, of later years, had been young Mr. Archibald, as the 
 clerks called him Archie Hartogensis. 
 
 The other room bore little resemblance to a modern busi- 
 ness office. It had Turkey-red carpeting, handsome mahog- 
 any furniture, pleasant fire of sea-coal reposing in a bed of 
 ornamental iron-work, a cradle-grate, on the head of which 
 was pictured, in dull black iron, lighted brilliantly by the 
 flames, a wood-cutter's hut set in a German forest. The fire- 
 place itself was of the "Adam-and-Eve" variety, cunningly 
 carved with fruits, flowers and fig-leaves, its mantel cut out- 
 ward with rounded corners; above it a long, narrow, old- 
 fashioned gilt-framed mirror. On the walls were various oil-
 
 310 God's Man 
 
 paintings and water-colors of departed Van Vhroons, their 
 captains and their ships. In a dark corner the glass doors of 
 a high curio-closet caught an occasional fire-gleam; behind 
 them were curious objects from all quarters of the globe, pres- 
 ents from the Van Vhroon mariners. 
 
 In the exact center of the room, under a chandelier with 
 many cut-glass prisms of the "dew-drop" sort, was a long 
 carved table with curved bellying legs, a broad table with 
 many drawers, its basket of papers, files, inkstands and other 
 implements giving the only hint that business was conducted 
 here. And, with the spars and funnels of ships passing 
 beyond the windows, one had a curious feeling of being in a 
 London office overlooking the Thames Embankment an effect 
 increased by the sight of the Lunatic who sat at the table and 
 who, in frock-coat, poke-collar and broad-banded black ascot, 
 seemed to have stepped directly from the pages of Charles 
 Dickens. 
 
 You doubt he was a lunatic ? "What other sort of American 
 would have continually overhauled his vessels before the Gov- 
 ernment Inspectors demanded it? If it had been a matter 
 of insurance, now. . . . But the Lunatic was thinking of 
 the safety of captains and crews. Who else but a lunatic 
 would have retained in service nine clerks when every one 
 knew the business warranted only six? Lucky for him three 
 others had died else he'd have had a dozen, as in the old days. 
 
 And who but a lunatic would have held out against Com- 
 bination Coffee? If he had sold when he had the chance he 
 might have retired with a snug little fortune the Van 
 Vhroons had been for nearly two hundred years the first of 
 the coffee firms. But, with his stupid sailing-ships and an- 
 tiquated ideas of distribution, how could he compete with a 
 combination that had trade-marks almost as old, had steamers, 
 had retail stores all over the country that could sell at prices 
 impossible to any single firm? True, old-fashioned grocers 
 with old-fashioned customers still dealt with the Lunatic, but 
 they were dying off, grocers and customers alike, and their
 
 The Blow Falls 311 
 
 sons or other successors were doing business with the smart 
 young salesmen of Combination Coffee. The Lunatic's one 
 salesman, who made a yearly trip, was as out-of-date as his 
 braided cutaway and square-top derby. 
 
 Yet, even now, for the name and the trade-mark, the kindly 
 Combination was willing to take over his amusingly absurd 
 business and pay well therefor. Would any one but a lunatic 
 refuse ? . . . And there were many little touches of idiocy 
 unknown to the world-at-large, such as refusing the rehabili- 
 tation offered by Captain Danny's great scheme. To which 
 the Lunatic was now referring when that astute mariner had 
 put forward the offer of a private gentleman to take over the 
 Cormorant } which would not only keep that bird from 
 "eating her head off" vide Captain Danny but pay office 
 expenses and return some profit. 
 
 "I knowed you'd say I was up to my little games, so I did," 
 said Danny aggrievedly, squirming under injustice in one of 
 the Heppelwhite chairs. "But you've got me wrong as usual, 
 Mr. Archibald, sir, which your nephew, young Mr. Archibald, 
 kin testify to if you'll be so kind as to call him." The head of 
 the firm pressed a button. "No, sir, Mr. Archibald, that was 
 for you, that idea. If you don't want it, why should an old 
 sailorman take the risk ? No, sir." 
 
 His voice was one of strenuous honesty, of rectitude mis- 
 judged; and when the summoned young Archibald appeared 
 and had heard the name of his friend, Arnold L'Hommedieu, 
 Captain Danny looked expectantly for justice to be done him. 
 
 Early that morning, before Archie had left the house, he 
 had received a telephone message from Arnold, urging him 
 not to mention his connection with the Waldemar Drug Com- 
 pany. If Mr. Van Yhroon wanted to know why Mr. L'Hom- 
 medieu wished to hire a clipper ship, let it be explained that 
 Arnold was commissioned secretly, of course to investigate 
 the threatened revolt of the Mexicans. . . . Newspapers 
 were known to expend large sums on such trifling details, and 
 did they wish to toss money about, should Mr. Van Vhroon
 
 312 God's Man 
 
 object? All of which Archie now retailed faithfully when 
 asked to vouch for his friend. 
 
 ". . . And he's the son of Parson L'Hommedieu down 
 at Havre de Grace. You ought to know him, Uncle Archi- 
 bald," he concluded. "You two were such great friends when 
 you were down that way and you know he's the honestest man 
 in the county, . . in the whole world. And so's Ar- 
 nold. There never was such a chap. I only wish I were 
 going with him. But you're not to let any one know. That 
 would be a terrible thing for him, ... his newspaper 
 would throw him out like that!" 
 
 "I'll consider it, then," said his uncle gruffly. "You may 
 go, Archibald. . . . And so for once you told the truth, 
 Daniel. I am surprised. I am indeed. I must be careful 
 or I shall begin to believe you and thereby lose much money." 
 Which was his way, that gruffness and that appearance of 
 suspicion, of proving to the world his stern and acute business 
 methods. "I will investigate the matter and let you know to- 
 morrow. . . ." 
 
 Captain Danny knew the battle was won. No one investi- 
 gated less than old Mr. Van Vhroon ; none had a firmer belief 
 in the integrity of human nature ; but to speak gruffly of in- 
 vestigation was part of the duty of a business man whose 
 slogan was "no nonsense." ... On Captain Danny's 
 exit Mr. Archibald called Gunnison, his head-clerk, and di- 
 rected him to make out an average monthly statement, 
 founded on her record for the past year, of the expense of the 
 Cormorant's upkeep, charges of loading and unloading to 
 be deducted. And the ancient clerk viewed him with watery 
 rheumy eyes. 
 
 "You don't think of disposing of the Cormorant, Mr. 
 Archibald, sir ?" he reproached. "I don't think I could stand 
 it if she should go, too. I've stood the Melinda going and 
 the Osprey and the putting out of our handsome Coot into 
 that filthy guano trade." ... He spoke as though he 
 had permitted these unreasonable outrages as an especial favor,
 
 The Blow Falls 313 
 
 but that it was best not to try him too far, he might resign and 
 save the firm a few hundreds a year. 
 
 "Now, you let me hear no more from you, Gunnison," said 
 his employer severely, "or I will discharge you forthwith. 
 Your length of service counts nothing with me. Sentiment 
 can't be allowed to interfere with business, and when we have 
 clerks dictating to their employers it is time for them to part. 
 . . . No nonsense of that sort goes in this office." These 
 modern business men could be no harsher than that, he 
 thought, chuckling ; and Gunnison, properly chastened in the 
 past decade he had faced thirty threats of discharge a month 
 retreated meekly from his position, and said he hoped Mr. 
 Archibald would understand he had spoken only because of 
 his long association with the firm. 
 
 "Don't presume on it again, Gunnison," said old Mr. Archi- 
 bald. "Sentiment counts for nothing here. You remain in 
 my employ only because you are useful to me. I hope you 
 remember that. If I could get a man to do your work cheaper 
 I'd have got him long ago. If he turns up any day out you 
 go. And there'll be no use in your talking about your long 
 association. This chair I'm sitting on has had just as long 
 an association, but I'd sell it to-morrow if I could get a better 
 one. The same with the Cormorant. Let me hear no more 
 such nonsense." 
 
 Gunnison having departed, the Lunatic coughed somewhat 
 importantly as one who has incontrovertibly proved himself, 
 as usual, a master logician. While Gunnison's rheumy old 
 eyes were more than usually clouded. Even if the Lunatic 
 deceived himself, he deceived no one else. 
 
 "Discharged again, Gunnison?" asked Archie, grinning as 
 the old clerk came out. Gunnison sighed heavily and stared 
 at the Cormorant's slim spars outside Archie's window. 
 
 "He didn't used to be like that, Mr. Archie, sir," he ex- 
 plained apologetically. "He began when he heard they'd 
 made fun of his keeping old Timothy Larkins on. Timmy 
 was a cripple, you know. He was before your time here. Mr.
 
 314 God's Man 
 
 Archibald swore he'd discharge Timmy as soon as he could 
 find somebody to take his place but he always said nobody 
 could. He'd grumble about Timmy and say his days in the 
 office were numbered. He would have a new man in the very 
 next day. But Timmy was here until he died. . . ." 
 
 Archie was not listening to Gunnison. All of his uncle's 
 eccentricities were long familiar to him ; all Gunnison's rem- 
 iniscences, too; the old clerk was likely to forget and repeat 
 the same story on the following day. To him the peculiari- 
 ties of his employer were as novel each morning as the latest 
 news. He passed on to re-tell his reminiscences and his re- 
 cent interview to a more appreciative audience, and Archie 
 continued his sightless staring and his wonder as to Arnold's 
 use for the Cormorant. It signified the possession of money, 
 that was certain, much money. 
 
 He was glad, for old Arnold's sake, that he had come out 
 of his trance at last, had begun to use his brains to some pur- 
 pose instead of mooning them away on that writing of his 
 that would never bring in enough to live like a gentleman. 
 And what was the use of living, else ? But Arnold had such 
 queer ideas. He had had them, too, when he was younger 
 (one might have imagined he was looking back from a ripe 
 old age), but thank Heaven, he had met the right sort of a 
 little girl, and she had shown him what was what. . . . 
 Look at The Good Old Rabbit, her father, how rich he had be- 
 come through putting his little brains to the proper use. 
 While Arnold, with forty times as many, had nothing to 
 show. But since old Waldemar had taken him up, he must 
 have seen how silly he'd been or the Old Geezer wouldn't have 
 such great faith in him as to let him go about hiring full- 
 rigged ships. . . . Again he wondered for what the Cor- 
 morant was wanted. At all events, Arnold must have "some 
 salary" to be trusted that much. No doubt he had saved 
 money. Too bad he had not realized this a few months be- 
 fore. There never would be another chance like Instantane-
 
 The Blow Falls 315 
 
 ous Boiler. Now, of course, there was no great profit in buy- 
 ing it although, if it kept on, who could tell? 
 
 There were few moments in the day when Archie did not 
 think of Instantaneous Boiler. It meant his whole future. 
 Carol, poor dear girl, was tired of waiting forever ; who could 
 blame her ! She wanted a home of her own, where she could 
 do as she pleased ; where she would not be dragged about and 
 shown off to every eligible young man. She had a right to be 
 impatient with him. Look at The Good Old Eabbit ! He didn't 
 take years to find the Big Thing. And there were hundreds 
 of Big Things if Archie would only bestir himself instead 
 of spending so much time in that stupid office of his uncle's 
 which would never yield sufficient to permit marriage even 
 though they lived in Harlem, out in the suburbs or in some 
 other impossible place. Archie should be down in the Street 
 looking out for Big Things. He had been looking, in his 
 leisure, but that was not enough; he should resign from his 
 uncle's and devote his entire time to it. The Good Old Eab- 
 bit would take him into his office. True, he would not pay 
 him much, but he would be on the spot. Archie had con- 
 tinual difficulty in making Carol understand that he was not 
 an only son. And in a country without laws of entail what 
 would prevent a displeased father from disinheriting his eld- 
 est son? Some younger brother would be Hartogensis of 
 Exmoor should he venture to flout Squire Hartogensis' wishes. 
 
 However, he had been dabbling. The Good Old Eabbit had 
 given him several minor tips, cautioning him, however, not 
 to invest too heavily. He had lost on one and gained on the 
 other. But Carol was a luxury, as Arnold had observed 
 restaurant bills for herself and chaperon, taxi-bills, flower- 
 bills, bills for hired motors to take them down on Long Island 
 to various "Chateaux" and into Westchester to divers "Inns" ; 
 costliest of all, losses at bridge and huge tips to servants at 
 week-end parties among richer friends. To refuse to play 
 bridge was worse than not being able to turkey-trot one was
 
 316 God's Man 
 
 never invited again. All these expenses of keeping Carol in 
 eight had placed an extremely large minus sign where his 
 winnings on that one tip should have been a minus sign that 
 took in a large share of his puny capital. ... So when 
 Instantaneous Boiler had shown its dazzling head on his 
 horizon Archie had not hesitated. "One" must not hesitate 
 when the Big Thing came along; "one" never got another 
 chance if "one" did, and if "one" did not believe this, "one" 
 insulted Carol. 
 
 So that, on -this particular mornng when the second post 
 brought an envelope with the name by which his Big Thing 
 was known to the public, Archie thought again of old Arnold 
 and what he had missed. Xo doubt this was to advise him 
 of a ten-point rise in the public estimation of The Wonderful 
 Lamp. Archie and other Aladdins had received numbers of 
 such notifications and had found more money to invest. His 
 poor old lunatic uncle disbelieved in such things; but he 
 should be assisted whether he willed it or not and the firm 
 tided over its present difficulties. Presently, when Instantane- 
 ous Boiler reached par, he would sell and become the benefac- 
 tor of the firm. Then his underrating father, hearing of this 
 great success, would admit that such financial genius was 
 smothered in so unprogressive a firm. 
 
 And so smiling he opened Mr. Mink's plaintive wail to the 
 stockholders of Instantaneous Boiler. . . , 
 
 II. ARNOLD GIVES UP THE FIGHT 
 
 It was past noon the next day before Arnold found himself 
 alone and free to set out for Clabber's, half of Captain Danny's 
 smuggled goods in the box beside the taxi-driver. "When it 
 had been lugged up-stairs by grinning Boy Xumber One and 
 a blue-robed menial, Clabber, true to his word, but not until 
 a number of cans had been sampled and approved, passed over 
 the money. It was in hundred-dollar bills. 
 
 "Whenever you get more of the sameth," he said,
 
 The Blow Falls 317 
 
 know where to cometh, hey ? And I pay you as much as any- 
 body, and take more. . . ." 
 
 Arnold repressed with difficulty the inclination to sound 
 him concerning Captain Danny's scheme. But why raise ex- 
 pectations that could not be realized? Had he not definitely 
 abandoned that iniquitous idea? He went off hurriedly, de- 
 posited his money and returned to Beeckman Place to carry 
 the second consignment to Apricott. 
 
 There he found, awaiting him, a note from Captain Danny. 
 It told briefly of his success in securing the Cormorant for 
 the cruise as for the probable terms, he gave them, adding 
 that he would be around again at the dinner-hour. "He won't 
 find me," thought Arnold, feeling grimly victorious. He 
 would be dining in Havre de Grace to-night. . . . But, 
 as he tore up the note, he heard the whir of a taxi outside, and 
 through the hall curtains saw Hugo pay the driver, Archie 
 standing by limp and despondent. 
 
 Arnold opened the door. "Don't let your taxi go, boys," he 
 warned. "I can't be with you more than ten minutes. Im- 
 portant business. That's my taxi the other one." 
 
 Hugo looked up: something sinister in his glance alarmed 
 Arnold. "You'd better let him go, then," said Hugo. "You've 
 got no business as important as we've got. Here" he ad- 
 dressed Arnold's driver "how much is it ?" and gave him a 
 bill. The two taxis backed and barked and birred away. 
 "Come on, Arch," said Hugo kindly, putting an affectionate 
 arm about his friend. "Come on, old boy." The big fellow 
 had all the tenderness of a woman in his voice. 
 
 Arnold, conscious of impending disaster, led them into a 
 room overlooking the river, his lounge and library. Outside 
 the sky was dark and threatening : the tide ran high and boats 
 strained at their moorings. True, it had been gloomy and 
 threatening all day, but when one seeks for dismal signs, it 
 is not hard to find them. 
 
 Again Arnold had that queer helpless feeling of one who 
 must combat circumstances. The face of the peninsula
 
 318 God's Man 
 
 philosopher seemed to rise up again and mock him. - . . 
 He turned, his look somber, and saw Hugo lock the door ; nor 
 did he say anything to console the miserable Archie who had 
 dropped into a chair, head on hands, elbows on knees, face 
 dark and despairing. Hugo cleared his throat, lit a cigar, 
 tossed it away, and took down one of Arnold's pipes. 
 
 "Oh go on, Arch," he said suddenly, "tell him." But the 
 heap of misery in the chair only groaned. "Oh hell," said 
 Hugo. "Well look here, Arnold Archie. . . ." 
 
 He plunged into the wretched story of Instantaneous Boiler, 
 Archie punctuating it with occasional oaths, groans and de- 
 sires for death. When the tale was told, Arnold turned from 
 Archie, his look one of terror, dismay, anger, hatred. A gull ! 
 the easiest sort of a gull; so greedy for wealth he could not 
 earn, that he had been taken in by the most transparent of 
 fakes. And all to gratify a silly chit of a girl, snobbish, ig- 
 norant, worthless far inferior to the girl whom Arnold had 
 gent away that morning and to whom, probably, she would 
 consider herself vastly superior because of a purely technical 
 virtue and this was the price of that virtue : the ruin of him 
 rho could not afford to buy it. ... Worst of all, there 
 was nothing to be done. The swindlers back of Instantaneous 
 Boiler knew the law, knew how to circumvent it, had given 
 their swindling that farcical legal aspect which would pre- 
 vent any criminal action being taken. And Hugo had no 
 money. . . . 
 
 "You see, Arnold," he added, uneasy under Arnold's chilly 
 stare. "My Gov.'s shut down. I'm in his black books. Drew 
 bills against him for that damned show I backed, and he's 
 published me in the papers saying he's not responsible for any 
 more of my debts. Look here !" and he drew some clippings 
 from his pockets. "And here's his letter. I'm 'to keep within 
 my allowance' 'not a cent over' and if I'm not at the office 
 hereafter, I'll be docked for every day I stay away more than 
 two hours ! A pretty go, ain't it ? why, Bobbie owes Madame
 
 The Blow Falls 319 
 
 Judith nearly seven thousand for hats and frocks and furs. 
 Her bill ain't been paid for nearly two years and she's threat- 
 enin' to sue that's only one. If he'd only let me marry 
 her/' he groaned; "she was so careful not to run into debt 
 when she thought we were going to be married! "Wanted to 
 begin saving for the kids. Poor old Bobs ! of course we 
 couldn't have any when we weren't regularly doubled up. 
 And, say, you've got no idea how she wanted a kid, marriage 
 or not. But I put my foot down on that. 'Twouldn't be fair 
 to the Tdd f I said" 
 
 For the first time, Archie showed some animation. "To 
 hell with you" he interrupted violently. "Are you looking 
 suicide in the face ? Well, then, shut up I am. Look here, 
 Arnold, I've got to have that money. If the Dad has to sell 
 property to make good to Uncle Archie, it's good-by to my 
 ever having Exmoor. If Mr. Waldemar trusts you so much 
 he lets you go about hiring ships, you can get all the money 
 you want on trust. And there won't be a chance of me not 
 paying it back. The Dad's got to die some day. And it'll be 
 a good investment. Mr. Waldemar can't get a hundred per 
 cent, every day, can he ? I'll pay it. I'll pay anything only 
 get it for me, Arnold, get it for me. . . . It's only five 
 thousand and I'll kill myself if I don't get it I might just 
 as well. I've lost Carol she won't wait forever. I've lost 
 my mother's ten thousand. Now if I lose Exmoor, what've I 
 got to live for ? Just stay here and be a clerk all my life ? I 
 won't do it, Arnold, I'll kill myself ! I will I tell you, I will !" 
 
 "I can raise two or three thousand, Arnold," said Hugo. 
 "There's my pearls studs and waist-coat buttons and links. 
 And my sapphire pin and links, and this ring with two big 
 stones. And this watch cost fifteen hundred" he took it 
 out, a thing as thin as the half of a soda-biscuit. "I'd ask 
 Bobbie to let me use her junk, too, just for the time, but it's 
 going to be tough enough when she hears about the Governor 
 shutting down, poor old Bobs. . . ."
 
 320 God's Man 
 
 "A w," snarled Archie. "Why don't you make her? A 
 fine girl, won't help you out when you're in trouble." . . . 
 Which angered even the peaceable Hugo. 
 
 "Well, then, how about your own girl?" he shot back an- 
 grily. "She's got jewelry, hasn't she? and her father's got 
 money, ain't he ? Why shouldn't she help you ?" 
 
 "I'll tell you why/' said Arnold coldly. "Because Carol 
 Caton would throw him down one minute after she thought 
 there was no chance of him making good." He snapped his 
 fingers and pushed Archie back in his chair. "Don't try to 
 act" he advised, his tone frigid. "Carol's the last person in 
 the world you'd ask and you know it. You've ruined yourself 
 over her; but that's what American men are made for. If 
 they can't cheat or steal enough to make money, they aren't 
 worthy of our pure American women," he added savagely, 
 thinking, to tell the truth, far more of Velvet Voice than 
 Carol. "What starts most of this graft and dishonesty? 
 'Dearie' wants a motor-car like Mrs. Blank's. 'Dearie' wants 
 to move into a better neighborhood. 'Dearie' must dress like 
 Mrs. Dash, must go to Europe like Mrs. Dot, must take a 
 summer-place like Mrs. Dumb. 'Dearie' damn Dearie the 
 whipping-post for f Dearie' And then they talk about the 
 coarse men who do the coarse work that gets the coarse money 
 that buys their delicate refined good-breeding ! Why, we're a 
 joke, we American men ! . . . Now shut up !" he warned 
 Archie again. "We don't want to hear anything from you 
 about how unworthy we men are of sweet lovely womanhood. 
 It's a lie. We're their superiors, always have been, always 
 will be. If s men like you who give them their fool ideas, you 
 and the cheap novels and 'thoughtful' plays. When women 
 get real men, they're willing enough to acknowledge it " 
 
 He paused for want of breath. He was violently angry. 
 Ever since he had first conceived his smuggling scheme in 
 Clabber's bunk, he had felt instinctively that somehow, he 
 would be forced into it. Now he looked back, it seemed that 
 his life for the last five years had been planned toward that
 
 The Blow Falls 321 
 
 end. He was like a pawn in the clutch of an automatic chess- 
 player. 
 
 The whole thing had the semblance of a Greek tragedy in 
 its disregard for human desires. 
 
 Ever since their expulsion from Old King's University some 
 malign influence had driven each one of them into lives for- 
 eign to those they had planned, alien to their natures ; until 
 Archie was now a betrayer of trust; Hugo was pointed out 
 as an unenviable example of gilded youth, advertised by his 
 father as a prodigal ; Arnold, the employee of a wholesale poi- 
 soner, himself a potential criminal. And The Jinx, in whose 
 cause they had interfered, had turned out a blackmailer for 
 all their pains ! 
 
 The silly waste of it! "Purpose ?" and his thoughts 
 turned to the peninsula philosopher again a fine one truly. 
 At this rate, the "Purpose" would not be satisfied until they 
 were all three in the electric-chair. A mad recklessness seized 
 him. What use to combat it, then? Have the worst over. 
 Evidently, if there was such a "Purpose/ 7 if the Orientals 
 were right about their "Kismet," it did not intend he should 
 be decent. Had it not checked all his attempts in that di- 
 rection? And, now, when he had deliberately rejected an 
 easy road to wealth sooner than follow in the wake of Wal- 
 demar's poisoning rejected it knowing it might bring him, 
 perhaps, all his heart desired along came this catastrophe, 
 this cataclysm ! And the good and great "Purpose" had seen 
 to it that Hugo should be penniless when it came an unprec- 
 edented thing! 
 
 Now if he still continued in his rejection, the least that 
 could happen was Archie's suicide. Why not, if the boy lost 
 everything good name, girl, inheritance ? And Arnold would 
 know he could have saved him and at the cost of what? 
 a few silly scruples ! It was nonsense to say Waldemar was 
 a poisoner: if he didn't do it, some one would. People sold 
 poisons and adulterated food, grafted, stole franchises, bought
 
 322 God's Man 
 
 legislators, paid gunmen to repeat at elections, floated "phony" 
 stocks, made politics and business filthy, and life a menace 
 to the honest man, a cruel taskmaster to the poor one all be- 
 cause somebody else would if they wouldn't. 
 
 Well, let them. He couldn't change it the concomitant 
 to that first bit of self-deceit as he knew well enough. But 
 why make one's self miserable? The big financiers had the 
 right idea: they made their millions, then built libraries, en- 
 dowed hospitals and colleges, gave great sums to science to im- 
 prove conditions. That was the only way. The fools that 
 suffered had the remedy in their own hands, but they preferred 
 to be slapped on the back, to be bought drinks, given picnics 
 and free beer their foolish ideas of equality encouraged. Sup- 
 port an honest man who told them the truth? a snob who 
 thought he was "better than they"? Why should he bother 
 about such cattle when they didn't bother about themselves ? 
 
 Guiltily, he knew he was repeating now every one of the 
 sophistries. Arnold, now, was like the man in an icy sea 
 who, although upheld by a life-preserver, deliberately drowns 
 rather than endure the intolerable cold or one hanging above 
 an abyss who finds the thought of death less painful than 
 lacerated hands and straining muscles. Like them, Arnold 
 had reached the limit of endurance. Archie might not kill 
 himself, might not; but Arnold knew such excitable, hysterical 
 natures too well. And Arnold's own life was not tolerable 
 enough to add to it the thought that he had permitted his 
 friend to pass out when he might have saved him. 
 
 He raised his eyes, realizing that the gaze of Archie and 
 Hugo was fixed upon him, just as in the old days when some 
 important question had been left to his decision. He had 
 always taken responsibility seriously, had Arnold. 
 
 But what a different Archie from those days : eyes sunken 
 and bloodshot, strained face that seemed thin for all its plump 
 cheeks, so drawn was it about eyes and mouth, while his hands 
 twitched abominably. And Hugo was as earnest and as
 
 The Blow Falls 323 
 
 anxious, as sorrowful and as pitying, as some great St. Ber- 
 nard dog viewing a frozen wayfarer too heavy for his aid. 
 
 "When must you have the money?" asked Arnold. Archie 
 began to babble of bills due, possible extensions. . . . Ar- 
 nold cut him short. "The last possible minute before any- 
 body knows your uncle even three months ?" he demanded 
 coldly. "Come on, Archie, speak up. Can you manage with- 
 out it for three months ? You say you handle all the cash." 
 
 But Archie seemed dazed by the prospect of salvation. He 
 began incoherent rhapsodies. He sold himself into eternal 
 slavery to Arnold, ceased to be except as his appanage, cata- 
 logued the incredible services he would perform for this su- 
 perman friend of his. Hugo, too, stuttered out a sort of dog- 
 like wondering gratitude. 
 
 "Come," said Arnold impatiently. "Can you hold out for 
 three months, Archie? Answer me. . . . You can? 
 Good." He unlocked the door, raised his voice and called for 
 Quinn to telephone for another taxicab : "And put that Ap- 
 ricott box on it when it comes. . . ." 
 
 "While we're waiting for it," he said to the two anxious 
 ones, closing the door as he spoke, "I'll tell you why I need 
 three months. And why I'm going to let you pawn your 
 jewelry, Hugo. But don't be afraid : you'll be able to redeem 
 it and to pay your half toward getting Archie out of this trou- 
 ble besides. No gamble, no speculation" he looked coldly at 
 Archie "no chance for me. This is certain sure. That 
 is unless you let the cat out. And so, before I tell you, you'll 
 have to swear by everything sacred you won't tell anybody 
 not anybody. . . ." 
 
 Alas for drama! here was the most dramatic situation, so 
 far, in the lives of any of them; yet the best words Arnold 
 could summon up to impose secrecy were equally suited to 
 some boyish trifle. Nor had Archie maintained his tragic atti- 
 tude his burden now rested on Arnold's shoulders, and he 
 was only keenly curious while Arnold felt strangely elated
 
 324 God's Man 
 
 and thrilled, such is the unruly instinct in all of us. Once 
 we have stilled, or definitely disregarded, customs, conven- 
 tions and conscience, we are, for the moment, as those drunk 
 with heady wine. . . . 
 
 And so his eyes sparkled as he told them of the fortune that 
 lay waiting in far-off Yucatan. . . .
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 BEBELLION 
 THE INN CLAIMS ARNOLD FOR ITS OWN 
 
 CHILLY night, a foretaste of 
 winter, might have made advisa- 
 ble the heavy rough great-coat 
 Arnold donned before setting out 
 [for the Inn. But aside from any 
 ! question of warmth, Arnold was 
 glad of an excuse to turn up that 
 huge storm-collar; and to turn 
 down that soft felt hat. Many 
 of his father's friends, and his 
 mother's relatives, held to their 
 old-fashioned homes in Washing- 
 ton Square ; their rear walls over- 
 looking Eupert Passage. And, 
 
 possibly, policemen might wonder how one might be reputable 
 and still visit so disreputable a place. 
 
 Hence he came into the Inn courtyard, skulking and 
 scowling: hesitating at the flat marble stoop, and squeaking 
 out his address to the high-collared young Hebrew; who, 
 whereupon, gave himself some languidity of demeanor. 
 
 "Mr. E. Apricott," repeated Arnold more confidently. "Mr. 
 Waldemar's secretary the Waldemar Manufacturing Com- 
 pany, you know/' 
 "Not me," returned he of the very high-collar, virtuously.
 
 326 God's Man 
 
 And began to smooth down the very low vest, and the very 
 loud shirt, and to readjust the very thin tie all faithful 
 copies of Fourteenth Street window-dressers' models for "natty 
 men." "Sure you got the right place?" 
 
 Arnold was impatiently sure. 
 
 "Wait a minute," soothed Jacob Faithful. 
 
 He turned to the grille, the shutter of which had been up 
 ever since the hideous ringing of the shop-bell ; Mother's bead- 
 like eyes unblinkingly and unfavorably regarding her satellite. 
 
 "Never heard of no such person," he said. Desiring, how- 
 ever, to extend his study of the long slender knot and broad 
 flowing folds of a Spitalsfield scarf revealed by the unfasten- 
 ing of Arnold's coat, the high-collared young Hebrew assumed 
 a benevolent but bepuzzled expression. 
 
 "Jest spell it, will ya ? Maybe ya pull it wrong !" 
 
 "Why " began Arnold in high exasperation, then laughed, 
 understandingly. "It's all right/' his tone the tone of one who 
 has decided to allow a noisy insect to live a little longer. "You 
 take that in to Mr. Apricott." 
 
 He had searched for and had found his card-case, on the 
 plain flat surface of which were initials in dark blue enamel. 
 On these the eyes of Sir High-Collar feasted greedily. 
 
 "No more of these here fancy monograms, hey?" he asked 
 and assured himself to himself. But what he said aloud 
 was : "No such person I ever heard of, ain't I telling you," me- 
 chanically. 
 
 He found what he considered an artful outlet for sartorial 
 excitement in a continuous performance with the now-despised 
 wispy tie. To the searching eye, this was absolute proof of 
 nerves. No mathematical calculation, no square and compass, 
 could have placed it in a position more truly central. 
 
 Arnold, noticing the oblique and almost clinical examina- 
 tion of the blue enamel but misunderstanding the motive, 
 produced, swiftly, pencil and seal combined, cigarette-holder, 
 and other golden reminders of past Christmases indicating 
 the initials on each, again indicating the card.
 
 Rebellion 327 
 
 "A. L. H. A. L. H. . . . Arnold L'Hommedieu 
 now take it in, will you ?" 
 
 The shutter was raised an inch or so ; the beady eyes behind 
 it beamed. 
 
 "Gimme, then," said the walking clinic, loftily reconsider- 
 ing : "I don't know, Mis' Mybus might, though/' He took the 
 card and disappeared, first, however, eying wistfully a cig- 
 arette-holder Arnold was shaking from a little gold box, in 
 such a way as to elongate it, one like a miniature drinking- 
 cup. The fitting-in and lighting served to steady Arnold's 
 nerves, so that, when a head in a high collar emerged from 
 the hutch, nodding solemnly, our hero made a more effective 
 entrance into its interior than into the Inn itself. At their 
 accustomed posts, needles flashing in the firelight a fore- 
 finger flagellating his knee fawning, frowning, were the fat 
 woman and her endless knitting, the blind man and his end- 
 less prophecies. 
 
 "Sit down, young man," said Mother Mybus, and studied 
 him for the profit she had prophesied he was to bring some 
 day. 
 
 What a face and figure for the "boats" ; what a "steerer" 
 for the "pay-off" or the "wire." She brought her bright 
 black beads to bear on an expected weakness but found none. 
 
 Then Apricott entered pulling down his cuffs, plainly at- 
 tired in some haste ; plainly puzzling over Arnold's presence 
 the young gentleman had only to write and old Mitt-and-a- 
 Half would have been glad to call . . . voicing this, abat- 
 ing the usual banalaties ; the while drawing together his brows 
 until their apex was as pointed as the sharpest yen-hok in 
 his attic. 
 
 "You can speak out before Mother, and this is Mr. Nich- 
 olas Tremkin, sir. And he's all right, too" . . . the 
 "sir" slipping out, a candid concession; valuable because old 
 Mitt-and-a-Half seldom made it. 
 
 Still Arnold hesitated. 
 
 "They're all right f ain't I telling you. Anyhow, there's
 
 328 God's Man 
 
 nowhere else to talk. . . ." "Good Fellow" or not, no 
 stranger entered the Attic unimplicated. 
 
 Arnold's mind seemed benumbed, incapable or unwilling to 
 do more than sense the color and count the number of red 
 ocher bricks in the Antwerp flooring, the brown and tawny 
 panels of the old oak walls, the blue and white tiling of the 
 Amsterdam fireplace. And to wonder at their association 
 with such folks as he of the Cubist face, triangular, hard, 
 sour, he whose hand of the missing fingers twitched on a black 
 cheviot knee. And diagonally opposite, him of the sightless 
 eyes and useless lenses framed in expensive tortoise-shell 
 whose hand of the long black premier digit wrote on a brown 
 serge knee. But he wondered most about that human sack 
 which, uncorded, would send the Cormorant south her of 
 the fat rat face, with eyes like an ancient mouse her very 
 appearance was a misdemeanor ! 
 
 Arnold's hesitancy, however, had been due to no fear of be- 
 trayal : his listeners were too greedy not to be trustworthy. It 
 was another qualm, another thought of that family name to 
 be jeopardized for the first time in two centuries or more. 
 Allied with that of the wickedest old woman in New York. 
 Was it worth while? Was he justified? 
 
 But what was to become of Archie if he did not? How was 
 he, Arnold, to win Velvet Voice ? At such times, one is shorn 
 of self-deception. Arnold knew, now, that all the time, and, 
 even at her own valuation, he had wanted Velvet Voice. Had 
 wanted her so much that he was willing to buy her. He knew, 
 too, what he was : a hypocrite like all the rest Waldemar, the 
 Squire, yes, even Quiwers wasn't he glad of an excuse to 
 get her price: somehow anyhow? And at the cost of his 
 self-respect. . . . Archie, eh? Archie, Tiell Arnold, Ar- 
 nold! AKNOLD! 
 
 "I've got some thousands of dollars' worth of opium out- 
 side," he suddenly affirmed with startling calm. Apricott in- 
 tervened, snarling and snapping over the recklessness that left 
 unguarded so much virgin gold. Disregarding the bill Arnold
 
 Rebellion 329 
 
 held out to pay the driver, Apricott hastily quitted the room; 
 returning presently, an incompetent expressman, staggering 
 under an incomparable box. But, unlike an expressman, he 
 deposited it gently and approached the prying-off of its lid 
 almost prayerfully. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mother touched Nikko's knee. The blind man 
 burst into weird mirth. 
 
 "Growing, growing always growing/' he chuckled. 
 "Slowly, but surely. Ha ! -Petra Borisovna," and he rubbed 
 his thin fingers together, swearing the Slavonic calendar out 
 of saints, and concluding with a masterpiece : 
 
 ". . . by St. Nicholas and the skull of Christ. He hates 
 the filthy money-swine too, an aristocrat, a leader. Leaders 
 are all we need. Mobs obey aristocrats . . . have I not 
 always told you officers must be noble? Animals need train- 
 ers but kind trainers, Petra not cruel knouters. Blind 
 folk have the best eyes ! They see inside. . . ." 
 
 "Blind? you?" she returned sharply. "And yesterday 
 beheld the Doctor's dark purple scarf? Thou wouldst lose the 
 blessed Sophia her sanctity. With a loyar's eyeshells, glossy 
 as a blackbird." . . . 
 
 The simile was sheer animalism, nothing more. Just as she 
 had poetized greedily over sweetmeats when younger, she now 
 seemed able to find similar lip-smacking qualities in any 
 object of cost and like Hugo like all interminably inarticu- 
 late races Slavs certainly could symbolize crudely but ec- 
 statically. 
 
 "Listen I" interrupted Apricott, indicating Arnold and his 
 polite but strained silence. 
 
 "Well." . . . Arnold began. 
 
 Eevolutionists and rebel and rogue, all were equally atten- 
 tive to this manifestly likable young gentleman; so attract- 
 ively appareled, too. Mother's eyes glistened with malice 
 and moisture, Apricott ceased burrowing in the opened box 
 and began to fondle something. Nikko smiled contentedly. 
 Since "Mr. Arnold" had accepted Apricott's thousand-dollar
 
 330 God's Man 
 
 "bonus we had hoped he would array himself profitably 
 against the law openly rebel, Nlkko put it. 
 
 Now that this had happened, their expectations were more 
 than fulfilled. Xo empty boasts. "The goods !" 
 
 "I think you know what you talk about, Mr. Arnold," said 
 Mother slowly. "I think you know. But I don't know. I 
 hear much of you from Mr. Pink and Mr. Beau and that Bad 
 Little Frog! they think you know too. . . . But they 
 don't know. . . . Why you come to ignorant low peasant 
 peoples, Mr. Arnold ? Why not to your rich friends ?" 
 
 "Because it's against the law," returned Arnold, too heavy of 
 heart to be epigrammatically satirical. "And my rich friends 
 don't do things against the law. They may change it or cheat 
 it or get poorer people to take the chances. And I'm not tak- 
 ing chances for the fun of it, Mrs. Mybus. I can offer you 
 half the profits for all the expenses ; without getting a laugh. 
 My inside information against your illegitimate cash. Which 
 gives me my own illegitimate profits clear. I'm only going to 
 invest the money you pay me for what's there. . . ." 
 
 He indicated the hox or, rather, a sunken barge in a sea 
 of excelsior, amid which squatted the connoisseur, his Cubisti- 
 cal features contorted like some good-natured ghoul and, 
 adding his own two thousand to the price expected from 
 Mother, plus that of the other Musketeers, continued "... a 
 very dear friend's Then the ship-captain's is fifteen hundred 
 dollars' worth. All the rest that Senor Gomez has is yours, 
 Mrs. Mybus. If that should happen to be less than I've guar- 
 anteed you, here is a fair return for so much risk." 
 
 He tapped some sheets. 
 
 "Why, we'll divide the entire cargo evenly between me, my 
 friend and the captain. Ten thousand invested between us 
 and we'll sell for over a hundred thousand, not counting your 
 extra profit retailing to your customers." 
 
 "Xot my customers, Mr. Arnold," disclaimed Mother 
 promptly. "Mr. Enoch, he has customers, though." 
 
 "Well, Mr. Enoch, then," said Arnold with an air of indif-
 
 Rebellion 331 
 
 ference. "He makes about one hundred per cent, extra profit, 
 anyhow, doesn't he ?" 
 
 "One hundred per cent. ?" she screamed. "Not half, Mr. 
 Arnold. Not a quarter. "What about his valuable time ? Just 
 think of his valuable time ! And his valuable rent " 
 
 Apricott, having filled his pockets with valuable "cans" from 
 various parts of the valuable box, now slid stealthily from the 
 room, his eyes telling Mother to keep Arnold's turned in her 
 direction so that their valuable visitor might not be disturbed 
 by so valuable a departure. 
 
 "Have it your own way," said Arnold irritably. "It's no 
 concern of mine, what you people do with yours. Your profits 
 or his that's your own business. The point is that the 
 profits are big enough even without your retail profits; big 
 enough to make your paying the expenses worth your while " 
 
 He took out Captain Danny's note of that afternoon ; stated 
 approximately hypotheses calculations. . . . 
 
 She held up both hands frequently and emitted a squeal like 
 an animal in pain. It was her established way of making bar- 
 gains and she could not depart from it even when she knew 
 it was useless, saw that Arnold disregarded her. 
 
 "That will provide for emergencies damage from possible 
 storms and so forth. Then there are bonuses to the crew to 
 keep quiet, insurance to pay. The actual rental will be around 
 a hundred a week, all expenses borne by us of course. . . . 
 The insurance covers total loss. Not that the round trip is 
 bound to be three months that's an outside limit. You'll 
 get some of your expense money back a great deal of it but 
 I wouldn't go into the thing unless you were willing to put 
 up the whole three thousand. The owner of the ship can't 
 afford to wait for his money. If he could, he wouldn't be rent- 
 ing it. And he happens to be too decent an old gentleman 
 to go into bankruptcy because you aren't willing to do what 
 anybody else would expect to do " 
 
 He was playing safe, was Arnold, for Archie's sake ; for al- 
 though Archie had, in the first flash of gratitude to his sa-
 
 332 God's Man 
 
 vior, granted the possibility of holding off for three months, 
 he also admitted that some bills must be met before that time 
 and could be extended only with difficulty. 
 
 But Mother's cheque for the expenses, held to the credit of 
 Van Vhroon and Company under the united signatures of 
 Arnold and Archie, would suffice for the more pressing bills 
 in case of bad weather, protracted calms, or delays in general. 
 
 Here Apricott returned from his Attic. 
 
 "The Doc tried it," quoth he. "I hadda jest wrench the 
 can away from him after his first long draw. He's offering 
 double prices for a toey of it. . . ." 
 
 Arnold, observing Mother's darkening brows, and remem- 
 bering a similar look directed by Clabber to Boy Number One, 
 laughed aloud. "No use, Mrs. Mybus," he said almost gaily. 
 "I know the value of the stuff, and I've got a fixed price on it. 
 I'd have sold it all to Clabber, but I wanted to be fair to my 
 future partner partners," he added, for he saw she would 
 again insist upon Apricott's sole responsibility. . . . 
 "Just take this as a sample of the truth of the rest of it. Of 
 course, you must take my word. But you don't need to hand 
 me any money except the expenses and the payment for the 
 present box. Mr. Apricott can sail on the ship and have full 
 charge of your money for investment. All I want is a chance 
 to invest my own and my friend's. Together, we'll only have 
 what you'll have. And out of ours we've got a dead loss of 
 five thousand more than your expenses I mean what goes 
 to my friend the young man who invested in Instantaneous 
 Boiler. I don't really believe I'd have gone into this at all 
 if it hadn't been for him. But, since I am in it, I want some- 
 thing for myself, personally. And that'll be much less than 
 what you'll get. ... So I can't see where I'm asking for 
 anything unfair " 
 
 "What of the ship-captain ? Does he take his pay in buying 
 the stuff, himself?" asked Apricott sharply. Arnold nodded. 
 
 "And glad enough to do it, I should think," growled Mother, 
 annoyed at the thought that one so unintelligent as to spend
 
 Rebellion 333 
 
 a lifetime at honest sailing-craft should receive so large a re- 
 ward. For the moment, she considered Captain Danny 
 whose name she did not know. Once the honest mariner came 
 into his profits, he might be worthy the attention of some one 
 of her Horde. 
 
 The sham and cunning of the old woman amused Arnold. 
 Having cast scruples aside, he no longer permitted himself 
 to hold the scales of moral judgment. Mother Mybus then, 
 considered aside from her occupation and vicious influence, 
 was to him only a character, and he enjoyed her resemblance 
 to Waldemar, the "good business man" ; all the more when she 
 protested her poverty, her inability to raise the sum needed 
 without finding a mortgage for her "little stock," her lack of 
 connection with Apricott who could raise more of the money 
 than she could, twice as quickly too. 
 
 "Fve put up his rent twice and still he goes on making ten 
 times more," she said, pretending to be dolorous over it. "Hun- 
 dreds of dollars to my one, that Mr. Enoch. Eh ?" And Ap- 
 ricott smiled sourly. "So, as he's the man who'll get most 
 of the profit, he must sign papers with you, Mr. Arnold," she 
 said finally, Arnold's terms having been accepted only after 
 he had twice taken up his hat and threatened to go to Clabber. 
 
 "I made the best terms I could for you, Mr. Enoch," she 
 added, simpering. "But Mr. Arnold is sharper than an old 
 woman. Maybe you could have done better yourself. . . . 
 The paper and ink is on the second shelf under the blue cups," 
 she added, pointing. Apricott put them before the somewhat 
 startled Arnold. Not that he gave signs of being startled: 
 that might arouse suspicion. He reflected that he had been a 
 fool to suppose that such an astute old customer as Mother, 
 always alert for the chance to cheat, would enter into any 
 scheme involving a stranger's handling of her beloved money 
 without some assurance that her interests would be protected. 
 
 She had been searching Arnold's face for signs of possible 
 duplicity ever since his arrival. But a paper signed with his 
 name was better than any character-reading; such a one would
 
 334 God's Man 
 
 be clever enough to feign anything. The paper, she made up 
 her mind, must be a practical confession of a conspiracy 
 against the law, one that she could use to put him into jail if 
 she caught him at any games. Of course, she could not send 
 him there without sending Apricott, too; but who was Apri- 
 cott that she should hesitate between his imprisonment and 
 revenge for the loss of her money ? 
 
 "Now, Mr. Arnold/' she dictated, "say that you and Mr. 
 Enoch make a partnership to buy Mexican opium. He pays 
 the expenses, you find the stuff, and each of you takes equal 
 shares. Put that in lawyer's language, Mr. Arnold." 
 
 Not without some misgivings, Arnold re-phrased this as 
 directed, and showed her the result. "You haven't dated it, 
 Mr. Arnold," she objected, returning it an oversight only. 
 But now that she seemed concerned about it, Arnold realized 
 that the date alone was damning should the paper ever find 
 its way into a law-court for the new law especially forbade 
 any such trading without a Federal license. 
 
 "I'll date it when I sign it," he returned curtly. "And I'll 
 sign it when I have the money, Mrs. Mybus." She shot him 
 a keen glance, then smiled if the contortion of her crooked 
 mouth full of crooked teeth might be so termed. 
 
 "I think you should agree to that, Mr. Enoch," she said, 
 passing on the paper. "When can you have this money? 
 To-morrow morning by ten o'clock ?" 
 
 "I dare say," rejoined Apricott, sulky at the scorn in Ar- 
 nold's eyes and at being forced to play a part so ridiculously 
 transparent. 
 
 Nikko took off his spectacles and polished them carefully 
 with a handkerchief of red silk. He was maliciously pleased, 
 and some sort of approving noise escaped him as he blew upon 
 the lenses. Arnold turned to look at him, shifted his gaze to 
 observe the malignity of Apricott's eyes and the satisfied cun- 
 ning -of Mother's. Suddenly he felt sick of the whole busi- 
 ness. Archie had messed up his own life; why should he,
 
 Rebellion 335 
 
 Arnold, let so weak and useless a creature mess up his life, 
 too, the life of one worth twenty Archies ? 
 
 Some words of Nietzsche's recurred to him. "Slave ethics 
 the strong can never raise the weak can only be pulled down 
 by them" perhaps not the. exact words, but that was what 
 the mad philosopher had meant. Was he mad, though ? Was 
 he not, rather, looking at the facts unsentimentally. How of 
 Arnold's own misfortunes ? The Jinx, Hugo, Hans Chasser- 
 ton, all three had been weaklings. And had his attempt to 
 succor them raised them up? As Nietzsche said, they had 
 only dragged him down each one a little farther down, un- 
 til, only by invoking the aid of another strong man, the elder 
 Waldemar, and his "dirty politics," had he got up again. 
 
 Now here was a fourth weakling Archie. Should he take 
 the chance for such a one? the chance of going down per- 
 manently. For what? Had a boy who had shown himself 
 so little able to manage himself any right to a large property ? 
 Better let him remain poor where he could hurt only himself. 
 Archie, married to Carol and in possession of Exmoor, was a 
 menace, another one to make property hateful. And the 
 progeny of a weakling and a female snob were they fit to 
 inherit? Above all, to achieve such paltry results had he, 
 Arnold L'Hommedieu, a man with the power to make the 
 world better for having lived in it, the right to negative all 
 possible future influence by the scandal of an arrest and con- 
 viction for opium-smuggling? Who would listen after he had 
 been arraigned in the dock with such outcasts from civiliza- 
 tion as this blind Eussian fanatic, this malignant man with 
 the missing fingers and this vicious old woman. 
 
 It was then that he trembled on the verge of repudiating 
 the scheme, of abandoning Archie to the results of his own 
 folly. Had it been written that he should be given the time 
 at that moment to consider his position in terms of positivist 
 philosophy it is probable that the undated paper would have 
 been destroyed rather than signed ; for, so complex is the mind
 
 336 God's Man 
 
 of man, that the same statistics may prove equally to its satis- 
 faction the truth of two philosophies, directly antithetical; 
 that the life of any man may be accepted as evidence of either 
 a Divine or a Diabolic theory this being the imperfection of 
 the thing called metaphysics. And, at that time, Arnold had 
 found no enlightening proof to maintain his belief that the 
 solar system was operated on any other principle than the sur- 
 vival of the fittest. Men had come out of their trees and 
 caves on that principle, and their empires and civilizations 
 had been built and destroyed on that principle. 
 
 But it so happened that he got no further in his argument 
 along these lines. Co-ordinate the interrupting incident with 
 those other incidents that had brought him to the Inn; then 
 call it what you will. But in face of such incidents the 
 weightiest mustering of facts, the most powerfully presented 
 systems of logic, ... all go down like regiments of well- 
 trained soldiers before the fire of a hidden machine- 
 gun. . . . 
 
 Thus it happened then that as Arnold stood by the bay- 
 window whose flowers called him to the country and to home 
 a door opened and at the head of the three little steps below 
 it Arnold saw one of those weaklings for whom he had already 
 endured so much Hans Chasserton, apron about waist, broom 
 in hand, his face all silly, simpering smile and vacant eyes. 
 . . . Yet, far from causing regret for his sacrifice, in that 
 instant Arnold was on fire with rage and rebellion ; and once 
 more he regretted nothing. If to be strong was to endure the 
 eight of human beings brought so low through the cunning 
 and greed of their self-proclaimed masters, he, Arnold, was 
 content to be on the side of the weaklings. Returned to him 
 all his hatred of a social system that yielded respect to such 
 as Quivvers; that, despite the ugly facts of their career gave 
 them wealth and honor. If to be strong was to ally himself 
 with them, then let all his friends be such as Archie; let 
 him sink lower than the lowest, yet he could never reach the
 
 Rebellion 337 
 
 Quivvers depth ; no, not even the depth of Ivan Waldemar, or 
 the depth of Benjamin Hartogensis. 
 
 "I swept up the first forty-two rooms. I'm going to do 
 the next forty-two to-morrow/" said Hans Chasserton, closing 
 the door and standing the broom in a corner. He hung up 
 his apron, then came, curiously, toward Arnold. "I know 
 you, too," he said, "you took a trip with me in my trunk once, 
 didn't you ? They won't believe it has forty-two rooms," he 
 complained, requesting verification from Arnold. "You tell 
 'em. It ought to. I paid forty-two hundred dollars for it 
 and it was worth it, 'cause I beat old Lipton with it. But 
 Mr. Quivvers took my medal and give me a bang on the head, 
 and when I woke up I didn't know nobody. But you and me 
 know, don't we ?" 
 
 "Yes, we know," agreed Arnold dully. The boy, nodding 
 his triumph, sank down on an ottoman beside Nikko's chair, 
 and the blind man put a protecting arm about him. 
 
 By that single action and the boy's presence, the whole 
 group was transfigured. No longer was Nikko to be blamed 
 for being malicious, Apricott for his malignancy, Mother My- 
 bus for her viciousness; no more than was the boy for his 
 idiocy. They were not as Nature had made them ; but as the 
 cruelty of their conquerors had caused them to be. It was 
 better to be allied with the victims than with those who had 
 made them what they were; better to break laws that gave 
 power to such as Waldemar than to give them approval by 
 advantaging himself through Waldemar's connivance. And 
 so, eyes burning and hand trembling, he snatched the paper 
 and signed it, a defiant flourish under his name, a carefully 
 executed bit of scrollwork beneath the date ; both proofs that 
 he lacked any regret for standing committed to break those 
 laws. For he saw only their result the vacant-eyed, blankly 
 cheerful idiot-boy; the maimed man of the mills with the 
 missing fingers, and the sightless eyes of old Nikko, a prophecy 
 of what such laws could be did their enforcement remain long
 
 338 God's Man 
 
 in despotic hands. And as the shrewd cunning in the fat 
 woman's eyes was replaced by a sort of rough tenderness as 
 she looked on the old man, Arnold forgot his dislike for her. 
 She could not be thoroughly bad, for she had not forgotten 
 how to pity. Suddenly he took her hand and shook it 
 warmly. All the lawlessness in him surged up and sent 
 the blood rushing to his head. He extended his other hand 
 to Apricott and as the three stood there in the glow of the fire, 
 a grotesque group, two gargoyles surrounding a sculptured 
 marble, he laughed loudly, glorying in his reckless rebellion. 
 "We'll show 'em a thing or two about making money, eh ?'' 
 he said. 
 
 END OF BOOK V
 
 BOOK VI
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 THE VIKING SHIP 
 I. SHE GOES 
 
 ATE in May the Cormorant sailed; 
 cruising papers signed by her 
 usual captain but by a new 
 "owner/' one "E. Apricott" to 
 the sailors an eccentric "self- 
 made" millionaire; to old Mr. 
 Van Vhroon young Mr. L'Hom- 
 T- medieu's valet. 
 
 "Arnold's afraid some other 
 newspaper men 'ull come aboard, 
 Uncle Arch, . . . and if we 
 use his name or they see him 
 good night, nurse !" 
 
 "What, sir? . . ." 
 
 "So Hugo and I 'ull go down to Havre to see him off. 
 Danny 'ull pick him up there. His dad's got an Alco " 
 
 "And he has, I believe, a certain knowledge of the English 
 language, sir which you do not share and, . . ." 
 
 But Archie was off the same old ebullient Archie. Ar- 
 nold was worrying. Why should he worry, too? That, at 
 least, was what his subconsciousness must have said, for, al- 
 though sufficiently lugubrious in Arnold's presence, he added 
 several highly expensive articles to Carol's future Circassian 
 menage. . . .
 
 342 God's Man 
 
 Why not ? Harvey Quinn was to carry a plethora of gold 
 and notes in a snakeskin belt about his waist enough to 
 . . . But any account of Archie's wool gatherings is out 
 of place save in a penny book of dreams. . . . 
 
 Once out of Hell's Gate, the clipper was not headed S. S. E. 
 as for Havre de Grace, but N. N. E. as for . . No- 
 where. Off the Middle Ground Light she became as bare- 
 masted as a barge, as listless as Sir Lackadaisical, keeper of 
 said light, who, after half-a-day^s debate with himself sun- 
 down approaching and those cursed lamps demanding atten- 
 tion, anyhow reached for his Goetz lenses to discover the 
 reason for an equal amount of inactivity on the part of that 
 black blotch beyond. 
 
 But he was too late. The sailors had ceased to dot the cross- 
 trees, the carpenter no longer ornamented the bowsprit. And, 
 bravely begilt anew, said sprit of the temporarily christened 
 Hardicanute swung athwart the watcher's line of vision 
 the leggy sheep's sail overhead listless no longer, but straining 
 even that poetic license, the ". . . mutton" metaphor. 
 And many heads above her and many times as big and obey- 
 ing the first command of the coming Connecticut nor'easter 
 spars and blocks creaking her mainyard swung free. 
 
 How the wind hammered at her canvas, the lightkeeper 
 could conjecture from the imminent peril of his own laundry 
 outside. This rescued, the sun had turned the Goetz lenses 
 into burning-glasses, and he saw nothing of a certain broad- 
 side maneuver the approach of a tiny Alco, the transfer 
 of one Quinn (alias L'Hommedieu) by means of a starboard 
 rope-ladder. . . . And the return of the tiny Alco to the 
 shore, where, after climbing the bluff to where the chalet 
 stood, its crew of three passed another Goetz from hand to 
 hand and while, a veritable Viking ship off on a veritable 
 Viking venture, the Cormorant dipped her newly-gilded 
 nose into boiling scum and seething spray, ... a brave 
 little speck of white slipping over the edge of the world. . . .
 
 The Viking Ship 343 
 
 II. ABNOLD STAYS 
 
 Four months passed, Archie alternately anxious, insouciant, 
 suicidal. Bitter months for Hugo. The reason soon to be 
 made clear. Weary with work and worry for Arnold; for 
 since coming to the house on the bluff his writing that waa 
 to have given him so much had given just nothing at all. He 
 had remained at Waldemar's only a few weeks after the Cor- 
 morant's departure. There had been a suddenly increased 
 demand for the Syndicate's gum-opium, as other supplies 
 failed the secret manufacturer of the Apricott type. What 
 remained had been sold, by the beginning of June, each in- 
 voice at an increased price, each partner sharing unlooked-for 
 profits; Arnold's several hundred more than the maximum 
 anticipated. 
 
 What a difference between these and his Cormorant part- 
 ners ! Xothing risked, nothing to fear, not even a lost repu- 
 tation. Continuing their "I-am-holier," . . . none 
 might say them nay. Yet for the very same thing he and his 
 fellow smugglers would soon risk not only reputations but lib- 
 erty maybe life. . . . 
 
 Waldemar, highly pleased, gave Arnold a bonus, compli- 
 menting his systematic bookkeeping and prompt shipments. 
 
 "If Hugo had your head or, . . . habits. . . 
 Women, my boy, are the ruin of you young fellows. . . . 
 That little hussy. . . ." 
 
 He clenched his fists. "Hugo's been a great disappoint- 
 ment to me, Arnold." 
 
 "I'm mighty glad of it if he has been," Arnold would have 
 liked to say savagely, forgetting his friendship for the son in 
 his deep dislike of the father, whom he had come to know too 
 well. 
 
 Few weeks passed that he had not requested Arnold to re- 
 write for him in decent English some speech he was to deliver 
 at a public dinner or political meeting, while, as for "com- 
 mencements" no Suffolk County school, public or private.
 
 344 God's Man 
 
 seemed satisfied unless the "Honnible Johnnie" enlightened 
 and encouraged its embryo citizens concerning and toward 
 honesty, private and public, concluding with an appeal to 
 their Anglo-Saxon virtues wherever native Americans 
 abounded, or with ecstatic encomiums of the immigrant races. 
 In frenzied disgust Arnold often turned these into rhetoric so 
 florid, so full of bombastic periods that he was sure some one 
 would have sufficient humor to recognize the hand of a bur- 
 lesquer. . . . When no one did Arnold's doubts as to 
 the wisdom of universal suffrage became absolute antago- 
 nism. 
 
 Waldemar had been alarmed when Arnold had suggested 
 leaving his employment. He had long since realized the com- 
 mercial value of the younger man's intellect. . . . And 
 now that Hugo had failed him, "an honest partner for a 
 swindle" was, as always, the hardest man on earth to find. 
 . . . Hence promises of future preferment : Arnold should 
 be a partner ; in time a partner with Hugo. . . . 
 
 ". . . Besides the use you are to me, you're the only 
 one he listens to. His poor old father that made a gentleman 
 of him and a fortune for him lie don't count a-tall. Not 
 a-tall. You think it's right he should disgrace his poor old 
 father who's worked so hard to give him a name to be proud 
 of ? Here . . . for instance" . . . and he displayed 
 a goodly puff from an upstate paper, by a reporter richer 
 through the "Honnible Johnnie" "as his loving constituents 
 addressed him, affectionately, one and all " 
 
 Waldemar, "The People's Man," had a special photograph 
 as such: shirt-sleeved, coat on arm, hand in that of a grimy 
 laborer. More dignified journalism told the tale of the son 
 of the Eussian loyar, the landed proprietor who had quarreled 
 with his father because he would not marry a rich girl he did 
 not love. 
 
 "Poverty and Liberty," was one Sunday "head." 
 
 For the time, as we have said, so great was Arnold's dislike 
 for Hugo's father, he forgot his friendship and was glad that
 
 The Viking Ship 345 
 
 young man was disappointing the honorable gentleman. The 
 carefully built-up business in poisons would smash when it 
 got into Hugo's hands a very good thing for everybody con- 
 cerned. So perhaps Bobbie Beulah was not an unmixed evil 
 after all otherwise Hugo might have developed into an un- 
 wieldy unknowing elephant who destroyed not in malice but 
 in ignorance. 
 
 "Try an' wean him away," Waldemar had continued. 
 "Wean him and I'll make it worth your while. Get him to go 
 to Europe: I'll pay the bills. . . ." 
 
 Arnold said he needed the summer. If Waldemar would 
 give him until after the "rush" season . . . for which he 
 would return, he would see. 
 
 Waldemar had acceded, grudgingly, rather than lose him al- 
 together. 
 
 But, though he convinced with a show of firmness, Arnold 
 would not have dared an open break with Waldemar. The 
 Honnible Johnnie's elaborate business system was necessary 
 to the success of the smuggling scheme. When the Cormo- 
 rant's cargo was brought to the city, the distributing facilities 
 of the Waldemar company would be needed to market the stuff, 
 to distribute it throughout the country to the same people 
 who had bought from the "Syndicate." To start a new firm 
 which, suddenly, would begin to ship a suspiciously large num- 
 ber of express packages a firm unincorporated and unknown 
 was to awaken the attention of the Federal agents, who, 
 hawk-like, watched the express companies, the only agents of 
 distribution. The Treasury Department (the official overlord 
 of the Customs) maintained a set of examiners who did noth- 
 ing much except pay weekly visits to express offices keeping 
 their books under close surveillance. Others kept track of 
 the drivers and paid them for information. Arnold needed 
 the Waldemar label on his shipments, a label with which 
 even the Federals would hesitate to tamper, bearing as it did 
 the name of a Congressman high in favor with the adminis- 
 tration, a word from whom would mean official decapitation
 
 346 God's Man 
 
 for minor officials. And why should they suspect a firm so 
 long established ? 
 
 Separate sheds had been hired for the syndicate stores and 
 shipments. Although the Waldemar label had been used, the 
 work had no connection with the great Waldemar warehouses 
 on Bleecker Street, nor had the Superintendent thereof any 
 suzerainty over Arnold's work. He had merely vised the 
 younger man's telephone requests for trucks and delivery 
 wagons, being so ordered by his employer. oSTow that the syndi- 
 cate was abolished, Waldemar would have terminated his 
 tenancy, but the Christopher Street property had been leased 
 for a twelfth-month so the sheds remained, for all to see, the 
 leasehold of "The Waldemar Drug Company," the name in 
 white letters upon black barn-like doors which, locked and 
 mudsplashed, now awaited the Cormorant's cargo. 
 
 Meanwhile, Arnold, down in the country, also awaiting it, 
 was endeavoring to put upon paper, in scornful satire, the 
 world as it was or as it seemed to him to be : a place of use- 
 less striving and trumpery rewards. He lived alone in the 
 house on the bluff, a place not unlike a small Swiss chalet, 
 built by a New York broker, now bankrupt, for the "duck- 
 shooting" season a season again approaching, these early 
 September days. For the hearts of the leaves showed red 
 against the green, the bobolinks had begun their flight south- 
 ward to the Carolina rice-fields, the crows were squawking 
 above seas of golden corn, the bluebirds and purple martins 
 were yielding their long-contested nests to their noisy enemies, 
 the sparrows. 
 
 III. ON THE SPANISH MAIN 
 
 Arnold was a lover of birds. The old L'Hommedieu farm 
 during his boyhood had been their favorite Mecca. And now, 
 since he had taken up residence in the Swiss chalet, he again 
 gave them much of his spare time, making them attractive 
 homes in hollow-trees, on poles, in boxes suspended from
 
 The Viking Ship 347 
 
 branches, or under the low overhanging eaves of the house 
 itself. . . . But, the nesting season over, he began to miss 
 the good-natured notes of the robins : from being home bodies, 
 they had turned to adventurous gipsies, taking up tempo- 
 rary residence wherever wild-cherries or cedar-berries were 
 to be found. He seldom heard the bubbling notes of the wren, 
 the rosebreast, not at all ; that child of the hot sun had betaken 
 itself farther south at the first chill breeze from the Connecti- 
 cut shore. There came to him only the shrill call of the bob- 
 white and the drumming of the ruffled grouse, birds with 
 good reason for disbelief in human friendship. These, with 
 the ever-present rooks and ravens, haunted every copse and 
 dell and drove out even the fighting blue-jay. 
 
 Autumn and the time for the return of the Cormorant 
 were drawing near. As to the latter, there had been most 
 vexatious delays. Arnold's first news of her had been at 
 Charleston: a fight with a Hatteras gale had carried away 
 her topsails and had blown one of her boats down on the 
 wheelhouse, smashing it and the helmsman's arm. From 
 Key West came news of a second delay : she had put in there 
 to escape a terrific Gulf storm that raged for days from the 
 Carolinas to the Keys. . . . Finally sighting the coast of 
 Yucatan, she must, to disguise her destination, cruise about 
 aimlessly : a Mexican destroyer on the watch for gunrunners 
 and filibusters persisting in keeping her sighted until, dis- 
 gusted, Captain Danny sailed off toward Honduras. This 
 had cost them nearly a fortnight. When at last they reached 
 the narrow creek that wound through these swamplands that 
 surrounded the fields of rice and poppies owned by the Senor 
 Don Guillermo Gomez of Pereira, they had gone aground in 
 mud and ooze. 
 
 Thus it was more than six weeks since sailing-time before 
 they reached the lagoon of the Hacienda del Torres, towed 
 by the Senor Don's little trading-tug. On making their busi- 
 ness known to their host, they were disconcerted to discover 
 that just before receiving Danny's telegram two months pre-
 
 348 God's Man 
 
 vious, Don Guillermo had sold a large consignment of his 
 refined gum to border smugglers who operated far to the 
 north, near El Paso. He had plenty of the raw stuff in his 
 warehouses and the new crop of poppies promised well. But 
 the Cormorant must wait until all this could be converted 
 by his Chinese into the precious Li-un. 
 
 All in all, the return journey was not begun until early in 
 August. In the letter that told of it written by Quinn 
 while they were towed down the creek of the Seven Sins 
 Captain Danny was also reported as prophesying a lengthy 
 Northern trip. They must expect the summer calms off the 
 Gulf coast; calms during which a sailing-ship rocked on the 
 waves like a baby in its cradle, when one could but lash the 
 wheel and let the men have their liberty. Such calms en- 
 dured for days, sometimes for whole weeks. . . . 
 
 With ordinary good fortune, however, they should reach 
 Long Island about the first week in September. Quinn's 
 letter advised those in the secret to take up residence in the 
 Swiss chalet about that time and to keep a "weather eye" 
 oceanward, night and day. 
 
 Thus also had Apricott written, as Arnold learned on his 
 visit to town to apprise Mother Mybus of the progress of their 
 plan. Both letters had been long delayed in consequence of 
 the isolation of El Hacienda del Torros, from which the 
 Gomez trading-tug went to the nearest town only weekly. 
 Letters must then await the next mail-steamer, the town being 
 far away from any railroad. So that it was the twenty- 
 eighth of August before Arnold and Mother Mybus had been 
 notified. 
 
 Since then Arnold wondered why he did not live in feverish 
 anticipation, considering that his chance for wealth was now 
 so near at hand. But he seemed to have found far more ex- 
 citement in the mere rescue of a young crow, wounded in a 
 battle with two gulls and flapping feebly in the underbrush, 
 had found more interest in teaching it to talk having first 
 taken it to town to be etherized by his cousin, Doctor Will, for
 
 The Viking Ship 349 
 
 that tongue-slitting supposed to make speech possible; had 
 far more anticipation in watching the ebon bird stalk about 
 the house, and wondering what next it would gravely mimic. 
 Arnold had not laughed so heartily in years as when, on the 
 day after he received Quinn's letter, the crow had begun to 
 chant Onward, Christian Soldiers. 
 
 The first few bars (all it had ever heard) appeared to have 
 been selected as its favorite expression, following the example 
 of a drunken carpenter, who had repeated them in its pres- 
 ence many times, and in what to Arnold was interminable 
 monotony. 
 
 Of the many closely-written pages which should have made 
 at least one-half of his great revolutionary novel, Arnold de- 
 stroyed at night more than three-quarters of what he wrote 
 during the day. Yet, altogether, he was not unhappy. As 
 August passed out he became accustomed to his solitude and 
 began to discontinue his daily dinners at the Parsonage. 
 When he had spent two days without hearing any human 
 voice but his own and no thought of Velvet Voice had in- 
 truded upon his abstract speculations, he had the satisfaction 
 of knowing that he no longer needed Bertie or any other 
 woman to soothe his wounded pride. 
 
 Man is not necessarily a tribal animal. Association with 
 his fellows, he found, was only civilization's habit a habit 
 that gives too little time for observation of countless other of 
 life's recompenses. Alone, Arnold could realize that life 
 among men is but a small and perhaps unimportant portion 
 of life in all. In his new frame of mind he found pleasure in 
 the thought that so little had been revealed to man, so much 
 remained to be learned. As does the recluse who retires from 
 the world embittered but mentally unimpaired, he began to 
 understand what Balzac meant by the human comedy, to see 
 the super-man as a naturalist upon an ant-hill, as a critic at 
 a melodrama too cheap for serious consideration. 
 
 It was not the consciousness of his inferiority to greater 
 writers that stayed his pencil. He had known of that in-
 
 350 God's Man 
 
 feriority too long. It was his helpless wonder as to whether 
 there was any use in trying to teach human beings at all. 
 
 As well spend weary days and sleepless nights endeavoring 
 to prevent a world of clumsy feet and careless hands from 
 treading down the cities of the ants, tearing away the laby- 
 rinths of the spiders. How if he began to consider the mil- 
 lions of guns that carried sudden death to his beloved birds ? 
 To the end of time the work of nations of ants would be de- 
 stroyed by the first malicious foot that came their way. Yet 
 no doubt wise ants counseled against building by the road- 
 ways or in the open spaces; counseled, worried and wore 
 themselves out for their ungrateful fellows. As for birds 
 the warning notes of the wiser ones had never prevented the 
 decimation of their tribes. 
 
 "Were foolish human beings any more to be regarded than 
 spiders, ants or birds in the eyes of the Almighty? Did it 
 not rather depend on how successful the exceptional ones 
 were in capturing some spark of the Divine, sparks struck off 
 in so many different ways if one had only the wit to know 
 them ; sparks that, if captured, set death at defiance ? What 
 strange secrets were held within the rise of the sun and its 
 setting ? Why was it that he could not look upon such phe- 
 nomena unmoved, but must dumbly crave the permanence of 
 some of this beauty? What strange stories were told by the 
 cold blasts that withered the flowers, the South winds that 
 resurrected them from the earth again? Were the leaves 
 that rustled in the wind trying to reveal the secret ? Was that 
 the reason their rustling filled him with such strange un- 
 rest? . . . 
 
 He would waken from such abstractions to call himself a 
 fanciful fool, a zany whom solitude was threatening with 
 softening of the brain. Then he would go striding off into 
 the forest, head bent, brows knit, trying to force his wander- 
 ing wits to concentrate upon his grimly realistic tale of har- 
 lots and thieves harlots and thieves of all sorts from Fifth
 
 The Viking Ship 351 
 
 Avenue to Wall Street down, or up which constituted the 
 warning tale of "grim, relentless, significant life," which he 
 wanted to write. 
 
 Perhaps he would return to write it, doggedly and in a 
 frenzy of disgust a modified disgust compared to that which 
 he experienced when he read what he had written and hurled 
 his note-hook across the room, awakening the young crow, 
 who would begin his Onward, Christian Soldiers until Ar- 
 nold threw the table-cloth over the offending head. . . . 
 And then, silent and supine, Arnold would stare at the stars 
 and listen to the lapping of the surf, and his eyes, grown 
 fanciful as his brain in the solitude and darkness, saw moving 
 shapes outside. Sometimes, like Joan of Domremy, he 
 seemed to hear voices in the trees. . . . Often it seemed 
 he had grasped something tangible, something he understood 
 quite well, but that he must learn to translate so that others 
 might understand. And he was vaguely uplifted until he 
 attempted an expression of it ; then it was nothing. 
 
 He would be a trifle comforted, however, when he read the 
 books of other men, his former idols ; the Eussian realists and 
 their French imitators, the novels of "life." Each was like 
 a dish delicately cooked with one ingredient missing, the one 
 that should blend the flavors into an appetizing whole or 
 the house of a master architect who had gone mad and had 
 forgotten to put in the staircase. . . . These details of 
 unhappy men and sordid women, this was not life. Like 
 red glass lit from beneath, that on the stage pretends to be a 
 fire, they lacked warmth. One admired the near-perfect con- 
 struction of the house, the skill of the chef, but went away 
 with no desire to dwell within nor to have the dish for dinner. 
 
 And this was what he had, boastfully, come into the 
 country to do; this was to justify his rebellion against the 
 law, his adoption of the tactics of those he despised, . . . 
 this paltry achievement that, when done, meant nothing save 
 to a crew of one-sided enthusiasts who endeavored to atone
 
 352 God's Man 
 
 for lack of life, of warmth, of influence upon humanity, by 
 calling the achievement "art" and denying that "art" had to 
 do with humanity. 
 
 Along with other illusions went his desire for the title of 
 "artist" a vainglorious thing not of nature nor of the Di- 
 vine, but a poor human ennoblement that was no more en- 
 nobling than the accolade upon the shoulder of a brewer. An 
 artist a tender of dying fires, blowing his breath on them 
 and bidding all observe how they outshone the feeble sun in 
 the heavens; and, even as the tenders turned, the fires died 
 down and new ones must be built on new altars the old 
 despised. Art was anathema since it had become a thing of 
 human rules, of dogma what did they know of "art," those 
 great inspired ones whose works the little people explained in 
 terms of mystery of rationale rapprochement static and 
 plastic values. . . . And then, having followed all of the 
 rules, the little people had no power to give the breath of 
 life. 
 
 Art ! He wanted Prometheus* fire to blaze out so the whole 
 world would see, not feeble, flickering temple lights that 
 warmed only the high priests and them not truly. . . .
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 THE WIRELESS MESSAGE 
 PINK TUKNS PHILOSOPHER 
 
 WAS on the afternoon of the 
 sixteenth that quiet fled the house 
 on the bluff, that the invasion 
 the Horde began. Arnold's 
 first knowledge of it came when, 
 returning from a trip beyond 
 Green Sands in the motor-boat, 
 he saw floating on the outgoing 
 tide something dark and indis- 
 tinct. He pulled a switch, re- 
 versing the engine and backing 
 the boat and salvaged this flot- 
 eam. It was a dead duck, its 
 : magnificent expanse of white 
 
 breast disfigured by an. ugly hole. As Arnold gripped its neck 
 to bring it in a small fish was ejected from its bill. 
 
 The incident seemed peculiarly and hatefully typical of 
 the wastefulness, the savagery of life. Less than an hour 
 before for the bird's body was still warm that fish was 
 alive and disporting itself among its fellows. Then the duck 
 had dived and snatched him to sudden death. But, before 
 it could be swallowed, even as the duck's head came above 
 the water, a shot had killed the killer. Two perfectly useless 
 deaths, for the duck the coot for all its beauty of breast, 
 was fishy, leathery and worthless for food. Its killing had
 
 354 God's Man 
 
 been merely to gratify some whim perhaps only as a trial 
 of skill, a piece of human vanity for, evidently, there had 
 been no attempt to retrieve it. Just so were human beings 
 slaughtered to no end save to give gratification to others, who, 
 in their turn, died without having been advantaged in the 
 slightest. And they called that Life ! 
 
 He cast back bird and fish, and continued on his way, try- 
 ing to think again of the ant-hill, the beehive, the spider- 
 webs, to regain his view of life as the human comedy. But 
 the homely incident had, for the moment, demolished such 
 theories death itself was too actual to be brushed away with 
 a laugh. And death was the one thing he, nor any other 
 human being, could not understand. It was not the fate of 
 those two inarticulate things that moved him to a certain un- 
 defined terror and dismay. It was the thought that, though 
 his own life was better protected, he lived in a world of death 
 rather than life. For death, unlike life, was in the hands of 
 all the careless, the stupid, the malicious, the suddenly en- 
 raged. It lurked on every side, in the bushes where a snake 
 could suddenly uprear and strike, where an inexpert or a 
 drunken hunter might discharge a gun, on the city pave- 
 ments, where from above a stone or a bit of iron might fall 
 upon any passer-by, in the streets, in the caprice of an unruly 
 horse or a careless chauffeur: on the seas, with a speed-driven 
 captain, or a sleepy officer on the bridge. . . . Every- 
 where, anywhere, this Jove-like power was shared by all living 
 things even to the birds carrying the germs of disease, the 
 insects heavy with dread bacteria. And there was no way to 
 guard against it. Some passed unscathed on many battle- 
 fields to die only after they had drunk deep of joy and sorrow. 
 Others, infants never a foot from their homes, met it in the 
 first unclean milk-can. . . . 
 
 His mind had a surcease from such gloomy reflections when 
 it dwelt for an instant on the extraordinarily large wound in 
 the coot's breast. That was caused by no shotgun, nor even 
 a rifle. It was a revolver-shot. And it occurred to him that
 
 The Wireless Message 355 
 
 people roundabout Havre de Grace did not carry revolvers, 
 there being a stern enforcement of the law against concealed 
 weapons since a street-duel in his boyhood when several inno- 
 cent onlookers had been killed, among them a child. More- 
 over, the Havre de Gravians were good sportsmen, who would 
 as soon shoot through the windows of the Parsonage as kill 
 birds in the nesting season. Therefore, the shooting must 
 have been done by some visitor. . . . 
 
 Perhaps, in his three hours' absence, some one from the 
 city had arrived at the Swiss chalet. True, they did not 
 expect the Cormorant; she could arrive at this time only un- 
 der the most favorable circumstances. And, as Captain 
 Danny had prophesied, these were unlikely in that season. 
 But, even so, Arnold knew of Archie's fretful worry, the over- 
 due bills he was having difficulty in keeping from his uncle. 
 Then there was the greedy impatience of Mother Mybus as 
 evidenced in certain guarded scrawls received at the village 
 post-office. Archie, however, was a native and would not be 
 guilty of shooting out of season, and Mother was not likely to 
 be a marksman, nor blind Nikko. So he dismissed that idea. 
 
 But, when he had moored the cruiser in Rocky Cove, rowing 
 ashore in the dingey, he heard a shot from the bluff above, 
 and as he neared the top saw two city-dressed men sitting at 
 ease on his little porch. Their feet were on the rail, one was 
 loading an automatic revolver. He ran at them enraged 
 and looked upon M. M. Cagey and the Phony Kid, attired in 
 the very latest "nobby" styles for men. 
 
 "We've been waitin' a couple of hours for you, me lord," 
 said Pink, putting the revolver into a hip-pocket. "And I 
 was showing the sucker here what would happen if any bright 
 little guy got it into his head to try an' stop us from landing 
 our black mud from our little ship-ahoy !" He shook hands, 
 as did Beau. 
 
 Arnold was too amazed at their presence and their knowl- 
 edge of the secret to notice that Pink's pronunciation had 
 vastly improved and that he bad begun to enunciate his words
 
 356 God's Man 
 
 instead of letting them rattle against the roof of his mouth. 
 Pink had lost none of his ambition since deprived of the edu- 
 cating example of Arnold ; rather through his new association 
 at the Sydenham had been goaded to concentration and self- 
 control in the matter of speech and conduct. There remained 
 to be remedied only his scanty vocabulary. 
 
 He did not trust to this to answer the many questions 
 summed up in Arnold's amazement, but handed him a thumb- 
 marked envelope. This was addressed in Mother's scanty 
 scrawl, one that robbed letters of all save labored outlines. A 
 knowledge of etiquette not to be expected of the proprietor of 
 such hieroglyphics, the envelope was sealed. As Arnold 
 ripped it with thumb and forefinger a whitish paper dropped 
 therefrom. Pink picked it up while Arnold read the other 
 inclosure, a note that informed him that Messrs. Frank Nolan 
 and B. Markowitz were to act as Mother's representatives in 
 "he knew what." They would explain and the inclosed mes- 
 sage would do the rest. As he looked up Pink put the whitish 
 slip into his hand : 
 
 Wireless company. Twenty dollars and eighty cents 
 collect. Red Reef, Delaware, from S. S. Imranduna. 
 
 "Cormorant, clipper yacht, alters course to approach 
 and megaphone as follows: 'Favorable winds, should 
 arrive Nantucket twentieth latest. Please forward to 
 Albatross, New York.' " 
 
 This latter was a cable address registered by Arnold and 
 given to Captain Danny before leaving. On his visit to 
 Mother Mybus a few days before Arnold had advised sending 
 a messenger each morning to inquire at the cable-office for 
 possible telegrams. Evidently she had done so.
 
 The Wireless Message 357 
 
 "This Nantucket's near Boston ?" half -stated, half -inquired 
 Beau as Arnold looked up again. Arnold nodded, then went 
 within, wheeled out the telescope on its stand and pointed it 
 to sweep the Sound in the direction of the ocean. 
 
 "I was right as usual, Saphead," commented Pink, further 
 excoriating Beau with some allusions to his general lack of 
 comprehension and intelligence. "For, as I said to the old 
 dame, why in hell should he want to go to Nantucket ? 
 
 " 'There was a young man of Nantucket, 
 Who had a head shaped like a bucket, 
 Like a bucket is good, 
 For his head was of wood, 
 If you asked him to think, he would muck it/ 
 
 "That's Beau, all right. I made that up coming down in 
 the train. First I had 
 
 " 'Like a bucket, again, 
 He had water for brain/ 
 
 "But I think the other's better. Some poet, hey? I used 
 to make up little pomes when I was grabbing Helen Darling. 
 She was one of those sentimental broads and she fell for it. 
 . . . Could a poor but honest lad make any money writing 
 pomes ?" 
 
 "You think the Captain on'y put in that Nantucket for a 
 blind steer, Mr. Arnold," asked Beau, disregarding him; 
 "sorta throw anybody off the track if they suspicioned any- 
 thing? And he's coming right here like was arranged? 
 That's what Pink thinks." 
 
 "That's what anybody thinks who's got a nut on him in- 
 stead of a cold-storage tank," returned Pink rudely. "The 
 Captain probably figured he took a long chance wirelessing, 
 anyway. ISTantucket's two days' sailing from here, I found 
 out," he added, addressing Arnold. "That means he oughta
 
 358 God's Man 
 
 show by the eighteenth. But he says 'twentieth, the latest' 
 so he might be here to-night or to-morrow or any time. The 
 Old One said something about signaling " 
 
 "Yes," returned Arnold shortly. He resented the intru- 
 sion of this pair into his quiet and peace and the unpleasant 
 reverie that their dead coot had cost him. Pink's conversa- 
 tion had amused him in the city, but it was as out of place 
 here as his ignorance of the game-laws. 
 
 Nor was the news that he brought agreeable. That sense 
 of burning injustice done him by circumstances; that desire 
 to rebel, to smash hypocritical laws that protected only the 
 rich, had faded from Arnold. In his solitude, in his nights 
 at the Parsonage, in his few dealings with the simple, homely 
 folk about Havre de Grace, his rage with humanity had found 
 little to feed on. He was removed from the exposition of 
 demagogic ignorance and oppression, plutocratic ostentation 
 and greed, the hypocrisy of respectability and religion. There 
 was very little fault to find with the simple social system of 
 his native heath he could evoke his former righteous rage 
 only by remembering civic indignities; and as one does not 
 willingly recall unpleasant memories, this is why he could not 
 write in the fine frenzy he had planned. There had been no 
 crystallization ; he could see only the segregated incidents, not 
 the reason for them; could only rage unwittingly. As the 
 peninsular philosopher had said, he did not know Why. 
 . . . Therefore he had taken the path of evasion, what 
 another has called the Great White Logic. It did not matter ; 
 nothing mattered. . . . 
 
 But, without that fine frenzy, he saw the whole affair of the 
 Cormorant not as a justified rebellion, not as an equalizing 
 of opportunity by disregarding the law, but as the sordid 
 sneaking business it was worthy a penniless Waldemar or 
 Hartogensis, but unworthy a L'Hommedieu, penniless or even 
 starving. And the pitiful excuse of saving Archie ! For 
 what? So that a shallow, petty, overdressed girl might play 
 Lady of the Manor.
 
 The Wireless Message 359 
 
 "Looks like he burned down without any insurance," com- 
 mented Pink, as Arnold, moody and downcast, went within 
 to telephone to Hugo and Archie in the city. "We're just as 
 welcome here as we'd be in the street. Get down and let him 
 wipe his tootsies on you, Beau, and be sure and apologize for 
 not having had your clothes dry-cleaned before you had the 
 nerve to want to be his door-mat. . . . For a man who 
 stands to win ten grands or more as soon as we get that much 
 marketed, he acts as funny as a funeral. Wonder if he'll let 
 us go on living if we ask him pretty-pretty?" All of which 
 was intended for Arnold's ears as he sat at his writing-table 
 by the open window, waiting for the long-distance operator to 
 connect him. 
 
 He looked up and smiled, albeit with an effort. 
 
 "The sun's coming out late to-day, Beau look," said the 
 irrepressible Pink, pointing. "That friendly look's just 
 about an hour overdue, Sir Lionel de Launcelot. What's 
 eating you, anyway? Have they stolen your best child and 
 hidden it in the naughty forest? Or curses has Beatrix 
 betrayed you?" This time Arnold's smile was less mechan- 
 ical, and he was about to add to it, when he was connected 
 with Beulah Roberts' apartment. The maid answered for 
 her mistress, who evidently sat near, that Mr. Waldemar was 
 not expected for an hour. 
 
 "I must speak to him this afternoon. It's very im- 
 portant. . . . Tell him Havre de Grace, Number 81. 
 We've got to get hold of the two of them," he added to his 
 visitors, as he hung up. Then, "Stuyvesant 481 J," when 
 he again got the ear of the town operator. 
 
 "You mean that friend of yours with the car ?" asked Pink. 
 It was in Hugo's machine that the Cormorant's cargo was to 
 be transferred to New York, a matter of many trips, even to 
 that car, an 80-90 French tourer. 
 
 Arnold nodded, while he asked the hall man at Hugo's 
 apartment-house to connect him with that young gentleman. 
 From his expression the listeners imagined he had been fortu-
 
 360 God's Man 
 
 nate, which was confirmed by hurried directions given almost 
 immediately after. 
 
 "You're to get Archie and be down here before dark. . . . 
 (Yes, of course it's Arnold.) The car? certainly! Well, 
 we can't wait for that this trip. Come down in the touring 
 body. You've got a good top with side and back curtains, 
 haven't you? . . . Well, that'll do for the first trip. It'll 
 have to do. ... Oh, Hugo, don't be a silly goat! Of 
 course, you're not to bring the chauffeur. You know as much 
 about a car as he does. Let him stay and run the hired car 
 for her, if her highness can't get along with humble taxicabs. 
 . . . Too bad about her. I'd hate to try to carry all the 
 nickels she spent on trolley-rides before she met you. But 
 I'm wasting time. You don't seem to realize how important 
 this is. Never mind, that's enough. Eemember, you're talk- 
 ing on the phone. Now go get Archie right away. Don't 
 tell your father you're coming no! Yes, I heard he was 
 down here for a rest. . . . Archie either. Hurry now. 
 Don't argue. I'll explain when you get here. Good-fry." He 
 hung up in a rage. 
 
 "Wish I was him," said Pink in pretended wistfulness. 
 "When I was broke I could go hire myself out in one of those 
 side-shows where you throw three cocoanuts for a nickel at 
 the nigger's head. They'd be glad to get a head like his. 
 Wouldn't have to keep repainting it all the time or anything. 
 . . . 'Can he bring his chauffeur' oh, Mother, Mother, 
 pin a rose on me, for I'm just as deVlish as I can be !" 
 
 "I wouldn't advise you to let him hear you. He's only 
 about six feet three and weighs two hundred and ten," said 
 Arnold. "And now, since you fellows are here, I suppose you 
 want something to eat. . . . If s getting late " for, al- 
 though the days were long, the sun was low in the west and 
 the hour was five or more. "I always eat about six, and 
 dinners don't leap out of the oven already cooked, you know 
 especially for three people." 
 
 "Say," commented Beau, in admiration not unmixed with
 
 The Wireless Message 361 
 
 a little awe. "Yon take it cool, I'm a son-of-a-gun if you 
 don't. Anybody 'ud think he'd been a burglar all his life, 
 hey, sucker?'*' 
 
 "Just a natural-born tendency to larceny," agreed Pink. 
 "As full of it as a Fifth Avenue church vestry. And, speak- 
 ing of churches, I'm as empty as one. That is, the 
 average New York church; they're turning most of 'em into 
 garages and moving-picture shows, except on the Avenue, 
 where all the Captain Kidds of Wall Street try to kid the 
 Almighty, too Kidd kid pretty good what ?" 
 
 "Stop trifling with suicide, sucker/' said Beau wearily. 
 
 "You gotta hand it to me I'm full of pomes and wit to- 
 day/' continued Pink vivaciously. "Guess it's the country 
 air. I feel as good as a cat that's just cleaned up the ice-box. 
 . . . Say, Duke, I dropped in among those Fifth Avenue 
 burglars once, just to see if I couldn't cop a little of their 
 classy work sort of on the up-and-up, you know, showing I'm 
 as ambitious a little fellow as ever sung a hymn. I wanted 
 to see how the guys who, when they got in the heavenly line- 
 up on Judgment Day, will have to answer to every crime in- 
 cluding arson and mayhem, try to get away with that pious 
 stuff, too. And, sure enough, I don't set there ten minutes 
 I come late but what a hoary-headed old pirate prods me in 
 the stomach with one of those boxes that's got a handle like 
 a roulette-rake, and as I look up who do I see but Mr. J. B. 
 Ramsbotham, Esquire. 
 
 "Only the day before the papers were full of how he grabbed 
 that Montana mine away from two brothers that sweat ten 
 years for it forecloses, or calls a loan or something and 
 sells it to the Copper Trust for 'steen millions. And there 
 he is trying to collect the Lord's money, too. And then peo- 
 ple wonder why they're closing the churches down-town?" 
 Pink spat disgustedly. "Him with the poor-box. It 'ud 
 give me a laugh if it didn't make me so durned mad. 
 
 "But," he grinned, "I give some of the others a laugh at 
 that. I took out half a caser and looked him in the eye.
 
 362 God's Man 
 
 'If I give you this four bits/ I says, 'will you promise not to 
 get away with fort} r -nine cents of it between here and the 
 altar ?' Say, you oughta seen the sexton or whatever he was 
 run me out. I bet he was a copper dressed up. Sure ! 
 One of Kamsbotham's private bulls. He don't dare move a 
 step without a brace of 'em at his back." 
 
 The impudence and cynicism of the young rogue reawaked 
 in Arnold something missing for the last months, some- 
 thing of his old indignation. He frowned, smiled, seemed 
 about to say something, changed his mind and led them to 
 one of the rooms he had kept in reserve for visitors. It con- 
 tained four camp-beds, folded and propped against the wall, 
 a pile of blankets on a closet-shelf, some shaving mirrors hung 
 near the windows, a clothes-press, a washstand ; most of which 
 had been donated by his mother from the excess at the Par- 
 sonage. 
 
 "The bathroom's next door," said Arnold, "and these beds 
 aren't uncomfortable. I see you brought dressing- 
 
 "Yes," grumbled Beau, "and some job it was lugging them 
 'cross lots from the town. We didn't want anybody to know 
 where we were aiming for, so we couldn't hire a team or any- 
 thing. I didn't see the use of it ; it was the sucker's idear '* 
 
 "You poor simp," returned Pink, who was shedding his 
 city clothes in favor of khaki riding-trousers and a flannel 
 shirt. "Don't you realize you've got a chance to be a regular 
 hero like you read about ? Do you want to spoil it all with 
 your comic Forty-second Street clothes, you jay?" He had 
 added to his new attire a pair of English puttees that were 
 turning his slim legs into a pair of olive-tinted cylinders. 
 "Suppose we got nailed by the Customs people or those Eeve- 
 nue officers in their jim-dandy uniforms? What would the 
 public think of a desperate smuggler in a Dunlop cady and a 
 wing collar and a loud vest and light cloth-top patent leath- 
 ers ? Why, you'd crab the whole business. Nobody has any 
 sympathy for that kind of lice. . . ."
 
 The Wireless Message 363 
 
 He smoothed down the Byronic collar of his flannel shirt 
 and knotted the attached cord so that its tassels became a 
 substitute for a necktie. A soft hat of Italian make pulled 
 down over his brows, he surveyed his mirrored likeness with 
 approval. 
 
 "There's a gink that looks like he might be something be- 
 sides a ribbon clerk," he said educatively. He was so thor- 
 oughly in earnest about it that Arnold smothered his laugh- 
 ter and went off to prepare their meal. Presently they joined 
 him, Beau's attire now a replica of Pink's, except for the put- 
 tees. Beau wore canvas leggings. Arnold set them paring 
 potatoes and shelling peas; he himself ground the coffee and 
 prepared the meat. ... It was not until they sat down 
 to dinner that he asked the question uppermost in his mind. 
 
 "Aren't you at Sydenham's any more and little Miss 
 Sonia?" 
 
 "You are wondering how we happen to be cut in on this 
 deal, ain't that it?" returned Pink. "Tell him, Beau." And 
 he attacked the steak and lyonnaise potatoes, filling his mouth 
 to incapacitate him for narration. Beau was too glad of the 
 chance to take stage center to note the trick that was to de- 
 fraud him of a large portion of his dinner. 
 
 "You might know the coppers wouldn't let us stay square, 
 Mr. Arnold," he complained, putting down knife and fork. 
 "There we were getting forty a week apiece, only Sonny got 
 fifty. And private lessons to these society dames and Broad- 
 way frails were just starting to get us some important dough. 
 It looked too good to last and I told Pink so ; 
 
 "You mean I told you so," murmured Pink out of a full 
 mouth. "Don't try to convince anybody you're one of the 
 wise ones. Because your map tips you off. . . ." And 
 he went on eating. 
 
 "Well, maybe you told me, too," granted Beau indulgently. 
 "Anyway, we wasn't surprised when the pavement flew up 
 and hit us in the face, 'cause we were looking for it. One 
 day a big burly in a Tux is standing around givin' the joint
 
 364 God's Man 
 
 the once-over, and I made him for a State's Evidence louse 
 that's got a bunch of good fellows jammed into the song- 
 factory up the river. So I sends a waiter for the manager " 
 
 "He means 7 sent for him," interposed Pink, incensed. "If 
 that's the way you're going to tell it " 
 
 "Well, you sent for him, then," agreed Beau, and galloped 
 on : " 'That guy over there is a gun a crook,' I said to the 
 manager. 'And you better git him out of here before he puts 
 a diamond tarara in his pocket or steals an automobile,' we 
 says. . . . 'Why, that's the new house-detective,' says the 
 manager. <Mr. Pettigrew sent him here' " 
 
 "This Pettigrew," interpolated Pink, gulping coffee, "is 
 the society man whose backing the joint because he's stuck on 
 the star turkey-trotter a pretty little piece of goods she is, 
 too, but stuck on another guy, though Pettigrew don't know it, 
 being a fresh-water oyster that emits pearls at every gasp. 
 And being that kind of a simp, he's likewise in one of these 
 White Slave Investigating Committees, and it appears this 
 stool-pigeon in the dinner-coat only Harlem stews say 'Tux- 
 edo,' eh, Sir Launcelot? has been makin' soft money swear- 
 ing to White-Slave charges against all the madams that ever 
 staked him to the eats in the back-kitchen. That's how he 
 got in with Pettigrew and got this house-detective job. And 
 from what the manager says Pettigrew thinks he's got wings 
 under the Moe Levy padding in his shoulders " 
 
 "Say you finish it," said Beau irritably. 
 
 "No," said Pink, with a magnanimous gesture, "go ahead, 
 my boy," and started on the cheese. 
 
 "Well, this Gammage that's the stool's name it ain't 
 very long before he gets wise to us tipping him off. Anyhow, 
 whenever we happened to be near him in a crowd Pink would 
 cop his souper. That's how they came to call him 'Pink,' 
 copping Pinkerton bulls' watches on the race-track and send- 
 ing 'em to the managers to show 'em how 'The Eye that 
 Never Sleeps' took forty winks now and then. Well, when a 
 crowd of waiters were around at closing time we'd say to him :
 
 The Wireless Message 365 
 
 'Oh, Mr. Detective, some ornery thief stole your watch, but 
 we got it back for you, so we did. Why don't you complain 
 to the police about those sassy devils? . . .' And of 
 course that made him sore. So one day, when some dame 
 lost her ring, he swears he saw us turn the trick. Then he 
 gets some harness coppers to identify us as thieves all but 
 Sonny, who he's kinda stuck on. And that gets us fired by 
 this Pettigrew guy, who reads us a lecture along with it, and 
 won't listen to nothing against Gammage. We pretty near 
 got in the hoose-gow over it 'cause we couldn't kick back the 
 hock-rock. But Pettigrew's too soft-hearted a gink to let us 
 do time, so he squares the squeal by buying her a new one. 
 . . . Of course, we laid for Gammage," he added virtu- 
 ously. . . . 
 
 "And, of course, we gave him the walloping of his life. I 
 bent this cannon of mine into a 'Z' on the front of his face 
 and straightened it out on the back of his head. He won't 
 smile in a hurry," said Pink, with a vicious grin. "Not until 
 the dentist puts in four front tusks, he won't. . . . And 
 of course there was nothing to it then but to tear down to 
 the old dame and head off the rap from headquarters. We 
 knew what was coming from a guy like Gammage assault 
 with intent to kill and a couple of cannon planted on us by 
 the coppers who made the arrest so's to be sure we'd get a two- 
 years' bit under that new concealed weapons law. . . . 
 Great thing for coppers that law is. If they want to settle 
 somebody, all they got to do is drop a cannon in his kick. It's 
 better than dropping watches, 'cause you might have an alibi 
 about where you was when the watch was stolen. But a gun 
 bingo ! You're gone." 
 
 All doubts as to the justification of the Cormorant ven- 
 ture fled Arnold. "And so I suppose you 'planned a little 
 burglary or forged a little check or slew a little baby for the 
 coral round its neck' since you met so much encouragement 
 in your attempt to be honest," he invited. He was surprised 
 to have his question met by a silence of some duration, which
 
 366 God's Man 
 
 from the volatile Beau and the voluble Pink was unprece- 
 dented. 
 
 Presently Pink arose and walked to the open window to 
 stare at the sunlit waters rolling like molten metal under the 
 great round ball of Japanese red and dashing up showers of 
 sparks on the pebbles of the beach below. Beau seemed in- 
 terested in the glowing tip of his cigarette and the nail of his 
 forefinger. 
 
 "I suppose old Nikko's got the right idea," said Pink pres- 
 ently, apparently addressing the pale horns of a tiny crescent 
 that was riding the northern cloud-banks at a furious gallop 
 to arrive in time to bid the red ball au revoir. <r 5fes, I sup- 
 pose old Nikko's right with that talk of his about rebellion. I 
 used to kid him a lot about it at first. Thought he was nuts. 
 I was saying that to Beau only the other day, wasn't I, son ?" 
 It was the first time Arnold had seen the two betray any ten- 
 derness toward each other. Beau nodded in a way to suggest 
 that if he were nearer he would put a hand on Pink's shoulder. 
 "Yes, sir, I said to Beau that it about looked like we grifters 
 had a damn good right to nick a front or peel a poke so long 
 as "Wall Street and Washington were picking everybody's 
 pockets. Not that we care so long as they leave something 
 for somebody else. But they don't. And when they come 
 to us and say, 'Now, be good boys and work hard all day, and 
 we'll let you go on working hard all your life so when you die 
 you can go to Heaven and be rewarded' when they pull that 
 stuff it gets my goat. If I'd been honest all my life I might 
 be married to some little woman with wrinkles from doing her 
 own washing and ironing and minding the house and sitting 
 up nights to cut down my clothes so the kid 'ull have some- 
 thing to go to school in. And after sitting in the shop all day 
 and almost all night, selling goods and making cigars, what 
 would I be at fifty ? Just fixed so the landlord can run me 
 out 'cause my rent ain't been paid for three months, and so 
 the butcher could get an attachment on my stock. . . . 
 That's what happened to my old man after thirty-five years
 
 The Wireless Message 367 
 
 of honest work. I'm supporting him now, have been for 
 years. He thinks I am a jewelry salesman. And I've got 
 two kid brothers learning a trade they couldn't afford to learn 
 if I was honest. And another in college, studying civil-en- 
 gineering, and my sister, 'stead of going into some sweatshop 
 and losing her looks, or into some store and losing her sweet 
 little ways, or into some chorus and losing her virtue well, 
 I give her an education and she grabbed a good guy for her- 
 self son of a big wholesale baker and general manager. Yes, 
 sir, Sis is married two years now and got one grand little kid. 
 Named after me, whadda you know about that? Frank 
 Nolan Middenkoff German, her fellow's father is. ... 
 Now I suppose somebody's going to tell me I oughta gone 
 and been an A. D. T. kid or a bundle-boy in a department- 
 store, and now I'd be driving a wagon like a gentleman and 
 getting twelve per, and the other kids gee ! I hate to think 
 what 'ud happened to them! I got some advantages being 
 the eldest and in the eighth grade at school before we bust 
 up burst, damn it, burst, burst, burst: kick me, Beau, will 
 you, boy ?" 
 
 And Beau, gravely arose and kicked him, not violently nor 
 wildly but judicially and accurately. "That *burst' is the 
 worse," he confided to Arnold, who was amused at this climax 
 to his sociology. "I slip up on 'burst' every time. And it's 
 got to stop. . . . Anyway, as I said to Beau, if those 
 pirates who're running things expect us fellows to harness 
 up like horses for no pay except a stall to sleep in and about 
 half the hay we need to work on, they've got the wrong dope." 
 
 "And the worst of it> the stall ain't even clean, let alone 
 big," confirmed Beau. "And the hay's the lousiest the law 
 allows. . . . You ought to seen my home, Mr. Arnold. 
 Pink had more'n me. My mother cooked in the bedroom, and 
 we didn't get a bath more'n once a month 'cause there never 
 was enough heat to give you hot water and before you got 
 into the tub, you had to throw about a million water-roaches 
 out of it. I was glad to go to school in winter 'cause it was
 
 368 God's Man 
 
 warm that's why those East-side schools are so crowded 
 no place like home thank God ! And people say : *Why 
 don't they go live in the country.' Listen: they never have 
 two dollars ahead, let alone enough to pay car fare and keep 
 'em while they git a job. And suppose you're a certain kind 
 of worker and there's no work for that kind of worker in the 
 country? A hired man on a farm a green hand d'you 
 think Tie's going to be allowed to have a wife and child ? . . . 
 Ain't I heard my old man and my mother talk about the 
 country for hours? Gee!" . . . His look expressed un- 
 utterable disgust. 
 
 "You give half of 'em a chance to live in the country and 
 they'll go so fast it'll make your head swim. But they blow 
 over from Europe in those cattleships at a sawbuck a head 
 sometimes and with jest about enough to land. And it's 
 to the employers' interests to give 'em a job quick and keep 
 'em in the city so the price for unskilled labor won't go up. 
 Look at the Swedes and Germans. They've got immigrant 
 organizations and bureaus back of them. They don't stop in 
 New York they go on out to Wisconsin and the Middle 
 West, where farm jobs are waitin' for 'em or little farms, 
 or truck-gardens. . . . People ain't so crazy to stick in 
 the town of the Big Noise which is sure a False Alarm. It's 
 like Monte Carlo. They go there to make money and 
 don't." . . . 
 
 Arnold listened while Pink took up the attack again; lis- 
 tened, head in hand, while the two youths in the khaki suits, 
 presenting the strange anomaly of being in earnest, told of 
 the adventures of their strictly honest parents in their at- 
 tempts to find food and shelter for their families which had 
 resulted in giving both boys a hearty distaste for honest toil 
 and a sorrowful contempt for their forebears' lack of intelli- 
 gence in continuing in ways that promised so little of either 
 profit or pleasure a promise faithfully fulfilled. . . . 
 
 And, as he listened, he saw the tragedy of America unroll 
 in all its pitiful comedy for comedy is only the dwarf of
 
 The Wireless Message 369 
 
 tragedy, and these little people who hoped so much were 
 dwarfs dwarfs in mind that they could go on hoping 
 against such odds. And being dwarfs, the stupid giants 
 giants only because the others were dwarfs could slay them. 
 Then the sun went down and the moon came up : the song- 
 birds sang and the crickets chirped : all the million members 
 of the insect orchestra tuned up their tiny instruments and 
 made a long sweet song. And the wind and the trees 
 joined in and the surf on the beach contributed its minor 
 chord. And while a world of radiant darkness sang to the 
 sheen of the moon and the shine of the stars, that other world, 
 that dark-lighted world, quarreled and killed killed be- 
 cause it knew no better, no better than when a Voice on Cal- 
 vary had cried to His Father to forgive them for they know 
 not what they do.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 DENOUNCED 
 I. OUTSIDE THE PALE 
 
 (if i^^ ESS? ACK in that same lighted world, 
 
 " I Ifilifhhihl ~V> th e person both loathed and loved 
 
 as "Petty" as Arnold could bear 
 personal witness after eavesdrop- 
 ping at Clabber's came out of 
 Miss Bobbie Beulah's apartment 
 ''in Devonshire Mansions, a grin 
 on his face and a crafty look in 
 his eyes. He hailed a hansom, 
 taking it by the hour when he 
 found that Mr. Eugene McKiss 
 of Police Headquarters was not 
 holding court in his favorite ho- 
 tel; visiting in turn every other 
 hotel restaurant, each cafe and cabaret of any importance, in 
 Manhattan's Montmartre. . . . 
 
 Mr. Eoy Schmucke, from having been "Petty" to so many 
 female admirers, was "Petty Schmucke" even to the manly 
 loungers who hailed him jovially on his entrance to each bar 
 and cafe on this night that he searched for the elusive McKiss. 
 The nickname should have been enough to damn him. 
 
 As he passed from Curate's Restaurant on this night of 
 September sixteenth, a policeman in uniform, new to the city, 
 who had overheard one of Master Potty's sidewalk conversa- 
 tions that afternoon, pointed him out in an excited whisper
 
 Denounced 371 
 
 to the traffic officer at the corner, suggesting that they recom- 
 mend to Pleadquarters that this dangerous offender be kept 
 under surveillance. 
 
 The sophisticated son of the city regarded the guileless son 
 of the soil in scornful amaze. "Ain't you wise to that kind of 
 a gink yet ?" he asked, almost sadly. "Don't you know nine- 
 tenths of these so-called 'guns' and 'grifts' couldn't steal any- 
 thing from a chloroformed cat? Ever hear of a gambler's 
 ace in his sleeve 'ace in the hole/ they call it. Well, that 
 goes double for a fellow like the one you just saw. Find the 
 skirt, kid, find the skirt." . . . 
 
 It is not difficult to explain the hold of such a young reptile 
 on the women of the class of Miss Beulah Eoberts though it 
 may seem so in the case of other women, her superiors as well 
 as inferiors for the activities of the Petties take in the "Ave- 
 nue" as well as the "Lane." It is a fact familiar to all sci- 
 entists, and all who deal in feminine psychology, that the 
 morals of women, the average woman of any class, granted a 
 semi-normal prenatal condition are known to be only what 
 their menfolk make them : the reflection of their fathers' mor- 
 als or those of their husbands. If the first is sufficiently edi- 
 fying, the second ordinarily so, high-mindedness is produced. 
 Let the father inspire contempt, and the husband's hand must 
 be firm on the helm : otherwise unless anchored by early chil- 
 dren she drifts with the first winds of environment and oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 Thus Miss Beulah Roberts. The crimes of womanhood are 
 mostly committed between the time when maid merges into 
 potential mother and the birth of the first child. The grati- 
 fication of the aroused maternal instinct being denied them 
 because of poverty or policy, the Bobbies grope blindly for a 
 substitute. The pain of the gnawing instincts of motherhood 
 must be smothered, the pillows piled higher at each muffled 
 cry of the thing they are murdering. Woman is an extremist : 
 if she drinks, she usually drinks too much; doctors will tell 
 you that men may take drugs in moderate quantities for a
 
 372 God's Man 
 
 lifetime, but never a woman. She veers between total absten- 
 tion and sensational indulgence. 
 
 But there is the natural anodyne of fierce affection which 
 no drug or drink, nor any other sensation may equal. In that 
 heady intoxication of physical passion the man becomes both 
 lover and child. But Hugo had, at best, won only Bobbie's 
 gratitude : and as his passion for her increased by daily prox- 
 imity his mind having no other occupation since his hope of 
 becoming a scientist had been shattered her calm friendship 
 of the days when there was no physical bond between them 
 must take refuge in pretense lest she lose the luxury she had 
 learned to love. Now pretense if continued for any length of 
 time develops irritation in which soon inheres dislike that 
 love "pardons all" and does not require pretense is its strong- 
 est claim to duration. 
 
 Had Bobbie loved Hugo, when he embraced her at an in- 
 opportune moment, she would not have feared to push him 
 away, knowing instinctively that in another mood she could 
 make up for this seeming coldness. Growing to dislike him, 
 she could do no more than endure his caresses at any time 
 since all times were equally distasteful. Yet, like most women 
 who are slaves of habit and custom, rather the loss of her 
 freedom than of her luxuries: therefore the discovery of her 
 dislike for Hugo made her clutch for an anchor and vaguely 
 she understood that flesh of her flesh would so satisfy her need 
 for something to love that she could endure being loved. 
 Marriage or no, let her have a child. But poor Hugo was too 
 chivalrous to gratify himself at what convention claimed was 
 her ignominy and the child's shame: he had read too many 
 sentimental novels, seen too many pathetic plays. . . . And 
 then, she began to dream of a man she could love, to look for 
 him everywhere although she was unconscious of either her 
 desire or of her search. 
 
 Nor had she ever imagined that this Fairy Prince, when 
 met, would be unable, least of all unwilling, to give her luxury 
 as well as love. Had Eoy Schmucke been so unwise as to
 
 Denounced 373 
 
 present himself as a prospective lover, how scornfully would 
 she have sent him about his business. But he and his kind 
 knew their little book and how little it was ! 
 
 At first he had been merely the companion, the confidant, 
 the unobtrusive escort to places where Hugo considered she 
 should not go ; all the while making himself more and more a 
 part of her daily life, breaking the monotony of its boredom, 
 going to her primed with the latest gossip. Like an actor in 
 the wings re-reading his part, he rehearsed the cynical jests 
 he would tell her, the scornful scandal: particularly endear- 
 ing himself because he was never amorous, never seized the 
 chance of propinquity to force unwelcome endearments. . . . 
 
 Curious to see how far this repression could be trusted, for 
 she never doubted it was repression, she began to receive him 
 in tempting deshabille, would pretend the taxi had jolted her 
 against him, would give him an occasional chance to scent the 
 "perfume of her presence" (four dollars a bottle) . . . 
 and, rough homage once rendered, she could bewail that he has 
 "spoiled everything," that "all men are alike after all," can 
 mourn aloud the lost paradise of their friendship. 
 
 Should the indifference continue in face of all assaults, she 
 forgets everything else in the horrible suspicion that her for- 
 mer success may have been but luck. 
 
 So many and so strenuous do her efforts to subdue him then 
 become, that there begins an interest resembling infatuation 
 so closely that experts can not distinguish between them. Her 
 mind is so centered on ways and means to bring him to book, 
 that there is room for no other thought. He occupies her 
 entirely. She is forging a two-edged sword. 
 
 Bobbie was already miserable at the thought of her in- 
 efficiency. Her self-conceit had sustained too stunning a 
 blow. She was humble in his presence, willing to make con- 
 cessions to keep him away from superior attractions. Then, 
 and then only, the male scalp-hunter evinced a condescending 
 interest in her ; finally admitted after her tearful tragic ques- 
 tioning that there was no hated and haughty rival ; but that
 
 374 God's Man 
 
 he cared for her as much (he meant as little) as he cared for 
 other women. But he is slow to love any one he admits it 
 freely. He is suspicious by nature. A woman must do more 
 than say she loves him : she must prove it thus, by his own 
 almost feminine intuition, turning on her the very guns her 
 sex has used on his from time immemorial. . . . And by 
 this and other mendacities, too numerous to catalogue, suc- 
 ceeded in fanning her self-love into a fiery flame, the very 
 counterpart of furious affection. 
 
 She thought only of how she might hold this wonderful 
 creature whom so many superior women desired. She saw 
 no reason why they should not. Such a man knows instinct- 
 ively how to supply in himself those things she most craves; 
 permitting her for example, to fondle him just as she would 
 that child she has so long desired : immediately after becom- 
 ing harsh of word, ready of blow, counterfeiting that primi- 
 tive manliness that thrills such women with an ages-old fear. 
 
 Then again, being idle themselves, the Petties have nothing 
 to prevent them from being available as constant companions. 
 And, caring nothing for women, they proscribe no vice, no dis- 
 sipation. Men who love may forbid many things for fear of 
 the future; but young untrained women, acting on impulse, 
 see only that they have been denied a delectable or thrilling 
 experience, and despise nothing quite so much as the miser- 
 able excuse that the deprivation "is for their own good." . . . 
 
 It is alwa}'S an ungrateful task to attempt to explain the 
 unexplained. To the ready-made moralists who tolerantly 
 class women as good or bad Miss Beulah Roberts must have 
 been naturally vicious or she could not have become in- 
 fatuated with a naturally vicious man. Then Hugo must 
 have been naturally vicious to love a naturally vicious woman ; 
 and Arnold must have been naturally vicious to have a nat- 
 urally vicious friend. 
 
 And so the whole fabric of this history goes to pieces. For 
 not one of them was naturally vicious, not even the intoler- 
 able Mr. Schmucke himself.
 
 Denounced 375 
 
 II. DETECTIVE McKiss HAS A CALLER 
 
 Back in that dark lighted world, then, while Arnold lis- 
 tened in the radiant darkness, Mr. Roy Schmucke ran to earth 
 Eugene McKiss, Detective Lieutenant assigned to the "Ten- 
 derloin," in the Cafe Rochefort, one of those new establish- 
 ments, all gilt and glitter, which make favorable arrangements 
 with semi-celebrities of the Nightless Lane that their friends 
 may be drawn from better-known resorts. Therefore, Mr. 
 McKiss had champagne before him, the check for which would 
 be conveniently lost. With him sat his partner, Burly Jones. 
 
 Neither looked on the advent of Mr. Schmucke with any 
 favor; but as the pale-eyed auburn-haired parasite was useful 
 to them in the matter of information the Petties are allowed 
 to exist to serve as spies "stools" they bade him be seated 
 and, as the wine cost them nothing, the waiter was directed 
 to bring a third glass and then to "beat it from the back of 
 that chair." 
 
 "You'll strain your ear-drums some day, young fellow, and 
 then they'll burst, that's what'll happen to you," prophesied 
 Mr. McKiss cheerfully. "Go out in the kitchen and drown 
 yourself in the sink." The waiter, grinning, went off. "Well 
 now, young fellow," said McKiss, addressing his visitor. 
 "What do you want? Because I ain't just stuck on being with 
 you in public, Petty, and that's no airy persiflage. What's 
 new, little one? Some rough guy give you a belt in the 
 eye, and you come to swear you seen him trample on an old 
 lady? Or do you want to get your mother arrested for not 
 remitting regular ?" 
 
 "That's a case for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
 to Animals," put in Mr. Jones, the burly, a heavy shouldered 
 gentleman with arms like a gorilla, light green eyes, dogged 
 fidelity to his friends. He was much averse to the use of such 
 creatures as Petty: what he liked was to go, single-handed, 
 into a house full of desperadoes, starting to shoot as his 
 shoulder broke down the door. His partner shared his aver-
 
 376 God's Man 
 
 sion and was his match in courage if not in strength a slen- 
 der, bright-eyed, tall young man, this McKiss, a man whose 
 friendly smile gave him wide popularity among all classes. 
 But both men realized that they must use the weapons of their 
 profession. If they did otherwise, they would be badly beaten 
 on their cases. 
 
 "You needn't get so fresh," returned Petty, his little eyes 
 snapping with malice ; "because if you do, I'll just go over and 
 see Martin O'Grady and give him what I've got. And it's no 
 chicken-feed, either. It's important dough, you just believe 
 me when I tell you. Yes, sir, one great chance to grab our- 
 selves about a hundred grands grands, I said, grands. . . . 
 You needn't smile like that, neither, Billy Jones.'' . . . 
 
 "I told you what always happened to these little hop-fiends 
 if they kept on lying on their side," said the burly one, ad- 
 dressing his partner. It was half unbelief, half system. Such 
 people as Petty could be angered into unguarded confidences. 
 
 "Sure, sure," agreed Mr. McKiss pityingly. "You better 
 can that black smoke, young fellow, or it'll have you in the 
 funny-house. I know one guy saved up his pennies to buy an 
 airship to go pick daisies in the moon. They've got him down 
 at Kings Park now in a room with extra heavy bars so he 
 can't fly outa the window. He sees sunflowers up there now 
 as big as a man's hat. . . ." 
 
 "Wall, if you ain't the grocery-store comics," said Petty, 
 sneering. "Come off with that small-time humor. It even 
 gets the hook in burlycue." . . . 
 
 "Never mind about our humor, young fellow," returned 
 McKiss, grinning. "You go on and give us some good excuse 
 why you should be sitting at the table with a couple of regular 
 guys. And you got to do better than bring Grimm's Fairy 
 Tales up to date. Whadda you been doing? sleigh-riding? 
 Stick to the long bamboo. Charley-^that snow's awful bad for 
 the imagination. I see a cocaine-drunk the other day trying 
 to walk right through a plate-glass window and draw a glass of 
 beer outa a keg in a lithograph."
 
 Denounced 377 
 
 The exasperated Petty interrupted him by rising. "Well, 
 I guess Mart O'Grady 'nil listen to a chance to grab himself 
 from ten to twenty thousand. Maybe he ain't as rich as you 
 fellows with your fourteen-hundred a year." . . . 
 
 "Oh, ten thousand that's getting to listen like a human 
 being: it was a hundred a minute ago. Sit down and spill 
 it, young fellow, and look slippery because we got a date for 
 a little bracelet-party at eight-thirty a smart young fellow 
 who thought he could break back into New York just because 
 there was a change of Administration. Come on, now !" 
 
 "I can't talk here," said Petty sulkily. "You'll have to 
 come up to my room or get a private one here. I'm not going 
 to take any chances of any bunny-eared by-stander getting 
 wise to my dope. It's too important. . ." McKiss, 
 convinced that somehow the little red-haired reptile had 
 learned something of importance, signaled the head waiter 
 who led the way to one of the Eochefort's advertised "cabinets 
 particular" all of which opened off the balcony overhead. 
 McKiss asked for vichy and milk now they were out of the 
 public eye and for Mr. Jones grape-juice and lemon. Petty's 
 possible wants were disregarded. 
 
 "Well, satisfied now, young fellow?" asked the younger 
 sleuth while his senior growled. Petty opened the door com- 
 municating with the next room, locked it. 
 
 "He's been to see some play," commented McKiss. "Why 
 don't you listen at the keyhole first ; you've got no technique. 
 Then you ought to draw your chair close, look mysteriously 
 about you and begin. 'I was the only child of wealthy par- 
 ents, and accustomed to every luxury, when ' " 
 
 "Oh, hell" almost shouted Petty. "Are you going to 
 listen? Just tell me, yes or no. . . ." 
 
 "I'll tell you one thing," snarled Jones: "I'll give you a 
 poke in the puss if you pull any more cracks like that. You're 
 pretty lucky you're allowed to take up our time, Mr. Eat. 
 Now sit down and get to business. Go on !" 
 
 Petty, subdued, obeyed. "I ain't sore only you're hammer-
 
 378 God's Man 
 
 ing me all the time and me trying to get you some money," 
 he whined. "It ain't right, fellows. I never did anything 
 to you: always heen your friend: come to you right away I 
 heard this come to you first. . . . Some parties are 
 smuggling in a hundred-thousand-worth of hop maybe right 
 now, maybe to-morrow as soon as a certain yacht comes 
 in. ... 
 
 "Yes, sir," he continued, encouraged by their exchange of 
 glances. "One hundred-thousand, at least. And I'm the only 
 one knows it outside the people mixed up in it. !N"one of the 
 gang. Silk-stockinged guys. I got it from my girl. That's 
 why I don't want to mention any names. If one of those fel- 
 lows got in wrong, she'd be up against it. His father's got 
 plenty of dough. He just went into this to help a friend. 
 . . . But you don't need to know any names. I can tell 
 you where they're going to pull this off and then all you've got 
 to do is stick around till they get it all landed and then step in 
 and grab it. They won't dare put up a holler. They're all 
 good families and can't stand the notoriety. And when you 
 flash your shields and arrest J em, they'll be only too glad to 
 make their getaways. You could fix it so they could beat it 
 after you arrested them. Have 'em think it was all their own 
 smartness, fooling you. Then all you'd have to do would be to 
 hire a couple of trucks and drive the stuff to town. I know a 
 hundred places where I can peddle it. And so do you ! . . ." 
 
 Their stony silence began to worry him ; his eyes wavered, 
 his hands trembled. "You see we get the stuff and no holler. 
 They won't dare squeal on us. Don't smuggling it mean a 
 five-year stretch in a Federal prison ? I've looked everything 
 up over there." 
 
 Above the sylvan tracery of Bryant Park, the Corinthian 
 columns of the new library supported a roof that might have 
 sheltered a temple to Aphrodite. He waved toward it. "And 
 believe me," he bragged as he reviewed the thoroughness of 
 his researches and his iniquitous ingenuity, "we can't lose
 
 Denounced 379 
 
 You oughta be mighty grateful to me for cutting you in with 
 it considering the rotten way you treat me all the time." 
 
 Mr. McKiss reached for his vichy and milk, regarding it 
 thoughtfully. Mr. Jones, who, in matters requiring more wit 
 than muscle, yielded the initiative, reached for his grape- juice 
 and tried to regard it thoughtfully, failing of anything but a 
 scowl. Potty's confidence deserted him, nervousness took its 
 place. 
 
 "Say, I didn't make a mistake and invite you to a funeral, 
 did I ?" he had meant to ask, satirically, evidence that he was 
 in no way impressed. But before he had half the words out, 
 strong fingers fastened on his reedy wrist and jerked his face 
 directly under the light of a shaded candle. 
 
 "No stalling, young fellow," McKiss said, suddenly stern 
 and sinister. "You just tell us how you found out about this. 
 Smugglers don't go spilling their insides out to girls. Come 
 through with the whole story or I'll give an extra twist to 
 that pretty little paw. You don't think Billy and I are going 
 
 off on any wild-goose chase, do you ? How did you get wise ? 
 ?> 
 
 Petty almost wept. "A fine way to treat a friend that comes 
 to you with a fortune ; a fine way. ... I won't tell you 
 any names, not a name. Think I'm going to hand you a 
 bunch of easy money and a guy to blackmail on top of it? 
 Think I'm going to see her crabbed ? . . ." He squirmed 
 and twisted. "Let go, 'Gene. Whadda you wanta act this 
 way for ?" 
 
 "Tell us how you found out," answered McKiss. "Come 
 on. Then we'll know how much to believe and whether you've 
 got some spitework up your sleeve. You don't expect us to 
 trust you, do you ? Come on : tell the truth or we'll take you 
 down and lock you up as a suspicious character and get you 
 thirty days on the Island. We'll vag you, so help me !" He 
 eyed him steadily, then flung him back with such violence 
 that his head struck the back of the chair. "If you will come
 
 380 God's Man 
 
 kidding public officials and wasting the city's time, we'll make 
 you pay for it." . . . 
 
 "Oh, all right" he grumbled. "One of these fellow's got a 
 girl. And " he grinned, but immediately repented it : he had 
 had previous experience with what he called their "narrow- 
 mindedness" they were "just jealous" that was all, they and 
 their make-believe morals. 
 
 "Well," he broke off sulkily, altering the original intention 
 of his narrative, "I guess she likes me pretty well. . . . 
 Now, he's been up against it a little, lately, in bad with the 
 old man; so when I asked her to loan me a coupla centuries 
 th' other day, she stalled. 'You've got your junk/ I said to 
 her. That sort of stuff makes me sore with a dame. 'Well/ 
 I said, 'why can't you soak some of it?' She said she could 
 and would. But she kept putting me off, making first one 
 excuse, then another. When I noticed she wasn't wearing 
 much of the junk, I got suspicious. But when I asked her 
 'Why 5 she always said only chorus-girls wore expensive junk in 
 the day-time." ... 
 
 He paused, for any attempt to gloss over his discreditable 
 methods would have been a strain on one possessed of a 
 genuine felicity of phrase. But these jealous humbugs would 
 pretend to be disgusted and possibly kick him if he told the 
 thing exactly as it had happened. "Well, anyway," he went 
 on, with labored gaiety. ''I'd never been at her apartment: 
 the live one was liable to bust in any time. But this afternoon, 
 when she phoned me she told me he'd gone to the country for 
 a few days. Now, I says to myself, now's the time to find out 
 about that junk. So I said I'd come over instead of her com- 
 ing out. . . . When I get there I ask if she's done what 
 I want. No, she hasn't, and another bum excuse. 'And I 
 know why, too/ I said and made her think I'm dead sore. 
 'You don't care for me any more. Well, I'm not going to 
 waste my time with a girl that don't care for me. . . / " 
 
 Again he suppressed a grin evoked by his superlative cun- 
 ning. "Of course I knew she was wild about me and wouldn't
 
 Denounced 381 
 
 let me go not an inch. But I stalled. I was trying to get out 
 and she hung on and hollered. ... I tried to push her 
 off of course I could have done it if I'd really wanted to ." 
 
 "You can cut out the rest of it/' interrupted McKiss, with 
 an ugly look which Petty knew from experience was the 
 fore-runner of a cruel kick. Mr. Jones's eyes held something 
 of the same. Petty threw away his Virginia cigarette. 
 
 "Well, you made me tell you, didn't you?" he demanded 
 of McKiss. 
 
 "I suppose, when she persuaded you to stay, you said you 
 would if she proved she still loved you by handing over the 
 jewelry for you to hock," said McKiss with a savage sneer. 
 "And once you got your hands on it, it would have been good- 
 by, baby, see you later maybe. Maybe not. "Well, she didn't 
 have it to give you, I suppose ?" Petty sullenly assented. "Well, 
 why?" asked McKiss. 
 
 "He took it and hocked it himself about four months ago 
 and her stringing me all the time. Oh, she raised hell with 
 him all right. And she raised ten times more hell when she 
 couldn't get me that loan. He told her he'd invested the 
 money so he'd get from ten to twenty times as much for it. 
 She thought he meant speculated and started to pack her 
 things, she was so sore. So he lost his head and told her, 
 that's all. . . . First, a friend of his got into trouble, 
 forged a note or something from the way she told it, and 
 had to make good. Well, he didn't have any money for his 
 friend, being in bad with his old man, so he hocked his own 
 jewelry and put the money in this smuggling scheme. Then 
 I guess he thought it 'ud be pretty nice to get some soft 
 money for himself. So one night while she's asleep, he takes 
 her key from around her neck and swipes the junk. . . . 
 And now are you satisfied?" 
 
 McKiss looked at Jones : neither betrayed any enthusiasm, 
 but the pilot-fish knew that his whales were hooked. "He's 
 been worrying himself sick. His friend's been threatening to 
 shoot himself every day he don't hear the boat's back from
 
 382 God's Man 
 
 Mexico with the stuff. . . . But to-day they got a message 
 from the other fellow in with it he lives down near the 
 place on Long Island where the stuff's to he landed. Didn't 
 give any particulars but I guess the ship's in sight or some- 
 thing and the stuff's going to be landed to-night. . . . 
 They've hired a house right out on the Sound, and I've got 
 the phone number. The maid wrote it down on the pad that 
 hangs alongside Bobbie's" he checked himself "alongside 
 her phone. All you've got to do is to call up the Long 
 Island telephone headquarters and they'll tell you where the 
 house that has that phone is " 
 
 "Why don't you start a school for detectives?" suggested 
 McKiss. "Lot's of fellows who've only been on the force 
 fifteen years or so 7 ud be glad to get your valuable instruction. 
 On behalf of Mr. Jones and myself, I beg to state we are 
 most grateful for your kind assistance. Wouldn't know what 
 to do without him, would we, Billy ?" 
 
 But Petty, watching anxiously, knew he had them. "There's 
 a train at nine o'clock ; I looked that up, too." 
 
 "Train to where?" demanded Jones roughly. 
 
 Petty, his assurance recovered, put a finger to his nose. 
 "Fifty-fifty?" he asked. 
 
 "Whadda you mean, fifty-fifty, young fellow?" asked Mc- 
 Kiss savagely. 
 
 "Half for me, half for you," Petty had the temerity to reply. 
 He expected no such division but he feared, did he begin by 
 suggesting thirds, that he would end with a quarter. "Well, 
 split it three ways then," he said as they looked threateningly 
 at him. "But don't waste any more time. Suppose that ship 
 came in to-night and they got the stuff out and started it up 
 to town as soon as they landed it. He took his big touring car 
 with him, this fellow did. And if you miss the nine train 
 that's the last that goes any farther than Huntington to-night, 
 and that's less'n half-way. You'd have to trolley to ISTorth- 
 port, and spend a sawbuck on an automobile to take you the 
 rest of the way. . . . And it 'ud be daylight maybe before
 
 Denounced 383 
 
 you made it it's over a two-hours' trip by train just to the 
 station. Lord knows how far the house is from there. . . . 
 Well, is it all right? Do I get my third?" He knew they 
 would keep their word once it was passed; which was why 
 they had won the confidence of the underworld and received 
 so much outside assistance. 
 
 "If this is some kind of a frame-up for us, I'll get you, 
 Mr. Rat, and mark you up so you'll never grab another dame," 
 commented the burly one, fixing Petty with a suspicious eye. 
 There was a new Police Commissioner at Headquarters and 
 their detail was a plum that nine-tenths of their brother 
 plain clothes men coveted. Petty shrank before Jones' men- 
 acing eye, viewing the long gorilla-like arms and heavy 
 clenched hands. 
 
 ''Why, Billy" he protested. "Whadda I do that for? You 
 know I'm your friend." Jones growled something indis- 
 tinguishable and resumed his staring at the sea of light below. 
 
 "Well all right/' said McKiss finally. "Where is it 
 Shoreham or Port Jefferson or Havre de Grace? they're 
 the only three places on the North Shore where anybody would 
 try to smuggle anything and they're all around two hours 
 from Jamaica." 
 
 "Havre de Grace," answered Petty, "and the phone num- 
 ber is Havre de Grace 81. ... I suppose you could find 
 out who's rented it easy enough by asking around the village. 
 But it wouldn't do you any good and it might make 'em sus- 
 picious, hearing somebody was asking. . . ." 
 
 McKiss replaced his watch, an ornate affair, a present from 
 a grateful thief who had erased its serial numbers. "What 
 would we want to know for ?" he asked in a tired sort of way. 
 "If they knew we knew we'd have to get them even if they 
 escaped. As for hiring trucks and getting the stuff taken to 
 town, that's all in your eye. If I find out you're telling the 
 truth, I'll wire Billy to come down in a big car same as this 
 other fellow. And I'll put off making the pinch till he comes. 
 Hey, Billy ?" The burly one nodded. "Just tell 'em down to
 
 384 God's Man 
 
 Headquarters I got a tip that Bnny Broun's hiding over in 
 Jersey and so I beat it over there." The burly one nodded 
 again. "You be here in this private room to-morrow night 
 at dinner-time, young fellow, and Billy'll have some news for 
 you. You better stick in the hotel to-morrow morning till I 
 phone you, Bill. Well, so-long." . . . 
 
 Pulling his soft hat half-way down to his eyes, Mr. McKiss 
 rolled a cigarette from the loose "makings" in his pocket, lit 
 it and went his way, a slim, quiet, unobtrusive, rather at- 
 tractive-looking citizen. At the corner drug-store he bought 
 a toothbrush, a pocket-comb, a tiny nailbrush and an orange- 
 stick, for, whatever the obliquity of his ethics, his physical 
 code was scrupulously correct. In the Arcade under the great 
 arch of the gate to Long Island, he invested an American 
 shilling in two new collars. Then, equipped for any adven- 
 ture, for he had filled his lower left coat-pocket with tobacco 
 only that afternoon he descended deep into the dark places 
 of the earth. 
 
 Here, in caverns hewn out of the solid rock, red and green 
 lamps glowed somberly in dark subterranean passages. A hun- 
 dred feet below the city's cellars, the Jamaica express chugged 
 and chirred impatiently. Soon after he entered it, it plunged 
 into the darkness, singing a song of steel and sparks to the 
 depths of the conquered river overhead. It came upward 
 into a land of lights, myriad lights, lights of stations and sig- 
 nals, of towers and town-clocks, of trains and motors and 
 carriages, all gleaming and glimmering, winking and wagging, 
 halting and hurrying the lights of Long Island. 
 
 Behind, in the last car was Mr. Schmucke. He knew Mc- 
 Kiss, knew he could not endure a half-hour without cigar- 
 ettes, therefore had known he was safe from observation so 
 long as he avoided the smoking-car. In the dusky half-light 
 of the Jamaica station, he stood behind an iron girder until 
 the plain clothes man had taken his seat in a "local" that would 
 bear them to Havre de Grace; then hurried on bj the back 
 platform of the rear car. . . .
 
 Denounced 385 
 
 It was not every day a man got a chance to make his 
 fortune. He was going to see that "damn dick" didn't try 
 to "put anything over on him." If he did, he could look 
 out for himself. He would make some kind of a deal with 
 young Waldemar. He'd get his. ). . . 
 
 He was about to justify his existence. All that life of evil 
 had been permitted him only that he might now serve to 
 bring swiftly to a head the dark brew that had long been 
 upon the unseen fire. 
 
 END OF BOOK VI
 
 BOOK VII
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 THE NIGHT OF THE SEVENTEENTH 
 I. "ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS" 
 
 HE night of the sixteenth was a 
 fine one, long remembered for its 
 full moon. It was so light that 
 one could see for miles around and 
 count each ship at sea. It was so 
 fine it apparently tired out the ele- 
 ments; for on the seventeenth, 
 there was no moon; and although 
 a heavy September gale scudded 
 the clouds along, the Island, and 
 especially our part, the North 
 Shore from Huntington to the 
 ocean, was shrouded in impene- 
 trable mystery. 
 
 The seventeenth had been a dreary day for all concerned 
 with the Cormorant's coming ; every one having watched until 
 dawn : McKiss in the beach underbrush ; Petty, racing-glasses 
 in shaking hands, shivering on Harbor Hill ; Arnold, himself, 
 hitherto quite calm, too excited to sleep and at his bedroom 
 window most of the early morning. 
 
 Archie who, alone, had slept as one pink with spiritual per- 
 fection, was a perfect pest with calculations of latitude and 
 longitude, average speeds, possible meteorological disturb- 
 ances, continual demands for listeners and verification. He 
 babbled of bills; bills, or ruin, to be met. When he spoke
 
 390 God's Man 
 
 of what that young gentleman he knew as Mr. Nolan called 
 "doing the Dutch," Archie's favorite topic during the past 
 few months, Pink could contain himself no longer. 
 
 "We can help you; please let us," he urged icily. "Every 
 cloudy Monday, we help send a few Dutch hats to float in 
 the East River ; hey, sucker ?" Then : "Go on up, Beau. I 
 got some poison in my grip, nicest you ever ate; couple of 
 spoonfuls and, oh, joy ! ! Go on, sap ! Bump this guy off 
 quick!" 
 
 Darkness began to close in. From the fringed and scanty 
 strip of breakwater, the edge of the world now, faint 
 streamers of white rose out of a gray bleak universe. Like 
 smoky snakes they crept along the beach, twined the trees and 
 eddied about Havre de Grace light. 
 
 The watchers in the chalet felt the cold breath of the sea- 
 fog; hair and eyebrows were sticky with salty moisture. 
 
 "Old Mother Cary brewing for her chickens again." 
 
 Arnold was trying hard to be cheerful. Soon he saw the 
 great eye of the Connecticut Cyclops wink dimly ; those pow- 
 erful reflectors ! He had a sickly foreboding that, if this kept 
 up, the Cormorant might come and go, signal and blaze, for 
 all any one on the Cliffs could see. To confirm him, the sad 
 slow voice of the great Green Sands fog-horn began to warn, 
 Havre de Grace bell-buoy to chill. 
 
 "Looks like a night out for some of us," Arnold said, com- 
 ing inside. "So whoever's going, Pink? Better get some 
 sleep, then ! I've got to, that beastly motor ! Look after the 
 dinner, Beau; you'll stay. I'm off; forty winks." 
 
 "Let's eat at nine: that'll hold us until morning," sug- 
 gested Hugo. 
 
 Arnold assented; then, from the kitchen: "Cheese; crack- 
 ers ; water to boil for tea ; 'case anybody's hungry now. Potted 
 stuff in the pantry, too. . . . It'll be eleven before 
 Danny'll dare signal. Say we start at ten. What say?" 
 
 "Boat-Stuff, hey?" Pink reflected. "Me for that poison 
 myself" Then sang:
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 391 
 
 "If you've got to be out in the cold and wet, 
 
 Get a dollar shell of hop, 
 
 And you'll think you're with your pet." 
 
 "Chorus!" he shouted; Beau carolled, too. 
 
 "Oh, the hop, the hop, jolly good guys and fancy ladies, 
 Bound for Hades, bound for Cadiz, any old place that's 
 nice and hot"' 
 
 They disappeared singing, returning with amber mouthpiece, 
 gaudily colored Turkish water-pipe hose, bowl, cylindrical 
 brass cup. The latter revealed a filigreed lamp; the glass 
 shade to fit this was unwrapped from tissue-paper. There 
 was also a cooking-needle, a bowl-scraper, (yen-shi-gow), 
 etc. 
 
 "Traveling layout," Pink explained ; Arnold recognized the 
 little white "toey." 
 
 "Forgot . . . and hadda stop at Blackie Burns' looks 
 like he handed us a lime " Pink was sniffing. 
 
 Arnold recognized the name, too : as agent of the syndicate, 
 he had sold Burns twenty-five thousand fen, crude. 
 
 "Ought to be good," said he shortly. "It's some of your 
 governor's,' governors-es." He told Hugo and Archie of the 
 sale. "So we're in distinguished company as wholesale opium 
 dealers a Congressman and a Justice of the Peace." 
 
 Only Pink observed his bitter sarcasm. Hugo looked on 
 curiously, Archie with eager interest. Even Arnold's young 
 crow hopped down from his perch and poked his bill through 
 the bars of his cage. Beau placed the various articles on a 
 small silver tray from the buffet, put the tray upon a piano 
 stool, and placed the stool close to a willow lounge chair. 
 This, when extended, would permit one to lie almost at 
 length. Pink drew up another chair so that the stool was be- 
 tween them. Then the two laid themselves down, Beau cook-
 
 392 God's Man 
 
 ing; the amber mouthpiece at the end of the long hose passing 
 back and fourth between them. 
 
 But when Arnold descended from his room, some hours 
 later, he found the situation changed. The chairs had been 
 abandoned, traveling rugs from the car were piled on the floor. 
 Archie's head was on Hugo's hip, as all four reclined about 
 the tiny lamp, his eyes as wild and excited as Hugo's were 
 dull and heavy. Arnold, standing on the stairs, saw Archie 
 seize, eagerly, a proffered "pill" which Hugo had sleepily re- 
 fused. The crow slept heavily in his cage, overpowered by the 
 fumes. 
 
 Pink was the first to discover Arnold's reappearance; and 
 leaping up, blushed guiltily. "The dinner's all right," he 
 said, with an attempt to carry off the situation. "I've got 
 everything fixed up fine, the chickens only need another ten 
 minutes to be brown enough to pass for Cuban patriots. And, 
 believe me, I mixed a salad dressing that would make a milk- 
 weed taste like head lettuce. You never tasted any caw- 
 fee, did you ? Well, that's a hop-fighter's dinner you know, 
 piece of pie and a cup of cawfee. And my Java has made me 
 the particular kid in such circles. . . . That's what I've 
 been doing while the other members of this club have been 
 lying on their sides " 
 
 Still ill at ease under Arnold's reproachful gaze, Pink sat 
 down at the piano. Like many with uncultivated musical 
 gifts, especially in his world, he had, besides his showy 
 talent for syncopated melodies, the ability to strike chords; 
 which, although known by a tonsorial nickname, had never- 
 theless, a genuine appeal to the emotions. 
 
 Pink was a past-master at these lachrymose melodies. Sen- 
 timental like most of his class (although he concealed it deep 
 down where he kept his respect for age and "square girls," 
 love for home and mother, and various other unworldly af- 
 fections) he now thought of the Little One, whom he had 
 been unable to persuade to "double-up," although convinced
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 393 
 
 she was wildly, though secretly, devoted to him. At Mother's 
 on the preceding afternoon, hadn't she proved it by breaking 
 down before he left, clinging to him and begging him to be 
 careful, to come back safe to her. 
 
 This scene recreated itself as he played and sang; and, 
 though the words offered little scope for sentiment, he man- 
 aged somehow to imbue both voice and chords with a wist- 
 fulness that sent chills to Hugo's spine, the usual warning of 
 moisture to his eyes ; while Archie stared fixedly into space. 
 
 "Come lie on your side with me, old pal, 
 
 Come lie 'round and join in the fun; 
 
 With the aid of 'the gong/ 
 
 We will quit the mad throng 
 
 For the Land of the Pure Li-un. 
 
 This magical bamboo stem, old pal, 
 
 From worry will set you free. 
 
 So, pal, don't be sad, 
 
 I'll make your heart glad, 
 
 If you'll lie on your side with me." 
 
 "He wrote it himself," Beau said, as proudly as if it were 
 the Traumerei. But, though it is easy to jeer at such primi- 
 tive appeals, the music affected Arnold, music-scholar and 
 opera-lover, as much as his less enlightened companions. And 
 .when Pink, forgetting why he had begun to play, wandered 
 off into other airs where the words gave him a better senti- 
 mental opportunity, Arnold's reproaches remained unuttered 
 and he sank down into one of the wicker chairs, head on 
 hand. 
 
 "I want to go back to the orchard, 
 
 The orchard that used to be mine : 
 
 I want to stand deep in the woodland, 
 
 The woodland the color of wine. 
 
 I want to go back to the meadow,
 
 394 God's Man 
 
 I want to go back to the barn; 
 
 To the rocks and the rills, 
 
 And the whip-whip-poor-wills, 
 
 I want to go back to the farm" . . . 
 
 "For God's sake stop it," cried Archie, the tears streaming. 
 Pink came to his feet with a start. Hugo was blinking, too. 
 Arnold remembered a scene in a cafe : a half-drunken woman 
 and The Rosary. He had sneered then; the situation was 
 much the same, yet he did not sneer now. Not even when 
 Archie demanded more of the opium as mental anodyne and 
 trembled visibly while Beau prepared it. Just so had the 
 woman trembled while the waiter went for more whisky. 
 
 Nor did Arnold interfere, as he had first intended. In the 
 rush of reverie that came with Pink's playing, he realized 
 why at such a time, a soul should fiercely desire that which 
 would blur and blot the memory of unkept promises to the 
 God within us all, of broken faith and bankrupt hopes, of hell 
 on earth and ill-will toward men. 
 
 The room was silent save for the bubble-bubble of the pipe, 
 the roar of the wind, the surge of the surf. Arnold looked 
 at his watch : the awaited hour approached. If the Cormorant 
 was to arrive that night, she was nearly due. . . . 
 
 The young crow, awakened by Archie's passionate protest, 
 surveyed the scene with one sleepy eye. Ever since the arrival 
 of the first two strangers, it had been in a fit of jealous sulks, 
 causing a temporary relapse into barbarism. Its resentful 
 caw had been loud but inarticulate, its back pointedly turned 
 when speech was requested, if pressed its head was tucked 
 under its wing. But now, only half-awake, the music hav- 
 ing intruded on its dreams, the crow was stirred to unex- 
 pected emulation: Onward, Christian Soldiers it cawed. 
 Pink's elbow slipped to the key-board and a clangor of dis- 
 sonances shocked the ragged nerves of all. The pipe fell from 
 Beau's hands shattering the lamp-globe: the light went out. 
 Archie started up with a shriek.
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 395 
 
 The crow, gratified by this belated tribute to personality, 
 fell into the usual error of the artist and repeated the per- 
 formance. Onward, Christian Soldiers, it cawed again. The 
 silence, tremulous with shock, had held for a quivering sec- 
 ond. Then a galvanized jack-in-box that was Archie, sprang 
 at the cage, tore at its door, and reached for its occupant, 
 mechanical fingers fastened on its gullet. But, now, another 
 also sprang and Arnold's fist caught Archie's chin and tum- 
 bled him over backward. He fell, striking his head against a 
 table corner. In the consequent confusion and the efforts to 
 revive him, one running for water, and another opening the 
 window for air, the frightened bird flew off to the freedom 
 of the fog. 
 
 Too late the panting and pursuing owner saw the loss of 
 his beloved pet. The sole companion of his loneliness fled, all 
 penitence fled with it. Looking down at his fallen friend, 
 Arnold cursed him, cursed Pink, cursed Beau, cursed Hugo. 
 They stared at him in frightened surprise: this raging hard- 
 eyed fighting-man was not the Arnold they knew. Nor did he 
 know himself; only that he most desired to feel his clenched 
 fist against human flesh, and that he hoped one of them would 
 answer him angrily and yield a second opportunity. 
 
 But none did : only, "You've hurt him, Arnold," said Hugo. 
 
 "I wish I'd hurt him a damn' sight worse," Arnold returned 
 viciously. "He got me into this filthy business; yes, he and 
 you, and your damn' father. Yesterday, I was beginning to 
 feel decent again. Now I'm just what I was before I left your 
 rotten city, a crook, a beast, a brute. And it's beginning to 
 show. Are you surprised ?" 
 
 He nodded toward Pink and to Hugo while he pulled on 
 his hip-boots. "Let Mr. Hop-Cook slay and look after him, 
 since he was the one who gave him the stuff that did it. No. 
 I'm wrong. Your father's the one, Hugo, but we haven't time 
 to get him. And that's the kind of business we're going into 
 to-night. To bring in more stuff that turns men into that kind 
 of hysterical loons."
 
 396 God's Man 
 
 "Ah, dry up," growled Pink. "It's not the stuff: it's the 
 man. It never hurt me. Weak-minded guys like that 'uve got 
 no right to smoke or drink or anything." 
 
 " '"Weak-minded guys, eh ?' " asked Arnold. He got up and, 
 as he slipped his belt through the loops of his thigh-high 
 boots, he sneered. " 'Weak-minded guys !' And what is three- 
 quarters of the world, strong 'guys'? 'It never hurt you,' 
 eh? How many are like you? How many can take a few 
 drinks of whisky every day without it hurting them? Not 
 enough to make up for the alcoholic wards in every hospital, 
 the lonely wives waiting until daybreak, the hungry children, 
 the broken homes! And for one Frank Nolan, there's two 
 opium-wrecks living in Chinatown, three who'd sell their 
 wife's wedding-rings for a pound of yen-ski, and four uniden- 
 tified morphine-fiends in the morgue." 
 
 He was very pale, his lips dry, his eyes wild. Pink watched 
 him abashed and disquieted, Hugo alarmed and remorseful. 
 "Lefs not kid ourselves any longer, fellows," he resumed bit- 
 terly. "Gentlemen like Mr. John Waldemar go up every rung 
 of the ladder with their foot on somebody's life. And we're 
 going out now to put ourselves in the same class. If you 
 didn't know it before, it's only because you never troubled 
 yourselves to think. I've troubled not to think. I've said all 
 the things John "Waldemar says, all the things you say, Pink. 
 But we had our warning just now. We saw what it does to 
 weaklings. Archie Hartogensis wouldn't harm a fly. We saw 
 him first crying like a girl, then yelling like a madman and 
 trying to wring a helpless bird's neck. We've had our warning, 
 so don't blame the Almighty if we are lost in that fog and are 
 never found. Warning ! Do you people believe in God ?" 
 
 There was an embarrassed silence. "I don't know whether I 
 do myself, any more," said Arnold. "But if I do, I've got to 
 believe that only something supernormal arranged that terrible 
 irony 'Onward, Christian Soldiers!'" 
 
 He shuddered and looked fearfully at the open window. 
 The sea-fog was rolling in, sepulchral swirls and whorls, ghosts
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 397 
 
 in gray winding sheets, with cold and clammy fingers to faces, 
 each vanishing to take up watch within the room, invisible 
 doomsmen, or so the inchoate imagery of the moment might 
 be inadequately translated. The others sat, stony still, staring 
 at the window, all three fiend-ridden, unconscious mystics: 
 Beau sprang up. 
 
 "You don't catch me sticking around here, alone," he said 
 fiercely. But Pink, grateful for a foe he could combat, pushed 
 him back with the flat of his hand. 
 
 "Baby," he jeered, then tossed him his automatic pistol: 
 "Keep off the bogies with that. Wake up the other baby and 
 rehearse your act together." He, too, had donned oilskins, 
 silken oilskins these, from Hugo's car, and with their owner 
 similarly arrayed, stalked out after Arnold. The next moment 
 their voices, wafted on an air languid with heavy sea-salt, 
 seemed far away : in another briefer lapse, they were so faintly 
 audible that had Beau done other than strain his ears, he must 
 have heard only mournful fog-horn and tolling bell-buoy. 
 
 Then the whispering began or seemed to; a whispering 
 that froze him. He sat, motionless by the open window, and, 
 fearless as he had been hitherto, was too terrified even to trem- 
 ble. He roused himself with an effort beside which all previous 
 calls on his will-power were as willing yieldings. "Archie! 
 Archie!! Archie!!! Archie!!!!" He dragged him to a 
 chair, he rubbed his wrists, he chafed his ankles, calling loudly 
 whenever he had the breath. Presently Archie groaned and 
 never was sound sweeter to mortal. 
 
 "Here,' have a drink," urged Beau; but then, remember- 
 ing, returned the whisky to the decanter. "No. You'd be sick. 
 They don't mix, hop and whisky." He found arnica and 
 bandaged the bruise, soothing the excited and enraged victim 
 of Arnold's wrath. Soon they had resumed their positions 
 on the floor, the window closed, the curtains drawn, more 
 wood piled upon the fire so that its blaze banished Beau's- tem- 
 porary fear of the intangible. 
 
 No doubt he had forgotten Arnold's accusation ; or had not
 
 398 God's Man 
 
 believed it at the time. Arnold had played on his fears. But, 
 now that he had a companion again and the cold sea-fog no 
 longer rolled in the window and the moaning of fog-horn and 
 tolling of bell-buoy were so faint as to be almost inaudible, he 
 only remembered that his nerves were severely shaken and 
 that the "lay-out" held balm for such infelicity. He was of 
 Pink's mind, save that, lacking Pink's plastic quality, he was 
 impervious to logic not in accord with personal experience. 
 "It" had never harmed him; therefore Archie's condition had 
 been due to natural excitement. With a fortune almost in his 
 grasp, "who wouldn't be off his nut?" Therefore, when 
 Archie sullenly demanded his share of the cookery, Pink 
 yielded. A little more would act as a soporific, he argued 
 again, although, of course, in no such words. 
 
 "You'll drop off to sleep. Best thing for you," said this 
 complaisant "cook." But he was wrong. There are no ano- 
 dynes for such neurotics as Archie, only anaesthetics : nor in 
 lesser quantities do they act as mental stimulants, only as 
 excitants, increasing hysteria until it becomes ultimate, and 
 sheer exhaustion alone brings surcease. As in a thermome- 
 ter placed over the fire, the mercury must find its zenith be- 
 fore its nadir, must rise highest before falling lowest, thus 
 Archie, mercurial enough in all sooth. And, as he lay and 
 smoked, while Beau relapsed into euphoria Archie brooded 
 over his wrongs; his shrill voice rising oftener than pleased 
 Pink's partner. 
 
 "Can it, can it," the latter urged. "Ain't you got a chance 
 to cut in on some important dough, now? Think of our pals 
 out in the cold and wet just bringing it in and all we gotta do 
 is take it. Nice and warm and full of the poppy, and you're 
 beefing! You wouldn't be satisfied if a stranger handed you 
 a million. Look at all the trouble of carrying it home! 
 Why" 
 
 "Listen," whispered Archie. Then suddenly, but with exag- 
 gerated caution, he rose and, seizing Pink's pistol where it had 
 fallen, tiptoed to the door and flung it open. "Who's there ?"
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 399 
 
 he challenged in his high shrill voice. "Who's there. I'll 
 shoot if you don't answer." Silence only. 
 
 "Don't be a goat, sucker," protested Beau. "That's a cold 
 wind you're letting in and it ain't welcome. I'm in on this 
 shack and I don't want no visitors like that. Shut the door." 
 
 The wind had risen. One wondered how it could rack trees 
 and bang shutters and roar at large without dispersing those 
 fog-banks; and at times it seemed to shriek as though their 
 obduracy annoyed it, then returned to wreak its rage upon the 
 trees and shutters as before. It had stilled for a moment as 
 though taking on extra strength and then it was that Archie 
 had imagined he heard a stealthy footfall close to the bay- 
 window. Now he seized the shaded student's-lamp from the 
 table and bore it, held aloft, to the door, but before it could 
 do more than fringe with yellow the inner shadows, a mighty 
 sea-gust roared over it and all was dark again. 
 
 "Come on in," shouted Beau impatiently. "You make me 
 tired, sap-head. Come on, I tell you, or I'll bend the pipe over 
 your nut. Come on, now." The chill blast had sent him shiv- 
 ering to the fire. Archie reluctantly closed the door and re- 
 placed the lamp. 
 
 "I heard somebody just outside," he asserted excitedly. "If 
 I didn't, may I never see daylight again. I hope to die if 
 I didn't hear somebody as plain as I hear you, somebody 
 sneaking around right under that window." 
 
 Beau expostulated in his usual idiom; then crossed to the 
 door and locked it, pocketing the key. "You'll do well if you 
 hear it again," he chuckled. "If you think I'm going to 
 be froze outa house and home, you want to go to thinking 
 school and begin life all over agen. Now I gotta have a few 
 more puffs to take the chill outa my system. But no more for 
 you, sucker. You'll be hearing the little whales singing in the 
 ocean if I give you any more." 
 
 But Beau, for all his wisdom, had been wrong. Archie's 
 hearing was too acute to be at fault. When he heard them Mc- 
 Kiss and Jones had decided that the time had come for them
 
 400 God's Man 
 
 to take action. Therefore, they had wriggled out from be- 
 neath the chalet, which, built on piles, afforded excellent con- 
 cealment, if poor shelter from the chilly air. Out they wrig- 
 gled and stealthily crept away. Gaining the woods, they pro- 
 ceeded, by intermittent flashes of a pocket torch, toward the 
 residence of the Honnible Johnnie. 
 
 II. "MABCHING As To WAR" 
 
 Dinner was over, but Waldemar and the Squire still sat in 
 the glow of the shaded candles that decorated the Hartogen- 
 sis mahogany, when, to quote Pink: "instead of a rock and 
 rope and finding the nearest river and jumping in, they're 
 doing it with a bomb and taking some rich guy along to carry 
 their grip" . . . Particularly, "rich guys" of Walde- 
 mar's sort when discovered in such plots against the public 
 peace as the Yew Tree "proposition" ; which he was now pre- 
 pared to put into operation. 
 
 As per certain papers spread out on the Hartogensis ma- 
 hogany and truncating the long witch faces of a handful 
 of Hartogensis candles, the Squire clung to candles, 
 whether for a commendable reason or as part of his 
 pose ... is not weighty enough to detain us. 
 Doilies, too, Cluny lace over Japanese mats. And a 
 burglar's sackful of shining Sheffield and silverware, held 
 the first and held down on the second. Dinner was over 
 when Jones and McKiss learned that Waldemar, while in resi- 
 dence was not in presence, and started for the Squire's. 
 
 Butler (this dignified servant, by a freak of nomenclature 
 having that for surname as well as occupation) was dismissed 
 about that time, too. 
 
 "Here /are, partner," quoth the Honnible Johnnie, and 
 grinned. The Squire, frowning slightly, examined the half- 
 sheet of scribbling. Scribbling, it seemed, but, really, it was 
 the best Waldemar could do: his slight decrease in illiteracy 
 had come too late for any grace of outline.
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 401 
 
 "There's the proposition, and here's my offer on it." Cer- 
 tain sums and rates of interest, percentages representing rents 
 and shares in his business, along with the ratios of probable 
 increases consequent on the new investment, were set forth 
 so plainly that even an outsider could have understood that 
 what was proposed was genuine. 
 
 "Well, partner?" Waldemar inquired softly, having con- 
 sumed the contents of two pipes and several glasses. 
 
 The Squire came out of his pleasant reverie with a start. 
 He had ceased to see figures on the paper, was looking on 
 fairer fancies: Exmoor, his pet and pride, ornamented and 
 adorned, added to in acreage and improved out of all present 
 appearance. He sat up, concealing his amazement, and un- 
 thinkingly combed his neat whiskers with his pencil. "It 
 seems a fair offer, "Waldemar," he said, striving for his usual 
 judicial calm. "It seems a very fair offer. It seems " He 
 checked himself, realizing his speech was mechanical, but 
 finding no words suited to his dignity and to his acumen as a 
 business man, only nodded. 
 
 "You said your grandson 'ud be a big man in these here 
 parts," chuckled Waldemar. "Well: looks like he'll be a big- 
 ger one, don't it? I've got some idears about my own grand- 
 son, Squire. Many a time I remember how I used to see these 
 here big Russian landowners sorta snaking their whip to warn 
 the moujiks to get out of the way." In his enthusiasm, he 
 forgot his claim that he was the son of such a whip-snaker. 
 Neither man noticed the discrepancy now. 
 
 "Yes, sir" he continued: "And I often think: America's 
 a young country; give her time and she'll be thataway, her- 
 self. In the end, it's the land. Those that own the land own 
 the country. Trusts can go bust and banks can blow up, but 
 you've got the only right idear. They can't take the land away 
 from you. And I was thinking: what's to prevent us two 
 from owning all the land hereabouts. You show me where you 
 want to spread out, and I'll spread out the other way. And 
 by the time our grandsons are our age, just as you say
 
 402 God's Man 
 
 we'll about own all of this here Havre de Grace. Then we can 
 elect anybody we like; jest run the whole shooting-match to 
 suit ourselves. People living on your land, getting their bread 
 and butter out of you, ain't a-going to vote agen you, is they ?" 
 
 Squire Hartogensis appeared to share his belief; but with 
 the mental reservation that he would have preferred the sen- 
 timent to emanate from one better equipped in vocabulary. 
 So precious a thought should be couched in dignity of phrase. 
 He was about to remedy the deficiency of his fellow reaction- 
 ary, incidentally emphasizing his own priority in the idea, 
 when his butler made an annoying entrance after an equally 
 annoying knock. 
 
 "Two men, Squire Hartogensis, sir," said the butler im- 
 passively, "insist on seeing Mr. Waldemar, sir. Not my fault, 
 Squire. They simply refuse to go. They say Mr. Waldemar 
 will be glad to see them when he hears what they have to 
 tell him. . . . Yes, they seem respectable, Mr. Waldemar. 
 . . . No names, no, sir. . . . Not natives, no, Squire. 
 City folk I judge. Said to show you this, Mr. Waldemar, and 
 you would surely see them." 
 
 He brought forward the silver card-tray, to which his white- 
 gloved thumb held tightly a scrap of paper evidently torn from 
 the edge of a magazine advertising page, and on which was 
 written a word in Latin. The word was "Papaver" printed 
 rudely in pencil, followed by a written phrase quite as illegible 
 and mysterious to one with no previous suspicion of its mean- 
 ing: "ALIAS THE POPPY." 
 
 Waldemar looked up sharply. "Can you make this out, 
 Butler?" he asked. Butler, the impressive, shook his head 
 impressively. 
 
 "It was not for me to attempt to decipher it, sir?" he re- 
 buked; an answer and an attitude that pleased his master 
 mightily. 
 
 "Neither can I," lied the Honnible Johnnie. It was not his 
 scholarship that made it possible for him to be mendacious, 
 but for a reason of which McKiss had been well aware : the
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 403 
 
 labels pasted on his jars by his better informed chemists bore 
 the name "Papaver." 
 
 He glanced slyly at the Squire. "But I think it's some im- 
 portant business from town, syndicate business, partner. I 
 may have to leave you and take these men over to my place. 
 What time will you be ready to go up in the morning? I'll 
 have the car start at any time you say?" 
 
 "At any time you say," corrected the Squire. His eyes had 
 never really left that sheet of figures whose cold fragments, 
 like bits of a jigsaw puzzle, made such a warm ensemble: 
 a transfigured Exmoor, an Exmoor like Lord What's-His- 
 Name or that of Sir Moses Norfolk, money-lender to the 
 British nation and others. . . . 
 
 "Waldemar named an early hour, suppressing his impatience, 
 and the Squire mechanically agreed. They parted, each shak- 
 ing hands with the past, equally unaware of the present that 
 awaited outside, and the future that waited beyond in the 
 Swiss chalet. 
 
 III. THE AWAKENING OF ME. McKiss 
 
 At the sight of the earnest Eugene, the Honnible Johnnie 
 congratulated himself on his acumen. City fellows didn't 
 travel so far from home and send in such messages without 
 having matters of import to discuss. He thanked God that, 
 for all his success, he had not grown haughty like Old Man 
 Hartogensis. 
 
 "How did you know I was down here?" he asked McKiss 
 when he and the worthy pair were within his touring limou- 
 sine, the same that had taken Arnold to his graduation as a 
 "good business man." 
 
 "Just plain accident, young fel Congressman, I mean," re- 
 turned McKiss jovially. "Heard you'd be here to-night. Sit- 
 ting around at our hotel when your house phoned for some- 
 thing, and mentioned you were coming down, and that you 
 said you'd drop in to-morrow and pass the time of day. Al-
 
 404 God's Man 
 
 ways making yourself solid with the voters, hey, Congress- 
 man?" 
 
 McKiss knew his man; knew his record, business and po- 
 litical; had once visited him as the emissary of a metropoli- 
 tan weekly, of no particular importance, politically, hence un- 
 affiliated and selling its silence to those able to afford it, or 
 unable to, socially speaking. In spite of its notorious corrup- 
 tion, it was influential, socially. McKiss, whose particular 
 brand of honesty was to stay bought, was their "investigation 
 expert/' Unable to shake down luscious plums like "city ad- 
 vertising" it appealed, first to Csesarean purses, then to lovers 
 of sensational scandal. Either increased its advertising rates. 
 . . . For instance, Mr. Waldemar, thinking of his son's 
 social future and of the iniquitous activities of private Up- 
 lifts, had advertised his business uselessly, unusually, expen- 
 sively but amicably. 
 
 Hence the sight of McKiss was no unmixed joy; it might 
 mean a further bulling of the blackmail market. The de- 
 tective was not apt to force an interview unless warranted. 
 It was likely, however, that McKiss came for more friendly 
 reasons. Waldemar could recall nothing at the moment with 
 which he could be threatened. 
 
 Wisely, he contained himself while the car took the hilly 
 roads from Hartogensis Hall to Waldemar House. One must 
 speak loudly to overcome the noise of the engine, the grinding 
 of the wheels, the hissing of the exhaust only a thin partition 
 separated them from the chauffeur. 
 
 "We never had any idea of taking you in with this at all, 
 Congressman," McKiss ventured, as they came to a level 
 stretch where a whisper might be heard. "We come down 
 here all on our little lonelies. That is 7 come down, and this 
 young fellow, friend of mine and side-kicker, come down to- 
 night bringing a car. But when I heard about you at the 
 hotel I said to myself : 'There's our man ! Burly thinks so, too. 
 Shake hands with the Congressman, Burly, Mr. Jones, Con* 
 gressman Waldemar Don't you, Burly? . . ."
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 405 
 
 He waited for a reassuring nod. "Well, then," continued 
 McKiss, "as soon as we made sure the deal was to be pulled 
 off to-night we come right to your house your people sent 
 us to the Squire's. Does that Squire mean the same here as 
 in the city?" 
 
 "Meaning is he a judge? Yes, son," agreed Waldemar, 
 puffing at his cigar to conceal his delight at what, if he read 
 the oracle aright, was happy augury. "Least," he went on, 
 killing time, "what they call a judge. But he never had 
 anything worse than wife-beaters and chicken-stealers to do 
 any judgin' on, so maybe 'tain't the same as in the city after 
 all." 
 
 The car at last quivered to a standstill under the stone 
 archway of the Waldemar House porte-cochere, and the great 
 doors were flung wide by a sleepy footman semi-Orientally 
 liveried. Once within McKiss observed with the curiosity 
 that had yielded him an approach to an education, the stained 
 glass let into the arches above the doors of the squat Gothic 
 vestibule, studies from a Khudyakof Skazka.* 
 
 McKiss stared not because they were artistic, but because 
 they were horrible. 
 
 The key-window represented the Kashoube Yiezscy, a sex- 
 less Vampire, seated in a coffin and gnawing at his own arm. 
 All were the work of a never-to-be-sung Beardsley, a night- 
 mare colorist of some "Futurist" school, who had discovered 
 how to paint three dimensions. But, what was more im- 
 portant, he had persuaded Waldemar to accept these ghastly 
 caricatures, 
 
 *Skazka is saga, practically
 
 406 God's Man 
 
 ". . . Not as a connoisseur, but as a Russian, sir. The 
 subject is Slavonic, typically Slavonic, Mr. Waldemar." 
 
 Impressed by the way people stared, the Slavonic one had 
 learned to admire this cycle of ghoulish jests for their atten- 
 tion-compelling qualities. Even so uncultivated a man as a 
 New York plain clothes man was captivated. Temporarily dis- 
 missing his own curiosity to pander to that of his guests, he 
 explained his Penates with the naif pride of ownership. 
 
 "Kussian, sure. You've heard of the Vampire. That's him. 
 He's chewing at his own arm so's his wife and children will 
 die, see ? Then in the next picture they're dying and there he 
 is peeking in the winder outside. , . . Laughin', the old 
 devil. Some idear, hey?" 
 
 As lie turned of! to give some directions to the sleepy foot- 
 man, McKiss, an inherently religious young man, crossed him- 
 self devoutly and muttered something strictly Hibernian, 
 heard in his cradle-days, or soon after, from his Galway 
 mother. 
 
 "No good luck 'ull come from flyin' in the face of Provi- 
 dence like that," he whispered in an awed tone, to the stolid 
 Jones. McKiss feared no man, but where were the saints with- 
 out demons to triumph over? 
 
 For the first time in their acquaintance, Jones was con- 
 scious that cowardice was possible to McKiss. He had un- 
 doubtedly shuddered. 
 
 "I wish I was well out of this," he added. "I wish I hadn't 
 been so bright, young fellow. I wish Waldemar was in hell 
 with his Vampires as any devil desarves to be that has pic- 
 tures like that, for a sacrilege it is and nothing else, the brass 
 av him !" 
 
 McKiss had the habit during excitement, or stress, of re- 
 turning to his early pronunciations and inflections which 
 also came direct from Galway. 
 
 "What I mean, Burly, the idea of these stained-glass win- 
 dows is sorta stolen from the Church," he said, quieting down 
 and resuming his American idioms. "It's a sort of religious
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 407 
 
 idea. And then to put a blood-sucking devil digging up graves 
 on one of 'em ! " 
 
 Emotion overcame him. Jones, disgusted with his part- 
 ner's puerility, left him to whisper to himself. 
 
 In the high stone-walled library Waldemar was overseeing 
 the selection of certain whiskies and liquors, the footman hav- 
 ing wheeled in a portable cellaret. 
 
 "Pucker can get you some chicken and salad and cham- 
 pagne," he further suggested. Hospitality, the offering of 
 food and drink, especially drink, was a second nature with the 
 Honnible Johnnie. For his liberality, men gave him their 
 lives to order as he willed, he and his fellows, those foolish 
 sheep. 
 
 But these were birds of the night, not sheep; rather giant 
 hawks, sheep devourers also. Jones was twiddling his thumbs 
 and refusing refreshment, and showing no gratitude toward 
 the profferer. "Send him away, Congressman," he growled. 
 Waldemar nodded and Pucker went. 
 
 "Now, Mac," said Jones, exasperated. 
 
 Mac needed to see a doctor, Jones was trying to be char- 
 itable. "McKiss afraid ! Afraid of what ?" 
 
 "See here, Congressman," Jones broke in roughly. "I ain't 
 a man to talk. But the fact is well I guess my pal over 
 there must a hurt his head. And there's about a hundred 
 thousand dollars' worth of opium gunna be landed to-night 
 not two miles from here." 
 
 The announcement coming so unexpectedly, the Honnible 
 Johnnie had no time to prepare his face with a look of indif- 
 ference, but gaped like any schoolboy. 
 
 "How do you know ?" came out involuntarily. 
 
 "Because three people left to land it off'n a ship out 
 there" Jones waved toward the Sound "not haff'n hour 
 ago. My pal, here, could put all this more delicate than me, 
 Congressman. This ain't my end of the deal. But, you'll 
 have to excuse me sayin' so, you'll have to decide qiiick. 
 We're gunna make a bluff at pinching these guys and then let
 
 408 God's Man 
 
 'em get away there's only about haff-a-dozen of 'em; then 
 we'll cop the stuff and bring it over to your snare. I come 
 down in a Packthread tourer, holds eight passengers and 
 we oughta be able to do it in ten or fifteen loads meanin' by 
 daybreak. Now if we do, is it fifty-fifty ? 
 
 "If you won't," he added, rising, seeing that "Waldemar 
 made no sign. "All we ask you to do is to forget it and we'll 
 do what we intended to before we saw you; cart it along the 
 cliffs or out in the woods somewheres and hide it. That is, 
 hide all over what we can take up to town our first trip. Then 
 come back for the rest as we sell it. It's up to you. There's a 
 lot of work, thataway, and a lot of risk, so when my pal, here, 
 saw you J saf ternoon. . . ." 
 
 He went back laboriously to his premise, and began again 
 his many repetitions. Like most strong simple men, he con- 
 ceived it an easy matter to be direct in narrative. Few laymen 
 know that a complex tale told lucidly is an art-form that even 
 master-craftsmen achieve only after long and arduous appren- 
 ticeship. Mr. Jones became more obscure with every clause 
 and correlation, finally compelling McKiss to intervene. 
 
 "It's like this, Congressman" ... he began mechan- 
 ically. If his explanation lacked Jones' obscurity, in part, it 
 lacked his enthusiasm altogether. The same black dog was on 
 his back, as had been on Arnold's earlier in the evening the 
 same curious apprehension weighed him down. 
 
 Had some Eochefort Cafe reveler suddenly spat at a cru- 
 cifix or trampled on a rosary, the same apprehension would 
 have come to him, and the alembic of habit shattered he 
 would have examined his life and found it evil. But those 
 who do physical evil have violent revulsions to spiritual good ; 
 the lawless folk he knew best respected religious symbols; 
 religion yielding many exquisite emotions. Agnosticism was 
 much more likely to be found in the sturdier Welsh type of 
 Jones ; one without sufficient sophistry to reconcile repentance 
 with continued relapses. As for atheism that was part and
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 409 
 
 parcel of the ruthless type, represented by the Waldemars, the 
 business buccaneer. 
 
 No one but an atheist, McKiss knew, could have that horri- 
 ble stained-glass in his house. As he explained what Jones 
 had failed to make clear, a violent hatred for his host welled 
 up in McKiss. Yet half an hour earlier, he had chuckled over 
 Waldemar' s joke about a corrupt judiciary. 
 
 Now, by the mere sight of a disgruntled artist's diablerie, 
 had been accomplished one of those modern miracles that hap- 
 pen every day everywhere ; a miracle of the mind, more super- 
 normal than any of the flesh, a sudden straightening of dis- 
 torted vision due to a violent blow, between the eyes ! 
 
 The religion of Eugene McKiss was real enough; only its 
 application had been at fault. Now, dimly apprehending, 
 Eugene's sense of sin became oppressive. He was weighed 
 down with it, weary-eyed, weary of soul. 
 
 "And you don't even know who these fellows are?" asked 
 Waldemar; too rapt in the narrative to observe the nar- 
 rator. 
 
 "If s all a piece of the same dirty washing," McKiss found 
 himself saying, hardly less to the surprise of his own conscious 
 self than to the slowly dawning rage of Jones. "You see one 
 of these young fellows is supporting a girl. And she's sup- 
 porting the little rat who told us. Maybe she don't know she's 
 supporting him. . . ." 
 
 Waldemar nodded. Petty's kind had been profitable 
 "sleigh-riders" when he provided "snow" on Seventh Avenue. 
 
 "Well, the rat's afraid to let us know the name of her par- 
 ticular young fellow," McKiss continued. "He thinks we'll 
 get some more easy money, blackmailing him " 
 
 Burly Jones leaped up. "See here, Mac," he shouted, his 
 eyes wicked. "Blackmail! are you crazy?" 
 
 "The rat's reserved the blackmail privilege as part of his 
 share," McKiss went on, unheeding. "It's part of our bargain 
 not to try to find out any names. Anyway, we don't want to.
 
 410 God's Man 
 
 If they knew we knew, they could blackmail us! An awfully 
 dirty lot of laundry, all around, all right. But I started and 
 I'll go through. What's the answer?" 
 
 "Good boy !" said Waldemar ; and, trying to laugh away this 
 ugly language, guffawed loudly. "If it is dirty, it's time it did 
 some clean fellows some good ! Hey ? Of course / don't know 
 anything about it, though, do I ?" 
 
 He winked. "But if I was to find a lot of valuable stuff in 
 my stables to-morrow. And if a coupla friends said it was a 
 present, I couldn't accept it without giving something in re- 
 turn, could I ? Course they might insist on not taking more 
 than half what it was worth, and the best I could do then 
 would be to leave them the other half in my will." 
 
 His ostensible hearty habit of guffawing made McKiss hate 
 him more than ever. 
 
 Beckoning them to the main hall, "Waldemar bade the tired 
 Pucker be off to bed. "I'll lock up, my boy," he said genially. 
 When the footman had disappeared by a servant's hallway 
 under the stairs, Waldemar opened a paneled door, disclosing 
 an electric switchboard and a key-rack, and selecting two keys, 
 the larger for a hasp padlock, the other for a chain, he laughed 
 unrestrainedly. Waldemar's decision surprised Jones as well 
 as increased the hatred of McKiss, who feared he would com- 
 mit some violence if not soon rid of the sight of him. Slip- 
 ping into a short walking-coat of heavy frieze, Waldemar an- 
 nounced, patronizingly, he would go with them part of the 
 way. 
 
 "I've got an idea I know what house that is," he chuckled. 
 "I wonder if that's what his 'important business' was. The 
 young rogue ! Takin' a leaf out of somebody's book, eh ? 
 He'll be all the more valuable to somebody after this. Lots of 
 good experience, but no money to make him cocky. If it's the 
 one I think it is, McKiss, you're quite right about his not af- 
 fording the notoriety. His father's a very respected man in 
 these parts, the only one they take their hats off to. They 
 don't do it to the Squire or me, who could buy and sell him
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 411 
 
 fifty times over. . . . What did you hear while you were 
 hiding under that house ? Any names or anything ?" 
 
 McKiss answered shortly that they had not. There had 
 been some kind of a fight and some piano-playing. That was 
 all they could make out. Then three men had come out, wear- 
 ing oilskins and fishermen's boots. They had heard them say 
 enough, outside, to know they were off in a motor-boat to 
 cruise around until they picked up some ship. One of them 
 had asked how many trips they would have to make before 
 the cargo was landed and another had replied, "Probably 
 four." He thought he knew one of the voices, a Tenderloin 
 Voice certainly. But it had been too dark to see any one. 
 
 And now they were going back to lie in wait for the re- 
 hirn of this trio. 
 
 "But I don't advise you to come along, Congressman," Mc- 
 fciss said sourly. "You walk too heavy, for one thing. You'll 
 give us away. They're suspicious enough as it is. One of the 
 young fellows they left behind heard us crawling out from 
 under and came to the door. And if the wind hadn't blown 
 out his lamp, lie mighta blown out somebody's brains. Any- 
 way he was shouting he'd shoot if we didn't produce regular 
 passports." 
 
 "Much chance him shootin' if it's who I think it is !" Wal- 
 demar was all genial scorn. 
 
 "But, of course, it mightn't be. There's five of those 
 shootin'-boxes, as they call 'em, though they're pretty large 
 boxes, along the cliffs, and all a few miles from here. What 
 does it look like exactly." 
 
 "Considering we've never been there except at night, sorry 
 not to be able to oblige you," returned McKiss, exasperated. 
 "We called up the phone exchange, but the directions they 
 gave us wasn't worth the trouble. So we had to waste our 
 time scouting around three of 'em before we found the right 
 one. The others were all boarded up. Each one's on a hill, 
 each one's surrounded by trees so the ducks can't see it, or 
 you either. And at night you're liable to walk right off the
 
 412 God's Man 
 
 earth if you ain't careful. Specially a dark night like this. I 
 wouldn't go if I were you, Mr. Waldemar ; what good'll it do 
 you?" 
 
 "Oh, let him alone, Mac," said Jones irritably. 
 
 McKiss relapsed into gloom and walked on ahead, occa- 
 sionally flashing the pocket torch enclosed in his palm. The 
 chalet's telephone number yielding Waldemar no further in- 
 formation, he too fell silent; only the possibility of it being 
 Arnold's scheme that was to be circumvented, produced, now 
 and again, a ruminative chuckle. 
 
 "I always said he'd make a good business man," reflected 
 the Honnible Johnnie. And guffawed loudly. 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't do that," urged McKiss pathetically. 
 Whenever Waldemar chuckled, McKiss seemed to see the 
 stained-glass Vampire grinning. He felt he would go mad if 
 that infernal chuckle came again. To one suffering from a 
 sense of guilt, yet pursuing his guilty way, the sighing of the 
 trees, the occasional hoots of owls and wails of whip-poor- 
 wills, and the fact that the fog made it well nigh impossible to 
 distinguish objects a hand's breadth beyond, meant sinister 
 visioning to one of a superstitious race, seeing with the eye of 
 an awakened conscience. 
 
 Jones, recognizing in his friend's voice a note to be feared, 
 fell back. "Don't mind him," he whispered as he pressed 
 Waldemar's arm. "He's all worked up, the crazy Harp . . ." 
 
 The fog was thicker by the time they left the Waldemar es- 
 tate for the open field, part of the little property retained by 
 the Indian-negroes over Snake Hollow way, bisected by a 
 foot-path leading to their village. 
 
 McKiss, cautiously inspecting his surroundings by the aid 
 of flashes from his shielded pocket-torch, announced that they 
 had lost their way. 
 
 Waldemar, more familiar with the country, proffered assist- 
 ance. "If it's the place I think it is," he affirmed, after a sim- 
 ilar investigation, "we've come half a mile we needn't have." 
 
 Under his guidance, they crawled back through his barbed
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 413 
 
 wire fence and plunged into his woods again. The tolling of 
 the bell on the channel-buoy, and the mournful mooing of the 
 Middle-Ground fog-horn, proved he knew whither he led 
 them, proved the final undoing of McKiss' nerves. So much 
 so that, when they sank knee-deep into a gully full of leaves 
 and a flock of pheasants rose about them with shrill and dis- 
 cordant screams, cold sweat stood out on his forehead. His 
 heart began beating wildly. 
 
 He was all nerves. To him the forest was alive with the 
 creatures of Irish legend and Eoman myth, the good spirits 
 bidding him beware "ere it was too late," the demons cackling 
 over his fast approaching destruction. He seemed to hear 
 light footfalls on the forest floor, lighter whisperings over- 
 head. He wanted to shriek, to run wildly back toward lights 
 and civilization. But the courage of cowardice, the lack of 
 moral courage, kept him on his predestined way. 
 
 And then a sullen desperation settled on him, a new hy- 
 pothesis presenting itself. Did he think that sudden repent- 
 ance, without penance, sufficed to wipe out the wrong he had 
 done in the last five years? . . . 
 
 Suddenly, out of nowhere, was limned for him the meeting 
 of a shabby curly-haired boy and a cherry-hatted girl whose 
 hard eyes softened at the sight of him ; limned in the light of 
 a ghostly carbon-candle crackling and "sputtering in a great 
 elliptical glass-bubble, high overhead. 
 
 Against its pole, he leaned and listened. But suddenly and 
 almost with a snarl, he broke and ran most of the way 
 home. . . . 
 
 Such had McKiss been. Long afterward, some one had 
 brought him news of Father Collins. The old priest had 
 begged his bishop to transfer him from the city ; he had lost 
 faith when his best-loved altar-boy had gone the accepted 
 New York way. 
 
 A thought shaped itself somehow, in McKiss's mind ; he was 
 to begin doing penance for all the ill he had wrought since 
 then. He passed from fear to desperation, from desperation
 
 414 God's Man 
 
 to a sort of fierce frenzy. Let God have it over and done with. 
 Then he might begin living it down. He remembered that 
 the Canton Street Parish-House wanted some one as big of 
 heart as of biceps to salvage human flotsam. The offer had 
 been made to one of his Catholic confreres who had retold it 
 to the Central Office as a rare jest. (McKiss recalled, roaring, 
 too.) 
 
 Now he was conscious of a desperate hope that perhaps 
 the size of his heart might be condoned not the dimin- 
 ished size of it it was large enough, but bloated; fattened, 
 rich with unhealthy fat as any Strasburg goose but of 
 sentimental substance. McKiss would have sobbed more 
 loudly than Archie at Pink's pianissimo pathos; he had 
 trained himself to sob just as he had trained himself to 
 give dimes to army lassies then, conscious of his recti- 
 tude, he could collect the dollars of the lassies of the larger 
 army. He knew why now ; but he did not know why he knew. 
 Nor would any one have known. But the seed of all this had 
 been sown when alone and camped beneath the stars, the un- 
 welcome conviction had then come that he was little better 
 than Schmucke. And that seed had been forced to flower to- 
 night in the orchid hothouse of the emotions. Thus were the 
 pseudo-art of an otherwise useless charlatan and his own 
 existence justified. Petty's too. Eeptile ? Not at all. Unre- 
 fined phosphorus that was being shaped into a pencil with 
 which to scrawl Mene, tekie upharsin again ! 
 
 IV. THE SHOTS IN THE DARK 
 
 In the chalet, Beau had long since dropped off to sleep, 
 an arm thrown over his eyes to hide the steady glare of the 
 little lamp on the floor. They hardly needed that protec- 
 tion now; the oil was low and much of the opium, spoiled by 
 Archie's efforts to cook it, having fallen into the flame, the 
 wick was reduced to a sullen red cinder, which, with the dying
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 415 
 
 fire, gave so little light that even Archie's excited face, bend- 
 ing over the lamp, was in shadow. 
 
 Yet he persisted in his attempt to cook. 
 
 In his highly excited state, he must do something. Even 
 though the pupils of his eyes were narrowed to needle-points 
 by over-indulgence in the drug, he imagined that more would 
 bring surcease. So he continued, swearing extravagantly as 
 each successive effort failed. "Cooking" had looked so easy in 
 the experienced hands of Beau, that Archie could not realize 
 it was a highly complicated process having to do with stages 
 of heat and cold a process that, if varied by a tenth of a de- 
 gree, meant failure. 
 
 Three hours of Arnold's absence had passed. Frequently 
 Archie took out his watch and worried it, spinning it around 
 on its chain, aimlessly; squirting it out from between thumb 
 and forefinger and letting it fall, dangling, much to its inner 
 detriment. He would lie thus engaged, his blue eyes, glassy 
 from the drug, fixed steadily on something until they saw 
 nothing, his mind, the while, equally a blank. Then some 
 anarchistic muscle would discover that the brain was no 
 longer supreme and would declare its independence, causing 
 an involuntary jerk of arm or leg, and Archie would come out 
 of his mental coma and, while the brain was rallying its 
 forces, seize on one of the cooking-needles and dig vigorously 
 into the contents of the white China "toey." The early stages 
 of the cooking, the transmutation of the brown mass into 
 golden flakes and bubbles, was easily enough accomplished. 
 But when he would have kneaded this residue, it fired up and 
 fell into the flame, or else flaked off and fell on the tray. 
 Furiously he would jab at it until he had bent all the yen- 
 hoks. Then he must desist and make them red-hot to 
 straighten them again. 
 
 Finally a destructive idea occurred to him: he would not 
 knead the stuff, but roll it, raw; and thus he managed to affix 
 to the bowl a number of rudely shaped cones, which, being 
 charred and nauseous, made him cough and choke to swallow
 
 416 God's Man 
 
 their smoke. But, though it made him feel ill, so elated was 
 he with his success that he rolled half a dozen or more, until 
 Nature rebelled and gagged him. When he opened his eyes, 
 after fighting off this state, he saw the wick begin to waver, 
 the flame sink rapidly until, incontinently, it was extinguished 
 in a column of blue spirals very unpleasant to smell. The oil 
 was out ! 
 
 Voicing shrilly his disappointment, he awakened Beau, who 
 blinked at the dying blaze of the hearth-fire and sniffed. 
 "Lamp's out/' he stated peacefully. 
 
 "And just when I was beginning to cook all right," Archie 
 complained in head tones, high and querulous. "Just when 
 I was getting to know how. I'm the unluckiest person in the 
 whole world. There's nobody I ever heard of has my rotten 
 luck." 
 
 "You had enough long ago, sucker," yawned Beau, prepar- 
 ing to sleep again and purposely omitting the information as 
 to the oil's whereabouts. He was a little afraid of Arnold's 
 anger should Archie be entirely incapacitated. 
 
 "Wake me up when you hear him coming. Better clear that 
 junk away." Taking his pillows, he rolled nearer the fire, for 
 cover drawing down a near-by overcoat. Shortly he was snor- 
 ing, but the crackling of the fire Archie had thrown on more 
 wood as the wind came down the chimney, reduced his nasal 
 noises to a sort of humming. Archie again aroused by the in- 
 voluntary action of a leg muscle, arose and began to put the 
 room to rights, but quite mechanically. When he had carried 
 the lay-out to the kitchen, nausea overwhelmed him and he sat 
 down, heavily and unhappily; the griping pains in his stom- 
 ach, superinduced by the raw opium he had forced down, 
 doubled him up in agony. Several times he essayed to inform 
 Beau that he was poisoned. Each time Beau buried his face 
 deeper in the overcoat. 
 
 It was then that Archie's abnormaliy sharpened senses be^ 
 came aware of a second noise : a distinctly stealthy footfall. 
 
 The wind had died down into that sort of ominous caln
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 417 
 
 when the barometer can almost be heard in its steady fall. 
 After a long lapse Archie heard the noise again. And now his 
 skin was stretched as tight as his teeth were clenched ; his eye- 
 balls bulged ; for not only did he hear, but his mind's eye visu- 
 alized. 
 
 That something out there; that something taking long 
 steps, and raising each foot, and gauging the extreme length 
 of each step, and putting down the foot gingerly; that some- 
 thing he now saw as a satyr. 
 
 If the black dog bestrode McKiss' back, it rode rampant on 
 Archie's. His was the same consciousness of evil done. His 
 effort to allay it with a drug had but increased its power, that 
 power that forced him to see a ghoulish specter out there, 
 something more horrible than the stained-glass man-eater 
 the memory of which still weighed down the soul of the ap- 
 proaching McKiss. 
 
 The steps were nearer now, a third, a fourth. As hapless 
 folk in nightmares, who try to shriek aloud but only gurgle, 
 who try to flee but find the brain can no longer control the 
 body, Archie sat, his horror-stricken gaze fastened on the 
 drawn window-blinds. Presently these would be pushed aside, 
 and a face would grin at him. His heart told him that when 
 that happened, he would die. 
 
 If only it would hasten, would have done. But no ! those 
 long deliberate steps continued ; between each a stabbing pain 
 of memory of what might have been. For Archie was the sen- 
 timentalist led astray. His respect, nay reverence, for good 
 had ever remained unchanged. Sinners of his sort, slaves of 
 circumstance, die shrieking for forgiveness. Such as he seek 
 refuge in strong drink, in a state of soddenness, because they 
 are afraid to think, afraid to face the issue; therefore, of all 
 profligates, go most swiftly down the path that leadeth to 
 destruction. 
 
 Thus, then, Archie sat, for what seemed hours a few sec- 
 onds in fact until the great back-log fell with its shower of 
 sparks. The sound awoke Beau, also, and even reached the
 
 418 God's Man 
 
 cautiously approaching Petty Schmucke; the satyr of the 
 stealthy footsteps whose retreating patter was, in turn, car- 
 ried to the startled Beau. 
 
 "By God ! you're right. There is somebody out there ; some- 
 body spyin* on us. Come on, quick." 
 
 The shock of a tension too suddenly released was such that 
 it snapped the thin bowstring of Archie's sanity. Blood 
 streamed from his lips; he was wild with pain. His peasant 
 body, ceasing to have the guidance of his patroon's brain, was, 
 for a brief space, swayed only by fierce sensations. 
 
 Beau, taking the key from his pocket, ran to the door and 
 flung it wide. "Hands up there, whoever you are," he yelled. 
 "We've got a gun. We'll shoot." At the very words he felt 
 behind him something like the rushing of wind, and saw an 
 automatic whirled high in air. 
 
 Of such swift moments, one remembers later what, at the 
 time, one merely apprehends. To Beau, Archie seemed like 
 some giant; his body bulked so big that there was room for 
 only one within the doorway. 
 
 Beau stepped down; so, at least, his conceit said. Eeally 
 he sprawled. Thus the first shots seemed only the echoes of 
 what was, to him, the most important happening of the 
 moment. 
 
 He sat up dazed, and turned to Archie, framed by the fire- 
 lit doorway. To some, he might have seemed to sway like a 
 drunken man, but not to Beau, who was a child of the Bowery 
 where physique is not and gun-play is. He knew that Archie 
 was pivoting on his heel, head and hand thrown high, his arm 
 a compass leg, its point the pistol. 
 
 As this described a deadly semicircle, pink flowers of flame 
 were born. . . 
 
 Cautiously Beau crawled across the porch. He knew it 
 meant death for somebody. His blood was water. And so 
 . . . Beau reached Archie and gripped him. But the shots 
 had come more swiftly than he and, now, the automatic 
 snapped futilely. That Beau was unaware of this was evident
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 419 
 
 from his clenched teeth, clenched as tight as were his arms 
 about Archie's ankles. 
 
 In a last berserk paroxysm, Archie beat down at the other 
 boy's head. But the new-born Beau was too precious to die in 
 infancy, and Archie stumbled, the weapon flying far, falling 
 somewhere. Archie swinging back pendulum-like fell too, 
 but there was a long wicker chair at his back to receive him. 
 
 Here he sat, half -sprawled, his eyes unseeing, and as queru- 
 lous as some tormented child's. Collapse, at last, utter, abso- 
 lute. The eyes closed; interlocked, rather. His mouth fell 
 wide. How weak it was, that mouth ! 
 
 "He's a baby. A poor little baby," sobbed the new-born 
 Beau, forgetting to pity himself in the presence of one so 
 transcendently in need of protection. 
 
 A great sigh shook Archie, a long-drawn shudder followed. 
 Then, sleep ; if sleep can be so ill a thing. 
 
 Then silence once more, out of which came toll of bell and 
 sob of fog-horn. 
 
 Footsteps again. Not stealthy now. Nor frightened. Nor 
 fleeing. 
 
 Beau stood beside the stricken Archie, dazed. A streamer 
 of light fell athwart the fog-wreathed trunks of the trees out- 
 side. Traveling slowly along the September sward, it passed 
 the door, irradiating porch and fretted woodwork railing, 
 pausing at its dwarfed stoop. 
 
 Then the sound of other feet irresolute unwilling fee- 
 bly afraid. Whispering followed, and the lighting up of the 
 window blind. Then on the flickering patch of firelight on 
 the floor, ... a shadow as of a giant forefinger too 
 thick to be a man's forefinger, at all. . . . Beau recog- 
 nized it for what it was. (Anybody would, nowadays; adver- 
 tisements of just such a finger in just such an attitude being 
 numerous.) As it appeared, it, disappeared, the firelit floor, 
 too; for the spotlight had been centered on the standing 
 Beau, the sprawling Archie. 
 
 Beau had thrown up both hands immediately on the
 
 420 God's Man 
 
 of the shadow. But it needed more than shadows and spot- 
 lights to disturb Archie; his arms hung limply, finger-tips 
 touching the floor. 
 
 "He's all in, can't you see?" squeaked Beau. His words 
 seemed to convince, for the spotlight faded out, and in swept 
 a pair of shadows so big as to blot out the firelit patch again ; 
 their human prototypes following as swiftly. . . . one of 
 them tigerishly, too finger trembling on the trigger of a 
 great ugly navy revolver. 
 
 Was that a human face? The blood-lusting lion was as a 
 king to a slave, compared to Burly Jones, baring dog-teeth, 
 grinding molars. 
 
 "Go to hell, Burly," shrieked Beau ; one outflung arm pro- 
 tected the helpless Archie, the other gripped Archie's chair, 
 the knuckles straining out every drop of blood, every atom of 
 warmth. 
 
 "Come on," said Jones savagely. "Get out of this, you 
 damned !" 
 
 McKiss intervened. His face was drawn with pain, his 
 eyes gloomy, his left arm helpless. Clotted blood streaked his 
 wrist; it was black and coagulated where his sleeve was 
 burned. 
 
 "I'm sorry you're mixed up in this, young fellow," he man- 
 aged to say to Beau. Jones meanwhile had handcuffed Beau ; 
 to whom the sight and sound of snapping handcuffs were bit- 
 ter reminders that, as usual, appearances were against him. 
 
 "Hey," he blustered, albeit feebly. "WhatVmatter with 
 you fellows ? Crazy, ain't you ?" 
 
 Jones paid him no attention. "Come to earth, Mac," he 
 screamed, adding obliquities. 
 
 Archie's wrists were braceleted. "Quit stalling, will you? 
 Stand up, can't you ?" 
 
 "Give him your shoulder, Markowitz," suggested McKiss. 
 
 "March, now," commanded Jones ; and with his automatic's 
 muzzle in the small of Archie's back, he marched them from 
 ^the house.
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 421 
 
 "I'm sorry about that arm of yours, Mac," he remembered 
 to say ungraciously enough. "But you'll have to lead the 
 way. / can't do it all. . . . Would you ? is that so ?" 
 
 He brought his heavy weapon down between Archie's shoul- 
 der-blades. Archie's steel-encircled wrists had shot up above 
 his head, but at the deadening blow, they dangled helpless as 
 before. . . . 
 
 "Get on," Jones warned ferociously. "Make another move 
 and I'll brain you." . . . 
 
 Beau had tried to ask a question, and Jones had pushed him 
 back with a flattened palm. "Get on! I tell you," he 
 shouted. . . . 
 
 His black company moved out into the all-embracing fog. 
 A pale shaft of light marking their progress a black com- 
 pany indeed: one bandaging his arm with his handkerchief, 
 knotting his necktie over it, with his teeth ; for he must hold 
 the torch with his uninjured arm ; the other held two hand- 
 cuffed prisoners ; and blacker than the Black Man himself, gun 
 for goad, herding them like sheep for the slaughter. 
 
 In the darkness they passed two others whose faces were 
 buried deep in the sweet September wild-flowers. . . . 
 Petty Schmucke had learned to lie log-like in the best of 
 schools. 
 
 The other man not even a log could lie quieter. And when 
 the "flash" fell on the hand that clutched his throat, four wavy 
 parallel lines of red showed between tight-clenched fingers. 
 
 Then the light went out and left the dead man lying there. 
 
 V. HAETOGENSIS HALL AGAIN 
 
 Soon after Waldemar had left him, the Squire had fallen 
 asleep before the fire; but, scowling as he slept, had caused 
 Butler to fear his wrath should he be awakened, so noise- 
 lessly feeding the fire with a few logs, the servant had betaken 
 himself to bed. He would not have feared a little later, for 
 the scowl was of short duration; representing a minor inci-
 
 422 God's Man 
 
 dent in an otherwise pleasant dream ; one of convicting an in- 
 solent peasant to long imprisonment, he having abated the 
 deference due one of high degree. 
 
 All save the four candles in the candelabrum nearest the 
 Squire had been extinguished ; and by now these were gutter- 
 ing out into blue flame. He roused himself, surprised: he 
 must have been asleep for hours. Then the booming of the 
 door-knocker shook the house with echoes and reverberations, 
 and, for once, the Squire regretted that he had not the usual 
 door-bell in its stead. That, ringing in the pantry, would 
 have permitted him his sleep undisturbed. But as the serv- 
 ants' quarters were over the garage, he must himself answer 
 the door or pretermit that awful noise. He was alone in the 
 big house, Archie being in New York, Archie's brothers at 
 boarding-school. 
 
 Once more some one banged the heavy bronze lion against 
 its metal frame. Again the echoes ran riot. The Squire 
 arose, somewhat laboriously; went grumbling to the door. 
 After all, it must be a matter of some grave import if people 
 made such clack and clatter about it at such an hour. He 
 stumbled through the darkness and opened the door. 
 
 "Well?" he growled, pushing at the black button of the 
 porchway's electric switch. The great Flemish lantern was 
 immediately irradiated, the rays from the giant bulb within it 
 beating down upon the group outside. He saw the flash of 
 nickel-plated handcuffs, the drawn revolver, the bloody sleeve. 
 One of the prisoners had hidden his face in the hollow of his 
 arm. 
 
 "What's this ?" the Squire tried to growl. McKiss, his face 
 twitching with pain, pushed past him. "Where's your tele- 
 phone ?" he groaned. "Quick ! if I don't get a doctor, I'l/go 
 mad !" The instrument was shining in the reflected light, 
 standing in an alcove by the footman's seat. Catching at it, 
 McKiss pushed down the hook, then saw the handle of the bell 
 and cranked it. "Hello ! Give me the nearest doctor, please. 
 Be quick about it, too. It's serious."
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 423 
 
 "It's pretty important, Squire," said Burly Jones. "We 
 heard Mr. Waldemar say you were a J. P., and we didn't know 
 where else to go." Throwing back a coat-lapel, he jerked his 
 waistcoat backward from an arrnhole, showing a badge pinned 
 to his braces. "Get on, you!" he said, roughly pushing the 
 two prisoners forward, one of whom, the man with his face 
 hidden, moaned as he stumbled over the threshold. Within, 
 this man fell prone upon the cushioned window seat, face still 
 hidden. 
 
 "Come right away, Doctor a shattered elbow, I'm afraid. 
 Terrible agony. Happened half-an-hour ago. Pistol-shot 
 pistol-shot. Yes ! Hurry, please hurry. The Squire's house., 
 Squire Hartogensis's," McKiss hung up. "You haven't got 
 some whisky, have you, Squire. A slug of that might hold 
 me till the doctor comes." 
 
 Squire Hartogensis, dazed by his sudden wakening and the 
 strange experience of the moment, pointed dumbly toward the 
 open door beyond which candles sputtered. McKiss, holding 
 his arm stiffly, lit another file of them, and looked about him 
 fiercely. In the silence, the moaning of him upon the couch 
 was plainly heard. "Shut up, will you!" threatened Jonas. 
 "A pair of gunmen, Squire. Yes, sir; a pair of thieving 
 killers." 
 
 McKiss had found the decanter, filled a goblet almost to the 
 brim, gulped it clean again, staggered back and sat down, 
 passing a hand across his eyes. "You'll have to send for 
 somebody, Squire," said Jones. "Can't you get the sheriff on 
 the phone ? Or had I better call up the Congressman's house 
 and have his servants bring him home. May I have a drink of 
 that stuff, too? Thanks!" 
 
 "Bring who home?" stammered the Squire. He had not 
 had time to recover the dignity dear to him : the shock of this 
 armed invasion had followed too suddenly upon his rude 
 awakening. Jones let his automatic clank down upon the long 
 carved center-table as he poured. 
 
 "Mr. Waldemar," he replied, drank and pointed. "These
 
 424 God's Man 
 
 murderers shot him haff an hour ago." A louder moan broke 
 from the man whose face was hidden. "Yes, he's dead all 
 right, Squire/' Jones continued. "His body's lying a couple 
 of miles from here. We couldn't bring him : had our hands 
 full getting these killers here. They shot my friend, too. 
 Notice his arm." 
 
 The Squire sat stark and silent. Waldemar dead ! It was 
 some time before the full extent of this calamity became clear 
 to him. It was too incredible for belief. All they had planned 
 to-night done with forever? No more easy profits? No, it 
 was impossible. Only an hour ago talking here and now dead. 
 "Yes, it's impossible," he muttered aloud. "Dead? Im- 
 possible !" 
 
 "If you think so, you had better send somebody up there to 
 that place they call Bluff Eoad," Jones answered, wag- 
 ging his head and shaking his finger. "He and my friend and 
 I went for a stroll to talk over some business and " He 
 paused, alarmed by the contempt openly shown on the tor- 
 ture-racked face of his companion. "Anyway, these fellows 
 shot him," Jones reiterated doggedly, frowning McKiss down. 
 "And we haven't got anything to do with crimes committed in 
 this country we're New York Central-Office men. But we 
 weren't going to let these guys make any getaway while we 
 were around and maybe have the killing charged to us by these 
 jays around here. So we brought 'em along to 3 r ou. We'll 
 stick till your Sheriff conies and locks 'em up, though. And 
 we'll come back for the Coroner ; or stay overnight, just as you 
 say. But if s all up to you, Squire, the rest of it." 
 
 "I don't quite understand," said Hartogensis, beginning to 
 collect the scattered remnants of his self-possession. "Not 
 quite," he added, resuming something of his dignity, his tone 
 meant as an encouragement to Jones to express himself more 
 clearly ; to endeavor to ascend somewhere near to that Parnas- 
 sian altitude of clarity where he, the Squire, dwelt habitually, 
 and from which it was difficult for him to descend. 
 
 "You understand the Congressman is dead, don't you?"
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 425 
 
 McKiss asked sharply, his eyes luminous with pain. Though 
 the drink had thickened his speech, his agony was too acute 
 for any amount of alcohol to affect his brain. 
 
 "Now, Mac," protested Jones, in great uneasiness. "Keep 
 out o' this, now. Will you ? You ain't fit to talk nur to do 
 nothin' with that arm of yourn." Jones was plainly taken 
 aback by his partner's attitude. As he turned away his face 
 darkened with a look of positive dislike. 
 
 ''Well, Squire," he said harshly. "Why don't you phone 
 for the Sheriff, or somebody. Or are you gunna handle these 
 guys single-handed ? One of 'em's a desperit bad boy, I tell 
 you. Guess it was him that croaked the Congressman, though 
 you can't git a line on neither of 'em. Won't talk. But that 
 other one's too much of a big boob to shoot anybody/' He in- 
 dicated him of the hidden face, and scowled at the other, who, 
 upright and impudent, sat in a straight-backed chair. 
 
 "I'd like to have a cigarette, sucker," said this one calmly. 
 
 Jones eyed him in baffled despair. "If I had you at Head- 
 quarters, Mr. B. Markowitz, I'd soon take that freshness outa 
 you. . . . Look here, Squire, ain't you gunna do anything ?" 
 
 "Mr. Waldemar is shot, you say? shot by these young 
 hoodlums? And probably dead?" questioned the Squire in 
 those judicial tones he most admired, the tones of one who 
 weighs words, whose speech is slow and distinct so that not a 
 precious syllable shall be lost to the court-stenographer and 
 to an admiring posterity. "Probably dead." He nodded his 
 head sagely. 
 
 "No probably about it," McKiss broke in again. "I felt 
 his heart on the way back here. He's dead, dead, dead." His 
 voice rose with each syllable. "So what are you going to do? 
 what are you going to do? Are you going to let him lie 
 out there ? Let him lie out there ? Or are you going to send 
 somebody to get his body ? Going to send somebody to " 
 
 "Oh, Ood, don't !" The words followed a muffled scream 
 from the man, face downward. The Squire was startled, he 
 did not know just why. Really it was because of his famil-
 
 426 God's Man 
 
 iarity with the voice; but (such creatures of habit are we) to 
 connect the sound of his son's voice with that of a manacled 
 murderer was quite out of the question; besides Archie was 
 in New York. Therefore, vexed at his inability to identify the 
 curious sensation, he vented his irritation on the original 
 cause thereof. 
 
 "How dare you be insolent, sir ?" he demanded, swelling up, 
 and fixing McKiss with his little puffy eyes. "In my grand- 
 father's day, young man " He got no further. An hys- 
 terical laugh, muffled like the scream, came from the man on 
 the padded window-seat. A laugh? it was a harsh shrill 
 cackle containing no more mirth than the gibbering of a 
 maniac. Again that uncomfortable sensation. Again, failing 
 to identify it, anger. "By God, what does this mean?" the 
 Squire said loudly and smote the oak center-table as though 
 his fist were his gavel. 
 
 Matters had gone beyond his modicum of brain. There was 
 something sinister about the whole of the present business. 
 And he was here alone. Swayed by the psychic currents that 
 swept in circles around the room the superstitious fear of 
 McKiss, the material fear of Jones lest his companion tell too 
 much, the tragic fear of Archie the Squire had a subcon- 
 scious foreboding of disaster. This, translated into the con- 
 sciousness of an unimaginative man, became the fear of bodily 
 harm. The insane asylum at King's Park was not far dis- 
 tant. The Squire controlled a shudder as he remembered one 
 escaped and murderous lunatic who had been caught, years 
 ago, hiding in his shrubbery. "What had happened once. 
 . . . And lunatics had delusions that they were kings and 
 presidents and conquerors why not detectives ? 
 
 He breathed a prayer of devout gratitude as he heard the 
 wheels of some light vehicle grinding down the pebbled path- 
 way to the porte-cochere. So great was his relief he forgot his 
 dignity, and went to the doorway to greet the welcome stran- 
 ger. It was the doctor, a tall thin, gray-haired fellow with
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 427 
 
 bright bird-like eyes and a habit of whistling under his 
 breath; from which he paused now only long enough to 
 return the greeting; then went on attending to his horse 
 hitching him, covering his steaming sides with a woolen 
 blanket, accommodating him with a nose-bag full of oats. 
 Then, patting the animal's neck, the gangling doctor came up 
 the wide stone steps two at a time, his lips pursed in his eter- 
 nal silent whistle. 
 
 "Where's my man ! Well, well ! Arm, eh ? Horrible pain, 
 you said. Elbow smashed ! Tut, tut ! Elbows don't smash so 
 easily. Shot? Oh, well, a shot!" 
 
 He looked around, eying the scene curiously ; then decided 
 it was none of his business. Whipping out a case of glittering 
 scalpels, he selected one and slit the bloodied sleeve with the 
 precise accuracy of an expert, yet so swiftly that it seemed he 
 had hardly begun before he was done. McKiss wondered why 
 such an accomplished surgeon should live in a village : he was 
 yet to realize that some men lived for other things than money ; 
 this was the doctor'fe birthplace and he found it too comfort- 
 able to leave that was all. 
 
 "Heart strong ?" he asked abruptly. 
 
 "As an ox," McKiss returned between set teeth. 
 
 The doctor pursed his lips again and exhaled a whistled 
 whisper that even in his agony the detective remembered for 
 a ballad of his youth, Sweet Marie. But, somehow, far 
 from being irritating, the sound of it was soothing, 
 its double-quick tempo an indication of the celerity with 
 which relief approached. Into a tiny measuring-glass, the 
 doctor poured part of a spoonful of boiled water, dropped 
 into it two one-quarter-grain tablets of morphia and a 
 hundredth of a grain of atropine. Then, in doubt, he felt 
 his patient's pulse ; doubly assuring himself by kneeling, put- 
 ting aside McKiss's shirt and undervest, and listening to his 
 heart, which encouraged him to add another quarter grain 
 and an additional hundredth. This mixture, in a shining
 
 428 God's Man 
 
 syringe, lie shot beneath the skin of the uninjured arm, having 
 first had McKiss stretch out at length upon the other window- 
 seat, some pillows under his head. 
 
 "Kelax. Keep your eyes closed. I'll do the rest. You lie 
 still. And don't ask questions." He had opened his black 
 bag and was beginning to lay out other shining instruments, 
 along with bottles, medicated cotton, rolls of bandages and 
 adhesive plaster. As he worked at it, whistling noiselessly the 
 while, the Squire had crossed to the telephone and had bidden 
 the Deputy-Sheriff, Hugh Legare, hasten to him; then had 
 awakened the sleepy Pucker over at "Waldemar House, repeat- 
 ing mechanically the tragic information. At his every word, 
 Archie in his dark corner shivered and shook convulsively; 
 but the doctor's shocked surprise made itself evident only in 
 the diminished tempo of his suppressed whistling until he 
 had it down to the muffled drums of Chopin's Dead March. 
 
 For a moment there was silence. McKiss, grateful for the 
 soft repose that had begun to permeate his being, the obdu- 
 rate brain-cells being conquered for the moment and bidding 
 the body "Peace," gave himself up to luxuriating in his 
 momentary release from torture. One could hear only the 
 doctor's soft whistling and Archie's choked breathing. Beau 
 sat sullen, craving a cigarette. In the realization that 
 he must do without something he so much desired, his 
 first horror of the imprisonment he faced smote him. 
 His fear that Archie would not confess faded into a fear 
 that he would. What was death, death so sudden as to 
 be painless, compared with wanting cigarettes for a lifetime ? 
 Worse than that, for terror had beset him at the sight of the 
 medico's syringe: suppose he, Beaulieu Markowitz, should 
 have formed a habit for the opium? If so, in a few hours 
 (thirty, he had heard), a craving would begin compared to 
 which the present craving for cigarettes was as slight as the 
 difference between an epicure's desire for caviar and a starv- 
 ing man's stern need for anything that could be eaten. But 
 Beau's contempt for the police, plus the knowledge that Jones
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 429 
 
 knew almost all of his associates and would glory in telling 
 of it, should he weaken combined to keep up his apparent 
 stoicism. Actually, however, the fear that now beset him 
 made him weak as water. 
 
 The doctor's whistling came to a sudden stop, and, as 
 he did not utilize his lapse for conversation, this was indeed 
 a phenomenon. The reason might have been read in the 
 rounding of his eyes as he listened while Jones gave to the 
 Squire, to transmit to Pucker at the other end of the tele- 
 phone wire, a detailed description of where the fallen Walde- 
 mar would be found. Now, as the Squire hung up, the doc- 
 tor wondered aloud : it seemed a necessity to convince himself. 
 
 "The Pinckney property ? Why, young L'Hommedieu's liv- 
 ing there ! Arnold L'Hommedieu ! Arnold." And then he 
 turned, fiercely, and shook Beau's shoulder. "What have you 
 done with him, you little blackguard? Have you murdered 
 him, too? Have you murdered Arnold L'Hommedieu?" 
 
 "Never heard of no such person," returned Beau resentfully, 
 all the ethics of his profession in mind; for Beau, little as 
 he suspected it, was an idealist in his way the way of so 
 many professional lawbreakers. Let the ignorant scoff, the 
 Robin Hood legend lives, in all ages, in the persons of some of 
 its imitators. 
 
 "But you were in his house!" half -questioned, half-stated 
 the alarmed doctor, who, married to the daughter of Doctor 
 Will L'Hommedieu, had known Arnold since the younger 
 man's childhood, had helped train his budding mind, loved 
 him, as one alert mind in the midst of its duller brothers loves 
 another. 
 
 "Never heard of him, I tell you," Beau repeated in the 
 same sulky manner. "We got lost in that damn fog 
 and the door was unlocked. Wasn't anybody there, so we went 
 in to warm ourselves." 
 
 "That's a lie, and you know it," said McKiss, opening his 
 eyes. "Who's this you say, this Arnold L'Hommedieu, Doc- 
 tor ? Hired the house, did he ? He's a party to all this. Not
 
 430 God's Man 
 
 the murder, I don't mean the rest of it. The smuggling : 
 But McKiss was checked in further revelations by the leaping 
 up of Jones ; who, standing over his wounded companion, now 
 regarded him, sternly, threateningly, even going as far as to 
 cough loudly. But the effort of speech had broken the spell of 
 the morphine and had brought McKiss back to the realization 
 of other things besides his pain. "I wouldn't say anything, 
 young fellow," he said, disregarding Jones, addressing Beau. 
 "There's been enough damage done already by me meddling. 
 But it's a warning! A warning! I knew it was comin': I 
 knew. And when that shot struck me and I heard the Honni- 
 ble Johnnie cryin' out that he was hit, it was jest like I seen 
 me mother's face in the flashes out of the gun. Yes, and then 
 I hear her say, clost to me : ' 'Tis the last chance for ye, Mi- 
 chael, oh, my Michael/ She wouldn't call me Eugene like me 
 father, but always by the name that was to guard me, come 
 Communion. And it was like she told me to lie clost to the 
 ground and I wasn't hit no more at all. Bullets kept singing 
 around and hitting trees, but I knew she'd interceded for me 
 and it was for me to show now it was worthy I was. Then I 
 swore to the Blessed Mother that I'd never bate an inch of 
 going through for penance and to show me thankfulness, 
 besides." 
 
 For the second time in a night, his emotion had overcome 
 him and he had gone back again to childhood's Galway brogue. 
 "I ain't goin' to spare myself none, Markowitz," he added, re- 
 suming his Americanese. "You needn't look at me like that. 
 I know all Pve done, better'n you. I know I've been a rat, a 
 dirty dog anything you feel like calling me. And if you go 
 on up river, I'll be right there by your side a-makin' big ones 
 inta little ones just like you " He paused, exhausted. He 
 had spoken without thought, without respect to his recently 
 acquired grammar. He was as little aware of his solecisms as 
 he had been of his reaction to the Celtic idioms of his yester- 
 years. His eyes, again luminous with pain, were as wild as
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 431 
 
 they were bright ; the drug had only diminished the size of 
 the pupils without dulling them. 
 
 "And so I've got to see your friends don't land that opium," 
 he said, turning from the sight of his partner's brutal rage. 
 "If I let 'em land it, I won't be keepin' to what I swore, won't 
 be worthy of havin' my blessed Mother intercede for me. 
 I'm a rat, all right, and I've got hell shrieking for me being so 
 long coming home. But I ain't a goin' to be a rat any more, 
 young fellow, not any more " 
 
 "Come, my man ; you're delirious," said the doctor gently. 
 "I'm all ready for you now." He had been in the dining-room 
 and had returned with a silver pitcher, some of the water 
 from which he put to boil over a spirit lamp in an aluminum 
 basin both collapsible, both from one of his cases. He had 
 certain theories about colytics and used in his surgical work 
 nothing he, himself, had not unwrapped from medicated gauze 
 a moment before. 
 
 As he had passed into the darkened dining-room and was 
 about to strike a match to find what he wanted the candles 
 lit by McKiss having guttered out the fire also fallen low 
 the long mahogany table had been for a moment illumined as 
 if by a sudden sunbeam ; and, looking up, he saw that a long 
 shaft of light had fallen through the open oriel window. It 
 faded as he laid hands on the pitcher; but now, as his water 
 boiled, the light was explained by the birr of an approaching 
 motor. McKiss, reduced by his pain to mumbling, opened his 
 eyes at the sound. "Tut, tut, now," said the doctor. "Keep 
 quiet. Got to keep quiet." He had begun to spray the 
 wounded arm with cocaine. As a temporary numbness set in, 
 he began to bathe away coagulated blood, cleansing the black- 
 ened flesh, but pausing every minute to spray again. 
 
 The search-lights of the approaching car had found the 
 windows of Hartogensis Hall again and now the motor 
 chugged and hissed outside. Resting as it did on an upward 
 slant of the road, its lights illumined the drawn white blinds
 
 432 God's Man 
 
 of one of the great bay-windows so that Archie, his face still 
 hidden, lay in a pool of lambent light. Following this illumi- 
 nation came a sudden thumping of the bronze lion, and when 
 the Squire opened the door which continued to quiver 
 from the knocker's impact, there entered a very Magog of a 
 man, one Hugh Legare, Sheriff's Deputy for Havre de Grace, 
 descendant of another Hugh, a zealous Huguenot and faithful 
 body squire (reputed gigantic also), who had followed the 
 fortunes of the founder of Havre de Grace, the Chevalier 
 L'Hommedieu. But, gigantic or not, he could have been no 
 finer figure of a man than Sheriff Hugh, who, single-handed, 
 could see to it that any ordinary half-dozen roysterers kept the 
 peace. 
 
 "How did it happen ?" burst perplexedly from this Colossus 
 as he entered. He was followed by the two Havre de Grace 
 constables, Tom Bowne and Tom Heaney, both strapping 
 sizable fellows, handy with their "fives"; though neither 
 seemed of more than ordinary proportions measured along- 
 side the Colossus. These two Toms stood guard, one on each 
 side of the great oaken door; while Legare (pronounced Le- 
 gree in Havre de Grace) strode toward the center-table, and 
 from that point of vantage, scrutinized the strangers. "I 
 say : how did it happen, Squire ?" he asked again. 
 
 But Benjamin Hartogensis was too occupied in experiencing 
 the relief Legare's appearance induced in him; so that Mc- 
 Kiss, for all the added pain of the doctor's efforts, seized the 
 opportunity to snarl out: "Smuggling; that's how. And 
 there's more of 'em, all bringing a shipload of opium ashore. 
 They're at it this very minute, if they haven't done it already. 
 Send your men quick, Mr. Sheriff. The doctor here knows 
 where." McKiss had spoken every word through clenched 
 teeth; now he relapsed, gritting them. Any outward exhibi- 
 tion of his agony might seem unmanly to the stoic Beau for, 
 equally with thieves, thief-takers desire their enemies shall 
 believe them dauntless. "They've got a motor-car and they'll
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 433 
 
 have the first load half-way up the Jericho Turnpike if you 
 don't hurry," he managed to add, faintly, then closed his eyes. 
 
 Burly Jones had listened holding his breath, the hatred of 
 a chained wild beast shining in his pale-green eyes ; so much 
 of it in fact that, when McKiss ceased speaking and failed 
 to restrain a groan as the doctor's extractor probe brought out 
 the bloody bullet, Jones failed to restrain a malicious grin 
 which directed the Sheriff's scrutiny to him. The doctor has- 
 tened to prepare another injection lest his patient leap up un- 
 able longer to withstand the torture. 
 
 "Too bad they held me up on that chloroform," the doctor 
 
 muttered. "Damn this rotten Long Island railroad service. 
 
 
 "What kind of a doctor are you, anyway ?" sneered Jones. 
 "Nobody but a fool would let him talk and excite himself." 
 
 "Shall I gag him ?' returned the doctor, with some acerbity ; 
 he did not like Jones' eyes, anyway. "Or will you ?" His al- 
 most noiseless whistling, resumed, was nearly tuneless now, 
 his entire mentality being concentrated on the hardy sufferer. 
 
 The Colossus eyed the sullen Beau, then the prostrate 
 Archie, limned in the search-lights of the motor-car outside. 
 A frown came to Legare's huge face, growing darkness to 
 his eyes. The two Toms, never before called on to serve in 
 any exploit more hazardous than the arrest of speeding motor- 
 ists or brawling revelers, stood stiffly erect, ready to resent 
 any offensive comparisons between themselves and the metro- 
 politan constabulary, hoping their frowns and compressed lips 
 gave detectives and criminals alike to understand that here 
 were two stern officers, perilous men. 
 
 The Colossus continued to stare, rubbing his palm along a 
 corrugated patch in his oilskin coat (the fog had turned to 
 rain before he had been awakened), which disturbed pocket 
 surface denoted a heavy old-fashioned Colt's revolver under- 
 neath. "But what about the Honnible Johnnie?" he asked 
 slowly. "Mr. Waldemar, I mean, Squire. They shot him?
 
 434 God's Man 
 
 That fellow?" He indicated Beau. "And him?" He hesitated 
 before pointing to Jones, wondering that he wore no handcuffs. 
 
 "Me?" choked Jones. "Me!! Holy Jumping Me!!!" 
 Strange weird oaths rattled in his throat, but for the moment, 
 he was too enraged to articulate at all. "Why, you big stupid 
 jay! You poor ruben!! You why, damn your why 
 look here !" Kealizing his inability to do the situation oral 
 justice, he choked again, displayed his badge. "There's the 
 other fellow." He indicated Archie. 
 
 "Him!" Legare gasped unbelievingly. Xot only was his 
 sight keener than the Squire's, but that worthy had not 
 glanced in Archie's direction since the Sheriff's search-lights 
 had illumined the window-blinds. Had he done so, he could 
 not have failed to recognize the high round shoulders, the 
 tight collar forcing up two fleshy creases amid the closely- 
 clipped hair though in truth the collar was now soiled be- 
 yond belief for the immaculate Aramis of the Musketeers. 
 
 But the Squire was now too busy to look ; he was filling out 
 John Doe warrants for the apprehension of "three parties, 
 unknown," together with orders for their incarceration 
 pending instructions from the County Court-House to- 
 gether with that of the two prisoners then present. Knowing 
 little of law and less of its procedure in criminal cases, he was 
 concerned only to conceal his ignorance. Then, too, he wrote 
 under the only light in the hall, and his eyes, short-sighted 
 enough without his glasses (which were somewhere in his 
 study), were further dimmed by its glare. 
 
 "We went walking with the Congressman," McKiss had 
 continued, meanwhile. "I suppose these two here were left 
 behind on watch. The others went out in the boat to land the 
 stuff. . . . All of a sudden (you know how dark it is to- 
 night), I see a door flung open about a block away and then 
 this shooting began. It was all over before we unloaded our 
 own cannisters. They got the Congressman with the first 
 shot. I was potted next. Then the shooting stopped just as 
 sudden as it began, and my pal and me scouted around and
 
 The Night of the Seventeenth 435 
 
 nailed 'em. Neither one of 'em had a cannon on him, and 
 they won't say which one done the shootin'. I guess both of 
 'em did. Well it just means life for both 'stid of the chair 
 for one, that's all." He closed his eyes. 
 
 "But him!" said Legare. "Him what was he doing 
 there?" He pointed to Archie. "There must be some mis- 
 take." . . . 
 
 "You see it, too ?" the doctor asked quietly, but not turning 
 or ceasing in his work. "I thought I was right. It's terrible, 
 Legree. It's terrible !" 
 
 The Squire finished filling out his warrants. "If you know 
 either of these men, I'll put his name here instead of 'John 
 Doe/ " 
 
 "Put down <B. Markowitz' for that fellow there," growled 
 Jones. "These gentlemen seem to know the other one; he's 
 a stranger to me." 
 
 "Here, I can't stand this," said the Colossus, as the doctor 
 broke into a fit of coughing. "Take those fellows out of here 
 quick," he added to the two Toms ; then, under pretense of 
 reading the warrants under the single hall light, he planted 
 his huge bulk between the Squire and the sight of the door. 
 "Get a move on, you idiots," he yelled. "Go on. Get 'em 
 out, I tell you. . . . Now, Squire. About this smug- 
 gling. . . ." 
 
 Continuing his pretense with what little ingenuity his slow 
 wits could muster, the Colossus leaned over, still standing, 
 planting both elbows on the table and compelling the Squire's 
 gaze by sheer concentration and strength of will. "About 
 this smuggling," he repeated in a firm clear voice, but alas ! 
 Hugh Legare's brain lacked the bigness of his heart. Fur- 
 ther duplicity failed him. 
 
 The Squire eyed him importantly, having regained his 
 usual portentous dignity by the written exercise of his official 
 powers. "About that name, first, Legree," he said patroniz- 
 ingly, tapping the warrant withheld. "You say you recog- 
 nized the other murderer?" He held his pen poised.
 
 436 God's Man 
 
 In the silence, the Colossus stared at him in helpless dis- 
 may ; listening in vain for the opening and closing of the door 
 which would render unnecessary his own witnessing of a do- 
 mestic tragedy. The Squire made an impatient gesture. "Well, 
 Sheriff, well, well," he demanded fussily. Came only the 
 sound of the sputtering spirit-lamp and the bubbling song of 
 the boiling water in the basin. The doctor's noiseless whis- 
 tling might have been heard in that silence had his lips not 
 been unable to form even so slight a sound. Then the hard 
 breathing of the two Toms reached the ear of the Colossus. 
 His heavy fists clenched until the knuckles seemed about to 
 pop forth from them like ripe gooseberries from their skins. 
 
 "You God-damned f ools," he yelled suddenly ; then turned, 
 but still his bulk was between the Squire and the door. 
 
 "He's fainted dead away," whined Heaney, such Colossal 
 rage routing all remembrance of his own stern perilous na- 
 ture. 
 
 And even as he spoke, at the touch of Heaney's hand, 
 Archie's senseless body rolled from the narrow window-seat 
 and tumbled heavily to the floor. The Squire, annoyed at 
 Legare's apparent disrespect, pushed him aside, with what 
 would have been pettishness in a younger man. "What's this ?" 
 he demanded, additionally annoyed by the sudden shock the 
 noise of Archie's fall had given him. He shook off Legare's 
 hand and came forward. "What does all this mean, I say?" 
 
 And then he saw. For that part of the Persian rug where 
 Archie had fallen was just within the radius of the Sheriff's 
 search-lights. And in that patch of brightness, his face up- 
 turned, his eyes blue-lidded, Squire Hartogensis saw the father 
 of that grandson before whom peasants were to bend the knee 
 and stand, with heads uncovered, as before a king. 
 
 Had the Colossus not been quick, father and son would have 
 lain there side by side.
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 THE HUE AND CRY 
 I. ARNOLD RETURNS 
 
 UT at sea, it was as dark as it 
 was silent. Even when the lit- 
 tle motor-boat throbbed and 
 thumped its way from Havre de 
 Grace to within shouting dis- 
 tance of the Green Sands Light, 
 the fog had so muffled the sound 
 of the whirling iron wheel that 
 had the black rocks that girdled 
 the lighthouse been inhabited by 
 the penguins, who were said to 
 have been seen there at other 
 times, these solemn fowl would 
 
 scarcely have heard the boat's approach. Now, after what 
 seemed to its crew to be interminable repetitions of this voy- 
 age, the boat lay anchored as near to the place agreed upon as 
 Arnold's rough reckoning allowed. 
 
 The tide tugging at the bell-shaped anchor, buried deep in 
 the sand twenty feet below, playing fast and loose with the 
 anchor-rope, the rudder occasionally slapping against the 
 stern, and a sort of soft slushing when the boat swung broad- 
 side, then back again, such slight sounds as these seemed a 
 part of the great silence, and went unheard by the boat's occu- 
 pants; and, anyhow, Pink and Hugo were fast asleep on the
 
 438 God's Man 
 
 sodden canvas spread out in the stern-sheets while Arnold, 
 stretched out in the bow, was drowsing. 
 
 So silent was it that he was awakened hy sounds that, 
 though soft enough, steadily increased on all sides, until from 
 every direction came what seemed the patter of many tiny 
 feet, thousands of them, racing faster each minute. Or per- 
 haps it was their cold impact on his face. Or, again, the 
 steady dripping from the peak of his oilskin cap. When, 
 shivering, he started up, it had been raining some time and 
 had ceased to sound like footsteps from Elf -Land. This beat- 
 ing down of heavy drops was more as if some giant overhead 
 were throwing handsful of pebbles on the water. 
 
 The wind had risen, too. Some other giant seemed to be 
 standing, waist-high and blowing his breath against the long 
 glassy swells, now flaked and fleeced with foam. "Hel-lo," 
 said Arnold involuntarily as he pressed a black button and 
 the "finder's" long lance-like light described a circle, stabbing 
 the fog. This was no longer a difficult achievement, however : 
 with the rising of the wind, the spell of blackness was broken, 
 and the "finder" revealed more troubled waters than thick 
 vapors. 
 
 Far distant, a faint glimmer from the Green Sands light 
 broke through the gloom; and, when Arnold snapped off his 
 own, he thought he could distinguish, dimly, a speck of radi- 
 ance over Middle Ground way. Behind him Havre de Grace 
 channel-tower winked a misty yellow welcome ; and, as Arnold 
 reached for his watch and held the dial close to his eyes, he 
 made out "two o'clock" by a pale cold light from overhead. 
 Gusts of wind had begun to chase the clouds over a faintly 
 phosphorescent surface where the moon should have been. 
 
 The anchor-rope gave a sudden tug, as a roving white-cap 
 came over the port side. A gust heeled the boat over and 
 passed on, after trying to take Arnold's oilskin cap with it. 
 But it was fastened under his chin with strings; and so the 
 wind could only lift it high enough for its owner to feel a cold 
 sticky breath against his bare head.
 
 The Hue and Cry 439 
 
 It was sufficient warning even for one not weather-wise. 
 Arnold stirred the sleepers with his boot-toe. "Pink ! get out 
 of the way/' he said. "Hugo steer ! !" They scrambled up, 
 each holding to a side of the boat ; Hugo catching at the steer- 
 ing spokes. Arnold threw over the iron wheel; it began to 
 revolve as a spark flashed up unseen ; increasing its speed until 
 it whirled ; and whirling, the propeller thrashed about and the 
 oil began to sing in the cylinder. 
 
 "Which way?" asked Hugo. 
 
 "Have you sighted her ?" Pink, giving up after several at- 
 tempts to strike matches in that wind, shoved the face of his 
 watch under the "finder," the button to which he pushed. 
 
 "Don't do that," said Arnold sharply. "Do you want people 
 to know we're out here at this hour ? There's a storm coming 
 up fast ! The lighthouse keepers will be awake. Sit back 
 by the rudder, Hugo, and help me when I have to turn the 
 boat. These waves are getting pretty bad." 
 
 "What about the ship?" asked Hugo, or, rather, shouted. 
 The wind's whistling had waxed, was now a-shrieking. The 
 oily peaceful swells were hills and valleys of black water. 
 Hugo shouted his question again. 
 
 "Sit down, you poor nut," advised Pink. "Do you think 
 he'd be lookin' as though he burned out 'thout any insurance 
 if it had come? Come on back here where your solid ivory 
 nut is no knock to you, and help hold this rudder straight. 
 It's got me faded. . . . Wow ! that was a hummer !" 
 
 The boat had shot up to a great height, then, some cross- 
 current intervening, had met only vacancy, had dropped flat 
 into a churning valley below, quivering, vibrating, shipping 
 gallons. But the next wave swept her up again, this time to 
 race down at motor-car speed. Which brought her to Havre 
 de Grace channel. Here the current, coursing out of the Har- 
 bor, caught her and would have spun her around ; but Hugo, 
 in compliance with Arnold's shout, bore down heavily on the 
 rudder and held her nose straight. 
 
 Despite his assistance, they were in some danger. The
 
 440 God's Man 
 
 storm was breaking fierce and fast and that channel was no 
 spot to choose for a pleasure-cruise even on calm days. Now 
 every eddy was awhirl with spume and spindrift, a hundred 
 cross-currents were whipping savagely one across the trail of 
 another, and the outgoing tide meeting them, roared up white 
 with a great lashing mane. 
 
 A moment of suspense ! The boat stood stock-still, her 
 propeller high out of water. Another current caught her, 
 whirled her up then, meeting the tide, she would have spun 
 around and around until overwhelmed had not Hugo held on 
 grimly, although the rudder was almost torn from his hands. 
 But Arnold, seeing his chance between two great swells, the 
 boat shot out of the channel, raced up hill and down dale 
 again, and was soon swinging around a bend in the shore that 
 hid the channel light. And there, almost abreast them, were 
 three lanterns, ruby red and emerald green with bright orange 
 between; the three hung out to advise the Cormorant of the 
 landing place should other arrangements miscarry. 
 
 Secure from the spying of any one in the lighthouse, Arnold 
 released the "finder" and manipulated it until the light 
 showed him their rowboat, tossing up and down at her moor- 
 ings. "Ease her down, Pink. Get ready to throw off the 
 switch. . . . Now!" and a bright green spark glowed, 
 the iron wheel flopped, and two pairs of gloved hands shot out 
 and gripped the rowboat. Its buffers rebounded against the 
 sides of the moving motor-boat. Then : "Hold on, boys." It 
 was a command not easily obeyed in that troubled water with- 
 out wrenching of arms. But Hugo's strength prevailed. 
 Pink hove one anchor down, another up. Arnold capped the 
 engine with its canvas covering. The boats rocked precari- 
 ously as they clambered aboard and all three put their strength 
 into pushing off; for they could not row, or scull, or paddle 
 among those waves, could only punt along with the butt ends 
 of their oars. Finally Hugo leaped out, painter in hand and 
 breast-high in water, and dragged the boat into the shallows 
 and underneath the boat-house arch. "Go on up to the house
 
 The Hue and Cry 441 
 
 and get dry/' said Arnold. "I'll lock up, and fill the lanterns 
 again in case we should be unfortunate enough to have the 
 Cormorant blow in with this storm. But I guess we're in for 
 another night on the water. So get to bed and get all the 
 sleep you can. Hurry and change those wet things, Hugo." 
 
 "Unfortunate !" commented Hugo, stretching his big body 
 and venting a tremendous yawn. Arnold nodded and pointed. 
 
 "There's where the wind's coming from. Have you forgotten 
 all you ever knew about storms ?" The smoky light of the lan- 
 tern on the boat-house "float" revealed Arnold pointing to the 
 northeast. 
 
 "But I guess Danny's safe and sound in some secluded har- 
 bor now. He knows better than to skirt the North Shore dur- 
 ing a storm. Especially when he daren't ship a pilot. It's a 
 perfect belt of rocks and shoals, Pink, from Port Jefferson to 
 Montauk. ... Go ahead, Hugo. Don't wait for me. 
 Take this pocket-light : I don't need it." 
 
 Arnold locked the boat-house water-gate, unlocked the rear 
 entrance letting them out, took up a long pole, a hook at one 
 end. In the middle of their steep ascent, the path was sud- 
 denly darkened, for Arnold had used that pole to fetch down 
 the three lanterns swung at the boat-house peak at which 
 Pink cursed lustily, before remembering the little pocket- 
 light. When he made ready to ascend, himself, having refilled 
 and replaced the lanterns, Arnold heard Pink curse, though 
 faintly, at some distance. He had stumbled again, probably. 
 
 Because of the long occupancy of the house on the bluff, Ar- 
 nold had a greater proficiency in climbing hills in general, 
 this one in particular; and climbed so rapidly as almost to 
 overtake the others. But nearing the top, he again heard Pink 
 at his profane best; no novelty to any one well acquainted 
 with that young gentleman. Yet the peculiarity attendant 
 upon this brought Arnold to a halt. Just what that pecu- 
 liarity was Arnold could not say ; perhaps there was none and 
 it was only his instinct that made him stand stony and still, 
 straining his ears.
 
 442 God's Man 
 
 Now it seemed that some one was gurgling; was endeavor- 
 ing to become vocal by sheer gutturals, was indulging in exer- 
 cise of the throat muscles, or attempting a sort of choked 
 Chinese. This soon ceased. Whispering began. 
 
 At such a time, especially when one combines a trouble- 
 some conscience with a vivid imagination and uncertain 
 nerves and knows these may combine to bring about delusions 
 or hallucinations, anything is better than uncertainty. Arnold 
 could endure a statue-like pose physically but not mentally. 
 
 He raised a tentative foot and listened as he lowered it; it 
 seemed noiseless enough. Fortunately, the rain, now descend- 
 ing in torrents and driven by the wind, made inaudible any 
 movements as light and certain as his. Better, the gravel and 
 loose stones would not now rattle and roll at every footstep ; 
 the clayey soil was becoming moist red mud. 
 
 Needing no light like the others, Arnold's approach went 
 unheard; though three men were above and listening almost 
 as intently as he. But, having more at stake, he knew of their 
 presence before they had any notion of his ; so again he stood 
 silent and stony. 
 
 Some one has stated too aptly to admit of any paraphrase, 
 that when any bodily function ceases to be unconscious it 
 ceases to be correct. Those three men at the head of the path 
 were doing their best to prevent their breathing from betray- 
 ing them, which only resolved itself into a series of seconds 
 when they did not breathe at all, followed by a shorter series 
 when they breathed too hard. Having detected their presence 
 through this idiosyncrasy, Arnold took care not to do likewise ; 
 continuing to breathe as naturally as short breaths at frequent 
 intervals would allow, a sound too soft to equal the combina- 
 tion of wind and rain. Yet even he paid for his consciousness, 
 and could only stand there, stupidly wondering who his prob- 
 able enemies might be, being quite unable to use his brain for 
 any purpose other than compassing an imitation of regular 
 breathing.
 
 The Hue and Cry 443 
 
 The next moment, however, he had no need to simulate. 
 The new sound that he heard such a sound as might result 
 from a giant flounder flopping about on a muddy shore made 
 him forget not to breathe regularly. Followed straining and 
 snapping seams were bursting, cloth was ripping as the mus- 
 cles of strong men pitted against one another swelled to the 
 breaking point. Then a choked anguished yelp, was fairly 
 driven out of some sufferer; the result of the sudden impact of 
 something very hard and something very soft. 
 
 To construct the situation for the mind's eye was not diffi- 
 cult after such sounds. Had the darkness suddenly revealed 
 the facts, Arnold could not have seen the struggle more clearly. 
 One man had been on his back in the mud, hence the sound 
 of the flopping flounder. A second man had been endeavoring 
 to gag the first, while sitting on his chest, hence the strain- 
 ing and snapping and bursting and ripping. Then the man 
 in the mud had suddenly relaxed and driven an upward elbow 
 into the other's abdomen, hence the yelp. Now, as Arnold 
 listened, he heard muffled groans and fierce whispers. Then a 
 heavy fall. 
 
 Instinctively, Arnold swerved from the path; and none too 
 soon. In a wild embrace, a bundle of arms and legs came roll- 
 ing over and over down the steep hill. From above, some one 
 relaxed his vigilance and a voice rose high and shrill. 
 
 "Beat it, Lord Chesterfield. Hoof it, Sir Mortimer. Ge- 
 gug-gug-gug." There was no gagging this time: it was a 
 plain case of throttling. Louder than the noise made by the 
 fighting men below, rose the harsh notes of a stranger's voice 
 a stranger's to Arnold, at least, but well enough known to 
 Pink : that of Burly Jones'. 
 
 "No use trying to be quiet now. Get down that hill, one of 
 you, and help the Sheriff. You other fellows take that far 
 path and head him off if he tries to go that way. I'll take the 
 other side as soon as I . . ." 
 
 There was a horrible menace in his unspoken words. Pink,
 
 444 God's Man 
 
 his consciousness fading out, rallied for one last attempt to 
 warn the as yet uncaptured Arnold. "With a strength Jones 
 had never guessed Pink possessed, he wriggled free. 
 
 "New York coppers, Duke. Beat it. You can't help us. 
 We're gone. We " This time he was cut short in so silent 
 and sinister a fashion, a hlow from the butt-end of a revolver 
 was not likely to he heard in the noise made below that 
 Arnold shuddered. 
 
 "New York coppers" . . . Arnold, dazed, wondered 
 how that might be. "New York coppers" . . . That 
 meant everything was known. But how? . . . Arnold 
 rocked and swayed as he stood. A man came rushing past him 
 to the assistance of one of the combatants down below. The 
 man who had silenced Pink was running toward the path that 
 led to Harbor Hill, a third man in the opposite direction. 
 This was to surround him whom they supposed to be on the 
 beach. Arnold crouched down behind some scrubby furze 
 bushes, too dazed to determine what to do. 
 
 There was a yell of triumph below. "Sit on his feet, Tom/' 
 came hoarsely in a well-remembered voice. Hugh Legare ! 
 Arnold winced, bit his lip, clenched his teeth, closed his eyes. 
 But he could not shut out the mental picture. Hugh Legare ! ! 
 Then Havre de Grace knew that their dearly beloved Parson's 
 eldest son was a ... 
 
 "If the other fellow can fight like this one. ... A 
 thousand pounds of wildcats, Tom ! Sit on his feet I tell you. 
 I've got to get my breath. ... I don't believe young 
 Arnold L'Hommedieu's mixed up in this, do you ? This ain't 
 him, thaf s sure. And why would he be ? Let's have a look at 
 this fellow. He must be a prize-fighter." 
 
 Arnold crouched lower, hugging the ragged furze bushes, 
 until he squatted close to the ground. His eyes were closed, 
 but he felt the little flash ten feet below, felt it as if it were a 
 blow. And a second blow seemed to have been dealt him, 
 when the Sheriff's shout of intermingled amazement and fear 
 assaulted hirp so harshly, so loudly, that, for a moment, his
 
 The Hue and Cry 445 
 
 ears rang. Legare's emotion had not been couched in words, 
 it was too strong for that, it was the snarl of a trapped 
 animal. 
 
 Nor did he become articulate for some little time; only 
 stood staring stupidly. Then, out of the darkness, for not 
 even sufficient strength had remained in his great frame to 
 keep the button of the pocket-light pressed, and in an almost 
 unrecognizable voice so still and small was it, he addressed 
 Tom Heaney : 
 
 "Here ! L-l-look at him and tell me who it is. I've gone 
 crazy I think, dead crazy." 
 
 Arnold peered through the bushes and saw the two men, 
 their giant shadows decapitated by the circumference of the 
 ragged circle of light on the diameter of which Hugo lay. 
 Tom Heaney was kneeling over and peering into his face. 
 "It's Hugo Waldemar," he said presently, having been un- 
 able to answer immediately because of his amazement. 
 
 At the sound of his name, Hugo groaned and half raised 
 himself. This time, he met no angry opposition. Instead, 
 with clumsy tenderness, the Colossus raised him up and sup- 
 ported him, Heaney still holding the light. "Hugo ! Hugo 
 Waldemar," the Colossus said quite blankly. Hugo's stare 
 was equally blank. 
 
 There was more than a similarity of name and size between 
 Hugh and Hugo: both had the same slow wits, the same 
 tenacity of purpose. Hugh in Hugo's place would have done 
 as Hugo had done : Hugo in Hugh's, would have done what 
 Hugh was about to do. Despite a difference of twenty years 
 in their ages the man and the boy had been better friends than 
 most. The Colossus figured next to Arnold and Archie in 
 Hugo's affections. As for Hugh it is doubtful if he could 
 have sacrificed for any person other than his wife and mother, 
 half so much as he now proposed to sacrifice for Hugo. He 
 came of that sort of stock; was of the type of the Great Dane 
 or mastiff, like that paternal progenitor and namesake the
 
 446 God's Man 
 
 faithful follower of the Chevalier L'Hommedieu ; a type 
 America lost long ago in vain striving for social "equality." 
 
 "Git back to that other fellow and see what the New York- 
 er's done to him to keep him quiet," said Legare to Tom 
 Heaney ; and, as Tom lingered : "Git, I told you. I can look 
 after him." He was breathing hard. Tom thought it best to 
 go. The Colossus gulped, but managed to address Hugo 
 quietly, very quietly: 
 
 "It ain't true what these New York policemen say ? is it ? 
 About this opium smuggling? Say 'No,' Hugo ! You've just 
 got to say 'No.' Say it, and I'll let you walk off as free as 
 air and won't tell a soul." 
 
 He was pleading as he would never have done to save him- 
 self. And when Hugo, silent and sullen, withdrew himself 
 from Hugh's protecting arm, the Colossus vented another of 
 his inarticulate snarls. It was not, however, directed at his 
 friend, but at fate. 
 
 "It can't be } Hugo! It's impossible, boy. You don't un- 
 derstand." Then, hoarsely : "Eun off to'ards Snake Hollow. 
 I'll see that Tom Heaney keeps his mouth shut. And I'll tell 
 the New Yorker you were too many for me. Go on, now ! Go 
 on, Hugo ! ! He's liable to be back any minute and then it's 
 all up. Go on!!" 
 
 It is said that men, real men, do not shed tears. "Well for 
 them these Colossi were not small nor even of average size. 
 Well for them their brawn and their lack of extraordinary 
 brains brought them within the specifications of "red-blooded" 
 writers for "man's men." Both were grateful for the darkness 
 that precluded a sight of their faces; and Hugo, feeling for 
 his friend, Hugh's huge hand met his. 
 
 "Old pal," the younger man whispered. "Gee ! but you're 
 a great old pal ! D*you think I'd do it ? And get you in bad ? 
 Maybe get you in jail? Heaney tells everything he knows 
 when he's drunk. ... I guess you'll have to lock me up, 
 Hugh. I'm not going to let them lock you up."
 
 The Hue and Cry 447 
 
 His arm slipped about the colossal shoulder and squeezed it 
 tight. "You're the whitest man I know," he said. But the 
 Colossus shook off his embrace impatiently, ashamed of his 
 emotion and angry at Hugo for abetting it. 
 
 "You don't understand," he said in the same hoarse whis- 
 per. But whispering is not the best thing a leather-lunged 
 Colossus does and Arnold heard him. "I tell you you've got 
 to go. I'm going to walk off and leave you. You do what I 
 tell you : Heaney's all right. Get on with you, Hugo." But 
 the other again refused him, gruffly. 
 
 "Oh ! you damn' fool ! listen ! I didn't want to tell you, 
 but I've got to. It's the only way to make you see you've got 
 to go. Brace yourself. It's pretty bad news. About the 
 worst, I guess. I'm sorry you make me tell it. "Wasn't it 
 enough for one night I had to see Archie Hartogensis lying 
 on the floor in his own house and his own father making out 
 a warrant for him without knowing. . . ." 
 
 "Archie !" gasped Hugo. "His father ! They got Archie ? 
 Archie! Good God! . . ." He held his breath. "Now I 
 have got to go with you, Hugh. I can't let Arch stand for the 
 whole thing " 
 
 "Wait," said the Colossus sternly. "D'you know what 
 Archie was arrested for ? him and the other fellow ? Not for 
 smuggling opium: we didn't find out about that till after. 
 No, Hugo. . . . and here's why you'll have to keep out 
 of this. Murder ! Yes ! . . . ' I dunno which one did it 
 neither one 'ull tell. But they heard somebody outside 
 while they were up there in the Hopkins house waiting for 
 you to come back, and and well, they shot at him and 
 and" he paused. "I don't see why I've got to tell you, 
 Hugo. Won't you take my word for it you've got to get 
 away?" . . . 
 
 Silence ; then, from between dry lips : "Who was it ? Who 
 was it, Hugh?" 
 
 The Colossus reached for him. "You sure you can stand
 
 448 God's Man 
 
 it?" He gripped both his shoulders. "It's some one very 
 dear to you/' he said weakly. "Some one " 
 
 "Oh, for God's sake/' Hugo broke in fiercely fiercely for 
 him, the gentlest of men. "Who ?" 
 
 "Your father," said Hugh, so low that the wind and rain 
 drowned his answer for Arnold. 
 
 Hugo stiffened. "My father!" he croaked. "My father!!! 
 My father." And Arnold heard this time, and heard no more 
 until the sound of his name brought him out of his daze. 
 
 ". . . It's bad enough for Arnold L'Hommedieu to be 
 mixed up in it, without you! Now, you'll go, won't you, 
 Hugo?" 
 
 Silence again; then the sound of the two men squashing 
 clayey mud under their boots as they came up the hill. Ar- 
 nold's eyes, accustomed, now, even to the Stygian blackness 
 the storm had brought, made out the two figures close to- 
 gether. Hugo did not draw away from Hugh's support now. 
 
 Silence once more; some muttering above, . . . voices 
 ... a wild shouting ... the simultaneous bang-bang 
 of two revolvers. . . . Shooting and shouting continued 
 apace. The Sheriff and Tom Heaney were covering Hugo's 
 escape. Arnold saw that the pink puffs of the revolver shots 
 ascended directly upward. 
 
 II. ARNOLD ESCAPES 
 
 Under cover of this noise, Arnold ran rapidly in an oppo- 
 site direction, ran through bushes and clumps of young trees, 
 not even seeking a path, but finding one as unconsciously as 
 he had realized that now was the time for him to escape. His 
 instinct subconsciousness, what you will was entirely re- 
 sponsible. That part of his brain had taken charge, had 
 noted Jones and the other Tom on the beach, the Colossus 
 and Tom Heaney running beyond the house. And that part 
 of him guided his footsteps, was aware of a place where he
 
 The Hue and Cry 449 
 
 might lie hidden and, what was as important, fed though 
 his pursuers searched the surrounding country. None other 
 than the hut of ancient timbers on No-Man's Land, the resi- 
 dence of the peninsula philosopher. 
 
 Unconsciously, be it repeated. As yet, his conscious brain 
 had not recovered from the shock administered by the Sheriff. 
 It was not that Arnold cared whether Waldemar lived or 
 died, so fiercely did he dislike the man. The horror that ani- 
 mated him was the same that had caused the Colossus to insist 
 on Hugo's flight. Hugo's father killed by Hugo's best friend 
 and while acting as Hugo's partner in a venture, but for 
 which the father would still be alive. 
 
 Waldemar the Squire Hugo Archie! Archie, yes! It 
 was never Beau, the pacific Beau who had often boasted that 
 he abhorred weapons, that true "grifters" needed none, only 
 amateurs. Arnold remembered Archie's rage at the crow, his 
 intention to throttle it. Archie, yes ! Archie ! And Archie 
 was a prisoner, the prisoner of his own father. . . . Truly 
 Arnold's conscious mind had enough to occupy it : it was nec- 
 essary that instinct protect him. 
 
 But how had Waldemar come there? How had the New 
 York police become aware of the smuggling conspiracy ? What 
 would happen to the Cormorant? To Archie? To Pink? To 
 Beau ? Wearily Arnold's mind refused to consider these mat- 
 ters, settled down to a dull apathetic consideration of his own 
 position. 
 
 Having reached a part of the woods far distant from the 
 Swiss chalet, he dropped down amid the wet leaves and lis- 
 tened for sounds of pursuit. There was none. Having lis- 
 tened, he began to remember why it was he had come in that 
 direction, and soon arose wearily and hastened on, for he had 
 still a long way to go. Taking his bearings, he doubled back 
 toward the bluff road, the easiest road ; but reaching the part 
 of the woods skirting it, he paused and listened again. Then 
 he went forward cautiously lest he be precipitated over the 
 edge of the bluff; and, hearing the roar of the sea very near,
 
 450 God's Man 
 
 he threw himself down and crawled the remainder of the dis- 
 tance. 
 
 Face downward, he peered over the edge, endeavoring to 
 survey the scene below and beyond. In the darkness and driv* 
 ing rain his gaze met only vague black tree and rock forms, he 
 heard only the wind's soughing and the rain's pattering; 
 that is, when sudden gusts did not shriek and whistle and 
 drive the rain against his oilskins with a clatter like hail. 
 Down below the breakers were roaring, and such roaring as he 
 could not remember having heard. Truly, he could not, for 
 under average circumstances he would have remained indoors 
 when a storm like this one was raging. If before he had 
 likened to heavy artillery the angry pounding of the beach, he 
 was now reduced to a realization of the feebleness of human 
 comparisons when Nature is at her worst or best. 
 
 One steady roaring crash was in his ears, and even when 
 thunder shook the sky, had not the accompanying lightning 
 gilded great rifts in it, the added crashing would be gone al- 
 most unheard in that war of winds and waves. 
 
 As these steely silver rifts were revealed like the illumined 
 veins of some bloodless Atlas, Arnold strained his eyes. His 
 two enemies on the beach half a mile beyond seemed two small 
 black bundles rolling along in some mysterious fashion; the 
 beach a white strip at the foot of the cliffs and rapidly dimin- 
 ishing as the inky breakers came rolling and pitching ashore. 
 The next flash revealed the two black bundles rolled together, 
 the next showed them separate again and half-way up the 
 path, like spiders on a sticky ceiling. Evidently they had 
 failed to- find one of the two paths or had feared to wait to 
 find one; for when Arnold saw them for the fourth time, he 
 judged from strained positions that they were hauling them- 
 selves up by means of bushes too small for him, at that dis- 
 tance, to see. 
 
 At their heels the breakers roared. The white strip had 
 wholly disappeared. The black mountains, hurled up out of
 
 The Hue and Cry 451 
 
 the sea, were breaking into spray and foam that, in the light- 
 ning flashes was like millions of glittering uptossed stars. 
 
 Well, he had nothing to fear from two of his pursuers for 
 some time to come. He got to his feet, albeit more slowly than 
 usual, for, now the excitement had passed, he had begun to 
 feel exhausted. Luckily his oilskin coat, hooked tight about 
 his throat, in conjunction with his fisherman's boots, had kept 
 him dry. He gave weary thanks for that. Had sodden clothes 
 and half-frozen feet been added to his other miseries, he 
 doubted he would have found escape a sufficient inducement 
 to endure the trials and perils of the journey ahead of him. 
 After all, escape, or capture, it mattered very little now. He 
 had lost everything, even his good name, the name that had 
 been kept stainless by so many generations only for him to tar- 
 nish. And his father, after sixty years of self-sacrifice. . . . 
 
 Arnold's groan was cut short. A wild hope had thrilled 
 him. . . . Why not? Hugo had his father's fortune. 
 Money could do anything, nowadays. Archie and Beau and 
 Pink would keep silent about Hugo, and Hugo would see that 
 they went free. And silence about Hugo included silence 
 about Arnold. His house? He could claim to have been 
 away for the night with the peninsular philosopher. Archie 
 would not be harmed any the more by saying that Arnold had 
 loaned him the house for that night. Anyhow, no opium had 
 been landed, no infraction of the law had been committed by 
 any one save Archie; (he did not doubt it was Archie) 
 therefore why should Archie not shoulder all responsibility? 
 
 A wave of relief swept over Arnold. He quickened his pace 
 to a run. Turning a bend in the path along the bluff, he saw 
 the lighthouse dead ahead. Across the channel lay the sand- 
 dunes ; beyond, the philosopher's peninsula. 
 
 Arnold teetered along the strip of road, grasping at young 
 trees, bushes and overhanging boughs to steady himself 
 against the fierce blasts. Once he was hurled against a great 
 pine and stood there, back to the roaring gale, getting his
 
 452 God's Man 
 
 breath; continuing with a comparatively light heart, so ef- 
 fectual is contrast. 
 
 Five hours before he had been in unquestioned possession of 
 a reputation that he must now struggle hard to retain; and 
 then he had been gloomy. Xow, with only a fighting chance, 
 he was almost gay. He forgot Hugo's tragedy and Archie's, 
 forgot the Cormorant. Given the greatest danger, the greatest 
 sorrow, man needs only the slightest hope to rally ; and if he 
 must concentrate upon difficulties besetting the fulfilment of 
 that hope, he becomes as single-minded as any woman. It was 
 not that Arnold had become hardened of heart; it was only 
 that, in the event of a tragedy that personally involves any 
 person, the mind is so weakened by the shock that the prim- 
 itive instincts easily overcome it and as the greatest of these 
 is self-preservation, that is the one immediately uppermost. 
 
 Besides, Arnold had little time for speculation. In that 
 great gale, he could barely keep on his feet; and in the con- 
 tinual daze in which the stinging salt wind and whipping rain 
 kept him, it was a miracle he did not stumble over the bluff 
 and roll down, to be swept away under one of those inky 
 mountains below. And now that his path widened and began 
 to slope downward toward the sea-wall on which the light- 
 house was reared, Arnold must advance with superlative cau- 
 tion. Undoubtedly the keeper had been awakened by the 
 storm, and, as Arnold wished to preserve his alibi, and, besides, 
 intended to cross the channel in the lighthouse keeper's dory, 
 a desperate project, but he saw no other way it behooved 
 him to avoid its owner's notice. So, whenever the bright re- 
 flectors swung around in his direction, washing with yellow a 
 quarter-mile of the black country before him, Arnold flung 
 himself flat, face downward. 
 
 Even in the days of his renowned ancestor, the Chevalier 
 Etienne, the Harbor of Havre de Grace had the shape of a 
 square case-bottle, its entrance, the neck thereof, the reposi- 
 tory of a swiftly moving current that continued some way out 
 to sea. Here, meeting some cross-currents, it became that dan-
 
 The Hue and Cry 453 
 
 gerous swirl we have had occasion to remark before. But 
 within the bottle-neck it was not particularly perilous, save 
 on a night like this when a mill-pond would have become a 
 whirlpool. 
 
 The bottle-neck had been, originally, only twenty yards 
 wide. Now that it had been strengthened by a sea-wall, a 
 dyke of granite and cement sunk in the water and raised above 
 it to a height of twenty feet on each side, the bottle-neck had 
 lost several yards. Thus Arnold's voyage, unless he was swept 
 out to sea (which was unlikely as the tide was coming in) 
 would be a short one. There was a probability that the boat 
 would be overturned when first launched; it was a certainty 
 that he would be helpless in such a sea; and would be swept 
 along, the oars if he attempted to use them torn out of his 
 hands. 
 
 But Arnold knew that the current circled the opposite shore 
 and that, during storms, even the Connecticut mail-steamer 
 had some ado to prevent being beached there. It was on this 
 that he based his hope of reaching the peninsula. 
 
 The sea-wall reached its highest point on the Sound side. 
 At right-angles to this, at the junction of Sound and channel, 
 it began, gradually, to slope until, where the lighthouse keep- 
 er's boat lay, the height was less than twenty feet. Here, 
 some ingenious Treasury engineer, familiar with medieval 
 architecture, had fitted an archway modeled on the water- 
 gates found in the majority of castles and "moated granges" 
 of the middle ages ; and when the water reached the topmost 
 red lines on either side, indicating high-water mark, the 
 arch just cleared the head of the seated boatman. On 
 extraordinary occasions it had been known to carry away his 
 hat; hence, in a storm like this, it was possible that there 
 would be barely room enough for the boat itself to pass 
 through even though Arnold lay flat in the bottom. 
 
 He found this possibility a fact when, after much reconnoi- 
 tering to reach the lower extremity of the sea-wall unseen, he 
 discovered thai the little dory had been dragged out of its arti-
 
 454 God's Man 
 
 ficial channel and was resting slantwise against a sand-barrow. 
 The light-keeper must have moved it within the last hour, for 
 scarcely more than that had elapsed since Arnold had felt the 
 first raindrops on his face. 
 
 He crouched in the shelter of the boat and dared pnsh it only 
 when the rays of the light traveled out to sea. This meant he 
 could be occupied only half his time : the remainder was spent 
 in shivering; for now that the light had revealed the swollen 
 channel, Arnold had begun to realize the risk he was about to 
 run. No boat could live out there among those menacing hills 
 of pale green water, amid those dangerous valleys of boiling 
 white foam. Even the sheltered waters of the little channel 
 angrily assaulted the shore and spat out spume and spindrift. 
 
 "It's do it, or do worse," Arnold said defiantly. "It's a 
 chance, anyhow. And it's the only chance/' 
 
 The sound of his voice helped to convince, to confirm, him 
 in his resolution. The boat, after many pushes, begun to slide 
 so easily that he knew it was on the shelving shore. Then it 
 gave a surprisingly sudden movement, as though it would 
 wrench itself away from him. He sprang for the stern and 
 lay spraddling it, then threw his weight forward and came 
 down on his flattened palms in the bottom of the boat. 
 
 His weight gave the little craft an added impetus, drove it 
 against the right bank of its little basin. It vibrated from the 
 shock of impact with solid granite, veered around and struck 
 the opposite wall with its stern. This suddenly straightened 
 its course, and threw it in the direct center. Then, caught on 
 the crest of a retracting wave, the boat was driven forward, 
 and so hard and high that it struck the center of the arch. 
 
 The shock of this broke Arnold's finger-nails and drove the 
 boat around broadside. Drawn forward again by the suction 
 following the retreating wave, a valley of swirling water re- 
 placing the hill, the boat would have passed under the arch, 
 had the arch been of sufficient width. But it had been no in- 
 tention of its builder that boats should pass through broad- 
 side, so the boat's nose struck one of the archway pillars. This
 
 The Hue and Cry 455 
 
 righted it again, but with its stern outward. In this posi- 
 tion, it was swept out into the channel. 
 
 Arnold was immediately made conscious of this by feeling 
 that the boat had dropped from under him, had left him hang- 
 ing in space; a feeling familiar to occupants of an express 
 elevator when it swoops down from some great height without 
 warning; and also to aviators caught in a sudden upward 
 swoop of the wind. 
 
 But the sickening sensation was the one that followed. 
 Eeaching the crest of a great green hill, the boat hung there 
 for a second absolutely motionless, though it creaked and 
 quivered and all its timbers groaned in unison. Then, swifter 
 than the down-flight of an eagle, the boat shot into the churn- 
 ing valley below. 
 
 It seemed as if hands weighing hundred weights suddenly 
 began to pound Arnold's back, knocking his head from side to 
 side ; and, when the light swung that way, he saw that he was 
 heading straight for a great ghastly green cavern. The next 
 instant, the boat struck, and he, hurled aside, began to spin 
 around as if in a maelstrom. Then the green waters roared 
 over him, but before his teeth could chatter at the terrible 
 chill, a heavy blow descended on his head. 
 
 His last conscious thought was the hope that they would 
 find his body. If he was never heard of again, people would 
 believe him a guilty fugitive and his father would have, be- 
 sides the disgrace, the sorrow of having begotten an Ishmael 
 for whom he could only pray and hope to the end. And for 
 that unselfish thought, had Arnold died then, much would 
 have been forgiven him. It is only at such a time that men are 
 known for what they are. 
 
 III. ARNOLD DESPAIRS 
 
 But Arnold was not to die at the very time when the pur- 
 pose for which he had served and suffered was so nearly 
 achieved. The same great breaker that had crashed him down,
 
 456 God's Man 
 
 now hurled him up and on the opposite shore. Another great 
 breaker would have borne him back had he remained senseless, 
 but a chill attacked him and a violent retching, and between 
 them they so racked him, tearing at his heart and lungs, that 
 he was brought back to consciousness, the blood pouring from 
 his nose and mouth. 
 
 He heard the hissing fall of another great green mountain, 
 and, instinctively, rolled over and over until he no longer felt 
 its stinging spray on his face. Then he lay like a log. He was 
 too weak even to crawl, he had set his teeth and squirmed out 
 of the breakers' reach with the false strength of frenzied ter- 
 ror. Even now he clutched about wildly for some protection 
 and, his fingers fastening upon the needles of a scrub-pine, he 
 held to them tightly regardless of the pain of their pricking. 
 
 There was no need for this self -inflict ion, but so unreason- 
 ing was his terror after his encounter with that great monster, 
 so conscious was he of his own helplessness, that the possibility 
 of his safety seemed remote. He was tense, taut, rallying his 
 forces for the blow that any instant he expected to fall, pre- 
 paring to do battle again. His mind was a blank on which 
 was scrawled over and over again: "Danger," "Danger," 
 . . . scrawled vertically, horizontally, diagonally, every- 
 where, so that there was room for nothing more. ... If 
 a mental shock leaves the majority of one's reasoning powers 
 in abeyance, a physical shock of the same caliber suspends 
 them altogether, sometimes, in the cases of unfortunates 
 such as Hans Chasserton, permanently. 
 
 But Arnold's was an exceptionally strong mind and, in his 
 case, the suspension was brief. The second shock failing to 
 materialize, he relaxed, and relaxing realized that he was be- 
 yond the breakers' reach. Still weak, however, he waited until 
 his body should make the same recovery as his mind. Which 
 was not for long, for the channel light by revealing his new 
 surroundings, gave him a thrill that was worth more than the 
 accumulated strength of an hour of resting especially now
 
 The Hue and Cry 457 
 
 that he was wet and cold. He realized that he was on the op- 
 posite shore. 
 
 He sprang up without further thought of weakness, only 
 slapping at his drenched body. But the sea-water squashing 
 in his boots sorely deterred him: the way to the peninsula 
 was difficult enough over wet sand that deadened all springi- 
 ness of step ; so when he stumbled over his first hillock, he sat 
 down upon it, removed and poured forth gallons from the 
 boots, and squeezed some extra quarts from the golf-stockings 
 underneath, also from his knickerbockers and the skirts of his 
 jacket. Having lost a number of pounds thereby, he continued 
 his journey at an increased pace. 
 
 He was now on a wide tract of marsh and moor, hillocks and 
 hummocks ; a vast area of sheer waste-land, the result of ages 
 of sand and shells and stones thrown up by the sea; fertilized 
 and colonized by the sea-birds, save where the old hut stood, 
 the only human habitation between Havre de Grace channel 
 and Green Sands, seven miles away. For three miles this 
 waste-land hemmed in Havre de Grace Harbor ; and, had Ar- 
 nold chosen to pick his way over the long stretch of salt marsh 
 and sand-pits that joined the desert to the left bank of the 
 Harbor, eventually he would have reached the town, passing 
 his father's house on the way. 
 
 Occasionally, therefore, he blinked misty eyes under sticky 
 wet eyebrows and saw, or thought he saw, a misty blur of 
 lights. One of these might be that well-remembered one on 
 L'Hommedieu Church steeple, a Gothic lantern hoisted by 
 steel halliards; and on stormy nights always lighted by the 
 Parson himself ; a beacon for harbor shipping for more than a 
 century. It had been one of Arnold's great treats, as a boy, to 
 be allowed to accompany his father on this exciting trip to the 
 belfry. On such nights as this, the wind had an eerie whistle 
 which, of course, was witches riding around the bell-ringer's 
 loft on their broomsticks. And the rats scuttled headlong into 
 their holes for fear of the wicked black cats which, as every-
 
 458 God's Man 
 
 body knew (even rats) always rode with witches. . . . 
 And the Keverend Jorian had never failed to bid Arnold ob- 
 serve how the lantern was lit, and in what manner the hal- 
 liards worked ; for : ". . . this will be your duty in a few 
 years, my son." 
 
 Arnold tried to put remembrance away from him; turning 
 his gaze toward the blackness of the tempest again. But, 
 worse ! Young Paul had lighted the lantern to-night : it was 
 his duty now. An hour ago, while Arnold crouched in hate or 
 fled in fear, Paul, in his neat cleric's garb (he had been or- 
 dained curate during the summer) had ascended to the belfry 
 on his errand of "peace and good-will toward all men/' . . . 
 
 A cry escaped him whose errand this should have been. 
 Arnold stood for a moment under that black sky, his 
 clenched hands upraised, a tiny impotent speck in an im- 
 mensity of space sky and sea all one in that great void of the 
 storm. And, as he stood there, he personified helpless hu- 
 manity protesting against the remorseless cruelty of the 
 Infinite. 
 
 "Why ? why ? why ? Oh, my God, why ?" 
 
 Unknowingly he was voicing his anguished question as the 
 peninsula philosopher had said he would some day. 
 
 "Why? Why? What am I punished for? Is it never 
 to end?" 
 
 A fit of terrible rage seized him. "Oh, you up there," 
 he shouted. "You ! you ! ! you ! ! ! Ah !" He ground his 
 teeth. "You merciful!! You! Ha! Merciful! Oh, yes!" 
 He burst into fierce wild laughter. 
 
 It was a long and weary way he had yet to go. But, now, 
 he hardly knew when he stumbled, no longer felt weariness. 
 Those two simple pictures obsessed him : that child of long 
 ago and that serene-faced youth who had taken that child's 
 place obsessed him, yes, and brought thoughts more painful 
 than any physical exhaustion. And once when a fall of more 
 than usual severity sprawled him headlong, momentarily 
 bringing back the present, it only served to remind him, bit-
 
 The Hue and Cry 459 
 
 terly, that this sightless journey through the darkness and the 
 storm when, try as he might to walk carefully and well, he 
 could not guard against a single fall or injury was symbolical 
 of his life since his first unexpected tumble that expulsion 
 from Old King's University. Since then . . . Yes, it had 
 been very like indeed. 
 
 IV. ARNOLD LEAKNS WHY 
 
 Dawn was close at hand before Arnold came within sight of 
 the little hut. Hardly within sight, however; as little as 
 within sound, had there been any; for neither the blackness 
 nor the roaring of the storm had abated. But this shore had 
 been a favorite camping-ground for the Havre de Gravian 
 youngsters during Arnold's boyhood, and he was too familiar 
 with every curve and twist of it not to be able to steer a true 
 course and at any time to determine his position with some- 
 thing close to accuracy. 
 
 But, so wrapped was he in gloom, he had struck off inland 
 sooner than he had intended; therefore was recalled not only 
 by the cold chill of water about his waist but by the shock 
 thereof to his stomach which amounted to nausea. Recov- 
 ering, he remembered that the current that was endeavoring 
 to sweep him off his feet, could be caused by nothing save the 
 flooding of those lowlands whose existence was responsible for 
 the quasi-peninsula. Therefore he was separated from his 
 destination by no more than a few yards, plus whatever extra 
 width the invading waters had managed to tear away from the 
 higher ground on either side. 
 
 He had clutched out for the tall tough sea-grasses he knew 
 to be there, and, even before he had ceased to consider his new 
 plight, had, with their assistance, drawn himself safely ashore 
 again without encountering any greater depth than at first. 
 
 Arnold had lived through many hard winters, during which 
 the maritime portion of Havre's business had been done by 
 ice-boats, one of which the Connecticut mail-steamer carried
 
 460 God's Man 
 
 in her bows and often used to complete her contracts when 
 herself unable to enter the frozen Harbor. But Arnold never 
 remembered having been so cold as he was now. Since ten 
 o'clock he had been in the chilly air. Since two, he had en- 
 countered the storm. For a period nearly as long, and in the 
 same steady driving rain, he had striven across the wastes, 
 already drenched by his channel catastrophe. Now, after this 
 second icy ducking, and in that unearthly chill that precedes 
 the dawn, his teeth jarred together with all the force of his 
 jaws, his face ached, and, worse, he was nauseated. . . . 
 
 These were good excuses for bating something of usual 
 courtesy and beginning as loud a bawling as his chattering 
 teeth permitted. Without a light, he felt that, before his 
 blind groping for the hut brought results, he would have ex- 
 pired from the cold. 
 
 "Holloa hol-loa hol-1-o-a!" he bawled at the top of his 
 voice. "Show a light! A light!! Show a li-ight!!!" 
 This over and over again, stumbling and running the while. 
 Only for a moment, however, although it did not seem so 
 soon to him, and then a little pointed yellow light pierced 
 the darkness, wavered, stood erect, and there was the philoso- 
 pher in his doorway, the skirts of a flannel dressing-gown 
 flung over his shoulder like a cloak, and in his hand a small 
 bronze night-light shaped like the widow's cruse, its spout 
 aflame. 
 
 Arnold exhausted his remaining strength in redoubling his 
 speed, and, reaching the doorway, pushed past his host and 
 into the dark room beyond, dark save for a few remaining 
 embers in the fireplace. To these Arnold pointed in bitter 
 disappointment, babbling almost incoherently. 
 
 "A fire! I thought you'd have a fire. Light one quick. 
 I'm nearly dead. Hurry! Oh, please hurry! Can't you 
 see? . . ." 
 
 It was as little an apology as it was an explanation; al- 
 though an invasion of any other man's house in the small
 
 The Hue and Cry 461 
 
 hours would have required something more than both. But 
 the necessity of either did not occur to Arnold now any more 
 than to a son returning in like stress to a forgiving father; 
 and the recluse accepted the situation without comment, 
 spoken or facial. Almost as on the occasion of Arnold's pre- 
 vious visit, he seemed wholly occupied in making his guest 
 comfortable. This time, he raked together the few embers, 
 added newspapers and kindling, and drenched the lot with 
 coal-oil. As the resulting flare lit up blackened bricks and 
 shining hearth, he threw on heavier wood and genuine heat 
 replaced that fictitious one of the first flames. 
 
 Crossing to an ancient press he hastened to throw out 
 a huge Turkish towel, following it a pair of woolen pajamas ; 
 then, putting aside Arnold's semi-protesting palms, the Sa- 
 maritan stripped the wet garments from the shiverer, and, 
 enveloping him from shoulders to shins in the blanket-like 
 towel, began to bring back the blood to the skin by a manipu- 
 lation that was not unworthy those muscles peculiar to Ori- 
 ental bath-attendants. So little unworthy in fact that he soon 
 had his patient wincing with pain. It seemed he would never 
 cease; but, when he did, and Arnold felt the soothing soft 
 flannel of the pajamas caress his now feverish skin, and was 
 buttoned up to his neck in a fur-lined coat and thrust into a 
 capacious soft-seated basket-chair on the hearth, he stretched 
 T>ut his limbs in an ecstasy of sheer physical contentment, re- 
 laxing every muscle, luxuriating in a sensation so sybaritic 
 that it seemed for the moment as if exposure to all sorts of 
 inclemencies and hardships was not too great a price to pay 
 for turning the faculties of enjoyment to so ineffable a pitch. 
 
 Before familiarity should dull his senses, he scented the 
 aroma of coffee, and the thrill of anticipation was added. His 
 host, during Arnold's brief rapture, had crossed to the fire and 
 busied himself with the copper kettle from which the hiss of 
 boiling water had come since the relighting of the fire. Fra- 
 grant steam now arose as water and ground Mocha met.
 
 462 God's Man 
 
 Some milk having been heated, the compound was soon 
 handed to Arnold in a cup like an egg-shell, on which were 
 quaint Georgian figures. 
 
 Arnold burned his lips in his greedy gulping. But what 
 was that compared with retarding even for a moment the 
 glow that followed? When his cup had been twice refilled 
 old cognac added the third time his host placed near him a 
 carved box containing thick Oriental cigarettes, for one of 
 which he held out a light; and Arnold, after lacing the fire- 
 light with the first cloud of feathery smoke, incontinently for- 
 got everything except that, for the moment, he had never 
 experienced a sensation of happiness so absolute. As he closed 
 his eyes, he felt in entire sympathy with the doctrines of 
 Hedonism. 
 
 "You needn't talk until you're all right again," said his 
 benefactor, breaking his long silence to prevent the thanks he 
 saw about to be spoken. He returned to his pallet-bed and 
 resumed his blankets. Arnold bowed his head in grateful ac- 
 knowledgment. . . . Presently, having luxuriated long 
 enough, he surveyed the room through half-closed eyes, discov- 
 ering beauties that he had hitherto overlooked. And beauties 
 they really were, although Arnold in so rapt a state, found it 
 necessary to be enthusiastic over something, and hardly needed 
 real beauties to arouse his admiration. 
 
 The physical comfort, and now the mental stimulation of 
 the man's speech, had taken Arnold so far away from the cold 
 and misery of the last few hours that he laughed. But 
 the sound of it fell heavily on his ears. He closed his eyes 
 again, as if he hoped to shut out the sight of the night's 
 horrors. 
 
 The keen-eyed man on the bed noticed his suddenly altered 
 demeanor and closed his own eyes; so that, should his guest 
 turn, he might imagine his host had seen nothing. 
 
 "I suppose you wonder why I'm here?" asked Arnold pres- 
 ently, his tone sullen. 
 
 "No," the other replied.
 
 The Hue and Cry 463 
 
 Arnold eyed him aghast. "How can you know already?" 
 he faltered. 
 
 ''You asked me if I wondered why you were here/' his host 
 replied; "and I said 'No/ I know well enough why you're 
 here. You're in trouble and you think I can help you. Well, 
 I can. But will I, that's the point ?" 
 
 He paused, but only slightly. "I will," he went on. "When 
 I'm interested (which is seldom) I know the man who inter- 
 ests me should be a force in the world if he gets the right han- 
 dling. But for good or ill? It's my duty to discover. In 
 your case it must be for good. You haven't any evil instincts. 
 If you are in trouble, it is not because you have wanted to be 
 evil. That's easy for any one to see if he has learned to read 
 what Nature prints on every man's face. ... So, if you 
 are in trouble, I'll do my best to get you out. And I have 
 helped to get a good many people out of trouble in my time." 
 . . . His tone was calm, conversational, no hint of boast- 
 fulness or arrogance in it. But whoever listened must be con- 
 vinced that he spoke in the security of great strength. 
 
 Something snapped in Arnold. Tears stood in his eyes. 
 His host puffed at a brier pipe and stared at the ceiling. 
 "People don't come through the worst storm in years to pay a 
 friendly call," he resumed lightly. "Especially on a person 
 half-a-dozen miles from anywhere. Serious trouble is obvious. 
 When you feel disposed, or able, tell me about it. I think 
 you'd better have a sleep first, though." 
 
 Arnold laughed again, a far different laugh from the last. 
 "Sleep !" he said. The other knew he was answered. 
 
 "Well, then . . ." he invited, and placed his pillows higher, 
 so that he could look directly into Arnold's eyes. And Arnold, 
 faltering again, began . . . began the story of the past 
 few months and ended with that of the last few hours. . . . 
 
 When he had concluded, his lietener still maintained his 
 expectant attitude. But now his eyes were eager. 'That is not 
 all," he said. 
 
 "Not all ?" Arnold echoed bitterly.
 
 464 God's Man 
 
 The other shook his head. "The most important part is 
 missing; the reason why three people like your friends the 
 sons of the two wealthiest men hereabouts, and yourself a 
 man meant, by birth and brains and early education, to follow 
 in his father's ways happened to be smuggling opium? 
 That's the important part of the story." 
 
 "I I can't see why," Arnold said weakly. This man's 
 odd eerie eyes chilled him. There was something about the 
 fellow ... a weird triumph 
 
 "Do you remember what you asked me when you were here 
 before ?" the man inquired. "I haven't forgotten. 'Why have 
 two of my friends and myself been forced into shoddy shady 
 lives, when we intended to be decent ?' I said that the answer 
 was perfectly plain, but that there was no use telling you 
 then ! And to prove there wasn't, I told you anyhow. . . . 
 Do you remember what I said ?" 
 
 The same disquieting voice, the same strange hidden qual- 
 ity, somber, almost uncanny. "The Purpose," Arnold said, his 
 voice so still and small it did not seem to be his own. "The 
 world's history is only the fulfilment of that Purpose. . . ." 
 
 Arnold was almost afraid to think, so terrifying was the 
 thought of realization. Like the faint graying of the eastern 
 sky outside, betokening the approaching dawn, understanding 
 had begun to blot out the black clouds that hung thick and 
 heavy about his soul. 
 
 "And I told you you would not remain here and write, but 
 would go back to the city. I told you you had not had so 
 much bitterness only to live out your life with an unanswered 
 question in your eyes. And I told you that men like us were 
 the Sacrifices, that our loves and even our lives must be lost 
 that others might be saved. The Cross is the symbol of the 
 Question, the Eesurrection of the Answer." 
 
 Again, as before, his eyes blazed with strange fires. But to 
 Arnold they no longer held strange secrets. " 'Only after we 
 have been Crucified can we know that all has not been lost: 
 all has been gained. And then, and then only, can we teach/ "
 
 The Hue and Cry 465 
 
 Arnold had repeated the other's words as a child repeats a 
 lesson over and over before its meaning is begun to be under- 
 stood. 
 
 "And are you ready to be crucified," he heard the other 
 thunder in his ears, thunder it seemed although the man 
 spoke quietly enough; "so far you have only been scourged. 
 To-night is your Gethsemane. You can escape, continue to 
 have the world's respect Or you can have Calvary ! 
 Choose!" 
 
 Arnold could not answer. His throat was choked, the beat- 
 ing of his heart was suspended. His eyes were blinded, too, 
 for the first rays of the rising sun had shot, lance-like, through 
 the open windows and his head was in a glory of light. No 
 miracle. Merely the dawn. But what are miracles ? . . . 
 
 Arnold only knew that at last there was no "Why" any 
 more. He was not in that room, but seemed to soar high above 
 the earth, and -in a single second he saw the whole world 
 spread out beneath him. All his bitterness against mankind, 
 stupid, ignorant mankind, fled. A great pity overpowered 
 him, then a great love a love beside which the love of 
 woman, or wealth, or even of fame, was as a candle-light in 
 the splendor of the sun. And that splendor now irradiated him 
 as he sat with head upraised and eager lips, though it could add 
 no light to that already in his shining eyes. And when he an- 
 swered the other man, it seemed that some one else was lis- 
 tening. 
 
 "I know now," Arnold said. "I understand." 
 
 They sat silent as the sunlight grew and grew until it filled 
 the whole room. "I understand," Arnold said again. "Yes. 
 And only an hour ago, I meant to have Hugo make Archie 
 swear that I had loaned him the house. I was even going to 
 get you to swear that I had spent the night here. . . ." 
 
 "I'll do it if you still want me to," said the other in his 
 strange voice. But Arnold did not seem to hear him. 
 
 "... I was going to make all that suffering and 
 misery useless ; all that so many have had to endure to bring
 
 466 God's Man 
 
 things to this pass, when the answer to all the <Whys' can be 
 given to the world/' 
 
 "It has been given before," said the other man, without ex- 
 pression. "Long before your time. Millions have suffered 
 and thousands have sacrificed just as you will do to teach 
 the world the answer. And all have failed." 
 
 "No," said Arnold slowly. "There were always some who 
 listened. That is not failure. . . ." 
 
 A curious heaviness was on him ; and, although he recalled 
 the existence of certain evolutions of Nature that explained 
 his meaning better than any words of his for instance, the 
 quadrillions and quintillions of little blind coral insects that, 
 working in darkness for a millennium, give their bodies to 
 build a reef he could not find the energy to make even so 
 simple a statement. His tongue seemed swollen, his speech 
 thick. 
 
 Alas, for those misguided authors who would expand the 
 great moments of life into hours and days ; sustaining the ex- 
 altations and transfigurations of their heroes through long 
 chapters and longer acts. They seem to forget that man, if 
 first of the spirit, is last and not least for his earthly span 
 of the flesh. Even the greatest can not sustain the thrill of 
 such moments ; and, when the imprisonment of the flesh galls 
 most, they summon up memories of the time, when like a long- 
 imprisoned bird released from its cage to soar in the sunlight, 
 they were free. 
 
 But the bird must soon return, having been caged too long 
 to survive in the great spaces. So with Arnold. His exalta- 
 tion was too great for his physical endurance : his heart could 
 not pump blood fast enough to keep pace with its rapid beat- 
 ing, nor could such swift breathing furnish air sufficient for 
 his lungs. Had his exalted state endured too long, he must 
 have died as he sat there, and, as many have died, from too 
 great a gladness. For the body demands for each exaltation a 
 corresponding depression; and luckily so, since the converse 
 is also true.
 
 The Hue and Cry 467 
 
 Hence Arnold's temporary loss of articulation, the thickness 
 of his tongue, his leaden eyelids. Coming after a sleepless 
 night, a night of weariness and stress, the great moment had 
 sapped, not his remaining strength, for he had none, but 
 strength as yet unborn. And so even as his thoughts struggled 
 for expression he fell asleep with the warm bright sunlight in 
 his eyes ; and the rise and fall of his breast was not the regular 
 rise and fall of deep-chested breathing, but the shuddering in- 
 tensity of scanty breath and the hammer of intermittent heart- 
 throbs. But for all that, there was a smile on his lips : he was 
 truly at rest at last !
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 WEECK ASHOEE 
 ARNOLD'S DECISION EATIFIED 
 
 HILE Arnold slept, one curtain 
 of mist was drawn, then another 
 and another. 
 
 Suddenly one saw the Connect- 
 icut shore, hills and houses a ser- 
 ried line of blue, background red 
 and gold, sun the color of a Jap- 
 anese rose, sapphire Sound, an 
 enchanted lake of ruby wine, basin 
 bright blue crystal. 
 
 Breath of the dawn? Sea- 
 breeze? Elixir of life, rather, if 
 anything. 
 
 Whatever it was it swept in once the curtains were drawn, 
 and in the resulting trinity of sight, smell and sound, all 
 things were bright and crystal clear. Not bright blue alone, 
 but bright gold, bright white, and where the intermittent ever- 
 greens on the Green Sands Hills stood out, bright green, too. 
 Crystal bright, of course. The end of the world was the 
 sort of a place one wanted to go to this morning. The coats 
 of the gulls were dazzling white, the pinions of the crows lus- 
 trous black, purple black. 
 
 "When the peninsula philosopher opened his door, the gulls 
 were circling so near the waves that the tips of their wings 
 were rosy. A foolish young gull flaunted a very fat fish. A
 
 Wreck Ashore 469 
 
 flock of hungry crows arrived. Followed a sudden flight, a 
 noisy flurry, and out of a cloud of feathers, the fish flopped 
 down, the gull flapped up, and squawking, circled seaward. 
 
 During the battle, a bluejay seized upon the prize, scream- 
 ing derision. 
 
 "Poor Archie Hartogensis," said the man in the doorway, 
 staring after the terror-stricken gull. "You and your fat fish. 
 Poor John Waldemar ! Poor Benjamin Hartogensis. While 
 you were fighting for it, the bluejays got it, didn't they ?" 
 
 He had turned to watch the jay who, with his fat fish, had 
 careened off to the farthest fastness of the peninsula ; was 
 now about to alight upon some long black object imbedded in 
 the sand. As grace before meat, Master Blue-Coat again in- 
 dulged his cynical sense of humor. His harsh and noisy mirth 
 seemed sufficiently expressive of a similar state of mind in his 
 human prototype. 
 
 "Ha ! Ha ! Gull, indeed ! Well-named, well-named ! But 
 how did Blackie Crow get a reputation for being wise? Ha! 
 Ha! Ha! Ha!" 
 
 So accustomed was the man to the ways of birds and smaller 
 beasts, so often had he observed them, that, when the jay's 
 note changed, and he further postponed his stolen break- 
 fast to make an investigatory flight around that unusually 
 long black object on which he had alighted, the man thought 
 it worth while to reach within for his marine-glasses. 
 
 The jay again stood guard over his fat fish, but stood it on 
 one foot, the other scratching beneath his wing. "Oh, yes. A 
 boat. Didn't recognize it at first upside down. Anyhow it's a 
 wretched boat. Respectable boats are made with some regard 
 for the comfort of jays. And how can any jay be comfortable 
 on a sharp slippery keel? Some crazy new fashion of those 
 crazy humans, I suppose." Having settled the matter, he be- 
 gan his belated breakfast. 
 
 Not so the man. He had deciphered the letters on the long 
 boat's stern. Long-boat it was, and of the centuries-old sort 
 used by sailing-ships. The man's hands dropped to his sides.
 
 70 God's Man 
 
 Evidently he was oppressed by strong excitement. He turned 
 toward his sleeping guest. One might have read in his side- 
 long glance a debate as to the advisability of Arnold's awak- 
 ening. 
 
 Deciding rather dubiously in the negative, he stripped and 
 went seaward for his accustomed morning-plunge. On his 
 return, his unquietness continued and there were frequent 
 repetitions of his oblique glance. He began to prepare his 
 morning meal, hoping its delectable odors might awaken the 
 other. Not so. And the smoking-hot food untasted, the pity 
 of a great heart and a great brain gave that glance such con- 
 centration that it brought about the result desired. 
 
 Arnold awoke. "Just in time for breakfast," said his host, 
 forcing a note of cheer. And, then, answering: "I'm glad 
 you liked the coffee. Here's a fresh brew." 
 
 Both men were embarrassed. Products of Anglo-Saxon 
 training, they had been taught to be ashamed of any display 
 of emotion. Now that Arnold's exaltation had passed, he 
 was afraid he had been theatric; and his host, knowing this, 
 must yet recall the incident to his guest's memory. Indeed, 
 he could hardly wait to eat before he plunged. So awkward a 
 silence must not be allowed to endure : it was destructive. 
 
 "You realize, of course, that you may stroll into town this 
 morning and prove to people you have been here all night, and 
 that no one will suspect you seriously of being connected with 
 either the shooting or the smuggling? Your friend, young 
 Waldemar, is very wealthy. He can use his money and his in- 
 fluence to get Hartogensis off. And if he's that sort, 
 your friend, I mean, big-hearted, loyal, as you say, he 
 will. And there's the Squire to influence the 'respectable ele- 
 ment/ They'll only hold the other boys as accessories. Keep 
 them jailed until the trial. Witnesses really. . . . None 
 of the three is likely to be malicious because his friends were 
 lucky enough to escape. Neither you nor young "Waldemar 
 need to be implicated. You haven't committed any crime, 
 anyhow. You haven't even witnessed any crime."
 
 Wreck Ashore 471 
 
 "There's the Cormorant," said Arnold painfully. "They'll 
 be on the lookout for her, now. And then, donJt you see? 
 It's in my name and all I explained that, didn't I ? When 
 she arrives-" 
 
 "You mean that as you'll be arrested anyhow when the 
 Cormorant comes, you might as well save your face by surren- 
 dering now ?" But he got no further. Arnold had dashed off 
 the covers and now stood erect and angry. 
 
 "Give me my clothes," he said. "You'll be sorry for that 
 some day " 
 
 The other put a hand on his shoulder. "Sometimes people 
 are carried away by their emotions. But you're quite normal 
 now. And I wanted you to understand that you could go free 
 if you wished to. I know you have your parents to consider, 
 and that they are very old. And then there's their pride in 
 their unstained family-name. Centuries of unselfish service 
 and good works. And now " 
 
 Arnold was very pale ; his hands trembled ; he turned away. 
 But when he faced his host again, his eyes were untroubled. 
 "I believe they'll understand," he said quietly. "I've been 
 such a sorrow to them already that, when my father realizes 
 that all this that happened had to be, that I had to go 
 through all this for a purpose why, I believe he'll go down on 
 his knees and thank God." 
 
 "Wait," the other broke in, his strange eyes glowing. Ar- 
 nold had a sensation of helplessness. "The Cormorant won't 
 arrive. Now, or next week, or any other time. D'you under- 
 stand? Won't! Can't! She's done for !" 
 
 He gave Arnold the glasses. "That's a captain's boat. 
 Do you think he'd lower it until he'd lost all hope of saving his 
 ship ? And part owner of an uninsured cargo besides ! But 
 there she is, a hole in her bottom big enough for a door. Green 
 Sands signs its name that way in a storm, my friend." 
 
 The glasses he had thrust into Arnold's hands would have 
 been shattered on the floor had. he not caught them. Arnold 
 was again among the hills and valleys of hissing green. But
 
 472 God's Man 
 
 now Harvey Quinn was near by, struggling, too, his face 
 turned up to the gray awful sky. And Captain Danny's little 
 turtle head was bobbing, his arms real flappers now, and, as 
 useless. . . . Atop the highest white-capped hill, a man's 
 maimed hand was thrust, three fingers missing, holding aloft 
 a money-bag. . . . 
 
 Arnold, choking, threw himself face downward on the cot. 
 A clock marked off some silent moments. . . < Then he 
 raised white set face, lax wet lips, hot dry eyes. 
 
 "This God of ours is all they say He is, cruel, cruel, cruel. 
 The waste of it, the cruel waste. If there was any lesson, it 
 was taught when Waldemar died. There was no need for 
 those others to die too " 
 
 "Taught, to you! Yes! But there must be a great trag- 
 edy before those others will listen. Each one of those deaths 
 you call needless will save a thousand lives, my friend. 
 
 A shudder shook him. "Exaggeration ? I tell you that the 
 so-called civilization that gives men like John "Waldemar mil- 
 lions, destroys a thousand others every day. Waste! Listen 
 to me ! It took a million years, maybe, for that strange hybrid, 
 to perfect his body. Then it was the survival of the fittest, 
 that long terrible night when the only good was strength, 
 the only evil, weakness. Another million, maybe, and man 
 reached the perfection of the mind. . . . 
 
 "After the night, the dawn. But first the false dawn, my 
 friend. Then the sky seems clear, daylight on the wing. But 
 only seems . . . 
 
 "The perfection of the mind ! That was three thousand 
 years ago. Mere mentality can go no further than it did in 
 the days of those old Greeks, the Golden Age. . . . 
 "With the weapon they forged for man, he has freed himself of 
 the fear of brute strength, of superstition, thrown down false 
 priests and tyrant kings, conquered disease and pain. . . . 
 He has even dared to fight Death and conquer, sometimes. 
 . . . He has made the earth his servant, the sea, the air. 
 But for all his science and his machinery, he is still a slave.
 
 WrecK Ashore 473 
 
 With his hand on the door of freedom, greed and hate bar the 
 way. . . . 
 
 "False dawn! Will the daylight never come? Will men 
 never learn that perfection of the mind is not enough ? For it 
 can not do away with greed and hate. The greed of the rich, 
 without rhyme or reason, there is enough for all. The 
 hate of the poor how can poor men learn not to hate when 
 the weak and the ignorant are murdered or brutalized by un- 
 ceasing ugly toil? And for what? to make vicious women 
 and degenerate men. There is no need for the John Walde- 
 mars to be cunning and ruthless, nor for the Benjamin Harto- 
 gensises to be hypocritical and tricky ; nor for the men of big- 
 ger brains and greater hearts to be caught in this maelstrom 
 of commerce and finance that takes all and gives nothing. It 
 is whirling our civilization around and around until we are so 
 dizzy and dazed that we can not see that it is also driving us 
 upon the rocks as rapidly as last night's storm drove your 
 Cormorant. 
 
 "It was too late after she struck; it did not matter then 
 whether her crew saw the reef or not. They could only look 
 on helplessly while the great gale tore her apart." 
 
 He bowed his head, and it seemed that he prayed silently. 
 But he still continued to speak although so low that his lips 
 seemed scarcely to move; and his eyes, still alight, seemed 
 fixed upon something too far away for Arnold's to follow them. 
 
 "Rocks, yes! Greed and hate ! And for what? John Wal- 
 demar dead by his own hand as surely as if he had pulled the 
 trigger. Benjamin Hartogensis crazy with grief for the dis- 
 grace he made for himself. It is so plain, so plain. They 
 must listen this time, they must. And they will, surely they 
 will. The boy is right. It would be needlessly cruel for him 
 to have suffered so much, otherwise. And all those others! 
 But for him, especially, who had no desire to do evil; whose 
 people have served so long, so unselfishly, and so well. And 
 that was why. It needed some one such as he before they 
 would believe. They can not in this case soothe their uneasy
 
 474 God's Man 
 
 consciences with the apology of inherited vice. They must 
 believe the real reason for once." 
 
 "The real reason/' Arnold heard himself stammer. It was 
 his own voice, but it seemed the speaker was very far away. 
 
 "The real reason is that our so-called 'civilization' is our 
 Menace. And will be our Destroyer. Unless, like Franken- 
 stein, man who created it, destroys it. ... This is only 
 another of God's warnings. He is very tired of these human 
 folk who will not be men. . . . And He is very tired of 
 warning them, too. Unless they listen soon, He will destroy. 
 
 "That is why You had to be sacrificed. It was necessary 
 that so-called Civilization should drag down a man meant to 
 be good and force him to do evil. A man whose antecedents 
 would defy all such petty little excuses as heredity, environ- 
 ment, original sin ... a man whose ancestry was stain- 
 less and whose mind and body were clean and strong; a man 
 who might have been a minister of the gospel; had he been 
 let alone, or a millionaire; had he desired to do things for 
 himself and let the world go hang. 
 
 "But too many of the weak and helpless and ignorant and 
 hungry had been sacrificed in previous warnings, and to 
 what end ? It was too easy for them to fall, too brutally easy 
 for so-called Civilization to kick them while they were down. 
 And to satisfy its virtuous Self it was doing the virtuous 
 thing. 
 
 "So somebody had to be sacrificed who hadn't any of the 
 mob's ugly little reasons for rebellion ? Who wasn't hungry or 
 poor or envious., who wasn't any of the ugly little things that 
 make hate. 
 
 "And it had to be a man who didn't need money for him- 
 self. Who didn't want money at all if he must get it in the 
 ugly little 'honest' ways a virtuous civilization applauds. A 
 man who believed that when he wasn't helping, he was hurt- 
 ing. 
 
 "And, above all, a man who would finally come before the 
 Law, and stand his trial, and show that it was helping that
 
 Wreck Ashore 475 
 
 brought him there, not hurting. Can't you see ? From the 
 very first God meant it that way. That was why every time 
 you helped another, you hurt yourself. That was the lesson 
 that must be brought out when you were tried for offenses 
 against Civilization. Instance after instance has been piled 
 up to prove that the System was Guilty, not the Man. 
 
 "Take each incident and see how true this is. You were 
 forced out of college for helping. You were forced from your 
 chosen work, for helping. You were sent to jail, for help- 
 ing . . . and, now, you are going to jail of your own free 
 will. And again, for helping." 
 
 Arnold started. But the other's gaze was steady. 
 
 "Yes," Arnold said slowly. "I'm going to jail of my own 
 free will." 
 
 "To prove it was all for helping," the other resumed. "For 
 if you did not if you shirked the last test what good would 
 all the rest have been? You are going to surrender yourself, 
 and you are going to make Waldemar's son surrender himself. 
 And when you do, you are going to tell why. And, also, that 
 you had only to comply with what 'Civilization' taught to win 
 the world's respect and share its riches. 
 
 "Just as those other L'Hommedieus had only to comply, 
 that Sir Lucas, that Chevalier Etienne, to win high places. 
 But, like you, both preferred to be rebels and exiles. Because 
 they were God's Men. 
 
 "That is why you need no longer be ashamed of anything 
 you have done. You have neither disgraced your name, nor 
 been unworthy of your ancestors. They served their fellow- 
 men unselfishly, yes ! But you will be remembered as one who 
 suffered and sacrificed besides. And on the day when your 
 foot touches the prisoner's dock, and you make answer to Civ- 
 ilization's indictment, I doubt if any one of your race will 
 have had as good a right as you to be called 'God's Man'." 
 
 THE END
 
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