the band on the platform at the end of the big hall was booming out the popular melodies of the day for dear life and the piercing notes produced by the leather-lunged piccolo player were heard as far as the street.
“that guy up there has me deaf with that flute he’s blowing,” remarked big lizzie, “and while i don’t wish him any harm yet i hope he chokes.”
“that knocks this place,” remarked her pal. “why, i had a john in here the other day and he was wanting to buy me a new dress, and i thought he was wanting to know where i lived, and i was writing my name and number down on a piece of paper and he got disgusted and went away. it drives ’em out, if you want to know what i think.”
but it was once a famous old place when fourteenth street was really good, and the casual visitor to new york who didn’t drop in for an hour or so missed something.
it was one of the sights, and the great mechanical organ invented and built by a straight-laced methodist is there still, although he has long ago ceased calling the attention of his friends to the fact. its tunes to-day are sandwiched in with those of the band, and in the interval the trombone player gets a chance to recover his breath.
270
morning, noon and night men and women wander in, sit at the little round tables, drink queer decoctions made of liquor strong enough to eat into harveyized steel, and then go forth to tear up the town. the police pass it by as though it were nothing more serious than an ice cream parlor or a peanut emporium, while the tide of upholstered and hand-painted mademoiselles sweep in on the flood and drift out on the ebb with business written in every line of their faces.
their paths radiate like the sticks of a fan from this rendezvous of the social evil, and in their movements they show nearly all the characteristics of the honey-gathering bee.
the engaging and winsome smile of a girl not yet out of her teens had caught the eye of the man in this story, and against his will he had allowed her to lead him into this place where mirth was nothing more nor less than a mask behind which a skeleton face grinned, and where neither laughter nor anything else was sincere. her black eyes had not yet taken on that hardness which the years to come would surely add to them, and her ways were to a certain extent ingenuous. besides, she was distinctly pretty with her yiddish style of beauty, which was unfortunately of the kind which matures at sixteen and is old at twenty-five. either teaching or a subtle instinct had caused her to discard the gorgeous plumes and brilliant colors which had marked her debut on the street less than a year before, and in consequence she might have passed for anything but what she was.
she had been on the stage once on a tour, but got a rough deal and quit.
271
he outclassed her by a hundred to one, and his source was as high as hers was low. there was no tinge of peasantry in his veins, but good successful american stock traceable back for five or six generations without a blot upon escutcheon—which, by the way, is rather rare in these days, consequently it’s worth boasting about. lured into the maelstrom of music, he found himself at one of the tables with the girl beside him, still smiling.
liquor has different effects on different men; it turns the mild man into a savage and makes a careful one reckless in the extreme. in this particular case caution went to the four winds and sympathy—which is apt to be dangerous at times—took its place. but let youth and inexperience excuse him.
“you haven’t told me your name,” he said. “what is it?”
“brown,” she answered, “jennie brown.”
“i mean your right name.”
“well, jennie is my right name—i took the other one after i came out of the hospital. some day, maybe, i’ll get married and then i’ll change it again, but not before.”
“what did you go to the hospital for—were you ill and did you have no one to take care of you?”
“ill? you mean sick? no, i wasn’t sick; i was stabbed, and i got it good, too. i was cut from here to here,” and her right forefinger described across the front of her dress a line that went from her shoulder to the center of her breast bone. “at first i thought i was going to croak because i lost a lot of blood, but i’m pretty strong and i came out all right. you see, it was this way: a guy i knew got stuck on me and i
272
couldn’t shake him, and he followed me around like a shadow. i didn’t like him because he wasn’t in my class, and besides he had another girl and i never took a girl’s fellow away in my life. if they split up then that’s different, but as long as they’re together i keep out of it. every time i’d talk to anybody or go anywhere he’d be there. one night he followed me and a fellow i had that wanted to buy wine into sharkey’s and when he tried to start a fight with my friend one of the waiters threw him out. of course that made him sore, and he said that he’d get even. he did, all right, for one night as i was going upstairs he was in the top hall waiting for me, and the first thing i knew he had the knife into me.
“‘if you won’t have me, take this,’ he said, and then i felt an awful pain and when i put my hand up the blood was coming through my dress.
“‘you killed me, jimmy,’ i said, ‘and i never done anything to you.’ but there wasn’t any answer to that, for he was running down the stairs as fast as he could.
“i was afraid to go up to my room all alone with the blood running out all over me so i went down to the street to look for my pal, annie. you don’t know her but she’s all right. it was two o’clock in the morning and there was no one around so i thought i’d walk over to third avenue and see if i could find any of the girls there and get help. there was an electric light up on the corner and i hadn’t taken more than a few steps before it began to move up and down and i got afraid and began to run. when i got up to the avenue all the lights were going up and down as if they were
273
crazy and a man on the other side of the street looked as if he was upside down.
“then i began to get frightened and i thought to myself that i’d sit down on a doorstep for a minute till i got over that queer feeling and that maybe annie would come along. so i picked the first one i saw and flopped down. when i looked up it made me dizzy and so i looked down at the stone, and as i leaned over i watched the little red drops falling, one after the other, and always hitting the same spot, and then they began to spread out and the pool almost reached the sole of my shoe. i was wondering how long it would take before my foot got wet from it, and where it all came from, anyhow. it all seemed very funny to me; then i felt tired and shut my eyes.
“the next thing i knew i was in bed and there was a nurse there. a cop was there, too, and when i looked at him he says, ‘ha, nurse, she’s out of it.’
“‘what place is this?’ i asked.
“‘you’re in bellevue hospital,’ he said, and he was right. i had been there two days before i knew it. what do you think of that?”
“you were unconscious,” remarked the young man.
“sure i was unconscious,” she responded, “and they asked me all kinds of questions, who did it and all that, and——”
“and did you tell them who it was that stabbed you?”
“did i tell them? nix; not on your life. i never rapped on anybody and i wasn’t going to rap on him, for it wouldn’t do me any good and it wouldn’t take that stab away, would it? i thought i’d get square myself some day when i got out of the hospital and was
274
strong again. that’s the only way. him going up the river for a couple of years wouldn’t have done me any good, and maybe he’d have croaked me when he came out. what’s the good of taking chances? so i hocked all my rings and other stuff, and got togged up when i came out. i’ll get them all out in a month, maybe before. i got one now; see,” and she held up a finger on which was a very big turquoise, surrounded by very small diamonds. “i’ll get them one at a time, and then if i ever get up against it again i’ve got them to fall back on. it’s just as good as money, only the interest is awful. now if i only had a good friend who would——”
“want the waiter?” broke in a hoarse voice like the croak of a mammoth raven.
“give me a claret lemonade, harry.”
“and what’ll the gent have?”
“a martini cocktail.”
“right you are.”
“as i was saying, if i only had a friend who would be on the level i’d be square with him, too. i ain’t got no pals, only annie, and she’s been pretty good to me. say, you ain’t married, are you?”
“no, not yet”; he laughed nervously as he said it. “i don’t believe in fellows getting married until they’re twenty-five, anyhow.”
“neither do i.”
he noticed that her teeth were very white and even, and that her eyebrows and hair were jet black. the color on her cheeks had been put there with a skilled hand, and so deftly done that it passed for the real thing—in nature, not in art. her hands were shapely, her nails manicured carefully and she had a trim figure.
275
it was all stock in trade, but he wasn’t figuring it that way. half a dozen of the kind of drinks they had given him had torn down the barrier, so far as he was concerned, that had been raised by society between it and the scarlet woman, and the pathos of her story had set him thinking and had roused all of his sympathies. she had played her part with all of the subtleness of the finished actress and had told her story with such simplicity and naivette that many an older man would have been deceived by the recital. she was working up to the climax as carefully and cautiously as the hunter works up into the wind after the unsuspecting deer, or the soft-footed cat ambushes the bird singing in the hedge. the emotional breed of her race helped to make her realistic, and her vivacity was contagious. put her on the stage and she would be a success with proper training.
“if,” she laid her hand caressingly on the sleeve of his coat, “if i could find someone who would get my rings out and give me a chance i would be willing to do anything for him. i don’t like this life, always hustling, chased by the police and treated like a thief. but once in it’s hard to get out, for no one wants to give you a chance.”
he was looking over her head and watching the man with the cornet rubbing up the brass with his handkerchief.
“you are not listening to me.”
“yes, i am; i heard every word you said. how much would it cost to get your jewels out?”
“only $125. it might not be much for you, but it’s a lot for me.”
276
here was the climax, so far as her story was concerned. she could have repeated those three figures long before, but she wasn’t ready. she was waiting for the psychological moment and it had arrived. the picture was made and the hand was ready.
and now your attention is respectfully called to fate, the intruder; the upsetter of carefully laid plans; the wrecker; sometimes the promoter, because it does as many things for good as it does for bad. in this case, however, it was good and bad, according to the viewpoint.
“if you wouldn’t mind i’ll get them out for you. let’s go now,” he said.
she leaned back in her chair and smiled at him—a smile of happiness and success; the smile of a child when it gets its first christmas doll; and then she drew a deep breath. still smiling, her eyes half closed, she looked at him through the narrow slits and contemplated the possibilities of the future. there was no hurry and she could afford to wait, for she had won out.
a woman, coarse of feature and with fright depicted on her face, came hurrying in. she saw the girl at one end of the room and ran to her.
“jennie, for god’s sake, come quick; your billy’s just been pinched on the corner.”
“billy pinched; what for?” the jubilation in her black eyes turned to terror.
“for swiping a bloke’s leather. they got it on him; hurry up.”
the boy stared wide-eyed at them for a moment, then pushing his chair back he arose unsteadily to his feet.
277
“seventy-five cents for the drinks.”
it was the waiter’s voice.
he fumbled in his pocket, brought forth a handful of change, deposited it in the outstretched palm, and began to weave his way among the tables toward the door in the wake of the hurrying women.
“he’s a swell kid, all right,” remarked the waiter, as he counted the $3.25 in change, “and i hope he comes back.”
