he was not too ill to eat, but too ill when not eating to stay anywhere but on his bed. he went back to it again, lying with his face buried in the pillow as before. the boy resumed his patient sitting. he would have been bored with it now, had he not had his dreams.
all the same, it was a relief when about four o'clock, just as the westering sun was beginning to wake the red indian to an horrific life, mr. honeybun, pushing the door ajar softly, peeped in with his good eye.
"i say, mate!" he whispered, "wouldn't you like me to take the young gent for a bit of a walk like? do him good, and him a-mopin' here all by hisself."
the walk meant tom's initiation into the life of cities as that life is led. not that it went very far, but as far as it went it was a revelation. it took him from one end of jane street to the other, along the docks of the cunard and other great lines, and as far as eighth avenue in the broad, exciting thoroughfare of fourteenth street. new york as he had seen it hitherto, from the front seat of a motor truck, had been little more entertaining than a map. besides, he was only developing a taste for this sort of entertainment. games, school, scraps with other boys, had been enough for him. now he was waking
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to an interest in places as places, in men as men, in differences of attitude to the drama known as life. in mr. honeybun's attitude he grew interested especially.
"i don't believe that nothink don't belong to no one," tom's guide observed, as the wealth of the city spread itself more splendidly. "things is common proputty. yer takes what yer can put yer 'and on."
"but wouldn't you be arrested?"
"yer'd be arrested if yer didn't look out; but what's bein' arrested? no more'n the measures what a lot of poor, frightened, silly boobs'll take agin the strong man what makes 'em tremble. at least," he added, as an afterthought, "not when yer conscience is clear, it ain't."
fascinated by this bold facing of society, tom ventured on a question. "have you ever been arrested, mr. honeybun?"
mr. honeybun straightened himself to the martyr's pose. "oh, if yer puts it that way, i've suffered for my opinions. that much i'll admit. i'm—" he brought out the statement proudly—"i'm one o' them there socialists. you know what a socialist is, don't yer?"
tom was not sure that he did.
"a socialist is one o' them fellers who whatever he sees knows it belongs to him if he can get ahold of it. it's gettin' ahold of it what counts. now if you was to have somethink i wanted locked up in yer 'ouse, let us say, and i was to make my way in so as i could take it—why, then it'd be mine. that's the law o' gord, i believes; and i tries to live up to it."
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enjoying a frankness which widened his horizon, tom was nevertheless perplexed by it. "but wouldn't that be something like burglary?"
"burglary is what them may call it what ain't socialists; but it don't do to hang a dog because yer've give him a bad name. a lot o' good people's been condemned that way. when i'm in court i always appeals to justice."
"and do you get it?"
"i get men's. i don't get gord's. you see that apple?" they stopped before a window in horatio street where apples were displayed. "now, do yer suppose that apple growed itself for any one man in partic'lar? no! that apple didn't know nothink about men's laws when it blossomed on a apple tree. it just give itself generallike to the human race. if you was to go in and collar that big red one, and git away with it, it'd be yours. stands to reason it'd be. gord's law! but if that there policeman, a-squintin' his ugly eye at us this minute—he knows honey lem, he does!—was to pull yer in, yer might git thirty days. man's law! and i'll leave it to you which is best worth sufferin' for."
in this philosophy of life there was something tom found reasonable, and something in which he felt a flaw without being able to detect it. he chased it round and round in his thoughts as he sat through the long dull hours with his father. it passed the time; it helped him to the habit of thinking things out for himself. his mind being clear, and his intuitions acute, he could generally solve a problem not beyond his years. when, on the morrow, they walked in the
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cool of the day down the length of hudson street till it ends in reade street, tom brought the subject up from another point of view.
"but, mr. honeybun, suppose someone took something from you? what then?"
"he'd git it in the nut," the socialist answered, tersely. "not if there'd be two of 'em," he added, in amendment. "if there's two i don't contend. i ain't a communist."
"is that what a communist is, a fellow who'll contend with two?"
"a communist is a socialist what'll use weepons. if there's somethink what he thinks is his in anybody's 'ouse, he'll go armed, and use vi'lence. they never got that on me. i never 'urt nobody, except onst i hits a footman, what was goin' to grab me, a wee little knock on the 'ead with a silver soup ladle i 'ad in me 'and and lays 'im out flat. didn't do him no 'arm, not 'ardly any. that was in england. but them days is over, since i lost my eye. makes yer awful easy spotted when yer've lost a eye."
"how did you lose it, mr. honeybun?"
"i lost it a-savin' of the life of a beautiful young lady. 'twas quite a tale." the boy looked up expectantly while his friend thought out the details. "i was footin' it onst from new haven to new york, and i'd got to a pretty little town as they call old lyme. yer see, i'd been doin' a bit o' time at new haven—awful 'ard on socialists they was in new haven in them days—and when i gits out i was a bit stoney-broke till i'd picked up somethink else. well there i was, trampin' it through old lyme, and i'd
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got near to the bridge what crosses the river they've got there—the connecticut i think it is—and what should i see but a 'orse what a young lady was drivin' come over the bridge like mad. the young lady she was tuggin' at the reins and a-hollerin' like blazes for some one to save her life. i ain't no 'ero, kid. don't go for to think that i'm a-sayin' that i am. but what's a man to do when he sees a beautiful young lady in danger o' bein' killed?" he paused to take the bodily postures with which he stopped the runaway. "and the tip of the shaft," he ended, "it took me right in the eye, and put it out. but, lord, what's a eye, even to a socialist, when yer can do somethink for a feller creeter?"
tom gaped in admiration. "i suppose it hurt awful."
"was in 'orspital three months," the hero said, quietly. "young lady, she visits me reg'lar, calls me her life-saver, and every name like that, and kind o' clings to me. but, lord, marriage ain't never been much of a fancy to me. ties a man up, and i likes to be free, except when i'm sufferin' for socialism. besides, if i was to marry every woman what i've saved their lives i'd be one o' them normans by this time. when yer wants company a good pal'll be faithfuller than a wife, and nag yer a lot less."
"mr. goodsir's your pal, ain't he, mr. honeybun?"
"yes, and i'm sick of him. he don't develop. he ain't got no eddication. yer can see for yerself he don't talk correct. that's what i've took to in yer gov'nor and you, yer gentleman way o' speakin'. only yer needn't go for to tell yer old man all what i've
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been a-gassin' of to you. i can see he's what they call conservative. he wouldn't understand. you're the younger generation, mind more open like. you and me'd make a great team if we was ever to work together."
with memories of his mother in his mind, tom answered sturdily, "i wouldn't be a socialist, not for anything you could offer me."
they left it at that. mr. honeybun was content to point out the historic sites known to him as they turned homeward. there was the house where a murder had been committed; the store where a big break had been pulled off; a private detective's residence.
"might go out agin some day, if yer pop don't mind it," he suggested, when they had reached their own hallway. "i gits the time in the late afternoon. yer see, our job at the market begins early and ends early, and lately—" there was a wistful note—"well, i feels kind o' fed up with the low company goodsir keeps. every kind o' joint and dive and—and—chinamen—and—" out of respect for the boy he held up the description. "you'd 'ardly believe it, but an innercent little walk like what we've just took, why, it'll do me as much good as a swig o' water when you wake up about three in the mornin', with yer tongue 'angin' out like a leather strap, after a three-days' spree."
unable to get the full force of this figure, tom thanked his guide politely, and was bounding up the stairs two steps at a time, when the man who stood watching him spoke again.
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"if i'd ever a-thought that i'd 'a had a kid like you, it'd 'a' been pretty near worth gittin' married for."
tom could only turn with one of those grins which showed his teeth, making his eyes twinkle with a clear blue light, when adequate words for kindness wouldn't come to him.
