Prev Next

Gibbs went into the bar-room.

"Who's that?" asked Mandell.

"He's a swell, all right," said Keenan.

The three, Mandell, Keenan and Jackson, looked at Mason as if he could tell. But Archie suddenly remembered.

"He looks like an army officer," he said, speaking his thought aloud.

"What do you know about army officers, young fellow?" demanded Jackson.

The others turned, and Archie blushed. But he did not propose to have Jackson put him down.

"Well," he said with spirit, "I know something--I was in the regular army three years."

"What regiment?" Jackson fixed Archie with his blue eyes, and there seemed to be just a trace of concern in their keen, searching glance.

"The twelfth cavalry," said Archie. "I served in the Philippines."

"Oh!" said Jackson, as if relieved, and he released Archie from his look. Archie felt relieved, too, and went on:

"He looks just like a colonel in the English army I saw at Malta. Our transport stopped there."

"It's Lon McDougall," said Mason when Archie had finished. "He's a big-mitt man."

The others turned away with an effect of lost interest and something like a sneer.

"I suppose there's a lot o' those guns out there," said Keenan.

"A mob come in this afternoon," said Mason; "they're working eastward out of Chicago with the rag."

"Well, let's make a get-away," said Keenan, unable to conceal a yegg man's natural contempt of the guns.

They all got up, Archie with them, and went out. In the bar-room five men were standing; they were all men of slight figure, dressed well and becomingly, and with a certain alert, sharp manner. They cast quick, shifty glances at the men who came out of the back room, but there was no recognition between them. These men, as Mason had said, were all pickpockets; they had come to town that afternoon, and naturally repaired at once to Gibbs's. They had come in advance of a circus that was to be in the city two days later, and were happy in the hope of being able to work under protection. They knew Cleary as a chief of police with whom an arrangement could be made, and McDougall, who had come in to work on circus day himself, had kindly agreed to secure them this protection. At that moment, indeed, McDougall was whispering with Gibbs at the end of the bar; they were discussing the "fixing" of Cleary.

The pickpockets had been talking rather excitedly. They were glad at the prospect of the circus, and, in common with the rest of humanity, they were glad that spring had come, partly from a natural human love of this time of joy and hope, partly because the spring was the beginning of the busy season. They could do more in summer, when people were stirring about, just as the yegg men could do more in winter, when the nights were long and windows were closed and people kept indoors. But at the appearance of Mason and his friends, one of the pickpockets gave the thieves' cough, and they were silent. McDougall glanced about, then resumed his low talk with Gibbs.

"Give us a little drink, Kate," said Jackson, who seemed to have money.

As they stood there pouring out their whisky, a little girl with a tray of flowers entered the saloon, and the pickpockets instantly bought all her carnations and adorned themselves. And then a man entered, a small man, with a wry, comical face and a twisted, deformed figure; his left hand was curled up as if he had been paralyzed on that side from his youth. But once behind the big walnut screen which shut off the view from the street, he straightened suddenly and became as well formed as any one. His comedian's face broke into a smile, and he greeted every one there familiarly; he knew them all--Gibbs and McDougall, the pickpockets, and the yegg men, and he burst into loud congratulations when he saw Jackson.

"Well, Curly," he said, "you gave that geezer all that was coming to him! You--"

"Cheese it, Jimmy," said Jackson. "I don't want to hear any more about that."

Jackson spoke with such authority that the little fellow stepped back, the smile that was on his lips faded suddenly, and he joined the pickpockets. The little fellow was a grubber; he could throw his body instantly into innumerable hideous shapes of deformity; he had not the courage to be a thief, was afraid to sleep in a barn, and so had become a beggar.

As Mason bade Gibbs good night and went out he was laughing, and Archie had not often seen him laugh. On the way down the street he told stories of Jimmy's abilities as a beggar, and they all laughed, all save Jackson, who was gloomy and morose and walked along shrouded in a kind of gloom that impressed Archie powerfully.

And now new days dawned for Archie--days of association with Mason, Jackson, Keenan and Mandell. The Market Place gang had no standing among professional criminals, though it had furnished recruits, and now Archie became a recruit, and soon approved himself. It was not long until he could speak their language; he called a safe a "peter" and nitroglycerin "soup," a freight-train was a "John O'Brien"; he spoke of a man convicted as a "fall man", conveying thus subtly a sense of vicarious sacrifice; he called policemen "bulls", and jails "pogeys"; the penitentiary where all these men had been was the "stir", and the little packages of buttered bread and pie that were handed out to them from kitchen doors were "lumps". And he learned the distinctions between the classes of men who defy society and its laws; he knew what gay cats were, and guns and dips, lifters, moll-buzzers, hoisters, tools, scratchers, stalls, damper-getters, housemen, gopher-men, peter-men, lush-touchers, super-twisters, penny-weighters, and so forth. And after that he was seen at home but seldom; his absences grew long and mysterious.

XVIII

Elizabeth did not go often to the Country Club, and almost never for any pleasure she herself could find; now and then she went with her father, in order to lure him out of doors; but to-day she had come with Dick, who wanted some fitting destination for his new touring car. She was finding on a deserted end of the veranda a relief from the summer heat that for a week had smothered the city. A breeze was blowing off the river, and she lay back languidly in her wicker chair and let it play upon her brow. In her lap lay an open book, but she was not reading it nor meditating on it; she held it in readiness to ward off interruption; her reputation as a reader of books, while it made her formidable to many and gave her an unpopularity that was more and more grieving her mother, had its compensations--people would not often intrude upon a book. She looked off across the river. On its smooth surface tiny sail-boats were moving; on the opposite bank there was the picturesque windmill of a farm-house, white against the bright green. The slender young oak trees were rustling in the wind; the links were dotted with players in white, and the distant flags and fluttering guidons that marked hidden putting greens. Then suddenly Marriott was before her.

He had come in from the links, and he stood now bareheaded, glowing from his exercise, folding his arms on the veranda rail. His forearms were blazing red from their first burning of the season, and his nose was burned red, giving him a merry look that made Elizabeth smile.

"My! but you're burned!" she exclaimed.

"Am I?" said Marriott, pleased.

"Yes--like a mower," she added, remembering some men working in a field that had fled past them as they came out in the automobile. She remembered she had fancied the men burned brown as golfers, and she had some half-formed notion of a sentence she might turn at the expense of a certain literary school that viewed life thus upside down. She might have gone on then and talked it over with Marriott, but her brain was too tired; she could moralize just then no further than to say:

"You don't deserve to be burned as a mower--your work isn't as hard."

"No," said Marriott, "it isn't work at all--it's exercise; it's a substitute for the work I should be doing." A look of disgust came to his face.

She did not wish then to talk seriously; she was trying to forget problems, and she and Marriott were always discussing problems.

"It's absurd," Marriott was saying. "I do this to get the exercise I ought to get by working, by producing something--the exercise is the end, not an incident of the means. You don't see any of these farmers around here playing golf. They're too tired--"

"Gordon," said Elizabeth, "I'm going away."

"Where to?" he asked, looking up suddenly.

"To Europe," she said.

"Europe! Why, when? You must have decided hurriedly."

"Yes, the other night after I came home from Mr. Parrish's--we decided rather quickly--or papa decided for us."

"Well!" Marriott exclaimed again. "That's fine!"

He looked away toward the first tee, where his caddie was waiting for him. He beckoned, and the boy came with his bag.

"Tell Mr. Phillips I'll not play any more--I'll see him later."

The caddie took up the bag and went lazily away, stopping to take several practice swings with one of Marriott's drivers. The boy was always swinging this club in the hope that Marriott would give it to him.

Marriott placed his hands on the rail, sprang over it, and drew up a chair.

"Well, this is sudden," he said, "but it's fine for you." He took out a cigarette. "How did it happen?"

"Do you want the real reason?" she asked.

"Of course; I've a passion for the real."

Report error

If you found broken links, wrong episode or any other problems in a anime/cartoon, please tell us. We will try to solve them the first time.

Email:

SubmitCancel

Share