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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
Sons' (of Spring Falls, Mass.) latest and best assortment of domestic
cutlery was exposed to view, and the room became crowded with
Sam's customers, that the smile on his face became a veritable
coruscation of wriggles and darts; scurrying around his lips, racing in
circles from his nose to his ears, tumbling over each other around
the corners of his pupils and beneath the lids; Sam talking all the
time, the keen eyes boring, or taking impressions, the sales
increasing every moment.

The room became crowded with Sam's customers.

When the last man was bowed out and the hatches of the ironclads
were again shut, anyone could see that Sam had skimmed the
cream of the town. The hayseeds might have what was left. Then he
would go downstairs, square himself before a long, sloping desk,
open a non-stealable inkstand, turn on an electric light, sift out half
a dozen sheets of hotel paper, and tell Bullock & Sons all about it.

On this trip Sam's ironclads were not wide open on a hotel table, but
tight-locked aboard a Fall River steamer. Sam had a customer in Fall
River, good for fifty dozen of B. & S.'s No. 18 scissors, $9—10 per
cent. off and 5 more for cash. The ironclads had been delivered on
the boat by the transfer company. Sam had taken a street-car. There
was a block, half an hour's delay, and Sam arrived on the string-
piece as the gangplank was being hauled aboard.
"Look out, young feller!" said the wharf man; "you're left."
"Look again, you Su-markee!" (nobody knows what Sam means by
this epithet), and the drummer threw his leg over the rail of the
slowly moving steamer and dropped on her deck as noiselessly as a
cat. This done, he lifted a cigar from a bunch stuffed in the outside
pocket of the prevailing waistcoat, bit off the end, swept a match
along the seam of his "pants" (Sam's own), lit the end of the
domestic, blew a ring toward the fast-disappearing wharfman, and
turned to get his ticket and state-room, neither of which had he
secured.
Just here Mr. Samuel Makin, of Bullock & Sons, manufacturers, etc.,
etc., received a slight shock.
There was a ticket-office and a clerk, and a rack of state-room keys,
just as Sam had expected, but there was also a cue of passengers—
a long, winding snake of a cue beginning at the window framing the
clerk's face and ending on the upper deck. This crawling line of
expectants was of an almost uniform color, so far as hats were
concerned—most of them dark blue and all of them banded about
with a gold cord and acorns. The shoulders varied a little, showing a
shoulder-strap here and there, and once in a while the top of a
medal pinned to a breast pressed tight against some comrade's
back. Lower down, whenever the snake parted for an instant, could
be seen an armless sleeve and a pair of crutches. As the head of this
cue reached the window a key was passed out and the fortunate
owner broke away, the coveted prize in his hand, and another
expectant took his place.
Sam watched the line for a moment and then turned to a by-
stander:
"What's going on here?—a camp-meeting?"
"No. Grand Army of the Republic—going to Boston for two days.
Ain't been a berth aboard here for a week. Sofas are going at two
dollars, and pillows at seventy-five cents."
Sam's mind reverted for a moment to the look on the wharfman's
face, and the corners of his mouth began to play. He edged nearer
to the window and caught the clerk's eye.
"No hurry, Billy," and Sam winked, and all the lizards darted out and
began racing around the corners of his mouth. "'Tend to these gents
first—I'll call later. Number 15, ain't it?"
The clerk moved the upper lid of his left eye a hair's breadth, took a
key from the rack and slipped it under a pile of papers on his desk.
Sam caught the vibration of the lid, tilted his domestic at a higher
angle, and went out to view the harbor and the Statue of Liberty
and the bridge—any old thing that pleased him. Then this expression
slipped from between his lips:
"That was one on the hayseeds! Cold day when you're left, Samuel!"
When supper-time arrived the crowd was so great that checks were
issued for two tables, an hour apart. When the captain of the boat
and the ranking officer of the G. A. R. filed in, followed by a hungry
mob, a lone man was discovered seated at a table nearest the galley
where the dishes were hottest and best served. It was Sam. He had
come in through the pantry, and the head steward—Sam had known
him for years, nearly as long as he had known the clerk—had
attended to the other details, one of which was a dish of soft-shell
crabs, only enough for half a dozen passengers, and which
toothsome viands the head steward scratched off the bill of fare the
moment they had been swallowed.
That night Sam sat up on deck until the moon rose over Middle
Ground Light, talking shop to another drummer, and then he started
for state-room Number 15 with an upper and lower berth (both
Sam's), including a set of curtains for each berth—a chair, a
washbowl, life-preserver, and swinging light. On his way to this
Oriental boudoir he passed through the saloon. It was occupied by a
miscellaneous assortment of human beings—men, women and
children in all positions of discomfort—some sprawled out on the
stationary sofas, some flat on the carpet, their backs to the
panelling; others nodding on the staircase, determined to sit it out
until daylight. On the deck below, close against the woodwork, rolled
up in their coats, was here and there a veteran. They had slept that
way many a time in the old days with the dull sound of a distant
battery lulling them to sleep—they rather liked it.
The next morning, when the crowd swarmed out to board the train
at Fall River, Sam tarried a moment at the now deserted ticket-office,
smiled blandly at Billy, and laid a greenback on the sill.
"What's the matter, old man, with my holding on to Number 15 till I
come back? This boat goes back to New York day after to-morrow,
doesn't she?"
Billy nodded, picked up a lead-pencil and put a cross against
Number 15; then he handed Sam back his change and the key.
All that day in Fall River Sam sold cutlery, the ironclads doing
service. The next day he went to Boston on a later train than the
crowd, and had almost a whole car to himself. The third day he
returned to Fall River an hour ahead of the special train carrying the
Grand Army, and again with half the car to himself. When the special
rolled into the depot and was shunted on to the steamboat dock, it
looked, in perspective from where Sam stood, like a tenement-house
on a hot Sunday—every window and door stuffed with heads, arms,
and legs.
Sam studied the mob for a few minutes, felt in his "pants" pocket for
his key, gave it one or two loving pats with his fingers, and took a
turn up the dock where it was cooler and where the human
avalanche wouldn't run over him.
When the tenement-house was at last unloaded, it was discovered
that it had contained twice as many people as had filled it two days
before. They had gone to Boston by different lines, and being now
tired out and penniless were returning home by the cheapest and
most comfortable route. They wanted the salt zephyrs of the sea to
fan them to sleep, and the fish and clams and other marine
delicacies so lavishly served on the Fall River Line as a tonic for their
depleted systems.
Not the eager, expectant crowd that with band playing and flags
flying had swept out of the depot the day of the advance on Boston!
Not that kind of a crowd at all, but a bedraggled, forlorn, utterly
exhausted and worn-out crowd; children crying, and pulled along by
one arm or hugged to perspiring breasts; uniforms yellow with dust;
men struggling to keep the surging mass from wives who had hardly
strength left for another step; flags furled; bass drum with a hole in
it; band silent.
Sam looked on and again patted his key. The hayseeds had aired
their collars and had "got it in the neck." No G. A. R. for Samuel; no
excursions, no celebrations, no picnics for him. He had all his teeth,
and an extra wisdom molar for Sundays.
The contents of the tenement now began to press through the
closed shed on their way to the gangplank, and Sam, realizing the
size of the mob, and fearing that half of them, including himself,
would be left on the dock, slipped into the current and was swept
over the temporary bridge, across the deck and up the main
staircase leading to the saloon—up to the top step.
Here the current stopped.
Ahead of him was a solid mass, and behind him a pressure that
increased every moment and that threatened to push him off his
feet. He could get neither forward nor back.
A number of other people were in the same predicament. One was a
young woman who, in sheer exhaustion, had seated herself upon
the top step level with the floor of the saloon. Her hair was
dishevelled, her bonnet awry, her pretty silk cape covered with dust.
On her lap lay a boy of five years of age. Close to her—so close that
Sam's shoulder pressed against his—stood a man in an army hat
with the cord and acorn encircling the crown. On his breast was
pinned a medal. Sam was so close he could read the inscription:
"Fair Oaks," it said, and then followed the date and the name and
number of the regiment. Sam knew what it meant: he had had an
uncle who went to the war, and who wore a medal. His sword hung
over the mantel in his mother's sitting-room at home. The man
before him had, no doubt, been equally brave: he had saved the
colors the day of the fight, perhaps, or had carried a wounded
comrade out of range of a rifle pit, or had thrown an unexploded
shell clear of a tent—some little thing like that.
Sam had never seen a medal that close before, and his keen lens
absorbed every detail—the ribbon, the way it was fastened to the
cloth, the broad, strong chest behind it. Then he looked into the
man's firm, determined, kindly face with its piercing black eyes and
closely trimmed mustache, and then over his back and legs. He was
wondering now where the ball had struck him, and what particular
part of his person had been sacrificed in earning so distinguishing a
mark of his country's gratitude.
Then he turned to the woman, and a slight frown gathered on his
face when he realized that she alone had blocked his way to the
open air and the deck beyond. He could step over any number of
men whenever the mass of human beings crushing his ribs and
shoulder-blades began once more to move, but a woman—a tired
woman—with a boy—out on a jamboree like this, with——
Here Sam stopped, and instinctively felt around among his loose
change for his key. Number 15 was all right, any way.
At the touch of the key Sam's face once more resumed its contented
look, the lizards darting out to play, as usual.
The boy gave a sharp cry.
The woman put her hand on the child's head, smoothed it softly, and
looked up in the face of the man with the medal.
"And you can get no state-room, George?" she asked in a plaintive
tone.
"State-room, Kitty! Why, we couldn't get a pillow. I tried to get a
shake-down some'ers, but half these people won't get six feet of
space to lie down in, let alone a bed."
"Well, I don't know what we're going to do. Freddie's got a raging
fever; I can't hold him here in my arms all night."
Sam shifted his weight to the other foot and concentrated his
camera. The man with the medal and the woman with the boy were
evidently man and wife. Sam had no little Freddie of his own—no
Kitty, in fact—not yet—no home really that he could call his own—
never more than a month at a time. A Pullman lower or a third story
front in a three-dollar-a-day hotel was often his bed, and a marble-
top table with iron legs screwed to the floor of a railroad restaurant
and within sound of a big-voiced gateman bawling out the trains,
generally his board. Freddie looked like a nice boy, and she looked
like a nice woman. Man was O. K., anyhow—didn't give medals of
honor to any other kind. Both of them fools, though, or they
wouldn't have brought that kid out——
Again the child turned its head and uttered a faint cry, this time as if
in pain.
Sam freed his arm from the hip bone of the passenger on his left,
and said in a sympathetic voice—unusual for Sam:
"Is this your boy?" The drummer was not a born conversationalist
outside of trade matters, but he had to begin somewhere.
"Yes, sir." The woman looked up and a flickering smile broke over
her lips. "Our only one, sir."
"Sick, ain't he?"
"Yes, sir; got a high fever."
The man with the medal now wrenched his shoulder loose and
turned half round toward Sam. Sam never looked so jolly nor so
trustworthy: the lizards were in full play all over his cheeks.
"Freddie's all tired out, comrade. I didn't want to bring him, but Kitty
begged so. It was crossing the Common, in that heat—your
company must have felt it when you come along. The sun beat
down terrible on Freddie—that's what used him up."
Sam felt a glow start somewhere near his heels, struggle up through
his spinal column and end in his fingers. Being called "comrade" by a
man with a medal on his chest was, somehow, better than being
mistaken for a millionaire.
"Can't you get a state-room?" Sam asked. Of course the man
couldn't—he had heard him say so. The drummer was merely
sparring for time—trying to adjust himself to a new situation—one
rare with him. Meanwhile the key of Number 15 was turning in his
pocket as uneasily as a grain of corn on a hot shovel.
The man shook his head in a hopeless way. The woman replied in
his stead—she, too, had fallen a victim to Sam's smile.
"No, sir, that's the worst of it," she said in a choking voice. "If we
only had a pillow we could put Freddie's head on it and I could find
some place where he might be comfortable. I don't much mind for
myself, but it's dreadful about Freddie—" and she bent her head over
the child.
Sam thought of the upper berth in Number 15 with two pillows and
the lower berth with two more. By this time the key of Number 15
had reached a white heat.
"Well, I guess I can help out," Sam blurted. "I've got a state-room—
got two berths in it. Just suit you, come to think of it. Here"—and he
dragged out the key—"Number 15—main deck—you can't miss it.
Put the kid there and bunk in yourselves—" and he dropped the key
in the woman's lap, his voice quivering, a lump in his throat the size
of a hen's egg.
"Oh, sir, we couldn't!" cried the woman.
"No, comrade," interrupted the man, "we can't do that; we——"
Sam heard, but he did not tarry. With one of his nimble springs he
lunged through the crowd, his big fat shoulders breasting the mob,
wormed himself out into the air; slipped down a ladder to the deck
below, interviewed the steward, borrowed a blanket and a pillow and
proceeded to hunt up the ironclads. If the worst came to the worst
he would string them in a row, spread his blanket on top and roll up
for the night. Their height would keep him off the deck, and the roof
above them would protect him from the weather should a squall
come up.
This done, he drew out a domestic from the upper pocket, bit off the
end, slid a match along the well-worn seam and blew a ring out to
sea.
"Couldn't let that kid sit up all night, you know," he muttered to
himself. "Not your Uncle Joseph: no sir-ee—" and he wedged his
way back to the deck again.

An hour later, with his blanket over his shoulder and his pillow under
his arm, Sam again sought his ironclads. Steward, chief cook, clerk—
everything had failed. The trunks with the pillow and blanket were
all that was left.
It was after nine o'clock now, and the summer twilight had faded
and only the steamer's lanterns shone on the heads of the people.
As he passed the companion-way he ran into a man in an army hat.
Backing away in apology he caught the glint of a medal. Then came
a familiar voice:
"Comrade, where you been keeping yourself? I've been hunting you
all over the boat. You're the man gave me the key, ain't you?"
"Sure! How's the kid? Is he all right? Didn't I tell you you'd find that
up-to-date? It's a cracker-jack, that room is; I've had it before. Tell
me, how's the kid and the wife—kind o' comfy, ain't they?"
"Both are all right. Freddie's in the lower berth and Kitty sitting by
him. He's asleep, and the fever's going down; ain't near so hot as he
was. You're white, comrade, all the way through." The man's big
hand closed over Sam's in a warm embrace. "I thank you for it. You
did us a good turn and we ain't going to forget you."
Sam kept edging away; what hurt him most was being thanked.
"But that ain't what I've been hunting you for, comrade," the man
continued. "You didn't get a state-room, did you?"
"No," said Sam, shaking his head and still backing away. "But I'm all
right—got a pillow and a blanket—see!" and he held them up. "You
needn't worry, old man. This ain't nothing to the way I sleep
sometimes. I'm one of those fellows can bunk in anywhere." Sam
was now in sight of his trunks.
"Yes," answered the man, still keeping close to Sam, "that's just
what we thought would happen; that's what does worry us, and
worry us bad. You ain't going to bunk in anywhere—not by a blamed
sight! Kitty and I have been talking it over, and what Kitty says goes!
There's two bunks in that state-room; Kitty's in one 'longside of the
boy, and you got to sleep in the other."
"Me!—well—but—why, man!" Sam's astonishment took his breath
away.
"You got to!" The man meant it.
"But I won't!" said Sam in a determined voice.
"Well, then, out goes Kitty and the boy! You think I'm going to sleep
in your bunk, and have you stretched out here on a plank some'ers!
No, sir! You got to, I tell you!"
"Why, see here!" Sam was floundering about now as helplessly as if
he had been thrown overboard with his hands tied.
"There ain't no seeing about it, comrade." The man was close to him
now, his eyes boring into Sam's with a look in them as if he was
taking aim.
"You say I've got to get into the upper berth?" asked Sam in a
baffled tone.
"Yes."
Sam ruminated: "When?"
"When Kitty gets to bed."
"How'll I know?"
"I'll come for you."
"All right—you'll find me here."
Then Sam turned up the deck muttering to himself: "That's one on
you, Sam-u-e-l—one under the chin-whisker. Got to—eh? Well, for
the love of Mike!"
In ten minutes Sam heard a whistle and raised his head. The man
with the medal was leaning over the rail looking down at him.
Sam mounted the steps and picked his way among the passengers
sprawled over the floor and deck. The man advanced to meet him,
smiled contentedly, walked along the corridor, put his hand on the
knob of the door of Number 15, opened it noiselessly, beckoned
silently, waited until Sam had stepped over the threshold and closed
the door upon him. Then the man tiptoed back to the saloon.
Sam looked about him. The curtains of the lower berth were drawn;
the curtains of the upper one were wide open. On a chair was his
bag, and on a hook by the shuttered window the cape and hat of
the wife and the clothes of the sleeping boy.
At the sight of the wee jacket and little half-breeches, tiny socks and
cap, Sam stopped short. He had never before slept in a room with a
child, and a strange feeling, amounting almost to awe, crept over
him. It was as if he had stepped suddenly into a shrine and had
been confronted by the altar. The low-turned lamp and the silence—
no sound came from either of the occupants—only added to the
force of the impression.
Sam slipped off his coat and shoes, hung the first on a peg and laid
the others on the floor; loosened his collar, mounted the chair, drew
himself stealthily into the upper berth; closed the curtains and
stretched himself out. As his head touched the pillow a soft, gentle,
rested voice said:
"I can't tell you how grateful we are, sir—good-night."
"Don't mention it, ma'am," whispered Sam in answer; "mighty nice
of you to let me come," and he dropped off to sleep.

At the breaking of the dawn Sam woke with a start; ran his eye
around the room until he found his bearings; drew his legs together
from the coverlet; let himself down as stealthily as a cat walking
over teacups; picked up his shoes, slipped his arms into his coat,
gave a glance at the closed curtains sheltering the mother and child,
and crossed the room on his way to the door with the tread of a
burglar.
Reaching out his hand in the dim light he studied the lock for an
instant, settled in his mind which knob to turn so as to make the
least noise, and swung back the door.
Outside on the mat, sound asleep, so close that he almost stepped
on him, lay the Man with the Medal.

THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE

 THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE
It was the crush hour at Sherry's. A steady stream of men and
women in smart toilettes—the smartest the town afforded—had
flowed in under the street awning, through the doorway guarded by
flunkeys, past the dressing-rooms and coat-racks, and were now
banked up in the spacious hall waiting for tables, the men standing
about, the women resting on the chairs and divans listening to the
music of the Hungarian band or chatting with one another. The two
cafés were full—had been since seven o'clock, every table being
occupied except two. One of these had been reserved that morning
by my dear friend Marny, the distinguished painter of portraits—I
being his guest—and the other, so the head-waiter told us, awaited
the arrival of Mr. John Stirling, who would entertain a party of six.
When Marny was a poor devil of an illustrator, and worked for the
funny column of the weekly papers—we had studios in the same
building—we used to dine at Porcelli's, the price of the two meals
equalling the value of one American trade dollar, and including one
bottle of vin ordinaire. Now that Marny wears a ribbon in his button-
hole, has a suite of rooms that look like a museum, man-servants
and maid-servants, including an English butler whose principal
business is to see that Marny is not disturbed, a line of carriages
before his door on his reception days, and refuses two portraits a
week at his own prices—we sometimes dine at Sherry's.
As I am still a staid old landscape painter living up three flights of
stairs with no one to wait on me but myself and the ten-year-old
daughter of the janitor, I must admit that these occasional forays
into the whirl of fashionable life afford me not only infinite
enjoyment, but add greatly to my knowledge of human nature.
As we followed the waiter into the café, a group of half a dozen
men, all in full dress, emerged from a side room and preceded us
into the restaurant, led by a handsome young fellow of thirty. The
next moment they grouped themselves about the other reserved
table, the young fellow seating his guests himself, drawing out each
chair with some remark that kept the whole party laughing.
When we had settled into our own chairs, and my host had spread
his napkin and looked about him, the young fellow nodded his head
at Marny, clasped his two hands together, shook them together
heartily, and followed this substitute for a closer welcome by kissing
his hand at him.
Marny returned the courtesy by a similar handshake, and bending
his head said in a low voice, "The Rajah must be in luck to-night."
"Who?" I asked. My acquaintance with foreign potentates is
necessarily limited.
"The Rajah—Jack Stirling. Take a look at him. You'll never see his
match; nobody has yet."
I shifted my chair a little, turned my head in the opposite direction,
and then slowly covering Stirling with my gaze—the polite way of
staring at a stranger—got a full view of the man's face and figure;
rather a difficult thing on a crowded night at Sherry's, unless the
tables are close together. What I saw was a well-built, athletic-
looking young man with a smooth-shaven face, laughing eyes, a
Cupid mouth, curly brown hair, and a fresh ruddy complexion; a Lord
Byron sort of a young fellow with a modern up-to-date training. He
was evidently charming his guests, for every man's head was bent
forward seemingly hanging on each word that fell from his lips.
"A rajah, is he? He don't look like an Oriental."
"He isn't. He was born in New Jersey."
"Is he an artist?"
"Yes, five or six different kinds; he draws better than I do; plays on
three instruments, and speaks five languages."
"Rich?"
"No—dead broke half the time."
I glanced at the young fellow's faultless appearance and the group
of men he was entertaining. My eye took in the array of bottles, the
number of wineglasses of various sizes, and the mass of roses that
decorated the centre of the table. Such appointments and
accompaniments are not generally the property of the poor. Then,
again, I remembered we were at Sherry's.
"What does he do for a living, then?" I asked.
"Do for a living? He doesn't do anything for a living. He's a purveyor
of cheerfulness. He wakes up every morning with a fresh stock of
happiness, more than he can use himself, and he trades it off during
the day for anything he can get."
"What kind of things?" I was a little hazy over Marny's meaning.
"Oh, dinners—social, of course—board bills, tailor's bills, invitations
to country houses, voyages on yachts—anything that comes along
and of which he may be in need at the time. Most interesting man in
town. Everybody loves him. Known all over the world. If a fellow
gets sick, Stirling waltzes in, fires out the nurse, puts on a linen
duster, starts an alcohol lamp for gruel, and never leaves till you are
out again. All the time he is pumping laughs into you and bracing
you up so that you get well twice as quick. Did it for me once for five
weeks on a stretch, when I was laid up in my studio with
inflammatory rheumatism, with my grub bills hung up in the
restaurant downstairs, and my rent three months overdue. Fed me
on the fat of the land, too. Soup from Delmonico's, birds from some
swell house up the Avenue, where he had been dining—sent that
same night with the compliments of his hostess with a 'Please
forgive me, but dear Mr. Stirling tells me how ill you have been, and
at his suggestion, and with every sympathy for your sufferings—
please accept.' Oh, I tell you he's a daisy!"
Here a laugh sounded from Stirling's table.
"Who's he got in tow now?" I asked, as my eyes roamed over the
merry party.
"That fat fellow in eyeglasses is Crofield the banker, and the hatchet-
faced man with white whiskers is John Riggs from Denver, President
of the C. A.—worth ten millions. I don't know the others—some
bored-to-death fellows, perhaps, starving for a laugh. Jack ought to
go slow, for he's dead broke—told me so yesterday."
"Perhaps Riggs is paying for the dinner." This was an impertinent
suggestion, I know; but then sometimes I can be impertinent—
especially when some of my pet theories have to be defended.
"Not if Jack invited him. He's the last man in the world to sponge on
anybody. Inviting a man to dinner and leaving his pocketbook in his
other coat is not Jack's way. If he hasn't got the money in his own
clothes, he'll find it somehow, but not in their clothes."
"Well, but at times he must have ready money," I insisted. "He can't
be living on credit all the time." I have had to work for all my
pennies, am of a practical turn of mind, and often live in constant
dread of the first of every month—that fatal pay-day from which
there is no escape. The success, therefore, of another fellow along
different and more luxurious lines naturally irritates me.
"Yes, now and then he does need money. But that never bothers
Jack. When his tailor, or his shoemaker, or his landlord gets him into
a corner, he sends the bill to some of his friends to pay for him. They
never come back—anybody would do Stirling a favor, and they know
that he never calls on them unless he is up against it solid."
I instinctively ran over in my mind which of my own friends I would
approach, in a similar emergency, and the notes I would receive in
reply. Stirling must know rather a stupid lot of men or they couldn't
be buncoed so easily, I thought.
Soup was now being served, and Marny and the waiter were
discussing the merits of certain vintages, my host insisting on a
bottle of '84 in place of the '82, then in the waiter's hand.
During the episode I had the opportunity to study Stirling's table. I
noticed that hardly a man entered the room who did not stop and
lay his hand affectionately on Stirling's shoulder, bending over and
joining in the laugh. His guests, too—those about his table—seemed
equally loyal and happy. Riggs's hard business face—evidently a man
of serious life—was beaming with merriment and twice as wide,
under Jack's leadership, and Crofield and the others were leaning
forward, their eyes fixed on their host, waiting for the point of his
story, then breaking out together in a simultaneous laugh that could
be heard all over our part of the room.
When Marny had received the wine he wanted—it's extraordinary
how critical a man's palate becomes when his income is thousands a
year instead of dollars—I opened up again with my battery of
questions. His friend had upset all my formulas and made a
laughing-stock of my most precious traditions. "Pay as you go and
keep out of debt" seemed to belong to a past age.
"Speaking of your friend, the Rajah, as you call him," I asked, "and
his making his friends pay his bills—does he ever pay back?"
"Always, when he gets it."
"Well, where does he get it—cards?" It seemed to me now that I
saw some comforting light ahead, dense as I am at times.
"Cards! Not much—never played a game in his life. Not that kind of
a man."
"How, then?" I wanted the facts. There must be some way in which
a man like Stirling could live, keep out of jail, and keep his friends—
friends like Marny.
"Same way. Just chucks around cheerfulness to everybody who
wants it, and 'most everybody does. As to ready money, there's
hardly one of his rich friends in the Street who hasn't a Jack Stirling
account on his books. And they are always lucky, for what they buy
for Jack Stirling is sure to go up. Got to be a superstition, really. I
know one broker who sent him over three thousand dollars last fall—
made it for him out of a rise in some coal stock. Wrote him a note
and told him he still had two thousand dollars to his credit on his
books, which he would hold as a stake to make another turn on next
time he saw a sure thing in sight. I was with Jack when he opened
the letter. What do you think he did? He pulled out his bureau
drawer, found a slip of paper containing a list of his debts, sat down
and wrote out a check for each one of his creditors and enclosed
them in the most charming little notes with marginal sketches—
some in water-color—which every man of them preserves now as
souvenirs. I've got one framed in my studio—regular little Fortuny—
and the check is framed in with it. Never cashed it and never will.
The Rajah, I tell you, old man, is very punctilious about his debts, no
matter how small they are. Gave me fifteen shillings last time I went
to Cairo to pay some duffer that lived up a street back of
Shepheard's, a red-faced Englishman who had helped Jack out of a
hole the year before, and who would have pensioned the Rajah for
life if he could have induced him to pass the rest of his years with
him. And he only saw him for two days! That's the funny thing about
Jack. He never forgets his creditors, and his creditors never forget
him. I'll tell you about this old Cairo lobster—that's what he looked
like—red and claw-y.
"When I found him he was stretched in a chair trying to cool off; he
didn't even have the decency to get on his feet.
"'Who?' he snapped out. Just as if I had been a book agent.
"'Mr. John Stirling of New York.'
"'Owes me fifteen shillings?'
"'That's what he said, and here it is,' and I handed him the silver.
"'Young man,' he says, glowering at me, 'I don't know what your
game is, but I'll tell you right here you can't play it on me. Never
heard of Mister-John-Stirling-of-New-York in my life. So you can put
your money back.' I wasn't going to be whipped by the old shell-fish,
and then I didn't like the way he spoke of Jack. I knew he was the
right man, for Jack doesn't make mistakes—not about things like
that. So I went at him on another tack.
"'Weren't you up at Philæ two years ago in a dahabieh?'
"'Yes.'
"'And didn't you meet four or five young Americans who came up on
the steamer, and who got into a scrape over their fare?'
"'I might—I can't recollect everybody I meet—don't want to—half of
'em—' All this time I was standing, remember.
"'And didn't you—' I was going on to say, but he jumped from his
chair and was fumbling about a bookcase.
"'Ah, here it is!' he cried out. 'Here's a book of photographs of a
whole raft of young fellows I met up the Nile on that trip. Most of
'em owed me something and still do. Pick out the man now you say
owes me fifteen shillings and wants to pay it.'
"'There he is—one of those three.'
"The old fellow adjusted his glasses.
"'The Rajah! That man! Know him? Best lad I ever met in my life.
I'm damned if I take his money, and you can go home and tell him
so.' He did, though, and I sat with him until three o'clock in the
morning talking about Jack, and I had all I could do getting away
from him then. Wanted me to move in next day bag and baggage,
and stay a month with him. He wasn't so bad when I came to know
him, if he was red and claw-y."