The Popular Magazine/The Green Hour/Part 2
Synopsis Of First Part.
Van Gruenberg Luyties, an eighteen-dollar-a-week shipping clerk in the house of Popson & Co., importers of teas, sugars and spices, is endowed with imagination and taste for the luxuries of life, and consequently finds his sphere a dull round. Suddenly into the midst of his dreams and longings Romance is projected, beginning with an unexpected “green hour” in a little out-of-the-way French tavern, where he sips his first drink of absinth. Joyously on his way to dinner, Luyties obeys the notion to visit an old skinflint pawnbroker from whom he had bought a jade plate, neither of them knowing its value at the time. Luyties exuberantly states that he wishes another plate, and thereupon the money lender becomes greatly excited, offering to buy back the first plate at an enormous advance. A bargain is struck, and the astonished young fellow gets one hundred dollars from the old man. Full of suspicion, Luyties goes home, where further adventure awaits in the form of a call from a beautiful young woman, Holly Lea, who also wants to buy the jade plate. She tells him there is a terrible secret written on it. Rising to the occasion of being magnanimous and magnificent, Luyties declares the plate is hers on the sole condition that she permit him to take her to dinner and the theater. Miss Lea consents, but leaves him a moment, during which she passes over the precious plate to her employer, Yorke Norroy, who meets her at the street door. When Holly Lea and Luyties ride off in a motor they are followed by a mysterious stranger who, in turn, is shadowed by the clever diplomatic agent, Norroy.
(In Two Parts—Part II.)
CHAPTER IV.
Kidnaping on the Highroad.
The end of the enchanted evening was drawing slowly near; also the end of the hundred-dollar note. Van was too ecstatically happy to be aware of the first, and in his impersonation of the young clubman, which was nearer one of a perfect gentle knight, he would have scorned to be aware of the second; although, once, when he found himself obliged to part with half a dollar to some ex-banditti in charge of a cloakroom, who seemed to show by their reception of the coin that they never received a smaller pourboire, a faint remembrance that he had breakfasted and dined on that sum yesterday recurred to his mind—but he thrust the proletarian thought forth with contumely.
Say that a young prince was doing the honors for the pleasure of a pretty princess, and desired to spare her annoyance. Say that young prince was unknown among the purveyors of pleasures. Yet, say again, the young prince desired the pretty princess to be accorded the same courtesy from Manhattan menials that she would receive from the prince's own personal attendants. Then, indeed, must that young prince squander a small fortune in a single night, and, as Van was a prince, a dream prince, he desired this thing, and the fortune was expended.
His heart beat high when the first quarter of his all went for the stage box in which they sat alone, alone but very happy, through an entire performance of great beauty; where long, lighted boulevards, the interiors of golden Parisian cafés, the boudoirs of beautiful women, and other scenes of a life among gay spender folk changed one into another.
The prima donna, most admired of all these happy people, a lady of many affairs of the heart, still beautiful, if plump, found something fascinating in the young pair in the box, and, more than once, gave Van a little wistful glance. Young boys with that happy, innocent smile were rare in her world now. The plainer people in the audience stared frankly and admiringly; and the gentlemanly blackguards of the front rows found Van's princess promised more possibilities of imagination than any one they were paying to see.
The sense of nearness, of being part of the performance, of being envied and admired by a whole theater full, made Van flush happily, and he hummed the soubrette's song almost audibly; whereupon she sang a verse directly at him, and a mysterious man away off bathed prince and princess in a circular sea of lambent light. Even the languid lineless ladies of the show rank gave Van evidences of their approval; which, if Van had read his theatrical books aright, was equivalent to putting the seal royal upon his pretensions.
But of all those who stared and made him happy, there was none more assiduous than the man who had driven up in the taxicab, and had received from the Irish charwoman the address of the theater. Van saw him continually that evening; he rubbed shoulders with him in the theater lobby, and on the pavement when Van was requisitioning a vehicle to whirl them to a cabaret as near like the one in the play as many paid entertainers could compass. And then, again, in the Carnival of Folly itself he caught occasional glimpses of the silent stranger's face, amid the drifting confetti, the many wandering gayly colored toy balloons, the tall, swaying staffs decorated with the figures of jesters in caps and bells, to which favor every lady of the night clung, generally with a little, jeweled hand.
Fortune had done her best for the young adventurer when she launched him on this romantic sea at so favorable an hour, and guided his footsteps aright to the proper places of pleasure; for one night in a week was gala night, each week designated differently, and to-night called the Feast of Folly. Jesters in their motley, Apaches of Paris, merry monks, and fluffy-skirted ballet dancers crowded one another in the center space, where the dancing was—hire folk, truly, but what cavilers we are to remember that—and girls in pretty costumes ran between the tables, throwing the confetti and distributing the favors of Folly. And truly expensive people received them.
On such a night as this, where tables were booked ahead, and invading princes like Van must give great largess to head waiters for putting in extra places, the restaurant could afford to be exclusive; so, were visiting revelers barren of a great expanse of spotless linen, or their ladies with covered shoulders, no seats were to be had. Corks popped mightily, you may be sure; and the refracted light of the great crystal chandeliers was shamed by the flashing of more expensive crystals on women's hands. Beauty was everywhere—youth was rampant, perhaps not rose-white, but beautifully rose-red.
The princess dipped into her champagne as might a canary; but she looked about her with eyes as wide as those of Van himself. He was laughing at everything—at nothing; and she, too, was laughing, except when, every now and then, she saw the man of the many elegancies who shone by his dress and demeanor among a large party of people who, one could see at a glance, lived on the “right” side of the park! They had welcomed him with shouts of delighted approval when he had appeared companionless at the door. There was always a welcome place at the tables of such people for the amusing Mr. Yorke Norroy.
Was it the latest story in London court circles—he knew it; or the last bit of gossip of the Paris half-world—he could give them that, too. Or who would be at Newport that summer, or Palm Beach that winter; or whose yacht was going into commission; and the name of the peer who would soon visit them. Or did they wish to whirl in the last peculiar stage dance to find favor in society; why, Norroy could teach it to them then and there. And, to-night, it just happened that to dance spectacularly was what they did want; so Norroy signaled the head waiter, who saw his raised hand when he did not hear another's call, the band master was told, and the “Tonga,” with its swaying South American music, broke out loudly.
Even the dancing professionals—who knew everything—watched Norroy's swift, sure, and sinuous motions as he took his partner, a pretty girl in blue, through the Tonga's tune.
Van was among the many whose eyes were centered upon this immaculate figure, this man of the many perfections of dress that Van had striven for, himself, in a humbler way. The grace of Norroy's movements went to Van's head; and the clerk's feet and hands kept time to the music. It had color, that dance, and a sudden overmastering resentment seized Van when it was finished. He applauded wildly, he called the master of perquisites, and gave him money for its repetition, and, then, when the strains broke out again, loud as though they were produced by brazen cymbals, Van, taken by an impulse he was never afterward able to explain, rose, and, bowing to the girl, led her into the center of the room.
Now Van had never danced in his life, except alone, in the exuberance of his spirits, when he was endeavoring in his hall bedroom to reconstruct the gay atmosphere of some song he had heard; but colorful music always set his feet tapping and his head swimming, and, deep down and unknown, there lay in him an almost perfect sense of time and rhythm which, hitherto, he had employed to no other purpose save that of remembering tunes.
Norroy paid him the honor of considerable attention, his agreeable dancing having inspired within the secret agent some idea manifestly pleasurable to him, for he nodded several times as he adjusted his soft French cuffs so that his links of jade and seed pearls showed to companion his waistcoat buttons of the same materials.
“Excellent! Bravo! Bravissima!” said Norroy, when Van and Holly, flushed and excited, had been left to dance alone, and were acquitting themselves with great merit. “She dances well.”
“Indeed, and so does he,” urged Mrs. Phillipse Van Reypen, Norroy's friend “Polly” of other days. “A handsome pair. I wonder I don't know them. But you know every one, Yorke. Suppose you supply the deficiency. Some stage people, I suppose.”
“The young lady was found in a vaudeville house of very small pretensions a week or so ago,” Norroy answered. “A gentleman, interested in her, has secured her the title rôle in 'The Devonshire Maid,' which opens here in a month—you saw it over the way, of course. The boy I don't know.”
“Whoever the philanthropic gentleman was, Yorke,” said Polly Van Reypen, “he taught her to dress à la mode very quickly, and as well as even you could do, yourself. Her frock is a marvel, and not even slightly Broadway. And if he's a jealous gentleman, I'd advise him to 'ware the good-looking boy. Otherwise he may make more than an ideal dancing partner of himself.”
“You'll pardon me,” said Norroy, rising in some haste. “But, as I told you when I sat down, I had another matter that might make me fly at any moment.”
His signal for uprising had been the evident intention of Van Gruenberg Luyties and his pretty vis-à-vis to take themselves forth to some other place. It was close to one o'clock, and Holly had been forbidden, for the sake of her reputation and her future, to remain abroad at a later hour.
The assiduous stranger, noting the unrest that precedes such a departure, had passed forth hastily, leaving in his waiter's hands a gratuity almost the equal of his bill, sooner than be detained for change.
Had Norroy's friends been particularly observant, they might have noted that he had spared himself no pains to keep concealed from this assiduous stranger the sight of his face; nor would the secret agent have danced so publicly had he not first studied the room topographically, and perceived that the stranger's position behind a pillar precluded his viewing the performance. So the stranger went out of the gilded hall without the knowledge that, as he watched Van and the girl, so was he, himself, watched with equal, if seemingly unconscious, attention.
Outside, where the shadows of Assyrian lions and sphinxes lay large and distorted on marble flooring and rugs of Samarcand, lines of uniformed boys and of lace-aproned maids passed one to the other the products of the Rue de la Paix, the Place Vendome, Bond and Regent Streets, and Fifth Avenue, in the form of greatcoats, capes, and cloaks, of sable, gray fox, chinchilla, Persian lamb, mink, and muskrat fur; and there the lords and ladies of pleasure stood, en masse, wrapped for the wintry wind, and awaiting their motors and their cabs.
Van turned up the collar of a once fashionable Melton blue overcoat, and helped Holly through the swinging doors and to the pavement; and, though others struggled and gesticulated to be allowed to patronize the buccaneers of Broadway, a chauffeur ran immediately to Van and touched his hat mighty humbly, telling him his cab was ready and waiting, and that he was the man who had driven him there.
“Right across the street, sir—saves time backing her into line,” and he led them over the icy tracks. He threw open his door, and turned from it to cranking up his car.
It was while Holly gathered up her filmy skirts of cobwebby gauze to show childlike feet and ankles, ready to step into the car, that they were both unceremoniously pushed aside, and a man entered the cab instead of them.
Holly heard a whisper and, so alarmed was she at a folly from the consequences of which she had been saved but narrowly, that she could hardly speak for the moment, but pulled Van behind the vehicle, so that, when the driver raised his head from his cranking, he saw no one, and consequently, supposing them within, he drove off as he had been directed to do, across to Fifth Avenue, and down that long lane of brilliant-purple crystals toward the Square.
CHAPTER V.
Advice to a Young Man About to Become a Highwayman.
Inside the cab—which was no cab at all, but a very roomy limousine car—there was only pitch blackness; for the windows were hooded and sightless through the fact that the blinds were drawn; that pitch blackness so suggestive of nothing at all that it seems to hold the additional attribute of silence.
When Norroy entered, he had particularly troubled himself to say in a most solicitous and very boyish voice something from which one would have imagined he had with him a lady for companion. Now, with the door shut, and the cab on its way, Norroy urged the lady not to speak if she was tired; and, holding his breath, listened intently. It was apparent to his ears, trained to catch the most nebulous of whispers, that there was some disturbance of air within the car, something that gave him just the slightest auricular evidence to confirm suspicions first aroused by the hasty exit of the assiduous stranger. Undoubtedly there rode with him another person, no doubt the stranger himself, huddled up in a far corner of the car.
Yorke Norroy disliked the click and clatter, the shock and surprise consequent upon the use of firearms, but when one rides in the car of a kidnaper with silent strangers, and has, by a single alert movement, circumvented the same stranger, it is well to be prepared; so Norroy took from one pocket a small pistol of French make, in appearance not unlike a flat gun-metal cigarette case with a small spout, and from another an ordinary-appearing watch, which, if rightly handled, showed a bright, illuminated dial when necessary.
He sat with these in his hands, patiently waiting; meanwhile relating to his imaginary female companion all the events of an evening in Paris. In the spaces between his words he listened sharply, and finally he knew that his silent fellow passenger had drawn a deep breath, preparatory to speaking.
Norroy concluded his story with haste, and waited encouragingly. The other cleared his throat. Norroy indulged in the expected start of surprise, and a startled ejaculation.
“Now, Mr. Luyties,” said the voice pacifically, “don't be alarmed, sir; don't let the lady alarm you, either. Don't listen to her; you listen to me. She's cheating you, she is. I won't cheat you.”
“The lady has fallen asleep,” gasped Mr. Norroy, in his character part. “But who are you, and what are you doing in my cab—eh? What are you doing in my cab?” the last in crescendo.
“I'll tell you quickly, sir. I took the liberty of putting my car at your disposal; you're riding around the park in it, now. No harm will come to you or the lady, if you'll do what I ask you to do. But if you don't, I'm not answerable for consequences, Mr. Luyties. I'm only an agent acting under orders from men higher up; much higher up. They want that plate of yours—that green plate—and I've got orders to get it or not to let you go.”
Norroy felt tentatively the bosom of his shirt where the curio, described as so much desired, rested, where two others, its sisters, had rested before; and he began to doubt the wisdom of the motive that led him to embark on this phase of the many adventures the plates had involved before, and would again; but he could not afford to have the girl held to the ransom of one plate, and he was, moreover, curious to know where Mr. Lycurgus Crawe—for the assiduous stranger was the well-known criminal of that name—had intended to take the pair, and how far he would go. But he was not desirous of prolonging any interview until such peril as he was in became clear to him, so he told Mr. Crawe, plainly and firmly, that he had given the plate to the young lady, and that it was now hers.
“Then she's got it with her,” said Crawe, a note of pleasure creeping into his voice. “That's what I hoped. Now, how much did she give, or did she 'con' you out of it? Hey?”
From Norroy's dignified and hurt tone, Crawe adduced the truth.
“Well, see here, I'm no robber like the gang she belongs to. The plate's yours. You hand it over, and you get five thousand dollars. You said a thousand or so to the old man when he gave you the hundred this afternoon. So you won't deny that's a pretty fair price. Five thousand—and I guess she got it for a kiss. Lot of difference, ain't there?”
“Ssh,” warned Norroy. “Don't wake her—and suppose I refuse?”
“You can't,” returned the other, and Norroy did not doubt that he grinned. “Because Ive got a little black fellow in my hand, and just the sight of him's the best argument I ever knew of for getting a fellow to throw up his hands, and letting you go through him. And if I was unlucky enough not to find it on either of you two, why, I'd speak through the tube here, and the chauffeur would take us out into the country to a place he knows about, and I'd keep you there till I'd searched your place and hers. And then, if I didn't find it, something mighty unpleasant would happen to the pair of you. Something—mighty—unpleasant!”
Mr. Crawe repeated the words as though he was very fond of them.
“So hand over the plate,” he finished succinctly. “And,” he warned, “no struggling, mind you, or trying to get my gun, 'cause I've got an awful nervous trigger finger, and, trembling with excitement like I am now, this thing's liable to go off any minute, and, like as not, hurt the young lady who's sleeping so innocent. And if it did,” he further elucidated, “nothing would be done, 'cause you ain't even seen my face, and dunno me from a wooden Indian. So come through with the plate, and look alive about it.”
“How—how do you—know” asked Norroy, successfully simulating a quavering voice. “How do you know I haven't got a g-gun-trained on you, too, eh?—how do you kn-know that?”
“What'd a fellow like you be toting a cannon for?” returned Mr. Crawe, with great good sense. “It's a cinch she didn't tell you anything about those plates—trust her not to, and guns ain't like watches. Very few people has any place to put 'em, and no use to put 'em to. Besides, you probably never fired one in your life. I've had a lot of practice. Not shooting at bull's-eyes neither. Nor do people go after ducks, or deer, or animals and birds generally with the kind of guns that are carried in pockets. So I leave you to imagine what I got my experience shooting at; and, also, I want to remind you, you ain't, as yet, kicked in with that piece of crockery.”
The sinister innuendo in this unpleasant scoundrel's speech was evident; would have been even to one unacquainted with Mr. Crawe and his brotherhood, and Norroy did not doubt the man would have little compunction in sustaining his reputation for truthfulness. Moreover, Norroy knew that Crawe's failure, in another instance, and the ignominious treatment he had received at the secret agent's hands, would impel him to extremes, rather than report failure again to his multimillionaire employer.
This affair had best be concluded as quickly and quietly as possible; although Norroy was sorry he would not be able to discover just where Crawe would have taken Van and Holly, had the plate not been found on either of them. However, that required a search of both parties, and as, even in the dark, one person cannot pass for two, when the sense of touch is applied to them, Norroy would be forced to withdraw from this rencontre with very little gained, except another scare for Crawe; and, one slip, one accident, and Crawe would triumph and secure the plate. Also, Norroy knew that Crawe would not be apt to let so dangerous an antagonist as himself live, if it was possible to make an end to him at no great risk to himself.
He paused for a moment to reflect, and then he said, in a rather unwilling voice:
“Give me the money.”
“Repeat after me a solemn oath you won't tell the police or tell anybody who'll tell the police what's happened.”
Norroy acquitted himself to Crawe's satisfaction.
“Here, then,” said the latter, and, after fumbling, thrust a packet of notes into Norroy's hand.
“Now, let's have the plate, and no more palaver?”
Norroy stowed away the money, smiling broadly. Now he knew in which hand Mr. Crawe held his weapon. The electric watch was not necessary. He picked it up from the seat where he had dropped it to take the bills. The exact place of Crawe's left hand he knew; consequently, when he dragged the plate from his shirt bosom, and held it out, it was in a position where Crawe must reach for it with the hand holding the revolver, or else turn sideways.
“Here,” said Norroy.
“Nearer this side,” growled Crawe.
“I can't,” urged Norroy. “I've got one arm around her, and that's the hand holding it. I'm afraid of dropping it if I shift.”
Crawe grunted again, and Norroy heard some movement. He reached out the other hand timidly, touching Crawe, and, finding he had done the only other thing to do, which was the sideways turning, Norroy knew that the hand holding the gun was now crowded into an extreme corner of the vehicle, with the weapon pointed outward toward the street. He felt a tug at the hand holding the plates and a little note of relief was present in Crawe's ejaculation.
“All right,” said Crawe. “Let go.”
His fingers were closed tightly on the plate. At the minute Norroy was sure of this, his other hand shot across, to the angle where the revolver must be. He caught the fingers at a moment when all the pressure of Crawe's body was in the eager hand that held the plate. The weapon yielded in his grasp with the ease a radish yields to the gardener.
Norroy had felt the small button of the car's electric switch at the back of his head while he sat silent, listening to Crawe. Now he pushed it into the wall with the butt of Crawe's gun, and, in that gold-brocaded limousine, with its elaborate toilet set, chased drinking bottle and glasses, its mirrors, and its flowers, he sat watching the discomfited kidnaper, half huddled, half tumbling—all splayfeet and disturbed eyes, still holding to his green plate.
His eyes slowly raised themselves, half dazzled and altogether stupid, until they rested on the jade and pearls of Norroy's studs and waistcoat buttons, higher up his ruffled shirt of fine pleats, and, branching over to the revolvers, one in each hand, until, finally, they took in his clear-cut features, his apparently anæmic skin, his indefinitely colored eyes. He started violently and dropped the plate.
“You! I mighta know it 'u'd be you!”
“I, yes,” returned Norroy pleasantly. “Now, pick up that plate and throw it over here on the seat beside me. Let me warn you,” he added, with silken suavity, “that nothing would please me better than shooting an unspeakable person who threatens to fire on women. So don't give me the slightest excuse, Mr. Crawe, or I'll yield to exceeding temptation. Man is but a weak vessel of desires, you know. Pick up that plate! Now, throw it over!”
The plate fell on the brocaded seat beside Norroy. The secret agent replaced his own small French pistol in place, hiding the plate afterward. Then he sneered openly at Crawe.
“Do you know, you impress me as being rather less than about thirty cents' worth of real criminal,” he said. “A tupenny-ha'penny sort of burglar, on my word. I thought, from all I'd heard of you, I was going to have some trouble with you against me; yet the first time I meet you, I lock you up in a trunk and turn you over to the police, and the second time, I take your money again—just as I did on that other occasion—and in your own car, with your own chauffeur, and with a revolver on me all the time. Are you a fair specimen of criminal?”
Norroy extracted his thin gold case with one hand, and lighted one of his inevitable thin paper tubes. Crawe studied his enemy's shining boot toe, savagely resentful and silent.
“No, you aren't,” Norroy answered for him. “You're just one of the sneaking monkeys who have cats to get them chestnuts; your greatest personal achievement is to rob the helpless—like that boy and girl you expected to rob to-night. You had an education, you could write get-rich-quick circulars, and swindle widows and orphans, you were a bank robber, yes—but with a specialty—babies' banks. I wonder what a man ought to do with dirt like you?”
“You can't go to the police; you're as bad as I am,” said Crawe suddenly, with returning confidence. “You've got five thousand of mine that don't belong to you. You give it back.”
“Why, my brave Claypole, my noble Fagin, my puissant Andrew, the Candle Worm,” said Norroy, shifting his eye along the barrel of Crawe's revolver, a long, gleaming nickel one of steel, and getting it in line with Crawe's esophagus. “I was under the impression you'd given that as a present to my very dear young friend, Mr. Luyties. Correct me if I am wrong, and then tell me the address of the morgue, so that I can transmit it to the driver—I've really forgotten, myself—but a killer like yourself ought to know, and, if you have any preference in cemeteries, I'll try to see you accommodated. I saw a very neat 'Gates-Ajar' slab, too, in a stone mason's yesterday. With a little red paint to indicate what gates, or, say, a finger pointing downward, that ought to do you quite nicely. I beg your pardon—you were going to say something
Although Norroy spoke in a tone of pleasant, if ribald, humor, his eye was as cold as any sturgeon's, and as steady. Mr. Crawe belonged to a class of gamblers who had no sort of relatives whatever in Missouri.
“Oh, all right,” he said, glowering. “I give it to him. Anything you'd like for the young lady? My watch or my right eye, or anything?”
“Just pick up that tube and tell your driver to take me to the Patricians Club—and no gammon, my dear Mr. Sneak Thief,” replied Norroy, still pleasantly.
After a sullen pause, he was obeyed. The journey was finished in silence, until the car came to a standstill. Then Norroy eyed Crawe regretfully.
“I locked you up in a trunk last time,” he said, hurt that his ingenuity could supply no present means of making Mr. Crawe ridiculous. In that moment inspiration came to him. His manner changed. He became conscientiously courteous.
“I'm sorry, Mr. Crawe,” he apologized. “We're in a fair game. I beat you; but I've no right to be rude. Won't you come in the Patricians and have a drink with me? Do, please! Do!”
Crawe looked at him with suspicious, sullen eyes. The chauffeur had dismounted, and was holding open the door. The desire to say he had been in the famous club overmastered Crawe; that was something, anyhow, to wrench from defeat. Norroy repeated his solicitations. Crawe yielded.
At the head of a long flight of stone stairs, they were met by a stalwart doorman, who saluted Norroy respectfully.
“Ambrose,” said Norroy, indicating Crawe. “Here is a most objectionable person. I want you to make him look ridiculous. See if you can make a dent in the pavement with his head.”
And, as Crawe picked himself up later, rubbing painfully the indentations made on his person by sundry golden articles in his pockets, Norroy smiled, very pleased with himself.
“Thank you, Ambrose,” he said, and tipped him. “I knew, if I thought hard, I could think of something,” he added reflectively, as he entered the club.
What Mr. Crawe said could not have been printed even in the days of Rabelais.
CHAPTER VI.
Daybreak and Disenchantment.
On his cheap little bed, which he had made, himself, out of four high pegs and a platform, and which had two long, flat cushions covered with Hongkong stuffs, instead of mattresses—as near to a Chinese bed as he could compass—Van awoke at his accustomed hour next morning; for, despite excitement and revelry, one does not break the habits of years easily, and, besides, he had wound his alarm clock mechanically before retiring.
Now—as he lay there, and saw the gray clouds piling up like mountains of the sky to hide the morning sun—as he stared around at the cheap, familiar objects no longer glorified by imagination, the room ceased to be the sleeping closet of a luxurious studio apartment, and was only the hall bedroom of an eighteen-dollar-a-week clerk, who must rise incontinently, who had little time for matutinal ablutions, nor more than one serviceable suit.
Although the window was wide open to catch the winter air that blew fresh upon his head, the room seemed close and stuffy, and Van was nauseated. He thought of the stuff that masqueraded as coffee, the none-too-recent eggs, and the soggy bread that his usual breakfasting place provided for a few small coins—all he could conscientiously afford when he lived by routine; of the dull evenings and mornings that must follow this until his single day of release came each week. He groaned and turned over, hiding his eyes from the light.
No, he would not arise to such a life again. The theater and the restaurant last night had been crowded with people no more intelligent than himself, many not half so well appearing. Somehow they managed to live well for the work they did. Should he, then, discountenance himself by hard labor, with nothing to show for it except one suit, one pair of boots, an overcoat, and fifty-two decent meals a year? Sooner than that, he would be a tramp; at all events, he would travel from place to place, see the world, and eventually reach China, his mental Golconda.
He groaned again as he thought of the money the plate would have brought, of the journey on the tea ship to the land of Marco Polo. Now, instead, he had nothing, indeed—worse than nothing, for he was indebted to an aged ruffian in the sum of a hundred. If he did not appear with the plate to-day, there would be trouble. The pawnbroker had his address. He must remove himself and his belongings; such of them as would go into trunks, The few sticks of furniture, mostly the work of his own hands, must stay.
But, to Van's credit be it said, he did not regret. He had spent a wonderful, enchanted evening, remarked by all, and with the most attractive young lady he had ever seen; a young lady who had smiled at him several times in a way that, had he been more egotistical, must have convinced him that she found her association with him to her liking.
Even now, he had her address tucked away in a waistcoat pocket, but that address had been given to an aristocratic and wealthy clubman, not to a poor shipping clerk, and even if she would overlook his deception, he would never again have the amount of such an evening's entertainment.
He wished he had her picture to carry on his travels, though; she was the only pretty woman of the better sort with whom he had ever exchanged a word, and now that he had, he would feel the deficiency forever.
He set his teeth. Somehow he must find a way to climb to the top. But then—he sat down with his head between his hands—people in his world were lucky if they got food and lodging permanently. Without a start or a chance, he would be no better than a shipping clerk all his life. While up in those Assyrian palaces on Broadway, men and women poured out the golden wine of life from ever-filling bottles.
It is when appalling contrasts such as these are forced on the minds of the intelligent under dogs that it seems good to them to meddle with cash drawers and practice imitations of their employers' signatures. But Van had not quite come to that yet, although it will be remembered that he had spent unblushingly money advanced him on a plate that he had been given with no thought of his obligation.
The morning was well out of the cloud banks before he had finished packing, and he was taking a final survey of the room, where he had dreamed away five of his twenty-one years. Van was counting what remained of his fortune; enough, he found, to carry him and his trunk to the State of the Golden Poppies and the Golden Gate—the Gate to Golden Golconda—where the shipping from the Orient and the South Seas lay, awaiting such adventurers as he. True, when he arrived there, he would be penniless; but he would be that much nearer the land of his dreams by distance, and by a bold breaking away from routine. He cheered up a little at this thought; if only he could make his way out there sufficiently well to send for her; and why not? He knew the tea trade, knew much of the Chinese language
The knock that came to his door sent him trembling to his feet—the old pawnbroker had not found it well to trust him. Van waited, breathless and pale. Instead of California, it would be “the cooler” when he found himself unable to explain the plate's absence.
The handle of the door was slowly turned, and the man of the many elegancies entered—tall, slender, and immaculate in a morning coat, for the day was mild; a blend of green and lavender as to shirt and tie, gloves that matched in color the cloth tops of his patent boots, the lower parts of which were equaled by nothing on earth except his shining top hat. He carried an ebony stick with a golden crook to it, and he was smiling on Van.
A glance around the room told Norroy volumes; his smile became tinged with sympathy, and he laid a hand on Van's shoulder. Then, without a word, he placed in the younger man's hand the packet of bills presented by Lycurgus Crawe.
“For the plate,” said Norroy. “Thanks.”
Van took one look, and sat down to cry like a woman. Norroy waited. Moved by a certain curiosity concerning the movements of any one so unique as a youngster capable of the expenditure and the sacrifice of last night, yet who had had only clerk's wages all his life—for Norroy, you may be sure, had investigated Master Van pretty thoroughly—he asked him what his future plans were to be.
Van told him, almost hysterically, of China and the hope, soon to be realized, of sending for the girl. Norroy listened, tapping meditatively on the floor with his ebony wand.
“But” and Van suddenly halted as he gazed at the money paid for the plate. “She's not likely to come—she's rich—I forgot that—she's rich.”
“Just what she said of you this morning, my boy,” returned Norroy. “And regretted it, too. 'If only he wasn't rich,' she said to me. She's a little lady out of moving-picture vaudeville, being trained for the title rôle in 'The Devonshire Maid.' And when I saw you two dancing together last night, I made up my mind you should make your début with her. They need a good-looking boy who's worthy of her in appearance. He doesn't need to sing; only to act and to dance; and, after your impersonation of a young spender Johnnie last night, and your dancing of the 'Tonga,' why—if you want the place, its yours. As far as China is concerned, you may be just the man I need, later. You know Chinese, you say? And you're game! But, meanwhile, until we locate three more plates like yours, it's better for you to stay in New York and dance—and help me—and, if you show yourself worthy, you may enter a certain employment where your appearance”—Norroy was eying him approvingly—“and your manner will be of service to me.” For Norroy was ever on the lookout for available underground-diplomat timber.
Knowing that, under the circumstances, Van would not be able to speak coherently for some little while, and dreading broken thanks, Norroy went on hurriedly:
“Meanwhile I'd advise you to spend some of that money in neckwear, boots, and linen, and I'll have your measure sent to my London man for some clothes. You might send those boxes of yours to this number on lower Fifth Avenue”—he scratched it with a gold pencil on the tag of Van's trunk—“where they have very decent small bachelors' lodgings—and I'll take you over to the theatrical manager's myself. And, then, I believe you are to accept the hospitality of Miss Lea at luncheon in return for yours of last night Don't look so flabbergasted, man!”
Norroy laughed uproariously.
“But then I don't blame you,” he said, sobering down, “because it's only in fiction and the drama, generally, that a foolish act of generosity like yours of last night is rewarded tenfold like this. What in the name of Heaven would have happened if I hadn't taken a fancy to you—a purely idle fancy, chiefly founded on the way you tie your tie—so few people know anything about dress ties,” said the great man confidentially, as he linked his arm in that of the ex-clerk's, and, so talking, closed the door on Van's room and Van's poverty forever.
All of which, if one wants to be synthetical or categorical in his reasoning, shows the exceeding wisdom of giving a poor youth an ugly but aristocratic name to live up to.
THE END.
You will hear about “The Secret Stairway”—another exploit of Norroy's in the next POPULAR, on sale January 7th.